Lord and Lady Eskside, as the reader has seen, were not quite in accord
about their grandson: or at least they took different views of the
circumstances which attended his arrival. They took (perhaps) each the
view which came naturally to man and woman in such a position of
affairs. The old lord, although himself at length absolutely convinced
that the boy was his son’s child and his own heir, was deeply oppressed
by the consciousness that though there was moral certainty of this fact,
there was no legal proof. “Moral certainty’s a grand thing,” said Willie
Maitland, the factor, a man who knew the Eskside affairs to the very
depths, and from whom there were no secrets possible; but he spoke so
doubtfully as to inflame the mind of my lady, who sat by listening to
their talk with an impatience beyond words.
“A grand thing!” cried Lady Eskside; “it is simply everything: what
would you have more? And who can judge in such a question but ourselves?
my son, who must know best, and my old lord and myself, who are next
nearest? What do the men mean by their dubious looks? What can you have
more than certainty? Mr Maitland, with your knowledge of the law, I
would like you to answer me that.”
“Well, madam, as my lord says,” said Willie Maitland, who was
old-fashioned in his manners, “there is legal proof wanted. It may be
just a deficiency on our part--and indeed, according to the Scriptures
themselves, law is a sign of moral deficiency--but everything has to be
summered and wintered before the Lords of Session.”
“And what have the Lords of Session to do with our boy?” said my lady,
indignantly. “I hope we are not so doited but what we can take care of
him ourselves.”
“My dear Catherine, that is not the question.”
“What is the question, I would like to know?” said Lady Eskside,
flushing with the heat of argument. “Do I need the Lords of Session to
tell me whose son my own bairn is? I think you are all taking leave of
your senses with your formalities and your legal proof. Poor Alexander
Pringle there, up the water, cannot bring his delicate little girlie to
the country for change of air but you think he’s plotting against Val.
If this suspicion and distrust of every mortal is what your bonnie law
brings, I’m thankful for my part that I know nothing about the law; and
I wish everybody was of my mind.”
Lord Eskside and his factor went out quite cowed from my lady’s
presence. They were half ashamed both of the law and themselves, and I
think the visit which they made to the land which was being marked out
for “feus” was necessary to get up their spirits. Lord Eskside was
rather excited about these feus--allotments of land to be let for
building, upon a kind of copyhold which secured a perpetual revenue in
the shape of ground-rent to the proprietor: though he was a little
disposed at the same time to alarm himself as to the persons who might
come to live there, and perhaps bring Radical votes into the county, and
corrupt a constituency still stanch, amid Scotland’s many defections, to
“the right side.” This public anxiety was a relief to his mind from the
private anxiety; for however public-spirited a man may be, and however
profound his interest in politics, the biting of a little private
trouble is more sharp and keen than that patriotic concern for his
country which drives him wild with excitement over a contested election.
Willie Maitland the factor--a man “very well connected,” half a lawyer,
half a farmer, and spoken of by every soul in the parish and on the
estate by his Christian name--was big and burly and easy-minded, and
took things much more easily than his lord. “By the time there is any
question of the succession,” he said, “the story will be clean
forgotten. It will be many a year, I hope, before Richard succeeds, let
alone the boy.”
“Ay, ay, that is very true,” said the old lord, knitting his brows; “it
may be many a year; but it might be a question of days, Willie, for
anything you and me can tell. Well, well; for the moment we can make
nothing better of it; and here are the feus. Good morning, doctor! I
hope you’re all well at the Manse. It is a fine day for a walk. We are
going to take a look at Willie Maitland’s pet scheme here.”
“An excellent scheme,” said Dr Bruce, the parish minister, turning to
accompany them, with all that sober pleasure in something new which
moves the inhabitants of a tranquil rural district in favour of such
gentle revolutions as do not affect their own habits or comforts; and
the three gentlemen spent an agreeable half-hour pacing and measuring
the allotments. While they were thus engaged, Lady Eskside drove past
with Val on the coach-box, making believe to drive. “There is my lady
with her boy,” said Lord Eskside, waving his hand to them as they
passed; but he thought he saw an incredulous smile upon the face of the
minister, which took away from him all pleasure in the feus.
