Winter Evening Tales Part 19

There is not in its own way a more distinctive and interesting bit of Scotland than the bleak Lothian country, with its wide views, its brown ploughed fields, and its dense swaying plantations of fir. The Lammermoor Hills and the Pentlands and the veils of smoke that lie about Edinburgh are on its horizon, and within that circle all the large quietude of open grain fields, wide turnip lands, where sheep feed, and far-stretching pastures where the red and white cows ruminate. The patient processes of nature breed patient minds; the gray cold climate can be read in the faces of the people, and in their hearts the seasons take root and grow; so that they have a grave character, pa.s.sive, yet enduring; strong to feel and strong to act when the time is full ready for action.

Of these natural peculiarities Jean Anderson had her share. She was a Lothian la.s.sie of many generations, usually undemonstrative, but with large possibilities of storm beneath her placid face and gentle manner.

Her father was the minister of Lambrig and the manse stood in a very sequestered corner of the big parish, facing the bleak east winds, and the salt showers of the German ocean. It was sheltered by dark fir woods on three sides, and in front a little walled-in garden separated it from the long, dreary, straight line of turnpike road. But Jean had no knowledge of any fairer land; she had read of flowery pastures and rose gardens and vineyards, but these places were to her only in books, while the fields and fells that filled her eyes were her home, and she loved them.

She loved them all the more because the man she loved was going to leave them, and if Gavin Burns did well, and was faithful to her, then it was like to be that she also would go far away from the blue Lammermuirs, and the wide still s.p.a.ces of the Lothians. She stood at the open door of the manse with her lover thinking of these things, but with no real sense of what pain or deprivation the thought included. She was tall and finely formed, a blooming girl, with warmly-colored cheeks, a mouth rather large and a great deal of wavy brown hair. But the best of all her beauty was the soul in her face; its vitality, its vivacity and immediate response.

However, the time of love had come to her, and though her love had grown as naturally as a sapling in a wood, who could tell what changes it would make. For Gavin Burns had been educated in the minister's house and Jean and he had studied and fished and rambled together all through the years in which Jean had grown from childhood into womanhood. Now Gavin was going to New York to make his fortune. They stepped through the garden and into the long dim road, walking slowly in the calm night, with thoughtful faces and clasped hands. There was at this last hour little left to say. Every promise known to Love had been given; they had exchanged Bibles and broken a piece of silver and vowed an eternal fidelity. So, in the cold sunset they walked silently by the river that was running in flood like their own hearts. At the little stone bridge they stopped, and leaning over the parapet watched the drumly water rushing below; and there Jean reiterated her promise to be Gavin's wife as soon as he was able to make a home for her.

"And I am not proud, Gavin," she said; "a little house, if it is filled with love, will make me happy beyond all."

They were both too hopeful and trustful and too habitually calm to weep or make much visible lament over their parting; and yet when Gavin vanished into the dark of the lonely road, Jean shut the heavy house door very slowly. She felt as if she was shutting part of herself out of the old home forever, and she was shocked by this first breaking of the continuity of life; this sharp cutting of regular events asunder.

Gavin's letters were at first frequent and encouraging, but as the months went by he wrote more and more seldom. He said "he was kept so busy; he was making himself indispensable, and could not afford to be less busy. He was weary to death on the Sat.u.r.day nights, and he could not bring his conscience to write anent his own personal and earthly happiness on the Sabbath day; but he was sure Jean trusted in him, whether he wrote or not; and they were past being bairns, always telling each other the love they were both so sure of."

Late in the autumn the minister died of typhoid fever, and Jean, heartbroken and physically worn out, was compelled to face for her mother and herself, a complete change of life. It had never seemed to these two women that anything could happen to the father and head of the family; in their loving hearts he had been immortal, and though the disease had run its tedious course before their eyes, his death at the last was a shock that shook their lives and their home to the very centre. A new minister was the first inevitable change, and then a removal from the comfortable manse to a little cottage in the village of Lambrig.

