CHAPTER XVI.
What strong hand can hold his swift foot back?
SHAKSPEARE.
The window is up in Martha’s room, and the sweet morning air comes in upon you, with a fresh and pleasant abruptness, frank and simple as the sudden laughter of a child. The stir of early day is upon all the country without—birds twittering among the wet leaves, which themselves glisten and tremble in the sun, shaking off the rain which fell heavily through the night—and far-off footsteps and voices, echoing over the fields, of rural people at their wholesome toil. Beside the window, a work-basket stands upon a little table, and you will wonder when you see it full of the embroidered muslin—the delicate “opening” at which Martha and Rose were wont to labour. It is an elaborate collar which Martha holds in her hand, and she is working at it with silent speed, as she used to do. You would fancy, to look at her now, that the family change of fortune had brought little ease to her.
But upon a sofa, at a little distance, Rose, with a fresh morning face, and pretty muslin gown, is spreading out Harry’s present—the rich, grave-coloured silk, which has been made into a dress for Martha. And Martha suffers herself to smile, and says it’s only fault is that it is too good, and that the bairns will not know her when she has it on. Katie Calder, at Rose’s side, draws out the folds reverentially, and says, with awe, under her breath, that it is “awfu’ bonnie;” but Violet sits on the carpet at Martha’s feet, and thinks about the lady at the well.
For this is a holiday, and the children have no dread of school or lessons before their unembarrassed eyes. In the next room sits a Stirling dressmaker, who has condescended to come out to Allenders, to make up into gowns the glittering silks of Harry’s present; and Katie has already spent an hour in the temporary work-room, appearing now and then, to report the shape of a sleeve, or to exhibit a specimen of some superlative “trimming.” It is quite a jubilee to Katie.
But Violet, in an oriental attitude, like a small sultana, sits on the carpet, and stoops both head and shoulders over the book on her knee; which book, for lack of a better, happens to be a quaint essay of Sir Thomas Browne’s. All the light literature contained in the old Laird of Allenders’ book-shelves, has been devoured long ago, and Violet concluded “Hydrotaphia” to be better than sermons—a conclusion which she is now slightly inclined to doubt. But Lettie is a little dreamy and meditative this morning, and is thinking of Dragon’s story, and of Lady Violet’s ballad; wondering, too, with secret excitement, whether she could make a ballad herself, and repeating over and over again a single ecstatic verse about the moon, of her own composition, which Violet thinks, with a thrill, sounds very like poetry. When Martha stops to thread her needle, she lays her hand caressingly upon Lettie’s head, and bids her sit erect, and not stoop so much; and Lettie is almost encouraged to repeat this verse to her, and hear whether Martha thinks it is like poetry—almost—but she never is quite sufficiently bold.
The door opens with a little commotion, and Agnes, with care on her brow, comes hurriedly in. The room has been so perfectly peaceful that you feel at once the disturbing element, when the young wife enters, for Agnes is excited, impatient, perturbed. She has just been having a controversy with Harry, and comes here, half crying, at its close.
“He says he’s going to Edinburgh to-day with Gilbert Allenders; I hate Gilbert Allenders,” said the little wife, in a sudden burst. “He is always leading Harry away. He is going to the races, and yet he says he doesn’t care a straw for the races. Oh, will you speak to him, Martha!”
“It is better not, Agnes: he will take his own way,” said Martha. “It is best I should not interfere.”
“He says we all heard Gilbert Allenders ask him, and that I knew well enough he intended to go, and that you knew, Martha. I told Harry I was sure you did not; and what pleasure will he have at the races?”
“I wish Gilbert Allenders were in America, or in China—or in London, if he likes it better,” said Rose quickly.
“That’s because he wants to fall in love with you,” said Agnes, with a light laugh, diverted for the moment by the fervour of Rose’s good wishes for the fascinating Gilbert; “but I am sure I would not care where he was, if he was only away from Harry; and Harry does not like him either. Rose, we’re to try to gather a big basket of strawberries for Mrs. Charteris, and I think, maybe, Martha, if Harry goes there, that he may get no skaith in Edinburgh.”
Rose came shyly to the table. “If it had only been a week sooner! or if we had not pulled so many berries on Saturday!”
“We must take what we can get,” said Agnes; “and the basket is standing below the walnut tree. Will you not say anything to Harry, Martha?”
“I will see him before he goes away,” said Martha, laying down her work.
And Violet sprang up and threw “Hydrotaphia” into the work-basket, and called upon Katie Calder, who just then ran out of the work-room with a little paper pattern in her hand, of a bonnet which she designed manufacturing for a great doll, joint property of herself and Lettie. Lettie, with her books and her reveries, gave but a very inconstant regard to this doll; it was often thrown for a week together upon the less capricious attention of Katie Calder.
