Читать книгу It was a Lover and His Lass - Mrs. Oliphant - Страница 13

The next day, as Adam had prophesied, the weather changed, or rather it changed during the night, and the morning rose pale and weeping, with a sky out of which all colour had departed, and an endless blast, almost white, so close was the shower, of falling rain. Little rivulets ran away down the pebbly slope of the village street towards the river when Lewis got up; the trees were all glistening; the birds all silenced; a perpetual patter of rain filling the air. The country carts that stood at the door of the 'Murkley Arms' had the air of having been boiled; the horse glossy yet sodden, with ears and tail in the most lugubrious droop; the paint of the wheels and shafts glistening, the carter, with a wet sack over his wet shoulders, looking as if the water could be wrung out of him. He was being served with a dram by Janet at the door, who had her shawl over her cap to preserve her.

"Now tak' my advice," she was saying, "and be content with that. It's good whiskey. If you stop at every door to get something to keep out the damp, ye'll be in a bonnie condition to go home to your wife at the hinder end."

"Would ye have me get my death o' cauld?" said the man.

"Eh!" said Janet, "I daurna refuse to serve ye; for ye would just gang straight to Luckie Todd's, and her whiskey's bad, and siller is a' her thocht; but weel I wat, if ye were my man, I wad rather ye got your death of cauld than of whiskey. And that's my principle, though I keep a public mysel'."

Lewis, standing at his window, with the paths and the roofs all glistening before him, and the sky so low down that it seemed almost to touch the high gable of the house opposite, listened to the dialogue with a smile. It was a new aspect under which he now saw the village life. Many of the doors were shut which usually stood open; the children had disappeared from the road; silence took the place of the small, cheerful noises, the calls of the women, the chatter of the infants; the cocks and hens, which generally strutted about in full liberty, had taken refuge beneath a cart, where they huddled together lugubriously—everything was changed. Lewis could not but think of young Stormont, with a shrug of malicious pleasure, as he amused himself with his breakfast: for he supposed erroneously that this must be one of the days of which Stormont had spoken so sadly, when there was nothing to do. But by-and-by Lewis also found that there was nothing to do. He laughed at himself, which was still more comic. Stormont was at home; he had his library, though he did not make use of it; and his mother's piano, though he knew nothing about music; and he had no doubt some sort of business concerning his small estate, and he had spoken of amusing himself with fly-making and gun-cleaning. But Lewis soon woke up to the sad conviction that, so far as he was concerned, there was absolutely nothing to occupy the heavy hours. Of the two or three books which the 'Murkley Arms' could boast, one was Robertson's 'History of Scotland' in a small form, with small print, discouraging to a careless reader, and another the 'Romance of the Forest.' He was not a great reader under the best of circumstances, and these did not tempt him. He had few correspondents, none indeed to whom he could sit down on a dreary day and unbosom himself. The only thing that offered him any distraction was his drawing. He took out his sketch-books, and selected one he had made on the water-side, in order to enlarge and complete it. But he was not enthusiastic enough to work steadily, and he was unfortunately aware that his slightest sketches were his best. When Janet came up-stairs "to speak about the denner," as she said, her compassion was aroused by his evident weariness.

"Adam's awa' to the watter," she said. "Watter below and watter aboon, he'll get plenty o't. It's a grand day for the fushin', though it's no so good for us poor mortals. Would ye no gang doon, and see how he's getting on?"

"But it pours," said Lewis, "and with water above and water below, as you say——"

"Hoot ay," said Janet, "but ye're young, and ye're neither sugar nor salt, you'll no melt. At your age a bit of a shower does little harm; and ye're just wrang biding in the house all day with nothing to do."

"That is true enough," Lewis said, but as he looked at the pouring rain and the wet roads he shook his head. "I don't see that one can gain much by getting wet, Mrs. Janet."

"Dear me! a young gentleman at your age! Weel, it's a grand thing to take care of yourself. It's just what ye canna get young folk to do. There's young Mr. Philip out on the water from the skreigh of day; he just never minds. I'm no saying it's good for him. But they say it's grand weather for the fushin', and that makes up for everything with them, the gomerals. If they had your sense, Mr. Murray."

