“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.”
“Ihave 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.Myplace! 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 fora 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. Itseemed 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 asdazzling 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 andsay 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 backagain some time, if we’re spared. I don’t know how you would manage withoutus, 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 ofMiss 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.
“Johnnie Lithgowexists 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 somewhatfêtedand lionised of late, and is not, perhaps, at present exactly what our sober unexcitable friends callsteady. 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 noharm 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 scarcelytouching 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 asclever 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 alwaysinterposes 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; “butthis 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 itseemed 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 sendsI’mheeding 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. Noletter 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 noone 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 roomin 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.
ButMenie 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 passinggleam, 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 hisMaker 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 mancouldmaister 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 tapo’ 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, securein 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.
Leftbehind! 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 herlip—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, anddreary 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 livedin’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 itwasna 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 wasconcerned. 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 Lauriespace 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 theyoung 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.
A secondnight 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 tothe 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 likea 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 suddenflush 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, evenwith 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 throughthese 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 ofland, 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 outinquisitively 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 roundthe 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?