The Dew of Their Youth Part 42

My father still teaches his Ovid, and looks to Freddy Esquillant to succeed him. He is now first a.s.sistant and has taken a house for Agnes Anne. In a year or two they expect to begin thinking about getting married. But really there is no hurry. They have only been engaged twelve years, and an immediate purpose of marriage would be considered quite indecent haste in Eden Valley. And Aunt Jen ... is still Aunt Jen.

No man, she says, has ever proved himself worthy of her, but I myself think that, if there is no infringement of the table of consanguinity on the first page of the Bible after "James, by the Grace of G.o.d, King of Great Britain, France, and Ireland," she has an eye on Duncan the Second, when he shall shed the trappings of the school-boy and endue himself with the virility of knee-breeches, c.o.c.ked hat, and a coat with adult tails.

At least she certainly shows more partiality to him than to any one, and wonders incessantly how he managed to pick up so unworthy and harum-scarum a father.

For the rest, Heathknowes stands where it did, excepting always the Wood Parlour, which _my_ grandfather had pulled down. And where it stood the full-rounded corn-stacks almost lean against the blind wall, so that the maids will not pa.s.s that way unattended--for fear of Wringham Pollixfen, or poor hot-blooded, turbulent Richard, his victim, or perhaps more exactly the victim of his own unstable will.

And as for Irma, years have not aged her. She has the invincible gift of youth, of lightsome, winsome, buoyant youth. She still has that way of poising herself for flight, like a t.i.t on a thistle, or a plume of dandelion-down, ready to break off and float away on any wind, which I tell her is not respectable in a married woman of her age and standing.

But my Lord Advocate does not agree with me. He rests from his labours--not in the grave, thank goodness, but in his house on the bright slopes of Corstorphine.

Also the Dean sings an "Amen" to his praises of Irma, but neither of the Kirkpatricks has ever deigned to cross our doorstep.

"They were glad to be rid of you!" I tell Irma.

"Dear place!" she answers. And she does not mean either the house at Sciennes or the Kirkpatrick mansion near the Water of Leith. She is thinking of that once open s.p.a.ce by the Greyfriars where, to the accompaniment of keen chisel-stroke and dull mallet-thud, once on a day she came to me, more dream-like than my dream, and said, "I have found it, the Little White House!"

THE END

BY THE SAME AUTHOR

ROSE OF THE WILDERNESS

PRINCESS PENNILESS

DEEP MOAT GRANGE

THE CHERRY RIBBAND

LAD'S LOVE