“At last!” He came out from the shadow of the firs and took her hands,
and drew her toward him. “At last! my Margaret, my own Margaret! Such a
weary time it has been waiting, but this repays all. Say that it is not
your doing, darling. You have been kept back; you have not forgotten
me, or that I was waiting here?”
“No,” she said; “but I did not know you were waiting here. I did not
know, even, if I would find you to-night.”
“It would have been strange, indeed, if you had not found me. Every
evening, as sure as the gloaming came, I have been here waiting for
you, Margaret. I did not think you would have kept me so long. But it
is not as it used to be between us, when I thought, perhaps, you might
cast me off at any moment. I a poor farmer’s son, you the young lady
of Earl’s-hall; but that could not be now; for you are mine, and I am
yours.”
“It would not have been at any time--for that reason,” said Margaret.
She was uneasy about the very close proximity he wished for, and
avoided his arm. In her great trouble she had not thought of this, but
now it troubled and partially shocked her, though she could scarcely
tell why. She was roused, however, by the idea that she could have
slighted him for any ignoble reason. “It is you that have always been
kind to me,” she said. “I, who am only a country-girl, and know nothing
at all.”
“You are a princess,” said Rob; “you are a queen to me. _My_
queen and my Margaret: but you will not keep me so long hungering and
thirsting out here, far from the light of your sweet countenance? you
will not leave me so long again?”
“Oh, Mr. Glen!” said Margaret, “I ought to let you know at once, we are
going away.”
“Do not, for Heaven’s sake, call me Mr. Glen! Do you want to make me
very unhappy, to take away all pleasures from me? Surely the time is
over in which you should call me Mr. Glen. You cannot want to play with
me and make me wretched, Margaret?”
“No,” she said, with a tremor in her voice; “I will call you by your
name, as I used to do when I was little. But it is quite true that I
said--we are going away.”
“Going away? Where are you going, and who are we? Oh yes, I knew it was
not likely they would stay here,” cried Rob, with mingled irritation
and despair. “Where are they going to take you, my Margaret?--nowhere
that I cannot come and see you, nowhere that I will not follow you, my
darling. I would go after you to the world’s-end.”
“I am going with my sisters, Jean and Grace. They are my guardians
now. I am to live with them till--for three years at least, till I am
twenty-one; then they say I can do what I like. What does it matter now
about doing what I like? I do not think I care what becomes of me, now
that I have no one, no one that has a right to me! and they will not
even let me cry.”
She began to weep, and he did not stop her, though his mind was full of
impatience. He drew her to him close, and this time she did not resist
him.
“Cry there,” he said, “Margaret--my Margaret! I will never try to keep
you from crying. Oh! he deserved it well. He loved you better than
all the earth. You were the light of his eyes, as you are of mine.
They! what does it matter to them? They will bother you; they will
make you do what they like; they will not worship you as he did, and
as I do. But, Margaret, there is still one that has a right to you.
Had he known, had I but had the courage to go and tell him everything,
he would have given you to me; I am certain he would. He would have
thought, like you, that it was better, far better for you, to have some
one of your very own. The others! what are you to them? But to him you
were everything, and to me you are everything. Margaret! say this,
darling! Say, Rob, I am yours; I will always be yours, as you are mine!”
Margaret looked in his face with her wet eyes. But she did not say the
words he dictated to her. Her heart was full of emotion of another
kind. She was thankful to Rob for his kindness, and he was not
like--any one else; he had a special standing-ground of his own with
her. To nobody else could she talk as she was talking, on nobody else
would she lean; but still it did not occur to her to obey him, to say
what he asked her to say.
“I found that picture you made,” she said, “only to-day. It is him,
just himself. I took it away to my own room that nobody might see it.
It must have been some angel that put it into your mind to do that.”
“Yes, Margaret,” he said, “it was an angel, for it was you. And it was
not I that did it, but love that did it; but if you will give it to me,
I will make it still more like him. I will never forget how he looked,
and how you looked--and my heart all full, and running over with love,
which I dared not say.”
