Part 2

A pleasant breeze that swept in at the open window was the only mountain element that could not be excluded from this school-room, which had suddenly followed Blanche to the Highlands, and held her captive. The window was on a level with the ground, and a grassy knoll intercepted the view beyond; there was nothing really to do or see anywhere, so at last Blanche gave herself languidly up to her lesson, thinking she was the most ill-used little girl in all the world. She was gazing absently at a map of England opposite, in a lazy search after Tewkesbury, when she noticed a shadow flit across the sunlighted wall, but before she had time to turn her head, it had vanished, and Blanche again betook herself to the battle of Tewkesbury, with a strong effort of attention. Suddenly, as she happened to look up from her book, to fix a fact in her memory, by repeating it aloud, she saw standing at the window, not a shadow this time, but a real flesh and blood little girl, gazing intently at her. A brown little face peeped out from among a mass of tangled, raven-black, elf-like locks, and a pair of keen dark eyes rested on Blanche, with admiration and wonder in their gaze. The little figure was arrayed in a tartan dress of the briefest dimensions, which hung in fringes, and displayed brown bare arms and legs, well-knit and nimble-looking. After Blanche's first gasp of astonishment at so strange and unexpected an apparition, it occurred to her that the image could probably give some account of itself, and she was wondering what would be the most suitable mode of address, when, as if divining her idea, off the creature darted, round the grassy knoll, and out of sight. Blanche sprung to the window, and looked excitedly round to see if she could possibly follow. The window was close to the ground, and her foot was on the sill, ready to start off in pursuit, when just at that moment in walked Miss Prosser.

"Why, Blanche, what are you about? You look quite excited, child!"

Blanche's first impulse was to confide to her the cause of her excitement, but, on second thoughts, she resolved not to reveal it. To her, the sudden apparition of the little elfish-looking maiden was quite a romantic adventure; but she felt doubtful if it would appear in the same light to her governess, who frequently objected to Blanche's friendly advances to the little London flower-girls, and her delicate attentions to crossing-sweepers. Moreover, Blanche had a vague terror lest a pursuit of the little unknown might be set on foot, not of such a friendly character as her's was meant to be, so she resolved to keep her own counsel. Still the vision of the weird-looking little maiden, whom she had caught devouring her with great soft eyes, like a gentle timid animal of the forest, kept haunting her. What did she want? where did she live? she wondered. Perhaps she might not have any home. She looked very ragged, certainly, and very poor she must be, for she wore neither shoes nor stockings, were the reflections that actively coursed through Blanche's brain, as she narrated the Battle of Tewkesbury to her governess, who had just reason to complain of a very absent-minded pupil.

When the hour for the afternoon walk arrived, it did not seem quite so tame and unattractive as it had done to Blanche in the midst of her more ambitious morning plans. She was by no means the broken-hearted, ill-used person which she fancied herself a few hours before, as she tripped gaily down the broad, flat, grass-grown steps of the old court-yard, and stood again on the soft turf, waiting for Miss Prosser. Presently she spied a familiar friend coming towards her, in the shape of a great black retriever. He came wagging a vigorous welcome to his little mistress, whom he was quite overjoyed to see after his long and depressing journey, in company with the pointers and setters. He had indulged in the most unfriendly feelings towards the whole pack, but being muzzled, he was not able to give them a bit of his mind, as he would fain have done.

"Well, old fellow, and how are you? I believe you've been all over Glen Eagle already, and know every bit. I wish I were you, Chance. You may be glad enough you can't speak, old dog--though you sometimes look as if you would very much like to; for if you could, you would be sure to have lessons, and, instead of scampering about the hills, you would have had to tell Miss Prosser all about the Battle of Tewkesbury," said Blanche, laughingly, as she returned his warm welcome.

Chance was a great friend of Blanche's, and had been presented to her as a compensation for her banished dolls. His upbringing had, however, caused her much more anxiety than that of her flaxen darlings. He had been a terribly troublesome baby, and developed a frightful bump of destructiveness. He took so very long to cut his teeth, and was always helping on the process by using various appliances in the shape of boots, gloves, and muffs. But at length his partiality for these, as articles of consumption, somewhat abated, and he developed instead the useful faculty of carrying them, and restoring them to their owners, generally with much reluctance, but withal in a sound condition. He possessed various other accomplishments, which Blanche had taken pains to teach him, but they were of a more striking than graceful character, it must be allowed. He could shut a door, which feat he performed with his two great paws, with a terrific bang, to the utter detriment of the paint and polish, not to speak of the nerves of the household. His manners were still, even at mature age, sadly wanting in repose, and when he was in society, Blanche never felt quite comfortable as to what he might do next, so very gushing was he to his friends, and quite alarmingly demonstrative in another direction towards strangers. As he stood on the castle steps with his little mistress, he spied a kilted native, at some distance off, and was preparing to pounce upon him, when he was collared by Blanche. Then it occurred to her that she might be able to get some information from this Highlander about the subject which was still uppermost in her mind--the mystery of the little window-visitor; but Miss Prosser just at that moment emerged with finished toilette, all ready for the promised walk.

