Girlhood and Womanhood Page 5

  ADAM HOME'S REPENTANCE.

  I.--WILD, WITTY NELLY CARNEGIE.

  "A bonny bride's sune buskit; eh, Nanny Swinton?"

  "But ye're no bonny, Miss Nelly; na, na, ye cannot fill the shoon o' yerleddy mother; ye're snod, and ye may shak yer tails at the Assembly, butye're far ahint Lady Carnegie."

  "An' I've but to dance my set with young Berwickshire Home, I care notthough I bide at home after all."

  But Nelly Carnegie would have little liked that resource, though she nowflung the powder out of her nut-brown hair, and tapped her little mirrorwith her fan.

  In a low dark closet, up a steep stair, in a narrow, confined,dark-browed house in the Canongate of Edinburgh, one of the belles of17--made her toilette. Her chamber woman, in curch and tartan screen,was old nurse and sole domestic of the high-headed, strong-minded,stately widow of a wild north-country laird, whose son now ruled alonein the rugged family mansion among the grand, misty mountains ofLochaber. Nelly Carnegie was no beauty; not fair as a red-and-whiterose, like Lady Eglinton, or any one of her six daughters; not dainty,like poor imprisoned Lady Lovat; she was more like desperate LadyPrimrose, flying shrieking from her mad husband's sword and pistols, orfierce Lady Grange, swearing her bootless revenge on the wily,treacherous, scared Lord of Session. She was but wild, witty NellyCarnegie, whom no precise, stern mother could tame, no hard life at herembroidery or her spinet could subdue. She was brown as a gipsy, skin,eyes, and hair--the last a rich, ruddy chestnut brown--with nothing todistinguish her figure but its diminutiveness and the nimbleness of theshapely hands and feet; while her mother's lace lappets were higher byhalf a foot than the crown of many a manikin on whom she looked down,and her back that never bent or leant for a second on rail or cushion,was straight as an arrow, as well as long. But Nelly, in her absurd,magnificent brocade, and her hoop, that made her small figure like alittle russet cask, and with busk and breast-knot and top-knot, wasadmired, as odd people will choose what is irregular, strange, and racy,in preference to what is harmonious, orderly, and insipid.

  Nelly had a cavalier to walk by her sedan, as her mother and shetraversed the rough streets. He handed her out at the old Assembly door,but she flung away his hand, and followed her mother alone within thedignified precincts, leaving a gloom and a storm on a lowering brow,unshaded by the cocked hat, then carried under the wearer's arm.

  The old Assembly Rooms where potent Jacky Murray presided, where urbaneDuncan Forbes won all hearts, where a gentle laird wooed in sweetnumbers--and in vain--the Annie Laurie of that well-known old song, arenow almost forgotten. Other things have passed away in company with thewigs and ruffles, the patches and snuff. The grace may remain, and therefinement be thorough where then it was superficial, but thecourtliness of conscious superiority, the picturesque contrarieties andbroken natural land that lay below the heaths and craters, exist but asthe black gloom and red glare of the past.

  There the grave responsible Lord of Session, sober in mien as Scotchmenare wont to be, sat at midnight and roared over his claret in the madorgies of the Hell-fire Club; here the pawky, penetrating lawyer, shrewdboth from calling and character, played the reckless game of acorrespondence with the stage Court of St. Germains; yonder mettlebeauty sailed along on her high-heeled shoes to finish the night'striumph at an oyster supper in a den behind the Luckenbooths. And thereagain walked an imperial dowager, who still span her own linen andstruck her serving-man with her ivory cane. Truly the old EdinburghAssembly Rooms had their secrets, and contained exciting enough elementsunder their formal French polish.

  The regular balls at the Assembly Rooms were eras in Nelly Carnegie'slife, and yet she met always the same company. She knew every face andname, and what was worse, danced nightly with the same partner. Theselect society was constituted at the commencement of the season, andwhen once the individual fan was drawn from the cocked-hat of fate,there was no respite, no room for change. Young Home of Staneholme hadknowledge of the filigree circle through which Nelly was wont to inserther restless fingers, and Lady Carnegie furthered his advances; so thatalthough Nelly hated him as she did the gloomy Nor' Loch, she receivedhis escort to and from the Assembly Rooms, and walked with him hersingle minuet, as inevitably as she lilted Allan Ramsay's songs, orscalded her mouth with her morning's porridge.

  Nelly's suitor was not ill to look upon, so far as flesh and blood went.He was a well-made, robust fellow, whose laced coat and deep vest showedthe comely, vigorous proportions of youth. The face was manly, too, inspite of its beardless one-and-twenty, but the broad eyebrows sank,either in study or sullenness, and the jaw was hard and fixed.

  Yet to see how Nelly strained her bonds, how she gecked and flouted andlooked above him, and curtsied past him, and dropped his hand as if itwere live coals, while the heavy brow grew darker, until it showed likea thunderstorm over the burning red of the passion-flushed cheek.

  "Tak tent, Nelly," whispered a sedate companion, sensible, cautious, andcanny, whose flaxen hair over its roll had the dead greyness of age,though the face below was round and dimpled; "young Staneholme drew hissword last night on the President's son because he speered if he hadskill to tame a goshawk."

  "Tak tent, yerself, Janet Erskine," Nelly responded wrathfully; "thinktwice ere you wed auld Auchtershiel."

  Janet shrank, and her bright blue eye blinked uneasily, but noadditional colour came into her cheek, nor did her voice shake, thoughit fell. "It must be, Nelly; I daurna deny my father, and mony mairdrink forby Auchtershiel; and if he cursed his last wife out and in, anddrove her son across the sea, they were thrawn and cankered, and he wastheir richtfu' head. I'll speak him fair, and his green haughs are abraw jointure. But, Nelly, do ye believe that the auld Laird--the auldane before Auchtershiel himself, he that shot the Covenanter as he hungby the saugh over the Spinkie-water, and blasphemed when heprayed--walks at night on the burn bank?"

