“It is two years now since Randall came to London. From Dumfriesshire we
send out a great many cadets into the world, Miss Annie; and some one
who knew his father found a situation here for Randall Home. He brought
his book with him, and it was published, and very successful; then he
came home, and sought my consent to his engagement with Menie. That is
all Randall’s history in connection with us. The other young man you
expect to-night, Miss Annie, is only a cottager’s son—very clever, I
hear, but not in any way, I fancy, to be put in comparison with Randall
Home.”
And Mrs Laurie took up her work with a little quiet pride, resolved to
be very kind to Johnnie Lithgow, but by no means pleased to have him
mentioned in the same breath with her future son-in-law.
“I adore talent,” said Miss Annie, opening her work-table to take out a
tiny bit of “fancy” work. “I could not describe the delight I have in
the society of people of genius—self-taught genius too—so charming; and
both of these delightful young men must be self-taught.”
Mrs Laurie drew herself up with a little hauteur.
“Mr Home has had an excellent education; his father is a very superior
man. Johnnie Lithgow, as I said before, is only a cottager’s son.”
But Miss Annie could not see the distinction, and ran on in such a
flutter of delight in anticipation of her guests, that Mrs Laurie
quietly retired into the intricacies of her work, and contented herself
with a resolution to be very kind and condescending to the popular
editor, the cottager’s son.
The drawing-room is in special glory—the pinafores discarded from the
chairs, the little tables crowded with gay books and toys and flowers,
and everything in its company dress. Mrs Laurie—who never can be
anything but Mrs Laurie, a matron of sober years, and Menie’s
mother—sits, in her grave-coloured gown and snowy cap, upon the sofa;
while on a stool low down by her side, in a little tremor of
expectation, Miss Annie perches like a bird, waiting the arrival of her
visitors. Mrs Laurie, with her Dumfriesshire uses, quite believes what
Miss Annie says, that only “a few friends” are coming to-night, and has
not the slightest idea that the lady of the house will be greatly
mortified if her rooms are not filled in an hour or two with a little
crowd.
And up-stairs, resplendent in Jenny’s gown, Menie Laurie stands before
the glass, fastening on one or two simple ornaments, and admiring, with
innocent enjoyment, her unusually elegant dress. You may guess by this
glimpse of these well-known striped skirts, full and round, revealing
themselves under cover of the curtains, that Jenny too has been admiring
her own magnificent purchase. But Jenny by this time has grown
impatient, and jealous that Menie’s admiration prolongs itself only to
please her, Jenny; so, giving premonition by sundry restless gestures of
the advent of a “fuff,” she has turned to look out from the window upon
the sandy road which leads to ’Eathbank.
“Eh, Miss Menie! that brockit ane’s a bonnie cow,” said Jenny; “I never
see onything else in this outlandish place that minds me of hame, if it
binna the mistress and yoursel. I’ll just bide and look out for the
young lads, Miss Menie. Ye needna clap your hands, as if Jenny was
turning glaikit; if they werena lads frae our ain countryside, they
micht come and gang a twelvemonth for me.”
“But the ladies and the gentlemen will see you from the window, Jenny,”
said Menie Laurie.
“Ise warrant they’ve seen waur sichts,” said Jenny briskly; “I’m no gaun
to let down my ainsel, for a’ I _have_ a thraw; and I would just like to
ken, if folk wanted to see a purposelike lass, fit for her wark, wha
they could come to in this house but me? There’s my lady’s maid—set her
up!—in her grand gown, as braw as my lady; and there’s the tither
slaving creature put off a’ this morning clavering to somebody, and no
fit to be seen now; for a’ they scoff at my short-gown and good linsey
coats. But they may scoff till they’re tired, for Jenny; I’m no gaun to
change, at my time of life, for a’ the giggling in London town.”
“But you’ll put on your gown to-night, Jenny,” said Menie persuasively,
patting her shoulder. “There’s Randall did not see you last time he was
here; and Johnnie Lithgow, you would like to see him. Come, Jenny, and
put on your gown.”
“It’s no muckle Randall Home heeds about me, and you ken that,” said
Jenny; “and for a’ he didna see me, I saw him the last time he was here.
I’ll just tell you, Miss Menie, yon lad, to be a richt lad, is owre
heeding about himsel.”
“You’re not to say that, Jenny; it vexes me,” said Menie, with simple
gravity; “besides, it is not true. You mistake Randall—and then Johnnie
Lithgow.”
