INTRODUCES SEVERAL CHARACTERS
“Aunt Betty returns home to-day!” cried Charles one morning, as I came
into their room to give my good Phemie greeting, “and I am to ride with
the coach to fetch her, my mama says, and to be her little escort.”
Now I had heard much from my Lady Erskine of her favourite sister
Betty, and was looking forward with girlish eagerness mixed with
diffidence (being troubled with the fear that the engaging young
lady might not find me to her taste), to making her acquaintance. I
therefore turned quickly to the child and clapped my hands.
“How glad I am to hear it!” I cried. “She is very bright, and gay and
pretty, is she not, your Aunt Betty?”
The boy stared at me for a moment in surprise, and then he broke into a
laugh.
“Why, no, Cousin Barbara,” he cried. “Aunt Betty is dull and sad,
and--but my mama does not allow me to say it--sometimes a little
ill-humoured. We must be very gentle with Aunt Betty because she is
old, but I must own to you that I do not love her very much.”
“She gives me sugar-drops,” cried little Hal stoutly, “and for that I
love her--sometimes!”
My perplexity grew as I looked from one bright face to the other.
“Whither do you ride to meet her?” I asked of Charles.
“Oh, all the way to Stirling!” he cried. “I may not be back till
bed-time. I am a big lad now, cousin; I do not need to sleep during the
day like my brother.”
“But does not your Aunt Betty live at Dysart with my lord, your
grandpapa?” I enquired, still much in a puzzle.
“Oh, yes!” they cried together, “the other Betty does, dear Betty,
kind Betty! She it is who is bright and gay. But great-aunt Betty
Erskine--well, you will see!”
“She hath been spending some months,” went on Charles, “with her
brother the Colonel, who you know is Governor of the Castle of
Stirling. I love to go with him round the ramparts, and he took me once
down into the dungeons, but--” with a faint note of regret--“there were
no prisoners in them.”
“Perhaps there will be some before very long,” I said to console him,
little dreaming how soon my careless words were to come true.
“Well, be very careful of your great-aunt, Cha, and we must all
endeavour to make her happier when she comes.”
My good opinion of my dear lady, already great, was much increased when
I beheld her bearing towards her husband’s aunt, for with the direct
ways of children, her sons had spoken nothing but the truth.
Mistress Betty Erskine, who made her home for some months of the
year at Alva, was not a cheerful inmate for any house. Her age, her
infirmities, and a certain habit of looking on the worst side of
everything, rendered her querulous and gloomy; and I watched with
admiration, learning gradually to curb my own impatience and follow
the example of the house, the gentle toleration with which the poor
lady was treated. Sir John had ever a cheerful word with which to greet
her. My lady bore her complainings with quiet kindness, and the little
boys, as you have seen, were taught to behave to her with deference
and respect. And surely ’tis a beautiful thing to see this kindly
treatment of the old, for age, beyond a doubt, is a great misfortune,
and one from which there is no escape but death. Sure, no one would
choose to grow old, but would prefer to keep their youth and vigour
unimpaired; and though many (unlike poor Aunt Betty,) give us fair and
sweet examples of a cheerful old age, even towards these some patience
is required, and every sympathetic art should be used that can console
them.
At last, however, “the other Betty” did arrive, and what a rush
of fresh gaiety entered the house with her! If my lady was the
personification of peaceful cheerfulness, her sister was the very
spirit of joyous merriment. The first made me think of a soft bright
day in June, but the other was April and July in one, with at times
a brisk touch of December. Such laughter, such kindness, such whims,
such little tempers! And how the Honourable Betty contrived to be so
charming with it all has puzzled wiser heads than Barbara’s.
Even her own sister was sometimes astonished at her sayings and doings,
her sudden gusts of anger, her sharp words, her fits of gloom, but
before she had time to reprove her, Betty’s arms would be round her
neck, and a gay laugh or a murmur of loving words would disarm her
displeasure. Sir John watched them together, laughing at and with
his sister-in-law, for they were fast friends and boon companions,
although the knight teased her sometimes almost to the verge of tears.
Her little nephews adored her, and any servant about the place would
cheerfully have cut off a finger at her bidding. Even great-aunt
Betty smiled a wintry smile at some of her gay sallies, and forgot to
complain of the weather, or the country, or her own aches and pains,
while Betty held the table at attention.
