struggle with a mirthful tendency, 'only Mr. Cheape--ha--ha--' and she
tailed off into a giggle.
'What dirty gossip o' the gutters ha' ye got about the man?' said Mrs.
Graham, with rising anger and a flashing eye, 'out with your scandal, if
ye must!'
'Oh, scandal, lud, ma'am, no!' said Nancy. 'Scandal and poor Jimmy
Cheape were never named together, only--'
'Only _what_,' cried the irate lady of The Mains, with a stamp of her
big foot.
'Well, ma'am,' said Nancy, coyly, 'I'd sooner bite my tongue out, sure,
than that it should meddle with Miss Alison's good fortune. Only, since
you ask me, it does surprise me that so distinguished a family as Graham
of The Mains shouldn't look higher for their eldest daughter than poor
Jimmy Cheape.'
'A distinguished family,' said Mrs. Graham, with a mincing mimicry of
her guest's tone, 'a distinguished family wi' seven daughters has to
take what it can get. It can ill afford genteel ideas like yours,
Nancy,' with somewhat withering significance. 'But what's wrong wi' Mr.
Cheape, to _your_ fine notions, may I ask?'
'Well, ma'am, since you _will_ have it,' said Nancy, with an air of
reluctant candour, 'simply that he's the leavings of so many other
folk,--that's all.'
'Oh, is he, indeed?' said Mrs. Graham, with fine sarcasm.
''Tis so old a tale, indeed,' pursued Nancy, pictorially, 'that it
stretches back clean and away beyond my poor memory. But even to my
knowledge, Jimmy Cheape has been the rejected of ladies more than I can
count, and such as are not worthy to tie the shoes of Miss Alison.'
'Oh, ay!' commented Mrs. Graham, with a vicious eye upon her informant.
'Well?'
'There was Jenny M'Lure,' continued Nancy, with a reminiscent air. 'All
of one winter he was after her, not that _she_ would look at him though,
and the whole town laughing and looking on. And then there was Molly
Baleny--_she_ might have had him, for she was near forty and no beauty,
but she put him to the door too. And there was Jean M'Gregor, the
cutler's daughter, you know, in Nicol Street; a fine dance she led him,
the hussy--for, after all, a laird was a bit of a string to her bow.
But, of course, she gave him the go-by in the end, and, in my opinion,
she was heartless in the way she held up an old man like that to be the
jest of the town: 'twas no womanly behaviour. And there were others, I
assure you; he's been on his knees to some girl or another in the public
park, 'twas the season's great joke, but I forget her name. 'Tis not
that he's wicked or a man of ill-conduct in any way, ma'am--but he is so
comical, and no woman will marry a man that is a laughing-stock.'
'Will she no?' said Mrs. Graham, with a darting eye. 'But some'll take a
wastrel, and no be able to keep him when they've got him!' Nancy winced
visibly under this vigorous blow, from no uncertain arm. 'My woman!'
her hostess proceeded, 'if I find you setting Ally against her beau,
it's the door you'll be shown, and that in a hurry! She's got to take
Mr. Cheape, or she's got to beg. There's some's content to beg, but
it'll no be my daughter!' And the lady of The Mains, gathering up the
wedding silk, and with her head in the air, marched out of the room.
Nancy sank back in her chair, worsted, she felt, in this encounter.
'Your good mother, Ally,' she said to her friend, when Alison, appeared,
'is somewhat bludgeon-like in her methods of war. My poor little
weapons are too fine.' Alison smiled rather wanly.
'Our mother is very strong in her wishes, and the getting of them,' she
remarked. ''Tis not easy to move her.'
'Ah, but wait till I get at your father,' cried Nancy, recovering her
spirits. 'I'm a wonderful hand with the men.'
'My mother is angry with you now,' said Alison, quietly, 'and with me
too. She has put me to the clear-starching with the maids in the
laundry, all the afternoon, for fear I should sit with you.'
'Oh, ho!' said Nancy, 'sets the wind in that quarter? But we'll see
whose cleverest yet. Keep a good heart, Ally--you'll not marry Mr.
Cheape!' But Alison shook her head despondently, and vanished. There
were no more twilight talks and songs in the gloamings after that.
