IT HAS EVER been a wonder to me how folk could, without need or reason, take up an evil thought in their minds of other folk that have never minted ill on them, in especial of an innocent and winsome young thing like my niece, Mary, whom it was just a pleasure (in spite of her bit little impatient ways now and then) to see going about the house.
But it is little use wondering; Mrs. Elphinstone, it was clear, had taken up a jealous notion of us all. The unwise woman! as if that was not the very way to put things into the bairn’s head.
The next Sabbath after that was the Sacrament at Pasturelands, and I had promised to go up early upon the Fast Day, to take Mary home, and to hear the sermon. So Robbie came with the gig on Thursday morning, and, on the road up, Mary and me had much converse, seeing the boy Robbie sat on the little back seat, packed up among various other parcels — for Mary had to carry many necessities up with her — it being a season when there are aye guests and strangers about a minister’s house. And truly the bairn’s spirit was hurt at Mrs. Elphinstone’s cold manner, as I could clearly see, but she never said a word about Mr. Allan.
So when we got to the Manse, Mary, my sister, showed to me a letter from Claud, saying that he had met with Grace, and had also seen her father, which meeting had made him both blythe and vexed, for the father looked but an ill man, and had drawn the bairn angrily away, and would not let her speak to Claud, which troubled my spirit, seeing it was aye another trial of Grace’s patience and strength.
But by that time, it was the hour for going to the Kirk, so we had other things to take up our minds. A great gathering of folk there was also, which it was just a pleasure to see, and truly the young man, Mr. Shepherd, of Rures, handled the Word to edification, and seemed to have the gift of speaking a word in season, well. I glanced up at the Lilliesleaf pew just before the sermon began, and who should be sitting there but him that had troubled my meditations so much — even Mr. Allan Elphinstone himself! — him that had been in the Castle on the Sabbath night, singing ungodly songs with Lady Julia, yet was here sitting among the plain folk of Pasturelands on the Fast Day (which, being a solemnity appointed only by the Kirk in preparation for the Occasion, and no a day set apart like the Sabbath, by the Head of the Kirk, there would be far less sin in breaking) as reverent, it seemed, as any there.
He was a strange riddle to me, that young man: I could not read him. And after the church was out, he came to the Manse, and lingered so long that Mary, my sister, (not knowing my fears, nor Mrs. Elphinstone’s jealousy), thought it behoved her to ask him to stay and dine, the which, truly, the lad needed no second bidding to do.
Mr. Shepherd, of Rures, had, maybe, more learning than Mr. Allan, and he was as clever, and altogether he was a lad I liked, but someway or other, there was a charm wanting about him that Mr. Allan had, and I perceived that though the young minister, in a manner near as shame-faced as a girl’s, was, every now and then, for making up to Mary, that a different look from what she answered him with was glinted over whiles to where Mr. Allan sat; the which put me again in fear and perturbation. So, in the evening, I departed again for Sunnyside, Robbie driving me.
It was an uncommon dear, frosty night, with the stars standing out in a cold and bright manner, like armies ranged upon the dark sky, and after I had spoken a word or two to Robbie, anent his mother, and his auntie Bell, who had once been a servant at the Manse, besides asking for the little bairn Femie that was ill with the measles, we went the rest of the road in quietness, my spirit being filled with meditation.
It is a sore let and hindrance to higher thoughts to have the mind burdened with the care of bairns, in especial at that season when they are just between the tyning and the winning, and I marvel not the Apostle should say (being free of these cares himself) that they were better who did so abide, being saved from trouble in the flesh. Nevertheless, doubtless, there is also a measure of pleasantness in it, of the which I had experience when I sat down at my own fireside that night, and saw a letter from Grace lying on my table, the which I was not long of reading. So I will just put it in. —
“My dear aunt, “I have something to tell to-day, and therefore am hardly so much afraid of wearying you as I am usually when I begin, not that it is anything of particular consequence, but an event of whatever kind is a relief to me, and to you also, doubtless, in so far as my letters are concerned, so I commence with the zest of a story-teller. I believe before all is done, I may match myself with any Scheherazade of them all.
“In the first place, on the bright sunshiny Monday, which began secularly this current week; we went to Oakenshaw — in Mr. Monteith’s old-fashioned carriage, with Mr. Monteith himself on my one hand, but alas! my aunt on the other; wherefore, of the conversation there is nothing worth reporting, save that my aunt’s interruptions made various mysterious breaks in Mr. Monteith’s observations, which excited my curiosity more and more, and left room for all manner of conjectures.
