'Oh, then, ye'll juist get a' the mair gold an' roses for the extra money, Maister Weelum.'

'I am just wondering, Betty,' I said meditatively, 'if a wall-paper with roses--blue or otherwise--is the correct decoration for a dining-room.'

'Oh, there's nae rule, Maister Weelum--at least, no' in Thornhill. No, no; as lang as ye pey for the job, ye can put ony kind ye like on.' And she added, 'Wad ye no' leave the paper to the womenfolk, Maister Weelum?

If ye do ye'll no' gang far wrang.'

'Yes, Betty, that's all right; but I don't know that I could eat my meals comfortably in a room among blue roses. How would a nice, warm-coloured imitation of canvas look, without any pattern at all?'

'A warm-coloured imitation o' canvas? Imphm! I--I juist canna tak' that in; but if it's what I think it is, wad that no' look awfu' mealie-bag lookin'?'

'I'm sure it won't, Betty, and--and--well, I know it is the correct thing. Besides'----

'Ye will hark on "the correct thing," Maister Weelum. I've telt ye that whatever ye want, and pey for, is the correct thing in Thornhill. I've great faith in Mrs Black's taste. I aye tak' my cue, as it were, frae her, though I dinna tell her that; an', where colour is concerned, whether in papers or bonnets, I never think she's far wrang. She comes honestly by it. She aince telt me that it was bred in the bane, for her faither was a colourin'-man in a waxcloth factory aboot Kirkcaldy.'

Mrs Black's hereditary claim did not appeal to me, and in a most agreeable and ingratiating way I was advocating my own scheme, when the outer door opened.

'That'll be the doctor, I'm thinkin',' said Betty, and she hurried off downstairs to receive him.

As my acquaintance with Dr Grierson ripens my admiration for him increases, and my regret becomes all the keener that I had no knowledge of him in my boyhood. An early impression of any one, the outcome of youthful intimacy, is ever a sure basis on which to found true friendship, and I somehow imagine that, to a thoughtful, observant boy, such as Betty a.s.sures me I was, he would have been not only a willing, sympathetic preceptor, but also a great power for good in many ways. I have known him now for only a few months; but during these quiet, uneventful days of convalescence I have had opportunities of studying him well, and have noted with peculiar pleasure his love of nature in all its phases, his reverence for everything uplifting and elevating, and his sympathy, deep and profound, for all in suffering and distress.

Yesterday, when I was in the dumps, seeing everything as through a gla.s.s darkly, and feeling isolated and bereft of sympathetic, intelligent companionship, those lovable traits of his stood out vividly, and the thought came to me that I should tell him of the lady of my dream, and of our strange meeting in the Nithbank Wood. Betty, I know, ought to be my confidante; but I have the feeling that her experience is too limited and her outlook on life generally too parochial to admit of a well-reasoned, dispa.s.sionate view of my case; and, though yesterday and to-day I have had ample opportunities of opening my heart to her, I have felt restrained and dissuaded. Some day I shall tell her everything, and I know she will rejoice with me. But the time is not yet.

CHAPTER IX.

When Dr Grierson sat down at my bedside this morning and took my wrist between his sensitive finger and thumb, I felt magnetically drawn to him, and the desire to confide in him became irresistible. I had been wondering in my mind for hours how best I could introduce the subject; and, not hitting readily on a fitting opening, I had left it to chance and circ.u.mstance. Strangely enough, it was he who paved the way for me.

After we had talked briefly on general subjects, he referred to my 'temporary breakdown,' as he termed it, and told me he was quite sure I had undergone a sudden mental strain which had adversely affected me physically; but that, once my mind and body were sufficiently rested, I should be quite all right again.

'You're quite right, doctor, in your diagnosis of my case,' I said. 'I have had rather a queer experience lately, and, if you care to hear about it I shall gladly tell you. Would you share a little secret with me, doctor?'

'Most gladly,' he said.

'Well, will you please light your pipe? Take that easy-chair by the fire, and you may sit with your back to me, and I sha'n't feel slighted.'

He laughed softly, and, extracting a short clay pipe from his waistcoat pocket, took the chair I indicated. Seated thus, and smoking steadily, he listened in silence till my story was finished. I gave him the whole history, kept nothing back; and in telling all the details I never hesitated, for the incidents were fresh in my mind, and I had everything well thought out.

