Part 10

''Tis a fine clear evening to take the air,' said Herries, 'and if Miss Graham walks, may I have the honour to escort her to the Potterrow?' His glance was searching hers. His escort ... through the grim streets, under these rosy skies of the winter twilight? Her eyes shone acquiescence. And then--and then she remembered Nancy's letter, and the willing answer died on her lips.

*CHAPTER XXIII.*

Herries was waiting for her to speak; his quick eye caught, first, the eager, answering look, then the cloud, the hesitation, the confusion.

'I could not trouble you to come with me, sir,' said Alison, in a low voice, her eyes on the ground. 'Willy and I know the way well.' There was the unmistakable note of refusal in her speech.

Herries raised his eyebrows; his irritable pride was at once in arms. 'Very well,' he said coldly; 'then I will have a coach called. At this New Year season you cannot be permitted to walk in the streets at this hour, with no protection but Willy.'

'I wish to walk, sir,' said Alison, miserably. She was, indeed, a poor actress; inventions and excuses came never a one to her aid. Mr. Creighton advanced unexpectedly to her rescue.

'These coaches,' he said, 'are a terrible expense, the drivers extortionate, indeed, especially going up the town. There is the lass, Mysie, sir,'--to Herries,--'could she not be spared to accompany Miss Graham?'

'She is big enough to do the dragon, certainly,' said Herries, with a short laugh. 'Mysie be it, then; I'll have her told.' He left the room, with an air of offence, to give the order.

''Tis a pity you could not let Mr. Herries go with you,' Mr. Creighton said softly to Alison. 'The walk would have done him good; he sits too confined to his work.'

Alison raised her grey eyes to the old man's face; they were dimmed with her vexation, her shame. But she had no time to speak, for Herries returned to say, curtly, that Mysie waited below for her charges, and presently both gentlemen saw their guests to the door.

When Herries returned to his room, followed by his partner, he kicked at the fine fire in his grate, a way he had when annoyed.

'Madam was up to some little trick, there,' he said sharply.

'Tut! tut!' said Creighton. 'Why jump to ill conclusions, sir? We men of the law are too apt to be suspicious. It does not do with women; they have ways with them that seem little and secret to us, but are quite innocent.'

'I like no such ways,' said Herries, dourly. 'What has she to hide? Why could she not let me go with her?'

'For the very reason, lad,' cried his partner, in desperation, 'that there comes a time when a lass will not do, for proper pride, the very thing that her heart longs for most. 'Tis near on thirty years since I had to do with a woman in kindness, but I remember that. Man, did you not see the colour on her cheek and the glint in her eye, when you first spoke?'

'A man that is not fool and puppy does not see such things,' said Herries, virtuously.

But he was mollified.

Alison, meanwhile, was by no means enjoying her walk home. Her heart was hot and sore within her. It was hard to have missed that pleasant escort, to have been obliged to offend so kind a friend. Would he forgive her? These melancholy thoughts were interrupted by Willy, who, generally an active child, was lagging in a tiresome way.

'Ally,' he said at last, with the dire directness of childhood, 'I am feeling _that_ sick....'

'You have had too much cake,' said Alison, sternly.

''Twasn't my fault, then,' cried Willy, resentfully, ''twas that old man that made me.' And ruefully he put a hand just where the 'Sunday suit' fastened with most unpleasant tightness over Mr. Creighton's too liberal hospitality. But no terrible results ensued, and Alison had soon forgotten Willy's woes in wonder at the strangeness of the escort which Herries had substituted for his own.

Mysie was certainly an odd figure. What a queer young woman for a servant, Alison thought, and with what very strange manners! Mysie, in a draggled cotton gown, and screen by no means modestly covering her charms, was no sooner out of sight of her master's windows, than she began to stalk along as though the town belonged to her, swinging her arms, occasionally casting a sly, sideward glance at her companions, but more often leering at a passer-by. It was the New Year time, and the streets were full of half-drunken loafers of both sexes. Mysie soon attracted all the attention that she wanted; shouts of laughter began to follow her, and soon a sorry jest or two. Her bold manner grew bolder, her step more free; yet, in the abandonment of her air, there would have been apparent, to an experienced eye, rather recklessness and despair than any genuine flaunting. There was, too, a peculiarity in her gait which Alison was too young to note, or to understand, had she noted it. Only the odd behaviour of the woman struck her. It was very disagreeable. She tightened her clasp of Willy's hand, and quickened her pace.

