Mary Brown arose even earlier than her wont on the morning that succeeded the gale. The air was fresh and sweet with the scent of bog myrtle, fir, and early heather. The hillsides, new washed, were vividly green in their clothing of pasture coppice and feathery birch. The sombre moors were warming into crimson when they met the morning sun, and the shadows among the rocks and distant hilltops showed the whole gamut of blues and purple greys.
Mary perforce had to take a morning walk. Their breakfast-room was at some distance from the cottage in which she spent the night, and the sweet air tempted her to extend the stroll through the village to an old bridge that crossed the stream at its western extremity. There she sat down on the stone parapet to sun herself, and thaw out the chilliness which she had absorbed from the walls of her damp little cottage chamber.
How the poor seem to thrive and bloom and flourish into ripe and hearty old age in those houses with their turf and stone walls! vying in health and gaiety with the lusty house leek that ridges the roof thatch! Can it be that they are made of another clay from those who walk on planked floors, and shiver at every draught that sifts through an ill-adjusted casement? Mary was no hothouse plant: her health was good, and she had always spent much of her time out of doors, careless of weather; but the clammy dampness and closeness of the little cottage rooms oppressed her, and she now drank in the pure clear air of the hills with thirsty content.
The swiftly passing waters beneath the bridge, were a darker brown after the rain, and spotted with patches of white foam, and they sung with a low continuous movement as they slid over the rocks and broke on the piers of the arch. Down the stream on a grassy flat the village women were spreading out their little heaps of wet linen fresh wrung from the stream, to bleach in the sun. Farther on a few cattle had come down to drink; and beyond that, cottage roofs and palings closed in the view.
In the village street the grey shadows of the cottages alone broke the monotony of the deserted road, till as she looked a figure issued from the door of the inn, and slowly came towards her. The distance was too great to enable her to identify the person; yet some vague association, indefinite but altogether pleasant, was called up by the gait and set of the shoulders as he approached, and added a new chord of feeling which filled up the harmony of the peaceful scene. The breeze flitting through a neighbouring wood came laden with a spicier fragrance of resinous pine, and the hum of vagrant bees mixed with the melody of babbling waters, and all the music of all the sunny mornings she had ever known came back on her with a mysterious gladness as she watched the approaching stranger. He was coming nearer, however, and she turned her head till he would pass.
The gentleman came forward smoking an early cigar, and likewise enjoying the quiet beauty of the morning. The view looking up the glen was wilder than in other directions. About a mile above the village the woods ended, and the shoulders of the hills swept down into the ascending valley in breadths of green pasture and brown and purple moor, while the jagged outline of the more distant hills, bounded in the background a broad bank of grey which stood sharply out against the transparent horizon.
The steep ascent of the old-fashioned bridge, and its brown stone parapet, picked out in all the sunlit greens and yellows of moss and wall rue, made a bold foreground to the picture, and the sable-clad figure of Mary Brown on the summit, gave life and purpose to the whole.
The gentleman ascended the bridge. Mary's back seemed not unfamiliar to him, but it was only on casting a side-long glance in passing that a recognition became possible.
'Mary Brown!'
Mary started. Her thoughts had wandered away in a day-dream; she looked round, and there stood the stranger at her elbow, with both hands held out.
page 24
"He was coming nearer, ... she turned her
head till he
would pass." Page 24.
'Ken--Mister--Captain Drysdale!' The light came suddenly into her eyes, and perhaps a shade of warmer color into her cheeks as she gave her hand.
'Why not Kenneth, as of old? Am I to say "Miss Brown?" I fear you have a bad memory for old friends!'
'Not that--but who would have expected to see you here?'
'And who could have thought to see you here,---sitting upon a bridge, in Glen Effick, at seven o'clock in the morning?'
'We live in this village now. But where have you fallen from? When we heard of you last you were at Gibraltar.'
'And so I was till the other day, when the doctors ordered me home on sick leave. But tell me. How come you to be staying in this poor little place? Some of your old charity doings I suppose. Will you not let me drive you over to the manse, my gig is getting ready now. As you may suppose, I was storm-staid here last night, and I am just setting out for home. Though, of course, I shall be only too glad to wait till you are ready to start.'
'Then you have not heard of my dear father's death, and that Roderick has been appointed to the Free Church congregation in the parish.'
'I knew about Doctor Brown, and felt deeply grieved. But I understood Roderick had succeeded him in the parish. The General always said he intended that he should.'
'General Drysdale meant to be very kind; but Roderick has joined the Free Church, so he could not accept, and I fear both the General and Lady Caroline are a good deal displeased. But you know he had to do what he thought right. Tell me, however, have you been very ill?'
'Oh! I have been broiling on that terrible rock all the summer, like the rest, and I had a pretty sharp attack of fever. But the week at sea, coming home, has set me up again. But about you and Roddie,--do you mean to say that for his church crotchets he has dragged you out of the old manse where you were born? And that you and he are living down here? Where do you live, by the way? Not in the village tavern, surely!--with its pipe-smoking and toddy-drinking--and yet I see no place else.'
'We live in the cottages. Several of the villagers each give us a room, so we are not so badly off for space, though the rooms are pretty far apart.'