Thus matters remained at a standstill for several days, and Nancy chafed
under the well-meant but awkward attentions of Kate and Maggie, who were
sent to take Alison's place in the best room, about the invalid. She
longed to be gone. The dreariness of the country at this season
depressed the little townswoman, and she settled a day in her mind for
her departure.
'But I'll save that child from her virago of a mother,' she said to
herself, with determination, 'even if I have to carry her off with me by
force. Though where,' she added, with a little grimace to herself,
'though where I'm to put the big creature, if I take her, Lord only
knows! Is there a corner of my garret she can sleep in? Well,
Providence must see to that!'
Nancy was never frustrated in a kind action by so paltry a detail. The
charming vision of herself in the blotched old mirror--she was at her
first _toilette_--smiled back at her approvingly, with the humid sparkle
of her long, soft, dark eyes. She was about to try her arts on the
laird.
*CHAPTER IX.*
The mistress of The Mains, having mounted the gig, was away to the
weekly butter market; Alison was invisible, set, in a distant corner of
the house, upon some interminable domestic task. Nancy opened her door,
peeped out, and listened; the house was quiet. The laird, she knew, was
within and at her mercy, for she had heard he had the rheumatics in his
back, and could not go forth in the damp. She tripped away down the
passage, and by peeping into one room after another, at last found the
library, and the laird in it.
'Here's the den,' she cried, gaily, 'and the lion within!' And she
looked up into her host's rugged face with those eyes of hers, which no
man in his senses could resist, saving, indeed, a certain legal
gentleman, in Edinburgh, of a hard heart.
The laird was in a doleful mood, inclined to those modified views of the
desirability of life which are fostered in a man by a touch of lumbago.
He stood with his back to the green-washed mantelpiece, with its
pessimistic motto, and his countenance was dourly set. It, however,
melted in a smile at the sight of his guest, as, indeed, that guest
intended that it should.
'And now I'm come to have a confidential talk with you,' said she,
ensconcing herself in his big chair, and shaking a finger at him. ''Tis
of your daughter, Alison. Laird, it can never be that a man like you
gives his daughter to a man like Jimmy Cheape!'
'Sells her, you mean,' said the laird, sourly. He was indeed Alison's
father, from whom she had taken her own direct, literal ways of thought
and speech. ''Tis true, we have sold the lass.'
'For shame--for shame!' cried Nancy. 'Your best and bonniest! I'll not
stand by and see it done. Sure as I'm a woman, I forbid the banns, and
will prevent it!'
'You'd need be quick, then,' said the laird, with a short sarcastic
laugh. 'Ally doesn't know it, for her mother keeps it quiet as yet, but
the man comes to-morrow s'en-night, and expects to find all ready for
the marriage.'
'Lord-a-mercy! then we must act promptly, indeed!' said Nancy. 'I'm not
without a practical suggestion in the matter, I assure you. Instead of
giving the lassie to old Cheape, like a tit-bit to an ogre, give her to
me. Do you hear, laird?'
'Ay, I hear,' said the laird, laconically. 'I would if I could,
mistress, for my stomach rises at this marriage. But the wife is set on
a husband for Ally.'
'I'll get her another,' cried Nancy, eagerly. 'The town's full of
sparks, and to spare!'
'A bird in hand is worth two in the bush, the wife would tell you,' said
the laird, with a sorry smile. 'Besides, there's money between old
Cheape and me. I cannot back out of the bargain now.'
'Tut, he'll never mind the money!' cried Nancy. 'He's been a lender to
half the fathers, brothers, uncles, and guardians in Scotland; for 'tis
the only way he can get word with a woman. It's second nature to him to
get the go-by, and if he misses Ally, he'll take up with one of her
sisters in the twinkling of an eye.'
''Tis easy to be speaking to _me_,' said the laird, grimly. 'Why don't
you speak to the mistress? 'Tis her business rather than mine, surely?'
'She's not to be moved,' said Nancy, demurely. 'But, laird, that which
cannot be done by force, can often be done by guile. Are you willing,
in your heart of hearts, to be off with this marriage? I know you are!'
'I am,' said the laird, rather heavily, for his conscience spoke at
last.