'Ay, Mr Russell,' he said, after a long pause, 'you tell a story very well, and what you have told is most interesting and wonderful. I have read of such occurrences, but I haven't till now come across one at first hand, as it were. Shakespeare says there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in our philosophy, and your experience certainly goes to prove it. It is usual, especially during a man's romantic years, to dream of a fair lady's face--very usual indeed; but I consider it most remarkable that everything came to a head so shortly after you had told Betty of your dream, and also when, for the first time, you had entertained doubts as to your vision being realised. I suppose you are very much in love with this lady?' and he looked over his shoulder at me.

'Well, yes, doctor, I am.'

'What is your age, again, Mr Russell?'

'Thirty in January.'

'And--and, you've never been in love before?'

'I think I've been in love ever since I dreamed my dream, now nearly ten years ago; but since that interview in Nithbank Wood I'm more hopelessly in love than ever;' and, somehow, I began to blush, and I was glad his back was turned toward me.

'Imphm! Ay, the old story is ever new,' he said, more to himself than to me; and he rose slowly from his chair, knocked the ashes out of his pipe on the top rib of the grate, and came over to my bedside. 'Have you told Betty of this strange meeting?'

'No.'

'Why?'

'Well, doctor, I can hardly explain why I haven't told her, as the dear old soul is "nearer" to me than any one else in the world; but I felt, somehow, that I wanted to confide in you first.'

'Thank you, Mr Russell; and it will be a joyful day when you and I and Betty can talk it all over among us. Meanwhile we'll keep it to ourselves, you and I, and I don't think you should allow this--this _affaire de coeur_ to monopolise your mind too much. To worry and distract your thoughts over it would be as harmful as it would be futile. So far, the stars have fought in their courses for you, and, without much exertion on your part, your fondest dreams seem in a fair way to be fulfilled. William--no "Mr Russell" after a crack like this!--I am more than double your age, and for many years I have lived a queer, prosaic, loveless life--a full life if hard work and gain and recognition be reckoned everything, but empty--oh G.o.d, how empty!--if love counts for all. I am old, but not so old that I cannot understand you and sympathise with you, for I well remember days which were brightened to me by the sunshine of a woman's loving smile; times when all this earth was heaven to me, the singing of the birds an angel song, all its people upright and just; sermons I read in stones, and good I saw in everything. But that was long ago. When love was taken away from me the whole world seemed changed. My life since then has been selfish and self-centred. I have long ceased to take any interest in the social doings of others; and were it not for my work, my books, and my daily communings with nature, I should be a lonely, miserable old man. I don't mind telling you, however, that you have touched a chord in my heart and awakened memories which have slumbered long. I am very much interested in you, partly on account of your own personality, but mainly because it was a very near relative of yours who brought to me the only true joy and gladness that my heart has ever known.'

He sat down on the basket chair at the foot of my bed, facing me, and with his back to the light.

'You will doubtless remember,' he continued, 'that, during my first visit to you here, Betty in course of conversation, casually or otherwise, mentioned the name of your aunt Margaret.'

'Yes, doctor, I remember that distinctly, and also that you were visibly affected; but'----

'I must confess I was, William,' he quickly interposed. 'Well, confidence for confidence. You have told me your love experience, so far as it has gone, and it may be that, by doing so, you have relieved your mind and hastened your recovery; and perhaps, if I recount mine to one who can understand, it will bring a balm and a solace to my old heart, of which, in these my years of sear and yellow leaves, I often stand sorely in need. You--you don't mind my smoking?'

'Certainly not, doctor; and, to be sociable, I'll join you in a pipe.'

'That's right--that's right! Nothing like tobacco for promoting good-fellowship.'

We filled our pipes in silence. Though it was only late noon, the light seemed to be darkening in my little room. I looked toward the window, and down from a dull leaden sky the first of winter's snowflakes were quietly falling--falling, as it appeared to me, into the eager upstretched arms of the leafless lime. The doctor's gaze followed mine; and slowly, with his pipe filled but not lit, he rose from his chair and looked long and thoughtfully toward the quiet, obscured Dry Gill.

