_ CHAPTER SEVEN.
"The spring cam' o'er the Westlin hill,
And the frost it fled awa',
And the green grass lookit smilin' up
Nane the waur for a' the snaw."
The winter had been so long in coming and so moist and mild when it came, that weatherwise folk foretold a spring late and cold as sure to follow. But for once they were all mistaken. Whatever might come later, there came, when April had fairly set in, several days which would have done credit to June itself, and on one of these days the schoolmistress made up her mind that she would go down to the manse and speak to the minister's wife about the bairns.
She was standing at her own door, looking out over the hills, which were showing some signs of coming summer. So were the birch-trees in the distance, and the one laburnum which stood in a corner of Mistress Beaton's garden. She sighed as she gazed.
"The simmer will soon be here, and it'll soon be over again. It's but a blink noo," she said to herself, "but if the morn is like this day, we'll mak' the best o' it. I'se hae the bairns up to the Stanin' Stanes. The wind there will blaw awa' what's left o' the kink-hoast among them. They'll be a' keen eneuch to get there for the sake o' the ploy, and if they're weel eneuch for the like o' that, their mithers will hardly hae the face to keep them langer frae the school. And it is high time they were comin' back again," added she, thinking less, perhaps, of their loss of lore than of the additional penny a week which each returning one would bring to her limited housekeeping.
She was a tall, gaunt woman, with a wrinkled, unhappy-looking face and weary eyes. Her grey hair showed a little under the mob cap, closely bound round her head with a broad, black ribbon, and her spectacles, tied with a string for safety, rested high on her furrowed forehead. She wore the usual petticoat of dark winsey, and her short gown of some dark-striped print fell a little below the knee. A large cotton kerchief was spread over her shoulders and fastened snugly across her breast. Her garments were worn and faded, but perfectly neat and clean, and she looked, as she was, a decent, but not very cheery old woman. She had an uncertain temper, her friends allowed, and even those who were not so friendly acknowledged that "her lang warstle wi' the bairns o' twa generations, to say nothing of other troubles that had fallen to her lot, might weel account for, and even excuse that."
She turned into the house at last, and began gathering together the dog-eared Bibles and Testaments, and the tattered catechisms, and "Proverbs of Solomon," which were the only books approved or used in her school, and placed them in a wooden tray by the door. She gave a brief examination to the stockings which the lassies had been knitting in the afternoon, muttering and shaking her head as she held them up to the light. The mistakes in some of them she set right, and from some of them she pulled out the "wires," sticking them into the balls of worsted, with some anticipatory pleasure at the thought of the consternation of the "careless hizzies" to whom they belonged.
Then the forms were set back, and "the tawse," a firm belt of leather, cut into strips at one end--by no means the least important of the educational helps of the time and place--was hung in its usual conspicuous position, and then the school-room, which was also the whole house, was supposed to be in order for the night.
It was a dismal little place, having a small window on the side next the street, and a still smaller one on the other. There was the inevitable box-bed on the side opposite the fireplace, and the equally inevitable big brown chest for clothing, and bedding, and all other household valuables that needed a touch of "the smith's fingers" for safety. There was the meal-chest, and a tiny cupboard for dishes and food, and on a high dresser, suggestive of more extensive housekeeping operations than the mistress had needed for many a year and day, were piled a number of chairs and other articles not needed in the school.
A dismal place, but it was her own, till morning should bring the bairns again. So she mended the peat fire into a brighter glow, and seated herself beside it, to take the solace of her pipe, after the worries and weariness of the day.
A pleasant sound put an end to her meditations. From under the chair which stood near the little window at the head of the box-bed, came, with stately step, a big, black hen, announcing, with triumphant cackle, that
her duty was done for the day also. The mistress rose and took the warm egg from the nest.
"Weel dane, Tappie! Ye'se get your supper as ye deserve, and then I maun awa' to the manse." So she scattered her scanty supply of crumbs about the door, and then prepared herself for her visit.
If she had been going to the manse by special invitation, she would have put on her Sabbath-day's gown and shawl, and all the folk would have known it as she went up the street. But as she was going on business, she only changed her mutch, and her kerchief and apron, and putting her key in its accustomed hole in the thatch, she went slowly down the street, knitting, or, as she would have called it, "weaving," as she went.
