Annie began to perceive that it was time for her to go, partly from the
fact that she was no longer wanted so much, and partly from finding in
herself certain conditions of feeling which she did not know what to do
with.
"Annie's coming back to you in a day or two, Mr Bruce," said Mrs
Forbes, having called to pay some of her interest, and wishing to
prepare the way for her return. "She has been with me a long time, but
you know she was ill, and I could not part with her besides."
"Weel, mem," answered Bruce, "we'll be verra happy to tak' her hame
again, as sune's ye hae had a' the use ye want o' her."
He had never assumed this tone before, either to Mrs Forbes or with
regard to Annie. But she took no notice of it.
Both Mr and Mrs Bruce received the girl so kindly that she did not know
what to make of it. Mr Bruce especially was all sugar and
butter--rancid butter of course. When she went up to her old
rat-haunted room, her astonishment was doubled. For the holes in floor
and roof had been mended; the sky-light was as clean as glass a hundred
years old could be; a square of carpet lay in the middle of the floor;
and cheque-curtains adorned the bed. She concluded that these luxuries
had been procured for Mr Cupples, but could not understand how they
came to be left for her.
Nor did the consideration shown her decrease after the first novelty of
her return had worn off; and altogether the main sources of her former
discomfort had ceased to flow. The baby had become a sweet-tempered
little girl; Johnnie was at school all day; and Robert was a
comparatively well-behaved, though still sulky youth. He gave himself
great airs to his former companions, but to Annie he was condescending.
He was a good student, and had the use of _the room_ for a study.
Robert Bruce the elder had disclosed his projects to his heir, and he
had naturally declined all effort for their realization. But he began
at length to observe that Annie had grown very pretty; and then he
thought it would be a nice thing to fall in love with her, since, from
his parents' wishes to that end, she must have some money. Annie,
however, did not suspect anything, till, one day, she overheard the
elder say to the younger,
"Ye dinna push, man. Gang benn to the chop and get a cnottie o' reid
candy-sugar, and gie her that the neist time ye see her her lane. The
likes o' her kens what that means. And gin she tak's 't frae ye, ye may
hae the run o' the drawer. It's worth while, ye ken. Them 'at winna saw
winna reap."
From that moment she was on her guard. Nor did she give the youth a
chance of putting his father's advice into operation.
Meantime Alec got better and better, went out with Mr Cupples in the
gig, ate like an ogre, drank like a hippopotamus, and was rapidly
recovering his former strength. As he grew better, his former grief did
draw nearer, but such was the freshness of his new life, that he seemed
to have died and risen again like Lazarus, leaving his sorrow behind
him in the grave, to be communed with only in those dim seasons when
ghosts walk.
One evening over their supper, he was opposing Mr Cupples's departure
for the twentieth time. At length the latter said:
"Alec, I'll bide wi' ye till the neist session upon ae condition."
"What is that, Mr Cupples?" said Mrs Forbes. "I shall be delighted to
know it."
"Ye see, mem, this young rascal here made a fule o' 'msel' last session
and didna pass; and--"
"Let bygones be bygones, if you please, Mr Cupples, said Mrs Forbes
pleasantly.
"'Deed no, mem. What's the use o' byganes but to learn frae them hoo to
meet the bycomes? Ye'll please to hear me oot; and gin Alec doesna like
to hear me, he maun jist sit _and_ hear me."
"Fire away, Mr Cupples," said Alec.
"I will.--For them that didna pass i' the en' o' the last session,
there's an examination i' the beginnin' o' the neist--gin they like to
stan' 't. Gin they dinna, they maun gang throu the same classes ower
again, and stan' the examination at the end--that is, gin they want a
degree; and that's a terrible loss o' time for the start. Noo, gin
Alec'll set to wark like a man, I'll help him a' that I can; and by the
gatherin' again, he'll be up wi' the lave o' the fleet. Faith! I'll sit
like Deith i' the spectre-bark, and blaw intil his sails a' that I can
blaw. Maybe ye dinna ken that verse i' _The Rhyme o' the Ancient
Mariner_? It was left oot o' the later editions:
'A gust of wind sterte up behind,
And whistled through his bones;
Through the holes of his eyes and the hole of his mouth,
Half-whistles and half-groans.'
There! that's spicy--for them 'at likes ghaistry."
