Merkland: or, Self Sacrifice

A little further on she came upon a cottage of better size and appearance than most, with a well-filled little garden before its door, and knots of old trees about it. It was the house of a “grieve,” or farm overseer, a rising man in his humble circle, whose wife aimed at being genteel. She stood in the door, basking in the sun, with her youngest baby in her arms; the good woman had a multitude of babies; the latest dethroned one was tumbling about at her feet. Anne bent over the little gate to ask the name of the forlorn and desolate house she had just past.

“Oh, that’s Redheugh,” said Mrs. Brock, the grieve’s wife.

Anne lingered, and held out her hand to the hardy little urchin scrambling in the garden. Mrs. Brock looked as if she would quite like to enter into conversation:

“Be quiet, Geordie; ye’ll dirty the lady’s gloves.”

“No, no,” said Anne, taking the small brown hand into her own. “I am very fond of children, and this is a fine, sturdy little fellow.”

“Ye’ll be a stranger, I’m thinking?” said Mrs. Brock. “There’s few folk in our parish that dinna ken Redheugh.”

“Yes,” said Anne. “I am quite a stranger; what is the reason it lies so deserted and desolate?”

“Ye’ll be come to the sea-side?” pursued Mrs. Brock; “it’s no often we have folk out frae Edinburgh sae early in the year. Is’t no unco cauld for bathing?”

“I should think it was,” said Anne smiling, “but I have never, bathed yet.”

“It’ll be just for the sea air?” continued Mrs. Brock. “Are ye bideing far frae here, Mem, if yin may ask?”

“I am living a good way on the other side of Aberford,” said Anne.

“Oh, and ye have had a lang walk, and it’s a warm day. Get out of the road, Geordie; will ye no come in and sit down? ye’ll be the better for the rest?”

Mrs. Brock, as we have before said, had an ambition to be genteel. Now Anne Ross with her very plain dress, and quite simple manners, was eminently ladylike, and might be a desirable acquaintance. Anne accepted the invitation, and setting the strong little urchin, whom his mother knocked about with so little delicacy, on his feet, she led him in with her.

Mrs. Brock’s parlor was a temple sacred to company, and holidays. Its burnished grate, and narrow mantlepiece, elaborately ornamented with foreign shells; brilliant peacock feathers waved gracefully over the gilded frame of the little square mirror; the carpet was resplendent in all the colors of the rainbow. There were sturdy mahogany chairs, and a capacious haircloth sofa – the two ends of a dining-table stood in the middle of the room, elaborated into the brightest polish – the center piece was placed against the wall, and decorated with a case of stuffed birds. Mrs. Brock paused at the door, and contemplated it all with infinite complacency. It was something to have so grand a place to exhibit to a stranger.

“Take a seat on the sofa, Mem; ye’ll be wearied wi’ your lang walk. Geordie, ye little sinner, wad ye put your dirty shoon on the guid carpet? Get away wi’ ye.”

Mrs. Brock bundled the little fellow unceremoniously out, and seated herself opposite her guest.

“You have a fine view,” said Anne.

“Is’t no beautiful? They tell me there’s no a grander sight in the world than just the Firth and Fife. Yonder’s the Lomonds, ye ken, and yon muckle hill, even over the water, that’s Largo Law. My mother was a Fife woman – I have lived at Colinsbrugh mysel; and we can see baith Inchkeith and the May in a clear day, no to speak o’ the Bass. We’re uncommonly well situate here; it’s a fine house altogether.”

“It seems so, indeed,” said Anne.

“Ye see the only ill thing about it is, that it’s no our ain. – George was uncommon keen to have had the house the bairns were a’ born in. He’s an awfu’ man for his bairns.”

“Very natural,” said Anne.

“Oh, ay, nae doubt it’s natural, but it’s no ilka body that has the thought; he wad have gien twa hunder pounds for the house; twa clear hunder – it’s no worth that siller, ye ken, but it’s just because we’ve been in’t sae lang. But Miss Lillie wadna hear o’t; it’s no every day she could get an offer like that, and they canna be sae weel off as to throw away twa hunder pounds, ane would think.”

“Is this Miss Lillie’s house?” said Anne.

“Ay – ye’ll ken Miss Lillie it’s like?”

“No,” said Anne, “I do not know her, but I have heard her name.”

