The burn sings under the moon, and you cannot see it; but yonder where it bends round the dark corner of this field, it glimmers like a silver bow. Something of witchcraft and magic is in the place and time. Above, the sky overflooded with the moonbeams; behind, the Firth quivering and trembling under them in an ecstasy of silent light; below, the grass which presses upon the narrow footpath so dark and colourless, with here and there a visible gem of dew shining among its blades like a fallen star. Along that high-road, which stretches its broad white line westward, lads and lasses are trooping home, and their voices strike clearly into the charmed air, but do not blend with it, as does that lingering music which dies away in the distance far on the other side of the town, and the soft voice of this burn near at hand. The homeward procession to the Milton is different from the outward bound. Yonder, steadily at their sober everyday pace, go the miller and his wife. You can see her crimson plaid faintly, through the silvered air which pales its colour; but you cannot mistake the broad outline of John Stewart, or the little active figure of the mistress of the Milton. Young Kilbrachmont and Isabell have gone home by another road, and Janet and her betrothed are “convoying” some of their friends on the way to Pittenweem, and will not turn back till they pass that little eerie house at the Kirk Latch, where people say the Red Slippers delight to promenade; so never look doubtingly over your shoulder, anxious Willie Morison, in fear lest the noisy couple yonder overtake you, and spoil this silent progress home. Now and then Mrs Stewart, rapidly marching on before, turns her head to see that you are in sight; but nothing else—for gradually these voices on the road soften and pass away—comes on your ear or eye unpleasantly to remind you that there is a host of beings in the world, besides yourself and this shy reluctant companion whose hand rests on your arm.
For under the new laced mantle, of which she was so proud this morning, Katie Stewart’s heart is stirring like a bird. She is a step in advance of him, eager to quicken this slow pace; but he lingers—constantly lingers, and some spell is on her, that she cannot bid him hasten. Willie Morison!—only the mate of that pretty Levant schooner which lies in Leith harbour; and the little proud Katie tries to be angry at the presumption which ventures to approach her—her, to whom Sir Alexander did respectful homage—whom the Honourable Andrew signalled out for admiration; but Katie’s pride, only as it melts and struggles, makes the magic greater. He does not speak a great deal; but when he does, she stumbles strangely in her answers; and then Katie feels the blood flush to her face, and again her foot advances quickly on the narrow path, and her hand makes a feint to glide out of that restraining arm. No, think it not, little Katie—once you almost wooed your heart to receive into it, among all the bright dreams which have their natural habitation there, the courtly youthful knight, whose reverent devoirs charmed you into the land of old romance; but, stubborn and honest, the little wayward heart refused. Now let your thoughts, alarmed and anxious, press round their citadel and keep this invader out. Alas! the besieged fortress trembles already, lest its defenders should fail and falter; and angry and petulant grow the resisting thoughts, and they swear to rash vows in the silence. Rash vows—vows in which there lies a hot impatient premonition, that they must be broken very soon.
Under those reeds, low beneath those little overhanging banks, tufted with waving rushes, you scarcely could guess this burn was there, but for the tinkling of its unseen steps; but they walk beside it like listeners entranced by fairy music. The silence does not oppress nor embarrass them now, for that ringing voice fills it up, and is like a third person—a magical elfin third person, whose presence disturbs not their solitude.
“Katie!” cries the house-mother, looking back to mark how far behind those lingerers are; and Katie again impatiently quickens her pace, and draws her companion on. The burn grows louder now, rushing past the idle wheel of the mill, and Mrs Stewart has crossed the little bridge, and they hear, through the still air, the hasty sound with which she turns the great key in the door. Immediately there are visible evidences that the mistress of the house is within it again, for a sudden glow brightens the dark window, and throws a cheerful flickering light from the open door; but the moon gleams in the dark burn, pursuing the foaming water down that descent it hurries over; and the wet stones, which impede its course, glimmer dubiously in the light which throws its splendour over all. Linger, little Katie—slower and slower grow the steps of your companion; linger to make the night beautiful—to feel in your heart as you never felt before, how beautiful it is.
Only Willie Morison! And yet a little curiosity prompts you to look out and watch him from your window in the roof as you lay your cloak aside. He is lingering still by the burn—leaving it with reluctant, slow steps—looking back and back as if he could not make up his mind to go away; and hastily, with a blush which the darkness gently covers, you withdraw from the window, little Katie, knowing that it is quite impossible he could have seen you, yet trembling lest he has.
The miller has the great Bible on the table, and bitter is the reproof which meets the late-returning Janet, as her mother stands at the open door and calls to her across the burn. It is somewhat late, and Janet yawns as she seats herself in the background, out of the vigilant mother’s eye, which, seeing everything, gives no sign of weariness; and Katie meditatively leans her head upon her hand, and places her little Bible in the shadow of her arm, as the family devotion begins. But again and again, before it has ended, Katie feels the guilty blood flush over her forehead; for the sacred words have faded from before her downcast eyes, and she has seen only the retreating figure going slowly away in the moonlight—a blush of indignant shame and self-anger, too, as well as guilt; for this is no Sir Alexander—no hero—but only Willie Morison.
