Mr. Buchanan went first to the bank, and drew out the money—the residue of the loan which had been placed there for Marion’s final equipment. In those days people did not use cheques, as we do now for every purpose. When a man paid a debt, it seemed far more sure and satisfactory to pay it in actual money. To all, except to business men, the other seemed a doubtful, unsatisfactory way, and those who received a cheque made great haste to cash it as if in the meantime the bank might break, or the debtor’s balance turn the wrong way. To pay with a simple bit of paper did not seem like paying at all. Mr. Buchanan received his fifty pounds in crisp new notes, pretty notes printed in blue and red. They were like a little parcel of pictures, all clean and new. He looked at them with a forlorn admiration: it was seldom he saw such a thing as a ten-pound note: and here were five of them. Ah, if that had been all! “Sit down quickly and write fourscore.” This variant troubled his mind a little in his confusion! But that was measures of wheat, he said to himself, with a distracted sense that this might somehow make a difference. And then he walked up the High Street in the morning sunshine to Mr. Morrison’s office; and sure enough the writer was there and very glad to see him, so that no chance of escape remained.
“I have come to speak to you,” the minister said, clearing his throat, and beginning with so much difficulty—he that would read you off an hour’s sermon without even pausing for a word!—“about business, Morrison—about a little—monetary transaction there was—between me and our late—most worthy friend——”
“Anderson?” said the writer. And then he added with a half laugh, tempered by the fact that “the death” had been so recent. “Half St. Rule’s, I’m thinking, have had monetary transactions with our late friend——”
“He would not permit any memorandum of it to be made,” said the minister.
“No: that was just like him: only his estate will be the worse for it; for we can’t expect everybody to be so frank in acknowledging as you.”
Mr. Buchanan turned the colour of clay, his heart seemed to stop beating. He said: “I need not tell you—for you have a family of your own—that now and then there are expenses that arise.”
The lawyer waved his hand with the freemasonry of common experience. “Well I know that,” he said; “it is no joke nowadays putting the laddies out in the world. You will find out that with Willie—but what a fine opening for him! I wish we were all as well off.”
“Yes, it is a good opening”—if it had not been that all the joy and the pride in it was quenched by this!—“and that is precisely what I mean, Morrison. It was just Willie—ordinary expenses, of course, my wife and I calculate upon and do our best for—but an outfit——”
“My dear Mr. Buchanan,” said the writer, “what need to explain the matter to me. You don’t imagine I got my own lads all set out, as thank the Lord they are, without feeling the pinch—ay, and incurring responsibilities that one would wish to keep clear of in the ordinary way of life.”
“Yes,” said the minister, “that was how it was; but fortunately the money was not expended. And I bring you back the fifty pounds—intact.”
Oh, the little, the very little lie it was! If he had said it was not all expended, if he had kept out that little article the—the fifty pounds implying there was no more. Anyhow, it was very different from taking a bill and writing fourscore. But the criminal he felt, with the cold drops coming out on his forehead, and his hand trembling as he held out—as if that were all! these fifty pounds.
“Now bide a wee, bide a wee,” said the writer; “wait till I tell you—Mr. Anderson foresaw something of this kind. Put back your money into your pocket. He foresaw it, the friendly old body that he was; wait till I get you the copy of the will that I have here.” Morrison got up and went to one of the boxes, inscribed with the name of Anderson, that stood on the shelves behind him, and after some searching drew out a paper, the heading of which he ran over sotto voce, while Mr. Buchanan sat rigid like an automaton, still holding out in his hand the bundle of notes.
“Here it is,” said Mr. Morrison, coming back with his finger upon the place. “You’ll see the case is provided for. ‘And it is hereby provided that in the case of any persons indebted to me in sums less than a hundred pounds, which are unpaid at the time of my death, that such debts are hereby cancelled and wiped out as if they had never existed, and my executors and administrators are hereby authorised to refuse any payments tendered of the same, and to desire the aforesaid debtors to consider these sums as legacies from me, the testator.’
“Well, sir,” said the writer, tilting up his spectacles on his forehead, “I hope that’s plain enough: I hope you are satisfied with that.”
For a moment the minister sat and gasped, still stretching out the notes, looking like a man at the point of death. He could not find his voice, and drops of moisture stood out upon his forehead, which was the colour of ashes. The lawyer was alarmed; he hurried to a cupboard in the corner and brought out a bottle and a glass. “Man,” he said, “Buchanan! this is too much feeling; minister, it is just out of the question to take a matter of business like this. Take it down! it’s just sherry wine, it will do you no harm. Bless me, bless me, you must not take it like this—a mere nothing, a fifty pounds! Not one of us but would have been glad to accommodate you—you must not take it like that!”
“Sums under a hundred pounds!” Mr. Buchanan said, but he stammered so with his colourless lips that the worthy Morrison did not make out very clearly what he said, and, in truth, had no desire to make it out. He was half vexed, half disturbed, by the minister’s extreme emotion. He felt it as a tacit indictment against himself.
“One would think we were a set of sticks,” he said, “to let our minister be troubled in his mind like this over a fifty pound! Why, sir, any one of your session—barring the two fishers and the farmer—— Take it off, take it off, to bring back the blood—it’s nothing but sherry wine.”
Mr. Buchanan came to himself a little when he had swallowed the sherry wine. He had a ringing in his ears, as if he had recovered from a faint, and the walls were swimming round him, with all the names on the boxes whirling and rushing like a cloud of witnesses. As soon as he was able to articulate, however, he renewed his offer of the notes.
“Take this,” he said, “take this; it will always be something,” trying to thrust them into the writer’s hand.
“Hoot,” said Morrison; “my dear sir, will you not understand? You’re freely assoilised and leeberated from every responsibility; put back your notes into your own pouch. You would not refuse the kind body’s little legacy, and cause him sorrow in his grave, which, you will tell me, is not possible; but, if it were possible, would vex him sore, and that we well know. I would not take advantage and vex him because he was no longer capable of feeling it. No, no; just put them back into your pouch, Buchanan. They are no use to him, and maybe they will be of use to you.”
This was how the interview ended. The minister still attempted to deposit his notes upon Mr. Morrison’s table, but the lawyer put them back again, doing everything he could to restore his friend and pastor to the calm of ordinary life. Finally, Morrison declaring that he had somebody to see “up the town,” and would walk with Mr. Buchanan as far as their ways lay together, managed to conduct him to his own door. He noted, with some surprise, that Mrs. Buchanan opened it herself, with a face which, if not so pale as her husband’s, was agitated too, and full of anxiety.
“The minister is not just so well as I would like to see him,” he said. “I would keep him quiet for a day or two, and let him fash himself for nothing,” he added—“for nothing!” with emphasis.
The good man was much disturbed in his mind by this exhibition of feeling.
