CHAPTER XXIII.
'WELL, CHOPS, TO RUN AWAY.'
FRANK ANTONY BLAKE had gone! He had been summoned away suddenly—it is ever thus that sorrows come—to visit the sickbed of his mother. And this was the first dark cloud that had arisen on the horizon of Lotty's young life. It was sweet for her to know next evening by telegram that her hero's dear mother was better, and that a letter would follow. But—ah!—Antony had gone, and somehow everything was so changed now all about and around her.
It was springtime. Spring, indeed, was in its first fresh glory. The sea she loved, the sea out yonder stretching away and away to the illimitable north, may have lost none of its beauty—the blue of its waves when the sun had climbed the mountains, its opal and silver-gray on that cloud-streaked noon, its emerald streaks where sky's blue mixed with the yellow of half-hidden sandbanks, the pearl where the billows broke lazily over the brown-black of weed-capped rocks, its ineffable glory of sunset or moonlight clear gleaming. No, the sea must be the same, and yet it awakened less response, less sympathy, in the heart of the little gipsy lass.
Towards the forest, where she went wandering away alone with Wallace, because she wanted to think, things seemed strangely altered somehow. Was the moss that carpeted the beech-woods less soft and bright, or the bark of the birch-trees less snowy? Were the clouds of needled foliage on the brown-stemmed pines more black and solemn, and had the tasselled larches with buds of crimson lost already their spring-green tints? And where was the glory of the golden furze? Where the music of the rose-linnet? Ah! surely the fluting melody of the blackbird and the wild, ringing song of mavis, ay, and the bold lilt of the chaffinch, were less loud and stirring. Yes, and the cur-r-r and croodle of wood-pigeon in the planting's green shade, that used to thrill the heart, sounded farther away now and grown more sad and mournful.
The hero was gone. And, girl-like—well, childlike then—this wee gipsy maiden sat down upon a stone and burst into tears, much to the concern of ever-faithful Wallace, who did his best to kiss those tears away. But sorrow often ends in slumber; it is as if Nature needed the solace of sleep to make her forget. A colder breath of air appeared to sweep through the tree-trunks; and, drawing her tartan plaid up around head and dishevelled hair, Lotty lay down in the lee of the mossy stone, and, drawing up her knees, fell fast asleep, with Wallace at her back.
Crona some hours after this heard a low, ominous growl, and, looking in the direction whence it came, beheld the raven face and brown eyes of the honest dog. The witch-wife was doctor to half the fisher-families that dwelt in little villages by the sea, and she had been out wandering over the moors and through the forests looking for roots and simple herbs, when she came to the spot where Lotty lay.
'Poor Wallace, so your little mistress has gone to sleep? Yes, dear fellow; but it isn't on the damp moss it is safe to lie.'
Crona's cottage was but three hundred yards away, and when Lotty awoke she found herself lying in a gleam of sunshine on a wooden bench or dais by the cottage door. She sat up, wondering for a moment or two where she was, then back came all her grief, though she tried to hide it from her fairy godmother as much as she could.
This dear soul had spread a wee table with a white cloth, and placed thereon a cup of heather-ale—her own brewing, and she was famed for this—with barley-meal scones, butter, and honey. There was even a vase of fresh primroses on this little table, which she had drawn close up to Lotty's side.
'Eat, my lamb,' she was saying. 'If young folks would live, young folks must eat.'