Discipline Part 39

'How so? do you not think it was prudent to prevent her dying husband from being shocked by the sight of that poor creature?'

'To tell you the truth, Charlotte, I think such readiness in intrigue betokens Cecil's fidelity to be at least in danger.'

'Surely you do not suspect--you cannot suppose--setting aside all fear of G.o.d, think you she could make outcasts of her children!--transmit her name, black with the infamy of being the first unfaithful wife that ever disgraced Glen Eredine! No, no; Cecil would rather be buried under Benarde: ay, silly as he is, Robert would rather lay her head in the grave! No, no, Miss Percy; whatever may be the practice in other countries, we have reason to be thankful that such atrocities are unknown in Eredine.'[29]

Charlotte's warm defence was interrupted by the approach of poor Robert, who was following us home. 'Would ye just please to bid _her_,' said he, pointing towards Cecil's cottage, 'let me thrash two or three sheaves for her. She has n.o.body now to do for her; and if ye'll just allow me, it's as sure's death, I'll stay in barn, and never go near house to plague her.'

'I think, Robert,' answered Charlotte, 'it would be very foolish in you to take so much trouble for one who never even speaks to you.'

'Ay, but yoursel' knows I'm no very wise,' said Robert, with a feeble smile. Then, after a few moments' silence, he repeated his request. Miss Graham gave an evasive answer, and he again fell behind; but, during our walk, he came forward again and again to urge his pet.i.tion, as if he had forgotten having offered it before.

'I beg pardon of Cecil and Glen Eredine, Charlotte,' said I. 'I had forgotten the nature and constancy of this poor young man's attachment, when I suspected her of imprudence. I am sure that a virtuous man alone can feel, a woman of discretion alone can inspire, such disinterested, such unconquerable affection.'

'You are right, Ellen. Looseness of morals on the one side, or even a very venial degree of levity on the other, is fatal to all the loftier forms of pa.s.sion. I believe even perfect frankness of manners is hostile to them: it leaves too little for the imagination.'

We both walked on musing, till my dream was broken by our arrival at the gate. 'Is your brother reserved?' said I, very consciously.

'I never found him so,' returned Charlotte, laughing; 'but you have so much imagination that I believe it will do, notwithstanding.'

The day approached when this object of universal interest was to arrive; and every stage of his journey, every hour of its duration, was counted a hundred times. 'Four whole days still!'--'To-night he will sleep in Scotland!'--'By this time to-morrow!'--In how many tones of impatience, of exultation, of delight, were these sentences uttered!

The father's joy was the least exclamatory. After the first emotion was past, he seemed to think much expression of his feelings unsuitable to his years; though every thing 'put him in mind what Henry said when he was last at home;' or, 'what Henry did when a boy;' and he every now and then shook Charlotte and me by the hand with such a look of congratulation!

He hinted some intention of riding as far as Aberfoyle to meet his son; though he seemed to doubt whether this were altogether consistent with his paternal dignity. 'It is not what one could do for every young man,'

said he; 'but Henry was never a sort of boy that is easily spoiled.' So with this salvo, with which many a father has excused his self-indulgence, Eredine determined to meet Henry at Aberfoyle.

On the eventful morning the whole family arose with the dawn. Almost the first person I saw was Eredine, arrayed and accoutred in the perfect costume of his country, marching up and down in the court with even more than his usual elasticity of step. The good old gentleman prepared for his journey with all the alertness of five-and-twenty. 'Come, Charlotte,' said he, 'get me a breakfast fit for a man. Remember I have more than sixty miles to ride to-day. Miss Percy, do you think any of your Lowland lads of seventy-six could do as much? Well, well, wait till nine o'clock at night; and, G.o.d willing, I'll show you a lad worth a fine woman's looking at.'

In spite of the entreaties of old Donald MacIan and the family piper, who would fain have led forth the whole clan, Eredine set out attended only by his household servants. But as soon as the laird was gone, Donald followed his own inclinations. The piper marched through every _baile_[30] in the Glen, pouring forth a torrent of vigorous discords, which he called the '_Graham's Gathering_;' then took the road towards Aberfoyle, followed by the train whom he had a.s.sembled. By noon, scarcely a man was left in Glen Eredine.

