Anne had fairly started upon her voyage of discovery. The beginning of
it cost her many thoughts. She had half advanced to various peasant
wives, whom she saw at cottage doors, screaming to unruly children, or
out upon the universal "green," superintending their little
bleaching--and had as often shrunk back, in painful timidity, which she
blamed herself greatly for, but could not manage to overcome. It was
quite different among the well-known cottages of Strathoran, though even
with them, Anne would have felt visits of condescension or patronage
unspeakably awkward and painful. Now this constitutional shyness must be
overcome. Walking along the high road, a considerable way beyond the
village of Aberford, she suddenly came upon a desolate mansion-house.
The broken gate hung by the merest tag of hinge; the stone pillars were
defaced and broken. What had formerly been ornamental grounds before the
house, were a jungle of long grass, and uncouth brushwood. Bushes grown
into unseemly straggling trees, beneath the shadow of which, thistles
and nettles luxuriated, and plumes of unshorn grass waved rank and long,
as if in the very triumph of neglect. The house-door hung as insecurely
as the gate--the steps were mossy and cracked--the windows entirely
shattered, and in some cases the very frames of them broken. Behind, the
gardens lay in a like state of desolation. Here and there a cultivated
flower, which had been hardy enough to cling to its native soil, marked
among wild blossoms, and grass, and weeds, a place where care and
culture had once been. Upon a mossed and uneven wall some fruit-trees
clung, rich with blossoms: it had been an orchard once. In the midst of
another waste and desolate division stood the broken pedestal of a
sun-dial; a sloping wilderness ascended from it to the low windows of
what seemed once to have been a drawing-room. A spell of neglect was
over it all, less terrific than that still horror which a poet of our
own time has thrown over his haunted house, but yet in the gay wealth
and hopefulness of spring, striking chill and drearily upon the
observer's eye. Anne examined it with curious interest; she could
suspect what house it was.
A little further on she came upon a cottage of better size and
appearance than most, with a well-filled little garden before its door,
and knots of old trees about it. It was the house of a "grieve," or farm
overseer, a rising man in his humble circle, whose wife aimed at being
genteel. She stood in the door, basking in the sun, with her youngest
baby in her arms; the good woman had a multitude of babies; the latest
dethroned one was tumbling about at her feet. Anne bent over the little
gate to ask the name of the forlorn and desolate house she had just
past.
"Oh, that's Redheugh," said Mrs. Brock, the grieve's wife.
Anne lingered, and held out her hand to the hardy little urchin
scrambling in the garden. Mrs. Brock looked as if she would quite like
to enter into conversation:
"Be quiet, Geordie; ye'll dirty the lady's gloves."
"No, no," said Anne, taking the small brown hand into her own. "I am
very fond of children, and this is a fine, sturdy little fellow."
"Ye'll be a stranger, I'm thinking?" said Mrs. Brock. "There's few folk
in our parish that dinna ken Redheugh."
"Yes," said Anne. "I am quite a stranger; what is the reason it lies so
deserted and desolate?"
"Ye'll be come to the sea-side?" pursued Mrs. Brock; "it's no often we
have folk out frae Edinburgh sae early in the year. Is't no unco cauld
for bathing?"
"I should think it was," said Anne smiling, "but I have never, bathed
yet."
"It'll be just for the sea air?" continued Mrs. Brock. "Are ye bideing
far frae here, Mem, if yin may ask?"
"I am living a good way on the other side of Aberford," said Anne.
"Oh, and ye have had a lang walk, and it's a warm day. Get out of the
road, Geordie; will ye no come in and sit down? ye'll be the better for
the rest?"
Mrs. Brock, as we have before said, had an ambition to be genteel. Now
Anne Ross with her very plain dress, and quite simple manners, was
eminently ladylike, and might be a desirable acquaintance. Anne accepted
the invitation, and setting the strong little urchin, whom his mother
knocked about with so little delicacy, on his feet, she led him in with
her.
Mrs. Brock's parlor was a temple sacred to company, and holidays. Its
burnished grate, and narrow mantlepiece, elaborately ornamented with
foreign shells; brilliant peacock feathers waved gracefully over the
gilded frame of the little square mirror; the carpet was resplendent in
all the colors of the rainbow. There were sturdy mahogany chairs, and a
capacious haircloth sofa--the two ends of a dining-table stood in the
middle of the room, elaborated into the brightest polish--the center
piece was placed against the wall, and decorated with a case of stuffed
birds. Mrs. Brock paused at the door, and contemplated it all with
infinite complacency. It was something to have so grand a place to
exhibit to a stranger.
