The next day, after a long interview with Christian Lillie, and granting
the further delay of a week to Anne for Christian's sake, Mrs. Catherine
returned to Edinburgh. At the week's end, when she had rendered what
service and assistance she could to Christian, Anne was to join Mrs.
Catherine, and they were to proceed home.
But the invitation of Mrs. Catherine, and Anne's entreaty that she
should accompany them, was steadily and quietly negatived by Christian.
The day before Anne left Schole, they sat together in the study--Anne
was renewing her solicitations.
"No," said Christian, calmly, "no, I cannot leave his grave. I cannot
give up my watch of Patrick. You do not know--I pray God you never
may--when folk have watched and waited for a lifelong like me, how hard
it is to break the old wont, even though it be one of the sorest pain
that ever oppressed mortal spirit. I am calm now--you know how calm I
am--but I must tarry by his grave."
"And will you stay here," said Anne, "here in this desolate house?"
"At this time I must--my desire is to return to our old home, before
Marion comes back to me--I forget she has been a mother long, and a
grave tried woman. I only mind her as my bird Marion, my little sister;
I would like to have her chamber for her, as it was before this cloud
fell. You shall go with me to-morrow, and we will see what they say--the
people who are in the house."
"And where are they?" said Anne, "will you not tell me, Christian, where
they are?"
Christian's countenance changed: "They will be home in due time. Your
brother Norman will reveal himself to you himself, and you will not ask
me further. It is a weakness--a remembrance of my old bondage--but you
will wait, Anne, my sister.--Let him carry you his own secret himself."
Anne was silent. It was a singular hesitation this, but she could not
press her question further. "And will you not come to Merkland--to see
us--to see Lilie?"
"I will come when Marion comes," said Christian. "Let me stay until
then. By the time this year is ended, as I calculate, they will be home,
and till that time I will rest."
Anne rose, a stranger was at the gate: through the window she descried
the good-humored round face of Mrs. Brock, her earliest acquaintance in
Aberford. "Here is your tenant, Christian," she said: "shall I see her?
it may fatigue you."
"No," said Christian, "let her be brought in, Anne; it will save us our
walk to-morrow."
Anne went out, and met the Grieve's wife, who was greatly astonished to
see her. "Eh, preserve me! is this you, Miss Ross? and ye never came
back to tak a cup o' tea; and I've been looking for ye ilka fine day;
and sae muckle as wee Geordie had to tell his father about the leddy yon
night; and ye'll hae been biding close a' this time at Aberford?"
"No," said Anne, "I have been in the North since I saw you."
"And sae ye ken Miss Lillie? She'll be sair put out o' the way, it's
like, about her brother. Losh! do ye ken Miss Ross, our George says
there's something in the papers about it being Maister Lillie that
killed the man, and no young Redheugh. Is there onythiug in't, think ye?
ane couldna ask Miss Lillie."
"By no means," said Anne, "she is in great grief for her brother, and
you must not allude to it."
"It'll be true then? Eh! to think of a delicate looking man like thon
doing the like o' that."
"It was an accident," said Anne, quickly; "he was a gentleman, who would
not have harmed any living thing. Do you wish to see Miss Lillie?"
"Ou, ay, it was just about the house, ye ken. George thought we micht
maybe come to a settlement about the house. Ye see there's a new yin
building at the back end o' the toun, nigher the water--a guid twa story
house, and we've a big family, and George would like to be off or on at
yince."
Anne ushered the visitor into the study. Mrs. Brock, honest woman,
expended upon Christian some piece of common-place consolation, which
made the pale lip quiver. Then she entered upon her business.
"Ye see, we've reason to be thankfu', we've won on no that ill in the
world; and George says its a daftlike thing to us to be paying rent for
a house, and us has lying siller that could buy mair than yin. Sae if
ye're agreeable, he'll make ye his auld offer ower again--twa hunder
pounds, and us to get it as it stands, all and haill."
"I am sorry, Mrs. Brock," said Christian, "when you like it so well,
that I cannot part with it; but I must keep the house in my own
possession."
