The Flower of Gala Water, and other stories

Front matter

THE FLOWER OF GALA WATER JKSSY WAS WAITING AT THE DOOR OF THE HOT-HOUSE. — See /'age 36. THE FLOWER OF GALA WATER AND OTHER STORIES BY AMELIA E. BARR AUTHOR OF "THE PREACHER'S DAUGHT^i.' ETC, ETC. LONDON SAMPSON LOW, MARSTON & COMPANY Limited §t. gunstan's Souse Fetter Lane, Fleet Street, E.C. CONTENTS. CHAP. .ACE I. The Flower of Gala Water 7 II. Between the Primrose and the Rose ... 44 III. Destiny 81 IV. " I must see my brother " 122 V. Guadalupe and Gala Water 156 VI. The old propose 198 VII. The young dispose 231 Magnolia: A Romance of Western Texas . 255 The Romance of Cradock Manor . „ .305 Polly Derenzy's Brother LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. PAGE Jessy was waiting at the door of the hothouse Frontispiece 36 "Jamie, we are both playing a false game" ... 63 " I wish I could give you some of my spirit . . 135 " I'd ask you to stay till morning, stranger " . .170 " How did you get here, Miss Telfair?" . .

Chapter I. The Flower Of Gala Water

" Wan water from the Border hills Dear voice from the old years, Thy distant music lulls and stills, And moves to quiet tears. " A mist of memory broods and floats; The Border Waters flow ; The air is full of ballad notes, Born out of long ago." •Li ¥ HAVE a friend. Her name is Katherine J Janfarie." In these words Jessy Telfair usually answered any remark about the solitude of her [7 } home. It was only an apparent solitude, for Jessy knew the laird's fine house was just over the nearest hill, and that there the sweetest maid of Tweedside dwelt— her friend, Katherine Janfarie. She was talking this morning to a stranger who was waiting to see her father. Bnt many strangers called upon the minister of Kirtle hope, for he was a famous angler, and the lonely manse among the hills by Gala Water was well known to the brothers of the rod and reel.

Such visitors, however, had usually been of middle age, dressed for their intentions in rough gray tweed and well-greased boots, with a long, light waterproof and creel slung across their shoulders. But this caller was fashionably clad in the nattiest of travelling suits ; moreover, he was young, and had the air of a high-bred and thoroughly assured gentleman. Standing by the window of the manse parlor, he looked up the winding valley that led to the sources of the river in the heart of the hills. The slopes were covered with sheep and lambs — hundreds of hidden hollows were full of them — and their bleating and the murmur of Gala Water, hurrying down through archipel agoes of bowlders and flashing over tiny water falls, were all the sounds that broke the still ness of the lonely piace. So he turned to Jessy then, and made some remark about the solitude, and she answered him : " I have a friend.

Her name is Katherine Janfarie." There was a childlike abruptness and confi dence, a sense of sufficiency in this assertion, which was very attractive. It was evident also that she wished to be entertaining, and that she could think of no subject more delightful than her friend. Yet far as the eyes could see in every direction, the hills and valleys were set to song and story. Names that lilt through the noblest ballads in the world — that sanctify the most desperate struggles for religious liberty — that are foremost in the chronicles of valor and science are its familiar names. But Jessy thought of none of them ; she said only, when the stranger spoke of the loneliness of the famous land : " I have a friend. Her name is Kath erine Janfarie." Then he looked into the oleasant face of the speaker.

He had been expecting to hear of the Douglas and Buccleugh— of the Elliots and Armstrongs — " Crackspear " and " Out-with-the- Sword ;" or, at least, of the Covenanters and Erskine and Chalmers, preaching on the heath ery heights to vast, unbonneted, reverent con gregations ; but Miss Telfair did not mention any of these heroes. Her heart was with her friend, and she smiled as her lips made the music of her name. Perhaps if she had consid ered the matter she could not have been more entertaining, for the young man waiting for the minister knew all about the romance of the past ; it was the romance of the present he desired ; and " Katherine Janfarie " fell upon his ears like the preluding of music. " Is your friend pretty enough to deserve her pretty name ?" he asked. " Pretty ? Katherine is beautiful !

Katherine is the ' Flower of Gala Water !' On all Tweed side there is none like her." " Then I hope she lives near to you.' " She lives just over the hill. I can sit here and watch her come into sight. If she does not see me, when she gets to the little burn by the garden gate she begins to sing, and then I run to meet her." " Some one is coming over the hill now — but it is not Miss Janfarie." Jessy looked up and smiled. " That is the minister ; Rab Hays is with him. Rab is one of the duke's men, and is worth the knowing. Rab went ' out ' with the Free kirkers, and when father asked him ' what the duke would say to that,' he answered : ' Indeed, minister, I dinna ken ; but I must think o' the Day o' Judgment. The duke willna answer for me on that day.' If Rab sees the minister going The Flozvcr of Gala Water. 12 to the hills, he is sure to 'daunder up the water' to meet him.