I remember the day she came, a breezy, sunny, laughing April afternoon,
when we were assembled in the parlour for “the four hours.” Suddenly
there was a sound of horses’ feet stamping and scraping at the
front-door, and a merry voice made itself heard above the din, calling
out for Andrew, or Peter, to come and take the nags.
“Why, tis Betty!” cried my lady rising, the pretty colour coming to her
cheeks as it did so easily upon any excitement, and before I knew it
we were both in the front-hall, watching the dismounting of a lady in
a dark blue habit, assisted by a man in the garb of a gentleman, whose
face I could not see. Another moment, and with a rush and a whirl she
was in my lady’s arms, and saying a hundred merry, happy things in a
breath.
“I thought you would like me to take you by surprise, sister,” she
cried, “and it was so long to wait till next week, and I longed
to be with you and to see Sir John before his departure, and the
travelling-coach lacks repairs; so as the roads are good and the
weather fine, my lord permitted me to ride horseback with, as you see,
our good friend David for escort.”
At this she beckoned with her hand to the young gentleman who stood
on the threshold, and Sir John, coming up at that moment, he gave him
hearty greeting.
“Welcome, friend David!” he cried, laying his hand upon the other’s
shoulder, “and so this wild girl as usual bids you drop all other
duties, and act as mounted guard in her ladyship’s journeyings. Oh, ho!
Mistress Betty, art never happy but with a train of followers all ready
to do thy bidding.”
“Nay, Sir John,” cried Betty, pouting, but holding up her cheek for
him to kiss, “my train of followers this time is modest enough, though
to be sure David Pitcairn is, for kindness and quickness, a host in
himself, as the saying is. But when a poor girl hath only brothers who
are ever too busy to attend her, and a father, loving and tender but
infirm, must she refuse herself the comfort of a gentleman’s company
upon the road, and be content with serving-men?”
“Indeed!” cried the young gentleman, who had meantime been paying his
respects to my lady, “Mistress Betty knows how willing all her friends
are to serve her, and Sir John is aware that no duties could possibly
stand in the way of a gracious command to attend her.”
Now I may say here that I have seen Elizabeth Sinclair in many dresses
and in various surroundings--in the ballroom, swimming and languishing
through the minuet with infinite grace; in the garden gathering roses;
in the still room, her white arms bare and her pink fingertips daintily
busy; laughing and romping with the children, her hair ruffled, and her
breath coming quick through parted lips; at her spinning-wheel in the
twilight, silent and absorbed; and seated at the virginal, singing some
old French song, her round chin uplifted and the candle-light forming a
halo round her head; but fair and attractive as she was in all these
attitudes, I loved and admired the most to see her on horseback. Then,
indeed, she appeared at her best--slim, graceful, joyous, a thing of
life and motion swaying to every movement of the animal as though the
same will inspired them both; and it is no marvel to me now to recall
the adoring look with which young Mr. Pitcairn regarded her as he
spoke. Even then, I, a girl but just waking up to the knowledge of
life, thought ’twas writ plain in his face, how willingly he would ride
with the lovely and seductive Betty through the wide world till life
ended.
But all this time I had been standing apart watching the newly
arrived lady, shy, silent and doubtful, longing for a word, a look of
recognition, but heavy at heart with the fear that she might find me
too young, too trivial to notice; and then my lady’s kind voice said,
“And this is Barbara.”
Betty turned on me in her swift, light way.
“Why, of course it is!” she cried, and her hands clasped mine, and
her merry eyes were raised to my face, for she was several inches the
shorter.
“What a tall girl! and oh!--my dear Barbara, I swear it is not honest
to steal a Scotswoman’s complexion of clear white and red, and add to
it a foreigner’s charms of liquid dark eyes and hair nearly black.”
Then pulling my face down, she whispered roguishly, “Dost know that
thou art lovely, child, and I am almost jealous of thee?”
So saying, she turned and followed her sister into the parlour, leaving
me tingling with delight and confusion at hearing for the first time
from the lips of another the thing that I had often hoped might be true.
I think it was the next afternoon, for Mr. Pitcairn was with us, and
I know that he had been bidden to lie at Alva for a couple of nights,
that we made our excursion to the Silver Glen.
