“But oh!” cried Jeanie, when they were alone together—kneeling by the bedside, with her face upon her grandmother’s hand, “you never called him but Willie—you never spoke to him soft and kind, as you used to do.”
“Was I no kind?” said the dying woman, with a mingled smile and sigh; but she kept “My bonnie man!” her one expression of homely fondness, for Edgar’s ear alone.
They had more than one long conversation before her end came. Edgar was always glad to volunteer to relieve the watchers in her room, feeling infinitely more at home there than with the others below. On the night before her death, she told him of the arrangements she had made.
“You gave me your fortune, Edgar, ower rashly, my bonnie man. Your deed was so worded, they tell me, that I might have willed your siller away from you, had I no been an honest woman.”
“And so I meant,” said Edgar, though he was not very clear that at the time he had any meaning at all. “And there is Jeanie——”
“You will not take Jeanie upon you,” said the old woman—“I charge ye not to do it. The best thing her brother can have to steady him and keep him right, is the thought of Jeanie on his hands—Jeanie to look for him when he comes home. You’ll mind what I say. Meddling with nature is aye wrong; I’ve done it in my day, and I’ve repented. To make a’ sure, I’ve left a will, Edgar, giving everything to you—everything. What is it? My auld napery, and the auld, auld remains of my mother’s—most of it her spinning and mine. Give it to your aunts, Edgar, for they’ll think it their due; but keep a something—what are the auld rags worth to you?—keep a little piece to mind me by—a bit of the fine auld damask—so proud as I was of it once! I’ve nae rings nor bonny-dies, like a grand leddy, to keep you in mind of me.”
She spoke so slowly that these words took her a long time to say, and they were interrupted by frequent pauses; but her voice had not the painful labouring which is so common at such a moment; it was very low, but still sweet and clear. Then she put out her hand, still so fine, and soft, and shapely, though the nervous force had gone out of it, upon Edgar’s arm.
“I’m going where I’ll hear nothing of you, maybe, for long,” she said. “I would like to take all the news with me—for there’s them to meet yonder that will want to hear. There’s something in your eye, my bonnie man, that makes me glad. You’re no just as you were—there’s more light and more life. Edgar, you’re seeing your way?”
Then, in the silence of the night, he told her all his tale. The curtains had been drawn aside, that she might see the moon shining over the hills. The clearest still night had succeeded many days of rain; the soft “hus-sh” of the loch lapping upon the beach was the only sound that broke the great calm. He sat between her and that vision of blue sky and silvered hill which was framed in by the window; by his side a little table, with a candle on it, which lighted one side of his face; behind him the shadowy dimness of the death-chamber; above him that gleam of midnight sky. He saw nothing but her face; she looked wistfully, fondly, as on a picture she might never see more, upon all the circumstances of this scene. He told her everything—more than he ever told to mortal after her—how he had been able to serve Clare, and how she had been saved from humiliation and shame; how he had met Gussy, and found her faithful; and how he was happy at the present moment, already loved and trusted, but happier still in the life that lay before him, and the woman who was to share it. She listened to every word with minute attention, following him with little exclamations, and all the interest of youth.
“And oh! now I’m glad!” cried the old woman, making feeble efforts, which wasted almost all the little breath left to her, to draw something from under her pillow—“I’m glad I have something that I never would part with. You’ll take her this, Edgar—you’ll give her my blessing. Tell her my man brought me this when I was a bride. It’s marked out mony a weary hour and mony a light one; it’s marked the time of births and of deaths. When my John died, my man, it stoppit at the moment, and it was long, long or I had the heart to wind it again and set it going. It’s worn now, like me; but you’ll bid her keep it, Edgar, my bonnie man! You’ll give her my blessing, and you’ll bid her to keep it, for your old mother’s sake.”