'Brightness falls from the air;
Queens have died young and fair;
Dust hath closed Helen's eyes,'
and I said, 'I will walk softly all my days.'
"Only Father remained to us. I clung to him as the one prop that held up my world. Since then I have gone in bondage to the fear that he might be snatched from me as Mother and Sandy were. When otherwise inoffensive people hinted to me that my father looked tired or ill, I hated them for the sick feeling their words gave me. So, you see, when the doctor said that with care he might live many years, I was so relieved for myself that I could not be properly sorry for Father. It is hard for him. I used to dream dreams about what we would do when he retired, but I always knew at the bottom of my heart that he would never leave his work as long as he had strength to go on. If he had been given the choice, I am sure he would have wanted to die in harness. Not that we have ever discussed the question. When I went up to his room after the doctor had told me (I knew he had also told Father), he merely looked up from the paper he was reading and said, 'There is an ignorant fellow writing here who says Scott is little read nowadays,' and so great was his wrath at the 'ignorant fellow' that such small things as the state of his own health passed unremarked on.
"There is no point in remaining in Glasgow: we shall go to Etterick.
"You say you can't imagine what Father will do, forbidden to preach (he who loved preaching); forbidden to walk except on level places (he who wore seven-league boots); forbidden to exert himself (he who was so untiring in his efforts to help others). I know. It will be a life of limitations. But I promise you he won't grumble, and he won't look submissive or resigned. He will look as if he were having a perfectly radiant time—and what is more, he will feel it. How triumphantly true it is that the meek inherit the earth! Flowers are left to him, flowers and the air and the sky and the sun; spring mornings, winter nights by the fire, and books—and I may just mention in passing those two unconsidered trifles Buff and me! As I write, I have a picture in my mind of Father in retirement. He will be interested in everything, and always apt at the smallest provocation to be passionately angry at Radicals. (They have the same effect on him as Puritans had on gentle Sir Andrew Aguecheek—you remember?) I can see him wandering in the garden, touching a flower here and there in the queer tender way he has with flowers, listening to the birds, enjoying their meals, reading every adventure book he can lay his hands on (with his Baxter's Saints' Rest in his pocket for quiet moments), visiting the cottage folk, deeply interested in all that interests them, and never leaving without reminding them that there is 'something ayont.' In the words of the old Covenanter, 'He will walk by the waters of Eulai, plucking an apple here and there'—and we who live with him will seem to hear the sound of his Master's feet."
Later she wrote:
"I don't suppose you ever 'flitted,' did you? That is our Scots expression for removing ourselves and our belongings to another house—a misleading bird-like and airy expression for such a ponderous proceeding.
"Just at present all our household gods, and more especially the heavy wardrobes, seem to be lying on my chest. The worry is, we have far too much furniture, for Etterick is already furnished with old good things that it would be a shame to touch, so we can only take the things from here that are too full of associations to leave. We would hate to sell anything, but I wish we could hear of a nice young couple setting up house without much money to do it with, and we would beg of them to take our furniture.
"You would be surprised how difficult it is to leave Glasgow and the church people. I never knew how much I liked the friendly old place until the time came for leaving it; it is like digging oneself up by the roots.
"And the church people are so pathetic. It never seems to have occurred to them that Father might leave them, and they are so surprised and grieved, and so quite certain that if he only goes away for a rest he will soon be fit again and able for his work.
"But I am not really sorry for them. I know quite well that in a few months' time, flushed with tea and in most jocund mood, they will be sitting at an Induction Soiree drinking in praise of their new minister—and thank goodness I shan't be there to hear the speeches! Of course there are some to whom Father simply made life worth living—it hurts me to think of them.
"Life is a queer, confusing thing! There are one or two people in the church who have enjoyed making things difficult (even in the most lamb-like and pleasant congregations such are to be found), and I have always promised myself that some day, in a few well-chosen words, I should tell them what I thought of them. Well, here is my opportunity, and I find I don't want to use it! After all, they are not so complacent, so crassly stupid, so dead to all fine feeling as I thought they were. They are really quite decent folk. The one I disliked most—the sort of man who says a minister is well paid with 'three pounds a week and a free house'—a Socialist, a leveller, this man came to see Father the other night after he had 'cleaned hissel' after the day's work. There were actually tears in his suspicious small eyes when he saw Father so frail-looking, and he talked in what was for him quite a hushed small voice on uncontroversial subjects. As he was going out of the room he stopped and blurted out, 'I niver believed a Tory could be a Christian till I kent you." ... I am glad I won't have to say good-bye to Peggy. I saw her yesterday afternoon, and she didn't seem any worse, and we were happy together. This morning they sent up to tell me she had died suddenly in the night. She went away 'very peaceably,' her father said. It wasn't the word he meant, but he spoke more truly than he knew. She went 'peaceably' because there was no resentment or fear in her child's heart. To souls like Peggy's, innocent and quiet, God gives the knowledge that Death is but His angel, a messenger of light in whom is no darkness at all....
"I have opened this to tell you a piece of news that has pleased me very much. Do you remember my friend Kirsty Christie and her fiancé Mr. Hamilton? Perhaps you have forgotten them, though I expect the evening you spent at the Christies' house is seared on your memory, and I assure you your 'Cockney accent' has quite spoiled Mrs. Christie for the plain Glasgow of her family circle; well, anyway, Kirsty can't marry Mr. Hamilton until he has got a church, and it so happened that the minister at Langhope, the nearest village to Etterick, was finding his work too much and felt he must resign. Here was my chance! (Oh for the old bad days of patronage!) I don't say I didn't pull strings. I did. I pulled about fifty, and tangled most of them; but the upshot is that they have elected Mr. Hamilton to be minister of Langhope. They are a wise and fortunate people, for he is one of the best; and just think of the fun for me having Kirsty settled near us!
"It is the nicest thing that has happened for a long time. I have just thought of another thing—it is a solution of the superfluous furniture problem.
"Langhope Manse is large and the stipend small, and I don't think Kirsty would mind taking our furniture. I shall ask her delicately, using 'tack.'"
CHAPTER XVIII
THE END OF AN OLD SONG
The Setons left Glasgow in the end of May.
On the evening before they left Thomas and Billy made a formal farewell visit, on the invitation of Elizabeth and Buff, who were holding high revel in the dismantled house.
Mr. Seton had gone to stay with friends, who could be trusted to look after him very carefully, until the bustle and discomfort of the removal was over. Buff was to have gone with his father, but he begged so hard to be allowed to stay and help that in spite of Marget's opposition (she held her own views on his helpfulness), his sister gave in.
He and his two friends had enjoyed a full and satisfying week among wooden crates and furniture vans, and were sincerely sorry that the halcyon time was nearly over; in fact, Thomas had been heard to remark, "When I'm a man I'll flit every month."
Poor Thomas, in spite of the flitting, felt very low in spirits. He had done