COQUETTE'S PROMISE.
"Good morning, Miss Cassilis," said Lord Earlshope, as he met
Coquette coming over the moorland road. "I hear you had an adventure
last night. But why did not you go into the lodge and get dried?"
"Why?" said Coquette--"why, because my cousin Tom and I were as wet
as we could be, and it was better to go on straight to the Manse
without waiting. Have you seen him this morning?"?
"Your cousin? No."
"I am looking for him. I think he believes he is in disgrace at the
Manse, and has gone off for some wild mischief. He has taken all his
brothers with him; and I did hear him laughing and singing as he
always does when he--how do you call it?--when he breaks out."
"Let me help you to look for him," said Earlshope. "I am sure he
ought to be proud of your solicitude, if anything is wanted to make
him happier than he is. How thoroughly that handsome lad seems to
enjoy the mere routine of living!"
"You talk as if you were an old man," said Coquette, with one of her
bright laughs. "Do not you enjoy living?"
"Enjoy it? No. If the days pass easily, without much bother, I am
contented; but happiness does not visit a man who looks upon himself
as a failure at twenty-seven."
"I do not understand you," said Coquette, with a puzzled air.
"You would provoke me into talking about myself, as if I were a
hypochondriac. Yet I have no story--nothing to amuse you with."
"Oh, I do wish you to tell me all about yourself," said Coquette,
with a gracious interest. "Why you remain by yourself in this place?
Why you have no companions--no occupation? You are mysterious."
"I am not even that," he said, with a smile. "I have not even a
mystery. Yet I will tell you all about myself, if you care to hear,
as we go along. Stop me when I tire you."
So her companion began and told her all about himself and his
friends, his college life, his relations, his acquaintances, his
circumstances--a rather lengthy narrative, which need not be repeated
here. Coquette learned a great deal during that time, however, and
saw for the first time Lord Earlshope in a true light. He was no
longer to her a careless and light-hearted young man, who had made
her acquaintance out of indolent curiosity, and seemed inclined to
flirt with her for mere amusement. He was, in his own words, a
failure at twenty-seven--a man whose extremely morbid disposition had
set to work years ago to eat into his life. He had had his
aspirations and ambitions; and had at length convinced himself that
he had not been granted the intellect to accomplish any of his
dreams. What remained to him?
"I was not fit to do anything," he said, "with those political,
social, and other instruments that are meant to secure the happiness
of multitudes. All I could do was to try to secure my own happiness,
and help the philanthropists by a single unit."
"Have you done that?" said Coquette.
"No," he rejoined, with a careless shrug, "I think I have failed in
that, too. All my life I have been cutting open my bellows to see
where the wind came from; and if you were to go over Earlshope, you
would discover the remains of twenty different pursuits that I have
attempted and thrown aside. Do you know, Miss Cassilis, that I have
even ceased to take any interest in the problem of myself--in the
spectacle of a man physically as strong as most men, and mentally so
vacillating that he has never been able to hold an opinion or get up
a prejudice to swear by. Even the dullest men have convictions about
politics; but I am a Tory in sympathy and a Radical in theory, so
that I am at war with myself on pretty nearly every point. Sometimes
I have fancied that there are a good many men in this country more or
less in my condition; and then it has occurred to me that an invasion
of England would be a good thing."
"Ah, you would have something to believe in then--something to fight
for!" said Coquette.
"Perhaps. Yet I don't know. If the invaders should happen to have
better educational institutions than England--as is very
likely--oughtn't I to fight on their side, and wish them to be
successful, and give us a lesson? England, you know, owes everything
to successive invasions; for the proper test of the invader's
political institutions was whether they could hold their own in the
country after he had planted his foot there. But I have really to
beg your pardon. I must not teach you the trick of following
everything to the vanishing point. You have the greatest of earthly
blessings; you enjoy life without asking yourself why."
"But I do not understand," said Coquette, "how I can enjoy more than
you. Is it not pleasant to come out in the sunshine like this, after
the night's rain, and see the clear sky, and smell the sweet air?
You enjoy that----"
"I cannot help wondering what appetite it will give me."
Coquette made an impatient gesture with her hands.
"At least you do enjoy speaking with me here on this pleasant
morning?"
"The more we talk," he said, "the more I am puzzled by the mystery of
the difference between you and me. Why, the passing of a
bright-coloured butterfly is an intense pleasure to you! I have seen
you look up to a gleam of blue sky, and clasp your hands, and laugh
with delight. Every scent of a flower, every pleasant sound, every
breath of sunshine and air, is a new joy to you; and you are quite
satisfied with merely being alive. Of course, it is an advantage to
be alive; but there are few who make so much of it as you do."
"You think too much about it," said Coquette; "when you marry some
day, you will have more practical things to think of, and you will be
happier."
