Frederica and her Guardians Part 9

"And what for no," said Eppie, "when Solomon himself, the wisest of kings and men, spoke about green growing things from the cedar of Lebanon to the hyssop on the wall? And G.o.d made them a'. They mind me of my father's house and the fir belting, and the heather hills beyond.

And they mind me o' the days o' my youth, that are gone like a blink,"

added she with a sigh.

"Yes," said Frederica, turning compa.s.sionate eyes on the kindly wrinkled old face.

"I'm no complainin' you'll understand. I hae had my day as you'll have," said Eppie, nodding her head gently a great many times. "But I was ay fond o' flowers. I liked to notice their likeness, and their difference, though I didna ken that they were a' written down in books.

Eh! it's just wonderful how true nature is to herself. That bonny yellow flower might be the one that grew on the bush beside my father's door, and yon rosebush that Miss Robina brought up the stairs to-day is the very marrow o' the one that Sandy Gow the laird's gardener brought down and gave to my sister Annie more than fifty years ago. It's like a dream to look back upon."

"But, Eppie, I have often wondered that you only care for one or two flowers at a time, when you are so fond of them; you could have quite a greenhouse of them in this south window. I could bring you dozens of them," said Frederica.

But Eppie shook her head.

"I tried it, my dear, when sore against my will I had to betake myself to this place--a dismal place it seemed for a while. I tried having many flowers. Miss Isabel was here then, and she and Miss Robina took great pains to get me the best and the bonniest. But I soon saw that it wouldna do. I couldna get them kepit to my mind without troubling somebody. They were ay needing something done, and I couldna even get a spadeful of earth without another pair of hands. I was more helpless then than I am now, and even the bringing of water for them up the stairs was more than I could ay manage; so I just gave them up; for unless a body can do justice to the bonny things, they are more pain than pleasure. And I couldna bide to fash other folk. So now Miss Robina brings me one as it blooms, and I hae been few days without a flower all the seven years I have been in this room. I aye hae my wallflowers, and once I had heather, but it didna thrive, and I thought a pity to have it dying before my eyes, so I got no more."

It was growing too dark by this time to pore over either books or flowers. Eppie had had her tea, Frederica knew, because she saw the tray with the dishes standing near the door, and she knew that she would be welcome to stay till the school bell rang again for prayers. So she sat in the window watching the clouds that were still bright, though the sun had disappeared. By-and-by she said,--

"Tell me something that happened when you were young, something that you never told me before."

Eppie took up the stocking on which she could work as well in the dark as in the light.

"There was many a thing happened to me when I was young that I never told anybody, but I might happen on an old story that you have heard before, as is the way with old bodies like me. And I hae no feast o'

tellin' bits out o' my own life just for folk's diversion."

But Frederica knew that she would have a story for all that; she was not so sure that it would be a new one.

"Were there many flowers in your garden when you were a little girl?"

asked she after a pause.

"Weel! there were na just so many, but eh, missy! they were awfu' bonny flowers. But I mind the flowers among the hills, and by the burn sides best. The names of them? I canna mind a' the names, and if I could they would seem like common flowers to you, but they gave us just a wonderful delight. And there were other things besides the flowers. We got many a day's pleasure out of the rushes by the burn, and the brackens in the wood, and we ay had the heather. And, oh! wasna it a bonny sight to see when the summer began to wear over! Flowers! High above the glen where my father's house stood, there whiles were miles and miles o' the purple blossom. I can see it now when I shut my eyes,"

said Eppie, leaning back in her chair, and letting her stocking fall upon her lap.

"And then there were the daisies that you told me about," suggested Frederica in the pause that followed.

"Yes, the gowan, and the blue bell, and many a one beside. And I hae seen the hills in a bleeze o' gold with the yellow broom. Though a broom bush is no' to call a bonny thing, except a bit away. But a'

things are bonny to young happy eyes, and I daresay they are bonnier to me now, looking back to them over all the long years."

And on she rambled, as she had done many a time before, on the very same theme, and if there had been an hour to spare, or if Frederica had been inclined, this was the time when she would have asked for a song, and the chances were she would have got ten of them chanted in a voice that had once been sweet, but which failed now both in sweetness and in power. Frederica always liked the songs, though she did not always like the singing, but there was something else in store for her tonight-- something which she had ceased to expect, a bit out of Eppie's life.

