TIRESOME as the manifold preparations for a feast may be, there is something especially dreary and full of discomfort in the bustle of setting to rights, which comes after: dismantled rooms undergoing a thorough purification, before they can once more settle down into their every day look and aspect; servants, in a chaos and frenzy of orderliness, turning the house into a Babel—a kitchen saturnalia; mistresses toiling in vain to have the work concluded bit by bit; and all this without the stimulant of expected pleasure to make it bearable.
Mrs. Ross rather liked such an overturn, and had it commenced gaily in the first relief of Mr. Ambler’s departure; so that when Lewis and Anne returned from the Tower, there was no place of refuge for them, save in the small library, which Lewis had already appropriated as his own peculiar place of retirement.
Mrs. Ross had long taken a malicious pleasure in excluding Anne from all share in the economies of Merkland, in which, indeed, her own active habits and managing disposition could brook no divided empire; and it was not, therefore any super refinement of feeling which called Anne Ross out after her daily task was over, into the silent evening air, upon the quiet side of Oran. It is true that there were delicate tones of harmony there, which few ears could appreciate as well as her own; but the first yearning of these human spirits of ours, is for the sympathy of other human spirits, and it is oftenest disappointment in that, which at once makes us seek for, and susceptible to, the mild pity and silent companionship of the wide earth around us.
A long invigorating walk she had, the little river modulating its voice, as she could fancy, to bear her musings gentle company. Strangely accordant was that plaintive harmony of nature. Wan leaves dropping one by one, the stillness so great that you could hear them fall: the wide air ringing with its tremulous, silent music; the pleasant voice of Oran blending in low cadence, “most musical, most melancholy.” These graduated tones had been significant and solemn to Anne’s spirit all her life long—from the dreamy days of childhood, so strangely grave and thoughtful, with all their shadowy array of haunting ghosts and angels, those constant comrades of the meditative child—up through the long still years of youth, unto this present time of grave maturity, of subdued and chastened prime. Other and mightier things, springing from heaven and not from earth, the presence of that invisible Friend, whose brotherhood of human sympathy circles His people, no less tenderly than His divine strength holds them up, were with her in her solitude; and the lesser music of His fair universe wrought its fitting part in the calming of the troubled spirit; pensive, shadowy, calm, and full of that strange spiritual breath, which Time has, in his momentary lingering between the night and day.
A lonely unfrequented path, winding by Oranside, to a little clump of houses, not very far off, almost too few to be dignified by the name of hamlet, ran close to the high, encircling hedge, which shut in at that side the grounds of Merkland. Not far from the principal entrance was a little gate, across which the branches nearly joined, and which was never used, except by Anne herself, in her solitary rambles. She lingered at it, before she entered again—her dark dress scarcely distinguishable from the thick boughs behind her, as she leant upon the lintel. There was some one approaching on the road, whom Anne regarded with little interest, thinking her some resident of the hamlet, returning to her home; but as the passenger came in front of Merkland, she suddenly stopped, and standing still upon the road, gazed on the quiet house. Her head was turned towards the gate, and Anne, startled into attention, looked upon it wonderingly—an emaciated, pale face, that spoke of suffering, with large, dark, spiritual eyes, beaming from it, as eyes can beam only from faces so worn and wasted. Wistfully the long, slow look fell upon Merkland; standing there, so firm, serene, and homelike, its light shining through the trees. And then Anne heard an inarticulate murmur, as of muttered words, and the cadence of a deep, long sigh, and the stranger—for the wan face, and thin, tall figure, were too remarkable to have escaped her notice, had the passer-by been other than a stranger—went forward upon the darkening path, scarce noting her, Anne thought, as the figure glided past her, like a spirit.
The image would not leave her mind. The pale, worn face—the wistful, searching eyes—haunted her through that night, and mingled with her dreams. Strange visions of Norman, such as now filled her mind continually, received into them this stranger’s spiritual face. Dangers, troubles, the whole indefinite horde of dreaming apprehensions and embarrassments clung round those wistful eyes, as round a centre. Anne could scarcely believe next morning, when she awoke, with the remembrance so clear upon her mind, that it was not some supernatural presence, lingering about her still.
The morning was very bright and clear, and cold, for October was waning then into the duskier winter; and Anne, remembering her engagement with Alice, laid her work by early, and prepared to walk up to the Tower. She met Lewis, booted and spurred, at the door.
“Are you going to the Tower, Anne?” he asked.
“Yes,” was the answer.
“Well, don’t be surprised if you find me at Falcon’s Craig, before you.”
“At Falcon’s Craig, Lewis! What errand have you there?”