“Oh, why were ‘writers’ made so coarse, and parsons made so fine?” He would have said these words to himself had he known them, which, perhaps he did, for Cowper was a very favourite poet in those days. Certainly that was the sentiment in his mind. To waste all that feeling upon an affair of fifty pounds! The wife had more sense, Mr. Morrison said to himself, though she was frightened too, but that was probably for his sake. He went off about his own business, and I will not say that he did not mention the matter to one or two of his brother elders.
“You or me might be ruined and make less fuss about it,” he said.
“When a man had just a yearly stipend and gets behindhand, it’s wae work making it up,” said the other.
“We must just try and see if we cannot get him a bit augmentation,” said Morrison, “or get up a testimonial or something.”
“You see, a testimonial could scarcely take the form of money, and what comfort would he get out of another silver teapot?” observed the second elder, prudent though kind.
It was not a much less ordeal for the minister to meet his wife than it had been to meet the lawyer. She knew nothing about his purpose of taking his bill and writing fourscore, and he dared not let her suspect that he had spoken of the “fifty,” as if that fifty were his whole debt, or that the debts that were forgiven were debts under a hundred pounds. He said to himself afterwards that it was more Morrison’s fault than his, that the lawyer would not let him explain that he had said “this would be something,” meaning that this would be an instalment. All these things he said to himself as he sat alone for the greater part of the day, “reading a book,” which was supposed to be an amusing book, and recovering from that great strain; but he did not venture to tell his wife of these particulars. What he said to Mrs. Buchanan was that Mr. Anderson had assoilised his debtors in general, and that each man was to consider the loan as a legacy, and that Morrison said he was not entitled to take a penny, and would not. His wife took this news with a burst of grateful tears and blessings on the name of the good man who had done this kind thing. “The merciful man is merciful, and lendeth and asketh not again,” she said. But after this outburst of emotion and relief, her good sense could not but object.
“It is an awfu’ deliverance for us, Claude; oh, my man! I had it all planned out, how we were to do it, but it would have been a heavy, heavy burden. God bless him for the merciful thought! But,” she added, “I am not clear in my mind that it is just to Frank. To be sure, it was all in his own hand to do what he liked with his own, and the laddie is but a far-off heir; but still he has been trained for that, and to expect a good fortune: and if there are many as we are, Claude——”
“It is not our affair, Mary; he had full command of his faculties, and it was his own to do what he liked with it,” her husband said, though with faltering lips.
“Well, that is true,” she replied, but doubtfully: “I am not denying a man’s right to do what he likes with his own. And if it had been only you, his minister, that perhaps he owed much more to, even his own soul, as Paul says——”
“No, no; not so much as that.”
“But if there are many,” Mrs. Buchanan went on, shaking her head, “it might be a sore heritage for Frank. Claude, if ever in the days to come we can do anything for that lad, mind I would think it was our duty to prefer him before our very own: for this is a great deliverance, and wrought, as you may say, at his cost but without his consent——”
“My dear, a sum like that,” said Mr. Buchanan, with a faint smile and a heavy heart, “is not a fortune.”
“That is true, but it is a great deliverance to us; and if ever we can be helpful to him, in siller or in kindness, in health or in sickness——”
There came a rush of tenderness to Mrs. Buchanan’s heart, with the tears that filled her eyes, and she could say no more.
“Yes, yes,” he said a little fretfully, “yes, yes; though he had no merit in it, and not any such great loss either that I can see.”
She judged it wise to leave the minister to himself after this; for, though nerves were not much thought of in those days, she saw that irritability and a tendency to undervalue the great deliverance, which filled her with such overflowing gratitude, had taken the place of more amiable feelings in his mind. It was better to leave him quiet, to recover from his ill mood, and from the consequence of being overdone. “I have so many things to take off my mind,” she said to herself. Perhaps she thought the minister’s cares—though most people would have thought them so much more important—nothing to hers, which were so many, often so petty, so absorbing, leaving her no time to brood. And had she not provided him with the new Waverley, which most people thought the best anodyne for care—that is, among the comforts of this world, not, of course, to count among higher things?
But Mr. Buchanan did not, I fear, find himself capable of having his mind taken off, even by the new Waverley. He was spared, he said to himself, from actual guilt.—Was he spared from actual guilt? He had not required to take his bill and write fourscore. But for that one little word the—the fifty (how small a matter!) he had said nothing: and that was not saying anything, it was merely an inference, which his next words might have made an end of; only, that Morrison would not hear my next words. If there was a fault in the matter, it was Morrison’s fault. He repeated this to himself fretfully, eagerly, impatient with the man who had saved him from committing himself. Never, never would he commit any business to Morrison’s hands! Such a man was not to be trusted; he cared nothing for his client’s interest. All that he was intent upon was to relieve the debtor, to joke about the “friendly body,” who was so kind, even in his grave. “A sore saint for his heir,” Morrison had again said, as was said of the old king—instead of standing for the heir’s rights as he ought to have done, and hearing what a man had to say!
And this then was the end of it all—salvation—from all the consequences, even from the very crime itself which he had planned and intended, but had not required to carry out. He had saved everything, his conscience, and his fifty pounds, not to speak of all the rest, the sum which his wife had planned by so many daily sacrifices to make up. He had not, after all, been like the unjust steward. He had said nothing, had not even written the fourscore; he had been saved altogether, even the fifty he had offered. Was this the Lord’s doing, and marvellous in our eyes—or what was it? Mr. Buchanan put away the Waverley, which was given him to comfort him, and took up the Bible with the large print. It opened again at that parable; and then, with a great start of pain, he recognised his fate, and knew that henceforward it would open always at that parable, now that the parable was no longer a suggestion of deliverance to him but a dreadful reminder. A convulsive movement went through all his limbs at that thought. Mr. Buchanan had often preached of hell, it was the fashion of his time; but he had never known what he himself meant. Now he knew: this was hell where their worm dieth not, and their fire is not quenched. It lay here, not in a vague, unrealised region of fire and brimstone; but here, within the leaves of the New Testament, which was his chief occupation, inspiring all the work of his life. This was hell—to see the book open, the book of life, always at that one place. He had not to wait for it; the worm had begun to gnaw and the fire to burn.
