This person had
been a kind and steadfast friend to Jeanie in all her troubles, and
had helped her nurse the old man in his dying illness. I am sure it
was just like Jeanie to act as she did. She had all her life looked
more to the comforts of others than to her ain. But Robertson was
an angry man when he got that letter, and he said, 'If that was a'
the lo'e that Jeanie Burns had for him, to prefer an auld woman's
comfort, who was naething to her, to her betrothed husband, she
might bide awa' as lang as she pleased, he would never trouble
himsel' to write to her again.'
"I did na' think that the man was in earnest, an' I remonstrated
with him on his folly an' injustice. This ended in a sharp quarrel
atween us, and I left him to gang his ain gate, an' went to live
with my uncle, who kept a blacksmith's forge in the village.
"After a while, we heard that Willie Robertson was married to a
Canadian woman - neither young nor good-looking, and very much his
inferior in every way, but she had a good lot of land in the rear of
his farm. Of course I thought that it was all broken off with puir
Jeanie, and I wondered what she would spier at the marriage.
"It was early in June, and our Canadian woods were in their first
flush o' green - an' how green an' lightsome they be in their spring
dress - when Jeanie Burns landed in Canada. She travelled her lane
up the country, wondering why Willie was not at Montreal to meet her
as he had promised in the last letter he sent her. It was late in
the afternoon when the steam-boat brought her to C - -, and, without
waiting to ask any questions respecting him, she hired a man and
cart to take her and her luggage to M - -. The road through the bush
was very heavy, and it was night before they reached Robertson's
clearing, and with some difficulty the driver found his way among
the logs to the cabin-door.
"Hearing the sound of wheels, the wife, a coarse ill-dressed
slattern, came out to see what could bring strangers to such an
out-o'-the-way place at that late hour. "Puir Jeanie! I can weel
imagine the fluttering o' her heart when she spier'd of the woman
for ane Willie Robertson, and asked if he was at hame?'
"'Yes,' answered the wife gruffly.
