Thestreets of Edinburgh looked strange and unfamiliar to Cosmo Livingstone when he stood in them once more—a veryboystill in heart and experience, yet feeling himself a traveled and instructed man. He no longer dreamed of turning his steps towards Mrs. Purdy’s in the High Street; he took his carpet bag to a hotel instead, half wondering at himself for his changed ideas. Cameron’s ideas too, probably, were equally changed. Where was he, or how had he managed to reconcile the present with the past? But Cosmo had no time to inquire. He could not pause in Edinburgh for any thing but his needful business, which was to see Mr. Cassilis, and to place in his hands the interests of Madame Roche.
The young lawyer received him with a careless kindness not very flattering to Cosmo’s dignity, but was greatly startled by the news he brought. Once only he paused in taking down all the facts of the case which Cosmo could give him, to say:—
“This discovery will be a serious loss to your brother;” but Cosmo made no reply, and with that the comment ceased. Huntley and his heirship melted away out of sight in the strangest manner while this conversation went on. Cosmo had never realized before how entirely it separated him and his from all real connection with Melmar. The sensation was not quite satisfactory, for Melmar, one way or another, had borne a most strong and personal connection with all the thoughts and projects of the family of Norlaw for a year or two past; but that was all over. Cosmo alone now had any interest in the matter, and that solely as the representative of Madame Roche.
When he had fully informed the young lawyer of all the needful points in the matter, and formally left the cause in his hands, Cosmo left him to secure a place in the first coach, and to hasten home with all the speed he could make. He could scarcely have felt more strange, or perceived a greater change upon every thing, if he had dropped from the skies into Kirkbride; yet every thing was precisely the same, soclearly and broadly recognizable, that Cosmo could not understand what difference had passed upon them, and still less could understand that the difference was in himself. His mother stood waiting for him at the door of the Norlaw Arms. It was cold March weather, and the Mistress had been sitting by the fire, waiting the arrival of the coach. She was flushed a little with the frosty air and the fire, and looked disturbed and uneasy. Cosmo thought he could fancy she turned a jealous eye upon himself as he sprang from the coach to meet her, which fancy was perfectly true, for the Mistress was half afraid that her son who had been abroad might be “led away” by his experiences of travel, and might have become indifferent or contemptuous about his home. She was a little displeased, too, that he had lingered behind Cameron. She was not like Madame Roche—all-enduring sweetness was not in this old-fashioned Scottish mother. She could not help making a strong personal claim of that arbitrary love which stinted nothing in bestowing upon those who were her own, and opened her heart only slowly and secondarily to the rest of the world.
“So you’re hame at last!” was the Mistress’s salutation; though her eye was jealous, there was moisture in it, as she looked at her boy. Cosmo had grown in stature for one thing; he was brown with exposure, and looked manly and strong; and, not least, his smooth cheeks began to show evidence of those symptoms of manhood which boys adore. There was even a something not to be described or defined upon Cosmo’s upper lip, which caught his mother’s eye in a moment, and gave a tangible ground for her little outburst of half-angry fondness.
“You’re no’ to bring any of your outlandish fashions here!” said the Mistress, “though you have been in foreign parts. I’ll have no person in my house bearded like a Frenchman. Can you no’ carry your bag in your ain hand, laddie? Come away, then; you can shake hands with other folk another time.”
As the Mistress spoke, a figure strange to Kirkbride stalked through the circle of lookers-on. Nothing like that bearded face and wide cloak had been known to Cosmo’s memory in the village or the district. He turned unconsciously to look after the stranger. Further down on the road before were two girls whom Cosmo recognized with astart; one was Joanna Huntley, the other there was no possibility of mistaking. Cosmo gazed after her wistfully—a blush of recollection, of embarrassment, almost of guilt, suddenly rising to his face. Bowed Jaacob stood at his smithy door, with the fiery glow of the big fire behind him, a swart little demon gazing after her too. Desirée! Was she the desired of this unknown figure in the cloak, who went languidly along to join her? Cosmo stood silent for a moment, altogether absorbed by the junction of old and new thus strangely presented to him. Familiar Kirkbride, with Jaacob at the smithy door, and that graceful little figure of romance, whose story no one but Cosmo knew, followed by the other stranger figure which he was entirely unacquainted with. He started when his mother repeated her imperative summons—the color on his cheeks looked guilty and troubled; he had his secret on his heart, and knew beforehand that it would not be agreeable to the Mistress. So he did the very worst thing he could have done—postponed the telling of it to a more convenient season, and so went uncomfortably, and with a visible restraint, which vexed his mother’s soul within her, home to Norlaw.
Patie, as it happened, had come home a few days before on a brief visit; and when they met round the fire that first evening, every one’s thought instinctively was of Huntley. When Marget came in, disturbing the gloamin quietness with lights, her long-drawn sigh and involuntary exclamation:—
“Eh, sirs! if Master Huntley were but here!” startled the little family group into open discussion of the subject which was in all their hearts.
“Huntley’s been further than you, Cosmo,” said the Mistress, “and maybe seen mair; but I wouldna wonder if Huntley thinks yet, as he thought when he left Norlaw, that there’s no place equal to hame.”
“Huntley’s in the bush; there’s not very much to make him change his opinion there, mother,” said Patrick.
“Ay, but Huntley’s heart is ever at hame,” said the Mistress, finding the one who was absent always the dearest.
“Mother,” said Cosmo, his courage failing him a little, “I have something to tell you—and it concerns Huntley, too, mother. Mother, I have found the lady, the heir—she whom we have all heard so much about; Patie,youknow?”
“What lady? what heir? and how does Patie know?” asked the Mistress; then she paused, and her countenance changed. A guess at the truth occurred to her, and its first effect was an angry flush, which gradually stole over her face. “Patie is no a romancer, to have to do with heirs and ladies,” she added, quickly; “nor to have strange folk in his thoughts the first hour he’s at home. I canna tell wherefore any one of you should have such wandering fancies; it’s no’ like a bairn of mine.”
“Mother, I’ve learnt something by it,” said Cosmo; “before I went away, I thought it worth hunting over all the world to find her—for no reason that I can tell, except that she was wronged, and that we might be the better if she never came back; but now I have found her—I know where Mary of Melmar is, and she knows she’s the heir; but ever since my thought has been of Huntley. Huntley could have had no pleasure in Melmar, mother, if it were not justly his own.”
The Mistress raised her head high as Cosmo spoke. Anger, great disappointment, of which she was half ashamed, and a pride which was resolute to show no sign of disappointment, contended in her face with that bitter dislike and repugnance to the lost Mary which she had never been able—perhaps had seldom tried to conquer. “I have heard plenty of Mary of Melmar,” said the Mistress, hastily; “ae time and another she’s been the plague of my life. What, laddie! do you mean to say you left me, and your hame, and your ain business, to seek this woman? What was she to you? And you come back and tell me you’ve found her, as if I was to rejoice at the news. You ken where she is, and she kens she’s the heir; and I crave ye to tell me what is that to me? Be silent, Patie! Am I her mother, or her sister, or her near friend, that this lad shall come to bring the news to me?”
