... Let them go,
To ear the land that hath some hope to grow,
For I have none.
KING RICHARD II.
IT is the seed time--the time of hope. The lawn at Allenders is
traced with an outline of living gold, crocuses clustering up like
children out of the fresh awakened soil; and day by day the brown husks
swell upon the trees, and the fields add pile by pile to their velvet
mantle. Your heart leaps when you stand in the morning sunshine, and
hear the burn call to the river, and the river, with its happy voice
pass on to the great sea. And all along this highway through which the
children pass to school, the hedges put out timid leaves, venturing
upon the chill, which in the morning brightness bid their lingering
neighbours courage; and down among the long dewy grass, you can find
here and there an early primrose, half timid, half triumphant, holding
up its delicate chalice to receive the dew of heaven. The cows are
marching gravely to their sweet pastures, the little “herds” straying
after them, with all the winter’s “schulin” over, perchance to be
dreamt upon through these meditative silent days, perchance to spring
up in songs, like the natural voices of the springs that run among the
hills, perchance to be merrily forgotten; but cheerful voices ring
about the land, and tender sunshine glistens on Demeyet, and an odour
and fragrance of sweet Hope, makes the wide atmosphere blessed. Sweet
Hope! inheritance and portion of human hearts, which God gives not to
his very angels, but only unto _us_.
Ah, Hope--good Hope--God’s tenderest angel!--coming back with the
morning light to hearts which believed in the darkness, that thou wert
gone for ever!--opening all doors, however barred, and when one hides
his face from thee, touching him with wonderful touches, earnest and
wistful, so that he cannot choose but look in thy sweet face again.
Not always bright, not always gently pensive--desperate sometimes, and
fearful to look upon, seeing nought before thee but a possibility; and
sometimes looking down, solemn and grave, upon places which thou hast
been constrained to leave, and whence faces of agony gaze up to thee,
clutching at the skirts of thy garments, hoping against Hope!
The year passed on, the flowers blossomed, the early trees began to
shake out their leaves about the house of Allenders--the odour of
primroses came in at the door, the voices of children made the walls
ring, and youth was with them all, to beguile them into careless faith;
but Hope, hooded and veiled as for a journey, and dwelling no longer
with them in their chambers, stood on the threshold ready to depart.
Again and again the dim face turned, as if to stay, reluctant and loth
to loose her garments from their eager hands; but she never entered
freely to dwell with them again.
The works went on with intermitting energy: now altogether neglected,
now forced forward with spasmodic exertions. The labourers at Maidlin
grew pinched and care-worn, exposed to a capricious authority, which
sometimes left them idle for a week or two, and then poured upon their
hands arrears of labour, which it was now too late to accomplish well.
The wives murmured and recalled the steady “wage” which the old farmer
gave; the men lounged round the Cross, and shook their heads, and
prophesied ruin; the little shop newly opened, languished, and its
keeper vainly lamented the folly which brought him to Maidlin. Sober
agriculturists looking on, not without a quiet satisfaction in the
truth of their own predictions, settled into their old quietness with
a word of pity for Harry--poor Harry! His new farm buildings, built at
great cost, stood empty and useless; his farm-manager, too cautious to
proceed by himself, wandered about whole days to consult Allenders,
and when he could not find him, or found him indisposed to enter upon
necessary business, went home in irritation and disgust--went home to
find Gilbert Allenders established in his respectable house, corrupting
his young son and offending his daughters; and Armstrong, like the
labourers, shook his head, and sighed a heavy sigh for poor Harry.
Within the house of Allenders they were all very silent. Martha, making
no comment upon Harry’s life, tried to blind her eyes, and take out
of them the vigilant jealous love which would not be deluded. Poor
little Agnes, dispirited and pale, went about the house with her baby,
forgetting all her girlish songs and laughter. Rose, wearying and
sickened of the dreams which had been her sole solace, worked on in
silence, and never cared to stir abroad; and merry little Katie Calder,
the only free heart among them, could not comprehend the vague gloom
which so often overpowered even Lettie--for Lettie’s dreary thoughts
had returned to her again.
“Lettie, dinna be sae dull,” pleaded Katie Calder; “naebody ever sings
or says a word now--naebody but Allenders, and the doctor, when he
comes; but I dinna like the doctor, Violet, and they canna bide him at
Maidlin Cross.”
“I think he’s a bad man,” said Violet, decidedly--and she clenched her
hand, and stamped her little foot upon Dragon’s stair.
“Ay, bairns,” said Dragon; “and I would like to hear somebody explain
in a sensible way what gies him such a grip o’ Mr. Hairy. You’ll no
ken, Missie; you’re ower wee; but if there was the like of Boston, or
the young lad Livingstone, that converted sae mony hunder folk on the
Monday of the preachings at the kirk of Shotts, or John Welsh, that
wore the very stanes with his praying, to the fore now, I wouldna care
to take my fit in my hand and gang away to ask their counsel: for,
ye see, Mr. Hairy’s a different man from yon--a very different kind
o’ man--and how the like of this chield has gotten such maistry over
him is a miracle to me. I kent within mysel it was an ill sign when
they ca’d him Hairy. There’s ne’er been a Hairy Allenders from Leddy
Violet’s time till now.”