  "I dinna ken; if I did not fear a livin' sorrow, I would daur a deadane," Nelly protested, with a shade of scorn in her levity; "and ye canbide in the house on the soft summer nights. The Lady of Auchtershielneed not daunder by the burn side; she can be countin' her house pursein the still room; but if I were her, I would rather beg my bread."

  "Whisht, for shame, Nelly Carnegie," was returned with a shrillness inthe measured tones; "you would not; and ye'll learn yer own task, andsay Yes to sour, dour Staneholme."

  "I never will; I'll let myself be starved to death, I'll throttle myselfwith my own hands first," cried Nelly Carnegie, fire flashing in herlarge eyes and on her dark cheeks; and looking up in her defiance shemet the glow for glow of Staneholme's star. Time-serving Janet Erskinemoved off in unconcealed trepidation, and Nelly stood her ground alone,stamping her foot upon the boards, and struggling in vain against thecruel influence which she could not control, and to which she would notbend.

  "He need not gloom and look at me; hearkeners never hear good ofthemselves," Nelly thought, with passionate vehemence; but her sparklingeyes fell slowly, and her proud panting heart quailed with a long throb.

  II.--A GALLANT REBUFFED.--NELLY'S PUNISHMENT.

  The next time Nelly saw Adam Home was by the landing in the Canongate,in whose shelter lay the draw-well wherein the proud, gently-bornlaird's daughter every afternoon dipped the Dutch porcelain jug whichcarried the fresh spring-water wherewith to infuse her mother'scherished, tiny cup of tea. Young Home was passing, and he steppedaside, and offered to take the little vessel from her hand, and stoopand fill it. He did this with a silent salutation and glance that,retaining its wonted downward aim, yet suddenly lightened as if it lovedto rest upon the little girlish figure, in its homely tucked-up gown,the crimson hood drawn over the chestnut hair that turned back in acrisp wave from the bold, frank, innocent face. But she waved him off,and balancing her foot upon the edge-stone, saw herself reflected in thesteel-like water. Then he begged with rare softness in a voice that wasrough and gruff, unless it deepened with strong feeling--

  "Will you suffer me, Nelly Carnegie
? I would give my hand to pluck but aflower to serve you."

  Had he tried that tone at first, before she was more than chilled by hissombre and imperious gravity, before her mother supported himunrelentingly and galled and exasperated her by persecution, he mighthave attracted, fascinated, conquered. As it was, she jeered at him.

  "Serve me! he could do me no better service than 'mount and go.' A posy!it would be the stinging-nettle and dank dock if he gathered it."

  The revenge he took was rude enough, but it was not unheard of in thosedays. He caught her by the wrist, and under the shadow of the abuttinggable he kissed the knitted brow and curling lips, holding her the whilewith a grasp so tight that it gave her pain. When she wrung herself fromhim, she shook her little hand with a rage that quivered through everynerve, and had more of hate than of romping folly or momentary pique inits passion.

  "Nelly Carnegie," said her mother, as she carefully pulled out the edgeof a coil of yellow point-lace, which rested on her inlaid foreignwork-table, and contrasted with her black mode cloak and white skinnyfingers, and looking with her keen, cold, grey eyes on the rebelliousdaughter standing before her, went on, "I have word that Staneholme goessouth in ten days."

  Nelly could have said, "And welcome," but she knew the consequences, andforbore.

  "He's willin' to take you with him, Nelly, and he shows his good bloodwhen he holds that a Carnegie needs no tocher."

  Still Nelly did not answer, though she started so violently that herloosely-crossed hands fell apart; and Nanny Swinton, who was about herhousewifery in the cupboard off the lady's parlour, heard every word,and trembled at the pause.

  "Your providing is not to buy," continued the mistress of thearistocratic family, whose attendance was so scanty and their wants soill supplied that even in necessaries they were sometimes pinched;"we've but to bid the minister and them that are allied to us in thetown, and Nanny will scour the posset dish, and bring out the big Indianbowl, and heap fresh rose-leaves in the sweet-pots. You'll wear mymother's white brocade that she first donned when she became a Leslie,sib to Rothes--no a bit housewife of a south-country laird. She was anoble woman, and you're but a heather lintie of a lass to come of a goodkind. So God bless you, bairn; ye'll tak the blast of wind andgang."

  As if the benediction had loosened the arrested tongue, Nelly burstout--"Oh, mother, mother! no."

  Lady Carnegie, in her own person, had looked upon death with unblenchingfront, and had disowned her only son because, in what appeared to othersa trifle, he had opposed her law. Nor did a muscle of her marked facenow relax; her occupation went on without a check; she did not deign toshow surprise or displeasure, although her voice rose in harsh, ironicalemphasis--

  "Nelly Carnegie, what's your will?"

  "Not that man, mother; not that fearsome man!" pleaded Nelly, withstreaming eyes and beseeching tones, her high spirit for the momentbroken; her contempt gone, only her aversion and terror urging ahearing--"The lad that's blate and dull till he's braggit by hisfellows, and then starker than ony carle, wild like a north-countrycateran; even the haill bench o' judges would not stand to conter him."

  "He'll need his stiff temper; I couldna thole a man but had a mind ofhis own, my dear," ejaculated Lady Carnegie in unexpected, clear, cherryaccents, as if her daughter's extremity was diversion to her.

  "Oh, spare me, spare me, mother," Nelly began again.

  "Hooly and fairly, Nelly Carnegie," interrupted the mother, stilllightly and mockingly, "who are you that ye should pick and choose? Whatbetter man will speer your price? or think ye that I've groats laid byto buy a puggy or a puss baudrons for my maiden lady?"

  "I'll work my fingers to the bone, mother; my brother Hugh will not seeme want."

  "Eat bite or sup of his victuals, or mint a Carnegie's working to meagain, Nelly, and never see my face more."

  The lady had lapsed into wrath, that burned a white heat on her wrinkledbrow, and was doubly formidable because expressed by no hasty word orgesture.

  "Leave my presence, and learn your duty, belyve, for before the turn ofthe moon Staneholme's wife ye sall be."

