IT IS NOT my purpose at this time to go slow over every day, or every week, of that season of my pilgrimage, seeing it is mostly the letters of my bairn Grace, or the things that came to pass concerning Mary and the family at the Manse, that will make what I write of any interest to strange folk, who maybe never heard of Sunnyside all their days, nor even of Burrowstoun itself. So I will just glance in a light way over what befell us in that wintertime.
I aye continued to get word from Grace, the which was mostly concerning her own thoughts and desires, seeing that Mrs. Lennox let her see no strangers, and so the most of the bairn’s time was spent in her own room, which was far from a healthful manner of life for a young thing. And truly, it was a matter of pain to me to notice the way she spoke of her cousins and their gayness; for it was not in a kindly humour, as it would have been when she was in Sunnyside; but rather had a bitter cast, as if her spirit was troubled and perturbed within her; and yet she aye tried to hide it both from herself and me, with a laugh that was not natural.
Besides that it was not, if I mind right, over two or three weeks from their departure, till they were away again out of this country, and on to the Continent, where they abode in a city of France, because, as Grace told me in her letter, it was not what Mrs. Lennox called the season’ in London; and being fashionable and high folk, they could not bide in it then. I maybe am not saying it right, which would be no wonder, seeing that I know not the manner of London, which is a faraway place, and also that the life of folk of that kind, except so far as it is written in books, is likewise a matter of ignorance to me; but if any person should read this, that knows better, they must just put it right in their own minds.
But as I was saying, Grace was in the country of France, and I have often thought that the letters she sent to me, the time they were journeying about in that foreign place, would be as good to read as many a book of travels I have seen in print, if the bairn would but look over them again, and sort them in their right places; but she has other things to take her up.
I had fewer letters the time she abode there, no that there was any failing on the part of my Grace, but being so far away, and going about from one town to another, I did not wonder at it; besides that, I had a suspicion she was delicate of me having the heavy post to pay, seeing that folk in these days scarce know what dear letters are.
And as for Mr. Allan, of Lilliesleaf, it was a grief to me that I could say no more of him than that he was in an ill way; whiles, doubtless, having still a perception that he was not made for the one purpose of playing himself, but aye led away again — Lilliesleaf full of all vanities, and shining with light, as I heard, till all the hours of the night, and the mother in it, the weak, unwell woman, that was shortening her own days, and leading her one son into vanity and sin.
Now it may be thought that this is but the narrow notion of a lone gentlewoman, living all her days in a way of quietness; but, though it seems not to me that there is much pleasantness in the like of these assemblies, yet I would see no ill in them at a time, for young things, especially them that have that station in this world, and are so misfortunate as to have no sensible work to do. I mind well myself, finding an enjoyment in a Hallowe’en or New Year’s ploy, in my young days, but to think of taking up every night, and losing folk’s own home and fireside for the like of that!
It is a sore thing to think of, and, in my eyes, there is but an ill foundation for the life that is built upon such a youth. In especial I was grieved for Mr. Allan’s sake, for whatever he did, it was a marvel to me how my heart dung to that young man, even as if he had been one of our own bairns. He was still carrying on the works at Cruive End, and did it in such a brisk way, and had so many men working, that some of the houses were to be ready by the New Year, which was just a wonder in the countryside, seeing that it wanted a good while of three months since they were begun. But they had the advantage of wonderful mild and open weather, with little either of rain or frost, and the masons, for a marvel, (for the common word is, that of all artificers, those whose gift is for building houses are the slowest), hurried the work, and were done with their part soon.
“So on New Year’s Day, which fell upon a Tuesday that year, Mr. Allan was to give the folk a grand entertainment, the which he called a fete, and all the countryside was astir about it. So, as I have written down before, the time went by in a most quiet manner, with little change or commotion among us.
Once or twice I was invited up to Lilliesleaf, and Claud and his family were asked too, at an odd time, just as if, being her minister, (I should say the minister of her parish, for, poor woman! she did not trouble the Kirk much), Mrs. Elphinstone could not help showing him a measure of attention, the which, being visible to the minister and to Mary, my sister, made them aye decline going, unless they were so circumstanced that they bid to do it in mere civility. But, for all that, Mr. Allan keeped aye making an errand to the Manse as often as he could, and wrought on the father and the mother, whatever he might do upon the bairn, Mary, so that they could not help regarding him with a kindness, although they looked upon Mrs. Elphinstone with dubiosity, as a woman of a jealous and uncertain mind.
