Part 4

Such were the external characteristics of the inhabitants of the old red-tiled dwelling, so long known by the name of Dominie Dempster's House, in the village of Old Broughton; and, if we will form a character out of a combination of the virtues that dignified and graced the wives and daughters of the old Cameronians, we might make a fair approach to the dispositions and habits of this solitary pair, whose earthly stay and support being gone, trusted implicitly to Heaven, for what Heaven has seldom denied to the good. The mother was one of those happily-constituted beings, whose minds are so completely formed, as it were, upon the Bible, that not only were her actions regulated by the precepts of the holy book, but her thoughts were naturally and almost unconsciously expressed in Scripture language; nor could it be said that, dearly as she loved the old defenders of our faith, who reared their temples among the mountains, and died on the altars, she imitated their speech and manners merely because she loved their virtues--she only drew from the same fountain from which they drew; and the water that slaked their thirst in the wilderness of their persecution sustained her in the hour of her privation. Obeying the holy behest, "Let thine heart retain my words," she made the religion of Christ "the life of her soul;" and that which was a part of her spirit could not fail to regulate her conversation. An heir of an ever-blessed eternity, in which she believed soon to enter, the only worldly feeling that bound her to life was her desire to see her beloved Menie exhibit the fruits of her parental culture as fair to the eye of virtue, as the many simple beauties of her person--her blooming Scotch face, with the blue eye, and cheek that rivalled the peach in softness and colour; her mermaiden hair, and the graces of an almost perfect harmony of proportions--were to the eye of the admirer of female loveliness. And this the mother had already in part seen in the evolution of all those estimable qualities of the heart, that, when joined to physical beauty, form the fairest object among all the fair creatures of this fair but fleeting world.

It is a trite saying, that female beauty seldom brings happiness to the possessor, even when it is combined with that goodness that ought to guard the children of virtue from the evils of life; and this was to some extent verified by almost the first of the acts of our younger heroine's intercourse with the world; for she secured the heart of a lover even against her own will, and, with the unsought-for boon, got unwittingly the envy, and deep but concealed hatred, of her earliest friend and companion. The son of the farmer of the Mains of Inverleith, a property in the neighbourhood, George Wallace, had for some time been paying his addresses to Margaret Grierson, the daughter of the occupant of one of the small cottages of Broughton; and his success was in proportion to the attractions of a fine manly figure, and considerable power of that species of conversation which, with love ever on its wings, finds a ready access to the hearts of women. Though his passion had not been declared, it had, by the anticipative selfishness of the sex, been assumed and claimed by the object of his attentions; and Menie had been so far made a confidant of her companion, as to be intrusted with the secret of a love which had as yet been declared only on one side. The communication was sufficient to prevent the simple friend, even if there had been in her disposition any spirit of rivalship--a feeling which found no place in her breast--from presenting even an opportunity for Wallace discovering in her qualities with which her companion could not have competed; and she uniformly maintained, in the presence of the lovers, a quiet reserve, which afforded pleasure to the one, but, perhaps, only tended to quicken in the other a comparison that operated in a manner contrary to the wishes of the confidant. Time, and the frequent meetings and wanderings by the banks of the Leith--then comparatively a sweet and rural stream, especially about the low grounds of Warriston and Inverleith--soon elicited the merits of the two companions; and Wallace was not slow to perceive that, fair and interesting as his first object had appeared to him, she was eclipsed in all the finest attributes of woman by her who had never taken the trouble to display her estimable properties. The reserve of the one--the result of a natural modesty, and of a strict training according to the rules of the wisest of men--set off the freedom of the other as little better than forwardness; while her excellent sense, and an inborn susceptibility of the finest and purest feelings of the sex, whether stirred by the flowers of the field arrayed in their simple beauties, or the heaven-born genius of virtue working its pleasant ways in the hearts of man, brought out, by a contrast dangerous to her friend, the defects of a character that Wallace, in his first blindness, had taken for perfections. The result might have been anticipated by all but the unwitting possessor herself of virtues of which she was unconscious; and it was with no affected surprise that, one night, when walking by the moonlight along the brattling Leith, she heard poured into her ear a strain of impassioned sentiments that ought to have been reserved for another, who had a prior and a better right to them.

The startled girl flew home to her mother, and narrated, as nearly as she could recollect, the high-flown expressions of Wallace's changed love; not forgetting to add, that the young man had declared upon his honour that he had never declared any affection for her companion. Overpowered with sorrow for her friend, the tear glistened in her eye as she sat and told her simple tale to her mother, who lifted up her face from the open book, to observe in the delicate workings of a well-trained heart the fruits of her maternal care.

