A DAUGHTER OF HETH

BY

WILLIAM BLACK

"If Jacob take a wife of the daughters of Heth, such as these which are of the daughters of the land, what good shall my life do me?"

NEW AND REVISED EDITION

NEW YORK: HARPER AND BROTHERS
1892

LONDON:
PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED;
STAMFORD STREET AND CHARING CROSS.

PREFATORY NOTE.

I have long wished to place before the public an edition of these novels of mine which should have at least the mechanical merit of uniformity. Also I had in contemplation, especially with regard to the earlier volumes, a large measure of re-shaping and re-writing; so that books composed amid stress and turmoil might gain something from the comparative leisure of later years. But this wider project I found impracticable. For one thing, it would have taken a few lifetimes to accomplish; then again, it was just possible that a certain freshness and rudeness of touch might have been ill replaced by a nicer precision. Nevertheless in many minor ways these pages have now been thoroughly revised; verbal and other inaccuracies have been corrected; crooked places have been made straight; conversations condensed; while a considerable number of those little playfulnesses which the printer somehow mysteriously manages, when one is not watching, to introduce into the text, have been removed. It only remains for me, in submitting this new series to the reading public, to express my deep sense of gratitude for the constant favour and kindness I have already and for so long a time experienced at their hands.

W. B.

London, January, 1892.

CONTENTS.

CHAP.

A DAUGHTER OF HETH

CHAPTER I.

COQUETTE'S ARRIVAL.

The tide of battle had flowed onward from the village to the Manse. The retreating party, consisting of the Minister's five sons, were driven back by force of numbers, contesting every inch of the ground. Hope had deserted them; and there now remained to them but the one chance—to reach the fortress of the Manse in safety, and seek the shelter of its great stone wall.

The enemy numbered over a dozen; and the clangour and clamour of the pursuit waxed stronger as they pressed on the small and compact body of five. The weapons on both sides were stones picked up from the moorland road; and the terrible aim of the Whaup—the eldest of the Minister's boys—had disfigured more than one mother's son of the turbulent crowd that pursued. He alone—a long-legged Herculean lad of eighteen—kept in front of his retreating brothers, facing the foe boldly, and directing his swift, successive discharges with a deadly accuracy of curve upon the noses of the foremost. But his valour was of no avail. All seemed over. Their courage began to partake of the recklessness of despair. Nature seemed to sympathise with this disastrous fate; and to the excited eyes of the fugitives it appeared that the sun was overcast—that the moor around was blacker and more silent than ever—and that the far stretch of the sea, with the gloomy hills of Arran, had grown dark as if with a coming storm. Thus does the human mind confer an anthropomorphic sentiment on all things, animate and inanimate: a profound observation which occurred to Mr. Gillespie, the Schoolmaster, who, being on one occasion in the town of Ayr, when horse-racing or some such godless diversion was going forward, and having, in a very small and crowded hostelry, meekly enquired for some boiled eggs, was thus indignantly remonstrated with by the young woman in charge: "Losh bless me! Do ye think the hens can remember to lay eggs in all this bustle and hurry!"

Finally, the retreating party turned and ran—ignominiously, pell-mell—until they had gained the high stone wall surrounding the Manse. They darted into the garden, slammed the door to, and barricaded it; the Whaup sending up a peal of defiant laughter that made the solemn echoes of the old-fashioned house ring again. Outside this shriek of joy was taken as a challenge; and the party on the other side of the wall returned a roar of mingled mockery and anger which was not pleasant to hear. It meant a blockade and bombardment; with perhaps a fierce assault when the patience of the besiegers should give way. But the Whaup was not of a kind to indulge in indolent security when his enemies were murmuring hard by. In an incredibly short space of time he and his brothers had wheeled up to the wall a couple of empty barrels, and across these was hurriedly thrown a broad plank. The Whaup filled his hands with the gravel of the garden walk, and jumped up on the board. The instant that his head appeared above the wall, there was a yell of execration. He had just time to discharge his two handfuls of gravel upon the besiegers, when a shower of stones was directed at him, and he ducked his head.

"This is famous!" he cried. "This is grand! It beats Josephus! Mair gravel, Jock—mair gravel, Jock!"

Now, in the Manse of Airlie, there was an edition of Josephus' works, in several volumes, which was the only profane reading allowed to the boys on Sunday. Consequently it was much studied—especially the plates of it; and one of these plates represented the siege of Jerusalem, with the Romans being killed by stones thrown from the wall. No sooner, therefore, had the Whaup mounted on the empty barrels, than his brothers recognised the position. They were called upon to engage in a species of warfare familiar to them. They formed themselves into line, and handed up to the Whaup successive supplies of stones and gravel, with a precision they could not have exceeded had they actually served in one of the legions of Titus.

The Whaup, however, dared not discharge his ammunition with regularity. He had to descend to feints; for he was in a most perilous position, and might at any moment have had his head rendered amorphous. He therefore from time to time showed his hand over the wall; the expected volley of stones followed; and then he sprang up to return the compliment with all his might. Howls of rage greeted each of his efforts; and, indeed, the turmoil rose to an extraordinary pitch. The besiegers were furious. They were in an open position, while their foe was well intrenched; and no man can get a handful of gravel pitched into his face, and also preserve his temper. Revenge was out of the question. The sagacious Whaup never appeared when they expected him; and when he did appear, it was an instantaneous up and down, giving them no chance at all of doing him an injury. They raved and stormed; and the more bitterly they shouted names at him, and the more fiercely they heaped insults upon him, the more joyously he laughed. The noise, without and within, was appalling; never, in the memory of man, had such an uproar resounded around the quiet Manse of Airlie.

Suddenly there was a scared silence within the walls, and a rapid disappearance of the younger of the besieged.

"Oh, Tam, here's faither!" cried one.

But Tam—elsewhere named the Whaup—was too excited to hear. He was shouting and laughing, hurling gravel and stones at his enemies, when——

When a tall, stern-faced, gray-haired man, who wore a rusty black coat and a white neckcloth, and who bore in his hand, ominously, a horsewhip, walked firmly and sedately across the garden. The hero of the day was still on the barrels, taunting his foes, and helping himself to the store of ammunition which his colleagues had piled upon the plank.