At the mention of the word marriage a quick look of annoyance seemed
to pass across his face; but she did not notice it, and he replied
lightly,
"Marriages are made in heaven, Miss Cassilis; and I am afraid they
won't do much for me there."
"Ah! do not you believe in heaven?" she said, and the brown eyes were
turned anxiously to his face.
"Do not let us talk about that," said he, indifferently; "I do not
wish to alienate from me the only companion I have ever found in this
place. Yet I do not disbelieve in what you believe, I know. What
were you saying about marriage?" he added, with an apparent effort;
"do you believe that marriages are made in heaven?"
"I do not know," replied Coquette; "the people say that sometimes."
"I was only thinking," remarked Lord Earlshope, with an apparently
careless laugh, "that if the angels employ their leisure in making
marriages, they sometimes turn out a very inferior article. Don't
you think so?"
Coquette was not a very observant young person--she was much too
occupied with her own round of innocent little enjoyments; but it did
strike her that her companion spoke with a touch of bitterness in his
tone. However, they did not pursue the subject further, for, much to
their surprise, they suddenly stumbled upon the Whaup and his
brothers.
The boys were at a small bridge crossing the stream that ran down
from Airlie moor; and they were so intent upon their own pursuits
that they took no notice of the approach of Coquette and her
companion. Lord Earlshope, indeed, at once motioned to Coquette to
preserve silence; and, aided by a line of small alder and hazel
bushes which grew on the banks of the rivulet, they drew quite near
to the Minister's sons without being perceived.
Coquette was right: the Whaup had "broken out." Feeling assured that
he would be held responsible for all the crimes of yesterday--the
affair of the crucifix, the clandestine excursion to Saltcoats, and
the mishaps that accrued therefrom--the Whaup had reflected that it
was as well to be hanged for a sheep as a lamb. When Coquette and
her companion came in sight of him, he was fulfilling the measure of
his iniquities.
What had moved him to vent his malignity on his younger brother
Wattie must remain a mystery--unless it was that Wattie was the "best
boy" of the Manse, and, further, that he had shown an enmity to
Coquette; but at this moment Wattie was depending from the small
bridge, his head a short distance from the water, his feet held close
to the parapet by the muscular arms of the Whaup, while one of the
other boys had been made an accomplice to the extent of holding on to
Wattie's trousers.
"Noo, Wattie," said the Whaup, "ye maun say a sweer before ye get up.
I'm no jokin', and unless ye be quick, ye'll be in the water."
But would Wattie, the paragon of scholars, the exemplar to his
brothers, imperil his soul by uttering a "bad word?" Surely not!
Wattie was resolute. He knew what punishment was held in reserve for
swearers; and preferred the colder element.
"Wattie," said the Whaup, "say a sweer, or ye'll gang into the burn,
as sure as daith!"
No; Wattie would rather be a martyr. Whereupon--the bridge being a
very low one--the Whaup and his brothers dipped Wattie a few inches,
so that the ripples touched his head. Wattie set up a fearful howl;
and his brothers raised him to his former position.
"Now, will ye say it?"
"_Devil!_" cried Wattie. "Let me up; I hae said a sweer."
The other brothers raised a demoniac shout of triumph over this
apostacy; and the Whaup's roars of laughter had nearly the effect of
precipitating Wattie into the stream in downright earnest. But this
backsliding on the part of their pious brother did not seem to the
tempters sufficiently serious.
"Ye maun say a worse sweer, Wattie. '_Deevil_' is no bad enough."
"I'll droon first!" said Wattie, whimpering in his distress, "and
then ye'll get your paiks, I'm thinking."
Down went Wattie's head into the burn again; and this time he was
raised with his mouth sputtering out the contents it had received.
"I'll say what ye like--I'll say what ye like! _D--n_; is that bad
enough?"
With another unholy shout of derision, Wattie was raised and set on
the bridge.
"Noo," said the Whaup, standing over him, "let me tell you this, my
man. The next time ye gang to my faither, and tell a story about any
one o' us, or the next time ye say a word against the French lassie,
as ye ca' her, do ye ken what I'll do? I'll take ye back to my
faither by the lug, and I'll tell him ye were swearin' like a trooper
down by the burn; and every one o' us will testify against ye. Ma
certes, my man, I'm thinking it will be your turn to consider paiks.
My faither has a bonnie switch, Wattie--a braw switch, Wattie; and
what think ye he'll do to his well-behaved son that gangs about the
countryside swearin' just like a Kilmarnock carter?"
Coquette held out her hand to her companion.
"Good-bye," she said, "and I do thank you for bringing me here."
Lord Earlshope perceived that he was dismissed, but did not know why.
He was not aware that Coquette was trembling lest she should be seen
in his forbidden company.
"Shall I see you to-morrow?" he said, as he took her hand.
"When it is fine I do always go out for a walk after breakfast," she
said lightly; and so they parted.