The result of this interview was that Glendochart turned and rode home,
very full of wrath and disappointment, yet soothed in his _amour-propre_
by the kind expedient of the angelic girl, who returned to Drumcarro
very demurely with the consciousness that her time and exertions had not
been lost. She had indeed decided perhaps too summarily that Kirsteen’s
disappearance was a permanent one; but as the day crept on, and there
was no appearance of her return, the temporary qualm which had come
over Mary’s mind dispersed again. She had the satisfaction of seeing
that her father was very much disturbed by the non-appearance of
Glendochart. He came out of his den from time to time, and took a turn
round the house and stood out at the gate straining his eyes along the
road. “Is it Kirsteen ye are looking for, father?” Mary said. Drumcarro
asked with a fierce exclamation what he was caring about Kirsteen. Let
her go to the devil if she liked. What he was looking for was quite a
different person. “But maybe,” said Mary, “the other person will not be
coming if Kirsteen is not here.” Her father asked fiercely, what she
knew about it? But he was evidently impressed by the remark, for he went
up and down stairs and out to the side of the linn, shouting for
Kirsteen in a way that filled all the echoes. “Where is Kirsteen all
this day, and why cannot she come when her father is crying on her? He
will just bring down the house,” Mrs. Douglas had said, putting her
hands upon her ears. “She might maybe have a headache, and be lying down
upon her bed,” said little Jeanie, to whom a similar experience had once
occurred, and who had felt the importance it gave her.
The anxieties of the family were soothed by this and other suggestions
until the early wintry night fell and it was discovered that nobody had
seen her, or knew anything about her. Marg’ret in her kitchen had been
in an intense suppressed state of excitement all day, but it had not
been discovered by any one save the astute Mary that she showed no
curiosity about Kirsteen, and asked no questions. When it came to be
bedtime the whole household was disturbed. The boys had gone out over
the hill, and towards the merchant’s along the road to see if any trace
could be found of her, while Jeanie stood under the birch-trees--now
denuded of all their yellow leaves--outside, looking out through the
dark with all that sense of desolation and mystery which is in the idea
of night to the mind of a child. Jeanie stood very quiet, crying to
herself, but thinking she heard footsteps and all kinds of mysterious
movements about her, and fully making up her mind to see Kirsteen
carried home, murdered or dead of cold and exposure, or something else
that was equally terrible and hopeless; and though she would have been
overjoyed, yet she would also have been a little disappointed had she
seen Kirsteen walk in with no harm or injury, which was also more or
less the frame of mind of Jock and Jamie, who fully expected to stumble
over their sister among the withered bracken, or to see her lying by the
side of the road.
There was however a moment of mute despair when they all came back and
looked at each other for an explanation of the mystery. Then the
children burst out crying one after the other, the boys resisting the
impulse till nature was too strong for them, and producing a louder and
more abrupt explosion from the fact of the attempted restraint. Their
father stood looking round upon them all, his fierce eyes blazing,
looking for some way of venting the rage that was in him. The lass
disappeared, confound her! And Glendochart drawing back, the devil flee
away with him! Drumcarro was indeed in evil case. When Jock, who was the
last to give way, burst out without a moment’s notice into a violent
boo-hoo, his father caught him suddenly a box on the ear which sent him
spinning across the room. “Haud your confounded tongue, can’t ye--and no
wake your mother.” “Eh, my poor laddie! Ye need not punish him for me,
for here I am, and what is the matter with everybody?” said the weak
voice of Mrs. Douglas at the door. She had been left alone during all
this excitement, and her repeated calls had brought nobody. So that
querulous, displeased, and full of complaining, unable to bear the
silence and the want of information, the poor soul had wrapped herself
in the first garments she could find, and tottered down stairs. She
appeared a curious mass of red flannel, chintz, and tartan, one wrapped
over the other. “What is the matter?” she said, looking eagerly round
upon the troubled family. “Oh, mother,” cried little Jeanie weeping,
running to her and hiding her face and her tears in one of these
confused wrappings. “Kirsteen has gone away. She’s _run_ away,” said
Jeanie, afraid not to be believed--and then the commotion was increased
by a wail from the mother, who sank in a state of collapse into her
large chair, and by the rush of Marg’ret from the kitchen, who
perceiving what had happened flew to give the necessary help. “Could you
not all hold your tongues, and let her get her night’s rest in peace?”
