Inchbracken Part 10

_INCHBRACKEN_.

The rest of the party stumbled and groped their way slowly down the hill, Peter and Mary endeavouring to follow the voices of those in front, and shouting to them from time to time.

By and by, when they came to more level ground, another shout reached them through the gloom.

'Ah! there is your mother!' said Mary, and shouted her loudest. 'But we cannot go to them, or we will miss the guide.'

The sound of hoofs was now heard, and the crack of a gun fired as a signal, and presently a mounted figure loomed up in the mist.

'Captain Drysdale!' said Peter.

'Mr. Sangster! and a lady! Miss Brown, you had better get on my pony.

He will save you a good many stumbles.' So saying, he dismounted and lifted her on the saddle.

When people meet in the mist, and are hastening after an invisible guide, there is no time for ceremonious speeches. Mary was mounted and Kenneth leading the pony, before she had made up her mind whether she should accept his proffer or not.

'You may trust Dandy, Miss Mary; he never stumbles, and he will overtake the rest of your party sooner than you could.' But here their path ended in rock and precipice.

'We are at the bottom, climb straight down,' came up out of the abyss.

'It is not difficult, and we will wait for you.'

Peter began to descend.

'I know where we are,' said Captain Drysdale. 'If Miss Brown will trust herself to my guidance, I will bring her round these cliffs without her needing to dismount, and we, with the pony's help, will reach the inn before you, so do not be uneasy, Mr. Sangster;' and before Mary or Peter could express an opinion, the pony had turned, and they were swallowed up in the mist.

The pony broke into a jog trot, and Kenneth ran by his side. Shortly they came upon a path which zigzagged easily down hill, but tended more and more to the left. Kenneth fired again, and shortly an answering report came up from the depths below. The pony mended his pace at the answering signal, and it was not very long before they came on General Drysdale with a gillie or two and a couple of ponies.

It was the spot where he had agreed with his friends to meet for luncheon, if the mist had not put an end to their sport.

'So, Kenneth, you have found the people you heard shouting. What! a lady, and alone?' The old gentleman advanced to welcome the new arrival.

'Miss Mary Brown! To meet you here!'

'She has been to the top of the hill with Mr. Sangster, and got caught in the mist. I came on them just as they were on the point of scrambling down a precipice, and I have promised to take her round by the road to rejoin them at the inn.'

'You must be drenched by this drizzling mist, Miss Brown, and it will take you more than an hour to reach the inn by the road. You had much better accompany us to Inchbracken, where Lady Caroline will be charmed to see you made comfortable, and we will drive you home to-morrow morning. Here, Duncan! you will find a short cut over the hill. Find Mrs. Sangster at the inn, and tell her, with my compliments, I have insisted on Miss Brown's remaining at Inchbracken for the night. She is too much fatigued and wetted to make it safe for her to go farther to-night.'

Mary demurred and resisted as well as she could, but the old gentleman was somewhat autocratic, and not used to being gainsaid on his own land. Her remonstrances were over-ruled or disregarded, and she had to submit, with no great reluctance after all, for she was chilled miserably, and thoroughly wet, and the prospect of an hour's ride ending in the make-shift drying to be obtained at a wayside inn was not very alluring. Having exchanged her wet shawl for a dry plaid and a mackintosh, she found herself riding along the hill track at a brisk pace, the General on one side and Kenneth on the other, the men having orders to remain and fire their guns occasionally till Captain John and his friends should reach the rendezvous.

It was later that afternoon when Miss Julia Finlayson entered the housekeeper's room at Inchbracken. In her character of young lady, if not daughter of the house, she had taken on herself the care of its floral decoration, a matter less generally thought of thirty years ago than now, and therefore even less to be entrusted to the servants. She had made the round of the conservatories, and carried on her arm a large basket of flowers to be arranged in vases which William the footman was then bringing in. There she found the lady's maid preparing tea to carry up-stairs.

'Has Lady Caroline a headache, Mrs. Briggs? I do wish she would vary the dissipation a little. Tea before getting up!--more tea at breakfast!--tea before dressing for dinner, and tea after dinner again! Why will Dr. Pilc.o.x not intervene, and save her poor nerves?

But n.o.body ever does venture to advise rich people till it is too late. But tea after luncheon as well! I almost think I must take upon me to suggest a little Madeira, unless the headache is very severe.

