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“We're neither of us so young as we’ve been,” Alison was wont to observe, alluding to herself and Miss Mercer. And no one could contradict such an obviously true statement. But she and her mistress illustrated the fact in different ways. Alison’s hair got more grizzled and the lines on her face more pronounced, but her natural vigour was not abated. She rose in the morning at the precise moment she always had; her broom and duster performed their work with the same energy and thoroughness; and “the lassie” was kept up to the mark as all her predecessors had been; there was plenty of work in Alison yet. Miss Mercer’s hair was not so grey as Alison’s, and there were not many lines about her face; but she seemed to have shrunk into a very little old lady as she sat in her armchair. And she sat in it a good deal now. When she went out, it was seldom to go down through the village, or up to Glengail; it was generally, as Alison said, just to “tak’ a bit daunder roond the gairden.” She had “got frail;” and she sadly missed her old friend, the minister, whom death had called away. And then one day she caught a cold—only a cold, nothing more—but she did not get up next morning; and by the evening Alison knew, before ever the doctor told her, she would never get up again. It was in the watches of the night that Miss Mercer looked up and said to her faithful servant— “You’ve been a good friend to me, Alison; and the laddie’s doing well.” Then she turned on her side and “went out, like the snuff of a candle,” Alison said. A nephew, Miss Mercer’s sole remaining relation, came from Dundee to make the final arrangements. He had been no great favourite of hers, and, indeed, was a hard and unsympathetic man, unlikely to be a favourite with any one; but he was her only sister’s son, and she had done her duty by him in her will. Likely enough, she would have preferred to leave her little money elsewhere, but she was a just woman; it had come to her from her father, it was right it should go to his grandson. There were legacies for Alison and Jim—legacies which some of the village folk were of opinion should have been larger, thereby rousing in Alison an indignation almost too deep for words. “You and me’s lost our best friend,” she said to Jim; “and she’s done mair for baith o’ us nor we’d any right tae look for. She kent fine that I had put by something; and she’s got ye in work, and the way o’ daein’ for yersel’; and yet she’s left us this we’re no’ needin’. And, Jim, my laddie, ye’ll just save it up till, maybe, ye’re wantin’ it. Eh!” cried Alison, throwing her apron over her head and bursting into tears, “them tae talk aboot siller! And me that’ll never see her mair, nor tak’ up the water and draw up the blinds tae her in the mornin’, nor hae a bit talk aboot the denner, whether I’ll mak’ a drop broth, or, maybe, roast the mutton. Eh me! eh me!” And Jim had said nothing, but stood looking from the window with blurred vision, choking down the rising lump in his throat, and thinking that Alison spoke the truth; he had, indeed, lost his best friend. Miss Mercer had rented Gail Cottage from the laird; the lease, as it chanced, was just about falling in, and her nephew lost no time in disposing of its contents. Alison and Jim had to make their plans for the future with as little delay as might be. Alison was not a Gailside woman, but came from Blairanster, twenty miles to the north. She would “awa’ hame tae her ain folk,” she said; to take service with another mistress was what she could not do. For Jim the obvious course seemed to get decent lodgings in the town where he was employed; and that Alison set herself to do at once. She was rather difficult to please; for a room which came up to her standard of cleanliness was not to be had everywhere, and it had also to be in charge of “steady-like folk that wad keep the laddie clear o’ thae soldiers.” However, she satisfied herself at last, and Jim and she shook hands and went their separate ways. “It isn’t as if you were going really far, Jim,” Evie said, as she bid farewell; “you’ll come and see us sometimes. I’m going to take care of the grave.” And Jim said, in his steady quiet way, “Yes, Miss Evie, and thank you,” and went. But, after that, it seemed a long time before any one heard of Jim. Evie wondered about him; but the minds of most other people just then were full of that great crisis in Eastern Europe, which, after smouldering awhile, had, early in 1854, broken into a blaze. One afternoon Evie walked down the road to the Gailside churchyard, with her hands full of flowers. She was going to Miss Mercer’s grave, which she looked upon as a sort of trust left to her by her old playmate. There was no one to whom to take books now; and books for Evie lost some of their charm when they had to be read without the help of human sympathy. Aunt Janet scarcely approved of flowers on graves; she looked upon them as a sort of sentimentality of slightly papistical tendency. So perhaps it was fortunate Evie had not to appeal to her; but, being on good terms with the head gardener, was permitted to help herself to a weekly and unlimited supply. She pushed open the churchyard gate, turned in the direction of the grave, then paused as she saw that some one was there before her—some one clad in the blue and yellow-braided uniform of a Hussar regiment. He turned at the sound of the gate closing, and then she saw who it was. “Oh, Jim!” she said, starting forward. “Oh, Jim, you are a soldier!” And Jim brought his hand up to his forage cap, and said— “Yes, Miss Evie.” Evie rejected the first principles of good manners, and stood staring, examining him thoroughly from top to toe before she announced her candid opinion— “How nice you look!” Jim smiled a little! “Do I, Miss Evie?” “And you are a real soldier,” she said, trying to take in the idea. “And have you a sword?