Marg’ret cried. The scene was dismal enough, and yet had thus a rude
comedy mingled with its real pain. Drumcarro stalked away when this
climax of confusion was reached. “I was a fool ever to mind one of
them,” he said. “Ye little whinging deevil, get out o’ my way. You’re no
better than a lassie yourself.”
Mary had done her best to save the story from becoming public by warning
the expectant suitor, who on his side had thought himself safely out of
the ridicule of it by his quick withdrawal. But the voices of the
servants and the children were not to be silenced. “Have ye heard the
news?” said Duncan the carter at the toll-bar. “The maister up at the
house is neither to haud nor to bind. Our Kirsteen has ta’en her fit in
her hand and run away, the Lord kens where, for fear he would mairry her
against her will to auld Glendochart.” “Eh, do ye ken what’s happened?”
said Marg’ret’s help in the kitchen as soon as she could find an excuse
to run to the merchant’s. “Miss Kirsteen, she’s aff to the ends of the
earth, and the mistress near deed with trouble, and Marg’ret raging just
like a sauvage beast.” The boys whispered it to their mates at school
with a certain sense of distinction, as of people to whom something out
of the common had happened, and Jeanie who had no one else to
communicate the wonderful fact to, told the little girl that brought
the letters, by whom it was published far and near. Miss Eelen heard it
the next morning by means of Jock, who rode the pony over almost before
daylight to inquire if his sister had been seen there. “Indeed she might
have been too proud to have had the offer of Glendochart,” the old lady
said. “He should just take Mary instead.” “He will maybe think that’s
not the same thing,” said Mr. Pyper, the minister, who went over to the
town in his gig soon after about some Presbytery business, and to hear
what people were saying. “Well it will be very near the same thing,”
Miss Eelen said.
This was how it had come to the ears of the Duke and Duchess and all the
best society in the county, who were immensely entertained, and told a
hundred stories about the gallant wooer whose attempt at courtship had
been so disastrous. He went away himself the next day, sending a letter
to Drumcarro to say that he had heard that his suit was disagreeable to
the young lady, and that nothing could induce him to press it after he
knew this fact; but that he hoped on his return to pay his respects to
Mrs. Douglas and the young ladies. Drumcarro was not to be spoken to by
any member of his family after this happened for several days. Had he
met with the gallant old gentleman who had thus, in his own opinion,
retired so gracefully, it is to be feared the trim Glendochart might
have found his martial science of but little avail against “the auld
slave-driver’s” brutal energy and strength. But after a while Mr.
Douglas calmed down. He flung Kirsteen’s little possessions out of
doors, and swore with many oaths that whoever named that hizzy’s name
again should leave his house on the moment. But when Glendochart, coming
back in the spring, came out formally to pay a visit at Drumcarro,
bringing boxes of French chocolate and other tokens of his residence
abroad, the laird, though he gave him the briefest salutation, did not
knock him down, which was what the family feared. And by dint of a
diplomacy which would have done credit to any ambassador, Mary continued
so to close her mother’s mouth that no reference should be made to the
past. Mrs. Douglas was too much afraid of her husband to introduce
Kirsteen’s name, but she was ready with a hundred little allusions. “Ah,
Glendochart, when ye were here last! That was before our last
misfortune. I will never be so well again as I was in those days, when I
had one by me that never forgot her mother.” She would have sympathized
with him and claimed his sympathy in this furtive way from the moment of
his arrival. But Mary had taken by this time very much the upper hand
and brought her mother into great subjection. “Ye will just drive him
away if ye say a word.” “I am sure,” Mrs. Douglas said weeping, “her
name never crosses my lips.” “But what does that matter when you are
just full of allusions and talk of her that’s away.” “Alas! there is
another that I might be meaning,” said the poor mother; “two of them,
bonny lassies as ever lived, and one with weans of her own that I will
never see.” “Oh, mother, why should ye make such a work about them that
never think of you? They would have bided at home if their hearts had
been here. But it’s a grand thing for the boys and Jeanie,” said the
astute elder sister, “that Glendochart should come back. It sets us
right with the world, and see the things he’s always bringing them.”
“Mainy sweeties are not good for children, though thae chocolate ones
are maybe wholesome enough,” said Mrs. Douglas. “And what does he ever
do for them but bring them sweeties?” “Mother, it’s just education for
them to hear such a man speak,” cried Mary, which silenced Mrs. Douglas
at the end.
Mary apparently felt the full force of what she said. She listened to
him devoutly; she persuaded him to talk with little murmurs of pleasure.
