CHAPTER XVI.

“He’s gentle--of all sorts beloved--and indeed much in the heart of the world.”--AS YOU LIKE IT.

Halbert Graeme was fully bent upon obeying the injunctions of his kinsman, and had already, thanks to his youthful strength, high spirits, and grey pony, made considerable acquaintance with his ancestral country. There were various good neighbours too who showed all willingness to aid him, and the race of young gentlemen who wrote themselves “younger of” all the castles and towers, shaws, braes, and holms of the district, opened their ranks with all imaginable pleasure to admit Halbert, “younger of Mossgray.” Halbert was happy in a frank temper, and no great share of ideality. His list of acquaintance grew like Jonah’s gourd. The fame of him went up the water and down the water; from the county-town some fifteen miles away, to the furthest bounds of the Scottish border, the landed community of the fair Southern shire had heard of the new heir of the Graemes. Nor was it alone the landed community; Halbert, like Hope Oswald, extended his friendship beyond his own exclusive class. Robbie Carlyle, the fisherman, grasped his bonnet when he met “the young laird” with a fervent salutation only accorded to his favourites, and John Brown, in the excitement of a busy market-day in the thronged Main Street of Fendie, proclaimed him: “Nane o’ your whilliewhaws--just a real, decent lad that kens a man o’ sense when he sees him!”

There were one or two dissentients. On a January day, Halbert, escorting Lilias on a walk longer than was usual to her, had the evil fortune to pass a potato field--a field which _had_ borne potatoes--where Robert Paterson, the farmer of Whinnyside, was indolently superintending his two ploughs. It was a small farm, and its tenant was no great agriculturist. He “hadna just made up his mind what the crap was to be. Some said there wasna muckle dependence to be putten on the taties, where they had ance turned out bad--though his had been no that ill the year--and some said the taties, noo, in thir times, paid better than the corn--and some said naithing paid ava; for his pairt he didna ken; he hadna made up his mind.”

Halbert was very active, and had a considerable share of the respectable qualities called sense and prudence. So he suggested to the good man of Whinnyside, that he was employing the most effectual means for securing that “naething should pay ava,” a reproof which did exceedingly offend and amaze the indignant Robert.

“He’s a bonnie ane, indeed!” said the angry farmer when Halbert had passed on, “to gie advice to a man that might be his faither--forbye being born on the land. I hae nae broo o’ thae keen Norlands. Ane would think they were learnt to put this and that thegither afore they were breekit--and the greed o’ them! considering and planning how to make the maist o’ everything; as if there was nocht to be done in this world but gather gear!”

But Robert Paterson was alone in his dissent--in all the district the feeling was strong in favour of the Norland Halbert.

Halbert and Lilias were going by Mossgray’s favourite walk, up the waterside. The two adopted children of Mossgray were very good friends; so good friends, Mrs Mense thought, that they would quite naturally settle down into the characters of laird and lady, and give Mossgray no further trouble; but altogether irrespective of the broken golden coin which hung from Halbert’s neck, and the solitary labourer in the East who toiled for Lilias, there were other preventives of which Mrs Mense was quite unaware. Lilias was a great deal older, graver, and more experienced than her young squire; though there was not much difference in positive age, but in that development and maturity of the mind which will not be confined to years. Halbert unconsciously looked up to the young Lilias as to his senior, and Lilias used terms of kindly familiarity to Halbert as to an ingenuous, pleasant younger brother. It was the best thing possible for their frank and friendly intercourse, but entirely destructive to the hopes of Mrs Mense.