"Who's lang-leggit now? Where are the Minister's chickens now? Why dinna you go and wash your noses in the burn?"

The next moment the Whaup uttered what can only be described as a squeal. He had not been expecting an attack from the rear; and there was fright as well as pain in the yell which followed the startling cut across the legs which brought him down. In fact, the lithe curl of the whip round his calves was at once a mystery and a horror; and he tumbled rather than jumped from the plank, only to find himself confronted by his father, whose threatening eye and terrible voice soon explained the mystery.

"How daur ye, sir," exclaimed Mr. Cassilis, "how daur ye, sir, transform my house into a Bedlam! For shame, sir, that your years have brought ye no more sense than to caper wi' a lot of schoolboys. Have ye no more respect for yourself—have ye no more respect for the college you have come home from—than to behave yourself like a farm-callant, and make yourself the byword of the neighbourhood? You are worse than the youngest in the house——"

"I didn't know you were in the Manse," said the Whaup, wondering whither his brothers had run.

"So much the worse—so much the worse," said the Minister, severely, "that ye have no better guide to your conduct than the fear o' being caught. Why, sir, when I was your age, I was busier with my Greek Testament than with flinging names at a wheen laddies!"

"It was mair than names, as ye might hae seen," remarked the Whaup, confidently.

Indeed, he was incorrigible, and the Minister turned away. His eldest son had plenty of brains, plenty of courage, and an excellent physique; but he could not be brought to acquire a sense of the proper gravity or duties of manhood, nor yet could he be prevailed on to lay aside the mischievous tricks of his youth. He was the terror of the parish. It was hoped that a winter at Glasgow University would tame down the Whaup; but he returned to Airlie worse than ever, and formed his innocent brothers into a regular band of marauders, of whom all honest people were afraid. The long-legged daredevil of the Manse, with his boldness, his cunning, and his agility, left neither garden, nor farmyard, nor kitchen alone. Worthy villagers were tripped up by bits of invisible twine. Mysterious knocks on the window woke them at the dead of night. When they were surprised that the patience of their sitting hen did not meet with its usual reward, they found that chalk eggs had been substituted for the natural ones. Their cats came home with walnut-shells on their feet. Stable doors were unaccountably opened. Furious bulls were found lassoed, so that no man dare approach them. The work of the Whaup was everywhere evident—it was always the Whaup. And then that young gentleman would come quietly into the villagers' houses, and chat pleasantly with them, and confide to them his great grief that his younger brother, Wattie—notwithstanding that people thought him a quiet, harmless, pious, and rather sneaking boy—was such a desperate hand for mischief. Some believed him; others reproached him for his wickedness in blaming his own sins upon the only one of the Minister's family who had an appearance of Christian humility and grace.

When the Minister had gone into the house, the Whaup—in nowise downcast by his recent misfortune, although he still was aware of an odd sensation about the legs—mounted once more upon the barrels to reconnoitre the enemy. He had no wish to renew the fight; for Saturday was his father's day for study and meditation; no stir or sound was allowed in the place from morning till night; and certainly, had the young gentlemen of the Manse known that their father was indoors, they would have let the village boys rave outside in safety. Cool and confident as he was, the Whaup did not care to bring his father out a second time; and so he got up on the barricades merely for the sake of information.

The turmoil had evidently quieted down, partly through the ignominious silence of the besieged, and partly through the appearance of a new object of public attention. The heads of the dozen lads outside were now turned towards the village, whence there was seen coming along the road the Minister's dog-cart, driven by his ancient henchman, Andrew Bogue. Beside the driver sat some fair creature in fluttering white and yellow—an apparition that seldom met the vision of the inhabitants of Airlie. The Whaup knew that this young lady was his cousin from France, who was now, being an orphan, and having completed her education, coming to live at the Manse. But who was the gentleman behind, who sat with his arm flung carelessly over the bar, while he smiled and chatted to the girl, who had half turned round to listen to him?

"Why, it is Lord Earlshope," said the Whaup, with his handsome face suddenly assuming a frown. "What business has Earlshope to talk to my cousin?"

Presently the gentleman let himself down from the dog-cart, took off his hat to her who had been his companion, and turned and went along the road again. The dog-cart drove up to the door. The Whaup, daring his enemies to touch him, went out boldly, and proceeded to welcome the new-comer to Airlie.

"I suppose you are my cousin," he said.

"I suppose I am," said the young girl, speaking with an accent so markedly French that he looked at her in astonishment. But then she, in turn, regarded him for a moment with a pair of soft dark eyes, and he forgot her accent. He vaguely knew that she had smiled to him; and that the effect of the smile was rather bewildering—as he assisted her down from the dog-cart, and begged her to come in through the garden.

CHAPTER II.

COQUETTE'S RELIGION.

The Whaup was convinced that he had never seen upon earth, nor yet in his Sunday-morning dreams of what heaven might be like, any creature half so beautiful, and bewitching, and graceful, as the young girl who now walked beside him. Yet he could not tell in what lay her especial charm; for, regarding her with the eye of a critic, the Whaup observed that she was full of defects. Her face was pale and French-looking; and, instead of the rosy bloom of a pretty country lass, there was a tinge of southern sun over her complexion. Then her hair was in obvious disorder—some ragged ends of silky brown, scattered over her forehead in Sir Peter Lely fashion, being surmounted by a piece of yellow silk ribbon; while there were big masses behind that only partially revealed a shapely neck. Then her eyes, though they were dark and expressive, had nothing of the keen and merry look of your bouncing country belle. Nor was there anything majestic in her appearance; although, to be sure, she walked with an ease and grace which gave even to an observer a sense of suppleness and pleasure. Certainly, it was not her voice which had captivated him; for when he at first heard her absurd accent, he had nearly burst out laughing. Notwithstanding all which, when she turned the pale, pretty, foreign face to him, and when she said, with a smile that lit up the dark eyes and showed a glimpse of pearly teeth—"It rains not always in your country, then?"—he remarked no stiffness in her speech, but thought she spoke in music. He could scarcely answer her. He had already succumbed to the spell of the soft eyes and the winning voice that had earned for this young lady, when she was but four years of age, the unfair name of Coquette.

