Bell had left Earl’s-hall when the house was dismantled, a melancholy
operation, which was proceeded with soon after the departure of the
ladies. Old Sir Ludovic’s library was sent over to Edinburgh, where
the greater part had been sold and dispersed. It was, in its way, a
valuable library, containing many rare editions and old works of price,
a costly taste, which the present Sir Ludovic did not share. Whatever
was done with the old house, his wife and he agreed that to get rid of
the books would be always an advantage. If they kept it, the long room
must be either divided into two, or at least arranged, for the comfort
of the family, in a manner impossible at present while it was blocked
up with shelves in every corner, and a succession of heavy bookcases.
In these innocent regions it was not necessary to keep servants in
charge of an empty house out of alarm for the safety of its contents.
Is it not the simple custom, even of householders in Edinburgh, secure
in the honesty of their population, to lock their doors for all
precaution, and leave emptiness to take care of itself? There was not
much fear for Earl’s-hall. If Aubrey Bellingham had known, indeed, that
the various “bits” of china that he admired, and the old dresses in the
“aumie” in the high room, and the bits of forlorn old tapestry that
wantoned in the wind, were thus left without any protection, it is very
possible that he might have organized a gang of æsthetic cracksmen to
seize upon those treasures; but they were not in danger from any one in
Fife.
Bell and John, or rather, to speak correctly, John and Bell, taking
with them their brown cow and all the chickens, removed into a cottage
which they had acquired some years before, on the road to the Kirkton,
with one or two fields attached to it, and a neat little barn, byre,
and poultry-yard. This had been for a long time past the object of
their hopes, their Land of Promise, to which they looked forward as
their recompense for years of long labor; and it was pleasant, there
could be no doubt, to establish the brown cow in the byre and see
her “like my leddy in her drawin’-room,” Bell said, making herself
comfortable in her new habitation. But it is a very different thing
to have only “a but and a ben,” when you have been virtual mistress
of a fine old house like Earl’s-hall; and although Bell had always
prided herself upon her willingness “to turn her hand to anything,”
it did not quite please her to do all the little sweepings and
dustings, and fulfil every duty of her little _ménage_, after
having Jeanie under her, to whom she could refer all the rougher
work which did not please herself. But above all, it was hard upon
Bell that she had no longer “the family” to occupy her thoughts, to
call forth her criticisms, and rouse her temper now and then, and
give her a never-failing subject of interest and animadversion. Bell
had a daughter of her own, who had been married as long as she could
remember, it appeared to the old woman, and who had no children to give
her mother a new hold upon life; and when she had finished her work
and sat down in the evening “outside the door,” but with a totally
different prospect from that she had been familiar with so long, Bell
would talk to any neighbor that chanced to pass that way, and paused to
cheer her up--about “my family” and even about “my ladies,” though they
were the same whom she had talked of a little while ago with nothing
but the definite article to distinguish them, and of whom she had never
been fond, though they had risen so much in her estimation now, and she
generally concluded the audience by a sudden relapse into crying on the
subject of “my Miss Margaret” which filled the Kirkton half with pity
for “the poor old body that had been so long in one place, and couldna
bide to be parted from them,” and half with indignation that she should
“think mair o’ a young lady that wasna a drap’s blood to her, than
of her ain.” Mrs. Dreghorn, Bell’s daughter, who kept the “grocery
shop” in the “laigh toun,” was strongly of this opinion. “My mother
thinks nothing o’ me in comparison with her Miss Margret--aye her
Miss Margret!” said this good woman; but as Mrs. Dreghorn was forty,
it may perhaps be allowed to be a different sentiment which Margaret
called forth, from that steady-going affection on equal, or nearly
equal terms, which subsisted between herself and her mother. Bell could
not speak of her child without a moistening of the eyes. “My bonnie
bairn!” she was never tired of talking of her, and of the letters
Margaret wrote to her; Bell was perhaps the only one of Margaret’s
correspondents of whom she was not at all afraid.
Bell, however, was very much bewildered by the hasty, incoherent little
epistle which she received in reply to hers, which had contained the
letter of Rob Glen. “If you see Mr. Randal Burnside, will you ask him
to speak to Mr. Glen? Say I told you to ask him, dear Bell; oh, be
sure I said you were to ask him! and Mr. Randal will understand.”
