Margaret Oliphant - Merkland - or, Self Sacrifice

“And where did she come from?” inquired Anne, as she assisted in applying some simple remedies.

“The bairn? Na, how can I tell you that Miss Anne, when I dinna ken mysel?”

“No, no; I mean the lady,” said Anne, hurriedly. “I saw her – a very remarkable-looking person she is. Is the child her own?”

“Na; she said no, any way,” said Mrs. Melder. “Whaever it belongs to, they think shame o’t, that’s sure. Woes me, Miss Ross! the ill that there is in this world! She has been living at the brig for a day or two back, and the bairn wi’ her. I am doubtful it was but a foolish thing, taking a bairn when one kens nought of its kindred. But the house was dreary. Where there has been a babe in a dwelling, it makes great odds when the light of its bit countenance is lifted away, and my heart warmed to the puir wee thing, sent out from its own bluid. So I took it, ye see, Miss Ross, and Robert he didna oppose. It’s to bide two years – if we’re all spared as long – and the stipend for it is twenty pound, and the siller’s lying in Mr. Foreman the writer’s hands – so we canna come to any loss. It’s an uncommon bairn a’thegither o’t, and speaks in a tongue neither Robert nor me can make onything of. It maun have come from some far part – was ye speaking, my lamb?”

Anne beckoned Lewis forward as the child murmured again some incoherent words.

“What language is it? – I do not recognize the tongue.”

“It is Spanish,” said Lewis. “Strange! Where did the child come from, Mrs. Melder?”

The miller’s wife repeated her story, and, promising to call at the house of the doctor on their way homeward, and send him up to the little patient, her visitors left her, and proceeded on their way, disturbed by no further incident, except in Anne’s mind, by the strange excitement of interest with which this story moved her. She could not banish the stranger’s pale face from her mind, nor forget the pitiful look of the little child, in whose soft features she thought she could trace some resemblance, moaning out its feeble complaint in that strange language, uncomprehended, and alone.

THESE days passed on in suspense and anxiety to Mrs. Catherine. Uncertain what to believe or disbelieve, concerning the young man in whose fortunes she was so deeply interested, her strong spirit chafed and struggled in its compulsory inactivity. Nor did Lewis’s report of Mrs. Duncombe’s friends, in any degree still her anxiety. Fashionable ladies stood low in Mrs. Catherine’s opinion at all times; and her strong nationality aggravated tenfold her dislike to fashionable ladies in Paris – French or semi-French. Had it not been for Alice, Mrs. Catherine herself would have been on her way to Paris ere now. But unwilling to send the girl abruptly home, and riveted besides by a hundred little ties, which made her absence from the Tower (she had not left it since her sorrowful journey, thirty years’ ago, from Sholto’s island grave) seem an impossibility; she waited – we are constrained to admit, not patiently – for further tidings, inclined to hope sometimes that Mr. Foreman’s benevolent surmise might be well-founded; and anon, cast down, and venting her grief in a show of bitter indignation at “the prodigal that could sell his birthright.”

Many solitary hours were spent during that anxious fortnight (for mails travelled tardily thirty years ago) in the little room – and many wrestlings of secret, silent prayer these narrow walls were witness to. Jacky, gliding hither and thither in her elfin ubiquity, could hear Mrs. Catherine’s step shake the floor; and listened in tremulous awe and reverence sometimes to those often-repeated words, the 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.”