Kitabı oku: «Merkland: or, Self Sacrifice», sayfa 29
There was a pause. Mrs. Catherine’s manner softened. Anne took advantage of it to repeat to her Christian Lillie’s story. The stern, stately old lady was moved to very tears.
“And so at last justice is done,” she said. “Anne, it is meet that this worn woman, after her travail, should have light in her evening-time. If she will come with you, bid her come to my house. The like of her would do honor to any dwelling, were it a king’s. And she left him at his grave’s brink, whenever he was at rest, to render what was just to the banished man? She did well. It behoves that all who known this history should render reverence. I say she did well.”
There was again a momentary pause.
“And where is he?” asked Mrs. Catherine. “Where, and in what condition is Norman Rutherford?”
“I have never asked yet,” said Anne. “I was anxious to soothe her; she has been so worn out with watching and grief. I will ask her now, when all excitement is over, and she has only to bear her gentle sorrow for Patrick’s death.”
“Ay – ay,” said Mrs. Catherine, slowly; “ay – and yet you do not know, Gowan, the terrible, dreary calm that is left by that shadow of death. I speak of the death that carries home a godly, honorable, righteous man, whose life was a joy and a blessing. – This is a grief sorer than mine. I bow my head to this tribulation. I cannot fathom all the depths of its bitterness; it is greater than mine.”
And with her large gray eyelid swelling full, Mrs. Catherine Douglas bowed her stately head. Yes! the solitary, desolate, dumb might of anguish with which her strong spirit quivered, when she left all that remained of Sholto Douglas sleeping peacefully in his calm island grave, overwhelming as it was, became a gentle sorrow in presence of the life of wakeful agony which Christian Lillie had borne silently within the desolate walls of Schole.
Mrs. Catherine began to speak of the possibility of remaining for the night. It was a very strange idea for her, who had not slept under a strange roof for more than thirty years. Since Patrick’s death, Anne had passed both night and day at Schole, and the pretty little clean bed-room behind was unoccupied. Miss Crankie herself was called in to be consulted on the subject.
Miss Crankie had scarcely entered the room, when there was a rush in the passage. The door flew violently open, and Mrs. Yammer, her head bound up with mighty rolls of flannel, and a newspaper trembling in her eager hand, stood before them.
“Eh, Johann! – Eh, Miss Ross!” she could articulate no more.
“What in the world has come ower the woman now?” exclaimed Miss Crankie, peevishly. “If ye will be a puling, no-weel fuil, ye may keep your ailments to yoursel at least. For guid sake, Tammie, haud your tongue; dinna deave the ladies.”
“Eh, Miss Ross! – Eh, Johann!” exclaimed the aroused and excited Mrs. Yammer, “if it wasna for the stitch in my side, I wad read it to ye mysel. Look at this.”
Anne took the paper wonderingly. She glanced down a long paragraph, headed “Romance in real life,” with hurried half attention, and little interest. Her eyes were arrested by the concluding words: they seemed to shine out from a mist. Unconsciously, in her sudden excitement, she read them aloud: “This most honorable vindication of Norman Rutherford, of Redheugh – ”
“Gowan,” exclaimed Mrs. Catherine, hastily, taking the paper from her powerless hand, “what is that you say?”
“Ye see,” said Mrs. Yammer, following up briskly her unwonted independent movement, “we get it atween us. Mr. Currie, the saddler, and Mrs. Clippie, the captain’s widow, and Robert Carritch, the session-clerk, and Johann and me; and I was just sitting ower the fire, trying if the heat would do ony guid to my puir head, when I saw that about young Redheugh – and I’ll be out o’ my wits the morn wi the draft frae that open door.”
“Gae way to your fireside again, and haud your tongue,” said Miss Crankie, bundling her sister unceremoniously out of the door before her. “Wits! – woman, if ye had as muckle judgment as wad lie on a sixpence, ye wad see that the ladies have mair concern in that than either you or me.”
