BOOK I.
I.
II., III., IV., V., VI., VII., VIII., IX., X.
BOOK II.
I., II., III., IV., V., VI., VII., VIII., IX., X., XI., XII., XIII., XIV., XV., XVI., XVII., XVIII., XIX.
BOOK III.
I., II., III., IV., V., VI., VII., VIII., IX., X., XI., XII., XIII., XIV., XV., XVI.

MEMOIRS AND RESOLUTIONS
OF
A D A M   G R A E M E

OF MOSSGRAY.

INCLUDING SOME CHRONICLES OF THE BOROUGH OF FENDIE

BY THE AUTHOR OF
“PASSAGES IN THE LIFE OF MRS MARGARET MAITLAND,” “LILLIESLEAF,” “THE DAYS OF MY LIFE,” ETC.

LONDON:

HURST AND BLACKETT, PUBLISHERS,
SUCCESSORS TO HENRY COLBURN,
13, GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET.
1859.



JOHN CHILDS AND SON, PRINTERS.

BOOK I.

THE HISTORY OF ADAM GRAEME.

ADAM GRAEME OF MOSSGRAY.

CHAPTER I.

But this of “he was born” is greater in my eyes, than that other of “he died.” Say you, He died? say rather, He has changed his garments, has put off a fading robe, which by and by—perchance a time as short in Heaven’s account as are these fleeting days to us—he shall put on again, to wear for ever. But in yonder anxious house, in yonder dim room, with life’s plaintive music rising on his unconscious ear, in wailing and tears, its natural utterance, this wonderful soul began. Be solemn in your rejoicing, ye new mothers, ye glad attendant friends; for this that hath come into the world shall abide for ever, this new existence is beyond the breath or touch of death, a thing immortal, a presence which shall outlive the world.

I was born sadly, in gloom which none broke by the voice of thanksgiving, for the two greatest things of human life met in my birth-hour. I entered the world, a fit entrance for my long, clouded course; and solemnly, in pain and grief, my mother went forth to the other country. My young, fair, gentle mother, of whom I think now as of some beautiful dream that crossed me in my youth.

My father was a hard man, who loved the world; but I used to hear long ago that this moved him. Most deeply all my life has it moved me, who never knew the girl who was my mother. She has been a vision hovering about me all my days; saintly and mother-like when I was young, but now, in her pale beauty resembling more a dead child of the old man who is her son.

I dwell upon this perhaps too often, when I am sad—and I am truly sad too often, for I am alone; but it is surely well and blessed to preserve in the safe keeping of death this holy fragrance of youth. The years that have mossed her grave, and made the blood thin and chill in my old veins, have brought no change to her—she is young for ever.

My father was a Graeme of Mossgray. In our own Southland district we are chief of the name; but he did not esteem the traditional honour that belonged to the title—it was mere idle breath to him. The principal part of his life was spent in a distant city. He laboured without ceasing, for I know not what reason. I fancy there had been some ambition in him to accumulate one of those fairy fortunes, which very prosaic and ordinary men do achieve sometimes, though what end he proposed to himself in attaining this, I cannot tell, for he himself was becoming old, and I was nothing to him; even as the heir of his name he bestowed no regard on me; for the name itself was indifferent. He would have thrown it into the scale with any piece of merchandise, and known himself nothing the poorer.

But a spell was upon this fortune of his, so constantly pursued. His prosperity never passed a certain limit. It was as though some malicious spirit had the guiding of his fate in this respect, in vengeance of better blessings unused and slighted. He always began with success and good fortune; the delusive promise lasted long enough to lure him deeper and deeper into the snare, and then the tide began to swell and turn, and on its rising waves his hopes went bitterly out into the blank and cheerless sea. It was a sad fate, and had his objects been worthier, a fate to be deeply sympathised with; but the man was a hard man (I scarcely knew him, though he was my father); and was susceptible to no grief but this. That discipline, wise as it must be, most hard as it is always, which strikes us through our dearest things, could not touch him except in those outward matters of wealth and mercantile credit, which to him were all in all; and on these accordingly the stroke fell.

