Scotland was a strange and uncomfortable country to live in a hundred
years ago. Strange beyond measure its state of society appears to us
when we consider, not only that it was called a Christian country, but
that the people had shown that they really did care very much for their
religion, and were bent upon worshipping God according to their
conscience and true belief. Whilst earnest in their religion, their
state of society was yet very wicked: a thing which usually happens when
a whole people are passing from one way of living and being governed to
another. Scotland had not long been united with England. While the
wisest of the nation saw that the only hope for the country was in being
governed by the same king and parliament as the English, many of the
most powerful men wished not to be governed at all, but to be altogether
despotic over their dependents and neighbours, and to have their _own_
way in everything. These lords and gentlemen did such violent things as
are never heard of now in civilised countries; and when their inferiors
had any strong desire or passion, they followed the example of the great
men, so that travelling was dangerous; citizens did not feel themselves
safe in their own houses if they had reason to believe they had enemies;
few had any trust in the protection of the law; and stories of fighting
and murder were familiar to children living in the heart of cities.
Children, however, had less liberty then than in our time. The more
self-will there was in grown people, the more strictly were the children
kept in order, not only because the uppermost idea of everyone in
authority was that he would be obeyed, but because it would not do to
let little people see the mischief that was going on abroad. So, while
boys had their hair powdered, and wore long coats and waistcoats, and
little knee-breeches, and girls were laced tight in stays all stiff with
whalebone, they were trained to manners more formal than are ever seen
now.
One autumn afternoon a party was expected at the house of Lord Carse, in
Edinburgh; a handsome house in a very odd situation, according to our
modern notions. It was at the bottom of a narrow lane of houses--that
sort of lane called a Wynd in Scotch cities. It had a court-yard in
front. It was necessary to have a court-yard to a good house in a
street too narrow for carriages. Visitors must come in sedan chairs and
there must be some place, aside from the street, where the chairs and
chairmen could wait for the guests. This old fashioned house had
sitting-rooms on the ground floor, and on the sills of the windows were
flower-pots, in which, on this occasion, some asters and other autumn
flowers were growing.
Within the largest sitting-room was collected a formal group, awaiting
the arrival of visitors. Lord Carse's sister, Lady Rachel Ballino, was
there, surrounded by her nephews and nieces. As they came in, one after
another, dressed for company, and made their bow or curtsey at the door,
their aunt gave them permission to sit down till the arrival of the
first guest, after which time it would be a matter of course that they
should stand. Miss Janet and her brothers sat down on their low stools,
at some distance from each other; but little Miss Flora had no notion of
submitting to their restraints at her early age, and she scrambled up
the window-seat to look abroad as far as she could, which was through
the high iron gates to the tall houses on the other side the Wynd.
Lady Rachel saw the boys and Janet looking at each other with smiles,
and this turned her attention to the child in the window, who was
nodding her little curly head very energetically to somebody outside.
"Come down, Flora," said her aunt.
But Flora was too busy, nodding, to hear that she was spoken to.
"Flora, come down. Why are you nodding in that way?"
"Lady nods," said Flora.
Lady Rachel rose deliberately from her seat, and approached the window,
turning pale as she went. After a single glance in the court-yard, she
sank on a chair, and desired her nephew Orme to ring the bell twice.
Orme who saw that something was the matter, rang so vigorously as to
bring the butler in immediately.
"John, you see?" said the pale lips of Lady Rachel, while she pointed,
with a trembling finger, to the court-yard.
"Yes, my lady; the doors are fastened."
"And Lord Carse not home yet?"
"No, my lady. I think perhaps he is somewhere near, and cannot get
home."
John looked irresolutely towards the child in the window. Once more
Flora was desired to come down, and once more she only replied, "Lady
nods at me."
