The next day, as Adam had prophesied, the weather changed, or rather it
changed during the night, and the morning rose pale and weeping, with a
sky out of which all colour had departed, and an endless blast, almost
white, so close was the shower, of falling rain. Little rivulets ran
away down the pebbly slope of the village street towards the river when
Lewis got up; the trees were all glistening; the birds all silenced; a
perpetual patter of rain filling the air. The country carts that stood
at the door of the 'Murkley Arms' had the air of having been boiled;
the horse glossy yet sodden, with ears and tail in the most lugubrious
droop; the paint of the wheels and shafts glistening, the carter, with
a wet sack over his wet shoulders, looking as if the water could be
wrung out of him. He was being served with a dram by Janet at the door,
who had her shawl over her cap to preserve her.
"Now tak' my advice," she was saying, "and be content with that. It's
good whiskey. If you stop at every door to get something to keep out
the damp, ye'll be in a bonnie condition to go home to your wife at the
hinder end."
"Would ye have me get my death o' cauld?" said the man.
"Eh!" said Janet, "I daurna refuse to serve ye; for ye would just gang
straight to Luckie Todd's, and her whiskey's bad, and siller is a' her
thocht; but weel I wat, if ye were my man, I wad rather ye got your
death of cauld than of whiskey. And that's my principle, though I keep
a public mysel'."
Lewis, standing at his window, with the paths and the roofs all
glistening before him, and the sky so low down that it seemed almost
to touch the high gable of the house opposite, listened to the
dialogue with a smile. It was a new aspect under which he now saw the
village life. Many of the doors were shut which usually stood open;
the children had disappeared from the road; silence took the place of
the small, cheerful noises, the calls of the women, the chatter of
the infants; the cocks and hens, which generally strutted about in
full liberty, had taken refuge beneath a cart, where they huddled
together lugubriously--everything was changed. Lewis could not but
think of young Stormont, with a shrug of malicious pleasure, as he
amused himself with his breakfast: for he supposed erroneously that
this must be one of the days of which Stormont had spoken so sadly,
when there was nothing to do. But by-and-by Lewis also found that there
was nothing to do. He laughed at himself, which was still more comic.
Stormont was at home; he had his library, though he did not make use
of it; and his mother's piano, though he knew nothing about music; and
he had no doubt some sort of business concerning his small estate, and
he had spoken of amusing himself with fly-making and gun-cleaning.
But Lewis soon woke up to the sad conviction that, so far as he was
concerned, there was absolutely nothing to occupy the heavy hours. Of
the two or three books which the 'Murkley Arms' could boast, one was
Robertson's 'History of Scotland' in a small form, with small print,
discouraging to a careless reader, and another the 'Romance of the
Forest.' He was not a great reader under the best of circumstances,
and these did not tempt him. He had few correspondents, none indeed to
whom he could sit down on a dreary day and unbosom himself. The only
thing that offered him any distraction was his drawing. He took out his
sketch-books, and selected one he had made on the water-side, in order
to enlarge and complete it. But he was not enthusiastic enough to work
steadily, and he was unfortunately aware that his slightest sketches
were his best. When Janet came up-stairs "to speak about the denner,"
as she said, her compassion was aroused by his evident weariness.
"Adam's awa' to the watter," she said. "Watter below and watter aboon,
he'll get plenty o't. It's a grand day for the fushin', though it's no
so good for us poor mortals. Would ye no gang doon, and see how he's
getting on?"
"But it pours," said Lewis, "and with water above and water below, as
you say----"
"Hoot ay," said Janet, "but ye're young, and ye're neither sugar nor
salt, you'll no melt. At your age a bit of a shower does little harm;
and ye're just wrang biding in the house all day with nothing to do."
"That is true enough," Lewis said, but as he looked at the pouring rain
and the wet roads he shook his head. "I don't see that one can gain
much by getting wet, Mrs. Janet."