The road along the waterside was a pleasant one, though the trees were bare, and though it ascended and descended steep braes now and then, and there were places here and there, where the path was very nearly a rustic stair, with interwoven roots for steps. The neighbourhood of Fendie is the very stronghold of burns--you meet them running cheerily through the country like hardy cottage children at every turn, and multitudes of those fairy tributaries swell the noble dark-brown water as it sweeps downward to the Firth. Yonder does one pour down foaming, over the rugged bank of broken rock and gathered stones, high over which that daring stripling birch waves its thin branches, half timorous, half exultant; and here another, softly stealing under cover of the long melancholy willows glides noiselessly, a gentle child, into the bosom of the river. Another--and see how this kind alder kneels upon the mimic headland, shadowing the little bay where its coy wavelets linger--and yet another--with its wild headlong rush, defying those great stones, and jostling the roots of the shrinking beech which somehow has fallen here, and grows patiently and resigned, to its full height, a little timid of its impetuous neighbour. But the name of these children of the hills is legion; listen--you would fancy a school had newly “skailed,” so full is the air of their ceaseless singing; and if you dwell among them but a little time you will learn to know their individual voices, and to name them by separate names as you name human children.

The water itself is broad and full, “from bank to brae,” and flows down with a strong life in it, pleasant and hopeful to see; that ample, wide stream, instinct with the easy unostentatious force of nature--you can fancy, as it hastens on, that the bold current throbs, like the beating of a strong man’s breast.

Winding yonder through the trees--here, sweeping round that soft swelling grassy bank, and again a little further on over-arched by those long bare, far-spreading boughs. Beyond itself there is little prospect, for the trees on every side shut in the view, delicately revealing their naked tracing against the sky, with heavy firs and pines keeping some show of verdure in the skeleton wood.

But Halbert and Lilias were not thinking of views, except of those eager, hopeful human ones, which rose so vividly before the youth’s eyes; for Halbert was explaining his own wishes and intentions, and craving the good counsel of the Lily of Mossgray.

“I should have very much preferred my father’s profession,” said the young man, “and Mr Monikie told me Mossgray was willing that I should study for the bar if I chose; but Mossgray has supported me all my life, Lilias. I could not think of remaining a burden on him.”

“And was that your sole reason?” asked his grave and sagacious counsellor.

The honest Halbert blushed, and smiled, and hesitated.

“Well, perhaps it would not be quite true if I said it was the sole reason; but it certainly was an important one.”

“And the others?” inquired Lilias with a smile.

“The others? they were various; for instance, I am not by any means sure that I have the necessary gifts--so few men can speak well in public; and--it must always be a slow success, I fancy, the success of an advocate; when one has a rank to maintain, and very little to maintain it--”

Halbert looked very prudent and careful as he paused.

“And you want to succeed quickly, Halbert,” said Lilias, “and so will choose some gainful business rather than the learned profession--is that it?”

“To tell the truth,” said Halbert, hastily, “I am anxious to be settled as soon as possible; to establish myself; to have a home; you understand me, Lilias?”

Lilias looked at the youth’s glowing face and smiled.

“Did you never think you were too young, Halbert, to be the head of a house?”

“Too young!” Halbert was half inclined to be angry. “Come, Lilias, that is not fair; and then you know, I have no friends, no relations; I am alone.”

Lilias became suddenly grave; but as she looked again at the young, frank face beside her, in its flush of early manhood, another smile, kindly and gentle, stole over her lip. To be alone--to have no friends--the joyous Halbert with his light spirit, and honest straightforward character, and lack of the ideal and sensitive, did by no means understand what these words meant. He could find a Menie Monikie everywhere, he could never be alone.

“You were not alone in Aberdeenshire,” said Lilias; “and I fancy you will be bringing this pretty Menie to Mossgray by and by, Halbert. Is that what being settled means?”

Halbert stammered a happy half denial, which was a confession, and proceeded in very high spirits to ask Lilias what she thought he should do.

“I think you should wait,” said his adviser, “till Mossgray gives you the counsel you asked from him. You may remind him of it, Halbert, but I think you should not press our good friend; we may have all confidence in the kindness of Mossgray.”

Halbert fully assented. The old man had charmed all doubts from the mind of the young one, and with a light heart and perfect content, he left his anxieties in his kinsman’s hand.