Alas! there was this peculiarity in the conversation, that while Rob
was eager to speak of himself and his love, Margaret, in the most
innocent and unwitting way, made it apparent that this was not the
subject that interested her most. She was too polite not to listen to
him, too grateful and sensitively affected by the curious link between
them to show any opposition; but when she could, she turned aside from
this subject, which to him was the most interesting subject in heaven
or earth; and it is impossible to say how this fact moved Rob, who had
never met with anything of the kind before. It piqued him, and it made
him more eager. He watched her with an anxiety and impatience which he
could scarcely keep in check, while she, with downcast eyes full of
tears, pursued that part of the subject which interested her most.
“I should not like it touched,” she said; “I would not give it for all
the pictures in the world! If I gave it to you, it would be only that
it might be put into some case that would preserve it. I have folded
it in paper, but that is not enough. I would not give it for all the
pictures in the world!”
“Thank you, my darling,” he said. “It is something to have done a thing
that so pleases you. If you will bring it to me, I will get it put in
a case for you. Indeed, it was an angel that put that scene before me;
for now when you look at that, and think of _him_, you will think
of me too.”
“Oh no, Mr. Glen,” said Margaret--then she stopped, confused: “I mean,
Rob-- I am very, very thankful to you. But when I look at that, all the
world goes away, and there is only papa leaning back, sleeping. I am
glad he was sleeping. He slept a great deal, do you know, before he
died. But it was better to see him in his chair, as he used always to
be, than in his bed. I don’t want any one to see it but myself--other
people do not understand it. They would hand it about from one to
another, and say, ‘Is it not like?’ and talk. I could not bear that; I
prefer to keep it to myself.”
“But you don’t mind me seeing it?” he said. “I should not be so
unfeeling. Many a time when we are together--when we are married,
darling--we will look at it together; and I will make a picture from
it, a real picture, with you at my elbow, and it shall be hung in the
best place in our house.”
At this Margaret winced slightly, but made no remark. She had not the
courage to contradict him, to say anything against this strange view;
but it disturbed her all the same. Probably it would have to be some
time. There seemed a necessity for it, though she could not quite tell
why: but as it could not be now, nor for a long time, why should it be
spoken of, or brought in to disturb everything? She said, not knowing
how to put aside this subject gently, yet to say something all the
same: “Jean and Grace are going to take me to the Grange--to my house.”
“To _your_ house!” Rob felt the blood flush to his face with the
excitement of this thought. “I did not know you had a house of your
own, Margaret.”
“Oh yes; it was my mother’s. It is away in England, where I never was.
I have seen a picture of it. They say it is very English, with creepers
hanging about the walls, roses and honeysuckle, and beautiful great
trees. Jean thinks everything in England is better than anything in
Scotland. However pretty it may be, it will never, never be like old
gray Earl’s-hall.”
Rob dropped his arm from her, and hung his head. “What am I thinking
of?” he said; “you a great lady, with beautiful houses and lands, and
I a poor man, with nothing. I must be mad to think that you could care
for me--that you would even think of me at all.”
“Mr.--Rob! oh, what must you think of me that you say so? Do I care for
money or for a house? Are you going away? Are you going to--leave me?
oh!” cried Margaret, penitent, clasping her hands; “did you not know I
had a fortune? But what does that matter? You have been kind, very kind
to me, thinking I was poor--Rob! are you going to cry, you!--no, don’t,
don’t; you will break my heart! I am calling you by your name now,” she
said, anxiously, with one hand upon his arm, and with the other pulling
down the hand which covered his face. She put her own face close to his
in her generous, foolish earnestness--“I am calling you by your name
now, Rob; don’t hide your face from me, don’t go away and leave me. If
I am rich, is it not all the better? There will be plenty for us both.”
