Left behind! July Home has dried her eyes at last; and out of many a
childish fit of tears and sobbing, suddenly becomes silent like a child,
and, standing on the road, looks wistfully after them, with her lips
apart, and her breast now and then trembling with the swell of her
half-subsided grief. The gentle May wind has taken out of its braid
July’s brown silky hair, and toys with it upon July’s neck with a
half-derisive sympathy, as a big brother plays with the transitory
sorrow of a child. But the faint colour has fled from July’s cheek,
except just on this one flushed spot where it has been resting on her
hand; and with a wistful longing, her young innocent eyes travel along
the vacant road. No one is there to catch this lingering look; and even
the far-off sound, which she bends forward to hear, has died away in the
distance. Another sob comes trembling up--another faint swell of her
breast, and quiver of her lip--and July turns sadly away into the
forsaken house, to which such a sudden air of emptiness and desolation
has come; and, sitting down on the carpet by the window, once more bends
down her face into her hands, and cries to her heart’s content.
There is no change in the parlour of Burnside--not a little table, not a
single chair, has been moved out of its place; yet it is strange to see
the forlorn deserted look which everything has already learned to wear.
Mrs Laurie’s chair gapes with its open empty arms--Menie’s stool turns
drearily towards the wall--and the centre table stands out chill and
prominent, cleared of all kindly litter, idle and presumptuous, the
principal object in the room, no longer submitting to be drawn about
here and there, to be covered or uncovered for anybody’s pleasure. And,
seated close into the window which commands the road, very silent and
upright, shawled and bonneted, sits Miss Janet Home, who, perchance,
since she neither rebukes nor comforts poor little weeping July, may
possibly be crying too.
And Jenny’s busy feet waken no home-like echoes now in the bright
kitchen, where no scrutiny, however keen, could find speck or spot to
discredit Jenny. Instead of the usual genius of the place, a “strange
woman” rests with some apparent fatigue upon the chair by the wall which
flanks Jenny’s oaken table, and, wiping her forehead as she takes off
her bonnet, eyes at a respectful distance the fire, which is just now
making a valorous attempt to keep up some heartiness and spirit in the
bereaved domain which misses Jenny. The strange bonnet, with its gay
ribbons, makes a dull reflection in the dark polish of the oak, but the
warm moist hand of its owner leaves such a mark as no one ever saw there
during the reign of Jenny; and Jenny would know all her forebodings of
destruction to the furniture in a fair way for accomplishment, could she
see how the new tenant’s maid, sent forward before her mistress to take
possession, spends her first hour in Burnside.
But Jenny, far off and unwitting, full of a child’s simplicity of wonder
and admiration--yet sometimes remembering, with her natural impatience,
that this delight and interest does not quite become her
dignity--travels away--to Dumfries--to Edinburgh--to the new world, of
which she knows as little as any child. And Menie Laurie, full of
vigorous youthful spirits, and natural excitement, forgets, in half an
hour, the heaviness of the leave-taking, and manages, with many a laugh
and wreathed smile, to veil much wonder and curiosity of her own, under
the unveilable exuberance of Jenny’s. Mrs Laurie herself, clouded and
careworn though she looks, and dreary as are her backward glances to
the familiar hills of her own country, clears into amusement by-and-by;
and the fresh Mayday has done its work upon them all, and brightened the
little party into universal smiles and cheerfulness, before the journey
draws towards its end, and weariness comes in to restore the quiet, if
not to restore the tears and sadness, with which they took their leave
of home.
“And this is the main street, I’ll warrant,” said Jenny, as Menie led
her on the following morning over the bright pavement of Princes Street;
“and I would just like to ken, Miss Menie, what a’ thae folk’s doing
out-by at this time o’ the day? Business? havers! I’m no that great a
bairn that I dinna ken the odds between a decent woman gaun an errand,
and idle folk wandering about the street. Eh! but they are even-down
temptations thae windows! The like of that now for a grand gown to gang
to parties! And I reckon ye’ll be seeing big folk yonder-away--and the
Englishers are awfu’ hands for grand claes. I dinna think ye’ve onything
now ye could see great company in, but that blue thing you got a
twelvemonth since, and twa-three bits o’ muslin. Eh! Miss Menie, bairn,
just you look at that!”
And Menie paused, well pleased to look, and admired, if not so loudly,
at least with admiration quite as genuine as Jenny’s own. But as they
passed on, Jenny’s captivated eyes found every shop more glorious than
the other, and Jenny’s eager hands had fished out of the narrow little
basket she carried, a long narrow purse of chamois leather, in which lay
safe a little bundle of one-pound notes, prisoned in the extreme corners
at either end. Jenny’s fingers grew nervous as they fumbled at the
strait enclosure wherein her humble treasure was almost too secure, and
Jenny was tremulously anxious to ascertain which of all these splendours
Menie liked best, a sublime purpose dawning upon her own mind the while.
