“Johnnie Lithgow exists no longer.” The words chased the colour from
Menie Laurie’s cheek, and drew a pitying exclamation from her lips.
Alas, for Johnnie Lithgow’s mourning mother! But Menie read on and
laughed, and was consoled. “There is no such person known about the
office of the great paper; but Mr Lythgoe, the rising critic, the leader
of popular judgments, and writer of popular articles, is fast growing
into fame and notice. The days of the compositor are over, and I fear
the author must be a little troubled about the plebeian family who once
rejoiced the poor young printer’s heart. Yet the heart remains a very
good heart, my dear Menie--vain, perhaps, and a little fickle and
wavering, not quite knowing its own mind, but a very simple kindly heart
in the main, and sure to come back to all the natural duties and loves.
I give you full warrant to comfort the mother. Johnnie has been
somewhat _fêted_ and lionised of late, and is not, perhaps, at present
exactly what our sober unexcitable friends call _steady_. His head is
turned with the unusual attention he has been receiving, and perhaps a
little salutary humiliation may be necessary to bring him down again;
but I have no fear of him in the end. He is very clever, writes
extremely well, and is one of the most wise and sensible of men--in
print. I almost wonder that I have not mentioned him to you sooner, for
he and I have seen a good deal of each other of late, and Johnnie is a
very good fellow, I assure you--not without natural refinement, and very
fresh, and hearty, and genial; moreover, a rising man, as the common
slang goes, and one who has made a wonderful leap in a very short time;
so we must pardon him in his first elation if he seems a little
negligent of his friends.”
A slight flush of colour ran wavering over Menie’s cheek as “a little
salutary humiliation may be necessary” she repeated under her breath,
and, starting at the sound of her own voice, looked round guiltily, as
if in terror lest she had been overheard. But there was no one to
overhear--no one but her own heart, which, suddenly startled out of its
quiet, looks round too with a timid, troubled glance, as if a ghost had
crossed its line of vision, and hears these words echoing softly among
all the trees. Well, there is no harm in the words, but Menie feels as
if, in whispering them, she had betrayed some secret of her betrothed,
and with an uneasy step and clouded face she turns away.
Why?--or what has Randall done to call this shadow up on Menie Laurie’s
way? But Menie Laurie neither could or would tell, and only feels a
cloud of vague vexation and unexplainable displeasure rise slowly up
upon her heart.
Yet it is no very long time till Mrs Laurie hears the news, unshadowed
by any dissatisfaction, and very soon after Menie is speeding along the
Kirklands road restored to all her usual cloudlessness, though it
happens somehow, that, after a second bold plunge at it in the stillness
of her own room, which reddened Menie’s cheek again with involuntary
anger, she skips this objectionable paragraph in Randall’s letter, and,
asking herself half audibly, what Johnnie Lithgow is to her, solaces
herself out of her uneasiness by Randall’s exultation over her own last
letter. For Randall is most heartily and cordially rejoiced to think of
having his betrothed so near him--there can be no doubt of that.
And here upon the hillside path, almost like one of those same delicate
beechen boughs which wave over its summit, July Home comes fluttering
down before the wind--her soft uncertain feet scarcely touching the
ground, as you can think--her brown dress waving--her silky hair
betraying itself as usual, astray upon her shoulders. Down comes July,
not without a stumble now and then, over boulder or bramble, but looking
very much as if she floated on the sweet atmosphere which streams down
fresh and full from the top of the hill, and the elastic spring air
could bear her well enough upon its sunny current for all the weight she
has. Very simple are the girlish salutations exchanged when the friends
meet. “Eh, Menie, where are you going?” and “Is that you, July?--you can
come with me.”
And now the road has two shadows upon it instead of one, and a murmur of
low-toned voices running like a hidden tinkle of water along the
hedgerow’s side. “Johnnie Lithgow! eh, I’m glad he’s turned clever,”
said little July; “he used to come up the hill at nights when nobody
ever played with me; and I think, Menie--you’ll no be angry?--he had
more patience than Randall, for I mind him once carrying me, when I was
just a little thing, all the way round the wood to the Resting Stane, to
see the sunset, and minding what I said too, though I was so wee. I’m
glad, Menie--I’m sure I’m very glad; but Randall, being clever himself,
might have told us about Johnnie Lithgow before.”
