Morag Part 2

In the long still afternoon, when her father went for a walk with the dogs, she would wander down from the rocky shieling into the pine forest, which was a great haunt of hers--the _fir-wood_, she always called it. Sometimes she took one of the old books with her, and lying down among the brown fir-needles, she would gaze longingly at the unknown characters. She noticed that most of the church-goers carried books with them, which she discovered to be identical with one of the musty collection in the old _kist_: so a halo of mystery grew up round this book, which seemed to belong to everybody; and Morag longed that she could find the key to it as she looked up from the yellow pages of her mother's Bible, and gazed dreamily through the dark aisles of pine at the blue sky.

Happy are we that this Book of Life is an open page to us! But if it is, though an open, a dull listless page, if our hearts do not burn within us as we read its words, then more unhappy are we than this lonely untaught maiden, this seeker after G.o.d; for of such He has said, "They that seek me early shall find me!"

Morag had her code of right and wrong, which she held to with much more firmness than some who have the knowledge of a living, present Helper, along with the voice of conscience. She did many things every day that were not always pleasant, because something within said, "I ought," and avoided some things because that same voice whispered, "I ought not."

In the cold, dark winter mornings, the "I ought" said, "Get up, Morag, and light the fire, and make breakfast ready for the kennels; if you lie in bed longer, you won't have time to do it before making ready your father's breakfast, and you know that the dogs depend on you;" and the little girl would jump out of bed, with her first footsteps on the half-frozen rain that often lay on the earthen floor, and set cheerily about her morning's work.

The shooting season was generally the dullest time of the year for Morag; her father being absent at the moors with the sportsmen all day long, the little shieling was more than usually solitary during those long autumn days. The shooting-party generally lived in the village inn, so it was a great piece of news for the keeper and his daughter when they heard that the new folks were to live in the castle of Glen Eagle.

It had been uninhabited ever since Morag could remember; she delighted to wander round its grey walls, and to peep in at the narrow windows, and had spun many a fancy in her little brain concerning its ancient uses, and former inhabitants. She watched from afar, with great interest, the preparations for the arrival of the new shooting-party; and on the morning of the "Twelfth" she stood looking wistfully after her father, as he set out for the castle, with the hired keepers and a host of dogs, to meet the gentlemen on their start for the moors.

The shieling seemed very lonely that day to Morag, when her work was done, and she sat watching the shooting-party on the distant hill, where her keen eye could still distinguish them, like dark, moving specks among the heather. At last it occurred to her that she might go to the old castle, and see what transformations the newcomers had wrought. She felt quite safe from the fear of seeing anybody, while the gentlemen were absent: it never struck her that they would not leave their home, as she left her hut, silent and tenantless: so she sauntered down the hill, and wandered among the feathery birch-trees which skirted the road to the castle. She felt rather disappointed to find that everything looked exactly the same, to all appearance, as it used to do; for it would have been difficult to change the exterior of such a grim old keep.

After she had made an exploring tour round, she sat down on a gra.s.sy knoll to rest, and then she noticed that the window opposite was opened up, and the sash raised. A feeling of curiosity took possession of her, and she thought surely there could be no harm of peeping in, when all the people were so far away on the hills. She approached cautiously, and looking in, she saw the loveliest little damsel that her eyes had ever beheld, seated amid, what appeared to Morag, a perfect fairyland of delight. Was there not a beautiful table covered with books in bright gay bindings?--and this happy creature was bending over one of them, with her golden curls falling around. For we know that Blanche Clifford was at that moment in the thick of the Battle of Tewkesbury, in a very disconsolate frame of mind. Morag saw that she had been un.o.bserved, and lingered about the gra.s.sy knoll, thinking that she might venture to take another glimpse of this wonderful interior; but this time the golden head had been suddenly raised, and a pair of blue, dreamy eyes surveyed her with astonishment. Morag gave a terrified glance round her, and then turned and fled, with a beating heart, never slackening her pace till she got beyond the castle grounds.