On the other hand, the women came in crowds to the Castle, each bringing a cheese, a kid, a pullet, or whatever else her cabin could supply; and, having deposited these '_compliments_,' as they called them, they quietly returned to their homes. The servants ran idly bustling about the house, forgetting every part of their business which did not refer to Mr Henry. One began to air his linen as soon as day dawned. Another piled heap after heap of turf upon his fire. A third, at the expense of the state bedchamber, embellished his apartment with a carpet not unlike, both in pattern and size, to a chess-board. I found a fourth busied in anointing his leather-bottomed chairs with a mixture of oil and soot; scrubbing this Hottentot embrocation into the grain with a shoe-brush. 'I'm just giving them a bit clean for him,' said she, in answer to my exclamation of amazement. 'He had always a cleanly turn,--G.o.d save him!'

At last all preparations perforce were finished; and the day then seemed endless to us all. Charlotte was silent and restless. She tried to work; but it would not do; she tried to read, and succeeded no better. She visited her brother's apartment again and again, and could never satisfy herself that all was ready for his reception. She began to fear that he might not arrive that night, yet she was half angry with me for admitting the possibility. Towards evening she stationed herself in a window to watch for him; turning away sometimes with tears of disappointment in her eyes, and then resuming her watch once more.

Twilight closed in the stillness of a frosty night. Charlotte drew me to the gate to listen. All was profoundly quiet. At last a dog bayed at a distance. 'I hear the pipe!' said Charlotte, grasping my arm. I listened. The sound was faintly heard, then lost, then heard again. By degrees it swelled into distinctness; the trampling of horses,--the tread of a mult.i.tude was heard,--voices mingled with the sound.

Charlotte ran forward, and then returned again. 'No! I cannot meet him before all these people,' said she; and we retreated to the house.

I saw through the dusk the stately figures of the chief and his son approaching on foot from the gate where they had dismounted; and I stole back into the parlour, unwilling that my presence should embarra.s.s the expected meeting. Yet, with a fluttering heart, I listened eagerly to their quickened steps,--to the clasp of affection,--to the whisper of rapture. 'Brother!'--'Charlotte!' p.r.o.nounced in the scarcely articulate accents of ecstasy, were for some moments the only words uttered; the next that reached my ear, were those in which the traveller eagerly enquired for me. I sprang forward, for it was a well remembered voice that spoke; but the next moment I shrank before the flashing glance of Maitland!

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 24: The said Breadalbane spring once existed in Atholl; but its guardian Saint having been offended by some failure in respect, or in liberality, removed it to its present site. This neglect was the more unpardonable, because Highland saints have a very saint-like facility of propitiation. A halfpenny is considered as a profuse offering; a nail, a pin, or a rag, is all that the saints exact in return for the benefit of these healing waters. The saints' wells can generally be distinguished by the shreds of cloth hung upon the impending bushes; and other offerings of like value dropped into the basin.

Some of these springs are resorted to annually by way of preventative; others are visited as occasion requires. Some of the waters are taken as a medicine. Others--and these, I apprehend, the most useful--are externally applied. In this case, the ablutions must be repeated for three years successively; and if the patient die in the interim, a friend must complete this ceremony in his stead, bringing away at the same time a bottle of water, to be poured upon the grave of the deceased. Within these few years, an old woman, for this pious purpose, twice performed a journey of nearly a hundred miles.]

[Footnote 25: See Scott's Border Minstrelsy.]

[Footnote 26: Messages from the living to the dead are not uncommon in the Highlands. The Gael have such a ceaseless consciousness of immortality, that their departed friends are considered as merely absent for a time; and permitted to relieve the hours of separation by occasional intercourse with the objects of their earliest affection.]

[Footnote 27: Falbh bi falbh.]

[Footnote 28: Extemporary songs are common among the Highlanders. With these they beguile their labours; often, of course, at small expense of taste or invention. The readiness with which they apply their verses to compliment, to banter, often to graver purposes, is, however, very remarkable; and Cecil is far from furnishing a rare or exalted specimen of the powers of Highland _improvisatori_.

I have been told, that an Argyllshire woman, one evening, while expecting her husband's return, was surprised by a visit from some persons whom she guessed to be officers of justice sent to apprehend him. Finding the man absent, they determined to wait his arrival in the hut; taking care, of course, that his wife should not go out to apprise him of his danger. She contrived, however, to hush her baby with an extemporary song, which, without alarming the vigilance of the guards, warned her husband from his perilous threshold, and he escaped. Other instances, somewhat of a similar kind, suggested the incident in the text.