"Weel," said Mrs. Brock, "of course it's your ain to do what ye like
wi't--and ye see there's John Tamson, he began to build a twa story
house, down by the back end o' the toun--and he's broke. Its nae
wonder--his wife wearing silk gowns, and gowd earrings ilka day, less
wadna ser her, and her was only a ewemilker fræ the Lammermuir! Sae
George thinks we micht maybe buy John Tamson's house--its stickit in the
building e'enow, but we could sune hae it begun again; and maybe since
ye'll no sell yours, ye wad hae nae objection to quit us at Martinmas."
"I shall be very glad," said Christian. "I expect friends home who have
been long absent, and this house is not pleasant to me. I will be glad
to release you when you choose."
Mrs. Brock was satisfied; and after various other attempts at
conversation, in which Anne bore the brunt as well as she could, and did
all in her power to prevent their visitor from recurring to the death of
Patrick, Mrs. Brock at last intimated, "that she bid to be thinking o'
gaun hame--though it was an awfu' hot stourie day, and she was bye
ordinary tired."
Roused by this hint, Anne hastened to bring a glass of wine, and at last
their visitor departed.
"So there will be time to restore all," said Christian, as Mrs. Brock
left the house. "It is well, I will have a pleasure in it. It is the
first time I have said that word since yon June day! Do I look like a
woman dead? Is there something in my voice, and face, that speaks of
death?"
"Christian," said Anne in alarm, "why do you ask that?"
"Because I feel it, Anne--a dead unnatural calm, like the stillness of
the Firth before yon storm--not peace but death; I feel it in myself.
When I go about, I think I can hear no sound of my footsteps; when I
breathe, I think the air seems to cleave before me; when I speak, the
voice has a dull, cold modulation, that is not human. I can think of
them all--of Patrick in his agony--of myself so short a time ago, as
feverish shadows--I feel this calm oppress and envelop me like a
shroud--I feel like one dead."
"This should not be, Christian," said Anne, "it is but the reaction of
stillness after all your labor and watching. How much have you to live
for!"
"I have no further work," said Christian Lillie, in her old composure of
melancholy, "no further watching--no one now to care and labor for. You
do not know my life; when I was a girl, in the days when others are gay
and light of heart, beloved, and served, and cared for, I was fighting
with a household shame and sin--a miserable, sensual, earthly sin, in
the one man to whom I should have looked up for support and guidance:
striving to hide it--to keep it from the knowledge of the bairns--the
two that were depending more upon me, their sister, than upon him their
father; striving, too, with weary cares of poverty, to keep them from
want--real want and not mere meagreness. From that a death relieved
me--and then, with only eighteen years over my head, I was left the
mother of these two; to protect, and defend, and bring them up, the only
near kindred they had in the world. Since then my hands have been
full--there has been no lack of vigils or labors in this past life of
mine. Now it is over; I have carried Patrick safely to his grave, and
seen him laid down there in sorrow and in hope; and now Marion will come
again to a bright household in joy and honor. Do you marvel that I think
my work over?--the need of me in this world past."
"I do not marvel," said Anne, "but I wish that it should be otherwise,
Christian. I would not have your sky overcast with this dull calm; I
would have it free to receive God's sunshine; the light he sends upon
it, in the evening time."
"God forbid," said Christian Lillie rising, and pressing her hands
painfully to her breast, "God forbid that I should hide my head, from
His mercy of joy; God forbid that I should shut my eyes to His sunshine,
or sin His mercies; only I am blinded with this cold calm, and my heart
is dead within me. When I am in my own house, bring the child to
me--Marion's bairn, that he called by our unhappy name; and come
yourself, my sister Anne, that I may begin to live again. Till then, in
my own fashion let me rest."
And so they arranged. At the term of Martinmas, or sooner, if John
Tamson's house, the newly-acquired property of George Brock, should be
sooner completed--whenever Christian had regained possession of the old
home cottage, Anne was to visit her with Lilie. At present, all was done
for her that affectionate care could do, and on the next day Anne left
Aberford.
When in the evening she entered Mrs. Catherine's Edinburgh drawing-room,
in its stately pride of olden furniture, gracefully not stiffly antique,
she found James Aytoun and his mother waiting to meet her. Mrs. Aytoun
gave her a tremulous welcome, which was half an embrace, and would have
been wholly one, had Mrs. Aytoun been at all a demonstrative person.
