A Knight of the Nets

“Take yourself off my doorstep, or it will be the worse for you.”

“Let me see my wife.”

“Coming here and chapping on my door—­on Janet Binnie’s door!—­with a horsewhip!”

“There is no use trying to deceive me with bad words.  Let me pass.”

“Off with you! you poor creature, you!  Sophy Traill had a bad bargain with the like of you, you drunken, lying, savage-like, wife-beating pretence o’ a husband!”

“Mother’ Mother!” cried Christina, coming hastily forward; “Mother, what are you saying at all?”

“The God’s truth, Christina, that and nothing else.  Ask the mean, perfectly unutterable scoundrel how he got beyond his mother’s apron-strings so far as this?”

Christina turned to Braelands.  “Sir,” she said, “what’s your will?”

“My wife has left her home, and I have been told she is in Mistress Binnie’s house.”

“She is not.  We know nothing about the poor, miserable lass, God help her!”

“I cannot believe you.”

“Please yourself anent believing me, but you had better be going, sir.  I see Limmer Scott and Mistress Roy and a few more fishwives looking this way.”

“Let them look.”

“Well, they have their own fashion of dealing with men who ill use a fisher lass.  Sophy was born among them.”

“You are a bad lot! altogether a bad lot!”

“Go now, and go quick, or we’ll prove to you that we are a bad lot!” cried Janet.  “I wouldn’t myself think anything of putting you in a blanket and tossing you o’er the cliff into the water.”  And Janet, with arms akimbo and eyes blazing with anger, was not a comfortable sight.

So, with a smile of derision, Braelands turned his back on the women, walking with an affected deliberation which by no means hid the white feather from the laughing, jeering fisher-wives who came to their door at Janet’s call for them, and whose angry mocking followed him until he was out of sight and hearing.  Then there was a conclave in Janet’s house, and every one told a different version of the Braelands trouble.  In each case, however, Madame was credited with the whole of the sorrow-making, though Janet stoutly asserted that “a man who was feared for his mother wasn’t fit to be a husband.”

“Madame’s tongue and temper is kindled from a coal out of hell,” she said, “and that is the God’s truth; but she couldn’t do ill with them, if Archie Braelands wasn’t a coward—­a sneaking, trembling coward, that hasn’t the heart in him to stand between poor little Sophy and the most spiteful, hateful old sinner this side of the brimstone pit.”

But though the birr and first flame of the village anger gradually cooled down, Janet’s and Christina’s hearts were hot and heavy within them, and they could not work, nor eat, nor sleep with any relish, for thinking of the poor little runaway wife.  Indeed, in every cottage there was one topic of wonder and pity, and one sad lament when two or three of the women came together:  “Poor Sophy!  Poor Sophy Braelands!” It was noticeable, however, that not a single woman had a wrong thought of Sophy.  Madame could easily suspect the worst, but the “worst” was an incredible thing to a fisher-wife.  Some indeed blamed her for not tholing her grief until her husband came back, but not a single heart suspected her of a liaison with her old lover.

Archie, however, returned from his ineffectual effort to find her with every suspicion strengthened.  Madame could hardly have hoped for a visit so completely in her favour, and after it Archie was entirely under her influence.  It is true he was wretchedly despondent, but he was also furiously angry.  He fancied himself the butt of his friends, he believed every one to be talking about his affairs, and, day by day, his sense of outrage and dishonour pressed him harder and harder.  In a month he was quite ready to take legal steps to release himself from such a doubtful tie, and Madame, with his tacit permission, took the first step towards such a consummation by writing with her own hand the notice which had driven Sophy to despair.

While events were working towards this end, Sophy was helpless and senseless in the Glasgow hospital.  Archie’s anger was grounded on the fact that she must know of his return, and yet she had neither come back to her home nor sent him a line of communication.  He told himself that if she had written him one line, he would have gone to the end of the earth after her.  And anon he told himself that if she had been true to him, she would have written or else come back to her home.  Say she was sick, she could have got some one to use the pen or the telegraph for her.  And this round of reasoning, always led into the same channel by Madame, finally assumed not the changeable quality of argument, but the positiveness of fact.

So the notice of her abandonment was sent by the press far and wide, and yet there came no protest against it; for Sophy had brought to the hospital nothing by which she could be identified, and as no hint of her personal appearance was given, it was impossible to connect her with it.  Thus while its cruel words linked suspicion with her name in every household where they went, she lay ignorantly passive, knowing nothing at all of the wrong done her and of the unfortunate train of circumstances which finally forced her husband to doubt her love and her honour.  It was an additional calamity that this angry message of severance was the first thing that met her consciousness when she was at all able to act.