“There’s bits of conveniences a’ through it,” said Mrs. Brock, “that had been putten up when they were bideing here themsels; and the garden behint. Miss Lillie beggit George to keep the flowers right, and he takes uncommon pains with them. He’s a guid-hearted man, our George; ye’ll no often meet wi’ the like of him.”

“And that house of Redheugh,” said Anne; “why is it so neglected and desolate?”

“Eh, bless me!” said Mrs. Brock, “have ye no heard the story?”

“What story?” said Anne.

“Eh, woman!” exclaimed the grieve’s wife, forgetting her good manners in astonishment. “Ye maun have been awfu’ short time hereabout, if ye havena heard the story of the Laird o’ Redheugh.”

“I only arrived yesterday,” said Anne.

“Weel, it’s no ill to tell. The young gentleman that aught it killed a man and was drowned himsel when he was trying to escape: it’s just as like the Book o’ Jonah as anything out o’ the Bible could be. There was a great storm, and the ship he was in sank; he couldna carry the guilt of the pluid over the sea. They say murder wouldna hide if ye could put a’ the tokens o’t beneath North Berwick Law. It made an awfu’ noise in the countryside at the time, but it’s no muckle thought o’ now, only a’body kens what gars the house lie desolate. Folk say ye may see the gentleman that was killed, and Redheugh himsel in his dreeping claes, like as if he was new come up from the bottom of the sea, fighting and striving in the auld avenue – aye at midnight o’ the night it was done – but ye’ll no believe the like o’ that?”

“No,” said Anne vacantly; she did not know what she answered.

“Weel, I never saw onything myself – but they say the spirit’s ill to pacify, that’s met wi’ a violent death – and I wad just be as weel pleased no to put myself in the way. I have aye an eerie feeling when I pass the gate at night. After a’ ye ken, there’s naething certain about it in Scripture – maybe the dead can come back, maybe they canna – ane disna ken. I think it’s aye best to keep out of the gait.”

“It is, no doubt, the most prudent way,” said Anne, smiling.

“Ye wad, maybe, like to see the garden, Miss – ”

Mrs. Brock was mightily anxious to know who her visitor was.

“Ross,” said Anne.

“Weel, Miss Ross, I am sure ye’ll be pleased wi’ the garden – will ye come this way?”

Anne followed. The garden was in trim order – well kept and gracefully arranged. Spring flowers, with their delicate hopeful fragrance and pale hues, were scattered through the borders. The blossom on the lilac bushes was already budded, and the hawthorn had here and there unfolded its first flowers.

“But the simmer-house, Miss Ross,” said Mrs. Brock.

The summer-house was not one of the ordinary tea-garden abominations. It was a knoll of soft turf, the summit of which had been formed into a seat, with a narrow space of level greensward for its footstool. Over it was a light and graceful canopy, with flowering plants more delicate and rare, than are generally seen in cottage gardens, clustering thickly over it, while the foliage of some old trees, growing at the foot of the hillock, made a rich background. From its elevated seat, you could see the slopes of Fife lying fair below the sun, and the gallant Forth between. – Anne stood and gazed round her in silence. She could see the dark trees, and high roof of Redheugh at her other hand; how often might Norman, in his happy years long ago, have stood upon this spot? Yet here it shone in its fresh life and beauty, when all that remained of him, was dishonor and desolation!

But there was in this a solemn, silent hope which struck Anne to the heart. Christian Lillie had entreated, as her tenant said, that these flowers should be carefully tended. Christian Lillie would not part with the house. Was she not looking forward, then, to some future vindication – to some home-coming of chastened joyfulness – to some final light, shedding the radiance of peace upon her evening time?

Anne had to sit down in Mrs. Brock’s parlor again, and suffer herself to be refreshed with a glass of gooseberry wine, not quite so delectable as Mrs. Primrose’s immortal preparation, before she was permitted to depart. Mrs. Brock had another decanter upon her table, filled with a diabolical compound, strongly medicinal in taste and odor, which she called ginger wine, and which Anne prudently eschewed – and a plate of rich “short-bread,” at which little Geordie, tumbling on the mat at the door, cast longing loving looks. Mrs. Brock hoped Miss Ross would come to see her again.

“It’s just a nice walk. Ye maun come and tak’ a cup o’ tea when George is in himsel. He’s an uncommon weel-learned man, our George – he could tell ye a’ the stories o’ the countryside.”

Anne had to make a half promise that she would return to avail herself of the stores of George Brock’s information, before his admiring wife released her.

