Chapter Seven.

Chapter Seven.A Misfortune.Miss Jean’s heart misgave her, for she knew that the thought suggested to her brother on the morning when Mrs Eastwood and Captain Harefield came to Saughleas to inquire about poor Tibbie Cairnie had returned to him more than once; and she feared that should Captain Harefield speak to-day, he might not refuse to listen, and then there would be troublous times before them.That there was even a possibility that he should be willing to listen to him was amazing to Miss Jean. So wise and cautious and far-seeing as he had always shown himself to be, how could he think of trusting any part of the wealth which he had spent his life in gathering, to the hands of a man who had proved himself incapable of making a good use of that which had fallen to him? To say nothing of being willing to trust him with his daughter!There was comfort here, however. Jean’s welfare was in her own keeping. Miss Jean was not so much at a loss as Mrs Eastwood, as to which of her nieces Captain Harefield intended to seek. And she was glad it was Jean, for Jean could hold her own against father and lover and all. But still there was trouble before them, for, strangely enough, her brother, hard-working and practical, a thorough man of business, had taken pleasure in the comings and goings of this young man so utterly unlike himself in all essential respects. She had seen it with wonder and a little amusement at first; but she knew now, or she thought she knew, that he had been preparing disappointment for himself and vexation to her bonny Jean.“Truly we need guidance,” she said aloud, and then she rose and invited Mrs Eastwood to go in to the house and take a cup of tea, hoping all the time that she might refuse, and that she might be away before Mr Dawson came.It was not to be so arranged however. Mr Dawson was delighted to see Mrs Eastwood, and expressed his pleasure so frankly, that Miss Jean thought it possible the lady might take courage, and make known to him as plainly as she had done to her the cause of her visit. So, instead of moving away with the help of her cane, as she had at first intended to do, she seated herself again. Not that she thought that her presence would be likely to prevent her speech, but she was curious to know how the matter, so interesting to the lady, should be presented to a new listener; and curious also to see how her brother might receive it.There were the usual inquiries and compliments as to health, and the usual remarks about the weather and the appearance of the country, and then Mrs Eastwood spoke of the benefit she had received from her long stay, and her regret that the time of her departure was so near. Then Mr Dawson inquired with more interest than the occasion demanded, whether Captain Harefield was to leave also.“If he take my advice about it, he will certainly do so,” said Mrs Eastwood. “But that is doubtful. The interest of the season is just beginning to him, and as he has had his leave extended, he may remain.”“He is a keen sportsman, I hear,” said Mr Dawson.“Oh, yes; and the shooting here is good, they say, and does not involve very much fatigue. Yes, he will probably stay for a little; though I think he had much better go, for various reasons.”She spoke with a certain significance of tone and manner, and Mr Dawson remained silent, expecting to hear more; and possibly he might have had the pleasure of hearing of Captain Harefield’s hopes and his sister’s opinions, had no interruption occurred.But at the moment a sudden outcry arose somewhere in the garden. They could see nothing where they were sitting, but they heard the sound of many voices—entreating, expostulating, scolding, and at last they heard words.“Ye needna tell, May. Naebody will ken wha did it.”“I wouldna tell Mr Dawson—for—oh! for ony thing.”“An’ naebody will ken that it was you that did it.”“It wasna me, but it was my fault; and if Sandy winna tell, I must, and just take the wyte (blame) mysel’.”“Eh! Marion! Yon’s him speaking to the leddy. I wouldna be you for something.”“Something untoward has happened, I doubt,” said Miss Jean. “I hope no ill has come to any of the apple-trees.”Now Mr Dawson’s apple-trees were the pride of his heart. It is not easy to raise fruit trees of any kind so near to the sea; and as far as apple-trees are concerned, the fruit is not of the best, when success has crowned persevering effort. But on a few young trees, bearing for the first time, there hung several apples beautiful to behold, and they had been watched through all the season with interest by every one in the house, but above all by Mr Dawson. So when Miss Jean said “apple-trees,” he rose at once to satisfy himself that they were safe.But alas! before he had fairly turned to go, all doubt was at an end. There were many children at a little distance, and two or three were drawing near, and in the hand of one, a girl in her teens, was a broken branch, on which hung two of the half dozen apples from the best of all the trees. Mr Dawson had watched them with too great interest not to know just where the little branch belonged. He did not speak,—indeed the little maiden did not give him time.“It was a’ my wyte, Mr Dawson, and I’m very grieved,” said she, holding up the branch, and looking up into his face with eager, wistful eyes.Mr Dawson took it, but he looked not at it, but at the child, saying nothing.“I beg your pardon. I’m very grieved,” repeated she.Mrs Eastwood whispered to Miss Jean what a pretty picture the child made, but Miss Jean was thinking of other things.“It was Sandy,” continued the little pleader. “He was taking a’ wee David’s sweetees, and I couldna bide that, ye ken, and I just—just tried to hinder him; an’ he ran awa’, and me after him. And he ran in beneath the tree, but he wouldna have gone, if I hadna been after him, and so—”“She licket me, and she tried to rug my lugs,” (pull my ears), said a voice in the distance.The change in the girl’s face was wonderful to see as she turned to the speaker. A sudden colour rose to her cheeks, and her grey eyes flashed scorn and anger.“If I only had been able!” said she, and then she turned to Mr Dawson again.“I’m very grieved,” repeated she.“It canna be helpit now, Maysie,” said Miss Jean. “Never heed. Run awa’ with the lave o’ the bairns.”For Miss Jean knew that it was not the apples nor their destruction that had brought that look to her brother’s face.“Are ye angry with me, sir? And winna ye forgive me?” said Maysie, the sweet wistfulness coming back to her eyes. “I’m very grieved.”“It canna be helpit. Never heed,” said Mr Dawson, repeating his sister’s words. “I dinna think I mind your name,” added he, not meaning to say it, but making a great effort to recover himself.“I’m Marion Calderwood,” said she, a sudden brightness, followed by a cloud as sudden, passing over her face. She lifted beseeching eyes to his face, and then she turned to Miss Jean.“Run awa’, lassie, with the lave o’ the bairns,” said Miss Jean.“Maybe I should go hame?”“Hoot, lassie! Never heed. Only run away with the lave.”Quite unconscious that he owed an apology to Mrs Eastwood for his abrupt departure, Mr Dawson turned and strode off in another direction.“They must be precious apples,” said Mrs Eastwood, looking after him with surprise not unmingled with disgust.“It’s an old trouble,” said Miss Jean sorrowfully. “He’ll hear none o’ her fine words the night,” she added to herself, conscious, amid her trouble, of some satisfaction that it should be so.No, Mr Dawson was not likely to listen patiently to words of any kind that night. The very first look from the child’s eyes smote his heart with a pang in which there was regret, as well as anger and pain. For a sudden remembrance of eyes as sweet, and with the same look of wistful appeal in them came back to him—the eyes of bonny Elsie Calderwood, who had come between him and his son.Almost the last words which his son had spoken to him, the very last such as a son should speak to his father, had been spoken while those wistful eyes entreated him. It had been a moment of great bitterness, and as he passed down the lane that led to the fields, and then to the sea, eager to get beyond the sound of the gay voices ringing from garden and wood, the old bitterness returned, and with it came the added misery of the vain wish that he had yielded his own will that day—a longing unspeakable for all that he had lost.His boy—the only son of his mother who had been so dear, had he lost him forever? Would he never return? Could he be dead? Should he never see his face or hear his voice again?He had a bitter hour or two, this man, whom even his sister, who knew him best and loved him best, called hard in her secret thoughts. And the bitterness did not pass with the hour, nor the pain. Silence reigned in the house before he came home that night, and in the morning something of the old gloom seemed to have fallen upon him.Captain Harefield did go home with his sister; at least he left Blackford House with her, and that without returning after the night of the children’s party to say “Good-bye” to his friends at Saughleas. May remarked upon this with a little indignation, and Mr Dawson said it was not like the young man not to do what was polite and kind, and he also wondered at the omission of the visit. Jean said nothing; at least she said nothing to them. To her aunt she acknowledged that she had known of his intended departure, and that she had also known when he bade her good-bye that night, that she was not likely to see him again. But even to her aunt she did not acknowledge that he would have stayed longer if she had bidden him, or that even now a word from her would bring him back again.Out of the unfortunate incident of the broken apple-tree, there rose a little talk between “the two Jeans.” Miss Jean had for a long time had something on her mind to say to her niece, but it was the younger Jean who spoke first.“Aunt, what is this they are saying about my father’s anger at Marion Calderwood?”“My dear, he wasna angry!”“Did you see it all, auntie? Because Marion went home greeting, the other bairns say. Of course it was a pity about the tree, but it wasna Marion who broke it, and it wasna like my father to show anger to a guest, even to a bairn.”“My dear, he showed no anger.”“But, auntie, there must have been something; for I met Mrs Calderwood in the High-street this morning, and she went red and then white, and was stiff and distant, as she used to be when we first came home. She had grown quite friendly of late, and to-day she would have passed me without speaking. It must have been because of Marion.”“It might have been, but I dinna think it. Mrs Calderwood is a proud woman, Jean, my dear,—and—”“Well?”“Weel, ye have been consorting with fine folk lately, and maybe—”“Auntie Jean! Dinna say more, for that is not your real thought; and that is a terrible thing to say of you.”“My dear, it is my real thought, as far as it goes. I ha’e little doubt that was present in Mrs Calderwood’s mind when she met you in the High-street—with other things.”“We’ll take the other things first then,” said Jean, the angry colour rising in her cheeks. “You must think your friend but a poor creature, or she must think it of us.”It was the first time in all the girl’s life, that her eyes with an angry light in them had rested fully on her aunt’s face. Her aunt did not resent it, or notice it, except by a gentle movement of her head from side to side, and the shadow of a smile passed over her face. She looked grave enough as she answered, however.“I am far from thinking her a poor creature, whatever she may think of us. And, Jean, my dear, I think ye maun ken something of the other things, though ye never heard them from me.”Jean’s look grew soft and sad, and she came and leaned on her aunt’s chair.“Do you mean about bonny Elsie, and—our Geordie? Was it because of Elsie that Geordie went—and lost himself? Tell me about it.”“I think ye maun ken all that I could tell you—or mostly all.”“I only ken—I mean I used to think that they—cared for one another—oh long ago, before my mother died. And since we came home, I have heard a word dropped now and then, by different folk—Marion Petrie, and her mother; and once Tibbie Cairnie said something about my father’s cursed pride, and his fine plans that would come to nothing. But it wasna till afterwards that I knew that it was Geordie she was thinking about Auntie Jean, I have had my thoughts, but I ken little. Was my father angry? But he must have been sorry for George when poor Elsie died. And was it because of Elsie that my brother went away?”It was not an easy story to tell, and Miss Jean put it in as few words as possible, having her own reasons for telling it to Jean. She dwelt less upon her father’s anger at his son’s folly, than upon the heartbreak that his loss had brought him. But she made it clear that “poor bonny Elsie” was the cause of their estrangement, and that it would have been the same had Elsie lived and had George carried out his determination to marry her against his father’s will.“If the poor foolish lad had only waited and had patience in the mean time, much sorrow might have been spared to all concerned. Your father might have given in—though I dinna think it; or as they were little more than bairns, they might have forgotten ane anither—though I dinna think that either. But if George had won to man’s estate, and had been doing a man’s work and getting a man’s wages, he would have had a better right to take his own way, and your fathermighthave given in then. At least he must have been silent, and let the lad go his ain gait. I whiles weary myself thinking how it might have been.”Jean sat without a word, but with a face that changed many times from white to red and from red to white as she listened; and when her aunt paused, and took up the work which in her earnestness she had allowed to fall on her lap, she sat silent still, quite unconscious of the uneasy glances that fell on her from time to time.“It has made an old man of your father,” added Miss Jean in a little.“Poor father! and poor Geordie! Ay, and poor Elsie! and nothing can change it now.”Jean rose from the stool on which she had been sitting at her aunt’s feet, and walked restlessly about the room. By and by, she came and stood behind her aunt’s chair, leaning upon it.“Aunt—there is something I would like to tell you. I wonder if I ought?”“Ye maun judge, my dear.”“If I were only sure.”Both were silent for a time.“Would I be better able to give help or counsel to you or—to any one—if I were to hear what you could tell?”Jean shook her head.“Nothing can be done—at least not now,” said she sadly. “Weel then, dearie, dinna speak. Whiles troubles take shape and strength in the utterance and grow persistent, that might have died out or come to little in silence. If a time should come that you are sure that speaking would do any good, tell me then.”“It would do no good now. And I am not sure that there is any thing to tell.”There was a long silence between them. Jean was thinking of the “John Seaton” sailing away with her brother to the northern seas. Miss Jean was thinking of the “John Seaton” too, and of Willie Calderwood, with a sad heart.“They were just a’ bairns thegither I thought, but I little kenned. And wae’s me! for my bonny Jean, gin she has to go through all that—and wae’s me! for her father as well. No’ that the pain and the trouble need be feared for them, so that they are brought through—and no unfilial bitterness left to sicken my bairn’s heart forever more; but I mustna speak, or let her speak. I think she hardly kens yet how it is with her, but she would ken at the first word; silence is best.”And silence it was. But by and by more was said about the story of those two “for whom life was ended,” as Jean said sadly. She was not angry at her father’s part in the matter, as her aunt had feared she might be. It could not have been otherwise, looking at things as he looked at them, she acknowledged, and she grieved for him all the more, knowing that there must mingle much bitterness, perhaps remorse, with his sorrow for his son.“If my mother had but lived!” she said sadly. “Ay, lassie! But He kens best who took her hence where we’ll a’ soon follow. We make muckle ado about our gains and our pains, our loves and our losses, forgetting that ‘our days are as a shadow, and there is no abiding.’”“A shadow to look back upon, auntie, but a reality as we are going through with them day by day.”“Ay! that’s true, my lassie, and a stern reality whiles. The comfort is that it is a’ ordered for us.”Jean shook her head with a doubtful smile.“Only it is not till afterward that we get the good of that knowledge.”“And coming afterward it comes ower late, ye think, lassie. But bide ye still and see. And indeed no one need wait till afterwards to know the blessedness o’ just lying quiet in His hands. And ye needna wait a day for that, my dear bairn.”If Jean had spoken, the tears must have come; so she rose and kissed her aunt silently, and then went away.

