Fair gladsome waking thoughts, and joyous dreams more fair!
CASTLE OF INDOLENCE.
IN the parlour at Port Dundas the window is open, the little muslin
blind waves in the soft air, and sounds steal in drowsily through the
sunshine from without. At the table sits Agnes, in her best gown,
writing a letter to Harry. Violet, in a corner, stands erect with
her hands behind her, defying Rose, who sits with great dignity in
the arm-chair to puzzle her with that spelling-book. Little Harry,
now beginning to walk, creeps about the floor at his own sweet will;
and indeed they are all idling but Martha, who still works at the
“opening,” though you perceive she does it slowly, and has not the keen
interest in “getting on” which she had a week ago.
Agnes writes rather laboriously--she is no penwoman; and what she
writes is just about nothing at all--a domestic letter, full of implied
tenderness and exuberant hopes, through which you can scarcely see the
sober and solemn solicitude which has made Harry’s wife a woman deeper
than her nature, and elder than her years. But the heart of the young
wife is very light now, and she looks at the sleeve of her best gown
with a smile, as she pauses to arrange the next sentence, and beats
upon her hand with the feather of her pen. Little Harry seated at her
feet, which he makes a half-way house between two corners, tears away
with appetite at a great orange, refreshing himself, before, on hands
and knees, he starts upon another circumnavigation.
Looking down upon him lovingly, the young mother concocts her next
sentence with triumphant success; and you can guess, without looking
over her shoulder, what a pretty outline grows upon her paper,
under that inspired pen, which can write so quickly now. It is not
a daguerreotype of little Harry which his mother will send to his
father; but indeed one cannot tell what height of excellence and warm
expression this very daguerreotype can attain to, when the sunshine
which makes the portraiture is not the light of common day, but of love.
Nor are you working either, little dark-haired Violet! Alas, it is
no sensible educational purpose which has carried you into the
corner, with one defiant foot planted firmly before the other, and
those restless hands crossed demurely behind. Not a respectable
lesson gravely administered and received, as lessons should be, but a
challenge proudly given to Rose to “fickle” you, who are very confident
in this particular of spelling, that you cannot be “fickled.” A slight
curve upon the brow of Rose, as she hunts up and down through all those
pages for hard words, intimates that she is a little “fickled” herself;
and Violet raises her head more proudly, and Rose laughs with greater
mirth as each successive word is achieved, though now and then the
elder trifler discovers that she is idle, and wonders why it is, and
remembers the cause which has made their industry less urgent, with new
smiles and joy.
But Martha still works at her “opening.” This, the last which they are
ever to do, Harry says, is a collar very elaborately embroidered,
which Martha resolves shall be bestowed on Agnes, as one memorial of
those toilsome days when they are past. The sterner lines in Martha’s
face have relaxed, and her eyelids droop softly with a grateful
pleasant weariness over her subdued eyes. Sometimes the curves about
her mouth move with a momentary quiver, as though a few tears were
about to fall; but the tears never fall. And sometimes she lays down
her work on her knee, and droops her head forward, and looks up under
her eyelashes with a smile at the young mother, or at the two household
flowers. These are long, loving, lingering glances, not bright but dim
with the unusual gentleness of this unusual rest.
The sounds without do not strike upon your ear harshly, as sounds do in
winter, for this April day is warm and genial, like a day in June, and
has in it a natural hush and calm, which softens every distant voice.
Chief of all passing voices come gaily through the sunshine and the
open window, the song of Maggie McGillivray. She is sitting again on
her mother’s step, with the full sunshine, which she does not at all
heed, streaming upon her brown, wholesome, comely face. Her scissors
flash in the sun, her yellow hair burns; but Maggie only throws
over her head the finished end of her web, and clips and sings with
unfailing cheerfulness. This time it is not the “Lea Rig,” but “Kelvin
Grove,” to which the shears march and keep time; but it is impossible
to tell what a zest it gives to idleness, when one can look out upon
industry so sunshiny and alert as this.
“Perfunctory--p, e, r, f, u, n, c, t--Eh! Rose, yonder’s Postie, with a
letter,” cried Violet, out of breath.
“It’s sure to be from Harry, he’s always so thoughtful,” said the young
wife; “run and get it, Violet. I wonder if he has seen the house
yet--I wonder if he has settled when we’re all to go--I wonder--but to
think of him writing again to-day! Poor Harry! he would think we would
be anxious, Martha.”
“Here’s three; everybody but me gets a letter,” cried Violet, entering
with her hands full. “Martha, Postie says this should have come
yesterday, but it had no number; and here’s one from my uncle. May _I_
open Uncle Sandy’s letter, Martha?”
