Morag Part 1

Morag.

by Janet Milne Rae.

I.

_THE FIRST MORNING IN THE GLEN._

DO you know the joyous feeling of opening your eyes on the first morning after your arrival among new scenes, and of seeing the landscape, which has been shrouded by darkness on the previous evening, lying clear and calm in the bright morning sunlight?

This was Blanche Clifford's experience as she stood at an eastward window, with an eager face, straining her eye across miles of moorland, which undulated far away, like purple seas lying in the golden light.

Away, and up and on stretched the heather, till it seemed to rear itself into great waves of rock, which stood out clear and distinct, with the sunlight glinting into the gray, waterworn fissures, lighting them up like a smile on a wrinkled face. And beyond, in the dim distance, hills on hills are huddled, rearing themselves in dark lowering ma.s.ses against the blue sky, like the shoulders of mighty monsters in a struggle for the nearest place to the clouds. For many weeks Blanche had been dreaming dreams and seeing visions of this scene, as she sat in her London schoolroom. "And this is Glen Eagle!" she murmured, with a satisfied sigh, when at last she turned her eyes from the more distant landscape, and climbing into the embrasured window of the quaint old room in which she awoke that morning, leant out to try and discover what sort of a building this new home might be. A perpendicular, gaunt wall, so lichen-spotted that it seemed as if the stones had taken to growing, was all that she could see; and under it there stretched a smooth gra.s.sy slope, belted by a grove of ancient ash-trees. A pleasant breeze, wafting a delicious scent of heather, came in at the open window, and played among Blanche's curls, reminding her how delightful it would be to go out under the blue sky; so she ran off in search of her papa, that she might begin her explorations at once.

Mr. Clifford, Blanche's father, was very fond of sport, and generally spent the autumn months on the moors, either in Ireland or Scotland.

Hitherto his little motherless daughter had not accompanied him on any of his journeys, but had been left to wander among trim English lanes, or to patrol the parade of fas.h.i.+onable watering-places, under the guardians.h.i.+p of her governess, Miss Prosser. This year, however, Blanche had been so earnest in her entreaties to be taken among the hills, that her father had at last yielded, and it was arranged that she should accompany him to Glen Eagle, where he had taken shootings. Miss Prosser looked on the projected journey to the Highlands of Scotland as rather a wild scheme for herself and her little charge, having no special partiality for mountain scenery, and a dislike to change the old routine. But to Blanche, the prospect was full of the most delicious possibilities; the unknown mountain country was to her imagination an enchanted land of peril and adventure, where she could herself become the heroine of a new tale of romance. The "History of Scotland" suddenly became the most interesting of books, and the records of its heroic days were studied with an interest which they had never before excited. In the daily walks in Kensington Park, on hot July afternoons, Blanche Clifford wove many a fancy concerning these autumn days to be; but in the midst of all her imaginings, as she peopled the hills and valleys of Stratheagle with followers of the Wallace and the Bruce lurking among the heather, with waving tartans and glancing claymores, she did not guess what a lowly object of human interest was to be the centre of all her thoughts.

On the evening of the 9th of August Blanche stood with her governess on the platform of the Euston Station, ready to start by the crowded Scotch mail. Mr. Clifford having seen to the travelling welfare of his dogs, proceeded to arrange his little party for the night. The shrill whistle sounded at last, and they were soon whirling through the darkness on their northern way. The long railway journey was broken by a night's rest at a hotel, which Blanche thought very uninteresting indeed, and begged to be allowed to go on with her papa, who left her there. After the region of railways was left behind, there was a journey in an old mail-coach, which seemed to Blanche to be at last a beginning of the heroic adventures, as she spied a little girl of her own size scaling a ladder to take her place in one of the outside seats, to all appearance delightfully suspended in mid-air. She was about to follow in great glee, when she was pulled back by Miss Prosser, and condemned to a dark corner inside of the coach, where a stout old gentleman entirely obstructed her view. Neither was Blanche a pleasant companion; she felt very restless and rebellious at her unhappy fate, and every time the coach stopped and she was allowed to put her head out of the window for a few precious minutes, she cast envious glances at the happy family whose legs dangled above.

