White Heather: A Novel (Volume 3 of 3). William Black

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СКАЧАТЬ known him in the happy times when life went by like a laugh and a song – how wonderful it would be to go along these thoroughfares hoping every moment to catch sight of her face! A dull town? – no, a radiant town, with music in the air, and joy and hope shining down from the skies! But now – he was a cowering fugitive – sick in body and sick in mind – trembling with the excitement of this sudden meeting – and anxious above all other things that he should get back to the seclusion of his lodging unseen.

      Well, he managed that, at all events; and there he sate down, wondering over this thing that had just happened. Meenie in Glasgow town! – and why? And why had she sent him the white heather? Nay, he could not doubt but that she had heard; and that this was at once a message of reproach and an appeal; and what answer had he to give supposing that some day or other he should meet her face to face? How could he win back to his former state, so that he should not be ashamed to meet those clear, kind eyes? If there were but some penance now – no matter what suffering it entailed – that would obliterate these last months and restore him to himself, how gladly would he welcome that! But it was not only the bodily sickness – he believed he could mend that; he had still a fine physique; and surely absolute abstention from stimulants, no matter with what accompanying depression, would in time give him back his health – it was mental sickness and hopelessness and remorse that had to be cured; and how was that to be attempted? Or why should he attempt it? What care had he for the future? To be sure, he would stop drinking, definitely; and he would withdraw himself from those wild companions; and he would have a greater regard for his appearance; so that, if he should by chance meet Meenie face to face, he would not have to be altogether so ashamed. But after? When she had gone away again? For of course he assumed that she was merely here on a visit.

      And all this time he was becoming more and more conscious of how far he had fallen – of the change that had come over himself and his circumstances in these few months; and a curious fancy got into his head that he would like to try to realise what he had been like in those former days. He got out his blotting-pad of fragments – not those dedicated to Meenie, that had been carefully put aside – and about the very first of them that he chanced to light upon, when he looked down the rough lines, made him exclaim —

      'God bless me, was I like that– and no longer ago than last January?'

      The piece was called 'A Winter Song'; and surely the man who could write in this gay fashion had an abundant life and joy and hope in his veins, and courage to face the worst bleakness of the winter, and a glad looking-forward to the coming of the spring?

      Keen blows the wind upon Clebrig's side,

      And the snow lies thick on the heather;

      And the shivering hinds are glad to hide

      Away from the winter weather.

      Chorus: But soon the birds will begin to sing,

      And we will sing too, my dear,

      To give good welcoming to the spring

      In the primrose time o' the year!

      Hark how the black lake, torn and tost,

      Thunders along its shores;

      And the burn is hard in the grip of the frost,

      And white, snow-white are the moors.

      Chorus: But soon the birds will begin to sing, etc.

      O then the warm west winds will blow,

      And all in the sunny weather,

      It's over the moorlands we will go,

      You and I, my love, together.

      Chorus: And then the birds will begin to sing,

      And we will sing too, my dear,

      To give good welcoming to the spring,

      In the primrose-time o' the year!

      Why, surely the blood must have been dancing in his brain when he wrote that and the days white and clear around him; and life merry and hopeful enough. And now? Well, it was no gladdening thing to think of: he listlessly put away the book.

      And then he rose and went and got a pail of water and thrust his head into that – for he was glad to feel that this muzzy sensation was going; and thereafter he dried and brushed his hair with a little more care than usual; and put on a clean collar. Nay, he began to set the little room to rights – and his life in Highland lodges had taught him how to do that about as well as any woman could; and he tried to brighten the window panes a little, to make the place look more cheerful; and he arranged the things on the mantel-shelf in better order – with the bit of white heather in the middle. Then he came to his briar-root pipe; and paused. He took it up, hesitating.

      'Yes, my friend, you must go too,' he said, with firm lips; and he deliberately broke it, and tossed the fragments into the grate.

      And then he remembered that it was nearly three o'clock, and as he feared that Kate Menzies might send some one of her friends to fetch him, or even come for him herself, he put on his cap, and took a stick in his hand, and went out. In half an hour or so he had left the city behind him and was lost in that melancholy half-country that lies around it on the north; but he cared little now how the landscape looked; he was wondering what had brought Meenie to Glasgow town, and whether she had seen him, and what she had heard of him. And at Inver-Mudal too? Well, they might think the worst of him there if they chose. But had Meenie heard?

      He scarcely knew how far he went; but in the dusk of the evening he was again approaching the city by the Great Western Road; and as he came nearer to the houses, he found that the lamps were lit, and the great town settling down into the gloom of the night. Now he feared no detection; and so it was that when he arrived at Melrose Street he paused there. Should he venture into Queen's Crescent? – it was but a stone's throw away. For he guessed that Meenie must be staying with her sister; and he knew the address that she had given him, though he had never called; nay, he had had the curiosity, once or twice in passing, to glance at the house; and easily enough he could now make it out if he chose. He hesitated for a second or two; then he stealthily made his way along the little thoroughfare; and entered the crescent – but keeping to the opposite side from Mrs. Gemmill's dwelling – and there quietly walked up and down. He could see the windows well enough; they were all of them lit; and the house seemed warm and comfortable; Meenie would be at home there, and among friends, and her bright laugh would be heard from room to room. Perhaps they had company too – since all the windows were ablaze; rich folk, no doubt, for the Gemmills were themselves well-to-do people; and Meenie would be made much of by these strangers, and they would come round her, and the beautiful Highland eyes would be turned towards them, and they would hear her speak in her quiet, gentle, quaint way. Nor was there any trace of envy or jealousy in this man's composition – outcast as he now deemed himself. Jealousy of Meenie? – why, he wished the bountiful heavens to pour their choicest blessings upon her, and the winds to be for ever soft around her, and all sweet and gracious things to await her throughout her girlhood and her womanhood and her old age. No; it did not trouble him that these rich folk were fortunate enough to be with her, to listen to her, to look at the clear, frank eyes; it might have troubled him had he thought that they might not fully understand the generous rose-sweetness of her nature, nor fully appreciate her straightforward, unconscious simplicity, nor be sufficiently kind to her. And it was scarcely necessary to consider that; of course they all of them would be kind to her, for how could they help it?

      But his guess that they might be entertaining friends was wrong. By and by a cab drove up; in a few minutes the door was opened; he ventured to draw a little nearer; and then he saw three figures – one of them almost assuredly Meenie – come out and enter the vehicle. They drove off; no doubt they were going to some concert or theatre, he thought; and he was glad that Meenie was being amused and entertained so; and was among friends. And as for himself? —

      'Well,' he was inwardly saying, as he resumed his СКАЧАТЬ