What did this mean? Bell grew frightened, and for her part could not
understand. The first step in the matter had been strange enough: that
Rob Glen should have ventured to forward a letter to Miss Margaret,
was of itself a strange and inexplicable fact. But it might be, as he
said, about his picture; it might be about some price which old Sir
Ludovic had offered. In such circumstances writing might be necessary,
and he might not like, perhaps, to write to “the ladies themselves.”
But Margaret’s message made the mystery more mysterious still. It
confounded Bell so much that she said nothing about it to John, but
wrote with much trouble and pain another letter, begging her young lady
“not to trouble her bonnie head about young men; but to leave them to
themselves, as being another kind of God’s creatures, innocent enough
in their way, but not the best of company for bonnie young ladies like
her darling.”
When, however, Bell had entered this protest, she immediately bent
her mind to the due carrying out of Margaret’s request. Randal had
adopted the habit of coming over from Edinburgh in the end of the week
and staying till Monday, a praiseworthy habit which his mother much
encouraged, and of which she too spoke with tears in her eyes (so weak
are women!) as proving her son to be the very best son in the world,
and the very prop and staff of old age to “the doctor and me.” It was
true enough that he was the delight and support of the old couple in
the Manse, of whom one was as yet not particularly old. And if Randal
was fond of golf, and arranged “a foursome” for all the Saturdays of
his visits, upon the Links which were within reach, in what respect did
that affect the matter? A man may be a “keen golfer,” let us hope, and
a very good son as well.
“Is there ony news at the Kirkton?” Bell said, when John came in,
throwing off an old furred coat that had been old Sir Ludovic’s; for
John’s bones were getting cranky with rheumatism, and his blood thin,
as happens to every man. The fur glistened as he came into the warm
room with his breath, which the cold without had fixed like beads upon
every little hair. John put it away carefully on its peg, and came
“into” the fire, and put himself into his big wooden arm-chair before
he replied--
“Naething of consequence; there’s a change o’ the ministry looked for
afore lang, but that’s been maistly aye the case as lang as I can mind.
Either they’re gaun out, or they’re coming in; they’re a’ much alike as
far as I can see.”
“I wouldna say that,” said Bell, who was more of a partisan than her
husband. “There’s our ain side--and there’s the tither side, and our
ain’s muckle the best. It’s them I would stand by through thick and
thin-- I’m nane o’ your indifferent masses,” said the old woman; “but it
wasna politics I was thinking of. Did you see naebody that you and me
kens?”
“Naebody that you and me kens? I saw _a’_ body that you and me
kens,” said John, taking a very large mouthful of the vowel, which he
pronounced aw--“first Katie and her man, just in their ordinar; and
syne John Robertson at his door, complaining that he never could find
Jeanie; and syne John Armstrong at the smiddy, very strang, shoeing ane
of Sir Claude’s horses that’s to hunt the morn; and syne--”
“Touts, I dinna want a dictionary,” said Bell, probably meaning
directory; “naebody mair particular than John here and John there? as
if I was wanting a list o’ a’ the Johns! Weel I wat there’s plenty o’
ye, young and auld, and great and sma’.”
“Is’t the wives you’re so keen about? I can tell ye naething o’ the
women; there were few about the doors at this time o’ the night, and
them just taupies, that would have been mair in their place, getting
ready their man’s supper, or putting their bairns to their beds.”
“Eh, man John, but ye’ve awfu’ little invention,” said Bell. “If it had
been me that had been to the Kirkton, I would have heard some story or
other to divert you with that were biding at hame. But ye canna get
mair out of a man than Providence has put intill him,” she said, with a
sigh of resignation; then added, as by a sudden thought, “You wouldna
see ony of the Manse family about?”
“Ay did I,” said John, provoked to hear any doubt thrown upon his
capacity of seeing the Manse family. “I saw the gig trundling up the
bit little avenue with Mr. Randal and his little portmanteau that I
could have carried in ae hand. But Robert’s just a useless creature
that will have out a horse for naething, sooner than up with a bit
small affair upon his shoulder and carry ’t. It’s bad for the horse and
it’s worse for the man, to let him go on in such weirdless ways.”
