As he spoke, Mercy's eyes grew larger and larger, never leaving his face. She had at least imagination enough for that! Christina curled her pretty lip, and looked disgusted. The one at a horrible tale was horrified, the other merely disgusted! The one showed herself capable of some reception; the other did not.

"Something might be done with that girl!" thought Ian.

"Did he see their faces?" drawled Christina.

Mercy was silent, but her eyes remained fixed on him. It was Ian's telling, more than the story, that impressed her.

"I don't think he mentions them," answered Ian. "But shall I tell you," he went on, "what seems to me the most unpleasant thing about the business?"

"Do," said Christina.

"It is that the poor ghosts should see such a disagreeable fuss made with their old clothes."

Christina smiled.

"Do you think ghosts see what goes on after they are dead?" asked Mercy.

"The ghosts are not dead," said Ian, "and I can't tell. But I am inclined to think some ghosts have to stay a while and look on."

"What would be the good of that?" returned Mercy.

"Perhaps to teach them the little good they were in, or got out of the world," he answered. "To have to stick to a thing after it is dead, is terrible, but may teach much."

"I don't understand you," said Mercy. "The world is not dead!"

"Better and better!" thought Ian with himself. "The girl CAN understand!--A thing is always dead to you when you have done with it," he answered her. "Suppose you had a ball-dress crumpled and unsightly--the roses on it withered, and the tinsel shining hideously through them--would it not be a dead dress?"

"Yes, indeed."

"Then suppose, for something you had done, or for something you would not stop being, you had to wear that ball-dress till something came about--you would be like the ghosts that cannot get away.--Suppose, when you were old and wrinkled,--"

"You are very amusing, Captain Macruadh!" said Christina, with a bell-like laugh. But Ian went on.

"Some stories tell us of ghosts with the same old wrinkled faces in which they died. The world and its uses over, they are compelled to haunt it still, seeing how things go but taking no share in them beholding the relief their death is to all, feeling they have lost their chance of beauty, and are fixed in ugliness, having wasted being itself! They are like a man in a miserable dream, in which he can do nothing, but in which he must stay, and go dreaming, dreaming on without hope of release. To be in a world and have nothing to do with it, must be awful! A little more imagination would do some people good!"

"No, please!--no more for me!" said Christina, laughing as she rose.

Mercy was silent. Though she had never really thought about anything herself, she did not doubt that certain people were in earnest about something. She knew that she ought to be good, and she knew she was not good; how to be good she did not know, for she had never set herself, to be good. She sometimes wished she were good; but there are thousands of wandering ghosts who would be good if they might without taking trouble: the kind of goodness they desire would not be worth a life to hold it.

Fear is a wholesome element in the human economy; they are merely silly who would banish it from all a.s.sociation with religion. True, there is no religion in fear; religion is love, and love casts out fear; but until a man has love, it is well he should have fear. So long as there are wild beasts about, it is better to be afraid than secure.

The vague awe ready to a.s.sail every soul that has not found rest in its source, readier the more honest the soul, had for the first time laid hold of Mercy. The earnest face of the speaker had most to do with it. She had never heard anybody talk like that!

The lady of the house appeared, asking, with kind dignity, if they would not take some refreshment: to a highlander hospitality is a law where not a pa.s.sion. Christina declined the offer.

"Thanks! we were only a little tired, and are quite rested now," she said. "How beautifully sheltered your house is!"

"On the side of the sea, yes," answered Mrs. Macruadh; "but not much on the east where we want it most. The trees are growing, however!"

When the sisters were out of sight of the cottage--

"Well!" remarked Christina, "he's a nice young man too, is he not?

Exceedingly well bred! And what taste he has! He knows how to amuse ladies!"

Mercy did not answer.

"I never heard anything so disgusting!" pursued Christina.

"But," suggested Mercy, "you like to READ horrid stories, Chrissy!

You said so only yesterday! And there was nothing in what he told us that oughtn't to be spoken about."

"What!--not those hideous coffins--and the bodies dropping out of them--all crawling, no doubt?"

"That is your own, Chrissy! You KNOW he did not go so far as that!

If Colonel Webberly had told you the story, you would have called it charming--in fun, of course, I mean!"

But Christina never liked the argumentum ad feminam.

"I would not! You know I would not!" she exclaimed. "I do believe the girl has fallen in love with the horrid man! Of the two, I declare, I like the ploughman better. I am sorry I happened to vex him; he is a good stupid sort of fellow! I can't bear this man! How horribly he fixed his eyes on you when he was talking that rubbish about the ball-dress!"

"He was anxious to make himself understood. I know he made me think I must mind what I was about!"

"Oh, nonsense! We didn't come into this wilderness to be preached to by a lay John the Baptist! He is an ill-bred fellow!"

She would not have said so much against him, had not Mercy taken his part.

Mercy rarely contradicted her sister, but even this brief pa.s.sage with a real man had roused the justice in her.

"I don't agree with you, Chrissy," she said. "He seems to me VERY MUCH of a gentleman!"

She did not venture to say all she felt, not choosing to be at absolute variance, and the threatened quarrel blew over like a shower in spring.

But some sort of impression remained from the words of Ian on the mind of Mercy, for the next morning she read a chapter in the book of Genesis, and said a prayer her mother had taught her.

CHAPTER XII.

AMONG THE HILLS.

When Mr. and Mrs. Palmer reached Inverness, they found they could spend a few days there, one way and another, to good purpose, for they had friends to visit as well as shopping to do. Mr. Palmer's affairs calling him to the south were not immediately pressing, and their sojourn extended itself to a full week of eight days, during which the girls were under no rule but their own. Their parents regarded them as perfectly to be trusted, nor were the girls themselves aware of any reason why they should not be so regarded.

The window of Christina's bedroom overlooked a part of the road between the New House and the old castle; and she could see from it all the ridge as far as the grove that concealed the cottage: if now they saw more of the young men their neighbours, and were led farther into the wilds, thickets, or pasturage of their acquaintance, I cannot say she had no hand in it.

She was depressed by a sense of failure; the boor, as she called him, was much too thick-skinned for any society but that of his bulls! and she had made no progress with the Valentine any more than with the Orson; he was better pleased with her ugly sister than with her beautiful self!