"Do you know Lord Earlshope?" he said, abruptly.

She turned to him with a brief glance of surprise. It seemed to him that every alteration in her manner and every new position of her figure—was an improvement.

"That gentleman who did come with us? No; I do not know him."

"You were talking to him as if you did know him very well," said the Whaup, sternly. He was beginning to suspect this cousin of his of being a deceitful young person.

"I had great pleasure of speaking to him. He speaks French—he is very agreeable."

"Look here," said the Whaup, with a sudden knitting his brow, "I won't have you talk to Earlshope, if you live in this house. Now, mind!"

"What!" she cried, with a look of amused wonder, "I do think you are jealous of me already. You will make me—what is it called? vaniteuse. Is it not a lark!"

She smiled as she locked at her new cousin. The Whaup began to recall German legends of the devil appearing in the shape of a beautiful woman.

"Ladies in this country don't use expressions like that," said he; adding scornfully, "If that is a French custom, you'd better forget it."

"Is it not right to say 'a lark?'" she asked, gravely. "Papa used to say that, and mamma and I got much of our English from him. I will not say it again, if you wish."

"Did you call it English?" said the Whaup, with some contempt.

At this moment the Minister came out from the door of the Manse, and approached his niece. She ran to him, took both his hands in hers, and then suddenly, and somewhat to his discomfiture, kissed him; while in the excitement of the moment she forgot to speak her broken English, and showered upon him a series of pretty phrases and questions in French.

"Dear me!" he observed, in a bewildered way.

"She is a witch," said the Whaup to himself, standing by, and observing with an angry satisfaction that this incomprehensible foreigner, no matter what she did or said, was momentarily growing more graceful. The charm of her appearance increased with every new look of her face, with every new gesture of her head. And when she suddenly seemed to perceive that her uncle had not understood a word of her tirade—and when, with a laugh and a blush, she threw out her pretty hands in a dramatic way, and gave ever so slight a shrug with her small shoulders—the picture of her confusion and embarrassment was perfect.

"Oh, she is an actress—I hate actresses!" said the Whaup.

Meanwhile his cousin recovered herself and began to translate into stiff and curious English (watching her pronunciation carefully) the rapid French she had been pouring out. But her uncle interrupted her, and said—

"Come into the house first, my bairn, and we will have the story of your journey afterwards. Dear me, I began to think ye could speak nothing but that unintelligible Babel o' a tongue."

So he led her into the house, the Whaup following; and Catherine Cassilis, whom they had been taught by letter to call Coquette, looked round upon her new home.

She was the only daughter of the Minister's only brother, a young man who had left Scotland in his teens, and never returned. He had been such another as the Whaup in his youth, only that his outrages upon the decorum of his native village had been of a somewhat more serious kind. His family were very glad when he went abroad; and when they did subsequently hear of him they heard no good. Indeed, a very moderate amount of wildishness became something terrible when rumoured through the quiet of Airlie; and the younger Cassilis was looked on as the prodigal son, whom no one was anxious to see again. At length the news came that he had married some foreign woman—and this put a climax to his wickedness. It is true that the captain of a Greenock ship, having been at St. Nazaire, had there met Mr. Cassilis, who had taken his countryman home to his house, some few miles further along the banks of the Loire. The captain carried to Greenock, and to Airlie, the news that the Minister's brother was the most fortunate of men. The French lady he had married was of the most gracious temperament, and had the sweetest looks. She had brought her husband a fine estate on the Loire, where he lived like a foreign prince, not like the brother of a parish minister. They had a daughter—an elf, a fairy, with dark eyes and witching ways—who lisped French with the greatest ease in the world. Old Gavin Cassilis, the Minister, heard, and was secretly rejoiced. He corresponded, in his grave and formal fashion, with his brother; but he would not undertake a voyage to a country that had abandoned itself to infidelity. The Minister knew no France but the France of the Revolution time; and so powerfully had he been impressed in his youth by the stories of the worship of the Goddess of Reason, that, while the ancient languages were as familiar to him as his own, while he knew enough of Italian to read the Inferno, and had mastered oven the technicalities of the German theologians, nothing would ever induce him to study French. It was a language abhorred—it had lent itself to the most monstrous apostacy of recent times.

The mother and father of Coquette died within a few hours of each other, cut off by a fever which was raging over the south of France; and the girl, according to their wish, was sent to a school in the neighbourhood, where she remained until she was eighteen. She was then transferred to the care of her only living relative—Mr. Gavin Cassilis, the parish Minister of Airlie. She had never seen anything of Scotland or of her Scotch relations. The life that awaited her was quite unknown to her. She had no dread of the possible consequences of removing her thoroughly southern nature into the chiller social atmosphere of the north. So far, indeed, her journey had been a pleasant one; and she saw nothing to make her apprehensive of the future. She had been met at the railway station by the Minister's man, Andrew; but she had no opportunity of noticing his more than gloomy temperament, or the scant civility he was inclined to bestow on a foreign jade who was dressed so that all the men turned and looked at her as though she had been a snare of Satan. For they had scarcely left the station, and were making their way upward to the higher country, when they overtook Lord Earlshope, who was riding leisurely along. Andrew—much as he contemned the young nobleman, who had not the best of reputations in the district—touched his cap, as in duty bound. His lordship glanced with a look of surprise and involuntary admiration at the young lady who sat on the dog-cart; and then rode forward, and said—

"May I have the pleasure of introducing myself to Mr. Cassilis' niece? I hope I am not mistaken."

With a frankness which appalled Andrew—who considered this boldness on the part of an unmarried woman to be indicative of the licentiousness of French manners—the young lady replied; and in a few minutes Lord Earlshope had succeeded in drawing her into a pleasant conversation in her own tongue. Nay, when they had reached Earlshope, he insisted that Miss Cassilis should enter the gate and drive through the park, which ran parallel with the road. He himself was forced to leave his horse with the lodge-keeper, the animal having mysteriously become lame on ascending the hill; but, with a careless apology and a laugh, the fair-haired young gentleman jumped on to the dog-cart behind, and begged Andrew for a "lift" as far as the Manse.

Andrew thought it was none of his business. Had his companion been an ordinarily sober and discreet young woman, he would not have allowed her to talk so familiarly with this graceless young lord; but, said the Minister's man to himself, they were well met.