So heavily it came at last, that in his wilful selfishness he resolved to sell Mossgray. There was no one living to plead for me, a child then, scarcely daring to lift up my eyes in his presence, and for my right to this inheritance, descended from many upright fathers to whom its very name and local place were dearer than fortune. But death stepped in again to save for me a home—a home which has been to me a blessed inheritance, a solace in the midst of some evils—from other some a refuge and a shelter.

I was a solitary child, allowed in this lonely house of Mossgray to grow up, neglected and uncared for, as I best could. My childish memories are rich in dreams and spiritual presences, and overshadowed universally by that vague sadness, which, dumb as it is, and quiet, is so pitiful in children. I remember how the leaves were wont to fall from the old elms and alders by the waterside, with their eerie and plaintive sound. I remember the low sweeping cadence of the water—the disconsolate autumn breeze—and then comes upon me again the blank childish heaviness—the cloud of childish melancholy, that knew not how it was made sad, nor why.

Mossgray had been a peelhouse—one of those fortified places which the exigencies of Border warfare, predatory and otherwise, made so necessary in our district. A high, square tower occupies the centre, with narrow windows, and arrow slits piercing its massy wall, which has been of old strong in all needful capabilities of defence, and could yet be a notable hold, if our peaceful Cumberland neighbours took up their warlike trade again.

About the tower cling irregular offshoots, added by many Lairds of Mossgray since peace became paramount on the Border; in which, it is impossible to deny, my good ancestors have studied convenience more than elegance. Yet the group of buildings high and low, angled and rounded, with the dark and rugged tower rising in the midst, have a charm upon them, greater, as I think, than the fascination of regular beauty. Patches of moss and yellow lichen are on the walls and roof—the grey, thick walls, and sombre slated roof, which look themselves like some natural growth of the earth, firmly rooted in kindly soil. Our doors are many now, and broad and easy of access—for the successive Graemes, who have increased the accommodations of Mossgray, have added entrance to entrance, with a prodigality by no means pleasant when those searching winds are abroad; but we still preserve the harsh and lowering portal, and the heavy iron door, which of old frowned upon unwelcome southern visitors in sullen defiance.

I confess that I have a pleasure in looking upon these—it pleases me to trace historic changes in the aspect of my patrimonial house; that this belongs of natural right to the rugged and sturdy times of Border warfare—that from that gloomy turret with its spiral stair, the golden shield of Scotland was gloomily taken down by one who had fought in her cause, when Mary crossed the Firth on her last fatal journey to trust the false courtesies of England. That in this dark chamber, a godly Lady Mossgray sheltered the persecuted hinds and shepherds, whose faith has added them to the ranks of our truest chivalry in Scotland. That this enlarged and decorated hall in the basement of the tower bears witness to the peace of the third William’s reign. That these gradually accumulating walls carry on the chronicle through the less eventful times of modern history—that here we have been dwelling, through all vicissitudes prosperous and adverse, in our own land and among our own people for five hundred certain years. There remembrances I acknowledge are dear to me. I lose my own individuality when I leave Mossgray.

And in a vague mist of dreamy romance and childish reverie, these histories hung incumbent on my mind when my dim days began. They lived with me, a host of mingled times and shapes, more real, as I fancy yet, than the common every-day things I saw around. The chill of cold-heartedness, the absence of truth, strike with a strange, blank, unexpressed pain, upon the heart of a child—and from these I turned to dwell, where warriors and Border maidens had dwelt before me, among the true knights and fair ladies of a yearning fancy, whose indefinite pageants and minstrelsies had yet more truth of nature in them than the hollow external forms of the life that men called real.—

oppressed me on all sides then—but I had no misgivings as to the beautiful olden times—they were past, and they were true!

At our feet in this Mossgray runs a water, of some importance as we flatter ourselves. Flowing downward placid and calm from the hills, it has attained a considerable breadth and volume before it passes our old walls. And, by what chance I know not, our stream has been kept in its native pride of woodland and green banks safe from encroachments of cultivation. We have glades whose grassy undulations and noble solitary trees might match with any park in England, and we have thickly-wooded deans, closing in arched foliage over our river, with fretting rocks and waterfalls peculiarly our own. Scattered cot-houses to whom this water is a dear companion—quaint and dewy villages lying under the trees, with glimmerings of softened light about them, from the sky above and the stream below. Mills picturesque in their mossy homeliness throwing the drowsy stir of rural labour across the placid water—these are our friends and neighbours at Mossgray.

