Girlhood and Womanhood Page 6

  HECTOR GARRET OF OTTER.

  I.--THE FIRE.

  A calm, pure summer moonlight fell upon the Ayrshire mosses and deans,but did not silver, as far as we are concerned, the Carrick Castle ofBruce, nor Cameron's lair amidst the heather, nor landward Tintock, noreven seagirt Ailsa Craig, but only the rolling waves of the Atlantic anda grey turreted mansion-house built on a promontory running abruptlyinto the water. The dim ivory light illuminated a gay company met in thedwelling with little thought of stillness or solemnity, but with theirown sense of effect, grouped carelessly, yet not ungracefully, in anold-fashioned, though not unsuitable drawing-room.

  They needed relief, these brilliant supple figures; they demanded thebackground of grey hangings, scant carpet, spindle-legged chairs, andhard sombre prints. To these very cultivated, very artificial andpicturesque personages, a family sitting-room was but a stage, wherelively, capricious, yet calculating actors were engaged in playingtheir parts.

  The party were mostly French, from the mass of gallant, dauntlessemigrants, many of whom were thus entertained with grateful,commiserating hospitality in households whose members had but latelybasked in the sparkling geniality of the southern atmosphere, now luridand surcharged with thunder.

  There was a Marquise, worldly, light, and vain, whom adversity had notbroken, and could not sour; an Abbe, bland and double, but gentle andkindly in his way; a soldier, volatile, hot-headed, brave as a lion,simple as a child; an older man, sad, sneering, indifferent to thisworld and the next, but with the wrecks of a noble head, and, God helphim, a noble heart.

  Of the three individuals present of a different nation and creed, twoclosely resembled the others with only that vague, impalpable, butperceptible distinction of those whose rearing affords a superficialgrowth which overspreads but does not annihilate the original plant. Theone was a young man, buoyant, flippant, and reckless as the Frenchsoldier, but with a bold defiance in his tone which was all his own; theother a young girl, coquettish and vivacious as the Marquise, but with adeep consciousness under her feigning, an undercurrent of watchful prideand passion, of which her model was destitute. The last of the circlewas a fair-haired, broad-shouldered lad, who stood apart from theothers, big, shy, silent:--but he was earnest amid their shallowness,noble amid their hollowness, and devoted amid their fickleness. How hegazed on the arch, haughty girl, with her lilies and roses, herpencilled brows, her magnificent hair magnificently arranged, with herrich silk and airy lace, and muslin folded and gathered and fallinginto lines which were the very poetry of attire, unless where a piquantprovoking frill, band, or peak, reminded the gazer that the princess wasa woman, a mocking mischievous woman, as well as a radiant lady! How helistened to her contradictory words, witty and liquid even in their mostworthless accents! how he drank in her songs, the notes of her harp, therustle of her dress, the fall of her foot! how he started if she moved!how he saw her, though his eyes were on the ground, and though his headwas in his hands, while she marked him ceaselessly, half with crueltriumph, half with a flutter and faintness which she angrily andscornfully resisted and denied.

  A few more gay _bons mots_ and repartees, a last epigram from the Abbe,a court anecdote from the Marquise which might have figured in one ofthose letters of Madame de Sevigne where the freshness of the haymakerof Les Rochers survives the glare and the terrible staleness of theVersailles of Louis XV., a blunt camp jest from the soldier, a sarcasmfrom the philosopher, a joyous barcarole, strangely succeeded by asnatch from that lament of woe wrung forth by the fatal field ofFlodden, and the company dispersed. The horse's hoofs of the singlestranger of the evening rung on the causeway, as he made for the smoothsands of the bay, the lights one by one leaping out, and the pale moonremaining mistress of Earlscraig as when the warder on yon tower peeredout over the waters for the boats of the savage Irish kern, or lit thebale-fire that summoned Montgomery and Muir to ride and run for the loveor the fear of Boswell of Earlscraig.

  Had these old-world times returned by magic? had a crazed serving-manrevived the vanished duties of his warlike predecessor? was the wraithof seneschal or man-at-arms conjuring up a ghostly beacon to stream intothe soft air? was an evil spirit about to bewilder and mislead a fatedship to meet its doom on the jagged rocks beneath the dead calm of thatglassy sea? So dense was the vapour that suddenly gathered overEarlscraig, till like an electric flash, a jet of flame sprang from ahigh casement and lit up the gathering obscurity. No horn blew, no buglesounded, no tramp of horse or hurrying feet broke the silence; the houselay in profound rest, and the sleepers slept on, though truly that wasno phantom glare, no marsh gleam, but the near presence of an awful foe.

  And the smoke burst forth in thicker, more suffocating volume; the redstreamers shot up again and again, and the burning embers fell likethickest swarms of fire-flies, before a single hasty step roused an echoalready lost in the roar and crackle of fire. A scared, half-dressedservant ran out into the court, flung up his hands as he looked aroundhim, then hurried back, and suddenly the great bell pealed out itsfaithful alarum. "Good folk, good folk, danger is at the door! ForJesu's sake and your dear lives, up and flee! The angels hold out theirhands, Sodom is around you--away, away!"

  The summons was not in vain. Within a few seconds clamorous outcries,shrieks of dismay, the dashing open of doors and windows, answered theproclamation. A horror-struck crowd assembled rapidly in the court; butnotwithstanding that the Abbe's wan face and shaven crown appearedspeedily, and the soldier shouted, "Who is in danger? _mes camarades,suivez-moi!_" the philosopher instinctively elected himself commander;he rose, tall and erect, over the heads of his fellows; his face flushedand brightened; and he spoke words of wisdom and resolution whose spiritmen recognised through the veil of his frozen tongue; while cravensshrank back, brave men rallied round him!

  "Where is Boswell? _Mon Dieu!_ the house is burning and the master isnot found! Adolphe, _sauve la Marquise, cet escalier n'est pas perdu_.But where is Boswell? Show his room to me--the nearest way--quick, or heperishes. _Ah, le voila!_"

  Down a flight of side steps stumbled the butler and a favourite groom,bearing between them the young laird, motionless, senseless, his dressdishevelled, but unscathed by flame, and unstained by blood; stillbreathing, but his marked imperious features were unconscious, heavy,and lethargic.

  The Abbe and his elder friend exchanged glances. The brow of the lattercontracted in disgust and gloom.

  "Adolphe and he played billiards against my desire, as if he were not_bete_ enough already," he said in an undertone. "Lay him here, myfriends," to the servants, "and listen to me. If you love the Seigneur,let him never know that thus it happened this night. Cover him with amantle; he will awake to see his chateau a ruin. _Mais, n'importe_, wewill do our best. Carry out what is most precious; bring up buckets ofwater. _Ma foi!_ there is enough at hand."

  Yes; at their feet, but by a few fathoms unavailable, lay the broadsea, sufficient to extinguish the conflagration of a thousand cities,while the house above was rent with fierce heat, which reddened the sealike blood.

  The Marquise was rescued sobbing and shivering, but she shared herblanket with one of the poor servant-girls. Even the old bed-riddennurse, so blind and stupid with age that none could satisfy her of thecause of the tumult and din, was carried out, and placed on the grassterrace beside the master; where no sooner did she apprehend intuitivelythe neighbourhood of her proudly cherished nursling, than she left offher weak wailing, and began to croon over him as fondly and contentedlyas when he lay an innocent babe in his cradle:

  "Are you weary, Earlscraig? Have you come back sorely tired from thehunt or the race? Weary fa' the men folk that let you lie down with thedew-draps on your bonny curls--bonnier than Miss Alice's, for a' theirfleechin'--as if it were high noon. No but noontide has its ills, too;but you would never heed a bonnet, neither for sun nor wind. A wildladdie, a wild laddie, Earlscraig!"

  Eager but ignorant hands were piling up heaps of miscellaneousgoods--pictures, feather-beds, old arm
our, plate, mirrors, harness,carpets, and wearing apparel. All were tossed together in wildconfusion. The moon was hidden; air, earth, and water were lurid; ahot blast blew in men's faces, which alone remained white and haggard,when a murmur and question, a doubt and frenzy, first stirred and fastconvulsed the mass. "Where is Miss Alice?" Ay, where was Miss Alice?Who had seen her? Speak, in God's name!--shout her name until hervoice replies, and men's shuddering souls are freed from this ghastlynightmare.

  Miss Alice! Alice Boswell! are you safe, lamenting unseen the home ofyour fathers? Or are you within that turret whose foundation rockdescends sheer into the sea--that turret close by which the demon beganhis work, where his forked tongue is now licking each loophole andoutlet, where beams are bursting and the yawning jaws of hell are aboutto swallow up the rapid wreck--forgotten, forsaken--the queen of hearts,the wooed and worshipped beauty; fair and sweet, ripe and rare, the soledaughter of the race; the charm and delight of its grey heads?

  Oh, Father, thou art terrible in thy decrees! Oh, men, ye are miserablefools! She is there by the blazing framework of the window of herchamber, which she has never quitted; her hair loose, some portion ofher dress cast about her, her eyes wide open and glazing with terror,but strangely beautiful--with a glory behind and about her; an unearthlybrightness upon brow and cheek, and white arms stretched outimploringly, despairingly for help in her utmost need.

  They pressed forward; they looked up in anguish; old men who hadfollowed her when a fairy child, friends of long standing, acquaintancesof yesterday. Again and again the gallant soldier penetrated the lowdoorway; again and again he swerved and recoiled from the furnace fumesthat met him--a more fearful encounter than the fury of thesans-culottes and the reeking pools beneath the guillotine.

  "_Courage, soldats! Vive la mort, pour la femme et pour la gloire!_" andwith a shout half-exulting, half-maddened, the Gallic blood again firedto the desperate feat. Then there was a diversion--a rush to theopposite side of the building--a ladder might be of use there. A notionof forcing open a closed-up and disused gallery of communication, seizedhold of these agitated minds, and this afforded a vent to the pent-upsympathy and distress. New energy supplanted stupor; and through thedeep hush of the fire could be distinguished the blows of axe andhammer, wielded lustily by stalwart and devoted arms, eager to clear away of life and liberty for the captive.

  But this was a work of time, and louder crackled and hissed the flames.A fiercer blaze filled the sky, and glittered back from the waves; theserpent tongues drew together, and shot up through the room in a yellowpyramid. In vain! in vain! The zealous labourers panted in the sicknessof horror and the chill of great awe.

  "A boat! a boat!" called a voice from the outer circle. The thinker, thescorner, stood on the verge of the rocks above the illuminated sea, hishead bare, his coat stripped off. "Let Mademoiselle cast herself fromthe casement instantly; it is her only hope. I can swim; I will hold herup until a boat is launched. _Courage, Mademoiselle!_ trust in God andin me."