She had overcome her repugnance a little – it was a tolerable beginning so far as that went – but how dark, how hopeless seemed the prospect! There was no doubt in that confident expression – no benevolent hope that Norman might be guiltless! She had been told so long before, and had come to Aberford, in the face of that. Yet the repetition of it by so many indifferent strangers discouraged her sadly – her great expectation collapsed. Only a steady conviction in her brother’s innocence, a solemn hope of vindication to him, living or dead, upheld her in her further way.

In the evening she wandered out upon the sands. It was a still night, wrapped in the gray folds of a mistier gloaming, than she had before seen sinking over the brilliant Firth. Anne hovered about the enclosure of Schole. The dreary house had a magnetic attraction for her. She stood by the low gate, close to the water, and looked in. The high foliage of the hedge hid her – gate itself was the only loophole in the thick fence, which surrounded the house on all sides. There was light in the low projecting window, which dimly revealed a gloomy room, furnished with book shelves. At a sort of study table, placed in the recess of the window, there sat a man bending over a book. His face was illuminated by the candle beside him. A pale, delicate face it was, telling of a mind nervously susceptible, a spirit answering to every touch, with emotion so intense and fine, as to make the poetic temperament, not a source of strength and mighty impulse, as in hardier natures, but a well-spring of exquisite feebleness – a fountain of pensive blight and beauty. The snowy whiteness of his high, thin temples, the long silky fair hair upon his stooping head, heightened the impression of delicate grace and feebleness. He looked young, but had, in reality, seen nearly forty years of trouble and sorrow. His brow was almost covered by the long, thin white fingers that supported it. He was absorbed in his book.

A strange resemblance to Christian Lillie was in the student’s pale and contemplative face. There could be no doubt that he was her invalid brother – and yet how strangely unlike they were!

Anne turned to pursue her walk along the dim sands. A faint ray of moonlight was stealing through the mist, silvering the water, and the long glistening line of its wet shores here and there. In the light, she caught a glimpse of a slow advancing figure. Fit place and time it was, for such a meeting – for the tall dark outline and slow step, could belong to but one person. Anne trembled, and felt her own step falter. They had never yet heard each other’s voices, yet were connected by so close a tie – were wandering upon this solitary place, brooding over one great sorrow – perhaps tremulously embracing one solemn hope.

When they met, she faltered some commonplace observation about the night. To her astonishment, Christian Lillie replied at once. It might be that she saw Anne’s agitation – it might be that she also longed to know Norman’s sister. That she knew her to be so, Anne could not doubt: her melancholy contemplation of Merkland – her evident start and surprise, when they formerly met upon the sands, made that certain.

“Yes,” said Christian Lillie, in a voice of singular sadness, “it is a beautiful night.”

The words were of the slightest – the tone and manner, the drawing in of that long breath, spoke powerfully. This, then, was her one pleasure – this gentle air of night was the balm of her wearied spirit.

“The mist is clearing away,” said Anne, tremulously. “Yonder lights on the Fife shore are clear now – do you see them?”

“Ay, I see them,” was the answer. “Cheerful and pleasant they look here. Who knows what weariness and misery – what vain hopes and sick hearts they may be lighting.”

“Let us not think so,” said Anne, gently. “While we do not know that our hopes are vain we still have pleasure in them.”

“I have seen you more than once before,” said Christian Lillie. “You are not, or your face is untrue, one to think of vain pleasure at an after-cost of pain. Hopes! – I knew what they were once – I know now what it is to feel the death of them: what think you of the vain toils that folk undergo for a hope? the struggle and the vigils, and the sickness of its deferring? I see light burning yonder through all the watches of the night – what can it be but the fever of some hope that keeps them always shining? I saw yours in your window last night, when everybody near was at rest but myself. What is it that keeps you wakeful but some hope?”

“You know me then – you know what my hope is?” said Anne, eagerly.

“No,” said Christian. “Tell it not to me. I have that in me that blights hope – and the next thing after a blighted hope, is a broken heart. It is wonderful – God shield you, from the knowledge – how long a mortal body will hold by life after there is a broken heart within it! I think sometimes that it is only us who know how strong life is – not the hopeful and joyous, but us, who are condemned to bear the burden – us, who drag these days out as a slave drags a chain.”

“Do not say so,” said Anne. Her companion spoke with the utmost calmness – there was a blank composure about her, which told more powerfully even than her words, the death of hope. – ”There can be no life, however sorrowful, that has not an aim – an expectation.”