On returning from the walk, Blanche wandered in among the old ash-trees, and seating herself on a lichen-spotted stone, she resolved to wait there, in order to catch the first glimpse of her father on his way from the moors. The walk along the dusty high road, by Miss Prosser's side, had by no means suited Blanche's adventurous plans for the day. But to-morrow it would be different, she thought, resolving that she should awake very early in the morning, and as soon as the dogs began to bark, she would go out and join her papa, and he would be sure to allow her to go with him.

Presently she heard her father's voice, and saw him coming sauntering along the avenue of birch-trees which led to the castle. Running forward to meet him, she said eagerly, "O papa! you will take me to-morrow, will you not? I do want so very much to get upon those glorious hills."

Blanche stopped suddenly, for, behind her father, she caught sight of a man, staring intently at her, whom she felt sure she had never seen before. He was a dark, keen-looking man, with iron-grey hair, a smooth face, and heavy eyebrows, which met on the straight ridge of his nose. He was tall and spare and agile-looking, dressed in shepherd-tartan, and across his shoulder one or two game-pouches were slung. He seemed rather taken by surprise when Blanche suddenly emerged from among the ash-trees, and now he stood seemingly absorbed in examining the trophies of the day's sport, with which a pony by his side was laden; but he was really surveying the little girl by a series of keen glances.

"Why what an enterprising little puss it is, to be sure!" replied Mr. Clifford, laughingly. "You shall certainly go to the hills, but we must first try to find a pony, seeing Neige is not within reach. Look what a grand day's sport we have had, Blanchie," and taking her hand, Mr. Clifford, led her to where the pony stood, laden with the game.

Blanche gazed horror-struck. The only dead creature she had ever seen was a pet canary, on which a stray cat had designed to sup, when the delicate morsel was taken from between the feline teeth, and had received a burial worthy of the historical Cock Robin. But here were more birds than she could count, as beautiful, and perhaps as lovable, as the canary of pathetic memory, killed, not by stray cats for their suppers, but by her own kind papa and his friends. There they hung in masses, with their bronze feathers shining in the sun, the speckled wings that flapped so merrily in the morning, hanging limp and listless now, the little heads downward, and the tiny beaks and eyes half open, just as they had been fixed in their death agony.

"This is my little daughter, Dingwall," said Mr. Clifford, turning to the man standing alongside, whom Blanche had noticed. "She would give me no rest till I brought her to see your Glen, and now she actually wants to go to shoot with us."

"Oh no, papa! indeed I don't--not now," broke in Blanche, in a tone of distress, and, glancing at the gamekeeper, she saw him still looking at her with a queer smile on his thin lips. Whether it was from his connection with the dead spoil, or from something in his face which repelled her, Blanche made up her mind that she did not like the keeper.

Presently he untied one of the brace of grouse, and lifting a wing under which the cruel death-wound was visible, he held it up, saying, "Maybe the leddy would be likin' to hae a wing for her hat: I've heard o' the gentlefolk wearin' sic things; but 'deed it's but few o' them we hae seen this mony a day."

"Oh no! please not. I should not like to have a wing at all," said Blanche, clasping her hands in a beseeching attitude.

"Why, pussy, what is the matter? Am I not to be forgiven for starting before you were up this morning? Never mind; we shall beg Miss Prosser for a holiday to-morrow, and you shall go to the moors, mounted on a little Shetlander."

"It is not that, papa. I'm afraid I shan't want to go to the moors any more now. I think it must be very dreadful. These poor killed birds! how can you stand and see them all die, papa?"

"Well, I can't say I should like to make a microscopic inspection of their dying moments. After the aim is taken and the shot fired, the fun is over."

"But, papa, how can you shoot those happy birds flying in the air, and not doing any harm?"

"Why, goosey, for the same reason as you knock down your nine-pins--for the sake of sport, to be sure," replied Mr. Clifford laughing at the distressed face of his little daughter.

"Come and shut up this little philosopher, Major," he continued, turning to one of his guests, a kindly-looking old gentleman, who had come sauntering up and joined them. "She is quite shocked at the monstrous cruelty we have been guilty of to-day. I begin to feel quite like the Roman Emperor you were telling me of the other day, Blanche; only flies were his special partiality, were they not?"

"Ah! depend upon it, Blanche has been having a course of Wordsworth," said the Major, as he shook hands. "Is it not he who says--

'Never to blend our pleasure or our pride With sorrow to the meanest thing that lives?'

