He was leaning over the bulwark of the ship, looking out at this speck in the water—seeing before him, clearer than eyes ever saw, the faces of his mother, his brothers, his dead father—perhaps even of others still—with a pang at his heart, which was less for himself than for the widow who could no longer look upon her son; his heart rising, his heart sinking, as his own voyage hence, and her voyage home, rose upon his imagination—living through the past, the present, and the future—the leave-taking to which his mind vibrated—the home-coming which now seemed almost as near and certain—the unknown years of absence, which fled before him like a dream.
He, too, started when the vessel moved upon the sunny river—started with a swell of rising enterprise and courage.The daring of his nature, and the gay wind blowing down the river; fresh and favorable, dried the tears in Huntley’s eyes; but did not dry that perpetual moisture from the pained eyelids of the Mistress, as she turned to Patie at last, with faltering lips, to repeat that dreary congratulation:—
“Eh, Patie! what a blessing, if we could but think upon it, to see such a day as this for a guid beginning on the sea!”
Itwas very well for the Mistress’s spirit, though scarcely for her purse, that she was roused the next day to horror and indignation, scarcely restrainable, by the supposed exorbitant bill of the inn. She thought it the most monstrous imposition which ever had been practiced, and could scarcely be persuaded to depart from her first resolution of seeking out a “decent writer,” “if there is such a person in this wicked town,” as she added, scornfully—to arbitrate between her and the iniquitous publican. At last, however, Patie succeeded in getting his mother safely once more within the Glasgow steamer.
It was a melancholy voyage, for every breath of wind that blew, agitated Huntley’s mother with questions of his safety; and she had no better prospect than to part with Patie at this journey’s end. They reached their destination in the afternoon, when the great, smoky, dingy Glasgow, looked almost hotter and more stifled than the other great seaport they had left. From the Broomielaw, they went upon their weary way, through the town, to a humble lodging recommended by Dr. Logan, whose letter to the manager of one of the founderies Patie carried in his pocket. The house which the travelers sought was up three long flights of stairs, in a dark-complexioned close, where each flat was divided into two houses. The “land,” or block of buildings in which it was placed, formed one side of a little street, just behind the place where Patie was to work; and the windows of their lodging looked across the black yard andbig buildings of this great, noisy foundery, to a troubled, smoky glimpse of the Clyde, and Glasgow Green upon the other side.
After he had seen his mother safely arrived in this shelter, Patie had to set out immediately to deliver his letter. The Mistress was left once more by herself to examine her new resting-place. It was a little room, with a little bed in the corner, hung with dark, unlined chintz. It was also what is called in these regions “coomcieled,” which is to say, the roof sloped on one side, being close under the leads. A piece of carpet in the centre, a little table in the centre of that, three chairs, a chest of drawers, and a washing stand, completed the equipment of the room. Was this to be Patie’s room—the boy’s only substitute for home?
The Mistress went to the window, to see if any comfort was to be found there; but there was only the foundery—the immense, black, coaly, smoky yard into which these windows looked; and, a little to the right, a great cotton factory, whence, at the sound of a big bell, troops of girls came crowding out, with their uncovered heads shining in the evening sun. The Mistress turned abruptly in again, much discomposed by the prospect. With their colored petticoats and short gowns, and shining, uncovered hair, the Glasgow mill girls were—at this distance at least—rather a pretty sight; and a perfectly uninterested person might have thought it quite seemly and natural that the black moleskin giants of the foundery, issuing from their own cavernous portals at the same time, should have exchanged sundry jokes and rough encounters of badinage with their female neighbors.
But the Mistress, whose son was to be left at this same foundery, awoke in a horror of injured pride and aristocracy to contemplate an unimagined danger.
“A barefooted lassie from a mill!—a bairn of mine!” cried the Mistress, with looks aghast; and she drew a chair carefully out of reach of the window, and sat down at the table to consider the matter.
But when she looked round upon the bare, mean room, and thought of the solitary lad, who knew nobody in Glasgow, who had been used to the kindly cares of home all his life, and who was only a boy, although a “bairn of mine!”it is not very wonderful, perhaps, that the Mistress should have done even the staid and sensible Patie the injustice of supposing him captivated by some one of that crowd of dumpy daughters of St. Mungo, who were so far beneath the dignity of a son of Norlaw. Even Huntley, far away at sea, disappeared, for the moment, from her anxious sight. Worse dangers than those of sea or storm might be here.
Patie, meanwhile, thinking of no womankind in the world, not even of his mother, was explaining very forcibly and plainly to Dr. Logan’s friend, the manager, his own wishes and intentions; railways were a very recent invention in those days, and steamboats not an old one—it was the bright day of engineering, while there still lingered a certain romance about those wondrous creations of steel and steam, with which the world had not yet grown too familiar—gentlemen apprentices were not uncommon in those great Cyclopean workshops—but Patrick Livingstone did not mean to be a gentleman apprentice. He wanted to put himself to school for a couple of years, to learn his craft like a man, without privilege of gentility, he was too old for the regular trade apprenticeship, but he desired nothing more than a lessening of the time of that probation—and whatever circumstances might lead him to do at the end of it, Patie was not afraid of being found wanting in needful skill or knowledge. Dr. Logan had given a most flattering description of his family and “station,” partly stimulated thereto by the zeal with which his nephew Cassilis took up the cause of the Livingstones—and Mr. Crawford, the Glasgow manager, was very civil to the lad, who was the son of a landed proprietor, and whose brother might, in a few years, be one of the first gentlemen in the county of Melrose; the interview on the whole was a very satisfactory one, and Patie plodded his way back to the little room where he had left his mother, engaged to return next day with her, to conclude the arrangement by which he should enter the foundery; the lad was satisfied, even exhilarated, in his sober fashion, to find himself thus upon the threshold of a more serious life. Though he observed perfectly the locality and appearances around him, they had not so much effect upon Patie as they might have had on a more imaginative temper. His calmer and more practical mind, paradox though it seems to say so, was less affected byexternal circumstances than either his mother or Huntley, and a thousand times less than Cosmo would have been. He did not concern himself about his surroundings—theyhad little debasing or depressing influence upon his thoughts—he scarcely noticed them indeed, if they were sufficient for his necessities. Patie could very well contrive to live without beauty, and could manage to get on with a very moderate degree of comfort, so long as his own vigorous mind approved his life, and he had plenty to do.
In consequence of which it happened that Patie scarcely comprehended his mother’s dissatisfaction with the room; if he remained here, it was the only room the mistress of the house could give her lodger. He thought it very well, and quite as much as he required, and apprehended no particular cheerlessness in consequence of its poverty.
“It is not home, of course,” he said, with great nonchalance, “but, granting that, mother, I don’t see what difference it makes to me. It’s all well enough. I don’t want any thing more—it’s near the work, and it’s in a decent house—that should be enough to please you.”