“May I not make a friendly call as well as yourself?” said Lewis, gaily. “Besides, I shall take care of you, on the way home. How do I know that the Strathoran roads are quite safe for young ladies?”
“But I thought you were afraid of Miss Falconer?” said Anne.
“Oh, Mr. Ambler relieved me of that fear, you know. She wouldn’t have me, he said. Very fortunate, for she will never get the offer.”
“Mr. Ambler was quite right,” said Anne, uneasily. “But, Lewis do not go, pray—take another morning for your call at Falcon’s Craig. Your mother will be grieved and irritated—do not go to-day.”
“My mother!” Lewis drew himself up with all the petulant dignity peculiar to his years. “Upon my word, Anne, you are perfectly mistaken if you think I have come home to be restrained and chidden like a schoolboy! Grieved and irritated! because that pretty little Miss Aytoun happens to be of the party, I suppose. You are a foolish set, you women, forcing things upon a man’s consideration, which, if you had but let him alone—.” Lewis drew himself up again, and let the end of his sentence evaporate in a smile.
“I was not thinking of—I mean it is not for Miss Aytoun,” said Anne, anxiously; “but your mother wants to consult you, Lewis. There are so many matters of business to attend to that you should manage yourself. Do not go to-day.”
“Don’t fear me!” said Lewis, confidently. “I will attend to my business, too. We shall soon see who is strongest in that respect. Here, Duncan!”
Duncan had brought his master’s horse to the door, and stood at some distance, holding the bridle.
“Good morning, Anne!” cried Lewis, as he mounted and cantered gaily out. “I am off to Falcon’s Craig.”
Anne would gladly have broken her appointment now, had that been possible, but, as it was not, she too set out on her way to the Tower. A comfortable pony-carriage—Mrs. Catherine’s favorite vehicle—stood at the gate as she entered, and up stairs in her bright dressing-room Alice Aytoun was hastily wrapping herself in the costly furs—Mrs. Catherine’s latest present—which she had already spent so much time in admiring.
“Child,” said Mrs. Catherine, during the moment in which they were left alone together, “let Lewis come to me the morn; or is he with you to-day?”
“He spoke of meeting us at Falcon’s Craig, and returning with us,” said Anne.
“Bring him to me, then, when you come back,” said Mrs. Catherine. “I am feared there is little hope for the lad, Archie Sutherland, child, and I am solicitous to hear from Lewis what kind of friends his sister Isabel has. If the lad is ruined (which the Almighty avert, if it be His pleasure!) what is the wilful fool of a girl to do? A man may win back good fame, even if it be once lost—and that is a sore fight—but a woman can never; and if she be left in that narrow place, with an evil-speaking world that judges other folk as it knows it should be judged itself, I say to you, child, what is the inconsiderate fuil to do?”
“Captain Duncombe will surely come to take care of his wife,” said Anne.
“What know you about Captain Duncombe?” exclaimed Mrs. Catherine. “I will go myself to bring Isabel Balfour’s ill bairn home to my own house, child—the fittest place for her to be. I will leave her to the tender mercies of no ill-conditioned man, well though she may deserve it; that is if things come to the worst with Archie. Bring Lewis to me when ye come back, child. I would know what kind of folk she has her friends among.”
In a few minutes after, attended by Johnnie Halflin, the two young ladies drove over the bridge on their way to Falcon’s Craig.
The road was pleasant, and Alice was so very gay and full of happiness, that Anne’s heart expanded in involuntary sympathy. The girl had been so tenderly guarded through all her seventeen years, so hedged about with domestic love and protection, and did so trustingly rely now upon the kindness of all about her, that few could have been harsh enough to disappoint the reliance of the youthful spirit, or teach it suspicion. It was, besides, an altogether new enjoyment to Anne, to have anything loveable looking up to her as Alice did. It suited her graver nature to be trusted in, and leaned upon. The depths in Anne’s spirit began to stir; tenderness as of a mother’s to spread its protecting wing over the “little one” beside her. Might she not make some secret atonement—might she not by tenderest care, and sympathy, and counsel, in some slight degree, make up the loss which her brother’s hand had inflicted upon that unconscious girl?
