'Think of you!' he cried, and in a kind of wonder of rapture he was regarding Meenie's tear-filled eyes, that made no shame of meeting his look. 'I think of you – and ever will – as the tenderest and kindest and truest-hearted of women.' He had both her hands now; and he held them close and warm. 'Even now – at this minute – when you have given yourself to me – you have no thought of yourself at all – it is all about me, that am not worth it, and never was. Is there any other woman in the world so brave and unselfish! Meenie, lass – no, for this once – and no one will ever be able to take the memory away from me – for this once let me call you my love and my darling – my true-hearted love and darling! – well, now, that's said and done with; and many a day to come I will think over these few minutes, and think of sitting here with you in this West End Park on the bench here, and the trees around, and I will say to myself that I called Meenie my love and my darling, and she was not angry – not angry.'
'No, not angry, Ronald,' and there was a bit of a strange and tender smile shining through the tears in the blue-gray eyes.
'Ay, indeed,' said he, more gravely, 'that will be something for me; maybe, everything. I can scarcely believe that this has just happened – my heart's in a flame, and my head's gone daft, I think; and it seems as if there was nothing for me but to thank God for having sent you into the world and made you as unselfish and generous as you are. But that's not the way of looking at it, my – my good lass. You have too little thought for yourself. Why, what a coward I should be if I did not ask you to think of the sacrifice you are making!'
'I am making no sacrifice, Ronald,' she said, simply and calmly. 'I spoke what my heart felt; and perhaps too readily. But I am going back to the Highlands. I shall stay there till you come for me, if ever you come for me. They spoke of my going for a while to my mother's cousins; but I shall not do that; no, I shall be at Inver-Mudal, or wherever my father is, and you will easily get to know that, Ronald. But if things go ill, and you do not come for me – or – or, if ye do not care to come for me – well, that is as the world goes, and no one can tell before-hand. Or many years may go by, and when you do come for me, Ronald, you may find me a gray-haired woman – but you will find me a single woman.'
She spoke quite calmly; this was no new resolve; it was his lips, not hers, that were tremulous, for a second or so. But only for a second; for now he was all anxiety to cheer her and comfort her as regards the future. He could not bring himself to ask her to consider again; the prize was too precious; rather he spoke of all the chances and hopes of life, and of the splendid future that she had placed before him. Now there was something worth striving for – something worth the winning. And already, with the wild audacity that was now pulsating in his veins, he saw the way clear – a long way, perhaps, and tedious, but all filled with light and strewn with blossoms here or there (these were messages, or a look, or a smile, from Meenie), and at the end of it, waiting to welcome him, Love-Meenie, Rose-Meenie, with love-radiance shining in her eyes.
He almost talked her into cheerfulness (for she had grown a little despondent after that first devotion of self-surrender); and by and by she rose from the bench. She was a little pale.
'I don't know whether I have done well or ill, Ronald,' she said, in a low voice, 'but I do not think I could have done otherwise. It is for you to show hereafter that I have done right.'
'But do you regret?' he said quickly.
She turned to him with a strange smile on her face.
'Regret? No. I do not think I could have done otherwise. But it is for you to show to all of them that I have done right.'
'And if it could only be done all at once, Meenie; that's where the soldier has his chance – '
'No, it is not to be done all at once,' she said; 'it will be a hard and difficult waiting for you, and a slow waiting for me – '
'Do you think I care for any hardness or difficulty now?' he said. 'Dear Meenie, you little know what a prize you have set before me. Why, now, here, every moment that I pass with you seems worth a year; and yet I grudge every one – '
'But why?' she said, looking up.
'I am going over to Pollokshaws the instant I leave you to try to pick up the threads of everything I had let slip. Dear lass, you have made every quarter of an hour in the day far too short; I want twelve hours in the day to be with you, and other twelve to be at my work.'
'We must see each other very little, Ronald,' she said, as they set out to leave the Park. 'People would only talk – '
'But to-morrow – '
'No. My sister is going down to Dunoon to-morrow to see about the shutting up of the house for the winter, and I am going with her. But on Friday – if you were in the Botanic Gardens – early in the forenoon – perhaps I could see you then?'
