“And I’ll away in, Missie, to see about my kail,” said Dragon. “It’s eleven in the day by the sun. Ye should gang to Mysie, and get a piece yoursel.”
The old man shuffled away, and Lettie, swinging round the thick trunk of the oak, suddenly came upon Rose. The child’s eyes were glistening, dark and wistful, and there was a cloud of the old vague gloom and discouragement upon her face.
“What way do they ask if Harry has siller, Rose?” asked Lettie, anxiously; “what way do they say he hasna enough? Was Allenders no a grand fortune when Harry got it? and what way is it no a grand fortune now?”
“I cannot tell, Lettie,” said Rose, sadly. “Come away, and we’ll go in, and you’ll read a book to Martha and me.”
Lettie put her hand into her sister’s quietly, and they went in together. Martha was still at her window—still working with her old silent assiduity—and Rose drew a chair to the opposite side of the little table, and, greatly subdued and sobered, took up out of Martha’s basket, a piece of embroidery, and began to “open” it as busily as of yore. This work was still regularly supplied to Martha by Uncle Sandy in Ayr. It was a satisfaction to her to pursue those unknown labours day by day; and Rose, too, began with a kind of desperate energy—as if such a pittance as she could earn could have any effect upon the fortunes of Harry; but still it was a satisfaction to do what she could.
Katie Calder came in from the garden, flushed and merry, and could not comprehend the quietness which had fallen upon Rose and her little playfellow, though Lettie’s changing moods ceased to surprise her constant companion; so Katie resumed her pilgrimages between Martha’s room, and the dressmaker’s, and began her doll’s bonnet with great success and éclat; while Violet again seated on the carpet, solemnly commenced to read “Hydrotaphia” to her quite uninterested auditors; but finding this would not do, suddenly threw it down, and began to tell them Dragon’s story.
The sisters listened with quiet pleasure; they did not always understand Lettie, in her reveries and dreamings, and she was naturally shy of speech; but Martha had already been startled on more than one occasion by the strange intuitive perceptions of her youngest “bairn,” and she said with an affectionate smile when the story ended. “You will be like Lady Violet, Lettie—you will make ballads too.”
A burning flush crossed the child’s face, and she did not speak for some time. Then she looked up to say: “Dragon says Harry’s no a canny name for the Lairds of Allenders, and there never has been one, Martha, from Lady Violet’s time till now.”
A cloud passed over Martha’s face—a very slight fantastic thing was enough at this time to leave a permanent shadow.
And it was a week before Harry returned; and he came back sullen, gloomy, and exhausted, with nothing to tell them, as he said—nor had he seen Charteris except once, and that on the first day he spent in Edinburgh. Poor Harry! he had not yet expended a farthing on his farming operations, and he dared not think how little remained of Miss Jean’s thousand pounds.