Читать книгу Annie o' the Banks o' Dee - Stables Gordon - Страница 5

Reginald had guessed aright. The good barque Wolverine would sail from Glasgow that day month, wind and weather permitting, for the South Atlantic, and round the Horn to the South Pacific Islands and San Francisco.

This was from the captain; but a note was enclosed from Mrs Hall, Reginald’s pet aunt, hoping he was quite restored to health and strength, and would join them some hours before sailing. She felt certain, she said, that the long voyage would quite restore her, and her daughter Ilda and wee niece Matty were wild with delight at the prospect of being —

“Oh, my darling!” cried Annie, “I believe my heart will break to lose you.”

“But it will not be for long, my love – a year at most; and, oh, our reunion will be sweet! You know, Annie, I am very poor, with scarce money enough to procure me an outfit. It is better our engagement should not be known just yet to the old Laird, your uncle. He would think it most presumptuous in me to aspire to the hand of his heiress. But I shall be well and strong long before a month; and think, dearest, I am to have five hundred pounds for acting as private doctor and nurse to Mrs Hall! When I return I shall complete my studies, set up in practice, and then, oh, then, Annie, you and I shall be married!

But the tears were now silently chasing each other down her cheeks.

“Cheer up, my own,” said Reginald, drawing her closer to him.

Presently she did, and then the woman, not the child, came uppermost.

“Reginald,” she said, “tell me, is Miss Hall very beautiful?”

“I hardly know how to answer you, Annie. I sometimes think she is. Fragile, rather, with masses of glittering brown hair, and hazel eyes that are sometimes very large, as she looks at you while you talk. But,” he added, “there can be no true love unless there is a little jealousy. Ah, Annie,” he continued, smiling, “I see it in your eye, just a tiny wee bit of it. But it mustn’t increase. I have plighted my troth to you, and will ever love you as I do now, as long as the sun rises over yonder woods and forests.”

“I know, I know you will,” said Annie, and once more the head was laid softly on his shoulder.

“There is one young lady, however, of whom you have some cause to be jealous.”

“And she?”

“I confess, Annie, that I loved her a good deal. Ah, don’t look sad; it is only Matty, and she is just come five.”

Poor Annie laughed in a relieved sort of way. The lovers said little more for a time, but presently went for a walk in the flower-gardens, and among the black and crimson buds of autumn. Reginald could walk but slowly yet, and was glad enough of the slight support of Annie’s arm.

“Ah, Annie,” he said, “it won’t be long before you shall be leaning on my arm instead of me on yours.”

“I pray for that,” said the child-woman.

The gardens were still gay with autumnal flowers, and I always think that lovers are a happy adjunct to a flower-garden. But it seemed to be the autumn buds that were the chief attraction for Reginald at present. They were everywhere trailing in vines over the hedgerows, supported on their own sturdy stems or climbing high over the gables and wings of the grand old hall.

The deadly nightshade, that in summer was covered with bunches of sweetest blue, now grew high over the many hedges, hung with fruitlike scarlet bunches of the tiniest grapes. The Bryonia Alba, sometimes called the devil’s parsnip, that in June snows the country hedges over with its wealth of white wee flowers, was now splashed over with crimson budlets. The holly berries were already turning. The black-berried ivy crept high up the shafts of the lordly Lombardy poplars. Another tiny berry, though still green, grew in great profusion – it would soon be black – the fruit of the privet. The pyrocanthus that climbs yonder wall is one lovely mass of vermilion berries in clusters. These rival in colour and appearance the wealth of red fruit on the rowan trees or mountain ashes.

“How beautiful, Annie,” said Reginald, gazing up at the nodding berries. “Do you mind the old song, dear? —

“It is very beautiful,” said Annie, “and the music is just as beautiful, though plaintive, and even sad. I shall play it to you to-night.”

But here is an arbour composed entirely of a gigantic briar, laden with rosy fruit. Yet the king-tree of the garden is the barberry, and I never yet knew a botanist who could describe the lavish loveliness of those garlands of rosy coral. With buds of a somewhat deeper shade the dark yews were sprinkled, and in this fairy-like garden or arboretum grew trees and shrubs of every kind.

