Here is no change but such as comes in me.
OLD PLAY.
MAGGIE MCGILLIVRAY clips no longer in the wintry sunshine at
her mother’s door. Poor little foolish girl, she has married a
cotton-spinner, and at eighteen has a baby, and many cares upon the
head which used to stoop under the light as she sang the “Lea Rig,” and
clipped at her web. And Bessie McGillivray, who has succeeded Maggie,
has no such heart for either the work or the song, but drawls out the
one dismally, and idles about the other, and thinks it would be a
great relief to marry a cotton-spinner too, and have no more webs to
clip--a fate which she will accomplish one of these days. And Bessie is
“cauldrife,” as her mother says, and prefers sitting at the fireside
to-day, though the sunshine comes down mellow and warm through the
November fog; so that the scene from Mrs. Rodger’s parlour window loses
one of its most pleasant features, when there is nothing to look to
opposite, but the idle light lying on the stones at Peter McGillivray’s
door.
Mrs. McGarvie’s Tiger, still tawny and truculent, winks in the sun,
as he sits upon the pavement, confronting it with his fierce red
eyes. But Mrs. McGarvie’s red-haired Rob has gone to Port Philip to
make his fortune in the bush, and pretty little Helen has undergone
the universal destiny, and is married. There is change everywhere
without--new names on the Port Dundas Road--new houses springing up
about its adjacent streets; but Mrs. Rodger’s parlour, where Agnes and
Rose, and Uncle Sandy, with the children, are now assembled, though a
long succession of tenants have passed through it since they left it,
remains still the same.
And still the same is gaunt Mrs. Rodger in her widow’s cap--genteel
and grim, terrible to taxgatherers, and innocent men of gas and water;
and Miss Rodger, care-worn, faded and proud; and the prim Miss Jeanie.
But “Johnnie,” in his chimney corner, has begun to be moved to better
things than this perpetual idleness; and though he has not reached so
far as to overcome himself, and his false and unwholesome shame, he
is approaching to this better state; and a great clumsy good-natured
lodger pays persevering court to Miss Aggie. The hoyden is decidedly
reluctant, and resists and rejects him stoutly--but it is no use, for
this is her fate.
And Agnes with the bright hair all hidden under her widow’s cap, sits
down by the window with her baby in her lap, and bending over it,
attending to its wants, lets her tears fall silently upon its frock,
and on the little round arms which stretch up to her, till a violent
paroxysm comes upon her, and she has to leave the infant to Rose, and
steal away into the inner room “to compose herself,” as she says--in
reality to sob and weep her strength away, and be exhausted into
composure. Poor little unconscious child, upon whom this heavy baptism
falls! for now, one by one, over the little hands with which he strokes
her cheek, steal the tears of Rose. It was unwise of them to come here;
the place is too full of memories.
By a way which Violet has often clambered up in the summer nights
long ago, it is possible to reach the high field which, closely
bordering upon Mrs. Rodger’s house, is level with the bed-room windows.
Here in the dusk, when the night cold has scarcely set in, and one star
trembles in the misty sky, strays Lettie’s friend, Mr. John, pondering
over many things; and here comes little thoughtful Lettie, to search
the old corners, where she used to find them, for one remaining gowan,
and keep it as a memorial of this place which is like home. From the
edge of the field you can look sheer down upon the road with its din
and constant population, and upon the lights gleaming scantily in those
little nooks of streets about the Cowcaddens, where Violet knows every
shop. From the other end of the field, close upon the dangerous brink
where it makes abrupt and precipitous descent into a great quarry,
comes the sound of those distinct measured strokes, broken by continual
exclamations and laughter, with which two stout servants beat a carpet.
The dust is out of it long ago, but still their rods resound in quick
time on either side, and their voices chime in unison; and now they
trail it over the dark fragrant grass, and stealing to the edge call to
the passengers below, who start and look around in amazement, and would
not discover whence the voice comes, but for the following laugh, which
reveals the secret. And by and bye a “lad” or two, and some passing
mill girls, scramble up the broken ascent which communicates with the
road; and often will the mistress look from her door in dismay, and the
master call from the window, before Janet and Betsy lift their carpet
from the grass, and recollect that it is “a’ the hours of the nicht,”
and that there are a hundred things to do when they return.