While this sad removal was in progress they had felt the sorrow of it, all that they could bear; and neither had dared to look into the future or to speculate as to its necessities. Jean in her heart expected Gavin would at once send for them to come to America. He had a fair salary, and the sale of their furniture would defray their traveling expenses.

She was indeed so sure of this journey, that she did not regard the cottage as more than a temporary shelter during the approaching winter.

In the spring, no doubt, Gavin would have a little home ready, and they would cross the ocean to it. The mother had the same thought. As they sat on their new hearthstone, lonely and poor, they talked of this event, and if any doubts lurked unconsciously below their love and trust they talked them away, while they waited for Gavin's answer to the sorrowful letter Jean had sent him on the night of her father's burial.

It was longer in coming than they expected. For a week they saw the postman pa.s.s their door with an indifference that seemed cruel; for a week Jean made new excuses and tried to hold up her mother's heart, while her own was sinking lower and lower. Then one morning the looked-for answer came. Jean fled to a room apart to read it alone; Mrs.

Anderson sat down and waited, with dropped eyes and hands tightly clasped. She knew, before Jean said a word, that the letter had disappointed her. She had remained alone too long. If all had been as they hoped the mother was certain Jean would not have deferred the good tidings a moment. But a quarter of an hour had pa.s.sed before Jean came to her side, and then when she lifted her eyes she saw that her daughter had been weeping.

"It is a disappointment, Jean, I see," she said sadly. "Never mind, dearie."

"Yes, mother; Gavin has failed us."

"We have been two foolish women, Jean. Oh, my dear la.s.sie, we should have lippened to G.o.d, and He would not have disappointed us! What does Gavin Burns say?"

"It is what he does _not_ say, that hurts me, mother. I may as well tell you the whole truth. When he heard how ill father was, he wrote to me, as if he had foreseen what was to happen. He said, 'there will be a new minister and a break-up of the old home, and you must come at once to your new home here. I am the one to care for you when your father is gone away; and what does it matter under what sun or sky if we are but together?' So, then, mother, when the worst had come to us I wrote with a free heart to Gavin. I said, 'I will come to you gladly, Gavin, but you know well that my mother is very dear to me, and where I am there she also must be.' And he says, in this letter, that it is me he is wanting, and that you have a brother in Glasgow that is unmarried and who will be willing, no doubt, to have you keep his house for him. There is a wale of fine words about it, mother, but they come to just this, and no more--Gavin is willing to care for me, but not for you and I will not trust myself with a man that cannot love you for my sake. We will stay together, mammy darling! Whatever comes or goes we will stay together. The man isna born that can part us two!"

"He is your lover, Jean. A girl must stick to her lover."

"You are my mother. I am bone of your bone, and flesh of your flesh and love of your love. May G.o.d forsake me when I forsake you!"

She had thrown herself at her mother's knees and was clasping and kissing the sad face so dear to her, as she fervently uttered the last words. And the mother was profoundly touched by her child's devotion.

She drew her close to her heart, and said firmly:

"No! No, my dearie! What could we two do for ourselves? And I'm loth to part you and Gavin. I simply cannot take the sacrifice, you so lovingly offer me. I will write to my brother David. Gavin isna far wrong there; David is a very close man, but he willna see his sister suffer, there is no fear of that."

"It is Jean that will not see you suffer."

"But the bite and the sup, Jean? How are we to get them?"

"I can make my own dresses and cloaks, so then I can make dresses and cloaks for other people. I shall send out a card to the ladies near-by and put an advertis.e.m.e.nt in the Haddington newspaper, and G.o.d can make my needle sharp enough for the battle. Don't cry, mother! Oh, darling, don't cry! We have G.o.d and each other, and none can call us desolate."

"But you will break your heart, Jean. You canna help it. And I canna take your love and happiness to brighten my old age. It isna right. I'll not do it. You must go to Gavin. I will go to my brother David."

