While these proceedings were occupying all his family, Drumcarro himself proceeded with the practical energy which hitherto had only been exercised on behalf of his sons to arrange for his daughters’ presentation to the world. More exciting to the county than a first drawing-room of the most splendid season was the ball at the Castle which was by far the finest thing that many of the Argyllshire ladies of those days ever saw. Even among those who like the family of Drumcarro owned no clan allegiance to the Duke, the only way of approaching the beau monde, the great world which included London and the court as well as the Highlands was by his means. The Duke in his own country was scarcely second to the far off and unknown King whose throne was shrouded in such clouds of dismay and trouble, and the Duchess was in all but name a far more splendid reality than the old and peevish majesty, without beauty or prestige, who sat in sullen misery at Windsor. To go to London, or even to Edinburgh, to the Lord High Commissioner’s receptions at Holyrood, was a daring enterprise that nobody dreamed of; but to go to the Castle was the seal of good blood and breeding. When he had got this notion into his head Drumcarro was as determined upon it as the fondest father could have been. The girls were of no consequence, but his daughters had their rights with the best, and he would not have the family let down even in their insignificant persons; not to speak of the powerful suggestion of relieving himself from further responsibility by putting them each in the way of finding “a man.”

He made his appearance accordingly one afternoon in the little house inhabited by Miss Eelen, to the great surprise of that lady. It was a very small, gray house, standing at a corner of the village street, with a small garden round it, presenting a curious blank and one-eyed aspect, from the fact that every window that could be spared, and they were not abundant to start with, had been blocked up on account of the window-tax. Miss Eelen’s parlour was dark in consequence, though it had originally been very bright, with a corner window towards the loch and the quay with all its fishing-boats. This, however, was completely built up, and the prospect thus confined to the street and the merchant’s opposite—a little huckster’s shop in which everything was sold from needles to ploughshares. Miss Eelen was fond of this window, it was so cheerful; and it was true that nobody could escape her who went to Robert Duncan’s—the children who had more pennies to spend than was good for them, or the servant girls who went surreptitiously with bottles underneath their aprons. Miss Eelen kept a very sharp eye upon all the movements of the town, but even she acknowledged the drowsiness that comes after dinner, and sat in her big chair near the fire with her back turned to the window, “her stocking” in her lap, and her eyes, as she would have described it, “gathering straes,” when Mr. Douglas paid her that visit. Her cat sat on a footstool on the other side, majestically curling her tail around her person, and winking at the fire like her mistress. The peats were burning with their fervent flameless glow, and comfort was diffused over the scene. When Drumcarro came in Miss Eelen started and instinctively put up her hands to her cap, which in these circumstances had a way of getting awry.

“Bless me, Drumcarro! is this you?”

“It’s just me,” he said.

“I hope they’re all well?”

“Very well, I am obliged to you. I just came in to say a word about—the Castle—”

“What about the Castle?” with astonished eyes.

“I was meaning this nonsense that’s coming on—the ball,” said Mr. Douglas, with an effort. A certain shamefacedness appeared on his hard countenance—something like a blush, if that were a thing possible to conceive.

“The ball? Bless us all! have ye taken leave of your senses, Neil?”

“Why should I take leave of my senses? I’m informed that the haill country—everybody that’s worth calling gentry will be going. You’re hand and glove with all the clanjamfry. Is that true?”

“Who you may mean by ‘clanjamfry’ I cannot say. If you mean that his Grace and her Grace are just bye ordinary pleasant, and the young lords and ladies aye running out and in—no for what I have to give them, as is easy to be seen—”

“I’m not surprised,” said Drumcarro; “one of the old Douglas family before the attainder was as good as any one of their new-fangled dukes.”

“He’s no’ a new-fangled duke, as you know well; and as for the Douglas family, it is neither here nor there. Ye were saying ye had received information?” Miss Eelen divined her kinsman’s errand, though it surprised her, but she would not help him out.

“Just that,” said Drumcarro; “I hear there’s none left out that are of a good stock. Now I’m not a man for entertainment, or any of your nonsense of music and dancing, nor ever was. I have had too much to do in my life. But I’m told it will be a slight to the name if there’s none goes from Drumcarro. Ye know what my wife is—a complaining creature with no spirit to say what’s to be done, or what’s not—”

“Spirit!” cried Miss Eelen. “Na, she never had the spirit to stand up to the like of you: but, my word, you would soon have broken it if she had.”

“I’m not here,” said Mr. Douglas, “to get any enlightenment on her character or mine. I’ve always thought ye a sensible woman, Eelen, even though we do not always agree. They tell me it’ll be like a scorn put upon Drumcarro if the lasses are not at this ploy. Confound them a’ and their meddling, and the fools that make feasts, and the idiots that yammer and talk! I’ve come to you to see what you think. There shall come no scorn on Drumcarro while I’m to the fore.”

“Well, Neil, if you ask me,” said Miss Eelen, “I would have taken the first word, and given ye my opinion if I had thought it would be of any use; but it’s just heaven’s truth; and farewell to the credit of Drumcarro when it’s kent there are two young women, marriageable and at an age to come forward, and not there. It is just the truth. It will be said—for that matter it is said already—that ye’re so poor or so mean that ye grudge the poor things a decent gown, and keep them out of every chance. I would not have said a word if you had not asked me, but that’s just what folk say.”

Drumcarro got up hastily from his chair and paced about the room, and he swore an oath or two below his breath that relieved his feelings. There was a great deal more in Miss Eelen’s eyes. The “auld slave-driver” knew that his name did not stand high among his peers, and his imagination was keen enough to supply the details of the gossip of which his cousin gave so pleasant a summary. “Ye may tell them then,” he said, “with many thanks to you for your candid opinion, that Drumcarro’s lassies, when he pleases, can just show with the best, and that I’ll thole no slight to my name, any more than I would were I chief of this whole country as my forbears were. And that’s what ye can tell your gossips, Eelen, the next time ye ask them to a dish of tea—no’ to say you’re a Douglas yourself and should have more regard for your own flesh and blood.”

“Bless me!” cried Miss Eelen, “the man’s just like a tempest, up in a moment. Na, Drumcarro, I always gave ye credit if but your pride was touched. And it’s just what I would have wished, for I was keen for a sight of the ploy mysel’ but too old to go for my own pleasure. You will just send them and their finery over to me in the gig, and I’ll see to all the rest. Bless me, to think of the feeling that comes out when ye least expect it. I was aye convinced that if once your pride was touched. And who knows what may come of it? There’s plenty of grand visitors at the Castle—a sight of them’s as good as a king’s court”

“I hope a man will come of it, to one or the other of them,” Drumcarro said.

CHAPTER IX.