Lewis did not think she had a very high opinion of his sense, and he was somewhat piqued by her suspicious semi-approval, and by her description of Stormont, in whom the young man had come to see an antagonistic type of mankind. The more fool he, if he had been out all the morning between the water below and the water above, all for the sake of a few fish. But the description piqued Lewis. He stood at his window, and looked out for the twentieth time, and it did not look tempting. Why, indeed, should he go out, and get himself wet and dirty to please the prejudices of Janet. He had always heard that the English went out in all weathers; that they had even a preference for mud and damp, characteristic features of their own climate. But why should he emulate this strange fancy? He sat down to his drawing again, but he did not get any satisfaction out of it. Not to be approved of was terrible to him. He could not bear that even Janet should have a small opinion of his hardiness and manly bearing. This acted so strongly upon Lewis that after a while he found himself pulling on his strongest boots and getting into his thickest great-coat. The boots were not very strong; he had never had any chance of those exposures to water and weather in which impervious coverings are necessary; but, having protected himself as well as he could, he sallied forth at last with his umbrella, and went down to the river-side. There was little or no wind, and the rain fell in a perpendicular flood, soaking everything. Lewis under his umbrella went patiently on, enduring it manfully, but unable to see any pleasure in his progress through the flood. He met Katie Seton and her brother near the church. She was covered up in an ulster, with a hood over her little hat. Her cheeks were like roses "just washed in a shower."

"Oh, we never stay in for anything," she said. "It is always better out than in."

Lewis in his courtesy would have made over his umbrella, but the girl would none of it.

"Oh, I can't bear to carry an umbrella," she said.

He went on to the river-side with a little shrug of his shoulders. And there was Adam, drenched, but glowing, pulling out trout after trout, too busy to talk; and lower down the stream, in the middle of it, amid the rush of broken water, where the river swirled round the rock, young Stormont, almost up to his middle, in great fishing-boots, with sluices of water flowing from his glazed sou'-wester.

"Jolly day!" Stormont cried through the rain.

"Grand for the trout," said Adam.

Lewis stood on the bank under the umbrella and shrugged his shoulders.

"I wish you joy of it," he said. His feet were growing wet, the rain, though there was no wind, came in his face with something like a special malice. He thought there was something savage in the gratification of the two fishers. After he had watched them for a time, he asked Adam for some of the trout in his basket, and went home, carrying, with no great delight in the office, two noble trout tied together with a string. These were cold and slimy, but he overcame his repugnance. Janet saw him return, with his wet feet and the fish hanging from his hand, with a mixture of amusement and dissatisfaction.

"Will they be for your lunch?" she said, with a contemptuous thought of the fondness for eating with which Scotland always credits the Englishman.

"Oh, no," Lewis cried, with horror; "do you think I would carry these things for myself? Put them in a basket; I will take them to the Castle, where," he added, with a little innocent pleasure in making the announcement, "I am going this afternoon."

Janet looked at him with a certain contemptuous disappointment. She thought he was going to carry the fish as a proof of his own skill and prowess.

"I'll maybe no find a basket. What ails ye at them as they are?" she said, with lowering brows: which our young man did not understand at all, for it is needless to say that such an idea never crossed his ingenuous mind.

He went up-stairs a little surprised that not even now, when he had proved his manhood by wetting his boots (which he hastened to change), did he please Mrs. Janet, as he called her, but without the slightest clue to her suspicions. And after he had got into dry apparel, and eaten his luncheon, Lewis sallied forth once more, much pleased to be able to say that he was going to the Castle, where, indeed, the sound of the bell at the door stirred and excited the whole household, which had no hope of anything so refreshing as a visitor.

Miss Margaret was seated above-stairs with Lilias in a room devoted to what was called her studies, and generally known by the title of the book-room, though there were but few books in it. Lilias jumped up and rushed to the window in the very midst of the chapter of constitutional history which she was reading with her self-denying elder sister.

