At this juncture it struck Bourhope, riding home from the morning
drill, to ask himself what could possibly take Chrissy Hunter out so
early every morning. He had already seen her once or twice, keeping
out of the way of him and his companions, and returning again from
the opposite end of Priorton, which was flanked by the doctor's house.
Corrie, he noticed, was never with her. Indeed, Bourhope had a strong
suspicion that Corrie retreated to her pillow again after showing him
her lovely face--lovely even in the pink curl-papers. But Chrissy
certainly dressed immediately, and took a morning walk, by which her
complexion at least did not profit. Not being a very strong little
woman, her brown face was apt to look jaded and streaky, when
Bourhope, resting from the fatigues of his drill, lounged with the
girls in the early forenoon in Mrs. Spottiswoode's drawing-room. So it
was worth while, he thought, to spur up to Chrissy, and inquire what
took her abroad at such an untimely hour.
When Bourhope caught a nearer glimpse of Chrissy he was rather dismayed
to see that she had been crying. Bourhope hated to see girls crying,
particularly girls like Chrissy, to whom it was not becoming. He had no
particular fancy for Cinderellas or other beggar-maids. He would have
hated to find that his kinsfolk and friendly host and hostess, for whom
he had a considerable regard, were mean enough and base enough to
maltreat a poor little guest of their own invitation. Notwithstanding
these demurs, Tom Spottiswoode of Bourhope rode so fast up to Chrissy as
to cause her to give a violent start when she turned.
"Hallo! Do you go to market, Miss Chrissy? or what on earth takes you
out in the town before the shutters are down?" pointing with his
sheathed sword to a closed shop.
Chrissy was taken aback, and there was something slightly hysterical in
her laugh, but she answered frankly enough, "I go to Dr. Stark's, Mr.
Spottiswoode. Dr. Stark attends my mother, and is at Blackfaulds every
day. I wait in his laboratory till he comes there before setting out; he
goes his rounds early, you know. He lets me know how mother was
yesterday, and as he is a kind man, he carries our letters,--Maggie and
Arabella and I are great writers, and postage comes to be expensive--a
great deal too expensive for us at Blackfaulds; but the doctor is a kind
man, and he 'favours' our letters. And Mr. Spottiswoode," she said,
warming with her subject and impelled to a bit of confidence, "do you
know, Dr. Stark thinks my mother will be about again in a few months.
You are aware her knee-joint has been affected. We were even afraid she
would never put down her foot again. It would have been a dreadful trial
for all of us." Chrissy spoke simply, in a rather moved voice.
Bourhope was slightly moved, too. He had never heard much about Mrs.
Hunter, of Blackfaulds, except that she was a woman who had been long
ailing; and also occasional remarks about the consequences of her being
lost or spared to her family.
Chrissy was grateful for his evident sympathy, and gratified by it; but,
as if half ashamed of having elicited it, she at once began to prattle
to him on other subjects. Bourhope had leapt from his horse, and was
doing Chrissy the honour of walking at her side, his beast's bridle over
his arm, and his spurs ringing on the pavement. A sparkling prattle that
was of Chrissy's about the fine morning, the town, and the
yeomanry--few topics, but well handled and brilliantly illustrated.
Bourhope had dared to confess to himself how sorry he was when he
reached Mr. Spottiswoode's door.
[Illustration]
Next morning Bourhope detached himself from his comrades when he
approached the town, and looked narrowly for Chrissy. It would be but
civil to inquire for poor Mrs. Hunter. So bent was he on being thus
civil, that though Chrissy was far in advance, he knew her by the pink
gingham trimming of her morning bonnet, fluttering like rose-leaves in
the morning sun. He came up to her, and politely asked after her mother.
Chrissy was a little confused, but she answered pleasantly enough. She
was not nearly so talkative, however, as on the preceding morning,
though Bourhope made witty comments on the letter she held in her hand,
and pertinaciously insisted on her telling him whether she mentioned him
in her return letters! He reminded her that they were cousins in a way.
This was the first time Chrissy had known of any one hunting up a
relationship with her; and though pleased in her humility--Chrissy was
no fool in that humility of hers--Bourhope, she knew, was destined for
her cousin Corrie. He was out of Corrie's way just now, and was only
courteous and cordial to her as living for a time under the same roof.
She liked the ruddy, curly, independent, clever fellow of a farmer
laird, who, out of the riches of his kindness, could be courteous and
cordial to a poor plain girl. Bourhope could never overtake Chrissy
coming from Dr. Stark's again. He spied and peeped and threw out hints,
and hurried or loitered on the way to no purpose. Chrissy took care
that people should not notice the fact of her being escorted home in the
early morning by Bourhope.
