CANADIAN LIFE.

———

BY MRS. MOODY.

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JEANIE BURNS.

Ah, human hearts are strangely cast,

Time softens grief and pain;

Like reeds that shiver in the blast,

They bend to rise again.

But she in silence bowed her head,

To none her sorrow would impart;

Earth’s faithful arms inclose the dead,

And hide for aye her broken heart!

S. M.

Old man James came to me to request the loan of one of the horses, to attend a funeral. M. was absent on business, and the horses and the man’s time were both greatly needed to prepare the land for the fall crops. I demurred; James looked anxious and disappointed; and the loan of the horse was at length granted, but not without a strict injunction that he should return to his work the moment the funeral was over. He did not come back until late that evening. I had just finished my tea, and was nursing my wrath at his staying out the whole day, when the door of the room (we had but one, and that was shared in common with the servants,) opened, and the delinquent at last appeared. He hung up the new English saddle, and sat down by the blazing hearth without speaking a word.

“What detained you so long, James? You ought to have had half an acre of land, at least, ploughed to-day.”

“Verra true, mistress. It was nae fau’t o’ mine. I had mista’en the hour. The funeral didna’ come in afore sun-down, and I cam’ awa’ directly it was ower.”

“Was it any relation of yours!”

“Na, na, jist a freend, an auld acquaintance, but nane o’ my ain kin. I never felt sae sad in a’ my life, as I ha’ dune this day. I ha’ seen the clods piled on many a heid, and never felt the saut tear in my e’en. But, puir Jeanie! puir lass. It was a sair sight to see them thrown doon upon her.”

My curiosity was excited; I pushed the tea-things from me, and told Bell to give James his supper.

“Naething for me the night, Bell—I canna’ eat—my thoughts will a’ rin on that puir lass. Sae young—sae bonnie, an’ a few months ago as blythe as a lark, an’ now a clod o’ the earth. Hout, we maun all dee when our ain time comes; but, somehow, I canna’ think that Jeanie ought to ha’ gane sae sune.”

“Who is Jeanie Burns? Tell me, James, something about her.”

In compliance with my request, the man gave the following story. I wish I could convey it in his own words, but though I can perfectly understand the Scotch dialect when spoken, I could not write it in its charming simplicity: that honest, truthful brevity, which is so characteristic of this noble people.

“Jeanie Burns was the daughter of a respectable shoemaker, who gained a comfortable living by his trade in a small town in Ayrshire. Her father, like herself, was an only child, and followed the same vocation, and wrought under the same roof that his father had done before him. The elder Burns had met with many reverses, and now helpless and blind, was entirely dependent upon the charity of his son. Honest Jock had not married until late in life, that he might more comfortably provide for the wants of his aged parent. His mother had been dead for some years. She was a meek, pious woman, and Jock quaintly affirmed, ‘That it had pleased the Lord to provide a better inheritance for his dear auld mither than his arm could win, proud and happy as he would have been to have supported her when she was no longer able to work for him.’

“Jock’s paternal love was repaid at last; chance threw in his way a canny young lass, baith guid and bonny: they were united, and Jeanie was the sole fruit of this marriage. But Jeanie proved a host in herself, and grew up the best natured, the prettiest, and the most industrious lass in the village, and was a general favorite both with young and old. She helped her mother in the house, bound shoes for her father, and attended to all the wants of her dear old grandfather, Saunders Burns; who was so much attached to his little handmaid that he was never happy when she was absent.

“Happiness is not a flower of long growth in the world; it requires the dew and sunlight of Heaven to nourish it, and it soon withers, removed from its native skies. The cholera visited the remote village. It smote the strong man in the pride of his strength, and the matron in the beauty of her prime; while it spared the helpless and the aged, the infant of a few days, and the parent of many years. Both Jeanie’s parents fell victims to the fatal disease, and the old blind Saunders and the young Jeanie were left to fight alone a hard battle with poverty and grief. The truly deserving are never entirely forsaken. God may afflict them with many trials, but he watches over them still, and often provides for their wants in a manner truly miraculous. Sympathizing friends gathered round the orphan girl in her hour of need, and obtained for her sufficient employment to enable her to support her old grandfather and herself, and provide for them the common necessaries of life.

“Jeanie was an excellent seamstress, and what between making waistcoats and trowsers for the sailors, and binding shoes for the shoemakers, a business that she thoroughly understood, she soon had her little hired room neatly furnished, and her grandfather as clean and spruce as ever. When she led him into the kirk of a Sabbath morning, all the neighbors greeted the dutiful daughter with an approving smile, and the old man looked so serene and happy that Jeanie was fully repaid for her labors of love.