Her childish ignorance and her primitive ideas aided only too well the impression of finality it gave.  She put it beside all she had seen and heard of her husband’s love for Marion Glamis, and the miserable certainty was plain to her.  She knew she was dying, and a quiet place to die in and a little love to help her over the hard hour seemed to be all she could expect now; the thought of Janet and Christina was her last hope.  Thus it was that Janet found her trembling and weeping on her doorstep; thus it was she heard that pitiful plaint, “Take me in, Janet!  Take me in to die!”

Never for one moment did Janet think of refusing this sad petition.  She sat down beside her; she laid Sophy’s head against her broad loving breast; she looked with wondering pity at the small, shrunken face, so wan and ghostlike in the gray light.  Then she called Christina, and Christina lifted Sophy easily in her arms, and carried her into her own house.  “For we’ll give Braelands no occasion against either her or Andrew,” she said.  Then they undressed the weary woman and made her a drink of strong tea; and after a little she began to talk in a quick, excited manner about her past life.

“I ran away from Braelands at the end of July,” she said.  “I could not bear the life there another hour; I was treated before folk as if I had lost my senses; I was treated when I was alone as if I had no right in the house, and as if my being in it was a mortal wrong and misery to every one.  And at the long last the woman there kept Archie’s letter from me, and I was wild at that, and sick and trembling all over; and I went to Aunt Griselda, and she took Madame’s part and would not let me stay with her till Archie came back to protect me.  What was I to do?  I thought of my cousins in Edinburgh and went there, and could not find them.  Then there was only Ellen Montgomery in Glasgow, and I was ill and so tired; but I thought I could manage to reach her.”

“And didn’t you reach her, dearie?”

“No.  I got worse and worse; and when I reached Glasgow I knew nothing at all, and they sent me to the hospital.”

“Oh, Sophy!  Sophy!”

“Aye, they did.  What else could be, Janet?  No one knew who I was; I could not tell any one.  They weren’t bad to me.  I suffered, but they did what they could to help me.  Such dreadful nights, Janet!  Such long, awful days!  Week after week in which I knew nothing but pain; I could not move myself.  I could not write to any one, for my thoughts would not stay with me; and my sight went away, and I had hardly strength to live.”

“Try and forget it, Sophy, darling,” said Christina.  “We will care for you now, and the sea-winds will blow health to you.”

She shook her head sadly.  “Only the winds of heaven will ever blow health to me, Christina,” she answered; “I have had my death blow.  I am going fast to them who have gone before me.  I have seen my mother often, the last wee while.  I knew it was my mother, though I do not remember her; she is waiting for her bit lassie.  I shall not have to go alone; and His rod and staff will comfort me, I will fear no evil.”

They kissed and petted and tried to cheer her, and Janet begged her to sleep; but she was greatly excited and seemed bent on excusing and explaining what she had done.  “For I want you to tell Archie everything, Janet,” she said.  “I shall maybe never see him again; but you must take care, that he has not a wrong thought of me.”

“He’ll get the truth and the whole truth from me, dearie.”

“Don’t scold him, Janet.  I love him very much.  It is not his fault.”

“I don’t know that.”

“No, it is not.  I wasn’t home to Braelands two days before Madame began to make fun of my talk, and my manners, and my dress, and of all I did and said.  And she got Archie to tell me I must mind her, and try to learn how to be a fine lady like her; and I could not—­I could not.  And then she set Archie against me, and I was scolded just for nothing at all.  And then I got ill, and she said I was only sulky and awkward; but I just could not learn the books I be to learn, nor walk as she showed me how to walk, nor talk like her, nor do anything at all she tried to make me do.  Oh, the weary, weary days that I have fret myself through!  Oh, the long, painful nights!  I am thankful they can never, never come back.”

“Then don’t think of them now, Sophy.  Try and rest yourself a bit, and to-morrow you shall tell me everything.”

“To-morrow will be too late, can’t you see that, Janet?  I must clear myself to-night—­now—­or you won’t know what to say to Archie.”

“Was Archie kind to you, Sophy?”

“Sometimes he was that kind I thought I must be in the wrong, and then I tried again harder than ever to understand the weary books and do what Madame told me.  Sometimes they made him cross at me, and I thought I must die with the shame and heartache from it.  But it was not till Marion Glamis came back that I lost all hope.  She was Archie’s first love, you know.”

“She was nothing of the kind.  I don’t believe he ever cared a pin for her.  You had the man’s first love; you have it yet, if it is worth aught.  He was here seeking you, dearie, and he was distracted with the loss of you.”