Miss Jean’s heart misgave her, for she knew that the thought suggested to her brother on the morning when Mrs Eastwood and Captain Harefield came to Saughleas to inquire about poor Tibbie Cairnie had returned to him more than once; and she feared that should Captain Harefield speak to-day, he might not refuse to listen, and then there would be troublous times before them.

That there was even a possibility that he should be willing to listen to him was amazing to Miss Jean. So wise and cautious and far-seeing as he had always shown himself to be, how could he think of trusting any part of the wealth which he had spent his life in gathering, to the hands of a man who had proved himself incapable of making a good use of that which had fallen to him? To say nothing of being willing to trust him with his daughter!

There was comfort here, however. Jean’s welfare was in her own keeping. Miss Jean was not so much at a loss as Mrs Eastwood, as to which of her nieces Captain Harefield intended to seek. And she was glad it was Jean, for Jean could hold her own against father and lover and all. But still there was trouble before them, for, strangely enough, her brother, hard-working and practical, a thorough man of business, had taken pleasure in the comings and goings of this young man so utterly unlike himself in all essential respects. She had seen it with wonder and a little amusement at first; but she knew now, or she thought she knew, that he had been preparing disappointment for himself and vexation to her bonny Jean.

“Truly we need guidance,” she said aloud, and then she rose and invited Mrs Eastwood to go in to the house and take a cup of tea, hoping all the time that she might refuse, and that she might be away before Mr Dawson came.

It was not to be so arranged however. Mr Dawson was delighted to see Mrs Eastwood, and expressed his pleasure so frankly, that Miss Jean thought it possible the lady might take courage, and make known to him as plainly as she had done to her the cause of her visit. So, instead of moving away with the help of her cane, as she had at first intended to do, she seated herself again. Not that she thought that her presence would be likely to prevent her speech, but she was curious to know how the matter, so interesting to the lady, should be presented to a new listener; and curious also to see how her brother might receive it.

There were the usual inquiries and compliments as to health, and the usual remarks about the weather and the appearance of the country, and then Mrs Eastwood spoke of the benefit she had received from her long stay, and her regret that the time of her departure was so near. Then Mr Dawson inquired with more interest than the occasion demanded, whether Captain Harefield was to leave also.

“If he take my advice about it, he will certainly do so,” said Mrs Eastwood. “But that is doubtful. The interest of the season is just beginning to him, and as he has had his leave extended, he may remain.”

“He is a keen sportsman, I hear,” said Mr Dawson.

“Oh, yes; and the shooting here is good, they say, and does not involve very much fatigue. Yes, he will probably stay for a little; though I think he had much better go, for various reasons.”

She spoke with a certain significance of tone and manner, and Mr Dawson remained silent, expecting to hear more; and possibly he might have had the pleasure of hearing of Captain Harefield’s hopes and his sister’s opinions, had no interruption occurred.

But at the moment a sudden outcry arose somewhere in the garden. They could see nothing where they were sitting, but they heard the sound of many voices—entreating, expostulating, scolding, and at last they heard words.

“Ye needna tell, May. Naebody will ken wha did it.”

“I wouldna tell Mr Dawson—for—oh! for ony thing.”

“An’ naebody will ken that it was you that did it.”

“It wasna me, but it was my fault; and if Sandy winna tell, I must, and just take the wyte (blame) mysel’.”

“Eh! Marion! Yon’s him speaking to the leddy. I wouldna be you for something.”

“Something untoward has happened, I doubt,” said Miss Jean. “I hope no ill has come to any of the apple-trees.”

Now Mr Dawson’s apple-trees were the pride of his heart. It is not easy to raise fruit trees of any kind so near to the sea; and as far as apple-trees are concerned, the fruit is not of the best, when success has crowned persevering effort. But on a few young trees, bearing for the first time, there hung several apples beautiful to behold, and they had been watched through all the season with interest by every one in the house, but above all by Mr Dawson. So when Miss Jean said “apple-trees,” he rose at once to satisfy himself that they were safe.

But alas! before he had fairly turned to go, all doubt was at an end. There were many children at a little distance, and two or three were drawing near, and in the hand of one, a girl in her teens, was a broken branch, on which hung two of the half dozen apples from the best of all the trees. Mr Dawson had watched them with too great interest not to know just where the little branch belonged. He did not speak,—indeed the little maiden did not give him time.

“It was a’ my wyte, Mr Dawson, and I’m very grieved,” said she, holding up the branch, and looking up into his face with eager, wistful eyes.

Mr Dawson took it, but he looked not at it, but at the child, saying nothing.

“I beg your pardon. I’m very grieved,” repeated she.

Mrs Eastwood whispered to Miss Jean what a pretty picture the child made, but Miss Jean was thinking of other things.

“It was Sandy,” continued the little pleader. “He was taking a’ wee David’s sweetees, and I couldna bide that, ye ken, and I just—just tried to hinder him; an’ he ran awa’, and me after him. And he ran in beneath the tree, but he wouldna have gone, if I hadna been after him, and so—”

“She licket me, and she tried to rug my lugs,” (pull my ears), said a voice in the distance.

The change in the girl’s face was wonderful to see as she turned to the speaker. A sudden colour rose to her cheeks, and her grey eyes flashed scorn and anger.

“If I only had been able!” said she, and then she turned to Mr Dawson again.

“I’m very grieved,” repeated she.

“It canna be helpit now, Maysie,” said Miss Jean. “Never heed. Run awa’ with the lave o’ the bairns.”

For Miss Jean knew that it was not the apples nor their destruction that had brought that look to her brother’s face.

“Are ye angry with me, sir? And winna ye forgive me?” said Maysie, the sweet wistfulness coming back to her eyes. “I’m very grieved.”

