Chapter Five.
Leaving the Nest.
“I’ve kept old ways, and loved old friends,
Till, one by one, they’ve slipped away;
Stand where we will, cling as we like,
There’s none but God can be our stay.
’Tis only by our hold on Him
We keep a hold on those who pass
Out of our sight across the seas,
Or underneath the churchyard grass.”
Isabella Fyvie Mayo.
Carlisle, April the 5th, 1744 or 5.
I really feel that I must put a date to my writing now, when this is the first time of my going out into the great world. I have never been beyond Carlisle before, and now I am going, first into a new country, and then to London itself, if all go well.
News came last night, just before we started, that my Lord Orford is dead—he that was Sir Robert Walpole, and the Elector’s Prime Minister. Father says his death is a good thing for the country, for it gives more hope that the King may come by his own. I don’t know what would happen if he did. I suppose it would not make much difference to us. Indeed, I rather wish things would not happen, for the things that happen are so often disagreeable ones. I said so this evening, and Mr Keith smiled, and answered, “You are young to have reached that conviction, Miss Caroline.”
“Oh, rubbish!” said Angus. “Only old women talk so!”
“Angus, will you please tell me,” said I, “whether young men have generally more sense than old women?”
“Of course they have!” replied he.
“The young men are apt to think so,” added Flora.
“But have young women more sense than old ones?” said I. “Because I see, whenever people mean to speak of anything as particularly silly, they always say it is worthy of an old woman. Now why an old woman? Have I more commonsense now than I shall have fifty years hence? And if so, at what age may I expect it to take leave of me?”
“You are not talking sense now, at any rate,” replied Angus—who might be my brother, instead of my cousin, for the way in which he takes me up, whatever I say.
“Pardon me,” said Mr Keith. “I think Miss Caroline is talking very good sense.”
“Then you may answer her,” said Angus.
“Nay,” returned Mr Keith. “The question was addressed to you.”
“Oh, all women are sillies!” was Angus’s flattering answer. “They’re just a pack of ninnies, the whole lot of them.”
“It seems to me, Angus,” observed Mr Keith, quite gravely, “that you must have paid twopence extra for manners.”
Flora and I laughed.
“I was not rich enough to go in for any,” growled Angus. “I’m not a laird’s son, Mr Duncan Keith, so you don’t need to throw stones at me.”
“Did I, Angus? I beg your pardon.”
Angus muttered something which I did not hear, and was silent. I thought I had better let the subject drop.
But before we went to bed, something happened which I never saw before. Mr Keith took a book from his pocket, and sat down at the table. Flora rose and went to the sofa, motioning to me to come beside her. Even Angus twisted himself round, and sat in a more decorous way.
“What are we going to do?” I asked of Flora.
“The exercise, dear,” said she.
“Exercise!” cried I. “What are we to exercise?”
A curious sort of gurgle came from Angus’s part of the room, as if a laugh had made its way into his throat, and he had smothered it in its cradle.
“The word is strange to Miss Caroline,” said Mr Keith, looking round with a smile. “We Scots people, Madam, speak of exercising our souls in prayer. We are about to read in God’s Word, and pray, if you please. It is our custom, morning and evening.”
“But how can we pray?” said I. “There is no clergyman.”
“Though I am not a minister,” replied Mr Keith, “yet I trust I have learned to pray.”
It seemed to me so strange that anybody not a clergyman should think of praying before other people! However, I sat down, of course, on the sofa by Flora, and listened while Mr Keith read something out of the Gospel of Saint John, about the woman of Samaria, and what our Lord said to her. But I never heard such reading in my life! I thought I could have gone on listening to him all night. The only clergymen that I ever heard read were Mr Bagnall and poor old Mr Digby, and the one always read in a high singsong tone, which gave me the idea that it was nothing I need listen to; and the other mumbled indistinctly, so that I never heard what he said. But Mr Keith read as if the converse were really going on, and you actually heard our Lord and the woman talking to one another at the well. He made it seem so real that I almost fancied I could hear the water trickling, and see the cool wet green mosses round the old well. Oh, if clergymen would always read and preach as if the things were real, how different going to church would be!