My lady worked while my lord thus allowed himself to be overcast by
every doubtful look. Strong in her moral certainty, she took every means
which lay in her power to spread the same conviction far and wide; and
as she worked very hard at this undertaking, she had a right to the
success, which she enjoyed thoroughly. Her chief work, however, was with
the child himself--the strange little unknown being unable to express
all the wonderments that were in him at his change of lot, who was in
her hands as wax in some respects, while in others she could make but
little of him. Val had reconciled himself to the revolution in his fate
with wonderful facility. He was so young, that after a few fits of
violent weeping and crying for his mother and his brother, he had to all
appearance forgotten them; and being indulged in every whim, and petted
to the top of his bent, with abundant air, exercise, toys, and caresses,
had so adapted himself to his new position as to look familiar and at
ease in it before many weeks had passed. What vague recollections and
baby thoughts upon the subject might be in him, nobody knew; but as
childish recollections are in most cases carefully cultivated, and exist
by means of constant reminders, I suppose Val, deprived of such aids,
actually did forget much more readily than children usually do. Lady
Eskside devoted herself specially to his polish and social education, to
the amending of his manners and speech, and the imparting of those acts
of politeness which are the special inheritance of small gentlemen: and
she succeeded, to her own surprise, much more perfectly than she had
hoped to do. Val took to the teaching in which no books nor perplexing
printed symbols were involved, with perhaps a precocious sense of
humour, but certainly a readiness of apprehension which filled my lady
with joy. She taught him to bow, to open the door for her when she went
out or in, to listen, and to reply; and what was still more wonderful,
to sit still when circumstances demanded that painful amount of
self-restraint. “A little gentleman tries first of all to be pleasant to
other people,” said his instructress. “When you are out playing, you
shall please yourself, Val, and everybody will help you to enjoy
yourself; but in company a gentleman always thinks of others, not of
himself.” And having well laid down this principle, my lady proceeded,
with great minuteness, to details. She thought it was a certain sign of
his gentle blood that he learned his social lesson with such quickness;
but I am inclined to believe that Valentine’s success was owing much
more surely to that latent dramatic power which exists in almost all
children, and which they are so proud and happy to exercise on every
possible occasion.
Certainly, whatever the cause was, the result was triumphant. When Val
was alone--in the nursery, where he ruled like a little despot, or out
of doors, where he conducted himself like a tiny desperado, always in
mischief--he was uncontrollable; but in the drawing-room, when his
grandmother received her visitors, or when he accompanied her on the
visits which it was now a point in her diplomacy to make, no little
paladin born in the purple could have shown more perfect manners, or
behaved himself more gracefully. He was acting a part, well defined and
recognisable, and the _rôle_ gave him pleasure. Not that the child
himself was conscious of this, or could have defined what his instinct
enabled him to do so perfectly; but yet the mental exercise was one
that excited him, and called forth all his powers. The little actor
threw himself off, as he jumped from the coach-box, where he had been
driving wildly, with precocious dash and nerve, restrained, with
difficulty, by the cautious old coachman, who knew exactly how much my
lady could put up with--and assumed in a moment the gracious character
of the little prince, suave, soft, and courteous, saying what he had to
say with childish frankness, and keeping himself still and in order with
a virtue which was heroic. From the Dowager Duchess to the farmers’
wives on Eskside, everybody was satisfied by these performances; and no
reasonable creature who had seen Val’s little exhibition could have lent
a moment’s credence to the vulgar story of the “randy wife.” “I don’t
see the strong likeness to his father,” said the Dowager Duchess, who
was, as it were, the last court of appeal and highest tribunal of social
judgment in the county. “To me there is another type of feature very
evident besides the difference of complexion; but in manners he’s his
father’s son. Not a lout, like Castleton’s boy, who ought to be a
gentleman, heaven knows! if race is anything--on both sides of the
house.” Lady Eskside felt the implied sting about “both sides of the
house,” but bore it heroically, knowing that the Marquis of Hightowers,
the Duke of Castleton’s only son, was like any ploughman’s child beside
her own bonnie boy; and it did not occur to her, any more than it did to
Val himself, that the whole secret of his success was his superiority in
dramatic power, and in enjoyment of that suppressed but exquisite joke
of mystification which children by nature love so dearly. Probably it
was the blood of gipsy and tramp and roadside mime in Val’s veins which
gave him more facility than usual in the representation; but the same
gift shows in every nursery in a greater or lesser degree. Little Violet
Pringle, with her dolls around her, discoursing to them--scolding one
for its naughtiness, and another for having neglected its lessons, with
high maternal dignity--was not more purely histrionic than was Val when
he played at being young prince and good boy, according to his
grandmother’s injunctions, and enjoyed the mystification--unless when it
chanced to last too long.
