Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
Olive, Vol. 1
(1850)
***********
About the print version:
OLIVE. A Novel.
BY
THE AUTHOR OF "THE OGILVIES."
IN THREE VOLUMES. VOL. I. LONDON:
CHAPMAN AND HALL
193, PICCADILLY
(LATE 186, STRAND).
1850.
WHITING, BEAUFORD HOUSE, STRAND.
***********
TO A--. C--.
THE BEST MOTHER, WIFE, AND FRIEND,-THE TRUEST WOMAN I KNOW,-I DEDICATE THIS STORY OF A WOMAN'S LIFE.
THE AUTHOR.
By the same Author, in 3 vols. post 8vo. cloth
THE OGILVIES.
A Novel.
"This book is charming. It is written with deep earnestness, and pervaded by
a noble and loving philosophy; while in giving form to her conceptions, the
writer evinces at once a fine and subtle imagination, and that perception of
minute characteristics which gives to fiction the life-like truth of
biography. Nor does she want the power to relieve her more serious view by
one of genial and well-directed humour."
--Athenæum.
"It is a pleasure to speak, as we are bound to speak, of the book before
us--viz., in terms of high and cordial praise."
--Weekly News.
"A tale of intense passion, powerfully written, evidently by one whose
acquaintance with the mysteries of the human heart, with its infirmities and
its inconsistencies, is long and deep."
--John Bull.
"A clever novel... No class of reader will be disappointed."
--Literary Gazette.
OLIVE.
CHAPTER I.
"PUIR wee lassie, ye hae a waesome welcome to a waesome warld!"
Such was the first greeting ever received by my heroine, Olive Rothesay.
However, she would be then entitled neither a heroine, nor even "Olive
Rothesay," being a small nameless concretion of humanity, in colour and
consistency strongly resembling the "red earth," whence was taken the father of
all nations. No foreshadowing of the coming life brightened her purple,
pinched-up, withered face, which, as in all new-born children, bore such a
ridiculous likeness to extreme old age. No tone of the all-expressive human voice thrilled through the
unconscious wail that was her first utterance, and in her wide-open meaningless
eyes had never dawned the beautiful human soul. There she lay, as you and I,
reader, with all our compeers, lay once--a helpless lump of breathing flesh,
faintly stirred by animal life, and scarce at all by that inner life which we
call spirit. And, if we, every one, were thus to look back, half in compassion,
half in humiliation, at our infantile likeness--may it not be that in the world
to come some who in this world bore an outward image, poor, mean, and degraded,
will cast a glance of equal pity on their well-remembered olden selves, now
transfigured into beautiful immortality.
I seem to be wandering from my Olive Rothesay; but the time to come will
show the contrary.
Poor little spirit! newly come to earth, who knows whether that "waesome
welcome" may not be a prophecy? The old nurse seemed almost to dread this, even while she uttered it, for with the
superstition from which not an "auld wife" in Scotland is altogether free, she
changed the dolorous croon into a "God guide us!" and, pressing the babe to her
aged breast, bestowed a hearty blessing on her nursling of the second
generation--the child of him who was at once her master and her foster-son.
"An' wae's the day that he's sae far awa', and canna do't himsel, my
bonnie bairn! It's ill coming into the warld without a father's blessing."
Perhaps the good soul's clasp was the tenderer, and her warm heart
throbbed the warmer to the new-born child, for a passing remembrance of her own
two fatherless babes, who now slept--as close together, as when, "twin-laddies,"
they had nestled in one mother's bosom--slept beneath the wide Atlantic which
marks the sea-boy's grave.
Nevertheless, the memory was now grown so dim with years, that it
vanished the moment the infant waked and began to cry.
Rocking to and fro, the nurse tuned her cracked voice to a long-forgotten
lullaby--something about a "boatie." It was stopped by a hand on her shoulder,
followed by the approximation of a face which, in its bland gravity, bore "M.D."
on every line.
