THE TREASURE BECOMES MINE, BUT IS CLAIMED BY ITS OWNER
There was no sleep for me that night, and I lay awake till the clear
day, watching the gulls fly across the window and waiting the time when
I might see her once again. Early as it was when I arose, the wee bit
lassie who brought me the hot water said in answer to my inquiry that
the other gentlemen had been gone since the daybreak, and declining her
offer of breakfasting in my room, I went down to the spence, hoping
that Marian might be there before me. I found the room empty, however,
save for Dame Dickenson, who had spread a table for me between the fire
and the window, through which I could see the waves curl on the lower
beach and the sunshine break into flying sparks over the fine blue sea.
I was never one to mince words when there was aught to be said, nor to
put off settling until another time a thing which could be fixed upon
the moment.
"Sit ye down," I said to the little body, who was plainly of a rank and
comprehension above the vulgar. "Sit ye down! There are a few words
that I would like to have with ye."
She remained standing, but paused in her employ to give me a wordless
attention as I went on:
"I am John Stair, Lord of Stair and Alton in the Mearns, and I want to
marry your ward, Marian Ingarrach."
She set the rest of the dishes before me as though not hearing my
speech, but I saw the corners of her mouth twitch a bit and, after
removing the cover of the haddie, she cast a glance over the top of my
head rather than directly at me, as she said:
"Ye're a cautious body, Lord Stair."
"I know what I intend to do," I answered, and there was a silence
between us for a space.
"Ye're a quare man," she broke forth presently, looking at me
humorously over her glasses. "Aye, a quare man! Ye come here with a
pack of riotous livers from Edinburgh, clap your eyes on my young lady
for the first time last night, and are for marryin' her off hand this
morning with no more to do over it than if marryin' was a daily
performance of yours."
I said no words, but regarded her with a smile.
"Sure," she went on, looking at me with great equanimity, "ye canna
soften my heart by your smilin'. Ye're a handsome man, my lord, and
ye've the strong way with ye that black men often have; but I've met in
with handsome men afore now, and the handsomer the more to be feared.
Dickenson was a dark man himself," she added, with a twinkle in her
eye. Another silence fell between us, as I watched her needles click in
and out and catch the firelight.
"Perhaps," she said presently, "ye'd like to have a little knowledge of
the girl you're wantin' for a wife."
"It's the matter which lies nearest my heart at the moment," I answered
her; and at this her voice and face became more serious, and she
stopped her knitting, looking directly at me as she spoke.
"There's little to tell," she began, "little that I could take
book-oath to, I mean, for one bad night in March, eighteen years back,
I heard a wail at the door, and opening it found a gipsy-hamper with
the baby inside. She was finely dressed and there was a note pinned on
her little shirt, which--wait a bit," she said, "I can show it ye." At
this she crossed the room to a wooden cupboard, unlocked the door, and
took from it a small box, the key of which she had in her bosom.
Opening this she handed me a slip of paper, upon which was written, in
a coarse male hand:
"HARRIET DICKENSON:
"If you will keep the child money will be sent for you and her. I
want her brought up a lady."
"There was a roll of gold in the basket with her, forty pounds, my
lord. And the writer has kept his word. Money has been sent ever since,
sometimes from Italy, once from Russia, and then from the Far East.
That is all that I know."
"But you have beliefs concerning the matter?" I asked.
"Yes," she said, "though the truth of them could not be proved. Twenty
years ago, when I was maid at Squire Eglinton's, on the Irish coast,
near Carrickfergus, he had one daughter, a flower of a girl, who ran
away with a gipsy man she met in her father's park. The young lady
loved me and knew where my home in Scotland was. I have thought, my
lord, that mayhap she died, and 'twas the father-man who brought the
baby to my door. I have told you all but this: if Miss Eileen ever had
a daughter, it could not be more like her than Marian is."
A hundred questions came to me at once, but before one of them was
asked I had a sight of the girl herself, coming from the country side
of the house, the wind blowing her hair about her face and carrying
away swarms of white petals from the hawthorn-blooms she held in her
arms. As she was hid from my sight by the corner of the house, Sandy
Carmichael entered the room, his hands thrust far into his pockets, and
his pipe held at a curious angle between his teeth.
"What!" I cried in amazement. "You here! I thought you were gone at
daylight."
"Did ye now?" he asked, with raillery in his voice. "Did ye think," and
he put his hand on my shoulder after his own fashion, "did you think
I'd leave you, Jock, in this, your last extremity? Ye're not married
yet?" he went on jokingly, "I'm not too late for the wedding? Oh," he
broke out with a laugh, "how have the mighty fallen!"
"Not yet," I answered him; "but it will be no fault of mine if I'm not
a married man by night."
He changed color at this, and getting the dame on his side the two of
them urged a waiting--I know not for what; and more thought, which
would have brought me to the same conclusion; but their talk and their
arguments went high over my head, for I was fixed as fate that nothing
but Marian's mind against it could move me from the wish I had. As the
three of us stood thus, the talk going back and forth, the girl came
into the room, and at sight of me went white, changing on the instant
to a glorious pink, which flushed her face all over like a rose.
