CASTLE MACLEAN.
The sunlight broke and sparkled on the sea, and all the flowering
grasses on the braes were dancing in the wind. Numberless rugged
spurs of rock, crossing the strip of sand and shingle, stretched out
into the water, and the long trails of _Fucus_ fell and rose with the
ebb and flow of every wave.
Mona was half intoxicated with delight. The mid-day dinner had been
rather a trial to her. The "silver" was far from bright, and the
crystal was far from clear; and although the table-cloth was clean,
it might to all intents and purposes have been a sheet, so little
pretension did it make to its proper gloss and sheen. It seemed
incredible that, within little more than a stone's-throw of the dusty
shop and the musty parlour, there should be such a world of
freshness, and openness, and beauty. No need for any one to grow
petty and narrow-minded here, when a mere "Open Sesame" was
sufficient to bring into view this great, glowing, bountiful Nature.
"It is mine, mine, mine," she said to herself. "Nobody in all the
world can take it from me." And she sang softly to music of her own--
"'Tis heaven alone that is given away,
'Tis only God may be had for the asking."
This stretch of breezy coast meant for her all that the secret
passage to the _abbé's_ cell meant for Monte Christo--knowledge, and
wisdom, and companionship, and untold treasures.
A little distance off, a great column of rock rose abruptly from the
beach, and Mona found to her delight that, with a little easy
scrambling, she could reach the summit by means of a rude natural
staircase at one side. On the top the rocks were moulded by rain and
wave into nooks and hollows, and there was a fairy carpet of small
shells and shingle, sea-campions and thrift. In front of her, for
leagues and leagues, stretched the rippling, dazzling sea; behind
rose the breezy braes; and away to the left the afternoon sun shone
on the red roofs, and was flashed back from the museum windows and
weather-cocks of Kirkstoun. Mona selected a luxurious arm-chair, and
ensconced herself comfortably for the afternoon.
The old clock was striking five when she entered the house.
"I do hope I am not late for tea," she said. "I have had such a
lovely time!"
"I see that," said Rachel, smiling involuntarily as her eyes fell on
the bright glowing face. "Get off your things, and come away."
"And look, I found a treasure," said Mona re-entering, "some Bloody
Cranesbill."
"Eh? Is that what you call it? It's a queer-like name. It's gey
common about here. You'll find plenty of it by the roadside among
the fields."
"Really? Or do you mean the Meadow Cranesbill? It is very like
this, but purpler, and it has two flowers on each stalk instead of
one."
As Rachel belonged to that large section of the community which would
be wholly at a loss for a reply if asked whether a primrose and a
buttercup had four petals or six, she remained discreetly silent.
But, curiously enough, Mona's childlike and unaffected delight in the
sea and the flowers set her cousin more nearly at ease than anything
had done yet.
"After all," she thought, "it's a great thing for a town-bred girl to
stay in the country for a change, and with her own flesh and blood
too. She must have been dull enough, poor thing, alone in London."
"When you want to get rid of me for a whole day," said Mona
presently, "I mean to go off on a botanising excursion round the
coast. I am sure there must be lots of treasures blushing unseen."
"We'll do something better than that," said Rachel, after a moment's
hesitation as to whether the occasion were worthy of a trump-card.
"Some fine day, if we are spared, we'll take the coach to St Rules,
and see all the sights. There's a shop in South Street where we can
get pies and lemonade, and we'll have an egg to our tea when we come
back."
"I should dearly like to see St Rules," said Mona. "I have heard of
the sea-girt castle all my life; and the prospect of an 'egg to my
tea' is a great additional attraction. I cannot tell you all the
gala memories of childhood that the idea calls up--picnics in
pine-woods, and break-neck scrambles, and all sorts of adventures."
She did not add that "pies and lemonade" were not a part of those
gala memories; but in truth the idea of lunching "genteelly" with
Rachel, on that squalid fare in a shop, depressed her as few
hardships could have done.