'Well, give me a hand, and 'twill be done!' said Nancy. 'I leave this
place in four days, and a man and chaise from C---- take me to Green
Loaning to get the Edinburgh coach--isn't that so? And I must leave
this door in the dark of the morning, before six? Isn't that the case?'
'Ay is it,'--said the laird, 'an awkward start.'
'Make it yet an hour awkwarder,' cried Nancy. 'And let no one know the
time, save Ally and me, and you. Let the chaise be at the outer gate,
and we'll slip down and be off before a soul's stirring. Is the
mistress a good sleeper?'
'A gey and heavy sleeper in the mornings, now that she puts on years and
weight,' answered the husband, with a sigh. 'She talks enough at night,
God wot! But 'tis snoring in the morning, and I that have to rise to
bustle the maids from their beds. Well?'
'Then you can slip down without danger and see us away,' said Nancy. 'I
doubt, without your countenance in the matter, Ally would never come.
But with it she'll fly this marriage as she would the devil.'
'I believe she will,' the laird muttered; but he seemed to hesitate.
''Tis a simple enough plan,' he conceded. 'I see nothing to hinder its
working. But how can I consent to foist the lass on to you? Her
future--'
'Ah--bah--the future!' said Nancy, 'let the future take care of itself!
There is but one for a fine girl like Ally. And this storm will blow
by, besides, and you be glad to see her here again, long before I am
ready to part from her. For I'll be glad of Ally, let me tell you.
There's nothing so needful in my unhappy situation as a companion of my
own sex. Are not the prudent among my acquaintance telling me so every
day of my life? So consent, for my sake as well as Alison's, and
believe that you confer a favour by doing so.'
'You make the debtor seem generous,' said the laird, not unkindly, 'but
I consent. Though the Lord only knows what I shall say to the wife when
you're gone!'
'Ah, men must be brave--'tis their duty!' cried Nancy. 'And now, be
wise too, and say not a word of this to a soul--not to Ally even, for
her terror and indecision would discover themselves in a moment. I'll
break it to her but the night before, and carry the citadel of her
conscience and her scruples by storm--sweep off with her on the wings of
surprise. You arrange with the driver of the chaise: I will manage the
rest.'
It was not, therefore, till practically but a few hours before the
meditated flight that Alison knew of the change in store for her. She
had gone to bed drowned in tears at the prospect of her friend's
departure, and in quiet despair at the conviction that now all chance of
a rescue from Mr. Cheape was gone. Then Nancy came creeping up to her
room in the dark on tip-toe, like the little conspirator that she was,
shading the rush-light with her hand. Jacky slept beside his sister
again, so their talk was in excited whispers.
'Ally,' Nancy said, leaning over the girl, and patting her wet cheek
with a little hand, 'cry no more, dear love, 'tis all arranged with your
father, and in the happiest way! No horrid Mr. Cheape for you; you are
free! And you come with me to Edinburgh town in the morning!'
'I--to Edinburgh?' whispered the startled Alison.
'To me, child, to me!' Nancy whispered back. 'Did you think I was to
part from my Ally without a blow struck for her freedom, and leave her
to her fate? Oh, fie! faithless one! 'Tis your father and I have fixed
it all between us; your mother knows naught. The chaise comes while she
is still abed--more than an hour before she thinks--and we steal away,
with your father, good man, to speed us at the gate. 'Tis quite an
elopement, I declare; only I, alas! am of the wrong sex. You must rise,
Ally, and put a few duds together; the laird says he will send a trunk
after you to town. He has mine taken down already, so there will be no
noise in the early hours. Will you come with me, Ally, and share my
humble garret? 'Tis a poor thing, but mine own, and you're thrice
welcome, God knows!'
Bewilderment still reigned in Alison's eyes and brain. 'Must I leave
them all,' she whispered, 'my sisters and Jacky--?'
'Ay, must you,' said Nancy, with a little not unnatural impatience, 'or
stay, and be taken from them by ogre Cheape in a fortnight!'
'In a fortnight! Was he coming so soon?' said Alison, with a white
face, and then the magnitude of her friend's action on her behalf
dawning upon her, she cried, with a half sob, 'Oh, Nancy! how can I
thank you for this deliverance?'
'Then you'll come, Ally?'