“It’s poor news,” said Patie, who did not hesitate to look gravely annoyed and disappointed, as he was; “very poor news for all of us, mother; but at least it’s better that Cosmo found her than a stranger—if found she was to be.”
The Mistress paused a moment, subdued by this suggestion. “Poor news! I kenna what you both mean,” she said, with pride; “what concern is it of ours? Would my Huntley ever put hand or touch upon another person’sgear? Let her come back the morn, and what the waur are we? Do you think I envied her Melmar, or her land? Do you think I would have made my son rich athercost, that never was a friend to me? You may ken many things, laddies, but you dinna ken your mother. Me!—I wouldna take blade o’ grass or drop of water belonging to her, if you asked me; and I’m thankful to tell ye baith my Huntley is Huntley Livingstone of Norlaw, and needs to be indebted to no person in this whole country-side.”
The Mistress rose up in the fervor of her indignant disappointment; vexation and mortified feeling brought the water to her eyes. She felt aggrieved and wronged, not only in this setting aside of Huntley, but in the very fact that Mary of Melmar was about to return. This Mary, for whose unthankful sake her husband had neglectedherhonest love and faithful heart, had at last lured even her son, her youngest and best beloved, away from her, and was coming back triumphant to the inheritance which might have been Huntley’s. The Mistress’s heart rose in a tumult of pride, love, indignation, and bitterness. She said “myson,” and “myHuntley,” with a proud and tender emphasis, an involuntary, anxious impulse to make amends to him for the hope he had lost—yet with an equally natural feeling rejected indignantly all sympathy for him, and would not permit even his brothers to speak of disappointment or loss to Huntley in this new event. She went away across the room, breaking up the fireside circle by the hasty movement, to seek out in her basket the stocking which she was knitting—for the Mistress’s eyes began to fail her in candlelight with all her more delicate industries—and coming back to the table, began to knit with absorbed attention, counting the loops in the heel as if she had no care for the further particulars which Cosmo, encouraged by Patie, proceeded to tell. Yet she did hear them notwithstanding. But for the presence of Patie’s practical good sense, Cosmo and his mother might have had painful recollections of that night; but his brother’s steady look and sober attention kept Cosmo from indulging the irritation and wounded feeling which he might have felt otherwise. He went on with his story, gradually growing interested in it, and watching—as a dramatist might watch his first audience—the figure of the Mistress, who sat almost with her back to him, knitting assiduously,the light of the candle throwing a great shadow of her cap upon the wall, and her elbow moving slightly with the movement of her wires. Cosmo watched how the elbow moved irregularly at certain points of his tale, how it was still for an instant now and then, as the interest grew, and the boy-poet was pleased and forgave his mother. At last the stocking fell from the Mistress’s hand—she pushed back her chair, and turned round upon him with a half-scream.
“Desirée!” cried the Mistress, as she might have exclaimed at the crisis of a highly interesting novel, “it’s her that’s at Melmar—whisht!—dinna speak to me—I’m just as sure as that we’re a’ here—it’s her ain very bairn!”
After this, Cosmo’s tale ended with a great success; he had excited his mother—and the truth began to glide into her unwilling heart, that Mary of Melmar was, like herself, the mother of fatherless children, a widow, and poor. She heard all the rest without a word of displeasure; she became grave, and said nothing, when her sons discussed the matter; she nodded her head approvingly when Patie repeated rather more strongly than before his satisfaction that Cosmo had found the lost Mary, since she was to be found. The Mistress was thinking of something—but it was only after she had said good night to them that the youths discovered what it was.
“Bairns,” said the Mistress then, abruptly pausing upon the stair, with her candle in her hand, “that bit lassie at Melmar is in the dwelling of the enemy—and if it were not so, the mother canna make war on the house where her bairn has shelter. You’re her nearest kinsmen that I ken of, to be friends as well—she’ll have to come here.”
“Mother!” cried Cosmo, in delight and surprise, and compunction, “can you ask her here?”
“Ay, laddie—I can do mony things, mair than the like of you ken of,” said the Mistress; and, saying so, she went slowly up stairs, with the light in her hand, and her shadow climbing the wall after her, leaving no unkindness in the echo of her motherly good night.
Duringall these months Desirée had led a strange life at Melmar. She had never told any one of the revelation, painful and undesired, the miserable enlightenment which Aunt Jean’s story had brought. What Cosmo told Madame Roche months after, Madame Roche’s little daughter knew on that winter night by the Kelpie, when the tale of Aunt Jean, and all its confirming circumstances, stung her poor little heart with its first consciousness of falsehood and social treachery. After that she was ill, and they were kind to her at Melmar, and when she recovered Desirée still did not tell her mother. People did not write so many letters then as they do now, in these corresponding days—Madame Roche certainly did not hear oftener than once a fortnight, sometimes not more than once a month from her daughter, for Melmar was nearly as far from St. Ouen inthosedays as India is now. Many a painful thought it cost poor Desirée as she stole out by herself, avoiding every one, to the side of Tyne. Oswald Huntley, after her recovery, had resumed his manner of devotion toward her—but Desirée’s eyes were no longer touched with the fairy glamour of her first dream. She had not been “in love,” though the poor child imagined she had—she had only been amused by that dream of romantic fancy to which seventeen is subject, and touched into gratitude and pleasure by the supposed love she had won—yet, even while she scorned his false pretense of tenderness, that very disdain made Desirée shrink from the thought of injuring Oswald. She was sadly troubled between the two sentiments, this poor little girl, who was French, and Madame Roche’s child, and who consequently was much tempted by the dangerous intoxications of feeling. What was barely, simply, straightforwardlyrightmight have satisfied Joanna; but Desirée could not help thinking of self-sacrifice and suffering for others, and all the girlish heroics common to her age. She could not live in their house and betray the family who had sheltered and were kind to her. She seemed to be tempted to avenge herself on Oswald by righting her mother at his expense; sofor feeling’s sake Desirée kept herself very unhappy, saying nothing to her mother of the discovery she had made, unable to resume her old cordiality with the Huntleys, ill at ease in her own mind, and sadly solitary and alone. If it had been any mere piece of information—or had the injury to be done been her own, Desirée would have seen what was right, plainly enough—but as it was, she only thought of the cruel difference to the family of Melmar, which a word of hers might make, and of the selfish advantage to herself; and feeling conscious of the sacrifice she made for them—a sacrifice which nobody knew or appreciated, and which her conscience told her was even wrong—Desirée’s mind grew embittered against them and all the world; and her poor little heart, uneasy, cross, and restless, consumed itself. As the struggle continued it made her ill and pale, as well as disturbed in mind; nobody could tell what ailed her—and even Aunt Jean, with her keen black eyes, could not read Desirée. She had “something on her mind.”
When one day she was startled by the arrival of a visitor, who asked to seeher, and was put into a little waiting-room—a cold little room, without a fire, into which the March sunshine came chill, with no power of warmth in it—to wait for the little governess. Desirée was much amazed when she entered here to see the ruddy and comely face of the Mistress looking down upon her, out of that black bonnet and widow’s cap. It was a face full of faults, like its owner, but it was warm, bright, kind, full of an unsubduable spirit and intelligence, which had long ago attracted the eye of the vivacious little Frenchwoman, who, however, did not know Mrs. Livingstone, except by sight. They looked at each other in silence for the first moment—one amazed, and the other thoughtful—at last the Mistress spoke.