“A very curious aspect these same interruptions, often most hurriedly made, and without the slightest reference to what went before, gave our conversation — much like the elliptic lessons wherewith the little dark man, the moral trainer from Glasgow, electrified honest Reuben Reid and his wondering children, or rather I should say these elliptic lessons responded to (supposing the tawse defunct) by some such wicked wight as Willie Lightfoot.
“Oakenshaw itself is a long, irregular, dull house, lying low, but with pleasant woodland views from its windows, and clouds of bare branches gathering round it, which in summer, I doubt not, being garmented, will be beautiful. There is a water also singing close at hand, but my aunt’s pretended care for my health permitted only a glance at it from the window.
“The house itself, in the interior, might look like home if it were inhabited, though certainly it is very desolate now; but I cannot tell you, aunt, with what solemn interest I entered one room, which the servant told me had been the one most occupied by my mother, where were two or three musical instruments, cased and covered with dust, and even some books, with my mother’s name upon them.
“I had escaped my aunt for the moment, and so might have the one luxury of being alone where my mother’s sad life was spent. The servant, who accompanied me, a ruddy girl, encouraged I suppose by seeing me less unlike herself than my beautiful and haughty cousins, broke in upon my thoughts with a half whispered —
“‘Eh, Miss Maitland! and are you coming to your ain house at long and last?’
“I had not time to answer the question, when Mrs. Lennox made her appearance, and dragged me away.
“Aunt! I have not so entirely lost my old nature, as to have given up dreams, and bright dreams visit me sometimes. If ever, by some happy chance, this, my mother’s house, becomes mine — shall you not flit instanter, and shall not we, with our great wealth, cause construct some railway or canal to link our court to that hereditary Manse, which I fear no temptation could induce a Claud Maitland to leave? and brave days follow, extending even to the ‘lived happy and died happy’ of Jenny’s old romances, and our Mary’s wish.
“And so I come to my second adventure.
“Yesterday, accompanied by Jessie, I went out (I am afraid I should say clandestinely) to walk, and suddenly remembering, as we passed through one street, that in it was the residence of our old friend, Mrs. Standright, I ventured to call on her. She welcome me with much kindness, of course; and I was receiving, with very great interest, an account of various ecclesiastical matters, when I heard Claud’s voice in the paspage.
“He had come to see Mr. Standright on ecclesiastical business; but was not very sorry, I think, to let it stand awhile, for the sake of a long conversation about — what — I do not exactly recollect. We had both of us so much to say; and Mrs. Standright, not being like us perfectly acquainted with all the domestic arrangements of Sunnyside and the Manse, withdrew to her desk, and began signing, with all dispatch, a bundle of prettily-printed notes, convening some benevolent assemblage of ladies, and so left us to ourselves.
“I got frightened at last, when I saw how long we had stayed, and, after receiving a very kind invitation to come again, departed, accompanied by Claud. It was his fault, aunt, I assure you, and not mine, if fault it was; for Claud represented himself as feeling so dull sometimes in his solitary room, and I knew myself so utterly alone at all times, that we were both well enough pleased to walk together to the vicinity of my aunt’s house.
“We were drawing near it, when I felt my shoulder grasped roughly, heard an angry exclamation, and turning round, saw my father. I cannot tell you how I felt. Ashamed and angry for Claud’s sake, and indignant at the look and manner with which my father addressed me.
“‘How dare you,’ was his first burst, and then the storm went on. ‘It is scandalous — I did not believe my sister, when she told me of these clandestine meetings. Do you know what you do, young lady? Were it not for other considerations, I should disown you from this moment.’
“I am afraid I was very undutiful.
“‘When you please, Sir,’ I said, ‘that is a thing to which I can have no possible objections. Goodbye, brother Claud: tell my aunt, when you write, that she may possibly see me sooner than I could have hoped.’
“Claud went away, and my father stood in apparent astonishment looking at me, and so I called Jessie and went on.
“‘Girl!’ exclaimed my father, striding close up to us, and speaking with his teeth set, ‘Beware how you trifle with me! What do you mean by that threat? Who is it that you dare speak of as a relative? Remember, you are not in a fool’s hands, but in mine! What do you mean?’