"I will not break my heart, mother. I will not shed a tear for the false, mean lad, that you were so kind to for fourteen years, when there was no one else to love him. Aye, I know he paid for his board and schooling, but he never could pay for the mother-love you gave him, just because he was motherless. And who has more right to have their life brightened by my love than you have? Beside, it is my happiness to brighten it, and so, what will you say against it? And I will not go to Gavin. Not one step. If he wants me now, he will come for me, and for you, too. This is sure as death! Oh, mammy! Mammy, darling, a false lad shall not part us! Never! Never! Never!"

"Jean! Jean! What will I say at all"

"What would my father say, if he was here this minute? He would say, 'you are right, Jean! And G.o.d bless you, Jean! And you may be sure that it is all for the best, Jean! So take the right road with a glad heart, Jean!' That is what father would say. And I will never do anything to prevent me looking him straight in the face when we meet again. Even in heaven I shall want him to smile into my eyes and say, 'Well done, Jean!'"

CHAPTER II.

Jean's plans for the future were humble and reasonable enough to insure them some measure of success, and the dreaded winter pa.s.sed not uncomfortably away. Then in the summer Uncle David Nicoll came to Lambrig and boarded with his sister, paying a pound a week, and giving her, on his departure, a five-pound note to help the next winter's expenses. This order of things went on without change or intermission for five years, and the little cottage gradually gathered in its clean, sweet rooms, many articles of simple use and beauty. Mrs. Anderson took entire charge of the housekeeping. Jean's needle flew swiftly from morning to night, and though the girl had her share of the humiliations and annoyances incident to her position, these did not interfere with the cheerful affection and mutual help which brightened their lonely life.

She heard nothing from Gavin. After some painful correspondence, in which neither would retract a step from the stand they had taken, Gavin ceased writing, and Jean ceased expecting, though before this calm was reached she had many a bitter hour the mother never suspected. But such hours were to Jean's soul what the farmer's call "growing weather;" in them much rich thought and feeling sprang up insensibly; her nature ripened and mellowed and she became a far lovelier woman than her twentieth year had promised.

One gray February afternoon, when the rain was falling steadily, Jean felt unusually depressed and weary. An apprehension of some unhappiness made her sad, and she could not sew for the tears that would dim her eyes. Suddenly the door opened and Gavin's sister Mary entered. Jean did not know her very well, and she did not like her at all, and she wondered what she had come to tell her.

"I am going to New York on Sat.u.r.day, Jean," she said, "and I thought Gavin would like to know how you looked and felt these days."

Jean flushed indignantly. "You can see how I look easy enough, Mary Burns," she answered; "but as to how I feel, that is a thing I keep to myself these days."

"Gavin has furnished a pretty house at the long last, and I am to be the mistress of it. You will have heard, doubtless, that the school where I taught so long has been broken up, and so I was on the world, as one may say, and Gavin could not bear that. He is a good man, is Gavin, and I'm thinking I shall have a happy time with him in America."

"I hope you will, Mary. Give him a kind wish from me; and I will bid you 'good bye' now, if you please, seeing that I have more sewing to do to-night than I can well manage."

This event wounded Jean sorely. She felt sure Mary had only called for an unkind purpose, and that she would cruelly misrepresent her appearance and condition to Gavin. And no woman likes even a lost lover to think scornfully of her. But she brought her sewing beside her mother and talked the affair over with her, and so, at the end of the evening, went to bed resigned, and even cheerful. Never had they spent a more confidential, loving night together, and this fact was destined to be a comfort to Jean during all the rest of her life. For in the morning she noticed a singular look on her mother's face and at noon she found her in her chair fast in that sleep which knows no wakening in this world.

It was a blow which put all other considerations far out of Jean's mind.