"There is no carriage," she said; "it will be somebody from the village."

"Never mind who it is," said Miss Margaret; "we must finish our chapter."

When the sound of music was diffused through the house some time after, Miss Margaret had a shrewd guess as to who the visitor was, and all the objections that existed to his introduction to Lilias came up before her mind, while the girl pursued, alas! very dully, the history of parliamentary institutions. "It will be the tuner come to put the piano in order," she said by-and-by, she too speaking unawares in the middle of a sentence. She felt that it was a fib, but yet it was not necessarily a fib, for why should not it be the tuner? It was about his time, she said to herself. This took from Lilias all desire to go down-stairs, all expectation of a break in the dulness. She went on with the drone of the history, which, to tell the truth, was quite as much a burden to Miss Margaret as to herself. But duty reigned supreme in the bosom of the elder sister, and Lilias had always been submissive. She was well aware, too, of the advantage of having Margaret instead of a governess. Miss Jackson would not have permitted her to slip to the window with her book in her hand to see who it was.

Miss Jean was alone in the drawing-room, which was a large room, with a number of small windows, high set in the thick old walls, each with its own little recess. It was not light generally, but there were a great many Rembrandtish effects, intense lights and shadows in bright weather. To-day all was a sort of monotone of greenish dimness: the wet trees glistening; the expanse of the wet park throwing a vague reflection into the air. The room occupied a corner of the house, and the windows on one side looked out upon a lime-tree walk, which lay under the old enclosing wall, a high, semi-defensible erection, with a turret at the corner; and on the other looked on the park, which sloped downward towards the river. To the right hand the red-and-blue roofs of the village glistened under the rain, the tiles giving a little gleam of colour which the slates did their best to neutralize. Nothing could be more complete than the air of mutual protection and dependence which the village and the Castle bore, though the Castle was but a small and homely representative of power. Miss Jean sat alone in the window which commanded this prospect most fully. She had all her work materials there; a basket of fine silks in every shade, a case of pretty, shining silver implements, scissors, and thimbles, and bodkins, and on her lap a wonderful table-cover, upon which, as long as any of the young people remembered, she had been working a garland of flowers. It was her own invention, drawn from Nature, and consequently, as she sometimes explained with a little pride, the winter-time, which was the best time for working in general, was lost to her, since she always liked to have her models under her eyes. At the present moment, a little cluster of pansies was before her in a glass, and the colours arranged upon the table in which she was to copy them. But she was not working; her table-cover lay on her lap. She was looking out vaguely upon the rain, and the wet trees, and the village roofs. It was supposed that Miss Jean was the one of the family who leant towards the sentimental, and no doubt there had been incidents in her gentle life which justified the opinion. She was thinking, as she would have said—perhaps even so late as this the soft-hearted, middle-aged maiden was dreaming—but, if so, nobody was the wiser for Miss Jean's dreams. They never prevented her ready attention to any appeal, and she only indulged in them when quite alone. They alternated with the flowers of the table-cover in her mind, and both were emanations of the same soft and tender spirit. The room was very still around this one quiet figure; behind her the dim atmosphere was brighter with the glow of a small, but cheerful fire. It was the opinion of the Miss Murrays, as of many other comfortable people, that in wet weather an old house was always the better for a fire. The little pétillement of the fire and the soft rush of the falling rain outside were all the sounds audible in the extreme stillness. What wonder that Miss Jean should drop the embroidered pansies on her lap, and take to thoughts which were a sort of spiritual prototypes of the pansies—thoughtlets, little musings, dreamikins, so to speak; they brought now and then from her gentle bosom the softest little sigh, not a sigh that hurt, but one that soothed. There was no part of her time that Miss Jean liked better than these moments which she spent by herself, when Margaret was reading history with Lilias. She closed up a pretty little note-book, which had been in her hand, when she heard the sound of the bell. If truth must be told, she had been writing in it a pretty little verse—a pansy of still another kind; for Miss Jean belonged to the age when it was a pretty accomplishment to write charming little "copies of verses," a thing very sweet and delightful for a young woman to do.