The sun has struck on Criffel’s sullen shoulder. Look you how it besets
him, with a glorious burst of laughter and triumph over his gloom. And
now a clown no longer, but some grand shepherd baron, he draws his
purple cloak about him, and lifts his cloudy head into the sky. Marshal
your men-at-arms, Warder of the Border! Keep your profound unbroken
watch upon the liege valleys and homes at your feet—for the sun is
setting in a stormy glory, and the winds are gathering wild in their
battalions in the hollows of the hills.
Travelling with his face towards the east, is one wayfarer on this
lonely road. He knows the way, but it is long to his unaccustomed feet;
and he is like to be benighted, whatever speed he makes. The sky before
him is cold and clear, the sky of an autumn night, gleaming itself with
an intense pale lustre, while great mountain-heaps of clouds, flung upon
it, stand out round and full against its glittering chilly light; and
with a wild rush the wind comes down upon the trees, seizing them in a
sudden convulsion. The road ascends a little, and looks from this point
as if it went abruptly into the skies; and on either side lies the low
breadth of a peat-moss, on which it is too dark now to distinguish the
purple patches of heather, or anything but the moorland burn and deep
drain full of black clear water, from which is thrown back again, in
long flying glimmers of reflection, the pale light of the sky.
There is not a house in sight. Here and there a doddered oak or thorn,
or stunted willows trailing their branches into the pools, give a kind
of edge, interrupted and broken, to the moorland road; and now and then
on a little homely bridge—one arch of stone, or it may be only two or
three planks—it crosses a burn. With every gust of wind a shower of
leaves comes rustling down from the occasional trees we pass, and the
same cold breath persuades this traveller very soon to regret that his
breast is not guarded by the natural defence—the grey plaid of the
Border hills.
He does not lift his foot high and cumbrously from the ground, as the
men of this quarter, used to wading through the moss and heather, are
wont to do; nor does he oppose to this wild wind the broad expanded
chest and weather-beaten face of rural strength; but he knows the way
along which he walks so smartly—pauses now and then to recognise some
ancient landmark—and pushes forward without hesitation, very well aware
where he is going to, nor fearing to choose that shorter way across the
moss, like one to the manner born.
A narrower path, broken in upon here and there by young sapling trees,
self-sown willows, and bushes, which are scattered over all the moss.
Suddenly—it may be but a parcel of stones, a little heap of peats—but
there is something on the edge of the way.
Going forward, the traveller finds seated on the fallen trunk of a tree
two children—a little girl drawing in to her side the uncovered flaxen
head of a still younger boy, and holding him firmly with her arm. The
little fellow, with open mouth and close shut eyes, is fast asleep, and
his young guardian’s head droops on her breast. You can see she watched
long before she yielded to it; but she too has dropped asleep.
The traveller, touched with sudden interest, pauses and looks down upon
them. Indistinctly, in her sleep, hearing his step, or conscious of the
human eye upon her which breaks repose, the little girl moves uneasily,
tightens the firm pressure of her arm, murmurs something—of which the
spectator, stooping down, can hear only “little Davie”—and then,
throwing back her head and changing her attitude, settles again into her
profound child’s sleep.
What arrests him that he does not wake her? What makes him pause so long
after his previous haste? Yes, look closer—stoop down upon the damp and
springy soil—bend your knee. The pale faint light has not deceived you,
neither has the memory, which holds with unwonted tenacity, the likeness
of this face—for this is indeed the original. Sweet in its depth of
slumber, its lips half closed, its eyelash warm upon its cheek, the same
sweet heart you saw in London in the picture—the very child.
Eleven years old is Jessie now; and to keep little Davie out of mischief
is a harder task than ever. So helpless, yet in such an attitude of
guardianship and protection, the traveller’s eyes, in spite of himself,
fill with tears. He is almost loth to wake her, but the wind rushes with
growing violence among the cowering trees.