Lilias had never ventured so far before, and now their course was suddenly stayed by a deep cavernous burn, rumbling far down, under a long avenue of very large saugh or willow trees. The foliage of these was so exuberant in summer that the hoarse water below scarcely ever saw the sun; and over it was an old dilapidated bridge--rude planks of wood, fenced on each side by stiles, and so decayed as to seem unsafe. Halbert parted the thick willow branches with his hand to look through; and beyond they saw, half buried in a wilderness of trees, the roof and gables of a house. Lilias had heard of this place so often that she knew at once what it was.

“I am afraid this is scarcely safe for you,” said Halbert. “Shall we have to return, Lilias? though I confess I should like to explore this place. Does anybody live in that wilderness, I wonder.”

“I fancy it must be Murrayshaugh,” said Lilias. She spoke low; there was something which excited her reverence in the melancholy decay and loneliness of the old house, and the unknown fate of its owners. “Let us go nearer, Halbert; the bridge must be safe enough.”

It was not very safe, yet it bore the light weight of Lilias, and quivered beneath the springing bound of Halbert; they were within the enclosure of Murrayshaugh.

The house was less irregular and less extensive than Mossgray. Its former proprietors, in their prosperous time, had not chosen to establish themselves on the bleak far-seeing mount, where the remains of the ancient peel were now mouldering stone by stone: and this house, decayed as it was, had some architectural pretensions. Its taper spear-like turrets shot up through the bewildering maze of wood in which it was enclosed, and the mossy terrace stretching along its front gave some distinctness to its form below. A very narrow grass-grown path wound past a rounded gable to some back entrance; and the former flower-beds bordering the way bore now a scanty crop of vegetables--except this all was perfectly neglected; but the few cabbages and leeks, and a thin ascending breath of smoke, and a gentle aroma of peats, told that somewhere about the solitary house there was humanity, and its attendant spirit, the fire.

“Did you ever hear of this place, Halbert?” said Lilias, as they stood beside the great window in the gable, looking into a large, faded, melancholy room, which bore evident marks of care and order, solitary and desolate though it was.

Halbert looked a little astonished.

“I have never before been at Mossgray,” he answered, “and at home--I mean in the North--these border counties were very Antipodes to us.”

Lilias did not answer; she looked thoughtfully along the green, melancholy terrace, thinking of Lucy Murray in her solitude, and of Charlie Graeme the household traitor, whose honest, fresh, ingenuous son had never heard of Murrayshaugh.

The faint sound of a lifted latch aroused her attention and she looked round. A little old woman, with impatient, vivacious features and quick pattering steps, came along the grass-grown path. She had heard voices without, and had issued forth in evident wrath to avenge the intrusion on her territory.

“Oh, mem, I beg your pardon!” she exclaimed, as she made a dead stop in front of Lilias. “If I didna think it was Robbie Carlyle’s cuddie and that tinkler of a callant, Peter, chasing him! but ye’ll be the young lady of Mossgray?”

Lilias took the designation with a smile.

“This is Murrayshaugh, is it not?” she asked.

But the little woman’s eyes were so busy that she lost the question. She was examining with singular curiosity the face of Halbert Graeme.

“This is Murrayshaugh?” repeated Lilias.

“Ay, it’s Murrayshaugh,” was the answer emphatically given, while the speaker looked wrathfully at Halbert Graeme.

Halbert was considerably astonished; but the unconscious natural prepossessing smile remained upon his truthful face. It was a very honest straightforward countenance; what we call “aefauld,” in Scotland--and the old woman gradually melted under the frank, good-humoured smile.

“They ca’ me Eesabell Broun,” she said abruptly, “and I keep the house. I’ve lived here a’ my days, and if ye would like to see it, I’ve nae objections.”

“If we will not trouble you too much,” said Lilias, smiling at the limited permission, “I shall be glad to see Murrayshaugh.”

Eesabell turned away at once, and went pattering round to a not very elegant back door. Her visitors followed her.

“Na--na,” said the old woman, fretfully waving them back with her quick, withered hand; “we may be puir, and puir eneugh, but there shall nae gentle come this gate into Murrayshaugh; gae round to the ither side; ye’ll get in by the richt door.”

