Rob had a great deal to say, but it was chiefly repetition of what he
had said before. He drew her arm within his, and they wandered down by
the edge of the wood and into the fields. That last little accidental
outbreak of sunshine was over, and all once more was grayness and
monotones. There was nobody about; the evening was not tempting enough
to bring out walkers. In the kirktown people were out “about the
doors,” sitting on the kirk steps, keeping up a confused little hum
of conversation, quieter than usual as suited the Sabbath night; and
the people who had gardens strolled about them in domestic stillness,
and commented upon the coming apples; but it was not the fashion in
Stratheden to take walks on Sunday evening. The fields were very silent
and still; and so absorbed were the two in their conversation that
they wandered far out of the woods of Earl’s-hall, and were skirting
the fields about the farm before they were aware. Rob’s plan was to go
to London, to make what progress he could with his drawing, to study
and work, and achieve success; the last went without saying. Margaret
was as certain of it as that the sun would rise to-morrow. But she was
not equally certain of the other part of the programme, which was that
he should go to the Grange--her house where she was to live--and be
produced there as her betrothed husband, and introduced to her sisters.
This prospect alarmed her more than she could say. She did not want him
to come to the Grange. She did not know what to say about writing to
him. The idea brought a hot blush to her face. Margaret was not quite
sure that she could write a letter that she would like Rob Glen to see.
He was very clever, and she did not think she could write a very pretty
letter. In short, she was unpractical and unmanageable to the last
degree, and Rob had some excuse for being impatient. She had no idea
what could be done, except that she might perhaps come to Earl’s-hall
and see him there, and that three years was not so very long. He lost
himself in arguments, in eloquent appeals to her; and she had nothing
very eloquent to say in return. After a while she was silenced, and
made very little answer at all, but walked along by his side demurely,
with her thick gauze veil drooping over her face, and heard all he had
to say, saying yes now and then, and sometimes no. Her position was
very simple; and though he proved to her that it was untenable by a
hundred arguments, and showed her that some other plan was necessary,
he did not drive Margaret out of it.
What could she do? she asked, wringing her hands. Ludovic was against
them, and Jean would be much more against them. She dared not let Jean
know. Even her brother himself had said that Jean must not know. And,
to tell the truth, Rob himself was of the opinion that it would be
better to keep this secret from Mrs. Bellingham; but yet he thought he
might at least be allowed to visit at the Grange, as an old friend,
if nothing more. They got through a series of by-ways into the field
path, where their first meeting had been, and Rob was trying, for the
hundredth time, to obtain some promise of intercourse from Margaret,
when suddenly some one coming behind them laid a hand upon a shoulder
of each. Rob gave a violent start and turned round, while Margaret,
with a little cry, shrank back into the shadow of the hedge-row.
“My certy!” said the intruder; “this is a fine occupation, Rob, my man,
for a Sabbath nicht!” And then she, too, gave a cry of surprise, more
pretended than real, but in which there was a little genuine fright.
“Eh, bless me, it’s Miss Margret, and so far from hame!” she cried.
“Mother! what are _you_ doing here?” cried Rob. But as for
Margaret she was relieved. She had thought nothing less for the moment
than that Jean was upon her, or, at the very least, Bell coming out to
seek and bring her back. Mrs. Glen was not a person of whom she stood
in any fear, and she would not tell or interfere to let Jean know, for
Rob’s sake. So that Margaret turned round from the hedge-row with a
relieved soul, and said,
“Oh, is it you, Mrs. Glen?” with a new sense of ease in her tone.
“Deed and it is just me, my bonnie young lady. I hear you are going
away, Miss Margret, and many a sore heart you will leave in the
country-side. You’re so near the farm, you must come in and I will make
you a cup of tea in a moment. It’s real gray and dull, and there’s a
feel in the air like rain. Come your ways to the farm, Miss Margret, my
bonnie dear; and after that Rob will take you home.”
