Inchbracken Part 20

frae the auld wife's door, lang efter dark; an' the verra next day, doon she comes to me for tea an' sneeshin' an' sic like trokes as a puir body can do wantin' weel eneugh, an' pays a' wi' a pund note o'

the Peterhead Bank. There's nae mis...o...b..in' whaur that siller cam frae! An' folk dinna gie notes to puir bodies for naething.'

'Folk differ in that as in other things, Peter,' retorted the laird with a shrug. 'Some wad gie a bodle gin they had ane, an' when they haena they gie a bawbee. An' mony's the b.u.t.ton I hae fand in the kirk collections in my time! But I can't see that therefore we must attribute Mr. Brown's liberality to an evil motive. He preaches liberal giving, you know, and he practises what he preaches. Perhaps we might all take a lesson from him and increase our charities without going beyond our duty.'

'Hech!' sighed a voice in the corner, 'it's no the amount! It's the speerit it's dune in; an' that's a grand truith, an' a comfortin'. It was the Widdie's twa mites 'at gat a' the praise!'

'Yes!' retorted the Laird with a chuckle, 'but they were all her living! The chield that put the b.u.t.ton in the plate gets little countenance there! But, to return to the rumours; there would have to be some more conclusive evidence before any step could be taken in the matter. As I have said before, I believe the whole thing is just idle talk, and I will be no party to insulting Mr. Brown by even bringing such an insinuation under his notice. This parish and the whole church owe him grat.i.tude for his zealous and self-denying labours. I regard the whole tenor of his life among us as ample refutation of any unsubstantiated report that can be circulated to his disparagement; and I wonder that any office-bearer of this church, after all the intercourse we have been privileged to have with him, can think otherwise. I think it is the duty of all here present, to put down this tattling of idle tongues; and if we cannot stop, at least we should not heed them, and by-and-by they will cease to wag of themselves.'

'It's braw crackin' about tatlin' tongues,' said Peter Malloch, 'but wadna we be giein' the enemy grund to blaspheme? an' that's clean contrar' to Scripter. A bonny tale the reseeduaries wad mak o't a', gin it cam to their lugs! They're aye sayin', as it is, 'at the unco gude (an' that means hiz) are nae better nor ither folk, but a hantle waur. An' as for Mester Brown an' his giein', there's mair ways o'

doin' gude nor juist giein siller to f.e.c.kless bodies 'at canna help themsels. What for canna hie gie a help to the honest hard workin'

folk 'at's fechtin' their best to gar baith ends meet, an' support the lawfu' tred o' his ain glen? "Claw me an' I'se claw ye," is gude plen Scotch. Gin folk peys their pennies intil the Sustentation Fund reglar, it's gey an yerksom to see the minister's family gae by the door, an' dale wi' outsiders. It'll be a week come the morn 'at the carrier frae Inverlyon brocht them a muckle creel fu' o' groceries.

What wad come to the tred o' the glen gin a' body dealt that gate?'

'Hoot, Peter,' snorted the Laird, 'the sand in yer sugar's been ower grit! I'm thinkin' I heard tell o' a sma' chuckie stane in Miss Brown's tea-cup. Folk are na juist hens, ye see, an' dinna find sic provender halesome.'

Something like a sn.i.g.g.e.r followed the Laird's sally. No one else present being a 'merchant' of eatables, the joke was greatly relished.

It is always pleasant to see a neighbour suffer, because it gives point and relish to one's own immunity. It is a form of childish sensuality that survives the relish for lollipops, but it is perhaps most openly indulged in during the lollipop period. Whispering and restlessness become hushed all over the school-room when a whipping is going forward. Each child settles in its seat to watch the performance, all eyes and interest; the sharper the whish of the cane and the louder the wail of the victim, the more pleasurable and keen the interest of each spectator, for the better he realizes the ease and comfort of his own little skin.

Peter flushed. The laird was a privileged man, who might take his joke as he pleased, but no prescriptive immunity sheltered the rest.

'I see naething to nicker at, Ebenezer Prittie! Gin onything fell amang my sugar I ken naething about it ava, as I'll explain to Miss Brown; but I see na hoo yer ain ellwand can be an inch shorter nor ither folks, an' ye no ken o't.'

