IN AYRSHIRE.
he old man passed a quiet night, and was so much better in the morning that he insisted on getting up.
'What kind of a morning is it?' was the first question he put to Gladys when she entered the kitchen soon after six o'clock.
'A lovely morning, uncle, so balmy and soft. You can't think what a difference from yesterday, and there's a bird singing a spring song in my tree.'
Often yet she said such things. The grey monotony of her life had not quite destroyed the poetic vein, nor the love of all things beautiful.
'Warm, is it? Have you been out?'
'Not yet; but I opened my window and put my head out, and the air was quite mild. A spring morning, Uncle Abel, the first we have had this year.'
'Any sun?'
'Not yet, but he will be up by and by. How have you slept?'
'Pretty well. I am better this morning—quite well, in fact, and directly you have the fire on I'll get up.'
'Don't be rash, uncle, I really think you ought to stay in bed to-day.'
'No; I have something to do. How soon can you be ready—finished with your work, I mean? Have you anything you can leave ready for Wat's dinner?'
'Why, Uncle Abel?' asked Gladys, in surprise.
'Because I want you to go somewhere with me.'
'You are not going out of this house one foot to-day,' she answered quickly. 'It would be very dangerous.'
The old man smiled, slightly amused, but not displeased, by the decision with which she spoke. 'We'll see, if it keeps fine, and the sun comes out. I'm going to-day, whatever the consequences, and you with me. It's been put off too long.'
Gladys asked no more questions, but made haste to build up the fire and get him a cup of tea before he rose.
'Put on your warm clothes, and make ready for a journey in the train, Gladys,' he said after breakfast.
She looked at him doubtfully, almost wondering if his mind did not wander a little.
'Uncle Abel, what are you thinking of? You never go journeys in trains. It will not be safe for you to go to-day, with such a cold,' she exclaimed.
'I am going, my dear, as I said, and so are you, whatever the consequences, so get ready as fast as you like, so that we may have the best of the day.'
'Is it a far journey?'
'You'll see when you get there,' he replied rather shortly; and Gladys, still wondering much, made haste with her work, and began to dress for this unexpected outing. But she felt uneasy, and, stealing a moment, ran up to Walter, who was busy in the warehouse, and revelling in the unaccustomed luxury of a blazing fire.
'How nice it is, and what a difference a fire can make, to be sure,' she said quickly. 'I say, Walter, such a thing! Uncle Abel is going a journey,—a railway journey, actually,—and I am going with him. Has he said anything to you? Have you any idea what it means?'
'Not I. He's a queer old chap. Not off his head, I hope?'
'Oh no, and he says he is quite well. I don't know what to think. Perhaps I shall understand it when I come back. You will find your dinner in the oven, Walter; and be sure to keep up a good fire all day down-stairs, in case uncle should come back very cold and tired. I am afraid he will, but it is no use saying anything.'
Walter leaned his elbows on the soap-boxes, and looked into the girl's face with a curious soberness.
'Something's going to happen, I feel it—something I don't like. I'm oppressed with an awful queer feeling. I hope they're not worse than usual at home.'
'Oh no, you are letting your imagination run away with you,' she said brightly. 'I hope you will have such a busy day you won't have time to think of such things;' and, bidding him good-morning, she ran down again to her uncle.
Then, for the first time since that memorable and dreary journey from the fen country, these two, the old man and the maiden, went forth together. Both thought of that journey, though it was not spoken of. She could not fail to see that there was a certain excitement in the old man; it betrayed itself in his restless movements and in the gleam of his piercing eye. Gladys no longer feared the glance of his eye nor the sound of his voice. A quiet confidence had established itself between them, and she really loved him. It was impossible for her to dwell beside a human being, not absolutely repulsive, without pouring some of the riches of her affection upon him. As for him, Gladys herself had not the remotest idea how he regarded her, did not dream that she had awakened in his withered heart a slow and all-absorbing affection, the strength of which surprised himself. He bade her stand back while he went to the booking-office for the tickets, and they were in the train before she repeated her question regarding their destination.