  "Yes, Marquise," he whispered for a second to his countrywoman near him;"I have lost God for many a day; I have found him again in this hour. A_Te Deum_ for my requiem!" and looking aghast upon his face in the greatlight, the Marquise crossed herself, and averred ever afterwards thatit was transformed like unto that of his patron saint, St. Francis. Thenext moment he plunged into the midnight sea. Those who witnessed theaction declared that the reflection of the burning was so strong that heseemed to sink into a lake of fire, where he rose again presently, andbreasted the waters stoutly.

  The girl saw the design; she comprehended it, and the hoarse murmur ofencouragement that hailed its presence of mind. The concentration of theflames, which threatened every moment to bring down a portion of theponderous roof in one destroying crash, left a freer passage. Sheadvanced quickly--she put her foot on the smouldering sill; she paused,hesitated. It was a fearful alternative.

  "Leap down, leap down, Miss Alice; a drowning man has two lives, aburning man but one. Down, down, or you are lost!"

  But another cry mingled with the vehement appeal--a piercing, confidentcry, that would have vibrated on the dull ear of the dying, though itsaid only, "I am coming. Alice Boswell: I am coming!"

  He was there, on his panting, foam-flecked horse: he flung himself fromhis saddle; he heard her answer, "Hector Garret, save me, save me!"

  He broke the circle as Samson burst the green withes: he paralysed allremonstrance; he vanished into the abyss which the great staircasepresented. He must have borne a charmed life to reach thus far--when amightier roar, a perfect column of fire, a thundering avalanche ofglowing timber and huge stones descended with a shock of an earthquake,and rebounded into the sea, engulfing for ever the fair slight formwithin.

  By daring and magnanimous effort and main force, other arms bore backHector Garret from the tottering walls and shaken foundation: and theboat rowed out and delivered the heroic Frenchman. The sinking in of theturret roof satiated the destroyer, so that the further wing of thehouse was preserved. Its master lived unharmed, to rouse himself fromhis portentous slumber and face his calamity, while the lover laywrithing and raging in the clutch of wild fever.

  But the summer sun shining down on the sea, once more blue and clear asheaven, fell on black yawning gaps and mounds of ashes; on shiveredglass and strewn relics of former luxury; on the very grass of thepromontory, brown and withered, and trodden into the earth for many ayard; on the horrible grave of the maiden who had watched her own imagein the crystal pools, lilted her siren songs to the break of the waves,woven at once chains for her adorers and the web of that destiny whichburied her there, unshrouded and uncoffined.

  II.--THE OFFER.

  The Clyde was forded by man and horse where ships now ride at anchor;but the rush of trade, not quite so deep and rapid fifty years since asnow, yet strong and swift, the growth of centuries, was hurrying,jostling, trampling onward in Jamaica Street and Buchanan Street andtheir busy thoroughfares. Within our quarter, however, were stillnessand dimness, the cold, lofty, classic repose of the noble college towhich a professor's house was in immediate vicinity.

  The room, large, low-roofed, with small, peaked windows, had not beenbuilt in modern times. The furniture was almost in keeping: roomysettees, broad, plain, ribbed-back chairs, with faded worked covers,the task of fingers crumbled into dust, heavy bookcases loaded withproportionably ponderous or curiously quaint volumes, and mirrors,with their frames like coffins covered with black velvet and relievedby gilding.

  The only fresh and fragrant thing in the room--ay, or in the house,where master and mistress and servants were old and withered--was ayoung girl seated on a window-seat, her hands lightly crossed, watchingthe white clouds in the July sky, white, though nothing else is so inGlasgow, where the air is heavy with perpetual smoke and vapour.

  That girl, too broad-browed and large-eyed for mere youthful beauty, butwith such an arch, delicate, girlish mouth and chin as betokened her afrank, unsophisticated, merry child after all, was Leslie Bower, theyoung daughter and only child of an erudite and venerated professor.

  Leslie had no brothers and no sisters, and in a sense she had neitherfather nor mother, for Professor Bower was the son, husband, and fatherof his books, and he had so mighty a family of these, ancient andmodern, that he had very little time or attention to spare for ties ofthe flesh. He was a mild, absent, engrossed old man, flashing intoenergy and genius in his own field of learning, but in the world ofordinary humanity a body without a soul.

  Professor Bower married late in life a timid, shrinking English wife,who, removed from all early ties, and never mingling in Glasgow society,lapsed into a stillness as profound as his own.

  Dr. Bower took little notice of his child; what with duties and studies,he had no leisure; he read in his slippered morning gown, he read atmeals, he read by his evening lamp; probably, if Mrs. Bower would haveconfessed it, he kept a volume under his pillow. No wonder he was ablear-eyed, poking, muttering old man, for he was muc
h more interestedin Hannibal than in Bonaparte, and regarded Leslie, like the house, theyearly income, the rector, the students, the janitors, as one of manyabstract facts with which he troubled himself as little as possible.

  Mrs. Bower cared for Leslie's health and comfort with scrupulous nervousexactness, but she was incapable of any other demonstration of regard.She was as shy and egotistical as poor Louis XVI., and perhaps it wouldhave demanded as tragic a domestic revolution to have stirred her up tolively tenderness. Leslie might have been as dubious as Marie Antoinetteof the amount of love entertained for her by her nearest kin, butcuriously, though affectionate and passionate enough to have been thepure and innocent child of some fiery Jocobin, she had not vexed herselfabout this mystery. One sees every day lush purple and rose-floweredplants growing in unaccountable shade; true, their associates are paleand drooping, and the growth of the hardier is treacherous, and maydistil poison, but the evil principle is gradual, and after conditionshave been confirmed and matured.

  The stronger portion of Leslie's nature, which required abundant andinvigorating food, was slow of development; the lighter side flourishedin the silent, dull house, where nothing else courted the sunbeam. Inher childhood and girlhood, Leslie had gone out to school, and althoughalways somewhat marked and individual in character, she had companions,friends, sufficient sympathy and intercourse for an independent, buoyantnature at the most plastic period of its existence. This stage of lifewas but lately left behind; Leslie had not long learnt that now she wasremoved from classes and masters, and must in a great measure confineher acquaintances to those who returned her visits at her father'shouse; and as visitors put mamma and papa about, and did not suit theirhabits, she must resign her little world, and be almost as quiet andsolitary as her elders. Leslie had just begun to sigh a little for theold thronged, bustling class-rooms which she had lightly esteemed, andwas active by fits and starts in numerous self-adopted occupations whichcould put former ones out of her head, and fill up the great blanks inher time and thoughts, for she was not inclined to sit down under adifficulty, and instinctively battled with it in a thousand ways.

  Thus Leslie had her flower-painting--few natural flowers she saw, poorgirl--card boxes, worsted vases, eggshell baskets, embroidery pieces,canary bird, and books--the last greedily devoured. She did not assisther mother, because although their household was limited, Mrs. Bower'squiet, methodical plans were perfect, and she gently declined allinterference with her daily round. Neither did Leslie work for herfather, because the professor would as soon have employed her canarybird. She was not thoughtful and painstaking for the poor, because,though accustomed to a species of almsgiving, she heard nothing, sawnothing of nearer or higher association with her neighbours. Yet therewas capacity enough in that heart and brain for good or for evil.

  So Leslie sat there, pausing in her sewing, and gazing idly at the sky,with a girl's quick pensiveness and thick-coming fancies, as she mused.

  How blue it was yonder! What glorious clouds! yet the world below wasrather stupid and tiresome, and it was hard to say what people toiled soarduously for. There were other lands and other people: should she eversee them? Surely, for she was quite young. She wished they could go insummer 'down the water,' out of this din and dust, to some coast villageor lonely loch between lofty purple mountains, such as she had seen whenwith Mrs. Elliot; papa might spare a few weeks, people no richer did;they had no holidays, and it was so hot and close, and always the same.But she supposed she must be contented, and would go away to cool andcompose herself in the crypt of their own cathedral. How grand it was;how solemn the aisles and arches on every side, like forest trees; andthen the monuments--what stories she invented for them! St. Mungo'sWell! St. Mungo, austere, yet beneficent; with bare feet, cowled head,scarred back, and hardest of all, swept and garnished heart, with hisfruitful blessing, 'Let Glasgow flourish.' What would St. Mungo thinknow of the city of the tree, the fish, and the bell?

  This hoar, venerable, beautiful feat of art was to the imprisonedGlasgow girl as St. Paul's to such another isolated imaginative nature.

  There was a knock at the street-door; a very decided application of thequeer, twisted knocker. Leslie roused herself: not a beggar's tap that;none of the janitors; and this was not Dr. Murdoch's or Dr. Ware's hour:the girl was accurate in taps and footsteps. Some one was shown in; aman's voice was heard greeting "Dr. Bower," before the study door wasclosed. Leslie started up with pleased surprise,--"Hector Garret ofOtter! he will come upstairs to see us; he will tell us how the countryis looking; he will bring news from Ferndean," and for the next hour shesat in happy, patient expectation.

  Mrs. Bower, a fair, faded, grave woman, came into the room, and sat downwith her needlework in the other window.

  "Mamma," exclaimed Leslie, "do you know that Hector Garret of Otter isdownstairs with papa?"

  "Yes, Leslie."

  "He never fails to ask for us; don't you think we'll see him hereby-and-by?"

  "I do not know; it depends upon his engagements."

  "I wonder what brings him to Glasgow just now; he must find it so muchmore agreeable at home," with a little sigh.

  "Leslie, I don't think you have anything to do with that."

  "No, certainly; Hector Garret and I are two very different persons."

  "Leslie!"

  "Well, mamma."

  "I wish you would not say Hector Garret; it does not sound proper in agirl like you."

  "I suppose it does not. He must have been a grown-up man when I was achild. I have caught the habit from papa, but I have not the leastinclination to use the name to his face."

  "I should think not, Leslie;" and the conversation dropped.

  Presently the stranger entered deliberately; a tall, fair, handsome manof eight-and-thirty or forty, with one of those cold, intellectual,statuesque faces in which there is a chill harmony, and which are typesof a calm temperament, or an extinct volcano. Perhaps it was that castof countenance which recommended him to the Bowers; yet Leslie was dark,bright, and variable.

  The visitor brought a gift in his hand--a basket of flowers and summerfruit, of which Leslie relieved him, while she struggled in vain to lookpolitely obliged, and not irrationally elated.

  "So kind of you to trouble yourself! Such a beautiful flower--wild rosesand hawthorn too--I like so much to have them, though they wither verysoon. I dare say they grew where

  'Fairies light On Cassilis Downans dance.'

  (Burns was becoming famous, and Leslie had picked up the linessomewhere.) And the strawberries, oh, they must be from Ferndean."

  The bearer nodded and smiled.

  "I knew it by instinct," and Leslie began eating them like a temptedchild, and stained her pretty lips. "Those old rows on each side of thesummer-house where papa first learnt his lessons--I wonder if there arejackdaws there still: won't you have some?"

  "No, thank you. What a memory you have, Miss Bower!"

  "Ferndean is my Highland hill. When papa is very stiff and helpless fromrheumatism, he talks of it sometimes. It is so long ago; he was sodifferent then."

