CHAPTER XVIISOCIETYLORDBALNILLOlooked out of his sedan chair as it emerged from the darkness of a close on the northern slope of the Old Town of Edinburgh. Far down in front of him, where the long alley stopped, a light or two was seen reflected in the black water of the Nor’ Loch that lay between the ancient city and the ground on which the new one was so soon to rise. The shuffling footfalls of his chairmen, echoing off the sides of the covered entry, were drowned in the noise that was going on a little way farther forward, where the close widened out into a square courtyard. One side of this place was taken up by the house of Lady Anne Maxwell, for which the judge was bound.It had been raining, and Edinburgh was most noisomely dirty under foot, so Balnillo’s regard for his silk-clad legs and the buckled shoes on his slim feet, had made him decide to be carried to his kinswoman’s party. He wore his favourite mouse colour, but the waistcoat under his velvet coat was of primrose satin, and the lace underhis chin had cost him more than he liked to remember.The courtyard sent up a glow of light into the atmosphere of the damp evening, for the high houses towering round it rose black into the sky, limiting the shine and concentrating it into one patch. From above, it must have looked like a dimly illuminated well. It was full of sedan chairs, footmen, lantern-carriers and caddies, and the chattering, pushing, jesting, and oaths were keeping the inhabitants of the neighbouring ‘lands’—such of them as were awake, for Edinburgh kept early hours in those days—from going to sleep.The sedan chairs were set down at the door, for they could seldom be carried into the low and narrow entrances of even the best town houses, and here, at Lady Anne’s, the staircase wound up inside a circular tower projecting from the wall.The caddies, or street-messengers of Edinburgh, that strange brotherhood of useful, omniscient rascals, without whose services nothing could prosper, ran in and out among the crowd in search of odd jobs. Their eyes were everywhere, their ears heard everything, their tongues carried news of every event. The caddies knew all that happened in society, on the bench, in shops, in wynds, in churches, and no traveller could be an hour in the town before they had made his name and business common property. In an hour and a half his character would have gone the same way. Their home by day was at the MarketCross in the High Street, where they stood in gossiping groups until a call let one of them loose upon somebody else’s business. It was the perpetual pursuit of other people’s business that had made them what they were.A knot of caddies pressed round the door of Lady Anne Maxwell’s house as Lord Balnillo, sitting erect in order not to crease his clothes and looking rather like an image carried in a procession, was kept at a standstill whilst another guest was set down. Through the open window of his chair there pressed a couple of inquisitive faces.“Hey, lads!” cried a caddie, “it’s Davie Balnillo back again!”“Losh, it’s himsel’! Aweel, ma lord, we’re fine an’ pleased to see ye! Grange is awa’ in ben the hoose. I’se warrant he doesna’ ken wha’s ahint him!”Balnillo nodded affably. The instant recognition pleased the old man, for he had only reached Edinburgh in time to dress for his cousin’s party; also, Lord Grange was a friend of his, and he was glad to hear that he was in front. As he looked complacently upon the crowd, his chairmen suddenly stepped forward, almost throwing him out of his seat.A cry rose round him.“Canny! Canny! ye Hieland deevils! Ye’ll hae the pouthered wiggie o’ him swiggit aff his heed! Haud on, Davie; we’ll no let ye cowp!”Balnillo was rather annoyed, for he had beenknocked smartly against the window-frame, and a little cloud of powder had been shaken on his velvet sleeve; but he knew that the one thing a man might not lose before the caddies was his temper, if he did not want his rage, his gestures, and all the humiliating details of his discomfiture to be the town talk next day. He looked as bland as he could while he resettled himself.