COLVILLE'S WARNING.
Despite the disparaging remarks or comments so ungenerously made by
Lady Dunkeld and her daughter, a subsequent afternoon saw both Sir
Redmond Sleath and Leslie Colville seated in the pretty drawing-room
of the sisters at Birkwoodbrae.
Sir Redmond had inadvertently dropped a hint that he meant to visit
there, and, greatly to his annoyance, Colville proposed to accompany
him.
It was an early day in August, and every breath of air was still; not
a leaf was stirring in the silver birches without, or among the
monthly roses that clambered round the open windows which faced the
pretty garden. Within the room all was arranged with care and taste,
while the polished grate, filled with fresh flowers, the bouquets in
jars and vases, the snow-white curtains, and other etcetera bore
token of feminine diligence and skill.
Stretched on a deer-skin, Jack lay with sleepy eyes, half open to
watch the movements of his mistress, when 'visitors' were announced
by Elspat, with a peculiar and provoking smirk of satisfaction on her
hard Scotch visage, and the costumes for the forthcoming
garden-party, on which those clever fingers of the sisters were busy,
were hastily tossed aside; the two gentlemen were ushered in, and
Jack snarled and barked so furiously at Sir Redmond that he had to be
carried bodily out of the room by Elspat.
The baronet affected to laugh, but felt in his heart that nothing
would please him better than to get 'a quiet pot-shot at that d----d
cur!'
'We merely dropped in when passing,' said Sir Redmond, who, strange
to say, seemed to be constrained, even awkward, in manner, and
Ellinor was somewhat silent and abashed too.
'It is kind of you to visit us,' replied Mary, addressing herself,
however, to Colville; 'we have so little amusement to offer; there is
so little attraction; we live so quietly here at Birkwoodbrae.'
Colville looked as if he thought there was a good deal to attract,
and his dark eyes seemed to say so as he looked into Mary's, which
drooped beneath his gaze.
'Your presents came, Captain Colville. They are beautiful, and fit
to perfection. Ellinor and I cannot sufficiently thank you,' she
said, in a low voice.
'Oho!' thought Sir Redmond, 'he has been sending them presents. Eh!
a sly dog.'
'A few gloves are not worth mentioning,' replied Colville, hurriedly.
And then he added--'How beautiful is the view all round this place,
especially that with the silver birches and the stream glittering
under their shadow. Ere I leave this, Miss Wellwood, you must show
me some of your favourite places, your pet nooks--the scenery here is
so full of picturesque spots.'
'Ellinor knows all such places hereabout better than I do. They
employ her pencil freely,' said Mary, diffidently; 'and they are the
very abode of old legends, fairies, and so forth.'
'I know that she is an artist possessed of both taste and skill,'
said Colville; 'but is she also the musician?' he asked, turning to
the piano, which was open.
'I am chiefly,' replied Mary, smiling; 'but I think you should hear
Ellinor sing the "Birks of Invermay."'
'Who--or what are they?' asked Sir Redmond, with a drawl.
'Those very birches you see from the window,' replied Mary, laughing.
'And there is a song about them?'
'There are several.'
'Do let us hear at least one, Miss Ellinor,' urged Sir Redmond, as he
placed the piano stool before the instrument.
Accordingly Ellinor, without further preface or pressing, seated
herself, and sang with great sweetness and pathos neither David
Mallet's affected stanzas nor Bryce's ludicrous lines, but the simple
old song of the sixteenth century to its wonderfully beautiful air:--
'The evening sun was glinting bright
On Invermay's sweet glen and stream;
The woods and rocks in ruddy light
Appeared as in a fairy dream.
In loving fear I took my path
To seek the tryst that happy day,
With bonnie Mary, young and fair,
Among the Birks of Invermay.
'It wasna till the pale moonshine
Was glancing deep in Mary's e'e,
That with a smile she said, "I'm thine,
And ever true to thee will be!"
One kiss--the lover's pledge--and then
We spoke of all that lovers say,
And wandered hameward through the glen,
Among the Birks of Invermay.'
At the mention of Mary's name in the song, the eyes of Colville
involuntarily sought those of her who bore it, and she coloured
perceptibly. The performance of Ellinor was duly applauded by Sir
Redmond, though he afterwards confided to Colville it was 'the
silliest piece of Scotch twaddle' he had ever heard. Yet his
admiration of Ellinor personally was open and unconcealed, perhaps
too much so, and of its own kind was no doubt genuine enough, and
while she sang, Ellinor was inwardly hoping her hair was tidy and
looked well, as she felt conscious he was gazing straight down on it;
while Mary had an uncomfortable feeling that visits from these
gentlemen might be misconstrued by Lady Dunkeld, their hostess, and
still more so by her daughter--a conviction that at times made her
almost cold in her manner to Captain Colville, whom she believed to
be that young lady's especial property. And she blamed herself, and
blushed for herself, in the consciousness that she sometimes
treasured up, and repeated to herself, little things he had
said--appeals to her taste, her opinion, and so forth. While
Colville, however he was situated with regard to Miss Galloway, made
no secret of how he delighted in the quaint frankness of Mary
Wellwood since the afternoon he had first met her, when both were
fishing in the May.