Mr. Douglas himself went to the ball at the Castle. He was of opinion that when a thing is to be done, it is never so well done as when you do it in your own person, and like most other people of similar sentiments, he trusted nobody. Miss Eelen, as one of the race, was no doubt on the whole in the interests of the family, but Drumcarro felt that even she was not to be trusted with so delicate a matter as the securing of “a man” for Mary or Kirsteen. It was better that he should be on the spot himself to strike when the iron was hot, and let no opportunity slip. It is true that his costume was far from being in the latest fashion; but to this he was supremely indifferent, scarcely taking it into the most cursory consideration. If he went in sackcloth he would no less be a Douglas, the representative of the old line upon whose pedigree there was neither shadow nor break. He was very confident that he could not appear anywhere without an instant recognition of his claims. Those of the Duke himself were in no way superior: that potentate was richer, he had the luck to have always been on the winning side, and had secured titles and honours when the Douglases had attainder and confiscation—but Douglas was Douglas when the Duke’s first forbear was but a paidling lairdie with not a dozen men to his name. Such at least was the conviction of Drumcarro; and he marched to the Castle in his one pair of black silk stockings—with his narrow country notions strangely crossed by the traditions of the slave-driving period, with all his intense narrow personal ambitions and grudges, and not an idea beyond the aggrandisement of his family—in the full consciousness of equality (if not superiority) to the best there, the statesman Duke, the great landowners and personages who had come from far and near. Such a conviction sometimes gives great nobleness and dignity to the simple mind, but Drumcarro’s pride was not of this elevating kind. It made him shoulder his way to the front with rising rage against all the insignificant crowd that got before him, jostle as he might; it did not give him the consolatory assurance that where he was, there must be the most dignified place. It must be allowed, however, in defence of his attitude, that to feel yourself thrust aside into a crowd of nobodies when you know your place to be with the best, is trying. Some people succeed in bearing it with a smile, but the smile is seldom warm or of a genial character. And Drumcarro, at the bottom of the room, struggling to get forward, seeing the fine company at the other end, and invariably, persistently, he scarcely knew how, put back among the crowd, was not capable of that superlative amiability. The surprise of it partially subdued him for a time, and Miss Eelen’s exertions, who got him by the arm, and endeavoured to make him hear reason.

“Drumcarro! bless the man—can ye not be content where ye are? Yon’s just the visitors, chiefly from England and foreign parts—earls and dukes, and such like.”

“Confound the earls and the dukes! what’s their titles and their visitors to me? The Douglases have held their own and more for as many hundred years——”

“Whisht, whisht, for mercy’s sake! Lord, ye’ll have all the folk staring as if we were some ferly. Everybody knows who the Douglases were; but man, mind the way of the world that ye are just as much affected by as any person. Riches and titles take the crown of the causeway. We have to put up with it whether we like it or no. You’re fond of money and moneyed folk yourself——”

“Haud your fuilish tongue, ye know nothing about it,” said Drumcarro. But then he felt that he had gone too far. “I’m so used to my wife I forget who I’m speaking to. You’ll excuse me, Eelen?”

“The Lord be praised I’m not your wife,” said Miss Eelen devoutly. She added, perceiving a vacant chair a little higher up near the edge of the privileged line, “I see my harbour, Drumcarro, and there I’ll go, but no further;” and with an able dive through the throng and long experience of the best methods, managed adroitly to settle herself there. She caught by the elbow as she made her dart a gentleman who stood by, a man with grey hair still dressed in a black silk bag in the old-fashioned way which was no longer the mode. “Glendochart,” she said, “one word. I’m wanting your help; you were always on the Douglas’ side.”

“Miss Eelen?” he cried with a little surprise, turning round. He was a man between fifty and sixty, with a fresh colour and gentle, friendly air, much better dressed and set up than Drumcarro, but yet with something of the look of a man more accustomed to the hill-side and the moor than to the world.

“For gudesake look to my cousin Neil, of Drumcarro; he’s just like a mad bull raging to be in the front of everything. Auld Earl Douglas, our great forbear, was naething to him for pride. He will just shame us all before the Duke and Duchess and their grand visitors, if some one will not interfere.”

The gentleman thus appealed to turned round quickly with a glance at the two girls, who with difficulty, and a little breathless and blushing with excitement, had emerged out of the crowd behind Miss Eelen, less skilled in making their way than she. “These young ladies,” he said, “are with you? they’ll be——”

“Just Drumcarro’s daughters, and the first time they’ve ever been seen out of their own house. But yonder’s their father making everybody stand about. For ainy sake, Glendochart.”

“I’ll do your bidding, Miss Eelen.”

The girls both thought, as his look dwelt upon them, that he was a most kind and pleasant old gentleman, and sighed with a thought that life would be far easier and everything more practicable if their father was but such another. But alas, that was past praying for. They had a little more space now that they had gained this comparative haven at the side of Miss Eelen’s chair to take breath and look about them, and shake themselves free of the crowd.

The muslin gowns had been very successful; the skirts fell in a straight line from the waistband high under their arms to their feet, one with a little edge of fine white embroidery, the other with a frill scarcely to be called a flounce round the foot. The bodices were no longer than a baby’s cut in a modest round with a little tucker of lace against the warm whiteness of the bosom: the sleeves were formed of little puffs of muslin also like a baby’s. Mary wore her necklace of cairngorms with much pride. Kirsteen had nothing upon her milkwhite throat to ornament or conceal it. Nothing could have been whiter than her throat, with the soft warmth of life just tinging its purity; her red hair, which goes so well with that warm whiteness, was done up in what was called a classic knot at the back of her head, but there were some little curls which would not be gainsaid about her forehead and behind her ear. Her arms were covered with long silk gloves drawn up to meet the short sleeves. She was in a great tremor of excited imagination and expected pleasure. She was not thinking of partners indeed, nor of performing at all in her own person. She had come to see the world—to see the fine ladies and gentlemen, to hear some of their beautiful talk perhaps, and watch the exquisite way in which they would behave themselves. This was the chief preoccupation of her mind. She looked round her as if it had been “the play.” Kirsteen knew nothing at all of the play, and had been brought up to believe that it was a most depraved and depraving entertainment, but still there had never been any doubt expressed of its enthralling character. The ball she had decided from the first day it had been mentioned, would be as good as going to the play.

Miss Eelen very soon found an old lady sitting near with whom she could talk, but Mary and Kirsteen stood together looking out upon the faces and the moving figures and speaking to no one. They scarcely cared to talk to each other, which they could do, they both reflected, very well at home. They stood pressing close to each other, and watched all the coming and going. In the position which they had gained they could see all the sets, the great people at the head of the room, the humbler ones below. Kirsteen had an advantage over her sister. She had met Lady Chatty several times at Miss Eelen’s and had admired her, half for herself, half for her position, which had a romantic side very delightful to her simple imagination. “That’s Lady Chatty,” she whispered to Mary, proud of her superior knowledge. “I don’t think much of her,” said Mary, whispering back again. This gave Kirsteen a shock in the perfect pleasure with which she watched the graceful movements and animated looks of the future beauty. She had felt a disinterested delight in following the other girl through her dance, admiring how happy she looked and how bright; but Mary’s criticism had a chilling effect.

