The manly pathos of his words, his visible attempt to stifle his feelings, and the grief she felt at the contemplated absence of her lover, all conjoined to heighten the emotion of the maiden, and flinging herself on her lover’s bosom, she wept long and uncontrollably. Her companion gazed on in silence, with an almost bursting heart; but he knew that he could not recede from his promise, and that the hour of anguish must be endured sooner or later. Then why not now? At length the sobs of Jeanie grew less violent and frequent—the first burst of her emotion was passing away. Gently then did her lover soothe her feelings, pointing out to her the advantages to result from his determination, and cheering her with the assurance, that in two years, at farthest, he would return.
“I hae no fears, Jeanie, that ye will not prove true to me, and for the rest we are in God’s gude hands. Our lives are as safe in his protection awa on the seas as by our ain ingle-side. And now farewell, for the present, dearie—I maun do many things before we sail to-morrow. God bless you!” and with these words, dashing a tear from his eye, he tore himself from the maiden, and walked rapidly across the lea, as if to dissipate his emotion by the swiftness of his pace. When he reached the brow of the hill, however, he turned to take a last look at the spot where he had parted with Jeanie. She was still standing where he left her, looking after his receding form. He waved his hand, gazed a moment on her, and then whistled to his dog, and dashed over the brow of the hill.
Poor Jeanie had watched him with tearful eyes until he paused at the top of the hill, and her heart beat quick when she saw him turn for a last look. She made an effort to wave her hand in reply; and when she saw him disappear beyond the hill, sank against the wall. Directly a flood of tears came to her relief. It was hours before she was sufficiently composed to return home.
All through that day, and until late at night, Jeanie comforted herself with the hope of again beholding her lover; but he came not. Long after nightfall, a ragged urchin from the village put into her hands a letter. She broke it open tremblingly, for she knew the hand-writing at a glance. It was from her lover. It was kindly written, and the hand had been tremulous that penned it; but it told her that he had felt himself unequal to another parting scene. Before she received this—it continued—he would be far on his way to the place of embarkation. It contained many a sweet message that filled the heart of Jeanie with sunshine, even while the tears fell thick and fast on the paper. It bid her remember him to her only surviving parent, and then it contained a few more words of hope, and ended with “God bless you!—think often in your prayers of Willie.”
That night Jeanie’s pillow was wet with tears, but, even amid her sobs, her prayers might have been heard ascending for her absent lover.
——
CHAPTER II.
The family of Jeanie was poor but virtuous, like thousands of others scattered all over the hills and vales of Scotland. Her father had once seen better days, having been indeed a farmer in a small way; but his crops failing, and his stock dying by disease, he had been reduced at length to extreme poverty. Yet he bore his misfortunes without repining. He had still his daughter to comfort him, and though he lived in a mud-built cottage, he was happy—happy at least, so far as one in his dependent condition could be; for his principal support was derived from the labor of his daughter, added to what little he managed to earn by doing small jobs occasionally for his neighbors. Yet he was universally respected. If you could have seen him on a sunny Sabbath morning, leaning on his daughter’s arm, walking to the humble village kirk: if you could have beheld the respect with which his juniors lifted their bonnets to him, while his own gray locks waved on the wind as he returned their salutations, you would have felt that even utter poverty, if respectable, and cheered by a daughter’s love, was not without its joy.
The love betwixt Jeanie and the young shepherd was not one of a day. It had already been of years standing, and dated far back, almost into the childhood of each. By sunny braes, in green meadows, alongside of whimplin brooks, they had been used to meet, seemingly by chance, until such meetings grew necessary to their very existence, and their love—pure and holy as that between the angelic choristers—became intermixed with all their thoughts and feelings, and colored all their views of life. And all this time Jeanie was growing more beautiful daily, until she became the flower of the valley. Her voice was like that of the cushat in its sweetest cadence—her eye was as blue and sunny as the summer ether—and the smiles that wreathed her mouth came and went like the northern lights on a clear December eve. Thus beautiful, she had not been without many suitors; but to all she turned a deaf ear. Many of them were far above her station in life, but this altered not her determination. Nor did her father, though perhaps, like many of his neighbors, he attached more importance to such offers than Jeanie, attempt to influence her. He only stipulated that her lover should obtain a farm before his marriage. We have seen how his repeated failures in this, and his hopelessness of attaining his object, unless at a very distant period, had at length driven him to seek his fortune elsewhere.
We are telling no romantic tale, but one of real life; and in real life years often seem as hours, and hours as years. We shall make no excuse, therefore, for passing over an interval of more than two years.