University of Virginia Library

SCENE III.

Chorus.

Scene—The Manse Library. Ina (alone).
Ina.
What could it be? what could he mean? Ah me!
That half-told tale, just broken off where all
The mystery was deepest, and the secret
Now left to mere conjecture! All that night
My love did comfort me; that was not wrong;
God dropt it in my cup to sweeten it,
And I was grateful for it, and I thought
That it would comfort him too: so I told him.
But he said, “No; you must not love him, child;
Evil will come of it; I should have told you”—
But when he would have told me, I could hear
Only a whispered “Doris,” and some sounds
But half-articulate; and then the awe
Of the dread change, the veil impalpable,
Inscrutable, came over him, and he
Carried the secret with him to the grave,
And I may ask, but can no answer have.—
They talk of spiritual forms that float, unseen,
Around our lives, and hands that feel about us,
And write on tables messages that mean
Nothing or anything—just as we wish.
But these are bubbles which the stream of thought,
Fretting against its limits and obstructions,
Throws up in its dark eddies. There's nought in them.
What though my father haunted this old room
Where he kept company with other spirits,
Wise in their day, embodied in these books
So fondly read? Yet if he spoke to me
I should not know if it were he that spoke,
Or my own fancy: and what were I the better
Of such a presence, if it only hovered
Silently in the unresponsive air,
And knowing all, could give no help at all,
Or speaking out, could work no faith at all?
Better for him “the better mansions” he
So loved to speak of, and not worse for me.
The misery is the silence; and the silence
Is never broken. Death can hold its peace,
Let life go wailing onward as it may.
Ah me! the mystery of it! all is dark;
Our little thoughts fly forth like gleaming sparks,
Hammered from our hot hearts, and straightway die
In the blank dark. What meant that half-told tale,
And whispered “Doris”?

Enter Morag.
Morag.
Ina, shall I bring
The lamp now? In the gathering dusk of gloaming
Our thoughts grow eerie, for their shadows look
Even bigger than themselves.

Ina.
Nay, this is best;
Fittest the sombre light for sombre thought—
The glimmer of a day that is no more
To brood upon the loved that are no more.
No lamp yet, Morag.

Morag.
Ina, you are wrong
To nurse this sad and melancholy mood,
To dream all day in settled loneliness,
To pass, untasted, dishes from the table,
To see no callers coming in all kindness,
To sit with folded hands and do no work,
To look with blank fixed gaze at these old books,
Yet reading ne'er a word, nor reading right
God's providence, but hardly judging Him
Because He does the best for us He can;
And that's not much. The very stags that sicken
Casting their horns, yet make their profit of them,
Eating them up to make their bones the starker,
As we should with our troubles.

Ina.
Leave me then
To feed upon my sorrows, and in truth
They are hard eating.

Morag.
And you'll find it easier
To pity yourself than to find out God's meaning,
Who throws His letters down, that we may put
This one to that, and turn them into words.

Ina.
Indeed, I am not pitying myself;
But the brisk current of my life is fallen
A-slushing among reeds and rushes.

Morag.
What, then,
Has come of all your schemes for righting wrong
Among the crofters, and the fisher folk?

Ina.
Dreams, idle dreams! vain dreams of fond conceit,
As fruitless as the dewdrops that are strung
On gossamer threads o' chill October mornings.
I am an idle and a useless maid
That heard the far-off rumour of the world
Beyond these hills, and hoped to plant its thoughts
Among the heather, where they will not grow.

Morag.
There's to be no more school, then, for the women,
To train them for their housework, and to keep them
From bearing burdens women should not bear,
And dragging harrows too, like horses?

Ina.
Truly
They would not heed me, neither men nor women:
It was the way their fathers did; why should they
Change the old customs?

Morag.
And the new stone-pier
That was to make safe harbourage for the boats?—

Ina.
Waits till the lads are drowned, for some would rather
The people went away. They told me girls
Should mind their seams, and practise at their scales,
Not meddle with men's matters.

Morag.
But the Chief?
Will he do nothing?

Ina.
That I do not know:
They say he is not rich, save in a kind
And generous heart. And oh, the heart can do
So little, except—wish.

Morag.
You give up hope then?

Ina.
Morag, you've seen the Loch, on some still evening,
Mirror each stone, and twig, and tuft of fern,
And orange lichen on the rock, so clear
That which was substance, which was only shadow
You scarce could tell, till suddenly a breeze
Would blur it all, and there was nothing left
But dim confusion. So it is with me now.
Once every thing looked plain to me, and truly
I did not well distinguish what was fact
And what was only fancy, and now all
Is like those shadows gone. My heart misgives me
Since he has left me.

Morag.
But why should it fail you?

Ina.
I did neglect plain duties here at home,
And therefore met but failure out of doors,
And now I have no duties, and no home.

Morag.
Ina, your heart is low, as one will be
Who sits down in a mist instead of stirring
To keep the blood warm. Were you up and doing
You would be brisk and hopeful. Are you meaning
To live now with your uncle?

Ina.
Wherefore not?

Morag.
They say there is no Sabbath in his house.

Ina.
Well; we could bring it with us.