“Hold your peace, Patie—do you think I’m careless of my bairn’s comfort?” cried the Mistress, with a half tone of anger; “and wha’ was ever used to a place like this, coming out of Norlaw?”
“But there can not be two Norlaws,” said Patie, “nor two homes. I want but one, for my part. I have no desire at present to like a second place as well.”
“Eh, laddie, if you can but keep that thought, and be true!” cried the Mistress, “I wouldna heed, save for your ain comfort, where you were then.”
“Do you doubt me, mother? what are you feared for? tell me, and I’ll know what to do,” said Patie, coming close to her, with his look of plain, unmistakable sincerity.
“I’m no’ feared,” said the Mistress, those ever-rising, never-falling tears dimming her eyes again, while yet a little secondary emotion, half shame of her own suspicions, half petulance, rose to her voice; “but it’s a poor place for a laddie like you, bred up at hame—and it’s a great town, full of temptations—and night and day in a place like this, ilka street is full of evil—and naething but bare bed and board instead of hame. Oh! Patie if I was feared, it was becauseI knew mony a dreary story of lads that meant as well as yoursel’!”
“Perhaps I was presumptuous, mother,” said Patie; “I will not say there’s no fear;—but there’s a difference between one man and another, and time and your own judgment will prove what’s temptation to me. Now, come, if you have rested enough—the air will do you more good than sitting here.”
The Mistress was persuaded, and went out accordingly with her son, feeling strangely forlorn and solitary in the crowded thoroughfares, where she was struck with the common surprise of country people, to meet so many and to know no one. Still there was a certain solace in the calm summer evening, through which the moon was rising in that pale sky so far away and clear, above the hanging smoke of the town—and in Patie’s arm, which seemed to support her with more pride and tenderness now that Huntley was gone. The soft moon shining down upon the river, which here was not the commercial Clyde, of ships and steamers, the many half-distinguishable figures upon the Green opposite, from which color and light were fading, and the tranquillity of the night even here, bore back the thoughts of the mother into a tenderer channel. She put up her hand to her eyes to clear them.
“Eh Patie! I think I see my son on the sea, looking up at that very sky,” said the Mistress, with a low sob; “how will I look at it from Norlaw, where Cosmo and me will be our lane?—and now but another day more, and I’ll lose you!”
TheMistress traveled home once more by the slow canal to Edinburgh, and from thence by the stage-coach to Kirkbride. She had left Patie, at last, with some degree of confidence, having seen Mr. Crawford, the manager of the foundery, and commended her son specially to his care; and having, besides, done what she could to improve the comfortof Patie’s little apartment, and to warn him against the temptations of Glasgow. It was rather heavy work afterward, gliding silently home alone by the monotonous motion of that canal, seeing the red-tiled cottages, the green slopes, the stubble-fields move past like a dream, and remembering how she had left her boys behind, one on the sea, and one among strangers, both embarked upon the current of their life. She sat still in the little cabin of the boat by one of the windows, moving nothing but her fingers, which clasped and unclasped mechanically. Her big black vail hung over her bonnet, but did not shroud her face; there was always moisture in her eyes, but very seldom tears that came the length of falling; and her mind was very busy, and with life in its musings—for it was not alone of the past she was thinking, but also of the future—of her own life at home, where Huntley’s self-denial had purchased comfort for his mother, and where his mother, not to be outdone, silently determined upon the course of those days, which she did not mean to be days of leisure. This Melmar, which had been a bugbear to the Mistress all her days, gradually changed its aspect now. It no longer reminded her of the great bitterness of her life—it was her son’s possible inheritance, and might be the triumphant occasion of Huntley’s return.
It was late on a September afternoon, when she descended from the coach at the door of the Norlaw Arms, and found Cosmo and Marget waiting there to welcome her. The evening sunshine streamed full in their faces, falling in a tender glory from the opposite brae of Tyne, where the white manse at the summit, and the cottages among the trees, shone in the tranquil light, with their kindliest look of home. The Mistress turned hurriedly from the familiar prospect, to repose her tired and wet eyes on the shadowed corner of the village street, where the gable of the little inn kept out the sunshine, and where the ostler had lifted down her trunk. She grasped Cosmo’s hand hastily, and scarcely ventured to look the boy in the face; it was dreary coming home alone; as she descended, bowed Jaacob at the smithy door took off his cowl in token of respect, and eyed her grimly with his twinkling eye. Jaacob, who was a moral philosopher, was rather satisfied, on the whole, with the demeanor of the family of Norlaw under their troubles, andtestified his approbation by a slightly authoritative approval. The Mistress gave him a very hasty nod, but could not look even at Jaacob; a break-down, or public exhibition of emotion, being the thing of all others most nervously avoided by respectable matrons of her country and temper, a characteristic very usual among Scotchwomen, of middle age and sober mind. She would have “thought shame” to have been seen crying or “giving way,” “in the middle of the town,” as, even now, enlightened by the sight of Edinburgh, Glasgow, and Liverpool, the Mistress still called the village street of Kirkbride; another hasty nod acknowledged the sympathetic courtesy of the widow who kept the village mangle, and whose little boy had wept at the door of Norlaw when its master was dying; and then Cosmo and Marget took the trunk between them, and the Mistress drew down her vail, and the little party set out, across the foot-bridge, through the tender slanting sunshine going home.
Then, at last, between the intervals of question and answer as to the common matters of country life, which had occurred during her absence, the Mistress’s lips were opened. Marget and Cosmo went on before, along the narrow pathway by the river, and she followed. Cosmo had spent half of his time at the manse, it appeared, and all the neighbors had sent to make kindly inquiry when his mother was expected home.
“It’s my hope you didna gang oftener than you were welcome, laddie,” said the Mistress, with a characteristic doubt; “but I’ll no deny the minister’s aye very kind, and Katie too. You should not call her Katie now, Cosmo, she’s woman grown. I said the very same to Huntley no’ a week ago, buthe’sno like to offend onybody, poor lad, for many a day to come. And I left him very weel on the whole—oh, yes, very weel, in a grand ship for size, and mony mair in her—and they say they’ll soon be out of our northerly seas, and win to grand weather, and whiles I think, if there wasgreatdanger, fewer folk would gang—no’ to say that the Almighty’s no’ a bit nigher by land than he is by sea.”
“Eh! and that’s true!” cried Marget, in an involuntary amen.
The Mistress was not perfectly pleased by the interruption. This tender mother could not help being imperativeeven in her tenderest affections; and even the faithful servant could not share her mother-anxieties without risk of an occasional outbreak.
“How’s a’ the kye?” said the Mistress with a momentary sharpness. “I’ve never been an unthrifty woman, I’m bauld to say; but every mutchkin of milk maun double itself now, for my bairns’ sakes.”