'Yes, yes,' said he eagerly; and as they went down towards the Woodland Road he strove to talk to her very cheerfully and brightly indeed, for he could not but see that she was a little troubled.
Then, when they were about to part, she seemed to try to rouse herself a little, and to banish whatever doubts and hesitations may have been harassing her mind.
'Ronald,' she said, with a bit of a smile, 'when you told me of that girl in the Highlands that you knew, you said you – you had never said anything to her that would lead her to imagine you were thinking of her. But you wrote her a letter.'
'What?'
'Yes; and she saw it,' Meenie continued; but with downcast eyes. 'It was not meant for her to see; but she saw it. It was some verses – very pretty they were – but – but rather daring – considering that – '
'Bless me,' he exclaimed, 'did you see that?'
She nodded. And then his mind went swiftly back to that period.
'Meenie, that was the time you were angry with me.'
She looked up.
'And yet not so very angry, Ronald.'
'But Love from Love towards school with hoary looks.' Not always. Five miles an hour or so was the pace at which Ronald sped over to Pollokshaws: and very much astonished was the nervous little Mr. Weems over the new-found and anxious energy of his quondam pupil. Ronald remained all day there, and, indeed, did not leave the cottage until it was very late. As he walked back into the town all the world around him lay black and silent; no stars were visible; no crescent moon; nor any dim outline of cloud; but the dusky heavens were flushed with the red fires of the ironworks, as the flames shot fiercely up, and sent their sullen splendour across the startled night. And that, it may have occurred to him, was as the lurid glare that had lit up his own life for a while, until the fires had gone down, and the world grown sombre and dead; but surely there was a clear dawn about to break by and by in the east – clear and silvery and luminous – like the first glow of the morn along the Clebrig slopes.
CHAPTER VII
AT THE PEAR-TREE WELL
He was almost glad that Meenie was going away for these two days, for he was desperately anxious to make up for the time he had lost; and the good-natured little Mr. Weems, instead of showing any annoyance or resentment, rather aided and abetted this furious zeal on the part of his pupil. All the same, Ronald found occasion to be within easy distance of the railway station on the morning of Meenie's departure and about a few minutes to eight he saw herself and her sister step out of one of the cabs that were being driven up. If only he could have signalled a good-bye to her! But he kept discreetly in the background; glad enough to see that she was looking so fresh and bright and cheerful – even laughing she was, over some little mishap, as he imagined. And then so trim and neat she was in her travelling attire; and so daintily she walked – the graceful figure moving (as he thought) as if to a kind of music. The elder sister took the tickets; then they entered one of the carriages; and presently the train had slowly rolled away from the platform and was gone.
That glimpse of Meenie had filled his heart with unutterable delight; he scarcely knew what he was doing when he got out into the open air again. The day seemed a festal day; there was gladness abroad in the very atmosphere; it was a day for good-companionship, and the drinking of healths, and the wishing of good wishes to all the world. His thoughts were all with Meenie – in that railway carriage flying away down to Greenock; and yet here, around him, there was gladness and happiness that seemed to demand some actual expression and recognition! Almost unconsciously – and with his brain busy with very distant matters – he walked into a public-house.
'Give me a glass of Highland whisky, my lad,' said he to the young man standing behind the counter: 'Talisker, if ye have it.'
The whisky was measured out and placed before him. He did not look at it. He was standing a little apart. And now Meenie would be out by Pollokshields, in the whiter air; by and by she would pass through Paisley's smoke; then through the placid pastoral country until she would come in sight of Dumbarton's castled crags and the long wide valley of the Clyde. And then the breezy waters of the Firth; and the big steamboat; and Meenie walking up and down the white deck, and drawing the sealskin coat a little tighter round the slight and graceful figure. There would be sunlight there; and fresh sea-winds blowing up from Arran and Bute, from Cumbrae and Cantire. And Meenie —
But at this moment his attention was somehow drawn to the counter, and he was startled into a consciousness of where he was and what he was doing. He glanced at the whisky – with a kind of shiver of fright.
'God forgive me – I did not want it,' he said to the astonished youth who was looking at him, 'but here's the money for 't.'
