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                            THE QUIET HEART

           PRINTED BY WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS, EDINBURGH.




                                  THE

                              QUIET HEART

                                BY THE

                       AUTHOR OF “KATIE STEWART”

                            SECOND EDITION

                      WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS

                         EDINBURGH AND LONDON
                               MDCCCLIV




             ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN BLACKWOOD’S MAGAZINE.




                           THE QUIET HEART.




CHAPTER I.


“Ye’ll no ken, Jenny, if Miss Menie’s in?”

“And what for should I no ken?” exclaimed the hot and impatient Jenny
Durward, sole servant, housekeeper, and self-constituted guardian of
Mrs. Laurie of Burnside, and her young fatherless daughter. “Do ye think
ony ane comes or gangs in the house out of my knowledge? And where
should Miss Menie be but in, sitting at her seam in the mistress’s
parlour, at this hour of the day?”

“I was meaning nae offence,” said meek Nelly Panton: “I’m sure ye ken,
Jenny woman, I wouldna disturb the very cat by the fire if it was just
me; but my mother, you see, has ta’en an ill turn, and there’s nae
peace wi’ her, day or night, a’ for naething but because she’s anxious
in her mind--and if you would just let me get a word o’ Miss Menie--”

“Am I hindering ye?” cried the indignant Jenny; “she’s no ill to be
seen, in her wilful way, even on wandering about the garden, damp roads
or dry; but for a’ the whims I’ve kent in her head, ae time and anither,
I never heard of her setting up for either skill or wisdom past the
common. I reckon she never had a sair head hersel--what kind of a helper
could she be to your mother? and if she’s heard of a sair heart, that’s
a’ the length her knowledge gangs--what good is Miss Menie to do to
you?”

“I’m sure I’m no meaning ony ill,” said Nelly, disconsolately, sitting
down on a wooden stool with passive resignation; “and it’s aye kent o’
me that I never provokit onybody a’ my born days. I’m just wanting to
speak a word to the young leddy, that’s a’.”

Now Nelly Panton, meekly passive as she was, had an eminent gift in the
way of provocation, and kept in a perpetual fever the warmer tempers in
her neighbourhood. Jenny, virtuously resolved to command herself, went
out with sufficient abruptness to her kitchen door, to “fuff,” as she
herself called it, her incipient passion away. The visitor took no
notice of Jenny’s withdrawal from the field. Slow pertinacity, certain
of ultimate success, calmed away all excitement from Nelly. She had
taken her place with perfect composure, to wait, though it might be for
hours, till the person she wished to see came to her call.

It was a day of early spring, and had rained plentifully in the morning.
Light white clouds, tossed and blown about by a fantastic wind, threw
their soft shadow on a clear deep sky of blue; and raindrops, glittering
in the sunshine, hung upon flowers and branches, and fell now and then
in a gleam from the shaken hedge or garden fruit-trees. The garden paths
were wet--the road without had a flowing rivulet of accumulated rain,
which almost made as much ringing with its hasty footsteps as did the
burn itself under the little bridge which crossed the way--and the
blue-slated roof of this house of Burnside blazed like a slanted mirror
in the eyes of the full sun.

Not the faintest shade of architectural pretensions dignified this house
of Burnside. Four substantial walls of rough grey stone, a slated roof,
with but one projecting attic window to break its slope--a door in the
gable where one would least have expected a door to be--and windows
breaking the wall just where the builder found it convenient that the
wall should be broken. The house stood upon a little knoll, the ground
on all sides sloping downward,--at one hand to the course of the
burn--at the other, to the edge of the plantation which benevolently
threw up a line of tall firs to screen its human neighbours from the
unfriendly east. Close upon the very edge of the walls pressed the soft
grass of the lawn; some spring-flowers looked out from little bits of
border soil here and there; and a fairy larch stood half-way up the
ascent on the sunniest side, shaking itself free of the encumbering rain
with a pretty, coquettish grace, and throwing a glistening flash of
little diamonds, now and then, as if in sport, over the fluttering hair
and sunny face, which seem to have a natural sisterhood and
companionship with the free and graceful tree.

Hair that was smoothly shaded this morning over the young, clear,
youthful brow--the wind has found out scores of little curls hidden in
the braids, and turns them out with a child’s laughter, full of sweet
triumph and delight--a face that looks up full and clearly to answer the
brave smile upon the sky. Twenty years old, with warm blood flashing in
her cheeks, a fearless, innocent courage gleaming from her eyes, and
never a cloud over her all her life long, save some such soft, white,
rounded shadow as floats yonder in our sight over the undiscouraged
heavens--for it is very true that neither headache nor heartache has yet
been known to Menie Laurie by any surer knowledge than the hearing of
the ear.

Maiden meditation--No: there is little of this in the stir of life that
makes an unconscious atmosphere about her, here where she stands in the
fearless safety of her natural home. Not that Menie is notably
thoughtless either, or poor in the qualities of mind which produce
thought--but her mind lies still, like a charmed sea under the sunshine.
There has never a ship of hope gone down yet under those dazzling
waters, never a storm arisen upon them to chafe the waves against the
rocks; nothing but flecks of summer clouds, quiet shadows of summer
nights, darkness all lit and glorified with mellow moonbeams--and how
her heart would be if some strange ghost of tempest rose upon the sky,
her heart neither knows nor fears.

The window is open behind you, Menie; Mrs Laurie fears no draughts, and
it is well; but our mother’s patience, like other good things, has a
limit, and having called you vainly three times over, she closes behind
you this mode of return. No great matter. See what a little sparkling
shower this poor brown-coated sparrow has shaken from the thorny branch
he has just perched upon; and as your eyes wander in this direction,
your ear becomes aware of a certain sound, a quick impatient breath sent
hard through the expanded nostrils, which is the well-known token in the
house of Burnside of Jenny’s “fuff;” and straightway your eyes brighten,
Menie Laurie--one could not have fancied it was possible a minute
ago--and smiles half hidden break over all your face, flushing here and
there in such a kindly suffusion of playfulness and mirth, that even
Jenny herself is not angry when she sees how this fuff of hers makes
excellent sport for you.

“What ails our Jenny now?” said Menie, turning the angle of the wall to
enter by the kitchen door.

“Lassie, dinna drive folk doited,” answered Jenny. “I’m thrang at my
wark--gang in yonder and speak to her yoursel.”

Nelly Panton sits mournfully upon the wooden stool. If you take her own
word for it, no one is more contemptuous of “fyking” and “making a wark”
than Jenny of Burnside; but the kitchen--woe be to the hapless stranger
who ventures to commend it!--is quite resplendent with brightness and
good order. The fire, cheerfully burning in the grate, finds a whole
array of brilliant surfaces to dance in, and dances to its heart’s
content. Glittering metal and earthenware, Jenny’s looking-glass at one
side, and the dark polish of Jenny’s oak table with its folding leaf at
the other, line all the walls with warmth and light; and the fire,
repulsed and defeated only by this one obstinately opaque body before
it, besets the dark outline of Nelly Panton with a very tremble of
eagerness, seeking in vain for something, if it were but the pin of her
shawl, or the lifting of her eye, to repeat its kindly glimmer in. There
is no pin visible in Nelly’s doleful shawl, so closely wrapped about her
person, and Nelly’s pensive glances seek the floor, and the light falls
off from her figure foiled and baffled, finding nothing congenial there.
Come you hither, Menie Laurie, that the friendly fireside spirit may be
consoled--playing in warm rays upon your hair, which the wind has blown
about so pleasantly that the bright threads hang a hundred different
ways, and catch a various glow of reflection in every curl--leaping up
triumphantly under the raised lids of these sunny eyes--catching a
little ring upon your finger, a little golden clasp at your white neck.
No wonder Nelly draws her shawl closer, and turns her back upon the
light, as she rises to speak to you.

“My mother’s ill and anxious in her mind, Miss Menie; and no to say
_that_ its lane, but thrawn and perverse as onybody could conceive. I’m
sure ye’ll hear nae character of me in the haill countryside for
onything but being as harmless a person as could gang about quiet wark
in ony house; but she’s ta’en a turn that she canna bide even me; and
aye for ever, night and morning, keeping up a constant wark about her
son. I like Johnnie weel enough mysel--but what’s the guid o’ seeking
letters as lang as we ken he’s weel?--and that’s what I’m aye saying,
but she’ll no hearken to me.”

“Does Johnnie write so seldom?--but I’m sure nothing ails him, or we
should have heard,” said Menie. “Tell her she’s to keep up her
heart--he’ll do very well yonder. You should make her cheery, Nelly, now
when you’re at home the whole day.”

“I do what I can, Miss Menie,” said Nelly, shaking her head mournfully.
“I tell her a lad’s just as safe in the toun as in the country, and that
it’s a real unbelieving-like thing to be aye groaning even on about
Johnnie, and her has mair bairns. But someway she gets nae satisfaction,
and I think she would be mair pleased if you could get a line from Mr
Randall saying when he saw him, and whether he’s doing well or no, than
a’ the reason I could gie her if I was preaching frae this to Martinmas.
I came away from my wark anes errant to bid ye. Will you ask Mr Randall
about Johnnie, Miss Menie, that I may get some peace wi’ my mother?”

The breath comes quickly over Menie Laurie’s lip--a little flutter of
added colour--a momentary falling of the eyelids--a shy, conscious smile
hovering about the mouth--and then Menie nods her head assentingly and
says, “Yes, Nelly, I will.”

“Yes, Nelly, I will,” repeated Menie, after a little pause of blushing
self-communion. “Tell her I’ll come and let her hear as soon as there is
any news; and say I think she should be cheery, Nelly, now she has you
at home.”

Making a meek inclination of her person, neither a bow nor a curtsy, but
something half-way between them, in answer to this speech, Nelly goes
away; and almost encountering her on her outward passage over the
threshold, enters Jenny fuffing at a furious rate, and casting her head
up into the air with wrathful contempt, like some little shaggy Highland
pony whose pride has been wounded. For Jenny’s wrath has nothing of the
dignity conferred by superior stature or commanding person, and it is
hard to restrain a smile at the vigour of her “fuff.”

“Twenty years auld, and nae mair sense than that!--the lassie’s daft! I
would like to ken how it’s possible for mortal woman to be cheery with
Nelly Panton within half a mile o’ her! If they flit to the Brigend at
the next term, as they’re aye threatening, I’ll gie the mistress her
leave mysel.”

“I think I’ll run away if you’re aye so crabbed, Jenny,” said her young
mistress. “What has everybody done?”

“Everybody’s done just a’ the mischief they could do,” said Jenny,
pathetically: “there’s no an article ever happens in this house that
mightna be mended if some ither body had the guiding o’t. There’s a’ the
gangrels o’ the countryside coming and gaun with their stories--there’s
the mistress hersel, that might have mair sense, ta’en a cauld in her
head, and a hoast fit to waken a’ the toun, standing at the door hearing
Bessy Edgar’s clavers about a no-weel wean--and there’s yoursel the
warst of a’. Do you think if onybody had ever askit me, that _I_ would
have gien my consent to let a lassie o’ your years plight her troth to a
wandering lad away to seek his fortune, like Randall Home? But you’ll
never ken the guid friend you’ve lost in Jenny till the puir body’s out
o’ the gate, and in her grave; and I wouldna say how soon that might be
if there’s nae end o’ on-gauns like thir.”

And with a loud long sigh Jenny sallied out through the paved passage,
from which you could catch a gleam of sunshine playing in chequers on
the strip of coloured matting and the margin of stones, to deliver just
such another lecture to the mistress in the parlour.

While Menie stands alone, her head thrown forward a little, her hair
playing lightly on her cheek, in a pause of pleasant fancy--yes, it is
true, Menie is betrothed. Calm as her heart lies in her pure girl’s
breast, Menie has seen the sky flush out of its natural summer beauty
with the warmer passionate hues of this new love; and many a tint of
joyous changeful colour plays about the bright horizon of Menie’s fancy,
and throws a charm of speculation into the future, which never spectre
has risen yet to obscure. It would need a sermon heavier than Jenny’s to
throw a single vapour of doubt or distrust upon Menie Laurie’s quiet
heart.




CHAPTER II.


Mrs Laurie of Burnside sits alone in her sunny parlour. The fire in the
grate, quite discountenanced and overborne by the light which pours in
from the west window, keeps up a persevering crackle, intent to catch
the ear, and keep itself in notice by that means if by no other. It is
the only sound you can hear, except the hum of the eight-day clock in
the passage without, and Jenny’s distant step upon the kitchen
floor;--Menie is out again on some further explorations about the
garden--Mrs Laurie sits and works alone.

You might call this room a drawing-room if you were ambitiously
disposed--it is only the parlour in Burnside. Every piece of wood about
it is dark with age and careful preservation; rich ancient mahogany
glimmering clear in the polish of many a year’s labour--little tables
with twisted spiral legs and fantastic ornaments almost as black as
ebony--and here in the corner a fine old cabinet of oak, with its
carved projections of flower and berry burnished bright, and standing
out in clear relief from the dark background. On the table lies some
“fancy-work,” which it irks the soul of Mrs Laurie to see her daughter
employed on; but what is to be done with Menie’s fingers, when our
mother feels the household necessities of sewing scarcely enough to
supply herself?

Go lightly over the rich colours of this well-preserved carpet, which is
older than yourself most probably, though it wears its age so well, and
we can look out and see what lies beyond the Burnside garden before Mrs
Laurie is aware. The west window is all fringed and glittering with
rain-drops lying lightly on the pale green buds of these honeysuckle
boughs, and now and then one of them falls pattering down upon the grass
like a sigh. Do not believe in it--it is but a mock of nature--the
counterfeit wherewithal a light heart enhances to itself its own calm
joy; for in reality and truth there is no such thing as sighing here.

Some thatched houses in a cluster, just where the green-mossed wall of
the bridge breaks out of the shelter of these guarding fir-trees--one
triumphant slated roof lifting itself a story higher than the gossipry
of those good neighbours who lay their brown heads together in a
perpetual quiet discussion of what goes on below. The light lies
quietly, half caressing, upon the thatch roofs, but gleams off the wet
slates, and flashes from the tiles yonder, in a sudden glow. There are
some loitering firs about, to thrust their outline on the enclosing sky,
and a hazy background of bare trees fluttering and glistering in the
light, all conscious of the new-budded leaves, which at this distance we
cannot see. Beyond the Brigend your eye loses itself on a line of road
travelling away towards the hills, with two great heavy ash-trees
holding their gaunt arms over it for a portal and gateway--on a level
line of fields, broken hedges, scattered trees, with the blue tints of
distance, and here and there the abrupt brown dash of a new-ploughed
field to diversify the soft universal green--and on the hills
themselves, a bold semi-circular sweep stealing off faintly to the sky
on one hand--while at the other, Criffel, bluff and burly, slopes his
great shoulder down upon the unseen sea.

Nearer at hand the burn itself looks through the garden’s thorny
boundary with glints and sunny glances, interchanging merrily with Menie
on the lawn, who pays its smiles with interest. This is almost all we
have to look at from the west window of Burnside.

And now, if you turn within to our mother in her easy-chair. It is not
quite what you call benign, this broad, full, well-developed brow; and
the eyes under it so brown, and liquid, and dewy, one fancies they could
flash with impatience now and then, and laugh out the warmest mirth, as
well as smile that smile of kindness, which few eyes express so well;
and it is best to say at the beginning that our mother is not benign,
and that it is no abstract being of a superior class lifted on the
height of patience, experience, and years, who sits before us in this
cushioned chair, bending her brow a little over the letter in her hand.
Sorrow and experience she has had in her day; but still our mother, with
warm human hands, and breast as full of hope and energy as it was twenty
years ago, takes a full grasp of life.

The linen she has been mending lies on the table beside her, more than
half concealing Menie’s lighter occupation; and, with her elbow leant
upon it, Mrs Laurie holds a letter with a half-puzzle of amusement, a
half-abstraction of thought. Strangely adverse to all her moods and
habits is the proposal it makes, yet Mrs Laurie lingers over it,
hesitates, almost thinks she will accept. Such a multitude of things are
possible to be done when one does them “for Menie’s sake.”

For Menie’s sake--but, in the mean time, it is best that Menie should
be called in to share the deliberation; and here she comes accordingly,
with such an odour of fresh air about her as makes the parlour fragrant.
Menie has a restless way of wandering about on sunny afternoons; there
is something in her that will not compose into quietness; and very poor
speed, when it is sunshine, comes Menie’s “fancy-work;” so that there is
nothing more common than this fragrance of fresh air in the parlour when
Menie’s presence is needed there.

“Your father’s aunt has written me a letter. I want your wisest thought
about it. Read it, Menie,” said Mrs Laurie, leaning back in her chair,
with an air of exhaustion. Menie read--

     “MY DEAR MRS LAURIE,--I find I really have forgotten your Christian
     name; and whether I have quite a right to call you my dear niece,
     or whether you might not think it an uncalled-for thing in me who
     have not the privilege of years, or if, one way or another, you
     would be pleased, I cannot tell, having so little acquaintance with
     your mental habits or ways of thinking. Indeed I confess I had
     nearly forgotten, my dear, that John Laurie had a wife and a little
     girl in Kirklands still, till just a chance recalled it to me: and
     I really have no means of finding out whether I should condole with
     you for living so much out of the world, or wish you joy of a
     pretty little house like Burnside, with its nice neighbourhood and
     good air. I am sometimes a little dull myself, living alone; and as
     I have positively made up my mind never to marry, and am so
     particular in my society that I never have above half-a-dozen
     friends whom I care to visit, it has occurred to me, since you were
     recalled to my recollection, that we might do worse than join our
     incomes together, and live as one household. I have pretty
     reception-rooms in my house, and a sleeping-room more than I
     need--a very good apartment; and the advantage of being near London
     is very great for a little girl, for masters, and all that: besides
     that, I flatter myself the attention I should make a point of
     paying her would be of great importance to your child; and out of
     what we could put together of our joint savings, we might make a
     very pretty marriage-portion for her when her time comes; for I
     have no other relations, as I fancy you know, and have very
     decidedly made up my mind, whatever persecution I may be exposed to
     on the subject, never to marry. I have one tolerably good servant,
     who is my own maid, and another very bad one, who has charge of all
     the household matters: the grief and annoyance this woman is to me
     are beyond description; and if you should happen to have an
     attached and faithful person in your house, I advise you to bring
     her with you;--of course you will require an attendant of your own.

     “I shall be glad to have a letter from you soon, letting me know
     what you will do. You would have a cheerful life with me, I think.
     I am myself a person of uncommonly lively disposition, though I
     have known so many of the more refined sorrows of life; and the
     freshness of youth is a delightful study. I feel I shall grow quite
     a child in sympathy with your little girl. Pray come--Hampstead is
     a delightful locality; so near London, too, and within reach of
     society so very excellent--and I am sure you would find the change
     greatly for your daughter’s good.

     “With much regard and kind feeling to both her and you, I am
     affectionately yours,

                                                  “ANNIE LAURIE.”



“To Hampstead! to London!” Menie says nothing more, but her eyes shine
upon her mother’s with a restless glow of appeal. London holds many a
wonder to the young curious heart which yet knows nothing of the world,
and London holds Randall Home.

“You would like to go, Menie? But how we should like this aunt of yours
is a different story,” said Mrs Laurie; “and for my part, I am very
well content with Burnside.”

“It is true she calls me a little girl,” said Menie, turning to her own
particular grievance; “but I should think she means everything very
kindly, for all that.”

“Fantastic old wife!” said Mrs Laurie, with a little impatient derision,
not unlike Jenny’s fuff. “She was older than your father, Menie--a woman
near sixty, I’ll warrant; and _she_ has made up her mind never to
marry--did ever anybody hear the like! But you need not look so
disappointed either. Put away the letter--we’ll take a night’s rest on
it, and then we’ll decide.”

But Menie read it over once more before she laid it aside, and Menie
betrayed her anxiety about the decision in a hundred questions which her
mother could not answer. Mrs Laurie had only once been in London, and
could tell nothing of Hampstead, the only reminiscence remaining with
her being of a verdant stretch of turf, all dinted over with little
mounds and hollows rich in green fern and furze, which the benighted
natives called a heath. Born within sight of Lochar Moss, Mrs Laurie
laughed the pretensions of this metropolitan heath to scorn.




CHAPTER III.


The wind sweeps freshly down from among the hills, a busy knave, drying
up the gleaming pools along the road as he hurries forward for a
moment’s pause and boisterous gossip with these two ash-trees. Very
solemn and abstracted as they stand, these elders of the wood, looking
as if session or synod were the least convention they could stoop to, it
is wonderful how tolerant they are of every breath of gossip, and with
what ready interest they rustle over all their twigs to see a new
unwonted stranger face pass under them. Menie Laurie, pausing to look up
through the hoar branches to the full blue sky, is too well known and
familiar to receive more than the friendly wave of recognition accorded
to every cottar neighbour nigh.

And clear and fresh as your own life, Menie, is the blue bright sky
which stoops above you. White clouds all streaked and broken fly over it
at a headlong pace, now and then throwing from their hasty hands a
sprinkling of rain that flashes in the sunshine. April is on the fields,
moving in that quiet stir with which you can hear the young green
corn-blades rustle, as they strike through the softened soil. April sits
throned upon the hills, weeping as she smiles in the blue distance, and
trying on her veil of misty sunshine, after a hundred fantastic
fashions, like a spoiled child; and April, Menie Laurie--April,
restless, fearless, springing forward on the future, gladdening all this
bright to-day with a breath of rippling sweet commotion, which dimples
all the surface over, but never disturbs the deeper waters at their
fountain-head--is in your youthful heart.

Hurrying to many a bright conclusion are the speculations that possess
it now--not extremely reasonable, or owning any curb of logic--not even
very consequent, full of joyous irrelevancies--digressions at which
yourself would laugh aloud if this running stream of fancy were but
audible and expressed--notwithstanding, full of interest, full of
pleasure, and keeping time with their rapid pace to the flying progress
of the clouds.

And the road glides away merrily under these straying footsteps; now
hastening, now loitering, as the momentary mood suggests. Old
hawthorns, doddered and crabbed, stand here and there forlorn upon the
edges of the way; and where the hedge is younger and less broken, there
are warm banks of turf, and clear bits of gleaming water, which it would
be an insult to call ditches, looking up through tangled grass, and a
wilderness of delicate stem and leaf, half weeds, half flowers. But now
we have a stile to cross, mounting up from the high-road; and now it is
a sunny hillside path, narrow and hemmed in between a low stone-wall,
from which all manner of mosses and tufts of waving herbage have taken
away the rudeness, and a field of young green corn: innocent enough just
now are these soft plants low upon the fragrant soil in the blade; but
you shall see how the bearded spikes will push you to the wall, and the
red poppies mock you, lying safe under shelter of the tall corn-forest,
if you try to pass in September where you can pass so easily in Spring.

A soft incline, at first sloping smoothly under the full
sunshine--by-and-by more rugged and broken, with something that looks
half like the ancient channel of a hill-spring, breaking all the soft
pasture-grass into a rough projecting outline, like a miniature
coast--and now a low hedge rough with thorns and brambles, instead of
the dyke; for, after all, this is no gentle southland hill, but one of
the warders of the Scottish Border, waving his plumed cap proudly in
the fresh spring air, as he looks over the low-lying debatable moors on
the other side, and defies the fells of Cumberland. If this were June,
as it is April, you would see foliage clustering richly about the bold
brow which he lifts to the clouds; just now the branches hang down, like
long light brown ringlets, half unravelled with the spring rain and
morning dew, and droop upon his falling shoulders as low as this green
nest here, so sheltered and solitary, which he holds in his expanded
arms.

It is no easy task to come at the state entrance and principal gate of
the farmhouse of Crofthill. But now that you have caught sight of its
white walls and slated roof, hold on stoutly--fear no gap in the hedge,
no rude stone-stair projecting out of the grey limestone dyke--and two
or three leaps and stumbles will bring you to the mossy paling, and to
some possible entrance-door. If there is no one about--a very improbable
circumstance, seeing that some curious eye at a window must have ere now
found out a passenger on the ascent, or some quick ear heard the dry
hedgerow branches crash under the coming foot--it is impossible to
describe the strange feeling of isolation which falls upon you, here at
the door of as friendly a little home as is on all the Border. At your
right hand those warder hills, in many a diverse tint of long-worn
livery, hold the vigilant line as far as Criffel, whose post is on the
sea; on the other side they disappear like a file of grey-headed
marshal-men, into the cloudy distance; underneath, remote, and still,
breaking softly into the fresh daylight, mapped out with gleaming burns
and long lines of winding road, lies the level country we have left; and
Burnside yonder, with its thin silvery glimmer of attendant water, its
dark background of trees, and the Brigend hamlet of which it is
patrician and superior, lies quiet and silent under the full sun.

The farmhouse of Crofthill is but two storeys high, and, with a strange
triangular slope of garden before it, fronts sideways, indifferent to
the landscape, though there is one glorious gable-window which makes
amends. Menie Laurie, bound for the Crofthill farmhouse, knows the view
so well that she does not pause for even a momentary glance, but,
lightly stepping over the last stile, is ready to meet this welcoming
figure which already calls to her, running down the garden to the little
mossy wicket in the paling of the lower end.

“July! July! you might have come to meet me,” said Menie. The air is so
quiet that her soft girl’s voice rings over all the hill.

July--but you must not look for anything like the gorgeous summer month,
in this little timid slight figure running down the sloping way with her
light brown hair so soft and silky that it is almost impossible to
retain it either in braid or curl, floating on the air behind her, and
her gentle pale face faintly glowing with a little flush of pleasure. If
there had been anything symbolic in the name, they had better have
called her February, this poor little July Home; but there is nothing
symbolic in the name--only John Home of Crofthill, many a long year ago,
had the hap to find somewhere, and bring triumphantly to his house on
the hill, a pretty little sentimental wife, with some real refinement in
her soft nature, and a good deal of the fantastic girl-romance, which
passes muster for it among the unlearned. Mrs Home, who called her son
Randall, called her little daughter Julia--Mrs Home’s husband, who knew
of nothing better than Johns or Janets, being quiescent, and kindly
submissive. But by-and-by, gentle Mrs Home drooped like the pale little
flower she was, and fell with the cold spring showers into her grave.
Then came big Miss Janet Home from Mid-Lothian, where she had spent her
younger days, to be mistress of her brother’s southland farm; and Miss
Janet’s one name for the flush of summer, and for her brother’s little
motherless petted girl, was Juley; so July came to be the child’s
acknowledged name.

But July springs half into Menie Laurie’s arms, and they go up through
the garden together, to where Miss Janet stands waiting on the
threshold. In simple stature, Miss Janet would make two of her little
niece; and though there is no other superfluous bulk about her, her
strong and massive framework would not misbecome a man; though a verier
woman’s heart never beat within the daintiest boddice, than this one
which sometimes “thuds” rather tumultuously, under the large printed
dark cotton gown of Miss Janet Home.

“Eh, bairn, I’m glad to see you,” said Miss Janet, holding in her own
large brown hand the soft fingers of Menie. “Come in-by, and get yoursel
rested. You see there’s a letter frae Randy this morning--”

With many a fit of indignation had Menie resented this Randy, which
contracted so unceremoniously her hero’s name; but the penitent Miss
Janet perpetually forgot, and immediately attributed the little cloud on
her favourite’s brow to some jealousy of this same letter of
Randy’s--and pique that it should come to Randy’s humble home instead of
to his lady-love.

“I’m aye sae uplifted about a letter,” continued Miss Janet, as she led
her visitor in, “though you that gets them every day mayna think--Eh,
Miss Menie, my dear! I mind noo it’s a’ me; but you needna gloom at what
was just a forget. I’ll never ca’ him Randy again; but, you see, I mind
him so weel in his wee coatie--a bit smout o’ a bairn.”

This did not exactly mend matters; but Menie had taken off her bonnet by
this time, and found her usual seat in the dim farm-parlour, with its
small windows and low-roofed green-stained walls. It was one of the
articles of Miss Janet’s creed, that blinds looked well from without;
so, although there could never a mortal look in through the thick panes
to spy the household economics of Crofthill, only one narrow strip of
the unveiled casement appeared between the little muslin curtain and the
blind. The gable window, commanding as it did half the level country of
Dumfriesshire, was less protected; but the front one cast a positive
shadow upon the dark thrifty coloured carpet, the hair-cloth chairs, the
mahogany table with its sombre cover, and gave to the room such an
atmosphere of shrouded shadowed quiet, that the little bouquet of
daffodils and wallflowers on the side-table hung their heads with
languid melancholy, and an unaccustomed spectator scarcely ventured with
more than a whisper to break the calm.

But Menie Laurie was not unaccustomed, and knew very well where was the
brightest corner, nor had much hesitation in drawing up the blind. But
Menie had grown very busy with the “fancy” work she had brought with
her, when Miss Janet approached with Randall’s letter in her hand.
Scandal said that Menie Laurie’s pretty fingers were never so
industrious at home as they found it agreeable to be abroad, and Menie
was coy and occupied, and put Randall’s letter aside.

“My dear, if you’re busy I’ll read it to you, mysel,” said Miss Janet,
who had no appreciation of coyness, “and you can tell your faither,
July, that Miss Menie’s come, and that the tea’s just ready; and ye can
gie a look ben to the kitchen as you’re passing, and see that Tibbie’s
no forgetting the time; and now gang about quiet, like a good bairn, and
dinna disturb me. I’m gaun to read the letter.”

And Miss Janet smoothed down her apron, to lay this prized epistle
safely on her knee, and wiped her glasses with affectionate eagerness.
“My dear, I’m no a grand reader of Randall’s write mysel,” said Miss
Janet, clearing her voice, “and he’s getting an awfu’ crabbed hand, as
you ken; but I’ve good-will, and you’ll just put up with me.”

It would have been hard for any one gifted with a heart to fail of
putting up with Miss Janet as she conned her nephew’s letter. True, she
had to pause now and then for a word--true, that she did not much assist
Randall’s punctuation; but it was worth even a better letter than
Randall’s to see the absorbed face, the affectionate care upon her brow,
the anxiety that pondered over all these crabbed corners, and would not
lose a word. Menie Laurie had soul enough not to be impatient--even to
look up at the abstracted Miss Janet with a little dew in her eye,
though her process of reading was very slow.

But now came Tibbie, the household servant of Crofthill, with the tea;
and now a little stir in the passage intimated that the maister, fresh
from his hillside fields, was hanging up his broad-brimmed hat in the
passage. Miss Janet seated herself at the tray--Menie drew her chair
away from the window, and a little nearer to the table, and, heralded by
July, who came in again like a quiet shadow, her little pale face
appearing in the midst of a stream of soft hair once more blown out of
its fastenings by the wind--John Home of Crofthill made his appearance,
stooping under his low parlour-door.

And perhaps it was these low portals which gave to the lofty figure of
the hillside farmer its habitual stoop; but John Home might have been a
moss-trooping chieftain for his strength--a baron of romance, for the
unconscious dignity and even grace of his bearing. He was older than you
would have expected July’s father to be, and had a magnificent mass of
white hair, towering into a natural crest of curls over his forehead.
The eyes were blue, something cold by natural colour, but warm and
kindly in their shining--the face full of shrewd intelligence, humour,
and good judgment. He had been nothing all his life but the farmer of
Crofthill--and Crofthill was anything but a considerable farm;
nevertheless John Home stood in the countryside distinct as his own
hill--and not unlike. A genius son does not fall to the lot of every
southland farmer, and Randall’s aspirations had elevated, unawares, the
whole tone of the family. Randall’s engagement, too, and the magic which
made Mrs Laurie of Burnside’s young lady-daughter, and not any farmhouse
beauty near, so kindly and intimate a visitor in Crofthill, was not
without its additional influence; but the house lost nothing of its
perfectly unpretending simplicity in the higher aims to which it
unconsciously opened its breast.

“And what is this I hear, of going to London?” said John Home, as he
took his seat at table. Self-respect hinders familiarity--the good
farmer did not like to call his daughter-in-law elect by her own simple
Christian name; so half in joke, and half to cover the shy,
constitutional hesitation, of which even age had not recovered him,
Menie bore in Crofthill, in contrast with the other name of July
habitual there, the pretty nickname of May--“Is it true that Burnside is
to flit bodily, as July says? I ken ane that will like the change; but I
must say that I ken some mair that will not be quite so thankful.”

“Ye may say that, John,” said Miss Janet, with a sigh. “I’m sure, for
his ain part, Miss Menie, he’ll no think the place is like itsel, and
you away; for if ever I saw a man”----

“Whisht,” said Crofthill hurriedly. The good man did not like his
partiality spoken of in presence of its object. “But I would like to
hear when this terrible flitting is to be.”

“My mother has not made up her mind yet,” said Menie. “It was yesterday
the letter came, and I left her still as undecided as ever--for she is
only half inclined to go, Mr Home; and as for Jenny”----

“It will be worth while to hear what Jenny says of London,” said John
Home with a smile; “but the countryside will gather a cloud when we
think May’s gone from Burnside. Well, July, speak out, woman; what is’t
you’re whispering now?”

“I was saying that Randall would be glad,” said July softly. July had a
fashion of whispering her share of the conversation to her next
neighbour, to be repeated for the general benefit.

“Eh, puir laddie!” exclaimed Miss Janet, with glistening eye. “I could
find it in my heart to be glad too, Miss Menie, though we are to lose
you, for his sake. I think I see the glint in his eye when he hears the
good news.”

And Miss Janet’s own eyes shone with loving, unselfish sympathy, as she
repeated, “Randy, puir callant! and no a creature heeding about him,
mair than he was a common young man, in a’ yon muckle toun!”

“We’ll let Randall say his pleasure himsel,” said his father, who was
more delicately careful of embarrassing Menie than either sister or
daughter--perhaps more, indeed, than the occasion required. “For my
part, I’m no glad, and never would pretend to be; and if Mrs Laurie
makes up her mind to stay”----

“What then?” said Menie, looking up quickly, with a flush of
displeasure.

“I’ll say she’s a very sensible woman,” said the farmer. “Ay, May, my
lassie, truly will I, for a’ that bonnie gloom of yours--or whatever my
son Randall may have to say.”




CHAPTER IV.


“I’ve been hearing something from Miss Menie, mem,” said Jenny, entering
the parlour of Burnside with a determined air, and planting herself
firmly behind the door. Jenny was very short, very much of one thickness
from the shoulders to the edge of the full round skirts under which
pattered her hasty feet--and had a slight deformity, variously estimated
by herself and her rustic equals according to the humour of the
moment--being no more than “a high shouther” in Jenny’s sunshiny
weather, but reaching the length of a desperate “thraw” when Jenny’s
temper had come to be as “thrawn” as her frame. A full circle, bunchy,
substantial, and comfortable, were Jenny’s woollen skirts, striped in
cheerful colours; and you had no warrant for supposing that any slovenly
superfluous bulk increased the natural dimensions of the round,
considerable waist, or stiff, well-tightened boddice, of which Jenny’s
clean short gown and firmly tied apron-strings defined the shape so
well. Very scanty was Jenny’s hair, and very little of it appeared under
her white muslin cap; and Jenny’s complexion was nothing to boast of,
though some withered bloom remained upon her cheeks. Her lips closed
upon each other firmly; her brow was marked with sundry horizontal
lines, which it was by no means difficult to deepen into a frown; and
Jenny’s eyes, grey, keen, and active, were at this present moment set in
fierce steadiness and gravity; while the little snort of her “fuff,” and
the little nod of her cap, with its full, well-ironed borders, gave
timely intimation of the mood in which Jenny came.

“Yes, Jenny,” said Mrs Laurie, laying down her work on her knee, and
sitting back into her chair. Mrs Laurie knew the signs and premonitions
well, and lost no time in setting her back against the rock, and taking
up her weapons of defence.

“I say I’ve been hearing something from Miss Menie, mem,” repeated Jenny
still more emphatically; “things are come a gey length, to my puir
thought, when it’s the youngest of the house that brings word of a great
change to me!--and I’m thinking the best thing we can do is to part
friends as lang as we can keep up decent appearances; so maybe ye’ll
take the trouble, mem, if it’s no owre muckle freedom of me asking you,
to look out for a new lass afore the term.”

“Indeed, Jenny, I’ll do no such thing,” said Mrs Laurie quietly. Jenny
heeded not, but went on with a little nervous motion of her head, half
shake, half nod, and many a snort and half-drawn breath interposed
between.

“There’s been waur folk than Jenny serving in this house, I reckon. I’ve
kent women mysel that did less wark with mair slaistry--and aye as
muckle concerned for the credit of the house; but I’m no gaun to sound
my ain praise; and I would like to ken whether I’m to be held to the six
months’ warning, or if I may put up my kist and make my flitting like
other folk at the term?”

“You can make your flitting, Jenny, when we make ours; that is soon
enough, surely,” said Mrs Laurie with a half smile. Jenny had not roused
her mistress yet to anything but defence, so with a louder fuff than
ever she rushed to the attack again.

“For a smooth-spoken lass--believe hersel, she wouldna raise the stour
without pardon craved--I would recommend Nelly Panton. There’s no muckle
love lost atween her and me--but she’ll say ony ill of Jenny--and aye
have a curtsy ready for a lady’s ca’, and her een on the grund, and
neither mind nor heart o’ her ain, if the mistress says no. Na, I
wouldna say but Nelly Panton’s the very ane to answer, for she’ll never
take twa thoughts about casting off father and mother, kin and country,
whenever ye like to bid--though ye’ll mind, mem, it’s for sake of the
wage, and no for sake of you.”

“Dear me, Jenny,” said Mrs Laurie impatiently, “when did I ask for such
a sacrifice? What makes ye such a crabbed body, woman? Did I ever bid a
servant of mine give up father or mother for me? You have been about
Burnside ten years now, Jenny--when did you know me do anything like
that?”

“A lady mayna mean ony ill--I’m no saying’t,” said Jenny; “but ane may
make a bonnie lock of mischief without kenning. I’ve been ten years
about Burnside--ay, and mair siller!--and to think the mistress should
be laying her odds and ends thegither--a woman at her time of life--to
flit away to a strange country, and never letting on a word to Jenny,
till the puir body’s either forced into a ship upon the sea, or thrown
on the cauld world to find her drap parritch at ony doorstep where
there’s charity! Eh, sirs, what’s the favour of this world to trust to!
But I’m no gaun to break my heart about it, for Jenny has twa guid hands
o’ her ain--nae thanks to some folk--to make her bread by yet!”

“Jenny’s an unreasonable body,” said her mistress, with half-amused
annoyance: “and if you were not spoken to before, it was just because
my mind was unsettled, and it’s only since yesterday I have thought of
it at all. If I make up my mind to go, it’s for anything but pleasure to
myself--so you have no occasion to upbraid me, Jenny, for doing this at
my time of life.”

“Me!” exclaimed Jenny, lifting her hands in appeal, “me upbraid the
mistress! Eh, sirs, the like of that! But, mem, will you tell me, if
it’s no for your ain pleasure, you that’s an independent lady, what for
would you leave Burnside?”

Mrs Laurie hesitated; but Mrs Laurie knew very well that nothing could
be more unprofitable than any resentment of Jenny’s fuff--and her own
transitory displeasure had already died away.

“You may say we’re independent at this present time,” she said with a
little sigh; “but did it never occur to you, Jenny--if anything happened
to me--my poor lassie!--what’s to become of Menie then?”

“Havers!” cried Jenny loudly. “I mean--I ask your pardon--but what’s
gaun to happen to you this twenty years and mair?”

“Twenty years is a lifetime of itself,” said her mistress; “it might not
be twenty days nor twenty hours. The like of us have no right to reckon
our time.”

“It’s time for me to buckle my shoon to my feet, and my cloak to my
shouthers, if you’re thinking upon your call,” said Jenny. “But, no to
be ill-mannered, putting my forbears in ae word with yours, we’re baith
come of a lang-lived race--and you’re just in your prime, as weel as
ever ye was; and ’deed, I canna think it onything but a reflection upon
myself, that maybe might get to the kirk mair constant if I was to try,
when I hear ye speaking like that to puir auld wizened Jenny, that’s six
and fifty guid, no to speak of the thraw she’s had a’ her days.”

And a single hot tear of petulant distress fell upon Jenny’s arm.

“Well, Jenny,” said Mrs Laurie, “one thing we’ll agree in, I know--you
could not wish so ill a wish to Menie, poor thing, as that she might
leave this world before her mother. You would think it in the course of
nature that Menie should see both you and me in our graves. Now, if I
was taken away next week, or next year,--what is my poor bairn to do?”

And Jenny vainly fuffed to conceal the little fit of sobbing which this
idea brought upon her. “Do! She’ll be married upon her ain gudeman lang
years afore that time comes; and Randall Home’s a decent lad, though
I’ll no say he would have just taken _my_ fancy, if onybody had askit
me; and she’ll hae a hunder pound or twa to keep her pocket, of what
you’re aye saving for her; and I have twa-three bawbees laid up in the
bank mysel.”

“Ay, Jenny, so have I,” said her mistress; “but two or three hundred
pounds is a poor provision for a young friendless thing like Menie; and
I have nothing but a liferent in Burnside; and my annuity, you know,
ends with me. No doubt there’s Randall Home to take into consideration;
but the two of them are very young, Jenny, and many a thing may come in
the way. I would like Menie to have something else to depend on than
Randall Home.”

