JAMIE'S FAITH.
Margaret Grey was a widow, who, with three young children, lived in a small cottage on the estate of Lord Dundale, in Scotland. When her husband died, Margaret had been compelled to give up the land he had farmed, with the exception of a little garden, and a patch of pasturage on which she supported a cow and a shaggy Highland pony, called Rab.
This last was a very important member of the family, as without him the widow could not have conveyed to market the butter and eggs, on the proceeds of which the frugal little household subsisted. For his part, Rab seemed fully conscious of his own important and responsible position in the widow's family, gave up all frisking and frolicking ways, and conducted himself in a staid and sober manner on his way to and from the market-town, and assumed towards the children in their little rides a sort of protecting, patronizing, paternal character, which was really edifying to behold.
Lord Dundale was a young man, very handsome and stately, but gentle and gracious, and much beloved by his family and tenants. The children on his estate looked up to him with loving reverence, as to a superior being, from whom nothing but good and happiness were to be expected by the deserving. For them his youth, beauty, and elegance had especial poetic charms; their sweet, simple affection, their timid, grateful devotion, were laid at his feet,—so that when moving among them he trod on unseen flowers. They loved to hear and to tell of the grand and beautiful things at that fairy palace, the Castle,—a noble old edifice, with massive towers, a moat, a lofty gateway, and an ancient drawbridge and portcullis, which stood high in the midst of great forest-trees.
Lord Dundale, being in delicate health, was able to spend but a few months of each year in Scotland, the climate being too severe for him; but he loved the place of his birth, and was never so happy as when, like Rob Roy, he could say, "My foot is on my native heath."
To his tenants his yearly visit to his Scottish estate was always a season of festivity: they hailed the signal of his return, the running up of a flag on the highest tower of the Castle, with shouts of hearty rejoicing.
The cottage of the Grey was on a shady lane, through which the young lord often rode in the pleasant autumn mornings or evenings, sometimes with a gay party of ladies and gentlemen, guests at the Castle, sometimes, when the hour was early, quite alone, and sometimes with one beautiful dark-eyed lady, fresh as a rose and proud as a lily, who it was said was one day to be the mistress of Dundale Castle. The Grey children, little Effie and Jamie, noticed that when the young lord rode by himself, or with ever so large a party of riders, he never failed to acknowledge their bows and courtesies with a nod and a pleasant word and smile; but that when he and the dark-eyed lady together ambled slowly past, he did not seem to see their wistful little faces at all. So, in their secret hearts, they took something very like a spite against the beautiful Lady Evelyn, and hoped their young lord would change his mind.
One autumn evening, as Margaret Grey rode homeward from the market-town, she noticed that Rab, the pony, was languid and slow, that he hung his head dejectedly, and made no effort to browse along the hedge-rows as usual. She supposed that he was tired with his day's work, but trusted that he would be well in the morning. Alas! when the morning came, poor, faithful old Rab was found dead, stretched out stiff and cold in his paddock!
Effie and Jamie grieved passionately over their lost friend and playfellow. They sat down beside him on the grass, and, looking at his poor, helpless feet, worn in their service, wept bitterly that they would carry them along the lane and up the hillside no more; they patted half fearfully the shaggy neck; which would arch to their caresses never again; they drew back with a shudder, after touching the cold lips which had so often eaten the sweet clover from their hands, and turned with a sense of strange wonder and awfulness from the death-misted eyes, which had always shone upon them with an almost human affection.
Margaret Grey wept also,—fewer tears than her children, but sadder. She had many sweet and mournful memories connected with poor Rab. Her dear old father gave him to her on her eighteenth birthday. She remembered many a joyful gallop on his back, through the lanes and over the moors. She remembered how sometimes she rode him slowly, with his rein on his neck; for young Angus Grey walked by her side and told her pleasant news,—always pleasant and interesting, though always about the same thing. She remembered how once he checked Rab's rein under the shade of a hawthorn-tree, and asked her to be his wife. She remembered, too, how Rab had borne her to the Kirk, to be married to Angus Grey; and she thought of three other Sundays when he had carried her and her baby to the christening; and of yet one other time, when he had drawn slowly away from her door a hearse, whereon lay the beloved husband and father. She thought, too, with tender anxiety, that now the last help of the widow, her humble fellow-laborer, was taken from her; and the grim wolf of want and hunger seemed to stand in poor dead Rab's place. Even the baby seemed to feel something of her anxiety and distress, and put up its pretty lip to cry; so to comfort it and to calm herself by her usual household labor, she returned to the cottage, leaving Effie and Jamie still sitting beside old Rab. Their grief had somewhat moderated; yet they sobbed as they talked of the virtues of the deceased, and wondered what life would be without him.