Volume I Part 6 (2/2)

Mrs. Dorriman could not speak, but the forlorn woman kissed the ruddy face before her--half her trouble seemed lightened--and Jean, touched and awkward under so strange a demonstration, patted her back with a hard and hearty hand and disappeared from her mistress's eyes.

Mrs. Dorriman walked up the river-side with a happier heart than she had had lately. With one friend near her in the shape of Jean she felt as though nothing mattered quite so much; she needed some comfort. With all the enthusiastic love for the beauty of the home she was leaving for ever, she was also leaving the little self-made duties that had become pleasant to her. She had to face the sorrow of those who had become her friends; she could promise them nothing from a distance--she had nothing of her own; she did not suppose her brother would continue to give her an income; she must guard against making promises she could not fulfil.

The same words met her all round, ”What a pity you're going! It's we that will miss you, my dear. Oh, what is it for? Is it for company's sake?”

They could not get over it, her hands were shaken till they tingled again. When she was going home one of the eldest of the old women stood out from her doorway like an old prophetess. Her grey hair was smoothed back under her _mutch_, her black eyes sparkled, and her wrinkled face showed up white in the gloaming.

She was the daughter of a man famous in his day, a man who had had the gift of second sight, and though she had not inherited his gift she was looked up to, she had so many of her father's sayings at her fingers'

ends, and she had much of his manner.

”Come here,” she said, ”and set ye down.” Mrs. Dorriman could not do this, but she asked her to go towards home with her. It was getting late, and the light was fading fast. Christie was attached to Mrs.

Dorriman especially because she and her forbears had lived near the old home on old Mr. Sandford's property, and she had a great deal to say about the way the sale of the place had been predicted and foreseen long years before by her father.

This evening, not unnaturally, she was full of it all. ”I mind weel,”

she began in the solemn tone appropriate to the subject, ”hearing my father tell what he saw, and he knew he had seen what meant evil to the place and to the Laird, and he grieved about it, indeed he did.”

”Was that when he saw a light?” asked Mrs. Dorriman.

”It was a light and it was not a light, my dear, it was something of fire.”

”Tell me about it again, Christie. I get confused about it sometimes.”

”You see, my dear, the common folks, some of them have ghosts and see spirits, and so on, but the gentry, the real old gentry, they have a different kind of ghost, there are _things that happen_--you'll understand.”

At all events, Mrs. Dorriman understood what Christie meant to express, and even at that moment and time of unhappiness the idea presented to her of the superior ghosts bestowed upon the gentry made her smile.

”Well, Christie, it may be so,” she said, ”but the idea is new to me.”

”It is not new to us, and it was not new to my father. I do not mean that spirits are different, though we all know that spirits take different shapes; but when the head of a house goes, or any misfortune comes nigh him, there will be strange things seen. My father saw these things--it has not been given to me to see them--perhaps so is best. My father had many dark hours, those that have these gifts must go through great anguish. I have seen him sitting up at night and looking wild--wild. I have heard him say strange things. It was awful....”

”And about this fire?” asked Mrs. Dorriman, a little anxious to get home now the darkness was making the footpath difficult to see.

”Ah,” said Christie, ”many and many a time I have heard that story. He was in his house, the house high up the hill under the wood, and was restless; the hour was coming upon him, and he could not breathe. He threw open the door and stepped out in the darkness. You'll mind the steep hill that went up to the house, and how the old house itself stood up away from everything?”

Mrs. Dorriman made a gesture of a.s.sent. The recollection of her old home, and the way in which it had been sold to the first bidder, was inexpressibly bitter to her. She was depressed and sad, and felt as though she had small need of other and painful memories, on this, her last evening here.

”From the east and the west, from the north and the south, gathered darkness--so black was the night that not a thing was to be seen--the hill where your father's house stood was but a shadow, and the lights in the windows shone out with a wonderful power.

”The heavens were in gloom from a gathering storm, and the wind was howling up and down, and up and down--none but my father, who understood things, would have stood as he stood and faced it. Then the clouds opened, and a great ball of fire came down; it broke over the house, my dear, over the house, and divided itself into three pieces--only three; and a piece went on the east corner, and one flame touched the south and one the north, and only the one corner, the one from the west, was left untouched, and that meant a great deal, and then the fire met and fell on the house itself.” Christie's voice was so impressive, her manner so solemn, that Mrs. Dorriman, though the story was one she had often heard before, felt as though she was hearing it for the first time.

”What did it mean?” she asked breathlessly.

”It meant, my dear, what happened. Your father lost the lady (she came from the south), and that was one misfortune, and a very great one; then he lost his suit--the law-suit about some land in the North. Then he died himself, poor man, and that was the third thing--and the house was sold.”

”So the misfortunes were complete?” and Mrs. Dorriman pressed forward a little and s.h.i.+vered. It was impossible not to be uncomfortably impressed by Christie--her tall figure and commanding gestures looming large beside her in the ever-increasing darkness.

”Not complete, my dear--not ended. No, that was what my father always said, he talked often and often about it, that is why it is written upon my brain. All he said came true, and why should this not come true? He saw it all to the end and he read it, and he was meant to read it.” She dropped her voice in saying this, and once more was silent.

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