“He is a strange child,” said Lady Eskside to her favourite confidant
Mary Percival, whose visits became more frequent and prolonged after
this, and whose curiosity about the boy, whom she was not fond of, gave
a certain point of interest and almost excitement to the pleasure she
had in seeing her old friend. “He is a strange boy. When he goes out
with me, you should see, Mary, the gentleman he is. The politest
manners--better than Richard’s, for Richard was shy; never too forward,
nor taking too much upon him, but a smile and an answer for everybody;
and ready to open the door or hand you anything, as if he had been
brought up to it all his life. But when he comes home, he is just a
whirlwind, nothing else--what is the meaning of it? I sometimes think
the spirits of both the bairns have got together in one frame.”
“You have heard nothing of the other?”
“Nothing; nor of _her_, which is hard to bear. I cannot say for my own
part either, that I feel it so hard; but I’m sorry for my old lord. I
never saw him so full of fears and fancies. He thinks unless we can find
her and the other boy, that Val’s place in the world will never be sure.
I tell him it’s just nonsense. Who has anything to do with it but
ourselves? and who can be such judges as we are? But he will not listen
to me.”
“I think Lord Eskside must be right,” said Mary. “Lawsuits are terrible
things, and bring great trouble. I know something about that.”
“Lawsuits!” said Lady Eskside, with a laugh. “If Sandy Pringle has the
assurance to bring a lawsuit, I think we could soon let him see his
mistake. Besides, what could he bring a lawsuit about? I don’t think you
show your usual sense, my dear. Because my lord and me have found our
son’s son, and have killed the fatted calf for our grand-bairn? The
fatted calf is ours, and not Sandy Pringle’s. He could scarcely make a
case of that.”
“No, indeed,” said Mary; but she did not feel any security in Lady
Eskside’s triumphant argument. Val had been out on one of his
expeditions with his grandmother, in which he had won all hearts, and
now was in the wood making the air ring with shouts, and letting out the
confined exuberance of his spirits in every kind of noise and mischief
possible to a child of his age. “That’s the boy,” said Lady Eskside,
leaning from the open window to listen. “You may be sure he is on the
rampage, as Marg’ret Harding says.” The smile upon the old lady’s face
went to Mary’s heart; there was the foolishness of love in it, as there
was the foolishness of triumphant security in her reasoning. She was
not troubled by the problem of this little creature so strangely thrown
upon her hands, nor even by the twofold life, which she wondered at.
People do not analyse the characters of their children, but accept
them--often with a mingling of wonder at their peculiarities, and frank
unconsciousness of any cause for these peculiarities, which is very
strange to the beholder. Lady Eskside took pride in Val’s versatility,
even while it occasioned her some delighted wonder; but she did not
trouble herself by any speculation as to the qualities that produced it,
or the results to which it might lead.