There are, as you know, many lovely ravines in the Ochil Range,
formed by the age-long working of the burns that, rising near the
summit, tumble noisily down the sides by their self-made channels
till they reach the quiet river that bears them to the sea. These
mountain-streams were ever a delight to me, and I could sit for hours
upon a mossy stone watching the ever-changing water as it slipped
past, now lying at rest in a quiet brown pool, anon breaking over the
stones with a gurgling ripple, and then flinging itself down the steep
rocks in a foaming cascade. And as I watched I listened to the voices
that for me were never silent--three voices there were that talked,
separately and altogether--a deep roaring bass, a soft middle voice,
and a high tinkling treble; and what they said to me I cannot tell you,
but perhaps some young maid, who has sat dreaming vague dreams to the
sound of falling water, reading this may remember and understand.
The Silver Glen lies not far from Alva House, and though small is very
beautiful; and on this April day when the young leaves of the birch
trees were fast beginning to shake themselves out of their winter
wrappings and toss their graceful beauty in the sun, when the ground
smelt sweet with new life, and the pale primrose and frail anemone were
beginning to appear in the grass, it seemed to my foolish young mind a
grievous thing that the place should be filled with busy workers, that
heaps of ore and broken rock should lie in confusion beside the burn,
and that the sound of pick and hammer should almost drown the music of
the water.
As we began to climb the hillside, Betty had turned to her friend,
David, with an impressive gesture, and cried gaily,
“Remember, sir, the secret of the hills must be guarded inviolate. Are
you strong enough to keep silent?”
They were standing a little apart, and no one but myself heard his
reply. Looking deep into her eyes, he said in a low voice,
“Betty, do you need to ask me that? You know that I am!”
Just for one moment a shadow fell on her face, and her eyelids dropped.
Then she gave a little laugh.
“David, you are cruel to be so serious over a trifle! What is it that I
know? Can you hold your tongue, ay, even in the torture-chamber, about
what you are going to see here? Remember the head of my dear Sir John
is not safe should you or any of us babble, for is it not high treason
to deprive the King of his revenues? Swear eternal silence, or else
turn round and march straight home.”
“Madam,” cried Mr. Pitcairn, becoming aware, as I think, of my
presence, “I swear by the light of your own beautiful eyes never to
divulge the secret of what you are about to show me.”
With that we laughingly continued the ascent, and joined my lady who
stood at the entrance of one of the long tunnels talking to a man whose
back was turned to us. Sir John had gone on a little further to where
some workmen were beginning to form a new opening.
“Betty,” cried my lady on our approach, “here is James Hamilton
returned. He hath been, as I told you, in Germany on an errand for Sir
John, connected with the assaying of the ore. He is glad enough to get
back, I trow.”
I glanced at the man who stood smiling beside her. He was tall and
had a handsome face, save that the eyes were too near together; and
although he was dressed in the rough clothes of a common workman, he
had the air and bearing of a gentleman. When he spoke his accent was
refined, and his voice had a pleasant ring.
“Yes, indeed, madam,” he answered, bowing low in reply to Betty’s
greeting, and then to me as my lady pronounced my name. “I was not born
for wandering. Travel in foreign lands does but endear my own the more
to me.”
“Tush, James!” cried Sir John, coming towards us, “what is this
nonsense you talk? ’Tis but to make yourself acceptable in the eyes of
the ladies, I dare swear. If Mr. Pitcairn and I were alone with you,
doubtless we should hear another tale. Far be it from me to belittle
Scotland, but there’s many a flaxen-haired Gretchen and blue-eyed Marie
fair enough to delight the heart of man betwixt Rhine and Elbe, and I’m
vastly mistaken if thou’rt the sort of fellow to go about with thine
eyes shut to the beauties of nature.”
“I vow,” cried Mr. Hamilton, laughing in his turn, “that I never, Sir
John, in all my travels for the last two months, had the good fortune
to light on anything so fresh, so beautiful, so entrancing, as the
group before me at this moment.”
He swept us a courteous bow which included all three, but it seemed to
me that his eye rested longest on Betty, and a little wicked jealous
pang pinched my heart. Should I ever, I wondered, be so attractive as
to draw the eyes of all men to me as seemed to be the way with Betty.