“It canna be helpit. Never heed,” said Mr Dawson, repeating his sister’s words. “I dinna think I mind your name,” added he, not meaning to say it, but making a great effort to recover himself.

“I’m Marion Calderwood,” said she, a sudden brightness, followed by a cloud as sudden, passing over her face. She lifted beseeching eyes to his face, and then she turned to Miss Jean.

“Run awa’, lassie, with the lave o’ the bairns,” said Miss Jean.

“Maybe I should go hame?”

“Hoot, lassie! Never heed. Only run away with the lave.”

Quite unconscious that he owed an apology to Mrs Eastwood for his abrupt departure, Mr Dawson turned and strode off in another direction.

“They must be precious apples,” said Mrs Eastwood, looking after him with surprise not unmingled with disgust.

“It’s an old trouble,” said Miss Jean sorrowfully. “He’ll hear none o’ her fine words the night,” she added to herself, conscious, amid her trouble, of some satisfaction that it should be so.

No, Mr Dawson was not likely to listen patiently to words of any kind that night. The very first look from the child’s eyes smote his heart with a pang in which there was regret, as well as anger and pain. For a sudden remembrance of eyes as sweet, and with the same look of wistful appeal in them came back to him—the eyes of bonny Elsie Calderwood, who had come between him and his son.

Almost the last words which his son had spoken to him, the very last such as a son should speak to his father, had been spoken while those wistful eyes entreated him. It had been a moment of great bitterness, and as he passed down the lane that led to the fields, and then to the sea, eager to get beyond the sound of the gay voices ringing from garden and wood, the old bitterness returned, and with it came the added misery of the vain wish that he had yielded his own will that day—a longing unspeakable for all that he had lost.

His boy—the only son of his mother who had been so dear, had he lost him forever? Would he never return? Could he be dead? Should he never see his face or hear his voice again?

He had a bitter hour or two, this man, whom even his sister, who knew him best and loved him best, called hard in her secret thoughts. And the bitterness did not pass with the hour, nor the pain. Silence reigned in the house before he came home that night, and in the morning something of the old gloom seemed to have fallen upon him.

Captain Harefield did go home with his sister; at least he left Blackford House with her, and that without returning after the night of the children’s party to say “Good-bye” to his friends at Saughleas. May remarked upon this with a little indignation, and Mr Dawson said it was not like the young man not to do what was polite and kind, and he also wondered at the omission of the visit. Jean said nothing; at least she said nothing to them. To her aunt she acknowledged that she had known of his intended departure, and that she had also known when he bade her good-bye that night, that she was not likely to see him again. But even to her aunt she did not acknowledge that he would have stayed longer if she had bidden him, or that even now a word from her would bring him back again.

Out of the unfortunate incident of the broken apple-tree, there rose a little talk between “the two Jeans.” Miss Jean had for a long time had something on her mind to say to her niece, but it was the younger Jean who spoke first.

“Aunt, what is this they are saying about my father’s anger at Marion Calderwood?”

“My dear, he wasna angry!”

“Did you see it all, auntie? Because Marion went home greeting, the other bairns say. Of course it was a pity about the tree, but it wasna Marion who broke it, and it wasna like my father to show anger to a guest, even to a bairn.”

“My dear, he showed no anger.”

“But, auntie, there must have been something; for I met Mrs Calderwood in the High-street this morning, and she went red and then white, and was stiff and distant, as she used to be when we first came home. She had grown quite friendly of late, and to-day she would have passed me without speaking. It must have been because of Marion.”

“It might have been, but I dinna think it. Mrs Calderwood is a proud woman, Jean, my dear,—and—”

“Well?”

“Weel, ye have been consorting with fine folk lately, and maybe—”

“Auntie Jean! Dinna say more, for that is not your real thought; and that is a terrible thing to say of you.”

“My dear, it is my real thought, as far as it goes. I ha’e little doubt that was present in Mrs Calderwood’s mind when she met you in the High-street—with other things.”

“We’ll take the other things first then,” said Jean, the angry colour rising in her cheeks. “You must think your friend but a poor creature, or she must think it of us.”

It was the first time in all the girl’s life, that her eyes with an angry light in them had rested fully on her aunt’s face. Her aunt did not resent it, or notice it, except by a gentle movement of her head from side to side, and the shadow of a smile passed over her face. She looked grave enough as she answered, however.

“I am far from thinking her a poor creature, whatever she may think of us. And, Jean, my dear, I think ye maun ken something of the other things, though ye never heard them from me.”

Jean’s look grew soft and sad, and she came and leaned on her aunt’s chair.

“Do you mean about bonny Elsie, and—our Geordie? Was it because of Elsie that Geordie went—and lost himself? Tell me about it.”

“I think ye maun ken all that I could tell you—or mostly all.”

“I only ken—I mean I used to think that they—cared for one another—oh long ago, before my mother died. And since we came home, I have heard a word dropped now and then, by different folk—Marion Petrie, and her mother; and once Tibbie Cairnie said something about my father’s cursed pride, and his fine plans that would come to nothing. But it wasna till afterwards that I knew that it was Geordie she was thinking about Auntie Jean, I have had my thoughts, but I ken little. Was my father angry? But he must have been sorry for George when poor Elsie died. And was it because of Elsie that my brother went away?”

It was not an easy story to tell, and Miss Jean put it in as few words as possible, having her own reasons for telling it to Jean. She dwelt less upon her father’s anger at his son’s folly, than upon the heartbreak that his loss had brought him. But she made it clear that “poor bonny Elsie” was the cause of their estrangement, and that it would have been the same had Elsie lived and had George carried out his determination to marry her against his father’s will.

“If the poor foolish lad had only waited and had patience in the mean time, much sorrow might have been spared to all concerned. Your father might have given in—though I dinna think it; or as they were little more than bairns, they might have forgotten ane anither—though I dinna think that either. But if George had won to man’s estate, and had been doing a man’s work and getting a man’s wages, he would have had a better right to take his own way, and your fathermighthave given in then. At least he must have been silent, and let the lad go his ain gait. I whiles weary myself thinking how it might have been.”

Jean sat without a word, but with a face that changed many times from white to red and from red to white as she listened; and when her aunt paused, and took up the work which in her earnestness she had allowed to fall on her lap, she sat silent still, quite unconscious of the uneasy glances that fell on her from time to time.

“It has made an old man of your father,” added Miss Jean in a little.

“Poor father! and poor Geordie! Ay, and poor Elsie! and nothing can change it now.”

Jean rose from the stool on which she had been sitting at her aunt’s feet, and walked restlessly about the room. By and by, she came and stood behind her aunt’s chair, leaning upon it.

“Aunt—there is something I would like to tell you. I wonder if I ought?”

“Ye maun judge, my dear.”

“If I were only sure.”

Both were silent for a time.

“Would I be better able to give help or counsel to you or—to any one—if I were to hear what you could tell?”

Jean shook her head.

“Nothing can be done—at least not now,” said she sadly. “Weel then, dearie, dinna speak. Whiles troubles take shape and strength in the utterance and grow persistent, that might have died out or come to little in silence. If a time should come that you are sure that speaking would do any good, tell me then.”

“It would do no good now. And I am not sure that there is any thing to tell.”

There was a long silence between them. Jean was thinking of the “John Seaton” sailing away with her brother to the northern seas. Miss Jean was thinking of the “John Seaton” too, and of Willie Calderwood, with a sad heart.

“They were just a’ bairns thegither I thought, but I little kenned. And wae’s me! for my bonny Jean, gin she has to go through all that—and wae’s me! for her father as well. No’ that the pain and the trouble need be feared for them, so that they are brought through—and no unfilial bitterness left to sicken my bairn’s heart forever more; but I mustna speak, or let her speak. I think she hardly kens yet how it is with her, but she would ken at the first word; silence is best.”

And silence it was. But by and by more was said about the story of those two “for whom life was ended,” as Jean said sadly. She was not angry at her father’s part in the matter, as her aunt had feared she might be. It could not have been otherwise, looking at things as he looked at them, she acknowledged, and she grieved for him all the more, knowing that there must mingle much bitterness, perhaps remorse, with his sorrow for his son.

“If my mother had but lived!” she said sadly. “Ay, lassie! But He kens best who took her hence where we’ll a’ soon follow. We make muckle ado about our gains and our pains, our loves and our losses, forgetting that ‘our days are as a shadow, and there is no abiding.’”

“A shadow to look back upon, auntie, but a reality as we are going through with them day by day.”

“Ay! that’s true, my lassie, and a stern reality whiles. The comfort is that it is a’ ordered for us.”

Jean shook her head with a doubtful smile.

“Only it is not till afterward that we get the good of that knowledge.”

“And coming afterward it comes ower late, ye think, lassie. But bide ye still and see. And indeed no one need wait till afterwards to know the blessedness o’ just lying quiet in His hands. And ye needna wait a day for that, my dear bairn.”

If Jean had spoken, the tears must have come; so she rose and kissed her aunt silently, and then went away.