Indeed, the only merit which the Highland scenes in Discipline presume to claim, is, that, however inartificially joined, they are all borrowed from fact.]

[Footnote 29: Although, in the remoter parts of Scotland, chast.i.ty is by no means the universal virtue of unmarried persons, instances of conjugal infidelity are still rare. Within the present generation they were almost unknown.

About twenty years ago, it happened, in a remote country town, that two persons of the lower rank were accused of adultery. The charge, whether true or false, had such an effect, that the man was driven like a wild beast from human converse. The very children pelted him with mud in the street; crying out, 'There goes the adulterer.']

[Footnote 30: Hamlet,--_Town_.]

CHAPTER x.x.x

_Here have I found at last a home of peace, To hide me from the world! far from its noise, To feed that spirit which, though---- ----linked to human beings by the bond Of earthly love, hath yet a loftier aim Than perishable joy! and through the calm That sleeps amid this mountain solitude, Can hear the billows of eternity, And hear delighted!_

John Wilson.

'But seriously, Charlotte,' said I, when at a late hour we found ourselves once more alone in our chamber, 'seriously, do you think it was quite right in you to use this concealment with me?'

'Seriously, I think it was. Long before I knew you, I could have guessed that you would dislike receiving even a trifling service from Mr ----.

No, I never yet called Henry Graham by that upstart mercantile name, and I never will. To tell you the truth, Ellen, my brother had so far made me his confidant, that, judging of you by myself, I thought you would rather lose your money than owe it to his good offices.'

'I am sorry you thought it necessary to humour my pride at such an expense. Humbled and mortified I might have been by any kindness from Mr Maitland; but I have perhaps deserved the humiliation more than the kindness. He owes me a little mortification, for drawing him into the greatest folly he ever was guilty of.'

'Oh you must not imagine that all my discretion was exerted only to humour your saucy spirit. I had a purpose of my own to serve. I dare say we should never have slid into any real intimacy, if you had known me to be the sister of a quondam lover; watching, no doubt, with a little womanly jealousy, the character of one whom my favourite brother _once_ loved better than me.'

'I am persuaded this could have made little difference; for my faults, unfortunately, will not be concealed; and my good qualities I shall always be willing enough to display.'

'Oh, to be sure, my dear humble Miss Percy would knowingly and wittingly have come here to ingratiate herself with us all! No doubt, you would have been much more at home with us, had you known our connection with your old admirer! and no doubt, you would have quietly waited his arrival here, that you might be courted in due form!'

'Pshaw, Charlotte, I am sure that it--I hope--I mean, I am quite certain that your brother has no such nonsense in his thoughts. And I am sure it is much better it should be so; for you know I have always told you that I have a natural indifference about me--Heigho!'

'What! even after you have seen that "it was your duty to be in love long ago!" Will you "deprive" yourself of "the honour," the "happiness"----'

'Surely, Charlotte, you will never be so mischievous, so cruel, as to repeat these thoughtless, unmeaning expressions to your brother! You know they were spoken under entire misconception. And, besides, to be sensible of what I ought once to have done is a very different thing from being able to do it now.'

'Make yourself quite easy, my dear Ellen,' said Charlotte, with a provoking smile, 'I have more _esprit de corps_ than to tell a lady's secret. Besides, even for my brother's own sake, I shall leave him to make discoveries for himself. But by the way, it is very good-natured in me to promise all this; for I have reason to be angry, that you think it necessary to warn me against repeating any thing uttered in the mere unguardedness of chit-chat.'

I made no apology; for I have such an abhorrence of trick and contrivance of every kind, that, to own the truth, I, at that moment, felt half-justified in withdrawing part of my confidence from Charlotte.

'How in the world did such a scheme occur to you?' said I, after a pause. 'Nothing like a plot ever enters my head.'

'It occurred to me in the simplest way possible, my dear. Henry writes to me remitting your money; describing you so as to prevent any chance of imposition; and charging me not to rest till I have found you. "It will distress her," says he, "to owe this little service to me, but perhaps there is no remedy." Now, was not the very spirit of contradiction enough to make one devise a remedy? Then he goes on--stay, here is the letter:--