The old woman was seated with her face to the hearth, and perceived not his entrance; but on hearing his voice, without starting or moving, she immediately answered, “An’ ye’re come back, Willie Gordon; an’ sae ye’re come back! I kent a’ this. I kent, when the house and the ha’ o’ the stranger would be closed against ye, ye would come back to your ain country. I saw her yestreen, as I hae seen her ilka night, and she tauld me ye would come. But this fire’s out,” continued she, stirring about the embers with her stick; “I tried to blaw that peat, but I wasna able to raise the low: an’ when she comes and seats hersel on that stool, it ’ill be sae cauld, an’ she winna complain o’t, but her bonny face ’ill be sae wan, and her braw white gown ’ill be sae damp and dewy. Ye’ll see her, Willie, ye’ll see her wi’ the bonny new mutch on that May Leslie made wi’ her ain hand. An’ I’ll shiver and tremble in my cauld bed, and she winna lie down wi’ me, but she’ll sit by the fire an’ aye deck hersel wi’ the black kerchief that Willie Gordon tied roun’ her neck lang afore he gaed awa.”
William, who had stood riveted to the earth all this time, now exerted himself, and, seizing her arm, asked loudly, “Where is Elsie Morrice?”
“Whaur is Elsie Morrice?—and wha speirs that question? They took her awa frae me lang ago, dressed in white, like a bride, and mony ane gaed wi’ her, but I wasna able, though they dressed me fine in my braw Sunday-claithes.”
“Granny, ye knew me already,” said he; “for God’s sake, tell me what has become of Elsie?”
“There were twa bonny voices ca’d me granny, and I liket to hear them; but the little feathered flock picks the craw-berries, an’ the bee sooks the honey frae the heather on the grave o’ the ane, and the ither is a faithless love, and broke the heart o’ the leal young bairn that lay in my bosom.”
William now knew the worst. He threw himself in agony on the dais, and wept and cursed his hard lot. Elsie Morrice was dead, and dead, as appeared, through his neglect. When his grief had found some vent, he again asked the old woman if they had received no letters from him?
She raised her shaking hand, and tracing every feature of his face, said, “Though I canna see sae weel that face, I ken ye’re Willie Gordon; but oh, Willie, Willie, ye hae come when the flame ye should hae nourished has been quenched. We never got ony letters, or else Elsie would hae tried to live.”
It was with great exertion that he was able to gather from her disjointed sentences, that the laird had turned them out of Sunnybrae, and continued to annoy them, and that Elsie had broken her heart when he left them and sent no letters. Many a kind letter had William written, but they were directed, for security’s sake, to the care of the laird, and the mystery of his never receiving any answer was now cleared away. “But the laird shall answer for this!” said he, stepping to the door. “Na, Willie Gordon,” said she, taking hold of him, “he manna answer for’t to you. There is Anither that will judge him for abusing the widow and the orphan. Ay, he is already cursed for it,” continued she, stretching out her lean and shrivelled arm, and raising herself like a Sibyl; “his lang list of ancestors is at end in him. He walks the world the last of his proud race. A few years, and yon lordly house will be the dwalling o’ the hoodie-craw and the rook; an’ the present proud man will be lying in his leaden coffin, wi’ the worms o’ his ain body devouring him, and the winds o’ heaven will dash his lie-telling tombstone to pieces, an’ the beasts will tread on his grave, an’ the rains level it, an’ none will repair it, for his name shall be forgotten for ever. But whisht, Willie, I canna greet wi’ you. Ye’ll see her, when the hen has been lang on the roost, an’ the tod has left his hole to worry the puir beasty, an we’ll get May Leslie, an’ we’ll hae a blazing fire, an’ we’ll be merry again in Sunnybrae.” A shrill and unearthly laugh followed, and she sank again into her former querulous muttering.
William suddenly left the house and was never more seen; but some weeks after, the grave of Elsie Morrice was found finely dressed, and a stone, with her name and age carved on it by the hand of no regular sculptor, at the head of it. And every spring the greedy moss was found cleaned away from the stone, and the grave trimmed. While Janet Morrice lived, her garden was delved, and money deposited on her table, by the same invisible hand. No one knew what became of William Gordon; but occasionally, in the gray of a May morning, as the shepherd was merrily driving his flocks with the sun to the pasture, he saw the dark figure of a man chiselling at the stone, or stretched on the grave of Elsie Morrice. About three years ago a shepherd’s dog, one day, prowling about the old churchyard, returned, and, by his howling, urged his master to the spot, where he found the dead body of a seaman. The letters W. G. and an anchor on his forearm, and W. S. and E. M., with a heart between them, and the Saviour on the cross above, on his left breast, done with China ink or gunpowder, after that fashion which sailors have in order that their bodies may be known, if picked up after shipwreck, told too well who had chosen this place for his death-bed. Sufficient money was found on him to pay the expenses of his burial, and he was laid in the grave he had died upon. Last summer I visited the spot. The grave was running into wildness; but, in a state of mind pleasing yet sad, I spent half a day in dressing the resting-place of this unfortunate pair.