“‘Simply what I said, Sir.’ answered I, ‘You but this instant declared your intention of disowning me. In that case, I begged my friend to tell his aunt, at Sunnyside, the only mother I have ever known, that I might soon be with her again.’
“My father smiled grimly.
“‘So, that is all,’ he said. ‘And are you such a romantic fool as to believe that anybody, who could help it, would burden themselves with a penniless girl, with no expectations. Absurd! ridiculous! Why, even your mother was not such a fool as that.’
“‘I have heard my mother’s history, Sir,’ I said, as calmly as I could, ‘with what feelings you may, perhaps, be able to imagine; and it would be well if her name was not mentioned between us.’
“My father tried to laugh, but nevertheless was startled.
“‘Half a dozen inches higher and you might have done for a tragedy queen,’ he said with a sneer, ‘for the shrew Hermia you might do as it is; and, failing these friends of yours in the country, there is a ready resource for you.’
“I was minded to try an experiment.
“‘Mr. Monteith,’ I said.
“My father started, and turned to me a face full of such concentrated malice and hatred that I shrank before it.
“‘Well,’ he said, fixing his eye on me, and evidently suppressing his passion with an effort, ‘What of him?’
“‘He, I am sure, would not refuse to protect me, for my mother’s sake.’
“We arrived at the door as I said that, and then we parted, but not till a threat, not loud but deep, had burst from my father, that I should repent it.
“You will think this very bad, aunt, both his part of it and mine, but I have grown accustomed to such things, and heed them less than I should. I do not see how the mere fact of his being my father, should call forth such deep devotion, such unparallelled tenderness, as one reads of sometimes. Perhaps, it is wrong; perhaps, affection and reverence on my part should have been instinctive, and existed in entire independence of any qualities in him to draw them out. But putting away all considerations of his conduct to myself, Mrs. Gray’s story rushes on my memory. My mother, dead in her youth, rises before me, and I find it impossible.
“And, by the bye, I quite forgot to propound to Claud my question in casuistry. — Whether poor Grace Maitland, having a home in Sunnyside, and no friends elsewhere in the wide world, might not be justifiable in running away? But a penniless girl, with no expectations! What emphasis my father put upon these words. And I would not like to be a burden to you either, aunt.
“Do you know Claud has wonderfully improved since he last left Pasturelands? He has, (like our Mary), grown older, more a man than he used to be. But oh, aunt! take care of Mary; I have always had an ambition to ward all evil from her — and then she is so young — though I can perfectly sympathize with your friend, Mr. Allan, and think he has excellent taste.
“There is a great deal of bustle going on in the house, servants hurrying to and fro, and great evident commotion. What it may portend, I know not; but I have exhausted my peaceful hour, and must go and array myself for the delightful company down stairs.
“Dear aunt, “Your affectionate, “GRACE MAITLAND.”
Truly it was a strange thing, that on me, a single woman, there should come more charge of bairns than many a mother of a family is trysted with; for besides Grace, that had no friend of her own to counsel her, there were the concerns of the bairn Mary coming, like a ravelled thread, through my hands, and the minister, and Mary, my sister, knowing not that there was so much as a single knot upon it. But truly for all that, it was a pleasure to have the like of Grace looking aye to us as her nearest friends, seeing she was a most pleasant and well-conditioned bairn; besides being gifted in her own spirit, in a manner past the common.
So the days wore on, and it’s no to be thought that there could be much that strange folk would care about hearing of, in the lives of two quiet eldern women like me and Jenny, my maid; but on the Saturday morning after that, there came another letter from Grace.
A short one it was, written on a bit small sheet of paper, and wonderful blurred and uneven written, as if the bairn had been sore perturbed. And it was to tell me that my Grace was just going to be taken away to London with her aunt, and her aunt’s family. There were but two or three words saying that, and saying that she was feared her speech to her father about Mr. Monteith was the cause of it, as she had heard her cousins say that it was not the right time for dwelling in London, and also that she was troubled in her own spirit, and that was all.
Truly I, also, was troubled to read that letter, seeing it was like as if the Ruler of all things was aye drawing my bairn further and further away from me, and likewise a fear came over me, within myself, that maybe I had been setting her too high in my own heart, and so tempting Him that should aye reign there; and in every way I was sore grieved and distressed concerning the matter.