"They jabbered away in their foreign lingo," said Andrew, that evening, to his wife Leezibeth, the house-keeper, "and I'm thinking it was siccah a language was talked in Sodom and Gomorrah. And he was a' smiles, and she was a' smiles; and they seemed to think nae shame o' themselves, goin' through a decent country-side. It's a dispensation, Leezibeth; that's what it is—a dispensation—this hussy coming amang us wi' her French silks and her satins, and her deevlish license o' talkin' like a play-actor."

"Andrew, my man," said Leezibeth, with a touch of spite (for she had become rather a partisan of the stranger), "she'll no be the only lang tongue we hae in the parish. And what ails ye at her talking, if ye dinna understand it? As for her silks and her satins, the Queen on the throne couldna set them off better."

"Didna I tell ye!" said Andrew, eagerly, "the carnal eye is attracted already. She has cast her wiles owre ye, Leezibeth. It's a temptation."

"Will the body be quiet!" said Leezibeth, with rising anger. "He's fair out o' his wits to think that a woman come to my time o' life should be thinking o' silks and satins for mysel'. 'Deed, Andrew, there's no much fear o' my spending siller on finery, when ye never see a bawbee without running for an auld stocking to hide it in!"

Oddly enough, Andrew was at first the only one of them who apprehended any evil from the arrival of the young girl who had come to pass her life among people very dissimilar from herself. The simplicity and frankness of her manner towards Lord Earlshope he exaggerated into nothing short of license; and his "dour" imagination had already perceived in her some strange resemblance to the Scarlet Woman, the Mother of Abominations, who sat on the seven hills and mocked at the saints. Andrew was a morbid and morose man, of Seceder descent; and he had inherited a tinge of the old Cameronian feeling, not often met with now-a-days. He felt it incumbent on him to be a sort of living protest in the Manse against the temporising and feeble condition of theological opinion he found there. He looked upon Mr. Cassilis as little else than a "Moderate;" and even made bold, upon rare occasions, to confront the Minister himself.

"Andrew," said Mr. Cassilis one day, "you are a rebellious servant, and one that would intemperately disturb the peace o' the Church."

"In nowise, Minister, in nowise," retorted Andrew, with firmness. "But in maitters spiritual I will yield obedience to no man. There is but one King in Sion, sir, for a' that a dominant and Erastian Estayblishment may say."

"Toots, toots," said the Minister, testily. "Let the Establishment alone, Andrew. It does more good than harm, surely."

"Maybe, maybe," replied Andrew (with an uncomfortable feeling that the Establishment had supplied him with the carnal advantages of a good situation), "but I am not wan that would rub out the ancient landmarks o' the faith which our fathers suffered for, and starved for, and bled for. The auld religion is dying out owre fast as it is, but there is still a remnant o' Jacob among the Gentiles, and they are not a' like Nicodemus, that was ashamed o' the truth that was in him, and bided until the nicht."

It was well, therefore, that this fearless denouncer did not hear the following conversation which took place between the Minister and his niece. The latter had been conducted by Leezibeth to see the rooms prepared for her. With these she was highly delighted. A large chamber, which had served as a dormitory for the boys, was now transformed into a sitting-room for her, and the boys' beds had been carried into a neighbouring hayloft, which had been cleared out for the purpose. In this sitting-room she found her piano, which had been sent on some days before, and a number of other treasures from her southern home. There were two small square windows in the room; and they looked down upon the garden, with its moss-grown wall, and, beyond that, over a corner of Airlie moor, and, beyond that again, towards the sloping and wooded country which stretched away to the western coast. A faint grey breadth of sea was visible there; and the island of Arran, with its peaked mountains grown a pale, transparent blue, lay along the horizon.

"Ye might hae left that music-box in France," said Leezibeth. "It's better fitted for there than here."

"I could not live without it," said Coquette, with a quiet smile.

"Then I'd advise ye no to open it the-day, which is a day o' preparation for the solemn services o' the Sabbath. The denner is on the table, miss."

The young lady went down-stairs and took her place at the table, all the boys staring at her with open mouth and eyes. It was during her talk with the Minister that she casually made a remark about "the last time she had gone to mass."

Consternation sat upon every face. Even the Minister looked shocked, and asked her if she had been brought up a Roman.

"A Catholic? Yes," said Coquette, simply, and yet looking strangely at the faces of the boys. They had never before had a Catholic come among them unawares.

"I am deeply grieved and pained," said the Minister, gravely. "I knew not that my brother had been a pervert from the communion of our Church——"

"Papa was not a Catholic," said Coquette. "Mamma and I were. But it matters nothing. I will go to your church—it is the same to me."

"But," said the Minister, in amazement and horror, "it is worse that you should be so indifferent than that you should be a Catholic. Have you never been instructed as to the all-importance of your religious faith?"

"I do not know much—but I will learn, if you please," she said. "I have only tried to be kind to the people around me—that is all. I will learn if you will teach me. I will be what you like."

"Her ignorance is lamentable," muttered the Minister to himself; and the boys looked at her askance and with fear. Perhaps she was a secret friend and ally of the Pope himself.

But the Whaup, who had been inclined to show an independent contempt for his new cousin, no sooner saw her get into trouble, than he startled everybody by exclaiming, warmly—

"She has got the best part of all religions, if she does her best to the people round about her."

"Thomas," said the Minister, severely, "you are not competent to judge of these things."

But Coquette looked at the lad, and saw that his face was burning; and she thanked him with her expressive eyes. Another such glance would have made the Whaup forswear his belief in the Gunpowder Plot; and as it was, he began to cherish wild notions about Roman Catholicism. That was the first result of Coquette's arrival at Airlie.

CHAPTER III.

A PENITENT.

When, on the Sunday morning, Coquette, having risen, dressed, and come into her sitting-room, went forward to one of the small windows, she uttered a cry of delight. She had no idea that the surroundings of her new home were so beautiful. Outside the bright sunlight of the morning fell on the Minister's garden and orchard—a somewhat tangled mass, it is true, of flower beds and apple trees, with patches of cabbage, pease, and other kitchen stuff filling up every corner. A white rose-tree nearly covered the wall of the Manse, and hung its leaves and blooms round the two windows; and when she opened one of these to let the fresh air rush in, there was a fragrance that filled the room in a second.