Nor do we lack, in our quiet country, inhabitants more distinguished. If I pursue my walk southward for a mile, I come upon a brave stone bridge, spanning with its stately arches the pleasant river; and across the bridge appear the many-coloured roofs of the town of Fendie in their varieties of thatch and slate, and homely red tiles, congregated happily together for mutual friendship and traffic. A very tranquil rural town, along whose streets the sunbeam slants drowsily in summer, with scarce a passing figure to break its brightness; but withal a busy borough, alive with many interests, and esteeming itself in innocent vanity and self-complacence, very far in advance of the simple “country” over which it sways its little sceptre, in all the arts and luxuries of life.

Withal, our water carries ships, and where it pours itself into the Firth, has wealthy fisheries upon its margin, and beholds long ranks of guileful nets, in which its receding waters help the fishermen to snare the glistening grilse and lordly salmon, born by the hundred in its silent caves. Our vessels are of no great burden, and boast but homely names—“Williams” and “Janets,” “Johns” and “Marys”—for our ship-owners name their cherished boats after their still more cherished children; but all of them proudly bear the emblazoned name of Fendie. To all of them the Waterfoot is a delicious haven, fragrant with the breath of home.

The grey walls of Mossgray have at all times been home to me—although a quiet and sad one often, to the man no less than to the solitary child they sheltered long ago. I remember well the pensive childish musings of that time; the dreamy gladness with which I wandered on those bright summer mornings by the pleasant water, my sole friend and playmate then, as it is my best companion now; and that unspeakable loneliness and desolation which came to me on the drooping wing of the plaintive autumn breeze. It is all indefinite and vague now as it was then. The little moralist of ten twelvemonths beginning to think how swiftly those waves of his young life glided by—the meditative, pensive boy looking on while his compeers in years pursued their sports, with his bashful wish to join them, and his sorrowful dreamy thoughts about their unthinking mirth. I recall these as a succession of dim pictures—the history of a beginning life, forlorn as only childhood can be.

CHAPTER II.

Your healthful boy is given to no manner of musing. He has begun to come in contact with the materialisms of the world, and battles with them lustily, with right good will and daring joyousness. It does not occur to him to tell you of the beauty of this water, but you shall find him eloquent on the subject of his anglings or swimmings—his feats upon it in boats—his miraculous slides—his inevitable fallings in. The delicate spiritual presence within him has forgotten how, a while ago, it seemed well nigh to touch, in dreamy awe and reverence, those other spiritual presences with which its teeming fancy had peopled the indefinite air everywhere. The warm blood is bounding in his veins in all its first exuberant impulse of life and motion. To construct—to destroy—to fight—to labour—to bend all these material obstructions under the absolute dominion of his strong young human will. To pour forth in boisterous glee, by shout and whoop, by leap and wrestle, by all that is joyous, and wild, and loud enough, the overflowing energy of his youthful powers. Your true boy does not pause in his manifold undertakings to consider natural joys and sunshine. If you would understand his enjoyment of these, you must see him breast the current as he swims across the river, and swing high up on perilous branches in the wood. His hands are full—let them talk or muse who will—his vocation is other than this.

The boy’s hero is the material man—the one single unapproachable Crusoe whom Genius has created for him—the many sailor-men of ruder flesh and blood, militant upon the sea—the hunter of unknown forests—the adventurous traveller of dangerous countries—there are the glorious ideals of the boy. He thirsts to throw the lasso with the fiery sportsman of Mexico, he burns with vain longing to have been one of the olden crew who were shipwrecked with the Byron of the sea. He clenches his hands and sets his teeth in burning indignation, when he reads how the gentle Cook fell in yon southern island far away, and knows by the valiant blood rising hot to his heart, that had he been there it had chanced otherwise. And if he returns to olden times, it is to fight by the side of Wallace, to row the forlorn boat of the Bruce, to do battle on the muirs for the Covenant, to guide Prince Charles through mountain pass and cavern. When he dreams, it is of the world without—the stirring, fighting, opposing world, which is to be quelled, and put down, and tamed into obedience to the young conqueror’s will. The sun sheds grateful light upon him, and the moon looks down from her broad skies in vain. If he could fight for her, she might enlist his youthful chivalry, as the Queen of old times, the hapless Mary, like her in lofty beauty, as in disastrous wading through stormy clouds, might have done: but to dream of her—to think of her serene pale smile—alas, no! he has other work in hand.