Anne had been looking at them vacantly with a vague, unconscious smile upon her lip. Now, when the door was shut, she suddenly knelt down at Mrs. Catherine’s knees, scarce knowing what she did, and leaning there, burst into tears. She was conscious of Mrs. Catherine’s hand laid caressingly upon her hair; she was conscious of an indistinct mist of joy and thankfulness. It overpowered and weakened her; she could not stay these tears.
In the meantime, Mrs. Catherine read:
“We have just had communicated to us the particulars of a very moving story, another of the many examples that truth is strange, stranger than fiction. We believe that many of our readers, who are acquainted with the neighborhood of our city, may have remarked a desolate house, standing in the midst of a very rich country, within sight of the Firth, and presenting a very singular contrast, in its utter neglect and ruin, to the prosperous and flourishing appearance of everything about it. The story current in the neighborhood is, that its last proprietor perished miserably in the sea, while flying from the doom of a murderer, with the blood of a friend shed deliberately and in cowardice on his hand. Other more ghostly rumors of sights seen and sounds heard in its immediate neighborhood are of course current also. – The account we have now to give of this dark transaction reveals something almost as strange as the re-appearance on this earthly scene of spirits long ago departed. It seems the very triumph and perfection of generous self-sacrifice and ‘godlike amity,’ and as such we are happy to have an opportunity of presenting it to our readers.
“A few days since, the Lord Advocate received from a lady a full exculpation of Mr. Rutherford, of Redheugh, in the shape of a confession made by the real criminal upon his death-bed. We do wrong in applying the name of criminal to this unhappy man. – According to his death-bed declaration, made in the presence of witnesses, and to which full credence may be given, the death of the late Arthur Aytoun, Esq., of Aytoun, so long regarded as a murder, falls under the lighter title of an accident. A dreamy student had been spending an hour of a brilliant summer morning shooting upon the sands, and on his return home fired an inadvertent shot, while resting in a wood, when, instead of the bird which he fancied he aimed at, the unhappy young man heard a cry of mortal agony, and beheld the death of a fellow-man. Distracted and maddened, he rushed home; made some wild confession to his sister of the fact alone, without telling her that it was accidental, and immediately fell into the wild delirium of fever. Mr. Rutherford, of Redheugh, was the most intimate friend of the family, and betrothed to the younger sister. The fowling-piece, which had fallen from the young man’s hand when he discovered the fatal effects of the shot, belonged to Mr. Rutherford. Mr. Aytoun and Mr. Rutherford had parted the night before in anger: every circumstance directed suspicion to the Laird of Redheugh. In her first terror, the sister of the unhappy shedder of blood, naturally sought counsel from the friend who was so shortly to enter into the most intimate relation with the family; and Mr. Rutherford, with a generosity never in our knowledge paralleled, resolved at once to divert attention from his helpless friend by his own flight. The younger sister accompanied him, after a secret marriage. By universal consent he was pronounced guilty: the fact of his flight settled that beyond dispute in the judgment of the world.
“The vessel he sailed in was lost; himself in it, as has to this hour been universally believed. But the strange eventful history of this unfortunate gentleman has not had so abrupt a termination. He still lives, and will long live, we trust, to expend in a larger circle the rare generosity of which he has given so remarkable a proof.
“The unhappy man, by whose inadvertent hand Mr. Aytoun fell, and for whom Mr. Rutherford has suffered, is lately dead. – Without a moment’s delay, after his death, his sister immediately brought his confession to the proper quarter, so that now there remains nothing but to give to the world this most honorable vindication of Norman Rutherford, of Redheugh. In the consciousness of an act of singular goodness, bravely done, and in the universal applause of all good men, our heroic countryman, on his return to his own land, will, we doubt not, find himself abundantly rewarded.”