Then we knelt down, and Mr Keith prayed. It was not out of the Prayer-Book. And I dare say, if I were to hear nothing but such prayers, I might miss the dear old prayers that have been like sweet sounds floating around me ever since I knew anything. But this evening, when it was all new, it came to me as so solemn and so real! This was not saying one’s prayers; it was talking to one’s Friend. And it seemed as if God really were Mr Keith’s Friend—as if they knew each other, and were not strangers at all, but each understood what the other would like or dislike, and they wanted to please one another. I hope I am not irreverent in writing so, but really it did seem like that. And I never saw anything like it before.
I suppose, to the others, it was an old worn-out story—all this which came so new and fresh to me. When we rose up, Angus said, without any pause,—
“Well! I am off to bed. Good-night, all of you.”
Flora went up to him and offered him a kiss, which he took as if it were a condescension to an inferior creature; and then, without saying anything more to Mr Keith or me, lighted his candle and went away. Flora sighed as she looked after him, and Mr Keith looked at her as if he felt for her.
“I shall be glad to get him home,” said Flora, answering Mr Keith’s look, I think. “If he can only get back to Father, then, perhaps—”
“Aye,” said Mr Keith, meaningly, “it is all well, when we do get back to the Father.”
Flora shook her head sorrowfully. “Not that!” she answered. “O Duncan, I am afraid, not that, yet! I feel such terrible fear sometimes lest he should never come back at all, or if he do, should have to come over sharp stones and through thorny paths.”
“‘So He bringeth them unto their desired haven,’” was Mr Keith’s gentle answer.
“I know!” she said, with a sigh. “I suppose I ought to pray and wait. Father does, I am sure. But it is hard work!”
Mr Keith did not answer for a moment; and when he did, it was by another bit of the Bible. At least I think it was the Bible, for it sounded like it, but I should not know where to find it.
“‘Wait on the Lord; be of good courage, and He shall strengthen thine heart; wait, I say, on the Lord.’”
Castleton, April the sixth.
Mr Keith left us so early this morning that there was not time for anything except breakfast and good-bye. I feel quite sorry to lose him, and wish I had a brother like him. (Not like Angus—dear me, no!) Why could we four girls not have had one brother?
About half an hour after Mr Keith was gone, the Scots gentleman with whom we were to travel—Mr Cameron—came in. He is a man of about fifty, bald-headed and rosy-faced, pleasant and chatty enough, only I do not quite always understand him. By six o’clock we were all packed into his chaise, and a few minutes later we set forth from the inn door. The streets of Carlisle felt like home; but as we left them behind, and came gradually out into the open country, it dawned upon me that now, indeed, I was going out into the great world.
We sleep here to-night, where Flora and I have a little bit of a bed-chamber next door to a larger one where Mr Cameron and Angus are. On Monday we expect to reach Abbotscliff. I am too tired to write more.
Abbotscliff Manse, April the ninth.
I really could not go on any sooner. We reached the manse—what an odd name for a vicarage!—about four o’clock yesterday afternoon. The church (which Flora calls the kirk) and the manse, with a few other houses, stand on a little rising ground, and the rest of the village lies below.
But before I begin to talk about the manse, I want to write down a conversation which took place on Monday morning as we journeyed, in which Mr Cameron told us some curious things that I do not wish to forget. We were driving through such a pretty little village, and in one of the doorways an old woman sat with her knitting.
“Oh, look at that dear old woman!” cries Flora. “How pleasant she looks, with her clean white apron and mutch!”
“Much, Flora?” said I. “What do you mean?” I thought it such an odd word to use. What was she much?
Flora looked puzzled, and Mr Cameron answered for her, with amusement in his eyes.
“A mutch, young lady,” said he, “is what you in the South call a cap.”
“The South!” cried I. “Why, Mr Cameron, you do not think we live in the South?”
I felt almost vexed that he should fancy such a thing. For all that Grandmamma and my Aunt Dorothea used to say, I always look down upon the South. All the people I have seen who came from the South seemed to me to have a great deal of wiliness and foolishness, and no commonsense. I suppose the truth is that there are agreeable people, and good people, in the South, only they have not come my way.
When I cried out like that, Mr Cameron laughed.