“It’ll no be waur nor ridin’ the circuit, ma lord?” inquired a voice.A laugh went round the group, and the chair moved on and was set down at its destination. Though the caddies’ knowledge of the judge went as far down as his foibles, the one thing that they did not happen to know was the motive that had brought him to Edinburgh.The doings in the harbour had disturbed Balnillo mightily; for, though the success of Ferrier and James in taking theVenturerejoiced him, he was dismayed by what he had heard about Archie Flemington. His brother had told him everything. When Captain Hall and his men had been conveyed as prisoners to the town, and the ship had been taken possession of by Prince Charles’ agent in Montrose, Logie had gone hastily to Balnillo to give the news to David, and to prepare for his own departure to join the Stuart army. There was no longer any need for secrecy on his part, and it had always been his intention to declare himself openly as soon as he had done his work in Montrose. The place was well protected, and, besides the town guns that he and Ferrierhad taken from Hall, there were the two armed vessels—both now belonging to the Prince—lying in the harbour.The arrival of the frigate with her supplies had turned Montrose from a rebelliously-inclined town into a declared Jacobite stronghold. The streets and taverns were full of Lord John Drummond’s troops, the citizens had given vent to their feelings upon the town bells, bonfires blazed in the streets, and Prince Charlie’s name was on every lip; girls wore white roses on their breasts, and dreamed at night of the fascinating young spark who had come to set Scotland alight. The intense Jacobitism of Angus seemed to have culminated in the quiet seaport.In all this outburst of loyalty and excitement the cautious Balnillo did not know what to do. The risk of announcing his leanings publicly was a greater one than he cared to take, for his stake in the country and the land was considerable, and he was neither sanguine enough to feel certain of the ultimate triumph of the Stuarts like the Montrose people, nor generous enough to disregard all results like James. As he told himself, after much deliberation, he was “best away.”He had heard from James of Archie’s sudden appearance upon the island, armed with a Government weapon and in company with the attacking force from the ship, and had listened to James’s grim denunciation of him as a spy, his passionate regrets that he had not blown his brains out there and then. James’s bitterness had been sogreat that David told himself he could scarcely recognize his quiet brother.There was abundant reason for it, but Logie had seemed to be beside himself. He had scarcely eaten or slept during the short time that he had been with him, and his face had kept the judge’s tongue still. After his account of what had happened, Balnillo had not returned to the subject again.Step by step the judge had gone over all the circumstances of Flemington’s sudden emergence from the Den on that windy night, and had seen how he had himself been cozened and flattered into the business of the portrait which stood unfinished, in solitary and very marked dignity, in the room with the north light. He was a man who suspected some of his own weaknesses, though his knowledge did not prevent him from giving way to them when he thought he could do so safely, and he remembered the adroit bits of flattery that his guest had strewn in his path, and how obligingly he had picked them up. He was shrewd enough to see all that. He thought of the sudden departure when Madam Flemington’s mysterious illness had spirited Archie out of the house at a moment’s notice, and he saw how he had contrived to imbue both himself and James with the idea that he shared their political interests, without saying one definite word; he thought of his sigh and the change in his voice as he spoke of his father’s death “in exile with his master.”These things stood up in a row before Balnillo, and ranged themselves into a sinister whole. The plain truth of it was that he had entertained a devil unawares.There had been a great search for Flemington when the skirmish on Inchbrayock was over. It was only ceasing when the French frigate swam into the river-mouth like a huge water-bird, and James, plunged in the struggle, was unable to spare a thought to the antagonist he had flung from him at the first sound of the attack.But when the firing had stopped, and the appearance of the foreign ship made the issue of the conflict certain, he returned to the spot where he had left Archie, and found him gone. He examined the sand for some trace of the vanished man’s feet, but the tide was now high in the river, and his footprints had been swallowed by the incoming rush. The stepping-stones were completely covered, and he knew that these—great fragments of rock as they were—would now be lying under enough water to drown a man who should miss his footing while the tide surged through this narrow stretch of the Esk’s bed. He guessed that the spy had escaped by them, though a short time later the attempt would have been impossible. He made a hasty search of the island, and, finding no sign of Flemington, he returned with his men and the prisoners they had taken, leaving the dead to be carried over later to the town for burial. The boats were on the Montrose side of Inchbrayock, and, their progressbeing hampered by the wounded, some time was lost before he could spare a handful