“It makes a difference,” he said; and indeed he was able to play his
part very well, for never before in his life had Rob been so entirely
ashamed of himself. Her very earnestness, she who had been so cool
and calm before, her generous trouble and importunity humbled him to
the very depths. A man may do a great many things that will not bear
examination before he finds himself out; but to act such a falsehood
as this--to pretend that he did not know what he knew so much more
definitely than she did--to pretend to resist her generous anxiety--to
avert his face, and let her woo him, she who had taken his hot wooing
with such shy coldness! This made Rob feel himself the most wretched
creature, the most despicable, miserable, mercenary wretch. He could
not endure himself. Well might he hide his face for a poor swindler
and cheat, worse, far worse than he had ever known himself before! To
breathe deceitful vows, to say more than he meant, to promise more
than he intended to perform, all this was not a thousandth part so
bad; for indeed he had always been “in love,” when he made love; and a
promise more or less, what is that? The common coin of young deceivers.
Hitherto Rob had not been bad, only fickle and false. But what was he
now? A cheat, a liar, a traitor, unfit to breathe where such innocent
creatures were. Thus he played his part very well; his misery was not
dissembled; and when he allowed himself to yield to her entreaties, to
be moved by the eager eloquence of that soft lip which was so ready to
quiver, what vows he made in his heart to be to Margaret something more
than ever man had been before!
After this their intercourse was more easy, and by-and-by Rob came to
feel that perhaps the momentary fear of losing him (which was how, in
his native vulgarity and self-importance, he put it, after a while, to
himself) had been a good thing. More than ever now she had committed
herself. They wandered about among the trees and talked. They talked
of her departure, and of how he could write to her--which Margaret
was half shy again to think of, yet half happy too, a novelty as it
was. But she could not tell him how this was to be managed, or how he
could come to see her; all was strange, and Jean and Grace were very
different from anything she had known in all her previous life.
“They tell me to sit down when I am standing, and to stand up when I
am sitting down; they will always have me doing something different,”
she avowed, though gently, and with a faint sense of humor. But this
made it very evident that the life before her would be quite unlike
the past. And it did not occur to Margaret that Jean and Grace ought
perhaps to be informed of Rob, and the understanding between him and
herself. Rob naturally said nothing about this, and to Margaret the
thought did not occur. She had no idea of concealment, but simply
did not think of her sisters in connection with this “secret,” which
was something too strange and confusing to herself to be capable of
explanation to others, who could not know how it had come about.
“Will you come up to the tower?” said Effie Leslie to Randal Burnside,
who had walked home with her from the Manse. Randal had been much
about Earl’s-hall since Sir Ludovic’s death. He had been ready to do
anything for the family, and the family had been very willing to employ
him. It was a kindness to give him something to do, his mother said,
who was glad to throw him in Margaret’s way; and the decorousness of
the grief which made Mrs. Bellingham and Miss Leslie quite unable to
see anybody was put aside on his behalf as well as on his father’s.
And Margaret and he had grown friends, though she was almost the only
one in the house who never gave him any commissions in that moment of
bustle. She had never ceased to be grateful to him for calling the
doctor when her father’s illness began, but she was too independent
to have any personal wants to which he could minister, and too shy to
have asked his aid if she had. Effie was much more disposed to make
use of the young man. She was not unhappy--why should she be, having
seen so little of grandpapa? She was a little elated, indeed, to think
that mamma was now my lady, and she herself entitled to precedence as a
baronet’s daughter, and she was very glad to have some one to speak to
who did not melt into tears in the middle of the conversation, or say,
“Hush, child! remember that this is a house of mourning.” The Manse
was not a house of mourning, and she liked to go there, and she liked
Randal to walk home with her and talk. Lady Leslie was still looking at
the brown cow and John’s pigsty, and Mrs. Bellingham, as has been said,
had a headache. Effie peeped into the West Chamber and the long room,
and saw nobody. And then she said, “Have you ever been on the tower,
Mr. Burnside? Oh, do come up to the tower.”
