ROB had a great deal to say, but it was chiefly repetition of what he had said before. He drew her arm within his, and they wandered down by the edge of the wood and into the fields. That last little accidental outbreak of sunshine was over, and all once more was grayness and monotones. There was nobody about; the evening was not tempting enough to bring out walkers. In the kirktown people were out “about the doors,” sitting on the kirk steps, keeping up a confused little hum of conversation, quieter than usual as suited the Sabbath night; and the people who had gardens strolled about them in domestic stillness, and commented upon the coming apples; but it was not the fashion in Stratheden to take walks on Sunday evening. The fields were very silent and still; and so absorbed were the two in their conversation that they wandered far out of the woods of Earl’s-hall, and were skirting the fields about the farm before they were aware. Rob’s plan was to go to London, to make what progress he could with his drawing, to study and work, and achieve success; the last went without saying. Margaret was as certain of it as that the sun would rise to-morrow. But she was not equally certain of the other part of the programme, which was that he should go to the Grange—her house where she was to live—and be produced there as her betrothed husband, and introduced to her sisters.
This prospect alarmed her more than she could say. She did not want him to come to the Grange. She did not know what to say about writing to him. The idea brought a hot blush to her face. Margaret was not quite sure that she could write a letter that she would like Rob Glen to see. He was very clever, and she did not think she could write a very pretty letter. In short, she was unpractical and unmanageable to the last degree, and Rob had some excuse for being impatient. She had no idea what could be done, except that she might perhaps come to Earl’s-hall and see him there, and that three years was not so very long. He lost himself in arguments, in eloquent appeals to her; and she had nothing very eloquent to say in return. After a while she was silenced, and made very little answer at all, but walked along by his side demurely, with her thick gauze veil drooping over her face, and heard all he had to say, saying yes now and then, and sometimes no. Her position was very simple; and though he proved to her that it was untenable by a hundred arguments, and showed her that some other plan was necessary, he did not drive Margaret out of it.
What could she do? she asked, wringing her hands. Ludovic was against them, and Jean would be much more against them. She dared not let Jean know. Even her brother himself had said that Jean must not know. And, to tell the truth, Rob himself was of the opinion that it would be better to keep this secret from Mrs. Bellingham; but yet he thought he might at least be allowed to visit at the Grange, as an old friend, if nothing more. They got through a series of by-ways into the field path, where their first meeting had been, and Rob was trying, for the hundredth time, to obtain some promise of intercourse from Margaret, when suddenly some one coming behind them laid a hand upon a shoulder of each. Rob gave a violent start and turned round, while Margaret, with a little cry, shrank back into the shadow of the hedge-row.
“My certy!” said the intruder; “this is a fine occupation, Rob, my man, for a Sabbath nicht!” And then she, too, gave a cry of surprise, more pretended than real, but in which there was a little genuine fright. “Eh, bless me, it’s Miss Margret, and so far from hame!” she cried.
“Mother! what are you doing here?” cried Rob. But as for Margaret she was relieved. She had thought nothing less for the moment than that Jean was upon her, or, at the very least, Bell coming out to seek and bring her back. Mrs. Glen was not a person of whom she stood in any fear, and she would not tell or interfere to let Jean know, for Rob’s sake. So that Margaret turned round from the hedge-row with a relieved soul, and said,
“Oh, is it you, Mrs. Glen?” with a new sense of ease in her tone.
“Deed and it is just me, my bonnie young lady. I hear you are going away, Miss Margret, and many a sore heart you will leave in the country-side. You’re so near the farm, you must come in and I will make you a cup of tea in a moment. It’s real gray and dull, and there’s a feel in the air like rain. Come your ways to the farm, Miss Margret, my bonnie dear; and after that Rob will take you home.”