She had not very far to go, but two or three greetings she got and returned as she passed. "Mistress Jamieson," the neighbours called her to her face, but she knew quite well that behind her back she was just called Bell Cummin, her maiden name, as was the way among the humbler class of folk in these parts. They all paid her a certain measure of respect, but she was not a favourite among them, for she was silent and sour, and sometimes over-ready to take offence, and her manner was not over-friendly at the best of times.
At the entrance of the close which led to the back door of the manse stood the weaver's wife from next door, and with her a woman with whom the mistress was not always on speaking terms. This was the wife of tailor Coats, who spent, as the schoolmistress had once told her, more time on the causey (pavement) than was good either for herself or her bairns. She would fain have passed her now without speaking, but that was not the intention of Mistress Coats.
"The minister's nae at hame, nor the mistress," said she, "and since ye hae lost your journey, ye micht as weel come in and hae a crack (talk) with Mistress Sim and me, and gie's o' your news."
"I dinna deal in news, and I hae nae time for cracks and clavers."
"Dear me! and sae few bairns as ye hae noo at the schule. Gin ye could but learn them their samplers noo, or even just plain sewing, ye might keep the lassies thegither for a whilie langer. But their mithers man hae them taucht to use their needles, and it canna be wonnered at."
This was a sore subject with the mistress, who was no needle-woman, and she turned, ready with a sharp answer. But the smile on the woman's face, and the look of expectation on the more friendly face of Mistress Sim, served as a warning, and calling her discretion to her help, she turned at once into the manse.
It was peaceful enough there. No one was in the kitchen, and after a moment's hesitation she crossed the little passage and knocked at the parlour-door. No response being given, she pushed it gently open and looked into the room. The two youngest boys were amusing themselves with their playthings in a corner, and Marjorie lay on her couch with her doll and her doll's wardrobe, and a book or two within reach of her hand. The tiny little face brightened at the sight of the mistress.
"Come away in, Mistress Jamieson. I am very glad to see you," said she, with a tone and manner so exactly like what her mother's might have been, that the mistress could not but smile a little with amusement as well as with pleasure. "My father and mother are both away from home to-day; but they will soon be back now, and you'll just bide till they come, will you not?"
Mistress Jamieson acknowledged herself to be in no special haste, and sitting down, she made advances toward an interchange of greetings with the little boys. Wee Wattie, not quite four years old, came forward boldly enough, and submitted to be lifted to her knee. But Norman, aged five, had been once or twice sent to the school, with his brothers, when his absence was convenient at home, and certain unpleasant recollections of such times made him a little shy of meeting her friendly advances. Even Robin and Jack had been in their day afraid of the mistress and her tawse. But Marjorie had never been at the school, and had always seen her in her best mood in the manse parlour. She had had rather a dull afternoon with but her little brothers for company, for Allie was busy, and had only looked in now and then to see that the little ones had got into no mischief. So the child was truly pleased to see the mistress, and showed it; and so Mistress Jamieson was pleased, also, and in the best of humour for the afternoon.
And this was a fortunate thing for Marjorie. For she had many questions in her mind which no one could answer so well as the mistress--questions about the reading of one child and of the "weaving" of another, and of the well-doing or ill-doing of many besides. For though she did not see the bairns of the town very often, she knew them all, and took great interest in all that concerned them.
She knew some things about the bairns of the school which the mistress did not know herself, and which, on the whole, it was as well she should not know. So when, in the case of one of them, they seemed to be approaching dangerous ground, and Mrs Jamieson's face began to lengthen and to take the set, which to Marjorie, who had only heard about it, looked ominous of trouble to some one, the child turned the talk toward other matters.
"I must show you my stocking," said she, opening a basket which stood within reach of her hand. "It is not done so ill for a beginner, my mother says. But it is slow work. I like the flowering of muslin better, but mother says too much of it is no' good for the een. And it is quite proper that every one should ken how to make stockings, especially one with so many brothers as I have."