Randal had climbed the tower a hundred times in former days. He went
up the winding stair very willingly, thinking he would have all the
better chance of seeing “the others,” when the falling night drove
them in from their walks. Perhaps “the others” meant only the new Sir
Ludovic; perhaps it had another significance. He was interested about
Margaret, he allowed to himself--more interested than he dared let
any one know; for had he not almost seen a lover’s parting between
her and Rob Glen?--a secret knowledge which made him very uneasy.
Randal felt that he could not betray them; it would be a base thing in
their contemporary--or so, at least, he thought; but he was uneasy.
Many thoughts had gone through his mind on this subject. He did not
know what to do. The only thing that seemed to him possible was to
speak to Rob Glen himself, to represent to him that it was not manly
or honorable to engage a girl in Margaret’s position, without the
knowledge and consent of her friends. But to make such a statement to
a young man of your own age, with whom you have not the warrant of
friendship for your interference, nor even the warrant of equality, is
a difficult thing to do. If Rob, resenting it, could have called him
out, there would have been less harm; but that was ridiculous, and what
could be done to expiate such an affront? There was nothing to be done,
unless he permitted Rob to knock him down, and he did not feel that
his forbearance was equal to that. So that Randal remained very uneasy
on this subject, and did not know what to do. To let Margaret fall
into the hands of a--of Rob Glen, seemed desolation and sacrilege; but
what could Randal--who had known them both from his cradle--what could
he do between them. Was it his part to _tell_--most despicable
of all offices in the opinion of youth? This train of uneasy thought
was brought back when Effie looked into the little white-panelled
sitting-room, the West Chamber, where Margaret, he knew, spent most
of her time. She liked it better than the long room, every nook of
which was so full of her father’s memory; and the ladies humored her,
and, small as it was, made the West Chamber their centre. Where was
she, if she was not there? Possibly out-of-doors in the soft evening,
confiding all her griefs to Rob Glen. Possibly it was the thought that
Randal himself would have liked to have those griefs confided to him,
and to act the part of comforter, that made his blood burn at this
imagination. So soon after her father’s death! He felt disposed to
despise Margaret too.
“Go softly just here,” said Effie, whispering; “for there is Aunt
Jean’s room, and we must not do anything to disturb her headache. It is
a very good thing, you know, that she has a headache sometimes: even
Aunt Grace says so--for otherwise she would wear herself out. Perhaps
it is a little too late for the view, but the sky was still full of
glow when we came in. Ah! it is very dark up here; but now there is
only another flight. Oh no, it is not too late for the view,” Effie
cried, her young voice coming out soft yet ringing, as they emerged
into the open air. “Nobody can hear us here,” she said, with a laugh;
for at seventeen it is not easy to be serious all day, especially when
it is only a grandfather, nothing more, who is dead.
It was not too late for the view, and the view was not a view to be
despised. There does not seem much beauty to spare in the east of Fife.
Low hills, great breadths of level fields: the sea a great expanse
of blue or leaden gray, fringed with low reefs of dark rocks, like
the teeth of some hungry monster, dangerous and grim without being
picturesque, without a ship to break its monotony. But yet, with those
limitless breadths of sky and cloud, the wistful clearness and golden
after-glow, and all the varying blueness of the hills, it would have
been difficult to surpass the effect of the great amphitheatre of sea
and land of which this solitary gray old house formed the centre. The
hill, behind which the sun had set, is scarcely considerable enough
to have a name; but it threw up its outline against the wonderful
greenness, blueness, goldenness of the sky with a grandeur which would
not have misbecome an Alp. Underneath its shelter, gray and sweet, lay
the soft levels of Stratheden in all their varying hues of color--green
corn, and brown earth, and red fields of clover, and dark belts of
wood. Behind were the two paps of the Lomonds, rising green against
the clear serene, and on the other side entwining lines of hills, with
gleams of golden light breaking through the mists, clearing here and
there as far as the mysterious Grampians, far off under Highland skies.