  Mr. Garret and Mrs. Bower exchanged a few civil words on his journey,the spring weather, the state of the war, like two taciturn people whoforce their speeches; then he became Leslie's property, sat down besideher, watched her arranging her flowers, helped her a little, and spokenow and then in answer to her questions, and that was sufficient.

  Hector Garret was particularly struck this evening with the incongruityof Leslie's presence in the Professor's dry, silent, scholastic home,and with her monotonous, shaded existence, and her want of naturalassociations and fitting companionship. He pondered upon her future; hewas well acquainted with her prospects; he knew much better than she didthat the money with which his father had bought up the mortgages onFerndean, and finally the estate itself, was drained and scattered longago, and that the miserable annuity upon which the Professor restedpeacefully as a provision for his widow and child, died with the former.It w
as scarcely credible that a man should be so regardless of his ownfamily, but the echo of the mystic, sublime discourses of the Greekporches, the faint but sacred trace of the march of vast armies, and thefall of nations, caused Leslie to dwindle into a mere speck in thecreation. Of course she would be provided for somehow: marry, or makeher own livelihood. Socrates did not plague himself much about the fateof Xantippe: Seneca wrote from his exile to console his mother, but theepistles were for the benefit of the world at large, and destined todescend to future generations of barbarians.

  What a frank, single-hearted young girl she seemed to HectorGarret--intelligent, capable of comprehending him in a degree, amusinghim with her similes and suggestions; pretty, too, as one of those wildroses or pinks that she prized so highly, though she wore a sober,green, flowered silk dress. He should like to see her in a white gown.He supposed that was not a convenient town wear. Pope had unmaskedwomen, but he could not help thinking that a fresh, simple, kind younggirl would be rather a pleasant object of daily encounter. She wouldgrow older, of course. That was a pity; but still she would beprogressing into an unsophisticated, cordial, contented woman, whomservants would obey heartily--to whom children would cling. Even men hada gush of tenderness for these smiling, unobtrusive, humble mothers; andbest so in the strain and burden of this life.

  Leslie knew nothing of these meditations. She only understood HectorGarret as a considerate friend, distinguished personally, and giftedmentally--for her father set great store upon him--but, unlike the gruffor eager servants to whom she was accustomed, condescending to heryouth and ignorance, and with a courtesy the nearest to high-breedingshe had ever met. She was glad to see Hector Garret, even if he did notbring a breath of the country with him. She parted from him with a senseof loss--a passing sadness that hung upon her for an hour or two, likethe vapour on the river, which misses the green boughs and waving woods,and sighs sluggishly past wharfs and warehouses.

  It was a still greater surprise to Leslie when Hector Garret came againthe next evening. He had never been with them on two successive daysbefore. She supposed he had gone back to Ayrshire, although he had notdistinctly referred to his speedy return. But he was here, and Leslieentertained him as usual.

  "Should you not like to see Ferndean?" inquired Hector Garret.

  "Don't speak of it," Leslie cautioned him, soberly; "it would be far toogreat happiness for this world."

  "Why, what sort of dismal place do you think the world?"

  "Too good a place for you and me," Leslie answered evasively, and with atouch of fun.

  "But this is the very season for Ferndean and Otter, when the pasture isgay as a garden, and you can have boating every day in the creeks, moresheltered than the moorland lochs."

  The tears came into Leslie's eyes.

  "I think it is unkind of you, Mr. Garret, to tempt me with suchpictures," she answered, half pettishly.

  "I mean to be kind," he responded quickly. "I may err, but I can takerefuge in my intentions. You may see Ferndean and Otter, if you canconsent to go there, and dwell there as a grave man's friend and wife."

  Leslie started violently, and the blood rushed over her face.

  "I beg your pardon, Sir, but you don't mean it?"

  "I do mean it, Leslie, as being the best for both of us; and I ask youplainly and directly to marry me: if you agree, I hope and trust thatyou will never regret it."

  Leslie trembled very much. She said afterwards that she pinched her armto satisfy herself that she was awake, but she was not quite overcome.

  "I was never addressed so before. I do not know what to say. You arevery good, but I am not fit."

  He interrupted her--not with vows and protestations, but resolutely andconvincingly.

  "I am the best judge of your fitness,--but you must judge for yourselfalso. I am certain of your father's and mother's acquiescence, so I donot mention them. But do not hurry; take time, consult your own heart;consider the whole matter. I will not press for your decision. I willwait days, weeks. I will go down to Otter in the meantime, if you preferit. But if you do say yes, remember, dear Leslie, you confer upon me thegreatest boon that a woman can bestow on a man, and I think I am capableof appreciating it."

  He spoke with singular impartiality, but without reassuring his hearer.Leslie looked helplessly up to him, excited and distressed.

  He smiled a little, and sighed a brief sigh.

  "You are not satisfied. You are too candid and generous. You wish me totake my refusal at once. You feel that I am too old, too dull topresume--"

  "Oh, no, no," Leslie exclaimed, seeing herself convicted of terribleselfishness and conceit, while her heart was throbbing even painfullywith humility and gratitude. "You have done me a great honour, and ifyou would not be disappointed--if you would bear with me--if you are notdeceiving yourself in your nobleness--I should be so happy to go toFerndean."

  He thanked her eloquently, and talked to her a little longer, kindly andaffectionately, and then he offered to seek her father; and left her toher agitated reflections. What a fine, dignified man he looked! Could itbe possible that this was her lot in life? And the very sun which hadrisen upon her planning a walk with Mary Elliot next week, was yetstreaming upon her poor pots of geraniums on the dusty window-sill. Shequitted her seat, and began to walk quickly up and down.

  "Leslie, you are shaking the room." Mamma had been in the further windowwith her sewing all the time.

  Leslie stole behind the brown window-curtain, fluttering her hand amongthe folds.

  "Leslie, you are pulling that curtain awry."

  "I cannot help it, mamma."

  "Why not, child? Are you ill?"

  "Yes--no, mamma. I don't know what to think--I can't think. But HectorGarret has asked me to be his wife."

  Mrs. Bower's needle dropped from her fingers. She stared at herdaughter. She rose slowly.

  "Impossible, Leslie," she observed.

  Leslie laughed hysterically.

  "Yes, indeed. It was very strange, but I heard every word."

  "Are you certain you are not mistaken?"

  Mrs. Bower had never so cross-examined her daughter in her life; butLeslie was not disturbed or vexed by her incredulity.

  "Quite certain. I know it was only yesterday that you scolded me fortaking liberties with his name; but he was perfectly serious, and hehas gone to tell papa."

  Mrs. Bower gazed wistfully on Leslie, and a faint red colour rose inher cheek, while she interlaced her fingers nervously.

  "Leslie," she asked again, in a shaking voice, "do you know what youare doing?"

  Leslie looked frightened.

  "Is it so very terrible, mamma? I should possibly have married someday--most girls mean to do it; and only think of Ferndean and Otter.Besides, there is nobody I could like so well as Hector Garret, I amquite sure, although I little guessed he cared so much for me;" andLeslie's eye's fell, and a sunny, rosy glow mantled over her whole face,rendering it very soft and fair.

  "I see it is to be, Leslie. May it be for your welfare, my dear;" andher mother stooped abruptly, and kissed the young, averted cheek.

  Leslie was awed. She dreaded that her father would be equally moved,and then she did not know how she could stand it. But she might havespared herself the apprehension; for when the Professor shuffled in hesat down as usual, fumbled for his spectacles, looked round with themost unconscious eye, observed that "Ware" had that day exceeded in hislecture by twenty minutes--"a bad practice," (Dr. Bower was himselfnotoriously unpunctual,) and took not the slightest notice of any eventof greater importance, until Leslie's suspense had been so long on therack that it began to subside into dismay, when glancing up for amoment, he observed parenthetically, as he turned a page--"Child! youhave my approval of a union with Hector Garret--an odd fancy, but thatis no business of ours,"--dropped his eyes again on his volume, and madeno further allusion to the subject for the rest of the evening--no, norever again, of his own free will. Hector Garret assailed him onpreliminaries, his wi
fe patiently waylaid and besieged him for thenecessary funds, acquaintances congratulated him--he was by compulsiondrawn more than once from roots and aesthetics; but left to himself, hewould have assuredly forgotten his daughter's wedding-day, as he haddone that of her baptism.

  Leslie recovered from the stunning suddenness of her fate, and awokefully to its brightness. To go down to Ayrshire and dwell there amonghills and streams, and pure heather-scented air, like any shepherdess;to be the nearest and dearest to Hector Garret:--already theimaginative, warm-hearted girl began to raise him into a divinity.

  Leslie was supremely content, she was gay and giddy even with presentexcitement; with the pretty bustle of being so important and sooccupied--she whose whole time lately had been vacant and idle--sowilling to admire her new possessions, so openly elated with theirsuperiority, and not insensible to the fact that all these prominentobtrusive cares were but little superfluous notes of the great symphonyupon which she had entered, and whose infinitely deeper, fuller, highertones she would learn well, by-and-by.

  Leslie Bower was the personification of joy, and no one meddled with hervisions. Hector Garret was making his preparations at Otter; and whenLeslie sang as she stitched, and ran lightly up and down, only theservants in the kitchen laid their heads together, and confided to eachother that "never did they see so daffin' a bride; Miss Leslie shouldken that a greetin' bride's a happy bride!" But no one told Leslie--noone taught her the tender meaning of the wise old proverb--no one warnedher of the realities of life, so much sadder, so much holier, purer,more peaceful than any illusion. Her mother had relapsed into herordinary calmness, rather wounding Leslie's perceptions when she allowedherself to think of it, for she did not read the lingering assiduitythat was so intent it might have been employed upon her shroud. Andthere was no one else--no; Leslie was quite unaware that her gladnesswas ominous.

  Only the shadow of a warning crossed Leslie's path of roses, and shedisregarded it. Her confidence in Hector Garret and in life remainedunbounded.

  Leslie had gone to the best known of her early companions, her cupbrimming over in the gracious privilege of begging Mary Elliot to beher bridesmaid. The Elliots had been kind to her, and had once taken herto their cheerful country-house; and now Mary was to witness theceremony, and Hector Garret had said that she might, if she pleased, payLeslie a long visit at Otter.

  Mary Elliot was a little older, a little more experienced in womanlyknowledge than Leslie.

  "How strange it sounds that you should be married so soon, Leslie, fromyour old house, where we thought you buried. We believed that you mustlead a single life, unless your father made a pet of one of hisstudents: and then you must have waited until he left college."

  "It is the reverse. I have no time to lose," nodded Leslie; "onlyHector Garret is not old-looking. I don't believe that he has agrey hair in his head. He is a far handsomer man than Susan Cheyne'ssister's husband."

  "I know it; he was pointed out to me in the street. Is he very fond ofyou, Leslie?"

  "I suppose--a little, or he would not have me."