'I have always loved to see snow falling,' he said, after a pause. 'It has a strange fascination for me; and to see it in its fleecy flakes, whirling and dancing and drifting and playing, is a sight which always soothes and inspires me. I pray G.o.d that my eyesight may long be spared to me, because it is an avenue through which many of His richly stored treasures are conveyed. I have no ear for music--instrumental music I mean particularly; but, strangely enough, a wimplin' burn can speak to me in its flow, a mavis can call me from my study into my garden, and the eerie yammer of the whaup in the moorland solitude is always to me, as it is to Robert Wanlock, "a wanderin' word frae hame." The human voice raised in song conveys nothing to me, but the crooning lullaby of a loving mother over her suffering child tirls the strings of my heart and makes me humble. To be unable to _feel_ the pleading of the violin, the rich soprano, and the resonant ba.s.s is something I deplore. But Providence has ordained that if one sense is minus one, another sense will be plus one. Well, my sense of sight is plus one, both in strength and appreciation; and in the midst of these beautiful surroundings in which, for the last forty years, my lines have been cast, I have revelled, William--positively revelled. The opportunity has always been mine of noting the changing of the seasons--the virgin green and promise of spring, the glory and fullness of summer, the russet and gold of autumn, the sleep and decay of winter--and each, to him who can see aright, has a beauty and significance of its own. Ay, and this is winter--winter heralded by a shimmering veil of pirling snowflakes, through whose dancing meshes I can trace phantom forms I saw in youth, and whose madcap antics still, thank G.o.d! bring me solace as of yore.

Oh, how grateful and thankful I ought to be!'

He lit his pipe with a paper spill, and stood for a minute blowing clouds of smoke round the old china dog on my mantelpiece. Then he resumed his seat at the foot of my bed; and, inclining his head sideways toward the window, he said, 'The last good-bye I said to your aunt Margaret was spoken amidst falling snow, and it is strange that I should be speaking of her to you for the first time with these flimsy flakes dimming your window-pane. There's not much to tell you, William; and, to be candid with you, when I was standing smoking at your fireplace there the thought came to me that, as your mother had never deemed it expedient or necessary to mention my name to you, it would be more in agreement with her will that I should be silent. However, as I have started, I may as well proceed; but I shall be brief, as I haven't the heart to go into what must ever be sacred details. I first met your aunt Margaret in Edinburgh, when I was at the University. Her father--your grandfather, Colonel Kennedy--had returned from India, where he had served with distinction, and had, with his wife and two daughters, taken up residence in the suburb of Murrayfield. Being of a Dumfriesshire family, and well known to my father, who was a merchant in Dumfries and Provost of that town, Colonel Kennedy, on the strength of my father's letter of introduction, gave me a hearty welcome to his domestic circle, a welcome of which I may say I took ample advantage. Your father and mother got married shortly after I became acquainted with the family; and as your aunt Margaret was thus deprived of a sister and companion to whom she was ardently attached, I gladly embraced every opportunity of showing her little kindly attentions, acting the part of a thoughtful brother, and generally doing my utmost to minimise the loss which I was sure she had sustained. Well, William, this ended in the usual way.

Sympathy begets love, and I fell hopelessly in love with Margaret Kennedy. How I found out that my love was returned is a secret which is a joy to me, too holy to share even with you, William. Ah me! the happiness of those halcyon days--the quiet afternoons in that old drawing-room facing southward to the distant Pentlands, the evening walks on Corstorphine Hill when the sunset rays still lingered above Ben Lomond, the talks we had of the future we had planned! Tennyson says that "sorrow's crown of sorrow is remembering happier things." That may be poetic, but I don't think it is true, for it is a crown of joy to me to call these times to mind, and I feel that to have had this experience, and to have garnered such memories, I have surely not lived in vain. Our love, as is the case with all young people, was unreasoning. We gave no thought to ways and means, and position or status we never for a moment considered. But your grandfather brought us to earth and faced us with realities. In response to a written request, I waited on him one evening, and in a very few words he gave me to understand that I must on no account pay further attention to his daughter, and that my visits to his house must cease. He reproached me with lack of honour in taking advantage of his hospitality to further my own interests and clandestinely win the affection of your aunt Margaret.

I repudiated this charge, perhaps somewhat warmly, informed him that if I had broken any of the accepted social laws in the matter, I had done so in ignorance, and a.s.sured him I loved his daughter, and that nothing short of her renunciation would deter me from some day making her my wife. He lost his temper, and bluntly asked me if, for a moment, I, a prospectless student and son of a provincial merchant, considered myself worthy of a Kennedy of Knockshaw; whereupon I told him that there were Griersons in Lag, as wardens of the Border Marches, when the Kennedys were sitting in farmyard barns making spoons out of ram-horns. The old reiver blood coursed warmly through my veins, and I faced him without fear. This was the last straw. He raised his cane to strike me; but, noting my air of defiance, he immediately lowered it, and pointed to the door. I bowed in silence, then walked slowly out, and I never entered the house again.

