THE TIME THAT had passed so peacefully over Margaret, bringing so many new experiences, new scenes, and enlarged acquaintance with her own circumstances and advantages, had not gone with equal satisfaction over Rob Glen. Margaret’s pledge to him — that pledge which she had given so easily, and which his mother prized so deeply — had been nothing but painful and shameful to him. Conscience has curious varieties in different persons, even in persons so nearly related as mother and son. Rob felt no sting in his moral consciousness from the fact that he had led Margaret to commit herself in her moment of trouble, and had taken advantage of the very abandonment of her grief to assume the position of a lover, the mere fact of which gave him a hold over her which nothing else could have given. To do him justice, he would have taken the same position with any comely poor girl whom he had encountered in equal distress; but the poor lass would probably have thought little of it, whereas to Margaret’s more delicate nature there was all the reality of an unbreakable bond in the embrace and kiss with which he had taken possession of her, before she was aware. But Rob felt no trouble in his conscience in this respect. It did not occur to him that he had surprised her, and taken advantage of her sorrow and loneliness and bewilderment; but in respect to the pledge which his mother had with so little trouble got from her, his conscience did speak. Margaret, it was true, had thought nothing of it; she had felt that all was done already, that her fate was fixed and irrevocable, that she could not go back — and what did her name on a piece of paper signify? But here was where Rob’s honor, such as it was, came in; he hated that piece of paper. He was deeply mortified by Margaret’s readiness to consent to everything so long as she could get free from his mother and himself. The written bond seemed to put him in a false position, to lessen him in his own eyes. He would have nothing to say to it.
“Keep it yourself, if you like it, now that you have got it — it is none of my doing,” he had said, throwing it from him. Mrs. Glen secured it with a cry of dismay, as it was fluttering toward the fire.
“Ay, I’ll keep it,” she said; “and ye’ll be fain some day to come questing to me for your bit o’ paper, as ye call it, that you never would have had if your mother had been as thoughtless as yoursel’.”
“Mother!” he said, furious, “do you think I would hold a girl to her written promise, if she did not want to keep her word?”
“I canna say what you would do,” said Mrs. Glen; “you’re just a great gomerel, that’s what you are. Ye have mair confidence in her being in love with ye, a lang leggit ne’er-do-weel, than in onything that’s reasonable: but, Robbie, my man, love comes and love goes. You’re no bad-looking, and you have the gift of the gab, which goes a lang way — and maybe she’ll stick to ye, as you think, against a’ her friends can say; but for me, I’ve aye a great confidence in what’s put down in black and white, and I wouldna say but you would be fain to come to me for my bit o’ paper, for a’ so muckle as you despise it now.”
“Never will I build my faith on such a foundation — never will I hold Margaret to her bond!” cried Rob; but his mother locked the precious bit of paper in the old secretary which stood in the parlor, with a cynical disregard to his protestations.
“It’s there in the left-hand drawer, if anything should happen to me; if you should ever want it, you’ll ken where to find it,” she said.
And several weeks went on without any impatience on the part of either in respect to Margaret; even the conversation which Rob had with the new Sir Ludovic, who summoned him curtly to give up all idea of his sister, had rather encouraged than depressed him; for it was evident that Margaret had showed no signs of yielding, and her brother was not even her guardian, and had no power whatever over her. When he thus ascertained from Sir Ludovic’s inadvertent admission that Margaret had remained steadfast, Rob had metaphorically snapped his fingers at the Baronet. He had been perfectly civil, but he had given Sir Ludovic to understand that he cared little enough for his disapprobation. “If I was in your position I should no doubt feel the same,” he had said with fierce candor; “I should think that Margaret was about to throw herself away; but she does not think so, which is the great matter.”
“She will think so when she comes to her senses — when she is fit to form an opinion,” Sir Ludovic cried; and Rob had smilingly assured him that he was contented to wait and put this to the proof. But after that interview, when Earl’s-hall was dismantled and left vacant, and everything belonging to the Leslies seemed about to disappear, and not a word came out of the distance in which Margaret was, both Rob and his mother began to be uneasy. Rob had not calculated upon any correspondence; but yet he had felt that somehow or other she would manage to communicate with him, and to find some means by which he could communicate with her. Girls of Margaret’s condition do not submit to entire separation as those of Jeanie’s do; and when day after day passed, and week after week, it was natural that he should become uneasy. Nor was the anxiety which he felt as a lover unshared by the cooler spectator. Mrs. Glen began to ply him with questions, anxious, fretful, scornful, derisive.
