“But I have something more to say,” said Kirsteen. “I’ll not marry Glendochart. It’s just been a mistake, and I’m sorry, but——”

“You’ll not mairry Glendochart! Ye shall marry whatever man I choose for ye.”

“No, father!” said Kirsteen clasping her hands more closely.

“No!” he said, pushing back his chair. He was honestly astonished, taken completely by surprise. “No! Lord, but ye shall though when I say it. And what ails ye at Glendochart? And him running after ye like a fool the whole winter, and nothing but pleasant looks for him till now.”

“I’m very sorry,” repeated Kirsteen. “I’m very sorry—I never, never thought of that. He’s an old man, and it seemed all kindness to one as much as another. Oh, I’m sorry, father. Tell him, I would not have vexed him for the world.”

“I’ll tell him no such thing. I’ll tell him ye’re very proud and pleased, as sets ye better; and I’ll take you to Glasgow to buy your wedding-gown.” He said this with an attempt at seduction, perhaps a little startled by the first idea that to subdue Kirsteen by violence would not be so easy as he thought.

“Father, you’re meaning it for great kindness; but oh, if ye would just understand! I cannot marry Glendochart. I could not if there was no other man.”

“It is just Glendochart ye shall marry and no other. It’s all settled. You have nothing more to do with it but what I’ve promised and fixed for ye.”

“No, father——”

“But I say yes,” he said, bringing down his clenched fist on the table with a noise that made the windows ring.

“It cannot be settled without me,” said Kirsteen, growing first red and then pale, but standing firm.

“You’re not of the least importance,” he said, foam flying from his lips. “What are ye? A creature of no account. A lass that has to obey her father till she gets a man, and then to obey him. Say what ye like, or do what ye like, it will never alter a thing I’ve fixed upon; and of that ye may be as sure as that you stand there. G’away to your mother, and tell her it’s to be soon, in a month or so, to get done with it—for I’ve made up my mind.”

Kirsteen stood silent for a moment, not daunted but bewildered, feeling with a force which no girl in her situation would now recognize the helplessness of her position, not a creature to take her part, seeing no outlet. She burst forth suddenly when a new idea occurred to her. “I will speak to him myself! He is a good man, he will never hold me to it. I will tell him——”

“If ye say a word to him,” cried Drumcarro rising from his chair and shaking his clenched hand in her face, “one word! I’ll just kill ye where ye stand! I’ll drive ye from my doors. Neither bit nor sup more shall ye have in this house. Ye may go and tramp from door to door with a meal-pack on your shoulder.”

“I would rather do that,” cried Kirsteen, “far rather than make a false promise and deceive a good man. Oh, father, I’ll do anything ye bid me. I’ll be your servant, I’ll ask for nothing; but dinna, dinna do this! for I will not marry Glendochart, not if you were to kill me, not if you were to turn me from the door.”

“Hold your peace, ye lang-tongued—ye shall do what I bid you, that and nothing else.”

“No, father, no, father!” cried Kirsteen trembling; “I will not—for nothing in the world.”

“Go out of my sight,” he cried, “and hold your tongue. Away this moment! Ye shall do just what I say.”

“Father——”

“None of your fathers to me. Get out of my sight, and make yourself ready to do what I tell ye. It shall be in a fortnight. That’s all you shall make by your rebellion. Not another word, or I’ll turn you out of my house.”

Kirsteen retired as he made a step towards her with his hands raised to her shoulders, to put her out. His fiery eyes, the foam that flew from his lips, the fury of his aspect frightened her. She turned and fled from the room without any further attempt to speak.

CHAPTER XIII.

