CHAPTER XII.
TURNING THE TABLES.
Eaglescraig—wood and wold, field, garden and lawn—was in all the glory of summer now, when June brought with it, as usual, the fragrance of the red and white hawthorn blossoms, the song of the nightingale and the coo of the cushat-dove; May that gave fresh greenness to the young corn on the upland slopes, and studded the grass on the dairy farms of Cunninghame with white daisies and golden buttercups; June that saw the old general clad in grey, whipping the cool dark pools of the Garnock or the Irvine with rod and line, and the skylark soaring high amid the silver clouds—the full-uddered cows standing knee-deep in the heavy pastures, and the bees warring among the velvet buds; but where was he with whom Mary would fain have looked upon Nature and her native scenery in their glory!
Eaglescraig in summer was rather unlike the Eaglescraig to which Cecil Falconer had come in stern winter to shoot over the covers; but Mary's heart could gather no brightness from the locality, which, though changed and more beautiful than in those days, was so full of his presence and associated with him: the lanes through which he had driven her pony-carriage when visiting the poor on missions of charity; the roads by which they had ridden to Kilwinning and elsewhere; the garden wherein they had so often lingered; the ancient dovecot on the lawn, and the grotto where—but why did she torture herself, in the superstition of the heart, by recalling all that was, but never could be again?
As that heart foreboded, she was not very long at Eaglescraig before the old subject of her marriage with Hew Montgomerie was resumed by Sir Piers, who nearly found an ally in Mrs. Garth, who came to the conclusion that everyone loved their first love, as a general rule, and married their second or third; though she was not without her fears that such a marriage would not be conducive to Mary's welfare, and knew well that too generally, in the end, 'as the husband is, the wife is.'
With all the regard that Hew affected to profess for Mary, it did not prevent him from growling heavily over exchanging Eaglescraig for Edinburgh, where yet, so far as its gaieties were concerned, everything was yet, as the Americans say, 'in full blast.'
'Here, in the quiet of the country,' said Sir Piers, 'she will have time to think over the escape she made from that fellow Falconer; and time to think over what she ought to do, Mrs. Garth.'
Time to think! Poor Mary had plenty of that: time to ponder in long and oppressive hours, as she lingered by the dovecot with the pigeons fluttering round her; by the burn that flowed at the garden-foot, with Mudie's last new novel half-cut and wholly unread in her lap; and, lost in a day-dream, saw the bees seek the flowers and the butterflies darting to and fro, while wondering with all the intensity of love and pity where he was, and what doing, now!
Sir Piers did not precisely see his way to acting like the stern parent or fiery guardian of the melodrama; but he thought that the time was approaching when he must do something to bend Mary to his purpose, and compel or cajole her into the acceptance of Hew, his heir of entail and successor.
'You knew that—that young man but a very short time, Mary,' said he one day in reference to Falconer, and playfully pinching her chin.
'True,' she replied, with a sweet sad smile; 'but it does not take years to learn to—love. Was it so with you, grand-uncle?'