'And so this locality is full of old legends of fairies and so
forth?' said Colville, referring to a previous remark of Mary's.
'Yes; but then every foot of ground in Scotland has about it
something historical or legendary--all teems with the past.'
'The present is more to my taste, Miss Wellwood,' said Sleath,
twirling out his straw-coloured moustache.
'It would not be so if you lived always, as we do, under the shadow
of the Ochil mountains.'
'I agree with you, by Jove.'
But Mary did not perceive that they misunderstood each other.
'Sir Redmond is guiltless of romance as any man living, I believe,
Miss Wellwood,' said Captain Colville, 'but London life makes one
sadly prosaic and incredulous.'
'Has it made you so?'
'I hope not--I can scarcely say. But did not my old friend Dr.
Wodrow hint that some old legend is connected with those stones, or
the ruin, on yonder knoll by the river?'
'The Holy Hill?'
'Yes.'
'Ah,' said Mary, as a smile rippled over her bright face, 'that is
not a legend--it is history.'
'About what?'
'A miller's daughter who married a king.'
'Then it is a tale of the days
"When King Cophetua loved the beggar maid."'
'Something of that kind. But in the remoter ages of Scottish history
the Holy Hill was the site of a royal residence; for there King
Kenneth II. died, and there Malcolm III. was born--he who married
Margaret of England.'
'These things didn't happen yesterday,' said Colville, smiling down
into her earnest and animated face.
'In those days there was an old miller here in Forteviot who had one
daughter named Edana, a girl of rare beauty, and who was famed
therefor throughout all the land between the Earn and Forth.'
'And, of course, she had lovers in plenty?'
'So the story says; but she would listen to none, nor was her heart
stirred, till one morning, about Beltane time, when filling a jar
with water at the May, there came riding under the silver
birches--for silver birches were here then as now--a marvellously
handsome young knight on a white horse, alone and unattended, and
courteously he besought her for a draught of water, saying that he
had ridden that morning from the Moathill of Scone, and was sorely
athirst.
'He wore an eagle's feather in his helmet, from under which his
golden hair fell upon his shoulders like that of a girl. His mantle
of striped scarlet, violet, and blue was fastened on his breast by a
brooch of gold, and the rings of his coat-of-mail shone like silver
in the morning sun.
'Edana had never looked on such a face and figure before, and he
seemed equally taken by her great, if rustic, loveliness. He
lingered with her long in the birchen wood; thither he came again and
again, and love between them ripened fast, as it seems always to have
done in the olden time, if we are to believe song, ballad, and story.
'The miller ere long heard of these stolen meetings, and his heart
filled with alarm lest the so-called handsome stranger who had
bewitched or won his daughter's heart might prove some evil spirit of
the Flood or Fell; but Edana said he could be no evil spirit who wore
a crucifix round his neck, and daily said his prayers in the old
chapel of Kirktoun Mailler.
'But the miller uttered an execration under his silver beard, put his
battle-axe to the grindstone, and kept watch when next the young
knight came; and then, behold, his heart seemed to die within him as
he recognised--the king!
'And so in time it quickly came to pass that Edana became the wife of
Duncan, King of Scotland--the same king who was slain at Cawdor--and
the mother of Malcolm III., who was born at the Holy Hill, and hence
an ancestress of Queen Victoria.'
With a soft yet strange smile on his face, Colville listened to this
old story, and, brief though it was, Sleath, as it was not to his
taste, would have yawned, had not good breeding forbade him.
'Perhaps love and romance, too, still linger among the Birks of
Invermay,' said he, laughingly, and with some point in his manner;
and there came a time when Mary recalled these words and saw their
meaning; and now, deeming that their visit had been protracted long
enough, the gentlemen rose to depart--Sleath only lingering to kiss
his hand to Ellinor--surreptitiously, as he thought, but the jaunty
action was detected by Colville.
Somehow, Mary thought she wished that Captain Colville--Miss Blanche
Galloway's _fiancé_--had not called that afternoon; yet, if asked,
she could not have told the reason why.
Was an interest in him growing in her heart unknown to herself--one
beyond the wish that she and Ellinor had such a brother? It almost
seemed so, for she felt altered in some way, but in what way she knew
not, though the present and the future became curiously mingled in
her thoughts, as they were just then in those of Ellinor.