“Maybe I may not name you right,” she said; “I have nae knowledge of your tongue, and no’ much of strangers, whatever place they come from; but my son Cosmo has seen your mother, in foreign parts, and that is the reason that brings me here.”
Desirée started violently; for the moment it seemed to her that this was her true and fit punishment. Her mother, whom she might have been with—who might have been here had Desirée but spoken—was sick, was dying, and a stranger brought her the news! She grew very pale andclasped her little French hands in a passion of grief and self-upbraiding.
“She is ill!” cried Desirée, “ill, and I am here!”
“Na—no’ that I ken of,” said the Mistress; “stranger news than that; do you know of any bond between your mother and this house of Melmar? for that is what I am come to tell you of now, as maybe she has done herself before this time by hand of write.”
From pale, Desirée’s cheeks became burning red—her eyes sank beneath the look of the Mistress, her heart beat loud and wildly. Who had found her out? but she only turned her head aside with an uneasy movement and did not speak.
“I may guess you’ve heard tell of it by your face,” said the Mistress; “Melmar was left by will to my family—to my Huntley, the eldest and the heir—failing your mother, that was thought to be lost. When he heard tell of that, my Cosmo would not rest till he was away on his travels seeking her. He’s been through France and Italy, and I ken not what unlikely places a’ to look for your mother, and at last he’s found her; and she’s coming home with little mair delay to be enfeoffed in her ain lands and prove herself the heir.”
Bitter tears, which still had a certain relief in them, fell heavy from Desirée’s eyes—shehad known it all, but had not been the means of bringing this fortune to her mother. Her first impulse was not the delighted surprise which the Mistress expected, but she threw herself forward, after a moment’s pause, at her visitor’s feet, and seized her hand and cried—“Is it true?” with a vehemence which almost scandalized the Mistress. Cosmo’s mother took her hand away involuntarily, but moved by the girl’s tears laid it on her head, with a hasty but kindly motion.
“It’s true,” said the Mistress; “but being true do you no’ see you canna stay here? It is your mother’s house—but though I hold this Me’mar for little better than a knave, yet I would not deceive him. You canna remain here when your mother’s plea against him is begun. You should not stay another day without letting him ken who you are—and that is why I’m here to bid you come back with me to Norlaw.”
“To Norlaw!” cried Desirée, faintly; she had no words to express her amazement at the invitation—her shame for the deceit which she had practiced, and which was worse than any thing the Mistress supposed possible—her strange humiliation in comparing herself, Oswald Huntley, every one here, with Cosmo; somehow when this sudden burst of honest daylight fell upon her, Desirée felt herself as great a culprit as Melmar. Her place seemed with him and with his son, who knew the truth and concealed it—not with the generous and true hearts who relinquished their own expectations to do justice to the wronged. In an agony of shame and self-disgust, Desirée hid her face in her hands—she was like Oswald Huntley whom she despised—she was not like Cosmo Livingstone nor Cosmo’s mother.
“Ay—to Norlaw,” said the Mistress, ignorant of all this complication of feeling and with a softening in her voice; “Norlaw himself, that’s gane, was near of kin to your mother; your grandfather, auld Melmar, was good to us and ours; my sons are your nearest kinsmen in these parts, and I’m their mother. It’s mair for your honor and credit, and for your mother’s, now when you ken, to be there than here. Come hame with me—you’ll be kindly welcome at Norlaw.”
“And yet,” said Desirée, lifting her tearful eyes, and her face flushed with painful emotion; “and yet but for us, all this fortune would have gone to your son. Why are you kind to me? you ought to hate me.”
“Na!” said the Mistress, with proud love and triumph; “my Huntley is nane the waur—bairn, do you think the like of you could harm my son, that I should hate you? Na! he would work his fingers to the bone, and eat dry bread a’ his days before he would touch the inheritance of the widow—loss of land or loss of gear is no such loss to my Huntley that I should think ill of any person for its sake and you’re my son’s kinswoman, and I’m his mother. Come hame with me till your ain mother is here.”
Without a word Desirée rose, dried her eyes, and held out her little hand to the Mistress, who took it doubtfully.
“I will be your daughter, your servant!” cried the little Frenchwoman, with enthusiasm; “I will come to learn what truth means. Wait but till I tell them. I will stay here no longer—I will do all that you say!”
In another moment she darted out of the room to prepare, afraid to linger. The Mistress looked after her, shaking her head.
“My daughter!” said the Mistress to herself, with a “humph!” after the words—and therewith she thought of Katie Logan; where was Katie now?
TheMelmar family had just concluded their luncheon, and were still assembled in the dining-room—all but Mrs. Huntley, who had not yet come down stairs—when Desirée, flushed and excited from her interview with the Mistress, who waited for her in the little room, came hastily in upon the party; without noticing any of the others Desirée went up at once to the head of the house, who glared at her from behind his newspaper with his stealthy look of suspicion and watchfulness, as she advanced. Something in her look roused the suspicions of Mr. Huntley; he gave a quick, angry glance aside at Oswald, as if inquiring the cause of the girl’s excitement, which his son replied to with a side-look of sullen resentment and mortification—an unspoken angry dialogue which often passed between the father and son, for Melmar had imposed upon the young man the task of keeping Desirée in ignorance and happiness, a charge which Oswald, who had lost even the first novelty of amusing himself with her found unspeakably galling, a constant humiliation. The little Frenchwoman came up rapidly to her host and employer—her cheek glowing, her eye shining, her small foot in her stout little winter-shoe sounding lightly yet distinctly on the carpet. They all looked at her with involuntary expectation. Something newly-discovered and strange shone in Desirée’s face.
“Sir,” she said, quickly, “I come to thank you for being kind to me. I come because it is honest to tell you—I am going away.”
“Going away? What’s wrong?” said Melmar, with a little alarm; “come into my study, mademoiselle, and wewill put all right, never fear; that little deevil Patricia has been at her again!”
Desirée did not wait for the burst of shrewish tears and exclamations which even Patricia’s extreme curiosity could not restrain. She answered quickly and with eagerness,
“No, no, it is not Patricia—it is no one—it is news from home;youknow it already—you know it!” cried the girl. “My mother! She is poor; I have had to come away from her to be a governess; and you, alas, knew who she was, but said nothing of it to me!”
And involuntarily Desirée’s eyes sought, with a momentary indignant glance, the face of Oswald. He sat perfectly upright in his chair staring at her, growing red and white by turns; red with a fierce, selfish anger, white with a baffled, ungenerous shame, the ignominy, not of doing wrong, but of being found out. But even in that moment, in the mortifying consciousness that this little girl had discovered and despised him—the revenge, or rather, for it was smaller—the spite of a mean mind, relieved itself at least in the false wooer’s face. He turned to her with the bitterest sneer poor Desirée had ever seen. It seemed to say, “what cause but this could have induced me to noticeyou?” She did not care for him, but she thought she once had cared, and the sneer galled the poor little Frenchwoman to the heart.
