is the story of the little white-washed cottage at the top of the brae a mile or so before you come into Cairn Edward. It is a love story, a simple and uneventful one, quickly told.
The cottage is not now what it was—I fear to say how many years ago—when I was wont to drive in to the Cameronian Kirk on summer Sabbaths in the red farm cart. Then not only I, but every one used to watch from far for the blue waft of reek going up as we sighted the white gable-end far away.
"Carnation's Cottage!" we used to call it, and even my father, Cameronian elder as he was, smiled when he passed it.
It was so named because a girl once lived there whose fame for worth and beauty had travelled very far. Her name was Carnation Maybold, a combination which at once tells its tale of no countryside origin. Carnation's father was a railroad engineer who had come from England and married a farmer's daughter in a neighbouring parish. Then when Carnation's mother died in childbirth, he had called his one daughter by the name of his wife's favourite flower.
"What for do ye no caa' her Jessie like her mither?" said the ancient dame who had come to keep his house.
"Because I never want to hear that name again!" Engineer Maybold had said. For he had been wrapped up in his wife.
Carnation Maybold lost her father, the imaginative man and second-rate engineer, when she was thirteen, a tall slim slip of a girl, with a face like a flower and a cheek that already had upon it the blush of her name. Old Tibbie Lockhart dwelt with her, and defenced the orphan maid about more securely than a city set with walls. The girl went a mile to the Cairn Edward Academy, where she was already in the first girls' class, and John Charles Morrison carried the green bag which held her books. In addition to this, being strongly built, he thrashed any boy who laughed at him for doing so. John Charles was three years older than his girl friend, and had the distinct beginnings of a moustache in days when Carnation still wore her hair in a long plaited tail down her back—for in those days Gretchen braids were the fashion.
It is curious to remember that, while all the other girls were Megs and Katies, Madges and Jennies, Carnation Maybold's first name knew no diminutive. She was, and has remained, just Carnation. That is enough. She was fifteen when John Charles was sent to college. After that she carried her own books both ways. She had offers from several would-be successors to the honourable service, but she accepted none. Besides, she was thinking of putting her hair up.
When John Charles came home in the windy close of the following March, the first thing he did was to put the little box which contained his class medal into his vest pocket, and hasten down the road to meet Carnation. His father was at market. His mother (a peevish, complaining, prettyish woman) was in bed with sick headache, and not to be disturbed. But there remained Carnation. The returned scholar asked no better.
The heart of John Charles beat as he kept the wider side of the turns of the road that he might the sooner spy her in front of him. She was only a slip of a school girl and he a penniless student—but nevertheless his heart beat.
Did he love her? No, he knew that he had never uttered the word in her hearing, and that if he had, she was too young to know its meaning. She was just Carnation—and—and, how his heart beat!
But still the wintry trees stood gaunt and spectral on either hand. He passed them as in a dream, his soul bent on the next twist of the red-gray sandy ribbon of road, that was flung so unscientifically about among the copses and pastures.
There she was at last—taller, lissomer than ever, her green bag swinging in her hand and a gay lilt of a tune upon her lips.
"Carnation!"
She did not answer him by any word. Instead, she stood silent with the song stilled mid-flight upon her lips. She smiled happily, however, as he came near.
"Carnation!" he cried again. And there was something shining in the lad's eyes which she had never seen there before.
She held out the green bag. Then she turned her elbow towards him with a certain defensive instinct.
"Here, take my books, John Charles!" she said, as if he had never been away; and with no more than that they began to walk homeward together.
"Are you not glad to see me?" he asked presently.
"Oh, yes, indeed—very glad!" she answered, looking at the ground; "you will be able to carry my books again, you see!"
"Who has carried them while I have been away?"
"Carried them myself!"
"For true?"
"Honour!"