"Take a seat on the sofa, Mem; ye'll be wearied wi' your lang walk.
Geordie, ye little sinner, wad ye put your dirty shoon on the guid
carpet? Get away wi' ye."
Mrs. Brock bundled the little fellow unceremoniously out, and seated
herself opposite her guest.
"You have a fine view," said Anne.
"Is't no beautiful? They tell me there's no a grander sight in the world
than just the Firth and Fife. Yonder's the Lomonds, ye ken, and yon
muckle hill, even over the water, that's Largo Law. My mother was a Fife
woman--I have lived at Colinsbrugh mysel; and we can see baith Inchkeith
and the May in a clear day, no to speak o' the Bass. We're uncommonly
well situate here; it's a fine house altogether."
"It seems so, indeed," said Anne.
"Ye see the only ill thing about it is, that it's no our ain.--George
was uncommon keen to have had the house the bairns were a' born in. He's
an awfu' man for his bairns."
"Very natural," said Anne.
"Oh, ay, nae doubt it's natural, but it's no ilka body that has the
thought; he wad have gien twa hunder pounds for the house; twa clear
hunder--it's no worth that siller, ye ken, but it's just because we've
been in't sae lang. But Miss Lillie wadna hear o't; it's no every day
she could get an offer like that, and they canna be sae weel off as to
throw away twa hunder pounds, ane would think."
"Is this Miss Lillie's house?" said Anne.
"Ay--ye'll ken Miss Lillie it's like?"
"No," said Anne, "I do not know her, but I have heard her name."
"There's bits of conveniences a' through it," said Mrs. Brock, "that had
been putten up when they were bideing here themsels; and the garden
behint. Miss Lillie beggit George to keep the flowers right, and he
takes uncommon pains with them. He's a guid-hearted man, our George;
ye'll no often meet wi' the like of him."
"And that house of Redheugh," said Anne; "why is it so neglected and
desolate?"
"Eh, bless me!" said Mrs. Brock, "have ye no heard the story?"
"What story?" said Anne.
"Eh, woman!" exclaimed the grieve's wife, forgetting her good manners in
astonishment. "Ye maun have been awfu' short time hereabout, if ye
havena heard the story of the Laird o' Redheugh."
"I only arrived yesterday," said Anne.
"Weel, it's no ill to tell. The young gentleman that aught it killed a
man and was drowned himsel when he was trying to escape: it's just as
like the Book o' Jonah as anything out o' the Bible could be. There was
a great storm, and the ship he was in sank; he couldna carry the guilt
of the pluid over the sea. They say murder wouldna hide if ye could put
a' the tokens o't beneath North Berwick Law. It made an awfu' noise in
the countryside at the time, but it's no muckle thought o' now, only
a'body kens what gars the house lie desolate. Folk say ye may see the
gentleman that was killed, and Redheugh himsel in his dreeping claes,
like as if he was new come up from the bottom of the sea, fighting and
striving in the auld avenue--aye at midnight o' the night it was
done--but _ye'll_ no believe the like o' that?"
"No," said Anne vacantly; she did not know what she answered.
"Weel, I never saw onything myself--but they say the spirit's ill to
pacify, that's met wi' a violent death--and I wad just be as weel
pleased no to put myself in the way. I have aye an eerie feeling when I
pass the gate at night. After a' ye ken, there's naething certain about
it in Scripture--maybe the dead can come back, maybe they canna--ane
disna ken. I think it's aye best to keep out of the gait."
"It is, no doubt, the most prudent way," said Anne, smiling.
"Ye wad, maybe, like to see the garden, Miss--"
Mrs. Brock was mightily anxious to know who her visitor was.
"Ross," said Anne.
"Weel, Miss Ross, I am sure ye'll be pleased wi' the garden--will ye
come this way?"
Anne followed. The garden was in trim order--well kept and gracefully
arranged. Spring flowers, with their delicate hopeful fragrance and pale
hues, were scattered through the borders. The blossom on the lilac
bushes was already budded, and the hawthorn had here and there unfolded
its first flowers.
"But the simmer-house, Miss Ross," said Mrs. Brock.