Margaret made no resistance to this proposal. She had been walking for some time, and she was tired, and even the idea of the tea was welcome. She went in after Mrs. Glen with some misgivings as to the length of her absence, but a sense of relief on that point too; for it had always been a good excuse to Bell, and even to her father, that she had accepted the civility of one of their humbler neighbors. “It pleases them; and so long as they are decent folk they will never but be awfu’ keen to take care of Miss Margret: and she knows none but decent folk,” Bell had said. The cup of tea in the farm-parlor would be as good a reason for Margaret’s absence as Sir Claude’s luncheon-table was for her sisters’. To be sure, in former days there had been no son at Mrs. Glen’s to make such visits dangerous. She went in with a sense of unexpected relief and sat down, very glad to find herself at rest in the parlor, where a little fire was burning. To be sure, Rob would walk home with her and renew his entreaties; but he could not, she thought, continue them in his mother’s presence, and the relief was great.
“Mony a time have you come in here to get your tea, Miss Margret. I’ve seen Rob come ben carrying ye in his arms. I mind one time you were greeting for tiredness, a poor wee missie, and your shoe lost in the burn; that lad was aye your slave, Miss Margret, from the time you were no bigger than the table.”
“Oh, I remember,” said Margaret; “I thought Bell would scold me, and I did not know how I was to go home without my shoe.”
“You went home in that lad’s arms, my bonnie dear, for all he stands there so blate, looking at ye as if you were an angel; he wasna aye sae blate. You went home in his arms, and gave him a good kiss, and thought no shame. But you were only six then, and now you’re eighteen. Oh ay, my dear, I can tell your age to a day. You were born the same week as my youngest that died, a cauld November, and that sent your bonnie young mother to her grave. It was an awfu’ draughty house, and no a place for a delicate young woman, that auld house at Earl’s-hall. Fine, I mind; and Rob there he’s five years older. From the time you could toddle he aye thought you the chief wonder o’ the world.”
“Mother, you that know so much you had better know all,” said Rob. “I think her the chief wonder of the world still.”
“You need not tell me that, my bonnie man; as if I could not see it in your een!” Margaret stirred uneasily while this conversation went on over her head. She had never thought of having this engagement told to anybody, of being talked about to anybody. She got up with a little gasp, feeling as if there was not air enough to breathe. If they would not surround her so, close her up, all these people; oh, if they would only let her alone! She tried to turn away to escape before Rob should have said any more—but, before she clearly understood what was passing, found herself suddenly in the arms of Mrs. Glen.
“Oh, my pretty miss! my bonnie young lady! is this all true that I hear?” Rob’s mother cried, with effusive surprise and delight. “Did I ever think, when I rose out of my bed this morning, that I was to hear such wonderful news afore the night? Eh, Miss Margret, my dear, I wish ye much joy, and I think ye’ll have it, for he’s a good lad; and you, ye smiling loon, I need not wish you joy, for you’re just leaping out of yourself with happiness and content.”
“And I think I have good reason,” cried Rob, coming up in his turn and receiving her out of his mother’s embrace. Oh, how horribly out of place Margaret felt between them! Never in her life had she felt the dignity of being Margaret Leslie, old Sir Ludovic’s daughter, as she did at that moment. Her cheeks burned crimson; she shrank into herself, to escape from the embracing arms. What had she to do here? How had she strayed so far from home? It was all she could do not to break forth into passionate tears of disgust and repugnance. Oh, Margaret thought, if she could but get away! if she could but run home all the way and never stop! if she could but beg Jean to leave Earl’s-hall instantly that very night! But she could not do any of these things. She had to stand still, with eyes cast down and crimson cheeks, hearing them talk of her. It was to them she seemed to belong now; and how could she get away?
“Now give us your advice, mother,” said Rob, “we cannot tell what to do. The Leslies are prejudiced, as may easily be supposed, especially the old ladies (oh that Jean and Grace had but heard themselves called old ladies!), and Margaret wants me to wait the three years till she comes of age. She wants me to trust to chances of seeing her and hearing of her—not even to have any regular correspondence. I would cut off my right hand to please her, but how am I to live without seeing her, mother? We had been talking and consulting, and wandering on, a little farther and a little farther, till we did not know where we were going. But now that we are here, give us your advice. Will you be for me, I wonder, or on Margaret’s side?”
He had called her Margaret often before, and she was quite used to it; why did it suddenly become so offensive and insupportable now?