"What are you in the way of taking to your supper in London?" asked
Rachel. "I usually have porridge myself, but it's not everybody that
can take them."
"Oh, let us have porridge by all means! I believe the two
characteristics by which you can always diagnose a Scotchman are a
taste for porridge and a keen appreciation of the bagpipes. I mean
to prove worthy of my nationality."
"And do you like them thick or thin?"
"The bagpipes? Oh, the porridge! The question seems to be a
momentous one, and unless I leave it to you, I must decide in the
dark. I imagine--it would be safer to say thin."
"Well, I always take them thin myself," said Rachel, in a tone of
relief; "but some people--you'd wonder!--they like them that thick
that a spoon will stand up in the middle! It's curious how tastes
differ, but it takes all sorts to make a world, they say."
"Verily," said Mona earnestly. "But now I must tell you about my
customers. You have not even asked whether I had any, and I assure
you I had a most exciting time."
"Well, I never! Was there anybody in? I was that taken up with Mrs
Smith, you see, poor body!"
"Of course. But now you must know in the first place that I had
three, whole, live customers," and Mona proceeded to give a pretty
full account of the experiences of the morning.
"That would be Mistress Dickson--I ken fine," said Rachel, relapsing
in her excitement into the Doric, "a fractious, fault-finding body.
I'm sure she may take her custom elsewhere, and welcome, for me. I
never heard the like. She aye has an eye to a good bargain, and if I
say I make sixpence profit out of her in a twelvemonth, it's more
likely above the mark than below it."
"That I can quite believe," said Mona; "but you know, dear, the
elastic had perished, and she was quite right to complain of that.
We must get some fresh in the course of the week."
"Hoot awa! We'll do nothing of the sort. If the traveller comes
round between this and then, we'll take some off him, but I'll not
stir a foot to oblige old Betsy Dickson. She knows quite well that I
don't need to keep the shop."
"But, dear,"--Mona seated herself on a stool at her cousin's feet,
and laid her white hand on the wrinkled red one,--"I don't see that
requiring to keep the shop has anything to do with it. If we keep it
at all, surely we ought to keep it really well."
"And who says I don't keep it well? Nobody heeds old Betsy and her
grumbling. Everything I buy is the best of its kind; not the tawdry
stuff you get in the London shops, that's only got up to sell. You
don't know a good tape and stay-lace when you see them, or I wouldn't
need to tell you that."
"I am quite sure of it. But you know, dear, you can get good things
as well as bad in the London shops, and you can get them fresh and
wonderfully cheap. The next time you want a good many things, I wish
you would let me go to London for them. I am sure at the Stores and
some other places I know, I could make better bargains than you can
with your traveller; and I would bring a lot of those dainty
novelties that people expect to pay dear for in the provinces. We
would make our little shop the talk of the country-side."
"Hoot, havers, lassie!" laughed Rachel, no more entertaining the idea
than if Mona had suggested a voyage to the North Pole. "Why, I
declare," she added, with a renewal of that agreeable sense of
superiority, "you're not like me; you're a born shopkeeper after all!
But who else was in?"
Mona drew a long face. "There was a _man_," she said, with mock
solemnity.
"Oh! I wonder who it would be? What like was he?"
"Tall," said Mona, ticking off his various attributes on the fingers
of her left hand, "thin, ugly, lanky. In fact,"--she broke off with
a laugh,--"in spite of his height, he conveyed a general impression
to my mind of what one of our lecturers describes as 'failure to
attain the anatomical and physiological ideal.' He was loosely hung
together like a cheap clothes-horse, and he wore his garments in much
the same fashion that a clothes-horse does." (This, as her
customer's tailor could have certified, was most unjust. A vivid
recollection of the Sahib was making Mona hypercritical.) "The down
of manhood had not settled on his upper lip with what you could call
luxuriance; he wore spectacles----"
"Spectacles!" repeated Rachel, alighting with relief on a bit of firm
foothold in a stretch of quicksand. "You don't mean--was he a
_gentleman_?"
