Attached to the large old-fashioned house in which Mrs Glencairn lived
were a garden and orchard of very large old apple trees, which now in
the spring time were full of wonderful possibilities for enjoyment and
amusement to children who had for the most part been obliged to find
amusement within doors during the long winter. And so no wonder that
Frederica, without whom no game was complete, should forget her serious
thoughts, and her troubles, and even her mother's doubtful state, unless
something particularly recalled them to her mind. She was such a little
creature, that, though she led the elder girls in their lessons, and was
indeed far before them, she did not seem to be at all out of place when
she led the plays and games of the little girls too.
Even in her visits to the garret, with her "Animated Nature" in her
hand, she and Eppie kept to the safe subject of beasts and birds and
creeping things, in the discussions into which they fell. She had taken
up botany, too, in a less elementary form than had been given her
before, and her interest was greatly quickened, and her attention
happily given to it. And strange to say, Eppie, the recluse of the
garret, who had not set her foot on a green thing growing beyond the
orchard for many a year and day, even she gave eager interest and
stimulus to the girl's pursuit, and with spectacles on nose peered into
triticums and anemones brought from the mountain, and into apple
blossoms, and even into dandelions and buttercups gathered in the
orchard, for want of rarer flowers.
"And what for no," said Eppie, "when Solomon himself, the wisest of
kings and men, spoke about green growing things from the cedar of
Lebanon to the hyssop on the wall? And God made them a'. They mind me
of my father's house and the fir belting, and the heather hills beyond.
And they mind me o' the days o' my youth, that are gone like a blink,"
added she with a sigh.
"Yes," said Frederica, turning compassionate eyes on the kindly wrinkled
old face.
"I'm no complainin' you'll understand. I hae had my day as you'll
have," said Eppie, nodding her head gently a great many times. "But I
was ay fond o' flowers. I liked to notice their likeness, and their
difference, though I didna ken that they were a' written down in books.
Eh! it's just wonderful how true nature is to herself. That bonny
yellow flower might be the one that grew on the bush beside my father's
door, and yon rosebush that Miss Robina brought up the stairs to-day is
the very marrow o' the one that Sandy Gow the laird's gardener brought
down and gave to my sister Annie more than fifty years ago. It's like a
dream to look back upon."
"But, Eppie, I have often wondered that you only care for one or two
flowers at a time, when you are so fond of them; you could have quite a
greenhouse of them in this south window. I could bring you dozens of
them," said Frederica.
But Eppie shook her head.
"I tried it, my dear, when sore against my will I had to betake myself
to this place--a dismal place it seemed for a while. I tried having
many flowers. Miss Isabel was here then, and she and Miss Robina took
great pains to get me the best and the bonniest. But I soon saw that it
wouldna do. I couldna get them kepit to my mind without troubling
somebody. They were ay needing something done, and I couldna even get a
spadeful of earth without another pair of hands. I was more helpless
then than I am now, and even the bringing of water for them up the
stairs was more than I could ay manage; so I just gave them up; for
unless a body can do justice to the bonny things, they are more pain
than pleasure. And I couldna bide to fash other folk. So now Miss
Robina brings me one as it blooms, and I hae been few days without a
flower all the seven years I have been in this room. I aye hae my
wallflowers, and once I had heather, but it didna thrive, and I thought
a pity to have it dying before my eyes, so I got no more."
It was growing too dark by this time to pore over either books or
flowers. Eppie had had her tea, Frederica knew, because she saw the
tray with the dishes standing near the door, and she knew that she would
be welcome to stay till the school bell rang again for prayers. So she
sat in the window watching the clouds that were still bright, though the
sun had disappeared. By-and-by she said,--
"Tell me something that happened when you were young, something that you
never told me before."
Eppie took up the stocking on which she could work as well in the dark
as in the light.
"There was many a thing happened to me when I was young that I never
told anybody, but I might happen on an old story that you have heard
before, as is the way with old bodies like me. And I hae no feast o'
tellin' bits out o' my own life just for folk's diversion."
But Frederica knew that she would have a story for all that; she was not
so sure that it would be a new one.
"Were there many flowers in your garden when you were a little girl?"
asked she after a pause.
