‘Aye,’ said Jean Campbell to herself, when the sisters had gone in; ‘the morn’s ay a new day; but them that’s lightheaded and thoughtless the night will be thoughtless the morn. Naething is to be counted on with a young lass. She’ll hae her fling though she’s a lady born. And Margaret there, puir thing, that never kent what it was to have the life dancing in her bits of veins! I’m, maybe, hard on her mysel,’ Jean murmured, pausing a moment at the closed door of the parlour. There was a sound of weeping from within, which touched her heart. She listened, hesitating whether to interfere. ‘If she had twa-three words to say to her lad on the hill, there was nae harm in that,’ said Jean to herself; and moved by recollections, she knocked at the door. ‘Lasses, ten’s chappit,’ she said. ‘The bairns are in their beds, and Margaret should ay be bedded as soon as the bairns. As for her there, likely she meant nae harm. Let her gang to her bed and say her prayers, and we’ll think on’t nae mair.’
‘I hope my own sister may say what she likes,’ said Isabel, starting up and turning on the good-natured mediator with her bright eyes full of tears. ‘There is nobody has a right to meddle between Margaret and me.’
‘Oh, hush, hush,’ said Margaret, ‘you two. I am not finding fault with her—and she is not ungrateful to you. It is a thing will never happen again.’
‘No—till the next time,’ said Jean Campbell, closing the parlour door after her with rising irritation. ‘Am I a fool to mind what the silly thing says?’ she said to herself, as she fastened the cottage door. Just then the sound of another foot scattering the gravel on the road came to her ear. With natural curiosity she reopened the door, leaving a little chink by which she could see through. ‘I kent it was him,’ she said triumphantly within herself. Though it was so dark, there was something about young Stapylton’s appearance, as a stranger and foreigner, which was instantly distinguishable to rural eyes. Jean looked on with keen curiosity as he passed. He could not see her, nor could he perceive the loophole through which her eyes watched him. To him the house was all dark and silent, shut up in its usual tranquillity. He paused before it, and inspected it all round, evidently with the idea that Isabel might be lingering outside. When he saw the light in the parlour window, he turned away with an exclamation of disgust, and shook his fist at the house which contained his love. The astonished watcher could not hear what he muttered to himself, nor divine what was the cause of his wrath; but she threw the door open, and shook her fist at him in return, with prompt resentment. ‘It’s a dark night for a long walk, Maister Stapylton,’ Jean called out to him, with fierce satisfaction; ‘and there’s an awfu’ ill bit down there where the burn’s broke the bank. Can I len’ you a lantern till you’re past the burn?’
The young man quickened his steps, and went rambling on detaching the stones down the rugged road with some inarticulate angry answer of which Jean could make nothing. The disappointed wooer was in no very good humour either with himself or the household, which he pictured to himself must be laughing over his failure. Jean, for her part, put up the bolt with demonstration when she had thus gratified her feelings. The ‘lad’ whom his lass had left disconsolate on the hill, was fair game in the eyes of the peasant woman, and the little matter was concluded when he was thus sent angry and humbled away.
But it was not so in the parlour where Isabel was telling her story with many tears. Margaret, whose mind had long been abstracted from all such thoughts, listened with a curious mingling of interest and pain. That it could ever have entered into the mind of her sister to leave her thus suddenly, without warning, was an idea that filled her with consternation. She was silent while the confession was being made, confused as if a new world had suddenly opened up before her. Not a word of reproof did Margaret say; but she listened like a creature in a dream. Love!—was it love that could work so, that could be so pitiless? The virgin soul awoke appalled, and looked out as upon a new earth. Even Isabel did not know the effect her words produced. Her penitence fell altogether short of the occasion. She was sorry for having listened, sorry for having given patient ear for a moment to such a project, but she was not utterly bewildered, like Margaret, to think that such a project could be.
‘And he thought, and I thought,’ cried Isabel, alarmed by her sister’s silence, ‘that you could never be long left when Ailie’s cured and well. He would never have dreamed of it, but that he believed, like me——. Oh, Margaret! it’s slow to come, but it’s coming, you’re sure it’s coming? God would never forsake you.’
‘He will never forsake me,’ cried Margaret; ‘but, Bell, I cannot be cured. That is not the Lord’s meaning for me. And if I had been well, you would have run away and left me!’ she added, with a little natural pang. Isabel could not encounter the wistful reproach in her eyes; she threw herself down by her sister’s side, and hid her face in Margaret’s dress.
‘If you had been well, you would not have minded,’ she sobbed: ‘if you had been well, somebody would have been coming for you as well as for me.’
‘For me!’ said the sick girl—her voice was too soft for indignation, too soft for reproach. ‘Yes,’ she said; after a pause, ‘the Bridegroom is soon coming for me; I hear His step nearer and nearer every day. And, Bell, I will not say a word. It is nature, they all tell me; I am not blaming you.’