And thus it was made known to the world – the work of the two sisters was accomplished. Free from all stain and disgrace, radiant in the honor and blessing of generous work and life, the sentence of justice, and the universal voice of good men, should welcome to his long-lost home and country Norman Rutherford, of Redheugh.
CHAPTER XXIX
THE next day, after a long interview with Christian Lillie, and granting the further delay of a week to Anne for Christian’s sake, Mrs. Catherine returned to Edinburgh. At the week’s end, when she had rendered what service and assistance she could to Christian, Anne was to join Mrs. Catherine, and they were to proceed home.
But the invitation of Mrs. Catherine, and Anne’s entreaty that she should accompany them, was steadily and quietly negatived by Christian. The day before Anne left Schole, they sat together in the study – Anne was renewing her solicitations.
“No,” said Christian, calmly, “no, I cannot leave his grave. I cannot give up my watch of Patrick. You do not know – I pray God you never may – when folk have watched and waited for a lifelong like me, how hard it is to break the old wont, even though it be one of the sorest pain that ever oppressed mortal spirit. I am calm now – you know how calm I am – but I must tarry by his grave.”
“And will you stay here,” said Anne, “here in this desolate house?”
“At this time I must – my desire is to return to our old home, before Marion comes back to me – I forget she has been a mother long, and a grave tried woman. I only mind her as my bird Marion, my little sister; I would like to have her chamber for her, as it was before this cloud fell. You shall go with me to-morrow, and we will see what they say – the people who are in the house.”
“And where are they?” said Anne, “will you not tell me, Christian, where they are?”
Christian’s countenance changed: “They will be home in due time. Your brother Norman will reveal himself to you himself, and you will not ask me further. It is a weakness – a remembrance of my old bondage – but you will wait, Anne, my sister. – Let him carry you his own secret himself.”
Anne was silent. It was a singular hesitation this, but she could not press her question further. “And will you not come to Merkland – to see us – to see Lilie?”
“I will come when Marion comes,” said Christian. “Let me stay until then. By the time this year is ended, as I calculate, they will be home, and till that time I will rest.”
Anne rose, a stranger was at the gate: through the window she descried the good-humored round face of Mrs. Brock, her earliest acquaintance in Aberford. “Here is your tenant, Christian,” she said: “shall I see her? it may fatigue you.”
“No,” said Christian, “let her be brought in, Anne; it will save us our walk to-morrow.”
Anne went out, and met the Grieve’s wife, who was greatly astonished to see her. “Eh, preserve me! is this you, Miss Ross? and ye never came back to tak a cup o’ tea; and I’ve been looking for ye ilka fine day; and sae muckle as wee Geordie had to tell his father about the leddy yon night; and ye’ll hae been biding close a’ this time at Aberford?”
“No,” said Anne, “I have been in the North since I saw you.”
“And sae ye ken Miss Lillie? She’ll be sair put out o’ the way, it’s like, about her brother. Losh! do ye ken Miss Ross, our George says there’s something in the papers about it being Maister Lillie that killed the man, and no young Redheugh. Is there onythiug in’t, think ye? ane couldna ask Miss Lillie.”
“By no means,” said Anne, “she is in great grief for her brother, and you must not allude to it.”
“It’ll be true then? Eh! to think of a delicate looking man like thon doing the like o’ that.”
“It was an accident,” said Anne, quickly; “he was a gentleman, who would not have harmed any living thing. Do you wish to see Miss Lillie?”
“Ou, ay, it was just about the house, ye ken. George thought we micht maybe come to a settlement about the house. Ye see there’s a new yin building at the back end o’ the toun, nigher the water – a guid twa story house, and we’ve a big family, and George would like to be off or on at yince.”
Anne ushered the visitor into the study. Mrs. Brock, honest woman, expended upon Christian some piece of common-place consolation, which made the pale lip quiver. Then she entered upon her business.