The summer-house was not one of the ordinary tea-garden abominations. It
was a knoll of soft turf, the summit of which had been formed into a
seat, with a narrow space of level greensward for its footstool. Over it
was a light and graceful canopy, with flowering plants more delicate and
rare, than are generally seen in cottage gardens, clustering thickly
over it, while the foliage of some old trees, growing at the foot of the
hillock, made a rich background. From its elevated seat, you could see
the slopes of Fife lying fair below the sun, and the gallant Forth
between.--Anne stood and gazed round her in silence. She could see the
dark trees, and high roof of Redheugh at her other hand; how often might
Norman, in his happy years long ago, have stood upon this spot? Yet here
it shone in its fresh life and beauty, when all that remained of him,
was dishonor and desolation!
But there was in this a solemn, silent hope which struck Anne to the
heart. Christian Lillie had entreated, as her tenant said, that these
flowers should be carefully tended. Christian Lillie would not part with
the house. Was she not looking forward, then, to some future
vindication--to some home-coming of chastened joyfulness--to some final
light, shedding the radiance of peace upon her evening time?
Anne had to sit down in Mrs. Brock's parlor again, and suffer herself to
be refreshed with a glass of gooseberry wine, not quite so delectable as
Mrs. Primrose's immortal preparation, before she was permitted to
depart. Mrs. Brock had another decanter upon her table, filled with a
diabolical compound, strongly medicinal in taste and odor, which she
called ginger wine, and which Anne prudently eschewed--and a plate of
rich "short-bread," at which little Geordie, tumbling on the mat at the
door, cast longing loving looks. Mrs. Brock hoped Miss Ross would come
to see her again.
"It's just a nice walk. Ye maun come and tak' a cup o' tea when George
is in himsel. He's an uncommon weel-learned man, our George--he could
tell ye a' the stories o' the countryside."
Anne had to make a half promise that she would return to avail herself
of the stores of George Brock's information, before his admiring wife
released her.
She had overcome her repugnance a little--it was a tolerable beginning
so far as that went--but how dark, how hopeless seemed the prospect!
There was no doubt in that confident expression--no benevolent hope that
Norman might be guiltless! She had been told so long before, and had
come to Aberford, in the face of that. Yet the repetition of it by so
many indifferent strangers discouraged her sadly--her great expectation
collapsed. Only a steady conviction in her brother's innocence, a solemn
hope of vindication to him, living or dead, upheld her in her further
way.
In the evening she wandered out upon the sands. It was a still night,
wrapped in the gray folds of a mistier gloaming, than she had before
seen sinking over the brilliant Firth. Anne hovered about the enclosure
of Schole. The dreary house had a magnetic attraction for her. She stood
by the low gate, close to the water, and looked in. The high foliage of
the hedge hid her--gate itself was the only loophole in the thick fence,
which surrounded the house on all sides. There was light in the low
projecting window, which dimly revealed a gloomy room, furnished with
book shelves. At a sort of study table, placed in the recess of the
window, there sat a man bending over a book. His face was illuminated by
the candle beside him. A pale, delicate face it was, telling of a mind
nervously susceptible, a spirit answering to every touch, with emotion
so intense and fine, as to make the poetic temperament, not a source of
strength and mighty impulse, as in hardier natures, but a well-spring of
exquisite feebleness--a fountain of pensive blight and beauty. The snowy
whiteness of his high, thin temples, the long silky fair hair upon his
stooping head, heightened the impression of delicate grace and
feebleness. He looked young, but had, in reality, seen nearly forty
years of trouble and sorrow. His brow was almost covered by the long,
thin white fingers that supported it. He was absorbed in his book.
A strange resemblance to Christian Lillie was in the student's pale and
contemplative face. There could be no doubt that he was her invalid
brother--and yet how strangely unlike they were!
Anne turned to pursue her walk along the dim sands. A faint ray of
moonlight was stealing through the mist, silvering the water, and the
long glistening line of its wet shores here and there. In the light, she
caught a glimpse of a slow advancing figure. Fit place and time it was,
for such a meeting--for the tall dark outline and slow step, could
belong to but one person. Anne trembled, and felt her own step falter.
They had never yet heard each other's voices, yet were connected by so
close a tie--were wandering upon this solitary place, brooding over one
great sorrow--perhaps tremulously embracing one solemn hope.
When they met, she faltered some commonplace observation about the
night. To her astonishment, Christian Lillie replied at once. It might
be that she saw Anne's agitation--it might be that she also longed to
know Norman's sister. That she knew her to be so, Anne could not doubt:
her melancholy contemplation of Merkland--her evident start and
surprise, when they formerly met upon the sands, made that certain.