'I would not have believed that your brother could have behaved so badly as to bring you down to that. And I did not think my mother would have allowed it. Were you not asked to stay at Inchbracken?'
'I fear she and General Drysdale are too much displeased with my brother for bringing the Free Church controversy into the parish, and with me for following him, even to waste another thought upon either of us. And perhaps, Captain Drysdale, it is wrong in me to stand here talking to you, when I know how deeply we have offended your family. Perhaps they might not like it.'
'And what then? Miss Brown. Am I still in pinafores at eight-and-twenty, that my mamma is to give consent before I may be allowed to speak to my very oldest friend? Why! Mary, girl, I have had you in my arms before you could walk, and I have fished you out of more than one burn, where you might very well have been drowned if I had not been near. And you know when you were eight years old you promised'--
'Pray stop! Captain Drysdale. Those are old stories, and neither you nor I are to be bound by the foolish speeches of our childhood. Dear old Kilrundle! I shall never forget our happy days there. But things have changed--I think this must be your gig.'
It was his gig, and with a very hearty shake-hands on either side, he got into it, and drove away.
'Prettier than ever,' he kept saying to himself, and the touch of the soft hands and the light in the violet eyes seemed to remain with him, and to vibrate about his heart, like the echo of a pleasant strain, till an hour later be alighted at Inchbracken.
Mary Brown strolled back to the village, her thoughts running on many things at once, the pleasant memories of the long ago and the somewhat sordid experiences of the present. Had Mrs. Sangster of Auchlippie been by, and known what was passing in her mind, she would surely have told her she was looking back to the fleshpots of Egypt, and exhorted her to take warning by the melancholy fate of Lot's wife.
Mrs. Sangster was a lady who took a particular interest in her own side of the ecclesiastical contest; and indeed it paid her to do so. She was the wife of the great man of the congregation, and seeing how mightily her consequence had prospered under the schism, she might well be zealous. From being an unpretending gentleman farmer, and the smallest heritor in the parish, her husband was now one of the few landed proprietors adhering to the Free Church, and one of those, therefore, whom she delighted to honour. Their snug home with its arable land and pastures, had now become a territorial designation attached to his name by an accented 'of,' like a German 'von,' and when he attended the General Assembly at Edinburgh he found himself sitting in committee and on platforms with the Church's solitary Marquis and the great magnates of the cause, while Madame had her seat in the Assembly among the honourable women, behind the Moderator's chair.
Fortunately for Mary, Mrs. Sangster did not appear. It was only her messenger in the person of a bare-foot herd laddie, who brought an invitation to drink tea; so Mary might let her thoughts linger in Egypt as they would. Indeed, in her case the rebuke could hardly be held to apply, seeing it was not the Free Church she had followed into the wilderness, but only the steps of her dear brother, that she might support and minister to him wherever and however he might need her help; consequently her religion manifested itself only as it had always done, in charities and good deeds, and as she had little to say on controversial subjects she was held to be 'juist a wee cauldrife'--a weakly sister after the pattern of Martha, troubled about many things and much serving, but hardly sound on the importance of the Headship, seeing she was disposed to look on all ministers as alike good, whether they had come out or stayed in.
Mary lingered long over her breakfast, but at length it was concluded, and she rose and returned to the study over the way. In the distance coming down the hill road, she now descried her brother jogging slowly down towards her.
'Eppie,' she cried, 'here comes my brother at last; will you make him some tea?'
'Hoot, mem! He's no wantin' his breakfast, I'm thinkin', or he'd be for makin' mair speed, saw ye e'er a hungry man danderin' down the road like yon? But preserve us a'! What's yon he's carryin' afore him on the bit pownie? It micht e'en be a bairn by the looks o' the bun'le, an' the tent he taks on't.' 'A' weel, sir!' she shouted as he drew near, 'Ye've had a sore traivel. Hoo's a' wi' ye, sir? An' wad ye like a dish o' tea, sir! Or a drap kale? My pat's on this twa hour, an I'm thinkin' there's a hantle mair fushion in that, nor a' yer dribblin' teapats. Tak tent, sir!' she added as he proceeded to alight before the door, 'gie us the bun'le an' ye'll licht easy. Lord sakes! sir, wha's acht the bairn? A gangin' fit's aye gettin', folk says, but wha'ar gat ye the wein?'
'Well Eppie! It's a poor little shipwrecked sailor, and I believe an orphan. I picked it up among the wreck of a ship that was lost at Effick Mouth last night, and we must care for it till we find out whom it belongs to. Though I fear its parents are among those lost in the shipwreck. Poor little soul! See how it takes to you already, Eppie!'
'The bonny lamb! an' sae it diz, an' it micht tak up wi' waur folk nor Eppie Ness. I'se tent ye, my birdie! Hoot awa! Miss Mary, what ken a young thing like you about fendin' for a bairnie? Young folk hae muckle to learn, an' yer time 'ull come, hinnie, or I'm muckle mistaen. I'll seek out the bit cradle whaur my ain bonny wee lambie lay, 'at's been wi' the Lord noo gaun on twenty year, gin ye'll haud this wee birdie, Miss Mary. An' ye can be seein' til its claes, an' we'll hae to mak meat til't.'