But I shouldn't have thought you had arrived at the Wordsworthian stage yet--eh! Miss Blanchie?" said the kindly old gentleman, as he looked smilingly at the distressed little damsel.

But Blanche was in no mood for joking just then; she glided away towards the castle, and, finding her way to her room, she sat down at the window from which she had got her first glimpse of the glen.

The bright morning light had all vanished now, and the hills looked grey and solemn in the gathering twilight. A great silence seemed to have fallen on the moors. Blanche could hear no bleating of sheep, no cry of the moor-fowl, no merry whirring of wings; and, to her fanciful little brain, it seemed as if the valley were mourning for its dead, for the little birds that would never sleep on the heather again, or mount to the sky with the returning sun.

And as Blanche sat thinking in the gathering darkness, she got among those crooked things that cannot be made straight by any theories of ours, those mysteries which we must be content to leave to the wise love of Him who has told us that not a sparrow falls to the ground without the knowledge of that heavenly Father who had watched over this little girl always, counting her of more value than many sparrows.

Blanche was not sorry to have her reveries interrupted by her maid Ellis coming into the room, bringing lights with her. And as she laid out the pretty white frock and blue sash, in which Blanche was to be dressed for the evening, she said, "Well, missie, and how have you enjoyed your first day in the 'Ighlands of Scotland?--more than I've done, I hope? There's cook raging, fit to make one's life a burden about all those birds to pluck. She says it will just be game, game, right on now, till one feels ashamed to meet a bird."

"Oh! hush, Ellis. Please don't speak to me about those birds. I cannot get them out of my head. It does seem so very sad."

"Why, Miss Blanche, you're as bad as cook. For my part, I think they're uncommon good eating."

"It isn't that, Ellis; but only think how happy they all were this morning among those hills, and now--I wonder how papa could do it! It does seem so cruel."

"Come now, missie, that's what I won't stand to hear noways--the master called cruel! A more kinder 'arted gentleman don't step. He wouldn't hurt a fly--that he wouldn't. You'll be a callin' my old father a murderer next, because he's a butcher, I suppose, missie?"

"Oh! that's quite different, Ellis," said Blanche, apologetically. "But, to be sure, what lots of killing there is! It does seem very dreadful, when one thinks of it."

"Well, missie, you don't think it dreadful to eat a mutton-chop when you are hungry, I'll warrant." And this retort seemed quite unanswerable at the moment; so Ellis had the last word, as the last curl was adjusted, and her little mistress descended to join her father and his guests in the drawing-room.

Blanche watched wistfully for an opportunity of a quiet talk with her papa; she had so many things that she wanted to say to him. There was still a secret hankering in the bottom of her heart to go to the moors, for she could not bear to think of another day without him. But the time came to say 'Good-night' before any opportunity for a private talk offered itself, and Blanche went to sleep after her first day in the Highlands with a disappointed heart.

III.

_MORAG'S HOME._

ON the rocky ledge of a hill overlooking the Glen, there was perched a little hut, which seemed as if it had huddled itself against the rugged, grey crags for protection, and stood on its morsel of grassy turf trembling at the wild scene around. The mountains, which from the valley looked serene and blue, reared themselves above the tiny white shieling in dark towering masses, and the river seemed like a silver thread as it took its winding way through the strath.

On the same Christmas Eve as Blanche Clifford was born in her sheltered English home, another little girl had come into the world in that rocky eyrie among the mountains; and Morag Dingwall, too, was left motherless from the hour of her birth. Her father was gamekeeper at Glen Eagle; the hut had been built by his grandfather, who, in his day, ruled over the realms of deer and grouse in the glen; and it had once been a better-cared-for home than it was in these later days. Careful fingers had striven to repair the ravages of the wind and rain, for the little shieling was mercilessly exposed to both; the shelter the great gray rocks offered being a treacherous one, and its foundation damp. There had once been an attempt made to delve a _kailyard_ out of the unfruitful soil, and the turf in front of the cottage was kept smooth and trim. But the present possessor of the hut did not seem to care to make the most of his barren, rocky home; he merely grumbled about it from time to time to the land-agent, the only representative whom he ever saw of the Highland lord who owned the Glen. But the factor thought that such a great strong fellow as Dingwall might mend his own roof, while the keeper thought that such a great rich fellow as the laird might give him a new roof, and a new house too; so year after year the rain had come drip, drip, through the porous roof on the earthen floor, ever since Morag could remember, till she had got quite used to it, and to a great many things besides.