A chance conversation between Mrs. Spottiswoode and Corrie was
overheard one day by Bourhope, when they imagined him deep in
"Blackwood;" for it was the days of the "Noctes." Mr. Hunter, of
Redcraigs, Corrie's father, had not been well one day, and a message
had been sent to that effect to her. But Corrie was philosophic, and
not unduly alarmed. "Papa makes such a work about himself," she said
candidly to Mrs. Spottiswoode. "Very likely he has only taken lobster
at supper, or his Jamaica rum has not agreed with him, and he is
bilious this morning. I think I will send out a box of colocynth, and
a bit of nice tender veal, to put him in good humour again. You know,
Agnes, if I were to drive out, I would not get back in time for the
evening walk in the meadows. Besides, I was to see Miss Aikin about
the change in the running on of my frills. It would overturn all my
plans to go, and my head gets so hot, and I look so blowsy, when my
plans are disarranged," Corrie concluded, almost piteously.
"Yes, but Corrie," hesitated Mrs. Spottiswoode, "you know Dr. Stark is
not easy about papa just now. I think I had better go out myself. It is
unlucky that Spottiswoode is to have several other yeomen who do
business at the Bank, at dinner to-day with Bourhope; but I dare say
Mary will manage that, as Chrissy will mix the pudding for her. So I
will go myself to Redcraigs; all things considered, it would be a pity
for you not to be in your best looks----"
Bourhope at this point fell into a fit of coughing, and lost the rest of
the dialogue; but perhaps his occasional snort of disapprobation was
called forth as much by this interlude as by the audacious judgments of
the Shepherd and Tickler.
The day unluckily turned out very rainy, and the drill was gone through
in a dense white mist, which caused every horse to loom large as an
elephant, and every rider to look a Gog or Magog. The young ladies, so
fond of a change of costume at this time in Priorton, could do no
shopping; the walk in the meadows at sunset with the lounging yeomen had
to be given up. The green meadows were not inviting, the grass was
dripping, the flowers closed and heavy, the river red and drumly. All
was disappointing; for the meadows were beautiful at this season with
their summer snow of daisies--not dead-white snow either, for it was
broken by patches of yellow buttercups, crow's-foot, lady's-finger, and
vetch, and by the crimson clover flowers and the rusty red of sorrel,
and the black pert heads of the nib-wort plaintain, whose black upon the
white of ox-eye daisies has the rich tone of ermine.
Instead of walks, there were gatherings round shining tables; and
bottles and glasses clinked cheerily in many a parlour. But Mr.
Spottiswoode was sober by inclination. The impressiveness of office,
which had quite the contrary effect on many provosts of his era, only
added to his characteristic caution. The yeomen, too, knew well where
hilarity ended and excess began. So there was little fear of excess in
Mr. Spottiswoode's house. Mrs. Spottiswoode, a genius in her own line,
had a cheerful fire in her drawing-room, and sat by the hearth with her
children tumbling round her, while Corrie, fairer than ever in the
blinking fire-light, and Chrissy, brown and merry, sat on either side of
her. She invited the farmer laird to enter that charmed ring, which, of
course, he could not help contrasting with the loneliness and
comfortlessness of Bourhope. But though Bourhope sat next Corrie, a
certain coldness crept over the well-arranged party. He caught himself
glancing curiously at the book Chrissy Hunter had been almost burning
her face in reading by the fire-light before he came in. Mrs.
Spottiswoode did not much care for reading aloud, but she took the hint
in good part, and called on Chrissy to tell what her book was about, and
so divert Bourhope without wholly monopolizing his attention.
Chrissy was rather shy at first. She never told stories freely away
from home; but she was now pressed to do it. After a little, however,
she put her own sympathetic humour and pathos into the wondrous
narrative, till she literally held her listeners spell-bound. And no
wonder. Those were the days of Scott's early novels, when they were
greatly run after, and the price of a night's reading was high.
Chrissy's cousin "Rob" was a bookseller's apprentice, and his master,
for the purpose of enabling Robbie to share his enthusiasm, would lend
the apprentice an uncut copy. Robbie brought it out to Blackfaulds,
and then all would sit up, sick mother among the rest, to hear them
read aloud, till far into the small hours.
Who can tell what that cordial of pure, healthful intellectual diversion
may have been, even to the burdened father and sick mother at
Blackfaulds! To Chrissy--the very speaking of it made her clasp her
hands over her knee, and her grey eyes to shine out like stars--as
Bourhope thought to himself.