The stocking was duly examined and admired. It had been the work of months, done in "stents" of six or eight times round in a day, and it was well done "for a beginner." There were no mended botches, and no traces of "hanging hairs and holey pies," which so often vexed the very heart of the mistress in the work of some of the "careless hizzies" whom she was trying to teach. She praised it highly, but she looked at the child and wondered whether she would live to finish it. There was no such thought in the mind of Marjorie.
"Mother says that making stockings becomes a pleasant and easy kind of work when one grows old. And though I canna just say that I like it very well. I must try and get on with it, for it is one of the things that must be learned young, ye ken."
"Ay, that's true. And what folk can do weel, they ay come to like to do in course o' time," said the mistress encouragingly. "I only wish that Annie Cairns and Jeannie Robb could show work as weel done."
"Oh! but they are different," said the child, a sudden shadow falling on her face. "If I could run about as they can, I would maybe no' care about other things."
"Puir wee lammie!" said the mistress.
"Oh! but I'm better than I used to be," said Marjorie, eagerly; "a great deal better. And I'll maybe be well and strong some day, our Allie says."
"God grant it, my dear," said the mistress reverently.
"And I have some things to enjoy that the other bairns havena. See, I have gotten a fine new book here," said Marjorie, mindful of her mother's warning about speaking much of her trouble to other folk. "It's a book my father brought home to my mother the last time he was away. I might read a bit of it to you."
"Ay, do ye that. I will like weel to hear you."
It was "The Course of Time," a comparatively new book in those days, and one would think a dreary enough one for a child. It was a grand book to listen to, when her mother read it to her father, Marjorie thought, and she liked the sound of some of it even when she read it to herself. And it was the sound of it that the mistress liked as she listened, at least she was not thinking of the sense, but of the ease and readiness with which the long words glided from the child's lips. It was about "the sceptic" that she was reading--the man who had striven to make this fair and lovely earth.
"A cold and fatherless, forsaken thing that wandered on forlorn, undestined, unaccompanied, unupheld"; and the mistress had a secret fear that if the child should stumble among the long words and ask for help, she might not be able to give it without consideration.
"Ay, it has a fine sound," said she, as Marjorie made a pause. "But I wad ken better how ye're comin' on wi' your readin' gin ye were to tak' the New Testament."
There was a tradition among the old scholars that, in the early days of her experience as a teacher, the mistress used to make a little pause before committing herself in the utterance of some of the long words in the Bible; if it were so, that time was long past. But before Marjorie had opened the book, Allison came in, to mend the fire and put things to rights; and as the books had only been intended as a diversion from unpleasant possibilities, they were gladly and quickly put aside.
"This is our Allie, mistress," said Marjorie, putting out her hand to detain her friend as she passed.
"Ay, ay. I ken that. I hae seen her at the kirk and elsewhere," said the mistress, rather stiffly.
"And she is so strong and kind," said the child, laying her cheek on the hand that had been put forth to smooth her pillow, which had fallen aside.
Mistress Jamieson had seen "the new lass" often, but she had never seen on her face the look that came on it at the loving movement of the child.
"Are ye wearyin' for your tea, dear? It's late, and I doubt they needed to go on all the way to Slapp, as they thought they might, and maybe they winna be home this while."
A shadow fell on the face of the child. Allison regarded her gravely.
"Never heed, my lammie. I'll take the wee laddies into the kitchen, and ye can make tea for the mistress and your brothers if they come in. You'll like that, dear."
Marjorie brightened wonderfully. She ay liked what made her think she was able to do as other folk did. The mistress rose, excusing herself for having been beguiled into staying so long.
"And what would my mistress say if we were to let ye away without your tea?" asked Allison, with great respect and gravity.
Then Robin came in, and he added his word, and to tell the truth the mistress was well pleased to be persuaded. She and Robin were on the friendliest terms now, though there had been "many a tulzie" between them in the old days. For Robin, though quieter than Jack, and having the reputation of being "a douce and sensible laddie" elsewhere, had been, during the last days of his subjection to Mistress Jamieson, "as fou o' mischief as an egg is fou o' meat," and she had been glad enough to see the last of him as a scholar. But all that had been long forgotten and forgiven. Robin behaved to her with the greatest respect and consideration, "now that he had gotten some sense," and doubtless when he should distinguish himself in college, as he meant to do, the mistress would take some of the credit of his success to herself, and would hold him up as an example to his brothers as persistently as she had once held him up as a warning.