“Bless me, mem, you’ve a mote in your een the day,” said Jenny
impatiently. “What’s the puir callant done now? They tell me he’s as
weel-doing a lad as can be, and what would onybody have mair?”

“Hush, Jenny,” said Mrs Laurie, “and hear me to an end. This lady has a
better income than I have, and she says we may lay our savings together
for Menie--a very good offer; and Menie can get better education,
whatever may happen to her; and we can see with our own eyes how Randall
Home is coming on in the world; for you see, Jenny, I have a kind of
right to be selfish on Menie’s account. I’ve tried poverty myself in my
day; and Menie is my only bairn.”

The tears came into the mother’s eyes. Menie had not always been her
only bairn; and visions of a bold brother, two years older than her
little girl, and natural protector and champion of Menie, flashed up
before her in the bright air of this home room, where ten years ago her
first-born paled and sickened to his early death.

“I wouldna gang--no a fit,” exclaimed Jenny, breaking into a little
passion of anger and tears. “Wha’s trusting in Providence now--wha’s
leaving the ane out of the question that has a’ in His hands--and making
plans like as if He didna remain when we were a’ away? I didna think
there had been sae little mense--I couldna have believed there was sae
little grace in a house like this--and I wouldna gang a fit--no me--as
if I thought Providence was owre puir an inheritance for the bairn!”

And Jenny hurried away to her kitchen, to expend both tears and anger;
but Jenny’s opposition to the London “flitting,” in spite of her
indignant protest, died from that hour.




CHAPTER V.


The sun is dipping low into the burning sea far away, which Criffel’s
envious shoulder hides from us; and the last sheaf of rays, like a
handful of golden arrows, strikes down into the plain, grazing this same
strong shoulder with ineffectual fire as they pass. Touches as of rosy
fingers are on all the clouds, and here and there one hangs upon the sky
in an ecstacy, suspended not upon the common air, but on some special
atmosphere of light. The long attendant shadows have faded from the
trees, the roadside pools have lost their brilliant glimmer, and a
wakeful whispering hush about the hedgerows and old hawthorns stir all
those curious budded watchers, to hear the slow lounging steps of rustic
labourers on the road, and wait for the delicate gleam out of the east
which shall herald the new-risen moon.

And light are your home-going steps, May Marion, upon this quiet road,
which breathes out fresh evening odours from all its dewy neighbour
fields--not slow, but lingering--arrested by a hundred fanciful delays.
Before you is no great range of prospect--the two ash-trees, holding up
their united arms, very much as the children of the Brigend, playing
under them, hold up _their_ small clasped hands arched over the merry
troop who are rushing yonder “through the needle ee”--the hamlet’s
meditative houses, standing about the road here and there, in the
pleasant vacancy of the slow-falling gloaming--the burn rumbling
drowsily under the bridge--the kye coming home along the further
way--and farthest off of all, the grave plantation firs, making a dark
background for your own pleasant home. The purple shadows are fading
into palmer grey upon the hills behind, and the hills themselves you
could almost fancy contract their circle, and grasp each other’s hands
in closer rank, with a manful tenderness for this still country,
child-like and unfearing, which by-and-by will fall asleep at their
feet. Your heart scarcely sings in the hush, though you carry it so
lightly; its day’s song is over, Menie Laurie--and the quiet heart comes
down with a little flutter of sweet thought into the calm of its kindly
nest.

The light is fading when Menie reaches the Brigend; and by the door of
one of the cottages, Nelly Panton, in her close bonnet and humble
enveloping shawl, stands beside the stone seat on which an older woman,
who holds her head away with pertinacity, has seated herself to rest.

“She’ll no take heart, whatever I can do,” says the slow steady voice of
Nelly, from which the elastic evening air seems to droop away, throwing
it down heavily upon the darkening earth. “I’m sure I couldna say mair,
auntie, nor do mair to please her than I aye try, in my quiet way; but
morning and night she mourns after Johnnie, making nae mair account of
me than if I was a stranger in the house. And what should ail
Johnnie?--for I’m sure I dinna ken what would come o’ folk in our
condition if we were aye write-writing from ae hand to anither, like
them that have naething else to do. If onything was wrang, we would hear
fast enough. I’m saying, mother!”

“If you would but let me be!” groaned the older woman; “I’m no
complaining to you. If I _am_ anxious in my mind, I’m no wanting to
publish’t afore a’ the parish. I’m meaning nae offence to you,
Marget--but I think this lassie’s tongue will drive me out of my wits.”

“That’s just her way,” said Nelly, with mournful complacency. “Instead
of taking it kind when I try to ease her, ye would think I was doing
somebody an injury; and I’m sure it’s a fashious temper indeed that
canna put up with me--for I’ve aye been counted as quiet a lass as there
is in the haill countryside, and never did ill to onyhody a’ my days.
From morning to night I’m aye doing my endeavour to get comfort to
her--hearing of the lads that have done weel in London, and aye standing
up for Johnnie that he’s no sae ill as he’s ca’ed, though he mayna write
as often as some do; and just yesterday I gaed myself to Burnside, a
guid mile o’ gate from our house, to ask Miss Menie Laurie to write to
Randall Home for word about Johnnie,--and I’m sure what ony mortal could
do mair, I canna tell.”

“What business has Miss Menie Laurie, or Randall Home either, with my
trouble?” exclaimed the mother indignantly. “Am I no to daur shed a tear
in my ain house, but a’ the toun’s to hear o’t? Yes, Miss Menie, I see
it’s you, but I canna help it. I’m no meaning disrespect either to you
or ony of your friends; but naebody could thole to have their private
thoughts turned out for a’ the world to see--and she’ll put me daft if
she gets encouragement to gang on at this rate.”

“Must I not ask about Johnnie, Mrs. Lithgow?” said Menie; “Nelly said it
would comfort you.”

“Nelly’s aye saying something to aggravate a puir woman out of baith
life and patience,” said Nelly’s mother; “and he’s just her
half-brother, you see, and she hasna the interest in him she might
have. I’m sure I canna tell how she came to be a daughter of mine,”
continued the poor woman, rising and turning away to address herself,
rapidly and low, to Menie’s particular ear. “I would do mony a thing
afore I would have my ain troubled thoughts, or so muckle as a breath on
Johnnie’s credit, kent in the countryside; and I’m no sae anxious--no
near sae anxious as that cuttie says; but, Miss Menie, you’re an
innocent lassie--I’ll trust you. I have a tremble in my heart for my
young son, away yonder his lane. No that Johnnie has ony ill ways--far
from that, far from that--and a better son to his mother never was the
world owre; but an innocent thing like you disna ken how a puir laddie’s
tempted--and there’s no a creature near hand to mind him of his duty,
and naething but a wheen careless English, that disna ken our kirk nor
our ways, at every side of him--and I charged him he was to gang to nae
kirk but our ain. I’m sure I dinna ken--whiles things that folk mean for
guid counsel turn out snares--and I’m sair bewildered in my mind. If
you’ll just write, Miss Menie--just like as it was out of your ain head,
and bid the young gentleman--I hear he’s turned a grand scholar, and
awfu’ clever--take the pains to ask how Johnnie’s winning on--but no to
say you have heard ony ill of him. I wouldna have him think his mother
was doubtful of him, no for a’ Kirklands parish--and he’s aye in the
office of that muckle paper that a’body’s heard about--at least as far
as I ken. Eh, Miss Menie, it’s a sair thing to have so mony weary miles
of land and water, and sae muckle uncertainty, between ane’s ain heart
and them that ane likes best.”

With gravity and concern Menie received this confidence, and gave her
promise; but Menie did not know how “sair” and terrible this uncertainty
was--could not comprehend the wavering paleness of terror, the sickly
gleams of anxiety which shot over the poor mother’s face--and a wistful
murmur of inquiry, a pity which was almost awe, were all the echoes this
voice of real human suffering awoke in Menie’s quiet heart.

And when she had soothed, and comforted, and promised, this gentle heart
went on its way--its flutter of sweet thoughts subdued, but only into a
fresh reposing calm, like the stillness all bedewed and starry which
gathered on the dim home-country round. Wisdom of the world--Experience
chill and sober--Knowledge of human kind--grim sisterhood, avoid your
twilight way--and by yourself all fearless and undaunted, hoping all
things, believing all things, thinking no evil, you are brave enough to
go forth, Menie Laurie, upon the world without a tremble; by-and-by
will come the time to go forth--and Heaver send the lion to guard this
quiet heart upon its way.

In her own chamber, when the night had fully fallen, Menie wrote her
letter. Many a mile of land and water, many a new-developed thought on
one side, lay between Menie Laurie and Randall Home; but uncertainty had
never sickened the blithe child’s hope within her; an ample country,
full of mountain-peaks and rocks of danger--burning with hidden breaks
of desert, with wells of Marah treacherous and insecure, was the soul
which fate had linked so early to Menie Laurie’s soul. She knew the
sunny plains that were in it--the mounts of vision, the glens of dreamy
sweet romance; but all besides, and all that lay deepest in her own
unexplored mind, remained to be discovered. But what she did not know
she could not fear.




CHAPTER VI.


“Jenny, Jenny, canna ye open the door--it’s just me.”

“It’s just you, mischief and mischief-maker as ye are,” muttered Jenny,
in answer to Nelly Panton’s soft appeal; “and what are you wanting
here?”

But Jenny could not be so inhospitable as to shut out with a closed door
the applicant for admission, especially as a rapid April shower was just
then flashing out of the morning skies. Nelly came in breathless,
shaking some bright raindrops off her dingy shawl; but neither the rain
upon her cheeks, nor the fresh wind that carried it, nor even the haste
of her own errand, sufficed to bring any animating colour to Nelly
Panton’s face.

“I’m no to stay a minute,” she said breathlessly. “No a creature kens
I’m here; and you’re no to bid me stay, but just gie me your advice and
let me rin--I maun be hame before my mother kens.”

“_I_ have nae will to keep ye; ye needna be feared,” retorted Jenny.
“And what’s your pleasure now, that you’ve got so early out to
Burnside?”

“Nane of the ladies ’ll be stirring yet,” said Nelly, looking round
cautiously. “It was just a thing I wanted to ask you, Jenny--I ken
you’re aye a guid friend.”

“Sorrow!” muttered Jenny between her teeth--but the end of the sentence
died away; and whether the word was used as an epithet, or whether it
was “Sorrow take you!” Jenny’s favourite ban, Nelly, innocently
confiding, did not pause to inquire.

“For I heard in the Brigend that you had been kent to say that you
wouldna gang a’ the gate to London if the mistress ga’e you triple your
wage,” said Nelly, “and that you would recommend her to a younger lass.
My auntie, Marget Panton, even gaed the length to say that ye had been
heard to mention my name; but I wouldna have the face to believe that,
though mony thanks to ye for the thought; and I just ran out whenever I
rose this morning, to say, do ye think I might put in an application,
Jenny, aye counting on you as a guid friend?”

“Wha ever gave ye warrant to believe that I was a guid friend?”
exclaimed Jenny. “My patience! you taking upon you to offer yoursel for
my place. _My_ place! And wha daured to say I wanted to leave the
mistress? Do ye think wage, or triple wage, counts wi’ me? Do ye think
I’m just like yoursel, you pitiful self-seeking creature? Do ye think
ony mortal would ever be the better of you in ony strait, frae a sair
finger to a family misfortune? Gae way wi’ ye! My place, my certy! Would
naething serve ye but that?”

“Ye see I’m no taking weel wi’ hame,” said the undismayed Nelly. “My
mother and me canna put up right, and me being sae lang away before,
she’s got out of the use of my attentions, and canna understand them.
But I’m real attentive for a’ that, Jenny, and handy in mony a thing
that wouldna be expected frae the like o’ you; and I could wait on Miss
Menie, ye ken, being mair like her ain years, and fleech up the mistress
grand. I ken I could--besides greeing wi’ the stranger servants, which
it’s no to be expected you would do, being aye used to your ain way. But
for my part, I’m real quiet and inoffensive--folk never ken me in a
house; and I have my ain reasons for wanting to gang to London, baith to
look after Johnnie, and ither concerns o’ my ain--and I would aye stand
your friend constant, and be thankful to you for recommending me--and
I’m sure afore the year was done the mistress would be thankful too for
a guid lass--and I could recommend you to a real fine wee cottage atween
Kirklands and the Brigend, with a very cheery window looking to the
road, that would do grand for a single woman; or my mother would be
blithe to take you in for a lodger, and she’s guid company when she’s no
thrawn--and Jenny, woman----”

“Gang out of this house,” said Jenny, with quiet fury, holding the door
wide open in her hand, and setting down her right foot upon the floor of
her own domain, with a stamp of absolute supremacy. “No anither
word--gang out of this door, and let me see your face again if ye daur!
Gang to London--fleech up the mistress--wait upon Miss Menie! My
patience!--and you’ll ca’ a decent woman thrawn to me! Gang out o’ this
house, ye shadow!--the sight o’ you’s enough to thraw ony mortal temper.
Your mother, honest woman!--but I canna forgive her for being art or
part in bringing the like of you to this world. Are ye gaun away
peaceably--or I’ll put ye out by the shouthers wi’ my ain twa hands!”

“Eh, sic a temper!” said Nelly Panton, vanishing from the threshold as
Jenny made one rapid step forward. “I’m sure I forgive you, Jenny,
though I’m sure as weel, that if the rain hadna laid a’ the stour, mony
a ane has shaken the dust off their feet for a testimony against less
ill usage than you’ve gien me; but I’m thankful for my guid
disposition--I’m thankful that there’s nae crook in me, and I leave you
to your ain thoughts, Jenny Durward; it’s weel kent what a life thae twa
puir ladies lead wi’ ye, through a’ the countryside.”

The kitchen door violently shut, by good fortune drowned for Jenny this
last vindictive utterance, and Nelly Panton, unexcited, drew her shawl
again close over her elbows, and went with her stealthy steps upon her
way--a veritable shadow falling dark across the sunshine, and without a
spot of brightness in her, within or without, to throw back reflection,
or answer to the sunny morning light which flashed upon all the
glistening way.

But no such quietness possessed the soul of Jenny of Burnside; over the
fresh sanded floor of her bright kitchen her short vigorous steps
pattered like hail. Cups and saucers came ringing down from her hands
upon the tray, which she was crowding with breakfast “things.” The
bread-basket quivered upon the table where her excited hand had set it
down. She turned to the hearth, and the poor little copper kettle rang
upon the grate--the poker assaulted the startled fire--the very chain
quaked and trembled, hanging from the old-fashioned crook far back in
the abyss of the chimney. Very conspicuous in this state of the mental
atmosphere became Jenny’s high shoulder. It seemed to develop and
increase with every additional fuff, and the most liberal and kindly
commentator could not have denied this morning the existence of the
“thraw.”

And not without audible expression, over and above the hard-drawn breath
of the “fuff,” was Jenny’s indignation. “My place, my certy! less
wouldna serve her!”--“Handier than could be expected frae the like o’
me!”--“Stand my friend constant!”--“A cot-house atween Kirklands and the
Brigend!” A snort of rage punctuated and separated every successive
quotation, till, as Jenny cooled down a little, there came to her relief
a variety of extremely complimentary titles, all very eloquent and
expressive, conveying in the clearest language Jenny’s opinion of the
good qualities of Nelly Panton, which last, by-and-by, however, softened
still further into the milder chorus of “a bonnie ane!” with which
Jenny’s wrath gradually wore itself away.

All this time the sunshine lay silent and unbroken upon the paved
passage, with its strip of matting, and the light shone quiet in Mrs
Laurie’s parlour. The petulant rain had ceased to ring upon the panes,
though some large drops hung there still, clinging to the framework of
the window, and gradually shrinking and drying up before the light. The
branches without made a sheen through the air, almost as dazzling as if
every tree were a Highland dancer with a drawn claymore in his right
hand; and the larch flung its spray of rain upon Menie Laurie’s chamber
window, bidding her down to the new life and the new day which
brightened all the watching hills.

And now comes Mrs Laurie steadily down the stairs with her little shawl
in her hand, and traces of a mind made up and determined in her face;
and now comes Menie, with a half song on her lips, and a little light of
amusement and expectation in her eyes, for Menie has heard afar off the
sound of Jenny’s excitement. But Jenny, too decorous to invade the
dignity of the breakfast-table, says nothing when she brings in the
kettle, and does not even add to its fuff the sound of her own, and
Menie has time to grow composed and grave, and to hear with a more
serious emotion Mrs Laurie’s decision. Not without a sigh Mrs Laurie
intimates it, though her daughter knows nothing of the one reason which
has overweighed all others. But the ruling mind of the household, having
decided, loses no time in secondary hesitations. “We will try to let
Burnside as it is, Menie,” said Mrs Laurie, looking round upon the
familiar room. “If we can get a careful tenant, it will be far better
not to remove the furniture. If we make it known at once, the house may
be taken before the term; and I will write to your aunt and say that we
accept her offer. It is a long journey by land, and expensive. I think
we will go to Edinburgh first, Menie. The weather is settled, and should
be fine at Whitsunday; and then to London by sea.”

Menie did not trust herself to express in words the excitement of hope
and pleasure with which she heard this great and momentous change
brought down into a matter of sober everyday arrangement; but it was not
difficult to understand and translate the varying colour on her cheek,
and the sudden gleam of her sunny eyes. As it happened, however, with a
natural caprice, the one objection which her mother’s will could not set
aside suddenly suggested itself to Menie. She looked up with a slight
alarm--“But Jenny, mother?” Menie Laurie could not realise the
possibility of leaving Jenny behind.

Mrs Laurie’s hand had not left the bell. Jenny, at the door, caught the
words with satisfaction. But Jenny did not choose to acknowledge herself
subject to any influence exercised by the “youngest of the house;” and
Jenny, moreover, had come prepared, and had no time to lose in
preliminaries.

“There’s twa or three things to be done about the house before onybody
can stir out o’ this,” said Jenny emphatically, pausing when she had
half cleared the breakfast-table. “I want to ken, mem, if it’s your
pleasure, what time we’re to gang away.”

“I have just been thinking--about the term, Jenny,” said her mistress,
accepting Jenny’s adhesion quietly and without remark--“if we can get a
tenant to Burnside.”

“I thought you would be wanting a tenant to Burnside,” muttered Jenny,
“to make every table and chair in the house a shame to be seen, and the
place no fit to live in when we come back; but it’s nane o’ Jenny’s
business if the things maun be spoiled. I have had a woman at me this
morning wi’ an offer to gang in my place. I’ve nae business to keep it
out o’ your knowledge, so you may get Nelly Panton yet, if it’s your
pleasure, instead o’ me. I’m speaking to your mother, Miss Menie; the
like o’ you has nae call to put in your word. Am I to tell Nelly you
would like to speak to her, mem--or what am I to say?”

And Jenny again planted her right foot firmly before her, again expanded
her irascible nostril, and, with comic perversity and defiance, stood
and waited for her mistress’s answer.

“Away you go, Jenny, and put your work in order,” said Mrs Laurie; “get
somebody in from the Brigend to help you, and let everything be ready
for the flitting--you know I don’t want Nelly Panton--no, you need not
interrupt me--nor anybody else. We’ll all go to London together, and
we’ll all come back again some time, if we’re spared. I don’t know how
you would manage without _us_, Jenny; but see, there’s Menie with open
eyes wondering what we should do without you.”

“Na, the bairn has discrimination,” said Jenny steadily; “that’s just
what I say to mysel. Nae doubt it’s a great change to a woman at my time
o’ life, but I just say what could the two ladies do, mair especially a
young lassie like Miss Menie, and that’s enough to reconcile ane to mony
a thing. Weel, I’ll see the wark putten in hands; but if you take my
advice, mem, ye’ll see baith mistress and maid afore ye let fremd folk
into Burnside. It’s no ilka hand that can keep up a room like this; for
I ken mysel the things were nae mair like what they are now, when I came
first, than fir wood’s like oak; and what’s the matter of twa or three
pounds, by the month, for rent, in comparison wi’ ruining a haill house
o’ furniture?--though, to be sure, it’s nae business o’ mine; and if
folk winna take guid counsel when it’s offered, naebody can blame
Jenny.”

So saying, Jenny went briskly to her kitchen, to set on foot immediate
preparations for the removal, leaving her “guid counsel” for Mrs
Laurie’s consideration. Mrs Laurie found little time to deliberate. She
had few distant friends, and no great range of correspondents at any
time, and another perusal of Miss Annie Laurie’s epistle set her down
to answer it with a puzzled face. A little amusement, a little
impatience, a little annoyance, drew together the incipient curve on Mrs
Laurie’s brow, and Jenny’s advice got no such justice at her hands as
would have satisfied Jenny, and was summarily dismissed when its time of
consideration came.




CHAPTER VII.


“Johnnie Lithgow exists no longer.” The words chased the colour from
Menie Laurie’s cheek, and drew a pitying exclamation from her lips.
Alas, for Johnnie Lithgow’s mourning mother! But Menie read on and
laughed, and was consoled. “There is no such person known about the
office of the great paper; but Mr Lythgoe, the rising critic, the leader
of popular judgments, and writer of popular articles, is fast growing
into fame and notice. The days of the compositor are over, and I fear
the author must be a little troubled about the plebeian family who once
rejoiced the poor young printer’s heart. Yet the heart remains a very
good heart, my dear Menie--vain, perhaps, and a little fickle and
wavering, not quite knowing its own mind, but a very simple kindly heart
in the main, and sure to come back to all the natural duties and loves.
I give you full warrant to comfort the mother. Johnnie has been
somewhat _fêted_ and lionised of late, and is not, perhaps, at present
exactly what our sober unexcitable friends call _steady_. His head is
turned with the unusual attention he has been receiving, and perhaps a
little salutary humiliation may be necessary to bring him down again;
but I have no fear of him in the end. He is very clever, writes
extremely well, and is one of the most wise and sensible of men--in
print. I almost wonder that I have not mentioned him to you sooner, for
he and I have seen a good deal of each other of late, and Johnnie is a
very good fellow, I assure you--not without natural refinement, and very
fresh, and hearty, and genial; moreover, a rising man, as the common
slang goes, and one who has made a wonderful leap in a very short time;
so we must pardon him in his first elation if he seems a little
negligent of his friends.”

A slight flush of colour ran wavering over Menie’s cheek as “a little
salutary humiliation may be necessary” she repeated under her breath,
and, starting at the sound of her own voice, looked round guiltily, as
if in terror lest she had been overheard. But there was no one to
overhear--no one but her own heart, which, suddenly startled out of its
quiet, looks round too with a timid, troubled glance, as if a ghost had
crossed its line of vision, and hears these words echoing softly among
all the trees. Well, there is no harm in the words, but Menie feels as
if, in whispering them, she had betrayed some secret of her betrothed,
and with an uneasy step and clouded face she turns away.

Why?--or what has Randall done to call this shadow up on Menie Laurie’s
way? But Menie Laurie neither could or would tell, and only feels a
cloud of vague vexation and unexplainable displeasure rise slowly up
upon her heart.

Yet it is no very long time till Mrs Laurie hears the news, unshadowed
by any dissatisfaction, and very soon after Menie is speeding along the
Kirklands road restored to all her usual cloudlessness, though it
happens somehow, that, after a second bold plunge at it in the stillness
of her own room, which reddened Menie’s cheek again with involuntary
anger, she skips this objectionable paragraph in Randall’s letter, and,
asking herself half audibly, what Johnnie Lithgow is to her, solaces
herself out of her uneasiness by Randall’s exultation over her own last
letter. For Randall is most heartily and cordially rejoiced to think of
having his betrothed so near him--there can be no doubt of that.

And here upon the hillside path, almost like one of those same delicate
beechen boughs which wave over its summit, July Home comes fluttering
down before the wind--her soft uncertain feet scarcely touching the
ground, as you can think--her brown dress waving--her silky hair
betraying itself as usual, astray upon her shoulders. Down comes July,
not without a stumble now and then, over boulder or bramble, but looking
very much as if she floated on the sweet atmosphere which streams down
fresh and full from the top of the hill, and the elastic spring air
could bear her well enough upon its sunny current for all the weight she
has. Very simple are the girlish salutations exchanged when the friends
meet. “Eh, Menie, where are you going?” and “Is that you, July?--you can
come with me.”

And now the road has two shadows upon it instead of one, and a murmur of
low-toned voices running like a hidden tinkle of water along the
hedgerow’s side. “Johnnie Lithgow! eh, I’m glad he’s turned clever,”
said little July; “he used to come up the hill at nights when nobody
ever played with me; and I think, Menie--you’ll no be angry?--he had
more patience than Randall, for I mind him once carrying me, when I was
just a little thing, all the way round the wood to the Resting Stane, to
see the sunset, and minding what I said too, though I was so wee. I’m
glad, Menie--I’m sure I’m very glad; but Randall, being clever himself,
might have told us about Johnnie Lithgow before.”

“You never can think that Johnnie Lithgow is as clever as Randall,”
said Menie, indignantly. “That’s not what I mean either. Randall’s not
clever, July. You need not look so strange at me. Clever! Jenny’s
clever; I’m clever myself at some things; but Randall--I call Randall a
genius, July.”

And Menie raised loftily the face which was now glowing with a flash of
affectionate pride. With a little awe July assented; but July still in
her inmost heart asserted Randall to be clever, and rather avoided a
discussion of this perplexing word genius, which July did not feel
herself quite competent to define or understand.

And now the road begins to slope upwards, the hedgerow breaks and opens
upon braes of close grass, marked here and there by bars and streaks of
brown, like stationary shadows, and rich with little nests of
low-growing heather and hillside flowers. An amphitheatre of low hills
opens now from the summit of this one, which the road mounts. Bare
unwooded slopes, falling away at their base into cultivated fields, and
rising upward in stretches of close-cropped pasture land; soft luxurious
grass, sweet with its thyme and heather, with small eyes of flowers
piercing up from under its close-woven blades--soft as summer couch need
be, and elastic as ever repelled the foot of passing herdsman; but
looking somewhat bare in its piebald livery, as it breaks upon the
bright spring sky above.

And the road dives down--down into the hollows of the circle, where
gleams a winding burn, and rises a village, its roofs of tile and thatch
basking serenely in the sun. A little church, holding up a little open
belfry against the hillside, as if entreating to be lifted higher,
stands at the entrance of the village; and you can already see the
little span-broad bridges that cross the burn, and the signboards which
hang above the doors of the cottage shops in the main street. Here, too,
keeping the road almost like an official of equal authority, the smithy
glows with its fiery eye upon the kirk; for the kirk, you will perceive,
is almost a new one, and has little pretensions to the hereditary
reverence of its small dependency, standing there bare and alone,
without a single grave to keep watch upon; whereas the smiddy’s antique
roof is heavy with lichens; and ploughs and harrows, resplendent in
primitive red and blue, obtrude themselves a little way beyond its door,
with the satisfaction of conscious wealth.

And here is a cottage turning its back upon the burn, and modestly
setting down its white doorstep upon the rude causeway; the door is
open, and some one sits at work by the fireside within; but in a corner
stands a sack of meal, and a little humble counter interposes sideways
between the fire and the threshold. Some humble goods lie on the
window-shelves, and the counter itself has a small miscellany--dim
glasses, full of “sweeties;” dimmer still with balls of cotton, blue and
white, with stiffly-twisted sticks of sampler worsted, and red and
yellow stalks of barley-sugar, scarcely to be distinguished from the
thread. Altogether the counter, with its dangling scales, the
half-filled shelves that break the light from the window, and the few
drawers behind, fit out the village shop where Mrs Lithgow does a little
daily business, enough to keep herself, alone and widowed, in daily
bread.

For Nelly Panton, sitting behind at the fire, is a mantua-maker, and
maintains herself. By good fortune, this maintenance is very cheaply
accomplished; and Nelly’s “drap parritch” and cup of tea are by much the
smallest burden which her society entails upon her mother. Decent lass
as Nelly is, she has come through no small number of vicissitudes, and
swayed between household service and this same disconsolate
mantua-making of hers, like the discontented pendulum--not to speak of
two or three occasions past, when Nelly has been just on the eve of
being married, a consummation which even the devout desire of Mrs
Lithgow has not yet succeeded in bringing peacefully to pass--for Nelly
and her lovers, as Mrs Lithgow laments pathetically, “can never gree
lang enough,” and some kind fairy always interposes in time to prevent
any young man of Kirklands from accomplishing to himself such a fate.

Mrs Lithgow’s dress is scarcely less doleful than her daughter: a
petticoat of some dark woollen stuff, and a clean white short-gown, are
scarcely enlivened by the check apron, bright blue and white as it is,
which girds in the upper garment; but the close cap which marks her
second widowhood encloses a face fresh, though care-worn, with lines of
anxious thought something too clearly defined about the brow and cheeks.
A little perplexity adds just now to the care upon the widow’s face; for
upon her counter stands a square wooden box, strongly corded and sealed,
over which, with much bewilderment, the good woman ponders. Very true,
it is directed to Mrs Lithgow, Kirklands, and Kirklands knows no Mrs
Lithgow but herself; but with a knife in her hand to cut the cord, and a
little broken hammer beside her on the counter, with which she proposes
to “prise” open the securely nailed lid, the widow still hangs
marvelling over the address, and the broad red office-seal, and wonders
once again who it can be that sends this mystery to her.

“I’ve heard of folk getting what lookit like a grand present, and it
turning out naething but a wisp o’ straw, or a wecht o’ stanes,” said
the perplexed Mrs Lithgow, as her young visitors saluted her; “but this
is neither to ca’ very heavy nor very licht; and it’s no directed in a
hand o write that ane might have kenned, but in muckle printed letters
like a book; and I’m sure I canna divine, if I was thinking on a’body I
ever kent a’ my days, wha could send such a thing to me.”

“But if you open the box you’ll see,” cried July Home. “Eh! I wish you
would open it the time we’re here; for I think I ken it’s from Johnnie,
and Menie Laurie has grand news of Johnnie in her letter. I was as glad
as if it was me. He’s turned clever, Mrs Lithgow; he’s growing to be a
great man, like our Randall. Eh! Menie, what ails her?”

Something ailed her that July did not know;--a trembling thrill of
apprehensive joy, an intense realisation for the moment of all her
terrors and sorrows, suddenly inspired, and flooded over with the light
of a new hope. The colour fled from Mrs Lithgow’s very lips; the little
broken hammer fell with a heavy clang upon the floor at her feet. Her
eyes turned wistfully, eagerly, upon Menie; the light swam in them, and
yet they could read so clearly the expression of this face.

And Menie, conquering her blush and hesitation, took out her letter, and
read bravely so much of it as was suitable for the mother’s ear. The
mother forgot all about the mysterious box, even though it seemed so
likely now to come from Johnnie. She sat down abruptly on the wooden
chair behind the counter; she lifted up her checked apron, and pressed
it with both hands into the corners of her eyes. “My puir laddie! my
puir laddie!”--You could almost have fancied it was some misfortune to
Johnnie which caused this swelling of his mother’s heart.

“And he’s in among grand folk, and turning a muckle man himsel,” said
Mrs Lithgow softly, after a considerable pause. “Was that what the
letter said?--was that what the folk telled me?--and he’s my son for a’
that--Johnnie Lithgow, my ain little young bairn.”

“I think, mother, ye may just as weel let me open the box,” said Nelly,
coming forward with her noiseless step. “We’ll ken by what’s in’t if
he’s keeping thought of us; though I’m sure it’s no muckle like as if he
was, keeping folk anxious sae lang, and him prospering. I’ll just open
the box. I wouldna be ane to hang at his tails if Johnnie thought shame
of his poor friends; but still a considerate lad would mind that there’s
mony a little thing might be useful at Kirklands. I’ll open the box and
see.”

The mother rose to thrust her away angrily. “Is it what he sends _I’m_
heeding about, think ye?” she exclaimed, with momentary passion, “I’m
his mother! I’m seeking naething but his ain welfare and well-doing.
Was’t gifts I wanted, or profit by my son? But ane needna speak to you.”

“Eh! but there’s maybe a letter,” said July Home, with a little natural
artifice. “Mrs Lithgow, I would open it and see.”

And Mrs Lithgow, with this hope, cut the cords vigorously, though with a
trembling hand--rejecting, not without anger, the offered assistance of
Nelly, who now crossed her hands demurely on her apron, and stood,
virtuous and resigned, looking on. Little July, very eager and curious,
could not restrain her restless fingers, but helped to loose the knots
involuntarily with a zealous aid, which the widow did not refuse; and
Menie, not quite sure that it was right to intrude upon the mother’s
joy, but very certain that she would greatly like to see what Johnnie
Lithgow sent home, lingered, with shyer and less visible curiosity,
between the counter and the door.

But Mrs Lithgow’s hands, trembling with anxiety, and the excitement of
great joy, and the little thin fingers of July, never very nervous at
any time, made but slow progress in their work; and poor July even
achieved a scratch here and there from refractory nails before it was
concluded. When the lid had been fairly lifted off, a solemn pause
ensued. No letter appeared; but a brilliant gown-piece of printed
cotton lay uppermost, the cover and wrapper of various grandeurs below.
Mrs Lithgow pulled out these hidden glories hurriedly, laying them aside
with only a passing glance; a piece of silk, too grand by far for
anybody within a mile of Kirklands; ribbons which even Menie Laurie
beheld with a flutter of admiration; and a host of other articles of
feminine adornment, so indisputably put together by masculine hands,
that the more indifferent spectators were tempted to laughter at last.
But Mrs Lithgow had no leisure to laugh--no time to admire the somewhat
coarse shawl which she could wear, nor the gay gowns which she could
not. Down to the very depths and conclusion of all, to the white paper
lying in the bottom of the box; but not a scrap of written paper bade
his mother receive all these from Johnnie. The gift came unaccompanied
by a single word to identify the giver. Mrs Lithgow sat down again in
her chair, subdued and silent, and Menie had discernment enough to see
the bitter tears of disappointed hope that gathered in the mother’s
eyes; but she said nothing, either of comment or complaint, till the
slow business-like examination with which Nelly began to turn over these
anonymous gifts, startled into sudden provocation and anger the
excitement which, but for pride and jealous regard that no one should
have a word to say against her son, would fain have found another
channel.

“Eh! Mrs Lithgow, isn’t it bonnie?” cried simple little July Home, as
she smoothed down with her hand the glistening folds of silk. Mrs
Lithgow had laid violent hands upon it, to thrust it back into the box
out of Nelly’s way; but as July spoke, her own womanish interest was
roused, and now, when the first shock had passed, the tears in the
widow’s eyes grew less salt and bitter; she looked at the beautiful
fabric glistening in the light--she looked at the little pile of bright
ribbons--at the warm comfortable shawl, and her heart returned to its
first flush of thankfulness and content.

“It’s farowre grand for the like o’ me,” she said at last; “it would be
mair becoming some o’ you young ladies; but a young lad’s no to be
expected to ken about such things; and he’s bought it for the finest he
could get, and spent a lock o’ siller on’t, to pleasure his mother. I’m
no surprised mysel--it’s just like his kind heart; but there’s few folk
fit to judge my Johnnie; he was never like other callants a’ his days.”

But still Mrs Lithgow could not bear Nelly’s slow matter-of-fact
perusal, and comment on her new treasures. She put them up one by one,
restored them to the box, and carried it away to her own room in her
own arms, to be privately wept and rejoiced over there.

“Randall never sent home anything like yon,” said July softly to
herself, as they returned to Burnside, “and Randall was clever before
Johnnie Lithgow. I wonder he never had the thought.”

“Randall knows better,” said Menie. “When Randall sends things, he sends
becoming things; it’s only you, July, that have not the thought: if
Johnnie Lithgow had been wise, he would not have sent such presents to
Kirklands.”

But just then a line of a certain favourite song crossed Menie’s mind
against her will--“Wisdom’s sae cauld;” and July looked down upon her
own printed frock, and thought a silken gown, like Johnnie Lithgow’s
present, might be a very becoming thing. At seventeen--even at
twenty--one appreciates a piece of kindly folly fully better than an act
of wisdom.




CHAPTER VIII.


But Menie Laurie was by no means satisfied that even simple little July
should make comparison so frequent between Randall, her own hero, and
the altogether new and sudden elevation of Johnnie Lithgow. Johnnie
Lithgow might be very clever, might be a newspaper conductor, and a
rising man; but Randall--Randall, in spite of the little chillness of
that assumed superiority which could think humiliation necessary to
bring his youthful countryman down--in spite of Menie’s consciousness
that there lacked something of the frank and generous tone with which
one high spirit should acknowledge the excellence of another--Randall
was still the ideal genius, the something so far above “clever,” that
Menie felt him insulted by praise so mean as this word implied.

There was little time for speculation on the subject, yet many a mood of
Menie’s was tinged by its passing gleam, for Menie sometimes thought
her betrothed unappreciated, and was lofty and scornful, and disposed in
his behalf to defy all the world. Sometimes impatient of the estimation,
which, great though it was, was not great enough, Menie felt not without
a consoling self-satisfaction that she alone did Randall perfect
justice. Johnnie Lithgow!--what though he did write articles! Menie was
very glad to believe, condescendingly, that he might be clever, but he
never could be Randall Home.

“You’ll hae heard the news,” said Miss Janet, sitting very upright in
one of the Burnside easy-chairs, with her hands crossed on her knee;
“they say that you and our Randall, Miss Menie, my dear, were the first,
between you, to carry word of it to his mother, and her breaking her
heart about her son. But Mrs Lithgow’s gotten a letter frae Johnnie now,
a’ about how grand he is--and I hear he’s paying a haill guinea by the
week for his twa rooms, and seeing a’ the great folk in the land--no to
say that he’s writing now the paper he ance printed, and is great
friends with our Randy. Randy was aye awfu’ particular o’ his company. I
was saying mysel, it was the best sign I heard of Johnnie Lithgow that
Randall Home was taking him by the hand; I’m no meaning pride, Mrs
Laurie. I’m sure I ken sae weel it’s a’ his ain doing, and the fine
nature his Maker gave him, that I aye say we’ve nae right to be proud;
but it would be sinning folks’ mercies no to ken--and I never saw a lad
like Randall Home a’ my days.”

Menie said nothing in this presence. Shy at all times to speak of
Randall--before her own mother and his aunt it was a thing impossible;
but she glanced up hastily with glowing eyes, and a flush of sudden
colour, to meet Miss Janet’s look. Miss Janet’s face was full of
affectionate pride and tenderness, but the good simple features had
always a little cloud of humility and deprecation hovering over them.
Miss Janet knew herself liable to attack on many points, knew herself
very homely, and not at all worthy of the honour of being Randall’s
aunt, and had been snubbed and put down a great many times in the course
of her kindly life--so Miss Janet was wont to deliver her modest
sentiments with a little air of half-troubled propitiatory fear.

Mrs Laurie made little response. She was busy with her work at the
moment, and, not without little angles of temper for her own share, did
not always quite join in this devout admiration of Randall Home. Menie,
“thinking shame,” said nothing either, and, in the momentary silence
which ensued, Miss Janet’s heart rose with a flutter of apprehension;
she feared she had said something amiss--too much or too little; and
Miss Janet’s cheeks grew red under the abashed eyes which she bent so
anxiously over the well-known pattern of Mrs Laurie’s carpet.

“I’m feared you’re thinking it’s a’ vain-glory that gars me speak,” said
Miss Janet, tracing the outline with her large foot; “and it’s very true
that ane deceives ane’s-sel in a thing like this; but it’s no just
because he’s our Randall, Mrs Laurie; and it’s no that I’m grudging at
Johnnie Lithgow for being clever--but I canna think he’s like my ain
bairn.”

“A merry little white-headed fellow, with a wisp of curls,” said Mrs
Laurie, good-humouredly--“No, he’s not like Randall, Miss Janet--I think
I’ll answer for that as well as you; but we’ll see them both, very
likely, when we get to London. Strange things happen in this world,”
continued Menie’s mother, drawing herself up with a little conscious
pride and pique, which the accompanying smile showed her own half
amusement with. “There’s young Walter Wellwood of Kirkland will never be
anything but a dull country gentleman, though he comes of a clever
family, and has had every advantage; and here is a boy out of Kirklands
parish-school taking up literature and learning at his own hand!”

Miss Janet was slightly disturbed, and looked uneasy. Randall too had
begun his career in the parish-school of Kirklands: there was a
suspicion in this speech of something derogatory to him.

“But the maister in Kirklands is very clever, Mrs Laurie,” said Miss
Janet, anxiously; “he makes grand scholars. When our Randall gaed to the
grammar-school in Dumfries, the gentlemen a’ made a wonder o’ him; and
for a’ his natural parts, he couldna hae gotten on sae fast without a
guid teacher; and it’s no every man _could_ maister Randy. I mind at the
time the gentlemen couldna say enough to commend the Dominie. I warrant
they a’ think weel o’ him still, on account of his guid success, and the
like o’ him deserves to get credit wi’ his laddies. I’m sure Johnnie
Lithgow, having had nae other instruction, should be very grateful to
the maister.”

