COURAGE, Menie Laurie! Heaven does not send this breeze upon your cheek for nought—does not raise about you these glorious limits of hill and cloud in vain. Look through the distance—look steadily. Yes, it is the white gable of Crofthill looking down upon the countryside. Well, never veil your eyes—are you not at peace with them as with all the world?
Little Jessie here wearies where you have left her waiting, and trembles to move a finger lest she spoil the mysterious picture at which she glances furtively with awe and wonder. “The lady just looks at me,” says little Jessie; “no a thing mair. Just looks, and puts it a’ down like writing on a sclate.” And Jessie cannot understand the magic which by-and-by brings out her own little bright sun-burnt face from that dull canvass which had not a line upon it when Jessie saw it first.
Come to your work, Menie Laurie; they make your heart faint these wistful looks and sighs. No one doubts it is very heavy—very heavy—this poor heart; no one doubts it is full of yearnings—full of anxious thought, and fears, and solitude. What then!—must we leave it to brood upon its trouble? Come to little Jessie here, and her picture—find out the very soul in these surprised sweet eyes—paint the loveliest little heart upon your canvass, fresh and fair out of the hands of God—such a face as will warm cold hearts, and teach them histories of joyous sacrifice—of love that knows no evil—of life that remembers self last and least of all. You said it first in bitterness and sore distress; but, nevertheless, it is true. You can do it, Menie. It is “the trade” to which you were born.
And with a long sigh of weariness Menie comes back. No, it is not a very fine picture; the execution is a woman’s execution, very likely no great thing in the way your critics judge; but one can see how very like it is, looking at these little simple features—one could see it was still more like, looking in to the child’s sweet generous heart.
“What were you crying for this morning, Jessie?”
A cloud came over the little face—a mighty inclination to cry again; but Jessie glanced at the picture once more, and swallowed down her grief, feeling herself a very guilty Jessie, as one great blob of a tear fell upon her arm.
“It wasna little Davie’s blame—it was a’ me.” Poor little culprit, she dares not hang her head for terror of that picture. “He was paidling in the burn—and his new peeny gae a great screed, catching on the auld saugh-tree; but it wasna his blame—he’s owre wee—it was a’ mine for no looking after him. Just, I was awfu’ busy; but that’s nae excuse—and my mother gae Davie his licks, for a’ I could say.”
Another great tear; no one knows so well what an imp this said little Davie is—but Jessie sighs again. “It was a’ me.”
But it is not this little cloud of childish trouble that throws a something of pensive sadness into Jessie’s pictured face. The face is the face before you; but the atmosphere, Menie Laurie, is in your own heart. Something sad—touched with that sweet pathos which lies on the surface of all great depths—and this true picture grows under Menie’s hand to a heroic child.
It is a strange place for an artist to be. From this dark raftered threatening roof which catches your first glance, you look down to the mother by the fire with her unpretending look of gentlewoman—to the daughter’s graceful head bending over her work—to pretty little Jessie here, with her flutter of extreme stillness, looking at the grey walls and sober thatch without. You would never think to surprise such a group within; and yet, when you look at them again, there is something of nobleness in the primitive cottage where these women have come to live independent and unpitied—come down in the world—very true; but it would be hard to presume upon the tenants of this wayside house.
You need not fear to enter, little July. Half-weeping, blushing, trembling, and with all these beseeching deprecations of yours, you may come in boldly at this narrow entrance. “It is no blame of hers, poor bairn,” Mrs Laurie says, with a little sigh. No blame of hers nor of Randall’s either, for Menie has kept her secret religiously, and will never tell to mortal ear what broke her engagement. Nelly Panton knows it, it is true; but Nelly, with the obtuse comprehension of a mercenary mind, thinks Randall broke off the match in consequence of Mrs Laurie’s poverty, and knows of no more delicate difficulties behind. Come in, boldly, July Home—for no manner of interpretation could disclose to you the sudden pang which seizes Menie as she bends her head down for an instant, when she discovers you at the door. Now she says nothing, as she holds out her hand; but Menie is busy; it is only her left hand she extends to her friend; that in why she does not speak.
“I’m not to come out again,” whispers July, sitting back into Mrs Laurie’s shadow, and speaking under her breath. “I came here the very last place—and oh, Menie, will you come?”
The colour mounts high to Menie’s temples; this means, will she come to July’s marriage, which is to happen a week hence. Will she be there? Some one else will be there, the thought of whose coming makes Menie’s heart beat strong and loud against her breast. But Menie only shakes her head in reply—shakes her head and says steadily, “No.”
“You might come, for me. I never had a friend but you, and you’ve aye been good to me. Mrs Laurie, she might come?”
But Mrs Laurie too, after quite a different fashion, shakes her head with a look of regret—of only partial comprehension, but unmistakeable solicitude. “No,” she says doubtfully; “I do not see how Menie could go;” but, as she speaks, she looks at Menie with an eager wish that she would.
Courage, Menie Laurie! If your hand falters, they will see it; if a single tear of all this unshed agony bursts forth, your mother’s heart will be overwhelmed with pain and wonder—your little friend’s with dismay. This is best—to look at the child and go on—though little Jessie has much ado to keep from weeping when she meets, with her startled face, the great gloom and darkness of Menie’s eye.
“This is from Menie and me,” said Mrs Laurie, taking out a pretty ring. “You are to wear it for our sake, July. Menie, can you put it on?”
Yes—Menie takes the little trembling hand within her own, and fits her mother’s present to a slender finger—and no one knows how Menie presses her own delicate ankle under her chair, to keep herself steady by the pain. “You must try to be very happy, July,” says Menie, with a faint smile, holding the hand a moment in her own; then she lets it drop, and turns to her work once more.
What can July do but cry? She does cry, poor little trembling heart, very abundantly, and would fain whisper a hundred hesitations and terrors into Menie’s ear. But there is nothing of encouragement in Menie’s face—so steady and grave, and calm as it looks. The little bride does not dare to pour forth her innocent confidences—but only whispers again, “I never had another friend but you, and you were aye so good to me;” and weeps a flood of half-joyful, half-despairing tears, out of her very heart.