She was stealing down softly in the slowly falling twilight, when the country was brightening into spring, six months after her father’s death. She had a warm shawl wrapped closely round her shoulders, and her step was not quite steady as she left the soft grass of the hill-side for the path. It was but a few yards to the cottage, but her strength was no more than equal to the exertion. There were two people standing waiting for her near the door; one of them a tall, vigorous, old lady, wrapped like herself in a large, soft, black and white shawl, who stood talking, with some eagerness, to the clergyman of the parish, a fresh, rural, middle-aged man, with clear eyes, clear complexion, and a general distinctness about him. It was Miss Catherine of the Lochhead who was speaking to the minister. Family names were unusual in the parish, for the population, with some trifling exceptions, were all Diarmids. Miss Catherine was in some respects the squire of the district. Her brother, it is true, was the real laird, but he was seldom at home, and Miss Catherine reigned in his stead. She was discussing the great topic of the moment with Mr. Lothian; and the two were not quite agreed.
‘Don’t speak to me about miracles,’ said Miss Catherine. ‘I’m not one of your believing kind. I don’t deny that some of the things are very surprising, but they’re all to be accounted for. We are surrounded by surprising things. I never lift my hand to my head, but when I think of it, it is a wonder to me—but as for direct miracles——’
‘Here is Margaret,’ said the minister; ‘we’ll ask her; you all believe her better than you’ll ever believe me.’
Margaret came up with her slightly faltering, uncertain step as he spoke; and the two gazed at her with that mingled awe and pity which a creature standing on the boundary between life and death naturally calls forth in every sympathetic soul. Mr. Lothian drew her hand through his arm as her father might have done.
‘You should not walk so far till you get stronger,’ he said. Margaret looked at him with a smile, and shook her head.
‘You know I will never get stronger,’ she said. ‘It is not like you to say what you don’t mean. But you’ll come in. My feet are failing already, and it’s not often we see Miss Catherine here.’
‘My dear,’ said the old lady, speaking quickly as if to shake the tears out of her voice, ‘the horses are all busy at the plough, and I’m a poor walker. I always hear how you are all the same.’
‘You’re vexed to look at me,’ said Margaret. ‘I know what you mean. You’re like to break your heart when you see my face; but I’m not grieved for my part. I cannot see what great difference there can be between this world and the other. God is ay the same. I would like to see Isabel and know that the poor bairns are doing as they ought——’
‘Oh, Margaret, do not break my heart with your bairns,’ cried Miss Catherine, with tears in her eyes. ‘It’s you I’m thinking of—I care nothing for other folk.’
‘You would hate me if I thought that,’ said Margaret, with her soft smile; ‘and I would be very glad to have your advice. I’m troubled about Jamie’s education. Isabel is young; she’ll maybe not think as I do. I am very anxious for your advice.’
‘We were talking of different things,’ said Mr. Lothian, leading the invalid into the house. ‘We were discussing what has happened in the country-side. If anybody can convince Miss Catherine it is you, Margaret. She will not believe the story everybody is full of—though I saw Ailie with my own eyes, one day helpless on her bed, the next walking down the hill-side far more strongly, my poor child, than you.’
‘It was hysterical; nothing will make me believe different,’ said Miss Catherine; ‘fanciful illness, fanciful cure. I’m not gainsaying the facts, but you’ll never get me to believe it was miraculous. What is Ailie Macfarlane that God should do miracles for her? If it had been Margaret here——’
‘But He knows I want no miracles,’ said Margaret; ‘I’m very content with what I get. I’m fond of both the bairns myself; but I give most to little Mary; not that she deserves it most, or that I like her best, but because her nature’s ay craving. It’s the same thing. Ailie craves, too, and God knows the nature He gave her; but for me—He sees I’m content.’
‘And you would be content if you were cut in little pieces for Isabel and Jean Campbell’s weans,’ cried Miss Catherine, with an indignation that was assumed to hide something else. ‘It takes little to content you.’
‘Everybody is so good to me,’ said Margaret. ‘You are not so good to Ailie Macfarlane. You take up her little words, and you’re angry at God for doing more for her than for me; but I take it as a compliment, for my part,’ said the girl, with a smile. She was so near her Father in Heaven, that she spoke of Him almost as she would have done of a father on earth.
‘Well—well,’ said Miss Catherine, impatiently, ‘we must all believe just what you like to tell us. Where is Isabel? I think she might be here to look after you and keep you comfortable instead of wandering all the day among the hills.’
‘She is never away from me,’ said Margaret, warmly; ‘she would carry me in her arms if I would let her. I sent her out for change, poor Bell! It would be a hard thing if I was to let her put all her happiness on me.’
‘Better on you than on that English lad,’ said Miss Catherine, with heat, ‘that nobody knows. In my day, we were never allowed to speak to a young man till his kith and kin were known. You think you’re wiser now—but I wish it may come to no harm,’ said the old lady. She was an old woman given to opposition, but the strength of her indignation now lay in the absolute necessity she felt to do or say something which should not drop into weak lamentation and tears.
Margaret made no answer. She bent back in her invalid chair, and threw off the shawl which wrapped her, and untied the bonnet which surrounded her delicate face like a great projecting frame. As for the minister, his face flushed, and his hands grew restless with agitation; though on the surface of things it would have seemed that he had very little to do with the matter.
‘There is no meaning in it,’ said Mr. Lothian; ‘they’re children both; she is not the one, especially now—No, you need not think of that.’
And with this speech he rose up and went to the window, and gazed out, not knowing what to say. Miss Catherine held up her hands commenting on his excitement as women do—half contemptuous, half amused—
‘What is it to him that might be her father?’ she said, leaning over Margaret, in a whisper. And Margaret smiled with the indulgent quiet of old age.
‘Let them be,’ she said, softly; ‘God will guide it His own way. I’m not afraid for my Isabel. When I’m away you’ll see what is in her. My shadow is ay coming in, though you don’t think it, between her and you.’
At this moment the minister turned round, as with a little impatience, and interrupted the side-talk.
‘And as we speak of her, here comes Isabel,’ he said, with a hasty sigh. Both the women knew at once more distinctly than if he had said it, that the ‘English lad,’ young Stapylton, the one idler of the country-side, was with Isabel. As the young pair approached, the elder visitors prepared to go away. Miss Catherine was absorbed in her anxiety and grief for Margaret, but other feelings stirred in the mind of her companion. He was eager to leave the cottage before Isabel and her escort should appear, and hurried the old lady in her leave-taking.
‘We must not tire her out,’ he said, pressing Margaret’s hand with a certain petulant haste, which she forgave him. It was true he was old enough to be Isabel’s father; but even that reflection, though he had often insisted upon it in his own thoughts, had not moved him as it ought to have done. He could not wait to meet her, but nodded his head with a poor assumption of carelessness, and hurried Miss Catherine down the opposite path. Even Mr. Lothian’s secret sentiments had