in-law, and is harsh of feature and slow of speech, like her brotherconscious of being an authority, too, like what he was, and full of a solemn importance, still more marked and evident; but other qualities less visible, and on the surface-powers of the judgment and the heart-well developed, although peculiar, and marked by strong individual characteristics, are there as nobler witnesses to testify the relationship between Mrs Plenderleath and John Rintoul. A little basket of new-laid eggs, the produce of her own beloved hens, stands beside Kirstin's stockings. Ailie has strong antipathies, and an active, cherished dislike to the remote members of her husband's family; so that her own childlessness has made her feel herself more and more emphatically a Rintoul, and she feels a personal gratitude to pretty little spoilt Euphie for the heir whom she holds in her arms. Mrs Raeburn cannot come west this morning to join the family conclave, but Agnes is here in her place. Agnes stands by the other corner of the fireside, turning the spinningwheel idly. There is no yarn upon its polished round, as it moves in a slow measure, quite unusual to it, under the musing eyes which veil all their light with dreams. Agnes is dressed in a bright-coloured printed gown of home-made linen, and looks nothing so melancholy or abstracted as she was last night; but the conversation of the matrons does not fix her wandering thoughts, and the gentle heaviness of girlish reverie falls upon her unawares. There is something soothing, slumbrous, drowsy in the lingering motion of the wheel; and so is there in her thoughts, which gradually grow shou lone herself and her baby, while her "goodmother" encourages her, from her own experience, and Ailie is didactic and instructive; full of occult knowledge of the "ways of bairns." They are all occupied, each as suits her best; and no one interferes with the musings of Agnes, or with the empty wheel. But round and round this fated house, in the clear sunshine, goes one with guilty steps and haggard face, like a midnight thief. A dozen times his feet have faltered at the door, but he sees the peaceful group through the window, and dares not enterdares not go in with his terrible news in his face, to plunge them all into misery. Such a strange assembly, too, for one who has this news to tell -John Rintoul's faithful wife, Patie's loving mother; Ailie, only sister of the lost, nearest to him in blood, in disposition, and in sympathy; Agnes, over whom this strong light of sudden grief throws an instant revelation too, disclosing her in her unconscious reverie, just entering the enchanted ground whither Patie Rintoul had gone before her, drawing with him her girl's heart; and, scarcely last, the sorrowful messenger thinks of his own delicate Euphie, so little able to bear such a shock-and he shrinks and trembles at the door. The hair upon his brow is wet; there is a cold dew over his face, and his fingers now will scarcely lose their hold of that bit of broken wood. But they have seen him within, and some one rushes suddenly to the door. He hears a great cry of mingled voices, asking what it is, and feels them all crowding round him. There he stands by his own bright hearth, his wife clinging to his arm, his mother gazing in his face, till he thinks his heart will burst-stands full in the rays of the gay firelight, which mocks him like the sunshine, holding his witness in his hand. Nor has he obeyed the injunctions of his humble sympathisers, and transferred the painful task of telling the news to the minister. He has come to do it himself, alone and unsupported; and the questions they pour upon his ears-questions suggestive of some trivial misery, so much under the mark of the true one that he could laugh at them in bitter 1853.] John Rintoul; or, The Fragment of the Wreck.-Part I. mockery-go near to make him mad. And at last, suffering far too intensely himself to remember any of the commonplaces of preparation, the usual modes of " breaking" such a piece of terrible intelligence to those most dearly concerned, John bursts into the heart of the subject with one desperate effort. He would fain say something gentler, but he cannot. Nothing will come from his parched lips but the abrupt and utmost truth. "The sloop's gone down atween this and St Minans; they've never been heard tell of in Anster. I found a bit of the wreck on the shore-ye a' mind it; and there's no anither token of them, man or boat, except at the bottom of the sea!" John's hoarse breathless whisper was broken by a scream-it was but Euphie, who had in this intimation only a great shock, but scarcely any bereavement and on his disengaged arm Ailie Rintoul laid a savage grasp, griping him like a tiger-" Say it's a lee-say it's a story you've madeand I'll no curse ye, John Rintoul !" But Kirstin Beatoun said not a word. Her eyes turned upon her son with a vacant stare, and her fingers keptopening and shutting with a strange idiotic motion; then, suddenly starting, she lifted up her hands, and bent her cowering head under their shadow, pressing her fingers over the eyes which would not close. John made no answer to the fierce question of