There were a great many hours to be got through still before the evening
steamer which would take them across the loch on their way back to
Glasgow. And after the luncheon was over, Archie and Marion did not know
what to do with themselves. They went out together and walked about the
grounds, not without a feeling of elation now and then as they looked
back upon the great house with all its velvet lawns, and the commotion
of furnishing and arranging which was going on. There were carts
unlading at the door which had come all the way from Glasgow, round the
head of the loch, a very roundabout way, with delicate furniture which
could not bear the transfer from railway to steamboat, and with the
great boxes containing Mr. Rowland’s curiosities; the Indian carpets,
curtains, shawls, carved ebony, inlaid ivory, and other wonderful
things. Had the young people been aware what were the content of these
boxes, they would no doubt have felt that some amusement was possible
in the unpacking of them. But, indeed, I doubt whether Marion’s interest
would have held out long unless there had been pickings--a bracelet, or
a brooch, or an Indian chain among the more curious matters to indemnify
her for time lost over the carpets or even the shawls, which, as
altogether “out of the fashion” (so far as Marion knew) would have had
no interest to the girl. But they did not have this source of
entertainment, for they were totally unaware what was in the boxes which
Marion thought probably contained napery, a kind of wealth not without
interest yet scarcely exciting. They stood about for a time in front of
the door watching the unpacking of the big chests and crates until that
amusement palled. And then they went round to look at the stables, in
which as yet there were only two horses, one of which had brought them
up with the dog-cart from the ferry. Archie examined this animal, and
the rough and useful pony which acted as a sort of four-legged
messenger, with an assumption of knowing all about horses, which was
very superficial and imperfect, and did not at all deceive the groom who
was in charge, and to whom one glance at the young master had been
enough. But Marion did not even pretend an interest which she did not
feel, and soon went out yawning and stood at the door, half-despising,
half-advising her brother. She felt a little ill-used that there was no
carriage which she could order out as she had done with delight, the
carriage from the hotel. There would be carriages to come, no doubt, but
they would not be for her, and Marion knew that she herself must
relapse into a very secondary place. She called to Archie, while he was
improving his mind by questions to the groom, with great impatience,
“Are you going to stay there all day? with nothing to see,” said Marion.
And then she broke in upon the conversation, yawning largely, “Is there
anything here to see?” The groom informed them of certain points which
were considered interesting by visitors, the Chieftain’s Jump, and the
Hanging Hill, where there was a “graun point o’ view.” “Oh, I’m not
caring about the view,” said the girl pettishly, “but we’ll go and see
the Chief’s Jump. It’ll always be something to do.” It proved, however,
not very much to do, and the young lady was disappointed. “It’s only a
rock,” she said with much impatience; “is there nothing, nothing to see
in this dull place?” The groom was a native of the parish, and he was
naturally offended. “It’s a great deal thought of,” he said, “the
family--that is the real family--the Earl when he’s doun, and the young
ladies, brings a’ the veesitors here. It’s a historical objeck as well
as real romantic in itsel.”
“I am not caring for historical things: and I don’t call that romantic,”
said Marion.
“Maybe,” said the groom, “you would like to go down the wood to auld
Rankine’s cottage, that has the dougs?”
“What dougs?” cried Archie, pricking up his ears.
“Weel they’re just auld Rankin’s breed. He’s no historical, nor yet is
he romantic: but Miss here will maybe relish him a’ the better. He’s a
funny auld fellow, and the place is just fu’ o’ dougs--terriers: it’s a
grand breed--a wee delicate, being just ower weel bred: but awfu’
thought upon by the leddies. The Earl and Lady Jean they get them for a’
their grand friends.”
“I am just sick of the Earl and Lady Jean,” said Marion, stamping her
foot.
“That’s a peety,” said the groom, calmly, “for you’ll no live long here
without hearing o’ them. Will I let ye see the way to auld Rankine’s?
They’re funny bits o’ things.”
“I would like to see the dougs,” said Archie mildly.
Marion yielded, being not without a little hope of amusement hereby. But
she took, and pinched, his arm as they went on, saying under her breath,
“For any sake don’t say that--don’t say dougs! It’s so common, so
Glesco! You are dreadfully Glesco--the man will think you are just like
himself.”
“What am I to say?” said Archie indignant, shaking his arm free of her
hand.