He touches her shoulder—she does not know how gently—as suddenly she
starts up broad awake. One terrified look Jessie gives him—another at
the wild sky and dreary moor. “You’re no to meddle wi’ Davie; it’s a’ my
blame,” said Jessie with one frightened sob; “and oh, it’s dark nicht,
and we’ll never win hame!”
“How did you come here?” said the stranger gently. Jessie was reassured;
she dried her eyes and began to look up at him with a little returning
confidence.
“I dinna ken; it was Davie would rin—no, it was me that never cam the
road before—and we got on to the moss. Oh, will you tell me the airt I’m
to gang hame?”
He put his hand upon the child’s head kindly. This was not much like
Randall Home. The Randall of old days, if he never failed to help,
scarcely ever knew himself awakened to interest. There was a great
delight of novelty in this new spring opened in his heart.
“Were you not afraid to fall asleep?”
Poor little Jessie began to cry; she thought she had done wrong. “I
couldna keep wakin. I tried as lang as I could, and then I thocht I
would just ask God to take care o’ Davie, and then there would be nae
fear. That was the way I fell asleep.”
A philosopher! But how have these tears found their way to his face?
Somehow he cannot look on this little speaker—cannot perceive her small
brother laying his cheek upon her breast, without a new emotion which
ought to have no place in the mind of an observing moralist whose
thought is of cause and effect. Again he lays his hand upon her head—so
kindly that Jessie looks up with a shy smile—and says, “You are used to
say your prayers?”
“I aye do’t every nicht.” Jessie looks up again wistfully, wondering
with a sudden pity. Can it be possible that he does not say his prayers,
gentleman though he be?
“Say them here, little girl—I would like to hear your prayers”—and his
own voice sounds reverent, low, as one who feels a great presence near.
But Jessie falters and cries—does not know what to answer, though it is
very hard to contend against the impulse of instant obedience. “Oh, I
dinna like—I canna say them out-by to a man,” she says in great trouble,
clasping and unclasping her hands. “I just mind a’body, and little
Davie—and give my soul to Christ to keep,” added the little girl
solemnly, “for fear I shouldna wake the morn.”
There is a little silence. She thinks this kindly stranger is angry with
her, and cries; but it is only a something of strong unusual emotion,
which he must swallow down.
“Now, you must wake up little Davie, and I will take you home. Is it
far? You do not know, poor little guardian. Come away—it is near
Brigend? Well, we will manage to get there. Come, little fellow, rouse
up and give me your hand.”
But Davie, very wroth at such a sudden interruption of his repose, shook
his little brown clenched hand in the stranger’s face instead, and would
hold by no other but his sister. So in this order they went on, Jessie,
with much awe, permitting her hand to be held in Randall’s, and sleepy
Davie dragging her back at the other side. They went on at a very
different pace from Randall’s former rate of walking—threading their
encumbered way with great difficulty through the moorland path—but
by-and-by, to the general comfort, emerged once more upon the high-road,
and near the cheerful light from a cottage door.
And here he would pause to ask for some refreshment for the lost
children, but does not fail to glance in first at the cottage window.
This woman sitting before the fire has a face he knows, and she is
rolling up a heavy white-faced baby, and moving with a kind of
monotonous rock, back and forward upon her seat. But there is not a
murmur of the mother-song—instead, she is slowly winding up to extremest
aggravation a little girl in a short-gown and apron, who stands behind
her in a flood of tears, and whose present state of mind suggests no
comfort to her, but to break all the “pigs” (_Anglicè_ crockery) in the
house and run away.
“Will I take in twa bairns?—what would I do wi’ twa bairns? I’ve enow o’
my ain; but folk just think they can use ony freedom wi’ me,” said the
woman, in answer to Randall’s appeal made from the door. “I’m sure
Peter’s pack micht be a laird’s lands for what folk expect; and because
there’s nae ither cause o’ quarrelling wi’ a peaceable woman like me, I
maun aye be askit to do things I canna do. It’s nane o’ my blame they
didna get their denner. Lad, you had best take them hame.”