“You are ungenerous—you!” she exclaimed, with a fiery vehemence and passion, “you delude me, and then you sneer. Shall I sneer at you, you sordid, you who wrong the widow? But no! If you had not known me I should have thanked you, and my mother would never, never have injured one who was good to Desirée; but now it is war, and I go. Farewell, Monsieur! you did not mean to be kind, but only to blind me—ah, I was wrong to speak of thanks—farewell!”
“What do you mean? who has deceived you?” cried Joanna, stepping forward and shaking Desirée somewhat roughly by the arm; “tell us all plain out what it is. I’m as sure as I can be that it’s him that’s wrong—and I think shame of Oswald to see him sit there, holding his tongue when he should speak; but you shanna look so at papa!”
And Joanna stood between Melmar and her excited little friend, thrusting the latter away, and yet holding her fastat arm’s length. Melmar put his arm on his daughter’s shoulder and set her quietly aside.
“Let us hear what this discovery is,” said Mr. Huntley; “who is your mother, mademoiselle?”
At which cool question Desirée blazed for an instant into a flush of fury, but immediately shrunk with a cool dread of having been wrong and foolish. Perhaps, after all, they did not know—perhaps it was she who was about to heighten the misfortune of their loss and ruin by ungenerous insinuations. Desirée paused and looked doubtfully in Melmar’s face. He was watching her with his usual stealthy vigilance, looking, as usual, heated and fiery, curving his bushy, grizzled eyebrows over those keen cat-like eyes. She gazed at him with a doubtful, almost imploring, look—was she injuring him?—had he not known?
“Come, mademoiselle,” said Melmar, gaining confidence as he saw the girl was a little daunted, “I have but a small acquaintance in your country. Who was your mother? It does not concern us much, so far as I can see, but still, let’s hear. Oswald, my lad, can’t you use your influence?—we are all waiting to hear.”
Oswald, however, had given up the whole business. He was pleased to be able to annoy his father and affront Desirée at last. Perhaps the rage and disappointment in his heart were in some sort a relief to him. He was at least free now to express his real sentiments. He got up hastily from his chair, thrust it aside so roughly that it fell, and with a suppressed but audible oath, left the room. Then Desirée stood alone, with Melmar watching her, with Patricia crying spitefully close at hand, and even Joanna, her own friend, menacing and unfriendly. The poor girl did not know where to turn or what to do.
“Perhaps I am wrong,” she said, with a momentary falter. “There was no reason, it is true, why you should know mamma. And perhaps it is unkind and ungenerous of me. But—ah, Joanna, you guessed it when I did not know!—you said she must have been here—you are honest and knew no harm! My mother was born at Melmar; it is hers, though she is poor—and she is coming home.”
“Coming home! this is but a poor story, mademoiselle,” said Melmar. “Thatperson died abroad long ago, and was mother to nobody; but it’s clever, by George! uncommonlyclever. Her mother’s coming home, and my land belongs to her! cool, that, I must say. Will you take Patricia for your lady’s maid, mademoiselle?”
“Ah, you sneer, you all sneer!” cried Desirée. “I could sneer too, if I were as guilty; but it is true, and you know it is true; you, who are our kinsman and should have cared for us—you, who have planned to deceive a poor stranger girl—you know it is true!”
“If he does,” cried Joanna, “you’reno’ to stand there and tell him. He has been as kind to you as if you belonged to us—you don’t belong to us—go—go away this moment. I will not let you stay here!”
And Joanna stamped her foot in the excess of her indignation and sympathy with her father, who looked on, through all this side-play of feelings, entirely unmoved. Poor little Desirée, on the contrary, was stung and wounded beyond measure by Joanna’s violence. She gave her one terrified, passionate look, half reproachful, half defiant, had hard ado to restrain a burst of girlish, half-weeping recrimination, and then turned round with one sob out of her poor little heart, which felt as though it would burst, and went away with a forlorn, heroical dignity out of the room. Poor Desirée would not have looked back for a kingdom, but she hoped to have been called back, for all that, and could almost have fallen down on the threshold with mortification and disappointment, when she found that no one interfered to prevent her withdrawal. The poor child was full of sentiment, but had a tender heart withal. She could not bear to leave a house where she had lived so long after this fashion, and but for her pride, Desirée would have rushed back to fall into Joanna’s arms, and beg everybody’s pardon; but her pride sustained her in the struggle, and at length vanquished her “feelings". Instead of rushing into Joanna’s arms, she went to the Mistress, who still waited for her in the little room, and who had already been edified by hearing the fall of Oswald’s chair, and seeing that gentleman, as he went furiously forth, kicking Patricia’s lap-dog out of his way in the hall. The Mistress was human. She listened to those sounds and witnessed that sight with a natural, but not very amiable sentiment. She was rather pleased than otherwise to be so informed that she had brought a thunderbolt to Melmar.
“Let them bear it as they dow,” said the Mistress, with an angry triumph; “neither comfort nor help to any mortal has come out of Me’mar for mony a day;” and she received the unfortunate little cause of all this commotion with more favor than before. Poor little Desirée came in with a quivering lip and a full eye, scarcely able to speak, but determined not to cry, which was no small trial of resolution. The family of Melmar were her mother’s enemies—some of them had tried to delude, and some had been unkind to herself—yet she knew them; and the Mistress, who came to take her away, was a stranger. It was like going out once more into the unknown world.
So Desirée left Melmar, with a heart which fluttered with pain, anger, indignation, and a strange fear of the future, and the Mistress guided to Norlaw almost with tenderness the child of that Mary who had been a lifelong vexation to herself. They left behind them no small amount of dismay and anxiety, all the house vaguely finding out that something was wrong, while Joanna alone stood by her father’s side, angry, rude, and careless of every one, bestowing her whole impatient regards upon him.
“Happened!” said bowed Jaacob, with a little scorn; “what should have happened?—you dinna ca’ this place in the world—naething, so far as I can tell, ever happens here except births and deaths and marriages; no muckle food for the intelleck in the like of them, though I wouldna say but they are necessary evils—na, laddie, there’s little to tell you here.”
“Not even about the Bill?” said Cosmo; “don’t forget I’ve been abroad and know nothing of what you’ve all been doing at home.”
“The Bill—humph! it’s a’ very weel for the present,” said Jaacob, with a twinkle of excitement in his one eye, “but as for thae politicians that ca’ it a final measure, Iwouldna gie that for them,” and Jaacob snapped his fingers energetically. “It hasna made just a’ that difference in the world ane would have expected, either,” he added, after a moment, a certain grim humor stealing into his grotesque face; “we’re a’ as nigh as possible just where we were. I’m no’ what you would ca’ a sanguine philosopher mysel’. I ken human nature gey weel; and I canna say I ever limited my ain faith to men that pay rent and taxes at so muckle a year; but it doesna make that difference ane might have looked for. A man’s just the same man, callant—especially if he’s a poor creature with nae nobility in him—though you do gie him a vote.”
“Yet it’s all the difference,” cried Cosmo, with a little burst of boyish enthusiasm, “between the freeman and the slave!”