That very day Alec resumed. Mr Cupples would not let him work a moment
after he began to show symptoms of fatigue. But the limit was moved
further and further every day, till at length he could work four hours.
His tutor would not hear of any further extension, and declared he
would pass triumphantly.
The rest of the summer-day they spent in wandering about, or lying in
the grass, for it was a hot and dry summer, so that the grass was a
very bed of health. Then came all the pleasures of the harvest. And
when the evenings grew cool, there were the books that Mr Cupples
foraged for in Glamerton, seeming to find them by the scent.
And Mr Cupples tried to lead Alec into philosophical ways of regarding
things; for he had just enough of religion to get some good of
philosophy--which itself is the religion of skeletons.
"Ye see," he would say, "it's pairt o' the machine. What a body has to
do is to learn what pinion or steam-box, or piston, or muckle
water-wheel he represents, and stick to that, defyin' the deevil, whase
wark is to put the machine out o' gear. And sae he maun grin' awa', and
whan Deith comes, he'll say, as Andrew Wylie did--'Weel run, little
wheelie!' and tak' him awa' wi' him some gait or ither, whaur, maybe,
he may mak' choice o' his ain machine for the neist trial."
"That's some cauld doctrine, Mr Cupples," Alec would say.
"Weel," he would return with a smile, "gang to yer frien' Thamas Crann,
and he'll gie ye something a hantle better. That's ane o' the maist
extrornar men I ever made acquantance wi'. He'll gie ye divine
philosophy--a dooms sicht better nor mine. But, eh! he's saft for a'
that."
Annie would have got more good from these readings than either of them.
Mr Cupples was puzzled to account for her absence, but came to see into
the mother's defensive strategy, who had not yet learned to leave such
things to themselves; though she might have known by this time that the
bubbles of scheming mothers, positive or negative, however well-blown,
are in danger of collapsing into a drop of burning poison. He missed
Annie very much, and went often to see her, taking her what books he
could. With one or other of these she would wander along the banks of
the clear brown Glamour, now watching it as it subdued its rocks or lay
asleep in its shadowy pools, now reading a page or two, or now seating
herself on the grass, and letting the dove of peace fold its wings upon
her bosom. Even her new love did not more than occasionally ruffle the
flow of her inward river. She had long cherished a deeper love, which
kept it very calm. Her stillness was always wandering into prayer; but
never did she offer a petition that associated Alec's fate with her
own; though sometimes she would find herself holding up her heart like
an empty cup which knew that it was empty. She missed Tibbie Dyster
dreadfully.
One day, thinking she heard Mr Cupples come upstairs, she ran down with
a smile on her face, which fell off it like a withered leaf when she
saw no one there but Robert the student. He, taking the smile for
himself, rose and approached her with an ugly response on his heavy
countenance. She turned and flew up again to her room; whither to her
horror he followed her, demanding a kiss. An ordinary Scotch maiden of
Annie's rank would have answered such a request from a man she did not
like with a box on the ear, tolerably delivered; but Annie was too
proud even to struggle, and submitted like a marble statue, except that
she could not help wiping her lips after the salute. The youth walked
away more discomfited than if she had made angry protestations, and a
successful resistance.
Annie sat down and cried. Her former condition in the house was
enviable to this.--That same evening, without saying a word to any one,
for there was a curious admixture of outward lawlessness with the
perfect inward obedience of the girl, she set out for Clippenstrae, on
the opposite bank of the Wan Water. It was a gorgeous evening. The sun
was going down in purple and crimson, divided by such bars of gold as
never grew in the mines of Ophir. A faint rosy mist hung its veil over
the hills about the sunset; and a torrent of red light streamed down
the westward road by which she went. The air was soft, and the light
sobered with a sense of the coming twilight. It was such an evening as
we have, done into English, in the ninth Evening Voluntary of
Wordsworth. And Annie felt it such. Thank God, is does not need a
poetic education to feel such things. It needs a poetic education to
_say_ such things so, that another, not seeing, yet shall see; but that
such a child as Annie should not be able to feel them, would be the one
argument to destroy our belief in the genuineness of the poet's vision.
For if so, can the vision have come from Nature's self? Has it not
rather been evoked by the magic rod of the poet's will from his own
chambers of imagery?