So Jenny, my maid, wondering doubtless that, when I had read the letter, I did not come hen to tell her about Grace, as was my wont, made an errand into the room to put on some coals, though the fire was in no need of them. Whereupon I said to her:
“Jenny, it behoves both you and me to be greatly exercised in our own spirits concerning Grace, seeing she is now travelling away to that great and wicked Babylon, the City of London — out from her own land and her own people — woes me! my bairn.”
At which Jenny made a great cry and lamentation, which was but natural, for though folk accustomed to journeying may think little of that, it is different with the like of her, landward bred, and aye biding at home, and even with myself, though I was more acquaint with the ways of the world.
“And eh! Miss Marget,” said Jenny, to me, “can ane gang to London, or ony sic farawa place, without needing to sail upon the sea? for it’s an awfu’ thing that muckle water.”
“Grace does not say, Jenny,” said I, “in what manner their travel was to be; but, seeing her friends have wealth, and will not heed for the cheapness, I think they are like to go by the landward road. The bairn will be on the way even now; and truly it’s my desire that they may win into London this night, for fear she should be drawn in to breaking the Sabbath day.”
“In perils by the land, and in perils by the sea,” said Jenny, in a meditating way, “the Almighty be round about her to keep her frae ill! but it’s an awfu’ thing to trust ane’s sel on sic a deceitfu’ element as the water, and to hae the muckle, unchancy waves rowing below ane’s very feet. And ane may be thinking a’ the time — an the boat were but to whomle there wad be an end o’t!”
So the Sabbath came, a time of peace and quietness, as it should aye be, though I am feared my mind was still perturbed more than was right, and so I was hindered from getting the good I should have done from the very preaching of the word itself.
Dr. Driegh, of Burrowstoun, had never had a name for enticing words of man’s wisdom, neither, it grieves me to say, had his ministry been much attended with the demonstration of the Spirit, or with power, for he was a man of a cold nature, forbye being a Moderate. And truly, the morning diet which the Doctor ever took himself was fusionless in an uncommon manner, and (I am feared) made many folk think the service of their Maker a weariness. But on that particular Sabbath, I can scarce say I got much more from Mr. Wallace himself, the helper, who was a discreet man, in the prime of his days, sore held down by reason of wanting interest, and so compelled to abide in Burrowstoun, where he had but a hard time of it with Dr. Driegh, and a small stipend.
But for all that, the Sabbath past, as all days pass, whether they are pleasant or troubled, and upon the Tuesday after, I had a visit from Mr. Allan Elphinstone. But I mind not that there was anything of a particular nature in our converse, past the one thing, that I was more — perplexed with him than I had — ever been — before, for it seemed to me that the lad was just hanging in a sore swither between good and evil, one while giving his mind to his right and serious duty, and another fleeing away on the wide wings of that enticing spirit of world’s pleasure. No that I would cast out with the innocent pleasantness of a young: and light heart; — far from — that, truly I have been blamed by strict folk for being too much the other — way, and — indulging the bairns, but, woe’s me, for the joyfulness that must aye have strangers partaking in it, and that lies in vain songs, and dancing and gay company!
But Mr. Allan was just a mixture, in his converse, and, as it seemed, in his mind; whiles minding, that he was a man with a high weird upon him, and whiles thinking only of getting through his time with mirth and vain laughing, as if he had no other chief end. He had been, he told me, at all the preachings, and spoke of them in a reverent and right manner, and straightway, in the same breath, of how he had been at the Castle, night after night, foremost in the ploys they held there, and out sporting all day with Lord Burrowstoun and his wild friends, and divers other things, maybe no evendown ill in themselves, but leading him upon the road, and the road is aye swift to descend. Truly he was a strange lad, for in the midst of all that, he was ever trying to wile me into speaking about the family at the Manse, and in especial Mary, and once mostly startled me, by bursting out into a praise of home; and saying, with a mournful look, that the folk he was among knew little of that.
So the week past in a quiet way, and on Friday (for that was the market-day in Burrowstoun) the two Marys, my sister and my niece, came down to lay in some things that were wanting at the Manse — for it is common to let the Occasion be past before the women folk of a minister’s household take up the things that are aye from time to time needed in a family, of sewing and the like, (I say that, because I know that Mary, my sister, took a whole piece of linen shirting with her, the best that was in James Selvage’s shop); for, as I have before said, there is ever more to do at that solemn season with strangers being in the house, and other things.
I needed not to tell them of the news from Grace, for Mary put a letter into my hand whenever she came in, the which seemed to me to have been written before my bairn heard the news of her departure, for that was just mentioned in a bit postscript at the end.