“An aim? – ay, an aim! If you knew what you said you would know what a solemn and sacred thing it is that has stood in my path, these seventeen years, the ending of my travail – an expectation! What think you of looking forward all that time, as your one aim and expectation – almost, God help us, as your hope – for a thing which you knew would rend your very heart, and make your life a desert when it came – what think ye of that? There are more agonies in this world than men dream of in their philosophy.”

“Are we not friends?” said Anne. “Have we not an equal share in a great sorrow that is past – I trust and hope in a great joy that is to come? Will you not take my sympathy? – my assistance?”

Christian Lillie shrank, as Anne thought, from her offered hand.

“An equal share – an equal share. God keep you from that – but it becomes you well: turn round to the light, and let me see your face.”

She laid her hand on Anne’s shoulder, and, turning her round, gazed upon her earnestly.

“Like – and yet unlike,” she murmured. “You are the only child of your mother? she left none but you?”

“Except – ”

“Hush, what would you say?” said Christian, hurriedly. – ”And you would offer me sympathy and help? Alas! that I cannot take it at your, hands. You have opened a fountain in this withered heart, that I thought no hand in this world could touch but one. It is a good deed – you will get a blessing for it – now, fare you well.”

“Shall I not see you again?” said Anne.

Christian hesitated.

“I do not know – why should you? you can get nothing but blight and disappointment from me, and yet – for once – you may come to me at night – not to-morrow night, but the next. I will wait for you at the little gate; and now go home and take rest – is it not enough that one should be constantly watching? Fare you well.”

Before Anne could answer, the tall, dark, gliding figure was away – moving along with noiseless footstep over the sands to the gate of Schole. She proceeded on herself, in wonder and agitation – how shallow was her concern for Norman in comparison with this; how slight her prospect of success when this earnest woman, whose words had such a tone of power in them, even in the deepness of her grief, declared that in her all hope was dead. It was a blow to all her expectations – nevertheless it did not strike her in that light. Her anticipation of the promised interview, her wonder at what had passed in this, obliterated the discouraging impression. She was too deeply interested in what she had seen and heard, to think of the stamp of hopelessness which these despairing words set on her own exertions. That night she transferred her lights early from her little sitting-room to the bed-chamber behind. That was a small matter, if it gave any satisfaction to the melancholy woman, the light from whose high chamber window she could see reflected on the gleaming water, after Miss Crankie’s little household had been long hours at rest.

The next day was a feverish day to Anne, and so was the succeeding one. She took long walks to fill up the tardy time, and made acquaintance with various little sunbrowned rustics, and cottage mothers; but gained from them not the veriest scrap of information about Norman, beyond what she already knew – that he had killed a man, and had been drowned in his flight from justice – that now the property, as they thought, was in the king’s hands, “and him having sae muckle,” as one honest woman suggested, “he didna ken weel what to do wi’t. Walth gars wit wavor – It’s a shame to fash him, honest man, wi’ mair land that he can make ony use o’ – it would have been wiser like to have parted it among the puir folk.”

On the afternoon of the day on which she was to see Christian Lillie again, Anne lost herself in the unknown lanes of Aberford. After long wandering she came to the banks of a little inland water, whose quiet, wooded pathway was a great relief to her, after the dust and heat of the roads. She stayed for a few minutes to rest herself; upon one hand lay a wood stretching darkly down as she fancied to the sea. She was standing on its outskirts where the foliage thinned, yet still was abundant enough to shade and darken the narrow water; a little further on, the opposite bank swelled gently upward in fields, cultivated to the streamlet’s edge – but the side on which she herself stood, was richly wooded along all its course, and matted with a thick undergrowth of climbing plants and shrubs and windsown seedlings. The path wound at some little distance from the waterside through pleasant groups of trees. Anne paused, hesitating and undecided, not knowing which way to turn. A loud and cheerful whistle sounded behind her, and looking back, she saw a ruddy country lad, of some sixteen or seventeen years, trudging blythely along the pathway; she stopped him to ask the way.

“Ye just gang straight forenent ye,” said the lad, “even on, taking the brig at Balwithry, and hauding round by the linn in Mavisshaw. Ye canna weel gang wrang, unless ye take the road that rins along the howe of the brae to the Milton, and it’s fickle to ken which o’ them is the right yin, if ye’re no acquaint.”

