Allison Bain; Or, By a Way She Knew Not

by Margaret M. Robertson

Chapter Eleven.

“Oh! the happy life of children still restoring joy to ours!
Back recalling all the sweetness.”

Summer came slowly but happily to Marjorie this year, bringing with it, oh! so many pleasures to which she had hitherto been a stranger. She had had the early spring flowers brought into the parlour many a time, and ferns and buds and bonny leaves, for all the bairns of the place were more than glad to be allowed to share their treasures with her; and the one who came first and brought the most of these, thought herself the happiest, and great delight in past summers had all this given to the child. She had watched, too, the springing of the green things in the garden, the wakening of pale little snowdrops and auriculas, and the gradual unfolding of the leaves and blossoms on the berry-bushes, and on the one apple-tree, the pride of the place.

But she had never with her own hands plucked the yellow pussies from the saughs (low willows) by the burn, nor found the wee violets, blue and white, hiding themselves under last year’s leaves. She had never watched the slow coming of, first the buds, and then the leaves on the trees along the lanes, nor seen the hawthorn hedges all in bloom, nor the low hills growing greener every day, nor the wandering clouds making wandering shadows where the gowans—the countless “crimson-tipped flowers”—were gleaming among the grass. All this and more she saw this year, as she lay in the strong, kind arms of Allison. And as the days went on it would not have been easy to say whether it was the little child, or the sad and silent woman, who got the greater good from it all.

For Allison could no longer move along the lanes and over the fields in a dream, her inward eyes seeing other faraway fields and hills and a lost home, and faces hidden for evermore, when a small hand was now and then laid upon her cheek to call her back to the present. The little silvery voice was ever breaking in upon these dreary memories, and drearier forebodings, with cooing murmurs of utter content, or with shrill outbursts of eager delight, in the enjoyment of pleasures that were all of Allie’s giving. And so what could Allie do but come out of her own sorrowful musings and smile and rejoice in the child’s joy, and find a new happiness in the child’s love.

There was much to be done in the house, but there was no day so busy or so full of care but that Allison could manage to give the child a blink of sunshine if the day were fair. There was much to do out of the house also, what with the cows and the garden and the glebe. Cripple Sandy, who was the minister’s man-of-all-work, had all that he could do, and more, in the narrow fields. So Allison rose early and milked her cows, and led them out herself, to no wide pasture, but to one of those fields where she tethered them first and flitted them later in the morning when they had cropped their little circle bare. And both at the tethering and the flitting Marjorie assisted when the day was fine, and it was a possible thing. She woke when Allison rose, and being first strengthened by a cup of warm milk and a bit of bread, and then wrapped warmly up in a plaid to keep her safe from the chill air of the morning, she was ready for a half-hour of perfect enjoyment. When that was over, she was eager for another cup of milk and another sleep, which lasted till breakfast was over and her brothers had all gone to school.

And when the time for the afternoon flitting of the cows came, Marjorie was in the field once more, sitting on a plaid while the placid creatures were moved on, and she and Allie went home again as they came, through the lanes in which there were so many beautiful things.

Sometimes a neighbour met them, who had something to say to the child, and sometimes they met the bairns coming from the school. When they came home by the longest way, as Marjorie liked best to do, they would have a word with the schoolmistress, as she was taking the air at her door when the labours of the day were over, and sometimes a smile and a flower from Mrs Beaton in her garden over the way. This was the very best summer in all her life, Marjorie told her father one day, as Allie laid her down on her couch in the parlour again.

All this was beginning to do the child good. Even the neighbours noticed the change after a little, and were glad also. Some of them meant that the coming and going passed the time and contented her. Others said that it was well that her mother’s heart was set at rest about her, and that she got more time for all else that she had to do; and all thought well of the new lass for her care of little Marjorie.