Janet was going towards the window to enforce her aunt's orders, but she
was desired to keep her seat, and John quickly took up Miss Flora in his
arms and set her down at her aunt's knee. The child cried and
struggled, said she would see the lady, and must infallibly have been
dismissed to the nursery, but her eye was caught, and her mind presently
engaged by Lady Rachel's painted fan, on which there was a burning
mountain, and a blue sea, and a shepherdess and her lamb--all very gay.
Flora was allowed to have the fan in her own hands--a very rare favour.
But presently she left off telling her aunt what she saw upon it,
dropped it, and clapped her hands, saying, as she looked at the window,
"Lady nods at me."
"It is mamma!" cried the elder ones, starting to their feet, as the lady
thrust her face through the flowers, and close to the window-pane.
"Go to the nursery, children," said Lady Rachel, making an effort to
rise. "I will send for you presently." The elder ones appeared glad to
escape, and they carried with them the struggling Flora.
Lady Rachel threw up the sash, crossed her arms, and said, in the most
formal manner, "What do you want, Lady Carse?"
"I want my children."
"You cannot have them, as you well know. It is too late. I pity you;
but it is too late."
"I will see my children. I will come home and live. I will make that
tyrant repent setting up anyone in my place at home. I have it in my
power to ruin him. I--"
"Abstain from threats," said Lady Rachel, shutting the window, and
fastening the sash.
Lady Carse doubled her fist, as if about to dash in a pane; but the iron
gates behind her creaked on their hinges, and she turned her head. A
chair was entering, on each side of which walked a footman, whose livery
Lady Carse well knew. Her handsome face, red before, was now more
flushed. She put her mouth close to the window, and said, "If it had
been anybody but Lovat you would not have been rid of me this evening.
I would have stood among the chairmen till midnight for the chance of
getting in. Be sure I shall to-morrow, or some day. But now I am off."
She darted past the chair, her face turned away, just as Lord Lovat was
issuing from it.
"Ho! ho!" cried he, in a loud and mocking tone. "Ho, there! my Lady
Carse! A word with you!" But she ran up the Wynd as fast as she could
go.
"You should not look so white upon it," Lord Lovat observed to Lady
Rachel, as soon as the door was shut. "Why do you let her see her power
over you?"
"God knows!" replied Lady Rachel. "But it is not her threats alone that
make us nervous. It is the being incessantly subject--"
She cleared her throat; but she could not go on.
Lord Lovat swore that he would not submit to be tormented by a virago in
this way. If Lady Carse were his wife--
"Well! what would you do?" asked Lady Rachel.
"I would get rid of her. I tell your brother so. I would get rid of
her in one way, if she threatened to get rid of me in another. She may
have learned from her father how to put her enemies out of the way."
Lady Rachel grew paler than ever. Lord Lovat went on.
"Her father carried pistols in the streets of Edinburgh and so may she.
Her father was hanged for it; and it is my belief that she would have no
objection to that end if she could have her revenge first. Ay! you
wonder why I say such things to you, frightened as you are already. I
do it that you may not infuse any weakness into your brother's purposes,
if he should think fit to rid the town of her one of these days. Come,
come! I did not say rid the world of her."
"Merciful Heaven! no!"
"There are places, you know, where troublesome people have no means of
doing mischief. I could point out such a place presently, if I were
asked--a place where she might be as safe as under lock and key, without
the trouble and risk of confining her, and having to consider the law."
"You do not mean a prison, then?"
"No. She has not yet done anything to make it easy to put her in prison
for life; and anything short of that would be more risk than comfort.
If Carse gives me authority, I will dispose of her where she can be free
to rove like the wild goats. If she should take a fancy to jump down a
precipice, or drown herself, that is her own affair, you know."
The door opened for the entrance of company. Lord Lovat whispered once
more, "Only this. If Carse thinks of giving the case into my hands,
don't you oppose it. I will not touch her life, I swear to you."