  "Does he flatter you, pretend that you are a queen, say all manner offine things to you? I should like to be enlightened."

  "No, no, Mary; real men are not like men in books--and he is notfoolish."

  "But it is not foolish in a lover. They are all out of theirsenses--blinded by admiration and passion."

  "Perhaps; but Hector Garret is a clever man, only he speaks when he isspoken to, and does not forget you when out of sight. And do you know,I have been used to clever people, and decidedly prefer to look up toa man?"

  "What does he call you, Leslie?"

  "Why, Leslie, to be sure, or Miss Bower. You would not have him say Mrs.Garret yet?" And Leslie covered her face and laughed again, and reddenedto the tips of her fingers.

  "Not 'Bonnie Leslie,' 'Jewel,' 'Angel,'" jested Mary, thrilling at theecho of a certain low, fluttered voice, that had sounded in her own earsand would wilfully repeat, "Winsome Mary," "Little Woman," "Witch!"

  "No," Leslie replied, with honest frankness, "that would be speakingnonsense; and if Hector Garret thinks nonsense that is bad enough."

  "Do you remember how we talked sometimes of our husbands?"

  "Yes, I do. They were all to be heroes."

  "And you were to be courted on bended knees. Yes, Leslie, solicitedagain and again; and when you yielded at last, it should be such an actof grace that the poor fellow would be half mad with delight."

  "I was mad myself. I was full of some song or bit of poetry. I tell youagain, Mary, if you have not found it out for yourself, real life is notlike a book. Hector Garret is not the man to beg and implore, and waitpatiently for a score of years. I wish you saw how he manages his stronghorse. He sits, and does not yield a hair's breadth. Though it paws andrears, he just holds its head tight and pats its neck. Now, I want himto check and guide me. I have been left a great deal to myself. Papa andmamma are not young, and it appears to me that a single child is notenough to draw out the sympathies of a staid, silent couple. They havebeen very kind to me all my life, and I ought to be glad that they willnot miss me much. But although it was wrong, I have often felt a littleforlorn, and been tempted to have bad, discontented thoughts all bymyself. However, that is over, and I hope I'm going to be a good andsensible woman now. And, Mary, I am so anxious to have your opinion uponmy crimson pelisse, because mamma does not profess to be a judge; and Icannot be certain that it is proper merely on a mantua-maker's word andmy own taste. I would like to do Hector Garret credit; not that I canreally do so in any eyes but his own."

  III.--THE NEW HOME.

  Hector Garret had his girl wife at Otter, and very sunny her existencewas for the lustrum of that honeymoon. It was almost sufficient for herto be at liberty, fairly installed in her castle in the air, a countryhome. And its lord and master was generous and indulgent, and wasted, hedid not care to say how many days, in displaying to her the greenruinousness of Ferndean--in climbing the hills and hunting out thewidest views for her--in taking her out in his boat, and rowing her insunshine and shade, enjoying her wonder and exultation mostbenevolently. In a short time he left her to herself, for he had muchproperty, to whose numerous details he attended with rigidconscientiousness, and he had been a student from his youth, and satalmost as much as Dr. Bower in his library, although it was an airierand more heterogeneously fitted-up sanctuary. Leslie was perfectlysatisfied; in fact, while the novelty around her was fresh, shepreferred to wander about at her leisure, and find out places forherself, because Hector Garret was always hurrying her, and she wastrying so hard to be clever, active, and amiable. Ah, that slight strainalready perceptible, that growth of ignorance, misconception, andextravagant reverence--what fruit would it bear?

  Otter was a rambling white house in a green meadow opening to the sea.Its salient points were its size and age. The slowest-growing shrubs inits pleasance were tough, seamed, branched and bowed with time. Therewere few trees in the neighbourhood except at forsaken Ferndean; butthere were slow swelling hills crowned with heather closing in thevalley over which Otter presided with the dignified paternal characterof the great house of strath, or glen. Leslie smiled when she firstheard the natives of the district term the grey or glittering track thatbounded the western horizon, "The Otter Sea," but very soon she fellinto the use of the same name, and was conscious of feeling far moreinterest in the boats and ships that crossed that limited space, than inthose which she saw from the hilltops spread far and wide over a greatexpanse broken only by the misty Irish coast-line. Indeed, Hector Garretexplained to her that he had seignorial claims over that strip ofwaves--that the seaweed, and, after certain restrictions, the fragmentsof wreck cast upon its sands, were his property, quite as much as if hehad waved his banner over it, like the gallant Spaniard, in the name ofhis Most Catholic Majesty.

  Leslie had variety in her locality; the beach, with its huge bouldersand inspiring music; the fields and "uplands airy," with their hedgewealth of vetch, br
iar, and bramble; the garden, the ancient walledgarden, at whose antiquities Hector Garret laughed.

  Leslie played sad pranks in the early season of her disenthralment. Shewandered far and near, and soiled her white gowns, to the despair of theOtter servant who did up the master's shirts and managed the mistress'sclear-starching, but who never dreamt, in those days of frills, robes,and flounces, of styling herself a laundress. Leslie filled her apronwith mosses and lichens: she stole out after the reapers had left thepatch of oats which was not within sight of the house, and gatheredamong the sheaves like a Ruth. She grew stout and hardy, and, in spiteof her gipsy bonnet, as brown as a berry under this out-of-door life,until no one would have known the waxen-faced city girl; and many a timewhen Hector Garret left his study in the dusk and found his way to thedrawing-room, he discovered her asleep from very weariness, with herhead laid down on her spindle-legged work-table, and the white moonbeamstrying to steal under her long eyelashes. He would tread softly, andstand, and gaze, but he never stooped and kissed her cheek in merryfrolic, never in yearning tenderness.

  Such was Leslie's holiday; let her have it--it ended, certainly. Theblack October winds began to whistle in the chimneys and lash the Ottersea into foam; the morning mists were white and dense on the hills, andsometimes the curtain never rose the whole day; the burns were hoarseand muddy, the sheep in fold, the little birds silent. Leslie loved theprospect still, even the wild grey clouds rent and whirled across thesky, the watery sun, and the ragged, wan, dripping verdure; but it madeher shiver too, and turn to her fireside, where she would doze and yawn,work and get weary in her long solitary hours. Hector Garret was patientand good-humoured; he took the trouble to teach her any knowledge towhich she aspired; but he was so far beyond her, so hopelessly superior,that she was vexed and ashamed to confess to him her ignorance, and itwas clear that when he came up to her domain in the evening he likedbest to rest himself, or to play with her in a fondling, toying way.After the first interminable rainy day which she had spent by herself atOtter, when he entered and proceeded in his cool, rather lazy fashion totap her under the chin, to inquire if she had been counting the raindrops, to bid her try his cigar, she felt something swelling in herthroat, and answered him shortly and crossly; but when she found that hetreated her offended air as the whim of a spoilt child, and was ratherthe more amused by it, she determined that he should not be entertainedby her humours. Perilous entertainment as it was, Leslie could not haveafforded it; her wilderness tamed her so that she welcomed Hector Garreteagerly, submitted to be treated as a child, exerted herself to prattleaway gaily and foolishly when her heart was a little heavy and herspirits languid.

  Leslie saw so little of her husband--perhaps it was the case with allwives; her father and mother were as much apart--but Leslie did notunderstand the necessity. She did not like her life to be selfish,smooth, and aimless, except for her own fancies, as it had been fromthe first. She wanted to share Hector Garret's cares and his work whichhe transacted so faithfully. She wished he thought her half as worthconsulting as his steward. She had faith in woman's wit. She had anotion that she herself was quick and could become painstaking. Shetried entering his room once or twice uninvited, but he always looked sodiscontented, and when she withdrew so relieved, that she could notpersevere in the attempt.

  When Hector Garret went shooting or fishing, Leslie would haveaccompanied him gladly, would have delighted in his trophies, andcarried his bag or his basket, like any gillie or callant of theHighlands or Lowlands, if he would have allowed it; but his excursionswere too remote and fatiguing, and beyond the strength that was supposedconsistent with her sex and nurture.

  Little fool! to assail another's responsibilities and avocations whenher own were embarrassing her sufficiently. Her household web had gotwarped and entangled in her careless, inexperienced hands, and vexed andmortified her with a sense of incapacity and failure--an oppressionwhich she could not own to Hector Garret, because there was no commonground, and no mutual understanding between them. When Leslie came toOtter she found the housekeeping in the hands of an Irish follower ofthe Garrets--themselves of Irish origin; and Hector Garret presentedBridget Kennedy to his wife as his faithful and honoured servant, whomhe recommended to a high place in her regard. Bridget Kennedy displayedmore marked traces of race than her master, but it was the Celticnature under its least attractive aspect to strangers, proud,passionate, fanciful, and vindictive. She was devoted to her master, andcapable of consideration for Leslie on his account--though jealous ofher entrance upon the stage of Otter; but she evinced this reflectedinterest by encroachments and tyranny, a general determination to adheredoggedly to her own ways, and to impose them upon her mistress.

  Leslie began by admiring Bridget, as she did everything else at Otter.Leslie would have propitiated the mayor of the palace with kind wordsand attentions, but when she was snapped up in her efforts, she drewback with a girl's aptness to be affronted and repelled. Next Lesliebegan to angrily resist Bridget's unbecoming interference with hermovements, and design of exercising authority and control over the childwhom the master had chosen to set over his house; but her fitfulimpulses were met and overruled by stubborn and slenderly veiledfierceness. Leslie was not weak, but she was undisciplined; and she whohad been the young Hotspur of the most orderly and pacific of families,learnt to tremble at the sound of Bridget's crutch in the lobbies, andher shrill voice rating the servants who flew to do her bidding.

  In proportion as Leslie cowered at her subordinate, the subordinate wastempted to despise her and lord it over her.

  Hector Garret was blind to this contention. For his own part, hehumoured Bridget or smiled at her asperities, as suited him; and it isprobable that if he had been appealed to, he would have adopted his oldfavourite's side, and censured Leslie as touchy, inconsiderate, perhapsa little spiteful. But he never was made umpire, for Leslie had all thedisadvantage of a noble temper in an unseemly struggle. Bridget plaguedLeslie, but Leslie would not injure Bridget,--no, not for the world. Theimperious old woman was Hector Garret's friend; he had said that he hadknown no firmer friend than Bridget Kennedy. She had closed his father'seyes, she had stood by himself in sickness and sorrow (for all hisstrength and self-command, Hector had known sickness and sorrow--thatwas a marvel to Leslie)--Bridget might clutch her rights to the end,what did it signify? only a little pique and bitterness to aninterloper.

  Leslie had ceased to credit that she would ever become the wise, helpfulwoman that she had once warmly desired to see herself. Her own defectswere now familiar and sorely disheartening to her, and she had grownaware that she could not by inspiration set and preserve in smooth,swift motion the various wheels of Otter, not even if--unlooked for andundesired sequel!--she received express permission to dance upon thehead of old Bridget.