“Ony word to-day, Rob?” she would say; “I saw you gang out to meet the lassie with the post.” “Dear, dear, Rob, I hope our bonnie young lady may be well!” would be the burden of the next inquiry — and then came sharper utterances: “Lord! if I was a lad like you, I wouldna stick there waiting and waiting, but I would ken the reason.” “Do you think that’s the way to court a lass, even if she be a lady? I would give her no peace if it were me; I would let her see that I wasna the one to play fast and loose with.” These repeated assaults were followed by practical consequences quite as disagreeable. Instead of the indulgence with which he had been for some time treated, the tacit consent given to his do-nothingness, the patience of his mother, though it went sorely against the grain, with an existence which produced no profit and was of no use — he began to be once more the object of those bitter criticisms and flying insults which she knew so well how to make use of, to the exasperation of the compelled listener. “What it is to be a man and a good scholar!” she would say. “I couldna sit hand-idle, looking at other folk working — no! if it were to save my life. Eh, ay, there’s a wonderful difference atween them that are born to earn their living, and them that are content to live on their friends. I hope the time will never come when that will be my lot. But no one of a’ my friends would help me, that’s one thing, certain, though there are some that have aye the luck to get somebody to toil and moil, while they live pleasantly and gang lightly. It is the way of the world.”
Another time she would burst out with all the fervor of roused temper. “Lord, man, how can ye sit there and see every creature in the house working but yoursel’? I would sooner weed the turnips or frichten the craws — but you’re of less use than a bairn of three years auld.”
Rob steeled himself as best he could against these blighting words. He would stroll forth whistling by way of defiance and be absent the whole day, absent at meal-times when his mother exacted punctuality, and late of returning at night. It was a struggle of constant exasperation between them. He had no money and no means of getting any, or he would gladly have left the farm, where there was no longer even anything to amuse him, anything to give him the semblance of a pursuit. To be sure, he worked languidly at his drawings still, and resumed the interrupted sketch of Earl’s-hall which had occupied so important a place in his recent history.
To have before you the hope of being rich in three years, of being able to enter another sphere and cast away from you all those vulgar necessities of work which fill the lives of most people — to have ease before you, happiness, social elevation, but only on the other side of that long chasm of time, which for the moment you can see no way of getting through — it is impossible to imagine a more tantalizing position. Say that it is utterly mean and miserable of any man to fix his entire hopes upon an elevation procured in such a way; but Rob was not conscious of this. A rich wife, who was also pretty and young, seemed to him a most satisfactory way of making a fortune. Had she been old and ugly the case would have been different; but he had no more hesitation about enriching himself by means of Margaret, than he had felt in securing Margaret to himself in the incaution and prostration of her grief. His conscience and his honor had in these particulars nothing to say. But as day after day went on and he received nothing from Margaret to prove his power over her, no stolen letter, no secret assurance of her love and faithfulness, Rob’s mind became more and more uneasy, and his thoughts more and more anxious. She was the sheet-anchor of his safety, without which he must return into a chaos all the more dark that it had been irradiated by such a hope.
And this suspense, while it made his position at home more and more uncomfortable every day, did not improve his mental condition, as may be easily supposed. He had entertained plans, before he had perceived how easily he might step upward by aid of Margaret’s hand, of seeking his fortune in London, and either by means of pen or pencil, or both together, making out some kind of future for himself. But why should he take this trouble, and expose himself to the rich man’s contumely, etc., when, by-and-by, he might himself appear among the best (as his ignorant fancy suggested), a patron of art instead of a feeble professor of it — a fine amateur, with all the condescension toward artists which it is in the power of the wealthy to show? This was an ignoble thought, and he was partially conscious that it was so; but there was a latent love of indolence in him which is always fostered by such prospects of undeserved and unearned aggrandizement as now flaunted before his eyes. Why should he work laboriously to gain a little advancement for himself, when by mere patience and waiting he might reach to such advancement as the most Herculean work of his could not bring him to? And the suspense in which he was worked upon his mind and led him on in this evil path. He could do nothing till he had heard from her; and she would write, she must write, any day.