of followers to begin the search for Flemington. He picked up a few volunteers upon the quays, and despatched them immediately to cross the strait and to search the southern shores of both the river and the Basin; but they had barely started when Flemington and the beggar were nearing the little farm on Rossie moor. Archie had spent so little time on the open road, thanks to his companion’s advice, that none of those whom the pursuers met and questioned had seen him. Before dusk came on, their zeal had flagged; and though one, quicker-witted than his comrades, had suggested the moor as a likely goal for their quarry, he had been overborne by their determination that the fugitive, a man who had been described to them as coming from the other side of the county, would make in that direction.When James had gone to join the Stuart army on its march to England, his brother, waiting until the Prince had left Holyrood, set forth for Edinburgh. It would have been difficult for him to remain at home within sound of the noisy rejoicings of Montrose without either joining in the general exultation or holding himself conspicuously aloof. Prudence and convenience pointed to the taking of a little holiday, and his own inclination did not gainsay them.He had not been in Edinburgh since his retirement, and the notion of going there, once formed, grew more and more to his taste. A hundredthings in his old haunts drew him: gossip, the liberal tables of his former colleagues, the latest modes in coats and cravats, the musical assemblies at which he had himself performed upon the flute, the scandals and anecdotes of the Parliament House and the society of elegant women. He loved all these, though his trees and parks had taken their places of late. He loved James too, and the year they had spent together had been agreeable to him; but politics and family affection—the latter of the general rather than the individual kind—strong as their bonds were, could not bring the brothers into true touch with each other. James was preoccupied, silent, restless, and David had sometimes felt him to be inhuman in his lack of interest in small things, and in his carelessness of all but the great events of life. And now, as Balnillo stepped forth at Lady Anne Maxwell’s door, he was hugging himself at the prospect of his return to the trimmings and embroideries of existence. He walked up the circular staircase, and emerged into the candle-light of the long, low room in which his cousin’s guests were assembled.Lady Anne was a youngish widow, with a good fortune and a devouring passion for cards. She had all the means of indulging her taste, for not only did she know every living being who went to the making of Edinburgh society, but, unlike most of her neighbours, she owned the whole of the house in which she lived, and, consequently, had space wherein to entertain them.While nearly all the Edinburgh world dwelt in its flat, and while many greater ladies than herself were contented to receive their guests in their bedchambers, and to dance and drink tea in rooms not much bigger than the boudoirs of their descendants, Lady Anne could have received Prince Charles Edward himself in suitable circumstances had she been so minded. But she was very far from having any such aspiration, and had not set foot in Holyrood while the Prince was there, for she was a staunch Whig. As she greeted her cousin Balnillo, she was wondering how far certain rumours that she had heard about him were true, and whether he also had been privy to the taking of the sloop-of-war in Montrose harbour, for it was just a week since the news of Logie’s exploit had reached Edinburgh. One of David’s many reasons for coming to her party was his desire to make his reappearance in the polite world in a markedly Whig house.He stood talking to Lord Grange in the oak-panelled room half full of people; through an open door another smaller apartment could be seen crowded with tables and card-players. Lady Anne, all of whose guests were arrived, had vanished into it, and the two judges stood side by side. Lord Grange, who valued his reputation for sanctity above rubies, did not play cards—at least, not openly—and Balnillo, discovering new faces, as those must who have been over a year absent from any community, was glad to have him at his elbow to answer questions. Silks rustled, fans clicked, and the medley of noises inthe court below came up, though the windows were shut.The candles, dim enough to our modern standards of lighting, shone against the darkness of polished wood, and laughter and talk were escaping, like running water out of a thicket, from a knot of people gathered round a small, plump, aquiline-nosed woman. The group was at the end of the room, and now and again an individual would detach himself from it, to return, drawn by some jest that reached him ere he had crossed the floor.