“Oh yes, I will come,” said Margaret, without hesitation. “I would like to see them. I never saw anything so beautiful. The Kirkton its very self, and Earl’s-hall, old Earl’s-hall. Papa says it will tumble down about our ears; but it never can quite tumble down and come to an end while there’s that!” the girl said. If the artist had been Turner himself he could not have had finer praise.
And she let him walk the length of the field with her, telling her about his wonderful art—then ran home, her heart beating, her mind roused, and amused, and delighted. The slow twilight was just beginning to draw a magical silvery veil over earth and sky. Margaret ran home hurried and breathless, occupied to the full, conscious of no more deficiencies.
“Have you been out all this time, Miss Margret?” said Bell, just rising from her seat by the door, “and you’ve had your foot in the burn. Go quick and change, my bonnie pet. I’ve been ower lang in the court, and the dew’s falling, and a’ the stairch out o’ my cap. We’re twa fuils for the bonny gloamin’, me and you.”
CHAPTER IV.
Margaret went up-stairs with her heart and her feet equally light. She was full of excitement and pleasure. It was true that she had not many excitements in her life, especially of a pleasurable kind; but those she had encountered had not been straightway communicated to some one, as the happy privilege of her age in most cases. Out of sheer inability to contain her sentiments and sensations in one small bosom, she had indeed often poured forth innocent disclosures into the ear of Bell. And when these concerned anything that troubled her, specially the remarks and criticisms of her sisters, Bell had been the best of confidants, backing her up steadfastly, and increasing her indignation by the sympathy of warm and strong resentment. But of other troubles and pleasures, Bell had not been equally understanding. And she was the last person, Margaret felt, to whom she could tell the story of this evening’s encounter. Bell would not have been amused and interested like Margaret. She would have opened great eyes of astonishment and exclaimed upon the audacity of Rob Glen in venturing to approach Miss Margaret. “Rob Glen! who was he to proffer his acquaintance to the young lady of Earl’s-ha’?” Margaret knew as well how Bell would have said this, as if she had actually delivered the tirade. Therefore the girl made no mention of her new friend. She ran up-stairs, where she found Jeanie lighting a pair of candles on the table in the East Chamber.
“I’ve lighted Sir Ludovic’s lights, and will you want anything more the nicht, Miss Margaret?” said Jeanie, her fair fresh face giving out more light than did the candles.
“Oh, Jeanie!”—the girl began, but then she checked herself. No, she would not tell any one, why should she? Better to keep it in her own mind, and then there would be no harm. Margaret was not often scolded, but she had a misgiving that she might come in the way of that unusual discipline were she too communicative on the subject of her long conversation with Rob Glen.
She sat down in the East Chamber alone, her face and her eyes glowing. How pleasant it was to have an adventure! The little white-panelled room was but poorly lighted by the two candles. The window still full of twilight, clouds of gray here and there, with a lingering tinge upon them of the sun or its reflections, hung like a great picture on the wall. There were one or two actual pictures, but they were small, and dark, and old, not very decipherable at any time, and entirely invisible now. On the table, in the speck of light which formed the centre of the room, of itself a picture had there been any one to see, lay Lady Jean’s old work, with its faded colors, in pretty harmony with all the scene around; and centre of the centre, Margaret’s face, not faded, but so soft in its freshness, so delicate in girlish bloom. She sat with her elbows on the table, her face set in the palms of her hands, her eyes looking into the light, making the two little flames of the candles into stars reflected in their clearness. A half-formed smile played about the soft curve of her lips. How pleasant it was to have an adventure at all! And how agreeable the kind of the adventure! Rob Glen! yes, she remembered him quite well when she was seven years old. He had been twelve, a big boy, and very kind to little Miss Peggy.
The farm, which was a small farm, not equal to the large farms of wealthy Fife, a little bit of a place, which his mother had kept up when she became a widow, was close to Earl’s-hall; and Margaret recollected how “fond” she had been of her playfellow in these old days, very fond of him! before he went into St. Andrews to school, and then away to his uncle in Glasgow (it all came back upon her) to college. She remembered even, now she came to think of it, the scoffs she had heard directed by Bell and John at the Glens in general, who had not thought St. Andrews good enough for their son, but had to send him to Glasgow, to set him up! And here he was again. Margaret remembered how he had carried her across the ditches and muddy places, and how she had kissed him when he went away; she blushed at the thought, and laughed a little. And now he had come back! and he could draw! That was the most interesting of all. He could make beautiful pictures of everything he saw.
The Kirkton, poor little place, had never looked so attractive before. It had been only a little village of no interest, which sisters Jean and Grace held in the utmost contempt, driving Margaret wild with suppressed rage by the comparison they made between the Scotch hamlet and their English villages; and now it was a picture! She wondered what they would think of it now. Margaret gazed into the flame of the candles and seemed to see it hanging upon a visionary background. A beautiful picture: the gray old church with its rustic tombs, and all the houses clustered below, where people were living, waiting their advance and preferment into the grassy graves above. Here was the real mission of art accomplished by the humblest artist—to make of the common and well-known a dazzling undiscovered glory. Only the Kirkton, yet a picture! and all the doing of the old friend equally glorified and changed—Rob Glen. Margaret was more pleasantly excited, more amused, more roused in mind and imagination than perhaps she had ever been in her life.