  Do not think that Nelly Carnegie was beaten, because she uttered nofurther remonstrance. She did not sob, and beg and pray beyond a fewminutes, but she opposed to the tyrannical mandate that disposed of herso summarily the dead weight of passive resistance. She would give notoken of submission; would make no preparation; she would neither stirhand nor foot in the matter. A hundred years ago, however, the head of afamily was paramount, and household discipline was wielded withoutmercy. Lady Carnegie acted like a sovereign: she wasted no time onarguments, threats or entreaties. She locked her wilful charge into adark sleeping-closet, and fed her on bread and water until she shouldconsent to her fate. Sometimes Nelly shook the door until its hingescracked, and sometimes she flung back the prisoner's fare doled out toher; and then her mother came with a firm, slow, step, and in her hard,haughty manner commanded her to cease, or she would tie her hand andfoot, and pour meat and drink down her throat in spite of her. ThenNelly would lie down on the rough boards, and stretch out her hands asif to push the world from her and die in her despair. But the young lifewas fresh and strong within her. She panted for one breath of the breezethat blew round craggy Arthur's Seat, and one drink of St. Anthony'sWell, and one look, if it were the last, of the golden sunshine, nobeams of which could penetrate her high, little window. She would fainhave gone again up the busy street, and watched the crowds ofpassengers, and listened to the bustling traffic, and greeted herfriends and acquaintances. Silence and solitude, and the close air thatoppressed her, were things very foreign to her nature. In the darknight, when her distempered imagination conjured up horrible dreams,Nanny Swinton stole to her door, and bemoaned her bird, her lamb,whispering hoarsely, "Do her biddin', Miss Nelly; she's yer leddymother; neither man nor God will acquit you; your burden may be lichterthan ye trow." And Nelly was weary, and had sinful, mad thoughts ofliving to punish her enemies more by the fulfilment of their desire thanby the terrors of her early death. So the next time her mother tapped onthe pannel with her undaunted, unwearied "Ay or no, Nelly Carnegie? Ginthe bridal be not this week, I'll bid him tarry another; and gin heweary and ride awa', I'll keep ye steekit here till I'm carried out acorp before ye, and I'll leave ye my curse to be coal and candle, andsops and wine, for the lave o' yer ill days."

  Nelly gasped out a husky, wailing "Ay," and her probation was at an end.

  III.--A MOURNFUL MARRIAGE EVE.

  There was brief space now for Nelly's buying pearlins and pinners, andsacques and mantles, and all a young matron's bravery, or for decoratinga guest chamber for the ceremony. But Lady Carnegie was not to be balkedfor trifles. Nanny Swinton stitched night and day, with salt tears fromaged eyes moistening her thread; and Nelly did not swerve from hercompact, but acted mechanically with the others as she was told. With astrange pallor on the olive of her cheek, and swollen, burning lids,drooping over sunk violent lines beneath the hot eyeballs, and cold,trembling hands, she bore Staneholme's stated presence in these long,bleak March afternoons. He never addressed her particularly, although hetook many a long, sore look. Few and formal then were the lover'sdevoirs expected or permitted.

  The evening was raw and rainy; elderly gentlemen would have needed"their lass with a lantern," to escort them from their chambers. Theold city guard sputtered their Gaelic, and stamped up and down forwarmth. The chairmen drank their last fee to keep out the cold--andin and out of the low doorways moved middle-aged women barefooted,and in curch and short gown, who, when snooded maidens, had gazed onthe white cockade, and the march of Prince Charlie Stuart and hisHighlandmen. Down the narrow way, in the drizzly dusk, ran a slightfigure, entirely muffled up. Fleet of foot was the runner, and blindlyshe held her course. Twice she came in contact with interveningobstacles--water-stoups on a threshold, gay ribbons fluttering from abooth. She was flying from worse than death, with dim projects ofbegging her way to the North, to the brother she had parted from whe
n achild; and ghastly suggestions, too, like lightning flashes, of seizinga knife from the first butcher's block and ending her misery.

  Hasty steps were treading fast upon her track. She distinguished themwith morbid acuteness through the speed of her own flight. They weremingled steps--a feeble hurrying footfall, and an iron tread. Shethreaded a group of bystanders, and, weak and helpless as she was,prepared to dive into a mirk close. Not that black opening, NellyCarnegie, it is doomed to bear for generations a foul stain--the sceneof a mystery no Scottish law-court could clear--the Begbie murder. Butit was no seafaring man, with Cain's red right hand, that rushed aftertrembling, fainting Nelly Carnegie. The tender arms in which she hadlain as an infant clutched her dress; and a kindly tongue faltered itsfaithful, distressed petition--

  "Come back, come back, Miss Nelly, afore the Leddy finds out; ye hae naerefuge, an' ye're traced already by mair than me."

  But in a moment strong hands were upon her, holding her like afluttering moth, or a wild panting leveret, or a bird beating its wings;doing her no violence, however, for who would brush off the down, ortear the soft fur, or break the ruffled feathers? She struggled sofrantically that poor old Nanny interposed--

  "Na, sir; let her be; she'll gae hame wi' me, her ain bornserving-woman. And oh, Staneholme, be not hard, it's her last nicht."

  That was Nelly Carnegie's marriage eve.

  On the morrow the marriage was celebrated. The bridegroom might pass, inhis manly prime and his scarlet coat, although a dowf gallant; but whowould have thought that Nelly Carnegie in the white brocade which washer grandmother's the day that made her sib to Rothes--Nelly Carnegiewho flouted at love and lovers, and sported a free, light, brave heart,would have made so dowie a bride? The company consisted only of LadyCarnegie's starched cousins, with their husbands and their daughters,who yet hoped to outrival Nelly with her gloomy Lauderdale laird.

  The hurried ceremony excused the customary festivities. The family partycould keep counsel, and preserve a discreet blindness when the ringdropped from the bride's fingers, and the wine stood untasted beforeher, while Lady Carnegie did the honours as if lonely age and narrowcircumstances did not exist.