his aunt-said nothing to soothe the terror of Euphie; his whole attention was given to his mother. There was a solemn pause--for even Ailie did not venture to speak now, till the wife and mother, doubly bereaved, had wakened from her stupor -and nothing but the low moans and sobs of Euphie disturbed the silence. It was but momentary, for they woke the stunned heart of Kirstin, and roused her to know her grief. "Comfort the bit poor thing, John -comfort her," said his mother suddenly; "for she has her prop and her staff left to her, and has never heard the foot of deadly sorrow a' her days. The auld man and Patie-baith ganea' gane-I ken it's true-I'm assured in my ain mind it's true; but I've nae feeling o't, man-nae feeling o't -nae mair than cauld iron or stane." And with a pitiful smile quivering 343 upon her lip, and her eye gleaming dry and tearless, Kirstin turned to ment. Strangely different in the first pace up and down the little aparteffort of her scarcely less intense grief, Ailie Rintoul turned now fiercely upon John A wave might wrench away a com"Have ye nae mair proof but this? panion door that wouldna founder a sloop-are ye gaun to be content with this, John Rintoul? He's gane through as mony storms as there's of them is numbered. Am I to believe grey hairs on his head-and ilka ane the Lord would forsake his ain? I tell ye ye're wrang-ye're a' wrangI'll never believe it. He may be on a desolate place, or ta'en refuge, driven out a hundred mile, or stranded or fechting on the sea;-but ye needye the Judgment's to be the morn, na tell me I ken-I ken-I'll believe afore I believe my brother's lost." Hot tears blinded Ailie's eyes, and vanished in the wild gestures with all the stiff sedateness of her mien had lips; she paused, at length, worn out which these words hurried from her ment, and turned to the window to and trembling with feverish excitelook out on the sea. John, still more completely exhausted, and lost in the deep hopeless despondency which had of grief, stood at the table silent and now succeeded to the first impatience unresponsive still; and the slow, heavy footsteps of Kirstin Beatoun sounded through the room like a knell. "And it was for this ye minded of the bairns!-oh, John, my man, my warned ye with a sight of them, and man! and it was for this the Lord put dark words in your mouth, that I kent nae meaning to !-Na, Ailie; no lost: blessings on him where he is, dread nor doubt before, but put him where nae blessings fail! I never had freely in the Lord's hand to come and gang at His good pleasure-and he night, as constant, serving his Maker. came like the day, and gaed like the He's won hame at last-and the Lord help me for a puir desolate creature, that am past kenning what my trouble is. Patie, too: bairns-bairns, ye needna think me hard-hearted becauld, like the blast that cast our boat cause I canna greet-but it's a' cauld, away." And the poor widow leaned upon the wall, and struggled with some hard, dry, gasping sobs; but no tears came to soften the misery in her eyes. Agnes was cowering in a corner, like one who shrinks from a great blow; Euphie wept and lamented passionately and aloud-she felt the stroke so much the least of all. CHAPTER VII. That day the Firth was scoured up and down, from Inverkeithing to St Andrews, and anxious scouts despatched along the whole line of coast to search at least for other evidence of the wreck. Other evidence there was none to be found-nothing, save this solitary fragment, had found its way to the home-shores of Fife, and the sea closed hopelessly over all trace and token of the lost vessel and her crew. The weather continued brilliant and glowing, full of sunshine and fresh winds; but not even the strong high tides, which covered Elie shore with wreaths of tangle and glistening sea-weed, and scattered driftwood on the braes, brought any second messenger ashore, to confirm the record of the first. In a little empty chamber, in the roof of John Rintoul's house, this tragic token was itself preserved; and Euphie, when he disappeared sometimes, knew, with an impatient, halfdispleased sympathy, that he was there-there, turning over the senseless fragment in his hand, carefully pondering its marks, and feeling his heart beat when he discovered a new jagged point in its outline, yet never drawing forth from it further tidings of the mystery which it alone could tell. And by and by a stupifying calm fell over all their excitement. The loss of the "Euphemia" came to be a matter of history in the district, of which people told with heads sympathetically shaken, and exclamations of grave pity, just as Kirstin Beatoun herself spoke last year of the boats lost at "the drave." There were circumstances connected with the story, remarkable, and claiming special notice; as for, instance, the total disappearance of the wreck-all but the one singular token which John Rintoul himself had found; but the story itself was not remarkable-nothing more note-worthy or lamentable than the fall of a knight in harness, of a soldier in the field of battle, was the loss of a sailor in the wild element which he lived but to struggle with; and only another story of