She went towards the linn, without knowing why. The stream was strong with the winter floods, and the roar of it as it poured down the rocky cleft was enough to make all voices inaudible, and to deaden more or less even the sound of one’s thoughts buzzing in one’s head with the passion and the sweep of them, themselves like a hurrying stream. Kirsteen fled as to a covert to the “den,” down which this passionate rivulet, swollen into a torrent, stormed and poured, flinging its spray over the wet and spongy turf into which her feet sank. She cared nothing for this in the absorption of her excitement, and flung herself down upon that damp slope, feeling the spray on her forehead and the roar of the water in her ears as a sort of relief from herself. Her feelings had been like to burst her heart and her brain together as she flew along, like some struggling things shut up in a space too narrow for them. She could not get her breath nor contain the hurry and confusion of her own being. But in that damp retreat where nobody would be likely to pursue her, where she could scarcely even hear the thumping of her own heart nor any voice calling her, nor be subject to interruption of any kind, Kirsteen after a moment began to come to herself. The shock, the fright, the horror quieted a little; her mind became accustomed, as it does so rapidly, to the new alarm, to the frightful danger which had suddenly revealed itself. It was danger which Kirsteen had not expected or foreseen. She had very well understood when she pledged herself to wait for Ronald what that meant. It was in all the traditions of romance with which she was acquainted—not waiting relieved by constant communication, and with a certain distinct boundary, but silent, unbroken, perhaps for life, certainly for years. In the beginning at least such a visionary burden may be taken up with enthusiasm, and Kirsteen had been proud of it and of the deep secret of which there was nothing to tell, which was in spirit alone, with no bond to be displayed in the sight of men. But it had never occurred to her that she might be bidden to forswear herself as she said, that she might have to struggle against all about her for the right to keep her vow. This danger had never appeared before her as a possibility. She had not thought of any wooer, nor had any such presented himself to her consciousness. Without warning, without thought of precaution or self-defence, the danger had come.

To marry Glendochart: Glendochart—there burst through Kirsteen’s distressful thoughts a sudden picture of the old gentleman descending the side of the linn guided by her hand, the safe places selected for him; and then his little plunge, his slip, her cry, “Oh, Glendochart, you have hurt yourself!” and there burst from her in the midst of her trouble an irrepressible laugh, which rang into the roar of the linn and went down with it into the depths echoing among all the rocks. Kirsteen had been ashamed to laugh when that accident happened for fear of hurting his feelings, but all the ludicrousness of the incident burst upon her now. He had got so red, poor old gentleman! he had seized upon a thorn bush to pull him up, rather than take her hand. He had said that it was nothing, nothing, though her keen young senses, compunctious of their own perceptions, had seen how he limped up the bank again. She had not dared to offer her support any more than to laugh, seeing it hurt his feelings. And it was because he wanted to marry her, her—Kirsteen, troth-plighted to her own lad—and him as old as her father. Oh, for shame, for shame!

That laugh did Kirsteen good. It liberated her soul; she escaped as from the hand of fate and became able to think. And then a wild anger swept over her mind against her father, who wanted nothing but to get her, as he said, off his hands, and against Glendochart for daring to think that she would take him, an old, old man. All the sense of his kindness disappeared in this illumination as to his motives: indeed the more Kirsteen esteemed him before, the more she despised and hated him now. She thought of auld Robin Gray, but that was too good for him. The old, ill man, to tell her a story of faithfulness and make her cry and mix him up in her mind with Ronald and her own love, and then to betray her, and want to marry her,—doubly faithless, to her that died for him, and to Kirsteen that had wept for him! It was for constancy and pity and true love that the girl had been so sorry, so touched in her heart, so wishful to please him and make him smile. And now to turn upon her, to try to tear her from her own lad, to make her mansworn! There was nothing that was too bad for him, the old, ill man! Kirsteen saw herself stand before him indignant, her eyes flashing with injured honour and a sense of wrong.

But then suddenly all this sustaining force of anger went from her as Glendochart’s kind and gentle face so full of feeling came before her imagination. Oh, he knew better than that! If she could but speak to him, and tell him! perhaps show him that little blue Testament, whisper to him that there was One—away with his regiment, fighting for the King, like Glendochart himself, like the story he had told her! Tears filled Kirsteen’s eyes. Her father might be dour and hard, but Glendochart would understand. It was just his own story; he would never let her break her heart and die on her wedding-day like his own lass. Oh, no! oh, no! he would never do that. He would never let it happen twice, and all for him. With a quick gleam of her imagination, Kirsteen saw herself in her white wedding-gown, lying at his feet, the second bride that had burst her heart! Oh, no! oh, no! Glendochart would never do that: the tears streamed from Kirsteen’s eyes at the thought, but her quivering mouth smiled with generous confidence. No, no! She had only to speak to Glendochart and all would be well.

