Sophia looked from behind her window-blind as Mr. Wallowby drove away to make his visit at Inchbracken.
'A fine looking man!' observed her mother, who stood behind her. 'This cold of yours is very disappointing, Sophia, confining you to your room. I was in hopes you and he would have become quite intimate by this time. He seems a very superior person, and would have been an improving companion for you. Your cold appears to be better to-day. Put on your blue silk, and let him find you in the drawing room on his return. You owe to your brother, my dear, that his friend should find things as comfortable and pleasant here as among our neighbours.'
'Certainly, mamma, if you say so. But I don't think it will signify much to Mr. Wallowby. He does not mind me in the least, and I find it uphill work trying to make manners to him. Even Mary Brown, who has so much to say, thinks him a tiresome man.'
'She did not appear to think so when she was in his company, laughing and singing and carrying on! I was disappointed to see her father's daughter manifest so much levity of character. I fear it is a family trait.'
'Mamma!'
'Yes, Sophia! I mean what I say; young girls should be seen, but not heard. That was the rule in my young days. She took the whole entertainment of the stranger off your hands, as if she had been in her own house; forward, I thought her, in fact; and I don't think your brother Peter thought any the more of her for it.'
'Oh, mamma! it was Peter who made her talk! A girl must answer when she is spoken to; and she must laugh too, when people are trying to amuse her, however poor the joke may be. And it was Peter who persuaded her to sing when she would rather not. I know, for she told me so!'
'H'm! I fear she is a sly monkey that Mary Brown--for all her artless ways! I wish you had some of her worldly wisdom, added to the high principles I have been at such pains to instil into your mind. I am sure you will never be a flirt; but a young woman must be settled in life unless she is to be an old maid and a failure; and how is an eligible young man to know what treasures of good sense and right principle there may be in her, if she will not open her mouth to him, or hides away in her own room? I call it a waste of precious opportunity! Remember the fate of the man who hid his talent in a napkin, and be warned in time!'
'But, mamma, you have always told me, and I am sure it is so, that marriages are ordained by a higher power, and that the appointed man will certainly find you out, even if he has to come down the chimney to reach you.'
'Quite true, my dear, in a sense! but we don't want the sweeps at Auchlippie at this time of year. And there can be no more proper place for a gentlewoman to meet a young man than her mother's drawing-room; so put on your blue silk and bring your worsted work down stairs as soon as you are ready. I shall send Betsy to your assistance;' and, with a rather scornful shrug, the old lady left the room.
'I believe,' she muttered to herself as she descended the stairs, 'that girl's a gowk! It's the Sangster blood in her, I suppose--a dull, literal-minded lot!--soft and sober! To think that a daughter of mine should need to be spoken to, as I have just been speaking to her! We were all more gleg than that on my side of the house. I don't know whether to be more ashamed of being mother to sic a daw; or for the things I have been driven to say to her! They don't sound like the walk and conversation of a Christian woman! and yet the best of us are but flesh and blood. We must all eat and drink, wear clothes, live in houses, and, when we can, ride in coaches, marry and give in marriage, just like the people before the flood, though they were so bad; and we must strive our best to provide for our families unless we would deny the faith and be worse than infidels. Ah! there is Scripture for it! So glad I remembered that text! It saves one from feeling base and scheming. But one ought not to be driven to put doubtful sentiments into words. One should be helped out with them. 'Bear ye one another's burdens.' That seems an apt quotation and appropriate, if it had only come into Sophia's mind! But there's no use looking for that from her. She's a glaikit tawpie. Ah me! the trials of a discreet and conscientious mother are not light! I hope I may have strength to bear them.' And so, with a sigh, she went about her affairs. The texts had evangelicalized (if not evangelized) the mercenary schemes, and she was again rehabilitated in her own eyes as a righteous person.
Sophia stood brushing out her hair and musing on her mother's precepts, as a dutiful daughter should. She had never before heard marrying discussed in this bare, hard fashion. Was she a Circassian slave at Constantinople, to be tricked out and submitted to the inspection of the rich man in this fashion? Once before, some few words had been said to her in a more guarded way, but, as she now perceived in the same spirit, when the coming of her brother and his friend had been first spoken of; but at that time they had been less heeded, or she had understood them less, and they had not then shocked her. Love and marriage were subjects which up to that time had only been mentioned in her hearing as something vague, mysterious and holy, which it did not become her to pry into. As for personal love experiences, she had none; and the subject of maidenly fancies had generally been referred to by her hard and practical mother with scorn and derision.
Roderick's letter to her had therefore fallen on her unprepared mind as a revelation. All the two previous days her thoughts had been repeating over and over his earnest words. How deeply he must have felt before he could so have expressed his anxiety! And she? What answer should she make? All the long years of their intercourse passed through her memory, and incidents disregarded at the time and forgotten, came back now to her recollection with a new meaning and a new force. Their long talks, in which he had spoken so much and she so little, began now to take a new aspect in her mind. She must have been encouraging him though she did not know it; and what was more, if she had to enact those scenes over again, with the new enlightenment in her eyes, she felt that she would encourage him none the less, but rather the more. To have excited such emotion in one so clever and good, was an achievement of which she felt proud, in a wondering and enquiring way, for she could not imagine how she had done it; but the thought of his love for her grew more and more sweet and engrossing, and she began to suspect that down deep somewhere in her nature where she had never looked or known of before, she was fond of him in return.
And yet, she had not answered the letter. What would he think of her? Since her mother had called her unmaidenly, she had not ventured to return to the subject in case of another explosion. But now that she had in cold blood set a matrimonial scheme before her, and deliberately incited her to endeavour to win the regard of a man for whom she felt no attraction whatever, simply because he was rich, she felt strong enough to broach the question again. Whatever her mother said she would answer his letter somehow, and more than that, should her mother propose another suitor, she would have nothing to say to him till she had come to an understanding with Roderick.