She knew it was coming when the old woman went on to speak about the hills, and the gra.s.sy nooks hidden between them, and the days when she used to go out with her father, who was a shepherd, among them.

"And I mind one day we were sitting on the lowne side o' a hill, and there came over it and down upon us, two lads with packs on their backs, and one of them with a book in his hand. When they saw us, they stopped to ask the road to the next town, for they had got in among the morning mists, having risen early for their journey, and so had lost their way.

I mind how they both looked, as well as if I had seen them yesterday, and maybe better. One of them was shame-faced about having lost the way, which he said he had been over many a time before; but the other only laughed and said it was a good thing to be mistaken whiles, and for his part he was glad to lie down and rest. And so he lay down among the heather, and turned a thin fair face to the sky. He was an English lad, I think. His tongue was English any way. My father bade me take a plaid I had brought with me, and spread it over him, for there was a cold breath creeping now and then round the hill; and when I went and did what I was bidden, the lad gave me first a surprised look, and then a smile that made his eyes and his whole face beautiful. I see it now, though I have hardly thought of it these thirty years," said Eppie with a sigh. "And I mind his deep sweet voice, and the sound of the smooth English words he used when he thanked me, and bade me sit down beside him, and tell him my name. I sat down as he bade me, but he took little heed of me for a while. For he looked sore weary and spent with more than just the tramp over the hills, and his eyes had a look as if they were seeing things far, far away.

"The other was a fine lad too, I daresay, though o' a commoner nature.

He and my father got very friendly together, he telling and my father listening to all they were doing out in the great world, whose voice came to our glen, not like a real voice, but like an echo casten back from the hills. And by-and-by the English lad's eyes came back to mine, and what he saw in them I canna say, but he gave me the same smile that lighted his face in a way that was just wonderful--I can see it now--and he bade me look up to the sky, and see a ship that was sailin', sailin'

away to the west, and what did I think it was carrying there? There was nothing in the sky that I could see, but a long trail of grey cloud, with here and there an edge of light upon it, and he only gave a bit laugh when I looked back at him again wondering. And then he plucked a wee curled head o' the bracken that grew at his hand, and bade me look at it. Naught could I see but just a bit o' bracken. I said not a word, only looked from it to his fair smiling face. But then he took out of his pouch a case, and out of the case a gla.s.s, and put it between the bracken and my eyes. And I thought, surely a great magician had come to our hills, for it was a bit o' bracken no longer, but a wonderful network of cells, and veins, and feathery fringes, like nothing I had ever seen before. And next it was a bit of brown heather he took, and then a nodding bluebell, and then the wing of a May fly that had lighted on his hand.

"I looked and looked, and at last I cried out to my father to come and see. Even my father wondered. Ilken leaf and blade o' gra.s.s, and even the wee stones that we took from the path were wonderful to see. And then he put the gla.s.s on my mother's plaid, and on his own fine kerchief of lawn, and bade us see the difference between G.o.d's works and man's-- how poor, and coa.r.s.e, and common was the best that man could do, and how the more and the closer we looked into the works of G.o.d, the more worthy of admiration we should see them to be.

"And then him, and my father, and the other lad had things to say that I couldna make much of. He was a man of excellent understanding, my father. But just one thing I mind. It was the English lad that said it with a smile, and a great longing in his bonny een. 'It may be,' he said, 'that when we get home to heaven, our glorified eyes shall see the mysteries of beauty hidden in even the least of the things that G.o.d has made without a gla.s.s between.' And when my father shook his head, saying that there was no such word in the Bible, and that there was such a thing as being wise above what is written, he smiled, and 'Ah well!'

he said, 'our eyes will be opened to see the wonders of grace and the beauty of holiness, for we shall see our Lord Himself, and that will be enough.'

"I mind the words, because I heard my father telling them to my mother that night as they were sitting by the fireside. They come back to me now, as other words come, that I havena thought of for many a year and day, a sure sign that I am no' far from the foot o' the brae."

"And was that all?" asked Frederica softly, after a long pause, in which Eppie had taken up her knitting again.

"That was all, except that they wouldna go to my father's to bide all night, because they were expected elsewhere, they said; and then I ran home as my father bade me, and brought them milk and oaten cakes, which they ate to their refreshment, doubtless, and to our pleasure, and then they went away."

"And who were they? And did you never see them again?"