"Good morning, Lord Stair," she said.
I crossed the room, and took her hand and kissed it.
"Marian," I said, "will you marry me to-day?"
She sent a hurried look around the three of us, and as a woman
discovers things, knew that they were against me in the matter. It took
her not one second to decide for me, and my being leaped toward her as
she spoke.
"When you will, my lord," she said. "I have no wishes that are not your
own."
It was a little past noon of the same day, with none to see save Sandy
Carmichael, Dame Dickenson, and Uncle Ben, that Father Pierre, from the
Cairn Mills, made Marian and myself one in a marriage such as the gods
intended when the world was young and the age of gold.
About three o'clock Sandy left us, going on horse to join his party,
which was to lay by for him at Landgore. Marian and I walked with him
far beyond the sea light, he leading his horse and telling us that it
was but the strong remembrance that he had a wife at home which
prevented his carrying her away with him. He had great joy in my
happiness, and his strong laugh rolled round and round in echoes among
the rocks as we went along together. Before we parted his mood changed
a bit, and he turned suddenly and laid his arm across my shoulder.
"You'll not forget me, laddie?" he said earnestly, with his head turned
a bit from me so that his eyes could not be seen.
Our hands gripped each other at the end, as though we could not speak
the word of good-by, and my dear, who knew the thought--that my
marriage might in some way make the friendship between us less
close--took our locked hands between her little ones and held them to
her breast.
"Believe me," she said, as though making a vow, "that all I can ever do
to make this friendship stronger I shall do; oh, believe me in that!"
Sandy kissed her on the cheek, she stuck a piece of pink heather in his
coat, and he mounted his horse and was off at a bolt. Twice we saw him
turn and wave his cap toward us; we called to him, and he shouted back
something in return, the meaning of which we were unable to discover,
and so went down a sudden turn of the rocks and was lost to sight.
* * * * *
There are some parts of every life that can not be set forth. The first
sacred months of my marriage are of these. The little inn, which was no
longer in Dame Dickenson's possession, I purchased, and we made it into
a home. And the time is all of Marian! Marian standing in white in the
going down of the braeside to welcome me; Marian on my knee in the
twilight looking out seaward and starward; Marian with her brown head
and face, such as the angels have, resting on my breast in the gold of
the dawning; Marian--Marian--Marian--I, an old man, who was once that
bonny Jock Stair, all your own, call to you. Can you come? Will it ever
be again! See! I stretch my hands, wrinkled, old, to that far off blue,
and ask you, as I have a thousand times, to send me peace.
* * * * *
All that summer we lived in the little house, and toward autumn there
were reasons why my wife should not be troubled with new cares. Sandy
came to see us frequently; whiles I ran up to Edinburgh to tend to
needful matters. One day in March, because of some wish my dear had
half expressed, I went to town to get some of the jewels with which the
Ladies Stair had adorned themselves in days gone by. I had promised a
short absence, but there was a matter of some fastenings to be mended
at the goldsmith's, and my stay was three days. Riding backward as fast
as a postboy, I came on the porch suddenly to find a weeper, as if one
were dead, hanging upon the knocker. Dropping the box and riding-whip I
pushed the door ajar with a great shove and entered, upon Dame
Dickenson, who was coming out of her room, from which place I heard a
faint cry. Her eyes were red with weeping; she looked scared and went
white at the sight of me, and with a horrid presentiment of trouble, I
cried on the instant, in a voice which I heard myself as coming from
some other:
"Where is she?"
"Oh, my lord," she said, and her voice broke and went off into a
shriek, "did ye no meet wi' Mr. Carmichael? He's gone for ye."
"I met nobody," I cried, and again there was a tiny wail as of a
new-born babe from the next room.
"Oh, my lord!" she cried again, springing forward and putting herself
between me and the doorway which I made to enter. "Ask God for strength
to bear what's been sent ye. Say a prayer, my lord. Ask Him to let ye
remember the baby that's come to you. Pray, O my lord," she cried;
"prepare yourself."
I pushed her from me and threw the door wide open.
There was a body in the room laid out for burial, with candles burning
at the head and foot--a slim, young, girlish body; and as Father
Pierre, who was kneeling by it, turned his face toward mine I knew that
Marian, because of me, had gone forever. Something seemed to strike me
at the back of the head and a black vapor fell before my eyes and
stopped my breath--I knew that Father Pierre caught me in his arms, a
merciful unconsciousness seized me, and everything faded away.
* * * * *
When I came to myself I was in my own sleeping-room at Stair, a
night-light burning on the table, and some one on the other side of the
screen sat reading by the fire. I saw the top of the head over the
chair-rail, and knew it was Sandy Carmichael's. Five weeks longer I lay
there, and on toward midsummer, my fever having lasted four months,
Sandy proposed I should start as soon as I was able and tour the world.
It had been an old dream of mine, but with little taste for life, I set
sail from Glasgow for Gibraltar some time in August, 1769, to visit
other lands and see new lives with old sorrows like my own.