'La! Miss Finlayson! The tea is for a young lady just arrived. Did you not know? She have rid up with General Drysdale and the Capting all in a t.i.tty t.i.t. And my lady, far from being poorly, is quite set up and lively about having a stranger to entertain this drizzly afternoon, and indeed, Miss, she have made us all pooty lively upstairs with so many orders. Rooms to prepare--a hot bath--tea--and all the young lady's things to be dried. For indeed she had not a dry st.i.tch to sit down in. And oh! such tears and tatters along of her having been climbing hills and precipices in the mist, and the Capting bringing her home safe and sound--for my lady says it is most remarkable. But how she is agoing to go down to dinner in that black stuff dress I confess I do not understand. Seeing as how she appears a sweet young lady indeed, and it would be a pity if she were not properly dressed, and she an old friend of the family, as I could see by my lady. Though she has not been here before in my time. But here comes Mrs. Kipper herself; no doubt she knows the young lady--'

'Hoot!' responded the housekeeper, 'it's juist auld Doctor Brown's daughter. I've kenned the la.s.sie sin' she could rin. My lady would often have her mother up from the manse, and she would be sent down here to me, and the young laird with her, to keep them out of mischief, and two bonnie bairns they were, and unco couthie; and thinks I to mysel', I'm wonderin' will my leddy ever rue the way the castle and the manse have forgathered. And I wad no say but the Captain may have a kindness for Miss Mary yet. I thought her brother, with his Free Kirk havers and his goin' clean against the master's wishes, would have peuten sic notions out of his head. But there's no tellin'. They're dour chields the Drysdales, that kenna how to let go; and if our young Captain has wance ta'en the notion, they may save their breath to cool their parritch, that would gainsay him. He'll gang his ain gate.'

Julia heard it all, while with her scissors she snipped the ends of her flower stalks, and arranged her nosegays. In her role of affability and general good nature with the household, her presence imposed no restraint on those confidential servants; in fact, it rather stimulated them to talk, and show how much at heart they had the interests of the family, and how well they understood whatever was going on. It suited her to know whatever was to be thus picked up, so long as it could be done without betraying unseemly curiosity, and she was much too wise to compromise herself by putting questions to a domestic; but this intelligence was far from welcome to her, and what was worse, Mrs. Kipper's speculations were but confirmation of her own fears.

A gentlewoman of slender means, and with no near relations, she had to make her own way in the world and effect a lodgment in it somewhere by the aid of such wits as relenting nature had bestowed, when she withheld the brute strength that is given to vulgar humanity. In fact, my poor Julia was, I fear, something of a schemer. Is it not shocking?

And yet, dear lady, if I may ask--how long would that charming candour and transparency of soul, not to speak of the high-spirited independence of character, which so delight your friends, survive, if you had to depend on the hospitality of some one, whom no social law ordained to offer it? We must all eat three times a day if possible, and those who have no money themselves must arrange that some one else who has, shall pay for the dinner, or worse will come of it.

Inchbracken had been the oyster offered by fortune to Julia, and very well she had acquitted herself in the task of opening it. Friends and every comfort she had been able to achieve thereby, with every prospect of their continuance so long as her kinswoman should survive.

But then good things of life are not enough, so soon at least as they are once secured. Man is not an oyster, whatever his remote ancestors may have been, nor woman either; and as regards ancestors, without impugning the oyster's claim, if we are to infer anything from a never-failing hereditary trait, a place should be found somewhere in the pedigree for the horseleech; all human desire, aim, aspiration, may be expressed by the one simple formula--'a little more.' With that ahead and within view, how contentedly we can struggle along, and with how little! Progress is what we need to make us happy. Julia was becoming less young each day, and she was still unwed. No suitor had appeared, but while her kinsman remained single she had still looked forward with some confidence in her own skill and good fortune. That good fortune had sent Kenneth abroad when Mary Brown appeared to be getting dangerous, and had given herself the opportunity to slide into intimate correspondence with him as a subst.i.tute for his indolent mother. Again kind fortune had intervened in removing the Browns from the scene before Kenneth's return, and in involving them in such disfavour as to remove all danger of their being invited to the house.

Then, too, she had aimed her own little shaft to aggravate the alienation by clouding his fair fame with insinuations of a disreputable scandal.