Chapter Eight.Willie Calderwood.The name of Willie Calderwood had never been spoken between the sisters since the day when, standing on the high rocks above the Tangle Stanes, they had watched the “John Seaton” making out to sea. Jean was silent for one reason, and May for another; and there were reasons enough that both could see why silence was best, to prevent either of them from feeling such silence strange.Willie Calderwood had been their companion and their brother’s chief friend in the days when they all played together on the rocks and sands of Portie—in the days before George Dawson had admitted into his heart the thought, that the wealth he had won, and the estate he had made his own, gave his children a right to look higher for their friends than among their less prosperous neighbours. But his children were not of the sort that forget easily, nor were the Calderwoods the sort of friends to be easily forgotten. Willie had always been a leader among them, a handsome, fearless, kindly lad, and he became a hero to them all, when he went to sea and came home to tell of shipwreck first, and then of strange adventures among strange people; of hunger and cold and suffering, and escape at last.A hero! There were many such heroes in Portie who had suffered all these things and more—old men and men old before their time who had passed their lives in whaling ships on the northern seas; who had been wounded or maimed in battles with northern bears and walruses, and with northern frost and snow; and even they made much of the lad who had begun his battles so early. So no wonder that he was a hero to his chosen companions and friends.“They were jist a’ bairns thegither,” as Miss Jean had said; but it was during that summer, the last of his mother’s life, that young George lost his heart to bonny Elsie, and it was during that summer too, that the visionary glory that rested on the name of the returned sailor carried captive the imagination of his sister Jean. She did not forget him while she was away from Portie; but when she returned they did not fall into their old friendly ways with one another.That would have been impossible even if the sad story of George and Elsie had never been to tell; for Jean was a woman by this time, and she was Miss Dawson of Saughleas, and he was but the second mate of a whaling ship; a brave man and a good sailor, but not the equal of the rich man’s daughter as times were now. So they seldom met, and when they did meet, it was not as it used to be in the old times between them. He never sought her out when they met in the houses of their mutual friends, and when the circumstances of the moment brought them together, he was polite and deferential and not at his ease. Jean would fain have been friendly and tried to show it, and not knowing then of her father’s anger, because of his son’s love, she could not but wonder at her ill success.“Maybe he is like Tibbie Cairnie, and thinks you are set up with London pride,” said May laughing. “If I were you, I would ask him.”But Jean never asked him, and he was not long in Portie after they returned. But when he came back again it was very much the same. He was at home the greater part of the winter before he sailed with the “John Seaton,” and they met him often at other houses, though he never went to Saughleas. There were times when they seemed to be felling back into their old friendliness, and Jean, who was noted in their small circle for the coolness with which she accepted or rejected the compliments, or the graver attentions of some who seemed to seek her favour, grew gentle and winning, and even playful or teasing, when any movement in the room brought the young sailor to her side.“She is just the Jean of the old days,” poor Willie said to himself, and he could say nothing better than that. They fell back at such times into the kindly speech of their childhood “minding” one another of this or that happy day when they were “a’ bairns thegither.” They could say little of Elsie who was dead, or of George who was lost, in a bright room with others looking on, but the tears that stood in Jean’s “bonny een” told more than words could have done of her love and sorrow for them both. If she had known all, she might have thought it wise to say nothing; but her words and her wet eyes were as drops of sweet to the lad in the midst of much bitterness. He did not always go home cheered and comforted after the sweetness; but Jean did, telling herself that at last they were friends as they used to be—till they met again, and then the chances were, that her “friend” was as silent and deferential and as little eager, apparently, to seek her company as ever; and she could only comfort herself with the thought that the fault was not hers.So it went on strangely and sadly enough for a while, and then Jean began to see that though he shunned rather than sought her, he seemed friendly enough with her sister. He seemed to seek her out, and to have much to say to her; and why he should be friendly with May and not with her, she could not easily understand.“Unless—and even then?” said Jean to herself with a little sinking of the heart.She did not follow out her thought at the moment, but it came back to her afterwards, and on the high rocks as they watched the departing ship, she thought she saw it all clearly, and that she was content. He was her friend, and if he were May’s lover, he would still be her friend, and all the more because of that, and time would make all things that might hinder their friendship now, clear to them both.But she did not speak to her sister about this. It was for May to speak to her, she thought at first, and after a while it would not have been easy to speak, and on the whole, silence was best. Then as she listened to her aunt’s story of their brother and Elsie, and of their father’s opposition and anger, she was not sure that silence was best. How much of it May might know, she could not tell; but sooner or later she must know it all, and if there was trouble before her, it would make it none the easier to bear, but all the heavier, the longer the knowledge was kept from her. But she shrank from speaking all the same.“I will tell her to-night,” she said as she sat by her aunt’s side. But she did not, nor the next, and even on the third night she sat long in the dark when the house was silent, listening to the wind among the trees, and the dull sound of the sea, and the painful beating of her own heavy heart, before she found courage to go into her sister’s room.“If she is asleep, I will not wake her.”But May was not asleep. She had been lingering over various little things that she had found to do, and had only just put out her light when her sister softly opened the door. She seemed to sleep, however, as Jean leaned over to listen, but as she turned away, May laughed softly.“Well, what is it? I dinna think I have done any thing so very foolish to-day—not more than usual, I mean.”For, in her elder sisterly care for her, Jean thought it wise to drop a word of counsel now and then, and this was the hour she usually chose to do it. She stooped down and kissed her as she turned, a circumstance that did not very often occur between them. For though they loved one another dearly, they were—after the manner of their kin and country—shy of any expression of love or even of sympathy in the way of caresses.“Is there any thing wrong?” said May startled. “Did any one ever tell you about—about our Geordie and Elsie Calderwood, May? Auntie Jean has been speaking about them to me lately.”It was not a very good beginning, but she did not know what better to say. May raised herself up, and looked eagerly in her sister’s face.“I have heard something. Do you mean that you only heard it the other day?”“Tell me all you know,” said Jean, leaning down on the bed beside her. “And why did you not tell me before?”“I did not like—and I thought you must ken about it.”“Ah! yes. It is sad enough. No wonder you didna like to speak about it. But tell me now all you know.”And May did so, and it was very nearly all there was to tell. She had heard the story, not straight through from beginning to end, as Jean had heard it from her aunt, but from words dropped now and then by one and another of their friends. And Jean could not but wonder that, May having heard so much, she herself should have heard so little. But May knew little of the part her father had taken in the separation of the lovers, how angry he had been, and how determined to put an end to what he called the folly of his son. It was just this that May ought to know, and Jean told it in as few words as possible. She wondered a little at the way in which her sister seemed to take it all.“Poor Elsie! But she might have died even if she had not been sent to the school. How little folk ken! They say in Portie that her mother sent her away that she might learn things that would fit her to be the wife of young Mr Dawson, and by and by the lady of Saughleas—and that her pride got a fall. It is a sorrowful story, Jean.”“And the saddest part of it to us is, that poor Geordie is lost and gone from us. And even if he were to come home, it might be little better.”“Is my father angry yet, Jean? Or is he sorry? Would he do the same if it were all to do over again?”“Who can say! He has many thoughts about it, doubtless, and some of them cannot but be bitter enough. But as to his doing differently—” Jean shook her head.“But, Jean, I canna blame my father altogether. His heart was set on his only son, and George was but a boy.”“Yes, and Aunt Jean says if he had but waited with patience my father might have yielded at last.”“Or George might have changed. He had seen no one else, and though Elsie was good, and bonny too, there was a great difference between her and—and some that we have seen,—ladies educated and accomplished as well as beautiful. And, Jean, I canna but be sorry for my father.”“Sorry! That says little. My heart is like to break for him whiles—and it might have been so different!” said Jean sadly.“If he were living, we should have heard from him before this time.”“Who can say? Oh! he is living! I canna think he is dead. Poor papa, he must have a sore heart often.”“Jean,” said her sister after a long silence, “do you think he would do it all over again? I mean—do you think he would be as hard on—you or me?”“Do you mean—Willie?” asked Jean at last. “Well—Willie or another. It is not easy for my father to change.”“No, it is not. But, May, have patience. Things often come round in strange ways when we least expect it. If George would only come again! How long is it since the ‘John Seaton’ sailed?”“A good while since.”Jean could have told her sister the days and even the hours that had passed since then, but she did not. When she asked the question, it was her brother she was thinking of; but May, who could not know that, believed that she was thinking of Willie Calderwood.“He may be captain next voyage,” said May. “But I wish he could leave the sea altogether. My father could open the way for that, if he chose.”“Leave the sea? Is it Willie you are speaking about? He would never do it. May, you must not ask it of him. It would be putting him in a false position altogether. He is a true sailor.”“Oh! I shall not ask him. It would do little good. But I wonder at you all the same. You have no ambition. He can never be more than just a sea captain—and always away.”“A sea captain!” repeated Jean. “A sailor!—And what would you have? Would you put him behind the counter in a shop? or set him to casting up figures or counting money in a bank? Would you even old Mr Petrie or James or any of them with the like of him?”May laughed. “Oh! well, a sailor let him be. But ye needna flee at me as though I had said something horrible. And we needna vex ourselves. That will do no good.”“It must be late,” said Jean rising. “She takes it quietly enough, and it is well she does. It would wear her out to be ay thinking and fearing and longing for his coming home, as I long for poor George’s. She is ay light-hearted, dear child. God bless her,” added Jean with a sigh.The rest of the summer passed quietly away. The little Corbetts went home strong and brown and with a wonderful knowledge of and delight in their father’s mother tongue, rejoicing over the invitation for another visit the next summer, if all should be well.They were much missed in Saughleas, and so was Miss Jean, who, though she enjoyed a visit to her brother and her nieces now and then, liked best the quiet of her own house, and the silent secret doing of the work which she had chosen among the sinful and suffering poor creatures of which, especially in winter-time, Portie had its share. Her stay at Saughleas had done her good. She left her crutch behind her there, and she was able now to go with her staff in one hand and “help and comfort” in the other, to those who in the back sheets and lanes of the town needed her help most. At Saughleas they missed her greatly, for various reasons, and chiefly for this, that at meal times, and at other times also, Mr Dawson was ready to fall into his old habit of silence and reserve, when left alone with his daughters. This silence was good neither for them nor for himself.“And I am going to try and have it otherwise,” said Jean to herself, as she sat behind the urn, waiting for his coming the first morning they were alone.He came in as usual with a bundle of papers in his hand, letters that had been received last night, and that must be answered this morning as soon as he reached the bank, and in the mean time he meant to look them over while he drank his coffee.“I think,” said his daughter looking straight into his face as he adjusted his spectacles, so that he might not let her remark fall as though it had been made to her sister, “I think Aunt Jean is the woman the most to be envied among all the women I know.”“Ay! Think ye that? And what new light ha’e ye gotten about her to-day?” said her father, arrested by her look rather than her words.“No new light. Only I have been thinking about her last night and to-day. She is the best woman I know, and the happiest; and I envy her.”“Ye have but to follow in her steps, and ye’ll be as good as she is,—in time,” said her father dryly. “As to her happiness—I should say she perhaps makes the most of the means of happiness given to her, but otherwise I see little cause that you have to envy her. She is reasonable, and doesna let her wishes and her fancies get the better of her good sense, and so she is content.”“And if I were reasonable, would I be content, I wonder? As to being as good—that must come of higher teaching and peculiar discipline, and I doubt I shall never be good in her way.”“And what for no? Your aunt would be the first to tell you that you can get the higher teaching for the asking. And as for discipline—the chances are ye’ll get your share as well as the rest of us.”“But not just in the same way. A long, patient, laborious, self-forgetting life hers has been—has it not? She is strong and she has been successful; yet she is not hard. She is good, but she is not down on wrong-doers in the way that some good folk are. If I had my choice, I think I would choose to have just such a life as she has had—if it would make me like her.”Mr Dawson looked at his daughter in some surprise. Jean was not looking at him, but over his head far away to the sea, bright for the moment, under a gleam of sunshine.“Would that be your choice? A life of labour, and then the life of a solitary single woman! I think I see you!” said her father with something like indignation in his tones.May laughed. Jean’s eyes came back from the sea with a vague, wistful look in them that startled her father.“I think, Jean, ye hardly ken what ye’re speaking about.”“Yes. About Aunt Jean. ‘A solitary single woman?’ No. Not solitary. That has such a sorrowful sound. Oh! she is not solitary in an unhappy sense; even when she is quite alone in her own house by the sea.”“What I mean is, that she has neither husband nor child. She is alone in that sense. And if ye think that she hasna whiles felt—weel—as if she had missed something in life—that’s no’ my thought.”“Yes—and that is part of the discipline, I suppose. Missed something—yes. But then, having had these things she might have missed that which makes her different from, and better than, any one else. I ken no one like my Aunt Jean.”“Weel—ye’re no’ far wrong there. And if ye had kenned her in her youth, you would have said the same. There were none like her then more than now. But she’s growing unco frail-like now, poor body?” added Mr Dawson with a sigh.And then there was more said. Mr Dawson went on to tell many stories of his sister’s youth, all going to prove that there were few like her for sense and goodness even then. Most of these his daughters had heard before, but they liked to listen all the same. And Mr Dawson forgot his letters, and Jean forgot that it was only to keep his eyes away from them, that she had begun to speak about her aunt, and she took courage because of her success.