Now I must go and welcome father home. He would think it strange if 1 did not." The minister entered the front door as Jessy stepped into the hall. He called to her cheer fully, and patting his creel, said : " The burns are a perfect Piccadilly with an glers, Jessy, but I have gotten a few fine fellows." Then Jessy peeped into his creel, and an swered : " There are a dozen fine fellows, at least father." " Maybe so ; but oh, lassie, for the days when a man could fish down stream, and yet fill his creel and his cap and his pouches with speckled trout !" " There is a gentleman in the parlor. He is waiting to see you. Here is the card with his name printed on it. I never heard of the man before." The minister wanted his dinner, and he did not want to see strangers at that hour. He took the card reluctantly, read and then reread it.

" There is a kind of familiarity," he muttered. " Richard Mowbray, Mowbray Hall, Westmore land." His brows went together. Then his face brightened. " To be sure, Jessy," he said, " Mowbray ! I know the man ! We were at Edinburgh College together." " This Mr. Mowbray is not very much older than I am." " Then it is Reginald Mowbray's son. Dear me ! How the days go by ! Look to the dinner, Jessy ; the young man will eat it with us. I will give you half an hour, my dear." Jessy was glad of the interval. She carried the trout to the kitchen to be broiled, and then ran to her room to change the gray winsey she wore for something pretty in silk and plush. She made her black hair a trifle more fluffy and pinned her gold brooch in her lace at her throat. And with her brighter garments she put on a E brighter spirit, a more hospitable manner and intent.

Yet through all her toilet she was thinking of Katherine— wishing she would come — wondering what Mr. Mowbray would think of her — speculating as to what Katherine would think of him — inventing a little romance in which a certain Jamie Wintoun interfered con siderably — and feeling, to a large extent, all the excitement of her imaginations. Then she hastened downstairs and found the dinner on the table, and her father and Mr. Mowbray just entering the dining-room. They were talking politics, and the elder man was quite excited. " You are just a deaf and blind Tory, Mr. Mowbray," he said, " and your father was one before you. You cannot discern the signs of the times any better than the Tories of two thousand years ago could. Go to Galashiels and bide among the weavers a wee. They will give you something to think about."

" It is matter enough for thought, sir, to see the men who ' marched ' the Border for cen turies take to a loom and shuttle. But I cannot understand how it was possible to make Radi cals and Socialists out of them." " Man, they were aye that and nothing else. Generations ago their forefathers anticipated the pleasant theories of Mr. George and Mr. Hyndman, and ' had a persuasion that all prop erty was common by law of nature, and was therefore liable to be appropriated by them.' In fact, the Border men have always favored the good old plan that — " ' They should take who have the power, And they should keep who can.' " And the minister, smiling, helped himself to another goodly portion of broiled trout. The sentiment called for an example, and he gave it. So the wordy warfare went on throughout dinner until the quiet, dreamful old manse had the aura of a town-hall at election-time.

All the political and social struggles of the day and hour filled the little room, and Jessy heard, as afar off, such stimulating, irritating names as Glad stone, Salisbury, Parnell, Labouchere, until this restless atmosphere of the present was suddenly invaded by a voice from the restless atmosphere of the past— a clear, sweet voice singing an old Border lilt : "For a' that, and a' that, And twice as much as a' that, We '11 harry the cattle and malt and giain, And over the Border hame again !" At the first line there was a sudden silence, and a smile flashed over the minister's disputa tious face. Jessy looked at him, and she, too, was smiling. Mowbray glanced from father to daughter, interested and curious, and the merry voice came nearer and nearer. In a few mo ments the door of the room opened, and Kath erine Janfarie stood in its place, like a picture in a frame.

The song was yet upon her lips and the music of it on her face. Mowbray felt his heart leap, and he rose to his feet. It was an unconscious and involuntary homage, for the girl was marvelously beau tiful, an exquisite little creature, with a face fresh and radiant as a new-blown flower, eyes like two stars, and lips that were made to kiss. Some fine instinct had taught her to robe her self this spring day in the very colors of the spring. A darkish-green dress of softish cash mere fell straight to her feet, but the plaited vest was of pale-primrose silk. She had in her hands a little basket of rushes, filled with fresh primroses, and she looked like an angel of the flowers. But the loveliness words describe so tediously was an instant revelation to eyes and hearts, and Katherine had not crossed the room ere Richard Mowbray was conscious of some new element in his existence.

