LESSON 27
LUCY FORESTER

John Wilson (b. 1785, d. 1854), better known as “Christopher North, ” was a celebrated author, poet, and critic, born at Paisley, Scotland, and educated at the University of Glasgow and at Oxford. In 1808 he moved to Westmoreland, England, where he formed one of the “Lake School” of poets. While at Oxford he gained a prize for a poem on “Painting, Poetry, and Architecture.” In 1820 he became Professor of Moral Philosophy in the University of Edinburgh, which position he retained until 1851. He gained his greatest reputation as the chief author of “Noctes Ambrosianae, ” essays contributed to Blackwood's Magazine between 1822 and 1825. Among his poems may be mentioned “The Isle of Palms” and the “City of the Plague, ” This selection is adapted from “The Foresters, ” a tale of Scottish life.

1. Lucy was only six years old, but bold as a fairy; she had gone by herself a thousand times about the braes, and often upon errands to houses two or three miles distant. What had her parents to fear? The footpaths were all firm, and led to no places of danger, nor are infants themselves incautious when alone in then pastimes. Lucy went singing into the low woods, and singing she reappeared on the open hillside. With her small white hand on the rail, she glided along the wooden bridge, or tripped from stone to stone across the shallow streamlet.

2. The creature would be away for hours, and no fear be felt on her account by anyone at home; whether she had gone, with her basket on her arm, to borrow some articles of household use from a neighbor, or, merely for her own solitary delight, had wandered off to the braes to play among the flowers, coming back laden with wreaths and garlands.

3. The happy child had been invited to pass a whole day, from morning to night, at Ladyside (a farmhouse about two miles off) with her playmates the Maynes; and she left home about an hour after sunrise.

4. During her absence, the house was silent but happy, and, the evening being now far advanced, Lucy was expected home every minute, and Michael, Agnes, and Isabel, her father, mother, and aunt, went to meet her on the way. They walked on and on, wondering a little, but in no degree alarmed till they reached Ladyside, and heard the cheerful din of the children within, still rioting at the close of the holiday. Jacob Mayne came to the door, but, on their kindly asking why Lucy had not been sent home before daylight was over, he looked painfully surprised, and said that she had not been at Ladyside.

5. Within two hours, a hundred persons were traversing the hills in all directions, even at a distance which it seemed most unlikely that poor Lucy could have reached. The shepherds and their dogs, all the night through, searched every nook, every stony and rocky place, every piece of taller heather, every crevice that could conceal anything alive or dead: but no Lucy was there.

6. Her mother, who for a while seemed inspired with supernatural strength, had joined in the search, and with a quaking heart looked into every brake, or stopped and listened to every shout and halloo reverberating among the hills, intent to seize upon some tone of recognition or discovery. But the moon sank; and then the stars, whose increased brightness had for a short time supplied her place, all faded away; and then came the gray dawn of the morning, and then the clear brightness of the day, —and still Michael and Agnes were childless.

7. “She has sunk into some mossy or miry place, ” said Michael, to a man near him, into whose face he could not look, “a cruel, cruel death to one like her! The earth on which my child walked has closed over her, and we shall never see her more! ”

8. At last, a man who had left the search, and gone in a direction toward the highroad, came running with something in his arms toward the place where Michael and others were standing beside Agnes, who lay, apparently exhausted almost to dying, on the sward. He approached hesitatingly; and Michael saw that he carried Lucy's bonnet, clothes, and plaid.

9. It was impossible not to see some spots of blood upon the frill that the child had worn around her neck. “Murdered! murdered! ” was the one word whispered or ejaculated all around; but Agnes heard it not; for, worn out by that long night of hope and despair, she had fallen asleep, and was, perhaps, seeking her lost Lucy in her dreams.

10. Isabel took the clothes, and, narrowly inspecting them with eye and hand, said, with a fervent voice that was heard even in Michael's despair,“No, Lucy is yet among the living. There are no marks of violence on the garments of the innocent; no murderer's hand has been here. These blood spots have been put here to deceive. Besides, would not the murderer have carried off these things? For what else would he have murdered her? But, oh! foolish despair! What speak I of ? For, wicked as the world is—ay! desperately wicked—there is not, on all the surface of the wide earth, a hand that would murder our child! Is it not plain as the sun in the heaven, that Lucy has been stolen by some wretched gypsy beggar? ”

11. The crowd quietly dispersed, and horse and foot began to scour the country. Some took the highroads, others all the bypaths, and many the trackless hills. Now that they were in some measure relieved from the horrible belief that the child was dead, the worst other calamity seemed nothing, for hope brought her back to their arms.