“So Randal Burnside’s back again?” said Bell. She did not pay much
attention to John’s further animadversions upon Robert, who was the
man-of-all-work at the Manse. Having at last got at the scrap of
information she wanted, she got up and bestirred herself about the
supper, and listened to just as much as interested her and no more. In
this way at his own fireside, without even Jeanie to disturb him, and
no bell to break the thread of his discourse, John loved to talk.
The next day was Saturday, which Bell allowed to pass without any
attempt to execute her commission; but when Sunday came, after the
service was over, the sermon ended, and the kirk “skailing,” in all
decency and good order, she seized her opportunity. “Will you speak a
word, Mr. Randal?” she said, lingering behind the rest. “Na, no afore
a’ the folk; but if you’ll come round to me at poor Sir Ludovic’s tomb
yonder, where I’m gaun to see if ony weeding’s wanted.”
Randal gave a hasty assent. His heart began to beat, in sympathy,
perhaps, with Margaret’s heart, which had beat so wildly when she gave
the commission now about to be communicated to him. He got free of
the people, doubly tiresome at this moment, who insisted on shaking
hands with the Minister’s son as part of the performance, “Eh, what a
sermon the Doctor’s given us!” the kind women said. Perhaps Randal had
not been so much impressed by his father’s eloquence; but he was very
eager to make an end of these weekly salutations and congratulations.
He hurried back to Bell, with such an increase and quickening of all
the currents of his blood, that the old woman looked with surprise
upon his glorified countenance. “I never thought he was such a bonnie
lad,” Bell said to herself. As for Randal, he tried very hard, but
with no success, to persuade himself that what she wanted with him
must be some trifling business of her own. But his heart travelled on
to Margaret, and to some chance message from her, with a determination
which he could not resist.
“Well, Bell, what is it?” he said.
“I am real obliged to you, Mr. Randal. It’s no my business, and it’s a
thing I canna approve of, that maun be said to begin with. Mr. Randal,
I was writing to my young lady, to Miss Margret--”
“Yes?” said Randal, a little breathless, and impatient of the suspense.
“Ay, just that--and ye’ll no guess what happened. Rob Glen, that’s him
that is Mrs. Glen’s son at Earl’s-lee farm, a lad that was to be a
minister--you’ll ken him by name at least--Rob Glen?”
“Yes, I know him;” Randal felt as if she had thrown a deluge of cold
water upon him; his very heart was chilled. “Oh yes,” he said, coldly,
“I know Rob Glen.”
“Well, sir, what does that lad do but come to me with a bit letter
in his hand. ‘When ye’re writing to Miss Margret, will ye send her
that for me?’ he said. You may think how I glowered at him. ‘For Miss
Margret!’ I said. He gave me a kind of fierce look, and ‘Just for Miss
Margret,’ he says. You might have laid me on the floor with a puff o’
your breath. Miss Margret! so young as she is, far ower young to get
letters from ony man, far less a lad like Rob Glen.”
“But why are you telling me this?” said Randal, half angry, half
miserable. “I hope you will not tell it to any one else.”
“I will tell it to no one else, Mr. Randal; I’m no one to talk. I
have to tell you because I’m bidden to tell you. When I looked like
that at the lad, he said it was about a picture that he had drawn of
auld Earl’s-ha’. And weel I minded the drawing of that picture, and
the work my bonnie lady made about it. Well, I sent the letter, and
yesterday morning, nae farther gane, I got twa-three lines from her, a’
blotted and blurred, poor lamb. I’m thinking the ladies maun have been
at her--her that never had a hard word from man or woman! ‘Bell,’ she
says, ‘if you see Mr. Randal Burnside, will you tell him to speak to
Mr. Glen? Say it was me that bade ye, and then he’ll ken fine what I
mean.’ I hope ye do ken what she means, Mr. Randal, far it’s mair than
I do; and I canna approve for a young lady, and such a young thing as
Miss Margret, ony such troke with young men.”
Randal’s face had been almost as changeable as Margaret’s while these
words floated on. He reddened, and paled, and brightened, and was
overshadowed, one change following another like the clouds on the sky.