—a real one that would kill people?” Jim laughed. “Oh yes, it would do that.” Evie sighed. “How splendid!” she murmured. Jim turned to the grave. “If I thought she understood all about it now!” he said. “Do you think she will, Miss Evie?” “How do you mean?” asked Evie. “Don’t you think they get to understand?” he said, knitting his brows, as he tried to explain his thought. “Miss Mercer thought folks went wrong easy in the army, but that an office was a safe sort of place. It’s just the other way for me, it was driving me mad. While she was alive I could make myself do it—you can make yourself do pretty well anything when it’s for somebody else. But when she went—well, Miss Evie, I tried to go on; and I couldn’t. If I’d gone on as a clerk, I don’t think I’d have kept straight; not when there was no one to do it for, you know. Oh!”—throwing out his clenched fist—“you don’t know what it felt like those weeks after she went! I kept away from here; I had to fight it out by myself. At last I enlisted. There are some here,” went on Jim, grimly, “will think I’m pretty well on the straight road to destruction; but I’ll chance what they think—if I just knew she understood,” he ended wistfully. Evie stooped and laid her flowers on Miss Mercer’s grave. At last she looked up at him. “Oh, Jim,” she said, “if they see us at all, I think they must be able to see all round—not just one little way like when they’re here. I can’t say it right; but if she knows, I’m sure she knows the whole of it.” It was not very clearly expressed, but Jim and Evie had been used to conveying ideas to each other in few words, and to understanding each other’s half-expressed meanings. “I thought you’d understand, Miss Evie,” said Jim, gratefully. Evie was surveying him in a half-puzzled way. “Jim,” she said at last, rather reproachfully, and as though he had been taking a slightly mean advantage of her, “I believe you’ve nearly grown a man.” “I expect I was bound to do that, Miss Evie,” said Jim, quietly, looking down on her. And then he went on, “You know it’s the —th Hussars that are quartered here just now, and that I’ve enlisted in—the regiment Captain Field’s in.” Evie nodded. “He’s been out to see us,” she said. “I’m in his troop, Miss Evie.” “I’m glad,” said Evie, cordially; “he’s nice. Oh, and Archie Melville has just been gazetted cornet to that regiment too. How odd, Jim! How odd you should be together!” “It’ll be good to be with Master Archie,” said Jim, his eyes lighting up; “I could fight along-side of him.” “And you like it, Jim?” “I like it,” said Jim, “with all my heart. Oh, there’s plenty to do in a cavalry regiment, Miss Evie; I’d like to give some of the folk that think a soldier has nothing to do but hang about and get into mischief, a week of it.” He was silent for a moment, and then spoke again. “We’ve got our route, Miss Evie; we’re ordered off to the war.” “To the war!” she repeated. She was too young to understand in a moment all the possibilities this might mean; but, at least, her old playmate, her friend Jim, was going quite away. “Oh, Jim,” she said, reproachfully, “and I believe you’re glad.” “Well, Miss Evie,” he said, “the old knights didn’t like staying at home at ease; and, though I’m not a knight, but a common soldier, I’d like my chance too.” “And I’ve got to stay at home by myself,” said Evie, still indignant. “You’ll have plenty of friends,” said Jim; “and you must remember, Miss Evie, wherever I was, you would not be expected to associate with a common soldier!” “A common soldier!” cried Evie, stamping her foot. “Jim, I believe you’re ashamed of the Queen’s uniform.” “I?” said Jim. “Ashamed? No, never that. I’m proud of it.” And he flung his head back, and looked every inch a soldier as he spoke. “But that need not make me forget other things.” Evie sighed impatiently. It seemed somehow as though Jim had got somewhere a long way ahead of her. “When are you going?” she asked. “Next week,” said Jim; “and I came to say good-bye. I’m glad it happened here; it seems a good place to say good-bye.” “Among the graves,” said Evie, with a shiver; “no, it isn’t a good place. You must come up to the house.” Jim shook his head. “I’ve disgraced myself, you see,” he said. “No one would be best pleased to see me. Unless,” he added, with a curl of his lip, “the kitchen-maid would like me to walk out with on Sunday—and I’m afraid Miss Janet would give her notice next morning if she did.” Evie laughed. “Well, you can walk back to the avenue gates with me. If I choose to walk about with dark blue and yellow lace, I will.” “I think not,” he said, and then added, with a humorous twinkle, “you see, the lace is worsted.” “As though I cared!” cried Evie, indignantly. “I don’t care one bit.” “Perhaps that makes all the more need I should care about it for you,” said Jim, half to himself. Then he added, steadily, “Good-bye, Miss Evie.” “Oh, I’ve nothing to give you before you go,” cried Evie. And she impulsively snatched at a little locket which hung round her neck. “There,” she said, holding it towards him, “you must take that.” Jim held it in his hand a moment and looked at it. Then he put it back towards her. “I think not,” he said. “Why not?” said Evie, half surprised, half offended. “I don’t think you should give it to me.” “I can do what I like with my own.” “Yes, Miss Evie; but——” Jim paused, then said, pleasantly, “I’ll take the ribbon if I may,” and began to pull it through the gold ring of the locket. “I’ve nothing for you,” he said, as he gave back the locket and pushed the ribbon into his breast. “But perhaps I may find something out there to send home to you.” “Yes, you must bring me home something from the wars,” said Evie. And then she clasped Jim’s hand, and turned to the gate. He held it open for her, and stood watching her down the road. She turned to call back, half-defiantly, “This isn’t good-bye, Jim; I mean to see you again.” And Jim answered with a silent salute, turning back, when she at last disappeared from sight, to the place where she had found him.
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