'The days which followed that interview were perhaps the most miserable I ever spent. I had had no opportunity of seeing your aunt; and though I knew she loved me, and that no mercenary considerations would sway her, still there was the uncertainty of it all, under altered circ.u.mstances, and the possibility of her being dominated by her father's masterful will. At last, after weary weeks of waiting, of alternate spells of hope and despair, I received a letter from her, written from a lonely island in the Pentland Firth, and letting me know that she had been sent thither by her father on a visit to her uncle, who at that time was proprietor of the island of Stroma. She a.s.sured me of her unfaltering love, told me that nothing on earth would shake her resolve, and that, notwithstanding her father's threats, she would join me sooner or later in a haven of rest. She would take my love for granted, and asked me not to write, as my letters would be intercepted. With this ray of hope I had to be content. She wrote to me at intervals; but, as letter followed letter, each became more despondent and despairing, and at last she informed me that it was evident she would not be allowed to return until she promised not to see or correspond with me again. Then came a little, short note pleading for an interview. "It is a long journey, I know,"

she wrote; "but I dearly--oh, so dearly!--wish to see you again. Your presence will cheer me and strengthen me to bear whatever the future may hold. On Wednesday next my uncle goes to Kirkwall, and on that afternoon I will walk down to a little sheltered creek called Corravoe. It is the nearest point to the mainland, and only a mile or two from Huna. Matthew Howat has a good boat. When you reach Huna ask for Matthew. He knows everything, and will help us...." Never a day pa.s.ses but that weird, solitary scene comes before my eyes--no trees, no hills, no signs of human habitation; only a short, gray-green stretch of low-lying, patchy landscape, bordered by a narrow strip of rocky beach, lapped by the crested tide of the Pentland Flow. One short hour we spent together, for the tide was turning, but the smile of hope shone in her wan face ere we said good-bye. I was the bearer of joyful news, comforting words, and a.s.surance of release. I told her I was specialising in Edinburgh; that an unexpected legacy of three thousand pounds had paved the way to our happiness; and that, when I had arranged with my mother for her reception, she would sail across to Huna, and find me waiting her there.... The roar of the far-off skerries is in my ear, the echoing homeward cry of the seabird, the humming and hissing of the waves among the sh.e.l.ls on the shingle! The shortening day is drawing to a close, mist is clinging to the scarred face of Dunnet Head, from the darkening sky the snow is falling, and through the whirling flakes she fades from my sight.

'A day came when again I was in Huna, looking across the angry, wind-tossed Pentland Firth, waiting for a boat which, alas! never reached its haven. What happened no one ever knew. The sullen waters guard their secrets well; but a broken oar bearing Matthew Howat's initials, picked up in Scrabster Bay, told a story which robbed my life of the only light which ever shone in my soul.'

The doctor sat for a minute, after he had finished his story, with his eyes closed and his chin resting on the knot of his stock. Then he wearily rose from his chair and went quietly downstairs without saying good-bye. He has a keen sense of the fitness of things, and I feel he knew that no word of mine, no pressure of my hand, was needed to prove to him that my heart was with him.

CHAPTER X.

The painters have come and gone, and on the dining-room walls and woodwork they have left evidence of tasty, careful workmanship. John Boyes, to whom the question of wall-paper was referred, was of the opinion that the decorative scheme adopted by Mrs Black for her parlour was not exactly applicable or advisable in our case; so Betty at once deferred to his better judgment, but warned us, all the same, that if the work didn't turn out a success we were not to blame her. There was, however, no occasion for what she calls 'castin' up,' as the room looks exceedingly well, and we--that is, Betty and I--have complimented John Boyes, who likewise looks exceedingly well, not so much perhaps by reason of our commendation, but because his account was asked for and paid the day after the work was completed. I understand the general rule in the locality is to pay tradesmen's accounts once a year, and when I offered such prompt payment John was both surprised and perplexed.

'I thocht, Mr Russell,' he said, 'that you were satisfied wi' the job;'