Having donned the blue silk, Sophia descended to the drawing-room, work-basket in hand. The room was empty, which was disappointing, as she had strung herself up to concert pitch She settled herself to work and waited. The monotonous motion of the needle and thread had a calming influence on her nerves; but as they grew less tense she began to feel less confidence in her own courage, and to wish her meditated conversation well over. Visitors came in, which afforded her a further respite, and in her disturbed state supplied a vent for some of her suppressed energy. She had never before, perhaps, shown so much animation and vivacity in general conversation. It surprised her mother and quite rehabilitated her in the good opinion of that careful parent, who congratulated her on having so well held her part, and hoped it was the beginning of a new chapter in her life, and that she was about to assume with due éclat the part of daughter in so prominent a household of the Free Church.
'It's a duty to the cause, my dear! Remember how the daughters of Israel sewed curtains of scarlet and needlework for the ark in the wilderness. By all means let us show that we are in no respect behind the heathen in the graces of life! and let us show forth the beauty of holiness among the uncircumcised residuaries!'
It was not altogether plain to Sophia how holiness arrayed in blue silk was to advance the cause, but she let it pass. Her lady mother was in tolerably good humour, and that was a point in her favour. She consulted her about the shading of a rose in the worsted work, to break the current of her thoughts, and then, like the bather about to plunge into an unkindly sea, with firm-set teeth, and fingers clenched beneath her embroidery, she made the leap. After a preliminary cough to steady the tremor in her voice--
'Have you got that letter of mine, mamma? I think I must answer it to-day.'
'What letter?' demanded the old lady with a start.
'That letter from Rod--Mr. Brown.'
'I thought we had said all that need be spoken on that subject already.'
'You said I was unmaidenly,' replied Sophia, aghast at her own temerity; but even the sheep when it is cornered will turn its horns to the collie.
'And was that not enough for any right thinking young woman?' retorted the mother, showing a pink spot on either cheek--the red lamps of danger.
'I am not thinking of myself, mamma! Mr. Brown has written me a kind and a very urgent letter, and I think I owe him an answer of some kind, when he shows so deep an interest in me. You said yourself this morning that a girl will be an old maid and a failure if she is not married. I suppose you don't want me to propose to the men myself? and if a gentleman proposes to me, surely I owe him a civil answer.'
'The lassie's in a creel!' cried Mrs. Sangster, jumping up. She had a tingling in her finger tips, which not so many months before, would have relieved itself in an assault on her daughter's ears; but the blue silk, the tall womanly figure, or an unwonted determination in the girl's face, restrained her, and she sat down again.
'I am astounded, Sophia, to hear you use such language! When I was a girl I think I would have died, before I could have brought myself to say as much. Have you been reading novels? or what has come over you?'
Sophia sat speechless, eyeing the danger signals on her mother's cheeks, with considerable alarm; but that did not appear. Well for us it often is, that the sluggish frame is a mask and veil, but slowly responding to the inner working of our minds, or the tide of battle would oftener be turned in its course. She said nothing, which was the very best reply she could have made.
'Here have we got a most desirable match in the very house with you--one only requiring the most ordinary assiduity on the part of any handsome and well brought-up young woman, to secure the prize. Nature has done its part for you, and I, though you think so little of your mother's love, have done mine; and yet you send your thoughts wool-gathering far and wide to take up with a penniless, ill-principled, disreputable licentiate! Not even ordained! Nor ever likely to be, if a's true that's suspected. For shame, woman! An' show mair sense!'
'Mamma! I am nothing to the gentleman you allude to! He would rather sit in Peter's room and smoke tobacco, than trouble with me. And I care just as little for him.'
'Ay! There it is! You're that indolent you canna be fashed to make yourself commonly agreeable to your brother's friend! Do you take yourself for another 'Leddy Jean' in the ballad, that all the lords and great men in the country are to come bowin' and fraislin' for a glint o' your e'e? You are vastly mistaken if you do! The young men of fortune now-a-days know their own weight too well for any such nonsense. A girl will have to make herself agreeable before she need expect attention even, not to speak of a proposal.'
'But I don't want a proposal! and I don't want him! Am I for sale, that I am to be trotted out and shown off to him, as Jock Speirs does with papa's colts, when the horse-couper comes round?'
'Sophia Sangster! To think I should live to see the day when my own child would taunt me with being a match-making mother! Is that the outcome of all my self-denying care and love? But you'll change your mind yet, my lady, or I'm mistaken. When your poor mother is laid in the kirk-yard, and yourself are a middle-aged spinster living in lodgings, up a stair, in some country town, spending your time cutting up flannel to make petticoats for beggar wives, and no diversion the live long week but the Dorcas meetings on Friday evenings, then you'll remember your poor mother's assiduous endeavours to settle you in life, and you'll see your headstrong folly when it's too late!'
Mrs. Sangster seldom attempted to wield the limner's art, and that was the reason why her present effort was so effective on her own sensibilities. She buried her face in her handkerchief and gulped.
'Mamma! what is the good of talking nonsense like this? There is no present fear of my being an old maid; Mr. Brown has asked me to marry him, and that is what I want to talk about,--not about suppositions that can never come to anything.'
'And what would you wish to say, then, in your great wisdom?'
'I would simply say that I am not engaged to anybody, and that I am too much startled by his letter to be able to say more; but he can speak to papa about it.'