A long time passed thus, and Kirsteen began to feel tired in spite of herself; the pleasure of watching a room full of animated dancers very soon palls at twenty. Her expectation of pleasure gradually died away. It was very bonny, but not the delight she had thought. Mary stood with a smile which had never varied since they entered the room, determined to look pleased whatever happened—but Kirsteen was not able to keep up to that level. If he had but been here! then indeed all things would have been different. It gave her a singular consolation to think of this, to feel that it was in some sort a pledge of her belonging to him that she was only a spectator in the place where he was not; but she was too sensible not to be aware that her consolation was a fantastic one, and that she would in fact have been pleased to dance and enjoy herself. She and her sister were pushed a little higher up by the pressure of the crowd which formed a fringe round the room, and which consisted of a great many young men too timid to break into the central space where the fine people were performing, and of tired and impatient girls who could not dance till they were asked. Somehow it began to look all very foolish to Kirsteen, not beautiful as she had hoped.

And then by ill luck she overheard the chatter of a little party belonging to the house. It was the kind of chatter which no doubt existed and was freely used at the balls given by the Pharaohs (if they gave balls), or by Pericles, or at least by Charlemagne. “Where do all these funny people come from?” “Out of the ark, I should think,” the young lords and ladies said. “Antediluvian certainly—look, here is a pair of very strange beasts.” The pair in question seemed to Kirsteen a very pretty couple. The young man a little flushed and blushing at his own daring, the girl, yes! there could be no doubt, Agnes Drummond, Ronald’s sister, of as good family as any in the room. But the young ladies and gentlemen from London laughed “consumedly.” “Her gown must have been made in the year one.” “And no doubt that’s the coat his grandfather was married in.” But all their impertinences were brought to a climax by Lord John, one of the family, who ought to have known better. “Don’t you know,” he said, “it’s my mother’s menagerie? We have the natives once a year and make ’em dance. Wait a little till they warm to it, and then you shall see what you shall see.” Kirsteen turned and flashed a passionate glance at the young speaker, which made him step backwards and blush all over his foolish young face; for to be sure he had only been beguiled into saying what the poor young man thought was clever, and did not mean it. Kirsteen’s bosom swelled with pride and scorn and injured feeling. And she had thought everybody would be kind! and she had thought it would all be so bonny! And to think of a menagerie and the natives making a show for these strangers to see!

“Miss Kirsteen, there is a new set making up, and your sister would be glad of you for a vees-ā-vis if ye will not refuse an old man for a partner.” Kirsteen looked round and met the pleasant eyes, still bright enough, of Glendochart, whom Miss Eelen had bidden to look after the indignant Drumcarro. Kirsteen looked every inch Drumcarro’s daughter as she turned round, an angry flush on her face, and her eyes shining with angry tears.

“I will not dance. I am obliged to you, sir,” she said.

“Not dance,” said Mary, in an indignant whisper, “when we’re both asked! And what would ye have? We cannot all have young men.”

“I will not dance—to make sport for the fine folk,” said Kirsteen in the same tone.

“You are just like my father,” said Mary, “spoiling other folks’ pleasure. Will ye come or will ye not, and the gentleman waiting—and me that cannot if you will not.”

“Come, my dear,” said old Glendochart. He patted her hand as he drew it through his arm. “I have known your father and all your friends this fifty years, and ye must not refuse an old man.”

Neither of the girls were very much at their ease in the quadrille, but they watched the first dancers with anxious attention, and followed their example with the correctness of a lesson just received. Kirsteen, though she began very reluctantly, was soothed in spite of herself by the music and the measure, and the satisfaction of having a share in what was going on. She forgot for a moment the gibes she had listened to with such indignation. A quadrille is a very humdrum performance nowadays to those who know nothing so delightful as the wild monotony of the round dance. But in Kirsteen’s time the quadrille was still comparatively new, and very “genteel.” It was an almost solemn satisfaction to have got successfully through it, and her old partner was very kind and took her out to the tea-room afterwards with the greatest attention, pointing out to her the long vista of the corridor and some of the pictures on the walls, and everything that was worth seeing. They were met as they came back by a very fine gentleman with a riband and a star, who stopped to speak to her companion, and at whom Kirsteen looked with awe. “And who may this bonny lass be?” the great man said. “A daughter of yours, Glendochart?”

“No daughter of mine,” said the old gentleman in a testy tone. “I thought your Grace was aware I was the one of your clan that had not married. The young lady is Miss Kirsteen Douglas, a daughter of Drumcarro.”

“I beg your—her pardon and yours; I ought to have known better,” said the Duke. “But you must remember, Glendochart, when you are in such fair company, that it is never too late to mend.”

“He should indeed have known better,” said Glendochart, when they had passed on. “These great folk, Miss Kirsteen, they cannot even take the trouble to mind—which kings do, they say, who have more to think of. And yet one would think my story is not a thing to forget. Did you ever hear how it was that John Campbell of Glendochart was a lone auld bachelor? It’s not a tale for a ball-room, but there’s something in your pretty eyes that makes me fain to tell.”

“Oh, it is little I care for the ball-room,” cried Kirsteen, remembering her grievance, which she told with something of the fire and indignation of her original feeling. He laughed softly, and shook his head.

“Never you fash your head about such folly. When my Lord John goes to St. James’s the men of fashion and their ladies will say much the same of him, and you will be well avenged.”

“It’s very childish to think of it at all,” said Kirsteen, with a blush. “And now will you tell me?” She looked up into his face with a sweet and serious attention which bewitched the old gentleman, who was not old at all.

“I was away with my regiment on the continent of Europe and in the Colonies and other places for many years, when I was a young man,” Glendochart said.

“Yes?” said Kirsteen, with profoundest interest—for was not that the only prospect before him too?

“But all the time I was confident there was one waiting for me at home.”

“Oh, yes, yes,” said Kirsteen, as if it had been her own tale.

“The news from the army was slow in those days, and there was many a mistake. Word was sent home that I was killed when I was but badly wounded. I had neither father nor mother to inquire closely, and everybody believed it, and she too. I believe her friends were glad on the whole, for I was a poor match for her. Her heart was nearly broke, but she was very young and she got over it, and, whether with her own will or without it I cannot tell, but when I came home at last it was her wedding-day.”

“Oh!” Kirsteen cried almost with a shriek, “was that the end of her waiting? Me, I would have waited and waited on——”

“Wait now and ye will hear. The marriage was just over when I came to her father’s house thinking no evil. And we met; and when she saw me, and that I was a living man, and remembered the ring that was on her finger and that she was another man’s wife—she went into her own maiden chamber that she had never left and shut to the door. And there she just died, and never spoke another word.”