Morag.
But they tell me
It's like a devil's Sabbath, or a Fair
With guzzling, clinking glasses, barking dogs,
And cursing drovers.

Ina.
Nay, he is not strict,
As we are here; but that can hardly be.

Morag.
And no one thinks of God but the black man
Who keeps an idol cross-legged, like a tailor,
Sitting upon a cow.

Ina.
Mere gossip, Morag;
But truly I am not enamoured of
My uncle's house, and sometimes I have thought
'Twere best if you and I could run away,
And find some simple home, and have a roof
For Kenneth till his student days are past.
Perhaps a woman has no fitter task
Than just to help a man to do his work.

Morag.
O Ina, I have dreaded you would go
To that old heathen, and I could not do it,
And yet I could not leave you. But to live
With you and the boy Kenneth! I will haste,
And write my cousin to look out for us
A house beside the college.

Ina.
Nay, there is
No hurry, Morag; nothing yet is clear.

Morag.
Pity that lochs and hills and maids should be
So fickle! It would be a happier world
If they could know their own minds half an hour.
But that they never do.

Ina.
Enough of me:
There is no armour but it has its joints,
And where the joints are there the arrow sticks,
And you who know me best know where to seek
My weakest points: and maybe I am fickle.
You cannot think more poorly of me than
I think myself.

Morag.
I don't think poorly of you,
Although I see your faults. Why will you shut
The door to every caller, and sit here
As lonely as a seal in some sea-cave,
Or heron dreaming by a moorland burn?

Ina.
You would not have me lay aside my grief,
Which has its healing virtue, for the set
Phrases of cold condolence? Who has called?

Morag.
Well; first there was Miss Doris.

Ina.
Do not speak
Of Doris. When the heart is at its best,
And all its finer feelings tremulous
With some emotion it is bliss to feel,
There are some people — mostly women too—
Who touch the spring of what is worst in you,
As when you dream a happy dream, and lo!
A hideous face leers on you.

Morag.
Well; I say not
That you lost much by sending her away;
She's like a wasp whose drone has little sense,
But its striped tail can sting. But then My Lady
Was with her.

Ina.
Ay! they always are together;
The more's the pity. Can she have some hold
On Lady Margaret? I've marked of late
A change in her—a kind of frightened look
And pleading way, and hesitating speech,
As if she would, but dared not. Could I think
Of aught but my own troubles, she would be
A care to me.

Morag.
But, Ina, you should think
Of other things; for thinking of yourself
Is hardly thought at all: and when your head
Gives over puzzling, you will surely be
Just like the larch that, when it dies a-top,
Begins to die all through, and we may dig
A new grave in Isle-Monach. After them,
We had a call too from the English ladies
At Corrie-Eylert.

Ina.
Oh, they came to note
My way, my looks, and specially my dress,
And to retail the gossip, as they went
Their round among the neighbours.

Morag.
Let me tell you
Folk's hearts are often better than their habits:
They're sorry for you, but that's not enough,
Because you are so sorry for yourself.

Ina.
That's a hard saying, Morag. Can you think
My grief is for myself, and not for him
Whom I have lost?

Morag.
Why should you grieve for him,
Because he is in heaven, and has no care
Of writing sermons now, and is not so
Dead-weary of himself, as when he sat
There at his table, scratching with a quill
To make words do what only deeds can do.

Ina.
Hush, Morag; 'tis not meet that you should speak,
Or I should hear such words. He was my father,
You do not understand—you never did;
And oh, I am so lonely.

Morag.
You were nearly
As lonely while he lived as you are now.
If he had ever, like a father, watched
What books you read, what thoughts they bred in you,
What hours you kept, what friends you had, if any,
What schemes were shaping in your busy head,
Or even how you dressed! But you might go
With any one, and anywhere, in rags,
And he would never notice. And yourself
Have told me that he scarcely heeded aught
But Firstly, except Secondly and Lastly;
Write, writing, every day and all day long.

Ina.
I will not hear you, Morag, this is cruel,
At such a time. If I was a malapert,
'Twere fitter to rebuke than second me.
Moreover, when I said that, 'twas not he
I blamed, for he was good—oh, so much better
Than I—and still with conscience made his life
A sacrifice to duty, offering up
The sweetness and the gladness of it all
To what his office claimed of him. It was
The exigency of mistaken work,
The rigour of a wrong idea planted
In a true heart that never spared itself,
Made me so speak. But yet I spake amiss,
And rightly now am humbled. Pardon me,
Dear father, that I judged you wantonly
In petulance of youth. I had no mother.

Morag.
Scold me well, Ina; it will do you good.
I thought to rouse, and I have only crushed you.
Nay, spare me not, an old conceited fool!
Only, you are my bairn.

Ina.
There; go away.
I daresay you meant well, but there are sores
May not be touched but with a skilful hand,
Not with rough loving even. You think I pity
Myself! I hate myself, when I remember
The failure of my duty and my love
To him: and yet the burden of my sorrow
Is bound on me by what is best in me,
And when I part from it my good departs,
Therefore I clasp it to my heart of hearts.

Chorus.