It was not till a long time after this that the Rev. Matthew Sinclair, who was the betrothed of Marion Buchanan, got a kirk, and the faithful pair were able to marry. The snowy heaps of Marion’s linen, which her mother now spoke of, in the bosom of the family, as in reality a present from old Mr. Anderson, seeing that it was paid for by a loan from him, generously converted into a legacy when he died—had lain spread out, with sprigs of lavender between the folds, in the big press at the head of the nursery stairs for nearly two years, during which time Elsie grew into almost a young woman. Rodie, too, became an ever more and more “stirring” school-boy, less disposed to sit and read from the same book with his sister, and more occupied with outdoor games and the “clanjamfry,” as his mother said, of school-fellows and playfellows who were always hanging about waiting for him, or coming with mysterious knockings to the door to ask him out. Some of them, Mrs. Buchanan thought, were not quite proper comrades for the minister’s son, but the framework of juvenile society in St. Rule’s was extremely democratic, all the classes going to school together according to Scotch precedent—the laird’s son and the shoemaker’s on the same bench, and Rodie Buchanan cheek by jowl with the fisher laddies from east the town. In the play hours, it was true, things equalised themselves a little; but there was certainly one fisher laddie his prompter and helper in school, who kept a great ascendancy over Rodie, and would lead him away in long tramps along the sea-shore, when he might have been at football or “at the gouff” with companions of his own standing, and when Elsie was pining for his society at home. Elsie felt the partial desertion of her brother extremely. She missed the long readings together in the turret and elsewhere, and the long rambles, in which Johnny Wemyss had become Rodie’s companion, apparently so much more interesting to him than herself. Johnny Wemyss, it was evident, had a great deal of knowledge, which Elsie was inclined, in her ignorance, to be thankful she did not possess; for Rodie would come in with his pockets all full of clammy and wet things—jelly-fish, which he called by some grand name—and the queer things that wave about long fingers on the edges of the pools, and shrink into themselves when you touch them. This was before the days when sea-anemones became a fashionable pursuit, but children brought up by the sea had, of course, known and wondered at these creatures long before science took them up. But to bring them home was a different matter; filling the school-room with nasty, sticky things, which, out of their native element, decayed and made bad smells, and were the despair of the unfortunate maid who had to keep that room in order, and dared not, except in extremity, throw Rodie’s hoards away. “It is not Rodie’s fault; it is Johnny Wemyss that just tells him nonsense stories,” Elsie said. She would have given her little finger to have gone with him on those rambles, and to have heard all about those strange living things; but already the invisible bonds that confine a woman’s movements had begun to cramp Elsie’s free footsteps, and the presence of Johnny Wemyss made, she was well aware, her own impossible, though it was just Johnny Wemyss’s “nonsense stories” that she desired most to hear.
Rodie condescended to accompany her on her Sunday walk when all St. Rule’s perambulated the links from which they were shut out on week-days; but that became the only occasion on which she could calculate on his company, and not even the new Waverley, which had failed to beguile the minister from his urgent trouble, could seduce Rodie from his many engagements with his fellows to sit with his sister in the turret, with the book between them as of old.
Elsie, it is true, gradually began to make herself amends for this desertion by forming new alliances of her own with girls of her own age, who have always abounded in St. Rule’s; but these did not at all make up to her, as Johnny Wemyss seemed to make up to Rodie, for the separation from her natural companion and fellow. These young ladies were beginning already, as they approached sixteen, to think of balls and triumphs in a way which was different from the romps of old. The world, in the shape of young men older than their boyish companions, and with other intentions, began to open about them. At that time it was nothing very remarkable that girls should marry very early, a circumstance which, of itself, made a great change in their ideas, and separated them more than anything else could have done from their childish contemporaries of the other sex.
Elsie was in that hot stage of indignation and revolt against sweethearts, and all talk on the subject, which is generally a phase in a girl’s development. She was angry at the introduction of this unworthy subject, and almost furious with the girls who chattered and laughed about Bobbie this and Willie that—for in St. Rule’s they all knew each other by their Christian names. She could understand that you should prefer your own brother’s society to that of any girl, and much wondered that Rodie should prefer any boy to herself—which was one great distinction between girls and boys which she discovered with indignation and shame. “I like Rodie better than anybody, but he likes his Johnny Wemyss better than me! Ay!” she cried, the indignation gaining upon her, “and even if Johnny Wemyss were not there, Ralph Beaton or Harry Seaton, or any laddie—whereas I would give up any lassie for him.”
“That is just the way of men,” said Marion, her eldest sister, who, being now on the eve of marriage, naturally knew a great deal more than a girl of sixteen.
“Not with Matthew,” cried Elsie, who, if she had no experience, was not without observation; “he likes you better than all the men in the world.”
“Oh, Matthew!” said Marion, with a blush—“that’s different: but when he’s used to me,” added this discreet young woman—“Matthew, I’ve every reason to believe, will just be like the rest. He will play his gouff, though I may be sitting solitary at home—and he will go out to his dinner and argue among his men, and take his walks with Hugh Playfair, or whoever turns up. He will say, ‘My dear, I want a long stretch that would be too far for you,’ as my father says to my mother. She takes it very well, and is glad he should be enjoying himself, and leaving her at peace to look after her house and her bairns—but perhaps she was not so pleased at first: and perhaps I’ll not be pleased either when it comes to that,” Marion said, reflectively.
Sense was her great characteristic, and she had, in her long engagement, had much time to turn all these things over in her mind.
“I don’t think it will ever come to that—for he cannot let you be for a moment,” said Elsie. “I sometimes wish he were a hundred miles away.”
“Ah,” said Marion, “but you know that will not last; and, indeed, it is better it should not last, for how could you ever get anything done if your man was draigling after you all the day long? No, no, it is more manlike that he should keep till his own kind. You may think you would like to have Rodie at your tail for ever, as when you were little bairns, and called the twins: but you would not, any more than he does—- just wait a wee, and you will find that out for yourself: for it should surely be more so with your brother, who is bound to go away from you, when it is so with your man.”
“Then I think the disciples were right,” said Elsie, who was very learned in her Bible, as became a minister’s daughter. “And if the case of a man be so with his wife it would be better not to marry.”
“Well, it does not seem that folk think so,” said Marion, with a smile, “or it would not have gone on so long. Will you get me the finest dinner-napkins, the very finest ones, out of the big napery press at the head of the stairs?—for I am not sure that they are all marked properly, and time is running on, and everything must be finished.”
Marion was very great at marking, whether in white letters worked in satin stitch, or in small red ones done with engrained cotton, or finally with the little bottle of marking-ink and the hot iron with which Elsie still loved to help her—but in the case of the finest dinner-napkins, I need not say that marking-ink was not good enough, and the finest satin stitch was employed.
It need not be added that notwithstanding the reflection above stated Elsie felt a great interest in the revelations of the sister thus standing on the brink of a new life, and so soberly contemplating the prospect before her, not with any idea, as it seemed, of ideal blessedness, nor of having everything her own way.
Marion had been set thinking by the girl’s questions, and was ready to go on talking when Elsie returned with the pile of dinner-napkins in her arms, as high as her chin, which reposed upon them. It had been Mrs. Buchanan’s pride that no minister’s wife in the whole presbytery should have more exquisite linen, and both mother and daughter were gratified to think that the table would be set out for the dinner on the Monday after the Sacrament as few such tables were. The damask was very fine, of a beautiful small pattern, and shone like white satin. Elsie had a little talent for drawing, and she it was who drew the letters which Marion worked; so that this duty afforded occupation for both.
“It is a little strange, I do not deny,” said Marion, “that though they make such a work about us when they are courting and so forth, the men are more content in the society of their own kind than we are: a party that is all lassies, you weary of it.”
“Not me!” cried Elsie, all aflame.