“The maister will be very proud of him,” said Menie; “though they say in
Kirklands that ever so many ministers have been brought up in the
school. But never mind Johnnie Lithgow--everybody speaks of him now;
and, mother, you were to tell Miss Janet about when we are going away.”

“I think John will never look out of the end window mair,” said Miss
Janet. “I can see he’s shifting his chair already--him that used to be
sae fond o’ the view; and I’m sure I’ll be very dreary mysel, thinking
there’s naebody I ken in Burnside. But what if you dinna like London,
Mrs Laurie? It’s very grand, I believe, and you’ve lived in great touns
before, and ken the ways o’ the world better than the like o’ me; but
after a country life, I would think ane would weary o’ the toun; and if
you do, will you come hame?”

Mrs Laurie shook her head. “I was very well content in Burnside,” she
said. “With my own will I never would have left it, Miss Janet; but I go
for good reasons, and not for pleasure; and my reasons will last,
whether I weary or no. There’s Menie must get masters, you know, and
learn to be accomplished--or Miss Annie Laurie will put her to shame.”

“I dinna ken what she could learn, for my part,” said Miss Janet,
affectionately, “nor how she could weel be better or bonnier, for a’body
can see the genty lady-breeding Miss Menie’s got; and there’s naebody
atween this and the hills needs to be telt o’ the kind heart and the
pleasant tongue, and the face that every creature’s blithe to see; and
I’m sure I never heard a voice like her for singing; and a’ the grand
tunes she can play, and draw landscapes, and work ony kind o’ bonnie
thing you like to mention. Didna you draw a likeness o’ Jenny, Miss
Menie, my dear? And I’m sure yon view you took frae the tap o’ our hill
is just the very place itsel--as natural as can be; and, for my part,
Mrs Laurie, I dinna ken what mortal could desire for her mair.”

Mrs Laurie smiled; but the mother was not displeased, though she did
think it possible still to add to Menie’s acquirements, if not to her
excellence; and Menie herself went off laughing and blushing, fully
resolved in her own mind to destroy forthwith that likeness wherein poor
Jenny’s “high shouther” figured with an emphasis and distinctness
extremely annoying to the baffled artist, whose pencil ran away with her
very often in these same much-commended drawings, and who was sadly
puzzled in most cases how to make two sides of anything alike. And Menie
knew her tunes were anything but grand, her landscapes not at all
remarkable for truth--yet Menie was by no means distressed by Miss
Janet’s simple-hearted praise.

The evening was spent in much talk of the departure. July Home had
followed her aunt, and sat in reverential silence listening to the
conversation, and making a hundred little confidential communications of
her own opinion to Menie, which Menie had some trouble in reporting for
the general good. It was nine o’clock of the moonlight April night when
the farmer of Crofthill came to escort his “womankind” home. The clear
silent radiance darkened the distant hills, even while it lent a silver
outline to their wakeful guardian range, and Menie came in a little
saddened from the gate, where the father of her betrothed had grasped
her hand so closely in his good-night. “No mony mair good-nights now,”
said John Home. “I’ll no get up my heart the morn, though it is the
first day of summer. You should have slipped up the hill the night to
gather the dew in the morning, May; but I’ll learn to think the May
mornings darker than they used to be, when your ain month takes my
bonnie lassie from Burnside. Weel, weel, ane’s loss is anither’s gain;
but I grudge you to London smoke, and London crowds. You must mind, May,
my woman, and kept your hame heart.”

Your home heart, Menie--your heart of simple trust and untried quiet. Is
it a good wish, think you, kind and loving though the wisher be? But
Menie looks up at the sky, with something trembling faintly in her mind,
like the quiver of this charmed air under the flood of light--and has
note of unknown voices, faces, visions, coming in upon the calm of her
fair youth, unknown, unfeared; and so she turns to the home lights
again, with nothing but the sweet thrill of innocent expectation to
rouse her, secure in the peace and tranquil serenity of this home heart
of hers, which goes away softly, through the moonlight and the shadow,
through the familiar gloom of the little hall, and into the comforts of
the mother’s parlour, singing its song of conscious happiness under its
breath.




CHAPTER IX.


Left behind! July Home has dried her eyes at last; and out of many a
childish fit of tears and sobbing, suddenly becomes silent like a child,
and, standing on the road, looks wistfully after them, with her lips
apart, and her breast now and then trembling with the swell of her
half-subsided grief. The gentle May wind has taken out of its braid
July’s brown silky hair, and toys with it upon July’s neck with a
half-derisive sympathy, as a big brother plays with the transitory
sorrow of a child. But the faint colour has fled from July’s cheek,
except just on this one flushed spot where it has been resting on her
hand; and with a wistful longing, her young innocent eyes travel along
the vacant road. No one is there to catch this lingering look; and even
the far-off sound, which she bends forward to hear, has died away in the
distance. Another sob comes trembling up--another faint swell of her
breast, and quiver of her lip--and July turns sadly away into the
forsaken house, to which such a sudden air of emptiness and desolation
has come; and, sitting down on the carpet by the window, once more bends
down her face into her hands, and cries to her heart’s content.

There is no change in the parlour of Burnside--not a little table, not a
single chair, has been moved out of its place; yet it is strange to see
the forlorn deserted look which everything has already learned to wear.
Mrs Laurie’s chair gapes with its open empty arms--Menie’s stool turns
drearily towards the wall--and the centre table stands out chill and
prominent, cleared of all kindly litter, idle and presumptuous, the
principal object in the room, no longer submitting to be drawn about
here and there, to be covered or uncovered for anybody’s pleasure. And,
seated close into the window which commands the road, very silent and
upright, shawled and bonneted, sits Miss Janet Home, who, perchance,
since she neither rebukes nor comforts poor little weeping July, may
possibly be crying too.

And Jenny’s busy feet waken no home-like echoes now in the bright
kitchen, where no scrutiny, however keen, could find speck or spot to
discredit Jenny. Instead of the usual genius of the place, a “strange
woman” rests with some apparent fatigue upon the chair by the wall which
flanks Jenny’s oaken table, and, wiping her forehead as she takes off
her bonnet, eyes at a respectful distance the fire, which is just now
making a valorous attempt to keep up some heartiness and spirit in the
bereaved domain which misses Jenny. The strange bonnet, with its gay
ribbons, makes a dull reflection in the dark polish of the oak, but the
warm moist hand of its owner leaves such a mark as no one ever saw there
during the reign of Jenny; and Jenny would know all her forebodings of
destruction to the furniture in a fair way for accomplishment, could she
see how the new tenant’s maid, sent forward before her mistress to take
possession, spends her first hour in Burnside.

But Jenny, far off and unwitting, full of a child’s simplicity of wonder
and admiration--yet sometimes remembering, with her natural impatience,
that this delight and interest does not quite become her
dignity--travels away--to Dumfries--to Edinburgh--to the new world, of
which she knows as little as any child. And Menie Laurie, full of
vigorous youthful spirits, and natural excitement, forgets, in half an
hour, the heaviness of the leave-taking, and manages, with many a laugh
and wreathed smile, to veil much wonder and curiosity of her own, under
the unveilable exuberance of Jenny’s. Mrs Laurie herself, clouded and
careworn though she looks, and dreary as are her backward glances to
the familiar hills of her own country, clears into amusement by-and-by;
and the fresh Mayday has done its work upon them all, and brightened the
little party into universal smiles and cheerfulness, before the journey
draws towards its end, and weariness comes in to restore the quiet, if
not to restore the tears and sadness, with which they took their leave
of home.

“And this is the main street, I’ll warrant,” said Jenny, as Menie led
her on the following morning over the bright pavement of Princes Street;
“and I would just like to ken, Miss Menie, what a’ thae folk’s doing
out-by at this time o’ the day? Business? havers! I’m no that great a
bairn that I dinna ken the odds between a decent woman gaun an errand,
and idle folk wandering about the street. Eh! but they are even-down
temptations thae windows! The like of that now for a grand gown to gang
to parties! And I reckon ye’ll be seeing big folk yonder-away--and the
Englishers are awfu’ hands for grand claes. I dinna think ye’ve onything
now ye could see great company in, but that blue thing you got a
twelvemonth since, and twa-three bits o’ muslin. Eh! Miss Menie, bairn,
just you look at that!”

And Menie paused, well pleased to look, and admired, if not so loudly,
at least with admiration quite as genuine as Jenny’s own. But as they
passed on, Jenny’s captivated eyes found every shop more glorious than
the other, and Jenny’s eager hands had fished out of the narrow little
basket she carried, a long narrow purse of chamois leather, in which lay
safe a little bundle of one-pound notes, prisoned in the extreme corners
at either end. Jenny’s fingers grew nervous as they fumbled at the
strait enclosure wherein her humble treasure was almost too secure, and
Jenny was tremulously anxious to ascertain which of all these splendours
Menie liked best, a sublime purpose dawning upon her own mind the while.
And now it is extremely difficult to draw Jenny up the steep ascent of
the Calton Hill, and fix her wandering thoughts upon the scene below. It
is very fine, Jenny fancies; but after all, Jenny, who has been on terms
of daily intimacy with Criffel, sees nothing startling about Arthur’s
Seat--which is only, like its southland brother, “a muckle
hill”--whereas not even the High Street of Dumfries holds any faintest
shadowing of the glory of these Princes Street shops; and Jenny’s mind
is absorbed in elaborate calculations, and her lips move in the deep
abstraction of mental arithmetic, while still her fingers pinch the
straitened corners of the chamois-leather purse.

“I’ll can find the house grand mysel. I ken the street, and I ken the
stair, as weel as if I had lived in’t a’ my days,” says Jenny eagerly.
“Touts, bairn! canna ye let folk abee? I would like to hear wha would
fash their heads wi’ Jenny--and I saw a thing I liked grand in ane o’
thae muckle shops. Just you gang your ways hame to your mamma, Miss
Menie; there’s nae fears o’ me.”

“But, Jenny, I’ll go with you and help you to buy,” said Menie. “I would
like to see into that great shop myself.”

“Ye’ll see’t another time,” said Jenny, coaxingly. “Just you gang your
ain gate, like a guid bairn, and let Jenny gang hers ance in her life.
I’ll let you see what it is after I have bought it--but I’m gaun my lane
the now. Now, Miss Menie, I’m just as positive as you. My patience!--as
if folk couldna be trusted to ware their ain siller--and the mistress
waiting on you, and me kens the house better than you! Now you’ll just
be a guid bairn, and I’ll take my ain time, and be in in half an hour.”

Thus dismissed, Menie had no resource but to betake herself with some
laughing wonder to the lodging where Mrs Laurie rested after the journey
of yesterday; while Jenny, looking jealously behind her to make sure
that she was not observed, returned to a long and loving contemplation
of the brilliant silk gown which had caught her fancy first.

“I never bought her onything a’ her days, if it wasna ance that bit wee
coral necklace, that she wore when she was a little bairn--and she aye
has it in her drawer yet, for puir auld Jenny’s sake,” mused Jenny at
the shop window; “and I’m no like to need muckle siller mysel, unless
there’s some sair downcome at hand. I wouldna say but I’ll be feared at
the price, wi’ a’ this grand shop to keep up--but I think I never saw
onything sae bonnie, and I’ll just get up a stout heart, and gang in and
try.”

But many difficulties beset this daring enterprise of Jenny’s. First,
the impossibility of having brought to her the one magnificent gown of
gowns--then a fainting of horror at the price--then a sudden
bewilderment and wavering, consequent upon the sight of a hundred others
as glorious as the first. While Jenny mused and pondered with curved
brow and closed lips, two or three very fine gentlemen, looking on with
unrestrained amusement, awoke her out of her deliberations, and out of
her first awe of themselves, into a very distinct and emphatic fuff of
resentment, and Jenny’s decision was made at last somewhat abruptly, in
the midst of a smothered explosion of laughter, which sent her hasty
short steps pattering out of the shop, in intense wrath. But in spite of
Jenny’s expanded nostrils, and scarcely restrainable vituperation, Jenny
carried off triumphantly, in her arms, the gown of gowns; and Jenny’s
indignation did not lessen the swell of admiring pride with which she
contemplated, pressed to her bosom tenderly, the white paper parcel
wherein her gift lay hid.

“Ye’ll let me ken how you like this, Miss Menie,” said Jenny,
peremptorily, thrusting the parcel into Menie’s hand, at the door of her
mother’s room; “and see if some o’ your grand London mantua-makers canna
make such a gown out o’t as ye might wear ony place. Take it ben--I’m no
wanting ye to look at it here.”

“But what is it?” asked Menie, wonderingly.

“You have naething ado but open it and see,” was the answer; “and ye can
put it on on your birthday if you like--that’s the 10th o’ next
month--there’s plenty o’ time to get it made--and I’ll gang and ask thae
strange folk about the dinner mysel.”

But neither message nor voice could reach Jenny for a full hour
thereafter. Jenny was a little afraid of thanks, and could not be
discovered in parlour or kitchen, though the whole “flat” grew vocal
with her name. Penetrating at last into the depths of the dark closet
where Jenny slept, Menie found her seated on her trunk, with her fingers
in her ears; but this precaution had evidently been quite ineffectual so
far as Jenny’s sharp sense of hearing was concerned. Menie Laurie put
her own arms within the projected arm of the follower of the family, and
drew her away to her mother’s room. Like a culprit, faintly resisting,
Jenny went.

“I’m sure if I had kent ye would have been as pleased,” said Jenny, when
she had in some degree recovered herself, “ye might have gotten ane long
ago; but ye’ll mind Jenny when ye put it on, and I’m sure it’s my
heart’s wish baith it and you may be lang to the fore, when Jenny’s gane
and forgotten out o’ mind. ’Deed ay, it’s very bonnie. I kent I was a
gey guid judge mysel, and it was the first ane I lighted on, afore we
had been out o’ the house ten minutes--it’s been rinning in my head ever
since then.”

“But, Jenny, it must have been very expensive,” said Mrs Laurie,
quickly.

“I warrant it was nae cheaper than they could help,” said Jenny. “Eh!
mem, the manners o’ them--and a’ dressed out like gentlemen, too. I
thought the first ane that came to me was a placed minister, at the very
least; and to see the breeding o’ them, nae better than as mony hinds!
Na, I would like to see the cottar lad in a’ Kirklands that would have
daured to make his laugh o’ me!”

A few days’ delay in Edinburgh gave Mrs Laurie space and opportunity of
settling various little matters of business, which were necessary for
the comfort of their removal; and then the little family embarked in the
new steamer, which had but lately superseded the smack, with some such
feelings of forlornness and excitement as Australian emigrants might
have in these days. Jenny set herself down firmly in a corner of the
deck, with her back against the bulwark of the ship, and her eyes
tenaciously fixed upon a coil of rope near at hand. Jenny had a vague
idea that this might be something serviceable in case of shipwreck, and
with jealous care she watched it; a boat, too, swayed gently in its
place above her--there was a certain security in being near it; but
Jenny’s soul was troubled to see Menie wandering hither and thither upon
the sunny deck, and her mother quietly reading by the cabin door. Jenny
thought it something like a tempting of Providence to read a book
securely in this frail ark, which a sudden caprice of uncertain wind and
sea might throw in a moment into mortal peril.

But calm and fair as ever Mayday shone, this quiet morning brightened
into noon, and their vessel rustled bravely through the Firth, skirting
the southern shore. Past every lingering suburban roof--past the
sea-bathing houses, quiet on the sands--gliding by the foot of green
North-Berwick Law--passing like a shadow across the gloomy Bass, where
it broods upon the sea, like a cairn of memorial stones over its martyrs
dead--past the mouldering might of old Tantallon, sending a roll of
white foam up upon those little coves of Berwickshire, which here and
there open up a momentary glimpse of red-roofed fisher-houses, and
fisher cobbles resting on the beach under shelter of the high braes and
fretted rocks of the coast. Menie Laurie, leaning over the side, looks
almost wistfully sometimes at those rude little houses, lying serene
among the rocks like a sea-bird’s nest. Many a smuggler’s romance--many
a story of shipwreck and daring bravery, must dwell about this shore;
the young traveller only sees how the tiled roof glows against the rock
which lends its friendly support behind--how the stony path leads
downward to the boat--how the wife at the cottage door looks out,
shading her eyes with her hands, and the fisher bairns shout along the
sea margin, where only feet amphibious could find footing, and clap
their hands in honour of the new wonder, still unfamiliar to their
coast. Something chill comes over Menie as her eye lingers on these wild
rock-cradled hamlets, so far apart from all the world. Stronger waves of
the ocean are breaking here upon the beach, and scarcely a house among
them has not lost a father or son at sea; yet there steals a thrill of
envy upon the young voyager as one by one they disappear out of her
sight. So many homes, rude though their kind is, and wild their
place--but as for Menie Laurie, and Menie Laurie’s mother, they are
leaving home behind.

And now the wide sea sweeps into the sky before them--the northern line
of hills receding far away among the clouds, and fishing-boats and
passing vessels speck the great breadth of water faintly, with long
distances between, and an air of forlorn solitude upon the whole. And
the day wanes, and darkness steals apace over the sky and sea. Landward
born and landward bred, Jenny sets her back more firmly against the
bulwark, and will not be persuaded to descend, though the night air is
chill upon her face. Jenny feels some security in her own vigilant
unwavering watch upon those great folds of sea-water--those dark cliffs
of Northumberland--those fierce castles glooming here and there out from
the gathering night. If sudden squall or tempest should fall upon this
quiet sea, Jenny at least will have earliest note of it, and with an
intense concentration of watchfulness she maintains her outlook; while
Mrs Laurie and Menie, reluctantly leaving her, lie down, not without
some kindred misgivings, to their first night’s rest at sea.




CHAPTER X.


A second night upon these untrusted waters found the travellers a little
less nervous and timid, but the hearts of all lightened when the early
sunshine showed them the green flat river-banks on either side of their
cabin windows. Menie, hurrying on deck, was the first to see over the
flat margin and glimmering reach the towers of Greenwich rising against
its verdant hill. The sun was dancing on the busy Thames; wherries,
which Menie’s eyes followed with wonder--so slight and frail they
looked--shot across the river like so many flying arrows; great hay
barges, heavy with their fragrant freight, and gay with brilliant
colour, blundered up the stream midway, like peasants on a holiday; and
high and dark, with their lines of little prison-windows, these great
dismasted wooden castles frowned upon the sunny water, dreary cages of
punishment and convict crime. Then came the houses, straggling to the
river’s edge--then a passing glimpse of the great strong-ribbed bony
skeletons which by-and-by should breast the sea-waves proudly,
men-o’-war--then the grand placid breadth of the river palace, with the
light lying quiet in its green quadrangle, and glimpses of blue sky
relieving its cloistered fair arcade. Further on and further, and Jenny
rubs her wide awake but very weary eyes, and shakes her clenched hand at
the clumsy colliers and enterprising sloops which begin to shoot across
“our boat’s” encumbered way; and now we strike into the very heart of a
maze of ships, built in rank and file against the river’s side, and
straying about here and there, even in the mid course of the stream:
almost impossible, Menie, to catch anything but an uncertain glimpse of
these quaint little wharfs, and strange small old-world gables, which
grow like so many fungi at the water’s edge; but yonder glows the golden
ball and cross--yonder rises the world-famed dome, guardian of the
world’s chiefest city--and there it fumes and frets before us,
stretching upward far away--far beyond the baffled horizon line, which
fades into the distance, all chafed and broken with crowded spires and
roofs--London--Babylon--great battle-ground of vexed humanity--the
crisis scene of Menie Laurie’s fate.

But without a thought or fear of anything like fate--only with some
fluttering expectations, tremors, and hopes, Menie Laurie stood upon
the steamer’s deck as it came to anchor slowly and cumbrously before the
vociferous pier. In presence of all this din and commotion, a silence of
abstraction and reverie wrapt her, and Menie looked up unconsciously
upon the flitting panorama which moved before her dreamy eyes. Mrs
Laurie’s brow had grown into curves of care again, and Jenny, jealous
and alert, kept watch over the mountain of luggage which she had piled
together by many a strenuous tug and lift--for Jenny already meditated
kilting up her best gown round her waist, and throwing off her shawl to
leave her sturdy arms unfettered, for the task of carrying some of these
trunks and lighter boxes to the shore.

“Keep me, what’s a’ the folk wanting yonder?” said Jenny; “they canna be
a’ waiting for friends in the boat; and I reckon the captain durstna
break the mail-bags open, so it canna be for letters. Eh, Miss Menie,
just you look up there at that open in the houses--what an awfu’ crowd’s
up in yon street! What’ll be ado! I’ve heard say there’s aye a great
fire somegate in London, and folk aye troop to see a fire--but then they
never happen but at night. My patience! what can it be?”

Whatever it is, Menie’s eye has caught something less distant, which
wakes up her dreaming face like a spell. While Jenny gazes and wonders
at the thronging passengers of the distant street, Menie’s face floods
over with a flush of ruddy light like the morning sky. Her shy eyelids
droop a moment over the warm glow which sparkles under them--her lips
move, breaking into a host of wavering smiles--her very figure, slight
and elastic, expands with this thrill of sudden pleasure. Your mother
there looks gravely at the shore--a strange, alien, unkindly place to
her--and already anticipates, with some care and annoyance, the trouble
of landing, and the delay and further fatigue to be encountered before
her little family can reach their new home; and Jenny is uttering a
child’s wonders and surmises by your side--what is this, Menie Laurie,
that makes the vulgar pier a charmed spot to you?

Only another eager face looking down--another alert animated figure
pressing to the very edge--impatient hands thrusting interposing porters
and cabmen by--and eyes all a-glow with loving expectation, searching
over all the deck for the little party which they have not yet descried.
Involuntarily Menie raises her hand, her breath comes quick over her
parted lips, and in her heart she calls to him with shy joy. He must
have heard the call, surely, by some art magic, though the common air
got no note of it, for see how he bends, with that sudden flush upon
his face; and Menie meets the welcoming look, the keen gaze of delight
and satisfaction, and lays her hand upon her mother’s arm timidly, to
point out where Randall Home waits for them; but he does something more
than wait--and there is scarcely a possibility of communication with the
crowded quay, as these unaccustomed eyes are inclined to fancy, when a
quick step rings upon the deck beside them, and he is here.

But Menie does not need to blush for her betrothed--though those shy
bright eyes of hers, wavering up and down with such quick unsteady
glances, seem to light into richer colour every moment the glow upon her
cheeks--for Randall is a true son of John Home of Crofthill, inheriting
the stately figure, the high-crested head, with its mass of rich curls,
the blue, clear, penetrating eyes. And Randall bears these natural
honours with a grace of greater refinement, though a perfectly cool
spectator might think, perchance, that even the more conscious dignity
of the gentleman’s son did not make up for the kindly gleam which takes
from the farmer father’s blue eyes all suspicion of coldness. But it is
impossible to suspect coldness in Randall’s glance now--his whole face
sparkles with the glow of true feeling and genuine joy. The one of them
did not think the other beautiful a few days--a few hours--ago, even
with all the charm of memory and absence to make them fair--and neither
are beautiful, nor near it, to everyday eyes; but with this warm light
on them--happy, and true, and pure--they are beautiful to each other
now.

“Weel, I wouldna say there was mony like him, ’specially amang thae
English, after a’,” said Jenny, under her breath.

“What do you say, Jenny?” Mrs Laurie, who has already had her share of
Randall’s greetings, and been satisfied therewith, thinks it is
something about the luggage--which luggage, to her careful eyes, comes
quite in the way of Randall Home.

“I was saying--weel, ’deed it’s nae matter,” said Jenny, hastily
recollecting that her advice had not been asked before Menie’s
engagement, and that she had never deigned to acknowledge any
satisfaction with the same, “but just it’s my hope there’s to be some
safer gate ashore than yon. Eh, my patience! if it’s no like a drove o’
wild Irish, a’ pouring down on us! But I would scarce like to cross the
burn on that bit plank, and me a’ the boxes to carry. I needna
speak--the mistress pays nae mair heed to me; but, pity me! we’re no out
o’ peril yet--they’ll sink the boat!”

And Jenny watched with utter dismay the flood of invading porters and
idle loungers from the quay, and with indignation looked up to, and
apostrophised, the careless captain on the paddle-box, who could coolly
look on and tolerate this last chance of “sinking the boat.” From these
terrors, however, Jenny was suddenly awakened into more active warfare.
A parcel of these same thronging mercenaries assailed her own particular
pile of trunks and boxes, and Jenny, furious and alarmed, flew to the
defence.

But by-and-by--a tedious time to Mrs Laurie, though it flew like an
arrow over the heads of Randall and Menie, and over Jenny’s fierce
contention--they were all safely established at last in a London
hackney-coach, with so much of the lighter luggage as it could or would
convey. Randall had permission to come to them that very night, so
nothing farther was possible; he went away after he had lingered till he
could linger no longer. Mrs Laurie leaned back in her corner with a
long-drawn sigh--Jenny, on the front seat, muttered out the conclusion
of her fuff--while Menie looked out with dazzled eyes, catching every
now and then among the stranger passengers a distant figure, quick and
graceful; nor till they were miles away did Menie recollect that now
this vision of her fancy could not be Randall Home.

Miles away--it was hard to fancy that through these thronged and noisy
streets one could travel miles. Always a long array of shops, and
warehouses, and dingy houses--always a pavement full and crowded--always
a stream of vehicles beside their own in the centre of the way--now and
then a break into some wider space, a square, or cross, or junction of
streets--here and there a great public building, or an old
characteristic house, which Menie feels sure must be something notable,
if anybody were by to point it out. Jenny, interested and curious at
first, is by this time quite stunned and dizzy, and now and then
cautiously glances from the window, with a strong suspicion that she has
been singled out for a mysterious destiny, and that the cab-driver has
some desperate intention of maddening his passengers, by driving them
round and round in a circle of doom through these bewildering streets.
Nothing but the hum of other locomotion, the jolting din of their own,
the jar over the stones of the causeway, the stream of passengers left
behind, and houses gliding past them, give evidence of progress, till,
by-and-by, the stream slackens, the noises decrease--trees break in here
and there among the houses--dusty suburban shrubberies--villakins
standing apart, planted in bits of garden ground--and then, at last, the
tired horse labours up a steep ascent; long palings, trees, and green
slopes of land, reveal themselves to the eyes of the weary travellers,
and, under the full forenoon sun, pretty Hampstead, eagerly looked for,
appears through the shabby cab-windows, with London in a veil of mist
lying far off at its feet.

Instinctively Mrs Laurie puts up her hands to draw her veil forward, and
straighten the edge of her travelling-bonnet--instinctively Menie looses
the ribbons of hers, to shed back the hair from her flushed cheek.
Jenny, not much caring what the inhabitant of Heathbank Cottage may
think of her, only gathers up upon her knee a full armful of bags and
baskets, and draws her breath hard--a note of anticipatory disdain and
defiance--as she nods her head backward, with a toss of impatience, upon
the glass behind her. And now the driver looks back to point with his
whip to a low house on the ascent before him, and demands if he is right
in thinking this ’Eathbank. Nobody can answer; but, after a brief
dialogue with the proprietor of a passing donkey, the cabman stirs his
horse with a chirrup, and a touch of the lash. It is ’Eathbank, and they
are at their journey’s end.

Home--well, one has seen places that look less like home. You can just
see the low roof, the little bits of pointed gable, the small
lattice-windows of the upper storey, above the thick green hawthorn
hedge that closes round. A tall yew-tree looks out inquisitively over
the hawthorns, pinched, and meagre, and of vigilant aspect, not quite
satisfied, as it would seem, with the calm enjoyment of the cows upon
this bank of grass without; but Jenny’s heart warms to the familiar kye,
which might be in Dumfriesshire--they look so home-like. Jenny’s lips
form into the involuntary “pruh.” Jenny’s senses are refreshed by the
balmy breath of the milky mothers--and Menie’s eyes rejoice over a
glorious promise of roses and jasmine on yon sunny wall, and a whole
world of clear unclouded sky and sunny air embracing yonder group of
elm-trees. Even Mrs Laurie’s curved brow smoothes and softens--there is
good promise in the first glance of Heathbank.

At the little gate in the hedge, Miss Annie Laurie’s favourite
serving-maiden, in a little smart cap, collar, and embroidered apron,
which completely overpower and bewilder Jenny, stands waiting to receive
them. Everything looks so neat, so fresh, so unsullied, that the
travellers grow flushed and heated with a sudden sense of contrast, and
remember their own travel-soiled garments and fatigued faces painfully;
but Menie has only cast one pleased look upon the smooth green lawn
which shrines the yew-tree--made one step upon the well-kept gravel
path, and still has her hand upon the carriage-door, half turning round
to assist her mother, when a sudden voice comes round the projecting
bow-window of Heathbank Cottage--a footstep rings on the walk, an
appearance reveals itself in the bright air. Do you think it is some
young companion whom your good aunt’s kindness has provided for you,
Menie--some one light of heart and young of life, like your own
May-time? Look again, as it comes tripping along the path in its flowing
muslin and streaming ringlets. Look and cast down your head, shy Menie,
abashed you know not why--for what is this?

Something in a very pretty muslin gown, with very delicate lace about
its throat and hands, and curls waving out from its cheeks. Look, too,
what a thin slipper--what a dainty silken stocking reveals itself under
the half-transparent drapery! Look at these ringing metallic toys
suspended from its slender waist, at the laced kerchief in its hand, at
its jubilant pace--anywhere--anywhere but at the smile that fain would
make sunshine on you--the features which wear their most cordial look of
welcome. Menie Laurie’s eyes seek the gravel path once more, abashed and
irresponsive. Menie Laurie’s youthful cheek reddens with a brighter
colour; her hand is slow to detach itself from the carriage door--though
Menie Laurie’s grand-aunt flutters before her with outstretched arms of
gracious hospitality, inviting her embrace.

“My pretty little darling, welcome to Heathbank,” says the voice; and
the voice is not unpleasant, though it is pitched somewhat too high.
“Kiss me, love--don’t let us be strangers. I expect you to make yourself
quite at home.”

And Menie passively and with humility submits to be kissed--a process of
which she has had little experience hitherto--and stands aside, suddenly
very much subdued and silent, while the stranger flutters into the
carriage window to tender the same sign of regard to Menie’s mother.
Menie’s mother, better prepared, maintains a tolerable equanimity; but
Menie herself has been struck dumb, and cannot find a word to say, as
she follows with a subdued step into the sacred fastnesses of Heathbank.
The muslin floats, the ringlets wave, before the fascinated eyes of
Menie, and Menie listens to the voice as if it were all a dream.




CHAPTER XI.


“My patience! but ye’ll no tell me, Miss Menie, that yon auld antick is
the doctor’s aunt?”

“She was no older than my father, though she was his aunt, Jenny,” said
Menie Laurie, with humility. Menie was something ashamed and had not yet
recovered herself of the first salute.

“Nae aulder than the doctor!--I wouldna say; your mamma hersel is no sae
young as she has been; but the like o’ yon!”

“Look, Jenny, what a pleasant place,” said the evasive Menie; “though
where the heath is--but I suppose as they call this Heathbank we must be
near it. Look, Jenny, down yonder, at the steeple in the smoke, and how
clear the air is here, and this room so pleasant and lightsome. Are you
not pleased, Jenny?”

“Yon’s my lady’s maid,” said Jenny, with a little snort of disdain.
“They ca’ her Maria, nae less--set her up! like a lady’s sel in ane o’
your grand novelles; and as muckle dress on an ilkaday as I’ve seen mony
a young lady gang to the kirk wi’, Miss Menie--no to say your ain very
sel’s been plainer mony a day. Am I no pleased? Is’t like to please folk
to come this far to an outlandish country, and win to a house at last
wi’ a head owre’t like yon!”

“Whisht, Jenny!” Menie Laurie has opened her window softly, with a
consciousness of being still a stranger, and in a stranger’s house. The
pretty white muslin curtains half hide her from Jenny, and Jenny stands
before the glass and little toilet-table, taking up sundry pretty things
that ornament it, with mingled admiration and disdain, surmising what
this, and this, is for, and wondering indignantly whether the lady of
the house can think that Menie stands in need of the perfumes and
cosmetics to which she herself resorts. But the room is a very pretty
room, with its lightly-draped bed, and bright carpet, and clear
lattice-window. Looking round, Jenny may still fuff, but has no reason
to complain.

And Menie, leaning out, feels the soft summer air cool down the flush
upon her cheeks, and lets her thoughts stray away over the great city
yonder, where the sunshine weaves itself among the smoke, and makes a
strange yellow tissue, fine and light to veil the Titan withal. The heat
is leaving her soft cheek, her hair plays on it lightly, the wind
fingering its loosened curls like a child, and Menie’s eyes have
wandered far away with her thoughts and with her heart.

Conscious of the sunshine here, lying steadily on the quiet lawn, the
meagre yew-tree, the distant garden-path--conscious of the soft bank of
turf, where these calm cattle repose luxuriously--of the broad yellow
sandy road which skirts it--of the little gleam of water yonder in a
distant hollow--but, buoyed upon joyous wings, hovering like a bird over
an indistinct vision of yonder pier, and deck, and crowded street--a
little circle enclosing one lofty figure, out of which rises this head,
with its natural state and grace, out of which shine those glowing
ardent eyes--and Menie, charmed and silent, looks on and watches, seeing
him come and go through all the ignoble crowd--the crowd which has
ceased to be ignoble when it encloses him.

And voices of children ringing through the sunshine, and a sweet, soft,
universal tinkle, as of some fairy music in the air, flow into Menie
Laurie’s meditation, but never fret its golden thread; for every joy of
sight and sound finds some kindred in this musing; and the voices grow
into a sweet all-hail, and the hum of distant life lingers on her ear
like the silver tone of fame--Fame that is coming--coming nearer every
day, throwing the glow of its purple royal, the sheen of its diamond
crown upon his head and on his path,--and the girl’s heart, overflooded
with a light more glorious than the sunshine, forgets itself, its own
identity and fate, in dreaming of the nobler fate to which its own is
bound.

“A young friend of yours?--you may depend upon my warmest welcome for
him, my dear Mrs Laurie,” says a voice just emerging into the air below,
which sends Menie back in great haste, and with violent unconscious
blushes, from the window. “Mr Randall Home?--quite a remarkable name, I
am sure. Something in an office? Indeed! But then, really, an office
means so many very different things--may be of any class, in fact--and a
literary man? I am delighted. He must be a very intimate friend to have
seen you already.”

Menie waits breathless for the answer, but in truth Mrs Laurie is very
little more inclined to betray her secret than she is herself.

“We have known him for many years--a neighbour’s son,” said Mrs Laurie,
with hesitation; “yet indeed it is foolish to put off what I must tell
you when you see them together. Randall and my Menie are--I suppose I
must say, though both so young--engaged, and of course it is natural he
should be anxious. I have no doubt you will be pleased with him; but I
was hurried and nervous a little this morning, or I should have
postponed his first visit a day or two, till we ourselves were less
perfect strangers to you, Miss Annie.”

“I beg--” said Miss Annie Laurie, lifting with courteous deprecation her
thin and half-bared arm. “I felt quite sure, when I got your letter,
that we could not be strangers half an hour, and this is really quite a
delightful addition;--true love--young love!--ah, my dear Mrs Laurie,
where can there be a greater pleasure than to watch two unsophisticated
hearts expanding themselves! I am quite charmed--a man of talent,
too--and your pretty little daughter, so young and so fresh, and so
beautifully simple. I am sure you could not have conferred a greater
privilege upon me--I shall feel quite a delight in their young love.
Dear little creature--she must be so happy; and I am sure a good mother
like you must be as much devoted to him as your darling Menie.”

Mrs Laurie, who was not used to speak of darling Menies, nor to think it
at all essential that she should be devoted to Randall Home, was
considerably confused by this appeal, and could only answer in a very
quiet tone, which quite acted as a shadow to Miss Annie’s glow of
enthusiasm, that Randall was a very good young man, and that she had
never objected to him.

“The course of true love never did run smooth,” said the greatly
interested Miss Annie. “My dear Mrs Laurie, I am afraid you must have
had some other, perhaps more ambitious views, or you could not
possibly--with your experience, too--speak with so little interest of
your dear child’s happiness.”

Here Menie ventured to glance out. The lady of the house swayed lightly
back and forward, with one foot on the ground and another on the close
turf of the little lawn, switching the yew-tree playfully with a wand of
hawthorn; and the wind blew Miss Annie’s long ringlets against her
withered cheek and fluttered the lace upon her arm, with a strange
contempt for her airy graces, and for the levity so decayed and out of
date, which Menie felt herself blush to see. Opposite, upon the grass,
stood Mrs Laurie, the sun beating down upon her snowy matron-cap, her
healthful cheek, her sober household dignity. But the sun revealed to
Menie something more than the natural good looks of that familiar face.
Mrs Laurie’s cheek was flushed a little. Mrs Laurie’s fine clear dark
eye wandered uneasily over the garden, and Mrs Laurie’s foot patted the
grass with a considerable impatience. Half angry, disconcerted,
abashed, annoyed, Menie’s mother could but half conceal an involuntary
smile of amusement, too.

“Yes, my child’s happiness is very dear to me,” said Mrs Laurie, with
half a shade of offence in her tone. “But Menie is very young--I am in
no haste to part with her.”

“Ah, my dear, youth is the time,” said Miss Annie pathetically--“the
first freshness, you know, and that dear, sweet, early susceptibility,
of which one might say so many charming things. For my part, I am quite
delighted to think that she has given her heart so early, so many
experiences are lost otherwise. I remember--ah, I remember!--but really,
Mrs Laurie, you surprise me. I see I must give my confidence to Menie.
Poor little darling--I am afraid you have not encouraged her to confide
all her little romantic distresses to you.”

“I have always respected Menie’s good sense,” said Mrs Laurie hastily.
Then she made a somewhat abrupt pause, and then glanced up with her look
of disconcertment and confusion, half covered with a smile. “I am
Menie’s mother, and an old wife now, Miss Annie. I am afraid I have lost
a great deal of that early susceptibility you spoke of--and I scarcely
think my daughter would care to find it in me--but we are very good
friends for all that.”

And Mrs Laurie’s eye, glistening with mother pride, and quite a
different order of sentiment from Miss Annie’s, glanced up involuntarily
to Menie’s window. Menie had but time to answer with a shy child’s look
of love out of her downcast eyes--for Menie shrank back timidly from the
more enthusiastic sympathy with which her grand-aunt waited to overpower
her--and disappeared into the quiet of her room, to sit down in a shady
corner a little, and wind her maze of thoughts into some good order. The
sun was drawing towards the west--it was time to descend to the shady
drawing-room of Heathbank, where Randall by-and-by should be received
for the first time as Miss Annie Laurie’s guest.




CHAPTER XII.


It is very pleasant here, in the shady drawing-room of Heathbank. Out of
doors, these grassy slopes, which Menie Laurie cannot believe to be the
heath, are all glowing with sunshine; but within here, the light falls
cool and green, the breeze plays through the open window, and golden
streaks of sunbeams come in faintly at one end, through the bars of the
Venetian blind, upon the pleasant shade, touching it into character and
consciousness. It is a long room with a window at either end, a round
table in the middle, an open piano in a recess, and pretty bits of
feminine-looking furniture straying about in confusion not too studied.
The walls are full of gilt frames too, and look bright, though one need
not be unnecessarily critical about the scraps of canvass and
broad-margined water-colour drawings, which repose quietly within these
gilded squares. They are Miss Annie Laurie’s pictures, and Miss Annie
Laurie feels herself a connoisseur, and is something proud of them,
while it cannot be denied that the frames do excellent service upon the
shady drawing-room wall.

Mrs Laurie has found refuge in the corner of a sofa, and, with a very
fine picture-book in her hand, escapes from the conversation of Miss
Annie, which has been so very much in the style of the picture-book,
that Menie’s mother still keeps her flush of abashed annoyance upon her
cheek, and Menie herself lingers shyly at the door, half afraid to
enter. There is something very formidable to Menie in the enthusiasm and
sympathy of her aunt.

“My pretty darling!” said Miss Annie--and Miss Annie lifted her dainty
perfumed fingers to tap Menie’s cheeks with playful grace. Menie shrunk
back into a corner, blushing and disconcerted, and drooped her head
after a shy girlish fashion, quite unable to make any response. “Don’t
be afraid, my love,” said the mistress of the house, with a little
laugh. “Don’t fear any jesting from me--no, no--I hope I understand
better these sensitive youthful feelings--and we shall say nothing on
the subject, my dear Menie--not a word--only you must trust me as a
friend, you know, and we must wait tea till he comes--ah, till _he_
comes, Menie.”

Poor Menie for the moment could have wished _him_ a thousand miles
away; but she only sat down, very suddenly and quietly, on a low seat by
the wall, while Miss Annie tripped away to arrange some ornamental
matters on the tea-table, where her little china cups already sparkled,
and her silver tea-pot shone. Menie took courage to look at her
kinswoman’s face as this duty was being performed. Withered and
fantastic in its decayed graces, there was yet a something of kindness
in the smile. The face had been pretty once in its youthful days--a sad
misfortune to it now, for if it were not for this long-departed, dearly
remembered beauty, there might have been a natural sunshine in Miss
Annie Laurie’s face.

