CHAPTER VII
The grey lights of morning shone mild on Glenalbert, as the carriage, which was conveying Laura to scenes unknown, wound slowly up the hill. With watery eyes she looked back on the quiet beauties of her native valley. She listened to the dashing of its stream, till the murmur died on her ear. Her lowly home soon glided behind the woods; but its early smoke rose peaceful from amidst its sheltering oaks, till it blended with the mists of morning; and Laura gazed on it as on the parting steps of a friend. 'Oh, vales!' she exclaimed, 'where my childhood sported—mountains that have echoed to my songs of praise, amidst your shades may my age find shelter—may your wild-flowers bloom on my grave!'—Captain Montreville pressed the fair enthusiast to his breast and smiled. It was a smile of pity—for Montreville's days of enthusiasm were past. It was a smile of pleasure—for we love to look upon the transcript of our early feelings. But, whatever it expressed, it was discord with the tone of Laura's mind. It struck cold on her glowing heart; and she carefully avoided uttering a word that might call forth such another, till, bright gleaming in the setting sun, she first beheld romantic Edinburgh. 'Is it not glorious!' she cried, tears of wonder and delight glittering in her eyes, and she longed for its re-appearance, when the descent of the little eminence which had favoured their view, excluded the city from their sight.
As the travellers approached the town, Laura, whose attention was rivetted by the castle and its rocks, now frowning majestic in the shades of twilight, and by the antique piles that seemed the work of giants, scarcely bestowed a glance on the neat row of modern buildings along which she was passing, and she was sorry when the carriage turned from the objects of her admiration towards the hotel where Captain Montreville intended to lodge.
Next morning, Laura, eager to renew the pleasure of the evening, proposed a walk; not without some dread of encountering the crowd which she expected to find in such a city. Of this crowd, she had, indeed, seen nothing the night before; but she concluded, ere that she reached town, most of the inhabitants had soberly retired to rest. At the season of the year, however, when Laura reached Edinburgh, she had little cause for apprehension. The noble streets through which she passed had the appearance of being depopulated by pestilence. The houses were uninhabited, the window-shutters were closed, and the grass grew from the crevices of the pavement. The few well-dressed people whom she saw, stared upon her with such oppressive curiosity, as gave the uninitiated Laura a serious uneasiness. At first she thought that some peculiarity in her dress occasioned this embarrassing scrutiny. But her dress was simple mourning, and its form the least conspicuous possible. She next imagined, that to her rather unusual stature she owed this unenviable notice; and, with a little displeasure, she remarked to her father, that it argued a strange want of delicacy to appear to notice the peculiarities of any one's figure; and that, in this respect, the upper ranks seemed more destitute of politeness than their inferiors. Captain Montreville answered, with a smile, that he did not think it was her height which drew such attention. 'Well,' said she, with great simplicity, 'I must endeavour to find food for my vanity in this notice, though it is rather against my doing so, that the women stare more tremendously than the gentlemen.'
As they passed the magnificent shops, the windows, gay with every variety of colour, constantly attracted Laura's inexperienced eye; and she asked Montreville to accompany her into one where she wished to purchase some necessary trifle. The shopman observing her attention fixed on a box of artificial flowers, spread them before her; and tried to invite her to purchase, by extolling the cheapness and beauty of his goods. 'Here is a charming sprig of myrtle, ma'am; and here is a geranium-wreath, the most becoming thing for the hair—only seven shillings each, ma'am.' Laura owned the flowers were beautiful. 'But I fear,' said she, looking compassionately at the man, 'you will never be able to sell them all. There are so few people who would give seven shillings for what is of no use whatever.' 'I am really sorry for that poor young man,' said she to her father, when they left the shop. 'Tall, robust, in the very flower of his age, how he must feel humbled by being obliged to attend to such trumpery?' 'Why is your pity confined to him?' said Montreville. 'There were several others in the same situation.' 'Oh! but they were children, and may do something better by and by. But the tall one, I suppose, is the son of some weak mother, who fears to trust him to fight his country's battles. It is hard that she should have power to compel him to such degradation; I really felt for him when he twirled those flowers between his finger and thumb, and looked so much in earnest about nothing.' The next thing which drew Laura's attention was a stay-maker's sign. 'Do the gentlemen here wear corsets?' said she to Montreville. 'Not many of them, I believe,' said Montreville. 'What makes you inquire?' 'Because there is a man opposite who makes corsets. It cannot surely be for women.'