By the time she had reached the shieling, Morag began to doubt her own eyes, when the vision of the fair English maiden, with her wondering, blue eyes, rose before her. She waited impatiently for her father's return from the moors, in the hope that he might throw some light on the matter; though when he did come she was much too shy to make any inquiries. Supper was over, and Dingwall had taken his seat at the _ingle neuk_ to smoke his pipe, while Morag sat cleaning a gun with her tiny, but strong little fingers, as she silently pondered over the castle scene, and at last came to the conclusion that the bonnie wee leddy must have been one of the ghosts which were said to haunt the old keep. Her father at last broke the silence by saying, between one of the whiffs of his pipe--

"I'm thinkin' we've gotten the richt kin' o' folk this year, Morag. The master's the best-like gentleman I've seen i' the Glen this mony a day.

It would be tellin' you and me, la.s.s, gin he were the laird himsel';"

and Dingwall glanced grimly at one of the many standing grievances, the porous roof of the hut. Morag's heart went pit-a-pat, for surely it could not be a dream, and what she wanted might be coming soon; but whiff, whiff went the pipe, and silence reigned for another quarter of an hour, as Dingwall speculated whether Mr. Clifford might not even bring his many suits before "the laird himsel'," and get redress for some of his grievances.

At last he said, as he laid down his pipe, "Eh, Morag! but I havena been tellin' ye aboot the winsome bit leddy he's brocht wi' him. She cam runnin' up til him, and he brocht her to tak' a look o' the birds, and said, 'This is my daughter, Dingwall. She would give me no rest till I brought her to Glen Eagle,'" narrated the keeper, repeating Mr.

Clifford's introduction, which had evidently gratified him. "She had been wantin' to go til the moors," he continued, "but the sicht o' the deid birds seemed no to her likin', and she ran off some frichtened like. Ye're no sae saft, la.s.s, I'm thinkin';" and Dingwall smiled his grim smile, and relapsed into silence again.

But Morag had heard all that she wanted. It was no vision, then, after all, but a real, live, lovely maiden, of whom possibly she might catch another glimpse if she had only the courage to approach the castle again. She did not venture to tell her father that she, too, had seen the winsome little leddy. Her extreme shyness and reserve always made it an effort to tell anything that required many words, and she put all her thoughts and reveries into the steel of Mr. Clifford's double-barrelled gun.

IV.

_THE FIR-WOOD._

"WHAT a glorious day it is, Ellis! How I wish I could spend the whole of it out of doors!" exclaimed Blanche, as she lazily stretched herself, before making the supreme effort of getting out of bed. "You've no idea how dreadful it is to be shut up for a whole morning in that horrid schoolroom, with the 'History of England,' and that wearisome geography book. I have got the boundaries of China, and ever so much, for my lesson to-day. I'm sure I don't care to know how China is bounded. I shall certainly never go there, on any account. Do you know, Ellis, the Chinese are so cruel? They shut up women, and pinch their toes, and all kinds of things."

"La! missie; you don't say so?" exclaimed Ellis, getting interested, for she delighted in the sensational.

"Oh, yes; indeed they do. They are such horrid creatures! So ugly, too.

I've seen pictures of them. Do you know, Ellis, they actually wear tails?" continued Blanche, gratified to see that her maid was interested in her information.

"Come now, missie, you'll be makin' them out to be regular animals, and that I won't believe, noways," retorted Ellis, as she vigorously brushed Blanche's long curls.

"But, indeed, the Chinese do have tails. It's just the way they do their back hair, you know, Ellis," replied Blanche in an explanatory tone, as she turned to look out at the window. "Oh! what a glorious hill that is, with its blue peak right away in the clouds! I wonder what is the name of it? How nice it would be to know all the boundaries of Glen Eagle, now--to be able to tell the names of every mountain, and to know which was really the highest; for yesterday that dark hill looked much higher than it does to-day. Don't you remember those soldiers we saw in Devonshire, last year, Ellis? They were making a military survey, Miss Prosser told me. How I should like to make a military survey! It would be real work, you know, and I should go out in the morning and come in at night;" and inspired by the grandeur of the idea, Blanche pirouetted round the room, greatly to the disarranging of Ellis's careful toilette, and finally she ran away down-stairs to join Miss Prosser.

After breakfast, Blanche was moving away, in a disconsolate frame of mind, towards the schoolroom. She looked longingly through the open door, as she crossed the hall, but at length sat down to her books with a resigned sigh. Miss Prosser had followed her, and stood at the table smiling rather mysteriously, as she listened to her pupil's sigh.