'I think it would only be fair, Uncle Abel, if you told me now where we are going,' she said playfully.
For answer, he held out the ticket to her, and in amazement she read 'Mauchline' on it. The colour flushed all over her face, and she looked at him with eager, questioning eyes.
'Oh, Uncle Abel, what does it mean? Why are you going there to-day? I cannot understand it.'
'I have my reasons, Gladys. You will know them, perhaps, sooner than you think.'
'Is it a long journey, uncle? I am so afraid for you. Let me shut the window up quite. And are we really, really going into Ayrshire at last?'
She was full of excitement as a child. She sat close to the window, and when the train had left the city behind, looked out with eagerest interest on the wintry landscape.
'Oh, Uncle Abel, it is so beautiful to see it, the wide country, and the sky above it so clear and lovely. Oh, there is room to breathe!'
'I am sure it looks wintry and bleak enough,' the old man answered, with a grunt. 'I don't see much beauty in it myself.'
'How strange! To me it is wholly beautiful. Is this Ayrshire yet? Tell me when we come to Ayrshire.'
A slow smile was on the old man's face as he looked and listened. He enjoyed her young enthusiasm, but it seemed to awaken in him some sadder thought, for once he sighed heavily, and drew himself together as if he felt cold, or some bitter memory smote him.
In little more than an hour the train drew up at the quiet country station, and Gladys was told they had reached their journey's end. It was a lovely spring morning; the sun shone out cheerfully from a mild, bright sky, the air was laden with the awakening odours of spring, and the spirit of life seemed to be everywhere.
'Now, my girl, we have a great deal to do to-day,' said the old man, when they had crossed the footbridge. 'What do you want most to see here?'
'Mossgiel and Ballochmyle, and the house where you lived in Mauchline.'
'We'll go to that first; it's not a great sight, I warn you—only a whitewashed, thatched cottage in a by-street. When we've seen that, we'll take a trap and drive to the other places.'
'But that will cost a great deal,' said Gladys doubtfully, recalled for the moment to the small economies it was her daily lot to practise.
'Perhaps; but we'll manage it, I daresay. It is impossible for us to walk, so there's no use saying another word. Give me your arm.'
Gladys was ready in a moment. Never since the old fen days had she felt so happy, because the green earth was beneath her feet, the trees waving above her, the song of birds in her ears instead of the roar of city streets. They did not talk as they walked, until they turned into the quaint, wide street of the old-fashioned village; then it was as if the cloak of his reserve fell from Abel Graham, and he became garrulous as a boy over these old landmarks which he had never forgotten. He led Gladys by way of Poosie Nancie's tavern, showed her its classic interior, and then, turning into a little narrow lane, pointed out the cottage where he and her father had been boys together.
It was the girl's turn to be silent. She was trying to picture the dear father a boy at his mother's knee, or running in and out that low doorway, or helping to swell the boyish din in the narrow street; and when they turned to go, her eyes were wet with tears.
'I would rather have come here to-day, Uncle Abel, than anywhere else in the whole wide world. But why did you wish to come? Did you take a sudden longing to see the old place?'
'No; that was not my object at all. You will know what it was some day. Now we'll go to the inn and get something to eat while they get our machine ready. See, there's the old kirk; there's a lot of famous folk buried in that kirkyard. We'd better go in, and I'll show you where I want to be laid.'
They got the key of the churchyard gates, and, stepping across the somewhat untidily kept graves, stood before an uneven mound, surrounded by a very old mossgrown headstone.
'There's a name on it, child. You can't read it, but it doesn't matter,' he said; but Gladys, bending down, brushed the tall grass from the stone, and read the name, John Bourhill Graham of Bourhill, and his spouse, Nancy Millar.
'Whose names are these, uncle—your father's and mother's?'
'Oh no; they were not Grahams of Bourhill,' he answered dryly. 'That's generations back.'