“Well,” said he, “north and south are comparative terms. We in Scotland think all England ‘the South,’—and so it is, if you will think a moment. You in Cumberland, I suppose, draw the line at the Trent or the Humber; lower down, they employ the Thames; and a Surrey man thinks Sussex is the South. ’Tis all a matter of comparison.”
“What does a Sussex man call the South?” said Angus.
“Spain and Portugal, I should think,” said Mr Cameron.
“But, Mr Cameron,” said I, “asking your pardon, is there not some difference of character or disposition between those in the North and in the South—I mean, of England?”
“Quite right, young lady,” said he. “They are different tribes; and the Lowland Scots, among whom you are now coming, have the same original as yourself. There were two tribes amongst those whom we call Anglo-Saxons, that peopled England after the Britons were driven into Wales—namely, as you might guess, the Angles and the Saxons. The Angles ran from the Frith of Forth to the Trent; the Saxons from the Thames southward. The midland counties were in all likelihood a mixture of the two. There are, moreover, several foreign elements beyond this, in various counties. For instance, there is a large influx of Danish blood on the eastern coast, in parts of Lancashire, in Yorkshire and Lincolnshire, and in the Weald of Sussex; there was a Flemish settlement in Lancashire and Norfolk, of considerable extent; the Britons were left in great numbers in Cumberland and Cornwall; the Jutes—a variety of Dane—peopled Kent entirely. Nor must we forget the Romans, who left a deep impress upon us, especially amongst Welsh families. ’Tis not easy for any of our mixed race to say, I am this, or that. Why, if most of us spoke the truth (supposing we might know it), we should say, ‘I am one-quarter Saxon, one-eighth British, one-sixteenth Iberian, one-eighth Danish, one-sixteenth Flemish, one-thirty-secondth part Roman,’—and so forth. Now, Miss Caroline, how much of that can you remember?”
“All of it, I hope, Sir,” said I; “I shall try to do so. I like to hear of those old times. But would you please to tell me, what is an Iberian?”
“My dear,” said Mr Cameron, smiling, “I would gladly give you fifty pounds in gold, if you could tell me.”
“Sir!” cried I, in great surprise.
He went on, more as if he were talking to himself, or to some very learned man, than to me.
“What is an Iberian? Ah, for the man who could tell us! What is a Basque?—what is an Etruscan?—what is a Magyar?—above all, what is a Cagot? Miss Caroline, my dear, there are deep questions in all arts and sciences; and, without knowing it, you have lighted on one of the deepest and most interesting. The most learned man that breathes can only answer you, as I do now (though I am far from being a learned man)—I do not know. I will, nevertheless, willingly tell you what little I do know; and the rather if you take an interest in such matters. All that we really know of the Iberii is that they came from Spain, and that they had reached that country from the East; that they were a narrow-headed people (the Celts or later Britons were round-headed); that they dwelt in rude houses in the interior of the country, first digging a pit in the ground, and building over it a kind of hut, sometimes of turf and sometimes of stone; that they wore very rude clothing, and were generally much less civilised than the Celts, who lived mainly on the coast; that they loved to dwell, and especially to worship, on a mountain top; that they followed certain Eastern observances, such as running or leaping through the fire to Bel,—which savours of a Phoenician or Assyrian origin; and that it is more than likely that we owe to them those stupendous monuments yet standing—Stonehenge, Avebury, the White Horse of Berkshire, and the White Man of Wilmington.”
“But what sort of a religion had they, if you please, Sir?” said I; for I wanted to get to know all I could about these strange fathers of ours.
“Idolatry, my dear, as you might suppose,” answered Mr Cameron. “They worshipped the sun, which they identified with the serpent; and they had, moreover, a sacred tree—all, doubtless, relics of Eden. They would appear also to have had some sort of woman-worship, for they held women in high honour, loved female sovereignty, and practised polyandry—that is, each woman had several husbands.”
“I never heard of such queer folks!” said I. “And what became of them, Sir?”
“The Iberians and Celts together,” he answered, “made up the people we call Britons. When the Saxons invaded the country, they were driven into the remote fastnesses of Wales, Cumberland, and Cornwall. Some antiquaries think the Picts had the same original, but this is one of the unsettled points of history.”