Jaacob eyed him grimly with his one eye. “It’s a’ the like of you ken,” said the cynic, with a little contempt, and a great deal of superiority; “but you’ll learn better if ye have the gift. There’s a certain slave-class in ilka community—that’s my conviction—and I wouldna say but we’ve just had the good fortune to licht upon them in thae ten-pound householders; oh, ay, laddie! let the aristocrats alane—they’re as cunning as auld Nick where their ain interest’s concerned, though nae better than as mony school-boys in a’ greater concerns. Catch them extending the suffrage to the realmen, the backbane of the country! Would you say a coof in the town here, that marries some fool of a wife and gets a house of his ain, was a mair responsible person thanme! Take it in ony class you please—yoursel’ when you’re aulder—na, Me’mar’s son even, that’s nearer my age than yours—ony Willie A’ thing of a shopkeeper gets his vote—set him up! and his voice in the country—but there’s nae voice for you, my lad, if ye were ane-and-twenty the morn—nor for the young laird.”
The mention of this name instantly arrested Cosmo’s indignation at his own political disabilities. “You say nothing has happened, Jacob,” said Cosmo, “and yet here is this same young laird—what of him?—is he nothing?—he ought to rank high in Kirkbride.”
“Kirkbride and me are seldom of the same opinion,” said the little Cyclops, pushing his red cowl off his brow, and proceeding carelessly to his work, which had been suspendedduring the more exciting conversation. “I canna be fashed with weakly folk, women or men, though it’s more natural in a woman. There’s that bit thing of a sister of his with the pink e’en—he’s ower like her to please me—but he’s a virtuoso. I’ve been ca’ed one mysel. I’ve mair sympathy with a traveled man than thae savages here. You see I wouldna say but I might think better of baith him and his father if I’m right in a guess o’ mine; and I maun admit I’m seldom wrang when I take a thing into my mind.”
“What is it?” said Cosmo, eagerly.
“There’s a young lass there, a governess,” said Jaacob; “I couldna tell, if I was on my aith, what’s out of the way about her. She’s no’ to ca’ very bonnie, and as for wut, that’s no’ to be looked for in woman—and she’s French, though I’m above prejudice on that score; but there’s just something about her reminds me whiles of another person—though no mair to be compared in ae way than a gowan to a rose. I’m no’ very easy attractit, which is plain to view, seeing, for a’ I’ve met with, I’m no’ a married man, and like enough never will be—but I maun admit I was taken with her mysel’.”
Cosmo’s face was crimson with suppressed anger and laughter both combined.
“How dare you?” he cried at last, with a violent and sudden burst of the latter impulse. Bowed Jaacob turned round upon him, swelling to his fullest stature, and settling his red cowl on his head with an air of defiance, yet with a remote and grim consciousness of fun in the corner of his eye.
“Daur!” exclaimed the gallant hunchback. “Mind what you say, my lad! Women hae ae gift—they aye ken merit when they see it. I’ve kent a hantle in my day; but the bonniest of them a’ never said ‘How daur ye’ to me.”
“Very well, Jacob,” said Cosmo, laughing; “I had forgotten your successes. But what of this young lady at Melmar, and your guess about Oswald Huntley? I know her, and I am curious to hear.”
“Just the lad yonder, if you will ken, is taken with her like me—that’s a’. I advise you to say ‘you daur’ to him,” said Jaacob, shortly, ending his words with a prolonged chorus of hammering.
An involuntary and unconscious exclamation burst from Cosmo’s lips. He felt a burning color rise over his face. Why, he could not tell; but his sudden shock of consternation and indignant resentment quite overpowered his composure for the moment—a thrill of passionate displeasure tingled through his heart. He was violently impatient of the thought, yet could not tell why.
“Whatfor no?” said Jaacob. “I’m nane of your romantic men mysel’—but I’ve just this ae thing to say, I despise a lad that thinks on the penny siller when a woman’s in the question. I wouldna tak a wife into the bargain with a wheen lands or a pickle gear, no’ if she was a king’s daughter—though she might be that, and yet be nae great things. Na, laddie, a man that has the heart to be real downricht in love has aye something in him, take my word for’t; and even auld Me’mar himsel’—”
“The old villain!” cried Cosmo, violently; “the mean old rascal! That is what he meant by bringing her here. It was not enough to wrong the mother, but he must delude the child! Be quiet, Jaacob! you don’t know the old gray-haired villain! They ought to be tried for conspiracy, every one of them. Love!—it is profanation to name the name!”
“Eh, what’s a’ this?” cried Jaacob. “What does the callant mean by conspiracy?—what’s about this lassie? She’s gey bonnie—no’ to say very, but gey—and she’s just a governess. I respect the auld rascal, as you ca’ him—and I wouldna say you’re far wrang—for respecting his son’s fancy. The maist o’ thae moneyed men, I can tell ye, are as mean as an auld miser; therefore ye may say what ye like, my lad. I’m friends with Me’mar and his son the noo.”
Jaacob went on accordingly with his hammering, professing no notice of Cosmo, who, busy with his own indignant thoughts, did not even observe the vigilant, sidelong regards of the blacksmith’s one eye. He scarcely even heard what Jaacob said, as the village philosopher resumed his monologue, keeping always that solitary orb of vision intent upon his visitor. Jaacob, with all his enlightenment, was not above curiosity, and took a very lively interest in the human character and the concerns of his fellow-men.
“And the minister’s dead,” said Jaacob. “For a man that had nae experience of life, he wasna such a fuil as he might have been. I’ve seen waur priests. The vulgar gavehim honor, and it’s aye desirable to have a man in that capacity that can impose upon the vulgar;—and the bairns are away. I miss Katie Logan’s face about the town mysel’. She wasna in my style; but I canna deny her merits. Mair folks’ taste than mine has to be consulted. As for me, I have rather a notion of that French governess at Melmar. If there’s onything wrang there, gie a man a hint, Cosmo, lad. I’ve nae objection to cut Oswald Huntley out mysel’.”
“Find some other subject for your jests,” cried Cosmo, haughtily; “Mademoiselle Desirée’s name is not to be used in village gossip. I will not permit it while I am here.”
Jaacob turned round upon him with his eye on fire.
“Wha the deevil made you a judge?” said Jaacob; “what’s your madame-oiselle, or you either, that you’re ower guid for an honest man’s mouth? Confound your impidence! a slip of a callant that makes verses, do ye set up your face to me?”
At this point of the conversation Cosmo began to have a glimmering perception that Desirée’s name was quite as unsuitable in a quarrel with Jaacob as in any supposed village gossip; and that the dispute between himself and the blacksmith was on the whole somewhat ridiculous. He evaded Jaacob’s angry interrogatory with a half laugh of annoyance and embarrassment.
“You know as well as I do, Jacob, that one should not speak so of young ladies,” said Cosmo, who did not know what to say.
“Do I?” said Jaacob; “what would ye hae a man to talk about? they’re no muckle to crack o’ in the way o’ wisdom, but they’re bonnie objecks in creation, as a’body maun allow. I would just like to ken, though, my lad, what’s a’ your particular interest in this madame-oiselle?”