“Send that monkey hame, Isabell,” said John Stewart. He had just returned thanks and taken up his bonnet, as he rose from their homely breakfast-table next morning. “Send that monkey hame, I say; I’ll no hae my house filled wi’ lads again for ony gilpie’s pleasure. Let Katie’s joes gang up to Kellie if they maun make fules o’ themsels. Janet’s ser’d, Gude be thankit; let’s hae nae mair o’t noo.”
“It’s my desire, John Stewart, you would just mind your ain business, and leave the house to me,” answered his wife. “If there’s ae sight in the world I like waur than anither, it’s a man pitting his hand into a house-wifeskep. I ne’er meddle with your meal. Robbie and you may be tooming it a’ down the burn, for ought I ken; but leave the lassies to me, John, my man. I hae a hand that can grip them yet, and that’s what ye ne’er were gifted with.”
The miller shrugged his shoulders, threw on his bonnet, but without any further remonstrance went away.
“And how lang are ye to stay, Katie?” resumed Mrs Stewart.
“I’ll gang up to Kilbrachmont, if ye’re wearying on me, mother,” answered the little belle.
“Haud your peace, ye cuttie. Is that a way to answer your mother, and me slaving for your guid, nicht and day? But hear ye, Katie Stewart, I’ll no hae Willie Morison coming courting here; ae scone’s enow o’ a baking. Janet there is to be cried with Alick—what he could see in her, I canna tell—next Sabbath but twa; and though the Morisons are very decent folk, we’re sib enough wi’ ae wedding. So ye’ll mind what I say, if Willie Morison comes here at e’en.”
“I dinna ken what you mean, mother,” said Katie indignantly.
“I’ll warrant Katie thinks him no guid enough,” said Janet, with a sneer.
“Will ye mind your wark, ye taupie? What’s your business with Katie’s thoughts? And let me never mair see you sit there with a red face, Katie Stewart, and tell a lie under my very e’en. I’ll no thole’t. Janet, redd up that table. Merran, you’re wanted out in the East Park; if Robbie and you canna be done with that pickle taties the day, ye’ll ne’er make saut to your kail; and now I’m gaun in to Anster mysel’—see ye pit some birr in your fingers the time I’m away.”
“Never you heed my mother, Katie,” said Janet benevolently, as Mrs Stewart’s crimson plaid began to disappear over the field. “She says aye a hantle mair than she means; and Willie may come the nicht, for a’ that.”
“Willie may come! And do you thinkIcare if he never crossed Anster Brig again?” exclaimed Katie with burning indignation.
“Weel, I wouldna say. He’s a bonnie lad,” said Janet, as she lifted the shining plates into the lower shelf of the oak aumrie. “And if you dinna care, Katie, what gars ye have such a red face?”
“It’s the fire,” murmured Katie, with sudden humiliation; for her cheeks indeed were burning—alas! as the brave Sir Alexander’s name could never make them burn.
“Weel, he’s to sail in three weeks, and he’ll be a fule if he troubles his head about a disdainfu’ thing that wouldna stand up for him, puir chield. The first night ever Alick came after me, I wouldna have held my tongue and heard onybody speak ill of him; and yesterday’s no the first day—no by mony a Sabbath in the kirk, and mony a night at hame—that Willie Morison has gien weary looks at you.”
“He can keep his looks to himsel,” said Katie angrily, as the wheelbirledunder her impatient hand. “It was only to please ye a’ that I let him come hame with me last night; and he’s no a bonnie lad, and I dinna care for him, Janet.”
Janet, with the firelight reddening that round, stout, ruddy arm, with which she lifts from the crook the suspended kettle, pauses in the act to look into Katie’s face. The eyelashes tremble on the flushed cheek—the head is drooping—poor little Katie could almost cry with vexation and shame.
Merran is away to the field—the sisters are alone; but Janet only ventures to laugh a little as she goes with some bustle about her work, and records Katie’s blush and Katie’s anger for the encouragement of Willie Morison. Janet, who is experienced in such matters, thinks these are good signs.
And the forenoon glides away, while Katie sits absorbed and silent, turning the pretty wheel, and musing on all these affronts which have been put upon her. Not the first by many days on which Willie Morison has dared to think of her! And she remembers Sir Alexander, and that moonlight night on which she watched him looking up at Lady Anne Erskine’s window, but very faintly, very indifferently, comes before her the dim outline of the youthful knight; whereas most clearly visible in his blue jacket, and with the fair hair blown back from his ruddy, manly face, appears this intruder, this Willie Morison.