"Weel! there were na just so many, but eh, missy! they were awfu' bonny
flowers. But I mind the flowers among the hills, and by the burn sides
best. The names of them? I canna mind a' the names, and if I could
they would seem like common flowers to you, but they gave us just a
wonderful delight. And there were other things besides the flowers. We
got many a day's pleasure out of the rushes by the burn, and the
brackens in the wood, and we ay had the heather. And, oh! wasna it a
bonny sight to see when the summer began to wear over! Flowers! High
above the glen where my father's house stood, there whiles were miles
and miles o' the purple blossom. I can see it now when I shut my eyes,"
said Eppie, leaning back in her chair, and letting her stocking fall
upon her lap.
"And then there were the daisies that you told me about," suggested
Frederica in the pause that followed.
"Yes, the gowan, and the blue bell, and many a one beside. And I hae
seen the hills in a bleeze o' gold with the yellow broom. Though a
broom bush is no' to call a bonny thing, except a bit away. But a'
things are bonny to young happy eyes, and I daresay they are bonnier to
me now, looking back to them over all the long years."
And on she rambled, as she had done many a time before, on the very same
theme, and if there had been an hour to spare, or if Frederica had been
inclined, this was the time when she would have asked for a song, and
the chances were she would have got ten of them chanted in a voice that
had once been sweet, but which failed now both in sweetness and in
power. Frederica always liked the songs, though she did not always like
the singing, but there was something else in store for her tonight--
something which she had ceased to expect, a bit out of Eppie's life.
She knew it was coming when the old woman went on to speak about the
hills, and the grassy nooks hidden between them, and the days when she
used to go out with her father, who was a shepherd, among them.
"And I mind one day we were sitting on the lowne side o' a hill, and
there came over it and down upon us, two lads with packs on their backs,
and one of them with a book in his hand. When they saw us, they stopped
to ask the road to the next town, for they had got in among the morning
mists, having risen early for their journey, and so had lost their way.
I mind how they both looked, as well as if I had seen them yesterday,
and maybe better. One of them was shame-faced about having lost the
way, which he said he had been over many a time before; but the other
only laughed and said it was a good thing to be mistaken whiles, and for
his part he was glad to lie down and rest. And so he lay down among the
heather, and turned a thin fair face to the sky. He was an English lad,
I think. His tongue was English any way. My father bade me take a
plaid I had brought with me, and spread it over him, for there was a
cold breath creeping now and then round the hill; and when I went and
did what I was bidden, the lad gave me first a surprised look, and then
a smile that made his eyes and his whole face beautiful. I see it now,
though I have hardly thought of it these thirty years," said Eppie with
a sigh. "And I mind his deep sweet voice, and the sound of the smooth
English words he used when he thanked me, and bade me sit down beside
him, and tell him my name. I sat down as he bade me, but he took little
heed of me for a while. For he looked sore weary and spent with more
than just the tramp over the hills, and his eyes had a look as if they
were seeing things far, far away.
"The other was a fine lad too, I daresay, though o' a commoner nature.
He and my father got very friendly together, he telling and my father
listening to all they were doing out in the great world, whose voice
came to our glen, not like a real voice, but like an echo casten back
from the hills. And by-and-by the English lad's eyes came back to mine,
and what he saw in them I canna say, but he gave me the same smile that
lighted his face in a way that was just wonderful--I can see it now--and
he bade me look up to the sky, and see a ship that was sailin', sailin'
away to the west, and what did I think it was carrying there? There was
nothing in the sky that I could see, but a long trail of grey cloud,
with here and there an edge of light upon it, and he only gave a bit
laugh when I looked back at him again wondering. And then he plucked a
wee curled head o' the bracken that grew at his hand, and bade me look
at it. Naught could I see but just a bit o' bracken. I said not a
word, only looked from it to his fair smiling face. But then he took
out of his pouch a case, and out of the case a glass, and put it between
the bracken and my eyes. And I thought, surely a great magician had
come to our hills, for it was a bit o' bracken no longer, but a
wonderful network of cells, and veins, and feathery fringes, like
nothing I had ever seen before. And next it was a bit of brown heather
he took, and then a nodding bluebell, and then the wing of a May fly
that had lighted on his hand.
"I looked and looked, and at last I cried out to my father to come and
see. Even my father wondered. Ilken leaf and blade o' grass, and even
the wee stones that we took from the path were wonderful to see. And
then he put the glass on my mother's plaid, and on his own fine kerchief
of lawn, and bade us see the difference between God's works and man's--
how poor, and coarse, and common was the best that man could do, and how
the more and the closer we looked into the works of God, the more worthy
of admiration we should see them to be.