“I am quite a stranger,” said Anne.

“I’m gaun to the Milton mysel,” said the youth. “I’ll let ye see the way that far, and then set ye on to the road.”

Anne thanked him, and walked on briskly with her blythe conductor, who stayed his whistling, and dropped a step or two behind, in honor of the lady. He was very loquacious and communicative.

“I’m gaun hame to see my mother. My father was a hind on the Milton farm, and my mother is aye loot keep the house, now that she’s a widow-woman. I’ve been biding wi’ my uncle at Dunbar. He’s a shoemaker, and he wanted to bind me to his trade.”

“And will you like that?” said Anne.

“Eh no – I wadna stand it; I aye made up my mind to be a ploughman like my father before me; sae my uncle spoke for me to the grieve at Fantasie and I’m hired to gang hame at the term. So I cam the noo to see my mother.”

“Have you had a long walk?” said Anne.

“It’s twal mile – it was eleven o’clock when I started – I didna ken what hour it is noo. It should be three by the sun.” Anne consulted her watch; it was just three; the respect of her guide visibly increased – gold watches were notable things in Aberford.

“I thought yince of starting at night. Eh! if I had been passing in the dark, wadna I hae been frighted to see a leddy thonder.”

“Why yonder?” said Anne, “is there anything particular about that place?”

“Eh!” exclaimed the lad, “do ye no ken? there was a man killed at the fit of thon tree.”

Anne started. “Who was he?” she asked.

“I dinna mind his name – it’s lang, lang ago – but he was a gentleman, and my father was yin ’o the witnesses. Maybe ye’ll have seen a muckle house, ower there, a’ disjasket and broken down. George Brock, the grieve lives near the gate o’t – it’s no far off.”

“Yes, I have seen it,” said Anne.

“Weel, the gentleman that killed him lived there – at least a’body said it was him that did it – I have heard my father speak about him mony a time.”

“And what was your father a witness of?” said Anne.

“Oh, he met Redheugh coming out of the wood – only my father aye thought that he bid to be innocent, for he was singing, and smiling, and as blythe as could be.”

“And your father thought him innocent?” said Anne eagerly.

“Ay – at least he thought it was awfu’ funny, if he had killed the man, that he should be looking sae blythe. A’ the folk say there was nae doubt about it, and sae does my mother, but my father was aye in a swither; he thought it couldna be. Here’s the Milton, and ower yonder, ye see, like a white line – yon’s the road – it’s just the stour that makes it white; and if ye turn to the right, and haud even on, ye’ll come to the toun.”

Anne thanked him, and offered some small acknowledgment, with which the lad, though he took it reluctantly, and with many scruples, went away, whistling more blythely than ever. How little did the youthful rustic imagine the comfort and hope and exhilaration which these thoughtless words of his had revived in his chance companion’s heart!

There had been one in this little world, who, in the midst of excitement, and in the face of evidence, and the universal opinion of his fellows, held Norman innocent. Anne thanked God, and took courage – there was yet hope.

She waited nervously for the evening; when the darkness of the full night came stealing on, she glided along the sands to the gate of Schole.

The projecting window was dark; there seemed to be no light in the whole house. She looked over the gate anxiously for Christian – no one was visible – dark ever-green shrubs looking dead and stern among the gay spring verdure, stood out in ghostly dimness along the garden; the house looked even more gloomy and dismal than heretofore, and the night was advancing.

Anne tried the gate; it opened freely. She went lightly along the mossed and neglected path to the principal door. It was evidently unused, and in grim security barred the entrance; she passed the projecting window again, and with some difficulty found a door at the side of the house, at which she knocked lightly.

There was evidently some slight stir within; she thought she could hear a sound as of some one listening. She knocked again – there was no response – she repeated her summons more loudly; there was nothing clandestine in her visit to Christian.

She fancied she could hear steps ascending a stair, and echoing with a dull and hollow sound through the house. Presently a window above was opened, and the face of an old woman, buried in the immense borders of a white night-cap, looked out:

“Eh! guid preserve us. Wha are ye, disturbing honest folk at this hour o’ the night; and what do ye want?”

“Is Miss Lillie not within?” said Anne in disappointment.

“Miss Lillie! muckle you’re heeding about Miss Lillie; its naething but an excuse for theftdom and spoliation; but I warn ye, ye’ll get naething here. Do ye ken there’s an alarm-bell in Schole?”