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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d7b82bc --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +*.txt text eol=lf +*.htm text eol=lf +*.html text eol=lf +*.md text eol=lf diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a2b6772 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #55166 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/55166) diff --git a/old/55166-0.txt b/old/55166-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 1411061..0000000 --- a/old/55166-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,7996 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Unjust Steward, by Margaret Oliphant - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with -almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or -re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included -with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org/license - - -Title: The Unjust Steward - or The Minister's Debt - -Author: Margaret Oliphant - -Release Date: July 21, 2017 [EBook #55166] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE UNJUST STEWARD *** - - - - -Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed -Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was -produced from images available at The Internet Archive) - - - - - - - - - - - - - - THE UNJUST STEWARD - - OR - - THE MINISTER’S DEBT - - BY - - MRS. OLIPHANT - - [Illustration: colophon] - - PHILADELPHIA - - J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY - 1896 - - COPYRIGHT, 1896, - BY - J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY. - - - ELECTROTYPED AND PRINTED BY J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY, PHILADELPHIA, - U.S.A. - - - - - DEDICATED TO DENNY - - 1896 - - - - -CONTENTS. - - -CHAPTER PAGE - - I.--A SUDDEN ALARM 7 - - II.--A FRIEND IN NEED 21 - - III.--AFTER THE FUNERAL 34 - - IV.--“TAKE NOW THY BILL AND WRITE FIFTY” 47 - - V.--MARION AND ELSIE 59 - - VI.--A HOUSEHOLD CONTROVERSY 73 - - VII.--THE FIRST MARRIAGE IN THE FAMILY 86 - - VIII.--A NEW FACTOR 99 - - IX.--MAN AND WIFE 113 - - X.--BROTHER AND SISTER 126 - - XI.--THE GROWING-UP OF THE BAIRNS 139 - - XII.--THE MOWBRAYS 153 - - XIII.--PLAINTIFF OR PENITENT? 166 - - XIV.--ANOTHER AGENT 179 - - XV.--FRANK’S OPERATIONS 191 - - XVI.--THE UNJUST STEWARD ONCE MORE 205 - - XVII.--THE POSITION OF ELSIE 219 - -XVIII.--JOHNNY WEMYSS 233 - - XIX.--A CATASTROPHE 246 - - XX.--CONFESSION 260 - - XXI.--HOW TO SET IT RIGHT 273 - - XXII.--IN THE STUDY 284 - -XXIII.--THE LAST 298 - - - - - THE UNJUST STEWARD; - - OR, THE - - MINISTER’S DEBT. - - - - -CHAPTER I. - -A SUDDEN ALARM. - - -Elsie and Roderick Buchanan were the son and daughter, among a number of -others, of the Rev. George Buchanan, a minister much esteemed in the -city of St. Rule, and occupying a high place among the authorities and -influential personages of that place. They were members of a large -family, and not important members, being the youngest. It is true that -they were not two boys or two girls, but a girl and boy; but being so, -they were as nearly inseparable as a boy and girl could be. They were -called in the family the Twins, though there was quite a year, a year -and a day as in a fairy tale, between them. It was the girl who was the -elder of the two, which, perhaps, accounted for the fact that they were -still the same height as well as so very like each other that in their -infancy it was scarcely possible to know them apart, so that the name -of the Twins was quite appropriate. Elsie was fourteen, and Roderick, -better known as Rodie, according to the Scotch love of diminutives, just -thirteen. Up to this age, their lessons and their amusements had gone on -together,--the girls in St. Rule’s, from the beginning of time, having -been almost as athletic as the boys, and as fond of the links and the -harbour, while the old Scotch fashion of training them together had not -yet given way before the advancing wave of innovation, which has so much -modified education in Scotland. They were in the same class, they read -the same books, they had the same lessons to prepare. Elsie was a little -more diligent, Rodie more strong in his Latin, which was considered -natural for a boy. They helped each other mutually, he being stronger in -the grammar, she more “gleg” at construing. She went all wrong in her -tenses, but jumped at the meaning of a thing in a way that sometimes -astonished her brother. In this way, they were of great assistance to -each other in their school life. - -The other side of life, the amusements and games, were not nearly of so -much importance, even with children, then as now. It was the object of -his elders and masters rather to curb Rodie’s enthusiasm for football -than to stimulate it, notwithstanding his high promise as a player; and -the gentlemen who played golf were exceedingly impatient of laddies on -the links; and as for girls presuming to show their faces there, would -have shown their disapprobation very pointedly; so that, except for a -few “holes” surreptitiously manufactured in a corner (even the Ladies’ -Links being as yet non-existent), the youngsters found little -opportunity of cultivating that now all-important game. They turned out, -however, sometimes early, very early, of a morning, or late in the -afternoon, and in their hurried performances, Elsie as yet was almost as -good as her brother, and played up to him steadily, understanding his -game, when they two of a summer evening, when all the club was at -dinner, and nobody about to interfere, played together in a single. -Lawn-tennis was still far in the future, and it had not been given to -the children to do more than stand afar off and admire at the -performance of the new game called croquet, which had just been set up -by an exclusive society on the Castle Green. Who were the little -Buchanans to aspire to take part in such an Olympian contest among the -professors and their ladies? They looked on occasionally from a pinnacle -of the ruins, and privately mocked between themselves at the stiffness -of a great man’s learned joints, or the mincing ways of the ladies, -sending confusing peals of laughter over the heads of the players at any -mishap, till the indignant company used the rudest language in respect -to the Buchanan bairns, along, it must be allowed, with the Beaton -bairns and the Seaton bairns, and several more scions of the best -families, and threatened to put them out of the Castle ruins altogether: -though everybody knew this was a vain threat, and impossible to carry -out. It was strictly forbidden that these young people should ever -adventure themselves in a boat, the coast being so dangerous, a -prohibition which Elsie did not resent, having distinguished herself as -a very bad sailor, but against which Rodie kicked with all his might. -The reader will therefore see that they were not encouraged to spend -their strength in athletics, which is so much the custom now. - -Perhaps this encouraged in them the delight in books which they had -shown from a very early age. It was always possible to keep the Twins -quiet with a story-book, their elders said, though I confess that Rodie -began to show symptoms of impatience with Elsie’s books, and unless he -got a story “of his own kind,” was no longer so still and absorbed as in -early days. The stories he loved, which were “of his own kind,” were, I -need not say, tales of adventure, which he was capable of reading over -and over again till he knew by heart every one of the Crusoe-like -expedients of his seafaring or land-louping heroes. Elsie had a weakness -for girl’s stories, full of devotion and self-abnegation, and in which -little maidens of her own age set all the world right, which perhaps, -naturally, did not appeal to Rodie. But there was one series which never -failed in its attraction for both. In Mr. Buchanan’s library there was a -set of the _Waverleys_, such as formed part of the best of the -plenishing for a new household in those days when they were but recent -publications, as it still continues we hope to do in every house which -desires to fortify itself against the tedium of the years. The children -were never tired of _Ivanhoe_ and _Quentin Durward_, and the _Fair Maid -of Perth_. Indeed, there was not one of them that had not its lasting -charm, though perhaps the preponderance of a lassie in the _Heart of -Midlothian_, for instance, dulled Rodie’s enthusiasm a little; while -Elsie, more catholic, was as profoundly interested in Harry Bertram’s -Adventures, and followed Rowland Græam through all that happened in the -Castle of Lochleven, with as warm interest as heart could desire. They -thought, if that wildly presumptuous idea could be entertained, that Sir -Walter was perhaps mistaken about bloody Claverhouse, but that, no -doubt, was owing to their natural prejudices and breeding. One of their -most characteristic attitudes was over one of these books (it was the -edition in forty-eight volumes, with the good print and vignettes on the -title-pages), spread out between them (they broke all the backs of his -books, their father complained) their heads both bent over the page, -with faint quarrels arising now and then that Elsie read too fast, and -turned the page before Rodie was ready, or that Rodie read too slow and -kept his sister waiting, which furnished a little mutual grievance that -ran through all the reading, manifested now and then by a sudden stroke -of an elbow, or tug at a page. - -The place in which they chiefly pursued their studies was a little -round corner, just big enough to hold them, which adjoined their -father’s study, and which, like that study, was lined with books. It was -really a small turret, the relic of some older building which had been -tacked to the rambling house, old-fashioned enough in its roomy -irregularity, but not nearly so old as the little ashen-coloured tower, -pale as with the paleness of extreme old age, which gave it distinction, -and afforded a very quaint little adjunct to the rooms on that side. -There was scarcely more than room enough in it for these two to sit, -sometimes on an old and faded settle, sometimes on the floor, as the -humour seized them. They were on the floor, as it happened, at the -special moment which I am about to describe. The inconvenience of this -retreat was that it was possible from that retirement to hear whatever -might be said in the study, so that the most intimate concerns of the -family were sometimes discussed by the father and mother in the hearing -of these two little creatures, themselves unseen. There was nothing in -this to blame them for, for it was well known that the turret was their -haunt, and Mr. Buchanan, when reminded of it by some little scuffling or -exchange of affectionate hostilities, would sometimes be moved to turn -them out, as disturbing his quiet when he was busy with his sermon. But -in many other cases their presence was forgotten, and there were not -many secrets in the innocent household. On the other hand, Elsie and -Rodie were usually far too much occupied with their book to pay any -attention to what the rather tedious discussions of father and -mother--usually about money, or about Willie and Marion the two eldest, -who were about to be sent out in the world, or other insignificant and -long-winded questions of that description--might be about. - -And I cannot tell for what exquisite reason it was, that on this -particular day their minds were attracted to what was going on in the -study; I think they must have been reading some scene in which the -predominance of lassies (probably the correspondence of Miss Julia -Mannering, what I have always felt disposed to skip) had lessened -Rodie’s interest, but which Elsie, much distracted by the consciousness -of his rebellion, but for pride of her own sex pretending to go -carefully through, yet was only half occupied with, occasioned this -openness of their joint minds to impression. At all events, they both -heard their mother’s sudden entrance, which was hurried indeed, and also -flurried, as appeared a thing not quite common with her. They heard her -come in with a rapid step, and quick panting breath, as if she had run -up-stairs. And “William,” she said, standing by the writing-table, they -felt sure, which was also a usual thing for her to do--“William, have -you heard that old Mr. Anderson is very bad to-day, and not expected to -live?” - -“Old Mr. Anderson!” he said, in a surprised and troubled tone. - -“So they say. The Lord help us, what shall we do? Willie’s outfit just -paid for, and not a penny to the fore. Oh, my poor man!” - -“It’s very serious news,” their father said; “but let us hope that both -for his sake and our own it may not be true.” - -“Ill news is aye true,” said Mrs. Buchanan, with a sound of something -like a sob. - -Why should mamma be so troubled about old Mr. Anderson, the children -said to themselves, giving each other a look? - -“That is just want of faith, my dear,” he replied. - -“Oh, I’ve no doubt it’s want of faith! it’s all in God’s hands, and He -can bring light out of darkness, I know; but oh! William, it’s not -always that He thinks fit to do that! You know as well as me. And if -this time it should not be His will?” - -“Mary,” he said, “let us not forestall the evil; perhaps it will never -come; perhaps there will be a way out of it--at the worst we must just -bear it, my dear.” - -“Oh, I know that, I know that!” she cried, with a sound of tears in her -voice. “You gave your word to pay it if he died, immediately thereafter, -that there might be no talking. Wasn’t that the bargain?” - -“That was the bargain,” he said. - -“But we never thought it was to come like this, at the worst moment, -just after the siller is gone for Willie’s outfit.” - -“Mary, Mary, it is worse for him than for us.” - -“Do you think so, do you think so?” she cried, “and you a minister! I do -not think that. He is an old man, and a good man, and if all we believe -is true, it will be a happy change for him. Who has he to leave behind -him? Na, he will be glad to go. But us with our young family! Oh, the -power of that filthy siller; but for that, what happier folk could be, -William, than just you and me?” - -“We must be thankful for that, Mary,” said the minister, with a quiver. -“We might have had worse things than the want of money; we might have -had sickness or trouble in our family, and instead of that they’re all -well, and doing well.” - -“Thank God for that!” mamma said, fervently, and then there was a pause. - -“I will have to go at once to the man of business, and tell him,” father -said; “that was in the bargain. There was no signing of paper, but I was -to go and tell; that was part of the bargain.” - -“And a very hard part,” his wife cried, with a long sigh. “It is like -sharpening the sword to cut off your own head. But, maybe,” she said, -with a little revival of courage, “Mr. Morrison is not a hard man; maybe -he will give you time.” - -“Maybe our old friend will pull through,” papa said, slowly. - -“That would be the best of all,” she said, but not in a hopeful tone. -And presently they heard her shut the door of the study, and go -down-stairs again, with something very different from the flying step -with which she came. - -The children did not stir, they did not even turn the leaf; they felt -all at once that it was better that their presence there should not be -known. They had heard such consultations before, and sometimes had been -auditors of things they were not desired to hear; but they had never, -they thought, heard anything so distinctly before, nor anything that was -of so much importance. They were very much awe-stricken to hear of this -thing that troubled father so, and made mother cry, without -understanding very well what it was--old Mr. Anderson’s illness, and -Willie’s outfit, and something about money, were all mixed up in their -minds; but the relations between the one and the other were not -sufficiently clear. - -Presently they heard papa get up and begin to walk about the room. He -did this often when he was deep in thought, composing his sermon, and -then he would often say over and over his last sentence by way of -piecing it on, they supposed to the next. So that it did not trouble, -but rather reassured them, to hear him saying something to himself, -which gave them the idea that he had returned to his work, and was no -longer so much disturbed about this new business. When they heard him -say, “no signing of papers, no signing of papers, but to go and tell,” -they were somewhat disturbed, for that did not sound like a sermon. But, -presently, he sat down again and drew a book towards him, and they -could hear him turning over the leaves. It was, there could be no doubt, -the large Bible--large because it was such big print, for father’s eyes -were beginning to go--which always lay on his table. He turned over the -leaves as they had so often heard him doing; no doubt it was some -reference he was looking up for his sermon. He must have found what he -wanted very soon, for there was a little silence, and then they heard -him say, with great emphasis--“Then the Lord commended the unjust -steward.” He said it very slowly, pausing upon almost every word. It was -the way he said over his text when he was pondering over it, thinking -what he was to say. Then he began to read. It was to be a long text this -time; Rodie tried to whisper in his sister’s ear, but Elsie stopped him, -quietly, with emphatic signs and frowns. - -“He called every one of his Lord’s debtors and said unto the first, How -much owest thou unto my Lord? And he said an hundred measures of oil. -And he said unto him, Take thy bill and sit down quickly and write -fifty.” Then there was another pause. And again father spoke, so -clearly, with such a distinct and emphatic voice that they thought he -was speaking to them, and looked at each other fearfully. “The Lord -commended the unjust steward.” There was something awful in his tone: -did he mean this for them, to reprove them? But they had done nothing, -and if the Lord commended that man, surely there could be nothing to be -so severe upon. - -Elsie and Rodie missed everything that was pleasant that afternoon. It -was thought they were on the hills, or on the sands, and nobody knew -they were shut up there in the turret, now thoroughly alarmed, and -terrified to change their position, or make themselves audible in any -way, or to turn a leaf of their book, or to move a finger. In all their -experience--and it was considerable--father had never been like this -before. After a while, he began again, and read over the whole parable: -and this he repeated two or three times, always ending in that terrible -tone, which sounded to the children like some awful sentence, “The Lord -commended the unjust steward”--then they would hear him get up again, -and pace about the room, saying over and over those last words; finally, -to their unspeakable relief, he opened the door, and went slowly -down-stairs, so slowly that they sat still, breathless, for two minutes -more, until his footsteps had died away. - -Then the two children sprang up from their imprisonment, and stretched -their limbs, which were stiff with sitting on the floor. They rushed out -of the room as quickly as possible, and got out into the garden, from -whence there was an exit toward the sea. The one thing which, without -any consultation, they were both agreed upon, was to keep out of sight -of father and mother, so that nobody might divine in what way they had -been spending the afternoon. They did not, however, say much to each -other about it. When they had got quite clear, indeed, of all possible -inspection, and were out upon the east sands, which were always their -resort when in disgrace or trouble, Rodie ventured to hazard an opinion -on the situation. - -“Papa’s text is an awfu’ kittle one to-day,” he said. “I wonder if he’ll -ding it out.” - -“Oh, whisht!” said Elsie, “yon’s not his text; he was never like that -before.” - -“Then what is it?” said Rodie; but this was a question to which she -would give no reply. - -As they returned home, towards the twilight, they passed old Mr. -Anderson’s house, a large, old-fashioned mansion in the High Street, and -gazed wistfully at the lights which already appeared in the upper -windows, though it was not dark, and which looked strange and alarming -to them as if many people were about, and much going on in this usually -silent house. - -“Does he need so many candles to die by?” said Rodie to his sister. - -“Oh, perhaps he is better, and it’s for joy,” said Elsie, taking a more -hopeful view. - -Their father came out from the door, as they gazed, awe-stricken, from -the other side of the street. His head was sunk upon his breast; they -had never seen him so cast down before. His aspect, and the fact that he -passed them without seeing them, had a great effect upon the children. -They went home very quietly, and stole into the house without making any -of the familiar noises that usually announced their arrival. However, -it cheered them a little to find that their mother was very busy about -Willie’s outfit, and that their eldest sister Marion was marking all his -new shirts in her fine writing, with the small bottle of marking ink, -and the crow quill. The interest of this process and the pleasure of -getting possession of the hot iron, which stamped that fine writing into -a vivid black, gave a salutary diversion to Elsie’s thoughts. As for -Rodie, he was very hungry for his supper, which had an equally salutary -effect. - - - - -CHAPTER II. - -A FRIEND IN NEED. - - -Mr. Buchanan, the minister of St. Leonard’s Church, was a member of a -poor, but well-connected family in the West of Scotland, to which -district, as everybody knows, that name belongs; and it is not to be -supposed that he came to such advancement as a church in a university -town all at once. He had married early the daughter of another minister -in Fife, and it was partly by the interest procured by her family, and -partly by the great reputation he had attained as a preacher, that he -had been promoted to his present charge, which was much more important -and influential than a mere country parish. But a succession of -flittings from manse to manse, even though each new transfer was a -little more important than the previous one, is hard upon a poor -clergyman’s purse, though it may be soothing to his self-esteem; and St. -Leonard’s, though St. Rule was an important port, had not a very large -stipend attached to it. Everybody dwelt upon the fact that it was a most -important post, being almost indeed attached to the university, and with -so large a sphere of influence over the students. But influence is a -privilege and payment in itself, or is supposed to be, and cannot be -made into coin of the realm, or even pound notes, which are its -equivalent. Mr. Buchanan himself was gratified, and he was solemnised, -and felt his responsibility as a power for good over all those young men -very deeply, but his wife may be forgiven, if she sighed occasionally -for a few more tangible signs of the importance of his post. On the -contrary, it led them into expenses to which a country minister is not -tempted. They had to take their share in the hospitalities of the place, -to entertain strangers, to give as seldom as possible, but still -periodically, modest dinner-parties, a necessary return of courtesy to -the people who invited them. Indeed, Mrs. Buchanan was like most women -in her position, the soul of hospitality. It cost her a pang not to -invite any lonely person, any young man of whom she could think that he -missed his home, or might be led into temptation for want of a cheerful -house to come to, or motherly influence over him. She, too, had her -sphere of influence; it hurt her not to exercise it freely. Indeed, she -did exercise it, and was quite unable often to resist the temptation of -crowding the boys up at dinner or supper, in order to have a corner for -some _protégé_. “It was a privilege,” she said, but unfortunately it was -an expensive one, plain though these repasts were. “Oh, the siller!” -this good woman would say, “if there was only a little more of that, how -smoothly the wheels would run.” - -The consequence of all this, however, of the frequent removals, of the -lapses into hospitality, the appearances that had to be kept up, and, -finally, the number of the family, had made various hitches in the -family progress. Settling in St. Rule’s, where there was no manse, and -where a house had to be taken, and new carpets and curtains to be got, -not to speak of different furniture than that which had done so very -well in the country, had been a great expense; and all those changes -which attend the setting out of young people in the world had begun. For -Marion, engaged to another young minister, and to be married as soon as -he got a living, there was the plenishing to think of, something more -than the modern trousseau, a provision which included all the household -linen of the new house; and, in short, as much as the parents could do -to set the bride forth in a becoming and liberal manner. And Willie, as -has been told, had his outfit for India to procure. These were the days -before examinations, when friends--it was a kindly habit superseded now -by the changed customs of life--put themselves to great trouble to -further the setting out in life of a clergyman’s sons. And William -Buchanan had got a writership, which is equivalent, I believe, to an -appointment in the Civil Service, by the exertions of one of his -father’s friends. The result of these two desirable family events, the -provision for life of two of its members, though the very best things -that could have happened, and much rejoiced over in the family, brought -with them an appalling prospect for the father and mother when they met -in private conclave, to consider how the preliminaries were to be -accomplished. Where were Willie’s outfit and Marion’s plenishing to come -from? Certainly not out of the straightened stipend of the Kirk of St. -Leonard, in the city of St. Rule. Many anxious consultations had ended -in this, that money must be borrowed in order to make the good fortune -of the children available--that is to say, that the parents must put -themselves under a heavy yoke for the greater part of their remaining -life, in order that the son and the daughter might make a fair and equal -start with their compeers. It is, let us thank heaven, as common as the -day that such sacrifices should be made, so common that there is no -merit in them, nor do the performers in the majority of cases think of -them at all except as simple necessities, the most everyday duties of -life. It was thus that they appeared to the Buchanans. They had both -that fear and horror of debt which is, or was, the accompaniment of a -limited and unelastic income with most reasonable people. They dreaded -it and hated it with a true instinct; it gave them a sense of shame, -however private it was, and that it should be betrayed to the world that -they were _in debt_ was a thing horrible to them. Nevertheless, nothing -remained for them but to incur this dreadful reproof. They would have to -pay it off slowly year by year; perhaps the whole of their remaining -lives would be overshadowed by this, and all their little indulgences, -so few, so innocent, would have to be given up or curtailed. The -prospect was as dreadful to them--nay, more dreadful--than ruin and -bankruptcy are to many nowadays. The fashion in these respects has very -much changed. It is perhaps the result of the many misfortunes in the -landed classes, the collapse of agriculture, the fall of rents; but -certainly in our days the confession of poverty is no longer a shame; it -is rather the fashion; and debts sit lightly on many shoulders. The -reluctance to incur them, the idea of discredit involved in them is -almost a thing extinguished and gone. - -When Mr. Buchanan set out one black morning on the dreadful enterprise -of borrowing money, his heart was very sore, and his countenance -clouded. He was a man of a smiling countenance on ordinary occasions. He -looked now as if disgrace had overtaken him, and nothing but despair was -before him. It was not that he had an evil opinion of human nature. He -had, perhaps, notwithstanding what it is now the fashion to call his -Calvinistic creed, almost too good an opinion of human nature. It has -pleased the literary class in all times, to stigmatise the Calvinistic -creed as the origin of all evil. I, for one, am bound to say that I have -not found it to be so, perhaps because dogmatical tenets hold, after -all, but a small place in human hearts, and that the milk of human -kindness flows independent of all the formal rules of theology. Mr. -Buchanan was no doubt a Calvinist, and set his hand unhesitatingly to -all the standards. But he was a man who was for ever finding out the -image of God in his fellow men, and cursing was neither on his lips nor -in his heart. He did not religiously doubt his fellow creature or -condemn him. The tremour, the almost despair, the confusion of face with -which he set out to borrow money was not because of any dark judgment on -other men. It was the growth of that true sense of honour, exaggerated -till it became almost a defect, which his Scotch traditions and his -narrow means combined to foster in him. An honourable rich man may -borrow without scruple, for there is no reason in his mind why he should -not pay. But to an honourable poor man it is the thing most dreadful in -the world, for he knows all the difficulties, the almost impossibility -of paying, the chance of being exposed to the world in his inmost -concerns, the horror of ruin and a roup, the chance of injuring another -man, and dying under the shame of indebtedness, all these miseries were -in Mr. Buchanan’s mind when he went out on his terrible mission. He -would rather have marched through a shower of bullets, or risked his -life in any other way. - -He went to old Mr. Anderson, who had been the head of the bank, and who -was still believed to be the highest authority in any kind of financial -matter. He had retired from the bank, and from all active business -several years before. He was an elder of the church; and from the -beginning of Mr. Buchanan’s incumbency had been one of his greatest -admirers and friends. He was, besides all this, a wealthy old man, and -had no children nor any near relative to come after him. It was not, -however, with any thought of the latter circumstance, or indeed -expectation of actual help from himself that the minister sought this -old gentleman. He thought of the bank, which, according to Scottish -methods, gives advantages to struggling people, and intended only to ask -Mr. Anderson’s advice as to what should be done, perhaps if emboldened -by his manner to ask him to be his surety, though the thought of making -such a request to any man bathed the minister in a cold dew of mental -anguish. Had he been asked by any other poor man what reception such an -application would have received from Mr. Anderson, he would have bidden -that other take courage. - -“He is the kindest man in the world,” he would have said. But when it -came to be his own case the minister’s heart sank within him. He could -not have been more miserable had his old friend, instead of being the -kindest, been the most cold-hearted man in the world. - -There is, perhaps, no more wonderful sensation in life, than that -complete and extraordinary relief which seems to fill the heart with a -sudden flood of undreamed of ease and lightness, when a hand is held out -to us all at once in our trouble, and the help which we have not -believed possible, comes. Mr. Buchanan could not believe his ears when -the old banker’s first words fell upon him. - -“Possible! oh, yes, more than possible; how could you doubt it?” he -said. The poor man felt himself float off those poor feet that had -plodded along the street so heavily, into an atmosphere of ease, of -peace, of consolation unspeakable. The thing could be done. Instead of -bringing a cold shade over his friend’s face, it brought a light of -kindness, even of pleasure. Yes, of pleasure, pleasure in being trusted, -in being the first to whom recourse was made, in being able to give at -once relief. It was so great a gleam of that sunshine which sometimes -comes out of a human face, brighter than the very sun in the firmament, -that poor Buchanan was dazzled, and for the moment made to think better -even of himself as calling forth such friendship and kindness. A glow -came into his heart, not only of gratitude but of approval. To see a man -do what in one circumstance is the highest and noblest thing to do, to -feel him exceed all our expectations, and play the part almost of a -beneficent God to misfortune, what more delightful spectacle is there, -even if it had nothing to do with ourselves. Mr. Buchanan poured forth -all his soul to his old friend, who understood everything at half a -word, and only hesitated to think which would be the best way of -fulfilling his wishes. It was by old Anderson’s advice at last that the -idea of the bank was abandoned. He decided that it would be better to -lend the money to the minister himself. - -“We will have no fixed times or seasons,” he said. “You shall pay me -just as you can, as you are able to put by a little, and we’ll have no -signing of papers. You and me can trust each other; if I die before you, -as naturally I will, you’ll make it up to my heirs. If you, which God -forbid, should die before me, there will be no use of paper to trouble -your wife. It’s just between you and me, nobody has any business to make -or mell in the matter. I have no fine laddie to put out in the world, -the more’s the pity; and you have, and a bonnie lassie too, I wish you -joy of them both. We’ll just say nothing about it, my dear sir, just a -shake of the hand, and that’s all there’s needed between you and me.” - -“But, Mr. Anderson, how can I accept this? You must let me give you an -acknowledgment. And then the interest----” - -“Toots,” said the old man, “interest! what’s fifteen pounds to me? I -hope I can live and enjoy myself without your fifteen pounds. Nonsense, -minister! are you too proud to accept a kindly service, most kindly -offered and from the heart, from an old man, that you have done both -good and pleasure to many a day?” - -“Oh, proud, no, not proud,” cried Buchanan, “unless it were proud of -you, old friend, that have the heart to do such a blessed thing.” - -“Hoot,” said the old man, “it’s nothing but filthy siller, as your good -wife says.” - -This had been the bargain, and it was a bargain which probably gave -more pleasure to the lender than to the borrower. It redoubled the old -gentleman’s interest in the family, and indeed made him take a personal -share in their concerns, which pricked the parents a little, as if he -felt a certain right to know all about Willie’s outfit and Marion’s -plenishing. He gave his advice about the boy’s boxes, and his gun, and -kindly criticised his clothes, and warned them not to pay too much for -boots and shoes, and other outside articles, pressing certain makers -upon them with almost too warm a recommendation. And he liked to see -Marion’s sheets and her napery, and thought the damask tablecloths -almost too fine for a country manse, where, except on a presbytery -meeting or the Monday’s dinner after a sacramental occasion, there would -be no means of showing them. But all this was very harmless, though it -sometimes fretted the recipients of his bounty, who could not explain to -their children the sudden access of interest on the part of old Anderson -in all their concerns. - -And now to think, while the first year had not more than passed, when -William’s outfit had just been paid off to the utmost farthing, and -Marion’s bill for her napery and her stock of personal linen, that the -old man should die! I judge from Mr. Anderson’s reference to fifteen -pounds (five per cent. being the usual interest in those days, though I -am told it is much less now), that the sum that Mr. Buchanan had -borrowed was three hundred pounds, for I presume he had certain urgent -bills to provide for as well as Willie and May. Fifty pounds was still -in the bank, which was a reserve fund for Marion’s gowns and her wedding -expenses, etc. And to think that just at that moment, when as yet there -had not been time to lay up a penny towards the repayment of the loan, -that this whole house of cards, and their comfort and content in the -smoothing away of their difficulties should, in a moment, topple about -their ears! There seemed even some reason for the tone of exasperation -which came into Mrs. Buchanan’s voice in spite of herself. Had he done -it on purpose it could scarcely have been worse. And indeed it looked as -if it had been done on purpose to drop them into deeper and deeper mire. - -Mr. Buchanan fought a battle with himself, of which no one had the -faintest idea, when his wife left him that afternoon. She indeed never -had the faintest idea of it, nor would any one have known had it not -been for the chance that shut up those two children in the turret-room. -They did not understand what they had heard, but neither did they forget -it. Sometimes, the one would say to the other: - -“Do you remember that afternoon when we were shut up in the turret and -nobody knew?” When such a thing had happened before, they had laughed; -but at this they never laughed, though they could not, till many years -had passed, have told why. The boy might have forgotten, for he had a -great many things to think of as the toils of education gathered round -him and bound him faster and faster; but the girl, perhaps because she -had not so much to do, there being no such strain of education in those -days for female creatures, never forgot. She accompanied her father -unconsciously in his future, during many a weary day, and pitied him -when there was no one else to pity. - -In the meantime, as the children saw, Mr. Buchanan went out; he went to -old Mr. Anderson’s house to inquire for him before he did any of his -usual afternoon duties. And after he had completed all these duties, he -went back again, with a restlessness of anxiety which touched all the -people assembled round the dying man, his brother who had been summoned -from Glasgow, and his doctors, one of whom had come from Edinburgh, -while the other was the chief practitioner of St. Rule’s, and his -nurses, of whom there were two, for he had no one of his own, no woman -to take care of him. They thought the minister must be anxious about the -old gentleman’s soul that he should come back a second time in the -course of the afternoon, and Dr. Seaton himself went down-stairs to -reply to his inquiries. - -“I am afraid I cannot ask you to come up-stairs, for he is past all -that,” he said, in the half scornful tone which doctors sometimes assume -to a clerical visitor. - -“Is he so bad as that?” said the minister. - -“I do not say,” said Dr. Seaton, “that our patient may not regain -consciousness. But certainly, for the present, he is quite unable to -join in any religious exercises.” - -“I was not thinking of that,” said Mr. Buchanan, almost humbly, “but -only to take the last news home. Mr. Anderson has been a good friend to -me.” - -“So he has been to many,” said Dr. Seaton. “Let us hope that will do -more for him where he is going than prayer.” - -“Prayer can never be out of place, Dr. Seaton,” said the minister. He -went away from the door angry, but still more cast down, with his head -sunk on his breast as the children had seen him. He had no good news to -take home. He had no comfort to carry with him up to his study, whither -he went without pausing, as he generally did, to say a word to his wife. -He had no word for anybody that evening. All night long he was repeating -to himself the words of the parable, “Sit down quickly, and take thy -bill, and write fifty.” Could God lead men astray? - - - - -CHAPTER III. - -AFTER THE FUNERAL. - - -“After the funeral, after the funeral will be time enough,” Mr. Buchanan -said, when his wife urged him to get it over, and to have his interview -with Mr. Morrison, the man of business, in whose hands all Mr. -Anderson’s affairs were. Everybody remarked how ill the minister was -looking during the week which elapsed between the old man’s death and -the large and solemn funeral, which filled the entire length of the High -Street with black-coated men. It was a funeral _d’estime_. There was no -active sorrow among the long train of serious people who conducted his -mortal part to its long home, but there were a great many regrets. His -was a figure as well known as the great old tower of St. Rule, which is -one of the landmarks from the sea, and the chief distinction of the town -on land, and he was a man who had been kind to everybody. He had been -very well off, and he had lived very quietly, spending but little money -on himself, and he had no near relation, only a distant cousin’s son, to -inherit what he had to leave behind him, for the brother, who was the -chief mourner, was a lonely man like himself, and also rich, and without -heirs. This being the case, old Mr. Anderson had used his money as few -rich men do. He had behaved to many people as he had done to Mr. -Buchanan. He had come to the aid of many of the poor people in St. Rule, -the fisher population, and the poor shopkeepers, and many a needy -family; therefore, though there were perhaps few tears shed, there was a -great and universal regret in all the town. Many men put on their -“blacks,” and went East, which was their way of indicating the quaint -burying-ground that encircled the ruins of the old cathedral, who would -not have swelled any other funeral train in the neighbourhood. He was a -loss to everybody; but there were few tears. An old man going home, -nearer eighty than seventy as the people said, a good old man leaving -the world in charity with everybody, and leaving nobody behind whom he -would miss much when he got there. A woman, here and there, at her -doorhead or her stairfoot, flung her apron over her head as she watched -the procession defiling into the wide space before the churchyard, which -was visible from the houses at the fishers’ end of the lower street. But -the tears she shed were for grief’s sake, and not for grief--for there -was no weeping, no desolation, only a kind and universal regret. - -Mr. Buchanan was more blanched and pale than ever, as he walked -bareheaded behind the coffin. There was one, everybody said, who had a -feeling heart--and many were glad when the ceremonial--always of so very -simple a kind in the Scotch church, and in those days scarcely anything -at all, a short prayer and no more--was over, with the thought that the -minister being evidently so much out of health and spirits, and feeling -the loss of the kind old elder so deeply, was just in the condition in -which some “get their death,” from the exposure and chill of a funeral. -Several of his friends convoyed him home after all was completed, and -warned Mrs. Buchanan to take very good care of him, to give him some -good, strong, hot toddy, or other restorative, and do all she could to -bring back his colour and his spirit. - -“We have all had a great loss,” said Mr. Moncrieff, who was another -leading elder, shaking his head, “but we are not all so sensitive as the -minister.” - -Poor Mrs. Buchanan knew much better than they did what made the minister -look so wae. She took all their advices in very good part, and assured -his friends that the minister felt their kindness, and would soon be -himself again. Alas, there was that interview still to come, which she -thought secretly within herself she would have got over had she been the -minister, and not have thus prolonged the agony day after day. There -were a great many things that Mrs. Buchanan would have done, “had she -been the minister,” which did not appear in the same light to him--as -indeed very commonly happens on either side between married people. But -she accepted the fact that she was not the minister, and that he must -act for himself, and meet his difficulties in his own way since he -would not meet them in hers. She did not comfort him with hot and strong -toddy, as the elders recommended; but she did all she knew to make him -comfortable, and to relieve his burdened spirit, pointing out to him -that Mr. Morrison, the man of business, was also a considerate man, and -acquainted with the difficulties of setting out a family in the world, -and impressing upon him the fact that it was a good thing, on the whole, -that Willie’s outfit had been paid at once, since Mr. Morrison, who -would be neither better nor worse of it in his own person, would be, no -doubt, on behalf of the heir, who was not of age nor capable of grasping -at the money, a more patient creditor than a shop in Edinburgh, where a -good discount had been given for the immediate payment of the account. - -“They would just have worried us into our graves,” Mrs. Buchanan said, -and she added that Willie would probably be able to send home something -to help in the payment before it had to be made. She said so much -indeed, and it was all so reasonable, that poor Buchanan almost broke -down under it, and at last implored her to go away and leave him quiet. - -“Oh, Mary, my dear, that is all very just,” he said, “and I admire your -steadfast spirit; but there are things in which I am weaker than you -are, and it is I that have to do it while you stay quiet at home.” - -“Let me do it, Claude,” she cried. “I am not feared for Mr. Morrison; -and I could tell him all the circumstances maybe as well----” - -Perhaps she thought better, and had been about to say so; but would not -hurt in any way her husband’s delicate feelings. As for Mr. Buchanan, he -raised himself up a little in his chair, and a slight flush came to his -pale cheek. - -“No,” he said, “I will not forsake my post as the head of the house. -These are the kind of things that the man has to do, and not the woman. -I hope I am not come to that, that I could shelter myself from a painful -duty behind my wife.” - -“Oh, if I had been the minister!” Mrs. Buchanan breathed, with an -impatient sigh, but she said,-- - -“No, Claude, I know well you would never do that,” and left him to his -thoughts. - -She had placed instinctively the large printed Bible, which he always -used, on the little table beside him. He would get strength there if -nowhere else. The day was gray and not warm, though it was the beginning -of June, and a fire had been lighted in the study to serve the purpose, -morally and physically, of the hot toddy recommended by the elder. Poor -Mr. Buchanan spread his hands out to it when he was left alone. He was -very much broken down. The tears came to his eyes. He felt forlorn, -helpless, as if there was nothing in heaven or earth to support him. It -was a question of money, and was not that a wretched thing to ask God -for? The filthy siller, the root of so much evil. He could have -demonstrated to you very powerfully, had you gone to ask his advice in -such an emergency, that it was not money, but the love of money that -was the root of all evil; but in his heart, in this dreadful emergency, -he cursed it. Oh, if it were not for money how much the problems of this -life would be lessened? He forgot, for the moment, that in that case the -difficulties of getting Willie his outfit would have been very much -increased. And, instinctively, as his wife had placed it there, he put -out his hand for his Bible. Is it possible that there should be poison -to be sucked out of that which should be sweeter than honey and the -honeycomb to the devout reader? The book opened of itself at that -parable over which he had been pondering. Oh, Mr. Buchanan was quite -capable of explaining to you what that parable meant. No one knew better -than he for what it was that the Lord commended the unjust steward. He -had no excuse of ignorance, or of that bewilderment with which a simple -mind might approach so difficult a passage. He knew all the readings, -all the commentaries; he could have made it as clear as daylight to you, -either in the pulpit or out of the pulpit. And he knew, none better, -that in such a case the letter killeth; but the man was in a terrible -strait, and his whole soul was bent on getting out of it. He did not -want to face it, to make the best of it, to calculate that Willie might, -by that time, be able to help, or even that Mr. Morrison was a -considerate man, and the heir a minor, and that he would be allowed -time, which was his wife’s simple conception of the situation. He -wanted to get out of it. His spirit shrank from the bondage that would -be involved in getting that money together, in the scraping and sparing -for years, the burden it would be on his shoulders. A thirst, a fury had -seized him to get rid of it, to shake it off. And even the fact that the -Bible opened at that passage had its effect on his disturbed mind. He -would have reproved you seriously for trying any _sortes_ with the -Bible, but in his trouble he did this, as well as so many other things -of which he disapproved. He knew very well also that he had opened at -that passage very often during the past week, and that it was simple -enough that it should open in the same place now. Yet, with instinctive -superstition he took the book, holding it in his two hands to open as it -would, and his heart gave a jump when he found this strike his eyes: -“Sit down quickly, and take thy bill, and write fourscore.” These were -the words, like a command out of heaven. What if that was not the inner -meaning, the sense of the parable? Yet, these were the words, and the -Bible opened upon them, and they were the first words that caught his -eye. - -Suppose that this temptation had come to another man, how clearly would -its fallacy have been exposed, what daylight would have been thrown upon -the text by the minister? He would have almost laughed at, even while he -condemned and pitied, the futile state of mind which could be so led -astray. And he knew all that, but it had no effect upon the workings of -his own distracted mind at that dreadful moment. He went over it again -and again, reading it over aloud as he had done on the first occasion -when it had flashed upon his troubled soul, and seemed to give him an -occult and personal message. And thus he remained all the rest of the -afternoon, with his knees close to the bars of the grate, and his white, -thin hands blanched with cold. Surely he had caught a chill, as so many -people do in the cold and depression of a funeral. He rather caught at -that idea. It might kill, which would be no great harm; or, at least, if -he had caught a bad cold, it would, at least, postpone the interview he -dreaded--the interview in which he would sit down and take his bill and -write fifty--or perhaps fourscore. - -“I think I have caught a chill,” he said, in more cheerful tones, when -he went down-stairs to supper. - -But the minister here had reckoned without his wife. It might not be in -her province to see Mr. Morrison and arrange with him about the debt, -but it certainly was quite in her province to take immediate steps in -respect to a bad cold. He had his feet in hot water and mustard before -he knew where he was--he was put to bed, and warmly wrapped up, and the -hot toddy at last administered, spite of all remonstrances, in a potent -measure. - -“Mr. Moncrieff said I was to make you take it as soon as you came in; -but I just gave in to your humours, knowing how little biddable you -were--but not now: you must just go to your bed like a lamb, and do -what I bid you now.” - -And there could not be a word said now as to what was or was not the -woman’s sphere. If anything was her business at all, decidedly it was -her business to keep her family in health. Mr. Buchanan did what he was -bid, a little comforted by feeling himself under lawful subjection, -which is an excellent thing for every soul, and warm through and through -in body, and hushed in nerves, slept well, and found himself in the -morning without any chill or sign of a chill, quite well. There was thus -no further excuse for him, and he perceived at once in his wife’s eyes, -as she brought him his breakfast before he got up--an indulgence that -always followed the hot-foot bath and the hot drink over-night--that no -further mercy was to be accorded to him, and that she would not -understand or agree to any further postponement of so indispensable a -duty. When she took away his tray--for these were duties she performed -herself, the servants being few, and the work of the house great--she -said, patting him upon the shoulder,-- - -“Now, Claude, my dear, the best time to see Mr. Morrison is about eleven -o’clock; that will leave you plenty of time to get up and get yourself -dressed. It is a fine morning, and your cold is better. If you like, I -will send over to the office to say you are coming.” - -“There is no necessity for that,” Mr. Buchanan said. - -“No, no necessity, but it might be safer; so that he might wait for you -if he should have any temptation otherwise, or business to take him -out.” - -“If he has business, he will see to it whether he knows I am coming or -not,” said the minister; “and if I do not see him this morning, I can -see him another day.” - -“Oh, Claude, my man, don’t put off another day! It will have to be done -sooner or later. Do not keep it hanging over you day after day.” - -“Well, then,” said the minister, with some crossness of tone, “for -goodsake, if you are so urgent, go away and let me get up. How can I get -myself dressed with you there?” - -Mrs. Buchanan disappeared without another word. And he had no further -excuse for putting off. Even the wife of his bosom, though she knew it -would be a bad moment, did not know half how bad it was. Mrs. Buchanan -had made up her mind to it, however it might turn out. She had already -planned out how the expenses were to be lessened after Marion’s -marriage. Elsie was the only other girl, and she was but fourteen. -Several years must elapse before it was necessary to bring her out, and -give her that share in the pleasures and advantages of youthful life -which was her due. And between that time and this there was no privation -that the good mother was not ready to undertake in order to pay off this -debt. You would have thought to see their frugal living that to spare -much from it was impossible, but the minister’s wife had already made -her plans, and her cheerfulness was restored. It might take them a long -time to do it, but Mr. Anderson’s heir was only seventeen, and had still -a good many years of his minority to run. And Willie by that time would -have a good salary, and would be able to help. It would be a case of -sparing every sixpence, but still that was a thing that could be done. -What a good thing that education was so cheap in St. Rule. John, who was -going to be a clergyman, like his father, would have all his training at -home in the most economical way. And Alick was to go to Mr. Beaton’s, -the writer, as soon as he had completed his schooling, without any -premium. They might both be able to help if the worst came to the worst, -but between her own economies and Willie’s help, who had the best right -to help, seeing it was greatly on his account the money had been -borrowed, she had little doubt that in four years they would manage to -repay, at least, the greater part of the three hundred pounds. - -This was all straightforward, but the minister’s part was not so -straightforward. He read over the parable again before he went -down-stairs, and made up his mind finally to take his bill and write -fifty. After all, was not this what Mr. Anderson would have desired? He -was an old man and took no particular interest in his heir. He would -not, of course, have left his money away from him, or injured him in any -way. He quite recognised his claim through his father, a cousin whom -the old man had never known, but who still was his next of kin; yet, on -the other hand, if it came to that, Mr. Anderson was more fully -interested in the young Buchanans. He had seen them all grow up, and -Willie and Marion had been a great deal more to him than young Frank -Mowbray. And Mr. Buchanan was his friend. The minister was persuaded -that old Mr. Anderson would far rather have pardoned him the debt than -extorted it from him almost at the risk of his life. “Take thy bill, and -sit down quickly, and write fifty.” The words of the parable seemed more -and more reasonable, more and more adapted to his own case as he read -them over and over. What he was about to do seemed to him, at the end, -the very right thing to do and the command of heaven. - -Mrs. Buchanan met him in the hall with his hat brushed to a nicety, and -his gloves laid out upon the table. She came up to him with a brush in -her hand, to see if there was the faintest speck upon his broadcloth. -She was his valet, and a most cheerful and assiduous one, loving the -office. She liked to turn him out spotless, and to watch him sally forth -with delight and pride in his appearance, which never failed her. It was -one of the ways of the women of her day, and a pretty one, I think. She -was pleased with his looks, as he stood in the hall ready to go out. - -“But why are you so pale?” she said; “it is not an affair of life and -death. I hope you are not feared for Mr. Morrison.” - -“I am feared for everybody,” said Mr. Buchanan, “that has to do with -money.” - -“Oh, Claude,” she said, “I just hate the filthy lucre myself, but it’s -not a question of life or death. The bairns are all well and doing well, -and will pay it off before Frank Mowbray comes of age. I promise you we -will. I have it all in my eye. Do not, my dear man, do not look so cast -down.” - -He shook his head but made no answer. He was not thinking of what she -said. He was saying over to himself, “Sit down quickly, and take thy -bill, and write fourscore.” - - - - -CHAPTER IV. - -TAKE NOW THY BILL AND WRITE FIFTY. - - -Mr. Buchanan went first to the bank, and drew out the money--the residue -of the loan which had been placed there for Marion’s final equipment. In -those days people did not use cheques, as we do now for every purpose. -When a man paid a debt, it seemed far more sure and satisfactory to pay -it in actual money. To all, except to business men, the other seemed a -doubtful, unsatisfactory way, and those who received a cheque made great -haste to cash it as if in the meantime the bank might break, or the -debtor’s balance turn the wrong way. To pay with a simple bit of paper -did not seem like paying at all. Mr. Buchanan received his fifty pounds -in crisp new notes, pretty notes printed in blue and red. They were like -a little parcel of pictures, all clean and new. He looked at them with a -forlorn admiration: it was seldom he saw such a thing as a ten-pound -note: and here were five of them. Ah, if that had been all! “Sit down -quickly and write fourscore.” This variant troubled his mind a little in -his confusion! But that was measures of wheat, he said to himself, with -a distracted sense that this might somehow make a difference. And then -he walked up the High Street in the morning sunshine to Mr. Morrison’s -office; and sure enough the writer was there and very glad to see him, -so that no chance of escape remained. - -“I have come to speak to you,” the minister said, clearing his throat, -and beginning with so much difficulty--he that would read you off an -hour’s sermon without even pausing for a word!--“about business, -Morrison--about a little--monetary transaction there was--between me and -our late--most worthy friend----” - -“Anderson?” said the writer. And then he added with a half laugh, -tempered by the fact that “the death” had been so recent. “Half St. -Rule’s, I’m thinking, have had monetary transactions with our late -friend----” - -“He would not permit any memorandum of it to be made,” said the -minister. - -“No: that was just like him: only his estate will be the worse for it; -for we can’t expect everybody to be so frank in acknowledging as you.” - -Mr. Buchanan turned the colour of clay, his heart seemed to stop -beating. He said: “I need not tell you--for you have a family of your -own--that now and then there are expenses that arise.” - -The lawyer waved his hand with the freemasonry of common experience. -“Well I know that,” he said; “it is no joke nowadays putting the laddies -out in the world. You will find out that with Willie--but what a fine -opening for him! I wish we were all as well off.” - -“Yes, it is a good opening”--if it had not been that all the joy and the -pride in it was quenched by this!--“and that is precisely what I mean, -Morrison. It was just Willie--ordinary expenses, of course, my wife and -I calculate upon and do our best for--but an outfit----” - -“My dear Mr. Buchanan,” said the writer, “what need to explain the -matter to me. You don’t imagine I got my own lads all set out, as thank -the Lord they are, without feeling the pinch--ay, and incurring -responsibilities that one would wish to keep clear of in the ordinary -way of life.” - -“Yes,” said the minister, “that was how it was; but fortunately the -money was not expended. And I bring you back the fifty pounds--intact.” - -Oh, the little, the very little lie it was! If he had said it was not -all expended, if he had kept out that little article _the--the_ fifty -pounds implying there was no more. Anyhow, it was very different from -taking a bill and writing fourscore. But the criminal he felt, with the -cold drops coming out on his forehead, and his hand trembling as he held -out--as if that were all! these fifty pounds. - -“Now bide a wee, bide a wee,” said the writer; “wait till I tell -you--Mr. Anderson foresaw something of this kind. Put back your money -into your pocket. He foresaw it, the friendly old body that he was; wait -till I get you the copy of the will that I have here.” Morrison got up -and went to one of the boxes, inscribed with the name of Anderson, that -stood on the shelves behind him, and after some searching drew out a -paper, the heading of which he ran over _sotto voce_, while Mr. Buchanan -sat rigid like an automaton, still holding out in his hand the bundle of -notes. - -“Here it is,” said Mr. Morrison, coming back with his finger upon the -place. “You’ll see the case is provided for. ‘And it is hereby provided -that in the case of any persons indebted to me in sums less than a -hundred pounds, which are unpaid at the time of my death, that such -debts are hereby cancelled and wiped out as if they had never existed, -and my executors and administrators are hereby authorised to refuse any -payments tendered of the same, and to desire the aforesaid debtors to -consider these sums as legacies from me, the testator.’ - -“Well, sir,” said the writer, tilting up his spectacles on his forehead, -“I hope that’s plain enough: I hope you are satisfied with that.” - -For a moment the minister sat and gasped, still stretching out the -notes, looking like a man at the point of death. He could not find his -voice, and drops of moisture stood out upon his forehead, which was the -colour of ashes. The lawyer was alarmed; he hurried to a cupboard in the -corner and brought out a bottle and a glass. “Man,” he said, “Buchanan! -this is too much feeling; minister, it is just out of the question to -take a matter of business like this. Take it down! it’s just sherry -wine, it will do you no harm. Bless me, bless me, you must not take it -like this--a mere nothing, a fifty pounds! Not one of us but would have -been glad to accommodate you--you must not take it like that!” - -“Sums under a hundred pounds!” Mr. Buchanan said, but he stammered so -with his colourless lips that the worthy Morrison did not make out very -clearly what he said, and, in truth, had no desire to make it out. He -was half vexed, half disturbed, by the minister’s extreme emotion. He -felt it as a tacit indictment against himself. - -“One would think we were a set of sticks,” he said, “to let our minister -be troubled in his mind like this over a fifty pound! Why, sir, any one -of your session--barring the two fishers and the farmer---- Take it off, -take it off, to bring back the blood--it’s nothing but sherry wine.” - -Mr. Buchanan came to himself a little when he had swallowed the sherry -wine. He had a ringing in his ears, as if he had recovered from a faint, -and the walls were swimming round him, with all the names on the boxes -whirling and rushing like a cloud of witnesses. As soon as he was able -to articulate, however, he renewed his offer of the notes. - -“Take this,” he said, “take this; it will always be something,” trying -to thrust them into the writer’s hand. - -“Hoot,” said Morrison; “my dear sir, will you not understand? You’re -freely assoilised and leeberated from every responsibility; put back -your notes into your own pouch. You would not refuse the kind body’s -little legacy, and cause him sorrow in his grave, which, you will tell -me, is not possible; but, if it were possible, would vex him sore, and -that we well know. I would not take advantage and vex him because he was -no longer capable of feeling it. No, no; just put them back into your -pouch, Buchanan. They are no use to him, and maybe they will be of use -to you.” - -This was how the interview ended. The minister still attempted to -deposit his notes upon Mr. Morrison’s table, but the lawyer put them -back again, doing everything he could to restore his friend and pastor -to the calm of ordinary life. Finally, Morrison declaring that he had -somebody to see “up the town,” and would walk with Mr. Buchanan as far -as their ways lay together, managed to conduct him to his own door. He -noted, with some surprise, that Mrs. Buchanan opened it herself, with a -face which, if not so pale as her husband’s, was agitated too, and full -of anxiety. - -“The minister is not just so well as I would like to see him,” he said. -“I would keep him quiet for a day or two, and let him fash himself for -nothing,” he added--“for nothing!” with emphasis. - -The good man was much disturbed in his mind by this exhibition of -feeling. - -“Oh, why were ‘writers’ made so coarse, and parsons made so fine?” He -would have said these words to himself had he known them, which, perhaps -he did, for Cowper was a very favourite poet in those days. Certainly -that was the sentiment in his mind. To waste all that feeling upon an -affair of fifty pounds! The wife had more sense, Mr. Morrison said to -himself, though she was frightened too, but that was probably for _his_ -sake. He went off about his own business, and I will not say that he did -not mention the matter to one or two of his brother elders. - -“You or me might be ruined and make less fuss about it,” he said. - -“When a man had just a yearly stipend and gets behindhand, it’s wae work -making it up,” said the other. - -“We must just try and see if we cannot get him a bit augmentation,” said -Morrison, “or get up a testimonial or something.” - -“You see, a testimonial could scarcely take the form of money, and what -comfort would he get out of another silver teapot?” observed the second -elder, prudent though kind. - -It was not a much less ordeal for the minister to meet his wife than it -had been to meet the lawyer. She knew nothing about his purpose of -taking his bill and writing fourscore, and he dared not let her suspect -that he had spoken of the “fifty,” as if that fifty were his whole debt, -or that the debts that were forgiven were debts under a hundred pounds. -He said to himself afterwards that it was more Morrison’s fault than -his, that the lawyer would not let him explain that he had said “this -would be something,” meaning that this would be an instalment. All these -things he said to himself as he sat alone for the greater part of the -day, “reading a book,” which was supposed to be an amusing book, and -recovering from that great strain; but he did not venture to tell his -wife of these particulars. What he said to Mrs. Buchanan was that Mr. -Anderson had assoilised his debtors in general, and that each man was to -consider the loan as a legacy, and that Morrison said he was not -entitled to take a penny, and would not. His wife took this news with a -burst of grateful tears and blessings on the name of the good man who -had done this kind thing. “The merciful man is merciful, and lendeth and -asketh not again,” she said. But after this outburst of emotion and -relief, her good sense could not but object. - -“It is an awfu’ deliverance for us, Claude; oh, my man! I had it all -planned out, how we were to do it, but it would have been a heavy, heavy -burden. God bless him for the merciful thought! But,” she added, “I am -not clear in my mind that it is just to Frank. To be sure, it was all in -his own hand to do what he liked with his own, and the laddie is but a -far-off heir; but still he has been trained for that, and to expect a -good fortune: and if there are many as we are, Claude----” - -“It is not our affair, Mary; he had full command of his faculties, and -it was his own to do what he liked with it,” her husband said, though -with faltering lips. - -“Well, that is true,” she replied, but doubtfully: “I am not denying a -man’s right to do what he likes with his own. And if it had been only -you, his minister, that perhaps he owed much more to, even his own soul, -as Paul says----” - -“No, no; not so much as that.” - -“But if there are many,” Mrs. Buchanan went on, shaking her head, “it -might be a sore heritage for Frank. Claude, if ever in the days to come -we can do anything for that lad, mind I would think it was our duty to -prefer him before our very own: for this is a great deliverance, and -wrought, as you may say, at his cost but without his consent----” - -“My dear, a sum like that,” said Mr. Buchanan, with a faint smile and a -heavy heart, “is not a fortune.” - -“That is true, but it is a great deliverance to us; and if ever we can -be helpful to him, in siller or in kindness, in health or in -sickness----” - -There came a rush of tenderness to Mrs. Buchanan’s heart, with the tears -that filled her eyes, and she could say no more. - -“Yes, yes,” he said a little fretfully, “yes, yes; though he had no -merit in it, and not any such great loss either that I can see.” - -She judged it wise to leave the minister to himself after this; for, -though nerves were not much thought of in those days, she saw that -irritability and a tendency to undervalue the great deliverance, which -filled her with such overflowing gratitude, had taken the place of more -amiable feelings in his mind. It was better to leave him quiet, to -recover from his ill mood, and from the consequence of being overdone. -“I have so many things to take off my mind,” she said to herself. -Perhaps she thought the minister’s cares--though most people would have -thought them so much more important--nothing to hers, which were so -many, often so petty, so absorbing, leaving her no time to brood. And -had she not provided him with the new _Waverley_, which most people -thought the best anodyne for care--that is, among the comforts of this -world, not, of course, to count among higher things? - -But Mr. Buchanan did not, I fear, find himself capable of having his -mind taken off, even by the new _Waverley_. He was spared, he said to -himself, from actual guilt.--Was he spared from actual guilt? He had not -required to take his bill and write fourscore. But for that one little -word the--_the_ fifty (how small a matter!) he had said nothing: and -that was not saying anything, it was merely an inference, which his next -words might have made an end of; only, that Morrison would not hear my -next words. If there was a fault in the matter, it was Morrison’s fault. -He repeated this to himself fretfully, eagerly, impatient with the man -who had saved him from committing himself. Never, never would he commit -any business to Morrison’s hands! Such a man was not to be trusted; he -cared nothing for his client’s interest. All that he was intent upon was -to relieve the debtor, to joke about the “friendly body,” who was so -kind, even in his grave. “A sore saint for his heir,” Morrison had again -said, as was said of the old king--instead of standing for the heir’s -rights as he ought to have done, and hearing what a man had to say! - -And this then was the end of it all--salvation--from all the -consequences, even from the very crime itself which he had planned and -intended, but had not required to carry out. He had saved everything, -his conscience, and his fifty pounds, not to speak of all the rest, the -sum which his wife had planned by so many daily sacrifices to make up. -He had not, after all, been like the unjust steward. He had said -nothing, had not even written the fourscore; he had been saved -altogether, even the fifty he had offered. Was this the Lord’s doing, -and marvellous in our eyes--or what was it? Mr. Buchanan put away the -_Waverley_, which was given him to comfort him, and took up the Bible -with the large print. It opened again at that parable; and then, with a -great start of pain, he recognised his fate, and knew that henceforward -it would open always at that parable, now that the parable was no longer -a suggestion of deliverance to him but a dreadful reminder. A convulsive -movement went through all his limbs at that thought. Mr. Buchanan had -often preached of hell, it was the fashion of his time; but he had -never known what he himself meant. Now he knew: this was hell where -their worm dieth not, and their fire is not quenched. It lay here, not -in a vague, unrealised region of fire and brimstone; but here, within -the leaves of the New Testament, which was his chief occupation, -inspiring all the work of his life. This was hell--to see the book open, -the book of life, always at that one place. He had not to wait for it; -the worm had begun to gnaw and the fire to burn. - - - - -CHAPTER V. - -MARION AND ELSIE. - - -It was not till a long time after this that the Rev. Matthew Sinclair, -who was the betrothed of Marion Buchanan, got a kirk, and the faithful -pair were able to marry. The snowy heaps of Marion’s linen, which her -mother now spoke of, in the bosom of the family, as in reality a present -from old Mr. Anderson, seeing that it was paid for by a loan from him, -generously converted into a legacy when he died--had lain spread out, -with sprigs of lavender between the folds, in the big press at the head -of the nursery stairs for nearly two years, during which time Elsie grew -into almost a young woman. Rodie, too, became an ever more and more -“stirring” school-boy, less disposed to sit and read from the same book -with his sister, and more occupied with outdoor games and the -“clanjamfry,” as his mother said, of school-fellows and playfellows who -were always hanging about waiting for him, or coming with mysterious -knockings to the door to ask him out. Some of them, Mrs. Buchanan -thought, were not quite proper comrades for the minister’s son, but the -framework of juvenile society in St. Rule’s was extremely democratic, -all the classes going to school together according to Scotch -precedent--the laird’s son and the shoemaker’s on the same bench, and -Rodie Buchanan cheek by jowl with the fisher laddies from east the town. -In the play hours, it was true, things equalised themselves a little; -but there was certainly one fisher laddie his prompter and helper in -school, who kept a great ascendancy over Rodie, and would lead him away -in long tramps along the sea-shore, when he might have been at football -or “at the gouff” with companions of his own standing, and when Elsie -was pining for his society at home. Elsie felt the partial desertion of -her brother extremely. She missed the long readings together in the -turret and elsewhere, and the long rambles, in which Johnny Wemyss had -become Rodie’s companion, apparently so much more interesting to him -than herself. Johnny Wemyss, it was evident, had a great deal of -knowledge, which Elsie was inclined, in her ignorance, to be thankful -she did not possess; for Rodie would come in with his pockets all full -of clammy and wet things--jelly-fish, which he called by some grand -name--and the queer things that wave about long fingers on the edges of -the pools, and shrink into themselves when you touch them. This was -before the days when sea-anemones became a fashionable pursuit, but -children brought up by the sea had, of course, known and wondered at -these creatures long before science took them up. But to bring them home -was a different matter; filling the school-room with nasty, sticky -things, which, out of their native element, decayed and made bad -smells, and were the despair of the unfortunate maid who had to keep -that room in order, and dared not, except in extremity, throw Rodie’s -hoards away. “It is not Rodie’s fault; it is Johnny Wemyss that just -tells him nonsense stories,” Elsie said. She would have given her little -finger to have gone with him on those rambles, and to have heard all -about those strange living things; but already the invisible bonds that -confine a woman’s movements had begun to cramp Elsie’s free footsteps, -and the presence of Johnny Wemyss made, she was well aware, her own -impossible, though it was just Johnny Wemyss’s “nonsense stories” that -she desired most to hear. - -Rodie condescended to accompany her on her Sunday walk when all St. -Rule’s perambulated the links from which they were shut out on -week-days; but that became the only occasion on which she could -calculate on his company, and not even the new _Waverley_, which had -failed to beguile the minister from his urgent trouble, could seduce -Rodie from his many engagements with his fellows to sit with his sister -in the turret, with the book between them as of old. - -Elsie, it is true, gradually began to make herself amends for this -desertion by forming new alliances of her own with girls of her own age, -who have always abounded in St. Rule’s; but these did not at all make up -to her, as Johnny Wemyss seemed to make up to Rodie, for the separation -from her natural companion and fellow. These young ladies were -beginning already, as they approached sixteen, to think of balls and -triumphs in a way which was different from the romps of old. The world, -in the shape of young men older than their boyish companions, and with -other intentions, began to open about them. At that time it was nothing -very remarkable that girls should marry very early, a circumstance -which, of itself, made a great change in their ideas, and separated them -more than anything else could have done from their childish -contemporaries of the other sex. - -Elsie was in that hot stage of indignation and revolt against -sweethearts, and all talk on the subject, which is generally a phase in -a girl’s development. She was angry at the introduction of this unworthy -subject, and almost furious with the girls who chattered and laughed -about Bobbie this and Willie that--for in St. Rule’s they all knew each -other by their Christian names. She could understand that you should -prefer your own brother’s society to that of any girl, and much wondered -that Rodie should prefer any boy to herself--which was one great -distinction between girls and boys which she discovered with indignation -and shame. “I like Rodie better than anybody, but he likes his Johnny -Wemyss better than me! Ay!” she cried, the indignation gaining upon her, -“and even if Johnny Wemyss were not there, Ralph Beaton or Harry Seaton, -or any laddie--whereas I would give up any lassie for him.” - -“That is just the way of men,” said Marion, her eldest sister, who, -being now on the eve of marriage, naturally knew a great deal more than -a girl of sixteen. - -“Not with Matthew,” cried Elsie, who, if she had no experience, was not -without observation; “he likes you better than all the men in the -world.” - -“Oh, Matthew!” said Marion, with a blush--“that’s different: but when -he’s used to me,” added this discreet young woman--“Matthew, I’ve every -reason to believe, will just be like the rest. He will play his gouff, -though I may be sitting solitary at home--and he will go out to his -dinner and argue among his men, and take his walks with Hugh Playfair, -or whoever turns up. He will say, ‘My dear, I want a long stretch that -would be too far for you,’ as my father says to my mother. She takes it -very well, and is glad he should be enjoying himself, and leaving her at -peace to look after her house and her bairns--but perhaps she was not so -pleased at first: and perhaps I’ll not be pleased either when it comes -to that,” Marion said, reflectively. - -Sense was her great characteristic, and she had, in her long engagement, -had much time to turn all these things over in her mind. - -“I don’t think it will ever come to that--for he cannot let you be for a -moment,” said Elsie. “I sometimes wish he were a hundred miles away.” - -“Ah,” said Marion, “but you know that will not last; and, indeed, it is -better it should not last, for how could you ever get anything done if -your man was draigling after you all the day long? No, no, it is more -manlike that he should keep till his own kind. You may think you would -like to have Rodie at your tail for ever, as when you were little -bairns, and called the twins: but you would not, any more than he -does--- just wait a wee, and you will find that out for yourself: for it -should surely be more so with your brother, who is bound to go away from -you, when it is so with your man.” - -“Then I think the disciples were right,” said Elsie, who was very -learned in her Bible, as became a minister’s daughter. “And if the case -of a man be so with his wife it would be better not to marry.” - -“Well, it does not seem that folk think so,” said Marion, with a smile, -“or it would not have gone on so long. Will you get me the finest -dinner-napkins, the very finest ones, out of the big napery press at the -head of the stairs?--for I am not sure that they are all marked -properly, and time is running on, and everything must be finished.” - -Marion was very great at marking, whether in white letters worked in -satin stitch, or in small red ones done with engrained cotton, or -finally with the little bottle of marking-ink and the hot iron with -which Elsie still loved to help her--but in the case of the finest -dinner-napkins, I need not say that marking-ink was not good enough, -and the finest satin stitch was employed. - -It need not be added that notwithstanding the reflection above stated -Elsie felt a great interest in the revelations of the sister thus -standing on the brink of a new life, and so soberly contemplating the -prospect before her, not with any idea, as it seemed, of ideal -blessedness, nor of having everything her own way. - -Marion had been set thinking by the girl’s questions, and was ready to -go on talking when Elsie returned with the pile of dinner-napkins in her -arms, as high as her chin, which reposed upon them. It had been Mrs. -Buchanan’s pride that no minister’s wife in the whole presbytery should -have more exquisite linen, and both mother and daughter were gratified -to think that the table would be set out for the dinner on the Monday -after the Sacrament as few such tables were. The damask was very fine, -of a beautiful small pattern, and shone like white satin. Elsie had a -little talent for drawing, and she it was who drew the letters which -Marion worked; so that this duty afforded occupation for both. - -“It is a little strange, I do not deny,” said Marion, “that though they -make such a work about us when they are courting and so forth, the men -are more content in the society of their own kind than we are: a party -that is all lassies, you weary of it.” - -“Not me!” cried Elsie, all aflame. - -“Wait till you are a little older,” said the sage Marion; “it’s even -common to say; though I doubt if it is true, that after dinner we weary -for them, if they are too long of coming up-stairs. But they never weary -for us: and a man’s party is always the most joyful of all, and they -like it above everything, and never wish that we were there. I must say -I do not understand how this is, considering how dependent they are upon -us for their comfort, and how helpless they are, more helpless than a -woman ever is. Now, what my father would do if mamma did not see that he -was brushed and trimmed up and kept in order, I cannot tell: and no -doubt it will be just the same with Matthew. He will come to me crying, -‘May, there are no handkerchiefs in my drawer,’ or, ‘May, the button’s -off my glove,’ as if it was my great fault--and when he is going off to -preach anywhere, he will forget his very sermon if I don’t take care -it’s put into his portmanteau. - -“Well, my dear! I am no better than my mother, and that is what she has -to do: but when they get a few men together, and can gossip away, and -talk, and take their glass of toddy, then is the time when they really -enjoy themselves. And so it is with the laddies, or even more--you wish -for them, but they don’t wish for you.” - -“I wish for none of them, except Rodie, my own brother, that has always -been my companion,” Elsie said. - -“And you would think he would wish for you? but no: his Johnny Wemyss -and his Alick Beaton, or was it Ralph?--that’s what he likes far best, -except, of course, when he falls in love, and then he will run after the -lassie wherever she goes, till she takes him, and it’s all settled, and -then he just goes back to his men, as before. It is a very mysterious -thing to me,” said Marion, “but I have thought a great deal about it, -and it’s quite true. I do not like myself,” she added, with a pause of -reflection, “men that are always at a woman’s tails. If you never could -turn round or do a thing without your man after you, it would be a great -bother. I am sure mamma feels that; she is always easy in her mind when -my father is set down very busy to his sermon, or when somebody comes in -to talk to him, or he goes out to his dinner with Professor Grant. Then -she is sure he will be happy, and it leaves her free. I will just feel -the same about Matthew, and he about me. He would not be without me for -all the world, but he will never want me when he gets with his own -cronies. Now, we always seem to have a kind of want of them.” - -“You have just said that mamma was quite happy when she got papa off her -hands,” Elsie said. - -“That is a different thing; but do you think for a moment that she would -enjoy herself with a party of women as he does at Professor Grant’s? -That she would not; she is glad to get him off her hands because she is -sure he will enjoy himself, and be no trouble to anybody. But that -would be little pleasure to her, if she were to do the same: and you -yourself, if you had all the Seatons and the Beatons that ever were -born----” - -“I want only Rodie, my own brother,” Elsie said, with indignation. - -“And he,” said Marion, calmly reflecting, “does not want you; that is -just what I say--and what is so queer a thing.” - -“If the case of a man is so with his wife?” said Elsie, oracularly. - -“Toots--the man is just very well off,” said Marion. “He gets his wife -to take care of him, and then he just enjoys himself with his own kind.” - -“Then I would never marry,” cried Elsie; “not whatever any one might -say.” - -“That is very well for you,” said Marion. “You will be the only daughter -when I am away; they will be very well contented if you never marry; -for, to be left without a child in the house, would be hard enough upon -mamma. But even, with all my plenishing ready, and the things marked, -and everything settled--not that I would like to part with Matthew, even -if there was no plenishing--I would rather have him without a tablecloth -than any other man with the finest napery in the world. But I just know -what will happen, and I am quite pleased, and it is of no use going -against human nature. For company, they will always like their own kind -best. But then, on the other hand, women are not so keen about company. -When there’s a family, they are generally very well content to bide at -home, and be thankful when their man enjoys himself without fashing -anybody.” - -This is not a doctrine which would, perhaps, be popular with women -nowadays; but, in Marion’s time, it was considered a kind of gospel in -its way. - -Elsie was not much interested in the view of man, as husband, put forth -by her sister. Her mind did not go out towards that development of -humanity; but the defection of Rodie, her _own_ brother as she said, was -a more serious matter. Most girls in as large family have an own brother -their natural pair, the one most near to them in age or temperament. It -had once been Willie and Marion, just as it had once been Elsie and -Rodie; but Elsie could not bear the thought that Rodie might become to -her, by his own will, the same as Willie was to Marion--her brother, but -not her _own_ brother, with no special tie between them. Her mind was -constantly occupied by the thought of it, and how it was to be averted. -Marion, she thought, had done nothing to lead Willie back when he first -began to go after, what Marion called, his own kind, and to jilt his -sister: so far from that, she had brought in a stranger into the family, -a Matthew, to re-open and widen the breach, so that it was natural that -Willie should go out of nights, and like his young men’s parties, and -come in much later than pleased father. This was not a thing that Elsie -would do--she would bring in no strange man. All the Matthews in the -world might flutter round her, but she would never give Rodie any reason -to think that there was anybody she wanted but her brother--no, whatever -might happen, she would be faithful to Rodie, even if it were true, as -Marion said, that men (as if Rodie were a man!) liked their own kind -best. Why, she _was_ his own kind; who could be so near him as his -sister, his own sister, the one that was next in the family? - -Elsie went seriously into this question, as seriously as any forsaken -wife could do, whose husband was being led astray from her, as she took -a melancholy ramble by herself along the east sands, where Rodie never -accompanied her now. She asked herself what she could do to bring him -back, to make him feel that, however his Johnnys and his Alicks might -tempt him for the moment, it was Elsie that was his true friend: she -must never scold him, nor taunt him with liking other folk better, she -must always be kind, however unkind he might be. With these excellent -resolutions warm in her mind, it happened to Elsie to see, almost -straight in front of her, hanging on the edge of a pool among the rocks, -Rodie himself, in company with Johnny Wemyss, the newly-chosen friend of -his heart. Johnny was up to his elbows in the pool, digging out with his -hands the strange things and queer beasts to be found therein; and half -to show the charity of her thoughts, half out of curiosity and desire -to see what they were about, Elsie hurried on to join them. Johnny -Wemyss was a big boy, bigger than Rodie, as old as Elsie -herself--roughly clad, with big, much-mended nailed boots, clouted -shoon, as he would himself have called them, and his rough hair standing -out under the shabby peak of his sailor’s cap. - -“What are you doing--oh, what are you finding? Let me see,” cried Elsie, -coming up behind them with noiseless feet on the wet but firm sand. - -Johnny Wemyss gave a great start, and raised himself up, drawing his -bare and dripping arms out of the water, and standing confused before -the young lady, conscious that he was not company for her, nor even for -her brother, the minister’s son, he who came of mere fisher folk. - -But Rodie turned round fierce and threateningly, with his fists clenched -in his pockets. - -“What are you wanting?” he cried. “Can you not let a person abee? We are -no wanting any lassies here.” - -“Rodie,” cried his sister, flushed and almost weeping, “do you say that -to me?” - -“Ay do I!” cried Rodie, red with wrath and confusion. “What are you -wanting? We just want no lassies here.” - -Elsie gave him but one look of injured love and scorn, and, without -saying another word, turned round and walked away. - -Oh, May was right! she was only a lassie to her own brother, and he had -insulted her before that Johnny, who was the cause of it all--she only -hoped they were looking after her to see how firm she walked, and that -she was not crying--no, she would not cry--why should she cry about him, -the hard-hearted, unkind boy? and with that, Elsie’s shoulders heaved, -and a great sob rent her breast. - -She had indeed mourned his desertion before: yet this was practically -her first revelation of the hollowness of life. - -Meanwhile, Rodie was far from comfortable on his side; all the more that -Johnny Wemyss gave him a kick with his clouted shoe, and said, with the -frankness of friendship: - -“Ye little cankered beast--how dare ye speak to her like that? How can -she help it if she is a lassie?--it’s no her blame!” - - - - -CHAPTER VI. - -A HOUSEHOLD CONTROVERSY. - - -Notwithstanding the great sobriety of her views, as disclosed above, -Marion, on the eve of her marriage, was no doubt the most interesting -member of the Buchanan family; and, if anything could have “taken off” -the mind of Elsie from her own misfortune, it would have been the -admiring and wondering study she was quite unconsciously making of her -sister, who had come to the climax of a girl’s life, and who regarded it -with so staid and middle-aged a view. Marion had always been a very -steady sort of girl all her life, it was common to say. There was no -nonsensical enthusiasm about her. Even when in love--that is, in the -vague and gaseous period, before it has come to anything, when most -girls have their heads a little pardonably turned, and the excitement of -the new thing runs strong in their veins--even then, her deportment had -been everything that could be desired in a minister’s daughter, and -future minister’s wife. There had been no contrivings of meetings, no -lingering on the links or the sands. Never once, perhaps, in that period -when even a lassie is allowed to forget herself a little, had Marion -failed to be at home in time for prayers, or forgot any of her duties. -She was of the caste of the Scotch minister, in which the woman as well -as the man belongs more or less to a sacred profession, and has its -character to keep up. But, no doubt, it was owing to the sober tone of -her own mind that she took at so early an age, and so exciting a moment -of her career, the very sensible and unexalted views which she expressed -so clearly. The Rev. Matthew Sinclair was neither cold nor negligent as -a lover; he was limited by duty, and by a purse but indifferently -filled. He could only come to see her after careful arrangement, when he -could afford it, and when he could secure a substitute in his work. He -could not shower presents upon her, even daily bouquets or other -inexpensive luxuries. In those days, if you had a garden at your hand, -you might bring your beloved “a flower”--that is, a bunch of -flowers--roses and southernwood, and bachelor’s buttons and -gilly-flowers, with a background of the coloured grasses, called -gardener’s garters in Scotland, tightly tied together; but there were no -shops in which you could find the delicate offerings, sweet smelling -violets, and all the wonders of the South--which lovers deal in -nowadays. But he did his part very manfully, and Marion had nothing to -complain of in his attentions. Yet, as has been made apparent, she was -not deceived. She did not expect, or even wish, to attach him to her -apron strings. She was quite prepared to find that, in respect of -“company,” that is society, he would prefer, as she said, his own kind. -And she did not look forward to this with any prevision of that -desolate sense of the emptiness of the world and all things, which was -in the mind of Elsie when her brother told her that he wanted no lassies -there. Marion knew that if she went into her husband’s study when two or -three of the brethren were gathered together, her entrance would -probably stop a laugh, and her husband would look up and say, “Well, my -dear?” interrogatively, with just the same meaning, though less roughly -than that of Rodie. She had seen it in her mother’s case; she accepted -it as quite natural in her anticipations of her own. This curious -composure made her, perhaps, all the more interesting--certainly a more -curious study--to Elsie, who had fire and flame in her veins -incomprehensible to the elder sister. Elsie followed her about with that -hot iron to facilitate the marking, and drank in her words with many a -protest against them. Let it not be supposed that Marion marked her own -“things” with the vulgarity of marking-ink; but she marked the dusters -and the commoner kinds of napery, the coarser towels and sheets, all the -inferior part of her plenishing in this common way, an operation which -occupied a good many mornings, during which there went on much edifying -talk. Sometimes, while they sat at one end of the large dining-table in -the dining-room,--for it was not permitted to litter the drawing-room -with this kind of work,--Mrs. Buchanan would be seated at the other, -with her large basket of stockings to darn, or other domestic mendings, -and, in that case, the talk was more varied, and went over a wider -field. Naturally, the mother was not quite philosophic or so perfectly -informed as was the young daughter on the verge of her life. - -“I hear,” said Mrs. Buchanan, “that old Mr. Anderson’s house in the High -Street is getting all prepared and made ready for young Frank Mowbray -and his mother. She is not a very wise woman, and very discontented. I -fear that the old man left much less than was expected. When I think how -good he was to us, and that Willie’s outfit and your plenishing are -just, so to speak, gifts of his bounty, I feel as if we were a kind of -guilty when I hear of his mother’s complaint. For, if he had not given -us, and other people as well as much as he did, there would have been -more for her, or at least for her Frank.” - -“But she had nothing to do with it, mother,” said Marion; “and he had a -good right to please himself, seeing it was all his own.” - -“All that is quite true,” said Mrs. Buchanan; “I made use of the very -same argument myself when your father was so cast down about it, and -eager to pay it back, and James Morrison would not listen to him. I just -said, ‘It’s in the very Scripture--Shall I not do what I like with my -own?’ And then your father tells me that you must not always take the -words of a parable for direct instruction, and that the man who said -that was meaning--but if you ask him, he will tell you himself what we -were to understand.” - -“Was it the one about the unjust steward?” asked Elsie, suddenly looking -up, with the heated iron in her hand. - -“What would the unjust steward have to do with it?” said Mrs. Buchanan, -astonished. “Neither your father nor Mr. Anderson would go for -instruction to the unjust steward. Your father had a fine lecture on -that, that he delivered about a year and a half ago. You never mind your -father’s best things, you bairns, though one would think you might be -proud of them.” - -“I mind that quite clearly,” said Marion; “and, mother, if you’ll no be -angry, I would like to say that it did not satisfy my mind. You would -have thought he was excusing yon ill man: and more than that, as if he -thought our Lord was excusing him: and, though it was papa that said it, -that was what I could not bide to hear.” - -It may be supposed how Elsie, with her secret knowledge, pricked up her -ears. She sat with the iron suspended in her hand, letting Marion’s -initials grow dry upon the linen, and forgetting altogether what she was -about. - -“I am astonished that you should say that,” said the mother, giving a -little nod; “that will be some of Matthew’s new lights--for, I am sure, -he explained as clear as could be that it was the man’s wisdom, or you -might say cunning, that the Lord commended, so to speak, as being the -best thing for his purpose, though his purpose was far from being a -good one. Your father is not one that, on such a subject, ever gives an -uncertain note.” - -“It is an awfu’ difficult subject for an ordinary congregation,” said -Marion. “Matthew is just as little a man for new lights as papa; but -still he did say, that for a common congregation----” - -“I thought it would be found that Matthew was at the bottom of it,” said -Mrs. Buchanan, with a laugh; “though it would set a young man better to -hold his peace, and make no comments upon one that has so much more -experience than himself.” - -“You are a little unjust to Matthew,” said Marion, nodding in her turn; -“he made no more comment than any of the congregation might have -done--or than I did myself. He is just very careful what he says about -papa. He says that theology, like other things, makes progress, and that -there’s more exegesis and--and other things, since my father’s -time--which makes a difference; but he has always a great opinion of -papa’s sermons, and says you may learn a great deal from them, even -when----” - -“I am sure we are much beholden to him,” said Mrs. Buchanan, holding her -head high. “It’s delicate of him to spare your feelings; for, I suppose, -however enlightened you may be beyond your fellows, you must still have -some kind of objection to hear your father criticised.” - -“Oh, mother, how can you take it like that?” said Marion; “there was no -criticism. If anything was said, it was more me than him. I said I could -not bide to hear a word, as if our Lord might have approved such an ill -man. And he said it was dangerous for a mixed congregation, and that few -considered the real meaning of a parable, but just took every word as if -it was instruction.” - -“And that was just your father’s strong point. He said it was like -taking another man’s sail to fill up a leak in a boat. You would praise -the man for getting the first thing he could lay his hands on to save -himself and his crew, but not for taking his neighbour’s sail--that was -just his grand point; but there are some folk that will always take -things in the matter-of-fact way, to the letter, and cannot understand -what’s expounded according to the spirit. That, however, has always just -been your father’s special gift,” said the minister’s wife, _de facto_. -She, who was only a minister’s wife in expectation, ought to have bowed -her head; but, being young and confident, even though so extremely -reasonable, Marion could not subdue herself to that better part. - -“That was just what Matthew said--dangerous for a mixed congregation,” -she repeated; “the most of them just being bound by nature to the -letter, and very matter-of-fact----” - -“No doubt Matthew is a great authority,” said Mrs. Buchanan, with a -violent snap of her big scissors. - -“Well, mamma,” said Marion, with the soft answer that does not always -take away wrath, “you’ll allow that he ought to be to me----” - -And there then ensued a deep silence; a whole large hole in the heel of -Rodie’s stocking filled up, as by magic, in the mother’s hands, -quickened by this contrariety, and the sudden absorption in her work -which followed, and Marion marked twelve towels, one after the other, so -quickly that Elsie could scarcely follow her with the iron in time to -make them all shine. It was she who took up the thread of the -conversation again, but not wisely. Had she been a sensible young -person, she would have introduced a new subject, which is the bounden -duty of a third party, when the other two have come to the verge of a -quarrel. But Elsie was only sixteen, and this discussion had called back -her own strange experience in the turret-room. - -“It must have given papa a great deal of thinking,” she said. “Once me -and Rodie were in the turret as--as he never comes now----” This was -very bad grammar, but Elsie’s heart was full of other things. “We were -reading _Quentin Durward_, and very, very taken up with all that was -going on at Liege, if you mind.” Liége had no accent in Elsie’s mind or -her pronunciation. “And then you came into the study, mother, and -talked. And after he began again with his sermon. It was a long time -ago, but I never forgot, for it was strange what he said. It was as if -he was learning the parable off by heart. ‘Take now thy bill, and sit -down quickly, and write fourscore’--or ‘write fifty.’ He said it over -and over, just those words--sometimes the one and sometimes the other. -It was awfu’ funny. We both heard it; both me and Rodie, and wondered -what he could be meaning. And we dared not move, for though he knew we -were there, we did not like to disturb him. We thought he had maybe -forgotten us. We were so stiff, we could scarcely move, and that was -always what he said, ‘Take now thy bill, and sit down----’” - -Mrs. Buchanan had dropped her work and raised her head to listen; a -puzzled look came over her face, then she shook her head, slightly, -unable to solve the problem which she dimly felt to be put before her. -She said, at last, with a change of countenance: - -“I came into the study and talked?