'But I will not allow you to have any correspondence with that young man!--a bringer of open reproach upon the truth he professes! All who have dealings with him will be brought to confusion yet, I am certain! Touch not, taste not, handle not!'
'I only want to write him a letter!' responded Sophia, a little pertly; but the effort of self-restraint had lasted a good while, and she was approaching that state in which one must either laugh or cry. 'And what do you know against him?' she added.
'There are rumours in circulation,--and well founded rumours, too, I am sorry to say,--which preclude decent people from having any dealings with him whatever.'
'But what are they about? Considering the subject of his letter, I ought to know--surely!'
'I hope you will never know what they are about. They are too shocking to be spoken about altogether.'
'And do you believe them?'
'I cannot help myself! The evidence is too convincing.'
'Does papa believe them?'
'I don't know that he does--exactly--just yet. He is so prejudiced in favour of that young man. But he will be compelled to believe before long.'
'Does papa know of his letter to me?'
'How should he know? Do you think I would bring myself to speak of what I consider a gross insult to the family? But have done! Here comes Mr. Wallowby. The dinner was to be kept back on account of his absence. Go and bid them have it on the table in three quarters of an hour. But remember, Sophia, I command you in the most solemn manner not to write to that other man. And think no more of it.'
The guest's return cut short further discussion; and probably it was best so. Mrs. Sangster had had the last word, which she would have insisted on having in any case; and Sophia, if slow, was well known in the family to be obstinate--one on whose mind, if an idea could once inscribe itself, it remained for ever, written in ink indelible; and under the new awakening that was at work within her, she was little likely to have been moved by any thing that would have been said. Her mind was made up. Roderick should certainly hear from her, on that she was resolved; but the lifelong habit of obedience in which she had been reared, prevented her direct contravention of her mother's command. She would not write a letter, but she must get at him in some other way.
She would have liked to talk it all over with her father, as being a person of incomparable wisdom, and one better inclined to Mr. Brown, as she had just gathered, than her mother; but her father if very wise, was also very far off--a Merovingian king, in affairs of the household or of his daughter, which he was content to leave under the absolute and undisputed control of his wife--the mayor of the palace. She had been used every day to see him preside at table, and read prayers morning and evening, but she had never had much personal intercourse or conversation with him; and to go to him and say that a young man had asked her to marry him, was beyond her strength. She grew pale at the bare thought of it.
The next day was taken up with other cares--a dinner party at home, and on Wednesday came leave-taking, as her brother and Mr. Wallowby were returning to the South. In the afternoon, however, stillness had fallen upon the house. Her father was away, having accompanied his guests to the county town where they were to catch the mail. All the stir and bustle of the past two weeks was over, and her mother declaring she had a headache, had retired to her room. Sophia sat down to her worsted work, and as with busy fingers she wove the many-hued threads into her web, her own thoughts seemed to disentangle themselves out of the confused wisp in which they had lain, she began to perceive what it really was that she wanted, and to make up her mind what she would do. Roderick's letter somehow kept repeating itself over and over again through her mind, but she made no attempt to stifle it, nor did she grow weary of the phrases so often rehearsed; on the contrary the colour deepened in her cheek, and a light dawned in her eye, clearer, warmer, more human, than those organs with all their gazelle-like beauty--their suggestion of the ox-eyed Heré--had ever revealed before. 'Yes! Roderick should have his answer--in part at least--for, after all she felt herself, as one of God's free creatures, entitled to exercise the resources of her hunter's skill. Before she yielded to his yoke, as Tibbie Tirpie would have said, she meant to have more courting. And Mary--she could see and speak to her without challenge and without reproach--she should be her messenger.
Roderick was certainly growing worse, although the rheumatic symptoms had disappeared. His voice was scarcely audible now, and he spoke with great difficulty. All through Tuesday there was a look of waiting and anxiety on his face. A step in the passage without, or a passing wheel on the road, and he would turn his eyes to the door, as though he expected some one. But no one came, wheels and footsteps alike passed on their way; and he would heave a weary sigh, turning his face to the wall. On Wednesday he was more restless, more depressed and certainly worse. He had not slept the night before, and at early daylight he had begun again to watch for coming steps, and to sigh as each passed on without turning in to him. Mary sat by him, and sat alone. Excepting the Doctor and Eppie Ness, no one came to share her watching, or to enquire how he was--their minister, for whom they had hitherto professed such regard, and to whose bounty so many were indebted for substantial pecuniary aid.
'I think it very unkind of Mrs. Sangster never to have come to ask after him,' she said, 'and it is strange as well, seeing that it was in her service he got so wet; but I am quite confounded at the neglect the rest of the parishioners are showing him.'
'Can you account for it, Eppie?'
'No, mem. Gin it bena just the way o' the world. "Them 'at gets, forgets." It's an auld sayin', and it looks as gin it was a true ane. An' they're a' that gleg, to tak up ilka daftlike clash 'at ony donnart haverel may set rinnin'. Whan a man has gaed out an' in amang them, an' gien them his strength an' his gear sae free, they micht think shame.' Here she stopped abruptly and in some confusion, as one whose tongue had outrun her discretion. She caught the look of bewildered surprise in Mary's face. 'But I'm thinkin' my ain tongue's rinnin' awa wi' me. I'm just clean angered wi' the doited gomerels.'
'I don't understand you, Eppie. There must be something going on we don't know about. What is it?'
'Hoot, mem, there's just naething ava! But I'm thinkin' ye'll better gae ben, the minister's steerin!'
Mary returned to her brother's bedside, but he told her he had not called. She took one of his books and strove to interest him by reading aloud, while she ran over in her mind all that had occurred in the neighbourhood for weeks past, and how it could in any way bear on their relations with the people. Roderick grew drowsy in time under the monotony of her voice, and she herself would shortly have fallen asleep, when the click of the latch was heard.