How suggestively Chrissy discoursed of Glendearg, and the widow Elspeth
Glendinning, her two lads, and Martin and Tib Tacket, and the gentle
lady and Mary Avenel. With what breadth, yet precision, she reproduced
pursy Abbot Boniface, devoted Prior Eustace, wild Christie of the
Clinthill, buxom Mysie Hopper, exquisite Sir Percy Shafton, and even
tried her hand to some purpose on the ethereal White Lady. Perhaps
Chrissy enjoyed the reading as much as the great enchanter did the
writing. Like great actors, she had an instinctive consciousness of the
effect she produced. Bourhope shouted with laughter when the
incorrigible Sir Percy, in the disguise of the dairywoman, described his
routing charge as "the milky mothers of the herd." Corrie actually
glanced in affright at the steaming windows and the door ajar, and
pinched Chrissy's arm when she repeated for the last time the words of
the spell:--
"Thrice to the holly brake--
Thrice to the well;--
Wake thee, O wake,
White Maid of Avenel."
The assembly paid Chrissy the highest compliment an assembly can pay a
speaker. They forgot their schemes, their anxieties, themselves even, to
fasten their eyes and hearts on the brown girl--the book dropping from
her hand, but the story written so graphically on her memory. Corrie
was the first to recover herself. "Oh dear!" she cried, "I have forgot I
was to take down my hair for Miss Lothian to point it at eight o'clock,"
and hurried out of the room.
Mrs. Spottiswoode roused herself next, and spoke a few words of
acknowledgment to Chrissy. "Upon my word, Chrissy, your recital has been
quite as good as the play. We are much obliged to you. I am afraid your
throat must be sore; but stay, I have some of the theatre oranges here.
No, bairns, you are not to have any; it is far too late for you to be
up. Dear me; I believe you have been listening to Chrissy's story like
the rest of us!" But Mrs. Spottiswoode was not under any apprehension
about the success of Chrissy's reading. Mrs. Spottiswoode proved this by
immediately leaving Chrissy _tête-à-tête_ with Bourhope while she went
to put the children to bed, and see if Mr. Spottiswoode, who was doing a
quiet turn of business in his office, would have a game of cards before
supper. She had really never heard of a girl being married simply for
her tongue's sake! She perhaps knew the line in the song too--
"Very few marry for talking,"
and had found its truth in her own experience, for she was a shrewd,
observant woman.
Bourhope, it should be understood, was longest subjected to the
influence of Chrissy's story-telling power. Indeed, when he did somewhat
recover from it, his fancy created fine visions of what it would be to
have such a storyteller at Bourhope during the long, dark nights of
winter and the endless days of summer. Bourhope was no ignoramus. He had
some acquaintance with "Winter's Tales" and summer pastorals, but his
reading was bald and tame to this inspiration. He thought to himself it
would really be as good as a company of players purely for his own
behoof, without any of the disadvantages. He stammered a little in
expressing the debt he owed to Chrissy, and she could only eagerly reply
by saying, "Not to me, not to me the praise, Mr. Spottiswoode, but to
the great unknown. Oh! I would like to know him."
Bourhope was stimulated to do at once what he was sure to do ultimately:
he presented his hospitable entertainers with a box at the play. No
doubt it was a great delight to Chrissy; for it was in the days when
actors were respectable artists and play-going was still universal.
Chrissy in her freshness enjoyed the provincials as well as if they had
been first-rate--took the good and left the bad, and sat quite
entranced.
Bourhope, although he was decidedly intellectual for his calling,
watched Chrissy rather than the stage. He read the feeling of the moment
reflected in her sagacious yet sensitive face. Once he turned round and
tried the same experiment with Corrie. He might as well have expected to
borrow a living soul from well-moulded stucco or marble. He now realized
in a more lively manner than ever, that geese may look fair and white
and soft and shapely as swans till they expose their waddling. He tried
in church the process he had learned at the play, and, it must be
confessed, not without effect--Chrissy's expression giving a fair
notion of the good Priorton minister's earnestness and eloquence.
But at length Chrissy, aware of the liberty Bourhope took in thus
making her his study, got restless and troubled in her sound head and
warm heart. She was no fool in her simplicity. She knew that Bourhope
did not in any sense belong to Mrs. Spottiswoode and Corrie, and she
had shrewdly suspected of late that their anticipated arrangements
would not be carried out. She could not help occasionally turning over
in her mind the circumstance that Cecilia was very plain, but that
depressed Mortimer Delville nevertheless bestowed his heart on her,
though the gift, like her fortune, was disastrous to Cecilia for many
a long day. Chrissy thought that if Bourhope were independent and
original enough to like her--to love her--he was his own master; there
was nothing between him and his inclination save her inclination and
her father and mother's will. And there was little doubt about father
and mother's will with respect to a man so worthy, so unexceptionable,
and so well endowed as Bourhope.
