So saying, the old man rose, and Martha lifted her work—but in a few minutes it again dropped on her knee, and opening the window she bent out, and suffered the pleasant air to bathe her forehead, and smoothe out the wrinkles which care had engraven on it. “Take care of them, take care of them!” said Martha, under her breath. “God help me! I trust more in my own care than in His.”
“Ye’re aye idle—aye idle. Do they never come back to you in your dreams the lees ye tell me, and the broken promises?” said Uncle Sandy. “And Beatie, I had your faithful word that all that flower was to be done before the morn.”
“Eh, but it was the gentleman,” said Beatie, with conscious guilt, labouring at her muslin with great demonstration of industry.
“The gentleman! He came in himsel. He gave you no trouble,” said the old man, shaking his head. “And you’ve been doing naething either, Jessie Laing.”
“Eh! me! I’ve weeded a’ the strawberry beds, though there’s naething on them yet but the blossom,” said the accused, in discontent; “and Mary, and Maggie, and the rest of them, telling Miss Rose about their lads a’ the time—and naebody blamed but me!”
“Miss Rose has gotten a lad o’ her ain—eh! look at the gentleman!” said another of the sisterhood, in an audible whisper.
For Rose had been playing with a sprig of fragrant lilac, which just now, as she started at sight of her uncle, fell upon the path at her foot; and, with a deferential bend, which every girl who saw it took as a personal reverence to herself, and valued accordingly, Mr. Charteris stooped to pick up the fallen blossom, and by and bye quite unobtrusively placed it in his breast.
Uncle Sandy lifted his book, and seated himself, casting a glance of good pleasure towards the plane tree, from which Rose was now approaching the door. Not a girl of all those workers who did not observe intently, and with an interest hardly less than her own “lad” received from her, every look and motion of “the gentleman.” Not one of them who would not have intrigued in his behalf with native skill and perseverance, had any of the stock obstacles of romance stood in Cuthbert’s way. It was pleasant to see the shy, smiling, blushing interest with which they regarded the stranger and his Lady Rose; something resembling the instinctive, half-pathetic tenderness with which women comfort a bride; but with more glee in it than that.
By and bye, when these young labourers were gone, and the shadows were falling over the garden, where little Lettie and Uncle Sandy’s maid scattered pleasant sounds and laughter through the dim walks, as they watered Uncle Sandy’s dearest flowers, Cuthbert Charteris unwillingly rose from the dim seat by the window, whence he could just see Violet at her self-chosen task, and said irresolutely that he must be gone. The window was open. They had been sitting for some time silent, and the wind, which blew in playfully, making a little riot now and then as it lighted unexpectedly upon the fluttering pages of an open book, was sweet with the breath of many glimmering hawthorns, and of that great old lilac bush—a garden and inheritance in itself—which filled the eastern corner, and hid the neighbouring house with its delicate leaves and blossoms. Opposite to him, Cuthbert still saw the white hair of the old man, and something of Martha’s figure withdrawn by his side; but out of a pleasant darkness which his imagination filled very sweetly, had come once or twice the voice of Rose. He could not see her, it had grown so dark, nor could he do more than feel a little soft hand glide into his, when he bade her good-night.
It had a singular charm, this darkness, and Cuthbert grasped the hand firmly and closely before it drew itself away. Then he went out into the soft summer night, with its sweet dews and sounds. A smile was on his face, his very heart was wrapped in this same soft fragrant gloom, and he went on unconsciously till he reached the river, and stood there, looking down upon the gentle water, flowing graciously, with a sweet ripple, under the pensive stars.