Betty Grier

'Yes!' and, as I noted the colour gradually leaving her cheek, it came to me in a flash that I had erred in mentioning the fact in conjunction with a satisfactory settlement of her affairs. Even to an obtuse mind the inference was obvious, and I felt I had blundered grievously. Her agitation was unmistakable, and to relieve the situation I was about to make a remark, when she interrupted me.

'One moment, please;' and she turned her face away from me. 'This man, you say, was present when my father and mother were married, and you mention it as if it had a special significance. Does this affect me—I mean, would it make any difference to my name or prospects—my name particularly?'

'Oh yes, it would, Miss Stuart,' I said feelingly.

'Can you rely on what this man says?'

'Most emphatically, and we shall at once take steps to prove it.'

'When did you hear about this?'

'Quite lately.'

'Was it before you spoke to me, and—and promised to be my friend?'

'I didn't know about it then. It was only the day before yesterday it came to my knowledge.'

There was silence between us for a time, and the ormolu clock on the marble mantelpiece ticked loudly.

Then she rose to her feet and looked toward me, smiling through tear-dimmed eyes. 'You have made me very happy, Mr Russell. I don't want to know anything further. I leave myself confidently in your hands. You'll find cigarettes on the table behind you; you may smoke here;' and she crossed the room and sat down at the piano. She struck a few chords, deep as her own feelings; then she rose and came toward me. 'Mr Russell, do you know I have never known the joy of a mother's caress or the blessing of a mother's good-night kiss. Such memories of childhood are not mine, and my past is empty—empty. My father, for reasons of which I know nothing, never mentioned my mother's name to me. I was brought up among strangers, kindly enough, but still strangers. I never came in contact with other children. In a way, I was isolated from everything heartfelt and human; it is only since I got to know your neighbours that I have had a glimpse of what is surely the truest, sweetest, and happiest side of life. I like your nurse, your Betty. She once put her hand on my arm, and it had such a motherly touch that I wanted to kiss her. Perhaps you are thinking that this has no connection with anything that has passed between us. Well, you may be right in thinking so; but it is on my mind and in my heart, and I just wanted to tell you now, as I feel my future is hanging by a thread—a very slender thread—and I may not have another opportunity of saying it.'

I understood her mood, and made no reply; but I took her hand, raised it to my lips, and kissed it.

We were standing together in the oriel, watching the sunset splendour through the leafless trees, when Mrs Stuart and Murray Monteith joined us. Once or twice I caught my partner admiringly following Miss Stuart's movements, and he looked several times at me with a mark of interrogation in his eye. I had a feeling that he 'jaloused,' as Betty would put it, and it set me a-thinking; only for a moment, however, and I soon dismissed him and his monocle from my mind.

We had afternoon tea and a pleasant chat on current topics, and then our carriage was called. Just before we started, when we were standing in the hall, Miss Stuart asked me, in an undertone, if she could see, just for a minute, the man who had known her father. I called Joe inside, and Miss Stuart took him into the drawing-room. When he joined us again there was a glad look in his eye, and I knew his heart was proud within him, for he had shaken hands with his old Major's daughter.

I sat quiet and preoccupied in the corner of the brougham when driving home.

Just as the first twinkling light shone out ahead from the Gillfoot turn, Monteith turned to me. 'Russell,' he said, 'pardon my interrupting the flow of your pleasant meditations. You're a queer fellow in many ways; you—you don't say much till it suits you; but I can see as far through a brick wall as any one, and it may be—I say it may be—agreeable to you to know that Blackford Hall in Morningside will shortly be in the market. I've heard you say that if you ever settled down to married life you would like to live there.'

'Thank you, Monteith, for your information,' I said. 'It is agreeable to me to know this.'

Nothing further was said on the subject till we were seated at my cosy fireside. Then Murray Monteith, blowing clouds of fragrant smoke above him, and glancing round my clean, well-furnished walls, said, 'By Jove, Russell! you're a lucky fellow; an old doting nurse there,' inclining his head toward the kitchen, 'who loves you almost with a mother's affection, and who wouldn't allow the wind to blow on you if she could prevent it, and the love of a girl like—like'–and he hesitated and looked at me.

'Go on, Monteith; you're doing all right.'

'Go on! Hang it, man, you go on! Can't you speak, you—you dungeon, and give me a tag on which to hang my congratulations?'

'You don't require a tag, Monteith. A gag would be more suitable in the circumstances.'