“You never can think that Johnnie Lithgow is as clever as Randall,”
said Menie, indignantly. “That’s not what I mean either. Randall’s not
clever, July. You need not look so strange at me. Clever! Jenny’s
clever; I’m clever myself at some things; but Randall--I call Randall a
genius, July.”
And Menie raised loftily the face which was now glowing with a flash of
affectionate pride. With a little awe July assented; but July still in
her inmost heart asserted Randall to be clever, and rather avoided a
discussion of this perplexing word genius, which July did not feel
herself quite competent to define or understand.
And now the road begins to slope upwards, the hedgerow breaks and opens
upon braes of close grass, marked here and there by bars and streaks of
brown, like stationary shadows, and rich with little nests of
low-growing heather and hillside flowers. An amphitheatre of low hills
opens now from the summit of this one, which the road mounts. Bare
unwooded slopes, falling away at their base into cultivated fields, and
rising upward in stretches of close-cropped pasture land; soft luxurious
grass, sweet with its thyme and heather, with small eyes of flowers
piercing up from under its close-woven blades--soft as summer couch need
be, and elastic as ever repelled the foot of passing herdsman; but
looking somewhat bare in its piebald livery, as it breaks upon the
bright spring sky above.
And the road dives down--down into the hollows of the circle, where
gleams a winding burn, and rises a village, its roofs of tile and thatch
basking serenely in the sun. A little church, holding up a little open
belfry against the hillside, as if entreating to be lifted higher,
stands at the entrance of the village; and you can already see the
little span-broad bridges that cross the burn, and the signboards which
hang above the doors of the cottage shops in the main street. Here, too,
keeping the road almost like an official of equal authority, the smithy
glows with its fiery eye upon the kirk; for the kirk, you will perceive,
is almost a new one, and has little pretensions to the hereditary
reverence of its small dependency, standing there bare and alone,
without a single grave to keep watch upon; whereas the smiddy’s antique
roof is heavy with lichens; and ploughs and harrows, resplendent in
primitive red and blue, obtrude themselves a little way beyond its door,
with the satisfaction of conscious wealth.
And here is a cottage turning its back upon the burn, and modestly
setting down its white doorstep upon the rude causeway; the door is
open, and some one sits at work by the fireside within; but in a corner
stands a sack of meal, and a little humble counter interposes sideways
between the fire and the threshold. Some humble goods lie on the
window-shelves, and the counter itself has a small miscellany--dim
glasses, full of “sweeties;” dimmer still with balls of cotton, blue and
white, with stiffly-twisted sticks of sampler worsted, and red and
yellow stalks of barley-sugar, scarcely to be distinguished from the
thread. Altogether the counter, with its dangling scales, the
half-filled shelves that break the light from the window, and the few
drawers behind, fit out the village shop where Mrs Lithgow does a little
daily business, enough to keep herself, alone and widowed, in daily
bread.
For Nelly Panton, sitting behind at the fire, is a mantua-maker, and
maintains herself. By good fortune, this maintenance is very cheaply
accomplished; and Nelly’s “drap parritch” and cup of tea are by much the
smallest burden which her society entails upon her mother. Decent lass
as Nelly is, she has come through no small number of vicissitudes, and
swayed between household service and this same disconsolate
mantua-making of hers, like the discontented pendulum--not to speak of
two or three occasions past, when Nelly has been just on the eve of
being married, a consummation which even the devout desire of Mrs
Lithgow has not yet succeeded in bringing peacefully to pass--for Nelly
and her lovers, as Mrs Lithgow laments pathetically, “can never gree
lang enough,” and some kind fairy always interposes in time to prevent
any young man of Kirklands from accomplishing to himself such a fate.