"Dear me! a young gentleman at your age! Weel, it's a grand thing to
take care of yourself. It's just what ye canna get young folk to do.
There's young Mr. Philip out on the water from the skreigh of day; he
just never minds. I'm no saying it's good for him. But they say it's
grand weather for the fushin', and that makes up for everything with
them, the gomerals. If they had your sense, Mr. Murray."
Lewis did not think she had a very high opinion of his sense, and
he was somewhat piqued by her suspicious semi-approval, and by her
description of Stormont, in whom the young man had come to see an
antagonistic type of mankind. The more fool he, if he had been out all
the morning between the water below and the water above, all for the
sake of a few fish. But the description piqued Lewis. He stood at his
window, and looked out for the twentieth time, and it did not look
tempting. Why, indeed, should he go out, and get himself wet and dirty
to please the prejudices of Janet. He had always heard that the English
went out in all weathers; that they had even a preference for mud and
damp, characteristic features of their own climate. But why should
he emulate this strange fancy? He sat down to his drawing again, but
he did not get any satisfaction out of it. Not to be approved of was
terrible to him. He could not bear that even Janet should have a small
opinion of his hardiness and manly bearing. This acted so strongly upon
Lewis that after a while he found himself pulling on his strongest
boots and getting into his thickest great-coat. The boots were not
very strong; he had never had any chance of those exposures to water
and weather in which impervious coverings are necessary; but, having
protected himself as well as he could, he sallied forth at last with
his umbrella, and went down to the river-side. There was little or no
wind, and the rain fell in a perpendicular flood, soaking everything.
Lewis under his umbrella went patiently on, enduring it manfully, but
unable to see any pleasure in his progress through the flood. He met
Katie Seton and her brother near the church. She was covered up in an
ulster, with a hood over her little hat. Her cheeks were like roses
"just washed in a shower."
"Oh, we never stay in for anything," she said. "It is always better out
than in."
Lewis in his courtesy would have made over his umbrella, but the girl
would none of it.
"Oh, I can't bear to carry an umbrella," she said.
He went on to the river-side with a little shrug of his shoulders. And
there was Adam, drenched, but glowing, pulling out trout after trout,
too busy to talk; and lower down the stream, in the middle of it, amid
the rush of broken water, where the river swirled round the rock, young
Stormont, almost up to his middle, in great fishing-boots, with sluices
of water flowing from his glazed sou'-wester.
"Jolly day!" Stormont cried through the rain.
"Grand for the trout," said Adam.
Lewis stood on the bank under the umbrella and shrugged his shoulders.
"I wish you joy of it," he said. His feet were growing wet, the
rain, though there was no wind, came in his face with something
like a special malice. He thought there was something savage in the
gratification of the two fishers. After he had watched them for a time,
he asked Adam for some of the trout in his basket, and went home,
carrying, with no great delight in the office, two noble trout tied
together with a string. These were cold and slimy, but he overcame
his repugnance. Janet saw him return, with his wet feet and the fish
hanging from his hand, with a mixture of amusement and dissatisfaction.
"Will they be for your lunch?" she said, with a contemptuous thought
of the fondness for eating with which Scotland always credits the
Englishman.
"Oh, no," Lewis cried, with horror; "do you think I would carry these
things for myself? Put them in a basket; I will take them to the
Castle, where," he added, with a little innocent pleasure in making the
announcement, "I am going this afternoon."
Janet looked at him with a certain contemptuous disappointment. She
thought he was going to carry the fish as a proof of his own skill and
prowess.
"I'll maybe no find a basket. What ails ye at them as they are?" she
said, with lowering brows: which our young man did not understand at
all, for it is needless to say that such an idea never crossed his
ingenuous mind.
He went up-stairs a little surprised that not even now, when he had
proved his manhood by wetting his boots (which he hastened to change),
did he please Mrs. Janet, as he called her, but without the slightest
clue to her suspicions. And after he had got into dry apparel, and
eaten his luncheon, Lewis sallied forth once more, much pleased to be
able to say that he was going to the Castle, where, indeed, the sound
of the bell at the door stirred and excited the whole household, which
had no hope of anything so refreshing as a visitor.