“Ye see, we’ve reason to be thankfu’, we’ve won on no that ill in the world; and George says its a daftlike thing to us to be paying rent for a house, and us has lying siller that could buy mair than yin. Sae if ye’re agreeable, he’ll make ye his auld offer ower again – twa hunder pounds, and us to get it as it stands, all and haill.”
“I am sorry, Mrs. Brock,” said Christian, “when you like it so well, that I cannot part with it; but I must keep the house in my own possession.”
“Weel,” said Mrs. Brock, “of course it’s your ain to do what ye like wi’t – and ye see there’s John Tamson, he began to build a twa story house, down by the back end o’ the toun – and he’s broke. Its nae wonder – his wife wearing silk gowns, and gowd earrings ilka day, less wadna ser her, and her was only a ewemilker fræ the Lammermuir! Sae George thinks we micht maybe buy John Tamson’s house – its stickit in the building e’enow, but we could sune hae it begun again; and maybe since ye’ll no sell yours, ye wad hae nae objection to quit us at Martinmas.”
“I shall be very glad,” said Christian. “I expect friends home who have been long absent, and this house is not pleasant to me. I will be glad to release you when you choose.”
Mrs. Brock was satisfied; and after various other attempts at conversation, in which Anne bore the brunt as well as she could, and did all in her power to prevent their visitor from recurring to the death of Patrick, Mrs. Brock at last intimated, “that she bid to be thinking o’ gaun hame – though it was an awfu’ hot stourie day, and she was bye ordinary tired.”
Roused by this hint, Anne hastened to bring a glass of wine, and at last their visitor departed.
“So there will be time to restore all,” said Christian, as Mrs. Brock left the house. “It is well, I will have a pleasure in it. It is the first time I have said that word since yon June day! Do I look like a woman dead? Is there something in my voice, and face, that speaks of death?”
“Christian,” said Anne in alarm, “why do you ask that?”
“Because I feel it, Anne – a dead unnatural calm, like the stillness of the Firth before yon storm – not peace but death; I feel it in myself. When I go about, I think I can hear no sound of my footsteps; when I breathe, I think the air seems to cleave before me; when I speak, the voice has a dull, cold modulation, that is not human. I can think of them all – of Patrick in his agony – of myself so short a time ago, as feverish shadows – I feel this calm oppress and envelop me like a shroud – I feel like one dead.”
“This should not be, Christian,” said Anne, “it is but the reaction of stillness after all your labor and watching. How much have you to live for!”
“I have no further work,” said Christian Lillie, in her old composure of melancholy, “no further watching – no one now to care and labor for. You do not know my life; when I was a girl, in the days when others are gay and light of heart, beloved, and served, and cared for, I was fighting with a household shame and sin – a miserable, sensual, earthly sin, in the one man to whom I should have looked up for support and guidance: striving to hide it – to keep it from the knowledge of the bairns – the two that were depending more upon me, their sister, than upon him their father; striving, too, with weary cares of poverty, to keep them from want – real want and not mere meagreness. From that a death relieved me – and then, with only eighteen years over my head, I was left the mother of these two; to protect, and defend, and bring them up, the only near kindred they had in the world. Since then my hands have been full – there has been no lack of vigils or labors in this past life of mine. Now it is over; I have carried Patrick safely to his grave, and seen him laid down there in sorrow and in hope; and now Marion will come again to a bright household in joy and honor. Do you marvel that I think my work over? – the need of me in this world past.”
“I do not marvel,” said Anne, “but I wish that it should be otherwise, Christian. I would not have your sky overcast with this dull calm; I would have it free to receive God’s sunshine; the light he sends upon it, in the evening time.”
“God forbid,” said Christian Lillie rising, and pressing her hands painfully to her breast, “God forbid that I should hide my head, from His mercy of joy; God forbid that I should shut my eyes to His sunshine, or sin His mercies; only I am blinded with this cold calm, and my heart is dead within me. When I am in my own house, bring the child to me – Marion’s bairn, that he called by our unhappy name; and come yourself, my sister Anne, that I may begin to live again. Till then, in my own fashion let me rest.”