The coach stopped at last to change horses at a low white inn, and Blanche's delight was great to recognise her father's open carriage waiting to take them to Glen Eagle, which was still many miles distant.

The change was delicious, Blanche thought as they were driven swiftly along the white, winding road, round the base of hills higher than she had ever seen, through dark pine forests, which cast solemn shadows across the road, along sea-like expanses of moor, stretching out on either side. Blanche was lost in wonder and delight at those first glimpses of the mountain-land of her dreams. Her geographical inquiries were most searching, and her governess had to acknowledge ignorance when her pupil wished to identify each hill with the mountain-ranges depicted on a map-drawing, which Blanche had made in view of the journey. They were still several miles from their destination, when a heavy white cloud of mist came coiling round the hills, creeping along the lower ridges of rock as if it started to reach the top, like some thinking creature possessed with an evil purpose. At first the mist seemed only to add an additional charm to the wild landscape in Blanche's eyes.

"O Miss Prosser!" she exclaimed, in great glee, "isn't it so pretty? It seems as if the fleecy clouds that live in the sky had come to pay a visit to the moors, and were going to take possession of everything."

"Why, Blanche, how fanciful you are! It is nothing more nor less than that wretched wetting Scotch mist one hears of. Come, child, and get into your furs. How thoughtful of Ellis to have brought them. Commend me to Devons.h.i.+re and muslins at this season of the year," said Miss Prosser, as she drew the rug more closely around her, and shrugged her shoulders.

The mist was creeping silently over the valley, and coming nearer and nearer, till at last there seemed hardly enough s.p.a.ce for the horses to make their way through, and Blanche thought matters looked very threatening indeed. Seating herself by Miss Prosser's side with a s.h.i.+ver, she said, in a frightened tone, "I do wish papa were here.

These clouds look as if they meant to carry us right up with them. Don't you begin to feel rather frightened, Miss Prosser?"

When her governess suggested that the carriage should be closed, Blanche felt rather relieved on the whole, and becoming very quiet and meditative, finally fell fast asleep, curled up on one of the seats, from whence she was carried by her father, when the carriage reached its destination. She never thoroughly awoke till the bright morning sun came streaming in at the curtainless, deep mullioned window of the old Highland keep where she found herself.

Attached to the shootings of Glen Eagle was a half-ruinous castle, which Mr. Clifford had put into a sort of repair, fitting up a part of the building for the use of his household, though there was still many an unused room, dim with the dust of years, among the winding pa.s.sages and cork-screw stairs. In old times it had been a fortified place, and Scottish chieftains had reigned there, and from its grey towers kept watch and ward over the strath, where were scattered the dwellings of the clansmen. It stood in the heart of the glen, rearing itself grim and gaunt and grey, surrounded by a ma.s.sive wall, which had once been for defence, but was ruinous now, and pleasant turf sloped down from the castle, and flourished along its cope.

Though so long untenanted, there were still some remains of its ancient furnis.h.i.+ngs, which the Highland lord on whose land it stood left unmolested, in honor of the home of his ancestors. In the large dimly-lighted entrance-hall, there hung many relics of the olden time.

Dirks and claymores that had done deadly work long ago, were beautifully arranged in various patterns, on the dark panelled walls; numberless trophies from the glen were ranged round--stately stags' heads with branching horns, and outspread wings of mountain birds; and a fox too, whose gla.s.s eyes seemed to leer as cunningly as the original orbs when they cast longing glances at the feathered inhabitants of the farm-yard.

Blanche had descended the broad staircase, and now gazed timidly round at these strange ornaments of the ancient hall. She felt as if she could not endure the leer of the fox one minute longer, and catching a glimpse of the pleasant greensward through the great door, which stood open, she darted out. The mountain breeze had a rea.s.suring effect, and Blanche felt safe and happy again, as she stood gazing on the fair scene, in which the bleak and the beautiful strangely blended.