"You need not sit down to your lessons this morning, Blanche, dear, unless indeed you are especially anxious to study. Your papa has expressed a wish that you should have no lessons for a short time. I must say I rather regret it, my dear Blanche; you are so behind; there is so much ground to be gone over."

With the last remark Blanche heartily agreed; but it was moorland, not mental ground, which she was thinking of. She began to put away her schoolbooks in an ecstasy of delight, while Miss Prosser continued--

"I have a slight headache this morning, and shall not be able to go out to walk with you; but I have given Ellis orders to accompany you, as I really cannot expose myself to the sun."

"Oh, please, do let me go out all by myself, only this once? Indeed, I shall not do anything foolish," pleaded Blanche.

Miss Prosser seemed disposed to be yielding, and at length Blanche started, accompanied by her dog Chance. She got strict injunctions not to get into danger of any kind, and on no account to go beyond the castle grounds; but this boundary line being quite undefined in Blanche's mind, it gave ample scope for extensive rambling.

Blanche felt quite in a perplexity of happiness when she found herself under the blue sky, left entirely to the freedom of her will. It was the first time in her life that she had been so trusted, and she thought it felt like what people call "beginning life." She had crossed the bridge that spanned the river below the castle, and now she stood between two divergent roads, each threading their white winding way through different parts of the Glen. So much did Blanche feel the extreme importance of the occasion, that she had difficulty in making up her mind which path to choose, and stood hesitating, till Chance, with a wag of his tail, set out to walk along one of them, looking back at his little mistress, as if he meant to say, "Come along; anything is better than indecision: we're sure to find something pleasant in this direction."

The remembrance of the little window visitor was still uppermost in Blanche's mind; but she had heard her father say that n.o.body except their own servants lived within miles of the castle; so she concluded the little girl's home must be very far away, and that there was little chance of meeting with her in her rambles of to-day. Then she had seemed so frightened, and ran away so quickly, that it was not likely she would repeat her visit to the schoolroom window; indeed it was to be hoped not, Blanche thought, since Miss Prosser would be the sole occupant that morning. The little damsel, with her elf-locks, had already begun to take her place in Blanche's imagination among the fairies and heroines of her story-books--a pleasant mystery round which to weave a day dream, when there was nothing more attractive within reach. But on this morning were not Chance and she beginning life together, with all kinds of delicious possibilities before them along this white winding road? At every turn she came upon new wonders and treasures, and her frock was being rapidly filled with a miscellaneous collection of wild-flowers, curious mosses, and stray feathers of mountain birds.

The road lay between stretches of moorland, which not many years before had been covered by trees, but now only a gnarled stump, scattered here and there, told of the departed forest. After Blanche had wandered a long way, following the abrupt turnings of the hilly path, she noticed that a shadow fell across the road, and looked up to see great trees all round, thronging as far as her eye could reach, till in the depths of the forest it seemed as dark as night; while in some parts the sunlight struggled through, and shone, like flames of fire, on the old red trunks of the fir-trees. Blanche, before she knew it, had already penetrated into the forest, and stood awe-struck gazing down the great aisles made by the pillars of pine rearing themselves high and stately with their arching green boughs against the sky. The remembrance of a grand old minster, where her father had taken her to church one Sunday in spring, rose to Blanche's recollection; those wonderful trees seemed strangely like the fretted columns among which she had stood that day. She had heard her father say that there was no church within miles of Glen Eagle, and she wondered why they could not come here to service on Sundays. The choristers' voices would sound so beautiful, and the great floor, covered with brown fir-needles, and the lichen-spotted stones studded over it, would be much nicer than a pew.

Blanche, as was her custom when she felt happy, sang s.n.a.t.c.hes of songs as she wandered on through the forest, stooping every now and then to gather treasures from among the fir-needles. At last she sat down and began to pick up some attractive-looking green cones, which had fallen the last time the storm had swung the great fir-trees. And as she sat there, absorbed in gathering cones, her voice went up clear and musical through the arched boughs, as she sang, almost unconsciously, some verses of a hymn which she once learnt--

"There is a green hill far away, Without a city wall, Where the dear Lord was crucified, Who died to save us all.

"We may not know, we cannot tell, What pains He had to bear; But we believe it was for us He hung and suffered there."