12. Agnes had been able to walk home to Bracken-Braes, and Michael and Isabel sat by her bedside. All her strength was gone, and she lay at the mercy of the rustle of a leaf, or a shadow across the window. Thus hour after hour passed, till it was again twilight. “I hear footsteps coming up the brae, ” said Agnes, who had for some time appeared to be slumbering; and in a few moments the voice of Jacob Mayne was heard at the outer door.

13. Jacob wore a solemn expression of countenance, and he seemed, from his looks, to bring no comfort. Michael stood up between him and his wife, and looked into his heart. Something there seemed to be in his face that was not miserable. “If he has heard nothing of my child, ” thought Michael, “this man must care little for his own fireside.” “Oh, speak, speak, ” said Agnes; “yet why need you speak? All this has been but a vain belief, and Lucy is in heaven.”

14. “Something like a trace of her has been discovered; a woman, with a child that did not look like a child of hers, was last night at Clovenford, and left it at the dawning.” “Do you hear that, my beloved Agnes? ” said Isabel; “she will have tramped away with Lucy up into Ettrick or Yarrow;but hundreds of eyes will have been upon her; for these are quiet but not solitary glens; and the hunt will be over long before she has crossed down upon Hawick. I knew that country in my young days, What say you, Mr. Mayne? There is the light of hope in your face.” “There is no reason to doubt, ma'am, that it was Lucy. Everybody is sure of it. If it was my own Rachel, I should have no fear as to seeing her this blessed night.”

15. Jacob Mayne now took a chair, and sat down, with even a smile upon his countenance. “I may tell you now, that Watty Oliver knows it was your child, for he saw her limping along after the gypsy at Galla-Brigg; but, having no suspicion, he did not take a second look at her, —but one look is sufficient, and he swears it was bonny Lucy Forester.”

16. Aunt Isabel, by this time, had bread and cheese and a bottle of her own elder-flower wine on the table. “You have been a long and hard journey, wherever you have been, Mr. Mayne; take some refreshment; ” and Michael asked a blessing.

17. Jacob saw that he might now venture to reveal the whole truth. “No, no, Mrs. Irving, I am over happy to eat or to drink. You are all prepared for the blessing that awaits you. Your child is not far off; and I myself, for it is I myself that found her, will bring her by the hand, and restore her to her parents.”

18. Agnes had raised herself up in her bed at these words, but she sank gently back on her pillow; aunt Isabel was rooted to her chair; and Michael, as he rose up, felt as if the ground were sinking under his feet. There was a dead silence all around the house for a short space, and then the sound of many voices, which again by degrees subsided. The eyes of all then looked, and yet feared to look, toward the door.

19. Jacob Mayne was not so good as his word, for he did not bring Lucy by the hand to restore her to her parents; but dressed again in her own bonnet and gown, and her own plaid, in rushed their own child, by herself, with tears and sobs of joy, and her father laid her within her mother's bosom.

STUDY GUIDE

A. Word Definition

1.braes:shelving ground,a declivity or slope of a hill.

2.pastimes:sports,plays.

3.rioting:romping.

4.heather:evergreen shrub with beautiful flowers,in Great Britain used for making brooms etc.

5.inspired:animated,enlivened.

6.supernatural:more than human.

7.brake:place overgrown with shrubs and brambles.

8.reverberating:resounding,echoing.

9.intent:having the mind closely fixed.

10.sward:expanse of turf.

11.plaid:striped or decked overgarment worn by the Scotch.

12.scour:pass over swiftly and thoroughly.

13.suspicion:unconfirmed belief.

B. Comprehension Questions

1. How old was Lucy?

2. Scotland is part of:

a. Great Britain

b. Africa

c. the Hawaiian Islands

d. Spain

3. This story is about nineteenth century Scotland. How was it different from the U.S.A. at that time?

4. Do you think Lucy's parents loved her? Why or why not?

5. What is the national flower of Scotland?

6. Do you think “Lucy Forester” is a true story? Explain.

7. Label these statements true or false.

a. Lucy had two sisters. _____

b. Shepherds look after sheep. _____

c. Heather is a type of fruit tree. _____

8. In 2014, Scotland had a referendum about becoming independent from Great Britain. What was the result?

C. Writing Work

Write a very short story about a child you know.