Corn-fields lie under the low green hills, here bending their golden
load under the busy reaper’s hand, there shorn and naked, with the
gathered sheaves in heaps where yesterday they grew. Pleasant sounds are
in the clear rich autumn air—harvest voices, harvest mirth, purified by
a little distance from all its coarseness; and through the open cottage
doors you see the eldest child, matronly and important in one house,
idling with a sense of guilt in the other, who has been left at home in
charge, that all elder and abler people might get to the field. Pleasant
excitement and haste touch you with a contagious cheer and activity as
you pass. Here hath our bountiful mother been rendering riches out of
her full breast once more; here, under those broad bright, smiling
heavens, the rain and the sun, which God sends upon the just and the
unjust, have day by day cherished the seed, and brought it forth in
blade and ear; and now there is a thanksgiving in all the air, and
quickened steps and cheerful labouring proclaim the unconscious
sentiment which animates the whole. Bright, prosperous, wealthy autumn
days, wherein the reaper has no less share than his master, and the
whole world is enriched with the universal gain.
And now the Firth comes flashing into sight, making the whole horizon a
silver line, with one white sail, far off, floating on it like a cloud.
Heavily, as if it overhung the water, that dark hill prints its bold
outline on the mingled glory of sky and sea; and under its shadow lie
quiet houses, musing on the beach, so still that you could fancy them
only lingering, meditating there. But little meditation is under those
humble roofs, for the fishers of Largo are out on the Firth, as yonder
red sails tell you, straying forth at the wide mouth of the bay; and the
women at home are weaving nets, and selling fish, and have time for
anything but meditation.
But now Largo Law is left behind, and there is a grand scene beyond. The
skies are clear and distinct as skies are only in autumn; and yonder
couches the lion, who watches our fair Edinburgh night and day; and
there she stands herself, his Una, with her grey wimple over her head,
and her feet on the sands of her vassal sea. Queenlike attendants these
are: they are almost her sole glory now; for her crown is taken from her
head, and her new life of genius has scarcely begun; but none can part
the forlorn queen and her two faithful henchmen, the Firth and the hill.
There are few other passengers to cross the ferry with our little party;
for Lady Anne has only one manservant for escort and protection to
herself, Katie Stewart, and their formidable maid. In those days people
were easily satisfied with travelling accommodation. The ferryboat was a
little dingy sloop, lifting up a huge picturesque red sail to catch the
soft wind, which carried them along only very slowly; but Katie Stewart
leaned over its grim bulwark, watching the water—so calm, that it seemed
to have consistence and shape as the slow keel cut it asunder—softly
gliding past the little vessel’s side, and believed she had never been
so happy.
It was night when they reached Edinburgh, under the care of a little
band of Lady Colville’s servants and hangers-on—all the male force the
careful Lady Betty could muster—who had been waiting for them at the
water-side. The Chevalier’s forces were rapidly approaching the city,
and Katie Stewart’s heart thrilled with a fear which had more delight in
it than any previous joy, as slowly in their heavy cumbrous carriage,
with their little body of adherents, they moved along through the gloom
and rustling sounds of the beautiful night. In danger! not unlike the
errant ladies of the old time; and approaching to the grand centre of
romance and song—the Edinburgh of dreams.
Lady Colville’s house was in the High Street, opposite the old Cross of
Edinburgh; and, with various very audible self-congratulations on the
part of their attendants, the visitors entered the narrow dark gateway,
and arrived in the paved court within. It was not very large this court;
and, illuminated by the fitful light of a torch, which just showed the
massy walls frowning down, with all kinds of projections on every side,
the dwelling-place of Lady Colville did not look at all unlike one of
the mysterious houses of ancient story. Here were twin windows, set in a
richly ornamented gable, sending out gleams of fierce reflection as the
light flashed into their small dark panes; and yonder, tier above tier,
the great mansion closes up darkly to the sky, which fits the deep well
of this court like a roof glowing with its “little lot of stars.” Katie
had time to observe it all while the good maternal Lady Betty welcomed
her young sister at the door. Very dark, high, and narrow was the
entrance, more like a cleft in great black rocks, admitting to some
secret cavern, than a passage between builded walls; and the dark masses
of shadow which lay in those deep corners, and the elfin torchlight
throwing wild gleams here and there over the heavy walls, and flashing
back from unseen windows, everywhere, made a strange picturesque
scene—relieved as it was by the clear, faint stars above, and the warm
light from the opened door.
But it was not at that time the most peaceful of residences, this house
of Lady Colville’s; for in a day or two Katie began to start in her high
chamber at the long boom of the Castle guns; and in these balmy
lightsome nights, excited crowds paced up and down, from the Canongate
and the Lawnmarket, and gathered in groups about the Cross, discussing
the hundred rumours to which the crisis gave birth. At all times this
Edinburgh crowd does dearly love to gather like waves in the great
street of the old city, and amuse itself with an excitement when the
times permit. As they sweep along—knots of old men, slowly
deliberating—clusters of young ones, quickening their pace as their
conversation and thoughts intensify—all in motion, continually coming
and going, the wide street never sufficiently thronged to prevent their
passage, but enough so to secure all the animation of a crowd; and women
looking on only from the “close mouths” and outer stairs, spectators
merely, not actors in the ferment which growls too deeply for them to
join—the scene is always interesting, always exciting to a stranger; it
loses somehow the natural meanness of a vulgar mob, and you see
something historical, which quickens your pulse, and makes your blood
warm, in the angry crowd of the High Street, if it be only some frolic
of soldiers from the Castle which has roused its wrath.