Both were awake in a moment, and starting round, beheld Kenneth Drysdale standing in the doorway.
'Is any body in?' he exclaimed, as he stepped into the room with a laugh. 'I have knocked three times and got no answer. You must both have been asleep. Ah! I see. A good book! That is just like my mother's reading on a Sunday afternoon. Good books give such peace of mind and repose of conscience, that the body shares in it too. One is sure to find her extended on her sofa any time between luncheon and the dressing bell. 'Meditating with her eyes closed,' she calls it; but from the regularity of her breathing, I would venture to call it by another name. Julia, now, reads French novels, and you won't catch her napping. Roderick, old man! Laid up?'
Roderick took his old friend's hand in both his own. It was a great and unexpected pleasure to see him. The stand he had taken on the Church question appeared to have severed him altogether from the family at Inchbracken, and it was by no means the least of the sacrifices he had felt bound to make for the truth. He had heard of Mary's visit to Inchbracken before taking to his bed at Gortonside, but since then his own physical pains, and the misery in his mind about Sophia's being about to marry the Manchester man, had so possessed him, that he had not spoken to her on the subject. If he had, he would have been less surprised at Kenneth's appearance; that is to say, if she had or could have explained; for in converse where looks and tones of the voice go so far to modify and even replace spoken language, it may be doubted whether she would have found anything she could have reported. She understood, and Kenneth understood, and each knew that the other understood; and yet what was there after all to tell? Until you found it necessary to make a disclosure to your mamma, dear Madam, and the gentleman now your husband made a formal statement to your papa,--pray what could you have said in your own case? And would it not have been impossible for you to say anything at an earlier period to enlighten your elders and save them from afterwards moralizing on the remarkable secrecy and cleverness of the young people in managing their tender affairs? A good deal of the same sort of thing passed on the present occasion. Kenneth talked mostly to Roderick, and both were happy to renew the old friendship. Mary sat by perfectly content. The portion of the conversation that fell to her share was not large, but there were looks and softenings of the voice, quiet smiles and comings and goings of a flush, that supplied all she waited to hear or desired to say.
Roderick felt refreshed by the visit, and when Kenneth, promising to come again very shortly, at last withdrew, the burden of living appeared lighter to him, and he lay back armed with new fortitude to bear and wait.
Kenneth had been gone but a few minutes when Eppie Ness in her turn had a visitor--an old woman, toothless and bent, limping on a staff, and with a covered basket on her arm. A grizzled elf-lock or two had escaped from the white sowback mutch which was bound to her head by a winding of broad black ribbon, and hung down over the glittering beadlike eyes. A hook nose and projecting chin nearly met in a bird-like beak over the fallen-in mouth, whence one surviving fang protruded with a grim witch-like effect. Her dress was dark blue linsey, and over it she wore, as on all occasions of ceremony, the scarlet cloak in which she had been 'kirket' as a bride fifty years before, and had worn unfailingly ever since, summer and winter, to kirk and market. It was Luckie Howden. She pushed open the door without ceremony, and stood in the middle of the kitchen looking about her. Eppie, with the child in her lap, sat by the fire and was crooning some old song in the endeavour to make it sleep.
'Hear til her noo! wi' her daft sinfu' sangs. Wraxin' the thrapple o' her like some screighin' auld craw! "Like draws to like," folk says, an' aiblins ye're no that faur wrang, gude wife, to be skirlin' the like til a merry-begotten wee din raiser, as that wein's like to turn out. But wadna "Bangor," noo, or "Saunt Neot's," or some douce tune like that, an' belike ane o' the waesome Psaulms o' penitence be fitter baith for the puir bairn an' its ill-doin' faither?'
'Haud yer lang, ill-scraipet tongue, Luckie Howden! We a' ken what maks ye sae bitter on the puir bairn. Gin ye'd gotten the tentin' o' her, an' three shillin's the week forby the feedin', ye'd hae thocht nae wrang; an' ye wadna hae been sae gleg to hearken to senseless lees, 'at ony body no clean doited micht ken better nor mind.'
'Ye ill-tongued limmer! Hoo daur ye even me to the like?'
'Ou ay! Ye're rael heigh, are na ye? But ye gaed fleechin' to Miss Mary for a' that, to get the bairn awa frae me, an' ye said ye'd tent her for half-a-crown. I'm thinkin' she'd no hae fared ower weel, the bonny lamb, gin ye'd hae gotten yer way. Ye'd hae shotten't by, wi' ait meal brue, an' drank the sweet milk yersel'!'
'An' gin I did speer Miss Brown for the bairn, was there ony wrang kenned anent it than? An' what for suld I no? Wad it no hae been weel for the bairn gin I had gotten my way! I hae raised twal o' my ain, an' I'm granny to naar twa score. But you! ye ne'er had but ane, an' ye kenned na hoo to guide it--made sae puir a job o't the Lord ne'er chanced ye wi' anither.'
'The Lord forgie ye! ye ill-tongued witch,' cried Eppie, while her brimming eyes overflowed. The image of her long-lost darling rose before her in all its winsome beauty, and she gathered up the baby in her lap, more closely to her motherly breast, and pressed it fondly for the sake of the one that was gone.
'An' sae gin ye hae the merry-begotten brat, an' the siller, ye maun e'en tak the disdain as weel. I'm blythe for mysel' noo, 'at the half-crowns didna come my gate. There war nane but decent men's bairns e'er lay in thae arms.' She stretched her spider-like tentacles, while the contents of her basket gave a warning rattle, 'An' that minds me I maun do my errand wi' the young man--I winna ca' him a minister, for the gown suld be strippet frae his shouthers; an' that's what it will be afore lang.'
