“I’ll have something ready for your supper if you havena time now,” she said; and entreated him to take the block with to-day’s drawing, which she thought might be offered “in a present” to the young lady.
“Not that, mother,” said Rob, “not till it is finished.”
“Finished!” she said, with a disdain which was complimentary; “what would you have? You canna mend it. It’s just the Kirkton itsel’.”
And she would have liked him to put on his best black coat when he went to meet Miss Margaret, and the tall hat he wore on Sundays. “When you have good claes, why should ye no wear them? She should see that you ken the fashion and can keep the fashion with the best—as my poor purse will feel when the bill comes in,” she added, with a sigh. But at last Rob managed to escape in his ordinary garments, and with the sketches he had chosen. After the events of the day, which had been a kind of crisis in his career, Rob’s mind was full of a pleasant excitement; all things seemed once more to promise well for him—if only this little lady of romance would keep her promise. Would she come again? or had he been flattering himself, supposing a greater interest in her mind than really existed, or a greater freedom in her movements? He lingered about for some time, watching the sun as it lighted up the west, and began to paint the sky with crimson and purple; and as he watched it, Rob was natural enough and innocent enough to forget most other things. Who could attempt to put that sky upon paper? There was all the fervor of first love in his enthusiasm for art, and as he pondered what color could give some feeble idea of such a sky, he thought no more of Margaret. What impossible combination could do it? And if it was done, who would believe in it? He looked at the growing glory with that despair of the artist which is in itself a worship. Rob was not an artist to speak of, yet he had something of the “feeling” which makes one, and all the enthusiasm of a beginner just able to make some expression of his delight in the beauty round him; and there is no one who sees that beauty so clearly, and all the unimaginable glories of the atmosphere, the clouds and shadows, the wonderful varieties of color of which our northern heaven is capable, as the artist, however humble. He was absorbed in this consideration, wondering how to do it, wondering if he ever could succeed in catching that tone of visionary light, that touch of green amidst the blue—or whether he would not be condemned as an impostor if he tried, when suddenly his book of sketches was softly drawn out of his hand. Looking round with a start, he saw Margaret by his side. She had stolen upon him ere he was aware, and her laugh at having taken him by surprise changed into her habitual sudden blush as she caught his eye.
“You need not mind me,” she said, confused. “I am very happy, looking at the pictures. Are you trying to make a picture out of that sky?”
“If I could,” he said; “but I don’t know how to do it; and if I did, it would not be believed, though people see the sunset every day. Did you ever see a Turner, Miss Margaret? Do you know he was the greatest artist—one of the greatest artists?”
“I have heard his name; but I never saw any pictures, never one except our own, and a few in other houses. I have heard, or rather I have read that name. Did he paint landscapes like you?”
“Like me!” Rob laughed. “You don’t know what you are saying. I am a poor creature, a beginner, a fellow that knows nothing. But he!—and he is very fond of sunsets, and paints them; but he dared no more have done that—”
Margaret looked up curiously into the western heavens. It was “all aflame,” and the glow of it threw a warm reflection upon her as she looked up wistfully, with a look of almost infantile, suddenly awakened wonder. Her face was very grave, startled, and full of awe, like one of Raphael’s child-angels. The idea was new to her. She, who thought these sketches so much more interesting than the sunset, it gave her a new sensation to hear of the great artist who had never dared to represent that which the careless heavens accomplish every day. Some floating conception of the greatness of that great globe of sky and air which kept herself suspended a very atom in its vastness, and of the littleness of any man’s attempt at representing it, came suddenly upon her, then floated away again, leaving her as eager as ever over Rob Glen’s poor little sketches. She turned them over with hurried hands. Some were of scenes she did not know, the lochs and hills of the West Highlands, which filled her with delight, and now and then an old tumble-down house, which interested her less.
“Would you like to draw Earl’s-hall?” she said. “I know you have it done in the distance. But it is grand in the distance, and close at hand it is not so grand, it is only funny. Perhaps you could make a picture, Mr.—Glen, of Earl’s-hall?”
“I should very much like to try. Might I try? Perhaps Sir Ludovic might not like it.”
“Papa likes what I like,” said Margaret. But then she paused. “There is Bell. You know Bell, Mr.—Glen.”
She made a little pause before his name, and he smiled. Perhaps it was better that she should not be so easily familiar and call him Rob. The touch of embarrassment was more attractive.
“Bell,” she added, with a little furtive smile, avoiding his look, “is more troublesome than papa; and she will go and speak to papa when she takes it into her head.”
“Then you do not like Bell? I am wrong, I am very wrong; I see it. You did not mean that!”
“Not like—Bell? What would happen if you did not care for those that belong to you?”
“But Bell is only your servant—only your house-keeper.”
Margaret closed the sketch-book, and looked at him with indignant eyes.
“I cannot tell you what Bell is,” she said. “She is just Bell. She took care of my mother, and she takes care of me. Who would be like Bell to me, if it were the Queen? But sometimes she scolds,” she added, suddenly, coming down in a moment from her height of seriousness; “and if you come to Earl’s-hall, you must make friends with Bell. I will tell her you want to draw the house. She would like to see a picture of the house, I am sure she would; and, Mr. Glen,” said Margaret, timidly, looking up in his face, “you promised—but perhaps you have forgotten—you promised to learn me—”
(Learn, by one of the curious turns of meaning not uncommon over the Border, means teach in Scotch, just as to hire means to be hired.)
“Forgotten!” said Rob, his face, too, glowing with the sunset. “If you will only let me! The worst is that you will soon find out how little I know.”
“Not when I look at these beautiful pictures,” said Margaret, opening the sketch-book again. “Tell me where this is. It is a little dark loch, with hills rising and rising all round; here there is a point out into the water with a castle upon it, all dim and dark; but up on the hills the sun is shining. Oh, I would like, I would like to see it! What bonnie places there must be in the world!”
“It is in the Highlands. I wish I could show you the place,” said Rob. “The colors on the hills are far beyond a poor sketch of mine. They are like a beautiful poem.”
Margaret looked up at him again with a misty sweetness in her eyes, a recognition, earnest and happy, of another link of union.
“Do you like poetrytoo?” she said.
Margaretwent home that evening with her head more full than ever of the new incident which had come into her life. More full of that, but not quite so much occupied, perhaps, by the thought of her new acquaintance. She had all the eagerness of a child to begin her studies, to learn how to make pictures as he did, and this for the moment took everything that was dangerous out of the new conjunction of young man and young woman which was quite unfamiliar to her, but which had vaguely impressed her on their first meeting. She came home this time no longer in a dream of roused and novel feeling, but with definite aims before her; and when she found Bell, as usual, seated outside the door in the little court, Margaret lost no time in opening the attack on the person whom she knew to be the most difficult and unlikely to be convinced.
“Bell!” she cried, running in, breathless with eagerness, “something is going to happen to me. Listen, Bell! I am going to learn to draw.”
“Bless me, bairn!” cried Bell, drawing back her chair in semi-alarm. “Is that a’? I thought you were going to tell me the French were coming. No that the French have ony thought of coming nowadays, puir bodies; they’ve ower muckle to do with themselves.”
“Bell, you don’t take the trouble to think about me, and I am so happy about it. Therenever was a time that I did not care for pictures. And there’s a view of Earl’s-hall from the Kirkton, and I cannot tell how many more. You know I always was fond of pictures, Bell.”
“No me! I never knew you had seen ony, Miss Margret,” said Bell, placidly; “but for my part, I’m sure I’ve no objection. I would like it far better if it was the piany; but education’s aye a grand thing, however it comes. Can do is easy carried about.”
