Nelly recovered, at first slowly but cheeringly, latterly with a doubt
and apprehension creeping over her brightening prospect--until, all too
certainly and hopelessly, her noon, that had been disturbed with
thunder-claps and dashing rain, was shrouded in grey twilight.
Nelly would live, but her limbs would never more obey her active spirit,
for she had been attacked by a relentless malady. The little feet that
had slid in courtly measure, and twinkled in blithe strathspeys, and
wandered restlessly over moor and brae, were stretched out in leaden
helplessness. When she was young, she "had girded herself and gone
whither she would;" but now, ere she was old, while there was not one
silver thread in those chestnut locks, "another would gird her and carry
her whither she would not." And oh! to think how the young mother's
heart, ready to bud and bloom anew, was doomed to drag out a protracted
existence, linked to the corpse-like frame of threescore and ten, until
the angel of death freed it from its tabernacle of clay.
Nelly never spoke of her affliction--never parted from her baby.
Travelling with difficulty, she removed to Edinburgh, to the aspiring
tenement in the busy Canongate, which she had quitted in her
distraction. Lady Carnegie, in her rustling silk and with her clicking
ivory shuttle, received her into her little household, but did not care
to conceal that she did so on account of the aliment Staneholme had
secured to his forsaken wife and heir. She did not endure the occasional
sight of her daughter's infirmities without beshrewing them, as a
reflection on her own dignity. She even sneered and scoffed at them,
until Nanny Swinton began to fear that the judgment of God might strike
her lady--a venerable grandame still without one weakness of bodily
decay or human affection.
And did Nelly fret and moan over the invalid condition for which there
was neither palliation nor remedy? Nay, a blessing upon her at last; she
began to witness a good testimony to the original mettle and bravery of
her nature. She accepted the tangible evil direct from God's hand,
sighingly, submissively, and with a noble meekness of resignation. She
rose above her hapless lot--the old Nelly Carnegie, though subdued and
chastened, was in a degree restored.
"Nanny! Nanny Swinton!" called Nelly from her couch, as she managed to
hold up, almost exultingly, the big crowing baby, in its quaintest of
mantles and caps, "Staneholme's son's a braw bairn, well worthy Lady
Carnegie's coral and bells."
"'Deed is he," Nanny assented. "He'll grow up a stately man like his
grandsire;" and recurring naturally to forbidden memories, she went on:
"He'll be the marrow of Master Hugh. Ye dinna mind Master Hugh, Lady
Staneholme?--the picture o' auld Lady Carnegie. That I sud call her
auld!"
Nelly's brow contracted with something of its old indignation. "There's
never a look of the Carnegies in my son; he has his father's brow and
lip and hair, and you're but a gowk, Nanny Swinton!" and Nelly lay back
and closed her eyes, and after a season opened them again, to tell Nanny
Swinton that "she had been dreaming of a strange foreign city, full of
pictures and carved woodwork, and of a high-road traversing a rich
plain, shaded by apple and chestnut trees, and of something winding and
glittering through the branches," leaving Nanny, who could not stand the
sight of two magpies, or of a cuckoo, of a morning before she had broken
her fast, sorely troubled to account for the vision.
The gloaming of a night in June was on the Canongate and the silent
palace of the gallant, gentle King James. Lady Carnegie was gracing some
rout or drum; Nanny Swinton was in her kitchen, burnishing her
superannuated treasures, and crooning to herself as she worked; Nelly,
in her solitary, shadowy room, lay plaiting and pinching the cambric and
muslin gear whose manufacture was her daily occupation, with her child's
clumsy cradle drawn within reach of her hand. Through the dim light, she
distinguished a man's figure at the door. Nelly knew full well those
lineaments, with their mingled fire and gloom. They did not exasperate
her as they had once done; they appalled her with great shuddering; and
sinking back, Nelly gasped--
"Are you dead and gone, Staneholme? Do you walk to seek my love that ye
prigget for, but which canna gladden you now? Gae back to the bottom of
the sea, or the bloody battle-field, and in the Lord's name rest there."
The figure stepped nearer; and Nelly, even in her blinding terror,
distinguished that it was no shadowy apparition, but mortal like
herself. The curdling blood rushed back to Nelly's face, flooding the
colourless cheek, and firing her with a new impulse. She snatched her
child from its slumber, and clasped it to her breast with her thin
transparent hands.
"Have you come back to claim your son, Adam Home? But you'll have to
tear him from me with your man's strength, for he's mine as well as
yours; and he's my last, my only jewel."
And Nelly sat bolt upright, her rosy burden contrasting with her young,
faded face, and her large eyes beginning to flame like those of a wild
beast about to be robbed of its young.
"Oh no, Nelly, no," groaned Staneholme, covering his face; "I heard of
your distress, and I came but to speer of your welfare." And he made a
motion to withdraw.
But Nelly's heart smote her for the wrong her rash words had done him--a
wayworn, conscience-smitten man--and she recalled him relentingly.
"Ye may have meant well. I bear you no ill-will; I am stricken myself.
Take a look at your laddie, Adam Home, before ye gang."
He advanced when she bade him, and received the child from her arms; but
with such pause and hesitation that it might have seemed he thought more
of his hands again meeting poor Nelly Carnegie's, and of her breath
fanning his cheek, than of the precious load she magnanimously intrusted
to him. He did look at the infant in his awkward grasp, but it was with
a stifled sigh of disappointment.
"He may be a braw bairn, Nelly--I know not--but he has no look of
yours."
"Na, he's a Home every inch of him, my bonny boy!" Nelly assented,
eagerly. After a moment she turned her head, and added peevishly, "I'm a
sick woman, and ye needna mind what I say; I'm no fit for company. Good
day; but mind, I've forgotten and forgiven, and wish my bairn's father
well."
"Nanny Swinton," called Nelly to her faithful nurse, as she lay awake on
her bed, deep in the sober dimness of the summer night, "think you that
Staneholme will be booted and spurred with the sun, riding through the
Loudons to Lauderdale?"
"It's like, Lady Staneholme," answered Nanny, drowsily. "The keep o' man
and beast is heavy in the town, and he'll be tain to look on his ain
house, and greet the folk at home after these mony months beyond the
seas. Preserve him and ilka kindly Scot from fell Popish notions rife
yonder!"
"A miserable comforter are you, Nanny Swinton," muttered her mistress,
as she hushed her child, and pressed her fevered lips to each tiny
feature.