'My certie! An' ye'se gang nae sic gate,' cried Eppie, rising and preparing to block the way. 'The minister's lyin' sair sick, an' he maunna be fashed wi' a randie auld tinkler wife's daft blathers. Set ye down! Though I winna say ye're walcome, an' I'se fesh Miss Brown.'
Miss Brown was fetched accordingly, she had overheard high words, and entered in some surprise.
'Mrs. Howden,' she said holding out her hand, 'so you have come at last to ask for the minister. The people seem to have cast us off altogether. Since he has been sick scarcely one has come to enquire for him.'
'Aweel, Miss Mary, an' it's no juist that has brocht me, ill doin' ye ken maun bring ill feelin'. Whan folk sees the abomination o' desolation sittin' in the holy place, as the Scripter micht word it, an the steward o' the Kirk's mysteries gien ower to the lusts o' the flesh, the douce Christi'n folk beut to hand awa. Touch not, taste not, haunel not, ye ken what the word says. An' I hae been thinkin', seein' hoo things hae come round, ye'll be best to tak tent o' yer bits o' dishes yersel', gin Eppie there can gar it gree wi' her walk an' conversation as a Christi'n wumman to mind that ill-faured scart o' a bairn, I see na at she may na keep yer teapat as weel!' So saying she lifted the cover of her basket, and proceeded to lay out the cups and saucers on the dresser.
Mary was too much astonished to say anything. She was glad to see the ware once more brought within reach of use, seeing that hitherto it had been a mere embellishment to the glass cupboard in the corner of Luckie Howden's cabin, a testimony to her piety and helpfulness to the church; but the cause and the manner of the restitution were beyond her comprehension. She glanced at Eppie for some explanation, but Eppie sat with lips compressed in determined silence, a flame of scarlet indignation burning on either cheek.
Luckie Howden went on arranging and counting the pieces of crockery. 'Twall cups an' twall sacers, four bread plates, an' twa bowls. Ye'll find that a' richt, Miss Brown. An' here's the bits o' siller things,' producing the teapot, over which she passed her hand with a regretful stroking motion, 'It's gotten neither clure nor dint i' my haunds. A' siller say ye? An' weel I wat it's bonny. Aiblins it's no sae bricht an' glintin' as it ance was. "Yer goold an' yer siller are become dim, yer garments are moth-eaten," that's what the Prophet Ezekil said til back-slidin' Isril lang syne, an' it's true yet! Wae's me, Miss Brown! 'at the white raiment o' yer puir wanderin' brither, 'at we ance thocht sae clean an' white, suld be spotted wi' the flesh after a'! But what's been dune i' the secret chaumer sall be proclaimed on the house heads afore lang. My certie! but he's been the lad to draw iniquity wi' cart ropes! an' to sin wi' the high haund! But it's a' fand out at last, he'll be peuten til open shame, an' be nae mair a steward o' the gospel mysteries in Glen Effick!'
page 190
"Ye'll find that a' richt, Miss Brown."
Page 190.
'I don't understand one word you say, Mrs. Howden,' cried Mary in open-eyed amazement. 'If our things are in your way you are perfectly right to bring them back, and it will not inconvenience us in the least to have them here. It was kind in you to give them house-room when we came to live in the village, and we are obliged to you for having taken such good care of them. But I don't understand what ground of offence my brother can have given you, or why you should speak of him in such extraordinary language.'
'I'm thinkin' ye'll hae to thole waur langidge nor that afore a's o'er, Miss Brown. An' aiblins ye ken mair nor ye wad like to let-on. I'm no yer judge, but we hae scripter for't, 'at refuges o' lees winna stand.'
'Think shame, woman!' cried Eppie, unable altogether to keep silence, though she still restrained herself, fearful of provoking a tempest and disturbing the sick man.
'An' what wad I think shame for? It's the ill doer 'at fears the ill word. I hae cleared my skirts this day. I shack the stour frae my very feet, an' I'm dune wi' the De'il an' a' his warks!' And shaking out the folds of her red cloak, with a stamp of either foot, she hobbled away.
'What does she mean, Eppie? And whatever it is, the rest of the people must think it too--Don't deny it, Eppie! you know all about it. I have seen so much as that in your face for several days. What is it?'
'It's naething ony sensible body wad heed. Just a wheen senseless havers. Ne'er fash yer thoomb, Miss Mary! It'll a' blaw ower.'
Miss Mary was resolute, however, and would be told. She sat herself down on a stool beside Eppie, and between coaxing and sheer pertinacity she at last prevailed on the old woman to speak. They sat together for some time with their heads very close, conversing in whispers.
'Oh how could any one believe so monstrous an invention?' she cried at last, her face suffused with crimson, while she kissed the sleeping baby, the innocent cause of so much confusion, and returned to her brother's room.
Thursday morning was the opening of a great day in Glen Effick. The foundation stone of the new Church was to be laid, and from the most distant corners of Kilrundle parish the people came streaming in across the braes, more numerously even than for the Sunday meeting. The Session had at last come to an agreement with Widow Forester for half of her kaleyard on which to build their Church. The foundation was already dug, and every owner of a horse and cart had agreed to contribute so many days' labour towards delivering the materials on the ground. And now the work was to be inaugurated with preaching and prayer, that it might be brought to a speedy and prosperous issue. The good people having neither oil nor wine to bestow in cementing the stones, had resolved to pour forth a copious oblation of words devout and stirring, and to celebrate their triumph over Laird and Law in true democratic fashion, by a general gathering and unstinted speechification.