Nor was there anything like duty to the Spottiswoodes to stand between
Bourhope and Chrissy. But still Chrissy's nice sense of honour was
disturbed, for had she not a guess that a very different result had been
expected? Nay, she had even a half-comical notion that she herself had
been expressly selected as a companion to Corrie Hunter during the
gaieties of the yeomanry weeks, because she would also prove a sort of
harmless foil.
A dream of love was a grand shock to Chrissy's quiet life, making wild
yet plaintive music, like all nature's true harmonies, within her, and
filling her mind with tremulous light which glorified every object, and
was fain even to dazzle herself. It was not unnatural that Bourhope
should excite such a dream. But Chrissy was not completely dazzled. It
was only a dream as yet, and she would be the mistress of her dream; it
should not be the mistress of her. So she resolved, showing herself a
reasonable, thoughtful, conscientious woman, as well as a loving, fairly
proportioned, and lovely human spirit.
Chrissy retained all her sober senses. She recollected what was due both
to the hero and to the others concerned. She was neither a weak victim,
nor a headstrong, arrogant, malicious conqueror. Like all genuine women,
she struggled against yielding herself without her due--without a
certainty that there was no irreversible mistake in the matter. She was
not a girl to get love-sick at the first bout, nor one to run even at a
worthy lover's beckoning, though she would sacrifice much, and do it
proudly, joyously, for true affection, when once it had confessed
itself. So she shrank from Bourhope, slipped away from, and managed to
avoid him. He was puzzled and vexed, and almost exasperated by doubts as
to whether she cared for or wished to accept his notice and regards.
Little brown Chrissy taught the bold Yeoman a lesson in her own quiet
way. She slowly forced upon him the conviction that any gifts or
attainments of his--the prosperous, cultivated farmer laird--were as
dross compared with the genius and acquirements of Chrissy Hunter, whom
many short-sighted men called insignificant and plain amid the poverty
and cares of Blackfaulds. Bourhope was not radically mercenary: he had
no certainty that his superiority in worldly estate would secure the
strange good upon which he set his heart, and he was at once stimulated
and incensed by her indifference to his advances. So he had no
communication with Chrissy, apart from a demure interchange of words in
general conversation, for three days before the grand review and the
ball, except in a single incident of the pipe-claying of his belts.
The gentlemen of the old yeomanry who had not servants to do it for
them, did their own pipe-claying, and might generally be seen doing it
very indifferently to the accompaniment of private whistling or social
bawling to each other over adjacent walls in the back courts and greens
of Priorton. Bourhope was one day doing his rather gloomily in the back
court, and succeeding very ill, when Chrissy, who saw him from a window,
could endure it no longer. Chrissy was not what most intellectual women
are described as being--an abstracted, scared being, with two left
hands. The exigency of her situation as eldest daughter at Blackfaulds
had rendered her as handy as other girls, and only unlike them in being
a great deal more fertile in resource. How could such a woman stand and
see Bourhope destroying his accoutrements, and in danger of smearing
himself from head to foot with pipe-clay? Chrissy came tripping out, and
addressed him with some sharpness--"That is not right, Mr. Spottiswoode;
you will never whiten your belt in that way, you will only soil the rest
of your clothes. I watched the old sergeant doing it next-door for Major
Christison. Look here:" and she took the article out of his hands, and
proceeded smartly to clean it. Poor Bourhope bowed to her empire,
though he would much rather their positions had been reversed: he would
rather a thousand times have brushed Chrissy's shoes than that she
should clean his belt. She was gone again the moment she had directed
him. A portion of his belt was now as white as snow; but nothing would
have induced her to stay.
Bourhope was new to the humiliations as well as the triumphs of
love--that extreme ordeal through which even tolerably wise and sincere
spirits must pass before they can unite in a strictness of union
deserving the name. He was not exactly grateful for the good suggestion;
indeed, he had a little fight against Chrissy in his own breast just
then. He told himself it was all a whim, he did not really care for the
girl--one of a large family in embarrassed circumstances. No, it would
be absurd to fall in love with a little coffee-coloured girl whose one
shoulder was a fraction of an inch further out than the other. He was
not compelled to marry either Corrie or Chrissy--not he! Poeh! he was
not yet half through with his bachelor days. He would look about a
little longer, enjoy himself a little more. At the word enjoyment
Bourhope stopped short, as if he had caught himself tripping. If Chrissy
Hunter was ugly, she was an ugly fairy. She was his fate, indeed; he
would never see her like again, and he would be a lost and wrecked man
without her.