“Oh, Glendochart!” cried Kirsteen with an anguish of sympathy, thinking of Ronald, and of the poor dead bride, and of the sorrow which seemed to her throbbing heart impossible, as if anything so cruel could not have been. She clasped his arm with both her hands, looking up at him with all her heart in her face.

“My bonny dear!” he said with surprised emotion, touching her clasped hands with his. And then he began to talk of other things: for they were in the ball-room, where, though every one was absorbed in his or her own pleasure, or else bitterly resenting the absence of the pleasure they expected, yet there were a hundred eyes on the watch for any incident. Kirsteen, in the warmth of her roused feelings, thought nothing of that. She was thinking of the other who was away with his regiment, for who could tell how many years—and for whom one was waiting at home—one that would never put another in his place, no, not for a moment, not whatever news might come!

CHAPTER X.

Kirsteen cast a glance round and checked further question, for her father consuming a delicate Loch Fyne herring, with his attention concentrated on his plate, and Mary seated primly smiling over her scone, were not at all in sympathy with the tale she had been told last night. Miss Eelen, with the tray before her on which stood the teapot and teacups, peering into each to count the lumps of sugar she had placed there, did not appear much more congenial, though there were moments when the old lady showed a romantic side. No trace of the turban and feathers of last night was on her venerable head. She wore a muslin mutch, fine but not much different from those of the old wives in the cottages, with a broad black ribbon round it tied in a large bow on the top of her head; and her shoulders were enveloped in a warm tartan shawl pinned at the neck with a silver brooch. The fringes of the shawl had a way of getting entangled in the tray, and swept the teaspoons to the ground when she made an incautious movement; but nothing would induce Miss Eelen to resign the tea-making into younger hands.

“Did I ever hear?” she said. “I would like to know, Kirsteen Douglas, what it is I havena heard in my long pilgrimage of nigh upon seventy years. But there’s a time for everything. If ye ask me at another moment I’ll tell ye the whole story. Is it you, Drumcarro, that takes no sugar in your tea? No doubt you’ve had plenty in your time in yon dreadful West Indies where you were so long.”

“What’s dreadful about them?” said Drumcarro. “It’s ignorance that makes ye say so. Ye would think ye were in paradise if ye were there.”

“Oh, never with all those meeserable slaves!”

“You’re just a set of idiots with your prejudices,” said the laird, who had finished his herrings and pushed away his plate. “Slaves, quo’ she! There’s few of them would change places, I can tell ye, with your crofters and such like that ye call free men.”

“Ye were looking for something, father,” said Mary.

“I’m looking for that mutton bone,” said her father. “Fish is a fine thing; but there’s nothing like a bit of butcher’s meat to begin the day upon.”

“It’s my ain curing,” said Miss Eelen. “Ye can scarcely call it butcher’s meat, and it’s just a leg of one of your own sheep, Drumcarro. Cry upon the lassie, Kirsteen, and she’ll bring it ben in a moment. We’re so used to womenfolk in this house, we just forget a man’s appetite. I can recommend the eggs, for they’re all our own laying. Two-three hens just makes all the difference in a house; ye never perceive their feeding, and there’s aye a fresh egg for an occasion. And so you were pleased with your ball? I’m glad of it, for it’s often not the case when lassies are young and have no acquaintance with the world. They expect ower much. They think they’re to get all the attention like the heroines in thae foolish story-books. But that’s a delusion that soon passes away. And then you’re thankful for what you get, which is a far more wholesome frame of mind.”

Kirsteen assented to this with a grave face, and a little sigh for the beautiful visions of ideal pleasure which she had lost.

But Mary bridled, and declared that all her expectations had been fulfilled. “I got a great deal of attention,” she said, “and perhaps I had not such grand fancies as other folk.”

“I have bidden Glendochart to come and see us at Drumcarro. Ye’ll have to see to the spare cha’amer, and that he gets a good dinner,” said Mr. Douglas. “Him and me we have many things in common. He’s one of the best of his name, with a good record behind him—not to match with our auld Douglas line, but nothing to snuff at, and not far off the head of the house himsel’.”

“You would be at the school together, Drumcarro,” Miss Eelen said.

“No such a thing—he’s twenty years younger than me,” said Mr. Douglas angrily. “And I was at no schule, here or there, as ye might well mind.”

“Twenty years! If there’s ten between ye that’s the most of it. There’s no ten between ye. When I was a young lass in my teens John Campbell was a bit toddling bairn, and ye were little mair, Drumcarro. Na, na, ye need not tell me. If there’s five, that’s the most. Ye might have been at the schule together and nothing out of the common. But he’s had none of the cares of a family, though maybe he has had as bad to bear; and a man that is not marriet has aye a younger look. I ken not why, for with women it’s just the contrair.”

“Mr. Campbell is a very personable man,” said Mary. “I’m no judge of ages, but I would say he was just in middle life.”

“It’s but little consequence what you say,” said her father roughly. “If Kirsteen was to express an opinion——”

Kirsteen’s mind had a little wandered during this discussion. Glendochart’s age appeared to this young woman a subject quite unimportant. He was of the age of all the fathers and old friends. Had she been a modern girl she would have said he was a darling, but no such liberties were taken in her day.

“And that I will,” she said, “for we made friends though I’ve only seen him one night. He is just a man after my own heart,” said Kirsteen with warmth, with a sigh at the thought of his sad story, and a rising colour which was due to the fact that her imagination had linked the idea of young Ronald with that of this old and delightful gentleman who had been what her young lover was—but born to a less happy fate.

“Well,” said Drumcarro, “now ye’ve spoken, Kirsteen, ye’ve made no secret of your feelings; and, so far as I can judge, he has just as fine an opinion of you. And if you give your attention to making him comfortable and let him see the mettle you’re of, there is no saying what may happen. And it’s not me that will put obstacles in the way.”

“Drumcarro,” cried Miss Eelen, “ye get credit for sense among your own kind, but if ever there was a donnered auld fool in affairs of a certain description! Cannot ye hold your tongue, man, and let things take their course? They will do that without either you or me.”

Mr. Douglas had disposed of a great deal of the mutton ham. He had made a very good breakfast, and he felt himself free to retire from the table with a final volley. “If you think,” he said, “that I am going to give up my mind to manage, as you womenfolks call it, and bring a thing about, and draw on the man and fleech the lassie, ye are just sair mistaken, Eelen. When I say a word in my house I’m accustomed to see it done, and no nonsense about it. If a man comes seeking that I approve of, it’s my pleasure that he shall find what he’s askin’ for. I’ll have no picking and choosing. Men are no so plenty, and lassies are just a drug in the market. You have never got a man yourself.”

“The Lord be praised!” said Miss Eelen. “I would have broken his heart, or he would have broken mine. But I’ve kent them that would have married me, Neil Douglas, if it was for me or for my tocher I leave you to judge. I’m thankful to think I was never deceived for a moment,” said the old lady with a nod which sent the black bow upon her head into a little convulsion of tremulous movement. “I name nae names,” she said.

