"_O the springtime! the springtime!

Who does not know it well?

When the little birds begin to build, And the buds begin to swell,_

_When the sun and the clouds play hide and seek, And the lambs are softly bleating; And the color mounts to the maiden's cheek, At her lover's tender greeting,-- In the springtime, in the joyous springtime._"

Then Robert stayed her simple song, saying: "Let us go and walk in the garden while I smoke my cigar." And she went gladly, and they walked and talked together until the soft gray afternoon was verging to purple and red on the horizon.

That night her heart was too full of hope and sweet content to let her sleep. She had not been as happy for many months. She had not been as hopeful. She told herself this detached life was all that was required to secure Robert's affection, and that six months of it would make him impatient of any intrusion into the sacredness of his home. And she was full of sweet, innocent plans to increase and settle certainly and firmly the treasure of his love. They kept her waking, so she rose long before morning, and, opening a cas.e.m.e.nt, looked out into the dusky night full of stars. She sat there, watching Nature in those ineffable moments when she is dreaming, until the cold white light of the dawning showed her the waning moon blue in the west.

The next day Robert went fishing, and Theodora put in order the china, crystal, and fine damask, and the books and ornaments she had brought down to Inverkip. Robert praised what she had done, vowing she would make the best of housekeepers; and the evening and the next day were altogether full of love and sweet content.

Then Robert went back to Glasgow and business, and Mr. and Mrs. Oliphant and Dr. Robertson's family arrived. The young wife visited and helped her friends, and they spent long, pleasant evenings at each other's houses. Theodora said to herself: "Things are not going as badly with me as I thought, and I wonder if we ever know if bad is bad, or good is good."

Many happy weeks followed this initial one and Theodora was grateful for every pleasant hour, for she was facing the trial and the glory of maternity and she wished her child's prenatal influences to be favorable on every side. The social life of Inverkip could not in its present conditions be called fashionable, and that was a good thing, for few women can go into fashionable society without catching its fashionable insanity, whatever it may be at the time. Theodora spent many quiet, delightful hours with her friends the Oliphants and Robertsons, but her chief pleasure she took from the hand of Nature.

Every fine day she was up among the great hills, and it is a bad heart that is not purified by walking on them. She was pa.s.sionately fond of birds, and had the power to attract them to her. Morning and evening she fed at her dining-room window

"_The bird that man loves best, The pious bird with scarlet breast, The little English robin._"

They crowded the sweet briar bush that grew beside the window, and praised and thanked her in the sweetest songs mortal ever heard. The blue cushat's "croodle" and its mournful love monologue moved her to sympathetic tears. She was sure the pretty faithful creature had a forgetful, or unkind mate. The swallows cradling themselves in the air, and chattering so amiably; the tiny wren's quick, short song; the fond and faithful bullfinch couples; the honest, respectable thrushes; the pilfering blackbirds; the nightingale's solemn music in the night; the lark's velvety, supple, indefatigable song in the early morning--these, and many more of the winged voices of the firmament, she understood; but to the humble, poorly-clad lark, she gave an ardent affection. To her it was a bird of heaven, living on love and light, singing for half-an-hour without a second's pause, rising vertically a thousand yards as she sang, without losing a note, and sending earthward exquisite waterfalls of song.

In this sane and peaceful life, month after month went onward delightfully, while she waited in the fulness of health and hope for the child which G.o.d would give her. During these months Robert also had been happy. Now and then there had been invasions of the lower man, but in the main he was joyous and amiable, thoughtful for her comfort, and delighted to share all her hopes and pleasures. He had insisted on his mother and sisters going to the Bridge of Allan for the summer months, had given Jepson and Mrs. McNab holiday, and practically closed the Glasgow house until September. And he had found Inverkip so pleasant, that he was even more with Theodora than his promise demanded.

One day near the end of July Mrs. McNab came to Inverkip and called on Theodora, who was delighted to see her. In a few minutes she began to take off her bonnet and shawl. "I hae been thinking things o'er," she said, "and I hae made up my mind to stay wi' you the next four weeks--for there's nane that I can see about this house fit to take my place--a wheen lilting la.s.ses, tee-heeing and giggling as if life was a dance-hall."

"They are nice, good girls, McNab."

"They may be, but they are flighty and nervous, and they hae no experience. I am going to take care o' you and the house mysel'. When you are sick----"

"McNab, I am in splendid health."

"That's a' right. Splendid health you have, and splendid health you will require, and some one to keep people out o' the house that arena wanted near it. I am not going awa', so you needna speak the word. Is your ain mother coming to you?"

"She cannot. They will have to move next month."

"Weel, then, you arena to be fretted wi' any other mother, and it will take an extraordinar' woman--like mysel'--to be all you want, and to fend off all you don't want. I am gey fond o' newborn babies--poor wee things, shipwrecked on a cold, bad world--and if there isna some sensible kind-hearted body wi' your bairn, they will be trying their auld world tricks wi' it. I shall stay here and see the bonnie wee thing isna left to their mercy."

"What do you mean? You frighten me, McNab."

"I mean, that if the bairn is left to any auld-farrant nurse, she will wash it in whiskey as soon as it comes into the world, and there is nae doubt in my mind, that the spirit isna pleasant to the tender skin o'

the poor wean."

"Oh, McNab! what a dreadful custom!"