But then came her father’s threat, his blazing fiery eyes, his hand clenched and shaken in her face, the fury of his outcry: “I’ll just kill ye where ye stand—I’ll put you to the door.” Kirsteen remembered Anne, and her soul sank. Anne had a husband to take care of her, she had a house, wherever it was; but Kirsteen would have nothing. And what would become of her if she were put to the door? Where would she go to find a shelter? Another grotesque vision—but not so grotesque to her imagination—of the poor beggar-woman with a meal-pack on her shoulder which her father had evoked, flitted before her mind. No, she would not be like that. She would take care of bairns, or keep a house, or even make muslin gowns like Miss Macnab. There were plenty of things she could do!—it would be long, long before she need come to the meal-pack. But then there burst over Kirsteen’s mind another revelation: the shame of it! She, a Douglas—one of the old Douglases, that had been the lords of the whole land, not only of poor Drumcarro—a gentlewoman of as good blood as the Duchess or any grand lady, and one that could not be hidden or made to appear as if she were a common person! And the scandal of it, to open up the house and all its concerns to ill talk—to make it open to all the world to say that Drumcarro was an ill father, and the house a cruel house, or that the Douglas lassies were not what ladies should be, but lightheaded and ill-conducted, rebels against their own kith and kin. This was the most terrible thought of all. The others seemed to open up a way of escape, but this closed the door; it is an ill bird that files its own nest. How could Kirsteen do that? shame her family so that even Sandy and Nigil and Charlie and Donald in India, even little Robbie, should hear of it and think shame—so that he should hear that Kirsteen had let herself be talked about? so that Drumcarro should be lightly spoken of and all its secrets laid bare? This new suggestion brought back all the passion and the confusion that the influence of the air and the freedom out of doors, and the quiet time to think had calmed down. To endure is always possible if you set your heart to do it, whatever happens; but to shame and to expose your own house!

“Where have ye been, Kirsteen?” said Mrs. Douglas. “I never saw a person like you for running out when you’re most wanted. You should not take your walks in the forenoon when we’re all at work.”

“Did you want me, mother? I was not fit to sit down to my work. I had a—buzzing in my head.”

“’Deed I think ye have always a buzzing in your head. Sometimes I speak to ye three times before ye answer me.”

“She’s uplifted with her prospects,” said Mary, “and no wonder. I think ye should excuse her this day.”

Mary intended to be very kind to Kirsteen. She had made up her mind to be a very frequent visitor at her sister’s house.

“Well, well,” said Mrs. Douglas, “that may be true enough; but I think she might have come and told me the news herself, instead of letting me find it out through your father—not that I had not judgment enough to see what was coming this many a day.”

Kirsteen was still trembling with the results of her self-argument at the linn—which indeed had come to no result at all save the tremor in her frame and the agitation in her heart. She had knelt down by her mother’s side to wind the wool for which it appeared Mrs. Douglas had been waiting, and she was not prepared with any reply.

“She doesn’t seem to have much to say to us now, mother,” said Mary.

“Kirsteen, you should not be so proud. You will be a finer lady than ever your mother was, with a carriage and horses of your own, and no doubt everything that heart can desire; for an auld man is far more silly than a young one.”

Kirsteen gave the wool a jerk which tangled it wildly. “Mother, I just wonder what you are all havering about,” she said.

“Kirsteen, I’m well used to rude speaking,” cried the mother, ready to cry at a moment’s notice; “but not from my own bairns.”

“Oh, mother, I beg your pardon. It was not you that was havering. Dinna speak to me, for I cannot bear it. My heart is just like to break.”

“With pleasure?” said Mary in her soft tones.

Kirsteen darted a glance of fire at her calm sister, but turned nervously to her occupation again and answered nothing. She had enough to do with her yarn which, in sympathy with her confused thoughts, had twisted itself in every possible way and refused to be disentangled. Her mother remarked the tremor of her hands.

“Ye have got the hank into a terrible tangle, and what are ye trembling at, Kirsteen—is it the cold?”

“I’m not trembling, mother,” said Kirsteen.

“Do ye think I am blind or doited and cannot see? Na, I’m a weak woman, sore held down with many infirmities; but I’m thankful to say my eyes are as good as ever they were. Ye’re all trembling, Kirsteen; is it the cold?”

“She has gotten her gown all wet, mother. She has been down by the linn, it’s no wonder she’s trembling. She ought to go and change her things.”

“Are your feet wet, Kirsteen?”

“Oh,” said Kirsteen springing to her feet, “if ye would just let me alone; I’m neither wet nor cold, but my heart’s like to break. I don’t know what I am doing for misery and trouble. If ye would only have peety upon me and let me alone!”

“Dear Kirsteen, how can ye speak like that? Where will ye get any person you can open your heart to like your mother? Just tell me what’s wrong and that will ease your mind. What can Mary and me mean but what is for your good? Eh, I never thought but what you would be pleased, and a blithe woman this bonny day.”

“She’ll maybe open her mind best between you two, if I were away,” said Mary rising. She was really full of good feeling towards her sister, with no doubt an anticipation of good to come to herself, but yet a certain amount of solid sympathy genuine enough of its kind.