“Eh, it’s just as good as a book to hear ye, Glendochart”--and other
such ascriptions of praise. Few men are quite superior to this kind of
flattery, and one who has been slighted in another quarter and has felt
the absence of any just appreciation of his deserts, is more than
usually open to it. Glendochart fell into his old habit of frequent
visits to Drumcarro, and he was pleased by the universal interest in
him--the delight of the young ones, and the gentle devotion of Mary. A
soft regret, a tender respect was in her tone. The only time in which
she ever displayed a consciousness of the past was when she thanked him
with almost tears in her eyes for coming: “Which we could never have
expected.” It was not, however, until a day in spring, in the month of
April, when the beauty of the country was awakening, that the old
gentleman was completely subjugated. The linn was subdued from the
volume of its wintry torrent, but was roaring over the rocks still with
the fulness of spring showers one bright afternoon when he met Mary on
the road taking a walk, as she said. They returned, without any
intention passing the house and continuing their walk unconsciously,
drawn on by the tumult of the stream. Glendochart stood at the head of
the little glen, and looked down the ravine with many thoughts. Mary had
drawn aside from its edge. “I cannot go down that dreadful way. It makes
me giddy,” said Mary. “I never liked that steep bank; the others run up
and down just like goats--but not me! If ye will excuse my weakness,
Glendochart, and go a little round by the road, we’ll come out at the
foot just the same.”
Now it had been with a rush of recollection that Glendochart had come to
the linn side. He remembered well how Kirsteen had rushed on before him
as airy as a feather, trying the stones with her light weight, to find
which was most steady, like a bird alighting upon them, putting out her
hand to help him--she the young lady who ought to have been indebted to
him for help. And he remembered the slip he had made and his fall, and
the tremble in her voice which he had feared meant laughter, and the
effort he had made to look as if a tumble on the wet sod was nothing, a
thing he did not mind. Mary had far more sense to go round by the road.
He felt himself in so much better a position agreeing with her that it
was too steep for a lady, and gallantly guiding her round the safer way.
It was a soft evening with no wind, and a delightful spring sky full of
brightness and hope. In the spring a young man’s fancy lightly turns to
thoughts of love, and the fancy of an old young gentleman who has been
led to think of these matters and then has been cruelly disappointed, is
if anything more easily awakened. Glendochart gave Mary his arm to help
her along the gentler round of the road, and his mouth was opened and he
spoke.
“Miss Mary,” he said, “ye were very kind a few months back in a matter
which we need not now enter into. I can never cease to be grateful to
you for the warning ye gave me. And ye have been more than kind since I
came home. It has been a great pleasure to come to Drumcarro, though I
did it at first mostly out of a sense of duty. But to see you gave it a
charm.”
“Oh, Glendochart, you are very kind to say so,” said Mary. “We just all
of us have a debt to you that we can never repay.”
“Not a word about debt, or I would soon be on the wrong side of the
balance. It has been a great part of the pleasure of my life to
come--but now I will have to be thinking whether I should come again.”
“Oh, Glendochart! and wherefore so?” cried Mary with alarm in her eyes.
“My dear young lady,” said the Highland gentleman, “I am getting an old
man--I was mangrown (and perhaps a trifle more) before ye were born.”
She had said “Oh, no!” softly while he was speaking, with a gentle
pressure upon his arm--and now when he paused she lifted her dove’s eyes
and said, “What does that matter?” in tones as soft as the wood-pigeon’s
coo.
“You must understand me,” he said, “which I am afraid was more than your
sister, poor thing, ever did--I have been experiencing a great change of
feeling. She was a bright young creature full of pretty ways--and I was
just beguiled--the like of that may blind a man for a time, but when his
eyes are opened to the knowledge of a more excellent way--that he had
not observed before--”
“It is true,” said Mary in a faltering voice; “my poor Kirsteen had a
great deal of the child in her. And it would not be my part to be
affronted if ye had seen another that was maybe better adapted to make
you happy. Oh, no! it would be ill my part--though I might regret.”
“Ye have no guess,” said Glendochart with a tender touch of the hand
that clung to his arm, “who that other is, who is the only person I
will ever think of?”
“No,” said Mary with a sigh. “I’m not sure that I want to hear--but
that’s a poor sentiment and it shall not be encouraged by me. On the
contrary it will not be my fault if that lady--who will have a happy
lot, I am sure--does not find kind friends here.”
“If she does not it will be most unnatural,” said Glendochart, “for the
person I am meaning is just yourself and no other. And if ye think she
will have a happy lot--my dear, take it--for it will never be offered to
any woman but you.”