Margaret made no resistance to this proposal. She had been walking
for some time, and she was tired, and even the idea of the tea was
welcome. She went in after Mrs. Glen with some misgivings as to the
length of her absence, but a sense of relief on that point too; for it
had always been a good excuse to Bell, and even to her father, that
she had accepted the civility of one of their humbler neighbors. “It
pleases them; and so long as they are decent folk they will never but
be awfu’ keen to take care of Miss Margret: and she knows none but
decent folk,” Bell had said. The cup of tea in the farm-parlor would be
as good a reason for Margaret’s absence as Sir Claude’s luncheon-table
was for her sisters’. To be sure, in former days there had been no son
at Mrs. Glen’s to make such visits dangerous. She went in with a sense
of unexpected relief and sat down, very glad to find herself at rest in
the parlor, where a little fire was burning. To be sure, Rob would walk
home with her and renew his entreaties; but he could not, she thought,
continue them in his mother’s presence, and the relief was great.
“Mony a time have you come in here to get your tea, Miss Margret. I’ve
seen Rob come ben carrying ye in his arms. I mind one time you were
greeting for tiredness, a poor wee missie, and your shoe lost in the
burn; that lad was aye your slave, Miss Margret, from the time you were
no bigger than the table.”
“Oh, I remember,” said Margaret; “I thought Bell would scold me, and I
did not know how I was to go home without my shoe.”
“You went home in that lad’s arms, my bonnie dear, for all he stands
there so blate, looking at ye as if you were an angel; he wasna aye sae
blate. You went home in his arms, and gave him a good kiss, and thought
no shame. But you were only six then, and now you’re eighteen. Oh ay,
my dear, I can tell your age to a day. You were born the same week as
my youngest that died, a cauld November, and that sent your bonnie
young mother to her grave. It was an awfu’ draughty house, and no a
place for a delicate young woman, that auld house at Earl’s-hall. Fine,
I mind; and Rob there he’s five years older. From the time you could
toddle he aye thought you the chief wonder o’ the world.”
“Mother, you that know so much you had better know all,” said Rob. “I
think her the chief wonder of the world still.”
“You need not tell me that, my bonnie man; as if I could not see it
in your een!” Margaret stirred uneasily while this conversation went
on over her head. She had never thought of having this engagement
told to anybody, of being talked about to anybody. She got up with a
little gasp, feeling as if there was not air enough to breathe. If they
would not surround her so, close her up, all these people; oh, if they
would only let her alone! She tried to turn away to escape before Rob
should have said any more--but, before she clearly understood what was
passing, found herself suddenly in the arms of Mrs. Glen.
“Oh, my pretty miss! my bonnie young lady! is this all true that I
hear?” Rob’s mother cried, with effusive surprise and delight. “Did I
ever think, when I rose out of my bed this morning, that I was to hear
such wonderful news afore the night? Eh, Miss Margret, my dear, I wish
ye much joy, and I think ye’ll have it, for he’s a good lad; and you,
ye smiling loon, I need not wish you joy, for you’re just leaping out
of yourself with happiness and content.”
“And I think I have good reason,” cried Rob, coming up in his turn and
receiving her out of his mother’s embrace. Oh, how horribly out of
place Margaret felt between them! Never in her life had she felt the
dignity of being Margaret Leslie, old Sir Ludovic’s daughter, as she
did at that moment. Her cheeks burned crimson; she shrank into herself,
to escape from the embracing arms. What had she to do here? How had she
strayed so far from home? It was all she could do not to break forth
into passionate tears of disgust and repugnance. Oh, Margaret thought,
if she could but get away! if she could but run home all the way and
never stop! if she could but beg Jean to leave Earl’s-hall instantly
that very night! But she could not do any of these things. She had to
stand still, with eyes cast down and crimson cheeks, hearing them talk
of her. It was to them she seemed to belong now; and how could she get
away?
“Now give us your advice, mother,” said Rob, “we cannot tell what to
do. The Leslies are prejudiced, as may easily be supposed, especially
the old ladies (oh that Jean and Grace had but heard themselves called
old ladies!), and Margaret wants me to wait the three years till she
comes of age. She wants me to trust to chances of seeing her and
hearing of her--not even to have any regular correspondence. I would
cut off my right hand to please her, but how am I to live without
seeing her, mother? We had been talking and consulting, and wandering
on, a little farther and a little farther, till we did not know where
we were going. But now that we are here, give us your advice. Will you
be for me, I wonder, or on Margaret’s side?”
He had called her Margaret often before, and she was quite used to it;
why did it suddenly become so offensive and insupportable now?