'Now, look here, Russell,' he said, as he flung his cigar-stump into the fire and fixed me through his monocle, 'you're not honest with me when you say that, and you know you are not. You and I are not strangers to each other, and there's no occasion for secrecy. If you have no matrimonial news, I have. I thought, perhaps, if you had taken me into your confidence, it would have been a good opportunity for me to acquaint you, in a gradual, chatty way, with my plans. As you haven't—well, all I shall say now is that I am engaged.'

'My dear Monteith, I'm delighted to hear you say so, and I heartily congratulate you. You're the very best fellow I know, and you're marrying a lady in every way worthy of you. Miss Playfair is a'–

'Miss Playfair!' he exclaimed, in astonishment. 'How do you know?'

'Oh, well, the last time I visited you, before leaving Edinburgh, I, like you, was confronted with a brick wall, and I saw a little way through it. But that's neither here nor there. What we have to do now is to signalise the event;' and for the second time within two days I tasted a liquid element at an unusual hour.

'And when does the great event come off, Monteith?' I asked.

'Well, Russell,' he said, 'that is a matter which in a way depends on you. You see, I shall need to wait till you are quite recovered and back to business again. A honeymoon would naturally follow the ceremony,' he laughingly said, 'and it wouldn't do for both the principals of Monteith & Russell to be away at the same time.'

Dr Grierson and Mr Crichton joined us later at supper. Monteith is a keen devotee of the chess-board; and while he was trying conclusions with the banker, Dr Grierson and I went upstairs into my own little room. I told him all that had taken place—of my meetings with Miss Stuart, and the turn in the tide of her affairs—and he congratulated me and gave me much encouragement. Then I asked him when he thought I should be sufficiently well to resume business.

'Well, William,' he said, 'you have to see Dr Balfour and get his permission before you can go back to town. Personally, I cannot give you even an approximate date. You are making splendid progress, and unless there are very urgent reasons for your return, I should advise you to keep free from worry on that score. Leave yourself in my hands, and before long, with Dr Balfour's concurrence, I shall be able to say when you may with safety receive marching orders.'

Murray Monteith had to leave me without being able to arrange a particular date for his marriage. I am very sorry; but, after all, his great day may dawn sooner than he expects.

CHAPTER XIX

March came in like a lion, and, true to its proverbial reputation, it is going out like a lamb. Nature is waking from her long winter sleep, and is beginning to clothe herself anew. The hawthorn hedgerows, which only three weeks ago were hidden in piled-up wreaths of drifted snow, are covered now with a blush of green, and already in their bielded clefts the sparrows and yellow-yoits are preparing to build for themselves 'an house wherein to dwell.' There is a kindly warmth in the sun's rays as they lie on the upturned brown fields, and a soft genial breath is stealing through the woods and lingering lovingly round the ash and the chestnut, those early risers in the first dawn of spring. What a boldness and assertiveness there is in the big black bud of the ash, and how promising is the bulging pink-brown bud of the chestnut! To those who have eyes to see and ears to hear, how wonderful is the story they tell! If I were a preacher of God's gospel, I question if I could confine the selection of my texts to the literal words from His holy book. Of late I have been lying much in Nature's lap; I have listened with greedy, receptive ears to her song and story; I have felt the throbbing of her great mother heart, and learned in her workings many of the wonderful ways of her great Controller. And I am leaving her knee, creeping out of God's own sanctuary, humbled and chastened, yet gladdened and relieved withal, to think that into the city life, which I must soon re-enter, I am carrying with me that heaven-sent faculty of finding 'tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, sermons in stones, and good in everything.'

And these lanes and solitary bypaths which have been my schoolroom are becoming daily more interesting, more insistent in their appeal. They are now providing something fresh and pleasing every day. I must walk slowly and quietly, so that I may see and hear every titbit of their store. A country walk at the rate of four miles an hour is very invigorating, to those in good health very pleasurable; but such is not possible on my byway at this season of the year, except to the Philistines. Even Bang and Jip do not exceed the half-mile limit; and as for myself—well, Dr Grierson has oftener than once accompanied me down the Gillfoot road, and I know he doesn't gauge the progress of my recovery by my rate of locomotion. No; if I must see and hear aright I have to walk slowly, and when the mavis is singing at close o' day I must halt altogether if I would listen as I ought.

For many mornings past a blackbird from the top of the apple-tree in our garden has been challenging Tom Jardine to a trial of song; and, much as I love to lie and listen to my neighbour's pure tenor voice in 'The Lea Rig' or 'Flow gently, sweet Afton,' I have not been sorry when, as if acknowledging defeat, he has stopped to hearken to his feathered rival in the old apple-tree.