Thus things went on for some years, and the country-side, as Willie
Maitland predicted, partially forgot the story. The boy grew tall and
strong, a favourite in society, and not unpopular among the rougher
public of his own age and kind, who, indeed, were chiefly represented to
Val by the Pringle boys. The Pringles continued to keep possession of
the Hewan partly because the children liked it, partly because the
father still cherished in his secret soul some hope of finding out the
fraud which he believed was being perpetrated against his rights and his
boy’s; and as the cottage was within easy reach of Edinburgh, some
member of the family was almost always there. Sometimes it was the
mother, with Violet and the little ones,--sometimes the boys alone,
walking out in a dusty merry party, on a holiday, for any diversion that
happened to be in season. They came for skating in winter, for fishing
in spring and autumn; for the Esk above the Hewan was sweet, and free
from all poisonous paper-mills. And as they were undoubtedly relations,
though in a very distant degree, it was not within the possibilities of
Scotch politeness to refuse the boys some share of the shooting; and it
was in the company of Sandy and his stalwart brethren that young Val
first fired a shot and missed a bird. Though Lord Eskside looked glum at
the associations thus formed, and wondered more than ever what Sandy
Pringle meant, it was impossible to keep his grandson from the company
of the only boys within reach who were of his own class, or something
approaching to it. He learnt all kinds of manly exercises from them or
with them, and knew the way to the Hewan blindfold by night or day, as
well as he knew the way to his own chamber--a result which the parents
on either side were far from desiring, but seemed helpless to prevent.
One day in the early summer, when the boy was about twelve years old, he
escaped, I don’t know how, from the tutor who had been brought from
Oxford for him, and whose life Val did his best to make a burden. He got
away quite early in the morning, and escaped into the woods, with a
double sense of pleasure in the thought that this holiday was
surreptitious, the conquest of his bow and his spear rather than lawful
leisure granted by lawful authority. Val had had no breakfast, but he
did not mind--he was free. He went away into the thickest of the woods
and climbed a tree, and lay there among the branches in a cradle of
boughs which he had long since found out, looking up at the breaks of
blue sky through the leaves in the fresh early morning, before anything
was astir but the birds. Val was great in birds, like most country boys.
He listened to the universal twitter about him, amusing himself by
identifying every separate note, till he tired of this tranquil
pleasure. Then he looked out from his lofty retreat to count how many
different kinds of trees he could see from that leafy throne; and then
for a few minutes he lay back with his face to the sky, and watched the
white airy puffs of cloud which floated slowly across the blue, with a
dreamy enjoyment. But such meditative pleasures could not last very
long. It was true he had the delightful thought that he had played
truant, and had a whole day to himself, to fall back upon when he was
tired, and this was always refreshing. But after a while it weighed
heavy upon Val that he had nothing to do, and presently even the
satisfaction of having stolen a march upon Mr Grinder scarcely bulked so
large in his mind as the want of breakfast, which he saw no easy way of
obtaining up here among the leaves. He did not venture to go to a
gamekeeper’s cottage for a share of the children’s porridge, lest he
should be led ignominiously back to Grinder and grammar. All at once a
brilliant idea suggested itself--the Hewan! In a moment this notion was
carried into practice; and Val, jumping down like a squirrel from his
nest in the branches, stole up the brae under the deepest trees, through
the ferns all wet with dew, to the little airy platform on which the sun
was shining, where the windows had just been opened and the day begun.
One little figure sat perched on the low earthen dyke looking down the
course of the Esk over tower and tree, and showing from far like a blue
flower in her bright-coloured frock. “It’s the flag,” said Val at first
to himself, as he toiled upward through the high ferns, keeping
carefully away from the path; then he corrected this first notion, and
said, “It’s Sandy’s cricket-cap;” and then he added to himself with
animation, “It’s Vi!”