"We never saw nor heard of them, though doubtless they crossed our hills again. They were just two lads on their way home from the college in the north. We used whiles to see such, though our glen was a bit out of the way for most of them. But we never saw them again. It must be fifty years and more since then. It had gone clean out of my head, till your flowers and your pleasure in them brought it all back again."

There was nothing heard for a while but the "click, click," of Mistress Campbell's "wires," as she went on with her knitting. The old woman and the little girl were thinking their own thoughts.

"Eppie, dear," said Frederica, as she slipped from her high seat to the floor, "I like that about 'glorified eyes,' and one seeing hidden things; I mean things that are hidden from us now."

"Ay, the eyes o' man are never satisfied with seeing, nor his ears with hearing," said Eppie: "I doubt that is but a carnal notion o' heaven.

This is what David says about it--

"'But as for me, I Thine own face In righteousness shall see; And with Thy likeness when I wake, I satisfied shall be.'"

"Satisfied!" repeated she; "ay, doubtless, they'll be satisfied that win there. But, eh me! 'Strait is the gate, and narrow the way, that leads to life,' and I doubt there will be some awfu' disappointments at that day."

"If one only knew just what to do," said Frederica gravely.

"Be a good bairn, and ay read your Bible, and mind your prayers," said Eppie. "But there's your bell, and you will need to go."

And so Frederica went downstairs with the grave thoughts that Eppie's words had awakened, stirring at her heart again. She read her Bible as Eppie had bidden her, and sometimes she read it with delight, because of the elevation of the thoughts and the beauty of the language; but she came upon nothing in these readings that touched her heart, or that she felt to be suited to her. She read the Old Testament, as the history of her mother's people. She had been often told of late that she was a Jewess in appearance, like her mother, and she took a real interest in the history of her people, and began to feel pride in being descended from a "nation of heroes." But pre-occupied with thoughts of this kind, she read on from day to day, seeing nothing in the wonderful words she read to enlighten her on all that she so much needed, and which she believed she so much desired to know.

She listened now with attention to such Bible lessons and readings as entered into the regular routine of school work, but the instructions connected with them were often of a kind to influence the reason and affect the imagination, rather than to touch the heart; and though her attention and interest enlarged her knowledge of the letter of Scripture, and won her many good marks and the chance of a prize at the end of the year, the lessons brought her no answer to the question as to which was the right religion, or how one was to get the good of it in the time of trouble, as Miss Baines had done.

Indeed, if it had not been for one thing, the grave and anxious thoughts that had been for some time occupying her mind might have pa.s.sed away, as they pa.s.s from the mind and heart of so many of the young and thoughtless, leaving no trace in her life, no influence for good, either to herself or to others. If her mother had been well and happy, if there had been no shadow of dark days and painful nights hanging over her future, if she had not longed so earnestly to learn for her sake the secret of peace and joy, over which these have no power, she might have put all anxious thoughts away from her. But all her thoughts of her mother were anxious thoughts now; for in the only visit they had made since Easter, they had found her no better, but rather worse.

CHAPTER EIGHT.

Spring was pa.s.sing into the loveliest part of summer. The school girls were beginning to count the days that must pa.s.s before the midsummer holidays; and none counted them more earnestly than did Frederica and her sister. What was to follow the holidays they did not know. There had been nothing more said about sending them to England. But whether they were to be sent there, or to come back again to Mrs Glencairn's, there were two months of holidays on which they might safely count, and no one knew what might happen before they were over.

Their one short visit since Easter had not been a very successful one.

Their mother had been ill and Mrs Ascot had been cross, and there was to be no other visit till holiday time. Dixen had come once or twice with a message from Selina, but the tidings he brought were neither very cheerful nor very definite; and no wonder that Frederica longed for more, and would not lose a chance to get them.

And so one morning, as Mr Vane and some of his friends were riding through one of the wide upper streets, which at that time looked more like the country than the town, they were startled by a voice calling, "Papa, papa," and out from a straggling line of school girls there sprang a little figure gesticulating eagerly. Mr Vane turned round, and so did the others.

"It is you, Fred, is it?" said he in surprise.

"Yes, papa, I beg your pardon for calling you, but it is so stupid walking along all in a row, and I want to ask you how mama is, and Selina."

"Oh! they are very well--just as usual. But what will madame the schoolmistress say to your escapade?"

"I am very naughty I know, papa, but I did so want to hear about mama.