CHAPTER XVII.
The wind blows east, the wind blows west,
And then comes both sun and rain.
CARLYLE.
The autumn passed with many ordinary vicissitudes, with times of peacefulness, and times of trouble; and in the house of Allenders another baby son was born. It was just when Harry was beginning the business of his farm, and after a time of great abstraction and excitement, during which he had visited Edinburgh once or twice, and was evidently occupied with some business which he could not confide to any one at home. But Harry’s mind had been lightened before his baby came; the farm-manager had arrived; Geordie, the nephew of the feeble Dragon, had spoken his mind to Allenders about the new harrow and the plough-graith, and had been graciously heard—so graciously, that Geordie immediately decided on an affirmative answer to the question which agitated the whole population of Maidlin Cross, and ever after maintained that “the laird had siller o’ his ain, bye the lands, and that he was just living free and open-handed, as a gentleman should live.” It was one of Harry’s sunshine times; and many a heart wished kindly wishes for him, as he stood in Maidlin Church, his young wife in her graceful weakness, and his sisters seated by his side, and held up his child to receive the baptismal sprinkling, and to be named with the name of the Lord. “He has the kindliest face I ever saw—ane’s heart warms to the lad—blessings on him,” said an old woman on the pulpit stairs; and Martha’s heart swelled with the echoed blessing.
And there were blessings on him—blessings which many a desolate heart sighed and pined for in vain—blessings of rare love and tenderness, of children fair and hopeful, and in his own person of a competent mind, and of the bright health and youth to which everything was possible. So far as his starting point was concerned, a wonderful realization had come to Martha’s ambitious hopes for him; and now it almost seemed to lie with Harry himself to decide what the end of them should be.
In the farm-house of Allender Mains, Harry’s farm-manager has already established himself, and from the midst of its bare trees you see appearing the half-built chimney of the new threshing-mill, the machinery of which has just arrived under charge of two young engineers from Glasgow; and the slope of the farm-garden, and all the barnyard behind, is lined with great draining-pipes, glancing red through the hoar-frost at a mile or two’s distance, upon their slight elevation. And just behind the little byre and stable of Allenders’ house, a great range of new stables and byres are rising, to receive the cattle, which Harry has resolved shall be unequalled in the country-side. When the weather is “fresh,” you cannot pass a field without seeing the heavy breath of the plough-horses, rising like a mist over the hedge, and hearing the meditative whistle, or uncouth call of the ploughman behind. An air of sudden activity spreads over the little district—so decided and apparent, indeed, that a retired weaver in Stirling has already two new houses in progress, one of which is a little shop, in the very front of Maidlin Cross. The event excited the hamlet to a positive uproar, for never before had any man dreamed of dignifying Maidlin with such a two-storied slated house as slowly grew upon its astonished vision now.
And in the dusk of the winter mornings you see the lanes full of hardy brown children, girded with rough sackcloth aprons—bound for school, you would fancy. No, they are bound for Harry’s fields, to “gather stanes,” and have each a little “wage” to carry home on Saturday night to the immense delight of mother and child. The fathers are laying drains and ploughing, the elder sisters tend the fine cows in the byre at Allender Mains, and prosperity to which they are altogether unaccustomed falls suddenly upon the startled inhabitants of Maidlin Cross.
And landlords and farmers, startled too, are looking more scrupulously to themselves, lest they be outdone by the newcomer; the blood stirs in the awakened veins of the country side, and something of emulation, keener than the keenest air of December, strikes into the warm fireside corner, where honest men can no longer take in peace their afternoon’s glass of toddy, and its accompanying newspaper, for constant reports of what is doing at Allenders, and what Allenders himself is doing—for Harry’s active footstep rings along the frost-bound paths, and Harry’s frank salutations scatter good-will among his husbandmen every day; and steady-going agricultural people waken up, and look after their own omissions and neglects, with a half-grudge at Allenders.
It seems that Harry has found at last the life suitable for him. Though the snow lies heavy on the sullen brow of Demeyet, and every blade of grass on the lawn is crisped into distinct identity, and the burn is frost-bound under the trees, and an icy hand restrains the tinkling springlet of the Lady’s Well, Harry never fails to visit his fields.
“The best compost for the lands
Is the master’s feet and hands,”
he says with a laugh, as he wraps his plaid about him, and sets out in the face of the keenest wind that sweeps out of the highlands; and Agnes, with the new baby on her arm, sits by the fireside with radiant smiles, and Martha looks after him from the window, where now the jasmine clings in long brown fibres to the wall, without a single adorning leaf, and in her heart tries to forget all the dread and all the bitter thoughts which mingled in the summer-time with the sickly odour of those jasmine flowers.
