The Dew of Their Youth Part 31

"And the elder, the girl?" I asked--though, indeed, that I knew--from the old letters of my Aunt Jen.

"Irma!" she answered, some little crestfallen.

"After you?"

She had barely time to nod when we pa.s.sed in at the lodge gate of the Nun's House. The old porter came to the gate to make his reverence, and no doubt to wonder who the young lady, his mistress's kinswoman, had gotten home with her.

I found the Lady Kirkpatrick--Lady by courtesy, but only known thus by all her circle--to be a little vivid spark of a white-haired woman, sitting on a sofa dressed in the French fashion of forty years ago, and with a small plume of feathers in a jewelled turban that glittered as she moved. At first she was kind enough to me.

"Hey, Master-of-Arts Duncan MacAlpine, this is a bonny downcome for your grandfather's son, and you come of decent blood up in Glen Strae--to be great with the Advocate, and scribbling his blethers! A sword by your side would have suited ye better, I'm thinking!"

"Doubtless, my lady," I answered, "if such had been my state and fortune. Nevertheless, I can take a turn at that too, if need be."

"Aha, ye have not lost the Highland conceit, in drawing water from the wells of Whiggery!"

"If I mistake not," I replied, "your ladyship did not care to bide always about a king's court when she had the chance."

For I knew her history, as did everybody in Edinburgh--a little gossiping town at that time--now, they say, purged of scandal--which is a Heaven's miracle if ever there was one.

"Och, hear him!" she cried, throwing up her fan with a jerk to the end of its tether with a curious flouting disdain, "politics are very well when it is 'Have at them, my merry men a'!' But after, when all is done and laid on the shelf like broken bairns'-plaiks, better be a Whig in the West Bow than a Jesuit in a king's palace abroad!"

And, like enough (so at least it was whispered), the choice had been offered her.

Then all in a moment she turned to me with a twinkle in her eye that was hardly less than impish. Indeed, I may say that she flew at me much like an angry wasp when a chance of your walking-stick stirs its nest.

"It's prophesied," she said, "that some day a Kirkpatrick of Closeburn will be greater than a queen. For me it was, 'Thank you kindly! I would rather dwell in the Nun's House of the Dean than possess the treasures of Egypt!' But this la.s.s is a Kirkpatrick too, though only through her grandmother, and I troth it may be her that's to wear the crown. At any rate, mind you, no dominie's son with his fingers deep in printer's ink, and in the confidence of our little Advocate that rideth on the white horse--only it's a powny--must venture any pretensions----"

"You mistake me," said I, suddenly very dignified, "my family----"

"Fiddlesticks," cried the old lady; "there's Bellman Jock wha's faither was a prince o' the bluid. But what the better is he o' that? Na, na, there's to be no trokin', nor eyesdropping, nor yet slipping of notes into itching palms, nor seeing one another to doors!--Och, aye, I ken the gait o't fine. Mony is the time I have seen it travelled. This young leddy is for your betters, sirrah, and being but the son of a village dominie, and working for your bread among Leein' Johnny's hundred black men in Parliament Close, ye may--an it please ye, and _if_ ye please, gie this door a wide gae-by. For if ye come a second time, Samuel Whan, the porter, will have his orders to steek the yett in your face!"

"Madame," said I, very fine, "it shall not be done twice!"

I stole a glance at Irma, who was standing with her face white and her lips trembling.

"No," said she, "nor yet once. I came here at your request, Aunt Kirkpatrick. For years and years my brother and I have sorned on the family of this gentleman--you yourself grant he is that----"

"No such thing!" snapped my lady Kirkpatrick, "gentleman indeed--a newsmonger's apprentice! That's your gentrice!"

"We dwelt there, my brother and I," Irma went on, "none of my family troubling their heads or their purses about us, yet without a plack we were treated as brother and sister by all the family."

"Be off, then, with your brother, since you are so fond of him!" cried the fiery old lady, rising with a long black cane in her hand, a terrier yelping and snapping at her heels. "I am for London next week, and I cannot be at the chairge of a daft hempie, especially one of such low, common tastes."

At these words, so unexpected and uncalled for, Irma put out her hand and took mine. She spoke very gently.

"Duncan," she said, "we are not wanted here. Let us be going!"

"But--Irma----!" I gasped, for even then I would take no advantage.

"Whither shall I conduct you? Have you other friends in Edinburgh?"