And so the old year went out, and seeing that I had been much exercised in my own mind on the night that bairns call Hogmenay, concerning the work, and the backslidings of the past year, and also concerning the bairns, the care of whom a good Providence had’ laid to my hand, I was not up so early the next day as is my custom on a New Year’s morning.
And truly I marvelled to be wakened in my bed about nine o’clock in the morning by Jenny, my maid; the first thing I saw when I opened my eyes being her, standing with a burning candle in her hand, and the gray morning coming in dim at the window.
“Preserve me, Jenny,” said I, “what is the matter?”
“Naething, mem,” said Jenny with a laugh, “only there’s ane waiting doun the stair to be your first fit.”
“Waiting for me, Jenny?” said I, “and who can that be?”
“Oh, deed it’s easy kenning,” said Jenny with another laugh: “it’s the Dominie frae Seggie Burn, Miss Marget, Maister Reuben. An he’s come in ance errand to be your first fit.”
“My first fit!” I said to Jenny, “in the darkening of a New Year’s morning, woman. Jenny, is the body daft?”
“Na, Miss Marget,” said Jenny, “naething past the common that I can see, but doubtless, he’s wearying sitting his lane in the parlour, will I tell him you’re coining down,” — and Jenny set up a laugh again, till I grew feared for the body hearing her.
“Whisht, Jenny,” said I, though I could not but laugh myself in a quieter way; “the Dominie will hear you. And see to the candle, there is a thief upon it, and ye will grease the carpet. Ance errand to be my first fit! Truly, the body’s brain must be turned, but haste ye, Jenny, and make the breakfast; the maister will have need of it after his travel.”
“Will I pit down the shortbread, Miss Marget?” said Jenny, “but, waes me, there’s nae bairns to heed about it now; but I’ll no say it’s a’thegither ance errand either, for the maister has the play himsel, and maybe he’s gaun to Cruive End.”
“Never heed, Jenny,” said I; “but since he is here, do you see about the breakfast.” — So Jenny went away.
I could not but smile within myself, when I came into my parlour in the gray of the New Year’s morning, and found the body, Reuben Reid, sitting at my fire-side in his best black suit, the which I mind of him getting new when I was a halflin, no far past the years of Mary, my niece, for he was a most careful body.
He had been licensed by the Kirk as a preacher of the Gospel, in his young days, but being in no manner gifted in respect of preaching, had never been called by any people. Also being but a poor man’s son, he never had interest enough to get a presentation, and, therefore was, (as I have seen it called, no long since by one that has just a bye-ordinary gift in the way of writing books and papers) wind-bound in a school: the which means, (in my comprehension) Comparing a man to a boat, that he had not strength enough, nor sails enough, to carry him on over the wild sea, or down great waters, but was just blown by the lown land breeze to shelter in the crook of a quiet burn, and by reason of the hurry and troubling of the bigger streams, could not win out again. Also he was an inoffensive body, and had a manner of lifting up his hands and crying: “Eh, me!” when he was surprised, that made folk laugh at him.
“There’s changes in the world, Miss Marget,” said the body to me, that morning, when I went into the room, “since the last time I was your first fit. Ye’ll no mind? Eh me I but I had aye mysel a most uncommon memory; and there’s a nick in my stick to mind that New Year by. — The very Sabbath before was the last time I exercised my gifts in a pulpit; and ye’ll allow that that was a mark no to be sune forgotten.”
“Indeed, no, Mr. Reuben,” said I; “but since then, you have been exercising your gifts for the behoof of the parish, maybe in a more effectual way, for bairns’ hearts are more eath to take a right impression than the hearts of grown up hardened folk.”
“And that’s true, Miss Marget,” said the Maister, “only there’s a wheen dour wee whigs in you schule at Pasturelands, that heed the tawse nae mair than I would heed them mysel. There is one bairn — Tam is the name of him — that’ll tak’ the pawmies without a word, and be ower the lugs in mischief again before I have weel laid them down. It’s a sore thing, Miss Marget, to be trysted with the charge of bairns.”
“And so it is, Mr. Reuben,” said I.