Lettie would not speak of family concerns even to Dragon. She had
already the instinctive pride which hides the wound in its own breast,
and dies rather than complain; so she changed the subject rapidly.
“Dragon, you never told us the story about the laird that planted the
oak; and I thought myself, when I was at the waterside, that I heard
it groan; but how could it groan, Dragon, at the season the man was
killed? How could it ken the seasons, and it only a tree?”
“It’s just because ye have nae knowledge, Missie,” said Dragon.
“There’s me mysel noo, an auld man. I’m aye cauld, and aye creeping to
my bit spunk of fire--ye might say how should I ken the seasons; but
the oak has its fit constant in the earth, and its head to the sky, and
hears the water every day, and feels the rain and the sun, and kens
when to put forth its first leaves, and when to let them fa’, better
than the wisest man that ever lived upon this earth. And weel may it
groan, the auld oak--it’s langer in the service of the family than me;
and do ye think I dinna groan mony a time, to see a fine lad like Mr.
Hairy led away.”
“Dragon, he’s my Harry!” cried little Violet in a sudden passion,
stamping her foot again violently on the stones, while the tears fell
down her cheeks, and quivering lip and dilating nostril bore witness to
the force of her feelings. “He’s our Harry--he’s my Harry, Dragon! and
I wish God would take me--oh, I wish God would put me in a grave, my
lane, and kill me, if He would keep Harry well!”
And the tears poured down over Violet’s cheeks, and she dashed her hand
into the air, and cried aloud.
“Poor little Lettie! many an elder, many a wiser, never a more loving
heart, has lost itself in such another agony, chafing against that
inscrutable providential will, which we call fate.”
Katie Calder looked on with wonder and dismay. Honest little Katie
could not comprehend what this strange emotion was; but with _her_
natural instinct she made instant endeavours to “divert” her little
friend. And Dragon looked at Violet with his wandering light blue
eyes, like a man half-awakened from a dream; but as the child’s
highly-wrought feelings subsided, and she sat down on the steps and
wept, he fell back into his old torpor. You could almost have thought
that this strange voice of passion in the child had rung back through
the waste of years, and lighted upon the man’s heart which lay sleeping
in Edom Comrie’s breast.
“Eh, Lettie, Willie Paterson’s broken his leg,” said Katie Calder. “It
was on the big slide between Mrs. Cogan’s and Maidlin, and a’ the boys
play at his mother’s window now, to let him hear them when he’s lying
in his bed. It was little Johnnie Paxton that told me, Dragon, when he
came to the kitchen to see Mysie.”
“Willie Paterson’s a fine laddie of himsel,” said Dragon, “and has a
great notion of you, Missie; but mind, he’s only a puir widow’s son,
and besides, he’s gotten in among some muckle ill callants, and they’re
leading him away.”
“Dragon,” said Lettie gravely, “when folk are led away, are they no
doing ill themselves? Is it a’ the blame of the one that leads them
away, and no their ain, Dragon?”
“Weeld, I’ll just tell ye a story, Missie,” said the old man. “When
I was a young lad, I had ance a brother, and he was easy beguiled. So
a sodger out of the town got him, and courted at him, and garred him
drink, and led him into every kind of evil, till the poor callant lost
his employ, and listed, and ga’ed away across the sea to the war. By
a’ accounts he was little steadier when he was away, than he had been
at hame, though he had a guid heart for a’ that, and was aye kind to
his friends; and at the end of the war he came back just as simple as
ever he was, with a sma’ pension, and as many wounds as might have
served a regiment. He wasna weel hame, when up turned this deevil of a
sodger again--where the tane was, ye were sure to find the tither--and
within a year, George Comrie was dead and buried. Now ye’ve baith guid
judgments to be bairns--wha was’t that should bear the blame?”
“It was the sodger, Dragon,” said Katie Calder, with instant
determination.
Violet said nothing. She was pulling away the withered fibres of ivy
from Dragon’s wall.
“I think folk shouldna be led away,” said Lettie slowly, after a
considerable pause; “and you never say folk are led away when they do
_good_ things, Dragon. I think it was _his_ blame too, as well as the
other man’s.”
“He’s in his grave this forty year,” said Dragon, “but I mind him
better than I mind his nameson, Geordie Paxton, that I saw only
yestreen. Maybe I should have ga’en sooner to my account mysel, and
wan beside a’ my ain friends; but for a’ I’m sae auld, bairns, I never
crave to be away; and mony a young head I’ve seen laid in the mools,
since my ain was as white as it is this day. No that I’m bragging o’
that, Missie--but I’m auld, and I never feel ony dinnles noo. I think
my heart has slippit down some gate, where trouble can never get a rug
at it; and I’m aye pleased with the light and the guid day, and wi’ a
book whiles, and a crack, and my meat regular, and naething to fash me;
and I see nae reason I have for deeing, though I _am_ an auld man.”
Strange, broken gleams shone out of Dragon’s wandering eyes as he
spoke, nodding his head feebly with a half-palsied motion--fitful
glances, out of his torpor, of the heart and spirit which long ago made
him a man; but the soul dwelt benumbed in its wintry habitation, like
some forlorn dweller among the hills whose hut the snow has buried--and
resigned itself to the slumbrous spell, without strength to struggle
into consciousness of anything higher than the warmth and ease in which
it lay.