"Yes," said Christian Lillie, in a voice of singular sadness, "it is a
beautiful night."
The words were of the slightest--the tone and manner, the drawing in of
that long breath, spoke powerfully. This, then, was her one
pleasure--this gentle air of night was the balm of her wearied spirit.
"The mist is clearing away," said Anne, tremulously. "Yonder lights on
the Fife shore are clear now--do you see them?"
"Ay, I see them," was the answer. "Cheerful and pleasant they look here.
Who knows what weariness and misery--what vain hopes and sick hearts
they may be lighting."
"Let us not think so," said Anne, gently. "While we do not know that our
hopes are vain we still have pleasure in them."
"I have seen you more than once before," said Christian Lillie. "You are
not, or your face is untrue, one to think of vain pleasure at an
after-cost of pain. Hopes!--I knew what they were once--I know now what
it is to feel the death of them: what think you of the vain toils that
folk undergo for a hope? the struggle and the vigils, and the sickness
of its deferring? I see light burning yonder through all the watches of
the night--what can it be but the fever of some hope that keeps them
always shining? I saw yours in your window last night, when everybody
near was at rest but myself. What is it that keeps you wakeful but some
hope?"
"You know me then--you know what my hope is?" said Anne, eagerly.
"No," said Christian. "Tell it not to me. I have that in me that blights
hope--and the next thing after a blighted hope, is a broken heart. It is
wonderful--God shield you, from the knowledge--how long a mortal body
will hold by life after there is a broken heart within it! I think
sometimes that it is only us who know how strong life is--not the
hopeful and joyous, but us, who are condemned to bear the burden--us,
who drag these days out as a slave drags a chain."
"Do not say so," said Anne. Her companion spoke with the utmost
calmness--there was a blank composure about her, which told more
powerfully even than her words, the death of hope.--"There can be no
life, however sorrowful, that has not an aim--an expectation."
"An aim?--ay, an aim! If you knew what you said you would know what a
solemn and sacred thing it is that has stood in my path, these seventeen
years, the ending of my travail--an expectation! What think you of
looking forward all that time, as your one aim and expectation--almost,
God help us, as your hope--for a thing which you knew would rend your
very heart, and make your life a desert when it came--what think ye of
that? There are more agonies in this world than men dream of in their
philosophy."
"Are we not friends?" said Anne. "Have we not an equal share in a great
sorrow that is past--I trust and hope in a great joy that is to come?
Will you not take my sympathy?--my assistance?"
Christian Lillie shrank, as Anne thought, from her offered hand.
"An equal share--an equal share. God keep you from that--but it becomes
you well: turn round to the light, and let me see your face."
She laid her hand on Anne's shoulder, and, turning her round, gazed upon
her earnestly.
"Like--and yet unlike," she murmured. "You are the only child of your
mother? she left none but you?"
"Except--"
"Hush, what would you say?" said Christian, hurriedly.--"And you would
offer me sympathy and help? Alas! that I cannot take it at your, hands.
You have opened a fountain in this withered heart, that I thought no
hand in this world could touch but one. It is a good deed--you will get
a blessing for it--now, fare you well."
"Shall I not see you again?" said Anne.
Christian hesitated.
"I do not know--why should you? you can get nothing but blight and
disappointment from me, and yet--for once--you may come to me at
night--not to-morrow night, but the next. I will wait for you at the
little gate; and now go home and take rest--is it not enough that one
should be constantly watching? Fare you well."
Before Anne could answer, the tall, dark, gliding figure was
away--moving along with noiseless footstep over the sands to the gate of
Schole. She proceeded on herself, in wonder and agitation--how shallow
was her concern for Norman in comparison with this; how slight her
prospect of success when this earnest woman, whose words had such a tone
of power in them, even in the deepness of her grief, declared that in
her all hope was dead. It was a blow to all her expectations--nevertheless
it did not strike her in that light. Her anticipation of the promised
interview, her wonder at what had passed in this, obliterated the
discouraging impression. She was too deeply interested in what she
had seen and heard, to think of the stamp of hopelessness which these
despairing words set on her own exertions. That night she transferred
her lights early from her little sitting-room to the bed-chamber
behind. That was a small matter, if it gave any satisfaction to the
melancholy woman, the light from whose high chamber window she could
see reflected on the gleaming water, after Miss Crankie's little
household had been long hours at rest.
The next day was a feverish day to Anne, and so was the succeeding one.