“Wait till you are a little older,” said the sage Marion; “it’s even common to say; though I doubt if it is true, that after dinner we weary for them, if they are too long of coming up-stairs. But they never weary for us: and a man’s party is always the most joyful of all, and they like it above everything, and never wish that we were there. I must say I do not understand how this is, considering how dependent they are upon us for their comfort, and how helpless they are, more helpless than a woman ever is. Now, what my father would do if mamma did not see that he was brushed and trimmed up and kept in order, I cannot tell: and no doubt it will be just the same with Matthew. He will come to me crying, ‘May, there are no handkerchiefs in my drawer,’ or, ‘May, the button’s off my glove,’ as if it was my great fault—and when he is going off to preach anywhere, he will forget his very sermon if I don’t take care it’s put into his portmanteau.
“Well, my dear! I am no better than my mother, and that is what she has to do: but when they get a few men together, and can gossip away, and talk, and take their glass of toddy, then is the time when they really enjoy themselves. And so it is with the laddies, or even more—you wish for them, but they don’t wish for you.”
“I wish for none of them, except Rodie, my own brother, that has always been my companion,” Elsie said.
“And you would think he would wish for you? but no: his Johnny Wemyss and his Alick Beaton, or was it Ralph?—that’s what he likes far best, except, of course, when he falls in love, and then he will run after the lassie wherever she goes, till she takes him, and it’s all settled, and then he just goes back to his men, as before. It is a very mysterious thing to me,” said Marion, “but I have thought a great deal about it, and it’s quite true. I do not like myself,” she added, with a pause of reflection, “men that are always at a woman’s tails. If you never could turn round or do a thing without your man after you, it would be a great bother. I am sure mamma feels that; she is always easy in her mind when my father is set down very busy to his sermon, or when somebody comes in to talk to him, or he goes out to his dinner with Professor Grant. Then she is sure he will be happy, and it leaves her free. I will just feel the same about Matthew, and he about me. He would not be without me for all the world, but he will never want me when he gets with his own cronies. Now, we always seem to have a kind of want of them.”
“You have just said that mamma was quite happy when she got papa off her hands,” Elsie said.
“That is a different thing; but do you think for a moment that she would enjoy herself with a party of women as he does at Professor Grant’s? That she would not; she is glad to get him off her hands because she is sure he will enjoy himself, and be no trouble to anybody. But that would be little pleasure to her, if she were to do the same: and you yourself, if you had all the Seatons and the Beatons that ever were born——”
“I want only Rodie, my own brother,” Elsie said, with indignation.
“And he,” said Marion, calmly reflecting, “does not want you; that is just what I say—and what is so queer a thing.”
“If the case of a man is so with his wife?” said Elsie, oracularly.
“Toots—the man is just very well off,” said Marion. “He gets his wife to take care of him, and then he just enjoys himself with his own kind.”
“Then I would never marry,” cried Elsie; “not whatever any one might say.”
“That is very well for you,” said Marion. “You will be the only daughter when I am away; they will be very well contented if you never marry; for, to be left without a child in the house, would be hard enough upon mamma. But even, with all my plenishing ready, and the things marked, and everything settled—not that I would like to part with Matthew, even if there was no plenishing—I would rather have him without a tablecloth than any other man with the finest napery in the world. But I just know what will happen, and I am quite pleased, and it is of no use going against human nature. For company, they will always like their own kind best. But then, on the other hand, women are not so keen about company. When there’s a family, they are generally very well content to bide at home, and be thankful when their man enjoys himself without fashing anybody.”
This is not a doctrine which would, perhaps, be popular with women nowadays; but, in Marion’s time, it was considered a kind of gospel in its way.
Elsie was not much interested in the view of man, as husband, put forth by her sister. Her mind did not go out towards that development of humanity; but the defection of Rodie, her own brother as she said, was a more serious matter. Most girls in as large family have an own brother their natural pair, the one most near to them in age or temperament. It had once been Willie and Marion, just as it had once been Elsie and Rodie; but Elsie could not bear the thought that Rodie might become to her, by his own will, the same as Willie was to Marion—her brother, but not her own brother, with no special tie between them. Her mind was constantly occupied by the thought of it, and how it was to be averted. Marion, she thought, had done nothing to lead Willie back when he first began to go after, what Marion called, his own kind, and to jilt his sister: so far from that, she had brought in a stranger into the family, a Matthew, to re-open and widen the breach, so that it was natural that Willie should go out of nights, and like his young men’s parties, and come in much later than pleased father. This was not a thing that Elsie would do—she would bring in no strange man. All the Matthews in the world might flutter round her, but she would never give Rodie any reason to think that there was anybody she wanted but her brother—no, whatever might happen, she would be faithful to Rodie, even if it were true, as Marion said, that men (as if Rodie were a man!) liked their own kind best. Why, she was his own kind; who could be so near him as his sister, his own sister, the one that was next in the family?
Elsie went seriously into this question, as seriously as any forsaken wife could do, whose husband was being led astray from her, as she took a melancholy ramble by herself along the east sands, where Rodie never accompanied her now. She asked herself what she could do to bring him back, to make him feel that, however his Johnnys and his Alicks might tempt him for the moment, it was Elsie that was his true friend: she must never scold him, nor taunt him with liking other folk better, she must always be kind, however unkind he might be. With these excellent resolutions warm in her mind, it happened to Elsie to see, almost straight in front of her, hanging on the edge of a pool among the rocks, Rodie himself, in company with Johnny Wemyss, the newly-chosen friend of his heart. Johnny was up to his elbows in the pool, digging out with his hands the strange things and queer beasts to be found therein; and half to show the charity of her thoughts, half out of curiosity and desire to see what they were about, Elsie hurried on to join them. Johnny Wemyss was a big boy, bigger than Rodie, as old as Elsie herself—roughly clad, with big, much-mended nailed boots, clouted shoon, as he would himself have called them, and his rough hair standing out under the shabby peak of his sailor’s cap.
“What are you doing—oh, what are you finding? Let me see,” cried Elsie, coming up behind them with noiseless feet on the wet but firm sand.
Johnny Wemyss gave a great start, and raised himself up, drawing his bare and dripping arms out of the water, and standing confused before the young lady, conscious that he was not company for her, nor even for her brother, the minister’s son, he who came of mere fisher folk.
But Rodie turned round fierce and threateningly, with his fists clenched in his pockets.
“What are you wanting?” he cried. “Can you not let a person abee? We are no wanting any lassies here.”
“Rodie,” cried his sister, flushed and almost weeping, “do you say that to me?”
“Ay do I!” cried Rodie, red with wrath and confusion. “What are you wanting? We just want no lassies here.”
Elsie gave him but one look of injured love and scorn, and, without saying another word, turned round and walked away.
Oh, May was right! she was only a lassie to her own brother, and he had insulted her before that Johnny, who was the cause of it all—she only hoped they were looking after her to see how firm she walked, and that she was not crying—no, she would not cry—why should she cry about him, the hard-hearted, unkind boy? and with that, Elsie’s shoulders heaved, and a great sob rent her breast.
She had indeed mourned his desertion before: yet this was practically her first revelation of the hollowness of life.