And so they arranged. At the term of Martinmas, or sooner, if John Tamson’s house, the newly-acquired property of George Brock, should be sooner completed – whenever Christian had regained possession of the old home cottage, Anne was to visit her with Lilie. At present, all was done for her that affectionate care could do, and on the next day Anne left Aberford.
When in the evening she entered Mrs. Catherine’s Edinburgh drawing-room, in its stately pride of olden furniture, gracefully not stiffly antique, she found James Aytoun and his mother waiting to meet her. Mrs. Aytoun gave her a tremulous welcome, which was half an embrace, and would have been wholly one, had Mrs. Aytoun been at all a demonstrative person. James shook hands with her with respectful kindness and friendship. The good opinion of such a mother and son was worth having. Anne felt enlivened and exhilarated.
“Alice has gone out,” said Mrs. Aytoun: “she will be with us very soon again. They were to watch for your coming, but I fear these young people become engrossed in their own matters sometimes.”
“They?” said Anne.
“Ay, she has a gallant with her you have seen before,” said Mrs. Catherine, “be patient – you will find out who he is before long.”
“Is it Lewis? – is Lewis here?” asked Anne.
“Mrs. Catherine wishes to take Alice from us again,” said Mrs. Aytoun. “I am afraid, Miss Ross, I can hardly thank you for the barrier you have removed. Alice is so young – little more than a child yet.”
James Aytoun took up a book, and went away smilingly to a window. He saw that a consultation matrimonial and maternal was impending.
“I do think she is too young. I do not approve of too early marriages,” said Mrs. Aytoun, shaking her head. “Why, many girls are but leaving school at Alice’s age – she is not quite eighteen yet.”
“She is in no peril,” said Mrs. Catherine. “It’s my hope, kinswoman, that you do not think you are sending her into a savage country, where there will be but barbarous people to show kindness to the bairn. There is no fear of her – I warrant her in as careful hands, when she is in Lewis’s, as she could be under the shadow of my very sel; I would not just have advised you to wed her – a bairn as she undoubtedly is – to the like of Archie Sutherland; but she is in no peril with Lewis.”
The slightest possible additional color wavered over Anne’s face. She did by no means perceive any connexion, logical or otherwise, between the marriage of little Alice Aytoun and Archie Sutherland.
“I am not afraid for her,” said Mrs. Aytoun: “it is not peril that I mean; but so young a girl entering upon the care of a house – the management of a family – besides the pain of losing her. If it had not been for your mother’s presence, and your own, Miss Ross, I should never have consented – at her age.”
Mrs. Aytoun expressed something of what she felt, but not all. She did not like the idea of Alice entering another family, not as its mistress, but as a younger daughter. She felt sure of Anne; but Alice was by no means so exuberant in her praise of Mrs. Ross.
“I do not know what arrangement my mother may make,” said Anne, “but, of course, whether we remain in Merkland or not, it must make a very great, and a very pleasant change to us.”
Mrs. Aytoun smiled a dubious smile – she was not reconciled to it. In any way, parting with the girl-daughter was a great venture, but to send her into the rule of a husband’s mother, while even the husband himself was comparatively unknown! Mrs. Aytoun was jealous and afraid for her little clinging Alice, whose life hitherto had been so carefully guarded.
“And so you are demurring to the lad’s petition?” said Mrs. Catherine. “Well, I do not marvel; but a month or two can make little odds, and you bid to have parted with her soon or syne.”
“Certainly, that is a consolation,” said Mrs. Aytoun, with her faint smile. “It is selfish of me, I am afraid, to be so loath to think of parting with Alice; and part I must one time or other, that is true, but still – a little longer, I think, she may be left to me. Your brother has been pressing an early time upon us, Miss Ross. I do not object that he should wish it – but you must do us the kindness to help me in deferring this a little.”
