It might be in the sweet summer time, when those green grassy terraces were perfumed with roses of every hue, or scented with the sweet syringa; in spring, when every tree and bush were alive with bird song; in red-berried autumn, or in the clear frost of a winter’s night, when the world was all robed in its white cocoon and every bush, brake, or tree had branches like the whitest of coral.
Jeannie Lee, the maid, was a great favourite with Annie, and Jeannie dearly loved her young mistress, and had done so for ten long years, ever since she had arrived at Bilberry Hall a toddling wee thing of six, and, alas! an orphan. Both father and mother had died in one week. They had loved each other in life, and in death were not divided. Jeannie was just four years older than her mistress, but she did not hesitate to confide to her all her secrets, for Jeannie was a bonnie lassie.
“She whiles had a sweetheart,
And whiles she had two.”
Well, but strange as it may appear, Annie, young as she was, had two lovers. There was a dashing young farmer—Craig Nicol by name—he was well-to-do, and had dark, nay, raven hair, handsome face and manly figure, which might well have captivated the heart of any girl. At balls and parties, arrayed in tartan, he was indeed a splendid fellow. He flirted with a good many girls, it is true, but at the bottom of his heart there was but one image—that of Annie Lane. Annie was so young, however, that she did not know her own mind. And I really think that Craig Nicol was somewhat impetuous in his wooing. Sometimes he almost frightened her. Poor Craig was unsophisticated, and didn’t know that you must woo a woman as you angle for a salmon.
He was a very great favourite with the Laird at all events, and many were the quiet games of cards they played together on winter evenings, many the bowl of punch they quaffed, before the former mounted his good grey mare and went noisily cantering homewards.
No matter what the weather was, Craig would be in it, wind or rain, hail or snow. Like Burns’s Tam o’ Shanter was Craig.
“Weel mounted on his grey mare, Meg,
A better never lifted leg,
Tam skelpit on through dub and mire,
Despising wind and rain and fire,
Whiles holding fast his gude blue bonnet,
Whiles crooning o’er some auld Scots sonnet.”
Yes, indeed. Craig Nicol was a dashing young blade, and at times Annie thought she almost loved him.
But what of the girl’s other lover? Well, he was one of a very different stamp. A laird he was too, and a somewhat wealthy one, but he was not a week under fifty.
He, too, was a constant visitor at Bilberry Hall, and paid great attention to Annie, though he treated her in a kind and fatherly sort of manner, and Annie really liked the man, though little did she think he was in love with her.