“You see,” said Mrs. Glen, “there is a great deal to be said on both sides.” Mrs. Glen was very much excited, her eyes gleaming, her heart beating. It seemed to her that she had the fate of these two young people in her hands, and might now clinch the matter and establish her son’s good-fortune if Providence would but inspire her with the right thing to say. “There is this for our bonnie Miss Margret, that she would be all her lane to bear the opposition o’ thae ladies, and hard it would be for a delicate young thing no used to struggle for herself; and there’s that for you, Rob, that nae doubt it would be a terrible trial to worship the ground she treads on as you do, and never to see her for three lang years. Now let me think a moment, bairns, while this dear lassie takes her cup of tea.”
Margaret could not refuse the cup of tea. How could she assert herself and withdraw from them, and let them know that she was not to be taken possession of and called a dear lassie by Mrs. Glen? Her heart was in revolt; but she was far too shy, far too polite to make a visible resistance. She drew back into the room as far as she could out of the fitful gleams of the fire-light, and she shrank from Rob’s arm, which was on the back of her chair; but still she took the tea and sat still, bearing with all they said and did. It was the last time; but oh, what trouble she had got into without meaning it! Suddenly it had come to be salvation and deliverance to Margaret that she was going away.
“Now, bairns,” said Mrs. Glen, “listen to me. I think I have found what you want. The grand thing is that you should be faithful to each other, and mind upon each other. It’s no being parted that does harm. Three years will flee away like three days, and you will be young, young, ower young to be married at the end; and you would do more than that, Rob Glen, for your bonnie Margaret; weel I ken that. So here is just what you must do. You must give each other a bit writing, saying that ye’ll marry at the end of three years—you to her, Rob, and her to you. And then you will be out of all doubt, and troth-plight, the one to the other, before God and man.”
“Mother!” cried Rob, starting up from where he had been bending over Margaret, with a wild glow of mingled rage, terror, and hope in his eyes. The suggestion gave him a shock. He did not know anything about the law on that point, nor whether there was more validity in such a promise than in any other love-pledge. But he was struck with sudden alarm at the idea of doing something which might afterward be brought against him, and a certain generosity and honor not extinguished in his mind made him realize Margaret’s helpless condition between his mother and himself, and her ignorance and her youth; while at the same time, to secure her, to make certain of her, gave him a tug of temptation, a wild sensation of delight. “No, no,” he cried, hoarsely, “I could not make her do it;” then paused, and looked at her with the eager wildness of passion in his eyes.
But Margaret was perfectly calm. No passion was woke in her—scarcely any understanding of what this meant. A bit writing? Oh yes, what would that matter, so long as she could get away?
“It is getting dark,” she said; “they will not know where I am; they will be wondering. Will I do it now, whatever you want me to do, and go home?”
“Margaret, my love!” he cried, “I thought you were frightened; I thought you were shrinking from me; and here is your sweet consent more ready than even mine!”
“Oh, it is not that,” she said, a little alarmed by the praise and by the demonstrations that accompanied it. “But it is getting dark, and it is late; and oh, I am so anxious to get home.”
Rob wrung his hands. “She doesn’t understand what we mean, mother; I can’t take advantage of her. She thinks of nothing but to get home.”
“You gomerel!” said his mother, between her teeth; and then she turned a smiling face upon Margaret. “Just that, my bonnie miss,” she said; “a woman’s heart’s aye ready to save sorrow to them that’s fond of her. It’s time you were home, my sweet lady. Just you write it down to make him easy in his mind, and then he will take you back to Earl’s-hall.”
“Must I write it myself?” Margaret said; and it came across her with a wave of blushing that she did not write at all nicely—not so well as she ought. “And what am I to say? I don’t know what to say.” Then she gave another glance at the window, which showed the night drawing near, the darkness increasing every moment, with that noiseless, breathless pleasure which the night seems to take in getting dark when we are far from home. She got up with a sudden, hasty impulse. “Oh, if you please, Mrs. Glen, if you will be as quick as ever you can! for I must run all the way.”