“Hush,” said Cosmo, whose cheeks began to burn; “she is my kinswoman; by this time perhaps she is with my mother in Norlaw; she is the child of—”
Cosmo paused, thinking to stop at that half-confidence. Jaacob stood staring at him, with his red cowl on one side, and his eye gleaming through the haze. As he gazed, a certain strange consciousness came to the hunchback’s face. His dwarf figure, which you could plainly see had the strength of a giant’s, his face swart and grotesque, his onegleaming eye and puckered forehead, became suddenly softened by a kind of homely pathos which stole over them like a breath of summer wind. When he had gazed his full gaze of inquiry into Cosmo’s face, Jaacob turned his head aside hurriedly.
“So you’ve found her!” said the blacksmith, with a low intensity of voice which made Cosmo respectful by its force and emotion; and when he had spoken he fell to upon his anvil with a rough and loud succession of blows which left no time for an answer. Cosmo stood beside him, during this assault, with a grave face, looking on at the exploits of the hammer as if they were something serious and important. The introduction of this new subject changed their tone in a moment.
When Jaacob paused to take breath he resumed the conversation, still in a somewhat subdued tone, though briskly enough.
“So she’s aye living,” said Jaacob; “and this is her daughter? A very little mair insight and I would have found it out mysel’. I aye thought she was like. And what have you done with her now you’ve found her? Is she to come hame?”
“Immediately,” said Cosmo.
“She’s auld by this time, nae doubt,” said Jaacob, carelessly; “women are such tender gear, a’thing tells upon them. It’stheirbeauty that’s like a moth—the like of me wears langer; and so she’s aye to the fore?—ay! I doubt she’ll mind little about Me’mar, or the folk here about. I’m above prejudices mysel’, and maybe the French are mair enlightened in twa three points than we are—I’ll no’ say—but I wouldna bring up youngsters to be natives of a strange country. So you found her out with your ain hand, callant, did you? You’re a clever chield! and what’s to be done when she comes hame?”
“She is the Lady of Melmar, as she always was,” said Cosmo, with a little pride.
“And what’s to become of the auld family—father and son—no’ to say of the twa sisters and the auld auntie,” said Jaacob, with a grim smile. “So that’s the story! Confound them a’! I’m no’ a man to be cheated out of my sympathies. And I’m seldom wrang—so if you’ve ony thoughts that way, callant, I advise ye to relinquish them.Ye may be half-a-hunder’ poets if ye like, and as mony mair to the back o’ that, but if the Huntley lad liket her she’ll stick to him.”
“That is neither your concern nor mine!” cried Cosmo, loftily. But, as Jaacob laughed and went on, the lad began to feel unaccountably aggravated, to lose his temper, and make angry answers, which made his discomfiture capital fun to the little giant. At length, Cosmo hurried away. It was the same day on which the Mistress paid her visit to Desirée, and Cosmo could not help feeling excited and curious about the issue of his mother’s invitation. Thoughts which made the lad blush came into his mind as he went slowly over Tyne, looking up at that high bank, from which the evening sunshine, chill, yet bright, was slowly disappearing—where the trees began to bud round the cottages, and where the white gable of the manse still crowned the peaceful summit—that manse where Katie Logan, with her elder-sister smile, was no longer mistress. Somehow, there occurred to him a wandering thought about Katie, who was away—he did not know where—and Huntley, who was at the ends of the earth. Huntley had not actually lost any thing, Cosmo said to himself, yet Huntley seemed disinherited and impoverished to the obstinate eyes of fancy. Cosmo could not have told, either, why he associated his brother with Katie Logan, now an orphan and absent, yet he did so involuntarily. He thought of Huntley and Katie, both poor, far separated, and perhaps never to meet again; he thought of Cameron in his sudden trouble; and then his thoughts glided off with a little bitterness, to that perverse woman’s love, which always seemed to cling to the wrong object. Madame Roche herself, perhaps, first of all, though the very fancy seemed somehow a wrong to his mother, Marie fretting peevishly for her French husband, Desirée giving her heart to Oswald Huntley. The lad turned upon his heel with a bitter impatience, and set off for a long walk in the opposite direction as these things glided into his mind. To be sure, he had nothing to do with it; but still it was all wrong—a distortion of nature—and it galled him in his thoughts.
Thepresence of Desirée made no small sensation in the house of Norlaw, which did not quite know what to make of her. The Mistress herself, after that first strange impulse of kin and kindness which prompted her to bring the young stranger home, relapsed into her usual ways, and did not conceal from either son or servant that she expected to be “fashed” by the little Frenchwoman; while Marget, rather displeased that so important a step should be taken without her sanction, and mightily curious to know the reason, was highly impatient at first of Desirée’s name and nation, and discontented with her presence here.
“I canna faddom the Mistress,” said Marget, angrily; “what she’s thinking upon, to bring a young flirt of a Frenchwoman into this decent house, and ane of our lads at home is just beyond me. Do I think her bonnie? No’ me! She’s French, and I daur to say, a papisher to the boot; but the lads will, take my word for it—callants are aye keen about a thing that’s outray. I’m just as thankfu’ as I can be that Huntley’s at the other end of the world—there’s nae fears of our Patie—and Cosmo, you see, he’s ower young.”
This latter proposition Marget repeated to herself as she went about her dairy. It did not seem an entirely satisfactory statement of the case, for if Cosmo was too young to be injured, Desirée was also a couple of years his junior, and could scarcely be supposed old enough to do any great harm.
“Ay, but it’s in them frae their cradle,” said the uncharitable Marget, as she rinsed her great wooden bowls and set them ready for the milk. The honest retainer of the family was quite disturbed by this new arrival. She could not “get her mouth about the like of thae outlandish names,” so she never called Desirée any thing but Miss, which title in Marget’s lips, unassociated with a Christian name, was by no means a title of high respect, and she grumbled as she was quite unwont to grumble, over the additional trouble of another inmate. Altogether Marget was totally dissatisfied.
While Desirée, suddenly dropped into this strange house, every custom of which was strange to her, and where girlhood and its occupations were unknown, felt somewhat forlorn and desolate, it must be confessed, and sometimes even longed to be back again in Melmar, where there were many women, and where her pretty needle-works and graceful accomplishments were not reckoned frivolous, the Mistress was busy all day long, and when she had ended her household employments, sat down with her work-basket to mend shirts or stockings with a steadiness which did not care to accept any assistance.
“Thank you, they’re for my son, Huntley; I like to do them a’ mysel’,” she would answer to Desirée’s offer of aid. “Much obliged to you, but Cosmo’s stockings, poor callant, are no work for the like of you.” In like manner, Desirée was debarred from the most trifling assistance in the house. Marget was furious when she ventured to wash the Mistress’s best tea-service, or to sweep the hearth on occasion.
“Na, miss, we’re no’ come to that pass in Norlaw that a stranger visitor needs to file her fingers,” said Marget, taking the brush from Desirée’s hand; so that, condemned to an uncomfortable idleness in the midst of busy people, and aware that the Mistress’s “Humph!” on one occasion, at least, referred to her pretty embroideries, poor little Desirée found little better for it than to wander round and round the old castle of Norlaw, and up the banks of Tyne, where, to say truth, Cosmo liked nothing better than to wander along with her, talking about her mother, about St. Ouen, about his travels, about every thing in earth and heaven.