But far beyond the precincts of the Manse stretched a great landscape, so spacious, so varied, so graduated in hue and tone that her eye ran over it with an ever-increasing delight and wonder. First, the sea. Just over the mountains of the distant island of Arran—a spectral blue mass lying along the horizon—there was a confusion of clouds that let the sunlight fall down on the plain of water in misty, slanting lines. The plain was dark, except where those rays smote it sharp and clear, glimmering in silver: while a black steamer, a mere speck, slowly crept across the lines of blinding light. Down in the south there was a small grey cloud, the size of a man's hand, resting on the water; but she did not know that that was the rock of Ailsa. Then, nearer shore the blue sea fringed with white ran into two long bays, bordered by a waste of ruddy sand; and above the largest of these great bays she saw a thin line of dark houses and gleaming slates, stretching from the old-world town of Saltcoats up to its more modern suburb of Ardrossan, where a small fleet of coasting vessels rocked in the harbour. So near were these houses to the water that, from where Coquette stood, they seemed a black fringe of breastwork to the land; and the spire of Saltcoats church, rising from above the slates, was sharply defined aginst the wide and windy breidth of waves.

Then inland. Her room looked south; and before her stretched the fair and fertile valleys and hills of Ayrshire—undulating heights and hollows, intersected by dark green lines of copse running down to the sea. The red flames of the Stevenston ironworks flickered in the daylight: a mist of blue smoke hung over Irvine and Troon; and, had her eyes known where to look, she might have caught the pale grey glimmer of the houses of Ayr. As the white clouds sailed across the sky, azure shadows crept across the variegated landscape, momentarily changing its many hues and colours; and while some dark wood would suddenly deepen in gloom, lo! beside it, some hitherto unperceived corn-field would as suddenly burst out in a gleam of yellow, burning like gold.

So still it was on this quiet Sunday morning, that she could hear the "click" of a grasshopper on the warm gravel outside, and the hum of a passing bee as it buried itself in one of the white roses, and then flew on. Nay, as she continued gazing away towards the south, it seemed to her that she could hear more. Was not that the plashing of the sea on the sunny coast of France? Was not that the sound of chanting in the small chapel at Le Croisic, out there the point of land that runs into the sea above the estuary of the Loire. Her mental vision followed the line of coast running inward—passing the quaint houses and the great building yards of St. Nazaire—and then, as she followed the windings of the broad blue river, she came to her own home, high up on the bank, overlooking the islands on the stream and the lower land and green woods beyond.

"If I had a pair of wings," she said, with a laugh, "I would fly ayvay." She had determined she would always speak English now, even to herself.

She went to her piano and sat down and began to sing the old and simple air that she had sung when she left her southern home. She sang of "Normandie, ma Normandie;" and the sensitive thrill of a rich and soft contralto voice lent a singular pathos to the air, although she had gone to the piano chiefly from lightness of heart. Now it happened that the Whaup was passing the foot of the stair leading up to her room. At first he could not believe his ears that any one was actually singing a profane song on the Sabbath morning; but no sooner had he heard "O Normandie, ma Normandie!" than he flew up the stairs, three steps at a bound, to stop such wickedness.

She did not sing loudly, but he thought he had never heard such singing. He paused for a moment at the top of the stair. He listened, and succumbed to the temptress. The peculiar penetrating timbre of the contralto voice pierced him and fixed him there, so that he forgot all about his well-meant interference. He listened breathlessly, and with a certain amount of awe, as if it had been vouchsafed to him to hear the chanting of angels. He remembered no more that it was sinful; and when the girl ceased, it seemed to him there was a terrible void in the silence, which was almost misery.

Presently her fingers touched the keys again. What was this now that filled the air with a melody which had a strange distance and unearthliness about it? She had begun to play one of Mozart's sonatas, and was playing it carelessly enough; but the Whaup had never heard anything like it before. It seemed to him to open with the sad stateliness of a march, and he could almost hear in it the tread of aerial hosts; then there was a suggestion of triumph and joy, subsiding again into that plaintive and measured cadence. It was full of dreams and mystery to him; he knew no longer that he was in a Scotch Manse. But when the girl within the room broke into the rapidity of the first variation, and was indeed provoked into giving some attention to her playing, he was recalled to himself. He had been deluded by the devil. He would no longer permit this thing to go on unchecked. And it is probable he would at once have opened the door and charged her to desist, but from a sneaking hope that she might play something more intelligible to him than these variations, which he regarded as impudent and paganish—the original melody playing hide-and-seek with you in a demoniac fashion, and laughing at you from behind a corner, when you thought you had secured it. He was lingering in this uncertain way when Leezibeth dashed up the stairs. She saw him standing there, listening, and threw a glance of contempt upon him. She banged the door open, and advanced into the room.

"Preserve us a', lassie, do ye think what ye're doing? Do ye no ken this is the Sabbath, and that you're in a respectable house?"

The girl turned round with more wonder than alarm in her face.

"Is it not right to play music on Sunday?"

"Sunday! Sunday!" exclaimed Leezibeth, who was nearly choking, partly from excitement and partly from having rushed upstairs; "your heathenish gibberish accords weel wi' sic conduct! There is nae Sunday for us. We are no worshippers o' Bel and the Draugon; and dinna ye tell me that the dochter o' the minister's brither doesna ken that it is naething less than heathenish to turn a sober and respectable house into a Babel o' a theatre on a Sabbath morning——"

At this moment the Whaup made his appearance, with his eyes aflame.

"Plenty, plenty, Leezibeth!" said he, standing out in the middle of the floor.

"Ma certes," said Leezibeth, turning on her new enemy, "and this is a pretty pass! Is there to be nae order in the house because ye are a' won ower by a smooth face and a pair o' glintin' een? Is the Manse to be tumbled tapsalteery, and made a byword o' because o' a foreign hussy?"

"Leezibeth," said the Whaup, "as sure's death, if ye say another word to my cousin, ye'll gang fleeing' down that stair quicker than ever ye came up! Do ye hear?"

