“Oh! Patricia! Sinclair has been telling me such a story,” cried a young
girl, suddenly rushing upon another, in a narrow winding road through
the woods which clothed a steep bank of Tyne; at this spot, for one
exclusive mile, the rapid little river was “private property,” the
embellishment of a gentleman’s grounds--shut out from vulgar admiration.
Tyne, indifferent alike to admiration and exclusivism, was not less
happy on that account; but foamed over his stony channel as brisk, as
brown, and as clear, as when he ran in unrestricted freedom by the old
castle walls of Norlaw. The path was slippery and irregular with great
roots of trees, and one or two brooks, unseen, trickled down the brae
below the underwood, only detected by the slender, half visible rivulet
on the path which you had to step across, or the homely plank half
penetrated by water, which bridged over Tyne’s invisible tributary. They
did not appear, these fairy springs, but they added each a tingle, like
so many harp strings, to the many sounds of Nature. Through this winding
road, or rather upon it, for she was not going anywhere, the elder of
these two interlocutors had been for some time wandering. She was a
delicate looking girl of seventeen, with blue eyes and pale golden hair,
rather pretty, but very slight, and evidently not in strong health. The
sudden plunge down upon her, which her younger sister made from the top
of the brae, took away Patricia’s breath, and made her drop the book
which she had been reading. This was no very great matter, for the book
was rather an indifferent production, being one of those books of poetry
which one reads at seventeen, and never after--but it was rather more
important that the color came violently into her pale cheek, and she
clasped her hands upon her side, with a gasp which terrified the young
hoiden.
“Oh, I forgot!” she cried, in sympathy, as eager as her onslaught had
been. “Oh! have I hurt you? I did not mean it, you know.”
“No, Joanna,” said Patricia, faintly, “but you forget my nerves
always--you never had any yourself.”
Which was perfectly true, and not to be denied. These two, Patricia and
Joanna Huntley, were the only daughters of their father’s house--the
only children, indeed, save one son, who was abroad. There were not many
feminine family names in this branch of the house of Huntley, and
invention in this matter being very sparely exercised in these parts, it
came about that the girls were called after their uncles, and that the
third girl, had there been such an unlucky little individual, following
in the track of her sisters, would have turned out Jemima or Robina,
according as the balance rose in favor of her father’s brother or her
mother’s. Fortunately, Joanna was the last fruit of the household tree,
which had blossomed sparely. She was only fifteen, tall, strong, red
haired, and full of vigor--the greatest contrast imaginable to her
pretty pale sister, whom Joanna devoutly believed in as a beauty, but
secretly did somewhat grieve over as a fool. The younger sister was not
in the least pretty, and knew it, but she was clever, and Joanna knew
that also, which made an agreeable counterpoise. She was extremely
honest, downright and straightforward, speaking the truth with less
elegance than force, but speaking it always; and on the whole was a good
girl, though not always a very pleasant one. At this present moment she
was flushed, breathless, and eager, having run all the way from the
house with something to tell. But Patricia’s “nerves” could not bear the
sudden announcement, though that delicate young lady loved a piece of
news fully as well as her sister. Joanna, therefore, stood still, making
hasty and awkward apologies, and eager to do something to amend her
mistake, while her delicate companion recovered breath. There was
something more than nerves in the young lady’s discomposure. She was
feeble by nature, the invalid of the family, which Joanna, knowing no
sympathetic ailment in her own vigorous person, sometimes had the ill
luck to forget.
“And my poor book!” said poor Patricia, picking up the unfortunate
volume, which lay fluttering with open leaves on the very edge of that
tiny current trickling over the brown path, which, save that it moved
and caught an occasional sparkle of light, you could not have
distinguished to be a burn. “Oh, Joanna, you are so thoughtless! what
was all this haste about?”
“Oh, such a story!” cried Joanna, eagerly. “It’s easy to speak about
nerves--but when I heard it I could have run to papa and given him a
good shake--I could! and he deserved it! for they say it was all his
blame.”