To-night they were more than friendly, and did not fall out of conversation of the most edifying sort, Marjorie putting in her word now and then. All went well till wee Wattie took a fit of coughing, and Norman followed in turn; and then Mistress Jamieson told them of her proposed expedition to the Stanin' Stanes, for the benefit of all the bairns, if the day should prove fine.
Marjorie leaned back in her chair, clasping her hands and looking at her brother with eager entreaty in her eyes. But Robin would not meet her look. For Marjorie had a way of taking encouragement to hope for the attainment of impossible things when no encouragement was intended, and then when nothing came of it, her disappointment was as deep as her hopes had been high.
Then she turned her eyes to the mistress, but resisted the impulse to speak. She knew that her words would be sympathetic and encouraging, but that it must end in words as far as she was concerned.
"And it's ay best to go straight to my mother," said Marjorie to herself, remembering past experiences; "and there will be time enough to speak in the morning if the day should be fine."
So she wisely put the thought of the morrow away, and took the good of the present. And she had her reward. Warned by Robin, Allie said not a word of what awaited the school bairns next day, though the little boys discussed it eagerly in the kitchen. So, when the mother came home, she found her little daughter quietly asleep, which was not often the case when anything had happened to detain her father and mother from home later than was expected.
But though Allison said nothing, she thought all the more about the pleasure which the child so longed to enjoy with the rest. Before she slept, she startled her mistress not a little, entering of her own free will into an account of the schoolmistress' plan to take the bairns to the hills for the sake of their health, and ending by asking leave to take little Marjorie to "the Stanin' Stanes" with the rest. She spoke as quietly as if she had been asking a question about the morning's breakfast, and waited patiently for her answer. Mrs Hume listened doubtfully.
"I hope she has not been setting her heart upon it. It will be a sad disappointment to her."
"If it must be a disappointment. No, we have had no words about it. But she heard it from the mistress. It wad be as good for her as for the other bairns."
"I fear it would not be wise to try it. And she can hardly have set her heart upon going, or she would not be sleeping so quietly."
"It would do her good," persisted Allison.
"And you could trust her with Allison, and Robin might meet them and carry the child home," said the minister.
Mrs Hume turned to him in surprise. When the minister sat down in the parlour to take a half-hour's recreation with a book, he became, as far as could be observed, quite unconscious of all that might be going on around him, which was a fortunate circumstance for all concerned, considering the dimensions of the house, and the number of people in it. But never a word, which touched his little daughter, escaped him, however much his book might interest him.
"You would take good care of her, Allison?" repeated he.
"Ay, that I would."
"If it were a possible thing that she could go I would not be afraid to trust her with Allison. But the risk of harm would be greater than the good she could get, or the pleasure."
"It is a long road, and I doubt ye might weary, Allison," said the minister.
"I hae carried hame lost lammies, two, and whiles three o' them, a langer road over the hills than the road to the Stanin' Stanes. Ay, whiles I grew weary, but what of that?" said Allison, with an animation of face and voice that astonished them both.
"Well! We'll sleep on it. A wise plan at most times when doubtful questions are being considered."
And who could measure the delight of the child when it was told her that she was to go to the hills with the rest? If her mother were still only half convinced of the wisdom of the measure, she did not suffer her anxiety to appear in a way to spoil her little daughter's pleasure. And Marjorie moderated her raptures and was wonderfully quiet and unexcited while all preparations were going on. Nor did she show impatience when she had still some time to wait after her little brothers had set out to join the other bairns at the school.
The mistress was to have the help of some of the elder girls in marshalling the little lads and lassies, and in encouraging them through the rather long, tramp up the hills. Allison, who had been busy from early morning, and had still something to do, assured the child that it would only be a weariness for them both if she were obliged to measure her steps by those of the bairns, and that they would reach the Stanin' Stanes before them; though they gave them a whiles start.