The days are growing short. Very soon now the dim clouds of the night droop over these afternoon hours in which Mrs Stewart says, “Naebody can ever settle to wark.” It is just cold enough to make the people out of doors brisk in their pace, and to quicken the blood it exhilarates; and the voices of the field-labourers calling to each other as the women gather up the potato baskets and hoes which they have used in their work, and the men loose their horses from the plough, and lead them home, ring into the air with a clear musical cadence which they have not at any other time. Over the dark Firth, from which now and then you catch a long glistening gleam, which alone in the darkness tells you it is there, now suddenly blazes forth that beacon on the May. Not a sober light, shining under glass cases with the reflectors of science behind, but an immense fire piled high up in that iron cage which crowns the strong grey tower; a fiery, livid, desperate light, reddening the dark waters which welter and plunge below, so that you can fancy it rather the torch of a forlorn hope, fiercely gleaming upon ships dismasted and despairing men, than the soft clear lamp of help and kindness guiding the coming and going passenger through a dangerous way.
The night is dark, and this ruddy window in the Milton is innocent of a curtain. Skilfully the fire has been built, brightly it burns, paling the ineffectual lamp up there, in its cruise on the high mantelpiece. The corners of the room are dark, and Merran, still moving about here and there, like a wandering star, crosses the orbit of this homely domestic sun, and anon mysteriously disappears into the gloom. Here, in an arm-chair, sits the miller, his bonnet laid aside, and in his hand a Caledonian Mercury, not of the most recent date, which he alternately elevates to the lamplight, and depresses to catch the bright glow of the fire; for the miller’s eyes are not so young as they once were, though he scorns spectacles still.
Opposite him, in the best place for the light, sits Mrs Stewart, diligently mending a garment of stout linen, her own spinning, which time has begun slightly to affect. But her employment does not entirely engross her vigilant eyes, which glance perpetually round with quick scrutiny, accompanied by remark, reproof, or bit of pithy advice—advice which no one dares openly refuse to take.
Janet is knitting a grey “rig-and-fur” stocking, a duplicate of these ones which are basking before the fire on John Stewart’s substantial legs. Constantly Janet’s clue is straying on the floor, or Janet’s wires becoming entangled; and when her mother’s eyes are otherwise directed, the hoiden lets her hands fall into her lap, and gives her whole attention to the whispered explosive jokes which Alick Morison is producing behind her chair.
Over there, where the light falls fully on her, though it does not do her so much service as the others, little Katie gravely sits at the wheel, and spins with a downcast face. Her dress is very carefully arranged—much more so than it would have been in Kellie—and the graceful cambric ruffles droop over her gloved arms, and she holds her head, stooping a little forward indeed, but still in a dignified attitude, with conscious pride and involuntary grace. Richly the flickering firelight brings out the golden gloss of that curl upon her cheek, and the cheek itself is a little flushed; but Katie is determinedly grave and dignified, and very rarely is cheated into a momentary smile.
For he is here, this Willie Morison! lingering over her wheel and her, a great shadow, speaking now and then when he can get an opportunity; but Katie looks blank and unconscious—will not hear him—and holds her head stiffly in one position rather than catch a glimpse of him as he sways his tall person behind her. Other lingering figures, half in the gloom, half in the light, encircle the little company by the fireside, and contribute to the talk, which, among them, is kept up merrily—Mrs Stewart herself leading and directing it, and only the dignified Katie quite declining to join in the gossip and rural raillery, which, after all, is quite as witty, and—save that it is a little Fifish—scarcely in any respect less delicate than thebadinageof more refined circles.
“It’s no often Anster gets a blink of your daughter. Is Miss Katie to stay lang?” asked a young farmer, whom Katie’s dress and manner had awed into humility, as she intended they should.
“Katie, ye’re no often so mim. Whatfor can ye no answer yoursel?” said Mrs Stewart.
“Lady Anne is away to England with Lady Betty—for Lord Colville’s ship’s come in,” said Katie sedately. “There’s nobody at the Castle but Lady Erskine. Lady Anne is to be back in three weeks. She says that in her letter.”
In her letter! Little Katie Stewart then receives letters from Lady Anne Erskine! The young farmer was put down; visions of seeing her a countess yet crossed his eyes and disenchanted him. “She’ll make a bonnie lady; there’s few of them like her; but she’ll never do for a poor man’s wife,” he muttered to himself as he withdrew a step or two from the vicinity of the unattainable sour plums.
But not so Willie Morison. “I’ll be three weeks of sailing mysel,” said the mate of the schooner, scarcely above his breath; and no one heard him but Katie.
Three weeks! The petulant thoughts rushed round their fortress, and vowed to defend it to the death. But in their very heat, alas! was there not something which betrayed a lurking traitor in the citadel, ready to display the craven white flag from its highest tower?