“Her industry and piety often formed the theme of conversation to the young lads of the village. ‘What a guid wife Jeanie Burns will mak’,’ cried one. ‘Ay,’ said another, ‘he need na complain o’ ill-fortin, who has the luck to get the like o’ her.’

“‘An’ she’s sae bonnie,’ would Willie Robertson add with a sigh, ‘I would na’ covet the wealth o’ the hale world an she were mine.’

“Willie was a fine, active young man, who bore an excellent character, and his comrades thought it very likely that Willie was to be the fortunate man.

“Robertson was the youngest son of a farmer in the neighborhood. He had no land of his own, and he was one of a very large family. From a boy he had assisted his father in working the farm for their common maintenance; but after he took to looking at Jeanie Burns at kirk, instead of minding his prayers, he began to wish that he had a homestead of his own, which he could ask Jeanie and her grandfather to share. He made his wishes known to his father. The old man was prudent. A marriage with Jeanie Burns offered no advantages in a pecuniary view. But the girl was a good, honest girl, of whom any man might be proud. He had himself married for love, and had enjoyed great comfort in his wife.

“‘Willie, my lad,’ he said, ‘I canna’ gi’e ye a share o’ the farm. It is ower sma’ for the mony mouths it has to feed. I ha’e laid by a little siller for a rainy day, an’ this I will gi’e ye to win a farm for yersel’ in the woods o’ Canada. There is plenty o’ room there, an’ industry brings its ain reward. If Jeanie Burns lo’es you, as weel as yer dear mither did me, she will be fain to follow you there.’

“Willie grasped his father’s hand, for he was too much elated to speak, and he ran away to tell his tale of love to the girl of his heart. Jeanie had long loved Robertson in secret, and they were not long in settling the matter. They forgot in their first moments of joy that old Saunders had to be consulted, for they had determined to take the old man with them. But here an obstacle occurred of which they had not dreamed. Old age is selfish, and Saunders obstinately refused to comply with their wishes. The grave that held the remains of his wife and son was dearer to him than all the comforts promised to him by the impatient lovers in that far foreign land. Jeanie wept—but Saunders, deaf and blind, neither heard nor saw her grief, and, like a dutiful child, she breathed no complaint to him, but promised to remain with him until his head rested upon the same pillow with the dead.

“This was a sore and great trial to Willie Robertson, but he consoled himself for his disappointment with the thought that Saunders could not live long, and that he would go and prepare a place for his Jean, and have every thing ready for her reception against the old man died.

“‘I was a cousin of Willie’s,” continued James, ‘by the mither’s side, and he persuaded me to accompany him to Canada. We set sail the first day of May, and were here in time to chop a small fallow for a fall crop. While Robertson had more of this world’s gear than I, for his father had provided him with sufficient funds to purchase a good lot of wild land, which he did in the township of M——, and I was to work with him, on shares. We were one of the first settlers in that place, and we found the work before us rough and hard to our heart’s content. But Willie had a strong motive for exertion—and never did man work harder than he did that first year on his bush-farm, for the love of Jeanie Burns.’

“We built a comfortable log-house, in which we were assisted by the few neighbors we had, who likewise lent a hand in clearing ten acres we had chopped for fall crop.

“All this time Willie kept up a constant correspondence with Jeanie Burns; and he used to talk to me of her coming out, and his future plans, every night when our work was done. If I had not loved and respected the girl mysel’ I should have got unco tired o’ the subject.

“We had just put in our first crop of wheat, when a letter came from Jeanie bringing us the news of her grandfather’s death. Weel I ken the word that Willie spak’ to me when he closed that letter. ‘Jamie, the auld man is gane at last—an’, God forgi’e me, I feel too gladsome to greet. Jeanie is willin’ to come whenever I ha’e the means to bring her out, an’, hoot man, I’m jist thinkin’ that she winna’ ha’e to wait lang.’

“Good workmen were getting very high wages just then, and Willie left the care of the place to me, and hired for three months with auld Squire Jones. He was an excellent teamster, and could put his hand to any sort of work. When his term of service expired he sent Jeanie forty dollars, to pay her passage out, which he hoped she would not delay longer than the spring.