Over all the sun shone with a brilliancy of a delightful September day. The robins followed the couple everywhere, sometimes even hopping on to Reginald’s shoulder or Annie’s hat, for these birds seem to know by instinct where kindness of heart doth dwell.

“Annie,” said Reginald, after a pause, “I am very, very happy.”

“And I, dear,” was the reply, “am very hopeful.”

How quickly that month sped away. Reginald was as strong as ever again, and able to play cards of an evening with Laird McLeod or Laird Fletcher, for the latter, knowing that the farmer of Birnie-Boozle came here no longer, renewed his visits.

I shall not say much about the parting. They parted in tears and in sorrow, that is all; with many a fond vow, with many a fond embrace.

It has often grieved me to think how very little Englishmen know about our most beautiful Scottish songs. Though but a little simple thing, “The Pairtin’” (parting) is assuredly one of the most plaintively melodious I know of in any language. It is very àpropos to the parting of Reginald and Annie o’ the Banks o’ Dee.

“If you would keep song in your hearts,” says a writer of genius, “learn to sing. There is more merit in melody than most people are aware of. Even the cobbler who smoothes his wax-ends with a song will do as much work in a day as one given to ill-nature would do in a week. Songs are like sunshine, they run to cheerfulness, and fill the bosom with such buoyancy, that for the time being you feel filled with June air or like a meadow of clover in blossom.”

How lonely the gardens and the Hall itself seemed to Annie now that her lover had gone, and how sad at heart was she!

Well, and how reluctant am I myself to leave all these pleasant scenes, and bring before the mind’s eye an event so terrible and a deed so dark that I almost shudder as I describe it; but as the evolution of this ower-true tale depends upon it, I am obliged to.

First, I must tell you that just two days before joining his ship, Reginald had to go to Aberdeen to see friends and bid them adieu.

But it happened that Craig Nicol had made a visit on foot to Aberdeen about the same time. Thirty, or even forty, miles was not too much for a sturdy young fellow like him. He had told his housekeeper a week before that he was to draw money from the bank – a considerable sum, too.

This was foolish of him, for the garrulous old woman not only boasted to the neighbouring servants of the wealth of her master, but even told them the day he would leave for the town.

Poor Craig set off as merrily as any half-broken hearted lover could be expected to do. But, alas! after leaving Aberdeen on his homeward journey, he had never been seen alive again by anyone who knew him.

As he often, however, made a longer stay in town than he had first intended, the housekeeper and servants of Birnie-Boozle were not for a time alarmed; but soon the assistance of the police was called in, with the hopes of solving the mystery. All they did find out, however, was that he had left the Granite City well and whole, and that he had called at an inn called the Five Mile House on the afternoon to partake of some refreshment. After that all was a dread and awful blank. There was not a pond, however, or copse along from this inn that was not searched. Then the river was dragged by men used to work of this sort.

But all in vain. The mystery remained still unrevealed. Only the police, as usual, vaunted about having a clue, and being pressed to explain, a sergeant said:

“Why, only this: you see he drew a lot of cash from the bank in notes and gold, and as we hear that he is in grief, there is little doubt in our minds that he has gone, for a quiet holiday to the Continent, or even to the States.”

Certain in their own minds that this was the case, the worthy police force troubled themselves but little more about the matter. They thought they had searched everywhere; but one place they had forgotten and missed. From the high road, not many miles from Birnie-Boozle, a road led. It was really little more than a bridle-path, but it shortened the journey by at least a mile, and when returning from town Craig Nicol always took advantage of this.

Strange, indeed, it was, that no one, not even the housekeeper, had thought of giving information about this to the police. But the housekeeper was to be excused. She was plunged deeply in grief. She and she only would take no heed of the supposed clue to the mystery that the sergeant made sure he had found.

“Oh, oh,” she would cry, “my master is dead! I know, I know he is. In a dream he appeared to me. How wan and weird he looked, and his garments were drenched in blood and gore. Oh, master, dear, kind, good master, I shall never, never see you more!” And the old lady wrung her hands and wept and sobbed as if her very heart would break.

Reginald’s ship had been about two days at sea. The wind was fair and strong, so that she had made a good offing, and was now steering south by west, bearing up for the distant shores of South America.

And it was now that a discovery was made that appalled and shocked everyone in all the countryside.