THE LITTLE HOUSE ON THE MEADOWS
Irma and I had a great seeking for the little house, great enough for
two, with such convenience as, at the time, could be called modern, and
yet within reach of our very moderate means. First of all Freddy and I
had gone to the Nun's House to ask for Irma's box and accoutrement.
These made no great burden. Nevertheless, we borrowed a little "hurley,"
or handcart, from the baker's girl opposite, who certainly bore no
malice. I had our marriage lines in my pocket, lest any should deny my
rights. But though we did not see the Lady Kirkpatrick, the goods were
all corded and placed ready behind the door of the porter's lodge. We
had them on the "hurley" in a minute. The Lady Frances passed in as we
were carrying out the brass-bound trunk of Irma's that had been my
grandmother's. She went by as if she had not seen us, her curiously
mahogany face more of the _punchinello_ type than ever--yet somehow I
could not feel but that most of this anger was assumed. These women had
shown Irma no kindness, indeed had never troubled themselves about her
existence, all the long time she had stayed at Heathknowes. Why, then,
begin so suddenly to play upon the sounding strings of family and long
descent?
Indeed, we two thought but little more about the matter. Our minds were
fully enough occupied. The wonder of those new days--the unexpected,
unforeseen glory of the earth--the sudden sweetness of love,
unbelievable, hardly yet realized, overwhelmed and confounded us.
And, more than all, there was the search for a house. The Advocate met
me every day with his queer smile, but though he put my salary on a more
secure basis, and arranged that in future I should be paid by the
printer and not by himself, the sum total of my income was not
materially altered.
"What's enough for one is abundance for two!" was his motto. And the
aphorism rang itself out to his tiny rose-coloured nails on the lid of
the tortoise-shell snuffbox. Then he added a few leading cases as became
one learned in the law.
"I began the same way myself," he said, "and though I have a bigger
house now and serving men in kneebreeks and powder in their hair, I
never go by that cottage out by Comely Bank without a 'pitter-patter' of
my sinful old heart!"
He thought for a while, and then added, "Aye, aye--there's no way for
young folk to start life like being poor and learning to hain on the
gowns and the broadcloth! What matter the trimmings, when ye have one
another?"
As to the house, it was naturally Irma who did most of the searching.
For me, I had to be early at the secretary's office, and often late at
the printer's. But there was always some time in the day that I had to
myself--could I only foresee it before I left home in the morning.
"Home" was, so far, at Mrs. Craven's, where the good Amelia had given us
up her chamber, and Freddy rose an hour earlier, so that his wall-press
bed might be closed and the "room" made ready for Irma's breakfast
parlour.
All the three begged that we might stay on. We were, they declared with
one voice, not putting them to the smallest inconvenience. But I knew
different, and besides, I had a constant and consuming desire for a
house of mine own, however small.
Ever since I first knew Irma, a dream had haunted me. In days long past
it had come, when I was only an awkward laddie gazing after her on the
Eden Valley meadows. Often it had returned to me during the tedious
silences of three years--when, quite against the proverb, love had grown
by feeding upon itself.
And my dream was this.
I was in a great city, harassed by many duties, troubled by enemies open
and concealed. There was the drear emptiness of poverty in my pocket,
present anxiety in my heart, and little hope in the outlook. But I had
work--I did not know in my dream what that work was--only that it
sufficed to keep body and soul together, but after it was done I was
weak and weary, a kind of unsatisfied despondency gnawing at my heart.
Then I got loose for an hour or so from my unknown tasks. My path lay
across a kind of open place into which many narrow streets ran, while
some dived away into the lower deeps of the city. People went their ways
as I was doing mine, dejected and sad. But always, as I crossed toward
the opening of a wide new street, where against the sky were tall
scaffoldings and men busy with hod and mortar, I saw Irma coming towards
me. She was neat and youthful, but dressed poorly in plain
things--homespun, and in my dream, I judged, also home-made.
I saw her afar off, and the heart within me gave a great leap. She came
towards me smiling, and lo! I seemed to stand still and worship the
lithe carriage and elastic step. The world grew all sweet and gay. The
lift above became blue and high. The sun shone no longer grey and
brown, but smiling and brilliant--as--as the face of Irma.
Strangely enough she did not greet me nor hold out her hand as
acquaintances do. She came straight up to me as if the encounter were
the merest matter-of-course, while as I stood there, with the hunger and
the wretchedness all gone out of me, the weariness and misery melted in
the grace of that radiant smile, she uttered just these words, "I have
found the Little House Round the Corner!"
Now I will tell of a strange thing--so strange that I have consulted
Irma about it, whether I should write it down here or keep it just for
ourselves.
And she said, "It is true--so why not set it down?" Well, this is what
happened. One day I had arranged to meet Irma at the corner of the
quaint little village of Laurieston, which, as all the world knows,
looks down on the saughs of the Meadows and out upon the slopes of
Bruntsfield where, among the whins, the city golfers lose their balls.
At that time, as all the world knows, there was undertaken a certain
work of opening out that part of the ancient wall which runs westward
from Bristo Port at the head of the Potter Row. Some great old houses
had gone down, and I mind well that I was greatly attracted by the first
view of the Greyfriars Kirk that ever I had from that quarter. (It was
soon lost again behind new constructions, but for a time it was worth
seeing, with its ancient "through" stones, and the Martyrs' Monument
showing its bossy head over the low wall.)
So much taken up with this was I, that I did not notice the altered
aspect of the place. Yet I looked about me like one who is suddenly
confronted by something very familiar. There was the wide space. There
were the narrow streets I knew so well. Yonder was the Candlemaker Row
diving down into the bowels of the earth. Away towards the Greyfriars
were the tall "lands" which the masons were pulling down. Nearer were
men climbing up ladders with hods on their shoulders. Highest of all,
against the blue sky, naked as a new gibbet, stood out the framework of
a crane.
It was the very place of my dream. I knew it well enough, indeed, but
never until that day it had looked so. And there, coming smiling down
the midst, easily as one might down the aisle of an empty church, was
Irma herself, as plain and poor in habiliment as my dream, but
smiling--ah, with a smile that turned all my heart to water, so dear it
was. It was good of God to let us love each other like that--and be
poor.
And as she came nearer, she did not hold out her hand, nor greet me--but
when she was quite close she said, exactly as in the dream, "I have
found the Little House round the Corner!" Yet she had never heard of my
dream before.
That this is true, we do solemnly bear witness, each for our own parts,
thereof, and hereto append our names--
Duncan MacAlpine.
Irma MacAlpine.
* * * * *
Irma had found it, indeed, but as I judged at the first sight of the
house, it was bound to be too expensive for our purses. I immediately
decided that something must be wrong somewhere, when I heard that we
could have this pleasant cottage with its scrap of garden, long and
narrow certainly, but full of shade and song of birds, for the
inconsiderable rent of ten pounds a year. We thought of many dangers and
inconveniences, but Irma was infinitely relieved when it came out to be
only ghosts. Servants, it appeared, could not be got to stay.
"Is that all?" said Irma scornfully. "Well, then, I don't mean to keep
any servants, and as for ghosts, Louis and I have lived in a big house
in a wood full of them from cellar to roof-tree! You let ghosts alone,
they will let you alone! 'Freits follow them that look for them!"