“And will you speak to papa?” said Margaret. “Bell, I wish you would speak to papa; for he jokes at me, and calls me little Peggy, and you know I am not little, but quite grown up.”
“Oh, ay, as auld as him or me—in your ain conceit,” said Bell; “but whisht, my bonnie doo— I wasna meaning to vex you. And what am I to speak to Sir Ludovic about?”
A slight embarrassment came over Margaret. She began to fidget from one foot to another, and a sudden wave of color flushed over her face. It did not mean anything. Was it not the trouble of her life that she blushed perpetually—blushed for nothing at all, with every fresh thought that rushed upon her, with every new impulse? It was her way of showing every emotion. Nevertheless this time it made her feel uncomfortable, as if it might mean something more.
“I told you,” she said; “it is about learning to draw, and about letting him come here to show me the way.”
“Lettinghimcome! that’s another story; and who’s him?” said Bell. She made a rapid mental review of the county while she spoke—puzzled, yet not disconcerted; there was nobody of whom the severest duenna could be afraid. There was Sir Claude—known to be very fond of pictures—but Sir Claude was a douce married man, who was very unlikely to take the trouble, and, even if he did, would hurt nobody. “Na, I canna think. Young Randal Burnside he’s away; that was the only lad in the country-side like to be evened to our Miss Margret, and him no half or quarter good enough. Na, ye maun tell me; there’s nohimin the country that may not come and go free for anything I care.”
“Why should you care?” said Margaret. “But I will tell you who it is. It is Rob Glen—Mrs. Glen’s son, at Earl’s-lee. He used to play with me when I was little, and I saw him drawing a picture. And then he told me who he was, and then he said he would learn me to draw, if I liked to learn—and you may be sure I would like to learn, Bell. Fancy! to take a bit of paper out of a book, and put this house upon it or any other house, and all the woods, and the hills, and the sky. Look at that puff of cloud! it’s all rosy and like a flower; but in a moment it will be gray, and next moment it will be gone; but if you draw it you have it forever. It’s wonderful, wonderful, Bell!”
“Rob Glen,” said Bell, musing. She paid no attention to Margaret’s poetical outburst. “Rob Glen—that’s him that was to be a minister; but something’s happened to him; he’s no conductit himself as he ought, or else he tired of the notion, and he’s at hame doing naething.” Bell paused after this historical sketch. “He wasna an ill laddie. He was very good to you, Miss Margret, when you were but a little troublesome thing, greeting for drinks of water, and asking to be carried, and wanting this and wanting that, just what puts a body wild with bairns.”
“Was I?” said Margaret, with wide-opened eyes. “No! Rob never thought me a trouble. You might do so,” she added, with offence. “I cannot tell for you, but I am sure Rob—”
“I weel believe he never said a word. He was great friends with you, I mind well—oh, great friends. And so he wants to learn you to draw—or you want him? I see nae great objection,” said Bell, doubtfully. “He’s a young man, but then you’re a leddy far above him; and you’re old friends, as you say. I will not say but what I would rather he was marrit, Miss Margret; but I see nae great objection—”
“Married!” said Margaret, her eyes bigger than ever with wonder and amusement—“married!” She laughed, though she could scarcely have told why. The idea amused her beyond measure. There was something piquant in it, something altogether absurd. Rob! But why the idea was so ridiculous she could not say. Bell looked at her in her laughter with a certain doubt.
“Why should he no be married?” she said; “lads of that kind marry young—they’ve naething to wait for: the moment they get a kirk it’s a’ they can look for—very different from some. I dinna ken what Sir Ludovic may say,” she added, doubtfully. “Sir Ludovic has awfu’ high notions; a farmer’s son to learn a Leslie. I canna tell how he’ll take it.”
“Bell!” cried Margaret, with indignation, “when you know it’s you that have the high notions! Papa would never think of anything of the kind; but if you go and put them into his head, and tell him what to think—”
“Lord bless the bairn, me!” cried Bell, with the air of being deeply shocked; and then she got up and went back into her kitchen, which was her stronghold. Margaret, for her part, slightly discouraged, but still eager, stole up-stairs. If Bell was against her, it did not matter very much who was on her side. She went softly into the long room where her father was reading. Would it ever happen to her, she wondered, to sit still in one place and read, whatever might be going on—never thinking what was happening outside, untroubled whether it rained or was fine, whether it was summer or winter? Though she came in and roamed about softly, in a kind of subdued restlessness, looking over the book-shelves, and flitting from window to window, Sir Ludovic took no notice. With her own life so warm in her, it was stranger and stranger to Margaret to see that image of the calm of age; how strange it was! He had not moved even, since she came into the room, while she was so restless, so eager, thinking nothing in the world so important as her present fancy. When she had fluttered about for some time without attracting his notice, she grew impatient. “Papa, I want to speak to you,” she said.
“Eh? Who is that—?” Sir Ludovic roused up as if he had been asleep; “you, little Peggy?”
“Yes; were you sleeping? I wondered and wondered that you never saw me.”
“I don’t think I was asleep,” he said, with alittle confusion. “To tell the truth, I do get drowsy sometimes lately, and I don’t half like it,” he added, in an undertone.
“You don’t like it?” said Margaret: she was not uneasy, but she was sympathetic. “But then don’t do it, papa; come and take a little walk with me”—(here she paused, remembering that to-night, for instance, Sir Ludovic would have been much out of place), “or a turn in the garden, like John.”
Sir Ludovic paid not much attention to what she said: he rubbed his eyes, and raised his head, shaking himself with a determination to overcome the drowsiness, which was a trouble to him. “You must sit with me more, my little girl, and make a noise; a little sound is life-like. This stillness gets like”—(he made a pause; was the first word that occurred to him an unpleasant one, not such as was agreeable to pronounce?)—“like sleep,” he added, after a moment, “and I have no wish to go to sleep.”
“Sleeping is not pleasant in the daytime,” said Margaret, unintentionally matter-of-fact. The old man gave a slight shiver, which she did not understand. It was no longer the daytime with him, and this was precisely why he disliked his unconscious doze; was it not a sign that night was near? He raised himself in his chair, and with the almost mechanical force of habit began to turn over the leaves of the book before him. It was evident he had not heard her appeal. She stood by for a moment not saying anything, then pulled his sleeve gently.
“Papa! it was something I had to say.”
“Ay, to be sure. You wanted something, my little Peggy? what was it? There are not many things I can do, but if it is within my power—”
“Papa! how strange to speak to me so—you can do everything I want,” said the girl. “And this is what it is: I want—don’t be very much astonished—to learn to draw.”
“To draw? I am afraid I am no good in that respect, and cannot teach you, my dear.”
“You? Oh no! But there is one that would learn me.”
“My little Peggy, you are too Scotch—say teach.”
“Very well, teach if you like, papa; what does the word matter? But may he come to the house, and may I have lessons? I think it is the only thing that is wanted to make me perfectly happy.”
Sir Ludovic smiled. “In that case you had better begin at once. Mr. Ruskin himself ought to teach you, after such a sentiment. At once, my Peggy! for I would have you perfectly happy if I could. Poor child, who knows what may happen after,” he said, meditatively, putting his hand upon her arm and smoothing the sleeve caressingly. Margaret, occupied with her own thoughts, did not take in the meaning of this; but she was vaguely discouraged by the tone.
“You are not like yourself, papa; what has happened?” she said, almost impatiently. “You are not—ill? It is waking up, I suppose.”