He put down the few coppers on the counter and hurriedly left the place. But the sudden fright was all. As he sped away out to Pollokshaws he was not haunted by any consciousness of having escaped from danger. He was sure enough of himself in that direction. If a mortal craving for drink had seized him, he would almost have been glad of the fight; it would be something to slay the dragon, for Meenie's sake. But he had naturally a sound and firm constitution; his dissipation had not lasted long enough to destroy his strength of will; and indeed this incident of the public-house, so far from terrifying him with any doubts as to the future, only served to remind him that dreams and visions – and brains gone 'daft' with access of joy – are not appropriate to the thoroughfares of a business city.
No; as he walked rapidly away from the town, by way of Strathbungo and Crossmyloof and Shawlands, what he was chiefly busy with was the hammering out of some tune that would fit the winter song he had chanced upon a few days before. And now he did not regard those gay and galloping verses with a stupefied wonder as to how he ever came to write them; rather he tried to reach again to that same pitch of light-heartedness; and of course it was for Meenie's delight, and for hers only, that this tune had to be got at somehow. It was a laughing, glad kind of a tune that he wanted:
O then the warm west winds will blow,
And all in the sunny weather
It's over the moorlands we will go,
You and I, my love, together.
Chorus: And then the birds will begin to sing,
And we will sing too, my dear,
To give good welcoming to the spring,
In the primrose-time o' the year —
In the primrose-time,
In the primrose-time,
In the primrose-time o' the year —
To give good welcoming to the spring.
In the primrose-time o' the year.
Yes; and it was in the coming spring-time that he was to try for the certificate in forestry; and thereafter – if he were so fortunate as to get that – he might set forth on the path that the Americans had so confidently sketched out for him – the path that was now to lead him to Meenie, as the final crown and prize. 'You may find me a gray-haired woman, Ronald,' she had said, 'but you will find me a single woman.' But still he was young in years; and there was hope and courage in his veins; and what if he were to win to her, after all, before there was a single streak of middle age in the beautiful and abundant brown tresses?
Then, again, on the evening before the morning on which he was to meet her in the Botanic Gardens, he undid the package containing that anthology of verse devoted to Meenie; and began to turn the pieces over, wondering which, or if any of them, would please her, if he took them to her. But this was rather a visionary Meenie he found in these verses; not the real and actual Meenie who had sate beside him on a bench in the West End Park, and placed her hand in his, and pledged her life to him, while the beautiful, tear-filled eyes sought his so bravely. And could he not write something about this actual Meenie; and about Glasgow; and the wonder she had brought into the great, prosaic city? He tried his hand at it, anyway, for a little while:
The dim red fires of yonder gleaming forge
Now dwell triumphant on the brow of night;
A thousand chimneys blackest smoke disgorge,
Repelling from the world the stars' pale light:
A little taper shines adown the street,
From out her casement where she lingers still
To listen to the sound of passing feet,
That all the night with leaden echoes fill —
But he soon stopped. This was not like Meenie at all – Meenie, who was ever associated in his mind with flowers and birds and fair sunlight and the joy of the summer hills. He threw that spoiled sheet into the fire; and sought among the old pieces for one that he might copy out fairly for her; and this is what he eventually chose:
All on a fair May morning
The roses began to blow;
Some of them tipped with crimson,
Some of them tipped with snow.
But they looked the one to the other,
And they looked adown the glen;
They looked the one to the other,
And they rubbed their eyes again,
'O there is the lark in the heavens,
And the mavis sings in the tree;
And surely this is the summer,
But Meenie we cannot see.
'Surely there must be summer
Coming to this far clime;
And has Meenie, Love Meenie, forgotten,
Or have we mistaken the time?'
Then a foxglove spake to the roses:
'O hush you and cease your din;
For I'm going back to my sleeping,
Till Meenie brings summer in.'
Well, it was but a trifle; but trifles are sometimes important things when seen through lovers' eyes.
Next morning he went along to the Botanic Gardens; paid his sixpence with equanimity (for he had dispensed with the ceremony of dining the previous day) and entered. It was rather a pleasant morning; and at first sight he was rather shocked by the number of people – nursemaids and children, most of them – who were idly strolling along the trimly-kept walks or seated in front of the wide open parterres. How was he to find Meenie in such a great place; and, if he did find her, were they to walk up and down before so many eyes? For he had guessed that Meenie would be in no hurry to tell her sister of what had happened – until the future seemed a little more clear and secure; it would be time enough to publish the news when that had assumed a more definite character.