Meanwhile, Rodie was far from comfortable on his side; all the more that Johnny Wemyss gave him a kick with his clouted shoe, and said, with the frankness of friendship:
“Ye little cankered beast—how dare ye speak to her like that? How can she help it if she is a lassie?—it’s no her blame!”
Notwithstanding the great sobriety of her views, as disclosed above, Marion, on the eve of her marriage, was no doubt the most interesting member of the Buchanan family; and, if anything could have “taken off” the mind of Elsie from her own misfortune, it would have been the admiring and wondering study she was quite unconsciously making of her sister, who had come to the climax of a girl’s life, and who regarded it with so staid and middle-aged a view. Marion had always been a very steady sort of girl all her life, it was common to say. There was no nonsensical enthusiasm about her. Even when in love—that is, in the vague and gaseous period, before it has come to anything, when most girls have their heads a little pardonably turned, and the excitement of the new thing runs strong in their veins—even then, her deportment had been everything that could be desired in a minister’s daughter, and future minister’s wife. There had been no contrivings of meetings, no lingering on the links or the sands. Never once, perhaps, in that period when even a lassie is allowed to forget herself a little, had Marion failed to be at home in time for prayers, or forgot any of her duties. She was of the caste of the Scotch minister, in which the woman as well as the man belongs more or less to a sacred profession, and has its character to keep up. But, no doubt, it was owing to the sober tone of her own mind that she took at so early an age, and so exciting a moment of her career, the very sensible and unexalted views which she expressed so clearly. The Rev. Matthew Sinclair was neither cold nor negligent as a lover; he was limited by duty, and by a purse but indifferently filled. He could only come to see her after careful arrangement, when he could afford it, and when he could secure a substitute in his work. He could not shower presents upon her, even daily bouquets or other inexpensive luxuries. In those days, if you had a garden at your hand, you might bring your beloved “a flower”—that is, a bunch of flowers—roses and southernwood, and bachelor’s buttons and gilly-flowers, with a background of the coloured grasses, called gardener’s garters in Scotland, tightly tied together; but there were no shops in which you could find the delicate offerings, sweet smelling violets, and all the wonders of the South—which lovers deal in nowadays. But he did his part very manfully, and Marion had nothing to complain of in his attentions. Yet, as has been made apparent, she was not deceived. She did not expect, or even wish, to attach him to her apron strings. She was quite prepared to find that, in respect of “company,” that is society, he would prefer, as she said, his own kind. And she did not look forward to this with any prevision of that desolate sense of the emptiness of the world and all things, which was in the mind of Elsie when her brother told her that he wanted no lassies there. Marion knew that if she went into her husband’s study when two or three of the brethren were gathered together, her entrance would probably stop a laugh, and her husband would look up and say, “Well, my dear?” interrogatively, with just the same meaning, though less roughly than that of Rodie. She had seen it in her mother’s case; she accepted it as quite natural in her anticipations of her own. This curious composure made her, perhaps, all the more interesting—certainly a more curious study—to Elsie, who had fire and flame in her veins incomprehensible to the elder sister. Elsie followed her about with that hot iron to facilitate the marking, and drank in her words with many a protest against them. Let it not be supposed that Marion marked her own “things” with the vulgarity of marking-ink; but she marked the dusters and the commoner kinds of napery, the coarser towels and sheets, all the inferior part of her plenishing in this common way, an operation which occupied a good many mornings, during which there went on much edifying talk. Sometimes, while they sat at one end of the large dining-table in the dining-room,—for it was not permitted to litter the drawing-room with this kind of work,—Mrs. Buchanan would be seated at the other, with her large basket of stockings to darn, or other domestic mendings, and, in that case, the talk was more varied, and went over a wider field. Naturally, the mother was not quite philosophic or so perfectly informed as was the young daughter on the verge of her life.
“I hear,” said Mrs. Buchanan, “that old Mr. Anderson’s house in the High Street is getting all prepared and made ready for young Frank Mowbray and his mother. She is not a very wise woman, and very discontented. I fear that the old man left much less than was expected. When I think how good he was to us, and that Willie’s outfit and your plenishing are just, so to speak, gifts of his bounty, I feel as if we were a kind of guilty when I hear of his mother’s complaint. For, if he had not given us, and other people as well as much as he did, there would have been more for her, or at least for her Frank.”
“But she had nothing to do with it, mother,” said Marion; “and he had a good right to please himself, seeing it was all his own.”
“All that is quite true,” said Mrs. Buchanan; “I made use of the very same argument myself when your father was so cast down about it, and eager to pay it back, and James Morrison would not listen to him. I just said, ‘It’s in the very Scripture—Shall I not do what I like with my own?’ And then your father tells me that you must not always take the words of a parable for direct instruction, and that the man who said that was meaning—but if you ask him, he will tell you himself what we were to understand.”
“Was it the one about the unjust steward?” asked Elsie, suddenly looking up, with the heated iron in her hand.
“What would the unjust steward have to do with it?” said Mrs. Buchanan, astonished. “Neither your father nor Mr. Anderson would go for instruction to the unjust steward. Your father had a fine lecture on that, that he delivered about a year and a half ago. You never mind your father’s best things, you bairns, though one would think you might be proud of them.”
“I mind that quite clearly,” said Marion; “and, mother, if you’ll no be angry, I would like to say that it did not satisfy my mind. You would have thought he was excusing yon ill man: and more than that, as if he thought our Lord was excusing him: and, though it was papa that said it, that was what I could not bide to hear.”
It may be supposed how Elsie, with her secret knowledge, pricked up her ears. She sat with the iron suspended in her hand, letting Marion’s initials grow dry upon the linen, and forgetting altogether what she was about.
“I am astonished that you should say that,” said the mother, giving a little nod; “that will be some of Matthew’s new lights—for, I am sure, he explained as clear as could be that it was the man’s wisdom, or you might say cunning, that the Lord commended, so to speak, as being the best thing for his purpose, though his purpose was far from being a good one. Your father is not one that, on such a subject, ever gives an uncertain note.”
“It is an awfu’ difficult subject for an ordinary congregation,” said Marion. “Matthew is just as little a man for new lights as papa; but still he did say, that for a common congregation——”
“I thought it would be found that Matthew was at the bottom of it,” said Mrs. Buchanan, with a laugh; “though it would set a young man better to hold his peace, and make no comments upon one that has so much more experience than himself.”
“You are a little unjust to Matthew,” said Marion, nodding in her turn; “he made no more comment than any of the congregation might have done—or than I did myself. He is just very careful what he says about papa. He says that theology, like other things, makes progress, and that there’s more exegesis and—and other things, since my father’s time—which makes a difference; but he has always a great opinion of papa’s sermons, and says you may learn a great deal from them, even when——”
“I am sure we are much beholden to him,” said Mrs. Buchanan, holding her head high. “It’s delicate of him to spare your feelings; for, I suppose, however enlightened you may be beyond your fellows, you must still have some kind of objection to hear your father criticised.”