She took long walks to fill up the tardy time, and made acquaintance
with various little sunbrowned rustics, and cottage mothers; but gained
from them not the veriest scrap of information about Norman, beyond what
she already knew--that he had killed a man, and had been drowned in his
flight from justice--that now the property, as they thought, was in the
king's hands, "and him having sae muckle," as one honest woman
suggested, "he didna ken weel what to do wi't. Walth gars wit
wavor--It's a shame to fash him, honest man, wi' mair land that he can
make ony use o'--it would have been wiser like to have parted it among
the puir folk."
On the afternoon of the day on which she was to see Christian Lillie
again, Anne lost herself in the unknown lanes of Aberford. After long
wandering she came to the banks of a little inland water, whose quiet,
wooded pathway was a great relief to her, after the dust and heat of
the roads. She stayed for a few minutes to rest herself; upon one hand
lay a wood stretching darkly down as she fancied to the sea. She was
standing on its outskirts where the foliage thinned, yet still was
abundant enough to shade and darken the narrow water; a little further
on, the opposite bank swelled gently upward in fields, cultivated to the
streamlet's edge--but the side on which she herself stood, was richly
wooded along all its course, and matted with a thick undergrowth of
climbing plants and shrubs and windsown seedlings. The path wound at
some little distance from the waterside through pleasant groups of
trees. Anne paused, hesitating and undecided, not knowing which way to
turn. A loud and cheerful whistle sounded behind her, and looking back,
she saw a ruddy country lad, of some sixteen or seventeen years,
trudging blythely along the pathway; she stopped him to ask the way.
"Ye just gang straight forenent ye," said the lad, "even on, taking the
brig at Balwithry, and hauding round by the linn in Mavisshaw. Ye canna
weel gang wrang, unless ye take the road that rins along the howe of the
brae to the Milton, and it's fickle to ken which o' them is the right
yin, if ye're no acquaint."
"I am quite a stranger," said Anne.
"I'm gaun to the Milton mysel," said the youth. "I'll let ye see the way
that far, and then set ye on to the road."
Anne thanked him, and walked on briskly with her blythe conductor, who
stayed his whistling, and dropped a step or two behind, in honor of the
lady. He was very loquacious and communicative.
"I'm gaun hame to see my mother. My father was a hind on the Milton
farm, and my mother is aye loot keep the house, now that she's a
widow-woman. I've been biding wi' my uncle at Dunbar. He's a shoemaker,
and he wanted to bind me to his trade."
"And will you like that?" said Anne.
"Eh no--I wadna stand it; I aye made up my mind to be a ploughman like
my father before me; sae my uncle spoke for me to the grieve at Fantasie
and I'm hired to gang hame at the term. So I cam the noo to see my
mother."
"Have you had a long walk?" said Anne.
"It's twal mile--it was eleven o'clock when I started--I didna ken what
hour it is noo. It should be three by the sun." Anne consulted her
watch; it was just three; the respect of her guide visibly
increased--gold watches were notable things in Aberford.
"I thought yince of starting at night. Eh! if I had been passing in the
dark, wadna I hae been frighted to see a leddy thonder."
"Why yonder?" said Anne, "is there anything particular about that
place?"
"Eh!" exclaimed the lad, "do ye no ken? there was a man killed at the
fit of thon tree."
Anne started. "Who was he?" she asked.
"I dinna mind his name--it's lang, lang ago--but he was a gentleman, and
my father was yin 'o the witnesses. Maybe ye'll have seen a muckle
house, ower there, a' disjasket and broken down. George Brock, the
grieve lives near the gate o't--it's no far off."
"Yes, I have seen it," said Anne.
"Weel, the gentleman that killed him lived there--at least a'body said
it was him that did it--I have heard my father speak about him mony a
time."
"And what was your father a witness of?" said Anne.
"Oh, he met Redheugh coming out of the wood--only my father aye thought
that he bid to be innocent, for he was singing, and smiling, and as
blythe as could be."
"And your father thought him innocent?" said Anne eagerly.
"Ay--at least he thought it was awfu' funny, if he had killed the man,
that he should be looking sae blythe. A' the folk say there was nae
doubt about it, and sae does my mother, but my father was aye in a
swither; he thought it couldna be. Here's the Milton, and ower yonder,
ye see, like a white line--yon's the road--it's just the stour that
makes it white; and if ye turn to the right, and haud even on, ye'll
come to the toun."