But on and on he went – with glances that were keen and sharp enough – until suddenly, just as he had passed the greenhouses, he came almost face to face with Meenie, who was seated on a bench, all by herself, with a book before her. But she was not reading. 'O and proudly rose she up'; and yet shyly, too; and as he took her hand in his, the joy with which she regarded him needed no confession in words – it was written there in the clear tender eyes.
'Indeed I am so glad to see you, Ronald!' she said. 'I have been so miserable these two days —
'But why?' he asked.
'I don't know, hardly. I have been wondering whether I had done right; and then to go about with my sister, keeping this secret from her; and then I was thinking of the going away back to Inver-Mudal, and never seeing you, and not knowing how you were getting on. But now – now that you are here, it seems all quite right and safe. You look as if you brought good news. What does he think, Ronald?'
'He?' he repeated. 'Who?'
'The old man out there at Pollokshaws, is it?'
Ronald laughed.
'Oh, the old gentleman seems pretty confident; but for very shame's sake I had to let him have a holiday to-day. I am not going over till to-morrow.'
'And he thinks you will pass?'
'He seems to think so.'
'I wish the time were here now, and that it was all well over,' she said. 'Oh, I should be so proud, Ronald; and it will be something to speak of to every one; and then – then that will be but the beginning; and day by day I shall be expecting to hear the news. But what a long, long time it seems to look forward to.'
'Ay, lass; and it will be worse for you than for me; for there will be the continual trying and hoping for me, and for you nothing but the weary waiting. Well – '
'Oh, but do you think I am afraid?' she said bravely. 'No. I have faith in you, Ronald. I know you will do your best.'
'I should deserve to be hanged and buried in a ditch if I did not,' said he. 'But we will leave all that for a while, Meenie; I want you to come for a stroll along the banks over the Kelvin. Would ye wonder to find some sea-gulls flying about? – they're there, though; or they were there a week or two ago. And do you know that I got a glimpse of you at the railway station on Wednesday morning? – '
'I did not see you, Ronald,' she said, with some surprise.
'No, no; I kept out o' the way. It's not for me, lass, it's for you to say when any of your folk are to be told what we are looking forward to; and for my part I would as lief wait till I could put a clearer plan before them – something definite.'
'And that is my opinion too, Ronald,' she answered, in rather a low voice. 'Let it be merely an understanding between you and me. I am content to wait.'
'Well, then,' said he, as they reached the top of the high bank overhanging the river, and began to make their way down the narrow little pathways cut through the trees and shrubs, 'here is a confession: I was so glad to see you on that morning – and so glad to see you looking so well – that I half lost my senses, I think; I went away through the streets in a kind o' dream; and, sure as I'm here, I walked into a public-house and ordered a glass of whisky – '
She looked up in sudden alarm.
'No, no, no,' said he contentedly, 'you need not fear that, my good lassie; it was just that I was bewildered with having seen ye, and thinking of where ye were going. I walked out o' the place without touching it. Ay, and what think ye o' Dunoon? And what kind of a day was it when ye got out on the Firth?'
So she began to tell him of all her adventures and experiences; and by this time they had got down near to the water's edge; and here – of what value would his knowledge of forestry have been otherwise? – he managed to find a seat for her. They were quite alone here – the brown river before them; several sea-gulls placidly paddling on its surface, others flying and dipping overhead; and if this bank of the stream was in shadow, the other – with some small green meadows backed by clumps of elms and maples – was bright and fair enough in the yellow autumn sunshine. They were in absolute silence, too, save for the continual soft murmur of the water, and the occasional whirring by of a blackbird seeking safety underneath a laurel bush.
'Meenie,' said he, putting one hand on her shoulder, 'here are some verses I copied out for ye last night – they're not much worth – but they were written a long time ago, when little did I think I should ever dare to put them into your hand.'
She read them; and there was a rose colour in her face as she did so: not that she was proud of their merit, but because of the revelation they contained.
'A long time ago?' she said, with averted eyes – but her heart was beating warmly.