And now it is extremely difficult to draw Jenny up the steep ascent of
the Calton Hill, and fix her wandering thoughts upon the scene below. It
is very fine, Jenny fancies; but after all, Jenny, who has been on terms
of daily intimacy with Criffel, sees nothing startling about Arthur’s
Seat--which is only, like its southland brother, “a muckle
hill”--whereas not even the High Street of Dumfries holds any faintest
shadowing of the glory of these Princes Street shops; and Jenny’s mind
is absorbed in elaborate calculations, and her lips move in the deep
abstraction of mental arithmetic, while still her fingers pinch the
straitened corners of the chamois-leather purse.
“I’ll can find the house grand mysel. I ken the street, and I ken the
stair, as weel as if I had lived in’t a’ my days,” says Jenny eagerly.
“Touts, bairn! canna ye let folk abee? I would like to hear wha would
fash their heads wi’ Jenny--and I saw a thing I liked grand in ane o’
thae muckle shops. Just you gang your ways hame to your mamma, Miss
Menie; there’s nae fears o’ me.”
“But, Jenny, I’ll go with you and help you to buy,” said Menie. “I would
like to see into that great shop myself.”
“Ye’ll see’t another time,” said Jenny, coaxingly. “Just you gang your
ain gate, like a guid bairn, and let Jenny gang hers ance in her life.
I’ll let you see what it is after I have bought it--but I’m gaun my lane
the now. Now, Miss Menie, I’m just as positive as you. My patience!--as
if folk couldna be trusted to ware their ain siller--and the mistress
waiting on you, and me kens the house better than you! Now you’ll just
be a guid bairn, and I’ll take my ain time, and be in in half an hour.”
Thus dismissed, Menie had no resource but to betake herself with some
laughing wonder to the lodging where Mrs Laurie rested after the journey
of yesterday; while Jenny, looking jealously behind her to make sure
that she was not observed, returned to a long and loving contemplation
of the brilliant silk gown which had caught her fancy first.
“I never bought her onything a’ her days, if it wasna ance that bit wee
coral necklace, that she wore when she was a little bairn--and she aye
has it in her drawer yet, for puir auld Jenny’s sake,” mused Jenny at
the shop window; “and I’m no like to need muckle siller mysel, unless
there’s some sair downcome at hand. I wouldna say but I’ll be feared at
the price, wi’ a’ this grand shop to keep up--but I think I never saw
onything sae bonnie, and I’ll just get up a stout heart, and gang in and
try.”
But many difficulties beset this daring enterprise of Jenny’s. First,
the impossibility of having brought to her the one magnificent gown of
gowns--then a fainting of horror at the price--then a sudden
bewilderment and wavering, consequent upon the sight of a hundred others
as glorious as the first. While Jenny mused and pondered with curved
brow and closed lips, two or three very fine gentlemen, looking on with
unrestrained amusement, awoke her out of her deliberations, and out of
her first awe of themselves, into a very distinct and emphatic fuff of
resentment, and Jenny’s decision was made at last somewhat abruptly, in
the midst of a smothered explosion of laughter, which sent her hasty
short steps pattering out of the shop, in intense wrath. But in spite of
Jenny’s expanded nostrils, and scarcely restrainable vituperation, Jenny
carried off triumphantly, in her arms, the gown of gowns; and Jenny’s
indignation did not lessen the swell of admiring pride with which she
contemplated, pressed to her bosom tenderly, the white paper parcel
wherein her gift lay hid.
“Ye’ll let me ken how you like this, Miss Menie,” said Jenny,
peremptorily, thrusting the parcel into Menie’s hand, at the door of her
mother’s room; “and see if some o’ your grand London mantua-makers canna
make such a gown out o’t as ye might wear ony place. Take it ben--I’m no
wanting ye to look at it here.”
“But what is it?” asked Menie, wonderingly.
“You have naething ado but open it and see,” was the answer; “and ye can
put it on on your birthday if you like--that’s the 10th o’ next
month--there’s plenty o’ time to get it made--and I’ll gang and ask thae
strange folk about the dinner mysel.”
But neither message nor voice could reach Jenny for a full hour
thereafter. Jenny was a little afraid of thanks, and could not be
discovered in parlour or kitchen, though the whole “flat” grew vocal
with her name. Penetrating at last into the depths of the dark closet
where Jenny slept, Menie found her seated on her trunk, with her fingers
in her ears; but this precaution had evidently been quite ineffectual so
far as Jenny’s sharp sense of hearing was concerned. Menie Laurie put
her own arms within the projected arm of the follower of the family, and
drew her away to her mother’s room. Like a culprit, faintly resisting,
Jenny went.