Yet sometimes Harry is abstracted and full of care. They believe that he is thinking then of errors which they believe are now happily past for ever; for no one in the house but Martha, ever remembers, that all these improvements must cost more than Miss Jean’s thousand pounds—and Martha finds all her attempts at inquiry evaded. She never can succeed in learning where Harry gets the means of accomplishing so much, and it is only now and then, when an incautious murmur about interest or legal charges, reaches her, that she has ground for her conjecture that he has borrowed from others besides Miss Jean. But Martha believes with trembling that Harry’s mind is changed—that his purposes are no longer fluctuating and unsteady—that he has reached at last the great strength and motive power of the Christian life; and she can trust all lesser things to the regulation of that which is above all.
And they never say poor Harry—never except when they are commenting with full hearts and eyes upon some new proof of Harry’s kindness—and then it is said in applauding, grateful love, and not in pity. No longer poor Harry—for is he not a great landed proprietor, making such a stir in his district as no Allenders has done before him for a hundred years? and has not Sir John Dunlop invited Allenders of Allenders to dine with him on Christmas-day?
They are very glad it is Christmas-day and not the new year—the Scottish family holy-tide—and Harry comes home greatly elated from Sir John Dunlop’s where they have treated him with the greatest distinction, like a guest of special honour. Lady Dunlop, too, promises to call on Mrs. Allenders, and Agnes blushes deep for pleasure, and is fluttered and excited, and sings to the baby such a song of triumph, that instead of being lulled to sleep as she intends, he opens his blue eyes wide, and seizing on the lace about her pretty neck, tears it with exultation and delight. Happy baby! young enough to do mischief with impunity! Little Harry, now two full years old, who does not at all admire this supplanting baby, and is still sore about his own dethronement, clenches his fist at him in anger and envy, and is the only person in the fireside circle who has sympathy with Agnes’s tribulation about her perished lace.
Next week Cuthbert Charteris is coming for a single day to pay them a visit, for Cuthbert is very busy now, laying the foundation of a great business; and in honour of Cuthbert there is to be a party—the first which they have attempted—when the covers are to be taken off the drawing-room chairs, and Agnes and Rose are to appear in full costume. Youthful and inexperienced as they all are, this is a great event to them, and Agnes innocently reports to Harry various elegancies which she would like to have for her table and her pretty drawing-room, before the notable day; and Harry lays before them a plan of Miss Dunlop’s for a conservatory, which she herself has strongly recommended to him. Harry thinks he will set about it immediately, and it will not cost much, and Agnes and Rose are delighted and cannot sufficiently admire the artistic talent of Miss Dunlop.
But to-morrow Harry has to pay fifty labourers—to-morrow a quarter’s salary falls due to the farm manager—to-morrow he has promised to pay for some fine Ayrshire cows, now luxuriating in the byre at Allender Mains—and to-morrow, alas! there are two separate dividends of interest, which cannot be postponed—Miss Jean’s, and a heavier creditor than Miss Jean.
So Harry retires to his library when they have left him, and chafes himself a little over the trouble of so many complicated concerns, and feels a momentary shiver pass over him, as he wonders how he will do when the great sum he lately lodged in his bank at Stirling shall be exhausted—what then, Harry? with more than three hundred of interest to pay, and only four hundred and fifty pounds? And Harry’s brow contracts for a moment, and a shadow steals over his face; but immediately it brightens. “Why by that time, to be sure, the farm will have doubled its value, and I shall be a rich man,” he repeats half aloud, with a short laugh of satisfaction, and going to his writing-table, he puts down in permanent “black and white,” a list of the pretty things in silver-work and upholstery, which he has promised to order before Agnes’s party, and throwing himself into an easy-chair, reads a novel for an hour with the lightest heart in the world.
While Agnes visits little Harry in his crib to kiss him as he sleeps, and folds the new-come brother into her own bosom, and lies down to her happy rest; and Rose, between sleeping and waking, dreams, with a heart full of sweet anticipations; and Martha in the darkness looks out upon the falling snow, and on the pallid moon lightening Demeyet, and bids the stern voice of her experience be still, and let her hope—Hope! she holds it to her heart with a desperate clutch, as a drowning mother holds her child, and is still, waiting for the will of God.
Not a sound breaks the profound slumber of Maidlin Cross, where Harry’s labourers, free of all care for the morrow, lie silent in the deep sleep which compensates their toil. Not a sound disturbs the quietness of Allenders, except that small voice of Violet asking in the darkness if Katie is asleep. Yes, Katie is asleep: shut your dark eyes, Lettie, and say your prayers, that Lady Violet may not come in her glistening garments to sit yonder in the darkest corner, and hold you with her glittering eye; but except for this visionary dread, and the one ache of ancient fear in Martha’s graver breast—fear which only dwells far down in the depths, like an echo in a well—this hour of rest sheds nothing but peace upon the home of Harry Muir.
END OF VOL. II.
LONDON:
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