it would be three weeks before the assizes came. the house of potlurg was searched by the police from garret to cellar, but in vain; the cup was not found.
as soon as they gave up searching, alexa had the old door of the laird's closet, discernible enough on the inside, reopened, and the room cleaned. almost unfurnished as it was, she made of it her sitting-parlor. but often her work or her book would lie on her lap, and she would find herself praying for the dear father for whom she could do nothing else now, but for whom she might have done so much, had she been like dawtie. her servant had cared for her father more than she!
as she sat there one morning alone, brooding a little, thinking a little, reading a little, and praying through it all, meg appeared, and said maister andrew wanted to see her.
he had called more than once to inquire after dawtie, but had not before asked to see her mistress.
alexa felt herself unaccountably agitated. when he walked into the room, however, she was able to receive him quietly. he came, he said, to ask when she had seen dawtie. he would have gone himself to see her, but his father was ailing, and he had double work to do. besides, she did not seem willing to see him! alexa told him she had been with her the day before, and had found her a little pale, and, she feared, rather troubled in her mind. she said she would trust god to the last, but confessed herself assailed by doubts.
“i said to her,” continued alexa, “'be sure, dawtie, god will make your innocence known one day!' she answered: 'of course, ma'am, there is nothing hidden that shall not be known; but i am not impatient about that. the jews to this day think jesus an impostor!' 'but surely,' said i, 'you care that people should understand you are no thief, dawtie!' 'yes, i do,' she answered; 'all i say is, that is does not trouble me. i want only to be downright sure that god is looking after me all the time. i am willing to sit in prison till i die, if he pleases.' 'god can't please that!' i said. 'if he does not care to take me out, i do not care to go out,' said dawtie. 'it's not that i'm good; it's only that i don't care for anything he doesn't care for. what would it be that all men acquitted me, if god did not trouble himself about his children!'”
“you see, ma'am, it comes to this,” said andrew: “it is god dawtie cares about, not herself! if god is all right, dawtie is all right. the if sometimes takes one shape, sometimes another, but the fear is the same—and the very fear is faith. sometimes the fear is that there may be no god, and that you might call a fear for herself; but when dawtie fears lest god should not be caring for her, that is a fear for god; for if god did not care for his creature, he would be no true god!”
“then he could not exist!”
“true; and so you are back on the other fear!”
“what would you have said to her, mr. ingram?”
“i would have reminded her that jesus was perfectly content with his father; that he knew what was coming on himself, and never doubted him—just gloried that his father was what he knew him to be.”
“i see! but what did you mean when you said that dawtie's very fear was faith?”
“think, ma'am: people that only care to be saved, that is, not to be punished for their sins, are anxious only about themselves, not about god and his glory at all. they talk about the glory of god, but they make it consist in pure selfishness! according to them, he seeks everything for himself; which is dead against the truth of god, a diabolic slander of god. it does not trouble them to believe such things about god; they do not even desire that god should not be like that; they only want to escape him. they dare not say god will not do this or that, however clear it be that it would not be fair; they are in terror of contradicting the bible. they make more of the bible than of god, and so fail to find the truth of the bible, and accept things concerning god which are not in the bible, and are the greatest of insults to him! dawtie never thinks about saving her soul; she has no fear about her soul; she is only anxious about god and his glory. how the doubts come, god knows; but if she did not love god, they would not be there. jesus says god will speedily avenge his elect—those that cry day and night to him—which i take to mean that he will soon save them from all such miseries. free dawtie from unsureness about god, and she has no fear left. all is well, in the prison or on the throne of god, if he only be what she thinks he is. if any one say that doubt can not coexist with faith, i answer, it can with love, and love is the greater of the two, yea, is the very heart of faith itself. god's children are not yet god's men and women. the god that many people believe in, claiming to be the religious because they believe in him, is a god not worth believing in, a god that ought not to be believed in. the life given by such a god would be a life not worth living, even if he made his votaries as happy as they would choose to be. a god like that could not make a woman like dawtie anxious about him! if god be not each as jesus, what good would the proving of her innocence be to dawtie! a mighty thing indeed that the world should confess she was not a thief! but to know that there is a perfect god, one for us to love with all the power of love of which we feel we are capable, is worth going out of existence for; while to know that god himself, must make every throb of consciousness a divine ecstasy!”
andrew's heart was full, and out of its fullness he spoke. never before had he been able in the presence of alexa to speak as he felt. never before had he had any impulse to speak as now. as soon would he have gone to sow seed on a bare rock, as words of spirit and life in her ears!
“i am beginning to understand you,” she said. “will you forgive me? i have been very self-confident and conceited! what a mercy things are not as i thought they were—thought they ought to be!”
“and the glory of the lord shall cover the earth as the waters cover the sea!” said andrew. “and men's hearts shall be full of bliss, because they have found their father, and he is what he is, and they are going home to him.”
he rose.
“you will come and see me again soon—will you not?” she said.
“as often as you please, ma'am; i am your servant.”
“then come to-morrow.”
he went on the morrow, and the next day, and the day after—almost every day while dawtie was waiting her trial.
almost every morning alexa went by train to see dawtie; and the news she brought, andrew would carry to the girl's parents. dawtie continued unwilling to see andrew: he had had trouble enough with her already, she said; but andrew could not quite understand her refusal.