“I believe,” said Anne, “that my brother Norman may be home – that we may expect him at the end of the year. I should like exceedingly that he could be present – that it were deferred until that time.”
Mrs. Aytoun pressed her hand gratefully – Alice, radiant with smiles and blushes, looked in at the door. “Oh! Anne is here – she has come,” she exclaimed as she ran to Anne’s side – Lewis was behind her.
“So my mother has been bringing you over to our side,” said James Aytoun, when the evening was considerably advanced, as he took a seat near Anne. “Mrs. Catherine is wavering. I fear to find her throw her mighty forces into alliance with the active, serviceable, energetic troops whom Lewis himself brings into the field. We are by no means pleased to have our little Alice carried off from us so rapidly. I begin to fear Mrs. Catherine is anything but a safe guardian for young ladies; I certainly shall not advise any client of mine to send favorite daughters or sisters to the Tower, if he wants to keep them out of harm’s way.”
“What is that you say?” said Mrs. Catherine, “do you make light of my good name, James Aytoun? and do you, Anne, sit still and hear? you are an irreverent generation! Never you heed, Alison. It is because you are overlooking the rule of Laban, the son of Bethuel, and cheating him of his elder right.”
“If you will come to Merkland, James,” said Lewis, “I will say a good word for you to Marjory Falconer. By the bye, I forgot my great news – have you heard about Marjory, Anne?”
“What about her?”
“In the first place, she has made a silent recantation – if one may guess from appearances. A hint of Walter Foreman’s the other day, about the rights of women, instead of setting her off at a tangent, as such a thing used to do, threw her into an agony of blushing, and made her dumb. That is great enough for one report; but I have another. Marjory Falconer – listen to me all who know Strathoran – Marjory Falconer is about to be married!”
“To be married!” echoed little Alice, with a look of laughing wonder and dismay. These two, Lewis and his betrothed, had not got the slightest glimpse of Marjory Falconer yet, well though they fancied they knew her; Anne looked slightly puzzled, and a little anxious: Mrs. Catherine smiled.
“Who is it? who is it?” cried little Alice.
“Anne can guess,” said Lewis: “I see his name upon her lips. It seems my news is no such wonder, after all.”
“Who is she going to marry, Lewis?” asked Anne, hastily, “it is rather a wish than a guess with me. Marjory does not give confidences of that kind – is it Mr. Lumsden?”
“May all your wishes, sister Anne,” said Lewis, with mock gravity, “be as fully realized. It is the mighty minister of Portoran. Ralph, they say, rebelled, and had a swearing fit when he heard of it, which Marjory promptly checked, however, and sent him down stairs to the congenial society of his horses and grooms. It will be a serious matter for Ralph though, for Marjory, with all her whims, kept things going at Falcon’s Craig.”
“I am very glad to hear it,” said Anne. “It is one of the few marriages that have no drawback; one can feel that Marjory, with her strength and good sense, is safe now, in a pure healthful atmosphere, where she will grow and flourish. I am very glad.”
Lewis and Alice exchanged glances and laughed.
“Lewis,” said Mrs. Catherine, “hold your peace. It becomes the like of you – gallants that have a while to grow before they reach their full stature – to take heed that you meddle only with things within your power of vision. Ay! you are lowering your bit forehead on me, Alison Aytoun; but truly, after all, there are wiser men in this world, to my own certain knowledge, than this gallant that calls himself of Merkland.”
“But Miss Falconer figures very largely in Alice’s reminiscences,” said James, smiling. “To whom shall I apply for an account of her? to you, Mrs. Catherine, or to Lewis.”
“I bid you come yourself and see, James Aytoun,” said Mrs. Catherine. “As for Lewis, he does not know, and therefore it is not likely he can tell; but truly, I think you would be better employed telling my Anne, whom you have set yourself beside, the issue of the plea, that Robert Ferguson and you have been working at so long.”