The keeper was a strange man, and had led a strange life in his early days, the people of the Glen said. When a lad he had suddenly left Glen Eagle one winter, and he appeared only to have returned to take his father's place, when the old man was laid in the little grave-yard on the hillside. And a better gamekeeper could not have been found. He knew every foot of the Glen by heart. He was the best angler in the country side. There was no keener eye and no steadier hand in all Stratheagle; he could spy the game at incredible distances, and knew every winding path, each short cut, all deceptive bogs. People said that the little Morag was the only human being whom Alaster Dingwall ever really loved. He had reared his baby-daughter with his own hands, the kennels had been her nursery, the dogs her playmates. As soon as she was able to toddle, he had taken her to the moors, often strapped on his back, fast asleep. Before Morag was seven years old she had become almost as hardy a mountaineer as her father, going with him to the hills, carrying his game-bag, trotting by his side, with her little bare feet among the heather. She could handle an oar and cast a rod as well as most people; it was her little deft fingers that _busked_ the hooks for the loch, and did a great many useful things besides. Long ago the keeper had entrusted the cares of housekeeping, such as they were, to Morag. It was she who cooked, washed, mended, and kept things going in a kind of way. Occasionally the father and daughter would start on an expedition to the village, which was miles away, to make purchases at the merchant's shop, and lay in a store of provisions before the period of snowing-up came round. These were always red-letter days in little Morag's calendar. Sometimes, though very rarely, there was an attempt made to replace the little tattered tartan frock by a new garment, bought at the general store. If you had happened to look into the hut on a winter evening, you might have seen the father and daughter bending in perplexity over a wooden table, on which were strewn the rough materials for Morag's new frock. Great and many seemed the difficulties in the way, but at last Dingwall would boldly put in the scissors, a big and rusty weapon used for general purposes, and then the various stages of dress-making would be gone through, clumsily enough to be sure; but in process of time, Morag would stand in her finished garment, a more proud and happy little girl than Blanche Clifford, in the latest novelty of her London _modiste_.

They were a very silent pair, this father and daughter. Often they would wander whole days among the heather together without exchanging words, or sit in the _ingle neuk_ by the fire of peat and pine in dumb silence, while they cleaned guns or busked hooks, during the long winter evenings. But notwithstanding his grim silence, and whatever he might appear to the outer world, to his little daughter Dingwall he was always kind, and she loved him with all the intensity of her still, Celtic nature, and thought that he was the very best father in all the world. During her short, solitary life she had never known anybody else, and had hardly exchanged words with a living soul, old or young. Poor little Morag had grown up utterly untaught. Like the pointers, her playmates, she had grown very clever in some things--in mountain knowledge, in dexterity of fingers and agility of limb. But there were wants in her nature utterly unsupplied, chambers in her heart and soul into which light had never penetrated. Made in the image of God, she had never heard His name; redeemed by Jesus Christ, she knew not that such a One had lived and died for men. Though she had grown in the midst of God's glorious works, she did not guess that He who made the "high hills as a refuge for the wild goats," who "sent the springs into the valleys which flow among the hills," was the loving, pitying Father who had watched her lonely wanderings, and would bring this blind child by a way that she knew not, and make "darkness light before her!"

Most of the children of Scotland learn at least to read and write at the parish school, so Morag Dingwall's case was therefore an exceptional one, and arose partly from her peculiar circumstances. She was an hourly necessity to her father, who, besides, held in scorn other training than that which loch and mountain afforded. The few books which the hut contained led quite a fossil existence; they were stowed away by the careful little Morag in the bottom of a great wooden box, her mother's _kist_, in the depths of which all the valuables were buried to save them from the inroads of the weather, when the pelting rain beat through the broken roof, as it often did. Still, these buried musty books had a great fascination for Morag; often she would peer curiously into them, and long to know what they contained. She often wondered whether her father understood their contents; she thought not; but so great was her under-current of shyness that she had never ventured to ask him. Often on a quiet afternoon, when her work was done, she would slip one of the old books from its hiding-place, and lying down on the soft turf, would ponder over its unknown characters, with an intense longing to understand them. She felt sure that those closely-printed pages must contain much that it would be delightful to know; but they were not for her. With a sigh she would close the book, and gaze up at the fathomless blue sky and the everlasting hills around her; and sitting at the feet of the great, wonderful mother Nature, she learnt from her many things that books could not have taught her.

Morag had a true eye for beauty. It is sometimes said that mountaineers do not appreciate the scenery amid which their lot is cast; and perhaps it is so far true, that when the stern hard necessities of life multiply, they may dull the sense of the wonder and glory of nature in minds which were originally sensitive to it. With our little Morag, however, this deadening process had not begun. She revelled in all the beauties of her mountain home; with a poet's love she gave voices to the brooks and woods, and peopled in her imagination the solemn pine forest, the gloomy ravine, and the breezy mountain top.

The Glen was many miles from the nearest parish, with its church and school. There were dwellers in Glen Eagle who went to both, but the keeper Dingwall was not one of them; and so it happened, strange as it may seem, that little Morag had never been within a church, never heard a sweet psalm sung, nor joined in a prayer to God.