Through all his being the full tide of love swept like a fateful fire with irresistible surge and flow, and he was carried off his feet — far beyond his reason — by its un foreseen impetuosity. Even when the minister spoke her name to him. and he was conscious that she was at his side and looking into his face, he was not able to collect or control his outward manhood. The fire she had kindled in his heart radiated from his eyes, and she dropped her eyes beneath their gaze, and was vaguely troubled and yet pleased by the mysterious shock they gave her. A moment or two of embarrassment followed the meeting, but the minister quickly relieved it with a very commonplace remark. " I thought you had a new pony, Katherine," he said, " and I was sure you would be just dis tracted to ride him over here."

" I had also a new hat, sir, and the hat carried the day." Then she took it from her head and turned it about on her hands, and smiled at Jessy, and was quite unconscious that the revelation of her fair, bright hair waving and curling around her brow was a fresh enchantment. ' " You see, it is a sailor hat," she said, " and one could not be so impossibly absurd as to wear a sailor hat on horseback. I wanted to wear the sailor hat; so I walked." " Well, my dear, we will all walk back with you. I want to see the laird, and I know well the laird wants to see me. So, my bonnie lassie, go away for half an hour and talk your hats well over — straw and ribbons and a' — and let Mr. Mowbray and me get through our argument. He has the last word now, and that, you know, is far wrong." " The last word belongs to women, does it not, father ?"

" To women by courtesy, Jessy ; to ministers by right. Now, Mr. Mowbray, you were saying— The parlor door closed the argument as far as Jessy and Katherine were concerned. They went slowly up the stairs hand in hand, not speaking until they were in Jessy's room. Then Katherine said : "Who is your guest, Jessy Telfair? And where did he come from ?" " His father was at Edinburgh University with my father. They were friends — or enemies. I am not sure which. The elder Mowbray died last Christmas and left father a token. The young man brought it to him " A token of what, Jessy?" " It might be a love-token. Father put it in his vest pocket and never said a word." " Only think of Minister Telfair having a romance ! Such a nice, comfortable, middle aged gentleman with a love-token in his vest pocket !"

" I did not say that it was certainly a love token, Katherine." " But let us think it was. I have an idea there is a great deal of hidden romance in life. And please, Jessy, where does ' the young man ' come from ?" " Over the Border — somewhere in Westmore land." Jessy was trying on the new hat, tilting it this way and that, and she was not as interested in the question as Katherine thought she might have been. " Never mind the hat, Jessy. You can get another just like it in Galashiels to-morrow. But ' the young man ' could not be matched at all, I should say — unless we went over the Bor der somewhere in Westmoreland, to find his marrow. Do you think him so handsome ?" " Do you not think him so handsome ?" " He is not to be compared with Jamie Win toun." " Perhaps not, if the comparison be made by inches.

But then Mr. Mowbray is all alive. His hand was hot ; its clasp went straight to my heart ; his very finger-tips tingled. I know, for I touched them. Jamie Wintoun is made of clay — you never doubt it." " Mr. Mowbray is also made of clay. " Informed with spirit." " Jamie has some spirit. He is a bit of a lag gard, truly, but, generally speaking, he does what he wants to do. Mr. Mowbray is only a bird of passage ; he is here to-day and to-morrow he will be gone." Katherine did not contradict this prophecy. She walked to the window and looked out over the green desert and up to the gray firmament above it. " It will rain at sunset, Jessy," she said. " Let us hasten the minister's argument. This bird of passage will want somewhere to sleep. Are you going to ask him to stop at the manse ?" " Father has said nothing to me.

I will speak to him as we walk over the hill." Perhaps it was the supposed need for obtain ing this information which led Jessy to range herself at her father's side and, with a smiling movement, indicate to Mr. Mowbray that his duty was to be Katherine's escort. It seemed, however, the most natural of positions ; neither of them felt a moment's surprise at their sudden companionship. They sauntered through the garden, which was full of early flowers, and The Flozoer of Gala Water. 23 Katherine pointed out the sweet freedom and democratic friendships that were permitted there. " Pansies are everywhere you see," she said, " and the rose-trees have no upper beds to grow in, and the lilies are not too saintly to mingle with the gadabout honeysuckle-vine and the very worldly poppies." " Yet the place is pretty now, and it will doubt less grow more lovely with the summer.