“That will I, my darlin’ lady,” said the delighted mother. It was she who had the whole doing of it, and the pride of having suggested it. Rob stood by, quite pale, his eyes blazing with excitement, his mind half paralyzed with trouble and terror, hope to have, reluctance to take, fear of something unmanly, something dishonorable, intensified by the eagerness of expectation, with which he looked for what was to come. He stood “like a stock stane,” his mother said afterward, his lips parted, his eyes staring, in her way as she rushed to the desk at the other side of the room to find what was wanted. “You eedeeot!” she said, as she pushed him aside, in an angry undertone. Had he not the sense even to help in what was all for his own advantage? Margaret pulled off her black glove and took the pen in her hand. She knew she would write it very badly, very unevenly—not even in a straight line; but if she had to do it before she could run home, it was better to get it over.
“Oh, but I never wrote anything before,” she said; “Mrs. Glen, what must I say?”
“Nor me. I never wrote the like of that before,” cried Mrs. Glen; “and there’s Rob even—too happy to help us.” She had meant to use another word to describe his spasm of irresolution and apprehension, but remembered in time that he must not be contemned in Margaret’s eyes. “It will be just this, my bonnie dear: ‘I, Margaret Leslie, give my word before God and man, to marry Robert Glen as soon as I come of age. So help me God. Amen.’”
“Don’t put that,” cried Rob, making a hasty step toward her. “Don’t let her put that.” But then he turned away in such passion and transport of shame, satisfaction, horror, and disgust as no words could tell, and covered his face with his hands.
“Not that last,” said Margaret, stumbling, in her eagerness, over the words, and glad to leave out whatever she could. “Oh, it is very badly-written. I never could write well. Mrs. Glen, will that do?”
“And now your bonnie name here,” said the originator of the scheme, scarcely able to restrain her triumph. And as Margaret, with a trembling hand, crossed the last t, and put a blot for a dot over the i, in her distracted signature, she received a resounding kiss upon her cheek which was as the report of a pistol to her. She gave a little cry of terror, and threw down the pen, and turned away. “Oh, good-bye!” she cried, “good-bye. I must not stay another moment. I must run all the way.”
Rob did not say a word—he hurried after her, with long strides, keeping up with her as she flew along, in her fright, by the hedge-row. “Oh, they must have missed me by this time. They will be wondering where I have been,” she said, breathless. Rob set his teeth in the dark. Never in his life had he been so humiliated. Though she had pledged herself to him, she was not thinking of him; and in all the experiences of his life he had never yet known this supreme mortification. He had been loved where he had wooed. The other girls whom Rob had addressed had forgotten everything for him. He half hated her, though he loved her, and felt a fierce eagerness to have her—to make her his altogether—to snatch her from the great people who looked down upon him—to make himself master of her fate. But this furious kind of love was only the excitement of the moment. At the bottom of his heart he was fond of Margaret (as he had been of other Margarets before). He could not bear the idea of losing her, of parting from her like this, in wild haste, without any of the lingering caresses of parting.
“Is this how you are going away from me, Margaret,” he cried, “flying—as if you were glad to part, not sorry, when we don’t know when we may meet again?”
“Oh, it is not that I am glad; it is only that they will wonder—they will not know where I have been.”
“Will you ever be as breathless running to me as you are to run away from me?” he cried. “Stop, Margaret! one moment before we come near the gate, and say good-bye.”
She yielded with panting breath. That sacred kiss of parting—which, to do him justice, he gave with all the fervor that became the occasion, giving, as he felt, his very heart with it—how glad she was to escape from it, and run on!
“Oh no! I will not forget— I could not forget!” she cried.
Who was this, once more in the lovers’ way? A dark figure, who, they could see, by the movement of his head, turned to look at them, but; went on without taking any notice. Margaret, anxious as she was, recognized Randal Burnside, and wondered that he did not notice her, then was glad to think that he could not know her. Rob had other thoughts. “Again found out—and by the same fellow!” he said to himself, and gnashed his teeth. Randal was going over to Earl’s-hall, a familiar visitor, while he, the betrothed husband of the daughter of Earl’s-hall, had to skulk about the house in the dark, and take leave of his love under cover of the night. Not without bitter humiliations was this hour of his triumph.
“We must wait till he is out of sight,” he said, hoarsely, holding her back. It was like holding an eager greyhound in the leash. “Oh, Margaret,” he said, and despite and vexation filled his heart, “you are not thinking of me at all—and here we have to part! You were not in such a hurry when you used to cry upon my shoulder, and take a little comfort from my love!”