Leezibeth threw up her hands, and went away. The Manse would soon be no longer fit for a respectable woman to live in. Singing, and dancing, and play-acting on the Sabbath morning—after all, Andrew was right. It would have been a merciful dispensation if the boat that brought this Jezebel to the country had foundered in sight of its shores.

Then the Whaup turned to Coquette.

"Look here," said he, "I don't mean to get into trouble more nor I can help. Leezibeth is an authority in the Manse, and ye'll hae to make friends wi' her. Don't you imagine you can play music here or do what ye like on the Sabbath; for you'll have to be like the rest—gudeness gracious! what are ye crying for?—"

"I do not know," she said, turning her head aside. "I thank you for your kindness to me."

"Oh," said he, with a tremendous flush of red to his face—for her tears had made him valiant—"is that all? Look here, you can depend on me. When you get into trouble, send for me. If any man or woman in Airlie says a word to you, by jingo! I'll punch their head!"

And thereupon she turned and looked at him with laughter like sunshine struggling through the tears in her eyes.

"Is it English—ponche sare hade?"

"Not as you pronounce it," he said, coolly. "But as I should show them, if they interfered wi' you, it's very good English, and Scotch, and Irish all put together."

On Sunday morning Mr. Cassilis had his breakfast by himself in his study. The family had theirs in the ordinary breakfast room, Leezibeth presiding. It was during this meal that Coquette began for the first time to realise the fact that there existed between her and the people around her some terrible and inexplicable difference which shut her out from them. Leezibeth was cold and distant to her. The boys, all except the Whaup, who manfully took her part, looked curiously at her. And with her peculiar sensitiveness to outward impressions, she began to ask herself if there might not be some cause for this suspicion on their part. Perhaps she was, unknown to herself, more wicked than others. Perhaps her ignorance—as in this matter of music, which she had always regarded as harmless—had blinded her to the fact that there was something more demanded of her than the simple, and innocent, and joyous life she believed herself to have led. These doubts and anxieties grew in proportion to their vagueness. Was she, after all, a dangerous person to have come among these religious people? Andrew would have been rejoiced to know of these agitating thoughts: she was awakening to a sense of wretchedness and sin.

Scarcely was breakfast over than a message was brought that Mr. Cassilis desired to see his niece privately. Coquette rose up, very pale. Was it now that she was to have explained to her the measure of her own godlessness, that seemed to be a barrier between her and the people among whom she was to live?

She went to the door of the study and paused there, with her heart beating. Already she felt like a leper that stood at the gates, and was afraid to talk to any passer-by for fear of a cruel repulse. She opened the door, with downcast look, and entered. Her agitation prevented her from speaking. And then, having raised her eyes, and seeing before her the tall, grey-haired Minister seated in his chair, she suddenly went forward to him, and flung herself at his feet, bursting into a wild fit of weeping, and burying her face in his knees. In broken speech, interrupted by passionate sobbing and tears, she implored him to deal gently with her if she had done wrong.

"I do not know," she said, "I do not know. I do not mean to do wrong. I will do what you tell me—but I am all alone here—and I cannot live if you are angry with me. I will go away, if you like—perhaps it will be better if I go away, and not vex you any more."

"But you have not vexed me, my lassie—you have done no wrong that I know of," he said, putting his hand on her head. "What is all this? What does it mean?"

She looked up to see whether the expression of his face corresponded with the kindness of his voice. She saw in those worn, grey, lined features nothing but gentleness and affection; and the ordinary sternness of the deep-set eyes replaced by a profound pity.

"I cannot tell you in English—in French I could," she said. "They speak to me as if I was different from them, and wicked; and I do not know in what. I thought you willed to reproach me. I could not bear that. If I do without knowing, I will do better if you will tell me; but I cannot live all by myself, and think that I am wicked, and not know. If it is wrong to play music, I will not play any more music. I will ask Lissiebess to pardon me my illness of this morning, which I did not know at all."

The Minister smiled.

"So you have been playing music this morning, and Leezibeth has stopped you? I hope she was not to blame in her speech, for to her it would seem very heinous to hear profane music on the Sabbath. Indeed, we all of us in Scotland consider that the Sabbath should be devoted to meditation and worship, not to idleness and amusement; and ye will doubtless come to consider it no great hardship to shut your piano one day out o' the seven. But I sent for ye this morning wi' quite another purpose than to scold ye for having fallen through ignorance into a fault, of which, indeed, I knew nothing."

He now began to unfold to her the serious perplexity which had been caused him by the fact of her having been brought up a Roman Catholic. On the one hand, he had a sacred duty to perform to her as being almost her sole surviving relation; but on the other hand, was he justified in supplanting with another faith that faith in which her mother had desired her to remain? The Minister had been seriously troubled about this matter; and wished to have it settled before he permitted her to go to church with the rest of his family. He was a scrupulously conscientious man. They used to say of him in Airlie that if Satan, in arguing with him, were to fall into a trap, Mr. Cassilis would scorn to take advantage of any mere slip of the tongue—a piece of rectitude not invariably met with in religious disputes. When, therefore, the Minister saw placed in his hands a willing convert, he would not accept of the conversion without explaining to her all the bearings of the case, and pointing out to her clearly what she was doing.

Coquette solved the difficulty in a second.

"If mamma were here," she said, "she would go at once to your church. It never mattered to us—the church. The difference—or is it differation is the proper English?—was nothing to us; and papa did not mind. I will go to your church, and you will tell me all what it is right. I will soon know all your religion," she added, more cheerfully, "and I will sing those dreadful slow tunes which papa used to sing—to make mamma laugh."

"My brother might have been better employed," said the Minister, with a frown; but Coquette ran away, light-hearted, to dress herself to go with the others.

The Whaup was a head taller when he issued from the Manse, by the side of his new cousin, to go down to the little church. He was her protector. He snubbed the other boys. To one of them—Wattie the sneak—he had administered a sharp cuff on the side of the head, when the latter, on Coquette being summoned into the study, remarked confidentially, "She's gaun to get her licks;" and now, when the young lady had come out in all the snowy brightness of her summer costume, "Wattie revenged himself by murmuring to his companions—

"Doesna she look like a play-actress?"