My gardener has but one idea, and that is to make geometrical shapes and fill them with colored leaves or blossoms." " Ah, the poor little flowers ! Set out so primly, they must feel as if they were at school, and not enjoy themselves at all. If I was a flower, I would rather be a bluebell and grow out on the mountain-side just where I pleased. But we have a fine garden at Levens-hope, and the house is old enough to have stories about its rooms and queer dreams in all its chairs. There is even a ghost in the long corridor — not one of the modern scientific ghosts, full of psychologi cal suggestions— but a plain, simple, straight forward ghost." " Have you ever seen it ?" " Very often in the twilight. There is noth ing that fears me in the harmless, melancholy wraith." " Some unhappy lady of former days, I suppose ?"

" Ah, no ! A brave young laird of Levens hope, who followed Prince Charlie. Do you see yonder narrow road winding across the mountain-breast southward ? The Highland host took it, and young Walter Brathous was with them. He was only twenty years old then, and he never came home again — in the flesh. His picture is in the corridor, a gay, handsome looking boy, with the unlucky white rose of Stuart over his heart. All the Janfaries, too, have been men of the sword. My own father died at the head of his company in the onset of battle." There did not seem to be any answer proper to this statement, and Mowbray did not attempt a platitude ; yet he made Katherine feel that he was interested and sympathetic. Indeed, his whole nature was in a condition of happy tur moil, and he could not command the words he wished.

It was as if a door of his soul, hitherto closed, had been suddenly opened by Kath erine's hands, and he was confused and amazed and tinder a kind of enchantment. The green hills on which he walked with her were not earthly hills ; the air he breathed with her had in it some diviner element. Her low voice, her sweet, rippling laugh, the sway of her garments against him, the miraculous light in her eyes, threw him into a delightsome trance, in which he saw the vision of Love, like unto Katherine ; and all his soul and all his senses were subju gated by the sudden splendor of the revelation. And Katherine knew that this luminous, still serenity had nothing whatever to do with insen sibility. She understood intuitively that it was I he Flower of Gala Water. 26 the natural expression of feeling that had not yet learned how to speak.

She herself was con scious of some emotion new and strange. She talked about a score of idle things, because her instinct told her that silence would be indis creet. She was a little fearful, and she knew not of what she was afraid. Her lips voiced pleasantly all the proprieties that guard every day life ; but below her lips her heart was ask ing with a persistent iteration questions which as yet she answered only with a peremptory " Hush !" The minister and Jessy walked a few yards behind them. They were talking of the enter tainment to be given to the stranger. " He is welcome a day or two at the manse," said Doctor Telfair, but without much cordiality. " You know, Jessy, there are always my ser mons to write, and the thought of a visitor is the thought of the burns and the fish in them ; and you '11 allow, my dear, that there is not much spirituality between trout and sermons."

The Flozcer of Gala Water. 27 " His father was your friend." " Until a woman parted us. That is long ago, and I hope I have Christianity enough not to visit on the lad the ill-will I once had toward his father. Ask him to stay a week or two weeks, if you like his company." " You seemed to enjoy talking with him, father." " Not much. He has no political sense, and he is an Episcopal in religion, and fishing he has no right kind of respect for. His company is neither ' here nor there ' for menfolk, and for young girls he might be dangerous." " Why should he be dangerous ?" " He has ' a way ' with him, and I could see that he was fairly bewildered with Katherine's beauty. I 'm thinking the laird may ask him to stay a few days, for Brathous knew his father well enough. They were in the same classes, and the young English squire was a well-kent figure.

Brathous was proud in those bygone days to have a bow or a word from him. The young man favors his father, though he is not handsome." " Katherine appears to be pleased with him." " Katherine should keep mind of her mani fest destiny. She would be a foolish girl to bring complications into it. I see Brathous is coming to meet us ; so I will just step forward with Mowbray and introduce him." He did so, and, with the young man at his side, walked briskly toward the advancing laird, while Katherine waited until Jessy joined her. They both watched the meeting with interest, for both knew the uncertain disposition of the laird of Levens-hope. Fortunately, Brathous was in a very good humor. He had just received an American reaper and some fine Jersey cattle, and he was ready to welcome any one who was ready to admire them.

But, apart from this favorable condition, he was pleased with his visitor ; pleased with the memories he called forth, and pleased with his gentlemanly appearance and quick appreciation of the scientific farming which was the special pride of the laird of Levens-hope. Katherine and Jessy watched the three men turn toward the barns and the farm-buildings, and they understood what would be sure to follow. " For an hour at least their talk will be of bullocks," said Katherine, with an air of disappointment. " Let us go into the house and sit with my mother. And yet what a perfect after noon it is for a walk !" They were at the wide entrance gate, and at Katherine's tone of regret both turned and looked back over the mountain-path they had just trod. It was flushed with the most delicate tints of green.