"I suppose so. Yes."
"Oh! I might have gone on guessing for an hour. You said he was a
_man_."
"God made him, and so I was prepared to let him pass for one, as
Portia says. Did you think the term was too complimentary?"
Rachel laughed. "Had he on a suit of dark-blue serge?"
"Now you suggest it, I believe he had."
"And had he a pleasant frank-like way with him?"
"Yes."
"It would be Dr Dudley. What was he wanting here?"
"India-rubber."
"Well, I am sure there was plenty of that. I got a boxful years and
years ago, and nobody has been asking for it at all lately."
"I should imagine not," thought Mona. "Once bit, twice shy."
"Is he the resident doctor?" she asked.
"Oh no! He does not belong to these parts. He comes from London.
When you were going down to the braes, did you notice a big white
house with a large garden and a lodge, just at the beginning of the
Kirkstoun road?"
"Yes--a fine house."
"His old aunt lives there--Mistress Hamilton. She used to come here
just for the summer, and bring a number of visitors with her; but
latterly she has stayed here most of the time, unless when she is
ordered to some Spa or other. She says no air agrees with her like
this. He is her heir. She makes a tremendous work with him; I
believe he is the only living thing she cares for in the world. He
mostly spends his holidays with her, and whiles, when she's more
ailing than usual, he comes down from London on the Friday night, and
goes up again on the Sunday night."
"He can't have a very large practice in London, surely, if he can do
that."
"He's not rightly practising at all, yet. He has been a doctor for
some years, but he is studying for something else. I don't
understand it myself. But he is very clever; he gave me some powders
that cured my rheumatism in a few days, when Dr Burns had been
working away half the winter with lotions and fomentations, and
lime-juice, and----"
"----alkalies," thought Mona. "Much more scientific treatment than
the empirical use of salicin."
For Mona was young and had never suffered from rheumatism.
"----and bandages and that," concluded Rachel. "It's some time now
since I've seen him. His aunt has been away at Strathpeffer all the
summer, and the house has been shut up."
"But I have still another customer to account for;" and in some fear
and trembling, Mona told the story of the scullery-maid and her
bonnet.
"My word!" said Rachel, "you gave yourself a deal of trouble. I
don't see that it matters what they wear, and the hats pay better.
Young folks will be young, you know, and for my part I don't see why
May should go like December."
Mona sighed. "Perhaps I was wrong," she said; "I don't think it is a
common fault of mine to be too ready to interfere with other people;
but the girl looked so quiet and sensible, in spite of her trumpery
clothes. Servants never used to dress like that; but perhaps, like a
child, I have been building a little sand-dyke to prevent the tide
from coming in."
"What I can't see is, why you should trouble yourself about what they
wear. One would think, to hear you talk, that it was a question of
honesty or religion like."
Mona sighed again, and then laughed a little bitterly. "No doubt the
folks here could instruct me in matters of honesty and religion," she
said; "but I did fancy this morning that I could teach that child a
thing or two about her bonnet."
"Oh, well, I daresay she'll be in on Monday morning to say she's
thought better of it."
There was a long silence, and then Rachel went on, "My dear, how ever
did you come by that extraordinary name? I never heard the like of
it. They called your mother Margaret, didn't they?"
"Yes, Margaret is my own second name, but I never use it. So long as
a name is distinctive, the shorter it is, the better."
"H'm. It would have been a deal wiser-like if you'd left out the
Mona. I can't bring it over my tongue at all."
And in fact, as long as Mona lived with her cousin, she was
constrained to answer to the appellation of "my dear."
"My dear," said Rachel now, "I don't think I ever heard what church
you belong to."
Mona started. "I was brought up in the Church of England," she said.
"Surely your father never belonged to the Church of England?"
