Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland Volume I Part 21

"What Whitecraigs and she who lives now in the house yonder were or are to you, Scotland and my kindred were to me; but the house where I was born knows me not, and the bed and the cradle do not own me. But Alice Scott recognised me as a fellow-creature, whatever more I say not; and even that, from one so good, and, even yet, so beautiful--is something to live for. No more. I know all. Will you risk a meeting?"

"Mr. Pringle will answer for me," replied he, as he turned, with a full heart, to the window.

"And I will answer for Mr. Pringle," said Wallace.

"But who will answer for _her_?" rejoined the other.

"Stay there," said Wallace. "I will return in a few minutes."

And, bending his steps to Whitecraigs House, he was, for a time, engaged with Alice and her mother. He again returned to Homestead; and, in a few minutes after, the three were walking towards the mansion. The eye of the young man glanced furtively from side to side, as if to catch glimpses of old features which had become strange to him; but in the direction of the house he seemed to have no power to look--lagging behind, and displaying an anxiety to be concealed, by the bodies of the others, from the view of the windows. On arriving at the house, Wallace and Pringle went into an apartment where the mother was seated. Hector stood in the pa.s.sage: he feared that Alice was there, and would not enter.

"Think you," whispered Wallace, quickly returning to him, "that I, whom you accused of touching tender chords, am so little acquainted with human nature as to admit of witnesses to your meeting with Alice Scott?

There, the green parlour in the west wing," he continued, pointing up the inside stair to a room well known to the youth. "If you cannot effect it, who may try? Go--go!"

"I cannot--I cannot!" he replied, in deep tones. "My feet will not carry me. That room was my mother's favourite parlour. A thousand a.s.sociations are busy with me. And now, who sits there?"

"Come, come!" said Pringle, as he came forth, in consequence of hearing Hayston's irresolution. "What did you expect on coming here? Alice to come and fly to you with open arms?"

"No, sir; to reject me with a wave of disdain!" replied the youth. "I am smitten from within, and confidence has left me. Let me see her mother first. My cruelty to her has been mixed with kindness, and she may give me some heart."

And he turned to the apartment where the mother sat.

"Your confidence will not be restored by anything the mother can say!"

rejoined Pringle, who was getting alarmed for the success of his efforts. "Alice is now mistress here, and must be won by contrition, and a prayer for forgiveness."

"Ho!" interjected Wallace. "To what tends this mummery? Must I take you by the hand, and lead you to one who, for years, has seen you in every flitting shade of the hills, and heard you in every note of the sighing winds of the valley?"

"To hate me as I deserve to be hated!" replied Hayston, still irresolute. "None of you can give me any ground for hope, and seem to push me on to experience a rejection which may seal my misery for ever!"

Wallace smiled in silence, beckoned Pringle into the room beside the mother, and taking Hayston by the arm, with a show of humour that accorded but indifferently with the real anguish of doubt and dismay by which the young man's mind was occupied, forced him on to the first step of the inside stair.

"You are now fairly committed!" said he, smiling; "to retreat, is ruin; to advance, happiness, and love, and peace."

And he retreated to the room where Pringle was, leaving the youth to the strength or weakness of his own resolution. His tread was now heard, slow and hesitating, on the stair. Some time elapsed before the sound of the opening door was heard; and that it remained for a time open, held by the doubtful hand, might also have been observed. At last it was shut; and quick steps on the floor indicated that the first look had not been fraught with rejection.

The party below were, meanwhile, speculating on the result of the meeting. Even the mother was not certain that it would, at first, be attended with success. Alice had yielded no consent; and it was only from the mother's construction of her looks, that she had given her authority for the interview.

"All is now decided, for good or evil," said Wallace. "Go up stairs, and bring us a report of the state of affairs."

The mother obeyed; and, after a considerable time, returned, with her eyes swimming in tears.

"Is it so?" said her friend. "Is it really so? Has all my labour been fruitless?"

"No," replied she; "but I could not stand the sight. I found her lying on the breast of Hector, sobbing out the sorrows of years. Her eyes have been long dry. The heart is at last opened."

"Too good a sight for me to lose," replied her friend. "For twenty years I have only known the tears of penitence: I will now experience those that flow from the happiness of others."

And, with these words, he hurried up stairs. We would follow, but that we are aware of the danger of treading ground almost forbidden to inspiration. Within two hours afterwards, Hector Hayston and Alice Scott were again among the glens of Whitecraigs, seeking out those places where, before, they used to breathe the accents of a first affection.

The one had been true to the end; and the other had been false only to learn the beauty of truth. We have given these details from a true record, and have derived pleasure from the recollections they have awakened; but we fairly admit, that we would yield one half of what we have experienced of the good, to have marked that day the workings of the retrieved spirit in the eyes, and speech, and manners of Alice Scott. These are nature's true magic. The drooping flower that is all but dead in the dry, parched soil, raises its head, takes on fresh colours, and gives forth fresh odours, as the spring showers fall on its withered leaves. Oh! there is a magic there that escapes not even the eye of dull labour, retiring home sick of all but the repose he needs.

But the process in the frame that is the temple of beauty, worth, intelligence, sensibility, rearing all in loveliness afresh, out of what was deemed the ruins only of what is the greatest and best of G.o.d's works--to see this, and to feel it, is to rejoice that we are placed in a world that, with all its elements of vice and sorrow, is yet a place where the good and the virtuous may find something a.n.a.logous to that for which the spirit pants in other worlds.

