The Laurel Bush

The Laurel Bush

The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Laurel Bush, by Dinah Maria
Mulock Craik
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Title: The Laurel Bush
Author: Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
Release Date: January 17, 2005 [eBook #14708]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE
LAUREL BUSH***
E-text prepared by Robin Eugene Escovado

THE LAUREL BUSH
An Old-Fashioned Love Story
by

DINAH MARIA MULOCK CRAIK
Author of John Halifax, Gentleman, &c., &c., &c.
Chapter 1.
It was a very ugly bush indeed; that is, so far as any thing in nature can
be really ugly. It was lopsided--having on the one hand a stunted stump
or two, while on the other a huge heavy branch swept down to the
gravel-walk. It had a crooked gnarled trunk or stem, hollow enough to
entice any weak-minded bird to build a nest there--only it was so near
to the ground, and also to the garden gate. Besides, the owners of the
garden, evidently of practical mind, had made use of it to place
between a fork in its branches a sort of letter-box--not the government
regulation one, for twenty years ago this had not been thought of; but a
rough receptacle, where, the house being a good way off, letters might
be deposited, instead of; as hitherto, in a hole in the trunk--near the foot
of the tree, and under shelter of its mass of evergreen leaves.
This letter-box; made by the boys of the family at the instigation and
with the assistance of their tutor, had proved so attractive to some
exceedingly incautious sparrow that during the intervals of the post she
had begun a nest there, which was found by the boys. Exceedingly wild
boys they were, and a great trouble to their old grandmother, with
whom they were staying the summer, and their young
governess--"Misfortune," as they called her, her real name being Miss
Williams--Fortune Williams. The nickname was a little too near the
truth, as a keener observer than mischievous boys would have read in
her quiet, sometimes sad, face; and it had been stopped rather severely
by the tutor of the elder boys, a young man whom the grandmother had
been forced to get, to "keep them in order!" He was a Mr. Robert Roy,
once a student, now a teacher of the "humanities," from the neighboring
town--I beg its pardon--city; and a lovely old city it is!--of St. Andrews.
Thence he was in the habit of coming to them three and often four days
in the week, teaching of mornings and walking of afternoons. They had
expected him this afternoon, but their grandmother had carried them off
on some pleasure excursion; and being a lady of inexact habits--one,

too, to whom tutors were tutors and nothing more--she had merely said
to Miss Williams, as the carriage drove away, "When Mr. Roy comes,
tell him he is not wanted till tomorrow."
And so Miss Williams had waited at the gate, not wishing him to have
the additional trouble of walking up to the house, for she knew every
minute of his time was precious. The poor and the hard-working can
understand and sympathize with one another. Only a tutor and only a
governess: Mrs. Dalziel drove away and never thought of them again.
They were mere machines--servants to whom she paid their wages, and
so that they did sufficient service to deserve these wages, she never
interfered with them, nor, indeed, wasted a moment's consideration
upon them or their concerns.
Consequently they were in the somewhat rare and peculiar position of a
young man and young woman (perhaps Mrs. Dalziel would have taken
exception to the words "young lady and young gentleman") thrown
together day after day, week after week--nay, it had now become month
after month--to all intents and purposes quite alone, except for the
children. They taught together, there being but one school-room;
walked out together, for the two younger boys refused to be separated
from their older brothers; and, in short, spent two-thirds of their
existence together, without let or hindrance, comment or observation,
from any mortal soul.
I do not wish to make any mystery in this story. A young woman of
twenty-five and a young man of thirty, both perfectly alone in the
world--orphans, without brother or sister--having to earn their own
bread, and earn it hardly, and being placed in circumstances where they
had every opportunity of intimate friendship, sympathy, whatever you
like to call it: who could doubt what would happen? The more so, as
there