“Just that—or going to sleep—one or the other. No, no, I am not ill; yet— And let us be comfortable, my little girl. Draw? Yes, you shall learn to draw, and sit by me, quiet as a little mouse with bright eyes.”
“You said just now I was to make a noise.”
“To be sure, so I did. I say one thing one moment, and another the next; but, after all, they are much the same. So you sit by me, you may be quiet or make a noise—it will be all the same. Your noises are quiet, my Peggy. Your sleeve rustling, your hand moving, and a little impatience now and then, a start and a shake of your little head. These are noises an old man likes when Providence has given him a little girl.”
“But really,” said Margaret, with a crease in her forehead, “really! I am grown-up— I am not a little girl!”
“Well, my Peggy! it will be so much the better for you,” he said, patting her sleeve. Margaret was vaguely chilled by this acquiescence, she could scarcely tell why; and the slight pain made her impatient, calling up a little auger, causeless and vague as itself.
“Don’t, papa,” she said. “You are not like yourself. I don’t know what is the matter with you. Then, he may come?”
“Yes, yes, at once,” said Sir Ludovic, with a dreamy smile; then he said, “But who is it?” as if this mattered little. Altogether, Margaret felt he was not like himself.
“Do you remember Rob Glen, papa, the son of Mrs. Glen at Earl’s-lee? He used to play with me when I was a child; he was always very kind to me. Oh, don’t shake your head; you must mind him. Robert Glen at the farm?”
“Imind, as you say—Scotch, Scotch, little Peggy; you should not be so Scotch—a Robert Glen who took the farm thirty or forty years ago. By-the-bye, the lease must be almost out; but how you are to get drawing or anything else out of a rough farmer—”
“Papa!”— Margaret put her hand upon his shoulder with impatience—“how could it be a Robert Glen of thirty or forty years ago? He is only a little older than me. He played with me when I was a little girl. He is perhaps the son, or he may be the grandson. He is a little older than me.”
“Get your pronouns right, my little Peggy. Ah! the son;va pour le fils,” said Sir Ludovic, with a drowsy smile, and turned back to his book. Margaret stood for a moment with her hand on his shoulder, looking at him with that irritation which is the earliest form of pain. A vague uneasiness came into her mind, but it was so veiled in this impatience that she did not recognize it for what it was. The only conscious feeling she had was, how provoking of papa! not to take more interest, not to ask more, not to say anything. Then she dropped her hand from his shoulder and turned away, and went to sit in the window with the first chance book she could pick up. She was not thinking much about the book. She was half annoyed and disappointed to have got her own way so easily. Had he understood her? Margaret did not feel quite happy about this facile assent. It made of Rob Glen no wonder at all, no disturbing individuality. He was something more, after all, than Sir Ludovic thought. What was all her own tremor for, if it was to be lightly met with ava pour le fils? She was not satisfied; and indeed the little rustlings of her impatience, her subdued movements, as she sat behind, did all for her father that he wanted. They kept him awake. The drowsiness which comforted him, yet which he was afraid of, fled before this little thrill ofmovement. Even if she had been altogether quiet, is there not a thrill and reverberation in the air about a thinking creature? Sir Ludovic was kept awake and alive by the consciousness of another near him, living in every nerve, filling the silence with a little thrill of independent being. This kept him, not only from dozing, but even from active occupation with his book. After a little while he too began to be restless, turned the pages hastily, then himself turned half round toward her. “My Peggy!” he said. In a moment she was standing by his side.
“What is it? Did you want me, papa?”
“No, it is nothing, only to see that you were there. I heard you, that was all; and in the sound there was something strange, like a spirit behind me—or a little mouse, as I said before.”
“Had I better go away? would you rather be without me?”
“No, my little girl; but sit in my sight, that I may not be puzzled. The thing is that I can feel you thinking, my Peggy.”
“Papa! I was not thinking so much—not of anything in particular, not to disturb you.”
“No, my dear, I am not complaining; they were very soft little thoughts, but I heard them. Sit now where I can see you, and all will go right.”
“Yes, papa. And you are sure you have no objections?” Margaret said, after a moment’s pause, standing by him still.
“To what? to the teaching of the drawing? Oh, no objections—not the least objection.”
“And you don’t mind him coming to the house— I mean—Mr. Glen?”
“Is there any reason why I should mind?” the old man asked, quickly, rousing into something like vigilance.
“Oh no, papa; but I thought perhaps because he was not—the same as us—because he was only—the farmer’s son.”
“This is wisdom; this is social science: this is worthy of Jean and Grace,” said Sir Ludovic. “My little Peggy! I do not know, my child. Is this all out of your own head?”
At this Margaret drooped a little, with one of her usual overwhelming blushes. “It was Bell,” she said; but was it indeed all Bell? Some instinct in her had made a more penetrating suggestion, but she could not tell this to her father. She waited with downcast eyes for his reply.
“Ah, it was Bell. I am glad my little Peggy was not so clever and so far-seeing; now run and play, my little girl, run away and play,” he said, dismissing her in his usual tone. She had roused him at last to his ordinary mood, and neither he nor she thought more of his desire that she should stay in his sight. Margaret went away with her heart beating to the west chamber, which was her legitimate sitting-room. She was half ashamed of her own fears about Rob, which her father had treated so lightly. Was it entirely Bell that had put it into her head that this new visitor might be objected to? And was it entirely because he was the farmer’s son? Margaret was too much puzzled and confused to be able to answer these questions. She was like a little ship setting out to sea without any pilot. An instinct in her whispered the necessity for guidance, whispered some faint doubts whether this step she was taking was a right one; but what could the little ship do when the man at the helm was so tranquilly careless? At seventeen is one wiser than at seventy-five? It is not only presumptuous, it is irreligious to think so. And when her own faint doubt was laughed at by her father as being of the order of the ideas of Jean and Grace, what could Margaret do but be ashamed of it? Jean and Grace were emblems of the conventional and artificial to Sir Ludovic. He could not speak of them without a laugh, though they were his children; neither did they approve of their father—with some reason it may be thought.
Thus it was settled that Rob Glen should have access to Earl’s-hall. Bell shook her head, but she did not interfere. “It will divert the bairn,” she said to herself, “and I can aye keep my eye upon him.” What was the need of disturbing Sir Ludovic, honest man? The Leslies had their faults, Bell reflected, but falling in love beneath them was not their weakness. They were very friendly, but very proud. “As sweet and as kind to the poorest body as if they were their own kith and kin; but it’s hitherto mayst thou come, and no a step furder,” said Bell; “that’s the way o’ them all. Even our Miss Margret, I would advise nobody to go too far with her. She’s very young. She disna understand herself; but as for the canailye, I would not counsel them to come near by our young leddy, simple as she is; there’s just an instinck; it’s in the Leslie blood.”
Thus all went smoothly in this first essay of wilfulness. Father and old duenna both consented that the risk should be run. But in Margaret’s own mind there was one pause of hesitation. Had there been any opposition to her will she would have upheld Rob Glen to the utmost, and insisted upon her drawing-lessons; but as it was, there came a check to her eagerness which she did not understand, a subtle sort of hinderance in her path, a hesitation—because no one else hesitated. Was that all?
