John Burnet of Barns. Buchan John

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      I crossed Lyne Water by the new bridge, just finished in the year before, and entered the wood of Dawyck. For this great forest stretches on both sides of Tweed, though it is greater on the side on which stands the house. In the place where I rode it was thinner, and the trees smaller, and, indeed, around the little village of Stobo, there lies an open part of some fields' width. At the little inn there, I had a morning's draught of ale, for I was somewhat cold with riding in the spring air. Then I forded Tweed at a place called the Cow Ford, and, riding through a wide avenue of lime-trees, came in sight of the grey towers of Dawyck.

      I kept well round to the back, for I did not care that the serving-folk should see me and spread tales over all the countryside. I knew that Marjory's window looked sharp down on a patch of green lawn, bordered by lime-trees, so I rode into the shadow and dismounted. I whistled thrice in a way which I had, and which Marjory had learned to know long before, when we were children, and I used to come and beguile her out for long trampings among the hills. To-day it had no effect, for the singing of birds drowned my notes, so I had nothing left but to throw bits of bark against her window. This rude expedient met with more success than it deserved, for in a minute I saw her face behind the glass. She smiled gladly when she saw me, and disappeared, only to appear again in the little door beside the lilacs. She had no hat, so her bright hair hung loose over her neck and was blown about by the morning winds. Her cheeks were pink and white, like apple-blossom, and her lithe form was clad in a dress of blue velvet, plainly adorned as for a country maiden. A spray of lilac was in her breast, and she carried a bunch of sweet-smelling stuff in her hands.

      She came gladly towards me, her eyes dancing with pleasure. "How soon you have returned! And how brave you look," said she, with many more pretty and undeserved compliments.

      "Ay, Marjory," I answered, "I have come back to Tweeddale, for I have had enough of Glasgow College and books, and I was wearying for the hills and Tweed and a sight of your face. There are no maidens who come near to you with all their finery. You are as fair as the spring lilies in the garden at Barns."

      "Oh, John," she laughed, "where did you learn to pay fine compliments? You will soon be as expert at the trade as any of them. I met a man yesterday in the woods who spoke like you, though with a more practised air; but I bade him keep his fine words for his fine ladies, for they suited ill with the hills and a plain country maid."

      At this, I must suppose that my brows grew dark, for she went on laughingly.

      "Nay, you are not jealous? It ill becomes a scholar and a philosopher as you are, Master John, to think so much of an idle word. Confess, sir, that you are jealous. Why, you are as bad as a lady in a play."

      I could not make out her mood, which was a new one to me—a mocking pleasant raillery, which I took for the rightful punishment of my past follies.

      "I am not jealous," I said, "for jealousy is a feeling which needs an object ere it can exist. No man may be jealous, unless he has something to be jealous about."

      "John, John," she cried, and shook her head prettily, "you are incorrigible. I had thought you had learned manners in the town, and behold, you are worse than when you went away. You come here, and your first word to me is that I am nothing."

      "God knows," I said, "I would fain be jealous, and yet—" I became awkward and nervous, for I felt that my mission was not prospering, and that I was becoming entangled in a maze of meaningless speech. The shortest and plainest way is still the best in love as in all things.

      But I was not to be let off, and she finished my sentence for me. "If only you could find a worthy object for your feeling, you mean," she said. "Very well, sir, since I am so little valued in your eyes, we will speak no more on the matter."

      "Marjory," I said, coming to the matter at once, "you and I have been old comrades. We have fished and walked together, we have climbed the hills and ridden in the meadows. I have done your bidding for many years."

      "True, John," she said with an accent of grudging reminiscence, "you have dragged me into many a pretty pickle. I have torn my dress on rough rocks and soaked my shoes in bogs, all in your company. Surely we have had a brave time together."

      "You met a man in the wood yesterday who would fain have made love to you. That man was my cousin Gilbert."

      "Oh," she replied in a tone of mock solemnity and amused wonder, for I had blurted out my last words like the last dying confession of some prisoner. "Verily you are honoured in your cousinship, John."

      "It is against him and such as him that I would protect you," I said.

      "Nay," she cried, with an affected remonstrance. "I will have no fighting between cousins on my account. I will even defend myself, as Alison did when the miller made love to her."

      "O Marjory," I burst out, "will you not give me this right to defend you? We have been old companions, but it was only yesterday that I knew how dearly I loved you. I have had more cares since yester-night than ever in my life. We have been comrades in childhood; let us be comrades on the rough paths of the world."

      I spoke earnestly, and her face, which had been filled with mockery, changed gently to something akin to tenderness.

      "How little you know of women!" she cried. "I have loved you for years, thinking of you at all times, and now you come to-day, speaking as if you had scarce seen me before. Surely I will bear you company in life, as I have been your comrade at its beginning."

      What followed I need scarce tell, since it is but part of the old comedy of life, which our grandfathers and grandmothers played before us, and mayhap our grand-children will be playing even now when our back is turned. Under the spring sky among the lilies we plighted our troth for the years, and I entered from careless youth into the dim and resolute region of manhood.

      With a great joy in my heart I rode home. I took the high way over the shoulder of Scrape, for I knew that few folk ever went that road, and I wished to be alone. The birds were singing, the fresh clean air was blowing on my face, and the primroses and wind-flowers made a gay carpet under my horse's feet. All the earth seemed to partake in my gladness. It was a good world, I thought, full of true hearts, fair faces, and much good; and though I have seen much wickedness and sorrow in my day, I am still of the same way of thinking. It is a brave world; a royal world for brave-hearted men.

      When I came to Barns I found that my cousin had gone out an hour since and left my father greatly wondering at my absence. He sat in the chair by the fireplace, looking more withered and old than I had ever seen him. My heart smote me for not staying at his side, and so I sat down by him and told him many things of my doings in Glasgow, and how I desired above all things to see the world, having had my fill of books and colleges. Then I told him what he had long guessed, of my love for Marjory Veitch and the promise which she had given me. He heard me in silence, but when he spoke, his words were cheerful, for he had long liked the lass. He made no refusal, too, to the rest of my plans. "You shall go and see the world, John," he said, "and take my blessing with you. It ill becomes a young mettlesome lad in these stirring times to lounge at home, when he might be wearing a steel breastplate in the King's Guards, or trying the manners of twenty nations. Though I could wish you to bide at home, for I am an old broken man with few pleasures, and I love the sight of your face."

      "Nay, I will never leave you," I said, "an you wish it. I am young yet and a boy's road is a long road. Time enough for all."

      After this I went out to see if the Weasel had come to any mishap in the last night's ride. I found him as stout as ever, so I saddled him and rode away by the green haughlands up the valley of the Manor, for I longed for motion and air to relieve my spirit: and coming home in the СКАЧАТЬ