White Heather: A Novel (Volume 2 of 3). William Black
these verses might discreetly be brought to the notice of Mr. Huysen. She had reasons for not asking any favour directly.
'DEAREST EM,' she wrote – after having studied a long while as to how she should begin – 'would it surprise you to know that I have at last found my fate in the very handsome person of a Scotch gamekeeper? Well, it aint so; don't break the furniture; but the fact is my poor brain has been wool-gathering a little in this land of wild storms and legends and romantic ballads; and to-morrow I am fleeing away to Paris – the region of clear atmosphere, and reasonable people, and cynicism; and I hope to have any lingering cobwebs of romance completely blown out of my head. Not that I would call it romance, even if it were to happen; I should call it merely the plain result of my father's theories. You know he is always preaching that all men are born equal; which isn't true anyhow; he would get a little nearer the truth if he were to say that all men are born equal except hotel clerks, who are of a superior race; but wouldn't it be a joke if I were to take him at his word, and ask him how he would like a gamekeeper as his son-in-law? But you need not be afraid, my dear Em; this chipmunk has still got a little of her senses left; and I may say in the words of the poet —
"There is not in this wide world a valet so sweet" —
no, nor any Claude Melnotte of a gardener, nor any handsome coachman or groom, who could induce me to run away with him. It would be "playing it too low down on pa," as you used to say; besides, one knows how these things always end. Another besides; how do I know that he would marry me, even if I asked him? – and I shouldhave to ask him, for he would never ask me. Now, Em, if you don't burn this letter the moment you have read it, I will murder you, as sure as you are alive.
'Besides, it is a shame. He is a real good fellow; and no such nonsense has got into his head, I know. I know it, because I tried him twice for fun; I got him to tie my cap under my chin; and I made him take my pocket-handkerchief out of my breast-pocket when I was fighting a salmon (I caught five in one day– monsters!), and do you think the bashful young gentleman was embarrassed and showed trembling fingers? Not a bit; I think he thought me rather a nuisance – in the polite phraseology of the English people. But I wish I could tell you about him, really. It's all very well to say he is very handsome and hardy-looking and weather-tanned; but how can I describe to you how respectful his manner is, and yet always keeping his own self-respect, and he won't quarrel with me – he only laughs when I have been talking absolute folly – though papa and he have rare fights, for he has very positive opinions, and sticks to his guns, I can tell you. But the astonishing thing is his education; he has been nowhere, but seems to know everything; he seems to be quite content to be a gamekeeper, though his brother took his degree at college and is now in the Scotch Church. I tell you he makes me feel pretty small at times. The other night papa and I went along to his cottage after dinner, and found him reading Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire– lent him by his brother, it appeared. I borrowed the first volume – but, oh, squawks! it is a good deal too stiff work for the likes of me. And then there is never the least pretence or show, but all the other way; he will talk to you as long as you like about his deerstalking and about what he has seen his dogs do; but never a word about books or writing – unless you happen to have found out.
'Now I'm coming to business. I have never seen any writing of his until this morning, when, after long goading, he showed me a little poem which I will copy out and enclose in this letter when I have finished. Now, darling Em, I want you to do me a real kindness; the first time you see Jack Huysen – I don't want to ask the favour of him direct – will you ask him to print it in the Citizen, and to say something nice about it? I don't want any patronage: understand – I mean let Jack Huysen understand – that Ronald Strang is a particular friend of both my father and myself; and that I am sending you this without his authority, but merely to give him a little pleasant surprise, perhaps, when he sees it in print; and perhaps to tempt him to give us some more. I should like him to print a volume, – for he is really far above his present station, and it is absurd he should not take his place, – and if he did that I know of a young party who would buy 500 copies even if she were to go back home without a single Paris bonnet. Tell Jack Huysen there is to be no patronage, mind; there is to be nothing about the peasant poet, or anything like that; for this man is a gentleman, if I know anything about it; and I won't have him trotted out as a phenomenon – to be discussed by the dudes who smoke cigarettes in Lincoln Park. If you could only talk to him for ten minutes it would be better than fifty letters, but I suppose there are attractions nearer home just at present. My kind remembrances to T.T.
'I forgot to say that I am quite ignorant as to whether newspapers ever pay for poetry – I mean if a number of pieces were sent? Or could Jack Huysen find a publisher who would undertake a volume; my father will see he does not lose anything by it. I really want to do something for this Ronald, for he has been so kind and attentive to us; and before long it may become more difficult to do so; for of course a man of his abilities is not likely to remain as he is; indeed, he has already formed plans for getting away altogether from his present way of life, and whatever he tries to do I know he will do – and easily. But if I talk any more about him, you will be making very very mistaken guesses; and I won't give you the delight of imagining even for a moment that I have been caught at last; when the sad event arrives there will be time enough for you to take your cake-walk of triumph up and down the room – of course to Dancing in the Barn, as in the days of old.'
Here followed a long and rambling chronicle of her travels in Europe since her last letter, all of which may be omitted; the only point to be remarked was that her very brief experiences of Scotland took up a disproportionately large portion of the space, and that she was minute in her description of the incidents and excitement of salmon-fishing. Then followed an outline of her present plans; a string of questions; a request for an instant reply; and finally —
'With dearest love, old Em,
'Thine,
'Carry.'
And then she had to copy the verses; but when she had done that, and risen, and gone to the window for a time, some misgiving seemed to enter her mind, for she returned to the table, and sate down again, and wrote this postscript:
'Perhaps, after all, you won't see much in this little piece; if you were here, among the very places, and affected by all the old stories and romantic traditions and the wild scenery, it might be different. Since I've been to Europe I've come to see what's the trouble about our reading English history and literature at home; why, you can't do it, you can't understand it, unless you have lived in an atmosphere that is just full of poetry and romance, and meeting people whose names tell you they belong to the families who did great things in history centuries and centuries ago. I can't explain it very well – not even to myself; but I feel it; why, you can't take a single day's drive in England without coming across a hundred things of interest – Norman churches, and the tombs of Saxon Kings, and old abbeys, and monasteries, and battlefields, and, just as interesting as any, farm-houses of the sixteenth century in their quaint old-fashioned orchards. And as for Scotland, why, it is just steeped to the lips in poetry and tradition; the hills and the glens have all their romantic stories of the clans, many of them very pathetic; and you want to see these wild and lonely places before you can understand the legends. And in southern Scotland too – what could any one at home make of such a simple couplet as this —
"The King sits in Dunfermline town,
Drinking the blude-red wine;"
but when you come near Dunfermline and see the hill where Malcolm Canmore built his castle in the eleventh century, and when you are told that it was from this very town that Sir Patrick Spens and the Scots lords set out for "Norroway o'er the faem," everything comes nearer to you. In America, I remember very well, Flodden Field sounded to us something very far away, that we couldn't take much interest in; but if you were here just now, dear Em, and told that a bit farther north there was a river that the Earl of Caithness and his clan had to cross when they went to Flodden, and that the people living there at this very day won't go near it on the anniversary of the battle, because on that day the ghosts of the earl and his men, all clad in green tartan, come home again and are seen to cross the river, wouldn't that interest you?