The Heart of Mid-Lothian - Penn State University

nary, Mrs. Dolly felt no alarm for her own. The air was
soft, and came over the cooling wave with something of
summer fragrance. The beautiful scene of headlands,
and capes, and bays, around them, with the broad blue
chain of mountains, were dimly visible in the moonlight;
while every dash of the oars made the waters
glance and sparkle with the brilliant phenomenon called
the sea fire.
This last circumstance filled Jeanie with wonder, and
served to amuse the mind of her companion, until they
approached the little bay, which seemed to stretch its
dark and wooded arms into the sea as if to welcome
them.
The usual landing-place was at a quarter of a mile’s
distance from the Lodge, and although the tide did not
admit of the large boat coming quite close to the jetty
of loose stones which served as a pier, Jeanie, who was
both bold and active, easily sprung ashore; but Mrs.,
Dolly positively refusing to commit herself to the same
risk, the complaisant Mr. Archibald ordered the boat
round to a more regular landing-place, at a consider-
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543
able distance along the shore. He then prepared to land
himself, that he might, in the meanwhile, accompany
Jeanie to the Lodge. But as there was no mistaking the
woodland lane, which led from thence to the shore, and
as the moonlight showed her one of the white chimneys
rising out of the wood which embosomed the building,
Jeanie declined this favour with thanks, and requested
him to proceed with Mrs. Dolly, who, being “in a country
where the ways were so strange to her, had mair need
of countenance.”
This, indeed, was a fortunate circumstance, and might
even be said to save poor Cowslip’s life, if it was true, as
she herself used solemnly to aver, that she must positively
have expired for fear, if she had been left alone in
the boat with six wild Highlanders in kilts.
The night was so exquisitely beautiful, that Jeanie,
instead of immediately directing her course towards the
Lodge, stood looking after the boat as it again put off
from the side, and rowed into the little bay, the dark
figures of her companions growing less and less distinct
as they diminished in the distance, and the jorram, or