“I will tell it to no one else, Mr. Randal; I’m no one to talk. I have to tell you because I’m bidden to tell you. When I looked like that at the lad, he said it was about a picture that he had drawn of auld Earl’s-ha’. And weel I minded the drawing of that picture, and the work my bonnie lady made about it. Well, I sent the letter, and yesterday morning, nae farther gane, I got twa-three lines from her, a’ blotted and blurred, poor lamb. I’m thinking the ladies maun have been at her—her that never had a hard word from man or woman! ‘Bell,’ she says, ‘if you see Mr. Randal Burnside, will you tell him to speak to Mr. Glen? Say it was me that bade ye, and then he’ll ken fine what I mean.’ I hope ye do ken what she means, Mr. Randal, far it’s mair than I do; and I canna approve for a young lady, and such a young thing as Miss Margret, ony such troke with young men.”
Randal’s face had been almost as changeable as Margaret’s while these words floated on. He reddened, and paled, and brightened, and was overshadowed, one change following another like the clouds on the sky. Finally, the last result was a mixture of confusion and bewilderment, with eager interest, which it is difficult to describe. “I fear I don’t understand at all, Bell,” he cried. “Was that all? Was there no more than that?”
“No another word; but a’ blurred and blotted, as if she had been in an awfu’ hurry. And ye canna understand? She said you would ken fine.”
“I think I understand a little,” Randal said, ruefully. He had asked her to call upon him whenever there was anything in which she wanted help, and here it was evident she wanted help; but of what kind? Was he to help her lover, or to discourage him? But of this Margaret gave no intimation. The office in itself was embarrassing enough, and what man ever received a more mysterious commission? She had appealed to him for aid, and who so willing to give it? But what kind of aid it was she wanted he could not tell. “I know in a way,” he said, “I know she wants me to do something, but what? Never mind, I will do my best to find out; and when you write to her, Bell, my good woman, will you tell her—”
“Na, na,” said Bell, briskly, “no a word. I’ve had enough to do with that kind of thing. I’ll carry no message, nor I’ll take charge o’ no letters; na, na, lads are a destruction to everything. And no a lad even that might be evened to the like of her. Na, na, Mr. Randal, it might be the maist innocent message in the world; I’m no blaming you, but I canna undertake no more.”
“And I think you are quite right,” he said, confusedly; “but—what did she want him to do?” He went away in great perplexity and excitement, which it was very difficult to shut up within his own bosom. To speak to Glen—that was his commission; but with what object? To help Margaret, poor little Margaret caught in the toils, and who had no one to help her; but what did she want him to do?
Randal went out after afternoon church was over, the “second diet of worship,” as his father called it. It was not a promising evening for a walk. The short November day was closing in; the foggy atmosphere was heavy and chill—the clouds so low that they seemed within the reach of his hand. Hedge-rows and trees were all coated with a chill dew which soon would whiten with the night’s frost; everything was wet underfoot. Even in the “laigh toun” few of the people were “about the doors.” Gleams of ruddy fire-light showed through the cottage windows, often over a moving mass of heads, of different sizes, the children sitting about “reading their books” as became a Sabbath evening, and the elders on either side of the fire carrying on solemn “cracks,” each individual furnishing a remark in slow succession. In-doors there was something drowsy and Sabbatical in the air; but there was nothing drowsy or comfortable out-of-doors. Randal walked toward the farm in the grim gray winterly twilight, wondering whether he could make any plausible errand to the house, or how he was to make sure of seeing Rob. But Fortune favored him in this respect, as indeed Fortune could scarcely help favoring any one who, wanting Rob Glen, walked in the twilight toward Earl’s-lee. When he was within a field or two of the farm-house. Randal became aware of two figures in the shadow of a hedge-row, and of a murmur of voices. He divined that it was a “lad and lass.” Lads and lasses are nowhere more common spectacles, “courting” nowhere a more clearly recognized fact than in Fife. Randal took care not to look at them or disturb them; and by-and-by he saw a little figure detach itself out of the shadows and run across the field. Who could it be? Their fervor of love-making must be warm indeed to enable them to bear the miseries of this “drear-nighted November.” He went on with a certain sympathy and a little sigh. Randal did not feel as if there could ever be any occasion for “courting” on his part. He was vaguely excited; but sadness, more than any other feeling, filled his mind; if he saw Rob before him, what was he to say to him? “Ah, Glen!” he exclaimed, “is that you?” while yet this question was fresh in his mind.
Rob came forward from the shadow with evident discomfiture. He recognized the new-comer sooner than Randal knew him. Was he, then, the man who had been whispering behind the hedge, from whose side that little female figure, not, he thought, unknown to Randal either, had flitted so hurriedly away? Hot indignation rose in Randal’s veins.
“Can it be you?” he said, with a sudden mingling of displeasure and contempt with the surprise in his voice.
“Not a pleasant evening for a walk,” said Rob. He was uneasy too, but he did not see what he could do better than talk, and forestall if possible any objection the other might seem disposed to make. “I dropped something in the ditch,” he said, accusing as he excused himself, “but it is evidently too dark to hope to find it now.”