“Na, mem,” said Marget, touched on her honor, “it canna weel do that; but you ken yoursel’, if you had ta’en my advice, the byre might have been mair profit years ago. Better milkers are no’ in a’ the Lowdens; and if you sell Crummie’s cauf, as I aye advised—”
“You’re aye very ready with your advice, my woman. I never meant any other thing,” said the Mistress, with some impatience; “but after this, the house of Norlaw maun even get a puir name, if it must be so; for I warn ye baith, my thoughts are upon making siller; and when I put my mind to a thing, I canna do it by halves.”
“Then, mother, you must, in the first place, do something with me,” said Cosmo. “I’m the only useless person in the house.”
“Useless, laddie!—hold you peace!” said the Mistress. “You’re but a bairn, and you’re tender, and you maunna make a profitless beginning till you win to your strength. Huntley and Patie—blessings on them!—were both strong callants in their nature, and got good time to grow; and I’ll no’ let my youngest laddie lose his youth. Eh, Cosmo, my man! if you were a lassie, instead of their brother, thae twa laddies that are away could not be mair tender of you in their hearts!”
A flush came over Cosmo’s face, partly gratified affection, partly a certain shame.
“But I’ll soon be a man,” he said, in a low and half excited tone; “and I can not be content to wait quietly at home when my brothers are working. I have a right to work as well.”
“Bless the bairn!” cried Marget, once more involuntarily.
“Dinna speak nonsense,” said the Mistress. “There’s a time for every thing; and because I’m bereaved of twa, is that a reason my last bairn should leave me? Fie, laddie! Patie’s eighteen—he’s come the length of a man—there’s a year and mair between him and you. But what I wasspeaking of was the kye. There’s nae such stock in the country as the beasts that are reared at Tyneside; and I mean to take a leaf out of Mr. Blackadder’s book, if I’m spared, and see what we can do at Norlaw.”
“Eh, Mistress, Mr. Blackadder’s a man in his prime!” cried Marget.
“Weel, you silly haverel, what am I? Do you think a man that’s laboring just for good name and fame, and because he likes it, and that has nae kin in the world but a far-away cousin, should be stronger for his wark than a widow woman striving for her bairns?” cried the Mistress, with a hasty tear in her eye, and a quick flush on her cheek; “but I’ll let you a’ see different things, if I’m spared, in Norlaw.”
While she spoke with this flush of resolution, they came in sight of their home; but it was not possible to see the westerly sunshine breaking through those blank eyes of the old castle, and the low, modern house standing peacefully below, those unchanged witnesses of all the great scenes of all their lives, without a strain of heart and courage, which was too much for all of them. To enter in, remembering where the father took his rest, and how the sons began their battle—to have it once more pierced into the depths of her heart, that, of all the family once circling her, there remained only Cosmo, overpowered the Mistress, even in the midst of her new purpose, with a returning agony. She went in silent, pressing her hand upon her heart. It was a sad coming home.
“Andso you’re the only ane of them left at hame?” said bowed Jaacob, looking up at Cosmo from under his bushy brows, and pushing up his red cowl off his forehead.
And there could not have been a more remarkable contrast of appearance than between this slight, tall, fair boy, and the swart little demon, who considered him with a scientificcuriosity, keen, yet not unkindly, from the red twilight of the blacksmith’s shop.
“I should be very glad not to be left at home,” said Cosmo, with a boyish flush of shame; “and it will not be for long, if I can help it.”
“Weel, I’ll no’ say but ye a’ show a good spirit—a very good spirit, considering your up-bringing,” said Jaacob, “which was owre tender for laddies. I’ve little broo, for my ain part, of women’s sons. We’re a’ that, more or less, doubtless, but the less the better, lad. I kent little about mothers and such like when I was young mysel’.”
“They say,” said Cosmo, who, in spite of his sentiment, had a quick perception of humor, and was high in favor with the little Cyclops, “they say you were a fairy, and frightened everybody from your cradle, Jacob, and that your mother fainted with fear when she saw you first—is it true?”
“True!—aye, just as true as a’ the rest,” said Jaacob. “They’ll say whatever ye like that’s marvellous, if ye’ll but listen to them. A man o’ sense is an awfu’ phenomenon in a place like this. He’s no’ to be accounted for by the common laws o’ nature; that’s the philosophy of the matter.You’reowre young yet to rouse them; but they’ll make their story, or a’s one—take my word for it—of a lad of genius like yoursel’.”
“Genius, Jacob!”
The boy’s face grew red with a sudden, violent flush; and an intense, sudden light shone in his dark eyes. He did not laugh at the compliment—it awoke some powerful sentiment of vanity or self-consciousness in his own mind. The lighting-up of his eyes was like a sudden gleam upon a dark water—a revelation of a hundred unknown shadows and reflections which had been there unrevealed for many a day before.
“Aye, genius. I ken the true metal when I hear it ring,” said Jaacob. “Like draws to like, as ony fool can tell.”
And then the boy turned away with a sudden laugh—a perfectly mirthful, pure utterance of the half-fun, half-shame, and wholly ludicrous impression which this climax made upon him.
Strangely enough, Jaacob was not offended. He wenton, moving about the red gloom of his workshop, without the slightest appearance of displeasure. He had no idea that the lad whom he patronized could laugh at him.
“I can not say but I’m surprised at your brother for a’ that,” said Jaacob. “Huntley’s a lad of spirit; but he should have stood up to Me’mar like a man.”
“Do you know about Me’mar, too?” cried Cosmo, in some surprise.
“I reckon I do; and maist things else,” said Jaacob, dryly. “I’m no’ vindictive mysel’, but when a man does me an ill turn, I’ve a real good disposition to pay him back. He aye had a grudge against the late Norlaw, this Aberdeenawa’ man; and ifIhad been your faither, Cosmo, lad, I’d have fought the haill affair to the last, though it cost me every bodle I had; for wha does a’ the land and the rights belong to, after all?—toher, and no’ to him!”
“Did you know her?” asked Cosmo, breathlessly, not perceiving, in his eager curiosity, how limited Jaacob’s real knowledge of the case was.
“Aye,” said Jaacob; and the ugly little demon paused, and breathed from his capacious lungs a sigh, which disturbed the atmosphere of the smithy with a sudden convulsion. Then he added, quietly, and in an undertone, “I had a great notion of her mysel’.”
“You!” said Cosmo.
The boy did not know whether to fall upon his companion with sudden indignation, and give him a hearty shake by his deformed shoulders, or to retire with an angry laugh of ridicule and resentment. Both the more violent feelings, however, merged into the unmitigated amazement with which Cosmo at last gazed at the swarthy hunchback, who had ventured to lift his eyes to Norlaw’s love.