From this it will be seen that the ladies Jean and Grace were not so wrong as was supposed at Earl’s-hall, when they shook their heads over their father’s proceedings, and declared that he was not capable of being trusted with the charge of a young girl. Any young girl would have been rather unsafe in such hands, but a girl with money, a girl who was an heiress! As for Sir Ludovic, he went on serenely with his reading, or dozed over his book in the long room, and took no notice, or thought no more of the new teacher Margaret had got for herself. He was very glad she should do anything that pleased her. Now and then he was anxious, and his mind was occupied, by the drowsiness which came over him. He did not like this, it was not a good sign. It made his mind uneasy, for he was an old man, and knew he could not go on forever, and the idea of death was far from pleasant to him. This he was anxious about, but about his child he was not anxious. She was not going to die, or anything to happen to her. She had a long time before her, in which, no doubt, many things would happen; and why should her father begin so early to make himself uncomfortable about her? He did not see the use.
Whilethese events were going on in the long room, and up the spiral stairs, thoughts not less important to her than those that moved her young mistress were going on in the head of Jeanie, the young maid-servant at Earl’s-hall. Jeanie had been chosen as her assistant by Bell on account of her excellent character and antecedents, and the credit and respectability of all belonging to her. “An honest man’s daughter,” Bell said, “a man just by-ordinary;” and the girl herself was so well spoken of, so pretty spoken in her own person, with such an artless modesty in the soft chant of her voice, true Fife and of the East Neuk, that there had been nothing to say against the wisdom of the choice. Jeanie was always smiling, always good-humored, fresh as a rose and as clean, singing softly about her work, with the natural freedom yet sweet respectfulness which makes a Scotch lass so ingratiating an attendant. Jeanie could not have waited even upon a stranger without a certain tender anxiety and affectionate interest—a desire not only to please, but to “pleasure” the object of her cares,i. e., to give them pleasure with sympathetic divining of all they wanted. Whether it was her “place” or not to do one thing or another, what did it matter? Her own genuine pleasure in the cleanness and neatness she spread round her, and in the comfort of those she served, reached the length of an emotion. It did her heart good to bring order out of chaos, to make dimness bright, and to clear away stain and spot out of her way. She had been two years at Earl’s-hall, and before that had been away as far as the west country, where her mother’s friends were. Jeanie was her father’s only daughter, and great was his comfort and rejoicing when she came back to be so near him; for John Robertson was not well enough off to keep her with him at home, nor could he have thought it good for Jeanie to keep her in his little cottage “learning naething,” as he said. Perhaps there had risen upon Jeanie’s bright countenance some cloud of uneasiness during these recent days; at least it had occurred to Bell, she could scarcely tell how, that something more than usual was in the girl’s mind. “It’ll do you good to go and have a crack with your father,” she had said, the day after Margaret’s second meeting with Rob Glen. Perhaps Bell wanted to have her young lady all to herself—perhaps it was only consideration for Jeanie.
“You can go as soon as the dinner is up,” she said, “and take the old man a print o’ our sweet butter and twa-three eggs. It’ll please him to see you mind upon him.”
“No me, but you,” said Jeanie; “and I’m real obliged to you, Bell.”
Perhaps a rigid moralist would have said it was not Bell, but Sir Ludovic, who had the right to send these twa-three eggs; but such a critic would have met with little charity at Earl’s-hall, where, indeed, Bell’s thrift and care, and notable management, as constant and diligent as if the house-keeping had been her own, kept plenty as well as order in the house; nor did it ever occur to the good woman that she was not free to give as well as to increase this simple kind of household wealth. Jeanie set out in the summer evening, after six o’clock, when she had delivered the last dish into John’s hands. She went along the country road with neither so light a step nor so light a heart as those which had carried Margaret in dreamy pleasantness between the same hedges, all blossomed with the sweet flaunting of the wild rose.
Jeanie, as was natural, being three-and-twenty and a hard-working woman, was more solid and substantial than the Laird’s daughter at seventeen; but it would have been difficult to imagine a more pleasant object, or one more entirely suiting and giving expression to the rural road along which she moved, than was Jeanie, a true daughter of the soil. She was not tall or slim, but of middle height, round and neat and well proportioned, with a beautiful complexion, impaired by nothing but a few freckles, and golden-brown hair, much more “in the fashion,” with its crisp undulations and luxuriant growth, than the brown silky locks of her young mistress. Dark eyes and eyelashes gave a touch of higher beauty to the fair, fresh face, which had no particular features, but an air of modesty, honesty, sweet good temper, and kindness very delightful to behold. She was “a bonnie lass,” no more, not the beauty or reigning princess of the neighborhood, or playing any fatalrôlein the country-side. Jeanie was too good, too simple and kind, for any such position; but she was a bonnie lass, and “weel respectit,” and had her suitors like another.
As she went along by herself in that perfect ease of solitude, unseen by any eye, which subdues all instincts of pride and self-command, a vague cloud became visible on her face. The smile with which she met her little world, true always, yet true sometimes rather in the sense of self-denial than of fact, faded away; her simple countenance grew serious, a curve of anxiety came into her forehead, not deadly anxiety, such as wrings the heart, but a wistfulness and longing for something unattained; for something, perhaps, which ought to be attained, and which might end in being a wrong if withheld from her. Nothing so abstruse as this could be read in Jeanie’s face, which would besides have cleared up and awoke into the soft sunshine of friendly response, had any one met her; but as she went on alone, with nobody to see, there was a gravity in her eyes, a wistfulness in the look which she cast along the field-path which Margaret had followed so pleasantly, which was not like Jeanie. Was she looking for some one who ought to be coming along that green and flowery path? She breathed out a soft little sigh as she went on. “My faither will ken,” Jeanie said to herself; and though there was this anxiety in her face, a certain languor was in her step, as of one by no means confident that the news she is going to seek will be comforting to hear.
The Kirkton, to which Jeanie was bound, and of which Rob Glen had made so many sketches, was, as already said, an irregular village surrounding the kirk from which it took its name, and built upon a mound, which stood eminent over the low rich fields of Stratheden. The greater portion of the church was new, and quite in accordance with the eighteenth-century idea of half-barn-half-meeting-house which, unfortunately, in so many cases represents the parish church in Scotland. But this was all the worsein the present case, from being added on to a beautiful relic of the past, the chancel of an old Norman church, still in perfect preservation, not resenting, but silently indicating with all the force of fact, the incredible difference between the work of the united and catholic past, and the expedient of a Scotch heritor to house at the smallest possible cost, the national worship which he himself is too fine to share. The little round apsis of the original church, with its twisted arches and toothed ornaments, brown with age and lichen, and graceful, natural decay, was the only part of it visible from the road along which our Jeanie was coming. Jeanie neither knew nor cared for the Norman arches, but the grassy mound that rose above her head, with its grave-stones, and the high steps which led up to it, upon which the children clustered, were dear and familiar to her eyes.
At the foot of the kirk steps was a road which led to “the laigh toun,” a little square orplace—semi-French, as are so many things in Scotland—surrounded by cottages; while the road, which wound round the base of the elevation on which the church stood, took in “the laigh toun,” in which was the post-office and the shop, and the “Leslie Arms,” and two or three two-storied houses, vulgar and ugly in their blue slates, which were the most important dwellings in the Kirkton. Jeanie, however, had nothing to do with these respectable erections; her steps were turned toward the high town, where her father’s cottage was. Everybody knew her on the familiar road. “Is that you, Jeanie?” the men said, going home from their work with long leisurely tread, which looked slow, yet devoured the way. The children on the kirk steps “cried upon her” with one voice, or rather with one chant, modulating the long-drawn vowels with the native sing-song of Fife. Even Dr. Burnside, walking stately down the brae, shedding a wholesome awe about him, with hands under his coat-tails, stopped to speak to her.