“I wish it were possible to settle all such questions!” said Flora.
“So do the antiquaries, I can assure you,” returned Mr Cameron, with a smile. “But it is scarce possible to come to a conclusion with any certainty as to the origin of a people of whom we cannot recover the language.”
“If you please, Sir,” said I, “what has the language to do with it?”
“It has everything to do with it, Miss Caroline. You did not know that languages grew, like plants, and could be classified in groups after the same manner?”
“Please explain to us, Mr Cameron,” said Flora. “It all sounds so strange.”
“But it is very interesting,” I said. “I want to know all about it.”
“If you want to know all about it,” answered our friend, “you must consult some one else than me, for I do not know nearly all about it. In truth, no one does. For myself, I have only arrived at the stage of knowing that I know next to nothing.”
“That’s easy enough to know, surely,” said Angus.
“Not at all, Angus. It is one of the most difficult things to ascertain in this world. No man is so ready to give an off-hand opinion on any and every subject, as the man who knows absolutely nothing. But we must not start another hare while the young ladies’ question remains unanswered. Languages, my dears, are not made; they grow. The first language—that spoken in Eden—may have been given to man ready-made, by God; but I rather imagine, from the expressions of Holy Writ, that what was granted to Adam was the inward power of forming a tongue which should be rational and consistent with itself; and, if so, no doubt it was granted to Eve that she should understand him—perhaps that she should possess a similar power.”
“The woman made the language, Sir, you may be sure,” said Angus. “They are shocking chatterers.”
“Unfortunately, my boy, Scripture is against you. ‘Whatsoever Adam’—not Eve—‘called the name of every living creature, that was the name thereof.’ To proceed:—The confusion of tongues at Babel seems, from what we can gather, to have called into being a number of languages quite separate from each other, yet all having a certain affinity. The structure differs; but some of the words are alike, or at least so nearly alike that the resemblance can be traced. Take the word for ‘father’ in all languages: cut down to its root, there is the same root found in all. Ab in Hebrew, abba in Syriac, pater in Greek and Latin, vater in Low Dutch, père in French, padre in Spanish and Italian, father in English—ay, even the child’s papa and the infant’s daddy—all come from one root. But this cutting away of superfluities to get at the root, is precisely what a ’prentice hand should not attempt; like an unskilled gardener, he will prune away the wrong branches.”
“Then, Sir,” I asked, “what are the languages which belong to the same class as ours?”
“Ours, young lady, is a composite language. It may almost be said to be made up of bits of other languages. German or Low Dutch is its mother, and the Scandinavian group—Swedish, Danish, and so forth—may be termed its aunts. It belongs mostly to what is called the Teutonic group; but there are in it traces of Celtic, and though more dimly perceptible, even of Latin and Oriental tongues. We are altogether a made-up nation—to which fact some say that we owe those excellences on which we are so fond of priding ourselves.”
“Please, Sir, what are they?” I asked.
Mr Cameron seemed much amused at the question.
“What are the excellences we have?” said he; “or, what are those on which we pride ourselves? They are often not the same. And—notice it, young ladies, as you go through life—the virtue on which a man plumes himself the most highly is very frequently one which he possesses in small measure. (I do not say, in no measure.) Well, I suppose the qualities on which we English—”
“We are not English!” cried Angus, hotly.
“For this purpose we are,” was Mr Cameron’s answer. “As I observed before, the Lowland Scots and the northern English are one tribe. But I was going to say, when you were so rude as to interrupt me, English and Scots, young gentleman.”
Angus growled out, “Beg your pardon.”
“Take it,” said Mr Cameron, pleasantly. “Now for the question. On what good qualities do we plume ourselves? Well, I think, on steadiness, independence, loyalty, truthfulness, firmness, honesty, and love of fair play. How far we are justified in doing so, perhaps other nations are the better judges. They, I believe, generally regard us as a proud and surly race—qualities on which there is no occasion to plume ourselves.”
“Much loyalty we have got to glory in!” said Angus.
“We have always tried,” replied Mr Cameron, “to run loyalty and liberty together; and when the two pull smoothly, undoubtedly the national chaise gets along the best. Unhappily, when harnessed to the same chariot, one of those steeds is very apt to kick over the traces. But we will not venture on such delicate ground, seeing that our political colours differ; nor is this the time to do it, for here is the inn where we are to dine.”