Now that Tom has got over all his worries, and the sun is rising earlier, his heart is becoming attuned, and the familiar old Scots airs are accompanying the different items of his morning duties just as they used to do when first I came to stay with Betty. I hear the gray mare's whinny, the turning of the key in the stable door, the lid of the corn-bin creaking on its rusty hinges—these are all as they used to be. But, alas! all is quiet in Betty's kitchen now, and I miss the cheery sounds of the early breakfast preparations, for Nathan is lying prostrate in the back-room, and poor Betty's rest is too much disturbed to permit of her rising with the dawn.

Every Friday evening since I came here I have given Nathan an envelope enclosing my weekly contribution toward the household expenses—that is, of course, in accordance with the arrangement I made with Betty; and at first I often used to wonder if she had fully explained the matter to him, because he always took the packet from me in a hesitating, doubtful way, very much as a debtor would accept a summons. Later he just smiled, and without a word put it in his trousers-pocket, looking sideways at me and inclining his head toward Betty wherever she happened to be at the time.

Last Friday night, when I was at his bedside, I handed him the envelope as usual. He didn't hold out his hand for it; so I laid it down on the coverlet, and nothing was said for a time. Then, nodding toward a wooden box in the corner of the room, he said, 'Maister Weelum, will ye open the lid o' that kist, if ye please, an' bring me the wee tin box that's lyin' at the left-haun side?'

I did as he requested. It was an old, battered, black japanned receptacle without a lock, and only secured against accidental opening by a wooden peg inserted through the catch. Withdrawing the peg and placing it between his teeth, he took off the lid, and there—some clean, others crumpled and dirty—was every envelope I had given him, and all of them unopened, as I had put them into his hand.

'Maister Weelum,' he said, after a pause, 'I mak' nae great shape at speakin' or explainin'; but I've been thinkin', as ye've been idle an' aff yer wark sae lang, ye'll mebbe no' ha'e muckle comin' in the noo, an'—an'–Auch! I was gaun to say something mair, an' I've forgot it; but ye can tak' it a' back if it's ony use to ye.'

'Nathan,' I said, in astonishment, 'I—I don't quite understand. Why should you offer me these?'

He gave a wee bit quiet laugh. 'I dinna ken what kind o' a job ye ha'e, Maister Weelum. Betty never telt me, an' I never asked; but wi' us yins doon here it's nae wark, nae pey. Ye've been idle a lang time, as I've said, an' I thocht mebbe it micht come in handy. Of coorse, if ye dinna need it—weel, there's nae hairm dune.'

I didn't know very well what to say, but I thanked him, and assured him that I didn't require money, explaining that it came to me whether I was working or not. This last bit of information roused Nathan's interest.

'Comes in to ye whether ye're workin' or no'! Imphm! Ye maun be connec'it wi' meenisters somewey, then,' he said.

'No, Nathan; I'm connected with law.'

'Oh, imphm!'

'I'm astonished that Betty never told you I was a lawyer, Nathan.'

'Mebbe she wadna like, man. Betty's very discreet.' Then he added by way of sympathetic encouragement, 'Dinna think ocht aboot it; there maun be fouk for a' kinds o' jobs, ye ken, Maister Weelum.'

Nathan is capable of unconsciously starting many different emotions. I was touched by his kindness and unselfishness, and amused at his reflection on my profession. But I couldn't find words to thank him for the former, and I dared not laugh at his serious remarks on the latter. Then I bethought me of my plan to relieve him of his long, weary walks, and to find something to take up his attention nearer home. I asked him if he wouldn't give up his present work and take to the cultivation of tomatoes, and I outlined my little scheme as clearly as I could. Somehow, I didn't succeed in making it plain to him, for after I had finished, and when I asked him what he thought of it, all he said was, 'It has nae attraction for me, Maister Weelum, for I never could eat a tomato a' my life.'

'But, Nathan,' I said, 'you needn't eat them unless you like. You've to grow them, and then you sell them. There might be money in it for you, and for your goodness of heart in offering me all these envelopes I want to pay for the putting up of the glass-houses and stoves and piping; that will be a small return for all your kindness to me. You know all about the growing of tomatoes?'

'Ay, brawly.'

'And what do you think about it, then, Nathan?'

'What would Betty say, think ye?'

'I don't know,' I said, 'but we'll soon hear.'

Betty was baking soda-scones, and when she was free to leave her girdle she came in, and I told her all I had told Nathan. She looked from me to Nathan, and then, answering a sign, she went up and leaned over his bedside. I heard a throttled sob and a whispered word or two. Thinking they wished to talk it over by themselves, I slipped into the kitchen.

In a minute Betty was with me. 'Maister Weelum,' she said, and her lip trembled, 'Nathan, puir falla, broke doon there. He didna want you to see. He says he's obleeged to ye, but—but—but—it's no' worth while.'