Drumcarro walked to the window discomfited, and turned his back upon the party, looking out upon the village street. To tell the truth he had forgotten that trifling incident in his life. To taunt a woman who has refused you with never having got a man is a little embarrassing, and his daughters exchanged astonished looks which he divined, though it took place behind his back. Their opinion did not interest him much, it is true, but the thought that they had discovered a humiliation in his past life filled him with rage, insignificant as they were. He stood there for a moment swallowing his fury; then, “There’s the gig,” he said, thankful for the diversion. “Ye’ll better get on your things and get back to your work, and mind your mother and the concerns of the house instead of senseless pleasure. But it’s just what I said, when ye begin that kind of thing there’s no end to it. When the head’s once filled with nonsense it’s a business to get it out.”

“Well, father,” said Mary, “the ball’s done, and there is no other coming if we were ever so anxious. So you need not be feared. It’s a little uncivil to Auntie Eelen to rise up the moment we’ve swallowed our breakfast.”

“Oh, dinna take me into consideration,” said Miss Eelen. “Ye must do your father’s bidding, and I’ll never lay it to your charge. But you’ll take a piece of yon fine seed cake to your mother, poor thing, and some of the bonny little biscuits that were round the trifle at the supper. I just put them in my pocket for her. It lets an invalid person see the way that things are done—and a wheen oranges in a basket. She has very little to divert her—though, poor thing, she has got a man.”

Drumcarro did not appear to take any notice of this Parthian arrow, though he fumed inwardly. And presently the girls’ preparations were made. The muslin dresses did not take up so much room as balldresses do nowadays, and had been carefully packed early in the morning in a box which was to go home by the cart in the afternoon. And they tied on their brown bonnets and fastened their cloth pelisses with an activity becoming young persons who were of so little account. To mount beside their father in the gig, squeezed together in a seat only made for two persons, and in which he himself took an undiminished share, with a basket upon their knees, and several parcels at their feet, was not an unalloyed pleasure, especially as he gave vent to various threats of a vague description, and instantly stopped either daughter who ventured to say a word. But they had few pleasures in their life, and the drive home, even in these circumstances, was not without its compensations. The girls knew that every cottar woman who came out to the door to see them pass was aware that they had been at the ball at the Castle, and looked after them with additional respect. And even the shouting children who ran after the gig and dared a cut of Drumcarro’s whip in their effort to hang on behind amused them, and gave them a feeling of pleased superiority. Coming home from the ball—it was perhaps the best part of it, after all.

When they were drawing near the house their father made a speech to them which Kirsteen at least listened to without alarm but with much wonder. “Now,” he said, suddenly, as if adding a last word to something said before, “I will have no nonsense whatever you may think. If a man comes to my door that I approve, I’ll have no denial thrown into his teeth. You’re all ready enough when it’s to your own fancy, but by——, this time, I’ll make ye respect mine.”

“What is it, father?” said Kirsteen with astonished eyes.

Mary gave her sister a smart poke with her elbow. “We’ll wait till we’re asked before we give any denial,” she said.

“Ye shall give none whether or no,” said Drumcarro, unreasonably it must be allowed; “but it’s no you I’m thinking of,” he added with contempt.

Kirsteen felt herself deficient in Mary’s power of apprehension. It was not often that this was the case, but her sister had certainly the better of her now. There were however many things said by Drumcarro to which his family did not attach a great interest, and she took it for granted that this was one of the dark sayings and vague declarations in which, when he was out of humour, he was wont to indulge. Her heart was not overwhelmed with any apprehension when she jumped lightly down from the gig glad to escape from these objurgations and feeling the satisfaction of having news to tell, and a revelation to make to the eager household which turned out to the door to meet her: Marg’ret in the front with cap-ribbons streaming behind her and her white apron folded over her arm, and little Jeanie with her hair tumbled and in disorder, her mouth and her ears open for every detail, with one or two other heads in the background—they had never seen the Castle, these ignorant people, never been to a ball. The mortifications of the evening all melted away in the delight of having so much to tell. Certainly the coming home was the best; it brought back something of the roseate colour of the setting out. And what a world of new experiences and sensations had opened up before Kirsteen since yesterday.

“Was it bonny?” said little Jeanie. “Did you see all the grand folk? Was it as fine as ye thought?”

And then Mrs. Douglas’s voice was heard from the parlour, “Come ben, come ben, this moment, bairns. I will not have ye say a word till ye’re here.” She was sitting up with a delicate colour in her cheeks, her eyes bright with anticipation. “Now just begin at the beginning and tell me everything,” she said. Certainly the best of it was the coming home.

Mary gave her little narrative with great composure and precision, though it surprised her sister. “Everybody was just very attentive,” she said. “It was clear to be seen that the word had been passed who we are. It was young Mr. Campbell of the Haigh that took me out at the first, but I just could not count them. They were most ceevil. And once I saw young Lord John looking very hard at me, as if he would like to ask me, but there was no person to introduce him. And so that passed by.”

“Oh, Mary, I wish ye had danced with a lord and a duke’s son,” cried little Jeanie, clapping her hands.

“Well, he was no great dancer,” said Mary. “I liked the young laird of the Haigh far better, and even old Glendochart—but he was Kirsteen’s one.”

“He was the nicest of all,” cried Kirsteen. “But, Jeanie, ye should have seen all the bonnie ladies with their diamonds like sparks of light. You would have thought the Duchess had stars on her head—all glinting as they do in a frosty sky—and a circle about her neck that looked just like the King’s Ellwand,[A] but far more of them. It’s not like stones or things out of the earth, as folks say. It’s like wearing little pieces of light.”

[A] The belt of Orion.

“Oh, I wish I had seen them,” said Jeanie.

“Whisht, whisht. I’ve seen diamonds many a time, but I never thought them like pieces of light. They’re more like bits of glass, which I have seen just as bonny. And who was it you danced with most, Kirsteen? You have not given us a list like Mary.”

“I danced with Glendochart,” said Kirsteen, looking down a little. “I stood a long time just looking about me. When you are dancing you cannot see the rest of the ball, and it was very bonny. Glendochart took me into the tea-room and showed me all the pictures and things.”

“But Lord John never looked in that fixed way at you?”

“No,” said Kirsteen very shortly, perceiving that it was inexpedient to repeat the little episode of Lord John.

“Then ye were not so much taken notice of as Mary?” cried Jeanie with disappointment.

“But she spoke to the Duke—or at least he spoke to Glendochart when Kirsteen was on his arm—and there was Lady Chatty that made great friends with her,” said Mary with benevolence, not to leave her sister quite in the background. But there was a momentary pause of disappointment, for they all felt that Lady Chatty was not so suggestive—had not in her name so many possibilities as Lord John.

“I hear of nothing but Glendochart,” said Mrs. Douglas; “if he is the man I mind upon, he will be the same age as your father; and what was he doing dancing and hanging about the like of you, a man at his time of life?”

