“But there was ane thing special, Miss Anne, about your brother; a thought o’ pleasure never entered his head; he had a sunshine within himsel that keepit him aye cheery; and the bits o’ dawting, and good things, and makings o’, that ither bairns fecht for, he heeded not, though I never saw a laddie that liket better the quietest mark of kindliness: only, if there was onything like a privilege or an honor, he would aye have it wared on the rest; no jealous and grudging, like as ye will see some bairns, that are learned to pretend to do the like, and no to be selfish; but with a blythe spark shining in his eye, enjoying the good thing, whatever it was, far mair than if he had gotten it himsel.
“It might be because Mr. Lawrence was aye delicate, and bid to get his ain way; but the maist of it, without doubt, was in the nature. My ain Willie was a kindly callant, as need to be; but I have seen him (who was only a poor man’s son, and no equal to the young Laird,) standing out against Mr. Lawrence in his pets, when Mr. Norman gaed way, in his blythe, frank manner, without sae much as a thought about ony pride o’ his ain; and I have kent him, money a time, when ony o’ them were in the wrang, taking the blame upon himsel.
“Ye will think I am dwelling on thae auld stories ower lang, Miss Anne; but I see them—I think I can see them on Oranside, Mr. Lawrence sitting, white and thin, on the bank, watching them; and my ain twa, my beautiful laddies! as wild in their innocent play as twa foals on a lee; and the cut fingers, and the torn clothes, and the fa’s into Oran: waes me! what were a’ their bits o’ tribulations but just another name for joy?
“Weel, Mr. Lawrence died, as ye ken. If he was petted whiles, it was wi’ sickness and suffering—pain that the young spirit could ill bear, and that awfu’ cough; but he was a blessed bairn, and departed as calm and pleasant as an angel gaun hame—as truly he was, puir lamb!—out of a world that had held nothing but ill to him; and the other bairns dwined away from the house o’ Merkland. Eh! Miss Anne, ane canna read thae sore and sorrowful dispensations! To think that there should be sae mony blythe families round about, wi’ no ane wee head lifted out among them, and a’ the Mistress’s lilies gathered—a’ but Mr. Norman; and ye wad have thought the rest had left a portion of their life to him, as that strange lassie, Jacky Morison, was saying to me out of a book of ballants, about three knights—aye as the ane was killed, the spirit and the strength of him entered into the other; but that’s a fule story. So, as I was saying, ye might have thought it was so wi’ Mr. Norman; for, the mair death there was in the house, the stronger and fuller of life he grew. Ye may think, Miss Anne, how the Mistress’s heart was bound up in her one son, growing among tears and troubles, like a strong young tree by the waterside.
“And then she died hersel. He wad be haill eighteen then, maistly a man; and ye wad have thought his heart would burst. For months after that, he used to come in and sit beside me in the nursery, never speaking a word. We were the truest mourners in Merkland, him and me, and maybe it made us like ane anither a’ the better.
“It was a dreary year, that first year after your mother died; but there were drearier years to come. The twelvemonth was just out, when it began to be whispered in the countryside that Merkland was courting a new wife. I could have felled the first body that said it to me, and Mr. Norman flew upon Duncan, in the greatest passion I ever saw him in, for dauring to hint at sic a word; but the rumor rose, for a’ that (folk said it was because Mr. Norman had been put aside from inheriting Merkland, because he was to take his uncle’s name, and sae noo there was nae heir,) till I put it to the Laird my ain sel—ye may think it bauld, Miss Anne, but I had been about the house a’ his married life.—That very night—for I wasna likely to bide wi’ a strange woman in my mistress’s seat—I was sorting my bits of odds and ends to gang away; and looking at you, sleeping in your wee bed, and murning for ye, an innocent lamb, left to the cold mercies of a stepmother, when Mr. Norman came in. I saw, by the white look of him, in a moment, that he had been hurt and wounded to the very heart (and so he was,) for his father had tell’t him. Eh! Miss Anne, to think that he could tell the fine, manly, grown-up lad, that nae mortal could help being proud o’; and that was liker being marriet himsel than hearing tell o’ his father.
“So he sat down by the fireside and covered his face wi’ his hands, and did not say a word to me—only I heard him moaning to himsel, ‘O, mother, mother!’ Nae wonder—we were wearing our murnings still, and she had been but ae twelvemonth gone.
“So the marriage-day came at last. I had flitted into this house the week afore—and there were mony folk at the wedding, only Mrs. Catherine, and Strathoran’s lady, and some more, wouldna come; and when they sought Mr. Norman, he wasna to be found far or near—where think ye he spent that day, Miss Anne? at his mother’s grave!
“Ye’re wearying on me—it’s just because it’s a’ sae clear in my ain mind—I canna help it; but I am coming to the time noo. Mr. Norman ye ken, had an inheritance o’ his ain by the mother’s side. Your uncle, Mr. Rutherford, of Redheugh, was a bachelor gentleman, and died three or four years before your mother—and Mr. Norman was his heir. He was to take both the land and the name, and I have heard it was a better property than Merkland, only it was far south by this, on the ither side o’ Edinburgh. Mr. Norman was to bide wi’ his father till he came of age, and a sore and weary time it was, for this Mrs. Ross couldna bear the sicht of him, and he likit her as ill. I maistly wished for his ain sake that the time was come, though it was a sore thought to me that I was to have the sight o’ him, gladdening my auld e’en (I wasna sae auld then either nae mair).
“And at last his one-and-twentieth birthday came, and he gaed away. I did not see him after that for a whole year. The light of my eyes was ta’en from me, Miss Anne—I had little pleasure of my life, for both my boys were away.