But, as we have said, our cousins were brought up asunder; he in England, of which country his father was an eminent physician lately deceased, who had bequeathed to his only son his professional ability, with ample means of commencing his career in a handsome manner. When he first came to Scotland to visit his mother's sister, he found her a corpse; and there, in the house of mourning, the consoler of the motherless Barbara, he learnt to love her with a sincerity of affection to which she fully responded. Great was his vexation and surprise to receive a stern denial of his suit from the minister, who, although he had never testified any degree of partiality for his wife's nephew, had, nevertheless, evinced no dislike of him. But when respectfully called upon to assign a reason for so unexpected a rejection, he briefly said, that "no child of his should with his blessing wed any man who was not a strict Presbyterian; and that, moreover, he had other views for his daughter." Nor were the tears of his child, nor the intercession in their favor of his kindhearted but timid old maiden sister, of any effect. His obstinacy was not to be subdued, nor his will opposed; and the unrelenting preacher, who taught humility, love, and concord from his pulpit, and who could produce not one sensible reason for thwarting the attachment of two amiable creatures, concluded the scene by flying into a furious passion, in which he gave John Percival clearly to understand, that he was no longer an acceptable, or even permitted, guest.
The young man left the manse immediately, and was not slow in quitting Scotland; but love, which teaches many things, taught the kinsfolk means of keeping up, though at rare intervals, an epistolary communion—so frequently the one sustaining prop of two divided hearts!
A year or more passed, finding them true to each other. Barbara refused several excellent proposals of marriage, nor did her father persecute her with expressed wishes for her acceptance of any of them; until, at length, he introduced to her one Mr. Bruce, a wealthy cloth-merchant from Glasgow. He was a man of about fifty years of age, of a well-favored and portly presence, and accounted a sure and somewhat sour follower of Mr. Comyn's favorite creed. Barbara had frequently heard her father speak highly of his Glasgow friend, but as no warning had prepared her, she was very far from dreaming of the character he was about to perform in her presence; and, indeed, the wooing of the honest clothier was neither very active nor oppressive—but, alas, for all that, it was steadfast and resolute.
A wonderful deal of what they deemed "religious discussion" was carried on betwixt Mr. Bruce and the minister during the visit of the former at the manse, which, we have omitted to state, (though for certain reasons we do not intend to give it a name,) was situated out of the town of Aberdeen, in a retired strath or valley, full of hazels and sloe-bushes, with the Dee running through them like a huge silver snake. Although little more than half a mile from Aberdeen, and much nearer the church of which Mr. Comyn was minister, the manse seemed as lonely and quiet as if thirty miles lay between it and a busy, populous town. Now, though Mr. Bruce had hired a sleeping apartment in the cottage of Mr. Comyn's bell-man, or sexton, which stood hard by the kirk, he spent all his spare time with his friend at the manse, where his meals were invariably taken; and in addition to the wonderful amount of polemical palaver we have hinted at, a wonderful deal of whisky-toddy did the worthy minister and his guest contrive to swallow in the heat of their arguments. Many a time and oft did good, innocent Miss Henny Comyn declare, that when the shake-hands hour arrived, Mr. Bruce, "puir man, seemed to toddle aff to his cosie beddie at Davy Bain's marvellously fu' o' the spirit!" True it was; but the ancient virgin guessed not in her guilelessness, that the spirit was an evil one, and elicited by man and fire from the unsuspecting barleycorn.
At last, as we have said, Mr. Comyn spoke out his wish—nay, his commands—that Barbara should prepare to receive Mr. Bruce as a bridegroom in six months thereafter. And now Mr. Bruce himself, a shy and dour man at other times, found courage one day, after dinner, to express his—"love;" so he really called it, and so we suppose must we, in our extreme ignorance of the precise category of nomenclature to which the feelings that actuated him belonged. Honest man! bigoted and selfish as he was, he was neither cruel by nature nor cross-grained; and he was even moved by the pathetic and frank avowal which Barbara made to him on the state of her heart. But, though touched by her tears, he understood them not, treated them but as the natural mawkishness of girlish sentimentality; nor had her assurance that she could never love any one but her cousin John, power to dissuade him from the prosecution of his suit. He was void of all delicacy of feeling, was neither hurt nor displeased with her confessed partiality for another, but satisfied himself by quoting, misquoting, and utterly perverting Scripture, and concluded by assuring her that it was her bounden duty to obey her father before marriage—her husband after. He had no doubt she would be very happy as his wife, for "he was rich, and a steady Presbyterian!" And with this declaration, threatening a return in six months to claim her hand—which he had the audacity to kiss—he left her for his Glasgow warehouses.