'I daur ye to say that again, ye ill-faured leein' rascal! Gin it war na for my G.o.dly walk and conversation, as a Christian man an' an Elder, I'd lay the ellwand about yer c.r.a.ppet lugs!'

Here there was a general intervention between the two angry men, and the laird expressed his regret at having used any expression that could disturb the harmony of the meeting, but they knew his weakness for a joke; and as everything seemed to have been said on the subject they had met to consider, and as it was getting late, he would now wish them all good-night.

'I see na that a' has been said,' observed Ebenezer, so soon as the Laird was beyond hearing, 'or that ony thing has been said ava that's ony gude. Are we to let the hale thing drap, an' mak fules o' oursel's afore the hale glen, just to pleasure Auchlippie? I trow no!'

'An' what wad ye be for doin' then?' asked one.

'I'll tell ye what we suld do,' suggested another. 'Isna Mester Dowlas comin' to haud the meetin,' an' lay the fundation o' the new Kirk? An'

what for suldna we ca' him to adveese wi' us what ocht to be dune? I'm thinkin' he's as weel able as Auchlippie to direc' folk, an' we needna be feared to anger _him_, he's no a laird.'

'Aweel!' said Ebenezer, who had now mounted on the top of the tall stool, and was benevolently regarding the meeting from his self-appointed station as chairman. 'Ye'll better juist muive that, Andra Semple, an' as I'm e'y chair I'll put yer motion to the meetin'.

An' syne _ye_ can muive an adjournment, Elluck Lamont, an' we'll adjourn to Thursday efternoon, whan the kirk skells. An' sae we'll be a' in order ('let a'thing be dune decently an' in order,' says the Apostle) till we get Mester Dowlas to set us richt.'

Thus the meeting had but small direct result. Its effect indirectly, however, was considerable. When, early that evening, the members had stolen down the lane near the minister's cottage, to intercept each other and feel circuitously towards the point of interest, each would have been ashamed, first and unsupported, to repeat aloud the rumours that had reached him. When he had heard them in the first instance, usually from his wife--it is the gentle s.e.x usually which originates or introduces such tales, probably because it has no head to break, which is to say, that its corporal immunities in a civilized land enable it to say unpunished what would bring down on the male tattler both brawls and broken bones,--he had at first declared it was impossible, and then that it was unlikely; and even when, after dwelling on it in his mind, the love of a sensation made him half think half hope there might be something in it, he would hesitate to allude to it save by a whisper and a shake of the head, and would caution his wife not to repeat it, or let herself appear as one who was giving it currency. When, however, the matter had been talked over, audible speech exercised its usual defining and contracting influence. The mysterious and appalling, as well as the doubtful element, became vulgarised as well as realized. Without any additional evidence, yet in the company of so many others who all believed, each felt it due to his own character for clear-sightedness and high moral tone to dismiss every remnant of doubt, and to be eager for the exposure and punishment of the offender. Afterwards, in the presence of the accused himself, their certainty had begun a little to waver.

The many pieties and goodnesses a.s.sociated with him in their memories, were too discordant with this new and vulgar suspicion, and probably had they met him each alone, they would have dismissed the accusation from their minds; but each sat under the scrutinizing eyes of his twelve or thirteen fellows. They were the eyes into which he had looked, a little while ago, when he had made up his mind that the rumours were well founded; and as he felt their glance on him now, it was like a voice urging steadfastness and consistency with what he had been saying so shortly before. Those persons looking at him had heard him say that he believed everything; how, then, could he, while still under their eye, turn round and dismiss his suspicions without any new fact or argument to account for the change? Nevertheless, the zeal of the old Hebrew prophets, which some of them had felt stirring in their veins and urging them to lift a testimony and denounce the sinner in the midst of his ways, had cooled and oozed away as they sat round the sickbed; each looked expectantly to the others, but felt he could not undertake the work himself. It was a relief to all of them to leave the sick-room, and when they re-a.s.sembled at the Post Office, they felt more strongly built up in their suspicions than ever. If anything could have bound them more firmly to their position, it was Mr.

Sangster's scant respect for the conclusion at which they had arrived.