When we drove up to the manse on Wednesday, the floor stood open, and in the doorway was Helen Raeburn, who had evidently seen our chaise, and was waiting for us. Flora was out the first, and she and Helen flew into one another’s arms, and hugged and kissed each other as if they could never leave off. I was surprised to find Helen so old. I thought Elspie’s niece would have been between thirty and forty; and she looks more like sixty. Then Flora flew into the house to find her father, and Helen turned to me.
“You’re vara welcome, young leddy,” said she, “and the Lord make ye a blessin’ amang us. Will ye come ben the now? Miss Flora, she’s aff to find the minister, bless her bonnie face!—but if ye’ll please to come awa’ wi’ me, I’ll show ye the way.—Maister Angus, my laddie, welcome hame!—are ye grown too grand to kiss your auld nursie, my callant?”
Angus gave her a kiss, but not at all like Flora; rather as if he had it to do, and wanted to get it over.
“Well, Helen!” said Mr Cameron, as he came down from the chaise, “and how goes the world with you, my woman?”
“I wish ye a gude evening, Mr Alexander,” said she. “The warld gaes vara weel wi’ me, thanks to ye for speirin’. No that the warld’s onie better, but the Lord turns all to gude for His ain. The minister’s in his study, and he’ll be blithe to see ye. Now, my lassie—I ask your pardon, but ye see I’m used to Miss Flora.”
“Please call me just what you like,” I said, and I followed Helen up a little passage paved with stone, and into a room on the right hand, where I found Flora standing by a tall fine-looking man, who had his arm round her shoulders, and who was so like her that he could only be her father. Flora’s face was lighted up as I had seen it but once before—so bright and happy she looked!
“And here is our young guest, your cousin,” said my Uncle Drummond, turning to me with a very kind smile. “My dear, may your stay be profitable and pleasant among us,—ay, and mayest thou find favour in the eyes of the God of Israel, under whose wings thou art come to trust!”
It sounded very strange to me. Did these people pray about everything? I had heard Father speak contemptuously of “praying Presbyters,” and I thought Uncle Drummond must be one of that sort. But I could not see that a minister looked at all different from a clergyman. They seemed to me very much the same sort of creature.
Mr Cameron was to stay the night at the manse, and to go on in the morning to his own home, which is about fourteen miles further. Flora carried me off to her chamber, where she and I were to sleep, and we changed our travelling dresses, and had a good wash, and then came down to supper. During the evening Mr Cameron said, laughingly,—
“Well, my fair maid who objects to the South, have you digested the Iberii?”
“I think I have remembered all you told us, Sir,” said I; “but if you please, I am very sorry, but I am afraid we do come from the South. Our family, I mean. My father’s father, I believe, belonged Wiltshire; and his father, who was a captain in the navy, was a Courtenay of Powderham, whatever that means. My sister Fanny knows all about it, but I don’t understand it—only I am afraid we must have come from the South.”
Mr Cameron laughed, and so did my Uncle Drummond and Flora.
“Don’t you, indeed, young lady?” said the first. “Well, it only means that you have half the kings of England and France, and a number of emperors of the East, among your forefathers. Very blue blood indeed, Miss Caroline. I do not see how, with that pedigree, you could be anything but a Tory. Mr Courtenay is rather warm that way, I understand.”
“Oh, Father is as strong as he can be,” said I. “I should not dare to talk of the Elector of Hanover by any other name if he heard me.”
“Well, you may call that gentleman what you please here,” said Mr Cameron; “but I usually style him King George.”
“Nay, Sandy, do not teach the child to disobey her father,” said my Uncle Drummond. “The Fifth Command is somewhat older than the Brunswick succession and the Act of Settlement.”
“A little,” said Mr Cameron, drily.
“Little Cary,” said my uncle, softly, turning to me, “do you know that you are very like somebody?”
“Like whom, Uncle?” said I.
“Somebody I loved very much, my child,” he answered, rather sadly; “from whom Angus has his blue eyes, and Flora her smile.”