But Lettie puts her hand softly into Mr. John’s hand, and begins to
answer, with many tears, his questions about Harry; and tells him how
Martha is to do everything that Harry wanted to be done, and that
they are all to work at the “opening,” and Katie Calder is to stay at
Allenders; but neither of them are to go to school at Blaelodge any
more. Violet does not quite know what makes her so confidential, and
has a compunction even while she speaks, and thinks Martha would not be
pleased--but yet she speaks on.
“And we’re all to be busy and work at the opening; for Martha says we
need not think shame,” said Lettie; “and Katie and me will be able to
help to keep the house, Mr. John; and Rose says it’s better to work
than be idle, and it keeps away ill thoughts; but I like best to think
it’s lane, without working, or to read books--only I’ve read all the
books in Allenders, and I’m no to be idle any more.”
“You see I’m aye idle yet, Lettie,” said John.
“Oh yes; but then you never need--and you’ve aye been,” said Lettie,
hastily; for to Lettie Mr. John was an institution, and his idleness
was part of himself--a thing quite beyond discussion, and unchangeable.
But a burning blush came over John Rodger’s face, in the darkness, and
Lettie saw instinctively that his feelings were wounded. This brought
upon her a strange embarrassment; and while anxiously casting about for
something to say, which should change this painful subject, she fell
into a shy silence--which was only broken at last by Mr. John himself.
“No, Lettie, I have not been always idle, and I _have_ need,” said the
roused man; “and when I hear a little thing like you speaking about
work, and helping to keep a house, it makes me think shame of myself,
Lettie. You and your sisters, that might be so different, working for
your bread--and me this way!”
“Ay, but Miss Jeanie and Miss Aggie work more than we do,” said Lettie,
simply.
For always it is the angel from heaven, miraculous and strange, and
not the daily revelations of Moses and the prophets, which these
bewitched natures think will rouse them. Miss Jeanie and Miss Aggie,
with all their little vanities, had hearts sincere in this point, and
full of gracious unconscious humility. _They_ never reminded the idler,
that they worked for him; never thought that they were pinched and
restrained, in the ostentations they held so dear, because “Johnnie”
hung a burden on their hands; never speculated, indeed, on the question
at all, nor dreamed of giving reasons to themselves for the spontaneous
natural impulse, which made this self-sacrifice unawares. And he
himself never realized it either; but he was struck with the devotion
of Martha and her household. This, unusual, strange--a thing he did not
see every day--moved him; the other had scarcely occurred to him when
Lettie spoke.
They left Glasgow the next day; for neither Agnes nor Rose could bear
to remain in this house, so familiar to them of old; and they did not
return to Mrs. Rodger’s on their way home; but when Miss Aggie married
the lumbering lodger, and came to be settled on the other side of the
Firth, at Alloa, and received her sister as a visitor, Miss Jeanie made
a pilgrimage to Allenders, and told them, with tears in her eyes, that
Johnnie, now a clerk with a Port Dundas merchant, had said to her,
that _she_ should never want while he had anything, and had given her
money to buy the expensive unsuitable upper garment she wore. Poor Miss
Jeanie, with her vanities and simplicities, never discovered that he
owed _her_ gratitude; but for these words of kindness she was tearfully
grateful to him.
The month at Ayr passed very quietly. In this winter weather Uncle
Sandy’s little company of workers could no longer visit the leafless
garden; and though there was sometimes a great fire made in the
kitchen, and a special lamp lighted for them, yet their own fireside,
the old man thought, was the most suitable place for them now. So
the family were almost perfectly alone; left to compose themselves
into those quiet days which were but the beginning of a subdued and
chastened life. And Uncle Sandy did for them now, what Martha was wont
to do through the terrible time which preceded Harry’s death. He read
to them sometimes;--sometimes he was himself their book and reader;
and from his long experience, the young hearts, fainting under this
great sorrow, learned how many trials life can live through, and were
unwillingly persuaded that the present affliction would not kill them,
as they sometimes hoped it might; but must lighten, perhaps must pass
away. But they clung the closer to their sorrow, and defied the very
chance of returning gladness; and Agnes cut away the curls of her
bright hair, and said she would wear this widow’s cap her whole life
through; and Rose grew sick at sounds of laughter, and believed she
would never smile again.