“But the maister in Kirklands is very clever, Mrs Laurie,” said Miss Janet, anxiously; “he makes grand scholars. When our Randall gaed to the grammar-school in Dumfries, the gentlemen a’ made a wonder o’ him; and for a’ his natural parts, he couldna hae gotten on sae fast without a guid teacher; and it’s no every man could maister Randy. I mind at the time the gentlemen couldna say enough to commend the Dominie. I warrant they a’ think weel o’ him still, on account of his guid success, and the like o’ him deserves to get credit wi’ his laddies. I’m sure Johnnie Lithgow, having had nae other instruction, should be very grateful to the maister.”
“The maister will be very proud of him,” said Menie; “though they say in Kirklands that ever so many ministers have been brought up in the school. But never mind Johnnie Lithgow—everybody speaks of him now; and, mother, you were to tell Miss Janet about when we are going away.”
“I think John will never look out of the end window mair,” said Miss Janet. “I can see he’s shifting his chair already—him that used to be sae fond o’ the view; and I’m sure I’ll be very dreary mysel, thinking there’s naebody I ken in Burnside. But what if you dinna like London, Mrs Laurie? It’s very grand, I believe, and you’ve lived in great touns before, and ken the ways o’ the world better than the like o’ me; but after a country life, I would think ane would weary o’ the toun; and if you do, will you come hame?”
Mrs Laurie shook her head. “I was very well content in Burnside,” she said. “With my own will I never would have left it, Miss Janet; but I go for good reasons, and not for pleasure; and my reasons will last, whether I weary or no. There’s Menie must get masters, you know, and learn to be accomplished—or Miss Annie Laurie will put her to shame.”
“I dinna ken what she could learn, for my part,” said Miss Janet, affectionately, “nor how she could weel be better or bonnier, for a’body can see the genty lady-breeding Miss Menie’s got; and there’s naebody atween this and the hills needs to be telt o’ the kind heart and the pleasant tongue, and the face that every creature’s blithe to see; and I’m sure I never heard a voice like her for singing; and a’ the grand tunes she can play, and draw landscapes, and work ony kind o’ bonnie thing you like to mention. Didna you draw a likeness o’ Jenny, Miss Menie, my dear? And I’m sure yon view you took frae the tap o’ our hill is just the very place itsel—as natural as can be; and, for my part, Mrs Laurie, I dinna ken what mortal could desire for her mair.”
Mrs Laurie smiled; but the mother was not displeased, though she did think it possible still to add to Menie’s acquirements, if not to her excellence; and Menie herself went off laughing and blushing, fully resolved in her own mind to destroy forthwith that likeness wherein poor Jenny’s “high shouther” figured with an emphasis and distinctness extremely annoying to the baffled artist, whose pencil ran away with her very often in these same much-commended drawings, and who was sadly puzzled in most cases how to make two sides of anything alike. And Menie knew her tunes were anything but grand, her landscapes not at all remarkable for truth—yet Menie was by no means distressed by Miss Janet’s simple-hearted praise.
The evening was spent in much talk of the departure. July Home had followed her aunt, and sat in reverential silence listening to the conversation, and making a hundred little confidential communications of her own opinion to Menie, which Menie had some trouble in reporting for the general good. It was nine o’clock of the moonlight April night when the farmer of Crofthill came to escort his “womankind” home. The clear silent radiance darkened the distant hills, even while it lent a silver outline to their wakeful guardian range, and Menie came in a little saddened from the gate, where the father of her betrothed had grasped her hand so closely in his good-night. “No mony mair good-nights now,” said John Home. “I’ll no get up my heart the morn, though it is the first day of summer. You should have slipped up the hill the night to gather the dew in the morning, May; but I’ll learn to think the May mornings darker than they used to be, when your ain month takes my bonnie lassie from Burnside. Weel, weel, ane’s loss is anither’s gain; but I grudge you to London smoke, and London crowds. You must mind, May, my woman, and kept your hame heart.”
Your home heart, Menie—your heart of simple trust and untried quiet. Is it a good wish, think you, kind and loving though the wisher be? But Menie looks up at the sky, with something trembling faintly in her mind, like the quiver of this charmed air under the flood of light—and has note of unknown voices, faces, visions, coming in upon the calm of her fair youth, unknown, unfeared; and so she turns to the home lights again, with nothing but the sweet thrill of innocent expectation to rouse her, secure in the peace and tranquil serenity of this home heart of hers, which goes away softly, through the moonlight and the shadow, through the familiar gloom of the little hall, and into the comforts of the mother’s parlour, singing its song of conscious happiness under its breath.
CHAPTER IX.
Left behind! July Home has dried her eyes at last; and out of many a childish fit of tears and sobbing, suddenly becomes silent like a child, and, standing on the road, looks wistfully after them, with her lips apart, and her breast now and then trembling with the swell of her half-subsided grief. The gentle May wind has taken out of its braid July’s brown silky hair, and toys with it upon July’s neck with a half-derisive sympathy, as a big brother plays with the transitory sorrow of a child. But the faint colour has fled from July’s cheek, except just on this one flushed spot where it has been resting on her hand; and with a wistful longing, her young innocent eyes travel along the vacant road. No one is there to catch this lingering look; and even the far-off sound, which she bends forward to hear, has died away in the distance. Another sob comes trembling up—another faint swell of her breast, and quiver of her lip—and July turns sadly away into the forsaken house, to which such a sudden air of emptiness and desolation has come; and, sitting down on the carpet by the window, once more bends down her face into her hands, and cries to her heart’s content.