In this dire dilemma the poor lassie knew not what course to pursue. Her aunt, although kind, indulgent, and pitying her, (for in youth she had had experience of a blighted affection, and no woman-heart, that is not naturally sour, passes through such trial without becoming sweeter)—was bound in complete serfdom to her brother, and was quite unable to suggest any means or likelihood of release; so Barbara wrote a full account of her predicament to her lover. Not long afterward, so cleverly disguised by dress as to deceive even herself, Percival was again at Aberdeen—determined, should all other methods fail, to carry off his kinswoman on the very eve of the bridal; and many a twilight evening, when the minister sat over books or took his after-dinner nap, did those two young creatures meet, unnoticed and unsuspected, on the banks of the Dee. But those meetings must soon end, for six months have passed, and Mr. Bruce—once more lodged in the house of Davy Bain—is come to wed and take home his reluctant bride.
One evening—it was cloudy and threatened foul weather, though the summer air was warm and surcharged with flower-scents—John Percival betook himself as usual to the customary trysting-place. It was a thick copse of hazel past which ran—heard but not seen—the river; which, where the shrubbery ended, formed a dark, deep pool, so garnished by overhanging nut-trees that it had acquired the name of the Nut-hole. Beyond this pool lay the road to the manse; but as the trees here ceased to offer concealment, the Nut-tree-hole became the limits to Percival's attendance on his cousin in her way homeward. The rustic seat in the centre of the coppice was still unoccupied, and he began to fear that something had transpired to prevent her from coming. It was no use to listen for the sounds of her light, advancing footsteps; for the Dee made so loud and incessant a sough as it tumbled from the steep bank that helped to form the Nut-hole, that it drowned all lesser sounds.
He was, however, soon made conscious that there were sounds which no sough of tumbling waters could drown; for, on a sudden, neither remote nor suppresed, a fierce, a pitiful cry, like that of one in some dread life-peril, struck upon his ears, succeeded by the breaking asunder of the boughs of trees, and then a plunge in the water—a heavy plunge, that made itself heard above the monotonous murmur of the falling flood. Astonished, almost alarmed, he rose, and was hastening through the thicket toward the Nut-hole, whence the noise had proceeded, when, as he was about to cross the track that led from the manse to the main road to Aberdeen, he beheld flying toward him a dark-mantled figure: he knew it at once. Her hands stretched toward him, her face ghastly with the death-white of intense horror, Barbara staggered toward him, and with a sharp, short gasp, as if she dreaded to give utterance to deep fear by a louder sound, she fainted at his very feet.
He thought no more of the Nut-hole, or of what might have happened there, absorbed in his solicitude for his beloved cousin, but his endeavors to restore her to animation were fruitless. The manse lay not two hundred yards distant; so at such a juncture, regardless of what the consequences might be to himself, he bore her in his arms; and not without some difficulty, for the track was narrow and broken up, and the night had darkened with falling rain. He reached the house. Fortunately, there was no one in the parlor but Miss Henny; and the startled maiden, seeing a stranger bearing the body of her niece, would have screamed, had he not at once whispered his own name, briefly explained what had happened, and entreated her to befriend them.
"Gae awa', gae awa', laddie," said she, as she quickly brought some vinegar from the sideboard and bathed her niece's brow with the refreshing liquid. "My brither maunna see you; nor, if I can help it, sall he know acht o' this. Gae awa', Johnny dear; he'll be back, belive. She's beginning to revive. I'll get her to bed, and tell him she's too ill to attend prayers. God bless you, my ain dawtie, what's a' this?" added she, kissing the brow of the girl, whose eyes opened to perceive the retiring form of her cousin.