'Oh,' he said, 'there are dozens and dozens of similar things, if ever ye care to look at them. It was many a happy morning on the hill, and many a quiet night at home, they gave me; but somehow, lass, now that I look at them, they hardly seem to grip ye fast enough. I want something that will bind ye closer to myself – something that ye can read when you are back in the Highlands – something that is known only to our two selves. Well, now, these things that I have written from time to time – you're a long way off in them somehow – the Meenie that's in them is not this actual Meenie, warm and kind and generous and breathing – '
'And a little bit happy, Ronald, just at present,' she said, and she took his hand.
'And some day, when I get through with busier work, I must try to write you something for yourself – '
'But, Ronald, all these pieces you speak of belong to me,' she said promptly, 'and I want them, every one – every, every one. Yes, and I specially want that letter – if you have not kept it, then you must remember it, and write it out for me again – '
'I came across it last night,' said he, with an embarrassed laugh. 'Indeed I don't wonder you were angry.'
'I have told you before, Ronald, that I was not angry,' she said, with a touch of vexation. 'Perhaps I was a little – a little frightened – and scarcely knowing how much you meant – '
'Well, you know now, Meenie dear; but last night, when I was going over those scraps of things, I can tell you I was inclined to draw back. I kept saying to myself – "What! is she really going to see herself talked about in this way?" For there's a good deal of love-making in them, Meenie, and that's a fact; I knew I could say what I liked, since no one would be any the wiser, but, last night, when I looked at some of them, I said – "No; I'm not going to provoke a quarrel with Meenie. She would fling things about, as the American used to say, if she saw all this audacious song-writing about her."'
'I'll chance that quarrel, Ronald,' she answered to this, 'for I want every, every, every one of them; and you must copy them all, for I am going to take them with me when I leave Glasgow.'
'And, indeed,' said he, 'you'll understand them better in the Highlands; for they're all about Ben Loyal, and the Mudal, and Loch Naver, and Clebrig.'
'And to think you hid them from me all that time!'
'Why, Meenie darling, you would have called on the whole population to drive me out of the place if I had shown them to you. Think of the effect produced by a single glance at one of them! – you tortured me for weeks wondering how I had offended you.'
'Well, you can't offend me now, Ronald, that way,' said she, very prettily.
And so their lovers' talk went on, until it was time for Meenie to think of returning home. But just beyond these Botanic Gardens, and down in a secluded nook by the side of the river, there is a little spring that is variously known as the Three-Tree Well and the Pear-Tree Well. It is a limpid little stream, running into the Kelvin; it rises in a tiny cavern and flows for a few yards through a cleft in the rocks. Now these rocks, underneath the overarching trees, have been worn quite smooth (except where they are scored with names) by the footsteps of generation after generation of lovers who, in obedience to an old and fond custom, have come hither to plight their troth while joining hands over the brooklet. Properly the two sweethearts, each standing on one side, ought to join their hands on a Bible as they vow their vows, and thereafter should break a sixpence in twain, each carrying away the half; but these minor points are not necessary to the efficacy of this probably pagan rite. And so – supposing that Ronald had heard of this place of sacred pilgrimage, and had indeed discovered its whereabouts in his rambles around Glasgow – and supposing him to have got a friendly under-gardener to unlock a gate in the western palisades of the Gardens – and then, if he were to ask Meenie to step down to the river-side and walk along to the hallowed well? And yet he made of it no solemn ceremony; the morning was bright and clear around them; and Meenie was rather inclined to smile at the curious old custom. But she went through it nevertheless; and then he slept across the rill again; and said he —
'There's but this remaining now, Meenie darling – "Ae fond kiss and then we sever."'
She stepped back in affright.
'Ronald, not with that song on your lips! Don't you remember what it goes on to say?'
'Well, I don't,' he answered good-naturedly; for he had quoted the phrase at random.
'Why, don't you remember? —
"Had we never loved sae kindly,
Had we never loved sae blindly,
Never met – or never parted,
We had ne'er been broken-hearted."
'My good-hearted lass,' said he, interlinking his arm with hers, 'ye must not be superstitious. What's in a song? There'll be no severance betwixt you and me – the Pear-Tree Well has settled that.'
'And that is not at all superstition?' said she, looking up with a smile – until she suddenly found her blushing face overshadowed.