Alas! what foolish, useless thoughts we suffer to lodge in our minds
when we are young, to the exclusion often of that which is wiser,
higher and infinitely more worthy.
“La, Mr. Hamilton,” cried Betty, “you are vastly polite. But as you
have already told us that nothing in the country pleased you, the
compliment you pay us is not so exalted as it seems.”
Mr. Hamilton turned to my lady.
“There is one thing, madam, with which I can never keep pace,” he said,
“travel as hard as I may, and that is Mistress Betty’s tongue!”
“I must own ’tis a very nimble one,” said my lady, smiling. “And now,
James, I want you to show the working of the mine to Mistress Stewart,
who hath but lately come to live here. Give Mr. Hamilton your hand, my
dear, and trust yourself to his guidance.”
It was a strange thing to me to leave the green and sunny world behind,
and to walk straight into the heart of the hill, where, in the stifling
darkness, by the dim light of lanterns, men toiled and sweated with
pick-axe and spade to wrest from the very entrails of the earth the
treasure that was enabling Sir John to beautify and improve his estate.
The passage through which we walked was narrow--I could lay a hand
upon the walls on either side, and the foot-way was rough and slippery
and precarious, so much so that I could scarce attend to what my guide
was saying, as he explained the method of finding and extracting the
silver. Here and there water oozed through the rock and dripped upon us
as we crept along, and presently we came upon a deep hole or pit, where
looking down I saw the forms of men bending to their work. So weird
and goblin-like they looked in that uncertain light that I shivered
and drew hastily back. Upon that Mr. Hamilton caught me sharply by the
arm with a quick word of warning, and glancing round I perceived with
a thrill of horror that another opening or shaft, narrower but much
deeper than the first, gaped darkly just behind me. So startled was I
at the sight, that I clung to my companion’s arm in terror, and for a
moment could neither speak nor move. Seeing this, Mr. Hamilton soothed
me in a very kind and gentle way, and turning slowly he guided my
footsteps back along the way we had come.
“I must have your forgiveness, Mistress Barbara,” he said, “for having
startled you by so suddenly clutching at your arm. But I feared that
you might step too far the other way, and I did not, as you may
imagine, wish to see the light of the loveliest eyes in all broad
Scotland quenched in the darkness of the pit.”
Now, had I been a few years older or more experienced, no doubt I
should have treated this speech with the haughty displeasure it
deserved, for the man was a stranger, and the young maid he addressed
was the ward of his employers; but Barbara was in those days very
young, very thoughtless and foolish, and the compliment pleased me,
little feather-head that I was, because it was the first that I had
ever received from one of the sterner sex. Here was a proof of the
admiration that I longed for, and an opportunity of showing myself _the
accomplished coquette_. The sunlight was glimmering on the dusky walls
as we approached the entrance, so I tossed my head and replied in tones
which I fondly hoped resembled those of the Honourable Betty,
“La! Mr. Hamilton, you are monstrous kind, I am sure, to pay me such a
pretty compliment. But how can your words be true, when you know that
Mistress Betty is standing within a few yards of us?”
“Mistress Betty!” he cried in low tones, and with a kind of soft
amazement. “You cannot possibly think, madam, that any man of taste
would glance at that charming lady while such an one as yourself was
by?”
Now I have said that Barbara was silly, which is true; but she was not
for all that an absolute fool, and inexperienced as she was, she had
sense enough to see that this time the compliment was too gross to be
genuine. So she laughed very merrily, and begged Mr. Hamilton not to
talk any more nonsense.
We proceeded for some way in silence, but just as we neared the full
daylight the gentleman turned and spoke quickly and gravely in my ear.
“The truth, madam, can never be nonsense,” he said. “For my part I
would sooner have one glance from your dark eyes, and a smile from your
exquisite lips, than all the sparkle and charm of Mistress Betty’s
beauty and wit, great as these are.”
Alas! for my fleeting discretion, how his words set my heart a-beating!
When we stepped out upon the hillside into the wind and the sunshine,
I knew that my cheeks were glowing, and my eyes shining with unwonted
light.
“Why, Barbara,” cried my lady, “you look fey! What didst see and hear
within the hill to give thee such a colour, child?”
I was silent in confusion, but Mr. Hamilton came to my rescue.