"Your sorrow for Margaret Grierson, child," she said, "is a scented offering to auld friendships; but 'when thou wilt do good, know to whom thou doest it, so shalt thou be thanked for thy benefits.' I like not the bearing and manners o' yer companion, for I hae seen in her the office o' whisperer, and the fascinations o' the singer, wha would kindle love by her smiles, and unholy discord by her wiles. Her vanity, like the gaudy streamers o' her head-gear, winnows wi' every wind but that which comes frae the airth, whar God's chastening tribulations hae their holy birth. Ye may be surprised to hear me speak thus o' ane wha has sae lang enjoyed the first place in your young affections; but my auld een hae a quick turn in them when vanity rideth abroad. She has other lovers than George Wallace, and other places and other trystin-trees than the banks o' Leith, or the auld willow that grows by the horse's pool, at the foot o' the bonny brae o' Warriston. Sorrows she for George Wallace, think ye, when she sits amang the ruins o' the hospital o' Greenside, and hears the love tale o' vanities frae the lips o' secret lovers?"

"A' that's new to me, mother," answered the daughter. "I never dreamed that Peggy had ony ither than George. Wha are they, and how cam ye by the knowledge?"

"Never mind, Menie," said the mother, "how I cam by the knowledge. Though my eyes, like Jeremiah's, are auld, and do fail with tears, I hae neither the blindness o' the mole nor the deafness o' the adder. But let thae things alone; we hae nae right to pry into the secrets o' our neighbours' ways, albeit they may savour o' the vanities o' Baal. It is enough for me that I warn ye against the 'lamps o' fire' that scorch as well as light. George Wallace is a rich and an honest man's son; and if, as I believe, he has plighted nae troth with the follower o' vanities and double-loves, ye're no bound to reject his affections. Can your heart receive him, Menie?"

"Ou ay," replied the maiden, as she held down her head, and seemed afraid of the strange sounds of her own words. "I hae seen nae man yet like George Wallace, and I hae chided my puir heart for sometimes envying Peggy o' his affections. But are we not told to change not a freend for the gold of Ophir?"

"Surely, child," responded the mother--"a true freend o' God's election is better than fine gold; but she who seeketh vanity understands not the name o' freendship, and her kisses are as those o' the serpent. Seek nae mair the society o' Margaret Grierson; leave her to her secret thoughts and secret lovers, and turn your heart to him wha has routh o' means to support ye, and whase love is the love o' the heart that kens nae guile."

The counsel of her parent was ever a law to the daughter; but there was something in the advice she now gave that exercised an influence over Menie's heart, or rather there was something in the heart itself, of a nature hitherto unknown to its possessor, that acknowledged and recognised the influence as more congenial to her feelings than any authority of spoken wisdom (though founded on the words of the son of Sirach) she had yet submitted to. The secret of this feeling lay in the well-springs of an affection that had been pent up by her sense of honour; but now, when she found that she was justified in giving her heart its natural freedom to love the choice of her judgment, she lent in aid of its operations the creations of a young and glowing fancy, which soon pictured so many exquisite forms of beauty, both of mind and person, in the object of her rising affection, that, before another morning had dawned on her, she had become versant in the secret and sweet mystery of sighs and throbbings, hopes, fears, and aspirations, of experienced lovers. She now wished as ardently for another meeting with Wallace, as she had done for a separation on the occasion of their last interview. Nor did she wish in vain; for he, with a passion roused into a warmer flame by her resisting coyness and startled apprehension, sought her anxiously, to renew his suit, and remove all the scruples of conscience that lay in the way of a passion to be, as he hoped, returned. He little knew that part of the work had been already done to his hand by a mother's cherished counsel; and his joy may be more easily conceived than expressed, even by the electric words of love's inspired power, when he found that Menie not only loved him, but conceived she had a good title to repay him with a warmth of affection equal to that of his own. He was now a frequent visiter at her mother's house; and though he knew that all his motions were watched by her whom he had thus abruptly, though, perhaps, not without just cause, forsaken, he kept steady in his new attachment, and avowed openly a love of which the best man of his station in Scotland might have been proud.

