"JOHN HOGG'S MACHINE."
"He is curiously _simpatico_," said Mona to herself the next morning.
"I don't know that I ever knew any one with whom I felt less
necessity for clearing up my fog-beswathed utterances, or for
breaking down my brilliant metaphors in milk; it is pleasant to be
able to walk straight off into the eternals with somebody; but I like
a man to be more of a healthy animal." And a sunshiny memory passed
through her mind of the "moral Antiseptic," the dear brotherly Sahib.
"I wonder who the other botanist was?" she went on presently,
tumbling her pillows into a more comfortable position. "The
Professor's assistant perhaps, or possibly a professor himself. He
certainly was a scientist, every inch of him, from his silent tongue
to the tips of his ill-groomed fingers."
It would have surprised her not a little if she could have seen the
subject of her speculations an hour or so later. He was sitting
behind the counter of a draper's shop in Kilwinnie, his head resting
on his hand in an attitude of the deepest dejection. Mona was
perfectly right when she declared him to be every inch a scientist;
he was more so perhaps than even the great Professor himself: but the
lines had fallen unto him in a narrow little world, where his studies
were looked upon as mere vagaries, on a par with kite-making and
bullet-casting; where his college classes at St Rules had to be paid
for out of his own carefully saved pocket-money; where his
experiments and researches had to be conducted in a tumble-down
summer-house at the foot of the old garden; and where, at the age of
twenty, he was left an orphan with four grown-up sisters to support.
Had they all lived thirty years later, or in a less secluded part of
the world, the sisters would probably have looked out for themselves,
and have left their brother to make a great name, or to starve in a
garret over his weeds and his beetles, according as the Fates might
decree; but such an idea never occurred to any one of the five,
although the sisters had all received sufficient instruction in
music, painting, and French, to make them rather hard to please in
the matter of husbands.
The lad was cut out for patient, laborious, scientific research, and
he knew it; but with four sisters on one's hands, and a balance at
the bank scarcely large enough to meet doctor's bills and funeral
expenses, scientific research seems sadly vague and indefinite, while
a well-established drapery business is at least "something to lippen
to."
So he laid aside his plans, and took up the yardstick as a mere
matter of course, without any posing and protestations even to
himself.
He so far asserted himself, that the microscope, the _hortus siccus_,
and the neat pine-wood cabinets, took up a place of honour in the
house, instead of skulking in out-of-the-way corners; but now that
fifteen years had passed away, although he was known to all the
initiated as the greatest living authority on the fauna and flora of
the eastern part of the county, he was beginning to pursue his hobby
at rarer intervals and in a more dilettante spirit. Now and then
when some great scientist came into the neighbourhood, and appealed
to him as to the habitat of this and as to the probable extinction of
that, when his personal convoy on an expedition was looked upon as an
honour and a great piece of luck, when in the course of walks round
the coast he drank in the new theories of which the scientific world
was talking, he felt some return of the old fire; but in the main, to
the great relief of his sisters, he was settling down into a good and
useful burgher, with a place on the town council and on sundry local
boards, with an excellent prospect of the provostship, and with no
time for such frivolities as butterfly-hunting and botanising.
When his acquaintances questioned him, he always stated his
conviction that he had chosen, on the whole, the better part; but he
never gave any account of hours like the present, in which he loathed
the very thought of civic honours and dignity, and in which he
painted to himself in glowing colours the life that might have been.
He was thinking much just now of the burly old professor whose visit
he had keenly enjoyed; and more even than of the professor he was
thinking of Mona Maclean. All things are relative in life. Scores
of men had met Mona who had scarcely looked at her a second time.
She might be nothing and nobody in the great bright world of London;
but into this man's dark and lonely life she had come like a meteor.
He could scarcely have told what it was that had fascinated him. It
was partly her bright young face, though he dreaded good-looking
women; partly her light-hearted song, though he scorned frivolous
women; partly her botany, though he laughed at learned women; and
partly her frank outspoken manner, though he hated forward women.
She bore no smallest resemblance to the mental picture that had
sometimes floated vaguely before him of a possible helpmeet for him;
and yet, and yet--look where he would, he could see her sitting on
that rock, with all the light of the dancing waves in her eyes,--the
veritable spirit of the coast as the professor had said. He even
found himself trying to hum in a very uncertain bass,
"For he's going to marry Yum-Yum;"
but this was a _reductio ad absurdum_, and with a heavy frown he
proceeded to make out some bills.
It never occurred to him to question that she was far out of his
reach. Anybody, he thought, could see at a glance that she was a
lady, in a different sense from that in which his sisters bore the
name. It was right and fitting that the great professor should give
her his card, but who was he--the draper of Kilwinnie--that he should
suggest another meeting?
But the second meeting was nearer than either he or Mona anticipated.
"We're going to take tea with Auntie Bell this afternoon," said
Rachel next day. "Mr Hogg is going in to Kilwinnie on business, and
he says if we don't mind waiting half an hour in the town, he will
drive us on to Balbirnie. I want to buy a couple of mats at Mr
Brown's; you can depend on the quality there better than anywhere
here or in Kirkstoun; and we'll just wait in the shop till Mr Hogg is
ready."
"But can he spare the time?" asked Mona uneasily. She knew that
Rachel could quite well afford to hire a trap now and then.
"Oh, he's always glad to have a crack with Auntie Bell, not to say a
taste of her scones and cream. She is a great hand at scones."
This was magnanimous on Rachel's part, for her own scones were tough
and heavy, and--though that, of course, she did not know--constituted
one of the minor trials of Mona's life.
"But, dear," said Mona, "we are neglecting the shop dreadfully
between us."
