White Heather: A Novel (Volume 2 of 3)

ACROSS THE SEA

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But father and mother sit withdrawn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 a long letter to her bosom friend in Chicago, through whose intermediation 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? In America we have got nothing behind us; when you leave the day before yesterday you don't want to go back. But here, in the most vulgar superstitions and customs, you come upon the strangest things. Would you believe it, less than twenty miles from this place there is a little lake that is supposed to cure the most desperate diseases – diseases that the doctors have given up; and the poor people meet at midnight, on the first Monday after the change of the moon, and then they throw a piece of money into the lake, and go in and dip themselves three times, and then they must get home before sunrise. Perhaps it is very absurd, but they belong to that same imaginative race of people who have left so many weird stories and poetical legends behind them; and what I say is that you want to come over and breathe this atmosphere of tradition and romance, and see the places, before you can quite understand the charm of all that kind of literature. And perhaps you don't find much in these verses about the poor people who have been driven away from their native strath? Well, they don't claim to be much. They were never meant for you to see. But yes, I do think you will like them; and anyhow Jack Huysen has got to like them, and treat them hospitably, unless he is anxious to have his hair raised.

'Gracious me, I think I must hire a hall. I have just read this scrawl over. Sounds rather muzzy, don't it? But it's this poor brain of mine that has got full of confusion and cobwebs and theories of equality, when I wasn't attending to it. My arms had the whole day's work to do – as they remind me at this minute; and the Cerebral Hemispheres laid their heads, or their half-heads together, when I was busy with the salmon; and entered into a conspiracy against me; and began to make pictures – ghosts, phantom earls, and romantic shepherds and peasant-poets, and I don't know what kind of dreams of a deer stalker walking down Wabash Avenue. But, as I said, to-morrow I start for Paris, thank goodness; and in that calmer atmosphere I hope to come to my senses again; and I will send you a long account of Lily Selden's marriage – though your last letter to me was a fraud: what do I care about the C.M.C.A.? This letter, anyhow, you must burn; I don't feel like reading it over again myself, or perhaps I would save you the trouble; but you may depend on it that the one I shall send you from Paris will be quite sane.

'Second P.S. – Of course you must manage Jack Huysen with a little discretion. I don't want to be drawn into it any more than I can help; I mean, I would just hate to write to him direct and ask him for a particular favour; but this is a very little one, and you know him as well as any of us. And mind you burn this letter – instantly – the moment you have read it – for it is just full of nonsense and wool-gathering; and it will not occur again. Toujours a toi. C.H.'

'What have you been writing all this time?' her father said, when she rose.

'A letter – to Emma Kerfoot.'

'It will make her stare. You don't often write long letters.'

'I do not,' said she, gravely regarding the envelope; and then she added solemnly: 'But this is the record of a chapter in my life that is now closed for ever – at least, I hope so.'

CHAPTER III

HESITATIONS