James shook hands with her with respectful kindness and friendship. The
good opinion of such a mother and son was worth having. Anne felt
enlivened and exhilarated.
"Alice has gone out," said Mrs. Aytoun: "she will be with us very soon
again. They were to watch for your coming, but I fear these young people
become engrossed in their own matters sometimes."
"They?" said Anne.
"Ay, she has a gallant with her you have seen before," said Mrs.
Catherine, "be patient--you will find out who he is before long."
"Is it Lewis?--is Lewis here?" asked Anne.
"Mrs. Catherine wishes to take Alice from us again," said Mrs. Aytoun.
"I am afraid, Miss Ross, I can hardly thank you for the barrier you have
removed. Alice is so young--little more than a child yet."
James Aytoun took up a book, and went away smilingly to a window. He saw
that a consultation matrimonial and maternal was impending.
"I do think she is too young. I do not approve of too early marriages,"
said Mrs. Aytoun, shaking her head. "Why, many girls are but leaving
school at Alice's age--she is not quite eighteen yet."
"She is in no peril," said Mrs. Catherine. "It's my hope, kinswoman,
that you do not think you are sending her into a savage country, where
there will be but barbarous people to show kindness to the bairn. There
is no fear of her--I warrant her in as careful hands, when she is in
Lewis's, as she could be under the shadow of my very sel; I would not
just have advised you to wed her--a bairn as she undoubtedly is--to the
like of Archie Sutherland; but she is in no peril with Lewis."
The slightest possible additional color wavered over Anne's face. She
did by no means perceive any connexion, logical or otherwise, between
the marriage of little Alice Aytoun and Archie Sutherland.
"I am not afraid for her," said Mrs. Aytoun: "it is not peril that I
mean; but so young a girl entering upon the care of a house--the
management of a family--besides the pain of losing her. If it had not
been for your mother's presence, and your own, Miss Ross, I should never
have consented--at her age."
Mrs. Aytoun expressed something of what she felt, but not all. She did
not like the idea of Alice entering another family, not as its mistress,
but as a younger daughter. She felt sure of Anne; but Alice was by no
means so exuberant in her praise of Mrs. Ross.
"I do not know what arrangement my mother may make," said Anne, "but, of
course, whether we remain in Merkland or not, it must make a very great,
and a very pleasant change to us."
Mrs. Aytoun smiled a dubious smile--she was not reconciled to it. In any
way, parting with the girl-daughter was a great venture, but to send her
into the rule of a husband's mother, while even the husband himself was
comparatively unknown! Mrs. Aytoun was jealous and afraid for her little
clinging Alice, whose life hitherto had been so carefully guarded.
"And so you are demurring to the lad's petition?" said Mrs. Catherine.
"Well, I do not marvel; but a month or two can make little odds, and you
bid to have parted with her soon or syne."
"Certainly, that is a consolation," said Mrs. Aytoun, with her faint
smile. "It is selfish of me, I am afraid, to be so loath to think of
parting with Alice; and part I must one time or other, that is true, but
still--a little longer, I think, she may be left to me. Your brother has
been pressing an early time upon us, Miss Ross. I do not object that he
should wish it--but you must do us the kindness to help me in deferring
this a little."
"I believe," said Anne, "that my brother Norman may be home--that we may
expect him at the end of the year. I should like exceedingly that he
could be present--that it were deferred until that time."
Mrs. Aytoun pressed her hand gratefully--Alice, radiant with smiles and
blushes, looked in at the door. "Oh! Anne is here--she has come," she
exclaimed as she ran to Anne's side--Lewis was behind her.
"So my mother has been bringing you over to our side," said James
Aytoun, when the evening was considerably advanced, as he took a seat
near Anne. "Mrs. Catherine is wavering. I fear to find her throw her
mighty forces into alliance with the active, serviceable, energetic
troops whom Lewis himself brings into the field. We are by no means
pleased to have our little Alice carried off from us so rapidly. I begin
to fear Mrs. Catherine is anything but a safe guardian for young ladies;
I certainly shall not advise any client of mine to send favorite
daughters or sisters to the Tower, if he wants to keep them out of
harm's way."