"Before a minister!" she said. "That will be best. I have no friends but you!"

"Aye, there ye are!" cried the old lady, "I was sure there was something at the back of this sudden flight to Edinburgh. The dear little brother--oh, but we were that fond of him--the poor, poor innocent bairn. Such a comfort for him to know his sister near at hand! Yet, though I have done with you, Mistress Irma Sobieski, I may say that I wish you no ill. Make a better use of your youth than maybe I have done.

If ye need a helping hand, there's my sister Frances out at the Sciennes. She's fair crammed like a Strasburg goose wi' the _belles-lettres_. She will maybe never let ye within the door, but a shilling a week of outdoor relief ye are sure of--for she sets up for being full of the milk of human kindness. She set her cap at John Home when he came home from London. She would never even allow that Davie Hume was an atheist, whilk was as clear as that I hae a nose to my face!---- Off with you to f.a.n.n.y's at the Sciennes. And a long guid day to the pair of ye--ye are a disobedient regardless la.s.sock, and ye are heapin' up wrath again the day of wrath, but for all that I'm no sayin'

that I'll forget you in my will! There are others I like waur nor you, when all's said and done!"

"I would not take a penny of yours if I were starving on the street!"

cried Irma.

"Save us!" said the old lady, lifting up her black wand, "ye will maybe think different when ye are real hungrysome. The streets are nae better than they are caa'ed. But off wi' ye, and get honestly tied up! Bid Samuel Whan shut the yett after ye!"

CHAPTER x.x.xI

TWICE MARRIED

Now I have never to this day been able to make up my mind whether the Lady Kirkpatrick was really stirred with such anger as she pretended, whether she was only more than a little mad, or if all was done merely to break down Irma's reserve by playing on her anger and pride.

If the last was the cause of my lady's strange behaviour to us, it was shiningly successful.

"We will not go a step to find my Lady Frances," said Irma when we were outside; "if she be so full of all the wisdoms, she would very likely try to separate us."

And certainly it was noways my business to make any objections. So, hardly crediting my happiness, I went southwards over the Bridges, with Irma by my side, my heart beating so rarely that I declare I could hardly bethink me of a minister to make me sure of Irma before she had time to change her mind. As was usual at that hour at the Surgeon's Hall, we met Freddy Esquillant coming from the direction of Simon Square. Him I sent off as quickly as he could to Rankeillor Street for Amelia Craven. I felt that this was no less than Amelia's due, for many a time and oft must she have been wearied with my sighs and complaints--very suitable to the condition of a lover, but mightily wearisome to the listener.

Irma said nothing. She seemed to be walking in a dream, and hardly noticed Freddy--or yet the errand upon which I sent him.

It came to me that, as the matter was of the suddenest, Amelia Craven might help us to find a small house of our own where we might set up our household G.o.ds--that is, when we got any.

An unexpected encounter preceded the one expected. I was marching along to our rendezvous with Freddy and Amelia at the crossing from Archers'

Hall to the Sciennes, when all of a sudden whom should we meet right in the face but my rosy-cheeked, bunchy little employer--my Lord Advocate in person, all shining as if he had been polished, his face smiling and smirking like a newly-oiled picture, and on his arm, but towering above him, a thin, dusky-skinned woman, plainly dressed, and with an enormous bonnet on her head, obviously of her own manufacture--a sort of tangle of black, brown and green which really had to be seen to be believed.

"Aha!" cried my Lord Advocate; "whither away, young sir? Shirking the proofs, eh, my lad? And may I have the honour to be presented to your sister from the country--for so, by her fresh looks, I divine the young lady to be."

"If you will wait a few minutes till we can find a minister, I will say, 'This, sir, is my wedded wife,'" I declared manfully.

"And is the young lady of the same mind?" quoth my Lord, with a quick, gleg slyness.

"I am, sir--if the business concerns you!" said Irma, looking straight at him.

"What, and dare you say that you will take a man like this for your wedded husband?" he demanded, with the swift up-and-down play of his bushy brows which was habitual to him.

"I see not what business it is of yours," Irma answered, as sharply, "but I do take him for my husband."

"There!" cried the lawyer, pulling out his snuffbox and tapping it vehemently, "it is done. I have performed my first marriage, and all the General a.s.sembly, or the Gretna Green Welder himself, could not have done it neater or made a better job. Declaration before witnesses being sufficient in the eye of the law of Scotland, I declare you two man and wife!"