Sleath was fast winning the fancy of the latter, if not her heart.
She had been content with the love of Robert Wodrow and the prospect
of a future with him; she thought now how different it would be to
become the wife of a man who would give her rank, position, wealth,
and she thought the time and 'the prince' had now come. Yet with all
this it was strange that her heart never thrilled at his voice or
approach, nor did her pulses quicken at the touch of his hand, as
they had often done at the honest clasp of Robert Wodrow.
'Why was this?' she asked of herself.
'You are very silent, Colville,' observed Sleath, as they walked
homeward together cigar in mouth.
'There is something in that girl's face which seems familiar to me,
as if I had foreshadowed it in some dream!' exclaimed Colville.
'_Which_ girl's face?' asked Sleath, sharply.
'Mary's--Miss Wellwood,' replied Colville, colouring with annoyance
at having been betrayed into confidence with a man he disliked.
'Stuff,' said Sir Redmond; 'as if people foreshadowed faces in the
Row or Regent Street! What would the fair Blanche think of this
idea? And what a cock-and-bull yarn that was about the "gracious
Duncan" and the miller's daughter.'
'Why doubt it?--the story is a pretty one, any way,' said Colville,
with annoyance in his tone.
'Let us skip Mary--it is her sister I admire.'
'Your demeanour to that young lady is rather strange, Sir Redmond,'
said Colville, with a gravity of manner and eye that did not fail to
strike his listener.
'Strange--how?'
'A very short intimacy seems to have placed you on rather friendly
terms.'
'Rather,' replied Sir Redmond, tugging at the end of his moustachios,
with a very self-satisfied smile on his _blasé_ face. 'She is an
unsophisticated kind of Jeanie Deans, or Effie rather, whom one may
flirt with, patronise, or quarrel with and make it up again; treating
her with any amount of chic when so inclined, and----'
Whatever in his profound vanity or spirit of insolence Sir Redmond
was about to add, he paused. There was a dark, stern, and indignant
expression in the face of Leslie Colville that there was no
misunderstanding just then.
'Hey--how--what the deyvil--are you smitten in that quarter too?'
asked Sleath.
'No--what do you mean?'
'Thought you were, perhaps, that's all,' was the somewhat sulky
response.
'I am not what you think,' replied Colville, quietly. 'I only warn
you to adopt a different tone in reference to these young ladies, and
to take care what you are about!'
'Now, what the devil is all this to _him_?' thought the baronet,
malevolently; and he had hardihood enough to give his thought
expression, on which Colville's face grew darker still.
'Sir Redmond,' said he, 'there is no use in beating about the bush
with you. I have often heard you say that there was but one excuse
in this world for matrimony.'
'Yes--well?'
'Miss Ellinor Wellwood is poor, as you may say, yet you seem very
attentive in that quarter.'
Confounded at what he deemed the presumption of all these queries,
Sleath stuck his glass into his right eye, and glared through it at
his companion with undoubted surprise.
'Attention,' he muttered; 'not at all! Who is thinking of matrimony?
And if I were so, may I ask what it is to _you_?'
'More than you think,' replied Colville, with suppressed passion, as
he adjusted his shirt cuffs; 'but enough of this subject--here is the
gate of Craigmhor.'
Colville said no more; but he thought a good deal, and he muttered to
himself a Spanish proverb,
'_Puerto abierta, al santo tiento_--the open door tempts the saint;
and, by Jove, this fellow is no saint--so I shall keep my eye on him!'
Hitherto it had seemed to Ellinor, but to Mary chiefly (as she had no
special admirer), that life had been dull and colourless--if a happy
and contented one--at Birkwoodbrae; and already the days
thereof--before these visitors came--seemed to be part of another and
remoter existence; for love and the illusions of love were shedding
their haloes over the present.
'I hope dear Mary Wellwood will not make a fool of herself with that
Captain Colville,' said Mrs. Wodrow to her spouse, with reference to
this very subject. 'I hear that he has been calling at Birkwoodbrae
again, though engaged, they say, to Miss Galloway. She is old enough
to know that officers are the greatest flirts in the world--men not
to be trusted. When _I_ was a girl, I always heard so.'
Dr. Wodrow laughed softly, as he looked up from the notes of his next
sermon, and said,
'I don't think, my dear, you ever had much experience of them out of
novels; but I will own to you that officers now-a-days are not like
what they were at one time. Even my worthy ancestor, in 1724,
deplores in his 'Analecta' that Christian officers had left no
successors to such men as Colonel Blackadder, of the Cameronians,
Colonel Erskine, and Major Gardiner, of Stair's Grey Dragoons--all
men who could expound on the Gospel better than I.'