Page:Littell's Living Age - Volume 133.djvu/277

Rh hurried retreat of the surveyors was described to him in somewhat graphic language by one of those concerned in causing it, he struck his clenched fist in the palm of his other hand, and cried, "Weel saired! There! that's what comes o' yer new ——"

He had all but broken his promise, as he had already broken his faith, to Malcolm, when his wife laid her hand on his mouth and stopped the issuing word. He started with sudden conviction, and stood for a moment in absolute terror at sight of the precipice down which he had been on the point of falling, then straightway excusing himself to his conscience on the ground of non-intent, was instantly angrier with Malcolm than before. He could not reflect that the disregarded cause of the threatened sin was the greater sin of the two. The breach of that charity which thinketh no evil may be a graver fault than a hasty breach of promise.

Peter had not been improving since his return from London. He found less satisfaction in his religious exercises; was not unfrequently clouded in temper, occasionally even to sullenness; referred things oftener than formerly to the vileness of the human nature, but was far less willing than before to allow that he might himself be wrong; while somehow the Bible had no more the same plenitude of relation to the wants of his being, and he rose from the reading of it unrefreshed. Men asked each other what had come to Blue Peter, but no one could answer the question. For himself, he attributed the change which he could not but recognize, although he did not understand it, to the withdrawing of the spirit of God, in displeasure that he had not merely allowed himself to be inveigled into a playhouse, but, far worse, had enjoyed the wickedness he saw there. When his wife reasoned that God knew he had gone in ignorance, trusting his friend, "What's that to him," he cried, "wha judges richteous judgment? What's a' oof puir meeserable excuzes i' the een 'at can see throu' the wa's o' the hert? Ignorance is no innocence."

Thus he lied for God, pleading his cause on the principles of hell. But the eye of his wife was single, and her body full of light: therefore to her it was plain that neither the theatre nor his conscience concerning it was the cause of the change: it had to do with his feelings toward Malcolm. He wronged his friend in his heart — half knew it, but would not own it. Fearing to search himself, he took refuge in resentment, and to support his hard judgment put false and cruel interpretations on whatever befell. So that, with love and anger and wrong unacknowledged, his heart was full of bitterness.

"It's a' the drumblet (muddied, troubled) luve o' 'im!" said Annie to herself. "Puir fallow! gien only Ma'colm wad come hame an' lat him ken he's no the villain he taks him for! I'll no believe mysel' 'at the laad I kissed like my ain mither's son afore he gaed awa' wad turn like that upo' 's maist the meenute he wat oot o' sicht, an' a' for a feow words aboot a fulish playactin'. Lord bliss us a'! markisses is men! — We'll see, Peter, my man," she said, when the neighbor took her leave, "whether the wife, though she hasna been to the ill place — an' that's surely Lon'on — canna tell the true frae the fause full better nor her man 'at kens sae muckle mair nor she wants to ken! Lat sit an' lat see."

Blue Peter made no reply; but perhaps the deepest depth in his fall was that he feared his wife might be right, and he have one day to stand ashamed before both her and his friend. But there are marvellous differences in the quality of the sins of different men, and a noble nature like Peter's would have to sink far indeed to be beyond a ready redemption. Still, there was one element mingling with his wrongness whose very triviality increased the difficulty of long-delaying repentance: he had been not a little proud at finding himself the friend of a marquis. From the first they had been friends, when the one was a youth and the other a child, and had been out together in many a stormy and dangerous sea. More than once or twice, driven from the churlish ocean to the scarce less inhospitable shore, they had lain all night in each other's arms to keep the life awake within their frozen garments. And now this marquis spoke English to him! It rankled.

All the time Blue Peter was careful to say nothing to injure Malcolm in the eyes of his former comrades. His manner when his name was mentioned, however, he could not honestly school to the conveyance of the impression that things were as they had been betwixt them. Folk marked the difference, and it went to swell the general feeling that Malcolm had done ill to forsake a seafaring life for one upon which all fishermen must look down with contempt. Some in the Seaton went so far in their enmity as even to hint 