The affection that is hallowed by the blessing of such a parent as Menie's possessed a good title to be excepted from the ordinary proverbial fate of the loves of the humble; but, unfortunately, the adverse circumstances, that, like harpies, follow the victims of the tender passion, acknowledged no limit to the sources from which they spring. The rejected maiden pursued her successful rival with all the bitterness of disappointment and envy; odious calumnies were fabricated, given to the tongue of inveterate scandal, and found their way to the sensitive ear of her whom they were intended to ruin. Unacquainted with the ways of a bad world, every individual in which she judged by the test of her own pure feeling--the universal error of young and unchilled hearts--her pain was equalled by her surprise, and she sought consolation on the breast of her lover, as they reclined upon the sloping and wood-covered banks of Inverleith.

"I hae bought ye dearly," said she, as she looked up in his face through her tears, "when, for your love, I paid the peace o' mind that was never troubled with the breath o' a dishonourable suspicion. The hail o' Broughton rings with the report that I betrayed my freend to secure your affections, and that I am unworthy o' them, as being a follower o' unlawful loves. My eyes hae never been dry since my heart was struck with the false charge. I hae looked to heaven, and found nae relief. My mother has tried to comfort me, by telling me o' the waes o' Ane higher than mortal man, wha was pursued to the death by envy and malice, and wha yet triumphed. You, George, hae alane the power to comfort me. Tell me that ye heed them not, and I will yet try to hold up my head among the honest daughters o' men."

"If ye heed them as little's I heed them, Menie," replied he, "there will be sma skaith though muckle scorn. Dry up your tears, love, and tell me if it is true" (and he laughed in playful mockery of her fears) "that you keep the weekly tryst, by the elm in Leith Loan, with the notorious Mike M'Intyre, the city guardsman?"

"George, George!--Oh man, how can ye mak light o' the sorrows o' yer ain Menie?" said the girl, as she heard the calumny come from the lips of her lover. "That is Margaret Grierson's charge against me; and, if ye knew that every word o' the falsehood gaes to my heart like the tongue o' the deaf adder--ay, even though they come on the wings o' yer playfu laugh--ye wad rather gie me the tears o' your pity than the consolation o' your mirth."

"And what better way, Menie, could I tak to prove my faith in my love's honesty," said he, as he clasped her in his arms, "than by dispersing the poisoned lie by the breath o' a hearty laugh. Nae mair o't--nae mair o't, Menie--I believe it not; and that ye may hae some faith in my statement, I'll put a question to ye. Will ye answer me fairly, wi' the truth and sincerity that your mother draws frae the fountain o' a' guidness--her auld Bible--and pours into yer heart in the dreary hour o' late, even as ye retire into the keepin o' Him who looks down on sleepin' innocence with the eye of love?"

"Ay will I, George," answered the maiden, "with the openness and sincerity with which I lay my sins on the footstool o' Heaven's mercy."

"Will ye consent to be George Wallace's wife on Fastern's E'en, and leave the city guardsman to your rival?"

"I am already yours, George," answered she, as she buried her head in his bosom, to conceal her blushes--"I am already yours, by a plighted faith that never will be broken; and it may be even as you say; but I wish nae ill to my enemies, and will spae nae waur fortune to Margaret Grierson, wha has injured me, than that she may get as guid a husband as you will, I trust, be to me."

"Kind, guid creature!" responded Wallace. "If the first part o' yer answer maks ye mine for life, the ither proves that ye are worthy o' me; for she wha wishes nae ill to her enemies will never do wrang by her freends. Gae and report to your mother what I hae said. The time is yet distant: but hope gies light wings to the hours o' lovers."

The two parted; and Menie, seeking the nearest way to her home, hurried along, her heart beating high with unutterable emotions, and with all the pain she had felt from the evil reports of her rival drowned in the intoxicating pleasure of being the betrothed of the man she loved. The moon, which had been throwing her silver light o'er the dark foliage that overhung the Leith, and catching a look of her own face in the waters through the opening branches, was now half-concealed behind a cloud; and as the maiden passed along by the side of the stream, she required to restrain the flutter of her spirits, to enable her to thread her way by the narrow footpath. The ecstatic emotions of her novel situation, and the hurry of her progress, made her breathless, and she paused to recover herself, when she observed two individuals sitting by the side of the water. A loud laugh struck her ear; and she did not require to speculate as to the individuals from whom it came--for a voice she too well knew followed, with words of reproach that shook her to the heart. It was that of her former companion; and a glance satisfied her that she was in the society of that very individual, M'Intyre, the city guardsman, with whose name her own had been so cruelly and invidiously connected. In an instant the notorious individual was by her side.

"I've waited for ye, Menie," he began, "till the mune has waned and sunk behind the Pentlands. How hae ye been sae lang, woman, when ye ken sae weel the impatience o' a true lover, and that I maun be on the city watch on the morrow, and canna meet ye? Mak amends, and let us roam a wee amang the birken woods, whar the absence o' the mune will be nae hindrance to our loves."