They were willing to admit his superiority both in position and education, and probably any one of them would have deferred to him if alone; but the st.u.r.dy democratic or Presbyterian element in them objected to so many yielding to the one who wore a better coat and had learned Latin; and when in the end he tried to dismiss the meeting, after pooh-poohing its object as absurd, they felt bound to a.s.sert themselves by boldly and openly taking the other course.

All reserve, therefore, was dropped. Each had all the others to bear him out in whatever he said; and that night he openly discussed the supposed facts with his wife while she prepared his supper.

The next morning the 'stoups' stood empty at the well, and heaps of wet linen lay neglected and unspread down on the 'loaning,' while their owners in garrulous knots discussed the minister's misdoings, and Peter Malloch sold more little parcels of tea and snuff than he had ever done in one day before, so many of the gudewives desired to get his version with full particulars.

CHAPTER XXIII.

_MOTHER AND DAUGHTER_.

Sophia looked from behind her window-blind as Mr. Wallowby drove away to make his visit at Inchbracken.

'A fine looking man!' observed her mother, who stood behind her. 'This cold of yours is very disappointing, Sophia, confining you to your room. I was in hopes you and he would have become quite intimate by this time. He seems a very superior person, and would have been an improving companion for you. Your cold appears to be better to-day.

Put on your blue silk, and let him find you in the drawing room on his return. You owe to your brother, my dear, that his friend should find things as comfortable and pleasant here as among our neighbours.'

'Certainly, mamma, if you say so. But I don't think it will signify much to Mr. Wallowby. He does not mind me in the least, and I find it uphill work trying to make manners to him. Even Mary Brown, who has so much to say, thinks him a tiresome man.'

'She did not appear to think so when she was in his company, laughing and singing and carrying on! I was disappointed to see her father's daughter manifest so much levity of character. I fear it is a family trait.'

'Mamma!'

'Yes, Sophia! I mean what I say; young girls should be seen, but not heard. That was the rule in _my_ young days. She took the whole entertainment of the stranger off your hands, as if she had been in her own house; forward, I thought her, in fact; and I don't think your brother Peter thought any the more of her for it.'

'Oh, mamma! it was Peter who made her talk! A girl must answer when she is spoken to; and she must laugh too, when people are trying to amuse her, however poor the joke may be. And it was Peter who persuaded her to sing when she would rather not. I know, for she told me so!'

'H'm! I fear she is a sly monkey that Mary Brown--for all her artless ways! I wish you had some of her worldly wisdom, added to the high principles I have been at such pains to instil into your mind. I am sure you will never be a flirt; but a young woman must be settled in life unless she is to be an old maid and a failure; and how is an eligible young man to know what treasures of good sense and right principle there may be in her, if she will not open her mouth to him, or hides away in her own room? I call it a waste of precious opportunity! Remember the fate of the man who hid his talent in a napkin, and be warned in time!'

'But, mamma, you have always told me, and I am sure it is so, that marriages are ordained by a higher power, and that the appointed man will certainly find you out, even if he has to come down the chimney to reach you.'

'Quite true, my dear, in a sense! but we don't want the sweeps at Auchlippie at this time of year. And there can be no more proper place for a gentlewoman to meet a young man than her mother's drawing-room; so put on your blue silk and bring your worsted work down stairs as soon as you are ready. I shall send Betsy to your a.s.sistance;' and, with a rather scornful shrug, the old lady left the room.

'I believe,' she muttered to herself as she descended the stairs, 'that girl's a gowk! It's the Sangster blood in her, I suppose--a dull, literal-minded lot!--soft and sober! To think that a daughter of mine should need to be spoken to, as I have just been speaking to her!

We were all more gleg than that on _my_ side of the house. I don't know whether to be more ashamed of being mother to sic a daw; or for the things I have been driven to say to her! They don't sound like the walk and conversation of a Christian woman! and yet the best of us are but flesh and blood. We must all eat and drink, wear clothes, live in houses, and, when we can, ride in coaches, marry and give in marriage, just like the people before the flood, though they were so bad; and we must strive our best to provide for our families unless we would deny the faith and be worse than infidels. Ah! there is Scripture for it!