"And then him, and my father, and the other lad had things to say that I
couldna make much of. He was a man of excellent understanding, my
father. But just one thing I mind. It was the English lad that said it
with a smile, and a great longing in his bonny een. `It may be,' he
said, `that when we get home to heaven, our glorified eyes shall see the
mysteries of beauty hidden in even the least of the things that God has
made without a glass between.' And when my father shook his head,
saying that there was no such word in the Bible, and that there was such
a thing as being wise above what is written, he smiled, and `Ah well!'
he said, `our eyes will be opened to see the wonders of grace and the
beauty of holiness, for we shall see our Lord Himself, and that will be
enough.'
"I mind the words, because I heard my father telling them to my mother
that night as they were sitting by the fireside. They come back to me
now, as other words come, that I havena thought of for many a year and
day, a sure sign that I am no' far from the foot o' the brae."
"And was that all?" asked Frederica softly, after a long pause, in which
Eppie had taken up her knitting again.
"That was all, except that they wouldna go to my father's to bide all
night, because they were expected elsewhere, they said; and then I ran
home as my father bade me, and brought them milk and oaten cakes, which
they ate to their refreshment, doubtless, and to our pleasure, and then
they went away."
"And who were they? And did you never see them again?"
"We never saw nor heard of them, though doubtless they crossed our hills
again. They were just two lads on their way home from the college in
the north. We used whiles to see such, though our glen was a bit out of
the way for most of them. But we never saw them again. It must be
fifty years and more since then. It had gone clean out of my head, till
your flowers and your pleasure in them brought it all back again."
There was nothing heard for a while but the "click, click," of Mistress
Campbell's "wires," as she went on with her knitting. The old woman and
the little girl were thinking their own thoughts.
"Eppie, dear," said Frederica, as she slipped from her high seat to the
floor, "I like that about `glorified eyes,' and one seeing hidden
things; I mean things that are hidden from us now."
"Ay, the eyes o' man are never satisfied with seeing, nor his ears with
hearing," said Eppie: "I doubt that is but a carnal notion o' heaven.
This is what David says about it--
"`But as for me, I Thine own face
In righteousness shall see;
And with Thy likeness when I wake,
I satisfied shall be.'"
"Satisfied!" repeated she; "ay, doubtless, they'll be satisfied that win
there. But, eh me! `Strait is the gate, and narrow the way, that leads
to life,' and I doubt there will be some awfu' disappointments at that
day."
"If one only knew just what to do," said Frederica gravely.
"Be a good bairn, and ay read your Bible, and mind your prayers," said
Eppie. "But there's your bell, and you will need to go."
And so Frederica went downstairs with the grave thoughts that Eppie's
words had awakened, stirring at her heart again. She read her Bible as
Eppie had bidden her, and sometimes she read it with delight, because of
the elevation of the thoughts and the beauty of the language; but she
came upon nothing in these readings that touched her heart, or that she
felt to be suited to her. She read the Old Testament, as the history of
her mother's people. She had been often told of late that she was a
Jewess in appearance, like her mother, and she took a real interest in
the history of her people, and began to feel pride in being descended
from a "nation of heroes." But pre-occupied with thoughts of this kind,
she read on from day to day, seeing nothing in the wonderful words she
read to enlighten her on all that she so much needed, and which she
believed she so much desired to know.
She listened now with attention to such Bible lessons and readings as
entered into the regular routine of school work, but the instructions
connected with them were often of a kind to influence the reason and
affect the imagination, rather than to touch the heart; and though her
attention and interest enlarged her knowledge of the letter of
Scripture, and won her many good marks and the chance of a prize at the
end of the year, the lessons brought her no answer to the question as to
which was the right religion, or how one was to get the good of it in
the time of trouble, as Miss Baines had done.
Indeed, if it had not been for one thing, the grave and anxious thoughts
that had been for some time occupying her mind might have passed away,
as they pass from the mind and heart of so many of the young and
thoughtless, leaving no trace in her life, no influence for good, either
to herself or to others. If her mother had been well and happy, if
there had been no shadow of dark days and painful nights hanging over
her future, if she had not longed so earnestly to learn for her sake the
secret of peace and joy, over which these have no power, she might have
put all anxious thoughts away from her. But all her thoughts of her
mother were anxious thoughts now; for in the only visit they had made
since Easter, they had found her no better, but rather worse.