This, and the necessity of keeping back till Randal had passed, touched the girl’s heart.
“It is not my fault that I am in such a hurry,” she said. “Oh, you were kind—kind—kinder than any one. I will never forget it, Rob.”
“It was not kindness,” he said, “it was love.”
“Yes, Rob.” She put her soft cheek to his with compunction in her heart. She had been so eager to get away, and yet how kind he had been—kinder than any one! Thus there came a little comfort for him after all.
But just then, with a sudden flutter, as of a bird roused from the branches, some one came out through the gate, which Randal had not closed behind him—a figure of a woman indistinguishable against the dimness of the twilight, with a little thrill and tremor about her, which somehow made itself felt though she could not be seen.
“Is that you, Miss Margret? Bell sent me to look for you,” she said, with the same thrill and quiver in her voice.
Rob Glen started violently. It was a new shock to him, and he had already met with many shocks to his nerves that night. Her name came to his lips with a cry; but he had sufficient sense of the position to stop himself. Jeanie! was it possible, in the malice of fate, that this was the Jeanie of whom Margaret had told him? He grasped her in his arms for a moment with vehemence, partly because of that sudden startling interruption, and, with one quickly breathed farewell on her cheek, turned and went away.
“Oh, Jeanie, yes, it is me. I am very, very sorry. I did not want to be so late. Have they found out that I was away? have they been looking for me?” cried Margaret. It was not, perhaps, in the nature of things that Jeanie should be unmoved in her reply.
“You’re no looking after the gentleman,” she said. “He’s gone and left you, feared for me; and you’ve given him no good-bye. You needna be feared for me, Miss Margret. Cry him back, and bid him farewell, as a lass should to her lad. I’m nae traitor. You needna be feared that Jeanie will betray ye. It’s no in my heart.”
“Oh, but he’s gone, Jeanie,” said Margaret, with a ring of relief in her voice. “And oh, I’m glad to be at home! They made me stay when I wanted to be back. Oh, how dark it is! Give me your hand, Jeanie, for I cannot see where you are among the trees.”
Jeanie held out her hand in silence and reluctantly, and Margaret, groping, found it, and took hold of it.
“You are all trembling,” she said.
“And if I am all trembling, it’s easy enough to ken why. Standing out in the dark among the black trees, and thinking of them that’s gone to their rest, and waiting for one that was not wanting me. Eh, it’s no so long since you had other things in your head, Miss Margret—your old papa, that was as kind as ever father was. But nobody thinks muckle about old Sir Ludovic now.”
“Oh, Jeanie! I think upon him night and day!” cried Margaret; and what with the reproach, and what with her weariness and the past excitement, she fell into sudden tears.
“Is that you, my bonnie lamb?” said another voice; and Bell came out of the gloom, where she, too, had been on the watch. “It’s cold and it’s dreary, and you’re worn to death,” she said. “Oh, Miss Margret, where have you been, my bonnie doo, wandering about the house, and greeting till your bit heart is sair? Weel, I ken your heart is sair, and mine too. What will we do without you, John and me? You are just the light of our eyes, as you were to the auld maister, auld Sir Ludovic, that was a guid maister to him and to me. Eh, to think this should be the last night, after sae many years!”
“But, Bell,” said Margaret, calmed by this sense of lawful protection and the shadow of home, “it is not the last night for you?”
“Ay, my bonnie pet, it’s that or little else. When you’re gane, Miss Margret, a’ will be gane. And my lady’s a good woman; but I couldna put up with her, and she couldna put up with me. We’re no fit for ither service, neither me nor John—na, no even in your house, my bonnie lamb, for I know that’s what you’re gaun to say. Nae new house nor new ways for John and me. We’re to flit into a bit cot o’ our ain, and there we’ll bide till the Lord calls, and we gang east to the kirk-yard. God bless ye, my bonnie bairn. Run up the stairs; nobody kens you were away; for weel I divined,” said Bell, with an earnestness that filled Margaret’s soul with the sense of guilt—“weel I divined that ye would have little heart for company this sorrowful night.”