"Oh yes, that's true--I'm an old Tory. I'm proud of the name," said Sir
James, with his genial countenance. "If you'll believe me, my young
friend, most changes are for the worse. When I remember, before I went
to India, what a cheery world it was--none of those new-fangled notions
were so much as thought of--we were all kindly one with another, as
country neighbours should be. The parish school--that was good enough
for me. I got the most of my schooling there. We had a grand
dominie--there was not a more learned man out of St Andrews or Aberdeen.
Old Robert Beatoun the blacksmith was at the school with me. We've been
great friends ever since, but I cannot say that he ever took anything
upon him in consequence. That's one of your new-fangled notions too--to
part all the world into classes, and then, when their habits are formed
and their ways of living settled, to proclaim they're all equal. No,
no--they're not all equal; you may take my word for it, though I'm no
Solomon."
"I don't think so, either, Sir James; but pardon me, if you found no
evil in going to the same school as the old blacksmith----"
"Not a pin, sir--not a pin!" cried the old general. "We respected each
other. We were great friends, but not associates. I had my own cronies,
and he had his: but we always respected each other. And do you think to
sit on the same bench with a wholesome country lad in corduroy breeks
was worse for me than being packed up with a set of little dandies,
taking care of their books and keeping their hands clean, and sent out
of their own country till they're made strangers to it, as comes to pass
with your Eton, and the rest of them----I ask your pardon, Erskine. I
forgot you were there yourself----"
"There is no offence," said John. "I think I agree with you so far; but,
Sir James, your theory is far more democratic, far more levelling----"
"Me democratic and levelling!" said Sir James. "That will be news. No,
no; that was all in the course of nature. When a lad was to be pushed in
the world, his friends pushed him. You cannot do that now. When you saw
your friend with a houseful of children, you would say to him, 'What are
you going to do with those fine lads of yours?' and if you knew a
director, or had influence to hear of a writer-ship, or a set of
colours.--Now, ye cannot help on your friend's boys, and ye cease to
think of them. What little ye might do, ye forget to do it. Robert
Beatoun's grandson, you'll tell me, got in high on the list for those
competition-wallahs, as they call them. Well, I say nothing against it.
The lad is a good lad, though he was never brought up in the way of
having men under him, and he'll feel the want of that when he gets to
India. The like of me--we were poor enough, but we had always been used
to be of the officer kind. That makes a great difference; and if you
think we did our work worse for having no bother about examinations----"
"That has proved itself, Sir James. Nobody pretends to say it did not
work well."
"Then why change it?" said the old man. "And about your hospitals and
things. When there was a poor natural, as they call it, in a village,
everybody was good to the creature; and do you think the honest folk
that had known it all its life would not put up with it, and feel for
it, more than servants in an hospital? When we had a burden to bear, we
bore it in those days, and did the best we could for our own. We didn't
shuffle them off on the first person's shoulders that would take them
up."
All this John had brought upon himself by his reference to Lord
Lindores's scheme. Whatever might be well with respect to the election,
he had felt that there could be but one voice in respect to a hospital;
but John had soon been convinced that in that respect also there
certainly was more than one voice.
"But I suppose," he said, feeling somewhat confused by this style of
reasoning, for it was not a subject upon which the young man had thought
for himself,--"I suppose, for the suffering and miserable--for those out
of the common line of humanity, more badly off, less capable than their
neighbours--hospitals are necessary."
"Let those that belong to them care for them, sir," cried Sir James.
"I'm saying it in no hard-hearted way. Do you not think that when a
trouble is sent upon a family, it's far better for the family to make a
sacrifice--to draw close together, to bear it, and take care of their
own? That's always been my opinion--that was the practice long syne. If
ye had a thorn in the flesh, ye supported it. When one was ill, the rest
took care of him. There were no hired sick-nurses in those days. When ye
had a fever, your mother nursed you. If you were blind or lame, every
one would give you a little, and nobody grudged your meat or your drink.
And that was how Scotland was kept so independent, and the poor folk
hated debt and beggary. Once you give your own duty over to other
folks, you sacrifice that," the old soldier said, with conviction. Sir
James was of the class of men who are never more entirely at home than
when they are exercising the duties of beneficence--the sort of men who
manage hospitals and establish charities by nature. Had the county
hospital been existing, he it was, and not Lord Lindores, who would have
given time and trouble to it; but Sir James was as full of prejudices as
a hearty, healthy old gentleman has a right to be. He would not give in
to the new thing; and his arguments were shrewd, although he himself
would have been the last to be bound by them. He would have taken the
burden off a poor man's shoulders and carried it himself without a
compunction. Saying is one thing and doing another, all the world over;
only it is usual that people profess not less, but more, benevolent
sentiments than are natural to them. Sir James took the other way.
