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CHAPTER XXI.

A WOUNDED HEART AND A BROKEN BONE-MISS CHRISTY'S

WILL.

A moment to ponder-a season to grieve,

The light of the moon-the shadows of eve.-MOIR.

O! how can I to that lady ride,

Wi' saving o' my dignitie ?-SCOTT.

THE storms and snowdrifts of January had brought busy times and duties. There were jovial gatherings in many a Christmas Highland home, amongst blithe-hearted lairds and ladies; and, alas! as winter protracted its severity, there was much destitution amongst the poor people fasting on distant snowy heights. Then was the time for the willing hearts and hands of Glenbenrough and of other places, who would hear the cry of hunger from many a hill-side hamlet, and see the miserable stock of fodder diminish daily, the starving, ill-fed cow refuse her nourishing milk-when the oatmeal and the potatoes, produce of their arable crofts, were finished; basket and girnel emptied out; and nought left to live by, save the warmth from their goodly stacks of peat, the only produce of the sterile land which grew uncultivated and without stint for them. Then was the time when Glenbenrough used to send bounties of meal, corn, and fodder from his own well-managed stores. Then, fighting against sudden showers of blinding sleet and rain, climbing painfully the slippery, rugged mountain path, might Esmé and Ishbel themselves be seen carrying hot soup, or strengthening wine, to some worn-out Highland widow, crooning hungrily over the unused fire in her smoky, snow-covered hovel. The gamekeeper's gun, bringing down the destructive ravenous hares that made inroad on the garden banks, would nightly wake the echoes; and the cauldron, filled with their seething flesh, steaming daily under charge of his wife, would give nourishing food to the children, who waited daily with. their little pitchers for a supply.

A change had come over Esmé: her mental state was the reverse of the outward course of nature. During the quiet clear days of approaching winter the storm raged wild within her breast; and then, as the tempest-driven snow of the outer world came hurrying wildly on, her inner being stilled daily more and more, until the beautiful calm of a sunset sky prevailed. Esmé found peace of mind, in so far that self

regulation was given, at last to the struggling, praying soul. At first, and for months, she could not save herself from the baneful influence of the associations that everywhere haunted her. Marchmoram's foot had trod where even hers now wandered; the same heather had bent beneath the tread of each; his voice had awoke the echoes of all the distant hills; his lips had drunk from the water of her favourite spring: even the midnight darkness of her room was penetrated by his fancied shade: there-even there-had he stood. She would start from her sleep and listen breathlessly for the deep, low voice. What was this come over her? what had he left? a

haunting, dreaming, fearful infatuation. Those eyes of his met her everywhere; that voice, that look, made her start and sigh, waking and sleeping, and caused sudden smiles-no one guessed why-or the unbidden tear, as she sat pale and absent, busy in memory's scenes. And even another would rise to her memory; he who had made her taste so many hours of intellectual rapture-he who had first opened up to her the springs of thought, leading on the bright current in sparkling swiftness, until it gained volume enough to seek a nobler region and wider scope, and rushed into the depth of Marchmoram's strong heart.

There was no help for Esmé in her own unassisted strength: it was but weakness. The only cure came at last: a small, old, dark-bound volume, too long neglected by her, found its way into Esmé's trembling feverish hand. She wandered out to the hills, wrapped in her hooded tartan plaid, indifferent to the rising northern winds, and there she sat with the book opened. The sun lit up the pages as she read and read; and,—oh wonderful! passing belief, save to those who have had similar experience-here she found her ease: aye, in the Bible she found it. For in this blessed book there is no form of human feeling, no subtle tendency of the heart and mind, which has not its record and its antidote. Here she found strength and comfort.

A month or so after Huistan's death, Esmé spent a week with Miss Christy Mac Pherson who had broken her leg by falling on the ice on the farm pond of Phee, which she was scientifically probing with a red-hot poker, to ascertain the thickness of the frozen surface. She was carried home, and the bone-setter" sent for. This functionary generally, in northern country parishes, supersedes (and supremely ignores) the legitimate surgeon or doctor: repudiating all modern

theories, from the circulation of the blood downwards, he proceeds invariably in the ancient treatment, as handed down to him by his ancestors, who lived and fought, cured and suffered, in the times when curative tortures (such as pouring boiling oil into gun-shot wounds) were commonly practised. The bone-setter of the parish of Phee diversified his profession by following also that of a country blacksmith, as being the most in unison with his higher craft; great strength of muscle being required to twist properly the limbs of his sturdy Highland patients. Poor Miss Christy being an especial favourite, and an important patient of high rank, came in for Mr. Donald Mac Caw's most complicated ingenuity of treatment. He first had the poker which had caused the accident heated again red-hot, and this he brandished over her leg until she yelled with the pain; when the limb was sufficiently inflamed, he took to his manual practice, and dislocated, and rubbed, and knit and unknit the bone, in the most frightful manner; finishing, as a soother, with putting a huge poultice of butter and oatmeal upon it, and prescribing a strong tumbler of toddy to keep down fever and ensure sleep. Fever very soon set in, however, and under its influence she one day suddenly "went out of her mind;" for thus he apologetically accounted for the symptoms that followed. Mr. Donald Mac Caw had just been applying the gentle stimulant of switching the leg with a bunch of dry holly, when Miss Christy started up with such sudden vigour as nearly to throw him backwards; and, seizing the holly, ere he could recover himself, she laid it with such hearty vengeance about his brawny cheeks, accompanied by several sound boxes on the ear, that he roared again for

mercy.

