"Weel! weel! If the marriage is wi' auld Mr Dawson's free consent,
then the Ethiopian can change his skin, and that would be makin' the
Bible out nae true. It's little ye ken! He's nae a man to change like
that."
It was Mrs Cairnie who spoke, sitting at her daughter's door, with her
crutch at her side. Young Mrs Saugster was sitting inside with her
baby on her lap, and her mother-in-law and Maggie, busy with her seam,
were with her.
"But Mr Dawson went to the marriage himself, and he wouldna ha'e gone
but o' his ain free will," said Maggie as no one else answered.
"There's nae sayin'. Young George has the tow in his ain hand. It's as
he says now, I doubt, about maist things."
"But he could hardly have wished the auld man to go against his will.
And indeed Mr Dawson gets the credit o' makin' the marriage himsel',
though that's likely going beyond the truth," said old Mrs Saugster.
"But what I wonder at is Mrs Calderwood. She is a quait woman, but she
is as stiff in her way, and as proud as ever Mr Dawson was; and though
she said little at the time, she carried a sair heart and angry, for
many a day after she lost her Elsie."
"Folk change," said her daughter-in-law. "Ay. And it's wonderfu' what
folk can outlive."
"Mrs Calderwood!" repeated Mrs Cairnie. "What about her! It's a
grand marriage for the like o' her dochter, no' to say that she has
gotten her triumph ower auld George at last. It's weel to be her."
"It is all like a tale in a book. Somebody should make a ballad about
it," said Maggie. "It's no' often that we see a thing comin' to the
right end, as this ha'e done."
"The end hasna come yet," said Mrs Cairnie. "And it's no' that richt
for some folk. Look at young Miss Jean. She has her ain thoughts, and
they are no' o' the pleasantest, or her lace doesna tell the truth. And
why didna she go to the marriage wi' the lave?"
"Oh! it wasna as if it had been a fine wedding. It was to be very
quiet. And Miss Dawson has Mrs Manners' boys at Saughleas. She
couldna weel leave them, nor her aunt."
"Weel, maybe no'. But it canna please her to think o' leaving
Saughleas, and letting Marion Calderwood reign in her stead. It'll come
to that, though it seems the young folk are goin' to the High-street in
the mean time."
"Weel, Miss Dawson may be in a home o' her ain by that time," said old
Mrs Saugster. "And whether or no', she's no' the first sister in the
countryside who has had to give way before a brother's wife."
"Mother! Mrs Cairnie! to say such like things about Miss Dawson! Ye
ken little about her, if ye think she would grudge to do what is right."
Maggie, red and angry, looked from one to the other as if she would have
liked to say more. Her mother laughed. She knew Maggie's admiration
for young Miss Jean of old, but Mrs Cairnie said sourly,--
"It's weel seen that ye belong to the rising generation. In my day
lassies werena in the way o' takin' the words out o' their mother's
mouth, to say naething o' folk four times their age. As for young Miss
Jean, she's liker ither folk than ye think."
"Whisht, mother. See yonder is Miss Dawson coming down the street."
"Ay, she'll be on her way to the house in the High-street, though why I
should be bidden whisht at the sight o' her, I dinna ken. And there's
one thing sure. Naebody has seen auld George on his way to the house
yet. That doesna look as gin he were weel pleased."
"Eh, woman! Ha'e ye forgotten? It was there he took Mary Keith a
bride. Let him be ever so weel pleased, it will give him a sair heart
to go there again."
There was a slight pause in preparation for Miss Dawson's greeting, but
before she came near them, she was joined by her father and both passed
on with only a word.
"He's hame again. And I canna say I think he looks ower weel pleased,"
said Mrs Cairnie.
"It is of Mary Keith he is thinking," said her friend. "He has a
feelin' heart for a' sae down as he looks. I doubt he has an ill half
hour before him."
In the mean time Jean and her father had reached the gate which opened
into the garden of the High-street house. It was a large and well-built
house, higher and with wider windows than most of the houses in Portie,
and on the whole it was a suitable place of abode for a young man of
George's means and station. There was only a strip of green between it
and the street, but behind it was a large walled garden into which Mr
Dawson had never been since he left it for Saughleas long ago. Indeed
he had hardly seen the house since the death of his wife. He never came
to the town over the fields as the young people were in the way of
doing, and he always turned into the High-street from the turnpike road
at a lower point than this.
"Papa," said Jean, arresting her hand which held the old-fashioned
knocker of the door, "well go home to-night and come over in the
morning. You are tired."
"No, no. We'll get it ower to-night," said her father in a voice which
he made gruff in trying to make it steady.
