'Love o' yer ain gait, and love o' makin a show, and want o' care for what's richt. Aih, Francie, I doobt something a heap waur 'll hae to come upo' ye! A' my labour's lost, and I dearly grudge it--no the labour, but the loss o' 't! I grudge that sair.'

'Kirsty, i' the name o' God, wha _is_ my neebour?'

'Yer ain mither.'

'My ain mither!--_her_ oot o' a' the warl'?--I never cam upo' spark o'

rizzon intil her!'

'Michtna she be that are, oot o' a' the warl', ye never shawed spark o'

rizzon til?'

'There's nae place in her for reason to gang til!'

'Ye never tried her wi' 't! Ye wud arguy wi' her mair nor plenty, but did ye ever shaw her rizzon i' yer behaviour?'

'Weel ye _are_ turnin agen me--you 'at 's saved my life frae her! Diana I tell you hoo, whan I wan hame at last and gaed til her, for she was aye guid to me when I wasna weel, she fell oot upo' me like a verra deevil, ragin and ca'in me ill names, 'at I jist ran frae the hoose--and ye ken whaur ye faun' me! Gien it hadna been for you, I wud have been deid: I was waur nor deid a'ready! What w'y _can_ I be neebour to _her_! It wud be naething but cat and dog atween's frae mornin to nicht!'

'Ae body canna be cat and dog baith! And the dog's as ill's the cat--whiles waur!'

'Ony dog wud yowl gien ye threw a kettle o' bilin watter ower him!'

'Did she that til ye?'

'She mintit at it. I ran frae her. She bed the toddy-kettle in her ban', and she splasht it in her ain face tryin to fling't at me.'

'Maybe she didna ken ye!'

'She kenned me weel eneuch. She ca'd me by my ain as weel 's ither names.'

'Ye're jist croonin my arguyment, Francie! Yer mither's jist perishin o' drink! She drinks and drinks, and, by what I hear, cares for noucht else. A' 's upo' the ro'd to ruin in her and aboot her. She hasna the brains noo, gien ever she bed them, to guide hersel. Is Satan to grip her 'cause ye winna be neebour til her and hand him aff o' her? I ken ye're a guid son sae far as lat her du as she likes and tak 'maist a'

the siller, but that's what greases the exle o' the cairt the deevil's gotten her intil! I ken weel she hesna been muckle o' a mither til ye, but ye're her son whan a' 's said. And there can be naething ye're callt upon to du, sae lang as she's i' the grup o' the enemy, but rugg her oot o' 't. Gien ye dinna that, ye'll never be oot o' 's grup yersel. Ye come oot thegither, or ye bide thegither.'

Gordon sat speechless.

'It's _im_possible!' he said at length.

'Francie,' rejoined Kirsty, very quietly and solemnly, 'ye're yer mother's keeper; ye're her neist neebour: are ye gauin to du yer duty by her, or are ye not?' 'I canna; I daurna; I'm a cooard afore her.'

'Gien ye lat her gang on to disgrace yer father, no to say yersel--and that by means o' what's yours and no hers, I'll say mysel 'at ye're a cooard.'

'Come hame wi' me and tak my pairt, and I'll promise ye to du my best.'

'Ye maun tak yer ain pairt; and ye maun tak her pairt tu against hersel.'

'It's no to be thoucht o', Kirsty!'

'Ye winna?'

'I canna my lane. I winna try 't. It wud be waur nor useless.'

Kirsty rose, turning her face homeward. Gordon sprang to his feet. She was already three yards from him.

'Kirsty! Kirsty!' he cried, going after her.

She went straight for home, never showing by turn of head, by hesitation of step, or by change of carriage, that she heard his voice or his feet behind her.

When they had thus gone two or three hundred yards, he quickened his pace, and laid his hand on her arm.