"They are doing one another good," said the minister, as they stood at the door, following with their eyes the stately figure of Allison as she went steadily down the street, looking neither to the right hand nor the left. But it was "lanesome like" to go back into the parlour and look at Marjorie's empty couch.
And Marjorie was moving on, as she sometimes did in her dreams, down the street, and past the well on the green, and over the burn, and up the brae, first between hedges that would soon be green, and then between dikes of turf or grey stone, till at last Allison paused to rest, and then they turned to look at the town, lying in a soft haze of smoke in the valley below.
They could see the manse and the kirk and the trees about the garden, and all the town. They could see the winding course of the burn for a long way, and Burney's Pot, as they called the pond into which the burn spread itself before it fell over the dam at Burney's mill. A wide stretch of farming land rose gradually on the other side of the valley beyond. Some of the fields were growing green, and there were men ploughing in other fields, and everywhere it looked peaceful and bright, "a happy world," Marjorie said. They could see Fir Hill, the house where Mrs Esselmont lived in summertime--at least they could see the dark belt of firs that sheltered it from the east and half hid it from the town.
"It's bonny over yonder. I was there once, and there is such a pretty garden," said Marjorie.
Then they went on their way. It was the loveliest of spring days. The sun did not shine quite all the time, because there were soft white clouds slowly moving over the sky which hid his face now and then. But the clouds were beautiful and so was their slow movement over the blue, and the child lay in Allison's arms, and looked up in perfect content.
Spring does not bring all its pleasant things at once in that northern land. The hedges had begun to show their buds a good while ago, but they had only buds to show still, and the trees had no more. The grass was springing by the roadside, and here and there a pale little flower was seen among it, and the tender green of the young grain began to appear in sheltered and sunny spots. Oh! how fair and sweet it all was to Marjorie's unaccustomed eyes!
"Oh, Allie!" said she, "can it be true that I am here?"
She could not free her arms from the enveloping shawl to clasp Allie's neck, but she raised herself a little and laid her cheek against hers, and then she whispered:
"I prayed the Lord to let me come." Then they went on in the soft warm air their pleasant way. By and by they left the road and went over the rougher ground that lay between them and the end of their journey. In a hollow where there was standing water, Allison took the wrong turning, and so going a little out of the way, came suddenly on the mistress and her noisy crowd of bairns, who were looking for them in another direction.
It was a day to be remembered. But it was not all pleasure to every one, though every moment was full of delight to Marjorie. The bairns were wild and not easily managed, and the mistress "had her ain adoes among them." Of course the tawse had been left at home, and the sternness of countenance which was the right and proper thing in the school, the mistress felt would be out of place among the hills, even supposing the bairns would heed it, which was doubtful. As for setting limits beyond which they were not to wander, that was easily done, but with all the treasures of the hills awaiting discovery, was it likely that these limits would be kept in mind?
The mistress strode after the first wandering group, and called after the second, and then she declared that "they maun gang their ain gait, and tak' their chance o' being lost on the hills," and she said this with such solemnity of countenance as to convince the little ones who remained that they at least had best bide where they were. It was not likely, after all, that anything more serious than wet feet or perhaps torn clothes would happen to them--serious enough troubles in their own way, and likely to be followed by appropriate pains and penalties without the intervention of the mistress. At any rate they must just take their chance.
So, she "put them off her mind," and with the other bairns, and Allison carrying Marjorie in her arms, wandered for a while among "the Stanes."
Seven great stones there were, arranged around another greater still; and they might well wonder, as many had wondered before them, how they had been brought there, and by whom, and for what purpose. That is, Marjorie wondered, and told them what her father thought, and Robin; and Allison listened and smiled, and wondered too, since she was called to think about it at all.
As for the mistress, the "Stanin' Stanes" were just the Stanin' Stanes to her. She accepted them as she did the hills themselves, and the heather, and the distant mountains; and she objected decidedly to the minister's opinion as announced by his little daughter.
"We are maybe standing in a temple where, hundreds and hundreds of years ago, the folk worshipped an unknown God," said Marjorie.
The mistress vehemently dissented.
