CHAPTER XVII.
YARROW.
The days lengthened, the cold strengthened, in accordance with the proverb, and one late February day Dolly was standing at dusk by the sitting-room window, looking out upon what was visible of the wintry landscape through the snow that was falling silently and in great flakes. She was looking out upon the spot where Gaston lay, thinking about him, as she often did. One hand held back the window drapery, while the other hung listlessly by her side.
Presently, into the hand hanging by her side, a cold, dewy nose was thrust. She turned quickly, and there in the uncertain firelight stood a dog with head uplifted, his wistful eyes seeking hers, and his magnificent tail waving slowly to and fro. A very ghost of a dog he seemed to Dolly's first, startled glance, but a second thrust of the cool, dewy nose proved him to be, without question, a substantial creature.
He was a stranger. Dolly had never before seen him, or any dog like him. He was entirely unlike the huge, broad-muzzled, tawny Gaston. This dog had thin flanks and a sharp muzzle, with a tan spot under either eye.
"Who are you, and where did you come from?" she asked, as she might of a human being; and the dog answered with a whine, still moving his tail to and fro friendlily.
Dolly dropped the curtain and walked forward to the fire, the dog following. She lay down upon the hearth-rug, a favorite place and position with her, and he lay down, too, beside her, giving a sigh of content as he did so, and with his paws and head resting on the edge of her gown. Tucked under his collar she espied a note tied with a blue ribbon, and directed to "Mistress Dorothea."
"I wonder," she said, untying the blue ribbon, "do you come from the same place as Skatta."
As she opened the note a sprig of something dropped, which a label attached to it said was white heather, and brought good-luck. There were also some verses purporting to be
"AN ADDRESS TO MISTRESS DOLLY, FROM HER FAITHFUL COLLIE.
The door opened, a curly head was thrust in, and "Do you like him, Dolly?" asked Ned.
"Oh, Ned, is that you? Come in and tell me all about him!" and Ned entered, followed by Cousin Kitty. "Where did he come from? and who sent him? Ah, Cousin Kitty, it was you!" catching sight of Cousin Kitty's smiling, conscious face. "I couldn't bear to have had him if he had looked one bit like Gaston, but he doesn't. Nobody can take Gaston's place," said the loyal Dolly, speaking of Gaston in the way she always thought of him, as a real person.
"I meant to have got him along for New-year's, but I couldn't," said Cousin Kitty. "He had a sorry time getting across. The vessel was almost three months."
"And did he really come across the—the"—consulting the slip of paper in her hand—"'the blue Atlantic wave?'"
"Really and truly," was the reply.
"And where is Yarrow?" continued Dolly.
"If I'm to be catechised I may as well sit down, too," said Cousin Kitty, taking possession of a section of the rug, while Ned leaned against the mantle-piece, and looked down upon them in true masculine fashion.
"Yarrow is a small river in the south of Scotland, not much in itself, but made famous by the poets."
"Oh yes, I see!" and Dolly consulted her slip of paper again.
"Now, what are 'birken shades?' and what 'tale of sorrow' did the poets tell?"
"Well, my dear, 'birken shades,' turned into Yankee prose, are birch-trees; and as to the 'tale of sorrow,' there are some lovely old ballads that will make your hair stand on end to read, written in the fifteenth century, called 'Rare Willie drowned in Yarrow,' and 'The Dowie Dens of Yarrow,' and two in the eighteenth, and one is called 'A Song,' and a grewsome song it is, too."
"Well," rejoined Dolly, running her eye down the verses, "I think I know how the English skylark sings, and what heather is. Oh, thank you for this, Cousin Kitty!" and she held up the sprig of white heather. "And does it really mean 'good-luck?'"
"Yes; if you should ever visit the Scottish Highlands as a guest, your host will probably present you with a sprig of white heather the first thing."
"And I know that the gowan is a daisy," Dolly went on, "but I don't think I know what holms are."
"Something like green meadows," replied Cousin Kitty; "and there's always a 'brae' in a Scotch song."
"Same's there is in a donkey," put in Ned, who began to feel that he was not getting his due share of this conversation.
read Dolly, ignoring Ned's vile pun. "Whose swan was it? and why is he always floating?"
"It's Wordsworth's swan, and he's likely to go floating down the river of time forever and a day," laughed Cousin Kitty. "And as for the 'apple sweet and rare, O'—I had a fearful time making that rhyme, Dotty—one of those deliciously dismal old ballads has a good deal to say about the apple that 'hangs frae the rock.'"
"And what's a 'marrow?' I don't know as I like to be called a 'marrow.'" This was said doubtfully, Dolly's chief association with that word being a marrow squash.
"Oh, Dotty, Dotty, just listen to this!" and Cousin Kitty sang,
"'Marrow' means (in Scotch, mind you, my dear) one of a pair; it means somebody very dear and sweet, and that's what you are, Dotty." And seizing her in her arms, Cousin Kitty lost her balance, and together they rolled over Yarrow, who jumped up, looking his surprise at this specimen of American manners.
"There! and now that you've had the verses annotated by the author, just put 'em away and look at doggie himself. Isn't he a beauty? And to name him 'Yarrow' was such a happy thought!" And Cousin Kitty sat up on the rug, and gathered up her hair from which her comb had fallen.
"These verses I shall always keep," remarked Dolly, folding them up carefully. "I wish I could write verses."
"P'r'aps you will some time. P'r'aps you'll be the great American poetess Mr. Emerson says is coming," said Ned, consolingly.
So Dolly put the verses away, and neither she nor Cousin Kitty nor Ned ever dreamed that some day they would be printed as part of their veracious history.