Mary gave a little laugh, and repeated, “He was Kirsteen’s one.”

“What is the meaning of that, Kirsteen?”

“The meaning of it is that Glendochart, tho’ he is old, is a real gentleman,” said Kirsteen; “and he saw that we were strangers and neglected, and nobody looking the way we were on—”

At this there was an outcry that drowned the rest of the sentence. Strangers, the daughters of Drumcarro!—neglected when Mary had just said how attentive everybody had been! “You are just in one of your ill keys, Kirsteen,” said her mother.

“No,” said Mary, “but she’s looking for him to-morrow: for my father has asked him, and she is feared you will not like him when ye see him. But my opinion is, though he is old, that he is still a very personable man.”

CHAPTER XI.

A few days afterwards Glendochart appeared at Drumcarro riding a fine horse, and dressed with great care, in a costume very different from the rough and ill-made country clothes to which the family were accustomed. Jock and Jeanie who had come home from school rushed emulously to take the horse to the stable, and the household was stirred to its depths with the unaccustomed sensation of a visitor, a personage of importance bringing something of the air of the great world with him. He was conducted to the laird’s room by Marg’ret herself, much interested in the stranger—and there remained for a short time to the great curiosity of the family, all of whom were engaged in conjectures as to what was being said within those walls, all but Kirsteen, who, being as it appeared most closely concerned, had as yet awakened to no alarm on the subject, and assured her mother quietly that there was nothing to be fluttered about. “For he is just very pleasant, and makes you feel at home, and like a friend,” she said. Mrs. Douglas had come down to the parlour earlier than usual in expectation of this visit. She had put on her best cap; and there was a little fresh colour of excitement in her cheeks. “But what will he be saying to your father?” she said. “Sitting so long together, and them so little acquainted with each other.”

“Oh, but they were at the school together, and at the ball they were great friends,” replied Kirsteen. She was the only one about whom there was no excitement. She sat quite cheerfully over her work “paying no attention,” as Mary said.

“Why should I pay attention? I will just be very glad to see him,” replied Kirsteen. “He is just the kind of person I like best.”

“Whisht, Kirsteen, whatever you may feel ye must not go just so far as that.”

“But it’s true, mother, and why should I not go so far? He’s a very nice man. If he had daughters they would be well off. He is so kind, and he sees through you, and sees what you are thinking of.”

“You must not let him see what you are thinking of, Kirsteen!”

“Why not?” she said, glancing up with candid looks. But after a moment a vivid colour came over Kirsteen’s milk-white forehead. Then a smile went over it like a sudden ray of sunshine. “I would not be feared,” she cried, “for he would understand.” She was thinking of his own story which he had told her, and of the one who was like him, away in a far distant country. How well he would understand it! and herself who was waiting, more faithful than the poor lady who had not waited long enough. Oh, but that should never be said of Kirsteen!

Presently the two gentlemen were seen to be walking round the place, Drumcarro showing to his visitor all that there was to show in the way of garden and stables and farm offices, which was not much. But still this was the right thing for one country gentleman to do to another. The ladies watched them from the window not without an acute sense of the shortcomings of the place, and that there was no horse in the stable that could stand a moment’s comparison with Mr. Campbell of Glendochart’s beautiful beast. Drumcarro was a house in the wilds, standing on a grassy bank without so much as a flower plot near, or any “grounds” or “policy,” or even garden to separate and enclose it, and a sense of its shabbiness and poverty came into the minds of all, instinctively, involuntarily. “If that’s what he’s thinking of he will never mind,” Mrs. Douglas said under her breath. “Whisht, mother,” said Mary. Kirsteen did not even ask Mary what her mother meant. Mrs. Douglas indeed said a great many things that meant little or nothing, but this did not quite explain the fatal unconsciousness of the girl upon whose preoccupied ear all these warnings seemed to fall in vain.

The dinner had been prepared with more than usual care, and Marg’ret herself carried in several of the dishes in order to make a further inspection of the visitor. She had not been precisely taken into anybody’s confidence, and yet she knew very well that he had come more or less in the capacity of a suitor, and that Drumcarro’s extreme politeness and the anxiety he displayed to please and propitiate the stranger were not for nothing. Marg’ret said to herself that if it had been anybody but the laird, she would have thought it was a question of borrowing money, but she knew that Drumcarro would rather die than borrow, with a horror and hatred not only of debt but of the interest he must have had to pay. So it could not be that; nor was the other gentleman who was so well preserved, so trim, “so weel put on,” at all like a money-lender. It became clear to her, as she appeared in the dining-room at intervals, what the real meaning was. Glendochart had been placed next to Kirsteen at table, and when he was not disturbed by the constant appeals of Drumcarro, he talked to her with an evident satisfaction which half flattered, half disgusted the anxious spectator. He was a real gentleman, and it was a compliment to Miss Kirsteen that a man who had no doubt seen the world and kings’ courts and many fine places should distinguish her so—while on the other hand the thought was dreadful that, in all her bloom of youth, Kirsteen should be destined to a man old enough to be her father. As old as her father! and she so blooming and so young. But Marg’ret was perhaps the only one in the party who thought so. The others were all excited by various interests of their own, which might be affected by this union between January and May. Mrs. Douglas, with that fresh tint of excitement on her cheeks, was wholly occupied by the thought of having a married daughter near her, within her reach, with all the eventualities of a new household to occupy and give new interest to life; and Mary with a sense that her sister’s house to visit, in which there would be plenty of company and plenty of money, and opportunity of setting herself forth to the best advantage, would be like a new existence. The young ones did not know what it was that was expected to happen, but they too were stirred by the novelty and the grand horse in the stable, and Glendochart’s fine riding-coat and silver-mounted whip. Kirsteen herself was the only one unexcited and natural. There was little wonder that Glendochart liked her to talk to him. She was eager to run out with him after dinner, calling to little Jeanie to come too to show him the den, as it was called, where the burn tumbled over successive steps of rock into a deep ravine, throwing up clouds of spray. She took care of the old gentleman with a frank and simple sense that it was not he but she who was the best able to guide and guard the other, and used precautions to secure him a firm footing among the slippery rocks without a single embarrassing thought of that change of the relationship between old and young which is made by the fictitious equality of a possible marriage. Far, very far were Kirsteen’s thoughts from anything of the kind. She felt very tenderly towards him because of the tragedy he had told her of, and because he had gone away like Ronald, and had trusted in some one less sure to wait than herself. The very sight of Glendochart was an argument to Kirsteen, making her more sure that she never could waver, nor ever would forget.

When they came back from this expedition to the dish of tea which was served before the visitor set out again, Mrs. Douglas exerted herself to fill out the cups, a thing she had not been known to do for years. “Indeed,” she said, “I have heard of nothing but Mr. Campbell since they came back from the ball: it has been Glendochart this and Glendochart that all the time, and it would ill become me not to show my gratitude. For I’m but a weak woman, not able myself to go out with my daughters; and they are never so well seen to, Mr. Campbell, when they are without a mother’s eye.”