“And what for no’ me?” said Jaacob, sturdily; “do ye think it’s good looks and naught else that takes a woman’s e’e? do you think I havena had them in my offer as weel favored as Mary Huntley? Na, I’ll do them this justice; a woman, if she’s no’ a downright haverel, kens a man of sense when she sees him. Mony a wiselike woman has cast her e’e in at this very smiddy; but I’m no’ a marrying man.”
“You would have made many discontented, and one ungrateful,” said the boy, laughing. “Is that what kept you back, Jacob?”
“Just that,” said the philosopher, with a grim smile; “but I had a great notion of Miss Mary Huntley; she was aulder than me; that’s aye the way with callants; ye’ll be setting your heart on a woman o’ twenty yoursel’. I’d have gane twenty miles a-foot, wet or dry, just to shoe her powny; and I wouldna have let her cause gang to the wa’, as your father did, if it had been me.”
“Was she beautiful? what like was she, Jacob?” cried Cosmo, eagerly.
“I can not undertake to tell you just what she was like, a callant like you,” said Jaacob; then the dark hobgoblin made a pause, drawing himself half into his furnace, as the boy could suppose. “She was like a man’s first fancy,” continued the little giant, abruptly, drawing forth a red-hot bar of iron, which made a fiery flash in the air, and lighted up his own swart face for the moment; “she was like the woman a lad sets his heart on, afore he kens the cheats of this world,” he added, at another interval, with a great blow of his hammer, which made the sparks fly; and through the din and the flicker no further words came. Cosmo’s imagination filled up the ideal. The image of Mary of Melmar rose angel-like out of the boy’s stimulated fancy, and there was not even a single glimmer of the grotesque light of this scene to diminish the romantic halo which rose around his father’s first love.
“As for me, if you think the like of me presumed in lifting his e’en,” said Jaacob, “I’ll warn you to change your ideas, my man, without delay; a’ that auld trash canna stand the dint of good discussion and opinion in days like these. Speak about your glorious revolutions! I tell you, callant, we’re on the eve of the real glorious revolution, the time when every man shall have respect for his neighbors—save when his neighbor’s a fool; nane o’ your oligarchies for a free country; we’re men, and we’ll have our birthright; and do you think I’m heeding what a coof’s ancestors were, when I ken I’m worth twa o’ him—ay, or ten o’ him!—as a’ your bits o’ lords and gentlemen will find as soon as we’ve The Bill.”
“An honorable ancestor is an honor to any man,” said Cosmo, firing with the pride of birth. “I would not takethe half of the county, if it was offered me, in place of the old castle at Norlaw.”
“Well,” said Jaacob, with a softening glance, “it’s no’ an ill sentiment that, I’ll allow, so far as the auld castle gangs; but ony man that thinks he’s of better flesh and bluid than me, no’ to say intellect and spirit, on the strength of four old wa’s, or the old rascals that thieved in them—I’ll tell ye, Cosmo, my lad, I think he’s a fool, and that’s just the short and the long o’ the affair.”
“Better flesh and blood, or better intellect and spirit!” said the boy, with a half-meditative, half-mirthful smile. “Homer was a beggar, and so was Belisarius, and so was Blind Harry, of Wallace’s time.”
This highly characteristic, school-boyish, and national confusion of heroes, moved the blacksmith-philosopher with no sensation of the absurd. Homer and Blind Harry were by no means unfit companions in the patriotic conception of bowed Jaacob, who, nevertheless, knew Pope’s Homer very tolerably, and was by no means ignorant of the pretensions of the “blind old man of Scio’s rocky isle.”
“A feesical disqualification, Cosmo, is quite a different matter,” said Jaacob; “nae man could make greater allowance for the like of that than me, that might have been supposed at one time to be on the verge of it mysel’.”
And as he spoke, his one bright eye twinkled in Jaacob’s head with positive scintillations, as if Nature had endowed it with double power to make up for its solitude.
“The like of Homer and Blind Harry, however, belong to a primitive age,” said Jaacob; “the minstrel crew were aye vagrants—no’ to say it was little better than a kind of a servile occupation at the best, praises of the great. But the world’s wiser by this time. I would not say I would make the Bill final, mysel’, but let’s aince get it, laddie, and ye’ll see a change. We’ll hae nae mair o’ your lordlings in the high places—we’ll hae naething butmen.”
“Did you ever hear any thing, Jacob,” said Cosmo, somewhat abruptly—for the romantic story of his kinswoman was more attractive to the boy’s mind than politics—“of where the young lady of Me’mar went to, or who it was she married? I suppose not, since she was searched for so long.”
“No man ever speered at me before, so far as I can mind,”said Jaacob, with a little bitterness; “your father behoved to manage the haill business himsel’, and he was na great hand. I’m no’ fond of writers when folk can do without them, but they’re of a certain use, nae doubt, like a’ other vermin; a sharp ane o’ them would have found Mary Huntley, ye may take my word for that. I was aince in France mysel’.”
“In France?” cried Cosmo, with, undeniable respect and excitement.
“Ay, just that,” said Jaacob, dryly; “it’s nae such great thing, though folk make a speech about it. I wasna far inower. I was at a bit seaport place on the coast; Dieppe they ca’ it, and deep it was to an innocent lad like what I was at the time—though I could haud my ain with maist men, both then and at this day.”
“And you saw there?"—cried Cosmo, who became very much interested.
“Plenty of fools,” said Jaacob, “and every wean in the streets jabbering French, which took me mair aback than onything else I heard or saw; but there was ae day a lady passed me by. I didna see her face at first, but I saw the bairn she had in her hand, and I thought to mysel’ I could not but ken the foot, that had a ring upon the path like siller bells. I gaed round about, and round about, till I met her in the face, but whether it was her or no I canna tell; I stood straight afore her in the midroad, and she passed me by with a glance, as if she kent nae me.”
The tone in which the little hunchback uttered these words was one of indescribable yet suppressed bitterness. He was too proud to acknowledge his mortification; yet it was clear enough, even to Cosmo, that this pride had not only prevented him from mentioning his chance meeting at the proper time, but that even now he would willingly persuade himself that the ungrateful beauty, who did not recognize him, could not be the lady of his visionary admiration.
“Do you think it was the Lady of Melmar?” asked the boy, anxiously, for Jaacob’s “feelings,” though they had no small force of human emotion in them, were, for the moment, rather a secondary matter to Cosmo.
“If it had been her, she would have kentme,” said Vulcan, with emphasis, and he turned to his hammering withvehemence doubly emphatic. Jaacob had no inclination to be convinced that Mary of Melmar might forget him, who remembered her so well. He returned to the Bill, which was more or less in most people’s thoughts in those days, and which was by no means generally uninteresting to Cosmo—but the boy’s thoughts were too much excited to be amused by Jaacob’s politics; and Cosmo went home with visions in his mind of the quaint little Norman town, where Mary of Melmar had been seen by actual vision, and which henceforth became a region of dreams and fancy to her young knight and champion, who meant to seek her over all the world.