"Weel, it is an auld, auld custom, and though some are giving it up, there are mair that stick to it. If Mrs. Traquair Campbell should be here, I'm feared the whiskey bottle would be gey close to the washbowl.

And you wouldna like it."

"I would not permit it."

"How would you help it? Tell me that. The only time you managed that woman you had to nearly die to do it, and I'm not clear that you got the better o' her then."

"She will not be here, McNab. She will not be asked."

McNab snapped her fingers. "'Asked,' is it? She will walk into this house as if it was her ain. 'It is my son's house,' she will say, and then she'll proceed to use her son's house as if the de'il had sent her to destroy everything that belongs to other folk; and day and night she'll make quarrelling and misery. That's Mrs. Traquair Campbell's way, and the hale o' her brood is like her."

"Now, McNab, you know Mr. Robert Campbell is very different. You must not speak ill of my husband."

"No, ma'am. There's two Robert Campbells. Ane o' them is weel worth the love you're giving him; the other is like the auld man that tormented the Saints themsel's. He'll get kicked out some day, nae doubt o' it."

"Mr. Campbell told me he had given you a holiday until the first of September. He spoke very well of you."

"I have had mair holiday than I want now."

"Where were you?"

"I was in Edinburgh, seeing the world and the ways o' it."

"What did you think of the world and its ways?"

"I dinna think them fit to talk about. I'll go now, and give things a bit sort up. I'll warrant them requiring the same."

So McNab got--or rather took--her way, and soon after appeared in the kitchen in her large white mutch and ap.r.o.n. "Now, la.s.ses," she said in her most commanding manner, "I am come here on a special invite to keep you and the house in order during the tribulation o' the mistress. But you'll find me a pleasant body to live wi', if you behave yoursel's and let the lads alane. If you don't, you will find you have got to do wi'

the Mischief."

"The lads, ma'am?" said a smart young la.s.sie; "the lads! We have not a particle o' use for them--auld or young."

"What's your name?"

"Maggie."

"Weel, Maggie, you are a sensible la.s.s, and you may now make Mistress McNab--that's mysel'--a cup o' tea, and if there's a slice o' cold beef or a bit o' meat pie in the house----"

"There's neither meat nor pie in the house."

"Then, Maggie, gie me a rizzard haddie wi' my tea. I'm easy pleased except wi' dinner. A good dinner is a fixed fact wi' me, and when I've had a cup o' tea I'll feel mair like Flora McNab. At the present hour, I'm f.a.gged and wastered, and requiring a refreshment. That's sure!"

At first Theodora did not feel satisfied with McNab's gratuitous offer of service, but Robert quickly made her so. "I am delighted," he said.

"I have known the woman ever since I can remember. She stood by my father in his long sickness as faithfully as she stands by you. I can never be uneasy about my wife if McNab is with her."

So McNab took the place she had chosen, and the house was soon aware of her presence. There were more economy, better meals, perfect discipline, and a refreshing sense of peace and order. For she had a rare power of ruling, and also of making those ruled pleased to be so. Thus, for two weeks, Theodora had a sense of pause and rest that was strengthening both to the inner and outer woman. Then in the secret silence of the midnight, her fear was turned into joy, for McNab laid her first-born son in her arms and Robert knelt at her side, his heart br.i.m.m.i.n.g with love and thanksgiving. And had he fully realized the blessing given, he would have known it was, Thy Kingdom come, from the cradle.

Surely this great event would make all things new! This was Theodora's constant thought and hope, and for a while it seemed to do so. But the readiness with which we come to accept rare and great blessings as customary is one of the most common and ungrateful of our blasphemies against the Father from whom all blessings flow. And very soon the beautiful babe became as usual as the other everyday incidents of life, to all excepting his mother and McNab. Robert, indeed, was fond and proud of him, and as long as they remained in Inverkip the little fellow was something new that belonged to himself in a manner wonderful and satisfying.

But with the return of the family to Glasgow, the child lost the charm of the Inverkip environment. In Traquair House he received even from his father only the Campbell affection, which had no enthusiasms, no baby talk, no petting, no foolish admirations. It was almost impossible for the mother to accept this change of att.i.tude with nonchalance, or even cheerfulness. She could not withstand the influence of the dull, gray house, and the toiling, moiling, money-grabbing city, though she felt intuitively that the influence of both was inimical to her domestic happiness. For the house was impregnated with the Campbell personality, so much so that the very apparatus of their daily life had become eloquent of the moods of those they ministered to; and Theodora often felt as if the sofas and chairs in their rooms resented her use of them.

A prepossession of this kind was an unhappy one, and easily affiliated itself with the spirit of the house, which was markedly a quarrelsome spirit. Nurtured and indulged for more than two generations, it had become an inflexible, almost an invincible one. All Theodora's smiling efforts, all her charms and entreaties had failed to conciliate, or even appease its grudging resentment. It was a piteous thing that the first trouble after her return to Glasgow, should be concerning the child.

Robert had been pleased by the a.s.surance of his friends in Inverkip that his son resembled him in an extraordinary manner. He was himself sure of this resemblance, though Theodora could only see "that difference in sameness" often enough p.r.o.nounced between fathers and sons.

Mrs. Campbell scouted the idea. She said: "The child had not a single Campbell feature or trait. He did not even suck his tongue, a trick all the Campbell babies had, as McNab knew right well. And she understood there had not been a single Campbell in the room when he was born--an important and significant mistake that never could be rectified. She could only say, and she always would say, that the boy was Theodora's child."