“Now, Kirsteen, my bonny woman, just tell me what’s the maitter,” said Mrs. Douglas when Mary was gone.

“It seems you know what has happened, mother, and how can you ask me? Am I likely to be a blithe woman as ye say when it’s just been told me?”

“That a good man and a good house are waiting for ye, Kirsteen? And one that’s very fond of ye, and asks no better than to give ye all ye can desire?”

“That I’m to be turned out of the house,” cried Kirsteen; “that I’m no more to see your face; that I’m to go from door to door with a meal-pack like a beggar woman!”

“Whisht, whisht, and don’t speak nonsense: that will be some of your father’s joking. Whiles he says things that are hard to bear. What should bring all this upon ye, Kirsteen? You will be the Leddy of Glendochart and an honoured woman, holding your head as high as ainy in the whole county, and silk gowns as many as ye desire, and coaches and horses; and what ye’ll like best of all, my bonny bairn, the power to be of real service and just a good angel to them that ye like best.”

“O mother, mother,” cried Kirsteen, burying her face in her mother’s lap, “that is the worst of it all! Oh, if ye have any peety don’t say that to me!”

“But I must, for it’s all true. Oh, Kirsteen, I hope I’m not a complaining woman; but just you think what it would be to me to have my daughter’s house from time to time to take shelter in. Many and many a time have I been advised change of air, but never got it, for who dared name it to your father? I have been thinking this whole morning it would make me just a new woman. To get away for a while from this hole—for it’s just a hole in the winter though it may be bonny at other times, and to see my bairn sitting like a queen, happy and respectit.”

“Not happy, mother!”

“That’s just your fancy, my dear. You think he’s old, but he’s not really old, and as kind a face as ever I saw, and full of consideration, and not one that ever would say ye had too many of your own folk about ye, or that ye ought to forget your father’s house. Oh, Kirsteen, it’s very little a lassie knows: ye think of a bonny lad, a bright eye or a taking look, or a fine figure at the dancing, or the like of that. But who will tell ye if he may not be just a deevil in the house? Who will tell ye that he may not just ding ye into a corner and shame ye before your bairns, or drive ye doited with his temper, or make your bed and your board a hell on earth? Oh,” cried poor Mrs. Douglas in accents of deep conviction, “it’s little, little a lassie kens! She thinks she will please her fancy, or she listens to a flattering tongue, or looks to a bonny outside. And all the time it’s just meesery she’s wedding, and not a bonny lad. But, Kirsteen,” she said, giving a furtive little kiss to the rings of hair on Kirsteen’s milk-white forehead, “Kirsteen, my bonny woman, when ye take a man that everybody knows, that is just kent for a good man and a kind man, and one that loves the very ground you tread on, oh, my dear! what does it maitter that he’s not just that young? Is it anything against him that he knows the world and has had trouble of his own, and understands what it is to get a bonny lass and a good bairn like you? And oh, Kirsteen, think what ye can do for us all if you take him, for your sisters and for the callants, he’s just made the house a different thing already; and though that’s scarcely worth the thinking of, for I’m very near my grave and will want nothing long,—Kirsteen, for me, too!—”

“Oh, mother, mother!” cried the girl with her face still hidden in her mother’s lap, “ye just break my heart.”

“Na, na,” said Mrs. Douglas in soft quick tones like one who consoles a child, “we’ll have no breaking of hearts. Ye will not be a month marriet before ye’ll think there’s no such a man in the world. And there’s nothing he will deny ye, and from being of little account ye’ll be one of the first ladies in the country side. Whisht, whisht, my darling! Ye’ll make him a happy man, and is not he worthy of it? Kirsteen! Rise up and dry your eyes. I hear your father coming. And dinna anger him, oh! dinna anger him, for he never minds what ill words he says!”

CHAPTER XIV.

Mrs. Douglas retired to her room after dinner in a very tearful mood. She had made a great effort and she had not been successful, and all her hopes which had been gradually built up into a palace of delight came tumbling down about her ears. The only comfort she could feel now was in the source of her chief troubles. “Ye may say what you like to me,” she cried as Kirsteen helped her to take off her cap and arrange herself comfortably upon her bed, “but your father will never put up with it. It would have been more natural in ye, Kirsteen, if ye had yielded to your mother, for well I wot ye’ll have to yield to him, whether ye like it or no.”

“Oh, mother, I think ye might understand,” Kirsteen said.

