University of Virginia Library

24. CHAPTER XXIV.
SCORN AND KINDNESS.

THOUGH her strength hardly seemed equal to
it, she determined to go and see Malcom, for
she felt very grateful to him. And yet, the little
time she had been in the village made her fear to
speak to him or any one again, and she almost felt
that she would like to shrink into some hidden place
and die.

Quiet, respectable Pushton had been dreadfully
scandalized by Zell's elopement with a man who,
by one brief visit, had gained such bad notoriety.
Those who stood aloof, surmised, and doubted about
the Allens before, now said, triumphantly, “I told
you so.” Good, kind, Christian people were deeply
pained that such a thing could have happened, and
it came to be the general opinion that the Allens
were anything but an acquisition to the neighborhood.

“If they are going to bring that style of men
here, the sooner they move away the better,” was a
frequent remark. All save the “baser sort” shrank
from having much to do with them, and again Edith
was insulted by the bold advances of some brazen

clerks and shop-boys as she passed along. She also
saw significant glances and whisperings, and once
or twice detected a pointing finger.

With cheeks burning with shame and knees
trembling with weakness, she reached Malcom's
gate, to which she clung panting for a moment, and
then passed in. The little man had his coat off, and,
stooping in his strawberry bed, he did look
very small indeed. Edith approached quite near before
he noticed her. He suddenly straightened
himself up almost as a jumping-jack might, and
gave her a sharp, surprised look. He had heard the
gossip in several distorted forms, but what hurt
him most was that she did not come or send to him.
But when he saw her standing before him with her
head bent down like a moss rosebud wilting in the
sun, when he met her timid deprecating glance, his
soft heart relented instantly, and coming toward
her he said:

“An ha' ye coom to see ould Malcom at last?
What ha' I dune that I should be sae forgotten?”

“You were not forgotten, Mr. McTrump. God
knows that I have too few friends to forget the best
of them,” answered Edith, in a voice of tremulous
pathos.

After that Malcom was wax in her hands, and
with moistened eyes he stood gazing at her in undisguised
admiration.

“I have been through deep trouble, Mr.
McTrump,” continued she, “and perhaps you, like
so many others, may think me not fit to speak to

you any more. Besides, I have been very sick, and
really ought not to be out to-day. Indeed I feel
very weak. Isn't there some place where I could
sit down?”

“Now God forgie me for an uncoo Highlander,”
cried Malcom, springing forward, “to think that I
suld let ye ston there, like a tall, white, swayin' calla
lily, in the rough wind. Take me arm till I support
ye to the best room o' me house.”

Edith did take and cling to it with the feeling of
one ready to fall.

“Oh, Mr. McTrump, you are too kind,” she murmured.

“Why suld I not be kind?” he said, heartily,
“when I see ye nipt by the wourld's unkindness?
Why suld I not be kind? Is the rose there to
blame because a weed has grown alongside? Ye
could na help it that the wild bird flitted, and I
heerd how ye roon like a brave lassie to stop her.
But the evil wourld is quick to see the bad and slow
to see the gude.” And Malcom escorted her like
a “leddy o' high degree” to his little parlor, and
there she told him and his wife all her trouble, and
Malcom seemed afflicted with a sudden cold in his
head. Then Mrs. McTrump bustled in and out in
a breezy eagerness to make her comfortable.

“Ye're a stranger in our toon,” she said, “and
sae I was once mysel, an' I ken how ye feel.”

“An the Gude Book, which I hope ye read,”
added the gallant Malcom, “says hoo in entertainin
a stranger ye may ha' an angel aroond.”

“Oh, Mr. McTrump,” said Edith, with peony-like
face, “Hannibal is the only one who calls me that,
and he don't know any better.”

“Why suld he know ony better,” responded Malcom,
quickly. “I ha never seen an angel, na mair
than I ha seen a goolden harp, but I'm a-thinkin a
modist bonny lassie like yoursel, cooms as near to
ane as anything can in this wourld.”

“But, Mr. McTrump,” said Edith, with a half pathetic,
half comic face, “I am in such deep trouble
that I will soon grow old and wrinkled, so I shall
not be an angel long.”