Harry was standing by the dining-room window, with a sprig of jasmine in his breast, looking slightly ruffled and impatient, but still very bright and animated; and as Agnes passed him, carrying the basket, he patted her shoulder playfully, and called her a good girl, after all. Poor little Agnes! she was not sure whether it was best to laugh or cry.
“So you are going, Harry?” Martha paused beside him, and leaned against the jasmine-covered wall.
“Yes, I am going. Why, Martha, I am not a child; why do you constantly look so wistful and anxious? It’s enough to make a man stay away altogether,” said Harry, angrily.
“Is it? A man, I suppose, must have very little inducement to stay at home, when that is enough to send him away,” said Martha, coldly; “but, Harry, your friend Gilbert Allenders annoys Rose—could you not restrain him, if you bring him here again?”
“Is that all?” said Harry, laughing. “Gibbie’s not such a bad fellow, Martha; and the doctor will give him half of his practice, and he’s sure to be steadier in a year or two. Well, I should not like Rose to have anything to do with him, that is true; but still he may have his chance as well as another. Have you anything to say to Charteris, Martha?”
“Nothing; but you will go there?” said Martha, eagerly.
“Oh! of course—the old lady would not be pleased; but then I can’t take Allenders there—if it was only on account of Rose;” and Harry laughed again. His impatience was wearing away. He was quite good-humoured and light-hearted now.
Meanwhile the light glimmers through the trees upon Rose’s head, bending over the great basket, and upon the wet leaves, from which she shakes the last remaining rain-drops, as she places them under the fragrant fruit; and it is singular now, when the basket is full, to observe how careful she is in choosing those leaves, and how she scatters little bits of oak, tender brown and green, and spreads cool twigs of plane tree over the strawberries, and sends Violet away stealthily to gather white jasmine blossoms, and strew them on the fruit. Violet, nothing loth, twists a long bough of jasmine round Rose’s dark hair, and Katie suggests cabbage-leaves to cover up the basket; which suggestion prosaic as it is, has to be carried out, and so the basket is borne away.
The day after to-morrow Harry promises to return, and they watch him go away with doubt and pain; but he himself is very cheerful, and speaks so confidently of what “I” will do, and evidently feels himself so dignified and independent a man, that they are comforted. “Everybody else in Harry’s station does the same thing,” says Agnes, a little proudly, and Martha assents with an averted face, and they separate in silence—the one to occupy herself pleasantly with little domestic cares, the other to take up her work again, and sit at her open window, and pray in her heart.
But Rose has wandered to the mall, and sits under the oak tree, which rounds its termination. They have made a little seat there under the thick foliage, where there is always shade; and Rose, not without a compunction about the work which she should be doing, either to help Martha or the dressmaker, resigns herself to a dream. The water at her side glides on. She can see it floating past her, through the loving leaves which droop over it, and dip into its dazzling tide; and at her other hand, the spear head glitters on the turret, and a glistening lime tree throws its wet boughs abroad, and shakes them in the face of the brave sun. Then there are rays of sober daylight stealing with sidelong quietness through the beeches farther down, and Violet and Katie send pleasant articulate voices into the universal rustle, which the soft air waving about everywhere, calls forth from the water and the trees.
Behind her is a corn-field, the greatest rustler of all; and Rose hears a heavy foot wading through the scanty grain, chance sown under the hedge. But just then, the children with their unfailing attendant, Dragon, have come close upon Rose on the other side of the oak, but do not see her, though she hears all they say.
There is a pause of perfect stillness for a moment, and Violet sighs.
“Eh, Dragon!” said Lettie, “I wouldna like to be here in the dark.”
“You dinna ken how bonnie it is in the dark, Missie,” said the old man, “‘specially when there’s stars shining, that ye canna tell whether they’re in the water or the sky; and there was ance a fairy ring somegate about the steps yonder, and I’ve heard mony a ane say they had listened lang syne to sair groans out of that oak. They say ane o’ the lairds that planted it came by a violent death, and ye can aye hear’t make a moan and complaint, at the season of the year when he was killed; but I canna answer for that story—and I never heard the tree say a word mair than ony ither tree, a’ my days.”
“But listen, Dragon,” said Lettie, covering her eyes: “if it was dark, I could think it was the rustling of Lady Violet’s gown.”
“And it’s naething but the corn,” said Dragon, with a feeble laugh; “naething but the wind in the corn, and your ain fancy. Ay, but there is anither sound. What would ye say if it was Mailie in among Willie Hunter’s corn?”
“I would get a wand, and drive her out again. I would like, Dragon—is it her that’s in the corn?” cried Katie Calder.
But Dragon looking over the hedge already bore testimony that it was not the brown cow, by greeting with great surprise his nephew Geordie.
“I was just coming in bye to say a word to Mysie,” said the gruff voice of the labouring man. “Her mother’s ill yonder, and ane o’ the weans has a fever and the ither a hoast; be a decent body for ance, uncle, and cry her out to me—for I want to tell her she’s no to come hame at no hand, on account of the bairns at the house.”