“Understand! it’s easy enough to understand. Ye’ve got a silly notion in your head that ye cannot mairry an old man. Better than you have done it before ye, and it would be a blessing to all your family, and maybe help me to live to see some of my boys come back. But na, ye will never think of that, of nothing but your own pleasure. And you’ll see what your father will say to you,” said Mrs. Douglas, with a vindictive satisfaction, while Kirsteen drew the coverlet over her and arranged the pillow for her head.

“Are ye comfortable, mother?”

“Oh, ay, as much as I can be, so little considered as I am. Ye need not wait. Put my stick within my reach, I’ll chap upon the floor if I want ye, or ye can send Mary if it’s too much trouble,” the angry mother said. She had been very tender up to this point, very anxious to show how entirely it was for everybody’s advantage that this step should be taken. But to spend your strength thus upon an unconvinced and unyielding child is hard to bear, and Mrs. Douglas’s disappointment had turned to wrath.

“Oh, mother,” Kirsteen said with anguish, but the remonstrance met with no reply except a fretful “Go away!” She went down stairs very slowly and reluctantly to the parlour where Mary sat at the household mending, in all the placid superiority of one who is at peace with the world. She had rejected no one’s advice. She had not crossed her father or her mother, or disappointed her family. When Kirsteen sat down and took her work, Mary looked at her and gave utterance to a faint “tshish, tshish” of mild animadversion, but for some time nothing was said. When the silence was broken it was by a question from Mary, “Ye’ll not be expecting Glendochart to-day?”

“Me expecting him? I never expected him! He just came of his own will,” Kirsteen cried, moved in her anger and wretchedness to a few hasty tears.

“Well, well, I’m saying nothing; but I suppose he’s not expected, if that’s the right way.”

“I know nothing about it,” said Kirsteen: which indeed was not quite true.

“It was just to tell Marg’ret she need take no extra trouble about the scones. It’s been a great expense a visitor like that, especially when it comes to nothing: often to his dinner, and still oftener to his tea. And always new scones to be made, and jam on the table, and the boys partaking freely: for how could I tell Jock and Jamie before a stranger, ‘It’s no for you.’ And all to come to nothing!” said Mary, holding up her hands.

“What could it have come to?” cried Kirsteen. “I think I will be just driven out of my senses between my mother and you.”

“Poor mother,” said Mary. “She had just set her heart upon it. It would have been a grand change to her to go and visit ye. It would have done her health good, but there are some that never think on such things. I just wish it had been me that had got the chance.”

“And so do I, with all my heart,” cried Kirsteen, with a hot and angry blush. She felt however that there was something like a dishonesty, an irritating attempt to despoil her of something belonging to her in Mary’s wish.

“I would have put myself in the background,” said Mary. “I would not have thought whether I like it or not. I would just have taken the man however old he had been. I would have said, it will be fine for my mother and a good thing for Kirsteen and all the bairns; and I would just have taken him and never said a word.”

“That would have been pleasant for him—that you should take him for the sake of the family.”

“He would have been none the wiser,” said Mary composedly. “There would have been no necessity to tell him. And he would never have found it out. They say men are very vain; they just think ye are in love with them whether ye are or not. And I would have managed Glendochart fine. But it was not me that had the chance.”

Kirsteen cast a gleam of mingled indignation and contempt at her sister, who went on diligently with her mending while she gave vent to these sentiments. Mary was fitting on a patch upon one of the boys’ undergarments, carefully laying it by the thread. Her mending was famed in the family; nobody made repairs so neatly. She spoke very softly, never lifting her eyes from the work, which indeed required all her attention. And there is a special power, especially for irritation, in the words of wisdom that are thus addressed to one without any lifting of the eyes.

“But that’s just the way of the world,” Mary said with a sigh. “The one that would do it, that would not think of herself, but just do it, is never the one that has it in her power. I’ve seen the same thing many a time. The wilful one that will please herself, it is her that folk seek—”

Kirsteen’s heart swelled high with mortification and pain. If there was anything that she had desired in her visionary moods it had been to sacrifice herself, to do some great thing for her mother, to be the saving of little Jeanie. She had made many a plan how to do this, how to perform prodigies for them, to deliver them from dangers. In her dreams she had saved both from fire and flood, from the burning house which fancy sacrificed lightly to give her the chance of a piece of heroism, or from the roaring stream when it ran to its highest, cutting off Drumcarro, which was a thing that had happened once. And now the smooth and smiling Mary, who would have thought of nobody in such a strait but herself, could reproach Kirsteen! And it was a true reproach. Here was the way, with no need to set the house on fire, or flood the country: here was a deliverance to be accomplished, that was within her power, that she could do so easily with no trouble to any one save to him who was far away, who perhaps would never hear of it, who might have changed his mind and forgotten Kirsteen long before he heard of it. All the best part of her seemed to rise against Kirsteen, demanding of her this sacrifice. Oh, it was so easy to do it in your head, to make a sacrifice of everything when nothing was wanted!—but when the time came—