Mrs Lithgow’s dress is scarcely less doleful than her daughter: a
petticoat of some dark woollen stuff, and a clean white short-gown, are
scarcely enlivened by the check apron, bright blue and white as it is,
which girds in the upper garment; but the close cap which marks her
second widowhood encloses a face fresh, though care-worn, with lines of
anxious thought something too clearly defined about the brow and cheeks.
A little perplexity adds just now to the care upon the widow’s face; for
upon her counter stands a square wooden box, strongly corded and sealed,
over which, with much bewilderment, the good woman ponders. Very true,
it is directed to Mrs Lithgow, Kirklands, and Kirklands knows no Mrs
Lithgow but herself; but with a knife in her hand to cut the cord, and a
little broken hammer beside her on the counter, with which she proposes
to “prise” open the securely nailed lid, the widow still hangs
marvelling over the address, and the broad red office-seal, and wonders
once again who it can be that sends this mystery to her.
“I’ve heard of folk getting what lookit like a grand present, and it
turning out naething but a wisp o’ straw, or a wecht o’ stanes,” said
the perplexed Mrs Lithgow, as her young visitors saluted her; “but this
is neither to ca’ very heavy nor very licht; and it’s no directed in a
hand o write that ane might have kenned, but in muckle printed letters
like a book; and I’m sure I canna divine, if I was thinking on a’body I
ever kent a’ my days, wha could send such a thing to me.”
“But if you open the box you’ll see,” cried July Home. “Eh! I wish you
would open it the time we’re here; for I think I ken it’s from Johnnie,
and Menie Laurie has grand news of Johnnie in her letter. I was as glad
as if it was me. He’s turned clever, Mrs Lithgow; he’s growing to be a
great man, like our Randall. Eh! Menie, what ails her?”
Something ailed her that July did not know;--a trembling thrill of
apprehensive joy, an intense realisation for the moment of all her
terrors and sorrows, suddenly inspired, and flooded over with the light
of a new hope. The colour fled from Mrs Lithgow’s very lips; the little
broken hammer fell with a heavy clang upon the floor at her feet. Her
eyes turned wistfully, eagerly, upon Menie; the light swam in them, and
yet they could read so clearly the expression of this face.
And Menie, conquering her blush and hesitation, took out her letter, and
read bravely so much of it as was suitable for the mother’s ear. The
mother forgot all about the mysterious box, even though it seemed so
likely now to come from Johnnie. She sat down abruptly on the wooden
chair behind the counter; she lifted up her checked apron, and pressed
it with both hands into the corners of her eyes. “My puir laddie! my
puir laddie!”--You could almost have fancied it was some misfortune to
Johnnie which caused this swelling of his mother’s heart.
“And he’s in among grand folk, and turning a muckle man himsel,” said
Mrs Lithgow softly, after a considerable pause. “Was that what the
letter said?--was that what the folk telled me?--and he’s my son for a’
that--Johnnie Lithgow, my ain little young bairn.”
“I think, mother, ye may just as weel let me open the box,” said Nelly,
coming forward with her noiseless step. “We’ll ken by what’s in’t if
he’s keeping thought of us; though I’m sure it’s no muckle like as if he
was, keeping folk anxious sae lang, and him prospering. I’ll just open
the box. I wouldna be ane to hang at his tails if Johnnie thought shame
of his poor friends; but still a considerate lad would mind that there’s
mony a little thing might be useful at Kirklands. I’ll open the box and
see.”
The mother rose to thrust her away angrily. “Is it what he sends _I’m_
heeding about, think ye?” she exclaimed, with momentary passion, “I’m
his mother! I’m seeking naething but his ain welfare and well-doing.
Was’t gifts I wanted, or profit by my son? But ane needna speak to you.”
“Eh! but there’s maybe a letter,” said July Home, with a little natural
artifice. “Mrs Lithgow, I would open it and see.”