Finally, the last result was a mixture of confusion and bewilderment,
with eager interest, which it is difficult to describe. “I fear I don’t
understand at all, Bell,” he cried. “Was that all? Was there no more
than that?”
“No another word; but a’ blurred and blotted, as if she had been in an
awfu’ hurry. And ye canna understand? She said you would ken fine.”
“I think I understand a little,” Randal said, ruefully. He had asked
her to call upon him whenever there was anything in which she wanted
help, and here it was evident she wanted help; but of what kind? Was
he to help her lover, or to discourage him? But of this Margaret gave
no intimation. The office in itself was embarrassing enough, and what
man ever received a more mysterious commission? She had appealed to him
for aid, and who so willing to give it? But what kind of aid it was
she wanted he could not tell. “I know in a way,” he said, “I know she
wants me to do something, but what? Never mind, I will do my best to
find out; and when you write to her, Bell, my good woman, will you tell
her--”
“Na, na,” said Bell, briskly, “no a word. I’ve had enough to do with
that kind of thing. I’ll carry no message, nor I’ll take charge o’ no
letters; na, na, lads are a destruction to everything. And no a lad
even that might be evened to the like of her. Na, na, Mr. Randal, it
might be the maist innocent message in the world; I’m no blaming you,
but I canna undertake no more.”
“And I think you are quite right,” he said, confusedly; “but--what did
she want him to do?” He went away in great perplexity and excitement,
which it was very difficult to shut up within his own bosom. To speak
to Glen--that was his commission; but with what object? To help
Margaret, poor little Margaret caught in the toils, and who had no one
to help her; but what did she want him to do?
Randal went out after afternoon church was over, the “second diet of
worship,” as his father called it. It was not a promising evening for
a walk. The short November day was closing in; the foggy atmosphere
was heavy and chill--the clouds so low that they seemed within the
reach of his hand. Hedge-rows and trees were all coated with a chill
dew which soon would whiten with the night’s frost; everything was wet
underfoot. Even in the “laigh toun” few of the people were “about the
doors.” Gleams of ruddy fire-light showed through the cottage windows,
often over a moving mass of heads, of different sizes, the children
sitting about “reading their books” as became a Sabbath evening, and
the elders on either side of the fire carrying on solemn “cracks,”
each individual furnishing a remark in slow succession. In-doors there
was something drowsy and Sabbatical in the air; but there was nothing
drowsy or comfortable out-of-doors. Randal walked toward the farm in
the grim gray winterly twilight, wondering whether he could make any
plausible errand to the house, or how he was to make sure of seeing
Rob. But Fortune favored him in this respect, as indeed Fortune could
scarcely help favoring any one who, wanting Rob Glen, walked in the
twilight toward Earl’s-lee. When he was within a field or two of the
farm-house. Randal became aware of two figures in the shadow of a
hedge-row, and of a murmur of voices. He divined that it was a “lad and
lass.” Lads and lasses are nowhere more common spectacles, “courting”
nowhere a more clearly recognized fact than in Fife. Randal took care
not to look at them or disturb them; and by-and-by he saw a little
figure detach itself out of the shadows and run across the field. Who
could it be? Their fervor of love-making must be warm indeed to enable
them to bear the miseries of this “drear-nighted November.” He went on
with a certain sympathy and a little sigh. Randal did not feel as if
there could ever be any occasion for “courting” on his part. He was
vaguely excited; but sadness, more than any other feeling, filled his
mind; if he saw Rob before him, what was he to say to him? “Ah, Glen!”
he exclaimed, “is that you?” while yet this question was fresh in his
mind.
Rob came forward from the shadow with evident discomfiture. He
recognized the new-comer sooner than Randal knew him. Was he, then,
the man who had been whispering behind the hedge, from whose side that
little female figure, not, he thought, unknown to Randal either, had
flitted so hurriedly away? Hot indignation rose in Randal’s veins.
“Can it be you?” he said, with a sudden mingling of displeasure and
contempt with the surprise in his voice.
“Not a pleasant evening for a walk,” said Rob. He was uneasy too,
but he did not see what he could do better than talk, and forestall
if possible any objection the other might seem disposed to make. “I
dropped something in the ditch,” he said, accusing as he excused
himself, “but it is evidently too dark to hope to find it now.”