Erethe winter had fully arrived, visible changes had taken place in the house and steading of Norlaw. As soon as all the operations of the harvest were over, the Mistress dismissed all the men-servants of the farm, save two, and let, at Martinmas, all the richer portion of the land, which was in good condition, and brought a good rent. Closely following upon the plowmen went Janet, the younger maidservant, who obtained, to her great pride, but doubtful advantage, a place in a great house in the neighborhood.
The Norlaw byres were enlarged and improved—the Norlaw cattle increased in number by certain choice and valuable specimens of “stock,” milch-kine, sleek and fair, and balmy-breathed. Some few fields of turnips and mangelwurzel, and the rich pasture lands on the side of Tyne behind the castle, were all that the Mistress retained in her own hands, and with Marget for her factotum, and Willie Noble, the same man who had assisted in Norlaw’s midnight funeral, for her chief manager and representative out of doors, Mrs. Livingstone began her new undertaking.
She was neither dainty of her own hands, nor tolerant of any languid labor on the part of others. Not even in her youth, when the hopes and prospects of Norlaw were better than the reality ever became, had the Mistress shown the smallest propensity to adopt the small pomp of a landedlady. She was always herself, proud, high-spirited, somewhat arbitrary, by no means deficient in a sense of personal importance, yet angrily fastidious as to any false pretensions in her house, and perceiving truly her real position, which, with all the added dignity of proprietorship, was still in fact that of a farmer’s wife. All the activity and energy with which she had toiled all her life against her thriftless husband’s unsteady grasp of his own affairs, and against the discouraging and perpetual unprosperity of many a year, were intensified now by the consciousness of having all her purposes within her own hand and dependent on herself. Naked and empty as the house looked to the eyes which had been accustomed to so many faces, now vanished from it, there began to grow an intention and will about all its daily work, which even strangers observed. Though the Mistress sat, as usual, by the corner window with her work in the afternoon, and the dining-parlor was as homelike as ever, and the neighbors saw no change, except the change of dress which marked her widowhood, Marget, half ashamed of the derogation, half proud of the ability, and between shame and pride keeping the secret of these labors, knew of the Mistress’s early toils, which even Cosmo knew very imperfectly; her brisk morning hours of superintendence and help in the kitchen and in the dairy, which, with all its new appliances and vigorous working, became “just a picture,” as Marget thought, and the pride of her own heart. Out of the produce of those carefully tended precious “kye,” out of the sweet butter, smelling of Tyne gowans, and the rich, yellow curds of cheese, and the young, staggering, long-limbed calves which Willie Noble had in training, the Mistress, fired with a mother’s ambition, meant to return tenfold to Huntley his youthful self-denial, and even to lay up something for her younger sons.
It was still only fourteen years since the death of the old Laird of Melmar, the father of the lost Mary; and there was yet abundant time for the necessary proceedings to claim her inheritance, without fear of the limiting law, which ultimately might confirm the present possessor beyond reach of attack. The last arrangement made by Huntley had accordingly been, that all these proceedings should be postponed for three or four years, during which time the lost heiress might reappear, or, more probable still, the sanguinelad thought, his own fortunes prosper so well, that he could bear the expense of the litigation without touching upon the little patrimony sacred to his mother. After so long an interval, a few years more or less would not harm the cause, and in the meantime every exertion was to be made by Cassilis, as Huntley’s agent, for the discovery of Mary of Melmar. This was the only remaining circumstance of pain in the whole case to the Mistress. She could not help resenting everybody’s interest about this heiress, who had only made herself interesting by her desertion of that “home and friends,” which, to the Mistress herself, were next to God in their all-commanding, all-engrossing claim. She was angry even with the young lawyer, but above all, angry that her own boys should be concerned for the rights of the woman who had forsaken all her duties so violently, and with so little appearance of penitence; and if sometimes a thought of despondency and bitterness crossed the mind of the Mistress at night, as she sat sewing by the solitary candle, which made one bright speck of light, and no more, in the dim dining-room of Norlaw, the aggrieved feeling found but one expression. “I would not say now, but what after we’ve a’ done our best—me among the beasts, and my laddie ower the seas, and the writers afore the Fifteen,” were the words, never spoken, but often conceived, which rose in the Mistress’s heart; “I would not wonder but then, when the land’s gained and a’s done, she’ll come hame. It would be just like a’ the rest!” And let nobody condemn the Mistress. Many a hardly-laboring soul, full of generous plans and motives, has seen a stranger enter into its labors, or feared to see it, and felt the same.
In the meantime, Cosmo, who had got all that the parish schoolmaster of Kirkbride—no contemptible teacher—could give him, had been drawing upon Dr. Logan’s rusty Latin and Greek, rather to the satisfaction of the good minister than to his own particular improvement, and tired of reading every thing that could be picked up in the shape of reading from the old parchment volumes of second-rate Latin divinity, which the excellent minister never opened, but had a certain respect for, down to theGentle Shepherdand the floating ballad literature of the country-side, began to grow more and more anxious to emulate his brothers, and set out upon the world. The winter nights came on, growinglonger and longer, and Cosmo scorched his fair hair and stooped his slight shoulders, reading by the fire-light, while his mother worked by the table, and while the November winds began to sound in the echoing depths of the old castle. The house was very still of nights, and missed the absent sorely, and both the Mistress and her faithful servant were fain to shut up the house and go to rest as soon as it was seemly, a practice to which their early habits in the morning gave abundant excuse, though its real reason lay deeper.
“Ane can bear mony a thing in good daylight, when a’ the work’s in hand,” Marget said; “but womenfolk think lang at night, when there’s nae blythe step sounding ower the door, nor tired man coming hame.” And though she never said the same words, the same thought was in the Mistress’s heart.
One of these slow nights was coming tardily to a close, when Cosmo, who had been gathering up his courage, having finished his book on the hearth-rug, where the boy half sat and half reclined, rose suddenly and came to his mother at the table. Perhaps some similar thoughts of her own had prepared the Mistress to anticipate what he was about to say. She did not love to be forestalled, and, before Cosmo spoke, answered with some impatience to the purpose in his eye.
“I ken very well what you’re going to say. Weel, I wot the night’s lang, and the house is quiet—mair folk than you can see that,” said the Mistress, “and you’re a restless spirit, though I did not think it of you. Cosmo, do you ken whatIwould like you to do?”
“I could guess, mother,” said the boy.
“Ay, ’deed, and ye could object. I might have learned that,” said his mother.