The hot stillness of September days had passed away, and the fresh cool brightness of October had succeeded. In low-lying hollows the first hoar-frost of the season was melting into dew before the approaching noon, and straggling flecks of cloud swam merrily overhead in the breezy sky. The crimson of the moors was withering somewhat into rusty brown, but the birch along the watercourses had ripened into sprays of gold, while the distant hills stood out against the sky in violet and blue. The trooping worshippers displayed all their Sunday bravery of apparel, but the solemnity of their Sabbath demeanour they had felt at liberty to leave behind. The children ran hither and thither shouting their loudest, while the seniors chatted cheerily as they went, carrying their dinners in heavy baskets between them, and resolved to make the most of the day's 'ploy.'
Along the village street the people trickled in a continuous stream, and by and by Ebenezer Prittie and Peter Malloch put up the shutters on their respective shops. Donald Maclachlan shut up the smithy, and Angus Eldrecht, the wheel-wright, closed his yard, and stepped off with their wives to the meeting place on the brae-side, where Mr. Dowlas and a reverend brother of the presbytery were already in the tent waiting to conduct the exercises.
Mrs. Sangster, with her daughter, was on the ground betimes, discussing with unwonted affability the terrible scandal to the elders and more prominent people near her. She occupied, of course, the beadle's special chairs, and as the time to commence the service drew near, she beckoned to her Stephen Boague and his wife, and seated them beside herself and daughter. It was a public recognition of their exemplary character she considered, which would fully reward the woman for her hospitality the day she was lost in the mist, and was quite inexpensive besides. When Mary Brown presently appeared, the good woman would fain have yielded up to her her accustomed seat under the matronly wing of the congregation's only lady; but Mrs. Sangster requested that she would not move. 'I could not countenance Mr. Brown or his family,' she said, 'under the circumstances.' So the poor woman had to remain; but she no longer felt promotion in her place of honour, and all her acquaintances looked askance, and wondered at her 'upsettin' impidence.' Mrs. Sangster was too busy with her 'spy-glass' and psalm-book to see the approach of Mary, who coloured with resentment at what, since Eppie's explanation, she now perfectly understood, and looked about for another seat. The Laird had been watching his wife's proceedings with cynical amusement, he now came forward and removed his daughter to the elder's bench, setting the chair she had been occupying beside her, and seating Mary upon it, while he took his own stand beside them.
Mrs. Sangster's spy-glass dropped upon her book; amazement and indignation paralyzed her, which was fortunate, or she might have exhibited a tantrum, even in that sacred assembly. She! that congregation's Deborah without a Barak, as a fawning preacher had once described her at family prayers, to be thus flouted before them all! And the wholesome discipline she had meant to exercise in support of the public morals to be turned round upon herself! and this, too, by her own husband! the man bound to protect, honour, and obey her! For of course he was bound so to do, whatever Saint Paul, or any other old bachelor who knew nothing about it, might say. Was she not the more advanced Christian? and in right of her higher standing in 'The Kingdom' entitled to instruct, advise, and reprove those on a lower level. Oh! how should she punish him and bring him to book? There was the difficulty. Scolding would not do. She had tried that before, and it did not succeed. He was apt to laugh in her face, and sometimes even to scold back in return, in an altogether dreadful and appalling way--for an elder--if she persisted; and then nothing, not even her unfailing Christian meekness could secure her the last word, which was her due as a lady. She thought of putting him on low diet for a while.--'And it would serve that monkey Sophia right, too, for sympathising with her father. See how contentedly she cottons up to Mary Brown!' thought she. But she did not like bad dinners herself, and it would come out if she had a sweetbread quietly in her own room. Besides, she had attempted a penitential regimen of cold mutton once before, and it had not ministered to his spiritual needs; on the contrary, he had broken out in a way that was simply dreadful, and had threatened her with a housekeeper if she could not keep a better table. Her crosses were indeed many and grievous, and she might have grown weak and hysterical in reviewing them, but that other cares and anxieties demanded her present attention. Surely there was something rubbing up against her in a familiar and unbecoming way. She turned, looked, and almost leaped into Mrs. Boague's lap. Stephen's largest collie was titillating his spine by pushing it up and down against her new plum-coloured silk gown.
'Haud steady, mem! The folk 'ull see ye, an' ye're nae licht wecht forby!' whispered Mrs. Boague. 'Ne'er mind the dugs, an' they winna fash wi' you. An' de'il a yelp or snap wull they gie, sae lang as ye dinna staund on their tails.'
Touseler, finding his scratching-post withdrawn, stretched himself on the ground to sleep out the sermon, and Mrs. Sangster resumed her chair. Her tranquility was of short duration. First would come a tug at her parasol, accompanied by a strangled yelp, as a puppy having swallowed the tassel would struggle to escape, like a trout on a fish-hook; and next it would be her shawl. A dirty little finger would be found tracing the flowing lines of its elegant embroidery, or the corner would be pulled down, that the critics squatting on the sward might more conveniently scrutinize the elaborate design.
When Sophia's chair was removed it had left an open spot in the crowd, to Mrs. Sangster's left, and as nature abhors a vacuum, the unplaced material of her party had flowed in to fill it. She looked down on a confused knot of dog and child life, heads and tails, legs and arms swaying and kicking to and fro in silent happiness. Had a quadruped or a biped given tongue in the 'House of God,' there would have been whipping behind the first big boulder-stone on the home-going, and they had all felt the weight of Stephen's hand at sometime, so were wary; but so long as silence was kept, and they remained beside the shepherd and his wife, they might kick, roll, and be happy as they pleased.