“Oh, Glendochart!” said Mary casting down her eyes.
It was very different from his wooing of Kirsteen and in many ways much
more satisfactory--for far from running away in horror of his suit,
which is a thing to pique the pride of any man, Mary was unfeignedly
proud of having won the prize which she had at once felt, failing
Kirsteen, it would be a good thing to keep in the family. She saved her
old lover every trouble. She would not have him go to her father, which
was what he proposed with great spirit to do at once. “No,” she said,
“it is me that must tell him. My father is a strange man; he is little
used to the like of you; but I know all his ways. And I will tell him;
for ye must mind, Glendochart, if ye mairry me that I will not have ye
taigled with all my family. The boys and little Jeanie now and then if
ye please for a short visit, or my mother for a change of air, but just
at your pleasure, and not like a thing you’re obliged to do. I will take
that into my own hand. Ye can leave it all to me.”
Glendochart rode away that night with great satisfaction in his mind. He
felt that he had wiped out his reproach; after having failed to marry
Kirsteen it was a necessity to vindicate himself by marrying
somebody--and he particularly felt (after the consolation that had been
drawn from Mary’s gentle speeches and ways) that to marry out of this
very house where he had been slighted would be the most complete
vindication. And he was delighted with his second choice; her good
taste, her good sense, her clear perception of all that was necessary,
filled him with satisfaction and content. He rode away with something of
the ardour of a young man joined to the more reasonable satisfaction of
an old one, in the consciousness of having secured the most devoted of
housekeepers, a lady who would “look well at his table-head,” who would
take care of his interests and would not even allow him to be taigled
with her family. He kissed his hand to his bonny Mary, and his soul was
filled with delightful anticipations. There was no doubt she was a bonny
creature, far more correct and satisfactory than that gilpie Kirsteen
with her red hair. Glendochart was thus guilty of the vulgar
unfaithfulness of disparaging his own ideal--but it is a sin less
heinous in an old lover than in a young one--for how many ideals must
not the old gentleman have lived through?
Mary walked in straight to her father’s door--who took as little notice
of Glendochart as possible in these days. He was sitting with a map of
the old Douglas property before him, painfully ruminating whether he
could anyhow squeeze out of the family living enough to buy a corner of
land that was in the market; and wondering, with a sort of forlorn fury,
whether Sandy or even Sandy’s son, might be able to gather all that land
back again to the Douglas name. This was his ideal; all others, such as
love, or affection, or the ties of human fellowship having died out of
his mind long ago, if they had ever occupied any place there. He looked
up angrily as Mary came in. What could she want, the useless
woman-creature that was good for nothing, never could bring a penny into
the house, but only take out of it as long as she should live?
“Well! what are you wanting now?” he said sharply.
“I am wanting to speak to you,” Mary said.
“A fool would understand that, since ye’ve come here; which is a place
where there’s no room for weemen. Speak out what you’ve got to say, and
leave me quiet, which is all I desire from ye.”
“I am afraid,” said Mary sweetly, “that I will have to give ye a little
trouble, father; though it will save you a good deal of fash later.”
“Give me trouble is what you do night and day. Save me fash is what I’ve
never known.”
“It will be so now,” said Mary, “for to provide for your daughters would
be a great fash to you, and one that would go sore against the grain. So
you should be glad, father, however little ye think of us, when we can
provide for ourselves.”
“How are ye going to do that?” said Drumcarro derisively. “No man will
have ye. I’m sick of the very name of ye,” he said; “I wish there was
not a woman in the house.”
“Well,” said Mary, with imperturbable good temper, “ye will soon be quit
of one. For I’m going to be marriet, and I’ve come to tell you.”
“To be marriet! I don’t believe it; there’s no man will look at ye,”
said the indignant father.
“It is true we never see any men,” said Mary; “but one is enough, when
ye can make up your mind to him. Father, we would like to name an early
day, seeing that he has been disappointed already, and that there is no
time to lose. It is Glendochart I am intending to marry,” she said
demurely, looking him in the face.
“Glendochart!” he got up from his chair and swore a large round oath.
“That hizzy’s leavings!” he said. “Have ye no pride?”
“I will have a great deal of pride when I’m settled in my own house,”
replied Mary. “He will be here to-morrow to settle everything; but I
thought I would just tell you to-night. And I hope, father,” she added
with great gravity, “that seeing I’m here to protect him you will keep a
civil tongue in your head.”