So as this will be the last letter of Grace’s that I will put in for a while, I think I may just write it all down.
“My dear Mary, “I am more than ordinarily languid and depressed to-day; therefore, according to the primitive formula of our friend Reuben Reid, I take up my pen to write you a few lines — forewarning you that the pen is of a melancholic nature; and that the few lines may expand themselves into as many pages before I finish.
“An indifferent compliment, you will think, I pay you, in dedicating to you my especial dark hours; but we are not strangers, Mary, and our correspondence is something more, I fancy, than an exchange of compliments; and you don’t know what a satisfaction it is to get the troublous thoughts out, and perchance to bring in healthier in their stead: a miracle which the air of Pasturelands still lingering about your last letters will accomplish, if anything can.
“For I am growing nervous, Mary — I, who six months ago, would have laughed at the very idea. I am alarmed by a sound, troubled sometimes whole days by a dreamy presentiment; feel myself getting wildly gay now and then; oftener utterly depressed, and, worst of all, angry and irritable, without the shadow of a cause.
“Is it not strange? And discontented, Mary, repining — impious in these strange black moods of mine, as if all the world beside was happy, and I only miserable beyond my desert, for the demon, like all others, is a lying demon, and would have me invest myself with all the sentimental graces of suffering, and luxuriate therein. Do you remember that terrible scene in the Pilgrim’s Progress, where Christian is so sorely assailed in the valley of the Shadow of Death — sorest of all by the blasphemies whispered in his ear by his spiritual enemies, and which he fears are the product of his own mind. I am growing to a better understanding of that now.
“And so the cloud is wearing away. Where was I, Mary, ere I began this disquisition? — About to write you a few lines.
“Well, I find I have nothing to tell, and so betake myself to answer your questions. What do I do? — (by the bye, that is by no means elegantly expressed: you should have said, ‘how do you employ yourself?’) What do I read? What do I think about? I shall take them in their regular order.
“In the first place, what do I do — wondrous little, sister Mary, to be a creature endowed with certain capabilities and made more for use than ornament, the only employment tolerated here being better adapted to creatures made for ornament and not for use. Netting of purses, embroidery, resplendent in all the colours of the rainbow, silken and woollen; the only restriction to one’s taste and ingenuity in the manufacture thereof being, that it shall be absolutely of no service to any mortal.
“In these, if it so pleased me, I might consume, day after day, but unhappily it does not please me, and so in answer to your first question, I am compelled reluctantly to admit (tell it not in Sunnyside, dear Mary, lest my aunt be utterly shocked) that I — read novels!
“Furthermore, that the novels are sad rubbish, many of them, fashionable, flippant, insipid, chronicles often of some circle of great people, whose country seats lie near each other; who duly go to town for the season, and duly return when the season is over; intersperse which with one or two fallings in love, one or two disappointments, gossipping and scandal without measure, and a few moral essays broken into bits, and scattered here and there through the three volumes, and you have them in their full proportions before you.
“Moreover, many of these books are written by women, yet are they often perfectly unwomanly — especially when they become what Claud would call subjective, and profess to reveal the inmost hearts of these sorely tried love-sick heroines of theirs. I can imagine how you would in your own words ‘think shame’ to speak to me, as the young ladies in these books speak to their friends. I will tell you one story of this vehement kind.
“There are two young ladies — a model girl, one — the other a high-spirited, beautiful, uncontrollable person of the Die Vernon class; they are friends, but, unawares, both devoted to the same fortunate gentleman. After various adventures on both sides, the climax comes by which they discover their rivalship, and thereupon follows a fight. The model girl, whose attachment is returned, is content to give him up and be broken-hearted, the vehement girl, whose attachment is not returned, holds by him fast, and the unhappy lover, engaged to both, vibrates painfully between the two; the denouement, however, is accomplished by a device not of the newest. The model girl saves her rival’s life, the heart of the beautiful uncontrollable melts, and the curtain falls on her vehement dancing at the wedding-ball.
“What think you of it? Yet that is one of the best of all; and there are floods of smaller romancers, who tell the same story - not so well. And these trials they call the discipline — the battle of life.