“Na, na, dinna say that,” said Malcom earnestly.
“An ye will, ye may keepit the angel a-growin
within ye alway, though ye live as old as Methuselah.
D'ye see this wee brown seed? There's a mornin-glory
vine hidden in it, as would daze your een at
the peep o' day wi' its gay blossoms. An ye see
my ould gude wife there? Ah, she will daze the
een o' the greatest o' the earth in the bright springtime
o' the Resurrection; and though I'm a little
mon here, it may be I'll see o'er the heads of soom
up there.”

“An ye had true humulity ye'd be a-hopin to get
there, instead of expectin to speir o'er the heads o'
ye're betters,” said his wife in a rebuking tone.

“`A-hopin to get there!'” said Malcom with
some warmth. “Why suld I hope when `I know
that my Redeemer liveth?'”

Edith's eyes filled with wistful tears, for the
quaint talk of these old people suggested a hope and

faith that she knew nothing of. But, in a low voice,
she said, “Why does He let His creatures suffer so
much?”

“Bless your heart, puir child, He suffered mair
than ony on us,” said Malcom tenderly. “But
ye'll learn it a' soon. He who fed the famishin
would bid ye eat noo. But wait a bit till ye see
what I'll bring ye.”

In a moment he was back with a dainty basket of
Triomphe de Gand strawberries, and Edith uttered
an exclamation of delight as she inhaled their delicious
aroma.

“They are the first ripe the season, an noo see
what the gude wife will do with them.”

Soon their hulls were off, and, swimming in a
saucer of cream, they were added to the dainty little
lunch that Mrs. McTrump had prepared.

“Oh!” exclaimed Edith, drawing a long breath,
“You can't know how you ease my poor sore heart.
I began to think all the world was against me.”

At this Malcom beat such a precipitate retreat
that he half stumbled over a chair, but outside the
door he ventured to say:

“An ye coom out I'll cut ye a posy before ye
go.” But Edith saw him rub his rough sleeve across
his eyes as he passed the window. His wife said,
in a grave gentle tone,

“Would ye might learn to know Him who said,
`Be of good cheer, I have overcome the wourld.'”

Edith shook her head sadly, and said, “I don't
understand Him, and He seems far off.”

“It's only seemin, me dear,” said the old woman
kindly, “but, as Malcom says, ye'll learn it a' by
and by.”

Mrs. McTrump was one of those simple souls
who never presume to “talk religion” to any one.
“I can ony venture what I hope 'll be a `word in
season' noo and then, as the Maister gies me a
chance,” she would say to her husband.

Though she did not know it, she had spread
before Edith a Gospel feast, and her genuine, hearty
sympathy was teaching more than eloquent sermons
could have done, and already the grateful girl was
questioning,

“What makes these people differ so from
others?”

With some dismay she saw how late it was growing,
and hastened out to Malcom, who had cut an
exquisite little bouquet for her, and had another
basket of berries for her to take to her mother.

“Mr. McTrump,” said Edith, “it's time we had
a settlement; your kindness I never can, or expect
to repay, but I am able now to carry out my agreement.”

“Don't bother me wi' that noo,” said Malcom,
rather testily, “I ha no time to make oot your accoont
in the hight o' the season. Let it ston till I
ha time; an ye might help me soomtimes make
up posies for the grand folk at the hotel. But how
does your garden sin ye dismissed ould Malcom?”

“Oh, Mr. McTrump,” said Edith, slyly, “do you

know you almost scared old Hannibal out of his
wits by the wonders you wrought last night or this
morning in that same garden you inquire about
so innocently. How can you work so fast and
hard?”

“The woonders I wrought! Indeed I've not been
near the garden sin ye told me not to coom. Ye
could hardly expect otherwise of a Scotchman.”

“Who, then, could it be?” said Edith, a little
startled herself now, and she explained the mystery
of the garden.

He was as nonplussed as herself, but, scratching
his bushy head, he said, with a canny look, “I wud
be glad if Hannibal's `spook,' as he ca's it, would
coom doon and hoe a bit for me,” and Edith was
so cheered and refreshed that she could even join
him in the laugh.

They sent her away enveloped in the fragrance of
strawberries and roses from the little basket she
carried. But the more grateful aroma of human
sympathy seemed to create a buoyant atmosphere
around her; and she passed back through the village
strengthened and armed against the cold or
scornful looks of those who, knowing her to be
“wounded,” had not even the grace to pass by
indifferently “on the other side.”