  IV.--NELLY CARNEGIE IN HER NEW HOME.

  The March sun shone clear and cold on grey Staneholme, standing on theverge of a wide moor, with the troubled German Ocean for a background,and the piping east wind rattling each casement. There was haste andhurry in Staneholme, from the Laird's mother down through her buxommerry daughters to the bareheaded servant-lasses, and the substitutesfor groom and lacquey, in coarse homespun, and honest, broad bluebonnets. There was bustle in the little dining-room with its highwindows, which the sea-foam sometimes dimmed, and its spindle-leggedchairs and smoked pictures. There was blithe work in the cheerful hall,in whose broad chimney great seacoal fires blazed--at whose hummingwheels the young Mays of Staneholme, as well as its dependants, stilltook their morning turn. There was willing toil in the sleeping-rooms,with their black cabinets and heavy worsted curtains. And there was athronged _melee_ in the court formed by the outhouses, over whose wallsthe small-leaved ivy of the coast clustered untreasured. Staneholme'sfavourite horse was rubbing down; and Staneholme's dogs were airing incouples. Even the tenantry of the never-failing pigeon-house at thecorner of the old garden were in turmoil, for half-a-score of theirnumber had been transferred to the kitchen this morning to fill thegoodly pasties which were to anticipate the blackberry tarts and sweetpuddings, freezing in rich cream. But the sun had sunk behind the moorwhere the broom was only budding, and the last sea-mew had flown to itsscaur, and the smouldering whins had leaped up into the first yellowflame of the bonfires, and the more shifting, fantastic, brilliantbanners of the aurora borealis shot across the frosty sky, before thefirst faint shout announced that Staneholme and his lady had come home.With his wife behind him on his bay, with pistols at his saddle-bow, and"Jock" on "the long-tailed yad" at his back, with tenant retainers andveteran domestics pressing round--and ringing shouts and homely huzzasand good wishes filling the air, already heavy with the smoke of goodcheer--Staneholme rode in. He lifted down an unresisting burden, took inhis a damp, passive hand, and throwing over his shoulder brief, brokenthanks, hurried up the flight of stairs, through the rambling, crookedpassages into the hall.

  Staneholme was always a man of few words. He was taken up, as was right,with the little lady, whose habit trailed behind her, and who neverraised her modest eyes. "Well-a-day! the Laird's bargain was of sma'buik," thought the retainers, but "Hurrah" for the fat brose and lumpsof corned beef, and the ale and the whisky, with which they are now tobe regaled!

  In the hall stood Joan and Madge and Mysie, panting to see their grandEdinburgh sister. They were only hindered from running down into theyard by the deposed mistress of Staneholme, whose hair was as white assnow, and who wore no mode mantle nor furbelows nor laces, like proudLady Carnegie. She was dressed in a warm plaiden gown and a close mobcap, with huge keys and huswife balancing each other at eitherpocket-hole, and her cracked voice was very sweet as she reiterated"Bide till he bring her here, my bairns," and her kindly smile wasmotherly to the whole world. But think you poor vanquished NellyCarnegie's crushed heart leapt up to meet these Homes--that her eyesglanced cordially at Joan, and Madge, and Mysie--that her cheek wasbent gratefully to receive old Lady Staneholme's caress? No, no; Nellywas too wretched to cry, but she stood there like a marble statue, andwith no more feeling, or show of feeling. Was this colourless,motionless young girl, in her dusty, disarranged habit, and the featherof her hat ruffled by the wind, the gay Edinburgh beauty who had wonStaneholme! What glamour of perverse fashion had she cast into his eyes!

  "Wae's me, will dule never end in this weary warld? Adam lad, Adam, whatdoom have you dragged doon on yoursel'?" cried Lady Staneholme; andwhile the thoughtless, self-absorbed girls drew back in disappointment,she met her son's proud eyes, and stepping past him, let her hand presslightly for a second on his shoulder as she took in hers Nelly'slifeless fingers. She said simply to the bride, "You are cold and weary,my dear, and supper is served, and we'll no bide making compliments, butyou're welcome hame to your ain gudeman's house and folk; and so I'lllead you to your chamber in Staneholme, and then to the table-head, yourfuture place." And on the way she explained first with noble humilitythat she did not wait for a rejoinder, because she had been deaf eversince Staneholme rode post haste from Edinburgh from the last sitting ofthe Parliament; and that since she was growing old, although it waspleasant to her to serve the bairns, yet she would be glad to relinquishher cares, and retire to the chimney-corner to her wheel and her book;and she blessed the Lord that she had lived to see the young mistress ofStaneholme who would guide the household when she was at her rest.Nelly heard not, did not care to recognise that the Lady of Staneholme,in her looks, words, and actions, was beautiful with the rare beauty ofa meek, quiet, loving spirit which in those troublous days had buddedand bloomed and been mellowed by time and trial. Nor did Nelly pause toconsider that had she chosen, she whose own mother's heart had nevermelted towards her, might have been nestled in that bosom as in an arkof peace.

  When Lady Staneholme conducted Nelly down the wide staircase into thechill dining-room, and to the chair opposite the claret-jug of themaster of the house, Nelly drew back with sullen determination.

  "Na, but, my bairn, I'm blithe for you to fill my place; Staneholme'smither may well make room for Staneholme's wife," urged the lady,gently.

  But Nelly remained childishly rooted in her refusal to preside at hisboard, unless compelled; and her brow, knit at the remembrance of herfall, was set to meet the further encounter. Joan and Madge and Mysie,with their blooming cheeks, and their kissing-strings new for theoccasion, stared as if their strange sister was but half endowed withmother wit; and Lady Staneholme hesitated until Adam Home uttered hisshort, emphatic "As she pleases, mother," while the flush flew to hisforehead, and his firm lip shook.