“You are still staying here?” said Randal, still more contemptuous of
the lie, and feeling a secret desire, which almost mastered him, to
push his companion into the chill ooze under the hedge-row. “Though the
country,” he added, “has not the same attraction as when we met last.”
“No,” said Rob, with a slight falter, “that is true; but necessity has
no law. I am here because-- I have nothing to do elsewhere. I am not so
lucky as you, to be able to hold by and follow out the trade to which I
have been bred.”
“That is a misfortune, certainly.”
“Yes, it is a misfortune--and such a misfortune in my case as you can
scarcely realize. I have disappointed my friends and put them out of
temper. There could be no harm in abandoning the law, but there is
great harm in abandoning the Church.”
“There is always harm, I suppose,” said Randal, “in throwing up the
career in which our training can tell. Church or law, it does not so
much matter; there is always disappointment in such a drawing back.”
“Perhaps that is true; but most in the first, and most of all in my
class. Yes,” said Rob, suddenly, “you may say there is less attraction
now. The last night we met, it was just before the Leslies left
Earl’s-hall.”
“I remember the night,” said Randal, with some irrestrainable
bitterness in his tone.
“I am sure you do. I felt it in your tone to-night. You disapproved of
me then; and now,” said Rob, with an air almost of derision, and he
laughed a little nervous, self-conscious laugh.
“I don’t pretend to any right either of approval or disapproval,” said
Randal. Anger was rising hotter and hotter within him; but what was it
she wanted him to do?
“No right; but people don’t wait for that,” said Rob. He was not
comfortable nor happy about his good-fortune. He had got Margaret’s
note, and it had stung him deeply. And here was one who could
communicate with her, though he could not--who belonged to her sphere,
which he did not. “We all approve or disapprove by instinct, whatever
right we may have. If you had felt more sympathy with me, I might have
found a friend in you,” Rob went on, after a pause. “When two people,
so different in external circumstances as Margaret and myself, love
each other, a mutual friend is of the greatest advantage to both.”
The blood rushed to Randal’s face in the darkness. He felt the veins
fill and throb upon his forehead, and fury took possession of his
heart. He could have seized the fellow by the throat who thus wantonly
and without necessity had introduced Margaret’s name. But then--who
could tell?--this office of mutual friend might be the very thing she
had intended him to take.
“I cannot see what use I could be--”
“You could be of the greatest use. You could find out for me, without
suspicion, a hundred things I want to know; or, if you fell under
the suspicion of being after Margaret yourself,” said Rob, with the
unconscious vulgarity which he had never been able to get over, “there
would be no harm done. They would not turn _you_ to the door for
it. You see our correspondence has to be of a very limited character
till she is of age.”
“Do you think,” said Randal, hotly, “that to carry on such a
correspondence at all is right or honorable without the sanction of
the friends? No creature so young” (he kept to words as impersonal as
possible, not feeling able to use a pronoun to indicate Margaret, whose
sacred name ought never to have been breathed) “can understand what
such a correspondence is. Glen, since you ask me, as a man of honor you
ought not to do it. I am sure you ought not to do it.”
“It is all very well talking,” said Rob, “but what am I to do? Lose
sight of her altogether--for three long years?”
“Is that the time fixed?” said Randal, with dismay.
“When she comes of age. Then, whatever happens, I have sufficient faith
that all will go merry as a marriage-bell. But in the mean time--” Rob
said, half-bragging, half-mournfully: he was in reality in the lowest
depths of discouragement; but the last person to whom he would have
confided this was Randal Burnside.
Randal was struck with a sudden thought. “Look here,” he said, somewhat
hoarsely, “I have given you my opinion, which I have no right to do;
but you may make some use of me in return, if you like. Look here,
Glen; I’ll get you something to do in my uncle’s office in Edinburgh,
which will be better than hanging on here, if you’ll have patience and
wait till the time you mention, and take my advice.”
Was this what she wanted him to do? The effort was a great one; for
Randal felt a loathing grow over him for the under-bred fellow to whom
such celestial good-fortune and unexampled happiness had fallen. To
annoy and harass himself with the constant sight of him in order to
leave her free and unmolested, it was a sacrifice of which Margaret
would never know the full difficulty. Was this what she wanted him to
do?