“He got an answer from Jeanie full of love and gratitude, but she thought that her voyage might be delayed until the fall. The good woman, with whom she had lodged since her parent’s died, had just lost her husband, and was in a bad state of health, and she begged Jeanie to stay with her until her daughter could leave her service in Edinburgh and come to take charge of the house. This person had been a kind and steadfast friend to Jeanie in all her troubles, and had helped her nurse the old man in his dying illness. I am sure it was just like Jeanie to act as she did. She had all her life looked more to the comforts of others than to her ain. But Robertson was an angry man when he got that letter, and he said, ‘If that was a’ the lo’e that Jeanie Burns had for him, to prefer an auld woman’s comfort, who was naething to her, to her betrothed husband, she might bide awa’ as lang as she pleased, he would never trouble himsel’ to write to her again.’

“I did na’ think that the man was in earnest, an’ I remonstrated with him on his folly an’ injustice. This ended in a sharp quarrel atween us, and I left him to gang his ain gate, an’ went to live with my uncle, who kept a blacksmith’s forge in the village.

“After a while, we heard that Willie Robertson was married to a Canadian woman—neither young nor good-looking, and very much his inferior in every way, but she had a good lot of land in the rear of his farm. Of course I thought that it was all broken off with puir Jeanie, and I wondered what she would spier at the marriage.

“It was early in June, and our Canadian woods were in their first flush o’ green—an’ how green and lightsome they be in their spring dress—when Jeanie Burns landed in Canada. She traveled her lane up the country, wondering why Willie was not at Montreal to meet her as he had promised in the last letter he sent her. It was late in the afternoon when the steamboat brought her to C——, and, without waiting to ask any questions respecting him, she hired a man and cart to take her and her luggage to M——. The road through the bush was very heavy, and it was night before they reached Robertson’s clearing, and with some difficulty the driver found his way among the logs to the cabin-door.

“Hearing the sound of wheels, the wife, a coarse, ill-dressed slattern, came out to see what could bring strangers to such an out-o’-the-way place at that late hour. ‘Puir Jeanie! I can weel imagine the fluttering o’ her heart when she spier’d of the woman for ane Willie Robertson, and asked if he was at hame?’

“‘Yes,’ answered the wife gruffly; ‘but he is not in from the fallow yet—you may see him up yonder, tending the blazing logs.’

“While Jeanie was striving to look in the direction which the woman pointed out, and could na’ see through the tears that blinded her e’e, the driver jumped down from the cart, and asked the puir girl where he should leave her trunks, as it was getting late, and he must be off.

“‘You need not bring these big chests in here,’ said Mrs. Robertson; ‘I have no room in my house for strangers and their luggage.’

“‘Your house!’ gasped Jeanie, catching her arm. ‘Did you na’ tell me that he lived here?—and whereever Willie Robertson bides Jeanie Burns sud be a welcome guest. Tell him,’ she continued, trembling all ower, for she told me afterward that there was something in the woman’s look and tone that made the cold chills run to her heart, ‘that an auld friend from Scotland has jist came off a lang, wearisome journey to see him.’

“‘You may speak for yourself!’ cried the woman angrily, ‘for my husband is now coming down the clearing.’

“The word husband was scarcely out o’ her mouth than puir Jeanie fell as ane dead across the doorstep.

“The driver lifted up the unfortunate girl, carried her into the cabin, and placed her in a chair, regardless of the opposition of Mrs. Robertson, whose jealousy was now fairly aroused, and who declared that the bold huzzie should not enter her doors.

“It was a long time before the driver succeeded in bringing Jeanie to herself, and she had only just unclosed her eyes when Willie came in.

“‘Wife,’ he said, ‘whose cart is this standing at the door, and what do these people want here?’

“‘You know best,’ cried the angry woman, bursting into tears; ‘that creature is no acquaintance of mine, and if she is suffered to remain here, I will leave the house.’

“‘Forgi’e me, good woman, for having unwittingly offended ye,’ said Jeanie, rising. ‘But, merciful Father! how sud I ken that Willie Robertson, my ain Willie, had a wife? Oh, Willie!’ she cried, covering her face in her hands, to hide all the agony that was in her heart, ‘I ha’ come a lang way, as’ a weary to see ye, an’ ye might ha’ spared me the grief—the burning shame o’ this. Farewell, Willie Robertson!—I will never mair trouble ye nor her wi’ my presence, but this cruel deed of yours has broken my heart!’

“She went away weeping, and he had not the courage to detain her, or say one word to comfort her, or account for his strange conduct; yet, if I know him right, that must ha’ been the most sorrowfu’ moment in his life.