It was Vi, grown older and a little bigger since the first time she came
to the Hewan--a very stately, splendid, foolish, idle little person,
full of laughter and gravity and baby fun and precocious wisdom. She was
as fond of taking care of everybody as ever she had been, but she forgot
herself oftener, being older, and was not perhaps quite so severe on
peccadilloes as at six. She was a little alarmed when she saw the big
thing struggling upward among the ferns, and wondered whether there
might really be a bear or a wolf in the woods, as there used to be in
ancient times. A lion it could not be, Violet reflected, for the weather
was too cold in Scotland for lions. She did not like to run away, but
she thanked Providence devoutly that none of “the children” were here,
and wondered with a delightful thrill of excitement whether, if it
should be a lion, it would do anything to her. Then there came a whistle
which Violet knew, and looking down through the bushes with a pleasant
sense of safety, she recognised the wayfarer. “Oh, is it you?” she
cried, calling to him from the top of her fortress: “I thought it was a
bear.” “Ay, it’s me. There are no bears nowadays. Who has come?” said
Val, laconic and _sans cérémonie_, as is the use of children, as he
panted upwards to the embankment, and putting his foot in a crevice
swung himself up with the aid of a tree. “You will break your neck,”
said little Vi, with great gravity; “how can you do such things, you
foolish boys?--nobody has come but me.”
“Nobody but you!” said Val, with a whistle of surprise and half regret.
Then he added with animation, “I’m awfully hungry; give us some
breakfast, Vi. I have run off from Grinder, and I don’t mean to go home
till night. You can’t think how jolly it is in the woods when there’s
nobody to stop you, and you have everything your own way.”
“Oh, Val!” cried Violet, not knowing how to express the tumult of her
feelings. She could not approve of such wickedness, but yet “playing
truant” bore a glorious sound about it. She had heard the words from
fraternal lips, mingled with sighs of envy. Sandy and the rest had never
gone so far as to play truant that she knew of; but the words suggested
endless rambles, woods and streams and wild flowers, and everything that
stirs a child’s imagination; and it was the beginning of June when the
woods are at their freshest, and Vi was all alone at the Hewan, hoping
for nothing better than a story from old Jean Moffatt to beguile the
endless summer day. Her eyes lighted up with excitement and curiosity.
“Oh, Val! if they find you, what will they do to you?” she cried with
awe; “and where will you go, and what will you play at?” she added,
eager interest following close upon terror. There was not a soul visible
about the Hewan in the morning sunshine. Old Jean had gone away to her
own quarters on the other side of the house, after putting Violet’s
breakfast upon the table in the little parlour--and was busy with her
beloved Grumphy, out of sight and hearing. The innocent doors and
windows stood wide open; the child, in her blue frock, musing on the
dyke in childish dreaminess, had forgotten all about her breakfast.
Absolute solitude, absolute stillness, infinitely more deep than that of
the forest, which indeed was full of chatter and movement and
inarticulate gay society, was about this silent sunny place. The bold
brown boy, with his curls pushed off his forehead, his cheeks glowing,
his dress stained with the moss and ferns and morning dew, and his young
bosom panting with exertion, looked the very emblem of Adventure and
outdoor enterprise--the young reiver born to carry peace and quiet away.
“I’m awfully hungry,” was Val’s only response. “Vi, have you had your
breakfast? I think I could eat you.”
“To be sure I had forgotten my breakfast,” said Violet, tranquilly; “you
are always so hungry, you boys. Come in, there’s sure to be plenty for
both of us;” and she led the way in with a certain bustle of
hospitality. There was a little coffee and a great deal of fresh milk on
the table (for old Jean by this time had attained in a kind of vicarious
way to the summit of earthly delight, and had, if not her own, yet Mrs
Pringle’s cow to care for, and made her butter, and dispensed the milk
to the children with a lavish hand)--with two little bantam’s eggs in a
white napkin, and fresh scones, and fresh butter, and jam and marmalade
in abundance. Val made a very rueful face at the bantam’s eggs.
“Is that the kind of things girls eat?” he said; “they’re only a
mouthful. I should like a dozen.”