'Come? How can I fail?' said Alison. 'And, Nancy, what'll I say? But
I'll not speak, I'll do. I'll try with all my strength to do something
that shall reward you. I'll be your servant, anything!'
'Be my own friend, sweetest--'tis enough,' said Nancy. 'And now, mind,
not a moment later than the half after four. 'Twill be as pitch as
night, a strange start. I protest 'tis a perfect adventure! I'd not
have missed it for worlds. Keep a good heart, Ally, just not too soft,
you know, and brave.' And she tip-toed away again, nodding and smiling.
Alison rose and dressed, and did not sleep again that night, but sat
still by Jacky's cot, her young brain whirling with confused, grave
thoughts. When it was time to go she kissed Jacky, pulled up the
coverlet where he had tossed it from his rosy limbs, and smoothed his
curls, that were so like her own. He had been her charge since birth,
and now she was leaving him to others. She took a last look round the
bare little room of her maidenhood, and then with her bundle in her
hand, she slipped away down to the distant kitchen to light a stealthy
fire, so that Nancy might have a cup of chocolate to start on. The old
house of her childhood seemed full of accusing shadows as she flitted
through it, dark and cold and strange to the eye in these unholy hours.
She was thankful when Nancy joined her; they both crouched over the
fire, for it was bitter cold. Both, too, heard presently, with the
sharp ears of excitement, the distant rumble of wheels. The chaise had
come.
The laird put his head in at the back door.
'Come, lasses,' he said. He had a lantern, and they followed him out
into the starlight of the winter morning. A wind, forlorn and cold as
the grave, blew in their faces. The chaise was already piled with
Nancy's goods--the laird's doing with his own hands. Alison could see
the rough familiar figure of him moving about with the lantern, the
father whose weakness and whose strength she knew and understood, the
man so much finer and nobler than the woman who ruled him. The heart of
the girl yearned over him, and she flung her arms round his neck.
'There was nothing for it but to run, Ally,' he said, patting her
shoulder. And then he helped her into the coach, for she stumbled,
blind with tears. And then the coach rolled away into the dark, leaving
the laird alone at the postern, whence presently he turned slowly away.
For in an hour's time he had to meet his wife; and it is my opinion
that, in these degenerate days of ours, a man has won the Victoria Cross
for less.
*CHAPTER X.*
On one of those dull November afternoons which Mrs. Maclehose spent in
convalescence at The Mains, her two little sons, in the good town of
Edinburgh, set out to walk from their mother's house in the Potterrow,
of the old town, to their cousin Archibald Herries's office in the then
very modern George Street, of the new. As far as the North Bridge their
servant Jean accompanied them, basket upon arm; but she had shopping in
the Leith Row, and dismissed them in the direction of George Street,
with directions 'to be guid bairns, not to play themselves on the road,
to be civil to their cousin and give him the message, and to hasten home
again before it was dark.'
They were little fellows of eight and ten respectively, the elder, a
well-grown sturdy boy with red cheeks, the younger, a puny creature,
with a small pale face, in which were set his mother's eyes without
their laughter. Both were dressed alike in little green suits which they
had long out-grown, and the frilled edges of their wide white collars
were in places frayed and torn. Their shoes were worn, and as the
younger one walked, indeed, the sole of his little left shoe threatened
momentarily to part company with its sustaining upper, and slip-slopped
upon the pavement at each dragging step. The two walked hand in hand,
casting anxious glances upon the imposing-looking houses to their right.
At the extreme west end of George Street, indeed as far west as it then
extended, was the house they sought,--a high granite-built edifice, with
steps leading up to the door, upon which a brass-plate held the
names--'Herries and Creighton, Writers to the Signet.' It was with
difficulty, and only by standing on tip-toe, that Willy could reach the
knocker, and the attitude had the effect of stretching him to such an
extent, that it seemed quite impossible he could ever shrink again
within the limits of the little green suit.
'I doubt that was another tear, Danny,' he said gravely to his little
brother, as an ominous crack made itself heard in the region of the
arm-hole; but he managed to wriggle the sleeves to his wrists again
without further disaster. A cross-looking old woman opened the door and
admitted them to the office.