--and you there? What was I talking -about? do you mind that?” - -“Oh, nothing,” said Elsie. “Old Mr. Anderson; it was just before he -died.” - -“And you were there, Rodie and you, when I came in to talk private -things with your father! Is that the kind of conduct for children in a -decent house?” - -Mrs. Buchanan had reddened again, and wrath, quite unusual, was in her -tone. - -“Mamma, when it was raining, and we had a book to read, we were always -there, and father knew, and he never said a word!” - -“You knew too, mother,” said Marion; “the two little things were always -there.” - -“Little things!” cried Mrs. Buchanan, almost with a snort--Rodie’s heel, -stretched out upon her hand, and now filled up with a strong and seemly -web of darning in stout worsted, was quite as big as his father’s. And -Elsie was taller than either of the two women by her side. “They were -little things with muckle lugs,” she said, with a rather fierce little -laugh; “if you think, Elsie, it was right to spy upon the private -conversation of your father and mother, that is not my opinion. Do you -think I would have spoken to him as I did if I had known you two were -there?” - -“Mother, about old Mr. Anderson?” cried Marion, meditating; “there could -be nothing so private about that.” - -She gave them both a look, curious and anxious; Marion took it with the -utmost composure, perhaps did not perceive it at all. Elsie, with a -wistful but ignorant countenance, looked at her mother, but did not -wince. She had no recollection of what that conversation had been. - -“Oh, mamma,” she said, “we spying!” with big tears in her eyes. - -“I am not saying you meant it,” said her mother; “it was a silly habit, -but I must request, Elsie, that it never may happen again.” - -“Oh!” cried Elsie, the big tears running over, “he never will come now! -He is not caring neither for me nor the finest book that ever was -written. There is no fear, mother. It breaks my heart to sit there my -lane, and Rodie never will come now!” - -“You are a silly thing,” said Mrs. Buchanan; “it is not to be expected, -a stirring laddie. Far better for him to be out stretching his limbs -than poring over a book. But I can understand, too, it’s a -disappointment to you.” - -“Oh, a disappointment!” Elsie cried, covering her face with her hands: -the word was so inadequate. - -To be disappointed was not to get a new frock when you want it, or -something else, unworthy of a thought: but to be forsaken by your own -brother! You wanted for that a much bigger word. - -“All the same,” the mother said, “I have often things to say to your -father that are between me and him alone, and not for you. You must not -do this again, Elsie. Another time, if you hear me go in to speak to -your papa, you must give warning you are there. You must not sit and -hold your breath, and listen. There are many things I might say to him -that were never intended for you. Now, mind what I say. I forgive you -because I am sure you did not mean it; but another time----” - -“There will never be another time, mother,” said Elsie, with a quivering -lip. - -“Well, I am sure I hope so,” said her mother, and she finished her -stockings carefully, made them into round balls, and carried them away -to put them into their respective drawers. At this particular moment, -with all that was going on, and all that was being prepared in the -house, she had very little time to spend with her daughters in the -pleasant exercise of sewing, virtuous and most necessary as that -occupation was. - -“Do you remember what they were saying about old Mr. Anderson?” said -Marion; “for I have always thought there was something about that--that -was--I don’t know what word to say. He died, you know, when they were in -his debt, and he freely forgave them; and that was why I got such a good -plenishing, and Willie the best of outfits, and I would like to know -what they said.” - -“I do not mind what they said,” said Elsie; “and, if I did mind, I would -not tell you, and you should not ask me. Rodie and me, we were not -heeding about their secrets. It was just after, when my father went on -and on about that parable, that we took any notice what he said.” - -“And what was he saying about the parable?” - -“Oh, I have told you already. He just went on and on--‘Take thy bill, -and write fourscore’--you know what it says--till a person’s head went -round and round. And we dared never move, neither me nor Rodie, and very -glad we were when he went down-stairs.” - -“Poor bit things, not daring to move,” said Marion. “But that was a -strange thing to say over and over: he said nothing about that in his -sermon, but just how clever the man was for his purpose, though it was -not a good purpose. But Matthew is of opinion that it’s a dangerous -thing to treat the parables in that way.” - -“And how should Matthew know better than my father?” cried Elsie, in -indignation. “He may just keep his opinion; I’m of the same opinion as -papa.” - -“It is not of much consequence what your opinion is,” said Marion, -imperturbably; “but Matthew has been very well instructed, and he has -all the new lights upon things, and the exegesis and all that, which was -not so advanced in my father’s day. But it was a fine sermon,” she -added, with an approving nod, “though maybe dangerous to the ignorant, -which was all we ever said.” - -As for Elsie, she ceased altogether to think of the mystery of that -afternoon, and the sound of her father’s voice--which was such as she -had never heard before--in her hot indignation against Matthew, who -dared to be of a different opinion from papa. - - - - -CHAPTER VII. - -THE FIRST MARRIAGE IN THE FAMILY. - - -Marion’s marriage took place in the summer, at the very crown of the -year. And it was a very fine wedding in its way, according to the -fashion of the times. Nobody in Scotland thought of going to church for -this ceremony, which took place in the bride’s home, in the drawing-room -upstairs, which was the largest room in the house, and as full as it -could be with wedding-guests. There were two bridesmaids, Elsie and a -sister of Matthew’s, whose mission, however, was unimportant in the -circumstances, unless, indeed, when it happened to be the duty of one of -them to accompany the bride and bridegroom, with the aid of the best -man, upon their wedding-tour. This curious arrangement had never been -thought of in Marion’s case, for no wedding-tour was contemplated. The -wedding pair were to proceed at once to their own quiet manse, somewhere -in the centre of Fife, where they could travel comfortably in a -post-chaise; and there they were disposed of for life, with no further -fuss. There were many things, indeed, wanting in this wedding which are -indispensable now. There were, for example, no wedding-presents, or at -least very few, some pieces of silver of the massive order, a heavy -tea-service, which was indeed a “testimonial” from those who had -profited by the Rev. Matthew’s services, in his previous sphere, and a -number of pretty things sent by Willie, such as used to be sent from -India by all the absent sons, pieces of Indian muslin, embroidered and -spangled (over which Mrs. Buchanan had held up her hands, wondering what -in the world Marion could do with them), and shawls, one of them heavy -with gold embroidery, about which the same thing might be said. Willie -had been by this time about eighteen months in India, and was already -acquainted with all the ways of it, his mother believed. And he sent -such things as other young men sent to their families, without -considering whether they would be of any use. He also sent various -beautiful things in that mosaic of ivory and silver, which used to adorn -so many Scotch houses, and which made the manse parlour glorious for -years to come. On the whole, “every justice” was done to Marion. Had she -come from Mount Maitland itself, the greatest house in the -neighbourhood, or even from the Castle at Pittenweem, or Balcarres, she -could not have been better set out. - -It was at this great festivity that there were first introduced to the -society at St. Rule’s two figures that were hereafter to be of great -importance to it, and to assume an importance beyond what they had any -right to, according to ordinary laws. These were Frank Mowbray and his -mother, who had very lately come to St. Rule’s, from a country vaguely -called the South, which was not, after all, any very distant or -different region, but perhaps only Dumfrieshire, or Northumberland, in -both of which they had connections, but which do not suggest any -softness of climate or exuberance of sunshine to our minds nowadays. -They had led, it was believed, a wandering life, which was a thing very -obnoxious to the public sentiment of St. Rule’s, and almost infallibly -meant minds and manners to correspond, light-headedness and levity, -especially on the part of the woman, who could thus content herself -without a settled home of her own. It was naturally upon Mrs. Mowbray -that all the criticism centred; for Frank was still very young, and, of -course, as a boy had only followed his mother’s impulse, and done what -she determined was to be done. She was not in outward appearance at all -unlike the _rôle_ which was given her by the public. She gave for one -thing much more attention to her dress than was then considered right in -St. Rule’s, or almost even decent, as if desirous of attracting -attention, the other ladies said, which indeed was probably Mrs. -Mowbray’s design. In the evening, she wore a scarf, gracefully draped -about her elbows and doing everything but cover the “bare neck,” which -it was intended to veil: and though old enough to wear a cap, which many -ladies in those days assumed, however young they might be--as soon as -they married, did not do so, but wore her hair in large bows on the top -of her head, with stray ringlets upon either cheek, which, for a woman -with a grown-up son, seemed almost an affront to public morality. And -she used a fan with much action and significance, spreading it out, and -shutting it up as it suited her conversation, with little gestures that -were like nothing in the world but a foreigner, one of the French, or -persons of that kind, that thought of nothing but showing themselves -off. It was perhaps an uncharitable judgment, but there was so much -truth in it, that Mrs. Mowbray’s object was certainly to make the most -of herself, and do herself justice which is what she would have said. - -And Frank at this period was what was then called a young “dandy;” and -also thought a great deal of his own appearance, which was even more -culpable or at least more contemptible on the part of a young man than -on that of a lady. He wore a velvet collar to his coat, which came up to -his ears, and sometimes a stock so stiff that he could look neither to -the right hand nor the left, and his nankeen trousers and flowered -waistcoats were a sight to behold. Out of the high collar, and -voluminous folds of muslin which encircled his neck, a very young, -boyish face came forth, with a small whisker on either cheek, to set -forth the rosy colour of his youthful countenance, which was quite -ingenuous and simple, and had no harm in it, notwithstanding the scoffs -and sneers which his contemporaries in St. Rule’s put forth against his -airs and graces, and the scent on his handkerchief “like a lassie,” -which was the last aggravation, and called forth roars of youthful -laughter, not unmingled with disgust. The pair together made a great -commotion in the society of St. Rule’s. Mr. Anderson’s house, which was -old-fashioned but kindly, with old mahogany, so highly polished that you -could see your face in it, and old dark portraits hanging on the -panelled walls, underwent a complete revolution to please what St. -Rule’s considered the foreign tastes. She had one of those panelled -rooms covered with wall-paper, to the consternation of the whole town. I -am obliged to allow that this room is the pride of the house now, for -the paper--such things as yet being scarce in the British Islands--was -an Oriental one, of fine design and colour, which has lasted over nearly -a century, and is as fresh now as when it was put up, and the glory of -the place; but in those days, Scotch taste was all in favour of things -dark and plain, without show, which was a wicked thing. To please the -eye at all, especially with brightness and colour, was tacitly -considered wicked, at that day, in all circumstances. It was not indeed -a crime in any promulgated code, but it certainly partook of the nature -of vice, as being evidently addressed to carnal sentiments, not adapted -for confidence or long duration, or any other recognised and virtuous -purpose, but only to give pleasure which was by its very nature an -illegitimate thing. It was not indeed that these good people did not -love pleasure in their hearts. There was far more dancing in those days -than has ever been since, and parties for the purpose, at which the -young people met each other, and became engaged to each other and made -love, and married with a general persistency and universalness no longer -known among us; and there was much more drinking and singing of jovial -songs and celebration of other kinds of pleasure. But a bright -wall-paper, or a cheerful carpet, or more light in a room than was -absolutely necessary, these were frivolities almost going the length of -depravity that were generally condemned. - -The new-comers were among the wedding-guests, and Mrs. Mowbray came in a -white Indian shawl, and a white satin bonnet, adorned with roses inside -its cave-like sides, as if she had been the bride herself: while Frank -had already a flower in his coat before the wedding-favour was added -which made him, in the estimation of his compeers, a most conspicuous -figure, and more “like a lassie” than ever. When the time came for -Marion and her husband to go away, it was he who drew from his pocket -the white satin slipper which landed on the top of the post-chaise, and -made the bridal pair also “so conspicuous”--to their great wrath, when -they discovered by the cheers that met them in every village what an -ensign they were carrying with them, though they had indeed a most sober -post-chaise from the old Royal: and Matthew had taken care that the -postillion took off his favour as soon as they were out of the town. To -throw an old shoe for luck was a well-understood custom, but satin -slippers were not so common in St. Rule’s in those days that they should -be used in this way, and Marion never quite forgave this breach of all -decorum, pointing her out to the world just on the day of all others -when she most desired to escape notice. But the Mowbrays did not -understand how you ever could desire to escape notice, which, for their -part, they loved. The young people who crowded about the door to see the -bride go off, the girls laughing and crying in their excitement, the -lads cheering and shouting, were, I need not say, augmented by half the -population of St. Rule’s, all as eager and as much interested as if they -too had been wedding-guests. The women about, though they had no -occasion to be specially moved, laughed and cried too, for sympathy, and -made their comments at the top of their voices, with the frankness of -their class. - -“She is just as bonnie a bride as I ever saw, as I aye kent she would -be; but he’s but a poor creature beside her,” said one of the fishwives. - -“Hoot, woman,” said another, “the groom, he’s aye the shaddow on the -brightness, and naithing expected from him.” - -“But he’s not that ill-faured either,” said another spectator. - -“She’s a bonnie creature, and he’s a wise-like man.” Elsie, who had -always an ear for what was going on, took in all these comments, and -the aspect of affairs generally without really knowing what she heard -and saw. But there was one episode which, above all, caught that half -attention which imprints a scene on the memory we cannot tell how. At -the house door, Frank Mowbray, with the slipper in his hand, very proud -of that piece of fashion and prettiness, stood stretching himself to his -full height (which was not great), and preparing for his throw. While at -the same moment she caught sight of a very different figure close to the -chaise watching the crowd, which was Johnny Wemyss, the friend for whom -Rodie her own brother had deserted her, and whom, consequently, she -regarded with no favourable eyes. He was a tall weedy boy, with long -arms growing out of his jacket-sleeves, and that look of loose-jointed -largeness which belongs to a puppy in all varieties of creation. He was -in his Sunday clothes and bareheaded, and as Marion walked across the -pavement, he stooped down and laid before the steps of the chaise a -large handful of flowers. The bride gave an astonished look, and then a -nod and a smile to the rough lad, who rose up, red as fire with the -shamefacedness of his homage, and disappeared behind the crowd. It was -only the affair of a moment, and probably very few people noticed it at -all. But Elsie saw it, and her face burned with sympathetic excitement. -She was pushed back at almost the same moment by the sudden action of -Frank, throwing his missile, and then, amid laughter, crying, and -cheers, the post-chaise drove away. - -“My dear,” said Mr. Buchanan, a few minutes after, “some bairn has -dropped its flowers on the pavement, or perhaps it was Marion that let -them fall. Send one of the women out to clear them away; it has a -disorderly look before the door,” the minister said. - -Elsie did not know what made her do it, but she darted out in her white -frock among the dispersing crowd, and gathered up, with her own hands, -the flowers on which Marion had set her foot. She took a rose from among -them and put it into her own belt. They were, I fear, dusty and soiled, -and only fit, as Mr. Buchanan said, to be swept away, but it was to -Elsie the only touch of poetry in the whole business. Bride and -bridegroom were very sober persons, scarcely worthy, perhaps, to tread -upon flowers, which, indeed, Mr. Matthew Sinclair had avoided by kicking -them (though gently) out of his way. But Elsie felt the unusual tribute, -if no one else did. She gave a glance round for Johnny Wemyss, and -caught him as he cast back a furtive glance from behind the shadow of a -burly fisherman. And again the boy grew red, and so did she. They had a -secret between them from that day, and everybody knows, who has ever -been sixteen, what a bond that is, a bond for life. - -“Take out that dirty flower out of your belt,” said Rodie, putting out -his hand for it; “if you want a flower, you can get a fresh one out of -the garden. All the folk in the street have tramped upon it.” This word -is constantly used in Scotland, with unnecessary vehemence of utterance, -for the simpler syllable trod. - -“I’ll not take it out,” said Elsie, “and only Marion put her foot upon -it. It is the bonniest thing of all that has happened; and it was your -own friend Johnny Wemyss that you are so fond of.” - -“I am not fond of him,” said Rodie, ingenuously; “do you think me and -him are like a couple of lassies? Throw it away this minute.” - -“No for you, nor all the fine gentlemen in the world!” cried Elsie, -holding her rose fast; and there would probably have been a scuffle over -it, Rodie at fifteen having no sense as yet that a lassie’s whims were -more to be respected than any other comrade’s, had not Mrs. Buchanan -suddenly appeared. - -“Elsie,” she said half severely, “are you forgetting already that you’re -now the only girl in the house? and nobody to look after the folk -upstairs--oh, if they would only go away! but you and me.” - -“I’m going, mamma,” cried Elsie, and then, though embraces were rare in -this reserved atmosphere, she threw her arms round her mother and gave -her a kiss. “I’m not so good as May, but I will try my best,” she said. - -“Oh my dear, but I am tired, tired! both body and mind,” said Mrs. -Buchanan; “and awfu’ thankful to have you, to be a comfort. Rodie, run -away and divert yourself and leave her alone; there’s plenty about of -your own kind.” - -It gave Elsie a pang, yet a thrill of satisfaction to see her brother, -who had deserted her, thus summarily cleared off the scene. Marion had -said regretfully, yet dispassionately, that they liked their own kind -best, which had been a revelation and a painful one to the abandoned -sister. But to have him thus sent off rather contemptuously than -otherwise to his own kind, as by no means a superior portion of the -race, gave her a new light on the subject, as well as a new sensation. -Boys, she remembered, and had always heard were sent to divert -themselves, as the only thing they were good for, when a lassie was -useful in many ways. In this manner she began to recover from the bitter -sense of the injury which the scorn of the laddies had inflicted upon -her. They might scorn away as they pleased. But the other folk, who had -more experience than they, thought otherwise; this helped Elsie to -recover her balance. She almost began to feel that even if Rodie were -lost, all would not be lost. And her exertions were great in the tired -and wavering afternoon party, which had nothing to amuse itself with, -and yet could not make up its mind to break up and go away, as the -hosts, quite worn out with the long strain, and feeling that everything -was now over, most fondly desired them to do. - -“Will you come and see me?” said Mrs. Mowbray. “I have taken a great -fancy to this child, Mrs. Buchanan. She has such pretty brown eyes and -rosy cheeks.” - -“Will you come and see me, Elsie? I have got no pretty daughters. Oh! -how I wish I had one to dress up and play with; Frank is all very well, -he is a good boy--but a girl would make me quite happy.” - -Elsie was much disgusted with this address: to be told to her face that -she had pretty brown eyes and rosy cheeks was unpardonable! In the first -place, it was not true, for Elsie was well aware she was freckled, and -thought red cheeks very vulgar and common. In those days heroines were -always of an interesting paleness, and had black or very dark hair, -“raven tresses” in poetry. And alas, Elsie’s locks were more ruddy than -raven. She was quite aware that she was not a pretty daughter, and it -was intolerable that anyone should mock her, pretending to admire her to -her face! - -Mrs. Buchanan took it much more sweetly. She looked at Elsie with -caressing eyes. “She is the only girlie at home now,” she said, with a -little sigh, “and she will have to learn to be a woman. Marion was -always the greatest help--my right hand--since she was little more than -a baby. And now Elsie will have to learn to take her place.” - -“I don’t care so much for them being useful when they are ornamental,” -said Mrs. Mowbray, “for that is the woman’s part in the world is it not? -The men may do all the hard work, but they can’t do the decoration, can -they? We want the girls for that.” - -“Dear me,” said Mrs. Buchanan, “I am not sure that I ever looked upon it -in that light. There is a great deal to be done, when there is a family -of laddies; you cannot expect them to do things for themselves, and when -there is only one sister, it is hard work.” - -“Oh, I do not hold with that,” said the other lady. “I turn all that -over to my maid. I would not make the girls servants to their brothers: -quite the contrary. It is the boys that should serve the girls, in my -opinion. Frank would no more let a young lady do things for him!--I -consider it quite wrong for my part.” - -Mrs. Buchanan was a little abashed. - -“When you have plenty of servants and a small family, it is of course -quite different, but you know what the saying is, ‘a woman’s work is -never done’----” - -“My dear Mrs. Buchanan, you are simply antediluvian,” said her visitor. - -(Oh, if she would only go away, instead of standing havering there!) The -minister’s wife was more tired than words could say. “Claude,” she said, -clutching at her husband’s arm as he passed her, “Mrs. Mowbray has not -seen our garden, and you know we are proud of our garden. Perhaps she -would like to take a turn and look at the view.” - -“I am so glad to get you for a little to myself, Mr. Buchanan,” said -Mrs. Mowbray. “Oh yes, let us go to the garden. I have been so longing -to speak to you. There are so many things about poor Mr. Anderson’s -estate, and other matters, that I don’t understand.” - - - - -CHAPTER VIII. - -A NEW FACTOR. - - -Mrs. Mowbray took the minister’s arm with a little eagerness. “I am so -glad,” she said, “so very glad to have an opportunity of speaking to you -alone. I want so much to consult you, Mr. Buchanan. I should have -ventured to come over in the morning to ask for you, if I had not this -opportunity; but then your wife would have had to know, and just at -first I don’t want anyone to know--so I am more glad of this opportunity -than words can say----” - -“I am sure,” said Mr. Buchanan, steadily, “that I shall be very glad if -I can be of any use to you. I am afraid you will not find much to -interest you in our homely garden. Vegetables on one side, and flowers -on the other, but at the east corner there is rather a pretty view. I -like to come out in the evening, and see the lighthouses in the distance -slowly twirling round. We can see the Bell Rock----” - -“Oh, yes,” said Mrs. Mowbray, “I have no doubt it is very fine, but take -me to the quietest corner, never mind about the view--other people will -be coming to see the view, and to talk is what I want.” - -“I don’t think anyone will be coming,” said the minister, and he led her -among the flower-beds, and across what was then, in homely language, -called not the lawn, but the green, to the little raised mound upon -which there was a little summer-house, surrounded with tall lilac -bushes--and the view. Mrs. Mowbray gave but a passing glance at the -view. - -“Oh, yes,” she said, “the same as you see from the cliffs, the -Forfarshire coast and the bay. It is very nice, but not -remarkable--whereas what I have got to say to you is of the gravest -importance--at least to Frank and me. Mr. Buchanan, as the clergyman, -you must know of everything that is going on--you knew the late Mr. -Anderson, my husband’s uncle, very well, didn’t you? Well, you know -Frank has always been brought up to believe himself his great-uncle’s -heir. And we believed it would be something very good. My poor husband, -in his last illness, always said, ‘Uncle John will provide for you and -the boy.’ And we thought it would be quite a good thing. Now you know, -Mr. Buchanan, it is really not at all a good thing.” - -In the green shade of the foliage, Mr. Buchanan’s face looked gray. He -said, “Indeed, I am sorry,” in a mechanical way, which seemed intended -to give the impression that he was not interested at all. - -“Oh, perhaps you think that is not of much importance,” said the lady. -“Probably you imagine that we have enough without that. But it is not -really so--it is of the greatest importance to Frank and me. Oh, here -are some people coming! I knew other people would be coming to see this -stupid view--when they can see it from the road just as well, any time -they please.” - -It was a young pair of sweethearts who came up the little knoll, -evidently with the intention of appropriating the summer-house, and much -embarrassed to find their seniors in possession. They had, however, to -stay a little and talk, which they all did wildly, pointing out to each -other the distant smoke of the city further up, and the white gleam of -the little light-house opposite. Mrs. Mowbray said scarcely anything, -but glared at the intrusive visitors, to whom the minister was too -civil. Milly Beaton, who was one of these intruders, naturally knew -every point of the view as well as he did, but he pointed out everything -to her in the most elaborate way, at which the girl could scarcely -restrain her laughter. Then the young people heard, or pretended to -hear, some of their companions calling them, and hurried away. - -“I knew,” said Mrs. Mowbray, “that we should be interrupted here----” - -“No, I don’t think so: there will be no more of it,” said the minister. - -He was not so unwilling to be interrupted as she was. Then it occurred -to her, with a knowledge drawn from other regions than St. Rule’s, that -she was perhaps compromising the minister, and this idea gave her a -lively pleasure. - -“They will be wondering what we have to say to each other,” she cried -with a laugh, and she perceived with delight, or thought she perceived, -that this idea discomposed Mr. Buchanan. He changed colour, and shuffled -from one foot to the other, as he stood before her. She had placed -herself on the garden-seat, within the little chilly dark green bower. -She had not contemplated any such amusement, but neither had she time to -indulge in it, which might have been done so very safely with the -minister. For it was business that was in her mind, and she felt herself -a business woman before all. - -“Fortunately,” she went on, “nobody can the least guess what I want to -consult you about. Oh! here is another party! I knew how it would be. -Take me to see your cabbages, Mr. Buchanan, or anywhere. I must speak to -you without continual interruptions like this.” - -Her tone was a little imperative, which the minister resented. He was -not in the habit of being spoken to in this way, and he was extremely -glad of the interruption. - -“It is only a parcel of boys,” he said, “they will soon go.” Perhaps he -did not perceive that the carefully-attired Frank was among the others, -led by his own older son John, who, Mr. Buchanan well knew, would not -linger when he saw how the summer-house was occupied. Frank, however, -came forward and made his mother a satirical bow. - -“Oh, this is where you are, mater?” he said. “I couldn’t think where -you had got to. My compliments, I wouldn’t interrupt you for the world.” - -“You ridiculous boy!” Mrs. Mowbray said; and they both laughed, for what -reason neither Mr. Buchanan nor his serious son John could divine. - -“So you have come up, too, to see the view,” said the lady; “I never -knew you had any love for scenery and the beauties of nature.” - -“Do you call this scenery?” said Frank, who, in his mother’s presence, -felt it necessary to be superior as she was. “If you could only have the -ruins in the foreground, instead of this great bit of sea, and those -nasty little black rocks.” - -“They may be little,” said John, with all the sudden heat of a son of -St. Rule’s, “but they’re more dangerous than many that are far bigger. I -would not advise you to go near them in a boat. Father, isn’t that -true?” - -“It is true that it is a dangerous coast,” said Mr. Buchanan, “that is -the reason why no ship that can help it comes near the bay.” - -“I don’t care for that kind of boating,” said Frank. “Give me a wherry -on the river.” - -“Give you a game--a ball, or something,” said his mother, exasperated. -“You ought to get up something to amuse the young ladies. Doesn’t Mrs. -Buchanan allow dancing? You might teach them, Frank, some of the new -steps.” - -“We want you for that, mater,” said the lad. - -“Oh, I can’t be bothered now. I’ve got some business to talk over with -Mr. Buchanan.” - -Frank looked malicious and laughed, and Mrs. Mowbray laughed, too, in -spite of herself. The suggestion that she was reducing the minister to -subjection was pleasant, even though it was an interruption. Meanwhile, -Mr. Buchanan and his son stood gazing, absolutely unable to understand -what it was all about. John, however, not used to badinage, seized with -a firm grip the arm of the new-comer. - -“Come away, and I’ll take you into the Castle,” he said, giving a drag -and push, which the other, less vigorous, was not able to resist. - -“I cannot stand this any longer,” cried Mrs. Mowbray, “take me please -somewhere--into your study, Mr. Buchanan, where I can talk to you -undisturbed. I am sure for once your wife will not mind.” - -“My wife!” the minister said, in great surprise, “why should my wife -mind?” But it was certain, that he did himself mind very much, having -not the faintest desire to admit this intruder into his sanctum. But it -was in vain to resist. He took her among the cabbages as she had -suggested, but by this time the garden was in the possession of a young -crowd penetrating everywhere, and after an ineffectual attempt among -those cabbages to renew the conversation, Mrs. Mowbray so distinctly -declared her desire to finish her communication in the study, that he -could no longer resist. Mrs. Mowbray looked about her, before she had -taken her seat, and went into the turret-room with a little curiosity. - -“I suppose you never admit anyone here,” she said. - -“Admit! No, but the two younger children used to be constantly here,” -said Mr. Buchanan. “They have left some of their books about still. -There was a great alliance between them a few years ago, but since Rodie -grew more of a school-boy, and Elsie more of a woman----” - -“Elsie! why, she is quite grown-up,” said the visitor. “I hope you don’t -let her come here to hear all your secrets. I shouldn’t like her to hear -mine, I am sure. Is there any other door?” - -“There is neither entrance nor exit, but by my study door,” Mr. Buchanan -said, somewhat displeased. - -“Well, that is a good thing. I hope you always make sure when you -receive your penitents that there is nobody there.” - -The minister made no reply. He thought her a very disagreeable, very -presuming and impertinent woman; but he placed a chair for her with all -the patience he could muster. He had a faint feeling as if she had -lodged an arrow somewhere in him, and that he felt it quivering, but did -not inquire into his sensations. The first thing seemed to be to get rid -of her as quickly as he could. - -“Now we can talk at last,” she said, sinking down into the arm-chair, -stiff and straight as it was--for the luxury of modern days had scarcely -yet begun and certainly had not come as far as St. Rule’s--which Mrs. -Buchanan generally occupied when she came upstairs to talk over their -“whens and hows” with her husband. - -“It is very serious indeed, and I am very anxious to know if you can -throw any light upon it. Mr. Morrison, the man of business, tells me -that old Mr. Anderson had lent a great deal of money to various people, -and that it proved quite impossible to get it back. Was that really the -case? or is this said merely to cover over some defalcations--some----” - -“Morrison,” cried the minister, almost angrily, “is as honourable a man -as lives; there have been no defalcations, at least so far as he is -concerned.” - -“It is very satisfactory to hear that,” said Mrs. Mowbray, “because of -course we are altogether in his hands; otherwise I should have got my -English solicitor to come down and look into matters. But you know one -always thinks it must be the lawyer’s fault--and then so many men go -wrong that have a very good reputation.” - -Mr. Buchanan relieved his heart with a long painful breath. He said: - -“It is true; there are such men: but Morrison is not one of them.” - -“Well, that’s satisfactory at least to hear,” she said doubtfully, “but -tell me about the other thing. Is it true that our old uncle was so -foolish, so mad--I really don’t know any word sufficiently severe to -use--so unjust to us as to give away his money on all hands, and lend -to so many people without a scrap of acknowledgment, without so much as -an I.O.U., so that the money never could be recovered; is it possible -this can be true?” - -Mr. Buchanan was obliged to clear his throat several times before he -could speak. - -“Mr. Anderson,” he said, “was one of the men who are so highly commended -in Scripture, though it is perhaps contrary to modern ideas. The -merciful man is merciful and lendeth. He was a providence to many -troubled persons. I had heard----” - -“But, Mr. Buchanan,” cried the lady, raising herself up in her chair, -“you cannot think that’s right; you cannot imagine it is justifiable. -Think of his heirs.” - -“Yes,” he replied, “perhaps at that time he did not think of his heir. -If it had been his own child--but we must be fair to him. Your son was -not a very near relation, and he scarcely knew the boy.” - -“Not a near relation!” exclaimed Mrs. Mowbray, “but he was the nearest -relation. There was no one else to count at all. A man’s money belongs -to his family. He has no right to go and alienate it, to give a boy -reason to expect a good fortune, and then to squander the half of it, -which really belonged to Frank more than to him.” - -“You must remember,” said the minister, with a dreadful tightening at -his throat, feeling that he was pleading for himself as well as for his -old benefactor, “you must remember that the money did not come from the -family--in which case all you say might be true--but from his own -exertions; and probably he believed what is also written in Scripture, -that a man has a right to do what he will with his own.” - -“Oh, Mr. Buchanan!” cried Mrs. Mowbray, “that I should hear a clergyman -speak like this. Who is the widow and the orphan to depend upon, if not -on the clergy, to stand up for them and maintain their rights? I should -have thought now that instead of encouraging people who got round this -old man--who probably was not very clear in his head at the end of his -life--and got loans from him, you would have stood up for his heirs and -let them know--oh! with all the authority of the church, Mr. -Buchanan--that it was their duty before everything to pay their debts, -all the more,” cried the lady, holding up an emphatic finger, “all the -more if there was nothing to show for them, no way of recovering them, -and it was left to their honour to pay.” - -The minister had been about to speak; but when she put forth this -argument he sat dumb, his lips apart, gazing at her almost with a look -of terror. It was a full minute before he attempted to say anything, and -that in the midst of a discussion of this sort seems a long time. He -faltered a little at last, when he did speak. - -“I am not sure,” he said, “that I had thought of this: but no doubt you -are right, no doubt you are right.” - -“Certainly I am right,” she cried, triumphant in her victory. “I knew -you would see the justice of it. Frank has always been brought up to -believe that he would be a rich man. He has been brought up with this -idea. He has the habits and the notions of a man with a very good -fortune; and now that I am here and can look into it, what is it? A mere -competence! Nothing that you could call a fortune at all.” - -Oh, what it is to be guilty! The minister had not a word to say. He -looked piteously in her face, and it seemed to him that it was an -injured woman who sat before him, injured by his hand. He had never -wronged any one so far as he knew before, but this was a woman whom he -had wronged. She and her son, and her son’s children to all possible -generations,--he had wronged them. Though no one else might know it, yet -he knew it himself. Frank Mowbray’s fortune, which was not a fortune, -but a mere competence, had been reduced to that shrunken measure by him. -His conscience smote him with her voice. There was nothing to show for -it, no way of recovering it; it was a debt of honour, and it was this -that he refused to pay. He trembled under her eye. He felt that she must -be able to read to the bottom of his soul. - -“I am very sorry,” he said; “I am afraid that perhaps none of us thought -of that. But it is all past--I don’t know what I could do, what you -would wish me to do.” - -“I would wish you,” cried Mrs. Mowbray, “to talk to them about it. Ah! I -knew I should not speak in vain when I spoke to you. It is a shameful -thing, is it not, to defraud a truthful, inexperienced boy, one that -knows nothing about money nor how to act in such circumstances. If he -had not his mother to speak for him, what would become of Frank? He is -so young and so peace-making. He would say don’t bother if he heard me -speaking about it. He would be content to starve himself, and let other -people enjoy what was his. I thought you would tell me perhaps who were -the defaulters.” - -“No, I certainly could not do that,” he said harshly, with a sound in -his voice which made him not recognise it for his. He had a momentary -feeling that some one else in the room, not himself, had here interposed -and spoken for him. - -“You could not? you mean you would not. And you the clergyman, the -minister that should protect the orphan! Oh, Mr. Buchanan, this is not -what I expected when I braced up my nerves to speak to you. I never -thought but that you would take up my cause. I thought you would perhaps -go round with me to tell them they must pay, and how badly my poor boy -had been left: or that at least you would preach about it, and tell the -people what was their duty. He must have lent money to half St. Rule’s,” -cried Mrs. Mowbray; “those people that all look so decent and so -well-dressed on Sunday at church. They are all as well-dressed (though -their clothes are not well made) as any one need wish to be: and to -think they should be owing us hundreds, nay, thousands of money! It is a -dreadful thing for my poor Frank.” - -“Not thousands,” said the minister, “not thousands. A few hundreds -perhaps, but not more.” - -“I beg your pardon,” said Mrs. Mowbray. “I have heard there was one that -got four hundred out of him; at interest and compound interest, what -does that come to by this time? Not much short of thousands, Mr. -Buchanan, and there may be many more.” - -“Did Morrison tell you that?” he asked hastily. - -“No matter who told me. How am I to get at that man? I should make him -pay up somehow, oh trust me for that, if I could only make out who he -was.” - -“There was no such man,” said the minister. There breathed across his -mind, as he spoke, the burden of the parable: “Take now thy bill, and -sit down quickly, and write fourscore.” “I have not heard of any of Mr. -Anderson’s debtors who had got so large a loan as that: but Morrison -expressly said that it was in the will he had freely forgiven them all.” - -“I should not forgive them,” cried the lady, harshly. “Get me a list of -them, Mr. Buchanan, give me a list of them, and then we shall see what -the law will say. Get me a list of them, Mr. Buchanan! I am sure that -you must know them all.” - -“I don’t know that I could tell you more than one of them.” - -“That will be the four hundred man!” cried Mrs. Mowbray. “Tell me of -him, tell me of him, Mr. Buchanan, and I shall always be grateful to -you. Tell me the one you know.” - -“I must first think it over--and--take counsel,” the minister said. - - - - -CHAPTER IX. - -MAN AND WIFE. - - -“What did that woman want with you, Claude?” said Mrs. Buchanan, coming -in with panting breath, and depositing herself in the chair from which -Mrs. Mowbray had risen but a little while before. - -The minister sat with his head in his hands, his face covered, his -aspect that of a man utterly broken down. He did not answer for some -time, and then: - -“I think she wants my life-blood,” he said. - -“Your life-blood! Claude, my man, are you taking leave of your -senses--or what is it you mean?” - -Once more there was a long pause. His wife was not perhaps so frightened -as she might have been in other circumstances. She was very tired. The -satisfaction of having got rid of all her guests was strong in her mind. -She had only just recovered her breath, after toiling upstairs. Lastly, -it was so absurd that any one should want the minister’s life-blood; -last of all, the smiling and flattering Mrs. Mowbray, that she was more -inclined to laugh than to be alarmed. - -“You may laugh,” said Mr. Buchanan, looking up at her from below the -shadow of his clasped hands, with hollow eyes, “but it is death to me. -She wants me to give her a list of all old Anderson’s debtors, Mary. I -told her I only knew one.” - -“Goodness, Claude! did you say it was yourself?” - -“Not yet,” he said, with a deep sigh. - -“Not yet! do you mean that after the great deliverance we got, and the -blessed kindness of that old man, you are going to put your head under -the yoke again? What has she to do with it? He thought nothing of her. -He let the boy get it because there was nobody else, but he never took -any interest even in the boy. He never would have permitted--Claude! -those scruples of yours, they are ridiculous; they are quite ridiculous. -What, oh! what do you mean? To ruin your own for the sake of that little -puppy of a boy? God forgive me; it is probably not the laddie’s fault. -He is just the creation of his silly mother. And they are well off -already. If old Anderson had left them nothing at all, they were well -off already. Claude, if she has come here to play upon your weakness, to -get back what the real owner had made you a present of----” - -“Mary, I have never been able to get it out of my mind that it was the -smaller debtors he wanted to release, but not me.” - -“Had you any reason to mistrust the old man, Claude?” - -He gave her a look, still from under his clasped hands, but made no -reply. - -“Which of them were more to him than you,” said Mrs. Buchanan, -vehemently; “the smaller debtors? Joseph Sym, the gardener, that he set -up in business, or the Horsburghs, or Peter Wemyss? Were they more to -him than you?--was this woman, with her ringlets, and her puffed sleeves -more to him than you? Or her silly laddie, no better than a bairn, -though he may be near a man in years? I have reminded you before what -St. Paul says: ‘Albeit, I do not say to thee how thou owest me thine own -self besides.’ He was not slow to say that, the old man, when you would -let him. And you think he was more taken up with that clan-jamfry than -with you?” - -“No--no; I don’t say that, Mary. I know he was very favourable to me, -too favourable; but I have never felt at rest about this. Morrison would -not let me speak; perhaps he thought I had got less than I really had. -This has always been in my head.” The minister got up suddenly and began -to walk about the room. “Take now thy bill, and sit down quickly, and -write fourscore,” he said, under his breath. - -“What is that you are saying, Claude? That is what Elsie heard you -saying the day of Mr. Anderson’s death. She said, quite innocent, it -gave you a great deal of trouble, your sermon, that you were always -going over and over----” - -“What?” said Mr. Buchanan, stopping short in his walk, with a scared -face. - -“Dear me, Claude! no harm, no harm, only _that_, that you are saying -now--about writing fourscore. Oh, Claude, my dear, you give it far more -thought than it deserves. We could have almost paid it off by this time, -if it had been exacted from us. And when that good, kind, auld man -said--more than saying--when he wrote down in his will--that it was to -be a legacy, God bless him! when I heard that, with thanksgiving to the -Lord, I just put it out of my mind--not to forget it, for it was a great -deliverance--but surely not to be burdened by it, or to mistrust the -good man in his grave!” - -The eyes of the minister’s wife filled with tears. It was she who was -the preacher now, and her address was full of natural eloquence. But, -like so many other eloquent addresses, her audience paid but little -attention to it. Mr. Buchanan stopped short in his walk; he came back to -his table and sat down facing her. When she ceased, overcome with her -feelings, he began, without any pretence of sharing them, to question -her hastily. - -“Where was Elsie, that she should hear what I said? and what did she -hear? and how much does she know?” This new subject seemed to occupy his -mind to the exclusion of the old. - -“Elsie? oh, she knows nothing. But she was in the turret there, where -you encouraged them to go, Claude, though I always thought it a -dangerous thing; for the parents’ discussions are not always for a -bairn’s ears, and you never thought whether they were there or not. I -have thought upon it many a day.” - -“And she knows nothing?” said Mr. Buchanan. “Well, I suppose there is no -harm done; but I dislike anyone to hear what I am saying. It is -inconvenient; it is disagreeable. You should keep a growing girl by your -own side, Mary, and not let her stray idle round about the house.” - -He had not heard her complain against himself as encouraging the -children to occupy the turret. His wife was well enough accustomed with -his modes of thought. He ignored this altogether, as if he had no -responsibility. And the thought of Elsie thus suggested put away the -other and larger thought. - -“I should like exactly to know how much she heard, and whether she drew -any conclusions. You can send her to me when you go down down-stairs.” - -“Claude, if you will be guided by me, no--do not put things into the -bairn’s head. She will think more and more if her thoughts are driven -back upon it. She will be fancying things in her mind. She will be----” - -“What things can she fancy in her mind? What thoughts can she have more -and more, as you say? What are you attributing to me, Mary? You seem to -think I have been meditating--or have done--something--I know not -what--too dark for day.” - -He looked at her severely, and she looked at him with deprecating -anxiety. - -“Claude,” she said, “my dear, I cannot think what has come over you. Am -I a person to make out reproaches against you? I said it was a pity to -get the bairns into a habit of sitting there, where they could hear -everything. That was no great thing, as if I was getting up a censure -upon you, or hinting at dark things you have done. I would far easier -believe,” she said, with a smile, laying her hand upon his arm, “that I -had done dark deeds myself.” - -“Well, well,” he said, “I suppose I am cranky and out of sorts. It has -been a wearying day.” - -“That it has,” cried Mrs. Buchanan, with warm agreement. “I am not a -woman for my bed in the daytime; but, for once in a way, I was going to -lie down, just to get a rest, for I am clean worn out.” - -“My poor Mary,” he said, with a kind smile. When she felt her weakness, -then was the time when he should be strong to support her. “Go and lie -down, and nobody shall disturb you, and dismiss all this from your mind, -my dear; for, as far as I can see, there is nothing urgent, not a thing -for the moment to trouble your head about.” - -“It is not so easy to dismiss things from your mind,” she said, smiling -too, “unless I was sure that you were doing it, Claude; for when you are -steady and cheery in your spirits, I think there is nothing I cannot put -up with, and you may be sure I will not make a fuss, whatever you may -think it a duty to do. And it is not for me to preach to you; but mind, -there are many things that look like duty, and are not duty at all, but -just infatuation, or, maybe, pride.” - -“You have not much confidence in the clearness of my perceptions, Mary.” - -“Oh, but I have perfect confidence.” She pronounced this word “perfitt,” -and said it with that emphasis which belongs to the tongue of the North. -“But who could ken so well as me that your spirit’s a quick spirit, and -that pride has its part in you--the pride of aye doing the right thing, -and honouring your word, and keeping your independence. I agree with it -all, but in reason, in reason. And I would not fly in that auld man’s -face, and him in his grave, Claude Buchanan, not for all the women’s -tongues in existence, or their fleeching words!” - -He had been standing by the table, from which she had risen too, with an -indulgent smile on his face; but at this his countenance changed, and, -as Mrs. Buchanan left the room, he sat down again hastily, with his head -in his hands. - -Was she right? or was his intuition right? That strong sense, that -having meant wrong he had done wrong, whether formally or not. Many and -many a day had he thought over it, and he had come to a moral conviction -that his old friend had intended him to have the money, that he was the -last person in the world from whom Anderson would have exacted the last -farthing. Putting one thing to another he had come to that conviction. -Of all the old man’s debtors, there was none so completely his friend. -It was inconceivable that all the other people should be freed from the -bonds, and only he kept under it. He had quite convinced himself rather -that it was for his sake the others had been unloosed, than that it was -he alone who was exempt from relief. But it only required Mrs. Mowbray’s -words to overset this carefully calculated conclusion. His conscience -jumped up with renewed force, and, as his wife had divined, his pride -was up in arms. That this foolish woman and trifling boy had a right to -anything that had been consumed and alienated by him, was intolerable to -think of. Mary was right. It was an offence to his pride which he could -not endure. His honest impulses might be subdued by reason, but his -pride of integrity--no, that was not to be subdued. - -The thought became intolerable to him as he pondered seriously, always -with his head between his hands. He began once more to pace up and down -the room heavily, but hastily--with a heavy foot, but not the deliberate -quietness of legitimate thought. Such reflections as these tire a man -and hurry him; there is no peace in them. Passing the door of the -turret-room, he looked in, and a sudden gust of anger rose. A stool was -standing in the middle of the room, a book lying open on the floor. I do -not know how they had got there, for Elsie very seldom now came near the -place of so many joint readings and enjoyments. The minister went in, -and kicked the stool violently away. It should never, at least, stand -there again to remind him that he had betrayed himself; and then it -returned to his mind that he desired to see Elsie, and discover how much -she knew or suspected. Her mother had said no, but he was not always -going to yield to her mother in everything. This was certainly his -affair. He went down-stairs immediately to find Elsie, walking very -softly on the landing not to disturb his wife, who had, indeed, a good -right to be tired, and ought to get a good rest now that everybody was -gone; which was quite true. He never even suggested to himself that her -door was open; that she might hear him, and get up and interrupt him. -There was nobody to be found down-stairs. The rooms lay very deserted, -nothing yet cleared from the tables, the flowers drooping that had -decorated the dishes (which was the fashion in those days); the great -white bride-cake, standing with a great gash in it, and roses all round -it. There was nothing, really, to be unhappy about in what had taken -place to-day. Marion was well, and happily provided for. That was a -thing a poor man should always be deeply thankful for, but the sight of -“the banquet-hall deserted” gave him a pang as if it had been death, -instead of the most living of all moments, that had just passed over his -house. He went out to the garden, where he could see that some of the -younger guests were still lingering; but it was only Rodie and the boys -who were his boon companions that were to be seen. Elsie was not there. - -He found her late in the afternoon, when he was returning from a long -walk. Walks were things that neither he himself nor his many critics -and observers would have thought a proper indulgence for a minister. He -ought to be going to see somebody, probably “a sick person,” when he -indulged in such a relaxation; and there were plenty of outlying -invalids who might have afforded him the excuse he wanted, with duty at -the end. But he was not capable of duty to-day, and the sick persons -remained unvisited. He turned his face towards home, after treading many -miles of the roughest country. And it was then, just as he came through -the West Port, that he saw Elsie before him, in her white dress, and -fortunately alone. The minister’s thoughts had softened during his walk. -He no longer felt disposed to take her by the shoulders, to ask angrily -what she had said to her mother, and why she had played the spy upon -him; but something of his former excitement sprang up in him at the -sight of her. He quickened his pace a little, and was soon beside her, -laying his hand upon her shoulder. Elsie looked up, not frightened at -all, glad to be joined by him. - -“Oh, father, are you going home?” she said, “and so am I.” - -“We will walk together, then; which will be a good thing, as I have -something to say to you,” he said. - -Elsie had no possible objection. She looked up at him very pleasantly -with her soft brown eyes, and he discovered for the first time that his -younger daughter had grown into a bonnie creature, prettier than -Marion. To be angry with her was impossible, and how did he know that -there was anything to be angry about? - -“Elsie,” he said, “your mother has been telling me of something you -heard me say in my study a long time ago, something that you overheard, -which you ought not to have overheard, when you were in the turret, and -I did not know you were there.” - -Elsie grew a little pale at this unexpected address. - -“Oh, father,” she said, “you knew we were always there.” - -“Indeed, I knew nothing of the kind. I never supposed for a moment that -you would remain to listen to what was said.” - -“We never did. Oh, never, never!” cried Elsie, now growing as suddenly -red. - -“It is evident you did on this occasion. You heard me talking to myself, -and now you have remembered and reported what I said.” - -“Oh, father!” cried Elsie, with a hasty look of remonstrance, “how can -you say I did that?” - -“What was it, then, you said?” - -He noticed that she had no need to pause, to ask herself what it was. -She answered at once. - -“It was about the parable. They said you had preached a sermon on it, -and I said I thought your mind had been very full of it; because, when -Rodie and me were in the turret, we heard you.” - -“Oh, there were two of you,” said Mr. Buchanan, with a pucker in his -forehead. - -“There were always, always two of us then,” said Elsie, with a sudden -cloud on hers; “and what you said was that verse about taking your bill -and writing fourscore. I did not quite understand it at the time.” - -“And do you understand it now?” - -“No, father, for it was a wrong thing,” said Elsie, sinking her voice. -“It was cheating: and to praise a man for doing it, is what I cannot -understand.” - -“Oh, I’ll tell you about that; I will show you what it means,” he said, -with the instinct of the expositor, “but not at this moment,” he added, -“not just now. Was that all that you thought of, when you heard me say -those words to myself?” - -Elsie looked up at him, and then she looked all round; a sudden dramatic -conflict took place in her. She had thought of that, and yet she had -thought of something more than that, but she did not know what the -something more was. It had haunted her, but yet she did not know what it -was. She looked up and down the street, unconsciously, to find an answer -and explanation, but none came. Then she said, faltering a little:-- - -“Yes, father, but I was not content; for I did not understand: and I am -just the same now.” - -“I will take an opportunity,” he said, “of explaining it all to you” and -then he added, in a different tone, “it was wrong to be there when I did -not know you were there, and wrong to listen to what I said to myself, -thinking nobody was near; but what would be most wrong of all, would be -to mention to any living creature a thing you had no right to overhear. -And if you ever do it again, I will think you are a little traitor, -Elsie, and no true child of mine. It would set you better to take care -not to do wrong yourself, than to find fault with the parable.” - -He looked at her with glowing, angry eyes, that shone through the -twilight, while Elsie gazed at him with consternation. What did he mean? -Then and now, what did he mean? - - - - -CHAPTER X. - -BROTHER AND SISTER. - - -All that evening Elsie tried in vain to secure the attention of Rodie, -her brother, her own brother, whom life had already swept away from her, -out of her feminine sphere. To be so intimately allied as that in -childhood, which is a thing which doubles every joy, at least for the -girl, and probably at that early age for the boy also--generally -involves the first pang of existence to one at least of these sworn -companions. It is, I think, always the girl who suffers, though -sometimes no doubt the girl is carried away on the wave of new -friendships, especially if she goes to school, and is swept up into the -whirl of feminine occupations, before the boy is launched into the -circle of contemporaries, who are more absorbing still. But Rodie among -“his laddies,” had left his sister more completely “out of it” than any -boy in possession of all his faculties can ever be. He was always busy -with something, always wandering somewhere with the Seatons, or the -Beatons, when he was not in the still more entrancing company of Johnny -Wemyss. And they never seemed to be tired of each other’s company, day -or night. There were times when he did not even come in to his meals, -but went along with his cronies, in the freedom of his age, without -invitation or preparation; even he had been known to sit down to the -stoved potatoes in the Wemyss’s cottage, though they were not in a class -of life to entertain the minister’s son; but what did Rodie care? When -he brought in Johnny Wemyss in his turn to supper, Mrs. Buchanan could -not shame the rules of hospitality, by giving the fisher lad a bad -reception, but her notice of him was constrained, if kind, so that none -of the young ones were very comfortable. But Alick Seaton and Ralph -Beaton were frequent visitors, taken as a matter of course, and would -sit at the end of the table, with Rodie between them, making their -jokes, and shaking with convulsions of private laughter, which broke out -now and then into a subdued roar, making the elders ask “what was the -fun now?” John in special, who was “at the College,” and sported a red -gown about the streets, being gruff in his critical remarks: for he had -now arrived at an age when you are bound to behave yourself, and not to -“carry on” like the laddies. This being the state of affairs, however, -it was very difficult to long hold of Rodie, who often “convoyed” his -friends home, and came back at the latest moment practicable, only -escaping reprimand by a rush up-stairs to bed. It was not therefore till -the Sunday following that Elsie had any opportunity of seeing her -brother in private, which even then was not with his will: but there was -an interval between breakfast and church, which Rodie, with the best -will in the world, could not spend with “his laddies,” and which -consequently lay undefended, liable to the incursions of his sister. -This moment was usually spent in the garden, and often in calculating -strokes by which, teeing at a certain spot, he might make sure or almost -sure, as sure as the sublime uncertainty of the game permitted, of -“holeing” his ball. Naturally, to have taken out a club on Sunday -morning, even to the hole in the garden, would have been as good as -devoting one’s self to the infernal gods: but thought is free. Rodie had -a conviction that Elsie would come bouncing along, through the lilac -bushes, to spoil his calculations, as she usually did; but this did not -lessen the frown with which he perceived that his anticipation had come -to pass. “What are you wantin’ now?” he said gloomily, marking imaginary -distances upon the grass. - -“Oh, nothing--if you are so deep engaged,” said Elsie, with a spark of -natural pride. - -“I’m no deep engaged!” said Rodie, indignantly; for he knew father would -not smile upon his study, neither would it be appreciated by Alick or -Ralph (though they were probably engaged in the same way themselves), -that he should be studying the strokes which it was their pride to -consider as spontaneous or, indeed, almost accidental. He threw down the -cane he had in his hand, and turned away towards the summer-house, -whither Elsie followed him. - -“I want awfully to speak to you, Rodie----” - -“You are always wanting to speak to me,” said the ungrateful boy. - -“I’m nothing of the kind; and if I were, want would be my master,” cried -Elsie, “for there’s never a moment when you’re free of these laddies. -You’re just in their arms and round their necks every moment of your -life.” - -“I’m neither in their arms nor round their necks,” cried Rodie furious, -being conscious that he was not weaned from a certain “bairnly” habit of -wandering about with an arm round his cronies’ shoulders. Elsie, -however, not sorry for once in a way to find him at a disadvantage, -laughed. - -“It’s Ralph and Alick, Ralph and Alick, just day and night,” she cried, -“or else Johnny Wemyss--but you’re not so keen about Johnny Wemyss -because they say he’s not a gentleman; but _I_ think he’s the best -gentleman of them all.” - -“It’s much you ken!” cried Rodie. His laddies had made him much more -pronounced in his Fife sing-song of accent, which the minister, being -from the West Country (though it is well known in Fife that the accent -of the West Country is just insufferable), objected to strongly. - -“I ken just as well as you--and maybe better,” said Elsie. Then she -remembered that this passage of arms, however satisfactory in itself, -was not quite in accordance with the object of the interview which she -desired. “I am not wanting to quarrel,” she said. - -“It was you that began,” said Rodie, with some justice. They had by this -time reached the summer-house, with its thick background of lilac -bushes. The bay lay before them, in all that softened splendour of the -Sabbath morning, concerning which so many of us hold the fond tradition -that in its lustre and its glory there is something distinct from all -other days. The Forfarshire coast lay dim and fair in a little morning -haze, on the other side of the blue and tranquil sea, with faint lines -of yellow sand, and here and there a white edge of foam, though all was -so still, lighting up the distance. The hills, all soft with light and -shadow, every knowe and howe visible under the caress of the mild and -broad sunshine, the higher rocks upon the near shore half-draped with -the intense greenery of the delicate sea-weed, the low reefs, lying dark -in leathery clothing of dulse, like the teeth of some great sea monster, -half hidden in the ripples of the water, the horizon to the east -softening off into a vague radiance of infinity in the great breadth of -the German Ocean. I have always thought and often said, that if there is -a spot on earth in which one can feel the movement of the great round -world through space, though reduced by human limitations to a faint -rhythm and swaying, it is there under the illimitable blue of the -northern sky, on the shores and links of St. Rule’s. - -The pair who came thus suddenly in sight of this landscape, were not of -any sentimental turn, and were deeply engaged in their own immediate -sensations; but the girl paused to cry, “Oh, how bonnie, how bonnie!” -while the boy sat down on the rough seat, and dug his heels into the -grass, expecting an ordeal of questioning and “bothering,” in which the -sky and the sea could give him but little help. Elsie was much of the -mind of the jilted and forsaken everywhere. She could not keep herself -from reproaches, sometimes from taunts. But the sky and sea did help -Rodie after all, for they brought her back by the charm of their aspect, -an effect more natural at sixteen than at fifteen, and to a girl rather -than a boy. - -“I am not wanting to quarrel, and it’s a shame and a sin on the Sabbath, -and such a bonnie day as this. Oh, but it’s a bonnie day! there is the -wee light-house that is like a glow-worm at night; it is nothing but a -white line now, as thin as an end of thread: and muckle Dundee nothing -but a little smoke hanging above the Law----” - -“I suppose,” said Rodie, scornfully, “you have seen them all before?” - -“Oh, yes, I have seen them all before: but that is not to say that they -are not sometimes bonnier at one time than another. Rodie, you and me -that are brother and sister, we never should be anything less than dear -friends.” - -“Friends enough,” said Rodie, sulkily. “I am wanting nothing but just -that you’ll let me be.” - -“But that,” said Elsie, with a sigh, “is just the hardest thing! for -I’m wanting you, and you’re no wanting me, Rodie! But I’ll say no more -about that; Marion says it’s always so, and that laddies and men for a -constancy they like their own kind best.” - -“I didna think Marion had that much sense,” the boy said. - -“Oh, dinna anger me over again with your conceit,” cried Elsie, “and me -in such a good frame of mind, and the bay so bonnie, and something so -different in my thoughts.” - -Rodie settled himself on the rude bench, as though preparing to endure -the inevitable: he took his hands out of his pockets and began to drum a -faint tune upon the rustic table. The attitude which many a lover, many -a husband, many a resigned male victim of the feminine reproaches from -which there is no escape, has assumed for ages past, came by nature to -this small boy. He dismissed every kind of interest or intelligence from -his face. If he had been thirty, he could not have looked more blank, -more enduring, more absolutely indifferent. Since he could not get away -from her, she must have her say. It would not last for ever, neither -could it penetrate beyond the very surface of the ear and of the mind. -He assumed his traditional attitude by inheritance from long lines of -forefathers. And perhaps it was well that Elsie’s attention was not -concentrated on him, or it is quite possible that she might have assumed -the woman’s traditional attitude, which is as well defined as the -man’s. But she was fortunately at the visionary age, and had entered -upon her poetry, as he had entered into the dominion of “his laddies.” -Her eye strayed over the vast expanse spread out before her, and the awe -of the beauty, and the vast calm of God came over her heart. - -“Rodie, I want to speak to you of something. It’s long past, and it has -nothing to do with you or me. Rodie, do you mind yon afternoon, when we -were shut up in the turret, and heard papa studying his sermon?” - -“What’s about that? You’ve minded me of it many a time: but if I was to -be always minding like you, what good would that do?” - -“I wanted to ask you, Rodie--sometimes you mind better than me, -sometimes not so well. Do you mind what he was saying? I want to be just -sure for once, and then never to think upon it again.” - -“What does it matter what he was saying? It was just about one of the -parables.” I am afraid the parables were just “a thing in the Bible” to -Rodie. He did not identify them much, or think what they meant, or -wherein one differed from another. This, I need not say, was not for -want of teaching: perhaps it was because of too much teaching, which -sometimes has a similar effect. “I mind,” he said with a laugh, “we were -just that crampit, sitting so long still, that we couldn’t move.” - -“Yes, yes,” said Elsie, “but I want to remember quite clear what it was -he said.” - -“It did not matter to us what he said,” said Rodie. “Papa is sometimes a -foozle, but I am not going to split upon him.” This was the slang of -those days, still lingering where golf is wont to be played. - -“Do you think I would split upon him?” cried Elsie with indignation. - -“I don’t know, then, what you’re carrying on about. Yes, I mind he said -something that was very funny; but then he often does that. Fathers are -so fond of saying things, that you don’t know what they mean, and -ministers worse than the rest. There’s the first jow of the bell, and -it’s time to get your bonnet on. I’m not for biding here havering; and -then that makes us late.” - -“You’re keen about being in time this morning, Rodie!” - -“I’m always keen for being in time. When you come in late, you see on -all their faces: ‘There’s the minister’s family just coming in--them -that ought to set us an example--and we’ve been all here for a quarter -of an hour.’” - -“We are never so late as that,” cried Elsie, indignantly. - -“You will be to-day, if you do not hurry,” he said, jumping up himself -and leading the way. - -And it was quite true, Elsie could not but allow to herself, that the -minister’s family were sometimes late. It had originated in the days -when there were so many little ones to get ready; and then, as Mrs. -Buchanan said, it was a great temptation living so near the church. You -felt that in a minute you could be there; and then you put off your -time, so that in the end, the bell had stopped ringing, and you had to -troop in with a rash, which was evidently a very bad example to the -people. And they did look up with that expression on their faces, as if -it were they who were the examples! But the fact that Rodie was right, -did not make what he said more agreeable. It acted rather the contrary -way. She had wished for his sympathy, for his support of her own -recollections, perhaps for surer rectification of her impressions; and -she found nothing but high disapproval, and the suggestion that she was -capable of splitting upon papa. This reproach broke Elsie’s heart. -Nothing would have induced her to betray her father. She would have -shielded him with her own life, she would have defended him had he been -in such danger, for instance, as people, and especially ministers, were -long ago, in Claverhouse’s time--or dug out with her nails a place to -hide him in, like Grizel Home. But to fathom the present mystery, and -remember exactly what he said, and find out what it meant, had not -seemed to her to be anything against him. That it was none of her -business, had not occurred to her. And she did not for the moment -perceive any better sense in Rodie. She thought he was only perverse, as -he so often was now, contrary to whatever she might say, going against -her. And she was very sure it was no enthusiasm for punctuality, or for -going to church, which made him hasten on before to the house, where his -Sunday hat, carefully brushed, was on the hall-table, waiting for him. -That was a thing that mother liked to do with her own hands. - -The thought of Rodie in such constant opposition and rebellion, -overshadowed her through all the early service, and it was not really -till the middle of the sermon that a sudden perception caught her mind. -Was that what Rodie meant? “He may be a foozle, but I will never split -on him.” But papa was no foozle. What was he? A good kind man, doing -nobody any wrong. There was nothing to say against him, nothing for his -children to betray. Even Elsie’s half-developed mind was conscious of -other circumstances, of children whose father might have something to -betray. And, in that dreadful case, what would one do? Oh, decline to -hear, decline to know of anything that could be betrayed, shut your ears -to every whisper, believe not even himself to his own undoing! This idea -leapt into her mind in the middle of the sermon. There was nothing in -the sermon to make her think of that. It was not Mr. Buchanan who was -preaching, but the other minister, his colleague, who did not preach -very good sermons, not like father’s! And Elsie’s attention wandered in -spite of herself. And then, all in a moment, this thought leapt into her -mind. In these circumstances, so different from her own, that would have -been the only thing for a child to do. Oh, never to listen to a word -against him, not even if it came from himself. Elsie’s quick mind sprang -responsive to this thought. This was far finer, far higher than her -desire to remember, to fathom what he had meant. And from whence was it -that this thought had come? From Rodie, her brother, the boy whom she -had been accusing in her mind, not only of forsaking her, but of -becoming more rough, more coarse, less open to fine thoughts. This -perception surprised Elsie so, that it was all she could do, not to jump -up in her place, to clap her hands, to cry out: “It was Rodie.” And she -who had never known that Rodie was capable of that! while all St. -Rule’s, and the world besides, had conceived the opinion of him that he -was a foolish callant. Elsie’s heart swelled full of triumph in Rodie. -“He may be a foozle”--no, no, he was no foozle--well did Rodie know -that. But was not Elsie’s curiosity a tacit insult to papa, as -suggesting that he might have been committing himself, averring -something that was wrong? Elsie would have condemned herself to all the -pangs of conscience, to all the reproaches against the ungrateful child, -who in her heart was believing her father guilty of some unknown -criminality, if it had not been that her heart was flooded with sudden -delight, the enchantment of a great discovery that Rodie had chosen the -better part. There was a true generosity in her, notwithstanding her -many foolishnesses. That sudden flash of respect for Rodie, and happy -discovery that in this one thing at least he was more faithful than she, -consoled her for appearing to herself by comparison in a less favourable -light. - -And the effect was, that she was silenced even to herself. She put no -more questions to Rodie, she tried to put out of her own mind her -personal recollections, and every attempt to understand. Did not Rodie -say it was not their business, that it did not matter to them what papa -said? Elsie could not put away her curiosity out of her heart, but she -bowed her head to Rodie’s action. After all, what a grand discovery it -was that Rodie should be the one to see what was right. - - - - -CHAPTER XI. - -THE GROWING UP OF THE BAIRNS. - - -This was the last incident in the secret history of the Buchanan family -for the moment. The sudden, painful, and unexpected crisis which had -arisen on Marion’s wedding day ceased almost as suddenly as it arose. -The Mowbrays, after staying a short time in St. Rule’s, departed to more -genial climes, and places in which more amusement was to be found--for -though even so long ago, St. Rule’s had become a sort of watering-place, -where people came in the summer, it was not in the least a place of -organised pleasure, or where there was any whirl of gaiety; nothing -could be more deeply disapproved of than a whirl of gaiety in these -days. - -There were no hotels and few lodgings of the usual watering-place kind. -People who came hired houses and transported themselves and all their -families, resuming all their usual habits with the sole difference that -the men of the family, instead of going out upon their usual avocations -every day, went out to golf instead: which was then a diversion -practised only in certain centres of its own, where most of the people -could play--a thing entirely changed nowadays, as everybody is aware, -when it is to be found everywhere, and practised by everybody, the most -of whom do not know how to play. - -Mrs. Mowbray did not find the place at all to her mind. Mr. Anderson’s -house, to which her son had succeeded, was old-fashioned, with furniture -of the last century, and large rooms, filled with the silence and calm -of years. Instead of being surrounded by “grounds,” which were the only -genteel setting for a gentleman’s house, it had the ruins of the -cathedral on one hand, and on the other the High Street. The picturesque -was not studied in those days: unless it might be the namby-pamby -picturesque, such as flourished in books of beauty, keepsakes, and -albums, when what was supposed to be Italian scenery was set forth in -steel engravings, and fine ladies at Venetian windows listened to the -guitars of their lovers rising from gondolas out of moonlit lakes. To -look out on the long, broad, sunny High Street, with, perhaps, the -figure of a piper in the distance, against the glow of the sunset, or a -wandering group, with an unhappy and melancholy dancing bear--was very -vulgar to the middle-class fine lady, a species appropriate to that -period, and which now has died away; and, to look out, on the other -hand, upon the soaring spring of a broken arch in the ruins, gave Mrs. -Mowbray the vapours, or the blues, or whatever else that elegant malady -was called. We should say nerves, in these later days, but, at the -beginning of the century, nerves had scarcely yet been invented. - -For all these reasons, Mrs. Mowbray did not stay long in St. Rule’s--she -complained loudly of everything she found there, of the house, and the -society which had paid her so little attention: and of the climate, and -the golf which Frank had yielded to the fascination of, staying out all -day, and keeping her in constant anxiety! but, above all, she complained -of the income left by old Mr. Anderson, which was so much less than they -expected, and which all her efforts could not increase. She said so much -about this, as to make the life of good Mr. Morrison, the man of -business, a burden to him: and at the same time to throw upon the most -respectable inhabitants of St. Rule’s a sort of cloud or shadow, or -suspicion of indebtedness which disturbed the equanimity of the town. -“She thinks we all borrowed money from old Anderson,” the gentlemen said -with laughter in many a dining-room. But there were a few others, like -Mr. Buchanan, who did not like the joke. - -“The woman is daft!” they said; but it was remarked by some keen -observers that the minister gave but a sickly smile in response. And it -may be supposed that this added to the contempt of the ladies for the -pretensions of a woman of whom nobody knew who was her father or who her -mother, yet who would fain have set herself up as a leader of fashion -over them all. In general, when the ladies disapprove of a new-comer, in -a limited society like that of St. Rule’s, the men are apt to take her -part--but, in this case, nobody took her part; and, as there was -nothing gay in the place, and no amusement to be had, even in solemn -dinner-parties, she very soon found it was not suitable for her health. - -“So cold, even in summer,” she said, shivering--and everybody was glad -when she went away, taking that little mannikin, Frank--who, perhaps, -might have been made into something like a man on the links--with her, -to the inanity of some fashionable place. To like a fashionable place -was then believed to be the very top, or bottom, of natural depravity in -St. Rule’s. - -This had been a very sore ordeal to Mr. Buchanan: his conscience -upbraided him day by day--he had even upon him an aching impulse to go -and tell somebody to relieve his own mind, and share the responsibility -with some one who might have guided him in his sore strait. Though he -was a very sound Presbyterian, and evangelical to his finger-tips, the -wisdom of the Church of Rome, in the institution of confession, and of a -spiritual director to aid the penitent, appeared to him in a far clearer -light than he had ever seen it before. To be sure, in all churches, the -advantage of telling your difficulties to an adviser conversant with the -spiritual life, has always been recognised: but there was no one whom -Mr. Buchanan could choose for this office--they were all married men, -for one thing, and who could be sure that the difficulty might not ooze -out into the mind of a faithful spouse, in no way bound to keep the -secrets of her husband’s penitents--and whom, at all events, even though -her lips were sealed by strictest honour, the penitent had no intention -of confiding his secret to. No; the minister felt that his reverend -brethren were the last persons to whom he would like to confide his hard -case. If there had been some hermit now, some old secluded person, some -old man, or even woman, in the sanctuary of years and experience, to -whom a man could go, and, by parable or otherwise, lay bare the troubles -of his soul. He smiled at himself even while the thought went through -his mind: the prose part of his being suggested an old, neglected -figure, all overgrown with beard and hair, in the hollow of St. Rule’s -cave, within the dashing of the spray, the very place for a hermit, a -dirty old man, hoarse and callous, incapable of comprehending the -troubles of a delicate conscience, though he might know what to say to -the reprobate or murderer: no, the hermit would not do, he said to -himself, with a smile, in our days. - -To be sure, he had one faithful confidant, the wife of his bosom; but, -least of all, would Mr. Buchanan have poured out his troubles to his -wife. He knew very well what she would say--“You accepted an indulgence -that was not meant for you; you took your bill and wrote fourscore when -it was hundreds you were owing; Claude, my man, that cannot be--you must -just go this moment and tell Mr. Morrison the whole truth; and, if I -should sell my flannel petticoat, we’ll pay it off, every penny, if -only they will give us time.” He knew so well what she would say, that -he could almost hear the inflections of her voice in saying it. There -was no subtlety in her--she would understand none of his hesitations. -She would see no second side to the question. “Own debt and crave days,” -she would say; she was fond of proverbs--and he had heard her quote that -before. - -There are thus difficulties in the way of consulting the wife of your -bosom, especially if she is a practical woman, who could, in a manner, -force you to carry out your repentance into restitution, and give you no -peace. - -During this time of reawakened feeling, Mr. Buchanan had a certain -distant sentiment, which he did not know how to explain to himself, -against his daughter Elsie. She had a way of looking at him which he did -not understand--not the look of disapproval, but of curiosity, half -wistful, half pathetic--as if she wanted to know something more of him, -to clear up some doubt in her own mind. What cause could the girl have -to want more knowledge of her own father? She knew everything about him, -all his habits, his way of looking at things--as much as a girl could -know about a man so much older and wiser than herself. It half amused -him to think that one of his own family should find this mystery in him. -He was to himself, always excepting that one thing, as open as the -day--and yet the amusement was partial, and mingled with alarm. She -knew more of that one thing than any one else; could it be that it was -curiosity and anxiety about this that was in the girl’s eyes? - -Sometimes he thought so, and then condemned himself for entertaining -such a thought, reminding himself that vague recollections like that of -Elsie do not take such shape in a young mind, and also that it was -impossible that one so young, and his affectionate and submissive child, -should entertain any such doubts of him. - -The curious thing was that, knowing all he did of himself, and that he -had done--or intended to do, which was the same--this one thing which -was evil, he still felt it impossible that any doubt of him should lodge -in his daughter’s mind. - -In this way the years which are, perhaps, most important in the -development of the young, passed over the heads of the Buchanans. From -sixteen, Elsie grew to twenty, and became, as Marion had been, her -mother’s right hand, so that Mrs. Buchanan, more free from domestic -cares than formerly, was able to take an amount of repose which, -perhaps, was not quite so good for her as her former more active life; -for she grew stout, and less willing to move as her necessities -lessened. John was now in Edinburgh, having very nearly obtained the -full-fledged honours of a W.S. And Rodie, nearly nineteen, was now the -only boy at home. Perhaps, as the youngest, and the last to be settled, -he was more indulged than the others had been; for he had not yet -decided upon his profession, and still had hankerings after the army, -notwithstanding that all the defects of that service had been put before -him again and again--the all but impossibility of buying him a -commission, the certainty that he would have to live on his pay, and -many other disadvantageous things. - -Rodie was still not old enough to be without hopes that something might -turn up to make his desires possible, however little appearance of it -there might be. Getting into the army in those days was not like getting -into the army now. With us it means, in the first place, examinations, -which any boy of moderate faculties and industry can pass: but then it -meant so much money out of his father’s pocket to buy a commission: to -put the matter in words, the present system seems the better way--but it -is doubtful whether the father’s pocket is much the better, seeing that -there is often a great deal of “cramming” to be done before the youth -gets through the ordeal of examinations, and sometimes, it must be -allowed, boys who are of the most perfect material for soldiers do not -get through that narrow gate at all. - -But there was no cramming in Roderick Buchanan’s day; the word had not -been invented, nor the thing. A boy’s education was put into him -solidly, moderately, in much the same way as his body was built up, by -the work of successive years--he was not put into a warm place, and -filled with masses of fattening matter, like the poor geese of -Strasburg. - -Rodie’s eyes, therefore, not requiring to be for ever bent on -mathematics or other abstruse studies, were left free to search the -horizon for signs of anything that might turn up; perhaps a cadetship -for India, which was the finest thing that could happen--except in his -mother’s eyes, who thought one son was enough to have given up to the -great Moloch of India: but, had the promise of the cadetship arrived any -fine morning, I fear Mrs. Buchanan’s scruples would have been made short -work with. In the meantime, Rodie was attending classes at the College, -and sweeping the skies with the telescope of hope. - -Rodie and his sister had come a little nearer with the progress of the -years. From the proud moment, when the youth felt the down of a coming -moustache upon his upper lip, and began to perceive that he was by no -means a bad-looking fellow, and to feel inclinations towards balls and -the society of girls, scorned and contemned so long as he was merely a -boy, he had drawn a little closer to his sister, who had, as it were, -the keys of that other world. It was a little selfish, perhaps; but, in -a family, one must not look too closely into motives; and Elsie, -faithful to her first affection, was glad enough to get him back again, -and to find that he was, by no means, so scornful of mere “lassies,” as -in the days when his desertion had made her little heart so sore. -Perhaps it had something to do with his conversion, that “his laddies,” -the Alicks and Ralphs of his boyish days, had all taken (at least, as -many as remained of them, those who had not yet gone off to the army, or -the bar, or the W.S.’s office) to balls also, and now danced as -vigorously as they played. - -One of the strangest things, however, in all that juvenile band, was the -change which had come over Johnny Wemyss, who, the reader will remember, -was only a fisherman’s son, and lived east the town in a fisher’s -cottage, and was not supposed the best of company for the minister’s -son. Johnny, the romantic, silent boy, who had put down his flowers on -the pavement that the bride’s path might be over them, had taken to -learning, as it was easy for the poorest boy, in such a centre of -education, to do. As was usual, when a lad of his class showed this -turn, which was by no means extraordinary, it was towards the Church -that the parents directed their thoughts, and Johnny had taken all his -“arts” classes, his “humanities,” the curriculum of secular instruction, -and was pondering doctrine and exegesis in the theological branch, on -his way to be a minister, at the moment in their joint history at which -we have now arrived. I am not sure that even then he was quite sure that -he himself intended to be a minister; for, being a serious youth by -nature, he had much loftier views of that sacred profession than, -perhaps, it was possible for a minister’s son, trained up in over-much -familiarity with it, to have. But his meaning was, as yet, not very -clear to himself; he was fonder of “beasts,” creatures of the sea-coast, -fishes, and those half-inanimate things, which few people, as yet, had -begun to think of at all, than of anything else in the world, except.... -I will not fill in this blank; perhaps the young reader will guess what -was the thing Johnny Wemyss held in still higher devotion than “his -beasts;” at all events, if he follows the thread of this story, he will -in time find out. - -Johnny was no longer kept outside the minister’s door. In his red gown, -as a student of St. Rule’s, he was as good as anyone, and the childish -alliance, which had long existed between him and Rodie, was still kept -up, although Rodie’s fictitious enthusiasm for beasts, which was merely -a reflection from his friend’s, had altogether failed, and he was as -ready as any one to laugh at the pottering in all the sea-pools, and -patient observation of all the strange creatures’ ways, which kept -Wemyss busy all the time he could spare from his lectures and his -essays, and the composition of the sermons which a theological student -at St. Mary’s College was bound, periodically, to produce. Those tastes -of his were already recognised as very absurd and rather amusing, but -very good things to keep a laddie out of mischief, Mrs. Buchanan said; -for it was evident that he could not be “carrying on” in any foolish -way, so long as he spent his afternoons out on the caller sands, with -his wee spy-glass, examining the creatures, how they were made, and all -about them, though it was a strange taste for a young man. Several times -he had, indeed, brought a basin full of sea-water--carrying it through -the streets, not at all put out by the amusement which surrounded him, -the school-boys that followed at his heels, the sharp looks which his -acquaintances gave each other, convinced now that Johnny Wemyss had -certainly a bee in his bonnet--to the minister’s house, that Miss Elsie -might see the wonderful white and pink creatures, like sea-flowers, the -strange sea-anemones, rooted on bits of rock, and waving their -tentacles, or shutting them up in a moment at a rude touch. - -Elsie, much disposed to laugh at first, when the strange youth brought -her this still stranger trophy, gradually came to admire, and wonder, -and take great notice of the sea-anemones, which were wonderfully -pretty, though so queer--and which, after all, she began to think, it -was quite as clever of Johnny Wemyss to have discovered, as it was of -the Alicks and Ralphs to shoot the wild-fowl at the mouth of the Eden. -It was even vaguely known that he wrote to some queer scientific fishy -societies about them, and received big letters by the post, “costing -siller,” or sometimes franked in the corner with long, sprawling -signatures of peers, or members of parliament. People, however, would -not believe that these letters could be about Johnny Wemyss’s beasts; -they thought that this must simply be a pretence to make himself and -his rubbish of importance, and that it must be something else which -procured him these correspondents, though what, they could not tell. - -Wemyss was the eldest of the little society. He was three-and-twenty, -and ought to be already settled in life, everybody thought. He had, for -some time, been making his living, which was the first condition of -popular respect, and had already been tutor to a number of lads before -he had begun his theological course. This age was rather a late age in -Scotland for a student of divinity--most of those who had any interest -were already sure of a kirk, and even those who had none were exercising -their gifts as probationers, and hoping to attract somebody’s notice who -could bestow one. But Johnny somehow postponed that natural -consummation: he went on with his tutor’s work, and made no haste over -his studies, continuing to attend lectures, when he might have applied -to the Presbytery for license. It was believed, and not without truth, -that not even for the glory of being a placed minister, could he make up -his mind to give up his beloved sea-pools, where he was always to be -found of an afternoon, pottering in the sea-water, spoiling his clothes, -and smelling of the brine, as if he were still one of the fisher folk -among whom he had been born. He no longer dwelt among them, however, for -his father and mother were both dead, and he himself lived in a little -lodging among those cheap tenements frequented by students near the -West, out at the other end of the town. He did not go to the balls, nor -care for dancing like the others,--which was a good thing, seeing he was -to be a minister,--but, notwithstanding, there were innumerable -occasions of meeting each other, common to all the young folk of the -friendly, little, old-fashioned town. - - - - -CHAPTER XII. - -THE MOWBRAYS. - - -Mrs. Mowbray and her son had reappeared for a short time on several -occasions during these silent years. They had come at the height of the -season for “the gowff,” which Frank, not having been a St. Rule’s boy, -nor properly brought up to it, played badly like an Englishman. It must -be understood that this was generations before golf had penetrated into -England, and when it was, in fact, thought of contemptuously by most of -the chance visitors, who considered it a game for old gentlemen, and -compared it scornfully with cricket, and called the clubs “sticks,” to -the hot indignation of the natives. Since then “the gowff” has had its -revenges, and it is now the natives who are scornful, and smile grimly -over the crowds of the strangers who are so eager, but never can get -over the disabilities of a childhood not dedicated to golf. Not only -Rodie, and Alick, and Ralph, but even Johnny Wemyss, who, though he -rarely played, had yet a natural understanding of the game, laughed at -the attempts of Frank, and at his dandyism, and his “high English,” and -many other signs of the alien, who gave himself airs, or was supposed to -do so. But, at the period of which I am now speaking, Frank had become -a man, and had learned several lessons in life. He was, indeed, older -than even Johnny Wemyss; he was nearly twenty-five, and had been at an -English University, and had had a large pair of whiskers, and was no -longer a dandy. The boys recognised him as a fellow-man, even as a man -in an advanced stage, who knew some things they did not, but no longer -gave himself airs. He had even learned that difficult lesson, which many -persons went through life without ever learning, that he could not play -golf. And when he settled himself with his mother in the old house which -belonged to him, in the beginning of summer, and addressed himself -seriously to the task of making up his deficiencies, his youthful -acquaintances rallied round him, and forgot their criticisms upon his -neckties, and his spats, and all the ornamental particulars of “the -fashion,” which he brought with him; nay, they began secretly to make -notes of these points, and shyly copied them, one after another, with a -great terror of being laughed at, which would have been completely -justified by results, but for the fact that they were all moved by the -same temptation. When, however, Rodie Buchanan and Alick Seaton, both -stepping out, with much diffidence, on a fresh Sunday morning, in their -first spats, red with apprehension, and looking about them suspiciously, -with a mingled dread of and desire to be remarked, suddenly ran upon -each other, they both paused, looked at each other’s feet, and, with -unspeakable relief, burst into a roar of laughter, which could be heard -both east and west to the very ends of the town; not very proper, many -people thought, on the Sunday morning, especially in the case of a -minister’s son. They were much relieved, however, to find themselves -thus freed from the terror of ridicule, and when all the band adopted -the new fashion, it was felt that the High Street had little to learn -from St. James’s, as well as--which was always known--much that it could -teach that presumptuous locality. Johnny Wemyss got no spats, he did not -pretend to follow the fashion; he smiled a little grimly at Frank, and -had a good hearty roar over the young ones, when they all defiled before -him on the Sunday walk on the links, shamefaced, but pleased with -themselves, and, in the strength of numbers, joining in Johnny’s laugh -without bitterness. Frank was _bon prince_, even in respect to Johnny; -he went so far as to pretend, if he did not really feel, an interest in -the “beasts,” and never showed any consciousness of the fact that this -member of the community had a different standing-ground from the others, -a fact, however, which, I fear, Mrs. Mowbray made very apparent, when -she in any way acknowledged the little company of young men. - -Mrs. Mowbray herself had not improved in these years. She had a look of -care which contracted her forehead, and gave her an air of being older -than she was, an effect that often follows the best exertions of those -who desire to look younger than they are. She talked a good deal about -her expenses, which was a thing not common in those days, and about the -difficulty of keeping up a proper position upon a limited income, with -all Frank’s costly habits, and her establishment in London, and the -great burden of keeping up the old house in St. Rule’s, which she would -like to sell if the trustees would permit her. By Mr. Anderson’s will, -however, Frank did not come of age, so far as regarded the Scotch -property, till he was twenty-five, and thus nothing could be done. She -had become a woman of many grievances, which is not perhaps at any time -a popular character, complaining of everything, even of Frank; though he -was the chief object of her life, and to demonstrate his superiority to -everybody else, was the chief subject of her talk, except when her -troubles with money and with servants came in, or the grievance of Mr. -Anderson’s misbehaviour in leaving so much less money than he ought, -overwhelmed all other subjects. Mrs. Mowbray took, as was perhaps -natural enough, Mr. Buchanan for her chief confidant. She had always, -she said, been in the habit of consulting her clergyman; and though -there was a difference, she scarcely knew what, between a clergyman and -a minister, she still felt that it was a necessity to have a spiritual -guide, and to lay forth the burden of her troubles before some one, who -would tell her what it was her duty to do in circumstances so -complicated and trying. She learned the way, accordingly, to Mr. -Buchanan’s study, where he received all his parish visitors, the elders -who came on the business of the Kirk session, and any one who wished to -consult him, whether upon spiritual matters, or upon the affairs of the -church, or charitable institutions. The latter were the most frequent, -and except a poor widow-woman in search of aid for her family, or, with -a certificate for a pension to be signed, or a letter for a hospital, -his visitors were almost always rare. It was something of a shock when a -lady, rustling in silk, and with all her ribbons flying, was first shown -in by the half-alarmed maid, who had previously insisted, to the verge -of ill-breeding, that Mrs. Buchanan was in the drawing-room: but as time -went on, it became a very common incident, and the minister started -nervously every time a knock sounded on his door, in terror lest it -should be she. - -In ordinary cases, I have no doubt Mr. Buchanan would have made a little -quiet fun of his visitor, whose knock and step he had begun to know, as -if she had been a visitor expected and desired. But what took all the -fun out of it and prevented even a smile, was the fact that he was -horribly afraid of her all the time, and never saw her come in without a -tremor at his heart. It seemed to him on each repeated visit that she -must in the interval since the last have discovered something: though he -knew that there was nothing to discover, and that the proofs of his own -culpability were all locked up in his own heart, where they lay and -corroded, burning the place, and never permitting him to forget what he -had done, although he had done nothing. How often had he said to himself -that he had done nothing! But it did him no good, and when Mrs. Mowbray -came in with her grievances, he felt as if each time she must denounce -him, and on the spot demand that he should pay what he owed. Oh, if that -only could be, if she had denounced him, and had the power to compel -payment, what a relief it would have been! It would have taken the -responsibility off his shoulders, it would have brought him out of hell. -There would then have been no possibility of reasoning with himself, or -asking how it was to be done, or shrinking from the shame of revealing -even to his wife, what had been his burden all these years. He had in -his imagination put the very words into her mouth, over and over again. -He had made her say: “Mr. Buchanan, you were owing old Mr. Anderson -three hundred pounds.” And to this he had replied: “Yes, Mrs. Mowbray,” -and the stone had rolled away from his heart. This imaginary -conversation had been repeated over and over again in his mind. He never -attempted to deny it, never thought now of taking his bill and writing -fourscore. Not an excuse did he offer, nor any attempt at denial. “Yes, -Mrs. Mowbray:” that was what he heard himself saying: and he almost -wished it might come true. - -The condition of strange suspense and expectation into which this -possibility threw him, is very difficult to describe or understand. His -wife perceived something, and perhaps it crossed her mind for a moment -that he liked those visits, and that there was reason of offence to -herself in them: but she was a sensible woman and soon perceived the -folly of such an explanation. But the mere fact that an explanation -seemed necessary, disturbed her, and gave her an uncomfortable sensation -in respect to him, who never had so far as she knew in all their lives -kept any secret from her. What was it? The most likely thing was, that -the secret was Mrs. Mowbray’s which she had revealed to him, and which -was a burden on his mind because of her, not of himself. _That_ -woman--for this was the way in which Mrs. Buchanan began to describe the -other lady in her heart--was just the sort of woman to have a history, -and what if she had burdened the minister’s conscience with it to -relieve her own? “I wonder,” she said to Elsie one day, abruptly, a -remark connected with nothing in particular, “what kind of mind the -Catholic priests have, that have to hear so many confessions of ill -folks’ vices and crimes. It must be as if they had done it all -themselves, and not daring to say a word.” - -“What makes you think of that, mother?” said Elsie. - -“It is no matter what makes me think of it,” said Mrs. Buchanan, a -little sharply. “Suppose you were told of something very bad, and had to -see the person coming and going, and never knowing when vengeance might -overtake them by night or by day.” - -“Do you mean, mother, that you would like to tell, and that they should -be punished?” Elsie said. - -“It would not be my part to punish her,” said the mother, unconsciously -betraying herself. “No, no, that would never be in my mind: but you -would always be on the outlook for everything that happened if you -knew--and specially if she knew that you knew. Whenever a stranger came -near, you would think it was the avenger that was coming, or, at the -least, it was something that would expose her, that would be like a clap -of thunder. Bless me, Elsie, I cannot tell how they can live and thole -it, these Catholic priests.” - -“They will hear so many things, they will not think much about them,” -Elsie said, with philosophy. - -“No think about them! when perhaps it is life or death to some poor -creature, and her maybe coming from time to time looking at you very -wistful as if she were saying: ‘Do you think they will find me out? Do -you think it was such a very bad thing? do you think they’ll kill me for -it?’ I think I would just go and say it was me that did it, and would -they give me what was my due and be done with it, for ever and ever. I -think if it was me, that is what I would do.” - -“But it would not be true, mother.” - -“Oh, lassie,” said Mrs. Buchanan, “dinna fash me with your trues and -your no trues! I am saying what I would be worked up to, if my -conscience was bowed down with another person’s sin.” - -“Would it be worse than if it was your own?” asked Elsie. - -“A great deal worse. When you do what’s wrong yourself, everything that -is in you rises up to excuse it. You say to yourself, Dear me, what are -they all making such a work about? it is no so very bad, it was because -I could not help it, or it was without meaning any harm, or it was -just--something or other; but when it is another person, you see it in -all its blackness and without thinking of any excuse. And then when it’s -your own sin, you can repent and try to make up for it, or to confess it -and beg for pardon both to him you have wronged, and to God, but -especially to him that is wronged, for that is the hardest. And in any -way you just have it in your own hands. But you cannot repent for -another person, nor can you make up, nor give her the right feelings; -you have just to keep silent, and wonder what will happen next.” - -“You are meaning something in particular, mother?” Elsie said. - -“Oh, hold your tongue with your nonsense, everything that is, is -something in particular,” Mrs. Buchanan said. She had been listening to -a rustle of silk going past the drawing-room door; she paused and -listened, her face growing a little pale, putting out her hand to hinder -any noise, which would prevent her from hearing. Elsie in turn watched -her, staring, listening too, gradually making the strange discovery that -her mother’s trouble was connected with the coming of Mrs. Mowbray, a -discovery which disturbed the girl greatly, though she could not make -out to herself how it was. - -Mrs. Buchanan could not refrain from a word on the same subject to her -husband. When she went to his room after his visitor was gone, she found -him with his elbows supported on his table and his face hidden in his -hands. He started at her entrance, and raised his head suddenly with a -somewhat scared countenance towards her: and then drawing his papers -towards him, he began to make believe that he had been writing. “Well, -my dear,” he said, turning a little towards her, but without raising his -eyes. - -“Claude, my dear, what ails you that you should start like that--when -it’s just me, your own wife, coming into the room?” - -“Did I start?” he said; “no, I don’t think I started: but I did not hear -you come in.” Then with a pretence at a smile he added, “I have just had -a visit from that weariful woman, Mrs. Mowbray. It was an evil day for -me when she was shown the way up here.” - -“But surely, Claude,” said Mrs. Buchanan, “it was by your will that she -ever came up here.” - -“Is that all you know, Mary?” he said, with a smile. “Who am I, that I -can keep out a woman who is dying to speak about herself, and thinks -there is no victim so easy as the minister. It is just part of the day’s -duty, I suppose.” - -“But you were never, that I remember, taigled in this way before,” Mrs. -Buchanan said. - -“I was perhaps never brought face to face before with a woman determined -to say her say, and that will take no telling. My dear, if you will free -me of her, you will do the best day’s work for me you have ever done in -your life.” - -“There must be something of the first importance in what she has to -say.” - -“To herself, I have no doubt,” said the minister, with a deep sigh. “I -am thinking there is no subject in the world that has the interest our -own affairs have to ourselves. She is just never done: and all about -herself.” - -“I am not a woman to pry into my neighbour’s concerns: but this must be -some sore burden on her conscience, Claude, since she has so much to say -to you.” - -“Do you think so?” he cried. “Well, that might perhaps be an -explanation: for what I have to do with her small income, and her way of -spending her money, and her house, and her servants, I cannot see. There -is one thing that gives it a sting to me. I cannot forget that we have -something to do with the smallness of her income,” Mr. Buchanan said. - -“We to do with smallness of her income! I will always maintain,” said -Mrs. Buchanan, “that the money was the old man’s, and that he had the -first right to give it where he pleased; but, dear Claude, man, you that -should ken--what could that poor three hundred give her? Fifteen pound -per annum; and what is fifteen pound per annum?--not enough to pay that -English maid with all her airs and graces. If it had been as many -thousands, there might have been some justice it.” - -“That is perhaps an idea,” said the harassed minister, “if we were to -offer her the interest, Mary? My dear, what would you say to that? It -would be worse than ever to gather together that money and pay it back; -but fifteen pounds a year, that might be a possible thing; you might put -your shoulder to the wheel, and pay her that.” - -“Claude,” said Mrs. Buchanan, “are you sure that is all the woman is -wanting? I cannot think it can be that. It is just something that is on -her conscience, and she wants to put it off on you.” - -“My dear,” said the minister, “you’re a very clever woman, but you are -wrong there. I have heard nothing about her conscience, it is her wrongs -that she tells to me.” The conversation had eased his mind a little, and -his wife’s steady confidence in his complete innocence in the matter, -and the perfect right of old Anderson to do what he liked with his own -money, was always, for the moment at least, refreshing to his soul: -though he soon fell back on the reflection that the only fact of any -real importance in the matter was the one she never knew. - -Mrs. Buchanan was a little disconcerted by the failure of her prevision, -but she would not recede. “If she has not done it yet, she will do it -sometime. Mind what I am saying to you, Claude: there is something on -her conscience, and she wants to put it off on you.” - -“Nonsense, Mary,” he said. “What should be on the woman’s conscience? -and why should she try to put it upon mine? Dear me, my conscience would -be far easier bearing the weight of her ill-doing than the weight of my -own. We must get this beam out of our own eye if we can, and then the -mote in our neighbour’s--if there is a mote--will be easy, oh, very -easy, to put up with. It is my own burden that troubles me.” - -“Toot,” said Mrs. Buchanan, “you are just very exaggerated. It was most -natural Mr. Anderson should do as he did, knowing all the -circumstances--and you, what else should you do, to go against him? But -you will just see,” she added, confidently, “that I will prove a true -prophet after all. If it has not been done, it will be done, and you -will get her sin to bear as well as your own.” - - - - -CHAPTER XIII. - -PLAINTIFF OR PENITENT? - - -Meanwhile, the reader shall judge by the turn of one of these -conversations whether Mrs. Buchanan was, or was not, justified in her -prevision. Mrs. Mowbray came tripping up the long stair, which was of -stone, and did not creak under foot, though she was betrayed by the -rustle of her silk dress, which was in those days a constant -accompaniment of a woman’s movements. When she approached nearer, there -were other little sounds that betrayed her,--a little jingle of -bracelets and chains, and the bugles of her mantle. She was naturally -dressed in what was the height of the fashion then, though we should -think it ridiculous now, as we always think the fashions that are past. -When Mr. Buchanan heard that little jingle and rattle, his heart failed -him. He put down his pen or his book, and the healthful colour in his -cheek failed. A look of terror and trouble came into his face. - -“Here is _that_ woman again,” he said to himself. Mrs. Mowbray, on her -side, was very far from thinking herself _that_ woman; she rather -thought the minister looked forward with pleasure to her visits, that -she brought a sort of atmosphere of sunshine and the great world into -that sombre study of his, and that the commonplace of his life was -lighted up by her comings and goings. There are a great many people in -the world who deceive themselves in this way, and it would have been a -shock to Mrs. Mowbray if she had seen the appalled look of the -minister’s face when his ear caught the sound of her coming, and he -looked up to listen the better, with a gesture of impatience, almost -despair, saying to himself, “that woman again.” - -She came in, however, all smiles, lightly tapping at the door, with a -little distinctive knock, which was like nobody else’s, or so at least -she thought. She liked to believe that she did everything in a -distinctive way, so that her touch and her knock and all her movements -should be at once realised as hers. She had been a pretty woman, and -might still indeed have been so, had she not been so anxious to preserve -her charms that she had undermined them for a long time, year by year. -She had worn out her complexion by her efforts to retain it and make it -brighter, and frizzed and tortured her hair till she had succeeded in -making it of no particular colour at all. The effort and wish to be -pretty were so strong in her, and so visible, that it made her remaining -prettiness almost ridiculous, and people laughed at her as an old woman -struggling to look young when she was not really old at all. Poor Mrs. -Mowbray! looking at her from one point of view, her appearance was -pathetic, for it was as much as to say that she felt herself to have no -recommendation at all but her good looks, and therefore would fight for -them to the death--which is, if you think of it, a kind of humility, -though it gets no credit for being so. She came in with a simper and -jingle of all the chains and adornments, as if she felt herself the most -welcome of visitors, and holding out her hand, said: - -“Here I am again, Mr. Buchanan. I am sure you must be getting quite -tired of me.” She expected him to contradict her, but the minister did -not do so. He said: - -“How do you do, Mrs. Mowbray?” rising from his chair, but the muscles of -his face did not relax, and he still held his pen in his hand. - -“I am so afraid you are busy, but I really will not detain you above a -few minutes. It is such a comfort amid all the troubles of my life to -come to this home of peace, and tell you everything. You don’t know what -a consolation it is only to see you, Mr. Buchanan, sitting there so -calm, and so much above the world. It is a consolation and a reproach. -One thinks, Oh, how little one’s small troubles are in the light that -comes from heaven!” - -“I am afraid you are giving me credit for much more tranquillity than I -can claim,” said the minister. “I am not without my cares, any more than -other men.” - -“Ah, but what are those cares?” cried the lady. “I know; the care of -doing what you can for everybody else, visiting the poor and widows in -their affliction, and keeping yourself unspotted from the world. Oh, how -different, how different from the things that overwhelm us!” - -What could the poor minister do? It seemed the most dreadful satire to -him to be so spoken to, conscious as he was of the everlasting gnawing -at his heart of what he had done, or at least left undone. But if he had -been ever so anxious to confess his sins, he could not have done it to -her; and accordingly he had to smile as best he could, and say that he -hoped he might preserve her good opinion, though he had done so very -little to deserve it. Perhaps if he had been less conscious of his own -demerits, he would have perceived, as his wife had done, that there was -a line in Mrs. Mowbray’s forehead which all her little arts could not -conceal, and which meant more than anything she had yet told him. Mrs. -Buchanan had divined this, but not the minister, who was too much -occupied with his own purgatory to be aware that amid all her rustlings -and jinglings, and old-fashioned coquetries, there was here by his side -another soul in pain. - -“You cannot imagine,” said Mrs. Mowbray, spreading out her hands, “what -it is to me to think of my poor Frank deceived in his hopes, and instead -of coming into a fortune, having next to no money when he comes of age. -Oh, that coming of age, I am so frightened, so frightened for it! It is -bad enough now to deny him so many things he wants.” - -“Do you deny him many things he wants?” said the minister. The question -was put half innocently, half satirically, for Frank indeed seemed a -spoilt child, having every possible indulgence, to the sturdy sons of -St. Rule’s. - -Mrs. Mowbray laughed, and made a movement as of tapping the minister’s -arm with a fan. - -“Oh, how unkind of you,” she said, “to be so hard on a mother’s -weakness! I have not denied him much up to this time. How could I, Mr. -Buchanan, my only child? And he has such innocent tastes. He never wants -anything extravagant. Look at him now. He has no horse, he is quite -happy with his golf, and spends nothing at all. Perhaps his tailor’s -bill is large, but a woman can’t interfere with that, and it is such a -nice thing that a boy should like to be well dressed. I like him to take -a little trouble about his dress. I don’t believe he ever touches a -card, and betting over his game on the links is nothing, he tells me: -you win one day and lose the next, and so you come out quite square at -the end. Oh, it all goes on smooth enough now. But when he comes of age! -It was bad enough last time when he came of age, for his English money -and everything was gone over. Do you think it just, Mr. Buchanan, that a -mere man of business, a lawyer, an indifferent person that knows nothing -about the family, should go over all your expenses, and tell you you -shouldn’t have done this, and you shouldn’t have done that, when he has -really nothing to do with it, and the money is all your own?” - -“I am afraid,” said Mr. Buchanan, “that the business man is a necessity, -and perhaps is better able to say what you ought to spend than you are -yourself.” - -“Oh, how can you say so? when perhaps he is not even a gentleman, and -does not understand anything about what one wants when one is accustomed -to good society. This man Morrison, for instance----” - -“Morrison,” said the minister, “is a gentleman both by blood and -breeding, although he is a simple man in his manners: his family----” - -“Oh, I know what you mean,” said Mrs. Mowbray, “a small Scotch squire, -and they think as much of their family as if they were dukes. I know he -is Morrison of somewhere or other, but that does not teach a man what’s -due to a lady, or what a young man wants who is entitled to expect his -season in town, and all his little diversions. Morrison, Mr. Buchanan, -would have put Frank to a trade. He would, it is quite true. I don’t -wonder you are surprised. My Frank, with so much money on both sides! He -spoke to me of an office in Edinburgh. I assure you he did--for my boy!” - -“I am not in the least surprised,” said the minister; “we are all -thankful to put our sons into offices in Edinburgh, and get them -something to do.” - -“I am sure you won’t think I mean anything disagreeable,” said Mrs. -Mowbray, “but your sons, Mr. Buchanan, pardon me--you have all so many -of them. And I have only one, and money, as I say, on both sides. I had -quite a nice fortune myself. I never for a moment will consent that my -Frank should go into an office. It would ruin his health, and then he is -much too old for anything of that sort. The folly of postponing his -majority till he was twenty-five! And oh, Mr. Buchanan,” she cried, -clasping her hands, “the worst of it all is, that he will find so -little, so very little when he does come into his property at last.” - -There was a look almost of anguish in the poor lady’s face, her eyes -seemed full of tears, her forehead was cut across by that deep line of -trouble which Mrs. Buchanan had divined. She looked at the minister in a -sort of agony, as if asking, “May I tell him? Dare I tell him?” But of -this the minister saw nothing. He did not look at her face with any -interest. He was employed in resisting her supposed efforts to penetrate -his secret, and this concealed from him, under impenetrable veils, any -secret that she might have of her own. It was not that he was dull or -slow to understand in general cases, but in this he was blinded by his -own profound preoccupation, and by a certain dislike to the woman who -thus disturbed and assailed his peace. He could not feel any sympathy -with her; her little airs and graces, her efforts to please, poor soul, -which were intended only to make her agreeable, produced in him exactly -the opposite sensation, which often happens, alas, in our human -perversity. Neither of them indeed understood the other, because each -was occupied with himself. - -“I don’t think,” said Mr. Buchanan, roused to resistance, “that you will -find things nearly so bad as you seem to expect. I am sure the estate -has been very carefully administered while in my friend Morrison’s -hands. You could not have a more honourable or a more careful steward. -He could have no interest but to do the best he could for you, and I am -sure he would do it. And property has not fallen in value in Fife so far -as I know. I think, if you will permit me to say so, that you are -alarming yourself without cause.” - -All this time, Mrs. Mowbray had been looking at him through the water in -her eyes, her face contracted, her lips a little apart, her forehead -drawn together. He glanced at her from time to time while he was -speaking, but he had the air of a man who would very gladly be done with -the business altogether, and had no ear for her complaints. The poor -lady drew from the depths of her bosom a long sigh, and then her face -changed from the momentary reality into which some strong feeling had -forced it. It was a more artificial smile than ever which she forced -upon her thin lips, in which there was a quiver of pain and doubt. - -“Ah, Mr. Buchanan, you always stand up for your own side. Why is it I -cannot get you to take any interest in mine?” - -“My dear lady,” said the minister with some impatience, “there are no -sides in the matter. It is simple truth and justice to Morrison.” - -Here she suddenly put her hand on his arm. “And how about the -defaulters?” she said. - -“The defaulters!” She was as ignorant wherein the sting lay to him as he -was of the gnawing of the serpent’s tooth in her. It was now his under -lip that fell, his cheek that grew pale. “I don’t know what you mean by -defaulters,” he said, almost roughly, feeling as if she had taken -advantage when he was off his guard and stabbed him with a sharp knife. - -“Oh, dear Mr. Buchanan, the men who borrowed money, and never paid it! I -am sure you could tell me about them if you would. The men who cheated -my poor Frank’s old uncle into giving them loans which they never meant -to pay.” - -“Mrs. Mowbray,” he said, slowly, “I remember that you have spoken to me -on this subject before.” - -“Yes, yes, I have spoken on this subject before. Isn’t it natural I -should? You as good as acknowledged it, Mr. Buchanan. You acknowledged, -I remember, that you knew one of them: of course you know all of them! -Didn’t he tell you everything? You were his minister and his spiritual -guide. He did nothing without you.” - -“Mr. Anderson never asked any advice from me as to his secular -business. Why should he? He understood it much better than I did. His -spiritual guide in the sense in which you use the words, I never was, -and never could have been.” - -“Oh!” cried the lady, waving her hands about in excitement, “what does -it matter about words? If you only knew how important a little more -money would be to us, Mr. Buchanan! It might make all the difference, it -might save me from--from--oh, indeed, I do not quite know what I am -saying, but I want you to understand. It is not only for the money’s -sake. I know, I am certain that you could help me; only tell me who -these men are, and I will not trouble you any more.” - -“I do not know what you mean,” he said, “when you talk of those men.” - -“Mr. Buchanan, you said you knew one.” - -“Perhaps I said I knew one; that was only one, it was not many. And if I -did know, and knew that they had been forgiven, do you think it would be -right for me to bring those poor men into trouble, and defeat the -intentions of my friend--for what, for what, Mrs. Mowbray? I don’t know -what you suppose my inducement would be.” - -She bent towards him till she almost seemed to be on her knees, and -clasping her hands, said: - -“For me, Mr. Buchanan, for me!” - -There was no doubt that it was genuine feeling that was in her face, and -in the gaze of the eager eyes looking out from their puckered lids; but -the poor woman’s idea of pleasing, of overcoming by her personal charms -was so strong in her, that underneath those puckered and beseeching eyes -which were so tragically real, there was a smile of ingratiating -blandishment on her mouth, which was like the stage smile of a ballet -dancer, set and fictitious, appealing to heaven knows what of the man’s -lower nature. She meant no harm, nor did she think any harm, but those -were the days when feminine influence was supposed to lie in -blandishment, in flattery, and all the arts of persuasion. Do this for -me because I am so pretty, so helpless, so dependent upon your help, but -chiefly because I am so pretty, and so anxious that you should think me -pretty, and be vanquished by my beauty! This was the sentiment on part -of Mrs. Mowbray’s face, while the other was full of eager pain and -trouble, almost desperation. That smile and those blandishments might -perhaps have moved the man had she been indeed beautiful and young, as -she almost thought she was while making that appeal. But Mr. Buchanan’s -eyes were calm, and they turned from the ballet-dancer’s smile and -ingratiating looks with something more like disgust than yielding. Alas! -these feminine arts which were then supposed to be quite independent of -common sense, or reason or justice, and to triumph over them all, -required real beauty at least and the charms of youth! To attempt to -exercise them when the natural spell had failed, was almost an insult to -a man’s intelligence. The minister was not conscious of this feeling, -but it made him angry in spite of himself. - -“For you, Mrs. Mowbray?” he said, “think what you are saying. You would -like me to betray my old friend, and balk his intentions, and to disturb -a number of families and snatch from them what they have been accustomed -to consider as a free gift, and probably in no circumstances expected to -refund--for you. For you, for what? that your son, having a great deal -already, should have a little more,” (here she attempted to interrupt -him to say, “No, no, not having had a great deal, never having had -much!” which his stronger voice bore down and penetrated through), “that -you should add some luxuries to your wealthy estate. No, Mrs. Mowbray, -no. I am astonished that you should ask it of me. If I could do it, I -should despise myself.” - -What high ground he took! and he felt himself justified in taking it. He -was buoyed up over all personal motives of his own by a lofty -realisation of the general question. There were many others concerned as -well as he. What right would he have to betray the fact that poor -Horsburgh, for instance, had received a loan from Mr. Anderson to -establish him in business? If Mr. Anderson’s heirs proceeded against -Horsburgh, who was still painfully keeping his head above water, the -result would be ruin--all to put another hundred pounds, perhaps, in -Frank Mowbray’s pocket, an idle lad who already had plenty, and never -did a hand’s turn. And she thought to come over him and make him do that -by the glamour of a pair of middle-aged eyes, and the flatteries of an -antiquated smile? The man was angry with the woman’s folly and revolted -by her pretensions. No, he would not betray poor Horsburgh. Was not this -the meaning after all, and a nobler meaning than he had ever thought of, -of the proceedings of the unjust steward? Take thy bill, and sit down -quickly, and write fourscore. _Thy_ bill; not mine, did not that make -all the difference in the world? Not for me, but for poor Horsburgh. The -woman was mad to think that for her, a woman who wanted nothing, he -would sacrifice a struggling family: not to say that, even now, poor -Horsburgh was, as it were, looking ruin in the face. - - - - -CHAPTER XIV. - -ANOTHER AGENT. - - -Mrs. Mowbray had put off all sign of agitation when in the evening she -sat down with her son Frank, at the hour of seven, which, in those days, -was a pretentiously late, even dissipated hour for dinner, at all events -in St. Rule’s, where most people dined early or at least at varying -hours in the afternoon, such as four o’clock, five o’clock, the very -height of discomfort, but supposed by some reasoning I am unable to -account for, to be virtuous and respectable hours, while anything later -than six was extravagant and almost wicked. Mrs. Mowbray dined at seven -by way of waving a flag of superiority over the benighted town. It was -reported commonly, that in London people were beginning to dine at -eight, an hour when honest folk were thinking of getting ready for bed, -or, at all events, were taking their supper as honest folk ought. I am -not able to explain why one hour should be considered more innocent than -another; but so it was. Frank Mowbray, half-influenced by his mother, -and half-drawn away into different modes of thinking by the young -society of St. Rule’s, which thought every way ridiculous that was not -its own way, was half-proud of the fashionable peculiarities of his -mother’s economy, and half-abashed to find himself held to habits which -were so different to those of the others. As the nights began to -lengthen he was impatient of being kept in at what the others thought -the most agreeable time of the evening, when all the young fellows were -clustering about the club, making up their matches for the next day. But -he had not yet reached the moment of revolt. - -Mrs. Mowbray had put off, so far as she could, all appearance of -agitation. She was very nicely dressed according to the fashion of the -times. Her ringlets were flowing, her smiles freely dispensed, though -only her son was present to admire her. But she thought it was part of -her duty to make herself as agreeable to Frank as to any other member of -society. She listened quite patiently to all his talk about his young -men. She was indeed interested in this talk and pleased to hear about -everybody, who and what they were, and even whether they were -first-class or second-class players: and their special deeds of prowess -at the heathery hole or any other of the long list which Frank had at -his finger-ends. She liked to hear all the details with which Frank -could furnish her of their families as well as their golf. But that was -less interesting to him, and helped her but little in her researches. - -“You see a great deal of the Buchanans, don’t you, Frank?” she said, in -the course of the conversation, not meaning much more by the question -than by many others. - -But here Mrs. Mowbray instantly perceived a difference in her son’s -manner, which betrayed something quite new and unexpected. - -Frank made a pause, which, though only for a moment, was noted by her -fine and vigilant spirit of observation, looked at her furtively, -coloured, and said: “Oh, the Buchanans! Yes, I see them now and then,” -in a tone quite different from that in which he had been discoursing -about the Seatons and the Beatons, and all the rest of the tribe. - -“You see them now and then? Yes, that is all I expected: they are not -precisely of our _monde_,” his mother said. - -“Why not of our _monde_?” cried Frank, “they are the best people in St. -Rule’s, and that is their _monde_; and it is our _monde_, I suppose, as -long as we stay here.” - -“Yes, dear boy,” said his mother, “but, fortunately, you know we don’t -belong to it, and it is only a question of how long we stay here.” - -Upon this, Frank cleared his throat, and collecting all his courage, -launched forth a suggestion which he had long desired, but, up to this -moment, had never had the bravery to make. - -“Mother,” he said, “this is a very nice house, don’t you think? The -rooms are large, and I know you like large rooms. Just think what a -wretched little place the house in Chapel Street was in comparison. And -we were nobody there, and you always said you were not appreciated.” - -“That is true enough; when you have no title, and are not rich, it is -hard, very hard, to get a footing in society,” Mrs. Mowbray said, with a -sigh. - -“But we are somebody here,” said Frank, “you are looked up to as the -glass of fashion and the mould of form, that sort of thing, don’t you -know? All the ladies say to me, ‘What does Mrs. Mowbray do?’ or ‘What is -your mother going to do?’ They see your superiority and make you their -example.” - -“Frank,” said his mother, pleased but a little doubtful, “you are -flattering me. I don’t know why you should flatter me.” - -“I am not flattering you a bit, mother. It is quite true. Now, what I -mean to say is, why should we go back again to Chapel Street, where -there is not a single thing for a man to do, and the women are so -disagreeable to you, because you have no title--when we can be the first -people in the place, and so much thought of here.” - -“Here!” said Mrs. Mowbray, with a little shriek of dismay. - -“You know, mother, you always say how disappointing it is to go through -the world, and never know anybody who takes you at your true value,” -said Frank. “People are always--I have heard you say it a hundred -times--inquiring who we are, and what relation we are to Lord Mowbray, -and all that: as if we were not fit to be visited because we are not -related to Lord Mowbray.” - -“It is quite true,” said Mrs. Mowbray with indignation, “but I never -knew before that you had taken any notice of it, Frank.” - -“Oh, I have taken great notice of it,” he said. “I never said anything, -for what was the use when I couldn’t do anything; but you don’t suppose -it didn’t hurt me very much to see that you were not receiving proper -attention, mother? Of course I took notice of it! but words never do any -good.” - -“What a dear boy you are, Frank!” said his mother, kissing the tips of -her fingers to him. It was not very often that she was flattered in this -way. The flatter was usually done by herself. She was so well acquainted -with it, that she was not so easily convinced of its sincerity, as -others might have been; but still, sincere or not, there was no doubt -that these were very nice things for Frank to say. - -“But here it is your notice that everybody would seek, mother,” he -continued. “It is you who would set the example, and everybody would -follow. Nobody thinks of asking whether we are related to Lord Mowbray, -here. We are just what we are, and the objects of respect. We are the -best people in the place,” Frank said. - -“That is what you have just said of the Buchanans, Frank--and I told you -before--they are not of our _monde_.” - -“What is our _monde_?” cried the young man. “It is not Lord Mowbray’s -_monde_, nor the _monde_ of the Rashleighs and those sort of people, -mother, whom we used to run after. I am sure they said just what you are -doing about us. They used to twist round their necks and thrust out -their heads, and screw up their noses, don’t you remember?” - -“Oh, and bow with their eyelids and smile with the edge of their lips,” -cried Mrs. Mowbray. “I remember! How could I help remembering people not -fit to tie our shoes, but with an odious little baronetcy in the -family!” - -“But nobody could do that here,” said Frank, with a feeling that he had -conducted his argument very cleverly, and had carried her with him all -along the line. - -Mrs. Mowbray burst into a laugh. “Is it all for my benefit, to see me -respected, that you would like to shut me up in this little hole for -life,” she said. - -Poor Frank was very much startled by this issue of his argument. He -looked up at her half-piteous, half-angry. - -“I don’t call it a little hole,” he said. - -“But I do,” said his mother, “a dreadful little hole! where you have to -make yourself agreeable to all sorts of people whom you would never -speak to, nor look at in society! Why, Frank, there is nobody here in -society. Not one that you would like to walk along Bond Street with. -Think of going along Rotten Row with any one of those girls on your -arm.” - -“I should be very proud,” cried Frank, very red, “to go anywhere with -one of them on my arm.” - -“My poor dear boy,” cried Mrs. Mowbray, “I knew that was what you meant -all the time. I always forget that you have come to the age for that -sort of thing. Only think how you would look if you were to meet Lady -Marion, and she were to begin to ask her questions. ‘Who was the young -lady, and who were her friends in town?’ ‘Oh, she doesn’t know anybody -in town.’ ‘Where did she come from?’ ‘Oh, not a place you ever heard of -in your life, a little town in Scotland.’ ‘Yes, Lord Laidlaw lives near, -of course she knows the Laidlaws?’ ‘Oh, no, she never heard of them; oh, -no, she knows nobody. She is only a minister’s daughter, and except that -she is prettyish----’” - -Mrs. Mowbray had the art of a mimic; and she had made her sketch of the -Lady Marion who asked questions, very amusing to her son, who had been -in his little way cross-examined by Lady Marion many times: but when she -described the young lady as prettyish, the young man bounded from his -chair. - -“Take care, mother! no one, not even you, shall speak so of Elsie. I -won’t have it,” he cried. - -“You would be obliged to have it, dear, if you had her,” his mother -said, composedly. “And as for speaking so, I have no wish to speak so. I -think she’s a very nice little girl, for St. Rule’s; you could never -take her into society, but for St. Rule’s she would do very well.” - -“Then, mother,” said Frank, “you understand me, for you make me speak -very plain. We’ve got a good house here, and we’re rich enough to be -about the first people in the place; and I wish to settle in St. -Rule’s.” - -“My poor boy,” cried Mrs. Mowbray, “rich, oh, my poor boy!” - -And here, without any warning, she suddenly burst into a torrent of -tears. This was, perhaps, a proceeding to which her son was not wholly -unaccustomed; for he maintained, to a certain extent, his equanimity. He -walked up and down the room, striking the backs of the chairs with a -paper-knife he held in his hand for some seconds. And then he came back -to her, and asked, with a little impatience: - -“Why am I a poor boy? and why is it so wonderful that we should be rich? -I am--I suppose we are rich--more or less--able at all events to take -our place among the best people in St. Rule’s.” He laughed, and went on -striking his little ivory toy against the chairs sharply. “It isn’t so -great a brag, after all,” he said, laughing, “among the best people in -St. Rule’s.” - -“Oh,” cried Mrs. Mowbray, “how am I to tell him? Oh, how am I to tell -him? Frank, we have always said, when we came into the Scotch money, all -would be well. I thought it was such a fine sum, that we should throw -off all our debts, and be really rich as you say. Oh, that is only a -dream, Frank, like so many things we have trusted in! There will be -scarcely any money. You may well start and stare at me. Oh, Frank, I -that thought as soon as it came, all our difficulties would be over, and -we should be quite right.” - -“What difficulties?” said Frank, “what difficulties, mother? I always -thought we were well off.” - -“This has been the aim of my life,” said Mrs. Mowbray, “that you should -never find out any difficulties, that everything should go as if it were -on velvet; and then when the Scotch money came, that all would be right. -I did not think then that all Mr. Anderson’s fine fortune had been -frittered away--I did not tell you that, Frank--by defaulters.” - -She liked the word: there was something vague and large in it: it meant -something more than debtors: “defaulters,” she said again, and shook her -head. - -“What in the world do you mean, mother? Who are the defaulters, and what -have they to do with me?” - -“Mr. Anderson’s money has been frittered away,” she said. “He lent it to -everybody; and instead of preserving their notes, or their bills, or -whatever it was, he threw them into the fire, I suppose. And nobody -paid. I believe half St. Rule’s is built on old Mr. Anderson’s money, -the money that ought to be yours. But he never kept the papers, and -none of them have been so honourable as to pay.” - -Frank stared at his mother with a bewildered face. He had never managed -his own affairs. For a year or two past, he had begun to think that this -was foolish, and that he might perhaps, if he tried, learn to understand -business as well as his mother; but he had never had the strength of -mind to assert himself. He had received an ample allowance from her -hands, and he had tacitly agreed that until the Scotch property became -his, everything should go on as before. But it had always been -understood, that when he attained his Scotch majority, there was to be a -change. His Scotch majority was to be a great day. All the hoards of his -old uncle were then to come into his hands. Retarded manhood, -independence, and wealth were all to be his. And now what was this he -heard, that these hoards of money were frittered away? He could not at -once understand or grasp what it meant. He stared at his mother with -bewildered eyes. - -“I wish you would tell me what you mean,” he said. “What has happened? -Is it something you have found out? Is there anything that can be done? -I cannot believe that all the property is lost.” - -“There is one thing that can be done, Frank. If we can find out the -defaulters, we can still make them pay up. But we must make haste, for -in another year the Statute of Limitations will come in, and they will -be beyond our reach.” - -“What is the Statute of Limitations? and how can we make them pay up? -And what does it mean altogether?” said the disturbed young man. -“Mother, you should not have let me go on like this, knowing nothing -about it. I ought to have known. And how am I to find them out and make -them pay up? You that have always managed everything, you ought to have -done it.” - -“My son, whom I have always spared and saved from all trouble,” she -said, throwing up her hands, “he tells me I should have done that! Oh, -Frank, it isn’t very pretty of you to upbraid me, when I have always -done everything for the best.” - -“Mother, I don’t want to upbraid you. I daresay you have done everything -that was right,” he said, “but this is rather a dreadful thing to find -out all at once. And there must be something that can be done--tell me -whether there isn’t something I could do.” - -“Oh, yes,” she said, with a sudden laugh, “there is one thing to be -done, and that is to find out who are the defaulters. There is one man I -am sure that knows, and you are, I suppose, in favour with the family, -Frank, considering your intentions which you have just been telling me -of. The one man is Dr. Buchanan. If you are going, as you say, to be his -son-in-law, perhaps he will tell you. I am sure he is one of them -himself.” - -“Mother, if all this is to set me against----” - -“It is not to set you against any one,” said Mrs. Mowbray. “I like Dr. -Buchanan myself. _I think he is one of them_. If you can find out from -him who they are, perhaps we may yet be saved.” - -“He is one of them! This is nonsense, nonsense! You don’t know what you -are saying, mother.” - -“I wish everybody were as clear and composed as I am. I believe he is -one of them. But make use of your interest with the boy and the girl, -and get him to tell you who they are. And then perhaps we may be saved.” - -The young man went round and round the room, striking the backs of the -chairs with his paper-knife, solemnly, as if he expected to find some -hollow place and make a discovery so. - -“I don’t understand it. I don’t know what you mean. I can’t believe that -this is possible,” he said; and he gave a louder crack to an old -armchair, and stood before it, pondering, as if the secret must be out -at last. - - - - -CHAPTER XV. - -FRANK’S OPERATIONS. - - -Frank Mowbray was one of the young men, fitly described by the -unenthusiastic, but just populace, as “no an ill callant.” He was not -very wise, not very clever, but he was also not “ill,” in any sense of -the word; a good-hearted, good-tempered, easy-going young man, willing -to save himself trouble, by letting others, and especially his mother, -manage his affairs for him, but no grumbler, accepting the consequences -of that situation with great equanimity, allowing himself to be more or -less governed, and obeying all the restrictions of his mother’s house, -as if he had been the most dependent of sons. This may seem to indicate -a want of spirit on his part; but it was rather a spirit of justice and -fair dealing, as well as the result of a gentle and contented -temperament. - -Frank had no desire whatever to revolt. His mother’s sway had been very -light upon him: had he been what he was not, inclined towards -dissipation, so long as it had been carried on among what she called -“the right sort of people,” I am inclined to believe that Mrs. Mowbray -would rather have liked it than otherwise; but that would have been -perhaps because she did not know what it was, and liked to see her -son’s name among the names of the great, on whatsoever excuse. She would -rather have had Frank conspicuous by the side of a young duke, than -known to the world in the most virtuous circumstances, as the companion -of lesser men; but Frank did not accept, nor was he even aware of, this -tacit license to do evil, so long as it was fashionably done. He had not -the slightest leaning towards dissipation--he was one of those young men -whom perhaps we undervalue in theory, though in action they are the -backbone of the race, who seem to be inaccessible to the ordinary -temptations. Had he been offered the choice of Hercules, he would -certainly, by inclination, have offered his arm to Madam Virtue, and -waved away dishevelled Pleasure, however pretty, with the most unfeigned -indifference: he did not care for that sort of thing, he would have -said: and this insensibility was better than coat armour to him. It is -common to believe that a boy, brought up as he had been, at the -apron-strings of his mother, is open to every touch of temptation, and -apt to find the fascination of a disorderly life irresistible; but, -howsoever Frank had been brought up, the issue would have been the -same--he was “no an ill callant”--he was not led away by fancies, either -for good or evil, quite disposed to be kind, but never lavish in -generosity; not prodigal in anything, able to balance the pros and the -cons, and to accept the disadvantages with the advantages. Perhaps it -was not a character to excite any great enthusiasm, but it was one that -was very easy to live with, and could not have inspired any serious -anxiety in the most fanciful and susceptible of minds. - -Frank went out that evening to meet some of his daily companions with a -great deal in his mind, but not any panic or dismay. He would not -believe that the “Scotch property” could have been all frittered away by -the loans which his old uncle had made, however imprudent or foolish the -old man might have been in that way. He had, indeed, so just and calm a -mind, that he did not harshly condemn Mr. Anderson for making these -loans as his mother did; he was even willing to allow that a man had a -right to do what he liked with his own, even if he had a grand-nephew to -provide for, especially one who was not entirely dependent upon him, but -had already a comfortable provision of his own. As he went out into the -evening air, and strolled towards the club of which he was a member, and -where, as I have said, the young men, who were not yet members, had a -way of meeting outside, and under the verandah, arranging their matches -for next day, and talking out their gossip like their elders within--he -turned over the matter in his mind, and reconciled himself to it. It is -foolish, he said to himself, to lend your money without interest, and -without a proper certainty of one day getting it back--but still the old -gentleman had no doubt his reasons for doing this, and might have had -his equivalent or even been paid back without anybody knowing, as -nobody knew who the borrowers were: and at the worst, if the money was -lost, it was lost, and there was an end of it, and no need to upbraid -poor old uncle, who probably thought himself quite entitled to do what -he liked with his own. He did not believe that the estate could have -been seriously impoverished in any such manner; but he thought that he -might perhaps make inquiries in his own way, and even consult Mr. -Buchanan, who probably would be willing enough to help him, though he -might not perhaps feel disposed to respond to Mrs. Mowbray’s more urgent -appeals. Frank, of course, knew his mother’s weak points, as all our -children do, with an unerring certainty produced by the long unconscious -study of childhood of all we say and do. His affection for her was quite -unimpaired, but he knew exactly how she would address herself to the -minister, with a vehemence and an indignation against Uncle Anderson, -which Frank was impartial enough to feel, was not deserved. He would -approach him quite differently--as a man to a man, Frank said to -himself--and if there was really anything to be done in that way, any -bloated debtor, as his mother supposed, who had grown fat on Uncle -Anderson’s bounty, and was not honourable enough to pay back what had -been the origin of his fortune--why, the minister would probably tell -him, and that would be so much gained. - -When he thought, however, of thus meeting the minister in private -session, Frank’s orderly and steady heart beat a little higher. Before -all questions of Uncle Anderson’s debtors, there was one of much more -importance--and that was the question of Elsie, which meant far more to -Frank than money, or even the whole of the Scotch property--at least he -thought so for the moment: but things were by no means so far advanced -as to justify him in asking an interview with Mr. Buchanan on that -subject. Alas! no, Elsie was never in the same mind (he thought) for any -two meetings. Sometimes she was delightful to him, accepting his -attentions; which, however, were no more than were paid to her by -several other admirers as if she liked them, and giving him dances, -almost as many as he asked, and allowing him to walk by her side in the -weekly promenade on the Links, and talking to him sweetly, whatever his -company might be: but next time they met, Elsie would be engaged for -every dance, she would be flanked by other competitors on each side, and -if she gave Frank a bow and a smile in passing, that would be all he -obtained from her--so that if he were sometimes high in hope, he was at -others almost in despair. Should he ever be allowed to see Mr. Buchanan -on the subject, to ask his daughter from him? Ah, that depended! not -upon Frank, but upon Elsie, who was no longer a little girl, but at the -height of her simple sway, one of the prettiest girls in St. Rule’s, and -enjoying the position, and with no intention of cutting it short. Frank -breathed a sigh, that almost blew out the lamps in the High Street, -lamps already lighted, and shining in the lingering daylight, like -strange little jewelled points, half green, half yellow. The electric -light shines white in that street now, and makes the whole world look -dead, and all the moving people like ghosts. But the lamps then were -like jewels, with movement and consciousness in them, trembling in the -colourless radiance of the long evening: for it was now summer weather, -and already the days were long. - -When the assembly outside the club dispersed, it happened to be Frank’s -luck to walk up the town with Rodie Buchanan, whose way was the same as -his own. They went round by the West Port, though it was out of their -way, to convoy Johnny Wemyss to his lodgings. Johnnie did not make -matches for next day, except at rare intervals, for he was busy, either -“coaching” his pupils (but that word had not then been invented), or -working (as he called it) on the sands with his net and his “wee -spy-glass,” playing himself, the natives called it: or else he was -reading theology for the next examination; but he allowed himself to -walk down to the club in the evening, where all the young men met. - -Johnny was not much younger than Frank, but he was paternal to the -others, having the airs and aims of a man, and having put, chiefly by -necessity, but a little also by inclination, boyish things from him; he -was as much in advance of Frank as he was of Rodie, who had not yet -attained his twentieth year. - -The night was lovely, clear, and mild, and they made the round by the -West Port very pleasantly together, and stood for a long time at the -stairfoot of Johnny’s humble lodging, which was in one of the -old-fashioned square two-storied houses at that end of the town, which -still retained the picturesque distinction of an outside stair. It was -not thought picturesque then, but only old-fashioned, and a mark of -poverty, everybody’s ambition being to have a more modern and convenient -house. The young men continued to discuss the matches past and present, -and how Alick Seaton was off his game, and Bob Sinclair driving like -fire, and the Beatons in force playing up to each other, so that they -were awfully hard to beat in a foursome. Johnny took the interest of a -born golfer in these particulars, though he himself played so little; -and Frank, on ordinary occasions, had all the technicality of a -neophyte, and outdid his more learned companions in all the terms of the -game. - -But when they had left Johnny at his stairfoot, and, looking back, had -seen the light of his candles leap into the darkness of the window, and -wondered for a moment how he could sit down to work at this hour, they -proceeded along the long line of the High Street for a minute or two in -silence. Rodie was taller, stronger, and heavier than Frank, though so -much younger, and had a little compassionate sympathy for the fellow, -who, at his antiquated age, four-and-twenty, was still only a beginner -at golf. - -The big youth was considering how to break down certain well considered -advices for future play into terms adapted for the intellect of his -elder, when Frank suddenly took the word, and began thus: - -“I say, Rodie! do you remember my old Uncle Anderson, and do you know -anything about him? he must have been a queer old chap, if what my -mother has been telling me is true about him.” - -“Ten to one----” said Rodie: but paused in time--he was about to say -“ten to one it isn’t true”--for he heard of Mrs. Mowbray’s paint and -powder (which at the worst was only powder), and knew her over-civility -and affectations, and therefore concluded frankly, as became his age, -that nothing about her could be true. But he remembered in time that -this could not fitly be said to her son. “Ten to one it’s just stories,” -Rodie said; “there’s stories about everybody; it is an awful town for -stories, St. Rule’s.” - -“I daresay that is true enough,” said Frank; “but it seems that this is -more than stories. They say he lent money to everybody, and never took -any note or acknowledgment: and the people have never paid. They -certainly should have paid; especially as, having no acknowledgment, it -became, don’t you see, a debt of honour. There is something which I -don’t quite understand about some Statute of Limitations that makes it -impossible to recover money after a certain number of years. I don’t -know much about the law myself; but my mother’s a great hand. Do you -know anything about the Statute of Limitations, you that are going to be -a W. S.?” - -“Who said I was going to be a W. S.?” cried Rodie, red with indignation. -“Nothing of the sort: I’m going into the army. It’s John that is the W. -S.; but I think I’ve heard of it,” he added sulkily, after a moment, -“sometimes he tells us about his cases. If you’re not asked for the -money for so many years, it’s considered that you have been forgiven: -but on the other hand if they asked for it, you’re still bound; I’ve -heard something like that from John.” - -“Oh, then I suppose,” cried Frank, “it is rather urgent, and we ought to -ask for it to preserve our claim.” - -There is a universal sentiment in the human heart against a creditor -wishing to recover, and in favour of the debtor who is instinctively -understood not to be able to pay. Especially strong is this sentiment in -the bosom of the young; to lend is a fine thing, but to ask back again -is always a mean proceeding. Rodie instinctively hardened himself -against the legal rights of his friend. - -“There’s men,” he said, “I’ve heard, that are constantly dunning you to -pay them. I would rather never borrow a penny if it was to be like -that.” - -“I would rather never borrow a penny whether it was like that or not,” -said the virtuous Frank. - -“Oh, it’s easy speaking for you, that have more money than you know what -to do with; but if you think of my commission, and where the money is -to come from.” - -“Most likely,” said Frank, without any special meaning, merely as a -conjecture, “if my Uncle Anderson had been living, your father would -have got it from him.” - -Rodie grew redder than ever under this suggestion. “It might be so,” he -said; “but I hope you are not meaning that my father would not have paid -the money back, whoever it came from: for if that is what you are -meaning, you’re a----” - -“I was meaning nothing of the kind,” cried Frank in a hurry; for to have -the word _leear_, even though it is a mild version of liar, flung in his -face by Rodie Buchanan, the brother of Elsie, was a thing he did not at -all desire. “I hope I know better: but I wish I could speak to your -father about my affairs, for I know that he was Uncle Anderson’s great -friend, and he is sure to know.” - -“To know what?” said Rodie. - -“Oh, to know the people that borrowed from my uncle, and did not pay. I -hope you don’t think I ought to let them off when they have behaved like -that.” - -“Behaved like what?” Rodie asked again. - -“What is the matter with you, Rodie? I am saying nothing that is wrong. -If my uncle lent them money, they ought to pay.” - -“And do you think,” cried Rodie, in high indignation, “that my father -would betray to you the names of the poor bodies that got a little money -from Mr. Anderson to set them up in their shops, or to buy them a boat? -Do you think if you were to talk to him till doomsday, that my father -would do _that_?” - -“Why shouldn’t he?” said Frank, whose intellect was not of a subtle -kind. “People should pay back the money when they have borrowed it. It -is not as if it had been given to them as a present; Mr. Buchanan has -been very kind to me, and I shouldn’t ask him to do anything that was -not right, neither would I be hard on any poor man. I was not told they -were very poor men who had got my old uncle’s money; and surely they had -not so good a right to it as I have. I don’t want to do anything that is -cruel; but I will have my money if I can get it, for I have a right to -it,” Frank said, whose temper was gradually rising; yet not so much his -temper as a sensation of justice and confidence in his own cause. - -“You had better send in the sheriff’s officers,” said Rodie, -contemptuously, “and take their plenishing, or the stock in the shop, or -the boat. But if you do, Frank Mowbray, mind you this, there is not one -of us will ever speak to you again.” - -“One of you!” cried Frank, “I don’t want to quarrel with you, Rodie; but -you are all a great deal younger than I am, and I am not going to be -driven by you. I’ll see your father, and ask his advice, and I shall do -what he says; but if you think I am going to be driven by you, from -anything that is right in itself, you’re mistaken: and that’s all I have -got to say.” - -“You are a prig, and a beast, and a cruel creditor,” cried Rodie. “Not -the kind for us in St. Rule’s: and good-night to you, and if you find -nobody to play with to-morrow, you will just mind that you’ve chosen to -put yourself against us, and it’s your own fault.” - -Saying which, Rodie made a stride against the little garden gate which -led to the Buchanan’s front door, flung it inwards with a clang, and -disappeared under the shadow of the dark elder-tree which overshadowed -the entrance. - -It was not until that moment that Frank realised what the consequence -might be of quarrelling with Elsie’s brother. He called after him, but -Rodie was remorseless, and would not hear; and then the young man went -home very sadly. Everybody knew that Rodie was Elsie’s favourite -brother; she liked him better than all the rest. If Rodie asked anything -of her, Elsie was sure to grant almost everything to his request: and -Frank had been such a fool as to offend him! He could not think how he -could have been so foolish as to do it. It was the act of a madman, he -said to himself. What was a few hundreds, or even thousands in -comparison with Elsie, even if he recovered his money? It would be no -good to him if he had to sacrifice his love. - -Frank was not a young man who despised either hundreds or thousands, -and probably, later, if all went well with him, he might think himself a -fool to sacrificing good money for any other consideration; but he -certainly was not in this state of feeling now. Elsie and Rodie, and the -Statute of Limitations, and the money that Uncle Anderson had strewed -about broadcast, jumbled each other in his mind. What did it matter to -him if he lost the favour of his love? and on the other hand the pity it -would be to lose the money for want of asking for it, and knowing who -the man was who had got it, and had not had the honesty to pay. He grew -angrier and angrier at these people as he went along, seeing that in -addition to this fundamental sin against him, they were also the cause -of his quarrel with Rodie, and terrible dismissal by Elsie. The cads! to -hold their tongues and conceal who they were, when it was a debt of -honour; and to trust in such a poor defence as a Statute of Limitations, -and to part him from the girl he loved. He had been more curious than -eager before, thinking besides the natural feeling one has not to be -robbed, and to recover at all hazard that which is one’s own, however -wicked people should endeavour to cheat one out of it--that it would be -fun to break through the secret pretences of those people, and force -them to disgorge the money they had unlawfully obtained; but now Frank -began to have a personal animosity against those defaulters, as his -mother called them, who not only had cheated him of his money, but had -made him to quarrel with Rodie, and perhaps with Rodie’s sister. -Confound them! they should not be let off now. He would find them, -though all the world united in concealing them. He would teach them to -take away his inheritance, and interfere between him and his love! It -was with these sentiments hot in his heart that he hastened home. - - - - -CHAPTER XVI. - -THE UNJUST STEWARD ONCE MORE. - - -Rodie Buchanan plunged into the partial darkness of his father’s house, -with a heart still more hot and flaming than that of Frank. He could not -have told anyone why he took this so much to heart. It was not that he -was unusually tender of his neighbours, or charitable beyond the -ordinary rule of kindness, which was current in St. Rule’s. He was one -of those who would never have refused a penny to a beggar, or a bawbee -to a weeping child, provided he had either the penny or the bawbee in -his ill-furnished pockets, which sometimes was not the case; but, having -done that by habit and natural impulse, there was no necessity in -Rodie’s mind to do more, or to make himself the champion of the poor, so -that he really was not aware what the reason was which made him turn so -hotly against Frank, in his equally natural determination to get back -what was his own. The hall and staircase of Mr. Buchanan’s house lay -almost completely in the dark. There was one candle burning on a little -table at the foot of the stair, which made the darkness visible, but -above there was no light at all. Gas was not general in those days, nor -were there lamps in common use, such as those which illuminate every -part of our dwellings now. The dark passages and dreadful black corners -of stair or corridor, which are so familiar in the stories of the -period, those dreadful passages, through which the children flew with -their hearts beating, not knowing what hand might grip them in the dark, -or terrible thing come after them, must perplex the children of to-day, -who know nothing about them, and never have any dark passages to go -through. But, in those days, to get from the nursery to the drawing-room -by night, unless you were preceded by the nursery-maid with a candle, -was more alarming than anything a child’s imagination could grasp -nowadays. You thought of it for a minute or two before you undertook it; -and then, with a rush, you dared the perils of the darkness, flinging -yourself against the door to which you were bound, all breathless and -trembling, like one escaped from nameless dangers. Rodie, nearly twenty, -big and strong, and fearing nothing, had got over all those tremors. He -strode up the dark stairs, three at a time, and flung open the -drawing-room door, groping for it in the wall. He knew what, at that -hour, he would be likely to find there. It was the hour when Mrs. -Buchanan invariably went to the study “to see what papa was doing,” to -make sure that his fire was mended, if he meant to sit up over his -sermon, or that things were comfortable for him in other ways when fires -were not necessary. The summer was not far advanced, and fires were -still thought necessary in the evenings at St. Rule’s. Between the fire -and the table was seated Elsie, with a large piece of “whiteseam,” that -is, plain sewing, on her knee, and two candles burning beside her. -Another pair of candlesticks was on the mantelpiece, repeated in the low -mirror which hung over it, but these candles were not lighted, neither -were those on the writing-table at the other end of the room. When there -was company, or, indeed, any visitor, in the evening they were lighted. -The pair on the mantelpiece only when the visitor was unimportant, but -the whole six when anybody of consequence was there, and then, you may -suppose, how bright the room was, lighted _al giorus_, so to speak. But -the household, and Elsie’s little friends, when they came rushing in -with some commission from their mothers, were very well contented with -the two on the table. They wanted snuffing often, but still they gave, -what was then supposed to be, a very good light. - -Elsie looked up, pleased to see her brother, and let her work fall on -her knee. Her needlework was one of the chief occupations of her life, -and she considered the long hours she spent over it to be entirely a -matter of course; but, by this hour of the night, she had naturally -become a little tired of it, and was pleased to let it drop on her knee, -and have a talk with Rodie over the fire. It was considered rather -ill-bred to go on working, with your head bent over your sewing, when -anyone came in. To be sure, it was only her brother, but Elsie was so -glad to see him a little earlier than usual, that, though the task she -had given herself for the evening was not quite completed, she was glad -to let her seam drop upon her knees. “Oh, Rodie, is that you?” she said. - -“Of course it’s me,” said Rodie. “I suppose you were not looking for -anybody else at this hour?” - -“I am glad you are in so soon,” said Elsie. “And who was that that came -with you to the door? Not Johnny Wemyss. I could tell by his foot.” - -“What have you to do with men’s feet?” said Rodie, glad to find -something to spend a little of his wrath upon. “Lassies must have -tremendously little to think of. I am sure I would never think if it was -one person’s foot, or another, if I were sitting at home like you.” - -“Well,” said Elsie, “you never do sit at home, so you cannot tell. I -just notice them because I cannot help it. One foot is so different from -another, almost as much as their voices. But what is the matter with -you, Rodie? Have you been quarrelling with somebody? You look as if you -were in a very ill key.” - -“I wonder who wouldn’t be in an ill key? There is that feckless gomeril, -Frank Mowbray----” (“Oh, it was Frank Mowbray?” Elsie interjected in an -undertone)--“going on about debts and nonsense, and folk in the town -that owe him money, and that he’s coming to my father to ask him who -they are; as if my father would go and split upon poor bodies that -borrowed from old Anderson. I had it in my heart,” cried Rodie, striking -with his heel a piece of coal that was smouldering in the grate, and -breaking it up into a hundred blazing fragments--“I had it in my heart -to take him by the two shoulders, and fling him out like potato peelings -into the road.” - -“Oh, Rodie, my mother’s gathering coal!” cried Elsie, hastening to -extinguish the fiery sparks that had fallen upon the large fur rug -before the fire. “Well,” she said, serenely, in a tone which would have -disposed summarily, had he heard it, of poor Frank’s hopes, “you are big -enough to have done it: but I would not lift my hands, if I were you, on -one that was not as big as myself. And what has Frank done? for he never -was, that I could see, a quarrelling boy.” - -“Oh, not that you could see!” said Rodie, with a snort. “He’s sure to -keep a good face before the lassies, and especially you that he’s -courting, or trying to court, if he knew the way.” - -“He’s not courting me,” cried Elsie, with a blush and a laugh, giving -Rodie a sisterly push, “and I wonder you will say such things to me.” - -“It’s only because he doesna know the way then,” said Rodie, picking up -the pieces of blazing coal from the white hearth. “Will you let me -alone, when you see I have the tongs in my hand?” - -“Was it for that you quarrelled with Frank?” said Elsie, letting a -little careless scorn appear in her tone, as who should say, you might -quarrel with many besides Frank if that was the cause. The girls in St. -Rule’s, in those days, were not so disproportionate in number as they -seem to be now, and she was unpopular, indeed, who had not one or two, -at least, competing for her smiles. - -“It was not for that!” cried Rodie, expressing, on his side, a scornful -conviction that anything so unimportant was not worth quarrelling about. -And then he added, “Do ye mind, Elsie, yon day in the turret-room?” - -“Oh, I mind it very well,” cried Elsie, with a little start; “I have -always minded it. I think of it sometimes in the middle of the night -when I wake up and cannot get to sleep.” - -“I cannot see what good it can do thinking of it then,” said Rodie, -always contemptuous of the ways of lassies. “But you mind how my father -went on about the unjust steward. It was awfully funny the way he went -on.” - -“It was for his sermon,” said Elsie, with a little trouble in her eyes. - -“It was not for his sermon. I heard him preach that sermon after, and I -just listened, minding yon afternoon. But there was not a word in it -about taking your bill, and writing fourscore.” - -“Oh, Rodie, you couldn’t remember it as well as all that!” - -“Why shouldn’t I remember? I was a big laddie. I remember heaps of -things. I mind going to Kinghorn, and crossing in the smack to Leith, -years and years before.” - -“That was different from hearing a sermon,” said Elsie, with the -superiority to sermons which a minister’s daughter naturally possessed. - -“I did mind it, however,” said Rodie, “and I knew it was not in the -sermon--then where was it? and what was it for? I mind, as if it were -yesterday, about taking the bill, and writing fourscore. Now, the -question is,” said the young man, laying down the tongs, and gazing -unwinking into the glowing abyss of the fire, “what did my father mean -by yon? He did not mean just nothing at all. You would not say that.” - -“I do not suppose,” said Elsie, with a woman’s quick and barely -justified partisanship, “that my father ever said anything that meant -just nothing at all.” - -“Oh yes, he does, whiles,” said the more impartial boy; “but this was -different. What did he mean by it? I will tell you what I have been -thinking. Yon gomeril of a Frank has got it into his thick head that -everybody in St. Rule’s is in his debt. It is his mother that has put it -into his head. Now, just supposing, for the sake of the argument, that -it was true----” - -“I think,” said Elsie, thoughtfully, “that maybe it was true.” - -“Well, then,” said Rodie, “we’ll suppose that papa” (into this babyish -title they all fell by moments, though protesting against it) “knew all -about it. He generally does know about most things; people put a great -deal of trust in him. They tell him things. Now, my opinion is, that old -Mr. Anderson told him all about this, and who the folk were, and how -they were to pay.” - -“Maybe,” said Elsie, doubtfully. - -“Maybe? I have no doubt about it; and my conviction is, this is what he -was meaning yon afternoon. The old man was dead or dying, and nobody -knew but papa--I mean my father. He knew what they had borrowed, and who -they were. And most likely he knew that they were far from able to pay. -There’s a proverb about borrowed siller,” said Rodie; “I cannot mind, at -this moment, what it is--but it means this, that it never does you any -good, and that I certainly believe.” Here he made a pause. He had once -borrowed a pound, and Rodie had no such harassing recollection in all -his experience. He was still owing eighteenpence of that sum, and it had -eaten into a whole year of his life. - -Elsie said nothing; this sudden revival of the subject awakened many -thoughts in her breast, but she sat with her eyes cast down, gazing, as -he was, into the dazzling glow of the fire. Rodie was now kneeling on -the hearth-rug in front of it, his face illuminated by the ruddy flame. - -“I don’t think,” he said, in a steady voice, like that of a man making a -statement in which was involved death or life, “that papa was right----” - -“Rodie!” - -“No,” he repeated, solemnly, “I can’t think it was right. I know you -have no business to judge your own father. But I think,” said the lad, -slowly, “I would almost rather he had done a wrong thing like that, than -one of the good things. Mind, Elsie, he had a struggle with himself. He -said it over and over and over, and rampaged about the room, as you do, -when you cannot make up your mind. But he knew they could not pay, the -poor bodies. He knew it would be worse for them than if they had never -got the money. It was an awful temptation. Then, do you mind, he said: -‘the Lord commended the unjust steward.’ In his sermon he explained all -that, but I cannot think he was explaining it the same way yon -afternoon.” - -“Rodie,” said Elsie, with a little awe, “have you been thinking and -thinking all this time, or when did you make out all that?” - -“Not I,” said the lad; “it just flashed out upon me when Frank was going -on about his debtors, and about consulting my father. That’s what made -me angry as much as anything. I don’t want papa to be disturbed in his -mind, and made to think of that again. It was bad enough then. To be -sure he will maybe refuse to speak at all, and that would be the best -thing to do; and, considering what a long time has passed, he would be -justified, in my opinion,” said Rodie, with great gravity; “but to sit -down and write fourscore when it was a hundred--I would stand up for him -to the last, and I would understand him,” cried the young man: “but I -would rather my father did not do that.” - -“And of whom do you think he would be tempted to say that, Rodie?” said -his sister, under her breath--Elsie had another thought very heavy at -her heart. - -“Oh, of the Horsburghs, and the Aitkens, and so forth, and I am not sure -but Johnny Wemyss’s folk would be in it,” said Rodie; “and they are all -dead, and it would fall upon Johnny, and break his heart. I hope my -father will refuse to speak at all.” - -Then there was a long silence, and they sat and gazed into the fire. -Elsie’s idea was different. She knew some things which her brother did -not know. But of these she would not breathe a word to him. They sat for -some time quite silent, and there was a little stir over their heads, as -if Mrs. Buchanan had risen from her chair, and was about to come down. - -“Rodie, you’ll have to be a W. S.,” cried Elsie, “and let Jack go to -India; nobody but a lawyer could have put it all out as clear as that.” - -Rodie sprang to his feet, and struck out a powerful arm. - -“If you were not a lassie,” he cried furiously, “I would just knock you -down.” - -When Mrs. Buchanan came into the room, this was what she saw against -that wavering glow in the chimney; her son’s spring against an invisible -foe, and Elsie demurely looking at him, with her work in her hands, from -the other side of the fire. - -“Eh, laddie,” cried Mrs. Buchanan, “you terrify me with your boxing and -your fighting. What ails you at him, and who is the enemy now? And -you’ve broken up my gathering coal that would have lasted the whole -night through.” - -“It’s me he is fechting, mother,” said Elsie, “and he says if I had not -been a lassie, he would have knocked me down.” - -“You’re never at peace, you two,” said the mother, with much composure; -“and we all know that Rodie had aye a great contempt for lassies. Let us -just see, Elsie, if some day or other he may not meet a lassie that will -give him a good setting down.” - -“What do I care about lassies,” cried Rodie, indignant; “you’re thinking -of Frank Mowbray and Raaf Beaton. If ever two fellows made fools of -themselves! looking as glum as the day of judgment, if Elsie turns her -head the other way.” - -“Hold your tongue, laddie,” cried Mrs. Buchanan, but with a smothered -laugh. She was “weel pleased to see her bairn respected like the lave,” -but she was a sensible mother, and would have no such nonsense made a -talk of. “Your father is not coming down-stairs again,” she said; “he is -busy with his sermon, so you can go to your bed when you like, Rodie. -Bless me, the laddie has made the room insupportable with that great -fire, and dangerous, too, to leave it burning. Elsie, my dear, I wish -you were always as diligent; but you must fold up your seam now for the -night.” - -After a little while Rodie retired to find the supper which had been -waiting for him in the dining-room; for his evening hours were a little -irregular, and his appetite large. - -“He says Frank Mowbray is very much taken up about people that owe him -debts,” said Elsie, to her mother; “and that he is coming to consult my -father.” - -“Oh, these weariful debts,” said Mrs. Buchanan; “I have always said how -much better it would have been to clear them off, and be done with them. -It would have been all paid back before this time, and our minds at -rest. But Mr. Morrison, he would not hear of it, and your father has -never got it off his mind to this very day.” - -“Will it disturb him, mother, very much if Frank comes to talk to him?” -said Elsie. - -“I cannot tell why it should disturb him. The laddie has nothing to do -with it, and Mr. Morrison had the old man’s orders. But it will for all -that. I think I will speak to Frank myself,” Mrs. Buchanan said. - -“Oh, no, mother,” said Elsie. - -“And wherefore, oh, no, mother? Many a man have I seen, and many a -thing have I done to save your father. But it would be giving too much -importance to this laddie. It will be his mother that sets him on. Put -away your seam, Elsie, it is time that you were in your bed.” - -“I could not sleep a wink,” said Elsie, “if I thought papa was to be -troubled about this old thing.” - -“You had better think nothing about it,” her mother replied; “for, -whatever happens, you can do nothing: and what is the use of making -yourself unhappy about a thing you cannot mend?” - -Elsie was not so sure that she could do nothing. She thought it highly -probable, indeed, that she could do much. But how was she to do it, how -signify to Frank that if he disturbed her father, he had nothing to hope -from her? Besides, had he anything to hope from her in any -circumstances? This was very uncertain to Elsie. She was willing to -believe in her own power, and that she could, if she pleased, keep him -from rousing up this question; but how to do it, to condescend to allow -that her father would be affected by it one way or another? And even in -case Frank yielded, as she held it certain he would, to an expression of -her will on the subject, was she sure that she was ready to recompense -him in the only way which he would desire? While she was thinking, Mrs. -Buchanan, who was moving about the room putting by her work, and -arranging everything for the night, suddenly sent forth an -unintentional dart, which broke down all Elsie’s resolutions. - -“At the same time,” Mrs. Buchanan said, pursuing the tenor of the -argument, as she had been, no doubt, carrying it on within herself, “I -have always felt that I would like to do young Frank a good turn. Elsie, -if it’s true they tell me, be you kind to poor Frank. That will make up -to him for anything the rest of your family may have done against him. -Fain, fain, would I pay him back his siller; but be you kind to him, -Elsie, if the other is not to be.” - - - - -CHAPTER XVII. - -THE POSITION OF ELSIE. - - -Mrs. Buchanan was a woman of great sense, yet perhaps she never made use -of a more effective argument than that with which she concluded the -conversation of that evening. Elsie went up to her room full of thought. -It had always been impressed upon her from her earliest consciousness -that her father’s peace and comfort, his preservation from all -unnecessary cares, from all noises and disturbing influence of every -kind was one of the chiefest and most important duties of the family. It -had been made the rule of her own childish conduct from the very -beginning. “Oh, Miss Elsie, whatever you do, dinna make a noise, and -disturb your papaw,” had been the entreaty of the nursery-maid as long -as she could remember. And when she was old enough to understand a -reason, her mother had explained to her how papa was occupied all day -long in the service of God, and for the instruction of common folk not -so learned or so wise as himself. “And I think it a great privilege to -mind the house and mind the doors, so that none of these small things -may trouble him,” her mother had said, “and you should be a proud lassie -to think that you can be helpful in it, and do your part to keep -everything quiet for the minister, that he may study the word of the -Lord in peace.” In our days, it is possible that Elsie might have been -inspired by the spirit of revolt, and considered her own comfort of as -much importance as her father’s; but such a notion never entered her -mind, and the preservation of perfect peace in that mysterious, yet so -beloved and familiar study had always appeared to her the most necessary -thing in the world. In their latter days, her mind had strayed away -instinctively from her first early conception of papa. There had been -awe to her in all his surroundings when she was a child, awe, tempered -by much affection and perfect confidence, but still partaking much of -that vague tremor of respect and veneration with which, but in a higher -degree, she was taught to look up to God. But there is no criticism so -intense, though often so unconscious, as that with which the children -watch, without knowing they are watching, the development of the parent, -who gradually comes out of those mists of devotion, and becomes clear -and real, a being like themselves to their eyes. Elsie had soon learned -in the midst of her semi-worship to be sorry for papa--poor papa who was -so easily disturbed, liable to be impeded in his work, and have his -composure destroyed by incidents which did not affect her mother in the -least, and would not have gained herself an excuse for an imperfectly -learned lesson. Why, if she was expected to learn her verbs all the -same, whether there was a noise or not, should papa be unable to carry -on his studies except in the most carefully preserved silence? She did -not give vent to the sentiment, but it added to her reverence and -devotion a strong feeling of pity for papa. Evidently he was of finer -material than other people, and felt everything more keenly. Pity may be -destructive of the highest reverence, but it adds to the solicitude of -affection. But that scene, so well remembered in every detail, which had -betrayed to her a struggle in him, had greatly heightened this effect. -Poor papa! he had to be taken care of more than ever. To preserve his -peace no effort was too much. - -There had been a long pause in these reflections, as she herself began -to be less subject to the delight of making a noise, and even Rodie -expended his high spirits out of doors, and learned to respect the -decorums of home. But as thought grew in Elsie’s mind, a comprehension -of the meaning of life grew with it, a comprehension, much aided by the -philosophical remarks of Marion, and by those general views which Mrs. -Buchanan was not aware were philosophy, the woman’s philosophy which -recognises many mysteries, and accepts many necessities in a manner -quite different from the man’s. The subject of her father was one of -those upon which she had received much enlightenment. She had learned -that the highest regard and the deepest love were quite consistent with -a consciousness of certain incurable weaknesses, and a toleration that -in other circumstances would have been something like contempt. Probably -nobody but a woman can ever understand this extraordinary mingling of -sentiment. A man is naturally indignant and angry to think that his -sublime self should ever be the object of this unimpassioned -consciousness of defect, though no doubt his sentiment towards his -womankind is of the same mingled character: but in the woman’s mind it -takes away nothing from the attraction, and little from the respect with -which she regards her man. Perhaps it even adds to his attraction, as -making the intercourse more interesting, and bringing all the varieties -of her being into play. - -This gave to Elsie an almost tragic sense of the necessity of preserving -her father’s peace of mind at all hazards. When she came to think the -whole matter over, and to realise what Rodie’s view of the subject was, -her mind took a new opening. She took up the Bible which was on her -table, and read over the parable of the unjust steward, with this new -light upon it. She had not, by some chance, heard her father’s sermon on -the subject, and she was not very clear as to how it was that the man -was commended for his falsehood, nor did she enter upon that view of the -question. Was there something good in it, as Rodie seemed to think, -diminishing the burdens of the poor, trying to save those who were -struggling, and could not answer for themselves? Elsie, in the silence, -shook her young head with its curls over that idea. She had no -pretension of knowing better than her teachers and elders. She did not -think, because she did not understand, that therefore the Lord who -commended the unjust steward must be wrong. She took the matter plainly, -without penetrating its other meaning. Was it good, or right, or -excusable, a sin that one could forgive to one’s father that he should -do this? Rodie seemed to think so. He said he would rather his father -had done a wrong thing like that than many right things. Elsie began to -cry, dropping hot tears on her Bible, all alone, not understanding, in -the midst of the silence and the night. No, no, not that. It would not -be so bad, perhaps, as if he had done it for himself. To save the -Horsburghs and the Aitkens from ruin, even at the expense of a lie, of -teaching them to lie---- Oh no, no, Elsie cried, the tears pouring over -her Bible. It might not be so bad in one way, but it was worse in -another. It was dictating a lie to others as well as uttering it -himself. Was papa guilty of that? Was that what it meant, that struggle -long ago, the questioning and the self-conflict? Oh no, no, she cried to -herself, oh no, no! Neither for himself, neither for others could he -have done that. And yet what did it mean? - -There is a point beyond which such a question cannot go. She had no way -of settling it. The doubt burned her like fire, it penetrated her heart -like a knife: but at last she was obliged, baffled, exhausted, and -heart-broken, to leave it alone. Perhaps she never would know what the -real meaning was, either of the parable in the book or the still more -urgent parable of human conduct here half revealed to her. But there was -at least something that she could understand, the old lesson of the -house, the teaching of her childhood, to guard her father from all -assault, from anything that could disturb his mind or his life. It was -not the simple formula now of not making a noise lest it should disturb -papa. It was something a great deal more important, not so easily -understood, not so easy to perform, but still more absolute and binding. -Not to disturb papa, not to allow him to be disturbed, to defend his -door, if need were, with her life. To put her arm into the hoops of the -bolt like Katherine Douglas in the history--that rash maiden whom every -Scots girl holds high, and would emulate if she could. Elsie was faintly -aware that this statement of the cause was a little nonsensical, that -she would not be called upon to sacrifice her life or to break her arm -in defence of her father; but she was very young, and full of passionate -feeling, and her thoughts formed into the language of generous -extravagance, in spite of herself. What was it really, after the -outburst of that fond resolution, that she had to do? - -It did not sound so great a matter after all to keep back Frank Mowbray, -that was all: to prevent him from penetrating to her father’s room, -recalling her father’s painful memories, and his struggle with himself. -Her arm within the hoops! it was not so exaggerated an idea after all, -it was more than breaking an arm, it might be perhaps breaking a heart: -still it was a piece of actual exertion that was required of her on her -father’s behalf. Elsie had not given very much serious consideration to -Frank Mowbray, but she knew vaguely as much as she had chosen to know, -the meaning and scope of his attentions, and the possibility there was, -if she did not sharply discourage him, that he would shortly demand a -decision from her one way or other. Elsie had not sharply discouraged -him; she had been friendly, unwilling to give pain, unwilling to act as -if she believed that it could matter to him one way or another: but she -had not shown him particular favour. In no way was her conscience guilty -of having “led him on.” Her pride sprang up in flames of indignation at -the thought of having led any one on. There was Raaf Beaton too: they -had both been the same to her, boys she had known, more or less, all her -life, whom she liked very well to dance with, even to talk to for an -idle moment, whom she would not vex for the world. Oh no, she would not -vex them for the world, neither of them! nevertheless, to select one of -them, to bind herself to either, to pretend to take either as the first -of men? Elsie almost laughed, though her eyes were still hot with tears, -at that ridiculous thought. - -Yet this was the easiest way of stopping Frank from disturbing her -father, oh! the easiest way! She had only to receive him a little more -warmly than usual, to listen to what he said, to let him walk with her -when they went out of doors, and talk to her when they were within. It -is very likely that on both sides this influence also was exaggerated. -There was nothing that Frank would not have done for Elsie and her -smiles; but after a time no doubt his mind would have returned to his -former resolutions, and he would not have felt it necessary to abandon a -previously-formed and serious intention on her account. But a girl -rarely understands that, nor does the man think of it, in the excitement -of such a crisis. Elsie had no doubt that she had the fullest power to -turn aside Frank from any attempt on her father’s peace. And then came -her mother’s recommendation to be kind to him, to make up to him for -something that was past. It was a recommendation that made her blood -boil, that she should pay him for some injustice past. Be kind to him, -as her mother said, to make up, make as it were money of herself to be a -compensation to him! This idea was odious to the girl: but yet it was -only another version of the same necessity that she should keep him from -disturbing papa. - -Naturally, it was not long before the opportunity came. Elsie was -walking towards the East Sands with Rodie on the next day, when Frank -was seen coming back from that spot, a little wet about the boots, and -sandy about the trousers, which was a sign, already beginning to be -understood in St. Rule’s, that the wearer of these garments had been -among the rocks with Johnny Wemyss, of whom, as a “character,” the town -had become, from its height of reprobation, half proud. Frank had been -fascinated by him, as everybody else was, though he was vexed to be seen -in this plight, after an hour with the naturalist, especially as Rodie, -at the sight of him, had the bad breeding to show embarrassment, and -even repugnance to meet his former friend. - -“I’ll away west,” Rodie said, as soon as he was visible. “There’s -Mowbray. I’m not going to stay here, and see him fawning upon you. It is -disgusting,” Rodie said, severely. He had not yet himself begun to -“fawn” upon any one, and was still intolerant of everything of this -kind. - -“You are not going away, just after he has seen that we saw him,” cried -Elsie, gripping her brother’s arm, in the intensity of her feeling, -“letting him see how ill you take it, and that you cannot forget! Man, -Rodie, will you run away?” - -“I am not running away,” cried Rodie, red with wrath and shame. - -“You shall not,” cried Elsie, holding him with a vigorous young grip, -almost as strong as his own, out of which he was still attempting to -wriggle, when Frank came up, all smiling and beaming. - -“Johnny Wemyss has found a new beast,” he reported with a little -excitement. “It is not in all the books, there has been none discovered -like it. You should see his eyes just jumping out of his head.” - -Elsie’s eyes gave a jump too; a warm flush ran over her face. -Unconsciously, she held her head high. - -“Oh,” she said, softly, “I am not surprised! I am not surprised!” - -At this Frank looked at her half alarmed, half suspicious, not quite -easy in his mind, why she should take so much interest in Johnny. But -after all, he was only Johnny, a fellow wrapped up in “beasts,” and no -competitor for anybody’s favour. - -Meanwhile, Rodie had twisted his elbow out of Elsie’s hold, who had too -much respect for appearances to continue the struggle before strangers. - -“I’m away to see it,” cried Rodie. “You’ll come when you are ready,” and -off he rushed like a wild deer, with a sulky nod at Frank. - -“It appears I have offended Rodie without meaning it,” said Frank, -taking the wise way of forestalling any reproach. “I hope he has not -prejudiced you against me, Miss Elsie; for all I said that vexed him, -was only that I was coming to ask your father’s advice, and I have -always heard that everybody asks the minister’s advice. May I walk with -you, and tell you about it? I don’t know what he thought I meant.” - -“So far as I understood,” said Elsie, “he thought you wanted to make my -father betray some poor bodies that trusted in him.” Elsie, too, thought -it was wiser to forestall any other statement. But she put forth this -bold statement with a high colour and a quaking heart. - -“Betray!” cried Frank, growing red, too, “oh, I assure you, I had no -such thought.” - -“You wanted my father to tell upon the poor folk that had borrowed -money, and were not able to pay.” Elsie averted her head for the reason -that, sorely troubled by her own guesses and doubts, she could not look -Frank in the face: but he interpreted this action in quite another way. -He took it for a gesture of disdain, and it roused a spirit even in the -bosom of Elsie’s slave. - -“Justice is justice,” he said, “Miss Elsie, whether one is poor or rich. -To hunt the poor is what I would never do; but if they are right who -told me, there are others passing themselves off under the shield of the -poor, that are quite well able to pay their debts--more able than we are -to do without the money: and that is just what I want to ask Mr. -Buchanan, who is sure to know.” - -It seemed to Elsie that the sands, and the rocks, and the cliffs beyond -were all turning round and round, and that the solid earth sank under -her feet. “Mr. Buchanan, who is sure to know,” she said to herself under -her breath. Oh yes, he was sure to know. He would look into the face of -this careless boy, who understood nothing about it, and he would -say--what would he say? It made Elsie sick and faint to think of her -father--her father, the minister, the example to all men--brought face -to face with this temptation, against which she had heard him -struggling, which she had heard him adopting, without knowing what it -meant, six years ago. No, he had not been struggling against it. He had -been struggling with it, trying to convince himself that it was just and -right. This came upon her like a flash of lightning, as she took a few -devious steps forward. Then Frank’s outcry, “You are ill, Miss Elsie!” -brought her back to herself. - -“No, I am not ill,” she said, standing still by the rocks, and taking -hold of a glistening pinnacle covered with seaweed, to support herself -for a moment, till everything settled down. “I am not ill: I am just -thinking,” she kept her head turned away, and looked out upon the level -of the sea, very blue and rippled over with wavelets in its softest -summer guise, with a faint rim of white showing in the distance against -the red sand and faint green banks of the Forfar coast. Of all things in -this world to make the heart sick, there is nothing like facing a moral -crisis, which some one you love is about to go through, without any -feeling of certainty that he will meet it in the one only right way. -“Oh, if it was only me!” Elsie sighed, from the bottom of her heart. - -You will think it was the deepest presumption on her part, to think she -could meet the emergency better than her father would. And so it was, -and yet not so at all. It was only that there were no doubts in her -mind, and there were doubts, she knew, inconceivable doubts, shadows, -self-deceptions, on his. A great many thoughts went through her mind, as -she stood thus looking across the level of the calm sea--although it was -scarcely for a minute altogether, that she underwent this faintness and -sickening, which was both physical and mental. The cold touch of the wet -rock, the slipping tangles of dark green leathery dulse which made her -grasp slip, brought her to herself, and brought her colour rushing back. -She turned round to Frank with a smile, which made the young man’s heart -beat. - -“But I am awfully anxious not to have papa disturbed,” she said. “You -know he is not just like other folk; and when he is interrupted at his -writing it breaks the--the thread of his thoughts, and sometimes he -cannot get back the particular thing he was meditating upon (it seemed -to Elsie that the right words were coming to her lips, though she did -not know how, like a sort of inspiration which overawed, and yet -uplifted her). And then perhaps it will be his sermon that will suffer, -and he always suffers himself when that is so.” - -“He has very little occasion to suffer in that way,” cried Frank, “for -every one says--and I think so myself, but I am no judge--that there is -no one that preaches like him, either in the town or through all Fife. I -should say more than that--for I never in London heard any sermons that -I listened to as I do to his.” - -Elsie beamed upon her lover like the morning sun. It was strictly true -to the letter, but, whether there might be anything in the fact, that -none of these discredited preachers in London were father to Elsie, need -not be inquired. It gave the minister’s daughter a keen pang of pleasure -to hear this flattering judgment. It affected her more than her mother’s -recommendation, or any of her own serious thoughts. She felt for a -moment as if she could even love Frank Mowbray, and get to think him the -first of men. - -“Come and let me see the new beast,” she said, with what was to Frank -the most enchanting smile. - - - - -CHAPTER XVIII. - -JOHNNY WEMYSS. - - -Johnny Wemyss was not perhaps at that moment a figure precisely adapted -to please a maiden’s eye, nor would any other lad in St. Rule’s have -cared to present himself before a young lady whom he regarded with -interest, under his present aspect. His trousers were doubled up as far -as was practicable, upon legs which were not models of shapeliness nor -even of strength, being thin and wiry “shanks,” capable of any amount of -fatigue or exertion, but showing none of these qualities. His arms, much -like these lower members, were also uncovered up to the elbow, his blue -pea-jacket had a deposit of sand in every wrinkle, and the broad blue -bonnet on his head had scraps of very vivid green sea-weed clinging to -it, showing how Johnny’s head, as well as his arms and legs, had been in -contact with the recesses of the rocks. It was pushed back from his -forehead, and he was holding out at the length of his hairy, sinewy arm, -a thing which was calculated to call forth sentiments rather of disgust -than of admiration, in persons not affected with that sympathetic -interest in the researches of Johnny, which St. Rule’s in general was -now beginning to feel. It was a variety of that family of the Medusa, -called in St. Rule’s jelly fish, which fringe all the sands along that -coast after a storm. Elsie had got over the repugnance to touch the -clammy creatures, which is common to uninstructed persons, and was eager -to have the peculiarity in its transparent structure pointed out to her, -which marked it as a discovery. But Johnny was neither so animated in -its exposition, nor so enthusiastic over the beauty of his prize, as he -had been on many previous and less important occasions. He had been a -witness of Elsie’s progress, since Frank Mowbray had joined her. He had -seen her pause by the rocks to recover herself from something, he could -not tell what. Was it not very likely at least that it was a more full -disclosure of Frank’s sentiments--which, indeed, nobody in St. Rule’s -had any doubt about the nature of--which suddenly overcame a vigorous, -healthful girl like Elsie, and made her lean against the wet rocks which -were under water at full tide, and grasp the tangles of the dulse for -support? Nothing could be more probable, nay, certain. And when Elsie -turned towards her lover with that smile which the other half saw, and -most clearly divined, and led him back with her triumphant, what other -hypothesis could account for it? Johnny could follow with the most -delicate nicety the conclusions that were to be drawn from the -transparent lines of colour in the round clammy disc he held quivering -in his hand; but he could not tell, how could he; having no data to go -upon, and being quite incapable, as science will probably always -continue to be of such a task, to decipher what was in a single -quivering heart, though it might be of much more consequence to him. He -watched them coming along together, Frank Mowbray suddenly changed from -the commonplace comrade, never quite trusted as one of themselves by the -young men of St. Rule’s, though admitted to a certain cordiality and -good fellowship--coming along transfigured, beaming all over, his very -clothes, always so much more dainty than anybody else’s, giving out a -radiation of glory--the admired yet contemned spats upon his feet, -unconsciously stepping as if to music: and altogether with a conquering -hero aspect, which made Johnny long to throttle him, though Johnny was -perhaps the most peaceable of all the youths of his time. An unconscious -“confound him” surged up to the lips of the naturalist, himself so -triumphant a minute ago in the glory of his discovery; and for one -dreadful moment, Johnny felt disposed to pitch his Medusæ back into the -indifferent water, which would have closed over it as calmly as though -it had been the most lowly and best known of its kind. For what was the -good of anything, even an original discovery, if such a thing was -permitted to be under the skies, as that a girl such as Elsie Buchanan -should elect out of all the world the like of Frank Mowbray, -half-hearted Scot, dandy, and trifler, for her master? It was enough to -disgust a man with all the courses of the earth, and even with the -finest unclassed Medusæ newly voyaged out of the heart of the sea. - -“Oh, Johnny,” Elsie said, hurrying towards him in all that glow and -splendour of triumph (as he thought). “I hear you have made a discovery, -a real discovery! Let me see it! and will it be figured in all the -books, and your name put to it? Wemyssea--or something of that kind.” - -“I had thought of a different name,” said Johnny, darkly, “but I’ve -changed my mind.” - -“What was that?” said Elsie, lightly taking hold of his arm in the easy -intimacy of a friendship that had lasted all her life--in order that she -might see more clearly the object limply held in his palm. “Tell me the -difference,” she said, throwing down her parcel, and putting her other -hand underneath his to bring the prize more distinctly within her view. -The young man turned deeply red up to his sandy hair, which curled round -the edge of his blue bonnet. He shrank a little from that careless -touch. And Frank, looking on with a half jealousy, quickly stifled by -the more agreeable thought that it was Elsie’s now distinctly identified -preference of himself which made her so wholly unconscious of any -feeling on the part of the other, laughed aloud out of pure delight and -joy of heart. - -“What are you laughing at?” said Johnny, gruffly, divining only too well -why Frank laughed. - -“Show me,” said Elsie, “I think I can see something. You always said I -was the quickest to see. Is it this, and this?” she said, bending over -the hand which she held. - -“Let me hold it for you,” said Frank. - -“I can hold up my hand myself,” said Johnny; “I am wanting no -assistance. As I found it myself, I hope I am able to show it myself -without anybody interfering.” - -Elsie withdrew her hand, and looked up surprised in his face, with one -of those appeals which are so much less answerable than words. She stood -a little aside while he began to expound his discovery. They had all -caught a few of the most superficial scientific terms from Johnny. Elsie -would never have spoken of the new thing being “figured” in a book, but -for those little technicalities of knowledge which he shed about him. -And he had said that she was the one of all his interested society who -understood best. She was the only one who knew what observation meant, -the naturalist said. I think that this was a mistake myself, and that he -was chiefly led away by her sympathy and by certain other sentiments of -which it is unnecessary to speak. - -In the meantime, he explained with a mingled gruffness and languor which -Elsie did not understand. - -“Oh, it’s perhaps not so great a discovery after all,” Johnny said. “I -daresay some fellow has noted it before. That’s what you always find -when you take it into your head you have got something new.” - -“But you know all about the Medusæ,” said Elsie, “and you would be sure -to know if it had been discovered before.” - -“I’m not sure that I know anything,” said Johnny, despondently. He cast -the jelly fish out of his hand upon the sand. “We’re just, as Newton -said, like bairns picking up shells on the shore. We know nothing. It is -maybe no new thing at all, but just a variety that everybody knows.” - -“Oh, Johnny, that is not like you!” cried Elsie, while the two young men -standing by, to whom this mood on Wemyss’s part was quite unknown, gaped -at him, vaguely embarrassed, not knowing what to say. Rodie had a great -desire to get away from a problem he could not understand, and Frank was -feeling a little guilty, he could scarcely tell why. Elsie got down on -her knees upon the sand, which was firm though wet, and, gathering a -handful of the dulse with its great wet stalks and hollow berries, made -a bed for the Medusæ, which, with some repugnance, she lifted on to the -little heap. - -“You will have to give me a new pair of gloves,” she said, looking up -with a laugh, “for I have spoilt these ones that are nearly new; and -what will my mother say? But though you think it is very weak, I cannot -touch a jelly fish--I am meaning a Medusa, which is certainly a far -bonnier name--with my bare hands. There now, it will go easy into a -basket, or I would almost carry it myself, with the dulse all about it; -but to throw it away is what I will never consent to, for if you think -it is a discovery, I know it must be a discovery, and it will be called -after you, and a credit to us all.” - -“It _is_ a discovery,” cried Johnny, with a sudden change of mien. “I -was a fool. I am not going to give it up, whatever happens. The less -that comes to me in this world, the more I’ll keep to the little I’m -sure of.” When he had uttered this enigmatical sentence, which was one -of those mystic utterances, more imposing than wisdom, that fill every -audience with confused admiration, he snapped his fingers wildly, and -executed a _pas_ of triumph. “It will make the London men stand about!” -he said, “and I would just like to know what the Professor will say to -it! As for the name----” - -“Oh, yes, Johnny, the name?” - -“It will be time enough to think of that,” he said, looking at her with -mingled admiration and trouble. “Anyway, it is you that have saved it -for me,” he said. - -“Frank,” said Rodie, “are you meaning to play your foursome with Raaf -and Alick, or are you not?” - -“I thought you had turned me out of it,” said Frank. - -“Oh, go away and play your game!” Elsie commanded in a tone of relief. -“It is just the thing that is best for you idle laddies, with never a -hand’s turn to do in this world. I am going home as soon as I have seen -Johnny take up his new beast like a person of sense, after taking the -pet at it like a silly bairn. You are all silly, the whole tribe of you, -for so much as you think of yourselves. If you’re late, Alick and Raaf -will just play a twosome, and leave you out.” - -“That’s what they’ll do,” Rodie pronounced, authoritatively. “Come -along, Frank.” - -And Frank followed, though torn in pieces by attractions both ways. It -was hard to leave Elsie in so gracious a mood, and also with Johnny -Wemyss, who had displayed a quite unexpected side to-day: but Johnny -Wemyss did not, could not count, whatever he might feel: surely if there -was anything a man could calculate upon, it was that. And Frank was -sincerely pleased to be taken into favour again by that young despot, -Rodie, who in his capacity as Elsie’s brother, rode roughshod over Ralph -Beaton and was more respected than he had any right to be by several -more of the golf-playing community. So that it seemed a real necessity -in present circumstances, with the hopes of future games in mind, to -follow him docilely now. - -“Why were you so petted, Johnny?” said Elsie, when reluctantly her wooer -had followed her brother in a run to the links. - -“I was not petted,” said Johnny, with that most ineffectual reply which -consists of simple contradiction. In those days petted, that is the -condition of a spoilt child, was applied to all perverse moods and -causeless fits of ill-temper. I do not think that in current Scots -literature, of which there are so many examples, I remember the same use -of the word now. - -“Oh, but you were,” cried Elsie, laughing, “in a pet with your new -beast, and what could go further than that? I would not have been so -much surprised if you had been in a pet with Rodie or me.” - -“There was occasion,” said Johnny, relapsing a little into the clouds. -“Why were you such friends with that empty-headed ass? And coming along -the sands smiling at him as if--as if----” - -“As if what?” said Elsie. She laughed again, the laugh of conscious -power. She was not perhaps so fine a character as, considering all -things, she might have been expected to be. - -“Elsie,” said the young man, “it’s not me that shall name it. If it -really turns out to be something, as I think it will, I am going to call -it after you.” - -“A grand compliment,” cried the girl, with another peel of laughter. “A -jeely fish! But,” she added, quickly, “I think it is awfully nice of -you, Johnny; for those are the sort of things, I know, that you like -best in the world.” - -“Not quite,” said the naturalist. “There are things I care for far more -than beasts, and if you don’t know that, you are not so quick at the -uptake as I have always thought you; but what is the good when I am -nobody, and never will be anybody, if I were to howk and ferret for new -beasts till I die!” - -“Bide a wee, bide a wee,” said Elsie, laughing, but confused; “you will -be a placed minister, and as good as any of them; and what could ye have -better than that?” - -“I am the most unfortunate man in the world,” said Johnny, “for you know -that, which is the only way for a poor lad like me, it is not what I -want.” - -“And you are not blate to say so to me that am a minister’s daughter, -and very proud of it,” cried Elsie, with a flush of offence. - -“That’s just the worst of it,” said Johnny, sadly, shaking his head, -“for maybe you, and certainly other folk, will believe indeed I am not -blate, thinking too much of myself, not to be content with a kirk if I -could get one. But you should know it isn’t that. I think too little of -myself. Never could I be a man like your father, that is one of the -excellent of the earth. It is the like of him, and not the like of me, -that should be a minister. And then whatever I was, and wherever I was,” -he added, with a humility that was almost comic, “I would always have -something inside teasing me to be after the beasts all the same.” - -“What are you going to do with it now?” said Elsie, looking down at the -unconscious object of all this discussion, which lay semi-transparent, -and a little dulled in the delicate mauve colour of its interesting -markings, on the bed she had made of the tangles of the dulse at her -feet. - -“The first thing is, I will draw a picture of it, the best I can,” said -Johnny, rousing to something of his usual enthusiasm, “and then I will -dissect it and get at its secrets, and I will send the drawing and the -account of it to London--and then----” - -“And then?” repeated Elsie. - -“I will just wait,” he said. His eyes which had been lighted up with -eagerness and spirit sank, and he shrugged his shoulders and shook his -head. “Just as likely as not I will never hear word of it more. That’s -been my fate already. I must just steel myself not to hope.” - -“Johnny, do you mean that you have sent up other things like this, and -got no good of them?” - -“Aye,” he said, without looking up. He was not a cheerful figure, with -his head bent on his breast, and his eyes fixed on the strange -prize--was it a mere clammy inanimate thing, or was it progress, and -fame, and fortune?