James obeyed: with signal disgrace and utter discomfiture, Lord Gillravidge’s defence had been overpowered. The road through the Strathoran grounds, by the omnipotent voice of the Court of Session, was proclaimed free as the sunshine to all and sundry, its natural proprietors and heirs. Henceforward the pulling down of barricades was a legal and proper enforcement of the law, and the erection of the same entirely useless, for any other purpose than that of keeping the well-disposed lads of Strathoran in glee and mischief. Mrs. Catherine was victorious, and triumphed moderately in her victory.
“If it were not that I hope in my lifetime to see Archie Sutherland back to his own lands, I would hazard a trial with that English alien, of his title to take their old inheritance from the clansmen whose right it is. You shake your head, James Aytoun – I will uphold it in the face of a whole synod as learned in the law as yourself, that the clansman has the same natural right of possession as his chief; that it comes to him by the same inheritance; that in no way is the laird more certain in his tenure than the humble man, except in so far as he is chief of both land and men, natural protector, ruler and guardian of the same. You forget the ancient right and justice in this drifting unsettled generation. If it were not that you pleaders of the law, have a necessity of spinning out the line of a plea, past the extremity of mortal life, and I hope to see Archie home within the course of mine, I would see that this was tried without delay, let the whole parliament-house of you shake the heads of your wisdom if ye likit.”
“I am afraid,” said James, “we might get the theoretic justice of it approved – but as for any practical result to follow – ”
“You do not know,” interrupted Mrs. Catherine: “so far as I have seen in my life, a thing does not commonly succeed till it’s tried; ay, tried with labor, and zeal, and longwaiting; and it’s a poor work that is not worth that. I know not but what for the sake of the coming race, there is a clear call to try it. If the first bit petty tyrant that took their right inheritance from clansmen, whose fathers won it by the strong hand, had been resisted in his ill doing, this pang English lordling would not have dared to turn the Macalpines out of Oranmore.”
“But we dont all hold our lands by the strong hand,” said Lewis Ross.
“Lewis, you are a loon; how often have I told you to hold your peace; and what better tenure could the man have for his lands, I would crave to know, than just the tenure of the strong hand? Your fathers knew better, and what they won by their sword and by their bow, was well won I say! won by clansmen and chief together, and by clansmen and chief, in their degree, to be lawfully and justly held – in peace, if the Almighty ordained it so, and if not, in honorable holding of the land they had won, against all aliens and incomers; whether they came by open war, or with courtesies of craft and falsehood, as men do in this time!”
In a few days after, Mrs. Catherine and her train, including Alice Aytoun and her maid Bessie, left Edinburgh for the Tower. In consideration of the six months’ delay to which Lewis had reluctantly submitted, Mrs. Aytoun as reluctantly consented that her little daughter should pay a brief visit to Mrs. Catherine – a visit which was by no means to exceed the limits of a month.
Jacky and Bessie, under the safe-conduct of Johnnie Halflin, were to travel by the coach. When the youthful trio reached the starting-place in high glee, an early coach had just arrived from one of the many village-towns in the vicinity of Edinburgh. Jacky’s quick eye discerned, among the little knot of bystanders, a tall lad of some nineteen or twenty years, engaged in superintending the collection of boxes belonging to an elderly woman, who stood with a slightly fluttered, agitated look upon the pavement below. The large Paisley shawl, the mighty leghorn bonnet – Jacky threw over them a glance of hasty recognition. Their owner turned her head. The thin, long upper lip was not quivering now – a glance of troubled joy was in the eye – Jacky hastily ran to speak to her. It was Jean Miller. Bessie drew near also. In Johnnie Halflin’s presence, Bessie would have had no objection to a slight flirtation with the young doctor, Jean Miller’s genteel nephew. The tall, slight lad drew himself up, however, with the slightest possible recognition. He had a soul above flirtation with maid-servants.