As it was, the wintry light in it played about gaily, and Miss Annie
made very undeniable exertions to please her visitors. She told Menie of
her own pursuits, as a girl might have done in expectation of a sharer
in them; and to Mrs Laurie she gave a sketch of her “society,” the few
friends who, Menie thought, made up a very respectable list in point of
numbers. Mrs Laurie from her sofa, and Menie on her seat by the wall,
looking slightly prim and very quiet in her shy confusion, made brief
answers as they could. Their entertainer did not much want their
assistance; and by-and-by Menie woke with a great flush to hear the
little gate swing open, to discern a lofty figure passing the window,
and the sound of a quick step on the gravel path. Randall was at the
door.

And Randall, looking very stately, very gracious and deferential, came
through the shower of “delighteds” and “most happys” with which Miss
Annie saluted him, with a bow of proud grace and much dignity of manner,
to Mrs Laurie’s extreme surprise, and Menie’s shy exultation. Another
hour passed over very well. The strangers grew familiar with Miss Annie;
then by-and-by they strayed out, all of them, into the sweet evening
air, so full of charmed distant voices, the hum and breath of far-off
life; and Menie found herself, before she was aware, alone, under a sky
slowly softening into twilight, in a pretty stretch of sloping turf,
where some young birch-trees stood about gracefully, like so many
children resting in a game, with Randall Home by her side.

And they had found time for various pieces of talk, quite individual and
peculiar to themselves, before Menie lifted her face, with its flush of
full unshadowed pleasure, and, glancing up to the other countenance
above her, asked, “When is the next book coming, Randall?”

“What next book, May Marion?”

This was his caressing name for her, as May alone was his father’s.

“_The_ next book--our next book,” said Menie. “I do not know much, nor
maybe care much, about anybody else’s. Randall--our own--when is it
coming?”

“What if it should never come at all?”

Randall drew her fingers through his hand with playful tenderness, half
as he might have done with a child.

“Yes--but I know it is to come at all, so that is not my question,” said
Menie. “I want to know _when_--not if. Tell me--for you need not be coy,
or think of keeping such a secret from me.”

“Did you never hear that it is dangerous to hurry one work upon
another?” was the answer somewhat evasively given. “I am to be prudent
this time--there is peril in it.”

“Peril to what?” Menie Laurie looked up with simple eyes into a face
where there began to rise some faint mists. Looking into them, she did
not comprehend at all these floating vapours, nor the curve of
fastidious discontent which they brought to Randall’s lip and brow.

“My simple Menie, you do not know how everything gets shaped into a
trade,” said Randall, with a certain condescension. “Peril to
reputation, risk of losing what one has gained--that is what we all
tremble for in London.”

“Randall!” Menie looked up again with a flush of innocent scorn. He
might speak it, indeed, but she knew he could mean nothing like this.

There was a slight pause--it might be of embarrassment--on Randall’s
part; certainly he made no effort to break the silence.

“But a great gift was not given for that,” said Menie rapidly, in her
unwitting enthusiasm. “People do not have unusual endowments given them
to be curbed by such things as that; and you never meant it, Randall; it
could not move _you_.”

But Randall only drew his hand fondly over the fingers he held, and
smiled--smiled with pleasure and pride, natural and becoming. He had not
been sophisticated out of regard for the warm appreciation and praise of
those most dear to him. He might distrust it--might think the colder
world a better judge, and the verdict of strangers a safer rule, but in
his heart he loved the other still.

But Menie’s thoughts were disturbed, and moved into a sudden ferment.
Her hand trembled a little on Randall’s arm; her eyes forsook his face,
and cast long glances instead over the bright air before them; and when
she spoke her voice was as low as her words were quick and hurried.

“It does not become me to teach you, but, Randall, Randall, you used to
think otherwise. Do you mind what you used to say about throwing away
the scabbard, putting on the harness--Randall, do you mind?”

“I mind many a delightful hour up on the hillside yonder,” said Randall
affectionately, “when my May Marion began to enter into all my dreams
and hopes; and I mind about the scabbard and the harness no less,” he
continued, laughing, “and how I meditated flashing my sword in the eyes
of all the world, like a schoolboy with his first endowment of
gunpowder. But one learns to know that the world cares so wonderfully
little about one’s sword, Menie; and moreover--you must find out for me
the reason why--this same world seems to creep round one’s-self
strangely, and by-and-by one begins to feel it more decorous to hide the
glitter of the trenchant steel. What a coxcomb you make me,” said
Randall, abruptly breaking off with a short laugh; “one would fancy this
same weapon of mine was the sword of Wallace wight.”

Menie made no answer, and the discontent on Randall’s face wavered into
various shades of scorn,--a strange scorn, such as Menie Laurie had
never seen before on any face--scorn half of himself, wholly of the
world.

“When I knew I had succeeded,” said Randall at length, with still a tone
of condescension in his confidence, “I was a little elated, I confess,
Menie, foolish as it seems, and thought of nothing but setting to work
again, and producing something worthy to live. Well, that is just the
first impulse; by-and-by I came to see what a poor affair this applause
was after all, and to think I had better keep what I had, without
running the risk of losing my advantage by a less successful stroke.
After all, this tide of popularity depends on nothing less than real
‘merit,’ as the critics call it; so I apprehend we will have no new
book, Menie; we will be content with what we have gained.”

“If applause is such a poor affair, why be afraid of the chance of
losing it?” said Menie; but she added hastily, “I want to know about
Johnnie Lithgow, Randall; is it possible that he has come to be a great
writer too?”

“If I only knew what you meant by a great writer _too_,” said Randall,
with a smile. “Johnnie Lithgow is quite a popular man, Menie--one of the
oracles of the press.”

“Is it a derogation, then, to be a popular man?” said the puzzled Menie;
“or is he afraid to risk his fame, like you?”

The lofty head elevated itself slightly. “No. Johnnie Lithgow is not a
man for fame,” said Randall, with some pride. “Johnnie does his
literary work like any other day’s work; and, indeed, why should he
not?”

Menie looked up with a blank look, surprised, and not comprehending.
Even the stronger emotions of life, the passions and the anguishes, had
never yet taken hold of Menie; still less had the subtle refining, the
artificial stoicism of mere mind and intellect, living and feeding on
itself; and Menie’s eye followed his slight unconscious gestures with
wistful wonderment as Randall went on.

“After all, what does it signify--what does anything of this kind
signify? One time or another appreciation comes; and if appreciation
never should come, what then? So much as is good will remain. I do not
care a straw for applause myself. I rate it at its own value; and that
is nothing.”

It began to grow somewhat dark, and Menie drew her shawl closer. “I
think it is time to go home,” she said softly; and as she spoke, a
vision of the kindly home she had left--of the brave protecting hills,
the broad fair country, the sky and atmosphere, all too humble for this
self-abstraction, which answered in clouds and tears, in glorious
laughter and sunshine, to every daily change--rose up before her; some
tears, uncalled for and against her will, stole into Menie’s eyes. With
a little awe, in her innocence, she took Randall’s arm again. He must be
right, she supposed; and something very grand and superior was in
Randall’s indifference--yet somehow the night air crept into Menie’s
heart, as she had never felt it do before. Many an hour this soft night
air had blown about her uncovered head, and tossed her hair in curls
about her cheeks--to-night she felt it cold, she knew not why--to-night
she was almost glad to hurry home.




CHAPTER XIII.


“Randall Home is a very superior young man,” said Mrs Laurie, with quiet
approbation. “Do you know, Menie, I had begun to have serious thoughts
about permitting your engagement so early?--if my only bairn should
leave me--leave me, and get estranged into another house and home, with
a man that was a stranger in his heart to me. Whisht, Menie--my darling,
what makes you cry?”

But Menie could not tell; the night air was still cold at her heart, and
she could not keep back these unseasonable tears.

“But I am better pleased to-night than I have been for many a day,” said
Mrs Laurie. “I never saw him so kindly, so like what I would desire. I
was a little proud of him to-night, if it were for nothing but letting
Miss Annie see that we are not all such common folk as she thinks down
in the south country--though, I suppose, I should say the north country
here. Menie! he will lose my good opinion again if I think he has vexed
you. What ails you, bairn? Menie, my dear?”

“I don’t know what it is, mother--no, no, he did not vex me. I suppose I
am glad to hear you speak of him so,” said the shy Menie, ashamed of her
tears. The mother and daughter were in their own room preparing for
rest, and Menie let down her hair over her face, and played with it in
her fingers, that there might be no more remark or notice of this
unwilling emotion. It was strange--never all her life before had Menie
wept for anything indefinite: for childish provocations--for little
vexations of early youth--for pity--she had shed bright transitory
tears, but she had never “cried for nothing” until now.

“Yes, I am pleased,” said Mrs Laurie, as she tied her muslin cap over
her ears: “what did you say, Menie? I thought this coming to London
would satisfy me on the one point which is likely to be more important
than all others, and I was right. Yes, Menie, lie down, like a good
girl; you must be wearied--and lie down with a good heart--you have a
fair prospect, as fair as woman could wish. I am quite satisfied
myself.”

But how it came about that Menie only slept in broken snatches--that
Menie dreamt uncomfortable dreams of harassment and annoyance--dangers
in which Randall forsook her--cares of which he had no part--Menie did
not know. A day ago, and Mrs Laurie’s unsolicited avowal of
“satisfaction” had lifted Menie into the purest glow of joy, but
to-night she cannot tell what makes her so restless and uneasy--what
prompts her now and then to fall a-weeping, all unwillingly, and “for
nothing.” Alas for Menie Laurie’s quiet heart!--something has come to
trouble the waters, but in other guise than an angel’s.

The grass is soft and mossy under the elm trees, and the morning air--a
world of sweetness--beatifies their every branch and stem. Down yonder
in the hollow, low at your feet, Menie Laurie, the great slave Titan has
wakened to his daily toil. Is that the sweep of his mighty arm stirring
the heavy mist which hangs above him? Is this the clang of his ponderous
tools ringing up faintly into the quiet skies? The children are not
astir yet, to seek their pleasure in these precincts. Nothing seems
awake in this composed and sober place; but yonder, with many a conflict
in his heart, with many a throbbing purpose in his brain, with life and
strength tingling to his finger-points, with sighs and laughter swelling
in his breath--yonder great vassal of the world is up and doing, holding
the fate of a new day undeveloped in his busy hand.

And you, young wondering heart, look out upon him, innocent, ignorant,
wistful, like an angel on the threshold of the world--nothing knowing
the wiles and snares, the tortures and deliriums that live yonder under
the battle-cloud, unacquainted with those prodigious penalties of social
life, which yonder are paid and borne every hour; but looking out with
your head bent forward, and your innocent eyes piercing far in the
dreamy vision of reverie, making wistful investigation into the new
marvels round you, pondering and bewildered in your own secret soul.

Randall--looking out thus through the morning light upon the city, one
can see him in so many aspects;--the light shines upon his lofty head,
reaching almost to the skies, like the hill of his quiet home--and Menie
lifts her eyes to follow that noble daring look of his, piercing up
through mortal clouds and vapours to do homage with the gifts God has
given him, at his Master’s throne and footstool. But anon there steals a
cloud round the hero of Menie’s vision--a dim background, which still
reveals him, not less clearly, nor with less fascination, but with a
sadder wonder of interest--for Randall’s eyes are bent earthward,
Randall’s lofty head is bowed, and Menie, though she watches him with
yearning curiosity, can never meet his downcast look to read what is
there--can never fathom what lies within the veiled heart and
self-abstracted soul. You would think now that her eyes are caught by
the sunshine yonder, making each mischievous confusion among the city
vapours: Not so; for Menie’s eyes, under that troubled curve of her
forehead, are studying Randall, and see only an incomprehensible
something in him, overshadowing all the earth and all the skies.

With her little basket in her hand, with her dainty step, and fluttering
muslin gown, Miss Annie brushes the dew from the grass, as she draws
near the elm trees. But though Miss Annie has been very confidential
with her grand-niece on the subject of her own juvenile occupations, one
little piece of daily business Miss Annie has forborne to tell of, and
that is a morning visit she pays to a poor pensioner or two in the
village, where, if perhaps her charity may be sometimes intrusive, it is
always real. For poor Miss Annie’s heart, though it figures so much in
her common talk, and is overlaid with so many false sentimentalities,
has a true little fountain of human kindness in it, spite of the
fantastic pretences that hide it from common view. Absorbed with her new
thoughts, Menie neither heard nor saw her aunt’s approach, till she woke
with a start to hear a gay laugh behind her, and to feel the pressure of
those long thin fingers upon her eyelids. “Dreaming, Menie? ah, my
pretty love! but not ‘in maiden meditation fancy free.’”

Startled and abashed, Menie drew back, but Miss Annie’s ringlets had
already touched her forehead, as Miss Annie bestowed the morning
salutation upon Menie’s cheek; and now they are seated side by side
under shadow of the greatest elm.

“My dear, I am afraid your mamma does not encourage you to confide in
her; you must tell me all your little trials, Menie,” said Miss Annie,
fluttering with her finger-points upon Menie’s hand; “and now, my
darling, speak to me freely--you were delighted to meet him last night.”

But Menie had no voice to answer, and could only bend down her flushed
face, and pluck up the grass with her disengaged hand.

“Don’t be shy, love. I am so much interested; and tell me, Menie, you
found him quite unchanged?--just as devoted as he used to be? I am sure
one only needed to look at him--and how delightful to find him quite
unchanged!”

“How far is it to London, aunt?” said Menie, with confusion.

“So near that your thoughts have travelled there this morning to find
him out, I know,” said Miss Annie,--“so near that he can come out every
night, so we need not talk of London: but come now, darling; have you
nothing to tell me?”

“You are very good,” said Menie, with a slight falter in her voice.
“I--I should like very well to take Jenny, if you please, to see some of
the great sights.”

Miss Annie shook her head--“Ah, Menie, how mischievous! Don’t you think
I deserve your confidence?”

“But, indeed, I have no confidence to give,” said Menie, almost under
her breath.

“My dear, I was just like you: the Scotch system is so restrictive--I
was afraid to speak to any one,” said Miss Annie; “and so you see I had
a little misunderstanding; and he was angry, and I was angry; and first
we quarrelled, and then we sulked at each other, and so at last it came
about that we were parted. Yes, Menie, dear! just now you are happy; you
do not care for a sympathising heart; but if you should chance to be
disappointed--I trust not, my love, but such things will happen--you
will then remember that I, too, have been blighted--oh, my dear child!”

And with a wave of her hand, expressing unutterable things, Miss Annie
arranged her light silken mantle over this same blighted heart of hers,
as if to hide the wound.

But Menie, whose mind already had recovered its tone--Menie, who now
only remembered Randall unchanged, unchangeable, towering high above all
vulgar quarrels and sullennesses, a very fortress for a generous heart
to dwell in--Menie sprang lightly up from the elastic turf, and stood
with her slight young figure relieved against the morning sky, and all
her frame vibrating with pride and joy in her worthy choice. What chance
that she should ever give this wished-for confidence--should ever turn
to seek such sympathy--should ever find comfort or solace in hearing of
Miss Annie Laurie’s kindred woe?




CHAPTER XIV.


“It is two years now since Randall came to London. From Dumfriesshire we
send out a great many cadets into the world, Miss Annie; and some one
who knew his father found a situation here for Randall Home. He brought
his book with him, and it was published, and very successful; then he
came home, and sought my consent to his engagement with Menie. That is
all Randall’s history in connection with us. The other young man you
expect to-night, Miss Annie, is only a cottager’s son--very clever, I
hear, but not in any way, I fancy, to be put in comparison with Randall
Home.”

And Mrs Laurie took up her work with a little quiet pride, resolved to
be very kind to Johnnie Lithgow, but by no means pleased to have him
mentioned in the same breath with her future son-in-law.

“I adore talent,” said Miss Annie, opening her work-table to take out a
tiny bit of “fancy” work. “I could not describe the delight I have in
the society of people of genius--self-taught genius too--so charming;
and both of these delightful young men must be self-taught.”

Mrs Laurie drew herself up with a little hauteur.

“Mr Home has had an excellent education; his father is a very superior
man. Johnnie Lithgow, as I said before, is only a cottager’s son.”

But Miss Annie could not see the distinction, and ran on in such a
flutter of delight in anticipation of her guests, that Mrs Laurie
quietly retired into the intricacies of her work, and contented herself
with a resolution to be very kind and condescending to the popular
editor, the cottager’s son.

The drawing-room is in special glory--the pinafores discarded from the
chairs, the little tables crowded with gay books and toys and flowers,
and everything in its company dress. Mrs Laurie--who never can be
anything but Mrs Laurie, a matron of sober years, and Menie’s
mother--sits, in her grave-coloured gown and snowy cap, upon the sofa;
while on a stool low down by her side, in a little tremor of
expectation, Miss Annie perches like a bird, waiting the arrival of her
visitors. Mrs Laurie, with her Dumfriesshire uses, quite believes what
Miss Annie says, that only “a few friends” are coming to-night, and has
not the slightest idea that the lady of the house will be greatly
mortified if her rooms are not filled in an hour or two with a little
crowd.

And up-stairs, resplendent in Jenny’s gown, Menie Laurie stands before
the glass, fastening on one or two simple ornaments, and admiring, with
innocent enjoyment, her unusually elegant dress. You may guess by this
glimpse of these well-known striped skirts, full and round, revealing
themselves under cover of the curtains, that Jenny, too, has been
admiring her own magnificent purchase. But Jenny by this time has grown
impatient, and jealous that Menie’s admiration prolongs itself only to
please her, Jenny; so, giving premonition by sundry restless gestures of
the advent of a “fuff,” she has turned to look out from the window upon
the sandy road which leads to ’Eathbank.

“Eh, Miss Menie! that brockit ane’s a bonnie cow,” said Jenny; “I never
see onything else in this outlandish place that minds me o’ hame, if it
binna the mistress and yoursel. I’ll just bide and look out for the
young lads, Miss Menie. Ye needna clap your hands, as if Jenny was
turning glaikit; if they werena lads frae our ain countryside, they
might come and gang a twelvemonth for me.”

“But the ladies and the gentlemen will see you from the window, Jenny,”
said Menie Laurie.

“Ise warrant they’ve seen waur sights,” said Jenny briskly; “I’m no gaun
to let down my ainsel, for a’ I _have_ a thraw; and I would just like to
ken, if folk wanted to see a purpose-like lass, fit for her wark, wha
they could come to in this house but me? There’s my lady’s maid--set her
up!--in her grand gown, as braw as my lady; and there’s the tither
slaving creature put off a’ this morning clavering to somebody, and no
fit to be seen now; for a’ they scoff at my short-gown and guid linsey
coats. But they may scoff till they’re tired, for Jenny; I’m no gaun to
change, at my time o’ life, for a’ the giggling in London toun.”

“But you’ll put on your gown to-night, Jenny,” said Menie, persuasively,
patting her shoulder. “There’s Randall did not see you last time he was
here; and Johnnie Lithgow, you would like to see him. Come, Jenny, and
put on your gown.”

“It’s no muckle Randall Home heeds about me, and you ken that,” said
Jenny; “and for a’ he didna see me, I saw him the last time he was here.
I’ll just tell you, Miss Menie, yon lad, to be a right lad, is owre
heeding about himsel.”

“You’re not to say that, Jenny; it vexes me,” said Menie, with simple
gravity; “besides, it is not true. You mistake Randall--and then Johnnie
Lithgow.”

“I wouldna say but what I might be pleased to get a glint o’ _him_,”
said Jenny. “Eh, my patience! to think o’ Betty Armstrong’s son sitting
down with our mistress. But I’ll be sure to ca’ them by their right
names afore the folk. I canna get my tongue about thae maisters. Maister
Lithgow! and me minds him a wee white-headed laddie, hauding up his
peeny for cakes on the Hogmanay, and pu’ing John Glendinning’s
kail-stocks at Hallowe’en. What would I put on my gown for, bairn? As
sure as I gang into the room, I’ll ca’ him Johnnie.”

But Jenny’s scruples at last yielded, and Jenny came forth from her
chamber glorious in a blue-and-yellow gown, printed in great stripes and
figures, and made after an antediluvian fashion, which utterly shocked
and horrified the pretty Maria, Miss Annie Laurie’s favourite maid. Nor
was Miss Annie Laurie herself less disconcerted, when honest Jenny, the
high shoulder largely developed by her tight-fitting gown, and carrying
a cake-basket in her brown hands, made her appearance in the
partially-filled drawing-room, threading her way leisurely through the
guests, and examining, with keen glances and much attention, the faces
of the masculine portion of them. Miss Annie made a pause in her own
lively and juvenile talk, to watch the strange figure and the keen
inquiring face, over which a shade of bewilderment gradually crept. But
Miss Annie no longer thought it amusing, when Jenny made an abrupt
pause before her young mistress, then shily endeavouring to make
acquaintance with some very fine young ladies, daughters of Miss Annie’s
loftiest and most aristocratic friends, and said in a startling whisper,
which all the room could hear, “Miss Menie! ye might tell folk which is
him, if he’s here; but I canna see a creature that’s like Johnnie
Lithgow o’ Kirklands, nor ony belanging to him, in the haill room.”

Miss Annie Laurie, much horrified, rose from her seat somewhat hastily;
but at the same moment up sprang by her side the guest to whom her most
particular attentions had been devoted--“And Burnside Jenny has
forgotten me!”

Burnside Jenny, quite forgetful of “all the folk,” turned round upon him
in an instant. Not quite Johnnie Lithgow, the merriest mischief-doer in
Kirklands parish, but a face that prompted recollections of his without
dispute--blue eyes, dancing and running over with the light of a happy
spirit--and a wisp of close curls, not many shades darker in colour than
those of the “white-headed laddie,” whose merry tricks Jenny had not
forgotten. “Eh, man! is this you?” said Jenny, with a sigh of
satisfaction. “I aye likit the callant for a’ his mischief, and it’s
just the same blithe face after a’.”

Randall Home stood leaning his fine figure against the mantelpiece, and
took no notice of Jenny. Randall was somewhat afraid of a similar
recognition; but Johnnie Lithgow, who did not affect attitudes--Johnnie
Lithgow, who was neither proud nor ashamed of being a cottager’s son,
and who had a habit of doing such kindly things as occurred to him
without consideration of prudence--drew her aside by both her brown
hands, out of which Jenny had laid the cake-basket, to talk to her of
home. A slight smile curled on the lip of Randall Home. How well he
looked, leaning upon his arm, his lofty head towering over every other
head in Miss Annie’s drawing-room, with his look of conscious dignity,
his intellectual face! Menie Laurie and Menie Laurie’s mother did not
find it possible to be other than proud of him; yet the eyes of both
turned somewhat wistfully to the corner, to dwell upon a face which for
itself could have charmed no one, but which beamed and shone like
sunshine upon Jenny, greeting her as an old friend.

“Your friend is a literary man?” said somebody inquiringly, taking up a
respectful position by Randall’s side.

“Yes, poor fellow; he spins himself out into daily portions for the
press,” said Randall.

“A high vocation, sir; leader of public opinions and movements,” said
the somebody, who professed to be an intellectual person, a man of
progress.

“Say rather the follower,” said Randall; “and well for those who have
the happy knack of following wisely--chiming in, before itself is fully
aware of it, with the humour of the time.”

Menie Laurie, who was close at hand, and heard all this, ventured a
whisper, while Randall’s companion had for the moment turned away.

“Your words sound as if you slighted him, Randall, and you too call
yourself a literary man.”

“Good Johnnie Lithgow, I like him extremely,” said Randall, with the
half-scornful smile which puzzled Menie; “but he is only a literary
workman after all. He does his literature as his day’s labour--he will
tell you so himself--a mere craft for daily bread.”

And just then Lithgow turned round, with his radiant face--he who had no
fame to lose, and did an honest day’s work in every day, not thinking
that the nature of his craft excused him from the natural amount of
toil--and again Menie felt a little pang at her heart, as she thought of
Randall’s jealous guardianship of Randall’s youthful fame.




CHAPTER XV.


“I have been thinking of bringing up my mother to live with me,” said
the Mr Lithgow in whom Mrs Laurie and her daughter were beginning to
forget the humble Johnnie: “I see no reason why she should live in
poverty in Kirklands, while I am comfortable here.”

His face flushed slightly as he concluded, and he began to drum with his
fingers in mere shyness and embarrassment upon Miss Annie Laurie’s
work-table. Randall, a little distance from him, was turning over with
infinite scorn Miss Annie’s picture-books. The two young men had grown
familiar in the house, though it was not yet a month since they entered
it first.

“And I think you are very right,” said Mrs Laurie cordially, “though
whether Mrs Lithgow might be pleased with a town-life, or whether--”

She paused: it was not very easy to say “whether your mother would be a
suitable housekeeper for you.” Mrs Laurie could not do violence either
to her own feelings or his by suggesting such a doubt.

“I think it would be a great risk,” said Randall, “and, if you consulted
me, would certainly warn you against it. Your mother knows nothing of
London--she would not like it; besides, a young man seeking his fortune
should be alone.”

“Cold doctrine,” said Lithgow, smiling, “and to come from _you_.”

His eye fell unconsciously upon Menie; then as he met a quick upward
glance from her, he stammered, blushed, and stopped short--for Johnnie
Lithgow was as shy and sensitive as a girl, and had all the reverence of
youthful genius for womanhood and love. With compunction, and an idea
that he had been jesting profanely, Lithgow hurriedly began again.

“I am so vain as to think _I_ myself would be London to my mother--old
ground long known and well explored. If she would not like the change,
of course--but I fancy she might.”

“I advise you against it, Lithgow,” said Randall “in your case I should
never entertain such an idea. There is my father--no one can have a
greater respect for him than I--but to bring him to live with me--to
bring him to London--I should think it the merest folly, injurious to us
both.”

“Your wisdom is very safe at least,” said Mrs Laurie, with a little
asperity, “since there is no chance of your good father leaving his own
respectable house for an unknown and strange place in any case; but I
think your wish a very natural one, and very creditable to you, Mr
Lithgow; and whether she comes or not, the knowledge that you wish for
her will be joy to your mother’s heart.”

With his usual half-disdainful smile Randall had turned away, and there
was a slight flush of anger upon Mrs Laurie’s face. Indignation and
scorn,--there was not much hope of friendliness where such unpromising
elements had flashed into sudden existence. Menie looking on with
terror, and perceiving a new obstacle thrown into her way, hastily
endeavoured to make a diversion.

“Do you know, Mr Lithgow, that July Home is coming up to London to see
me?”

There came a sudden brightening to all the kindly lines of the young
man’s face. “July Home! if I am too familiar, forgive me, Randall--but I
have so many boyish recollections of her. She was such a sweet little
timid simple womanly child too. I wonder if July minds me as I mind
her.”

Randall stood apart still, with his smile upon his lips. True, there had
been a momentary curve on his brow at Lithgow’s first mention of his
sister’s name, but his face cleared immediately. Poor little July!
Randall might know her sufficiently timid and simple--but July was a
baby, a toy, a good-hearted kindly little fool to her intellectual
brother--and any higher qualities sweet or womanly about her remained to
be found out by other eyes than his.

“And Miss Annie has promised us all the sightseeing in the world,” said
Menie with forced gaiety, anxious to talk, and to conciliate--to remove
all trace of the little breaking of lances which had just passed. “July
and Jenny and I, we are to see all manner of lions; and though they will
be very dull at Crofthill when she is gone, Mr Home and Miss Janet have
consented--so next week July is to come.”

“Poor July! she will have enough to talk of all her life after,” said
her brother.

“Yes; our kindly country seems such a waste and desert place to you
London gentlemen,” said Mrs Laurie; “and it is wonderful, after all, how
we manage to exist--ay, even to flourish and enjoy ourselves--in these
regions out of the world.”

But Randall made no response. A shivering chill came over Menie Laurie;
this half-derisive silence on one side, this eager impulse of
contradiction and opposition on the other, smote her to the heart. It
had been rising gradually for some days past, and Menie, without being
quite aware of it, had noticed the bias with which her mother and her
betrothed listened and replied to each other; the unconscious
inclination of each to give an unfavourable turn to the other’s words, a
harshness to the other’s judgment, an air of personal offence to a
differing opinion, of grave misdemeanour to a piece of blameless
jesting. Lithgow, stranger as he was, discovered in a moment, so quick
and sensitive was his nature, the incipient estrangement, and grew
embarrassed and annoyed in spite of himself--annoyed, embarrassed, it
looked so much like the last ebullition of some domestic quarrel; but
Lithgow was a stranger, and had no interest farther than for the harmony
of the moment in any strife of these conflicting minds.

But here sits one whose brow must own no curve of displeasure, whose
voice must falter with no embarrassment. She is sitting by the little
work-table in the window, her eyes, so wistful as they have grown, so
large and full, and eloquent with many meanings, turning from one to the
other with quick earnest glances, which are indeed whispers of
deprecation and peace-making. “He means something else than he says; he
is not cold-hearted nor insincere; you mistake Randall,” say Menie’s
eyes, as they labour to meet her mother’s, and gaze with eager
perturbation in her face, deciphering every line and wrinkle there. “Do
not speak so--you vex my mother; but she does not mean to be angry,” say
the same strained and ever-changing eyes, as they turn their anxious
regards to Randall’s face. She sits between us and the light--you can
see her girlish figure outlined against the window--her face falling
from light to shadow, brightening up again from shadow to light, as she
turns from one to the other; you can see how eagerly she listens, prompt
to rush forward with her own softening gentle speech upon the very
border of the harsher words, whose utterance she cannot prevent. The
very stoop of her head--the changeful expression of her face, which
already interprets the end of the sentence ere it is well begun--her
sudden introduction of one subject after another, foreign to their
former talk--her sudden interest in things indifferent, and all the
wiles and artifices with which she hedges off all matters of personal or
individual interest, and abstracts the conversation into the channel of
mere curiosity, of careless and every-day talk--are all sufficiently
visible exponents of Menie’s new position and new trials. She is talking
to Lithgow now so rapidly, and with so much demonstration of
interest--you would almost fancy this poor loving Menie had caught a
contagious enthusiasm from Miss Annie Laurie’s juvenile
delights--talking of these sights of the great unknown London, which
have grown so indifferent and paltry to this suddenly enlightened and
experienced mind of hers; but in the midst of all you can see how
steadily her wakeful eyes keep watch upon Randall yonder by Miss Annie’s
miniature bookcases, and Mrs Laurie here, with that little angry flush
upon her brow.

So slow the hours seem--so full of opportunities of discussion--so
over-brimming with subjects on which they are sure to differ; till
Menie, in her gradually increasing excitement, forgets to note the
progress of time; but is so glad--oh, so glad and joyful--to see the
evening fall dark around them, to hear Maria’s step drawing near the
door, while the lights she carries already throw their glimmer on the
wall. It is late; and now the visitors take leave, somewhat reluctantly,
for Lithgow begins to like his new friends greatly; and Randall, though
something of irritation is in the face, where his smile of disdain still
holds sway, is Menie’s ardent wooer still, and feels a charm in her
presence, simple though he has discovered her to be. But at last they
are gone--safely gone; and Menie, when she has watched them from the
door, and listened to their steps till they die away a distant echo upon
the silent air, steals away in the dark to her own room--not for any
purpose--simply to rest herself a little; and her manner of rest is,
sitting down upon a low stool close by the window, where some pale
moonlight comes in faintly, and bending down her face into her clasped
hands, to weep a little silently and alone.

Is it but to refresh the wistful eyes which this night have been so
busy? is it but to wash and flood away the pain that has been in their
eager deprecating looks, their speeches of anxious tenderness? But Menie
does not say even to herself what it is for, nor why. For some weeks
now, Menie has been sadly given to “crying for nothing,” as she herself
calls it. She thinks she ought to be ashamed of her weakness, and would
be afraid to acknowledge it to any living creature; but somehow, for
these few days, Menie has come away about this same hour every night
into the solitude here, to cry, with sometimes a little impatient sob
bursting out among her tears--though she cannot tell you, will not tell
you--would not whisper even to her own very secret heart, the reason
why.




CHAPTER XVI.


Mrs Laurie sits by the table with her work; but it is still an easy
thing to perceive the irritation on Mrs Laurie’s brow; her hand moves
with an additional rapidity, her breath comes a little faster; and if
you watch, you will see the colour gradually receding from her cheek,
like an ebbing tide, and her foot ceasing to play so impatiently upon
its supporting stool.

Very humbly, like a culprit, Menie draws forward her chair to the light.
She is admonished, ere long, by a hasty answer, an abrupt speech, a
slight pushing back from the table and erection of her figure, that Mrs
Laurie is still angry. It is strange how this cows and subdues
Menie--how eager she is to say something--how humble her tone is--and
how difficult she feels it to find anything to say.

Poor heart! like many another bewildered moth, Menie flutters about the
subject it behoves her most to avoid, and cannot help making timid
allusions to their future life in London--that future life which begins
to darken before her own vision under a cloudy horizon of doubt and
dread. It has ceased to be a speculation now, this future; for even
within these few days there has been talk of Menie’s marriage.

“We will speak of some other thing; there is no very great charm in the
future for me, Menie,” said Mrs Laurie, with a sigh.

But Menie, with trembling temerity, begs to know the reason why.
Why?--what concerns her concerns her mother also. Very timid, yet too
bold, Menie insists, and will be satisfied--why?

“Because it is hard to lose my only child,” said Mrs Laurie. “Let us not
deceive ourselves; it is easy to say we will not be separated, that
there shall be no change. I know better, Menie; well, well! do not
cry--say it is only the natural lot.”

“What is only the natural lot? O mother, mother! tell me.” Menie is
still pertinacious, even through her tears.

“I will tell you, Menie,” said Mrs Laurie, quickly. “Randall Home and I
cannot dwell under one roof in peace. I foresee a wretched life for you
if we tried it; a constant struggle--a constant failure. Menie, I will
try to be content; but your mother feels it hard to yield up you and
your love to a stranger--very hard. I ought to be content and
submissive. I ought to remember that it is the common necessity--an
every-day trial; but we have been more to each other than mere mother
and daughter. I cannot hide it from you, Menie; this trial is very
grievous to me.”

“Mother! mother!” It is not “for nothing” now that Menie Laurie weeps.

“You have been the light of my eyes for twenty years--my baby, my only
bairn! I have nothing in the world when you are gone. Menie, have
patience with your mother. I thought we might have been one household
still. I never thought I could have hurt my bairn by clinging to her
with all my heart. I see through another medium now. Menie, this that I
say is better for us both. I would lose my proper place--I would lose
even my own esteem--if I insisted, or if I permitted you to insist, upon
our first plan. I do not mean to insist with Randall,” said Mrs Laurie,
with a sudden flush of colour, “but with ourselves. It is not for your
credit, any more than mine, that your mother should be unnecessarily
humiliated; and I choose to make this decision myself, Menie, not to
have it forced upon me.”

“If you think so--if I have nothing to hope but this--mother, mother!”
cried Menie in her sobs, “there is yet time; we can change it all.”

But Menie’s voice was choked; her head bowed down upon her folded arms;
her strength and her heart were overcome. The room was only partially
lighted. So vacant--only these two figures, with their little table and
their lamp at one end--it looked lonely, silent, desolate; and you could
hear so plainly the great struggle which Menie had with these strong
sobs and tears.

Mrs Laurie wiped a few hot hasty drops from her own eyes. She was not
much used to contest; nor was it in her to be inflexible and stern; and
the mother could not see her child’s distress. “Menie!” Menie can make
no answer; and Mrs Laurie rises to go to her side, to pass a tender
caressing hand over the bowed head, to shed back the disordered hair.
“Menie, my dear bairn, I did not mean to vex you. I will do
anything--anything, Menie; only do not let me see you in such grief as
this.”

“He is not what you think, mother--he is not what you think,” cried
Menie; “it is not like this what he says of you. O mother! I do not ask
you to do him justice--to think well of him. I ask a greater thing of
you;--mother, hear me--I ask you to like him for Menie’s sake.”

And it will not do to evade this petition by caresses, by soothing
words, by gentle motherly tenderness. “Yes, Menie, my darling, I’ll
try,” said Mrs Laurie at last, with tearful eyes. “Do you think it is
pleasant to me to be at strife with Randall? God forbid! and him my dear
bairn’s choice; but do not look at me with such a pitiful face. Menie,
we’ll begin again.”

Was Menie content?--for the moment more than content, springing up into
a wild exhilaration, a burst of confidence and hope. But by-and-by the
conversation slackened--by-and-by the room became quite silent, with its
dim corners, its little speck of light, and the two figures at its
farther end. A heavy stillness brooded over them--they forgot that they
had been talking--they forgot, each of them, that she was not alone. The
leaves stirred faintly on the windows--the night-wind rustled past the
yew-tree on the lawn. From the other end of the house came sometimes a
stir of voices, the sound of a closed or opened door: but here
everything was silent--as still as if these were weird sisters, weaving,
with their monotonous moving fingers, some charm and spell; while, down
to the depths--down, down, as far into the chill and dark of sad
presentiment as a heart unlearned could go--fluttering, with its wings
close upon its breast, its song changed into a mournful cry--down out of
the serene heavens, where it had its natural dwelling, came Menie
Laurie’s quiet heart.




CHAPTER XVII.


Through the depth and darkness of the summer-night, you can hear Mrs
Laurie’s quiet breathing as she lies asleep. With a pain at her heart
she lay down, and when she wakes she will feel it, or ever she is aware
that she has awaked; but still she sleeps: blessing on the kind oblivion
which lays all these troubles for a time to rest.

But what is this white figure erecting itself from the pillow, sitting
motionless and silent in the night? It is tears that keep these gentle
eyelids apart--tears that banish from them the sleep of youth. Still,
that she may not wake the sleeper by her side, scarcely daring to move
her hand to wipe away this heavy dew which blinds her eyes. Menie
Laurie, Menie Laurie, can this sad watcher be you?

And Menie’s soul is vexing itself with plans and schemes, and Menie’s
heart is rising up to God in broken snatches of prayer, constantly
interrupted and merging into the bewilderment of her thoughts. Startled
once for all out of the early calm, the serene untroubled youthful life
which lies behind her in the past, Menie feels the change very hard and
sore as she realises it;--from doing nought for her own comfort--from
the loving sweet dependence upon others, to which her child’s heart has
been accustomed--suddenly, without pause or preparation, to learn that
all must depend upon herself,--to have the ghost of strife and discord,
where such full harmony was wont to be,--to feel the two great loves of
her nature--the loves which heretofore, in her own innocent and
unsuspicious apprehension, have but strengthened and deepened each the
other--set forth in antagonism, love against love, and her own heart the
battle-ground. Shrinking and failing one moment, longing vainly to flee
away--away anywhere into the utmost desolation, if only it were out of
this conflict,--the next resolving, with such strong throbs and beatings
of her heart, to take up her burden cordially, to be ever awake and
alert, to subdue this giant difficulty with the force of her own strong
love and ceaseless tenderness--praying now for escape, then for
endurance, and anon breaking into silent tears over all. Alas for Menie
Laurie in her unaccustomed solitude! and Menie thinks, like every other
Menie, that she could have borne anything but this.

But by-and-by, in spite of tears and trouble, the natural rest steals
upon Menie--steals upon her unawares, though she feels, in the sadness
of her heart, as if she could never rest again; throws back her drooping
head upon her pillow, folds her arms meekly on her breast, closes her
eyelids over the unshed tear; and thus it is that the dawn finds her
out, like a flower overcharged and drooping with its weight of evening
dew, but wrapt in sleep as deep and dreamless and unbroken as if her
youth had never known a tear.

The sun is full in the room when Menie wakes, and Mrs Laurie has but a
moment since closed the door softly behind her, that the sleeper might
not be disturbed. Even this tender precaution, when she finds it out,
chills Menie to the heart; for heretofore her mother’s voice has roused
her, and even her mother’s impatience of her lingering would be joy to
her to-day; but Mrs Laurie is not impatient. Mrs Laurie thinks it
better, for all the sun’s unceasing proclamation that night and sleep
are past, to let the young heart refresh itself a little longer, to
leave the young form at rest.

Ay, Menie Laurie, kneel down by your bedside--kneel down and pray; it is
not often that your supplications testify themselves in outward
attitude. Now there is a murmur of an audible voice speaking words to
which no mortal ear has any right to listen; and your downcast face is
buried in your hands, and your tears plead with your prayers. For you
never thought but to be happy, Menie, and the gentle youthful nature
longs and yearns for happiness, and with the strength of a rebel fights
against the pain foreseen--poor heart!

“Eh, Jenny! you’re no keeping ill-will?” said a doleful voice upon the
lawn below: very distinct, through the open window, it quickened Menie’s
morning toilette considerably, and drew her forward, with a wondering
face, to make sure. “I’m sure it’s no in me to be unfriends wi’ onybody;
and after ane coming a’ this gate for naething but to ask a civil
question, how you a’ was. I’m saying, Jenny? you’re no needing to haud
ony correspondence wi’ me except ye like; it’s the mistress and Miss
Menie I’m wanting to see.”

“Am I to let in a’ the gaun-about vagabones that want to see the
mistress and Miss Menie?” said Jenny’s gruff voice in reply. “I trow no;
and how ye can have the face to look at Jenny after your last errand
till her, I canna tell; ye’ll be for undertaking my service ance mair?
but ye may just as weel take my word ance for a’--the mistress canna
bide ye ony mair than me.”