“Your father is very well, honest man,” the Doctor said. When she reached the little square beyond the church, where the women were sitting at their doors in the soft evening air, or standing in groups, each with her stocking, talking across the open space like one family, a universal greeting arose.
“Eh, Jeanie, lass, you’re a sight for sair een!” they cried. “Eh, but the auld man will be pleased to see you;” and “He’s real weel, Jeanie, my woman,” was added by various voices. This was evidently the point on which she was supposed to be anxious. The girl nodded to them all with friendly salutations. They had their little bickerings, no doubt, now and then; but were they not one family, each knowing everything that concerned the others?
“I’m real pleased to see you a’, neebors,” Jeanie said; “but I maunna bide. I’ve come to see my faither.”
“That’s right, Jeanie, lass,” the women said; “he’s been a good faither to you, and weel he deserves it at your hand.” “Faither and mither baith,” said another commentator; and Jeanie went on with a warm light of pleasure and kindness in her face. Perhaps her name in the air had caught her father’s ear, though no name was more common than Jeanie, or more often heard in “the laigh toun;” or perhaps it was that more subtle personal influence which heralds a new-comer—magnetical, electrical, who can tell what? As she made her way to the end of the square, where it communicated by a steep street with “the laigh toun” below, he came out to his cottage door. He was a tall man, thin and stooping, and very pale, his face sicklied o’er with more than thought. He wore the sign of his trade, a shoemaker’s apron, and looked along the line of houses with a wistful expression, like that which Jeanie had worn when she was alone. He was a man “above the common,” everybody said, for long years a widower, who had been “faither and mither baith” to his children; and only some of them had repaid poor John. Those of the lads who were good lads had emigrated and gone far out of his neighborhood, and those who were within reach were not models of virtue. But Jeanie had always been his support and stay. His wistful inquiring look yielded to the tenderest pleasure as he perceived her; but there was no enthusiasm of greeting between the father and daughter. Few embracings are to be seen in Scotch peasant families. The cobbler’s face lighted up; he said, “Is that you, Jeanie, my bonnie woman?” with a tone that had more than endearment in it. The sight of her brought a glow to his wan face. “You are as good as the blessed sunshine, my lass—and eh, but I’m glad to see you!”
“And me too, faither,” said Jeanie. That was their greeting. “They tell me you’re real well,” she added, as they went in-doors.
“A great deal they ken,” said John Robertson, with that natural dislike to be pronounced well by the careless outside world which every invalid shares. “But I’m no that bad either,” he added, “and muckle the better for seeing you. Come in and sit you down.”
“I have but little time to stay,” said Jeanie.
As she went in before him the shade again returned to her face, though only for that moment during which it was unseen. The small window of the cottage gave but a dim greenish light, a sort of twilight after the full glow and gladness outside. But they were used to this partial gloom; and there seemed a consciousness on the father’s part as well as the daughter’s of something serious that there might be to say. He looked at her closely, yet half stealthily, with the vivacious, dark eyes which lighted up his pale face; but he asked no question. And Jeanie, for her part, said nothing about herself. She asked when he had seen Willie, and if all was well with John, and he replied, shaking his head,
“Oh, ay, weel enough, weel enough for such a ne’er-do-weel.”
“No a ne’er-do-weel, faither. Poor laddie! he’s so easy led away; but by-and-by he’ll tak’ a thought and mend.”
“Like the de’il—at least, accordin’ to Robert Burns. Ay, ay, Jeanie, by-and-by! But maybe he’ll break our hearts afore then.”
“And Willie, faither?”
“Since Willie ’listed, I try to think of him nae mair,” said the cobbler, with a quiver in his lips; then he added, “But he’ll be held weel under authority, as the centurion says in Scripture, and maybe it’s the best thing that could have happened for himself.”
“That’s aye what Bell says—”
“Bell! and what does Bell ken about it—a woman that never had a son! If I were to have my family over again, I would pray for a’ lasses, Jeanie, my woman, like you.”
“Eh, faither! but you mustna forget Robin and Alick, though they’re far away; and a’ the lasses are no like me,” said Jeanie, with a tear and a smile. “I might have been marriet, and far from hame; or I might have been licht-headed;” this she said, with a faith laugh at the idea, and rising blush; for to be anything different from her modest self was half incredible, half alarming. The cobbler shook his head.
“Another might, but no my Jean. But what is sent is the best, if we could but see it, nae doubt, nae doubt.”
“And that minds me,” she said, abruptly, with a little gasp of rising agitation. Then she stopped herself as quickly; “how is the work getting on? have ye aye plenty jobs to keep ye going, faither?” she added, as by an after-thought.
“No that bad,” said the shoemaker. “Plenty wark—pay’s no just the same thing. There was three pair last week for Merran Linsay, you ken she’s aye to be trusted.”
“Trusted!” said Jeanie, “ay, for kindness and a good heart, but for the siller—”
“My heart’s wae for the poor decent woman,” said John Robertson, “with aye the wolf at her door. The shoes thae bairns gang through! no to speak of other things. How could I bid her depart, and get something elsewhere to put on their feet when she came to me? Would you ca’ that Christianity—no that I’m blaming them that can do it,” he added, hastily. “Na, whiles I wish I could do it; but nature’s mair strong than wishing—”
“You are aye the auld man,” said Jeanie, tenderly; “it’s real foolish, faither, but I canna blame ye. I like ye a’ the better. You would make shoes for a’ the parish, and never take a penny.”
“Na, na, lass! there you’re wrong,” he said, briskly. “I charged a shilling mair than the price to auld Will Heriot, nae further gane than Friday last. He was in an awfu’ hurry, and awfu’ ill tempered. I put on a shilling,” said the cobbler, with a low laugh. “In the abstract it wasna right, and I’ll no say but I may gie it back; but the auld Adam is strong now and then.”
“No half strong enough,” said Jeanie. “I wouldna gie him back, no a brass farden.” Then she paused, and her countenance changed again—that scarcely perceptible darkening, paling, came over it, and this time she spoke quickly, with a little almost impatient determination, as if resolved not to allow herself any more to be crushed and silenced by herself. “Faither,” she said, “you’ll ken he’s come back. Have you heard anything of Rob Glen?”
“Not a word, Jeanie, no a word. I thought that was what you were coming to tell me.”
There was a pause— Jeanie said nothing. She turned her face away, and made believe to look out at the dim little window, while the cobbler, with the delicacy of a prince, turned in the other direction that he might not seem to watch her.
“It’s a long time since the lad has been hame,” he said, with a slight tremor in his voice. “He will have many things to take him up; and his mother—his mother’s a proud woman; he knows neither you nor me would welcome him against the will o’ his ain folk.”
“It’s no that, faither,” said Jeanie, with a low sound like a sob, which escaped her unawares. “It’s no that. The like of that is nothing. Am I one that would judge a hard judgment? It’s no that.”
“You would never mean it, Jeanie, my bonnie woman; but when the heart is troubled the judgment’s n’ ajee. You maun possess your soul in patience; maist things come right one way or anither to them that will wait.”
Jeanie gave a weary sigh, the light dying out of her face. She kept gazing out of the little window, in a strained attitude, with the tears unseen, blinding her eyes. “It was just that I came for,” she said, “to see if you could tell me what to do. He has made great friends, I kenna how, with our Miss Margaret, and he’s coming to Earl’s-ha’; maybe I’ll have to open the door till him, maybe I’ll have to show him up the stair—to say Sir till him, and never let on he’s onything to me.” Here a sob once more broke the hurrying current of Jeanie’s words. “What will I do, faither—what will I do?” she cried, with an intense undertone of pain, which made the words tragical in their simplicity—smiling Jeanie, so fair and friendly, turning all at once into a tragic representation (for the millionth time) of disappointed love, and that aching loss which by reason of some lingering possibility of redemption for it, is more hard to bear than despair.