Miss Margaret was seated above-stairs with Lilias in a room devoted to
what was called her studies, and generally known by the title of the
book-room, though there were but few books in it. Lilias jumped up and
rushed to the window in the very midst of the chapter of constitutional
history which she was reading with her self-denying elder sister.
"There is no carriage," she said; "it will be somebody from the
village."
"Never mind who it is," said Miss Margaret; "we must finish our
chapter."
When the sound of music was diffused through the house some time
after, Miss Margaret had a shrewd guess as to who the visitor was, and
all the objections that existed to his introduction to Lilias came
up before her mind, while the girl pursued, alas! very dully, the
history of parliamentary institutions. "It will be the tuner come to
put the piano in order," she said by-and-by, she too speaking unawares
in the middle of a sentence. She felt that it was a fib, but yet it
was not necessarily a fib, for why should not it be the tuner? It
was about his time, she said to herself. This took from Lilias all
desire to go down-stairs, all expectation of a break in the dulness.
She went on with the drone of the history, which, to tell the truth,
was quite as much a burden to Miss Margaret as to herself. But duty
reigned supreme in the bosom of the elder sister, and Lilias had always
been submissive. She was well aware, too, of the advantage of having
Margaret instead of a governess. Miss Jackson would not have permitted
her to slip to the window with her book in her hand to see who it was.
Miss Jean was alone in the drawing-room, which was a large room, with
a number of small windows, high set in the thick old walls, each with
its own little recess. It was not light generally, but there were a
great many Rembrandtish effects, intense lights and shadows in bright
weather. To-day all was a sort of monotone of greenish dimness: the
wet trees glistening; the expanse of the wet park throwing a vague
reflection into the air. The room occupied a corner of the house, and
the windows on one side looked out upon a lime-tree walk, which lay
under the old enclosing wall, a high, semi-defensible erection, with
a turret at the corner; and on the other looked on the park, which
sloped downward towards the river. To the right hand the red-and-blue
roofs of the village glistened under the rain, the tiles giving a
little gleam of colour which the slates did their best to neutralize.
Nothing could be more complete than the air of mutual protection and
dependence which the village and the Castle bore, though the Castle was
but a small and homely representative of power. Miss Jean sat alone in
the window which commanded this prospect most fully. She had all her
work materials there; a basket of fine silks in every shade, a case of
pretty, shining silver implements, scissors, and thimbles, and bodkins,
and on her lap a wonderful table-cover, upon which, as long as any of
the young people remembered, she had been working a garland of flowers.
It was her own invention, drawn from Nature, and consequently, as
she sometimes explained with a little pride, the winter-time, which
was the best time for working in general, was lost to her, since she
always liked to have her models under her eyes. At the present moment,
a little cluster of pansies was before her in a glass, and the colours
arranged upon the table in which she was to copy them. But she was not
working; her table-cover lay on her lap. She was looking out vaguely
upon the rain, and the wet trees, and the village roofs. It was
supposed that Miss Jean was the one of the family who leant towards
the sentimental, and no doubt there had been incidents in her gentle
life which justified the opinion. She was thinking, as she would have
said--perhaps even so late as this the soft-hearted, middle-aged maiden
was dreaming--but, if so, nobody was the wiser for Miss Jean's dreams.