Captain Montreville had only one female acquaintance in Edinburgh, a lady of some fashion, and hearing that she was come to town to remain till after the races, he that forenoon carried Laura to wait upon her. The lady received them most graciously, inquired how long they intended to stay in Edinburgh; and on being answered that they were to leave it in two days, overwhelmed them with regrets, that the shortness of their stay precluded her from the pleasure of their company for a longer visit. Laura regretted it too; but utterly ignorant of the time which must elapse between a fashionable invitation and the consequent visit, she could not help wondering whether the lady was really engaged for each of the four daily meals of two succeeding days.
These days, Captain Montreville and his daughter passed in examining this picturesque city—its public libraries, its antique castle, its forsaken palace, and its splendid scenery. But nothing in its singular environs more charmed the eye of Laura than one deserted walk, where, though the noise of multitudes stole softened on the ear, scarcely a trace of human existence was visible, except the ruin of a little chapel which peeped fancifully from the ledge of a rock, and reminded her of the antick gambols of the red deer on her native hills, when, from the brink of the precipice, they look fearless into the dell below. Captain Montreville next conducted his daughter to the top of the fantastic mountain that adorns the immediate neighbourhood of Edinburgh, and triumphantly demanded whether she had ever seen such a prospect. But Laura was by no means disposed to let Perthshire yield the palm to Lowland scenery. Here indeed, the prospect was varied and extensive, but the objects were too various, too distant, too gay—they glared on the eye—the interest was lost. The serpentine corn-ridges, offensive to agricultural skill; the school, with its well frequented Gean-tree; the bright green clover fields, seen at intervals through the oak coppice; the church, half hid by its venerable ash trees; the feathery birch, trembling in the breath of evening; the smoking hamlet, its soft colours blending with those of the rocks that sheltered it; the rill, dashing with fairy anger in the channel which its winter fury had furrowed—these were the simple objects which had charms for Laura, not to be rivalled by neat enclosures and whitened villas. Yet the scenes before her were delightful, and had not Captain Montreville's appeal recalled the comparison, she would, in the pleasure which they excited, have forgotten the less splendid beauties of Glenalbert.
Montreville pointed out the road that led to England. Laura sent a longing look towards it, as it wound amid woods and villages and gentle swells, and was lost to the eye in a country which smiled rich and inviting from afar. She turned her eyes where the Forth is lost in the boundless ocean, and sighed as she thought of the perils and hardships of them who go down to the sea in ships. Montreville, unwilling to subject her to the inconveniencies of a voyage, had proposed to continue his journey by land, and Laura herself could not think without reluctance of tempting the faithless deep. The scenery, too, which a journey promised to present, glowed in her fervid imagination with more than nature's beauty. Yet feeling the necessity of rigid economy, and determined not to permit her too indulgent parent to consult her accommodation at the expence of his prudence, she it was, who persuaded Montreville to prefer a passage by sea, as the mode of conveyance best suited to his finances.
The next day our travellers embarked for London. The weather was fine, and Laura remained all day upon deck, amused with the novelty of her situation. Till she left her native solitude, she had never even seen the sea, except, when from a mountain top, it seemed far off to mingle with the sky; and to her, the majestic Forth, as it widened into an estuary, seemed itself a 'world of waters.' But when on one side the land receded from the view, when the great deep lay before her, Laura looked upon it for a moment, and shuddering, turned away. 'It is too mournful,' said she to her father—'were there but one spot, however small, however dimly descried, which fancy might people with beings like ourselves, I could look with pleasure on the gulf between—but here there is no resting place. Thus dismal, thus overpowering, methinks eternity would have appeared, had not a haven of rest been made known to us.' Compared with the boundless expanse of waters, the little bark in which she was floating seemed 'diminished to a point;' and Laura raising her eyes to the stars that were beginning to glimmer through the twilight, thought that such a speck was the wide world itself, amid the immeasurable space in which it rolled. This was Laura's hour of prayer, and far less inviting circumstances can recal us to the acts of a settled habit.