I laid my hand on her shoulder in silent sympathy. Without a word she turned to her bakeboard, and I went into my room and quietly closed the door.

Last night, just after I had lit the gas and settled myself down for an hour's perusal of M'Crie's Vindication, Betty opened my door and came quietly in. 'Maister Weelum,' she said with a trembling lip, 'Nathan's a wee mair relieved. Him an' me ha'e had a closer he'rt-to-he'rt crack than ever we had in a' oor lives. I'm gled, in a wey; but—but I canna help thinkin' it'll be oor last.' She wiped her cheek with her apron. 'Hoots! hoots!' she said as the tears continued to flow; 'it's—it's no' like me to be a' begrutten like this; I'm gettin' awfu' soft-he'rted; but, oh, Maister Weelum, I'm awfu', awfu' sair-he'rted!'

I was at her side in a moment. 'There noo,' she said, 'I've dune;' and she choked down a sob. 'What I wanted to tell ye was that Nathan's very anxious to see ye; he wants to speak to ye aboot something. It's the first time he's speirt for onybody, an' I'm gled it's you. I ha'ena to gang in wi' ye, for he wants to see ye your lane.'

I pulled in my big chair nearer to the fire, put my mother's kirk hassock in front of it, and after I had seated Betty comfortably I went ben to Nathan's back-room.

A week or two ago, at his request, we had turned the bed round so that from where he lay he could see into the garden. I was present when Joe and Deacon Webster made the alteration; and when Nathan and I were alone and he had looked his 'e'efill' on the scene of his lifelong labour of love, he said, 'I'll no' weary noo, Maister Weelum. The flo'ers and the yirth ha'e aye a hamely look to me.'

And to-night, when I approached his bed, his eyes were fixed on the darkened shadowy plots outside. I didn't speak for a minute, and neither did he. Then, thinking he was unaware of my presence, I said, 'Nathan, I am here, beside you.'

'Ay, I ken.'

'Shall I bring in your lamp? It's getting dark now.'

'No, no, if ye please, dinna licht the lamp. I want to see—to see oot as lang as I can.'

I sat down beside him, and together we watched in silence the shadow of the night's wing creeping around bush and tree. And when everything was shrouded, and nothing was visible through the blue-black window-panes, Nathan's head turned on the pillow toward me. 'Man, Maister Weelum,' he said, 'it's quiet, quiet wark that. I'll never see it again—no, never again. Ye dinna mind sittin' in the dark?'

'No, Nathan.'

'Ay, the licht hurts my een; an'—an' I've never said muckle a' my life, but I've often thocht oot lang screeds in the darkness, an' mebbe it'll help me oot wi' what I've to say to ye the noo. Ay, the Hebrons dinna speak muckle, Maister Weelum; but this is a forby time wi' me, an' I've something to ask o' ye. I hardly expec'it the ca' at this time o' the year. The back-en's the time o' liftin'. I aye thocht, somewey, that when my time cam' it wad be when the growth was a' by, the aipples pu'd, and the tatties pitted; and it seems awfu' queer that I should ha'e to gang when the buds are burstin', an'—an' the gairden delvin' on—imphm!—but it's His wull. "The young may, the auld must."—Imphm!—Ay, are ye listenin', Maister Weelum?'

I rose from my chair, and I stroked the gray hair back from his forehead. 'Yes, Nathan, I'm listening; but you must not give up hope; you're really not an old man, and'–

'No' an auld man! Imphm! I've—I've been an auld man a' my days. I canna mind o' ever bein' young. I was ten—only ten—when my faither was ta'en awa', an' I had to mak' the handle o' his spade fit my wee bit haun. Ay, I had to, for the weans had to be brocht up, an'—an', thank God, I managed it! But it killed the youth that was in me. Ay, an', as I was gaun to say, I'm seein' things differently lyin' here. Coontin' the times ye've been at the kirk'll no' quieten your fears. Thinkin' o' the guid ye've dune or tried to do micht, an' my crap o' that's a very sma' yin. Still, I maun ha'e pleased the Almichty in some wey, or He wadna ha'e been sae kind to me; He wadna ha'e gi'en me Betty. Oh, man, Maister Weelum, I wish I could tell ye a' that Betty's been to me! I'm vexed I canna. I'm a Hebron, an' I needna try; but ye ken yoursel' in a sma' wey. She nursed ye—ay, an'—an' noo this is what I want to ask ye—when I'm away, Maister Weelum, will ye see that my—that Betty's a' richt—eh? Is that askin' an awfu' lot?'