“I laugh whiles to myself,” said Reuben, “at the way the wee vexations take their pawmies, for ye can have a perception of the bairn’s nature, mair mostly in that way than in any other. There are some of a fearful nature, that will draw back the hand when the tawse comes down, in an unwise coward spirit, seeing they maun bear the pain some time, whether they will or no. And there are some that hold their arm bold out, to get it ower at once; and there are some, mair especial the women bairns (for ye are ever a pawkie sect, Miss Marget) that will look me fair in the e’en, as if they thought their bit shining faces would stop my hand. There is one lassie wean — puir wee wifie, she has had a sore time of it with the measles — Femie Telfer, wha will glint at me with her blue e’en and her smile, till I can scarce think to bring down the tawse. It’s aye a light pawmie Femie gets, for a’ that she’s as tricky as a young foal.”
Jenny was just bringing in the breakfast at that time, for seeing the Maister had had a far walk, I thought it was best to get it before the exercise.
“Eh me! Miss Marget,” said the Dominie holding up his hands, “but I hae fallen upon a land of plenty; but I mind langsyne that Jenny had aye a bye-ordinary talent for breakfasts, when I came first to the parish in your father’s days. Eh me! but there are sore changes sinsyne.”
Jenny was setting down the shortbread as he said that, by the place where Grace used to sit, (no that shortbread is commonly set upon a breakfast-table, except just on the New Year morning, for the bairns), and as she did it, she caught the glint of my eye.
“Bless the dear bairn!” burst out Jenny. “If ane could but ken that there was some kindly body about her to gie her her New Year’s piece!” and the water came into Jenny’s eyes, and she hurried away out of the room.
“Will you ask the blessing, Mr. Reuben?” said I; and the Maister did it, and began to his breakfast in a hearty way.
“It would be the young lady, Miss Grace, that Jenny meant?” said the Dominie; “(that’s a braw ham, Miss Marget). She was a discreet young lady, that. I mind of her bringing me out a bundle of sclate-pencil once with her, when she came to the Manse, that lasted me a month. It’s a sore trial that sclate-pencil, Miss Marget — no mortal knows how an instructor of youth is trysted, if it be not himsel; for there is aye a wee voice crying out to me every now and then, ‘Maister, I have lost my sclate-pencil,’ or ‘Maister, I have broken my sclate-pencil,’ and aye there has a new bit to be gotten. Hague on them, that I should say so! the which is one of my errands into the town this day, being the first of the New Year, to lay in a stock, for they are aye mair destructionful than common after they have had the play — the little Tories!”
“Whisht, Mr. Reuben,” said I “the poor bairns can but deserve one of the ill-names you have called them. Whigs and Tories, both, the little things scarce can be.”
“Deed can they, Miss Marget,” said the maister, “for I gie them the one cognomen, you see, in respect of a natural disposition in a bairn’s mind — videlicet — dourness! which I uphold to be Whiggery, such like as it was langsyne: no an ill quality in the main, but at no hand adapted for a bairn in a schule. And for the other form of nomenclature, it’s a thing that will stretch over all the weans, in respect that they are, every one of them, wild hempies, the very plague of a decent man’s life. I know not, but what Radical would be the best name of a’; for the class called Tories are mostly bien bodies that meddle with no man, if folk would but let them be. Ane falls out of the right meaning of such words, Miss Marget, dwelling in a lone and quiet abode like Pasturelands, and I see whiles, by an odd paper, that comes our length, that they are but little used now, in the very world itsel. But I mind when there was wark enough made about them.”
“Take another egg, Mr. Reuben,” said I, “you have had a long walk this morning.
“They tell me,” said the Dominie, doing as I bade him, “that there is to be a grand ploy this day somewhere about Burrowstonn, the winch has for its author, that discreet lad, Mr. Elphinstone, of Lilliesleaf. Ye’ll ken, Miss Marget?”
“Yes, Mr. Reuben,” said I, “Mr. Allah is going to give the folk a ploy, on the occasion of finishing some new houses. There is one which is to be a school, if he’s spared fill it’s finished, and he has got it (the roof is upon it, and the windows in already) redd up in an uncommon manner, and dressed with green things, as the fashion is, at this time of the year, in England and other foreign countries, and Set with long tables and forms; and there the poor folk of Cruive End are to have a grand dinner and dancing at night. Also there are to be What they call games in the forepart of the day; but the nature of them (seeing the ice on the water is thin and broken, and Would not suffice for the play of curling), I know not.”