  Leslie had fancied once, when Hector Garret told her how few neighbourslived within visiting distance, that she should not want society: butthe solitude was matter of regret, especially when it proved that of thefew families who exchanged rare intercourse, some of better birth thanbreeding scarcely held the daughter of the disinherited laird andGlasgow scholar as their equal in social rank, or a spouse worthy of themaster of Otter, or indeed entitled to their special esteem.

  The only house without any pretension within sight of Otter was situatedat the other extremity of the bay, on a peninsula projecting far intothe sea. It had been built in the days when each mansion was afortalice, and when safety from enemies was of more moment than theconvenience of friends.

  This Earlscraig was now little more than a grim, grey turret, seldomoccupied; the companion body of the building had been destroyed nearly ascore of years before by a fire--the tragedy of the country-side, as itconsummated the ruin of an old family--and in its horrors a lady of thehouse perished miserably. So the sight of its cold cluster of chimneys,wind-rocked walls, and scorched and crumbling vestiges of suddendestruction, far from adding to the cheerfulness of the landscape, was ablot on its rural prosperity.
<
br />   The homes of humbler friends were foreign thresholds to Leslie; thereserved, engrossed, dignified master of Otter crossed them with a freerstep. Leslie could but address her servants, and venture to intermeddlebashfully with their most obvious concerns. She had neither tongue noreye for more distant and difficult dependants.

  But Leslie was not dying of ennui or spleen, or miserable and with anameless fathomless misery. She was only disenchanted--conscious offeeling a great deal older than she had done six months since. How couldshe have been so credulous, so vain! Verily, every path of roses has itspanoply of thorns.

  IV.--THE PAGES OF THE PAST.

  One winter night Leslie, in her deep chair, observed Hector Garretturning over the leaves of an old pocket-book. Hector; catching her eye,offered it to her with a "See, Leslie, how my father chronicled thefashions"--he never did suppose her susceptible of very grave interests.

  In the dearth of other amusements Leslie pored over the ancient diary,and found more suggestive paragraphs than the entry indicated: "AbelFurness has sent me a waistcoat an inch and a half shorter, and a pairof clouded silk hose for the black ditto, ordered." There were--"Threepounds English to my boy Hector, to keep his pocket during his stay atArdhope." "A crown to Hector as fee for fishing out the black stot thatbroke its neck over the rocks." "A letter from Utrecht from my sonHector; a fair hand and a sensible diction." "Forty pounds over andabove paid to please Hector on the bond over the flax-fields ofFerndean." "A small stipend secured to my thriftless kinsman, WillieHamilton, by the advice and with the aid of my son Hector." "ToEarlscraig with Hector:" this notice was repeated many times, until therecord closed abruptly with the tremulous thanksgiving--"My dear son andheir, Hector, recovered of his malady by the blessing of God."

  Very plainly lay the life-clue of that silent heart, traced in the fadedink of those yellowing pages. How old men cherished their offspring!What did Hector Garret think of those mute but potent witnesses of aregard that he could know no more on earth? She knew he prized the book,for she had seen it carefully deposited in one of the private drawers inhis study. She opened it at the beginning, and slipping her fingers intoits gilded pockets, discovered a folded paper. It contained merely asprig of heather, and written on the enclosure--"From my dear wife,Isobel; her first gift." Two dates were subjoined, with thirty years'interval--that of the receipt of the token, and that of the inscriptionof the memorandum.

  With flushing cheeks Leslie sat, and spread out the crushed, brittlespikes, so fondly won, so dearly held. She was sure Hector had not oneleaf, riband, or ring which she had given him. Once when he was gayerthan his wont, and plagued her with his jesting petting, she took up thescissors and cut off a lock of his hair. He did not notice the thefttill it was accomplished, and then he stood half-thoughtful,half-contemptuous. He had not a hair of hers, but of course the wholehead was his; his father had judged otherwise.

  This earlier Hector Garret--she had heard Bridget enlarge upon hismerits. "A fine man, like the master, but frank and light of heart untilhe lost the lady--ay, a real lady! grand and gladsome--the old lady ofOtter." Leslie longed for a vision of those old occupants of her placeand her husband's; to have a vivid experience of how they looked, spoke,and lived; to see them in spirit--in their morning good wishes, theirnoonday cares, their evening cheer, their nightly prayers? Was theirunion only apparent? were they severed by a dim, shapeless,insurmountable barrier, for ever together, yet for ever apart?

  These shades lingered and abode with Leslie in her lonely vigils, ereshe distinguished whether their language was that of warning orreproach. She studied their material likenesses--the last save one inthe picture-gallery--honest faces, bright with wholesome vigour; theirson Hector's was a finer physiognomy, but the light had left lip andeye, and Leslie missed it as she gazed wistfully at these shadows, andcompared them with their living representative.

  A stranger came to Otter: that was an unfrequent event, even when thespring was advancing, and the boats which had been drawn up for thewinter were again launched in the cove, and the brown nets hung anew todry on the budding whins and gowans--the April gowans converting thehaugh into a "lily lea." Their nearest neighbour, only an occasionalresident among them, lounged over with his whip, dog-call, and dogs, andentered the drawing-room at Otter, to be introduced for the first timeto its mistress. Leslie's instincts were hospitable, and they were by nomeans strained by exercise; but she did not like this guest; she felt aninvoluntary repugnance to him, although he was very courteous toher--with an elaborate, ostentatious homage that astonished and confusedher. He was a man of Hector Garret's age, but, even in his rough coat,with marked remains of youthful foppishness and pretension. He was atall man, with beard and moustache slightly silvered; his aquilinefeatures were sharpened and drawn; his bold searching eyes sunken. Hewas a gentleman, even an accomplished and refined gentleman in mannerand accent--and yet there was about him a nameless coarseness, thebrutishness of self-indulgence and low aims and ends, which no polishcould efface or conceal.

  Leslie, notwithstanding her slight knowledge of life, apprehended this,and shrank from the man; but he addressed Hector Garret with the ease ofan intimate associate--and Hector Garret, with his pride andscrupulousness, suffered the near approach, and only winced when thestranger accosted Leslie, complimented Leslie, put himself coolly on thefooting of future friendship with the lady of the house.

  The day wore on, and still the visitor remained, entertaining himself,and discoursing widely, but for the most part on practices and motivesstrange at Otter.

  "So you've married, after all, Hector," he said, suddenly, as they sattogether in the twilight: "well, I excuse you," with a laugh and a touchon the shoulder.

  The words were simple enough, but they tingled in Leslie's ears likeinsolence, and Hector Garret, so hard to rouse, bit his lips while heanswered indifferently--"And when does your time come, Nigel? Are theshadows not declining with you?"

  "Faith, they're so low, that there's not light left for the experiment;besides, French life spoils one for matrimony here, at least so poorAlice used to say--'no galling bonds on this side of the Channel'--thepeaceful _couvent grille_, or a light _mariage de convenance_ among thepleasant southerns;--not that they are so pleasant as they were formerlyeither."

  Hector Garret got up and walked to one of the window recesses, his browknit, his teeth set.

  Leslie rose to steal from the room.

  "Nay, stay, madam," urged the bland, brazen intruder; "don't rob us sosoon of a fair, living apology for _fades souvenirs_."

  But "Go, Leslie, we will not detain you," Hector Garret exclaimed,impatiently; and Leslie hurried to her own chamber in a tumult ofsurprise and indignation, and vexed suspicion. Mysteries had not ceased;and what was this mystery to which Hector Garret deigned to lend himselfin disparaging company with a sorry fine gentleman?

  Bridget Kennedy was there before her, making a pretence of fumbling inthe wardrobe, her head shaking, her lips working, her eyes blazing withrepressed rage and malice.

  "Is he there, madam, still?" she demanded, impetuously. "Is he torturingand maddening Master Hector with his tones and gestures? He!--he thatought to crouch among the bent grass and fern sooner than pass the otheron the high road. Borrowing and begging, to lavish on his evil courses:he who could not pay us--not in red gold, but with his heart'sblood--the woe he wrought. They had guileful, stony hearts, theBoswells, before they ever took to foreign lightness and wickedness: andevil to him who trafficked with them in life or death."

  "Who is he, Bridget? I do not know him; I cannot understand," gaspedLeslie.

  "Don't ask me, madam--you, least of all."

  "Tell me, Bridget, tell me," implored the girl, frightened, yetexasperated, catching the old woman's withered hands, and holdingthem fast.

  "Don't ask me, madam," reiterated Bridget, sternly. "Better not."

  "I will know; what do you mean? Oh, you hurt me, you hurt me! I will askHector Garret himself. I cannot bear this suspense!"


  "Child, do you choose what you can bear? Beware!" menaced the nurse;then, as Leslie would have broken from her--

  "Have it, then! He is the brother of that Alice Boswell who perished inthe burning of Earlscraig nigh twenty years ago."

  "Poor lady, Bridget," Leslie said, with a bewildered, excited sob. "Poorunhappy lady; but what has that to do with him, with me? I understand nobetter. Help me, Bridget Kennedy--a woman, like myself. I will not letyou go."

  "Madam, what good will it serve? It is small matter now:" then halfreluctantly, half with that possession with which truth fills itskeeper, slowly and sadly she unfolded the closed story. "What had MasterHector to do with Alice Boswell? He had to do with her as a man has todo with his heart's desire, his snare, his pitfall."

  "He loved her, Bridget; he would have wedded her. I might never havebeen his--that is all."

  "Love, marriage!" scornfully; "I know not that he spoke the words, buthe lay at her feet. Proud as Master Hector was, she might have troddenon his neck; cool as Master Hector seems to others, he was fire to her.I have seen him come in from watching her shadow, long hours below herwindow, in the wind and rain, and salt spray. I have known him when hevalued her glove in his bosom more than a king's crown--blest, blest ifhe had but a word or a glance. But it is long gone by, madam. MasterHector has gained wisdom and gravity, and is the head of the house; andfor fair Miss Alice, she has gone to her place. Yes, she was a beauty,Miss Alice; she could play on stringed instruments like the heavenlyharpers, and speak many tongues, and work till the flowers grew beneathher fingers. She learnt to wile men's souls from their bodies, ifnothing more, in the outlandish parts where she was bred."

  "So fair, so gifted--did she care for him in return, Bridget? Did shelove him as he loved her?" asked a faint voice.

  "What need you mind, madam?" sharply. "It is ill speaking harsh words ofthe dead. Did I not say she had gone to her place? God defend you fromsuch a passage. Let her rest. Sure she cared for him, as she cared foraught else save herself. She scattered smiles and favours on scores. Heknew at last what she took, and what she gave, if he did not guess italways."

  "Why did he not save her, Bridget? die with her!"

  "Madam," bitterly, "he did what man could do. They say he was more likea spirit than a mortal; but if he was to lose his love, how could evenMaster Hector fight against his Maker? He was fain to follow her; hedallied with death for weeks and months. Those were fell days at Otter,but the Lord restored him, and now he is himself again, and no womanwill ever move Master Hector more."