The name of Willie Calderwood had never been spoken between the sisters since the day when, standing on the high rocks above the Tangle Stanes, they had watched the “John Seaton” making out to sea. Jean was silent for one reason, and May for another; and there were reasons enough that both could see why silence was best, to prevent either of them from feeling such silence strange.

Willie Calderwood had been their companion and their brother’s chief friend in the days when they all played together on the rocks and sands of Portie—in the days before George Dawson had admitted into his heart the thought, that the wealth he had won, and the estate he had made his own, gave his children a right to look higher for their friends than among their less prosperous neighbours. But his children were not of the sort that forget easily, nor were the Calderwoods the sort of friends to be easily forgotten. Willie had always been a leader among them, a handsome, fearless, kindly lad, and he became a hero to them all, when he went to sea and came home to tell of shipwreck first, and then of strange adventures among strange people; of hunger and cold and suffering, and escape at last.

A hero! There were many such heroes in Portie who had suffered all these things and more—old men and men old before their time who had passed their lives in whaling ships on the northern seas; who had been wounded or maimed in battles with northern bears and walruses, and with northern frost and snow; and even they made much of the lad who had begun his battles so early. So no wonder that he was a hero to his chosen companions and friends.

“They were jist a’ bairns thegither,” as Miss Jean had said; but it was during that summer, the last of his mother’s life, that young George lost his heart to bonny Elsie, and it was during that summer too, that the visionary glory that rested on the name of the returned sailor carried captive the imagination of his sister Jean. She did not forget him while she was away from Portie; but when she returned they did not fall into their old friendly ways with one another.

That would have been impossible even if the sad story of George and Elsie had never been to tell; for Jean was a woman by this time, and she was Miss Dawson of Saughleas, and he was but the second mate of a whaling ship; a brave man and a good sailor, but not the equal of the rich man’s daughter as times were now. So they seldom met, and when they did meet, it was not as it used to be in the old times between them. He never sought her out when they met in the houses of their mutual friends, and when the circumstances of the moment brought them together, he was polite and deferential and not at his ease. Jean would fain have been friendly and tried to show it, and not knowing then of her father’s anger, because of his son’s love, she could not but wonder at her ill success.

“Maybe he is like Tibbie Cairnie, and thinks you are set up with London pride,” said May laughing. “If I were you, I would ask him.”

But Jean never asked him, and he was not long in Portie after they returned. But when he came back again it was very much the same. He was at home the greater part of the winter before he sailed with the “John Seaton,” and they met him often at other houses, though he never went to Saughleas. There were times when they seemed to be felling back into their old friendliness, and Jean, who was noted in their small circle for the coolness with which she accepted or rejected the compliments, or the graver attentions of some who seemed to seek her favour, grew gentle and winning, and even playful or teasing, when any movement in the room brought the young sailor to her side.

“She is just the Jean of the old days,” poor Willie said to himself, and he could say nothing better than that. They fell back at such times into the kindly speech of their childhood “minding” one another of this or that happy day when they were “a’ bairns thegither.” They could say little of Elsie who was dead, or of George who was lost, in a bright room with others looking on, but the tears that stood in Jean’s “bonny een” told more than words could have done of her love and sorrow for them both. If she had known all, she might have thought it wise to say nothing; but her words and her wet eyes were as drops of sweet to the lad in the midst of much bitterness. He did not always go home cheered and comforted after the sweetness; but Jean did, telling herself that at last they were friends as they used to be—till they met again, and then the chances were, that her “friend” was as silent and deferential and as little eager, apparently, to seek her company as ever; and she could only comfort herself with the thought that the fault was not hers.

So it went on strangely and sadly enough for a while, and then Jean began to see that though he shunned rather than sought her, he seemed friendly enough with her sister. He seemed to seek her out, and to have much to say to her; and why he should be friendly with May and not with her, she could not easily understand.

“Unless—and even then?” said Jean to herself with a little sinking of the heart.

She did not follow out her thought at the moment, but it came back to her afterwards, and on the high rocks as they watched the departing ship, she thought she saw it all clearly, and that she was content. He was her friend, and if he were May’s lover, he would still be her friend, and all the more because of that, and time would make all things that might hinder their friendship now, clear to them both.

But she did not speak to her sister about this. It was for May to speak to her, she thought at first, and after a while it would not have been easy to speak, and on the whole, silence was best. Then as she listened to her aunt’s story of their brother and Elsie, and of their father’s opposition and anger, she was not sure that silence was best. How much of it May might know, she could not tell; but sooner or later she must know it all, and if there was trouble before her, it would make it none the easier to bear, but all the heavier, the longer the knowledge was kept from her. But she shrank from speaking all the same.

“I will tell her to-night,” she said as she sat by her aunt’s side. But she did not, nor the next, and even on the third night she sat long in the dark when the house was silent, listening to the wind among the trees, and the dull sound of the sea, and the painful beating of her own heavy heart, before she found courage to go into her sister’s room.

“If she is asleep, I will not wake her.”

But May was not asleep. She had been lingering over various little things that she had found to do, and had only just put out her light when her sister softly opened the door. She seemed to sleep, however, as Jean leaned over to listen, but as she turned away, May laughed softly.

“Well, what is it? I dinna think I have done any thing so very foolish to-day—not more than usual, I mean.”

For, in her elder sisterly care for her, Jean thought it wise to drop a word of counsel now and then, and this was the hour she usually chose to do it. She stooped down and kissed her as she turned, a circumstance that did not very often occur between them. For though they loved one another dearly, they were—after the manner of their kin and country—shy of any expression of love or even of sympathy in the way of caresses.

“Is there any thing wrong?” said May startled. “Did any one ever tell you about—about our Geordie and Elsie Calderwood, May? Auntie Jean has been speaking about them to me lately.”

It was not a very good beginning, but she did not know what better to say. May raised herself up, and looked eagerly in her sister’s face.

“I have heard something. Do you mean that you only heard it the other day?”

“Tell me all you know,” said Jean, leaning down on the bed beside her. “And why did you not tell me before?”

“I did not like—and I thought you must ken about it.”

“Ah! yes. It is sad enough. No wonder you didna like to speak about it. But tell me now all you know.”

And May did so, and it was very nearly all there was to tell. She had heard the story, not straight through from beginning to end, as Jean had heard it from her aunt, but from words dropped now and then by one and another of their friends. And Jean could not but wonder that, May having heard so much, she herself should have heard so little. But May knew little of the part her father had taken in the separation of the lovers, how angry he had been, and how determined to put an end to what he called the folly of his son. It was just this that May ought to know, and Jean told it in as few words as possible. She wondered a little at the way in which her sister seemed to take it all.

“Poor Elsie! But she might have died even if she had not been sent to the school. How little folk ken! They say in Portie that her mother sent her away that she might learn things that would fit her to be the wife of young Mr Dawson, and by and by the lady of Saughleas—and that her pride got a fall. It is a sorrowful story, Jean.”

“And the saddest part of it to us is, that poor Geordie is lost and gone from us. And even if he were to come home, it might be little better.”

“Is my father angry yet, Jean? Or is he sorry? Would he do the same if it were all to do over again?”

“Who can say! He has many thoughts about it, doubtless, and some of them cannot but be bitter enough. But as to his doing differently—” Jean shook her head.

“But, Jean, I canna blame my father altogether. His heart was set on his only son, and George was but a boy.”

“Yes, and Aunt Jean says if he had but waited with patience my father might have yielded at last.”

“Or George might have changed. He had seen no one else, and though Elsie was good, and bonny too, there was a great difference between her and—and some that we have seen,—ladies educated and accomplished as well as beautiful. And, Jean, I canna but be sorry for my father.”

“Sorry! That says little. My heart is like to break for him whiles—and it might have been so different!” said Jean sadly.

“If he were living, we should have heard from him before this time.”

“Who can say? Oh! he is living! I canna think he is dead. Poor papa, he must have a sore heart often.”

“Jean,” said her sister after a long silence, “do you think he would do it all over again? I mean—do you think he would be as hard on—you or me?”