“I should like to hear what it was,” said Patricia, with an exasperating
and intolerable meekness, which usually quite overpowered the patience
of her sister.
But Joanna was too much interested in the present instance.
“It was Mr. Livingstone of Norlaw,” she said, sinking her voice; “he’s
dead, and his funeral was stopped because he was in debt, and it was
papa that did it--and the three boys got up at midnight and carried him
on their shoulders, with torches in their hands, to Dryburgh, and buried
him there. Sinclair says it’s true, every word; and I don’t know whether
Huntley did not swim over Tweed to get the boat. Oh, Patricia! I feel as
if I could both greet and cry hurra, if I were to see them; and as for
papa, he deserves--I don’t know what he does not deserve!”
“I wish you would talk like a lady, Joanna,” said her sister, without
taking any notice of this unfilial sentiment; “greet! you could just as
well say cry, or weep, for that matter--and it’s only common people that
say Tweed, as if they meant a person instead of a river; why don’t you
say _the_ Tweed, as people of education say?”
“He’s the truest person I know,” cried Joanna. “Tweed and Tyne! you may
say that they’re just streams of water, if you like, but they’re more to
me; but the question is papa--I knew he was ill enough and hard-hearted,
but I never, never thought he could have been so bad as that--and I mean
to go this very moment and ask him how it was.”
“I suppose papa knows better than we do,” said Patricia, with a slight
sigh; “but I wish he would not do things that make people talk. It is
very annoying. I dare say everybody will know about this soon, if it’s
true. If it was all himself it would not so much matter, and you never
go out anywhere, Joanna, so you don’t feel it--but is very unpleasant to
mamma and me.”
“I was not thinking of either mamma or you; I was thinking of the
Livingstones,” cried Joanna, with a flush of shame on her cheeks; “and I
mean to go in this very instant, and ask him what it means.”
So saying, the impetuous girl rushed up the path, slowly followed by
Patricia. It was one of the loveliest bits of woodland on the whole
course of Tyne. Mosses and wild flowers, and the daintiest ferns known
to Scotland, peeped out of every hollow--and overhead and around,
stretching down half way across the river, and thrusting out, with
Nature’s rare faculty of composition, their most graceful curves of
foliage against the sky, were trees, not too great or ancient to
overshadow the younger growth; trees of all descriptions, birches and
beeches and willows, the white-limbed ash, with its green bunches of
fruit, and the tender lime, with its honey blossoms. You could have
almost counted every separate flash of sunshine which burned through the
leaves, misty with motes and dazzling bright with that limitation; and
yet the shadow overhead trembled and fluctuated with such a constant
interchange, that the spot which was in shade one moment was in the
brightest light the very next. The light gleamed in Joanna’s red hair,
as she plunged along in her impetuous way towards the house, and fell in
touches here and there upon the graceful little figure of her sister, in
her close cottage bonnet and muslin gown, as Patricia came softly over
the same road, book in hand. But we are bound to confess that neither of
the two, perfectly accustomed and familiar as they were, found a
moment’s leisure among their other thoughts to pause upon this scene;
they went towards the house, the one after the other--Patricia with a
due regard to decorum as well as to her nerves and feebleness of
frame--Joanna totally without regard for either the one or the other;
and both occupied, to the entire neglect of every thing else, with
thoughts of their own.