"What is that you say?" said Mrs. Catherine, "do you make light of my
good name, James Aytoun? and do you, Anne, sit still and hear? you are
an irreverent generation! Never you heed, Alison. It is because you are
overlooking the rule of Laban, the son of Bethuel, and cheating him of
his elder right."
"If you will come to Merkland, James," said Lewis, "I will say a good
word for you to Marjory Falconer. By the bye, I forgot my great
news--have you heard about Marjory, Anne?"
"What about her?"
"In the first place, she has made a silent recantation--if one may guess
from appearances. A hint of Walter Foreman's the other day, about the
rights of women, instead of setting her off at a tangent, as such a
thing used to do, threw her into an agony of blushing, and made her
dumb. That is great enough for one report; but I have another. Marjory
Falconer--listen to me all who know Strathoran--Marjory Falconer is
about to be married!"
"To be married!" echoed little Alice, with a look of laughing wonder and
dismay. These two, Lewis and his betrothed, had not got the slightest
glimpse of Marjory Falconer yet, well though they fancied they knew her;
Anne looked slightly puzzled, and a little anxious: Mrs. Catherine
smiled.
"Who is it? who is it?" cried little Alice.
"Anne can guess," said Lewis: "I see his name upon her lips. It seems my
news is no such wonder, after all."
"Who is she going to marry, Lewis?" asked Anne, hastily, "it is rather a
wish than a guess with me. Marjory does not give confidences of that
kind--is it Mr. Lumsden?"
"May all your wishes, sister Anne," said Lewis, with mock gravity, "be
as fully realized. It is the mighty minister of Portoran. Ralph, they
say, rebelled, and had a swearing fit when he heard of it, which Marjory
promptly checked, however, and sent him down stairs to the congenial
society of his horses and grooms. It will be a serious matter for Ralph
though, for Marjory, with all her whims, kept things going at Falcon's
Craig."
"I am very glad to hear it," said Anne. "It is one of the few marriages
that have no drawback; one can feel that Marjory, with her strength and
good sense, is safe now, in a pure healthful atmosphere, where she will
grow and flourish. I am very glad."
Lewis and Alice exchanged glances and laughed.
"Lewis," said Mrs. Catherine, "hold your peace. It becomes the like of
you--gallants that have a while to grow before they reach their full
stature--to take heed that you meddle only with things within your power
of vision. Ay! you are lowering your bit forehead on me, Alison Aytoun;
but truly, after all, there are wiser men in this world, to my own
certain knowledge, than this gallant that calls himself of Merkland."
"But Miss Falconer figures very largely in Alice's reminiscences," said
James, smiling. "To whom shall I apply for an account of her? to you,
Mrs. Catherine, or to Lewis."
"I bid you come yourself and see, James Aytoun," said Mrs. Catherine.
"As for Lewis, he does not know, and therefore it is not likely he can
tell; but truly, I think you would be better employed telling my Anne,
whom you have set yourself beside, the issue of the plea, that Robert
Ferguson and you have been working at so long."
James obeyed: with signal disgrace and utter discomfiture, Lord
Gillravidge's defence had been overpowered. The road through the
Strathoran grounds, by the omnipotent voice of the Court of Session, was
proclaimed free as the sunshine to all and sundry, its natural
proprietors and heirs. Henceforward the pulling down of barricades was a
legal and proper enforcement of the law, and the erection of the same
entirely useless, for any other purpose than that of keeping the
well-disposed lads of Strathoran in glee and mischief. Mrs. Catherine
was victorious, and triumphed moderately in her victory.
"If it were not that I hope in my lifetime to see Archie Sutherland back
to his own lands, I would hazard a trial with that English alien, of his
title to take their old inheritance from the clansmen whose right it is.