“I wadna say but what I micht be pleased to get a glint of _him_,” said
Jenny. “Eh, my patience! to think of Betty Armstrong’s son sitting down
with our mistress. But I’ll be sure to ca’ them by their richt names
afore the folk. I canna get my tongue about thae maisters. Maister
Lithgow! and me minds him a wee white-headed laddie, hauding up his
peeny for cakes on the Hogmanay, and pu’ing John Glendinning’s
kailstocks at Hallowe’en. What would I put on my gown for, bairn? As
sure as I gang into the room, I’ll ca’ him Johnnie.”
But Jenny’s scruples at last yielded, and Jenny came forth from her
chamber glorious in a blue-and-yellow gown, printed in great stripes and
figures, and made after an antediluvian fashion, which utterly shocked
and horrified the pretty Maria, Miss Annie Laurie’s favourite maid. Nor
was Miss Annie Laurie herself less disconcerted, when honest Jenny, the
high shoulder largely developed by her tight-fitting gown, and carrying
a cake-basket in her brown hands, made her appearance in the partially
filled drawing-room, threading her way leisurely through the guests, and
examining, with keen glances and much attention, the faces of the
masculine portion of them. Miss Annie made a pause in her own lively and
juvenile talk, to watch the strange figure and the keen inquiring face,
over which a shade of bewilderment gradually crept. But Miss Annie no
longer thought it amusing, when Jenny made an abrupt pause before her
young mistress, then shyly endeavouring to make acquaintance with some
very fine young ladies, daughters of Miss Annie’s loftiest and most
aristocratic friends, and said in a startling whisper, which all the
room could hear, “Miss Menie! ye micht tell folk which is him, if he’s
here; but I canna see a creature that’s like Johnnie Lithgow of
Kirklands, nor ony belanging to him, in the haill room.”
Miss Annie Laurie, much horrified, rose from her seat somewhat hastily;
but at the same moment up sprang by her side the guest to whom her most
particular attentions had been devoted—“And Burnside Jenny has forgotten
me!”
Burnside Jenny, quite forgetful of “all the folk,” turned round upon him
in an instant. Not quite Johnnie Lithgow, the merriest mischief-doer in
Kirklands parish, but a face that prompted recollections of his without
dispute—blue eyes, dancing and running over with the light of a happy
spirit—and a wisp of close curls, not many shades darker in colour than
those of the “white-headed laddie,” whose merry tricks Jenny had not
forgotten. “Eh, man! is this you?” said Jenny, with a sigh of
satisfaction. “I aye likit the callant for a’ his mischief, and it’s
just the same blythe face after a’.”
Randall Home stood leaning his fine figure against the mantelpiece, and
took no notice of Jenny. Randall was somewhat afraid of a similar
recognition; but Johnnie Lithgow, who did not affect attitudes—Johnnie
Lithgow, who was neither proud nor ashamed of being a cottager’s son,
and who had a habit of doing such kindly things as occurred to him
without consideration of prudence—drew her aside by both her brown
hands, out of which Jenny had laid the cake-basket, to talk to her of
home. A slight smile curled on the lip of Randall Home. How well he
looked, leaning upon his arm, his lofty head towering over every other
head in Miss Annie’s drawing-room, with his look of conscious dignity,
his intellectual face! Menie Laurie and Menie Laurie’s mother did not
find it possible to be other than proud of him; yet the eyes of both
turned somewhat wistfully to the corner, to dwell upon a face which for
itself could have charmed no one, but which beamed and shone like
sunshine upon Jenny, greeting her as an old friend.
“Your friend is a literary man?” said somebody inquiringly, taking up a
respectful position by Randall’s side.
“Yes, poor fellow; he spins himself out into daily portions for the
press,” said Randall.
“A high vocation, sir; leader of public opinions and movements,” said
the somebody, who professed to be an intellectual person, a man of
progress.
“Say rather the follower,” said Randall; “and well for those who have
the happy knack of following wisely—chiming in, before itself is fully
aware of it, with the humour of the time.”
Menie Laurie, who was close at hand, and heard all this, ventured a
whisper, while Randall’s companion had for the moment turned away.
“Your words sound as if you slighted him, Randall, and you too call
yourself a literary man.”
“Good Johnnie Lithgow, I like him extremely,” said Randall, with the
half-scornful smile which puzzled Menie; “but he is only a literary
workman after all. He does his literature as his day’s labour—he will
tell you so himself—a mere craft for daily bread.”
And just then Lithgow turned round, with his radiant face—he who had no
fame to lose, and did an honest day’s work in every day, not thinking
that the nature of his craft excused him from the natural amount of
toil—and again Menie felt a little pang at her heart, as she thought of
Randall’s jealous guardianship of Randall’s youthful fame.