I remember I was fishing or appearing to fish one bright morning, in a link of our water, which was a kind of hermitage to me,—I might be twelve years old then—when my father suddenly approached me, leading in his hand a boy of my own years—a boy so differently endowed, so superior to myself as I felt at once in my shy consciousness.

My father visited Mossgray seldom: at this time we had received no intimation of his coming, and the timid constraint and awkward diffidence, which were always upon me in his presence, were heightened into exceeding pain by this sudden appearance.

“Adam,” said my father, “this is your cousin Charles. He is to stay with you in future at Mossgray.”

My father’s own name was Charles; he looked with favour on his namesake, as he watched our greeting. I so shy and rustic, and Charlie Graeme so bold and manly—I felt how disadvantageous was the comparison.

But when my father left us, and we became acquainted, as we did soon, for my cousin was as frank as I was shy, then the glorious new life of genuine boyhood which burst upon Mossgray and upon me! How I lavished upon Charlie the unsunned treasures of my solitary child’s heart; how I awoke out of my dreamy loneliness, to find myself enriched beyond all wealth in his companionship. How I discovered a new charm and attraction in my own beloved water and noble woods, from the wild shout of mirth with which Charlie plunged into riotous enjoyment of them. How the old walls and doorways that had been disturbed by few sounds louder than my pensive stealings out and in, resounded now with the ringing speed of boyish footsteps, and the blythe din of boyish laughter. It is pleasant to look back upon that time, when from a childish hermit I became a boy!

There was for me after that era no more solitary watching of the sports of others. The “haill water” ere long knew Charlie Graeme as the adventurous leader of every troop of juvenile mischief-makers, and I was by no means a slow or backward pupil. The complete revolution in my life which this produced gave these vigorous enjoyments a still greater zest to me, albeit I sometimes felt the pleasure of compassionate benevolence towards these strong fellows, my seniors in years, whose unthinking mirth of mood was so much younger than mine. I liked the sports for their sake, and they gave me some casual place in their regard for sake of the games in which I shared—we were different so far—but the lingerings of my recluse spirit did by no means operate disadvantageously upon my physical activities. I had emerged into a new existence. I had entered the second stage of life.

Charlie was the son of my father’s only brother. I had never seen, and scarcely ever heard of, my uncle; but at his death, which took place a short time before his son’s arrival at Mossgray, Charlie, with the very slender inheritance that remained to him, had been committed to my father’s care, as his only near relative and guardian. To keep us together at Mossgray was the cheapest and easiest way of getting rid of us, and accordingly we were despatched together to the academy of Fendie.

A somewhat famous school in our district, which in its day has sent forth men into the world—men of stature and nobleness, some few, albeit it has filled up its quota with perhaps a greater than usual commodity of packmen; but a school of high standing and character withal, to which the neighbouring gentry, and the smaller fry of “genteel families” in Fendie, could send their sons without derogation. We made the usual progress, as I fancy, in those routine affairs which were called our studies. We learnt lessons with as much painstaking industry as we could summon up in the morning, and forgot them with the most praiseworthy ease at night. We were conscientious enough to play truant seldom—we had no more than our average of accidents. Charlie only twice fell into the water, and only once broke his arm. My nautical mischances had all some connection with the mill-lead at the Dean, my favourite nook. On the whole we got through admirably. Never boys on the Border were blyther than we.

Young Fendie of the mount was at an English boarding-school. Our sturdy home academy was not good enough for the young laird of that ilk. What storms of ridicule we poured upon him—he knapped English, he had a holy horror of torn breeks, he never climbed a tree in his life; and, crowning shame of all, it was whispered among us in the utmost scorn and derision, that his dainty cambric handkerchief was perfumed like a lady’s! We looked at the indefinite looking things in our own miscellaneous pockets, and echoed it with a storm of laughter. “He has scent on his napkin!” It was the very climax of derision: we could go no further.