So the small procession passed along the rough moorland road until they drew near the little grey church and its graveyard of rude stones. Towards this point converged the scattered twos and threes now visible across the moor and down in the village—old men and women, young men and maidens all in their best Sunday "braws." The dissonant bell was sounding harshly; and the boys, before going into the gloomy little building, threw a last and wistful glance over the broad moor, where the bronzed and the yellow butterflies were fluttering in the sunlight, and the bees drowsily humming in the heather.

They entered. Every one stared at Coquette, as they had stared at her outside. The boys could not understand the easy self-composure with which she followed the Whaup down between the small wooden benches, and took her place in the Minister's pew. There was no confusion or embarrassment in her manner on meeting the eyes of a lot of strangers.

"She's no feared," said Wattie to his neighbour.

When Coquette had taken her seat, she knelt down and covered her face with her hands. The Whaup touched her arm quickly.

"Ye must not do that," said he, looking round anxiously to see whether any of the neighbours had witnessed this piece of Romish superstition.

That glance round dashed from his lips the cup of pleasure he had been drinking. Quietly regarding both himself and Coquette, he met the eyes of Lord Earlshope; and the congregation had not seen anything of Coquette's kneeling, for the simple reason that they had turned from her to gaze on the no less startling phenomenon of Lord Earlshope occupying his family pew, in which he had not been seen for years.

CHAPTER IV.

AN UNEXPECTED VISITOR.

Coquette did not observe the presence of Lord Earlshope for some time. She was much engaged in the service, which was quite new to her. First of all, the Minister rose in his pulpit and read out a psalm; and then, under him, the Precentor rose, and begun, all by himself, to lead off the singing, in a strong harsh voice which had but little music in it. The tune was "Drumclog;" and as Coquette listened, she mentally grouped its fine and impressive melody with chords, and thought of the wonderful strength and sweetness that Mendelssohn could have imparted to that bare skeleton of an air. The people groaned rather than sung; there was not even an attempt at part-singing; the men merely followed the air an octave lower, except when they struck into quite a different key, and produced such dissonances as are indescribable. If the use of the piano were not entirely proscribed, she promised to herself that she would show the Whaup next morning the true character of that simple and noble air which was being so cruelly ill-treated.

There followed a long extempore prayer, and another psalm—sung to the plaintive "Coleshill"—and then there came the sermon. She tried hard to understand it, but she could not. It was an earnest and powerful appeal; but it was so clothed in the imagery of the Jewish prophets—so full of the technical phrases of the Scotch preachers—that she could not follow it. Her English had been chiefly gathered from the free and easy conversation of her father, and even that had been modified by the foreign pronunciation of her mother; so that such phrases as "the fulfilment of the covenant," "girding up the loins," "awakening unto grace," and so forth, conveyed no meaning to her whatever. In spite of her best endeavours she found herself dreaming of the Loire—of St. Nazaire, of Guérande, of the salt plains that lie between that town and Le Croisic, and of the Breton peasants in their bragous-bras and wide hats, making their pilgrimages to the church of Notre Dame de Mûrier.

The sight of Lord Earlshope had made the Whaup both savage and wicked. He proposed to Wattie to play "Neevie, neevie, nick-nack"—an offer which Wattie looked upon as the direct instigation of the devil, and refused accordingly.

When, at last, Coquette caught the eyes of Lord Earlshope fixed upon her, she was surprised to see him so intently regarding her. There was something wistful, too, in his look; his face bearing an expression of seriousness she did not expect to find in it. During the brief period in which he talked to her he had left upon her the impression of his being merely a light-hearted young man, who had winning ways, and a good deal of self-confidence. But the fact is, she had paid no very great attention to him; and even now was not disposed to look upon his fixed gaze as anything beyond a mere accident. She turned her eyes aside; tried once more to follow the sermon; and again subsided into dreaming of Bourg de Batz, and the square pools of the salt plains, with the ancient walls of Guérande filling up the horizon of her imagination.

When the service was over, and they had got outside, the Whaup bundled them off on the road towards the Manse with but little ceremony, taking care that Coquette should be in front.

"What has changed you?" she said, in some surprise. "I did think you were good friends with me on coming to the church."

"Never mind," he said, abruptly; and then he added, sharply, "Did you see Lord Earlshope there?"

"Certainly I have seen him."

"What business had he there?"

"People go not to the church for business," she said, with a laugh.

"He has not been in that pew for years," said the Whaup, gloomily.

"Perhaps he is becoming a good man?" she said, lightly, making a careless effort to catch a butterfly that fluttered before her face.

"He has plenty to alter then," said the Whaup, with frowning brows.

She looked at him curiously, and laughed. Then she turned to the Whaup's brother.

"Wattie, will you run with me to the house?"

She held out her hand.

"No, I'll no," said Wattie. "Ye are a Roman, and can get absolution for a' the ill ye dae."

"I will, an' ye like," said the youngest of the brothers, Dougal, timidly.

"Come along, then!"

She took his hand, and, before Leezibeth or Andrew could interfere, they were fleeing along the rough road towards the Manse, far in front of the others. Dougal, young as he was, was a swift runner; but the foreign lassie beat him, and was evidently helping him. All at once Dougal was seen to stumble and roll forward. Coquette made a desperate effort to save him, but in vain; and while he fell prone upon the ground, she was brought nearly on her knees. The little fellow got up, looking sadly at one of his hands, which was sorely scratched with the gravel. He regarded her, too, dumbly; clenching his lips to keep himself from crying, although the tears would gather in his eyes. In an instant she had overwhelmed him with pitying caresses, and soft French phrases of endearment, while she carefully smoothed his torn hand with her handkerchief.

"You will come with me to my room, and I will heal it for you."

She carried him off before the others had arrived; and washed his hand; and put cold cream on it; and gave him a whole box of French chocolate—a dainty which he had never seen before, but which he speedily appreciated. Then she said,

"Come along, now, and I will sing you something—Alas! no, I must not open my piano any more."

It was the first time Dougal had ever heard anybody say "alas!"—a word which Coquette had picked up from her English books. He began to distrust all this kindness and all these fascinating ways. What Coquette knew of English was more English than Scotch in pronunciation. Now, everybody in Airlie was aware of the curious fact that all actors, and public singers, and such people, generally, as live by their wits, were English; and an English accent was therefore in itself suspicious. If this young lady in the white muslin dress, with the yellow ribbons in her black hair, was not actually French she was English, which was only a shade less deplorable. Dougal accepted the brown and sweet little balls of chocolate with some compunction, and hoped he was doing no mortal sin in eating them.