But at the end of Princess Street she had to stop. There was that odious letter to be delivered, and delivered secretly, as Alison well understood. 'Mysie,' she said, with what courage she could summon, 'I wish to turn up here on a message. Wait here, if you please, with the young gentleman, until I return.'

'Na, I'll no wait,' retorted Mysie, with a cunning look. 'I'm for comin' wi' ye.'

Alison knew not what to do; resistance, she felt, would only make a scene.

'I am only going to leave a letter in the square,' she said quietly; 'you can come if you choose.'

'Whatna square?' enquired Mysie.

Alison did not answer, but hurried on. When St. James's Square opened up before them, she felt a hand upon her arm.

'What's the like o' you doin' here?' Mysie asked, in a fierce whisper. But when they came to the accustomed door, and Alison stopped, the woman released her hold, and burst into a peal of laughter. 'Here,' she cried, '_Here_! Eh, lass, but this dings a'! You anither o' them, and you in silks and satins! Eh, but he's a braw lad!' She held her sides with laughter, arms akimbo, and stared at Alison with her strange, wild eyes. Alison was now certain she was demented.

'Come away, come away,' she said soothingly; she had hurriedly slipped the letter in between the door and its lintel. But Mysie would not be cajoled.

'Anither o' his jo's!' she ejaculated, and then she bent to Alison's ear, 'Whar is't ye meet him, lass? And what is't ye pit intil the letter? I canna write him ma'sel', or I would--I would--my certes, yes!' Alison tried to shake her off.

'I don't know what you are talking of,' she said, 'and neither do you. The letter is neither your business nor mine.'

'Ah, ye needna be tellin' me that!' said Mysie. 'But I'se no trament ye, lass,' she added, with a sudden change of tone. 'We maun be movin', too.' The unhappy creature sighed; her mood of excitement seemed over, and she walked along quietly and dejectedly, her step dragging on the stones. Suddenly she paused, seizing Alison's arm. 'Lass,' she whispered, 'ye--ye ken him? Think ye he'll be guid to Mysie in her trouble?'

'Who? What trouble?' asked Alison, startled, and suddenly moved to a kind of shrinking pity for the woman. But Mysie did not explain, only gave her a strange look and heaved a convulsive sigh. To Alison, the disagreeable idea presented itself that her companion might babble among Herries's servants of the leaving of the letter. Well, where you desired silence you gave a fee. Nancy had taught her that. She felt in her pocket for her purse; there was only a crown in it, which seemed a great deal, but it must be given.

'This is for your trouble, Mysie,' she said, when they had reached the General's Entry, but the words suggesting discretion which she had meant to utter, literally stuck in her throat. They were unnecessary.

'I'se no tell on ye, lass,' said Mysie, with a cunning look, as her dirty fingers closed upon the coin. Alison shuddered, but dismissed her quietly.

The incident had disturbed her a good deal, and when she entered the parlour, she had a rather pale face and frightened eyes.

'Bless the child,' cried Nancy, who, with a litter of paper round her, was scribbling verses by the cosy hearth. 'What ails you? Has old Creighton's tea given you the indigestion? Be sure, love, if there was poison in the cup, 'twas meant for me! But, Ally, you look scared: what is it, love?'

''Twas--'twas nothing much,' said Alison, struggling to rid herself of the disagreeable impressions of her walk. 'Only, Mr. Herries has such a strange servant-lass that he sent across the town with us; she behaved so--so odd.' Nancy laughed.

'Was that all?' she said flippantly. 'Gentlemen have often "strange servant lasses," dear, and I dare say Archie, for all his prim ways, is no better than his neighbours.'

Alison's cheeks suddenly flamed scarlet, and her eyes blazed, as she caught the innuendo.

'That--that was a _wicked_ thought, Nancy,' she said.

'La--Innocence, don't look so scandalised,' laughed Nancy. 'What a spit-fire it is! But take my word for it, Ally, men are men, love, and not old maids!' which was an undeniable truth; and not a surprising one, perhaps, on the lips of the confidential friend of Mr. Burns, the poet.