She stopped and faced him. He dropped his hand, grew yet whiter, and said not a word. She walked on again. Like one in a dream he followed, his head hanging, his eyes on the heather. She went on faster. He was falling behind her, but did not know it. Down and down the hill he followed, and only at the earth-house lifted his head: she was nearly over the opposite brae! He had let her go! He might yet have overtaken her, but he knew that he had lost her.

He had no home, no refuge! Then first, not when alone in the beleaguered city, he knew desolation. He had never knocked at the door of heaven, and earth had closed hers! An angel who needed no flaming sword to make her awful, held the gate of his lost paradise against him. None but she could open to him, and he knew that, like God himself, Kirsty was inexorable. Left alone with that last terrible look from the eyes of the one being he loved, he threw himself in despair on the ground. True love is an awful thing, not to the untrue only, but sometimes to the growing-true, for to everything that can be burned it is a consuming fire. Never more, it seemed, would those eyes look in at his soul's window without that sad, indignant repudiation in them! He rose, and crept into the earth-house.

Kirsty lost herself in prayer as she went. 'Lord, I hae dune a' I can!'

she said. 'Until thou hast dune something by thysel, I can do naething mair. He's i' thy han's still, I praise thee, though he's oot o' mine!

Lord, gien I hae dune him ony ill, forgie me; a puir human body canna ken aye the best! Dinna lat him suffer for my ignorance, whether I be to blame for 't or no. I will try to do whatever thou makest plain to me.'

By the time she reached home she was calm. Her mother saw and respected her solemn mood, gave her a mother's look, and said nothing: she knew that Kirsty, lost in her own thoughts, was in good company.

What was passing in the soul of Francis Gordon, I can only indicate, I cannot show. The most mysterious of all vital movements, a generation, a transition, was there--how initiated, God only knows. Francis knew neither whence it came nor whither it went. He was being re-born from above. The change was in himself; the birth was that of his will. It was his own highest action, therefore all God's. He was passing from death into life, and knew it no more than the babe knows that he is being born. The change was into a new state of being, of the very existence of which most men are incredulous, for it is beyond preconception, capable only of being experienced. Thorough as is the change, the man knows himself the same man, and yet would rather cease to be, than return to what he was. The unknown germ in him, the root of his being, yea, his very being itself, the holy thing which is his intrinsic substance, hitherto unknown to his consciousness, has begun to declare itself, and the worm is passing into the butterfly, the creeping thing into the Psyche. It is a change in which God is the potent presence, but which the man must _will_, or remain the gaoler who prisons in loathsomeness his own God-born self, and chokes the fountain of his own liberty.

Francis knew nothing of all this; he only felt he must knock at the door behind which Kirsty lived. Kirsty could not open the door to him, but there was one who could, and Francis could knock! 'God help me!' he cried, as he lay on his face to live, where once he had lain on his face to die. For the rising again is the sepulchre. The world itself is one vast sepulchre for the heavenly resurrection. We are all busy within the walls of our tomb burying our dead, that the corruptible may perish, and the incorruptible go free. Francis Gordon came out of that earth-house a risen man: his will was born. He climbed again to the spot where Kirsty and he had sat together, and there, with the vast clear heaven over his head, threw himself once more on his face, and lifted up his heart to the heart whence he came.

CHAPTER XXXVIII

THE NEIGHBOURS

He had eaten nothing since the morning, and felt like one in a calm ethereal dream as he walked home to Weelset in the soft dusk of an evening that would never be night, but die into the day. No one saw him enter the house, no one met him on the ancient spiral stair, as, with apprehensive anticipation, he sought the drawing-room.

He had just set his foot on the little landing by its door when a wild scream came from the room. He flung the door open and darted in. His mother rushed into his arms, enveloped from foot to head in a cone of fire. She was making, in wild flight, for the stair, to reach which would have been death to her. Francis held her fast, but she struggled so wildly that he had actually to throw her on the floor ere he could do anything to deliver her. Then he flung on her the rug, the table-cover, his coat, and one of the window-curtains, tearing it fiercely from the rings. Having got all these close around her, he rang the bell with an alarum-peal, but had to ring three times, for service in that house was deadened by frequent fury of summons. Two of the maids--there was no manservant in the house now--laid their mistress on a mattress, and carried her to her room. Gordon's hands and arms were so severely burned that he could do nothing beyond directing: he thought he had never felt pain before.