“In the morning you will send for him, Janet, very early; and though I’ll be past talking then, you will talk for me.  You will tell him how Madame tortured me about the Glamis girl, how she kept my letters, and made Mrs. Stirling think I was not in my right mind,” and so between paroxysms of pain and coughing, she went over and over the sad story of petty wrongs that had broken her heart, and driven her at last to rebellion and flight.

“Oh! my poor lassie, why didn’t you come to Christina and me?”

“There was aye the thought of Andrew.  Archie would have been angry, maybe, and I could only feel that I must get away from Braelands.  When aunt failed me, something seemed to drive me to Edinburgh, and then on to Glasgow; but it was all right, you see, I have saved you and Christina for the last hour,” and she clasped Christina’s hand and laid her head closer to Janet’s breast.

“And I would like to see the man or woman that will dare to trouble you now, my bonnie bairn,” said Janet.  There was a sob in her voice, and she crooned kind words to the dying girl, who fell asleep at last in her arms.  Then Janet went to the door, and stood almost gasping in the strong salt breeze; for the shock of Sophy’s pitiful return had hurt her sorely.  There was a full moon in the sky, and the cold, gray waters tossed restlessly under it.  “Lord help us, we must bear what’s sent!” she whispered; then she noticed a steamboat with closely reefed sails lying in the offing; and added thankfully, “There is ‘The Falcon,’ God bless her!  And it’s good to think that Andrew Binnie isn’t far away; maybe he’ll be wanted.  I wonder if I ought to send a word to him; if Sophy wants to see him, she shall have her way; dying folk don’t make any mistakes.”

Now when Andrew came to anchor at Pittendurie, it was his custom to swing out a signal light, and if the loving token was seen, Janet and Christina answered by placing a candle in their windows.  This night Janet put three candles in her window.  “Andrew will wonder at them,” she thought, “and maybe come on shore to find out whatever their meaning may be.”  Then she hurriedly closed the door.  The night was cold, but it was more than that,—­the air had the peculiar coldness that gives sense of the supernatural, such coldness as precedes the advent of a spirit.  She was awed, she opened her mouth as if to speak, but was dumb; she put out her hands—­but who can arrest the invisible?

Sleep was now impossible.  The very air of the room was sensitive.  Christina sat wide awake on one side of the bed, Janet on the other; they looked at each other frequently, but did not talk.  There was no sound but the rising moans of the northeast wind, no light but the glow of the fire and the shining of the full moon looking out from the firmament as from eternity.  Sophy slept restlessly like one in half-conscious pain, and when she awoke before dawning, she was in a high fever and delirious; but there was one incessant, gasping cry for “Andrew!”

“Andrew!  Andrew!  Andrew!” she called with fast failing breath, “Andrew, come and go for Archie.  Only you can bring him to me.”  And Janet never doubted at this hour what love and mercy asked for.  “Folks may talk if they want to,” she said to Christina, “I am going down to the village to get some one to take a message to Andrew.  Sophy shall have her will at this hour if I can compass it.”

The men of the village were mostly yet at the fishing, but she found two old men who willingly put out to “The Falcon” with the message for her captain.  Then she sent a laddie for the nearest doctor, and she called herself for the minister, and asked him to come and see the sick woman; “forbye, minister,” she added, “I’m thinking you will be the only person in Pittendurie that will have the needful control o’ temper to go to Braelands with the news.”  She did not specially hurry any one, for, sick as Sophy was, she believed it likely Archie Braelands and a good doctor might give her such hope and relief as would prolong her life a little while.  “She is so young,” she thought, “and love and sea-breezes are often a match for death himself.”

The old men who had gone for Andrew were much too infirm to get close to “The Falcon.”  For with the daylight her work had begun, and she was surrounded on all sides by a melee of fishing-boats.  Some were discharging their boxes of fish; others were struggling to get some point of vantage; others again fighting to escape the uproar.  The air was filled with the roar of the waves and with the voices of men, blending in shouts, orders, expostulations, words of anger, and words of jest.

Above all this hubbub, Andrew’s figure on the steamer’s bridge towered large and commanding, as he watched the trunks of fish hauled on board, and then dragged, pushed, thrown, or kicked, as near the mouth of the hold as the blockade of trunks already shipped would permit.  But, sharp as a crack of thunder, a stentorian voice called out:—­

“Captain Binnie wanted!  Girl dying in Pittendurie wants him!”

Andrew heard.  The meaning of the three lights was now explained.  He had an immediate premonition that it was Sophy, and he instantly deputed his charge to Jamie, and was at the gunwale before the shouter had repeated his alarm.  To a less prompt and practised man, a way of reaching the shore would have been a dangerous and tedious consideration; but Andrew simply selected a point where a great wave would lift a small boat near to the level of the ship’s bulwarks, and when this occurred, he leaped into her, and was soon going shoreward as fast as his powerful stroke at the oars could carry him.

