CHAPTER V

I HEAR OF THE SILVER GLEN FOR THE FIRST TIME

I can bring to mind one morning when my lady, having recovered from her indisposition, called me to her and proposed that we should walk through the grounds and see what had been done about the place. The little boys, tired of the nursery in which they had been prisoners during a week of rain, came running and shouting by our side. The sunshine made the fresh world golden; the sky was blue and cloudless, and the wide carse seemed to be a cup filled with opal-tinted air, rimmed by the distant hills. The blackbird and the mavis led the concert with their love-songs, and frequently we stopped to listen to their notes. In the garden walks near the house the deep yellow crocuses opened their hearts to the sun, and the green spikes of the hyacinths pushed through the brown earth, giving promise of beauty and fragrance to come.

“The spring is a lovesome time,” quoth my lady, smiling happily on flowers and birds and children. “When the earth renews herself after her winter torpor I want to live for ever. I feel that every year we ought to have the power like her to grow young and fresh again; but, alas!” she sighed, “this is not so. We fade like the leaves and drop off and are forgotten. Others arise in our place, but we ourselves return again never.”

“You will live for fifty happy years, at least, cousin,” I cried, “and will come again in your children’s children for many generations. It is impossible that you can ever be forgotten!”

She smiled at me and shook her head. “You must bear with my moods, dear bairn, for, when you know me better, you will find in me a strange commingling of light and darkness, of gaiety and gloom. Sir John, who by nature looks ever on the bright side of things, tells me that I love to contemplate the clouds only. I know not how it is, but even my happiness gives me pain, and I enjoy all pleasures so keenly that the very enjoyment ofttimes leaves me tired and sad.”

I mind me of her words very well, because at the time they struck me with a great surprise. Of all the women I have seen and known my Cousin Catherine was the one with whom I most associated the idea of constant, gentle gaiety. The ready smile, the kindly word, with her were never wanting, and although I have seen her angry and disturbed enough when things went wrong and folks were stupid, or when any injustice done came to her knowledge, these moods were but the flashing of a summer storm that quickly passed and left the wonted serenity behind. That all her brightness covered unknown depths of seriousness, and that the spring of her laughter lay very near to tears, was an idea which, to my childish mind, was well nigh incomprehensible. Looking back across the years with wistful eyes--the years of chequered light and shade, of joy and pain, of strife and peace that have made up my life--I, grown older and wiser, know and understand the sweet, deep nature of my friend, as I never could have done while I was near her.

“I have never seen you dumpish or melancholy, madam,” I murmured, half abashed by her words. “I took it that you were a very happy woman, cousin.”

She laughed merrily at that.

“Why, so I am, Barbara, one of the happiest in Scotland. Never heed my words, child; I was but dreaming aloud.”

I looked into her face, relieved, (so sensitive are the young to the influences around them), and saw there a look that spoke of happiness indeed. The soft pink colour rose in her cheeks, and her eyes grew brighter and softer as she gazed in front of her. Following her glance, I caught sight of Sir John standing at the end of the long avenue, directing his men at their work.

“Why, there is your papa, my little sons,” she cried. “Now, see who can reach him first to kiss his hand. If Barbara would run with little Hal, perhaps it would be safer for the small feet.”

At this, nothing loth, we three children (for I was little better than a child when it came to a frolic) ran off down the broad walk with shouts of glee, and, because of Baby Harry’s lagging steps, to which I had to pay heed, the race was won by Master Charles, very proud and triumphant.

“Mama is here! mama is coming, papa!” he cried, “and she bids me kiss your hand. Will you walk with us, if you please, Sir John, and show Barbara the mavis’s nest we found before the rain began?”

With a parting word to his men and a kindly smile to me, Sir John lifted little Hal to his shoulder and walked back with us to meet my lady.

And here I may say that what my Lady Erskine had told me of her method with her children was perfectly true. There were more love and confidence between these little lads and their parents than was at all common in most families; and yet I did not find that the conduct of the children needed censure, nor that their characters suffered in any way. How was it possible when their lives were made so bright that their minds should not expand more readily than when surrounded by dread and gloom? Was their obedience not more spontaneous, and therefore more precious, because given through love, than when forced by fear of punishment? And was not the frank exchange of thought with older minds a constant advantage to their growing intelligence? And yet I know that young Lady Alva was regarded by many as a lax and indolent mother, seeing that she spared herself the trouble of correcting her little sons by harsh discipline and stern reproof.

“When my own life is filled with so much brightness, Barbara,” she said to me one day, after a visiting neighbour had tried to bring her to a sense of her imperfections, “how can I fail to make my children happy too?” And she added in her sweet and pious way, “I do most truly endeavour to lead my little ones to love their Heavenly Father through the love their earthly parents bare to them. But there are some folk, Barbara, who think it shame to talk of earthly love, and presumption to think of the heavenly, and with such I have no traffic in thought or sympathy at all.”

Such, then, was the atmosphere in which these children were brought up, and I must own that two more innocent, sprightly, good-humoured little lads it would have been hard to find.