The doctor was sent for, and came speedily. Having examined them, he said Mrs. Gordon's injuries would have caused him no anxiety but for her habits: their consequences might be very serious, and every possible care must be taken of her.

Disabled as he was, Francis sat by her till the morning; and the night's nursing did far more for himself than for his mother. For, as he saw how she suffered, and interpreted her moans by what he had felt and was still feeling in his own hands and arms, a great pity awoke in him. What a lost life his mother's had been! Was this to be the end of it? The old kindness she had shown him in his childhood and youth, especially when he was in any bodily trouble, came back upon him, and a new love, gathering up in it all the intermittent love of days long gone by, sprang to life in his heart, and he saw that the one thing given him to do was to deliver his mother.

The task seemed, if not easy, yet far from irksome, so long as she continued incapable of resisting, annoying, or deceiving him; but the time speedily came when he perceived that the continuous battle rather than war of duty and inclination must be fought and in some measure won in himself ere he could hope to stir up any smallest skirmish of sacred warfare in the soul of his mother. What added to the acerbities of this preliminary war was, that the very nature of the contest required actions which showed not only unbecoming in a son, but mean and disgraceful in themselves. There was no pride, pomp, or circumstance of glorious war in this poor, domestic strife, this seemingly sordid and unheroic, miserably unheroic, yet high, eternal contest! But now that Francis was awake to his duty, the best of his nature awoke to meet its calls, and he drew upon a growing store of love for strength to thwart the desires of her he loved. 'Entire affection hateth nicer hands,' and Francis learned not to mind looking penurious and tyrannical, selfish, heartless, and unsympathetic, in the endeavour to be truly loving and lovingly true. He had not Kirsty to support him, but he could now go higher than to Kirsty for the help he needed; he went to the same fountain from which Kirsty herself drew her strength. At the same time frequent thought of her filled him with glad assurance of her sympathy, which was in itself a wondrous aid. He neither saw nor sought to see her: he would not go near her before at least she already knew from other sources what would give her the hope that he was trying to do right.

The gradually approaching strife between mother and son burst out the same moment in which the devilish thirst awoke to its cruel tyranny. It was a mercy to both of them that it re-asserted itself while yet the mother was helpless toward any indulgence of her passion. Francis was no longer afraid of her, but it was the easier because of her condition, although not the less painful for him to frustrate her desire. Neither did it make it the less painful that already her countenance, which the outward fire had not half so much disfigured as that which she herself had applied inwardly, had begun to remind him of the face he had long ago loved a little, but this only made him, if possible, yet more determined that not one shilling of his father's money should go to the degradation of his mother. That she lusted and desired to have, was the worst of reasons why she should obtain! A compelled temperance was of course in itself worthless, but that alone could give opportunity for the waking of what soul was left her. Puny as it was, that might then begin to grow; it might become aware of the bondage to which it had been subjected, and begin to long for liberty.

In carrying out his resolution, Francis found it specially hard to fight, along with the bad in his mother, the good in himself: the lower forms of love rose against the higher, and had to be put down. To see the scintillation of his mother's eyes at the sound of any liquid, and know how easily he could give her an hour of false happiness, tore his heart, while her fierce abuse hardly passed the portals of his brain.

Her condition was so pitiful that her words could not make him angry.

She would declare it was he who set her clothes on fire, and as soon as she was up again she would publish to the world what a coward and sneak he showed himself from morning to night. Had Francis been what he once was, his mother and he must soon have come as near absolute hatred as is possible to the human; but he was now so different that the worst answer he ever gave her was,

'Mother, you _know_ you don't mean it!'

'I mean it with all my heart and soul, Francis,' she replied, glaring at him.