White Heather: A Novel (Volume 3 of 3). William Black
plans and schemes, it seemed a fantastic thing that she was about to do. She would send him a piece of white heather. He would know it came from her – he would recognise the postmark, and also her handwriting. And if he took it as a message and an appeal, as a token of good wishes and friendliness, and the hope of better fortune? Or if – and here she fell a-trembling, for it was a little cold in these early hours – if he should take it as a confession, as an unmaidenly declaration? Oh, she did not care. It was all she could think of doing; and do something she must. And she remembered with a timid and nervous joy her own acknowledged influence over him – had not Maggie talked of it a thousand times? – and if he were to recognise this message in its true light, what then? 'Ronald! Ronald!' her heart was still calling, with something of a tremulous hope amid all its grief and pity.
She was out and abroad over the moorland long before any one was astir, and searching with an anxious diligence, and as yet without success. White heather is not so frequently met with in the North as in the West Highlands; and yet in Sutherlandshire it is not an absolute rarity; many a time had she come across a little tuft of it in her wanderings over the moors. But now, search as she might, she could not find the smallest bit; and time began to press; for this was the morning for the mail to go south – if she missed it, she would have to wait two more days. And as half-hour after half-hour went by, she became more anxious and nervous and agitated; she went rapidly from knoll to knoll, seeking the likeliest places; and all in vain. It was a question of minutes now. She could hear the mail-cart on the road behind her; soon it would pass her and go on to the inn, where it would remain but a brief while before setting out again for Lairg. And presently, when the mail-cart did come along and go by, then she gave up the quest in despair; and in a kind of bewildered way set out for home. Her heart was heavy and full of its disappointment; and her face was paler a little than usual; but at least her eyes told no tales.
And then, all of a sudden, as she was crossing the Mudal bridge, she caught sight of a little tuft of gray away along the bank and not far from the edge of the stream. At first she thought it was merely a patch of withered heather; and then a wild hope possessed her; she quickly left the bridge and made her way towards it; and the next moment she was joyfully down on her knees, selecting the whitest spray she could find. And the mail-cart? – it would still be at the inn – the inn was little more than half a mile off – could she run hard and intercept them after all, and send her white-dove message away to the south? To think of it was to try it, at all events; and she ran as no town-bred girl ever ran in her life – past the Doctor's cottage, along the wide and empty road, past the keeper's house and the kennels, across the bridge that spans the little burn. Alas! there was the mail-cart already on its way.
'Johnnie, Johnnie!' she called.
Happily the wind was blowing towards him; he heard, looked back, and pulled up his horses.
'Wait a minute – I have a letter for you to take!' she called, though her strength was all gone now.
And yet she managed to get quickly down to the inn, and astonished Mrs. Murray by breathlessly begging for an envelope.
'Tell Nelly – tell Nelly,' she said, while her trembling fingers wrote the address, 'to come and take this to the mail-cart – they're waiting – Johnnie will post it at Lairg.'
And then, when she had finished the tremulous address, and carefully dried it with the blotting-paper, and given the little package to Nelly, and bade her run – quick, quick – to hand it to the driver, then the girl sank back in the chair and began laughing in a strange, half-hysterical way, and then that became a burst of crying, with her face hidden in her hands. But the good-hearted Mrs. Murray was there; and her arms were round the girl's neck; and she was saying, in her gentle Highland way —
'Well, well, now, to think you should hef had such a run to catch the mail-cart – and no wonder you are dead-beat – ay, ay, and you not looking so well of late, Miss Meenie. But you will just rest here a while; and Nelly will get you some tea; and there is no need for you to go back home until you have come to yourself better. No, you hef not been looking well lately; and you must not tire yourself like this – dear me, the place would be quite different althogether if anything was to make you ill.'
CHAPTER II
IN GLASGOW TOWN
It was as late as half-past ten o'clock – and on a sufficiently gray and dull and cheerless morning – that Ronald's landlady, surprised not to have heard him stirring, knocked at his room. There was no answer. Then she knocked again, opened the door an inch or two, and dropped a letter on the floor.
'Are ye no up yet?'
The sound of her voice aroused him.
'In a minute, woman,' he said sleepily; and, being thus satisfied, the landlady went off, shutting the door behind her.
He rose in the bed and looked around him, in a dazed fashion. He was already partially dressed, for he had been up two hours before, but had thrown himself down on the bed again, over-fatigued, half-stupefied, and altogether discontented. The fact is, he had come home the night before in a reckless mood, and had sate on through hour after hour until it was nearly dawn, harassing himself with idle dreams and idle regrets, drinking to drown care, smoking incessantly, sometimes scrawling half-scornful rhymes. There were all the evidences now on the table before him – a whisky-bottle, a tumbler, a wooden pipe and plenty of ashes, a sheet of paper scrawled over in an uncertain hand. He took up that sheet to recall what he had written:
King Death came striding along the road,
And he laughed aloud to see
How every rich man's mother's son
Would take to his heels and flee.
Duke, lord, or merchant, off they skipped,
Whenever that he drew near;
And they dropped their guineas as wild they ran,
And their faces were white with fear.
But the poor folk labouring in the fields
Watched him as he passed by;
And they took lo their spades and mattocks again,
And turned to their work with a sigh.
Then farther along the road he saw
An old man sitting alone;
His head lay heavy upon his hands,
And sorrowful was his moan.
Old age had shrivelled and bent his frame;
Age and hard work together
Had scattered his locks, and bleared his eyes —
Age and the winter weather.
'Old man,' said Death, 'do you tremble to know
That now you are near the end?'
The old man looked: 'You are Death,' said he,
'And at last I've found a friend.'
It was a strange kind of mood for a young fellow to have fallen into; but he did not seem to think so. As he contemplated the scrawled lines – with rather an absent and preoccupied air – this was what he was saying to himself —
'If the old gentleman would only come striding along the Port Dundas Road, I know one that would be glad enough to go out and meet him and shake hands with him, this very minute.'
He went to the window and threw it open, and sate down: the outer air would be pleasanter than this inner atmosphere, impregnated with the fumes of whisky and tobacco; and his head was burning, and his pulses heavy. But the dreariness of this outlook! – the gray pavements, the gray railway station, the gray sheds, the gray skies; and evermore the dull slumberous sound of the great city already plunged in its multitudinous daily toil. Then he began to recall the events of the preceding evening; and had not Mrs. Menzies promised to call for him, about eleven, to drive him out to see some of her acquaintances at Milngavie? Well, it would be something to do; it would be a relief to get into the fresher air – to get away from this hopeless and melancholy neighbourhood. Kate Menzies had high