"Hout tout, Donald Mac Caw! Do ye ken noo what it is to suffer? Do ye ken noo, man, a tenth part o' the devilry you hae been doing on me! Look at my leg, swelled to the size o' a churn! Is it in your power to tak it doun again? I trow not. I'll tell the laird on ye this very night. Get ye gone out o' my hoose!”

The bone-setter rose up; but, not yet quite crest-fallen, he glanced round the room to see if anything in the shape of a rope was at hand, with which to bind her down as a raving patient. But Miss Christy's wits seemed doubly sharpened under her excitement; she took quiet possession of a large wooden mallet (used for mashing potatoes) and held it in readiness under the blankets, and when Mr. Mac Caw came

blandly towards her, with his hands mysteriously behind his back, and something wriggling after him like a thin gray serpent upon the floor, she waited until he was quite close enough, and then felled him with the mallet, shouting,

"Tak ye that; and I hope it'll gie you a brain fever! "

The house of Phee lay encased amidst hills of rock, heather, and scattered weeping birch; the roar of the grand river Dual sounded not far off, as it took its foaming course past Ben Phee from the distant Dual Ghu. Miss Christy and her uncle had exhausted all their appliances in preparing a luxurious reception for Esmé. Her room was as white as a profuse display of Miss Christy's best napery could make it; and water from the delicious hill spring was in abundant supply. It was a pleasure to concoct wonderful restoratives, in the way of original combinations of sago, cream, and calf's-foot jelly, and to see Miss Christy's newly-awakened epicurean enjoyment of them; while Esmé's keen sense of the ludicrous was kept in constant play by Miss Christy's delightful peculiarities.

The second night after her arrival, Esmé was sitting reading by the light of the turf fire, and fancied Miss Christy was dozing, when a low, cracked whisper, proceeding from the high-backed sofa on which she lay, proved the contrary. "Miss Esmé, are ye a clerk at all?

“A clerk! what's that, Miss Christy ?

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'Oh, I mean hae ye any notion of law business, or the like? Could you do a clerk's work? I am thinking ye can, for ye can do anything where your heid's concerned.'

"It's at your service as far as it can possibly go, Miss Christy," Esmé said, rising.

"Weel, my dear, ye see I hae just fancied I wad like to write my will. None o' us know what may be the upshot of sickness, an' I hae been decreeing on whom I'd leave my little worldly gear; if you'll write it out in lawyer language."

So Esmé brought her desk and sat down near Miss Christy, who began in a solemn tone.

"Write- -an' ye must say Amen at the end o' each request, Esmé, for that'll legalize it:-Me, Christy Macpherson, niece o' one James Macpherson o' Phee, and daughter o' Peter Macpherson, late Tacksman o' Kingrassie, leaves an' devises to her uncle the sum o' three hunder pounds in the bank at Braemorin, being the tocher left to her by my mither, Mrs. Janet Logan, and ten pounds, being luck pennies got by

myself on different sales o' the hogs and grimmers last Martinmass. Amen."

"You had better not say that, Miss Christy; it does not make it so distinct," Esmé interposed, in a voice choking with laughter.

"It behoves us to say it. Gae on," responded Miss Christy, with severity. "And the said Christy Macpherson, having no female bluid relation left living in this generation, does bequeath to Miss Norah Mac Neil, eldest daughter o' the laird, all the napery in the blue press and the yellow-papered kist at present in the hoose o' Phee, being her own and her mither the late Mrs. Janet Logan's weaving an' property. An' to Miss Esmé Mac Neil I leave and devise the twal pots o' candied marmalade in said blue press, together wi' my three black horned ewies." Miss Christy here paused for a moment, adding briskly, "An' wad ye like me to pat in my mither's marriage goun to you, Miss Esmé? If I thocht my uncle wad ever take a wife, ye see I wad leave it till her."

"I think it would be better not to mention it here; but just tell him your wishes about it, Miss Christy: you should give it to your uncle, I certainly think!"

“Weel, very weel; gae on. And she resumed her funereal tone. "An' me, Miss Christy Macpherson, devises to Miss Ishbel Mac Neil my cairngorm brooch, an' a' the cheeses o' my ain making in the dairy; thegither wi' the picters in my bedroom. An' to the laird himsel' I gie, wi' my blessing, my twal silver spoons an' forks, wi' my china tea-set; an' my whole score o' brown hill stirks an' heifers, thegither with the wool, now at the carding, o' my ain sheep, which I leave to my uncle. This is my bequeathment to the family o' Glenbenrough. Amen.

“An' noo, Esmé, do ye mind yon English colonel wha was here last autumn? I am thinking I was just rather hard on him, an' I don't like any one in this world to think grudgingly o' Christy Macpherson. I'll leave a legacy till him for goodwill's sake. Write-An' to one Colonel Sternbotham, o' English name and country, the said deviser o' this Will doth give her best home-spun royal tartan plaid, in memory o' an honourable acquaintance o' him, quhilk Miss Christy Macpherson, on her part, did feel great pleasure in, an' o' a drive, in the which I happed him up in this plaid as now bequeathed.

"An' in like manner she gives and leaves to Mr. Donald

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