So the baby was carried into the house, undressed and bathed and fed, and put to sleep in Eppie's cradle. When the shawls were removed they disclosed a little girl dressed in many delicate embroideries, and around its body was entwined part of a gold chain corresponding to the links which Roderick had observed in the grasp of the drowned woman on the beach. These properties they carefully folded up and put away to assist in the future identification of the child, and Roderick wrote a letter to the Edinburgh Witness describing the waif he had rescued from the sea, in hopes it might meet the eye of some friend or relation.
When Captain John joined the family at dinner that day, it was with feelings of more than his wonted self-content. He had returned from his fishing only the hour before, and had brought with him the two finest salmon that had been caught that season. The game-keepers and retainers had admired them as in duty bound, but theirs was the admiration that pleases only faute de mieux, seeing that it can be counted on, while to-day his nephew, his old rival in field sports, was present to join in the applause.
They sat down, a party of five, the three gentlemen already described, Lady Caroline, and her kinswoman Miss Finlayson. Lady Caroline was the great lady of the neighbourhood. She was tall and dignified, with a thorough appreciation of her own importance; also she was somewhat indolent, and therefore disposed to be good-natured and condescending, whenever her superiority was quietly acquiesced in. She spent a few weeks each summer in London with her husband, but these visits were yearly becoming shorter. There were so many persons of more consequence than herself, and she found herself so much in the position of one in a crowd, that she felt as if losing her sense of personal identity, became depressed, and hurried home never to return, or would have done so had it not been for Miss Finlayson, her judicious young friend, who never once presumed to advise or direct, but who yet could influence her in opposition to her own inclination, to remain in town to the end of the season, to return again the next year, and to do any thing else the said Miss Finlayson might desire.
Miss Finlayson was a young lady of five or six-and-twenty, and of slender fortune and accommodating disposition, who could converse or keep silence, read, write, play or sing, laugh or cry in sympathy with the mood of her protectress. In person as in manner she can only be described negatively. She was quite what a young lady should be at all points, or at least, when you come to particularize, nothing that she should not be. Had Madame Contour, her London dressmaker, sent home her person and demeanour, as well as her admirably fitting draperies, she would have been very much as she was. Her figure was tall and well-proportioned, waist small, bust a little flat, easily amenable to the touch of art, arms slender but well rounded and charmingly white, hands and feet adapted to the smallest and daintiest of gloves and slippers. Her complexion was pale but clear, lips thin, mouth long, nose slightly aquiline, eyes somewhat pale, forehead too high, but with the dark hair drawn well over the temples, and long ringlets descending nearly to the waist. Altogether a pale but not unpleasing vision, and what Madame Contour would have called 'very ladylike.' She had come to Inchbracken three years before, on a cousinly visit of a fortnight; but Lady Caroline had found her so delightful and invaluable a companion that she had been induced to prolong her stay from month to month, till at length, after prolonged entreaties, she had consented to sacrifice what she called her independence, and make Inchbracken her home.
Her insight into the character of those about her was unusually distinct, and the tact with which she applied the knowledge so acquired thoroughly artistic. With the General she was all grateful deference and modest trust; hanging on his lips for any occasional oracles of wisdom that chance might issue, but very careful not to bore him with her presence or conversation unsought, and ever ready with a light for his cigar when his own matchbox was mislaid, as it generally was. With Captain John she was gay, always ready with a flippant repartee whenever he attempted to gibe, but still upon her guard. There was a twinkle in the old gentleman's eye whenever they engaged in a passage of arms, which suggested that he too had some of the insight on which she depended so much in playing the game of life. With Lady Caroline, as already said, she was self-adaptive and sympathetic, and yet to all appearance spontaneously so, and without ever sinking her own individuality, or permitting herself to be taken for granted like a dependent. Besides amusing, she contrived to relieve her of many small burdens and domestic cares, and so became altogether indispensable to her indolent kinswoman. She interfered in nothing, and yet there was no part of the household machine that did not run smoother when lubricated by her good offices. The housekeeper, the head gardener, even my lady's own woman came in time to solicit in an emergency the favourable intervention of this best natured of all young ladies, and always with the best results.
Lady Caroline found at length that she need neither think nor act, save when she felt inclined, and she declared with fervour, that Julia Finlayson was as good as a daughter of her own. That amiable person was quite content that it should be so, and indeed was most willing that Lady Caroline should have a full legal claim on her filial duty. By some deft manipulation of circumstances, the idea of her becoming a daughter-in-law had been suggested to her ladyship's mind, while the dear disinterested Julia stood immaculate from every suspicion of scheming, and, strange as it may seem, Lady Caroline was disposed to acquiesce. Her Kenneth, she said, would never make a great marriage, and if he would bring home a nobody, there was none she would more willingly take to her mother's heart than 'poor Julia.' The adjective is not exactly an enthusiastic one, but narrow circumstances had taught Miss Finlayson philosophy, and she did not look to gather grapes off thorns. If the thorns would only consent not to scratch till she had made good her hold, she knew she could pick them off at her leisure afterwards; and then for a crackling blaze under the pot! It would be 'poor thorns' then! But meanwhile, to acquire a mother-in-law, that lady's consent is by no means the essential or only step. 'First catch your hare,' or the pot will be empty, and the thorns to crackle under it will never be required. Though the damsel sit expectant and willing in her bower, what matter, if the wooer comes not? and so far Kenneth had shown no desire to approach Julia's bower in wooer's guise. Most callous of men, and most indifferent of cousins, he had passed under all the battery of charms and accomplishments, and never known. In all cousinliness he had taught her to fish, and to row on the loch. When she admitted a curiosity as to men's pursuits and a liking for tobacco smoke, he had welcomed her to the smoking-room, where she felt inclined to study Bell's Life, and also to the billiard room, where, in fact, he made her a very tolerable player, but that was all,--he felt to her only as if she had been a very little brother, and wondered what she meant by so many dainty affectations, and why she should bother to do so many things he shrewdly suspected she did not like. As to her clever little leadings, feints, and fencings colloquial, they were so much good brain-power thrown away, and might have been spoken in French or Sanscrit for any idea they conveyed to him. In fact she was altogether too sophisticated and utterly fine for this country-bred swain, and besides, she was always there.