“Eh, woman, Jenny, ye’re a thrawn creature!” said Nelly Panton. “I’m
sure I never did ye an ill turn a’ my days. But ye needna even the like
o’ your service to me; I’m gaun to live wi’ our Johnnie, and keep his
house, and Johnnie’s company are grander folk than the mistress; but I’m
no forgetting auld friends, so I came to ask for Miss Menie because I
aye likit her, and because she’s a young lass like mysel; and I’ll gang
and speak to that ither servant-woman if ye’ll no tell Miss Menie I’m
here.”

Jenny’s fury--for very furious was Jenny’s suppressed fuff at the
presumptuous notion of equality or friendship between Menie Laurie and
Nelly Panton--was checked by this threat; and fearful lest the dignity
of her young mistress should be injured in the eyes of the household by
the new-comer’s pretensions, Jenny, who had held this colloquy out of
doors, turned hastily round and pattered away by the back entrance to
open the door for the visitor, muttering repeated adjurations. “My
patience!” and Jenny’s patience had indeed much reason to be called to
her aid.

Menie’s curiosity was a little roused--her mind, withdrawn from herself,
lightened somewhat of its load--and she hastened down stairs less
unwillingly than she would have done without this interruption. Jenny
stood by the drawing-room door holding it open; and Jenny’s sturdy
little form vibrated, every inch of it, with anger and indignation.
“Ane to speak to you, Miss Menie! ane used wi’ grand society, and owre
high for the like o’ me. Ye’ll hae to speak to her yoursel.”

And Menie suddenly found herself thrust into the room, while Jenny, with
an audible snort and fuff, remained in possession of the door.

Nelly Panton had too newly entered on her dignities to be able to
restrain the ancient curtsy of her humility. Yes, undoubtedly, it was
Nelly Panton--with the same faded gown, the same doleful shawl, the same
wrapped-up and gloomy figure. Against the well-lighted, well-pictured
wall of Miss Annie Laurie’s drawing-room she stood in dingy
individuality dropping her curtsy, while Menie, much surprised and
silent, stood before her waiting to be addressed.

“Can nane o’ ye speak?” said the impatient Jenny, from the door. “Miss
Menie, are ye no gaun to ask what is her business here? A fule might hae
kent this was nae place to come back to, after her last errand to
Burnside; and when she kens I canna bide her, and the mistress canna
bide her, to come and set up for a friendship wi’ you.”

“She’s just as cankered as she aye was, Miss Menie,” said Nelly Panton,
compassionately, shaking her head. “It shows an ill disposition, indeed,
when folk canna keep at peace wi’ me, as mony a time I’ve telt my
mother. But ye see, Miss Menie, I couldna just bide on in Kirklands when
ye were a’ away, so I just took my fit in my hand, and came on to London
to see after Johnnie wi’ my ain een. He needs somebody to keep him gaun,
and set him right, puir callant; and he’s in a grand way for himsel, and
should be attended to--so I think I’ll just stay on, Miss Menie; and the
first thing I did was to come and ask for you.”

“You are very kind, Nelly,” said Menie Laurie; but Menie paused with a
suppressed laugh when she saw Jenny’s clenched hand shaken at her from
the door.

“And ye’ll maybe think I’m no just in condition to set up for friends
wi’ the like o’ you,” said Nelly, glancing down upon her dress; “but I
only came in to London the day before yesterday, and I’ve naething yet
but my travelling things. I’m hearing that little Juley Home of
Braecroft’s coming too; and between you and me, Miss Menie, no to let it
gang ony farther, I think it was real right and prudent o’ you to show
us the first example, and draw us a’ up to London to take care o’ thae
lads.”

“What do you mean, Nelly?” exclaimed Menie, somewhat angrily.

“Ye may weel say what does she mean,” said Jenny, making a sudden
inroad from the door. “Do you hear, ye evil speaker!--the mistress is
out, and there’s naebody to take care o’ this puir bairn but me;
whatever malice and venom ye have to say, out wi’t, and I’ll tell the
young lady what kind o’ character ye are when a’s done.”

“I wouldna keep such a meddling body in my house--no, if she did the
wark twice as weel,” retorted Nelly, with calm superiority; “and I’ve
nae call to speak my mind afore Jenny, and her aye misca’in’ me; but
it’s nae secret o’ mine. I was just gaun to say, that for a’ our
Johnnie’s a very decent lad, and minds upon his friends, I never saw
ane, gentle or simple, sae awfu’ muckle tooken up about himsel as Randy
Home. He’s anither lad altogether to what he used to be; and it’s no to
be thocht but what he’s wanting a grand wife like a’ the rest. Now,
ye’ll just see.”

Menie Laurie put down Jenny’s passionate disclaimer by a motion of her
hand. “If this was what you came to tell me, Nelly, I fear I shall
scarcely be grateful for your visit. Do you know that it is an
impertinence to say this to me? Whisht, Jenny, that is enough; and I
came here to look after no one. Whatever you may have thought before,
you will believe this now, since I say it. Jenny will see that you are
comfortable while you stay out here; but I think, Nelly, you have said
enough to me this morning, and I to you--Jenny, whisht.”

“I’ll no whisht,” cried Jenny, at last, freed by Menie’s pause. “Eh, ye
evil spirit! will ye tell me what cause o’ ill will ye ever could have
against this innocent bairn? I’m no gaun to whisht, Miss Menie--to think
of her coming up here anes errand to put out her malice on you! My
patience! how ony mortal can thole the sight o’ her, I dinna ken.”

“I can forgie ye, Jenny,” said the meek Nelly Panton, “for a’ your
passions and your glooms, and your ill words--I’m thankful to say I can
forgie ye; but, eh, sirs, this is a weary world;--wherever I gang, at
hame, or away frae hame, I’m aye miskent--naebody has the heart to take
a guid turn frae me--though, I’m sure, I aye mean a’thing for the best,
and it was right Miss Menie should ken. I thocht I would just come up
this far to gie ye an advice, Miss Menie, when we were our lanes; and
I’m no gaun to bleeze up into a fuff like Jenny because it’s ill ta’en.
I’m just as guid friends as ever. The next time I come I’ll come wi’ our
Johnnie, so I bid you a very guid morning, Miss Menie Laurie, and mony
thanks for your kind welcome. Jenny, fare-ye-weel.”

Menie sat down in the window when the dark figure of her unwelcome
visitor was gone. The sun came in upon her gaily--the genial August
sun--and the leaves without fluttered in a happy wind and a maze of
morning sounds, broken with shriller shouts of children, and rings of
silvery laughter floated up and floated round her, of themselves an
atmosphere fresh and sweet; but Menie bowed her face between her hands,
and looked out with wistful eyes into the future, where so many fears
and wonders had come to dwell; and vigilant and stern the meagre
yew-tree looked in upon her, like an unkindly fate.




CHAPTER XVIII.


“Eh, Menie, are you sure yon’s London?”

So asked little July Home standing under the shadow of the elm trees,
and looking out upon the sea of city smoke, with great St Paul’s looming
through its dimness. July did not quite understand how she could be said
to be near London, so long as she stood upon the green sod, and saw
above her the kindly sky. “There’s no very mony houses hereaway,” said
the innocent July; “there’s mair in Dumfries, Menie--and this is just a
fine green park, and here’s trees--are you sure yon’s London?”

“Yes, it’s London.” Very differently they looked at it;--the one with
the marvelling eyes of a child, ready to believe all wonders of that
mysterious place, supreme among the nations, which was rather a superb
individual personage from among the Arabian genii than a collection of
human streets and houses, full of the usual weaknesses of humankind;
the other with the dreamy gaze of a woman, pondering in her heart over
the scene of her fate.

“And Randall’s yonder, and Johnnie Lithgow?” said July--“I would just
like to ken where. Menie, you’ve been down yonder in the town--where
will Johnnie and our Randall be? Mrs Wellwood down in Kirklands bade me
ask Randall if he knew a cousin of hers, Peter Scott, that lives in
London; but nobody could ken a’ the folk, Menie, in such a muckle town.”

“My dear Miss July, muckle is an ugly word,” said Miss Annie Laurie,
“and you must observe how nicely your brother and his friend
speak--quite marvellous for self-educated young men--and even Menie here
is very well. You must not say muckle, my love.”

“It was because I meant to say very big,” said July with a great blush,
holding down her head and speaking in a whisper. July had thrown many a
wandering glance already at Miss Annie, speculating whether to call her
the old lady or the young lady, and listening with reverential curiosity
to all she said; for July thought “She--the lady,” was very kind to call
her my dear and my love so soon, and to kiss her when she went away
wearied, on her first evening at Heathbank, to rest; though July could
never be sure about Miss Annie, and marvelled much that Menie Laurie
should dare to call any one in such ringlets and such gowns, aunt.

“You will soon learn better, my dear little girl,” said the gracious
Miss Annie, “and you must just be content to continue a little girl
while you are here, and take a lesson now and then, you know; and above
all, my darling, you must take care not to fall in love with this young
man whom you speak of so familiarly. He must not be Johnnie any more,
but only Mr Lithgow, your brother’s friend and ours--for I cannot have
both my young ladies falling in love.”

“Me!” July’s light little frame trembled all over, her soft hair fell
down upon her neck. “It never will stay up,” murmured July, with eager
deprecation, as Miss Annie’s eye fell upon the silky uncurled locks; but
it was only shamefacedness and embarrassment which made July notice the
descent of her hair--for July was trembling with a little thrill of fear
and wonder and curiosity. Was it possible, then, that little July had
come to sufficient years to be capable of falling in love?--and, in
spite of herself, July thought again upon Johnnie Lithgow, and marvelled
innocently, though with a blush, whether he “minded” her as she minded
him.

But July could not understand the strange abstraction which had fallen
upon her friend--the dreamy eye, the vacant look, the long intervals of
silence. Menie Laurie of Burnside had known nothing of all this new-come
gravity, and July’s wistful look had already begun to follow those
wandering eyes of hers--to follow them away through the daylight, and
into the dark, wondering--wondering--what it was that Menie sought to
see.

Jenny is busied in the remote regions of the kitchen at this present
moment, delivering a lecture, very sharp, and marked with some
excitement, to Miss Annie Laurie’s kitchen-maid, who is by no means an
ornamental person, and for that and many other reasons is a perpetual
grief to Miss Annie’s heart--so Jenny is happily spared the provocation
of beholding the new visitor who has entered the portals of Heathbank.
For a portentous shawl, heavy as a thundercloud, a gown lurid as the
lightning escaping from under its shade, and a new bonnet grim with
gentility, are making their way round the little lawn, concealing from
expectant eyes the slight person and small well-formed head, with its
short matted crop of curls, which distinguish Johnnie Lithgow. Johnnie,
good fellow, does not think his sister the most suitable visitor in the
world to the Laurie household; but Johnnie would not, for more wealth
than he can reckon, put slight upon his sister even in idea--so Miss
Annie Laurie’s Maria announces Miss Panton at the door of Miss Annie
Laurie’s drawing-room, and Nelly, where she failed to come as a servant,
is introduced as a guest.

“Thank’ye, mem,” said Nelly. “I like London very weel so far as I’ve
seen it--but it’s a muckle place, I dinna doubt, no to be lookit through
in a day--and I’m aye fleyed to lose mysel in thae weary streets; but
you see I didna come here ance errand to see the town, but rather came
with an object, mem--and now I’m to bide on to take care of Johnnie. My
mother down by at hame has had mony thochts about him being left his
lane, with naebody but himself to care about in a strange place--and
it’s sure to be a comfort to her me stopping with Johnnie, for she kens
I’m a weel-meaning person, whatever folk do to me; and I would be real
thankful if ye could recommend me to a shop for good linen, for I have
a’ his shirts to mend. To be sure, he has plenty of siller--but he’s
turning the maist extravagant lad I ever saw.”

“Good soul! and you have come to do all those kind things for him,” said
Miss Annie Laurie: “it is so delightful to me to find these fine homely
natural feelings in operation--so primitive and unsophisticated. I can’t
tell you what pleasure I have in watching the natural action of a kind
heart.”

“I am much obliged to ye, mem,” said Nelly, wavering on her seat with a
half intention of rising to acknowledge with a curtsy this complimentary
declaration. “I was aye kent for a weel-meaning lass, though I have my
fauts--but I’m sure Johnnie ought to ken how weel he can depend on me.”

July Home was standing by the window--standing very timid and demure,
pretending to look out, but in reality lost in conjectures concerning
Johnnie Lithgow, whose image had never left her mind since Miss Annie
took the pains to advise her not to think of him. July, innocent heart,
would never have thought of him had this warning been withheld; but the
fascination and thrill of conscious danger filled July’s mind with one
continual recollection of his presence, though she did not dare to turn
round frankly and own herself his old acquaintance. With a slight
tremble in her little figure, July stands by the window, and July’s
silky hair already begins to droop out of the braid in which she had
confined it with so much care. A silk gown--the first and only one of
its race belonging to July--has been put on in honour of this, her first
day at Heathbank; and July, to tell the truth, is somewhat fluttered on
account of it, and is a little afraid of herself and the unaccustomed
splendour of her dress.

Menie Laurie, a good way apart, sits on a stool at her mother’s feet,
looking round upon all those faces--from July’s innocent tremble of shy
pleasure, to Johnnie Lithgow’s well-pleased recognition of his childish
friend. There is something touching in the contrast when you turn to
Menie Laurie, looking up, with all these new-awakened thoughts in her
eyes, into her mother’s face. For dutiful and loving as Menie has always
been, you can tell by a glance that she never clung before as she clings
now--that never in her most trustful childish times was she so humble in
her helplessness as her tender woman’s love is to-day. Deprecating,
anxious, full of so many wistful beseeching ways--do you think the
mother does not know why it is that Menie’s silent devotion thus pleads
and kneels and clings to her very feet?

And there is a shadow on Mrs Laurie’s brow--a certain something
glittering under Mrs Laurie’s eyelid. No, she needs no interpreter--and
the mother hears Menie’s prayer, “Will you like him--will you try to
like him?” sounding in her heart, and resolves that she will indeed try
to like him for Menie’s sake.

“Mr Home, of course, will come to see us to-night,” said the sprightly
Miss Annie. “My dear Mrs Laurie, how can I sufficiently thank you for
bringing such a delightful circle of young people to Heathbank? It quite
renews my heart again. You can’t think how soon one gets worn out and
weary in this commonplace London world: but so fresh--so full of young
spirits and life--I assure you, Mr Lithgow, yourself, and your friend,
and my sweet girls here, are quite like a spring to me.”

Johnnie, bowing a response, gradually drew near the window. You will
begin to think there is something very simply pretty and graceful in
this little figure standing here within shadow of the curtain, the
evening sun just missing it as it steals timidly into the shade. And
this brown hair, so silky soft, has slidden down at last upon July’s
shoulder, and the breath comes something fast on July’s small full
nether lip, and a little changeful flush of colour hovers about, coming
and going upon July’s face. Listen--for now a sweet little timid voice,
fragrant with the low-spoken Border-speech, softened out of all its
harshness, steals upon Johnnie Lithgow’s ear. He knows what the words
are, for he draws very near to listen--but we, a little farther off,
hear nothing but the voice--a very unassured, shy, girlish voice; and
July casts a furtive look around her, to see if it is not possible to
get Menie Laurie to whisper her answer to; but when she does trust the
air with these few words of hers, July feels less afraid.

Johnnie Lithgow!--no doubt it is the same Johnnie Lithgow who carried
her through the wood, half a mile about, to see the sunset from the
Resting Stane--but whether this can be the Mr Lythgoe who is very
clever and a great writer, July is puzzled to know. For he begins to ask
so kindly about the old homely Kirkland people--he “minds” every nook
and corner so well, and has such a joyous recollection of all the
Hogmanays and Hallowe’ens--the boyish pranks and frolics, the boyish
friends. July, simple and perplexed, thinks within herself that Randall
never did so, and doubts whether Johnnie Lithgow can be clever, after
all.




CHAPTER XIX.


“And July, little girl--you are glad to see Menie Laurie again?”

But July makes a long pause--July is always timid of speaking to her
brother.

“Menie is not Menie now,” said July thoughtfully. “She never looks like
what she used to look at Burnside.”

“What has changed her?” At last Randall began to look interested.

Another long pause, and then July startled him with a burst of tears.
“She never looks like what she used to look at Burnside,” repeated
Menie’s little friend, with timid sobs, “but aye thinks, thinks, and has
trouble in her face night and day.”

The brother and sister were in the room alone. Randall turned round with
impatience. “What a foolish little creature you are, July. Menie does
not cry like you for every little matter; Menie has nothing to trouble
her.”

“It’s no me, Randall,” said little July, meekly. “If I cry, I just canna
help it, and it’s nae matter; but, oh, I wish you would speak to
Menie--for something’s vexing _her_.”

“I am sure you will excuse me for leaving you so long,” said the
sprightly voice of Miss Annie Laurie, entering the room. “What! crying,
July darling? Have we not used her well, Mr Home?--but my poor friend
Mrs Laurie has just got a very unpleasant letter, and I have been
sitting with her to comfort her.”

Randall made no reply, unless the smile of indifference which came to
his lips, the careless turning away of his head, might be supposed to
answer; for Randall did not think it necessary to pretend any interest
in Mrs Laurie.

But just then he caught a momentary glimpse of some one stealing across
the farthest corner of the lawn, behind a group of shrubs. Randall could
not mistake the figure; and it seemed to pause there, where it was
completely hidden, except to the keen eye which had watched it thither,
and still saw a flutter of drapery through the leaves.

“Mem, if you please, Miss Menie’s out,” said Jenny, entering suddenly,
“and the mistress sent me wi’ word that she wasna very weel hersel, and
would keep up the stair if you’ve nae objections. As I said, ‘I trow no,
you would have nae objections’--no to say there’s company in the house
to be a divert--and the mistress is far frae weel.”

“But, Jenny, you must tell my darling Menie to come in,” said Miss
Annie. “I cannot want her, you know; and I am sure she cannot know who
is here, or she would never bid you say she was out. Tell her I want
her, Jenny.”

“Mem, I have telt you,” said Jenny, somewhat fiercely, “if she was ane
given to leasing-making she would have to get another lass to gang her
errands than Jenny, and I canna tell whatfor Miss Menie should heed, or
do aught but her ain pleasure, for ony company that’s here ’enow. I’m no
fit mysel, an auld lass like me, to gang away after Miss Menie’s light
fit; but she’s out-by, puir bairn--and it’s little onybody kens Jenny
that would blame me wi’ a lee.”

She had reached the door before Randall could prevail with himself to
follow her; but at last he did hurry after Jenny, making a hasty apology
as he went. Randall had by no means paid to Jenny the respect to which
she held herself entitled: her quick sense had either heard his step
behind, or surmised that he would follow her; and Jenny, in a violent
fuff, strongly suppressing herself, but quivering all over with the
effort it cost her, turned sharp round upon him, and came to a dead
pause, facing him as he closed the door.

“Where is Miss Menie Laurie? I wish to see her,” said Randall. Randall
did not choose to be familiar, even now.

“Miss Menie Laurie takes her ain will commonly,” said Jenny, making a
satirical curtsey. “She’s been used wi’t this lang while; and she hasna
done what Jenny bade her this mony a weary day. Atweel, if she had, some
things wouldna have been to undo that are--and mony an hour’s wark and
hour’s peace the haill house might have gotten, if she had aye had the
sense to advise wi’ the like o’ me; but she’s young, and she takes her
ain gait. Puir thing! she’ll have to do somebody else’s will soon
enough, if there’s nae deliverance; whatfor should I grudge her her ain
the now?”

“What do you mean? I want to see Menie,” exclaimed Randall, with
considerable haste and eagerness. “Do you mean to say she does not want
to see me? I have never been avoided before. What does she mean?”

“Ay, my lad, that’s right,” said Jenny; “think of yoursel just, like a
man, afore ye gie a kindly thocht to her, and her in trouble. It’s like
you a’; it’s like the haill race and lineage o’ ye, father and son. No
that I’m meaning ony ill to auld Crofthill; but nae doubt he’s a man
like the lave.”

Randall lifted his hand impatiently, waving her away.

“I wouldna wonder?” cried Jenny. “I wouldna wonder--no me. She’s owre
mony about that like her, has she?--it’ll be my turn to gang my ways,
and no trouble the maister. You would like to get her, now she’s in her
flower: you would like to take her up and carry her away, and put her in
a cage, like a puir bit singing-burdie, to be a pleasure to you. What
are you courting my bairn for? It’s a’ for your ain delight and
pleasure, because ye canna help but be glad at the sight o’ her, a
darling as she is; because ye would like to get her to yoursel, like a
piece o’land; because she would be something to you to be maister and
lord of, to make ye the mair esteemed in ither folks’ een, and happier
for yoursel. Man, I’ve carried her miles o’ gate in thae very arms o’
mine. I’ve watched her grow year to year, till there’s no ane like her
in a’ the countryside. Is’t for mysel?--she canna be Jenny’s wife--she
canna be Jenny’s ain born bairn? But Jenny would put down her neck under
the darling’s fit, if it was to gie her pleasure--and here’s a strange
lad comes that would set away _me_.”

But Jenny’s vehemence was touched with such depth of higher feeling as
to exalt it entirely out of the region of the “fuff.” With a hasty and
trembling hand she dashed away some tears out of her eyes. “I’m no to
make a fule o’ mysel afore _him_,” muttered Jenny, drawing a hard breath
through her dilated nostrils.

Randall, with some passion, and much scorn in his face, had drawn back a
little to listen. Now he took up his hat hurriedly.

“If you are done, you will let me pass, perhaps,” he said angrily. “This
is absurd, you know--let me pass. I warn you I will not quarrel with
Menie for all the old women in the world.”

“If it’s me, you’re welcome to ca’ me names,” said Jenny, fiercely. “I
daur ye to say a word o’ the mistress--on your peril. Miss Menie pleases
to be her lane. I tell you Miss Menie’s out-by; and I would like to ken
what call ony mortal has to disturb the puir lassie in her distress,
when she wants to keep it to hersel. He doesna hear me--he’s gane the
very way she gaed,” said Jenny, softening, as he burst past her out of
sight. “I’ll no say I think ony waur o’ him for that; but waes me, waes
me--what’s to come out o’t a’, but dismay and distress to my puir
bairn?”

Distress and dismay--it is not hard to see them both in Menie Laurie’s
face, so pale and full of thought, as she leans upon the wall here among
the wet leaves, looking out. Yes, she is looking out, fixedly and long,
but not upon the misty far-away London, not upon the pleasant slope of
green, the retired and quiet houses, the whispering neighbour trees.
Something has brought the dreamy distant future, the unknown country,
bright and far away--brought it close upon her, laid it at her feet. Her
own living breath this moment stirs the atmosphere of this still
unaccomplished world; her foot is stayed upon its threshold. No more
vague fears--no more mere clouds upon the joyous firmament--but close
before her, dark and tangible, the crisis and decision--the
turning-point of heart and hope. Before her wistful eyes lie two clear
paths, winding before her into the evening sky. Two; but the spectre of
a third comes in upon her--a life distraught and barren of all
comfort--a fate irrevocable, not to be changed or softened; and Menie’s
heart is deadly sick in her poor breast, and faints for fear. Alas for
Menie Laurie’s quiet heart!

She was sad yesterday. Yesterday she saw a cloudy sword, suspended in
the skies, wavering and threatening above her unguarded head; to-day she
looks no longer at this imaginative menace. From another unfeared
quarter there has fallen a real blow.




CHAPTER XX.


With the heat and flush of excitement upon his face, Randall Home made
his way across the glistening lawn, and through the wet shrubs--for
there had been rain--to that corner of the garden where he had seen
Menie disappear. Impatiently his foot rung upon the gravel path, and
crushed the fallen branches: something of an angry glow was in his eye,
and heated and passionate was the colour on his cheek.

“You are here, Menie!” he exclaimed. “I think you might have had
sufficient respect for me to do what you could to prevent this last
passage of arms.”

“Respect!” Menie looked at him with doubtful apprehension. She thought
the distress of her mind must have dulled and blunted her nerves; and
repeated the word vacantly, scarcely knowing what it meant.

“I said respect. Is it so presumptuous an idea?” said Randall, with his
cold sarcastic smile.

But Menie made no answer. Drawing back with a timid frightened motion,
which did not belong to her natural character, she stood so very pale,
and chill, and tearful, that you could have found nowhere a more
complete and emphatic contrast than she made to her betrothed. The one
so full of strength and vigour, stout independence and glowing
resentment--the other with all her life gone out of her, as it seemed,
quenched and subdued in her tears.

“You have avoided me in the house--you will not speak to me now,” said
Randall. “Menie, Menie, what does this mean?”

For Menie had not been able to conceal from him that she was weeping.

“It is no matter, Randall,” said Menie; “it is no matter.”

Randall grew more and more excited. “What is the matter? Have you ceased
to trust me, Menie? What do you mean?”

“I mean nothing to make you angry--I never did,” said Menie, sadly. “I’m
not very old yet, but I never grieved anybody, of my own will, all my
days. Ill never came long ago; or, if it came, nobody ever blamed it on
me. I wish you would not mind me,” she said, looking up suddenly. “I
came out here, because my mind was not fit to speak to anybody--because
I wanted to complain to myself where nobody should hear of my
unthankfulness. I would not have said a word to anybody--not a word.
There was no harm in thinking within my own heart.”

“There is harm in hiding your thoughts from me,” said Randall. “Come,
Menie, you are not to cheat me of my rights. I was angry--forgive me;
but I am not angry now. Menie, my poor sorrowful girl, what ails you?
Has something happened? Menie, you must tell _me_.”

“It is just you I must not tell,” said Menie, under her breath. Then she
wavered a moment, as if the wind swayed her light figure, and held her
in hesitating uncertainty; and then, with a sudden effort, she stood
firm, apart from the wall she had been leaning on, and apart, too, from
Randall’s extended arm.

“Yes, I will tell you,” said Menie, seriously. “You mind what happened a
year ago, Randall: you mind what we did and what we said then--‘For ever
and for ever.’”

Randall took her hand tenderly into his own, “for ever and for ever.” It
was the words of their troth-plight.

“I will keep it in my heart,” said poor Menie. “I will never change in
that, but keep it night and day in my heart. Randall, we are far apart
already. I have a little world you do not choose to share: you are
entering a greater world, where I can never have any place. God speed
you, and God go with you, Randall Home. You will be a great man: you
will prosper and increase; and what would you do with poor Southland
Menie, who cannot help yon in your race? Randall, we will be good
friends: we will part now, and say farewell.”

Abrupt as her speech was Menie’s manner of speaking. She had to hurry
over these disjointed words, lest her sobs should overtake and choke her
utterance ere they were done.

Randall shook his head with displeased impatience. “This is mere folly,
Menie. What does it mean? Cannot you tell me simply and frankly what is
the matter, without such a preface as this? But indeed I know very well
what it means. It means that I am to yield something--to undertake
something--to reconcile myself to some necessity or other, distasteful
to me. But why commence so tragically?--the threat should come at the
end, not at the beginning.”

“I make no threat,” said Menie, growing colder and colder, more and more
upright and rigid; “I mean to say nothing that can make you angry.
Already I have been very unhappy. I dare not venture, with our changed
fortunes, to make a life-long trial--I dare not.”

“Your changed fortunes!” interrupted Randall. “Are your fortunes to-day
different from what they were yesterday?”

Menie paused. “It is only a very poor pride which would conceal it from
you,” she said at length. “Yes, they are different. Yesterday we had
enough for all we needed--to-day we have not anything. You will see how
entirely our circumstances are changed; and I hope you will see too,
Randall, without giving either of us the pain of mentioning them, all
the reasons which make it prudent for us, without prolonging the
conflict longer, to say good-by. Good-by; I can ask nothing of you but
to forget me, Randall.”

And Menie held out her hand, but could not lift her eyes. Her voice had
sunk very low, and a slight shiver of extreme self-constraint passed
over her--her head drooped lower and lower on her breast--her fingers
played vacantly with the glistening leaves; and when he did not take it,
her hand gradually dropped and fell by her side.

There was a moment’s silence--no answer--no response--no remonstrance.
Perhaps, after all, the poor perverse heart had hoped to be overwhelmed
with love which would take no denial: as it was, standing before him
motionless, a great faintness came upon Menie. She could vaguely see the
path at her feet, the trees on either hand. “I had better go, then,”
she said, very low and softly; and the light had faded suddenly upon
Menie’s sight into a strange ringing twilight, full of floating motes
and darkness--and those few paces across the lawn filled all her mind
like a life-journey, so full of difficulty they seemed, so weak was she.

Go quickly, Menie--quickly, ere those growing shadows darken into a
blind unguided night--swiftly, ere these faltering feet grow powerless,
and refuse to obey the imperative eager will. To reach home--to reach
home--home, such a one as it is, lies only half-a-dozen steps away;
press forward, Menie--are those years or hours that pass in the journey?
But the hiding-place and shelter is almost gained.

When suddenly this hand which he would not take is grasped in his
vigorous hold--suddenly this violent tremble makes Menie feel how he
supports her, and how she leans on him. “I am going home,” said Menie,
faintly. Still he made no answer, but held her strongly, wilfully; not
resisting, but unaware of her efforts to escape.

“I have wherewith to work for you, Menie,” said the man’s voice in her
ear. “What are your changed fortunes to me? If you were a princess, I
would receive you less joyfully, for you would have less need of me.
Menie, Menie, why have you tried yourself so sorely--and why should
this be a cause of separating us? I wanted only you.”

And Menie’s pride had failed her. She hid her face in her hands, and
cried, “My mother, my mother!” in a passion of tears.

“Your mother, your mother? But you have a duty to me,” said Randall,
more coldly. “Your mother must not bid you give me up: you have no right
to obey. Ah! I see: I am dull and stupid; forgive me, Menie. You mean
that your mother’s fortunes are changed. She has the more need of a son
then; and my May Marion knows well, that to be her mother is enough for
me--you understand me, Menie. This does not change our attachment, does
not change our plans, our prospects, in the slightest degree. It may
make it more imperative that your mother should live with us, but _you_
will think that no misfortune. Well, are we to have no more heroics
now--nothing tragical--but only a little good sense and patience on all
sides, and my Menie what she always is? Come, look up and tell me.”

“I meant nothing heroic--nothing. What I said was not false, Randall,”
said Menie, looking up with some fire. “If you think it was unreal, that
I did not mean it--”

“If you do not mean it now, is not that enough?” said Randall, smiling.
“Let us talk of something less weighty. July says you do not look as
you used to do; has this been weighing on your mind, Menie? But, indeed,
you have not told me what the misfortune is.”

“We knew it only to-day,” said Menie. Menie spoke very low, and was very
much saddened and humbled, quite unable to make any defence against
Randall’s lordly manner of setting her emotion aside. “My father’s
successors were young men, and the price they paid for entering on his
practice was my mother’s annuity. But now they are both gone; one died
two years ago, the other only last week--and he has died very poor, and
in debt, the lawyer writes; so that there is neither hope nor chance of
having anything from those he leaves behind. So we have no longer an
income; nothing now but my mother’s liferent in Burnside.”

Menie Laurie did not know what poverty was. It was not any apprehension
of this which drew from her eyes those few large tears.

“Well, that will be enough for your mother,” said Randall. It was
impossible for Menie to say a word or make an objection, so completely
had he put her aside, and taken it for granted that his will should
decide all. “Or if it was not enough, what then? Provision for the
future lies with me--and you need not fear for me, Menie. I am not
quarrelsome. You need not look so deprecating and frightened: you will
find no disappointment in me.”

Was Menie reassured? It was not easy to tell; for very new to Menie
Laurie was this trembling humility of tone and look--this faltering and
wavering--as if she knew not to which side to turn. But Randall began to
speak, as he knew how, of her own self, and of their betrothing, “for
ever and for ever;” and the time these words were said came back upon
her with new power. Her mind was not satisfied, her heart was not
convinced, and very trembling and insecure now was her secret response
to Randall’s declaration that she should find no disappointment in him;
but her heart was young, and all unwilling to give up its blithe
existence. Instinctively she fled from her own pain, and accepted the
returning hope and pleasantness. Bright pictures rose before Menie, of a
future household harmonious and full of peace--of the new love growing
greater, fuller, day by day--the old love sacred and strong, as when it
stood alone. Why did she fear? why did a lurking terror in her heart cry
No, no! with a sob and pang? After all, this was no vain impracticable
hope; many a one had realised it--it was right and true for ever under
the skies; and Menie put her hand upon the arm of her betrothed, and
closed her eyes for a moment with a softening sense of relief and
comfort, and gentle tears under the lids. Let him lead forward; who can
tell the precious stores of love, and tenderness, and supreme regard
that wait him as his guerdon? Let him lead forward--on to those bright
visionary days--in to this peaceful home.




CHAPTER XXI.


Perhaps next to the pleasure of doing all for those we love best, the
joy of receiving all ranks highest. With her heart elate, Menie went in
again to the house she had left so sadly--went in again, looking up to
Randall, rejoicing in the thought that from him every daily gift--all
that lay in the future--should henceforth come. And if it were well to
be Menie’s mother--chief over one child’s heart which could but
love--how much greater joy to be Randall’s mother, high in the reverent
thought of such a mind as his! Now there remained but one difficulty--to
bring the mother and the son lovingly together--to let no misconception,
no false understanding, blind the one’s sight of the other--to clear
away all evil judgment of the past--to show each how worthy of esteem
and high appreciation the other was. She thought so in her own simple
soul, poor heart! Through her own great affection she looked at
both--to either of them _she_ would have yielded without a murmur her
own little prides and resentments; and the light of her eyes suffused
them with a circle of mingling radiance; and sweet was the fellowship
and kindness, pure the love and good offices, harmonious and noble the
life of home and every day, which blossomed out of Menie Laurie’s heart
and fancy, in the reaction of her hopeless grief.

Mrs Laurie sits very thoughtful and still by the window. Menie’s mother,
in her undisturbed and quiet life, had never found out before how proud
she was. Now she feels it in her nervous shrinking from speech of her
misfortune--in the involuntary haughtiness with which she starts and
recoils from sympathy. Without a word of comment or lamentation, the
mere bare facts, and nothing more, she has communicated to Miss Annie;
and Mrs Laurie had much difficulty in restraining outward evidence of
the burst of indignant impatience with which, in her heart, she received
Miss Annie’s effusive pity and real kindness. Miss Annie, thinking it
best not to trouble her kinswoman in the present mood of her mind, has
very discreetly carried her pity to some one who will receive it better,
and waits till “poor dear Mrs Laurie” shall recover her composure; while
even July, repelled by the absorbed look, and indeed by an abrupt short
answer, too, withdraws, and hangs about the other end of the room, like
a little shadow, ever and anon gliding across the window with her
noiseless step, and her stream of falling hair.

Mrs Laurie’s face is full of thought--what is she to do? But, harder far
than that, what is Menie to do?--Menie, who vows never to leave her--who
will not permit her to meet the chill fellowship of poverty alone. A
little earthen-floored Dumfriesshire cottage, with its kailyard and its
one apartment, is not a very pleasant anticipation to Mrs Laurie
herself, who has lived the most part of her life, and had her share of
the gifts of fortune; but what will it be to Menie, whose life has to be
made yet, and whose noontide and prime must all be influenced by such a
cloud upon her dawning day? The mother’s brow is knitted with heavy
thought--the mother’s heart is pondering with strong anxiety. Herself
must suffer largely from this change of fortune, but she cannot see
herself for Menie--Menie: what is Menie to do?

Will it be better to see her married to Randall Home, and then to go
away solitary to the cot-house in Kirklands, to spend out this weary
life--these lingering days? But Mrs Laurie’s heart swells at the
thought. Perhaps it will be best; perhaps it is what we must make up our
mind to, and even urge upon her; but alas and alas! how heavily the
words, the very thought, rings in to Mrs Laurie’s heart.

And now here they are coming, their youth upon them like a mantle and a
crown--coming, but not with downcast looks; not despondent, nor afraid,
nor touched at all with the heaviness which bows down the mother’s
spirit to the very dust. Menie will go, then. Close your eyes, mother,
from the light; try to think you are glad; try to rejoice that she will
be content to part from you. It is “for her good”--is there anything you
would not do “for her good,” mother? It has come to the decision now;
and look how she comes with her hand upon his arm, her eyes turning to
his, her heart elate. She will be his wife, then--his Menie first, and
not her mother’s; but have we not schooled our mind to be content?

Yes, she is coming, poor heart!--coming with her new hope glorious in
her eyes; coming to bring the son to his mother; coming herself with
such a great embracing love as is indeed enough of its own might and
strength to unite them for ever: and Menie thinks that now she cannot
fail.

And now they are seated all of them about the window, July venturing
forward to join the party; and as nothing better can be done, there
commences an indifferent conversation, as far removed as possible from
the real subject of their thoughts. There sits Mrs Laurie, sick with
her heavy musings, believing that she now stands alone, that her dearest
child has made up her mind to forsake her, and that in solitude and
meagre poverty she will have to wait for slow-coming age and death. Here
is Randall, looking for once out of himself, with a real _will_ and
anxiety to soften, by every means in his power, the misfortunes of
Menie’s mother, and rousing himself withal to the joy of carrying Menie
home--to the sterner necessity of doing a man’s work to provide for her,
and for the new household; and all the wonder you can summon--no small
portion in those days--flutters about the same subject, little July
Home; and you think in your heart, if you but could, what marvellous
things you _would_ do for Menie Laurie, and Menie Laurie’s mother; while
Menie herself, with a wistful new-grown habit of observation, reads
everybody’s face, and knows not whether to be most afraid of the
obstinate gloom upon her mother’s brow, or exultant in the delicate
attention, the sudden respectfulness and regard, of Randall’s bearing.
But this little company, all so earnestly engrossed--all surrounding a
matter of the vitallest importance to each--turn aside to talk of Miss
Annie Laurie’s toys--Miss Annie Laurie’s party--and only when they
divide and separate, dare speak of what lies at their heart.

And Mrs Laurie is something hard to be conciliated. Mrs Laurie is much
inclined to resent this softening of manner as half an insult to her
change of fortune. Patience, Menie! though your mother rebuffs him, he
bears it nobly. The cloud will not lighten upon her brow--cannot
lighten--for you do not know how heavily this wistful look of yours,
this very anxiety to please her--and all your transparent wiles and
artifices--your suppressed and trembling hope, strikes upon your
mother’s heart. “She will go away--she will leave me.” Your mother says
so, Menie, within herself; and it is so hard, so very hard, to persuade
the unwilling content with that sad argument, “It is for her good.” Now,
draw your breath softly lest she hear how your heart beats, for Randall
has asked her to go to the garden with him, to speak of this; and Mrs
Laurie rises with a sort of desolate stateliness--rises--accepts his
offered arm, and turns away--poor Menie!--with an averted face, and
without a glance at you.

And now there follows a heavy time--a little space of curious restless
suspense. Wandering from window to window, from table to table; striking
a few notes on the ever-open piano; opening a book now, taking up a
piece of work then, Menie strays about, in an excitement of anxiety
which she can neither suppress nor conceal. Will they be friends? such
friends--such loving friends as they might be, being as they are in
Menie’s regard so noble and generous both? Will they join heartily and
cordially? will they clasp hands upon a kindly bargain? But Menie
shrinks, and closes her eyes--she dares not look upon the alternative.

“Menie, will you not sit down?” Little July Home follows Menie with her
eyes almost as wistfully as Menie follows Randall and her mother. There
is no answer, for Menie is so fully occupied that the little timid voice
fails to break through the trance of intense abstraction in which her
heart is separated from this present scene. “Menie!” Speak louder,
little girl: Menie cannot hear you, for other voices speaking in her
heart

So July steals across the room with her noiseless step, and has her arm
twined through Menie’s before she is aware. “Come and sit down--what are
they speaking about, Menie? Do you no hear me? Oh, Menie, is it our
Randall? Is it his blame?”

July is so near crying that she must be answered. “Nobody is to blame;
there is no harm,” said Menie, quickly, leading her back to her
seat--quickly, with an imperative hush and haste, which throws July back
into timid silence, and sets all her faculties astir to listen, too. But
there comes no sound into this quiet room--not even the footsteps which
have passed out of hearing upon the garden path, nor so much as an echo
of the voices which Menie knows to be engaged in converse which must
decide her fate. But this restless and visible solicitude will not do;
it is best to take up her work resolutely, and sit down with her intent
face turned towards the window, from which at least the first glance of
them may be seen as they return.

No,--no need to start and blush and tremble; this step, ringing light
upon the path, is not the stately step of Randall--not our mother’s
sober tread. “It’s no them, Menie--it’s just Miss Laurie,” whispers
little startled July from the corner of the window. So long away--so
long away--and Menie cannot tell whether it is a good or evil omen--but
still they do not come.

“My sweet children, are you here alone?” said Miss Annie, setting down
her little basket “Menie, love, I have just surprised your mamma and Mr
Randall, looking very wise, I assure you; you ought to be quite thankful
that you are too young to share such deliberations. July, dear, you must
come and have your lesson; but I cannot teach you to play that favourite
tune,--oh no, it would be quite improper,--though he has very good
taste, has he not, darling? But somebody will say I have designs upon Mr
Lithgow, if I always play his favourite tune.”