“You mean Aunt Jane,” said I, speaking as softly as he had done, for I felt that she had been very dear to him.
“Yes, my dear,” he replied; “I mean my Jeannie. You are very like her. I think we shall love each other, Cary.”
I thought so too.
Mr Cameron left us this morning. To-day I have been exploring with Flora, who wants to go all over the house and garden and village—speaks of her pet plants as if they were old friends, and shakes hands with everyone she meets, and pats every dog and cat in the place. And they all seem so glad to see her—the dogs included; I do not know about the cats. As we went down the village street, it was quite amusing to hear the greetings from every doorway.
“Atweel, Miss Flora, ye’ve won hame!” said one.
“How’s a’ wi’ ye, my bairn?” said another.
“A blessing on your bonnie e’en, my lassie!” said a third.
And Flora had the same sort of thing for all of them. It was, “Well, Jeannie, is your Maggie still in her place?” or, “I hope Sandy’s better now?” or, “Have you lost your pains, Isabel?” She seemed to know all about each one. I was quite diverted to hear it all. They all appeared rather shy with me, only very kindly; and when Flora introduced me as “her cousin from England,” which she did in every cottage, they had all something kind to say: that they hoped I was well after my journey, or they trusted I should like Scotland, or something of that sort. Two told me I was a bonnie lassie. But at last we came to a shut door—most were open—and Flora knocked and waited for an answer. She said gravely to me,—
“A King’s daughter lies here, Cary, waiting for her Father’s chariot to take her home.”
A fresh-coloured, middle-aged woman came to the door, and I was surprised to hear Flora say, “How is your grandmother, Elsie?”
“She’s mickle as ye laft her, Miss Flora, only weaker; I’m thinkin’ she’ll no be lang the now. But come ben, my bonnie lassie; you’re as welcome as flowers in May. And how’s a’ wi’ ye?”
Flora answered as we were following Elsie down the chamber and round a screen which boxed off the end of it. Behind the screen was a bed, and on it lay, as I thought, the oldest woman on whom I ever set my eyes. Her face was all wrinkled up, yet there was a fresh colour in her cheeks, and her eyes, though much sunk, seemed piercingly bright.
“Ye’re come at last,” she said, in a low clear voice, as Flora sat down on the bed, and took the wrinkled brown hand in hers.
“Yes, dear Mirren, come at last,” said she. “I’m very glad to get home.”
“Ay, and that’s what I’ll be the morn.”
“So soon, Mirren?”
“Ay, just sae soon. I askit Him to let me bide while ye came hame. I ay thocht I wad fain see ye ance mair—my Miss Flora’s lad’s lassie. He’s gi’en me a’ that ever I askit Him—but ane thing, an’ that was the vara desire o’ my heart.”
“You mean,” said Flora, gently, “you wanted Ronald to come home?”
“Ay, I wanted him to come hame frae the far country!” said old Mirren with a sigh. “I’d ha’e likit weel to see him come hame to Abbotscliff—vara weel. But I longed mickle mair to see him come hame to the Father’s house. It’s no for his auld minnie to see that. But if it’s for the Lord to see some ither day, I’m content. And He has gi’en me sae monie things that I ne’er askit Him wi’ ane half the longing that I did for that, I dinna think He’ll say me nay the now.”
“Is He with you, Mirren dear?”
I could not imagine how Flora thought Mirren was to know that. But she answered, with a light in those bright eyes,—
“Ay, my doo. ‘His left haun is under my heid, and His richt haun doth embrace me.’”
I sat and listened in wonder. It all sounded so strange. Yet Flora seemed to understand. And I had such an unpleasant sense of being outside, and not understanding, as I never felt before, and I did not like it a bit. I knew quite well that if Father had been there, he would have said it was all stuff and cant. But I did not feel so sure of my Aunt Kezia. And suppose it were not cant, but was something unutterably real,—something that I ought to know, and must know some day, if I were ever to get to Heaven! I did not like it. I felt that I was among a new sort of people—people who lived, as it were, in a different place from me—a sort of whom I had never seen one before (that did not come from Abbotscliff) except my Aunt Kezia, and there were differences between her and them. My Uncle Drummond and Flora, and Mr Keith, and this old Mirren, and I thought Helen Raeburn and Mr Cameron, all belonged this new sort of people. The one who did not seem to belong them was Angus. Yet I did not like Angus nearly so well as the rest. And yet he belonged my sort of people. It was a puzzle altogether, and not a pleasant puzzle. And how anybody was to get out of the one set into the other set, I could not tell at all.