"You must excuse me saying," the old general went on, "that you must not
trust too much to Lord Lindores. Part of it is political, there is no
doubt about that. He's wanting to get a character for being
public-spirited and a useful member of his party. They tell me he's
thinking of bringing in his son in the case of an election, but that
would never do--that is to say, from my point of view," said Sir James,
laughing; "you're on the other side?--ah, to be sure, I had forgotten
that. Well, I suppose we're all meaning the same thing,--the good of the
country; but depend upon it, that's not to be procured in this way. The
Lindores family are very excellent people--very worthy people; but
they're new-fangled--they have lived abroad, and they have got foreign
notions into their heads."
"Benevolent institutions are, above all others, English notions--or so,
at least, I have always heard," John said.
This brought a slight flush on the old man's cheek. "Well, I believe you
are right--I think you are right. I will not go against that. Still it
is a great pity to bring foreign notions into a quiet country place."
They were walking up and down the lawn at Chiefswood, where a party of
country neighbours were about to assemble. It was a kind of gathering
which had scarcely been acclimatised in the North; and the pleasure of
sitting out, though the seats were comfortably arranged in the most
sheltered spot, was at the best an equivocal one; but fortunately the
drawing-room, with its large bright windows overlooking the scene of the
gentle gaieties provided for, was behind, and there already some groups
had collected. John Erskine, without being aware of it, was the hero of
the feast. He was the new-comer, and everybody was willing to do him
honour. It was expected that he was to be the chief performer in those
outdoor games which were not yet very well known to the young people.
And it was somewhat disconcerting that he should have chosen this moment
to discourse with old Sir James upon the county hospital, and the poor
lunatics and imbeciles of the district, for whose benefit Lord Lindores
was so anxious to legislate. Had it been any other subject, the old
general would have dismissed the young man to his peers, for Sir James
had a great notion that the young people should be left to entertain
each other. But as it happened, the theme was one which had disturbed
his genial mind. He was vexed at once in his prejudices, and in his
honest conviction that the county, to which he was so glad to get back
after his long exile, was the best managed and most happy of districts.
He had found nothing amiss in it when he came home. It had been welcome
to him in every detail of the old life which he remembered so well.
There were too many changes, he thought, already. He would have liked to
preserve everything. And to have it suggested by a new gingerbread,
half-English, half-foreign intruder, with all the light-minded ways that
belonged to the unknown races on the Continent, that the beloved county
wanted reorganisation, almost betrayed the old man into ill-humour. The
guests kept arriving while he talked, but he talked on, giving forth
his views loosely upon general questions. "We're going the wrong road,"
he said, "aye seeking after something that's new. The old way was the
best. Communistic plans are bad things, whatever ye may say for them;
and shuffling off your sick and your poor on other folk's hands, and
leaving them to the public to provide for, what's that but communism?
You'll never get me to consent to it," Sir James said.
"Where is the general?" Lady Montgomery was saying in the drawing-room.
"Bless me! has nobody seen Sir James? He cannot expect me to go out
without my bonnet, and get my death of cold setting all the young people
agoing. No, no, I told him that. I said to him, you may put out the
chairs, but if you think Barbara Erskine and me, and other sensible
women, are going to sit there in a May day and get back all our winter
rheumatism, you are mistaken, Sir James. But now, where is the general?
Nora, you must just go and look for him, and say I'm surprised that he
should neglect his duty. When I yielded to this kind of party, which is
not my notion of pleasure, I told him plainly he must take the lawn part
of it upon his own hands."
"And where's my nephew John?" said Miss Barbara Erskine, who sat in one
of the seats of honour, within pleasant reach of a bright fire. "Nora,
when you look for Sir James, you'll look for him too. I'm affronted,
tell him, that he was not the first to find me out."
"I hear Mr Erskine is a great friend of the Lindores," said Mrs Sempill.
"Having no son at home, I have not had it in my power, Miss Barbara, to
show him any attention, but I hoped to make his acquaintance to-day.
They tell me he knew the Lindores well in their former circumstances.
That is, no doubt, a fine introduction for him to the county."
"If an Erskine of Dalrulzian wanted any introduction," said Miss
Barbara, "it would be a very ill one, in my opinion. For there are as
many that think ill of them as there are that think well of them, and
they're not our kind of people. But John Erskine wants nobody to
introduce him, I hope. His father's son, and my father's great-grandson,
should have well-wishers enough."
