CHAPTER XVII.
The wind blows east, the wind blows west,
And then comes both sun and rain.
CARLYLE.
The autumn passed with many ordinary vicissitudes, with times of peacefulness, and times of trouble; and in the house of Allenders another baby son was born. It was just when Harry was beginning the business of his farm, and after a time of great abstraction and excitement, during which he had visited Edinburgh once or twice, and was evidently occupied with some business which he could not confide to any one at home. But Harry’s mind had been lightened before his baby came; the farm-manager had arrived; Geordie, the nephew of the feeble Dragon, had spoken his mind to Allenders about the new harrow and the plough-graith, and had been graciously heard—so graciously, that Geordie immediately decided on an affirmative answer to the question which agitated the whole population of Maidlin Cross, and ever after maintained that “the laird had siller o’ his ain, bye the lands, and that he was just living free and open-handed, as a gentleman should live.” It was one of Harry’s sunshine times; and many a heart wished kindly wishes for him, as he stood in Maidlin Church, his young wife in her graceful weakness, and his sisters seated by his side, and held up his child to receive the baptismal sprinkling, and to be named with the name of the Lord. “He has the kindliest face I ever saw—ane’s heart warms to the lad—blessings on him,” said an old woman on the pulpit stairs; and Martha’s heart swelled with the echoed blessing.
And there were blessings on him—blessings which many a desolate heart sighed and pined for in vain—blessings of rare love and tenderness, of children fair and hopeful, and in his own person of a competent mind, and of the bright health and youth to which everything was possible. So far as his starting point was concerned, a wonderful realization had come to Martha’s ambitious hopes for him; and now it almost seemed to lie with Harry himself to decide what the end of them should be.
In the farm-house of Allender Mains, Harry’s farm-manager has already established himself, and from the midst of its bare trees you see appearing the half-built chimney of the new threshing-mill, the machinery of which has just arrived under charge of two young engineers from Glasgow; and the slope of the farm-garden, and all the barnyard behind, is lined with great draining-pipes, glancing red through the hoar-frost at a mile or two’s distance, upon their slight elevation. And just behind the little byre and stable of Allenders’ house, a great range of new stables and byres are rising, to receive the cattle, which Harry has resolved shall be unequalled in the country-side. When the weather is “fresh,” you cannot pass a field without seeing the heavy breath of the plough-horses, rising like a mist over the hedge, and hearing the meditative whistle, or uncouth call of the ploughman behind. An air of sudden activity spreads over the little district—so decided and apparent, indeed, that a retired weaver in Stirling has already two new houses in progress, one of which is a little shop, in the very front of Maidlin Cross. The event excited the hamlet to a positive uproar, for never before had any man dreamed of dignifying Maidlin with such a two-storied slated house as slowly grew upon its astonished vision now.
And in the dusk of the winter mornings you see the lanes full of hardy brown children, girded with rough sackcloth aprons—bound for school, you would fancy. No, they are bound for Harry’s fields, to “gather stanes,” and have each a little “wage” to carry home on Saturday night to the immense delight of mother and child. The fathers are laying drains and ploughing, the elder sisters tend the fine cows in the byre at Allender Mains, and prosperity to which they are altogether unaccustomed falls suddenly upon the startled inhabitants of Maidlin Cross.
And landlords and farmers, startled too, are looking more scrupulously to themselves, lest they be outdone by the newcomer; the blood stirs in the awakened veins of the country side, and something of emulation, keener than the keenest air of December, strikes into the warm fireside corner, where honest men can no longer take in peace their afternoon’s glass of toddy, and its accompanying newspaper, for constant reports of what is doing at Allenders, and what Allenders himself is doing—for Harry’s active footstep rings along the frost-bound paths, and Harry’s frank salutations scatter good-will among his husbandmen every day; and steady-going agricultural people waken up, and look after their own omissions and neglects, with a half-grudge at Allenders.
It seems that Harry has found at last the life suitable for him. Though the snow lies heavy on the sullen brow of Demeyet, and every blade of grass on the lawn is crisped into distinct identity, and the burn is frost-bound under the trees, and an icy hand restrains the tinkling springlet of the Lady’s Well, Harry never fails to visit his fields.