When the Soul is kindled1 or enlightened by the Holy Ghost, then it beholds2 what God its Father does, as a Son beholds what his Father does at Home in his own House.—JACOB BEHMEN’S Aurora—Law’s Translation.
Margaret began to read Wordsworth, slowly at first, but soon with greater facility. Ere long she perceived that she had found a friend; for not only did he sympathize with her in her love for nature, putting many vague feelings into thoughts, and many thoughts into words for her, but he introduced her to nature in many altogether new aspects, and taught her to regard it in ways which had hitherto been unknown to her. Not only was the pine wood now dearer to her than before, but its mystery seemed more sacred, and, at the same time, more likely to be one day solved. She felt far more assuredly the presence of a spirit in nature,
“Whose dwelling3 is the light of setting suns,
And the round ocean, and the living air;”
for he taught her to take wider views of nature, and to perceive and feel the expressions of more extended aspects of the world around her. The purple hill-side was almost as dear to her as the fir-wood now; and the star that crowned its summit at eve, sparkled an especial message to her, before it went on its way up the blue. She extended her rambles4 in all directions, and began to get with the neighbours the character of an idle girl. Little they knew how early she rose, and how diligently5 she did her share of the work, urged by desire to read the word of God in his own handwriting; or rather, to pore upon that expression of the face of God, which, however little a man may think of it, yet sinks so deeply into his nature, and moulds it towards its own likeness6.
Nature was doing for Margaret what she had done before for Wordsworth’s Lucy: she was making of her “a lady of her own.” She grew taller and more graceful8. The lasting9 quiet of her face began to look as if it were ever upon the point of blossoming into an expression of lovely feeling. The principal change was in her mouth, which became delicate and tender in its curves, the lips seeming to kiss each other for very sweetness. But I am anticipating these changes, for it took a far longer time to perfect them than has yet been occupied by my story.
But even her mother was not altogether proof against the appearance of listlessness and idleness which Margaret’s behaviour sometimes wore to her eyes; nor could she quite understand or excuse her long lonely walks; so that now and then she could not help addressing her after this fashion:
“Meg! Meg! ye do try my patience, lass, idlin’ awa’ yer time that get. It’s an awfu’ wastery o’ time, what wi’ beuks, an’ what wi’ stravaguin’, an’ what wi’ naething ava. Jist pit yer han’ to this kirn noo, like a gude bairn.”
Margaret would obey her mother instantly, but with a look of silent expostulation which her mother could not resist; sometimes, perhaps, if the words were sharper than usual, with symptoms of gathering10 tears; upon which Janet would say, with her honest smile of sweet relenting,
“Hootoots, bairn! never heed11 me. My bark’s aye waur nor my bite; ye ken7 that.”
Then Margaret’s face would brighten at once, and she would work hard at whatever her mother set her to do, till it was finished; upon which her mother would be more glad than she, and in no haste to impose any further labour out of the usual routine.
In the course of reading Wordsworth, Margaret had frequent occasion to apply to Hugh for help. These occasions, however, generally involved no more than small external difficulties, which prevented her from taking in the scope of a passage. Hugh was always able to meet these, and Margaret supposed that the whole of the light which flashed upon her mind when they were removed, was poured upon the page by the wisdom of her tutor; never dreaming—such was her humility12 with regard to herself, and her reverence13 towards him—that it came from the depths of her own lucent nature, ready to perceive what the poet came prepared to show. Now and then, it is true, she applied14 to him with difficulties in which he was incapable15 of aiding her; but she put down her failure in discovering the meaning, after all which it must be confessed he sometimes tried to say, to her own stupidity or peculiarity—never to his incapacity. She had been helped to so much by his superior acquirements, and his real gift for communicating what he thoroughly16 understood; he had been so entirely17 her guide to knowledge, that she would at once have felt self-condemned of impiety—in the old meaning of the word—if she had doubted for a moment his ability to understand or explain any difficulty which she could place clearly before him.
By-and-by he began to lend her harder, that is, more purely18 intellectual books. He was himself preparing for the class of Moral Philosophy and Metaphysics; and he chose for her some of the simpler of his books on these subjects—of course all of the Scotch19 school—beginning with Abercrombie’s Intellectual Powers. She took this eagerly, and evidently read it with great attention.
One evening in the end of summer, Hugh climbed a waste heathery hill that lay behind the house of Turriepuffit, and overlooked a great part of the neighbouring country, the peaks of some of the greatest of the Scotch mountains being visible from its top. Here he intended to wait for the sunset. He threw himself on the heather, that most delightful20 and luxurious21 of all couches, supporting the body with a kindly22 upholding of every part; and there he lay in the great slumberous23 sunlight of the late afternoon, with the blue heavens, into which he was gazing full up, closing down upon him, as the light descended24 the side of the sky. He fell fast asleep. If ever there be an excuse for falling asleep out of bed, surely it is when stretched at full length upon heather in bloom. When he awoke, the last of the sunset was dying away; and between him and the sunset sat Margaret, book in hand, waiting apparently25 for his waking. He lay still for a few minutes, to come to himself before she should see he was awake. But she rose at the moment, and drawing near very quietly, looked down upon him with her sweet sunset face, to see whether or not he was beginning to rouse, for she feared to let him lie much longer after sundown. Finding him awake, she drew back again without a word, and sat down as before with her book. At length he rose, and, approaching her, said—
“Well, Margaret, what book are you at now?”
“Dr. Abercrombie, sir,” replied Margaret.
“How do you like it?”
“Verra weel for some things. It makes a body think; but not a’thegither as I like to think either.”
It will be observed that Margaret’s speech had begun to improve, that is, to be more like English.
“What is the matter with it?”
“Weel, ye see, sir, it taks a body a’ to bits like, and never pits them together again. An’ it seems to me that a body’s min’ or soul, or whatever it may be called—but it’s jist a body’s ain sel’—can no more be ta’en to pieces like, than you could tak’ that red licht there oot o’ the blue, or the haill sunset oot o’ the heavens an’ earth. It may be a’ verra weel, Mr. Sutherland, but oh! it’s no lik............