“Naething? That’s just the maist dangerous subject you can think upon,” said Bell, shaking her head; “that’s just what I dinna like. Think upon whatever you please, but never upon naething, Miss Margret. Will I come with you and see you to your bed? It’s lang since I’ve put a brush upon your bonnie hair.”
“Oh, my hair is quite right, Bell. I brush it myself every night.”
“And think about naething all the time. Na, Miss Margret, you maunna do that. I’ve gathered the fire, and shut the shutters, and put a’ thing ready for Sir Ludovic’s tea in the morning. Is there onything mair? No, not a thing, not a thing. Now come, my lamb, and I’ll put you to your bed.”
Margaret made no objection. She could follow her own fancies just as easily while Bell was talking as when all was silent round her. They went together up the winding stair, Bell toiling along with a candle in her hand, which flickered picturesquely, now here, now there, upon the spiral steps. Margaret’s room was on the upper story, and to reach it you had to traverse another long hall, running the whole length of the building, like the long room below. This room was scarcely furnished at all. It had some old tapestry hanging on the walls, an old harpsichord in a corner, and bits of invalided furniture which were beyond use.
“Eh, the bonnie dances and the grand ladies I’ve seen in this room!” Bell said, shaking her head, as she paused for breath. The light of the one little candle scarcely showed the long line of the wall, but displayed a quivering of the wind in the tapestry, as if the figures on it had been set in motion. “Lord bless us!” said Bell. “Oh, ay, I ken very well it’s naething but the wind; but I’ve never got the better o’ my first fright. The first time I was in this grand banqueting-hall—and oh, but it was a grand hall then! never onything so grand had the like of me a chance to see. I thought the Queen’s Grace herself could not possess a mair beautiful place.”
“If it was any use,” said Margaret, with a sigh.
“Oh, whisht, my bonnie bird. It’s use to show what great folk the Leslies were wance upon a time, and that’s what makes us a’ proud. There’s none in the county that should go out o’ the room or into the room afore you, Miss Margret. You’ve the auldest blood.”
“But what good does that do if I am the youngest girl?” said Margaret, half piqued, half laughing.
She was proud of her race, but the empty halls were chill. She did not wait for any more remarks on Bell’s part, but led the way into her room, which opened off this banqueting-hall, a turret room of a kind of octagon shape, panelled like all the rest. It looked out through its deepest window on entirely a different scene, on the moonlight rising pale on the eastern side, and the whitening of the sea, the tremolar della marina, was in the distance, the silvery glimmer and movement of the great broad line of unpeopled water.
The girl stood and looked out while the old woman lighted the candles on the table. How wide the world was, all full of infinite sky and sea, not to speak of the steady ground under foot, which was so much less great. Margaret looked out, her eyes straying far off to the horizon, the limit beyond which there was more and more water, more and more widening firmament. She was very reluctant to have it shut out. To draw down a blind, and retire within the little round of those walls, what a shrinking and lessening of everything ensued! “But it’s more sheltered like; it’s no so cold and so far,” said Bell, with a little shiver. She was not so fond of the horizon. The thick walls that kept out the cold, the blind that shut out that blue opening into infinity, were prospect enough for Bell. She made her young lady sit down, and undid the loops of her silken hair. This hair was Bell’s pride; so fine, so soft, so delicate in texture, not like the gold wire, all knotted and curly, on Jeanie’s good-looking head, who was the other representative of youth in the house. “Eh, it is a pleasure to get my hands among it,” said Bell, letting the long soft tresses ripple over her old fingers. How proud she was of its length and thickness! She stood and brushed and talked over Margaret’s head, telling her a hundred stories, which the girl, half hearing, half replying, yet wholly absorbed in her own fancies, had yet a certain vague pleasure in as they floated over her.