  Staneholme had resolved never to control the wife he had force
d into hisarms, beyond the cold, daily intercourse which men will interchange witha deadly foe, as well as with a trusty frere; never to approach herside, nor attempt to assuage her malice nor court her frozen lips intoa smile. This was his purpose, and he abode by it. He farmed his land,he hunted, and speared salmon, was rocked in his fishing-boat as far asSt. Abbs, read political pamphlets, and sat late over his wine, andsometimes abetted the bold smuggling, much like his contemporaries. Butno pursuit which he followed with fitful excess seemed to satisfy him asit did others, and he never sought to supplement it by courting hisalien wife.

  Lady Staneholme would fain have made her town-bred daughter-in-lawenamoured with the duties of a country life, and cheered the strangejoylessness of her honeymoon. Failing in this attempt, she, with acovert sigh, half-pain, half-pleasure, resumed the old oversight oflarder and dairy. Such care was then the delight of many anunsophisticated laird's helpmate; and, to the contented Lady ofStaneholme, it had quite made up for the partial deprivation of socialintercourse to which her infirmity had subjected her. Joan, Madge, andMysie, wearied of haughty Nelly after they had grown accustomed to thegrand attire she wore, denied that they had ever been dazzled with it,and ceased to believe that she had danced minuets in the Assembly Roomsbefore Miss Jacky Murray. They had their own company and their ownstories, into which they had no temptation to drag an interloper.

  Nelly, in her desolation standing apart in the centre of the wholesome,happy family circle, grew to have her peculiar habits and occupations,her self-contained life into which none of the others could penetrate.

  V.--NELLY'S NEW PASTIMES.

  The sea-pink and the rock saxifrage were making the rugged rocks gay,the bluebell was nodding on the moor, and Nelly had not died, as shefoolishly fancied she should. She had learned to wander out along theshore or over the trackless moor for hours and hours, and often returnedfootsore and exhausted. She who had been accustomed only to theCanongate and High Street of Edinburgh, the tall houses with theiroccasional armorial bearings, the convenient huckster shops--theirirregular line intersected by the strait closes, the traffic and gossip;or to the forsaken royal palace, and the cowslips of the King'sPark--could now watch the red sunset burnishing miles on miles of wavingheather, and the full moon hanging above the restless tide. She couldlisten to the surf in the storm, and the ripple in the calm, to the cryof the gull and the wh-r-r of the moorcock; pull wild thyme, and pick uprose-tinted shells and perforated stones; and watch shyly her hardycottar servants cutting peats and tying up flax, and even caughtsnatches of their rude Border lore of raid and foray under doughtyHomes, who wore steel cap and breastplate.

  The coast-line at Staneholme was high and bold, but in place ofdescending sheerly and precipitately to the yellow sands, it sloped in agreen bank, broken by gullies, where the long sea-grass grew in tangledtufts, interspersed with the yellow leaves of the fern, and in whosesheltered recesses Nelly Carnegie so often lingered, that she left themto future generations as "Lady Staneholme's Walks."

  There she could see the London smacks and foreign luggers beating up toride at the pier of Leith. There she could sit for hours, half-hidden,and protected from the sea blast, mechanically pulling to pieces thedried, blackened seaweed blown up among the small, prickly blush roses.In her green quilted petticoat and spencer she might have been one ofthe "good people's changelings," only the hue of her cheek was more likethat of a brownie of the wold; and, truly, to her remote world there wasan impenetrable mystery about the young mistress of Staneholme, in herestrangement and mournfulness. Some said that she had favoured anotherlover, whom Staneholme had slain in a duel or a night-brawl; some thatthe old Staneholmes had sold themselves to the Devil, and a curse was ontheir remotest descendants; for was not the young laird _fey_ at times,and would not the blithe sisters pass into care-worn wives and matrons?

  There sat Nelly, looking at the sea, musing dreamily and drearily on OldEdinburgh, or pondering with sluggish curiosity over the Homes, andwhat, from casual looks and words, she could not help gathering of theirhistory. The Lairds of Staneholme had wild moss-trooper blood in theirveins, and they had vindicated it to the last generation by unsettledlives, reckless intermeddling with public affairs, and inveterate feudswith their brother lairds.

  Adam Home's was a hot heart, constant in its impetuosity, buried beneathan icy crust which he strove to preserve, but which hissed and crackledwhen outward motives failed, or when opposition fanned the inner glow.With the elements of a despot but half tamed, and like many anothertyrant, unchallenged master of his surroundings, Staneholme wielded hisauthority with fair result. Tenant and servant, hanger-on and sprig ofthe central tree, bore regard as well as fear for the young laird--allsave Staneholme's whilom love and wedded wife.

  Nelly did not wish to understand this repressed, ardent nature, althoughits developments sometimes forced themselves upon her. She had heardStaneholme hound on a refractory tyke till he shouted himself hoarse,and yet turn aside before the badger was unearthed; she had seen himclimb the scaurs, and hang dizzily in mid-air over the black water, tosecure the wildfowl he had shot, and it was but carrion; and once, Joanand Madge, to whom he was wont to be indulgent in a condescending,superior way, trembled before the stamp of his foot and the kindlingflash of his eye. Some affair abroad had disturbed him and he came intothe hall, when his sisters' voices were raised giddily as they playedoff an idle, ill-thought-of jest on grave, cold Nelly. "Queans andfools," he termed them, and bade them "end their steer" so harshly, thatthe free, thoughtful girls did not think of pouting or crying, butshrank back in affright. Nelly Carnegie, whom he had humbled to thedust, was below his anger.

  When the grey mansion of Staneholme basked in the autumn sun, anauspicious event gladdened its chambers. Joan was matched with a gay,gallant young cousin from Teviotdale, and from the commencement of theshort wooing to the indefatigable dance which the young bride herselfled off right willingly, all was celebrated with smiles and blessings,and harvest-home fulness of joy and gratitude. But a dark shadow movedamong the merrymakers. A young heart robbed of its rights, like anupbraiding ghost, regarded the simple, loving, trusting pair, andcompared their consecrated vows with the mockery of a rite into which ithad been driven.