“Jeanie was a distant connection of my uncle’s, and she found us out that night on her return to the village, and told us all her grief. My aunt, who was a kind, good woman, was indignant at the treatment she had received, and loved and cherished her as if she had been her own child.

“For two whole weeks she kept her bed, and was so ill that the doctor despaired of her life; and when she did come again among us, the color had faded from her cheeks, and the light from her sweet blue eyes, and she spoke in a low, subdued voice, but she never spoke of him as the cause of her grief.

“One day she called me aside and said—

“‘Jamie, you know how I lo’ed an’ trusted him, an’ obeyed his ain wishes in comin’ out to this strange country to be his wife. But ’tis all over now,’ and she pressed her sma’ hands tightly over her breast, to keep doon the swelling o’ her heart. ‘Jamie, I know now that it is a’ for the best; I lo’ed him too weel—mair than ony creature sud lo’e a perishing thing o’ earth. But I thought that he wud be sae glad an’ sae proud to see his ain Jeanie sae sune. But, oh!—ah, weel!—I maun na think o’ that; what I wud jist say is this,’ an’ she took a sma’ packet fra’ her breast, while the tears streamed down her pale cheeks. ‘He sent me forty dollars to bring me ower the sea to him—God bless him for that!—I ken he worked hard to earn it, for he lo’ed me then—I was na’ idle during his absence. I had saved enough to bury my dear auld grandfather, and to pay my ain expenses out; and I thought, like the gude servant in the parable, I wud return Willie his ain with interest; an’ I hoped to see him smile at my diligence, an’ ca’ me his bonnie gude lassie. Jamie, I canna’ keep this siller—it lies like a weight o’ lead on my heart. Tak’ it back to him, an’ tell him fra’ me, that I forgi’e him his cruel deceit, an’ pray to God to grant him prosperity, and restore to him that peace o’ mind o’ which he has robbed me forever.’

“I did as she bade me. Willie looked stupefied when I delivered her message. The only remark he made, when I gave him back the money, was—‘I maun be gratefu’, man, that she did na’ curse me.’ The wife came in, and he hid away the packet and slunk off. The man looked degraded in his own eyes, and so wretched, that I pitied him from my very heart.

“When I came home, Jeanie met me at my uncle’s gate.

“‘Tell me?’ she said, in a low, anxious voice, ‘tell me, Cousin Jamie, what passed atween ye? Had he nae word for me?’

“‘Naething, Jeanie; the man is lost to himsel’—to a’ who ance wished him weel. He is not worth a decent body’s thought.’

“She sighed deeply, for I saw that her heart craved after some word fra’ him; but she said nae mair, but pale and sorrowfu’ the very ghaist o’ her former sel’, went back into the house.

“From that hour she never breathed his name to ony of us; but we all ken’d that it was her love for him, that was preying upon her life. The grief that has nae voice, like the canker-worm, always lies ne’est to the heart. Puir Jeanie! she held out during the simmer, but when the fall came, she just withered awa’ like a flower nipped by the early frost, and this day we laid her in the earth.

“After the funeral was ower, and the mourners were all gone, I stood beside her grave, thinking ower the days of my boyhood, when she and I were happy weans, an’ used to pu’ the gowans together, on the heathery hills o’ dear auld Scotland. An’ I tried in vain to understan’ the mysterious providence o’ God, who had stricken her who seemed sae gude and pure, an’ spared the like o’ me, who was mair deservin’ o’ his wrath, when I heard a deep groan, an’ I saw Willie Robertson standing near me beside the grave.

“‘Ye may as weel spare your grief, noo,’ said I, for I felt hard toward him, an’ rejoice that the weary is at rest.’

“‘It was I murdered her,’ said he, ‘an’ the thought will haunt me to my last day. Did she remember me on her death-bed?’

“‘Her thoughts were only ken’d by Him who reads the secrets of a’ hearts, Willie. Her end was peace, an’ her Saviour’s blessed name was the last sound upon her lips. But if ever woman died fra’ a broken heart, there she lies.’

“‘Oh, Jeanie!’ he cried, mine ain darling Jennie! my blessed lammie! I was na’ worthy o’ yer love—my heart, too, is breaking. To bring ye back aince mair, I wud lay me down an’ dee!’

“An’ he flung himsel’ upon the grave, and embraced the fresh clods, and greeted like a child.

“When he grew more calm, we had a long conversation about the past, and truly I believe that the man was not in his right senses when he married yon wife; at ony rate, he is not lang for this world; he has fretted the flesh aff his banes, an’ before many months are ower, his heid will lie as low as puir Jeanie Burns’s.”