shipwreck, distinguished by a special mystery, was added to the far too abundant store of such calamities known to the dwellers of the east coast. And "the Elie," with its quiet monotony of life-the bustle of leavetaking with which its few small vessels sailed, its fishing-boats went and came, and its little commotion of country business-the market of its small province of farms-went on without a change. A visible outward gravity and solemness fell upon two or three households, who made no moan of their affliction-no small repining and complaint on the part of Samuel Raeburn and his wife, now suddenly fallen into comparative poverty; but all the widening outer circles had died out of the placid water, and only a single spot remained to tell where so many hopes had gone down into the sea. And looking into Kirstin Beatoun's sole apartment, with all its minute regularity of order-its well-swept earthen floor and shining fireplace, with the great empty" kettle," which she once needed in the old family times, standing upon the side of the grate, even when the little vessel she used herself hung from the crook, a speck in the large hospitable chimney you scarcely could have fancied that the house was desolate. There were one or two signs noticeable enough, if you had crossed the threshold before, ere this blow fell on Kirstin's life. No sound in the hushed house but the constant voice of the eight-day clock, telling hours and minutes, of which none were spent idly even now. No bits of tunes hummed out of the house-mother's contented heart-no little communication made to herself or to a passing neighbour, and even no passing neighbour throwing in a word of daily news from the threshold, as they used to do every hour; for the door itself stood no longer open, inviting chance visitants or voices. Like a veil over a widow's face, this closed door chilled all voluble sympathisers round, and impressed the neighbourhood with a deeper sense of widowhood and desolation than almost any other visible token could have done. The very children paused and grew silent, wondering with wistful eyes before the closed door; and solemn was the greenish light within, coming solely, as it never came before, through the thick small windowpanes and half-drawn curtains, upon Kirstin herself, sitting before the fire in the profound silence, working nets or knitting stockings, spinning wool or hemp no longer for the kindly household needs which it was such joy to supply-no longer for the winter fishing, or the herring drave, in which she herself had all the personal interest which a fisherman's wife takes in the success of "our boat," but for the bare and meagre daily bread which she had now to win with her own hands. She is sitting there now, with the fire throwing some ruddy shade upon her-sitting in the full daylight, in the middle of the floor. There is a significance even in the place where she chooses to put her chair and wheel, for Kirstin is in no one's way now, and does not need to leave the "clear floor," for which she would once have contended. Without, it is a May day, fresh and fragrant, and the clear water on Elie shore has forgotten the boisterous mirth of early spring, and out of its schoolboy din has gone back into an infant's sweet composure, and breaks in sunny ripples, soft and quiet, upon the narrow rim of golden sand. But there comes no sunshine here, to throw a passing radiance upon this still figure, with its drooping head and widow's cap, the wheel moving rapidly before her, and the monotonous continual motion of foot and hand. There is something strangely impressive in this combination of perfect stillness and constant mechanical motion-a mystic mesmeric effect binding the spectator as by a spell. The wheel moves on, and so does the hand that sways it; but not by so much as the lifting of an eyelid does Kirstin show any sign of animation except this. Yet she has visitors to-day. By the side of the fire, just opposite that great wooden arm-chair which no one ventures to sit down in, Mrs Plender VOL. LXXIII.-NO. CCCCXLIX. leath, with a black gown heavily trimmed with crape, and ghastly black ribbons about her cap, sits solemnly silent too. Kirstin has no mourning except the widow's cap which surrounds her unmoving faceher everyday petticoat and shortgown remain the same, and she can only afford to wear her new mournings on Sabbath-days; but there is a satisfaction to the richer Ailie in bearing constantly the memorials of their woe. Cold and grey, and sharply drawn, the thin lines of Ailie's face bear something like a high strain of irritation and impatience in their grief. Her eyes are excited and wanderingdeeply hollowed, too, within these few painful weeks-and her lips have got a fashion of strange rapid motion, quivering, and framing words as it seems, though the words are never said. Just behind Kirstin, sitting on a low wooden stool, and half leaning against the elbow of the vacant armchair, is Agnes Raeburn. Samuel, her father, has taken the loss of the sloop as a personal offence, and has no commiseration to spare for the sailors who lost his property along with their lives; nor has he ever professed to mourn for