Whats Mines Mine | Page 8

I wouldn't have let it come to that!"
"You say so because it never was yours: if it had been, you would know how uncomfortable it was!"
"I should like to know," said Mercy, after a little pause, during which they stood looking at the ruin, "whether the owners leave such places because they get fastidious and want better, or because they are too poor to keep them up! At all events a man must be poor to SELL the house that belonged to his ancestors!--It must be miserable to grow poor after being used to plenty!--I wonder whose is the old place!"
"Oh, the governor's, I suppose! He has all hereabout for miles."
"I hope it is ours! I SHOULD like to build it up again! I would live in it myself!"
"I'm afraid the governor won't advance your share for that purpose!"
"I love old things!" said Mercy.
"I believe you take your old doll to bed with you yet!" rejoined Christina. "I am different to you!" she continued, with Frenchified grammar; "I like things as new as ever I can have them!"
"I like new things well enough, Chrissy--you know I do! It is natural. The earth herself has new clothes once a year. It is but once a year, I grant!"
"Often enough for an old granny like her!"
"Look what a pretty cottage!--down there, half-way to the burn! It's like an English cottage! Those we saw as we came along were either like a piece of the earth, or so white as to look ghastly! This one looks neat and comfortable, and has trees about it!"
The ruin, once a fortified house and called a castle, stood on a sloping root or spur that ran from the hill down to the bank of the stream, where it stopped abruptly with a steep scaur, at whose foot lay a dark pool. On the same spur, half-way to the burn, stood a low, stone-built, thatched cottage, with a little grove about it, mostly of the hardy, contented, musical fir--a tree that would seem to have less regard to earthly prosperity than most, and looks like a pilgrim and a stranger: not caring much, it thrives where other trees cannot. There might have been a hundred of them, mingled, in strangest contrast, with a few delicate silver birches, about the cottage. It stood toward the east side of the sinking ridge, which had a steep descent, both east and west, to the fields below. The slopes were green with sweet grass, and apparently smooth as a lawn. Not far from where the cottage seemed to rest rather than rise or stand, the burn rushed right against the side of the spur, as if to go straight through it, but turned abruptly, and flowed along the side to the end of it, where its way to the sea was open. On the point of the ridge were a few more firs: except these, those about the cottage, the mole on the hill-cheek, and the plantation about the New House, up or down was not a tree to be seen. The girls stood for a moment looking.
"It's really quite pretty!" said Christina with condescension. "It has actually something of what one misses here so much--a certain cosy look! Tidy it is too! As you say, Mercy, it might be in England --only for the poverty of its trees.--And oh those wretched bare hills!" she added, as she turned away and moved on.
"Wait till the heather is quite out: then you will have colour to make up for the bareness."
"Tell true now, Mercy: that you are Scotch need not keep you from speaking the truth:--don't you think heather just--well--just a leetle magentaish?--not a colour to be altogether admired?--just a little vulgar, don't you know? The fashion has changed so much within the last few years!"
"No, I don't think so; and if I did I should be ashamed of it. I suppose poor old mother Earth ought to go to the pre-Raphaelites to be taught how to dress herself!"
Mercy spoke with some warmth, but Christina was not sufficiently interested to be cross. She made no answer.
They were now at the part of the road which crossed the descending spur as it left the hill-side. Here they stopped again, and looked down the rocky slope. There was hardly anything green betwixt them and the old ruin--little but stones on a mass of rock; but immediately beyond the ruin the green began: there it seemed as if a wave of the meadow had risen and overflowed the spur, leaving its turf behind it. Catching sight of Hope and Grace as they ran about the ruin, they went to join them, the one drawn by a vague interest in the exuviae of vanished life, the other by mere curiosity to see inside the care-worn, protesting walls.