--which lay at his feet. Elsie did not know what to -say. - -“And you standing there with wet feet, and everything damp and cold -about you,” she cried, with a sudden outburst. “Go home this moment, -Johnny Wemyss; this time it will be different. I’m not a prophet and how -should I know? But this time it will be different. How are you to get it -home?” - -He took his blue bonnet from his head, with a low laugh, and placed the -specimen in it. - -“Nobody minds,” he said, smoothing down his sleeves. “I am as often -without my bonnet as with it. They say it’s only Johnny Wemyss: but I’m -not fit to walk by the side of a bonnie princess like you.” - -“I am coming with you all the same,” Elsie said. - -They were, indeed, a very unlikely pair. The girl in all her prettiness -of summer costume, the young man, damp, sandy, and bareheaded, carrying -his treasure. So far as the sands extended, however, there was no one to -mark the curious conjunction, and they went lightly over the firm wet -sand within high-water mark, talking little, but with a perfect -familiarity and kindness of companionship which was more exquisite than -the heats and chills through which Frank Mowbray had passed, when Elsie -for her own purposes had led him back. Elsie kept step with Johnny’s -large tread, she had an air of belonging to him which came from the -intimate intercourse of years; and though the social distinction between -the minister’s daughter and the fisherman’s son was very marked, -externally, it was evidently quite blotted out in fact by a closer -fraternity. Elsie was not ashamed of him, nor was Johnny proud of her, -so far as their difference of position was concerned. He was proud of -her in another sense, but she quite as much of him. - -“I will call it ‘Princess Elsie,’” he said at last. “I will put it in -Latin: or else I will call it ‘Alicia:’ for Elsie and Alison and all are -from Alice, which is just the bonniest name in the world.” - -“Nonsense,” she said, “there are many that are much bonnier. I don’t -think Alison is very bonny, it is old-fashioned; but it was my -grandmother’s name, and I like it for that.” - -“It is just the bonniest name in all the world,” he repeated, softly; -but next moment they had climbed from the sands to the smooth ground -near the old castle, and from thenceforward Johnny Wemyss was the centre -of a moving group, made up of boys and girls, and an occasional golfer, -and a fisher or two, and, in short, everybody about; for Johnny Wemyss -was known to everybody, and his particular pursuits were the sport, and -interest, and pride of the town. - -“He has found a new beast.” - -“Oh, have you found a new beast? Oh Johnny, let us see it, let us see -it! Oh, but it’s nothing but a jeely-fish,” cried, in a number of -voices, the little crowd. Johnny walked calmly on, his bare head red in -the sunshine, with crisp short curls surrounding a forehead which was -very white in the upper part, where usually sheltered by his bonnet, and -a fine red brown mahogany tint below. Johnny was quite at his ease amid -the encircling, shouting little crowd, from out of which Elsie withdrew -at the garden gate, with a wave of her hand. He had no objection to -their questions, their jests, their cries of “Let us see it, Johnny!” It -did not in the least trouble him that he was Johnny to all the world, -and his “new beast” the diversion of the town. - - - - -CHAPTER XIX. - -A CATASTROPHE. - - -Mrs. Mowbray was more restless than her maid, who had been with her for -many years, had ever seen her before. She was not at any time a model of -a tranquil woman, but ever since her arrival in St. Rule’s, her activity -had been incessant, and very disturbing to her household. She was -neither quiet during the day nor did she sleep at night. She was out and -in of the house a hundred times of a morning, and even when within doors -was so continually in motion, that the maids who belonged to the house, -and had been old Mr. Anderson’s servants, held a meeting, and decided -that if things went on like this, they would all “speak” when the -appointed moment for speaking came, and leave at the next term. Mrs. -Mowbray’s own maid, who was specially devoted to her, had a heavier -thought on her mind; for the mistress was so unlike herself, that it -seemed to this good woman that she must be “off her head,” or in a fair -way of becoming so. There was no one to take notice of this alarming -condition of affairs, for what was to be expected from Mr. Frank? He was -a young man: he was taken up with his own concerns. It was not to be -supposed that his mother’s state would call forth any anxiety on his -part, until it went much further than it yet had gone. And there were no -intimate friends who could be appealed to. There was no one to exercise -any control, even if it had been certain that there was occasion for -exercising control. And that had not occurred as yet. But she was so -restless, that she could not keep still anywhere for half-an-hour. She -was constantly on the stairs, going up and down, or in the street, -taking little walks, making little calls, staying only a few minutes. -She could not rest. In the middle of the night, she might be seen up -wandering about the house in her dressing-gown, with a candle in her -hand: though when any one was startled, and awakened by the sound of her -nocturnal wanderings, she was always apologetic, explaining that she had -forgotten something in the drawing-room, or wanted a book. - -But on the day when she had spoken to Frank, as already recorded, her -restlessness was more acute than ever. She asked him each time he came -in, whether he had “taken any steps;” though what step the poor boy -could have taken, he did not know, nor did she, except that one step of -consulting the minister, which was simple enough, but which, as has been -seen, was rendered difficult to Frank on the other side. The next day, -that morning on which Frank lost all his time on the East Sands, with -Johnny Wemyss, and his new beast, the poor lady could not contain -herself at all. She sat down at the window for a minute, and gazed out -as if she were expecting some one; then she jumped up, and went over all -the rooms up-stairs, looking for something, she said, which she could -not find. She could not keep still. The other servants began to compare -opinions and to agree with the lady’s maid. At last before twelve -o’clock Mrs. Mowbray put on her “things,” for the third or fourth time, -and sallied forth, not dressed with her usual elaborate nicety, but with -a shawl too heavy for the warm day, and a bonnet which was by no means -her best bonnet. Perhaps there is no greater difference between these -times and ours, than the fact of the bonnet and shawl, as opposed to the -easier hat and jacket, which can be put on so quickly. Mrs. Mowbray -generally took a long time over the tying of her bonnet strings, which -indeed was a work of art. But in the hasty irregularity of that morning -she could not be troubled about the bonnet strings, but tied them -anyhow, not able to give her attention to the bows. It may easily be -seen what an agitation there must have been in her bosom, when she -neglected so important a point in her toilet. And her shawl was not -placed carefully round her shoulders, in what was supposed to be the -elegant way, but fastened about her neck like the shawl of any farmer’s -wife. Nothing but some very great disturbance of mind could account for -an outward appearance so incomplete. - -“She’s going to see the minister,” said Hunter, her woman, to Janet, the -cook. Hunter had been unable to confine her trouble altogether to her -own breast. She did not indeed say what she feared, but she had confided -her anxiety about her mistress’s health in general to Janet, who was of -a discreet age, and knew something of life. - -“Weel, aweel,” said Janet, soothingly, “she can never do better than -speak to the minister. He will soothe down her speerits, if onybody can; -but that’s not the shortest gait to the minister’s house.” - -They stood together at the window, and watched her go up the street, the -morning sunshine throwing a shadow before her. At the other end of the -High Street, Johnny Wemyss had almost reached his own door, with ever a -new crowd following at his heels, demanding to see the new beast. And -Frank had started with his foursome in high spirits and hope, with the -remembrance of Elsie’s smile warm around him, like internal sunshine, -and the consciousness of an excellent drive over the burn, to add to his -exhilaration. Elsie had gone home, and was seated in the drawing-room, -at the old piano “practising,” as all the household was aware: it was -the only practicable time for that exercise, when it least disturbed the -tranquillity of papa, who, it was generally understood, did not begin to -work till twelve o’clock. And Mrs. Buchanan was busy up-stairs in a -review of the family linen, the napery being almost always in need of -repair. Therefore the coast was perfectly clear, and Mrs. Mowbray, -reluctantly admitted by the maid, who knew her visits were not -over-welcome, ran up the stairs waving her hand to Betty, who would fain -have gone before her to fulfil the requirements of decorum, and because -she had received “a hearing” on the subject from her mistress. “It is -very ill-bred to let a visitor in, and not let me or the minister know -who’s coming. It is my desire you should always go up-stairs before -them, and open the door.” “But how could I,” Betty explained afterwards, -“when she just ran past me? I couldna put forth my hand, and pull her -down the stairs.” - -Mrs. Mowbray had been walking very fast, and she ran up-stairs to the -minister’s study, which she knew so well, as rapidly and as softly as -Elsie could have done it. In consequence, when she opened the door, and -asked, breathless, “May I come in?” her words were scarcely audible in -the panting of her heart. She had to sit down, using a sort of pantomime -to excuse herself for nearly five minutes before she could speak. - -“Oh, Mr. Buchanan! I have been so anxious to see you! I have run nearly -all the way.” - -The minister pushed away the newspaper, which he had been caught -reading. It was the _Courant_ day, when all the bottled-up news of the -week came to St. Rule’s. He sighed to be obliged to give it up in the -middle of his reading, and also because being found in no more serious -occupation, he could not pretend to be very busy, even if he had wished -to do so. - -“I hope it is nothing very urgent,” he said. - -“Yes, it is urgent, very urgent! I thought Frank would have seen you -yesterday. I thought perhaps you would have paid more attention to him, -than you do to me.” - -“My dear Mrs. Mowbray! I hope you have not found me deficient in--in -interest or in attention,” the minister said. - -He had still kept hold of the _Courant_ by one corner. Now he threw it -away in a sort of despair. The same old story, he said to himself -grievously, with a sigh that came from the bottom of his heart. - -“Do you know,” said the visitor, clasping her hands and resting them on -his table, “that Frank’s twenty-fifth birthday is on the fifth of next -month?” - -She looked at him as she had never done before. Her eyes might have been -anxious on previous occasions, but they were also full of other things: -they had light glances aside, a desire to please and charm, always the -consciousness of an effort to secure not only attention, but even -admiration, a consciousness of herself, of her fine manners, and -elaborate dress, finer than anything else in St. Rule’s. Now there was -nothing of all this about her. Her eyes seemed deepened in their -sockets, as if a dozen years had passed over her since she last looked -thus at the minister. And she asked him that question as if the date of -her son’s birthday was the most tragic of facts, a date which she -anticipated with nothing less than despair. - -“Is it really?” said the perplexed minister. “No, indeed, I did not -know.” - -“And you don’t seem to care either,” she cried, “you don’t care!” - -Mr. Buchanan looked at her with a suspicious glance, as if presaging -some further assault upon his peace. But he said: - -“I am very glad my young friend has come to such a pleasant age. -Everything has gone well with him hitherto, and he has come creditably -through what may be called the most perilous portion of his youth. He -has now a little experience, and power of discrimination, and I see no -reason to fear but that things will go as well with him in the future, -as they seem----” - -“Oh,” cried Mrs. Mowbray, raising her clasped hands with a gesture of -despair, “is that all you have got to say, just what any old woman might -say! And what about me, Mr. Buchanan, what about me?” - -“You!” he cried, rather harshly, for to be called an old woman is enough -to upset the patience of any man. “I don’t know what there is to think -of about you, except the satisfaction you must have in seeing Frank----” - -She stamped her foot upon the floor; her eyes, which looked so hollow -and tragic, flamed up for a moment in wrath. - -“Oh, Frank, Frank! as if it were only Frank!” She paused a moment, and -then began again drawing a long breath. “I came to you in my despair. If -you can help me, I know not, or if any one can help me. It is that, or -the pierhead, or the Spindle rock, where a poor creature might slip in, -and it would be thought an accident, and she would never be heard of -more.” - -“Mrs. Mowbray! For God’s sake, what do you mean?” - -“Ah, you ask me what I mean now? When I speak of the rocks and the sea, -then you begin to think. That is what must come, I know that is what -must come, unless,” she said, “unless”--holding out her hands still -convulsively clasped to him, “you can think of something. Oh, Mr. -Buchanan, if you can think of something, if you can make it up with that -money, if you can show me how I am to get it, how I can make it up! Oh, -will you save me, will you save me!” she cried, stumbling down upon her -knees on the other side of his table, holding up her hands, fixing her -strained eyes upon his face. - -“Mrs. Mowbray!” he cried, springing up from his chair, “what is this? -rise up for Heaven’s sake, do not go on your knees to me. I will do -anything for you, anything I can do, surely you understand that--without -this----” - -“Oh, let me stay where I am! It is like asking it from God. You’re -God’s, minister, and I’m a poor creature, a poor nervous weak woman. I -never meant to do any harm. It was chiefly for my boy, that he might -have everything nice, everything that he wanted like a gentleman. Oh, -Mr. Buchanan! you may think I spent too much on my dress. So I did. I -have been senseless and wicked all round, but I never did more than -other women did. And I had no expenses besides. I never was extravagant, -nor played cards, nor anything. And that was for Frank, too, that he -might not be ashamed of his mother. Mr. Buchanan!” - -“Rise up,” he said, desperately, “for goodness’ sake, don’t make us both -ridiculous. Sit down, and whatever it is, let us talk it over quietly. -Oh, yes, yes, I am very sorry for you. I am shocked and distressed -beyond words. Sit down rationally, for God’s sake, and tell me what it -is. It is a matter, of course,” he cried, sharply, with some impatience, -“that whatever I can do, I will do for you. There can be no need to -implore me like this! of course I will do everything I can--of course. -Mrs. Mowbray, sit down, for the love of heaven, and let me know what it -is.” - -She had risen painfully to her feet while he was speaking. Going down on -your knees may be a picturesque thing, but getting up from them, -especially in petticoats, and in a large shawl, is not a graceful -operation at all, and this, notwithstanding her despair, poor Mrs. -Mowbray was vaguely conscious of. She stumbled to her feet, her skirts -tripping her up, the corners of her shawl getting in her way. The poor -woman had begun to cry. It was wonderful that she had been able to -restrain herself so long; but she was old enough to be aware that a -woman’s tears are just as often exasperating as pathetic to a man, and -had heroically restrained the impulse. But when she fell on her knees, -she lost her self-control. That was begging the question altogether. She -had given up her position as a tragic and dignified appellant. She was -nothing but a poor suppliant now, at anybody’s mercy, quite broken down, -and overmastered by her trouble. It did not matter to her any longer -what anyone thought. The state of mind in which she had dared to tell -the minister that he spoke like an old woman, was gone from her -completely. He was like God, he could save her, if he would; she could -not tell how, there was no reason in her hope, but if he only would, -somehow he could, save her--that was all her thought. - -“Now, tell me exactly how it is,” she heard him saying, confusedly, -through the violent beating of her heart. - -But what unfortunate, in her position, ever could tell exactly how such -a thing was? She told him a long, broken, confused story, full of -apology, and explanation, insisting chiefly upon the absence of any ill -meaning on her part, or ill intention, and the fatality which had caught -her, and compelled her actions, so often against her will. She had been -led into this and that, it had been pressed upon her--even now she did -not see how she could have escaped. And it was all for Frank’s sake: -every step she had taken was for Frank’s sake, that he might want for -nothing, that he might have everything the others had, and feel that -everything about him--his home, his mother, his society--were such as a -gentleman ought to have. - -“This long minority,” Mrs. Mowbray said, through her tears, “oh, what a -mistake it is; instead of saving his money, it has been the destruction -of his money. I thought always it was so hard upon him, that I was -forced to spend more and more to make it up to him. I spent everything -of my own first. Oh, Mr. Buchanan! you must not think I spared anything -of my own--that went first. I sold out and sold out, till there was -nothing left; and then what could I do but get into debt? And here I am, -and I have not a penny, and all these dreadful men pressing and -pressing! And everything will be exposed to Frank, all exposed to him on -the fifth of next month. Oh, Mr. Buchanan, save me, save me. My boy will -despise me. He will never trust me again. He will say it is all my -fault! So it is all my fault. Oh, I do not attempt to deny it, Mr. -Buchanan: but it was all for him. And then there was another thing that -deceived me. I always trusted in you. I felt sure that at the end, when -you found it was really so serious, you would step in, and compel all -these people to pay up, and all my little debts would not matter so much -at the last.” - -Mr. Buchanan had forgotten the personal reference in all this to -himself. It did not occur to him that the money which rankled so at his -own heart, and which had already cost him so much, much more than its -value, was the thing upon which she depended, from which she had -expected salvation. What was it she expected? thousands, he supposed, -instead of fifties, a large sum sufficient to re-establish her fortunes. -It was with a kind of impatient disdain that he spoke. - -“Are these really little debts you are telling me of? Could a hundred -pounds or two clear them off, would that be of real use?” - -“Oh, a hundred pounds!” she cried, with a shriek. “Mr. Buchanan, a -hundred pence would, of course, be of use, for I have no money at all, -and a hundred is a nice little bit of money, and I could stop several -mouths with it: but to clear them off! Oh no, no, alas, alas! It is -clear that you never lived in London. A hundred pounds would be but a -drop in the ocean. But when it is thousands, Mr. Buchanan, which is more -like facts--thousands, I am sure, which you know of, which you could -recover for Frank!” - -“Mrs. Mowbray, I don’t know what can have deceived you to this point. It -is absolute folly: all that Mr. Anderson lent to people at St. Rule’s -was never above a few hundred pounds. I know of nothing more. There is -nothing more. There was one of three hundred--nothing more. Be composed, -be composed and listen to me. Mrs. Mowbray!” - -But she neither listened nor heard him, her excitement had reached to a -point beyond which flesh and blood overmastered by wild anxiety and -disappointment could not go. - -“It can’t be true,” she shrieked out. “It can’t be true, it mustn’t be -true.” And then, with a shriek that rang through the house, throwing out -her arms, she fell like a mass of ruins on the floor. - -Mrs. Buchanan was busy with her napery at some distance from the study. -She had heard the visitor come in, and had concluded within herself that -her poor husband would have an ill time of it with that woman. “But -there’s something more on her mind than that pickle siller,” the -minister’s wife had said to herself, shaking her head over the darns in -her napery. She had long been a student of the troubled faces that came -to the minister for advice or consolation, and, having only that -evidence to go upon, had formed many a conclusion that turned out true -enough, sometimes more true than those which, with a more extended -knowledge, from the very lips of the penitents, had been formed by the -minister himself: for the face, as Mrs. Buchanan held, could not make -excuses, or explain things away, but just showed what was. She was -pondering over this case, half-sorry and, perhaps, half-amused that her -husband should have this tangled skein to wind, which he never should -have meddled with, so that it was partly his own fault--when the sound -of those shrieks made her start. They were far too loud and too terrible -to ignore. Mrs. Buchanan threw down the linen she was darning, seized a -bottle of water from the table, and flew to her husband’s room. Already -there were two maids on the stairs hurrying towards the scene of the -commotion, to one of whom she gave a quick order, sending the other -away. - -“Thank God that you’ve come,” said Mr. Buchanan, who was feebly -endeavouring to drag the unfortunate woman to her feet again. - -“Oh, go away, go away, Claude, you’re of no use here. Send in the doctor -if you see him, he will be more use than you.” - -“I’ll do that,” cried the minister, relieved. He was too thankful to -resign the patient into hands more skilful than his own. - - - - -CHAPTER XX. - -CONFESSION. - - -“Then it is just debt and nothing worse,” Mrs. Buchanan said. There was -a slight air of disappointment in her face; not that she wished the -woman to be more guilty, but that this was scarcely an adequate cause -for all the dramatic excitement which had been caused in her own mind by -Mrs. Mowbray’s visits and the trouble in her face. - -“Nothing worse! what is there that is worse?” cried the minister, -turning round upon her. He had been walking up and down the study, that -study which had been made a purgatory to him by the money of which she -spoke so lightly. It was this that was uppermost in his mind now, and -not the poor woman who had thrown herself on his mercy. To tell the -truth, he had but little toleration for her. She had thrown away her -son’s substance in vanity, and to please herself: but what pleasure had -he, the minister, had out of that three hundred pounds? Nothing! It -would have been better for him a thousand times to have toiled for it in -the sweat of his brow, to have lived on bread and water, and cleared it -off honestly. But he had not been allowed to do this; he had been forced -into the position he now held, a defaulter as she had said--an unjust -steward according to the formula more familiar to his mind. - -“Oh, yes, Claude, there are worse things--at least to a woman. She might -have misbe---- We’ll not speak of that. Poor thing, she is bad enough, -and sore shaken. We will leave her quiet till the laddies come home to -their lunch; as likely as not Rodie will bring Frank home with him, as I -hear they are playing together: and then he must just be told she had a -faint. There are some women that are always fainting; it is just the -sort of thing that the like of her would do. If I were you, I would see -Mr. Morrison and try what could be done to keep it all quiet. I am not -fond of exposing a silly woman to her own son.” - -“Better to her son than to strangers, surely--and to the whole world.” - -“I am not so sure of that,” Mrs. Buchanan said, thoughtfully: but she -did not pursue the argument. She sat very still in the chair which so -short a time before had been occupied by poor Mrs. Mowbray in her -passion and despair: while her husband walked about the room with his -hands thrust into his pockets, and his shoulders up to his ears, full of -restless and unquiet thoughts. - -“There’s one thing,” he said, pausing in front of her, but not looking -at her, “that money, Mary: we must get it somehow. I cannot reconcile it -with my conscience, I can’t endure the feeling of it: if it should ruin -us, we must pay it back.” - -“Nothing will ruin us, Claude,” she said, steadily, “so long as it is -all honest and above board. Let it be paid back; I know well it has been -on your mind this many a day.” - -“It has been a thorn in my flesh; it has been poison in my blood!” - -“Lord bless us,” cried Mrs. Buchanan, with a little fretfulness, “what -for? and what is the use of exaggeration? It is not an impossibility -that you should rave about it like that. Besides,” she added, “I said -the same at first--though I was always in favour of paying, at whatever -cost--yet I am not sure that I would disappoint an old friend in his -grave, for the sake of satisfying a fantastic woman like yon.” - -“I must get it clear, I must get it off my mind! Not for her sake, but -for my own.” - -“Aweel, aweel,” said Mrs. Buchanan, soothingly; and she added, “we must -all set our shoulders to the wheel, and they must give us time.” - -“But it is just time that cannot be given us,” cried her husband, almost -hysterically. “The fifth of next month! and this is the twenty-fourth.” - -“You will have to speak to Morrison.” - -“Morrison, Morrison!” cried the minister. “You seem to have no idea but -Morrison! and it is just to him that I cannot speak.” - -His wife gazed at him with surprise, and some impatience. - -“Claude! you are just as foolish as that woman. Will ranting and -raving, and ‘I will not do that,’ and ‘I will not do this,’ pay back the -siller? It is not so easy to do always what you wish. In this world we -must just do what we can.” - -“In another world, at least, there will be neither begging nor -borrowing,” he cried. - -“There will maybe be some equivalent,” said Mrs. Buchanan, shaking her -head. “I would not lippen to anything. It would have been paid long ago -if you had but stuck to the point with Morrison, and we would be free.” - -“Morrison, Morrison!” he cried again, “nothing but Morrison. I wish he -and all his books, and his bonds, and his money, were at the bottom of -the sea!” - -“Claude, Claude! and you a minister!” cried Mrs. Buchanan, horrified. -But she saw that the discussion had gone far enough, and that her -husband could bear no more. - -As for the unfortunate man himself, he continued, mechanically, to pace -about the room, after she left him, muttering “Morrison, Morrison!” -between his teeth. He could not himself have explained the rage he felt -at the name of Morrison. He could see in his mind’s eye the sleek figure -of the man of business coming towards him, rubbing his hands, stopping -his confession, “Not another word, sir, not another word; our late -esteemed friend gave me my instructions.” And then he could hear himself -pretending to insist, putting forward “the fifty:” “_The_ fifty,” with -the lie beneath, as if that were all: and again the lawyer’s refusal to -hear. Morrison had done him a good office: he had stopped the lie upon -his lips, so that, formally speaking, he had never uttered it; he ought -to have been grateful to Morrison: yet he was not, but hated him (for -the moment) to the bottom of his heart. - -Frank Mowbray came to luncheon (which was dinner) with Rodie, as Mrs. -Buchanan had foreseen, and when he had got through a large meal, was -taken up-stairs to see his mother, who was still lying exhausted in -Elsie’s bed, very hysterical, laughing and crying in a manner which was -by no means unusual in those days, though we may be thankful it has -practically disappeared from our experiences now--unfortunately not -without leaving a deeper and more injurious deposit of the hysterical. -She hid her face when he came in, with a passion of tears and outcries, -and then held out her arms to him, contradictory actions which Frank -took with wonderful composure, being not unaccustomed to them. - -“Speak to Mr. Buchanan,” she said, “oh, speak to Mr. Buchanan!” -whispering these words into his ear as he bent over her, and flinging -them at him as he went away. Frank was very reluctant to lose his -afternoon’s game, and he was aware, too, of the threatening looks of -Elsie, who said, “My father’s morning has been spoiled; he has had no -peace all the day. You must see him another time.” “Speak to Mr. -Buchanan, oh, speak to Mr. Buchanan,” cried his mother. Frank did not -know what to do. Perhaps Mrs. Mowbray in her confused mind expected that -the minister would soften the story of her own misdemeanours to Frank. -But Frank thought of nothing but the previous disclosure she had made to -him. And he would probably have been subdued by Elsie’s threatening -looks, as she stood without the door defending the passage to the study, -had not Mr. Buchanan himself appeared coming slowly up-stairs. The two -young people stood silent before him. Even Elsie, though she held Frank -back fiercely with her eyes, could say nothing: and the minister waved -his hand, as if inviting him to follow. The youth went after him a -little overawed, giving Elsie an apologetic look as he passed. It was -not his fault: without that tacit invitation he would certainly not have -gone. He felt the situation very alarming. He was a simple young soul, -going to struggle with one of the superior classes, in deadly combat, -and with nobody to stand by him. Certainly he had lost his afternoon’s -game--almost as certainly he had lost, altogether lost, Elsie’s favour. -The smiles of the morning had inspired him to various strokes, which -even Raaf Beaton could not despise. But that was over, and now he had to -go on unaided to his fate. - -“Your mother has been ill, Frank.” - -“I am very sorry, sir: and she has distressed and disturbed you, I fear. -She sometimes has those sort of attacks: they don’t mean much, I think,” -Frank said. - -“They mean a great deal,” replied Mr. Buchanan. “They mean that her mind -is troubled about you and your future, Frank.” - -“Without any reason, I think,” said Frank. “I am not very clear about -money; I have always left it in my mother’s hands. She thought it would -be time enough to look after my affairs when I attained my Scotch -majority. But I don’t think I need trouble myself, for there must be -plenty to go on upon. She says the Scotch estate is far less than was -thought, and indeed she wanted me to come to you about some debts. She -thinks half St. Rule’s was owing money to old Uncle Anderson. And he -kept no books, or something of that sort. I don’t understand it very -well; but she said you understood everything.” - -“There was no question of books,” said Mr. Buchanan. “Mr. Anderson was -kind, and helped many people, not letting his right hand know what his -left hand did. Some he helped to stock a shop: some of the small farmers -to buy the cattle they wanted: some of the fishers to get boats of their -own. The money was a loan nominally to save their pride, but in reality -it was a gift, and nobody knew how much he gave in this way. It was -entered in no book, except perhaps,” said the minister, with a look -which struck awe into Frank, and a faint upward movement of his hand “in -One above.” After a minute he resumed: “I am sure, from what I know of -you, you would not disturb these poor folk, who most of them are now -enjoying the advantage of the charity that helped them rather to labour -than to profit at first.” - -“No, sir, no,” cried Frank, eagerly. “I am not like that, I am not a -beast; and I am very glad to hear Uncle Anderson was such a good man. -But,” he added after a pause, with a little natural pertinacity, “there -were others different from that, or else my mother had wrong -information--which might well be,” he continued with a little -reluctance. He was open to a generous impulse, but yet he wished to -reserve what might be owing to him on a less sentimental ground. - -“Yes, there are others different from that. There are a few people of a -different class in St. Rule’s, who are just as good as anybody, as -people say; you will understand I am speaking the language of the world, -and not referring to any moral condition, in which, as we have the best -authority for saying, none of us are good, but God alone. As good as -anybody, as people say--as good blood so far as that counts, as good -education or better, as good manners: but all this held in check, or -indeed made into pain sometimes, by the fact that they are poor. Do you -follow what I mean?” - -“Yes, sir, I follow,” said Frank: though without the effusiveness which -he had shown when the minister’s talk was of the actual poor. - -“A little money to such people as these is sometimes almost a greater -charity than to the shopkeepers and the fishermen. They are far poorer -with their pride, and the appearance they have to keep up, than the -lowest. Mind I am not defending pride nor the keeping up of appearances. -I am speaking just the common language of the world. Well, there were -several of these, I believe, who had loans of money from Mr. Anderson.” - -“I think,” said Frank, respectfully, yet firmly too, “that they ought to -pay, Mr. Buchanan. They have enjoyed the use of it for years, and people -like that can always find means of raising a little money. If it lies -much longer in their hands, it will be lost, I am told, by some Statute -of--of Limitation I think it is. Well then, nobody could force them in -that case; but I think, Mr. Buchanan, as between man and man, that they -ought to pay.” - -“I think,” said the minister, in a voice which trembled a little, “that -you are right, Frank: they ought to pay.” - -“That is certainly my opinion,” said Frank. “It would not ruin them, -they could find the money: and though it might harass them for the -moment, it would be better for them in the end to pay off a debt which -they would go on thinking must be claimed some time. And especially if -the estate is not going to turn out so good as was thought, I do think, -Mr. Buchanan, that they should pay.” - -“I think you are right, Frank.” The minister rose and began to walk up -and down the room as was his habit. There was an air of agitation about -him which the young man did not understand. “It is no case of an unjust -steward,” he said to himself; “if there’s an unjust steward, it is--and -to take the bill and write fourscore would never be the way with--Well, -we have both come to the same decision, Frank, and we are both -interested parties; I am, I believe, the largest of all Mr. Anderson’s -debtors. I owe him----” - -“Mr. Buchanan!” cried Frank, springing to his feet. “Mr. Buchanan, I -never thought of this. You! for goodness’ sake don’t say any more!” - -“I owe him,” the minister repeated slowly, “three hundred pounds. If you -were writing that, you know,” he said, with a curious sort of smile, -“you would repeat it, once in figures and once in letters, £300--and -three hundred pounds. You are quite right; it will be much better to pay -it off, at whatever sacrifice, than to feel that it may be demanded from -one at any time, as you have demanded it from me!” - -“Mr. Buchanan,” cried Frank, eagerly (for what would Elsie say? never, -never would she look at him again!), “you may be sure I had never a -notion, not an idea of this, not a thought! You were my uncle’s best -friend; I can’t think why he didn’t leave you a legacy, or something, -far more than this. I remember it was thought surprising there were no -legacies, to you or to others. Of course I don’t know who the others may -be,” he added with a changed inflection in his voice (for why should he -throw any money, that was justly his, to perhaps persons of no -importance, unconnected with Elsie?) “but you, sir, you! It is out of -the question,” Frank cried. - -Mr. Buchanan smiled a little. I fear it did not please him to feel that -Frank’s compassion was roused, or that he might be excused the payment -of his debt by Frank. Indeed that view of the case changed his feelings -altogether. “We need not discuss the question,” he said rather coldly. -“I have told you of the only money owing to your uncle’s estate which I -know of. I might have stated it to your mother some time since, but did -not on account of something that passed between Morrison and myself, -which was neither here nor there.” - -“What was it, Mr. Buchanan? I cannot believe that my uncle----” - -“You know very little about your uncle,” said the minister, testily. -“Now, I think I shall keep you no longer to-day: but before your -birthday I will see Morrison, and put everything right.” - -“It is right as it is,” cried Frank; “why should we have recourse to -Morrison? surely you and I are enough to settle it. Mr. Buchanan, you -know this never was what was meant. You! to bring you to book! I would -rather have bitten out my tongue--I would rather----” - -“Come, this is all exaggerated, as my wife says,” said the minister with -a laugh. “It is too late to go back upon it. Bring a carriage for your -mother, Frank, she will be better at home. You can tell her this if you -please: and then let us hear no more of it, my boy. I will see Morrison, -and settle with him, and there is no need that any one should think of -it more.” - -“Only that it is impossible not to think of it,” cried Frank. “Mr. -Buchanan----” - -“Not another word,” the minister said. He came back to his table and sat -down, and took his pen into his fingers. “Your foursome will be broken -up for want of you,” he said with a chilly smile. The poor young fellow -tried to say something more, but he was stopped remorselessly. “Really, -you must let me get to my work,” said the minister. “Everything I think -has been said between us that there is to say.” - -And it was Elsie’s father whom he had thus offended! Frank’s heart sank -to his boots, as he went down-stairs. He did not go near his mother, but -left her to be watched over and taken home by her maid, who had now -appeared. He felt as if he could never forgive her for having forced him -to this encounter with the minister. Oh! if he had but known! He would -rather have bitten out his tongue, he repeated to himself. The -drawing-room was empty, neither Elsie nor her mother being visible, and -there was no Rodie kicking his heels down-stairs. A maid came out of the -kitchen, while he loitered in the hall to give him that worthy’s -message. “Mr. Rodie said he couldna wait, and you were just to follow -after him: but you were not to be surprised if they started without -waiting for you, for it would never do to keep all the gentlemen -waiting for their game.” Poor Frank strolled forth with a countenance -dark as night; sweetheart and game, and self-respect and everything--he -had lost them all. - - - - -CHAPTER XXI. - -HOW TO SET IT RIGHT. - - -“What is the matter, mother?” Elsie said, drawing close to her mother’s -side. The minister had come to dinner, looking ill and pale. He had -scarcely spoken all through the meal. He had said to his wife that he -was not to be disturbed that evening, for there was a great deal to -settle and to think of. Mrs. Buchanan, too, bore an anxious countenance. -She went up to the drawing-room without a word, with her basket of -things to mend in her arms. She had always things to mend, and her -patches were a pleasure to behold. She lighted the two candles on the -mantelpiece, but said with a sigh that it was a great extravagance, and -that she had no right to do it: only the night was dark, and her eyes -were beginning to fail. Now the night was no darker than usual, and Mrs. -Buchanan had made a brag only the other evening, that with her new -glasses she could see to do the finest work, as well as when she was a -girl. - -“What is the matter, mother?” Elsie said. She came very close to her -mother, putting a timid arm round her waist. They were, as belonged to -their country, shy of caresses, and Elsie was half afraid of being -thrown off with an injunction not to be silly; but this evening Mrs. -Buchanan seemed to be pleased with the warm clasp of the young arm. - -“Nothing that was not yesterday, and for years before that. You and me, -Elsie, will have to put our shoulders to the wheel.” - -“What is it, mother?” The idea of putting her shoulder to the wheel was -comforting and invigorating, far better than the vague something wrong -that clouded the parents’ faces. Mrs. Buchanan permitted herself to give -her child a kiss, and then she drew her chair to the table and put on -her spectacles for her evening’s work. - -“Women are such fools,” she said. “I am not sure that your father’s -saying that he was not to be disturbed to-night, you heard him?--which -means that I am not to go up to him as I always do--has cast me down -more than the real trouble. For why should he shut himself up from me? -He might know by this time that it is not brooding by himself that will -pay off that three hundred pounds.” - -“Three hundred pounds!” - -“It is an old story, it is nothing new,” said the minister’s wife. “It -is a grand rule, Elsie, not to let your right hand know what your left -doeth in the way of charity; but when it’s such a modern thing as a loan -of money, oh, I’m afraid the worldly way is maybe the best way. If Mr. -Anderson had written it down in his books, The Rev. Claude Buchanan, -Dr.--as they do, you know, in the tradesmen’s bills--to loan -£300--well, then, it might have been disagreeable, but we should have -known the worst of it, and it would have been paid off by this time. But -the good old man kept no books; and when he died, it was just left on -our consciences to pay it or not. Oh, Elsie, siller is a terrible burden -on your conscience when you have not got it to pay! God forgive us! what -with excuses and explanations, and trying to make out that it was just -an accident and so forth, I am not sure that I have always been quite -truthful myself.” - -“You never told lies, mother,” said Elsie. - -“Maybe not, if you put it like that; but there’s many a lee that is not -a lee, in the way of excuses for not paying a bill. You’ll say, perhaps, -‘Dear me, I am very sorry; I have just paid away the last I set aside -for bills, till next term comes round;’ when, in fact, you had nothing -set aside, but just paid what you had, and as little as you could, to -keep things going! It’s not a lee, so to speak, and yet it is a lee, -Elsie! A poor woman, with a limited income, has just many, many things -like that on her mind. We’ve never wronged any man of a penny.” - -“No, mother, I’m sure of that.” - -“But they have waited long for their siller, and maybe as much in want -of it as we were,” Mrs. Buchanan said, shaking her head. “Anyway, if -it’s clear put down in black and white, there is an end of it. You know -you have to pay, and you just make up your mind to it. But, when it is -just left to your conscience, and you to be the one to tell that you are -owing--oh, Elsie! Lead us not into temptation. I hope you never forget -that prayer, morning nor evening. If you marry a man that is not rich, -you will have muckle need of it day by day.” - -Elsie seemed to see, as you will sometimes see by a gleam of summer -lightning, a momentary glimpse of a whole country-side--a panorama of -many past years. The scene was the study up-stairs, where her father was -sitting, often pausing in his work, laying down his pen, giving himself -up to sombre thoughts. “Take now thy bill, and sit down quickly, and -write fourscore,” she said to herself, under her breath. - -“What are you saying, Elsie? Fourscore? Oh, much more than fourscore. It -is three hundred pounds,” said Mrs. Buchanan. “Three hundred pounds,” -she repeated deliberately, as if the enormity of the sum gave her, under -the pain, a certain pleasure. “I have told you about it before. It was -for Willie’s outfit, and Marion’s plenishing, and a few other things -that were pressing upon us. Old Mr. Anderson was a very kind old man. He -said: ‘Take enough--take enough while you are about it: put yourself at -your ease while you are about it!’ And so we did, Elsie. I will never -forget the feeling I had when I paid off Aitken and the rest who had -just been very patient waiting. I felt like Christian in the _Pilgrim’s -Progress_, when the burden rolled off his back. Oh, my dear! a poor -woman with a family to provide, thinks more of her bills than her sins, -I am sore afraid!” - -“Well, mother, those that have to judge know best all about it,” said -Elsie, with tears in her voice. - -“My bonnie dear! You’ll have to give up the ball, Elsie, and your new -frock.” - -“What about that, mother?” cried Elsie, tossing her young head. - -“Oh, there’s a great deal about it! You think it is nothing now: but -when you hear the coaches all driving past, and not a word said among -all the young lassies but who was there and what they wore, and who they -danced with: and, maybe, even you may hear a sough of music on the air, -if the wind’s from the south: it will not be easy then, though your -mind’s exalted, and you think it matters little now.” - -“It will be, maybe--a little--hard,” Elsie assented, nodding her head; -“but, if that’s all, mother?” - -“It will not be all,” said Mrs. Buchanan, once more shaking her head. -“It will be day by day, and hour by hour. We will have to do without -everything, you and me. Your father, he must not be disturbed, more than -we can help; or how is he to do his work? which is work far more -important than yours or mine. And Rodie is a growing laddie, wanting -much meat, and nothing must interfere with his learning either, or how -could we put him out creditably in the world? I tell you it is you and -me that will have to put our sheulders to the wheel. Janet is a good, -sensible woman, I will take her into my confidence, and she’ll not mind -a little more work; but, Betty--oh, my dear, I think we’ll have to give -up Betty: and you know what that means.” - -“It means just the right thing to mean!” cried Elsie, with her -countenance glowing. “I am nearly as old as Betty, and I have never done -a hand’s turn in my life. It would be strange if I couldn’t do as much -for love, as Betty does for wages.” - -“Ten pounds a year and her keep, which will count, maybe, for fifteen -more. Oh Elsie, my dear, to think that I should make a drudge of my own -bairn for no more saving than that.” - -“It is a pity it is not a hundred pounds,” cried Elsie, half-laughing, -half-crying; “but in four years, mother, it would make up a hundred -pounds. Fancy me making up a hundred pounds! There will be no living -with me for pride.” - -Mrs. Buchanan shook her head, and put her handkerchief to her eyes, but -joined in, too, with a tremulous laugh to this wonderful thought. - -“And there’s your father all his lane up the stair,” she said, -regretfully, “with nobody to speak to! when you and me are here together -taking comfort, and making a laugh at it. There’s many things, after -all, in which we are better off than men, Elsie. But why he should debar -himself from just the only comfort there is, talking it over with -me--what’s that?” - -It was a noise up-stairs, in the direction of Mr. Buchanan’s study, and -they both sprang to their feet: though, after all, it was not a very -dreadful noise, only the hasty opening of a window, and the fall of a -chair, as if knocked down by some sudden movement. They stood for a -moment, looking into each other’s suddenly blanched faces, an awful -suggestion leaping from eye to eye. Had it been too much for his brain? -Had he fallen? Had something dreadful happened? Elsie moved to open the -door, while her mother still stood holding by the table; but the -momentary horror was quieted by the sound of his steps overhead. They -heard him come out of his room to the head of the stairs, and held their -breath. Then there was a cry, “Mary! Mary!” Mrs. Buchanan turned upon -her daughter, with a sparkle in her eye. - -“You see he couldna do without me after all,” she said. - -When Elsie sat down alone she did not take her work again all at once, -but sat thinking, thoughts that, perhaps, were not so sweet as they had -been in the first enthusiasm of self-sacrifice. Her mother had left her -for a still more intimate conference and sharing of the burden, which, -when two people looked at it together, holding by each other, seemed so -much lighter than when one was left to look at it alone. There swept -across Elsie’s mind for a moment, in the chill of this desertion, the -thought that it was all very well for mamma. She had outgrown the love -of balls and other such enjoyments; and, though she liked to be well -dressed, she had the sustaining conviction that she was always well -dressed in her black silk; which, one year with another, if it was the -most enduring, was also one of the most becoming garments in St. Rule’s. -And she had her partner by her side always, no need to be wondering and -fancying what might happen, or whom she might see at the ball, perhaps -at the next street corner. But at nineteen it is very different; and, it -must be owned, that the prospect of the four years which it would take -for Elsie, by all manner of labours and endurances, to make up the -hundred pounds, which, after all, was only a third part of what was -wanted--was not so exhilarating when looked at alone, as it was when the -proud consciousness of such power to help had first thrilled her bosom. -Elsie looked at her own nice little hands, which were smooth, soft, and -reasonably white--not uselessly white like those of the people who never -did a hand’s turn--but white enough to proclaim them a lady’s hands, -though with scars of needlework on the fingers. She looked at her hands, -and wondered what they would look like at the end of these four years? -And she thought of the four balls, the yearly golf balls, at not one of -which was she likely to appear, and at all the other things which she -would have to give up. “What about that?” she said to herself, with -indignation, meaning, what did it matter, of what consequence was it? -But it did matter after all, it was of consequence. Whatever amount of -generous sophistry there may be in a girl’s mind, it does not go so far -as to convince her that four years out of her life, spent in being -housemaid, in working with her hands for her family, does not matter. It -did matter, and a tear or two dropped over her work. It would be hard, -but Elsie knew, all the same, that she had it in her to go through with -it. Oh, to go through with it! however hard it might be. - -She was drying away her tears indignantly, angry with herself and -ashamed, and resolute that no such weakness should ever occur again, -when she became aware of several small crackling sounds that came from -the direction of the turret, the lower story of which formed an -appendage to the drawing-room, as the higher did to the study. Elsie was -not alarmed by these sounds. It was, no doubt, some friend either of -Rodie’s or her own, who was desirous of making a private communication -without disturbing the minister’s house by an untimely visit, and -calling attention by flinging gravel at the window. She could not think -who it was, but any incident was good to break the current of her -thoughts. There was a little pale moonlight, of that misty, milky kind, -which is more like a lingering of fantastic day than a fine white night -with black shadows, and there was a figure standing underneath, which -she did not recognise till she had opened the window. Then she saw it -was Johnny Wemyss. He had a packet in his hand. - -“I thought,” he said, “that I would just come and tell you before I sent -it off by the night-coach. Elsie! I am sure--that is to say, I am near -sure, as sure as you dare to think you are, when it’s only you----” - -“What?” she cried, leaning out of the window. - -“That yon _is_ a new beast,” said the young man. His voice was a little -tremulous. “I never lifted my head till I had it all out with it,” he -said, with a nervous laugh; “and I’m just as near sure--oh, well, some -other idiot may have found it out yesterday! but, barring that--I’m -sure--I mean as near sure----” - -“Oh, you and your beasts!” cried Elsie. Her heart had given a jump in -her breast, and she had become gay and saucy in a moment; “and you never -were more than _near_ sure all your life. _I_ knew it was, all the -time.” - -They laughed together under the gray wall, the girl lightly triumphant, -the boy thrilling in every nerve with the certainty which he dared not -acknowledge even to himself. - -“I have called it ‘Princess Elsie,’” he said, “in Latin, you know: that -is, if it is really a new beast.” - -“There is nine striking,” said she; “you will have to run if you are to -catch the night-coach.” - -“I will--but I had to come and tell you,” he cried over his shoulder. - -“As if there was any need! when I knew it all the time.” - -This was enough, I am glad to say, to turn entirely the tide of Elsie’s -thoughts. She stood listening to the sound of his heavy shoes, as he -dashed along the rough cobbles of the pavement, towards the centre of -the town from which the coach started. And then she came in with a -delightful, soft illumination on her face, laughing to herself, and sat -down at the table and took up her seam. Four years! four strokes of the -clock, four stitches with the needle! That was about all it would come -to in the long stretching, far panorama of endless and joyous life. - - - - -CHAPTER XXII. - -IN THE STUDY. - - -The hour was heavier to the parents up-stairs, where the minister was so -despondent and depressed that his wife had hard ado to cheer him. The -window which down-stairs they had heard him throw open, stood wide to -the night, admitting a breeze which blew about the flame of the candles, -threatening every moment to extinguish them; for the air, though soft -and warm, blew in almost violently fresh from the sea. Mrs. Buchanan put -down the window, and drew the blind, restoring the continuity and -protecting enclosure of the walls; for there are times and moods when an -opening upon infinite air and space is too much for the soul travailing -among the elements of earth. She went to his side and stood by him, with -her hand on his shoulder. - -“Dinna be so down-hearted, Claude, my man,” she said, with her soft -voice. Her touch, her tone, the contact of her warm, soft person, the -caressing of her hand came on him like dew. - -“Mary,” he said, leaning his head back upon her, “you don’t know what I -have done. I did it in meaning, if not in fact. The thought of you kept -me back, my dear, more than the thought of my Maker. I am a miserable -and blood-guilty man.” - -“Whisht, whisht,” she said, trembling all over, but putting now a -quivering arm round him; “you are not thinking what you say.” - -“Well am I thinking, well am I knowing it. Me, His body-servant, His -man--not merely because He is my Saviour, as of all men, but my Master -to serve hand and foot, night and day. For the sake of a little pain, a -little miserable money, I had well-nigh deserted His service, Mary. Oh, -speak not to me, for I am a lost soul----” - -“Whisht, Claude! You are a fevered bairn. Do you think He is less -understanding, oh, my man, than me? What have you done?” - -He looked up at her with large, wild eyes. Then she suddenly perceived -his hand clenched upon something, and darting at it with a cry forced it -open, showing a small bottle clasped in the hollow of his palm. She -gripped his shoulder violently, with a low shriek of horror. - -“Claude, Claude! you have not--you did not----” - -“I poured it out before the Lord,” he said, putting the phial on the -table; “but the sin is no less, for I did it in meaning, if not in deed. -How can I ever lift my head or my hand before His presence again?” - -“Oh, my laddie! my man!” cried his wife, who was the mother of every -soul in trouble, “oh, my Claude! Are you so little a father, you with -your many bairns, that you do not know in your heart how He is looking -at you? ‘Such pity as a father hath unto His children dear.’ You are -just fevered and sick with trouble. You shut out your wife from you, and -now you would shut out your Lord from you.” - -“No,” he said, grasping her hand, “never again, Mary, never again. I am -weak as water, I cannot stand alone. I have judged others for less, far -less, than I myself have done.” - -“Well, let it be so,” said his wife, “you will know better another time. -Claude, you are just my bairn to-night. You will say your prayers and go -to your bed, and the Lord in heaven and me at your bedside, like a dream -it will all pass away.” - -He dropped down heavily upon his knees, and bent his head upon the -table. - -“Mary, I feel as if I could say nought but this: Depart from me, for I -am a sinful man, oh Lord.” - -“You know well,” she said, “the hasty man that Peter was, if ever he had -been taken at his word. And do you mind what was the answer? It was just -‘Follow me.’” - -“Father, forgive me. Master, forgive me,” he breathed through the hands -that covered his face, and then his voice broke out in the words of an -older faith, words which she understood but dimly, and which frightened -her with the mystery of an appeal into the unknown. _Kyrie Eleison_, -_Christ Eleison_, the man said, humbled to the very depths. - -The woman stood trembling over him not knowing how to follow. His voice -rolled forth low and intense, like the sound of an organ into the -silent room; hers faltered after in sobs inarticulate, terrified, -exalted, understanding nothing, comprehending all. - -This scene was scarcely ended when Elsie burst out singing over her -work, forgetting that there was any trouble in the world: to each its -time, and love through all. - -Mr. Buchanan was very much shaken with physical illness and weakness -next morning, than where there is nothing more healing for a spirit that -has been put to the question, as in the old days of the Inquisition, but -by rack and thumbscrew still more potent than these. His head ached, his -pulses fluttered. He felt as if he had been beaten, he said, not a nerve -in him but tingled; he could scarcely stand on his feet. His wife had -her way with him, which was sweet to her. She kept him sheltered and -protected in his study under her large and soft maternal wing. It was to -her as when one of her children was ill, but not too ill--rather -convalescent--in her hands to be soothed and caressed into recovery. -This was an immense and characteristic happiness to herself even in the -midst of her pain. In the afternoon after she had fed him with -nourishing meats, appropriate to his weakness, a visitor was announced -who startled them both. Mr. Morrison, the writer, sent up his name and a -request to have speech of Mr. Buchanan, if the minister were well enough -to receive him. There was a rapid consultation between the husband and -wife. - -“Are you fit for it, Claude?” - -“Yes, yes, let us get it over: but stay with me,” he said. - -Mrs. Buchanan went down to meet the man of business, and warn him of her -husband’s invalid condition. - -“He is a little low,” she said. “You will give no particular importance, -Mr. Morrison, to any despondent thing he may say.” - -“Not I, not I,” cried the cheerful man of business. “The minister has -his ill turns like the rest of us: but with less occasion than most of -us, I’m well aware.” - -Mrs. Buchanan stayed only long enough in the room to see that her -husband had drawn himself together, and was equal to the interview. She -had a fine sense of the proprieties, and perception, though she was so -little of a sensitive, of what was befitting. Morrison perceived with a -little surprise the minister’s alarmed glance after his wife, but for -his part was exceedingly glad to get rid of the feminine auditor. - -“I am glad,” he said, “to see you alone, if you are equal to business, -Mr. Buchanan, for I’ve something which is really not business to talk to -you about: that is to say, it’s a very bad business, just the mishap of -a silly woman if you’ll permit me to say so. She tells me she has -confided them to you already.” - -“Mrs. Mowbray?” said the minister. - -“Just Mrs. Mowbray. The day of Frank’s majority is coming on when all -must come to light, and in desperation, poor body, she sent for me. -Yon’s a silly business if you like--a foolish laddie without an idea in -his head--and a lightheaded woman with nothing but vanity and folly in -hers.” - -“Stop a little,” said Mr. Buchanan, in the voice which his _rôle_ of -invalid had made, half artificially, wavering, and weak; “we must not -judge so harshly. Frank, if he is not clever, is full of good feeling, -and as for his mother--it is easy for the wisest of us to deceive -ourselves about things we like and wish for--she thought, poor woman, it -was for the benefit of her boy.” - -“You are just too charitable,” said Morrison, with a laugh. “But let us -say it was that. It makes no difference to the result. A good many -thousands to the bad, that is all about it, and nothing but poverty -before them, if it were not for what she calls the Scotch property. The -Scotch property was to bear the brunt of everything: and now some idiot -or other has told her that the Scotch property is little to lippen to: -and that half St. Rule’s was in old Anderson’s debt----” - -“I have heard all that--I told her that at the utmost there were but a -few hundreds----” - -“Not a penny--not a penny,” said Morrison. “I had my full instructions: -and now here is the situation. She has been more foolish than it’s -allowable even for a lightheaded woman to be.” - -“You have no warrant for calling her lightheaded; so far as I know she -is an irreproachable woman as free of speck or stain----” - -“Bless us,” said the man of business, “you are awfully particular -to-day, Buchanan. I am not saying a word against her character: but -lightheaded, that is thoughtless and reckless, and fond of her pleasure, -the woman undoubtedly is: nothing but a parcel of vanities, and -ostentations, and show. Well, well! how it comes about is one thing, how -to mend it is another. We cannot let the poor creature be overwhelmed if -we can help it. She spent all her own money first, which, though the -height of folly, was still a sign of grace. And now she has been -spending Frank’s, and, according to all that appears, his English money -is very nearly gone, and there is nothing but the Scotch remaining.” - -“And the Scotch but little to lippen to, as you say, and everybody -says.” - -“That’s as it may be,” said Morrison, with a twinkle in his eye. “It’s -better than the English, anyway. She deserves to be punished for her -folly, but I have not the heart to leave her in the lurch. She’s sorry -enough now, though whether that is because she’s feared for exposure or -really penitent, I would not like to say. Anyway, when a woman trusts in -you to pull her out of the ditch, it’s hard just to steel your heart and -refuse: though maybe, in a moral point of view, the last would be well -justified and really the right thing to do. But I thought you and I -might lay our heads together and see which was best.” - -“There is that money of mine, Morrison.” - -“Hoots!” said the man of business, “what nonsense is that ye have got in -your head? There is no money of yours.” - -“Forgive me, but you must not put me down so,” said the minister. “I -have done wrong in not insisting before. The arrangement was that it -should be repaid, and I ought not to have allowed myself to be persuaded -out of it, I owed Mr. Anderson----” - -“Not a penny, not a penny. All cancelled by his special instructions at -his death.” - -“Morrison, this has been upon my mind for years. I must be quit of it -now.” He raised his voice with a shrill weakness in it. “My wife knows. -Where is my wife? I wish my wife to be present when we settle this -account finally. Open the door and call her. I must have Mary here.” - -“Well, she is a very sensible woman,” said Mr. Morrison, shrugging his -shoulders. He disapproved on principle, he said always, of the -introduction of women to matters they had nothing to do with, which was -the conviction of his period. But he reflected that Buchanan in his -present state was little better than a woman, and that the presence of -his wife might be a correction. He opened the door accordingly, and she -came out of her room in a moment, ready evidently for any call. - -“Mary, I wish you to be here while I tell Morrison, once for all, that I -must pay this money. I perhaps gave you a false idea when we talked of -it before. I made you believe it was a smaller sum than it was. I--I was -like the unjust steward--I took my bill and wrote fourscore.” - -“What is he meaning now, I wonder?” said Morrison to Mrs. Buchanan, with -a half-comic glance aside. “He is just a wee off his head with diseased -conscientiousness. I’ve met with the malady before, but it’s rare, I -must say, very rare. Well, come, out with it, Buchanan. What is this -about fourscore?” - -“You misunderstand me,” he cried. “I must demand seriousness and your -attention.” - -“Bless us, man, we’re not at the kirk,” Morrison said. - -The minister was very impatient. He dealt the table a weak blow, as he -sometimes did to the cushion of his pulpit. - -“Perhaps I did it on purpose,” he said, “perhaps it was -half-unconscious, I cannot tell; but I gave you to believe that my debt -was smaller than it really was. Morrison, I owed Mr. Anderson three -hundred pounds.” - -The tone of solemnity with which he spoke could scarcely have been more -impressive had he been reasoning, like St. Paul, of mercy, temperance, -and judgment to come. And he felt as if he were doing so: it was the -most solemn of truths he was telling against himself; the statement as -of a dying man. His wife felt it so, too, in a sympathy that disturbed -her reason, standing with her hand upon the back of his chair. Morrison -stood for a moment, overcome by the intensity of the atmosphere, opening -his mouth in an amazed gasp. - -“Three hundred pounds!” the minister repeated, deliberately, with a -weight of meaning calculated to strike awe into every heart. - -But the impression made upon his audience unfortunately did not last. -The writer stared and gasped, and then he burst into a loud guffaw. It -was irresistible. The intense gravity of the speaker, the exaltation of -his tone, the sympathy of his wife’s restrained excitement, and then the -words that came out of it all, so commonplace, so little conformable to -that intense and tragic sentiment--overwhelmed the man of common sense. -Morrison laughed till the tremulous gravity of the two discomposed him, -and made him ashamed of himself, though their look of strained and -painful seriousness almost brought back the fit when it was over. He -stopped all of a sudden, silenced by this, and holding his hand to his -side. - -“I beg your pardon, Mrs. Buchanan. It was just beyond me. Lord’s sake, -man, dinna look so awesome. I was prepared to hear it was thirty -thousand at the least.” - -“Thirty thousand,” said the minister, “to some people is probably less -than three hundred to me: but we cannot expect you to feel with us in -respect to that. Morrison, you must help us somehow to pay this money, -for we cannot raise it in a moment; but with time every penny shall be -paid.” - -“To whom?” said Morrison, quietly. - -“To whom? Are not you the man of business? To the estate, of course--to -the heir.” - -“Not to me, certainly,” said the lawyer. “I would be worthy to lose my -trust if I acted in contradiction to my client’s wishes in any such way. -I will not take your money, Buchanan. No! man, though you are the -minister, you are not a Pope, and we’re not priest-ridden in this -country. I’ll be hanged if you shall ride rough shod over my head. I -have my instructions, and if you were to preach at me till doomsday, -you’ll not change my clear duty. Pay away, if it’s any pleasure to you. -Yon wild woman, I dare to say, would snatch it up, or any siller you -would put within reach of her; but deil a receipt or acquittance or any -lawful document will you get from auld John Anderson’s estate, to which -you owe not a penny. Bless me, Mrs. Buchanan, you’re a sensible woman. -Can you not make him see this? You cannot want him to make ducks and -drakes of your bairns’ revenue. John Anderson was his leal friend, do -you think it likely he would leave him to be harried at a lawyer’s -mercy? Do you not see, with the instincts of my race, I would have put -you all to the horn years ago if it had been in my power?” he cried, -jumping suddenly up. “Bless me, I never made so long a speech in my -life. For goodsake, Buchanan, draw yourself together and give up this -nonsense, like a man.” - -“It is nonsense,” said the minister, who, during all this long speech, -had gone through an entire drama of emotions, “that has taken all the -pleasure for five long years and more out of my life.” - -“Oh, but, Claude, my man! you will mind I always said----” - -“Ye hear her? That’s a woman’s consolation,” said the minister, with a -short laugh, in which it need not be said he was extremely unjust. - -“It’s sound sense, anyway,” said Mr. Morrison, “so far as this fable of -yours is concerned. Are you satisfied now? Well, now that we’ve got -clear of that, I’ll tell you my news. The Scotch property--as they call -it, those two--has come out fine from all its troubles. What with good -investments and feus, and a variety of favourable circumstances, for -which credit to whom credit is due--I am not the person to speak--John -Anderson’s estate has nearly doubled itself since the good man was taken -away. He was just a simpleton in his neglect of all his chances, saying, -as he did--you must have heard him many a day--‘there will aye be enough -to serve my time.’ I am not saying it was wonderful--seeing the laddie -was all but a stranger--but he thought very, very little of his heir. -But you see it has been my business to see to the advantage of his -heir.” - -“Your behaviour to-day is not very like it, Morrison.” - -“Hoots!” said the man of business, “that’s nothing but your nonsense. I -can give myself the credit for never having neglected a real honest -opening. To rob or to fleece a neighbour was not in that line. I am -telling you I’ve neglected no real opening, and I will not say but that -the result is worth the trouble, and Frank Mowbray is a lucky lad. And -what has brought me here to-day--for I knew nothing of all this nonsense -of yours that has taken up our time--was just to ask your advice if -certain expedients were lawful for covering up this daft mother’s -shortcomings--certain expedients which I have been turning over in my -head.” - -“What is lawful I am little judge of,” said the minister, mournfully. “I -have shown you how very little I am to be trusted even for what is -right.” - -“Toots!” was the impatient reply. “I am not meaning the law of Scotland. -If I do not know that, the more shame to me.” It is another law I am -thinking of. When I’m in with the King in the house of Rimmon, and him -leaning on my shoulder, and the King bows down in the house of Rimmon, -and me to be neighbourlike I bow with him, is this permitted to thy -servant? You mind the text? That’s what I’ve come to ask. There may be -an intent to deceive that has no ill motive, and there may be things -that the rigid would call lies. I’ve no respect for her to speak of, -but she’s a woman: and if a man could shield a creature like that----” - -“I’m thinking,” said Mrs. Buchanan, “now that your own business is over, -Claude, and Mr. Morrison with his business to talk to you about, you -will want me no longer. Are you really as sure as you say, Mr. Morrison, -about the siller? You would not deceive him and me? It is not a lee as -you say, with the best of motives? for that I could not bide any more -than the minister. Give me your word before I go away.” - -“It is God’s truth,” said the lawyer, taking her hand. “As sure as -death, which is a solemn word, though it’s in every callant’s mouth.” - -“Then I take it as such,” she said, grasping his hand. “And, Claude, ye -have no more need of me.” - -But what the further discussion was between the two men, which Mrs. -Buchanan was so high-minded as not to wait to hear, I can tell no more -than she did. They had a long consultation; and when the lawyer took his -leave, Mr. Buchanan, with a strong step as if nothing had ever ailed -him, not only conducted him to the door but went out with him, walking -briskly up the street with a head as high as any man’s; which perhaps -was the consequence of his release, by Morrison’s energetic refusal, -from the burden which he had bound on his shoulders and hugged to his -bosom for so long; and certainly was the happy result of having his -thoughts directed towards another’s troubles, and thus finally diverted -from his own. - - - - -CHAPTER XXIII. - -THE LAST. - - -“Elsie,” said Mrs. Buchanan in the evening, when they were seated again -together at their work, at the same hour in which they had discussed and -settled on the previous night the necessary economies by which three -hundred pounds were to be scraped together in as many years. - -“Elsie, you will think I am going back of my word. But we are now seeing -clearer, papa and I. There will be no need for what we were thinking of. -I will keep on Betty who is a good lass on the whole, if she would get -sweethearts and nonsense out of her head--and my dear there will be no -reason why you should not go to the ball.” - -“Mother,” said Elsie, “is it Willie?” - -“No, it’s not Willie--it’s just the nature of events--Mr. Morrison he -will not hear a word of it. He says Mr. Anderson, who was a good man, -and a leal friend, and well I know would never have let harm come to -your father, had left full instructions. Mr. Morrison is a fine honest -man, but he is a little rough in his ways. He just insulted papa--and -said he might throw away his siller if he liked, but not to him, for he -would not receive it. And what is to be said after that? I always -thought----” - -“I would rather, far rather it had been paid! What am I caring about -balls or white hands. I would rather have worked them to the bone and -got it paid,” Elsie cried. - -“To whom,” replied her mother, with an unconscious copy of the lawyer’s -tone, “to yon silly woman that has nothing to do with it, to throw away -on her feathers and her millinery, and shame the auld man’s settled -plan? Your father was hard to move, but he was convinced at the last. -And what do you think,” she added, quickly, eager to abandon so -dangerous a subject in view of Elsie’s sudden excitement and glowing -eyes, “Frank Mowbray turns out to be a very lucky laddie--and Mr. -Morrison has as good as doubled his estate. What do you think of that? -He will be a rich man.” - -“Oh, I am glad to hear it,” cried Elsie with great indifference, “but, -mother, about this money. Oh would you not rather pay it and be done -with it, and wipe it out for ever and ever? What am I caring about -balls? It will be years and years before you need take any thought for -me. I would rather be of some use than go to the Queen’s balls, let -alone the Golf--and nobody that I am heeding would care a pin the less -for me if my hands were as red as Betty’s.” She looked at them with a -toss of her head, as she spoke, stretching them out in their smoothness -and softness. This was the point at which Elsie’s pride was touched. She -did not like to think of these small members becoming as red as Betty’s, -who, for her part, was perfectly pleased with her hands. - -“What were you meaning if I might ask about it being years and years -before we need take any thought for you?” - -Elsie was much startled by this question. She knew what she meant very -well, but she had not intended to betray to her mother, or any one, what -that hidden meaning was, and the words had come to her lips in the tide -of feeling without thought. She gave one hurried glance at her mother’s -face, herself crimson red from chin to brow. - -“I was meaning nothing,” she said. - -“That is not the way folk look when they mean nothing,” her mother said. - -“But it’s true. I meant just nothing, nothing! I meant I would want no -plenishing like Marion. I meant--that you need not take account of me, -or say, as I’ve heard you saying, ‘I must put this by for’--it used -always to be for Marion. You are not to think of me like that,” Elsie -cried. - -“And wherefore no? If I were not to think of you like that, I would be -an ill mother: and why you less than another? You are taking no whimsies -into your head, I hope, Elsie--for that is a thing I could not put up -with at all.” - -“I have no whimsies in my head, mother,” cried Elsie bending low over -her work. - -“You have something in it, whimsey or no,” said her mother severely, -“that is not known to me.” - -And there was a little relapse into silence and sewing for both. Elsie’s -breath came quick over her lengthened seam, the needle stumbled in her -hold and pricked her fingers. She cast about all around her desperately -for something to say. Indeed no--she had not meant anything, not -anything that could be taken hold of and discussed: though it was -equally true that she knew what she meant. How to reconcile these -things! but they were both true. - -“Mother,” she said, after five dreadful moments of silence, and assuming -a light tone which was very unlike her feelings. “Do you mind you told -me that if there was any way I could make it up to Frank--but now that -he’s to be so well off there will be no need of that any more.” - -“Were you ever disposed to make it up to Frank?” her mother said -quickly, taking the girl by surprise. - -“I never thought about it--I--might never have had any -occasion--I--don’t know what I could have--done,” Elsie replied, -faltering. - -“Because,” said Mrs. Buchanan in the same rapid tone, “it would just be -better than ever now. He will have a very good estate, and he’s a very -nice callant--kind and true, and not so silly as you might expect from -his upbringing. If that was your thought, Elsie, it would be far wiser -than I ever gave you credit for--and your father and me, we would never -have a word but good and blessing to say----” - -“Oh, mother,” cried Elsie, “you to say the like of that to me--because a -person was to have a good estate!” - -“And wherefore no? A good estate is a very good thing: and plenty of -siller, if it is not the salt of life--oh, my dear, many a time it gives -savour to the dish. Wersh, wersh without it is often the household -bread.” - -“It is not me,” cried Elsie, flinging high her head, “that would ever -take a man for his siller: I would rather have no bread at all. Just a -mouthful of cake,[A] and my freedom to myself.” - - [A] It may here be explained for the benefit of the Souther that cake - in the phraseology of old Scotland meant oat cake, in distinction from - the greater luxury of “loaf-bread:” so that the little princess who - suggested that the poor people who had no bread might eat cake, might - have been a reasonable and wise Scot, instead of the silly little - person we have all taken her to be. - -“I said there were whimsies in the lassie’s head,” said Mrs. Buchanan, -“it’s the new-fangled thing I hear that they are setting up themselves -against their natural lot. And what would you do with your freedom if -you had it, I would like to know? Freedom, quotha! and she a lassie, and -little over twenty. If you were not all fools at that age!” - -“I was meaning just my freedom--to bide at home, and make no change,” -said Elsie, a little abashed. - -“‘Deed there are plenty,” said Mrs. Buchanan, “that get that without -praying for’t. There are your aunties, two of them, Alison and -Kirsteen--the old Miss Buchanans, very respectable, well-living women. -Would you like to be like them? And Lizzie Aitken, she has let pass her -prime, and the Miss Wemysses that are settling down in their father’s -old house, just very respectable. If that is what you would like, Elsie, -you will maybe get it, and that without any force on Providence. They -say there are always more women than men in every country-side.” - -Elsie felt herself insulted by these ironical suggestions. She made no -answer, but went on at her work with a flying needle, as if it were a -matter of life and death. - -“But if that’s not to your mind,” Mrs. Buchanan added, “I would not take -a scorn at Frank. There is nothing to object to in him. If there was -anything to make up to him for, I would say again--make it up to him, -Elsie: but being just very well off as he is, there is another way of -looking at it. I never saw you object to him dangling after you when -nothing was meant. But in serious earnest he well just be a very good -match, and I would be easy in my mind about your future, if I saw -you----” - -“That you will never see me, mother,” cried Elsie, with hot tears, “for -his siller! I would rather die----” - -“It need not be altogether for his siller,” Mrs. Buchanan said, “and, -oh! if you but knew what a difference that makes. To marry a poor man -is just often like this. Your youth flies away fighting, and you grow -old before your time, with nothing but bills on every hand, bills for -your man, and bills for your bairns, hosen and shoes, meat and meal--and -then to put the lads and lassies out in the world when all’s done. Oh, -Elsie, the like of you! how little you know!” - -“You married a poor man yourself, mother,” the girl cried. - -“The better I’m fitted to speak,” said Mrs. Buchanan. “But,” she said, -putting down her work, and rising from her chair, “I married your -father, Elsie! and that makes all the difference,” she said with -dignity, as she went away. - -What was the difference it made? Elsie asked herself the question, -shaking back her hair from her face, and the tears from her eyes. Her -cheeks were so hot and flushed with this argument, that the drops from -her eyes boiled as they touched them. What made the difference? If ever -she married a man, she said to herself, he should be a man of whom she -would think as her mother did, that being _him_ was what made all the -difference. The image that rose before her mind was not, alas! of a man -like her father, handsome and dignified and suave, a man of whom either -girl or woman might be proud. She was not proud of his appearance, if -truth must be told: there were many things in him that did not please -her. Sometimes she was impatient, even vexed at his inaptitudes, the -unconscious failures of a man who was not by birth or even by early -breeding a gentleman. This thought stung her very sorely. Upon the sands -ploutering, as she said, in the salt water, his bonnet pushed back, his -shirt open at the neck, his coat hanging loosely on his shoulders! Elsie -would have liked to re-dress that apparition, to dust the yellow sand -from him and the little ridges of shattered shells which showed on his -rough clothes as they did on the sea-shore. But no hand could keep that -figure in order, even in a dream. And alas! he would be no placed -minister like her father, or like Marion’s husband, with a pleasant -manse and a kirk in which all men would do him honour. Alas, alas, no! -They did not reverence Johnny. They came plucking at him, crowding about -him, calling to him, the very littlest of them, the very poorest of -them, Elsie said to herself, to let them see the new beast! But at this -thought her heart melted into the infinite softness of that approval, -which is perhaps the most delightful sentiment of humanity, the approval -of those we love--our approval of them more exquisite still than their -approval of us. Elsie did not care the least for the new beast. She was -altogether unscientific. She did not see the good of it, any more than -the most ignorant. But when she thought of his genial countenance -beaming over the small, the poor, the ignorant, her heart swelled, and -she approved of him with all her soul. - -Elsie had no easy life during the remaining months of the summer. After -Frank Mowbray’s birthday, when all was settled, and he had begun to trim -up and brighten Mr. Anderson’s old house, which was to be his future -home, she had a great deal to bear from the members of her family, who -one and all supported Frank’s suit, which the young man lost no time in -making. He for himself would take no refusal, but came back and back -with a determination to be successful, which everybody said would -eventually carry the day: and each one in succession took up his cause. -All St. Rule’s indeed, it may be said, were partisans of Frank. What -ailed her at him, her friends said indignantly? who was Elsie Buchanan -that she should look for better than that? A fine fellow, a good income, -a nice house, and so near her mother! Girls who were going to India, or -other outlandish places, asked, with tears in their eyes, what she could -desire more? It was not as if there was any one else to disturb her -mind, they said: for by this time Ralph Beaton and the rest were all -drifting away to India and the Colonies to fulfil their fate: and to -think of Johnny Wemyss as lifting his eyes to the minister’s daughter, -was such a thing as no one could have believed. Marion came in expressly -from the country, with her three babies, to speak powerfully to the -heart of her sister. “You will regret but once, and that will be all -your life,” she said solemnly. And it has already been seen how her -mother addressed her on the subject. Rodie, too, made his wishes -distinctly known. - -“Why will you not take him?” he said; “he is as decent a chap as any in -the town. If you scorn him, very likely you will never get another: and -you must mind you will not always have me to take you about everywhere, -and to get your partners at the balls.” - -“You to get me partners!” cried Elsie, wildly indignant; “you are a -bonnie one! You just hang for your own partners on me; and as for taking -me to places, where do you ever take me? That was all ended long ago.” - -But things became still more serious for Elsie, when her father himself -came to a pause in front of her one day, with a grave face. - -“Elsie,” he said, “I hear it is in your power to make a young man’s -life, or to mar it; at least that is what he says to me.” - -“You will not put any faith in that, father. Who am I, that I should -either make or mar?” - -“I am tempted to think so myself,” he said, with a smile; “but at your -age people are seldom so wise. You are like your mother, my dear, and, I -doubt not, would be a tower of strength to your husband, as I have good -reason to say she has been; but that is not to say that any man has a -right to put the responsibility of his being to another’s charge. No, -no; I would not say that. But there is no harm in the lad, Elsie. He -has good dispositions. I would be at ease in my mind about your future, -if you could find it in your heart to trust it to him.” - -“Father,” cried Elsie, very earnestly, “I care no more about him than I -do for old Adam, your old caddie. Just the same, neither more nor less.” - -Her father laughed, and said that was not encouraging for Frank. - -“But, my dear,” he said, “they say a lassie’s mind is as light as air, -and blows this way and that way, like the turn of the tide.” - -“They may say what they like, father,” cried Elsie, with some -indignation. “If you think my mother is like that, then your daughter -can have no reason to complain.” - -“Bless me, no,” cried Mr. Buchanan; “your mother! that makes all the -difference.” - -These were the same words that Mrs. Buchanan had said. “As if because -she was my mother she was not a woman, and because he was my father he -was not a man,” said Elsie to herself; “and where is the difference?” -But she understood all the same. - -“I will not say another word,” said the minister. “If you care for him -no more than for old Adam, there is not another word to say; but I would -have been glad, on my own account, if you could have liked him, Elsie. -It would have been a compensation. No matter, no matter, we’ll say no -more.” - -Elsie would have been more touched if her father had not alluded to that -compensation. She had within herself a moment of indignation. “Me, a -compensation,” she cried to herself, “for your weary three hundred -pounds. It is clear to me papa does not think his daughter very muckle -worth, though he makes a difference for his wife!” - -While all this was going on in the front of affairs, another little -drama was proceeding underneath, in which Elsie was a far more -interested performer, though she had no acknowledged title to take part -in it at all. - -For great and astonishing things followed the discovery of the new -beast. Letters addressed to John Wemyss, Esq., letters franked by great -names, which the people in the post-office wondered over, and which were -the strangest things in the world to be sent to one of the student’s -lodgings, near the West Port, that region of humility--kept coming and -going all the summer through, and when the time approached for the next -College Session, and red gowns began to appear about the streets, Johnny -Wemyss in his best clothes appeared one day in the minister’s study, -whither most people in St. Rule’s found their way one time or other: for -Mr. Buchanan, though, as we have seen, not quite able always to guide -himself, was considered a famous adviser in most of the difficulties of -life. Johnny was shamefaced and diffident, blushing like a girl, and -squeezing his hat so tightly between his hands, that it presented -strange peculiarities of shape when it appeared in the open air once -more. Johnny, too, was by way of asking the minister’s advice--that is -to say, he had come to tell him what he meant to do, with some anxiety -to know what impression the remarks he was about to make might have upon -Elsie’s father, but no thought of changing his resolutions for anything -the minister might say. Johnny told how his discovery had brought him -into communication with great scientific authorities in London, and that -he had been advised to go there, where he would find books and -instruction that might be of great use to him, and where he was told -that his interests would be looked after by some persons of great -influence and power. Mr. Buchanan listened with a smile, much amused to -hear that the discovery of an unknown kind of “jeely fish” could give a -man a claim for promotion: but when he heard that Johnny intended to go -to London, he looked grave and shook his head. - -“I am afraid that will very much interfere,” he said, “with what seems -to me far more important, your studies for your profession.” - -“Sir,” said Johnny, “I’m afraid I have not made myself very clear. I -never was very much set on the Church. I never thought myself good -enough. And then I have no interest with any patron, and I would have -little hope of a kirk.” - -The minister frowned a little, and then he smiled. “That mood of mind,” -he said, “is more promising than any other. I would far rather see a -young lad that thought himself not good enough, than one that was over -sure. And as for interest, an ardent student and a steady character, -especially when he has brains, as you have, will always find interest to -push him on.” - -“You are very kind to say so, Mr. Buchanan,” said Johnny; “but,” he -added, “I have just a passion for the beasts.” - -“Sir,” said the minister, looking grave, “no earthly passion should come -in the way of the service of God.” - -“Unless, as I was thinking,” said Johnny, “that might maybe be for the -service of God too.” - -But this the minister was so doubtful of--and perhaps with some reason, -for the discoverers of jelly fishes are not perhaps distinguished as -devout men--that the interview ended in a very cool parting, Mr. -Buchanan even hinting that this was a desertion of his Master’s -standard, and that the love of beasts was an unhallowed passion. And -Johnny disappeared from St. Rule’s shortly after, and was long absent, -and silence closed over his name. In those days perhaps people were less -accustomed to frequent letters than we are, and could live without them, -for the most anxious heart has to acknowledge the claim of the -impossible. Johnny Wemyss, however, wrote to Rodie now and then, and -Elsie had the advantage of many things which Rodie never understood at -all in these epistles. And sometimes a newspaper came containing an -account of some of Mr. Wemyss’s experiments, or of distinctions won by -him, which electrified his old friends. For one thing, he went upon a -great scientific voyage, and came home laden with discoveries, which -were, it appeared, though no one in St. Rule’s could well understand -how, considered of great importance in the scientific world. And from -that time his future was secure. It was just after his return from this -expedition, that one day there came a letter franked by a great man, -whose name on the outside of an envelope was of value as an autograph, -openly and boldly addressed to Miss Elsie Buchanan, The Manse, St. -Rule’s. It was written very small, on a sheet of paper as long as your -arm, and it poured out into Elsie’s heart the confidences of all those -silent years. She showed it to her mother, and Mrs. Buchanan gasped and -could say no word. She took it to her father, and the minister cried -“Johnny Wemyss!” in a voice like a roar of astonishment and fury. - -“Do you mean this has been going on all the time,” he cried, “and not a -word said?” - -“Nothing has been going on,” said Elsie, pale but firm. - -“Oh, it was settled, I suppose, before he went away.” - -“Never word was spoken either by him or me,” said Elsie; “but I will not -say but what we knew each other’s meaning, I his, and he mine,” she -added, softly, after a pause. - -There was a good deal of trouble about it one way and another, but you -may believe that neither father nor mother, much less Rodie and John, -though the one was a W. S., and the other an advocate, could interfere -long with a wooing like this. - - -THE END. - - - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Unjust Steward, by Margaret Oliphant - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE UNJUST STEWARD *** - -***** This file should be named 55166-0.txt or 55166-0.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/5/5/1/6/55166/ - -Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed -Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was -produced from images available at The Internet Archive) - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions -will be renamed. - -Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no -one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation -(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without -permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or -re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included -with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org/license - - -Title: The Unjust Steward - or The Minister's Debt - -Author: Margaret Oliphant - -Release Date: July 21, 2017 [EBook #55166] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE UNJUST STEWARD *** - - - - -Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed -Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was -produced from images available at The Internet Archive) - - - - - - -</pre> - -<hr class="full" /> - -<div class="figcenter"> -<img src="images/cover.jpg" width="299" height="500" alt="" title="" /> -</div> - -<h1>THE UNJUST STEWARD</h1> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_001" id="page_001"></a>{1}</span></p> - -<p class="cb"><small>OR</small><br /><br /> - -<big>THE MINISTER’S DEBT</big><br /><br /> - -<small>BY</small><br /><br /> - -MRS. OLIPHANT<br /><br /><br /> - -<img src="images/colophon.jpg" -alt="" -width="130" -/><br /><br /> -PHILADELPHIA<br /> - -J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY<br /> -1896<br /> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_002" id="page_002"></a>{2}</span> -<small> class="c"<span class="smcap">Copyright, 1896,<br /> -by<br /> -J. B. Lippincott Company.</span> -<br /><br /> -<span class="smcap">Electrotyped and Printed by J. B. Lippincott Company, Philadelphia, -U.S.A.</span></small></p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_003" id="page_003"></a>{3}</span> </p> - -<p class="cbded"> -DEDICATED TO DENNY<br /> -<br /> -1896<br /> -</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_004" id="page_004"></a>{4}</span> </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_005" id="page_005"></a>{5}</span> </p> - -<h2><a name="CONTENTS" id="CONTENTS"></a>CONTENTS.</h2> - -<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary=""> - -<tr><td><small>CHAPTER</small></td><td> </td> -<td class="rt"><small>PAGE</small></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="rt" valign="top"><a href="#CHAPTER_I">I.</a></td><td>—A SUDDEN ALARM</td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_007">7</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="rt" valign="top"><a href="#CHAPTER_II">II.</a></td><td>—A FRIEND IN NEED</td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_021">21</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="rt" valign="top"><a href="#CHAPTER_III">III.</a></td><td>—AFTER THE FUNERAL</td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_034">34</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="rt" valign="top"><a href="#CHAPTER_IV">IV.</a></td><td>—“TAKE NOW THY BILL AND WRITE FIFTY”</td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_047">47</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="rt" valign="top"><a href="#CHAPTER_V">V.</a></td><td>—MARION AND ELSIE</td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_059">59</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="rt" valign="top"><a href="#CHAPTER_VI">VI.</a></td><td>—A HOUSEHOLD CONTROVERSY</td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_073">73</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="rt" valign="top"><a href="#CHAPTER_VII">VII.</a></td><td>—THE FIRST MARRIAGE IN THE FAMILY</td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_086">86</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="rt" valign="top"><a href="#CHAPTER_VIII">VIII.</a></td><td>—A NEW FACTOR</td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_099">99</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="rt" valign="top"><a href="#CHAPTER_IX">IX.</a></td><td>—MAN AND WIFE</td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_113">113</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="rt" valign="top"><a href="#CHAPTER_X">X.</a></td><td>—BROTHER AND SISTER</td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_126">126</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="rt" valign="top"><a href="#CHAPTER_XI">XI.</a></td><td>—THE GROWING-UP OF THE BAIRNS</td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_139">139</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="rt" valign="top"><a href="#CHAPTER_XII">XII.</a></td><td>—THE MOWBRAYS</td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_153">153</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="rt" valign="top"><a href="#CHAPTER_XIII">XIII.</a></td><td>—PLAINTIFF OR PENITENT?</td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_166">166</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="rt" valign="top"><a href="#CHAPTER_XIV">XIV.</a></td><td>—ANOTHER AGENT</td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_179">179</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="rt" valign="top"><a href="#CHAPTER_XV">XV.</a></td><td>—FRANK’S OPERATIONS</td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_191">191</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="rt" valign="top"><a href="#CHAPTER_XVI">XVI.</a></td><td>—THE UNJUST STEWARD ONCE MORE</td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_205">205</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="rt" valign="top"><a href="#CHAPTER_XVII">XVII.</a></td><td>—THE POSITION OF ELSIE</td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_219">219</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="rt" valign="top"><a href="#CHAPTER_XVIII">XVIII.</a></td><td>—JOHNNY WEMYSS</td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_233">233</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="rt" valign="top"><a href="#CHAPTER_XIX">XIX.</a></td><td>—A CATASTROPHE</td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_246">246</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="rt" valign="top"><a href="#CHAPTER_XX">XX.</a></td><td>—CONFESSION</td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_260">260</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="rt" valign="top"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXI">XXI.</a></td><td>—HOW TO SET IT RIGHT</td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_273">273</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="rt" valign="top"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXII">XXII.</a></td><td>—IN THE STUDY</td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_284">284</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="rt" valign="top"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIII">XXIII.