“You see,” said Mrs. Glen, “there is a great deal to be said on both
sides.” Mrs. Glen was very much excited, her eyes gleaming, her heart
beating. It seemed to her that she had the fate of these two young
people in her hands, and might now clinch the matter and establish her
son’s good-fortune if Providence would but inspire her with the right
thing to say. “There is this for our bonnie Miss Margret, that she
would be all her lane to bear the opposition o’ thae ladies, and hard
it would be for a delicate young thing no used to struggle for herself;
and there’s that for you, Rob, that nae doubt it would be a terrible
trial to worship the ground she treads on as you do, and never to see
her for three lang years. Now let me think a moment, bairns, while this
dear lassie takes her cup of tea.”
Margaret could not refuse the cup of tea. How could she assert herself
and withdraw from them, and let them know that she was not to be taken
possession of and called a dear lassie by Mrs. Glen? Her heart was
in revolt; but she was far too shy, far too polite to make a visible
resistance. She drew back into the room as far as she could out of the
fitful gleams of the fire-light, and she shrank from Rob’s arm, which
was on the back of her chair; but still she took the tea and sat still,
bearing with all they said and did. It was the last time; but oh, what
trouble she had got into without meaning it! Suddenly it had come to be
salvation and deliverance to Margaret that she was going away.
“Now, bairns,” said Mrs. Glen, “listen to me. I think I have found what
you want. The grand thing is that you should be faithful to each other,
and mind upon each other. It’s no being parted that does harm. Three
years will flee away like three days, and you will be young, young,
ower young to be married at the end; and you would do more than that,
Rob Glen, for your bonnie Margaret; weel I ken that. So here is just
what you must do. You must give each other a bit writing, saying that
ye’ll marry at the end of three years--you to her, Rob, and her to you.
And then you will be out of all doubt, and troth-plight, the one to the
other, before God and man.”
“Mother!” cried Rob, starting up from where he had been bending over
Margaret, with a wild glow of mingled rage, terror, and hope in his
eyes. The suggestion gave him a shock. He did not know anything about
the law on that point, nor whether there was more validity in such a
promise than in any other love-pledge. But he was struck with sudden
alarm at the idea of doing something which might afterward be brought
against him, and a certain generosity and honor not extinguished in his
mind made him realize Margaret’s helpless condition between his mother
and himself, and her ignorance and her youth; while at the same time,
to secure her, to make certain of her, gave him a tug of temptation, a
wild sensation of delight. “No, no,” he cried, hoarsely, “I could not
make her do it;” then paused, and looked at her with the eager wildness
of passion in his eyes.
But Margaret was perfectly calm. No passion was woke in her--scarcely
any understanding of what this meant. A bit writing? Oh yes, what would
that matter, so long as she could get away?
“It is getting dark,” she said; “they will not know where I am; they
will be wondering. Will I do it now, whatever you want me to do, and go
home?”
“Margaret, my love!” he cried, “I thought you were frightened; I
thought you were shrinking from me; and here is your sweet consent more
ready than even mine!”
“Oh, it is not that,” she said, a little alarmed by the praise and by
the demonstrations that accompanied it. “But it is getting dark, and it
is late; and oh, I am so anxious to get home.”
Rob wrung his hands. “She doesn’t understand what we mean, mother; I
can’t take advantage of her. She thinks of nothing but to get home.”
“You gomerel!” said his mother, between her teeth; and then she turned
a smiling face upon Margaret. “Just that, my bonnie miss,” she said; “a
woman’s heart’s aye ready to save sorrow to them that’s fond of her.
It’s time you were home, my sweet lady. Just you write it down to make
him easy in his mind, and then he will take you back to Earl’s-hall.”
“Must I write it myself?” Margaret said; and it came across her with a
wave of blushing that she did not write at all nicely--not so well as
she ought. “And what am I to say? I don’t know what to say.” Then she
gave another glance at the window, which showed the night drawing near,
the darkness increasing every moment, with that noiseless, breathless
pleasure which the night seems to take in getting dark when we are far
from home. She got up with a sudden, hasty impulse. “Oh, if you please,
Mrs. Glen, if you will be as quick as ever you can! for I must run all
the way.”
“That will I, my darlin’ lady,” said the delighted mother. It was she
who had the whole doing of it, and the pride of having suggested it.