Hew Murray, of Murrayshaugh, was our warmest friend. We met sometimes, when out-of-door amusements were impracticable, in the vaulted room in Mossgray Tower, where lay in state various remnants of ancestral mail, and which we called the armoury—to compare notes as to the changes which must have happened in the fortunes of Scotland, had we three chanced to fight at Falkirk with Wallace, or with James at Flodden. But whereas Hew Murray and I were chivalrously engrossed with considerations of what we could have done for Scotland, it always happened, as I recollect, that Charlie rose in glorious anticipation of knighthoods and earldoms and broad lands to be won by his sword and by his bow. Innocent chevaliers errant were we, not without a weakness for beautiful disconsolate princesses, and imprisoned ladies to be set free by our valour and fidelity, but the dazzling chances of war had greater fascination for Charlie. Our hero contented himself with freeing the lady, and reducing the castle—his, took possession of the conquered stronghold and reigned in the stead of his enemy.

But our friends were not all of our own degree. A mile or two on the other side of Fendie lay a pretty house, which made up in its snug and comfortable proportions for its entire want of all the antiquities which clustered in hoary grace about Mossgray. Pertaining to it was a small farm, which sufficed to give its proprietor the much-esteemed territorial designation. The name of the place was Greenshaw, its owner’s Johnstone. People said that he had driven a homely enough trade in former days; but never man on the northern side of Skiddaw had seen any vestige of the pack on the broad shoulders of Mr Johnstone of Greenshaw. Besides, we do rather hold the “wanderer’s” trade in good repute in our country, so the rumour did the comfortable man no harm.

His son Walter was one of our sworn brethren. Walter Johnstone surpassed us all in daring; but the greatest heat of boyish excitement could scarcely bring any additional glow to his cheek, or throw the slightest tremor into his hand. Walter could calculate his time to a moment; he was never late, he was never hurried. Prompt and bold, cool and acute, he was the regulator and time-keeper of our obstreperous band.

Then there was Edward Maxwell, the widow’s son at the Watch-brae. He was the detrimental of our joyous parties. He always became weary at unseasonable times; he continually shirked his share of the work, and evaded the perilous parts of our excursions; but he had good looks in his favour, and a winning, ingratiating, caressing manner, which overcame our reproaches. It always happened, too, that Maxwell’s weakness brought him prominently forward among us. Speculations as to what he would do next, when he would fail in a fatigue, how he would glide out of a danger, with what new expedients he would excuse himself, kept our conversation full of him, and he felt the distinction, such as it was.

Other companions we had, greater and smaller as it chanced, for we were perfectly republican. Many kindly ties I have from that school-time with men of all classes, in all places and quarters of the earth: Australian settlers in the bush, merchants in London and Liverpool, distinguished men of literature, poor subalterns in India, humble shopkeepers in Fendie, small farmer-lairds in my own county; these pleasant threads of old connection are spun out far and near. I like it—there is a kindly universality of brotherhood in this, that seems to me as much better, as it is wider and further reaching than any mere friendships of one especial class, isolated, and standing upon the bare platform of their position.

CHAPTER III.

But now the vision splendid travels with him everywhere. There is a glory about the hills and on the sky; there is music, all the more dear that it is inarticulate, in every running stream; there is, highest of all, a wonderful light of truth, and love, and nobleness, over all human things. Motives grand and sublime, labour generous and great, worthy of the marvellous position held by this mortal race. The whole universe vibrates to his ear, with heroic marches and noble chimes of music, to which his soul thrills, and his step keeps time. True indeed there are falsehood and selfishness and change here, or whence these tales of sorrow, and this generous indignation that swells within him, against the wrong which is to be conquered; but these are not near him. In his own especial atmosphere there is perfect truth open at all points to the eye of day. His ideal covers and veils all meaner faults in the objects of his chivalrous affection; and he pities men who are smarting under neglect or inconsistency, or worldliness of friends, as those pity who feel their own blessedness made all the greater by the contrast.

Before I had reached this stage, my father had been for some time dead. Mr Murray of Murrayshaugh, the father of our friend Hew, a surly old gentleman of very ancient family, and very meagre estate, was my guardian; and we boys, having fairly concluded our academy course, began to form plans for our future life, not without much magniloquence of speech. Maxwell wavered long between the two grave professions of medicine and the Church. The latter was at first decidedly the favourite, for Johnstone, with malicious glee, drew so exquisite a picture of an adoring congregation, and ministering angels, in the form of ladies, old and young, that the gentle Edward was overpowered with modest delight. But the Widow Maxwell in her cottage, on the Watch-brae, had no manner of influence in the Church, while she had the shadow of a promise from some patron of her husband’s to procure for Edward a situation like his father’s, that of an assistant army surgeon. So Maxwell’s fate was determined. He was immediately to commence his studies as a medical student.

