THE LORRIE MEADOW.
It was high time, according to agricultural economics, that Donal Grant should be promoted a step in the ranks of labour. A youth like him was fit for horses and their work, and looked idle in a field with cattle. But Donal was not ambitious, at least in that direction. He was more and more in love with books, and learning and the music of thought and word; and he knew well that no one doing a man's work upon a farm could have much time left for study--certainly not a quarter of what the herd-boy could command.
Therefore, with his parents approval, he continued to fill the humbler office, and receive the scantier wages belonging to it.
The day following their adventure on Glashgar, in the afternoon, Nicie being in the grounds with her little mistress, proposed that they should look whether they could see her brother down in the meadow of which her mother had spoken. Ginevra willingly agreed, and they took their way through the shrubbery to a certain tall hedge which divided the grounds from a little grove of larches on the slope of a steep bank descending to the Lorrie, on the other side of which lay the meadow. It was a hawthorn hedge, very old, and near the ground very thin, so that they easily found a place to creep through. But they were no better on the other side, for the larches hid the meadow. They went down through them, therefore, to the bank of the little river--the largest tributary of the Daur from the roots of Glashgar.
"There he is!" cried Nicie.
"I see him," responded Ginny, "--with his cows all about the meadow."Donal sat a little way from the river, reading.
"He's aye at 's buik!" said Nicie.
"I wonder what book it is," said Ginny.
"That wad be ill to say," answered Nicie. "Donal reads a hantle o'
buiks--mair, his mither says, nor she doobts he can weel get the guid o'.""Do you think it's Latin, Nicie?"
"Ow! I daursay. But no; it canna be Laitin--for, leuk! he's lauchin', an' he cudna dee that gien 'twar Laitin. I'm thinkin'
it'll be a story: there's a heap o' them prentit noo, they tell me.
Or 'deed maybe it may be a sang. He thinks a heap o' sangs. Ih'ard my mither ance say she was some feared Donal micht hae ta'en to makin' sangs himsel'; no 'at there was ony ill i' that, she said, gien there wasna ony ill i' the sangs themsel's; but it was jist some trifflin' like, she said, an' they luikit for better frae Donal, wi' a' his buik lear, an' his Euclid--or what ca'
they't?--nor makin' sangs."
"What's Euclid, Nicie?"
"Ye may weel speir, missie! but I hae ill tellin' ye. It's a keerious name till a buik, an' min's me o' naething but whan the lid o' yer e'e yeuks (itches); an' as to what lies atween the twa brods o' 't, I ken no more nor the man i' the meen.""I should like to ask Donal what book he has got," said Ginny.
"I'll cry till 'im, an' ye can speir," said Nicie.--"Donal!--Donal!"Donal looked up, and seeing his sister, came running to the bank of the stream.
"Canna ye come ower, Donal?" said Nicie. "Here's Miss Galbraith wants to spier ye a question."Donal was across in a moment, for here the water was nowhere over a foot or two in depth.
"Oh, Donal! you've wet your feet!" cried Ginevra.
Donal laughed.
"What ill 'ill that dee me, mem?"
"None, I hope," said Ginny; "but it might, you know.""I micht hae been droont," said Donal.
"Nicie," said Ginny, with dignity, "your brother is laughing at me.""Na, na, mem," said Donal, apologetically. "I was only so glaid to see you an' Nicie 'at I forgot my mainners.""Then," returned Ginny, quite satisfied, "would you mind telling me what book you were reading?""It's a buik o' ballants," answered Donal. "I'll read ane o' them till ye, gien ye like, mem.""I should like very much," responded Ginny. "I've read all my own books till I'm tired of them, and I don't like papa's books.--And, do you know, Donal!"--Here the child-woman's voice grew solemn sad--"--I'm very sorry, and I'm frightened to say it; and if you weren't Nicie's brother, I couldn't say it to you;--but I am very tired of the Bible too.""That's a peety, mem," replied Donal. "I wad hae ye no tell onybody that; for them 'at likes 't no a hair better themsel's, 'ill tak ye for waur nor a haithen for sayin' 't. Jist gang ye up to my mither, an' tell her a' aboot it. She's aye fair to a' body, an' never thinks ill o' onybody 'at says the trowth--whan it's no for contrariness. She says 'at a heap o' ill comes o' fowk no speykin'
oot what they ken, or what they're thinkin', but aye guissin' at what they dinna ken, an' what ither fowk's thinkin'.""Ay!" said Nicie, "it wad be a gey cheenged warl' gien fowk gaed to my mither, an' did as she wad hae them. She says fowk sud never tell but the ill they ken o' themsel's, an' the guid they ken o'
ither fowk; an' that's jist the contrar', ye ken, missie, to what fowk maistly dis dee."A pause naturally followed, which Ginny broke.
"I don't think you told me the name of the book you were reading, Donal," she said.
"Gien ye wad sit doon a meenute, mem," returned Donal, "--here's a bonnie gowany spot--I wad read a bit till ye, an' see gien ye likit it, afore I tellt ye the name o' 't."She dropped at once on the little gowany bed, gathered her frock about her ankles, and said, "Sit down, Nicie. It's so kind of Donal to read something to us! Iwonder what it's going to be."
She uttered everything in a deliberate, old-fashioned way, with precise articulation, and a certain manner that an English mother would have called priggish, but which was only the outcome of Scotch stiffness, her father's rebukes, and her own sense of propriety.
Donal read the ballad of Kemp Owen.
"I think--I think--I don't think I understand it," said Ginevra. "It is very dreadful, and--and--I don't know what to think. Tell me about it, Donal.--Do you know what it means, Nicie?""No ae glimp, missie," answered Nicie.