They never prevented her ready attention to any appeal, and she only
indulged in them when quite alone. They alternated with the flowers
of the table-cover in her mind, and both were emanations of the same
soft and tender spirit. The room was very still around this one quiet
figure; behind her the dim atmosphere was brighter with the glow of a
small, but cheerful fire. It was the opinion of the Miss Murrays, as
of many other comfortable people, that in wet weather an old house was
always the better for a fire. The little _pétillement_ of the fire and
the soft rush of the falling rain outside were all the sounds audible
in the extreme stillness. What wonder that Miss Jean should drop the
embroidered pansies on her lap, and take to thoughts which were a sort
of spiritual prototypes of the pansies--thoughtlets, little musings,
dreamikins, so to speak; they brought now and then from her gentle
bosom the softest little sigh, not a sigh that hurt, but one that
soothed. There was no part of her time that Miss Jean liked better than
these moments which she spent by herself, when Margaret was reading
history with Lilias. She closed up a pretty little note-book, which had
been in her hand, when she heard the sound of the bell. If truth must
be told, she had been writing in it a pretty little verse--a pansy of
still another kind; for Miss Jean belonged to the age when it was a
pretty accomplishment to write charming little "copies of verses," a
thing very sweet and delightful for a young woman to do.
The character of the place seemed to change at once when Lewis came in.
Life, and cheerfulness, and variety came with him. He was very anxious
to please and make himself agreeable. He told her of his walk to the
water-side, of Stormont in the river, and Adam on the bank; water above
and water below.
"You will think me very effeminate," he said. "I much prefer this nice
drawing-room;" and he looked round it with an admiring air that pleased
Miss Jean.
To tell the truth, Lewis was thinking that, though picturesque, it was
probably damp, a suggestion which would not have pleased Miss Jean at
all.
"Gentlemen are very venturesome," said Miss Jean; "indeed, the wonder
is that they are not all laid-up with rheumatism--but they're used to
it, I suppose."
"I am not at all used to it," said Lewis; and then he added, with one
of his confidential impulses: "A great part of my life I have spent in
attendance upon a dear old friend."
"Indeed," said Miss Jean, her eyes lighting up with interest. "That is
out of the way for a young man. You will excuse me, but I take a great
interest--not father or mother, as you say a friend?"
"No: my godfather, who took me up when my father and mother died, and
who was like father and mother in one. He was lonely and old, and I
never left him--for years."
As Lewis spoke there came a gleam of moisture into his eyes, as he
looked smiling into the face of the sympathetic woman, who had she but
known--But no suspicion crossed the mind of Miss Jean.
"Dear me!" she said; "lonely and old are sad words. And you gave up
your young life to him? There are few that would have done that."
"Oh, no, there was no giving-up, it was my happiness," said Lewis; "no
one was ever so kind; he was my dear companion. And then, you know,
abroad"--he smiled as he said this generic word which answered for
everywhere--"abroad boys are not all brought up to be athletic; to defy
the elements, as in England--"
"I do not know very much about England," said Miss Jean, entirely
unconscious that her visitor meant to embrace Tayside in this
geographical term, "but there is too much fishing and shooting here.
That is my opinion. I like a young man to be manly, but there are more
things in the world than the trout and the birds. And no doubt you
would learn your music to please your invalid? That is very touching.
I took an interest from the first, but still more now when I know the
cause."
"That reminds me," cried Lewis, "that my sole excuse for coming was to
play to you."
"Don't say that, Mr. Murray. We are very glad to see you," said Miss
Jean, though not without a quiver, "without any reason at all."
"That is very kind, more kind than I can say. A stranger has double
reason to be grateful."
"The advantage is ours," said Miss Jean, with old-fashioned politeness;
and then there was a momentary pause; for the question would obtrude
itself upon her, in spite of herself, "What will Margaret say?"