</a></td><td>—THE LAST</td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_298">298</a></td></tr> -</table> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_006" id="page_006"></a>{6}</span> </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_007" id="page_007"></a>{7}</span> </p> - -<h1>THE UNJUST STEWARD;<br /><br /> -<small><small>OR, THE</small></small><br /><br /> -<small>MINISTER’S DEBT.</small></h1> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a>CHAPTER I.<br /><br /> -<small>A SUDDEN ALARM.</small></h2> - -<p><span class="smcap">Elsie</span> and Roderick Buchanan were the son and daughter, among a number of -others, of the Rev. George Buchanan, a minister much esteemed in the -city of St. Rule, and occupying a high place among the authorities and -influential personages of that place. They were members of a large -family, and not important members, being the youngest. It is true that -they were not two boys or two girls, but a girl and boy; but being so, -they were as nearly inseparable as a boy and girl could be. They were -called in the family the Twins, though there was quite a year, a year -and a day as in a fairy tale, between them. It was the girl who was the -elder of the two, which, perhaps, accounted for the fact that they were -still the same height as well as so very like each other that in their -infancy it was scarcely possible to know them<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_008" id="page_008"></a>{8}</span> apart, so that the name -of the Twins was quite appropriate. Elsie was fourteen, and Roderick, -better known as Rodie, according to the Scotch love of diminutives, just -thirteen. Up to this age, their lessons and their amusements had gone on -together,—the girls in St. Rule’s, from the beginning of time, having -been almost as athletic as the boys, and as fond of the links and the -harbour, while the old Scotch fashion of training them together had not -yet given way before the advancing wave of innovation, which has so much -modified education in Scotland. They were in the same class, they read -the same books, they had the same lessons to prepare. Elsie was a little -more diligent, Rodie more strong in his Latin, which was considered -natural for a boy. They helped each other mutually, he being stronger in -the grammar, she more “gleg” at construing. She went all wrong in her -tenses, but jumped at the meaning of a thing in a way that sometimes -astonished her brother. In this way, they were of great assistance to -each other in their school life.</p> - -<p>The other side of life, the amusements and games, were not nearly of so -much importance, even with children, then as now. It was the object of -his elders and masters rather to curb Rodie’s enthusiasm for football -than to stimulate it, notwithstanding his high promise as a player; and -the gentlemen who played golf were exceedingly impatient of laddies on -the links; and as for girls presuming to show their faces<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_009" id="page_009"></a>{9}</span> there, would -have shown their disapprobation very pointedly; so that, except for a -few “holes” surreptitiously manufactured in a corner (even the Ladies’ -Links being as yet non-existent), the youngsters found little -opportunity of cultivating that now all-important game. They turned out, -however, sometimes early, very early, of a morning, or late in the -afternoon, and in their hurried performances, Elsie as yet was almost as -good as her brother, and played up to him steadily, understanding his -game, when they two of a summer evening, when all the club was at -dinner, and nobody about to interfere, played together in a single. -Lawn-tennis was still far in the future, and it had not been given to -the children to do more than stand afar off and admire at the -performance of the new game called croquet, which had just been set up -by an exclusive society on the Castle Green. Who were the little -Buchanans to aspire to take part in such an Olympian contest among the -professors and their ladies? They looked on occasionally from a pinnacle -of the ruins, and privately mocked between themselves at the stiffness -of a great man’s learned joints, or the mincing ways of the ladies, -sending confusing peals of laughter over the heads of the players at any -mishap, till the indignant company used the rudest language in respect -to the Buchanan bairns, along, it must be allowed, with the Beaton -bairns and the Seaton bairns, and several more scions of the best -families, and threatened to put them out of the Castle ruins altogether: -though<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_010" id="page_010"></a>{10}</span> everybody knew this was a vain threat, and impossible to carry -out. It was strictly forbidden that these young people should ever -adventure themselves in a boat, the coast being so dangerous, a -prohibition which Elsie did not resent, having distinguished herself as -a very bad sailor, but against which Rodie kicked with all his might. -The reader will therefore see that they were not encouraged to spend -their strength in athletics, which is so much the custom now.</p> - -<p>Perhaps this encouraged in them the delight in books which they had -shown from a very early age. It was always possible to keep the Twins -quiet with a story-book, their elders said, though I confess that Rodie -began to show symptoms of impatience with Elsie’s books, and unless he -got a story “of his own kind,” was no longer so still and absorbed as in -early days. The stories he loved, which were “of his own kind,” were, I -need not say, tales of adventure, which he was capable of reading over -and over again till he knew by heart every one of the Crusoe-like -expedients of his seafaring or land-louping heroes. Elsie had a weakness -for girl’s stories, full of devotion and self-abnegation, and in which -little maidens of her own age set all the world right, which perhaps, -naturally, did not appeal to Rodie. But there was one series which never -failed in its attraction for both. In Mr. Buchanan’s library there was a -set of the <i>Waverleys</i>, such as formed part of the best of the -plenishing for a new household in those days when they were but<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_011" id="page_011"></a>{11}</span> recent -publications, as it still continues we hope to do in every house which -desires to fortify itself against the tedium of the years. The children -were never tired of <i>Ivanhoe</i> and <i>Quentin Durward</i>, and the <i>Fair Maid -of Perth</i>. Indeed, there was not one of them that had not its lasting -charm, though perhaps the preponderance of a lassie in the <i>Heart of -Midlothian</i>, for instance, dulled Rodie’s enthusiasm a little; while -Elsie, more catholic, was as profoundly interested in Harry Bertram’s -Adventures, and followed Rowland Græam through all that happened in the -Castle of Lochleven, with as warm interest as heart could desire. They -thought, if that wildly presumptuous idea could be entertained, that Sir -Walter was perhaps mistaken about bloody Claverhouse, but that, no -doubt, was owing to their natural prejudices and breeding. One of their -most characteristic attitudes was over one of these books (it was the -edition in forty-eight volumes, with the good print and vignettes on the -title-pages), spread out between them (they broke all the backs of his -books, their father complained) their heads both bent over the page, -with faint quarrels arising now and then that Elsie read too fast, and -turned the page before Rodie was ready, or that Rodie read too slow and -kept his sister waiting, which furnished a little mutual grievance that -ran through all the reading, manifested now and then by a sudden stroke -of an elbow, or tug at a page.</p> - -<p>The place in which they chiefly pursued their studies<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_012" id="page_012"></a>{12}</span> was a little -round corner, just big enough to hold them, which adjoined their -father’s study, and which, like that study, was lined with books. It was -really a small turret, the relic of some older building which had been -tacked to the rambling house, old-fashioned enough in its roomy -irregularity, but not nearly so old as the little ashen-coloured tower, -pale as with the paleness of extreme old age, which gave it distinction, -and afforded a very quaint little adjunct to the rooms on that side. -There was scarcely more than room enough in it for these two to sit, -sometimes on an old and faded settle, sometimes on the floor, as the -humour seized them. They were on the floor, as it happened, at the -special moment which I am about to describe. The inconvenience of this -retreat was that it was possible from that retirement to hear whatever -might be said in the study, so that the most intimate concerns of the -family were sometimes discussed by the father and mother in the hearing -of these two little creatures, themselves unseen. There was nothing in -this to blame them for, for it was well known that the turret was their -haunt, and Mr. Buchanan, when reminded of it by some little scuffling or -exchange of affectionate hostilities, would sometimes be moved to turn -them out, as disturbing his quiet when he was busy with his sermon. But -in many other cases their presence was forgotten, and there were not -many secrets in the innocent household. On the other hand, Elsie and -Rodie were usually far too much occupied with their book to pay<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_013" id="page_013"></a>{13}</span> any -attention to what the rather tedious discussions of father and -mother—usually about money, or about Willie and Marion the two eldest, -who were about to be sent out in the world, or other insignificant and -long-winded questions of that description—might be about.</p> - -<p>And I cannot tell for what exquisite reason it was, that on this -particular day their minds were attracted to what was going on in the -study; I think they must have been reading some scene in which the -predominance of lassies (probably the correspondence of Miss Julia -Mannering, what I have always felt disposed to skip) had lessened -Rodie’s interest, but which Elsie, much distracted by the consciousness -of his rebellion, but for pride of her own sex pretending to go -carefully through, yet was only half occupied with, occasioned this -openness of their joint minds to impression. At all events, they both -heard their mother’s sudden entrance, which was hurried indeed, and also -flurried, as appeared a thing not quite common with her. They heard her -come in with a rapid step, and quick panting breath, as if she had run -up-stairs. And “William,” she said, standing by the writing-table, they -felt sure, which was also a usual thing for her to do—“William, have -you heard that old Mr. Anderson is very bad to-day, and not expected to -live?”</p> - -<p>“Old Mr. Anderson!” he said, in a surprised and troubled tone.</p> - -<p>“So they say. The Lord help us, what shall we do?<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_014" id="page_014"></a>{14}</span> Willie’s outfit just -paid for, and not a penny to the fore. Oh, my poor man!”</p> - -<p>“It’s very serious news,” their father said; “but let us hope that both -for his sake and our own it may not be true.”</p> - -<p>“Ill news is aye true,” said Mrs. Buchanan, with a sound of something -like a sob.</p> - -<p>Why should mamma be so troubled about old Mr. Anderson, the children -said to themselves, giving each other a look?</p> - -<p>“That is just want of faith, my dear,” he replied.</p> - -<p>“Oh, I’ve no doubt it’s want of faith! it’s all in God’s hands, and He -can bring light out of darkness, I know; but oh! William, it’s not -always that He thinks fit to do that! You know as well as me. And if -this time it should not be His will?”</p> - -<p>“Mary,” he said, “let us not forestall the evil; perhaps it will never -come; perhaps there will be a way out of it—at the worst we must just -bear it, my dear.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, I know that, I know that!” she cried, with a sound of tears in her -voice. “You gave your word to pay it if he died, immediately thereafter, -that there might be no talking. Wasn’t that the bargain?”</p> - -<p>“That was the bargain,” he said.</p> - -<p>“But we never thought it was to come like this, at the worst moment, -just after the siller is gone for Willie’s outfit.”</p> - -<p>“Mary, Mary, it is worse for him than for us.”<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_015" id="page_015"></a>{15}</span></p> - -<p>“Do you think so, do you think so?” she cried, “and you a minister! I do -not think that. He is an old man, and a good man, and if all we believe -is true, it will be a happy change for him. Who has he to leave behind -him? Na, he will be glad to go. But us with our young family! Oh, the -power of that filthy siller; but for that, what happier folk could be, -William, than just you and me?”</p> - -<p>“We must be thankful for that, Mary,” said the minister, with a quiver. -“We might have had worse things than the want of money; we might have -had sickness or trouble in our family, and instead of that they’re all -well, and doing well.”</p> - -<p>“Thank God for that!” mamma said, fervently, and then there was a pause.</p> - -<p>“I will have to go at once to the man of business, and tell him,” father -said; “that was in the bargain. There was no signing of paper, but I was -to go and tell; that was part of the bargain.”</p> - -<p>“And a very hard part,” his wife cried, with a long sigh. “It is like -sharpening the sword to cut off your own head. But, maybe,” she said, -with a little revival of courage, “Mr. Morrison is not a hard man; maybe -he will give you time.”</p> - -<p>“Maybe our old friend will pull through,” papa said, slowly.</p> - -<p>“That would be the best of all,” she said, but not in a hopeful tone. -And presently they heard her shut the door of the study, and go -down-stairs again, with<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_016" id="page_016"></a>{16}</span> something very different from the flying step -with which she came.</p> - -<p>The children did not stir, they did not even turn the leaf; they felt -all at once that it was better that their presence there should not be -known. They had heard such consultations before, and sometimes had been -auditors of things they were not desired to hear; but they had never, -they thought, heard anything so distinctly before, nor anything that was -of so much importance. They were very much awe-stricken to hear of this -thing that troubled father so, and made mother cry, without -understanding very well what it was—old Mr. Anderson’s illness, and -Willie’s outfit, and something about money, were all mixed up in their -minds; but the relations between the one and the other were not -sufficiently clear.</p> - -<p>Presently they heard papa get up and begin to walk about the room. He -did this often when he was deep in thought, composing his sermon, and -then he would often say over and over his last sentence by way of -piecing it on, they supposed to the next. So that it did not trouble, -but rather reassured them, to hear him saying something to himself, -which gave them the idea that he had returned to his work, and was no -longer so much disturbed about this new business. When they heard him -say, “no signing of papers, no signing of papers, but to go and tell,” -they were somewhat disturbed, for that did not sound like a sermon. But, -presently, he sat down again and drew a book towards<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_017" id="page_017"></a>{17}</span> him, and they -could hear him turning over the leaves. It was, there could be no doubt, -the large Bible—large because it was such big print, for father’s eyes -were beginning to go—which always lay on his table. He turned over the -leaves as they had so often heard him doing; no doubt it was some -reference he was looking up for his sermon. He must have found what he -wanted very soon, for there was a little silence, and then they heard -him say, with great emphasis—“Then the Lord commended the unjust -steward.” He said it very slowly, pausing upon almost every word. It was -the way he said over his text when he was pondering over it, thinking -what he was to say. Then he began to read. It was to be a long text this -time; Rodie tried to whisper in his sister’s ear, but Elsie stopped him, -quietly, with emphatic signs and frowns.</p> - -<p>“He called every one of his Lord’s debtors and said unto the first, How -much owest thou unto my Lord? And he said an hundred measures of oil. -And he said unto him, Take thy bill and sit down quickly and write -fifty.” Then there was another pause. And again father spoke, so -clearly, with such a distinct and emphatic voice that they thought he -was speaking to them, and looked at each other fearfully. “The Lord -commended the unjust steward.” There was something awful in his tone: -did he mean this for them, to reprove them? But they had done nothing, -and if the Lord commended that man, surely there could be nothing to be -so severe upon.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_018" id="page_018"></a>{18}</span></p> - -<p>Elsie and Rodie missed everything that was pleasant that afternoon. It -was thought they were on the hills, or on the sands, and nobody knew -they were shut up there in the turret, now thoroughly alarmed, and -terrified to change their position, or make themselves audible in any -way, or to turn a leaf of their book, or to move a finger. In all their -experience—and it was considerable—father had never been like this -before. After a while, he began again, and read over the whole parable: -and this he repeated two or three times, always ending in that terrible -tone, which sounded to the children like some awful sentence, “The Lord -commended the unjust steward”—then they would hear him get up again, -and pace about the room, saying over and over those last words; finally, -to their unspeakable relief, he opened the door, and went slowly -down-stairs, so slowly that they sat still, breathless, for two minutes -more, until his footsteps had died away.</p> - -<p>Then the two children sprang up from their imprisonment, and stretched -their limbs, which were stiff with sitting on the floor. They rushed out -of the room as quickly as possible, and got out into the garden, from -whence there was an exit toward the sea. The one thing which, without -any consultation, they were both agreed upon, was to keep out of sight -of father and mother, so that nobody might divine in what way they had -been spending the afternoon. They did not, however, say much to each -other about<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_019" id="page_019"></a>{19}</span> it. When they had got quite clear, indeed, of all possible -inspection, and were out upon the east sands, which were always their -resort when in disgrace or trouble, Rodie ventured to hazard an opinion -on the situation.</p> - -<p>“Papa’s text is an awfu’ kittle one to-day,” he said. “I wonder if he’ll -ding it out.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, whisht!” said Elsie, “yon’s not his text; he was never like that -before.”</p> - -<p>“Then what is it?” said Rodie; but this was a question to which she -would give no reply.</p> - -<p>As they returned home, towards the twilight, they passed old Mr. -Anderson’s house, a large, old-fashioned mansion in the High Street, and -gazed wistfully at the lights which already appeared in the upper -windows, though it was not dark, and which looked strange and alarming -to them as if many people were about, and much going on in this usually -silent house.</p> - -<p>“Does he need so many candles to die by?” said Rodie to his sister.</p> - -<p>“Oh, perhaps he is better, and it’s for joy,” said Elsie, taking a more -hopeful view.</p> - -<p>Their father came out from the door, as they gazed, awe-stricken, from -the other side of the street. His head was sunk upon his breast; they -had never seen him so cast down before. His aspect, and the fact that he -passed them without seeing them, had a great effect upon the children. -They went home very quietly, and stole into the house without making any -of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_020" id="page_020"></a>{20}</span> familiar noises that usually announced their arrival. However, -it cheered them a little to find that their mother was very busy about -Willie’s outfit, and that their eldest sister Marion was marking all his -new shirts in her fine writing, with the small bottle of marking ink, -and the crow quill. The interest of this process and the pleasure of -getting possession of the hot iron, which stamped that fine writing into -a vivid black, gave a salutary diversion to Elsie’s thoughts. As for -Rodie, he was very hungry for his supper, which had an equally salutary -effect.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_021" id="page_021"></a>{21}</span></p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II.<br /><br /> -<small>A FRIEND IN NEED.</small></h2> - -<p><span class="smcap">Mr. Buchanan</span>, the minister of St. Leonard’s Church, was a member of a -poor, but well-connected family in the West of Scotland, to which -district, as everybody knows, that name belongs; and it is not to be -supposed that he came to such advancement as a church in a university -town all at once. He had married early the daughter of another minister -in Fife, and it was partly by the interest procured by her family, and -partly by the great reputation he had attained as a preacher, that he -had been promoted to his present charge, which was much more important -and influential than a mere country parish. But a succession of -flittings from manse to manse, even though each new transfer was a -little more important than the previous one, is hard upon a poor -clergyman’s purse, though it may be soothing to his self-esteem; and St. -Leonard’s, though St. Rule was an important port, had not a very large -stipend attached to it. Everybody dwelt upon the fact that it was a most -important post, being almost indeed attached to the university, and with -so large a sphere of influence over the students. But influence is a -privilege and payment in itself, or<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_022" id="page_022"></a>{22}</span> is supposed to be, and cannot be -made into coin of the realm, or even pound notes, which are its -equivalent. Mr. Buchanan himself was gratified, and he was solemnised, -and felt his responsibility as a power for good over all those young men -very deeply, but his wife may be forgiven, if she sighed occasionally -for a few more tangible signs of the importance of his post. On the -contrary, it led them into expenses to which a country minister is not -tempted. They had to take their share in the hospitalities of the place, -to entertain strangers, to give as seldom as possible, but still -periodically, modest dinner-parties, a necessary return of courtesy to -the people who invited them. Indeed, Mrs. Buchanan was like most women -in her position, the soul of hospitality. It cost her a pang not to -invite any lonely person, any young man of whom she could think that he -missed his home, or might be led into temptation for want of a cheerful -house to come to, or motherly influence over him. She, too, had her -sphere of influence; it hurt her not to exercise it freely. Indeed, she -did exercise it, and was quite unable often to resist the temptation of -crowding the boys up at dinner or supper, in order to have a corner for -some <i>protégé</i>. “It was a privilege,” she said, but unfortunately it was -an expensive one, plain though these repasts were. “Oh, the siller!” -this good woman would say, “if there was only a little more of that, how -smoothly the wheels would run.”<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_023" id="page_023"></a>{23}</span></p> - -<p>The consequence of all this, however, of the frequent removals, of the -lapses into hospitality, the appearances that had to be kept up, and, -finally, the number of the family, had made various hitches in the -family progress. Settling in St. Rule’s, where there was no manse, and -where a house had to be taken, and new carpets and curtains to be got, -not to speak of different furniture than that which had done so very -well in the country, had been a great expense; and all those changes -which attend the setting out of young people in the world had begun. For -Marion, engaged to another young minister, and to be married as soon as -he got a living, there was the plenishing to think of, something more -than the modern trousseau, a provision which included all the household -linen of the new house; and, in short, as much as the parents could do -to set the bride forth in a becoming and liberal manner. And Willie, as -has been told, had his outfit for India to procure. These were the days -before examinations, when friends—it was a kindly habit superseded now -by the changed customs of life—put themselves to great trouble to -further the setting out in life of a clergyman’s sons. And William -Buchanan had got a writership, which is equivalent, I believe, to an -appointment in the Civil Service, by the exertions of one of his -father’s friends. The result of these two desirable family events, the -provision for life of two of its members, though the very best things -that could have happened, and much rejoiced over in the family,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_024" id="page_024"></a>{24}</span> brought -with them an appalling prospect for the father and mother when they met -in private conclave, to consider how the preliminaries were to be -accomplished. Where were Willie’s outfit and Marion’s plenishing to come -from? Certainly not out of the straightened stipend of the Kirk of St. -Leonard, in the city of St. Rule. Many anxious consultations had ended -in this, that money must be borrowed in order to make the good fortune -of the children available—that is to say, that the parents must put -themselves under a heavy yoke for the greater part of their remaining -life, in order that the son and the daughter might make a fair and equal -start with their compeers. It is, let us thank heaven, as common as the -day that such sacrifices should be made, so common that there is no -merit in them, nor do the performers in the majority of cases think of -them at all except as simple necessities, the most everyday duties of -life. It was thus that they appeared to the Buchanans. They had both -that fear and horror of debt which is, or was, the accompaniment of a -limited and unelastic income with most reasonable people. They dreaded -it and hated it with a true instinct; it gave them a sense of shame, -however private it was, and that it should be betrayed to the world that -they were <i>in debt</i> was a thing horrible to them. Nevertheless, nothing -remained for them but to incur this dreadful reproof. They would have to -pay it off slowly year by year; perhaps the whole of their remaining -lives would be overshadowed by this, and all<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_025" id="page_025"></a>{25}</span> their little indulgences, -so few, so innocent, would have to be given up or curtailed. The -prospect was as dreadful to them—nay, more dreadful—than ruin and -bankruptcy are to many nowadays. The fashion in these respects has very -much changed. It is perhaps the result of the many misfortunes in the -landed classes, the collapse of agriculture, the fall of rents; but -certainly in our days the confession of poverty is no longer a shame; it -is rather the fashion; and debts sit lightly on many shoulders. The -reluctance to incur them, the idea of discredit involved in them is -almost a thing extinguished and gone.</p> - -<p>When Mr. Buchanan set out one black morning on the dreadful enterprise -of borrowing money, his heart was very sore, and his countenance -clouded. He was a man of a smiling countenance on ordinary occasions. He -looked now as if disgrace had overtaken him, and nothing but despair was -before him. It was not that he had an evil opinion of human nature. He -had, perhaps, notwithstanding what it is now the fashion to call his -Calvinistic creed, almost too good an opinion of human nature. It has -pleased the literary class in all times, to stigmatise the Calvinistic -creed as the origin of all evil. I, for one, am bound to say that I have -not found it to be so, perhaps because dogmatical tenets hold, after -all, but a small place in human hearts, and that the milk of human -kindness flows independent of all the formal rules of theology. Mr. -Buchanan was no doubt a Calvinist, and set his hand<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_026" id="page_026"></a>{26}</span> unhesitatingly to -all the standards. But he was a man who was for ever finding out the -image of God in his fellow men, and cursing was neither on his lips nor -in his heart. He did not religiously doubt his fellow creature or -condemn him. The tremour, the almost despair, the confusion of face with -which he set out to borrow money was not because of any dark judgment on -other men. It was the growth of that true sense of honour, exaggerated -till it became almost a defect, which his Scotch traditions and his -narrow means combined to foster in him. An honourable rich man may -borrow without scruple, for there is no reason in his mind why he should -not pay. But to an honourable poor man it is the thing most dreadful in -the world, for he knows all the difficulties, the almost impossibility -of paying, the chance of being exposed to the world in his inmost -concerns, the horror of ruin and a roup, the chance of injuring another -man, and dying under the shame of indebtedness, all these miseries were -in Mr. Buchanan’s mind when he went out on his terrible mission. He -would rather have marched through a shower of bullets, or risked his -life in any other way.</p> - -<p>He went to old Mr. Anderson, who had been the head of the bank, and who -was still believed to be the highest authority in any kind of financial -matter. He had retired from the bank, and from all active business -several years before. He was an elder of the church; and from the -beginning of Mr. Buchanan’s incumbency<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_027" id="page_027"></a>{27}</span> had been one of his greatest -admirers and friends. He was, besides all this, a wealthy old man, and -had no children nor any near relative to come after him. It was not, -however, with any thought of the latter circumstance, or indeed -expectation of actual help from himself that the minister sought this -old gentleman. He thought of the bank, which, according to Scottish -methods, gives advantages to struggling people, and intended only to ask -Mr. Anderson’s advice as to what should be done, perhaps if emboldened -by his manner to ask him to be his surety, though the thought of making -such a request to any man bathed the minister in a cold dew of mental -anguish. Had he been asked by any other poor man what reception such an -application would have received from Mr. Anderson, he would have bidden -that other take courage.</p> - -<p>“He is the kindest man in the world,” he would have said. But when it -came to be his own case the minister’s heart sank within him. He could -not have been more miserable had his old friend, instead of being the -kindest, been the most cold-hearted man in the world.</p> - -<p>There is, perhaps, no more wonderful sensation in life, than that -complete and extraordinary relief which seems to fill the heart with a -sudden flood of undreamed of ease and lightness, when a hand is held out -to us all at once in our trouble, and the help which we have not -believed possible, comes. Mr. Buchanan could not believe his ears when -the old banker’s first words fell upon him.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_028" id="page_028"></a>{28}</span></p> - -<p>“Possible! oh, yes, more than possible; how could you doubt it?” he -said. The poor man felt himself float off those poor feet that had -plodded along the street so heavily, into an atmosphere of ease, of -peace, of consolation unspeakable. The thing could be done. Instead of -bringing a cold shade over his friend’s face, it brought a light of -kindness, even of pleasure. Yes, of pleasure, pleasure in being trusted, -in being the first to whom recourse was made, in being able to give at -once relief. It was so great a gleam of that sunshine which sometimes -comes out of a human face, brighter than the very sun in the firmament, -that poor Buchanan was dazzled, and for the moment made to think better -even of himself as calling forth such friendship and kindness. A glow -came into his heart, not only of gratitude but of approval. To see a man -do what in one circumstance is the highest and noblest thing to do, to -feel him exceed all our expectations, and play the part almost of a -beneficent God to misfortune, what more delightful spectacle is there, -even if it had nothing to do with ourselves. Mr. Buchanan poured forth -all his soul to his old friend, who understood everything at half a -word, and only hesitated to think which would be the best way of -fulfilling his wishes. It was by old Anderson’s advice at last that the -idea of the bank was abandoned. He decided that it would be better to -lend the money to the minister himself.</p> - -<p>“We will have no fixed times or seasons,” he said.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_029" id="page_029"></a>{29}</span> “You shall pay me -just as you can, as you are able to put by a little, and we’ll have no -signing of papers. You and me can trust each other; if I die before you, -as naturally I will, you’ll make it up to my heirs. If you, which God -forbid, should die before me, there will be no use of paper to trouble -your wife. It’s just between you and me, nobody has any business to make -or mell in the matter. I have no fine laddie to put out in the world, -the more’s the pity; and you have, and a bonnie lassie too, I wish you -joy of them both. We’ll just say nothing about it, my dear sir, just a -shake of the hand, and that’s all there’s needed between you and me.”</p> - -<p>“But, Mr. Anderson, how can I accept this? You must let me give you an -acknowledgment. And then the interest——”</p> - -<p>“Toots,” said the old man, “interest! what’s fifteen pounds to me? I -hope I can live and enjoy myself without your fifteen pounds. Nonsense, -minister! are you too proud to accept a kindly service, most kindly -offered and from the heart, from an old man, that you have done both -good and pleasure to many a day?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, proud, no, not proud,” cried Buchanan, “unless it were proud of -you, old friend, that have the heart to do such a blessed thing.”</p> - -<p>“Hoot,” said the old man, “it’s nothing but filthy siller, as your good -wife says.”</p> - -<p>This had been the bargain, and it was a bargain<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_030" id="page_030"></a>{30}</span> which probably gave -more pleasure to the lender than to the borrower. It redoubled the old -gentleman’s interest in the family, and indeed made him take a personal -share in their concerns, which pricked the parents a little, as if he -felt a certain right to know all about Willie’s outfit and Marion’s -plenishing. He gave his advice about the boy’s boxes, and his gun, and -kindly criticised his clothes, and warned them not to pay too much for -boots and shoes, and other outside articles, pressing certain makers -upon them with almost too warm a recommendation. And he liked to see -Marion’s sheets and her napery, and thought the damask tablecloths -almost too fine for a country manse, where, except on a presbytery -meeting or the Monday’s dinner after a sacramental occasion, there would -be no means of showing them. But all this was very harmless, though it -sometimes fretted the recipients of his bounty, who could not explain to -their children the sudden access of interest on the part of old Anderson -in all their concerns.</p> - -<p>And now to think, while the first year had not more than passed, when -William’s outfit had just been paid off to the utmost farthing, and -Marion’s bill for her napery and her stock of personal linen, that the -old man should die! I judge from Mr. Anderson’s reference to fifteen -pounds (five per cent. being the usual interest in those days, though I -am told it is much less now), that the sum that Mr. Buchanan had -borrowed was three hundred pounds, for I presume he<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_031" id="page_031"></a>{31}</span> had certain urgent -bills to provide for as well as Willie and May. Fifty pounds was still -in the bank, which was a reserve fund for Marion’s gowns and her wedding -expenses, etc. And to think that just at that moment, when as yet there -had not been time to lay up a penny towards the repayment of the loan, -that this whole house of cards, and their comfort and content in the -smoothing away of their difficulties should, in a moment, topple about -their ears! There seemed even some reason for the tone of exasperation -which came into Mrs. Buchanan’s voice in spite of herself. Had he done -it on purpose it could scarcely have been worse. And indeed it looked as -if it had been done on purpose to drop them into deeper and deeper mire.</p> - -<p>Mr. Buchanan fought a battle with himself, of which no one had the -faintest idea, when his wife left him that afternoon. She indeed never -had the faintest idea of it, nor would any one have known had it not -been for the chance that shut up those two children in the turret-room. -They did not understand what they had heard, but neither did they forget -it. Sometimes, the one would say to the other:</p> - -<p>“Do you remember that afternoon when we were shut up in the turret and -nobody knew?” When such a thing had happened before, they had laughed; -but at this they never laughed, though they could not, till many years -had passed, have told why. The boy might have forgotten, for he had a -great many things to think of as the toils of education gathered round<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_032" id="page_032"></a>{32}</span> -him and bound him faster and faster; but the girl, perhaps because she -had not so much to do, there being no such strain of education in those -days for female creatures, never forgot. She accompanied her father -unconsciously in his future, during many a weary day, and pitied him -when there was no one else to pity.</p> - -<p>In the meantime, as the children saw, Mr. Buchanan went out; he went to -old Mr. Anderson’s house to inquire for him before he did any of his -usual afternoon duties. And after he had completed all these duties, he -went back again, with a restlessness of anxiety which touched all the -people assembled round the dying man, his brother who had been summoned -from Glasgow, and his doctors, one of whom had come from Edinburgh, -while the other was the chief practitioner of St. Rule’s, and his -nurses, of whom there were two, for he had no one of his own, no woman -to take care of him. They thought the minister must be anxious about the -old gentleman’s soul that he should come back a second time in the -course of the afternoon, and Dr. Seaton himself went down-stairs to -reply to his inquiries.</p> - -<p>“I am afraid I cannot ask you to come up-stairs, for he is past all -that,” he said, in the half scornful tone which doctors sometimes assume -to a clerical visitor.</p> - -<p>“Is he so bad as that?” said the minister.</p> - -<p>“I do not say,” said Dr. Seaton, “that our patient<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_033" id="page_033"></a>{33}</span> may not regain -consciousness. But certainly, for the present, he is quite unable to -join in any religious exercises.”</p> - -<p>“I was not thinking of that,” said Mr. Buchanan, almost humbly, “but -only to take the last news home. Mr. Anderson has been a good friend to -me.”</p> - -<p>“So he has been to many,” said Dr. Seaton. “Let us hope that will do -more for him where he is going than prayer.”</p> - -<p>“Prayer can never be out of place, Dr. Seaton,” said the minister. He -went away from the door angry, but still more cast down, with his head -sunk on his breast as the children had seen him. He had no good news to -take home. He had no comfort to carry with him up to his study, whither -he went without pausing, as he generally did, to say a word to his wife. -He had no word for anybody that evening. All night long he was repeating -to himself the words of the parable, “Sit down quickly, and take thy -bill, and write fifty.” Could God lead men astray?<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_034" id="page_034"></a>{34}</span></p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III.<br /><br /> -<small>AFTER THE FUNERAL.</small></h2> - -<p><span class="smcap">“After</span> the funeral, after the funeral will be time enough,” Mr. Buchanan -said, when his wife urged him to get it over, and to have his interview -with Mr. Morrison, the man of business, in whose hands all Mr. -Anderson’s affairs were. Everybody remarked how ill the minister was -looking during the week which elapsed between the old man’s death and -the large and solemn funeral, which filled the entire length of the High -Street with black-coated men. It was a funeral <i>d’estime</i>. There was no -active sorrow among the long train of serious people who conducted his -mortal part to its long home, but there were a great many regrets. His -was a figure as well known as the great old tower of St. Rule, which is -one of the landmarks from the sea, and the chief distinction of the town -on land, and he was a man who had been kind to everybody. He had been -very well off, and he had lived very quietly, spending but little money -on himself, and he had no near relation, only a distant cousin’s son, to -inherit what he had to leave behind him, for the brother, who was the -chief mourner, was a lonely man like himself, and also rich, and without -heirs. This<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_035" id="page_035"></a>{35}</span> being the case, old Mr. Anderson had used his money as few -rich men do. He had behaved to many people as he had done to Mr. -Buchanan. He had come to the aid of many of the poor people in St. Rule, -the fisher population, and the poor shopkeepers, and many a needy -family; therefore, though there were perhaps few tears shed, there was a -great and universal regret in all the town. Many men put on their -“blacks,” and went East, which was their way of indicating the quaint -burying-ground that encircled the ruins of the old cathedral, who would -not have swelled any other funeral train in the neighbourhood. He was a -loss to everybody; but there were few tears. An old man going home, -nearer eighty than seventy as the people said, a good old man leaving -the world in charity with everybody, and leaving nobody behind whom he -would miss much when he got there. A woman, here and there, at her -doorhead or her stairfoot, flung her apron over her head as she watched -the procession defiling into the wide space before the churchyard, which -was visible from the houses at the fishers’ end of the lower street. But -the tears she shed were for grief’s sake, and not for grief—for there -was no weeping, no desolation, only a kind and universal regret.</p> - -<p>Mr. Buchanan was more blanched and pale than ever, as he walked -bareheaded behind the coffin. There was one, everybody said, who had a -feeling heart—and many were glad when the ceremonial—always of so very -simple a kind in the Scotch church,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_036" id="page_036"></a>{36}</span> and in those days scarcely anything -at all, a short prayer and no more—was over, with the thought that the -minister being evidently so much out of health and spirits, and feeling -the loss of the kind old elder so deeply, was just in the condition in -which some “get their death,” from the exposure and chill of a funeral. -Several of his friends convoyed him home after all was completed, and -warned Mrs. Buchanan to take very good care of him, to give him some -good, strong, hot toddy, or other restorative, and do all she could to -bring back his colour and his spirit.</p> - -<p>“We have all had a great loss,” said Mr. Moncrieff, who was another -leading elder, shaking his head, “but we are not all so sensitive as the -minister.”</p> - -<p>Poor Mrs. Buchanan knew much better than they did what made the minister -look so wae. She took all their advices in very good part, and assured -his friends that the minister felt their kindness, and would soon be -himself again. Alas, there was that interview still to come, which she -thought secretly within herself she would have got over had she been the -minister, and not have thus prolonged the agony day after day. There -were a great many things that Mrs. Buchanan would have done, “had she -been the minister,” which did not appear in the same light to him—as -indeed very commonly happens on either side between married people. But -she accepted the fact that she was not the minister, and that he must -act for himself, and meet his difficulties in his own way since he<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_037" id="page_037"></a>{37}</span> -would not meet them in hers. She did not comfort him with hot and strong -toddy, as the elders recommended; but she did all she knew to make him -comfortable, and to relieve his burdened spirit, pointing out to him -that Mr. Morrison, the man of business, was also a considerate man, and -acquainted with the difficulties of setting out a family in the world, -and impressing upon him the fact that it was a good thing, on the whole, -that Willie’s outfit had been paid at once, since Mr. Morrison, who -would be neither better nor worse of it in his own person, would be, no -doubt, on behalf of the heir, who was not of age nor capable of grasping -at the money, a more patient creditor than a shop in Edinburgh, where a -good discount had been given for the immediate payment of the account.</p> - -<p>“They would just have worried us into our graves,” Mrs. Buchanan said, -and she added that Willie would probably be able to send home something -to help in the payment before it had to be made. She said so much -indeed, and it was all so reasonable, that poor Buchanan almost broke -down under it, and at last implored her to go away and leave him quiet.</p> - -<p>“Oh, Mary, my dear, that is all very just,” he said, “and I admire your -steadfast spirit; but there are things in which I am weaker than you -are, and it is I that have to do it while you stay quiet at home.”</p> - -<p>“Let me do it, Claude,” she cried. “I am not feared for Mr. Morrison; -and I could tell him all the circumstances maybe as well—<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_038" id="page_038"></a>{38}</span>—”</p> - -<p>Perhaps she thought better, and had been about to say so; but would not -hurt in any way her husband’s delicate feelings. As for Mr. Buchanan, he -raised himself up a little in his chair, and a slight flush came to his -pale cheek.</p> - -<p>“No,” he said, “I will not forsake my post as the head of the house. -These are the kind of things that the man has to do, and not the woman. -I hope I am not come to that, that I could shelter myself from a painful -duty behind my wife.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, if I had been the minister!” Mrs. Buchanan breathed, with an -impatient sigh, but she said,—</p> - -<p>“No, Claude, I know well you would never do that,” and left him to his -thoughts.</p> - -<p>She had placed instinctively the large printed Bible, which he always -used, on the little table beside him. He would get strength there if -nowhere else. The day was gray and not warm, though it was the beginning -of June, and a fire had been lighted in the study to serve the purpose, -morally and physically, of the hot toddy recommended by the elder. Poor -Mr. Buchanan spread his hands out to it when he was left alone. He was -very much broken down. The tears came to his eyes. He felt forlorn, -helpless, as if there was nothing in heaven or earth to support him. It -was a question of money, and was not that a wretched thing to ask God -for? The filthy siller, the root of so much evil. He could have -demonstrated to you very powerfully, had you gone to ask his advice in -such an<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_039" id="page_039"></a>{39}</span> emergency, that it was not money, but the love of money that -was the root of all evil; but in his heart, in this dreadful emergency, -he cursed it. Oh, if it were not for money how much the problems of this -life would be lessened? He forgot, for the moment, that in that case the -difficulties of getting Willie his outfit would have been very much -increased. And, instinctively, as his wife had placed it there, he put -out his hand for his Bible. Is it possible that there should be poison -to be sucked out of that which should be sweeter than honey and the -honeycomb to the devout reader? The book opened of itself at that -parable over which he had been pondering. Oh, Mr. Buchanan was quite -capable of explaining to you what that parable meant. No one knew better -than he for what it was that the Lord commended the unjust steward. He -had no excuse of ignorance, or of that bewilderment with which a simple -mind might approach so difficult a passage. He knew all the readings, -all the commentaries; he could have made it as clear as daylight to you, -either in the pulpit or out of the pulpit. And he knew, none better, -that in such a case the letter killeth; but the man was in a terrible -strait, and his whole soul was bent on getting out of it. He did not -want to face it, to make the best of it, to calculate that Willie might, -by that time, be able to help, or even that Mr. Morrison was a -considerate man, and the heir a minor, and that he would be allowed -time, which was his wife’s simple conception<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_040" id="page_040"></a>{40}</span> of the situation. He -wanted to get out of it. His spirit shrank from the bondage that would -be involved in getting that money together, in the scraping and sparing -for years, the burden it would be on his shoulders. A thirst, a fury had -seized him to get rid of it, to shake it off. And even the fact that the -Bible opened at that passage had its effect on his disturbed mind. He -would have reproved you seriously for trying any <i>sortes</i> with the -Bible, but in his trouble he did this, as well as so many other things -of which he disapproved. He knew very well also that he had opened at -that passage very often during the past week, and that it was simple -enough that it should open in the same place now. Yet, with instinctive -superstition he took the book, holding it in his two hands to open as it -would, and his heart gave a jump when he found this strike his eyes: -“Sit down quickly, and take thy bill, and write fourscore.” These were -the words, like a command out of heaven. What if that was not the inner -meaning, the sense of the parable? Yet, these were the words, and the -Bible opened upon them, and they were the first words that caught his -eye.</p> - -<p>Suppose that this temptation had come to another man, how clearly would -its fallacy have been exposed, what daylight would have been thrown upon -the text by the minister? He would have almost laughed at, even while he -condemned and pitied, the futile state of mind which could be so led -astray. And he knew all that, but it had no effect upon the workings of -his<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_041" id="page_041"></a>{41}</span> own distracted mind at that dreadful moment. He went over it again -and again, reading it over aloud as he had done on the first occasion -when it had flashed upon his troubled soul, and seemed to give him an -occult and personal message. And thus he remained all the rest of the -afternoon, with his knees close to the bars of the grate, and his white, -thin hands blanched with cold. Surely he had caught a chill, as so many -people do in the cold and depression of a funeral. He rather caught at -that idea. It might kill, which would be no great harm; or, at least, if -he had caught a bad cold, it would, at least, postpone the interview he -dreaded—the interview in which he would sit down and take his bill and -write fifty—or perhaps fourscore.</p> - -<p>“I think I have caught a chill,” he said, in more cheerful tones, when -he went down-stairs to supper.</p> - -<p>But the minister here had reckoned without his wife. It might not be in -her province to see Mr. Morrison and arrange with him about the debt, -but it certainly was quite in her province to take immediate steps in -respect to a bad cold. He had his feet in hot water and mustard before -he knew where he was—he was put to bed, and warmly wrapped up, and the -hot toddy at last administered, spite of all remonstrances, in a potent -measure.</p> - -<p>“Mr. Moncrieff said I was to make you take it as soon as you came in; -but I just gave in to your humours, knowing how little biddable you -were—but<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_042" id="page_042"></a>{42}</span> not now: you must just go to your bed like a lamb, and do -what I bid you now.”</p> - -<p>And there could not be a word said now as to what was or was not the -woman’s sphere. If anything was her business at all, decidedly it was -her business to keep her family in health. Mr. Buchanan did what he was -bid, a little comforted by feeling himself under lawful subjection, -which is an excellent thing for every soul, and warm through and through -in body, and hushed in nerves, slept well, and found himself in the -morning without any chill or sign of a chill, quite well. There was thus -no further excuse for him, and he perceived at once in his wife’s eyes, -as she brought him his breakfast before he got up—an indulgence that -always followed the hot-foot bath and the hot drink over-night—that no -further mercy was to be accorded to him, and that she would not -understand or agree to any further postponement of so indispensable a -duty. When she took away his tray—for these were duties she performed -herself, the servants being few, and the work of the house great—she -said, patting him upon the shoulder,—</p> - -<p>“Now, Claude, my dear, the best time to see Mr. Morrison is about eleven -o’clock; that will leave you plenty of time to get up and get yourself -dressed. It is a fine morning, and your cold is better. If you like, I -will send over to the office to say you are coming.”</p> - -<p>“There is no necessity for that,” Mr. Buchanan said.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_043" id="page_043"></a>{43}</span></p> - -<p>“No, no necessity, but it might be safer; so that he might wait for you -if he should have any temptation otherwise, or business to take him -out.”</p> - -<p>“If he has business, he will see to it whether he knows I am coming or -not,” said the minister; “and if I do not see him this morning, I can -see him another day.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, Claude, my man, don’t put off another day! It will have to be done -sooner or later. Do not keep it hanging over you day after day.”</p> - -<p>“Well, then,” said the minister, with some crossness of tone, “for -goodsake, if you are so urgent, go away and let me get up. How can I get -myself dressed with you there?”</p> - -<p>Mrs. Buchanan disappeared without another word. And he had no further -excuse for putting off. Even the wife of his bosom, though she knew it -would be a bad moment, did not know half how bad it was. Mrs. Buchanan -had made up her mind to it, however it might turn out. She had already -planned out how the expenses were to be lessened after Marion’s -marriage. Elsie was the only other girl, and she was but fourteen. -Several years must elapse before it was necessary to bring her out, and -give her that share in the pleasures and advantages of youthful life -which was her due. And between that time and this there was no privation -that the good mother was not ready to undertake in order to pay off this -debt. You would have thought to see their frugal living that to spare -much from it<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_044" id="page_044"></a>{44}</span> was impossible, but the minister’s wife had already made -her plans, and her cheerfulness was restored. It might take them a long -time to do it, but Mr. Anderson’s heir was only seventeen, and had still -a good many years of his minority to run. And Willie by that time would -have a good salary, and would be able to help. It would be a case of -sparing every sixpence, but still that was a thing that could be done. -What a good thing that education was so cheap in St. Rule. John, who was -going to be a clergyman, like his father, would have all his training at -home in the most economical way. And Alick was to go to Mr. Beaton’s, -the writer, as soon as he had completed his schooling, without any -premium. They might both be able to help if the worst came to the worst, -but between her own economies and Willie’s help, who had the best right -to help, seeing it was greatly on his account the money had been -borrowed, she had little doubt that in four years they would manage to -repay, at least, the greater part of the three hundred pounds.</p> - -<p>This was all straightforward, but the minister’s part was not so -straightforward. He read over the parable again before he went -down-stairs, and made up his mind finally to take his bill and write -fifty. After all, was not this what Mr. Anderson would have desired? He -was an old man and took no particular interest in his heir. He would -not, of course, have left his money away from him, or injured him in any -way. He quite recognised his claim through his<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_045" id="page_045"></a>{45}</span> father, a cousin whom -the old man had never known, but who still was his next of kin; yet, on -the other hand, if it came to that, Mr. Anderson was more fully -interested in the young Buchanans. He had seen them all grow up, and -Willie and Marion had been a great deal more to him than young Frank -Mowbray. And Mr. Buchanan was his friend. The minister was persuaded -that old Mr. Anderson would far rather have pardoned him the debt than -extorted it from him almost at the risk of his life. “Take thy bill, and -sit down quickly, and write fifty.” The words of the parable seemed more -and more reasonable, more and more adapted to his own case as he read -them over and over. What he was about to do seemed to him, at the end, -the very right thing to do and the command of heaven.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Buchanan met him in the hall with his hat brushed to a nicety, and -his gloves laid out upon the table. She came up to him with a brush in -her hand, to see if there was the faintest speck upon his broadcloth. -She was his valet, and a most cheerful and assiduous one, loving the -office. She liked to turn him out spotless, and to watch him sally forth -with delight and pride in his appearance, which never failed her. It was -one of the ways of the women of her day, and a pretty one, I think. She -was pleased with his looks, as he stood in the hall ready to go out.</p> - -<p>“But why are you so pale?” she said; “it is not an affair of life and -death. I hope you are not feared for Mr. Morrison.”<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_046" id="page_046"></a>{46}</span></p> - -<p>“I am feared for everybody,” said Mr. Buchanan, “that has to do with -money.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, Claude,” she said, “I just hate the filthy lucre myself, but it’s -not a question of life or death. The bairns are all well and doing well, -and will pay it off before Frank Mowbray comes of age. I promise you we -will. I have it all in my eye. Do not, my dear man, do not look so cast -down.”</p> - -<p>He shook his head but made no answer. He was not thinking of what she -said. He was saying over to himself, “Sit down quickly, and take thy -bill, and write fourscore.”<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_047" id="page_047"></a>{47}</span></p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV.<br /><br /> -<small>TAKE NOW THY BILL AND WRITE FIFTY.</small></h2> - -<p><span class="smcap">Mr. Buchanan</span> went first to the bank, and drew out the money—the residue -of the loan which had been placed there for Marion’s final equipment. In -those days people did not use cheques, as we do now for every purpose. -When a man paid a debt, it seemed far more sure and satisfactory to pay -it in actual money. To all, except to business men, the other seemed a -doubtful, unsatisfactory way, and those who received a cheque made great -haste to cash it as if in the meantime the bank might break, or the -debtor’s balance turn the wrong way. To pay with a simple bit of paper -did not seem like paying at all. Mr. Buchanan received his fifty pounds -in crisp new notes, pretty notes printed in blue and red. They were like -a little parcel of pictures, all clean and new. He looked at them with a -forlorn admiration: it was seldom he saw such a thing as a ten-pound -note: and here were five of them. Ah, if that had been all! “Sit down -quickly and write fourscore.” This variant troubled his mind a little in -his confusion! But that was measures of wheat, he said to himself, with -a distracted sense that this might somehow make a difference. And then -he walked up the High Street in the morning<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_048" id="page_048"></a>{48}</span> sunshine to Mr. Morrison’s -office; and sure enough the writer was there and very glad to see him, -so that no chance of escape remained.</p> - -<p>“I have come to speak to you,” the minister said, clearing his throat, -and beginning with so much difficulty—he that would read you off an -hour’s sermon without even pausing for a word!—“about business, -Morrison—about a little—monetary transaction there was—between me and -our late—most worthy friend——”</p> - -<p>“Anderson?” said the writer. And then he added with a half laugh, -tempered by the fact that “the death” had been so recent. “Half St. -Rule’s, I’m thinking, have had monetary transactions with our late -friend——”</p> - -<p>“He would not permit any memorandum of it to be made,” said the -minister.</p> - -<p>“No: that was just like him: only his estate will be the worse for it; -for we can’t expect everybody to be so frank in acknowledging as you.”</p> - -<p>Mr. Buchanan turned the colour of clay, his heart seemed to stop -beating. He said: “I need not tell you—for you have a family of your -own—that now and then there are expenses that arise.”</p> - -<p>The lawyer waved his hand with the freemasonry of common experience. -“Well I know that,” he said; “it is no joke nowadays putting the laddies -out in the world. You will find out that with Willie—but what a fine -opening for him! I wish we were all as well off.”<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_049" id="page_049"></a>{49}</span></p> - -<p>“Yes, it is a good opening”—if it had not been that all the joy and the -pride in it was quenched by this!—“and that is precisely what I mean, -Morrison. It was just Willie—ordinary expenses, of course, my wife and -I calculate upon and do our best for—but an outfit——”</p> - -<p>“My dear Mr. Buchanan,” said the writer, “what need to explain the -matter to me. You don’t imagine I got my own lads all set out, as thank -the Lord they are, without feeling the pinch—ay, and incurring -responsibilities that one would wish to keep clear of in the ordinary -way of life.”</p> - -<p>“Yes,” said the minister, “that was how it was; but fortunately the -money was not expended. And I bring you back the fifty pounds—intact.”</p> - -<p>Oh, the little, the very little lie it was! If he had said it was not -all expended, if he had kept out that little article <i>the—the</i> fifty -pounds implying there was no more. Anyhow, it was very different from -taking a bill and writing fourscore. But the criminal he felt, with the -cold drops coming out on his forehead, and his hand trembling as he held -out—as if that were all! these fifty pounds.</p> - -<p>“Now bide a wee, bide a wee,” said the writer; “wait till I tell -you—Mr. Anderson foresaw something of this kind. Put back your money -into your pocket. He foresaw it, the friendly old body that he was; wait -till I get you the copy of the will that I have here.” Morrison got up -and went to one of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_050" id="page_050"></a>{50}</span> boxes, inscribed with the name of Anderson, that -stood on the shelves behind him, and after some searching drew out a -paper, the heading of which he ran over <i>sotto voce</i>, while Mr. Buchanan -sat rigid like an automaton, still holding out in his hand the bundle of -notes.</p> - -<p>“Here it is,” said Mr. Morrison, coming back with his finger upon the -place. “You’ll see the case is provided for. ‘And it is hereby provided -that in the case of any persons indebted to me in sums less than a -hundred pounds, which are unpaid at the time of my death, that such -debts are hereby cancelled and wiped out as if they had never existed, -and my executors and administrators are hereby authorised to refuse any -payments tendered of the same, and to desire the aforesaid debtors to -consider these sums as legacies from me, the testator.’</p> - -<p>“Well, sir,” said the writer, tilting up his spectacles on his forehead, -“I hope that’s plain enough: I hope you are satisfied with that.”</p> - -<p>For a moment the minister sat and gasped, still stretching out the -notes, looking like a man at the point of death. He could not find his -voice, and drops of moisture stood out upon his forehead, which was the -colour of ashes. The lawyer was alarmed; he hurried to a cupboard in the -corner and brought out a bottle and a glass. “Man,” he said, “Buchanan! -this is too much feeling; minister, it is just out of the question to -take a matter of business like this. Take<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_051" id="page_051"></a>{51}</span> it down! it’s just sherry -wine, it will do you no harm. Bless me, bless me, you must not take it -like this—a mere nothing, a fifty pounds! Not one of us but would have -been glad to accommodate you—you must not take it like that!”</p> - -<p>“Sums under a hundred pounds!” Mr. Buchanan said, but he stammered so -with his colourless lips that the worthy Morrison did not make out very -clearly what he said, and, in truth, had no desire to make it out. He -was half vexed, half disturbed, by the minister’s extreme emotion. He -felt it as a tacit indictment against himself.</p> - -<p>“One would think we were a set of sticks,” he said, “to let our minister -be troubled in his mind like this over a fifty pound! Why, sir, any one -of your session—barring the two fishers and the farmer—— Take it off, -take it off, to bring back the blood—it’s nothing but sherry wine.”</p> - -<p>Mr. Buchanan came to himself a little when he had swallowed the sherry -wine. He had a ringing in his ears, as if he had recovered from a faint, -and the walls were swimming round him, with all the names on the boxes -whirling and rushing like a cloud of witnesses. As soon as he was able -to articulate, however, he renewed his offer of the notes.</p> - -<p>“Take this,” he said, “take this; it will always be something,” trying -to thrust them into the writer’s hand.</p> - -<p>“Hoot,” said Morrison; “my dear sir, will you not<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_052" id="page_052"></a>{52}</span> understand? You’re -freely assoilised and leeberated from every responsibility; put back -your notes into your own pouch. You would not refuse the kind body’s -little legacy, and cause him sorrow in his grave, which, you will tell -me, is not possible; but, if it were possible, would vex him sore, and -that we well know. I would not take advantage and vex him because he was -no longer capable of feeling it. No, no; just put them back into your -pouch, Buchanan. They are no use to him, and maybe they will be of use -to you.”</p> - -<p>This was how the interview ended. The minister still attempted to -deposit his notes upon Mr. Morrison’s table, but the lawyer put them -back again, doing everything he could to restore his friend and pastor -to the calm of ordinary life. Finally, Morrison declaring that he had -somebody to see “up the town,” and would walk with Mr. Buchanan as far -as their ways lay together, managed to conduct him to his own door. He -noted, with some surprise, that Mrs. Buchanan opened it herself, with a -face which, if not so pale as her husband’s, was agitated too, and full -of anxiety.</p> - -<p>“The minister is not just so well as I would like to see him,” he said. -“I would keep him quiet for a day or two, and let him fash himself for -nothing,” he added—“for nothing!” with emphasis.</p> - -<p>The good man was much disturbed in his mind by this exhibition of -feeling.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_053" id="page_053"></a>{53}</span></p> - -<p>“Oh, why were ‘writers’ made so coarse, and parsons made so fine?” He -would have said these words to himself had he known them, which, perhaps -he did, for Cowper was a very favourite poet in those days. Certainly -that was the sentiment in his mind. To waste all that feeling upon an -affair of fifty pounds! The wife had more sense, Mr. Morrison said to -himself, though she was frightened too, but that was probably for <i>his</i> -sake. He went off about his own business, and I will not say that he did -not mention the matter to one or two of his brother elders.</p> - -<p>“You or me might be ruined and make less fuss about it,” he said.</p> - -<p>“When a man had just a yearly stipend and gets behindhand, it’s wae work -making it up,” said the other.</p> - -<p>“We must just try and see if we cannot get him a bit augmentation,” said -Morrison, “or get up a testimonial or something.”</p> - -<p>“You see, a testimonial could scarcely take the form of money, and what -comfort would he get out of another silver teapot?” observed the second -elder, prudent though kind.</p> - -<p>It was not a much less ordeal for the minister to meet his wife than it -had been to meet the lawyer. She knew nothing about his purpose of -taking his bill and writing fourscore, and he dared not let her suspect -that he had spoken of the “fifty,” as if that fifty were his whole debt, -or that the debts that were forgiven<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_054" id="page_054"></a>{54}</span> were debts under a hundred pounds. -He said to himself afterwards that it was more Morrison’s fault than -his, that the lawyer would not let him explain that he had said “this -would be something,” meaning that this would be an instalment. All these -things he said to himself as he sat alone for the greater part of the -day, “reading a book,” which was supposed to be an amusing book, and -recovering from that great strain; but he did not venture to tell his -wife of these particulars. What he said to Mrs. Buchanan was that Mr. -Anderson had assoilised his debtors in general, and that each man was to -consider the loan as a legacy, and that Morrison said he was not -entitled to take a penny, and would not. His wife took this news with a -burst of grateful tears and blessings on the name of the good man who -had done this kind thing. “The merciful man is merciful, and lendeth and -asketh not again,” she said. But after this outburst of emotion and -relief, her good sense could not but object.</p> - -<p>“It is an awfu’ deliverance for us, Claude; oh, my man! I had it all -planned out, how we were to do it, but it would have been a heavy, heavy -burden. God bless him for the merciful thought! But,” she added, “I am -not clear in my mind that it is just to Frank. To be sure, it was all in -his own hand to do what he liked with his own, and the laddie is but a -far-off heir; but still he has been trained for that, and to expect a -good fortune: and if there are many as we are, Claude—<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_055" id="page_055"></a>{55}</span>—”</p> - -<p>“It is not our affair, Mary; he had full command of his faculties, and -it was his own to do what he liked with it,” her husband said, though -with faltering lips.</p> - -<p>“Well, that is true,” she replied, but doubtfully: “I am not denying a -man’s right to do what he likes with his own. And if it had been only -you, his minister, that perhaps he owed much more to, even his own soul, -as Paul says——”</p> - -<p>“No, no; not so much as that.”</p> - -<p>“But if there are many,” Mrs. Buchanan went on, shaking her head, “it -might be a sore heritage for Frank. Claude, if ever in the days to come -we can do anything for that lad, mind I would think it was our duty to -prefer him before our very own: for this is a great deliverance, and -wrought, as you may say, at his cost but without his consent——”</p> - -<p>“My dear, a sum like that,” said Mr. Buchanan, with a faint smile and a -heavy heart, “is not a fortune.”</p> - -<p>“That is true, but it is a great deliverance to us; and if ever we can -be helpful to him, in siller or in kindness, in health or in -sickness——”</p> - -<p>There came a rush of tenderness to Mrs. Buchanan’s heart, with the tears -that filled her eyes, and she could say no more.</p> - -<p>“Yes, yes,” he said a little fretfully, “yes, yes; though he had no -merit in it, and not any such great loss either that I can see.”</p> - -<p>She judged it wise to leave the minister to himself<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_056" id="page_056"></a>{56}</span> after this; for, -though nerves were not much thought of in those days, she saw that -irritability and a tendency to undervalue the great deliverance, which -filled her with such overflowing gratitude, had taken the place of more -amiable feelings in his mind. It was better to leave him quiet, to -recover from his ill mood, and from the consequence of being overdone. -“I have so many things to take off my mind,” she said to herself. -Perhaps she thought the minister’s cares—though most people would have -thought them so much more important—nothing to hers, which were so -many, often so petty, so absorbing, leaving her no time to brood. And -had she not provided him with the new <i>Waverley</i>, which most people -thought the best anodyne for care—that is, among the comforts of this -world, not, of course, to count among higher things?</p> - -<p>But Mr. Buchanan did not, I fear, find himself capable of having his -mind taken off, even by the new <i>Waverley</i>. He was spared, he said to -himself, from actual guilt.—Was he spared from actual guilt? He had not -required to take his bill and write fourscore. But for that one little -word the—<i>the</i> fifty (how small a matter!) he had said nothing: and -that was not saying anything, it was merely an inference, which his next -words might have made an end of; only, that Morrison would not hear my -next words. If there was a fault in the matter, it was Morrison’s fault. -He repeated this to himself fretfully, eagerly, impatient with the man -who had saved him from committing himself.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_057" id="page_057"></a>{57}</span> Never, never would he commit -any business to Morrison’s hands! Such a man was not to be trusted; he -cared nothing for his client’s interest. All that he was intent upon was -to relieve the debtor, to joke about the “friendly body,” who was so -kind, even in his grave. “A sore saint for his heir,” Morrison had again -said, as was said of the old king—instead of standing for the heir’s -rights as he ought to have done, and hearing what a man had to say!</p> - -<p>And this then was the end of it all—salvation—from all the -consequences, even from the very crime itself which he had planned and -intended, but had not required to carry out. He had saved everything, -his conscience, and his fifty pounds, not to speak of all the rest, the -sum which his wife had planned by so many daily sacrifices to make up. -He had not, after all, been like the unjust steward. He had said -nothing, had not even written the fourscore; he had been saved -altogether, even the fifty he had offered. Was this the Lord’s doing, -and marvellous in our eyes—or what was it? Mr. Buchanan put away the -<i>Waverley</i>, which was given him to comfort him, and took up the Bible -with the large print. It opened again at that parable; and then, with a -great start of pain, he recognised his fate, and knew that henceforward -it would open always at that parable, now that the parable was no longer -a suggestion of deliverance to him but a dreadful reminder. A convulsive -movement went through all his limbs at that thought. Mr. Buchanan had -often preached of<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_058" id="page_058"></a>{58}</span> hell, it was the fashion of his time; but he had -never known what he himself meant. Now he knew: this was hell where -their worm dieth not, and their fire is not quenched. It lay here, not -in a vague, unrealised region of fire and brimstone; but here, within -the leaves of the New Testament, which was his chief occupation, -inspiring all the work of his life. This was hell—to see the book open, -the book of life, always at that one place. He had not to wait for it; -the worm had begun to gnaw and the fire to burn.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_059" id="page_059"></a>{59}</span></p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a>CHAPTER V.<br /><br /> -<small>MARION AND ELSIE.</small></h2> - -<p><span class="smcap">It</span> was not till a long time after this that the Rev. Matthew Sinclair, -who was the betrothed of Marion Buchanan, got a kirk, and the faithful -pair were able to marry. The snowy heaps of Marion’s linen, which her -mother now spoke of, in the bosom of the family, as in reality a present -from old Mr. Anderson, seeing that it was paid for by a loan from him, -generously converted into a legacy when he died—had lain spread out, -with sprigs of lavender between the folds, in the big press at the head -of the nursery stairs for nearly two years, during which time Elsie grew -into almost a young woman. Rodie, too, became an ever more and more -“stirring” school-boy, less disposed to sit and read from the same book -with his sister, and more occupied with outdoor games and the -“clanjamfry,” as his mother said, of school-fellows and playfellows who -were always hanging about waiting for him, or coming with mysterious -knockings to the door to ask him out. Some of them, Mrs. Buchanan -thought, were not quite proper comrades for the minister’s son, but the -framework of juvenile society in St. Rule’s was extremely democratic, -all the classes going to school together according<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_060" id="page_060"></a>{60}</span> to Scotch -precedent—the laird’s son and the shoemaker’s on the same bench, and -Rodie Buchanan cheek by jowl with the fisher laddies from east the town. -In the play hours, it was true, things equalised themselves a little; -but there was certainly one fisher laddie his prompter and helper in -school, who kept a great ascendancy over Rodie, and would lead him away -in long tramps along the sea-shore, when he might have been at football -or “at the gouff” with companions of his own standing, and when Elsie -was pining for his society at home. Elsie felt the partial desertion of -her brother extremely. She missed the long readings together in the -turret and elsewhere, and the long rambles, in which Johnny Wemyss had -become Rodie’s companion, apparently so much more interesting to him -than herself. Johnny Wemyss, it was evident, had a great deal of -knowledge, which Elsie was inclined, in her ignorance, to be thankful -she did not possess; for Rodie would come in with his pockets all full -of clammy and wet things—jelly-fish, which he called by some grand -name—and the queer things that wave about long fingers on the edges of -the pools, and shrink into themselves when you touch them. This was -before the days when sea-anemones became a fashionable pursuit, but -children brought up by the sea had, of course, known and wondered at -these creatures long before science took them up. But to bring them home -was a different matter; filling the school-room with nasty, sticky -things, which, out of<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_061" id="page_061"></a>{61}</span> their native element, decayed and made bad -smells, and were the despair of the unfortunate maid who had to keep -that room in order, and dared not, except in extremity, throw Rodie’s -hoards away. “It is not Rodie’s fault; it is Johnny Wemyss that just -tells him nonsense stories,” Elsie said. She would have given her little -finger to have gone with him on those rambles, and to have heard all -about those strange living things; but already the invisible bonds that -confine a woman’s movements had begun to cramp Elsie’s free footsteps, -and the presence of Johnny Wemyss made, she was well aware, her own -impossible, though it was just Johnny Wemyss’s “nonsense stories” that -she desired most to hear.</p> - -<p>Rodie condescended to accompany her on her Sunday walk when all St. -Rule’s perambulated the links from which they were shut out on -week-days; but that became the only occasion on which she could -calculate on his company, and not even the new <i>Waverley</i>, which had -failed to beguile the minister from his urgent trouble, could seduce -Rodie from his many engagements with his fellows to sit with his sister -in the turret, with the book between them as of old.</p> - -<p>Elsie, it is true, gradually began to make herself amends for this -desertion by forming new alliances of her own with girls of her own age, -who have always abounded in St. Rule’s; but these did not at all make up -to her, as Johnny Wemyss seemed to make up to Rodie, for the separation -from her natural companion<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_062" id="page_062"></a>{62}</span> and fellow. These young ladies were -beginning already, as they approached sixteen, to think of balls and -triumphs in a way which was different from the romps of old. The world, -in the shape of young men older than their boyish companions, and with -other intentions, began to open about them. At that time it was nothing -very remarkable that girls should marry very early, a circumstance -which, of itself, made a great change in their ideas, and separated them -more than anything else could have done from their childish -contemporaries of the other sex.</p> - -<p>Elsie was in that hot stage of indignation and revolt against -sweethearts, and all talk on the subject, which is generally a phase in -a girl’s development. She was angry at the introduction of this unworthy -subject, and almost furious with the girls who chattered and laughed -about Bobbie this and Willie that—for in St. Rule’s they all knew each -other by their Christian names. She could understand that you should -prefer your own brother’s society to that of any girl, and much wondered -that Rodie should prefer any boy to herself—which was one great -distinction between girls and boys which she discovered with indignation -and shame. “I like Rodie better than anybody, but he likes his Johnny -Wemyss better than me! Ay!” she cried, the indignation gaining upon her, -“and even if Johnny Wemyss were not there, Ralph Beaton or Harry Seaton, -or any laddie—whereas I would give up any lassie for him.”<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_063" id="page_063"></a>{63}</span></p> - -<p>“That is just the way of men,” said Marion, her eldest sister, who, -being now on the eve of marriage, naturally knew a great deal more than -a girl of sixteen.</p> - -<p>“Not with Matthew,” cried Elsie, who, if she had no experience, was not -without observation; “he likes you better than all the men in the -world.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, Matthew!” said Marion, with a blush—“that’s different: but when -he’s used to me,” added this discreet young woman—“Matthew, I’ve every -reason to believe, will just be like the rest. He will play his gouff, -though I may be sitting solitary at home—and he will go out to his -dinner and argue among his men, and take his walks with Hugh Playfair, -or whoever turns up. He will say, ‘My dear, I want a long stretch that -would be too far for you,’ as my father says to my mother. She takes it -very well, and is glad he should be enjoying himself, and leaving her at -peace to look after her house and her bairns—but perhaps she was not so -pleased at first: and perhaps I’ll not be pleased either when it comes -to that,” Marion said, reflectively.</p> - -<p>Sense was her great characteristic, and she had, in her long engagement, -had much time to turn all these things over in her mind.</p> - -<p>“I don’t think it will ever come to that—for he cannot let you be for a -moment,” said Elsie. “I sometimes wish he were a hundred miles away.”</p> - -<p>“Ah,” said Marion, “but you know that will not<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_064" id="page_064"></a>{64}</span> last; and, indeed, it is -better it should not last, for how could you ever get anything done if -your man was draigling after you all the day long? No, no, it is more -manlike that he should keep till his own kind. You may think you would -like to have Rodie at your tail for ever, as when you were little -bairns, and called the twins: but you would not, any more than he -does—- just wait a wee, and you will find that out for yourself: for it -should surely be more so with your brother, who is bound to go away from -you, when it is so with your man.”</p> - -<p>“Then I think the disciples were right,” said Elsie, who was very -learned in her Bible, as became a minister’s daughter. “And if the case -of a man be so with his wife it would be better not to marry.”</p> - -<p>“Well, it does not seem that folk think so,” said Marion, with a smile, -“or it would not have gone on so long. Will you get me the finest -dinner-napkins, the very finest ones, out of the big napery press at the -head of the stairs?—for I am not sure that they are all marked -properly, and time is running on, and everything must be finished.”</p> - -<p>Marion was very great at marking, whether in white letters worked in -satin stitch, or in small red ones done with engrained cotton, or -finally with the little bottle of marking-ink and the hot iron with -which Elsie still loved to help her—but in the case of the finest -dinner-napkins, I need not say that marking-ink was<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_065" id="page_065"></a>{65}</span> not good enough, -and the finest satin stitch was employed.</p> - -<p>It need not be added that notwithstanding the reflection above stated -Elsie felt a great interest in the revelations of the sister thus -standing on the brink of a new life, and so soberly contemplating the -prospect before her, not with any idea, as it seemed, of ideal -blessedness, nor of having everything her own way.</p> - -<p>Marion had been set thinking by the girl’s questions, and was ready to -go on talking when Elsie returned with the pile of dinner-napkins in her -arms, as high as her chin, which reposed upon them. It had been Mrs. -Buchanan’s pride that no minister’s wife in the whole presbytery should -have more exquisite linen, and both mother and daughter were gratified -to think that the table would be set out for the dinner on the Monday -after the Sacrament as few such tables were. The damask was very fine, -of a beautiful small pattern, and shone like white satin. Elsie had a -little talent for drawing, and she it was who drew the letters which -Marion worked; so that this duty afforded occupation for both.</p> - -<p>“It is a little strange, I do not deny,” said Marion, “that though they -make such a work about us when they are courting and so forth, the men -are more content in the society of their own kind than we are: a party -that is all lassies, you weary of it.”</p> - -<p>“Not me!” cried Elsie, all aflame.</p> - -<p>“Wait till you are a little older,” said the sage<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_066" id="page_066"></a>{66}</span> Marion; “it’s even -common to say; though I doubt if it is true, that after dinner we weary -for them, if they are too long of coming up-stairs. But they never weary -for us: and a man’s party is always the most joyful of all, and they -like it above everything, and never wish that we were there. I must say -I do not understand how this is, considering how dependent they are upon -us for their comfort, and how helpless they are, more helpless than a -woman ever is. Now, what my father would do if mamma did not see that he -was brushed and trimmed up and kept in order, I cannot tell: and no -doubt it will be just the same with Matthew. He will come to me crying, -‘May, there are no handkerchiefs in my drawer,’ or, ‘May, the button’s -off my glove,’ as if it was my great fault—and when he is going off to -preach anywhere, he will forget his very sermon if I don’t take care -it’s put into his portmanteau.</p> - -<p>“Well, my dear! I am no better than my mother, and that is what she has -to do: but when they get a few men together, and can gossip away, and -talk, and take their glass of toddy, then is the time when they really -enjoy themselves. And so it is with the laddies, or even more—you wish -for them, but they don’t wish for you.”</p> - -<p>“I wish for none of them, except Rodie, my own brother, that has always -been my companion,” Elsie said.</p> - -<p>“And you would think he would wish for you? but<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_067" id="page_067"></a>{67}</span> no: his Johnny Wemyss -and his Alick Beaton, or was it Ralph?—that’s what he likes far best, -except, of course, when he falls in love, and then he will run after the -lassie wherever she goes, till she takes him, and it’s all settled, and -then he just goes back to his men, as before. It is a very mysterious -thing to me,” said Marion, “but I have thought a great deal about it, -and it’s quite true. I do not like myself,” she added, with a pause of -reflection, “men that are always at a woman’s tails. If you never could -turn round or do a thing without your man after you, it would be a great -bother. I am sure mamma feels that; she is always easy in her mind when -my father is set down very busy to his sermon, or when somebody comes in -to talk to him, or he goes out to his dinner with Professor Grant. Then -she is sure he will be happy, and it leaves her free. I will just feel -the same about Matthew, and he about me. He would not be without me for -all the world, but he will never want me when he gets with his own -cronies. Now, we always seem to have a kind of want of them.”</p> - -<p>“You have just said that mamma was quite happy when she got papa off her -hands,” Elsie said.</p> - -<p>“That is a different thing; but do you think for a moment that she would -enjoy herself with a party of women as he does at Professor Grant’s? -That she would not; she is glad to get him off her hands because she is -sure he will enjoy himself, and be no<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_068" id="page_068"></a>{68}</span> trouble to anybody. But that -would be little pleasure to her, if she were to do the same: and you -yourself, if you had all the Seatons and the Beatons that ever were -born——”</p> - -<p>“I want only Rodie, my own brother,” Elsie said, with indignation.</p> - -<p>“And he,” said Marion, calmly reflecting, “does not want you; that is -just what I say—and what is so queer a thing.”</p> - -<p>“If the case of a man is so with his wife?” said Elsie, oracularly.</p> - -<p>“Toots—the man is just very well off,” said Marion. “He gets his wife -to take care of him, and then he just enjoys himself with his own kind.”</p> - -<p>“Then I would never marry,” cried Elsie; “not whatever any one might -say.”</p> - -<p>“That is very well for you,” said Marion. “You will be the only daughter -when I am away; they will be very well contented if you never marry; -for, to be left without a child in the house, would be hard enough upon -mamma. But even, with all my plenishing ready, and the things marked, -and everything settled—not that I would like to part with Matthew, even -if there was no plenishing—I would rather have him without a tablecloth -than any other man with the finest napery in the world. But I just know -what will happen, and I am quite pleased, and it is of no use going -against human nature. For company, they will always like their own kind -best.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_069" id="page_069"></a>{69}</span> But then, on the other hand, women are not so keen about company. -When there’s a family, they are generally very well content to bide at -home, and be thankful when their man enjoys himself without fashing -anybody.”</p> - -<p>This is not a doctrine which would, perhaps, be popular with women -nowadays; but, in Marion’s time, it was considered a kind of gospel in -its way.</p> - -<p>Elsie was not much interested in the view of man, as husband, put forth -by her sister. Her mind did not go out towards that development of -humanity; but the defection of Rodie, her <i>own</i> brother as she said, was -a more serious matter. Most girls in as large family have an own brother -their natural pair, the one most near to them in age or temperament. It -had once been Willie and Marion, just as it had once been Elsie and -Rodie; but Elsie could not bear the thought that Rodie might become to -her, by his own will, the same as Willie was to Marion—her brother, but -not her <i>own</i> brother, with no special tie between them. Her mind was -constantly occupied by the thought of it, and how it was to be averted. -Marion, she thought, had done nothing to lead Willie back when he first -began to go after, what Marion called, his own kind, and to jilt his -sister: so far from that, she had brought in a stranger into the family, -a Matthew, to re-open and widen the breach, so that it was natural that -Willie should go out of nights, and like his young men’s parties, and -come in much later than<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_070" id="page_070"></a>{70}</span> pleased father. This was not a thing that Elsie -would do—she would bring in no strange man. All the Matthews in the -world might flutter round her, but she would never give Rodie any reason -to think that there was anybody she wanted but her brother—no, whatever -might happen, she would be faithful to Rodie, even if it were true, as -Marion said, that men (as if Rodie were a man!) liked their own kind -best. Why, she <i>was</i> his own kind; who could be so near him as his -sister, his own sister, the one that was next in the family?</p> - -<p>Elsie went seriously into this question, as seriously as any forsaken -wife could do, whose husband was being led astray from her, as she took -a melancholy ramble by herself along the east sands, where Rodie never -accompanied her now. She asked herself what she could do to bring him -back, to make him feel that, however his Johnnys and his Alicks might -tempt him for the moment, it was Elsie that was his true friend: she -must never scold him, nor taunt him with liking other folk better, she -must always be kind, however unkind he might be. With these excellent -resolutions warm in her mind, it happened to Elsie to see, almost -straight in front of her, hanging on the edge of a pool among the rocks, -Rodie himself, in company with Johnny Wemyss, the newly-chosen friend of -his heart. Johnny was up to his elbows in the pool, digging out with his -hands the strange things and queer beasts to be found therein; and half -to show the charity of her<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_071" id="page_071"></a>{71}</span> thoughts, half out of curiosity and desire -to see what they were about, Elsie hurried on to join them. Johnny -Wemyss was a big boy, bigger than Rodie, as old as Elsie -herself—roughly clad, with big, much-mended nailed boots, clouted -shoon, as he would himself have called them, and his rough hair standing -out under the shabby peak of his sailor’s cap.</p> - -<p>“What are you doing—oh, what are you finding? Let me see,” cried Elsie, -coming up behind them with noiseless feet on the wet but firm sand.</p> - -<p>Johnny Wemyss gave a great start, and raised himself up, drawing his -bare and dripping arms out of the water, and standing confused before -the young lady, conscious that he was not company for her, nor even for -her brother, the minister’s son, he who came of mere fisher folk.</p> - -<p>But Rodie turned round fierce and threateningly, with his fists clenched -in his pockets.</p> - -<p>“What are you wanting?” he cried. “Can you not let a person abee? We are -no wanting any lassies here.”</p> - -<p>“Rodie,” cried his sister, flushed and almost weeping, “do you say that -to me?”</p> - -<p>“Ay do I!” cried Rodie, red with wrath and confusion. “What are you -wanting? We just want no lassies here.”</p> - -<p>Elsie gave him but one look of injured love and scorn, and, without -saying another word, turned round and walked away.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_072" id="page_072"></a>{72}</span></p> - -<p>Oh, May was right! she was only a lassie to her own brother, and he had -insulted her before that Johnny, who was the cause of it all—she only -hoped they were looking after her to see how firm she walked, and that -she was not crying—no, she would not cry—why should she cry about him, -the hard-hearted, unkind boy? and with that, Elsie’s shoulders heaved, -and a great sob rent her breast.</p> - -<p>She had indeed mourned his desertion before: yet this was practically -her first revelation of the hollowness of life.</p> - -<p>Meanwhile, Rodie was far from comfortable on his side; all the more that -Johnny Wemyss gave him a kick with his clouted shoe, and said, with the -frankness of friendship:</p> - -<p>“Ye little cankered beast—how dare ye speak to her like that? How can -she help it if she is a lassie?—it’s no her blame!”<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_073" id="page_073"></a>{73}</span></p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a>CHAPTER VI.<br /><br /> -<small>A HOUSEHOLD CONTROVERSY.</small></h2> - -<p><span class="smcap">Notwithstanding</span> the great sobriety of her views, as disclosed above, -Marion, on the eve of her marriage, was no doubt the most interesting -member of the Buchanan family; and, if anything could have “taken off” -the mind of Elsie from her own misfortune, it would have been the -admiring and wondering study she was quite unconsciously making of her -sister, who had come to the climax of a girl’s life, and who regarded it -with so staid and middle-aged a view. Marion had always been a very -steady sort of girl all her life, it was common to say. There was no -nonsensical enthusiasm about her. Even when in love—that is, in the -vague and gaseous period, before it has come to anything, when most -girls have their heads a little pardonably turned, and the excitement of -the new thing runs strong in their veins—even then, her deportment had -been everything that could be desired in a minister’s daughter, and -future minister’s wife. There had been no contrivings of meetings, no -lingering on the links or the sands. Never once, perhaps, in that period -when even a lassie is allowed to forget herself a little, had Marion -failed to be at home in time for prayers, or forgot any of her duties. -She was of<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_074" id="page_074"></a>{74}</span> the caste of the Scotch minister, in which the woman as well -as the man belongs more or less to a sacred profession, and has its -character to keep up. But, no doubt, it was owing to the sober tone of -her own mind that she took at so early an age, and so exciting a moment -of her career, the very sensible and unexalted views which she expressed -so clearly. The Rev. Matthew Sinclair was neither cold nor negligent as -a lover; he was limited by duty, and by a purse but indifferently -filled. He could only come to see her after careful arrangement, when he -could afford it, and when he could secure a substitute in his work. He -could not shower presents upon her, even daily bouquets or other -inexpensive luxuries. In those days, if you had a garden at your hand, -you might bring your beloved “a flower”—that is, a bunch of -flowers—roses and southernwood, and bachelor’s buttons and -gilly-flowers, with a background of the coloured grasses, called -gardener’s garters in Scotland, tightly tied together; but there were no -shops in which you could find the delicate offerings, sweet smelling -violets, and all the wonders of the South—which lovers deal in -nowadays. But he did his part very manfully, and Marion had nothing to -complain of in his attentions. Yet, as has been made apparent, she was -not deceived. She did not expect, or even wish, to attach him to her -apron strings. She was quite prepared to find that, in respect of -“company,” that is society, he would prefer, as she said, his own kind. -And she did not look<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_075" id="page_075"></a>{75}</span> forward to this with any prevision of that -desolate sense of the emptiness of the world and all things, which was -in the mind of Elsie when her brother told her that he wanted no lassies -there. Marion knew that if she went into her husband’s study when two or -three of the brethren were gathered together, her entrance would -probably stop a laugh, and her husband would look up and say, “Well, my -dear?” interrogatively, with just the same meaning, though less roughly -than that of Rodie. She had seen it in her mother’s case; she accepted -it as quite natural in her anticipations of her own. This curious -composure made her, perhaps, all the more interesting—certainly a more -curious study—to Elsie, who had fire and flame in her veins -incomprehensible to the elder sister. Elsie followed her about with that -hot iron to facilitate the marking, and drank in her words with many a -protest against them. Let it not be supposed that Marion marked her own -“things” with the vulgarity of marking-ink; but she marked the dusters -and the commoner kinds of napery, the coarser towels and sheets, all the -inferior part of her plenishing in this common way, an operation which -occupied a good many mornings, during which there went on much edifying -talk. Sometimes, while they sat at one end of the large dining-table in -the dining-room,—for it was not permitted to litter the drawing-room -with this kind of work,—Mrs. Buchanan would be seated at the other, -with her large basket of stockings to darn, or other domestic<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_076" id="page_076"></a>{76}</span> mendings, -and, in that case, the talk was more varied, and went over a wider -field. Naturally, the mother was not quite philosophic or so perfectly -informed as was the young daughter on the verge of her life.</p> - -<p>“I hear,” said Mrs. Buchanan, “that old Mr. Anderson’s house in the High -Street is getting all prepared and made ready for young Frank Mowbray -and his mother. She is not a very wise woman, and very discontented. I -fear that the old man left much less than was expected. When I think how -good he was to us, and that Willie’s outfit and your plenishing are -just, so to speak, gifts of his bounty, I feel as if we were a kind of -guilty when I hear of his mother’s complaint. For, if he had not given -us, and other people as well as much as he did, there would have been -more for her, or at least for her Frank.”</p> - -<p>“But she had nothing to do with it, mother,” said Marion; “and he had a -good right to please himself, seeing it was all his own.”</p> - -<p>“All that is quite true,” said Mrs. Buchanan; “I made use of the very -same argument myself when your father was so cast down about it, and -eager to pay it back, and James Morrison would not listen to him. I just -said, ‘It’s in the very Scripture—Shall I not do what I like with my -own?’ And then your father tells me that you must not always take the -words of a parable for direct instruction, and that the man who said -that was meaning—but if you ask him, he will tell you himself what we -were to understand.”<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_077" id="page_077"></a>{77}</span></p> - -<p>“Was it the one about the unjust steward?” asked Elsie, suddenly looking -up, with the heated iron in her hand.</p> - -<p>“What would the unjust steward have to do with it?” said Mrs. Buchanan, -astonished. “Neither your father nor Mr. Anderson would go for -instruction to the unjust steward. Your father had a fine lecture on -that, that he delivered about a year and a half ago. You never mind your -father’s best things, you bairns, though one would think you might be -proud of them.”</p> - -<p>“I mind that quite clearly,” said Marion; “and, mother, if you’ll no be -angry, I would like to say that it did not satisfy my mind. You would -have thought he was excusing yon ill man: and more than that, as if he -thought our Lord was excusing him: and, though it was papa that said it, -that was what I could not bide to hear.”</p> - -<p>It may be supposed how Elsie, with her secret knowledge, pricked up her -ears. She sat with the iron suspended in her hand, letting Marion’s -initials grow dry upon the linen, and forgetting altogether what she was -about.</p> - -<p>“I am astonished that you should say that,” said the mother, giving a -little nod; “that will be some of Matthew’s new lights—for, I am sure, -he explained as clear as could be that it was the man’s wisdom, or you -might say cunning, that the Lord commended, so to speak, as being the -best thing for his purpose,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_078" id="page_078"></a>{78}</span> though his purpose was far from being a -good one. Your father is not one that, on such a subject, ever gives an -uncertain note.”</p> - -<p>“It is an awfu’ difficult subject for an ordinary congregation,” said -Marion. “Matthew is just as little a man for new lights as papa; but -still he did say, that for a common congregation——”</p> - -<p>“I thought it would be found that Matthew was at the bottom of it,” said -Mrs. Buchanan, with a laugh; “though it would set a young man better to -hold his peace, and make no comments upon one that has so much more -experience than himself.”