'Oh, Nathan,' I said, and I knelt down at his bedside and took his softened hand in mine, 'Betty is to me a sacred trust, and if it be God's will that you must leave her, I will be with her till she goes out to meet you again.'

He pressed my hand. 'Thank ye, Maister Weelum. I—I thocht ye would; but I juist wanted to mak' sure. That's a', I think—a' at least as far as this world's concerned. There's a lot—an awfu' lot I should do, but I canna. I doot I've been careless. I've left the want to come at the wab's en', an' I ha'e nae time to mak' it guid noo. I maun juist leave it to Him. Guid-nicht, Maister Weelum, an' ye'll tell her—ye ken whae I mean—that I was gled a Hebron was o' service to her. Guid-nicht. God bless ye, man! Guid-bye.'

'Guid-nicht—God bless ye!—Guid-bye.' These words kept ringing in my ears as I sat by my fire, and during the quiet hours my sorrowing thoughts strayed again and again into that wee back-room where Betty sat watching, and where Nathan lay dying.

Long after the village folks had gone to bed I heard the street door open quietly, and the doctor's shuffling footsteps in the lobby. He went through the kitchen into Nathan's room; then he came in and sat down in the big chair opposite me. 'I told Betty I would be here if I were needed, William,' he said, and he took out his old clay pipe and smoked in silence.

Just when the night was on the turn he opened the door and went quietly across to his patient. I followed him into the kitchen, and there, by a cheerless fire, sat Mrs Jardine in Betty's chair, and, poor, hard-working soul, she was asleep, with her head resting on Tom's encircling arm. I put my hand on his shoulder and thanked him for his presence. Then I went back into my room, and, sitting down in my chair, closed my eyes, for their lids felt heavy and weary.

'William, Betty wants you.' The voice seemed far away. I rose hurriedly and rubbed my eyes. The sparrows were twittering in the lime-tree, and the gray light of a March morning was lying cold in the room. The doctor was standing with his hand on the handle of the half-open door. 'Betty wants you, William,' he said in a whisper; and I passed him without a word, and with a heavy, apprehensive heart.

On the little round table was an open Bible which I knew well, and a pair of spectacles lay across the flattened-out leaves. Betty was standing at the bedside, her dimmed eyes fixed on Nathan's long, wan face. She didn't turn her head when I came in, but she held out her hand to me, and together we watched. Suddenly he raised his head from the pillow and his sunken, sightless eyes turned toward the window. 'Ay, imphm!—weel, Betty lass, it's aboot time I was daunerin'. It—it's a nice mornin' for the road; the birds'll be whusslin' bonny in the Gillfit wood, an'—an' the sunshine will be on the hawthorn. No, I'll no' mak' a noise. I'll open the door canny, and I'll no' wauken Maister Weelum. I'll—I'll juist slip oot quietly. Ay'–

And Betty and I watched Nathan slipping out quietly—oh, how quietly!—into the sunshine of God's own everlasting morning.

CHAPTER XX

Harvest-time in Midlothian. Golden corn in golden stooks dotting the stubble-fields, yellow leaves on the ash and russet nuts on the beech, a beautiful panorama of multi-coloured landscape stretching hazily away southward and cuddling tranquilly between the Moorfoots and the Pentlands; bird song in the woods and laughter in the fields, mingling with the jolting of iron wheels and the cheery rhythmic craik of the levelling reaper. Little wonder Old Sol lingers long this afternoon above Castlelaw. Gladly, I ween, would he stay; but his times of rising and going down are set, and slowly but surely the shadows deepen at the base of Caerketton, and steal upward to its sheltered crown behind Allermuir.

My wife and I drove round by Roslin to-day, called at The Moat, and after having tea with my old friend Mrs Pendriegh, whose soda-scones are almost as good as Betty's, we returned 'in the hush of the corn' to Blackford Hall, viâ Woodfield and Fairmilehead.

This is all strange, unfamiliar country to Désirée. To-day she saw it for the first time and under the most favourable auspices, and already I know, from her looks and words of appreciation, that it has made its appeal. She thinks, with me, that it very much resembles my own homeland scenery, from its undulating fields and bosky woods to its velvety grass-grown hills, so sleek and rounded, she said, that she wanted to clap them. As we drove homeward, quiet thoughts of Thornhill came to us, and we wondered what Betty would be doing, and how she was getting on. For a month she had been with us, our first guest, and the most honoured and most welcome we shall ever have under our roof. Two days ago she returned to what she calls her 'ain auld hoose,' and when Désirée and I saw her off at the station she told us in a shaky voice that 'mebbe she wad be back in the spring, when she had the hoose seen to an' the gairden delved.'