And then Lewis went to the piano and began to play. Miss Jean took
up her work and threaded her needle, and prepared for enjoyment, for
to work and be read to, or hear music played to you was one of her
beatitudes; but by-and-by the table-cover fell upon her knees again,
and she turned her face towards the musician in a growing ecstacy of
attention. Music is not like any other of the arts, it does not address
itself to the intellect. Miss Margaret was far more clever than her
sister, but she had no comprehension of Beethoven. Jean had the ear to
hear. At first her mind was somewhat agitated by doubts whether her
sister would approve, and even whether it was altogether prudent to
have thus received a young man whom nobody knew. She thought of the
text, "Lay hands suddenly on no man," and she was a little confused
about the matter altogether. And, had she been like her sister, Miss
Jean would have continued in this mood; she would have recognized that
it was good playing, but her mind would have been able to consider
the original question all through it, and her doubts, it is possible,
might have been increased rather than set at rest by the proficiency of
the young musician, a proficiency to which, so far as her experience
went, very few gentlemen attained. But Miss Jean had a faculty which
Margaret lacked. After a while she forgot everything but the divine
strain that was in her ear. The table-cover slipped over her knees to
the ground, and she was not even aware of it; the silks, so carefully
arranged in their right shades, dropped too, and lay all tangled and
mixed up on the carpet. Miss Jean did not care. She neither saw nor
heard anything but the music; she sat with her hands clasped, her eyes
fixed upon the piano, her mind absorbed. When he stopped, she could not
speak; she waved her hand to him inarticulately, not even knowing what
she wanted to say. And Lewis, after a little pause, resumed. It was
some time since he had touched a piano, and his mind too was agitated
and full of many questions. It was not for nought that he had got
admittance here. Perhaps a little of the elevation of a martyr was in
his thoughts. It had not occurred to him, so long as Sir Patrick lived,
that he was sacrificing his youth to the old man. It had not occurred
to him until he came here: now he seemed to see it more clearly. And he
had come with the intention of sacrificing himself once more, of giving
up natural choice and freedom, and returning his fortune (burdened
indeed with himself) to the family from which it had come. It was only
now with Miss Jean's mild eyes upon him that he fully realized all
this. He kept looking at her, as he played, with close and anxious
observation. Not an idea of the light in which she appeared to him was
in Miss Jean's mind. That any man should be looking at her with the
idea of making her his wife would have startled her beyond expression;
but a young man--a youth whom she regarded as not much more than a boy!
It is to be feared that Miss Jean's sentiments would have been those
of resentment. She would have thought herself insulted. But, happily,
there was not in anything around the smallest suggestion of such a
purpose. If the ladies of Murkley considered an intruder dangerous,
it was entirely on account of Lilias. To think of themselves never
entered their minds; they were beyond all that. They had settled down
upon their own unchangeable fortunes with great peace and tranquillity,
putting themselves, so far as the hopes and happiness of life were
concerned, into Lilias. She was to enjoy for them, to get advancement,
to go to court, to have all the delights and honours which they had
never known. Generally it is in their children that women thus live by
proxy; these maiden sisters felt it a special boon of Providence that,
unmarried and without succession as they were in life, they should have
this special representative in the new generation. But even Lilias went
out of Miss Jean's mind as she listened. She would have liked indeed
that Lilias, that all she loved, should be here to share the benefit;
but then she was aware that the benefit would have been much less to
them. She had, therefore, a reason to herself for enjoying it alone.
And the afternoon stole away while this wonderful delight went on.
Lewis, though he was the performer, did not lose himself in the music
as Miss Jean did. When he stopped at last, she could not speak to him;
her eyes were full of tears. She made him again a little sign with her
hand and was silent, waiting until she could come down from that upper
region, in which she had been soaring, to common earth. Fortunately at
this moment Miss Margaret came in.
"So you have been playing to Jean?" she said; "that is very amiable and
very kind. She is not quite her own woman where music is concerned.
I thought it best to leave the treat to her by herself, for I'm not
a fanatic as she is. But I am very much obliged to you for giving my
sister such a pleasure."
"The pleasure is," said Lewis, "to play to one who feels it so much."
"I can fancy that," said Miss Margaret, "that it is not just all on
one side. You are meaning to settle in this country, Mr. Murray? There
are many of our name hereabout. We may possibly count kin with you
ourselves when we know what family ye are of."
"I fear not," Lewis said, shaking his head. He grew pale, and then he
grew red. Here was a danger he had not thought of, and what was he to
say?