If you had partridge every day for breakfast, partridge for dinner, and partridge again at supper, how long would you continue to relish that dainty food? And so probably in the case of a healthy young man with plenty of social opportunities, a permanent residence under the same roof does not afford the sportswoman the best opportunity to bag her game. So many weapons and devices become useless after a trial or two. What can be the efficacy of a parting glance, for instance, if the glancer has only gone behind the rose-bush at the other end of the garden? And how can one recall a last tête à tête, when the partner in it sits in an adjoining chamber, ready to resume? And how can imagination and memory ever come into play, with the fair object always in full view? Miss Finlayson was not only too sophisticated, but she was always there, and so, simple Mary Brown, though probably not so handsome according to Madam Contour's standard, and certainly less clever and accomplished, had taken possession of the young man's affections, and kept them, in spite of all the wiles of the syren.
All this, however, had come to an end two years ago when Kenneth, after long leave and quarters in the nearest garrison town, was ordered with his regiment to Gibraltar. In the meantime Mary Brown had become involved in the disgrace into which every well regulated mind in the Inchbracken circle considered that her brother had sunk. In fact she had so completely fallen out of their world that she need not be considered further, except to keep her out. Wherefore Julia made haste to welcome Kenneth's return, with all the warmth of a cousin, and to intimate as far as a well-bred damsel may, that she was capable, perhaps, of even warmer feelings.
The conversation at dinner that evening ran much on Captain John's successful angling. The appearance of his largest salmon at table gave the ladies an opportunity to join in the applause, which every male inhabitant of the house and offices had already offered.
'If you would only go out oftener, John!' said Lady Caroline. 'None of the men ever seem able to bring home anything larger than a small grilse.'
'Was it above or below the bridge you caught him? Captain Drysdale,' asked Miss Finlayson.
And so John was launched on an extended narrative of his day's spoil. Every bolt and plunge and feint and double of his fish was duly recorded, with sufficient local description to make the whole perfectly intelligible. He told his story remarkably well, and quite aroused the interest of his auditors. Too much so, perhaps, if the General's opinion had been asked; but then the General may have been hypercritical, owing to an idea he had of elevating dinner into one of the fine arts. 'You see,' he would say 'one can only dine once in twenty-four hours, that is to say if one is not to be talked about, which would be unpleasant, or to lose use of one's liver, which would be worse. And so, for myself I confess I look forward to dinner as the event of the day, and like to approach it in a proper spirit. There should be some talk of course, because we are neither beasts nor cannibals; but it should be light, gay, and cheerful, for good spirits promote digestion--yet not too engrossing--and especially--no discussion! That distracts the attention, till a man may not know whether it is a quail or a snipe he is eating. We want a cheerful tranquility at dinner, in order to appreciate rightly the dishes submitted; and give due attention to the business before us and that, I take it, is the deglutition of food.'
On the present occasion, however, the General's views were neither asked nor propounded, and John rambled pleasantly forward through the various events of his day.
'By the way, Kenneth! I met your old crony, young Brown, this morning. Poor lad! Fanaticism has changed him sadly; long-haired, lank-jawed, and saucer-eyed, that is what he has become. He might be a Covenanter, or a member of the Barebones Parliament. He appeared to be returning home from Inverlyon, where he must have been last night, for it was about eight o'clock when I met him on the road this morning, jogging along, (how he used to gallop about the countryside of old!) and mounted, of all beasts for a douce Free Kirk priest to be astride, on that poaching rascal Patey Soutar's pony!'
'Hm!' said the General,'I always said secession was just inserting the small end of the wedge! They quarrel with our vested right of patronage now, but that is only the beginning. By and by they will question our right to the grouse on our own hills, and want to repeal the game laws! If they had their way, I wonder would they leave us a roof over our heads, or a coat on our backs? That comes of your Reform Bills! and putting the government of the country in the hands of people who have nothing to lose! But I did not expect to see the son of my old friend array himself with such as these. It is very sad.'
'Did he seem cheerful, John?' asked Kenneth.