Jean followed the servant into the kitchen and lingered there a while,
and Mr Dawson went alone into the once familiar rooms, and not a word
of sorrow or sympathy was spoken between them, though the daughter's
heart ached for the pain which she knew was throbbing at the heart of
her father. He was looking from the window over the garden to the sea,
and he did not turn as Jean came in, so she did not speak, but went here
and there giving a touch to the things over the arrangement of which she
had spent time and taken pleasure during the last few weeks.
"You must have made yourself busy this while, Jean," said her father
coming forward at last. "And I must say you have done well. It is all
that can be desired, I would think. There are some things coming from
London, however."
"Does it not look nice? George had his say about it all. I only
helped. I think Marion will be pleased."
"But they should have been guided by me, and come straight to Saughleas.
That would have been the best way."
"I'm no' so sure. I think it was natural and right that George should
wish to be the head of his own house. No, papa. You are master at
Saughleas and ought to be, and I am mistress. Oh! yes, we would both
have given up willingly enough, but then neither George nor Marion would
have willingly taken our places. But never mind, papa. It will all
come in time, and sooner than you think. And I like to think of George
bringing his bride to the very house where you brought mamma."
It was a rare thing for Jean to speak her mother's name to her father.
It came now with a smile, but with a rush of tears also, which surprised
herself quite as much as they surprised her father, and she turned away
to hide them. It was her father's loss she was thinking of rather than
her own.
"Ay, my lassie! May they be as blessed here as we were," said her
father.
And so the first look of his once happy home was gotten over with no
more tender words between them, and they went slowly home together,
through the fields this time.
Many things had wrought toward the change which Mrs Cairnie and other
folk as well saw in Mr Dawson about this time. The new life which
George was making honourable among his fellow townsmen, the firm stand
he took on the side of right in all matters where his influence could be
brought to bear, the light hold that wealth, or the winning of it for
its own sake, had ever had upon him, had all by slow degrees told on the
old man's opinions and feelings. But as to his wish for his son's
marriage with Marion Calderwood, it was Marion herself who had brought
that about.
He had noticed her, and had liked her frank, fearless ways before she
left Portie, and the sight-seeing together in London, and more still,
the few quiet days which she had spent with Miss Jean at Saughleas, won
him quite. It was going beyond the truth, as Mrs Saugster had said, to
declare that the old man had made the marriage, though it is doubtful
whether it would have come about so soon, or whether it would have come
about at all, if it had not been for a question or two that he had put
to his sister as he sat once in the gloaming in her house.
Then there was a softly spoken word or two between Miss Jean and her
nephew, and then George went straight to his father.
"Father, I am going to ask Marion Calderwood to be my wife, if you will
give your consent."
It would not have been like Mr Dawson if he had shown at the first word
the pleasure with which he heard it.
"You are of age now, George, and your ain man. I have no right to
hinder you."
"Father," said George, after a moment's silence, "I shall think you have
not forgiven the past, if you say the like of that."
The old man's hand was raised to shade his eyes; he could not quite
trust his face to hide his feelings now, but he said in a voice which he
tried to make indifferent,--
"I suppose it is to be her or nobody. Is that what you would say to
me?"
George made no answer to this.
"I shall never ask her without your full and free consent."
Mr Dawson's hand fell and he turned sharply upon him. "And what about
her feelings, if that is to be the way?"
"I have never given her a word or a look that a brother might not give
to a sister. But I cannot but hope--" added George with a sudden light
in his eye, and a rush of boyish colour to his face. "And I thought you
liked Marion, father?"
"Like her?" said his father rising. "George, man, go in God's name and
bring her home. She shall be to me like my own daughter. And the
sooner the better."
So George went to London and won his bride--"too easily," her mother
said. Indeed George had more trouble to win the mother than the
daughter. It was to the mother he went first.
As for her, unless she could blot out altogether the remembrance of the
sorrow and the hard thoughts of all the past, how could she consent to
give her child to him?
"And would it not be well to blot them out?" said George.
"Ay, if it could be done. But as for me--I canna forget my Elsie--"
"And do I forget Elsie? when Marion looks at me with Elsie's eyes and
speaks to me with her voice, and--"
"And will that content my Marion, think ye? George, Marion is not just
what her sister was. She is of a deeper nature, and is a stronger woman
in every way. She is worthy of being loved for her own sake, and
nothing less would content her, though she might think it for a while.
And oh! George, I cannot bear the thought of having her free heart and
her happy life disturbed. To think that she must go through all that!"
said the widow with a sigh.
"Dear mother," said George--it was not the first time he had called her
so--and he took her unwilling hand between his own as he spoke, "she
shall not be disturbed, unless you give me leave to speak; I will go
away again without a word. I will not even see her for a while. I
cannot promise to give up the thought of her altogether, but I will go
away now."