Chapter XV · THE SPRING EVENING.

Ere the night fell and the moonlight paled out on the Lammermuirs and on the sea, Mary was fated to hear what this secret communication was!

"What had happened at Willowdean—what was the nature of the telegram?" she asked of her own heart and of Alison in vain; the discovery of Cyril's body in the sea, or cast upon the shore perhaps, and even she who loved him so, yea as her own soul, dared not ask permission to look upon his pallid face again!

This conviction was a great, a bitter, and a mortifying grief! Well, well, if the world were going to pieces, she knew that she must attend to the health and wants of her father, and on looking at her watch, she found that she had not a moment to lose if she would be at the station when the train from the North came in. She tied on her smart hat and veil, took her tiny muff, and set forth.

She might have sent Alison Home, but she had a craving to be a little abroad in the open air, for the atmosphere of the house seemed to stifle her, and there were times when the clamorous fluttering of her heart amounted to agony, and when she felt as one in a dream—one enduring sorrows not her own, but those of another.

She passed the thicket and the stile where she had been wont to meet him in the evening, and she glanced at both wistfully. No need was there now to wait with anxious heart to watch the clock, or wonder whether papa would be asleep, awake, or fretful when the time for trysting came. All was ended now! and yet as she looked at the rude steps of the stone stile, grey and spotted with lichens, it seemed to her as if she could, in her mind's eye, trace the outline of her handsome and winning lover's figure, waiting for her as of old—as he had waited only five days ago—her lost Cyril!

Never more! Oh, how much of sadness, of bitterness, and hopelessness, do these two words contain!

Save in a few hollow places on the hill sides, the snow of the preceding night had totally disappeared. The sunset deepened with a warm and russet glow on the summits of the pastoral hills, the air was balmy, and the chirping of the birds came clearly upon it, with the voices of children from a distance. The green buds were swelling in the hedgerows, and near a cottage which had once been a lodge of Lonewoodlee (now let to a cottar) she saw a group of rosy, barelegged "bairns" peeping with wonder into the first bird's nest of the season, which some unwary sparrow had built in the cleft of an open bush. The rooks were cawing aloft, the brown hares were gliding among the glistening furrows of the freshly ploughed fields, or "mains" as they are named in the Merse; there was a fragrance and odour of verdure in the air, and though the month is usually a rude and boisterous one, Mary, as she walked rapidly on, could not be insensible of the genial influence of spring.

Pausing at times, she looked fondly and sadly back to the gloomy old Tower, the tourelles, bartizan, and stone roof of which stood out so darkly against the bright blue evening sky. There, in the stirring times of old, by the Border Laws, or Leges Marchiarum, her forefathers had been compelled to keep a watch with alarm-bell and fire-pan, to give warning to the North, to Soltra and Dunpender, when the English crossed the Tweed or entered the Merse, and now their descendants trembled at the approach of an angry creditor! How long would her dwelling be there, and where would be her home when—but she thrust that thought aside as too painful, and hastened on.

She passed ere long the handsome modern gate and Grecian lodge of Willowdean, the pillared peristyle and white façade of which she could see at a distance between the trees of the park (or chase, it might be called in England), and an irrepressible sob escaped her for one who would never more be under its roof; and thus, with the tears welling but unseen beneath her closely tied veil, she entered the market town of Willowdean, which owed its existence and prosperity to the Wedderburns.

It is a quaint old Scottish Burgh of Barony, and was so long before the union of the kingdoms, remaining very much unchanged for more than a century after, and singularly so, as in Scotland nothing stands, for there whatever fails to "go ahead" must decline and pass away, like many of the burghs of Fife. It has stood almost unchanged, even by the railway, save for the erection of a few gayer shops and taverns—unchanged in its general aspect since Queen Mary made her famous ride to Hermitage, and from its aspect, its cross—a slender shaft of stone surmounted by a mouldered unicorn—its kirk, and crow-stepped gables abutting on the street, its quaint outshots and turnpike stairs, one might expect to see the mailed knights of Mary, or buff-coated troopers of Leslie, fresh from Marston Moor, drinking at the market well, or "chaffing" the girls at the grated windows of the houses, some of which still show the iron crosses of St. John of Jerusalem.

The town once boasted of a castle, but after being burned by some Northumberland raiders in the time of Charles II., it has dwindled down to a few vaults and a green mound, the favourite resort of the children for games and play. Willowdean still boasts of a parochial barn, called a kirk, where God is worshipped according to the cold and stern form ordained in 1559 by the Lords of the Congregation, when Mary of Guise was Regent of the realm, enlightened Scottish lords who could barely make their mark like an Irish navvy, and who (could such an investment have been made) would have sold their fathers' skins to Queen Elizabeth.

