David Elginbrod | Page 6

south-west wind sweeping through them with the tune of running
waters in its course. It is a well-practised ear that can tell whether the
sound it hears be that of gently falling waters, or of wind flowing
through the branches of firs. Sutherland's heart, reviving like a
dormouse in its hole, began to be joyful at the sight of the genial
motions of Nature, telling of warmth and blessedness at hand. Some
goal of life, vague but sure, seemed to glimmer through the
appearances around him, and to stimulate him to action. Be dressed in
haste, and went out to meet the Spring. He wandered into the heart of
the wood. The sunlight shone like a sunset upon the red trunks and
boughs of the old fir-trees, but like the first sunrise of the world upon
the new green fringes that edged the young shoots of the larches. High
up, hung the memorials of past summers in the rich brown tassels of the
clustering cones; while the ground under foot was dappled with
sunshine on the fallen fir-needles, and the great fallen cones which had
opened to scatter their autumnal seed, and now lay waiting for decay.
Overhead, the tops whence they had fallen, waved in the wind, as in
welcome of the Spring, with that peculiar swinging motion which made
the poets of the sixteenth century call them "sailing pines." The wind
blew cool, but not cold; and was filled with a delicious odour from the
earth, which Sutherland took as a sign that she was coming alive at last.
And the Spring he went out to meet, met him. For, first, at the foot of a
tree, he spied a tiny primrose, peeping out of its rough, careful leaves;
and he wondered how, by any metamorphosis, such leaves could pass
into such a flower. Had he seen the mother of the next
spring-messenger he was about to meet, the same thought would have
returned in another form. For, next, as he passed on with the primrose
in his hand, thinking it was almost cruel to pluck it, the Spring met him,
as if in her own shape, in the person of Margaret, whom he spied a little
way off, leaning against the stem of a Scotch fir, and looking up to its
top swaying overhead in the first billows of the outburst ocean of life.
He went up to her with some shyness; for the presence of even a
child-maiden was enough to make Sutherland shy--partly from the fear
of startling her shyness, as one feels when drawing near a couching
fawn. But she, when she heard his footsteps, dropped her eyes slowly
from the tree-top, and, as if she were in her own sanctuary, waited his

approach. He said nothing at first, but offered her, instead of speech,
the primrose he had just plucked, which she received with a smile of
the eyes only, and the sweetest "thank you, sir," he had ever heard. But
while she held the primrose in her hand, her eyes wandered to the book
which, according to his custom, Sutherland had caught up as he left the
house. It was the only well-bound book in his possession; and the eyes
of Margaret, not yet tutored by experience, naturally expected an
entrancing page within such beautiful boards; for the gayest bindings
she had seen, were those of a few old annuals up at the house--and were
they not full of the most lovely tales and pictures? In this case, however,
her expectation was not vain; for the volume was, as I have already
disclosed, Coleridge's Poems.
Seeing her eyes fixed upon the book--"Would you like to read it?" said
he.
"If you please, sir," answered Margaret, her eyes brightening with the
expectation of deliglit.
"Are you fond of poetry?"
Her face fell. The only poetry she knew was the Scotch Psalms and
Paraphrases, and such last-century verses as formed the chief part of
the selections in her school-books; for this was a very retired parish,
and the newer books had not yet reached its school. She had hoped
chiefly for tales.
"I dinna ken much about poetry," she answered, trying to speak English.
"There's an old book o't on my father's shelf; but the letters o't are
auld-fashioned, an' I dinna care aboot it."
"But this is quite easy to read, and very beautiful," said Hugh.
The girl's eyes glistened for a moment, and this was all her reply.
"Would you like to read it?" resumed Hugh, seeing no further answer
was on the road.
She held out her hand towards the volume. When he, in his turn, held
the volume towards her hand, she almost snatched it from him, and ran
towards the house, without a word of thanks or leave-taking--whether
from eagerness,