"Well! my good--excuse me, but I forget your name."
"Elspeth, or mair commonly, Elspie Moray. A very gude name, doctor. The
Murrays o' Perth were--"
"No doubt--no doubt, Mrs. Elsappy."
"Elspie, sir. Ye maunna ca' me out o' my name, wi' your unceevil English
tongue," added the pertinacious old dame.
"Well, then, Elspie, or what the deuce you like," said the doctor, vexed
out of his proprieties. But his rosy face became rosier when he met the
horrified and sternly reproachful stare of Elspie's keen blue eyes as she turned
round--a whole volume of sermons expressed in her, "Eh, sir?" Then she added,
quietly, "I'll thank ye no to speak ony mair sic words in the ears o' this puir innocent new-born lassie. It's no canny."
"Humph!--I suppose I must beg pardon again. I shall never get out what I
wanted to say--which is, that you must be quiet, my good dame, and you must keep
Mrs. Rothesay quiet. She is a delicate young creature, you know, and must have
every possible comfort that she needs."
The doctor glanced round the room, as though there was scarce enough
comfort for his notions of worldly necessity. Yet though not luxurious, the
antechamber and the room half-revealed beyond it seemed to furnish all that
could be needed by an individual of moderate fortune and desires. And an eye
more romantic and poetic than that of the worthy medico might have found ample
atonement for the want of rich furniture within, in the magnificent view
without. The windows looked down on a lovely champaign, through which the
many-winding Forth span its silver network, until, vanishing in the distance, a
white sparkle here and there only showed whither the river wandered. In the distance, the blue mountains rose like dim clouds, marking the horizon. The foreground of this landscape was formed by the hill, castle-crowned--than which there is none in the world more beautiful or more renowned.
In short, Olive Rothesay shared with many a king and hero the honour of
her place of nativity. She was born at Stirling.
Perhaps this circumstance of birth has more influence over character
than many matter-of-fact people would imagine. It is pleasant, in after-life, to
think that we first opened our eyes in a spot famous in the world's story, or
remarkable for natural beauty. It is sweet to say, "Those are my mountains," or
"This is my fair valley;" and there is a delight almost like that of a child who
glories in his noble or beautiful parents, in the grand historical pride which
links us to the place where we were born. So this little morsel of humanity, yet
unnamed, whom by an allowable prescience we have called Olive, may perhaps be somewhat influenced in her nature by the fact that her cradle was rocked under the shadow of the hill of Stirling, and that the first breezes which fanned her baby brow came from the Highland mountains.
But the excellent presiding genius at this interesting advent "cared for
none of these things." Dr. Jacob Johnson stood at the window with his hands in
his pockets--to him the wide beautiful world was merely a field for the exercise
of the medical profession--a place where old women died, and children were born.
He watched the shadows darkening over Ben Ledi--calculating how much longer he
ought in propriety to stay with his present patient, and whether he should have
time to run home and take a cosy dinner and a bottle of port before he was again
required.
"Our sweet young patient is taking a nice sleep, I think, nurse," said
he, at last, in his most benevolent tones.
"Ye may say that, doctor--ye ought to ken."
"I might almost venture to leave her, except that she seems so lonely,
without friends or attendance, save yourself."
"And wha's the best nurse for Captain Angus Rothesay's wife and bairn,
but the woman that nursed himsel?" said Elspie, lifting up her tall gaunt frame,
and for the second time frowning the little doctor into confused silence. "An'
as for friends, ye suld just be unco' glad o' the chance that garr'd the leddy
bide here, and no amang her ain folk. Else there wadna hae been sic a dowie
welcome for her bonnie bairn. Maybe a waur, though, God forgie me;" added the
woman to herself, with a sigh, as she once more half buried her little nursling
in her capacious embrace.
"I have not the slightest doubt of Captain Rothesay's respectability,"
answered Dr. Johnson. Respectability! applied to the scions of a family ...
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