To the left of the castle, on banks which sloped towards the river, were ma.s.ses of feathery birk-trees, with their white crooked stems gleaming in the sun, and through the net-work of green Blanche could catch glimpses of the river as it took its winding way through the glen. On a sunny, upland slope, rising from the other side of the river, there were some corn-fields waving, which were only now yellowing for the late harvest.

To the right there stretched a great pine forest, with the dark green spires of fir fringing the horizon; and down in the valley there gleamed a sheet of water, lying like a looking-gla.s.s framed among the heather.

The mist of the previous evening had all cleared away, and the golden sunlight streamed on hill and glen, showing the tracks of the little winding brooks, making the white stones gleam, and the water that rippled through them sparkle like diamonds, lighting up the bright green patches on the hills, which seemed so alluring in their sun-lighted hues, that Blanche did not guess how treacherous they might sometimes prove for unwary feet, and longed to reach them. Here and there a little cottage seemed to grow out of the heather, scarcely distinguishable but for the white lime under the brown thatch, and the blue smoke which curled from its tiny chimney.

The little English maiden gazed in ecstacy on this scene, so new and strange to her. A delicious feeling of adventure and freedom kept singing at her heart, as she scampered off round the grey old keep in search of her papa, for without a companion her happiness was incomplete. She knew well what she meant to do. Into each of these tiny cottages she should like to peep, all the bright green places she wanted to explore, and those gleaming sheep-roads in the heather seemed to have been made expressly for her. Wherever little English feet could tread, her father had promised that she might go, and she felt very sure that her feet would be quite able for anything so pleasant. Her castle-in-the-air was quite outrivalling in proportions the one that towered above her, when she heard a voice which brought her quickly back to real life, with its rules, its proprieties, and its lessons.

"Miss Clifford, this cannot be permitted. Ellis tells me that you have dressed without her a.s.sistance, escaped from your room, and nowhere to be seen; and after hunting through endless stairs and pa.s.sages, I find you here, without your outdoor things, and with boots that were meant for civilized life. I knew what would happen; no kind of discipline can be kept up in this wild, lawless place."

Blanche was too exuberantly happy at the moment to be damped by any rebuke.

"O dear Miss Prosser! I'm so sorry you've had to look for me. I really couldn't rest in bed. I'm sure it must be quite late, besides; I felt so wide awake. Has papa had breakfast yet, I wonder? I'm in search of him now. He promised to take me to the hills, and I want to begin at once."

"My dear child, what are you talking about? Your papa has been gone for hours. This is the famous 'Twelfth,' you know. He started at sunrise, I believe, with several gentlemen who arrived yesterday. The barking of the dogs awoke me, and as I was unable to close an eye afterwards, I got up, and have been busy helping Ellis to make a schoolroom pleasant and habitable for us."

"Papa gone!--papa not to be back till evening! How could Ellis be so cruel as to let me sleep! I wish I had heard the barking of the dogs,"

burst forth Blanche, in grief and dismay.

All of a sudden the glen grew dim to her eyes, and the hot tears came raining down. Miss Prosser began to act the part of a comforter, and to make suggestions of breakfast and a pleasant walk in the afternoon when lessons were over. But Blanche would not be comforted; the proposal of a walk seemed a mockery to her, when she remembered the adventurous rambles which she had been planning. She followed her governess with reluctant steps, casting wistful glances at the moorland as she pa.s.sed into the dark hall, where the old fox seemed to leer more cunningly than ever, as if he were enjoying her disappointment.

"Now, Blanche, dear, haven't I contrived to make our new abode look wonderfully homelike? Ellis and I have had quite a hard morning's work, unpacking and arranging, I a.s.sure you."

A knot rose in poor Blanche's throat as she looked blankly round. There, sure enough, she could see, through her tear-dimmed eyes, an exact reproduction of the London school-room, which she hoped she had left far behind. On the wall hung the familiar maps and black-board, and the table was covered with the well-known physiognomies of the school-books of which she had taken farewell for many a day. Every trace of the glen was effectually excluded; a low window looked out on the green slope, and a rising knoll of gra.s.s almost shut out the sky.