And before she could reply, he had his arms round her neck, and was pulling her away among the trees. The apparition of the very individual of whom she had been conversing with Wallace, and whose name was a terror to her, with the fearful consciousness of the pollution of his embrace, took away from her all power of resistance; her knees trembled; she tried to reply to him, but could not; and a weak scream, that almost died in her throat, was the only show of ineffectual resistance she could oppose to his efforts. A few minutes enabled her to rally her powers; and she had turned to wrest herself from his arms, when she saw Wallace standing at a little distance among the trees. He had that very instant come up; and there was something in the cool, piercing look he threw at her, that repressed the inchoate scream for relief that she struggled to utter; and the hands she held out to him imploring his succour fell nerveless within the grasp of the man who held her. Upon the point of fainting, she would have sunk to the ground, had she not been upheld by the force of her tormentor; and, in turning her eyes again in the direction of Wallace, she observed he had vanished. The scream, no longer restrained, burst forth; but it came too late; for, if Wallace heard it in his retreat, he might justly attribute it to his own appearance at a time when he might suppose himself an unwelcome intruder. At that moment two men came in sight; and the city guardsman, probably afraid of being recognised, released her from his grasp, and retreated to the position he had left by the side of her who sat awaiting in laughter for his arrival.

The instant she was liberated, the frightened maiden flew with the speed of terror homewards--all her energies wound up in the mere effort to increase her irregular progress, and without the capability of feeling the true and fearful circumstances of her position. Arrived at her mother's house, she sprang forward in a state bordering on despair, and threw herself on a chair by the side of the fire, opposite to her parent, who was engaged in her usual evening exercise of searching the inspired volume for the balm of the consolation of age and poverty.

"What is this, Menie?" cried the mother, as she saw her daughter trembling under the influence of nervous terror. "Has yer enemy been at her auld wark again? and have a' yer mother's injunctions failed to get ye to rest on the sure foundation o' conscious innocence? It canna be that George Wallace has listened to the poisoned breath o' scandal and envy. Speak, child; and frae this book shall ye get the support that no son or daughter of Adam can lend to the children o' sorrow."

"Let me think, mother--let me collect mysel!" responded the girl, as she raised her hand to her head, and threw back her locks. "Whar am I? what spell is on me? Am I to be a bride on Fastern's E'en, or a disowned and heart-broken maiden? Why did he no speak to me--or why did I no speak to him? I will to him yet, and explain a', and the men will speak for me; but wha were they? Ah, they were strangers! and there's nane to warrant the words o' truth."

And rising, she made again towards the door, apparently with the confused intention of hurrying to Inverleith Mains; but her mother rose and restrained her, and she again sat down to collect her thoughts. It was some time before she could give so connected an account of the strange circumstances that had occurred within the space of a short hour, as to be understood by the mother; but, by questioning and cross-questioning, the latter came to the truth--and a truth of dangerous import she soon observed it to be. She had already, in her own person, suffered from the blighting effects of prejudice, and she trembled as she surveyed the difficulties that lay in the way of a proper explanation. The poison of a false conviction had too certainly already entered the breast of Wallace, and she knew that its workings might be made only the more inveterate, the greater the efforts resorted to for eradicating it. In all her trials, however, her refuge was the book that supported her fathers in the mountain glens, when the storm of persecution raged over a struggling land; and, enjoining her daughter to offer up with her their prayers to the throne of grace, she sought from the true fountain the means of relieving them from the danger which threatened innocence and poverty. The night passed, and the morning came, when it was resolved that they both together should repair to the residence of Wallace, and openly declare to him the truth of the perplexed appearances which had too evidently operated on his mind to their disadvantage; but a little farther consideration showed them the inexpediency of thus assuming that the conduct of Menie required explanation; and the resolution that at last prevailed was, to wait for some time to ascertain what might be the intentions and motions of Wallace, whom they expected to call at the house, according to his wont, as he passed to the city. The day passed away, but there was no appearance of him; and, on the day following, it was ascertained, from one of his father's servants, who was passing with grain to the market, that he had gone to the borders of England to bury a relation, where, it was expected, he would remain for a considerable time, to arrange the affairs of the deceased, to whom his father was nearest heir-at-law. This intelligence made it only more certain that the prejudice had taken root; because, otherwise, both duty and inclination would have forced him to pay a visit to his betrothed before his departure, however sudden or unexpected that might have been.