“Oh, mother, how can you take it like that?” said Marion; “there was no criticism. If anything was said, it was more me than him. I said I could not bide to hear a word, as if our Lord might have approved such an ill man. And he said it was dangerous for a mixed congregation, and that few considered the real meaning of a parable, but just took every word as if it was instruction.”
“And that was just your father’s strong point. He said it was like taking another man’s sail to fill up a leak in a boat. You would praise the man for getting the first thing he could lay his hands on to save himself and his crew, but not for taking his neighbour’s sail—that was just his grand point; but there are some folk that will always take things in the matter-of-fact way, to the letter, and cannot understand what’s expounded according to the spirit. That, however, has always just been your father’s special gift,” said the minister’s wife, de facto. She, who was only a minister’s wife in expectation, ought to have bowed her head; but, being young and confident, even though so extremely reasonable, Marion could not subdue herself to that better part.
“That was just what Matthew said—dangerous for a mixed congregation,” she repeated; “the most of them just being bound by nature to the letter, and very matter-of-fact——”
“No doubt Matthew is a great authority,” said Mrs. Buchanan, with a violent snap of her big scissors.
“Well, mamma,” said Marion, with the soft answer that does not always take away wrath, “you’ll allow that he ought to be to me——”
And there then ensued a deep silence; a whole large hole in the heel of Rodie’s stocking filled up, as by magic, in the mother’s hands, quickened by this contrariety, and the sudden absorption in her work which followed, and Marion marked twelve towels, one after the other, so quickly that Elsie could scarcely follow her with the iron in time to make them all shine. It was she who took up the thread of the conversation again, but not wisely. Had she been a sensible young person, she would have introduced a new subject, which is the bounden duty of a third party, when the other two have come to the verge of a quarrel. But Elsie was only sixteen, and this discussion had called back her own strange experience in the turret-room.
“It must have given papa a great deal of thinking,” she said. “Once me and Rodie were in the turret as—as he never comes now——” This was very bad grammar, but Elsie’s heart was full of other things. “We were reading Quentin Durward, and very, very taken up with all that was going on at Liege, if you mind.” Liége had no accent in Elsie’s mind or her pronunciation. “And then you came into the study, mother, and talked. And after he began again with his sermon. It was a long time ago, but I never forgot, for it was strange what he said. It was as if he was learning the parable off by heart. ‘Take now thy bill, and sit down quickly, and write fourscore’—or ‘write fifty.’ He said it over and over, just those words—sometimes the one and sometimes the other. It was awfu’ funny. We both heard it; both me and Rodie, and wondered what he could be meaning. And we dared not move, for though he knew we were there, we did not like to disturb him. We thought he had maybe forgotten us. We were so stiff, we could scarcely move, and that was always what he said, ‘Take now thy bill, and sit down——’”
Mrs. Buchanan had dropped her work and raised her head to listen; a puzzled look came over her face, then she shook her head, slightly, unable to solve the problem which she dimly felt to be put before her. She said, at last, with a change of countenance:
“I came into the study and talked?—and you there? What was I talking about? do you mind that?”
“Oh, nothing,” said Elsie. “Old Mr. Anderson; it was just before he died.”
“And you were there, Rodie and you, when I came in to talk private things with your father! Is that the kind of conduct for children in a decent house?”
Mrs. Buchanan had reddened again, and wrath, quite unusual, was in her tone.
“Mamma, when it was raining, and we had a book to read, we were always there, and father knew, and he never said a word!”
“You knew too, mother,” said Marion; “the two little things were always there.”
“Little things!” cried Mrs. Buchanan, almost with a snort—Rodie’s heel, stretched out upon her hand, and now filled up with a strong and seemly web of darning in stout worsted, was quite as big as his father’s. And Elsie was taller than either of the two women by her side. “They were little things with muckle lugs,” she said, with a rather fierce little laugh; “if you think, Elsie, it was right to spy upon the private conversation of your father and mother, that is not my opinion. Do you think I would have spoken to him as I did if I had known you two were there?”
“Mother, about old Mr. Anderson?” cried Marion, meditating; “there could be nothing so private about that.”
She gave them both a look, curious and anxious; Marion took it with the utmost composure, perhaps did not perceive it at all. Elsie, with a wistful but ignorant countenance, looked at her mother, but did not wince. She had no recollection of what that conversation had been.
“Oh, mamma,” she said, “we spying!” with big tears in her eyes.
“I am not saying you meant it,” said her mother; “it was a silly habit, but I must request, Elsie, that it never may happen again.”
“Oh!” cried Elsie, the big tears running over, “he never will come now! He is not caring neither for me nor the finest book that ever was written. There is no fear, mother. It breaks my heart to sit there my lane, and Rodie never will come now!”
“You are a silly thing,” said Mrs. Buchanan; “it is not to be expected, a stirring laddie. Far better for him to be out stretching his limbs than poring over a book. But I can understand, too, it’s a disappointment to you.”
“Oh, a disappointment!” Elsie cried, covering her face with her hands: the word was so inadequate.
To be disappointed was not to get a new frock when you want it, or something else, unworthy of a thought: but to be forsaken by your own brother! You wanted for that a much bigger word.
“All the same,” the mother said, “I have often things to say to your father that are between me and him alone, and not for you. You must not do this again, Elsie. Another time, if you hear me go in to speak to your papa, you must give warning you are there. You must not sit and hold your breath, and listen. There are many things I might say to him that were never intended for you. Now, mind what I say. I forgive you because I am sure you did not mean it; but another time——”
“There will never be another time, mother,” said Elsie, with a quivering lip.
“Well, I am sure I hope so,” said her mother, and she finished her stockings carefully, made them into round balls, and carried them away to put them into their respective drawers. At this particular moment, with all that was going on, and all that was being prepared in the house, she had very little time to spend with her daughters in the pleasant exercise of sewing, virtuous and most necessary as that occupation was.
“Do you remember what they were saying about old Mr. Anderson?” said Marion; “for I have always thought there was something about that—that was—I don’t know what word to say. He died, you know, when they were in his debt, and he freely forgave them; and that was why I got such a good plenishing, and Willie the best of outfits, and I would like to know what they said.”
“I do not mind what they said,” said Elsie; “and, if I did mind, I would not tell you, and you should not ask me. Rodie and me, we were not heeding about their secrets. It was just after, when my father went on and on about that parable, that we took any notice what he said.”
“And what was he saying about the parable?”
“Oh, I have told you already. He just went on and on—‘Take thy bill, and write fourscore’—you know what it says—till a person’s head went round and round. And we dared never move, neither me nor Rodie, and very glad we were when he went down-stairs.”
“Poor bit things, not daring to move,” said Marion. “But that was a strange thing to say over and over: he said nothing about that in his sermon, but just how clever the man was for his purpose, though it was not a good purpose. But Matthew is of opinion that it’s a dangerous thing to treat the parables in that way.”
“And how should Matthew know better than my father?” cried Elsie, in indignation. “He may just keep his opinion; I’m of the same opinion as papa.”