You shake your head, James Aytoun--I will uphold it in the face of a
whole synod as learned in the law as yourself, that the clansman has the
same natural right of possession as his chief; that it comes to him by
the same inheritance; that in no way is the laird more certain in his
tenure than the humble man, except in so far as he is chief of both land
and men, natural protector, ruler and guardian of the same. You forget
the ancient right and justice in this drifting unsettled generation. If
it were not that you pleaders of the law, have a necessity of spinning
out the line of a plea, past the extremity of mortal life, and I hope to
see Archie home within the course of mine, I would see that this was
tried without delay, let the whole parliament-house of you shake the
heads of your wisdom if ye likit."
"I am afraid," said James, "we might get the theoretic justice of it
approved--but as for any practical result to follow--"
"You do not know," interrupted Mrs. Catherine: "so far as I have seen in
my life, a thing does not commonly succeed till it's tried; ay, tried
with labor, and zeal, and longwaiting; and it's a poor work that is not
worth that. I know not but what for the sake of the coming race, there
is a clear call to try it. If the first bit petty tyrant that took their
right inheritance from clansmen, whose fathers won it by the strong
hand, had been resisted in his ill doing, this pang English lordling
would not have dared to turn the Macalpines out of Oranmore."
"But we dont all hold our lands by the strong hand," said Lewis Ross.
"Lewis, you are a loon; how often have I told you to hold your peace;
and what better tenure could the man have for his lands, I would crave
to know, than just the tenure of the strong hand? Your fathers knew
better, and what they won by their sword and by their bow, was well won
I say! won by clansmen and chief together, and by clansmen and chief, in
their degree, to be lawfully and justly held--in peace, if the Almighty
ordained it so, and if not, in honorable holding of the land they had
won, against all aliens and incomers; whether they came by open war, or
with courtesies of craft and falsehood, as men do in this time!"
In a few days after, Mrs. Catherine and her train, including Alice
Aytoun and her maid Bessie, left Edinburgh for the Tower. In
consideration of the six months' delay to which Lewis had reluctantly
submitted, Mrs. Aytoun as reluctantly consented that her little daughter
should pay a brief visit to Mrs. Catherine--a visit which was by no
means to exceed the limits of a month.
Jacky and Bessie, under the safe-conduct of Johnnie Halflin, were to
travel by the coach. When the youthful trio reached the starting-place
in high glee, an early coach had just arrived from one of the many
village-towns in the vicinity of Edinburgh. Jacky's quick eye discerned,
among the little knot of bystanders, a tall lad of some nineteen or
twenty years, engaged in superintending the collection of boxes
belonging to an elderly woman, who stood with a slightly fluttered,
agitated look upon the pavement below. The large Paisley shawl, the
mighty leghorn bonnet--Jacky threw over them a glance of hasty
recognition. Their owner turned her head. The thin, long upper lip was
not quivering now--a glance of troubled joy was in the eye--Jacky
hastily ran to speak to her. It was Jean Miller. Bessie drew near also.
In Johnnie Halflin's presence, Bessie would have had no objection to a
slight flirtation with the young doctor, Jean Miller's genteel nephew.
The tall, slight lad drew himself up, however, with the slightest
possible recognition. He had a soul above flirtation with maid-servants.
"Andrew's maister, I'm meaning the doctor he's serving his time wi', has
ta'en in a daft gentleman to board wi' him," said Jean Miller, aside to
the sympathetic Jacky, "and so there wasna room for the callant, and it
was needful he should get up-putting in a strange house. Sae it chanced,
when I was in seeing him, that I saw some mair neighbors o' his,
collegianers, and ae young doctor, that was unco chief wi' him; and it
appears Andrew--he's a kindly callant, and has been a' his days--had
been telling them o' his auntie, and how I was anxious about him in the
strange place, where he had nae mother's e'e ower him, nor onybody to
keep him right. Sae what did they do--the young doctor and the auldest
o' the students, but they said, that if Andrew would get his auntie to
come in and take a house, they would a' bide wi' me, and that they would
be mair comfortable a'thegither, and could help ane anither in their
learning. Sae ye may think Andrew was blythe to come out to tell me,
and seeing I'm wearing into years, and a'body likes to have a house o'
their ain, and in especial for the laddie's sake, that he may be wiled
to care mair for hame, than for the vanities that have ruined lads of
promise by the hunder before him, as I ken ower weel, I didna swither;
and the house is ta'en, and the plenishing's bought, and I'm gaun hame
the day. It's a great change to me, but--Andrew, my man, yon blue box is
mine too--it'll be a great ease to my mind to hae my laddie aye in my
ain e'e; and I hope the Lord will send a blessing on't. It's a' for the
lad's guid I'm anxious. Guid kens, I would have little thought o' mysel
that am withered, and auld, and past my strength, if it werena for him."