“Do you think very embroidery would be greatly more profitable than this unhealthy occupation? aha, Mary! but you do not know what I have done; with my own hands, seated by the fire-side, in my own room, I have made, in spite of Jessie’s indignant protestations, two morning caps for my old friend, Mrs. Gray; the borders thereof being trimmed with lace, and the whole sewed with such care and painstaking as would call down plaudits on my head from Miss Janet Selvage herself.
“And as to what I read, Mary, in the sense in which we at Sunnyside understood reading, the earnest affection with which we used to travel over the well-known brown volumes on the study shelves, or in my aunt’s old oaken bookcase, the process has become extinct for me, and I answer this your second question, as I answered your first — I read novels!
“And ‘what do I think about?’ I dare not begin to tell you, lest I should never end — only it is by no means good to be left to converse uninterruptedly with one’s own thoughts day after day, and breeds melancholy and all manner of evils.
“By the bye, I have picked up an uncouth German book and old dictionary, and have found the greatest possible relief in working at that — but that should have come under my first head. Beg our father to send me a Hebrew Lexicon, sister Mary, and see if I am not more learned when I return to Sunnyside than Claud himself.
“See how my dark cloud has dispersed into the air! But, for all that, I think of home sadly enough sometimes, as of a place I shall never see again — and yearn for it. Something as holy Samuel Rutheford did of old, I fancy, when he thought the swallows, that built their nests in the eaves of the old Kirk at Anwoth, were blessed birds.
“I am summoned suddenly to my aunt’s presence, so fare you well, dear sister Mary.
“GRACE MAITLAND.”
“P.S. I have heard alarming news. We are to leave Edinburgh immediately for London — for what reason I know not.”
So we began, the two Marys and me, to have converse respecting Grace; and Mary, my sister, said to me, that it was an unwise and ill-thing of these folk in Edinburgh, to let Grace be brought up so, when her life was to be so different.
“For now,” said Mary, my sister, “she feels the separation far more bitterly than she would have done if they had taken her away a child, or even if she had been a more mature woman.”
“But, mother,” said Mary, “when she is a mature woman, as you say, she may come home.” And Mary gave a sad look at me, as if, for all so confident as she spoke, she wanted me to persuade her that it would be so.
“It’s my hope, she will, Mary” said I, “or something may cast up long before that — there is no saying. But oh, bairn! be you canny of putting in your hand into this tangled web of worldly doings — it ever brings ill.”
The bairn turned round to the windows without saying a word, and Mary, my sister, looked at me with a smile.
“You need hardly fear that, for a while yet, Margaret,” she said, “Poor Mary’s small share of the Manse economics can scarcely be called worldly doings. Oh! I see you are thinking of the Manse of Rures — no, no, there is plenty of time for that.”
To think that Mary, my sister, and her the bairn’s mother, and a woman of discrimination, should have been so easy deceived! Truly the Manse of Rures, as I could well perceive, had just as little buik in the thoughts of the bairn Mary, as it had in mine.
The next Monday after that, Mr. Allan was down again with the carriage, and would make me go up to Lilliesleaf, whether I liked or no. So seeing his mother was even more delicate than common (which, doubtless, was caused by living in a gay manner and keeping hours that did not befit an eldern woman) and was expecting me, I went, and little satisfaction I had either in the young man or his mother, for my spirit was stirred within me for very grief to see him, entering the same road in which his father had lost both riches and good fame; and him a lad of so pleasant and kindly a nature, and with indignation at her, that could lay plans to draw her one son out of the right way. Doubtless, she did it, in a kind of affection, and with a thought that a godly and serious life was no for a gentleman like him; the misguided woman! but, for all that, he had been led away in a measure by her wish and her company, she was yet aye bringing in a kind of sneering word about him being so often at the Manse. Truly, it was no wish of mine that he should be so, but if the lad knew himself better there, than among the vain folk at the castle, doubtless he was right.
Also, I mind, that I went down to Cruive End, that week, to see what was doing; and there I saw many men labouring with all their might at the new houses.
“It’s a grand thing to hae a man like the Laird in the countryside,” said James Laidlaw, the carter, to me. “They say, Miss Maitland, that his father threw siller about in a wild way among beggars and flunkie cattle, and its aye ‘come licht, gang licht’ wi’ the like o’ them — but there’s you strong callant emptying the cart, and you others working at the foundation — the haill o’ them wad hae been hinging about the doorcheek idle, if the Laird hadna started this work, but now an they could but get schulin’ and be wiled to the kirk, ye may mak’ men o’ them yet.”