So saying, Miss Annie sat down before the piano, and began to sing, “For
bonnie Annie Laurie I’ll lay down my head and dee.” Poor Johnnie Lithgow
had no idea, when he praised the pretty little graceful melody and
delicate verses, that he was paying a compliment to the lady of
Heathbank.

And July, with a blush, and a little timid eagerness, stole away to Miss
Annie’s side. July had never before touched any instrument except Menie
Laurie’s old piano at Burnside, and with a good deal of awe had
submitted to Miss Annie’s lessons. It did seem a very delightful
prospect to be able to play this favourite tune, though July would have
thought very little of it, but for Miss Annie’s constant warnings.
Thanks to these, however, and thanks to his own kindly half-shy regards,
Johnnie Lithgow’s favourite tunes, favourite books, favourite things and
places, began to grow of great interest to little July Home. She thought
it was very foolish to remember them all, and blushed in secret when
Johnnie Lithgow’s name came into her mind as an authority; but
nevertheless, in spite of shame and blushing, a great authority Johnnie
Lithgow had grown, and July stood by the piano, eager and afraid,
longing very much to be as accomplished as Miss Annie, to be able to
play his favourite tune.

While Menie Laurie still sits by the window, intent and silent, hearing
nothing of song or music, but only aware of a hum of inarticulate
voices, which her heart longs and strains to understand, but cannot
hear.




CHAPTER XXII.


The music is over, the lesson concluded, and July sits timidly before
the piano, striking faint notes with one finger, and marvelling greatly
how it is possible to extract anything like an intelligible strain from
this waste of unknown chords. Miss Annie is about in the room once more,
giving dainty touches to its somewhat defective arrangement--throwing
down a book here, and there altering an ornament. Patience, Menie
Laurie! many another one before you has sat in resolute outward calm,
with a heart all a-throb and trembling, even as yours is. Patience;
though it is hard to bear the rustling of Miss Annie’s dress--the faint
discords of July’s music. It must have been one time or another, this
most momentous interview--all will be over when it is over. Patience, we
must wait.

But it is a strange piece of provocation on Miss Annie’s part that she
should choose this time, and no other, for looking over that little
heap of Menie’s drawings upon the table. Menie is not ambitious as an
artist--few ideas or romances are in these little works of hers; they
are only some faces--not very well executed--the faces of those two or
three people whom Menie calls her own.

“Come and show them to me, my love.” Menie must not disobey, though her
first impulse is to spring out of the low opened window, and rush away
somewhere out of reach of all interruption till this long suspense is
done. But Menie does not rush away; she only rises slowly--comes to Miss
Annie’s side--feels the pressure of Miss Annie’s embracing arm round
her--and turns over the drawings; strangely aware of every line in them,
yet all the while in a maze of abstraction, listening for their return.

Here is Menie’s mother--and here again another, and yet another, sketch
of her; and this is Randall Home.

“Do you know, I think they are very like,” said Miss Annie: “you must do
my portrait, Menie, darling--you must indeed. I shall take no denial;
you shall do me in my white muslin, among my flowers; and we will put
Mr. Home’s sweet book on the table, and open it at that scene--that
scene, you know, I pointed out to you the other day. I know what
inspired him when he wrote that. Come, my love, it will divert you from
thinking of this trouble--your mamma should not have told you--shall we
begin now! But, Menie, dear, don’t you think you have put a strange look
in this face of Mr. Randall? It is like him--but I would not choose you
to do me with such an expression as that.”

Half wild with her suspense, Menie by this time scarcely heard the words
that rang into her ears, scarcely saw the face she looked upon; but
suddenly, as Miss Annie spoke, a new light seemed to burst upon this
picture, and there before her, looking into her eyes, with the smile of
cold supervision which she always feared to see, with the incipient curl
of contempt upon his lip--the pride of self-estimation in his eye--was
Randall’s face, glowing with contradiction to all her sudden hopes. Her
own work, and she has never had any will to look at him in this aspect;
but the little picture blazes out upon her like a sudden enlightenment.
Here is another one, done by the loving hand of memory a year ago; but,
alas! there is no enchantment to bring back this ideal glory, this glow
of genial love and life that makes it bright--a face of the imagination,
taking all its wealth of expression from the heart which suffused these
well-remembered features with a radiance of its own; but the reality
looks out on Menie darkly; the face of a man not to be moved by
womanish influences--not to be changed by a burst of strong emotion--not
to be softened, mellowed, won, by any tenderness--a heart that can love,
indeed, but never can forget itself; a mind sufficient for its own rule,
a soul which knows no generous _abandon_, which holds its own will and
manner firm and strong above all other earthly things. This is the face
which looks on Menie Laurie out of her own picture, startling her heart,
half distraught with fond hopes and dreams into the chill daylight
again--full awake.

“I will make portraits,” said Menie, hastily, in a flood of sudden
bitterness, “when we go away, when we go home--I can do it--this shall
be my trade.”

And Menie closed the little portfolio abruptly, and went back to her
seat without another word; went back with the blood tingling through her
veins, with all her pride and all her strength astir; with a vague
impetuous excitement about her--an impulse of defiance. So long--so
long: what keeps them abroad lingering among these glistening trees?
perhaps because they are afraid to tell her that her fate is sealed; and
starting to her feet, the thought is strong on Menie to go forth and
meet them, to bid them have no fear for her, to tell them her delusion
is gone for ever, and that there is no more light remaining under the
skies.

Hush! there are footsteps on the path. Who are these that come together,
leaning, the elder on the younger, the mother on the son! With such a
grace this lofty head stoops to our mother; with such a kindly glance
she lifts her eyes to him; and they are busy still with the consultation
which has occupied so long a time. While she stands arrested, looking at
them as they draw near--growing aware of their full amity and union--a
shiver of great emotion comes upon Menie--then, or ever she is
conscious, a burst of tears. In another moment all her sudden
enlightenment is gone, quenched out of her eyes, out of her heart--and
Menie puts the tears away with a faltering hand, and stands still to
meet them in a quiet tremor of joy, the same loving Menie as of old.

“_My_ bairn!” Mrs Laurie says nothing more as she draws her daughter
close to her, and puts her lips softly to Menie’s brow. It is the seal
of the new bond. The mother and the son have been brought together; the
past is gone for ever like a dream of the night; and into the blessed
daylight, full of the peaceful rays God sends us out of heaven, we open
our eyes as to another life. Peace and sweet harmony to Menie Laurie’s
heart!

Put away the picture; lay it by where no one again shall believe its
slander true; put away this false-reporting face; put away the strange
clearsightedness which came upon us like a curse. No need to inquire how
much was false--it is past, and we begin anew.




CHAPTER XXIII.


“Yes, Menie, I am quite satisfied.” It is Mrs Laurie herself who
volunteers this declaration, while Menie, on the little stool at her
feet, looks up wistfully, eager to hear, but not venturing to ask what
her conversation with Randall was. “We said a great many things, my
dear--a great deal about you, Menie, and something about our
circumstances too. The rent of Burnside will be a sufficient income for
me. I took it kind of Randall to say so, for it shows that he knew I
would not be dependent; and as for you, Menie, I fancy you will be very
well and comfortable, according to what he says. So you will have to
prepare, my dear--to prepare for your new life.”

Menie hid her face in her mother’s lap. Prepare--not the bridal
garments, the household supplies--something more momentous, and of
greater delicacy--the mind and the heart; and if this must always be
something solemn and important, whatever the circumstances, how much
more so to Menie, whose path had been crossed already by such a spectre?
She sat there, her eyes covered with her hands, her head bowing down
upon her mother’s knee; but the heavy doubt had flown from her, leaving
nothing but lighter cloudy shadows--maidenly fears and tremblings--in
her way. Few hearts were more honest than Menie’s, few more wistfully
desirous of doing well; and now it is with no serious anticipations of
evil, but only with the natural thrill and tremor, the natural
excitement of so great an epoch drawing close at hand, that Menie’s
fingers close with a startled pressure on her mother’s hand, as she is
bidden prepare.

What is this that has befallen little July Home? There never were such
throngs of unaccountable blushes, such a suffusion of simple surprise.
Something is on her lips perpetually, which she does not venture to
speak--some rare piece of intelligence, which July cannot but marvel at
herself in silent wonder, and which she trembles to think Menie and
“a’body else” will marvel at still more. Withdrawing silently into dark
corners, sitting there doing nothing, in long fits of reverie, quite
unusual with July; coming forward so conscious and guilty, when called
upon; and now, at this earliest opportunity, throwing her arms round
Menie Laurie’s neck, and hiding her little flushed and agitated face
upon Menie’s shoulder. What has befallen July Home?

“Do you think it’s a’ true, Menie? He wouldna say what he didna mean:
but I think it’s for our Randall’s sake--it canna be for me!”

For July has not the faintest idea, as she lets this soft silken hair of
hers fall down on her cheek without an effort to restrain it, that
Johnnie Lithgow would not barter one smile upon that trembling child’s
lip of hers for all the Randalls in the world.

“He says he’ll go to the Hill, and tell them a’ at hame,” said July.
“Eh, Menie, what will they say? And he’s to tell Randall first of all. I
wish I was away, no to see Randall, Menie; he’ll just laugh, and think
it’s no true--for I see mysel it canna be for me!”

“It is for you, July; you must not think anything else; there is nobody
in the world like you to Johnnie Lithgow.” And slowly July’s head is
raised--a bright shy look of wonder gradually growing into conviction, a
sudden waking of higher thought and deeper feeling in the open simple
face; a sudden flush of crimson--the woman’s blush--and July withdrew
herself from her friend’s embrace, and stole a little apart into the
shadow, and wept a few tears. Was it true? For her, and not for another!
But it is a long time before this grand discovery can look a truth, and
real, to July’s humble eyes.

But, nevertheless, it is very true. Randall’s little sister, Menie’s
child-friend, the little July of Crofthill, has suddenly been startled
into womanhood by this unexpected voice. After a severer fashion than
has ever confined it before, July hastily fastens up her silky hair,
hastily wipes off all traces of the tears upon her cheek, and is
composed and calm, after a sweet shy manner of composure, lifting up her
little gentle head with a newborn pride, eager to bring no discredit on
her wooer’s choice. And already July objects to be laughed at, and feels
a slight offence when she is treated as a child--not for herself, but
for him, whom now she does not quite care to have called _Johnnie_
Lithgow, but is covetous of respect and honour for, as she never was for
Randall, though secretly in her own heart July still doubts of his
genius and cannot choose but think Randall must be cleverer than his
less assuming friend.

And in this singular little company, where all these feelings are astir,
it is hardly possible to preserve equanimity of manners. Miss Annie
herself, the lady of the house, sits at her little work-table, in great
delight, running over now and then in little outbursts of enthusiasm,
discoursing of Mr Home’s sweet book, of Mr Lithgow’s charming articles,
and occasionally making a demonstration of joy and sympathy in the
happiness of her darling girls, which throws Menie--Menie always
conscious of Randall’s eye upon her, the eye of a lover, it is true, but
something critical withal--into grave and painful embarrassment, and
covers July’s stooping face with blushes. Mrs. Laurie, busy with her
work, does what she can to keep the conversation “sensible,” but with no
great success. The younger portion of the company are too completely
occupied, all of them, to think of ordinary intercourse. Miss Annie’s
room was never so bright, never so rich with youthful hopes and
interests before. Look at them, so full of individual character,
unconscious as they are of any observation--though Nelly Panton, very
grim in the stiff coat armour of her new assumed gentility, sits at the
table sternly upright, watching them all askance, with vigilant unloving
eye.

Lithgow, good fellow, sits by Miss Annie. Though he laughs now and then,
he still does not scorn the natural goodness, the natural tenderness of
heart, which make their appearance under these habitual
affectations--the juvenile tricks and levities of her unreverent age.
Poor Miss Annie Laurie has been content to resign the reverence, in a
vain attempt at equality; but Lithgow, who is no critic by nature,
remembers gratefully her true kindness, and smiles only as little as
possible at the fictitious youthfulness which Miss Annie herself has
come to believe in. So he sits and bears with her, her little follies
and weaknesses, and, in his unconscious humility, is magnanimous, and
does honour to his manhood. Within reach of his kindly eye, July bends
her head over her work, glancing up now and then furtively to see who is
looking at him--to see, in the second place, who is noticing or laughing
at her; and July, with all her innocent heart, is grateful to Miss
Annie. So many kind things she says--and in July’s guileless
apprehension they are all so true.

Graver, but not less happy, Menie Laurie pursues her occupation by
July’s side, rarely looking up at all, pondering in her own heart the
many weighty things that are to come, with her tremor of fear, her joy
of deliverance scarcely yet quieted, and all her heart and all her mind
engaged--in dreams no longer, but in sober thought; sober
thought--thoughts of great devotion, of life-long love and service, of
something nobler than the common life. Very serious are these
ponderings, coming down to common labours, the course of every day; and
Menie does not know the nature of her dreamings--they look to her so
real, so sober, and so true--and would scorn your warning, if you told
her that not the wildest story of Arabian genii was more romance than
those, her sober plans and thoughts.

Apart, and watching all, stands Randall Home. There is love in his
eye--you cannot doubt it--love and the impulse of protection, the
strong, appropriating grasp. There is something more. Look how his head
rises in the dimmer background above the table and the lights, above the
little company assembled there. With something like laughter, his eye
turns upon July--upon July’s wooer, his own friend--kindly, yet with a
sense of superiority, an involuntary elevation of himself above them
both. And this glance upon Miss Annie is mere scorn, nothing higher; and
his eye has scarcely had time to recover itself, when its look falls,
bright and softened, upon his betrothed; a look of love--question it
not, simple Menie--but is calm, superior above you still.




CHAPTER XXIV.


“They tell me it’s a haill month since it was a’ settled, but I hear
naething o’ the house or the plenishing, and no a word o’ what Jenny’s
to do. If they’re no wanting me, I’m no wanting them--ne’er a bit. It’s
aye the way guid service is rewarded; and whatfor should there be ony
odds wi’ Jenny? I might hae kent that muckle, if I had regarded counsel,
or thocht o’ my ainsel; but aye Jenny’s foremost thocht was o’ them, for
a’ sic an ill body as she is now.”

And a tear was in Jenny’s eye as she smoothed down the folds of Menie’s
dress--Menie’s finest dress, her own present, which Menie was to wear
to-night. And Menie’s ornaments are all laid out carefully upon the
table, everything she is likely to need, before Jenny’s lingering step
leaves the room. “I canna weel tell, for my pairt, what like life’ll be
without her,” muttered Jenny, as she went away--“I reckon no very
muckle worth the minding about; but I’m no gaun to burden onybody that
doesna want me--no, if I should never hae anither hour’s comfort a’ my
days.”

And slowly, with many a backward glance and pause, Jenny withdrew.
Neglect is always hard to bear. Jenny believed herself to be left out of
their calculations--forgotten of those to whom she had devoted so many
years of her life; and Jenny, though she tried to be angry, could not
manage it, but felt her indignant eyes startled with strange tears. It
made a singular cloud upon her face this unusual emotion; the native
impatience only struggled through it fitfully in angry glimpses, though
Jenny was furious at herself for feeling so desolate, and very fain
would have thrown off her discomfort in a fuff--but far past the region
of the fuff was this her new-come solitude of heart. Her friends were
dead or scattered, her life was all bound up in her mistress and her
mistress’s child, and it was no small trial for Jenny to find herself
thus cast off and thrown aside.

The next who enters this room has a little heat about her, a certain
atmosphere of annoyance and displeasure. “I will be a burden”--unawares
the same words steal over Mrs Laurie’s lip, but the sound of her voice
checks her. Two or three steps back and forward through the room, a
long pause before the window, and then her brow is cleared. You can see
the shadows gradually melting away, as clouds melt from the sky, and in
another moment she has left the room, to resume her place down stairs.

This vacant room--nothing can you learn from its calm good order, its
windows open to the sun, its undisturbed and home-like quiet, of what
passes within its walls. There is Menie’s little Bible on the table; it
is here where Menie brings her doubts and troubles, to resolve them, if
they may be resolved. But there is no whisper here to tell you what
happens to Menie, when, as has already chanced, some trouble comes upon
her which it is not easy to put away. Hush! this time the door opens
slowly, gravely--this time it is a footstep very sober, something
languid, which comes in; and Menie Laurie puts up her hand to her
forehead, as if a pain was there; but not a word says Menie Laurie’s
reverie--not a word. If she is sad, or if she is merry, there is no way
to know. She goes about her toilette like a piece of business, and gives
no sign.

But this month has passed almost like age upon Menie Laurie’s face. You
can see that grave thoughts are common now, everyday guests and friends
in her sobered life, and that she has begun to part with her romances of
joy and noble life--has begun to realise more truly what manner of
future it is which lies before her. Nothing evil, perhaps--little
hardship in it; no great share of labour, of poverty, or care--but no
longer the grand ideal life, the dream of youthful souls.

And now she stands before the window, wearing Jenny’s gown. It is only
to look out if any one is visible upon the road--but there is no
passenger yet approaching Heathbank, and Menie goes calmly down stairs.
As it happens, the drawing-room is quite vacant of all but Nelly Panton,
who sits prim by the wall in one corner. Nelly is not an invited guest,
but has come as a volunteer, in right of her brother’s invitation, and
Miss Annie shows her sense of the intrusion by leaving her alone.

“Na, I’m no gaun to bide very lang in London,” said Nelly. “Ye see, Miss
Menie, you’re an auld friend. I’m no sae blate, but I may tell you. I
didna come up here anes errand for my ain pleasure, but mostly to see
Johnnie, and to try if I couldna get ony word o’ a very decent lad, ane
Peter Drumlie, that belangs about our countryside. We were great
friends, him and me, and then we had an outcast--you’ll ken by
yoursel--but we’ve made it up again since I came to London, and I’m gaun
hame to get my providing, and comfort my mother a wee while, afore I
leave her athegither. It’s a real duty comforting folk’s mother, Miss
Menie. I’m sure I wouldna forget that for a’ the lads in the world.”

“And where are you to live, Nelly?” Nelly’s moralising scarcely called
for an answer.

“We havena just made up our minds; they say ae marriage aye makes mair,”
said Nelly, with a grim smile. “Miss Menie, you’ve set us a’ agaun.”

Perhaps Menie did not care to be classed with Nelly Panton. “July Home
will be a very young wife,” she said; “I think your brother should be
very happy with her, Nelly.”

“I wouldna wonder,” said Nelly, shortly; “but you see, Miss Menie, our
Johnnie’s a weel-doing lad, and might hae lookit higher, meaning nae
offence to you; though nae doubt it’s true what Randall Home said when
he was speaking about this. ‘Lithgow,’ says he (for he ca’s Johnnie by
his last name--it’s a kind o’ fashion hereaway), ‘if you get naething
wi’ your wife, I will take care to see you’re no cumbered wi’ onybody
but hersel;’ which nae doubt is a great comfort, seeing there might hae
been a haill troop o’ friends, now that Johnnie’s getting up in the
world.”

“What was that Randall Home said?” Menie asked the question in a very
clear distinct tone, cold and steady and unfaltering--“What do you say
he said?--tell me again.”

“He said, Johnnie wouldna be troubled wi’ nane o’ her friends,” said
Nelly; “though he has her to keep, a bit wee silly thing, that can do
naething in a house--and nae doubt a maid to keep to her forby--that he
wouldna hae ony o’ her friends a burden on him; and a very wise thing to
say, and a great comfort. I aye said he was a sensible lad, Randall
Home. Eh, preserve me!”

For Randall Home stands before her, his eyes glowing on her with haughty
rage. He has heard it, every single deliberate word, and Randall is no
coward--he comes in person to answer for what he has said.

Rise, Menie Laurie! Slowly they gather over us, these kind shadows of
the coming night; no one can see the momentary faltering which inclines
you to throw yourself down there upon the very ground, and weep your
heart out. Rise; it is you who are stately now.

“This is true?”

She is so sure of it, that there needs no other form of question, and
Menie lays her hand upon the table to support herself, and stands firmly
before him waiting for his answer. Why is it that now, at this moment,
when she should be most strong, the passing wind brings to her, as in
mockery, an echo of whispering mingled voices--the timid happiness of
July Home? But Menie draws up her light figure, draws herself apart
from the touch of her companions, and stands, as she fancies she most do
henceforth, all her life, alone.

“This is true?”

“I would disdain myself, if I tried to escape by any subterfuge,” said
Randall, proudly. “I might answer that I never said the words this woman
attributes to me; but that I do not need to tell you. I would not
deceive you, Menie. I never can deny what I have given expression to;
and you are right--it is true.”

And Randall thinks he hears a voice, wavering somewhere, far off, and
distant like an echo--not coming from these pale lips which move and
form the words, but falling out upon the air--faint, yet distinct, not
to be mistaken. “I am glad you have told me. I thank you for making no
difficulty about it: this is very well.”

“Menie! you are not moved by this gossip’s story? This that I said has
no effect on you? Menie! is a woman like this to make a breach between
you and me?”

In stolid malice Nelly Panton sits still, and listens with a certain
melancholy enjoyment of the mischief she has made, protesting, under her
breath, that “she meant nae ill; she aye did a’thing for the best;”
while Randall, forgetful of his own acknowledgment, repeats again and
again his indignant remonstrance, “a woman like this!”

“No, she has no such power,” said Menie firmly--“no such power. Pardon
me--I am wanted to-night. My strength is not my own to be wasted now; we
can conclude this matter another time.”

Before he could say a word the door had closed upon her. There was a
hustle without, a glimmer of coming lights upon the wall. In a few
minutes the room was lighted up, the lady of the house in her presiding
place--and Randall started with angry pride from the place where he
stood, by the side of Nelly Panton, whose gloomy unrelieved figure
suddenly stood out in bold relief upon the brightened wall.

Another time! Menie Laurie has not gone to ponder upon what this other
conference shall be--she is not by her window--she is not out of
doors--she has gone to no such refuge. Where she never went before, into
the heart of Miss Annie’s preparations--into the bustle of Miss Annie’s
hospitality--shunning even Jenny, far more shunning her mother, and
waiting only till the room is full enough, to give her a chance of
escaping every familiar eye. This is the first device of Menie’s mazed,
bewildered mind. These many days she has lived in hourly expectation of
some such blow; but it stuns her when it comes.

Forlorn! forlorn! wondering if it is possible to hide this misery from
every eye--pondering plans and schemes of concealment, trying to
invent--do not wonder, it is a natural impulse--some generous lie. But
Menie’s nature, more truthful than her will, fails in the effort. The
time goes on, the lingering moments swell into an hour. Music is in her
ears, and smiling faces glide before her and about her, till she feels
this dreadful pressure at her heart no longer tolerable, and bursts away
in a sudden passion, craving to be alone.

Another heart, restless by reason of a gnawing unhappiness, wanders out
and in of these unlighted chambers--oftenest coming back to this one,
where the treasures of its life rest night by night. This wandering
shadow is not a graceful one--these pattering hasty footsteps have
nothing in them of the softened lingering tread of meditation. No, poor
Jenny, little of sentiment or grace embellishes your melancholy--yet it
is hard to find any poem so full of pathos as a desolate heart, even
such a one as beats in your homely breast to-night.

Softly--the room is not vacant now, as it was when you last entered
here. Some one stands by the window, stooping forward to look at the
stars; and while you linger by the door, a low cry, half a sigh, half a
moan, breaks the silence faintly--not the same voice which just now
bore its part so well below;--not the same, for that voice came from the
lips only--this is out of the heart.

“Bairn, you’re no weel--they’ve a’ wearied you,” said Jenny, stealing
upon her in the darkness: “lie down and sleep; its nae matter for the
like o’ me, but when you sigh, it breaks folk’s hearts.”

The familiar voice surprised the watcher into a sudden burst of childish
tears. All the woman failed in this great trial. “Oh, Jenny, dinna tell
my mother!” Menie Laurie was capable of no other thought.




CHAPTER XXV.


But this Menie Laurie, rising up from her bed of unrest, when the
morning light breaks, cold and real, upon a changed world, has wept out
all her child’s tears, and is a woman once again. No one knows yet a
whisper of what has befallen her, not even poor Jenny, who sobbed over
her last night, and implored her not to weep.

Now, how to tell this--how to signify, in the fewest and calmest words,
the change that has come upon her. Sitting, with her cheek leant on her
hand, by the window where she heard it, before any other eyes are awake,
Menie ponders this in her heart. Always before in little difficulties
counsel and help have been within her reach; few troublous things have
been to do in Menie’s experience; and no one ever dreamt that _she_
should do them, when they chanced to come to her mother’s door.

But now her mother’s honour is involved--she must not be consulted--she
must not know. With a proud flush Menie draws up herself--herself who
must work in this alone. Ah, sweet dependence, dear humility of the old
times! we must lay them by out of our heart to wait for a happier dawn.
This day it is independence--self-support--a strength that stands alone;
and no one who has not felt such an abrupt transition can know how hard
it is to take these unused weapons up.

“Will you let me speak to you, aunt?” Menie’s heart falters within her,
as she remembers poor Miss Annie’s unaccepted sympathy. Has she indeed
been driven to seek refuge here at last?

“My love! how can you ask such a question, darling, when I am always
ready to speak to you?” exclaimed Miss Annie, with enthusiasm.

“But not here--out of doors, if you will permit me,” said Menie in a
half whisper. “I--I want to be out of my mother’s sight--she must not
know.”

“You delightful creature,” said Miss Annie, “are you going to give me
your confidence at last?”

Poor Menie, sadly dismayed, was very ill able to support this strain of
sympathy. She hastened out, not quite observing how it tasked her
companion to follow her--out to the same green overgrown corner, where
once before she had spoken of this same subject to Randall himself. With
a slight shudder she paused there before the little rustic seat, from
which she had risen at his approach; but Menie knew that she must harden
herself against the power of associations; enough of real ill was before
her.

“I want to tell you, aunt, if you will please to listen to me,
that the engagement of which you were told when we came here is
dissolved--broken. I do not know if there is any stronger word,” said
Menie, a bewildered look growing on her face. “I mean to say that it is
all over, as if it had never been.”

And Menie folded her hands upon her breast, and stood patiently to
listen, expecting a burst of lamentation and condolence; but Menie was
not prepared for the laugh which rung shrilly on her ears--the words
that followed it.

“My sweet simple child, I have no doubt you quite believe it--forgive me
for laughing, darling; but I know what lovers’ quarrels are. There, now,
don’t look so grave and angry; my love, you will make it all up
to-morrow.”

And Miss Annie Laurie patted Menie’s shrinking shoulder encouragingly.
It was a harder task this than Menie had anticipated; but she went on
without flinching.

“This is no lovers’ quarrel, aunt; do not think so. My mother is in some
degree involved in this. I cannot consult her, or ask her to help me; it
is the first time I have ever been in such a strait;” and Menie’s lip
quivered as she spoke. “You are my only friend. I am serious--as serious
as mind can be, which feels that here it decides its life. Aunt, I apply
to you.”

Miss Annie Laurie looked up very much confused and shaken: very seldom
had any one spoken to her with such a sober seriousness of tone; she
could not think it unreal, for neither extravagance nor despair were in
these grave sad words of Menie. The poor frivolous heart felt this voice
ring into its depths, past all superficial affectations and sentiments.
No exuberance of sympathy, no shower of condoling words or endearments,
could answer this appeal; and poor Miss Annie faltered before this claim
of real service--faltered and shrank into a very weak old woman, her
self-delusions standing her in no stead in such a strait; and the only
answer she could make was to cry, in a trembling and strangely altered
voice, “Oh, child, do not speak so. What can I do for you?”

Most true, what can you do, indeed, poor soul! whose greatest object for
all these years has been to shut out and darken the daylight truth,
which mocked your vain pretences? You could give charity and gentle
words--be thankful; your heart is alive in you because of these: but
what can you do in such a difficulty as this? where is your wisdom to
counsel, your strength to uphold? This grave girl stands before you,
sadly bearing her burden, without an effort to conceal from you that she
feels it hard to bear; but you, whose age is not grave, whose heart has
rejected experience, whose mind has refused to learn the kindly insight
of advancing years--shrink into yourself, poor aged butterfly; feel that
it is presumption to call yourself her counsellor, and say again--again,
with a tremble in your weakened voice, “What can I do for you?”

“Aunt, I apply to you,” said Menie Laurie; “I ask your help, when I
resolve to decide my future life according to my own will and conviction
of what is best. I have no one else to assist me. I apply to you.”

Miss Annie melted into a fit of feeble crying; her hands shook, her
ringlets drooped down lank about her cheeks. “I will do
anything--anything you like; tell me what to do, Menie--Menie, my dear
child.”

It was pitiful to see her distress. Menie, whom no one comforted, felt
her heart moved to comfort her.

“I will not grieve you much,” said Menie gently; “only I beg you to give
me your countenance when I see Randall--Mr Home. I want you to be as my
mother might have been in other circumstances; but I will not trouble
you much, aunt--I will not trouble you.”

Miss Annie could not stop her tears; she was very timid and afraid,
sobbing helplessly. “What will I do? what can I do? Oh, Menie, love, you
will make it up to-morrow;” for poor Miss Annie knew no way of
conquering grief except by flying out of its sight.

Menie led her back to the house tenderly. Menie had never known before
this necessity of becoming comforter, when she had so much need to be
comforted. It was best for her--it gave her all the greater command over
her own heart.

And to hear poor innocent July, in her own young unclouded joy--to hear
her unsuspicious mother at their breakfast-table--to have Randall’s name
cross her now and then like a sudden blow--Randall, Randall;--Menie knew
nothing of all these depths, nor how such sorrows come in battalions;
so, one by one, her inexperienced heart gained acquaintance with them
now,--gained acquaintance with that sorest of human truths, that it is
possible to love and to condemn--possible to part, and know that parting
is the best--yet withal to cling and cling, and hold, with the saddest
gripe of tenderness, the heart from which you part. Poor Menie! they
said she looked very dark and heavy; that last night’s exertions had
wearied her--it was very true.

Miss Annie sent a message that she was not well, and would breakfast in
her own room. In the forenoon, when she came down stairs again, even
Menie was startled at the change. Miss Annie’s ringlets were smoothed
out and braided on her poor thin cheek--braided elaborately with a care
and study worthy of something more important; her step tottered a
little: when any one spoke to her, a little gush of tears came to her
eyes; but, notwithstanding, there was a solemnity and importance in the
hush of Miss Annie’s manner, which no one had ever seen in her before.
Half-a dozen times that day she asked in a startling whisper, “Menie,
when is he to come?” Poor Menie, sick at heart, could scarcely bear this
slow prolonging of her pain.




CHAPTER XXVI.


“Aunt, he has come.”

No one knows; July is out on a ramble in this pleasant heath, where she
cannot lose herself; Mrs Laurie has gone out for some private errands of
her own. In her first day, Menie has managed well. True, they all know
that Menie has been wearied last night; that her eye looks dull and
heavy; that her cheek has lost its slight bloom of colour; that she says
something of a headache; but nobody knows that headache has come to be
with Menie Laurie, as with many another, only a softer word for
heartache--no one suspects that the quiet heart, which feared no evil
when this spring began, is now a battle-ground and field of contest, and
that sometimes, when she sits quiet in outward seeming, she could leap
up with a start and scream, and feels as if madness would come to her
underneath their unsuspicious eyes.

“Aunt, he has come.”

Miss Annie Laurie is very nervous; she has to be supported on Menie’s
arm as they go down stairs. “You will make it all up, Menie; yes, my
darling;” but Miss Annie’s head nods spasmodically, and there is a
terrified troubled expression about her face, which looks so meagre in
its outline under that braided hair.

Slightly disturbed, something haughty, rather wondering what Menie has
got to say for herself, Randall sits waiting in the drawing-room. It is
no small surprise to him to see Miss Annie--especially to see her so
moved and nervous; and Randall restrains, with visible displeasure, the
words which rose to his lip, on Menie’s entrance, and coldly makes his
bow to the lady of the house.

“My dear Mr Home, I am very much grieved; I hope you are ready to make
it all up,” murmurs Miss Annie; but she trembles so much that it is not
easy to hear what she says, except the last words, which flush Randall’s
cheek with a sudden disdainful anger. A lovers’ quarrel!--that he should
be fancied capable of this.

“My aunt has come with me,” said Menie steadily, “to give the weight of
her presence to what I say. Randall, I do not pretend that my own
feelings are changed, or that I have ceased to care for you. I do not
need to seem to quarrel, or to call you by a less familiar name. We
know the reason, both of us; there is no use for discussing it--and I
have come to have it mutually understood that our engagement is broken.
We will go away very soon. I came to say good-by.”

Before she concluded, Menie had bent her head, and cast down her
wavering eyes upon Miss Annie’s hand, which she held firmly in her own.
Her voice was very low, her words quick and hurried; she stood beside
Miss Annie’s chair, holding fast, and twining in her own Miss Annie’s
nervous fingers; but she did not venture to look up to meet Randall’s
eyes.

“What does this mean? it is mere trifling, Menie,” said Randall
impatiently. “You hear a gossip’s story of something I said; true or
false, it did not affect you--it had no bearing on you; you know very
well that nothing has happened to make you less precious to me--that
nothing can happen which will ever change my heart. Menie, this is the
second time; is this the conduct I have a right to expect from you? Deal
with me frankly; I have a title to it. What do you mean?”

“My darling, he will make it up,” said Miss Annie, with a little
overflow of tears.

But Menie was very steady--so strange, so strange--she grew into a
startling acquaintance with herself in these few hours. Who could have
thought there were so many passionate impulses in Menie Laurie’s quiet
heart?

“We will not discuss it, Randall,” she said again; “let us simply
conclude that it is best for both of us to withdraw. Perhaps you will be
better content if I speak more strongly,” she continued, with a little
trembling vehemence, born of her weakness, “if I say it is
impossible--impossible--you understand the word--to restore the state of
mind, the hope, the trust, and confidence that are past. No--let us have
no explanation--I cannot bear it, Randall. Do we not understand each
other already? Nothing but parting is possible for us--for me. I think I
am saying what I mean to say--good-by.”

“Look at me, Menie.”

It is hard to do it--hard to lift up those eyes, so full of tears--hard
to see his lips quiver--hard to see the love in his face; but Menie’s
eyes fall when they have endured this momentary ordeal; and again she
holds out her hand and says, “Good-by.”

“Good-by--I answer you,” said Randall, wringing her hand, and throwing
it out of his grasp. “Good-by--you are disloyal, Menie, disloyal to
Nature and to me; some time you will remember this; now I bid you
farewell.”

Something crossed her like an angry breath--something rang in her ears,
confused and echoing like the first drops of a thunder-shower; and Menie
can see nothing in all the world but Miss Annie weeping upon her hand,
and, like a culprit, steals away--steals away, not knowing where she
goes--desolate, guilty, forsaken, feeling as if she had done some
grievous wrong, and was for ever shut out from peace or comfort in this
weary world.

Yes--there is no one to see you. Lie down upon the ground, Menie
Laurie--down, down, where you can be no lower, and cover your eyes from
the cheerful light. How they pour upon you, these dreadful doubts and
suspicions of yourself!--wisely--wisely--what should make it wise, this
thing you have done? You yourself have little wisdom, and you took no
counsel. If it was not wise, what then?--it is done, and there is
nothing for it now but to be content.




CHAPTER XXVII.


“It must not be--I cannot permit it,” said Mrs Laurie. “Menie, is this
all that your mother deserves at your hands? to take such a step as this
without even telling me--without giving me an opportunity of
remonstrance? Menie! Menie!”

And with hasty steps Mrs Laurie paces backward and forward the narrow
room. Beside the window, very pale, Menie stands with a half-averted
face, saying nothing--very pale--and there is a sullen suffering in
Menie Laurie’s darkened face.

“I cannot have it--I will not permit it”--Mrs Laurie is much excited.
“My own honour is compromised; it will be said it is I who have
separated you. Menie! it is strange that you should show so little
regard either to Randall or to me. I must do something--I must make an
effort--I cannot have this.”

“Mother, hear me,” exclaimed Menie. “No one shall do anything; I will
not bear it either. In everything else you shall make of me what you
will--here I am not to be swayed; I must decide this for myself--and I
have decided it, mother.”

With astonished eyes Mrs Laurie looked upon her daughter’s face. Flushed
with passion, full of a fierce unrespecting will--was this Menie Laurie?
but her mother turned aside from her. “I am sorry, Menie--I am very
sorry--to see you show such a spirit; another time I will speak of it
again.”

Another time!--Menie Laurie laughed a low laugh when her mother left the
room. Something like a scowl had come to Menie’s brow; a dark abiding
cloud was on her face: and in her heart such bitterness and universal
disappointment as killed every gentle feeling in her soul: disloyal to
the one love, disrespectful and disobedient to the other--bitterly
Menie’s heart turned upon itself--she had pleased no one; her life was
nothing but a great blot before her. She was conscious of a host of evil
feelings--evil spirits waging war with one another in her vexed and
troubled mind. Sullenly she sat down once more upon the ground, not to
seek if there was any comfort in the heavens above or the earth beneath,
but to brood upon her grief, and make it darker, till the clouds closed
over her, and swallowed her up, and not a star remained.

There is a certain obstinate gloom; satisfaction in despair. To decide
that everything is hopeless--that nothing can be done for you--that you
have reached to the pre-eminence of woe--no wonder Menie’s race was dark
and sullen--she had come to this point now.

Like a thunder-storm this intelligence came upon little July Home--she
could not comprehend it, and no one took the trouble to explain to her.
Lithgow, knowing but the fact, was surprised and grieved, and prophesied
their reunion; but no hope was in Menie’s sullen gravity--none in the
naughty resentment of Randall Home.

And Mrs Laurie once more with a troubled brow considers of her
future--will Menie be best in the Dumfriesshire cottage, where no one
will see their poverty, or pursuing some feminine occupation among the
other seamstresses, teachers, poor craftswomen of a less solitary place?
For now that all is done that can be done, there is no hope of
recovering anything of the lost income,--and Mrs Laurie will not live on
Miss Annie’s bounty. She is anxious with all her heart to be away.

Miss Annie herself has not recovered her trial: autumn winds grow cold
at night--autumn rains come down sadly upon the little world which has
had its cheerfulness quenched out of it--and when Randall takes away
his little sister to carry her home, Miss Annie looks a mournful old
woman, sitting there wrapped up by the early lighted fire. These two or
three mornings she has even been seen at the breakfast-table with a cap
protecting the head which is so sadly apt to take cold--and Miss Annie
cries a little to herself, and tells bits of her own love-story to
Menie, absorbed and silent, who sits unanswering beside her--and moans
to herself sadly sometimes, over this other vessel of youthful life,
cast away.

But Miss Annie Laurie never wears ringlets more. Strangely upon her
conscience, like a reproach for her unnatural attenuated youth, came
Menie’s appeal to her for help and comfort. Feeling herself so frivolous
and feeble, so unable to sustain or strengthen, Miss Annie made a
holocaust of her curls, and was satisfied. So much vanity was
relinquished not without a struggle; but great comfort came from the
sacrifice to the heroic penitent.

And Jenny, discontented and angry with them all, furiously now takes the
part of Randall Home, and wonders, in a fuff and outburst, what Miss
Menie can expect that she “lightlies” a bonnie lad like yon. A great
change has taken place on Menie; no one can say it is for the
better--and sullenly and sadly this bright year darkens over the house
of Heathbank.




CHAPTER XXVIII.


“You’re to bide away--you’re no to come near this place. Na, you may
just fecht; but you’ve nae pith compared to Jenny, for a’ sae auld and
thrawn as Jenny has been a’ her days. It’s no me just--it’s your mamma
and the doctor. Bairn! will you daur struggle wi’ me?”

But Menie would dare straggle with any one--neither command nor
resistance satisfies her.

“Let me in--I want to see my mother.”

“You can want your mother for a day--there’s mair than you wanting her.
That puir old haverel there--guid forgie me--she’s a dying woman--has
sairer lack o’ her than you. Keep to your ain place, Menie
Laurie--muckle made o’--muckle thocht o’--but you’re only a bairn for a’
that--you’re no a woman o’ judgment like your mamma or me. I tell yon to
gang away--I will not let you in.”

And Jenny stood firm--a jealous incorruptible sentinel in the passage
which led to Miss Annie Laurie’s room. “Miss Menie, ye’ll no take it ill
what I say,” said Jenny; “there’s death in the house, or fast coming. I
ken what the doctor means. Gang you ben the house, like a guid bairn;
look in your ain glass, and see if there should be a face like that in a
house where He comes.”

Menie looks silently into the countenance before her--the keen,
impatient, irascible face; but it was easy to see a hasty tear dashed
away from Jenny’s cheek.

And without another word, Menie Laurie turned away. Some withered leaves
are lying on the window-sill--the trees are yielding up their treasures,
dropping them down mournfully to the disconsolate soil--but the meagre
yew-tree rustles before her, darkly green in its perennial gloom. Rather
shed the leaves, the hopes--rather yield to winter meekly for the sake
of spring--rather be cut down, and rooted up altogether, than grow to
such a sullen misanthrope as this.