“Do you mean—Willie?” asked Jean at last. “Well—Willie or another. It is not easy for my father to change.”

“No, it is not. But, May, have patience. Things often come round in strange ways when we least expect it. If George would only come again! How long is it since the ‘John Seaton’ sailed?”

“A good while since.”

Jean could have told her sister the days and even the hours that had passed since then, but she did not. When she asked the question, it was her brother she was thinking of; but May, who could not know that, believed that she was thinking of Willie Calderwood.

“He may be captain next voyage,” said May. “But I wish he could leave the sea altogether. My father could open the way for that, if he chose.”

“Leave the sea? Is it Willie you are speaking about? He would never do it. May, you must not ask it of him. It would be putting him in a false position altogether. He is a true sailor.”

“Oh! I shall not ask him. It would do little good. But I wonder at you all the same. You have no ambition. He can never be more than just a sea captain—and always away.”

“A sea captain!” repeated Jean. “A sailor!—And what would you have? Would you put him behind the counter in a shop? or set him to casting up figures or counting money in a bank? Would you even old Mr Petrie or James or any of them with the like of him?”

May laughed. “Oh! well, a sailor let him be. But ye needna flee at me as though I had said something horrible. And we needna vex ourselves. That will do no good.”

“It must be late,” said Jean rising. “She takes it quietly enough, and it is well she does. It would wear her out to be ay thinking and fearing and longing for his coming home, as I long for poor George’s. She is ay light-hearted, dear child. God bless her,” added Jean with a sigh.

The rest of the summer passed quietly away. The little Corbetts went home strong and brown and with a wonderful knowledge of and delight in their father’s mother tongue, rejoicing over the invitation for another visit the next summer, if all should be well.

They were much missed in Saughleas, and so was Miss Jean, who, though she enjoyed a visit to her brother and her nieces now and then, liked best the quiet of her own house, and the silent secret doing of the work which she had chosen among the sinful and suffering poor creatures of which, especially in winter-time, Portie had its share. Her stay at Saughleas had done her good. She left her crutch behind her there, and she was able now to go with her staff in one hand and “help and comfort” in the other, to those who in the back sheets and lanes of the town needed her help most. At Saughleas they missed her greatly, for various reasons, and chiefly for this, that at meal times, and at other times also, Mr Dawson was ready to fall into his old habit of silence and reserve, when left alone with his daughters. This silence was good neither for them nor for himself.

“And I am going to try and have it otherwise,” said Jean to herself, as she sat behind the urn, waiting for his coming the first morning they were alone.

He came in as usual with a bundle of papers in his hand, letters that had been received last night, and that must be answered this morning as soon as he reached the bank, and in the mean time he meant to look them over while he drank his coffee.

“I think,” said his daughter looking straight into his face as he adjusted his spectacles, so that he might not let her remark fall as though it had been made to her sister, “I think Aunt Jean is the woman the most to be envied among all the women I know.”

“Ay! Think ye that? And what new light ha’e ye gotten about her to-day?” said her father, arrested by her look rather than her words.

“No new light. Only I have been thinking about her last night and to-day. She is the best woman I know, and the happiest; and I envy her.”

“Ye have but to follow in her steps, and ye’ll be as good as she is,—in time,” said her father dryly. “As to her happiness—I should say she perhaps makes the most of the means of happiness given to her, but otherwise I see little cause that you have to envy her. She is reasonable, and doesna let her wishes and her fancies get the better of her good sense, and so she is content.”

“And if I were reasonable, would I be content, I wonder? As to being as good—that must come of higher teaching and peculiar discipline, and I doubt I shall never be good in her way.”

“And what for no? Your aunt would be the first to tell you that you can get the higher teaching for the asking. And as for discipline—the chances are ye’ll get your share as well as the rest of us.”

“But not just in the same way. A long, patient, laborious, self-forgetting life hers has been—has it not? She is strong and she has been successful; yet she is not hard. She is good, but she is not down on wrong-doers in the way that some good folk are. If I had my choice, I think I would choose to have just such a life as she has had—if it would make me like her.”

Mr Dawson looked at his daughter in some surprise. Jean was not looking at him, but over his head far away to the sea, bright for the moment, under a gleam of sunshine.

“Would that be your choice? A life of labour, and then the life of a solitary single woman! I think I see you!” said her father with something like indignation in his tones.

May laughed. Jean’s eyes came back from the sea with a vague, wistful look in them that startled her father.

“I think, Jean, ye hardly ken what ye’re speaking about.”

“Yes. About Aunt Jean. ‘A solitary single woman?’ No. Not solitary. That has such a sorrowful sound. Oh! she is not solitary in an unhappy sense; even when she is quite alone in her own house by the sea.”

“What I mean is, that she has neither husband nor child. She is alone in that sense. And if ye think that she hasna whiles felt—weel—as if she had missed something in life—that’s no’ my thought.”

“Yes—and that is part of the discipline, I suppose. Missed something—yes. But then, having had these things she might have missed that which makes her different from, and better than, any one else. I ken no one like my Aunt Jean.”

“Weel—ye’re no’ far wrong there. And if ye had kenned her in her youth, you would have said the same. There were none like her then more than now. But she’s growing unco frail-like now, poor body?” added Mr Dawson with a sigh.

And then there was more said. Mr Dawson went on to tell many stories of his sister’s youth, all going to prove that there were few like her for sense and goodness even then. Most of these his daughters had heard before, but they liked to listen all the same. And Mr Dawson forgot his letters, and Jean forgot that it was only to keep his eyes away from them, that she had begun to speak about her aunt, and she took courage because of her success.