“My bonnie woman!” said the cobbler; the same ring of pain was in his voice; but the very delicacy of his sympathy, and its acuteness, kept him silent. He made another pause: “Jeanie, my lass,” he said, “in a’ the trials o’ this life I’ve found that true that was said to them that were first sent out to preach the Word. God’s awfu’ good, to give us the same for the common need as is for the divine. ‘Tak’ nae thought in that hour what ye will say.’ That’s aye the guide as long as you’re innocent of harm. It will be put into your mouth what is best.”
Jeanie turned upon him wistfully. “Is that a’ you have to say to me?—is that a’, faither? I want mair than that; will I take the thing just as it comes, or will I haud out o’ the way? Will I let him see me, or will I no let him see me? Will I throw it on him to acknowledge me for—a friend: or will I take it on me? See how many things I have to ask! It’s no just what to say.”
“I maun turn that ower in my mind,” said John; and there was a pause. Jeanie, after this little outburst, sat still with her head turned again toward the window, not looking at him, concealing the tears in her eyes, and the agitation of her face, which even to her father was not to be betrayed. As for John, he dropped naturally upon his familiar bench, and took up unconsciously a shoe at which he had been working. The little knock of the hammer was the natural accompaniment to his thinking. Outside, the voices of the neighbors, softened by the summer air, made a murmur of sound through which some word or two fell articulate now and then through the silence. “She kens my mind; but she will gang her ain gait,” one woman said to another; and then there arose a cry of “Tak care o’ the bairn—it’ll fa’ and break its neck,” and a rushof feet. All these sounds and a great deal more fell into the silence of the dim cottage room, where nothing but the little tap of the cobbler’s hammer disturbed the stillness. Jeanie sat very still, her hands clasped in her lap, the moisture in her eyes, turning over many thoughts in her mind. The time that had been! the day when they met in Glasgow, she a fresh country lass, half friend, half servant, in the house of her relation; he a student, half-gentleman, with his old red gown, the sign of learning, on his arm.
How glad then had Rob been to see Jeanie! And even when he began to have “grand friends,” and to eschew his uncle’s shop, her smiling looks, her soft sympathy, had kept him always faithful. And Jeanie had not thought very much of the two years of silence since she came back to Fife. They were both young, and she knew that Rob’s mother was not likely to smile upon so humble a daughter-in-law. But his return had roused all the past, and the thought of meeting him again had stirred Jeanie’s being to the depths. Even this visit had changed the aspect of affairs for her. For it had not seemed possible that Rob could have entirely neglected her father, whom everybody esteemed, and she had come to the Kirkton—honestly to ask counsel in her difficulty, yet not without hope of hearing something that might charm all difficulty away.
“Jeanie,” said her father, at last, “whatever we meet with in this world there’s aye but one path for right-minded folk. You maun neither flee from your duty nor gang beyond your duty. We’ve nae business to rin away from trouble because its trouble, but we’ve nae call to put oursels in its way. If it’s clear that no person can let the lad in but you, open the door till him, take him up the stair—do it, my woman, and never think twice; but if it’s no needfu’, forbear. And as for leaving it on him to own you for a friend, you must not do that; it would be untruthful on your part, for I hope you’re ower weel bred, my bonnie woman, to pass any person you ken without a smile or a pleasant word. You wouldna disown your friend if he turned poor, and why should he, when he’s turned rich? or I should say grand in his ways, for rich Rob Glen will never be. Sae it will be but honest when you see the lad to say ‘How is a’ wi’ you, Robin,’ or ‘I hope you’re keeping your health,’ or the like of that. Say nothing of other things. Let no lad think you are seeking him; but neither should any lad think you are feared to let it be seen you ken him. Na, I’ll hear o’ nae concealments; my Jeanie must be as clear as the running water, aye true, and scornin’ to deceive. ‘Ay,’ you’ll say, ‘Miss Margaret, I ken Robert Glen.’”
“Ay,” said the poor girl, with a wistful echo, “I ken Robert Glen!” she shook her head, and the tears with which her eyes were full, brimmed over. “Ay, that do I, faither; I wish I had never kent him, I wish I had never thought so weel of him. Eh, but it’s strange—awful strange—to think ane yekencan deceive! Them ye dinna ken are different. But to say a thing and no to mean it, faither—to give a promise and forget—to mak’ a vow before the Lord and think nae mair o’t! Can such things be?”
“Such things have been, Jeanie. I’m like you, I cannot believe in them; but they have been. And a’ that you and me can do is to bear whatever comes, and be aye faithful and steady, and wait till you see the end.”
“It’s sae lang waiting,” said Jeanie, with a smile in her wet eyes, as she rose from her seat; “and it’s no as if it would be ony satisfaction to see them punished for’t that do amiss. But fareyewell, faither; I’m muckle the better o’ your good advice. Thinkna of me, I’ll win through. It’s no like a thing that would make a person useless, no fit to do their day’s work or get their living. I’ll win through.”
And the tears were all clear out of her brown eyes, and her smile ready, to meet the world with, when she came out of the dimness of the cottage door. John Robertson stood there watching her as she went along by the neighbors’ doors, and it was more from the shadow on his face than on hers that the women divined some trouble in the family.
“Is’t about Willie?” they said. “You should speak to your faither, Jeanie, a sensible lass like you. Though he’s listed, what’s to hinder but he may do real well yet?”
“I had an uncle, as decent a man as ever was, that listed in his young days,” said another.
Jeanie received these consolations with her habitual smile.
“I think that too,” she said. “There wouldna be so muckle about good sodgers in the Bible if they were all bad men that listed; and so I’ve tellt him.”
So close to her heart did she wear it, that nobody suspected Jeanie’s own private cincture of care.
“Papa has no objections,” said Margaret, demurely; “he says if you will come he will be—glad to see you.” This, however, being an addition made on the spot, she faltered over it, not quite knowing how it was to be supported by fact; and she added, timidly, “Will you really take all that trouble for me? Perhaps I am stupid. I think very likely I am stupid; for I cannot draw anything— I have been trying,” she said, with a great blush.
“You have been trying! I should like to see what you have done. If you could have seen my stumbles and blunders, you would have had no respect for me at all,” said Rob Glen; “and how I dare now to take upon me to teach you, who probably know more than I do—”
“Oh, I know nothing at all—just nothing at all! What shall we do, Mr.—Glen? I found a book and some pencils. I think there is everything in the world up in the old presses in the high room. What shall we do first? Might I begin with—the house? or a tree?”
“There are some preliminary exercises,” said Rob, “that are thought necessary; very simple—drawing straight lines, and curves, and corners. I am sure you will do them all—by instinct.”
“Oh!” said Margaret again. Her countenance fell. “But any child would draw straight lines; a straight line is nothing—it is just that,” she added, tracing a line in the soft, brown, upturned earth of the ploughed field through which the path ran. But when Margaret looked at it, she reddened and furtively attempted another.She had met Rob by the burn as before, and he was walking back with her toward home. The sky was overcast and lowering. The brief interval of lovely weather had for the moment come to an end. Clouds were gathering on all the hills, and the winds sighed about the hedges, heavy with coming rain.