The house of Melmar was placed upon a level platform of land, of a
considerably lower altitude than this brae. Pausing to look at it, as
neither Joanna nor Patricia did, on the rustic bridge which crossed the
Tyne, and led from this woodland path into the smooth lawn and properly
arranged trees of “the private grounds,” Melmar appeared only a large
square house, pretentious, yet homely, built entirely for living in, and
not for looking at. If Nature, with her trees, and grass, and bits of
garden land, softening the angles and filling in the gaps, had done her
best to make it seemly, the house was completely innocent of aiding in
any such attempt. Yet, by sheer dint of persistence, having stood there
for at least a hundred years, long enough to have patches of lichen here
and there upon its walls, Melmar had gained that look of steadiness and
security, and of belonging to the soil, which harmonizes even an ugly
feature in a landscape. The door, which was sheltered by a little
portico, with four tall pillars, in reality stone, but looking
considerably like plaster, opened from without after the innocent
fashion of the country. Running across the lawn, Joanna opened the door
and plunged in, without further ado, into her father’s study, which was
at the end of a long passage looking out upon the other side of the
house. He was not there--so the girl came rushing back again to the
drawing-room, the door of which stood open, and once more encountering
her sister there, did her best to disturb the delicate nerves a second
time, and throw Patricia out of breath.
This papa, whom Joanna had no hesitation about bearding in his own den,
could not surely be such an ogre after all. He was not an ogre. You
could not have supposed, to look at him, that any exaltation of enmity,
any heroic sentiment of revenge, could lodge within the breast of Mr.
Huntley, of Melmar. He was a tall man, with a high, narrow head, and
reddish grizzled hair. A man with plenty of forehead, making up in
height for its want of breadth. He was rather jovial than otherwise in
his manner, and carried about with him a little atmosphere of his own, a
whiff of two distinct odors, not unusual attendants of elderly Scotsmen,
twenty years ago, reminiscences of toddy and rappee. He looked around
with a smile at the vehement entrance of Joanna. He permitted all kinds
of rudenesses on the part of this girl, and took a certain pleasure in
them. He was not in the slightest degree an exacting or punctilious
father; but not all his indulgence, nor the practical jokes, banter, and
teasing, which he administered to all children, his own, among the rest,
when they were young enough--had secured him either fondness or respect
at their hands. They got on very well on the whole. Patricia pouted at
him, and Joanna took him to task roundly when they differed in
opinion--but the affection they gave him was an affection of habit, and
nothing more.
“I’ve come to speak to you, papa,” cried Joanna. “I’ve just been hearing
the whole story, every word--and oh, I think shame of you!--it’s a
disgrace, it’s a sin--I wonder you dare look any of us in the face
again!”
“Eh? what’s all this?” said Melmar; “Joan in one of her tantrums
already? Three times in a day! that’s scarcely canny--I’ll have to speak
to your aunt Jean.”
“Oh, papa!” cried Joanna, indignantly, “it’s no fun--who do you think
would carry _you_ to Dryburgh if somebody stopped your funeral? not one!
You would have to stay here in your coffin and never be buried--and I
wouldna be sorry! You would deserve it, and nothing better--oh, I think
shame on you!”
“What? in my coffin? that’s a long look beforehand,” said Melmar. “You
may have time to think shame of me often enough before that time, Joan;
but let’s hear what’s all this about Dryburgh and a funeral--who’s been
here?”
“Sinclair was here,” cried Joanna, “and he heard it all at
Kirkbride--every word--and he says you had better not be seen there,
after all you’ve done at Norlaw.”
“I am sure, papa, it’s very hard,” said Patricia. “You set everybody
talking, and then people look strange at us. Mamma knows they do; and I
could cry when I think that we’re going out to-morrow, and it would have
been such a nice party. But now everybody knows about this, and nobody
will speak to us--it’s too bad of you, papa.”
“What is it, my darling?” cried Mrs. Huntley, from her easy chair.
“Eh, fat’s this?” said Aunt Jean, wheeling round upon hers.
A popular commotion was rising; Melmar saw the premonitory tokens, and
made his escape accordingly.
“Joan,” he said, pulling her ear as he passed her, “you’re an impudent
monkey; but you may spare your wrath about Norlaw--I knew as little as
you did that the man was dead--however, he is dead, and I don’t break my
heart; but you can tell Sinclair I’ll tell him a word of my mind the
next time I’m near Kirkbride.”
“Sinclair doesna care!” said Joanna; but Melmar pulled a thick curl of
her red hair, and betook himself to his study, leaving the rising gust
of questions to wear itself out as it might.