These motives altogether, and the want of money to do anything for himself, and even the reproaches of his mother, who denounced him for eating the bread of idleness without affording him any means to attempt a better existence — which latter acted by hardening his heart and making him feel a defiant satisfaction in thwarting her — all drove him deeper and deeper into the slipshod habits of an unoccupied life. He got up late, happy to escape a tête-à-tête breakfast with his mother, and her sneers and reproaches, at the cost of Jenny’s integrity, who smuggled him in a much better breakfast than his mother’s while the mistress was busy about her dairy or in her poultry-yard; he dawdled over his sketches, doing a little dilettante work as pleased him; then he would stroll out and perhaps walk across the country to some other farm-house, where he was sure of a hospitable invitation to share the family dinner, and an excellent reception from the mother and daughters, to whom it was no trouble to make himself agreeable; or he would go to the Manse, and resume the often interrupted discussion about his “difficulties” with Dr. Burnside, who was anxious to be “of use” to Rob, and to be instrumental, as he said, in bringing him back to the right way.
These discussions amused both parties greatly — the Minister, as affording him a means of bringing forth from their ancient armory those polemical weapons in which every man who has ever attempted to wield them, takes a secret pride — and the young sceptic, by reason of the delightful sense of superiority with which he felt able to see through his adversary’s weakness, and sense of power in being able to crush him when he wished to do so. Often these controversies, too, which were continually renewed and never-ending, got Rob a dinner, and saved him from the domestic horrors of the farm. And by-and-by there happened another accident which threw him still more into the way of mischief, as happens so often to those who dally with temptation. He had made his peace with Jeanie on that melancholy night after Margaret’s departure. She had been angry; but she had been persuaded to hear his story — to understand him, to see how it was that he had been “drawn into” the present circumstances of his life — and finally to be sorry for him who had gone astray because unaware that she was near, and because of poor little Margaret’s need of comfort and solace.
Did not Jeanie know how he could console a poor girl in trouble with that tongue of his, that would wile a bird from a tree? She had forgiven him, and they had parted in melancholy kindness, recognizing that fate, not any fault of theirs, had separated them. When the household at Earl’s-hall was broken up, Jeanie had returned to her father; and not long after she had, as was most natural, encountered Rob in a lonely lane, where she was taking a melancholy evening walk. What could be more natural? She could not sit and talk with the wives at their doors, when the soft autumn twilight, so full of wistful suggestion, dropped softly over the “laigh toun.” Jeanie was too much in the midst of her own life, too much absorbed by the dramatic uncertainties of fate, to be capable of that tranquil amusement. There were not many people in the Kirkton who cared for the exercise of a walk. The men might stray out a hundred yards beyond the village, on one side or the other, with their evening pipe, but the women kept at “the doors;” they had enough of exercise in the care of their families and in “redding up the hoose.”
Thus Jeanie, even if she had wanted a companion, would have been unlikely to find one; and indeed it was much more to her mind to stray forth alone, very melancholy, with her head full of Rob, and all her old anger and indignation softened into indulgence and pity. He was made like that, could he help it? He could not see trouble anywhere without doing what he could to console the sufferer. Jeanie knew this well — and how tender a comforter he was. And poor Miss Margaret was so young and so bonnie, and in such sore trouble; and oh, it was easy to see, Jeanie thought to herself, how soft her heart was to him! No wonder; he would wile a bird from the tree. They met while she was in this softened mood; and Rob was one who never neglected the good the gods provided of this sort. He in his turn had recourse to Jeanie for consolation, throwing himself upon that feminine mercy and sympathy which never had yet failed him. And Jeanie cried, and was dismally flattered by his confidence in the midst of her suffering, and told him all she had heard from Bell about Margaret’s movements, and forgot herself, poor girl, in the intensity of fellow-feeling and understanding.