Lady Rachel knew, like the rest of the world, that Lord Lovat's swearing
went for no more than any of his other engagements. Though she would
have given all she had in the world to be freed from the terror of Lady
Carse, and to hope that the children might forget their unhappy mother,
she shrank from the idea of putting any person into the hands of the
hard, and mocking, and plotting Lord Lovat. As for the legality of
doing anything at all to Lady Carse while she did not herself break the
law, that was a consideration which no more occurred to Lady Rachel than
to the violent Lord Lovat himself.
Lady Rachel was exerting herself to entertain her guests, and had sent
for the children, when, to her inexplicable relief, the butler brought
her the news that Lord Carse and his son Willie were home, and would
appear with all speed. They had been detained two hours in a tavern,
John said.
"In a tavern?"
"Yes, my lady. Could not get out. Did not wish to collect more people,
to cause a mob. It is all right now, my lady."
When Lord Carse entered, he made formal apologies to his guests first,
and his sister afterwards, for his late appearance. He had been delayed
by an affair of importance on his way home. His rigid countenance was
somewhat paler than usual, and his manner more dictatorial. His hard
and unwavering voice was heard all the evening, prosing and explaining.
The only tokens of feeling were when he spoke to his eldest son Willie,
who was spiritless, and, as the close observer saw, tearful; and when he
took little Flora in his arms, and stroked her shining hair, and asked
her if she had been walking with the nurse.
Flora did not answer. She was anxiously watching Lady Rachel's
countenance. Her papa bade her look at him and answer his question.
She did so, after glancing at her aunt, and saying eagerly, in a loud
whisper, "I am not going to say anything about the lady that came to the
window, and nodded at me."
It did not mend the matter that her sister and brothers all said at
once, in a loud whisper, "Hush! Flora."
Her father sat her down hastily. Lord Carse's domestic troubles were
pretty well-known throughout Edinburgh; and the company settled it in
their own minds that there had been a scene this afternoon.
When they were gone, Lord Carse gave his sister his advice not to
instruct any very young child in any part to be acted. He assured her
that very young children have not the discretion of grown people, and
gave it as his opinion that when the simplicity, which is extremely
agreeable by the domestic fireside, becomes troublesome or dangerous in
society, the child is better disposed of in the nursery.
Lady Rachel meekly submitted; only observing what a singular and painful
case was that of these children, who had to be so early trained to avoid
the very mention of their mother. She believed her brother to be the
most religious man she had ever known; yet she now heard him mutter
oaths so terrible that they made her blood run cold.
"Brother! my dear brother," she expostulated.
"I'll tell you what she has done," he said, from behind his set teeth.
"She has taken a lodging in this very Wynd, directly opposite my gates.
Not a child, not a servant, not a dog or cat can leave my house without
coming under her eye. She will be speaking to the children out of her
window."
"She will be nodding at Flora from the court-yard as often as you are
out," cried Lady Rachel. "And if she should shoot you from her window,
brother."
"She hints that she will; and there are many things more unlikely,
considering (as she herself says) whose daughter she is.--But, no," he
continued, seeing the dreadful alarm into which his sister was thrown.
"This will not be her method of revenge. There is another that pleases
her better, because she suspects that I dread it more.--You know what I
mean?"
"Political secrets?" Lady Rachel whispered--not in Flora's kind of
whisper, but quite into her brother's ear.
He nodded assent, and then he gravely informed her that his
acquaintance, Duncan Forbes, had sent a particular request to see him in
the morning. He should go, he said. It would not do to refuse waiting
on the President of the Court of Session, as he was known to be in
Edinburgh. But he wished he was a hundred miles off, if he was to hear
a Hanoverian lecture from a man so good natured, and so dignified by his
office, that he must always have his own way.
Lady Rachel went to bed very miserable this night. She wished that Lady
Carse and King George, and all the House of Brunswick had never existed;
or that Prince Charlie, or some of the exiled royal family, would come
over at once and take possession of the kingdom, that her brother and
his friends might no longer be compelled to live in a state of suspicion
and dread--every day planning to bring in a new king, and every day
obliged to appear satisfied with the one they had; their secret, or some
part of it, being all the while at the mercy of a violent woman who
hated them all.