Merkland: or, Self Sacrifice. Oliphant Margaret
burden of Mrs. Catherine’s anxiety: “Isabel Balfour’s one son – that might have been your firstborn, Sholto Douglas!” But Jacky, with a sentiment of honor peculiar to herself, kept her knowledge of Mrs. Catherine’s trouble, jealously within her own mind, and in the intervals of her heterogeneous occupations, and no less heterogeneous studies, wove dreams of that young Laird of Strathoran, over whom Mrs. Catherine prayed and mourned – and creating for his especial service, some such wondrous vassal as the Genii of Aladdin, conjured Sholto Douglas back to life and lands again, and made the prodigal his heir and son.
Little Bessie, Alice Aytoun’s maid, did not know what to make of that strange, thin, angular girl, with her dark keen face, and eccentric motions, and singular language. Bessie, plump, rosy and good-humored, looked on in wondering silence as Jacky sat on the carpet in the library, bent almost double over some mighty old volume from those heavy and well-filled shelves – was inclined to laugh sometimes, yet checking herself in mysterious reverence, revolved in her mind the possibility of Mrs. Catherine’s frequent epithet “you elf” – having in it some shadow of truth. Bessie had read fairy tales in her day, and knew that in these authentic histories there were such things as changelings – could this strange Jacky be one? The flying footsteps, and bold leaps and climbings, which Bessie did not venture to emulate, gave some color to the supposition, so did these out-of-the-way studies and singular expressions; but Jacky withal was not malicious, nor evil-tempered, and Bessie paused before condemning her. On consulting Johnnie Halflin on the subject, she found him as much puzzled as herself.
“For ye see,” said Johnnie, “she was never at the schule – and look till her reading! I was three – four year at it mysel, the haill winter; for ye ken in this part, Bessie, it’s no’ like a toun – there’s the beasts to herd all the summer and other turns, till the shearing’s by; but I wad rather hae a day’s kemping with that illwilly nowt that winna bide out o’ the corn, than sit down to the books wi’ Jacky. She kens best herself where she learnt it.”
“And look how she speaks,” ejaculated Bessie.
“Speaks! ye have not heard her get to her English – it’s like listening to the leddies. No Mrs. Catherine ye see, for one canna think what words she says – ye just ken when ye hear her, that ye maun do what ye’re bidden in a moment; but Jacky! ye would think she got it a’ out of books – whiles, when ye anger her – ”
“Eh, Johnnie! yonder she is, coming fleeing down the hill,” cried little Bessie in alarm, as a flying figure paused on a ridge of the steep eminence above them, and drew itself back for a final race to the bottom. “Look! ye would think she never touched the ground.”
“Whist, whist,” said Johnnie, apprehensively, “she can hear ony sound about the place, as quick as Oscar, and Oscar’s the best watch in the parish – be quiet, Bessie.”
The youthful gossips were standing, during their gloaming hour of leisure, at the back of a knot of outhouses, barns, and stables, and Jacky came sweeping down upon them out of breath.
“Are you there, Johnnie Halflin? is that you, Bessie? Has my mother been in the barn yet? – whisht, there she’s speaking.”
“No, it’s Jean,” said the lad; “the cow’s better, and Jean said she would never let on there had been onything the matter wi’t, or else the puir beast would be killed wi’ physic. Ye needna tell on her, Jacky – ye wadna like to harm a bonnie cow like yon, yoursel.”
“And we’ll no’ tell on you,” added Bessie.
“I’m no caring,” was the quick response, “whether ye tell on me or no – only if you do, Bessie, I’ll never be friends with ye again; and if you do, Johnnie, ye’ll catch grief. Guess where I’ve been.”
“Scooring ower the hills on a heather besom,” said Johnnie, “seeking the fairies – they say ye’re one yoursel.”
A sweep of Jacky’s energetic arm sent Johnnie staggering down the path.
“I have been down at Robert Melder’s mill, and there’s a bairn there – a little girl – Bessie, ye never saw the like of it!”
“Is’t a’ dressed in green, and riding on a white powny?” said Mrs. Catherine’s youthful servingman, returning to the charge.
“Ye’re a fuil,” retorted Jacky, flushing indignantly, “how do the like of you ken what’s true and what’s a fable? There was a lady once, that led a lion in her hand —you dinna ken what that means – and if there were gentle spirits lang syne in the air, what do you ken about them? Bessie, come with me the morn, and see the little bairn. I like to hear her speak; she says words like what you hear in dreams.”
Jacky’s companions indulged in a smothered laugh.
“Has she wings?” asked the lad.
“I will throw ye into the Oran, Johnnie Halflin,” cried Jacky, in wrath; “if ye do not hold your peace in a minute. Miss Anne saved her life, and she speaks a strange language that naebody kens; and she’s from a strange country; and she’s like – ”
“Oh, I saw her mysel,” interrupted Johnnie, “a bit wee smout, wi’ her frock burning – saved her life! how grand we’re speaking! I could have done’t mysel, a’ that Miss Anne did, and made nae work about it – only I had Merkland’s horse to haud.”
“I have seen a face like it,” said Jacky, thoughtfully, “a’ but the eyes.”
“Eh, and isna Mr. Ross a fine young gentleman?” said little Bessie. Bessie was glad to seize upon the first tangible point.
“How would ye like to bide constant in Strathoran, Bessie,” said Johnnie Halflin, “down bye at Merkland? Eh, disna Mr. Lewis gie weary looks up at the easter tower?”
Bessie bridled, and drew herself up with pleased consciousness, as her mistress’s representative.
“I wonder at ye, Johnnie! how can ye speak such nonsense?”
“Is’t Miss Aytoun Mr. Lewis looks up for?” inquired Jacky.
Her companions answered with a laugh.
“I think,” said the boy, “for my ain part, that there’s not a young leddy in a’ Strathoran like Miss Aytoun. She’s out-o’-sight bonnier than Miss Anne.”
Jacky pushed him indignantly away.
“A fine judge you are. Like a big turnip your ain sel. A clumsy Swede, like what they give to the kye. But, Bessie, do you think Mr. Lewis is in – ” Jacky hesitated, her own singular romance making it sacrilege to speak the usual word in presence of those ruder comrades: “do ye think Mr. Lewis likes Miss Alice? he’s no courting her?”
Bessie smiled, blushed, and looked dignified.
“O, Jacky, how do I ken?”
“Does Miss Alice like him?”
“Jacky, what a question! Miss Alice disna tell me.”
Jacky looked at her inquisitively, and finishing her share of the conversation in her own abrupt fashion, shot into the byre to see the ailing cow, from whence she soon after stole into the Tower, where an irksome hour of compulsory stocking-knitting, in the comfortable housekeeper’s-room of Mrs. Euphan Morison, awaited Mrs. Euphan’s reluctant daughter. The room was a very cosy room in all things, but its disagreeable odor of dried and drying herbs; and Jacky, after a reproof from her mother, so habitual that it had sunk into a formula, took her customary seat and work. Bessie joined her, by-and-bye, with some little piece of sewing that she had to do for Miss Aytoun, and Johnnie Halflin, less dignified, betook himself to the kitchen fire, to read, or joke, or doze the evening out.
The time drew near when Mrs. Catherine’s doubts concerning Archibald Sutherland were to be solved. The strong old lady grew nervous on these dim mornings, and opened her letter-bag with a tremor in her hand; but when the latest day had come, there was still no letter from Paris. Impatiently she tossed them out. There were two or three letters of applicants for her vacant farm, the closely-written sheet of home-news for Alice, business-notes of various