  The only change time brought to Nelly, was the progress of anunacknowledged bond between her and good old Lady Staneholme. Theobstacle to any interchange of ideas and positive confidence betweenthem, was the inducement to the tacit companionship adopted by the sick,wayward heart, with its malady of wrong and grief. Influenced by aninstinctive, inexplicable attraction, Nelly's uncertain footstepsfollowed Lady Staneholme, and kept pace with her soft tread, when sheoverlooked her spinners and knitters, gave out her linen and spices,turned over her herbs, and visited her sick and aged. There they wereseen--the smiling, deaf old lady, fair in her wrinkles, and her mute,dark, sad daughter whom in patient ignorance she folded in her mantle ofuniversal charity.

  VI.--THE LAIRD CONSCIENCE-SMITTEN.

  Under a pale February sun Nelly was out on the sea-braes, where thesprays of the briar-roses were swept in circles, streaming far and wide.She lingered in the hollow, and strayed to the utmost limit of her path.As she was returning, her eye fell on the folds of an object flutteringamong the tedded grass. It was Staneholme's plaid. This was the firsttime he had intruded upon her solitary refuge. When Nelly climbed theascent, and saw the mansion house, with its encumbered court, she coulddistinguish the sharp sound of a horse's hoof. Its rider was already outof sight on the bridle-road. Michael Armstrong, the laird's man, wasmounting his own nag; Wat Pringle, the grieve, and other farm folk,stood looking after the vanished traveller; Liddel, the Tweedsideretriever, paced discontentedly up and down; and old Lady Staneholme mether on the threshold, and as on the night of her arrival at Staneholme,led her up the staircase and into her sleeping-chamber. Nelly marked,with dim dread, the tear-stains on the pallid cheeks of placid age, andthe trembling of the feeble hand that guided her. She had nothing tofear; but what was the new
s for which there was such solemn preparation?

  "My puir bairn," Lady Staneholme began brokenly, "I've had an interviewwith my son, and I've learnt, late, some passages in the past; and Iwonder not, but I maun lament, for I am a widow mother, Nelly, and myonly son Adam who did you wrong and showed you no pity, has got hisorders to serve with the soldiers in the Low Countries. He has notstayed to think; he has left without one farewell: he is off and away,to wash out the sins of him and his in his young blood. I will never seehis face more: but you are a free woman; and, as the last duty he willreceive at your hand, he bids you read his words."

  Nelly's hand closed tightly over its enclosure. "Who says I told he didme wrang?" she said, proudly, her dilated eyes lifted up to thedeprecating ones that did not avoid her gaze.

  "Na, na, ye never stoopit to blame him. Weary fa' him! NellyCarnegie," ejaculated honest Lady Staneholme, "although he is my ainthat made you his, sair, sair against your woman's will, and so bingedup blacker guilt at his doorstane, as if the lightest heritage o' sinwerena' hard to step ower. But, God forgive me! It's old Staneholmerisen up to enter afresh upon his straits, and may He send him pardonand peace in His ain time."

  "Nelly" (Staneholme's letter said),--"for _my_ Nelly you'll never be,though the law has given me body and estate,--what garred me love youlike life or death? I've seen bonnier, and you're no so good as mymother, or you would have forgiven me long syne. Why did you laugh, andmock, and scorn me, when I first made up to you among your fineEdinburgh folks? Had you turned your shoulder upon me with stillsteadfastness, I might have been driven to the wall--I would havebelieved you. When you said that you would lie in the grave sooner thanin my arms, you roused the evil temper within me; and though I hadmounted the Grassmarket, I swore I would make you my wife. What call ortitle had you, a young lass, to thwart your lady mother and the Laird ofStaneholme? And when I had gone thus far--oh! Nelly, pity me--there wasno room to repent or turn back. I dared not leave you to dree alane yourmother's wrath: there was less risk in your wild heart beating itself todeath against the other, that would have gladly shed its last drop forits captive's sake. But Heaven punished me. I found, Nelly, that thehand that had dealt the blow could not heal it. How could I approach youwith soft words, that had good right to shed tears of blood for mydeeds? So, as I cannot put my hand on my breast and die like my father,I'll quit my moors and haughs and my country; I'll cross the sea andbear the musquetoon, and never return--in part to atone to you, for yousall have the choice to rule with my mother in the routh and goodwill ofStaneholme, or to take the fee for the dowager lands of Eweford, anddwell in state in the centre of the stone and lime, and reek, and lordsand ladies of Edinburgh; in part because I can hold out no longer, norbide another day in Tantalus, which is the book name for an ill place offruitless longing and blighted hope. I'll no be near you in your danger,because when other wives cry for the strong, grieved faces of theirgudemen, you will ban the day your een first fell upon me. NellyCarnegie, why did my love bring no return; no ae sweet kiss; never yet akind blink of your brown een, that ance looked at me in gay defiance,and now heavily and darkly, till they close on this world?"

  Something more Staneholme raved of this undeserved, unwon love, whosepossession had become an exaggerated good which he had continued tocrave without word or sign, with a boy's frenzy and a man's stanchness.Nelly lost her power of will: she sat with the paper in her hand as ifshe had ceased to comprehend its contents--as if its release frombondage came too late.

  "Dinna ye ken, Nelly woman, his presence will vex you no longer? you'reat liberty to go your own gate, and be as you have been--that was hispropine," whispered Lady Staneholme, in sorrowful perplexity, butwithout rousing Nelly from her stupor. They lifted her on her bed, andwatched her until her trial took hold of her. No stand did Nelly makeagainst pain and anguish. She was sinking fast into that dreamless sleepwhere the weary are at rest, when Lady Staneholme stood by her bed andlaid an heir by her side, bidding her rejoice, in tones that fell offinto a faint quivering sob of tenderness and woe; but Nelly's crushed,stunned heart had still some hidden spring among its withered verdure,and her Benoni called her back from the land of forgetfulness.

  VII.--BLESSING AND AFFLICTION--ADAM HOME'S RETURN.