“Say dogues,” whispered Marion, drawing out the long O. She was very
careful herself to be as English as possible. It had always been her
ambition, though the success was perhaps scarcely equal to the desire.
She threaded her way through the woods with delicate steps, protesting
that it was very damp and a very long way. It was a delightful way
through narrow woodland paths, where the hawthorn, which in Scotland is
neither called nor has much to do with May, was, still in the height of
June, breathing fragrance over the copse, and where the wild rose-buds
were beginning to peep upon the long branches that overhung the path.
Now and then they shook a drop of moisture upon the passer by, for,
needless to say, it had rained that morning, leaving little pools full
of reflections in the hollows. Marion gave little jumps when a drop came
upon her face, and went upon the tips of her toes past the damp places:
but it was always “something to do.”
Old Rankin’s cottage was in the depths of the wood that encircled
Rosmore. He had been a gamekeeper before “his accident.” It was supposed
in the peninsula that everybody must know about old Rankin’s accident,
so that no further account was ever given. It was a red-roofed cottage,
looking comfortable and cheerful among the grass, with a big ash tree in
a plot of grass before the door, and honeysuckle covering it on the
southern side where the sun came. In northern regions people are
indifferent about the sun. It is a curious fact, but it is so. “Where
the sun does not go the doctor must,” says the Italian who has almost
too much; but the Scot turns his back upon it sturdily and does not
mind. The sunshine caught only one corner of Rankin’s cottage, and no
windows looked that way. It was buried deep in the greenness, adding
itself a little ruddy reflection to brighten the atmosphere. In the room
on the left side of the door Rankin himself lay upon his bed, with a
large head and shoulders appearing out of the tartan rugs that covered
the rest of his person. He had a head like an ancient prophet or bard,
with a high bald forehead, and a long grey beard, and with supple long
arms which seemed to reach to all the corners of the room. Naturally
there was a fire burning, though the day was warm. The mistress of the
house came trotting forward, and dusted two chairs with her apron for
the visitors. “You’re kindly welcome,” she said, “Come ben, come ben.
He’s aye weel pleased to see company.” The good woman did not require
any introduction of the visitors; but this the groom, more formal, made
haste to give.
“It’s the young lady and the young--lad from the Hoose,” he said. The
pause before his description of Archie was significant. In that coat
which Sandy felt was not so good as his own, how was any one to
recognise a gentleman? Sandy could not disguise his sentiments. He could
not give a false designation even to his master’s son.
“I am Miss Rowland,” said Marion, graciously, “of Rosmore.”
The big grey head and beard were shaken at her from the bed, even while
its owner, waving his long arm, pointed out the chair on which she was
to sit down. “No of Rosmore, if you’ll excuse me, my bonnie young
leddy,” he said. “Ye may say Miss Rowland, Rosmore, and that will be
right enough: but tenants never can take the name of the laird.”
“My papa,” said Marion half angrily, “is going to buy the place. He is
rich enough to buy it ten times over.”
“He may be that,” said Rankin with polite doubt. Then he added, “You
will maybe be wanting a doug.”
“We would like to see them,” said Archie.
“Oh, I’ll let you see them, though it’s no a thing I do in a general
way. Them that visit at the House, they are a’ keen for a sight of my
dougs; and I have one here and one there over all the country; a
quantity in England. They’re wonderful little beasts, though I say it
that maybe shouldna--here’s one of the last batch.” He put down his hand
somewhere behind his back and produced a small, round, struggling puppy
of a light fawn colour, with brown ears, newly arrived at the seeing
stage of its babyhood, and sprawling with all its four feeble limbs, and
the tail, which looked like a fifth, in his large hand. Put down upon
the bed, it began to tumble helplessly over the heights and hollows of
Rankin’s large, helpless figure. The sight of it moved Archie, and
indeed Marion, in a lesser degree, to greater delight than anything had
yet moved them at Rosmore.
“Oh the bonnie little beast!” cried Archie; “oh the clever little
creature! Look, May! look at its little nose, and the bits of paws, and
the long hair.” He threw himself on his knees to get the puppy within
reach, which paused in its tumbling on the mountainous ridge of one of
the old keeper’s knees, to regard the simple young face brought so close
to its own with that look of premature sagacity common to puppies.
Marion put out her gloved hand to distract the attention bestowed on her
brother. “It’s just like a little baby,” she said.