"You must not say that. It is far more likely than not that we'll find
ourselves cousins. All Murrays are sib to Murkley: they say, you know,
that all Stuarts are sib to the king. I am not taking such state upon
us as all that: the duke, he is the head of the clan: but still Murkley
is far ben," said Miss Margaret, satisfied, but calm. "Probably, as
you've been so long abroad, you are a little astray in your genealogy.
I have often remarked that. But tell me your county, and I will tell
you what branch you come from."
Lewis got up from the piano. He was glad to turn his back from the
light, to conceal his embarrassment.
"Indeed," he said, "I can't tell you even that. My god-father had been
long abroad; he spoke little of his people; his money was all in the
funds. I knew only him, not his origin."
"That is very strange," Miss Margaret said. "There are no godfathers in
our Scotch way; but I would have thought your good father and mother
would have been particular about a man's antecedents before they made
him responsible."
"Oh, my father and mother--" said Lewis--he was about to say knew
nothing of him, but stopped himself in time--"they died," he said,
hastily, "when I was very young, and he took me up, when I had nobody
to care for me. It has all been love and kindness on his part, and, I
hope, gratitude on mine."
"Indeed, and I am sure of that," said Miss Jean. "Just imagine,
Margaret, a young man, not much more than a boy, and he has devoted
himself to this old gentleman. It is not many that would do that. He
has given up his youth to please him. He has learned to play like _yon_
for his sake. He has been a son to him, and more. For my part, I never
heard anything like it. He has not a poor mind like yours and mine to
inquire was he Murray of this or that; he just loved him, and served
him for love's sake. And is not that the best of all?" Miss Jean said.
She was still in the rapture of the music she had heard; her heart
touched, her eyes wet, her pulses all throbbing in unison. She rose up
in her enthusiasm, letting the famous table-cloth drop again and walked
on it, unconscious of what she was doing, till she came to the fire,
near which her sister had established herself. Miss Jean leant her hand
upon the high mantel-piece, which was a narrow shelf of marble, and
stood up there, her head relieved against the white and highly-carved
pediment. Her tall, slight figure, in its black gown, had a thrill of
emotion about it. Miss Margaret, seated at a little distance in the
glow of the small, bright fire, looked calm like a judge, listening and
deciding, while the other had all the energy of an advocate.
"I am very glad to hear such a fine account of the young gentleman,"
she said.
"Your sister takes me on my own evidence," said Lewis. "It is only from
me she has heard it, and I did not know I was telling her all that.
What I told her was that my dear god-father was old and lonely, and
that when I was with him I could not learn to wade in the water and
devote myself to fishing like Stormont. It was jealousy made me say
so," cried the young man. "I thought Stormont looked such a fine fellow
risking his life for the trout, and me, I was sorry to get my feet wet.
What a difference! and not to my advantage. So, to account for myself,
and to be an excuse, I told my story. 'Qui s'excuse, s'accuse.' I had
no right to say anything about it. It was my jealousy, nothing more."
"You can ring for the tea, Jean," Miss Margaret said. This was the only
decision she delivered, but it was enough. She turned round afterwards
and made an elaborate apology for her other sister. "You will be
wondering you do not see Lilias," she said, "but she is much occupied;
she has a great many things to do. Another time when you come I hope I
may present you to her. She is so important to us all that perhaps we
are more anxious than we need be. Jean and me, we are two, you see, to
take care of her: and she is the chief object of our thoughts."
"I hope it is not bad health," Lewis said, "that makes you anxious."
His idea was that Lilias must be the eldest sister, and perhaps
beginning to succumb to the burdens of age.
Miss Margaret gave Miss Jean, who was about to speak, a warning look.
"No," she said, "it is not bad health; but there are many things to be
taken into account. And here comes Simon with the tea," she added, in a
tone of relief. If there was a mystery on his part, there was a little
concealment and conscious deception upon theirs too.