under a pale february sun nelly was out on the sea-braes, where the sprays of the briar-roses were swept in circles, streaming far and wide. she lingered in the hollow, and strayed to the utmost limit of her path. as she was returning, her eye fell on the folds of an object fluttering among the tedded grass. it was staneholme's plaid. this was the first time he had intruded upon her solitary refuge. when nelly climbed the ascent, and saw the [page 189]mansion house, with its encumbered court, she could distinguish the sharp sound of a horse's hoof. its rider was already out of sight on the bridle-road. michael armstrong, the laird's man, was mounting his own nag; wat pringle, the grieve, and other farm folk, stood looking after the vanished traveller; liddel, the tweedside retriever, paced discontentedly up and down; and old lady staneholme met her on the threshold, and as on the night of her arrival at staneholme, led her up the staircase and into her sleeping-chamber. nelly marked, with dim dread, the tear-stains on the pallid cheeks of placid age, and the trembling of the feeble hand that guided her. she had nothing to fear; but what was the news for which there was such solemn preparation?
"my puir bairn," lady staneholme began brokenly, "i've had an interview with my son, and i've learnt, late, some passages in the past; and i wonder not, but i maun lament, for i am a widow mother, nelly, and my only son adam who did you wrong and showed you no pity, has got his orders to serve with the soldiers in the low countries. he has not stayed to think; he has left without one farewell: he is off and away, to wash out the sins of him and his in his young blood. i will never see his face more: but you are a free woman; and, as the last duty he will receive at your hand, he bids you read his words."
nelly's hand closed tightly over its enclosure. "who says i told he did me wrang?" she said, proudly, her dilated eyes lifted up to the deprecating ones that did not avoid her gaze.
"na, na, ye never stoopit to blame him. weary fa' [page 190]him! nelly carnegie," ejaculated honest lady staneholme, "although he is my ain that made you his, sair, sair against your woman's will, and so binged up blacker guilt at his doorstane, as if the lightest heritage o' sin werena' hard to step ower. but, god forgive me! it's old staneholme risen up to enter afresh upon his straits, and may he send him pardon and peace in his ain time."
"nelly" (staneholme's letter said),—"for my nelly you'll never be, though the law has given me body and estate,—what garred me love you like life or death? i've seen bonnier, and you're no so good as my mother, or you would have forgiven me long syne. why did you laugh, and mock, and scorn me, when i first made up to you among your fine edinburgh folks? had you turned your shoulder upon me with still steadfastness, i might have been driven to the wall—i would have believed you. when you said that you would lie in the grave sooner than in my arms, you roused the evil temper within me; and though i had mounted the grassmarket, i swore i would make you my wife. what call or title had you, a young lass, to thwart your lady mother and the laird of staneholme? and when i had gone thus far—oh! nelly, pity me—there was no room to repent or turn back. i dared not leave you to dree alane your mother's wrath: there was less risk in your wild heart beating itself to death against the other, that would have gladly shed its last drop for its captive's sake. but heaven punished me. i found, nelly, that the hand that had dealt the blow could not heal it. how could i approach you with soft words, that had good right to shed tears of blood for [page 191]my deeds? so, as i cannot put my hand on my breast and die like my father, i'll quit my moors and haughs and my country; i'll cross the sea and bear the musquetoon, and never return—in part to atone to you, for you sall have the choice to rule with my mother in the routh and goodwill of staneholme, or to take the fee for the dowager lands of eweford, and dwell in state in the centre of the stone and lime, and reek, and lords and ladies of edinburgh; in part because i can hold out no longer, nor bide another day in tantalus, which is the book name for an ill place of fruitless longing and blighted hope. i'll no be near you in your danger, because when other wives cry for the strong, grieved faces of their gudemen, you will ban the day your een first fell upon me. nelly carnegie, why did my love bring no return; no ae sweet kiss; never yet a kind blink of your brown een, that ance looked at me in gay defiance, and now heavily and darkly, till they close on this world?"
something more staneholme raved of this undeserved, unwon love, whose possession had become an exaggerated good which he had continued to crave without word or sign, with a boy's frenzy and a man's stanchness. nelly lost her power of will: she sat with the paper in her hand as if she had ceased to comprehend its contents—as if its release from bondage came too late.
"dinna ye ken, nelly woman, his presence will vex you no longer? you're at liberty to go your own gate, and be as you have been—that was his propine," whispered lady staneholme, in sorrowful perplexity, but without rousing nelly from her stupor. they lifted her on her bed, [page 192]and watched her until her trial took hold of her. no stand did nelly make against pain and anguish. she was sinking fast into that dreamless sleep where the weary are at rest, when lady staneholme stood by her bed and laid an heir by her side, bidding her rejoice, in tones that fell off into a faint quivering sob of tenderness and woe; but nelly's crushed, stunned heart had still some hidden spring among its withered verdure, and her benoni called her back from the land of forgetfulness.