They reached Falcon’s Craig at last. It was a great, rambling, gaunt, old house, standing high and bare, with inartistic turrets, and unsightly gables, on the summit of a rock. The perpendicular descent behind was draped with clinging shrubs and ivy, but the situation gave a bleak, cold, exposed look to the house. Nor had any precautions been taken to amend this. Trees and shrubs before the door grew rough and unkempt as nature had let them grow. The grass upon the lawn waved high and rank, great rows of hollyhocks and sunflowers shed their withered leaves and ripe seed below the windows. The much-trodden path, at the further end which led to the stables, and the presence of one or two lounging grooms, told the enjoyments of the Laird of Falcon’s Craig, and explained, in some degree, the inferior cultivation of the neighboring fields—fields over which Mr. Coulter, of Harrows, with a good-humored desire to see all around him as prosperous as himself, shook his head and groaned.
The visitors alighted, and were shown into Miss Falconer’s heterogeneous drawing-room. The lady herself lay upon a sofa near the fire, with a newspaper in her hand. Alice Aytoun did not like the appearance of the reclining figure, in its bold, manlike attitude, and kept close to Anne’s side.
“Anne Ross!” exclaimed Miss Falconer, springing up with an energy which made the room ring; “why, I should as soon have thought of Merkland coming to see me bodily, as you. How do you do? How are you, little Miss Aytoun? Tired of the Tower yet?”
“No,” said Alice, drawing back, instinctively.
“Don’t be afraid; I won’t hurt you,” said Miss Falconer, with a laugh. “Well, Anne, how do you get on in Merkland? Mrs. Ross will be good and dutiful now, when Lewis is at home.”
“You must ask Lewis himself,” said Anne; “he is here now, is he not?”
The face of Alice, which had been somewhat in shadow, brightened.
“Oh, yes, Lewis is here,” said Miss Falconer; “gone with Ralph to these everlasting stables. Take notice, Miss Aytoun, that when gentlemen come to Falcon’s Craig, it is Ralph’s horses and dogs they come to see, and not his sister. I say this, that you may not be jealous.”
Little Alice blushed, and drew up her slight young figure, with some budding dignity. “I have nothing to be jealous of, Miss Falconer.”
Miss Falconer laughed again. “Well, we will not say anything before Anne. Anne is taking lessons from Mrs. Catherine, in state and gravity. How did you come? In that little phæton, I declare, with these two sober ponies, that I have known all my life. You never ride now, Anne?”
“I do not remember that I ever did,” said Anne. “We keep few horses in Merkland; and besides, Marjory, there are not many ladies of your nerve and courage.”
“Miss Aytoun,” said Miss Falconer, gaily, “do you ever flatter? Anne, you see, knows my weak point, and attacks me accordingly. She thinks I rather pride myself on these two unsafe qualities of nerve and courage. Well, and why should we be cooped up within four walls, and sentenced to do propriety all our lives? The bolder a man is, the more he is thought of; but let one of us hapless women but stir a step beyond the line, and we have ‘improper, indecorous, unwomanly,’ thundered in our ears from every side.”
“Then you will not acknowledge the proverbial truth of what everybody says?” said Anne.
“Not a bit,” said Miss Falconer, boldly. “Why should not I follow the hounds as briskly, and read that political article,” she pointed to the paper she had thrown down, “with as much interest as my brother? I do, it is true; but see how all proper mammas draw their pretty behaved young ladies under their wings, when I approach. You all desert me, you cowards of women; I have only men’s society to fall back upon.”
“But did you not tell us just now that you liked that best?” ventured little Alice Aytoun.
“No, not I. Perhaps I do, though; but I did not say it.”
“Then, after all,” said Anne, “the mistake is not in what we quiet people call decorous, and proper, and feminine; but only that you, with your high spirits and courage, have the misfortune to be called Marjory, instead of Ralph; that is all; for here, you see, are Miss Aytoun and myself, and all the womankind of Strathoran to back us, who have no ambition whatever to follow the hounds, nor any very particular interest in the leading article. It is merely an individual mistake, Marjory. Acknowledge it.”
“Not I,” exclaimed Miss Falconer; “it is a universal oppression of the sex. They try to reason us down first, these men; and failing that, they laugh us down: they will not be able to accomplish either, one of these days. There! how you turn upon me, with that provoking smile of yours, Anne Ross. What are you thinking of now?”
“Do you remember a little poem—I think of Southey’s,” said Anne, smiling—”about the great wars of Marlbro’ and Prince Eugene, long ago? I was thinking of its owerword, Marjory—‘What good came of it at last? said little Wilhelmine.’ ”
“Ah, that is just like you,” said Miss Falconer; “coming down upon one with your scraps of poetry, when one is speaking common sense. Oh, you need not raise your eyebrows! I tell you I am speaking quite reasonably and calmly; and we shall see, one day.”
“But, Miss Falconer,” inquired Alice, timidly, “what shall we see?”