“Eh, me!” cried out the Dominie, “I’ll hae to bide and see that mysel. But think ye the young Laird is no like to gang ower the tow, as his father did before him? They tell me, Miss Marget, that there’s muckle ongaun between Lilliesleaf and the Castle, and it’s weel kent that the Earl’s family, in spite of their high degree, are just living, as puir folk say, from hand to mouth. And it’s ill halting when the race is down the brae, as I tell the bairns often. It’s my hope the Laird will come to no skaith, Miss Marget, for he’s a discreet lad.”
“He is a most pleasant young man, Mr. Reuben,” said I.
“There was a party of the wild young gentry down at me the very day before the bairns got the ploy,” said the Maister. “There was my Lord himsel, the young one, and Lilliesleaf, and Leddy Julia, and a wheen mair. I was never ca’ed a proud body, Miss Marget, ye ken that, but the very spirit was moved within me, at the light laughing, jeering ways of them — before the bairns, too — and me a licentiate of the Kirk!”
“Will you return thanks, Mr. Reuben?” said I, for by that time he was done with his breakfast.
So, no long after that, the body went into the town to do his own errands, and I, as was my wont, sat down by the fireside, and took my seam, and fell into a meditation concerning the new year that was beginning, and concerning the bairns.
It might be between ten and eleven o’clock in the day, when Jenny came ben to redd up the room, and said she to me —
“It’s but a dowie New Year’s day, Miss Marget. Are ye no gaun yourself to see the ploy?”
“I know not, Jenny,” said I. “It is uncommon cold, and I see not what pleasure it would be to me, to stand outbye and look at men playing themselves. Mr. Allan should have minded that this is no a right season for the like of that.”
“But they say in the toun,” said Jenny, “at least it was that ill wean, Willy Lightfoot, tell’t me (he came up e’enow for his Hogmenay piece, that he missed yestreen, because he couldna get on his shoon for chilblains), that the ice has finned grand through the nicht, and there is to be a great curling. I think, mem, if ye hae nae particular objections, that ye suld gang — it’s heartsomer than aye hiding in the house.”
“Put on your big cloak, Jenny,” said I, “and go down yourself to the ploy. I am not oaring for going out to-day.”
“Eh, Miss Marget!” cried out Jenny, “are you no gaun up to Bourtree? nor to the Manse? nor naegate? — and it New Year Day!”
“Maybe some of the family will be down from the Manse, Jenny,” said I, “and I may go up with them: but you can go to the ploy, for all that.”
“No a fit,” said Jenny, as she went away; “ane can see bairns playing a’ the days of the year, Miss Marget, and sure am I they’re far bonnier than men. Na, na, I wad rather see the weans, Willie lightfoot and Davie Selvage, and that wee hempie, Jess Dinwuddie dance a threesome reel — and grand they can do it!”
So I was sitting quiet at my seam, and, as I have before said, meditating about the bairns, poor things, and about the new space of time that was opening before us; and taking no heed of outer noises — the like of folk, or carriages on the road — when suddenly, though I had before a kind of vision of the door opening, I heard a cry behind me, —
“A happy new year, aunt.”
And straightway the arms of the bairn Mary were about my neck, and her bit pleasant face shining over my shoulder; and before I could say a word, somebody had gotten hold of my hand on the other side. And, lo! when I looked, it was Claud, my nephew, who, according to my thought, was at that time busy with his studies in the city of Edinburgh.
“Will you not speak to me, aunt?” he said, with a laugh, for he saw I was astonished.
“Bless me, Claud, laddie,” said I, when I had recovered myself, “who would have thought of seeing you at Sunnyside the now!”
“You must mind I am in my last year now, aunt,” said Claud, “and am getting a reasonable share of freedom. And, you know, we grown up schoolboys have Christmas holidays, as well as our younger brethren, and enjoy the play to the full as well, I can assure you.”
“And look at him, aunt,” said Mary; “look at our Claud. Did not Grace say true?”
I thought there was a shade came over the face of my nephew Claud, as Mary said that, and I took hold of him, and drew him nearer the window, for it was a dull gray day, to look at him right.
“And so she did, Mary,” said I. “Wait a moment till I get on my glasses. Laddie! laddie! is this you — it’s just Claud Maitland over again.”