  Nelly recovered, at first slowly but cheeringly, latterly with a doubtand apprehension creeping over her brightening prospect--until, all toocertainly and hopelessly, her noon, that had been disturbed withthunder-claps and dashing rain, was shrouded in grey twilight.

  Nelly would live, but her limbs would never more obey her active spirit,for she had been attacked by a relentless malady. The little feet thathad slid in courtly measure, and twinkled in blithe strathspeys, andwandered restlessly over moor and brae, were stretched out in leadenhelplessness. When she was young, she "had girded herself and gonewhither she would;" but now, ere she was old, while there was not onesilver thread in those chestnut locks, "another would gird her and carryher whither she would not." And oh! to think how the young mother'sheart, ready to bud and bloom anew, was doomed to drag out a protractedexistence, linked to the corpse-like frame of threescore and ten, untilthe angel of death freed it from its tabernacle of clay.

  Nelly never spoke of her affliction--never parted from her baby.Travelling with difficulty, she removed to Edinburgh, to the aspiringtenement in the busy Canongate, which she had quitted in herdistraction. Lady Carnegie, in her rustling silk and with her clickingivory shuttle, received her into her little household, but did not careto conceal that she did so on account of the aliment Staneholme hadsecured to his forsaken wife and heir. She did not endure the occasionalsight of her daughter's infirmities without beshrewing them, as areflection on her own dignity. She even sneered and scoffed at them,until Nanny Swinton began to fear that the judgment of God might strikeher lady--a venerable grandame still without one weakness of bodilydecay or human affection.

  And did Nelly fret and moan over the invalid condition for which therewas neither palliation nor remedy? Nay, a blessing upon her at last; shebegan to witness a good testimony to the original mettle and bravery ofher nature. She accepted the tangible evil direct from God's hand,sighingly, submissively, and with a noble meekness of resignation. Sherose above her hapless lot--the old Nelly Carnegie, though subdued andchastened, was in a degree restored.

  "Nanny! Nanny Swinton!" called Nelly from her couch, as she managed tohold up, almost exultingly, the big crowing baby, in its quaintest ofmantles and caps, "Staneholme's son's a braw bairn, well worthy LadyCarnegie's coral and bells."

  "'Deed is he," Nanny assented. "He'll grow up a stately man like hisgrandsire;" and recurring naturally to forbidden memories, she went on:"He'll be the marrow of Master Hugh. Ye dinna mind Master Hugh, LadyStaneholme?--the picture o' auld Lady Carnegie. That I sud call herauld!"

  Nelly's brow contracted with something of its old indignation. "There'snever a look of the Carnegies in my son; he has his father's brow andlip and hair, and you're but a gowk, Nanny Swinton!" and Nelly lay backand closed her eyes, and after a season opened them again, to tell NannySwinton that "she had been dreaming of a strange foreign city, full ofpictures and carved woodwork, and of a high-road traversing a richplain, shaded by apple and chestnut trees, and of something winding andglittering through the branches," leaving Nanny, who could not stand thesight of two magpies, or of a cuckoo, of a morning before she had brokenher fast, sorely troubled to account for the vision.

  The gloaming of a night in June was on the Canongate and the silentpalace of the gallant, gentle King James. Lady Carnegie was gracing somerout or drum; Nanny Swinton was in her kitchen, burnishing hersuperannuated treasures, and crooning to herself as she worked; Nelly,in her solitary, shadowy room, lay plaiting and pinching the cambric andmuslin gear whose manufacture was her daily occupation, with her child'sclumsy cradle drawn within reach of her hand. Through the dim light, shedistinguished a man's figure at the door. Nelly knew full well thoselineaments, with their mingled fire and gloom. They did not exasperate
her as they had once done; they appalled her with great shuddering; andsinking back, Nelly gasped--

  "Are you dead and gone, Staneholme? Do you walk to seek my love that yeprigget for, but which canna gladden you now? Gae back to the bottom ofthe sea, or the bloody battle-field, and in the Lord's name rest there."

  The figure stepped nearer; and Nelly, even in her blinding terror,distinguished that it was no shadowy apparition, but mortal likeherself. The curdling blood rushed back to Nelly's face, flooding thecolourless cheek, and firing her with a new impulse. She snatched herchild from its slumber, and clasped it to her breast with her thintransparent hands.

  "Have you come back to claim your son, Adam Home? But you'll have totear him from me with your man's strength, for he's mine as well asyours; and he's my last, my only jewel."

  And Nelly sat bolt upright, her rosy burden contrasting with her young,faded face, and her large eyes beginning to flame like those of a wildbeast about to be robbed of its young.

  "Oh no, Nelly, no," groaned Staneholme, covering his face; "I heard ofyour distress, and I came but to speer of your welfare." And he made amotion to withdraw.

  But Nelly's heart smote her for the wrong her rash words had done him--awayworn, conscience-smitten man--and she recalled him relentingly.

  "Ye may have meant well. I bear you no ill-will; I am stricken myself.Take a look at your laddie, Adam Home, before ye gang."

  He advanced when she bade him, and received the child from her arms; butwith such pause and hesitation that it might have seemed he thought moreof his hands again meeting poor Nelly Carnegie's, and of her breathfanning his cheek, than of the precious load she magnanimously intrustedto him. He did look at the infant in his awkward grasp, but it was witha stifled sigh of disappointment.

  "He may be a braw bairn, Nelly--I know not--but he has no look ofyours."

  "Na, he's a Home every inch of him, my bonny boy!" Nelly assented,eagerly. After a moment she turned her head, and added peevishly, "I'm asick woman, and ye needna mind what I say; I'm no fit for company. Goodday; but mind, I've forgotten and forgiven, and wish my bairn's fatherwell."

  "Nanny Swinton," called Nelly to her faithful nurse, as she lay awake onher bed, deep in the sober dimness of the summer night, "think you thatStaneholme will be booted and spurred with the sun, riding through theLoudons to Lauderdale?"