And whether Cosmo was “ower young” remains to be seen.
But Desirée had not been long in Norlaw when letters came from Madame Roche, one to the Mistress, brief yet effusive, thanking that reserved Scottish woman for her kindness to “my little one;” another to Cosmo, in which he was called my child and my friend so often, that though he was pleased, he was yet half ashamed to show the epistle to his mother; and a third to Desirée herself. This was the most important of the three, and contained Madame Roche’s scheme of poetic justice. This is what the Scotch-French mother said to little Desirée:—
“My child, we, who have been so poor, are coming to a great fortune. It is as strange as a romance, and we can never forget how it has come to us. Ay, my Desirée, what noble hearts! what princely young men! Despite of our good fortune, my heart bleeds for the generous Huntley, for it is he who is disinherited. Must this be, my child? He is far away, he knows not we are found; he will return to find his inheritance gone. But I have trained my Desirée to love honor and virtue, and to be generous as the Livingstones. Shall I say to you, my child, what would glad my heart most to see? Our poor Marie has thrown away her happiness and her liberty; she can not reward any man, however noble; she can not make any compensation to those whom we must supplant, and her heart wanders after that vagabond, that abandoned one! But my Desirée is young, only a child, and has not begun to think of lovers. My love, keep your little heart safe till Huntley returns—your mother bids you, Desirée. Look not at any one, think not of any one, till you have seen this noble Huntley; it is the only return you can give—nay, my little one! it is allIcan do to prove that I am not ungrateful. This Melmar, which I had lost and won without knowing it, will be between Marie and you when I die. You can not give it all back to your kinsman, but he will think that half which your sister has doubly made up, my child, when I put into his hand the hand of my Desirée; and we shall all love each other, and be good and happy, like a fairy tale.
“This is your mamma’s fondest wish, my pretty one: you must keep your heart safe, you must love Huntley, you must give him back half of the inheritance. My poor Marie and I shall live together, and you shall be near us; and then no one will be injured, but all shall have justice. I would I had another little daughter for the good Cosmo, who found me out in St. Ouen. I love the boy, and he shall be with us when he pleases, and we will do for him all we can. But keep your heart safe, my Desirée, for Huntley, and thus let us reward him when he comes home.”
Poor Madame Roche! she little knew what a fever of displeasure and indignation this pretty sentimental letter of hers would rouse in her little daughter’s heart. Desirée tore the envelope in pieces in her first burst of vexation, which was meant to express by similitude that she wouldhave torn the letter, and blotted out its injunctions, if she dared. She threw the epistle itself out of her hands as if it had stung her. Not that Desirée’s mind was above those sublime arrangements of poetic justice, which in this inconsequent world are always so futile; but, somehow, a plan which might have looked pretty enough had it concerned another, filled Madame Roche’s independent little daughter with the utmost shame and mortification when she herself was the heroine.
“Let him take it all!” she cried out half aloud to herself, in her little chamber. “Do I care for it? I will work—I will be a governess; but I will not sell myself to this Huntley—no, not if I should die!”
And having so recorded her determination, poor little Desirée sat down on the floor and had a hearty cry, and after that thought, with a girlish effusion of sympathy, of poor Cosmo, who, after all, had done it all, yet whom no one thought of compensating. When straightway there came into Desirée’s heart some such bitter thoughts of justice and injustice as once had filled the mind of Cosmo Livingstone. Huntley!—what had Huntley done that Madame Roche should dedicate her—her, an unwilling Andromeda, to compensate this unknown monster; and Desirée sprang up and stamped her little foot, and clapped her hands, and vowed that no force in the world, not even her mother’s commands, should compel her to show her mother’s gratitude by becoming Huntley’s wife.
A most unnecessary passion; for there was Katie Logan all the time, unpledged and unbetrothed, it is true, but thinking her own thoughts of some one far away, who might possibly break in some day upon those cares of elder-sisterhood, which made her as important as a many-childed mother, even in those grave days of her orphan youth; and there was Huntley in his hut in the bush, not thriving over well, poor fellow, thinking very little of Melmar, but thinking a great deal of that manse parlor, where the sun shone, and Katie darned her children’s stockings—a scene which always would shine, and never could dim out of the young man’s recollection. Poor Madame Roche, with her pretty plan of compensation, and poor Desirée, rebelliously resistant to it, how much trouble they might both have saved themselves, could some kind fairy have shown to them a single peep of Huntley Livingstone’s solitary thoughts.
Fiveyears had made countless revolutions in human affairs, and changed the order of things in more houses than Melmar, but had not altered the fair face of the country, when, late upon a lovely June evening, two travelers alighted from the coach at the door of the Norlaw Arms. They were not anglers, nor tourists, though they were both bronzed and bearded. The younger of the two looked round him with eager looks of recognition, directing his glances to particular points—a look very different from the stranger’s vague gaze at every thing, which latter was in the eyes of his companion. At the manse, where the white gable was scarcely visible through the thick foliage of the great pear-tree—at the glimmering twilight path through the fields to Norlaw—even deep into the corner of the village street, where bowed Jaacob, with his red cowl pushed up from his bullet head behind, stood, strongly relieved against the glow within, at the smithy door. To all these familiar features of the scene, the new-comer turned repeated and eager glances. There was an individual recognition in every look he gave as he sprang down from the top of the coach, and stood by with a certain friendly, happy impatience and restlessness, not easy to describe, while the luggage was being unpacked from the heavy-laden public conveyance; that was a work of time. Even now, in railway days, it is not so easy a matter to get one’s portmanteau embarked or disembarked at Kirkbride station as one might suppose; and the helpers at the Norlaw Arms were innocent of the stimulus and external pressure of an express train. They made a quantity of bustle, but did their business at their leisure, while this new arrival, whom none of them knew, kept looking at them all with their names upon his lips, and laughter and kindness in his eyes. He had “seen the world,” since he last saw these leisurely proceedings at the Norlaw Arms—he had been on the other side of this big globe since he last stood in the street of Kirkbride; and the young man could not help feeling himself a more important person now than when he set out by this same conveyance some seven years ago, to make his fortune and his way in the world.
Huntley Livingstone, however, had not made his fortune; but he had made what he thought as much of—a thousand pounds; and having long ago, with a tingle of disappointment and a flush of pride, renounced all hopes of the Melmar which belonged to Madame Roche, had decided, when this modest amount of prosperity came to him, that he could not do better than return to his homely little patrimony, and lay out his Australian gains upon the land at home. It is true we might have told all this much more dramatically by bringing home the adventurer unexpectedly to his mother, and leaving him to announce his riches by word of mouth. But Huntley was too good a son to make dramatic surprises. When he made his thousand pounds, he wrote the Mistress word of it instantly—and he was not unexpected. The best room in Norlaw was prepared a week ago. It was only the day and hour of his return which the Mistress did not know.
So Huntley stood before the Norlaw Arms, while the gray twilight, which threw no shadows, fell over that leaf-covered gable of the manse; and gradually the young man’s thoughts fell into reverie even in the moment and excitement of arrival. Katie Logan! she was not bound to him by the faintest far-away implication of a promise. It was seven years now since Huntley bade her farewell. Where was the orphan elder-sister, with her little group of orphan children now?