Chapter Nine.An Invitation.She was not always so successful; still she was successful to a degree that surprised herself, in withdrawing her father from the silent and sombre musings which of late had become habitual to him. This was the work which she set herself. Her time, while he was in the house, or near it, was given to him. She disturbed him doubtless now and then when he would have been better pleased to be left to himself; but upon the whole he responded to her advances, and by and by showed in many ways that he counted upon her interest in whatever he might be doing, and on such help as she could give.In all matters connected with the management of the estate he took especial pains to claim her attention and interest. She tramped with him over the wet autumn fields in all weathers, and listened to his plans for the improvement of the place in the way of dikes and ditches and drains, and to plans that went further than these—plans which it would take years to carry out well and wisely. Her interest was real for the moment, and soon it became eager and intelligent as well. She not only listened to him, but she discussed, and suggested, and even differed from him in various matters, and held to her own opinions in a way that certainly did not displease him.She tired of it all sometimes, however, and though she permitted no sign of it to appear to her father, she could not always hide it from her sister.“And what is the good of it all? You cannot surely be vain enough to think that you are doing any good, or that papa cares to have you tramping about in the wet and the wind.”“Oh, I like it! And I may as well do it as any thing else. As to papa—yes, I think he likes it. I am better than no one to speak to, and—oh yes, I like it!”“It is all nonsense!” said May with a shrug. “As for papa, he might enjoy it, if it were Peter Stark, or John Stott, or any one that could understand him, or give him a sensible answer;—but you!—What is the use of it?—and just look at your shoes and stockings!”Jean looked down, as she was bidden, at her feet, and her soiled petticoats.“Theyarewet,” said she, “and dirty.”“And tell me if you can, what is the good of it all?”“It has made me hungry, and it will make me sleep, perhaps. And the best reason for it is, that I like it—as well as any thing.”She went away to change her wet things, and came back in her pretty house dress with a knot of gay ribbon at her throat, looking wonderfully bright and bonny her father thought as he came in at the hall door, and so he noticed all the more readily, perhaps, how white and changed she looked afterwards. When he also had changed his wet things, and came in to sit down, she was standing in the darkening room, looking out at the window, leaning on the ledge as though she were tired, and she did not turn round as he passed her to take his usual place at the fireside.“The days are drawing in fast,” said he, by way of saying something.“Yes, it is already growing dark. I cannot see the sea.”“Ye needna care. It is an angry sea to-night, and the wind is rising.”“Yes, the moan of it is in among the trees already, and before morning it will be a cry—a terrible sharp cry—that will not be shut out. An ill night for those at sea.”“By no means. The folk at sea are safe enough, so that they bide away from the shore. There will be worse nights than this, and many of them, before the winter be over.”“The long, long winter! And think what it must be in Greenland seas, with the ice and the dark, and the bitter cold.”“Lassie, draw the curtains and come to the fire. What ails you at the wind and the sea to-night, more than usual? Draw the curtains, and shut out the night, and come and make the tea.”And then when Jean did his bidding and turned from the window, he saw that her face was white and her eyes strained and anxious. She came to the fire and stooped down, warming her hands at the blaze.“One would think you were a sailor’s wife, and that his ship was in danger,” said her father.“It is the book she has been reading,” said her sister. “That American book about the men who sailed in search of Sir John Franklin and his crew. What pleasure there can be in poring over any thing so dismal, is more than I can tell.”“That is because you do not know. It gives one courage to know that there have been men—that there are men—so patient and so brave. Their leader was a hero,” said Jean with shining eyes.“Well, we’ll have our tea now,” said Mr Dawson in a tone that made May think he was ill-pleased at something, though he said nothing more. He was wondering what could have come to the lassie so to change the brightness of the face that had met him at the door. May knew that Jean must be thinking of the “John Seaton,” but she knew that her father could have no such thought. Nothing was said by any of them for a while, but by the time tea was over, they had fallen into their ordinary mood again, and spoke of other things. But afterwards Jean was sorry that she had not taken courage that night to tell him how she had heard that her brother had sailed in the “John Seaton” so long ago.For her secret knowledge burdened her sorely. That George should have been at home and then have gone away again without a word, it would be like to break his father’s heart to know. The hope of seeing him when the “John Seaton” came home might be better than the uncertainty of the present. But if his anger still burned against his father, he might not come home, and such a disappointment would be worse to bear than even the present uncertainty.She wearied herself thinking about it, but she did not know what to do. She longed to tell her aunt. She had almost done so, but her aunt had forbidden her, or so she had thought. And months must still pass before the “John Seaton” could be in port again.Her thoughts were with her brother night and day, and she was pre-occupied and grave, and grew white and anxious-eyed; and by and by it added to her trouble, to know that her father was observing her. So when he was in the house, all her thoughts were given to the effort to be just as usual. She talked cheerfully and had visitors at the house; and when they were alone she worked busily and steadily, falling back, when her white seam failed her, on May’s embroidery; and did her best to grow enthusiastic with her sister over silks and wools of brilliant hue.She practised her music also, and took courage to sing even when her father was in the house. It needed some courage, for their mother had been one of the sweetest of singers, and their father had never heard the voices of his daughters since the days when they used to stand at their mother’s side, and sing the songs she loved.No harm came of it. Though her father made no remarks, she knew that he listened to her voice in the dark, and if it woke the old sense of pain and loss, it stirred neither anger nor rebellion, as the gentleness of his words and ways made her sure.And so the winter wore on with the usual breaks in the way of hospitalities given and received till the days began to lengthen—and then something happened.There came to the girls an invitation from a friend, to pass a month or two with her in London. The friend had been Miss Browning, their favourite teacher in their London school. Now she was Mrs Seldon, the wife of a young city merchant, “as happy as the day is long,” she wrote, and she promised them a taste of many enjoyments, if they would come and see her as mistress of her own pretty house—free now to come and go at her own will and pleasure. Much she said to induce them to come, and much was not needed, as far as May was concerned.Mr Dawson might have hesitated as to accepting an invitation for his daughters into an unknown household, even though he had every confidence in the good sense and discretion of the lady who invited them. But strangely enough, it happened that Mr Seldon was the son of almost the only man in London with whom he had ever had other than mere business intercourse, and the young man himself was not altogether a stranger to him. As men of business, father and son were worthy of respect, and socially occupied an unexceptionable position, and Mr Dawson was more than pleased that his daughters should see something of London, in circumstances so favourable as a residence with such people would imply. So his consent was given readily.Jean listened and said little through all the preliminary discussion of the matter; but when it was settled that the invitation was to be at once accepted, she quietly declined to leave home.She gave several good reasons why one should pay the visit rather than them both, and several why it should be May that should pay it. She gave several reasons also, why it would be wrong for both of them to leave home at once. Their father would be left in the house alone. Their aunt was by no means strong. Indeed if there were no other reason she would never think of leaving her alone during the spring months, which had during the last few years been so trying to her. Then there had been something said about certain changes to be made in the early spring in the grounds and gardens. These might certainly be put off till another year, as her father suggested, but it would be a pity to do so, and if they were to be made, Jean must be at home to superintend them.“And indeed, papa, it was May who used to be Miss Browning’s friend, much more than I. Mrs Seldon would enjoy May’s company better than mine, and May would take ten times the pleasure that I should take. How should I have any pleasure knowing that my sister was lonely and disappointed at home. As to both going, it is out of the question. And I can go next time.”Of course Mr Dawson could not do otherwise than yield to such an array of good reasons, especially as May was as eager to go as her sister was to stay; but he had an uneasy feeling that Jean herself had needed none of these good reasons to induce her to remain. It pleased him, of course, that she should like home best, and he was glad not to be left to the trial of a silent and forsaken house during a gloomy month or two. But it did not please him that Jean should care so little for the enjoyment that her sister anticipated with such delight. It was not natural, and he wearied himself trying to imagine what it might be.“I will see what my sister says about it,” thought he.But in the mean time he could only let her take her way; and he and May set out together on their journey, for he would not permit his daughter to travel alone.And then for a few days Jean had the house to herself, and during these days, she became aware of one thing. She must turn her thoughts away from the constant dwelling on poor lost Geordie, and his wanderings on northern seas, or she would lose the power of thinking or caring for any one or any thing in the world besides.It had nearly come to that already. If the wind blew, it was of him she thought, and it was the same if the sun shone, or the rain fell. Night and day her heart was heavy with fears for him. It was the shipping news she read first in the papers, about storms and wrecks of whale ships that had come home, and of some that might never come, till she grew morbid and heartsick with her doubts and her fears.When she went to the town, or took her daily walk by the sea, she spoke with the fishermen about the signs of wind and weather, and with certain old sailors—long past sailing because of age and rheumatism—about the voyages they had made, and about the dangers of the deep, and the dreariness of Arctic seas when winter nights were long and the days “but a blink.” And of late, she had come to be aware that now and then as they talked, there was a look of wondering curiosity in their dim old eyes. They took her sixpences, and her “bits o’ backey” with smiles and nods of encouragement, and with assurances “that there was nothing like keeping a stout heart and a cheerful, on the shore as well as on the sea.”“And they canna ken about Geordie,” she said to herself wondering.No; they did not know about Geordie; but they saw the weary, wistful looks ever turned to the sea, and they could not but know that they must mean something, though neither kith nor kin of hers had sailed from the harbour of Portie, as far as they knew, for many a day. And thinking about their words and their looks, she told herself, that unless she meant to fall into utter uselessness and folly, she must shake herself free from this dull brooding over her fears. For the suspense must continue for months yet—perhaps for many months, and she began to be afraid for herself at the thought.“I wonder what the sailors’ wives do, and their mothers and sisters all these wintry months? Do they sit and think of the danger, and the distance, and the long suspense? No, they must live and have patience, and take the good of other things, and trust in God—as I must, if I would not go wild.Theyget through, and I must.“But then I must never speak about him, and my fears for him, and that must make it worse to bear. Oh, if I had but told my father that first night! How can I wait on for months like this?” and Jean suffered herself to cry as she had never cried before. She might cry this once since there was no one at home to notice the traces of tears. But all the same she knew that she must make a braver stand against the trouble that oppressed her, and even amid her tears she was saying that to-morrow she would begin.And so when to-morrow came, instead of going toward the wild sea shore above the town, she set out to go directly to her aunt. It was not an agreeable day for a walk. It was not raining, but the mud was deep on the road, and the fields which Jean liked best at such times, were in places under water; and a wide ditch here and there was so full, that she had doubts of being able to get across, since the footing on either side could not but be insecure in the prevailing wetness. So she kept the highway, warily picking her steps, and meeting the wind from the sea with a sense of refreshment—and by and by with a conscious effect to throw off the weight of care which had so long oppressed her.When she came to the corner at which she turned into the High-street, she saw Marion Calderwood coming toward her with her music book under her arm. A pretty sight she was to see, and a welcome as she sprang forward, greeting her joyfully. But a shadow passed over the girl’s face when the first words were spoken.“Oh! yes. I am very glad to see you, and Miss Jean will be glad too. But if ye hadna come in this morning, I was going out to see what had become of you. Your aunt bade me ask my mother to let me go when my lesson was over—and—I think she would have let me.”“And she’ll let you still. Run away now to your lesson, and you’ll find me at Aunt Jean’s, and we’ll go out together.”Marion looked doubtful. “My mother would have let me go to oblige Miss Jean, but—she does not approve of my leaving my other lessons, for one thing—and besides—”“Run away. I’ll ask your mother. She’ll let you go home with me, if I ask her.”Marion was not very sure, nor was Jean. For Mrs Calderwood was a very proud woman, and her pride took the form of reserve, and a determined avoidance of any thing that looked like claiming consideration or attention from those whom, from their circumstances, she might suspect of wishing to hold themselves above her.And there were reasons of another kind, Jean well knew, why she should look with little friendliness on any one in the house of Saughleas—reasons that must prevent all renewal of the intimacy that had been so warm and pleasant during her mother’s lifetime. Still she had almost always been friendly in manner with Jean when they had chanced to meet, but Jean had been but seldom in her house since she had come from school, and she was glad of the excuse which her proposed invitation to Marion gave her to go there. For it had come into her mind that she might speak to Mrs Calderwood about the trouble which she found it not easy to bear alone.

She was not always so successful; still she was successful to a degree that surprised herself, in withdrawing her father from the silent and sombre musings which of late had become habitual to him. This was the work which she set herself. Her time, while he was in the house, or near it, was given to him. She disturbed him doubtless now and then when he would have been better pleased to be left to himself; but upon the whole he responded to her advances, and by and by showed in many ways that he counted upon her interest in whatever he might be doing, and on such help as she could give.

In all matters connected with the management of the estate he took especial pains to claim her attention and interest. She tramped with him over the wet autumn fields in all weathers, and listened to his plans for the improvement of the place in the way of dikes and ditches and drains, and to plans that went further than these—plans which it would take years to carry out well and wisely. Her interest was real for the moment, and soon it became eager and intelligent as well. She not only listened to him, but she discussed, and suggested, and even differed from him in various matters, and held to her own opinions in a way that certainly did not displease him.

She tired of it all sometimes, however, and though she permitted no sign of it to appear to her father, she could not always hide it from her sister.

“And what is the good of it all? You cannot surely be vain enough to think that you are doing any good, or that papa cares to have you tramping about in the wet and the wind.”

“Oh, I like it! And I may as well do it as any thing else. As to papa—yes, I think he likes it. I am better than no one to speak to, and—oh yes, I like it!”

“It is all nonsense!” said May with a shrug. “As for papa, he might enjoy it, if it were Peter Stark, or John Stott, or any one that could understand him, or give him a sensible answer;—but you!—What is the use of it?—and just look at your shoes and stockings!”

Jean looked down, as she was bidden, at her feet, and her soiled petticoats.

“Theyarewet,” said she, “and dirty.”

“And tell me if you can, what is the good of it all?”

“It has made me hungry, and it will make me sleep, perhaps. And the best reason for it is, that I like it—as well as any thing.”

She went away to change her wet things, and came back in her pretty house dress with a knot of gay ribbon at her throat, looking wonderfully bright and bonny her father thought as he came in at the hall door, and so he noticed all the more readily, perhaps, how white and changed she looked afterwards. When he also had changed his wet things, and came in to sit down, she was standing in the darkening room, looking out at the window, leaning on the ledge as though she were tired, and she did not turn round as he passed her to take his usual place at the fireside.

“The days are drawing in fast,” said he, by way of saying something.

“Yes, it is already growing dark. I cannot see the sea.”