"He usually attended the church service out in India with my mother.
I don't think he considered himself, strictly speaking, a member of
any individual church, although he was a very religious man."
"Ay. I've heard that he wasn't exactly sound."
"I fancy he would be considered absolutely sound now-a-days,--
'For in this windy world,
What's up is faith, what's down is heresy.'"
Rachel looked puzzled. "Oh!" she said with sudden comprehension.
"No, no, you mustn't say that. Truth is always the same."
"From the point of view of Deity, no doubt; but to us poor 'minnows
in the creek' every wave is practically a fresh creation."
"I wish you'd been brought up a Baptist," said Rachel uneasily.
"It's all so simple and definite, and there's Scripture for
everything we believe. You must have a talk with the minister. He's
a grand Gospel preacher, and great at discussions on Baptist
principles."
"Dear cousin," said Mona, "five years ago I should have enjoyed
nothing better than such a discussion, but it seems to me now that
silence is best. The faith we argue about is rarely the faith we
live by; and if it is--so much the worse for our lives."
"But how are we to learn any better if we don't talk?"
"Surely it is by silence that we learn the best things. It was from
the loneliness of the Mount that Moses brought down the tables of
stone."
"I don't see what that has to do with it. There's many a one in the
town has been brought round to sound Baptist principles by a sermon,
or an argument on the subject. I believe you've no notion, my dear,
how the whole Bible, looked at in the right way, points to the fact
that the Baptists hold the true doctrine and practice. There's
Philip and the Eunuch, and the Paschal Lamb--no, that's the plan of
salvation,--and the passage of the Red Sea, and the true meaning of
the Greek word translated 'baptise.' We'd a missionary preaching
here last Sabbath, and he said he had not the smallest doubt that
China, in common with the whole world, would eventually become
Baptist. That was how he put it--'eventually become Baptist.'"
'"A consummation devoutly to be wished,' no doubt," said Mona, "but
did the missionary point out in what respect the world would be the
'forrader'?"
A moment later she would have given anything to recall the words.
They had slipped out almost involuntarily, and besides, she had never
lived in a Dissenting circle, and she had no conception how very real
Rachel's Baptist principles were to her, nor how she longed to
witness the surprise of the "many mighty and many wise," when,
contrary to their expectations, they beheld the whole world
"eventually become Baptist."
"Forgive me, dear," said Mona. "I did not mean to hurt you, I am
only stupid; I don't understand these things."
"To my mind," said Rachel severely, "obedience to the revealed will
of God is none the less a duty because our salvation does not
actually depend upon it,--though I doubt not some difference will be
made, at the last day, between those who saw His will and those who
shut their eyes and hardened their hearts. I have a very low opinion
of the Church of England myself, and Mr Stuart says the same."
"Have you a Baptist Church here in Borrowness?" asked Mona, thinking
it well to change the subject.
"No; though there are a good few Baptists. We walk over to
Kirkstoun. I suppose you will be going to sit under Mr Ewing?"
"Who is he?"
"The English Church minister. His chapel is near Mrs Hamilton's
house. He has not got the root of the matter in him at all. He's a
good deal taken up by the gentry at the Towers; and he raises prize
poultry,--queer-like occupation for a minister."
"If it will give you any pleasure," said Mona, with rash catholicity,
"I will go to church with you every Sunday morning."
Rachel's rubicund face beamed.
"You will find it very quiet, after the fashionable service you're
used to," she said; "but you'll hear the true Word of God there."
"That is saying much," said Mona rather drearily; "but I don't go to
a fashionable church in London;" and a pang of genuine home-sickness
shot through her heart, as she thought of the dear, barn-like old
chapel in Bloomsbury, whither she had gone Sunday after Sunday in
search of "beautiful thoughts."
"You tactless brute," she said to herself as she set her candlestick
on the dressing-table that evening, "if you have only come here to
tread on that good soul's corns, the sooner you tramp back to London
the better."