He started as though someone had struck him a blow. “Give up my profession?” he said in amazement. “Why no, mother, I could never do that. I am tired out and in a grumbling mood but you must not take me too literally. My vocation has saved me again and again from making utter shipwreck. Depend upon it no other work is as you would say ‘more worthy’ of me.” She urged it no more; but the old sore feeling that his mother could not understand his point of view, that she still in her heart desired him to take up work for which he was wholly unfitted, came back to mar the entire peace of Macneillie’s holiday. On the Saturday before Holy Week he could no longer resist the restless craving for change which took possession of him as his strength gradually returned. And taking leave of his mother he left Callander and travelled down to Stratford, intending there to await the arrival of his company later on. It was a mild bright afternoon in mid April when he reached the quiet little town. It seemed to sleep tranquilly in the golden sunshine, scarcely a breath of air stirred the trees, the beautiful spire of the stately old church rose into the bluest of skies, and the green fields flecked with daisies seemed to be just the right setting for a picture so fair and peaceful. The pastoral character of the scenery somehow suited Macneillie’s mood better even than the rugged mountains of his own land. Surely in this quiet loveliness, rich in associations with the great Master he could gain the rest and the ease he so grievously needed! He would spend his days on the river, would not allow any business anxieties or arrangements for the following week to invade his repose; Shakspere and Shakspere’s country should hearten him for the future--the quiet of Holy Week should lift him up out of the depression which sought to drag him back into its dreary torture chambers. So he thought to himself on the evening of his arrival; forgetting that “through the shadow of an agony cometh redemption”;--never dreaming that in this most tranquil place he was to be confronted with the worst ordeal of his whole life. CHAPTER XXXVIII “World’s use is cold--world’s love is vain,-- World’s cruelty is bitter bane; But pain is not the fruit of pain.” E. B. Browning. |If life during the past three years had been difficult for Macneillie it had been tenfold more difficult for Christine Greville. As everyone had foreseen, her position called for a strength of character which she did not possess, for a power of endurance which she was only learning by slow degrees, and for that sound judgment and prompt womanly wisdom which had never been her strong point.