'He looked as I say, tired, thin, and hollow-eyed. But when I tried mildly to remonstrate, and show that he had made the change for the worse, he fired up briskly enough, and held forth quite at length. He might have been talking still, I daresay, but that just then, there came a squeal from a parcel he carried on his saddle bow. I pricked up my ears at that, and resolved to take my innings then. He had been discoursing on the solemnity of his avocations, which precluded shooting and fishing, so here I had a fine opening for chaff, saying that his presbytery might reasonably forbid these, seeing that it allowed other pastimes so much more engrossing, for--saving your presence, Lady Caroline--the bundle contained a baby! Poor fellow, he seemed so put-out, I really did not catch his explanation--though of course there was one, (there always is--) The confusion seemed quite out of proportion, for after all as the French girl said to her priest, "it was such a little one!" Ha, ha!!'
But no one joined in the laugh. The ladies were examining the flowers painted on their plates, and the gentlemen kept a severe silence. You surely went too far there! Captain John! Good man. He loved to make a joke, but it was not often that he achieved one. If desire had been qualification, he would certainly have been a wit; and when he thought he had achieved one, he repeated it till every one he knew had heard it. Hence the repetition of the morning's rather thread-bare jest.
Perhaps it was only to break an awkward silence that Miss Finlayson took up the word.
'Your woman Briggs tells me, Lady Caroline, that that Tirpie girl, old Tibbie's daughter, has come home again. When Briggs came over from Inverlyon last night, there was some one else in the stage-coach, all wrapped up, who sat and cried the whole way. She got out at Tibbie's cottage. This morning Briggs went over about some sewing, and there was the girl looking so thin and pale. Briggs says it was distressing to see her, she looked so weak and heart-broken. Perhaps you may remember that she was ailing and went away to some friend at a distance. Now she is home again. I fear she is not a good girl, at least not all her mother would wish her to be. But perhaps you could let her have some fine sewing, Briggs says any other kind of work would be too much for her.'
The boisterous unmannerliness of Captain John's remark had caused a sensation, but it was as nothing to the dismay which followed Miss Finlayson's perfectly quiet, evenly uttered, and perhaps charitably intended words. She seemed virtuously unconscious of all evil, but by some occult association of ideas, her statement fell into the minds of her auditors as corroborative and supplementary to what had been meant but as a little verbal horse play by the Captain.
Lady Caroline looked deeply shocked, Kenneth flushed scarlet with indignation, and as his glance met John's, the latter returned it with a twinkle of mingled amusement and admiration. He passed his napkin across his mouth to hide an uncontrollable grin, and muttered to Kenneth his neighbour--'the scandalous jade!'
William the footman appeared to quiver as if struck. His eye dilated and his jaw fell. The dish he carried would have fallen, and there would have been a catastrophe, had not the butler trodden on his toe and recalled him with a reproving glance to that sublime impassibility which alone is worthy of a footman on duty.
The General alone remained tranquil. He was eating his dinner. He heard something pass between the ladies about one of the cottagers, but his thoughts were running on other things, whether, for instance, another clove of garlic, or perhaps an olive would not give a rounder fulness to the sauce on his plate.
There was little or no conversation afterwards. Every one seemed distraught, and following out a train of new and unpleasant ideas, except Miss Finlayson, who seemed securely content, a participant with the General in his digestive tranquility. Perhaps she had fired her shot and it had sped home to its mark, or perhaps there was no mark and no intention when the winged words flew forth. We read that of old 'a certain man drew a bow at a venture.' The arrow sped, and entering the unguarded joint of a harness, it laid a warrior low. It may be that Julia's arrow was thus unwittingly shot, but Captain John did not think so.
Three weeks later, Mrs. Sangster entertained friends. Dinner at Auchlippie took place earlier than at Inchbracken--finished the afternoon rather than began the evening. At its conclusion the master withdrew, to make the round of his stables and cattle sheds, and see that the stock was fitly provided and bestowed for the night. His son, Mr. Peter Sangster of Manchester and his friend Mr. Wallowby, likewise of Manchester, and now in Scotland for a short vacation, also withdrew and lighting their cigars sauntered down the avenue. Only the Rev. Mr. Dowlas was left within doors in company with Mrs. Sangster and her daughter. The latter sought her embroidery frame in a distant bay window, and soon became engrossed in counting the squares of her Berlin wool work.
The elder lady was left alone to converse with her ghostly friend, and the pair selecting the two easiest and roomiest chairs they could find, drew a long breath and settled themselves for along and confidential 'crack.' There was much to tell and to hear about the fortunes of the 'cause' throughout the several parishes of their presbytery, in which Mr. Dowlas was a guiding spirit; but at length they came round to the lady's own parish of Kilrundle, which she, as ruling lady of the ruling elder and chief adherent, considered as her own in a more especial sense than did any other of the parishioners.
'And I think,' she said, 'Mr. Dowlas, that we here in Kilrundle, have fought the good fight as well as any of you. They tell me there were not two dozen residuaries in Kilrundle Church on Sunday, though the Inchbracken family are far more particular about their servants attending ordinances now than they used to be. And Lady Caroline goes twice every Sunday herself. You know there was many and many a Sabbath day in the old time, that she never darkened the kirk door at all, but now she goes to countenance that sticket dominie that fills good old Doctor Brown's pulpit. Well! poor misguided woman, let us hope she may perhaps get some small enlightenment to her darkened mind! Though, I fear, the motive which draws her to the sanctuary, being only the support of high handed error and worldliness, is one not likely to bring a blessing. It seems doubtful to me too if we have any right to consider the churches of the Establishment as sanctuaries at all. Just hot-beds of soul-deadening Moderatism and Erastianism, where the word of God is only permitted, in so far as it can be made to square with Lord Aberdeen's Bill.'