“It is not of much consequence what your opinion is,” said Marion, imperturbably; “but Matthew has been very well instructed, and he has all the new lights upon things, and the exegesis and all that, which was not so advanced in my father’s day. But it was a fine sermon,” she added, with an approving nod, “though maybe dangerous to the ignorant, which was all we ever said.”
As for Elsie, she ceased altogether to think of the mystery of that afternoon, and the sound of her father’s voice—which was such as she had never heard before—in her hot indignation against Matthew, who dared to be of a different opinion from papa.
Marion’s marriage took place in the summer, at the very crown of the year. And it was a very fine wedding in its way, according to the fashion of the times. Nobody in Scotland thought of going to church for this ceremony, which took place in the bride’s home, in the drawing-room upstairs, which was the largest room in the house, and as full as it could be with wedding-guests. There were two bridesmaids, Elsie and a sister of Matthew’s, whose mission, however, was unimportant in the circumstances, unless, indeed, when it happened to be the duty of one of them to accompany the bride and bridegroom, with the aid of the best man, upon their wedding-tour. This curious arrangement had never been thought of in Marion’s case, for no wedding-tour was contemplated. The wedding pair were to proceed at once to their own quiet manse, somewhere in the centre of Fife, where they could travel comfortably in a post-chaise; and there they were disposed of for life, with no further fuss. There were many things, indeed, wanting in this wedding which are indispensable now. There were, for example, no wedding-presents, or at least very few, some pieces of silver of the massive order, a heavy tea-service, which was indeed a “testimonial” from those who had profited by the Rev. Matthew’s services, in his previous sphere, and a number of pretty things sent by Willie, such as used to be sent from India by all the absent sons, pieces of Indian muslin, embroidered and spangled (over which Mrs. Buchanan had held up her hands, wondering what in the world Marion could do with them), and shawls, one of them heavy with gold embroidery, about which the same thing might be said. Willie had been by this time about eighteen months in India, and was already acquainted with all the ways of it, his mother believed. And he sent such things as other young men sent to their families, without considering whether they would be of any use. He also sent various beautiful things in that mosaic of ivory and silver, which used to adorn so many Scotch houses, and which made the manse parlour glorious for years to come. On the whole, “every justice” was done to Marion. Had she come from Mount Maitland itself, the greatest house in the neighbourhood, or even from the Castle at Pittenweem, or Balcarres, she could not have been better set out.
It was at this great festivity that there were first introduced to the society at St. Rule’s two figures that were hereafter to be of great importance to it, and to assume an importance beyond what they had any right to, according to ordinary laws. These were Frank Mowbray and his mother, who had very lately come to St. Rule’s, from a country vaguely called the South, which was not, after all, any very distant or different region, but perhaps only Dumfrieshire, or Northumberland, in both of which they had connections, but which do not suggest any softness of climate or exuberance of sunshine to our minds nowadays. They had led, it was believed, a wandering life, which was a thing very obnoxious to the public sentiment of St. Rule’s, and almost infallibly meant minds and manners to correspond, light-headedness and levity, especially on the part of the woman, who could thus content herself without a settled home of her own. It was naturally upon Mrs. Mowbray that all the criticism centred; for Frank was still very young, and, of course, as a boy had only followed his mother’s impulse, and done what she determined was to be done. She was not in outward appearance at all unlike the rôle which was given her by the public. She gave for one thing much more attention to her dress than was then considered right in St. Rule’s, or almost even decent, as if desirous of attracting attention, the other ladies said, which indeed was probably Mrs. Mowbray’s design. In the evening, she wore a scarf, gracefully draped about her elbows and doing everything but cover the “bare neck,” which it was intended to veil: and though old enough to wear a cap, which many ladies in those days assumed, however young they might be—as soon as they married, did not do so, but wore her hair in large bows on the top of her head, with stray ringlets upon either cheek, which, for a woman with a grown-up son, seemed almost an affront to public morality. And she used a fan with much action and significance, spreading it out, and shutting it up as it suited her conversation, with little gestures that were like nothing in the world but a foreigner, one of the French, or persons of that kind, that thought of nothing but showing themselves off. It was perhaps an uncharitable judgment, but there was so much truth in it, that Mrs. Mowbray’s object was certainly to make the most of herself, and do herself justice which is what she would have said.
And Frank at this period was what was then called a young “dandy;” and also thought a great deal of his own appearance, which was even more culpable or at least more contemptible on the part of a young man than on that of a lady. He wore a velvet collar to his coat, which came up to his ears, and sometimes a stock so stiff that he could look neither to the right hand nor the left, and his nankeen trousers and flowered waistcoats were a sight to behold. Out of the high collar, and voluminous folds of muslin which encircled his neck, a very young, boyish face came forth, with a small whisker on either cheek, to set forth the rosy colour of his youthful countenance, which was quite ingenuous and simple, and had no harm in it, notwithstanding the scoffs and sneers which his contemporaries in St. Rule’s put forth against his airs and graces, and the scent on his handkerchief “like a lassie,” which was the last aggravation, and called forth roars of youthful laughter, not unmingled with disgust. The pair together made a great commotion in the society of St. Rule’s. Mr. Anderson’s house, which was old-fashioned but kindly, with old mahogany, so highly polished that you could see your face in it, and old dark portraits hanging on the panelled walls, underwent a complete revolution to please what St. Rule’s considered the foreign tastes. She had one of those panelled rooms covered with wall-paper, to the consternation of the whole town. I am obliged to allow that this room is the pride of the house now, for the paper—such things as yet being scarce in the British Islands—was an Oriental one, of fine design and colour, which has lasted over nearly a century, and is as fresh now as when it was put up, and the glory of the place; but in those days, Scotch taste was all in favour of things dark and plain, without show, which was a wicked thing. To please the eye at all, especially with brightness and colour, was tacitly considered wicked, at that day, in all circumstances. It was not indeed a crime in any promulgated code, but it certainly partook of the nature of vice, as being evidently addressed to carnal sentiments, not adapted for confidence or long duration, or any other recognised and virtuous purpose, but only to give pleasure which was by its very nature an illegitimate thing. It was not indeed that these good people did not love pleasure in their hearts. There was far more dancing in those days than has ever been since, and parties for the purpose, at which the young people met each other, and became engaged to each other and made love, and married with a general persistency and universalness no longer known among us; and there was much more drinking and singing of jovial songs and celebration of other kinds of pleasure. But a bright wall-paper, or a cheerful carpet, or more light in a room than was absolutely necessary, these were frivolities almost going the length of depravity that were generally condemned.