Drumcarro uttered a loud “Humph!” of protest when this bold principle was enunciated; but he dared not contradict his wife, or laugh her to scorn in the presence of a visitor so particular and precise.

“You might trust these young ladies, madam,” said Glendochart gallantly, “in any company without fear; for their modest looks would check any boldness, whatever their beauty might call forth.”

This was still the day of compliments, and Glendochart was an old beau and had the habits of his race.

“Oh, you are very kind,” said Mrs. Douglas, her faint colour rising, her whole being inspired. “If gentlemen were all like you, there would be little reason for any uneasiness; but that is more than we can expect, and to trust your bairns to another’s guidance is always a very heavy thought.”

“Madam, you will soon have to trust them to the guidance of husbands, there can be little doubt.”

“But that’s very different: for then a parent is free of responsibility,” said the mother, rising to the occasion; “that is just the course of nature. And if they are so happy as to chance upon good, serious, God-fearing men.”

“Let us hope,” said Glendochart, not without a glance at Kirsteen, “that your bonny young misses will be content with that sober denomination; but they will no doubt add for themselves, young and handsome and gay.”

“No, no,” Mrs. Douglas said, led away by enthusiasm, “you will hear no such wishes out of the mouths of lassies of mine.”

“Let them answer for themselves,” said Drumcarro, “they’re old enough: or maybe they will wait till they’re asked, which would be the wisest way. Glendochart, I am very sorry to name it, and if ye would take a bed with us, I would be most pleased. But if you’re determined to go to-day, I must warn ye the days are short and it’s late enough to get daylight on the ford.”

“If ye would take a bed—“ Mrs. Douglas repeated.

The visitor protested that he was much obliged but that he must go. “But I will take your permission to come again,” he said, “and my only fear is that you will see too much of me, for there are strong temptations here.”

“Ye cannot come too often nor stay too long; and the more we see of you, the more we will be pleased,” said the mistress of the house. And the girls went out to see him mount his horse, which the boys had gone to fetch from the stable. Never was a visitor more honoured. A third person no doubt might have thought the welcome excessive and the sudden interest in so recent an acquaintance remarkable. But no one, or at least very few are likely to consider themselves and the civilities shown to them in the same light as an impartial spectator would do. It seems always natural that friends new or old should lavish civilities upon ourselves. Glendochart rode away with a glow of pleasure. He was not at all afraid of the ford, dark or light. He was as safe in his saddle as he ever had been, and had no fear of taking cold or getting damp. He feared neither rheumatism nor bronchitis. He said to himself, as he trotted steadily on, that fifty-five was the prime of life. He was a little over that golden age, but not much, nothing to count; and if really that bonny Kirsteen with her Highland bloom, and her fine spirits, and her sense—It was a long time since that tragedy of which he had told her. Perhaps, as his Grace had said, it was never too late.

“Ye havering woman,” said Drumcarro to his wife, “you are just like your silly kind. I would not wonder if going so fast ye had not just frightened the man away.”

“I said nothing but what ye said I was to say,” said Mrs. Douglas, still strong in her excitement; “and it was never me that began it, and if him and you are so keen, it’s not for me to put obstacles in the way.”

Drumcarro stood for a moment astonished that his feeble wife should venture to indulge in a personal effort even when it was in his own aid: then he gave a shrug of his shoulders. “A man knows when to speak and when to refrain from speaking,” he said; “but you womenfolk, like gabbling geese ye can never keep still if once you have anything to cackle about.”

CHAPTER XII.

All this time, strange to say, Kirsteen took no fright about old Glendochart whom she had calmly set down, as is not unusual at her age, upon the footing of a man of eighty or so, an old, old gentleman to whom she could be as kind as her friendly young soul dictated, giving him her hand to lead him down the rough road to the linn, and feeling with her foot if the stones were steady before she let him trust his weight to them. It had been quite natural to come out to the door to see him mount and ride away, to stroke and pat the shining well-groomed horse, who looked as great an aristocrat as his master beside the sober and respectable matron Mally, who drew the gig and sometimes the cart, and had carried barebacked all the children at once as carefully as if she had been their mother. Kirsteen was even pleased with the sense that she herself was Glendochart’s favourite, that he had talked more to her than to any one, perhaps even had come to see her rather than the rest, with the pleasant partiality of an old friend. To be preferred is delightful to everybody, and especially to a girl who has had little petting in her life. It was an exhilarating consciousness, and she took the little jibes that flew about in the family and the laugh of Mary and the shout of the boys with perfect good humour. Yes, very likely Glendochart liked her best. He was a true gentleman, and he had seen her standing neglected and had come to her help. But for him the ball, if indeed always an experience and a fine sight, would have left only a sting in Kirsteen’s mind instead of the impression bitter-sweet which it had produced. If she were glad now that she had gone, and pleased with the sight and the fact of having been there, it was to Glendochart chiefly that the credit was due. She had taken him into her heart warmly in the position of an old friend, an old, kind, and true gentleman whom she would always run to meet and brighten to see. In this easy state of mind, pleased with him and even better pleased with herself because of his liking for her, she received calmly all the family jests, quite satisfied that they were true.

Glendochart became a frequent visitor. He would ride over, or sometimes drive over, in a high gig much better appointed than the old gig at Drumcarro, saying that he had come “to his dinner” or to eat one of Marg’ret’s scones, or to see how they all were this cold weather. And he would permit Jock to drive the gig for a mile or two to the boy’s delight, though it took all the strength of his young wrists to hold in the horse. Once even upon a great occasion Glendochart managed to persuade Drumcarro, who was ready to attend to all his suggestions, to bring the girls to a great hurling-match, at which—for he was a master of the game—he himself appeared to great advantage and not at all like the old, old gentleman of Kirsteen’s thoughts. And when the New Year came he brought them all “fairings,” beautiful boxes of sweets such as had never been seen in the Highlands, and gloves wonderful to behold, which he begged Mrs. Douglas’s permission to offer to her daughters. These visits and his pleasant ways, and the little excitement of his arrival from time to time, and the hurling-match which afforded a subject of conversation for a long time, and the little presents, all quickened existence at Drumcarro, and made life more pleasant for all concerned. Kirsteen had taken him by this time for many a walk to the edge of the linn, springing down before him, by the side of the waterfall, to point out which of the stepping-stones were safe to trust to.

“Put your foot here, and it is quite steady, but take care of that moss, Glendochart, for it’s very soft, and I’ve nearly sunk into it,” she would call to him stopping in mid-descent, her young voice raised clear above the roar of the water, and her hand held out to help. If there was one thing that fretted the elderly suitor it was this, and sometimes he would make a spring to show his agility, not always with successful results. “You see you should do as I bid you,” said Kirsteen gravely, helping him to get up on one such occasion, “and let me try first whether it will bear you or not.”