The journey was accomplished in safety. Little Alice was established
again at the rounded window of that pretty bower of hers, looking over,
through the golden air, to the quiet house of Merkland, with no phantom
of grief or pain or sorrow, throwing its shadow now between; but
everything around and before, throwing out that sunny light of hope and
promise, beautiful to see.
The day after their arrival, Anne set out to visit Esther Fleming. Lewis
had not thought of any anxiety of Esther's; unfortunately, very much as
his intercourse with the Aytouns had improved him Lewis was still by no
means given to any great consideration of other people's anxieties, and
therefore he had suffered the paper which Anne sent specially for her,
containing the first public notice of Norman's innocence, to lie useless
in his library without the least remembrance of Esther. He had not the
same bond to her as Anne had, it is true, for Esther had never bestowed
any great share of her patronage upon "the strange woman's bairn."
A little way from the gate of Merkland, Anne met Marjory Falconer.
Marjory had the slightest possible air of timidity hanging upon her,
with a singular grace. She was a little afraid of Anne's reception of
her intended marriage--whether she already knew--and if she would
lecture, or rally her.
"Come with me to the Tower first," said Marjory, drawing Anne's arm
within her own. "I want to see little Alice Aytoun--and I have a great
deal to say to you."
"I am glad you have the grace to acknowledge that," said Anne, smiling;
"but I do think, Marjory, that some of it should have been said sooner."
"Anne!" exclaimed Marjory Falconer, with one of her violent blushes,
"you would not have had _me_ speak to _you_, the way young ladies speak
in novels."
"Many young ladies in novels speak very sensibly, Marjory," said Anne.
* * * * *
"Very well--never mind, that is all over now. Tell me of your own
matters, Anne--you have not returned to Merkland as you went away; there
is to be no more brooding, no more unhappiness?"
Anne told her story briefly, as they went up Oranside. Marjory was much
affected. To her strong, joyous spirit, in its vigorous contendings with
mere external evil, and now in the prospective strength and honor of its
new, grave, happy household life, the mention of these agonies came with
strange power. Nothing like them, as the fair promise of her future
went, should ever enter the healthful precincts of the Manse of
Portoran, yet her heart swelled within her in deep sympathy as the
hearts of those swell who feel that they themselves also could bear like
perils and miseries--the true fraternity.
In the inner drawing-room they found little Alice alone, and there
ensued some gayer _badinage_, which Marjory bore with wonderful patience
and a considerable amount of blushing laughter, inevitable in the
circumstances. "The only thing is," said Marjory, with a look of comical
distress, "what I shall do with Ralph--I wish somebody would marry
him--I do wish some one would do me the special favor of marrying
Ralph!"
Little Alice Aytoun looked up in wonder. It was Alice's wont to be
greatly puzzled with those speeches of Marjory's, and quite at a loss to
know how much was joke, and how much earnest.
"Yes, indeed," said Marjory, laying her hand on Alice's shoulder. "I
think it would have been a very much more sensible thing for you, little
Alice Aytoun, to have fallen in love with my poor brother Ralph, who
needs somebody to take care of him, than with that rational, prudent
Lewis of Anne's who can take such very good care of himself."
Alice drew herself up, and was half inclined to be angry; but glancing
up to Marjory's face, ended in laughing, blushing and wondering.
"And yet that must have been very unsatisfactory too," said Marjory,
smoothing Alice's fair hair as she would have done a child's, "for then,
I had been certainly _thirled_ to Falcon's Craig to take care of you
both--to see that Ralph was not too rough with you, and that you were
too gentle with him. No, we must have some one who can hold the reins.
Altogether you have chosen better for yourself, little Alice--Lewis will
take care of you. But who shall I get to manage Ralph?"
