Geordies Tryst | Page 2

sit in the dim school-room seems to hear other voices calling to

her this afternoon.
And while Grace stands hesitating whether, after all, it might be wise to
go into the garden to hear what old Adam has to say before she
proceeded to the high road, we shall try to find what earnest quest sent
her out this afternoon, in spite of her old nurse's remonstrances and the
east wind.
Grace Campbell's father and mother died when she was very young,
and since then her home had been with her aunt. For the last few years
Miss Hume had been so infirm that she did not feel able to undertake
the journey to Kirklands, a small property in the north of Scotland,
which she inherited from her father. Her winter home was Edinburgh,
and Miss Hume for some years had only ventured on a short journey to
the nearest watering-place, while her country home stood silent and
deserted, with only the ancient gardener and his wife wandering about
through the darkened rooms and the old garden, with its laden
fruit-trees and its flowers run to seed. But, to Grace's great delight, her
aunt had announced some months before that if she felt strong enough
for the journey, she meant to go to Kirklands early in the spring. It
seemed as if in her fading autumnal time she longed to see the familiar
woods and dells of her childhood's home grow green again with
returning life. So the darkened rooms had been opened to the sun again,
and on the day before our story begins, some of the former inmates had
taken possession of them.
The three years during which Grace had been absent from Kirklands
had proved very eventful to her in many ways. There had been some
changes in her outer life. Walter, her only brother and playmate, had
left home to go to sea. They had only had one passing visit from him
since, so changed in his midshipman's dress, with his broadened
shoulders and bronzed face, and so full of sailor life and talk, that his
playmate had hardly composure of mind to discover till he was gone
that the same loving heart still beat under the blue dress and bright
buttons. And while she thought of him with a new pride, she felt an
undercurrent of sadness in the consciousness that the pleasant threads
of daily intercourse had been broken, and the old childish playfellow

had passed away.
But as the golden gate of childhood thus closed on Grace Campbell,
another gate opened for her which led to pleasant places. It had, indeed,
been waiting open for her ever since she came into the world, though
she had often passed it by unheeded. But at last there came to Grace a
glimpse of the shining light which still guides the way of seeking souls
to "yonder wicket gate." She began to feel an intense longing to enter
there and begin that new life to which it leads. She knocked, and found
that it was open for her, and entering there she met the gracious Guide
who had beckoned her to come, whispering in the silence of her heart,
"I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life." Not long after Grace had
begun to walk in this path, an event happened which proved to her like
the visit to the "Interpreter's House" in the Pilgrim's story; but in order
to explain its full eventfulness, we must go back to tell of earlier days
in her aunt's home.
On Sunday mornings Grace usually drove with her aunt to church in
decorous state. When Walter was at home he made one of the carriage
party, though generally under protest, declaring that it would be "ever
so much jollier to walk than to be bowled along in that horrid old
rumble," as he used irreverently to designate his aunt's rather antique
chariot. When they arrived at church, the children followed their aunt's
slow steps to one of the pews in the gallery, where Miss Hume used to
take the precautionary measure of separating them by sending Grace to
the top of the seat, and placing herself between the vivacious Walter
and his playmate. Notwithstanding this precaution, they generally
contrived to find comfortable recreative resources during the service,
bringing all their inventive energy to bear on creating new diversions as
each Sunday came round. There was always their Aunt Hume's fur
cloak to stroke the wrong way, if there was nothing more diverting
within reach; had it only been the cat, whose sentiments regarding a
like treatment of her fur were too well known to Walter, he felt that the
pleasure would have been greater. Sometimes, indeed, the amusements
were of a strictly mental nature, conducted in the "chambers of
imagery."