One morning, about six o'clock, Hugh, who had never been so early in the wood since the day he had met Margaret there, was standing under a beech-tree, looking up through its multitudinous leaves, illuminated, as I have attempted to describe, with the sidelong rays of the brilliant sun. He was feeling young, and observing the forms of nature with a keen discriminating gaze: that was all. Fond of writing verses, he was studying nature, not as a true lover, but as one who would hereafter turn his discoveries to use. For it must be confessed that nature affected him chiefly through the medium of poetry; and that he was far more ambitious of writing beautiful things about nature than of discovering and understanding, for their own sakes, any of her hidden yet patent meanings. Changing his attitude after a few moments, he descried, under another beech-tree, not far from him, Margaret, standing and looking up fixedly as he had been doing a moment before. He approached her, and she, hearing his advance, looked, and saw him, but did not move. He thought he saw the glimmer of tears in her eyes. She was the first to speak, however.
"What were you seeing up there, Mr. Sutherland?""I was only looking at the bright leaves, and the shadows upon them.""Ah! I thocht maybe ye had seen something."
"What do you mean, Margaret?"
"I dinna richtly ken mysel'. But I aye expeck to see something in this fir-wood. I'm here maist mornin's as the day dawns, but I'm later the day.""We were later than usual at our work last night. But what kind of thing do you expect to see?""That's jist what I dinna ken. An' I canna min' whan I began to come here first, luikin' for something. I've tried mony a time, but I canna min', do what I like."Margaret had never said so much about herself before. I can account for it only on the supposition that Hugh had gradually assumed in her mind a kind of pastoral superiority, which, at a favourable moment, inclined her to impart her thoughts to him. But he did not know what to say to this strange fact in her history. She went on, however, as if, having broken the ice, she must sweep it away as well.
"The only thing 'at helps me to account for't, is a picter in our auld Bible, o' an angel sittin' aneth a tree, and haudin' up his han' as gin he were speakin' to a woman 'at's stan'in' afore him.
Ilka time 'at I come across that picter, I feel direckly as gin Iwar my lane in this fir-wood here; sae I suppose that when I was a wee bairn, I maun hae come oot some mornin' my lane, wi' the expectation o' seein' an angel here waitin' for me, to speak to me like the ane i' the Bible. But never an angel hae I seen. Yet Iaye hae an expectation like o' seein' something, I kenna what; for the whole place aye seems fu' o' a presence, an' it's a hantle mair to me nor the kirk an' the sermon forby; an' for the singin', the soun' i' the fir-taps is far mair solemn and sweet at the same time, an' muckle mair like praisin' o' God than a' the psalms thegither.
But I aye think 'at gin I could hear Milton playin' on's organ, it would be mair like that soun' o' mony waters, than onything else 'at I can think o'."Hugh stood and gazed at her in astonishment. To his more refined ear, there was a strange incongruity between the somewhat coarse dialect in which she spoke, and the things she uttered in it. Not that he was capable of entering into her feelings, much less of explaining them to her. He felt that there was something remarkable in them, but attributed both the thoughts themselves and their influence on him, to an uncommon and weird imagination. As of such origin, however, he was just the one to value them highly.
"Those are very strange ideas," he said.
"But what can there be about the wood? The very primroses--ye brocht me the first this spring yersel', Mr. Sutherland--come out at the fit o' the trees, and look at me as if they said, 'We ken--we ken a' aboot it;' but never a word mair they say. There's something by ordinar' in't.""Do you like no other place besides?" said Hugh, for the sake of saying something.
"Ou ay, mony ane; but nane like this."
"What kind of place do you like best?"
"I like places wi' green grass an' flowers amo't.""You like flowers then?"
"Like them! whiles they gar me greet an' whiles they gar me lauch;but there's mair i' them than that, an' i' the wood too. I canna richtly say my prayers in ony ither place."The Scotch dialect, especially to one brought up in the Highlands, was a considerable antidote to the effect of the beauty of what Margaret said.