The Dew of Their Youth

by S. R. Crockett

And my dream was this.

I was in a great city, harassed by many duties, troubled by enemies open and concealed. There was the drear emptiness of poverty in my pocket, present anxiety in my heart, and little hope in the outlook. But I had work—I did not know in my dream what that work was—only that it sufficed to keep body and soul together, but after it was done I was weak and weary, a kind of unsatisfied despondency gnawing at my heart.

Then I got loose for an hour or so from my unknown tasks. My path lay across a kind of open place into which many narrow streets ran, while some dived away into the lower deeps of the city. People went their ways as I was doing mine, dejected and sad. But always, as I crossed toward the opening of a wide new street, where against the sky were tall scaffoldings and men busy with hod and mortar, I saw Irma coming towards me. She was neat and youthful, but dressed poorly in plain things—homespun, and in my dream, I judged, also home-made.

I saw her afar off, and the heart within me gave a great leap. She came towards me smiling, and lo! I seemed to stand still and worship the lithe carriage and elastic step. The world grew all sweet and gay. The lift above became blue and high. The sun shone no longer grey and brown, but smiling and brilliant—as—as the face of Irma.

Strangely enough she did not greet me nor hold out her hand as acquaintances do. She came straight up to me as if the encounter were the merest matter-of-course, while as I stood there, with the hunger and the wretchedness all gone out of me, the weariness and misery melted in the grace of that radiant smile, she uttered just these words, “I have found the Little House Round the Corner!”

Now I will tell of a strange thing—so strange that I have consulted Irma about it, whether I should write it down here or keep it just for ourselves.

And she said, “It is true—so why not set it down?” Well, this is what happened. One day I had arranged to meet Irma at the corner of the quaint little village of Laurieston, which, as all the world knows, looks down on the saughs of the Meadows and out upon the slopes of Bruntsfield where, among the whins, the city golfers lose their balls.

At that time, as all the world knows, there was undertaken a certain work of opening out that part of the ancient wall which runs westward from Bristo Port at the head of the Potter Row. Some great old houses had gone down, and I mind well that I was greatly attracted by the first view of the Greyfriars Kirk that ever I had from that quarter. (It was soon lost again behind new constructions, but for a time it was worth seeing, with its ancient “through” stones, and the Martyrs’ Monument showing its bossy head over the low wall.)

So much taken up with this was I, that I did not notice the altered aspect of the place. Yet I looked about me like one who is suddenly confronted by something very familiar. There was the wide space. There were the narrow streets I knew so well. Yonder was the Candlemaker Row diving down into the bowels of the earth. Away towards the Greyfriars were the tall “lands” which the masons were pulling down. Nearer were men climbing up ladders with hods on their shoulders. Highest of all, against the blue sky, naked as a new gibbet, stood out the framework of a crane.

It was the very place of my dream. I knew it well enough, indeed, but never until that day it had looked so. And there, coming smiling down the midst, easily as one might down the aisle of an empty church, was Irma herself, as plain and poor in habiliment as my dream, but smiling—ah, with a smile that turned all my heart to water, so dear it was. It was good of God to let us love each other like that—and be poor.