If she could but have left her ears in the housekeeper's room when she went up stairs she would have learned how successful had been her little device to make people entangle their ideas, by accepting juxtaposition for connection, and thereby mistaking, like their hostess, the _post hoc_ for the _propter hoc_. William coming for the dinner bouquets while the confidential talk was in progress, was able to contribute his quota to it by repeating the appalling facts and surmises which his friends on the moor had discussed the previous Sunday, and which, in fact, had been started by himself, though his memory had failed to record that circ.u.mstance. The lady's maid raised her eyes to the ceiling, and declared that 'she never----,' while the housekeeper was 'thankful Roderick's G.o.dly father was safe in heaven, or it would have killed him outright.' In due time all this would filter upwards to Lady Caroline's ears, and yet what would it avail to Julia? Here was Mary already in the house. A fog on the hill had been able to undo all that Fortune and herself had been able to effect in two years time, as the blundering broom of a housemaid will carry away at one sweep the cobwebs that have been weeks in spinning. Mary Brown in the house, and Kenneth at her side for a whole evening--but at least she would be true to herself, and not yield till she was defeated. Mary would be at a disadvantage in more respects than one, certainly as regards dress, and also in accomplishments and knowledge of the world. Mary on the other hand had youth, but then, as Julia told herself, youth means rawness, and 'I won't give in yet!' she added, 'I must go to her now to reconnoitre, and behave my very prettiest, and that will at least keep her upstairs till the dressing bell rings.'

So thinking, she entered Lady Caroline's sitting-room with her flowers.

'Oh, Julia! such pretty flowers! What should I do without your kind clever fingers to brighten my room for me? Have you seen the visitor my General has brought me? But of course not. She is bathing and dressing, and what not. The poor child seemed actually dripping when General Drysdale brought her in;--found her in the mist! Away up on Craig Findochart. I have handed her over to Briggs, and by and by I hope she will be able to see us. So nice to have somebody arrive this dismal afternoon. I really felt too dawny even to open the new book box from London, and as for my knitting, the st.i.tches wouldn't count somehow, and that fool Briggs went and dropped some of them in trying to put it right, and altogether the appearance of a new face has made a most pleasing variety. You remember Mary Brown, of course,--a nice little girl, and very like her poor mother. A great friend of mine her mother was--a most dear woman. I believe I miss her sadly still, sometimes. In fact, I always do miss the Browns when I see the new people that have come to the manse,--not, my dear, that I would have you imagine I could undervalue any clergyman of our national church.

Indeed, I consider it an honour to be able to contribute to its well-being in these levelling times, when if we who have a stake in the country do not support the Church, we shall have the State too tumbling in about our ears. Those dreadful levellers seem to reverence nothing, wanting to repeal the Corn Laws, and to call their dissenting meeting-places churches! and putting steeples on them, and actually ringing bells. What is to become of the British const.i.tution if every dissenting chapel is to have a steeple and call itself a church, and ring a bell? As my dear General says sometimes, I think the flood gates must be opening. If it was only the English chapels, it would be of less consequence. You know my brother Pitthevlis is an Episcopalian, and I belonged to that Church till my marriage (the Drysdales have always held to the Establishment and the Revolution Settlement), not to mention that it is the Established form across the Border; but that every little gathering of impudent seceder bodies is to hang up its kettle and deave the whole parish, whenever it wishes to say its prayers, I consider it most improper, and neither to the glory of G.o.d or man. And therefore, my dear, I would be most scrupulous in paying the clergy every attention. Still, when I asked Mrs. Snodgra.s.s and her children to come up and eat strawberries one summer's day, you may remember it, I could not but think of poor dear Mrs. Brown, and miss her sadly. I think in future I shall _send_ my strawberries to Mrs. Snodgra.s.s. I believe she would rather eat them at home, and I know _I_ shall prefer it. Then it was so convenient in Dr.

Brown's time, whenever a gentleman was required to make up the number at dinner, he would come so obligingly on the shortest notice, and be so useful in the conversation;--a most accomplished man, my dear. But this Mr. Snodgra.s.s is different, dining out does not appear to be his forte; though he is a most excellent man, and I am sure we ought to appreciate him highly. But, as I was saying, this little Mary Brown was always a favourite of mine--a nice, quiet, soft little thing, and so bright and pretty, just like one of your charming posies there, and quite a relief on a grey colourless afternoon like this. But here is Briggs to say Miss Brown is ready to receive us. Come.'

They pa.s.sed into an adjoining apartment, where, seated in an elbow chair by the fire, was Mary. She was wrapped in a large white peignoir, and her hair, gathered in a knot behind, had partly escaped from the comb, and fell in a stream of sunny brown across her shoulders.

'Mary, my dear, keep your seat, and try to get rested,' said Lady Caroline. 'Why, child, how like your mother you grow! and so pretty! I was so fond of your mother, my dear, and you remind me of her. I hope they have attended to you, and brought you whatever you want. Be sure and ask Briggs for anything that has been forgotten.'