And Mrs Lithgow, with this hope, cut the cords vigorously, though with a
trembling hand--rejecting, not without anger, the offered assistance of
Nelly, who now crossed her hands demurely on her apron, and stood,
virtuous and resigned, looking on. Little July, very eager and curious,
could not restrain her restless fingers, but helped to loose the knots
involuntarily with a zealous aid, which the widow did not refuse; and
Menie, not quite sure that it was right to intrude upon the mother’s
joy, but very certain that she would greatly like to see what Johnnie
Lithgow sent home, lingered, with shyer and less visible curiosity,
between the counter and the door.
But Mrs Lithgow’s hands, trembling with anxiety, and the excitement of
great joy, and the little thin fingers of July, never very nervous at
any time, made but slow progress in their work; and poor July even
achieved a scratch here and there from refractory nails before it was
concluded. When the lid had been fairly lifted off, a solemn pause
ensued. No letter appeared; but a brilliant gown-piece of printed
cotton lay uppermost, the cover and wrapper of various grandeurs below.
Mrs Lithgow pulled out these hidden glories hurriedly, laying them aside
with only a passing glance; a piece of silk, too grand by far for
anybody within a mile of Kirklands; ribbons which even Menie Laurie
beheld with a flutter of admiration; and a host of other articles of
feminine adornment, so indisputably put together by masculine hands,
that the more indifferent spectators were tempted to laughter at last.
But Mrs Lithgow had no leisure to laugh--no time to admire the somewhat
coarse shawl which she could wear, nor the gay gowns which she could
not. Down to the very depths and conclusion of all, to the white paper
lying in the bottom of the box; but not a scrap of written paper bade
his mother receive all these from Johnnie. The gift came unaccompanied
by a single word to identify the giver. Mrs Lithgow sat down again in
her chair, subdued and silent, and Menie had discernment enough to see
the bitter tears of disappointed hope that gathered in the mother’s
eyes; but she said nothing, either of comment or complaint, till the
slow business-like examination with which Nelly began to turn over these
anonymous gifts, startled into sudden provocation and anger the
excitement which, but for pride and jealous regard that no one should
have a word to say against her son, would fain have found another
channel.
“Eh! Mrs Lithgow, isn’t it bonnie?” cried simple little July Home, as
she smoothed down with her hand the glistening folds of silk. Mrs
Lithgow had laid violent hands upon it, to thrust it back into the box
out of Nelly’s way; but as July spoke, her own womanish interest was
roused, and now, when the first shock had passed, the tears in the
widow’s eyes grew less salt and bitter; she looked at the beautiful
fabric glistening in the light--she looked at the little pile of bright
ribbons--at the warm comfortable shawl, and her heart returned to its
first flush of thankfulness and content.
“It’s farowre grand for the like o’ me,” she said at last; “it would be
mair becoming some o’ you young ladies; but a young lad’s no to be
expected to ken about such things; and he’s bought it for the finest he
could get, and spent a lock o’ siller on’t, to pleasure his mother. I’m
no surprised mysel--it’s just like his kind heart; but there’s few folk
fit to judge my Johnnie; he was never like other callants a’ his days.”
But still Mrs Lithgow could not bear Nelly’s slow matter-of-fact
perusal, and comment on her new treasures. She put them up one by one,
restored them to the box, and carried it away to her own room in her
own arms, to be privately wept and rejoiced over there.
“Randall never sent home anything like yon,” said July softly to
herself, as they returned to Burnside, “and Randall was clever before
Johnnie Lithgow. I wonder he never had the thought.”
“Randall knows better,” said Menie. “When Randall sends things, he sends
becoming things; it’s only you, July, that have not the thought: if
Johnnie Lithgow had been wise, he would not have sent such presents to
Kirklands.”
But just then a line of a certain favourite song crossed Menie’s mind
against her will--“Wisdom’s sae cauld;” and July looked down upon her
own printed frock, and thought a silken gown, like Johnnie Lithgow’s
present, might be a very becoming thing. At seventeen--even at
twenty--one appreciates a piece of kindly folly fully better than an act
of wisdom.