"Oh, Sally can mind it all right when she's cleaned herself in the
afternoon. She is only too glad of a gossip with anybody. It is not
as if it was for a constancy like; this is our last call in the
meantime. Now the folks will begin to call on us, and some of them
will ask us to tea."
Mona tried to smile cordially, but the prospect was not entrancing.
About half-past two, Mr Hogg came round in his "machine." Now
"machine," as we all know, is a radical and levelling word, and in
this case it was a question of levelling up, not of levelling down,
for Mr Hogg's machine was simply a tradesman's cart. It was small,
to be sure, and fairly new and fresh, and nicely varnished, but no
one could look at it and doubt that it was what Lucy would have
called a "common or garden" cart. Rachel and Mona got in with some
difficulty, and they started off along the Kirkstoun road. Here they
met Dr Dudley. His short-sighted eyes would never have recognised
them had not Rachel leaned forward and bowed effusively; then he
lifted his hat and passed on.
They rattled through the streets of Kirkstoun, past the post-office,
the tannery, the Baptist chapel, and other buildings of importance;
and then drove out to Kilwinnie, where Mr Hogg politely deposited
them at Mr Brown's door.
Here, then, Mona saw her "professor" measuring out a dress length of
lilac print for a waiting servant-girl, and here the draper saw his
fairy princess, his spirit of the coast, alighting with as much grace
as possible from John Hogg's cart.
Mr Brown knew Rachel Simpson. She stopped occasionally to purchase
something from him on her way to Auntie Bell's; his sisters often
amused themselves by laughing at her dress, and the traveller told
him comical stories about the way in which she kept shop.
For it must be clearly understood that Mr Brown's shop was a very
different thing from Rachel Simpson's. It was well stocked with
substantial goods, and was patronised by all the people round about
who really respected themselves. It was no place for "bargains" in
the modern sense of the word. It was a commercial eddy left behind
by the tide in days when things were expected to wash and to wear.
There was no question here of "locking the door, and letting folks
see that you did not require to keep the shop." A place like this
must, on the face of it, be the chief aim and end of somebody's
existence.
Rachel's descent from the cart was a somewhat tedious process, but at
length it was accomplished successfully, and Mr Hogg drove away,
promising to return for them in half an hour.
Poor Rachel was not a little flattered by the draper's cordial
greeting. Leaving the "young man" to do up the print, he came
forward, with stammering, uncertain words indeed, but with a beaming
smile and outstretched hand. And he might be Provost next year!
"This is my cousin, Miss Maclean," she said.
Mr Brown looked absolutely petrified.
"I think we have met before," said Mona, not a little surprised
herself, taking his offered hand. "This is one of the gentlemen,
dear, who helped me with my plants."
"Oh," said Rachel rather blankly.
It had required all her "manners" to keep her from giving Mona a
candid opinion of the common weeds which were the sole fruit of a
long day's ramble, and Rachel had a very poor opinion of any man who
could occupy himself with such trash. But, to be sure, he was a good
draper--and he might be Provost next year!
And then he was so very cordial and friendly--that in itself would
have covered a multitude of sins. As soon as Rachel had made up her
mind about the mats, he hastened up-stairs, and returned with a
stammering invitation from his sisters. Would Miss Simpson and her
cousin come up to the drawing-room and wait there? When Mona came to
know a little more of the Brown _ménage_, she wondered how in the
world he had ever succeeded in getting that invitation.
But up-stairs they went, and were graciously received by the sisters.
Mr Brown was wildly happy, and utterly unable to show himself to any
advantage. He wandered aimlessly about, showing Mona this and that,
and striving vainly to utter a single sentence consecutively.
"Can't you have tea?" he said in a stage-whisper to his sister.
"Oh, thank you," interposed Rachel with a somewhat oleaginous smile,
"it's very kind, I'm sure, but we're on our way to Mrs Easson's, and
we won't spoil our appetites."
"Are you going to be here long?" said the draper to Mona.
"At Borrowness? A few months, I expect."
"Then you'll be doing some more botanising?"
"Oh yes."
"There's some very nice things a little bit farther round the coast
than we went the other day. Would you come some time with my sister
and me?"
"I should be very glad indeed," said Mona warmly. "It is an immense
advantage to go with some one who knows the neighbourhood."
"Well, we will arrange the day--later on," and he sighed; "but it
won't do to wait too long now."
At this moment Mr Hogg rattled up to the door, and the draper went
down and helped his visitors into the cart.
"Why, I declare he's getting to be quite a lady's man," said Rachel
when they were well out of hearing. "I wonder what his sisters would
say if he was to get married after all."
Meanwhile the Browns discussed their visitors,
"It's last year's mantle," said Number one, "but the bonnet's new."
"And what a bonnet!" said Number two.
"And she still shows two or three good inches of red wrist between
her glove and her sleeve," said Number three, "Nobody would think
that girl was her cousin."
"She's not at all pretty," said Number four, "but she's quite
ladylike. Do you know what she is, Philip?"
"I don't," he said nervously, "but I fancy she must be a teacher or
something of that kind. She has been very well educated."
"Ah, that would account for it," said Number two. "It must be a nice
change for her to come and stay with Miss Simpson."
The draper stood at the window counting up his happiness. There was
not a snobbish line in his nature, and Mona was not any the less a
fairy princess in his eyes because she seemed suddenly to have come
within his reach. He knew his sisters did not want him to marry, and
he was grateful to them now for having crushed in the bud certain
little fancies in the past; but if he once made up his mind,--he
laughed to himself as he thought how little their remonstrances would
weigh with him. Of course there was a great chance that so bright
and so clever a girl might refuse him; but fifteen years of his
sisters' influence had not taught him to exaggerate this probability,
and in that part of the country there is a strong superstition to the
effect that a woman teacher is not likely to refuse what is commonly
known as "an honest man's love."