The Last of the Mortimers. Маргарет Олифант

that was quite natural, but seemed very odd to me, she thought she had something to do with it. Her countenance fell directly. She came sidling up to me with her heart in her face. Mrs. Saltoun had taught her some faint outlines of common conventional civility, and succeeded in substituting “mem” for “leddy” in her style of address. She came up to me accordingly, with the tears ready to start, and every sign of grieved disappointment and restrained eagerness in her face. “Oh, mem,” cried Lizzie, “have I been doing wrong? Are you no pleased wi’ me?” The words went to my heart, I cannot tell how. It made me see more clearly than a dozen sermons how we were every one of us going about in a private little world of our own. To think that her shortcomings, the innocent grotesque creature, should throw me into such trouble! What a strange unconscious self-estimation that was not selfishness! In spite of myself, the load at my heart lightened, when I smiled up at the girl.

      “Lizzie,” said I on the impulse of the moment, not thinking that I might perhaps wound her; “if we did not suit each other, should we quite break our hearts?”

      Lizzie coloured high, made a momentary pause, and dropped her queer curtsey, “Eh no, mem, no you; I couldn’t expect it,” said Lizzie, with a long sigh. Then, after another pause: “If it was a’ to turn out a dream after twa haill days; and, to be sure, it’s three days coming; but if it was a’ to come to naething after a’ this,” smoothing down her new dress, “and a’ the thoughts I’ve had in my mind, eh me! I think I would have nae heart ony mair either to break or bind.”

      Now, perhaps there was not very much in these words; but they were so exactly what I had been thinking myself, that they seemed to make a new link between me and my odd child-maid.

      “That is just what I have been thinking—but with far, far more reason,” said I; “for, oh, Lizzie! war’s proclaimed, and Mr. Langham may have to leave me; it might happen any day; and what should I do alone?”

      “Oh, mem, dinna greet!” said Lizzie loudly: “dinna let tears fa’ on the wee baby; but I ken what you would do. Just nurse the bairn, and pray the Lord, and wait. If you were sending me awa’, it would be never to come back again; but if the Captain gangs to the wars he’ll come hame a great general; maybe he would have a ribbon at his breast and a Sir at his name!” cried Lizzie, glowing up suddenly. “Eh, wouldna we a’ be proud! You might weary whiles, but the Captain would never forget you, nor be parted in his heart, if he was ten thousand miles away.”

      “You strange little witch,” said I, crying, with the strangest feeling of comfort, “you say the very words that come into my heart!”

      The creature gave me a bright affectionate look, with tears in her brown eyes. “And please can I take baby out for a walk?” she said, immediately falling back into her own department, with her little bob of a curtsey. “I’ll gang before the windows to let you see how careful I am. It’s the bonniest morning ever was. Eh, mem, if you’re pleased, I’ll ay see the sun shining,” cried my nursery-maid.

      And I actually did trust her with my precious baby, and stood at the window watching her with breathless anxiety and satisfaction for a whole hour, afraid to lose sight of her for a moment. Steady as a judge walked Lizzie, grand and important in her “charge,” disdaining the passing appeals of “neighbours,” marching along on the sunny side of the way—for it was already cold enough to make that necessary—shading the child’s eyes with such adroit changes of his drapery and her own, preserving him from the wind at the corners, and picking her steps over the unequal road with such care and devotion, that I could have run downstairs and kissed her on the spot. The sight, somehow, drove half the bitterness of my thoughts out of my head. The sky was clear with that “shining after rain” which has so much hope and freshness in it. The wind was brisk, with plenty of floating clouds to knock about. Before us, in the clear air, the castle rock looked almost near enough to have touched it, with the sun shining on its bold grey front, and all those white puffs of clouds blowing against and around it, like heavenly children at their play. How it stood there, everlasting! How the sun smiled and caressed those old walls where Harry was, and warmed and brightened the cheerful bit of road where, to and fro, before my eyes, unconscious in his baby state, went Harry’s son. Ah, me! to-day is to-day, if one were to die to-morrow. I was too young to grope about for darkness to come, and lose the good of this beautiful hour. Besides, does not the good Lord know all about to-morrow? Beginning and end of it, one thing with another, it pleases Him. Presently we shall have it, and strength for it. So, away till your time, you dark hour! just now it is not God, but an enemy who sends you. The light is sweet, and it is a pleasant thing to behold the sun.

      Chapter X

      WHEN Harry came home that evening, I knew he had something to tell me; but after the first start was over, I felt sure it was not anything painful from the look of his face. I may venture to say now that he was a very handsome young man in those days; but the thing that first drew my heart to him was the way he always betrayed himself with his face. Whatever he was feeling or thinking, you could tell it by his eyes; and if he sometimes happened to say anything he did not think, as happens to everybody now and then, his eyes woke up to a kind of sly, half ashamed, half amused expression, and let you know he was fibbing in the oddest way in the world.