Rob stood by, quite pale, his eyes blazing with excitement, his mind
half paralyzed with trouble and terror, hope to have, reluctance to
take, fear of something unmanly, something dishonorable, intensified
by the eagerness of expectation, with which he looked for what was to
come. He stood “like a stock stane,” his mother said afterward, his
lips parted, his eyes staring, in her way as she rushed to the desk
at the other side of the room to find what was wanted. “You eedeeot!”
she said, as she pushed him aside, in an angry undertone. Had he not
the sense even to help in what was all for his own advantage? Margaret
pulled off her black glove and took the pen in her hand. She knew she
would write it very badly, very unevenly--not even in a straight line;
but if she had to do it before she could run home, it was better to get
it over.
“Oh, but I never wrote anything before,” she said; “Mrs. Glen, what
must I say?”
“Nor me. I never wrote the like of that before,” cried Mrs. Glen; “and
there’s Rob even--too happy to help us.” She had meant to use another
word to describe his spasm of irresolution and apprehension, but
remembered in time that he must not be contemned in Margaret’s eyes.
“It will be just this, my bonnie dear: ‘I, Margaret Leslie, give my
word before God and man, to marry Robert Glen as soon as I come of age.
So help me God. Amen.’”
“Don’t put that,” cried Rob, making a hasty step toward her. “Don’t let
her put that.” But then he turned away in such passion and transport of
shame, satisfaction, horror, and disgust as no words could tell, and
covered his face with his hands.
“Not that last,” said Margaret, stumbling, in her eagerness, over
the words, and glad to leave out whatever she could. “Oh, it is very
badly-written. I never could write well. Mrs. Glen, will that do?”
“And now your bonnie name here,” said the originator of the scheme,
scarcely able to restrain her triumph. And as Margaret, with a
trembling hand, crossed the last t, and put a blot for a dot over the
i, in her distracted signature, she received a resounding kiss upon her
cheek which was as the report of a pistol to her. She gave a little cry
of terror, and threw down the pen, and turned away. “Oh, good-bye!” she
cried, “good-bye. I must not stay another moment. I must run all the
way.”
Rob did not say a word--he hurried after her, with long strides,
keeping up with her as she flew along, in her fright, by the hedge-row.
“Oh, they must have missed me by this time. They will be wondering
where I have been,” she said, breathless. Rob set his teeth in the
dark. Never in his life had he been so humiliated. Though she had
pledged herself to him, she was not thinking of him; and in all
the experiences of his life he had never yet known this supreme
mortification. He had been loved where he had wooed. The other girls
whom Rob had addressed had forgotten everything for him. He half hated
her, though he loved her, and felt a fierce eagerness to have her--to
make her his altogether--to snatch her from the great people who looked
down upon him--to make himself master of her fate. But this furious
kind of love was only the excitement of the moment. At the bottom of
his heart he was fond of Margaret (as he had been of other Margarets
before). He could not bear the idea of losing her, of parting from her
like this, in wild haste, without any of the lingering caresses of
parting.
“Is this how you are going away from me, Margaret,” he cried,
“flying--as if you were glad to part, not sorry, when we don’t know
when we may meet again?”
“Oh, it is not that I am glad; it is only that they will wonder--they
will not know where I have been.”
“Will you ever be as breathless running to me as you are to run away
from me?” he cried. “Stop, Margaret! one moment before we come near the
gate, and say good-bye.”
She yielded with panting breath. That sacred kiss of parting--which, to
do him justice, he gave with all the fervor that became the occasion,
giving, as he felt, his very heart with it--how glad she was to escape
from it, and run on!
“Oh no! I will not forget-- I could not forget!” she cried.
Who was this, once more in the lovers’ way? A dark figure, who, they
could see, by the movement of his head, turned to look at them, but;
went on without taking any notice. Margaret, anxious as she was,
recognized Randal Burnside, and wondered that he did not notice her,
then was glad to think that he could not know her. Rob had other
thoughts. “Again found out--and by the same fellow!” he said to
himself, and gnashed his teeth. Randal was going over to Earl’s-hall,
a familiar visitor, while he, the betrothed husband of the daughter of
Earl’s-hall, had to skulk about the house in the dark, and take leave
of his love under cover of the night. Not without bitter humiliations
was this hour of his triumph.
“We must wait till he is out of sight,” he said, hoarsely, holding
her back. It was like holding an eager greyhound in the leash. “Oh,
Margaret,” he said, and despite and vexation filled his heart, “you are
not thinking of me at all--and here we have to part! You were not in
such a hurry when you used to cry upon my shoulder, and take a little
comfort from my love!”