“Baby! a baby’s a little brute: it’s ten times nicer than any baby that
ever was born. Here, doggie! Man, keep your feet! Eh, look, May! it’s
tummilt off the bed. The little beastie! I’ve got it; I’ve got it. Are
ye hurt, my wee man?”
“Poor little doggie!” said Marion, patting with a finger the puppy which
Archie had placed on her knee. The two young creatures, bending over the
animated toy of the little dog, made a group which was pretty enough.
And Rankin and the groom looked on sympathisingly, flattered by their
applause. To Rankin the puppy was like a child of his own.
“Oh, ay,” he said, “it’s no an ill specimen. Here’s”--and he dived once
more into the hidden reservoir from whence came a sort of infantile
murmur which had puzzled the visitors at first--“another. It’s a
variety. Now ye see the twa kinds: them that are no licht in the colour
are dark. I could scarcely gie ye my opinion which is the bonniest:
What’s ca’ed the Skye breed are just the sauvage dougs that would have
eaten up the country by this time if they hadna received a check by
being made leddies’ pets of. One o’ my name was the first to tak’ the
business in hand, and improve the breed. Yon lang, low-bodied creaturs,
with nae legs to speak of, are the original stock, as the wild bushes
are the stock of the rose tribe. My anes are an awfu’ improvement in
pint o’ symmetry--and temper too. They have langer legs and no sae short
a temper. Ye’ll hear a’ the world ower of the Rosmore breed. It’s just
celebrated from one end o’ the country to anither. Lady Jean she was aye
coming with orders; but I’m no fond of taking orders especially from
foreign countries, like England and the like. I canna bide to send my
dougs where they are ill fed or kept careless. There was ae lady that
let twa o’ them, ane after the ither, get lost. She was a friend o’ the
minister. I canna understand decent folk keeping on with sic friends.
And as for the feeding o’ them, leddies are just maist inveterate, and
ruins their health, whatever I can say. They’ll feed my doggies, just
fresh from their guid halesome parridge, with sweet biscuits and bits of
sugar, and every silly thing they can think of, and syne they’ll write
and say the dougs are delicate. Naething of the kind! the dougs are nane
delicate. It’s just the traitment; if you can think o’ onything mair
foolish than that--beasts used to guid fresh country air, shut up in
rooms with carpets and dirt of a’ kinds, and when they’re dowie and aff
their meat, a dose o’ strong physic! And they ca’ that a kind home. I
ca’ it just murder! and that’s a’ I’ve got to say.”
Rankin had worked himself to a point of vehemence which brought the
moisture in great drops to his forehead, for the day was warm and so was
the fire. But it cannot be said that his visitors were much affected by
it. Sandy the groom, indeed, formed a sympathetic audience, but Archie
and Marion were too young and foolish to be interested in the old
gamekeeper. They played with the puppies, each choosing one. Marion held
fast the one of light colour--Archie secured the dark grey. Their
comments on their respective prizes ran on through Rankin’s speech.
“Mine’s the bonniest!”--“No, I like mine best. Look at its funny little
face.”--“Mine has no een at all--just a little spark out under the
hair.”--“And look, the little brick that it is, showing fight,” said
Archie in great triumph and elation.
The old gamekeeper wiped his brow, and looked on with a smile of grim
amusement at the mimic fight going on between those two little balls of
animated fur, “I would ca’ those two Donal’bane and Donal’dhu--as ye
might say in a less cultivated tongue, Whitey and Darkie,” he said
benevolently. “If ye would like to have the pair of them, I’ll not say
no to the Hoose, even when it’s in a tenant’s hands. But ye maun mak up
your minds, for I haven’t a doggie about the place that’s no bespoke
afore it’s born, and I owe my duty to Lady Jean first.”
“I’m tired hearing of Lady Jean,” said Marion petulantly, throwing her
puppy upon the bed.
“Aye, my Missie, are ye that?” said old Rankin: “ye’ll be tireder afore
you’re done, for Lady Jean’s muckle thought of in this parish: and a
tenant is just a tenant and nae mair--there’s no continuance in them.
Your papaw and you will be just here the day and gane the morn. Ye canna
expect to be thought upon like our ain folk.--Are ye wantin’ the puppy,
Maister---- what’s the name, Sandy? I hae never maistered the name,”
added the gamekeeper with polite disrespect. “Oh ay, now I
mind--Rowland”--he pronounced the first syllable broadly like a street
row--“I’m no sure,” he added thoughtfully, “but I may have ken’t your
papaw before he went abroad.”