“The furrow is straight,” said Rob, “straight as an arrow; that is the ploughman’s pride; but it is not so easy to draw a straight line as you think. I have known people who could never do it.”
Margaret was crimson with the failure.
“It’s me that am stupid!” she cried, in sudden rage with herself. “How do the ploughmen learn to do it? There’s nobody to show them the way.”
“It’s their pride; and it’s their trade, Miss Margaret.”
“Oh!” cried Margaret, stamping her foot, “it shall be my pride, and my trade too. I will begin to-night when I go home. I will never, never rest till I can do it.”
“But it will never be your trade—nor mine,” said Rob Glen, with a sigh. “I wish I knew what mine was. You are rich and a lady; but I am a poor man, that must work for my living, and I don’t know what I must do.”
“If I were you—” said Margaret. As she spoke she blushed, but only because she always did, not with any special signification in it. Rob, however, did not understand this. He saw the glow of color, the sudden brightness, the droop and sensitive fall of the soft eyelids: all things telling of emotion, he thought, as though the supposition, “if I were you,” had thrilled the girl’s being; and his own heart gave a leap. Did she—was it possible—feel like this for him already? “If I were you,” said Margaret, musingly, “I would be a farmer; but no, not, perhaps, if I were you. You could do other things; you could go into the world, you could do something great—”
“No, no,” he said, shaking his head. “I? No, there is nothing great, nothing grand about me.”
“How can you judge yourself?” said Margaret, with fine and flattering scorn; “it is other people that can judge best. No; if I were you, I would go away and paint and write, and be a great man; and then you could come home and visit the place where you used to live, and see your old friends; but just now I would go away. I would go to London, into the world. I would let people see what I could do—only first I would learn Margaret Leslie to draw,” she said, with a little laugh; “that would be kind—for she never could find any one else to learn her about here.”
“That would be the finest office of all,” said Rob, inspired. “To go to London, every adventurer can do that; but to teach Miss Leslie is for few. I would rather have that privilege than—”
“Oh,” cried Margaret, careless of the compliment, “and will you paint a picture, a great picture of Earl’s-hall? I know we are poor. We are not great people, like the Bruces, or the Lindsays, or Sir Claude. We have not grand horses and carriages, and men in livery. That is just why I should like poor old mossy Earl’s-hall to be in a bonnie picture, to make folks ask where is that? what beautiful old house is that? You see,” she added, laughing, “it is not just a beautiful house. It is not what you would call comfortable, perhaps. Jean and Grace, that is, my old sisters, Miss Leslie and Mrs. Bellingham, are never tired of abusing it. It is quite true that we have not got a thing that can be called a drawing-room—not a real drawing-room,” she said, shaking her head. “You will wonder, but it is true. There is the long room, and there is the high room; the one papa sits in; and we dine in it, and he lives in it; and the other is empty, and full of—oh, everything you can think of! But there is no drawing-room, only the little West Chamber, such a little place. They say it was Lady Jean’s room, and Lady Jean—is the only ghost we have.”
“Is she the lady with the silk gown?”
“She is the Rustle,” said Margaret, not disposed to treat the family ghost lightly. “You never see her, you only hear as if a grand lady walked by with her train sweeping. I think there is that very train in the old aumrie, as Bell calls it. But what I was saying was, because it is so old, Mr. Glen, because it’s not grand, nor even comfortable—oh, I would like a bonnie picture, a real beautiful picture, of poor old Earl’s-hall!”
“You must make one,” he said.
“Yes, if I can; but you must make one first. You must take a big sheet of paper and draw it all out; I will show you the best view; and you must paint in every bit of it, the tower and the view from the tower (but, perhaps, after all, it would be difficult to put in the view, you must make another picture of that); and you must put it up in a beautiful frame, and write upon it ‘Old Earl’s-hall.’ Oh! that will make Jean and Grace jump. They will say, ‘Who can have done it? Earl’s-hall—papa’s place—that horrid, tumble-down old Scotch crow’s-nest!’”Margaret was a mimic, without knowing it, and mouthed this forth with the warmest relish in Mrs. Bellingham’s very tone. But her own acting of her elder sister called forth lively indignation in the girl’s warlike soul. “That’s what they dare to call it,” she cried, stopping to stamp her foot. “MyEarl’s-hall! But this is what you will do, Mr. Glen, if you want to please me. You will make a picture—not a common thing—abeautifulpicture, that everybody will talk about; and send it to the biggest place in London, in the season when everybody is there, and hang it up for everybody to see.”
“To please you,” said Rob, “I would do a great deal—I would do—” he went on, sinking his voice, “as much as man can do.” Margaret scarcely turned to him as he began to speak; but when his voice sank lower, her attention was caught. She raised her head with a little surprise, and, catching his eye, blushed: and paused, arrested, and wondering— What did he mean? Her frank girlish astonishment was very discomposing; he himself blushed and faltered, and stopped in the middle of his pretty speech—“as much as mancando!” but it was not so very much she asked him for. It seemed necessary to Margaret to say this to make things clear.
“Oh no,” she said, with a shake of her head, “not that; though there are many men could not do what I want you to do, Mr. Glen; but you can do it easy—quite easy. What will Iwant to begin with?” she added, changing the subject abruptly, and with true Scotch disregard for the difference between shall and will. This gentle indifference to his protestations chilled Rob a little. She had been so sweet and gracious to him that her demand upon his services only as something that he could do “easy, quite easy,” brought him to a sudden stand-still. He did not know how to reply.
“It may not be much,” he said; “but it will be all I can do. Miss Margaret, I will begin to-morrow, to show that I want to please you; and if it is not a good drawing it will not be my fault, nor for want of trying.”
“I am sure it will be beautiful,” she said. “Oh, I would like to see Grace and Jean jump when they see all the people, all the fine folk in London, running to look at old Earl’s-hall.”
Alas! Rob knew the great London people were not very likely to run in crowds to any performance of his. But the idea was delightful, however unlikely. He suffered himself to laugh, too, though he shook his head. He had never seen any one so sweet, so enchanting, or felt so near to being transported and carried out of himself as by this gracious little lady. Never before, he thought, had he known what such enthusiasm was. He had not forgotten Jeanie, and perhaps others. He was a connoisseur indeed in these soft emotions, the excitement of love-making, the pleasure of pursuit, the flattering consciousness of being admired and loved. All these sensations he knew well enough, not in any guilty way, except in so far as multiplicity of affections implied guilt; but this was not only something new, it was something altogether novel. Margaret had much of the great lady in her, simple as she was. She was not like his previous loves. Even in the little foolishnesses she said, there were signs of a wider world, of something more than even Rob himself, heretofore the oracle of his friends and sweethearts, was acquainted with. All the Fife gentry, all the rural aristocracy, all the great world, so fine at a distance, seemed to glide toward him half caressingly, half mocking, in that girlish figure. It gave him a new sensation. He was dazzled, enchanted, drawn out of himself. Who could tell what this new influence might effect in a young man avowedly “clever,” whose abilities everybody had acknowledged? Love had inspired men who had no such eminence to start from. Love had made the blacksmith a painter; why should it not make Rob Glen a painter. To please her! she had put it on that ground. She was not like any of those he had trifled with before. Love had done wonders in all ages, and why not now—if perhaps this new sentiment, so mingled, yet so strange, so dazzling, so bewildering, might be Love.