  "It's like, Lady Staneholme," answered Nanny, drowsily. "The keep o' manand beast is heavy in the town, and he'll be tain to look on his ainhouse, and greet the folk at home after these mony months beyond theseas. Preserve him and ilka kindly Scot from fell Popish notions rifeyonder!"

  "A miserable comforter are you, Nanny Swinton," muttered her mistress,as she hushed her child, and pressed her fevered lips to each tinyfeature.

  VIII.--THE RECONCILIATION AND RETURN TO STANEHOLME.

  But Staneholme came again in broad light, the next day--the next--andthe next, with half excuses and vague talk of business. Lady Carnegiedid not interdict his visits, or blame his weakness and inconsistency,for they were seemly in the eyes of the world--which she honoured, afterherself, although she washed her hands of the further concerns of thesefools.

  And Nelly talked to him with a grave friendliness, like one restoredfrom madness or risen from another world. "Staneholme, you've neverkissed the wean, and it's an ill omen," she said, suddenly, watching himintently as he dandled the child; and as if jealous of any omissionregarding it, she appeared satisfied when he complied with her fancy.

  "The curtain is drawn, and the shadow is on you; but is that a scar onyour brow, Staneholme, and where did you get it?"

  "A clour from a French pistol;" it was but skin deep--he was off hiscamp-bed in a few days.

  He stooped forward, as he spoke slightingly, and pushed back the hairthat half obscured the faint blue seam.

  "Whisht!" said Nelly, reprovingly, "dinna scorn sickness; that bitstroke might have cost Lady Staneholme her son and my bairn his father;"and she bent towards him in her turn, and passed her fingers curiouslyand pityingly over the healed wound, ignorant how it burned and throbbedunder her touch. "When the bairn is grown, and can rin his lane,Staneholme," Nelly informed him in her new-found freedom of speech, "Iwill send him for a summer to Staneholme; I'll be lonesome without him,but Michael Armstrong will teach him to ride, and he'll stand by LadyStaneholme's knee." Staneholme expressed no gratitude for the offer, hewas fastening the buckle of his beaver. The next time he came he twisteda rose in his hand, and Nelly felt that it must indeed be Beltane: shelooked at the flower wistfully, and wondered "would the breezes beshaking the bear and the briar roses on the sea-braes at Staneholme, orwere the grapes of southern vines bonnier than they?" He flung down theflower, and strode to her side.

  "Come hame, Nelly," he prayed passionately; "byganes may be byganes now.I've deserted the campaign, I've left its honours and its dangers--and Icould have liked them well--to free men, and am here to take you hame."

  Nelly was thunderstruck. "Hame!" she said, at last, slowly, "where youcompelled me to travel, where I gloomed on you day and night, as Ivowed; I, who would not be a charge and an oppression to thefarthest-off cousin that bears your name. Are you demented?"

  "And this is the end," groaned Staneholme, in bitterness; "I dreamt thatI would win at last. I did not love you for your health and strength, oryour youth and beauty. I declare to you, Nelly Carnegie, your face isfairer to me, lying lily white on your pillow there, than when it wasfresh like that rose; and when others deserted you and left you forlorn,I thought I might try again, and wha kent but the ill would be blottedout for the very sake of the strong love that wrought it?"

  A dimness came across Nelly's eyes, and a faintness over her chokingheart; but she pressed her hands upon her breast, and strove against itfor the sake of her womanhood.

  "And I dreamed," she answered slowly and tremulously, "that it bude tobe true, true love, however it had sinned, that neither slight norhate, nor absence nor fell decay could uproot; and that could tempt meto break my plighted word, and lay my infirmity on the man thatbargained for me like gear, and that I swore--Heaven absolve me!--Iwould gar rue his success till his deein' day. Adam Home, what are youseekin' at my hands?"

  "Nae mair than you'll grant, Nelly Carnegie--pardon and peace, and myyoung gudewife, the desire o' my eyes. I'll be feet to you, Nelly, aslong's I'm to the fore."

  "Big tramping feet, Staneholme," said Nelly, trying to jest, and pushinghim back; "dinna promise ower fair. Na, Adam Home, you'll wauken thebairn!"

  So Staneholme bought the grand new family coach of which the Homes hadtalked for the last generation; and Lady Carnegie curtsied hersupercilious adieus, and hoped her son and daughter would be betterkeepers at home for the future. And Nanny Swinton wore her new gownand cockernonie, and blessed her bairn and her bairn's bairn, throughtears that were now no more than a sunny shower, the silver mist ofthe past storm.

  There was brooding heat on the moors and a glory on the sea whenStaneholme rode by his lady's coach, within sight of home.

  "There will be no great gathering to-night, Staneholme; no shots orcheers; no lunt in the blue sky; only doubt and amaze about an old manand wife: but there will be two happy hearts that were heavy as stanebefore. Well-a-day! to think I should be fain to return this way!"

  Staneholme laughed, and retorted something perhaps neither quite modestnor wise; but the ready tongue that had learnt so speedily to pouritself out to his greedy ears did not now scold and contradict him, butsighed--

  "Ah, Adam Home, you do not have the best of it; it is sweet to be beat;I didna ken--I never guessed that."

  Gladly astounded were the retainers of Staneholme at their young laird'sunannounced return, safe and sound, from the wars; but greater and moreagreeable was their friendly surprise to find that his sick wife, whocame back with him unstrengthened in body, was healed and hearty inspirit. Well might good old Lady Staneholme rejoice, and hush her boldgrandson, for the change was not evanescent or its effects uncertain. AsSta
neholme drove out his ailing wife, or constructed a seat for her onthe fresh moor, or looked at her stitching his frilled shirts asintently as the child's falling collars, and talked to her of his dutiesand his sports, his wildness was controlled and dignified. And when hesat, the head and protector of his deaf old mother, and his littlefrolicsome, fearless child, and his Nelly Carnegie, whose spirit hadcome again, but whose body remained but a sear relic of her bloomingyouth, his fitful melancholy melted into the sober tenderness of apenitent, believing man, who dares not complain, but who must praise Godand be thankful, so long as life's greatest boons are spared to him.