The Day of Judgment. Hocking Joseph
had appealed to him. She seemed to him like a flower in the wilderness, and aroused all the romance of his nature.
She shook her head. "No," she said, "you will never see me again."
"At least you will tell me your name?" said Graham; "why, do you know, we have been nearly an hour together? I am called Douglas Graham."
"And my name is Jean Lindsay," she said, looking at him shyly; "not that it matters much, for if you are staying with the Grahams you will be a gentleman."
"And do you go to fetch the cattle home every night?" he asked eagerly; but she did not answer him. A hard-featured woman came up to the farmyard gate as he spoke, while Jean silently, and with an almost sullen look on her face, drove the cattle into the yard. He lifted his cap and passed on.
"Who is yon?" asked the woman in a harsh, strident voice.
"I do not know," replied the girl; "he helped me with the cattle, that is all."
Douglas Graham climbed the hill which lay between him and his relative's house with a strange feeling at his heart. Somehow life seemed different, and the picture of this black-eyed girl remained with him. "I should like to see her again," he said, as presently he came up to the gates which led to the house; "yes, and I will, too!"
During the next two days he made no attempt to see Jean Lindsay. He found among his relatives at "Highlands" several young people, who not only gave him a warm welcome, but entirely claimed his companionship, and amidst the entertainments provided he almost forgot the meeting on the moors. The third day, however, found him wandering away by himself towards the lonely farmhouse. Had he tried to analyse his feelings, he would have told himself that Jean Lindsay was only a chance acquaintance, who was vastly interesting, but nothing more. But he could not altogether drive her picture from his mind; the black, speaking eyes, the strange longings which were revealed in the girl's half-uttered sentences, filled his mind with unaccustomed thoughts. That was why he found himself near the farmhouse, wondering whether he should see her again. But he found no one there: the place might have been forsaken. Wandering down the valley, however, he thought he heard someone sobbing, and quickly discovered Jean Lindsay sitting by a brook, crying as though her heart would break.
"What is the matter?" he asked.
For a moment the girl gave no reply. She seemed to resent his presence, to be angry that he should have seen her in this frame of mind.
"I am sure you must be in trouble," he went on; "tell me about it."
"She struck me," was her almost sullen reply.
"Struck you! Who?"
"My stepmother," she replied, "and I will not stand it, I will run away; besides——" And then she stopped suddenly.
A little later her passion seemed to have subsided, and she was able to speak more freely. For more than an hour they talked, and when they parted she told him that on the following day she had to go to a village some four miles distant.
That evening, at "Highlands," Douglas Graham was not an interesting companion. The young people joked him about his solemn appearance, and wondered why he looked so troubled.
"Anyone would think you were crossed in love, Douglas," said one. "Tell us all about it now; has she run away with her father's coachman, or has she jilted you for a handsomer man?"
But while Douglas replied to their good-tempered raillery in laughing tones, it was easy to see that his mind was far away. For hours he lay in bed that night without being able to sleep. The picture of the dark-eyed sobbing girl remained with him, and all sorts of longings filled his heart. It seemed as though the Scotch side of his nature was altogether repressed. He was no longer cautious and calculating, his mind and heart were full of the half savage beauty of the young girl of the moors.
The next day he left his friends at "Highlands" without any excuse whatever, and again wandered away alone. Near the village Jean Lindsay had mentioned he saw her returning with a basket on her arm, and again he entered into eager conversation with her. He forgot the foolishness of his action, forgot the wrong he was doing to the girl by filling her mind with thoughts about himself—for he could see that she was attracted by him. To her he seemed some knight-errant like those she had read about in the stories which her stepmother had forbidden her to read. His mode of speech, his appearance, his sunny laugh, all made her realise that there was a world hitherto unknown to her, but which she now longed to enter.
This meeting led to others, until Douglas's friends began to wonder why he so often desired to leave them and wander away alone. A few days before the time when his visit to "Highlands" was to come to an end he found Jean strangely perturbed. She was overwhelmed by some great emotion, but she would not speak to him concerning it. At length, however, with much hesitation, she confessed to him that she was troubled greatly. "I have to be married," she said.
"Married, Jean!" he cried; "to whom—why?"
"To Willie Fearn," was her reply. "Father told me so last night."
"But why? Do you love him?" he asked.
"Nay, I hate him," was the reply, "especially since——" And then she ceased speaking, her face becoming crimson. "Father says I shall never get such a good chance again," she went on presently. "He has the best farm hereabouts, and could give me a good home, and my stepmother, she wants to get rid of me—but I hate him, I hate him!"
"Then you will not marry him?" said Douglas.
"What can I do?" replied the girl; "for more than a year they have been trying to persuade me, and father owes him money, too, and Willie says he will forgive him ever paying if I will marry him." And the girl burst out sobbing.
Douglas was young and romantic. The Scotch side of his nature told him that the resolution born in his mind was utterly mad, but this was utterly destroyed by feelings of pity, and what to him was greater than pity—a wild passion for the girl at his side. So, not thinking of what his determination might mean, nor dreaming of what the future had in store for him, he told Jean that she must never think of marrying the farmer.
"But how can I help it?" she asked. "They never let me rest, and, while I hate him, how can I dare disobey my father and my mother? Besides, when the minister came to tea at our house last week, he spoke of it as a thing settled, and said that Willie would soon be made an elder of the kirk. He thought it would be a grand thing for me, I suppose, to be an elder's wife—but how can I—how can I?"
I need not describe at length what followed. The young fellow casting caution to the winds, mapped out his plan, and before parting they arranged to meet again the next day.
On his way back to "Highlands" the conversation which took place between himself and his companions came back to him. He remembered what he had read in the old Encyclopaedia about Scotch marriages, and it possessed him strongly. He believed himself to be in love with this peasant girl. To him she was a creature apart from all the rest of the world—young, romantic, beautiful with a kind of beauty he had never seen in any other. He felt he could not live his life apart from her. He wanted to take her away from this barren farm among the hills and make her life happy. And yet the madness of his thought appealed to him too. How could he make her his wife? How could he introduce her to his friends? Beautiful she might be, but was it not the beauty of a savage? The Poles lay between her and the women into whose society he would be cast in coming days. He was very ambitious for his own future. He dreamed of becoming a popular barrister, of winning fame and renown, of gaining a name throughout the country as a brilliant lawyer and a pleader of eloquence and power. Like every other young law student he had read of famous lawyers who had risen from obscurity to renown, from poverty to wealth. His career at the University had assured him that he had more than average abilities, while his speeches at the Oxford Union had been received with so much applause that he knew he had the gift of public speech in no ordinary degree. What then should hinder him from attaining to high position in the world he had chosen as his sphere? But all this seemed as nothing in comparison with the mad passion which had been aroused in his heart by this beauteous being of the moors. What was law, what was fame, what were riches