'But the same family?'
'I suppose so—yes. I see you would like to explore this place; but we can't, it's not the most cheerful occupation, anyhow. Come on, let us to the inn.'
The lavish manner in which her uncle spent his money that day amazed Gladys, but she made no remark. Immediately after their hot and abundant dinner at the inn, they drove to the places Burns has immortalised, and which Gladys had so long yearned to see. Ballochmyle, in lovely spring dress, so far exceeded her expectation that she had no words wherein to express her deep enjoyment.
'Do not let us hurry away, uncle,' she pleaded, as they wandered through the wooded glades, 'unless you are very tired. It is so warm and pleasant, and it cannot be very late.'
'It is not late, half-past two only; but I want you to see Bourhill, where our forbears lived when we had them worth mentioning,' he said grimly. 'Did your father never speak to you about Bourhill?'
'No, never, Uncle Abel. I am quite sure I never heard the name until I read it to-day in the churchyard.'
'I will tell you why. He had a dream—a foolish one it proved—a dream that he might one day restore the name Graham of Bourhill again. He hoped to make a fortune by his pictures, but it was a vain delusion.'
A shadow clouded the bright face of Gladys as she listened to these words.
'This place, Bourhill, is it an estate, or what?' she asked.
'Not now. A hundred years ago it had some farms, and was a fair enough patrimony, but it's all squandered long syne.'
'Oh, drink and gambling, and such-like. My grand-father, David Graham, kent the taste of Poosie Nancie's whisky too well to look after his ain, and it slipped through his fingers like a knotless thread.'
He had become even more garrulous, and unearthed from the storehouse of his memory a wealth of reminiscences of those old times, mingled with many bits of personal history, which Gladys listened to with breathless interest. She had never seen him so awakened, so full of life and vigour; she could only look at him in amazement. They drove leisurely through the pleasant spring sunshine over the wide, beautiful country, past fields where the wheat was green and strong, and others where sowing was progressing merrily—sights and sounds dear to Gladys, who had no part nor lot in cities.
'Oh, Uncle Abel, Ayrshire is lovely. Look at these low green hills in the distance, and the woods everywhere. I do not wonder that Burns could write poetry here. There is poetry everywhere.'
'Ay, to your eyes, because you are young and know no better. Look, away over yonder, as far as your eyes can see, is the sea. If it was a little clearer you would see the ships in Ayr Harbour; and down there lies Tarbolton; away over there, the way we have come, Kilmarnock. And do you see that little wooded hill about two miles ahead to the left? Among these trees lies Bourhill.'
'It is a long drive to it, Uncle Abel. I hope it has not tired you very much?'
'No, no; I'm all right. We'll drive up the avenue to the house and back. I want you to see it.'
'Does nobody live in it?'
Another fifteen minutes brought them to an unpretending iron gateway, which gave entrance to an avenue of fine old trees. The gate stood open, and though a woman ran out from the lodge when the trap passed, she made no demur.
The avenue was nearly half a mile in length, and ended in a sharp curve, which brought them quite suddenly before the house—a plain, square, substantial family dwelling, with a pillared doorway and long wide windows, about which crept ivy of a century's growth. It was all shut up, and the gravel sweep before the door was overgrown with moss and weeds, the grass on the lawns, which stretched away through the shrubberies, long and rank; yet there was a homely look about it too, as if a slight touch could convert it into a happy home.
'This is Bourhill, my girl; and whatever ambitions your father may have had in later years, it was once his one desire to buy it back to the Grahams. Do you like the place?'
'Yes, uncle; but it is very desolate—it makes me sad.'
'It will not be long so,' he said; and, drawing himself together with a quick shiver, he bade the driver turn the horses' heads. But before the house vanished quite from view he cast his gaze back upon it, and in his eye there was a strange, even a yearning glance. 'It will not be long so,' he repeated under his breath,—'not long; and it will be a great atonement.'