</p> - -<p>“You are a little unjust to Matthew,” said Marion, nodding in her turn; -“he made no more comment than any of the congregation might have -done—or than I did myself. He is just very careful what he says about -papa. He says that theology, like other things, makes progress, and that -there’s more exegesis and—and other things, since my father’s -time—which makes a difference; but he has always a great opinion of -papa’s sermons, and says you may learn a great deal from them, even -when——”</p> - -<p>“I am sure we are much beholden to him,” said Mrs. Buchanan, holding her -head high. “It’s delicate of him to spare your feelings; for, I suppose, -however enlightened you may be beyond your fellows, you must still have -some kind of objection to hear your father criticised.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, mother, how can you take it like that?” said<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_079" id="page_079"></a>{79}</span> Marion; “there was no -criticism. If anything was said, it was more me than him. I said I could -not bide to hear a word, as if our Lord might have approved such an ill -man. And he said it was dangerous for a mixed congregation, and that few -considered the real meaning of a parable, but just took every word as if -it was instruction.”</p> - -<p>“And that was just your father’s strong point. He said it was like -taking another man’s sail to fill up a leak in a boat. You would praise -the man for getting the first thing he could lay his hands on to save -himself and his crew, but not for taking his neighbour’s sail—that was -just his grand point; but there are some folk that will always take -things in the matter-of-fact way, to the letter, and cannot understand -what’s expounded according to the spirit. That, however, has always just -been your father’s special gift,” said the minister’s wife, <i>de facto</i>. -She, who was only a minister’s wife in expectation, ought to have bowed -her head; but, being young and confident, even though so extremely -reasonable, Marion could not subdue herself to that better part.</p> - -<p>“That was just what Matthew said—dangerous for a mixed congregation,” -she repeated; “the most of them just being bound by nature to the -letter, and very matter-of-fact——”</p> - -<p>“No doubt Matthew is a great authority,” said Mrs. Buchanan, with a -violent snap of her big scissors.</p> - -<p>“Well, mamma,” said Marion, with the soft answer<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_080" id="page_080"></a>{80}</span> that does not always -take away wrath, “you’ll allow that he ought to be to me——”</p> - -<p>And there then ensued a deep silence; a whole large hole in the heel of -Rodie’s stocking filled up, as by magic, in the mother’s hands, -quickened by this contrariety, and the sudden absorption in her work -which followed, and Marion marked twelve towels, one after the other, so -quickly that Elsie could scarcely follow her with the iron in time to -make them all shine. It was she who took up the thread of the -conversation again, but not wisely. Had she been a sensible young -person, she would have introduced a new subject, which is the bounden -duty of a third party, when the other two have come to the verge of a -quarrel. But Elsie was only sixteen, and this discussion had called back -her own strange experience in the turret-room.</p> - -<p>“It must have given papa a great deal of thinking,” she said. “Once me -and Rodie were in the turret as—as he never comes now——” This was -very bad grammar, but Elsie’s heart was full of other things. “We were -reading <i>Quentin Durward</i>, and very, very taken up with all that was -going on at Liege, if you mind.” Liége had no accent in Elsie’s mind or -her pronunciation. “And then you came into the study, mother, and -talked. And after he began again with his sermon. It was a long time -ago, but I never forgot, for it was strange what he said. It was as if -he was learning the parable off by heart. ‘Take<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_081" id="page_081"></a>{81}</span> now thy bill, and sit -down quickly, and write fourscore’—or ‘write fifty.’ He said it over -and over, just those words—sometimes the one and sometimes the other. -It was awfu’ funny. We both heard it; both me and Rodie, and wondered -what he could be meaning. And we dared not move, for though he knew we -were there, we did not like to disturb him. We thought he had maybe -forgotten us. We were so stiff, we could scarcely move, and that was -always what he said, ‘Take now thy bill, and sit down——’<span class="lftspc">”</span></p> - -<p>Mrs. Buchanan had dropped her work and raised her head to listen; a -puzzled look came over her face, then she shook her head, slightly, -unable to solve the problem which she dimly felt to be put before her. -She said, at last, with a change of countenance:</p> - -<p>“I came into the study and talked?—and you there? What was I talking -about? do you mind that?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, nothing,” said Elsie. “Old Mr. Anderson; it was just before he -died.”</p> - -<p>“And you were there, Rodie and you, when I came in to talk private -things with your father! Is that the kind of conduct for children in a -decent house?”</p> - -<p>Mrs. Buchanan had reddened again, and wrath, quite unusual, was in her -tone.</p> - -<p>“Mamma, when it was raining, and we had a book to read, we were always -there, and father knew, and he never said a word!”</p> - -<p>“You knew too, mother,” said Marion; “the two little things were always -there.”<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_082" id="page_082"></a>{82}</span></p> - -<p>“Little things!” cried Mrs. Buchanan, almost with a snort—Rodie’s heel, -stretched out upon her hand, and now filled up with a strong and seemly -web of darning in stout worsted, was quite as big as his father’s. And -Elsie was taller than either of the two women by her side. “They were -little things with muckle lugs,” she said, with a rather fierce little -laugh; “if you think, Elsie, it was right to spy upon the private -conversation of your father and mother, that is not my opinion. Do you -think I would have spoken to him as I did if I had known you two were -there?”</p> - -<p>“Mother, about old Mr. Anderson?” cried Marion, meditating; “there could -be nothing so private about that.”</p> - -<p>She gave them both a look, curious and anxious; Marion took it with the -utmost composure, perhaps did not perceive it at all. Elsie, with a -wistful but ignorant countenance, looked at her mother, but did not -wince. She had no recollection of what that conversation had been.</p> - -<p>“Oh, mamma,” she said, “we spying!” with big tears in her eyes.</p> - -<p>“I am not saying you meant it,” said her mother; “it was a silly habit, -but I must request, Elsie, that it never may happen again.”</p> - -<p>“Oh!” cried Elsie, the big tears running over, “he never will come now! -He is not caring neither for me nor the finest book that ever was -written. There<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_083" id="page_083"></a>{83}</span> is no fear, mother. It breaks my heart to sit there my -lane, and Rodie never will come now!”</p> - -<p>“You are a silly thing,” said Mrs. Buchanan; “it is not to be expected, -a stirring laddie. Far better for him to be out stretching his limbs -than poring over a book. But I can understand, too, it’s a -disappointment to you.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, a disappointment!” Elsie cried, covering her face with her hands: -the word was so inadequate.</p> - -<p>To be disappointed was not to get a new frock when you want it, or -something else, unworthy of a thought: but to be forsaken by your own -brother! You wanted for that a much bigger word.</p> - -<p>“All the same,” the mother said, “I have often things to say to your -father that are between me and him alone, and not for you. You must not -do this again, Elsie. Another time, if you hear me go in to speak to -your papa, you must give warning you are there. You must not sit and -hold your breath, and listen. There are many things I might say to him -that were never intended for you. Now, mind what I say. I forgive you -because I am sure you did not mean it; but another time——”</p> - -<p>“There will never be another time, mother,” said Elsie, with a quivering -lip.</p> - -<p>“Well, I am sure I hope so,” said her mother, and she finished her -stockings carefully, made them into round balls, and carried them away -to put them into their respective drawers. At this particular moment,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_084" id="page_084"></a>{84}</span> -with all that was going on, and all that was being prepared in the -house, she had very little time to spend with her daughters in the -pleasant exercise of sewing, virtuous and most necessary as that -occupation was.</p> - -<p>“Do you remember what they were saying about old Mr. Anderson?” said -Marion; “for I have always thought there was something about that—that -was—I don’t know what word to say. He died, you know, when they were in -his debt, and he freely forgave them; and that was why I got such a good -plenishing, and Willie the best of outfits, and I would like to know -what they said.”</p> - -<p>“I do not mind what they said,” said Elsie; “and, if I did mind, I would -not tell you, and you should not ask me. Rodie and me, we were not -heeding about their secrets. It was just after, when my father went on -and on about that parable, that we took any notice what he said.”</p> - -<p>“And what was he saying about the parable?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, I have told you already. He just went on and on—‘Take thy bill, -and write fourscore’—you know what it says—till a person’s head went -round and round. And we dared never move, neither me nor Rodie, and very -glad we were when he went down-stairs.”</p> - -<p>“Poor bit things, not daring to move,” said Marion. “But that was a -strange thing to say over and over: he said nothing about that in his -sermon, but just how clever the man was for his purpose, though it was -not<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_085" id="page_085"></a>{85}</span> a good purpose. But Matthew is of opinion that it’s a dangerous -thing to treat the parables in that way.”</p> - -<p>“And how should Matthew know better than my father?” cried Elsie, in -indignation. “He may just keep his opinion; I’m of the same opinion as -papa.”</p> - -<p>“It is not of much consequence what your opinion is,” said Marion, -imperturbably; “but Matthew has been very well instructed, and he has -all the new lights upon things, and the exegesis and all that, which was -not so advanced in my father’s day. But it was a fine sermon,” she -added, with an approving nod, “though maybe dangerous to the ignorant, -which was all we ever said.”</p> - -<p>As for Elsie, she ceased altogether to think of the mystery of that -afternoon, and the sound of her father’s voice—which was such as she -had never heard before—in her hot indignation against Matthew, who -dared to be of a different opinion from papa.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_086" id="page_086"></a>{86}</span></p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a>CHAPTER VII.<br /><br /> -<small>THE FIRST MARRIAGE IN THE FAMILY.</small></h2> - -<p><span class="smcap">Marion’s</span> marriage took place in the summer, at the very crown of the -year. And it was a very fine wedding in its way, according to the -fashion of the times. Nobody in Scotland thought of going to church for -this ceremony, which took place in the bride’s home, in the drawing-room -upstairs, which was the largest room in the house, and as full as it -could be with wedding-guests. There were two bridesmaids, Elsie and a -sister of Matthew’s, whose mission, however, was unimportant in the -circumstances, unless, indeed, when it happened to be the duty of one of -them to accompany the bride and bridegroom, with the aid of the best -man, upon their wedding-tour. This curious arrangement had never been -thought of in Marion’s case, for no wedding-tour was contemplated. The -wedding pair were to proceed at once to their own quiet manse, somewhere -in the centre of Fife, where they could travel comfortably in a -post-chaise; and there they were disposed of for life, with no further -fuss. There were many things, indeed, wanting in this wedding which are -indispensable now. There were, for example, no wedding-presents,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_087" id="page_087"></a>{87}</span> or at -least very few, some pieces of silver of the massive order, a heavy -tea-service, which was indeed a “testimonial” from those who had -profited by the Rev. Matthew’s services, in his previous sphere, and a -number of pretty things sent by Willie, such as used to be sent from -India by all the absent sons, pieces of Indian muslin, embroidered and -spangled (over which Mrs. Buchanan had held up her hands, wondering what -in the world Marion could do with them), and shawls, one of them heavy -with gold embroidery, about which the same thing might be said. Willie -had been by this time about eighteen months in India, and was already -acquainted with all the ways of it, his mother believed. And he sent -such things as other young men sent to their families, without -considering whether they would be of any use. He also sent various -beautiful things in that mosaic of ivory and silver, which used to adorn -so many Scotch houses, and which made the manse parlour glorious for -years to come. On the whole, “every justice” was done to Marion. Had she -come from Mount Maitland itself, the greatest house in the -neighbourhood, or even from the Castle at Pittenweem, or Balcarres, she -could not have been better set out.</p> - -<p>It was at this great festivity that there were first introduced to the -society at St. Rule’s two figures that were hereafter to be of great -importance to it, and to assume an importance beyond what they had any -right to, according to ordinary laws. These were<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_088" id="page_088"></a>{88}</span> Frank Mowbray and his -mother, who had very lately come to St. Rule’s, from a country vaguely -called the South, which was not, after all, any very distant or -different region, but perhaps only Dumfrieshire, or Northumberland, in -both of which they had connections, but which do not suggest any -softness of climate or exuberance of sunshine to our minds nowadays. -They had led, it was believed, a wandering life, which was a thing very -obnoxious to the public sentiment of St. Rule’s, and almost infallibly -meant minds and manners to correspond, light-headedness and levity, -especially on the part of the woman, who could thus content herself -without a settled home of her own. It was naturally upon Mrs. Mowbray -that all the criticism centred; for Frank was still very young, and, of -course, as a boy had only followed his mother’s impulse, and done what -she determined was to be done. She was not in outward appearance at all -unlike the <i>rôle</i> which was given her by the public. She gave for one -thing much more attention to her dress than was then considered right in -St. Rule’s, or almost even decent, as if desirous of attracting -attention, the other ladies said, which indeed was probably Mrs. -Mowbray’s design. In the evening, she wore a scarf, gracefully draped -about her elbows and doing everything but cover the “bare neck,” which -it was intended to veil: and though old enough to wear a cap, which many -ladies in those days assumed, however young they might be—as soon as -they married,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_089" id="page_089"></a>{89}</span> did not do so, but wore her hair in large bows on the top -of her head, with stray ringlets upon either cheek, which, for a woman -with a grown-up son, seemed almost an affront to public morality. And -she used a fan with much action and significance, spreading it out, and -shutting it up as it suited her conversation, with little gestures that -were like nothing in the world but a foreigner, one of the French, or -persons of that kind, that thought of nothing but showing themselves -off. It was perhaps an uncharitable judgment, but there was so much -truth in it, that Mrs. Mowbray’s object was certainly to make the most -of herself, and do herself justice which is what she would have said.</p> - -<p>And Frank at this period was what was then called a young “dandy;” and -also thought a great deal of his own appearance, which was even more -culpable or at least more contemptible on the part of a young man than -on that of a lady. He wore a velvet collar to his coat, which came up to -his ears, and sometimes a stock so stiff that he could look neither to -the right hand nor the left, and his nankeen trousers and flowered -waistcoats were a sight to behold. Out of the high collar, and -voluminous folds of muslin which encircled his neck, a very young, -boyish face came forth, with a small whisker on either cheek, to set -forth the rosy colour of his youthful countenance, which was quite -ingenuous and simple, and had no harm in it, notwithstanding the scoffs -and sneers which his contemporaries in St. Rule’s put forth<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_090" id="page_090"></a>{90}</span> against his -airs and graces, and the scent on his handkerchief “like a lassie,” -which was the last aggravation, and called forth roars of youthful -laughter, not unmingled with disgust. The pair together made a great -commotion in the society of St. Rule’s. Mr. Anderson’s house, which was -old-fashioned but kindly, with old mahogany, so highly polished that you -could see your face in it, and old dark portraits hanging on the -panelled walls, underwent a complete revolution to please what St. -Rule’s considered the foreign tastes. She had one of those panelled -rooms covered with wall-paper, to the consternation of the whole town. I -am obliged to allow that this room is the pride of the house now, for -the paper—such things as yet being scarce in the British Islands—was -an Oriental one, of fine design and colour, which has lasted over nearly -a century, and is as fresh now as when it was put up, and the glory of -the place; but in those days, Scotch taste was all in favour of things -dark and plain, without show, which was a wicked thing. To please the -eye at all, especially with brightness and colour, was tacitly -considered wicked, at that day, in all circumstances. It was not indeed -a crime in any promulgated code, but it certainly partook of the nature -of vice, as being evidently addressed to carnal sentiments, not adapted -for confidence or long duration, or any other recognised and virtuous -purpose, but only to give pleasure which was by its very nature an -illegitimate thing. It was not indeed that these good people did<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_091" id="page_091"></a>{91}</span> not -love pleasure in their hearts. There was far more dancing in those days -than has ever been since, and parties for the purpose, at which the -young people met each other, and became engaged to each other and made -love, and married with a general persistency and universalness no longer -known among us; and there was much more drinking and singing of jovial -songs and celebration of other kinds of pleasure. But a bright -wall-paper, or a cheerful carpet, or more light in a room than was -absolutely necessary, these were frivolities almost going the length of -depravity that were generally condemned.</p> - -<p>The new-comers were among the wedding-guests, and Mrs. Mowbray came in a -white Indian shawl, and a white satin bonnet, adorned with roses inside -its cave-like sides, as if she had been the bride herself: while Frank -had already a flower in his coat before the wedding-favour was added -which made him, in the estimation of his compeers, a most conspicuous -figure, and more “like a lassie” than ever. When the time came for -Marion and her husband to go away, it was he who drew from his pocket -the white satin slipper which landed on the top of the post-chaise, and -made the bridal pair also “so conspicuous”—to their great wrath, when -they discovered by the cheers that met them in every village what an -ensign they were carrying with them, though they had indeed a most sober -post-chaise from the old Royal: and Matthew had taken care that the -postillion took off<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_092" id="page_092"></a>{92}</span> his favour as soon as they were out of the town. To -throw an old shoe for luck was a well-understood custom, but satin -slippers were not so common in St. Rule’s in those days that they should -be used in this way, and Marion never quite forgave this breach of all -decorum, pointing her out to the world just on the day of all others -when she most desired to escape notice. But the Mowbrays did not -understand how you ever could desire to escape notice, which, for their -part, they loved. The young people who crowded about the door to see the -bride go off, the girls laughing and crying in their excitement, the -lads cheering and shouting, were, I need not say, augmented by half the -population of St. Rule’s, all as eager and as much interested as if they -too had been wedding-guests. The women about, though they had no -occasion to be specially moved, laughed and cried too, for sympathy, and -made their comments at the top of their voices, with the frankness of -their class.</p> - -<p>“She is just as bonnie a bride as I ever saw, as I aye kent she would -be; but he’s but a poor creature beside her,” said one of the fishwives.</p> - -<p>“Hoot, woman,” said another, “the groom, he’s aye the shaddow on the -brightness, and naithing expected from him.”</p> - -<p>“But he’s not that ill-faured either,” said another spectator.</p> - -<p>“She’s a bonnie creature, and he’s a wise-like man.” Elsie, who had -always an ear for what was going on,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_093" id="page_093"></a>{93}</span> took in all these comments, and -the aspect of affairs generally without really knowing what she heard -and saw. But there was one episode which, above all, caught that half -attention which imprints a scene on the memory we cannot tell how. At -the house door, Frank Mowbray, with the slipper in his hand, very proud -of that piece of fashion and prettiness, stood stretching himself to his -full height (which was not great), and preparing for his throw. While at -the same moment she caught sight of a very different figure close to the -chaise watching the crowd, which was Johnny Wemyss, the friend for whom -Rodie her own brother had deserted her, and whom, consequently, she -regarded with no favourable eyes. He was a tall weedy boy, with long -arms growing out of his jacket-sleeves, and that look of loose-jointed -largeness which belongs to a puppy in all varieties of creation. He was -in his Sunday clothes and bareheaded, and as Marion walked across the -pavement, he stooped down and laid before the steps of the chaise a -large handful of flowers. The bride gave an astonished look, and then a -nod and a smile to the rough lad, who rose up, red as fire with the -shamefacedness of his homage, and disappeared behind the crowd. It was -only the affair of a moment, and probably very few people noticed it at -all. But Elsie saw it, and her face burned with sympathetic excitement. -She was pushed back at almost the same moment by the sudden action of -Frank, throwing his missile, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_094" id="page_094"></a>{94}</span> then, amid laughter, crying, and -cheers, the post-chaise drove away.</p> - -<p>“My dear,” said Mr. Buchanan, a few minutes after, “some bairn has -dropped its flowers on the pavement, or perhaps it was Marion that let -them fall. Send one of the women out to clear them away; it has a -disorderly look before the door,” the minister said.</p> - -<p>Elsie did not know what made her do it, but she darted out in her white -frock among the dispersing crowd, and gathered up, with her own hands, -the flowers on which Marion had set her foot. She took a rose from among -them and put it into her own belt. They were, I fear, dusty and soiled, -and only fit, as Mr. Buchanan said, to be swept away, but it was to -Elsie the only touch of poetry in the whole business. Bride and -bridegroom were very sober persons, scarcely worthy, perhaps, to tread -upon flowers, which, indeed, Mr. Matthew Sinclair had avoided by kicking -them (though gently) out of his way. But Elsie felt the unusual tribute, -if no one else did. She gave a glance round for Johnny Wemyss, and -caught him as he cast back a furtive glance from behind the shadow of a -burly fisherman. And again the boy grew red, and so did she. They had a -secret between them from that day, and everybody knows, who has ever -been sixteen, what a bond that is, a bond for life.</p> - -<p>“Take out that dirty flower out of your belt,” said Rodie, putting out -his hand for it; “if you want a flower, you can get a fresh one out of -the garden. All<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_095" id="page_095"></a>{95}</span> the folk in the street have tramped upon it.” This word -is constantly used in Scotland, with unnecessary vehemence of utterance, -for the simpler syllable trod.</p> - -<p>“I’ll not take it out,” said Elsie, “and only Marion put her foot upon -it. It is the bonniest thing of all that has happened; and it was your -own friend Johnny Wemyss that you are so fond of.”</p> - -<p>“I am not fond of him,” said Rodie, ingenuously; “do you think me and -him are like a couple of lassies? Throw it away this minute.”</p> - -<p>“No for you, nor all the fine gentlemen in the world!” cried Elsie, -holding her rose fast; and there would probably have been a scuffle over -it, Rodie at fifteen having no sense as yet that a lassie’s whims were -more to be respected than any other comrade’s, had not Mrs. Buchanan -suddenly appeared.</p> - -<p>“Elsie,” she said half severely, “are you forgetting already that you’re -now the only girl in the house? and nobody to look after the folk -upstairs—oh, if they would only go away! but you and me.”</p> - -<p>“I’m going, mamma,” cried Elsie, and then, though embraces were rare in -this reserved atmosphere, she threw her arms round her mother and gave -her a kiss. “I’m not so good as May, but I will try my best,” she said.</p> - -<p>“Oh my dear, but I am tired, tired! both body and mind,” said Mrs. -Buchanan; “and awfu’ thankful to have you, to be a comfort. Rodie, run -away and<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_096" id="page_096"></a>{96}</span> divert yourself and leave her alone; there’s plenty about of -your own kind.”</p> - -<p>It gave Elsie a pang, yet a thrill of satisfaction to see her brother, -who had deserted her, thus summarily cleared off the scene. Marion had -said regretfully, yet dispassionately, that they liked their own kind -best, which had been a revelation and a painful one to the abandoned -sister. But to have him thus sent off rather contemptuously than -otherwise to his own kind, as by no means a superior portion of the -race, gave her a new light on the subject, as well as a new sensation. -Boys, she remembered, and had always heard were sent to divert -themselves, as the only thing they were good for, when a lassie was -useful in many ways. In this manner she began to recover from the bitter -sense of the injury which the scorn of the laddies had inflicted upon -her. They might scorn away as they pleased. But the other folk, who had -more experience than they, thought otherwise; this helped Elsie to -recover her balance. She almost began to feel that even if Rodie were -lost, all would not be lost. And her exertions were great in the tired -and wavering afternoon party, which had nothing to amuse itself with, -and yet could not make up its mind to break up and go away, as the -hosts, quite worn out with the long strain, and feeling that everything -was now over, most fondly desired them to do.</p> - -<p>“Will you come and see me?” said Mrs. Mowbray. “I have taken a great -fancy to this child, Mrs. Buchanan.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_097" id="page_097"></a>{97}</span> She has such pretty brown eyes and -rosy cheeks.”</p> - -<p>“Will you come and see me, Elsie? I have got no pretty daughters. Oh! -how I wish I had one to dress up and play with; Frank is all very well, -he is a good boy—but a girl would make me quite happy.”</p> - -<p>Elsie was much disgusted with this address: to be told to her face that -she had pretty brown eyes and rosy cheeks was unpardonable! In the first -place, it was not true, for Elsie was well aware she was freckled, and -thought red cheeks very vulgar and common. In those days heroines were -always of an interesting paleness, and had black or very dark hair, -“raven tresses” in poetry. And alas, Elsie’s locks were more ruddy than -raven. She was quite aware that she was not a pretty daughter, and it -was intolerable that anyone should mock her, pretending to admire her to -her face!</p> - -<p>Mrs. Buchanan took it much more sweetly. She looked at Elsie with -caressing eyes. “She is the only girlie at home now,” she said, with a -little sigh, “and she will have to learn to be a woman. Marion was -always the greatest help—my right hand—since she was little more than -a baby. And now Elsie will have to learn to take her place.”</p> - -<p>“I don’t care so much for them being useful when they are ornamental,” -said Mrs. Mowbray, “for that is the woman’s part in the world is it not? -The men may do all the hard work, but they can’t do the decoration, can -they? We want the girls for that.”<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_098" id="page_098"></a>{98}</span></p> - -<p>“Dear me,” said Mrs. Buchanan, “I am not sure that I ever looked upon it -in that light. There is a great deal to be done, when there is a family -of laddies; you cannot expect them to do things for themselves, and when -there is only one sister, it is hard work.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, I do not hold with that,” said the other lady. “I turn all that -over to my maid. I would not make the girls servants to their brothers: -quite the contrary. It is the boys that should serve the girls, in my -opinion. Frank would no more let a young lady do things for him!—I -consider it quite wrong for my part.”</p> - -<p>Mrs. Buchanan was a little abashed.</p> - -<p>“When you have plenty of servants and a small family, it is of course -quite different, but you know what the saying is, ‘a woman’s work is -never done’——”</p> - -<p>“My dear Mrs. Buchanan, you are simply antediluvian,” said her visitor.</p> - -<p>(Oh, if she would only go away, instead of standing havering there!) The -minister’s wife was more tired than words could say. “Claude,” she said, -clutching at her husband’s arm as he passed her, “Mrs. Mowbray has not -seen our garden, and you know we are proud of our garden. Perhaps she -would like to take a turn and look at the view.”</p> - -<p>“I am so glad to get you for a little to myself, Mr. Buchanan,” said -Mrs. Mowbray. “Oh yes, let us go to the garden. I have been so longing -to speak to you. There are so many things about poor Mr. Anderson’s -estate, and other matters, that I don’t understand.”<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_099" id="page_099"></a>{99}</span></p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a>CHAPTER VIII.<br /><br /> -<small>A NEW FACTOR.</small></h2> - -<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Mowbray</span> took the minister’s arm with a little eagerness. “I am so -glad,” she said, “so very glad to have an opportunity of speaking to you -alone. I want so much to consult you, Mr. Buchanan. I should have -ventured to come over in the morning to ask for you, if I had not this -opportunity; but then your wife would have had to know, and just at -first I don’t want anyone to know—so I am more glad of this opportunity -than words can say——”</p> - -<p>“I am sure,” said Mr. Buchanan, steadily, “that I shall be very glad if -I can be of any use to you. I am afraid you will not find much to -interest you in our homely garden. Vegetables on one side, and flowers -on the other, but at the east corner there is rather a pretty view. I -like to come out in the evening, and see the lighthouses in the distance -slowly twirling round. We can see the Bell Rock——”</p> - -<p>“Oh, yes,” said Mrs. Mowbray, “I have no doubt it is very fine, but take -me to the quietest corner, never mind about the view—other people will -be coming to see the view, and to talk is what I want.”</p> - -<p>“I don’t think anyone will be coming,” said the minister, and he led her -among the flower-beds, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_100" id="page_100"></a>{100}</span> across what was then, in homely language, -called not the lawn, but the green, to the little raised mound upon -which there was a little summer-house, surrounded with tall lilac -bushes—and the view. Mrs. Mowbray gave but a passing glance at the -view.</p> - -<p>“Oh, yes,” she said, “the same as you see from the cliffs, the -Forfarshire coast and the bay. It is very nice, but not -remarkable—whereas what I have got to say to you is of the gravest -importance—at least to Frank and me. Mr. Buchanan, as the clergyman, -you must know of everything that is going on—you knew the late Mr. -Anderson, my husband’s uncle, very well, didn’t you? Well, you know -Frank has always been brought up to believe himself his great-uncle’s -heir. And we believed it would be something very good. My poor husband, -in his last illness, always said, ‘Uncle John will provide for you and -the boy.’ And we thought it would be quite a good thing. Now you know, -Mr. Buchanan, it is really not at all a good thing.”</p> - -<p>In the green shade of the foliage, Mr. Buchanan’s face looked gray. He -said, “Indeed, I am sorry,” in a mechanical way, which seemed intended -to give the impression that he was not interested at all.</p> - -<p>“Oh, perhaps you think that is not of much importance,” said the lady. -“Probably you imagine that we have enough without that. But it is not -really so—it is of the greatest importance to Frank and me. Oh, here -are some people coming! I knew other people<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_101" id="page_101"></a>{101}</span> would be coming to see this -stupid view—when they can see it from the road just as well, any time -they please.”</p> - -<p>It was a young pair of sweethearts who came up the little knoll, -evidently with the intention of appropriating the summer-house, and much -embarrassed to find their seniors in possession. They had, however, to -stay a little and talk, which they all did wildly, pointing out to each -other the distant smoke of the city further up, and the white gleam of -the little light-house opposite. Mrs. Mowbray said scarcely anything, -but glared at the intrusive visitors, to whom the minister was too -civil. Milly Beaton, who was one of these intruders, naturally knew -every point of the view as well as he did, but he pointed out everything -to her in the most elaborate way, at which the girl could scarcely -restrain her laughter. Then the young people heard, or pretended to -hear, some of their companions calling them, and hurried away.</p> - -<p>“I knew,” said Mrs. Mowbray, “that we should be interrupted here——”</p> - -<p>“No, I don’t think so: there will be no more of it,” said the minister.</p> - -<p>He was not so unwilling to be interrupted as she was. Then it occurred -to her, with a knowledge drawn from other regions than St. Rule’s, that -she was perhaps compromising the minister, and this idea gave her a -lively pleasure.</p> - -<p>“They will be wondering what we have to say to<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_102" id="page_102"></a>{102}</span> each other,” she cried -with a laugh, and she perceived with delight, or thought she perceived, -that this idea discomposed Mr. Buchanan. He changed colour, and shuffled -from one foot to the other, as he stood before her. She had placed -herself on the garden-seat, within the little chilly dark green bower. -She had not contemplated any such amusement, but neither had she time to -indulge in it, which might have been done so very safely with the -minister. For it was business that was in her mind, and she felt herself -a business woman before all.</p> - -<p>“Fortunately,” she went on, “nobody can the least guess what I want to -consult you about. Oh! here is another party! I knew how it would be. -Take me to see your cabbages, Mr. Buchanan, or anywhere. I must speak to -you without continual interruptions like this.”</p> - -<p>Her tone was a little imperative, which the minister resented. He was -not in the habit of being spoken to in this way, and he was extremely -glad of the interruption.</p> - -<p>“It is only a parcel of boys,” he said, “they will soon go.” Perhaps he -did not perceive that the carefully-attired Frank was among the others, -led by his own older son John, who, Mr. Buchanan well knew, would not -linger when he saw how the summer-house was occupied. Frank, however, -came forward and made his mother a satirical bow.</p> - -<p>“Oh, this is where you are, mater?” he said. “I<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_103" id="page_103"></a>{103}</span> couldn’t think where -you had got to. My compliments, I wouldn’t interrupt you for the world.”</p> - -<p>“You ridiculous boy!” Mrs. Mowbray said; and they both laughed, for what -reason neither Mr. Buchanan nor his serious son John could divine.</p> - -<p>“So you have come up, too, to see the view,” said the lady; “I never -knew you had any love for scenery and the beauties of nature.”</p> - -<p>“Do you call this scenery?” said Frank, who, in his mother’s presence, -felt it necessary to be superior as she was. “If you could only have the -ruins in the foreground, instead of this great bit of sea, and those -nasty little black rocks.”</p> - -<p>“They may be little,” said John, with all the sudden heat of a son of -St. Rule’s, “but they’re more dangerous than many that are far bigger. I -would not advise you to go near them in a boat. Father, isn’t that -true?”</p> - -<p>“It is true that it is a dangerous coast,” said Mr. Buchanan, “that is -the reason why no ship that can help it comes near the bay.”</p> - -<p>“I don’t care for that kind of boating,” said Frank. “Give me a wherry -on the river.”</p> - -<p>“Give you a game—a ball, or something,” said his mother, exasperated. -“You ought to get up something to amuse the young ladies. Doesn’t Mrs. -Buchanan allow dancing? You might teach them, Frank, some of the new -steps.”</p> - -<p>“We want you for that, mater,” said the lad.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_104" id="page_104"></a>{104}</span></p> - -<p>“Oh, I can’t be bothered now. I’ve got some business to talk over with -Mr. Buchanan.”</p> - -<p>Frank looked malicious and laughed, and Mrs. Mowbray laughed, too, in -spite of herself. The suggestion that she was reducing the minister to -subjection was pleasant, even though it was an interruption. Meanwhile, -Mr. Buchanan and his son stood gazing, absolutely unable to understand -what it was all about. John, however, not used to badinage, seized with -a firm grip the arm of the new-comer.</p> - -<p>“Come away, and I’ll take you into the Castle,” he said, giving a drag -and push, which the other, less vigorous, was not able to resist.</p> - -<p>“I cannot stand this any longer,” cried Mrs. Mowbray, “take me please -somewhere—into your study, Mr. Buchanan, where I can talk to you -undisturbed. I am sure for once your wife will not mind.”</p> - -<p>“My wife!” the minister said, in great surprise, “why should my wife -mind?” But it was certain, that he did himself mind very much, having -not the faintest desire to admit this intruder into his sanctum. But it -was in vain to resist. He took her among the cabbages as she had -suggested, but by this time the garden was in the possession of a young -crowd penetrating everywhere, and after an ineffectual attempt among -those cabbages to renew the conversation, Mrs. Mowbray so distinctly -declared her desire to finish her communication in the study, that he -could no longer resist. Mrs. Mowbray looked about her, before she<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_105" id="page_105"></a>{105}</span> had -taken her seat, and went into the turret-room with a little curiosity.</p> - -<p>“I suppose you never admit anyone here,” she said.</p> - -<p>“Admit! No, but the two younger children used to be constantly here,” -said Mr. Buchanan. “They have left some of their books about still. -There was a great alliance between them a few years ago, but since Rodie -grew more of a school-boy, and Elsie more of a woman——”</p> - -<p>“Elsie! why, she is quite grown-up,” said the visitor. “I hope you don’t -let her come here to hear all your secrets. I shouldn’t like her to hear -mine, I am sure. Is there any other door?”</p> - -<p>“There is neither entrance nor exit, but by my study door,” Mr. Buchanan -said, somewhat displeased.</p> - -<p>“Well, that is a good thing. I hope you always make sure when you -receive your penitents that there is nobody there.”</p> - -<p>The minister made no reply. He thought her a very disagreeable, very -presuming and impertinent woman; but he placed a chair for her with all -the patience he could muster. He had a faint feeling as if she had -lodged an arrow somewhere in him, and that he felt it quivering, but did -not inquire into his sensations. The first thing seemed to be to get rid -of her as quickly as he could.</p> - -<p>“Now we can talk at last,” she said, sinking down into the arm-chair, -stiff and straight as it was—for the luxury of modern days had scarcely -yet begun<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_106" id="page_106"></a>{106}</span> and certainly had not come as far as St. Rule’s—which Mrs. -Buchanan generally occupied when she came upstairs to talk over their -“whens and hows” with her husband.</p> - -<p>“It is very serious indeed, and I am very anxious to know if you can -throw any light upon it. Mr. Morrison, the man of business, tells me -that old Mr. Anderson had lent a great deal of money to various people, -and that it proved quite impossible to get it back. Was that really the -case? or is this said merely to cover over some defalcations—some——”</p> - -<p>“Morrison,” cried the minister, almost angrily, “is as honourable a man -as lives; there have been no defalcations, at least so far as he is -concerned.”</p> - -<p>“It is very satisfactory to hear that,” said Mrs. Mowbray, “because of -course we are altogether in his hands; otherwise I should have got my -English solicitor to come down and look into matters. But you know one -always thinks it must be the lawyer’s fault—and then so many men go -wrong that have a very good reputation.”</p> - -<p>Mr. Buchanan relieved his heart with a long painful breath. He said:</p> - -<p>“It is true; there are such men: but Morrison is not one of them.”</p> - -<p>“Well, that’s satisfactory at least to hear,” she said doubtfully, “but -tell me about the other thing. Is it true that our old uncle was so -foolish, so mad—I really don’t know any word sufficiently severe to -use—so unjust<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_107" id="page_107"></a>{107}</span> to us as to give away his money on all hands, and lend -to so many people without a scrap of acknowledgment, without so much as -an I.O.U., so that the money never could be recovered; is it possible -this can be true?”</p> - -<p>Mr. Buchanan was obliged to clear his throat several times before he -could speak.</p> - -<p>“Mr. Anderson,” he said, “was one of the men who are so highly commended -in Scripture, though it is perhaps contrary to modern ideas. The -merciful man is merciful and lendeth. He was a providence to many -troubled persons. I had heard——”</p> - -<p>“But, Mr. Buchanan,” cried the lady, raising herself up in her chair, -“you cannot think that’s right; you cannot imagine it is justifiable. -Think of his heirs.”</p> - -<p>“Yes,” he replied, “perhaps at that time he did not think of his heir. -If it had been his own child—but we must be fair to him. Your son was -not a very near relation, and he scarcely knew the boy.”</p> - -<p>“Not a near relation!” exclaimed Mrs. Mowbray, “but he was the nearest -relation. There was no one else to count at all. A man’s money belongs -to his family. He has no right to go and alienate it, to give a boy -reason to expect a good fortune, and then to squander the half of it, -which really belonged to Frank more than to him.”</p> - -<p>“You must remember,” said the minister, with a dreadful tightening at -his throat, feeling that he was<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_108" id="page_108"></a>{108}</span> pleading for himself as well as for his -old benefactor, “you must remember that the money did not come from the -family—in which case all you say might be true—but from his own -exertions; and probably he believed what is also written in Scripture, -that a man has a right to do what he will with his own.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, Mr. Buchanan!” cried Mrs. Mowbray, “that I should hear a clergyman -speak like this. Who is the widow and the orphan to depend upon, if not -on the clergy, to stand up for them and maintain their rights? I should -have thought now that instead of encouraging people who got round this -old man—who probably was not very clear in his head at the end of his -life—and got loans from him, you would have stood up for his heirs and -let them know—oh! with all the authority of the church, Mr. -Buchanan—that it was their duty before everything to pay their debts, -all the more,” cried the lady, holding up an emphatic finger, “all the -more if there was nothing to show for them, no way of recovering them, -and it was left to their honour to pay.”</p> - -<p>The minister had been about to speak; but when she put forth this -argument he sat dumb, his lips apart, gazing at her almost with a look -of terror. It was a full minute before he attempted to say anything, and -that in the midst of a discussion of this sort seems a long time. He -faltered a little at last, when he did speak.</p> - -<p>“I am not sure,” he said, “that I had thought of<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_109" id="page_109"></a>{109}</span> this: but no doubt you -are right, no doubt you are right.”</p> - -<p>“Certainly I am right,” she cried, triumphant in her victory. “I knew -you would see the justice of it. Frank has always been brought up to -believe that he would be a rich man. He has been brought up with this -idea. He has the habits and the notions of a man with a very good -fortune; and now that I am here and can look into it, what is it? A mere -competence! Nothing that you could call a fortune at all.”</p> - -<p>Oh, what it is to be guilty! The minister had not a word to say. He -looked piteously in her face, and it seemed to him that it was an -injured woman who sat before him, injured by his hand. He had never -wronged any one so far as he knew before, but this was a woman whom he -had wronged. She and her son, and her son’s children to all possible -generations,—he had wronged them. Though no one else might know it, yet -he knew it himself. Frank Mowbray’s fortune, which was not a fortune, -but a mere competence, had been reduced to that shrunken measure by him. -His conscience smote him with her voice. There was nothing to show for -it, no way of recovering it; it was a debt of honour, and it was this -that he refused to pay. He trembled under her eye. He felt that she must -be able to read to the bottom of his soul.</p> - -<p>“I am very sorry,” he said; “I am afraid that perhaps none of us thought -of that. But it is all past—<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_110" id="page_110"></a>{110}</span>I don’t know what I could do, what you -would wish me to do.”</p> - -<p>“I would wish you,” cried Mrs. Mowbray, “to talk to them about it. Ah! I -knew I should not speak in vain when I spoke to you. It is a shameful -thing, is it not, to defraud a truthful, inexperienced boy, one that -knows nothing about money nor how to act in such circumstances. If he -had not his mother to speak for him, what would become of Frank? He is -so young and so peace-making. He would say don’t bother if he heard me -speaking about it. He would be content to starve himself, and let other -people enjoy what was his. I thought you would tell me perhaps who were -the defaulters.”</p> - -<p>“No, I certainly could not do that,” he said harshly, with a sound in -his voice which made him not recognise it for his. He had a momentary -feeling that some one else in the room, not himself, had here interposed -and spoken for him.</p> - -<p>“You could not? you mean you would not. And you the clergyman, the -minister that should protect the orphan! Oh, Mr. Buchanan, this is not -what I expected when I braced up my nerves to speak to you. I never -thought but that you would take up my cause. I thought you would perhaps -go round with me to tell them they must pay, and how badly my poor boy -had been left: or that at least you would preach about it, and tell the -people what was their duty. He must have lent money to half St. Rule’s,” -cried Mrs. Mowbray;<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_111" id="page_111"></a>{111}</span> “those people that all look so decent and so -well-dressed on Sunday at church. They are all as well-dressed (though -their clothes are not well made) as any one need wish to be: and to -think they should be owing us hundreds, nay, thousands of money! It is a -dreadful thing for my poor Frank.”</p> - -<p>“Not thousands,” said the minister, “not thousands. A few hundreds -perhaps, but not more.”</p> - -<p>“I beg your pardon,” said Mrs. Mowbray. “I have heard there was one that -got four hundred out of him; at interest and compound interest, what -does that come to by this time? Not much short of thousands, Mr. -Buchanan, and there may be many more.”</p> - -<p>“Did Morrison tell you that?” he asked hastily.</p> - -<p>“No matter who told me. How am I to get at that man? I should make him -pay up somehow, oh trust me for that, if I could only make out who he -was.”</p> - -<p>“There was no such man,” said the minister. There breathed across his -mind, as he spoke, the burden of the parable: “Take now thy bill, and -sit down quickly, and write fourscore.” “I have not heard of any of Mr. -Anderson’s debtors who had got so large a loan as that: but Morrison -expressly said that it was in the will he had freely forgiven them all.”</p> - -<p>“I should not forgive them,” cried the lady, harshly. “Get me a list of -them, Mr. Buchanan, give me a list of them, and then we shall see what -the law will say. Get me a list of them, Mr. Buchanan! I am sure that -you must know them all.”<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_112" id="page_112"></a>{112}</span></p> - -<p>“I don’t know that I could tell you more than one of them.”</p> - -<p>“That will be the four hundred man!” cried Mrs. Mowbray. “Tell me of -him, tell me of him, Mr. Buchanan, and I shall always be grateful to -you. Tell me the one you know.”</p> - -<p>“I must first think it over—and—take counsel,” the minister said.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_113" id="page_113"></a>{113}</span></p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX"></a>CHAPTER IX.<br /><br /> -<small>MAN AND WIFE.</small></h2> - -<p><span class="smcap">“What</span> did that woman want with you, Claude?” said Mrs. Buchanan, coming -in with panting breath, and depositing herself in the chair from which -Mrs. Mowbray had risen but a little while before.</p> - -<p>The minister sat with his head in his hands, his face covered, his -aspect that of a man utterly broken down. He did not answer for some -time, and then:</p> - -<p>“I think she wants my life-blood,” he said.</p> - -<p>“Your life-blood! Claude, my man, are you taking leave of your -senses—or what is it you mean?”</p> - -<p>Once more there was a long pause. His wife was not perhaps so frightened -as she might have been in other circumstances. She was very tired. The -satisfaction of having got rid of all her guests was strong in her mind. -She had only just recovered her breath, after toiling upstairs. Lastly, -it was so absurd that any one should want the minister’s life-blood; -last of all, the smiling and flattering Mrs. Mowbray, that she was more -inclined to laugh than to be alarmed.</p> - -<p>“You may laugh,” said Mr. Buchanan, looking up at her from below the -shadow of his clasped hands, with hollow eyes, “but it is death to me. -She wants<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_114" id="page_114"></a>{114}</span> me to give her a list of all old Anderson’s debtors, Mary. I -told her I only knew one.”</p> - -<p>“Goodness, Claude! did you say it was yourself?”</p> - -<p>“Not yet,” he said, with a deep sigh.</p> - -<p>“Not yet! do you mean that after the great deliverance we got, and the -blessed kindness of that old man, you are going to put your head under -the yoke again? What has she to do with it? He thought nothing of her. -He let the boy get it because there was nobody else, but he never took -any interest even in the boy. He never would have permitted—Claude! -those scruples of yours, they are ridiculous; they are quite ridiculous. -What, oh! what do you mean? To ruin your own for the sake of that little -puppy of a boy? God forgive me; it is probably not the laddie’s fault. -He is just the creation of his silly mother. And they are well off -already. If old Anderson had left them nothing at all, they were well -off already. Claude, if she has come here to play upon your weakness, to -get back what the real owner had made you a present of——”</p> - -<p>“Mary, I have never been able to get it out of my mind that it was the -smaller debtors he wanted to release, but not me.”</p> - -<p>“Had you any reason to mistrust the old man, Claude?”</p> - -<p>He gave her a look, still from under his clasped hands, but made no -reply.</p> - -<p>“Which of them were more to him than you,” said<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_115" id="page_115"></a>{115}</span> Mrs. Buchanan, -vehemently; “the smaller debtors? Joseph Sym, the gardener, that he set -up in business, or the Horsburghs, or Peter Wemyss? Were they more to -him than you?—was this woman, with her ringlets, and her puffed sleeves -more to him than you? Or her silly laddie, no better than a bairn, -though he may be near a man in years? I have reminded you before what -St. Paul says: ‘Albeit, I do not say to thee how thou owest me thine own -self besides.’ He was not slow to say that, the old man, when you would -let him. And you think he was more taken up with that clan-jamfry than -with you?”</p> - -<p>“No—no; I don’t say that, Mary. I know he was very favourable to me, -too favourable; but I have never felt at rest about this. Morrison would -not let me speak; perhaps he thought I had got less than I really had. -This has always been in my head.” The minister got up suddenly and began -to walk about the room. “Take now thy bill, and sit down quickly, and -write fourscore,” he said, under his breath.</p> - -<p>“What is that you are saying, Claude? That is what Elsie heard you -saying the day of Mr. Anderson’s death. She said, quite innocent, it -gave you a great deal of trouble, your sermon, that you were always -going over and over——”</p> - -<p>“What?” said Mr. Buchanan, stopping short in his walk, with a scared -face.</p> - -<p>“Dear me, Claude! no harm, no harm, only <i>that</i>, that you are saying -now—about writing fourscore.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_116" id="page_116"></a>{116}</span> Oh, Claude, my dear, you give it far more -thought than it deserves. We could have almost paid it off by this time, -if it had been exacted from us. And when that good, kind, auld man -said—more than saying—when he wrote down in his will—that it was to -be a legacy, God bless him! when I heard that, with thanksgiving to the -Lord, I just put it out of my mind—not to forget it, for it was a great -deliverance—but surely not to be burdened by it, or to mistrust the -good man in his grave!”</p> - -<p>The eyes of the minister’s wife filled with tears. It was she who was -the preacher now, and her address was full of natural eloquence. But, -like so many other eloquent addresses, her audience paid but little -attention to it. Mr. Buchanan stopped short in his walk; he came back to -his table and sat down facing her. When she ceased, overcome with her -feelings, he began, without any pretence of sharing them, to question -her hastily.</p> - -<p>“Where was Elsie, that she should hear what I said? and what did she -hear? and how much does she know?” This new subject seemed to occupy his -mind to the exclusion of the old.</p> - -<p>“Elsie? oh, she knows nothing. But she was in the turret there, where -you encouraged them to go, Claude, though I always thought it a -dangerous thing; for the parents’ discussions are not always for a -bairn’s ears, and you never thought whether they were there or not. I -have thought upon it many a day.”<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_117" id="page_117"></a>{117}</span></p> - -<p>“And she knows nothing?” said Mr. Buchanan. “Well, I suppose there is no -harm done; but I dislike anyone to hear what I am saying. It is -inconvenient; it is disagreeable. You should keep a growing girl by your -own side, Mary, and not let her stray idle round about the house.”</p> - -<p>He had not heard her complain against himself as encouraging the -children to occupy the turret. His wife was well enough accustomed with -his modes of thought. He ignored this altogether, as if he had no -responsibility. And the thought of Elsie thus suggested put away the -other and larger thought.</p> - -<p>“I should like exactly to know how much she heard, and whether she drew -any conclusions. You can send her to me when you go down down-stairs.”</p> - -<p>“Claude, if you will be guided by me, no—do not put things into the -bairn’s head. She will think more and more if her thoughts are driven -back upon it. She will be fancying things in her mind. She will be——”</p> - -<p>“What things can she fancy in her mind? What thoughts can she have more -and more, as you say? What are you attributing to me, Mary? You seem to -think I have been meditating—or have done—something—I know not -what—too dark for day.”</p> - -<p>He looked at her severely, and she looked at him with deprecating -anxiety.</p> - -<p>“Claude,” she said, “my dear, I cannot think what has come over you. Am -I a person to make out<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_118" id="page_118"></a>{118}</span> reproaches against you? I said it was a pity to -get the bairns into a habit of sitting there, where they could hear -everything. That was no great thing, as if I was getting up a censure -upon you, or hinting at dark things you have done. I would far easier -believe,” she said, with a smile, laying her hand upon his arm, “that I -had done dark deeds myself.”</p> - -<p>“Well, well,” he said, “I suppose I am cranky and out of sorts. It has -been a wearying day.”</p> - -<p>“That it has,” cried Mrs. Buchanan, with warm agreement. “I am not a -woman for my bed in the daytime; but, for once in a way, I was going to -lie down, just to get a rest, for I am clean worn out.”</p> - -<p>“My poor Mary,” he said, with a kind smile. When she felt her weakness, -then was the time when he should be strong to support her. “Go and lie -down, and nobody shall disturb you, and dismiss all this from your mind, -my dear; for, as far as I can see, there is nothing urgent, not a thing -for the moment to trouble your head about.”</p> - -<p>“It is not so easy to dismiss things from your mind,” she said, smiling -too, “unless I was sure that you were doing it, Claude; for when you are -steady and cheery in your spirits, I think there is nothing I cannot put -up with, and you may be sure I will not make a fuss, whatever you may -think it a duty to do. And it is not for me to preach to you; but mind, -there are many things that look like duty, and are not duty at all, but -just infatuation, or, maybe, pride.”<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_119" id="page_119"></a>{119}</span></p> - -<p>“You have not much confidence in the clearness of my perceptions, Mary.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, but I have perfect confidence.” She pronounced this word “perfitt,” -and said it with that emphasis which belongs to the tongue of the North. -“But who could ken so well as me that your spirit’s a quick spirit, and -that pride has its part in you—the pride of aye doing the right thing, -and honouring your word, and keeping your independence. I agree with it -all, but in reason, in reason. And I would not fly in that auld man’s -face, and him in his grave, Claude Buchanan, not for all the women’s -tongues in existence, or their fleeching words!”</p> - -<p>He had been standing by the table, from which she had risen too, with an -indulgent smile on his face; but at this his countenance changed, and, -as Mrs. Buchanan left the room, he sat down again hastily, with his head -in his hands.</p> - -<p>Was she right? or was his intuition right? That strong sense, that -having meant wrong he had done wrong, whether formally or not. Many and -many a day had he thought over it, and he had come to a moral conviction -that his old friend had intended him to have the money, that he was the -last person in the world from whom Anderson would have exacted the last -farthing. Putting one thing to another he had come to that conviction. -Of all the old man’s debtors, there was none so completely his friend. -It was inconceivable that all the other people should be<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_120" id="page_120"></a>{120}</span> freed from the -bonds, and only he kept under it. He had quite convinced himself rather -that it was for his sake the others had been unloosed, than that it was -he alone who was exempt from relief. But it only required Mrs. Mowbray’s -words to overset this carefully calculated conclusion. His conscience -jumped up with renewed force, and, as his wife had divined, his pride -was up in arms. That this foolish woman and trifling boy had a right to -anything that had been consumed and alienated by him, was intolerable to -think of. Mary was right. It was an offence to his pride which he could -not endure. His honest impulses might be subdued by reason, but his -pride of integrity—no, that was not to be subdued.</p> - -<p>The thought became intolerable to him as he pondered seriously, always -with his head between his hands. He began once more to pace up and down -the room heavily, but hastily—with a heavy foot, but not the deliberate -quietness of legitimate thought. Such reflections as these tire a man -and hurry him; there is no peace in them. Passing the door of the -turret-room, he looked in, and a sudden gust of anger rose. A stool was -standing in the middle of the room, a book lying open on the floor. I do -not know how they had got there, for Elsie very seldom now came near the -place of so many joint readings and enjoyments. The minister went in, -and kicked the stool violently away. It should never, at least, stand -there again to remind him that he had betrayed himself;<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_121" id="page_121"></a>{121}</span> and then it -returned to his mind that he desired to see Elsie, and discover how much -she knew or suspected. Her mother had said no, but he was not always -going to yield to her mother in everything. This was certainly his -affair. He went down-stairs immediately to find Elsie, walking very -softly on the landing not to disturb his wife, who had, indeed, a good -right to be tired, and ought to get a good rest now that everybody was -gone; which was quite true. He never even suggested to himself that her -door was open; that she might hear him, and get up and interrupt him. -There was nobody to be found down-stairs. The rooms lay very deserted, -nothing yet cleared from the tables, the flowers drooping that had -decorated the dishes (which was the fashion in those days); the great -white bride-cake, standing with a great gash in it, and roses all round -it. There was nothing, really, to be unhappy about in what had taken -place to-day. Marion was well, and happily provided for. That was a -thing a poor man should always be deeply thankful for, but the sight of -“the banquet-hall deserted” gave him a pang as if it had been death, -instead of the most living of all moments, that had just passed over his -house. He went out to the garden, where he could see that some of the -younger guests were still lingering; but it was only Rodie and the boys -who were his boon companions that were to be seen. Elsie was not there.</p> - -<p>He found her late in the afternoon, when he was returning from a long -walk. Walks were things that<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_122" id="page_122"></a>{122}</span> neither he himself nor his many critics -and observers would have thought a proper indulgence for a minister. He -ought to be going to see somebody, probably “a sick person,” when he -indulged in such a relaxation; and there were plenty of outlying -invalids who might have afforded him the excuse he wanted, with duty at -the end. But he was not capable of duty to-day, and the sick persons -remained unvisited. He turned his face towards home, after treading many -miles of the roughest country. And it was then, just as he came through -the West Port, that he saw Elsie before him, in her white dress, and -fortunately alone. The minister’s thoughts had softened during his walk. -He no longer felt disposed to take her by the shoulders, to ask angrily -what she had said to her mother, and why she had played the spy upon -him; but something of his former excitement sprang up in him at the -sight of her. He quickened his pace a little, and was soon beside her, -laying his hand upon her shoulder. Elsie looked up, not frightened at -all, glad to be joined by him.</p> - -<p>“Oh, father, are you going home?” she said, “and so am I.”</p> - -<p>“We will walk together, then; which will be a good thing, as I have -something to say to you,” he said.</p> - -<p>Elsie had no possible objection. She looked up at him very pleasantly -with her soft brown eyes, and he discovered for the first time that his -younger daughter had grown into a bonnie creature, prettier than -Marion.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_123" id="page_123"></a>{123}</span> To be angry with her was impossible, and how did he know that -there was anything to be angry about?</p> - -<p>“Elsie,” he said, “your mother has been telling me of something you -heard me say in my study a long time ago, something that you overheard, -which you ought not to have overheard, when you were in the turret, and -I did not know you were there.”</p> - -<p>Elsie grew a little pale at this unexpected address.</p> - -<p>“Oh, father,” she said, “you knew we were always there.”</p> - -<p>“Indeed, I knew nothing of the kind. I never supposed for a moment that -you would remain to listen to what was said.”</p> - -<p>“We never did. Oh, never, never!” cried Elsie, now growing as suddenly -red.</p> - -<p>“It is evident you did on this occasion. You heard me talking to myself, -and now you have remembered and reported what I said.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, father!” cried Elsie, with a hasty look of remonstrance, “how can -you say I did that?”</p> - -<p>“What was it, then, you said?”</p> - -<p>He noticed that she had no need to pause, to ask herself what it was. -She answered at once.</p> - -<p>“It was about the parable. They said you had preached a sermon on it, -and I said I thought your mind had been very full of it; because, when -Rodie and me were in the turret, we heard you.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, there were two of you,” said Mr. Buchanan, with a pucker in his -forehead.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_124" id="page_124"></a>{124}</span></p> - -<p>“There were always, always two of us then,” said Elsie, with a sudden -cloud on hers; “and what you said was that verse about taking your bill -and writing fourscore. I did not quite understand it at the time.”</p> - -<p>“And do you understand it now?”</p> - -<p>“No, father, for it was a wrong thing,” said Elsie, sinking her voice. -“It was cheating: and to praise a man for doing it, is what I cannot -understand.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, I’ll tell you about that; I will show you what it means,” he said, -with the instinct of the expositor, “but not at this moment,” he added, -“not just now. Was that all that you thought of, when you heard me say -those words to myself?”</p> - -<p>Elsie looked up at him, and then she looked all round; a sudden dramatic -conflict took place in her. She had thought of that, and yet she had -thought of something more than that, but she did not know what the -something more was. It had haunted her, but yet she did not know what it -was. She looked up and down the street, unconsciously, to find an answer -and explanation, but none came. Then she said, faltering a little:—</p> - -<p>“Yes, father, but I was not content; for I did not understand: and I am -just the same now.”</p> - -<p>“I will take an opportunity,” he said, “of explaining it all to you” and -then he added, in a different tone, “it was wrong to be there when I did -not know you were there, and wrong to listen to what I said to myself, -thinking nobody was near; but what would be<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_125" id="page_125"></a>{125}</span> most wrong of all, would be -to mention to any living creature a thing you had no right to overhear. -And if you ever do it again, I will think you are a little traitor, -Elsie, and no true child of mine. It would set you better to take care -not to do wrong yourself, than to find fault with the parable.”</p> - -<p>He looked at her with glowing, angry eyes, that shone through the -twilight, while Elsie gazed at him with consternation. What did he mean? -Then and now, what did he mean?<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_126" id="page_126"></a>{126}</span></p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_X" id="CHAPTER_X"></a>CHAPTER X.<br /><br /> -<small>BROTHER AND SISTER.</small></h2> - -<p><span class="smcap">All</span> that evening Elsie tried in vain to secure the attention of Rodie, -her brother, her own brother, whom life had already swept away from her, -out of her feminine sphere. To be so intimately allied as that in -childhood, which is a thing which doubles every joy, at least for the -girl, and probably at that early age for the boy also—generally -involves the first pang of existence to one at least of these sworn -companions. It is, I think, always the girl who suffers, though -sometimes no doubt the girl is carried away on the wave of new -friendships, especially if she goes to school, and is swept up into the -whirl of feminine occupations, before the boy is launched into the -circle of contemporaries, who are more absorbing still. But Rodie among -“his laddies,” had left his sister more completely “out of it” than any -boy in possession of all his faculties can ever be. He was always busy -with something, always wandering somewhere with the Seatons, or the -Beatons, when he was not in the still more entrancing company of Johnny -Wemyss. And they never seemed to be tired of each other’s company, day -or night. There were times when he did not even come in to his<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_127" id="page_127"></a>{127}</span> meals, -but went along with his cronies, in the freedom of his age, without -invitation or preparation; even he had been known to sit down to the -stoved potatoes in the Wemyss’s cottage, though they were not in a class -of life to entertain the minister’s son; but what did Rodie care? When -he brought in Johnny Wemyss in his turn to supper, Mrs. Buchanan could -not shame the rules of hospitality, by giving the fisher lad a bad -reception, but her notice of him was constrained, if kind, so that none -of the young ones were very comfortable. But Alick Seaton and Ralph -Beaton were frequent visitors, taken as a matter of course, and would -sit at the end of the table, with Rodie between them, making their -jokes, and shaking with convulsions of private laughter, which broke out -now and then into a subdued roar, making the elders ask “what was the -fun now?” John in special, who was “at the College,” and sported a red -gown about the streets, being gruff in his critical remarks: for he had -now arrived at an age when you are bound to behave yourself, and not to -“carry on” like the laddies. This being the state of affairs, however, -it was very difficult to long hold of Rodie, who often “convoyed” his -friends home, and came back at the latest moment practicable, only -escaping reprimand by a rush up-stairs to bed. It was not therefore till -the Sunday following that Elsie had any opportunity of seeing her -brother in private, which even then was not with his will: but there was -an interval between breakfast and church, which Rodie,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_128" id="page_128"></a>{128}</span> with the best -will in the world, could not spend with “his laddies,” and which -consequently lay undefended, liable to the incursions of his sister. -This moment was usually spent in the garden, and often in calculating -strokes by which, teeing at a certain spot, he might make sure or almost -sure, as sure as the sublime uncertainty of the game permitted, of -“holeing” his ball. Naturally, to have taken out a club on Sunday -morning, even to the hole in the garden, would have been as good as -devoting one’s self to the infernal gods: but thought is free. Rodie had -a conviction that Elsie would come bouncing along, through the lilac -bushes, to spoil his calculations, as she usually did; but this did not -lessen the frown with which he perceived that his anticipation had come -to pass. “What are you wantin’ now?” he said gloomily, marking imaginary -distances upon the grass.</p> - -<p>“Oh, nothing—if you are so deep engaged,” said Elsie, with a spark of -natural pride.</p> - -<p>“I’m no deep engaged!” said Rodie, indignantly; for he knew father would -not smile upon his study, neither would it be appreciated by Alick or -Ralph (though they were probably engaged in the same way themselves), -that he should be studying the strokes which it was their pride to -consider as spontaneous or, indeed, almost accidental. He threw down the -cane he had in his hand, and turned away towards the summer-house, -whither Elsie followed him.</p> - -<p>“I want awfully to speak to you, Rodie—<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_129" id="page_129"></a>{129}</span>—”</p> - -<p>“You are always wanting to speak to me,” said the ungrateful boy.</p> - -<p>“I’m nothing of the kind; and if I were, want would be my master,” cried -Elsie, “for there’s never a moment when you’re free of these laddies. -You’re just in their arms and round their necks every moment of your -life.”</p> - -<p>“I’m neither in their arms nor round their necks,” cried Rodie furious, -being conscious that he was not weaned from a certain “bairnly” habit of -wandering about with an arm round his cronies’ shoulders. Elsie, -however, not sorry for once in a way to find him at a disadvantage, -laughed.</p> - -<p>“It’s Ralph and Alick, Ralph and Alick, just day and night,” she cried, -“or else Johnny Wemyss—but you’re not so keen about Johnny Wemyss -because they say he’s not a gentleman; but <i>I</i> think he’s the best -gentleman of them all.”</p> - -<p>“It’s much you ken!” cried Rodie. His laddies had made him much more -pronounced in his Fife sing-song of accent, which the minister, being -from the West Country (though it is well known in Fife that the accent -of the West Country is just insufferable), objected to strongly.</p> - -<p>“I ken just as well as you—and maybe better,” said Elsie. Then she -remembered that this passage of arms, however satisfactory in itself, -was not quite in accordance with the object of the interview which she -desired. “I am not wanting to quarrel,” she said.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_130" id="page_130"></a>{130}</span></p> - -<p>“It was you that began,” said Rodie, with some justice. They had by this -time reached the summer-house, with its thick background of lilac -bushes. The bay lay before them, in all that softened splendour of the -Sabbath morning, concerning which so many of us hold the fond tradition -that in its lustre and its glory there is something distinct from all -other days. The Forfarshire coast lay dim and fair in a little morning -haze, on the other side of the blue and tranquil sea, with faint lines -of yellow sand, and here and there a white edge of foam, though all was -so still, lighting up the distance. The hills, all soft with light and -shadow, every knowe and howe visible under the caress of the mild and -broad sunshine, the higher rocks upon the near shore half-draped with -the intense greenery of the delicate sea-weed, the low reefs, lying dark -in leathery clothing of dulse, like the teeth of some great sea monster, -half hidden in the ripples of the water, the horizon to the east -softening off into a vague radiance of infinity in the great breadth of -the German Ocean. I have always thought and often said, that if there is -a spot on earth in which one can feel the movement of the great round -world through space, though reduced by human limitations to a faint -rhythm and swaying, it is there under the illimitable blue of the -northern sky, on the shores and links of St. Rule’s.</p> - -<p>The pair who came thus suddenly in sight of this landscape, were not of -any sentimental turn, and were<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_131" id="page_131"></a>{131}</span> deeply engaged in their own immediate -sensations; but the girl paused to cry, “Oh, how bonnie, how bonnie!” -while the boy sat down on the rough seat, and dug his heels into the -grass, expecting an ordeal of questioning and “bothering,” in which the -sky and the sea could give him but little help. Elsie was much of the -mind of the jilted and forsaken everywhere. She could not keep herself -from reproaches, sometimes from taunts. But the sky and sea did help -Rodie after all, for they brought her back by the charm of their aspect, -an effect more natural at sixteen than at fifteen, and to a girl rather -than a boy.</p> - -<p>“I am not wanting to quarrel, and it’s a shame and a sin on the Sabbath, -and such a bonnie day as this. Oh, but it’s a bonnie day! there is the -wee light-house that is like a glow-worm at night; it is nothing but a -white line now, as thin as an end of thread: and muckle Dundee nothing -but a little smoke hanging above the Law——”</p> - -<p>“I suppose,” said Rodie, scornfully, “you have seen them all before?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, yes, I have seen them all before: but that is not to say that they -are not sometimes bonnier at one time than another. Rodie, you and me -that are brother and sister, we never should be anything less than dear -friends.”</p> - -<p>“Friends enough,” said Rodie, sulkily. “I am wanting nothing but just -that you’ll let me be.”</p> - -<p>“But that,” said Elsie, with a sigh, “is just the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_132" id="page_132"></a>{132}</span> hardest thing! for -I’m wanting you, and you’re no wanting me, Rodie! But I’ll say no more -about that; Marion says it’s always so, and that laddies and men for a -constancy they like their own kind best.”</p> - -<p>“I didna think Marion had that much sense,” the boy said.</p> - -<p>“Oh, dinna anger me over again with your conceit,” cried Elsie, “and me -in such a good frame of mind, and the bay so bonnie, and something so -different in my thoughts.”</p> - -<p>Rodie settled himself on the rude bench, as though preparing to endure -the inevitable: he took his hands out of his pockets and began to drum a -faint tune upon the rustic table. The attitude which many a lover, many -a husband, many a resigned male victim of the feminine reproaches from -which there is no escape, has assumed for ages past, came by nature to -this small boy. He dismissed every kind of interest or intelligence from -his face. If he had been thirty, he could not have looked more blank, -more enduring, more absolutely indifferent. Since he could not get away -from her, she must have her say. It would not last for ever, neither -could it penetrate beyond the very surface of the ear and of the mind. -He assumed his traditional attitude by inheritance from long lines of -forefathers. And perhaps it was well that Elsie’s attention was not -concentrated on him, or it is quite possible that she might have assumed -the woman’s traditional attitude, which is as well defined as the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_133" id="page_133"></a>{133}</span> -man’s. But she was fortunately at the visionary age, and had entered -upon her poetry, as he had entered into the dominion of “his laddies.” -Her eye strayed over the vast expanse spread out before her, and the awe -of the beauty, and the vast calm of God came over her heart.</p> - -<p>“Rodie, I want to speak to you of something. It’s long past, and it has -nothing to do with you or me. Rodie, do you mind yon afternoon, when we -were shut up in the turret, and heard papa studying his sermon?”</p> - -<p>“What’s about that? You’ve minded me of it many a time: but if I was to -be always minding like you, what good would that do?”</p> - -<p>“I wanted to ask you, Rodie—sometimes you mind better than me, -sometimes not so well. Do you mind what he was saying? I want to be just -sure for once, and then never to think upon it again.”</p> - -<p>“What does it matter what he was saying? It was just about one of the -parables.” I am afraid the parables were just “a thing in the Bible” to -Rodie. He did not identify them much, or think what they meant, or -wherein one differed from another. This, I need not say, was not for -want of teaching: perhaps it was because of too much teaching, which -sometimes has a similar effect. “I mind,” he said with a laugh, “we were -just that crampit, sitting so long still, that we couldn’t move.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, yes,” said Elsie, “but I want to remember quite clear what it was -he said.”<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_134" id="page_134"></a>{134}</span></p> - -<p>“It did not matter to us what he said,” said Rodie. “Papa is sometimes a -foozle, but I am not going to split upon him.” This was the slang of -those days, still lingering where golf is wont to be played.</p> - -<p>“Do you think I would split upon him?” cried Elsie with indignation.</p> - -<p>“I don’t know, then, what you’re carrying on about. Yes, I mind he said -something that was very funny; but then he often does that. Fathers are -so fond of saying things, that you don’t know what they mean, and -ministers worse than the rest. There’s the first jow of the bell, and -it’s time to get your bonnet on. I’m not for biding here havering; and -then that makes us late.”</p> - -<p>“You’re keen about being in time this morning, Rodie!”</p> - -<p>“I’m always keen for being in time. When you come in late, you see on -all their faces: ‘There’s the minister’s family just coming in—them -that ought to set us an example—and we’ve been all here for a quarter -of an hour.’<span class="lftspc">”</span></p> - -<p>“We are never so late as that,” cried Elsie, indignantly.</p> - -<p>“You will be to-day, if you do not hurry,” he said, jumping up himself -and leading the way.</p> - -<p>And it was quite true, Elsie could not but allow to herself, that the -minister’s family were sometimes late. It had originated in the days -when there were so many little ones to get ready; and then, as Mrs. -Buchanan<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_135" id="page_135"></a>{135}</span> said, it was a great temptation living so near the church. You -felt that in a minute you could be there; and then you put off your -time, so that in the end, the bell had stopped ringing, and you had to -troop in with a rash, which was evidently a very bad example to the -people. And they did look up with that expression on their faces, as if -it were they who were the examples! But the fact that Rodie was right, -did not make what he said more agreeable. It acted rather the contrary -way. She had wished for his sympathy, for his support of her own -recollections, perhaps for surer rectification of her impressions; and -she found nothing but high disapproval, and the suggestion that she was -capable of splitting upon papa. This reproach broke Elsie’s heart. -Nothing would have induced her to betray her father. She would have -shielded him with her own life, she would have defended him had he been -in such danger, for instance, as people, and especially ministers, were -long ago, in Claverhouse’s time—or dug out with her nails a place to -hide him in, like Grizel Home. But to fathom the present mystery, and -remember exactly what he said, and find out what it meant, had not -seemed to her to be anything against him. That it was none of her -business, had not occurred to her. And she did not for the moment -perceive any better sense in Rodie. She thought he was only perverse, as -he so often was now, contrary to whatever she might say, going against -her. And she was very sure it was no enthusiasm for<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_136" id="page_136"></a>{136}</span> punctuality, or for -going to church, which made him hasten on before to the house, where his -Sunday hat, carefully brushed, was on the hall-table, waiting for him. -That was a thing that mother liked to do with her own hands.</p> - -<p>The thought of Rodie in such constant opposition and rebellion, -overshadowed her through all the early service, and it was not really -till the middle of the sermon that a sudden perception caught her mind. -Was that what Rodie meant? “He may be a foozle, but I will never split -on him.” But papa was no foozle. What was he? A good kind man, doing -nobody any wrong. There was nothing to say against him, nothing for his -children to betray. Even Elsie’s half-developed mind was conscious of -other circumstances, of children whose father might have something to -betray. And, in that dreadful case, what would one do? Oh, decline to -hear, decline to know of anything that could be betrayed, shut your ears -to every whisper, believe not even himself to his own undoing! This idea -leapt into her mind in the middle of the sermon. There was nothing in -the sermon to make her think of that. It was not Mr. Buchanan who was -preaching, but the other minister, his colleague, who did not preach -very good sermons, not like father’s! And Elsie’s attention wandered in -spite of herself. And then, all in a moment, this thought leapt into her -mind. In these circumstances, so different from her own, that would have -been the only<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_137" id="page_137"></a>{137}</span> thing for a child to do. Oh, never to listen to a word -against him, not even if it came from himself. Elsie’s quick mind sprang -responsive to this thought. This was far finer, far higher than her -desire to remember, to fathom what he had meant. And from whence was it -that this thought had come? From Rodie, her brother, the boy whom she -had been accusing in her mind, not only of forsaking her, but of -becoming more rough, more coarse, less open to fine thoughts. This -perception surprised Elsie so, that it was all she could do, not to jump -up in her place, to clap her hands, to cry out: “It was Rodie.” And she -who had never known that Rodie was capable of that! while all St. -Rule’s, and the world besides, had conceived the opinion of him that he -was a foolish callant. Elsie’s heart swelled full of triumph in Rodie. -“He may be a foozle”—no, no, he was no foozle—well did Rodie know -that. But was not Elsie’s curiosity a tacit insult to papa, as -suggesting that he might have been committing himself, averring -something that was wrong? Elsie would have condemned herself to all the -pangs of conscience, to all the reproaches against the ungrateful child, -who in her heart was believing her father guilty of some unknown -criminality, if it had not been that her heart was flooded with sudden -delight, the enchantment of a great discovery that Rodie had chosen the -better part. There was a true generosity in her, notwithstanding her -many foolishnesses. That sudden flash of respect for Rodie, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_138" id="page_138"></a>{138}</span> happy -discovery that in this one thing at least he was more faithful than she, -consoled her for appearing to herself by comparison in a less favourable -light.</p> - -<p>And the effect was, that she was silenced even to herself. She put no -more questions to Rodie, she tried to put out of her own mind her -personal recollections, and every attempt to understand. Did not Rodie -say it was not their business, that it did not matter to them what papa -said? Elsie could not put away her curiosity out of her heart, but she -bowed her head to Rodie’s action. After all, what a grand discovery it -was that Rodie should be the one to see what was right.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_139" id="page_139"></a>{139}</span></p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XI" id="CHAPTER_XI"></a>CHAPTER XI.<br /><br /> -<small>THE GROWING UP OF THE BAIRNS.</small></h2> - -<p><span class="smcap">This</span> was the last incident in the secret history of the Buchanan family -for the moment. The sudden, painful, and unexpected crisis which had -arisen on Marion’s wedding day ceased almost as suddenly as it arose. -The Mowbrays, after staying a short time in St. Rule’s, departed to more -genial climes, and places in which more amusement was to be found—for -though even so long ago, St. Rule’s had become a sort of watering-place, -where people came in the summer, it was not in the least a place of -organised pleasure, or where there was any whirl of gaiety; nothing -could be more deeply disapproved of than a whirl of gaiety in these -days.</p> - -<p>There were no hotels and few lodgings of the usual watering-place kind. -People who came hired houses and transported themselves and all their -families, resuming all their usual habits with the sole difference that -the men of the family, instead of going out upon their usual avocations -every day, went out to golf instead: which was then a diversion -practised only in certain centres of its own, where most of the people -could play—a thing entirely changed nowadays, as everybody is aware, -when it is to be found everywhere,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_140" id="page_140"></a>{140}</span> and practised by everybody, the most -of whom do not know how to play.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Mowbray did not find the place at all to her mind. Mr. Anderson’s -house, to which her son had succeeded, was old-fashioned, with furniture -of the last century, and large rooms, filled with the silence and calm -of years. Instead of being surrounded by “grounds,” which were the only -genteel setting for a gentleman’s house, it had the ruins of the -cathedral on one hand, and on the other the High Street. The picturesque -was not studied in those days: unless it might be the namby-pamby -picturesque, such as flourished in books of beauty, keepsakes, and -albums, when what was supposed to be Italian scenery was set forth in -steel engravings, and fine ladies at Venetian windows listened to the -guitars of their lovers rising from gondolas out of moonlit lakes. To -look out on the long, broad, sunny High Street, with, perhaps, the -figure of a piper in the distance, against the glow of the sunset, or a -wandering group, with an unhappy and melancholy dancing bear—was very -vulgar to the middle-class fine lady, a species appropriate to that -period, and which now has died away; and, to look out, on the other -hand, upon the soaring spring of a broken arch in the ruins, gave Mrs. -Mowbray the vapours, or the blues, or whatever else that elegant malady -was called. We should say nerves, in these later days, but, at the -beginning of the century, nerves had scarcely yet been invented.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_141" id="page_141"></a>{141}</span></p> - -<p>For all these reasons, Mrs. Mowbray did not stay long in St. Rule’s—she -complained loudly of everything she found there, of the house, and the -society which had paid her so little attention: and of the climate, and -the golf which Frank had yielded to the fascination of, staying out all -day, and keeping her in constant anxiety! but, above all, she complained -of the income left by old Mr. Anderson, which was so much less than they -expected, and which all her efforts could not increase. She said so much -about this, as to make the life of good Mr. Morrison, the man of -business, a burden to him: and at the same time to throw upon the most -respectable inhabitants of St. Rule’s a sort of cloud or shadow, or -suspicion of indebtedness which disturbed the equanimity of the town. -“She thinks we all borrowed money from old Anderson,” the gentlemen said -with laughter in many a dining-room. But there were a few others, like -Mr. Buchanan, who did not like the joke.</p> - -<p>“The woman is daft!” they said; but it was remarked by some keen -observers that the minister gave but a sickly smile in response. And it -may be supposed that this added to the contempt of the ladies for the -pretensions of a woman of whom nobody knew who was her father or who her -mother, yet who would fain have set herself up as a leader of fashion -over them all. In general, when the ladies disapprove of a new-comer, in -a limited society like that of St. Rule’s, the men are apt to take her -part—but, in this case, nobody<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_142" id="page_142"></a>{142}</span> took her part; and, as there was -nothing gay in the place, and no amusement to be had, even in solemn -dinner-parties, she very soon found it was not suitable for her health.</p> - -<p>“So cold, even in summer,” she said, shivering—and everybody was glad -when she went away, taking that little mannikin, Frank—who, perhaps, -might have been made into something like a man on the links—with her, -to the inanity of some fashionable place. To like a fashionable place -was then believed to be the very top, or bottom, of natural depravity in -St. Rule’s.</p> - -<p>This had been a very sore ordeal to Mr. Buchanan: his conscience -upbraided him day by day—he had even upon him an aching impulse to go -and tell somebody to relieve his own mind, and share the responsibility -with some one who might have guided him in his sore strait. Though he -was a very sound Presbyterian, and evangelical to his finger-tips, the -wisdom of the Church of Rome, in the institution of confession, and of a -spiritual director to aid the penitent, appeared to him in a far clearer -light than he had ever seen it before. To be sure, in all churches, the -advantage of telling your difficulties to an adviser conversant with the -spiritual life, has always been recognised: but there was no one whom -Mr. Buchanan could choose for this office—they were all married men, -for one thing, and who could be sure that the difficulty might not ooze -out into the mind of a faithful spouse, in no way<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_143" id="page_143"></a>{143}</span> bound to keep the -secrets of her husband’s penitents—and whom, at all events, even though -her lips were sealed by strictest honour, the penitent had no intention -of confiding his secret to. No; the minister felt that his reverend -brethren were the last persons to whom he would like to confide his hard -case. If there had been some hermit now, some old secluded person, some -old man, or even woman, in the sanctuary of years and experience, to -whom a man could go, and, by parable or otherwise, lay bare the troubles -of his soul. He smiled at himself even while the thought went through -his mind: the prose part of his being suggested an old, neglected -figure, all overgrown with beard and hair, in the hollow of St. Rule’s -cave, within the dashing of the spray, the very place for a hermit, a -dirty old man, hoarse and callous, incapable of comprehending the -troubles of a delicate conscience, though he might know what to say to -the reprobate or murderer: no, the hermit would not do, he said to -himself, with a smile, in our days.</p> - -<p>To be sure, he had one faithful confidant, the wife of his bosom; but, -least of all, would Mr. Buchanan have poured out his troubles to his -wife. He knew very well what she would say—“You accepted an indulgence -that was not meant for you; you took your bill and wrote fourscore when -it was hundreds you were owing; Claude, my man, that cannot be—you must -just go this moment and tell Mr. Morrison the whole truth; and, if I -should sell my flannel petticoat,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_144" id="page_144"></a>{144}</span> we’ll pay it off, every penny, if -only they will give us time.” He knew so well what she would say, that -he could almost hear the inflections of her voice in saying it. There -was no subtlety in her—she would understand none of his hesitations. -She would see no second side to the question. “Own debt and crave days,” -she would say; she was fond of proverbs—and he had heard her quote that -before.</p> - -<p>There are thus difficulties in the way of consulting the wife of your -bosom, especially if she is a practical woman, who could, in a manner, -force you to carry out your repentance into restitution, and give you no -peace.</p> - -<p>During this time of reawakened feeling, Mr. Buchanan had a certain -distant sentiment, which he did not know how to explain to himself, -against his daughter Elsie. She had a way of looking at him which he did -not understand—not the look of disapproval, but of curiosity, half -wistful, half pathetic—as if she wanted to know something more of him, -to clear up some doubt in her own mind. What cause could the girl have -to want more knowledge of her own father? She knew everything about him, -all his habits, his way of looking at things—as much as a girl could -know about a man so much older and wiser than herself. It half amused -him to think that one of his own family should find this mystery in him. -He was to himself, always excepting that one thing, as open as the -day—and yet the amusement was partial,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_145" id="page_145"></a>{145}</span> and mingled with alarm. She -knew more of that one thing than any one else; could it be that it was -curiosity and anxiety about this that was in the girl’s eyes?</p> - -<p>Sometimes he thought so, and then condemned himself for entertaining -such a thought, reminding himself that vague recollections like that of -Elsie do not take such shape in a young mind, and also that it was -impossible that one so young, and his affectionate and submissive child, -should entertain any such doubts of him.</p> - -<p>The curious thing was that, knowing all he did of himself, and that he -had done—or intended to do, which was the same—this one thing which -was evil, he still felt it impossible that any doubt of him should lodge -in his daughter’s mind.</p> - -<p>In this way the years which are, perhaps, most important in the -development of the young, passed over the heads of the Buchanans. From -sixteen, Elsie grew to twenty, and became, as Marion had been, her -mother’s right hand, so that Mrs. Buchanan, more free from domestic -cares than formerly, was able to take an amount of repose which, -perhaps, was not quite so good for her as her former more active life; -for she grew stout, and less willing to move as her necessities -lessened. John was now in Edinburgh, having very nearly obtained the -full-fledged honours of a W.S. And Rodie, nearly nineteen, was now the -only boy at home. Perhaps, as the youngest, and the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_146" id="page_146"></a>{146}</span> last to be settled, -he was more indulged than the others had been; for he had not yet -decided upon his profession, and still had hankerings after the army, -notwithstanding that all the defects of that service had been put before -him again and again—the all but impossibility of buying him a -commission, the certainty that he would have to live on his pay, and -many other disadvantageous things.</p> - -<p>Rodie was still not old enough to be without hopes that something might -turn up to make his desires possible, however little appearance of it -there might be. Getting into the army in those days was not like getting -into the army now. With us it means, in the first place, examinations, -which any boy of moderate faculties and industry can pass: but then it -meant so much money out of his father’s pocket to buy a commission: to -put the matter in words, the present system seems the better way—but it -is doubtful whether the father’s pocket is much the better, seeing that -there is often a great deal of “cramming” to be done before the youth -gets through the ordeal of examinations, and sometimes, it must be -allowed, boys who are of the most perfect material for soldiers do not -get through that narrow gate at all.</p> - -<p>But there was no cramming in Roderick Buchanan’s day; the word had not -been invented, nor the thing. A boy’s education was put into him -solidly, moderately, in much the same way as his body was built up, by -the work of successive years—he was not put into a<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_147" id="page_147"></a>{147}</span> warm place, and -filled with masses of fattening matter, like the poor geese of -Strasburg.</p> - -<p>Rodie’s eyes, therefore, not requiring to be for ever bent on -mathematics or other abstruse studies, were left free to search the -horizon for signs of anything that might turn up; perhaps a cadetship -for India, which was the finest thing that could happen—except in his -mother’s eyes, who thought one son was enough to have given up to the -great Moloch of India: but, had the promise of the cadetship arrived any -fine morning, I fear Mrs. Buchanan’s scruples would have been made short -work with. In the meantime, Rodie was attending classes at the College, -and sweeping the skies with the telescope of hope.</p> - -<p>Rodie and his sister had come a little nearer with the progress of the -years. From the proud moment, when the youth felt the down of a coming -moustache upon his upper lip, and began to perceive that he was by no -means a bad-looking fellow, and to feel inclinations towards balls and -the society of girls, scorned and contemned so long as he was merely a -boy, he had drawn a little closer to his sister, who had, as it were, -the keys of that other world. It was a little selfish, perhaps; but, in -a family, one must not look too closely into motives; and Elsie, -faithful to her first affection, was glad enough to get him back again, -and to find that he was, by no means, so scornful of mere “lassies,” as -in the days when his desertion had made her little heart so sore. -Perhaps it had something<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_148" id="page_148"></a>{148}</span> to do with his conversion, that “his laddies,” -the Alicks and Ralphs of his boyish days, had all taken (at least, as -many as remained of them, those who had not yet gone off to the army, or -the bar, or the W.S.’s office) to balls also, and now danced as -vigorously as they played.</p> - -<p>One of the strangest things, however, in all that juvenile band, was the -change which had come over Johnny Wemyss, who, the reader will remember, -was only a fisherman’s son, and lived east the town in a fisher’s -cottage, and was not supposed the best of company for the minister’s -son. Johnny, the romantic, silent boy, who had put down his flowers on -the pavement that the bride’s path might be over them, had taken to -learning, as it was easy for the poorest boy, in such a centre of -education, to do. As was usual, when a lad of his class showed this -turn, which was by no means extraordinary, it was towards the Church -that the parents directed their thoughts, and Johnny had taken all his -“arts” classes, his “humanities,” the curriculum of secular instruction, -and was pondering doctrine and exegesis in the theological branch, on -his way to be a minister, at the moment in their joint history at which -we have now arrived. I am not sure that even then he was quite sure that -he himself intended to be a minister; for, being a serious youth by -nature, he had much loftier views of that sacred profession than, -perhaps, it was possible for a minister’s son, trained up in over-much -familiarity with it,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_149" id="page_149"></a>{149}</span> to have. But his meaning was, as yet, not very -clear to himself; he was fonder of “beasts,” creatures of the sea-coast, -fishes, and those half-inanimate things, which few people, as yet, had -begun to think of at all, than of anything else in the world, except.... -I will not fill in this blank; perhaps the young reader will guess what -was the thing Johnny Wemyss held in still higher devotion than “his -beasts;” at all events, if he follows the thread of this story, he will -in time find out.