Johnstone at once and promptly decided for the law, in some one of its occult branches, I scarcely recollect which; but he had not the gift of utterance, and therefore was disqualified from entering the highest and most showy class of the profession.

Charlie’s destination was less easily fixed. He was eager to grow rich—he aspired to be famous—he liked all the good things of this world so well, that he was undecided which to grasp at. He thought of India, and his eyes sparkled; but some indefinite feeling, which was not home-love, made him determine to remain in Scotland. I used to wonder at this; for Charlie, with his frank fascination of manners, and his adventurous spirit, was the very man to travel—the very man, as I fancied in honest boyish admiration, to succeed brilliantly wherever he went; but he resolved to remain at home. Then he thought of business—of becoming a great merchant—for youthful calculators have a happy knack of leaping over all the initiatory steps—but for that the capital was wanting. He had nothing—I not very much, and while I would joyfully have shared my utmost farthing with Charlie, that gruff old Murrayshaugh growled forth his veto—“There’s enough tint with merchandise for one generation of ye!” so we relinquished that.

But the gift that Johnstone wanted, Charlie had in perfection. He was a natural orator; and the momentous decision was made at last. Charlie decided upon being a great lawyer—the most brilliant pleader in Scotland—perhaps Lord Advocate eventually—certainly a Member of Parliament—Member for Edinburgh! Charlie rose from his low carved chair by the fire as that crowning glory burst upon him—the grandeur of it was overpowering—Member for Edinburgh!

Murrayshaugh was an impoverished and poor estate. Its possessor had been “wild” in his youth, and now resented and avenged upon his children the poverty himself had made. Lucy Murray grew up in forlorn and lonely seclusion, acquainted from her youth with many cares. Hew was designed for a civil appointment in India, where his father ordained his industry should redeem the fortunes of the family. The harsh old man was a despot—there was no appeal against his arbitrary will.

But Murrayshaugh withal was a gentleman and a scholar; as anxious that his son should be fully and carefully fitted for the position he was to occupy as determined that in this way, and no other, should Hew’s life be spent. So Hew also was to join our little band of students in Edinburgh, and to have the advantage of two or three sessions’ training there, before he departed to his far-away labour. I could not part with them—Charlie and Hew especially were my sworn brethren; and after a long siege Murrayshaugh yielded to my very reasonable wish of accompanying them, and gave to Charlie and myself the necessary funds, commenting bitterly,—

“Your father, Adam, gave me no charge of furnishing two lads for the college. An it be your silly pleasure to spend your means on your cousin, the way is to deny yourself, my man—not to think you are a pink of generosity when it costs you nothing. But take it—take it—I wish ye much gratitude. If ye get but the common share, ye will be well repaid.”

“Never mind my father, Adam,” said Lucy, as I emerged indignantly from the dreary library of Murrayshaugh into the luxuriant garden, with its mossy terraces sloping to the river-side. “Simon says true, his bark is worse than his bite—and I think, though he would not say it, that he is sad about you all going away, and only looks angry because he thinks shame.”

“Are we to go, Adam?” said Charlie, eagerly. He had come to Murrayshaugh with me, and had waited on the terrace with Hew and Lucy while I bearded the lion within.

“Yes,” said I, with some heat—for there is nothing that one resents so warmly in one’s first youth as any prophecy of ingratitude on the part of those whom we delight to honour. “Yes, we’re to go. I would like to know why old people continually think young ones fools.”

I was nearly eighteen—I drew myself up.

“Perhaps because they are often, Adam,” suggested Lucy gently.

I could not be angry at Lucy Murray. I was too full of boyish chivalry, having reëntered the age of imagination, to be anything but gentle and deferential to a girl.

“How you do speak,” exclaimed my cousin, “you think us fools, do you, Lucy?—very well—you’ll see that by and by.”

