Her hearer felt this, and therefore this woman, poor, old, and ugly, became sacred in his eye; it was with a strange sort of respect that he tried to console her. He spoke to her in tones gentle and sweet as the south wind on a summer evening.
"Madam," said he, "let me be so happy as to bring you some comfort. The sorrows of the heart I cannot heal; they are for a mightier hand; but a part of your distress appears to have been positive need; that we can at least dispose of, and I entreat you to believe that from this hour want shall never enter that door again. Never! upon my honor!"
The Scotch are icebergs, with volcanoes underneath; thaw the Scotch ice, which is very cold, and you shall get to the Scotch fire, warmer than any sun of Italy or Spain.
His lordship had risen to go. The old wife had seemed absorbed in her own grief; she now dried her tears.
"Bide ye, sirr," said she, "till I thank ye."
So she began to thank him, rather coldly and stiffly.
"He says ye are a lord," said she; "I dinna ken, an' I dinna care; but ye're a gentleman, I daur say, and a kind heart ye hae."
Then she began to warm.
"And ye'll never be a grain the poorer for the siller ye hae gien me; for he that giveth to the poor lendeth to the Lord."
Then she began to glow.
"But it's no your siller; dinna think it--na, lad, na! Oh, fine! I ken there's mony a supper for the bairns and me in yon bits metal; but I canna feel your siller as I feel your winsome smile--the drop in your young een--an' the sweet words ye gied me, in the sweet music o' your Soothern tongue, Gude bless ye!" (Where was her ice by this time?) "Gude bless ye! and I bless ye!"
And she did bless him; and what a blessing it was; not a melodious generality, like a stage parent's, or papa's in a damsel's novel. It was like the son of Barak on Zophim.
She blessed him, as one who had the power and the right to bless or curse.
She stood on the high ground of her low estate, and her afflictions--and demanded of their Creator to bless the fellow-creature that had come to her aid and consolation.
This woman had suffered to the limits of endurance; yesterday she had said, "Surely the Almighty does na _see_ me a' these years!"
So now she blessed him, and her heart's blood seemed to gush into words.
She blessed him by land and water.
She knew most mortal griefs; for she had felt them.
She warned them away from him one by one.
She knew the joys of life; for she had felt their want.
She summoned them one by one to his side.
"And a fair wind to your ship," cried she, "and the storms aye ten miles to leeward o' her."
Many happy days, "an' weel spent," she wished him.
"His love should love him dearly, or a better take her place."
"Health to his side by day; sleep to his pillow by night."
A thousand good wishes came, like a torrent of fire, from her lips, with a power that eclipsed his dreams of human eloquence; and then, changing in a moment from the thunder of a Pythoness to the tender music of some poetess mother, she ended:
"An' oh, my boenny, boenny lad, may ye be wi' the rich upon the airth a' your days--AND WI' THE PUIR IN THE WARLD TO COME!"
His lordship's tongue refused him the thin phrases of society.
"Farewell for the present," said he, and he went quietly away.
He paced thoughtfully home.
He had drunk a fact with every sentence; and an idea with every fact.
For the knowledge we have never realized is not knowledge to us--only knowledge's shadow.
With the banished duke, he now began to feel, "we are not alone unhappy."
This universal world contains other guess sorrows than yours, viscount--_scilicet_ than unvarying health, unbroken leisure, and incalculable income.
Then this woman's eloquence! bless me! he had seen folk murmur politely in the Upper House, and drone or hammer away at the Speaker down below, with more heat than warmth.
He had seen nine hundred wild beasts fed with peppered tongue, in a menagerie called _L'Assemble' Nationale._
His ears had rung often enough, for that matter. This time his heart beat.
He had been in the principal courts of Europe; knew what a handful of gentlefolks call "the World"; had experienced the honeyed words of courtiers, the misty nothings of diplomatists, and the innocent prattle of mighty kings.
But hitherto he seemed to have undergone gibberish and jargon:
Gibberish and jargon--Political!
Gibberish and jargon--Social!
Gibberish and jargon--Theological!
Gibberish and jargon--Positive!
People had been prating--Jess had spoken.
But, it is to be observed, he was under the double effect of eloquence and novelty; and, so situated, we overrate things, you know.
That night he made a provision for this poor woman, in case he should die before next week.
"Who knows?" said he, "she is such an unlucky woman." Then he went to bed, and whether from the widow's blessing, or the air of the place, he slept like a plowboy.
Leaving Richard, Lord Ipsden, to work out the Aberford problem--to relieve poor people, one or two of whom, like the Rutherford, were grateful, the rest acted it to the life--to receive now and then a visit from Christina Johnstone, who borrowed every mortal book in his house, who sold him fish, invariably cheated him by the indelible force of habit, and then remorsefully undid the bargain, with a peevish entreaty that "he would not be so green, for there was no doing business with him"--to be fastened upon by Flucker, who, with admirable smoothness and cunning, wormed himself into a cabin-boy on board the yacht, and man-at-arms ashore.
To cruise in search of adventures, and meet nothing but disappointments; to acquire a browner tint, a lighter step, and a jacket, our story moves for a while toward humbler personages.
