She stood trembling before him, unable to raise her eyes, overcome by the happiness of seeing him, the wretchedness of parting—a wretchedness which she thought, poor girl, she had eluded, with all the conflict of feeling it must have brought. She tried to speak, but she could only smile at him faintly, and begin to cry.
“Maister Glen,” said her father, “you maun speak to me; Jeanie has had enough of fash and sorrow. We are on our way—to please her, no for ony wish of mine—on a lang voyage. We’re strangers and pilgrims here in this muckle London, as I never realized the state before.”
“On a long voyage!” Rob, though he had got through so much emotion one time and another, felt his heart stand still and a cold sensation of dismay steal over him. Had he not been keeping himself a refuge in Jeanie’s heart, whatever might happen? He said, “This is a terrible surprise. I never thought you would have taken such a step as this, Jeanie, without letting me know.”
“Maister Glen,” said Jeanie, adopting her father’s solemn mode of address, and hastily brushing the tears from her cheek, “wherever I gang, what’s that to you?” Her voice was scarcely audible; he had half to guess at what she said.
“It is a great deal to me,” he cried; “I never thought you would treat me so: going away without a word of warning, without saying good-bye, without letting me know you had any thought of it!”
A thrill of pain penetrated Rob’s heart. It was half ludicrous, but he did not see anything ludicrous in it. They were both flying from him, one on either side, the two girls with whom his fate was woven—one for want of love, the other for too much love. Rob saw no humor in the position, but he felt the poignancy and sting of it piercing through and through his heart. Should he be abandoned altogether, then; left entirely alone, without any love at all? But his whole nature rose up fiercely against this. He would not submit to it. If not one, then the other. “It cannot be, it cannot be. I will not let you go,” he said.
“Maister Glen,” said her father, “I canna rightly tell what has been between Jeanie and you. You’re better off than she is in this world, and your friends might have reason to complain if you bound yourself to a poor cobbler’s daughter. But this I ken, you have brought my Jeanie more trouble than pleasure. Gang your ways, my man, and let us gang ours. Jeanie, bid Mr. Glen farewell.”
“I will say no farewell till I know more about it,” he said. “Where are you staying? I must see more of you, I must hear all about it. We are old friends at least, John Robertson; you cannot deny me that.”
“Old enough friends; but what o’ that? It’s no years, but kindness, that I look to. We’re biding up west a bittie, with a decent woman from Cupar. I’m putting no force upon Jeanie to take her away. It’s a’ her ain doing; and if her and you have onything you want to say, I’ll no forbid the saying of it; but I dinna advise thae last words and thae lang farewells,” said John Robertson, shaking his head. Jeanie looked up at him wistfully, with a sad smile in her wet eyes.
“Let him come this ae night, faither—this ae night,” she said, in her plaintive voice; “maist likely it will be the last.”