Yet, though we saw it not, we have enough of the conception, through fancy, to be thankful for the gift even of the _ideal_ of the good; and here we are satisfied that we have more. Hector Hayston and Alice Scott were married. David Wallace's history was long concealed, but curiosity finally triumphed; yet with no effect calculated to impair the equanimity of a mind which repentance, and a reliance on G.o.d's grace, had long rendered independent of the opinions of men. He had wrought for evil, and good came of it; and he lived long to see, in the house of Whitecraigs, its master, mistress, and children, the benefits of the prescription which the 29th of September effected--a principle of the law of Scotland that was long deemed inconsistent with the good of the land, but now more properly considered as being no less in unison with the feelings of man than it is with divine mercy.

THE COUNTESS OF WIs...o...b..RY.

In the summer of 1836 I had occasion to make a journey into Wilts.h.i.+re, in England. As the business that called me there, although of sufficient importance to me, would have no interest whatever for the reader, I will readily be excused, I dare say, from saying of what nature that business was. It will more concern him, from its connection with the sequel, to know that my residence, while in England, was in a certain beautiful little village at the southern extremity of the s.h.i.+re above named, and that mine host, during my stay there, was the worthy landlord of the White Hart Inn, as intelligent and well-informed a man as it has often been my good fortune to meet with. The nature of the business which made me a guest of Michael Jones, left me a great deal more spare time than I knew well what to do with. It hung heavy upon my hands; and my good host, perceiving this, suggested a little excursion, which, he said, he thought would dispose of one day, at any rate, agreeably enough.

"I would recommend you, sir," he said, "to pay a visit to Oxton Hall, the seat of the Earl of Wis...o...b..ry.[5] It is one of the finest residences in England; and, as the family are not there just now, you may see the whole house, both inside and outside. If you think of it, I will give you a line to the butler, a very old friend of mine, and he will be glad to show you all that's worth seeing about the place."

[5] Under this name we choose, for obvious reasons, to conceal the real one.--_Ed._

"How far distant is it?" I inquired.

"Oh, not more than three miles and a half--little more than an hour's easy walk," replied mine host.

"Excellent!" said I; "thank you for the hint, landlord. Let me have the introduction to the butler you spoke about, and I'll set off directly."

In less than five minutes, a card, addressed to Mr. John Grafton, butler, Oxton Hall, was put into my hands, and in two minutes more I was on my way to the ancient seat of the Earls of Wis...o...b..ry. The directions given me as to my route, carefully noted on my part, brought me, in little more than an hour, to a s.p.a.cious and n.o.ble gateway, secured by a magnificent gate of cast-iron. This I at once recognised, from the description given me by Mr. Jones, to be the princ.i.p.al entrance to Oxton Hall. Satisfied that it was so, I unhesitatingly entered--and the house of one of the proudest of England's aristocracy stood before me, in all its lordly magnificence. A s.p.a.cious lawn, of the brightest and most beautiful verdure, dotted over with n.o.ble oaks, and tenanted by some scores of fallow-deer, stretched far and wide on every side. In the centre of this splendid park--such a park as England alone can exhibit--arose the mansion-house, an ancient and stately pile, of great extent and lofty structure.

Having found the person to whose civilities I was recommended by mine host of the White Hart--a mild and pleasant-looking old man, of about seventy years of age--I put my credentials into his hands. On reading it, the old man looked at me smilingly, and said that he would have much pleasure in obliging his good friend Mr. Jones, by showing me all that was worth seeing both in and about the house; and many things both curious and rare, and, I may add, both costly and splendid, did I see ere another hour had pa.s.sed away; but fearing the reader's patience would scarcely stand the trial of a description of them, I refrain from the experiment, and proceed to say, that, just as our survey of the house was concluded, my cicerone, as if suddenly recollecting himself, said--

"By-the-by, sir, perhaps you would like to see the picture gallery, although it is hardly worth seeing just now--most of the pictures having been removed to our house in Grosvenor Square last winter; and, being in this denuded state, I never think of showing it to visitors. There are, however, a few portraits of different members of the family still left, and these you may see if you have any curiosity regarding them."

Such curiosity I avowed I felt, and was immediately conducted into the presence of a number of the pictorial ancestry of the ill.u.s.trious house of Wis...o...b..ry. The greater part of the pictures had been removed, as my conductor had informed me; but a few still remained scattered along the lofty walls of the gallery.

"That," said my cicerone, pointing to a grim warrior, clad from head to heel in a panoply of steel,--"that is Henry, first Earl of Wis...o...b..ry, who fell in Palestine during the holy wars; and this," directing my attention to another picture, "is the grandfather of the present Earl."

"A very handsome and pleasant-looking young man," said I, struck with the forcible representation of these qualities which the painting exhibited.

"Ay," replied the old man, "and as good as he was handsome. He is the pride of the house; and the country around yet rings with his name, a.s.sociated with all that is kind and charitable."

"And who is this lovely creature?" said I, now pointing in my turn to the portrait of a young female of the most exquisite beauty--the face strikingly resembling some of the best executed likenesses of the unfortunate Queen Mary--which hung beside that of the Good Earl of Wis...o...b..ry, as the n.o.bleman of whom my cicerone had just spoken was called throughout the country.

"That lady, sir," replied the latter, "was his wife--the Countess of Wis...o...b..ry. She was one of the most beautiful women of her time; and, like her husband, was beloved by all around her, for the gentleness of her manners and benevolence of her disposition."

"But what's this?" said I, advancing a little nearer the picture, to examine something in her attire that puzzled me. "A Scotch plaid!" I exclaimed in considerable surprise, on ascertaining that this was the article of dress which had perplexed me. "Pray, what has the Scotch plaid to do here? How happens it that we find a Countess of Wis...o...b..ry arrayed in the costume of Caledonia?"

"Why, sir, the reason is good--perfectly satisfactory," replied Mr.

Grafton, smilingly. "She was a native of that country."

"Indeed!" said I. "A countrywoman of mine! Of what family?" added I.

My conductor smiled.

"Truly," said he, after a pause, "that is a question easier put than answered."