But Violet’s question was not answered. Harry’s letter was a large one,
a family epistle addressed to Martha, enclosed within the love-letter
which Harry’s still fresh and delicate affection sent to his wife. But
while Agnes ran over her’s alone, a flush of delight and expectation
making her smile radiant, Rose looking over Martha’s shoulder, and
Violet standing at her knee, possessed themselves of the contents
of the larger letter; so that Agnes, roused at the end of her own
to kindred eagerness about this, started up to join them, as Rose
exclaimed: “A boat on the water,” and Violet cried “Eh, Agnes, a wee
burn,” in the same breath.
And then Martha smilingly commanded the little crowd which pressed
around her to sit down quietly, and hear her read; and Violet added
with authority:
“Agnes, Rose, you’re to go away. Martha will read it out loud;” but,
notwithstanding still obtruded her own small head between the letter of
Harry and the eyes of her elder sister.
And Martha did read “out loud,” all the others still continuing to
bend over her shoulder, and to utter suppressed exclamations as their
eyes ran, faster than Martha’s voice, over the full page. The mall,
the boat, the burn, the partitions to be thrown down, the windows
to be opened, the painting and gilding and furnishing which filled
Harry’s mind with occupation, produced the pleasantest excitement in
the family. Those two girls, Agnes and Rose--for the wife was little
more mature than her young sister--paused at the end of every sentence
to clap their hands, and exclaim with pleasure; but Violet’s small head
remained steady under shadow of Martha’s shoulder, and she read on.
“I have the accumulated rents of two years--nine hundred pounds--to
begin with,” wrote Harry; “you may fancy how much improvement we may
get out of such a sum as that; and I am resolved that the house shall
be a pleasant house to us all, and like what a _home_ should be, if
anything I can do, will make it so. We must have a new boat, instead
of this old crazy one, and will be obliged to have a vehicle of some
kind. Violet must go to Stirling to school, so we’ll need a pony for
her (Violet laughed aloud), and Agnes and Rose and you, my dear Martha,
must have some kind of carriage; however, you shall decide yourselves
about that. But this thousand pounds, you see, will enable us to begin
in proper style, and that is a great matter.
I have just seen a family of Allenders in Stirling, respectable vulgar
people, with a dissipated son, who took upon him to be more intimate
with me than I was at all disposed for. I am afraid I shall be rude
to this Gilbert Allenders, if he continues to press himself upon me;
however, when you are all yonder, everything will go well.”
Poor Harry! It was a consolation to him to condemn Gilbert Allenders:
it seemed to take a weight from his own conscience; disgust for his
dissipated kinsman stood Harry in stead as disgust for dissipation
itself, and he took the salve to his heart, and was comforted.
“Martha, will a pony carry two folk?” asked Violet, anxiously. “Yes, I
mind--for ladies rode upon a pillion langsyne.”
“And what two folk would you have it carry, Lettie?” asked Rose.
“Me and Katie Calder. Martha, will you let Katie come?--for Auntie
Jean’s ill to her; my uncle told Harry that, Martha.”
“Ask Agnes,” said Martha, with a smile; “I am only Harry’s sister and
your sister, Lettie; but Agnes is lady of Allenders now; you must ask
Agnes.”
The little wife grew red and white, and laughed hysterically; then she
sank down on the floor at Martha’s feet, and clasped her arms round the
elder sister’s waist, and wept quietly with her face hidden. It was too
much for them all.
“And it’s an enchanted castle, and there’s a Dragon in it,” cried
Violet joyously; “but, Rosie, Rosie, there should be a knight. Oh! I
ken who it is--I ken who it is; it’s Mr. Charteris!”
“Lettie, what nonsense!” exclaimed Rose, who at that moment became
extremely upright and proper.
“I ken; you’re the princess, Rosie, and Mr. Charteris is the knight;
and maybe there’s fairies about the burn! Oh! I wish I was there!--me
and little Katie Calder!”
Martha lifted the other letters from the table; they had been forgotten
in the interest of this. One of them was from Uncle Sandy; the other
was a note from Cuthbert, enclosing his sketch--an extremely brief
note, saying little--yet Rose examined it over her sister’s shoulder
stealthily, while the others looked at the drawing. There was nothing
peculiar about the hand; and Rose did not understand the art of
gleaning traits of character out of hair-strokes--yet her eyes went
over it slowly, tracing the form of every letter. Poor Cuthbert! he
thought this same Rose would be very much interested about his drawing;
it seemed for the moment that these plain characters occupied her more.