“This will not raise our spirits, mother,” said Menie, with a faint smile; “better within doors, and at work, on a day like this.”
But why, with such a start and tremble, do you hear those steps upon the path? Why be struck with such wild curiosity about them, although you would not turn your head for a king’s ransom? Anybody may be coming—the shepherd’s wife from Whinnyrig yonder, the poor crofter from the edge of the peat-moss, or little Jessie’s mother bound for the universal rural-shop at the Brigend. We are drawing near to the Brigend—already the aromatic flavour of the peats warms the chill air with word of household fires, and we see smoke rise beyond the ash-trees—the smoke of our old family home, the kind hearth of Burnside.
Hush! whether it were hope or fear, is no matter; the steps have ceased; vain this breathless listening to hear them again; go on through the ash-trees, Menie Laurie—on through the simple gateway of this humble rural world. By the fireside—in the cottage—with such simple joy as friendly words and voices of children can give you—this is your life.
And only one—only one—this your mother—to watch your looks and gestures—the falling and the rising of your tired heart. Wistful eyes she turns upon you—tender cares. Look up to repay her, Menie; smile for her comfort; you are all that remains to her, and she is all that remains to you.
Look up; see how solemnly the ash-trees lift their old bleached arms to heaven. Look up, Menie Laurie; but here, at our very ear, these bewildering steps again!
Do not shrink; here has come the ordeal you have looked for many a day. Well said your prophetic heart, that it drew near in the hush and silence of this fated time. They stand there, arched and canopied, under these familiar trees, the hamlet’s quiet houses receding behind them—Burnside yonder, the limit of the scene, and the burn, the kindly country voice, singing a quiet measure to keep them calm. An old man and a young, learned with experiences of life: the elder, fresh and noble, daring to meet the world with open face, aware of all the greatest truths and mysteries of the wonderful existence which we call common life, but nothing more; the younger, trained in a more painful school, with his lesson of self-forgetting newly conned, with knowledge sadder than his father’s, with a heart and conscience quivering still with self-inflicted wounds—they stand there bareheaded under the cloudy sky—not with the salutation of common respect, which might permit them to pass on. A courtly natural grace about them both, makes their attitude all the more remarkable. With blanched cheeks and failing eyes, Menie Laurie’s face droops; she dares not look up, but waits, trembling so greatly that she can scarcely stand, for what has to be said.
Mrs Laurie, with a sudden impulse of protection, draws her child’s arm within her own—moves forward steadily, all her pride of mother and of woman coming to her aid; bows to her right hand and her left; says she is glad to see that this is really Mr Randall, and not the wraith her simple Jenny had supposed; and, speaking thus in a voice which is but a murmur of inarticulate sound to Menie, bows again, and would pass on.
But John Home of Crofthill lays his hand upon her sleeve. “You and me have no outcast to settle. Leave the bairns to themselves.”
With a startled glance Mrs Laurie looks round her, at the old man’s face of anxious friendliness, at the deep flush on Randall’s brow, and at her own Menie’s drooping head. “Shall I leave you, Menie?” Menie makes no answer—as pale and as cold as marble, with a giddy pain in her forehead, unable to raise her swimming eyes—but she makes a great effort to support herself, as her mother gradually looses her hand from her arm.
Passive, silent, her whole mind absorbed with the pain it takes to keep herself erect, and guide her faltering steps along the road; but Randall is by Menie’s side once more.