“I regret to tell you, madam, that Mistress Barbara narrowly escaped
falling down the shaft, and the little incident has no doubt shaken her
nerve.”
“How strange!” scoffed Betty, with a keen glance at me. “Now when I am
frightened, sister, I turn as white as chalk: but to be sure, Barbara’s
way is the more becoming!”
That night after Phemie had left me--for the good creature would
always attend me to my couch as in the old days--I heard a light tap
at my chamber door, and opening it, I found Betty, in night-rail and
slippers, standing on the threshold, her fair hair demurely braided
ready for her cap.
“I am coming in, Barbara,” she said, and walking past me into the room
she seated herself in a chair, and left me standing before her.
“Now,” she cried, lifting a finger at me, “confess! What did that man
say to you to-day in the tunnel!”
Utterly taken aback I could only gaze at her, and gradually the
remembrance of the words, which I had well-nigh forgotten, came back to
me, and the colour deepened in my face.
“Mistress Betty!” I cried, “what mean you?”
“My good child,” she exclaimed, “do not try to deceive me, for it is
useless. I know as well as if I had been by your side all the time
that James Hamilton was saying something to you, as foolish as it was
pretty, down there in the dark, and I wish to know what it was.”
“But, madam,” I protested feebly, “I do not see why I should tell you!”
“Hoity-toity!” cried she, “so the child has some spirit! And why not,
pray? At so early a stage in the proceedings he can hardly have said
anything you are ashamed to repeat.”
This was attacking me upon another side, and finding it useless to
fence with her, I weakly surrendered.
“Ashamed!” I repeated, blushing hotly. “Why no, scarcely that; but
standing here with you, Mistress Betty, the words seem to me senseless
and vain, which by his side in the darkness yet gave me a certain
pleasure.”
“Ahem! I thought so. He praised your dark eyes, I suppose, and
delicately gave you to understand that beauty such as yours is a new
and rare thing in this country-side. Perhaps he told you that beside
you I was not worth a glance. Was that it?”
Amazed, I could only murmur. “But how, madam, could you know?”
Betty lay back in her chair and laughed. “How do I know? Ah, Barbara,
what an innocent you are. I know because I have been seventeen myself,
though that was some time ago now; and because men are all cut out on
one pattern, at least most of them; and because your eyes and your
blushes called it aloud to all the world; and because compliments made
to one maid are very much like compliments paid to another, and--oh,
well, because I am a woman, and know a good many things without being
told at all.”
I stood, looking no doubt as much chagrined as I felt, till Betty had
finished speaking, then I threw myself down on a settee a little way
off, and cried petulantly.
“But where is then the harm of a compliment, seeing they are so common?
and why should I not be innocent in such matters--a girl but just out
of school? ’Tis not quite kind of you to laugh so, Mistress Betty.”
She was grave again at once, and answered gently.
“Nay, child, it was wrong of me to mock, and having come to warn you, I
have but succeeded in angering you. Forgive me, Barbara. James Hamilton
is a handsome man, and a clever one; he is a scion of an old and noble
house, and ’tis no shame to him but much to his credit that he works
hard for his living. But, Barbara, I do not trust him; why, I know
not. There is something in his nature antagonistic to my own. I mock
and joke with him, but all the time my spirit is saying to his spirit,
‘Keep off, we are not friends!’ and if we lived together fifty years,
at the end of that time we should still be strangers.”
She spoke so gravely that I could not be offended; here was no womanish
jealousy, no idle fault-finding, no carping at a laggard lover. I was
wise enough to comprehend this, and I answered with a gravity equal to
her own.
“In what do you distrust him, madam?”
Betty spoke more lightly.
“Nay, that I can hardly tell you; but look you, my dear, you are young,
and fair, and a fortune. ’Twould not be detrimental to James Hamilton’s
ambitions to win a bride like yourself; but you are destined, I trust,
for better things than that. During the summer you will see a good deal
of this gentleman, and I beg of you not to let yourself be drawn into a
net, out of which you might, later, long in vain to escape.”
Without waiting for a reply, she jumped up and made for the door,
crying,
“Good-night! Forget not the words of wisdom, but do not allow them to
disturb your slumbers.”
She vanished behind the closing door, and I retired to bed, not quite
so convinced of her wisdom as I ought to have been.