“Mrs. Cockburn’s wit has not rusted this twelvemonth,” observed Lord Grange.“I marvel she has any left after nine years of housekeeping with her straitlaced father-in-law,” replied Balnillo in a preoccupied voice.His eyes were elsewhere.“Ah!” said Grange, pulling a righteous face.The group round Mrs. Cockburn opened, and she caught sight of him for the first time. She bowed and smiled civilly, showing her rather prominent teeth, then, noticing Balnillo, she came over to the two men. Her friends stepped apart to let her pass, watching her go with that touch of proprietary pride which a small intimate society feels in its more original members. It was evident that her least acts were deemed worthy of observation.As she greeted David, he turned round with a low bow.“My lord, I thought you were buried!” she exclaimed.“Dead and buried,” droned Grange, for the sake of saying something.“Not dead,” exclaimed she, “else I had been in mourning!”Balnillo bowed again, bringing his attention back with a jerk from the direction in which it had been fixed.“Come, my lord, what have you been doing all this long time?”“I have been endeavouring to improve my estate, ma’am.”“And meanwhile you have left us to deteriorate. For shame, sir!”“Edinburgh morals are safe in Lord Grange’s hands,” rejoined Balnillo, with a sudden flash of slyness.Mrs. Cockburn smiled behind her fan. There were odd stories afloat about Grange. She looked appreciatively at Balnillo. He had not changed, in spite of his country life; he was as dapper, as ineffective, and as unexpected as ever. She preferred him infinitely to Grange.“Fie, Davie!” broke in the latter, with a leer; “you are an ungallant dog! Here is Mrs. Cockburn wasting her words on you, and you do nothing but ogle the lady yonder by the window.”Three pairs of eyes—the bright ones of Mrs. Cockburn, the rather furtive ones of Balnillo, and the sanctimonious orbs of Lord Grange—turned in one direction.“Mrs. Cockburn is all knowledge, as she is all goodness,” observed the last named, pompously. “Pray, ma’am, tell us who is that lady?”
LORDBALNILLOlooked out of his sedan chair as it emerged from the darkness of a close on the northern slope of the Old Town of Edinburgh. Far down in front of him, where the long alley stopped, a light or two was seen reflected in the black water of the Nor’ Loch that lay between the ancient city and the ground on which the new one was so soon to rise. The shuffling footfalls of his chairmen, echoing off the sides of the covered entry, were drowned in the noise that was going on a little way farther forward, where the close widened out into a square courtyard. One side of this place was taken up by the house of Lady Anne Maxwell, for which the judge was bound.
It had been raining, and Edinburgh was most noisomely dirty under foot, so Balnillo’s regard for his silk-clad legs and the buckled shoes on his slim feet, had made him decide to be carried to his kinswoman’s party. He wore his favourite mouse colour, but the waistcoat under his velvet coat was of primrose satin, and the lace underhis chin had cost him more than he liked to remember.
The courtyard sent up a glow of light into the atmosphere of the damp evening, for the high houses towering round it rose black into the sky, limiting the shine and concentrating it into one patch. From above, it must have looked like a dimly illuminated well. It was full of sedan chairs, footmen, lantern-carriers and caddies, and the chattering, pushing, jesting, and oaths were keeping the inhabitants of the neighbouring ‘lands’—such of them as were awake, for Edinburgh kept early hours in those days—from going to sleep.
The sedan chairs were set down at the door, for they could seldom be carried into the low and narrow entrances of even the best town houses, and here, at Lady Anne’s, the staircase wound up inside a circular tower projecting from the wall.
The caddies, or street-messengers of Edinburgh, that strange brotherhood of useful, omniscient rascals, without whose services nothing could prosper, ran in and out among the crowd in search of odd jobs. Their eyes were everywhere, their ears heard everything, their tongues carried news of every event. The caddies knew all that happened in society, on the bench, in shops, in wynds, in churches, and no traveller could be an hour in the town before they had made his name and business common property. In an hour and a half his character would have gone the same way. Their home by day was at the MarketCross in the High Street, where they stood in gossiping groups until a call let one of them loose upon somebody else’s business. It was the perpetual pursuit of other people’s business that had made them what they were.