</p> - -<p>Johnny was no longer kept outside the minister’s door. In his red gown, -as a student of St. Rule’s, he was as good as anyone, and the childish -alliance, which had long existed between him and Rodie, was still kept -up, although Rodie’s fictitious enthusiasm for beasts, which was merely -a reflection from his friend’s, had altogether failed, and he was as -ready as any one to laugh at the pottering in all the sea-pools, and -patient observation of all the strange creatures’ ways, which kept -Wemyss busy all the time he could spare from his lectures and his -essays, and the composition of the sermons which a theological student -at St. Mary’s College was bound, periodically, to produce. Those tastes -of his were already recognised as very absurd and rather amusing, but -very good things to keep a laddie out of mischief, Mrs. Buchanan said; -for it was evident that he could not be “carrying on” in any foolish -way, so long as he spent his afternoons out on the caller sands, with -his wee spy-glass, examining<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_150" id="page_150"></a>{150}</span> the creatures, how they were made, and all -about them, though it was a strange taste for a young man. Several times -he had, indeed, brought a basin full of sea-water—carrying it through -the streets, not at all put out by the amusement which surrounded him, -the school-boys that followed at his heels, the sharp looks which his -acquaintances gave each other, convinced now that Johnny Wemyss had -certainly a bee in his bonnet—to the minister’s house, that Miss Elsie -might see the wonderful white and pink creatures, like sea-flowers, the -strange sea-anemones, rooted on bits of rock, and waving their -tentacles, or shutting them up in a moment at a rude touch.</p> - -<p>Elsie, much disposed to laugh at first, when the strange youth brought -her this still stranger trophy, gradually came to admire, and wonder, -and take great notice of the sea-anemones, which were wonderfully -pretty, though so queer—and which, after all, she began to think, it -was quite as clever of Johnny Wemyss to have discovered, as it was of -the Alicks and Ralphs to shoot the wild-fowl at the mouth of the Eden. -It was even vaguely known that he wrote to some queer scientific fishy -societies about them, and received big letters by the post, “costing -siller,” or sometimes franked in the corner with long, sprawling -signatures of peers, or members of parliament. People, however, would -not believe that these letters could be about Johnny Wemyss’s beasts; -they thought that this must simply be a pretence to make himself and -his<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_151" id="page_151"></a>{151}</span> rubbish of importance, and that it must be something else which -procured him these correspondents, though what, they could not tell.</p> - -<p>Wemyss was the eldest of the little society. He was three-and-twenty, -and ought to be already settled in life, everybody thought. He had, for -some time, been making his living, which was the first condition of -popular respect, and had already been tutor to a number of lads before -he had begun his theological course. This age was rather a late age in -Scotland for a student of divinity—most of those who had any interest -were already sure of a kirk, and even those who had none were exercising -their gifts as probationers, and hoping to attract somebody’s notice who -could bestow one. But Johnny somehow postponed that natural -consummation: he went on with his tutor’s work, and made no haste over -his studies, continuing to attend lectures, when he might have applied -to the Presbytery for license. It was believed, and not without truth, -that not even for the glory of being a placed minister, could he make up -his mind to give up his beloved sea-pools, where he was always to be -found of an afternoon, pottering in the sea-water, spoiling his clothes, -and smelling of the brine, as if he were still one of the fisher folk -among whom he had been born. He no longer dwelt among them, however, for -his father and mother were both dead, and he himself lived in a little -lodging among those cheap tenements frequented by students<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_152" id="page_152"></a>{152}</span> near the -West, out at the other end of the town. He did not go to the balls, nor -care for dancing like the others,—which was a good thing, seeing he was -to be a minister,—but, notwithstanding, there were innumerable -occasions of meeting each other, common to all the young folk of the -friendly, little, old-fashioned town.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_153" id="page_153"></a>{153}</span></p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XII" id="CHAPTER_XII"></a>CHAPTER XII.<br /><br /> -<small>THE MOWBRAYS.</small></h2> - -<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Mowbray</span> and her son had reappeared for a short time on several -occasions during these silent years. They had come at the height of the -season for “the gowff,” which Frank, not having been a St. Rule’s boy, -nor properly brought up to it, played badly like an Englishman. It must -be understood that this was generations before golf had penetrated into -England, and when it was, in fact, thought of contemptuously by most of -the chance visitors, who considered it a game for old gentlemen, and -compared it scornfully with cricket, and called the clubs “sticks,” to -the hot indignation of the natives. Since then “the gowff” has had its -revenges, and it is now the natives who are scornful, and smile grimly -over the crowds of the strangers who are so eager, but never can get -over the disabilities of a childhood not dedicated to golf. Not only -Rodie, and Alick, and Ralph, but even Johnny Wemyss, who, though he -rarely played, had yet a natural understanding of the game, laughed at -the attempts of Frank, and at his dandyism, and his “high English,” and -many other signs of the alien, who gave himself airs, or was supposed to -do so. But, at the period of which I am now<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_154" id="page_154"></a>{154}</span> speaking, Frank had become -a man, and had learned several lessons in life. He was, indeed, older -than even Johnny Wemyss; he was nearly twenty-five, and had been at an -English University, and had had a large pair of whiskers, and was no -longer a dandy. The boys recognised him as a fellow-man, even as a man -in an advanced stage, who knew some things they did not, but no longer -gave himself airs. He had even learned that difficult lesson, which many -persons went through life without ever learning, that he could not play -golf. And when he settled himself with his mother in the old house which -belonged to him, in the beginning of summer, and addressed himself -seriously to the task of making up his deficiencies, his youthful -acquaintances rallied round him, and forgot their criticisms upon his -neckties, and his spats, and all the ornamental particulars of “the -fashion,” which he brought with him; nay, they began secretly to make -notes of these points, and shyly copied them, one after another, with a -great terror of being laughed at, which would have been completely -justified by results, but for the fact that they were all moved by the -same temptation. When, however, Rodie Buchanan and Alick Seaton, both -stepping out, with much diffidence, on a fresh Sunday morning, in their -first spats, red with apprehension, and looking about them suspiciously, -with a mingled dread of and desire to be remarked, suddenly ran upon -each other, they both paused, looked at each other’s feet, and, with -unspeakable<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_155" id="page_155"></a>{155}</span> relief, burst into a roar of laughter, which could be heard -both east and west to the very ends of the town; not very proper, many -people thought, on the Sunday morning, especially in the case of a -minister’s son. They were much relieved, however, to find themselves -thus freed from the terror of ridicule, and when all the band adopted -the new fashion, it was felt that the High Street had little to learn -from St. James’s, as well as—which was always known—much that it could -teach that presumptuous locality. Johnny Wemyss got no spats, he did not -pretend to follow the fashion; he smiled a little grimly at Frank, and -had a good hearty roar over the young ones, when they all defiled before -him on the Sunday walk on the links, shamefaced, but pleased with -themselves, and, in the strength of numbers, joining in Johnny’s laugh -without bitterness. Frank was <i>bon prince</i>, even in respect to Johnny; -he went so far as to pretend, if he did not really feel, an interest in -the “beasts,” and never showed any consciousness of the fact that this -member of the community had a different standing-ground from the others, -a fact, however, which, I fear, Mrs. Mowbray made very apparent, when -she in any way acknowledged the little company of young men.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Mowbray herself had not improved in these years. She had a look of -care which contracted her forehead, and gave her an air of being older -than she was, an effect that often follows the best exertions of<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_156" id="page_156"></a>{156}</span> those -who desire to look younger than they are. She talked a good deal about -her expenses, which was a thing not common in those days, and about the -difficulty of keeping up a proper position upon a limited income, with -all Frank’s costly habits, and her establishment in London, and the -great burden of keeping up the old house in St. Rule’s, which she would -like to sell if the trustees would permit her. By Mr. Anderson’s will, -however, Frank did not come of age, so far as regarded the Scotch -property, till he was twenty-five, and thus nothing could be done. She -had become a woman of many grievances, which is not perhaps at any time -a popular character, complaining of everything, even of Frank; though he -was the chief object of her life, and to demonstrate his superiority to -everybody else, was the chief subject of her talk, except when her -troubles with money and with servants came in, or the grievance of Mr. -Anderson’s misbehaviour in leaving so much less money than he ought, -overwhelmed all other subjects. Mrs. Mowbray took, as was perhaps -natural enough, Mr. Buchanan for her chief confidant. She had always, -she said, been in the habit of consulting her clergyman; and though -there was a difference, she scarcely knew what, between a clergyman and -a minister, she still felt that it was a necessity to have a spiritual -guide, and to lay forth the burden of her troubles before some one, who -would tell her what it was her duty to do in circumstances so -complicated and trying. She<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_157" id="page_157"></a>{157}</span> learned the way, accordingly, to Mr. -Buchanan’s study, where he received all his parish visitors, the elders -who came on the business of the Kirk session, and any one who wished to -consult him, whether upon spiritual matters, or upon the affairs of the -church, or charitable institutions. The latter were the most frequent, -and except a poor widow-woman in search of aid for her family, or, with -a certificate for a pension to be signed, or a letter for a hospital, -his visitors were almost always rare. It was something of a shock when a -lady, rustling in silk, and with all her ribbons flying, was first shown -in by the half-alarmed maid, who had previously insisted, to the verge -of ill-breeding, that Mrs. Buchanan was in the drawing-room: but as time -went on, it became a very common incident, and the minister started -nervously every time a knock sounded on his door, in terror lest it -should be she.</p> - -<p>In ordinary cases, I have no doubt Mr. Buchanan would have made a little -quiet fun of his visitor, whose knock and step he had begun to know, as -if she had been a visitor expected and desired. But what took all the -fun out of it and prevented even a smile, was the fact that he was -horribly afraid of her all the time, and never saw her come in without a -tremor at his heart. It seemed to him on each repeated visit that she -must in the interval since the last have discovered something: though he -knew that there was nothing to discover, and that the proofs of his own -culpability<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_158" id="page_158"></a>{158}</span> were all locked up in his own heart, where they lay and -corroded, burning the place, and never permitting him to forget what he -had done, although he had done nothing. How often had he said to himself -that he had done nothing! But it did him no good, and when Mrs. Mowbray -came in with her grievances, he felt as if each time she must denounce -him, and on the spot demand that he should pay what he owed. Oh, if that -only could be, if she had denounced him, and had the power to compel -payment, what a relief it would have been! It would have taken the -responsibility off his shoulders, it would have brought him out of hell. -There would then have been no possibility of reasoning with himself, or -asking how it was to be done, or shrinking from the shame of revealing -even to his wife, what had been his burden all these years. He had in -his imagination put the very words into her mouth, over and over again. -He had made her say: “Mr. Buchanan, you were owing old Mr. Anderson -three hundred pounds.” And to this he had replied: “Yes, Mrs. Mowbray,” -and the stone had rolled away from his heart. This imaginary -conversation had been repeated over and over again in his mind. He never -attempted to deny it, never thought now of taking his bill and writing -fourscore. Not an excuse did he offer, nor any attempt at denial. “Yes, -Mrs. Mowbray:” that was what he heard himself saying: and he almost -wished it might come true.</p> - -<p>The condition of strange suspense and expectation<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_159" id="page_159"></a>{159}</span> into which this -possibility threw him, is very difficult to describe or understand. His -wife perceived something, and perhaps it crossed her mind for a moment -that he liked those visits, and that there was reason of offence to -herself in them: but she was a sensible woman and soon perceived the -folly of such an explanation. But the mere fact that an explanation -seemed necessary, disturbed her, and gave her an uncomfortable sensation -in respect to him, who never had so far as she knew in all their lives -kept any secret from her. What was it? The most likely thing was, that -the secret was Mrs. Mowbray’s which she had revealed to him, and which -was a burden on his mind because of her, not of himself. <i>That</i> -woman—for this was the way in which Mrs. Buchanan began to describe the -other lady in her heart—was just the sort of woman to have a history, -and what if she had burdened the minister’s conscience with it to -relieve her own? “I wonder,” she said to Elsie one day, abruptly, a -remark connected with nothing in particular, “what kind of mind the -Catholic priests have, that have to hear so many confessions of ill -folks’ vices and crimes. It must be as if they had done it all -themselves, and not daring to say a word.”</p> - -<p>“What makes you think of that, mother?” said Elsie.</p> - -<p>“It is no matter what makes me think of it,” said Mrs. Buchanan, a -little sharply. “Suppose you were told of something very bad, and had to -see the person<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_160" id="page_160"></a>{160}</span> coming and going, and never knowing when vengeance might -overtake them by night or by day.”</p> - -<p>“Do you mean, mother, that you would like to tell, and that they should -be punished?” Elsie said.</p> - -<p>“It would not be my part to punish her,” said the mother, unconsciously -betraying herself. “No, no, that would never be in my mind: but you -would always be on the outlook for everything that happened if you -knew—and specially if she knew that you knew. Whenever a stranger came -near, you would think it was the avenger that was coming, or, at the -least, it was something that would expose her, that would be like a clap -of thunder. Bless me, Elsie, I cannot tell how they can live and thole -it, these Catholic priests.”</p> - -<p>“They will hear so many things, they will not think much about them,” -Elsie said, with philosophy.</p> - -<p>“No think about them! when perhaps it is life or death to some poor -creature, and her maybe coming from time to time looking at you very -wistful as if she were saying: ‘Do you think they will find me out? Do -you think it was such a very bad thing? do you think they’ll kill me for -it?’ I think I would just go and say it was me that did it, and would -they give me what was my due and be done with it, for ever and ever. I -think if it was me, that is what I would do.”</p> - -<p>“But it would not be true, mother.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, lassie,” said Mrs. Buchanan, “dinna fash me with your trues and -your no trues! I am saying what<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_161" id="page_161"></a>{161}</span> I would be worked up to, if my -conscience was bowed down with another person’s sin.”</p> - -<p>“Would it be worse than if it was your own?” asked Elsie.</p> - -<p>“A great deal worse. When you do what’s wrong yourself, everything that -is in you rises up to excuse it. You say to yourself, Dear me, what are -they all making such a work about? it is no so very bad, it was because -I could not help it, or it was without meaning any harm, or it was -just—something or other; but when it is another person, you see it in -all its blackness and without thinking of any excuse. And then when it’s -your own sin, you can repent and try to make up for it, or to confess it -and beg for pardon both to him you have wronged, and to God, but -especially to him that is wronged, for that is the hardest. And in any -way you just have it in your own hands. But you cannot repent for -another person, nor can you make up, nor give her the right feelings; -you have just to keep silent, and wonder what will happen next.”</p> - -<p>“You are meaning something in particular, mother?” Elsie said.</p> - -<p>“Oh, hold your tongue with your nonsense, everything that is, is -something in particular,” Mrs. Buchanan said. She had been listening to -a rustle of silk going past the drawing-room door; she paused and -listened, her face growing a little pale, putting out her hand to hinder -any noise, which would prevent<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_162" id="page_162"></a>{162}</span> her from hearing. Elsie in turn watched -her, staring, listening too, gradually making the strange discovery that -her mother’s trouble was connected with the coming of Mrs. Mowbray, a -discovery which disturbed the girl greatly, though she could not make -out to herself how it was.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Buchanan could not refrain from a word on the same subject to her -husband. When she went to his room after his visitor was gone, she found -him with his elbows supported on his table and his face hidden in his -hands. He started at her entrance, and raised his head suddenly with a -somewhat scared countenance towards her: and then drawing his papers -towards him, he began to make believe that he had been writing. “Well, -my dear,” he said, turning a little towards her, but without raising his -eyes.</p> - -<p>“Claude, my dear, what ails you that you should start like that—when -it’s just me, your own wife, coming into the room?”</p> - -<p>“Did I start?” he said; “no, I don’t think I started: but I did not hear -you come in.” Then with a pretence at a smile he added, “I have just had -a visit from that weariful woman, Mrs. Mowbray. It was an evil day for -me when she was shown the way up here.”</p> - -<p>“But surely, Claude,” said Mrs. Buchanan, “it was by your will that she -ever came up here.”</p> - -<p>“Is that all you know, Mary?” he said, with a smile. “Who am I, that I -can keep out a woman<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_163" id="page_163"></a>{163}</span> who is dying to speak about herself, and thinks -there is no victim so easy as the minister. It is just part of the day’s -duty, I suppose.”</p> - -<p>“But you were never, that I remember, taigled in this way before,” Mrs. -Buchanan said.</p> - -<p>“I was perhaps never brought face to face before with a woman determined -to say her say, and that will take no telling. My dear, if you will free -me of her, you will do the best day’s work for me you have ever done in -your life.”</p> - -<p>“There must be something of the first importance in what she has to -say.”</p> - -<p>“To herself, I have no doubt,” said the minister, with a deep sigh. “I -am thinking there is no subject in the world that has the interest our -own affairs have to ourselves. She is just never done: and all about -herself.”</p> - -<p>“I am not a woman to pry into my neighbour’s concerns: but this must be -some sore burden on her conscience, Claude, since she has so much to say -to you.”</p> - -<p>“Do you think so?” he cried. “Well, that might perhaps be an -explanation: for what I have to do with her small income, and her way of -spending her money, and her house, and her servants, I cannot see. There -is one thing that gives it a sting to me. I cannot forget that we have -something to do with the smallness of her income,” Mr. Buchanan said.</p> - -<p>“We to do with smallness of her income! I will<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_164" id="page_164"></a>{164}</span> always maintain,” said -Mrs. Buchanan, “that the money was the old man’s, and that he had the -first right to give it where he pleased; but, dear Claude, man, you that -should ken—what could that poor three hundred give her? Fifteen pound -per annum; and what is fifteen pound per annum?—not enough to pay that -English maid with all her airs and graces. If it had been as many -thousands, there might have been some justice it.”</p> - -<p>“That is perhaps an idea,” said the harassed minister, “if we were to -offer her the interest, Mary? My dear, what would you say to that? It -would be worse than ever to gather together that money and pay it back; -but fifteen pounds a year, that might be a possible thing; you might put -your shoulder to the wheel, and pay her that.”</p> - -<p>“Claude,” said Mrs. Buchanan, “are you sure that is all the woman is -wanting? I cannot think it can be that. It is just something that is on -her conscience, and she wants to put it off on you.”</p> - -<p>“My dear,” said the minister, “you’re a very clever woman, but you are -wrong there. I have heard nothing about her conscience, it is her wrongs -that she tells to me.” The conversation had eased his mind a little, and -his wife’s steady confidence in his complete innocence in the matter, -and the perfect right of old Anderson to do what he liked with his own -money, was always, for the moment at least, refreshing to his soul: -though he soon fell back on the reflection that the only fact of<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_165" id="page_165"></a>{165}</span> any -real importance in the matter was the one she never knew.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Buchanan was a little disconcerted by the failure of her prevision, -but she would not recede. “If she has not done it yet, she will do it -sometime. Mind what I am saying to you, Claude: there is something on -her conscience, and she wants to put it off on you.”</p> - -<p>“Nonsense, Mary,” he said. “What should be on the woman’s conscience? -and why should she try to put it upon mine? Dear me, my conscience would -be far easier bearing the weight of her ill-doing than the weight of my -own. We must get this beam out of our own eye if we can, and then the -mote in our neighbour’s—if there is a mote—will be easy, oh, very -easy, to put up with. It is my own burden that troubles me.”</p> - -<p>“Toot,” said Mrs. Buchanan, “you are just very exaggerated. It was most -natural Mr. Anderson should do as he did, knowing all the -circumstances—and you, what else should you do, to go against him? But -you will just see,” she added, confidently, “that I will prove a true -prophet after all. If it has not been done, it will be done, and you -will get her sin to bear as well as your own.”<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_166" id="page_166"></a>{166}</span></p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIII" id="CHAPTER_XIII"></a>CHAPTER XIII.<br /><br /> -<small>PLAINTIFF OR PENITENT?</small></h2> - -<p><span class="smcap">Meanwhile</span>, the reader shall judge by the turn of one of these -conversations whether Mrs. Buchanan was, or was not, justified in her -prevision. Mrs. Mowbray came tripping up the long stair, which was of -stone, and did not creak under foot, though she was betrayed by the -rustle of her silk dress, which was in those days a constant -accompaniment of a woman’s movements. When she approached nearer, there -were other little sounds that betrayed her,—a little jingle of -bracelets and chains, and the bugles of her mantle. She was naturally -dressed in what was the height of the fashion then, though we should -think it ridiculous now, as we always think the fashions that are past. -When Mr. Buchanan heard that little jingle and rattle, his heart failed -him. He put down his pen or his book, and the healthful colour in his -cheek failed. A look of terror and trouble came into his face.</p> - -<p>“Here is <i>that</i> woman again,” he said to himself. Mrs. Mowbray, on her -side, was very far from thinking herself <i>that</i> woman; she rather -thought the minister looked forward with pleasure to her visits, that -she brought a sort of atmosphere of sunshine and the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_167" id="page_167"></a>{167}</span> great world into -that sombre study of his, and that the commonplace of his life was -lighted up by her comings and goings. There are a great many people in -the world who deceive themselves in this way, and it would have been a -shock to Mrs. Mowbray if she had seen the appalled look of the -minister’s face when his ear caught the sound of her coming, and he -looked up to listen the better, with a gesture of impatience, almost -despair, saying to himself, “that woman again.”</p> - -<p>She came in, however, all smiles, lightly tapping at the door, with a -little distinctive knock, which was like nobody else’s, or so at least -she thought. She liked to believe that she did everything in a -distinctive way, so that her touch and her knock and all her movements -should be at once realised as hers. She had been a pretty woman, and -might still indeed have been so, had she not been so anxious to preserve -her charms that she had undermined them for a long time, year by year. -She had worn out her complexion by her efforts to retain it and make it -brighter, and frizzed and tortured her hair till she had succeeded in -making it of no particular colour at all. The effort and wish to be -pretty were so strong in her, and so visible, that it made her remaining -prettiness almost ridiculous, and people laughed at her as an old woman -struggling to look young when she was not really old at all. Poor Mrs. -Mowbray! looking at her from one point of view, her appearance<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_168" id="page_168"></a>{168}</span> was -pathetic, for it was as much as to say that she felt herself to have no -recommendation at all but her good looks, and therefore would fight for -them to the death—which is, if you think of it, a kind of humility, -though it gets no credit for being so. She came in with a simper and -jingle of all the chains and adornments, as if she felt herself the most -welcome of visitors, and holding out her hand, said:</p> - -<p>“Here I am again, Mr. Buchanan. I am sure you must be getting quite -tired of me.” She expected him to contradict her, but the minister did -not do so. He said:</p> - -<p>“How do you do, Mrs. Mowbray?” rising from his chair, but the muscles of -his face did not relax, and he still held his pen in his hand.</p> - -<p>“I am so afraid you are busy, but I really will not detain you above a -few minutes. It is such a comfort amid all the troubles of my life to -come to this home of peace, and tell you everything. You don’t know what -a consolation it is only to see you, Mr. Buchanan, sitting there so -calm, and so much above the world. It is a consolation and a reproach. -One thinks, Oh, how little one’s small troubles are in the light that -comes from heaven!”</p> - -<p>“I am afraid you are giving me credit for much more tranquillity than I -can claim,” said the minister. “I am not without my cares, any more than -other men.”</p> - -<p>“Ah, but what are those cares?” cried the lady.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_169" id="page_169"></a>{169}</span> “I know; the care of -doing what you can for everybody else, visiting the poor and widows in -their affliction, and keeping yourself unspotted from the world. Oh, how -different, how different from the things that overwhelm us!”</p> - -<p>What could the poor minister do? It seemed the most dreadful satire to -him to be so spoken to, conscious as he was of the everlasting gnawing -at his heart of what he had done, or at least left undone. But if he had -been ever so anxious to confess his sins, he could not have done it to -her; and accordingly he had to smile as best he could, and say that he -hoped he might preserve her good opinion, though he had done so very -little to deserve it. Perhaps if he had been less conscious of his own -demerits, he would have perceived, as his wife had done, that there was -a line in Mrs. Mowbray’s forehead which all her little arts could not -conceal, and which meant more than anything she had yet told him. Mrs. -Buchanan had divined this, but not the minister, who was too much -occupied with his own purgatory to be aware that amid all her rustlings -and jinglings, and old-fashioned coquetries, there was here by his side -another soul in pain.</p> - -<p>“You cannot imagine,” said Mrs. Mowbray, spreading out her hands, “what -it is to me to think of my poor Frank deceived in his hopes, and instead -of coming into a fortune, having next to no money when he comes of age. -Oh, that coming of age, I am so frightened,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_170" id="page_170"></a>{170}</span> so frightened for it! It is -bad enough now to deny him so many things he wants.”</p> - -<p>“Do you deny him many things he wants?” said the minister. The question -was put half innocently, half satirically, for Frank indeed seemed a -spoilt child, having every possible indulgence, to the sturdy sons of -St. Rule’s.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Mowbray laughed, and made a movement as of tapping the minister’s -arm with a fan.</p> - -<p>“Oh, how unkind of you,” she said, “to be so hard on a mother’s -weakness! I have not denied him much up to this time. How could I, Mr. -Buchanan, my only child? And he has such innocent tastes. He never wants -anything extravagant. Look at him now. He has no horse, he is quite -happy with his golf, and spends nothing at all. Perhaps his tailor’s -bill is large, but a woman can’t interfere with that, and it is such a -nice thing that a boy should like to be well dressed. I like him to take -a little trouble about his dress. I don’t believe he ever touches a -card, and betting over his game on the links is nothing, he tells me: -you win one day and lose the next, and so you come out quite square at -the end. Oh, it all goes on smooth enough now. But when he comes of age! -It was bad enough last time when he came of age, for his English money -and everything was gone over. Do you think it just, Mr. Buchanan, that a -mere man of business, a lawyer, an indifferent person that knows nothing -about the family, should go over all your expenses,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_171" id="page_171"></a>{171}</span> and tell you you -shouldn’t have done this, and you shouldn’t have done that, when he has -really nothing to do with it, and the money is all your own?”</p> - -<p>“I am afraid,” said Mr. Buchanan, “that the business man is a necessity, -and perhaps is better able to say what you ought to spend than you are -yourself.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, how can you say so? when perhaps he is not even a gentleman, and -does not understand anything about what one wants when one is accustomed -to good society. This man Morrison, for instance——”</p> - -<p>“Morrison,” said the minister, “is a gentleman both by blood and -breeding, although he is a simple man in his manners: his family——”</p> - -<p>“Oh, I know what you mean,” said Mrs. Mowbray, “a small Scotch squire, -and they think as much of their family as if they were dukes. I know he -is Morrison of somewhere or other, but that does not teach a man what’s -due to a lady, or what a young man wants who is entitled to expect his -season in town, and all his little diversions. Morrison, Mr. Buchanan, -would have put Frank to a trade. He would, it is quite true. I don’t -wonder you are surprised. My Frank, with so much money on both sides! He -spoke to me of an office in Edinburgh. I assure you he did—for my boy!”</p> - -<p>“I am not in the least surprised,” said the minister; “we are all -thankful to put our sons into offices in Edinburgh, and get them -something to do.”<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_172" id="page_172"></a>{172}</span></p> - -<p>“I am sure you won’t think I mean anything disagreeable,” said Mrs. -Mowbray, “but your sons, Mr. Buchanan, pardon me—you have all so many -of them. And I have only one, and money, as I say, on both sides. I had -quite a nice fortune myself. I never for a moment will consent that my -Frank should go into an office. It would ruin his health, and then he is -much too old for anything of that sort. The folly of postponing his -majority till he was twenty-five! And oh, Mr. Buchanan,” she cried, -clasping her hands, “the worst of it all is, that he will find so -little, so very little when he does come into his property at last.”</p> - -<p>There was a look almost of anguish in the poor lady’s face, her eyes -seemed full of tears, her forehead was cut across by that deep line of -trouble which Mrs. Buchanan had divined. She looked at the minister in a -sort of agony, as if asking, “May I tell him? Dare I tell him?” But of -this the minister saw nothing. He did not look at her face with any -interest. He was employed in resisting her supposed efforts to penetrate -his secret, and this concealed from him, under impenetrable veils, any -secret that she might have of her own. It was not that he was dull or -slow to understand in general cases, but in this he was blinded by his -own profound preoccupation, and by a certain dislike to the woman who -thus disturbed and assailed his peace. He could not feel any sympathy -with her; her little airs and graces, her efforts<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_173" id="page_173"></a>{173}</span> to please, poor soul, -which were intended only to make her agreeable, produced in him exactly -the opposite sensation, which often happens, alas, in our human -perversity. Neither of them indeed understood the other, because each -was occupied with himself.</p> - -<p>“I don’t think,” said Mr. Buchanan, roused to resistance, “that you will -find things nearly so bad as you seem to expect. I am sure the estate -has been very carefully administered while in my friend Morrison’s -hands. You could not have a more honourable or a more careful steward. -He could have no interest but to do the best he could for you, and I am -sure he would do it. And property has not fallen in value in Fife so far -as I know. I think, if you will permit me to say so, that you are -alarming yourself without cause.”</p> - -<p>All this time, Mrs. Mowbray had been looking at him through the water in -her eyes, her face contracted, her lips a little apart, her forehead -drawn together. He glanced at her from time to time while he was -speaking, but he had the air of a man who would very gladly be done with -the business altogether, and had no ear for her complaints. The poor -lady drew from the depths of her bosom a long sigh, and then her face -changed from the momentary reality into which some strong feeling had -forced it. It was a more artificial smile than ever which she forced -upon her thin lips, in which there was a quiver of pain and doubt.</p> - -<p>“Ah, Mr. Buchanan, you always stand up for your<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_174" id="page_174"></a>{174}</span> own side. Why is it I -cannot get you to take any interest in mine?”</p> - -<p>“My dear lady,” said the minister with some impatience, “there are no -sides in the matter. It is simple truth and justice to Morrison.”</p> - -<p>Here she suddenly put her hand on his arm. “And how about the -defaulters?” she said.</p> - -<p>“The defaulters!” She was as ignorant wherein the sting lay to him as he -was of the gnawing of the serpent’s tooth in her. It was now his under -lip that fell, his cheek that grew pale. “I don’t know what you mean by -defaulters,” he said, almost roughly, feeling as if she had taken -advantage when he was off his guard and stabbed him with a sharp knife.</p> - -<p>“Oh, dear Mr. Buchanan, the men who borrowed money, and never paid it! I -am sure you could tell me about them if you would. The men who cheated -my poor Frank’s old uncle into giving them loans which they never meant -to pay.”</p> - -<p>“Mrs. Mowbray,” he said, slowly, “I remember that you have spoken to me -on this subject before.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, yes, I have spoken on this subject before. Isn’t it natural I -should? You as good as acknowledged it, Mr. Buchanan. You acknowledged, -I remember, that you knew one of them: of course you know all of them! -Didn’t he tell you everything? You were his minister and his spiritual -guide. He did nothing without you.”</p> - -<p>“Mr. Anderson never asked any advice from me as<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_175" id="page_175"></a>{175}</span> to his secular -business. Why should he? He understood it much better than I did. His -spiritual guide in the sense in which you use the words, I never was, -and never could have been.”</p> - -<p>“Oh!” cried the lady, waving her hands about in excitement, “what does -it matter about words? If you only knew how important a little more -money would be to us, Mr. Buchanan! It might make all the difference, it -might save me from—from—oh, indeed, I do not quite know what I am -saying, but I want you to understand. It is not only for the money’s -sake. I know, I am certain that you could help me; only tell me who -these men are, and I will not trouble you any more.”</p> - -<p>“I do not know what you mean,” he said, “when you talk of those men.”</p> - -<p>“Mr. Buchanan, you said you knew one.”</p> - -<p>“Perhaps I said I knew one; that was only one, it was not many. And if I -did know, and knew that they had been forgiven, do you think it would be -right for me to bring those poor men into trouble, and defeat the -intentions of my friend—for what, for what, Mrs. Mowbray? I don’t know -what you suppose my inducement would be.”</p> - -<p>She bent towards him till she almost seemed to be on her knees, and -clasping her hands, said:</p> - -<p>“For me, Mr. Buchanan, for me!”</p> - -<p>There was no doubt that it was genuine feeling that was in her face, and -in the gaze of the eager eyes looking<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_176" id="page_176"></a>{176}</span> out from their puckered lids; but -the poor woman’s idea of pleasing, of overcoming by her personal charms -was so strong in her, that underneath those puckered and beseeching eyes -which were so tragically real, there was a smile of ingratiating -blandishment on her mouth, which was like the stage smile of a ballet -dancer, set and fictitious, appealing to heaven knows what of the man’s -lower nature. She meant no harm, nor did she think any harm, but those -were the days when feminine influence was supposed to lie in -blandishment, in flattery, and all the arts of persuasion. Do this for -me because I am so pretty, so helpless, so dependent upon your help, but -chiefly because I am so pretty, and so anxious that you should think me -pretty, and be vanquished by my beauty! This was the sentiment on part -of Mrs. Mowbray’s face, while the other was full of eager pain and -trouble, almost desperation. That smile and those blandishments might -perhaps have moved the man had she been indeed beautiful and young, as -she almost thought she was while making that appeal. But Mr. Buchanan’s -eyes were calm, and they turned from the ballet-dancer’s smile and -ingratiating looks with something more like disgust than yielding. Alas! -these feminine arts which were then supposed to be quite independent of -common sense, or reason or justice, and to triumph over them all, -required real beauty at least and the charms of youth! To attempt to -exercise them when the natural spell had failed, was almost an insult to -a man’s intelligence.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_177" id="page_177"></a>{177}</span> The minister was not conscious of this feeling, -but it made him angry in spite of himself.</p> - -<p>“For you, Mrs. Mowbray?” he said, “think what you are saying. You would -like me to betray my old friend, and balk his intentions, and to disturb -a number of families and snatch from them what they have been accustomed -to consider as a free gift, and probably in no circumstances expected to -refund—for you. For you, for what? that your son, having a great deal -already, should have a little more,” (here she attempted to interrupt -him to say, “No, no, not having had a great deal, never having had -much!” which his stronger voice bore down and penetrated through), “that -you should add some luxuries to your wealthy estate. No, Mrs. Mowbray, -no. I am astonished that you should ask it of me. If I could do it, I -should despise myself.”</p> - -<p>What high ground he took! and he felt himself justified in taking it. He -was buoyed up over all personal motives of his own by a lofty -realisation of the general question. There were many others concerned as -well as he. What right would he have to betray the fact that poor -Horsburgh, for instance, had received a loan from Mr. Anderson to -establish him in business? If Mr. Anderson’s heirs proceeded against -Horsburgh, who was still painfully keeping his head above water, the -result would be ruin—all to put another hundred pounds, perhaps, in -Frank Mowbray’s pocket, an idle lad who already had plenty,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_178" id="page_178"></a>{178}</span> and never -did a hand’s turn. And she thought to come over him and make him do that -by the glamour of a pair of middle-aged eyes, and the flatteries of an -antiquated smile? The man was angry with the woman’s folly and revolted -by her pretensions. No, he would not betray poor Horsburgh. Was not this -the meaning after all, and a nobler meaning than he had ever thought of, -of the proceedings of the unjust steward? Take thy bill, and sit down -quickly, and write fourscore. <i>Thy</i> bill; not mine, did not that make -all the difference in the world? Not for me, but for poor Horsburgh. The -woman was mad to think that for her, a woman who wanted nothing, he -would sacrifice a struggling family: not to say that, even now, poor -Horsburgh was, as it were, looking ruin in the face.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_179" id="page_179"></a>{179}</span></p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIV" id="CHAPTER_XIV"></a>CHAPTER XIV.<br /><br /> -<small>ANOTHER AGENT.</small></h2> - -<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Mowbray</span> had put off all sign of agitation when in the evening she -sat down with her son Frank, at the hour of seven, which, in those days, -was a pretentiously late, even dissipated hour for dinner, at all events -in St. Rule’s, where most people dined early or at least at varying -hours in the afternoon, such as four o’clock, five o’clock, the very -height of discomfort, but supposed by some reasoning I am unable to -account for, to be virtuous and respectable hours, while anything later -than six was extravagant and almost wicked. Mrs. Mowbray dined at seven -by way of waving a flag of superiority over the benighted town. It was -reported commonly, that in London people were beginning to dine at -eight, an hour when honest folk were thinking of getting ready for bed, -or, at all events, were taking their supper as honest folk ought. I am -not able to explain why one hour should be considered more innocent than -another; but so it was. Frank Mowbray, half-influenced by his mother, -and half-drawn away into different modes of thinking by the young -society of St. Rule’s, which thought every way ridiculous that was<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_180" id="page_180"></a>{180}</span> not -its own way, was half-proud of the fashionable peculiarities of his -mother’s economy, and half-abashed to find himself held to habits which -were so different to those of the others. As the nights began to -lengthen he was impatient of being kept in at what the others thought -the most agreeable time of the evening, when all the young fellows were -clustering about the club, making up their matches for the next day. But -he had not yet reached the moment of revolt.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Mowbray had put off, so far as she could, all appearance of -agitation. She was very nicely dressed according to the fashion of the -times. Her ringlets were flowing, her smiles freely dispensed, though -only her son was present to admire her. But she thought it was part of -her duty to make herself as agreeable to Frank as to any other member of -society. She listened quite patiently to all his talk about his young -men. She was indeed interested in this talk and pleased to hear about -everybody, who and what they were, and even whether they were -first-class or second-class players: and their special deeds of prowess -at the heathery hole or any other of the long list which Frank had at -his finger-ends. She liked to hear all the details with which Frank -could furnish her of their families as well as their golf. But that was -less interesting to him, and helped her but little in her researches.</p> - -<p>“You see a great deal of the Buchanans, don’t you, Frank?” she said, in -the course of the conversation,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_181" id="page_181"></a>{181}</span> not meaning much more by the question -than by many others.</p> - -<p>But here Mrs. Mowbray instantly perceived a difference in her son’s -manner, which betrayed something quite new and unexpected.</p> - -<p>Frank made a pause, which, though only for a moment, was noted by her -fine and vigilant spirit of observation, looked at her furtively, -coloured, and said: “Oh, the Buchanans! Yes, I see them now and then,” -in a tone quite different from that in which he had been discoursing -about the Seatons and the Beatons, and all the rest of the tribe.</p> - -<p>“You see them now and then? Yes, that is all I expected: they are not -precisely of our <i>monde</i>,” his mother said.</p> - -<p>“Why not of our <i>monde</i>?” cried Frank, “they are the best people in St. -Rule’s, and that is their <i>monde</i>; and it is our <i>monde</i>, I suppose, as -long as we stay here.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, dear boy,” said his mother, “but, fortunately, you know we don’t -belong to it, and it is only a question of how long we stay here.”</p> - -<p>Upon this, Frank cleared his throat, and collecting all his courage, -launched forth a suggestion which he had long desired, but, up to this -moment, had never had the bravery to make.</p> - -<p>“Mother,” he said, “this is a very nice house, don’t you think? The -rooms are large, and I know you like large rooms. Just think what a -wretched little place the house in Chapel Street was in comparison.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_182" id="page_182"></a>{182}</span> And -we were nobody there, and you always said you were not appreciated.”</p> - -<p>“That is true enough; when you have no title, and are not rich, it is -hard, very hard, to get a footing in society,” Mrs. Mowbray said, with a -sigh.</p> - -<p>“But we are somebody here,” said Frank, “you are looked up to as the -glass of fashion and the mould of form, that sort of thing, don’t you -know? All the ladies say to me, ‘What does Mrs. Mowbray do?’ or ‘What is -your mother going to do?’ They see your superiority and make you their -example.”</p> - -<p>“Frank,” said his mother, pleased but a little doubtful, “you are -flattering me. I don’t know why you should flatter me.”</p> - -<p>“I am not flattering you a bit, mother. It is quite true. Now, what I -mean to say is, why should we go back again to Chapel Street, where -there is not a single thing for a man to do, and the women are so -disagreeable to you, because you have no title—when we can be the first -people in the place, and so much thought of here.”</p> - -<p>“Here!” said Mrs. Mowbray, with a little shriek of dismay.</p> - -<p>“You know, mother, you always say how disappointing it is to go through -the world, and never know anybody who takes you at your true value,” -said Frank. “People are always—I have heard you say it a hundred -times—inquiring who we are, and what relation we are to Lord Mowbray, -and all that: as if we<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_183" id="page_183"></a>{183}</span> were not fit to be visited because we are not -related to Lord Mowbray.”</p> - -<p>“It is quite true,” said Mrs. Mowbray with indignation, “but I never -knew before that you had taken any notice of it, Frank.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, I have taken great notice of it,” he said. “I never said anything, -for what was the use when I couldn’t do anything; but you don’t suppose -it didn’t hurt me very much to see that you were not receiving proper -attention, mother? Of course I took notice of it! but words never do any -good.”</p> - -<p>“What a dear boy you are, Frank!” said his mother, kissing the tips of -her fingers to him. It was not very often that she was flattered in this -way. The flatter was usually done by herself. She was so well acquainted -with it, that she was not so easily convinced of its sincerity, as -others might have been; but still, sincere or not, there was no doubt -that these were very nice things for Frank to say.</p> - -<p>“But here it is your notice that everybody would seek, mother,” he -continued. “It is you who would set the example, and everybody would -follow. Nobody thinks of asking whether we are related to Lord Mowbray, -here. We are just what we are, and the objects of respect. We are the -best people in the place,” Frank said.</p> - -<p>“That is what you have just said of the Buchanans, Frank—and I told you -before—they are not of our <i>monde</i>.”<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_184" id="page_184"></a>{184}</span></p> - -<p>“What is our <i>monde</i>?” cried the young man. “It is not Lord Mowbray’s -<i>monde</i>, nor the <i>monde</i> of the Rashleighs and those sort of people, -mother, whom we used to run after. I am sure they said just what you are -doing about us. They used to twist round their necks and thrust out -their heads, and screw up their noses, don’t you remember?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, and bow with their eyelids and smile with the edge of their lips,” -cried Mrs. Mowbray. “I remember! How could I help remembering people not -fit to tie our shoes, but with an odious little baronetcy in the -family!”</p> - -<p>“But nobody could do that here,” said Frank, with a feeling that he had -conducted his argument very cleverly, and had carried her with him all -along the line.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Mowbray burst into a laugh. “Is it all for my benefit, to see me -respected, that you would like to shut me up in this little hole for -life,” she said.</p> - -<p>Poor Frank was very much startled by this issue of his argument. He -looked up at her half-piteous, half-angry.</p> - -<p>“I don’t call it a little hole,” he said.</p> - -<p>“But I do,” said his mother, “a dreadful little hole! where you have to -make yourself agreeable to all sorts of people whom you would never -speak to, nor look at in society! Why, Frank, there is nobody here in -society. Not one that you would like to walk along Bond Street with. -Think of going along Rotten Row with any one of those girls on your -arm.”<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_185" id="page_185"></a>{185}</span></p> - -<p>“I should be very proud,” cried Frank, very red, “to go anywhere with -one of them on my arm.”</p> - -<p>“My poor dear boy,” cried Mrs. Mowbray, “I knew that was what you meant -all the time. I always forget that you have come to the age for that -sort of thing. Only think how you would look if you were to meet Lady -Marion, and she were to begin to ask her questions. ‘Who was the young -lady, and who were her friends in town?’ ‘Oh, she doesn’t know anybody -in town.’ ‘Where did she come from?’ ‘Oh, not a place you ever heard of -in your life, a little town in Scotland.’ ‘Yes, Lord Laidlaw lives near, -of course she knows the Laidlaws?’ ‘Oh, no, she never heard of them; oh, -no, she knows nobody. She is only a minister’s daughter, and except that -she is prettyish——’<span class="lftspc">”</span></p> - -<p>Mrs. Mowbray had the art of a mimic; and she had made her sketch of the -Lady Marion who asked questions, very amusing to her son, who had been -in his little way cross-examined by Lady Marion many times: but when she -described the young lady as prettyish, the young man bounded from his -chair.</p> - -<p>“Take care, mother! no one, not even you, shall speak so of Elsie. I -won’t have it,” he cried.</p> - -<p>“You would be obliged to have it, dear, if you had her,” his mother -said, composedly. “And as for speaking so, I have no wish to speak so. I -think she’s a very nice little girl, for St. Rule’s; you could<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_186" id="page_186"></a>{186}</span> never -take her into society, but for St. Rule’s she would do very well.”</p> - -<p>“Then, mother,” said Frank, “you understand me, for you make me speak -very plain. We’ve got a good house here, and we’re rich enough to be -about the first people in the place; and I wish to settle in St. -Rule’s.”</p> - -<p>“My poor boy,” cried Mrs. Mowbray, “rich, oh, my poor boy!”</p> - -<p>And here, without any warning, she suddenly burst into a torrent of -tears. This was, perhaps, a proceeding to which her son was not wholly -unaccustomed; for he maintained, to a certain extent, his equanimity. He -walked up and down the room, striking the backs of the chairs with a -paper-knife he held in his hand for some seconds. And then he came back -to her, and asked, with a little impatience:</p> - -<p>“Why am I a poor boy? and why is it so wonderful that we should be rich? -I am—I suppose we are rich—more or less—able at all events to take -our place among the best people in St. Rule’s.” He laughed, and went on -striking his little ivory toy against the chairs sharply. “It isn’t so -great a brag, after all,” he said, laughing, “among the best people in -St. Rule’s.”</p> - -<p>“Oh,” cried Mrs. Mowbray, “how am I to tell him? Oh, how am I to tell -him? Frank, we have always said, when we came into the Scotch money, all -would be well. I thought it was such a fine sum,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_187" id="page_187"></a>{187}</span> that we should throw -off all our debts, and be really rich as you say. Oh, that is only a -dream, Frank, like so many things we have trusted in! There will be -scarcely any money. You may well start and stare at me. Oh, Frank, I -that thought as soon as it came, all our difficulties would be over, and -we should be quite right.”</p> - -<p>“What difficulties?” said Frank, “what difficulties, mother? I always -thought we were well off.”</p> - -<p>“This has been the aim of my life,” said Mrs. Mowbray, “that you should -never find out any difficulties, that everything should go as if it were -on velvet; and then when the Scotch money came, that all would be right. -I did not think then that all Mr. Anderson’s fine fortune had been -frittered away—I did not tell you that, Frank—by defaulters.”</p> - -<p>She liked the word: there was something vague and large in it: it meant -something more than debtors: “defaulters,” she said again, and shook her -head.</p> - -<p>“What in the world do you mean, mother? Who are the defaulters, and what -have they to do with me?”</p> - -<p>“Mr. Anderson’s money has been frittered away,” she said. “He lent it to -everybody; and instead of preserving their notes, or their bills, or -whatever it was, he threw them into the fire, I suppose. And nobody -paid. I believe half St. Rule’s is built on old Mr. Anderson’s money, -the money that ought to be<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_188" id="page_188"></a>{188}</span> yours. But he never kept the papers, and -none of them have been so honourable as to pay.”</p> - -<p>Frank stared at his mother with a bewildered face. He had never managed -his own affairs. For a year or two past, he had begun to think that this -was foolish, and that he might perhaps, if he tried, learn to understand -business as well as his mother; but he had never had the strength of -mind to assert himself. He had received an ample allowance from her -hands, and he had tacitly agreed that until the Scotch property became -his, everything should go on as before. But it had always been -understood, that when he attained his Scotch majority, there was to be a -change. His Scotch majority was to be a great day. All the hoards of his -old uncle were then to come into his hands. Retarded manhood, -independence, and wealth were all to be his. And now what was this he -heard, that these hoards of money were frittered away? He could not at -once understand or grasp what it meant. He stared at his mother with -bewildered eyes.</p> - -<p>“I wish you would tell me what you mean,” he said. “What has happened? -Is it something you have found out? Is there anything that can be done? -I cannot believe that all the property is lost.”</p> - -<p>“There is one thing that can be done, Frank. If we can find out the -defaulters, we can still make them pay up. But we must make haste, for -in another year the Statute of Limitations will come in, and they will -be beyond our reach.”<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_189" id="page_189"></a>{189}</span></p> - -<p>“What is the Statute of Limitations? and how can we make them pay up? -And what does it mean altogether?” said the disturbed young man. -“Mother, you should not have let me go on like this, knowing nothing -about it. I ought to have known. And how am I to find them out and make -them pay up? You that have always managed everything, you ought to have -done it.”</p> - -<p>“My son, whom I have always spared and saved from all trouble,” she -said, throwing up her hands, “he tells me I should have done that! Oh, -Frank, it isn’t very pretty of you to upbraid me, when I have always -done everything for the best.”</p> - -<p>“Mother, I don’t want to upbraid you. I daresay you have done everything -that was right,” he said, “but this is rather a dreadful thing to find -out all at once. And there must be something that can be done—tell me -whether there isn’t something I could do.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, yes,” she said, with a sudden laugh, “there is one thing to be -done, and that is to find out who are the defaulters. There is one man I -am sure that knows, and you are, I suppose, in favour with the family, -Frank, considering your intentions which you have just been telling me -of. The one man is Dr. Buchanan. If you are going, as you say, to be his -son-in-law, perhaps he will tell you. I am sure he is one of them -himself.”</p> - -<p>“Mother, if all this is to set me against—<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_190" id="page_190"></a>{190}</span>—”</p> - -<p>“It is not to set you against any one,” said Mrs. Mowbray. “I like Dr. -Buchanan myself. <i>I think he is one of them</i>. If you can find out from -him who they are, perhaps we may yet be saved.”</p> - -<p>“He is one of them! This is nonsense, nonsense! You don’t know what you -are saying, mother.”</p> - -<p>“I wish everybody were as clear and composed as I am. I believe he is -one of them. But make use of your interest with the boy and the girl, -and get him to tell you who they are. And then perhaps we may be saved.”</p> - -<p>The young man went round and round the room, striking the backs of the -chairs with his paper-knife, solemnly, as if he expected to find some -hollow place and make a discovery so.</p> - -<p>“I don’t understand it. I don’t know what you mean. I can’t believe that -this is possible,” he said; and he gave a louder crack to an old -armchair, and stood before it, pondering, as if the secret must be out -at last.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_191" id="page_191"></a>{191}</span></p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XV" id="CHAPTER_XV"></a>CHAPTER XV.<br /><br /> -<small>FRANK’S OPERATIONS.</small></h2> - -<p><span class="smcap">Frank Mowbray</span> was one of the young men, fitly described by the -unenthusiastic, but just populace, as “no an ill callant.” He was not -very wise, not very clever, but he was also not “ill,” in any sense of -the word; a good-hearted, good-tempered, easy-going young man, willing -to save himself trouble, by letting others, and especially his mother, -manage his affairs for him, but no grumbler, accepting the consequences -of that situation with great equanimity, allowing himself to be more or -less governed, and obeying all the restrictions of his mother’s house, -as if he had been the most dependent of sons. This may seem to indicate -a want of spirit on his part; but it was rather a spirit of justice and -fair dealing, as well as the result of a gentle and contented -temperament.</p> - -<p>Frank had no desire whatever to revolt. His mother’s sway had been very -light upon him: had he been what he was not, inclined towards -dissipation, so long as it had been carried on among what she called -“the right sort of people,” I am inclined to believe that Mrs. Mowbray -would rather have liked it than otherwise; but that would have been -perhaps because she did not know what it was, and liked to<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_192" id="page_192"></a>{192}</span> see her -son’s name among the names of the great, on whatsoever excuse. She would -rather have had Frank conspicuous by the side of a young duke, than -known to the world in the most virtuous circumstances, as the companion -of lesser men; but Frank did not accept, nor was he even aware of, this -tacit license to do evil, so long as it was fashionably done. He had not -the slightest leaning towards dissipation—he was one of those young men -whom perhaps we undervalue in theory, though in action they are the -backbone of the race, who seem to be inaccessible to the ordinary -temptations. Had he been offered the choice of Hercules, he would -certainly, by inclination, have offered his arm to Madam Virtue, and -waved away dishevelled Pleasure, however pretty, with the most unfeigned -indifference: he did not care for that sort of thing, he would have -said: and this insensibility was better than coat armour to him. It is -common to believe that a boy, brought up as he had been, at the -apron-strings of his mother, is open to every touch of temptation, and -apt to find the fascination of a disorderly life irresistible; but, -howsoever Frank had been brought up, the issue would have been the -same—he was “no an ill callant”—he was not led away by fancies, either -for good or evil, quite disposed to be kind, but never lavish in -generosity; not prodigal in anything, able to balance the pros and the -cons, and to accept the disadvantages with the advantages. Perhaps it -was not a character to excite any great enthusiasm,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_193" id="page_193"></a>{193}</span> but it was one that -was very easy to live with, and could not have inspired any serious -anxiety in the most fanciful and susceptible of minds.</p> - -<p>Frank went out that evening to meet some of his daily companions with a -great deal in his mind, but not any panic or dismay. He would not -believe that the “Scotch property” could have been all frittered away by -the loans which his old uncle had made, however imprudent or foolish the -old man might have been in that way. He had, indeed, so just and calm a -mind, that he did not harshly condemn Mr. Anderson for making these -loans as his mother did; he was even willing to allow that a man had a -right to do what he liked with his own, even if he had a grand-nephew to -provide for, especially one who was not entirely dependent upon him, but -had already a comfortable provision of his own. As he went out into the -evening air, and strolled towards the club of which he was a member, and -where, as I have said, the young men, who were not yet members, had a -way of meeting outside, and under the verandah, arranging their matches -for next day, and talking out their gossip like their elders within—he -turned over the matter in his mind, and reconciled himself to it. It is -foolish, he said to himself, to lend your money without interest, and -without a proper certainty of one day getting it back—but still the old -gentleman had no doubt his reasons for doing this, and might have had -his equivalent or even been paid back without<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_194" id="page_194"></a>{194}</span> anybody knowing, as -nobody knew who the borrowers were: and at the worst, if the money was -lost, it was lost, and there was an end of it, and no need to upbraid -poor old uncle, who probably thought himself quite entitled to do what -he liked with his own. He did not believe that the estate could have -been seriously impoverished in any such manner; but he thought that he -might perhaps make inquiries in his own way, and even consult Mr. -Buchanan, who probably would be willing enough to help him, though he -might not perhaps feel disposed to respond to Mrs. Mowbray’s more urgent -appeals. Frank, of course, knew his mother’s weak points, as all our -children do, with an unerring certainty produced by the long unconscious -study of childhood of all we say and do. His affection for her was quite -unimpaired, but he knew exactly how she would address herself to the -minister, with a vehemence and an indignation against Uncle Anderson, -which Frank was impartial enough to feel, was not deserved. He would -approach him quite differently—as a man to a man, Frank said to -himself—and if there was really anything to be done in that way, any -bloated debtor, as his mother supposed, who had grown fat on Uncle -Anderson’s bounty, and was not honourable enough to pay back what had -been the origin of his fortune—why, the minister would probably tell -him, and that would be so much gained.</p> - -<p>When he thought, however, of thus meeting the minister in private -session, Frank’s orderly and steady<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_195" id="page_195"></a>{195}</span> heart beat a little higher. Before -all questions of Uncle Anderson’s debtors, there was one of much more -importance—and that was the question of Elsie, which meant far more to -Frank than money, or even the whole of the Scotch property—at least he -thought so for the moment: but things were by no means so far advanced -as to justify him in asking an interview with Mr. Buchanan on that -subject. Alas! no, Elsie was never in the same mind (he thought) for any -two meetings. Sometimes she was delightful to him, accepting his -attentions; which, however, were no more than were paid to her by -several other admirers as if she liked them, and giving him dances, -almost as many as he asked, and allowing him to walk by her side in the -weekly promenade on the Links, and talking to him sweetly, whatever his -company might be: but next time they met, Elsie would be engaged for -every dance, she would be flanked by other competitors on each side, and -if she gave Frank a bow and a smile in passing, that would be all he -obtained from her—so that if he were sometimes high in hope, he was at -others almost in despair. Should he ever be allowed to see Mr. Buchanan -on the subject, to ask his daughter from him? Ah, that depended! not -upon Frank, but upon Elsie, who was no longer a little girl, but at the -height of her simple sway, one of the prettiest girls in St. Rule’s, and -enjoying the position, and with no intention of cutting it short. Frank -breathed a sigh, that almost blew out the lamps in the High Street,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_196" id="page_196"></a>{196}</span> -lamps already lighted, and shining in the lingering daylight, like -strange little jewelled points, half green, half yellow. The electric -light shines white in that street now, and makes the whole world look -dead, and all the moving people like ghosts. But the lamps then were -like jewels, with movement and consciousness in them, trembling in the -colourless radiance of the long evening: for it was now summer weather, -and already the days were long.</p> - -<p>When the assembly outside the club dispersed, it happened to be Frank’s -luck to walk up the town with Rodie Buchanan, whose way was the same as -his own. They went round by the West Port, though it was out of their -way, to convoy Johnny Wemyss to his lodgings. Johnnie did not make -matches for next day, except at rare intervals, for he was busy, either -“coaching” his pupils (but that word had not then been invented), or -working (as he called it) on the sands with his net and his “wee -spy-glass,” playing himself, the natives called it: or else he was -reading theology for the next examination; but he allowed himself to -walk down to the club in the evening, where all the young men met.</p> - -<p>Johnny was not much younger than Frank, but he was paternal to the -others, having the airs and aims of a man, and having put, chiefly by -necessity, but a little also by inclination, boyish things from him; he -was as much in advance of Frank as he was of Rodie, who had not yet -attained his twentieth year.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_197" id="page_197"></a>{197}</span></p> - -<p>The night was lovely, clear, and mild, and they made the round by the -West Port very pleasantly together, and stood for a long time at the -stairfoot of Johnny’s humble lodging, which was in one of the -old-fashioned square two-storied houses at that end of the town, which -still retained the picturesque distinction of an outside stair. It was -not thought picturesque then, but only old-fashioned, and a mark of -poverty, everybody’s ambition being to have a more modern and convenient -house. The young men continued to discuss the matches past and present, -and how Alick Seaton was off his game, and Bob Sinclair driving like -fire, and the Beatons in force playing up to each other, so that they -were awfully hard to beat in a foursome. Johnny took the interest of a -born golfer in these particulars, though he himself played so little; -and Frank, on ordinary occasions, had all the technicality of a -neophyte, and outdid his more learned companions in all the terms of the -game.</p> - -<p>But when they had left Johnny at his stairfoot, and, looking back, had -seen the light of his candles leap into the darkness of the window, and -wondered for a moment how he could sit down to work at this hour, they -proceeded along the long line of the High Street for a minute or two in -silence. Rodie was taller, stronger, and heavier than Frank, though so -much younger, and had a little compassionate sympathy for the fellow, -who, at his antiquated age, four-and-twenty, was still only a beginner -at golf.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_198" id="page_198"></a>{198}</span></p> - -<p>The big youth was considering how to break down certain well considered -advices for future play into terms adapted for the intellect of his -elder, when Frank suddenly took the word, and began thus:</p> - -<p>“I say, Rodie! do you remember my old Uncle Anderson, and do you know -anything about him? he must have been a queer old chap, if what my -mother has been telling me is true about him.”</p> - -<p>“Ten to one——” said Rodie: but paused in time—he was about to say -“ten to one it isn’t true”—for he heard of Mrs. Mowbray’s paint and -powder (which at the worst was only powder), and knew her over-civility -and affectations, and therefore concluded frankly, as became his age, -that nothing about her could be true. But he remembered in time that -this could not fitly be said to her son. “Ten to one it’s just stories,” -Rodie said; “there’s stories about everybody; it is an awful town for -stories, St. Rule’s.”</p> - -<p>“I daresay that is true enough,” said Frank; “but it seems that this is -more than stories. They say he lent money to everybody, and never took -any note or acknowledgment: and the people have never paid. They -certainly should have paid; especially as, having no acknowledgment, it -became, don’t you see, a debt of honour. There is something which I -don’t quite understand about some Statute of Limitations that makes it -impossible to recover money after a certain number of years. I don’t -know much about the law myself; but my mother’s a great hand. Do you<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_199" id="page_199"></a>{199}</span> -know anything about the Statute of Limitations, you that are going to be -a W. S.?”</p> - -<p>“Who said I was going to be a W. S.?” cried Rodie, red with indignation. -“Nothing of the sort: I’m going into the army. It’s John that is the W. -S.; but I think I’ve heard of it,” he added sulkily, after a moment, -“sometimes he tells us about his cases. If you’re not asked for the -money for so many years, it’s considered that you have been forgiven: -but on the other hand if they asked for it, you’re still bound; I’ve -heard something like that from John.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, then I suppose,” cried Frank, “it is rather urgent, and we ought to -ask for it to preserve our claim.”</p> - -<p>There is a universal sentiment in the human heart against a creditor -wishing to recover, and in favour of the debtor who is instinctively -understood not to be able to pay. Especially strong is this sentiment in -the bosom of the young; to lend is a fine thing, but to ask back again -is always a mean proceeding. Rodie instinctively hardened himself -against the legal rights of his friend.</p> - -<p>“There’s men,” he said, “I’ve heard, that are constantly dunning you to -pay them. I would rather never borrow a penny if it was to be like -that.”</p> - -<p>“I would rather never borrow a penny whether it was like that or not,” -said the virtuous Frank.</p> - -<p>“Oh, it’s easy speaking for you, that have more money than you know what -to do with; but if you<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_200" id="page_200"></a>{200}</span> think of my commission, and where the money is -to come from.”</p> - -<p>“Most likely,” said Frank, without any special meaning, merely as a -conjecture, “if my Uncle Anderson had been living, your father would -have got it from him.”</p> - -<p>Rodie grew redder than ever under this suggestion. “It might be so,” he -said; “but I hope you are not meaning that my father would not have paid -the money back, whoever it came from: for if that is what you are -meaning, you’re a——”</p> - -<p>“I was meaning nothing of the kind,” cried Frank in a hurry; for to have -the word <i>leear</i>, even though it is a mild version of liar, flung in his -face by Rodie Buchanan, the brother of Elsie, was a thing he did not at -all desire. “I hope I know better: but I wish I could speak to your -father about my affairs, for I know that he was Uncle Anderson’s great -friend, and he is sure to know.”</p> - -<p>“To know what?” said Rodie.</p> - -<p>“Oh, to know the people that borrowed from my uncle, and did not pay. I -hope you don’t think I ought to let them off when they have behaved like -that.”</p> - -<p>“Behaved like what?” Rodie asked again.</p> - -<p>“What is the matter with you, Rodie? I am saying nothing that is wrong. -If my uncle lent them money, they ought to pay.”</p> - -<p>“And do you think,” cried Rodie, in high indignation,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_201" id="page_201"></a>{201}</span> “that my father -would betray to you the names of the poor bodies that got a little money -from Mr. Anderson to set them up in their shops, or to buy them a boat? -Do you think if you were to talk to him till doomsday, that my father -would do <i>that</i>?”</p> - -<p>“Why shouldn’t he?” said Frank, whose intellect was not of a subtle -kind. “People should pay back the money when they have borrowed it. It -is not as if it had been given to them as a present; Mr. Buchanan has -been very kind to me, and I shouldn’t ask him to do anything that was -not right, neither would I be hard on any poor man. I was not told they -were very poor men who had got my old uncle’s money; and surely they had -not so good a right to it as I have. I don’t want to do anything that is -cruel; but I will have my money if I can get it, for I have a right to -it,” Frank said, whose temper was gradually rising; yet not so much his -temper as a sensation of justice and confidence in his own cause.</p> - -<p>“You had better send in the sheriff’s officers,” said Rodie, -contemptuously, “and take their plenishing, or the stock in the shop, or -the boat. But if you do, Frank Mowbray, mind you this, there is not one -of us will ever speak to you again.”</p> - -<p>“One of you!” cried Frank, “I don’t want to quarrel with you, Rodie; but -you are all a great deal younger than I am, and I am not going to be -driven by you. I’ll see your father, and ask his advice, and I shall do -what he says; but if you think I am going<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_202" id="page_202"></a>{202}</span> to be driven by you, from -anything that is right in itself, you’re mistaken: and that’s all I have -got to say.”</p> - -<p>“You are a prig, and a beast, and a cruel creditor,” cried Rodie. “Not -the kind for us in St. Rule’s: and good-night to you, and if you find -nobody to play with to-morrow, you will just mind that you’ve chosen to -put yourself against us, and it’s your own fault.”</p> - -<p>Saying which, Rodie made a stride against the little garden gate which -led to the Buchanan’s front door, flung it inwards with a clang, and -disappeared under the shadow of the dark elder-tree which overshadowed -the entrance.</p> - -<p>It was not until that moment that Frank realised what the consequence -might be of quarrelling with Elsie’s brother. He called after him, but -Rodie was remorseless, and would not hear; and then the young man went -home very sadly. Everybody knew that Rodie was Elsie’s favourite -brother; she liked him better than all the rest. If Rodie asked anything -of her, Elsie was sure to grant almost everything to his request: and -Frank had been such a fool as to offend him! He could not think how he -could have been so foolish as to do it. It was the act of a madman, he -said to himself. What was a few hundreds, or even thousands in -comparison with Elsie, even if he recovered his money? It would be no -good to him if he had to sacrifice his love.</p> - -<p>Frank was not a young man who despised either<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_203" id="page_203"></a>{203}</span> hundreds or thousands, -and probably, later, if all went well with him, he might think himself a -fool to sacrificing good money for any other consideration; but he -certainly was not in this state of feeling now. Elsie and Rodie, and the -Statute of Limitations, and the money that Uncle Anderson had strewed -about broadcast, jumbled each other in his mind. What did it matter to -him if he lost the favour of his love? and on the other hand the pity it -would be to lose the money for want of asking for it, and knowing who -the man was who had got it, and had not had the honesty to pay. He grew -angrier and angrier at these people as he went along, seeing that in -addition to this fundamental sin against him, they were also the cause -of his quarrel with Rodie, and terrible dismissal by Elsie. The cads! to -hold their tongues and conceal who they were, when it was a debt of -honour; and to trust in such a poor defence as a Statute of Limitations, -and to part him from the girl he loved. He had been more curious than -eager before, thinking besides the natural feeling one has not to be -robbed, and to recover at all hazard that which is one’s own, however -wicked people should endeavour to cheat one out of it—that it would be -fun to break through the secret pretences of those people, and force -them to disgorge the money they had unlawfully obtained; but now Frank -began to have a personal animosity against those defaulters, as his -mother called them, who not only had cheated him of his<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_204" id="page_204"></a>{204}</span> money, but had -made him to quarrel with Rodie, and perhaps with Rodie’s sister. -Confound them! they should not be let off now. He would find them, -though all the world united in concealing them. He would teach them to -take away his inheritance, and interfere between him and his love! It -was with these sentiments hot in his heart that he hastened home.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_205" id="page_205"></a>{205}</span></p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVI" id="CHAPTER_XVI"></a>CHAPTER XVI.<br /><br /> -<small>THE UNJUST STEWARD ONCE MORE.</small></h2> - -<p><span class="smcap">Rodie Buchanan</span> plunged into the partial darkness of his father’s house, -with a heart still more hot and flaming than that of Frank. He could not -have told anyone why he took this so much to heart. It was not that he -was unusually tender of his neighbours, or charitable beyond the -ordinary rule of kindness, which was current in St. Rule’s. He was one -of those who would never have refused a penny to a beggar, or a bawbee -to a weeping child, provided he had either the penny or the bawbee in -his ill-furnished pockets, which sometimes was not the case; but, having -done that by habit and natural impulse, there was no necessity in -Rodie’s mind to do more, or to make himself the champion of the poor, so -that he really was not aware what the reason was which made him turn so -hotly against Frank, in his equally natural determination to get back -what was his own. The hall and staircase of Mr. Buchanan’s house lay -almost completely in the dark. There was one candle burning on a little -table at the foot of the stair, which made the darkness visible, but -above there was no light at all. Gas was not general in those days, nor -were there lamps in common use, such as those which<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_206" id="page_206"></a>{206}</span> illuminate every -part of our dwellings now. The dark passages and dreadful black corners -of stair or corridor, which are so familiar in the stories of the -period, those dreadful passages, through which the children flew with -their hearts beating, not knowing what hand might grip them in the dark, -or terrible thing come after them, must perplex the children of to-day, -who know nothing about them, and never have any dark passages to go -through. But, in those days, to get from the nursery to the drawing-room -by night, unless you were preceded by the nursery-maid with a candle, -was more alarming than anything a child’s imagination could grasp -nowadays. You thought of it for a minute or two before you undertook it; -and then, with a rush, you dared the perils of the darkness, flinging -yourself against the door to which you were bound, all breathless and -trembling, like one escaped from nameless dangers. Rodie, nearly twenty, -big and strong, and fearing nothing, had got over all those tremors. He -strode up the dark stairs, three at a time, and flung open the -drawing-room door, groping for it in the wall. He knew what, at that -hour, he would be likely to find there. It was the hour when Mrs. -Buchanan invariably went to the study “to see what papa was doing,” to -make sure that his fire was mended, if he meant to sit up over his -sermon, or that things were comfortable for him in other ways when fires -were not necessary. The summer was not far advanced, and fires were -still<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_207" id="page_207"></a>{207}</span> thought necessary in the evenings at St. Rule’s. Between the fire -and the table was seated Elsie, with a large piece of “whiteseam,” that -is, plain sewing, on her knee, and two candles burning beside her. -Another pair of candlesticks was on the mantelpiece, repeated in the low -mirror which hung over it, but these candles were not lighted, neither -were those on the writing-table at the other end of the room. When there -was company, or, indeed, any visitor, in the evening they were lighted. -The pair on the mantelpiece only when the visitor was unimportant, but -the whole six when anybody of consequence was there, and then, you may -suppose, how bright the room was, lighted <i>al giorus</i>, so to speak. But -the household, and Elsie’s little friends, when they came rushing in -with some commission from their mothers, were very well contented with -the two on the table. They wanted snuffing often, but still they gave, -what was then supposed to be, a very good light.</p> - -<p>Elsie looked up, pleased to see her brother, and let her work fall on -her knee. Her needlework was one of the chief occupations of her life, -and she considered the long hours she spent over it to be entirely a -matter of course; but, by this hour of the night, she had naturally -become a little tired of it, and was pleased to let it drop on her knee, -and have a talk with Rodie over the fire. It was considered rather -ill-bred to go on working, with your head bent over your sewing, when -anyone came in. To be sure, it was only her<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_208" id="page_208"></a>{208}</span> brother, but Elsie was so -glad to see him a little earlier than usual, that, though the task she -had given herself for the evening was not quite completed, she was glad -to let her seam drop upon her knees. “Oh, Rodie, is that you?” she said.</p> - -<p>“Of course it’s me,” said Rodie. “I suppose you were not looking for -anybody else at this hour?”</p> - -<p>“I am glad you are in so soon,” said Elsie. “And who was that that came -with you to the door? Not Johnny Wemyss. I could tell by his foot.”</p> - -<p>“What have you to do with men’s feet?” said Rodie, glad to find -something to spend a little of his wrath upon. “Lassies must have -tremendously little to think of. I am sure I would never think if it was -one person’s foot, or another, if I were sitting at home like you.”</p> - -<p>“Well,” said Elsie, “you never do sit at home, so you cannot tell. I -just notice them because I cannot help it. One foot is so different from -another, almost as much as their voices. But what is the matter with -you, Rodie? Have you been quarrelling with somebody? You look as if you -were in a very ill key.”</p> - -<p>“I wonder who wouldn’t be in an ill key? There is that feckless gomeril, -Frank Mowbray——” (“Oh, it was Frank Mowbray?” Elsie interjected in an -undertone)—“going on about debts and nonsense, and folk in the town -that owe him money, and that he’s coming to my father to ask him who -they are; as if<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_209" id="page_209"></a>{209}</span> my father would go and split upon poor bodies that -borrowed from old Anderson. I had it in my heart,” cried Rodie, striking -with his heel a piece of coal that was smouldering in the grate, and -breaking it up into a hundred blazing fragments—“I had it in my heart -to take him by the two shoulders, and fling him out like potato peelings -into the road.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, Rodie, my mother’s gathering coal!” cried Elsie, hastening to -extinguish the fiery sparks that had fallen upon the large fur rug -before the fire. “Well,” she said, serenely, in a tone which would have -disposed summarily, had he heard it, of poor Frank’s hopes, “you are big -enough to have done it: but I would not lift my hands, if I were you, on -one that was not as big as myself. And what has Frank done? for he never -was, that I could see, a quarrelling boy.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, not that you could see!” said Rodie, with a snort. “He’s sure to -keep a good face before the lassies, and especially you that he’s -courting, or trying to court, if he knew the way.”</p> - -<p>“He’s not courting me,” cried Elsie, with a blush and a laugh, giving -Rodie a sisterly push, “and I wonder you will say such things to me.”</p> - -<p>“It’s only because he doesna know the way then,” said Rodie, picking up -the pieces of blazing coal from the white hearth. “Will you let me -alone, when you see I have the tongs in my hand?”</p> - -<p>“Was it for that you quarrelled with Frank?” said<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_210" id="page_210"></a>{210}</span> Elsie, letting a -little careless scorn appear in her tone, as who should say, you might -quarrel with many besides Frank if that was the cause. The girls in St. -Rule’s, in those days, were not so disproportionate in number as they -seem to be now, and she was unpopular, indeed, who had not one or two, -at least, competing for her smiles.</p> - -<p>“It was not for that!” cried Rodie, expressing, on his side, a scornful -conviction that anything so unimportant was not worth quarrelling about. -And then he added, “Do ye mind, Elsie, yon day in the turret-room?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, I mind it very well,” cried Elsie, with a little start; “I have -always minded it. I think of it sometimes in the middle of the night -when I wake up and cannot get to sleep.”</p> - -<p>“I cannot see what good it can do thinking of it then,” said Rodie, -always contemptuous of the ways of lassies. “But you mind how my father -went on about the unjust steward. It was awfully funny the way he went -on.”</p> - -<p>“It was for his sermon,” said Elsie, with a little trouble in her eyes.</p> - -<p>“It was not for his sermon. I heard him preach that sermon after, and I -just listened, minding yon afternoon. But there was not a word in it -about taking your bill, and writing fourscore.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, Rodie, you couldn’t remember it as well as all that!”<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_211" id="page_211"></a>{211}</span></p> - -<p>“Why shouldn’t I remember? I was a big laddie. I remember heaps of -things. I mind going to Kinghorn, and crossing in the smack to Leith, -years and years before.”</p> - -<p>“That was different from hearing a sermon,” said Elsie, with the -superiority to sermons which a minister’s daughter naturally possessed.</p> - -<p>“I did mind it, however,” said Rodie, “and I knew it was not in the -sermon—then where was it? and what was it for? I mind, as if it were -yesterday, about taking the bill, and writing fourscore. Now, the -question is,” said the young man, laying down the tongs, and gazing -unwinking into the glowing abyss of the fire, “what did my father mean -by yon? He did not mean just nothing at all. You would not say that.”</p> - -<p>“I do not suppose,” said Elsie, with a woman’s quick and barely -justified partisanship, “that my father ever said anything that meant -just nothing at all.”</p> - -<p>“Oh yes, he does, whiles,” said the more impartial boy; “but this was -different. What did he mean by it? I will tell you what I have been -thinking. Yon gomeril of a Frank has got it into his thick head that -everybody in St. Rule’s is in his debt. It is his mother that has put it -into his head. Now, just supposing, for the sake of the argument, that -it was true——”</p> - -<p>“I think,” said Elsie, thoughtfully, “that maybe it was true.”<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_212" id="page_212"></a>{212}</span></p> - -<p>“Well, then,” said Rodie, “we’ll suppose that papa” (into this babyish -title they all fell by moments, though protesting against it) “knew all -about it. He generally does know about most things; people put a great -deal of trust in him. They tell him things. Now, my opinion is, that old -Mr. Anderson told him all about this, and who the folk were, and how -they were to pay.”</p> - -<p>“Maybe,” said Elsie, doubtfully.</p> - -<p>“Maybe? I have no doubt about it; and my conviction is, this is what he -was meaning yon afternoon. The old man was dead or dying, and nobody -knew but papa—I mean my father. He knew what they had borrowed, and who -they were. And most likely he knew that they were far from able to pay. -There’s a proverb about borrowed siller,” said Rodie; “I cannot mind, at -this moment, what it is—but it means this, that it never does you any -good, and that I certainly believe.” Here he made a pause. He had once -borrowed a pound, and Rodie had no such harassing recollection in all -his experience. He was still owing eighteenpence of that sum, and it had -eaten into a whole year of his life.</p> - -<p>Elsie said nothing; this sudden revival of the subject awakened many -thoughts in her breast, but she sat with her eyes cast down, gazing, as -he was, into the dazzling glow of the fire. Rodie was now kneeling on -the hearth-rug in front of it, his face illuminated by the ruddy flame.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_213" id="page_213"></a>{213}</span></p> - -<p>“I don’t think,” he said, in a steady voice, like that of a man making a -statement in which was involved death or life, “that papa was right——”</p> - -<p>“Rodie!”</p> - -<p>“No,” he repeated, solemnly, “I can’t think it was right. I know you -have no business to judge your own father. But I think,” said the lad, -slowly, “I would almost rather he had done a wrong thing like that, than -one of the good things. Mind, Elsie, he had a struggle with himself. He -said it over and over and over, and rampaged about the room, as you do, -when you cannot make up your mind. But he knew they could not pay, the -poor bodies. He knew it would be worse for them than if they had never -got the money. It was an awful temptation. Then, do you mind, he said: -‘the Lord commended the unjust steward.’ In his sermon he explained all -that, but I cannot think he was explaining it the same way yon -afternoon.”</p> - -<p>“Rodie,” said Elsie, with a little awe, “have you been thinking and -thinking all this time, or when did you make out all that?”</p> - -<p>“Not I,” said the lad; “it just flashed out upon me when Frank was going -on about his debtors, and about consulting my father. That’s what made -me angry as much as anything. I don’t want papa to be disturbed in his -mind, and made to think of that again. It was bad enough then. To be -sure he will maybe refuse to speak at all, and that would be the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_214" id="page_214"></a>{214}</span> best -thing to do; and, considering what a long time has passed, he would be -justified, in my opinion,” said Rodie, with great gravity; “but to sit -down and write fourscore when it was a hundred—I would stand up for him -to the last, and I would understand him,” cried the young man: “but I -would rather my father did not do that.”</p> - -<p>“And of whom do you think he would be tempted to say that, Rodie?” said -his sister, under her breath—Elsie had another thought very heavy at -her heart.</p> - -<p>“Oh, of the Horsburghs, and the Aitkens, and so forth, and I am not sure -but Johnny Wemyss’s folk would be in it,” said Rodie; “and they are all -dead, and it would fall upon Johnny, and break his heart. I hope my -father will refuse to speak at all.”</p> - -<p>Then there was a long silence, and they sat and gazed into the fire. -Elsie’s idea was different. She knew some things which her brother did -not know. But of these she would not breathe a word to him. They sat for -some time quite silent, and there was a little stir over their heads, as -if Mrs. Buchanan had risen from her chair, and was about to come down.</p> - -<p>“Rodie, you’ll have to be a W. S.,” cried Elsie, “and let Jack go to -India; nobody but a lawyer could have put it all out as clear as that.”</p> - -<p>Rodie sprang to his feet, and struck out a powerful arm.</p> - -<p>“If you were not a lassie,” he cried furiously, “I would just knock you -down.”<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_215" id="page_215"></a>{215}</span></p> - -<p>When Mrs. Buchanan came into the room, this was what she saw against -that wavering glow in the chimney; her son’s spring against an invisible -foe, and Elsie demurely looking at him, with her work in her hands, from -the other side of the fire.</p> - -<p>“Eh, laddie,” cried Mrs. Buchanan, “you terrify me with your boxing and -your fighting. What ails you at him, and who is the enemy now? And -you’ve broken up my gathering coal that would have lasted the whole -night through.”</p> - -<p>“It’s me he is fechting, mother,” said Elsie, “and he says if I had not -been a lassie, he would have knocked me down.”</p> - -<p>“You’re never at peace, you two,” said the mother, with much composure; -“and we all know that Rodie had aye a great contempt for lassies. Let us -just see, Elsie, if some day or other he may not meet a lassie that will -give him a good setting down.”</p> - -<p>“What do I care about lassies,” cried Rodie, indignant; “you’re thinking -of Frank Mowbray and Raaf Beaton. If ever two fellows made fools of -themselves! looking as glum as the day of judgment, if Elsie turns her -head the other way.”</p> - -<p>“Hold your tongue, laddie,” cried Mrs. Buchanan, but with a smothered -laugh. She was “weel pleased to see her bairn respected like the lave,” -but she was a sensible mother, and would have no such nonsense made a -talk of. “Your father is not coming down-stairs again,” she said; “he is -busy with his sermon,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_216" id="page_216"></a>{216}</span> so you can go to your bed when you like, Rodie. -Bless me, the laddie has made the room insupportable with that great -fire, and dangerous, too, to leave it burning. Elsie, my dear, I wish -you were always as diligent; but you must fold up your seam now for the -night.”</p> - -<p>After a little while Rodie retired to find the supper which had been -waiting for him in the dining-room; for his evening hours were a little -irregular, and his appetite large.</p> - -<p>“He says Frank Mowbray is very much taken up about people that owe him -debts,” said Elsie, to her mother; “and that he is coming to consult my -father.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, these weariful debts,” said Mrs. Buchanan; “I have always said how -much better it would have been to clear them off, and be done with them. -It would have been all paid back before this time, and our minds at -rest. But Mr. Morrison, he would not hear of it, and your father has -never got it off his mind to this very day.”</p> - -<p>“Will it disturb him, mother, very much if Frank comes to talk to him?” -said Elsie.</p> - -<p>“I cannot tell why it should disturb him. The laddie has nothing to do -with it, and Mr. Morrison had the old man’s orders. But it will for all -that. I think I will speak to Frank myself,” Mrs. Buchanan said.</p> - -<p>“Oh, no, mother,” said Elsie.</p> - -<p>“And wherefore, oh, no, mother? Many a man<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_217" id="page_217"></a>{217}</span> have I seen, and many a -thing have I done to save your father. But it would be giving too much -importance to this laddie. It will be his mother that sets him on. Put -away your seam, Elsie, it is time that you were in your bed.”</p> - -<p>“I could not sleep a wink,” said Elsie, “if I thought papa was to be -troubled about this old thing.”</p> - -<p>“You had better think nothing about it,” her mother replied; “for, -whatever happens, you can do nothing: and what is the use of making -yourself unhappy about a thing you cannot mend?”</p> - -<p>Elsie was not so sure that she could do nothing. She thought it highly -probable, indeed, that she could do much. But how was she to do it, how -signify to Frank that if he disturbed her father, he had nothing to hope -from her? Besides, had he anything to hope from her in any -circumstances? This was very uncertain to Elsie. She was willing to -believe in her own power, and that she could, if she pleased, keep him -from rousing up this question; but how to do it, to condescend to allow -that her father would be affected by it one way or another? And even in -case Frank yielded, as she held it certain he would, to an expression of -her will on the subject, was she sure that she was ready to recompense -him in the only way which he would desire? While she was thinking, Mrs. -Buchanan, who was moving about the room putting by her work, and -arranging everything for<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_218" id="page_218"></a>{218}</span> the night, suddenly sent forth an -unintentional dart, which broke down all Elsie’s resolutions.</p> - -<p>“At the same time,” Mrs. Buchanan said, pursuing the tenor of the -argument, as she had been, no doubt, carrying it on within herself, “I -have always felt that I would like to do young Frank a good turn. Elsie, -if it’s true they tell me, be you kind to poor Frank. That will make up -to him for anything the rest of your family may have done against him. -Fain, fain, would I pay him back his siller; but be you kind to him, -Elsie, if the other is not to be.”<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_219" id="page_219"></a>{219}</span></p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVII" id="CHAPTER_XVII"></a>CHAPTER XVII.<br /><br /> -<small>THE POSITION OF ELSIE.</small></h2> - -<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Buchanan</span> was a woman of great sense, yet perhaps she never made use -of a more effective argument than that with which she concluded the -conversation of that evening. Elsie went up to her room full of thought. -It had always been impressed upon her from her earliest consciousness -that her father’s peace and comfort, his preservation from all -unnecessary cares, from all noises and disturbing influence of every -kind was one of the chiefest and most important duties of the family. It -had been made the rule of her own childish conduct from the very -beginning. “Oh, Miss Elsie, whatever you do, dinna make a noise, and -disturb your papaw,” had been the entreaty of the nursery-maid as long -as she could remember. And when she was old enough to understand a -reason, her mother had explained to her how papa was occupied all day -long in the service of God, and for the instruction of common folk not -so learned or so wise as himself. “And I think it a great privilege to -mind the house and mind the doors, so that none of these small things -may trouble him,” her mother had said, “and you should be a proud lassie -to think that you can be helpful in it, and do your<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_220" id="page_220"></a>{220}</span> part to keep -everything quiet for the minister, that he may study the word of the -Lord in peace.” In our days, it is possible that Elsie might have been -inspired by the spirit of revolt, and considered her own comfort of as -much importance as her father’s; but such a notion never entered her -mind, and the preservation of perfect peace in that mysterious, yet so -beloved and familiar study had always appeared to her the most necessary -thing in the world. In their latter days, her mind had strayed away -instinctively from her first early conception of papa. There had been -awe to her in all his surroundings when she was a child, awe, tempered -by much affection and perfect confidence, but still partaking much of -that vague tremor of respect and veneration with which, but in a higher -degree, she was taught to look up to God. But there is no criticism so -intense, though often so unconscious, as that with which the children -watch, without knowing they are watching, the development of the parent, -who gradually comes out of those mists of devotion, and becomes clear -and real, a being like themselves to their eyes. Elsie had soon learned -in the midst of her semi-worship to be sorry for papa—poor papa who was -so easily disturbed, liable to be impeded in his work, and have his -composure destroyed by incidents which did not affect her mother in the -least, and would not have gained herself an excuse for an imperfectly -learned lesson. Why, if she was expected to learn her verbs all the -same,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_221" id="page_221"></a>{221}</span> whether there was a noise or not, should papa be unable to carry -on his studies except in the most carefully preserved silence? She did -not give vent to the sentiment, but it added to her reverence and -devotion a strong feeling of pity for papa. Evidently he was of finer -material than other people, and felt everything more keenly. Pity may be -destructive of the highest reverence, but it adds to the solicitude of -affection. But that scene, so well remembered in every detail, which had -betrayed to her a struggle in him, had greatly heightened this effect. -Poor papa! he had to be taken care of more than ever. To preserve his -peace no effort was too much.</p> - -<p>There had been a long pause in these reflections, as she herself began -to be less subject to the delight of making a noise, and even Rodie -expended his high spirits out of doors, and learned to respect the -decorums of home. But as thought grew in Elsie’s mind, a comprehension -of the meaning of life grew with it, a comprehension, much aided by the -philosophical remarks of Marion, and by those general views which Mrs. -Buchanan was not aware were philosophy, the woman’s philosophy which -recognises many mysteries, and accepts many necessities in a manner -quite different from the man’s. The subject of her father was one of -those upon which she had received much enlightenment. She had learned -that the highest regard and the deepest love were quite consistent with -a consciousness of certain incurable<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_222" id="page_222"></a>{222}</span> weaknesses, and a toleration that -in other circumstances would have been something like contempt. Probably -nobody but a woman can ever understand this extraordinary mingling of -sentiment. A man is naturally indignant and angry to think that his -sublime self should ever be the object of this unimpassioned -consciousness of defect, though no doubt his sentiment towards his -womankind is of the same mingled character: but in the woman’s mind it -takes away nothing from the attraction, and little from the respect with -which she regards her man. Perhaps it even adds to his attraction, as -making the intercourse more interesting, and bringing all the varieties -of her being into play.