“I will pay for anything you give them cheerfully; but the little
creatures are exhausted,” said Randall again from the door. He thought
he had altered a good deal his natural voice.
The woman suddenly raised her head. “I’m saying, that’s a tongue I ken,”
she said in an under-tone. “This is nae public to gie meat for siller,
lad,” she continued; “but they may get a bit barley scone and a drink o’
milk—I’ve nae objections. Ye’ll no belang to this country yoursel?” For,
with a rapidity very unusual to her, she had suddenly deposited her
gaping baby in the cradle, and now stood at the door. Randall kept
without in the darkness. The lost children were admitted to the fire.
“No.”
“I wouldna say but you’re out o’ London, by your tongue. I’ve been there
mysel before I was married, biding wi’ a brother o’ mine that’s real
weel-off and comfortable there. I’ve never been up again, for he’s
married, and her and me disna ’gree that weel. It’s an awfu’ world—a
peaceable person has nae chance—and I was aye kent for that, married and
single. Ye’ll have heard o’ my man, Peter Drumlie, if you come out o’
Cumberland; but I reckon you’re frae London, by your tongue.”
With a bow, and a sarcastic compliment to her discrimination, Randall
answered her question; but the bow and the sarcasm were lost upon the
person he addressed: she went on in her dull tone without a pause.
“Ay, I aye was kent for discrimination,” she said with modest
self-approval, “though it’s no everybody has the sense to allow’t. But
you’ll ha’e come to see your friends, I reckon—they’ll be biding about
this pairt?”
“Just so,” said Randall.
“Ye’ll ken mony a change in the countryside,” continued the woman.
“There’s the auld minister dead in Kirklands parish, and a’ the family
scattered, and a delicate lad, a stranger, in the Manse his lane; and
maister and mistress gane out o’ Kirklands House, away somegate in
foreign pairts; and Walter Wellwood, the young laird, he’s married upon
a grand lady and joined to the Papishes; and—but ye’ll maybe ken better
about the common folk o’ the parish. There’s auld Crofthill and Miss
Janet their lee lane up the brae yonder, and ne’er a word frae
Randy—maybe you would ken Randy?—the awfullest lad for thinking of
himsel; and then there’s the family at Burnside—they’re come down in the
world, wi’ a’ their pride and their vanity—living in naething but a
cot-house on the siller Jenny makes wi’ her kye; and Miss Menie, she
makes pictures and takes folk’s likenesses, and does what she can to
keep hersel. Eh, man, there’s awfu’ changes!—And wee July Home,
Crofthill’s daughter, she’s married upon our Johnnie, keepit like a
leddy, and never has a hand’s turn laid to her, wet day or dry—it’s a
grand marriage for the like o’ her;—and there’s mysel—I was ance Nelly
Panton, till I got my man—but I’ve nae occasion to do a thing now but
keep the house gaun, and mind the siller—for Peter, he’s a man o’ sense,
and kens the value o’ a guid wife—and I live real comfortable among my
ain folk in a peaceable way, as I was aye disposed—though they’re an ill
set the folk hereaway—they’re aye bickering amang themsels. Will you no
come in by and rest?”
Randall, who felt his philosophy abandon him in this respect as well as
others, and who could not persuade himself by any arguments of her
insignificance to quench the passion which this slow stream of malicious
disparagement raised within him, answered very hotly, and with great
abruptness, that he could not wait longer. A moment after he found
himself again upon the road, with the reluctant children dragging him
back, and Nelly looking out after him from her door. He had time to be
annoyed at himself for betraying his anger; but Randall began to have
changed thoughts—began to lose respect for the self-constraint which
once had been his highest form of dignity—began to think that no natural
emotion was unworthy of him—of _him_. For the first time he laughed at
the words with bitterness as he looked up to the pale gleaming sky, with
its clouds and stars. Unworthy of him—who then was he?