Anne thanked him, and offered some small acknowledgment, with which the
lad, though he took it reluctantly, and with many scruples, went away,
whistling more blythely than ever. How little did the youthful rustic
imagine the comfort and hope and exhilaration which these thoughtless
words of his had revived in his chance companion's heart!
There had been one in this little world, who, in the midst of
excitement, and in the face of evidence, and the universal opinion of
his fellows, held Norman innocent. Anne thanked God, and took
courage--there was yet hope.
She waited nervously for the evening; when the darkness of the full
night came stealing on, she glided along the sands to the gate of
Schole.
The projecting window was dark; there seemed to be no light in the whole
house. She looked over the gate anxiously for Christian--no one was
visible--dark ever-green shrubs looking dead and stern among the gay
spring verdure, stood out in ghostly dimness along the garden; the house
looked even more gloomy and dismal than heretofore, and the night was
advancing.
Anne tried the gate; it opened freely. She went lightly along the
mossed and neglected path to the principal door. It was evidently
unused, and in grim security barred the entrance; she passed the
projecting window again, and with some difficulty found a door at the
side of the house, at which she knocked lightly.
There was evidently some slight stir within; she thought she could hear
a sound as of some one listening. She knocked again--there was no
response--she repeated her summons more loudly; there was nothing
clandestine in her visit to Christian.
She fancied she could hear steps ascending a stair, and echoing with a
dull and hollow sound through the house. Presently a window above was
opened, and the face of an old woman, buried in the immense borders of a
white night-cap, looked out:
"Eh! guid preserve us. Wha are ye, disturbing honest folk at this hour
o' the night; and what do ye want?"
"Is Miss Lillie not within?" said Anne in disappointment.
"Miss Lillie! muckle you're heeding about Miss Lillie; its naething but
an excuse for theftdom and spoliation; but I warn ye, ye'll get naething
here. Do ye ken there's an alarm-bell in Schole?"
"I am alone," said Anne, "and have merely come to see Miss Lillie, I
assure you. You see I could do you no injury."
"And how div I ken," said the cautious portress a little more gently,
"that ye havena a band at the ither side of the hedge?"
"You can see over the hedge," said Anne, smiling in spite of her
impatience, "that I am quite alone. Pray ask Miss Lillie to admit me;
she will tell you that I came by her own appointment.
"A bonnie like hour for leddies to be visiting at," said the old woman;
"and how div ye ken that Miss Lillie will come at my ca'?"
"Pray do not keep me waiting," said Anne, "it is getting late. Tell Miss
Lillie that I am here."
"And if I were gaun to tell Miss Lillie ye were here, wha would take
care o' the house, I wad like to ken? Ye're no gaun to pit your gowk's
errands on me. If I had the loudest vice in a' Scotland, it wadna reach
Miss Lillie, an I cried till I was hoarse."
"You don't mean to say," exclaimed Anne, "that she is not at home!--that
Miss Lillie has left Schole?"
"Ay, deed div I--nothing less. Mr. Patrick and her gaed away last night'
to see their friends in the west country. Is that a'? If ye had a hoast
like me, and were as muckle fashed wi' your breath, ye wadna have keeped
your head out of the window sae long as I have done."
"Did she leave no word?" said Anne, "no message--or did she say when she
would return?"
"Neither the tane nor the tither: she never said a word to me, but that
they were gaun to the west country to see their friends. What for should
they no? They are as free to do their ain pleasure as ither folk."
Anne turned away, greatly disappointed and bewildered.
"Be sure you sneck the gate," screamed the careful guardian of Schole,
"and draw the stane close till't that ye pushed away wi' your fit."
Anne obeyed, and proceeded homeward very much downcast and disappointed.
She had expected so much from this interview, and had looked forward to
it so anxiously. Why should they avoid her? For what reason should the
nearest relatives of Norman's wife, flee from Norman's sister? She
herself had hailed, with feelings so warmly and sadly affectionate, the
idea of their existence and sympathy--perhaps of their co-operation and
help. Now Christian's words returned to her mind in sad perplexity. She
could find no clue to them. The house of Schole looked more dreary and
dismal than ever. She felt a void as she looked back to it, and knew
that the watcher, whose light had fallen upon the still waters of the
Firth through all the lingering night, was there no longer. She left her
watch at the window early, and, with a feeling of blank disappointment
and loneliness, laid herself down to her disturbed and dreaming
rest--very sad, and disconsolate, and unsettled--seeing no clear
prospect before her, nor plan of operation.