*CHAPTER XXIV.*

The Bard had not visited the Potterrow on that evening, as Alison was not slow to discover. But Nancy was in a mood so gay, so full of sparkle, that her friend presumed that the famous visit was a pleasure only for a very little time deferred.

'Nancy,' Alison said, venturing on a subject which she felt was too mundane to find favour at the moment, 'Mr. Herries says that he takes Danny down to the seaside on Saturday.'

'Does he, love?' said Nancy, coolly. 'Well, 'tis vastly good of him, I'm sure. But if he expects dutiful maternal attendance from me on that day, he can't get it; for I'm most particularly engaged at home.'

'He--he begged of us both to come,' said Alison, in rather a low voice.

'Well, dear, 'twill be a nice jaunt for you,' said Nancy, cheerfully. 'And with you there to take care of Danny, the less need for me. 'Twas exactly so I planned it, in my own mind. Child, Ally, of what use you are to me! What did I do before I had you?' She came over to Alison's side of the hearth, patted the girl's cheek and playfully pulled a curl. But Alison's heart was troubled.

'Nancy,' she said, timidly, 'don't you think 'twill seem a little--a little odd to Mr. Herries that you do not go with poor Danny?'

'It may seem as odd as it pleases, love,' answered Nancy; 'I am not going.'

Alison looked at her friend in sore perplexity. There was--there had been for some time--a change working in the little woman, a hardening process, it seemed. It was a hiding process, too, for it seemed to raise a barrier between her and Alison, between her and the children, between her and the common, wholesome, pleasant things of every-day life. She let the girl, the children, the household,--the rest of the world, for that matter,--go their own ways; while she, absorbed, intent, wrapt in some dream, seemed to breathe a separate air. A kind of hard eagerness was taking the place of her old bright gaiety; a certain determined selfishness seemed to conquer the keen, if perhaps rather shallow, sympathy, that made her personality so winning in its normal phases. Wistfully, across the boundless levels of her girlish inexperience, Alison looked at her little friend. What ailed her? How could she help? One tremendous, one unswerving resolution formed itself gradually in the girl's mind at this time; she was there to help Nancy, to stand beside her through thick and thin. Nancy had helped her, had saved her from an abyss of life-long misery. She would be Nancy's friend to the last limits of undeviating loyalty.

But in the meantime, Alison being young, looked forward to Saturday; with rather a fearful joy, perhaps, for how was one to meet an offended--so justly offended--a friend as Mr. Herries, after the offence? She half-feared some message would arrive, coldly declining the pleasure of her society on Saturday's expedition. Was it not quite possible--probable, even? But Saturday arrived, bringing no such cruel message, however richly deserved; and Alison, from her little northern window, saw the Rose of Day blush and quiver through the cloudless winter sky, and knew that another glorious frost-bound day was granted for Danny's safe removal to the sea.

They made quite a triumphal procession going down to the Grassmarket. First went Jean, bearing in her stout arms the little invalid, almost lost in shawls; then came Alison, with his bundle and his box of toys; Willy capered in the rear; and Nancy, Nancy herself, armed with her own inimitable, charming, dazzling impudence, tripped down with them to see them off. She met her cousin with an unabashed front.

'I am not coming, Archie,' she said, in a plaintive tone, and with a melting glance. 'My mother's tact tells me 'tis better to have the parting with my poor Danny now, and here, whilst the child is excited with the start and the pleasure of his drive. Were I to come, and then leave him in a strange place, there'd be a sad scene, most detrimental to his health, and shattering to my poor nerves.' Herries simply raised his eyebrows; but he presently drew his cousin aside, while the others were busy setting Danny and his belongings in the coach.

'I am rather doubtful,' he said, with an unusual air of indecision, 'doubtful of the propriety of my--ahem--taking Miss Graham upon this excursion alone.'

'Doubtful of a fiddlestick, Archie,' retorted his cousin with vivacity. 'La, cousin, who could the poor child go with if not with you? Ain't you safe as a convent? and then with the two little fellows and all-- You're joking, surely? You'd never disappoint the girl of her jaunt for such a silly reason?'

Herries said no more, but he looked rather spitefully at his cousin. Perhaps he was not flattered at being told he was 'as safe as a convent.'