“When you read the honourable Member for Edinburgh’s great speech,” said Hew, with his frank and pleasant laugh, “about—what will it be about, Charlie?”

“And I would like to know,” continued Charlie, angrily, “what we have done that we should be thought so very foolish. We have only been at home all our lives, no doubt—people get so much more culture in Yorkshire!”

Lucy turned away.

“Never heed him, Lucy,” said Hew, “he shows the cloven foot. It’s all about poor Dick Fendie. Why, man, Charlie, to be jealous of him!”

Charlie was past eighteen. He had some time since thrown his handkerchief on Lucy Murray, and regularly engrossed her society; by no means to her own satisfaction at first, but she had become accustomed to it. He had wounded her feelings now. He saw it himself, and was maliciously pleased. I saw it as she wandered along the terrace towards the water-side, and could almost have thrown him over the wall in spite of our brotherhood.

“What is the matter?” said I. “Quarrel with Hew or me as you like, Charlie, but what has Lucy done?”

Charlie twisted the graceful curl by the side of his cap, and swung round on his heel to follow Lucy without answering me. He was very handsome, and had a frank manliness in every look and gesture which disarmed one’s reproofs. At present, too, the conscious smile of power was on his face—he felt himself so sure of immediate forgiveness—so perfectly able to restore the smiles of Lucy Murray.

Hew and I stood watching him, as he went along the terrace after her. Our eyes met—we exclaimed in chorus, “He does not mean anything—Charlie would not hurt any one’s feelings for the world.”

“It was Lucy’s own fault, talking so much of Dick Fendie,” said Hew. “Mamma’s good boy has come home, Adam—have you seen him yet? And Lucy would defend him; but I suppose it’s all over now. By the by, Adam, how does it come about that you and I never quarrel with Lucy?”

“You and I—why, is she not your sister, Hew? and almost mine, too—Charlie you know—Charlie is different.”

Hew became thoughtful for a moment, and ended with a laugh. “Ay, that’s because Mrs Mense at Mossgray says they were made for each other. But I say, Adam, do Lilie Johnstone and you battle at each other like these two?”

I blushed a tremulous blush—it was desecration to name this sacred name so lightly. The two things were altogether different—how or wherefore I did not stay to analyse—but my reverent boyish adoration, and Charlie’s bold demands upon the constant patience and sole regard of Lucy Murray, had no resemblance to each other. I shrank back—I would have had Lilias Johnstone distinguished by the reverent respect of all men, and to hear her name thus profanely conjoined with mine!

“Are you nearly ready, Hew?” I asked hastily, “and when are we to start?”

The starting time was decided on that night, and shortly after we set out, the whole rejoicing band of us, upon a bracing frosty morning, late in October, on the top of the coach for Edinburgh. Maxwell managed to get up a few tears for his mother’s especial benefit. I had nearly joined him myself, I recollect, when I saw her pale anxious face lifted up so tenderly to the high perch where we were crowded together. Never human face had worn that look for me, and my heart warmed the more to the son of this sad mother, even while I almost envied him.

All the rest of us were motherless; but even the gruff “Good-bye, boys,” of Murrayshaugh had some feeling in it this morning; and Lucy Murray’s eyes were too heavy to be raised to us, as she stood by her father’s side. Then there was a small white hand waving a handkerchief from within the high holly hedge of Greenshaw as we passed. It perhaps was not all for her brother. I appropriated, with trembling, some share of the farewell.

In a very short time we had settled down to our respective studies. It is comparatively unusual in Scotland to give youths the benefit of college education except for some special profession; so that, put the learned faculties aside, and you leave but a small residuum to represent what forms the larger proportion of students in England. It is perhaps for this reason that we are more practical than our neighbours; that those niceties of profound classical learning which form the glory on the head of English universities—those painful researches into the nature of the Greek verb, and folio disputations on contested words, do scarcely exist among us. But that by the way. We were very frank, very unsophisticated, very innocent, we Fendie lads; and even, as I fancy, very little less so when we left than when we entered Edinburgh. It has its abundant temptations, no doubt, as all other towns have, but, so far as I myself saw, we came through them with tolerable safety. Faults of mind, and temper, and spirit, we had many, but I think we, in a great degree, escaped that round of petty vices, the assumed manliness of which leads so many foolish lads astray.

CHAPTER IV.