“I’ve got little of my ain will a’ my life, though a fremd person would tell you I was a positive woman. Most things I’ve set my heart on have come to naught. Norlaw’s near out of our hands, and Huntley and Patie are in the ends of the earth, and I’m a widow woman, desolate of my bairns; weel, weel, I’m no complaining—but when I saw you first in your cradle, Cosmo—you were the bonniest of a’ my bairns—I put my hands on your head, and I said to myself—‘I’ll make him my offering to the Lord, becausehe’s the fairest lamb of a’.’ Na, laddie—never mind, I’m no heeding. You needna put your arms round me. It’s near seventeen year ago, and mony a weary day since then, but I’ve aye thought upon my vow.”
“Mother, if I can, I’ll fulfill it!” cried Cosmo; “but how could I know your heart was in it, when you never spoke of it before?”
“Na,” said the Mistress, restraining herself with an effort. “I’ve done my best to bring you up in the fear of the Lord, and it’s no written that you maun be a minister, before you can serve Him. I’ll no’ put a burden on your conscience; but just I was a witless woman, and didna mind when I saw the bairn in the cradle that before it came that length, it would have a will of its own.”
“Send me to college, mother!” said Cosmo, with tears in his eyes. “I have made no plans, and if I had I could change them—and at the worst, if we find I can not be a minister, I will never forget your vow—put your hands on my head and say it over again.”
But when the boy knelt down at her side with the enthusiasm of his temper, and lifted his glowing, youthful face, full of a generous young emotion, which was only too generous and ready to be swayed by the influences of love, the Mistress could only bend over him with a silent burst of tenderness.
“God bless my dearest bairn!” she said at last, with her broken voice. “But no, no!—I’ve learned wisdom. The Lord make ye a’ His ain servants—every ane—I can say nae mair.”
Itwas accordingly but a very short time after these occurrences when Cosmo, with his wardrobe carefully over-looked, his “new blacks” supplemented by a coarser every-day suit, which took the place of the jacket which the lad had outgrown, and a splendid stock of linen, home-made, snow-white and bleached on the gowans—took his way to Edinburgh in all the budding glory of a student. In thosedays few people had begun to speculate whether the Scotch Universities were or were not as good as the English ones, or what might be the characteristic differences of the two. The academic glories of Edinburgh still existed in the fresh glories of tradition, if they had begun to decline in reality—and chairs were still held in the northern college by men at whose feet statesmen had learned philosophy.
The manner in which Cosmo Livingstone went to college was not one, however, in which anybody goes to Maudlin or Trinity. The lad went to take up his humble lodging at Mrs. Purdie’s in the High Street, and from thence dropped shyly to the college, paid his fees and matriculated, and there was an end of it. There were no rooms to look after, no tutors to see, no “men” to be made acquainted with. He had a letter in his pocket to one of the professors, and one to the minister of one of the lesser city churches. His abode was to be the same little room with the “concealed bed” and window overlooking the town, in which his mother had rested as she passed through Edinburgh, and the honest Kirkbride woman, who was his landlady, had been already engaged at a moderate weekly rate to procure all that he wanted for him.
After which fashion—feeling very shy and lonely, somewhat embarrassed by the new coat which his mother called a surtoo and regarded with respect, dismayed by the necessity of entering shops and making purchases for himself, and standing a little in awe of the other students and of the breakfast to which the professor had invited him—Cosmo began the battle of his life.
He was now nearly seventeen, young enough to be left by himself in that little lantern and watch-house hanging high over the picturesque heights and hollows of the beautiful old town, where the lad sat at his window in the winter evenings, watching the gorgeous frosty sunset, how it purpled with royal gleams and shadows all the low hills of Fife, and shed a distant golden glow—sometimes a glow redder and fiercer than gold—upon the chilly glories of the Firth. Then, as the light faded from the western horizon, and Inchkeith and Inchcolm no longer stood out in vivid relief against the illuminated waters, how the lights of the town, scarcely less fairy-like, began to steal along the streets and to sparkle out in the windows, hanging in irregular lines from themany-storied houses at the other side of the North Bridge, and gleaming like glow-worms in the dark little valley between.
Cosmo sat at his window with a book in his hand, but did not read much—perhaps the lad was not thinking much either, as he sat in the silent little room, listening to all the voices of all the population beneath him, which rose in a softened swell of sound to his high window; sometimes mournful, sometimes joyful, sometimes with a sharp cry in it like an appeal to God, sometimes full of distinct tones, inarticulate yet individual, sometimes sweet with the hum of children—a great, full, murmuring chorus never entirely silenced, in which the heart of humanity seemed, somehow, to betray itself, and reveal unawares the unspeakable blending of emotions which no one man can ever confess for himself.
Cosmo, who had spent a due portion of his time in his class-room, had taken notes of the lectures, and been, if not a remarkably devoted, at least a moderately conscientious student, often found himself very unwilling to light the candle, and sometimes even let his fire go out, in the charmed idleness of his window-seat, which was so strangely different from his old meditative haunt in the old castle, yet which absorbed him even more—and then Mrs. Purdie would come in with brisk good-humor, and rate him soundly for sitting in the dark, and make up the much-enduring northern coals into a blaze for him, and sweep the hearth, and light the candle, and bring in the little tray with its little tea-pot and blue and white cup and saucer, and the bread and butter—which Cosmo did full justice to, in spite of his dreams. When she came to remove the things again, Mrs. Purdie would stand with one arm a-kimbo to have a little talk with her young lodger; perhaps to tell him that she had seen the Melrose courier, or met somebody newly arrived by the coach from Kirkbride, or encountered an old neighbor, who “speered very kindly” for his mother; or, on the other hand, to confide to him her fear that the lad from the Highlants in her little garret overhead, who provided himsel’, would perish with cauld in this frosty weather, and was just as like as no’ to starve himsel’, and didna keep up a decent outside, puir callant, without mony a sair pinch that naebody kent onything about; or that her other lodger, who was also a student, was in a very ill way, comingin at a’ the hours of the night, and spending hard-won siller, and that she would be very glad to let his father and mother ken, but it didna become her to tell tales.
These, and a great many other communications of the same kind, Mrs. Purdie relieved her mind by making to Cosmo, whose youth and good-looks and local claims upon her regard, made him a great favorite with the kind-hearted, childless woman, who compounded “scones” for his tea, and even occasionally undertook the trouble of a pudding, “a great fash and fyke,” as she said to herself, puddings being little in favor with humble Scotchwomen of her class.
