Red Rowans. Flora Annie Webster Steel
Читать онлайн книгу.
over him with the question--
"Que diable allait il faire dans cette galere?"
It was one which, like a floating log after the rapids are past, always came to the surface of Paul Macleod's life when the turmoil of emotion was over. This time it brought an unpleasant surprise with it, for to tell truth he had imagined himself secure against assault. He had considered the situation calmly; had, so to speak, played with it, asserting his power of evading its natural consequences if he chose, of accepting them if he considered it worth while. And now, with his heart still beating, his face still flushed, and with Jeanie's kisses still tingling on his lips, it was no use denying that he had been taken by storm. And it annoyed him. Suddenly the thought that it was just the sort of scrape his brother would have fallen into came to enhance the odd contempt which Paul Macleod's head always had for his heart. The certainty, however, that he shared that brother's extremely emotional nature was so unwelcome that it served for a time to strengthen him in denial of his own weakness of will. After all, impulse was the essence of passion. Had he not, recognising this, voluntarily bade reason and prudence step aside. Would not any man have been a fool to think twice of the future with Jeanie Duncan's face ready to be kissed? It was worth something; in a way it was worth all the rest of the world put together. So the serio-comedy might have ended as such serio-comedies usually do but for the merest triviality; nothing more nor less than the perception that he had tarred his hands in vaulting over the gate! The offending stains sobered him, as no advice, no reasoning, no reproof, could have done. To begin with, there was no possibility of denying to himself that, be Love what it may, he, Paul Macleod, would never in a calm moment of volition have dirtied his hands in that fashion. He hated to be touched or soiled by common things, without, as it were, a "by your leave." Then there was a prophetic tinge in the consequences of his setting barriers at defiance which appealed to his imagination. After all, would it be worth while to carry about for the rest of your life an indelible mark of a past pleasure, which could scarcely fail to become a disagreeable reminiscence, no matter what was the denouement of the present situation? Marriage? Hardly that. Not only was he too poor to marry for love, but was it by any means certain that such love as this was worth the sacrifice of freedom. On the other hand, the only possible alternative was, to begin with, such shocking bad form. The Macleods of Gleneira had always kept straight in Gleneira itself. Besides, if he harmed the girl in any way, he knew perfectly well that the regret would be a tie to him all his life. That was the worst of having an imagination. Other men might do it; he could not, if only for his own sake. Then there was Jeanie, to think of poor little Jeanie, who didn't even grasp the fact that she was in danger--who would----
Ah! Was it worth while? The question came back insistently, as, with a plentiful supply of the salt butter recommended by the housekeeper at Gleneira, he tried to get rid of the tar. He was no milksop, though he liked delicate surroundings, and found a certain refinement necessary to his comfort, but, if he had no objections to soiling his hands in obedience to his own sovereign will and pleasure, he was always eager to have them clean again. And so it was with his life.
Poor little Jeanie Duncan! She in her innocent self-abandonment would have welcomed anything which would have marked her as his indelibly. And yet a real regard for her prompted his calculations. If he had held her cheaper he would not have dreaded the remorse which would be a tie to him all his life. It never occurred to him that this squeamishness had come too late, or that the fine-weather flirtation had in itself done the mischief; that the injury to an innocent girl lies in the mind only.
"Tell Donald that I shall want the light cart at five to-morrow morning. I have to catch the Oban steamer," he said to the astonished housekeeper as he sate down to his solitary dinner; for he had come to Gleneira with the intention of spending long-leave in pottering about the old place with gun and rod.
So while Jeanie Duncan slept the sleep of perfect content, her lover drove past the cottage in the grey mist of a rainy autumn morning feeling intensely virtuous; and all the more so because his heart really ached, even at the sight of the tarred gate. And no doubt nine-tenths of the men he knew would have applauded his resolution in running away, patted him on the back, told him he was a very fine fellow, and said that but for his self-control the affair might have ended miserably. Perhaps they would have been right; though, as a matter of fact, Paul Macleod was running away from the natural consequence of his own actions.
Jeanie Duncan read his note of farewell with a scared white face. It was gentle, regretful, kindly, and it killed her belief in Love for ever. And unfortunately Love had not come to her in its sensual guise. It had represented to her all the Truth, and Goodness, and Beauty in the world. So she lost a good deal; and naturally enough a great restlessness and desire for something to fill the empty space took possession of her. Finally, when Spring drew on, and the first broods were trying their wings, she--to use the phrase adopted by those who tired of life in the remote glens--"thought of service in Glasgow." Vague euphemism for much seeing of that unseen world beyond the hills.
But while Paul Macleod in his travels carried with him the consciousness of virtue, she had for memory the knowledge that she had been weighed in the balance and found wanting.
Two very different legacies from the same past.
Within the long, low cottage the black smoke-polished rafters rose in inky darkness above the rough whitewashed walls, and the mud floor showed the traces of past leaks in many a hill and hollow. The two tiny windows were set breathlessly agape, and through the open door a flood of hot bright sunshine threw a bar of mote-speckled light across the room, gilding the heads of the scholars who sat swinging their legs on the benches and sending a sort of reflected glint from the white wall up into the sombre shadow of the roof. Such was the Episcopal Grant-in-Aid School of Gleneira one July day, some ten years after Paul Macleod had driven down in the mist to catch the Oban steamer.
Without, was a pale, heat-blanched sky set in tall spectral-looking hills which had lost contour and individuality in a haze, blending rock and heather, grass and fern, hollows and heights, into one uniform tint of transparent blue. Between the mountains there was a little level growth of green corn flecked by yellow marigolds, white ox-eyes, and scarlet poppies; then a stretch of dusty road, ending in cool shadows of sycamore and pine, beside the school-house garden.
A wonderful garden this. Of Liliputian size, yet holding in its tiny clasp a specimen of almost every plant that grows and blows. Three potato haulms, four cabbages, a dozen onions, half a yard of peas; a tuft of parsley, two bronze-leaved beet-roots, a head of celery. This, flanked by a raspberry cane, a gooseberry bush, and supported by an edge of strawberry plants, constituted the kitchen garden. Beyond, in the trim box-edged border leading to the school-house door, were pansies, roses, geraniums, lilies, and peonies; every conceivable flower, each family represented by one solitary scion. Last, not least, the quaint drops of the Dielytra; which the children with awestruck voices call "The Bishop." For when you strip away the pink, sheathing petals, is there not inside a man in full white lawn sleeves? And is not a man in lawn sleeves a disturbing element in a remote Highland glen, where half the people are rigid Presbyterians? Here in this little garden the bees hum lazily and the butterflies come and go; sometimes one, misled by the stream of sunshine pouring through the open door, floats in among the yawning scholars, rousing them to momentary alertness and a faint wonder as to the ultimate fate of the wanderer; whether he will philosophically give up the enterprise or, foolishly persistent, lose himself amid the smoke-blackened rafters.
The passing interest, however, dies down again into the sleepy stolid indifference which is the outward and visible sign of that inward desire for freedom felt by each child in the school. No keen longing, but simply a dull wish to be out on the hillside, down by the burn, under the trees; anywhere away from catechisms, collects, or shoes and stockings. The last being the worst infliction of all to these wild little Highland colts accustomed for six days of the week to bare feet, since the coarse knitted