“And who should it be else, aunt?” said Claud, laughing, and red up to the brow with me looking at him (for in spite of the boldness that is natural to a stirring youth, he was ever a lad of a shame-faced nature). “Who could have thought you would have forgotten me so entirely in three short months, as to need such a recognition as that?”
“You were ever like your father, Claud,” said I; “but, truly, this day I can scarce think that it is not his very self. And Grace was right, Mary; Claud has the right look of a man now.”
The young man’s face flushed deep, but I could see he was far from ill-pleased, though he pretended a kind of mirthful anger.
“Grace had little to write about, I think, aunt,” he said, “when it pleased her to comment on my looks. And Grace was not wont to be complimentary on that score.”
“We are going to Cruive End, aunt,” said Mary, “to see what they are doing there: and then you are going up with us to Bourtree. I will run up stairs and get your cloak and bonnet.”
“But, Mary, bairn,” said I, “if I must go to Bourtree, I will need to put on my best black silk flowered gown.”
“We can put it in the gig, aunt,” said Mary. “I will carry it on my knee: but we have not time to wait long now,” and so she ran up the stair for my things.
“And, aunt,” said Claud to me, “where have you got these splendid spectacles?”
I saw well, by the look he had, that the pawkie callant knew full well where I had gotten my golden glasses, and just wanted in a bye way to bring in a mention of Grace, though wherefore he should not have spoken of her just at once, I know not: it is not easy always understanding the ways of bairns. So said I, —
“You may say splendid, Claud. They were a present to me from our dear bairn, Grace. But you will know better about her than we do.”
“No,” said Claud, in a quick way; “Grace never wrote to me, aunt — never except one very short note. And Mary, I find, has many letters: and she tells me you hear often. Poor Grace!”
“Ay, Claud!” said I. “Truly letters are a great comfort, but they are no like sight and speech; and you have seen Grace later than us.”
“Very unsatisfactory, the times I saw her were,” said Claud, in a sorrowful voice. “I wonder Grace stays with these people.”
“Whisht Claud,” said I, “they are her natural kin and guardians, the bairn must.”
“I don’t see that, aunt,” said Claud, hotly. “It was their choice to break these natural ties when Grace was a child. I don’t see why she must submit to their tyranny. We are her kindred.” And truly, the face of the young man Claud, my nephew, grew red again. “You have no idea how unlike her they are, aunt; but certainly I am not an unprejudiced judge — they were so very rude to me.”
“My poor bairn!” said I.
“Is that Grace, aunt?” said Mary, coming into the room, with her arms full of garments for me. “Has Claud been telling you how grave and stately Grace looks now? But for all that, do not call her poor. I was dreaming about her only last night — a grand dream!”
Claud gave a bit glint up with his eye, maybe as if he had been dreaming about Grace last night, too, but only he did not say.
“And when did you come home, Claud?” said I, when Mary, was tying on my cloak.
“Just last night, aunt,” said Claud, “when they were all sitting comfortably at the Manse fireside, without a thought of my journey through frost and wind. See how Donald snuffs the air, like a true Highlandman. Come, aunt, lest we be too late for the festivities at Cruive End.” (Donald, I should have said before, was the name of the pony.)
So we went away, the two, Claud and Mary, happing me with cloaks and plaids, so that not a breath of cold could get to me. “Sunnyside does not look as it used to look,” said Claud, as we went down the road to Cruive End.
“Wanting Grace?” said I. “Truly, Claud, it is a sore want; and Sunnyside is but a lone habitation now; but I am feared it is like to be worse before it can be better.”
Claud looked at me in an inquiring way.
“Grace is away, Claud, and so are you; and Mary, doubtless, will be going also in her season. She is not like to bide always at the Manse.”
Claud laughed.
“Oho, aunt!” he cried; “is Willie Elder’s nonsense about James Shepherd of Rures so well founded as all that? Surely not. Mary laughs at it as frankly as I do. No, no! it is not worth looking grave about.”
“Whisht, Claud,” said I; “the bairn will hear you.” Which she did not (being sitting in the little back seat, with my flowered black silk gown in a parcel on her knee), because at the moment she was leaning back to say a word to James Laidlaw and Christian his wife, who were walking upon the road. Truly, it is my fear that if she had heard, Mary would have understood me better than Claud.