There were tufts of primroses where the meadow was the dampest, and the air was full of fragrance from the yellow blossoms of the broom. The wan cold water flashed and rippled with translucent tints in the bursts of sunshine. The ousels were flitting from stone to stone, the linnets lilting in every bush ; and C all over the grassy parapets by the gates there was a mist of bluebells nodding in the soft wind a welcome to spring. The loveliness, freshness and the sweetness of the scene went forever into Katherine's memory, blending itself magic ally with the face and voice of the stranger who had walked by her side. Slowly the girls went through the garden together, stopping to admire the white pow dered auriculas and the budding lilacs, and lin gering long by the pond, that was shadowed by the large white thorn, for it was just breaking into a wonder of snowy blossom.

The house of Levens-hope stood in the midst of the garden. It was built of rough, weather-beaten stones, touched here and there with moss, and it was old enough and lonesome enough to be the hab itation of all the ghosts and dreams Katherine's fancy gave it. But the interior had an air of heavy, old-fashioned comfort, brightened with many modern elegancies, making it altogether satisfying and even picturesque. The girls went leisurely to a parlor on the second floor, a long, low room with many windows and a bright fire on the hearth. Here they found Mrs. Brathous. She was sitting in a comfortable wicker chair, with a basket of tangled silks and worsteds on her lap. As the girls entered she smiled and pointed to them. " I wish I had been born a good, methodical creature," she said, with a long sigh, " for I would need to be a very saint to unravel this weary tangle and keep my temper the while."

" Have you finished your screen at last, Mrs. Brathous ?" asked Jessy. " I have, my dear. Some day also I will finish my cooking book. You say ' at last ' very wisely, Jessy, for little duties must give way to great ones, and the writing of a book or the working of a screen are things that can keep, but waste ful servants require to be watched and guided every hour of the day. Did you meet the laird as you came through the garden ?" " He is gone with the minister and an Eng lishman to see the Jersey cows." An English gentleman?" Yes ; the son of an old college acquaintance." " Then I must set by my worsteds and look to the cake-basket and the pantry -shelves." She rose with the words and began to put away her sewing materials. Katherine looked lovingly after her mother, who was an exceed ingly pretty woman, small and plump, and very becomingly dressed in a plum-colored silk gown and a little white-lace cap tipping the abundant coils of her dark-brown hair.

" You might put on a lighter frock, Kath erine," she said. " Jamie Wintoun will be sure, someway or somehow, to find himself here, and then there will be four pairs of feet for a reel or two." But though Katherine went to her room osten sibly for this purpose, she did not fulfill it. " You could not look lovelier, Katherine," said Jessy. And Katherine touched the cashmere softly, and remembered that she had put it on that afternoon fresh and new. And dresses have their destinies. In this one she had spent the most wonderful hour of her life, and she would not alter a ribbon or add a brooch. Neither would she reason with herself as to the " why " of this resolve. The dress had had a happy be ginning. To make question about it might spoil all. " It just suits you, Katherine," continued Jessy.

" It ' jumps to the eyes,' as your gowns usually do. So different to Clara Heriot's, which always have a second-hand look. Let us go into the garden. We can saunter about in the sun shine until the laird and the others come to us." So Katherine replaced the sailor hat, and threw around her shoulders a little red cloak, and as they went out together, Jessy said : " There must be poets around taking notes. for it was but yesterday I read a verse that was surely inspired by you, Katherine — " ' First, a small cloak of faded red; Then a soft dress of laurel green; Then a beloved brown-rippled head, With fair, sweet face the curls between/ I wonder if I made it up myself ; for I tell you, Katherine, you turn every one either into a poet or a lover." Then Katherine would have kissed her friend, but the laird suddenly came round a private hedge, and the minister called to his daughter, and Mowbray stepped to the side of Katherine.

Thus they went through the garden together, talking of many things, smiling, laughing, touching hands as they swayed downward the branches of the budding trees, almost touching cheeks as they bent their faces among the hot house flowers, full of intoxicating scents and dreams of love-laden blossoms. Here they lingered a little behind the party, and Mowbray, looking suddenly into Katherine's face, asked in a low voice : " How long have I known you, Miss Jan. farie ?" " I cannot remember. It seems a long time ago. I must have dreamed about you when I was a child. Do you remember ?" " Yes." " What do you remember ?" " That your name is — Katherine — Kath erine 1" She paled divinely and drew a little away. But his eyes were upon her — eyes full of pier cing light, yet languishing and lengthening like the eyes of love.