Stop! I did know one other person at Brocklebank who belonged this new sort of people. It was Ephraim Hebblethwaite. He was not, I thought—well, I don’t know how to put it—he did not seem so far on the road as the others; only he was on that road, and not on this road. And then it struck me, too, whether old Elspie, and perhaps Sam, were not on the road as well. I ran over in my mind, as I was walking back to the manse with Flora, who was very silent, all the people I knew; and I could not think of one other who might be on Flora’s road. Father and my sisters, Esther Langridge, the Catteralls, the Bracewells, Cecilia—oh dear, no!—Mr Digby, Mr Bagnall (yet they were parsons), Mr Parmenter—no, not one. At all the four I named last, my mind gave a sort of jump as if it were quite astonished to be asked the question. But where did the roads lead? Flora and her sort, I felt quite sure, were going to Heaven. Then where were Angus and I and all the rest going?
And I did not like the answer at all.
But I felt that the two roads led in opposite ways, and they could not both go to one place.
As we walked up the path to the manse, Helen came out to meet us.
“My lassie,” she said to Flora, “there’s Miss Annas i’ the garden, and Leddy Monksburn wad ha’e ye gang till Monksburn for a dish o’ tea, and Miss Cary wi’ ye.”
Flora’s face lighted up.
“Oh, how delightful!” she said. “Come, Cary—come and see Annas Keith.”
I was very curious to see Annas, and I followed willingly. Under the old beech at the bottom of the garden sat a girl-woman—she was not either, but both—in a gown of soft camlet, which seemed as if it were part of her; I do not mean so much in the fit of it, as in the complete suitableness of it and her. Her head was bent down over a book, and I could not see her face at first—only her hair, which was neither light nor dark, but had a kind of golden shimmer. Her hat lay beside her on the seat. Flora ran down the walk with a glad cry of “Annas!” and then she stood up, and I saw Annas Keith.
A princess! was my first thought. I saw a tall, slight figure, a slender white throat, a pure pale face, dark grey eyes with black lashes, and a soul in them. Some people have no souls in their eyes, Annas Keith has.
Yet I could not have said then, and I cannot say now, when I try to recall her picture in my mind’s eye, whether Annas Keith is beautiful. It does not seem the right word to describe her: and yet “ugly” would be much further off. She is one of those women about whose beauty or want of beauty you never think unless you are trying to describe them, and then you cannot tell what to say about it. She takes you captive. There is a charm about her that I cannot put into words. Only it is as different from the spell that Cecilia Osborne threw over me (at first) as light differs from darkness. The charm about Annas feels as if it lifted me higher, into a purer air. Whenever I had been long with Cecilia, my mind felt soiled, as if I had been breathing bad air.
When Flora introduced me, Miss Keith turned and kissed me, and I felt as if I had been presented to a queen.
“We want to know you,” she said. “All Flora’s friends are our friends. You will come, both of you?”
“I thank you, Miss Keith,” said I. “I should like to come very much.”
“Annas, please,” she said quietly, with that sweet smile of hers. It is only when she smiles that she reminds me of her brother.
“And how are the Laird and Lady Monksburn?” said Flora.
I did not know that the Laird (as they always seem to call the squires here) had been a titled gentleman: and I said so. Annas smiled.
“Our titles will seem odd to you,” said she. “We call a Scots gentleman by the name of his estate, and every laird’s wife is ‘Lady’—only by custom and courtesy, you understand. My mother really is only Mrs Keith, but you will hear everybody call her Lady Monksburn.”
“Then if my father were here, they would call him—” I hesitated, and Flora ended the sentence for me.
“The Laird of Brocklebank; and if you had a mother she would be Lady Brocklebank.”
I thought it sounded rather pleasant.
“And when is Duncan coming home?” asked Flora.
“To-morrow, or the day after, we hope,” said Annas.