And as if this was not enough, little Jeanie came running after Kirsteen when the poor girl escaped and wandered out again towards the linn in hope of a little soothing from Nature—Jeanie stole her hand into Kirsteen’s and rubbed her golden locks against her sister’s sleeve. “When ye go to Glendochart take me with you,” said Jeanie. “Oh, I would like to live in a grand house. I would like a powney to ride, and to play upon the harpsichord as my mother did when she was young. They say ye’ll be very rich, Kirsteen, when you go with Glendochart.”

“But I will never go with Glendochart!” Kirsteen cried.

“Oh, will ye no? And why will ye no, Kirsteen? Will ye send him away? Oh, you could never be so cruel as to do that! Will he come here no more?—and everything be just as it used to be? Oh, Kirsteen!” cried Jeanie, “I wish you would marry Glendochart!—I would if it was me. He is the kindest man in the whole world. He speaks to me as if he was—No, fathers are not kind like that. I like him, Kirsteen, I am awfu’ fond of him; and so is Jock and Jamie—Oh, I wish ye would change your mind!”

“But, Jeanie, ye would not wish me to be meeserable,” cried poor Kirsteen.

“No,” said Jeanie—but she added with youthful philosophy, “you wouldna be meeserable when me and the rest were so happy. And it is us that will be meeserable if you send him away that has been so good to us all. And how would ye like that?”

Jeanie’s small voice became almost stern as she asked the question, “How would ye like that?—to make all the rest meeserable—when the alternative was nothing more than being meeserable yourself?” Kirsteen had nothing to say against that logic. She told Jeanie to run to a certain drawer where she would find some oranges and share them with the boys. They were Glendochart’s oranges like everything pleasant in the house. And he was the kindest man in the world. And he would be miserable too as well as her mother and Jeanie and the laddies. Oh, poor Kirsteen, with all her best feelings turning traitors to her! would it not be far easier to consent and make them all happy, and just be miserable herself?

But she was not to be left free even now. Before she had got to the side of the linn, to be deafened with the roar and drenched with the spray, which were the only things she could think of in which any solace was, Marg’ret coming round the back of the house interrupted her on her way. “Where are ye going, down by the linn to get your death of cold and maybe an accident into the bargain? You have nothing upon your head, and no gloves on your arms, and the grass is drookit. No, my bonny lamb, ye must not go there.”

“Let me be, Marg’ret. What do I care! If I get my death it will be all the better; but I’ll no get my death.”

“Lord, save us, to hear her speak! Ye’ll no get your death,—it’s just a figure of speech; but ye may get the cauld or a sair throat, or something that will settle on your chest, and that’s as bad. What for would ye go and tempt Providence? Come into my bonny kitchen that is all redd up and like a new pin, and get a good warm.”

“Neither warm nor cold is of any consequence to me,” said Kirsteen, “if folk would just leave me alone.”

“What’s the maitter with my bonny doo? Many a time you’ve come to Marg’ret with your trouble and we’ve found a way out of it.”

“I see no way out of it,” said Kirsteen. She had reached that point of young despair when comfort or consolation is an additional aggravation of the evil. She preferred to be told that everything was over, and that there was no hope.

“Ye may tell me a’ the same,” said Marg’ret, putting her arm round her nursling and drawing her close. “It’s about auld Glendochart, that’s plain for all the world to see.”

“You call him auld Glendochart,” cried Kirsteen.

“Weel, and what would I call him? He’s auld compared to the like of you. He’s no blate to come here with his grey pow and choose the best of the flock. But dinna break your heart for that, Kirsteen. Ye must say to him that ye canna have him. He will take a telling. A man of that age he kens most things in this world. He will just mount his horse again, and ride away.”

“It’s easy speaking,” cried Kirsteen, “but it’s me that dare not say a word. For my father is just red-weed, and will have it, Marg’ret. And my mother, she wants it too. And all of them they are upon me because I cannot consent: for oh, I cannot consent!—whatever folk may think or say, it’s just this, that I cannot do it. I would sooner die.”

