White Heather: A Novel (Volume 2 of 3). William Black
of the Chicago journals, but she guessed that a roundabout hint conveyed to Mr. John C. Huysen would not be without effect. And what were the subjects, she asked herself, that Ronald wrote about? In praise of deerstalking, for one thing, and mountain-climbing, and out-of-door life, she felt assured: you could see it in his gait and in his look; you could hear it in his laugh and his singing as he went along the road. Politics, perhaps – if sarcastic verses were in his way; for there was a sharp savour running through his talk; and he took abundant interest in public affairs. Or perhaps he would be for recording the charms of some rustic maiden – some 'Jessie, the Flower o' Dumblane' – some blue-eyed and rather silent and uninteresting young person, living alone in a glen, and tending cattle or hanging out things to dry on a hedge? Well, even a song would be something. The Chicago Citizen might not pay very much for it, but the great and generous public might take kindly to it; and if Jack Huysen did not say something friendly about it, then she would know the reason why.
But the stiffest struggle Miss Carry ever had with any salmon was mere child's play compared with the fight she had with Ronald himself over this matter. At first he was exceedingly angry that she should have been told; but then he laughed, and said to her that there were plenty of folk in Scotland as elsewhere who wrote idle verses, but that they had the common sense to say nothing about it. If she wanted a memento of her stay in the Highlands to take back with her to America, he would give her her choice of the deer-skins he had in the shed; that would be appropriate, and she was welcome to the best of them; but as for scribblings and nonsense of that kind – no, no. On the other hand she was just as persistent, and treated him to a little gentle raillery, wondering that he had not yet outgrown the years of shyness; and finally, when everything else had failed, putting her request as a grace and courtesy to be granted to an American stranger. This was hardly fair; but she was very anxious about the matter; and she knew that her demand was founded far less on mere curiosity than on an honest desire to do him a service.
Of course he yielded; and a terrible time he had of it the night he set about selecting something to show to her. For how could she understand the circumstances in which these random things were written – these idle fancies of a summer morning – these careless love songs – these rhymed epistles in which the practical common sense and shrewd advice were much more conspicuous than any graces of art? And then again so many of them were about Meenie; and these were forbidden; the praise of Meenie – even when it was the birds and the roses and the foxgloves and the summer rills that sang of her – was not for alien eyes. But at last he lit upon some verses supposed to convey the sentiments of certain exiles met together on New Year's night in Nova Scotia; and he thought it was a simple kind of thing; at all events it would get him out of a grievous difficulty. So – for the lines had been written many a day ago, and came upon him now with a new aspect – he altered a phrase here or there, by way of passing the time; and finally he made a fair copy. The next morning, being a Sunday, he espied Miss Carry walking down towards the river; and he overtook her and gave her this little piece to redeem his pledge.
'It's not worth much,' said he, 'but you'll understand what it is about. Burn it when you've read it – that's all I ask of ye – ' Then on he went, glad not to be cross-questioned, the faithful Harry trotting at his heels.
So she sat down on the stone parapet of the little bridge – on this hushed, still, shining morning that was quite summer-like in its calm – and opened the paper with not a little curiosity. And well enough she understood the meaning of the little piece: she knew that the Mackays1 used to live about here; and was not Strath-Naver but a few miles off; and this the very Mudal river running underneath the bridge on which she was sitting? But here are the verses she read – and he had entitled them
In Nova Scotia's clime they've met
To keep the New Year's night;
The merry lads and lasses crowd
Around the blazing light.
But father and mother sit withdrawn
To let their fancies flee
To the old, old time, and the old, old home
That's far across the sea.
And what strange sights and scenes are these
That sadden their shaded eyes?
Is it only thus they can see again
The land of the Mackays?
O there the red-deer roam at will:
And the grouse whirr on the wing;
And the curlew call, and the ptarmigan
Drink at the mountain spring;
And the hares lie snug on the hillside:
And the lusty blackcock crows;
But the river the children used to love
Through an empty valley flows.
Do they see again a young lad wait
To shelter with his plaid,
When she steals to him in the gathering dusk.
His gentle Highland maid?
Do they hear the pipes at the weddings;
Or the low sad funeral wail
As the boat goes out to the island,
And the pibroch tells its tale?
O fair is Naver's strath, and fair
The strath that Mudal laves;
And dear the haunts of our childhood,
And dear the old folks' graves;
And the parting from one's native land
Is a sorrow hard to dree:
God's forgiveness to them that sent us
So far across the sea!
And is bonnie Strath-Naver shining,
As it shone in the bygone years? —
As it shines for us now – ay, ever —
Though our eyes are blind with tears.
Well, her own eyes were moist – though that was but for a moment; for when she proceeded to walk slowly and meditatively back to the inn, her mind was busy with many things; and she began to think that she had not got any way near to the understanding of this man, whom she had treated in so familiar a fashion, as boatman, and companion, and gillie – almost as valet. What lay behind those eyes of his, that glowed with so strange a light at times, and seemed capable of reading her through and through, only that the slightly tremulous eyelids came down and veiled them, or that he turned away his head? And why this strain of pathos in a nature that seemed essentially joyous and glad and careless? Not only that, but in the several discussions with her father – occasionally becoming rather warm, indeed – Ronald had been invariably on the side of the landlord, as was naturally to be expected. He had insisted that the great bulk of the land given over to deer was of no possible use to any other living creature; he had maintained the right of the landlord to clear any portion of his property of sheep and forest it, if by so doing he could gain an increase of rental; he had even maintained the right of the landlord to eject non-paying tenants from holdings clearly not capable of supporting the ever-increasing families; and so forth. But was his feeling, after all, with the people – he himself being one of the people? His stout championship of the claims and privileges of Lord Ailine – that was not incompatible with a deeper sense of the cruelty of driving the poor people away from the land of their birth and the home of their childhood? His natural sentiment as a man was not to be overborne by the fact that he was officially a dependant on Lord Ailine? These and a good many other curious problems concerning him – and concerning his possible future – occupied her until she had got back to the snug little parlour; and there, as she found her father seated in front of the blazing fire, and engaged in getting through the mighty pile of newspapers and illustrated journals and magazines that had come by the previous day's mail, she thought she might as well sit down and write
Pronounced