The next time Nelly saw Adam Home was by the landing in the Canongate,
in whose shelter lay the draw-well wherein the proud, gently-born
laird's daughter every afternoon dipped the Dutch porcelain jug which
carried the fresh spring-water wherewith to infuse her mother's
cherished, tiny cup of tea. Young Home was passing, and he stepped
aside, and offered to take the little vessel from her hand, and stoop
and fill it. He did this with a silent salutation and glance that,
retaining its wonted downward aim, yet suddenly lightened as if it loved
to rest upon the little girlish figure, in its homely tucked-up gown,
the crimson hood drawn over the chestnut hair that turned back in a
crisp wave from the bold, frank, innocent face. But she waved him off,
and balancing her foot upon the edge-stone, saw herself reflected in the
steel-like water. Then he begged with rare softness in a voice that was
rough and gruff, unless it deepened with strong feeling--
"Will you suffer me, Nelly Carnegie? I would give my hand to pluck but a
flower to serve you."
Had he tried that tone at first, before she was more than chilled by his
sombre and imperious gravity, before her mother supported him
unrelentingly and galled and exasperated her by persecution, he might
have attracted, fascinated, conquered. As it was, she jeered at him.
"Serve me! he could do me no better service than 'mount and go.' A posy!
it would be the stinging-nettle and dank dock if he gathered it."
The revenge he took was rude enough, but it was not unheard of in those
days. He caught her by the wrist, and under the shadow of the abutting
gable he kissed the knitted brow and curling lips, holding her the while
with a grasp so tight that it gave her pain. When she wrung herself from
him, she shook her little hand with a rage that quivered through every
nerve, and had more of hate than of romping folly or momentary pique in
its passion.
"Nelly Carnegie," said her mother, as she carefully pulled out the edge
of a coil of yellow point-lace, which rested on her inlaid foreign
work-table, and contrasted with her black mode cloak and white skinny
fingers, and looking with her keen, cold, grey eyes on the rebellious
daughter standing before her, went on, "I have word that Staneholme goes
south in ten days."
Nelly could have said, "And welcome," but she knew the consequences, and
forbore.
"He's willin' to take you with him, Nelly, and he shows his good blood
when he holds that a Carnegie needs no tocher."
Still Nelly did not answer, though she started so violently that her
loosely-crossed hands fell apart; and Nanny Swinton, who was about her
housewifery in the cupboard off the lady's parlour, heard every word,
and trembled at the pause.
"Your providing is not to buy," continued the mistress of the
aristocratic family, whose attendance was so scanty and their wants so
ill supplied that even in necessaries they were sometimes pinched;
"we've but to bid the minister and them that are allied to us in the
town, and Nanny will scour the posset dish, and bring out the big Indian
bowl, and heap fresh rose-leaves in the sweet-pots. You'll wear my
mother's white brocade that she first donned when she became a Leslie,
sib to Rothes--no a bit housewife of a south-country laird. She was a
noble woman, and you're but a heather lintie of a lass to come of a good
kind. So God bless you, bairn; ye'll tak the blast of wind and
gang."
As if the benediction had loosened the arrested tongue, Nelly burst
out--"Oh, mother, mother! no."
Lady Carnegie, in her own person, had looked upon death with unblenching
front, and had disowned her only son because, in what appeared to others
a trifle, he had opposed her law. Nor did a muscle of her marked face
now relax; her occupation went on without a check; she did not deign to
show surprise or displeasure, although her voice rose in harsh, ironical
emphasis--
"Nelly Carnegie, what's your will?"
"Not that man, mother; not that fearsome man!" pleaded Nelly, with
streaming eyes and beseeching tones, her high spirit for the moment
broken; her contempt gone, only her aversion and terror urging a
hearing--"The lad that's blate and dull till he's braggit by his
fellows, and then starker than ony carle, wild like a north-country
cateran; even the haill bench o' judges would not stand to conter him."
"He'll need his stiff temper; I couldna thole a man but had a mind of
his own, my dear," ejaculated Lady Carnegie in unexpected, clear, cherry
accents, as if her daughter's extremity was diversion to her.
"Oh, spare me, spare me, mother," Nelly began again.
"Hooly and fairly, Nelly Carnegie," interrupted the mother, still
lightly and mockingly, "who are you that ye should pick and choose? What
better man will speer your price? or think ye that I've groats laid by
to buy a puggy or a puss baudrons for my maiden lady?"
"I'll work my fingers to the bone, mother; my brother Hugh will not see
me want."
"Eat bite or sup of his victuals, or mint a Carnegie's working to me
again, Nelly, and never see my face more."
The lady had lapsed into wrath, that burned a white heat on her wrinkled
brow, and was doubly formidable because expressed by no hasty word or
gesture.
"Leave my presence, and learn your duty, belyve, for before the turn of
the moon Staneholme's wife ye sall be."
Do not think that Nelly Carnegie was beaten, because she uttered no
further remonstrance. She did not sob, and beg and pray beyond a few
minutes, but she opposed to the tyrannical mandate that disposed of her
so summarily the dead weight of passive resistance. She would give no
token of submission; would make no preparation; she would neither stir
hand nor foot in the matter. A hundred years ago, however, the head of a
family was paramount, and household discipline was wielded without
mercy. Lady Carnegie acted like a sovereign: she wasted no time on
arguments, threats or entreaties. She locked her wilful charge into a
dark sleeping-closet, and fed her on bread and water until she should
consent to her fate. Sometimes Nelly shook the door until its hinges
cracked, and sometimes she flung back the prisoner's fare doled out to
her; and then her mother came with a firm, slow, step, and in her hard,
haughty manner commanded her to cease, or she would tie her hand and
foot, and pour meat and drink down her throat in spite of her. Then
Nelly would lie down on the rough boards, and stretch out her hands as
if to push the world from her and die in her despair. But the young life
was fresh and strong within her. She panted for one breath of the breeze
that blew round craggy Arthur's Seat, and one drink of St. Anthony's
Well, and one look, if it were the last, of the golden sunshine, no
beams of which could penetrate her high, little window. She would fain
have gone again up the busy street, and watched the crowds of
passengers, and listened to the bustling traffic, and greeted her
friends and acquaintances. Silence and solitude, and the close air that
oppressed her, were things very foreign to her nature. In the dark
night, when her distempered imagination conjured up horrible dreams,
Nanny Swinton stole to her door, and bemoaned her bird, her lamb,
whispering hoarsely, "Do her biddin', Miss Nelly; she's yer leddy
mother; neither man nor God will acquit you; your burden may be lichter
than ye trow." And Nelly was weary, and had sinful, mad thoughts of
living to punish her enemies more by the fulfilment of their desire than
by the terrors of her early death. So the next time her mother tapped on
the pannel with her undaunted, unwearied "Ay or no, Nelly Carnegie? Gin
the bridal be not this week, I'll bid him tarry another; and gin he
weary and ride awa', I'll keep ye steekit here till I'm carried out a
corp before ye, and I'll leave ye my curse to be coal and candle, and
sops and wine, for the lave o' yer ill days."
Nelly gasped out a husky, wailing "Ay," and her probation was at an end.