but staneholme came again in broad light, the next day—the next—and the next, with half excuses and vague talk of business. lady carnegie did not interdict his visits, or blame his weakness and inconsistency, for they were seemly in the eyes of the world—which she honoured, after herself, although she washed her hands of the further concerns of these fools.
and nelly talked to him with a grave friendliness, like one restored from madness or risen from another world. "staneholme, you've never kissed the wean, and it's an ill omen," she said, suddenly, watching him intently as he dandled the child; and as if jealous of any omission regarding it, she appeared satisfied when he complied with her fancy.
"the curtain is drawn, and the shadow is on you; but is that a scar on your brow, staneholme, and where did you get it?"
"a clour from a french pistol;" it was but skin deep—he was off his camp-bed in a few days.
he stooped forward, as he spoke slightingly, and pushed back the hair that half obscured the faint blue seam.
"whisht!" said nelly, reprovingly, "dinna scorn sickness; that bit stroke might have cost lady staneholme her son and my bairn his father;" and she bent towards [page 198]him in her turn, and passed her fingers curiously and pityingly over the healed wound, ignorant how it burned and throbbed under her touch. "when the bairn is grown, and can rin his lane, staneholme," nelly informed him in her new-found freedom of speech, "i will send him for a summer to staneholme; i'll be lonesome without him, but michael armstrong will teach him to ride, and he'll stand by lady staneholme's knee." staneholme expressed no gratitude for the offer, he was fastening the buckle of his beaver. the next time he came he twisted a rose in his hand, and nelly felt that it must indeed be beltane: she looked at the flower wistfully, and wondered "would the breezes be shaking the bear and the briar roses on the sea-braes at staneholme, or were the grapes of southern vines bonnier than they?" he flung down the flower, and strode to her side.
"come hame, nelly," he prayed passionately; "byganes may be byganes now. i've deserted the campaign, i've left its honours and its dangers—and i could have liked them well—to free men, and am here to take you hame."
nelly was thunderstruck. "hame!" she said, at last, slowly, "where you compelled me to travel, where i gloomed on you day and night, as i vowed; i, who would not be a charge and an oppression to the farthest-off cousin that bears your name. are you demented?"
"and this is the end," groaned staneholme, in bitterness; "i dreamt that i would win at last. i did not love you for your health and strength, or your youth and beauty. i declare to you, nelly carnegie, your face is fairer to me, [page 199]lying lily white on your pillow there, than when it was fresh like that rose; and when others deserted you and left you forlorn, i thought i might try again, and wha kent but the ill would be blotted out for the very sake of the strong love that wrought it?"
a dimness came across nelly's eyes, and a faintness over her choking heart; but she pressed her hands upon her breast, and strove against it for the sake of her womanhood.
"and i dreamed," she answered slowly and tremulously, "that it bude to be true, true love, however it had sinned, that neither slight nor hate, nor absence nor fell decay could uproot; and that could tempt me to break my plighted word, and lay my infirmity on the man that bargained for me like gear, and that i swore—heaven absolve me!—i would gar rue his success till his deein' day. adam home, what are you seekin' at my hands?"
"nae mair than you'll grant, nelly carnegie—pardon and peace, and my young gudewife, the desire o' my eyes. i'll be feet to you, nelly, as long's i'm to the fore."
"big tramping feet, staneholme," said nelly, trying to jest, and pushing him back; "dinna promise ower fair. na, adam home, you'll wauken the bairn!"
so staneholme bought the grand new family coach of which the homes had talked for the last generation; and lady carnegie curtsied her supercilious adieus, and hoped her son and daughter would be better keepers at home for the future. and nanny swinton wore her new gown and cockernonie, and blessed her bairn and her bairn's bairn, through tears that were now no more than a sunny shower, the silver mist of the past storm.
[page 200]there was brooding heat on the moors and a glory on the sea when staneholme rode by his lady's coach, within sight of home.
"there will be no great gathering to-night, staneholme; no shots or cheers; no lunt in the blue sky; only doubt and amaze about an old man and wife: but there will be two happy hearts that were heavy as stane before. well-a-day! to think i should be fain to return this way!"
staneholme laughed, and retorted something perhaps neither quite modest nor wise; but the ready tongue that had learnt so speedily to pour itself out to his greedy ears did not now scold and contradict him, but sighed—
"ah, adam home, you do not have the best of it; it is sweet to be beat; i didna ken—i never guessed that."
gladly astounded were the retainers of staneholme at their young laird's unannounced return, safe and sound, from the wars; but greater and more agreeable was their friendly surprise to find that his sick wife, who came back with him unstrengthened in body, was healed and hearty in spirit. well might good old lady staneholme rejoice, and hush her bold grandson, for the change was not evanescent or its effects uncertain. as staneholme drove out his ailing wife, or constructed a seat for her on the fresh moor, or looked at her stitching his frilled shirts as intently as the child's falling collars, and talked to her of his duties and his sports, his wildness was controlled and dignified. and when he sat, the head and protector of his deaf old mother, and his little frolicsome, fearless child, and his [page 201]nelly carnegie, whose spirit had come again, but whose body remained but a sear relic of her blooming youth, his fitful melancholy melted into the sober tenderness of a penitent, believing man, who dares not complain, but who must praise god and be thankful, so long as life's greatest boons are spared to him.