This church had, however, attached to it the Gothic fragment of an older fane, still called the Lennox Aisle, and there lay most of the forefathers of her who now entered the street afoot, and sick and sad at heart.

To many of the "burgh merchants" in that little town was her father in debt, yet everywhere did Mary meet with respect; all touched their hats to her, for the memory of her father's openhanded youth was a popular one: and in a place so sequestered and out of the route of the tourist, even in fast-changing and radical Scotland, some more respect is paid at times to the representative of an old family than might be accorded to a wealthy parvenu, and all the more readily when the said representative is a lovely young girl like Mary Lennox.

In the middle of the street—the town has but one, with a few thatched closes or alleys diverging therefrom—she encountered a group of little children dancing hand-in-hand and singing in chorus one of those local rhymes which are so peculiar to the Lowlands, as they came merrily along, enumerating, to an air of their own, several localities, thus—

Then, as they suddenly perceived and recognised Miss Lennox, the little creatures blushed and curtseyed; and, but for the chronic sadness of her heart, Mary could have smiled at the old rhyming compliment to the alleged beauty of the ladies of her family.

At last she reached the railway station, of which no description is necessary, as such edifices bear a strong family resemblance all over Europe. There were the same liveried porters loitering about that one sees everywhere; passengers with labelled luggage awaiting the up-train or the down-train; the book-stall, with its inevitable rows of yellow, green, or red novels, Punch, and the Illustrated News.

Mary had not long to wait. With a shrill and vicious whistle, the train for England swept out of the tunnel, a long pennant of smoke streaming behind, and its crimson lamps flaming like the eyeballs of a demon in front, for the twilight had deepened to the gloaming now. Clang went the bell, the engine "slowed," and, amid the bustle, the opening and slamming of doors, the production and notching of tickets, the choice of seats and stowal of luggage, the darting of the thirsty into the refreshment-room, and so forth—for all had to be adjusted and the train off in five minutes, if it would avoid the express for Berwick—Mary looked in vain for the familiar face of the friendly guard who frequently did her little services, and who was to bring her the important packet from town.

The man on duty this evening was a total stranger to her.

"A packet for you, Miss?" said he, in reply to her inquiries. "What is the name?"

"For Mr. Lennox, of Lonewoodlee."

"It was given to a gentleman in the train; he offered to take charge of it."

"By whom?"

"The other guard, to whom he seemed well known, and to whom he offered in person to deliver it."

"Singular; a gentleman!" exclaimed Mary, in vague alarm that the long-expected packet might be lost or stolen.

"Yes, Miss; a regular gentleman, for he gave me a crown when smoking in the van."

"But where is he?"

"Yonder, on the platform, Miss. Seats, gentlemen, seats!" and cutting short the conversation, the bustling official hurried away, touching the brass-lined peak of his cap.

Clang went the doors and the bell; the engine panted and screamed, the train glided away, and Mary went towards the gentleman indicated by the guard. He was speaking in an animated manner to a few of the loiterers on the platform, who had formed a group about him, and Mary fancied that he had a small sealed packet in his hand.

Irresolute about addressing him, she lingered for a moment, till something in his air and manner stirred a secret chord in her heart, which vibrated painfully, and a low cry escaped her lips, when the handsome face, with the well-known moustache and tender loving eyes of the lost one, was turned towards her!

"Cyril!" she exclaimed, and would have fallen, but that his arm was instantly around her.

"Mary—Mary Lennox!"

It was he, but looking paler and thinner, and strangely attired; and they met thus abruptly amid a group of people on the open and most prosaic of places—a railway platform!

Great though his excitement, Cyril Wedderburn had that horror of a "scene" natural to every well-bred Briton, and rapidly recovering his consciousness of the necessity for appearing calm and unmoved, he lifted his hat, and said—

"Take my arm, Miss Lennox: allow me to see you out of this place. I have here the packet addressed to your father. I hope to hear that he is better. Good evening, gentlemen and friends; thanks for all your kind wishes and congratulations."

He drew Mary's arm through his, waved his hat to the people who had recognised and crowded about him on the platform, welcoming his return—resuscitation, what you will—with a genuine cheer that died away in a buzz of speculation and wonder, for the Wedderburns were deservedly popular in the district; and then he led away Mary, who was in a state of intense bewilderment, for much of utter terror was mingled with her joy, so that her steps tottered as they left the station and proceeded through the street of Willowdean, where the windows of the little shops were beginning to be lit with feeble gas, or still more feeble candles, and from thence out upon the familiar highway that stretched beyond.