Poor Mrs. Sangster's attention was fully occupied in protecting her dress from the busy fingers of the little boys and girls, and in seeing that the dogs did not make a coverlet of her skirts; and she vowed never again to 'take notice' of people from the 'lower orders,' who so little appreciated the honour she did them, and made themselves so utterly abominable with their ill-reared dogs and children. She lost all the good of their sermons as she told the reverend orators that evening at supper, and was far too concerned for what might befall her own draperies, to give much heed to the Rev. Æmelius Geddie's description of the curtains of fine linen and badger skins, blue and scarlet, prepared for the Tabernacle in the wilderness, and his tender appeal to the women of Glen Effick to go and do likewise. Mr. Dowlas described the building of Solomon's Temple, its joists of cedar covered with plates of pure gold, the chapiters, the pomegranates, and the wreathen-work, the brazen pillars and the vessels of pure gold. He interspersed these with spiritual interpretations and mystical images drawn from the Prophets, till the hearers were brought under a general vague impression of splendour and solemnity, they could not have explained wherefore; but they all agreed that it was a 'graund discoorse,' and 'very refreshing,' and that they had entered on a high, noble and arduous work, in proposing to build themselves a little meeting house; and that, though propriety forbade their saying so, the Divine Head of the Church was greatly beholden to them, and that they might look, as their certain due, for large amounts of blessing, spiritual and temporal, to requite their exertions in church-building, as well as that heroic penny-a-week to the Sustentation Fund.
Like other fine things, the sermon came to an end at last, and after psalms and benediction, it was announced that they would proceed in procession to the site of their future church, where reports of the different committees would be received, and addresses given, after which the foundation stone would be laid with prayer and praise.
The congregation then broke up, and in the confusion Sophia got the opportunity she had been desiring of a quiet word with Mary. Circumstances had befriended her wonderfully she thought, when her father had brought her away from her mother, and placed her beside Mary Brown. She had always been fond of Mary, but now she felt a sisterly drawing towards her which she had not known before. Mary was her junior by about a year, but was quicker and earlier to mature, and this had sometimes made Sophia feel a rawness in herself, and a general slowness and obtuseness by comparison, in a way approaching as near to jealousy as her somewhat stolid and easy-going disposition was capable of experiencing. But as Mary neither assumed nor probably was aware of any advantage, this feeling in great measure slept; and now, when Sophia's development had advanced as with a bound, under the stirrings of awakening emotion, the latent grudge was altogether overborne. She sat up very close to her and pressed her softly. Mary was surprised. Demonstration of the faintest kind was something new in Sophia, and altogether unexpected. Her heart was sore at the unkindness of the parishioners to her brother, and their haste to adopt unwarrantable and improbable suspicion against him; and that Mrs. Sangster; who had assumed to play the rôle of mother to her in her lonely position, should turn and publicly visit the imaginary misdeeds of her brother on her head, had been very grievous. She assumed that Sophia meant to signify her disbelief in the idle rumours afloat, and, accepting the proffered sympathy, she returned the friendly pressure with grateful warmth. The two read from the same bible and psalm-book, and sat so close that the Laird was able to find room on the bench beside his daughter, just as he was beginning to think a two hours' stand rather a heavy penalty for interfering with his wife's absurdity.
'Mary!' whispered Sophia, when the assemblage was breaking up, 'I want you to tell your brother that I received his letter. Whoever told him that I am engaged is altogether mistaken. Nobody ever asked me to--be engaged, and there is no one who could have any right to do so. I would have answered his letter, but mamma forbade me; she even says I must not come and see you, while some report or other, I don't know what it is, is going about. So I have been waiting for an opportunity to speak to you. Mamma says papa does not believe the report, so--' here the words died away and the colour deepened on her cheeks--'but papa does not know of his letter to me.' Mary leant forward to bestow a kiss, but Sophia started back under a sharp prod from the parasol of her mother, who was eagerly reaching over the shoulders of the intervening crowd.
'Sophia Sangster! what are you lingering there for? Don't you see everybody is on the move? Come to your mother's side, your proper place, this moment.'
It was not a happy half-hour for Sophia that followed. The maternal plumage was sadly ruffled, and in the 'preening' that ensued to readjust the feathers mental as well as physical (for the silk gown was rumpled as much as the self-complacency was disturbed), not a few stray pecks fell to her portion. That her husband should have carried away her own girl from her side was almost intolerable; only, till she could devise a way to punish him which she had not yet discovered, she must bear that; but the girl had acquiesced without sign of reluctance or remonstrance, had consented to be separated from her own mother with perfect equanimity, and in spite of all that had passed, had seemed entirely comfortable beside Mary Brown, notwithstanding the maternal taboo. She had had little leisure for observation. Her gown, her shawl, the children, the sheep-dogs had made constant demands on her attention, and when she looked for succour to the shepherd and his wife, they were drinking in the sumptuous splendours of Solomon's temple, and had no thought for the turbulent little Bethel at their feet. Once however she had found time to glance across and was disgusted to see Sophia and Mary singing amicably from one book and evidently on the best of terms.
'You're a saft feckless tawpie, Sophia Sangster!' she enunciated with much emphasis, as she and her daughter were carried along in the stream of the procession. 'It seems to me sometimes that you have no more sense than a sookin' turkey!' Mrs. Sangster rather prided herself on her English, which she considered equal to that of any body on her side of London or Inverness. These were the two seats of perfect speech she considered; but failing them Auchlippie could hold its own against Edinburgh, St. Andrews, or anywhere else, and was decidedly a better model than her son Peter since he had adopted a Lancashire brogue. Nevertheless when she became 'excited' (i.e. angry), she admitted that she had to fall back on the pith and vigour of her native Doric with its unlimited capacity for picturesque vituperation.
