HOW that dark interval of time had passed at Marchmain no one could tell—for Peggy, the only individual who could have known, had long ceased to speculate on her master’s sentiments and feelings, and learned to content herself with things as they came. But just as Colonel Sutherland, in single-minded devotion to the interests of his young friend Roger, and an honest and simple desire to set right the harm which he supposed to have been done by his nephew, had drawn close in his circles of laborious but unprofitable investigation to Lanwoth Moor, Peggy’s attention had been called to her master’s bodily condition. He had spent an agitated and restless night, as she could hear by his motions in his own room, and, for the first time in twenty years, did not get up in the morning. When Peggy went to him, alarmed by this extraordinary occurrence, she found him in bed, paralysed in one side, unable to speak, his face somewhat distorted, and everything helpless about him except his eyes. It was evidently and beyond any doubt “a stroke,” and poor Peggy, alone in her solitude, and not knowing what to do—afraid to leave him to seek assistance, and unable to ascertain what were his own wishes—put the disordered room tidy by instinct in the first place, until she was driven out of it, scared and breathless, by those eyes which followed her movements everywhere. “Like as if an evil spirit had ta’en possession,” she said to herself, as she went quicker than usual in her fright and perplexity down the stairs; and Peggy described many a day after how it was like an angel of mercy to hear “Mr. Edward, that is now the Cornel, the Lord bless him,” knocking at the door all of a sudden, and asking if all was well at Marchmain. “I tould him all was as ill as ill could be; and he never so much as cam in to rest, but went forth with his staff in his hand five mile of road for the doctor and help,” said Peggy; “and ye may all tell me about his own business and other things he had in hand, and owght ye please, but no man shall make me believe, if he preaches till Christmas, that it was aught but the very Lord himsel’ in grace and mercy that sent the Cornel that morning, and no other, to the master’s door.”
That was a busy day for Colonel Sutherland. He sent not only the nearest country doctor, but an express to Kenlisle for a more noted physician there, and sent abundant help to Peggy, and everything which the surgeon could suggest as likely to be of use. The old soldier’s heart of pity yearned over the unfortunate man who had shut himself out from all the tender charities of love. He despatched a letter instantly to Susan, bidding her come at once to nurse her father; and when he had done everything that his kind heart could suggest, went back slowly and thoughtfully across the moor, with very sad thoughts in that good heart. Not because he thought it sad to die; the Colonel had too many waiting for him on the other side of the river to compassionate those who were arriving at that conclusion of trouble; but it was sad to consider the ending of this melancholy and miserable life. Better for himself, for his children, for everybody within his influence, would it have been, if twenty years ago the grave had received him into its harmless quiet, instead of this miserable seclusion. And now, without even that privilege of a conscious pause upon the grave’s brink, which sweetens so many memories, and endears so many of the dead, who, living, were less loveable, he was going away, this unhappy man. No wonder the tender heart of the old soldier was sad. It had been better not to be born than thus to die.
When Colonel Sutherland returned to Marchmain he was reluctant to enter the sick-room, fearing that even there the imprisoned mind, debarred of ordinary expression, would chafe at his presence, and put a cruel interpretation upon his kindness; but the importunities of Peggy, the silent surprise of the surgeon, and indeed the forlorn and pitiful loneliness of the patient himself, overpowered his objections. He went in and spoke to the stricken man lying there dumb upon his bed. He detailed all the circumstances of his own arrival, dwelling upon its accidental character—he spoke of Susan, he spoke of Horace—for the doctor had declared that to restore his speech and faculties it would be well to rouse him, even to passion; but all without effect. Mr. Scarsdale lay in his dressing-gown among the bedclothes, in that dead silence which looked almost malicious, and of purpose, contrasted with the wild watchfulness of his eyes. One hand lay powerless and numb beside him; the other held with a tight grasp some folds of the white coverlid. There he lay stretched out motionless, attempting no notice of the remedies they applied to him, suffering himself to be moved and shifted about like a log, but following every movement, every gleam of light, every passing shadow, with those eyes so desperately alive and awake. When he had once entered that melancholy sick-room, the Colonel for very pity could not leave it. He sat down by the side of the bed, his whole heart moved with a compassion unspeakable. He could not bear to think that no kindred blood or familiar voice was near the unhappy sufferer. Peggy, it was true, went and came; but Peggy was afraid of her master, whom she had served so long and faithfully. She was superstitious, with her long solitude and broken spirit; she thought her master had already gone to his account, and that it was some malignant spirit which looked out of these wild waking eyes.
After two days of this hopeless lethargy, during which Colonel Sutherland never left his post, but watched night and day, dozing sometimes for an hour in the arm-chair by the bedside, Susan arrived, under charge of Patchey, to whom the thoughtful Colonel had written. It was a strange home-coming for Susan, in the midst of all her sweet new hopes and beginning thrills of life. But when Susan, instead of being taken into Peggy’s motherly arms, and kissed, and blessed, and cried over, as she expected, felt Peggy, after her first scream of welcome, bear heavily upon her shoulder, and drop off into a dead faint of exhaustion and over-excitement, she saw at once this was no time to think of herself. When Peggy was better, she took off her travelling dress, and went up without a moment’s delay to her father’s room, where Uncle Edward sat, pale with watching. Susan, too, was shocked and frightened more than she dared say by the sick man’s attentive eyes; but she took the nurse’s place with a natural and instinctive readiness, and begged her uncle to go away and get some rest. Why should they watch him with such careful, tender anxiety—the banished daughter and the insulted friend? Why, in this dismal need of his did these two come, whom he had sent away from him, and come as though that imprisoned spirit which they watched had been a heart of love? But nobody could tell in this world whether such thoughts touched the heart of the recluse, as he lay unmoving, unsleeping, speechless, upon that dreadful bed. The days which had now passed since he took any nourishment, the unnatural state in which he lay, made his condition, unhopeful enough at first, entirely hopeless now. He was dying slowly, no one knowing how it went with him in the depths of his hidden soul, and no one able to interpret if any late compunctions, any meltings of the shut-up heart, or touches of human charity, were shining at length, at last, when all utterance was over, out of these wakeful eyes.
When Susan took her uncle’s place for the next long night—when through all the silent hours she could not move without attracting these sleepless looks, which were all that remained of this man’s will and mind—Susan got frightened in spite of herself. So alive, so waking, so desperately conscious were these eyes, that the poor girl fell down on her knees by the bedside, and implored her father to speak to her.
“Only speak, say anything, if it was to curse me!” said poor Susan. It was impossible to believe that he could not if he would. And then one gleam of expression different from their usual strain of watchfulness appeared in Mr. Scarsdale’s eyes; a strange gleam, as if tears were in them; a momentary melting of the hard heart, a wandering movement of the unparalyzed hand to lay it on her head. Susan hid her face, weeping aloud, the touch going to her heart as never tender father’s blessing went, and her whole young soul heaving within her, at the thought how little she had loved him, he who relented over her and blessed her thus under the stony hand of death. Never in all his hard life had so sweet a gush of human gratitude followed any act of Mr. Scarsdale. It was well for him that it was his last.