"And a well-looking, well-spoken young man. He minds me of your uncle
Walter, the one that went abroad," said old Mrs Methven of the
Broomlees. She was older than Miss Barbara, older than the imagination
could conceive. Her memory slipped all the recent generation, and went
back to heights of antiquity unknown. Miss Barbara Erskine was still a
young person to this old lady, and Sir James a frisky young soldier.
"Walter Erskine was the first person I ever saw that wore his own hair
without so much as a ribbon. It had a terrible naked look, but you soon
got used to it. This one is like him. But you'll scarcely mind him. He
was young when he left the county. I cannot remember if you were born."
"He's like his father, which is not so far back," Miss Barbara said.
"Bless me, bless me! where is the general?" cried Lady Montgomery. She
was standing in front of the great bow-window which looked upon the
lawn, with her beautiful Indian shawl on her shoulders. Grouped upon the
grass were several parties of the younger people, not quite knowing what
to do with themselves. Some of the ladies, wrapped in warm cloaks and
shawls, were seated round, waiting for some novelty of amusement with
which they were unacquainted, and wondering when it was going to begin.
It seemed to Lady Montgomery the most dreadful neglect of duty that
there was no one to set the young people agoing. "Will anything have
happened to Sir James?" she said, in anxious Scotch, and cast a glance
back at the pleasant fire, and wrapped her shawl more closely round,
with a sense that Providence might require of her the heroic effort of
stepping outside. But just then she perceived in the distance that her
general had been captured, and was being led back in triumph to the lawn
by Nora and Agnes Sempill, two of his chief favourites. John followed
after them, looking by no means triumphant. When Lady Montgomery saw
this, she gave a nod of satisfaction, and returned to the fire.
"Whatever they're going to do, it'll begin now," she said. "If it's
worth looking at, we can see it from the window; but for my part, I'm
very anxious about putting folk to sit on the grass at this time of the
year. I would not wonder to hear of bronchitis or inflammation after
it--but it's none of my doing. Sir James is just daft about all the
new-fashioned ways of amusing young people. For my part, I say there's
nothing like the old way. Just to clear out the rooms, and get the
fiddlers, and let them dance. But that would be a daftish thing too, in
daylight," the old lady said; for she was not at all up to the current
of events.
It was, I believe, the venerable game of croquet which was the
"new-fashioned thing" in question, and which all the people outside
crowded round to see, while a few highly-instructed young persons, who
had brought the knowledge from "the South," proceeded, with much modest
importance, to exhibit for the benefit of their neighbours. "It's quite
easy," they said, each feeling a sort of benevolent missionary. John
Erskine was one of these _illuminati_, and he was the partner of Agnes
Sempill, the girl who had trembled for a moment lest Mr Torrance of
Tinto might be going to select her from the many that smiled upon him.
She would have married him had this been; but it must be said for her
that she was unfeignedly glad to have escaped. This having been the
case, it will be apparent that poor Agnes was no longer in her first
youth. She was five or six and twenty--young enough, yet not altogether
a girl; and she knew, poor young woman, that she must marry the next man
who offered himself,--they were so poor! and her mother did not fail to
impress upon her that she was losing all her chances. She looked upon
John Erskine, accordingly, with more critical interest than is
ordinarily felt. He was about her own age, but she decided that he was
too young; and she hoped, whatever he was going to do in the matrimonial
way, that he would show his intentions at once, and not force her mother
into unnecessary efforts. "Too young--but he might do very well for
Mary," she said to herself; and then she turned to him to talk about
croquet, as if there was no such important subject.
"It is such a thing to have something that can be played out of doors!"
she said. "Well, not so much in Scotland, that is true, but still we
want a little variety. Do you play golf, Mr Erskine? The ladies' golf is
very nice; it is only _Putting_--but you won't understand what that
means. At St Andrews there is the Ladies' Links----"
"Which sound romantic and picturesque, at least."
"Oh, it is not at all romantic--picturesque after a sort. Seaside
slopes--what you call downs in England; but I can't describe it. Is it
my turn? You should be able to get me nicely through that hoop next
stroke you make. Sir James is always the first to get us any novelty
that is going. He is always on the outlook for something. This is the
very first in the county. They have not got croquet yet even at
Lindores."
"Does Lindores generally set the fashion?" said John indiscreetly, not
knowing what to say.