A knot of caddies pressed round the door of Lady Anne Maxwell’s house as Lord Balnillo, sitting erect in order not to crease his clothes and looking rather like an image carried in a procession, was kept at a standstill whilst another guest was set down. Through the open window of his chair there pressed a couple of inquisitive faces.
“Hey, lads!” cried a caddie, “it’s Davie Balnillo back again!”
“Losh, it’s himsel’! Aweel, ma lord, we’re fine an’ pleased to see ye! Grange is awa’ in ben the hoose. I’se warrant he doesna’ ken wha’s ahint him!”
Balnillo nodded affably. The instant recognition pleased the old man, for he had only reached Edinburgh in time to dress for his cousin’s party; also, Lord Grange was a friend of his, and he was glad to hear that he was in front. As he looked complacently upon the crowd, his chairmen suddenly stepped forward, almost throwing him out of his seat.
A cry rose round him.
“Canny! Canny! ye Hieland deevils! Ye’ll hae the pouthered wiggie o’ him swiggit aff his heed! Haud on, Davie; we’ll no let ye cowp!”
Balnillo was rather annoyed, for he had beenknocked smartly against the window-frame, and a little cloud of powder had been shaken on his velvet sleeve; but he knew that the one thing a man might not lose before the caddies was his temper, if he did not want his rage, his gestures, and all the humiliating details of his discomfiture to be the town talk next day. He looked as bland as he could while he resettled himself.
“It’ll no be waur nor ridin’ the circuit, ma lord?” inquired a voice.
A laugh went round the group, and the chair moved on and was set down at its destination. Though the caddies’ knowledge of the judge went as far down as his foibles, the one thing that they did not happen to know was the motive that had brought him to Edinburgh.
The doings in the harbour had disturbed Balnillo mightily; for, though the success of Ferrier and James in taking theVenturerejoiced him, he was dismayed by what he had heard about Archie Flemington. His brother had told him everything. When Captain Hall and his men had been conveyed as prisoners to the town, and the ship had been taken possession of by Prince Charles’ agent in Montrose, Logie had gone hastily to Balnillo to give the news to David, and to prepare for his own departure to join the Stuart army. There was no longer any need for secrecy on his part, and it had always been his intention to declare himself openly as soon as he had done his work in Montrose. The place was well protected, and, besides the town guns that he and Ferrierhad taken from Hall, there were the two armed vessels—both now belonging to the Prince—lying in the harbour.
The arrival of the frigate with her supplies had turned Montrose from a rebelliously-inclined town into a declared Jacobite stronghold. The streets and taverns were full of Lord John Drummond’s troops, the citizens had given vent to their feelings upon the town bells, bonfires blazed in the streets, and Prince Charlie’s name was on every lip; girls wore white roses on their breasts, and dreamed at night of the fascinating young spark who had come to set Scotland alight. The intense Jacobitism of Angus seemed to have culminated in the quiet seaport.
In all this outburst of loyalty and excitement the cautious Balnillo did not know what to do. The risk of announcing his leanings publicly was a greater one than he cared to take, for his stake in the country and the land was considerable, and he was neither sanguine enough to feel certain of the ultimate triumph of the Stuarts like the Montrose people, nor generous enough to disregard all results like James. As he told himself, after much deliberation, he was “best away.”
He had heard from James of Archie’s sudden appearance upon the island, armed with a Government weapon and in company with the attacking force from the ship, and had listened to James’s grim denunciation of him as a spy, his passionate regrets that he had not blown his brains out there and then. James’s bitterness had been sogreat that David told himself he could scarcely recognize his quiet brother.
There was abundant reason for it, but Logie had seemed to be beside himself. He had scarcely eaten or slept during the short time that he had been with him, and his face had kept the judge’s tongue still. After his account of what had happened, Balnillo had not returned to the subject again.