This, and the necessity of keeping back till Randal had passed, touched
the girl’s heart.
“It is not my fault that I am in such a hurry,” she said. “Oh, you were
kind--kind--kinder than any one. I will never forget it, Rob.”
“It was not kindness,” he said, “it was love.”
“Yes, Rob.” She put her soft cheek to his with compunction in her
heart. She had been so eager to get away, and yet how kind he had
been--kinder than any one! Thus there came a little comfort for him
after all.
But just then, with a sudden flutter, as of a bird roused from the
branches, some one came out through the gate, which Randal had not
closed behind him--a figure of a woman indistinguishable against the
dimness of the twilight, with a little thrill and tremor about her,
which somehow made itself felt though she could not be seen.
“Is that you, Miss Margret? Bell sent me to look for you,” she said,
with the same thrill and quiver in her voice.
Rob Glen started violently. It was a new shock to him, and he had
already met with many shocks to his nerves that night. Her name came
to his lips with a cry; but he had sufficient sense of the position
to stop himself. Jeanie! was it possible, in the malice of fate, that
this was the Jeanie of whom Margaret had told him? He grasped her in
his arms for a moment with vehemence, partly because of that sudden
startling interruption, and, with one quickly breathed farewell on her
cheek, turned and went away.
“Oh, Jeanie, yes, it is me. I am very, very sorry. I did not want to be
so late. Have they found out that I was away? have they been looking
for me?” cried Margaret. It was not, perhaps, in the nature of things
that Jeanie should be unmoved in her reply.
“You’re no looking after the gentleman,” she said. “He’s gone and left
you, feared for me; and you’ve given him no good-bye. You needna be
feared for me, Miss Margret. Cry him back, and bid him farewell, as
a lass should to her lad. I’m nae traitor. You needna be feared that
Jeanie will betray ye. It’s no in my heart.”
“Oh, but he’s gone, Jeanie,” said Margaret, with a ring of relief in
her voice. “And oh, I’m glad to be at home! They made me stay when I
wanted to be back. Oh, how dark it is! Give me your hand, Jeanie, for I
cannot see where you are among the trees.”
Jeanie held out her hand in silence and reluctantly, and Margaret,
groping, found it, and took hold of it.
“You are all trembling,” she said.
“And if I am all trembling, it’s easy enough to ken why. Standing out
in the dark among the black trees, and thinking of them that’s gone to
their rest, and waiting for one that was not wanting me. Eh, it’s no so
long since you had other things in your head, Miss Margret--your old
papa, that was as kind as ever father was. But nobody thinks muckle
about old Sir Ludovic now.”
“Oh, Jeanie! I think upon him night and day!” cried Margaret; and what
with the reproach, and what with her weariness and the past excitement,
she fell into sudden tears.
“Is that you, my bonnie lamb?” said another voice; and Bell came out of
the gloom, where she, too, had been on the watch. “It’s cold and it’s
dreary, and you’re worn to death,” she said. “Oh, Miss Margret, where
have you been, my bonnie doo, wandering about the house, and greeting
till your bit heart is sair? Weel, I ken your heart is sair, and mine
too. What will we do without you, John and me? You are just the light
of our eyes, as you were to the auld maister, auld Sir Ludovic, that
was a guid maister to him and to me. Eh, to think this should be the
last night, after sae many years!”
“But, Bell,” said Margaret, calmed by this sense of lawful protection
and the shadow of home, “it is not the last night for you?”
“Ay, my bonnie pet, it’s that or little else. When you’re gane, Miss
Margret, a’ will be gane. And my lady’s a good woman; but I couldna put
up with her, and she couldna put up with me. We’re no fit for ither
service, neither me nor John--na, no even in your house, my bonnie
lamb, for I know that’s what you’re gaun to say. Nae new house nor
new ways for John and me. We’re to flit into a bit cot o’ our ain,
and there we’ll bide till the Lord calls, and we gang east to the
kirk-yard. God bless ye, my bonnie bairn. Run up the stairs; nobody
kens you were away; for weel I divined,” said Bell, with an earnestness
that filled Margaret’s soul with the sense of guilt--“weel I divined
that ye would have little heart for company this sorrowful night.”