She mourned with a pa.s.sionate sorrow her loss, and though Uncle David came at once to a.s.sist her in the necessary arrangements, she suffered no hand but her own to do the last kind offices for her dear dead. And oh! how empty and lonely was now the little cottage, while the swift return to all the ordinary duties of life seemed such a cruel effacement. Uncle David watched her silently, but on the evening of the third day after the funeral he said, kindly:

"Dry your eyes, Jean. There is naething to weep for. Your mother is far beyond tears."

"I cannot bear to forget her a minute, uncle, yet folks go and come and never name her; and it is not a week since she had a word and a smile for everybody."

"Death is forgetfulness, Jean; ... 'one lonely way We go: and is she gone?

Is all our best friends say.'

"You must come home with me now, Jean. I canna be what your mother has been to you, but I'll do the best I can for you, la.s.sie. Sell these bit sticks o' furniture and shut the door on the empty house and begin a new life. You've had sorrow about a lad; let him go. All o' the past worth your keeping you can save in your memory."

"I will be glad to go with you, uncle. I shall be no charge on you. I can find my own bread if you will just love me a little."

"I'm no that poor, Jean. You are welcome to share my loaf. Put that weary; thimble and needle awa'; I'll no see you take another st.i.tch."

So Jean followed her uncle's advice and went back with him to Glasgow.

He had never said a word about his home, and Jean knew not what she expected--certainly nothing more than a small floor in some of the least expensive streets of the great city. It was dark when they reached Glasgow, but Jean was sensible of a great change in her uncle's manner as soon as they left the railway. He made an imperative motion and a carriage instantly answered it; and they were swiftly driven to a large dwelling in one of the finest crescents of the West end. He led her into a handsome parlor and called a servant, and bid her "show Miss Anderson her rooms;" and thus, without a word of preparation, Jean found herself surrounded by undreamed of luxury.

Nothing was ever definitely explained to her, but she gradually learned to understand the strange old man who a.s.sumed the guardianship of her life. His great wealth was evident, and it was not long ere she discovered that it was largely spent in two directions--scientific discovery and the Temperance Crusade. Men whose lives were devoted to chemistry or to electrical investigations, or pa.s.sionate apostles of total abstinence from intoxicants were daily at his table; and Jean could not help becoming an enthusiastic partisan on such matters. One of the savants, a certain Professor Sharp, fell deeply in love with her; and she felt it difficult to escape the influence of his wooing, which had all the persistent patience of a man accustomed "to seek till he found, and so not lose his labor."

Her life was now very happy. Cautious in giving his love, David Nicoll gave it freely as soon as he had resolved to adopt his niece. Nor did he ever regret the gift. "Jean entered my house and she made it a home," he said to his friends. No words could have better explained the position.

In the winter they entertained with a n.o.ble hospitality; in the summer they sailed far north to the mystical isles of the Western seas; to Orkney and Zetland and once even as far as the North Cape by the light of the midnight sun. So the time pa.s.sed wonderfully away, until Jean was thirty-two years old. The simple, unlettered girl had then become a woman of great culture and of perfect physical charm. Wise in many ways, she yet kept her loving heart, and her uncle delighted in her. "You have made my auld age parfectly happy, Jean," he said to her on the last solemn night of his life; "and I thank G.o.d for the gift o' your honest love! Now that I am going the way of all flesh, I have gi'en you every bawbee I have. I have put no restrictions on you, and I have left nae dead wishes behind me. You will do as you like wi' the land and the siller, and you will do right in a' things, I ken that, Jean. If it should come into your heart to tak' the love Professor Sharp offers you, I'll be pleased, for he'll never spend a shilling that willna be weel spent; and he is a clever man, and a good man and he loves you. But it is a' in your ain will; do as you like, anent either this or that."

This was the fourth great change in Jean's life. Gavin's going away had opened the doors of her destiny; her father's death had sent her to the school of self-reliant poverty; her mother's death given her a home of love and luxury, and now her uncle put her in a position of vast, untrammeled responsibility. But if love is the joy of life, this was not the end; the crowning change was yet to come; and now, with both her hands full, her heart involuntarily turned to her first lover.