“You may have one,” said Vi, graciously. “It’s my own little white
bantam, and they’re always saved for me; but if you’re so hungry, I’ll
call Jean--or I’ll go myself, and see what’s in the larder----”
“That is best,” said Val; “it’s nice to be by ourselves, just you and
me. Don’t call Jean; she might tell the gamekeeper, and the gamekeeper
would tell Harding, and somebody would be sent after me. You go to the
larder, Vi; and I’ll tell you when you come back what we’ll do.”
Violet ran, swift as her little feet could carry her, and came back
laden with all the riches the larder contained, the chief article of
which was a chicken-pie, old Mrs Moffatt’s state dish, which had been
prepared for the arrival of Mr and Mrs Pringle, who were expected in the
afternoon. Vi either forgot, or did not know, the august purpose of this
lordly dish: and when were there ever bounds to a child’s hospitality
when thus left free to entertain an unexpected visitor? She had some of
the pie herself, neglecting her little eggs in compliment to Valentine,
who plunged into it, so to speak, body and soul; and they made the
heartiest of meals together, with a genuine enjoyment which might have
filled an epicure with envy.
“I’ll tell you what we’ll do,” said Val, with his mouth full; “we’ll go
away down by the water-side as far as the linn--were you ever as far as
the linn? There’s plenty of primroses there still, if you want them, and
I might get you a bird’s nest if you like, though the eggs are all over;
and I’ll take one of Sandy’s rods, and perhaps we’ll get some fish; and
we can light a fire and roast potatoes: you can’t think how jolly it
will be----”
“We?” said Violet, her brown eyes all one glow of brilliant wonder and
delight; “do you mean me too?”
“Of course I mean you too--you are the best of them all,” said Val,
enthusiastic after his pie; “you never sneak nor whinge, nor say you’re
tired, like other girls. Run and get your hat; two is far better fun
than one--though it’s very jolly,” he added, not to elate her too
much--“all by yourself among the woods. But stop a minute, let’s think
all we’ll take; if we stay all day we’ll get hungry, and you can’t
always catch fish when you want to. Where’s a basket?--I think we’d
better have the pie.”
A cold shiver came over Violet as she asked herself what old Jean would
say; but the virtue of hospitality was too strong in her small bosom to
permit any objection to her guest’s proposal. “After all, it’s papa’s
and mamma’s, not old Jean’s--it’s not like stealing,” Vi said to
herself. So the pie was put into the basket, and some cheese from the
larder, and some scones, and biscuits, and oatcake; the jam Vi objected
to, tidiness here outdoing even hospitality. “The jam always upsets, and
there’s a mess,” she said, with a little _moue_ of disgust, remembering
past experiences; therefore the jam was left behind. Valentine
shouldered the basket manfully when all was packed. “You can bring it
home full of flowers,” he said--a suggestion which filled up the silent
transport in Violet’s mind. Had it really arrived to her, who was only a
girl, nothing more, to “play truant” for a whole day in the woods? the
thought was almost too ecstatic--for you see Violet in all her little
life had never done anything _very wicked_ before, and her whole being
thrilled with delightful expectation. Val put the basket down upon the
dyke, pausing for one last deliberation upon all the circumstances
before they made their start; while Violet, scarcely able to fathom his
great thoughts and advanced generalship, watched him eagerly, divining
each word before he said it, with her glowing eyes.
“We shan’t go by the road,” said Val, meditatively, “for we might be
seen. You don’t mind the ferns being a little damp, do you, Vi? If you
hold the basket till I get down, I’ll lift you over. But look here,
haven’t you got a cloak or something? Run and fetch your cloak--look
sharp; I’ll wait here till you come back.”