“Ye needna care. It is an angry sea to-night, and the wind is rising.”

“Yes, the moan of it is in among the trees already, and before morning it will be a cry—a terrible sharp cry—that will not be shut out. An ill night for those at sea.”

“By no means. The folk at sea are safe enough, so that they bide away from the shore. There will be worse nights than this, and many of them, before the winter be over.”

“The long, long winter! And think what it must be in Greenland seas, with the ice and the dark, and the bitter cold.”

“Lassie, draw the curtains and come to the fire. What ails you at the wind and the sea to-night, more than usual? Draw the curtains, and shut out the night, and come and make the tea.”

And then when Jean did his bidding and turned from the window, he saw that her face was white and her eyes strained and anxious. She came to the fire and stooped down, warming her hands at the blaze.

“One would think you were a sailor’s wife, and that his ship was in danger,” said her father.

“It is the book she has been reading,” said her sister. “That American book about the men who sailed in search of Sir John Franklin and his crew. What pleasure there can be in poring over any thing so dismal, is more than I can tell.”

“That is because you do not know. It gives one courage to know that there have been men—that there are men—so patient and so brave. Their leader was a hero,” said Jean with shining eyes.

“Well, we’ll have our tea now,” said Mr Dawson in a tone that made May think he was ill-pleased at something, though he said nothing more. He was wondering what could have come to the lassie so to change the brightness of the face that had met him at the door. May knew that Jean must be thinking of the “John Seaton,” but she knew that her father could have no such thought. Nothing was said by any of them for a while, but by the time tea was over, they had fallen into their ordinary mood again, and spoke of other things. But afterwards Jean was sorry that she had not taken courage that night to tell him how she had heard that her brother had sailed in the “John Seaton” so long ago.

For her secret knowledge burdened her sorely. That George should have been at home and then have gone away again without a word, it would be like to break his father’s heart to know. The hope of seeing him when the “John Seaton” came home might be better than the uncertainty of the present. But if his anger still burned against his father, he might not come home, and such a disappointment would be worse to bear than even the present uncertainty.

She wearied herself thinking about it, but she did not know what to do. She longed to tell her aunt. She had almost done so, but her aunt had forbidden her, or so she had thought. And months must still pass before the “John Seaton” could be in port again.

Her thoughts were with her brother night and day, and she was pre-occupied and grave, and grew white and anxious-eyed; and by and by it added to her trouble, to know that her father was observing her. So when he was in the house, all her thoughts were given to the effort to be just as usual. She talked cheerfully and had visitors at the house; and when they were alone she worked busily and steadily, falling back, when her white seam failed her, on May’s embroidery; and did her best to grow enthusiastic with her sister over silks and wools of brilliant hue.

She practised her music also, and took courage to sing even when her father was in the house. It needed some courage, for their mother had been one of the sweetest of singers, and their father had never heard the voices of his daughters since the days when they used to stand at their mother’s side, and sing the songs she loved.

No harm came of it. Though her father made no remarks, she knew that he listened to her voice in the dark, and if it woke the old sense of pain and loss, it stirred neither anger nor rebellion, as the gentleness of his words and ways made her sure.

And so the winter wore on with the usual breaks in the way of hospitalities given and received till the days began to lengthen—and then something happened.

There came to the girls an invitation from a friend, to pass a month or two with her in London. The friend had been Miss Browning, their favourite teacher in their London school. Now she was Mrs Seldon, the wife of a young city merchant, “as happy as the day is long,” she wrote, and she promised them a taste of many enjoyments, if they would come and see her as mistress of her own pretty house—free now to come and go at her own will and pleasure. Much she said to induce them to come, and much was not needed, as far as May was concerned.

Mr Dawson might have hesitated as to accepting an invitation for his daughters into an unknown household, even though he had every confidence in the good sense and discretion of the lady who invited them. But strangely enough, it happened that Mr Seldon was the son of almost the only man in London with whom he had ever had other than mere business intercourse, and the young man himself was not altogether a stranger to him. As men of business, father and son were worthy of respect, and socially occupied an unexceptionable position, and Mr Dawson was more than pleased that his daughters should see something of London, in circumstances so favourable as a residence with such people would imply. So his consent was given readily.

Jean listened and said little through all the preliminary discussion of the matter; but when it was settled that the invitation was to be at once accepted, she quietly declined to leave home.

She gave several good reasons why one should pay the visit rather than them both, and several why it should be May that should pay it. She gave several reasons also, why it would be wrong for both of them to leave home at once. Their father would be left in the house alone. Their aunt was by no means strong. Indeed if there were no other reason she would never think of leaving her alone during the spring months, which had during the last few years been so trying to her. Then there had been something said about certain changes to be made in the early spring in the grounds and gardens. These might certainly be put off till another year, as her father suggested, but it would be a pity to do so, and if they were to be made, Jean must be at home to superintend them.

“And indeed, papa, it was May who used to be Miss Browning’s friend, much more than I. Mrs Seldon would enjoy May’s company better than mine, and May would take ten times the pleasure that I should take. How should I have any pleasure knowing that my sister was lonely and disappointed at home. As to both going, it is out of the question. And I can go next time.”

Of course Mr Dawson could not do otherwise than yield to such an array of good reasons, especially as May was as eager to go as her sister was to stay; but he had an uneasy feeling that Jean herself had needed none of these good reasons to induce her to remain. It pleased him, of course, that she should like home best, and he was glad not to be left to the trial of a silent and forsaken house during a gloomy month or two. But it did not please him that Jean should care so little for the enjoyment that her sister anticipated with such delight. It was not natural, and he wearied himself trying to imagine what it might be.

“I will see what my sister says about it,” thought he.

But in the mean time he could only let her take her way; and he and May set out together on their journey, for he would not permit his daughter to travel alone.

And then for a few days Jean had the house to herself, and during these days, she became aware of one thing. She must turn her thoughts away from the constant dwelling on poor lost Geordie, and his wanderings on northern seas, or she would lose the power of thinking or caring for any one or any thing in the world besides.

It had nearly come to that already. If the wind blew, it was of him she thought, and it was the same if the sun shone, or the rain fell. Night and day her heart was heavy with fears for him. It was the shipping news she read first in the papers, about storms and wrecks of whale ships that had come home, and of some that might never come, till she grew morbid and heartsick with her doubts and her fears.

When she went to the town, or took her daily walk by the sea, she spoke with the fishermen about the signs of wind and weather, and with certain old sailors—long past sailing because of age and rheumatism—about the voyages they had made, and about the dangers of the deep, and the dreariness of Arctic seas when winter nights were long and the days “but a blink.” And of late, she had come to be aware that now and then as they talked, there was a look of wondering curiosity in their dim old eyes. They took her sixpences, and her “bits o’ backey” with smiles and nods of encouragement, and with assurances “that there was nothing like keeping a stout heart and a cheerful, on the shore as well as on the sea.”

“And they canna ken about Geordie,” she said to herself wondering.

No; they did not know about Geordie; but they saw the weary, wistful looks ever turned to the sea, and they could not but know that they must mean something, though neither kith nor kin of hers had sailed from the harbour of Portie, as far as they knew, for many a day. And thinking about their words and their looks, she told herself, that unless she meant to fall into utter uselessness and folly, she must shake herself free from this dull brooding over her fears. For the suspense must continue for months yet—perhaps for many months, and she began to be afraid for herself at the thought.

“I wonder what the sailors’ wives do, and their mothers and sisters all these wintry months? Do they sit and think of the danger, and the distance, and the long suspense? No, they must live and have patience, and take the good of other things, and trust in God—as I must, if I would not go wild.Theyget through, and I must.

“But then I must never speak about him, and my fears for him, and that must make it worse to bear. Oh, if I had but told my father that first night! How can I wait on for months like this?” and Jean suffered herself to cry as she had never cried before. She might cry this once since there was no one at home to notice the traces of tears. But all the same she knew that she must make a braver stand against the trouble that oppressed her, and even amid her tears she was saying that to-morrow she would begin.

And so when to-morrow came, instead of going toward the wild sea shore above the town, she set out to go directly to her aunt. It was not an agreeable day for a walk. It was not raining, but the mud was deep on the road, and the fields which Jean liked best at such times, were in places under water; and a wide ditch here and there was so full, that she had doubts of being able to get across, since the footing on either side could not but be insecure in the prevailing wetness. So she kept the highway, warily picking her steps, and meeting the wind from the sea with a sense of refreshment—and by and by with a conscious effect to throw off the weight of care which had so long oppressed her.

When she came to the corner at which she turned into the High-street, she saw Marion Calderwood coming toward her with her music book under her arm. A pretty sight she was to see, and a welcome as she sprang forward, greeting her joyfully. But a shadow passed over the girl’s face when the first words were spoken.

“Oh! yes. I am very glad to see you, and Miss Jean will be glad too. But if ye hadna come in this morning, I was going out to see what had become of you. Your aunt bade me ask my mother to let me go when my lesson was over—and—I think she would have let me.”

“And she’ll let you still. Run away now to your lesson, and you’ll find me at Aunt Jean’s, and we’ll go out together.”

Marion looked doubtful. “My mother would have let me go to oblige Miss Jean, but—she does not approve of my leaving my other lessons, for one thing—and besides—”

“Run away. I’ll ask your mother. She’ll let you go home with me, if I ask her.”

Marion was not very sure, nor was Jean. For Mrs Calderwood was a very proud woman, and her pride took the form of reserve, and a determined avoidance of any thing that looked like claiming consideration or attention from those whom, from their circumstances, she might suspect of wishing to hold themselves above her.

And there were reasons of another kind, Jean well knew, why she should look with little friendliness on any one in the house of Saughleas—reasons that must prevent all renewal of the intimacy that had been so warm and pleasant during her mother’s lifetime. Still she had almost always been friendly in manner with Jean when they had chanced to meet, but Jean had been but seldom in her house since she had come from school, and she was glad of the excuse which her proposed invitation to Marion gave her to go there. For it had come into her mind that she might speak to Mrs Calderwood about the trouble which she found it not easy to bear alone.

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