'Well ma'am! they do say that that sinful Act of Parliament is laid on the table of the residuary presbyteries side by side with the word of God! But I would fain hope that that is an exaggeration. I hear you are having very full meetings at the Muir Foot; times of refreshing, I hope, and sincere milk of the word.'
'We've much to be thankful for. On fine days when the heather's dry, far more turn out than ever I saw in Old Kilrundle Kirk in its best days; and even when it rains, you'd be surprised to see how many sit out the discourse under their plaids and umbrellas. I hope the hearts of the persecutors may be turned before long, however, and that we may get a stanse for a church, before the rough weather sets in. There's a very suitable stanse, just opposite Inchbracken Gates, and in full view of the Old Kirk. That would suit us finely and be a standing testimony against the backslidings in high places, and I want Mr. Sangster to head a deputation and wait on the General, poor thoughtless worldling, and lay our case before him, simply but faithfully; but I cannot prevail on him to undertake the duty, for I think it is a duty. He says he cannot afford to quarrel with General Drysdale, who has always been a good neighbour, though I cannot say it myself. I have found Lady Caroline always very high with me. I fear, poor woman, she wants some grievous affliction to bring her to a due sense of her unworthiness, and that she'll get it. However, widow Forester has a small free-hold down Glen Effick, and the Deacons' Court are considering about buying a corner fronting on the high road. She wants a big price for it though, and they cannot get her to move from her terms. She says the bit of land is all she has in the world, and she must do the best she can with it.'
'Ah!' sighed the minister, 'filthy lucre!' It is strange, people will set so much store by things which perish in the using, notwithstanding the noble example of the widow in the gospel, who cast into the treasury all her living!'
'Yes, it is indeed sad to see such worldly-mindedness; and you see we've a poor congregation, and whatever money is spent on the ground, there will be just so much less to lay out on the building, and we will end with having some poor draughty little place, with narrow benches and straight backs, enough to give one the fidgets in a long service, or an attack of rheumatism. We have subscribed twenty pounds ourselves to the church building fund, and it seems very hard that so much of the money should just be going into widow Forester's pocket; I cannot think that a person like that can be in a proper frame of mind. Indeed, I called on her myself, and strove to place the matter before her in all love and faithfulness. I earnestly besought her to leave all care and anxiety for her poor perishing body in higher hands,--and, what do you think? Mr. Dowlas, she had the assurance to tell me that we had better give them a site for church, manse and school, up here at Auchlippie! The impertinent beasom! I just gave her one look, and I walked out of her house--and I will never speak to that woman again!'
There came a twinkle into the minister's eye. He was by no means devoid of the sense of humour, and perhaps that trait in himself, which led the 'unregenerate' to think they detected in him a considerable vein of pawkie selfishness, led him more keenly to enjoy his friend's unconscious display of a similar propensity. He soon, however, solemnized his features and voice with the regulation ecclesiastical sigh.
'The flesh is weak! my dear friend,' he said in time, 'and we must bear with one another's infirmities! The strong especially must bear with the weak.'
'Yes,' retorted the lady, whose meekness was generally absent on the faintest hint of reproof, 'but the weak are required to look up to the strong for guidance as well as protection; for the powers that be are ordained of God. And I consider that the like of Widow Forester was very far out of her duty to speak back to me. The Shorter Catechism is most precise about superiors, inferiors, and equals.'
'Ah yes!' said the minister, with his twinkle of eye, and more unction of voice. He was too sensible a man to embroil himself with an angry woman and a hospitable hostess. 'It is a wonderful compendium of sound and wholesome doctrine, the Shorter Catechism. I hope our young friend Mr. Brown sees that the lambs of the flock are well grounded in its hallowed teachings.'
'Oh he does, and I am very particular myself that my young women's class have all the scripture proofs to each question at their finger ends. I would like you to examine them, Mr. Dowlas, to-morrow afternoon. You see Mr. Brown is but young yet, though he is a most excellent lad, and I feel to him almost like a mother, and try to advise him as an older head sometimes can. But he's rather fractious at times to the voice of instruction. Young folk, you see, will be young folk!'
'Yes ma'am,' said Mr. Dowlas, who, whatever his faults, was always loyal to his cloth, and would permit no one but himself to say anything against a cleric in his presence, 'I look on you people of Kilrundle as most fortunate in your minister. He is one of the excellent of the earth, and has few equals in the presbytery either for piety or learning, or I think talent. If he lives he will take a high place in the church, and then his zeal and his sacrifices for the cause are something to make many an older member blush. You see, to him Erastianism showed itself in its most enticing aspect, for his father, we must all admit, was a worthy man, though moderate.'
'Ah yes!' broke in the lady; 'there's where it is! In this life he had his good things, and was thought a worthy man; but he would not join at the Disruption. The pleasures of sin for a season were too much for him, and now he is gone to his account! It's a solemn thought, Mr. Dowlas, to think where that poor old man may be now!' Here she became ejaculatory. 'Without are dogs--and moderates.'