Step by step the judge had gone over all the circumstances of Flemington’s sudden emergence from the Den on that windy night, and had seen how he had himself been cozened and flattered into the business of the portrait which stood unfinished, in solitary and very marked dignity, in the room with the north light. He was a man who suspected some of his own weaknesses, though his knowledge did not prevent him from giving way to them when he thought he could do so safely, and he remembered the adroit bits of flattery that his guest had strewn in his path, and how obligingly he had picked them up. He was shrewd enough to see all that. He thought of the sudden departure when Madam Flemington’s mysterious illness had spirited Archie out of the house at a moment’s notice, and he saw how he had contrived to imbue both himself and James with the idea that he shared their political interests, without saying one definite word; he thought of his sigh and the change in his voice as he spoke of his father’s death “in exile with his master.”
These things stood up in a row before Balnillo, and ranged themselves into a sinister whole. The plain truth of it was that he had entertained a devil unawares.
There had been a great search for Flemington when the skirmish on Inchbrayock was over. It was only ceasing when the French frigate swam into the river-mouth like a huge water-bird, and James, plunged in the struggle, was unable to spare a thought to the antagonist he had flung from him at the first sound of the attack.
But when the firing had stopped, and the appearance of the foreign ship made the issue of the conflict certain, he returned to the spot where he had left Archie, and found him gone. He examined the sand for some trace of the vanished man’s feet, but the tide was now high in the river, and his footprints had been swallowed by the incoming rush. The stepping-stones were completely covered, and he knew that these—great fragments of rock as they were—would now be lying under enough water to drown a man who should miss his footing while the tide surged through this narrow stretch of the Esk’s bed. He guessed that the spy had escaped by them, though a short time later the attempt would have been impossible. He made a hasty search of the island, and, finding no sign of Flemington, he returned with his men and the prisoners they had taken, leaving the dead to be carried over later to the town for burial. The boats were on the Montrose side of Inchbrayock, and, their progressbeing hampered by the wounded, some time was lost before he could spare a handful of followers to begin the search for Flemington. He picked up a few volunteers upon the quays, and despatched them immediately to cross the strait and to search the southern shores of both the river and the Basin; but they had barely started when Flemington and the beggar were nearing the little farm on Rossie moor. Archie had spent so little time on the open road, thanks to his companion’s advice, that none of those whom the pursuers met and questioned had seen him. Before dusk came on, their zeal had flagged; and though one, quicker-witted than his comrades, had suggested the moor as a likely goal for their quarry, he had been overborne by their determination that the fugitive, a man who had been described to them as coming from the other side of the county, would make in that direction.
When James had gone to join the Stuart army on its march to England, his brother, waiting until the Prince had left Holyrood, set forth for Edinburgh. It would have been difficult for him to remain at home within sound of the noisy rejoicings of Montrose without either joining in the general exultation or holding himself conspicuously aloof. Prudence and convenience pointed to the taking of a little holiday, and his own inclination did not gainsay them.
He had not been in Edinburgh since his retirement, and the notion of going there, once formed, grew more and more to his taste. A hundredthings in his old haunts drew him: gossip, the liberal tables of his former colleagues, the latest modes in coats and cravats, the musical assemblies at which he had himself performed upon the flute, the scandals and anecdotes of the Parliament House and the society of elegant women. He loved all these, though his trees and parks had taken their places of late. He loved James too, and the year they had spent together had been agreeable to him; but politics and family affection—the latter of the general rather than the individual kind—strong as their bonds were, could not bring the brothers into true touch with each other. James was preoccupied, silent, restless, and David had sometimes felt him to be inhuman in his lack of interest in small things, and in his carelessness of all but the great events of life. And now, as Balnillo stepped forth at Lady Anne Maxwell’s door, he was hugging himself at the prospect of his return to the trimmings and embroideries of existence. He walked up the circular staircase, and emerged into the candle-light of the long, low room in which his cousin’s guests were assembled.