“There is nobody that will force you,” said Marg’ret. “Dinna lose heart, my bonny bairn. The laird himself is very fierce sometimes, but his bark is worse than his bite. Na, na, ye must just keep up your heart. Glendochart will soon see, he will let nobody force ye. Things like that never come to pass noo. They’re just a relic of the auld times. Maybe the auld Douglases that we hear so much about, that had the rights of fire and sword, and dark towers and dungeons to shut ye up in, might have done it. But where would he shut ye up here? There’s no a lock to any room door in this house!” Marg’ret’s laugh had a cheerful sound in the air, it broke the spell. “Your father may want to frighten you, and bring ye to his will—but he will do nae maír; and as for the mistress, she will reproach ye for a day and then it’ll be a’ done.”

Kirsteen was obliged to confess that there was something in this. Her mother had been in despair for twenty-four hours, and “just her ordinary” the day after on many previous occasions. It might all “blow over” as Marg’ret said, especially if Glendochart should see with his own eyes how little disposed was the bride whom the family were so anxious to put into his arms. No doubt his feelings would be hurt, which was a thing Kirsteen did not like to think of. But somebody must suffer it was clear, and if so, perhaps it was better that it should be Glendochart who was an old man, and no doubt used to it, and who was also a rich man, and could go away and divert himself as Marg’ret suggested.

Marg’ret was of opinion that though it might hurt his feelings it was not likely at his age that it would break his heart. For hearts are more fragile at twenty than at sixty—at least in that way.

CHAPTER XV.

Marg’ret had said with truth that the troubles of her young favourite had often been smoothed away after a consultation with herself. The best of us have our weak points, and the excellent Marg’ret was perhaps a little vain of the faculty of “seeing a way out of it,” which she believed herself to possess. She had seen a way out of it in many family tribulations which had a way of appearing less desperate when she took them in hand. And her last grand success in respect to the ball at the Castle had no doubt added to her confidence in herself. But after having turned it over in her mind for the best part of the night Marg’ret found that even her courage did not sustain her when she thought of confronting Drumcarro and requiring of him that he should give up the marriage on which he had evidently set his heart. Marg’ret was conscious that she was herself partly to blame: had she not set before him in the famous argument about the ball the fact that in no other way was there any likelihood of finding “a man” for either of his daughters? Alas, the man had been too easy to find, and how was she to confront him now and bid him let go his prize? Marg’ret’s heart sank, though it was not given to sinking. She lay awake half the night turning it over and over in her mind, first representing to herself under every light the possible argument with Drumcarro and what he would say, and what she would say. She heard herself remonstrating, “Sir, ye canna force your ain bairn, to make her meeserable,” and the response, “What the deevil have you to do with it, if I make her meeserable or no?” She had been dans son droit when she had interfered about the muslin gowns and the ball, and the necessity of letting the young ladies be seen in the world—but who was she to meddle with a marriage when everybody was pleased but just the poor lassie herself? A poor lassie will change her mind as Marg’ret knew, and will sometimes be very thankful to those who opposed her foolish youth, and made her do what turned out to be so good for her. There was nothing so little to be calculated upon, as the sentiments of a girl whose position would be unspeakably improved by marriage, and whose silly bits of feeling might change at any moment. It is true that Kirsteen was not silly but full of sense far beyond her years. But even she might change her mind, and who could doubt that Drumcarro’s daughter would be far better off as Glendochart’s wife?

All this “dautoned” Marg’ret as she would herself have said. She began even to glide away from her conviction that the master must be wrong. This is a fine working sentiment, and helps to surmount many difficulties, but when a reasonable soul is smitten by hesitation and feels that it is possible for even a habitual wrongdoer to be for once in the right, it takes the strength out of all effort. Finding herself less and less likely to be able with any comfort to object, Marg’ret began instinctively to turn to the other side of the question; and she found there was a great deal to be said on that other side. Glendochart was old—but after all he was not so dreadfully old, not in the stage of extreme age, as Kirsteen supposed. He was a “personable man.” He would give his young wife everything that heart of woman (in Argyllshire) could desire. She would have a carriage to drive about in and a saddle-horse to ride. She would get a spinet, or a harpsichord, or the new-fangled thing that was called a piany to play upon if she pleased; and as many books as she could set her face to; and maybe a sight of London and the King’s court, “decent man! if he were but weel again,” said Marg’ret to herself, for the name of the Prince Regent was not in good odour. All this would be Kirsteen’s if she could but just get over that feeling about the old man. And after all Marg’ret went on, reasoning herself into a more and more perfect adoption of the only practicable side, he was not such an old man. Two or three years younger than Drumcarro—and Drumcarro had life enough in him, just a very born devil as fierce as ever he was. They would be bold that would call the laird an old man, and Glendochart was three at least, maybe five years younger. Not an old man at all—just a little over his prime; and a well-made personable man, doing everything that the youngest did, riding every day and out stalking on the hills in the season, and hurling, as Kirsteen herself had allowed, with the best. When everything was done and said what should hinder her to take Glendochart? He was a far finer gentleman than anybody that Kirsteen was likely to meet with. He was a good man, everybody said. He was what you might call a near kinsman of the Duke’s, not more than four or five times removed. She would be in the best of company at Glendochart, invited out to dinner, and to all the diversions that were going. What could a lassie want more? Marg’ret woke in the morning in a great hurry, having overslept herself after a wakeful night, with the same conviction in her mind which was so strongly impressed upon all the others. It was just for everybody’s advantage that Kirsteen should marry Glendochart, and for her own most of all.