The minister here broke in to prevent worse, 'As the tree falleth, dear lady, so shall it lie. Old Doctor Brown led a godly life, and it is not permitted to pry into the mysteries beyond the veil. He belonged to an earlier generation, and was so bound up in the work of his parish that I do not think he gave much thought to what was transpiring in the church at large. We may judge from the training he gave his son, that his heart was in the right place, and from the course his son has taken since he was brought face to face with the questions of the day, we may guess how the father would have acted if he had been similarly placed. Just see how young Roderick, though not yet ordained, has brought out the whole of his large parish with him. It is a great achievement! When do Mr. Sangster and the Session intend to moderate the call, and get him ordained and settled among you?'
'Well! to tell you the truth, Mr. Dowlas, I have been rather delaying and keeping back Mr. Sangster (so far as a wife may) from pressing that matter forward too precipitately. It seems to me that, with the young man's talents, it is like hiding gospel light under a bushel, to keep him in this poor neighbourhood. If he had only a chance now to preach in Edinburgh or Glasgow, or even Aberdeen, who knows but he might get a call to a city church? While if he is once ordained and settled here, he may be twenty years before he gets out of it. Between ourselves--you see, there has been a very considerable intimacy between him and our Sophia, for years and years back. I cannot say that anything has ever been said--I will not say that anything wants to be said--but a mother's heart, Mr. Dowlas, will ponder and be anxious. Before the Disruption, when there was every prospect of his becoming assistant and successor to his father, such an arrangement might have been feasible enough--not that it could be said to be much of a match for our daughter--but when there is true love and true religion, and a very good position in the county--for the Browns always visited with the best, and the money the uncle that died in India left them--. I fear I am a wee bit romantic, Mr. Dowlas, but I think if matters had arranged themselves in that way, and Sophia had wished, I could have given my consent. But the Disruption has changed all that! Still, with a city charge, and a nice congregation able to support a minister, like St. George's, Edinburgh, we will say,--perhaps we might have thought of it yet. But if he settled down here in Kilrundle, without either church or manse, it would be a clear tempting of Providence to entrust him with the happiness of our Sophia. I think of her that we have reared with such care, and given the most expensive education to!--potichomania, even, and the use of the globes!--to be living about among the cottars in Glen Effick. It would never do! The clay floors would bring on a galloping consumption in six month's time!'
'Mr. Guthrie, ma'am, of Edinburgh, will remedy all that before long. Have you not heard of the wonderful success that is attending his scheme? which is, to build a manse for every minister in the Church? I hear he is carrying everything before him, and I am not surprised. Such energy and such powers of persuasion could not possibly fail.'
'I hope it may be so, for the Church's sake. But as regards Mr. Brown, he would still be in but a small way to take a wife. Not that I would have you for a moment to imagine that we are looking for a proposal from him. I have great confidence in Sophia's sound Christian principles. I do not think she would ever bring herself to do anything rashly or unadvisedly--she has great prudence and sound sense. Did you observe Mr. Wallowby at dinner, and the very marked attention he paid her? I believe he is interested in her already! and no wonder, for there are few like her, either for good looks or solid sense. Mr. Wallowby is very wealthy, and perhaps Sophia might see it her duty to accept, if he were to propose. Great wealth opens such a door for extended usefulness! That would relieve my mind greatly as to Roddie Brown, poor man, and his prospects. But as I said before, Sophia has never opened her mind to me, nor, I believe, has either admirer spoken to her. Roddie would speak fast enough, I am sure, if he either saw his way to keep a wife, or got encouragement from us; but we must see our way better before doing that. As for Mr. Wallowby, he only arrived yesterday, but I think so soon as he knows his own mind, he will let us know it too.'
'It is an anxious time for a mother, when a beloved daughter's settlement comes to be decided. But here come our young friends Mr. and Miss Brown!'
In fact the Sangster dog-cart here drove past the window, and set down the young preacher and his sister at the door. Thereupon supervened considerable noise of voices in the hall, for Peter Sangster and his friend had been smoking through the bars of the lodge gate when the dog-cart came in sight, and Mr. Wallowby had been so taken with what he was pleased to call the trim clipper-like cut of Mary Brown, that he had persuaded Peter to dismiss the groom driving, and get in themselves to accompany the new comers to the house. Peter being an old acquaintance and admirer of Mary's was not averse, and when he found her seated at his side, he wished the avenue had been of greater length.
Sophia left her embroidery frame to meet Mary as she alighted, and carry her off to her chamber, while Roderick entered the presence of the Lady of Auchlippie.
Mr. Dowlas hailed the arrival with sincere satisfaction, for his hostess' postprandial confidences had been a little irksome. She had been loquacious and exciting, when, if the unvarnished truth may be told, he would fain have been silent, still, tranquil, somnolent and perhaps even asleep; for he had dined copiously. At any time it is unpleasant to hear one's sincerely cherished sentiments caricatured, or made ridiculous by being introduced in a discordant connection, but it is aggravating when the exhibition is obtruded on a mind rendered reposeful by the sense of physical repletion. The lady's jumble of genuine selfish worldliness and artificial pietism had been very far from soothing. He could not but admit in his heart, that he had detected something like the same stirring of mixed motives in himself; but then, even to himself, they had taken a more seemly guise. Here in their grosser manifestation they shocked him greatly. It seemed like looking in a distorting mirror, when the gazer cannot withdraw his eyes from the hideous image, which he still perceives to be his own, although so different and deformed.