When he reached Christina’s cottage, Sophy had passed beyond all earthly care and love.  She heeded not the tenderest words of comfort; her life was inexorably coming to its end; and every one of her muttered words was mysterious, important, wondrous, though they could make out nothing she said, save only that she talked about “angels resting in the hawthorn bowers.”  Hastily Christina gave Andrew the points of her sorrowful story, and then she suddenly remembered that a strange man had brought there that morning some large, important-looking papers which he had insisted on giving to the dying woman.  Andrew, on examination, found them to be proceedings in the divorce case between Archibald Braelands and his wife Sophy Traill.

“Some one has recognised her in the train last night and then followed her here,” he said pitifully.  They were in a gey hurry with their cruel work.  I hope she knows nothing about it.”

“No, no, they didn’t come till she was clean beyond the worriments of this life.  She did not see the fellow who put them in her hands; she heard nothing he said to her.”

“Then if she comes to herself at all, say nothing about them.  What for should we tell her?  Death will break her marriage very soon without either judge or jury.”

“The doctor says in a few hours at the most.”

“Then there is no time to lose.  Say a kind ‘farewell’ for me, Christina, if you find a minute in which she can understand it.  I’m off to Braelands,” and he put the divorce papers in his pocket, and went down the cliff at a run.  When he reached the house, Archie was at the door on his horse and evidently in a hurry; but Andrew’s look struck him on the heart like a blow.  He dismounted without a word, and motioned to Andrew to follow him.  They turned into a small room, and Archie closed the door.  For a moment there was a terrible silence, then Andrew, with passionate sorrow, threw the divorce papers down on the table.

“You’ll not require, Braelands, to fash folk with the like of them; your wife is dying.  She is at my sister’s house.  Go to her at once.”

“What is that to you?  Mind your own business, Captain Binnie.”

“It is the business of every decent man to call comfort to the dying.  Go and say the words you ought to say.  Go before it is too late.”

“Why is my wife at your sister’s house?”

“God pity the poor soul, she had no other place to die in!  For Christ’s sake, go and say a loving word to her.”

“Where has she been all this time?  Tell me that, sir.”

“Dying slowly in the public hospital at Glasgow.”

“My God!”

“There is no time for words now; not a moment to spare.  Go to your wife at once.”

“She left me of her own free will.  Why should I go to her now?”

“She did not leave you; she was driven away by devilish cruelty.  And oh, man, man, go for your own sake then!  To-morrow it will be too late to say the words you will weep to say.  Go for your own sake.  Go to spare yourself the black remorse that is sure to come if you don’t go.  If you don’t care for your poor wife, go for your own sake!”

“I do care for my wife.  I wished—­”

“Haste you then, don’t lose a moment!  Haste you! haste you!  If it is but one kind word before you part forever, give it to her.  She has loved you well; she loves you yet; she is calling for you at the grave’s mouth.  Haste you, man! haste you!”

His passionate hurry drove like a wind, and Braelands was as straw before it.  His horse stood there ready saddled; Andrew urged him to it, and saw him flying down the road to Pittendurie before he was conscious of his own efforts.  Then he drew a long sigh, lifted the divorce papers and threw them into the blazing fire.  A moment or two he watched them pass into smoke, and then he left the house with all the hurry of a soul anxious unto death.  Half-way down the garden path, Madame Braelands stepped in front of him.

“What have you come here for?” she asked in her haughtiest manner.

“For Braelands.”

“Where have you sent him to in such a black hurry?”

“To his wife.  She is dying.”

“Stuff and nonsense!”

“She is dying.”

“No such luck for my house.  The creature has been dying ever since he married her.”

“You have been killing her ever since he married her.  Give way, woman, I don’t want to speak to you; I don’t want to touch the very clothes of you.  I think no better of you than God Almighty does, and He will ask Sophy’s life at your hands.”

“I shall tell Braelands of your impertinence.  It will be the worse for you.”

“It will be as God wills, and no other way.  Let me pass.  Don’t touch me, there is blood on your hands, and blood on your skirts; and you are worse—­ten thousand times worse—­than any murderer who ever swung on the gallows-tree for her crime!  Out of my way, Madame Braelands!”

She stood before him motionless as a white stone with passion, and yet terrified by the righteous anger she had provoked.  Words would not come to her, she could not obey his order and move out of his way, so Andrew turned into another path and left her where she stood, for he was impatient of delay, and with steps hurried and stumbling, he followed the husband whom he had driven to his duty.