It would be about twelve o’clock in the day when we got to the water-side, and the ice was throng with a band of curlers; and I will not say but what it was pleasant to see them fleeing along the frozen water, and to hear the sound of the stones, and the blythe voices in the air, for the whole town was out. And then, when the game was lost and won (I mind not whether it was Burrowstoun or Pasturelands that won it, but Jenny knows), we went on to Cruive End itself.
The new houses (the folk were not to flit into them till the next day) had fires lighted in their rooms, and forms, whereupon folk might sit and look out at the rest of the plays. At the house that was to be the school, the which stood apart from the rest, there were fine cushioned chairs about the windows, and carriages standing at the door.
All this time we had never seen Mr. Allan, at least, we had not spoken to him, seeing he was upon the other side of the water, but now he came riding up upon his gray horse with a plaid about him, and his face shining with the brisk cold air, and the pleasure he had in the sight of so many blythe-looking folk. I knew not which to say looked best for young men, him or Claud, my nephew, for you might have sought far, or you got two like them. But truly, Claud had more the look of one that had been sent into this world for a purpose, and had an honourable and weighty work upon his hands; whereas, Mr. Allan, as was dear, had yet no right road shaped out for him.
But blythe he was to meet with Claud, and in the middle of all the folk, whether we would or no, nothing would please Mr.
Allan, but he bid to ride close by the gig, giving all his converse to us — and then he wanted Mary and me to go into the schoolhouse, where the cushioned seats were round the window. We were just passing the house at the time, and when I looked up, I saw Mrs. Elphinstone and the ladies from the Castle.
Mrs. Elphinstone started when she saw me, and rose up off her seat, and held out her hand, as if she wanted me to come up, and then, when she looked again and saw Mary, she sat down in a quick way, and just gave a how.
“Stop your pony, Mr. Maitland, and let us get the ladies out,” said Mr. Allan. “Miss Mary, I assure you, you will be much more comfortable in the school, and then the dinner, my dinner, you must give me your opinion of the decorations.”
“We have no time,” said Mary, in her bit proud way, (for the bairn, I am vexed to say again, had not yet got the better of the impatient spark that was within her): “we have an engagement this evening. There is not the slightest occasion, Mr. Elphinstone — Claud will drive to the road-side and we can wait there.”
Claud looked round to me, lifting up his eyebrows in an astonished manner; nevertheless, he did the bairn’s bidding and said nothing, seeing Mr. Allan still abode at our side, and truly, I was vexed to see the nods and beckonings that came to him from the school-house window, and him never stirring from his place, but entering throng into converse with Claud, with aye a word to Mary in the byegoing, and also to me.
The games were “putting the stone,” and others of a like nature, which may be well enough for the halflin lads about a town, taking up, at their own hand on a summer night; but are but daft-like things for men of discreet and sober years that should know better. I read no long since in a paper of such like plays being exhibited in the city of London, as if they were the common and ordinary diversions of our sober and douce country. Now I know not what may be the customs of the far and wild highlands, but I know that folk in our countryside would be in no manner pleased to have it said, that it was their use and fashion to play themselves in any such bairnly way, and truly, the men at Cruive End had a look as if they thought shame of being set to play there for the pleasure of idle folk, when they should have been working at their own lawful avocation, or resting themselves at their own firesides; aye excepting the dyvours and ne’er-doweels, whose delight is in divers kinds of idleset.
But truly it is a great fault in the rich and the great of this earth to think that poor folk are like bairns, and can he pleasured in such a senseless way. No that Mr. Allan (for, to say he was brought up in a foreign country, he had wonderful right notions) had such a thought as that, but only the vain and lightheaded that were about him.
So a while after the plays began, there was a noise of horses upon the road, and down there came three or four young gentlemen, riding at a great rate, with their flunkies behind them, and causing the folk who were standing in the way, to flee hither and thither, in fear. They did not notice Mr. Allan, who was upon his horse, beside us, but just swept by, scattering the poor folk on every side, till they came to the school window, and there they abode a while, capering upon their horses, and holding some kind of gay converse with the ladies that were within.
It seemed to me that Mrs. Elphinstone had told the young Lord, (for he was one of them), where Mr. Allan was, for very soon he drew out from among the rest, and came up to us, crying out:
“Elphinstone! I say, Elphinstone!”
And Mr. Allan turned round his horse in an ill-pleased way, to speak to him, not wanting, as I thought, to let him come near to us.