“I’ll rin,” said the active little Katie Calder.
And Katie ran away through the trees, without waiting for permission.
“I passed Allenders in his carriage the noo,” said Geordie. “He’ll hae siller o’ his ain, I reckon, mair than the lands? for it would take a grand fortune to keep up a’ yon.”
“Ay, he’s a fine lad, Mr. Hairy,” said the old man, “and they’re a real biddable family, and dinna scorn guid advice wherever it comes frae; and then there’s the young lady, Miss Rose, ye ken, hasna made up her mind if she’s to be married on the doctor lad out of Stirling, or yon birkie in Edinburgh. I think she’s maist disposed to him—and I’ll warrant he’s a grand man, for he has it in his e’e—nae fear o’ Mr. Hairy, when he has a writer married on his ae sister, and sic a wise lady for his ither.”
Poor Rose started—but, to do her justice, quite as much because Geordie’s remark had opened her eyes to a new danger for Harry, as because Dragon’s unhesitating disposal of herself dissipated with a light much too distinct and severe, the indefinite happiness of her dreams.
“Is’t true he’s gaun to take Allender Mains into his ain hands?” said Geordie. “I hear the land’s to bear threple crops when the laird’s new manager comes. I’ll no say but it might if it was weel lookit after; and I would like to say a word to him mysel about that new harrow and better graith for the beasts. I’m saying, auld man—do ye think Allenders is sure to haud at it, if he begins wi’ the farm?”
“Man, he delved and dibbled in the garden ae night for a haill hour!” exclaimed the applauding Dragon.
Geordie shook his head. “I’m no sae sure that’s a good sign. And then, ye see, the farming takes siller. I would like to ken if it’s true what they say, uncle, that this lad was naething but a puir lad afore he wan to Allenders; but if he hasna siller o’ his ain, he ne’er can carry on at this rate. Ony way, it’s a comfort the land maun aye be tilled, and that ane gets anes bread whaever’s maister. But here’s Mysie. Guid day to ye, auld man.”
“And I’ll away in, Missie, to see about my kail,” said Dragon. “It’s eleven in the day by the sun. Ye should gang to Mysie, and get a piece yoursel.”
The old man shuffled away, and Lettie, swinging round the thick trunk of the oak, suddenly came upon Rose. The child’s eyes were glistening, dark and wistful, and there was a cloud of the old vague gloom and discouragement upon her face.
“What way do they ask if Harry has siller, Rose?” asked Lettie, anxiously; “what way do they say he hasna enough? Was Allenders no a grand fortune when Harry got it? and what way is it no a grand fortune now?”
“I cannot tell, Lettie,” said Rose, sadly. “Come away, and we’ll go in, and you’ll read a book to Martha and me.”
Lettie put her hand into her sister’s quietly, and they went in together. Martha was still at her window—still working with her old silent assiduity—and Rose drew a chair to the opposite side of the little table, and, greatly subdued and sobered, took up out of Martha’s basket, a piece of embroidery, and began to “open” it as busily as of yore. This work was still regularly supplied to Martha by Uncle Sandy in Ayr. It was a satisfaction to her to pursue those unknown labours day by day; and Rose, too, began with a kind of desperate energy—as if such a pittance as she could earn could have any effect upon the fortunes of Harry; but still it was a satisfaction to do what she could.
Katie Calder came in from the garden, flushed and merry, and could not comprehend the quietness which had fallen upon Rose and her little playfellow, though Lettie’s changing moods ceased to surprise her constant companion; so Katie resumed her pilgrimages between Martha’s room, and the dressmaker’s, and began her doll’s bonnet with great success and éclat; while Violet again seated on the carpet, solemnly commenced to read “Hydrotaphia” to her quite uninterested auditors; but finding this would not do, suddenly threw it down, and began to tell them Dragon’s story.
The sisters listened with quiet pleasure; they did not always understand Lettie, in her reveries and dreamings, and she was naturally shy of speech; but Martha had already been startled on more than one occasion by the strange intuitive perceptions of her youngest “bairn,” and she said with an affectionate smile when the story ended. “You will be like Lady Violet, Lettie—you will make ballads too.”
A burning flush crossed the child’s face, and she did not speak for some time. Then she looked up to say: “Dragon says Harry’s no a canny name for the Lairds of Allenders, and there never has been one, Martha, from Lady Violet’s time till now.”
A cloud passed over Martha’s face—a very slight fantastic thing was enough at this time to leave a permanent shadow.
And it was a week before Harry returned; and he came back sullen, gloomy, and exhausted, with nothing to tell them, as he said—nor had he seen Charteris except once, and that on the first day he spent in Edinburgh. Poor Harry! he had not yet expended a farthing on his farming operations, and he dared not think how little remained of Miss Jean’s thousand pounds.