Kirsteen herself had been much calmed and invigorated by her consultation with Marg’ret. That authority had made so little of the obstacles and the dangers, as if it would be the easiest thing in the world to shake off Glendochart, and convince Drumcarro that nothing could be done. For the moment Kirsteen’s heart rose. She was accustomed to put great trust in Marg’ret, to see her cheerful assurances more or less justified. Many a storm had blown over which had filled the girl with terror, but which Marg’ret had undertaken should come to nothing. And if that was what Marg’ret thought now, all might be well. That day Kirsteen bore herself with great courage, getting back her colour, and singing about the house as was her wont, though it was only by a great effort that she dismissed the foreboding from her heart. And this brave front she kept up heroically during the greater part of the week of Glendochart’s absence, finding her best help in silence and a determined avoidance of the subject—but the courage oozed out at her finger tips as the days stole away. They seemed to go like conspirators one by one bringing her near the dreadful moment which she could not avoid. It had been on Thursday that her father had spoken to her, and now the week had gone all but a day. Kirsteen had just realized this with a sick fluttering at her heart, as she stood at the door watching the ruddy colours of the sunset die out of the heavens. Something of the feeling of the condemned who watches his last sun setting had come into her mind in spite of herself: what might have happened to her before to-morrow? Would her father’s curse be on her, or the still heavier malison of a creature mansworn, false to her dearest vow?

While she was thus musing, all her fictitious courage forsaking her, she felt herself suddenly and roughly caught by the arm from behind. “Well,” said her father, “are ye thinking what ye’ll say to your joe? He’s to be here to-morrow to his dinner, and he’ll expect to find all settled. Have ye fixed with your mother about the day?”

“Father,” cried Kirsteen in a wild sudden panic, “you know what I said to ye. There’s no day to be settled. I will tell him I cannot do it. I cannot do it. There’s no question about a day.”

He swung her round with that iron grasp upon her arm so that she faced him. His fierce eyes blazed upon her with a red light from under his heavy eyelids. “Dare to say a word but what I tell ye, and I’ll dash ye—in pieces like a potter’s vessel!” cried Drumcarro, taking the first similitude that occurred to him. He shook her as he spoke, her frame, though it was well-knit and vigorous, quivering in his grasp. “Just say a word more of your damned nonsense and I’ll lay ye at my feet!”

Kirsteen’s heart fluttered to her throat with a sickening terror; but she looked him in the face with what steadiness she could command, and a dumb resolution. The threat gave her back a sense of something unconquerable in her, although every limb shook.

“Ye’ll see Glendochart when he comes—in my presence—ye’ll have the day fixed and all put in order. Or if ye want to appear like a woman and not a petted bairn before your man that is to be, you’ll settle it yourself. I give you full liberty if you’ll behave yourself. But hearken,” he said, giving her another shake, “I’ll have no confounded nonsense. If ye go against me in a strange man’s presence and expose the family, I will just strike ye down at my feet, let what will come of it. Do you hear what I say?”

“He will not let you strike me,” she cried in terror, yet defiance.

“Ye’ll be at my feet before he has the chance,” cried Drumcarro. “And who’s will be the wyte if your father, the last of the Douglases, should be dragged to a jail for you? If ye expose my family to scorn and shame, I’ll do it more. Do you hear me? Now go and settle it with your mother,” he said, suddenly letting her go. Kirsteen, thrown backward by the unexpected liberation, fell back with a dizzying shock against the lintel of the door. She lay against it for a moment sick and giddy, the light fading from her eyes; and for a minute or two Kirsteen thought she was going to die. It is a conviction that comes easily at such a crisis. It seemed to the girl so much the best way out of it, just to be done with it all.