"I had such difficulty in selecting a room," said Miss Prosser, with a satisfied glance round her; "but I think I have made a happy choice.

Ellis found one at the other side of the castle, which seemed habitable enough, but it looked out on that dreary moorland, so I avoided it."

"How can you call it dreary, Miss Prosser? It is the most glorious, beautiful land I ever saw. Do take a window that looks on it. But I'm sure papa never meant me to have lessons--I shan't; I can't really stay indoors; I shall go out and seek papa;" and Blanche finished with a wild burst of tears, while Miss Prosser sighed over her naughty pupil.

It is very plain to see that Blanche was by no means a perfect little girl; and as we follow her, we shall be obliged to acknowledge that she was wilful and wayward often enough. But we are not going to make a catalogue of Blanche's faults; they will peep out at intervals, and stare out occasionally, as little girls' faults are apt to do, and not theirs only; so that we must quite shut our eyes, if we are not to see them. We need not do that, but with open eyes--though true and kind as well as open--we shall follow Blanche through these autumn days, and see what they brought to her.

II.

_BLANCHE CLIFFORD._

IN one of the southern counties there stood a stately English home, with silent halls and closed gates, awaiting the time when Blanche Clifford should be of age. It had been her birthplace, though she never remembered having seen it. Her young and beautiful mother had died there on the Christmas Eve when Blanche was born, and her father had not cared to revisit it since. Even his baby-daughter had been only a painful reminder of his loss, and he had left her in his great dreary London house, with a retinue of servants to wait upon her, and had gone away for years of travel in many lands.

During Blanche's helpless infant years, she had been carefully nursed by a faithful old soul, who had been her mother's nurse when she was young.

Mrs. Paterson, or Patty, as Blanche always called her, was guardian, nurse, friend, and playmate all in one. She romped with her little charge till her old legs ached again; sang songs and ballads to her with unwearied fervor in her old quivering voice, which, though thin, was still true, and Blanche thought it the sweetest voice in all the world.

The old nursery which they inhabited underwent wonderful and various transformations during those early days. Now it was the sea where she bathed, or her dolls sailed, in stately s.h.i.+ps of varied manufacture, into their haven on the rug; sometimes it was the Zoological Gardens, and Patty became the bear, receiving Good Friday buns, and every available cupboard contained a ravening animal. And when Blanche got wearied with her romps, she would coil herself on Patty's knee, and the hours till bedtime would pa.s.s all too quickly, as she listened to delightful stories, which never grew old, of the time when mamma was a little girl.

But these pleasant old nursery days had pa.s.sed away as a tale that is told, long before the time when our story begins. Dear old Patty was struck down by painful illness, and had to leave her little lamb in strangers' hands; and now Miss Prosser reigned in her stead. Then lessons had begun. Blanche's governess, being a skilled instructress of youth, was disturbed to find her little pupil sadly backward in all branches of education; for of actual lessons she had none while under Patty's care. Her acquirements consisted in being able to read her favorite story-books, and to repeat and sing an unlimited number of songs and ballads, for many of which she had found notes to suit on the grand piano that stood in the deserted white-draped drawing-room, where she and Patty used to resort for their walk on wet afternoons.

We shall not linger over the years that elapsed between Miss Prosser's coming and our introduction to her and her pupil. We should only have to tell of long days of school-room routine, when Blanche at last got fairly into educational harness, and came to know many things which it was right and proper that she should know. She could tell a great deal of the geography of several countries, was quite at home among the Plantagenets and various other dynasties, could repeat an unlimited number of French irregular verbs, and knew something of the elements of more than one science.

