“Her's a good-enough lady, oi reckon: only a bit too proud. Many's the blanket her's gen to poor folk; and my owd mother sees her every week—but her's never shook hands wi' her yet. Eh, measter, won ye go?”
This last remark was bellowed after Captain Rothesay, whose horse had commenced a sudden canter, which ceased not until its owner dismounted at the parsonage-gate.
This gate formed the boundary of the garden, and a most lovely spot it was. It extended to the churchyard, with which it communicated by a little wicket-door. You passed through beautiful parterres and alleys, formed of fragrant shrubs, to the spot
Where grew the turf in many a mouldering heap.
It seemed as though the path of death were indeed through flowers. Garden and churchyard covered the hill's summit; and from both might be discerned a view such as is rarely seen in level England. It was a panorama, extending some twenty or thirty miles across the country, where, through woodlands and meadow-lands, flowed the silver windings of a small river. Here and there was an old ruined castle—a manor-house rising among its ancestral trees—or the faint, misty smoke-cloud, that indicated some hamlet or small town. Save these, the landscape swept on unbroken, until it ended at the horizon in the high range of the D—shire hills.
Even to Captain Rothesay, this scene seemed strangely beautiful. He contemplated it for some time, his hand still on the unopened gate; and then he became aware that a lady, whose gardening dress and gardening implements showed she was occupied in her favourite evening employment, was looking at him with some curiosity.
The traces of life's downward path are easier to recognise than those of its ascent. Though the mature womanhood of Alison Balfour had glided into age, Rothesay had no difficulty in discovering that he was in the presence of his former friend. Not so with her. He advanced, addressed her by name, and even took her hand, before she had the slightest idea that her guest was Angus Rothesay.
“Have you, then, so entirely forgotten me—forgotten the days in our native Perthshire, when I was a bit laddie, and you, our guest, were Miss Alison Balfour?”
There came a trembling over her features—ay, aged woman as she was! But at her years, all the past, whether of joy or grief, becomes faint; else, how would age be borne? She extended both her hands, with a warm friendliness.
“Welcome, Angus Rothesay! No wonder I did not know you. These thirty years—is it not thus much?—have changed you from a boy into a middle-aged man, and made of me an old woman.”