The new-comers were among the wedding-guests, and Mrs. Mowbray came in a white Indian shawl, and a white satin bonnet, adorned with roses inside its cave-like sides, as if she had been the bride herself: while Frank had already a flower in his coat before the wedding-favour was added which made him, in the estimation of his compeers, a most conspicuous figure, and more “like a lassie” than ever. When the time came for Marion and her husband to go away, it was he who drew from his pocket the white satin slipper which landed on the top of the post-chaise, and made the bridal pair also “so conspicuous”—to their great wrath, when they discovered by the cheers that met them in every village what an ensign they were carrying with them, though they had indeed a most sober post-chaise from the old Royal: and Matthew had taken care that the postillion took off his favour as soon as they were out of the town. To throw an old shoe for luck was a well-understood custom, but satin slippers were not so common in St. Rule’s in those days that they should be used in this way, and Marion never quite forgave this breach of all decorum, pointing her out to the world just on the day of all others when she most desired to escape notice. But the Mowbrays did not understand how you ever could desire to escape notice, which, for their part, they loved. The young people who crowded about the door to see the bride go off, the girls laughing and crying in their excitement, the lads cheering and shouting, were, I need not say, augmented by half the population of St. Rule’s, all as eager and as much interested as if they too had been wedding-guests. The women about, though they had no occasion to be specially moved, laughed and cried too, for sympathy, and made their comments at the top of their voices, with the frankness of their class.
“She is just as bonnie a bride as I ever saw, as I aye kent she would be; but he’s but a poor creature beside her,” said one of the fishwives.
“Hoot, woman,” said another, “the groom, he’s aye the shaddow on the brightness, and naithing expected from him.”
“But he’s not that ill-faured either,” said another spectator.
“She’s a bonnie creature, and he’s a wise-like man.” Elsie, who had always an ear for what was going on, took in all these comments, and the aspect of affairs generally without really knowing what she heard and saw. But there was one episode which, above all, caught that half attention which imprints a scene on the memory we cannot tell how. At the house door, Frank Mowbray, with the slipper in his hand, very proud of that piece of fashion and prettiness, stood stretching himself to his full height (which was not great), and preparing for his throw. While at the same moment she caught sight of a very different figure close to the chaise watching the crowd, which was Johnny Wemyss, the friend for whom Rodie her own brother had deserted her, and whom, consequently, she regarded with no favourable eyes. He was a tall weedy boy, with long arms growing out of his jacket-sleeves, and that look of loose-jointed largeness which belongs to a puppy in all varieties of creation. He was in his Sunday clothes and bareheaded, and as Marion walked across the pavement, he stooped down and laid before the steps of the chaise a large handful of flowers. The bride gave an astonished look, and then a nod and a smile to the rough lad, who rose up, red as fire with the shamefacedness of his homage, and disappeared behind the crowd. It was only the affair of a moment, and probably very few people noticed it at all. But Elsie saw it, and her face burned with sympathetic excitement. She was pushed back at almost the same moment by the sudden action of Frank, throwing his missile, and then, amid laughter, crying, and cheers, the post-chaise drove away.
“My dear,” said Mr. Buchanan, a few minutes after, “some bairn has dropped its flowers on the pavement, or perhaps it was Marion that let them fall. Send one of the women out to clear them away; it has a disorderly look before the door,” the minister said.
Elsie did not know what made her do it, but she darted out in her white frock among the dispersing crowd, and gathered up, with her own hands, the flowers on which Marion had set her foot. She took a rose from among them and put it into her own belt. They were, I fear, dusty and soiled, and only fit, as Mr. Buchanan said, to be swept away, but it was to Elsie the only touch of poetry in the whole business. Bride and bridegroom were very sober persons, scarcely worthy, perhaps, to tread upon flowers, which, indeed, Mr. Matthew Sinclair had avoided by kicking them (though gently) out of his way. But Elsie felt the unusual tribute, if no one else did. She gave a glance round for Johnny Wemyss, and caught him as he cast back a furtive glance from behind the shadow of a burly fisherman. And again the boy grew red, and so did she. They had a secret between them from that day, and everybody knows, who has ever been sixteen, what a bond that is, a bond for life.
“Take out that dirty flower out of your belt,” said Rodie, putting out his hand for it; “if you want a flower, you can get a fresh one out of the garden. All the folk in the street have tramped upon it.” This word is constantly used in Scotland, with unnecessary vehemence of utterance, for the simpler syllable trod.
“I’ll not take it out,” said Elsie, “and only Marion put her foot upon it. It is the bonniest thing of all that has happened; and it was your own friend Johnny Wemyss that you are so fond of.”
“I am not fond of him,” said Rodie, ingenuously; “do you think me and him are like a couple of lassies? Throw it away this minute.”
“No for you, nor all the fine gentlemen in the world!” cried Elsie, holding her rose fast; and there would probably have been a scuffle over it, Rodie at fifteen having no sense as yet that a lassie’s whims were more to be respected than any other comrade’s, had not Mrs. Buchanan suddenly appeared.
“Elsie,” she said half severely, “are you forgetting already that you’re now the only girl in the house? and nobody to look after the folk upstairs—oh, if they would only go away! but you and me.”
“I’m going, mamma,” cried Elsie, and then, though embraces were rare in this reserved atmosphere, she threw her arms round her mother and gave her a kiss. “I’m not so good as May, but I will try my best,” she said.
“Oh my dear, but I am tired, tired! both body and mind,” said Mrs. Buchanan; “and awfu’ thankful to have you, to be a comfort. Rodie, run away and divert yourself and leave her alone; there’s plenty about of your own kind.”
It gave Elsie a pang, yet a thrill of satisfaction to see her brother, who had deserted her, thus summarily cleared off the scene. Marion had said regretfully, yet dispassionately, that they liked their own kind best, which had been a revelation and a painful one to the abandoned sister. But to have him thus sent off rather contemptuously than otherwise to his own kind, as by no means a superior portion of the race, gave her a new light on the subject, as well as a new sensation. Boys, she remembered, and had always heard were sent to divert themselves, as the only thing they were good for, when a lassie was useful in many ways. In this manner she began to recover from the bitter sense of the injury which the scorn of the laddies had inflicted upon her. They might scorn away as they pleased. But the other folk, who had more experience than they, thought otherwise; this helped Elsie to recover her balance. She almost began to feel that even if Rodie were lost, all would not be lost. And her exertions were great in the tired and wavering afternoon party, which had nothing to amuse itself with, and yet could not make up its mind to break up and go away, as the hosts, quite worn out with the long strain, and feeling that everything was now over, most fondly desired them to do.
“Will you come and see me?” said Mrs. Mowbray. “I have taken a great fancy to this child, Mrs. Buchanan. She has such pretty brown eyes and rosy cheeks.”
“Will you come and see me, Elsie? I have got no pretty daughters. Oh! how I wish I had one to dress up and play with; Frank is all very well, he is a good boy—but a girl would make me quite happy.”
Elsie was much disgusted with this address: to be told to her face that she had pretty brown eyes and rosy cheeks was unpardonable! In the first place, it was not true, for Elsie was well aware she was freckled, and thought red cheeks very vulgar and common. In those days heroines were always of an interesting paleness, and had black or very dark hair, “raven tresses” in poetry. And alas, Elsie’s locks were more ruddy than raven. She was quite aware that she was not a pretty daughter, and it was intolerable that anyone should mock her, pretending to admire her to her face!