After the "interval," as it was technically called, they had to go to church again, and here Coquette's patience nearly gave way. Nor was the situation rendered less grievous by the Whaup informing her severely that in Airlie there was no such thing as idle walking about on the Sabbath—that the whole of the afternoon she would not even be permitted to go into the garden, but would have to sit indoors and read a "good book." The Whaup was not ill-pleased to have to convey this information: he fancied Lord Earlshope might be prowling about.

There was a "tea dinner" at four o'clock, consisting exclusively of cold meats, with tea added. Thereafter, the whole family sat down in solemn silence to their books—the list being the Bible, the Shorter and Longer Catechisms, Hutcheson's Exposition, Dr. Spurstow on the Promise, the Christian's Charter, Bishop Downham on the Covenant of Grace (these last "printed for Ralph Smith, at the Bible in Cornhill"), and Josephus. By this copy of Josephus there hangs a tale.

Dougal, remembering that business of the chocolate, came over to Coquette, and whispered—

"If ye are freends wi' the Whaup, he'll show ye the third vollum o' Josephus."

Indeed, the boys manifested the most lively curiosity when the Whaup appeared bearing the third volume of Josephus in his hand. They seemed to forget the sunlight outside, and the fresh air of the moor, in watching this treasure. The Whaup sat down at the table (the Minister was at the upper end of the room, in his arm-chair) and the third volume of Josephus was opened.

Coquette perceived that some mystery was abroad. The boys drew more and more near to the Whaup; and were apparently more anxious to see the third volume of Josephus than anything else. She observed also that the Whaup, keeping the board of the volume up, never seemed to turn over any leaves.

She, too, overcome by feminine curiosity, drew near. The Whaup looked at her—suspiciously at first, then he seemed to relent.

"Have ye read Josephus?" he said aloud to her.

"No," said Coquette.

"It is a most valuable work," said the Minister from the upper end of the room (the Whaup started), "as giving corroboration to the sacred writings from one who was not himself an advocate of the truth."

Coquette moved her chair in to the table. The Whaup carefully placed the volume before her. She looked at it, and beheld—two white mice!

The mystery was solved. The Whaup had daringly cut out the body of the volume, leaving the boards and a margin of the leaves all round. In the hole thus formed reposed two white mice, in the feeding and petting of which he spent the whole Sunday afternoon, when he was supposed to be reading diligently. No wonder the boys were anxious to see the third volume of Josephus; and when any one of them had done a particular favour to the Whaup, he was allowed to have half an hour of the valuable book. There were also two or three leaves left in front; so that, when any dangerous person passed, these leaves could be shut down over the cage of the mice.

They were thus engaged when Leezibeth suddenly opened the door, and said—

"Lord Earlshope would speak wi' ye, sir."

Astonishment was depicted on every countenance. From time immemorial no visitor had dared to invade the sanctity of Airlie Manse on a Sabbath afternoon.

"Show him into my study, Leezibeth," said the Minister.

"By no means," said his lordship, entering, "I would not disturb you, Mr. Cassilis, on any account. I have merely called in to say a passing word to you, although I know it is not good manners in Airlie to pay visits on Sunday."

"Your lordship is doubtless aware," returned Mr. Cassilis, gravely, "that it is not any consideration of manners that leads us to keep the Sabbath inviolate from customs which on other days are lawful and praise-worthy."

"I know, I know," said the young gentleman, good-naturedly, and taking so little notice of the hint as to appropriate a chair; "but you must blame my English education if I fall short. Indeed, it struck me this morning that I have of late been rather remiss in attending to my duties; and I made a sort of resolve to do better. You would see I was at church to-day."

"You could not have been in a more fitting place," said the Minister.

Mr. Cassilis, despite the fact that he was talking to the patron of the living—Lord Earlshope's father had presented him to the parish of Airlie—was not disposed to be too gracious to this young man, whose manner of conduct, although in no way openly sinful, had been a scandal to the neighbourhood.

"He'll have a heavy reckonin' to settle i' the next worl'," Andrew used to say, "be he lord or no lord. What think ye, sirs, o' a young man that reads licht books and smokes cigaurs frae the rising o' the sun even till the ganging doon o' the same; and roams about on the Lord's day breaking in a wheen pointers?"

The boys looked on this visit of Lord Earlshope as a blessed relief from the monotony of the Sunday afternoon; and while they kept their eyes steadily directed on their books, listened eagerly to what he had to say. This amusement did not last long. His lordship—scarcely taking any notice of Coquette in his talk, though he sometimes looked at her by chance—spoke chiefly of some repairs in the church which he was willing to aid with a subscription; and, having thus pleased the Minister, mentioned that Earlshope itself had been undergoing repairs and redecoration.

"And I have no near neighbours but yourselves, Mr. Cassilis, to see our new grandeur. Will you not pay Earlshope a visit? What do you say to coming over, the whole of you, to-morrow, and seeing what I have done? I dare say Mrs. Graham will be able to get some lunch for you; and I should like your niece—whom I had the pleasure of seeing on her way here—to give me her opinion about an organ that has been sent me from abroad. What do you say? I am sure the boys will enjoy a holiday in the grounds, and be able to find amusement for themselves."

If the Whaup dared to have spoken, he would have refused in indignant terms. The other boys were delighted with the prospect—although they were still supposed to be reading. Coquette merely looked at Mr. Cassilis, apparently without much interest, awaiting his answer.

Mr. Cassilis replied, in grave and dignified terms of courtesy, that he would be proud to avail himself of his lordship's invitation; and added that he hoped this re-establishment of the relations which had existed between Earlshope and the Manse in the time of his lordship's father meant that he, the present Lord Earlshope, intended to come oftener to church than had been his wont of late. The hint was conveyed in very plain language. The young nobleman, however, took it in good part, and speedily bade them good evening. He bowed to Coquette as he passed her; and she acknowledged this little manifestation of respect, with her eyes fixed on the ground.