CHAPTER II.
The family of Jeanie was poor but virtuous, like thousands of others scattered all over the hills and vales of Scotland. Her father had once seen better days, having been indeed a farmer in a small way; but his crops failing, and his stock dying by disease, he had been reduced at length to extreme poverty. Yet he bore his misfortunes without repining. He had still his daughter to comfort him, and though he lived in a mud-built cottage, he was happy—happy at least, so far as one in his dependent condition could be; for his principal support was derived from the labor of his daughter, added to what little he managed to earn by doing small jobs occasionally for his neighbors. Yet he was universally respected. If you could have seen him on a sunny Sabbath morning, leaning on his daughter’s arm, walking to the humble village kirk: if you could have beheld the respect with which his juniors lifted their bonnets to him, while his own gray locks waved on the wind as he returned their salutations, you would have felt that even utter poverty, if respectable, and cheered by a daughter’s love, was not without its joy.
The love betwixt Jeanie and the young shepherd was not one of a day. It had already been of years standing, and dated far back, almost into the childhood of each. By sunny braes, in green meadows, alongside of whimplin brooks, they had been used to meet, seemingly by chance, until such meetings grew necessary to their very existence, and their love—pure and holy as that between the angelic choristers—became intermixed with all their thoughts and feelings, and colored all their views of life. And all this time Jeanie was growing more beautiful daily, until she became the flower of the valley. Her voice was like that of the cushat in its sweetest cadence—her eye was as blue and sunny as the summer ether—and the smiles that wreathed her mouth came and went like the northern lights on a clear December eve. Thus beautiful, she had not been without many suitors; but to all she turned a deaf ear. Many of them were far above her station in life, but this altered not her determination. Nor did her father, though perhaps, like many of his neighbors, he attached more importance to such offers than Jeanie, attempt to influence her. He only stipulated that her lover should obtain a farm before his marriage. We have seen how his repeated failures in this, and his hopelessness of attaining his object, unless at a very distant period, had at length driven him to seek his fortune elsewhere.
We are telling no romantic tale, but one of real life; and in real life years often seem as hours, and hours as years. We shall make no excuse, therefore, for passing over an interval of more than two years.
It was the gloamin hour when Jeanie and her father sat at their humble threshold. The face of the maiden was sad almost to tears; while that of the father wore a sad and anxious expression. They had been convening, and now the old man resumed their discourse.
“Indeed, Jeanie,” he said, “God knows I would na urge ye do that which is wrong; but we hae suffered and suffered much sin’ Willie left us. Twa years and a half, amaist a third, hae past sin’ that day. Do not greet, my dochter, an’ your auld father may na speak that which is heavy on his mind,” and he ceased, and folded the now weeping girl tenderly to his bosom.
“No, no, father, go on,” sobbed Jeanie, endeavoring to compose herself, an effort in which she finally succeeded. Her father resumed.
“I am growing auld, Jeanie, aulder and aulder every day; my shadow already fills up half my grave—and the time canna be far awa, when I shall be called to leave you alone in the warld.”
“Oh! say not so,” sobbed Jeanie, “you will yet live many a year.”
“Na, na,” he answered, shaking his head, “though it pains my heart to say so, yet it is best you should know the truth. It will na be long before the snows shall lie aboon me. But I see it makes you greet. I will pass on, Jeanie, to what lies heavy on my heart, and that is, when I am awa, there will be no one to protect you. Could I hae seen ye comfortably settled, wi’ some one to shield ye from the cauld world, I could hae gone to my grave in peace. But it maun na be, it maun na be.”
Poor Jeanie had listened to her father’s words with emotions we will not attempt to pourtray. Long after every one else had given over her lover for lost—and besides a rumor, now of two years standing, that he had been drowned at sea, there was the fact of his not returning at the appointed time, to silence all skepticism—she had clung to the hope of his being alive, even when her reason forbid the expression of that hope. She had long read her father’s thoughts, nor could she indeed blame them. Their poverty was daily growing more extreme, so that while her parent’s health was declining, he was compelled to deny himself even the few comforts which he had hitherto possessed. These things cut Jeanie to the heart, and yet she saw no remedy for them, except in what seemed to her more terrible than death. Her affection for her lover was only strengthened and purified by his loss. Try as she would, she could not tear his image from her heart. Loving him thus, living or dead, how could she wed another?—how could she take on herself vows her heart refused to fulfil? Day after day, week after week, and month after month, had this struggle been going on in her bosom, betwixt duty to her father and love for him to whom she had plighted her virgin vows. This evening her parent had spoken to her, mildly but seriously on the death of her lover, and Jeanie’s heart was more than ever melted by the self-devotedness with which her gray-haired father had alluded to her want of protection in case of his death, not even saying a word of the want of the common comforts of life which his growing infirmities rendered more necessary than ever, but of which her conduct—oh! how selfish in that moment it seemed to her—deprived him. It was some moments before Jeanie could speak, during which time she lay weeping on her parent’s bosom. At length she murmured,
“Do wi’ me as ye wish, father, I maun resist no longer, sin’ it were wicked. But oh! gie me a little while to prepare, for the heart is rebellious and hard to overcome. I know you do it all for the best—but I maun hae some delay to tear the last thoughts o’ Willie, thoughts which soon wi’ be sinfu’, from my heart”—and overcome by the intensity of her emotions she burst into a new flood of tears. Her father pressed her to his bosom, and murmured,
“Oh! Jeanie, Jeanie, could ye know how this pains my auld heart! But the thought that when I die ye will be left unprotected in the world, is sair within me. Time ye shall hae, darlint—perhaps,” he added after a moment’s pause, “it were better to gie up the scheme altogether. Aye! Jeanie, I will na cross your wishes even in this; but trust in a gude God to protect you when I am gone. Say no more, say no more about it, dear one; but do just as ye will.”
“No, father,” said Jeanie, looking firmly up, while the tears shone through her long eye-lashes like dew on the morning grass, “no, I will be selfish no longer. Your wish shall be fulfilled. Do not oppose me, for indeed, indeed, I act now as I feel right. Gie me only the little delay for which I ask, and then I will do as you say, and—and”—and her voice trembled as she spoke—“then you will no longer be without those little comforts, dear father, which not even all my love has been able to procure for you. Now kiss me, for I maun go in to be by myself for awhile.”
“God bless you, my dochter, and may he ever hae you in his keeping,” murmured that gray-haired sire, laying his hands on his child’s head—his dim eyes suffusing with tears as he spoke, “God bless ye forever and ever!”
When that father and daughter rejoined each other, an hour later in the evening, a holy calm pervaded the countenance of each; and the looks which they gave each other were full of confidence, gratitude and overflowing affection. And when the daughter drew forth the old worn Bible, and read a chapter in her silvery voice, while the father followed in a prayer that was at times choked by his emotion, there was not, in all broad Scotland, a sweeter or more soul-subduing sight than that lowly cot presented.
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