Murray Monteith had to leave me without being able to arrange a particular date for his marriage. I am very sorry; but, after all, his great day may dawn sooner than he expects.
CHAPTER XIX.
March came in like a lion, and, true to its proverbial reputation, it is going out like a lamb. Nature is waking from her long winter sleep, and is beginning to clothe herself anew. The hawthorn hedgerows, which only three weeks ago were hidden in piled-up wreaths of drifted snow, are covered now with a blush of green, and already in their bielded clefts the sparrows and yellow-yoits are preparing to build for themselves 'an house wherein to dwell.' There is a kindly warmth in the sun's rays as they lie on the upturned brown fields, and a soft genial breath is stealing through the woods and lingering lovingly round the ash and the chestnut, those early risers in the first dawn of spring. What a boldness and assertiveness there is in the big black bud of the ash, and how promising is the bulging pink-brown bud of the chestnut! To those who have eyes to see and ears to hear, how wonderful is the story they tell! If I were a preacher of God's gospel, I question if I could confine the selection of my texts to the literal words from His holy book. Of late I have been lying much in Nature's lap; I have listened with greedy, receptive ears to her song and story; I have felt the throbbing of her great mother heart, and learned in her workings many of the wonderful ways of her great Controller. And I am leaving her knee, creeping out of God's own sanctuary, humbled and chastened, yet gladdened and relieved withal, to think that into the city life, which I must soon re-enter, I am carrying with me that heaven-sent faculty of finding 'tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, sermons in stones, and good in everything.'
And these lanes and solitary bypaths which have been my schoolroom are becoming daily more interesting, more insistent in their appeal. They are now providing something fresh and pleasing every day. I must walk slowly and quietly, so that I may see and hear every titbit of their store. A country walk at the rate of four miles an hour is very invigorating, to those in good health very pleasurable; but such is not possible on my byway at this season of the year, except to the Philistines. Even Bang and Jip do not exceed the half-mile limit; and as for myself—well, Dr Grierson has oftener than once accompanied me down the Gillfoot road, and I know he doesn't gauge the progress of my recovery by my rate of locomotion. No; if I must see and hear aright I have to walk slowly, and when the mavis is singing at close o' day I must halt altogether if I would listen as I ought.
For many mornings past a blackbird from the top of the apple-tree in our garden has been challenging Tom Jardine to a trial of song; and, much as I love to lie and listen to my neighbour's pure tenor voice in 'The Lea Rig' or 'Flow gently, sweet Afton,' I have not been sorry when, as if acknowledging defeat, he has stopped to hearken to his feathered rival in the old apple-tree.
Now that Tom has got over all his worries, and the sun is rising earlier, his heart is becoming attuned, and the familiar old Scots airs are accompanying the different items of his morning duties just as they used to do when first I came to stay with Betty. I hear the gray mare's whinny, the turning of the key in the stable door, the lid of the corn-bin creaking on its rusty hinges—these are all as they used to be. But, alas! all is quiet in Betty's kitchen now, and I miss the cheery sounds of the early breakfast preparations, for Nathan is lying prostrate in the back-room, and poor Betty's rest is too much disturbed to permit of her rising with the dawn.
Every Friday evening since I came here I have given Nathan an envelope enclosing my weekly contribution toward the household expenses—that is, of course, in accordance with the arrangement I made with Betty; and at first I often used to wonder if she had fully explained the matter to him, because he always took the packet from me in a hesitating, doubtful way, very much as a debtor would accept a summons. Later he just smiled, and without a word put it in his trousers-pocket, looking sideways at me and inclining his head toward Betty wherever she happened to be at the time.
Last Friday night, when I was at his bedside, I handed him the envelope as usual. He didn't hold out his hand for it; so I laid it down on the coverlet, and nothing was said for a time. Then, nodding toward a wooden box in the corner of the room, he said, 'Maister Weelum, will ye open the lid o' that kist, if ye please, an' bring me the wee tin box that's lyin' at the left-haun side?'
I did as he requested. It was an old, battered, black japanned receptacle without a lock, and only secured against accidental opening by a wooden peg inserted through the catch. Withdrawing the peg and placing it between his teeth, he took off the lid, and there—some clean, others crumpled and dirty—was every envelope I had given him, and all of them unopened, as I had put them into his hand.