Under the care of this motherly attendant, Cosmo got on very well in his little Edinburgh lodging, and even in some degree enjoyed the solitude which was so new and so strange to the home-bred boy. He used to sally out early in the morning, perhaps to climb as far as St. Anthony’s Chapel, or mount the iron ribs of the Crags, to watch the early mists breaking over the lovely country, and old Edinburgh rising out of the cloud like a queen—or perhaps only to hasten along the cheerful length of Princes Street, when the same mists parted from the crags of the Castle, or lay white in the valley. The boy knew nothing about his own sentiments, what manner of fancies they were, and did not pause to inquire whether any one else thought like him. He hurried in thereafter to breakfast, fresh and blooming, and then with his books to college, encountering often enough that grave, gaunt Highlander in the garret, who had no time for poetic wanderings, and perhaps not much capacity, but who struggled on towards his own aim, with a desperate fortitude and courage, which no man of his name ever surpassed in a forlorn hope, or on a battle-field. The Highland student was nearly thirty, a man full grown and labor-hardened, working his way through his “humanity” and Divinity classes, looking forward, as the goal of his ambition, to some little Gaelic-speaking parish in the far north, where some day, perhaps, the burning Celtic fervor, imprisoned under his slow English speech and impenetrable demeanor, might make him the prophet of his district; and as he entered day by day at the same academic gates, side-by-side with the seventeen-year-old boy, a strange tenderness for the lad came into the man’s heart. They grew friends shyly yet warmly, unlike as they were, thoughCosmo never was admitted to any of those secrets of his friend’smenage, which Mrs. Purdie guessed at, but which Cameron would never have forgiven any one for finding out; and next to the household of Norlaw, and the strange, half-perceived knowledge that came stealing to his mind, like a fairy, in his vigils by his window, Cameron was Cosmo’s first experience of what he was to meet in life.
The Highlander lived in his garret, you could not believe or understand how, gentleman-commoner—and would have tossed, not only your shoes, but you out of his high window, had you tried to be benevolent to him, as you tried it once to that clumsy sizar of Pembroke; notwithstanding, he was no ignoble beginning for a boy’s friendship, a fact which Cosmo Livingstone had it in him to perceive.
“I meanto call on Miss Logan at the manse to-day,” said Patricia Huntley, as she took her place with great dignity in “the carriage,” which she had previously employed Joanna to bully Melmar into ordering for her conveyance. Mrs. Huntley was too great an invalid to make calls, and Aunt Jean was perfectly impracticable as a companion, so Patricia armed herself with her mother’s card-case, and set out alone.
Alone, save for the society of Joanna, who was glad enough of a little locomotion, but did not much enjoy the call-making portion of the enterprise. Joanna, whom no pains, it was agreed, could persuade into looking genteel, had her red hair put up in bows under her big bonnet, and a large fur tippet on her shoulders. Her brown merino frock was short, as Joanna’s frocks invariably became after a few weeks’ wearing; and the abundant display of ankle appearing under it said more for the strength than the elegance of its proprietor. Patricia, for her part, wore a colored silk cloak, perfectly shapeless, and as long as her dress, with holes for her arms, and a tippet of ermine to complete it. It was a dress which was very much admired, and “quite the fashion” in those days; when the benightedindividuals who wore such vestments actually supposed themselves as well-dressed aswehave the comfort of knowing ourselves now.
“For I am sure,” said Patricia, as they drove along towards Kirkbride, “that there is some mystery going on. I am quite sure of it. I never will forget how shamefully papa treated me that day Mr. Cassilis was at Melmar—before a stranger and a gentleman too! and you know as well as I do, Joanna, how often that poor creature, Whitelaw, from Melrose, has been at our house since then.”
“Yes, I know,” said Joanna, carelessly. “I wonder what Katie Logan will say when she knows I’m going to school?”
“What a selfish thing you are, always thinking about your own concerns,” said Patricia; “do you hear what I say? I think there’s a mystery—I’m sure there’s a secret—either papa is not the right proprietor, or somebody else has a claim, or there’s something wrong. He is always making us uncomfortable some way or other; wouldn’t it be dreadful if we were all ruined and brought to poverty at the end?”
“Ruined and brought to poverty? it would be very good fun to see what mamma and you would do,” cried the irreverent Joanna. “Icould do plenty things; but I’m no’ feared—it’s you, that’s always reading story-books.”
“It’s not a story-book; I almost heard papa say it,” said Patricia, reddening slightly.
“Then you’ve been listening!” cried her bolder sister. “I would scorn to do that. I would ask him like a man what it was, if it was me, but I wouldna go stealing about the passages like a thief. I wouldna do it for twice Melmar—nor for all the secrets in the world!”
“I wish you would not be so violent, Joanna! my poor nerves can not stand it,” said Patricia; “a thoughtless creature like you never looks for any information, but I’m older, and I know we’ve no fortunes but what papa can give us, and we need to think of ourselves. Think, Joanna, if you can think. If anybody were to take Melmar from papa, what would become of you and me?”
“You and me!” the girl cried, in great excitement. “I would think of Oswald and papa himsel’, if it was true. Me! I could nurse bairns, or keep a school, or go to Australia, like Huntley Livingstone. I’m no’ feared! and it would befun to watchyou, what you would do. But if papa had cheated anybody and was found out—oh, Patricia! could you think of yourself instead of thinking on that?”
“When a man does wrong, and ruins his family, he has no right to look for any thing else,” said Patricia.
“I would hate him,” cried Joanna, vehemently, “but I wouldna forsake him—but it’s all havers; we’ve been at Melmar almost as long as I can mind, and never any one heard tell of it before.”
“I mean to hear what Katie Logan says—for Mr. Cassilis is her cousin,” said Patricia, “and just look, there she is, on the road, tying little Isabel’s bonnet. She’s just as sure to be an old maid as can be—look how prim she is! and never once looking to see what carriage it is, as if carriages were common at the manse. Don’t call her Katie, Joanna; call her Miss Logan; I mean to show her that there is a difference between us and the minister’s daughter at Kirkbride.”
“And I mean no such thing,” cried Joanna, with her head half out at the window; “she’s worth the whole of us put together, except Oswald and Auntie Jean. Katie! Katie Logan! we’re going to the manse to see you—oh don’t run away!”
The day was February, cold but sunny, and the manse parlor was almost as bright in this wintry weather as it had been in summer. The fire sparkled and crackled with an exhilaration in the sound as well as the warmth and glow it made, and the sunshine shone in at the end window, through the leafless branches, with a ruddy wintry cheerfulness, which brightened one’s thoughts like good news or a positive pleasure. There were no stockings or pinafores to be mended, but instead, a pretty covered basket, holding all Katie’s needles and thread, and scraps of work in safe and orderly retirement, and at the bright window, in an old-fashioned china flower-pot, a little group of snow-drops, the earliest possibility of blossom, hung their pale heads in the light. Joanna Huntley threw herself into the minister’s own easy-chair with a riotous expression of pleasure.
“Fires never burn as if they liked to burn in Melmar,” cried Joanna; “oh, Katie Logan, what do you do to yours? for every thing looks as if something pleasant happened here every day.”