them: yet Agnes has a homely black-and-white cotton gown, as cheap as cotton print can be procured, whereby she silently testifies her "respect" for the dead. And something more significant than her mourning speaks in those dark shadows under her eyes, in the pallor of her thin cheek, and in the lines which begin to grow far more clearly marked and distinct than they should have been for years, around the grave mouth, which never relaxes now to anything but a pathetic smile. But it is here only, or in the solitude of her own chamber at home, that Agnes permits herself the indulgence of this grief. Out of doors, and among strangers, her pride sustains her. She will not have any one say that she is breaking, for Patie Rintoul, the heart which he never sought in words. Though now Agnes is solemnly assured that he would have sought it, and that Patie, whose dawning devotion she had scorned so far as appearance went, bore for her that high love at which her heart trembles, and which none may scorn. She knows it. How? but Agnes thrills over all her frame, and shrinks back and shudders. She cannot tell. A dark figure crossing the street through the world of white unshadowed moonlight-a distant step echoing over the stones when all the peaceful housekeepers of Elie had been for hours asleep - something at her window shaking the casement like a hand that fain would open it, but might not-and stealthy sounds, as of subdued footsteps, stealing all night long through the silent house. She thinks that thus he came to warn her-he, Patie-now the one perpetual unnamed He on whom her heart dwells; she thinks the passing yearning spirit took this only means in his power to let her know his love, as he parted with his mortal life; and the thought wraps heart and soul of her in a dim dreamy awe. At present Agnes is knitting. It is Kirstin's work-work that she does at night to preserve her eyes for the more remunerative labour; - and so they sit together in perfect silence, Ailie Rintoul now and then rustling the sleeve of her black silk gown, as she lifts her large brown bony hand to wipe the continual moisture which overflows, as out of a cup, from the hollow rim under her eyes-Agnes moving her fingers quickly, and making a sharp rapid sound with her wires-Kirstin, like a weird woman, with rapt head and look of perfect abstraction, spinning on, with that constant monotonous movement of foot and hand; but no one of them stirring, except with this involuntary gesture, and none saying a word to the other. After a long time spent in this silence, Ailie rises slowly to go to the window. The children without think her something like a spirit as they see her long colourless face, surrounded with borders of narrow net and bits of black ribbon, looking out over the curtain. Slowly returning and resuming her seat, Ailie speaks. "You said John was to be down from Leith the day?" was "Euphie was looking for him," said Agnes. "The owner of the brig to let him ken whether he would do for mate this morning, and Euphie was busy at a' his claes, for he thought he would get the place." Ailie shook her head bitterly. Kirstin made no sign; but the humiliation, and loss, and poverty, were an aggravation of the misfortune to her sister-in-law. "And Euphie said, if you would gang there if you would only gang hame!" said Agnes, rising to lay her hand hurriedly on Kirstin Beatoun's shoulder; "for it breaks everybody's heart to see ye living your lane, and working this way night and day." "A'body's very kind," said Kirstin steadily, "but I've had a house o' my ain for five-and-forty year, and I canna live in anither woman's now. Na, na, Nannie-my guid-daughter is very weel of hersel, and pleases John, and I'm aye glad to see her-and you're a fine simple-hearted creatur, and I like to have you near me; but I maun bide in my ain house, Nancy, and be thankful that I have to work to keep a roof over my head; it's aye something to thole thae lang days for. If I had plenty, and ease, and naething to do but to sit with my hands before me, I would either gang daft or dee." "But there's an odds between gaun to a strange woman's house-though I'm meaning nae ill to John's wifeand coming to mine," said Mrs Plenderleath; "and ye could aye hae plenty to do, Kirstin, and I wouldna be against ye working, for I ken it's a grand divert to folk's ain thoughts." "Na, Ailie, na," answered Kirstin Beatoun; "I have lost a'thing that made hame cheerie, man and weans, goods and gear; but I maun keep the four wa's a' my days-it's what was hame ance, and it's everything I hae. When my time comes, and I'm done with earthly dwellings-the Lord send it was this day! the plenishing can be sellt, and the siller laid by for little Johnnie when he comes to be a man; but I maun keep my ain house a' my days." This was by no means the first time Kirstin had declared her determination; and not even the faintest lingering hope that some one might still come back out of the mysterious sea, which had swallowed up her treasures, to make this once more a home worth living in, inspired her in her purpose. It was simply as she said. Her own house, and the desire to retain it, was all she had now |