In the meantime, the coach was ready for its start. Herries had selected a fine roomy vehicle, with a glass front, and had ordered three horses. Danny was in a seventh heaven of delight, and so forgot the pain of parting. There was a cracking of whips, a tremendous clatter of hoofs on the cobbles, a cheer from the little crowd that had collected to see the start. Nancy, from the causeway, fluttered a dainty pocket-handkerchief, and Jean waved her work-worn hand. Hers were the only tears that watered this farewell; one or two fell on her coarse apron as she trudged home behind her mistress.

'Yon poor bairn will never come back,' she said to herself, and drew the back of her hand across her eyes.

The village of Prestonpans lies, as all men know, about ten miles east of Edinburgh, on the shores of the Firth of Forth, as it widens to the sea. It is a fine drive down there, by the Portobello and the Musselburgh roads, for you perceive that there widens out before you one of the great waterways of the world--the ocean-path to this cold northern country of our love. Perhaps only the trading vessels and the fishing boats go there now, but it was the galleons of old that cleaved that mighty swirl, half river and half sea, and the sailing ships that brought Queen Mary to her fateful kingdom, curtseyed to that tawny tide. The instructive Herries was not slow to point out these matters to his young companions. There was no cloud upon his august brow, and so Alison became very happy. They were busy with the little boys all the way down, curbing the frantic excitement of Willy, who had been promised an hour on the sands, and encouraging Danny, whose spirit flagged, and who asked plaintive and difficult questions about his mother's absence. It was high noon when they rattled into Prestonpans, and Alison stepped out into the village street, where the queer, little, secretive-looking white houses shouldered each other on to the road, and the growl of the sea could be heard at their backs.

The woman who was to have the charge of Danny lived in a little house to which you climbed by a wooden outside stair. She was a most cheerful person, whom Herries addressed as 'Isabella,' and who, in her turn, patted him on the shoulders, and called him 'Master Archie.' She bustled them all into the warm, clean, homely cottage, and showed off with pride her preparations for Danny's sojourn--his little bed covered with a patch-work quilt, his chair with a cushion on it, the very kitten to play with 'when he wearied.' She lugged out of some recess a curious old battered tin vessel, bearing some faint resemblance to the modern hip bath.

'Ye see,' she said, 'I'm well acquaint wi' they delicut bairns. It's a while sin' syne, but I had ane wi' me--the brawest bairn ever ye saw--but he had the one leg shorter than the t'ither, and ay the somethin' wrong wi' the one foot; an' it was the sea watter for him too. Here's his bit bath--I hae ay keepit it. One Walter Scott they ca'd him,' she added, 'a writer's son; a gran' strappin' callant now, though he hirples yet; but he's mindfu' o' an auld body, and comes to see me whiles.' And her listeners of that benighted generation heard that wonder-working name, and knew it not for a magician's!

Then it was arranged that Alison and her escort should take Willy to the sands while the day was at its best, and when they came back Isabella would give them a 'sup o' broth and a tattie,' she said, 'to warm them up before the long drive home.'

*CHAPTER XXV.*

It was one of those days when the land lies under the spell of a long and sunny frost; the ground rang iron to the foot, but the sea smiled and sparkled to the sun, and the Lomonds of Fife, beyond the Firth, were clear against the winter sky. Herries and his companions walked briskly down the village and along the links. Away to their right stretched the fields, where, not a generation since, the blood of a great battle had been spilt, but where now the peaceful stubble grew over the scattered implements of war and over the bones of men,--and quiet cottages smoked to tranquil skies.

'Shouldn't you like to be a soldier, Willy?' Alison asked the little boy, who pranced beside her, tugging at her arm.

'Yes,' said Willy, 'I'd like to be a soldier. But I shouldn't like to be shot,' he added, cautiously.

''Tis a fancy of all boys,' said Herries. 'They don't all qualify it, like Willy here. It was more than a fancy with me, God knows!'

'With you, sir?' asked Alison, in surprise.

'I dreamed of soldiering,' said Herries, bitterly, 'till I waked to find myself tied to a desk.'

'Was--was it a great disappointment, sir?' asked Alison, timidly.