“Something pleasant is always happening,” said Katie, with a smile.
“It depends upon what people think pleasure,” said Patricia. “I am sure you that have so much to do, and all your little brothers and sisters to look after, and no society, should be worse off than me and Joanna; but it’s very seldom that any thing pleasant happens to us.”
“Never mind her, Katie. Listen to me. I’m going to Edinburgh to school,” cried Joanna. “I don’t know whether to like it or to be angry. What would you do, if you were me?”
“I don’t think I could fancy myself you, Joanna,” said Katie, laughing; “but I should have liked it when I was younger, and had less to do. I’m to go in with papa if he goes to the Assembly this May. We have friends in Edinburgh, and I like it for that—besides the Assembly and all the things country folk see there.”
“But Edinburgh is a very poor place after being in London,” said Patricia; “if you could only see Clapham, whereIwas at school! But Mr. Cassilis is a cousin of yours—is he not? I suppose he told you how papa behaved to me when he was last at Melmar.”
“No, indeed—he did not,” said Katie, with some curiosity.
“Oh! I thought perhaps he noticed it, being a stranger,” said Patricia; “do you know what was his business with papa?”
“No.”
“You might tellus—for we ought to hear, if it is any thing important,” said Patricia; “and as for papa, he never lets us know any thing till everybody else has heard it first. I am sure it was some business, and business which made papa as cross as possible; do tell us what it was.”
“I don’t know any thing about it,” said Katie. “My cousin staid here only two or three days, and he never spoke of business to me.”
“Oh! but you know what he came here about,” insisted Patricia.
“He came to see us, and also—oh, yes—to manage something for the Livingstones, of Norlaw,” said Katie, with a slight increase of color.
For the moment she had actually forgotten this last andmore important reason for the visit of the young lawyer, having a rather uncomfortable impression that “to see us” was a more urgent inducement to Cousin Charlie than it had better be. She paused accordingly with a slight embarrassment, and began to busy herself opening her work basket. Patricia Huntley was not a person of the liveliest intelligence in general, but she was quick-sighted enough to see that Katie stumbled in her statement, and drew up her small shoulders instantly with two distinct sentiments of jealous offense and disapproval, the first relating to the presumption of the minister’s daughter in appropriating the visit of Cassilis to herself, and the second to a suggestion of the possible rivalry, which could affect the house of Melmar in the family of Norlaw.
“I think we are never to be done with these Livingstones,” cried Patricia, “and all because the old man owed papa a quantity of money.Wecan’t help it when people owe us money, and I am sure I am very much surprised at Mr. Cassilis, if he came to annoy papa about a thing like that. I thought he was a gentleman! I thought it must be something important he came to say.”
“Perhaps it might be,” said Katie, quietly, coloring rather more, but losing her embarrassment; “and the more important it was, the less likely is it that my cousin would tell it to any one whom it did not concern. Mr. Huntley could answer your questions better than I.”
“Oh, I see you’re quite offended. I see you’re quite offended. I am sure I did not know Mr. Cassilis was any particular kind of cousin,” said Patricia, spitefully. “If I had known I should have taken care how I spoke; but if my papa was like yours, and was not very able to afford a housekeeper, it would need to be another sort of a man from Mr. Cassilis who could makemego away and leave my home.”
“Katie, you should flyte upon her,” said Joanna. “She does not understand any thing else—never mind her—talk to me—are all the Livingstones away but Cosmo? Patricia thinks there’s a mystery and papa’s wronged somebody. If he has, it’s Norlaw.”
“I don’t think any thing of the sort—hold your tongue, Joanna,” said her sister.
“Eh, what else?” cried the young lady, roused to recrimination.“Katie, do you think Mrs. Livingstone knows? for I would go and ask her in a minute. I would not forsake papa if he was poor, but if he’s wronged anybody, I’ll no’ stand it—for it would be my blame as well as his the moment I knew!”
“I don’t think you have any thing to do with it,” said Katie, with spirit, “nor Patricia either. Girls were not set up to keep watch over their fathers and mothers; are you the constable at Melmar, Joanna, to keep everybody in order? I wish you were at the manse sometimes when the boys have a holiday. Our Johnnie would be a match for you. The Livingstones are all away,—Cosmo, too; he’s gone to college in Edinburgh, and some day, perhaps, you’ll hear him preach in Kirkbride.”
“I am quite sure papa would not give him the presentation; he’s promised it to a cousin of our own,” said Patricia, eagerly.
Katie grew very red, and then very pale.
“My father is minister of Kirkbride,” she said, with a great deal of simple dignity; “there is no presentation in anybody’s power just now.”
“Katie, I wish you would not speak to her, she’s a cat!” cried Joanna, with intense disgust, turning her back upon her sister; “oh I wish you would write Cosmo to come and see me! I’ll be just the same as at college, too; and I’m sure I’ll like him a great deal better than any of the girls. Or, never mind; if that’s not right, I’ll be sure to meet him in the street. I’m to go next week, Katie, and there’s a French governess and a German master, and an Italian master, and nothing but vexation and trouble. It’s quite true, and we’re not even to speak our own tongue, but jabber away at French from morning to night. English is far better—I know I’ll quarrel with them a’.”
“Do you call your language English, Joanna?” said her sister, with contempt.
“If it’s no’ English it’s Scotch, and that’s far better,” cried Joanna, with an angry blush; “wha cares for English? They never say their r’s and their h’s, except when they shouldna say them, and they never win the day except by guile, and they canna do a thing out of their own head till Scotsmen show them how! and it’s a’ true, and I’d rather be a servant-maid in Melmar, than one of your Claphamfine ladies, so you needna speak your English either to Katie or me.”
And it must be confessed that Katie, sensible as she was, laughed and applauded, and that poor little Patricia, who could find nothing heroical to say on behalf of Clapham, was very much disposed to cry with vexation, and only covered her defeat by a retreat to the carriage, where Joanna followed, only after a few minutes’ additional conversation with Katie, who was by no means disposed to aid the elder sister. When they were gone, however, Katie Logan shook her wise little elder-sisterly head over the pair of them. She thought if Charlie (which diminutive in the manse meant Charlotte) and Isabel grew up like Patricia and Joanna, she would “break her heart;” and the little mistress of the manse went into the kitchen to oversee the progress of a birthday cake and give her homely orders, without once thinking of the superior grandeur of the carriage, as it rolled down the slope of the brae and through the village, the scene of a continued and not very temperate quarrel between the two daughters of Melmar, which was only finished at last by the sudden giving way of Patricia’s nerves and breath, to the most uncomfortable triumph of Joanna. Joanna kept sulkily in her corner, and refused to alight while the other calls were made. On the whole, it was not a very delightful drive.