Huntley’s companion was as much unlike himself as one human creature could be unlike another. He was a Frenchman, with shaved cheeks and a black moustache, lank, long locks of black hair falling into one of his eyes, and a thin, long, oval face. He was in short—except that he had nohabit de bal, no white waistcoat, no bouquet in his buttonhole—a perfect type of the ordinary Frenchman whom one sees in every British concert-room as the conductor of an orchestra or the player of a fiddle. This kind of man does not look a very fine specimen of humanity in traveler’s dress, and with the dust of a journey upon him. Huntley was covered with dust, but Huntley did not look dirty; Huntley was roughly attired, had a beard, and was somewhat savage in his appearance, but, notwithstanding, was a well-complexioned, pure-skinned Briton, who bore the soil of travel upon his surface only, which was not at all the casewith his neighbor. This stranger, however, was sufficiently familiar with his traveling-companion to strike him on the shoulder and dispel his thoughts about Katie.
“Where am I to go? to this meeserable little place?” asked the Frenchman, speaking perfectly good English, but dwelling upon the adjective by way of giving it emphasis, and pointing at the moment with his dirty forefinger, on which he wore a ring, to the Norlaw Arms.
Huntley was a Scotsman, strong in the instinct of hospitality, but he was at the same time the son of a reserved mother, and hated the intrusion of strangers at the moment of his return.
“It’s a very good inn of its kind,” said Huntley, uneasily, turning round to look at it. The Frenchman shrugged his shoulders, and eyed the respectable little house with contempt.
“Ah! bah! of its kind—I believe it,” said the stranger, kicking away a poor little dog which stood looking on with serious interest, and waiting for the fresh start of the coach; “I perceive your house is a chateau, an estate, my friend,” he continued; “is there no little room you can spare a comrade? I come on a good errand, the most virtuous, the most honest! Madame, your mother, will give me her blessing—I go to seek my wife.”
Huntley turned away to look after his trunks, but the stranger followed with a pertinacity which prevailed over Huntley. He gave a reluctant invitation at last, was restored to better humor by a sudden recognition from the landlord of the Norlaw Arms, and after pausing to receive the greetings and congratulations of everybody within hearing, set off, hastily accompanied by the Frenchman. Huntley endured his companion with great impatience, especially as they came within sight of home, and all the emotions connected with that familiar place rushed to the young man’s heart and to his eyes. The Frenchman’s voice ran on, an impertinent babble, while the gray old castle, the quiet house, with its pale vane pointing to the north, and the low hill-side, rustling to its summit with green corn, lay once more before the eyes which loved them better than any other landscape in the world. Then a figure became visible going in and out at the kitchen-door, a tall, angular form, with the “kilted” gown, the cap with its stringpinned back, the little shawl over the shoulders, all of which homely details Huntley remembered so well. The young man quickened his pace, and held out his hands unconsciously. And then Marget saw him; she threw down her milk-pail, arched her hand over her eyes for a moment to gaze at him and assure herself and then with a loud, wild exclamation, rushed into the house. Huntley remembered no more, either guest or hospitality; he rushed down the little bank which intervened, splashed through the shallow Tyne, too much excited to take the bridge, and reached the door of Norlaw, as the Mistress, with her trembling hands, flung it unsteadily open to look for herself, and see that Marget was wrong. Too much joy almost fainted the heart of the Mistress within her; she could not speak to him—she could only sob out big, slow sobs, which fell echoing through the still air with the strangest pathos of thanksgiving. Huntley had come home.
“So you werna wrang, as it happened,” said the Mistress, with dignity, when she had at last become familiar with the idea of Huntley’s return, and had contented her eye with gazing on him; “you werna wrang after a’; but I certainly thought that myself, and me only, would be the person to get the first sight of my bairn. He minded you too, very well, Marget, which was less wonder than you minding him, and him such a grown man with such a black beard. I didna believe ye, it’s true, but it was a’ because I thought no person could mind upon him to ken him at a distance, but only me.”
“Mind!” cried Marget, moved beyond ordinary patience; “did I no’ carry the bairn in my arms when he was just in coats and put his first breeks upon him! Mind!—me that have been about Norlaw House seven-and-twenty years come Martinmas—wha should mind if it wasna me?”
But though this speech was almost concluded before the Mistress left the kitchen, it was not resented. The mother’s mind was too full of Huntley to think of any thing else. She returned to the dining-parlor, where, in the first effusion of her joy, she had placed her first-born in his father’s chair, and began to spread the table with her own hands for his refreshment. As yet she had scarcely taken any notice of the Frenchman. Now his voice startled her; she looked at him angrily, and then at her son. He was not quite such aperson as fathers and mothers love to see in the company of their children.
“No doubt, Huntley,” said the Mistress, at last, with a little impatient movement of her head—“no doubt this gentleman is some great friend of yours, to come hame with you the very first day, and you been seven years from home.”
“Ah! my good friend Huntley is troubled, madame,” interposed the subject of her speech; “I have come to seek my wife. I have heard she is in Scotland—she is near; and I did ask for one little room in his castle rather than go to the inn in the village. For I must ask you for my wife.”
“Your wife? what should I know about strange men’s wives?” said the Mistress; “Huntley’s friends have a good right to be welcome at Norlaw; but to tell the truth he’s new come home and I’m little accustomed to strangers. You used to ken that, Huntley, laddie, though you’ve maybe forgotten now; seven years is a long time.”
“My wife,” resumed the Frenchman, “came to possess a great fortune in this country. I have been a traveler, madame. I have come with your son from the other side of the world. I have beenbon camarade. But see! I have lost my wife. Since I am gone she has found a fortune, she has left her country, she is here, if I knew where to find her. Madame Pierrot, my wife.”
“I’m little acquaint with French ladies,” said the Mistress, briefly; but as she spoke she turned from her occupation to look full at her strange visitor with eyes a little curious and even disquieted. The end of her investigation was a “humph,” which was sufficiently significant. After that she turned her back upon him and went on with her preparations, looking somewhat stormy at Huntley. Then her impatience displayed itself under other disguises. In the first place she set another chair for him at the table.
“Take you this seat, Huntley, my man,” said the Mistress; “and the foot of the table, like the master of the house; for doubtless Norlaw is yours for any person it’s your pleasure to bring into it. Sit in to the table, and eat your supper like a man; and I’ll putthisback out of the way.”
Accordingly, when Huntley rose, his mother wheeled back the sacred chair which she had given him in her joy. Knowing how innocent he was of all friendship with his companion,Huntley almost smiled at this sign of her displeasure, but, when she left the room, followed her to explain how it was.
“I asked him most ungraciously and unwillingly,” said poor Huntley; “don’t be displeased on account of that fellow; he came home with me from Australia, and I lost sight of him in London, only to find him again coming here by the same coach. I actually know nothing about him except his name.”
“But I do,” said the Mistress.
“You, mother?”
“Ay, just me, mother; and a vagabond he is, as ony person may well see,” said the Mistress; “I ken mair than folk think; and now go back for a foolish bairn as you are, in spite of your black beard. Though I never saw the blackguard before, a’ my days, I’ll tell you his haill story this very night.”