“I’m sure if I had kent ye would have been as pleased,” said Jenny, when
she had in some degree recovered herself, “ye might have gotten ane long
ago; but ye’ll mind Jenny when ye put it on, and I’m sure it’s my
heart’s wish baith it and you may be lang to the fore, when Jenny’s gane
and forgotten out o’ mind. ’Deed ay, it’s very bonnie. I kent I was a
gey guid judge mysel, and it was the first ane I lighted on, afore we
had been out o’ the house ten minutes--it’s been rinning in my head ever
since then.”
“But, Jenny, it must have been very expensive,” said Mrs Laurie,
quickly.
“I warrant it was nae cheaper than they could help,” said Jenny. “Eh!
mem, the manners o’ them--and a’ dressed out like gentlemen, too. I
thought the first ane that came to me was a placed minister, at the very
least; and to see the breeding o’ them, nae better than as mony hinds!
Na, I would like to see the cottar lad in a’ Kirklands that would have
daured to make his laugh o’ me!”
A few days’ delay in Edinburgh gave Mrs Laurie space and opportunity of
settling various little matters of business, which were necessary for
the comfort of their removal; and then the little family embarked in the
new steamer, which had but lately superseded the smack, with some such
feelings of forlornness and excitement as Australian emigrants might
have in these days. Jenny set herself down firmly in a corner of the
deck, with her back against the bulwark of the ship, and her eyes
tenaciously fixed upon a coil of rope near at hand. Jenny had a vague
idea that this might be something serviceable in case of shipwreck, and
with jealous care she watched it; a boat, too, swayed gently in its
place above her--there was a certain security in being near it; but
Jenny’s soul was troubled to see Menie wandering hither and thither upon
the sunny deck, and her mother quietly reading by the cabin door. Jenny
thought it something like a tempting of Providence to read a book
securely in this frail ark, which a sudden caprice of uncertain wind and
sea might throw in a moment into mortal peril.
But calm and fair as ever Mayday shone, this quiet morning brightened
into noon, and their vessel rustled bravely through the Firth, skirting
the southern shore. Past every lingering suburban roof--past the
sea-bathing houses, quiet on the sands--gliding by the foot of green
North-Berwick Law--passing like a shadow across the gloomy Bass, where
it broods upon the sea, like a cairn of memorial stones over its martyrs
dead--past the mouldering might of old Tantallon, sending a roll of
white foam up upon those little coves of Berwickshire, which here and
there open up a momentary glimpse of red-roofed fisher-houses, and
fisher cobbles resting on the beach under shelter of the high braes and
fretted rocks of the coast. Menie Laurie, leaning over the side, looks
almost wistfully sometimes at those rude little houses, lying serene
among the rocks like a sea-bird’s nest. Many a smuggler’s romance--many
a story of shipwreck and daring bravery, must dwell about this shore;
the young traveller only sees how the tiled roof glows against the rock
which lends its friendly support behind--how the stony path leads
downward to the boat--how the wife at the cottage door looks out,
shading her eyes with her hands, and the fisher bairns shout along the
sea margin, where only feet amphibious could find footing, and clap
their hands in honour of the new wonder, still unfamiliar to their
coast. Something chill comes over Menie as her eye lingers on these wild
rock-cradled hamlets, so far apart from all the world. Stronger waves of
the ocean are breaking here upon the beach, and scarcely a house among
them has not lost a father or son at sea; yet there steals a thrill of
envy upon the young voyager as one by one they disappear out of her
sight. So many homes, rude though their kind is, and wild their
place--but as for Menie Laurie, and Menie Laurie’s mother, they are
leaving home behind.
And now the wide sea sweeps into the sky before them--the northern line
of hills receding far away among the clouds, and fishing-boats and
passing vessels speck the great breadth of water faintly, with long
distances between, and an air of forlorn solitude upon the whole. And
the day wanes, and darkness steals apace over the sky and sea. Landward
born and landward bred, Jenny sets her back more firmly against the
bulwark, and will not be persuaded to descend, though the night air is
chill upon her face. Jenny feels some security in her own vigilant
unwavering watch upon those great folds of sea-water--those dark cliffs
of Northumberland--those fierce castles glooming here and there out from
the gathering night. If sudden squall or tempest should fall upon this
quiet sea, Jenny at least will have earliest note of it, and with an
intense concentration of watchfulness she maintains her outlook; while
Mrs Laurie and Menie, reluctantly leaving her, lie down, not without
some kindred misgivings, to their first night’s rest at sea.