Archie paid no attention to this talk. He had a puppy in each hand
comparing them, wondering which he might venture to buy. Dared he go to
such an expense as to buy? Mrs. Brown, though lavish in many ways, had
not been liberal in the matter of pocket money, and to spend money for
a dog, a creature that would cost something to feed, and could do
nothing to make up for the cost of it, would have seemed to her the most
wicked of extravagances. Archie was forced by the habit of his life into
a great timorousness about money. He did not feel himself justified in
spending even a shilling. He looked at the little dogs and longed and
hesitated. He had taken one up in each hand with a wild impulse of
expenditure, of buying both--unheard of extravagance!--and then he put
one down, feeling the cold shade as of Aunty Jane come over him. Then he
bethought himself that his father was a rich man--ay! but then he would
probably like to spend his money himself, not to give it to his son to
spend. Then Archie put down the other dog upon the bed. But he did not
abstract his eyes from the pleasing prospect; and presently a tempting
demon suggested to him that about such a big house dogs would be wanted
for the purpose of watching, if for nothing else; and he took one, the
little dark grey one, up again. It was the bonniest little doggie he had
ever seen--ready to play already, though it was such a small puppy,
looking as wise as Solomon, though it was so silly; the greatest
diversion possible in this dull country place, where there never would
be anything to do. And two of them would be funnier still. Archie took
up the rival in his other hand. He held them as if he were weighing them
against each other like pounds of flesh, but no such thought was in his
mind: he wondered if perhaps Rankin might not want to be paid at once.
In case of delay there were a hundred chances that the money might be
procured somehow. He might even ask his father--or Mr. Rowland might
make him a present. He had bought a great many things for Marion, who,
being a lassie, could be gratified in that way more than was possible
for a man. A man didn’t want silks and things, or even brooches and
rings, though Archie would not have disliked a pin. What a man liked was
manly things--maybe a bonnie little beast of a doug. What bonnie little
beasties they were! and they would be capital watch-dogs when they grew
up. Would it do if he were to ask papa? If May wanted such a thing, she
would ask in a moment. She might perhaps do it on her own account if she
took a fancy to little Light and little Dark. Poor Archie was so
absorbed in this question that he did not know what Rankin said.
He was roused by a sweep of the gamekeeper’s long arm, which swung over
the bed for a moment, then suddenly came down upon one of the puppies
and conveyed it swiftly away. Archie followed his movements with a gape
of disappointment as he took up the coveted grey. He put out his hand to
avert the second withdrawal. “Eh, man, leave the little beastie,” he
said.
“Would you like to have it? You have naething to do but to say sae.”
“I have no money--with me--to pay for’t,” said Archie, with the
profoundest sense of humiliation. He had come into his fortune, so to
speak; but he had never felt so poor before.
The gamekeeper answered with a laugh. “There’s plenty of time for ye to
put your siller in your pouch, my young gentleman--for I’ll no send ane
of them out for sax weeks to come--or maybe mair. Ye can come and see
them when you like, but I’ll no risk my credit for a wheen pounds, me
that never sends out a doug but in the best condition and able to fend
for themselves. Will I keep the twa for ye? Ye maun speak now, or for
ever hold your tongue, for every puppy I have is ordered long before
it’s born.”
Archie looked at his sister, endeavouring to catch her eye, but Marion
refused him all help. She betook herself to the task of buttoning her
glove, which required all her energies, and then she got up shaking out
her skirts: “I’ll die,” she said, “if I stay longer here--it’s so hot,
and there’s a smell of dougs. You can come when you’re ready. I want the
fresh air.”
“Dear me,” said Rankin with scorn; “this’ll be a very delicate Miss! and
ower grand for the likes of us. Lady Jean never minded the smell of the
dougs. Sandy, man, what made you bring such a grand lady here? Are ye
for them, or are ye no for them?” he added, severely, turning to Archie.
“It’s no of the least consequence to me--but you’ll have to say.”
Archie, with his hair standing on end at his own audacity, gave the
order hurriedly, and went out after his sister, with a sort of
despairing sense that he had now committed himself beyond recall, and
that the stories he had read in books about the miseries of men who had
large sums to make up and no prospect of finding the wherewithal, were
about in his dread experience to come true. The gamekeeper and the
groom discussed the abrupt withdrawal after their fashion, and with no
particular precaution not to be heard by the subjects of their
discourse.