"Perhaps Anne will," suggested Alice wickedly.
Anne was full three-and-twenty, and she was not even engaged! Little
Alice, with a touch of girlish generosity, felt the superiority of her
own position almost painful.
"Hush, little girl," said the prompt Marjory. "Anne is not a
horsewoman; besides I won't endanger a friend's interest, even for the
sake of getting Ralph off my hands. Anne is--"
"Oh! is Anne engaged?--is Anne engaged?" cried little Alice, clapping
her hands. Alice had been a good deal troubled by this same want of an
engagement for Anne, and had even been secretly cogitating, in her own
mind, whether it might not be possible to direct the attention of her
grave brother James to the manifold good qualities of Lewis's sister.
"Now, pray, do you two brides leave me undisturbed in my humble
quietness," said Anne, good-humoredly. "Why there is Jeanie Coulter to
be married next week--and then yourselves--if I do not hold my ground,
there will not be a single representative left of the young womanhood of
Strathoran and that is a calamity to be avoided by all means. I must
really go to Esther Fleming's now. Do you go with me, Marjory?"
Marjory assented, and they left the Tower; instead of going directly to
Esther Fleming's house, Anne went round by the mill. On reaching Mrs.
Melder's, they found that good woman standing, with a puzzled look,
before her table, on which lay a parcel, which Anne had sent with Jacky,
of mourning for the child. Lilie herself stood by, regarding the little
black frock, in which she was dressed, with a look of childish gravity.
The mourning chilled the little heart, though after being convinced that
nothing ailed papa, mamma, or Lawrie, Lilie, in Anne's bed-chamber, the
previous night, had heard of her uncle's death, with only that still awe
natural to the blythe little spirit, "feeling its life in every vein."
She did not know the strange uncle Patrick, who was dead. It only
subdued the gay voice a very little, and sent some sad speculations into
the childish head--a place where grave speculations are rife enough
sometimes, whether we of the elder generation discern them or no.
When Anne and Marjory approached the door, the child ran to meet them.
"Oh, aunt Anne--my aunt Anne!"
Marjory Falconer looked puzzled--she had not heard this part of Anne's
story.
"This is my niece," said Anne, with a slight tremor. "This is Lilias
Rutherford, my brother Norman's child."
"Anne!" exclaimed Marjory, in amazement, "what do you mean?" Mrs. Melder
pressed forward no less astonished.
"This little stranger," said Anne, holding the child's hand, "is the
daughter of my brother Norman, of whom you have heard so much,
Marjory--my niece, Lilias Rutherford."
Marjory Falconer, in the extremity of her astonishment, snatched up
Lilie in her arms, and ran out with her into the open sunlight, as if to
satisfy herself that Anne's new-found niece was indeed the little
Spanish Lilie, whose strange coming to the mill had been so great a
wonder to the countryside.
"Ye're no meaning you, Miss Anne?" exclaimed Mrs. Melder, anxiously,
"it's only a joke wi' Miss Falconer--ye're no meaning it?"
"Indeed I am," said Anne, "Lilie is truly my niece, Mrs. Melder; the
daughter of a brother who has been long lost to us, but whom we have now
found again."
"Eh!" cried Mrs. Melder, "that'll be the auld leddy's son that was said
to have killed anither man--and ye wad aye ken it, Miss Anne? Keep me!
To think of me telling ye about the leddy, and you kenning a' the time
wha the bairn was."
"No, you do me injustice," said Anne, eagerly. "At that time I had not
the slightest idea who Lilie was, and it is only a week or two since I
was certain."
Mrs. Melder did not look perfectly contented. "Weel, nae doubt it's my
pairt to be thankfu' that the bairn has friends o' her ain, that can be
better for her than me--and it's like ye'll do taking her to Merkland,
Miss Anne?" Mrs. Melder lifted the corner of her apron to her eye, and
tried to look offended and indifferent.
"I want to take her down with me to-day," said Anne, "and we can arrange
about that afterwards. Lilie, come here, I want you to go with me to
Merkland."