“See! Why, a proper equality between men and women, as we were created,” said Miss Falconer, vehemently. “No more bandaging up our minds, as they do the feet of the poor girls in China—oppressing us for their own whims, everywhere! No more shutting us out of our proper share in the management of the world—no more confining us in housekeepers’ rooms and nurseries; to make preserves, and dress babies!”
“Are the babies to be abolished, then?” said Anne. “For pity’s sake, Marjory, do not sentence the poor little things to masculine nurses. Farewell to all music or harmony, then. If we are to dress babies no more, let it be ordained, I pray you, that there shall be no more babies to dress!”
“Nonsense, Anne!” exclaimed Marjory Falconer, loudly; “you want to ridicule all I say. You are content with the bondage—content to be regarded as a piece of furniture, a household drudge, a pretty doll.”
“Hush!” said Anne; “spare me the abjective. I am in no danger of your last evil. And see how Miss Aytoun looks at you.”
“Never mind,” said Miss Falconer; “Miss Aytoun will sympathise with me, I am sure; every true woman must. See how they smile at our opinions—how they sneer at our judgment—‘Oh, it’s only a woman.’ I tell you, Anne Ross, all that will be changed by-and-bye. We shall have equal freedom, equal rights—our own proper dignity and standing in the world.”
“And how will it change our position?” said Anne.
“How obtuse you are! Change our position! Why it will make us free—it will emancipate us—it will——”
“Particulars, particulars, Marjory?”
Miss Falconer paused.
“We shall not be thought unfit any longer to do what men do; our equal mental power and intelligence shall be recognised. We shall have equal rights—we shall be free!”
Anne looked up smiling.
“ ‘And what good came of it at last? said little Wilhelmine.’ ”
Miss Falconer started from her seat in anger, and walked quickly through the room for a moment, Alice looked on in wonder and alarm. At last Marjory approached the table, looked Anne in the face, half smiling, half angry, and replied, in a burst:
“ ‘Nay, that I cannot tell,’ quoth he,
But ’twas a glorious victory?’ ”
Conversation less abstract followed, when Lewis and Ralph joined them; and not long after, Anne and Alice resumed their places in the phaeton, and turned homewards, Lewis riding by their side. Anne’s spirits had wonderfully lightened during their drive, and now she defended Marjory Falconer, almost gaily, against the laughing and half-contemptuous attacks of Lewis.
“Marjory arms all the silly lads in the parish with flippant impertinences about women and their rights, Miss Aytoun,” she said. “I did not mean you, Lewis, so there is no occasion for drowing yourself up. Yet Marjory has some strength, and much kindliness of spirit. And when she has once got rid of those foolish notions, which she will when she has matured a little—”
Anne stopped abruptly. She had noticed before the tall, stooping figure of a woman advancing towards them, and could recognise now, as the passenger approached, the wan face, and wistful, melancholy eyes, which had made so deep an impression upon her imagination, when she saw them on the previous night, looking so sorrowfully on Merkland. A very remarkable face it was, which the stranger now lifted to them, as she passed slowly on, speaking in its emaciated lines of mental struggle more than bodily sickness; and with its strange habitual look of wistful search, as if its eyes had been exercised by constant watching, and had sought about vainly for some hope or gladness never to be found again. Anne met her steadfast, melancholy look for a moment; in another she had passed on.
“What is the matter, Anne?” said Lewis.
Anne drove on awhile, in silence.
“Did you not observe that face?”
“What face? I saw a woman passing, who stared at you, as you did at her; don’t be sentimental, Anne: some shopkeeper’s wife, from Portoran, who has been at the mill. What were you saying of Marjory Falconer? Go on.”
Anne went on.
“She will mature by-and-by, and come out of these follies a sensible woman. You shake your head, Lewis. She will never be of the gentlest; but sensible, and kindly, and vigorous, I believe she will be, one day. There is often some eccentricity about strength, in its development.”
“Hear, hear,” cried Lewis. “Do you observe how Anne turns her periods, Miss Aytoun? Marjory will keep a chair for you, Anne, in some of her feminine colleges, when she has accomplished the rights of women. Moral philosophy! I hope they will give you an LL.D.”
They reached the mill as Lewis spoke. It stood near the spot Mr. Coulter had spoken of “where three lairds’ lands met;” and the burn was intercepted for the uses of the mill, just before it joined its waters to the Oran.
Anne drew up her ponies at the end of the little bridge, which gave access to the miller’s dwelling. Alice had never seen this picturesque corner of the Oran banks, and Anne proposed giving her a glimpse of the bright interior of Mrs. Melder’s pleasant house: she was anxious herself to ask the miller’s wife if she knew anything of the singular stranger, whose appearance had interested her so much.
