Forty years ago, when old Rossdhu found that, owing to the repeal of the Corn Laws, it would no longer be profitable to grow wheat, like many another proprietor in the North he planted his lands with trees. And so, while the country buys its bread with the riches of ore and fossil stored up æons ago in Nature’s grim treasure-caverns underground, the soil, at rest from plough and harrow, is growing young again amid the forests, under the brown depth of mouldering leaf and cone.
Deep quiet reigns among these warm pine-woods, a sort of enchanted stillness amid the yellow sunshine. In the bosky hollow where the brown butterfly is hovering, old Pan might be asleep among the fern. The feathery grasses everywhere are in flower, as high as a man’s shoulder; above them shimmers the great green dragon-fly, two inches long, with his gossamer wings; and from among their clouds at places little ladybird beetles, like pin-heads, spotted scarlet and black, fall into the carriage in their flight. The wild strawberry, with its tiny white blossom, is growing on the sunny banks of the road, and wild rasps spread their tangle in the undergrowth beyond.
In the narrow meadow amidst the woods a lonely mower is at work, and the air is sweet with the scent of new-mown hay. He lifts his cap respectfully as the carriage passes, for the manners of the district have not been corrupted yet by contact with rude railway navvies, nor by the shortcomings of Board schools; and the peasant still exchanges a recognition with his superior. Much more real kindliness might exist between the social classes if in our schools there were a Government grant for manners. All store nowadays seems to be set upon the three “Rs”—reading, writing, and arithmetic—as if the whole sum of human felicity lay in a knowledge of the “black art” of books.
The mower was singing to himself as we came up, a soft Gaelic song that kept time to the sweep of his scythe, and Minna blushes a little as she promises to translate it in the evening, for it is a song of confessed love. The man is happy, surely, singing as he sees the glistening, swathes fall by his side to ripen in the sun: and well he may be, for has he not, like the happy birds, a nest, too, somewhere in these woods, and a blue-eyed brood that will greet his home-coming at nightfall.
But the manor-house stands close by now, and there, on the smooth green lawn among the trees, the tennis nets are spread, and the courts marked with lines on the grass. A beautiful old place it is, its grey stone walls hot with the sunshine, and, among the thick-climbing jessamine and fuchsia, the open windows revealing tempting depths of shadow within. The sound of the wheels on the gravel brings out old Rossdhu himself, the soul of hospitality, with half a dozen of his dogs barking a welcome after their fashion, and wagging their tails. Shaggy-bearded as some of his own peasants, the old gentleman is the pink of Highland courtesy, and he assists “Miss Minna” to alight as if she were a princess. “Alec,” that is his son, he explains, “is busy inside,” and the frequent popping of corks heard there intimates his occupation.
The dark cool drawing-room is bright with the light dresses of young girls, and musical with the murmur of happy laughter, while the air that just stirs the creamy gossamer of the curtains brings in with it the fragrance of the dark velvety wallflower still flowering outside in the sunshine before the window. The lady of the house is an invalid, and Rossdhu begs that Minna will give her just one song before everybody goes out to the game. So Minna draws off her gloves, and the piano is opened. And it is very pleasant to sit in the deep shadow by the open casement, looking out upon the sunny lawn and woods, and listening to the melody of that sweet young voice. It is a Jacobite song she sings, “The Auld House”—some other such place as this, with low-roofed rooms, dark-panelled and oaken-raftered, where the hopes of gentle hearts blossomed and withered long ago with the fortunes of their fair, ill-fated Prince. The plaintive words linger with their air in the memory, how “the auld ladye”—
Here sheltered Scotland’s heir,
And clipped a lock wi’ her ain hand
Frae his lang yellow hair.
Then, afterwards, when everybody has had enough of the ices and the claret cup, there is the tennis. And though it is somewhat warm work for those actually playing, there are seats under the leafy beeches and chestnut-trees, where a quiet tête-à-tête can be enjoyed, and a lazy glance cast at the lithe, light-clad figures of the players out in the sunshine, and the white balls that fly to and fro across the nets.