Mrs. Melder took Lilie's little bonnet, and drew the child to her knee
to put it on. "And they're gaun to take ye away frae me, my lamb! but
ye'll aye mind us, Lilie? and when ye're a grand laddy, ye'll no forget
the wee house at the mill, that ye lived in when ye were a bairn?" Mrs.
Melder's eyes were over-flowing.
"Dinna greet," whispered Lilie, clinging to her kind nurse, "if my aunt
Anne takes me to stay at Merkland, I'll come down every day--me and
Jacky--and when mamma comes, she'll come and see you. Eh!" cried Lilie,
forgetting her sympathy with Mrs. Melder in her remembrance of one
dearer than she; "you never saw a lady so bonnie as my mamma!"
"Ay, but, Lilie," said the good woman, applying the apron to her eyes
again, "ye dinna think how we'll miss ye here. There'll aye be the wee
bed empty at nicht, and aye the wee facie away in the morning. Oh!
Lilie, my lamb!"
"But I'll come down every day," said Lilie, in consolation; "and when
mamma comes, I'll bring her to see you, and papa, and Lawrie; and Jacky
will bring me every day, and when I'm a big lady, I'll come my lane."
They went down Oranside together, Lilie holding a hand of Anne and
Marjory, and skipping gaily between them. Marjory Falconer spoke little:
she had not yet overcome her surprise.
Esther Fleming sat by the door of her cottage, knitting a stocking, and
enjoying the sunshine. Her young niece was going lightly about within,
"redding up" the lightsome clean apartment. The old woman looked very
cheerful, neat and comfortable, her snow-white muslin cap covering her
gray hair, and closely surrounding her sensible, kindly face. She
started from her seat as she saw Anne.
"Eh, Miss Anne, are ye come at last?" but her face darkened with
disappointment as she perceived Marjory and the child.
"I would have come sooner, Esther," said Anne, "but that I thought you
had been told."
"Told what?" Esther staggered back to her seat, and sitting down there,
supported her head firmly between her hands. "For guid sake, Miss Anne,
say it out, whatever it is. Let me hear it at once. Young lady go away,
and let my bairn tell me her tidings."
"I may tell them before all the world Esther," said Anne. "Norman is
innocent, known and declared to be so, in the face of all men, free to
return to his own house and name, in honor and peace, and good fame. All
our sorrow and trouble for him are over. He is safe, Esther. He is
justified in the sight of the world."
The old woman uttered a cry--a low, wild, unconscious cry. She might
have done the same had it been bitter sorrow that overwhelmed her,
instead of a very agony and deluge of joy and thankfulness. She threw
her apron over her head--under its covering they could see the motion of
her hands, the bowing of her head. Prayers innumerable, offered by night
and day for eighteen years, that had lain unanswered till this time,
before yon Throne in Heaven, were pouring back upon her now in a flood
of blessedness. It was meet that they should stand apart in silent
reverence, while thus, in the presence of the Highest, His old and
faithful servant rendered thanks, where so long she had poured forth her
petition for mercy.
At last she raised her head--her clear and kindly features trembling yet
with the storm of joy that had swept over them; her eye fell upon the
child. She had seen Lilie once or twice before, but never before in this
strong light which tinged everything with a remembrance of Norman. She
started to her feet: "Wha are ye, bairn? wha are ye?--for ony sake, Miss
Anne, tell me wha this is?"
Anne took Lilie's hand, and led her to Esther's side; the child looked
up wonderingly with those large dark wistful eyes of hers, almost as
Christian Lilie had been wont to look--Anne placed her in the arms of
her father's devoted, loving friend. "Esther, you have a better right to
her than I--she is my brother's child--she is the daughter of Norman,
for whom you have sorrowed and prayed so long."
And Marjory Falconer stood apart, repeating to herself in a low voice,
which trembled sometimes, that Psalm, the blessing of the good man, sung
by the Hebrew people in the old time, as they journeyed to Jerusalem,
and familiar now to us in Scotland, as the household words of our own
land--
"Behold each man that fears the Lord,
Thus blessed shall he be,
The Lord shall out of Sion send,
His blessing unto thee,
Thou shalt Jerusalem's good behold,
While thou on earth dost dwell,
Thou shalt thy children's children see,
And peace on Israel!"