"The fashion! oh no, certainly not," cried Miss Sempill. "Of course they
are the highest rank, and walk in and out before us all; but for
anything else----You used to know them, I hear, Mr Erskine. Tell me
something about them. Oh, we are neighbours, but not great friends. We
do not move about very much; we are humble people, without carriages and
horses. I suppose _they_ lived very quietly before----"
"I only knew them," said John, learning to employ the universal formula,
"abroad; and as the way of living is so different----"
"Ah! is it really so?" said Agnes, with quick interest; "do people
really live so much cheaper abroad? I suppose you are not expected to
keep up appearances in the same way; and then you get all your
amusements so cheaply, and you can do a great deal, and go about a great
deal, on very little. I have always heard that. But when you've a large
family, the mere travelling must be a large item. I should think it
would swallow up all the savings for the first year."
The question was one which interested her so much that she scarcely left
time for a reply.
"I have often thought of it," she said. "The girls, poor things, get so
little to amuse them here. Abroad, so far as one hears, there is nothing
but amusement. Concerts and operas for next to nothing, and always a
band playing somewhere--isn't it so? And you get houses quite cheap, and
servants that will turn their hand to anything. I suppose the Lindores
lived in quite a humble way out there?"
"They moved about a great deal, I believe," said John. "In summer, in
the mountains, whether you are rich or poor, it does not make much
difference."
This was all the young man knew. Miss Sempill interrupted him with an
eager light in her eyes, "Doesn't it, really? Then that is the ideal
place I have been looking for all my life--a place where, to be rich or
poor, makes no difference----Oh, is it my turn again? what a nuisance!
Mr Erskine is telling me of a place I have dreamt of all my life."
"But you must bestir yourself--you must bestir yourself," cried the old
general. "Reflect, my dear; you're one of many--you must not mind your
own enjoyment for the moment. Ay, my young friend, so you've been
telling a lady of a place she's dreamed of all her life?--that's better
than bothering your head about hospitals or my lord's schemes. Come,
come, John Erskine, put your heart into it: here are some of the
bonniest faces in the North waiting to see you play."
John was not dull to this inducement. It was a pretty group which
gathered round as spectators, watching every stroke. All the Sempill
girls, an eager group of pretty portionless creatures, eager for every
kind of pleasure, and getting very little, envious in a sisterly way of
Agnes, who knew the new game, and who had secured the new gallant. They
were envious yet proud of her. "Our Agnes knows all about it," they
said; "she has tried to teach us; but one person can never teach a game:
when you see it played, you learn in a moment." They looked over each
other's shoulders to see John play, which he did very badly, as was
natural; and then they dropped him and followed the next player, Willie
Montgomery, Sir James's grand-nephew, who, they all agreed, did a great
deal better. Our young man, in spite of himself, felt a little
discomfited. He came back to his partner to be consoled,--though, as he
had failed to do her the service with her ball which she expected, she
was a little dissatisfied too. She was disposed to be cross because her
play in the new game had failed of its triumphant effect through her
partner's fault. "You have not played much, Mr Erskine, I suppose? Oh,
it does not matter--when nobody knows, one style of play is just as good
as another; but I thought no one could have missed that ball. Never
mind, it is not of the least importance. Tell me more about--abroad."
"If you will tell me," said John, much mortified by these remarks, "what
you understand by abroad."
"Oh, it is all a little the same thing, isn't it? The first place you
can think of--where the Lindores lived. I daresay it was just as
important to them then as it is to us now to be economical, and spend as
little as they could."
"The interest that people take in the place where I met the Lindores is
astonishing," said John. "I had to go through a catechism at Tinto the
other night."
"Ah! then you have been at Tinto. Do you think, Mr Erskine, they are so
very unhappy as people say?"
"I do not know what people say," was all the answer John could make.
"There is nothing they don't say," cried Miss Sempill; "that he beats
her--I have heard as much as that. I wonder if it can be at all her
fault? I never cared for Pat Torrance myself, but nobody thought _that_
of him before he was married. Do you think, perhaps, if she had taken a
little more interest at first----One can never tell; he was always
rough, but not such a savage as that."
"I have no opinion on the subject. I am only a stranger, you know," John
said.
"Ah! but I can see your opinion in your face. You think it is he that is
to blame. Well, so he is, no doubt; but there are generally faults,
don't you think, on both sides? And then, you see, she was brought up
abroad--one always feels that is a little risky for a girl. To be sure,
you may turn upon me and say, why ask so many questions about it if you
hold such an opinion of it? But there is a difference: we are all grown
up but Lucy; and if mamma and five of us cannot take care of
Lucy----Both of the Lindores have that disadvantage. Don't you think
Lady Edith is a little high and mighty? She thinks none of us are good
enough for her. They are not very friendly, neither the one nor the
other. They don't feel at home among us, I suppose. No doubt it is our
fault as much as theirs," this candid critic said.