Violet flew like the wind for her little blue cloak, which, by good
luck, was waterproof, before she plunged down with her leader into the
wet ferns. Poor little Vi! that first plunge was rather disheartening,
after all her delightful anticipations. The ferns were almost as tall as
she was; and her little varnished shoes, her cotton stockings and frock,
were small protection from the wet. Excitement kept her up for some
time; but when her companion, far in advance of her, called loudly to Vi
to come on, I think nothing but the dread of being taunted with
cowardice ever after, and shut out from further participation in such
expeditions, kept the child from breaking down. She held out valiantly,
however, and after various adventures--one of which consisted in a
scramble up to Val’s favourite seat among the high branches, whither he
half dragged, half carried her, leaving the basket at the foot of the
tree--they reached the bank on the side of the water where the sun
shone, and dried her wet skirts and shoes. Here the true delight of the
truants began. “Take off your shoes and stockings, and I’ll put them in
the sun to dry,” said Val, who, in his rough way, took care of her; and
Violet had never known any sensation so delightful as the touch of the
warm, mossy, velvet grass upon her small bare feet, except the other
sensation of feeling the warm shallow water ripple over them, as Val
helped her out by the stepping-stones to the great boulders at the side
of the linn. The opposite bank was one waving mass of foliage, in all
the tender tints of the early summer; whilst on that along which the
children had been strolling, the trees retired a little, to leave a
lovely grassy knoll, with an edge of golden sand and sparkling pebbles.
Through this green world the Esk ran, fretted by the opposition of the
rocks, foaming over them so close by Violet’s side that, perched upon
her boulder, she could put her hand into the foaming current, and feel
it rush in silken violence, warm and strong, carrying away with
lightning speed the flowers she dropped into it--till her own childish
head grew giddy, and she felt all but whirled away herself,
notwithstanding that she sat securely in an arm-chair of rock, where her
guardian had placed her. Vi would have been happy, beyond words to tell,
thus seated almost in the middle of the stream, with the water rushing
and foaming, the leaves shining and rustling, the whole universe full of
nothing but melodious storms of soft sound--loud, yet soft, penetrating
heart and soul--had it not been for the freaks of that wild guardian,
who would perch himself on the topmost point of the boulder on one foot,
with the other extended over the rushing linn; or jump the chasm back
and forward with shouts of joyous laughter, indifferent to all her
remonstrances, which, indeed, he did not hear in the roar of the
waterfall. But the fearful joy was sweet, though mixed with panic
indescribable. “Oh, Val, if you had fallen in!” she cried, half
hysterical with fright and pleasure, when they got back in safety to the
grassy bank. I suspect Val was rather glad to be back too in safety,
though he could not restrain the masculine impulse of showing his
prowess, and dazzling and frightening the small woman who furnished the
most appreciative audience Val had ever yet encountered in his short
life.
I need not attempt to describe the consternation which filled all bosoms
in the two houses from which the truants had fled, when their absence
was discovered. The Pringles arrived to find their chicken-pie gone, and
their daughter--and Lady Eskside white with terror, consulting with old
Jean Moffatt at the cottage door. Jean was not so deeply alarmed, and
could not restrain her sense of the joke, the ravished larder, and the
prudent provision of the runaways; but poor Lady Eskside did not see the
joke. “How can we tell the children alone did it?” she cried, with
terrible thoughts in her mind of some gipsy rescue--some wild attempt of
the boy’s mother to take him away again. She was ghastly with fear as
she examined the marks on the dyke where the culprits had scrambled
over. “No bairn ever did that,” cried the old lady, infecting Mr Pringle
at least with her terrors. Lord Eskside and Harding and the gamekeepers
were dispersed over the woods in all directions, searching for the lost
children, and the old lady was on her way to the lower part of the
stream, though all agreed it was almost impossible that little Vi could
have walked so far as the linn, the most dangerous spot on Esk. “Would
you like to come with me?” my lady said with white lips to Mrs Pringle,
whose steady bosom, accustomed to the vagaries of seven boys, took less
alarm, but who was sufficiently annoyed and anxious to accept the offer.