It was a respectable irritation, and the two young explorers turned with some amusement to obey. The great door of Murrayshaugh was somewhat heavy on its rusted hinges; the opening of it taxed all the impatient strength of Isabell Brown.

There was not much to see within; everything saleable had been removed from those cold, dreary, uninhabited walls before the armed man, Want, drove its last tenant from his father’s house. So much furniture as remained was old and faded; the haughty, proud old man had studiously displayed its poverty; he professed to disdain the mean art of making shifts to hide it--it was the bitter art of unbending pride which left its forlorn nakedness so visible to every eye.

But the little, quick, irascible custodier of the lonely house had been so long used to the poverty of its scanty furniture that she was now unconscious of it; and when she carefully dusted the high-backed chairs of “Miss Lucy’s parlour,” and closed the shutters lest the sun should spoil the colours of the decayed worn carpet, whose colours had been jumbled in incoherent old age when she herself was but a child, Eesabell Brown was perfectly sincere. She had a veneration for those solitary and quiet inhabitants of the house in which she had lived all her days; they were older dwellers than she; and when she thought of the “Miss Lucy” who had been the pattern and glory of her younger days returning to Murrayshaugh--and she did think of it constantly--it was still as Miss Lucy--the fair, _young_ lady whom in her own girlhood she thought chief of women. This was the romance of the little old housekeeper of Murrayshaugh. She had known few fluctuations of fortune since the great era of their departure; somehow or other Isabell herself had grown old; but unchangeable as the high-backed chairs and the faded carpets seemed Murrayshaugh and Miss Lucy--and they would return.

“My mother was housekeeper when the Laird and Miss Lucy gaed to foreign pairts,” she said to Lilias. “Ye’ll have heard o’ Miss Lucy?--ay, but I question if ye ever saw the like o’ her. Wasna auld Greenshaw your grandfather? I thocht that. Weel, Miss Lucy gaed herself, ance errant, to see your mother, to please Mossgray.”

Isabell said this with great importance; but Lilias was not overawed, though her face was very grave.

“There’s no a young lady atween this and her, wherever she be,” continued the old woman with vehemence, “that it wadna be an honour to even to Miss Lucy, though them that should have kent, didna ken.”

A quick indignant glance at the young man accompanied this speech; but the glance of Isabell’s wrath was harmless lightning to the unconscious Halbert.

“Me and my sister Jean were brought up here,” said Isabell, more calmly, “and she was married upon a cousin o’ our ain:--maybe ye ken John Broun that’s at the Mount--that’s Jean’s son.”

“He is my earliest acquaintance in Fendie,” said Halbert, good-humouredly, “and an honest fellow he is; but why do they leave you alone here?”

“My lane!” said Isabell; “am I no housekeeper? and us disna ken the day that Murrayshaugh may come hame!”

Lilias checked Halbert with her lifted hand; the old woman’s delusion was sacred.

They had entered “Miss Lucy’s parlour,” and were looking at some pictures on the wall. Before the first of these, that of a young man in an antique dress, evidently an old family portrait, Lilias paused with a sudden start. There was a vivid colour and surprised animation on her face, such as Halbert had never seen her have before, and the tone of her voice struck him as she turned to ask about the picture--low, full, and musical, as if the heart throbbed through it more warmly than was its wont.

“It’s ane o’ the auld Murrays--I dinna mind his name,” said Isabell; “but Miss Lucy had a conceit that it was like Mr Hew. They were a’ like ither; the same face came down, like the name, frae faither to son. That ane was a Hew too, I dinna doubt; it’s a guid name; they maun a’ have been fond o’t.”

“Hew,” repeated Lilias, slowly, as if she too loved to linger on the sound; “Hew--yes, it is a pleasant name.”

And she turned again with lingering looks and smiles of strange pleasure to the picture as she left the room. Halbert smiled too in wonder. He hardly could fancy an appropriate cause for such emotion in the wise, grave Lilias; and there was no such magic in any picture there for him.