Lady Anne was a youngish widow, with a good fortune and a devouring passion for cards. She had all the means of indulging her taste, for not only did she know every living being who went to the making of Edinburgh society, but, unlike most of her neighbours, she owned the whole of the house in which she lived, and, consequently, had space wherein to entertain them.While nearly all the Edinburgh world dwelt in its flat, and while many greater ladies than herself were contented to receive their guests in their bedchambers, and to dance and drink tea in rooms not much bigger than the boudoirs of their descendants, Lady Anne could have received Prince Charles Edward himself in suitable circumstances had she been so minded. But she was very far from having any such aspiration, and had not set foot in Holyrood while the Prince was there, for she was a staunch Whig. As she greeted her cousin Balnillo, she was wondering how far certain rumours that she had heard about him were true, and whether he also had been privy to the taking of the sloop-of-war in Montrose harbour, for it was just a week since the news of Logie’s exploit had reached Edinburgh. One of David’s many reasons for coming to her party was his desire to make his reappearance in the polite world in a markedly Whig house.
He stood talking to Lord Grange in the oak-panelled room half full of people; through an open door another smaller apartment could be seen crowded with tables and card-players. Lady Anne, all of whose guests were arrived, had vanished into it, and the two judges stood side by side. Lord Grange, who valued his reputation for sanctity above rubies, did not play cards—at least, not openly—and Balnillo, discovering new faces, as those must who have been over a year absent from any community, was glad to have him at his elbow to answer questions. Silks rustled, fans clicked, and the medley of noises inthe court below came up, though the windows were shut.
The candles, dim enough to our modern standards of lighting, shone against the darkness of polished wood, and laughter and talk were escaping, like running water out of a thicket, from a knot of people gathered round a small, plump, aquiline-nosed woman. The group was at the end of the room, and now and again an individual would detach himself from it, to return, drawn by some jest that reached him ere he had crossed the floor.
“Mrs. Cockburn’s wit has not rusted this twelvemonth,” observed Lord Grange.
“I marvel she has any left after nine years of housekeeping with her straitlaced father-in-law,” replied Balnillo in a preoccupied voice.
His eyes were elsewhere.
“Ah!” said Grange, pulling a righteous face.
The group round Mrs. Cockburn opened, and she caught sight of him for the first time. She bowed and smiled civilly, showing her rather prominent teeth, then, noticing Balnillo, she came over to the two men. Her friends stepped apart to let her pass, watching her go with that touch of proprietary pride which a small intimate society feels in its more original members. It was evident that her least acts were deemed worthy of observation.
As she greeted David, he turned round with a low bow.
“My lord, I thought you were buried!” she exclaimed.
“Dead and buried,” droned Grange, for the sake of saying something.
“Not dead,” exclaimed she, “else I had been in mourning!”
Balnillo bowed again, bringing his attention back with a jerk from the direction in which it had been fixed.
“Come, my lord, what have you been doing all this long time?”
“I have been endeavouring to improve my estate, ma’am.”
“And meanwhile you have left us to deteriorate. For shame, sir!”
“Edinburgh morals are safe in Lord Grange’s hands,” rejoined Balnillo, with a sudden flash of slyness.
Mrs. Cockburn smiled behind her fan. There were odd stories afloat about Grange. She looked appreciatively at Balnillo. He had not changed, in spite of his country life; he was as dapper, as ineffective, and as unexpected as ever. She preferred him infinitely to Grange.
“Fie, Davie!” broke in the latter, with a leer; “you are an ungallant dog! Here is Mrs. Cockburn wasting her words on you, and you do nothing but ogle the lady yonder by the window.”
Three pairs of eyes—the bright ones of Mrs. Cockburn, the rather furtive ones of Balnillo, and the sanctimonious orbs of Lord Grange—turned in one direction.
“Mrs. Cockburn is all knowledge, as she is all goodness,” observed the last named, pompously. “Pray, ma’am, tell us who is that lady?”