When Mr. Clifford, after years of absence, at last ventured to return to his deserted home, it was something of the nature of a surprise to find an eager, loving little woman's heart awaiting him, and he rejoiced over his child as over a new-found treasure. And though Blanche never remembered having seen her father, yet he had always been her cherished ideal. Constantly she had dreamt of him by night, and talked of him by day; and her favorite occupation was to write a letter to papa ever since she had been in the pot-hook stage of that acquirement. His return home was the greatest event of her life, and brought a brightness into it that was unknown before. It is true that she did not see much of him, even when he was at home; for the hope of an hour's play and prattle with him, in the precious after-dinner hour, was often disappointed by the presence of gentlemen friends, who would talk politics, and discuss other dark and uninteresting subjects, till Blanche at last glided away in a disconsolate frame of mind, and went to bed with a disappointed heart. Occasionally, however, she had her papa all to herself, and these were precious, never-to-be-forgotten hours. Sometimes a half-holiday was granted, and she went for a ride in the Park on her pretty little white pony, Neige, and these were always memorable happy occasions. But every light has its shadow. After having known the pleasure of being with her father, Blanche pined for him when he was absent, and looked forward longingly to the time when she should be quite grown-up, and able to be his companion always.

These autumn days in the Highlands, Blanche had hoped to spend entirely with her father. She did not guess how engrossed he would be in sport, nor that her governess thought it wise and well to provide the means for a few hours of lessons, daily. She took her place among her schoolbooks with a smouldering sense of wrong and grief in her little breast, which did not get extinguished by an hour's bending over an open "History of England." Indeed, the prospect of committing the Wars of the Roses to memory, seemed to promise to turn out as lingering a process as the triumph of the White Rose, recorded in English annals. Blanche looked wistfully round, in the hope of finding some pleasant distraction, some trace of the mountain-land which she could not forget that she had actually reached at last, though certainly her present surroundings did not suggest it.

A pleasant breeze that swept in at the open window was the only mountain element that could not be excluded from this school-room, which had suddenly followed Blanche to the Highlands, and held her captive. The window was on a level with the ground, and a gra.s.sy knoll intercepted the view beyond; there was nothing really to do or see anywhere, so at last Blanche gave herself languidly up to her lesson, thinking she was the most ill-used little girl in all the world. She was gazing absently at a map of England opposite, in a lazy search after Tewkesbury, when she noticed a shadow flit across the sunlighted wall, but before she had time to turn her head, it had vanished, and Blanche again betook herself to the battle of Tewkesbury, with a strong effort of attention.

Suddenly, as she happened to look up from her book, to fix a fact in her memory, by repeating it aloud, she saw standing at the window, not a shadow this time, but a real flesh and blood little girl, gazing intently at her. A brown little face peeped out from among a ma.s.s of tangled, raven-black, elf-like locks, and a pair of keen dark eyes rested on Blanche, with admiration and wonder in their gaze. The little figure was arrayed in a tartan dress of the briefest dimensions, which hung in fringes, and displayed brown bare arms and legs, well-knit and nimble-looking. After Blanche's first gasp of astonishment at so strange and unexpected an apparition, it occurred to her that the image could probably give some account of itself, and she was wondering what would be the most suitable mode of address, when, as if divining her idea, off the creature darted, round the gra.s.sy knoll, and out of sight.

Blanche sprung to the window, and looked excitedly round to see if she could possibly follow. The window was close to the ground, and her foot was on the sill, ready to start off in pursuit, when just at that moment in walked Miss Prosser.

"Why, Blanche, what are you about? You look quite excited, child!"

Blanche's first impulse was to confide to her the cause of her excitement, but, on second thoughts, she resolved not to reveal it. To her, the sudden apparition of the little elfish-looking maiden was quite a romantic adventure; but she felt doubtful if it would appear in the same light to her governess, who frequently objected to Blanche's friendly advances to the little London flower-girls, and her delicate attentions to crossing-sweepers. Moreover, Blanche had a vague terror lest a pursuit of the little unknown might be set on foot, not of such a friendly character as her's was meant to be, so she resolved to keep her own counsel. Still the vision of the weird-looking little maiden, whom she had caught devouring her with great soft eyes, like a gentle timid animal of the forest, kept haunting her. What did she want? where did she live? she wondered. Perhaps she might not have any home. She looked very ragged, certainly, and very poor she must be, for she wore neither shoes nor stockings, were the reflections that actively coursed through Blanche's brain, as she narrated the Battle of Tewkesbury to her governess, who had just reason to complain of a very absent-minded pupil.