“That is Lord Burrowstoun, is it not?” said Claud. “Were these girls at the window, his sisters, Mary? And who was the old lady?”
“That was Mr. Allan’s mother, Claud,” said I.
“Her son seems a fine fellow,” said Claud, “but that lordship there, is a cub, surely. I wonder if he imagined himself dispersing a riotous meeting. The old Earl, if I remember rightly, is a very different looking person.”
“The Earl is a mild man, Claud,” said I, “and no able for the sore charge of bringing up a motherless family — so the bairns, you see, have gotten the upper hand of him.”
As I said that, Lord Burrowstoun capered his horse back to the school, and Mr.
Allan, with an offended and angry look, the like of which I had never seen on his pleasant face before, turned round to us again, the which I was grieved for; for doubtless it was his duty to please his mother. So another while passed, and I was just going to mind the bairns that it was time we were away, when a servant-man came up from the school and spoke to Mr. Allan, and Mr. Allan in a stern way pointed him to me, and said his errand was to me.
So the man put his hand to his hat and said:
“Mrs. Elphinstone’s compliments, and she had sent him to see if the ladies would not come down.”
I heard Mr. Allan speaking low to Mary, when the man said that to me, and Mary pulled me by the cloak, as if she was feared for me yielding to go, and said she:
“It is time we were home already, aunt: we have delayed here too long. Claud, we can drive round by the Woodlands, and that will not disturb the people. My mother will be wearying — let us go.”
And so we did — but no till I had seen Mr. Allan give Mary a look that had a kind of strange complaint in it; and Mary turn about her head quick, with her cheeks flushed deep. I mind also looking over my shoulder, as we stopped at the Woodlands’ toll, which is just within sight of Cruive End, and there was Mr. Allan, just turning slowly from the place where we had left him, and moving his horse, canniely here and there, no to disturb the folk, but aye keeping away from the place where his mother and Lord Burrowstoun and Lady Julia was.
“Aunt,” said Claud to me, when we were driving on the Pasturelands road, “when did Mary begin to make your decisions for you.”
“I, Claud!” said Mary, “I never decide for my aunt — only, to be sure — but, aunt, I did not mean to be forward — only people cannot help—”
“What is it that people cannot help?” said Claud, laughing, though I could see he marvelled. “If I were young Lilliesleaf, I would have nothing to do with you, Mary. How rudely she spoke to him, aunt.”
“Mr. Elphinstone has nothing to do with me;” said Mary, very low. “And, it is not fair to speak to me so, Claud: I was not rude to any one.”
“Whisht, bairns!” said I; “you must gree. It would be an ill thing if you were to be together but one week of a whole winter, and to cast out in the time. But truly, Mrs. Elphinstone is a mistaken woman, and maybe this day was lifted up in her heart; and even I myself was stirred up to anger, let alone Mary, though the bairn is doubtless of an over impatient spirit; but her and me will have our own cracks about that. But, Claud, you have never told me how your cousin, William Elder, is coming on with his classes. They tell me he is a lad of talent.”
“I can testify that he is a lad of mischief,” said Claud.
And so we continued on the road to the Manse, having converse concerning the youth William Elder, who was breeding to be an advocate, and also of various other matters in a particular way connected with the family, and which stranger folk would not heed about hearing.
So we got to the Manse, and there I dressed myself in my gown, and Mary put on hers (the silk one, of the changing colour), and we went to Bourtree. There was room for her and me in the back seat of the gig, sitting close, and the minister and Mary, my sister, were before us, and Claud rode by our side upon a brown pony, that belonged to Simon Murray, the farmer, at the Blackcleugh, for Simon was ever blythe to oblige any body at the Manse, and the brown pony knew Claud as well as if he had been its master’s son.
And when we got to Bourtree, there was, just as in ordinary seasons, a blythe party of friends, old and young, mostly connected either by blood or marriage, (and both the Elders and the Blythes, though the Blythes, you may say, are no friends to me, being only connected with our family through their aunt, Mrs. Elder, of Bourtree, aye call me ‘aunt’ also, even like our own bairns), and having been acquaint all their days.
So it was a pleasant night, though doubtless I also felt like Janet Elder when she said, “Oh! aunt Margaret, how we miss Grace!”
If I am no far mistaken, there were more folk missed Grace, that night, than either her or me.