"What should put the like o' that in the minister's head? It's an ill thing for ane to try to be wise aboon what's written."
"But it's all in a book," said the child eagerly. "Robin read it to my mother and me. And in the Bible ye ken there were folk seeking Him, 'if haply they might feel after Him and find Him.' And maybe they were doing that here."
But the mistress would not hear such a thing said.
"Think ye the Lord wad hae letten stan' a' these years in a Christian land like Scotland sic monuments o' will worship and idolatry? Na, na, lassie, I couldna believe that, though your father should preach it out o' the poopit."
"But, Mistress Jamieson, the Lord lets ill men (evil men) live in Scotland, and has patience with them, and whiles saves them from their sins. And maybe the folk were 'feeling after Him' in those faraway days."
"John Beaton told my father that these muckle stanes are quite different from the rest o' the stanes upon the hills hereaboot," said Annie Cairns.
"John Beaton nae less!" said the mistress scornfully. "As gin the Lord couldna put what kin' o' stanes He liket wherever it was His will to put them. And what kens John Beaton mair than the lave?"
"Grannie thinks it was the fairies that brocht them up the brae. But John kens weel about stanes."
It was Annie Cairns, one of the older lassies, who had made the last two ventures. It was certainly a bold thing for a lassie, who was every day convicted in the school of lost loops in her stocking, to put in her word with her betters on such a matter. The mistress answered her with a look which she knew well, and heeded little. But it startled Marjorie, who had only heard about such looks from her brothers. Her face warned Allison that enough had been said.
"Ye're growing tired, my lammie, and ye'll need to lie down and rest for a while."
"Yes, I'm tired, now that I think about it," said the child, lying back in her kind arms again.
The wind had grown a little sharp by this time, and they found a sheltered spot on which the sunshine fell, on the south side of one of the great stones; here Allie made a couch, and the child rested on it in perfect content. Some of the little ones were tired also, and fell asleep, and were well happed by Allison and the mistress, and the rest went away to amuse themselves for a while.
Marjorie did not mean to go to sleep. She could see a wide stretch of sky, over which the white clouds were wandering still, and the tops of the faraway hills, and she thought she could see the sea. But she was asleep and dreaming when it came to that.
In the meantime, soothed by a whiff of her pipe, Mistress Jamieson was getting on quite friendly terms with Allison, who had her good word from that day forth. For with the most respectful attention she sat listening to the all-embracing and rather dismal monologue of the old woman, as few were accustomed to do. Did she listen? She certainly did not understand all that was said, and she could not afterward have repeated a word of it. But she saw a face, wrinkled and grey, and not very happy--an old, tired face. And if she was thinking of troubles that had made deep lines in other faces, rather than of the cares and vexations which had saddened the lot and soured the temper of the schoolmistress, her silence and the softening look in her beautiful, sad eyes, and the grave "ay" or "no" that came in response to some more direct appeal, pleased and soothed the heart of the lonely old woman to a sense of comfort which came seldom enough to her.
And though Allison's answers were of the briefest, when the mistress began to question her about herself and her life before she came to Nethermuir, they were civil, and they were quietly and readily given, and fortunately there was not much time for questions; for the bairns came straggling back by twos and threes as they had gone away. Each brought some treasure found in their wanderings, and Marjorie would have been buried beneath the offerings of flowers, and tender green bracken, and "bonny stanies" that were brought to her, if Annie Cairns had not taken possession of them all, promising to carry them safe to the manse.
There were still some stragglers for whom they must wait. There would have been little good in going to search for them, and there was no need to hurry home, for the afternoon was not far over--at least there would have been no need if the bairns had not been all so ravenously hungry. The "piece" which each had brought from home had been made away with by the greater number, before even the "Stanes" were in sight, and the additional supply which Allison had provided did not go very far among so many.
In these circumstances, imagine the shout of welcome which greeted the appearance of Robin with a bag upon his back--Robin's bag, the bairns called it; but the treat of baps and buns was John Beaton's, who took this way to celebrate his homecoming. And it is to be doubted whether he ever in all his life spent many other crown-pieces to better purpose, as far as the giving or the getting or pleasure was concerned. _