nelly recovered, at first slowly but cheeringly, latterly with a doubt and apprehension creeping over her brightening prospect—until, all too certainly and hopelessly, her noon, that had been disturbed with thunder-claps and dashing rain, was shrouded in grey twilight.
nelly would live, but her limbs would never more obey her active spirit, for she had been attacked by a relentless malady. the little feet that had slid in courtly measure, and twinkled in blithe strathspeys, and wandered restlessly over moor and brae, were stretched out in leaden helplessness. when she was young, she "had girded herself and gone whither she would;" but now, ere she was old, while there was not one silver thread in those chestnut locks, "another would gird her and carry her whither she would not." and oh! to think how the young mother's heart, ready to bud and bloom anew, was doomed to drag out a protracted existence, linked to the corpse-like frame [page 193]of threescore and ten, until the angel of death freed it from its tabernacle of clay.
nelly never spoke of her affliction—never parted from her baby. travelling with difficulty, she removed to edinburgh, to the aspiring tenement in the busy canongate, which she had quitted in her distraction. lady carnegie, in her rustling silk and with her clicking ivory shuttle, received her into her little household, but did not care to conceal that she did so on account of the aliment staneholme had secured to his forsaken wife and heir. she did not endure the occasional sight of her daughter's infirmities without beshrewing them, as a reflection on her own dignity. she even sneered and scoffed at them, until nanny swinton began to fear that the judgment of god might strike her lady—a venerable grandame still without one weakness of bodily decay or human affection.
and did nelly fret and moan over the invalid condition for which there was neither palliation nor remedy? nay, a blessing upon her at last; she began to witness a good testimony to the original mettle and bravery of her nature. she accepted the tangible evil direct from god's hand, sighingly, submissively, and with a noble meekness of resignation. she rose above her hapless lot—the old nelly carnegie, though subdued and chastened, was in a degree restored.
"nanny! nanny swinton!" called nelly from her couch, as she managed to hold up, almost exultingly, the big crowing baby, in its quaintest of mantles and caps, "staneholme's son's a braw bairn, well worthy lady carnegie's coral and bells."
[page 194]"'deed is he," nanny assented. "he'll grow up a stately man like his grandsire;" and recurring naturally to forbidden memories, she went on: "he'll be the marrow of master hugh. ye dinna mind master hugh, lady staneholme?—the picture o' auld lady carnegie. that i sud call her auld!"
nelly's brow contracted with something of its old indignation. "there's never a look of the carnegies in my son; he has his father's brow and lip and hair, and you're but a gowk, nanny swinton!" and nelly lay back and closed her eyes, and after a season opened them again, to tell nanny swinton that "she had been dreaming of a strange foreign city, full of pictures and carved woodwork, and of a high-road traversing a rich plain, shaded by apple and chestnut trees, and of something winding and glittering through the branches," leaving nanny, who could not stand the sight of two magpies, or of a cuckoo, of a morning before she had broken her fast, sorely troubled to account for the vision.
the gloaming of a night in june was on the canongate and the silent palace of the gallant, gentle king james. lady carnegie was gracing some rout or drum; nanny swinton was in her kitchen, burnishing her superannuated treasures, and crooning to herself as she worked; nelly, in her solitary, shadowy room, lay plaiting and pinching the cambric and muslin gear whose manufacture was her daily occupation, with her child's clumsy cradle drawn within reach of her hand. through the dim light, she distinguished a man's figure at the door. nelly knew full well those lineaments, with their mingled fire and gloom. [page 195]they did not exasperate her as they had once done; they appalled her with great shuddering; and sinking back, nelly gasped—
"are you dead and gone, staneholme? do you walk to seek my love that ye prigget for, but which canna gladden you now? gae back to the bottom of the sea, or the bloody battle-field, and in the lord's name rest there."
the figure stepped nearer; and nelly, even in her blinding terror, distinguished that it was no shadowy apparition, but mortal like herself. the curdling blood rushed back to nelly's face, flooding the colourless cheek, and firing her with a new impulse. she snatched her child from its slumber, and clasped it to her breast with her thin transparent hands.
"have you come back to claim your son, adam home? but you'll have to tear him from me with your man's strength, for he's mine as well as yours; and he's my last, my only jewel."
and nelly sat bolt upright, her rosy burden contrasting with her young, faded face, and her large eyes beginning to flame like those of a wild beast about to be robbed of its young.
"oh no, nelly, no," groaned staneholme, covering his face; "i heard of your distress, and i came but to speer of your welfare." and he made a motion to withdraw.
but nelly's heart smote her for the wrong her rash words had done him—a wayworn, conscience-smitten man—and she recalled him relentingly.
"ye may have meant well. i bear you no ill-will; i [page 196]am stricken myself. take a look at your laddie, adam home, before ye gang."
he advanced when she bade him, and received the child from her arms; but with such pause and hesitation that it might have seemed he thought more of his hands again meeting poor nelly carnegie's, and of her breath fanning his cheek, than of the precious load she magnanimously intrusted to him. he did look at the infant in his awkward grasp, but it was with a stifled sigh of disappointment.
"he may be a braw bairn, nelly—i know not—but he has no look of yours."
"na, he's a home every inch of him, my bonny boy!" nelly assented, eagerly. after a moment she turned her head, and added peevishly, "i'm a sick woman, and ye needna mind what i say; i'm no fit for company. good day; but mind, i've forgotten and forgiven, and wish my bairn's father well."
"nanny swinton," called nelly to her faithful nurse, as she lay awake on her bed, deep in the sober dimness of the summer night, "think you that staneholme will be booted and spurred with the sun, riding through the loudons to lauderdale?"
"it's like, lady staneholme," answered nanny, drowsily. "the keep o' man and beast is heavy in the town, and he'll be tain to look on his ain house, and greet the folk at home after these mony months beyond the seas. preserve him and ilka kindly scot from fell popish notions rife yonder!"
"a miserable comforter are you, nanny swinton," muttered her mistress, as she hushed her child, and pressed her fevered lips to each tiny feature.