“I will always do as you bid me,” said the old gentleman, trying to look younger and younger and as if he did not mind the fall at all; “but it is my part to take care of you, and not you of me.”

“Oh, no, not when the moss is so wet and the stones so shoogly,” Kirsteen said.

All this was very pretty fooling; but Drumcarro was not the man to be kept hanging upon the chances of a propitious moment when it might please the wooer to make the leap. The additional cheerfulness of the household did not extend to him. He became very tired of Glendochart’s “daidling,” and of the over-delicacy of his attentions. His eyes grew fiery and his grizzled eyebrows menacing. He would come into the parlour where the visitor was making himself very agreeable, keeping up the pleasantest conversation, paying compliments to Mrs. Douglas (whose health had greatly improved at this period), and with a devotion which was half fatherly, though he had no such intention, distinguishing Kirsteen who was always pleased to think that he liked her best. Drumcarro would come in with his hands thrust into the depths of his pockets, and his shoulders up to his ears. “Are ye not tired of the weemen, Glendochart? Weel, I would not sit there phrasin’ and smilin’, not for a king’s ransom.” “Perhaps, my friend, I’m getting more than any king’s ransom, for what could buy such kind looks?” the old beau would reply. And then Drumcarro, with an oath muttered under his breath, would fling out again, not concealing his impatience, “I cannot put up with such daidling!” Whether Glendochart understood, or whether his host took the matter into his own hands, never was known by the female portion of the household. But one morning shortly after the New Year, Glendochart having paid a long visit on the day before, Kirsteen received a most unexpected summons to attend her father in his own room.

“My father wants to speak to me! You are just sending me a gowk’s errand,” she said to Jock who brought the message.

“It’s no a gowk’s errand. It’s just as true as death,” said Jock. “He’s sent me hissel’.”

“And what can he want to say to me in his own room?” cried Kirsteen.

“He did not tell me what he wanted to say; but I can guess what it is,” said Jock.

“And so can I,” said Jeanie.

“What is it, ye little mischief?” cried Kirsteen. “I have done nothing. I have a conscience void of offence, which is more than you can say.”

Upon this they both gave vent to a burst of laughter loud and long.

“It’s about your auld joe, Kirsteen. It’s about Glendochart,” they cried in concert.

“About Glendochart?—he is just my great friend, but there is no harm in that,” she cried.

“Oh, Kirsteen, just take him, and I’ll come and live with ye,” said Jeanie.

“And I’ll come,” added Jock encouragingly, “whenever we have the play.”

“Take him!” said Kirsteen. She bade them with great dignity to hold their tongues and went to her father’s room with consternation in her breast.

Mr. Douglas was sitting over his newspaper with the air of being very much absorbed in it. It was no less than a London paper, a copy of the Times which Glendochart had brought, which had been sent to him from London with the news of the escape of Boney, news that made Drumcarro wild to think that Jock was but fourteen and could not be sent off at once with such chances of promotion as a new war would bring. He had given the lad a kick with a “Useless monkey! Can ye not grow a little faster;” as Jock had clattered up to bed in his country shoes the previous night. But he was not reading, though he pretended still to be buried in the paper when Kirsteen came in. He took no notice of her till she had been standing for a minute before him repeating, “Did you want me, father?” when he looked up, as if surprised.

“Oh, you’re there. I calculated ye would take an hour to come.”

“Jock said you wanted to speak to me, father.”

“And so I did—but you might have had to put your gown on, or to brush your hair or something—for anything I knew.”

“I never do that at this time of the day.”

“Am I to mind your times of day? Kirsteen, I have something to say to you.”

“So Jock told me, father.”

“Never mind what Jock told ye. It is perhaps the most serious moment of all your life; or I might say it’s the beginning of your life, for with the care that has been taken of ye, keepit from the cold and shadit from the heat, and your meat provided and everything you could require—the like of you doesn’t know what life is as long as ye bide in your father’s house.”

Kirsteen’s heart gave a throb of opposition, but she did not say or scarcely think that this position of blessedness had never been hers. She was not prepared to blaspheme her father’s house.

“Well! now that’s all changed, and ye’ll have to think of acting for yourself. And ye are a very lucky lass, chosen before your sister, who is the eldest, and according to the law of Laban—— But I think he was too particular. What the devil maittered which of them was to go first so long as he got them both safe off his hands?”

“I have no light,” said Kirsteen with suppressed impatience, “as to what you’re meaning, father!”

“Oh, ye have no light! Then I’ll give ye one, and a fine one, and one that should make ye thankful to me all your days. I’ve settled it all with Glendochart. I thought he was but a daidlin’ body, but that was in appearance, not in reality. He’s just very willing to come to the point.”

Kirsteen said nothing, but she clasped her hands before her with a gesture which was Marg’ret’s, and which had long been known to the young people as a sign of immovable determination. She did not adopt it consciously, but with the true instinct of hereditary action, an impulse so much misrepresented in later days.

“Very willing,” said Drumcarro, “to come to the point; and all the settlements just very satisfactory. Ye will be a lucky woman. Ye’re to have Glendochart estates for your life, with remainder, as is natural, to any family there may be; and it’s a very fine downsitting, a great deal better house than this, and a heap of arable land. And ye’re to have——”

“For what am I to have all this, father?” said Kirsteen in a low voice with a tremble in it, but not of weakness.

“For what are ye to have it?” He gave a rude laugh. “For yourself I suppose I must say, though I would think any woman dear at the price he’s willing to pay for ye.”

“And what does Glendochart want with me?” said Kirsteen with an effort to steady her voice.

“Ye fool! But you’re not the fool ye pretend to be. I cannot wonder that you’re surprised. He wants to mairry ye,” her father said.

Kirsteen stood with her hands clasped, her fine figure swayed in spite of her with a wave of agitation, her features moving. “Glendochart!” she said. “Father, if he has friends ye should warn them to keep him better and take care of him, and not let him be a trouble to young women about the country that never did any harm to him.”

“Young women,” said Drumcarro, “there is not one I ever heard of except yourself, ye thankless jaud!”

“One is plenty to try to make a fool of,” said Kirsteen.

“I would like to see him make a fool of one belonging to me. Na, it’s the other way. But that’s enough of this nonsense,” he added abruptly; “it’s all settled. Ye can go and tell your mother. He’s away for a week on business, and when he comes back ye’ll settle the day. And let it be as soon as possible, that we may be done wi’t. It’s been as much as I could do to put up with it all this time. Now let any man say I’ve done much for my sons and little for my daughters!” said Drumcarro, stretching his arms above his head with a gesture of fatigue. “I’ve got them their commissions and outfit and all for less trouble than it has cost me to get one of you a man!” He yawned ostentatiously and rubbed his eyes, then opening them again to see Kirsteen still standing in the same attitude before him he gave vent to a roar of dismissal. “G’away with ye. Go and tell your mother. I’ve said all I have to say.”