And Menie Laurie looks into her own face; this gloomy brow--these heavy
eyes--are these the daylight features of Menie Laurie?--the
interpretation of her heart? Earnestly and long she reads--no
lesson of vanity, but a stern sermon from that truthful mirror.
Hush!--listen!--what was that?--a cry!

The doctor is leaving Miss Annie Laurie’s room--the cry is over--there
is only now a feeble sound of weeping; but a shadow strangely still and
sombre has fallen upon the house, and the descending step rings like a
knell upon the stairs. What is it?--what is coming?--and what did it
mean, that melancholy cry?

Alas! a voice out of a startled soul--a cry of wild and terrified
recognition--acknowledgment. Years ago, age came gently to this
dwelling--gently, with light upon his face, and honour on his grey
hairs. There was no entrance for him through the jealous door; but now
has come another who will not be gainsaid.

Gather the children, Reaper--gather the lilies--take the corn full in
the ear--go to the true souls where thought of you dwells among thoughts
of other wonders, glories, solemn things to come--leave this chamber
here with all its poor devices. No such presence has ever stood within
its poverty-stricken walls before. Go where great love, great hope,
great faith, great sorrow, sublimer angels, have made _you_ no
phantom--leave this soul to its toys and delusions--it is a poor
triumph--come not here.

Hush, be still. They who have sent him have charged him with a message;
hear it how it rings slow and solemn into the ear of this hushed house.
“There is a way, and it shall be called the way of holiness; the
wayfaring man, though a fool, shall not err therein.” Stay your weeping,
poor fool--poor soul; prayers have gone up for you from the succoured
hearts of some of God’s poor. Unawares, in your simplicity, you have
lent to the Lord. Your gracious debtor gives you back with the grand
usury of heaven--gives you back opportunity--hope--a day to be
saved--lays aside those poor little vanities of yours under the cover of
this, His great magnanimous divine grace--and holds open to your feeble
steps the way, where wayfaring men, though fools, shall not err any more
for ever.

“I’ll let you pass, Miss Menie, if you’ll bide a moment,” said Jenny,
wiping her eyes; “he says it’s no the fever he thocht it was, but just a
natural decay. Did you hear yon? she wasna looking for Him that’s at the
door, and he’ll no wait lang where ance He’s gien His summons--pity me!
I would like to see him coming the road mysel, afore I just found him at
my door-stane.”

The room is very still; through the quiet you can only hear the panting
of a frightened breath, and now and then a timid feeble sob. She has to
go away--knows and feels to the depth of her heart that she must go upon
this solemn road alone; but, with a sad panic of terror and curiosity,
she watches her own feelings, wondering if this and this be death.

And now they sit and read to her while the daylight flushes in
noon--while it fades and wanes into the night--the night and dark of
which she has a childish terror--read to her this gracious blessed
Gospel, which does not address itself alone to the wise and noble, but
is for the simple and for fools. Safe ground, poor soul, safe
ground--for this is no scheme of electicism, no portal to the pagan
heavens--and you cannot know yourself so low, so mean, as to escape the
range of this great wide embracing arm.

“I have not done all that I ought to have done,” murmurs poor Miss
Annie. “Don’t leave me:” for she cannot rest except some one holds her
hand, and has a faint superstitious trust in it, as if it held her sure.

A little pause--again the fingers close tightly upon the hand they hold.
“I never did any harm.” The words are so sad--so sad--falling out slow
and feeble upon the hushed air of this darkening room.

“But I never did any good--never, never.” The voice grows stronger.
“Does anybody think I did? I--I--I never was very wise. I used to try to
be kind sometimes;” and in a strain of inarticulate muttering, the sound
died away once more.

And then again the voice of the reader broke the silence. They scarcely
thought the sufferer listened; for ever and anon she broke forth in such
wavering self-justifications, self-condemnings, as these. But now there
is a long silence; strange emotions come and go upon this old, old,
withered face. The tears have been dried from her eyes for hours, now
they come again, bedewing all her poor thin cheeks; but a strange
excitement struggles with her weakness. Looking about to her right hand
and to her left, the dying woman struggles with an eager
defiance--struggles till, at a sudden climax, her broken voice breaks
forth again.

“Who said it was me--me--it’s not me! I never could win anything in this
world--nothing in this world--not a heart to care for me. Do you think I
could win Heaven? I say it is not me; it’s for His sake.”

“For His sake--for His sake.” If it is a prayer that ends thus--if it is
a sudden assurance of which she will not loose her hold for ever--no one
can know; for by-and-by her panic returns upon Miss Annie. Close in her
own cold fingers she grasps the hand of Menie Laurie, and whispers, “Is
it dark--is it so dark to you?” with again a thrill of terror and
trembling, and awful curiosity, wondering if this, perchance, is the
gloom of death.

“It is very dark--it is almost night.” The lamp is lighted on the
table; let some one go to her side, and hold this other poor wandering
hand. “Oh! not in the night--not in the night--I am afraid to go out in
the night,” sobs poor Miss Annie; and with a dreadful suspicion in her
eyes, as if of some one drawing near to murder her, she watches the
falling of this fated night.

A solemn vigil--with ever that tight and rigid pressure upon their
clasped hands. Mother and daughter, silent, pale, keep the watch
together; and below, the servants sit awe-stricken, afraid to go to
sleep. Jenny, who is not afraid, goes about the stairs, up and down,
from room to room, sometimes serving the watchers, sometimes only
straying near them, muttering, after her fashion, words which may be
prayers, and dashing off now and then an intrusive tear.

Still, with many a frightened pause--many a waking up, and little pang
of terror, this forlorn heart wanders back into the life which is ending
now--wanders back to think herself once more engaged in the busier
scenes of her youth, in the little occupations, the frivolities and
gaiety of her later years; but howsoever her mind wanders, she never
ceases to fix her eyes upon the span of sky glittering with a single
star, which shines pale on her through the window, from which, to please
her, they have drawn the curtain. “I am afraid to go out in the dark;”
again and again she says it with a shudder, and a tightened hold upon
their hands--and stedfastly watches the night.

At last her eyes grow heavy--she has fallen asleep. Little reverence has
Miss Annie won at any time of all her life--but the eyes that look on
her are awed and reverent now. Slowly the hours pass by--slowly the
gradual dawn brightens upon her face--the star has faded out of the
heavens--on her brow, which is the brow of death, the daylight glows in
one reviving flush. The night is over for evermore.

And now her heavy eyes are opened full--her feeble form is raised; and,
with a cry of joy, she throws out her arms to meet the light. Lay her
down tenderly; her chains are broken in her sleep; now she no more needs
the pressure of your kindly hands. Lay her down, she is afraid no
longer; for not in the night, or through the darkness, but with the
morning and the sun, the traveller fares upon her way--where fools do
not err. By this time they have taken her in yonder at the gate. Lay
down all that remains of her to its rest.




CHAPTER XXIX.


The curtains are drawn again in Miss Annie Laurie’s house of
Heathbank--drawn back from the opened windows to let the fresh air and
the sunshine in once more to all the rooms. With a long breath and sigh
of relief, the household throws off its compelled gloom. With all
observances of honour, they have laid her in her grave, and a few
natural tears have been wept--a few kindly words spoken--a reverent
memento raised to name the place where she lies. Now she is passed away
and forgotten, her seat empty--her house knowing her no more.

In Miss Annie’s desk, a half-written paper, intimating vaguely that, in
case of “anything happening” to her at any future time, she wished all
that she had to be given to Menie Laurie--was found immediately after
the funeral. But some superstitious terror had prevented her from
finishing it, far more from making a will. Menie was her next of kin;
it pleased them to have this sanction of her willingness to the
inheritance of the natural heir.

Miss Annie had been rather given to speak of her savings; but no vestige
of these savings was to be found. She had practised this on herself like
many another delusion; and saving the furniture of Heathbank, and a
profusion of ornaments not valuable, there remained little for Menie to
inherit. Miss Annie’s maid was her well-known favourite, and had been
really attentive, and a good servant to her indulgent mistress. Her name
was mentioned in the half-written paper, and Maria’s own report of many
conversations, modestly hinted at a legacy. Miss Annie’s furniture,
pretty and suitable for her house as it was, was not valuable in a sale;
and Mrs Laurie, acting for her daughter, bestowed almost the whole
amount received for it upon Maria, as carrying out the will of her
mistress. Having done this, they had done all, Mrs Laurie thought, and
would now go home to live as they could upon what remained to them.
Burnside, with all its plenishing, brought in no greater revenue than
fifty pounds a-year, and Mrs Laurie had two or three hundred pounds “in
the bank.” This was all. She began to calculate painfully what the
home-journey would cost them, and called Jenny to consult about their
packing. They were now in a little lodging in the town of Hampstead.
They had no inducement to stay here; and Menie’s face looked very
pale--very much in want of the fresh gale on the Dumfriesshire braes.
True, they knew not where they were going, but the kindly soil was home.

When her mother and Jenny began to take enumeration of the bags and
boxes which must go with them, Menie entered the room. Menie looked very
slight, very pale, and exhausted, almost shadowy in her mourning dress;
but Menie’s now was a face which had looked on Death. The conflict and
sullen warfare were gone out of it. Dead and silent within her lay her
chilled heart, like a stricken field when the fight is over, with
nothing but moans and sighs, and voices of misery, where the music and
pomp of war has so lately been. The contest was over; there was nothing
to struggle for or struggle with, in this dull unhappiness--and a heavy
peace lay upon Menie like a cloud.

“There is a wee kistie wi’ a lock. I set it by mysel for Miss Menie; and
there’s the muckle ane that held the napery at hame; but I’m no gaun
owre them a’. I’ll just lay in the things as I laid them when we came.
Miss Menie! gang away your ways, like a guid bairn, and read a book;
your mamma’s speaking about the flitting, and I can only do ae thing at
a time.”

“Are we going home, mother?”

“There is nothing else we can do, Menie,” said Mrs Laurie. “I suppose
none of us have any inducement now to stay in London.”

A flush of violent colour came to Menie’s cheeks. She paused and
hesitated. “_I_ have, mother.”

“Bless me, I aye said it,” muttered Jenny quickly, under her breath, as
she turned round with an eager face, and thrust herself forward towards
the mother and daughter. “The bairn’s come to hersel.”

Mrs Laurie coloured scarcely less than Menie. “I cannot guess what you
mean,” she said hurriedly. “You did not consult me before--I am,
perhaps, an unsuitable adviser now; but I cannot stay in London without
having a reason for it. This place has nothing but painful associations
for me. You are not well, Menie,” continued the mother, softening; “we
shall all be better away--let us go home.”

The colour wavered painfully on Menie Laurie’s cheek, and it was hard to
keep down a groan out of her heart. “I am not come to myself--my mind is
unchanged,” she said with sudden meekness. “I want you to stay for a
month or two--as short a time as possible--and to let me have some
lessons. Mother, look at these.”

Menie had brought her little portfolio. With some astonishment Mrs
Laurie turned over its contents, and delicately--almost timidly
too--lest Randall’s face should look out upon her as of old. But all the
sketches of Randall were removed. Jenny pressed forward to see; but
Jenny, as bewildered as Menie’s mother, could only look up with a
puzzled face. What did she mean?

“They are not very well done,” said Menie; “but, for all that, they are
portraits, and like. I want to have lessons, mother. Once before, long
ago,”--poor Menie, it seemed to be years ago,--“I said this should be my
trade. I will like the trade; let me only have the means of doing it
better, and it will be good for me to do it. This is why I ask you to
stay in London.”

Jenny, very fierce and red, grasping the back of a chair, thrust it
suddenly between them at this point, with a snort of emphatic defiance.

“Ye’ll no let on ye hear her!” exclaimed Jenny; “you’ll let her get her
whimsey out like ony ither wean!--ye’ll pay nae attention to her maggots
and her vanities! Trade! My patience! to think I should live to hear a
bairn o’ ours speak o’ a trade, and Jenny’s twa hands to the fore!”

And a petulant reluctant sob burst out of Jenny’s breast--an angry tear
glittered in her eye. She drew a long breath to recover herself--

“Jenny’s twa hands to the fore, I say, and the bere a’ to shear yet,
and the ’taties to gather--no to say the mistress is to buy me twa kye,
to take butter to the market! I would just like to ken where’s the
pleasure in working, if it’s no to gie ease to folk’s ain? I’ve a’ my
ain plans putten down, if folk would just let me be; and we’ll can keep
a young lass to wait upon Miss Menie,” cried Jenny, with a shrill tone
in her voice, “and the first o’ the cream and the sweetest o’ the milk,
and nae occasion to wet her finger. You’re no gaun to pay ony heed to
her--you’re no gaun to let on you hear what she says!”

Reaching this point, Jenny broke down, and permitted, much against her
will, a little shower of violent hot tears to rain down upon the arms
which she folded resolutely into her apron. But Jenny shook off, with
indignation, the caressing hand which Menie laid upon her shoulder.
Jenny knew by experience that it was better to be angry than to be sad.

“I would think with you too, Jenny,” said Mrs Laurie, slowly. “I could
do anything myself; but a bairn of mine doing work for money--Menie, we
will not need it--we will try first--”

“Mother,” said Menie, interrupting her hastily, “_I_ will need it--I
will never be wilful again--let me have my pleasure now.”

It was a thing unknown in the household that Menie should not have her
pleasure. Even Jenny yielded to this imperative claim. The boxes were
piled up again in Jenny’s little bedchamber. Jenny herself, able to do
nothing else, set to knitting stockings with great devotion. “I’ll hae
plenty to do when we get hame, without ever taking wires in my hand,”
said Jenny. “Nae doubt it’s just a providence to let me lay up as mony
as will serve.”

Their parlour was in the first floor, over one of the trim little
ladies’ shops, which have their particular abode in little towns of
competence and gentility. Toys and Berlin wool--a prim, neat, gentle
Miss Middleton sitting at work on some pretty bit of many-coloured
industry behind the orderly counter--gay patterns and specimens
about--little carts and carriages, and locomotive animals upon the
floor--bats, balls, drums, shining tin breastplates, and glorious swords
hanging by the door, and a linen awning without, throwing the little
shop into pleasant shade. This was the ground floor; above it was a very
orderly parlour, and the sun came glistening in upon the little stand of
flowers through the bright small panes of the old-fashioned window, and
fell upon Mrs Laurie, always at work upon some making or mending--upon
Jenny’s abrupt exits and entrances--her keen grey eyes and shining
“wires,” the latter of which were so nobly independent of any guidance
from the former--and upon Menie’s heavy meditations, and Menie’s daily
toil.

For toil it came to be, exalted from the young lady’s accomplishment to
the artist’s labour. She worked at this which she harshly called her
trade with great zeal and perseverance. Even herself did not know how
deficient she was till now; but Menie worked bravely in her
apprenticeship, and with good hope.




CHAPTER XXX.


“I wouldna hae come hame as I gaed away, if I had been you, Jenny.” The
speaker stands at the door of Jenny’s little byre, looking on, while
Jenny milks her favourite cow. “Ye see what Nelly Panton’s done for
hersel; there’s naething like making up folk’s mind to gang through wi’
a’thing; and you see Nelly’s gotten a man away in yon weary London.”

“I wouldna gang to seek a misfortune--no me,” said Jenny; “ill enough
when it comes; and I wonder how a woman like you, wi’ twelve bairns for
a handsel, could gie sic an advice to ony decent lass; and weel I wat
Nelly Panton’s gotten a man. Puir laddie! it’s the greatest mercy ever
was laid to his hands to make him a packman--he’ll no be sae muckle at
hame; but you’ll make nae divert o’ Jenny. If naebody ever speered my
price, I’m no to hang my head for that. I’ve aye keepit my fancy free,
and nae man can say that Jenny ever lookit owre her shouther after him.
A’ the house is fu’ ’enow, Marget; we’ve scarcely done wi’ our
flitting; I canna ask you to come in.”

So saying, Jenny rose with her pail, and closed the byre door upon
Brockie and her black companion. The wind came down keen from the hills;
the frosty wintry heavens had not quite lost the glow of sunset, though
the pale East began to glitter with stars. Sullen Criffel has a purple
glory upon his cap of cloud, and securely, shoulder to shoulder, this
band of mountain marshals keep the border; but the shadows are dark
about their feet, and night falls, clear and cold, upon the darkened
grass, and trees that stir their branches faintly in the wind.

The scene is strangely changed. Heaths of other nature than the peaceful
heath of Hampstead lie dark under the paling skies, not very far away;
and the heather is brown on the low-lying pasture hills, standing out in
patches from the close-cropped grass. Yonder glow upon the road is the
glow of fire-light from an open cottage door, and on the window ledge
within stand basins of comfortable Dumfriesshire “parritch,” cooling for
the use of those eager urchins, with their fair exuberant locks and
merry faces, and waiting the milk which their loitering girl sister
brings slowly in from the byre. It is cold, and she breathes upon her
fingers as she shifts her pail from one hand to the other; yet
bareheaded Jeanie lingers, wondering vaguely at the “bonnie” sky and
deep evening calm.

Another cottage here is close at hand, faintly throwing out from this
back-window a little light into the gathering gloom. Brockie and Blackie
are comfortable for the night; good homely sages, they make no account
of the key turned upon them in the byre door; and Jenny, in her original
dress, her beloved shortgown and warm striped skirts, stands a moment,
drawing in, with keen relish, the sweep of cold air which comes full
upon us over the free countryside.

“I’m waiting for Nelly’s mother,” says Jenny’s companion, who is Marget
Panton from Kirklands, Nelly’s aunt; “she’s gane in to speak to your
mistress. You’ll no be for ca’ing her mistress now, Jenny, and her sae
muckle come down in the world. I’m sure you’re real kind to them;
they’ll no be able now to pay you your fee.”

“Me kind to them! My patience! But it’s because ye dinna ken ony
better,” said Jenny, with a little snort. “I just wish, for my part,
folk would haud by what concerns themselves, and let me abee. I would
like to ken what’s a’ the world’s business if Jenny has a guid mistress,
and nae need to seek anither service frae ae year’s end to the
ither--and it canna advantage the like o’ you grudging at Jenny’s fee.
It’s gey dark, and the road’s lanesome; if I was you, I would think o’
gaun hame.”

“I wouldna be sae crabbed if I got a pension for’t,” returned Marget,
sharply; “and ye needna think to gar folk believe lees; it’s weel kent
your house is awfu’ come down. ‘Pride gangs before a fa’,’ the Scripture
says. Ye’ll no ca’ that a lee; and I hear that Miss Menie’s joe just
heard it, and broke off in time.”

“I’m like to be driven daft wi’ ane and anither,” exclaimed Jenny
furiously. “If Miss Menie hadna been a thrawart creature hersel, I
wouldna have had to listen to the like o’ this. Na, that might have been
a reason--but it was nane o’ the siller; she kens best hersel what it
was. I’m sure I wouldna hae cast away a bonnie lad like yon if it had
been me; but the like o’ her, a young leddy, behoves to hae her ain
way.”

“Weel, it’s aye best to put a guid face on’t,” said Jenny’s tormentor.
“I’m no saying onything at my ain hand; it’s a’ Nelly’s story, and
Johnnie being to marry July Home--it’s a grand marriage for auld
Crofthill’s daughter, sic a bit wee useless thing--we’re the likest to
ken. Ye needna take it ill, Jenny. I’m meaning nae reproach to you.”

“I’m no canny when I’m angered,” said Jenny, setting down her pail in
the road; “ye’ll gang your ways hame, if you take my counsel; there’s
naething for you here. Pity me for Kirklands parish, grit and sma’l wi’
Nelly at the Brokenrig, and you at the Brigend; but I canna thole a
lee--it makes my heart sick; and I tell ye I’m no canny when I’m
angered. Guid night to you, Marget Panton; when I want to see you I’ll
send you word. You can wait here, if you maun get yon puir decent woman
hame wi’ you. I reckon I would get mony thanks if I set her free; but I
dinna meddle wi’ ither folk’s business; you can wait for her here.”

And, taking up her pail again rapidly, Jenny pattered away, leaving
Marget somewhat astonished, standing in the middle of the road, where
this energetic speech had been addressed to her. With many mutterings
Jenny pursued her wrathful way.

“Ye’ve your ainsel to thank, no anither creature, Menie Laurie; and now
this painting business is begun, they’ll be waur and waur. Whatfor could
she no have keepit in wi’ him? A bonnie ane, to hae a’ her ain way, and
slaving and working a’ day on her feet, as if Jenny was na worth the
bread she eats; and the next thing I’ll hear is sure to be that she’s
painting for siller. Pity me!”

Full of her afflictions, very petulant and resentful, Jenny entered the
cottage door. It was a but and a ben--that is to say, it had two
apartments, one on each side of the entrance. The larger of the two was
boarded--Mrs Laurie had ventured to do this at her own expense--and had
been furnished in an extremely moderate and simple fashion. It was a
very humble room; but still it was a kind of parlour, and, with the
ruddy fire-light reddening its further corners, and blinking on the
uncovered window, it looked comfortable, and even cheerful, both from
without and within. Mrs Laurie, with her never-failing work, sat by a
little table; Menie, whose day’s labour was done, bent over the fire,
with her flushed cheeks supported in her hands; the conflict and the
sullen glow had gone out of Menie’s face, but a heavy cloud oppressed it
still.

Conscious that she is an intruder, divided between her old habitual
deference and her new sense of equality, as Johnnie Lithgow’s mother,
with any Mrs Laurie under the sun, Mrs Lithgow sits upon the edge of a
chair, talking of Nelly, and Nelly’s marriage.

“Nelly says you were real kind. I’m sure naething could be kinder than
the like o’ you taking notice o’ her, when she was in a strange place
her lane, though nae doubt, being Johnnie’s sister made a great
difference. I can scarcely believe my ainsel whiles, the awfu’ odds it’s
made on me. I have naething ado but look out the best house in
Kirklands, and I can get it bought for me, and an income regular, and
nae need to do a thing, but be thankful to Providence and Johnnie. It’s
a great blessing a guid son.”

As there was only a murmur of assent in answer to this, Mrs Lithgow
proceeded:--

“I’m sure it’s naething but neighbourlike--you’ll no take it amiss,
being in a kindly spirit--to say if there’s onything ane can
do.--There’s Nelly gotten her ain house now, and wonderful weel off in
the world; and for me, I’m just a miracle. If there was ought you
wanted, no being used to a sma’ house, or ony help in ae way or anither,
from a day’s darg wi’ Jenny, to----”

But Mrs Lithgow did not dare to go any further. The slight elevation of
Mrs Laurie’s head, the sudden erectness of that stooping figure by the
fireside, warned the good woman in time; so, after a hurried breathless
pause, she resumed:--

“I would be real glad--it would be naething but a pleasure; and I’ll
ne’er forget how guid you were to me when I was in trouble about
Johnnie, and aye gied me hope. Puir laddie! next month he’s coming down
to be married--and I’m sure I hope he’ll be weel off in a guid wife, for
he canna but be a guid man, considering what a son he’s been to me.”

“He will be very well off,” said Mrs Laurie; “and poor little July goes
away next month, does she? Has Jenny come in yet, Menie? We have
scarcely had time to settle in our new house, Mrs Lithgow; but I will
remember your kind offer, and thank you. How dark the night grows--and
it looks like snow.”

“I’ll have to be gaun my ways,” said the visitor, rising; “it’s a
lanesome road, and I’m no heeding about leaving my house, and a’ the
grand new things Johnnie’s sent me, their lane in the dark. I’ll bid you
good night, ladies, kindly, and I’m real blithe to see you in the
countryside again.”

She was gone, and the room fell into a sudden hush of silence, broken by
nothing but the faint rustling of a moved hand, or the fall, now and
then, of ashes on the hearth. The bustle and excitement of the
“flitting” were over--the first pleasure of being home in their own
country was past. Grey and calm their changed fate came down upon them,
with no ideal softening of its everyday realities. This sliding panel
here opens upon their bed; this little table serves all purposes of
living; these four dim walls, and heavy raftered roof, shut in their
existence. Now, through the clear frosty air without, a merry din breaks
into the stillness. It is little Davie from the cot-house over the way,
who has just escaped from the hands which were preparing him for rest,
and dares brothers and sisters in a most willing race after him, their
heavy shoes ringing upon the beaten way. Now, you hear them coming back
again, leading the truant home, and by-and-by all the urchins are
asleep, and the mother closes the ever-open door. So good night to life
and human fellowship. Now--none within sight or hearing of us, save
Jenny humming a broken song, on the other side of the wooden partition,
which, sooth to say, is Jenny’s bed--we are left alone.

Menie, bending, in her despondent attitude, over the fire, which throws
down, now and then, these ashy flakes upon the hearth--our mother,
pausing from her work, to bend her weary brow upon her hand. So very
still, so chill and forsaken. Not one heart in all the world, except the
three which beat under this thatched roof, to give anything but a
passing thought to us or our fate; and nothing to look to but this even
path, winding away over the desolate lands of poverty into the skies.

Into the skies!--woe for us, and our dreary human ways, if it were not
for that blessed continual horizon line; so we do what we have not been
used to do before--we read a sad devout chapter together, and have a
faltering prayer; and then for silence and darkness and rest.

Say nothing to your child, good mother, of the bitter thoughts that
crowd upon you, as you close your eyes upon the wavering fire-light, and
listen, in this stillness, to all the stealthy steps and touches of the
wakeful night. Say nothing to your mother, Menie, of the tears which
steal down between your cheek and your pillow, as you turn your face to
the wall. What might have been--what might have been; is it not possible
to keep from thinking of that? for even Jenny mutters to herself, as she
lies wakefully contemplating the glow of her gathered fire--mutters to
herself, with an indignant fuff, and hard-drawn breath, “I wish her
muckle pleasure of her will: she’s gotten her will: and I wouldna say
but she minds him now--a bonnie lad like yon!”




CHAPTER XXXI.


Courage, Menie Laurie! Heaven does not send this breeze upon your cheek
for nought--does not raise about you these glorious limits of hill and
cloud in vain. Look through the distance--look steadily. Yes, it is the
white gable of Crofthill looking down upon the countryside. Well, never
veil your eyes--are you not at peace with them as with all the world?

Little Jessie here wearies where you have left her waiting, and trembles
to move a finger lest she spoil the mysterious picture at which she
glances furtively with awe and wonder. “The lady just looks at me,” says
little Jessie; “no a thing mair. Just looks, and puts it a’ down like
writing on a sclate.” And Jessie cannot understand the magic which
by-and-by brings out her own little bright sun-burnt face from that dull
canvass which had not a line upon it when Jessie saw it first.

Come to your work, Menie Laurie; they make your heart faint these
wistful looks and sighs. No one doubts it is very heavy--very
heavy--this poor heart; no one doubts it is full of yearnings--full of
anxious thought, and fears, and solitude. What then!--must we leave it
to brood upon its trouble? Come to little Jessie here, and her
picture--find out the very soul in these surprised sweet eyes--paint the
loveliest little heart upon your canvass, fresh and fair out of the
hands of God--such a face as will warm cold hearts, and teach them
histories of joyous sacrifice--of love that knows no evil--of life that
remembers self last and least of all. You said it first in bitterness
and sore distress; but, nevertheless, it is true. You can do it, Menie.
It is “the trade” to which you were born.

And with a long sigh of weariness Menie comes back. No, it is not a very
fine picture; the execution is a woman’s execution, very likely no great
thing in the way your critics judge; but one can see how very like it
is, looking at these little simple features--one could see it was still
more like, looking in to the child’s sweet generous heart.

“What were you crying for this morning, Jessie?”

A cloud came over the little face--a mighty inclination to cry again;
but Jessie glanced at the picture once more, and swallowed down her
grief, feeling herself a very guilty Jessie, as one great blob of a
tear fell upon her arm.

“It wasna little Davie’s blame--it was a’ me.” Poor little culprit, she
dares not hang her head for terror of that picture. “He was paidling in
the burn--and his new peeny gae a great screed, catching on the auld
saugh-tree; but it wasna his blame--he’s owre wee--it was a’ mine for no
looking after him. Just, I was awfu’ busy; but that’s nae excuse--and my
mother gae Davie his licks, for a’ I could say.”

Another great tear; no one knows so well what an imp this said little
Davie is--but Jessie sighs again. “It was a’ me.”

But it is not this little cloud of childish trouble that throws a
something of pensive sadness into Jessie’s pictured face. The face is
the face before you; but the atmosphere, Menie Laurie, is in your own
heart. Something sad--touched with that sweet pathos which lies on the
surface of all great depths--and this true picture grows under Menie’s
hand to a heroic child.

It is a strange place for an artist to be. From this dark raftered
threatening roof which catches your first glance, you look down to the
mother by the fire with her unpretending look of gentlewoman--to the
daughter’s graceful head bending over her work--to pretty little Jessie
here, with her flutter of extreme stillness, looking at the grey walls
and sober thatch without. You would never think to surprise such a group
within; and yet, when you look at them again, there is something of
nobleness in the primitive cottage where these women have come to live
independent and unpitied--come down in the world--very true; but it
would be hard to presume upon the tenants of this wayside house.

You need not fear to enter, little July. Half-weeping, blushing,
trembling, and with all these beseeching deprecations of yours, you may
come in boldly at this narrow entrance. “It is no blame of hers, poor
bairn,” Mrs Laurie says, with a little sigh. No blame of hers nor of
Randall’s either, for Menie has kept her secret religiously, and will
never tell to mortal ear what broke her engagement. Nelly Panton knows
it, it is true; but Nelly, with the obtuse comprehension of a mercenary
mind, thinks Randall broke off the match in consequence of Mrs Laurie’s
poverty, and knows of no more delicate difficulties behind. Come in,
boldly, July Home--for no manner of interpretation could disclose to you
the sudden pang which seizes Menie as she bends her head down for an
instant, when she discovers you at the door. Now she says nothing, as
she holds out her hand; but Menie is busy; it is only her left hand she
extends to her friend; that in why she does not speak.

“I’m not to come out again,” whispers July, sitting back into Mrs
Laurie’s shadow, and speaking under her breath. “I came here the very
last place--and oh, Menie, will you come?”

The colour mounts high to Menie’s temples; this means, will she come to
July’s marriage, which is to happen a week hence. Will she be there?
Some one else will be there, the thought of whose coming makes Menie’s
heart beat strong and loud against her breast. But Menie only shakes her
head in reply--shakes her head and says steadily, “No.”

“You might come, for me. I never had a friend but you, and you’ve aye
been good to me. Mrs Laurie, she might come?”

But Mrs Laurie too, after quite a different fashion, shakes her head
with a look of regret--of only partial comprehension, but unmistakeable
solicitude. “No,” she says doubtfully; “I do not see how Menie could
go;” but, as she speaks, she looks at Menie with an eager wish that she
would.

Courage, Menie Laurie! If your hand falters, they will see it; if a
single tear of all this unshed agony bursts forth, your mother’s heart
will be overwhelmed with pain and wonder--your little friend’s with
dismay. This is best--to look at the child and go on--though little
Jessie has much ado to keep from weeping when she meets, with her
startled face, the great gloom and darkness of Menie’s eye.

“This is from Menie and me,” said Mrs Laurie, taking out a pretty ring.
“You are to wear it for our sake, July. Menie, can you put it on?”

Yes--Menie takes the little trembling hand within her own, and fits her
mother’s present to a slender finger--and no one knows how Menie presses
her own delicate ankle under her chair, to keep herself steady by the
pain. “You must try to be very happy, July,” says Menie, with a faint
smile, holding the hand a moment in her own; then she lets it drop, and
turns to her work once more.

What can July do but cry? She does cry, poor little trembling heart,
very abundantly, and would fain whisper a hundred hesitations and
terrors into Menie’s ear. But there is nothing of encouragement in
Menie’s face--so steady and grave, and calm as it looks. The little
bride does not dare to pour forth her innocent confidences--but only
whispers again, “I never had another friend but you, and you were aye so
good to me;” and weeps a flood of half-joyful, half-despairing tears,
out of her very heart.




CHAPTER XXXII.


“No one can doubt that Randall is unhappy; but Randall is not a humble
man, Mrs Laurie; he will not woo and plead and supplicate, I am afraid;
he will honour only those who honour him, and never obtrude his love
where he thinks there is no response. You know them both--could anything
be done?”

Alas! good Johnnie Lithgow, we are all proud. This is not the wisest
line of attack, in the circumstances. Mrs Laurie sits gravely by the
fireside to listen. Mrs Laurie was Mrs Laurie before Randall Home was
born. It is wonderful how she recollects this; and, recollecting, it is
not difficult to see which of the two, in the opinion of Menie’s mother,
has the best right to stand on their dignity.

“I cannot advise,” said Mrs Laurie somewhat coldly. “Menie has made no
explanation to me. Mr Home has not addressed me at all on the subject. I
am sorry I cannot suggest anything--especially when I have to take into
consideration the lofty ideas of your friend.”

It was a little bitter this. Lithgow felt himself chilled by it, and she
saw it herself immediately; but Mrs Laurie said no word of atonement,
till a sudden recollection of Menie’s strangely altered and sobered fate
broke upon her. Her countenance changed--her voice softened.

“I would be glad to do anything,” she said, with a slight faltering. “To
make Menie happy, I could accept any sacrifice. I will see--I will try.
No,” she continued, after a considerable pause, “I was right after
all--your friend is what you call him. My Menie has a very high spirit,
and in this matter is not to be controlled by me. They must be left to
themselves--it is the wisest way.”

Lithgow made no answer. Mrs Laurie sank into silence and thought. As
they sat opposite to each other by the little fireplace, the young man’s
eye wandered over the room. His own birthplace and home was such another
cottage as this; and Lithgow’s mother, with her homely gown and check
apron--her constant occupation about the house--her peasant tastes and
looks and habits--was suitable and homogeneous to the earthen floor and
rude hearth of the cottars’ only room. But very strangely out of place
was Menie’s easel--Menie’s desk--Mrs Laurie’s delicate basket of
work--her easy-chair and covered table; strangely out of place, but not
ungracefully--bearing, wherever they might be, a natural seemliness and
fitness of their own. And if a rapid cloud of offence--a vapour of pride
and resentment, might glide over Mrs Laurie’s brow, it was never shaded
by so much as a momentary shame. As undisturbed in her household dignity
as at her most prosperous time, she received her visitor in the
cot-house, nor ever dreamt she had cause to be ashamed of such an
evidence of her diminished fortunes.

But Lithgow’s thoughts were full of Randall; he was not willing to give
up his attempt to reconcile them. “Randall is working very hard,” said
his generous fellow-craftsman. “I think his second success will lift him
above all thought of hazard. He does his genius wrong by such
unnecessary caution; he could not produce a commonplace thing if he
would.”

“And you, Mr Lithgow”--Mrs Laurie’s heart warmed to him, plebeian though
he was.

“I do my day’s work,” said the young man, happily, “thanking God that it
is very sufficient for the needs of the day; but between Randall and
myself there is no comparison. I deal with common topics, common
manners, common events, like any other labouring man. But Randall is an
artist of the loftiest class. What he does is for generations to come,
no less than for to-day.”

This enthusiasm threw a flush upon his face. As it receded, gradually
fading from his forehead, a quick footstep went away from the cottage
threshold. Menie Laurie had paused to listen whose the voice was before
she entered, and, pausing, had heard all he had to say.

The happy golden purple of the sunset has melted from Criffel and his
brother hills; but there is a pale light about all the east, whither
Menie Laurie’s face is turned as she leaves the cottage door. From her
rapid step, you would fancy she was going somewhere. Where will she go?
Nowhither, poor heart--only into the night a little--into the silence.
It would not be possible to sit still in that noiseless house, by that
lonely fireside, with such a tumult and commotion in this loud throbbing
heart--forcing up its rapid cadence into the ears that thrill with
sympathetic pulses--leaping to the very lips that grow so parched and
faint. Oh! for the din of streets, of storms, the violence of crowds and
noise of life--anything to drown this greater violence, these strong
perpetual throbs that beat upon the brain like hailstones--anything to
deaden this.

But all the air remains so still--so still; not a sound upon the silent
road, but the heart and the footsteps, so rapid and irregular, which
keep each other time. But by-and-by, as Menie goes upon her aimless way,
another sound does break the silence--voices in the air--the sound of
wheels and of a horse’s feet. Listen, Menie--voices in the air!

But Menie will not listen--does not believe there are voices in the
world which could wake her interest now--and so, unconsciously, looks up
as this vehicle dashes past--looks up, to receive--what? The haughty
salutation--uncovered brow and bending head, of Randall Home.

She would fain have caught at the hedge for a support; but he might look
back and see her, and Menie hurried on. She had seen him; they had
looked again into each other’s eyes. “I never said I was indifferent,”
sobbed Menie to herself, and, in spite of herself, her voice took a
shriller tone of passion--her tears came upon her in an agony. “I never
said I was indifferent; it would have been a lie.”

Hush!--be calm. It is safe to sit down by the roadside on this turf,
which is unsullied by the dust of these passing wheels; safe to sit down
and let the flood have vent, once and never more. And the soft
whispering air comes stealing about Menie, with all its balmy gentle
touches, like a troop of fairy comforters; and the darkness comes down
with gracious speed to hide her as she crouches, with her head upon her
hands, overcome and mastered;--once, and never more.

Now it is night. Yonder the lights are glimmering faintly in the cottage
windows of the Brigend. Far away above the rest shines a little speck of
light from the high window of Burnside, where once was Menie Laurie’s
chamber--her land of meditation, her sanctuary of dreams. The wind
rustles among the firs--the ash-trees hold up their bare white arms
towards the heavens, waiting till this sweet star, lingering at the
entrance of their arch, shall lead her followers through, like children
in their dance. And--hush!--suddenly, like a bird new awaked, the burn
throws out its voice upon the air, something sad. The passion is
overpast. Look up, Menie Laurie; you are not among strangers. The hills
and the heavens stretch out arms to embrace you; the calm of this great
night, God’s minister, comes to your heart. Other thoughts--and noble
ones--stretch out helping hands to you like angels. Rise up; many a hope
remains in the world, though this one be gone for ever.

And Menie, rising, returns upon her way--away from Burnside, her old
beloved home, and, going, questions with herself if aught is changed
since she made the bitter and painful decision which in her heart she
thought it right to make. Nothing is changed--the severance has been
made--the shock is over. At first we knew it would be very hard; at
first we thought of nothing but despair. We never took into our
calculation the oft-returning memories--the stubborn love, that will not
be slain at a blow; and this it is that has mastered mind, and heart,
and resolution now.

There is no one else upon the road. The night, and the hills, and Menie
Laurie, look up through the silence to heaven--and no one knows the
conflict that is waging--none is here with human voice or hand to help
the struggle. Fought and won--lie still in her religious breast, oh
heart! Fittest way to win your quiet back again, Menie Laurie has laid
you down--come good or evil, come peace or contest--laid you down once
for all at the feet of God.




CHAPTER XXXIII.


A brilliant company--the very newspapers would say so if they had note
of it; distinguished people--except here and there a few who are only
wives or sisters of somebody; the ladies and gentlemen present,
individual by individual, are somebodies themselves. For a very pretty
collection of Lions, as one could wish to see, is drawn together into Mr
Editor Lithgow’s drawing-room, to do honour to his wedding-day.

And you may wonder at first to hear such a moderate amount of roaring;
Lions of the present day are not given to grandiloquence. If the truth
must be told, the talk sounds somewhat professional, not unlike the
regimental talk of soldier officers, and the ladies pertaining to the
same. True, that a picturesque American, bolder than her compeers on
this side the Atlantic, _poses_ in one corner, and by-and-by makes a
tableau, lying down in wild devotion at the feet of two respectable and
somewhat scared good people--literary ladies of a modest standing, who
have done just work enough to make their names known, but are by no
means prepared for such homage as this. And for the rest of the company,
it must be said that they sit or stand, lean back or lean forward, as
propriety or common custom enjoin;--that there is a great talk of babies
in that other corner, where the mistress of the house is surrounded by a
band of matron friends;--and that there is in reality very little out of
the common in this company, if it were not for the said professional
talk.

The young mistress of the house! she talks pretty nearly as much now as
other people talk--quite as much, indeed, when her heart is opened with
that all-interesting subject, babies--or when her tongue has leisure to
talk of the marvellous feats of certain babies of her own. July Home has
been a married wife five years.

There is nothing very costly or rare in this drawing-room; but it is
well-sized and well-furnished, notwithstanding, and a pretty apartment.
Lithgow himself, not a very stately host, attends to his guests with an
unassuming kindliness which charms these somewhat sophisticated people
in spite of themselves; and Lithgow is full of the talk of the
profession, and speaks great names with the confidence of friendship.
In these five years, mother though she be, and mistress of a London
household, all you can say of July is that she has grown a pretty
girl--a little taller, a little more mature in action--but a girl, just
as she was when we saw her last.

Being addressed, but of his own will scarcely speaking to any one, there
is a remarkable-looking person among Mr Lithgow’s guests. Looking up to
his great height, you can just see some threads of white among his hair,
though his age does not justify this, for he is a young man still; and a
settled cloud upon his brow gives darkness to his face. It is not
grief--it is not care; a gloomy self-absorbed pride is much more like
what it is.