This was one side of the circle; and the other was the sea, a sea still
blue under the faint evening skies, in which the young moon was rising;
the yellow sands of Forfarshire on one hand, stretching downward
from the mouth of the Tay--the low brown cliffs and green headlands
bending away on the other toward Fifeness--and the great bow of water
reaching to the horizon between. Nearer the eye, showing half against
the slope of the coast and half against the water, rose St. Andrews on
its cliff, the fine dark tower of the College Church poised over the
little city, the jagged ruins of the Castle marking the outline, the
Cathedral rising majestic in naked pathos; and old St. Rule, homely and
weather-beaten, oldest venerable pilgrim of all, standing strong and
steady, at watch upon the younger centuries. This was the view at that
time from Earl’s-hall. It is a little less noble now, because of the
fine, vulgar, comfortable gray stone houses which have got themselves
built everywhere since, and spoiled one part of the picture; but all
the rest will remain forever, Heaven be praised. The little wood of
Earls-hall, pinched and ragged with the wind, lay immediately below,
and the flat Eden, with its homely green lines of bank on either side,
lighted up by here and there a sand-bank; but the tide was out, and the
Eden meandered in a desert of wet brown sand, and was not lovely. The
two young people did not speak for a moment. They were moved, in spite
of themselves, by all this perfect vault of sky, and perfect round of
earth and sea. It is not often that you can see the great world in
little, field and mountain, sunset and moonrise, land and sea, at one
glance. They were silenced for sixty seconds; and then Effie Leslie
drew a long breath and began to chatter again.
“Well!” she said, with as much expression as the simple word was
capable of bearing, “I don’t think I should like to sell this old house
where the family has been so long, if I were papa!”
“I would not sell it, if it were mine, for anything that could be
offered me!” cried Randal, in the enthusiasm of the moment. Effie shook
her head.
“Perhaps not, Mr. Burnside; but then you would not have ten
children--or nine at least; for now Gracie is married she does not
count. But oh, I wish we could keep Earl’s-hall! It must be very
pleasant to live where everybody knows you, and knows exactly what you
are--that is, if you are anybody. Poor Margaret will not like leaving,
but then she is a lucky girl; she is an heiress; she has a house of her
own; and I dare say she will get very fond of that when she knows it.
Do you think I ought to call her _Aunt_ Margaret, Mr. Burnside?”
Effie’s laugh rang out so merrily as she said this, that she checked
herself with a little alarm.
“Suppose Aunt Jean should hear me!” she said; and then, after a pause,
“Oh! look straight down, straight down under the fir-trees, Mr.
Burnside. Oh, this is more interesting than the view! A pair of--”
“Do you think it is quite honorable to look at them?” said Randal. He
had a presentiment who it must be.
“Oh, it can’t be anybody we know,” said light-hearted Effie.
Far down in the wood, under the firs, no doubt the lovers felt
themselves perfectly safe; but there were treacherous groups of trees,
whose branches had been swept in one direction by the wind, laying bare
the two who stood beneath. They were standing close together, holding
each other’s hands.
“The girl is crying, I think,” said Effie, “and leaning against the
man. What can be the matter? can they have quarrelled? and she is all
in black, with a thick veil--”
“Come to this side,” said Randal, hastily, “there is a break in the
mist. I think I can show you Schehallion.”
“I like this better than Schehallion,” said Effie; and then she started
and cried, “O-oh!” with a long breath; and suddenly blushing all over,
looked Randal in the face.
“I think Schehallion is much the most interesting to look at,” he said,
and, touching her elbow with his hand, endeavored to lead her away. But
Effie was too much startled to conceal her wonder and alarm.
“Oh, Mr. Burnside! you are not thinking of Schehallion, you only want
to get me away. I believe you know who _he_ is.”
“I don’t know who either is, and I don’t want to know,” cried Randal;
“and I think, Miss Leslie, I must bid you good-night.”
That was easy enough; but Effie did not budge, though Randal went away.