'It's not from me you take your fushionless gates! That comes o' the donnart Sangster bluid in you, I'm thinking. But what possessed you to take up publicly like yon with Mary Brown, when you know I want you to steer clear of her just now? When the Presbytery has taken the matter up, it will be proper enough to bestow patronage and show sympathy for the poor girl; but meanwhile we have a testimony to bear, and it will not do to countenance evil doers or their families.'
'Mamma, I don't know what you are talking about.'
'Of course not. It's no subject for a young girl to know anything about; but you must not think in your ignorance to set yourself above the advice and opinion of your mother, who knows all about it.'
Sophia said no more. To speak was but to stir the fire of her mother's wrath. She held her peace, and left the flame to burn itself out, or smother in its own smoke and ashes. She simply did not attend, and when her mother, stopping for breath, turned to survey, as it were, the field of battle, or at least to view the result of her onslaught as depicted in the girl's face, she was smiling to a bare-footed urchin who trotted by her side, Stephen Boague's youngest, who had taken a fancy to the gay apparel of Mrs. Sangster, and still kept it in view.
'Let that de'il's buckie alone, Sophia Sangster, and attend to me! It has been pulling the fringes of my shawl for the past two hours, and made it smell of peat-reek and moss-water so that I shall never be able to put it on again.'
The meeting was held in the field adjoining the excavation made for the church's foundation. Mr. Sangster was in the chair and supported on either hand by a minister, and there were chairs in front for Mrs. Sangster, her daughter, and Miss Brown, to which the matron, somewhat mollified by this observance, was ushered, when she very quickly appropriated the remaining seat for her shawl, so that there might be no vacant place for any one else. She might have spared herself the trouble. Mary was not in the crowd, and if she had been, would not have desired to sit beside her.
At the close of the religious exercises, Mary had hastened home to her brother, from whom she had already been longer away than at any previous time since he was taken ill. She would not have attended the meeting at all, but for his desire that she should; and she was glad to return home at the earliest moment, for since she had learned its proneness to think evil without cause, she loathed Glen Effick utterly and all its affairs. Her brother had been drowsing, but he woke up at her entrance, and asked to hear what had been done.
'Just the usual thing. Mr. Geddes preached about the Tabernacle, and Mr. Dowlas about Solomon's Temple.'
'Ah! I can imagine it; very pretty and flowery, no doubt. But I think when so many were collected they might have had something more useful and more likely to do good to the poor people. "A dish of metaphor," as my good father used to say, "is light feeding for hungry souls."'
'They did not think so, I assure you; they seemed quite delighted; though I confess I rather wearied over the inventory of the golden vessels, and I saw Sophia Sangster yawn once at any rate.'
'Was Sophia there?'
'Oh yes. And by the way she sent a most particular message to you; or at least she seemed particularly anxious that you should receive it.'
'Ah!' said Roderick, raising himself, 'tell me quick.'
'I declare, Roddie, you look quite excited! She asked me to tell you she had received your letter--You rogue! What have you been writing to her? I remember now how restless you were one morning till you had got Joseph sent off to Auchlippie! But I, simple soul, supposed it was Session business with the Laird. To think I should be so obtuse with a little comedy going on under my very nose! But, ah me! It has been more like tragedy of late, you have been so ill, and we have both been so lonely.'
'But, to return to your comedy, or at least to Sophia, what more?'
'She said she had got your letter! Was not that enough? She did not say it was a sonnet to her eyebrows--but I suspect, she blushed so prettily--yet, now I think of it, it was not a sonnet you sent, for I was to tell you that she is not engaged--that there is no one who has a right to ask her to be engaged. You must have been jealous, Roddie! Who was it? And she said she would have written, but her mother forbade her.'
'Oh that tiresome Duchess! What ridiculous fancy has she got in her head now, I wonder? I feel quite ashamed when I recall the black thoughts I have been nourishing against that poor harmless cockney or whatever he is, Mr. Wallowby; all along of some absurd scheme of hers, which rushed to her lips in her agitation that day on the hill. Poor Duchess! She must have a bee in her bonnet; but she is a sad worry.'
'She is far worse that that!--hard, evil-minded, worldly.'
'Hush, Mary! "Judge not," et cetera. But proceed!'
'Sophia told me that her mother says there is some rumour afloat which must be cleared up before she can have communication with us; and, in fact, the tiresome old thing did her best, not only to cut me to-day, but to keep Soph away too; but the Laird, honest man, was too many for her.'
'You do not mean to say that that abominable Duchess was publicly rude to you? I could not stand that! Though she may do or say to me as she likes (and she generally does;) for I do not suppose any sensible man could seriously mind her.'
'Oh no! The Laird came to the rescue like a man and a gentleman, as he always does; and, in fact, if the Duchess had behaved herself, and Soph and I had been under her wing, I do not believe the poor oppressed child would have had courage or opportunity to send you your message, sir, so do not be harbouring bad thoughts of the poor Duchess! Ah! ah! And by the way, there is more message yet! Sophia says her father does not believe the rumours which her mother has been so ready to accept; and--but she blushed and stammered and I could not make sense of it, for you see I was not in your confidence, Mr. Prudence--but, if I were an old woman and understood about those sort of things, it sounded suspiciously like bidding you carry your tale to 'Papa!' Ha! Have I found you out, old gentleman? I suppose I may go for a governess now; I may be losing my place as house-keeper any day!' And she laughed merrily while Roderick coloured and looked confused, but intensely happy.
When the Doctor came to visit his patient that afternoon, he was astonished at the improvement in his condition, and quite confirmed in his belief as to the wisdom of his own prescriptions, and general course of treatment.