Geordie's Tryst: A Tale of Scottish Life

by Janet Milne Rae

"Kirklands at last," was re-echoed among the little party. The two boys seated beside the coachman glanced round at the occupants of the inside seats, feeling sure that, their higher position secured them superior information, and shouted in chorus, "Mamma, mamma, Kirklands at last."

"As if we didn't know that as well as you. do," shouted back Willie, a curly-headed little fellow, seated beside his mother, who had a secret hankering after the higher place of his elder brothers, along with a desire to prove to them that their position was in no way superior to his own.

The old gates closed behind them, and the carriage bowled swiftly along the smooth avenue, with its branching elms overhead. The pleasant vistas of green, on all sides, were very grateful to the eyes of the young travellers, wearied with miles of a white dusty turnpike-road, on a hot July afternoon. They looked with delighted gaze on the new fair scene, and thought what happy evenings they would have among those green glades during the long summer days.

But there was one of the party to whom this scene was not new, but old and familiar, written over with many memories, some well-nigh overlaid in the turmoil of life, but which flickered up with new vividness as she looked on the calm sunlighted scene, and thought of other days. The years had brought many changes to her, and it was with mingled feelings that she gazed on this unchanged spot. Each grey-lichened rock stood out from the mossy floor with a face that was familiar; all the little winding woodland paths, she knew where they led to, and could take the children to many a nook where wild flowers and delicate green ferns still loved to grow, at they did long ago when she used to gather them in these woods.

"Seventeen years ago! is it possible?" she murmured, as she leaned back in a corner of the carriage, and thought of the many leaves in the book of her life which had been folded-down since she took farewell of these green glades in her girlish days. And as she sits, quietly thinking, while the little group round her are making the green aisles resound with their merry laughter, we fancy, as we glance at her face, that it is one we have seen before in this valley. The "stealthy day by day" has certainly done its work; the outline of Grace's cheek is sharper than it used to be, and the eager, speaking eyes have lost somewhat of their fire, but there is a calm gladness in their gaze as she glances at the joyous faces round her, that speaks of lessons learnt, and sorrows past, during chequered days which have lain between the autumn evening, when we saw her last, and this July afternoon, when she is coming with her "two bands" to the home of her girlhood.

Miss Hume, Grace's aunt, had passed away from this world during that autumn seventeen years ago, and Grace had never revisited Kirklands since. Walter, to whom it belonged, was still a naval officer. His home on the sea had still more fascination for him than the inland beauties of Kirklands, which had been left to strangers during the intervening years.

For some time past it had stood empty and tenantless, and Walter had suggested that his sister, who had just come from a long sojourn abroad, should, with her children, take up her abode there. Her husband, Colonel Foster, was still on foreign service; and Grace, who longed to see the old home after all her wanderings, had readily agreed to go with her little flock and introduce them to the spot which was their dreamland of romance, the historic ground of all the pleasantest stories in their mother's mental library, often ransacked for their benefit.

Mrs. Foster's servants were already at Kirklands, making preparations for the arrival. The old rooms were being opened up once again, and shafts of golden sunlight streamed through the long-darkened windows, on the dark-panelled walls, as if to herald joyously the good news that "life and thought" were coming back to the deserted house.

As the carriage followed the windings of the avenue, the grey gables of the old mansion began to peep through the green boughs, their first appearance being announced by a jubilant chorus from the elder boys on the box, which made little Willie feel painfully that his range of vision was far from satisfactory. Presently, however, the timeworn walls could be seen by all the party, as the carriage wheeled round the old terrace, and the travellers reached the end of their journey. Then eager feet began to trot up and down the grass-grown steps, and climb on the old carved railing, where the griffins fascinated little Grace by their stony stare, as they used to do her mother years ago. The long-silent corridors began to resound with joyous laughter, as the merry party rambled through the old rooms, wishing to identify each place with historical recollections, founded on their mother's and Uncle Walter's stories. And was that really the tree that Uncle Walter made believe to be the rigging of a ship, and one day fell from one of its highest boughs? And where used they to keep their rabbits, and in what room did they learn their lessons? These, and such questions, were generally asked in chorus, to which their mother had to endeavour to reply, as she wandered among the familiar rooms with her merry boys and girls.

"Mamma, do you know what I should like to see best of all? Two things, mamma," whispered little Grace, as she caught hold of her mother's dress.