A Witch of the Hills, v. 1-2

in a moment discover my pious fraud. Having got together in this way a very odd assortment of furniture, I was rather at a loss about kitchen utensils, when

, and I sneaked back to Ballater by the 4.35 train, wondering how I should break the news to Ferguson, and wishing that by some impossible good luck the immaculate one might have committed in my absence some slight breach of disci

ndustry, his many uncompromising virtues made him a person to be reckoned with; and it would have been

cross the little stone bridge that arches over the Muick just before that stream runs into the Dee. I stopped and looked around me. There was a faint white light over the western hills which enabled me to see dim outlines of the objects I knew. Just beyond the bridge was the forsaken little churchyard of Glenmuick, which not even a ghost would care to haunt, where now a cluster of gaunt bare ash-trees thrust up spectral arms from the ground among the mildewed grave-stones. The lonely manse, a plain stone house shadowed by dark evergreens, stood back a little from the road on the opposite side. A mile away, with the rushing Dee between, the spire of Ballater church stood up among the roofs of the village, flanked by fir-crowned Craigendarroch on the north, and the Panna

n meadows where two or three horses were turned out to find a meagre pasture. Here the drive was carried over a little iron ornamental bridge, which crossed a stream that was but a thread in the warm weather; and leaving the grass and the trees behind, one came upon a broad lawn which ran right up to the walls of the house, flanked to the north by more grass and

ed from ugliness by a growth of ivy over the lower portion and by a freak of the designer, whereby one end was raised a story above the rest, and the roof of this portion made to slope north and south, instead of east

nouncement I had to make to him. I went up to my room and, finding everything prepared for me, told him I was ready fo

I; 'I can do that.

the kitchen serving dinner and up here attending upon you at the same time is a moral impossibility, I made bold to ask an old and very respectable female that

gratulated him upon his foret

just given permission to two poor ladies to pass the winter in the cottage at the back, and I want you to help me to put the place str

y contempt. 'However, you know best, sir, what kind of cattle you like to harbo

merely perfunctory, but zealous, knowing well, as I did, the highly-sensitive mood in which the elder at least

s room, you know.' Mine was such a nondescript household that it was not easy to find a designation for any of the apartments, but I wished thus neatly to intimate that if my mayor of the palace had matrimonial intentions, h

n. 'Plain Janet, sir; she leaves titles to her betters. And the kitchen does very well for me, sir

isfies you she

rvice and not for my own pleasure that I introduced her here. I have no opinion of women, sir,

new freak under an officious zeal for the comfort of the coming tenants, which was much harder to deal with than stubborn unwillingness to work for them would have been. My assurances that one was an invalid and the other a child only supplied him with fresh forms of indirect attack. He was surprised that I did not have one of the two rooms on the ground-floor fitted up as a bedro

d, not overrated her magnificent lack of meretricious charms; for in the wooden face and hard blue eyes I recognised at once the features of my faithful attendant, additional wrin

dies--. No, the pictures were hopeless, with the exception of huge engravings, 'The Relief of Lucknow,' and 'Queen Philippa Begging the Lives of the Burgesses,' which, though perfectly innocuous to a young girl's mind, were not exhilarating to anybody's. Besides, fancy being caught by Ferguson staggering under the burden of those ponderous works of art! I had not known before how meagre were the appointments of my home; my five years of wandering had given me a traveller's indifference to all but necessaries, so that, as I looked round the study, where I spent nearly all the time that I passed indoors, I saw little that could be spared. It was a comfortable-looking room enough, with its three big windows, two looking south over the terraced garden and the wooded valley of

n a dog-kennel, with the front taken out and replaced by a strong iron grating, formed the winter home of a large brown monkey, which I had bought at a sale with the fascinating reputation of being dangerous, but which had belied its character by allowing me to bring it home on my shoulders. To-to, so called for no better reason than that my collie, whose favourite resting-place was now well defined on the goatskin hearthrug, was named Ta-ta, had from our first introduction treated me with such marked tolerance that I, in my loneliness, had begun to feel a sort of superstitious fondness for the brute, and fancied I saw more reason and affection in his blinking brown eyes than in any of the Scotch pebbles which served as organs of vision to my Gaelic neighbours. When I first bought him it was mild enough for him to live in the yard; but when the weather grew cold, and he was brought into the kitchen, he got on so ill with the powers there that I had to take compassion upon him and them, and remove To-to to the study, where he justified his promotion by the reserve and gravity of his manners, his only marked foible being a furious jealousy of Ta-ta, whose resting-place was just beyond the utmost

d fitted up years ago in the Louis Quinze style, I just peeped; but there was nothing very tempting in white and gold curly-legged furniture tied up in brown holland

her luggage to some friends in London, to account, I fancy, poor lady, for having only one shabby trunk and two stage baskets. Babiole sat very quietly during the railway journey, looking out of window at the now dreary and bleak landscape; and I spoke so little that any one might have thought I would

in the hills where, like the knights of old, I could indulge in what lawless pranks I pleased. 'And I assure you that nothing could possibly be more simple than my m

' said Mrs. Ellmer, with a giddy shake of the h

a tree which grew abundantly in the neighbourhood. However, she only smiled archly, and seeing that the imaginary iniquities she seemed bent on imputing to me in no way lessened her exuberant happiness in

th the cold and dreary drive. They pronounced the dark fir-forest through which we drove 'magnificent'; and, finally, after a hushed and reverential silence as we went through the plantation, both were transfixed with admiration at the sight of my modest dwelling. Mrs. Ellmer even went so far as to admire the 'fine rugged face' of Ferguson, who was standing at the hall door scowling his worst scowl. I did not risk an encounter with him, but led the ladies straight into the cottage, where a peat fire was glowing in each of the lower rooms. We went first into the sitting-room; a lighted

rmined to gaze on everything long enough to be sure that it was real; then, with a little sob, she tu

ong been barren of all pleasures dependent on my fellow-creatures that I could neither then, nor later that evening when I was alone, recall any sensation akin to its effect in sweetness or vividness except the glow I had felt after Babiole's

tea,' said I hastily. 'I told Jane

require no waiting on, I assure you,' brok

hey would be comfortable, I retreated, Babiole giving my fingers a warm-hearted squeeze when it came to her turn to

nd herself without words. I'm sure I wished she would, for she went on in the same strain, making convulsive little clutches at my fingers to emphasise her speech, until both she and I began to shiver. She did

told me, in answer to my question, that she was taking some tea to the ladies. After a moment'

e left, while I stood on the rough fibre mat outside the sitting-room, having g

us out, how happy we shall be here! Mr

rstand, if you ever meet him when I'm not with you, you are not to speak to him. It makes me

est Beauty should catch him eavesdropping, slunk away from the