I noticed that she had less of the Scots accent than Flora; and Mr Keith has it scarcely at all. I found after a while that Lady Monksburn is English, and that Annas has spent much of her life in England. I wanted to know what part of England it was, and she said, “The Isle of Wight.”
“Why, then you do really come from the South!” cried I. “Do tell me something about it. Are there any agreeable people there?—I mean, except you.”
Annas laughed. “I hope you have seen few people from the South,” said she, “if that be your impression of them.”
“Only two,” said I; “and I did not like either of them one bit.”
“Well, two is no large acquaintance,” said Annas. “Let me assure you that there are plenty of agreeable people in the South, and good people also; though I will not say that they are not different from us in the North. They speak differently, and their manners are more polished.”
“But it is just that polish I feel afraid of,” I replied. “It looks to me so like a mask. If we are bears in the North, at least we mean what we say.”
“I do not think you need fear a polished Christian,” said Annas. “A worldly man, polished or unpolished, may do you hurt.”
“But are we not all Christians?” said I. And the words were scarcely out of my lips when the thoughts came back to me which had been tormenting me as we walked up from old Mirren’s cottage. Those two roads! Did Annas mean that only those were Christians who took the higher one? Only, what was there in the air of Abbotscliff which seemed to make people Christians? or in that of Brocklebank, which seemed unfavourable to it?
“Those are Christians who follow Christ,” said Annas. “Do you think they who do not, have a right to the name?”
“I should like to think more about it,” I answered. “It all looks strange to me.”
“Do think about it,” replied Annas.
When we came to Monksburn, which is about a mile from the manse, I found it was a most charming place on the banks of the Tweed. The lawn ran sloping down to the river; and the house was a lovely old building of grey stone, in some places almost lost in ivy. Annas said it had been the Abbots grange belonging to the old Abbey which gives its name to Abbotscliff and Monksburn, and several other estates and villages in the neighbourhood. Here we found Lady Monksburn in the drawing-room, busied with some soft kind of embroidered work; and I thought I could have guessed her to be the mother of Mr Keith. Then when the Laird came in, I saw that his grey eyes were Annas’s, though I should not call them alike in other respects.
Lady Monksburn is a dear old lady; and as she comes from the South, I must never say a word against Southerners again. She took both my hands in her soft white ones, and spoke to me so kindly that before I had known her ten minutes I was almost surprised to find myself chattering away to her as if she were quite an old friend—telling her all about Brocklebank, and my sisters, and Father, and my Aunt Kezia. I could not tell how it was,—I felt so completely at home in that Monksburn drawing-room. Everybody was so kind, and seemed to want me to enjoy myself, and yet there was no fuss about it. If those be southern manners, I wish I could catch them, like small-pox. But perhaps they are Christian manners. That may be it. And I don’t suppose you can catch that like the small-pox. However, I certainly did enjoy myself this afternoon. Mr Keith, I find, can draw beautifully, and they let me look through some of his portfolios, which was delightful. And when Annas, at her mother’s desire, at down to the harpsichord, and sang us some old Scots songs, I thought I never heard anything so charming—until Flora joined in, and then it was more delicious still.
I think it would be easy to be good, if one lived at Monksburn!
Those grey eyes of Annas’s seem to see everything. I am sure she saw that Flora would like a quiet talk with Lady Monksburn, and she carried me to see her peacocks and silver pheasants, which are great pets, she says; and they are so tame that they will come and eat out of her hand. Of course they were shy with me. Then we had a charming little walk on the path which ran along by the side of the river, and Annas pointed out some lovely peeps through the trees at the scenery beyond. When we came in, I saw that Flora had been crying; but she seemed so much calmer and comforted, that I am sure her talk had done her good. Then came supper, and then Angus, who had cleared up wonderfully, and was more what he used to be as a boy, instead of the cross, gloomy young man he has seemed of late. Lady Monksburn offered to send a servant with arms to accompany us home, but Angus appeared to think it quite unnecessary. He had his dirk and a pistol, he said; and surely he could take care of two girls! I am not sure that Flora would not rather have had the servant, and I know I would. However, we came safe to the manse, meeting nothing more terrific than a white cow, which wicked Angus tried to persuade us was a lady without a head.