So glad I remembered that text! It saves one from feeling base and scheming. But one ought not to be driven to put doubtful sentiments into words. One should be helped out with them. 'Bear ye one another's burdens.' That seems an apt quotation and appropriate, if it had only come into Sophia's mind! But there's no use looking for that from _her_. She's a glaikit tawpie. Ah me! the trials of a discreet and conscientious mother are not light! I hope I may have strength to bear them.' And so, with a sigh, she went about her affairs. The texts had evangelicalized (if not evangelized) the mercenary schemes, and she was again rehabilitated in her own eyes as a righteous person.

Sophia stood brushing out her hair and musing on her mother's precepts, as a dutiful daughter should. She had never before heard marrying discussed in this bare, hard fashion. Was she a Circa.s.sian slave at Constantinople, to be tricked out and submitted to the inspection of the rich man in this fashion? Once before, some few words had been said to her in a more guarded way, but, as she now perceived in the same spirit, when the coming of her brother and his friend had been first spoken of; but at that time they had been less heeded, or she had understood them less, and they had not then shocked her. Love and marriage were subjects which up to that time had only been mentioned in her hearing as something vague, mysterious and holy, which it did not become her to pry into. As for personal love experiences, she had none; and the subject of maidenly fancies had generally been referred to by her hard and practical mother with scorn and derision.

Roderick's letter to her had therefore fallen on her unprepared mind as a revelation. All the two previous days her thoughts had been repeating over and over his earnest words. How deeply he must have felt before he could so have expressed his anxiety! And she? What answer should she make? All the long years of their intercourse pa.s.sed through her memory, and incidents disregarded at the time and forgotten, came back now to her recollection with a new meaning and a new force. Their long talks, in which he had spoken so much and she so little, began now to take a new aspect in her mind. She must have been encouraging him though she did not know it; and what was more, if she had to enact those scenes over again, with the new enlightenment in her eyes, she felt that she would encourage him none the less, but rather the more. To have excited such emotion in one so clever and good, was an achievement of which she felt proud, in a wondering and enquiring way, for she could not imagine how she had done it; but the thought of his love for her grew more and more sweet and engrossing, and she began to suspect that down deep somewhere in her nature where she had never looked or known of before, she was fond of him in return.

And yet, she had not answered the letter. What would he think of her?

Since her mother had called her unmaidenly, she had not ventured to return to the subject in case of another explosion. But now that she had in cold blood set a matrimonial scheme before her, and deliberately incited her to endeavour to win the regard of a man for whom she felt no attraction whatever, simply because he was rich, she felt strong enough to broach the question again. Whatever her mother said she would answer his letter somehow, and more than that, should her mother propose another suitor, she would have nothing to say to him till she had come to an understanding with Roderick.

Having donned the blue silk, Sophia descended to the drawing-room, work-basket in hand. The room was empty, which was disappointing, as she had strung herself up to concert pitch She settled herself to work and waited. The monotonous motion of the needle and thread had a calming influence on her nerves; but as they grew less tense she began to feel less confidence in her own courage, and to wish her meditated conversation well over. Visitors came in, which afforded her a further respite, and in her disturbed state supplied a vent for some of her suppressed energy. She had never before, perhaps, shown so much animation and vivacity in general conversation. It surprised her mother and quite rehabilitated her in the good opinion of that careful parent, who congratulated her on having so well held her part, and hoped it was the beginning of a new chapter in her life, and that she was about to a.s.sume with due _eclat_ the part of daughter in so prominent a household of the Free Church.

'It's a duty to the cause, my dear! Remember how the daughters of Israel sewed curtains of scarlet and needlework for the ark in the wilderness. By all means let us show that we are in no respect behind the heathen in the graces of life! and let us show forth the beauty of holiness among the uncirc.u.mcised residuaries!'

It was not altogether plain to Sophia how holiness arrayed in blue silk was to advance the cause, but she let it pa.s.s. Her lady mother was in tolerably good humour, and that was a point in her favour. She consulted her about the shading of a rose in the worsted work, to break the current of her thoughts, and then, like the bather about to plunge into an unkindly sea, with firm-set teeth, and fingers clenched beneath her embroidery, she made the leap. After a preliminary cough to steady the tremor in her voice--

'Have you got that letter of mine, mamma? I think I must answer it to-day.'

'What letter?' demanded the old lady with a start.

'That letter from Rod--Mr. Brown.'

'I thought we had said all that need be spoken on that subject already.'