Out, little Katie! out on the round balcony of that high oriel
window—something approaches which eyes of noble ladies around you
brighten to see. On the other balcony below this, Lady Anne, with a
white ribbon on her breast, leans over the carved balustrade, eagerly
looking out for its coming, with a flushed and animated face, to which
enthusiasm gives a certain charm. Even now in her excitement she has
time to look up, time to smile—though she is almost too anxious to
smile—and wave her fluttering handkerchief to you above there, Katie
Stewart, to quicken your zeal withal. But there, little stubborn Whig,
unmoved except by curiosity, and with not a morsel of white ribbon about
her whole person, and her handkerchief thrown away into the inner room,
least she should be tempted to wave it, stands the little Hanoverian
Katie, firmly planting her feet upon the window-sill, and leaning on the
great shoulder of Bauby Rodger, who thrusts her forward from behind.
Bauby is standing on a stool within the room, her immense person looming
through the oppressed window, and one of her mighty hands, with a
handkerchief nearly as large as the main-sail of a sloop, squeezed up
within it like a ball, ready to be thrown loose to the winds when he
comes, grasping, like Lady Anne, the rail of the balustrade.
There is a brilliant sky overhead, and all the way along, until the
street loses itself in its downward slope to the palace, those
high-crested coroneted windows are crowded with the noble ladies of
Scotland. Below, the crowd thickens every moment—a murmuring, moving
mass, with many minds within it like Katie Stewart’s, hostile as fears
for future, and remembrance of past injuries can make them, to the hero
of the day. And banners float in the air, which high above there is
misty with the palpable gold of this exceeding sunshine; and distant
music steals along the street, and far-off echoed cheers tell that he is
coming—he is coming! Pretender—Prince—Knight-errant—the last of a doomed
and hapless race.
Within the little boudoir on the lower story, which this oriel window
lights, Lady Colville sits in a great elbow chair apart, where she can
see the pageant without, and not herself be seen; for Lady Betty wisely
remembers that, though the daughter of a Jacobite earl, she is no less
the wife of a Whig lord, whose flag floats over the broad sea far away,
in the name of King George. Upon her rich stomacher you can scarcely
discern the modest white ribbon which, like an innocent ornament,
conceals itself under the folds of lace; but the ribbon, nevertheless,
is there; and ladies in no such neutral position as hers—offshoots of
the attainted house of Mar, and other gentle cousins, crowd her other
windows, though no one has seen herself on the watch to hail the
Chevalier.
And now he comes! Ah! fair, high, royal face, in whose beauty lurks this
look, like the doubtful marsh, under its mossy, brilliant verdure—this
look of wandering imbecile expression, like the passing shadow of an
idiot’s face over the face of a manful youth. Only at times you catch it
as he passes gracefully along, bowing like a prince to those
enthusiastic subjects at the windows, to those not quite so enthusiastic
in the street below. A moment, and all eyes are on him; and now the
cheer passes on—on—and the crowd follows in a stream, and the spectators
reluctantly stray in from the windows—the Prince has past.
But Lady Anne still bends over the balustrade, her strained eyes
wandering after him, herself unconscious of the gentle call with which
Lady Betty tries to rouse her as she leaves the little room. Quiet Anne
Erskine has had no romance in her youth—shall have none in the grave
still life which, day by day, comes down to her out of the changeful
skies. Gentle affections, for sisters, brethren, friends, are to be her
portion, and her heart has never craved another; but for this moment
some strange magic has roused her. Within her strained spirit a heroic
ode is sounding; no one hears the gradual swell of the stricken chords;
no one knows how the excited heart beats to their strange music; but
give her a poet’s utterance then, and resolve that inarticulate cadence,
to which her very hand beats time, into the words for which
unconsciously she struggles, and you should have a song to rouse a
nation. Such songs there are; that terrible Marseillaise, for
instance—wrung out of a moved heart in its highest climax and agony—the
wild essence and inspiration of a mind which was not, by natural right,
a poet’s.
“Lady Anne! Lady Anne! They’re a’ past now,” said Katie Stewart.
Lady Anne’s hand fell passively from its support; her head drooped on
her breast; and over her pale cheek came a sudden burst of tears.
Quickly she stepped down from the balcony, and throwing herself into
Lady Betty’s chair, covered her face and wept.
“_He’s_ no an ill man—I think he’s no an ill man,” said little Katie in
doubtful meditation. “I wish Prince Charlie were safe at hame; for what
will he do here?”