Mr. Dowlas rose, and said he would take a short stroll in the garden before tea. Mrs. Sangster re-seated herself with Roderick, and proceeded to make herself busy with the worldly affairs and spiritual state of many members of his flock, giving much valuable advice, as of a mother in Israel to her youngest son. Her eye, however, rested not on his comely face, but peered over his shoulder to see how it sped with Sophia and Mr. Wallowby, for she was resolved that no detrimental influence should come between that wealthy man of Manchester and her daughter's charms, if perchance she might find favour in his eyes.
Alas! the rich man's eyes were fixed on Mary Brown, whose lively talk engaged both himself and Peter, while Sophia, resplendent embodiment of repose and still life, completed the group, but contributed nothing to the conversation. Mrs. Sangster grew restless as she watched, lost the thread of her discourse more than once, resumed in the wrong place, and wondering what her interlocutor would think, grew more and more confused. Had she looked in his face instead of past him, she would have been reassured. He had moved his chair a little so as to see, by turning his eye, in the same direction to which her looks were directed, and he sat regarding her with a smile of reposeful content. He probably knew nothing of what she was saying, and in truth he bestowed only so much attention as enabled him to smile or bow when a pause in the current of words seemed to call for a sign of assent. The young man's soul was steeped in tranquil satisfaction. He breathed the same air, he occupied the same room with Sophia,--the Sophia ever present in his thoughts by day and his dreams by night, and when he raised his eyes they rested on her form.
Sophia Sangster--the name is prosaic enough. Not Romeo himself could have taught the nightingales to warble it. But there are no nightingales in the North, and the name of the girl he loved best had never struck Roderick as wanting in melody. She was about the same age as his sister, but taller and larger in every way. Indeed, she was on as large a scale as a woman can well be, without disturbing the sense of fitness and harmony; but the proportion was so fine, that unless when some one was near with whom to compare her, she would have passed for the medium height. Perfectly modelled, and in the finest health, she lent to each movement a rhythmical repose, while rest was in her the suspended action we see in a marble statue, all free from the limp flaccidity of lolling sloth. Her abundant hair was coiled in numberless braids about her head, whose low forehead reminded one of ancient sculpture. So also did the straight nose, full lips, and chin. The rich currents of exuberant health lent brilliant carnation tints to a soft and delicate skin, and nourished the cool shining of the large brown eyes beneath the shadow of their curving lids and long dark lashes-eyes into which poor Roderick had gazed with reverent wonder since long ago.
He saw in this maiden of the admirable physique, and the transparent well-coloured eyes, all that was responsive to his enthusiastic and imaginative nature. Another Pygmalion, he had breathed into her clay a life derived from his own, and now, heathen-like, he worshipped and rejoiced in the work of his own hands, and basked in the light of perfections which existed only in his fanciful desires. With her fine person and her talent for silence and repose, she was like a handsome wall, on which the magic lantern of his thoughts could disport itself in the gayest hues of imagination, and, for the present, with far more comfort and delight than had the Sophia of his worship been a real person, liable to be found wanting, and falling short of expectation. Being an ideal creature altogether, it wanted but a little more make-believe in a new place to fit her exactly to each varying mood.
A young child finds greater and more lasting amusement in the rough, coarse cuts to be found in a backstreet picture book, than in the daintiest illustrations of Caldecott or Kate Greenaway; and the reason, no doubt is, that art having realized less, there is more scope for imagination--more field for the young idea to play in. So too in heathendom, the worship of Isis continued a living cult long after that of the Latin gods had become merely a state ceremonial. The blank impersonal carving of the Egyptian idol left unlimited possibilities to the devout imagination, which each worshipper could work out according to his own needs, while the fully realized conceptions of Grecian art showed more to the worshipper than perhaps he could take in, and the bodily perfection displayed recalled rather the victor in some circus contest than suggested the mysteries of the unseen.
But while we have been talking of her daughter, Mrs. Sangster and her guests have gone to tea. Tea was a meal forty years ago. The company sat round the table, which was set out with plates of bread and butter, various kinds of cake, and sundry varieties of preserves, the work of Sophia all, and works whose excellence warranted the pride she took in them; for before all else Sophia was a notable housekeeper.
After tea there was music, but it being Saturday night, Sophia refrained from performing her last-learned polka, seeing it was an elder's house and two ministers were present; not that she feared to seduce these grave gentlemen into the levity of a dance, but that it was not consonant with the Sabbath exercises of the coming morrow. Mary therefore was called on to sing for them 'Angels ever bright and fair,' and such other morsels of Handel as she could recall without her music. After that, Mr. Sangster called for his favourite Psalm tunes, in which he and Mr. Dowlas joined with immense relish, and no small volume of sound. Mary's voice was completely overborne in the din, and Mr. Wallowby added a new experience in sacred song to his not very complimentary catalogue of the transgressions and shortcomings of the Scotch as measured by the standard of Manchester.