Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 18

by Unknown

"buller," that the lowest note of the goldfinch drowns it and charms it to silence—there stood, about the middle of the last century, a cottage. Its white walls and dark roof, with some white roses and honeysuckle flowering on its walls, bespoke the humble retreat of contentment and comfort. The place went by the name of Bramblehaugh, from the sides of the small burn being lined, for several miles, with the bramble. The sloping collateral ground was covered with shrubs and trees of various kinds, which harboured, in the summer months, a great collection of birds—the blackbird, the starling, the mavis, and others of the tuneful choir—whose notes rendered harmonious the secluded scene where they sang unmolested. The spot is one of those which, scattered sparingly over a wild country, woo the footsteps of lovers of nature, and, by a few months of their simple charms, regenerate the health, while they quicken and gratify the business-clouded fancies of the denizens of smoky towns.

The cottage we have now described was occupied by David Mearns, and his wife Elizabeth, called, by our national contraction, Betty. These individuals earned a livelihood, and nothing more, by the mode in which poor cotters in Scotland contrive to spin out an existence; the leading feature of which, contentment, the result of necessity, is often falsely denominated happiness by those whose positive pleasures, chequered by a few misfortunes, are forgotten in the contemplation of a state of life almost entirely negative. Difficulties that cannot be overcome deaden the energies that have in vain been exerted to surmount them; and, when all efforts to better our condition are relinquished, we acquire a credit for contentedness, which is only a forced adaptation of limited means to an unchangeable end. David Mearns, who had, in his younger days, been ruined by a high farm, had learned from misfortune what he would not have been very apt to have received from the much-applauded philosophy which is said to generate a disposition to be pleased with our lot. The bitterness of disappointment, and the wish to get beyond the reach of obligations he could not discharge, suggested the remedy of a reliance simply on his capability of earning a cotter's subsistence; and having procured a cheap lease of the little domicile of Bramblehaugh, he set himself down, with the partner of his hopes and misfortunes, to eat, with that simulated contentment we have noticed, the food of his hard labour, with the relish of health, and to extract from the lot thus forced upon him as much happiness as it would yield. The cottage and the small piece of ground attached to it, was the property of an old man, who, having made a great deal of money by the very means that had failed in the hands of David Mearns, had purchased the property of Burnbank, lying on the side of the small rivulet already mentioned, and, in consequence, it was said, of Betty Mearns bearing the same name, (Cherrytrees,) though there was no relationship between them, had let to David the small premises at a low rent.

A single child had blessed the marriage of David Mearns and his wife—a daughter, called Euphemia, though generally, for the sake of brevity and kindliness, called Effie; an interesting girl, who, at the period we speak of, had arrived at the age of sixteen years. In a place where there were few to raise the rude standard of beauty formed in the minds of a limited country population, she was accounted "bonny"—a much—abused word, no doubt, in Scotland, but yet having a very fair and legitimate application to an interesting young creature, whose blue eyes, however little real town beauty they may have expressed or illuminated, gave out much tenderness and feeling, accompanied by that inexpressible look of pure, unaffected modesty, which is the first, but the most difficult gesture of the female manner attempted to be imitated by those who are destitute of the feeling that produces it. An expression of pensiveness—perhaps the fruit of the early misfortunes of her parents operating on the tender mind of infancy, ever quick in catching, with instinctive sympathy, the feeling that saddens or enlivens the spirits of a mother—was seldom abroad from her countenance, imparting to it a deep interest, and, by suggesting a wish to relieve the cause of so early an indication of incipient melancholy, creating an instant friendship, which subsequent intercourse did not diminish.

Walter Cherrytrees, the Laird of Burnbank, a man approaching seventy years of age, had a daughter, Lucy, about the same age as Effie Mearns. He had lost his wife about fifteen years before; and—though a feeling of anxiousness often found its way to his heart, suggesting to his vacant mind, as the cure of his listlessness and the balm of his bereavement, another wife—he had for a long time been nearly equally poised between the hope of Lucy becoming his comfort in his old age, and the wish for a tender partner of pleasures which, without participation, lose their relish. His daughter, Lucy, was a sprightly, showy girl, who, having got a good education, might, with the prospect she had of inheriting her father's property, have been entitled to look for a husband among the sons of the neighbouring proprietors, if her father's secluded mode of life, and plain, blunt manners, had not to a great extent limited her intercourse to a few acquaintances, by no means equal to him in point of wealth or status, however estimable they might have been in other respects. A more pleasant companion to the old Laird of Burnbank could not be found, from the one end of Bramblehaugh to the other, than David Mearns, his tenant, whose honesty and bluntness, set off by a fertility of simple anecdote, had charms for one of the same habits of thought and feeling, which all the disadvantages of his poverty could not counterbalance. The intimacy of the fathers produced, at a very early period, a friendship between the daughters, who, notwithstanding, could not boast of the resemblance of thought and manners, and community of feeling, which formed the foundation of the attachment existing between the parents.

This friendship was not exclusive of some acquaintanceships with the neighbouring young men and women, which, however, were in general mutual; neither of the two young maidens having formed any intimacy with another without, her friend participating in the friendship. Among others, Lewis Campbell, the son of a neighbouring farmer, who had been a large creditor of David Mearns at the time of his failure, called sometimes at the cottage of Bramblehaugh, and was soon smitten with a strong love for Effie. They sometimes indulged in long walks by the side of the river.

We may anticipate, when we say that the hours spent in these excursions—in which the greatest beauties of external nature, and the strongest and purest emotions of two loving hearts, acting in co-operation and harmony, formed a present and a future such as poets dream of, and the world never realizes, but in momentary glimpses—were the happiest of these lovers. Effie's inseparable companion, Lucy, frequently met them as they sauntered along by the house of Burnbank; and the soft breathings of ardent affection were relieved by the gay and innocent prattle of the companions, who enjoyed, though in different degrees, the conversation and manners of the young lover. The simplicity and single-heartedness of Effie were entirely exclusive of a single thought unfavourable to an equal openness and frankness on the part of her companion, whom she had informed, in her artless way, of the state of her affections. But what might not have resulted from a mere acquaintanceship between Lucy and Effie's lover, was called forth by the pride of the former, whose spirit of emulation, excited by the good fortune of her poor friend, suggested a secret wish to alienate the affections of Lewis from her companion, and direct them to herself. The wish to be beloved, though the mere effect of emulation, is the surest of the artificial modes by which love itself is generated in the heart of the wisher; and Lucy soon became, unknown for a time to Effie, as much enamoured of young Lewis as was her unsuspecting friend.

The first intimation that Effie received of the state of Lucy's feelings towards her lover, was from Lewis himself. Sitting at a part of the haugh called the Cross Knowe, from the circumstance of an old Romish cruciform stone that stood on the top of a gentle elevation—a place much resorted to by the lovers—Lewis, unable to conceal a single thought or feeling from one who so well deserved his confidence, first told her of the perfidy of her friend.

"You are not so well supplied with sweethearts, Effie," he began, "as I am; for I can boast of two besides you."

"That speaks little in your favour, Lewie," replied she; "for, if it was my wish, I could hae a' the young men o' the haugh makin love to me frae mornin to e'en."