  There was silence in the room for a space. At last Bridget broke it: "Doyou want anything more with me, madam, or shall I go?"

  Haughty as Bridget Kennedy was, she spoke hesitatingly, almostpitifully. She had stabbed that young thing, sitting pale and coldbefore her; and no sooner was the deed done than her strong, deep natureyearned over her victim as it had never done to Hector Garret's girlwife, in the first rosy flush of her thoughtless gladness.

  "Nothing more." The words were low and heavy, and when Bridget left her,Leslie raised her hands and linked them together, and stretched them outin impotence of relief.

  What was this news that had come to her as from a far country?--thisblinding light, this burst of knowledge that had to do with the verysprings of a man's nature, this fountain so full to some, so empty toothers? She had been deceived, robbed. Hector Garret was AliceBoswell's--in life and death, Alice Boswell's.

  This love, which she had known so slightly, measured so carelessly--oh,light, shallow heart!--had been rooted in his very vitals, hadconstrained him as a conqueror his captive, had been the very essence ofthe man until it spent itself on Alice Boswell's wild grave. He had cometo her with a lie in his right hand, for he was bound and fettered inheart, or else but the blue, stiff corpse of a man dead within; he hadbetrayed her woman's right, her best, dearest, truest right, her callto love and be loved. Another might have wooed her as he had wooed AliceBoswell; to another she might have been the first, the only one! sheknew now why she was no helpmeet, no friend for him; why his hand didnot raise her to his eminence, his soul's breath did not blow upon hers,and create vigour, goodness, and grace to match his own. Deep had notcried unto deep: heart had not spoken to heart: the dry bones, thevacant form, the empty craving, were her portion; and out of suchunnatural hollowness have arisen, once and again, deadly lust and sin.

  Why had none stepped in between her and this cruel mockery andtemptation? "Mother, mother, how could you be false to your trust? Wereyou, too, cheated and bereft of your due? left a cold, shrinking woman,withering, not suddenly, but for a whole lifetime?"

  Leslie sat long weighing her burden, until a tap at the door and BridgetKennedy's voice disturbed her. "Earlscraig is gone, madam; Master Hectoris sitting alone with his thoughts in your room. May be, he is missinghis cup of tea, or, if you please, madam, his lady's company that he isused to at this hour."

  Leslie rose mechanically, walked out, and entered her drawing-room. Whatdid he there, his eyes fixed on the broken turret of Earlscraig, definedclearly on the limited horizon, his memory hovering over the fate offair Alice Boswell?

  Was it horrible to be jealous of a dead woman? to wish herself in thatever-present grave, sacred to him as the holiest, though no priestblessed it, no house of God threw over it the shadow of the fingerpointed to heaven--the cross that bore a world's Saviour? But that swiftand glowing passage from life and light and love, such as his todarkness, forgetfulness--eternity. How could she have faced it? Bridget,her old enemy, had prayed she might be delivered from it, whatever hertrials.

  "Nigel Boswell is gone at last; he was an old playfellow, and fortuneand he have been playing a losing game ever since," he said, inunsuspecting explanation, as he joined her where she sat in herfavourite window.

  She did not answer him; she was stunned, and sat gazing abstractedly onthe wallflowers rendering golden the mossy court wall, or far away onthe misty Otter sea. She thought he had relapsed into his reveries, waswith the past, the spring-tide of his life, the passion of his earlymanhood, while she was a little school-girl tripping demurely and safelyalong the crowded Glasgow streets. If she had looked up at him she wouldhave seen that he was observing her curiously--wondering where his youngwife had acquired that serious brow, those fixed eyes.

  "What are you thinking of, Leslie?"

  "Nothing; I cannot tell," hastily and resolutely.

  "That sounds suspicious." He put his hand on her head, as he had a habitof doing, but she recoiled from him.

  "A shy little brain that dreads a finger of mine on its soft coveringmust discover its secrets. Are they treasures, Leslie?"

  Oh, blind, absent, reckless man, what treasure-keeper kept such ward!

  Lightly won, was lightly held.

  Leslie struggled with her oppression for several dull feverish days;then, driven by her own goading thoughts, her sense of injury, herthirst for justice and revenge, she left the house and wandered out onthe beach to breathe free air, to forget herself in exertion, fatigue,stupor. It was evening, dark with vapour--gloomy, with a rising gale,and the sea was beginning to mutter and growl. Leslie sat shivering bythe water's edge, fascinated by the sympathy of nature with her bitterhopelessness. A voice on the banks and meadows, even in the chill nightair, whispered of spring advancing rapidly, with buds and flowers, withsap, fragrance, and warmth, and the tender grace of its flood of green;but here, by the waves, a passing thunder-cloud, a stealthy mist, awhistling breeze, darkened the scene, and restored barren, dismal winterin a single hour. The night drooped down without moon or star, and stillLeslie sat listless, drowsy with sorrow, until as she rose she sank backsick and giddy; and then the idea of premature death, of passing awaywithout a sign, of hiding her pain under the silent earth that hascovered so many sins and sorrows, first laid hold of her.

  The notion was not fairly welcome: she was young; her heart had beenrecently wrung; she had been listless and disappointed--but she hadloved her few isolated e
ngagements, her country life, her householddignity, the protection of her husband. She could not divest herselfof these feelings at once. She feared the great unknown into whichshe should enter; but still death did not appal her as it might havedone: it was something to be scanned, waited for, and submitted to,as a true sovereign.

  The cold wind pierced her through and through; the rain fell; she couldnot drag herself from the shelving rock, though the tide was rising. Shefelt frozen, her limbs were like lead, and her mind was wandering, orlapsing into unconsciousness.

  She did not hear a call, an approaching foot; but her sinking pulsesleapt up with sudden power and passion when Hector Garret stooped overher, and endeavoured to raise her.

  "Here, Bridget, she is found! Leslie, why have you remained out so late?You have been sleeping; you have made yourself ill. How can you be sorash, so imprudent? It is childish--wrong. You have made usanxious--distressed us. Poor old Bridget has stumbled further in searchof you, this squally night, than she has ventured on the sunniestmorning for many a year."

  He was excited, aggrieved; he upbraided her. He had sympathy for oldBridget's infirmities; he knew nothing of his wife's misery.

  Leslie resisted him as she had done since that day, slipped from hisclasp, strove to steady herself, and to walk alone in her weakness.Bridget put her feeble arm around her.

  "Lean on me, madam, and I will lean on you, for I am frail, and the roadis rough, and the wind is blowing fresh, besides the darkness." "I knewthat would quiet her," she muttered. "Poor old Bridget indeed! saidMaster Hector. Poor colleen! misled, misguided. Cruel makes cruel. St.Patrick could not save himself from the hard necessity."

  Hector Garret was content since he saw Leslie safe; he accused her ofcaptiousness and nervousness, but it was the waywardness and perversityof illness. He had tried her simple nature with too much alienation fromher kind; she had grown morbid on the baneful diet, tutored though shehad been to self-dependence. He had been to blame; but her merry temperwould come back, and the rose to her cheek, and the spring to her foot,with other ties, other occupations--dearer, more sufficient.

  V.--THE MOTHER AND CHILD.

  "How is the poor child, Bridget Kennedy? Does she fare as she shoulddo?"

  "The child is as fine a child, Master Hector, as if she had been a boy,and a Garret, on both sides of the house, and will thrive if her motherwill let her. There are mothers that would hinder their bairns in thedeath-rattle, and there are others that so watch their little ones thatthe angels of God are displaced from their cradles; and the weary humancare haunts and harasses the infant, and stops its growth."

  "I am not learned in these matters, Bridget. You brought me up; I trustyou to rear my children."

  "None shall rear them but their mother, Master Hector; none shall comebetween her and them. I have ruled long at Otter, but I dare not disputewith her there."

  "Settle it as you like. I did not mean them--I was not thinking of themat all. I asked for their mother. You have experience. Is shewell--happy as she should be?"

  "I wish you would not provoke such mistakes, Master Hector," saidBridget, pettishly; "I wish you would find some other name for yourwife. You should know best, but is it suitable to term the nursling andthe parent by the same title? I am a foolish old woman, but it seemsstrange to me. Your father did not confound them."

  "Ah! I dare say not. We will find a Christian name for the new comer,and end the Comedy of Errors, since you dislike it, and Leslie too,doubtless; for women are nice on these points."

  * * * * *

  "Leslie, what shall we call the baby?" inquired Hector Garret the nexttime he stood by his wife's side, wishing to divert her by a pleasantdifficulty, and to vary the expression of those large eyes--larger nowthan ever--which, he knew not why, fascinated him by the intensity oftheir gaze. "I cause Bridget to blunder oddly between you two; so sether at rest by fixing as soon as you can the momentous question."

  "I have fixed," answered Leslie, quietly.

  "I commend your foresight; a man, now, would have left the alternativeopen to the last."

  "Mrs. Garret's first daughter must be named after Mrs. Garret's mother,"declared Bridget, authoritatively.

  "No," said Leslie, hastily; "I have named her after myself--if you donot object," she added, with a flush, half shame, half pride.

  "I? Oh, no; do as you will. It will not solve Bridget's puzzle; but I amcontent. Leslie is a bonnie name."

  Leslie compressed her lip.

  "My mother's name is bonnier," she said, abruptly; "my mother's name isAlice."

  He started, and gazed at her keenly while she continued, falteringly,but with a stubborn will in her speech:--

  "I wish my baby to be mine in everything, particularly as she is agirl. I am neither wise nor clever, nor strong now. I fear I am oftenpeevish; but you will excuse me, because I am a weak, ignorant woman.Such defects are not fatal in a mother; hundreds have overcome themfor their children. I trust that I will be, if not what a better womanmight have been, at least more to my child than any other can be. Hermother!--so holy a tie must confer some peculiar fitness. Yes; my babyis mine, and must lie on my knees, and learn to laugh in my poor face.And so I wish her to have my name also, that there may be a completeunion between us."

  Hector Garret knew now what intelligence had reached his wife, and whilethe old wound burnt afresh, the shyness of his still but sensitivenature, the pride of the grave strong man, were offended and injured.But with regard to his wife he was only conscious of the petulant,unreasonable, unkind surface; he did not sound her deep resentment andjealousy; he did not dream of the anguish of the secret cry whoseoutward expression struck upon his vexed ears; he did not hear her innerprotest: "I will not have my baby bear his love's name, recall her tohim, be a memorial of her--be addressed with fondness as much for thesake of old times as for her own, the innocent!--be brought up toresemble Alice, trained to follow in her footsteps, until, if I died,my child would be more Alice Boswell's than mine. Never, never!"