And so she went on in a continuous monody, while the younger women listened; for, when Lady Caroline felt disposed to talk, she gave little heed to what was said by any one else, but followed the tangled thread of her own ideas, never doubting but they must be as interesting to persons of lower degree, as she found them herself. An Earl's daughter, and of a historical house, she deemed nothing so reverent as its traditional glories, and insisted with gracious pertinacity on the full measure of deference according thereto; and there is little doubt that when in after years she was duly gathered to her n.o.ble fathers, it would not have been the 'Law and the Testimony,' but the tables of precedence that would have been found graven on her heart. In one house at the other end of the county she had been led out to dinner behind the daughter of a more recent creation, but she had never crossed that threshold since, nor were the offenders ever again permitted to share in the festivities of Inchbracken.

'Well, girls, here comes Briggs with my tea, so I shall leave you to your own chit-chat; it will be half-an-hour yet before the dressing-bell rings.'

Julia drew her seat nearer to the fire, and spread her hands to the cheerful blaze: like the cats, she loved warmth.

'It seems long since we have met, Miss Brown. One never sees you in this neighbourhood now, though you are still so near. Pray, how do you like your new way of life? I heard a gentleman say, not long ago, that as it was on spiritual grounds you left Kilrundle, you would no doubt feel you were advancing, and becoming more like the spirits, in so far at least as being able to live in several houses at once goes. From what we hear, you live all over the village at Glen Effick,--a sort of ubiquity, in short. But perhaps 'living' is too gross a name for that sort of thing; 'pervade' has a more spiritual sound, only it does not suggest much in the way either of bed or dinner. Do you like it?'

Mary raised her eyes enquiringly to the other's face. Did she mean to be impertinent? And why?

'A woman lives with her natural protector, Miss Finlayson. Wherever my brother fixes his home, if he chooses to share it with me, of course I shall like it.'

Julia's eyelids winced. She had a rheumatic old aunt who lived in a sea-side village all the winter with a solitary maid, and who was wont to disappear in spring, when some family from an inland town would rent her cottage for the summer. With this ancient relative, Julia had been thankful to take up her abode when the demise of her parents left her homeless, and her own small income, added to that of the old lady, had made a better provision for both. Circ.u.mstances had changed since then. When Lady Caroline found she wanted a companion, Julia recognised the greater congeniality of a wealthy household. The old aunt might talk of ingrat.i.tude, but she was quietly dropped, and Lady Caroline enthroned in her 'heart' as nearest of kin. Julia's conscience, however, was not a troublesome organ, and Mary could have meant no retaliating shot, since she had never heard of the aunt; so she continued as though Mary had not spoken.

'And now you have extended your pervading presence to Craig Findochart! What a strange choice! You do not expect to do good to souls up there, do you?'

'Oh, Miss Finlayson, pray don't! I never was clever at understanding drolleries, and it pains me to hear sacred things lightly mentioned.

But if you want to know how I came there, it is simple enough. Mr.

Sangster has her son and another gentleman on a visit, and I have been staying there for a few days. We made a party to Findochart to show the stranger the view, the mist came down when we were on the top of the hill, we lost our way and were all scattered, General Drysdale found me and kindly insisted on bringing me here. It seems all natural enough when you come to know it, does it not?'

'Quite natural, dear, and very nice. Pray, forgive my poor, poor little joke. You remember my foolish fondness for being lively, or trying, at least; for it is not easily done in the lonely country life we lead here. Oh, why will Lady Caroline not improve her health by an autumn at Baden Baden? Pray now, tell me the news, since you are staying at a house full of visitors. Young Sangster is home, is he?

Home for the holidays, one might say, for he is duller than many a schoolboy. But his friend. Tell me about _him_--what is he like! Rich, I suppose, or mamma would not endanger Miss Sophia's peace of mind by his presence. He will be eligible from an Auchlippie point of view, and if that is not a very ornamental one, at least it is pretty solid.

Old MacSiccar, the writer, dined with the General last week, and he spoke of old Sangster as one of the warmest men hereabouts. So, my dear, you might do worse than go in for gaukie Peter. I half meditate a descent myself, only it would be a long run over a very heavy country, as a Leicestershire friend of mine phrases it. But tell me about the friend. Is he nice? The two shot with Captain John yesterday over Whauprigg moor, and they were expected for dinner, but there was some mistake about dressing bags, so we ladies never saw them. Cousin Kenneth says they are horrid cads both, but then his regiment are a parcel of supercilious puppies, so we need not mind that. What is the friend's name?'

'Wallowby.'

'Don't like the sound of it. Is he moderately nice? and is he rich?'

'They say he is very rich indeed, and has more in expectation from a bachelor uncle--a mill owner.'