'One of those disappointments that mark a man for life, I think,' said Herries, tersely. 'Nearly all my family in the past bore arms, and the love of it is in my blood. 'Tis the gentleman's profession, to my mind. But I was a sickly boy, and held unfit to apply for His Majesty's commission, so behold me, a poor scrivener, at your service!'

Alison stole a look at the speaker. Could it be the fine, the successful, the apparently self-sufficient Mr. Herries who spoke thus feelingly of disappointment? To Alison, it seemed that such a man must always have,--must always have had,--all that he wanted. But, evidently, this was not so.

'I'll not be so afraid of him now,' thought Alison.

They had come to another little village, just of fishermen's huts, that seem to cling to the very rocks of the sea. Here there was a harbour, and the delicate tracery of masts and rigging rose against the sky. As they stood watching, a little fleet of fishing boats--catching a faint breath of the freezing wind--unfurled their tanned brown sails, and put to sea.

'Ah, Willy, see the bonny boats!' cried Alison; and catching the boy by the hand, she ran with him away down the little street, and out upon the sandy links beyond.

Herries followed at his leisure, his hands behind him, and his head bent. The few words-that, he had spoken of himself to Alison had disturbed his serenity; such words, however commonplace, when spoken of the inner self by a man so wrapt in reserve as Herries, are apt to affect the speaker thus, for their utterance is the breaking of the rule and habit of a life. He stood, and looked absently seawards. A schooner, under full sail, was beating up the firth. How slow, how infinitely tedious, was her tacking course! It seemed to Herries, just then, to typify his own life, for ever beating up against the wind of his tastes and inclinations, in the uncongenial profession of his adoption. Had anyone asked Herries the ruling motive of his existence at this time, he would have answered, drearily enough, and with no thought of taking credit to himself, 'A sense of duty.' Sober, in an age of drunkenness, and constitutionally fastidious where the manners of the times permitted, and even sanctioned, an extreme of licence--Herries had something of the melancholy in him, which dogs a man who is born before his time. Neither boon companions had he, nor social pleasures, nor tender friendships; all these he seemed to have outgrown. Life, at the very springs of it, seemed to have gone dry. And yet he was a man with all the appurtenances of success, who commanded the respect of other men, and held his head above the crowd. Duty--success--respect.... How laudable it sounded! And yet there was something wanting, greater than all these.

He strolled on along the links, while Alison and Willy ran races on the sands. Evidently the races were warm work, for Alison had dropped her pelisse, and left it on the grassy ledge where the links break into the shore. Herries sat down beside it, in the sun. He slipped a half-frozen hand beneath its folds; it was still warm from her wearing, and a curious emotion thrilled him at the contact, as though his blood ran warmer. Presently Alison came herself to where he sat, glowing from her run--panting, rosy, happy. Heavens! what a breath of life--young life--the creature brought along with her. Her curls were blown about by the wind; her eyes were bright--they had the wide-open, innocent look of a child's. Herries looked at her, and a terrible ache of longing took hold of him--whether it was for her, or just for what she stood for, of all that was lacking in his own life--he could not tell. It is very difficult to say when, to a nature of Herries's reserve, his critical hesitancy and profound fastidiousness--the divine moment comes, and the proud man's approval first melts into the tenderness of passion. But with Herries, I rather think it was then--on that sunny morning on the sandy links--when Alison stood before him, with the sea behind her, and the ribbon falling from her loosened curls. True, all that he said was, pointing with an instructive arm,--

'That is the Berwick road, Miss Graham. And over there, that odd-shaped hill you see--that is North Berwick Law.' But there, again, was the nature of the man; once a feeling had him, it then became too inward for common recognition, and far too sacred for speech.

After that, they retraced their steps, and Herries, who felt somehow that he had been erring on the side of sentimentality, instituted a thorough and improving examination of the antiquities of Prestonpans. Willy, it is true, showed symptoms of rebellion, but Alison, though rather cold and hungry, followed, ready and smiling, with that infinite patience for the foibles of a man, as for the gambols of a child, which comes as naturally to some women--well, as naturally as love itself.

They had a very pleasant hour in Isabella's cottage, as a subsequent reward. They supped broth at the fireside, and got warmed through and through. There was a grand platter of potatoes, boiled in their jackets, so hot that nobody could touch them.