Thus John heard nothing but the same sentiment over and over again
repeated. His friends were not popular, and he himself stood in some
danger of being reckoned as of their faction. There was no one so bold
as to undertake the defence of Torrance; and yet there was a certain
toleration accorded to him, as if his case had extenuating
circumstances. John did not distinguish himself that afternoon as his
friends expected him to do. His play was feeble, and did no credit to
his training in "the South;" and as he continued to be interrogated by
every new-comer about his own antecedents and his former acquaintance
with the Lindores, it was difficult for him to repress all signs of
impatience. There was not very much variety in the talk of the county,
to judge by these specimens. They all asked how he liked the North, what
he thought of the society, and something or other about the absent
family. The monotony was broken when he was taken into the drawing-room
to be surveyed by the old ladies. Old Mrs Methven, in her old yellow
lace and shabby feathers, who looked to him like a superannuated
cockatoo, pronounced once more that he was the image of Walter Erskine,
who was killed in the French war, and who was the first man she ever saw
in his own hair, without even a ribbon. "It looked very naked like," the
old lady repeated; "no just decent, but you soon got used to it." When
these greetings and introductions were over, Miss Barbara took his arm,
and declared her intention of taking a turn on the green and inspecting
the new game. But it was not the game which interested the old lady. She
had a word of warning to say.
"John, my man! at your age you think little of good advice--above all,
from an old woman; but just one word. You must not bind yourself hand
and foot to the Lindores. You have your own place to uphold, and the
credit of your family. We've all formed our opinion of _them_; and if
you're to be considered as one of them, a kind of retainer of
theirs----"
"Retainer!" cried John, deeply piqued. Then he made an effort to recover
his temper. "You must see how unreasonable this is," he said, with a
forced smile. "They are the only people I know. I have the greatest
respect for them all, but I have done nothing to--identify myself with
the family."
He spoke with some heat, and reddened, much to his annoyance. What way
but one was there of identifying himself with them? and what hope was
there that he would ever be permitted to do that? The mere suggestion in
his own bosom made him red, and then pale.
"You take up their opinions--you support their plans; you're a partisan,
or so they tell me. All that is bad for you, John, my man! You'll excuse
me speaking; but who should take an interest in you if it's not me?"
"All this is absurd," he cried. "Take up their opinions! I think the
Earl is right about a county hospital. I will support him in that with
all my heart. Your favourite minister, Aunt Barbara----"
"I have no favourite minister," said Miss Barbara, somewhat sharply. "I
never let myself be influenced by one of them. You mean the Doctor, I
suppose?--he's far too advanced for me. Ay, that's just the man I'm
meaning. He tells me you're taking up all the Lindores's plans--a great
satisfaction to him, for he's a partisan too. Mind, I say nothing
against the hospital. What other places have, we ought to have too. We
have the same needs as our neighbours. If Perth has one, I would have
one--that's my principle. But I would not take it up because it's a plan
of Lord Lindores's. And I hear you and that muckle lout Pat Torrance
were nearly coming to blows----"
"Is that the minister too?" John cried, angrily.
"No, it's not the minister; the minister had nothing to say to it. Don't
you take up a prejudice against the minister. That's just as silly as
the other way. It was another person. Pat Torrance is just a brute; but
you'll make little by taking up the defence of the weaker side there. A
woman should hold her tongue, whatever happens. You must not set up, at
your age, as the champion of ill-used wives."
"So far from that," said John, with fierce scorn, "the tipsy brute swore
eternal friendship. It was all I could do to shake him off."
But Miss Barbara still shook her head. "Let them redd their quarrels
their own way," she said. "Stand you on your own feet, John. You should
lay hands suddenly on no man, the Apostle says. Mr Monypenny, is that
you? I am reading our young man a lecture. I am telling him the old
vulgar proverb, that every herring should hang by its ain head."
"And there's no' a truer proverb out of the Scriptures, Miss Barbara,"
said Mr Monypenny, a man of middle age, and grizzled, reddish aspect. It
irritated John beyond description to perceive that the new-comer
understood perfectly what was meant. It had evidently been a subject of
discussion among all, from Sir James to the agent, who stood before him
now, swaying from one leg to another, and meditating his own
contribution to the arguments already set forth.
"Miss Erskine is very right, as she always is. Whatever her advice may
be, it will carry the sympathy of all your well-wishers, Mr John, and
they are just the whole county, man and woman. I cannot say more than
that, and less would be an untruth."
"I am much obliged to my well-wishers, I am sure. I could dispense with
so much solicitude on their part," cried John, with subdued fury. Old
aunts and old friends may have privileges; but to be schooled by your
man of business--that was more than flesh and blood could bear.