“If that is what will please you best,” he said, faltering a little with something which felt to him like real emotion, “then it shall be done, Miss Margaret, you must let me say so, if man can do it— I mean, if my skill can do it. But perhaps the two things can be done together. I will begin to-morrow, and you can watch me. I will tell you all I know, and you will see how I do it; that will be better, perhaps, than the straight lines.”
“Oh, a great deal better,” cried Margaret, fervently. “Come early; be sure you come early, Mr. Glen. I will be ready. I will be waiting. I will let you see the best place for the view. And perhaps you would like to see the house? And then I will go with you, and stand by you, and hold your colors and your pencils, and watch the way you do it. Oh!” cried Margaret, putting her hands together, and breathing forth an earnest invocation of all the good spirits of the elements. “Oh, that it may only be a fine day!”
This very prayer brought home to them both the too plain suggestion conveyed by these gathering clouds, that it might not be a fine day, and chilled their very souls within them. If it should rain! “I think,” said Rob, but timidly, “that it is looking better. The sky is cloudy here, but it’s clear in the quarter where the wind is, and a north wind is seldom rainy. I think it will be a fine day.”
“Do you think so, Mr. Glen?” Margaret looked up at him very wistfully, and then at the sky. Then she cleared up all at once, though the sky did not. “Any way,” she said, “you will come? If it’s wet, I could let you see the house. I think you would like to see the house. And bring a great many pictures and sketch-books to let papa see. Even if it is wet, it will be not so very bad,” said Margaret, throwing a smile suddenly upon him like a light from a lantern. But then she recollected herself, and blushed wildly and grew serious—for he was a man and a stranger. Was he a stranger? No, she said to herself—and not even a gentleman, only Robert Glen. What fury would have been in poor Rob’s heart had he known this last consoling sentiment which kept Margaret from feeling herself overbold. But she did not mean all the arrogance and impertinence that appeared in the thought. Not all of it, nor half of it. She meant no impertinence at all. She parted with him where the by-way came out upon the road, and went along the flowery hedge-row very demurely, thinking very kindly of Rob Glen. Margaret had not known before what it was to have a companion of her own age. Youth loves youth, all the more if youth has little experience of anything but age. Rob was a great deal more amusing (to Margaret) than Bell. This, perhaps, was a mistake, for Rob was not nearly so original as Bell was, nor so well worth knowing. But Margaret did not know that Bell was original. She knew all her stories, and was not too anxious to call forth that homely philosophy which so often (or so the girl thought) was subtly adapted for her own reproof and discouragement. Rob was a novelty to Margaret, even more than she was to him. The prospect of his visit made her feel that even a wet day would be endurable. He amused her more than any one had ever done before. And then she comforted herself that she could not be thought forward, or too bold, because, after all, he was not a gentleman or a stranger, but only Rob Glen!
Jeanie had got in before her young mistress, before the clouds had risen that threatened to cover the sky. What different thoughts were hers on the same subject! She listened to Margaret’s voice talking to Bell, as she moved about putting everything in order for the night. What a sweet voice it was, Jeanie thought, speaking so softly, such bonnie English! no like us commonfolk. The tones which were so wofully Fifeish to Sir Ludovic, and which made Mrs. Bellingham cry, seemed the very acme of refinement to Jeanie; and when a lady spoke to him so sweetly, looked at him with such lovely een, would it be wonderful if Rob forgot? And he was a gentleman himself, for what was it that made a gentleman but just education? and nobody could say but he had that. It gave Jeanie’s heart a pang, but she was too just and candid not to see all this. How could he think of Jeanie Robertson with Miss Margaret for a friend? Jeanie went away into the depths of those low vaulted rooms, which formed the under-story of Earl’s-hall in order to escape the sweet sound of Margaret’s voice. Here there was a maze of rooms and cellars one within another, among which you might escape very easily from sounds without. You might escape, even, which was more difficult, from pursuers, even from persecutors, as had been known, it was said, in the old times; but, ah me, in the very deepest of recesses, how could poor Jeanie escape from herself?
Next day, next morning, Margaret looked at the sky long before any one was up at Earl’s-hall. She looked out over the tree-tops to the sea, which swept round in a semicircle as far as the eye carried. From the Eden to the Tay the silvery line swept the horizon one dazzling curve of light. St. Andrews lay on her right hand, with all its towers and its ruins, and the glimmer of water beyond the headland on which it stood. Not a trace of smoke or human breath came from the brown old city, which stood there silent, with a homely majesty, in the profound stillness of the early morning. Not a human creature was awake between Margaret’s window and the old town of St. Rule, except, indeed, in the fishing-boat, with its brown sail, out upon the dazzling line of sea, which was bearing slowly toward the bar after a night’s fishing, with scarce wind enough to move it. The birds were all up and awake, but nothing else—not the ploughmen and laborers, so early was it, the sun still low over the sea. The girl’s heart leaped at the beauty of the sight, but sank again so far as her own interests were concerned. Is it not a bad sign when it is so bright so early? And the light which thus lavished itself upon the world with none to see it, had a certain pale gleam which frightened the young observer, too much used to atmospheric effects not to know something about them. “Oh, what a lovely morning!” she said to herself; but even sanguine Margaret shook her head, thinking it doubtful if the day would be as fine. And oh, if she had but learned, if she could but make a picture of that old town upon the headland, lying voiceless in the morning light, with the great silver bow of the sea flashing round the vast horizon, all round to the vague shores of Forfarshire, and the dazzling breadth of Tay! If Rob were but here with his pencil and his colors! Margaret was in the enthusiast stage of ignorant faith, believing all things possible to Rob. He was to her the young Raphael, the Michael Angelo of the future. Or perhaps it would be better to say (but Margaret at that stage knew no difference) the Claude, the Turner of the new generation. She seemed to see all that scene transferred to canvas—nay, not even to canvas, to paper (but she knew no difference), dazzling, shining with early dew and freshness, with the chirp of the birds in it, and the silence of nature, fixed there never to die. Poor Rob and his box of water-colors! He would himself, fortunately, at least when unintoxicated by the firmness of her faith in him, have had sense enough not to try.
But when the common world was awake, and when the working day had begun, the brilliancy did not last. First, mists crept over the sun, then the silver bow of the sea paled and whitened, the old brown tower turned gray, the blue sky disappeared. By eight o’clock everything was the hue of mud—sky, sea, and land together, with blurred shades of green and brown upon the last, but not an honest color; and lastly, it began to rain, softly, slowly, persistently, at first scarcely audible upon the leaves, then pattering with continuous sound, which filled all the air. Nothing but rain! The very air was rain, not disagreeable, not cruel, but constant.
“Well, it’s aye good for the turnips,” said Bell; “and I’ll get my stocking done that’s been so long in hand.”
“And what do you say till the hay?” asked John, who was a pessimist, “and a’ the low land about Eden in flood already.”
But he, too, comforted himself by getting out the oldest plate, and giving it “a guid clean,” which was an occupation he kept for this kind of weather; it is easier to endure a wet day when you are old than when you are young. Jeanie was less well off. When her work was done, she was not happy enough to take out the stocking, with which every woman in Fife is provided against a moment’s leisure. To sit down tranquilly and turn the heel was not in Jeanie’s power. She went up to her little turret room, and began to turn over her little possessions, and there found a keepsake or two from Rob, poor Jeanie! which filled her already dewy eyes with tears. But even that was an occupation, and Margaret, who had no occupation, was worst off of all. She flitted all over the house, up-stairs and down, sometimes disturbing Sir Ludovic with restless movements, taking down books and putting them up again, then flying down-stairs to warm her hands by the fire and tease the long-suffering Bell.