  Hector Garret little knew Leslie Bower; slowly he arrived at thediscovery. First a troubled suspicion, then a dire certainty. Not thetransparent, light-hearted, humble girl, whom a safe, prosperous countryhome, an honourable position, a kindly regard, left more thansatisfied--happy: but the visionary, enthusiastic woman, confiding, butclaiming confidence for confidence; tender and true, but demanding likesincerity, constancy, purity, and power of devotion. Had he but knownher the first! But a man's fate lies in one woman. Had he but left herin her girlish sweetness and gaiety; had he never approached her withhis cold overtures--his barren, artificial expediency and benevolence!She erred in ignorance and inexperience; but he against the bitter fruitof knowledge, in wilful tampering with truth--reluctantly,misgivingly--selfishly cozening his conscience, hardening himself inunbelief, applying salve to the old vital stab to his independence. Hehad erred with an egotistical and presumptuous conceit of protecting anddefending the young full life which would have found for itself anoutlet, and flown on rapid, free, and rejoicing, had he only refrainedfrom diverting its current into a dull, dark, long-drained channel,where it was dammed up, or oozed out sluggishly, gloomily,despairingly--without natural spring-time, sunshine, abundance,gladness, until lost in the great sea.

  He had viewed but the soft silken bud, whose deep cup was drunk withdew,--its subtle, spicy fragrance pervading, lingering after the leaveswere drooping and the bloom fled, but its rich, royal hues were yet tocome. In his blind coarse blundering, he had mistaken the bud for theflower, the portal for the church; he had entered with heedless, profanefoot, and blighted the blossom and rifled the altar. For the leaves hadbeen unclosed, the gates unbarred under his neglect; and Leslie, with anoble woman's frankness, generosity, and meekness--that true meeknesswhich oftenest cleaves and melts the ringing metal of a highspirit--Leslie had begun to love him, to fix her heart upon him, to growto him--stolid, sardonic statue that he was!--until that shock exposedhis flaws and wrenched h
er from her hold. Better to be thus rudelydissevered, perhaps, than to waste her womanliness, puny and pale fromits vague bald nourishment, on a fraud and a farce.

  Hector Garret awoke from his delusion, from his scholarly reveries, hisactive enterprise. "He that provideth not for his own house is worsethan an infidel." So he watched Leslie: he saw her rise up with herthoughtful face, very individual it appeared now, and go up and downcarrying her baby. He was aware that she was appropriating it as hertreasure; that she was saying to herself some such words--"Silver andgold have I none, but this is my pearl beyond price; she will be enoughfor me; she must be so; I will make her so. She and I will waste no moresilly tears on hard, changeable men. They are not like us, littledaughter; they pass us by, or they love us once with fierce desire; andwhen satiated or balked, they turn to us again to please their eye,flatter their ear, vary their leisure; to anatomize and torture likeother favourites of an hour. We will have none of them, save to do ourduty. We will live for each other."

  Not that she deprived him of his rights as a father; she was toomagnanimous to be unjust, and she would not have balked that puppet, towhose service she consecrated herself, of one privilege which any pangsof hers could purchase.

  She presented their child to him with a serious stateliness, as if itwas so very solemn a ceremony that its performance emancipated her fromordinary emotion; she came and consulted him on the small questions thatconcerned its welfare with the same absorbing care. If he came near herwhen she bore the child in her arms, she offered it to him immediately:she was righteous as well as valiant--yes, very valiant. He contemplatedher stedfastness with wonder. After the blow which overcame her, when acompensation was given her--a blessing to atone for the gall in her cup,she accepted it and cherished it, and set herself to be grateful for itand worthy of it immediately. The fortitude which, after theinvoluntary, inevitable rebellion, would permit no more idle repining,the decent pride that hid its own disease and bore it bravely, even thesternness that set its teeth against reaction--he recognised them all;it was studying the reflection of his own lofty features in the fragile,quivering flesh of a girl.

  What is often proposed, rarely practised, Leslie did. She changed herways: with what travail of spirit, what heart-sickness she alone couldtell. It is no common slight or safe influence that causes a revulsionin the whole bodily system; it is no skin-deep puncture that bleedsinwardly; it is no easy lesson that the disciple lays to heart; butLeslie surmounted and survived it. She had escaped her responsibilities,and slumbered at her post. She would do so no longer. She belonged now,after little Leslie, to her household, and its members might yet be thebetter for her, and Hector Garret should respect--not pity her. Shevindicated her matronhood suddenly and straightforwardly, but with asedateness and firmness that was conclusive of her future power; she hadmuch to acquire, but she would gain something every day and every hour,until Otter should own no abler mistress. Then for her child, she wouldteach herself that she might instruct her daughter, so that if sheproved inquiring and meditative like her father, she need not soon wearyof her simple mother, and turn altogether to a more enlightened andprofound instructor. Surely there was some knowledge that a woman couldbest store up and dispense, some gift wherein the vigorous andwell-trained man did not bear the universal palm? Leslie strove tocultivate her talents; for these, in her position, there was scarcely achoice of fields, but she had eminently the power of observation, andher sharpened motives supplied the defects of her early education.Leslie became a naturalist--the most original and untrammelled ofnaturalists, for she proceeded upon that foundation of anecdotal andexperimental acquaintance with herb and tree, insect, bird, and beast,and even atmospheric phenomena, whose unalloyed riches are peculiar torustic and isolated genius.

  Hector Garret observed this growing taste, and appreciated it. Lesliehad ceased to apologize for her stupidity, and to be shy of hisscrutiny. When he found her procuring and preserving this or thatspecimen, or noting down a primitive fact, if he asked an explanation hehad one directly.

  "This pale flower, and that with the green flowers and the great leaves,are lady's-smock and lady's-mantle; they say they are named after theVirgin, but I think Adam must have named them in the Garden.--Bridgettells me that the Irish believe the fairies sleep in these bells.--Thisis the plant of whose root cats are so fond that they burrow about itand nibble it, and as it does not hurt them, I have dug up a bit for ourpuss--little Leslie looks after her already.--I have been writing downthe day when the swallows twittered at the window, to compare with theirarrival next summer. Peggy Barbour saw a double nest with one hole lastyear; it must have been an old pair and a young maintaining a jointroof-tree.--Yes, of course, these are jay's feathers."

  Another resource which Leslie found within Hector Garret's perceptionwas that of music. She had been endowed with a flexible, melodiousvoice, and as soon as she had use for them, she gathered by magic ahost of ditties, blithe or sad, stirring or soothing, from theromantic fervour of 'Charlie, he's my darling,' to the pathos of'Drummossie Moor,' or the homely, biting humour of 'Tibbie Fowler,' tocarol to the accompaniment of the ancient spinet, in order to cheer orlull the child.

  Hector Garret would move to his study-window, and open it softly, in thegloaming hour when the purple sunset was on the sea, and the batsabroad from the old chimneys, to listen to his wife in the room abovesinging to her child. He did not hear her music otherwise: if he hadsolicited it, she would have complied, with a little surprise, but hedid not seek the indulgence.

  The alteration in Leslie which matured her unexpectedly from a girl to awoman affected powerfully both the arbiters of her destiny. BridgetKennedy, from a tyrant, was fairly transformed into her warmest and mostfaithful adherent. There was something high and great in the wild oldwoman, that could thus at once confess her error, admit greatness in anyform in another, and succumb to it reverently. Truly, Bridget Kennedywas like fire to the weak and foolish, a scourge and a grizzly phantom;to the brave and capable, a minister fearless, fond, and untiring to herlast breath.

  It was very strange to Hector Garret to be sensible of Bridget's lapsefrom his side,--to hear the present mistress, the subdued diligentwoman, canonized to the level of the grand, glad lady of Otter to whomBridget had been so long fanatically loyal. He said to himself that thechild had helped to effect it, the precious descendant, the doted-onthird generation; but he was uncertain. He himself was so impressed withthe patient woman he had formed out of the lively girl, so tortured by aconviction that he had gagged and fettered her--that her limbs werecramped and benumbed, her atmosphere oppressive, her lifeself-denying--that he could bear it no longer.

  "God forgive me, Leslie, for the wrong I have done you!" he confessedone night with a haggard, remorseful face, when she stood, constrainedand pensive, on his joyless hearth.

  She looked up quickly, and laughed a dry laugh. "You are dreaming," shereplied. "How much larger Otter is than the Glasgow house! it was a merecupboard in comparison. How much pleasanter the fields and hills andsands than the grimy, noisy streets where my head ached and my eyes wereweary. And little Leslie is a thousand times dearer than my own people,or any companions that I ever possessed. Hush! hush! I hear her cry;don't detain me, unless for anything I can do for you--because nothingkeeps me from Leslie."

  The coals of fire were heaped upon his head: there could be noreparation.

  Why was Hector Garret not resigned? It was a cruel mistake, but it mighthave been worse, for hearts are deceitful, and what is false and banefulis apt to prove an edge-tool. Here was permanent estrangement,comfortless formality, cold, compulsory esteem; but there was notreachery in the household, no malignant hate, no base revenge.

  But Hector Garret would not rest: he had far less or far more energythan his wife; he walked his lands a moody, harassed man. The turmoiland distraction of his youth seemed recalled; he lost his equanimity;his regular habits faded from him. Leslie could no longer count on hisprolonged absence, his short stated visits; he would
be with her at anytime within doors or without--to exchange a word or look, and go as hecame, to return as unaccountably and inconsistently. It vexed Leslie;she tried not to see it; it made her curious, anxious; and what had sheto do with Hector Garret's flushed cheek and shining eye? Someanniversary, some combination of present associations and pastrecollections--a tendency to fly from himself, besetting at times themost self-controlled--might have caused this change in his appearance.Ah! better twist and untwist the rings of little Leslie's fair hair, anddress and undress her as she had done her doll; better examine the shellcracked by the yellow-hammer, and count the spots on the broad, brownleaf of the plane, than perplex herself with so uncongenial adifficulty. But the difficulty pursued her nevertheless, and baffled andbewitched her as it has done wiser people.

  The master and mistress of Otter were spectators of the harvest home,the plentiful feast, the merry dance in the spacious barn where theirshare of the fruits of the earth was about to be garnered. Leslie stoodin her complimentary, gay gala ribbons, with her fingers meeting uponher wedding-ring, looking composedly and with interest on the buxomwomen and stalwart men, the loving lads and lasses, the cordial husbandsand wives. Hector Garret, however, scarcely tarried to reply to hishealth and prosperity drunk in a flowing bumper, but broke from thescene as if its good was his evil, its blessing his curse.

  In the parish church where Leslie had exhibited her bridal finery shenow listened to the clergyman, and bent her head in penitence andworship, and was disturbed by Hector Garret's gesture of restlessnessand attitude of care.

  When the new moon was rising in the sky, Leslie would bid the little onelook up and clap her hands, while Hector paced up and down unquiet anddissatisfied. Then she would carry the child off to her cradle pillow,and coming back would stand and look at the moon, while he was close toher, murmuring "Leslie! Leslie!" But she would turn upon him pale andcold as the moon above her, and would address him, "See, yonder is aship doubling Earlscraig point and steering into the Otter sea."