The unwonted sound echoed through the silent forest, startling a roe that had strayed from its covert, and making some little birds lurking among the boughs set their tiny heads to one side to listen to the new song in their sanctuary. There was another listener to Blanche's hymn, who felt as startled by the sound as the timid roe; but who had, nevertheless, stood listening eagerly. When Blanche looked up from the fir-needles, wearied with her search for the cones, it was to see the little maiden, whom she had just been consigning to dreamland, leaning against a tree. There she stood, more real than ever, with her little bare feet planted among the soft moss, and her eyes fixed wonderingly on the stooping little girl. Blanche sprang forward, dropping, as she went, her lapful of gatherings.

"Oh, please, little girl, do not run away this time. I was so disappointed that you would not wait when I saw you at the window yesterday. Only, perhaps, it was just as well, for Miss Prosser walked in the minute after," added Blanche, who always took it for granted that there must be a previous acquaintance with those who made up her small world.

The little native did not seem disposed for immediate flight on this occasion, however; she awaited Blanche calmly, as if the fir-wood were her special sanctuary. Blanche was standing near, when Chance, who had been doing some hunting on his own account, finding the search after cones not exciting enough, came running up to see what his young mistress was about. Blanche sprang forward to meet him; knowing well that he was the sworn enemy of all bare-legged personages, she dreaded the result of a hasty interview with her new acquaintance. He bounded past her, however, and running up to the little girl, he began to wag his tail in quite a friendly manner, and received caresses in return.

"Why, you and Chance seem quite friends," exclaimed Blanche, with a feeling of relief, not unmingled with astonishment. "He is generally so very naughty to strangers; he surely must have seen you before?"

"No, leddy, I didna see him afore; but I'm thinkin' he kens fine, Morag likes a' dogs," said the little girl, in a low, timid voice, as she smiled and patted Chance.

"Morag! is that your name? What a nice, funny name! But you must not call me, lady. I'm only a girl about your own age, you see. My name is Blanche--that means white in French, you know, and it suits me nicely, they say, because I'm fair. But that isn't the reason I'm called Blanche. It was my mamma's name," explained the little lady communicatively, while Morag listened eagerly, as if she were drinking in every word.

"Do tell me where you live, Morag? Is it in one of the pretty little houses on the moorland, that you can see from the castle? I'm so glad I've found you again;" and the little fluttering hand was kindly laid on the sunburnt arm. A light came into Morag's still face; she suddenly lifted the white hand and kissed it reverentially. Blanche felt rather embarra.s.sed at so unexpected a movement, though it stirred her little heart; and after a moment's pause, she said impulsively--

"I love you, Morag. I wish you would come and play with me. I'm so dull all alone. What were you playing at, all by yourself here? Aren't you a little afraid to stay in this dark forest all alone?"

"I wasna playin' mysel'. I was only jist buskin' at the hooks, for the loch," replied Morag, glancing towards a flat, lichen-spotted rock, where the materials for her work were lying scattered about. And then, as if reminded that she must be busy, she went and sat down to work.

Blanche followed, unwilling to leave her new-found friend, and curious to see what kind of work a little girl, no bigger than herself, could do. There, on the grey stone which served as Morag's work-table, lay, in all stages of manufacture, wonderful imitations of variegated flies, to entrap unwary fishes. Blanche thought them marvels of art, and glanced with respect and admiration at the skilful little fingers which had even now another in process of creation.

"You must be very clever to make such pretty things, Morag. May I sit and watch you at work, for a little? I have got a holiday to-day, you see. Aren't holidays nice?" said Blanche, glowingly; then she remembered that perhaps this little girl might never have any, and she felt sorry she had said that, when no response came from her companion, so she changed the subject immediately.

"Who taught you to make those wonderful hooks, Morag? It must be so difficult," continued Blanche, as she watched the little fingers busy at work.

"Father teached me when I was a wee bit girlie. It's no that difficult to busk the hooks; maybe you would be liken' to try. It hurts the fingers some whiles, though," she added, glancing at Blanche's slender fingers.

"Oh! thank you very much, Morag. I should like so much to try, if you will teach me. My papa is going to fish in the loch one day soon, and it would be so nice if I could really make a hook for him."

Chance, who had been comfortably ensconced at Morag's feet, started as if he heard footsteps, and Blanche looked up to see Ellis hurrying towards them.

"O missie! how could you ever wander so far into this wilderness, and have me searchin' for you like this?" panted the breathless maid, with a look of relief on her face at having found her strayed charge.