“That is Mrs Lithgow’s brother,” says another guest, in answer to the
“who’s that?” of an unaccustomed visitor. Mrs Lithgow’s brother! Is this
all the distinction that remains to the lofty Randall Home?

“And a literary man like all the rest of us,” continues,
condescendingly, this gentleman, who is a critic, and contemptuous in
right of his craft. “He made a great success with his first publication
six or seven years ago. I saw it on that table in the corner, covered
with a pile of prints and drawings. They say Home cannot bear to see it
now. Well; he lingered a long time polishing and elaborating, and
retouching his second book, expecting, no doubt, a universal
acclamation. Poor fellow! the public never so much as looked at it--it
was a dead failure.”

“Was it not equal to the first?” inquired breathlessly the original
speaker, who in his heart was a warm adherent of Randall, though
personally unknown to him, and who was a great deal better acquainted
with the work in question than his informant.

“There was merit in the book,” said the critic, poising a pretty
paper-knife carelessly on his forefinger--“merit, such as it was; and
Lithgow, here, gave him an article, and tried hard to get up a feeling;
but he’s a supercilious fellow, sir--proud as Lucifer; he is constantly
running against somebody, and we put him down.”

The critic turned to speak to another critic on his other hand; the
interrogator stood aside. Solitary in the midst of this animated
company--dark, where all was glowing with a modest brilliancy--it was
not wonderful that this good man should inquire of himself whether there
was nought of the evil thing called affectation in the gloom and pride
of Randall Home. One thing at least it was not difficult to see--that
Randall knew people were looking at him--wondering about him--and that
more than one lady of sentiment and enthusiasm had marvelled already,
with wistful melancholy, whether any one knew what the grief was which
had blighted the young author’s life.

The young author’s life was not blighted. On him, like a nightmare, sat
a subtle spirit, self-questioning, self-criticising. He was
disappointed;--a bitter stream had come into his way, and by its side he
walked, his eyes bent downward on it, pondering the evils of his fate,
trying with a cold philosophy to believe them no evils, assuming to
despise them, yet resenting them with bitterness in his own secret
heart.

“Randall, look at this; it minds me of home,” said his sister in his
ear. He took mechanically what she put into his hand--carelessly: not
the slightest interest in _his_ face for poor July’s enthusiasm--as like
as not he would smile and put it down with a careless glance. Things
that other people look on with interest were matters of chilled and
disappointed indifference to Randall Home.

Yet he looks at this child’s face that has been brought before him;
insensibly a smile breaks upon his lips in answer to this sweet child’s
smile. He, who is a critic, knows it is no _chef-d’œuvre_, and has
little claim to be looked upon as high art; but for once Randall thinks
nothing of the execution--as on a real countenance he gazes upon this.
These sweet little features seem to move before him with the throng of
gracious childlike thoughts that hover over the unclouded
brow--childlike thoughts--thoughts of the great eternal simplicities
which come nearest to angels and to children. This man, through his
intricacies and glooms, catches for an instant a real glimpse of what
that atmosphere must be through which simple hearts look up into the
undoubted heavens; for scarcely so much as a summer cloud can float
between this child and the sky.

Come this way, Randall. Here is a little room, vacant, half-lighted,
where lie other things akin to this. Take them up after your careless
fashion. What message can they have to you? Be ready, if you can, to put
them aside with a word of bitter criticism--only leave out this child’s
portrait. Say with your lips it is good and you like it; feel in your
heart as if it spoke to you long, loving, simple speeches; and when you
turn from it--hush! it is irreverent--do not try with either sarcasm or
jest to cheat this sudden desolateness which you feel at your heart.

A cloudy face--is this no portrait? The wind is tossing back wildly the
curls from its white high brow, and out of a heavy thunder-cloud it
looks down darkly, doubtfully, with a look which you cannot fathom.
Uneasily the spectator lays it aside to lift another--another and
another; they are very varied, but his keen eye perceives in a moment
that every face among them which is a man’s bears the same features.
Other heads of children unknown to Randall--pictures of peasant women,
real and individual, diversify the little collection; but where the
artist has made a man’s face, everywhere a subtle visionary resemblance
runs through each and all. Through altered features the same
expression--through changed moods and tempers the same sole face. The
room swims about him as he looks--is it a dream or a vision--what does
it mean?

The long white curtains faintly stir in the autumn night-wind which
steals in through the open window; the shaded lamp upon the table throws
down a little circle of light--a larger circle of shadow--upon these
pictures, and faintly shines in the mirror above the vacant hearth. He
has sunk on one knee to look at them again. What memory is it that has
kept this face, what sad recollection has preserved its looks and
changes so faithfully and so long? No ideal, noble, and glorious, such
as a heart might make for itself--no human idol either, arrayed in the
purple and gold of loving homage--and the heart of Randall, startled and
dismayed, hides its face and beholds itself for the first time truly. He
knows that none of these is meant for him--feels with certain
confidence that reproach upon him is the last thing intended by this
often portraiture; yet stands aside, and marvels, with a pang--a great
throb of anguish and hope--to see himself, changed in habit and in
aspect, with years added, and with years taken away; but he feels in
every one that the face is his own.

Love that thinks you loftiest, noblest--love that worships in you its
type of grace and high perfection, its embodiment of dreams and
longings--rejoice in it, oh youth! But if you ever come to know a love
that is disenchanted--a love that with its clear and anxious sight has
found you out and read your heart--knowing not the highest part alone,
but, in so far as human creature can, _all_ that is written there--yet
still is love; if you rejoice no longer, pause at least, and tremble.
Light is the blind love of the old poets--frail, and in constant peril.
Heaven help those to whom is given the love that sees as nothing else
can see--It struck to the heart of Randall Home.

Through secrets of his being, which himself had never guessed, this
lightened eye had pierced like a sunbeam. Unwitting of its insight,
nought could it say in words of its discovery, but unconsciously they
came to light under the artist-hand. Menie Laurie--Menie Laurie!--little
you wist when your pencil touched so dreamily these faces, which were
but so many shadows of one face in your heart--little you wist how
strange a revelation they would carry to another soul.

“Something has happened to Randall--he will not hear me,” said July to
her husband when the guests went away. “He makes me no answer--he never
hears me speak, but stands yonder steadfast at the mirror, looking in
his own face.”




CHAPTER XXXIV.


The sun has struck on Criffel’s sullen shoulder. Look you how it besets
him, with a glorious burst of laughter and triumph over his gloom. And
now a clown no longer, but some grand shepherd baron, he draws his
purple cloak about him, and lifts his cloudy head into the sky. Marshal
your men-at-arms, Warder of the Border! Keep your profound unbroken
watch upon the liege valleys and homes at your feet--for the sun is
setting in a stormy glory, and the winds are gathering wild in their
battalions in the hollows of the hills.

Travelling with his face towards the east, is one wayfarer on this
lonely road. He knows the way, but it is long to his unaccustomed feet;
and he is like to be benighted, whatever speed he makes. The sky before
him is cold and clear, the sky of an autumn night, gleaming itself with
an intense pale lustre, while great mountain-heaps of clouds, flung
upon it, stand out round and full against its glittering chilly light;
and with a wild rush the wind comes down upon the trees, seizing them in
a sudden convulsion. The road ascends a little, and looks from this
point as if it went abruptly into the skies; and on either side lies the
low breadth of a peat-moss, on which it is too dark now to distinguish
the purple patches of heather, or anything but the moorland burn and
deep drain full of black clear water, from which is thrown back again,
in long flying glimmers of reflection, the pale light of the sky.

There is not a house in sight. Here and there a doddered oak or thorn,
or stunted willows trailing their branches into the pools, give a kind
of edge, interrupted and broken, to the moorland road; and now and then
on a little homely bridge--one arch of stone, or it may be only two or
three planks--it crosses a burn. With every gust of wind a shower of
leaves comes rustling down from the occasional trees we pass, and the
same cold breath persuades this traveller very soon to regret that his
breast is not guarded by the natural defence--the grey plaid of the
Border hills.

He does not lift his foot high and cumbrously from the ground, as the
men of this quarter, used to wading through the moss and heather, are
wont to do; nor does he oppose to this wild wind the broad expanded
chest and weather-beaten face of rural strength; but he knows the way
along which he walks so smartly--pauses now and then to recognise some
ancient landmark--and pushes forward without hesitation, very well aware
where he is going to, nor fearing to choose that shorter way across the
moss, like one to the manner born.

A narrower path, broken in upon here and there by young sapling trees,
self-sown willows, and bushes, which are scattered over all the moss.
Suddenly--it may be but a parcel of stones, a little heap of peats--but
there is something on the edge of the way.

Going forward, the traveller finds seated on the fallen trunk of a tree
two children--a little girl drawing in to her side the uncovered flaxen
head of a still younger boy, and holding him firmly with her arm. The
little fellow, with open mouth and close shut eyes, is fast asleep, and
his young guardian’s head droops on her breast. You can see she watched
long before she yielded to it; but she too has dropped asleep.

The traveller, touched with sudden interest, pauses and looks down upon
them. Indistinctly, in her sleep, hearing his step, or conscious of the
human eye upon her which breaks repose, the little girl moves uneasily,
tightens the firm pressure of her arm, murmurs something--of which the
spectator, stooping down, can hear only “little Davie”--and then,
throwing back her head and changing her attitude, settles again into her
profound child’s sleep.

What arrests him that he does not wake her? What makes him pause so long
after his previous haste? Yes, look closer--stoop down upon the damp and
springy soil--bend your knee. The pale faint light has not deceived you,
neither has the memory which holds with unwonted tenacity the likeness
of this face--for this is indeed the original. Sweet in its depth of
slumber, its lips half-closed, its eye-lash warm upon its cheek, the
same sweet heart you saw in London in the picture--the very child.

Eleven years old is Jessie now; and to keep little Davie out of mischief
is a harder task than ever. So helpless, yet in such an attitude of
guardianship and protection, the traveller’s eyes, in spite of himself,
fill with tears. He is almost loth to wake her, but the wind rushes with
growing violence among the cowering trees.

He touches her shoulder--she does not know how gently--as suddenly she
starts up broad awake. One terrified look Jessie gives him--another at
the wild sky and dreary moor. “You’re no to meddle wi’ Davie; it’s a’ my
blame,” said Jessie with one frightened sob; “and oh, it’s dark night,
and we’ll never win hame!”

“How did you come here?” said the stranger, gently. Jessie was
reassured; she dried her eyes, and began to look up at him with a little
returning confidence.

“I dinna ken; it was Davie would rin--no, it was me that never cam the
road before--and we got on to the moss. Oh, will you tell me the airt
I’m to gang hame?”

He put his hand upon the child’s head kindly. This was not much like
Randall Home. The Randall of old days, if he never failed to help,
scarcely ever knew himself awakened to interest. There was a great
delight of novelty in this new spring opened in his heart.

“Were you not afraid to fall asleep?”

Poor little Jessie began to cry; she thought she had done wrong. “I
couldna keep wakin. I tried as lang as I could, and then I thocht I
would just ask God to take care o’ Davie, and then there would be nae
fear. That was the way I fell asleep.”

A philosopher! But how have these tears found their way to his face?
Somehow he cannot look on this little speaker--cannot perceive her small
brother laying his cheek upon her breast, without a new emotion which
ought to have no place in the mind of an observing moralist whose
thought is of cause and effect. Again he lays his hand upon her head--so
kindly that Jessie looks up with a shy smile--and says, “You are used to
say your prayers?”

“I aye do’t every night.” Jessie looks up again wistfully, wondering
with a sudden pity. Can it be possible that he does not say his prayers,
gentleman though he be!

“Say them here, little girl--I would like to hear your prayers”--and his
own voice sounds reverent, low, as one who feels a great presence near.

But Jessie falters and cries--does not know what to answer, though it is
very hard to contend against the impulse of instant obedience. “Oh! I
dinna like--I canna say them out-by to a man,” she says in great
trouble, clasping and unclasping her hands. “I just mind a’body, and
little Davie--and give my soul to Christ to keep,” added the little girl
solemnly, “for fear I shouldna wake the morn.”

There is a little silence. She thinks this kindly stranger is angry with
her, and cries; but it is only a something of strong unusual emotion,
which he must swallow down.

“Now, you must wake up little Davie, and I will take you home. Is it
far? You do not know, poor little guardian. Come away--it is near
Brigend? Well, we will manage to get there. Come, little fellow, rouse
up and give me your hand.”

But Davie, very wroth at such a sudden interruption of his repose, shook
his little brown clenched hand in the stranger’s face instead, and would
hold by no other but his sister. So in this order they went on, Jessie,
with much awe, permitting her hand to be held in Randall’s, and sleepy
Davie dragging her back at the other side. They went on at a very
different pace from Randall’s former rate of walking--threading their
encumbered way with great difficulty through the moorland path--but
by-and-by, to the general comfort, emerged once more upon the high-road,
and near the cheerful light from a cottage door.

And here he would pause to ask for some refreshment for the lost
children, but does not fail to glance in first at the cottage window.
This woman sitting before the fire has a face he knows, and she is
rolling up a heavy white-faced baby, and moving with a kind of
monotonous rock back and forward upon her seat. But there is not a
murmur of the mother-song--instead, she is slowly winding up to
extremest aggravation a little girl in a short-gown and apron, who
stands behind her in a flood of tears, and whose present state of mind
suggests no comfort to her, but to break all the “pigs” (_Anglicè_
crockery) in the house and run away.

“Will I take in twa bairns?--what would I do wi’ twa bairns? I’ve enow
o’ my ain; but folk just think they can use ony freedom wi’ me,” said
the woman, in answer to Randall’s appeal made from the door. “I’m sure
Peter’s pack might be a laird’s lands for what folk expect; and because
there’s nae ither cause o’ quarrelling wi’ a peaceable woman like me, I
maun aye be askit to do things I canna do. It’s nane o’ my blame they
didna get their denner. Lad, you had best take them hame.”

“I will pay for anything you give them cheerfully; but the little
creatures are exhausted,” said Randall again from the door. He thought
he had altered a good deal his natural voice.

The woman suddenly raised her head. “I’m saying, that’s a tongue I ken,”
she said in an undertone. “This is nae public to gie meat for siller,
lad,” she continued; “but they may get a bit barley scone and a drink o’
milk--I’ve nae objections. Ye’ll no belang to this country yoursel?” For
with a rapidity very unusual to her, she had suddenly deposited her
gaping baby in the cradle, and now stood at the door. Randall kept
without in the darkness. The lost children were admitted to the fire.

“No.”

“I wouldna say but you’re out o’ London, by your tongue. I’ve been there
mysel before I was married, biding wi’ a brother o’ mine that’s real
weel-off and comfortable there. I’ve never been up again, for he’s
married, and her and me disna gree that weel. It’s an awfu’ world--a
peaceable person has nae chance--and I was aye kent for that, married
and single. Ye’ll ha heard o’ my man, Peter Drumlie, if you come out o’
Cumberland; but I reckon you’re frae London, by your tongue.”

With a bow, and a sarcastic compliment to her discrimination, Randall
answered her question; but the bow and the sarcasm were lost upon the
person he addressed: she went on in her dull tone without a pause.

“Ay, I aye was kent for discrimination,” she said with modest
self-approval, “though it’s no everybody has the sense to allow’t. But
you’ll hae come to see your friends, I reckon--they’ll be biding about
this pairt?”

“Just so,” said Randall.

“Ye’ll ken mony a change in the countryside,” continued the woman.
“There’s the auld minister dead in Kirklands parish, and a’ the family
scattered, and a delicate lad, a stranger, in the Manse his lane; and
maister and mistress gane out o’ Kirklands House, away some gate in
foreign pairts; and Walter Wellwood, the young laird, he’s married upon
a grand lady and joined to the Papishes; and--but ye’ll maybe ken better
about the common folk o’ the parish. There’s auld Crofthill and Miss
Janet their lee lane up the brae yonder, and ne’er a word frae
Randy--maybe you would ken Randy?--the awfullest lad for thinking o’
himsel; and then there’s the family at Burnside--they’re come down in
the world, wi’ a’ their pride and their vanity--living in naething but a
cot-house on the siller Jenny makes wi’ her kye; and Miss Menie, she
makes pictures and takes folk’s likenesses, and does what she can to
keep hersel. Eh, man, there’s awfu’ changes!--And wee July Home,
Crofthill’s daughter, she’s married upon our Johnnie, keepit like a
leddy, and never has a hand’s turn laid to her, wet day or dry--it’s a
grand marriage for the like o’ her;--and there’s mysel--I was ance Nelly
Panton, till I got my man--but I’ve nae occasion to do a thing now but
keep the house gaun, and mind the siller--for Peter, he’s a man o’
sense, and kens the value o’ a guid wife--and I live real comfortable
among my ain folk in a peaceable way, as I was aye disposed--though
they’re an ill set the folk hereaway--they’re aye bickering amang
themsels. Will you no come in-by and rest?”

Randall, who felt his philosophy abandon him in this respect as well as
others, and who could not persuade himself by any arguments of her
insignificance to quench the passion which this slow stream of malicious
disparagement raised within him, answered very hotly, and with great
abruptness, that he could not wait longer. A moment after he found
himself again upon the road, with the reluctant children dragging him
back, and Nelly looking out after him from her door. He had time to be
annoyed at himself for betraying his anger; but Randall began to have
changed thoughts--began to lose respect for the self-constraint which
once had been his highest form of dignity--began to think that no
natural emotion was unworthy of him--of _him_. For the first time he
laughed at the words with bitterness as he looked up to the pale
gleaming sky, with its clouds and stars. Unworthy of him--who then was
he?




CHAPTER XXXV.


“The man’s right--they’ll hae strayed in on the moss. Oh, my bairns! my
bairns!” cried the distressed mother into the night. “And Patie was
telling, nae farther gane than yestreen, what a bogilly bit it was, till
a’ the weans were fleyed; and if they’re no sunk in the moss itsel,
they’ll be dead wi’ fright by this time. Oh, my bonnie Jessy! that was
aye doing somebody a guid turn; and wee Davie--puir wee Davie! he was
aye the youngest, and got his ain way. My bairns! my bairns!”

A snort came through the misty gloom. By this time it was very dark, and
Randall could hear the voices as they approached.

“What’s the woman greeting for? Her bairns?--her bairns? I would just
like to ken what suld ail her bairns--little mischiefs! They’re warm at
somebody’s ingle-neuk, Ise warrant. That wee Davie’s an imp o’ Satan;
neither fright nor bogles will harm him. Come this road, woman. What
gart ye leave the lantern? If there werena better wits than yours”--

Jenny’s voice was interrupted by a sudden footstep crushing the bramble
branches on the side of the way, and by a sudden glow of light thrown
full upon the dazzled eyes of little Jessie, who left Randall’s hand
with a cry of joy--“Oh, it’s the leddy--we’re safe at hame.”

The lantern flashed about through the darkness. Randall’s heart beat
loudly. With a great start he recognised the voice which gave kindly
welcome to the strayed child, and he could distinguish the outline of
her figure, as she shaded the lantern with her hand; then she raised
it--he felt the light suddenly burst upon his face--another moment, and
it was gone. Little Jessie flew back to him dismayed; voice and figure
and light had disappeared as they came; one other step upon the
brambles, and they were alone once more.

He had no time to marvel or to follow, for now the mother and Jenny,
suddenly drawing close to them, fell upon the lost children, with cried
of mingled blame and joy. “It was the gentleman brought us hame.”

“Thanks to the gentleman--would he no come in and rest?--he would be far
out o’ his way--the guidman would take a lantern, and convoy him”--and
a hundred other anxious volunteerings of gratitude poured upon Randall’s
ears. “I must go on--I must go on!” He burst past them impatiently; he
did not know where the house was, or if she had gone home; but Menie had
seen him, and Menie he must see.

Step softly, Randall! In her high excitement, she hears every stir of
the falling leaves without, and could not miss your footstep, if you
trod as softly as a child. She has reached to her shelter already--she
has put out her mother’s lights, and stands in the darkness, pressing
her white face against the window, looking out, wondering if she will
see you again--wondering why you come here--praying in a whisper that
you may not cross her path any more, but contradicting the prayer in her
heart. Mrs Laurie stands by the door without, watching for the
children’s return; and now they come, Davie lifted into his mother’s
arms (for he has been almost asleep on his feet), Jessie eager that
everybody should understand “it was my blame,” and Jenny smartly
lecturing each and all. The rest of the family--all but the goodman, who
has gone to the moss to seek the children--are gathered in a group
before the cottage; and the red light of the fire glows out upon them,
and some one has picked up the lantern which Menie Laurie dropped. A
little crowd--the inner circle of faces brightened by the lamp, the
outer ones receding into partial gloom, hearing little Jessie tell her
story, speculating what part of the moss it could be, and “where was the
gentleman?”--a question which none could answer.

“Though I’ve heard his tongue afore, mysel,” said Jenny, “I’m just as
sure--woman, will ye no take that little Satan to his bed?--and puir wee
Jessie’s een’s gaun thegither. It wasna your blame, you deceitful
monkey! Ye may cheat the wife there, but ye’ll no cheat Jenny. It was a’
that little bother--it wasna you. Gang out o’ my gate, callant! If nane
o’ the rest o’ ye will stir, I maun pit the bairn to her bed mysel.”

From her window Menie Laurie looks out upon this scene--upon the
darkness around--the one spot of light, and the half-illuminated faces;
looks out wistfully, straining her eyes into the night, wondering where
he has gone, and getting time now, as her agitation calms, to be ashamed
and annoyed at her own weakness. Very calm for many a day has been Menie
Laurie’s quiet heart--soberly, happily contented, and at rest. Little
comforts and elegancies, which neither Mrs. Laurie’s income nor Jenny’s
kye could attain, Menie has managed to collect into this little room.
Her “trade,” as she still calls it--for Menie is the person of all
others least satisfied with her own performances, and will not assume to
be an artist--has brought her in contact with many pleasant people; her
mother is pleased that they have even better “society” here, in the
cot-house, than they had in prosperous Burnside; and it even seems a
thing probable, and to be hoped for, that by-and-by they may go back to
Burnside, and be able to live without its fifty yearly pounds. This
success could not come without bringing some content and satisfaction
with it; and constant occupation has restored health and ease to Menie’s
mind; while almost as calm as of old, but with a deeper, loftier quiet,
a womanly repose--light, within her eased breast, has lain Menie
Laurie’s heart.

And why this face of strange excitement now, Menie cannot tell. She
found him out so suddenly--flashing her light upon the face which least
of all she thought to see. But Menie wonders to feel this strong thrill
of agitation returning on her as she touches the window with her pale
cheek, and wonders if she will see him again.

The night falls deeper--darker; the wind over-head comes shouting down
upon the trees, throwing their leaves from them in wild handfuls, and
tearing off their feebler branches in a frenzy. Here where we stand, you
can hear it going forth with its cry of defiance against the hills,
flinging a magic circle round the startled homesteads, attacking bridges
upon rivers, stacks in farmyards. The goodman, who has returned with a
glad heart to find his children safe, says, when he closes the cottage
door, that it is a wild night; but here, amid all its violence, waiting
a moment when he may see her--strangely excited, strangely emancipated,
owning the sway of one most passionate and simple emotion, and for the
first time forgetting, not only himself, but everything else--here, with
his bare forehead to the wind, stands Randall Home.

Now come hither: Jenny’s candle in the kitchen thriftily extinguished,
leaving her window only lightened by the firelight, proves that Jenny
has come “ben” to the family service--the daily meeting-ground of
mistress and servant, child and mother. There is no need to close the
shutters on this window, which no one ever passes by to see. Calm in her
fireside corner sits Mrs Laurie, with her open Bible in her lap; Jenny
is close by the table, drawing near the light, and poring very closely
upon the “sma’ prent,” which runs into a confused medley before her, not
to be deciphered--for Jenny will not be persuaded to try spectacles,
lest they should “spoil her een;” while Menie, who reads the chapter
aloud, reverently turns over the leaves of the family Bible, and, with
all her quiet restored, speaks the words which say peace to other storms
than that storm never to be forgotten, in the Galilean Sea.

You remember how she was when you saw her last--you remember her through
the flash of your own anger, the mortification of your own pride--but
pride and mortification have little to do with this atmosphere which
surrounds our Menie now. Her delicate hand is on the open Book--her
reverent eyes cast down upon it--her figure rising out of its old
girlish freedom and carelessness, into a womanly calm and dignity. He
follows the motion of her head and lips with an unconscious eager
gesture--follows them with devotion, longing to feel himself engaged
with her; and hears, his frame quivering the while--rising upon his
heart with a command, that hushes all these violent strong voices
round--the low sound of _her_ voice.

Now they are at prayer. Her face is folded in her hands, Randall; and
there may be a prayer in Menie’s heart, which Mrs Laurie’s voice, always
timid at this time, does not say. Whatever there is in Menie’s heart,
you know what is in your own--know at once this flood of sudden
yearning, this sudden passion of hope and purpose, this sudden burst of
womanish tears. Now then, over-mastered, subdued, and won, turn away,
Randall Home--but not till Jenny, starting from her knees, has burst
into a violent sob and scream. “I dreamt he was come back this very
night; I dreamt o’ him yestreen--Randall--Randall Home!” But with an
awed face, Jenny returned from the door to which she had flown. Randall
was not there!




CHAPTER XXXVI.


Something of languor is in this chill morning, as its quiet footstep
steals upon the path of the exhausted storm--something worn out and
heavy are Menie’s eyes, as she closes them, wearily upon the daylight
when Jenny has cleared the little breakfast-table, and it is time for
the day’s work to begin. They speak to her softly, you will perceive,
and are very tender of Menie, as if she were ill, and Jenny cannot
forgive herself for the shock that her exclamation caused last night.

A heavy stupor is on Menie’s mind, lightened only with gleams of wild
anxiety, with fruitless self-questionings, which she fain would
restrain, but cannot. Jenny, firm in the belief that she has seen a
spirit, is melancholy and mysterious, and asks suggestive
questions--whether they have heard if there is “ony great trouble in
London ’enow,” or who it was that was prayed for in the kirk last
Sabbath--a young man in great distress. Mrs Laurie, uneasy and
solicitous, cannot stay these pitiful looks which unawares she turns
upon her daughter, and hangs perpetually about her with tender touches,
consoling words, and smiles, till poor Menie’s heart is like to break.

The day’s work is over in Jenny’s “redd-up kitchen;”--the uneven earthen
floor is carefully swept--the hearth as white and the fireside as
brilliant as Jenny’s elaborate care can make them; and Jenny has drawn
aside a little the sliding panel which closes in her bed, to show the
light patch-work quilt, and snowy linen of the “owrelay.” Bright brass
and pewter carefully polished above the high mantelshelf--bright plates
and crockery against the walls--with a glance of satisfaction Jenny
surveyed the whole as she passed into the private corner where she made
her toilette--a “wiselike” kitchen; it was worthy of Jenny.

And now, in her blue and yellow gown, in her black and red checked
plaiden shawl, in her great Leghorn bonnet, fashioned in antique times,
Jenny sets out from the cottage door. No one knows where Jenny is going,
and there has been some surprise “ben the house” at her intimation of
her proposed absence. But Jenny keeps her own counsel, and walks away
soberly, seeing Mrs Laurie at the window, in the direction of Burnside.
“Nae occasion to let the haill town see the gate Jenny was gaun,” she
says to herself, with a slight fuff; and, altering her course before she
reaches the Brigend, Jenny turns rapidly towards the hills.

And something of growing gravity, almost awe, is on Jenny’s face. “Eh,
puir callant, he’s young to take fareweel o’ this life. Weel, laddie,
mony’s the time Jenny’s grutten for ye; and maybe it’s best, after a’,
if ane could but think sae.” These lamentations fall like so many tears
on Jenny’s way--and she is rapidly climbing the brae, as she utters
them, towards the house of Crofthill.

It is a wintery autumn afternoon--so dull, that the potato-gatherers in
the fields are chilled into silence, and the ploughmen scarcely can
whistle into the heavy atmosphere, which droops upon them laden with
unfallen rain. The paths of the little triangular garden of Crofthill
are choked with masses of brown leaves, fallen from the trees, which
sway their thin remaining foliage drearily, hanging lank from the crest
of the hill. The goodman is thrashing to-day; you can hear the heavy
tramp of the horses, the swing of the primitive machine; it is almost
the only sound that breaks the silence of the place.

Nay, listen--there is another sound; a slow monotonous voice, wont to
excite in Jenny certain sentiments the reverse of peaceable. The kitchen
door is open, a great umbrella rests against the lintel, and Miss
Janet’s tall figure is just visible in a gown not much unlike Jenny’s
own, standing before the fire listening, as Jenny, arrested at the
threshold, must be content to listen too.

“Na; I can do nae mair than tell what’s true; I canna gie folk the
judgment to put trust in me. I’m no ane that meddles wi’ ither folk’s
concerns--but I thocht it right ye should ken--I’m no saying whether
it’s in the flesh or the spirit--that Randall Home was seen upon the
Kirklands road last night.”

“But I tell ye, woman, it couldna be our Randy--it couldna be my bairn,”
exclaimed Miss Janet in great distress. “Do you think Crofthill’s son
would ca’ upon the like o’ you, and no come hame? It’s been some English
lad, that’s spoken grand, like Randall; and how was you to ken to look
at his presence, that never ane had like him? Na, it wasna our son.”

“Presence or no presence, I mind him weel,” said Nelly, emphatically. “I
wouldna think, mysel, an appearance or a wraith could hae grippit thae
weans, and kent the road sae weel to carry them hame--no to say that
spirits would hae little patience, as I think, wi’ barley scones, when
they canna partake themsels; and I tried him about the Burnside family,
and Crofthill as weel; and I saw his een louping wi’ passion and he
scarce gae me thanks for my charity. It’s an awfu’ thing to see as I do
ilka day--and I canna think but what it’s just because I’m sae peaceable
mysel that a’body flees into raptures wi’ me. But I just ken this--I saw
Randall Home.”

Miss Janet turned round to wring her hands unseen. She was very much
troubled and shaken, and turning, met, to her dismay, the keen
inquisitive face of Jenny. With a little start and cry, Miss Janet
turned again to dash some tears off her cheek. Then she addressed the
new-comer in a trembling voice. “Ye’ll have heard her story--your house
is on the same road--have ye seen onything like this?”

“I wouldna put a moment’s faith in her--no me!” said Jenny, promptly.
“It’s a dull day to her when she disna put somebody in trouble; and its
just because there’s no a single mischief to the fore in Kirklands that
she’s come to put her malice on you. Put strife amang neibors,
woman--naebody can do’t sae weel; but what would ye come here for to
frighten honest folk in their ain houses?”

“For every friendly word I say, I aye get twa ill words back,” said
Nelly meekly, with a sigh of injury. “But it’s weel kent the spirit
that’s in Burnside Jenny, and I wouldna take notice, for my pairt, o’
what the like o’ her might say; but I canna help aye being concerned
for what happens to Crofthill, minding the connection; and if I didna
see Randall Home’s face, and hear Randall Home’s tongue, in the dark at
my ain door yestreen I never saw mortal man. If he’s in the flesh, I
wouldna say but he was hiding for some ill-doing--for you may be sure he
didna want me to see his face, kenning me for far sight langsyne; and if
it was an appearance, I’ll no gie you muckle hope o’ his state, for the
awsome passion he got in, though he never said a word to me; and, as I
said before, I can tell you what’s true, but I canna gie ye faith to
believe--sae I’ll bid ye guid-day, Miss Janet; and ye’ll just see if ye
dinna think mair o’ what I’ve said, afore you’re a day aulder--you and
the auld man too.”

Slowly Nelly took her departure, Miss Janet looking on like one
stupefied. As the unwelcome visitor disappeared, Miss Janet sank into a
chair, and again wrung her hands; but looking up with sudden fright to
perceive Jenny’s elaborate dress, and look of mystery, hastily
exclaimed, “Jenny, woman--it’s no but what you’re aye welcome,--but
what’s brought you here the day?”

“I cam o’ my ain will; naebody kens,” said Jenny abruptly.

“But ye maun have come wi’ an errand--I’m no feared to greet before you,
Jenny,” said Miss Janet, with humility. “Oh, woman, tell me--do you ken
onything o’ my bairn?”

“Me! what should I ken?” said Jenny, turning her face away. “You’ll have
gotten word? Nae doubt, being grand at the writing, he aye sends
letters. What gars ye ask the like o’ me?”

Miss Janet caught her visitor’s hand, and turned her face towards the
light with a terrified cry, “You may tell me--I ken ye’ve seen him as
weel.”

Jenny resisted for some time, keeping her head averted. At length, when
she could struggle no longer, she fell into a little burst of sobbing.
“I never would have telled ye. I didna come to make you desolate--but I
canna tell a lee. I saw him in the dark last night, just ae moment,
glancing in at the window--and when I gaed to the door, he was gane.”

Half an hour after, very drearily Jenny took her way down the hill--and
looking back as the early twilight began to darken on her path, she saw
Miss Janet’s wistful face commanding the way. The twilight came down
heavily--the clouds dipt upon the hill--drizzling rains began to fall,
carrying down with them light dropping showers of half-detached and
dying leaves--but still Miss Janet leaned upon the dyke, and turned her
anxious eyes to the hilly footpath, watching, with many a sob and
shiver, for Randall--in the flesh or in the spirit. Surely, if he
revealed himself to strangers, he might come to her.




CHAPTER XXXVII.


After this there fell some very still and quiet days upon Mrs Laurie’s
cottage. Every thing went on languidly; there was no heart to the work
which Menie touched with dreamy fingers; there was something subdued and
spiritless in her mother’s looks and movements; and even Jenny’s foot
rang less briskly upon her earthen floor. They did not know what ailed
them, nor what it was they looked for; but with a brooding stillness of
expectation, they waited for something, if it were tempest, earthquake,
or only a new glow of sunshine out of the kindly skies.

Was it a spirit? Asking so often, you make your cheek pale, Menie
Laurie; you make your eyelids droop heavy and leaden over your dim eyes.
Few people come here to break the solitude, and we all dwell with our
own thoughts, through these still days, alone.

“Menie, you are injuring yourself; we will take a long walk, and see
some people to-day,” said Mrs Laurie. “Come, it is quite mild--it will
do us both good; we will go to the manse to see Miss Johnston, and then
to Woodlands and Burnside. Put up your papers--we will take a holiday
to-day.”

Menie’s heavy eyes said faintly that she cared nothing about Miss
Johnston, about Woodlands or Burnside; but Menie put aside her papers
slowly, and prepared for the walk. They went out together, not saying
much, though each sought out, with labour and difficulty, something to
say. “I wonder what ails us?” said Menie, with a sigh. Her mother made
no answer. It was not easy to tell; and speaking of it would do more
harm than good.

A hazy day--the sky one faint unvaried colour, enveloped in a uniform
livery of cloud; a faint white mist spread upon the hills; small
invisible rain in the air, and the withered leaves heavily falling down
upon the sodden soil.

“This will not raise our spirits, mother,” said Menie, with a faint
smile; “better within doors, and at work, on a day like this.”

But why, with such a start and tremble, do you hear those steps upon the
path? Why be struck with such wild curiosity about them, although you
would not turn your head for a king’s ransom? Anybody may be coming--the
shepherd’s wife from Whinnyrig yonder, the poor crofter from the edge
of the peat-moss, or little Jessie’s mother bound for the universal
rural shop at the Brigend. We are drawing near to the Brigend--already
the aromatic flavour of the peats warms the chill air with word of
household fires, and we see smoke rise beyond the ash trees--the smoke
of our old family home, the kind hearth of Burnside.

Hush! whether it were hope or fear, is no matter; the steps have ceased;
vain this breathless listening to hear them again; go on through the ash
trees, Menie Laurie--on through the simple gateway of this humble rural
world. By the fireside--in the cottage--with such simple joy as friendly
words and voices of children can give you--this is your life.

And only one--only one--this your mother--to watch your looks and
gestures--the falling and the rising of your tired heart. Wistful eyes
she turns upon you--tender cares. Look up to repay her, Menie; smile for
her comfort; you are all that remains to her, and she is all that
remains to you.

Look up; see how solemnly the ash trees lift their old bleached arms to
heaven. Look up, Menie Laurie; but here, at our very ear, these
bewildering steps again!

Do not shrink; here has come the ordeal you have looked for many a day.
Well said your prophetic heart, that it drew near in the hush and
silence of this fated time. They stand there, arched and canopied, under
these familiar trees, the hamlet’s quiet houses receding behind
them--Burnside yonder, the limit of the scene, and the burn, the kindly
country voice, singing a quiet measure to keep them calm. An old man and
a young, learned with experiences of life: the elder, fresh and noble,
daring to meet the world with open face, aware of all the greatest
truths and mysteries of the wonderful existence which we call common
life, but nothing more; the younger trained in a more painful school,
with his lesson of self-forgetting newly conned, with knowledge sadder
than his father’s, with a heart and conscience quivering still with
self-inflicted wounds--they stand there bareheaded under the cloudy
sky--not with the salutation of common respect, which might permit them
to pass on. A courtly natural grace about them both, makes their
attitude all the more remarkable. With blanched cheeks and failing eyes,
Menie Laurie’s face droops; she dares not look up, but waits, trembling
so greatly that she can scarcely stand, for what has to be said.

Mrs Laurie, with a sudden impulse of protection, draws her child’s arm
within her own--moves forward steadily, all her pride of mother and of
woman coming to her aid; bows to her right hand and her left; says she
is glad to see that this is really Mr Randall, and not the wraith her
simple Jenny had supposed; and, speaking thus in a voice which is but a
murmur of inarticulate sound to Menie, bows again, and would pass on.

But John Home of Crofthill lays his hand upon her sleeve. “You and me
have no outcast to settle. Leave the bairns to themselves.”

With a startled glance Mrs Laurie looks round her, at the old man’s face
of anxious friendliness, at the deep flush on Randall’s brow, and at her
own Menie’s drooping head. “Shall I leave you, Menie?” Menie makes no
answer--as pale and as cold as marble, with a giddy pain in her
forehead, unable to raise her swimming eyes--but she makes a great
effort to support herself, as her mother gradually looses her hand from
her arm.

Passive, silent, her whole mind absorbed with the pain it takes to keep
herself erect, and guide her faltering steps along the road; but Randall
is by Menie’s side once more.

Father and mother have gone on, back towards the cottage; silently,
without a word, these parted hearts follow them side by side. If she had
any power left but what is wanted for her own support, she would wonder
why Randall does not speak. She does wonder, indeed, faintly, even
through her pain. With downcast eyes like hers, he walks beside her,
through this chill dewy air, between these rustling hedges, in a
conscious silence, which every moment becomes more overpowering, more
strange.

“Menie!” With a sudden start she acknowledges her name; but there is
nothing more.

“I said, when we parted, that you were disloyal to me and to Nature,”
said Randall, after another pause. “Menie, I have learned many a thing
since then. It was I that was disloyal to Nature--but never to you.”

Still no answer; this giddiness grows upon her, though she does not miss
a syllable of what he says.

“There is no question between us--none that does not fade like a vapour
before the sunlight I see. Menie, can you trust me again?”

She cannot answer--she can do nothing but falter and stumble upon this
darkening road. It grows like night to her. What is this she leans
upon--the arm of Randall Home?

Miss Janet sits in her shawl of state in Jenny’s kitchen--very curious
and full of anxiety. “Eh, woman, such a sair heart I had,” said Miss
Janet, “when wha should come, as fast up the road as if he kent I was
watching, but my ain bairn? He hasna been hame since July’s wedding; ye
wouldna think it o’ a grand lad like our Randall, and him sae clever,
and sae muckle thocht o’ in the world--but when he gaed owre his
father’s door-stane again, the puir laddie grat like a bairn. Will you
look if they’re coming, Jenny--nae word o’ them? Eh, woman, what can
make Miss Menie sae ill at the like o’ him?”

“The like o’ him’s nae such great things,” said Jenny, with a little
snort. “I wouldna say but what Miss Menie has had far better in her
offer. She’s a self-willed thing--she’ll no take Jenny’s word; but weel
I wat, if she askit me----”

“Whisht, you’re no to say a word,” cried Miss Janet, coming in from the
door. “I see them on the road--I see them coming hame. Jenny, you’re no
to speak. Miss Menie and my Randall, they’re ae heart ance mair.”

And so it was--one heart, but not a heart at ease; the love-renewed
still owned a pang of terror. But day after day came out of the
softening heavens--hour after hour preached and expounded of the
mellowed nature--the soul which had learned to forget itself; other
pictures rose under Menie’s fingers--faces which looked you bravely in
the face--eyes that forgot to doubt and criticise. The clouds cleared
from her firmament in gusts and rapid evolutions, as before these brisk
October winds. One fear followed another, falling like the autumn
leaves; a warmer atmosphere crept into the cottage, a brighter sunshine
filled its homely rooms. Day by day, advancing steadily, the son drew
farther in, to his domestic place. The mother gave her welcome heartily;
the daughter, saying nothing, felt the more; and no one said a word of
grumbling, save perverse Jenny, who wept with joy the while, when
another year and another life lighted up into natural gladness the sweet
harmonious quiet of Menie Laurie’s heart.

THE END.


PRINTED BY WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS, EDINBURGH.