“Yon’s a queer pair to be gentry,” said Rankin. “I would have said a lad
and a lass from Glesco in an excursion; just the kind that comes doun at
the fair-time, and has nae manners nor education. I’m no much accustomed
to that kind--A smell o’ dougs! set her up! Mony a leddy has sat there
and had her crack, and never a word about the dougs, poor things. The
smell of a mill would maybe be more in her way.”
“Whisht, man,” said the groom, “they’re maybe listening. Where could
they get their manners or their eddication? They’re just Jims Rowland’s
bairns that my father knew when he was in the foundry; and they’ve lived
a’ their lives with Jane Brown, that was ance the auld man’s joe, and
micht have been my mother if a’ things had gane straight--think o’ that!
I micht have been their cousin, and I’m just the groom in the stables.
‘Od! I could have brought doun Missie’s pride if I had been a drap’s
blood to her. They’re no a preen better nor you and me.”
“In the sicht o’ heaven,” said Rankin, “there’s no one person better
than anither: I dinna just rank myself with the commonality. But I’ll
allow that the auld family has the pull of it even with me. There’s
something about Lady Jean now--ye canna say what it is, and yet it maks
a difference. I’m a man that has seen a’ kinds. The real gentry, and
what ye may call the Glesco gentry, and them that’s just shams through
and through. The Glesco gentry has grand qualities sometimes. They just
never care what they spend. If ye put a fancy price upon a little doug,
they just say, ‘Oh ay, nae doubt you have great trouble in rearing
them,’ and gies ye your price without a word. The tither kind’s no that
liberal--they canna bide to be imposed upon. They just stiffen up, and
they say, ‘That’s mair than I thought of giving, and good day to ye.’
But I canna bide them that would and then they wouldna, that just
hankers and grudges and have nae money in their pouches. Without money,
nae man has any right to take up my time coming here.”
Archie heard this diatribe as he stood outside, waiting under the
protection of the great ash tree till a passing shower should have blown
over, with a sense of the truth of it which went over him in a great
wave of heat and discomfiture down to his very boots. That was just what
he was, a sham with nothing in his pocket, combining all the defects of
the Glesco great people with an absolute want of that real foundation on
which they stood. He had no education, no manners, nothing upon which
any claim of superiority could be put forth. Superiority! he did not
mean that. Poor Archie felt himself the equal of nobody, not even of
Sandy the groom, who, at least, had an occupation of his own and knew
how to do it. And no money in his pocket! that was perhaps the worst of
all. He had always heard a great deal about money all his life. Mrs.
Brown had an unlimited reverence for it, and for those who possessed it.
She had no particular knowledge of the gentry. But to be able to pay
your way, to be able to lay by a little, to have something in the bank,
that was the height of her ambition. And though she highly disapproved
of large expenditure, she admired it as the most dazzling of greatness.
“He just never minds what he spends,” she had said of Rowland a hundred
times, almost with awe. Archie had been accustomed to admire this
quality in his father from his earliest consciousness. And to stand on
the soil which to him was his father’s (though the people of the place
were so strong upon the fact that he was only a tenant), almost within
sight of the great house which was being fitted up regardless of
expence, and to have nothing in his pocket, filled the lad with the
bitterest shame and humiliation. “If I had only five pounds--or knew
where to get it,” he said to himself with a gesture of disgust and
despair. “Five pounds,” said Marion, who heard him though he did not
want to be heard, and repeated it in her usual clear very distinct
voice, not lowered in the least, “What do ye want with five pounds? and
why don’t you get it from papa?” Archie thought he heard a laugh from
the cottage which proved that the men inside had heard. It wrought him
almost to fury. He dashed out into the rain and left her standing there
astonished. Marion did not care for what the groom and the gamekeeper
said. She was quite confident that she had only to “ask papa,” and that
whatever she wished would fall into her lap. She had not, like Archie,
any difficulty in asking papa. After a few moments of hesitation she too
stepped out of the shelter of the ash, and followed her brother through
the wood. The shower was over, the sun had come out again, every branch
and leaf was glistening. The birds had taken up their songs at the very
note where they left off, with renewed vigour. Marion too broke out into
a little song as she went on. The boughs as she brushed past scattered
shining drops like diamonds over her, which she eluded with a little run
and cry. Even the woodland walk was thus more amusing than she thought.