So Johnnie Halflin scrambled down from his perch behind, to hold Lewis’s horse, much wondering what motive they could have for calling on Mrs. Melder; and Alice lingered on the grassy bank, that sloped down to the riverside, from Mrs. Melder’s door, to ask questions and to admire. The grey mill buildings, and mighty revolving wheel, and rush of foaming water, as the bairn, like some brown mountain urchin, ran, boisterous, from its labors into the placid Oran, giving life and animation to the stream it increased, were worthy of admiration even more genuine than that of Alice, whose little heart was beating very pleasantly, from various causes, which she had not skill, if she had had inclination, to analyze.
But the cottage door was suddenly flung open, a loud scream startled them, and, turning round alarmed, they saw a child flee out, its little frock blazing, its face distorted with pain and fear. Alice screamed, and clung to the arm of Lewis, Lewis called to the boy, and sprang irresolutely forward himself, not knowing what to do; Johnnie Halflin scampered off in terror, holding firmly the bridle of his charge, and the child, blinded with fear, and scorched with pain, flew forward madly. Anne snatched from the carriage a large, rough plaid, threw herself before the little girl, and wrapped it closer round her. The child struggled—Anne pressed the long, wide folds closer and closer round her, extinguishing the flames with her hands. The terrified miller’s wife ran to her assistance—so did Lewis, and at last, very much frightened, and considerably scorched, but with no serious injury, the child was carried into the house, where Alice followed timidly, pressing the small hand of the sufferer within her own, and murmuring kindly words to still its weeping. It was a little girl of some six years, and moaned out its childish lamentations in broken words of some strange, sweet, foreign tongue. The remnants of its burnt dress, too, were not like the ordinary garments of peasant children, and Mrs. Melder herself had no family.
“God be thankit ye were passing by, Miss Anne!” exclaimed Mrs. Melder. “I am the silliest body mysel that was ever putten in a strait. Eh! do ye no hear my heart beating?—and the stranger bairn!”
“Whose is it, Mrs. Melder?” asked Anne, as they undressed the moaning child, and laid her on the wooden bed which formed part of the furniture of the homely apartment.
“And that is just what I cannot tell ye, Miss Anne,” said the miller’s wife. “It was left wi’ me by ane—ye wad meet her on the road. She wasna put on like a lady, but she wasna a common body either—it was clear to see that. We’ve had a dreary house, Robert and me, since little Bell (ye’ll mind her, Miss Anne?) was ta’en from us, two years syne come Martinmas, and the stranger leddy had heard tell o’t, and thocht, as she said, that I wad be guid to the child—as I will, doubtless, puir, innocent thing!—who could be otherwise?”
“And where did she come from?” inquired Anne, as she assisted in applying some simple remedies.
“The bairn? Na, how can I tell you that Miss Anne, when I dinna ken mysel?”
“No, no; I mean the lady,” said Anne, hurriedly. “I saw her—a very remarkable-looking person she is. Is the child her own?”
“Na; she said no, any way,” said Mrs. Melder. “Whaever it belongs to, they think shame o’t, that’s sure. Woes me, Miss Ross! the ill that there is in this world! She has been living at the brig for a day or two back, and the bairn wi’ her. I am doubtful it was but a foolish thing, taking a bairn when one kens nought of its kindred. But the house was dreary. Where there has been a babe in a dwelling, it makes great odds when the light of its bit countenance is lifted away, and my heart warmed to the puir wee thing, sent out from its own bluid. So I took it, ye see, Miss Ross, and Robert he didna oppose. It’s to bide two years—if we’re all spared as long—and the stipend for it is twenty pound, and the siller’s lying in Mr. Foreman the writer’s hands—so we canna come to any loss. It’s an uncommon bairn a’thegither o’t, and speaks in a tongue neither Robert nor me can make onything of. It maun have come from some far part—was ye speaking, my lamb?”
Anne beckoned Lewis forward as the child murmured again some incoherent words.
“What language is it?—I do not recognize the tongue.”
“It is Spanish,” said Lewis. “Strange! Where did the child come from, Mrs. Melder?”
The miller’s wife repeated her story, and, promising to call at the house of the doctor on their way homeward, and send him up to the little patient, her visitors left her, and proceeded on their way, disturbed by no further incident, except in Anne’s mind, by the strange excitement of interest with which this story moved her. She could not banish the stranger’s pale face from her mind, nor forget the pitiful look of the little child, in whose soft features she thought she could trace some resemblance, moaning out its feeble complaint in that strange language, uncomprehended, and alone.