But to return to the happy party on that sunny morning strolling in the broad walk. While little Hal was prattling from his father’s shoulder, my lady walking by her husband’s side, her hand locked in his, Charles skipping and running, now before, now behind, and Barbara as gay and careless as any, it suddenly occurred to me to make a somewhat forward remark.

“Pray, Sir John,” I cried, “are you not a very rich man, to be able to give work to so many folk?”

Looking back over my shoulder as I asked this question, I intercepted a glance between Sir John and my lady, which appeared to me full of mutual understanding. Instead of replying to me the gentleman said softly to his wife, “Shall we tell her the secret of the hills, my heart?” To which she replied in French,

“I think she is to be trusted; but be careful of the children, my friend, for our eldest is ever ready to pick up information, and has not yet the discretion to withhold it from others.”

“You must know, Barbara,” said Sir John in the same language, which he spoke with great fluency and address, “that what you say is true. I am indeed a wealthy man, so wealthy that all my schemes of policy for this place, though likely to cost a fortune, will not exhaust my resources. You have heard that I am the possessor of coal mines, which already yield me a good sum yearly; but now I am going to tell you of something more precious still to be found within the bowels of those dear, beautiful hills, of which you are so great an admirer. What do you say to silver, Mademoiselle, a vein of silver, forming a mine so rich that it seems as if neither I nor my sons will ever come to an end of it!”

“Silver!” I exclaimed, more astonished than I ever expected to be. “Silver in Scotland, Sir John? Why, I never imagined such a thing possible.”

“Not only possible, but actually here,” rejoined the knight, “and some day you shall be taken to see it in working. Now that the frost is like to be out of the ground if this thaw continues, we can set in motion the engineers and miners, who, during the winter months, are perforce kept idle. Oh, there is no end to my dreams and imaginings about this ore, and what may be done with it--Why do you pull so hard at my hand, my lady?”

“Oh, my dear Sir John,” cried she, half laughing and half vexed; “your mine is like the milkmaid’s pail in the fable. Think of its fate, and of the disappointment of the poor dreamer, and do not let your hopes soar too high.”

“Ta-ta-ta, my dear,” cried her husband, “now is not this just like you? No sooner do I begin about the glories of our future wealth, which is no dream, but founded on solid fact, than you tug at my hand, pull down your pretty lip, and cry, ‘Beware!’”

“I care not for your scorn, dear husband,” said Lady Erskine seriously. “There is something within me stronger than I, which whispers forebodingly whenever this mine of yours is mentioned. I know not what it means, but if I believed these inner ghostly warnings, I should say that your silver is fated one day to bring us all ill-luck.”

“But how many times, my life, have your warnings come to naught? Did you not say t’other day that you had a heavy presentiment of coming evil which concerned our eldest son, and the only thing that happened to him was the bruising of his fingers with the carpenter’s hammer. And when I was well-nigh lost in a storm crossing from France, two years since, were you not merry and gay in your father’s house, recking nothing of your poor spouse his danger?”

My lady laughed, but she gave a little shiver. “Do not remind me of these horrors, I pray you. What I feel about the mine I cannot explain, and foolish though it may be, it has yet to be proved groundless. Look you, my dear, is it not possible for the precious metal suddenly to give out, and to leave you with all your projects on your hands, and nothing wherewith to meet them?”

“Now, a truce to such gloomy forebodings!” cried Sir John gaily in English, and calling to Charles to lead the way to the mavis’s nest, he swung little Hal to the ground and bade him run with his brother, while their father would do his best to catch them.

“Will you tell me, madam,” I said, as we walked more slowly behind, “why you bade Sir John speak French a little while back? Is the silver mine to be kept secret?”

“Assuredly, my dear Barbara,” cried my lady in some alarm; “I understood you to have gathered as much from our method of talk. This, you must know, is one of our difficulties, and it is perhaps the chief reason why the subject lies so heavy on my mind. The affair is worked in secret, and kept private to our family, for should the knowledge of it slip out, there are not wanting those who could make trouble for Sir John. By an ancient act in Scots law, all ore found in the country must pay a heavy tax to the Crown; and as Sir John has no great mind to enrich the coffers of the Hanoverian, either in a public or private way, he hath hitherto managed to keep all knowledge of his mine well within his control, and the silver it yields in his own pocket. But alas! Barbara, a secret shared by many is no secret at all, and there is no end to the mischief that might ensue were you to let your tongue wag never so wisely on the matter.”

“Believe me, dearest cousin,” I cried with some heat, “such a thing is far indeed from my intention. I would rather be dumb for the rest of my life than harm you or Sir John by one careless word. There is nothing I would not do to serve you and yours, madam, who have been so unspeakably kind to me. Pray, pray, believe me, and trust me as you would your own heart.”

“What a fiery creature it is!” said my lady, smiling kindly, as she patted my flushed cheek. “Well--but all I ask of you, Barbara, is just a little discretion.”