In a light, handsome room to the front, above stairs, the walls lined
partly with books and partly with piled-up boxes of deeds, a young man
sat writing at a table. He was of slight and decidedly graceful figure,
and soberly dressed; his powdered hair, tied with a black ribbon, lent
perhaps additional delicacy to his fair, rather over-refined, regular
features. He turned about in his chair, and his cold blue eyes lit up,
not unkindly, as the two little boys were ushered into his presence.
'Well, my men,' he said, 'so here you are. What's the news?'
'Mother's coming home, Cousin Archie,' said Willy, pulling a letter from
his pocket.
'Ay, so I hear,' said the young lawyer, not without a dryness in his
tone. 'I have a letter from your mother, too, you see,' and he tapped
an open missive on his desk.
'There is a beautiful new lady coming home with mother, to stay with
us,' said Danny, lifting his large dark eyes to his cousin's face.
'You don't say so!' said Cousin Archie. He took the child up on his
knee.
'Yes,' continued Danny, settling himself against a comfortable shoulder.
'She has a little brother of her own, and so she is to be like a big
sister to us.'
'Oh, that's the idea, is it?' said Archibald Herries. 'And does your
mother say where this mighty fine young lady is to find a room?'
'It was Jean sent us to ask you that,' said Willy, innocently. 'I sleep
with mother, you know, and Danny by Jean in the other room, but mother
says the lady will want Jean's bed, and Jean would know where she's to
sleep, and may she get M'Alister, our landlord, to hire us the garret?
It's empty, and 'twill make no difference to him.'
'Except in the matter of the rent--none whatever, Willy,' said Herries,
more drily than ever. 'But that's a secondary matter which we need not
mention.'
He was frowning, and his delicate features looked severe and cold.
Nevertheless a smile lurked about his lips, and it ended in a rather
bitter laugh.
'Tell Jean to get the garret from M'Alister,' he said. 'You would not
put her out in the street for the new lady--would you, Danny?'
'To be sure not,' said Danny solemnly. Herries had absently held one of
the boy's thin legs, and with a movement the ragged foot-gear caught his
eye.
'That's a sorry shoe, Danny,' he said. 'What's the matter with it?'
'Well,' said Danny, gravely, 'it is the sole coming off, I think. It
has been coming off for a long time.'
'Why don't you get it mended, man?' the cousin enquired.
'It should have been mended,' Danny answered, lifting those soft, dark
eyes of his again. 'But Jean said there was no more money.'
Herries threw back his head and laughed.
'That's a sad complaint,' he said. 'But come, boys, I'll walk home with
you, and on the way we'll get a new pair of shoes for Danny. Come!'
The three issued forth together, and walked along George Street
eastward. At the head of the Leith Row they went into a shoemaker's,
and Danny was fitted with a stout new pair of shoes, for which his
cousin paid. Then they began to climb the old town at a brisk pace, but
presently the younger child lagged behind.
'Are the new shoes hurting you, my man?' asked Herries. His usually
rather curt tones were very kind when he spoke to the little boy.
''Tisn't the shoes, Cousin Archie,' said Willy, answering for his
brother. 'But Danny has a sore leg that makes him hirple when he walks
far.'
'Oh! he has, has he?' said Herries, looking at the child in perplexity.
'Come, boy, I can carry you up the brae, I think.'
He lifted the little creature, infinitely too small and light for his
years, to his right arm, and, with a pause now and again for breath,
carried him a long way. They were mounting still, sometimes by steep
and narrow causeways, sometimes by actual flights of steps. A wintry
sky of dulled flame was spread over the wonderful rock-built city round
them, but the deep-cut valley in its midst was lost in a murky
vapour--half smoke, half fog. When they got to the Potterrow, Herries
set the child down, and stretched his cramped and aching arm. He was
not a robust man, and the burden had taxed his muscles. They walked on
until, in the narrow, echoing street, they came upon an archway,
commonly yclept 'The General's Entry,' under which a door admitted to
the common stair leading to the humble lodging occupied, at the present
time, by Mrs. Maclehose.
'Now, be off, boys, and away up to Jean,' said Herries.
'Good-night, Cousin Archie,' the children's voices dutifully answered.
Herries heard their feet clatter on the stone stair, then turned away.