Next time they met it was not by accident; and Rob, while growing more and more anxious about the new love, which meant more than happiness to him, which meant likewise fortune and an altogether elevated and loftier life, took the comfort of the old love which was thus thrown in his way, and found life much more tolerable from the fact that he could talk over his distresses with Jeanie. He could confide to her his mother’s taunts, and the hardness of his life at home, till Jeanie almost felt that to see him married to Margaret would be an advantage to herself, though she cried over it bitterly enough when she was alone. But what did she matter, after all, a poor lass? Jeanie thought she could put up with anything to see him happy.
“A bonnie end your drawing and your painting and a’ your idleness is coming to,” said Mrs. Glen, one November morning, while Rob obscured all the light in the little parlor window, putting the last touches to that drawing of Earl’s-hall. “A bonnie way of spending your life. Eh, man! I would sooner sweep the house, or clean the rooms! What is the good o’ a’ this fyking and splairging? and what is to be the end of your bonnie miss that a’ this idle work was to win? I’ll warrant she thinks she’s gotten clear off, and got a’ she wanted, and no need to do a hand’s turn for you, in recompense of a’ that you have thrown away upon her.”
“You have a very poor opinion of Margaret,” he said, “if you think so little of her. You can scarcely want her for a daughter-in-law.”
“Me!” said Mrs. Glen; “am I wanting her? I hope I have mair sense than to put my trust in daughters-in-law. ‘A gude green turf’s a fine gude mither,’ that’s a’ the most of them are thinking. Na! she might gang to — Jerusalem for me, if it wasna that her siller is the only way I can think of to get you bread, ye weirdless lad. When you have no mother to keep a roof over your head, what is to become of you? The Lord be thanked there’s no a weirdless one in my family but yoursel’. Do I want the lass or her siller — no me! But I’m real glad I’ve got yon bond over her, for you and no for me.”
He frowned as he always did at the mention of this. “I am going to pack up this drawing and send it to Miss Leslie,” he said.
“The picter! in a present!” Mrs. Glen stood for a moment taken by surprise, and a little bewildered by the suddenness of the suggestion. “I’m no that sure but what it’s a good notion,” she said, slowly; “them that dinna ken might say it was throwing good money after bad; but I’m no that sure. In a present? What might you get for that now if you were to sell it? for there’s plenty folk, I hear, that are fuilish enough to give good solid siller for a wheen scarts upon paper.” She had the most exalted idea of her son’s skill, and secretly admired his work with enthusiasm — with all the naïve appreciation of a “picture” which is natural to the uninstructed but not dull understanding — though she would not have betrayed her admiration for the world.
“What might I get for it?” said Rob, looking critically yet complacently, with his head a little upon one side, at the finished drawing. “Well — if I were known, if I had got a connection among the picture-dealers, perhaps — let us say twenty pounds.”
“Twenty pound!” (she drew a long breath of awe and wonder); “and you’ll go and give that light-headed lassie, in a present, a thing that might bring you in twenty pound!”
Rob did not explain that the bringing in of twenty pounds was an extremely problematical event. He got up with a little thrill of excitement and easy superficial feeling. “I would give her,” he said, “just to hear from her — just to have her back again — just to have her hand in mine — I would give her everything I have in the world!”
“Ay, ay, my bonnie man,” said his mother, impressed for the moment by this little flourish of trumpets. But she added, “And it would not be that hard to do it, if she’ll only return you back your compliment, Rob, and do as muckle for you!”
This was how the sending of the picture “in a present” was decided upon, as a touching, if dumb appeal, to Margaret’s recollection — not to say as “laying her under an obligation,” which it would be necessary to take some notice of; for both mother and son fully appreciated this side of the question, which also forced itself at once upon Mrs. Bellingham’s practical and sensible eyes. Mrs. Glen, for her part, entertained a secret hope that Margaret would have sense enough to see the necessity of giving not only thanks and renewed affection, but perhaps something else “in a present,” which would make a not inadequate balance to Rob’s gift. This was how things were managed by all reasonable people, that neither side might be “under an obligation” of too serious a character. But she was wise enough to say nothing of this to her son, though it is just possible that the thought may have glanced across his mind too. And about the letter which he sent immediately afterward, through Bell, and which produced such results for Margaret, Rob, on his side, said nothing at all.