Mr Pringle got over the dyke in the traces of the fugitives, to follow
their route to the same spot, and thus all was excitement and alarm in
the peaceful place. “It is not the linn I fear--it is those wild folk,”
cried poor Lady Eskside in the misery of her suspense, forgetting that
it was her adversary’s wife who was also her fellow-sufferer. But good
Mrs Pringle was nobody’s adversary, and had long ago given up all
thought of the Eskside lordship. She received this agitated confidence
calmly. “They could have no reason to carry off my little Vi,” she said,
with unanswerable good sense. The two ladies drove down the other side
of the hill to the water-side, a little below the linn, and leaving the
carriage, walked up the stream--one of them at least with such tortures
of anxiety in her breast, as the mother of an only child alone can know.
Mrs Pringle was a little uneasy too, but her boys had been in so many
scrapes, out of which they had scrambled with perfect safety, that her
feelings were hardened by long usage. At the linn some traces were
visible, which still further consoled Violet’s mother, but did not
affect Lady Eskside--Violet’s little handkerchief to wit, very wet,
rather dirty, and full of wild flowers. “They have been playing here,”
said the more composed mother. “_She_ has been here,” cried the old
lady; “but oh, my boy! my boy!”
“I see something among the trees yonder,” cried Mrs Pringle, running on.
Lady Eskside was over sixty, but she ran too, lighter of foot than her
younger companion, and inspired with fears impossible to the other. The
sun had set by this time, but the light had not waned--it had only
changed its character, as the light of a long summer evening in Scotland
changes, magically, into a something which is not day, but as clear as
day, sweeter and paler--a visionary light in which spirits might walk
abroad, and all sweet visions become possible. Hurrying through this
tender, pale illumination of the woodland world about them, the two
ladies came suddenly upon a scene which neither of them, I think, ever
forgot. It was like a tender travesty, half touching, half comic, of
some maturer tale. Between two great trees lay a little glade of the
softest mossy grass, with all kinds of brown velvet touches of colour
breaking its soft green; vast beech-boughs, stretching over it like a
canopy, and a gleam of the river just visible. Over the foreground were
scattered the remains of a meal, the central point of which--the dish
which had once been a pie--caught Mrs Pringle’s rueful gaze at once. A
mass of half-faded flowers, a few late primroses, mixed with the pretty
though scentless blue violet which grows along with them, lay dropped
about in all directions, having been, it appeared, crazily propped up as
an ornament to the rustic dinner-table. Against the further tree were
the little runaways--Violet huddled up in her blue cloak, with nothing
of her visible but her little head slightly thrown back, leaning half on
the tree, half on her companion, who, supporting himself against the
trunk, gave her a loyal shoulder to rest upon. The little girl had cried
herself to sleep--tears were still upon her long eyelashes, and the
little pouting rose-mouth was drawn down at the corners. But Valentine
was not sleeping. He was pondering terrible thoughts under his knitted
brows. How he was ever to get home--how he was ever to get _her_ home!
The boy was chilled and depressed and worn out, and awful anticipations
were in his mind. What would happen if they had to stay there all night
through the midnight darkness, among the stirrings of the mysterious
woods? Val knew what strange sounds the woods make when it is dark, and
you are alone in them--and a whole night! His mind was too much confused
to hear the soft steps of the two ladies who stood behind the other big
beech, looking, without a word, at this pretty scene--Lady Eskside, for
her part, too much overpowered by the sudden sense of relief to be able
to speak. I am not sure that a momentary regret over her chicken-pie did
not make itself felt in Mrs Pringle’s soul; but she, too, paused with a
little emotion to look at the unconscious baby-pair, leaning against
each other in mutual support; the little woman overwhelmed with remorse
and fatigue, the little man moody and penitent over the dregs of the
feast, and the wild career of pleasure past. But just then there came a
crash of branches, and louder steps resounding down the brae among the
ferns, which made Val’s face light up with hope and shame, and woke
little Violet from her momentary oblivion. Lord Eskside’s party of
beaters, and Mr Pringle, solitary but vigorous, all converged at the
same moment upon this spot. “Here, my lord,” said Willie Maitland’s
hearty voice, with laughter that made the woods ring--“here are your
babes in the wood.”