  VI.--THE STORM.

  The October winds, tossing the late oats and the frosted heather, werelashing the Otter sea into heaving waves and flakes of foam. Thatwestern sea has its annals and its trophies, as well as den and moor.Edward Bruce crossed it to give to Ireland as dauntless a king as hewhom a woman crowned, and who found a nameless grave; and there, in theglassy calm of a summer night, the vessel, with its passengers lulled infatal security and slumber, sank like lead, fathoms beyond the aid ofmodern science with its myriads of inventions and its hardyself-confidence.

  The few fishers of Otter were exposed to the swell rolling from NewEngland and Labrador to Galloway and Argyle; many a lamp stood day andnight in cottage windows, many an anxious woman forsook her brood, andunder her sheltering plaid ran here and there, dizzy and desperate, tobeg for counsel, and for tidings of the husband and father whose boatwas due, and who was still exposed to the pitiless fury of the tempest.

  Hector Garret was early summoned to marshal his men in order to succourthose who were within his reach; to think, plan, and act to the lastfor those who were amissing, but might yet be rescued. He had been uponthe beach all day; he had been handling rope and line; he had been readyat any moment to launch his own boat among the breakers.

  Leslie, too, had been abroad. She had been in several houses, especiallyin those whose young children were of the same age as Leslie. In all shemet the same abandonment; whether the heads of the families chanced tobe young or old, worthy or unworthy, mattered not; they were now thesole thought, the object of racking anxiety, lamented over beforehandwith sore lamentation. If they were safe, all was well; if they werelost, these wives and mothers were bereaved indeed. The Sabine women didnot cling to their rough masters with more touching fidelity. The menwere in trouble--their imprudence, their intemperance, their violencewere blotted out.

  Leslie went home in disturbance and pain. She, too, placed a light inher window; she, too, left her infant untended, and strained her eyes topierce the storm. Hector Garret must have descried her figure as heapproached the house, for he came straight to her room, and stood amoment with his dripping clothes and a glow on his face.

  "Don't go, Leslie; I'll be back presently."

  She put a restraint upon herself, and became busied with therefreshments laid out for him. He came in immediately, and advancedtowards her with the same eager phrase, "Don't go, Leslie," and hegrasped her gown lightly. She sat down while he ate and drank.

  "I'll have a cup of tea, Leslie; pour me out my tea as you used to do."She had always poured out tea for him, but not always with him close by,and his detaining hand upon her dress.

  "This is like old times. They were very foolish--those old times, butthey have their sweetness to look back upon them."

  She interrupted him--"They are all safe, are they not?"

  "Every man of them, thank God."

  He was spent with his exertions; he was fevered and incoherent; she lethim speak on, detailing the minutest particulars. She even said withanimation, and the tears in her eyes--

  "Their protector and deliverer! God will bless you for this, HectorGarret."

  He bent his head, but he held out his arms: "Will you bless me, Leslie?"

  His voice was thick and hoarse; it petrified her, so still was she--sodumb; and at that moment the knocker sounded, and importunate voiceswere demanding the Laird of Otter.

  He obeyed the summons, spoke with his servants a little time, andreturned to find Leslie in the same arrested posture, with the sameblanched face. He had resumed his seaman's coat, and carried his cap inhis hand. He was calm now, and smiling, but with a face wan and shadowedwith an inexpressible cloud.

  "It may not be, Leslie," he said, soft and low; "Nigel Boswell's boat isin sight, struggling to make Earlscraig; he was always rash andunskilled, though seaward born and bred. If he is not forestalled, hisboat will be bottom upmost, or crushed like glass within the hour. Itrust I will save him; but if there be peril and death in my path, thenlisten to what I say, and remember it. Whatever has gone before, at thismoment I am yours; you may doubt it, deny it--I swear it, Leslie.Despise me, reject me if you will; I cannot perish misinterpreted andmisjudged. I loved Alice Boswell. My love is ashes with its object. Idid not love you once; I love you now. I love a living woman truer,higher, holier than the dead; and for my love's sake, not for myvows--the first for love, if it be the last."

  He had her in his arms; his lingering kisses were on her eyes, her hair,her hands. He was gone, and still she remained rooted to the ground. Wasit amazement, anger, terror?--or was it a wild throb of exultation forthat, the real moment of their union? or because she had won him, andwas his who had slighted her, sinned against her--but who was stillHector Garret, manly, wise, and noble--the hero of her girlhood.

  She was roused reluctantly by the entrance of Bridget Kennedy, shakingin every limb.

  "Madam, why did you let Master Hector go?--he has had the look of adoomed man this many a day. It is thus that men are called, as plain aswhen the Banshee cries. Madam, say your prayers for Master Hector whilehe is still in life."

  "I must go to him, Bridget; I must follow him. Don't try to keep me. Heis my husband, too. The poor women were crowding on the beach thismorning. Let me go!"

  She understood that he was exposing himself for another--that his lifehung on the turning of a straw. She ran upstairs, but she did not seekher child, and when she descended, Bridget had still to fetch her mantleand bonnet. The old woman did not seek to detain her, but ejaculatedthrough her chattering teeth, as she peered out after her and wrung herhands, "She will bring the Master back, if anything can; nought willharm her. I, poor miserable wretch, would but clog her swiftness. Ay, hewill hearken to her voice; he has been waiting for the sound weeks andmonths. Who would have said that Master Hector, like Samson, would twicebe given a prey to a woman! He will hear her above the winds and waves;body or soul, he will obey her, as he did Alice Boswell twenty years agoin fire and ruin."

 
Leslie hurried on in the darkness, her little feet tripping, her slightform borne back by the blast. Not thus had she wandered on those sunny,summer days when she first knew Otter; but there was that within, in themidst of her distress, that she would not have resigned for that lightlife twice over.

  She reached the beach; the roar of the surf and the shriek of the windwere in her ears, but no human presence was visible. There flashed backupon her the vision of her hopelessness and helplessness on such anotherblustering, raging night--but the recollection brought no comfort. Shepaused in dismay, with nothing but the mist and the driving rain beforeher. Stay! obscurely, and at intervals, she caught sight of a light, nowborne on the crest of these giant waves, now sunk and lost. Hark! apistol-shot! that must be Boswell's appeal for aid; and yonder layEarlscraig--yonder also was Hector toiling to rescue his ancient friendand persistent foe. She should be there too. At Earlscraig their destinywould be wrought out.

  Leslie sped along in the tumult of earth and sky; the road was more thana mile, and at such a season and in such weather very toilsome anddangerous--but what deeds have not tender women achieved, strung bylove, or hate!

  When Leslie gained the promontory, she found the old house deserted--thefew servants were on the shore, aiding or watching Hector Garret and hismen in their efforts to save the last of his line, cast away within theshadow of his own rocks and towers.

  Leslie shrank from descending among the spectators; she remained spentand breathless, but resolute still, where she could spy the firstwayfarer, hear the first shout of triumph, and steal away in thedarkness, fleeing home unmarked and undetained.

  It was the first occasion on which she had been close to Earlscraig. Thesituation, at all times exposed, was now utterly forlorn. The spray wasrising over the land, the waves were sapping its old foundation, theweird winds were tearing at the coping of the shattered house; and onthe side where Alice Boswell's turret had stood, stones were rumbling,and wild weeds streaming. The scene was very dismal and eerie, butLeslie did not shudder or faint; her senses were bent on one aim, shewas impervious to all else. She sank down in a kneeling position,staring with unwinking eyes, praying with her whole heart in an agony.The light which had beguiled her, passed beyond her sight after tossingfor some time to and fro. She could not regain it, she could onlycontinue ready to seize the first signal of bliss, or woe.

  It did not come. The storm raged more madly; the desolation grew moreappalling; Leslie's brain began to whirl; the solitude was rife withshapes and voices.

  Above all stood fair Alice Boswell, wreathed in white flames--from thewavering cloudy mass of forms the gallant exile plunged anew into theflood, now seething and rushing to meet its prey.

  "Oh woman--Alice Boswell--I did not steal your lover! you kept him fromme long after God and man had given him to me. There are no vows andcaresses in the grave. We have had but one meeting and parting; but one!Oh, stranger, he is spending his life for her brother, as you were readyto fling down yours for her. Will none of you be appeased? Then take usboth; in mercy leave not the other! In death let us not be divided!"

  The pang was over; Leslie passed into insensibility. When she recoveredherself, the spectres of that horrible dream still flitted around her,for did she not distinguish through the surge and the blast HectorGarret's foot speeding to receive his doom?

  But "Leslie," not "Alice," was his cry. Beneath the very arches ofEarlscraig, where fair Alice Boswell, her rich hair decked for one, herbright eyes sparkling for another, her sandal buckled for a third, hadstood, and waved to him her hand--"Leslie! Leslie!" was his cry,uttered with such aching longing, such utter despair. It was the wail ofno mocking ghost, but the human cry of a breaking heart.

  Leslie's tongue clove to the roof of her mouth; but there was no needof speech to indicate to him his weak, fluttering treasure. Found oncemore! Found for ever! raised and borne away swiftly and securely. Noword of explanation, no reproach for folly and desperation, no recitalof his labours, no information regarding others, but--strange fromHector Garret's stern lips, and sweet as strange--murmurs of fondnessand devotion: "Sweet Leslie! mine only--mine always!" Scoutings atweariness, cheery reckonings of their way, his heart beating againsthers, her cheek to his; and it was only when Bridget Kennedy openedthe door, and he asked her whether she had yet a chamber for thistruant, that Leslie was aware how well Hector Garret had performed hispart, and how many guests the hospitable walls of Otter sheltered thateventful night.

  Bridget was solemnly praising heaven, whose arm had been about them, andrestored them both in the flower of their days, to Otter, and to theirbairn.

  "We have come back for more than Otter and the bairn, Leslie. Bridgetand all the men of Ayr could not have held her here, my faithful wifethat needs must be my love, she has proved herself so true!"

  He was throwing off her drenched cloak, and chafing her cold hands. Oneof them was clenched on its contents. He opened the stiffened finger,and found a lock of hair.

  "It was all belonging to you that I had, Hector," she whispered; "I tookit long ago, with your knowledge but without your consent. I would notlook at it, or touch it; I kept it for little Leslie. But you said thatyou were mine, and it was something of yours to hold; you were mine, andit was part of you."

  * * * * *

  "Better for Scotland that weans greet than bearded men," averred theLord of Glammis; but he did not say, better for the men, or better forthose who plight hand and heart with them, that the keen, clear eye meltnot, either with ruth or tenderness. Nay, the plants of household faithand love, scathed by some lightning flash, pinched by some poverty ofsoil, will lift their heads and thrive apace when once they have beenwatered with this heavenly rain--and like the tree of the Psalmistgrowing by the river, will flourish pleasantly, and bear much goodlyfruit thenceforth, and fade not at all, but instead, be transplantedinto "the land that is far away."