</p> - -<p>This gave to Elsie an almost tragic sense of the necessity of preserving -her father’s peace of mind at all hazards. When she came to think the -whole matter over, and to realise what Rodie’s view of the subject was, -her mind took a new opening. She took up the Bible which was on her -table, and read over the parable of the unjust steward, with this new -light upon it. She had not, by some chance, heard her father’s sermon on -the subject, and she was not very clear as to how it was that the man -was commended for his falsehood, nor did she enter upon that view of the -question. Was there something good in it, as Rodie seemed to think, -diminishing the burdens of the poor, trying to save those who were -struggling, and could not answer for themselves? Elsie, in the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_223" id="page_223"></a>{223}</span> silence, -shook her young head with its curls over that idea. She had no -pretension of knowing better than her teachers and elders. She did not -think, because she did not understand, that therefore the Lord who -commended the unjust steward must be wrong. She took the matter plainly, -without penetrating its other meaning. Was it good, or right, or -excusable, a sin that one could forgive to one’s father that he should -do this? Rodie seemed to think so. He said he would rather his father -had done a wrong thing like that than many right things. Elsie began to -cry, dropping hot tears on her Bible, all alone, not understanding, in -the midst of the silence and the night. No, no, not that. It would not -be so bad, perhaps, as if he had done it for himself. To save the -Horsburghs and the Aitkens from ruin, even at the expense of a lie, of -teaching them to lie—— Oh no, no, Elsie cried, the tears pouring over -her Bible. It might not be so bad in one way, but it was worse in -another. It was dictating a lie to others as well as uttering it -himself. Was papa guilty of that? Was that what it meant, that struggle -long ago, the questioning and the self-conflict? Oh no, no, she cried to -herself, oh no, no! Neither for himself, neither for others could he -have done that. And yet what did it mean?</p> - -<p>There is a point beyond which such a question cannot go. She had no way -of settling it. The doubt burned her like fire, it penetrated her heart -like a knife: but at last she was obliged, baffled,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_224" id="page_224"></a>{224}</span> exhausted, and -heart-broken, to leave it alone. Perhaps she never would know what the -real meaning was, either of the parable in the book or the still more -urgent parable of human conduct here half revealed to her. But there was -at least something that she could understand, the old lesson of the -house, the teaching of her childhood, to guard her father from all -assault, from anything that could disturb his mind or his life. It was -not the simple formula now of not making a noise lest it should disturb -papa. It was something a great deal more important, not so easily -understood, not so easy to perform, but still more absolute and binding. -Not to disturb papa, not to allow him to be disturbed, to defend his -door, if need were, with her life. To put her arm into the hoops of the -bolt like Katherine Douglas in the history—that rash maiden whom every -Scots girl holds high, and would emulate if she could. Elsie was faintly -aware that this statement of the cause was a little nonsensical, that -she would not be called upon to sacrifice her life or to break her arm -in defence of her father; but she was very young, and full of passionate -feeling, and her thoughts formed into the language of generous -extravagance, in spite of herself. What was it really, after the -outburst of that fond resolution, that she had to do?</p> - -<p>It did not sound so great a matter after all to keep back Frank Mowbray, -that was all: to prevent him from penetrating to her father’s room, -recalling her<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_225" id="page_225"></a>{225}</span> father’s painful memories, and his struggle with himself. -Her arm within the hoops! it was not so exaggerated an idea after all, -it was more than breaking an arm, it might be perhaps breaking a heart: -still it was a piece of actual exertion that was required of her on her -father’s behalf. Elsie had not given very much serious consideration to -Frank Mowbray, but she knew vaguely as much as she had chosen to know, -the meaning and scope of his attentions, and the possibility there was, -if she did not sharply discourage him, that he would shortly demand a -decision from her one way or other. Elsie had not sharply discouraged -him; she had been friendly, unwilling to give pain, unwilling to act as -if she believed that it could matter to him one way or another: but she -had not shown him particular favour. In no way was her conscience guilty -of having “led him on.” Her pride sprang up in flames of indignation at -the thought of having led any one on. There was Raaf Beaton too: they -had both been the same to her, boys she had known, more or less, all her -life, whom she liked very well to dance with, even to talk to for an -idle moment, whom she would not vex for the world. Oh no, she would not -vex them for the world, neither of them! nevertheless, to select one of -them, to bind herself to either, to pretend to take either as the first -of men? Elsie almost laughed, though her eyes were still hot with tears, -at that ridiculous thought.</p> - -<p>Yet this was the easiest way of stopping Frank<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_226" id="page_226"></a>{226}</span> from disturbing her -father, oh! the easiest way! She had only to receive him a little more -warmly than usual, to listen to what he said, to let him walk with her -when they went out of doors, and talk to her when they were within. It -is very likely that on both sides this influence also was exaggerated. -There was nothing that Frank would not have done for Elsie and her -smiles; but after a time no doubt his mind would have returned to his -former resolutions, and he would not have felt it necessary to abandon a -previously-formed and serious intention on her account. But a girl -rarely understands that, nor does the man think of it, in the excitement -of such a crisis. Elsie had no doubt that she had the fullest power to -turn aside Frank from any attempt on her father’s peace. And then came -her mother’s recommendation to be kind to him, to make up to him for -something that was past. It was a recommendation that made her blood -boil, that she should pay him for some injustice past. Be kind to him, -as her mother said, to make up, make as it were money of herself to be a -compensation to him! This idea was odious to the girl: but yet it was -only another version of the same necessity that she should keep him from -disturbing papa.</p> - -<p>Naturally, it was not long before the opportunity came. Elsie was -walking towards the East Sands with Rodie on the next day, when Frank -was seen coming back from that spot, a little wet about the boots, and -sandy about the trousers, which was a sign, already<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_227" id="page_227"></a>{227}</span> beginning to be -understood in St. Rule’s, that the wearer of these garments had been -among the rocks with Johnny Wemyss, of whom, as a “character,” the town -had become, from its height of reprobation, half proud. Frank had been -fascinated by him, as everybody else was, though he was vexed to be seen -in this plight, after an hour with the naturalist, especially as Rodie, -at the sight of him, had the bad breeding to show embarrassment, and -even repugnance to meet his former friend.</p> - -<p>“I’ll away west,” Rodie said, as soon as he was visible. “There’s -Mowbray. I’m not going to stay here, and see him fawning upon you. It is -disgusting,” Rodie said, severely. He had not yet himself begun to -“fawn” upon any one, and was still intolerant of everything of this -kind.</p> - -<p>“You are not going away, just after he has seen that we saw him,” cried -Elsie, gripping her brother’s arm, in the intensity of her feeling, -“letting him see how ill you take it, and that you cannot forget! Man, -Rodie, will you run away?”</p> - -<p>“I am not running away,” cried Rodie, red with wrath and shame.</p> - -<p>“You shall not,” cried Elsie, holding him with a vigorous young grip, -almost as strong as his own, out of which he was still attempting to -wriggle, when Frank came up, all smiling and beaming.</p> - -<p>“Johnny Wemyss has found a new beast,” he reported with a little -excitement. “It is not in all the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_228" id="page_228"></a>{228}</span> books, there has been none discovered -like it. You should see his eyes just jumping out of his head.”</p> - -<p>Elsie’s eyes gave a jump too; a warm flush ran over her face. -Unconsciously, she held her head high.</p> - -<p>“Oh,” she said, softly, “I am not surprised! I am not surprised!”</p> - -<p>At this Frank looked at her half alarmed, half suspicious, not quite -easy in his mind, why she should take so much interest in Johnny. But -after all, he was only Johnny, a fellow wrapped up in “beasts,” and no -competitor for anybody’s favour.</p> - -<p>Meanwhile, Rodie had twisted his elbow out of Elsie’s hold, who had too -much respect for appearances to continue the struggle before strangers.</p> - -<p>“I’m away to see it,” cried Rodie. “You’ll come when you are ready,” and -off he rushed like a wild deer, with a sulky nod at Frank.</p> - -<p>“It appears I have offended Rodie without meaning it,” said Frank, -taking the wise way of forestalling any reproach. “I hope he has not -prejudiced you against me, Miss Elsie; for all I said that vexed him, -was only that I was coming to ask your father’s advice, and I have -always heard that everybody asks the minister’s advice. May I walk with -you, and tell you about it? I don’t know what he thought I meant.”</p> - -<p>“So far as I understood,” said Elsie, “he thought you wanted to make my -father betray some poor bodies that trusted in him.” Elsie, too, thought -it was wiser to forestall any other statement. But she put forth<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_229" id="page_229"></a>{229}</span> this -bold statement with a high colour and a quaking heart.</p> - -<p>“Betray!” cried Frank, growing red, too, “oh, I assure you, I had no -such thought.”</p> - -<p>“You wanted my father to tell upon the poor folk that had borrowed -money, and were not able to pay.” Elsie averted her head for the reason -that, sorely troubled by her own guesses and doubts, she could not look -Frank in the face: but he interpreted this action in quite another way. -He took it for a gesture of disdain, and it roused a spirit even in the -bosom of Elsie’s slave.</p> - -<p>“Justice is justice,” he said, “Miss Elsie, whether one is poor or rich. -To hunt the poor is what I would never do; but if they are right who -told me, there are others passing themselves off under the shield of the -poor, that are quite well able to pay their debts—more able than we are -to do without the money: and that is just what I want to ask Mr. -Buchanan, who is sure to know.”</p> - -<p>It seemed to Elsie that the sands, and the rocks, and the cliffs beyond -were all turning round and round, and that the solid earth sank under -her feet. “Mr. Buchanan, who is sure to know,” she said to herself under -her breath. Oh yes, he was sure to know. He would look into the face of -this careless boy, who understood nothing about it, and he would -say—what would he say? It made Elsie sick and faint to think of her -father—her father, the minister, the example to<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_230" id="page_230"></a>{230}</span> all men—brought face -to face with this temptation, against which she had heard him -struggling, which she had heard him adopting, without knowing what it -meant, six years ago. No, he had not been struggling against it. He had -been struggling with it, trying to convince himself that it was just and -right. This came upon her like a flash of lightning, as she took a few -devious steps forward. Then Frank’s outcry, “You are ill, Miss Elsie!” -brought her back to herself.</p> - -<p>“No, I am not ill,” she said, standing still by the rocks, and taking -hold of a glistening pinnacle covered with seaweed, to support herself -for a moment, till everything settled down. “I am not ill: I am just -thinking,” she kept her head turned away, and looked out upon the level -of the sea, very blue and rippled over with wavelets in its softest -summer guise, with a faint rim of white showing in the distance against -the red sand and faint green banks of the Forfar coast. Of all things in -this world to make the heart sick, there is nothing like facing a moral -crisis, which some one you love is about to go through, without any -feeling of certainty that he will meet it in the one only right way. -“Oh, if it was only me!” Elsie sighed, from the bottom of her heart.</p> - -<p>You will think it was the deepest presumption on her part, to think she -could meet the emergency better than her father would. And so it was, -and yet not so at all. It was only that there were no doubts in her -mind, and there were doubts, she knew, inconceivable<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_231" id="page_231"></a>{231}</span> doubts, shadows, -self-deceptions, on his. A great many thoughts went through her mind, as -she stood thus looking across the level of the calm sea—although it was -scarcely for a minute altogether, that she underwent this faintness and -sickening, which was both physical and mental. The cold touch of the wet -rock, the slipping tangles of dark green leathery dulse which made her -grasp slip, brought her to herself, and brought her colour rushing back. -She turned round to Frank with a smile, which made the young man’s heart -beat.</p> - -<p>“But I am awfully anxious not to have papa disturbed,” she said. “You -know he is not just like other folk; and when he is interrupted at his -writing it breaks the—the thread of his thoughts, and sometimes he -cannot get back the particular thing he was meditating upon (it seemed -to Elsie that the right words were coming to her lips, though she did -not know how, like a sort of inspiration which overawed, and yet -uplifted her). And then perhaps it will be his sermon that will suffer, -and he always suffers himself when that is so.”</p> - -<p>“He has very little occasion to suffer in that way,” cried Frank, “for -every one says—and I think so myself, but I am no judge—that there is -no one that preaches like him, either in the town or through all Fife. I -should say more than that—for I never in London heard any sermons that -I listened to as I do to his.”</p> - -<p>Elsie beamed upon her lover like the morning sun.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_232" id="page_232"></a>{232}</span> It was strictly true -to the letter, but, whether there might be anything in the fact, that -none of these discredited preachers in London were father to Elsie, need -not be inquired. It gave the minister’s daughter a keen pang of pleasure -to hear this flattering judgment. It affected her more than her mother’s -recommendation, or any of her own serious thoughts. She felt for a -moment as if she could even love Frank Mowbray, and get to think him the -first of men.</p> - -<p>“Come and let me see the new beast,” she said, with what was to Frank -the most enchanting smile.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_233" id="page_233"></a>{233}</span></p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVIII" id="CHAPTER_XVIII"></a>CHAPTER XVIII.<br /><br /> -<small>JOHNNY WEMYSS.</small></h2> - -<p><span class="smcap">Johnny Wemyss</span> was not perhaps at that moment a figure precisely adapted -to please a maiden’s eye, nor would any other lad in St. Rule’s have -cared to present himself before a young lady whom he regarded with -interest, under his present aspect. His trousers were doubled up as far -as was practicable, upon legs which were not models of shapeliness nor -even of strength, being thin and wiry “shanks,” capable of any amount of -fatigue or exertion, but showing none of these qualities. His arms, much -like these lower members, were also uncovered up to the elbow, his blue -pea-jacket had a deposit of sand in every wrinkle, and the broad blue -bonnet on his head had scraps of very vivid green sea-weed clinging to -it, showing how Johnny’s head, as well as his arms and legs, had been in -contact with the recesses of the rocks. It was pushed back from his -forehead, and he was holding out at the length of his hairy, sinewy arm, -a thing which was calculated to call forth sentiments rather of disgust -than of admiration, in persons not affected with that sympathetic -interest in the researches of Johnny, which St. Rule’s in general was -now beginning<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_234" id="page_234"></a>{234}</span> to feel. It was a variety of that family of the Medusa, -called in St. Rule’s jelly fish, which fringe all the sands along that -coast after a storm. Elsie had got over the repugnance to touch the -clammy creatures, which is common to uninstructed persons, and was eager -to have the peculiarity in its transparent structure pointed out to her, -which marked it as a discovery. But Johnny was neither so animated in -its exposition, nor so enthusiastic over the beauty of his prize, as he -had been on many previous and less important occasions. He had been a -witness of Elsie’s progress, since Frank Mowbray had joined her. He had -seen her pause by the rocks to recover herself from something, he could -not tell what. Was it not very likely at least that it was a more full -disclosure of Frank’s sentiments—which, indeed, nobody in St. Rule’s -had any doubt about the nature of—which suddenly overcame a vigorous, -healthful girl like Elsie, and made her lean against the wet rocks which -were under water at full tide, and grasp the tangles of the dulse for -support? Nothing could be more probable, nay, certain. And when Elsie -turned towards her lover with that smile which the other half saw, and -most clearly divined, and led him back with her triumphant, what other -hypothesis could account for it? Johnny could follow with the most -delicate nicety the conclusions that were to be drawn from the -transparent lines of colour in the round clammy disc he held quivering -in his hand; but he could not tell, how could he; having no data to go<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_235" id="page_235"></a>{235}</span> -upon, and being quite incapable, as science will probably always -continue to be of such a task, to decipher what was in a single -quivering heart, though it might be of much more consequence to him. He -watched them coming along together, Frank Mowbray suddenly changed from -the commonplace comrade, never quite trusted as one of themselves by the -young men of St. Rule’s, though admitted to a certain cordiality and -good fellowship—coming along transfigured, beaming all over, his very -clothes, always so much more dainty than anybody else’s, giving out a -radiation of glory—the admired yet contemned spats upon his feet, -unconsciously stepping as if to music: and altogether with a conquering -hero aspect, which made Johnny long to throttle him, though Johnny was -perhaps the most peaceable of all the youths of his time. An unconscious -“confound him” surged up to the lips of the naturalist, himself so -triumphant a minute ago in the glory of his discovery; and for one -dreadful moment, Johnny felt disposed to pitch his Medusæ back into the -indifferent water, which would have closed over it as calmly as though -it had been the most lowly and best known of its kind. For what was the -good of anything, even an original discovery, if such a thing was -permitted to be under the skies, as that a girl such as Elsie Buchanan -should elect out of all the world the like of Frank Mowbray, -half-hearted Scot, dandy, and trifler, for her master? It was enough to -disgust a man with all the courses of the earth, and even with the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_236" id="page_236"></a>{236}</span> -finest unclassed Medusæ newly voyaged out of the heart of the sea.</p> - -<p>“Oh, Johnny,” Elsie said, hurrying towards him in all that glow and -splendour of triumph (as he thought). “I hear you have made a discovery, -a real discovery! Let me see it! and will it be figured in all the -books, and your name put to it? Wemyssea—or something of that kind.”</p> - -<p>“I had thought of a different name,” said Johnny, darkly, “but I’ve -changed my mind.”</p> - -<p>“What was that?” said Elsie, lightly taking hold of his arm in the easy -intimacy of a friendship that had lasted all her life—in order that she -might see more clearly the object limply held in his palm. “Tell me the -difference,” she said, throwing down her parcel, and putting her other -hand underneath his to bring the prize more distinctly within her view. -The young man turned deeply red up to his sandy hair, which curled round -the edge of his blue bonnet. He shrank a little from that careless -touch. And Frank, looking on with a half jealousy, quickly stifled by -the more agreeable thought that it was Elsie’s now distinctly identified -preference of himself which made her so wholly unconscious of any -feeling on the part of the other, laughed aloud out of pure delight and -joy of heart.</p> - -<p>“What are you laughing at?” said Johnny, gruffly, divining only too well -why Frank laughed.</p> - -<p>“Show me,” said Elsie, “I think I can see something.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_237" id="page_237"></a>{237}</span> You always said I -was the quickest to see. Is it this, and this?” she said, bending over -the hand which she held.</p> - -<p>“Let me hold it for you,” said Frank.</p> - -<p>“I can hold up my hand myself,” said Johnny; “I am wanting no -assistance. As I found it myself, I hope I am able to show it myself -without anybody interfering.”</p> - -<p>Elsie withdrew her hand, and looked up surprised in his face, with one -of those appeals which are so much less answerable than words. She stood -a little aside while he began to expound his discovery. They had all -caught a few of the most superficial scientific terms from Johnny. Elsie -would never have spoken of the new thing being “figured” in a book, but -for those little technicalities of knowledge which he shed about him. -And he had said that she was the one of all his interested society who -understood best. She was the only one who knew what observation meant, -the naturalist said. I think that this was a mistake myself, and that he -was chiefly led away by her sympathy and by certain other sentiments of -which it is unnecessary to speak.</p> - -<p>In the meantime, he explained with a mingled gruffness and languor which -Elsie did not understand.</p> - -<p>“Oh, it’s perhaps not so great a discovery after all,” Johnny said. “I -daresay some fellow has noted it before. That’s what you always find -when you take it into your head you have got something new.”<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_238" id="page_238"></a>{238}</span></p> - -<p>“But you know all about the Medusæ,” said Elsie, “and you would be sure -to know if it had been discovered before.”</p> - -<p>“I’m not sure that I know anything,” said Johnny, despondently. He cast -the jelly fish out of his hand upon the sand. “We’re just, as Newton -said, like bairns picking up shells on the shore. We know nothing. It is -maybe no new thing at all, but just a variety that everybody knows.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, Johnny, that is not like you!” cried Elsie, while the two young men -standing by, to whom this mood on Wemyss’s part was quite unknown, gaped -at him, vaguely embarrassed, not knowing what to say. Rodie had a great -desire to get away from a problem he could not understand, and Frank was -feeling a little guilty, he could scarcely tell why. Elsie got down on -her knees upon the sand, which was firm though wet, and, gathering a -handful of the dulse with its great wet stalks and hollow berries, made -a bed for the Medusæ, which, with some repugnance, she lifted on to the -little heap.</p> - -<p>“You will have to give me a new pair of gloves,” she said, looking up -with a laugh, “for I have spoilt these ones that are nearly new; and -what will my mother say? But though you think it is very weak, I cannot -touch a jelly fish—I am meaning a Medusa, which is certainly a far -bonnier name—with my bare hands. There now, it will go easy into a -basket, or I would almost carry it myself, with the dulse all about<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_239" id="page_239"></a>{239}</span> it; -but to throw it away is what I will never consent to, for if you think -it is a discovery, I know it must be a discovery, and it will be called -after you, and a credit to us all.”</p> - -<p>“It <i>is</i> a discovery,” cried Johnny, with a sudden change of mien. “I -was a fool. I am not going to give it up, whatever happens. The less -that comes to me in this world, the more I’ll keep to the little I’m -sure of.” When he had uttered this enigmatical sentence, which was one -of those mystic utterances, more imposing than wisdom, that fill every -audience with confused admiration, he snapped his fingers wildly, and -executed a <i>pas</i> of triumph. “It will make the London men stand about!” -he said, “and I would just like to know what the Professor will say to -it! As for the name——”</p> - -<p>“Oh, yes, Johnny, the name?”</p> - -<p>“It will be time enough to think of that,” he said, looking at her with -mingled admiration and trouble. “Anyway, it is you that have saved it -for me,” he said.</p> - -<p>“Frank,” said Rodie, “are you meaning to play your foursome with Raaf -and Alick, or are you not?”</p> - -<p>“I thought you had turned me out of it,” said Frank.</p> - -<p>“Oh, go away and play your game!” Elsie commanded in a tone of relief. -“It is just the thing that is best for you idle laddies, with never a -hand’s turn to do in this world. I am going home as soon as I<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_240" id="page_240"></a>{240}</span> have seen -Johnny take up his new beast like a person of sense, after taking the -pet at it like a silly bairn. You are all silly, the whole tribe of you, -for so much as you think of yourselves. If you’re late, Alick and Raaf -will just play a twosome, and leave you out.”</p> - -<p>“That’s what they’ll do,” Rodie pronounced, authoritatively. “Come -along, Frank.”</p> - -<p>And Frank followed, though torn in pieces by attractions both ways. It -was hard to leave Elsie in so gracious a mood, and also with Johnny -Wemyss, who had displayed a quite unexpected side to-day: but Johnny -Wemyss did not, could not count, whatever he might feel: surely if there -was anything a man could calculate upon, it was that. And Frank was -sincerely pleased to be taken into favour again by that young despot, -Rodie, who in his capacity as Elsie’s brother, rode roughshod over Ralph -Beaton and was more respected than he had any right to be by several -more of the golf-playing community. So that it seemed a real necessity -in present circumstances, with the hopes of future games in mind, to -follow him docilely now.</p> - -<p>“Why were you so petted, Johnny?” said Elsie, when reluctantly her wooer -had followed her brother in a run to the links.</p> - -<p>“I was not petted,” said Johnny, with that most ineffectual reply which -consists of simple contradiction. In those days petted, that is the -condition of a spoilt child, was applied to all perverse moods and<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_241" id="page_241"></a>{241}</span> -causeless fits of ill-temper. I do not think that in current Scots -literature, of which there are so many examples, I remember the same use -of the word now.</p> - -<p>“Oh, but you were,” cried Elsie, laughing, “in a pet with your new -beast, and what could go further than that? I would not have been so -much surprised if you had been in a pet with Rodie or me.”</p> - -<p>“There was occasion,” said Johnny, relapsing a little into the clouds. -“Why were you such friends with that empty-headed ass? And coming along -the sands smiling at him as if—as if——”</p> - -<p>“As if what?” said Elsie. She laughed again, the laugh of conscious -power. She was not perhaps so fine a character as, considering all -things, she might have been expected to be.</p> - -<p>“Elsie,” said the young man, “it’s not me that shall name it. If it -really turns out to be something, as I think it will, I am going to call -it after you.”</p> - -<p>“A grand compliment,” cried the girl, with another peel of laughter. “A -jeely fish! But,” she added, quickly, “I think it is awfully nice of -you, Johnny; for those are the sort of things, I know, that you like -best in the world.”</p> - -<p>“Not quite,” said the naturalist. “There are things I care for far more -than beasts, and if you don’t know that, you are not so quick at the -uptake as I have always thought you; but what is the good when I am -nobody, and never will be anybody, if I were to howk and ferret for new -beasts till I die!”<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_242" id="page_242"></a>{242}</span></p> - -<p>“Bide a wee, bide a wee,” said Elsie, laughing, but confused; “you will -be a placed minister, and as good as any of them; and what could ye have -better than that?”</p> - -<p>“I am the most unfortunate man in the world,” said Johnny, “for you know -that, which is the only way for a poor lad like me, it is not what I -want.”</p> - -<p>“And you are not blate to say so to me that am a minister’s daughter, -and very proud of it,” cried Elsie, with a flush of offence.</p> - -<p>“That’s just the worst of it,” said Johnny, sadly, shaking his head, -“for maybe you, and certainly other folk, will believe indeed I am not -blate, thinking too much of myself, not to be content with a kirk if I -could get one. But you should know it isn’t that. I think too little of -myself. Never could I be a man like your father, that is one of the -excellent of the earth. It is the like of him, and not the like of me, -that should be a minister. And then whatever I was, and wherever I was,” -he added, with a humility that was almost comic, “I would always have -something inside teasing me to be after the beasts all the same.”</p> - -<p>“What are you going to do with it now?” said Elsie, looking down at the -unconscious object of all this discussion, which lay semi-transparent, -and a little dulled in the delicate mauve colour of its interesting -markings, on the bed she had made of the tangles of the dulse at her -feet.</p> - -<p>“The first thing is, I will draw a picture of it, the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_243" id="page_243"></a>{243}</span> best I can,” said -Johnny, rousing to something of his usual enthusiasm, “and then I will -dissect it and get at its secrets, and I will send the drawing and the -account of it to London—and then——”</p> - -<p>“And then?” repeated Elsie.</p> - -<p>“I will just wait,” he said. His eyes which had been lighted up with -eagerness and spirit sank, and he shrugged his shoulders and shook his -head. “Just as likely as not I will never hear word of it more. That’s -been my fate already. I must just steel myself not to hope.”</p> - -<p>“Johnny, do you mean that you have sent up other things like this, and -got no good of them?”</p> - -<p>“Aye,” he said, without looking up. He was not a cheerful figure, with -his head bent on his breast, and his eyes fixed on the strange -prize—was it a mere clammy inanimate thing, or was it progress, and -fame, and fortune?—which lay at his feet. Elsie did not know what to -say.</p> - -<p>“And you standing there with wet feet, and everything damp and cold -about you,” she cried, with a sudden outburst. “Go home this moment, -Johnny Wemyss; this time it will be different. I’m not a prophet and how -should I know? But this time it will be different. How are you to get it -home?”</p> - -<p>He took his blue bonnet from his head, with a low laugh, and placed the -specimen in it.</p> - -<p>“Nobody minds,” he said, smoothing down his sleeves. “I am as often -without my bonnet as with<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_244" id="page_244"></a>{244}</span> it. They say it’s only Johnny Wemyss: but I’m -not fit to walk by the side of a bonnie princess like you.”</p> - -<p>“I am coming with you all the same,” Elsie said.</p> - -<p>They were, indeed, a very unlikely pair. The girl in all her prettiness -of summer costume, the young man, damp, sandy, and bareheaded, carrying -his treasure. So far as the sands extended, however, there was no one to -mark the curious conjunction, and they went lightly over the firm wet -sand within high-water mark, talking little, but with a perfect -familiarity and kindness of companionship which was more exquisite than -the heats and chills through which Frank Mowbray had passed, when Elsie -for her own purposes had led him back. Elsie kept step with Johnny’s -large tread, she had an air of belonging to him which came from the -intimate intercourse of years; and though the social distinction between -the minister’s daughter and the fisherman’s son was very marked, -externally, it was evidently quite blotted out in fact by a closer -fraternity. Elsie was not ashamed of him, nor was Johnny proud of her, -so far as their difference of position was concerned. He was proud of -her in another sense, but she quite as much of him.</p> - -<p>“I will call it ‘Princess Elsie,’<span class="lftspc">”</span> he said at last. “I will put it in -Latin: or else I will call it ‘Alicia:’ for Elsie and Alison and all are -from Alice, which is just the bonniest name in the world.”</p> - -<p>“Nonsense,” she said, “there are many that are much bonnier. I don’t -think Alison is very bonny,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_245" id="page_245"></a>{245}</span> it is old-fashioned; but it was my -grandmother’s name, and I like it for that.”</p> - -<p>“It is just the bonniest name in all the world,” he repeated, softly; -but next moment they had climbed from the sands to the smooth ground -near the old castle, and from thenceforward Johnny Wemyss was the centre -of a moving group, made up of boys and girls, and an occasional golfer, -and a fisher or two, and, in short, everybody about; for Johnny Wemyss -was known to everybody, and his particular pursuits were the sport, and -interest, and pride of the town.</p> - -<p>“He has found a new beast.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, have you found a new beast? Oh Johnny, let us see it, let us see -it! Oh, but it’s nothing but a jeely-fish,” cried, in a number of -voices, the little crowd. Johnny walked calmly on, his bare head red in -the sunshine, with crisp short curls surrounding a forehead which was -very white in the upper part, where usually sheltered by his bonnet, and -a fine red brown mahogany tint below. Johnny was quite at his ease amid -the encircling, shouting little crowd, from out of which Elsie withdrew -at the garden gate, with a wave of her hand. He had no objection to -their questions, their jests, their cries of “Let us see it, Johnny!” It -did not in the least trouble him that he was Johnny to all the world, -and his “new beast” the diversion of the town.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_246" id="page_246"></a>{246}</span></p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIX" id="CHAPTER_XIX"></a>CHAPTER XIX.<br /><br /> -<small>A CATASTROPHE.</small></h2> - -<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Mowbray</span> was more restless than her maid, who had been with her for -many years, had ever seen her before. She was not at any time a model of -a tranquil woman, but ever since her arrival in St. Rule’s, her activity -had been incessant, and very disturbing to her household. She was -neither quiet during the day nor did she sleep at night. She was out and -in of the house a hundred times of a morning, and even when within doors -was so continually in motion, that the maids who belonged to the house, -and had been old Mr. Anderson’s servants, held a meeting, and decided -that if things went on like this, they would all “speak” when the -appointed moment for speaking came, and leave at the next term. Mrs. -Mowbray’s own maid, who was specially devoted to her, had a heavier -thought on her mind; for the mistress was so unlike herself, that it -seemed to this good woman that she must be “off her head,” or in a fair -way of becoming so. There was no one to take notice of this alarming -condition of affairs, for what was to be expected from Mr. Frank? He was -a young man: he was taken up with his own concerns. It was not to be -supposed that his mother’s state would call forth any<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_247" id="page_247"></a>{247}</span> anxiety on his -part, until it went much further than it yet had gone. And there were no -intimate friends who could be appealed to. There was no one to exercise -any control, even if it had been certain that there was occasion for -exercising control. And that had not occurred as yet. But she was so -restless, that she could not keep still anywhere for half-an-hour. She -was constantly on the stairs, going up and down, or in the street, -taking little walks, making little calls, staying only a few minutes. -She could not rest. In the middle of the night, she might be seen up -wandering about the house in her dressing-gown, with a candle in her -hand: though when any one was startled, and awakened by the sound of her -nocturnal wanderings, she was always apologetic, explaining that she had -forgotten something in the drawing-room, or wanted a book.</p> - -<p>But on the day when she had spoken to Frank, as already recorded, her -restlessness was more acute than ever. She asked him each time he came -in, whether he had “taken any steps;” though what step the poor boy -could have taken, he did not know, nor did she, except that one step of -consulting the minister, which was simple enough, but which, as has been -seen, was rendered difficult to Frank on the other side. The next day, -that morning on which Frank lost all his time on the East Sands, with -Johnny Wemyss, and his new beast, the poor lady could not contain -herself at all. She sat down at the window<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_248" id="page_248"></a>{248}</span> for a minute, and gazed out -as if she were expecting some one; then she jumped up, and went over all -the rooms up-stairs, looking for something, she said, which she could -not find. She could not keep still. The other servants began to compare -opinions and to agree with the lady’s maid. At last before twelve -o’clock Mrs. Mowbray put on her “things,” for the third or fourth time, -and sallied forth, not dressed with her usual elaborate nicety, but with -a shawl too heavy for the warm day, and a bonnet which was by no means -her best bonnet. Perhaps there is no greater difference between these -times and ours, than the fact of the bonnet and shawl, as opposed to the -easier hat and jacket, which can be put on so quickly. Mrs. Mowbray -generally took a long time over the tying of her bonnet strings, which -indeed was a work of art. But in the hasty irregularity of that morning -she could not be troubled about the bonnet strings, but tied them -anyhow, not able to give her attention to the bows. It may easily be -seen what an agitation there must have been in her bosom, when she -neglected so important a point in her toilet. And her shawl was not -placed carefully round her shoulders, in what was supposed to be the -elegant way, but fastened about her neck like the shawl of any farmer’s -wife. Nothing but some very great disturbance of mind could account for -an outward appearance so incomplete.</p> - -<p>“She’s going to see the minister,” said Hunter, her woman, to Janet, the -cook. Hunter had been unable<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_249" id="page_249"></a>{249}</span> to confine her trouble altogether to her -own breast. She did not indeed say what she feared, but she had confided -her anxiety about her mistress’s health in general to Janet, who was of -a discreet age, and knew something of life.</p> - -<p>“Weel, aweel,” said Janet, soothingly, “she can never do better than -speak to the minister. He will soothe down her speerits, if onybody can; -but that’s not the shortest gait to the minister’s house.”</p> - -<p>They stood together at the window, and watched her go up the street, the -morning sunshine throwing a shadow before her. At the other end of the -High Street, Johnny Wemyss had almost reached his own door, with ever a -new crowd following at his heels, demanding to see the new beast. And -Frank had started with his foursome in high spirits and hope, with the -remembrance of Elsie’s smile warm around him, like internal sunshine, -and the consciousness of an excellent drive over the burn, to add to his -exhilaration. Elsie had gone home, and was seated in the drawing-room, -at the old piano “practising,” as all the household was aware: it was -the only practicable time for that exercise, when it least disturbed the -tranquillity of papa, who, it was generally understood, did not begin to -work till twelve o’clock. And Mrs. Buchanan was busy up-stairs in a -review of the family linen, the napery being almost always in need of -repair. Therefore the coast was perfectly clear, and Mrs. Mowbray, -reluctantly admitted by the maid, who knew her visits<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_250" id="page_250"></a>{250}</span> were not -over-welcome, ran up the stairs waving her hand to Betty, who would fain -have gone before her to fulfil the requirements of decorum, and because -she had received “a hearing” on the subject from her mistress. “It is -very ill-bred to let a visitor in, and not let me or the minister know -who’s coming. It is my desire you should always go up-stairs before -them, and open the door.” “But how could I,” Betty explained afterwards, -“when she just ran past me? I couldna put forth my hand, and pull her -down the stairs.”</p> - -<p>Mrs. Mowbray had been walking very fast, and she ran up-stairs to the -minister’s study, which she knew so well, as rapidly and as softly as -Elsie could have done it. In consequence, when she opened the door, and -asked, breathless, “May I come in?” her words were scarcely audible in -the panting of her heart. She had to sit down, using a sort of pantomime -to excuse herself for nearly five minutes before she could speak.</p> - -<p>“Oh, Mr. Buchanan! I have been so anxious to see you! I have run nearly -all the way.”</p> - -<p>The minister pushed away the newspaper, which he had been caught -reading. It was the <i>Courant</i> day, when all the bottled-up news of the -week came to St. Rule’s. He sighed to be obliged to give it up in the -middle of his reading, and also because being found in no more serious -occupation, he could not pretend to be very busy, even if he had wished -to do so.</p> - -<p>“I hope it is nothing very urgent,” he said.</p> - -<p>“Yes, it is urgent, very urgent! I thought Frank<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_251" id="page_251"></a>{251}</span> would have seen you -yesterday. I thought perhaps you would have paid more attention to him, -than you do to me.”</p> - -<p>“My dear Mrs. Mowbray! I hope you have not found me deficient in—in -interest or in attention,” the minister said.</p> - -<p>He had still kept hold of the <i>Courant</i> by one corner. Now he threw it -away in a sort of despair. The same old story, he said to himself -grievously, with a sigh that came from the bottom of his heart.</p> - -<p>“Do you know,” said the visitor, clasping her hands and resting them on -his table, “that Frank’s twenty-fifth birthday is on the fifth of next -month?”</p> - -<p>She looked at him as she had never done before. Her eyes might have been -anxious on previous occasions, but they were also full of other things: -they had light glances aside, a desire to please and charm, always the -consciousness of an effort to secure not only attention, but even -admiration, a consciousness of herself, of her fine manners, and -elaborate dress, finer than anything else in St. Rule’s. Now there was -nothing of all this about her. Her eyes seemed deepened in their -sockets, as if a dozen years had passed over her since she last looked -thus at the minister. And she asked him that question as if the date of -her son’s birthday was the most tragic of facts, a date which she -anticipated with nothing less than despair.</p> - -<p>“Is it really?” said the perplexed minister. “No, indeed, I did not -know.”<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_252" id="page_252"></a>{252}</span></p> - -<p>“And you don’t seem to care either,” she cried, “you don’t care!”</p> - -<p>Mr. Buchanan looked at her with a suspicious glance, as if presaging -some further assault upon his peace. But he said:</p> - -<p>“I am very glad my young friend has come to such a pleasant age. -Everything has gone well with him hitherto, and he has come creditably -through what may be called the most perilous portion of his youth. He -has now a little experience, and power of discrimination, and I see no -reason to fear but that things will go as well with him in the future, -as they seem——”</p> - -<p>“Oh,” cried Mrs. Mowbray, raising her clasped hands with a gesture of -despair, “is that all you have got to say, just what any old woman might -say! And what about me, Mr. Buchanan, what about me?”</p> - -<p>“You!” he cried, rather harshly, for to be called an old woman is enough -to upset the patience of any man. “I don’t know what there is to think -of about you, except the satisfaction you must have in seeing Frank——”</p> - -<p>She stamped her foot upon the floor; her eyes, which looked so hollow -and tragic, flamed up for a moment in wrath.</p> - -<p>“Oh, Frank, Frank! as if it were only Frank!” She paused a moment, and -then began again drawing a long breath. “I came to you in my despair. If -you can help me, I know not, or if any one can help me. It is that, or -the pierhead, or the Spindle rock,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_253" id="page_253"></a>{253}</span> where a poor creature might slip in, -and it would be thought an accident, and she would never be heard of -more.”</p> - -<p>“Mrs. Mowbray! For God’s sake, what do you mean?”</p> - -<p>“Ah, you ask me what I mean now? When I speak of the rocks and the sea, -then you begin to think. That is what must come, I know that is what -must come, unless,” she said, “unless”—holding out her hands still -convulsively clasped to him, “you can think of something. Oh, Mr. -Buchanan, if you can think of something, if you can make it up with that -money, if you can show me how I am to get it, how I can make it up! Oh, -will you save me, will you save me!” she cried, stumbling down upon her -knees on the other side of his table, holding up her hands, fixing her -strained eyes upon his face.</p> - -<p>“Mrs. Mowbray!” he cried, springing up from his chair, “what is this? -rise up for Heaven’s sake, do not go on your knees to me. I will do -anything for you, anything I can do, surely you understand that—without -this——”</p> - -<p>“Oh, let me stay where I am! It is like asking it from God. You’re -God’s, minister, and I’m a poor creature, a poor nervous weak woman. I -never meant to do any harm. It was chiefly for my boy, that he might -have everything nice, everything that he wanted like a gentleman. Oh, -Mr. Buchanan! you may think I spent too much on my dress. So I did. I<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_254" id="page_254"></a>{254}</span> -have been senseless and wicked all round, but I never did more than -other women did. And I had no expenses besides. I never was extravagant, -nor played cards, nor anything. And that was for Frank, too, that he -might not be ashamed of his mother. Mr. Buchanan!”</p> - -<p>“Rise up,” he said, desperately, “for goodness’ sake, don’t make us both -ridiculous. Sit down, and whatever it is, let us talk it over quietly. -Oh, yes, yes, I am very sorry for you. I am shocked and distressed -beyond words. Sit down rationally, for God’s sake, and tell me what it -is. It is a matter, of course,” he cried, sharply, with some impatience, -“that whatever I can do, I will do for you. There can be no need to -implore me like this! of course I will do everything I can—of course. -Mrs. Mowbray, sit down, for the love of heaven, and let me know what it -is.”</p> - -<p>She had risen painfully to her feet while he was speaking. Going down on -your knees may be a picturesque thing, but getting up from them, -especially in petticoats, and in a large shawl, is not a graceful -operation at all, and this, notwithstanding her despair, poor Mrs. -Mowbray was vaguely conscious of. She stumbled to her feet, her skirts -tripping her up, the corners of her shawl getting in her way. The poor -woman had begun to cry. It was wonderful that she had been able to -restrain herself so long; but she was old enough to be aware that a -woman’s tears are just as often exasperating as pathetic to a man, and -had<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_255" id="page_255"></a>{255}</span> heroically restrained the impulse. But when she fell on her knees, -she lost her self-control. That was begging the question altogether. She -had given up her position as a tragic and dignified appellant. She was -nothing but a poor suppliant now, at anybody’s mercy, quite broken down, -and overmastered by her trouble. It did not matter to her any longer -what anyone thought. The state of mind in which she had dared to tell -the minister that he spoke like an old woman, was gone from her -completely. He was like God, he could save her, if he would; she could -not tell how, there was no reason in her hope, but if he only would, -somehow he could, save her—that was all her thought.</p> - -<p>“Now, tell me exactly how it is,” she heard him saying, confusedly, -through the violent beating of her heart.</p> - -<p>But what unfortunate, in her position, ever could tell exactly how such -a thing was? She told him a long, broken, confused story, full of -apology, and explanation, insisting chiefly upon the absence of any ill -meaning on her part, or ill intention, and the fatality which had caught -her, and compelled her actions, so often against her will. She had been -led into this and that, it had been pressed upon her—even now she did -not see how she could have escaped. And it was all for Frank’s sake: -every step she had taken was for Frank’s sake, that he might want for -nothing, that he might have everything the others had,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_256" id="page_256"></a>{256}</span> and feel that -everything about him—his home, his mother, his society—were such as a -gentleman ought to have.</p> - -<p>“This long minority,” Mrs. Mowbray said, through her tears, “oh, what a -mistake it is; instead of saving his money, it has been the destruction -of his money. I thought always it was so hard upon him, that I was -forced to spend more and more to make it up to him. I spent everything -of my own first. Oh, Mr. Buchanan! you must not think I spared anything -of my own—that went first. I sold out and sold out, till there was -nothing left; and then what could I do but get into debt? And here I am, -and I have not a penny, and all these dreadful men pressing and -pressing! And everything will be exposed to Frank, all exposed to him on -the fifth of next month. Oh, Mr. Buchanan, save me, save me. My boy will -despise me. He will never trust me again. He will say it is all my -fault! So it is all my fault. Oh, I do not attempt to deny it, Mr. -Buchanan: but it was all for him. And then there was another thing that -deceived me. I always trusted in you. I felt sure that at the end, when -you found it was really so serious, you would step in, and compel all -these people to pay up, and all my little debts would not matter so much -at the last.”</p> - -<p>Mr. Buchanan had forgotten the personal reference in all this to -himself. It did not occur to him that the money which rankled so at his -own heart, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_257" id="page_257"></a>{257}</span> which had already cost him so much, much more than its -value, was the thing upon which she depended, from which she had -expected salvation. What was it she expected? thousands, he supposed, -instead of fifties, a large sum sufficient to re-establish her fortunes. -It was with a kind of impatient disdain that he spoke.</p> - -<p>“Are these really little debts you are telling me of? Could a hundred -pounds or two clear them off, would that be of real use?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, a hundred pounds!” she cried, with a shriek. “Mr. Buchanan, a -hundred pence would, of course, be of use, for I have no money at all, -and a hundred is a nice little bit of money, and I could stop several -mouths with it: but to clear them off! Oh no, no, alas, alas! It is -clear that you never lived in London. A hundred pounds would be but a -drop in the ocean. But when it is thousands, Mr. Buchanan, which is more -like facts—thousands, I am sure, which you know of, which you could -recover for Frank!”</p> - -<p>“Mrs. Mowbray, I don’t know what can have deceived you to this point. It -is absolute folly: all that Mr. Anderson lent to people at St. Rule’s -was never above a few hundred pounds. I know of nothing more. There is -nothing more. There was one of three hundred—nothing more. Be composed, -be composed and listen to me. Mrs. Mowbray!”</p> - -<p>But she neither listened nor heard him, her excitement had reached to a -point beyond which flesh and<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_258" id="page_258"></a>{258}</span> blood overmastered by wild anxiety and -disappointment could not go.</p> - -<p>“It can’t be true,” she shrieked out. “It can’t be true, it mustn’t be -true.” And then, with a shriek that rang through the house, throwing out -her arms, she fell like a mass of ruins on the floor.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Buchanan was busy with her napery at some distance from the study. -She had heard the visitor come in, and had concluded within herself that -her poor husband would have an ill time of it with that woman. “But -there’s something more on her mind than that pickle siller,” the -minister’s wife had said to herself, shaking her head over the darns in -her napery. She had long been a student of the troubled faces that came -to the minister for advice or consolation, and, having only that -evidence to go upon, had formed many a conclusion that turned out true -enough, sometimes more true than those which, with a more extended -knowledge, from the very lips of the penitents, had been formed by the -minister himself: for the face, as Mrs. Buchanan held, could not make -excuses, or explain things away, but just showed what was. She was -pondering over this case, half-sorry and, perhaps, half-amused that her -husband should have this tangled skein to wind, which he never should -have meddled with, so that it was partly his own fault—when the sound -of those shrieks made her start. They were far too loud and too terrible -to ignore. Mrs. Buchanan threw down the linen she was darning, seized a<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_259" id="page_259"></a>{259}</span> -bottle of water from the table, and flew to her husband’s room. Already -there were two maids on the stairs hurrying towards the scene of the -commotion, to one of whom she gave a quick order, sending the other -away.</p> - -<p>“Thank God that you’ve come,” said Mr. Buchanan, who was feebly -endeavouring to drag the unfortunate woman to her feet again.</p> - -<p>“Oh, go away, go away, Claude, you’re of no use here. Send in the doctor -if you see him, he will be more use than you.”</p> - -<p>“I’ll do that,” cried the minister, relieved. He was too thankful to -resign the patient into hands more skilful than his own.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_260" id="page_260"></a>{260}</span></p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XX" id="CHAPTER_XX"></a>CHAPTER XX.<br /><br /> -<small>CONFESSION.</small></h2> - -<p><span class="smcap">“Then</span> it is just debt and nothing worse,” Mrs. Buchanan said. There was -a slight air of disappointment in her face; not that she wished the -woman to be more guilty, but that this was scarcely an adequate cause -for all the dramatic excitement which had been caused in her own mind by -Mrs. Mowbray’s visits and the trouble in her face.</p> - -<p>“Nothing worse! what is there that is worse?” cried the minister, -turning round upon her. He had been walking up and down the study, that -study which had been made a purgatory to him by the money of which she -spoke so lightly. It was this that was uppermost in his mind now, and -not the poor woman who had thrown herself on his mercy. To tell the -truth, he had but little toleration for her. She had thrown away her -son’s substance in vanity, and to please herself: but what pleasure had -he, the minister, had out of that three hundred pounds? Nothing! It -would have been better for him a thousand times to have toiled for it in -the sweat of his brow, to have lived on bread and water, and cleared it -off honestly. But he had not been allowed to do this; he had been forced -into the position he now held, a<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_261" id="page_261"></a>{261}</span> defaulter as she had said—an unjust -steward according to the formula more familiar to his mind.</p> - -<p>“Oh, yes, Claude, there are worse things—at least to a woman. She might -have misbe—— We’ll not speak of that. Poor thing, she is bad enough, -and sore shaken. We will leave her quiet till the laddies come home to -their lunch; as likely as not Rodie will bring Frank home with him, as I -hear they are playing together: and then he must just be told she had a -faint. There are some women that are always fainting; it is just the -sort of thing that the like of her would do. If I were you, I would see -Mr. Morrison and try what could be done to keep it all quiet. I am not -fond of exposing a silly woman to her own son.”</p> - -<p>“Better to her son than to strangers, surely—and to the whole world.”</p> - -<p>“I am not so sure of that,” Mrs. Buchanan said, thoughtfully: but she -did not pursue the argument. She sat very still in the chair which so -short a time before had been occupied by poor Mrs. Mowbray in her -passion and despair: while her husband walked about the room with his -hands thrust into his pockets, and his shoulders up to his ears, full of -restless and unquiet thoughts.</p> - -<p>“There’s one thing,” he said, pausing in front of her, but not looking -at her, “that money, Mary: we must get it somehow. I cannot reconcile it -with my conscience, I can’t endure the feeling of it: if it should ruin -us, we must pay it back.”<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_262" id="page_262"></a>{262}</span></p> - -<p>“Nothing will ruin us, Claude,” she said, steadily, “so long as it is -all honest and above board. Let it be paid back; I know well it has been -on your mind this many a day.”</p> - -<p>“It has been a thorn in my flesh; it has been poison in my blood!”</p> - -<p>“Lord bless us,” cried Mrs. Buchanan, with a little fretfulness, “what -for? and what is the use of exaggeration? It is not an impossibility -that you should rave about it like that. Besides,” she added, “I said -the same at first—though I was always in favour of paying, at whatever -cost—yet I am not sure that I would disappoint an old friend in his -grave, for the sake of satisfying a fantastic woman like yon.”</p> - -<p>“I must get it clear, I must get it off my mind! Not for her sake, but -for my own.”</p> - -<p>“Aweel, aweel,” said Mrs. Buchanan, soothingly; and she added, “we must -all set our shoulders to the wheel, and they must give us time.”</p> - -<p>“But it is just time that cannot be given us,” cried her husband, almost -hysterically. “The fifth of next month! and this is the twenty-fourth.”</p> - -<p>“You will have to speak to Morrison.”</p> - -<p>“Morrison, Morrison!” cried the minister. “You seem to have no idea but -Morrison! and it is just to him that I cannot speak.”</p> - -<p>His wife gazed at him with surprise, and some impatience.</p> - -<p>“Claude! you are just as foolish as that woman.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_263" id="page_263"></a>{263}</span> Will ranting and -raving, and ‘I will not do that,’ and ‘I will not do this,’ pay back the -siller? It is not so easy to do always what you wish. In this world we -must just do what we can.”</p> - -<p>“In another world, at least, there will be neither begging nor -borrowing,” he cried.</p> - -<p>“There will maybe be some equivalent,” said Mrs. Buchanan, shaking her -head. “I would not lippen to anything. It would have been paid long ago -if you had but stuck to the point with Morrison, and we would be free.”</p> - -<p>“Morrison, Morrison!” he cried again, “nothing but Morrison. I wish he -and all his books, and his bonds, and his money, were at the bottom of -the sea!”</p> - -<p>“Claude, Claude! and you a minister!” cried Mrs. Buchanan, horrified. -But she saw that the discussion had gone far enough, and that her -husband could bear no more.</p> - -<p>As for the unfortunate man himself, he continued, mechanically, to pace -about the room, after she left him, muttering “Morrison, Morrison!” -between his teeth. He could not himself have explained the rage he felt -at the name of Morrison. He could see in his mind’s eye the sleek figure -of the man of business coming towards him, rubbing his hands, stopping -his confession, “Not another word, sir, not another word; our late -esteemed friend gave me my instructions.” And then he could hear himself -pretending to insist, putting forward “the fifty:” “<i>The</i> fifty,” with -the lie<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_264" id="page_264"></a>{264}</span> beneath, as if that were all: and again the lawyer’s refusal to -hear. Morrison had done him a good office: he had stopped the lie upon -his lips, so that, formally speaking, he had never uttered it; he ought -to have been grateful to Morrison: yet he was not, but hated him (for -the moment) to the bottom of his heart.</p> - -<p>Frank Mowbray came to luncheon (which was dinner) with Rodie, as Mrs. -Buchanan had foreseen, and when he had got through a large meal, was -taken up-stairs to see his mother, who was still lying exhausted in -Elsie’s bed, very hysterical, laughing and crying in a manner which was -by no means unusual in those days, though we may be thankful it has -practically disappeared from our experiences now—unfortunately not -without leaving a deeper and more injurious deposit of the hysterical. -She hid her face when he came in, with a passion of tears and outcries, -and then held out her arms to him, contradictory actions which Frank -took with wonderful composure, being not unaccustomed to them.</p> - -<p>“Speak to Mr. Buchanan,” she said, “oh, speak to Mr. Buchanan!” -whispering these words into his ear as he bent over her, and flinging -them at him as he went away. Frank was very reluctant to lose his -afternoon’s game, and he was aware, too, of the threatening looks of -Elsie, who said, “My father’s morning has been spoiled; he has had no -peace all the day. You must see him another time.” “Speak to Mr. -Buchanan, oh, speak to Mr. Buchanan,” cried<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_265" id="page_265"></a>{265}</span> his mother. Frank did not -know what to do. Perhaps Mrs. Mowbray in her confused mind expected that -the minister would soften the story of her own misdemeanours to Frank. -But Frank thought of nothing but the previous disclosure she had made to -him. And he would probably have been subdued by Elsie’s threatening -looks, as she stood without the door defending the passage to the study, -had not Mr. Buchanan himself appeared coming slowly up-stairs. The two -young people stood silent before him. Even Elsie, though she held Frank -back fiercely with her eyes, could say nothing: and the minister waved -his hand, as if inviting him to follow. The youth went after him a -little overawed, giving Elsie an apologetic look as he passed. It was -not his fault: without that tacit invitation he would certainly not have -gone. He felt the situation very alarming. He was a simple young soul, -going to struggle with one of the superior classes, in deadly combat, -and with nobody to stand by him. Certainly he had lost his afternoon’s -game—almost as certainly he had lost, altogether lost, Elsie’s favour. -The smiles of the morning had inspired him to various strokes, which -even Raaf Beaton could not despise. But that was over, and now he had to -go on unaided to his fate.</p> - -<p>“Your mother has been ill, Frank.”</p> - -<p>“I am very sorry, sir: and she has distressed and disturbed you, I fear. -She sometimes has those sort of attacks: they don’t mean much, I think,” -Frank said.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_266" id="page_266"></a>{266}</span></p> - -<p>“They mean a great deal,” replied Mr. Buchanan. “They mean that her mind -is troubled about you and your future, Frank.”</p> - -<p>“Without any reason, I think,” said Frank. “I am not very clear about -money; I have always left it in my mother’s hands. She thought it would -be time enough to look after my affairs when I attained my Scotch -majority. But I don’t think I need trouble myself, for there must be -plenty to go on upon. She says the Scotch estate is far less than was -thought, and indeed she wanted me to come to you about some debts. She -thinks half St. Rule’s was owing money to old Uncle Anderson. And he -kept no books, or something of that sort. I don’t understand it very -well; but she said you understood everything.”</p> - -<p>“There was no question of books,” said Mr. Buchanan. “Mr. Anderson was -kind, and helped many people, not letting his right hand know what his -left hand did. Some he helped to stock a shop: some of the small farmers -to buy the cattle they wanted: some of the fishers to get boats of their -own. The money was a loan nominally to save their pride, but in reality -it was a gift, and nobody knew how much he gave in this way. It was -entered in no book, except perhaps,” said the minister, with a look -which struck awe into Frank, and a faint upward movement of his hand “in -One above.” After a minute he resumed: “I am sure, from what I know of -you, you would not disturb these poor folk, who most of them are now -enjoying<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_267" id="page_267"></a>{267}</span> the advantage of the charity that helped them rather to labour -than to profit at first.”</p> - -<p>“No, sir, no,” cried Frank, eagerly. “I am not like that, I am not a -beast; and I am very glad to hear Uncle Anderson was such a good man. -But,” he added after a pause, with a little natural pertinacity, “there -were others different from that, or else my mother had wrong -information—which might well be,” he continued with a little -reluctance. He was open to a generous impulse, but yet he wished to -reserve what might be owing to him on a less sentimental ground.</p> - -<p>“Yes, there are others different from that. There are a few people of a -different class in St. Rule’s, who are just as good as anybody, as -people say; you will understand I am speaking the language of the world, -and not referring to any moral condition, in which, as we have the best -authority for saying, none of us are good, but God alone. As good as -anybody, as people say—as good blood so far as that counts, as good -education or better, as good manners: but all this held in check, or -indeed made into pain sometimes, by the fact that they are poor. Do you -follow what I mean?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, sir, I follow,” said Frank: though without the effusiveness which -he had shown when the minister’s talk was of the actual poor.</p> - -<p>“A little money to such people as these is sometimes almost a greater -charity than to the shopkeepers and the fishermen. They are far poorer -with their<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_268" id="page_268"></a>{268}</span> pride, and the appearance they have to keep up, than the -lowest. Mind I am not defending pride nor the keeping up of appearances. -I am speaking just the common language of the world. Well, there were -several of these, I believe, who had loans of money from Mr. Anderson.”</p> - -<p>“I think,” said Frank, respectfully, yet firmly too, “that they ought to -pay, Mr. Buchanan. They have enjoyed the use of it for years, and people -like that can always find means of raising a little money. If it lies -much longer in their hands, it will be lost, I am told, by some Statute -of—of Limitation I think it is. Well then, nobody could force them in -that case; but I think, Mr. Buchanan, as between man and man, that they -ought to pay.”</p> - -<p>“I think,” said the minister, in a voice which trembled a little, “that -you are right, Frank: they ought to pay.”</p> - -<p>“That is certainly my opinion,” said Frank. “It would not ruin them, -they could find the money: and though it might harass them for the -moment, it would be better for them in the end to pay off a debt which -they would go on thinking must be claimed some time. And especially if -the estate is not going to turn out so good as was thought, I do think, -Mr. Buchanan, that they should pay.”</p> - -<p>“I think you are right, Frank.” The minister rose and began to walk up -and down the room as was his habit. There was an air of agitation about -him which<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_269" id="page_269"></a>{269}</span> the young man did not understand. “It is no case of an unjust -steward,” he said to himself; “if there’s an unjust steward, it is—and -to take the bill and write fourscore would never be the way with—Well, -we have both come to the same decision, Frank, and we are both -interested parties; I am, I believe, the largest of all Mr. Anderson’s -debtors. I owe him——”</p> - -<p>“Mr. Buchanan!” cried Frank, springing to his feet. “Mr. Buchanan, I -never thought of this. You! for goodness’ sake don’t say any more!”</p> - -<p>“I owe him,” the minister repeated slowly, “three hundred pounds. If you -were writing that, you know,” he said, with a curious sort of smile, -“you would repeat it, once in figures and once in letters, £300—and -three hundred pounds. You are quite right; it will be much better to pay -it off, at whatever sacrifice, than to feel that it may be demanded from -one at any time, as you have demanded it from me!”</p> - -<p>“Mr. Buchanan,” cried Frank, eagerly (for what would Elsie say? never, -never would she look at him again!), “you may be sure I had never a -notion, not an idea of this, not a thought! You were my uncle’s best -friend; I can’t think why he didn’t leave you a legacy, or something, -far more than this. I remember it was thought surprising there were no -legacies, to you or to others. Of course I don’t know who the others may -be,” he added with a changed inflection in his voice (for why should he -throw any money, that was justly his, to perhaps persons of no -importance, unconnected<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_270" id="page_270"></a>{270}</span> with Elsie?) “but you, sir, you! It is out of -the question,” Frank cried.</p> - -<p>Mr. Buchanan smiled a little. I fear it did not please him to feel that -Frank’s compassion was roused, or that he might be excused the payment -of his debt by Frank. Indeed that view of the case changed his feelings -altogether. “We need not discuss the question,” he said rather coldly. -“I have told you of the only money owing to your uncle’s estate which I -know of. I might have stated it to your mother some time since, but did -not on account of something that passed between Morrison and myself, -which was neither here nor there.”</p> - -<p>“What was it, Mr. Buchanan? I cannot believe that my uncle——”</p> - -<p>“You know very little about your uncle,” said the minister, testily. -“Now, I think I shall keep you no longer to-day: but before your -birthday I will see Morrison, and put everything right.”</p> - -<p>“It is right as it is,” cried Frank; “why should we have recourse to -Morrison? surely you and I are enough to settle it. Mr. Buchanan, you -know this never was what was meant. You! to bring you to book! I would -rather have bitten out my tongue—I would rather——”</p> - -<p>“Come, this is all exaggerated, as my wife says,” said the minister with -a laugh. “It is too late to go back upon it. Bring a carriage for your -mother, Frank, she will be better at home. You can tell her<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_271" id="page_271"></a>{271}</span> this if you -please: and then let us hear no more of it, my boy. I will see Morrison, -and settle with him, and there is no need that any one should think of -it more.”</p> - -<p>“Only that it is impossible not to think of it,” cried Frank. “Mr. -Buchanan——”</p> - -<p>“Not another word,” the minister said. He came back to his table and sat -down, and took his pen into his fingers. “Your foursome will be broken -up for want of you,” he said with a chilly smile. The poor young fellow -tried to say something more, but he was stopped remorselessly. “Really, -you must let me get to my work,” said the minister. “Everything I think -has been said between us that there is to say.”</p> - -<p>And it was Elsie’s father whom he had thus offended! Frank’s heart sank -to his boots, as he went down-stairs. He did not go near his mother, but -left her to be watched over and taken home by her maid, who had now -appeared. He felt as if he could never forgive her for having forced him -to this encounter with the minister. Oh! if he had but known! He would -rather have bitten out his tongue, he repeated to himself. The -drawing-room was empty, neither Elsie nor her mother being visible, and -there was no Rodie kicking his heels down-stairs. A maid came out of the -kitchen, while he loitered in the hall to give him that worthy’s -message. “Mr. Rodie said he couldna wait, and you were just to follow -after him: but you were not to be surprised if they started without -waiting for<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_272" id="page_272"></a>{272}</span> you, for it would never do to keep all the gentlemen -waiting for their game.” Poor Frank strolled forth with a countenance -dark as night; sweetheart and game, and self-respect and everything—he -had lost them all.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_273" id="page_273"></a>{273}</span></p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXI" id="CHAPTER_XXI"></a>CHAPTER XXI.<br /><br /> -<small>HOW TO SET IT RIGHT.</small></h2> - -<p><span class="smcap">“What</span> is the matter, mother?” Elsie said, drawing close to her mother’s -side. The minister had come to dinner, looking ill and pale. He had -scarcely spoken all through the meal. He had said to his wife that he -was not to be disturbed that evening, for there was a great deal to -settle and to think of. Mrs. Buchanan, too, bore an anxious countenance. -She went up to the drawing-room without a word, with her basket of -things to mend in her arms. She had always things to mend, and her -patches were a pleasure to behold. She lighted the two candles on the -mantelpiece, but said with a sigh that it was a great extravagance, and -that she had no right to do it: only the night was dark, and her eyes -were beginning to fail. Now the night was no darker than usual, and Mrs. -Buchanan had made a brag only the other evening, that with her new -glasses she could see to do the finest work, as well as when she was a -girl.</p> - -<p>“What is the matter, mother?” Elsie said. She came very close to her -mother, putting a timid arm round her waist. They were, as belonged to -their country, shy of caresses, and Elsie was half afraid of being -thrown off with an injunction not to be silly;<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_274" id="page_274"></a>{274}</span> but this evening Mrs. -Buchanan seemed to be pleased with the warm clasp of the young arm.</p> - -<p>“Nothing that was not yesterday, and for years before that. You and me, -Elsie, will have to put our shoulders to the wheel.”</p> - -<p>“What is it, mother?” The idea of putting her shoulder to the wheel was -comforting and invigorating, far better than the vague something wrong -that clouded the parents’ faces. Mrs. Buchanan permitted herself to give -her child a kiss, and then she drew her chair to the table and put on -her spectacles for her evening’s work.</p> - -<p>“Women are such fools,” she said. “I am not sure that your father’s -saying that he was not to be disturbed to-night, you heard him?—which -means that I am not to go up to him as I always do—has cast me down -more than the real trouble. For why should he shut himself up from me? -He might know by this time that it is not brooding by himself that will -pay off that three hundred pounds.”</p> - -<p>“Three hundred pounds!”</p> - -<p>“It is an old story, it is nothing new,” said the minister’s wife. “It -is a grand rule, Elsie, not to let your right hand know what your left -doeth in the way of charity; but when it’s such a modern thing as a loan -of money, oh, I’m afraid the worldly way is maybe the best way. If Mr. -Anderson had written it down in his books, The Rev. Claude Buchanan, -Dr.—as they do, you know, in the tradesmen’s bills—to<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_275" id="page_275"></a>{275}</span> loan -£300—well, then, it might have been disagreeable, but we should have -known the worst of it, and it would have been paid off by this time. But -the good old man kept no books; and when he died, it was just left on -our consciences to pay it or not. Oh, Elsie, siller is a terrible burden -on your conscience when you have not got it to pay! God forgive us! what -with excuses and explanations, and trying to make out that it was just -an accident and so forth, I am not sure that I have always been quite -truthful myself.”</p> - -<p>“You never told lies, mother,” said Elsie.</p> - -<p>“Maybe not, if you put it like that; but there’s many a lee that is not -a lee, in the way of excuses for not paying a bill. You’ll say, perhaps, -‘Dear me, I am very sorry; I have just paid away the last I set aside -for bills, till next term comes round;’ when, in fact, you had nothing -set aside, but just paid what you had, and as little as you could, to -keep things going! It’s not a lee, so to speak, and yet it is a lee, -Elsie! A poor woman, with a limited income, has just many, many things -like that on her mind. We’ve never wronged any man of a penny.”</p> - -<p>“No, mother, I’m sure of that.”</p> - -<p>“But they have waited long for their siller, and maybe as much in want -of it as we were,” Mrs. Buchanan said, shaking her head. “Anyway, if -it’s clear put down in black and white, there is an end of it. You know -you have to pay, and you just make<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_276" id="page_276"></a>{276}</span> up your mind to it. But, when it is -just left to your conscience, and you to be the one to tell that you are -owing—oh, Elsie! Lead us not into temptation. I hope you never forget -that prayer, morning nor evening. If you marry a man that is not rich, -you will have muckle need of it day by day.”</p> - -<p>Elsie seemed to see, as you will sometimes see by a gleam of summer -lightning, a momentary glimpse of a whole country-side—a panorama of -many past years. The scene was the study up-stairs, where her father was -sitting, often pausing in his work, laying down his pen, giving himself -up to sombre thoughts. “Take now thy bill, and sit down quickly, and -write fourscore,” she said to herself, under her breath.</p> - -<p>“What are you saying, Elsie? Fourscore? Oh, much more than fourscore. It -is three hundred pounds,” said Mrs. Buchanan. “Three hundred pounds,” -she repeated deliberately, as if the enormity of the sum gave her, under -the pain, a certain pleasure. “I have told you about it before. It was -for Willie’s outfit, and Marion’s plenishing, and a few other things -that were pressing upon us. Old Mr. Anderson was a very kind old man. He -said: ‘Take enough—take enough while you are about it: put yourself at -your ease while you are about it!’ And so we did, Elsie. I will never -forget the feeling I had when I paid off Aitken and the rest who had -just been very patient waiting. I felt like Christian in the <i>Pilgrim’s -Progress</i>, when the burden rolled off his back. Oh, my<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_277" id="page_277"></a>{277}</span> dear! a poor -woman with a family to provide, thinks more of her bills than her sins, -I am sore afraid!”</p> - -<p>“Well, mother, those that have to judge know best all about it,” said -Elsie, with tears in her voice.</p> - -<p>“My bonnie dear! You’ll have to give up the ball, Elsie, and your new -frock.”</p> - -<p>“What about that, mother?” cried Elsie, tossing her young head.</p> - -<p>“Oh, there’s a great deal about it! You think it is nothing now: but -when you hear the coaches all driving past, and not a word said among -all the young lassies but who was there and what they wore, and who they -danced with: and, maybe, even you may hear a sough of music on the air, -if the wind’s from the south: it will not be easy then, though your -mind’s exalted, and you think it matters little now.”</p> - -<p>“It will be, maybe—a little—hard,” Elsie assented, nodding her head; -“but, if that’s all, mother?”</p> - -<p>“It will not be all,” said Mrs. Buchanan, once more shaking her head. -“It will be day by day, and hour by hour. We will have to do without -everything, you and me. Your father, he must not be disturbed, more than -we can help; or how is he to do his work? which is work far more -important than yours or mine. And Rodie is a growing laddie, wanting -much meat, and nothing must interfere with his learning either, or how -could we put him out creditably in the world? I tell you it is you and -me that will have to put our sheulders to the wheel. Janet is a good, -sensible<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_278" id="page_278"></a>{278}</span> woman, I will take her into my confidence, and she’ll not mind -a little more work; but, Betty—oh, my dear, I think we’ll have to give -up Betty: and you know what that means.”</p> - -<p>“It means just the right thing to mean!” cried Elsie, with her -countenance glowing. “I am nearly as old as Betty, and I have never done -a hand’s turn in my life. It would be strange if I couldn’t do as much -for love, as Betty does for wages.”</p> - -<p>“Ten pounds a year and her keep, which will count, maybe, for fifteen -more. Oh Elsie, my dear, to think that I should make a drudge of my own -bairn for no more saving than that.”</p> - -<p>“It is a pity it is not a hundred pounds,” cried Elsie, half-laughing, -half-crying; “but in four years, mother, it would make up a hundred -pounds. Fancy me making up a hundred pounds! There will be no living -with me for pride.”</p> - -<p>Mrs. Buchanan shook her head, and put her handkerchief to her eyes, but -joined in, too, with a tremulous laugh to this wonderful thought.</p> - -<p>“And there’s your father all his lane up the stair,” she said, -regretfully, “with nobody to speak to! when you and me are here together -taking comfort, and making a laugh at it. There’s many things, after -all, in which we are better off than men, Elsie. But why he should debar -himself from just the only comfort there is, talking it over with -me—what’s that?”<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_279" id="page_279"></a>{279}</span></p> - -<p>It was a noise up-stairs, in the direction of Mr. Buchanan’s study, and -they both sprang to their feet: though, after all, it was not a very -dreadful noise, only the hasty opening of a window, and the fall of a -chair, as if knocked down by some sudden movement. They stood for a -moment, looking into each other’s suddenly blanched faces, an awful -suggestion leaping from eye to eye. Had it been too much for his brain? -Had he fallen? Had something dreadful happened? Elsie moved to open the -door, while her mother still stood holding by the table; but the -momentary horror was quieted by the sound of his steps overhead. They -heard him come out of his room to the head of the stairs, and held their -breath. Then there was a cry, “Mary! Mary!” Mrs. Buchanan turned upon -her daughter, with a sparkle in her eye.</p> - -<p>“You see he couldna do without me after all,” she said.</p> - -<p>When Elsie sat down alone she did not take her work again all at once, -but sat thinking, thoughts that, perhaps, were not so sweet as they had -been in the first enthusiasm of self-sacrifice. Her mother had left her -for a still more intimate conference and sharing of the burden, which, -when two people looked at it together, holding by each other, seemed so -much lighter than when one was left to look at it alone. There swept -across Elsie’s mind for a moment, in the chill of this desertion, the -thought that it was all<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_280" id="page_280"></a>{280}</span> very well for mamma. She had outgrown the love -of balls and other such enjoyments; and, though she liked to be well -dressed, she had the sustaining conviction that she was always well -dressed in her black silk; which, one year with another, if it was the -most enduring, was also one of the most becoming garments in St. Rule’s. -And she had her partner by her side always, no need to be wondering and -fancying what might happen, or whom she might see at the ball, perhaps -at the next street corner. But at nineteen it is very different; and, it -must be owned, that the prospect of the four years which it would take -for Elsie, by all manner of labours and endurances, to make up the -hundred pounds, which, after all, was only a third part of what was -wanted—was not so exhilarating when looked at alone, as it was when the -proud consciousness of such power to help had first thrilled her bosom. -Elsie looked at her own nice little hands, which were smooth, soft, and -reasonably white—not uselessly white like those of the people who never -did a hand’s turn—but white enough to proclaim them a lady’s hands, -though with scars of needlework on the fingers. She looked at her hands, -and wondered what they would look like at the end of these four years? -And she thought of the four balls, the yearly golf balls, at not one of -which was she likely to appear, and at all the other things which she -would have to give up. “What about that?” she said to herself, with -indignation,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_281" id="page_281"></a>{281}</span> meaning, what did it matter, of what consequence was it? -But it did matter after all, it was of consequence. Whatever amount of -generous sophistry there may be in a girl’s mind, it does not go so far -as to convince her that four years out of her life, spent in being -housemaid, in working with her hands for her family, does not matter. It -did matter, and a tear or two dropped over her work. It would be hard, -but Elsie knew, all the same, that she had it in her to go through with -it. Oh, to go through with it! however hard it might be.</p> - -<p>She was drying away her tears indignantly, angry with herself and -ashamed, and resolute that no such weakness should ever occur again, -when she became aware of several small crackling sounds that came from -the direction of the turret, the lower story of which formed an -appendage to the drawing-room, as the higher did to the study. Elsie was -not alarmed by these sounds. It was, no doubt, some friend either of -Rodie’s or her own, who was desirous of making a private communication -without disturbing the minister’s house by an untimely visit, and -calling attention by flinging gravel at the window. She could not think -who it was, but any incident was good to break the current of her -thoughts. There was a little pale moonlight, of that misty, milky kind, -which is more like a lingering of fantastic day than a fine white night -with black shadows, and there was a figure standing underneath, which -she did<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_282" id="page_282"></a>{282}</span> not recognise till she had opened the window. Then she saw it -was Johnny Wemyss. He had a packet in his hand.</p> - -<p>“I thought,” he said, “that I would just come and tell you before I sent -it off by the night-coach. Elsie! I am sure—that is to say, I am near -sure, as sure as you dare to think you are, when it’s only you——”</p> - -<p>“What?” she cried, leaning out of the window.</p> - -<p>“That yon <i>is</i> a new beast,” said the young man. His voice was a little -tremulous. “I never lifted my head till I had it all out with it,” he -said, with a nervous laugh; “and I’m just as near sure—oh, well, some -other idiot may have found it out yesterday! but, barring that—I’m -sure—I mean as near sure——”</p> - -<p>“Oh, you and your beasts!” cried Elsie. Her heart had given a jump in -her breast, and she had become gay and saucy in a moment; “and you never -were more than <i>near</i> sure all your life. <i>I</i> knew it was, all the -time.”</p> - -<p>They laughed together under the gray wall, the girl lightly triumphant, -the boy thrilling in every nerve with the certainty which he dared not -acknowledge even to himself.</p> - -<p>“I have called it ‘Princess Elsie,’<span class="lftspc">”</span> he said, “in Latin, you know: that -is, if it is really a new beast.”</p> - -<p>“There is nine striking,” said she; “you will have to run if you are to -catch the night-coach.”<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_283" id="page_283"></a>{283}</span></p> - -<p>“I will—but I had to come and tell you,” he cried over his shoulder.</p> - -<p>“As if there was any need! when I knew it all the time.”</p> - -<p>This was enough, I am glad to say, to turn entirely the tide of Elsie’s -thoughts. She stood listening to the sound of his heavy shoes, as he -dashed along the rough cobbles of the pavement, towards the centre of -the town from which the coach started. And then she came in with a -delightful, soft illumination on her face, laughing to herself, and sat -down at the table and took up her seam. Four years! four strokes of the -clock, four stitches with the needle! That was about all it would come -to in the long stretching, far panorama of endless and joyous life.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_284" id="page_284"></a>{284}</span></p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXII" id="CHAPTER_XXII"></a>CHAPTER XXII.<br /><br /> -<small>IN THE STUDY.</small></h2> - -<p><span class="smcap">The</span> hour was heavier to the parents up-stairs, where the minister was so -despondent and depressed that his wife had hard ado to cheer him. The -window which down-stairs they had heard him throw open, stood wide to -the night, admitting a breeze which blew about the flame of the candles, -threatening every moment to extinguish them; for the air, though soft -and warm, blew in almost violently fresh from the sea. Mrs. Buchanan put -down the window, and drew the blind, restoring the continuity and -protecting enclosure of the walls; for there are times and moods when an -opening upon infinite air and space is too much for the soul travailing -among the elements of earth. She went to his side and stood by him, with -her hand on his shoulder.</p> - -<p>“Dinna be so down-hearted, Claude, my man,” she said, with her soft -voice. Her touch, her tone, the contact of her warm, soft person, the -caressing of her hand came on him like dew.</p> - -<p>“Mary,” he said, leaning his head back upon her, “you don’t know what I -have done. I did it in meaning, if not in fact. The thought of you kept -me back, my dear, more than the thought of my Maker. I am a miserable -and blood-guilty man.”<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_285" id="page_285"></a>{285}</span></p> - -<p>“Whisht, whisht,” she said, trembling all over, but putting now a -quivering arm round him; “you are not thinking what you say.”</p> - -<p>“Well am I thinking, well am I knowing it. Me, His body-servant, His -man—not merely because He is my Saviour, as of all men, but my Master -to serve hand and foot, night and day. For the sake of a little pain, a -little miserable money, I had well-nigh deserted His service, Mary. Oh, -speak not to me, for I am a lost soul——”</p> - -<p>“Whisht, Claude! You are a fevered bairn. Do you think He is less -understanding, oh, my man, than me? What have you done?”</p> - -<p>He looked up at her with large, wild eyes. Then she suddenly perceived -his hand clenched upon something, and darting at it with a cry forced it -open, showing a small bottle clasped in the hollow of his palm. She -gripped his shoulder violently, with a low shriek of horror.</p> - -<p>“Claude, Claude! you have not—you did not——”</p> - -<p>“I poured it out before the Lord,” he said, putting the phial on the -table; “but the sin is no less, for I did it in meaning, if not in deed. -How can I ever lift my head or my hand before His presence again?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, my laddie! my man!” cried his wife, who was the mother of every -soul in trouble, “oh, my Claude! Are you so little a father, you with -your many bairns, that you do not know in your heart how He is looking -at you? ‘Such pity as a father hath unto His children<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_286" id="page_286"></a>{286}</span> dear.’ You are -just fevered and sick with trouble. You shut out your wife from you, and -now you would shut out your Lord from you.”</p> - -<p>“No,” he said, grasping her hand, “never again, Mary, never again. I am -weak as water, I cannot stand alone. I have judged others for less, far -less, than I myself have done.”</p> - -<p>“Well, let it be so,” said his wife, “you will know better another time. -Claude, you are just my bairn to-night. You will say your prayers and go -to your bed, and the Lord in heaven and me at your bedside, like a dream -it will all pass away.”</p> - -<p>He dropped down heavily upon his knees, and bent his head upon the -table.</p> - -<p>“Mary, I feel as if I could say nought but this: Depart from me, for I -am a sinful man, oh Lord.”</p> - -<p>“You know well,” she said, “the hasty man that Peter was, if ever he had -been taken at his word. And do you mind what was the answer? It was just -‘Follow me.’<span class="lftspc">”</span></p> - -<p>“Father, forgive me. Master, forgive me,” he breathed through the hands -that covered his face, and then his voice broke out in the words of an -older faith, words which she understood but dimly, and which frightened -her with the mystery of an appeal into the unknown. <i>Kyrie Eleison</i>, -<i>Christ Eleison</i>, the man said, humbled to the very depths.</p> - -<p>The woman stood trembling over him not knowing how to follow. His voice -rolled forth low and intense,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_287" id="page_287"></a>{287}</span> like the sound of an organ into the -silent room; hers faltered after in sobs inarticulate, terrified, -exalted, understanding nothing, comprehending all.</p> - -<p>This scene was scarcely ended when Elsie burst out singing over her -work, forgetting that there was any trouble in the world: to each its -time, and love through all.</p> - -<p>Mr. Buchanan was very much shaken with physical illness and weakness -next morning, than where there is nothing more healing for a spirit that -has been put to the question, as in the old days of the Inquisition, but -by rack and thumbscrew still more potent than these. His head ached, his -pulses fluttered. He felt as if he had been beaten, he said, not a nerve -in him but tingled; he could scarcely stand on his feet. His wife had -her way with him, which was sweet to her. She kept him sheltered and -protected in his study under her large and soft maternal wing. It was to -her as when one of her children was ill, but not too ill—rather -convalescent—in her hands to be soothed and caressed into recovery. -This was an immense and characteristic happiness to herself even in the -midst of her pain. In the afternoon after she had fed him with -nourishing meats, appropriate to his weakness, a visitor was announced -who startled them both. Mr. Morrison, the writer, sent up his name and a -request to have speech of Mr. Buchanan, if the minister were well enough -to receive him. There was a rapid consultation between the husband and -wife.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_288" id="page_288"></a>{288}</span></p> - -<p>“Are you fit for it, Claude?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, yes, let us get it over: but stay with me,” he said.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Buchanan went down to meet the man of business, and warn him of her -husband’s invalid condition.</p> - -<p>“He is a little low,” she said. “You will give no particular importance, -Mr. Morrison, to any despondent thing he may say.”</p> - -<p>“Not I, not I,” cried the cheerful man of business. “The minister has -his ill turns like the rest of us: but with less occasion than most of -us, I’m well aware.”</p> - -<p>Mrs. Buchanan stayed only long enough in the room to see that her -husband had drawn himself together, and was equal to the interview. She -had a fine sense of the proprieties, and perception, though she was so -little of a sensitive, of what was befitting. Morrison perceived with a -little surprise the minister’s alarmed glance after his wife, but for -his part was exceedingly glad to get rid of the feminine auditor.</p> - -<p>“I am glad,” he said, “to see you alone, if you are equal to business, -Mr. Buchanan, for I’ve something which is really not business to talk to -you about: that is to say, it’s a very bad business, just the mishap of -a silly woman if you’ll permit me to say so. She tells me she has -confided them to you already.”</p> - -<p>“Mrs. Mowbray?” said the minister.</p> - -<p>“Just Mrs. Mowbray. The day of Frank’s majority<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_289" id="page_289"></a>{289}</span> is coming on when all -must come to light, and in desperation, poor body, she sent for me. -Yon’s a silly business if you like—a foolish laddie without an idea in -his head—and a lightheaded woman with nothing but vanity and folly in -hers.”</p> - -<p>“Stop a little,” said Mr. Buchanan, in the voice which his <i>rôle</i> of -invalid had made, half artificially, wavering, and weak; “we must not -judge so harshly. Frank, if he is not clever, is full of good feeling, -and as for his mother—it is easy for the wisest of us to deceive -ourselves about things we like and wish for—she thought, poor woman, it -was for the benefit of her boy.”</p> - -<p>“You are just too charitable,” said Morrison, with a laugh. “But let us -say it was that. It makes no difference to the result. A good many -thousands to the bad, that is all about it, and nothing but poverty -before them, if it were not for what she calls the Scotch property. The -Scotch property was to bear the brunt of everything: and now some idiot -or other has told her that the Scotch property is little to lippen to: -and that half St. Rule’s was in old Anderson’s debt——”</p> - -<p>“I have heard all that—I told her that at the utmost there were but a -few hundreds——”</p> - -<p>“Not a penny—not a penny,” said Morrison. “I had my full instructions: -and now here is the situation. She has been more foolish than it’s -allowable even for a lightheaded woman to be.”</p> - -<p>“You have no warrant for calling her lightheaded;<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_290" id="page_290"></a>{290}</span> so far as I know she -is an irreproachable woman as free of speck or stain——”</p> - -<p>“Bless us,” said the man of business, “you are awfully particular -to-day, Buchanan. I am not saying a word against her character: but -lightheaded, that is thoughtless and reckless, and fond of her pleasure, -the woman undoubtedly is: nothing but a parcel of vanities, and -ostentations, and show. Well, well! how it comes about is one thing, how -to mend it is another. We cannot let the poor creature be overwhelmed if -we can help it. She spent all her own money first, which, though the -height of folly, was still a sign of grace. And now she has been -spending Frank’s, and, according to all that appears, his English money -is very nearly gone, and there is nothing but the Scotch remaining.”</p> - -<p>“And the Scotch but little to lippen to, as you say, and everybody -says.”</p> - -<p>“That’s as it may be,” said Morrison, with a twinkle in his eye. “It’s -better than the English, anyway. She deserves to be punished for her -folly, but I have not the heart to leave her in the lurch. She’s sorry -enough now, though whether that is because she’s feared for exposure or -really penitent, I would not like to say. Anyway, when a woman trusts in -you to pull her out of the ditch, it’s hard just to steel your heart and -refuse: though maybe, in a moral point of view, the last would be well -justified and really the right thing to do. But I thought you and<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_291" id="page_291"></a>{291}</span> I -might lay our heads together and see which was best.”</p> - -<p>“There is that money of mine, Morrison.”</p> - -<p>“Hoots!” said the man of business, “what nonsense is that ye have got in -your head? There is no money of yours.”</p> - -<p>“Forgive me, but you must not put me down so,” said the minister. “I -have done wrong in not insisting before. The arrangement was that it -should be repaid, and I ought not to have allowed myself to be persuaded -out of it, I owed Mr. Anderson——”</p> - -<p>“Not a penny, not a penny. All cancelled by his special instructions at -his death.”</p> - -<p>“Morrison, this has been upon my mind for years. I must be quit of it -now.” He raised his voice with a shrill weakness in it. “My wife knows. -Where is my wife? I wish my wife to be present when we settle this -account finally. Open the door and call her. I must have Mary here.”</p> - -<p>“Well, she is a very sensible woman,” said Mr. Morrison, shrugging his -shoulders. He disapproved on principle, he said always, of the -introduction of women to matters they had nothing to do with, which was -the conviction of his period. But he reflected that Buchanan in his -present state was little better than a woman, and that the presence of -his wife might be a correction. He opened the door accordingly, and she -came out of her room in a moment, ready evidently for any call.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_292" id="page_292"></a>{292}</span></p> - -<p>“Mary, I wish you to be here while I tell Morrison, once for all, that I -must pay this money. I perhaps gave you a false idea when we talked of -it before. I made you believe it was a smaller sum than it was. I—I was -like the unjust steward—I took my bill and wrote fourscore.”</p> - -<p>“What is he meaning now, I wonder?” said Morrison to Mrs. Buchanan, with -a half-comic glance aside. “He is just a wee off his head with diseased -conscientiousness. I’ve met with the malady before, but it’s rare, I -must say, very rare. Well, come, out with it, Buchanan. What is this -about fourscore?”</p> - -<p>“You misunderstand me,” he cried. “I must demand seriousness and your -attention.”</p> - -<p>“Bless us, man, we’re not at the kirk,” Morrison said.</p> - -<p>The minister was very impatient. He dealt the table a weak blow, as he -sometimes did to the cushion of his pulpit.</p> - -<p>“Perhaps I did it on purpose,” he said, “perhaps it was -half-unconscious, I cannot tell; but I gave you to believe that my debt -was smaller than it really was. Morrison, I owed Mr. Anderson three -hundred pounds.”</p> - -<p>The tone of solemnity with which he spoke could scarcely have been more -impressive had he been reasoning, like St. Paul, of mercy, temperance, -and judgment to come. And he felt as if he were doing so: it was the -most solemn of truths he was telling against himself; the statement as -of a dying man.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_293" id="page_293"></a>{293}</span> His wife felt it so, too, in a sympathy that disturbed -her reason, standing with her hand upon the back of his chair. Morrison -stood for a moment, overcome by the intensity of the atmosphere, opening -his mouth in an amazed gasp.</p> - -<p>“Three hundred pounds!” the minister repeated, deliberately, with a -weight of meaning calculated to strike awe into every heart.</p> - -<p>But the impression made upon his audience unfortunately did not last. -The writer stared and gasped, and then he burst into a loud guffaw. It -was irresistible. The intense gravity of the speaker, the exaltation of -his tone, the sympathy of his wife’s restrained excitement, and then the -words that came out of it all, so commonplace, so little conformable to -that intense and tragic sentiment—overwhelmed the man of common sense. -Morrison laughed till the tremulous gravity of the two discomposed him, -and made him ashamed of himself, though their look of strained and -painful seriousness almost brought back the fit when it was over. He -stopped all of a sudden, silenced by this, and holding his hand to his -side.</p> - -<p>“I beg your pardon, Mrs. Buchanan. It was just beyond me. Lord’s sake, -man, dinna look so awesome. I was prepared to hear it was thirty -thousand at the least.”</p> - -<p>“Thirty thousand,” said the minister, “to some people is probably less -than three hundred to me: but we cannot expect you to feel with us in -respect to that.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_294" id="page_294"></a>{294}</span> Morrison, you must help us somehow to pay this money, -for we cannot raise it in a moment; but with time every penny shall be -paid.”</p> - -<p>“To whom?” said Morrison, quietly.</p> - -<p>“To whom? Are not you the man of business? To the estate, of course—to -the heir.”</p> - -<p>“Not to me, certainly,” said the lawyer. “I would be worthy to lose my -trust if I acted in contradiction to my client’s wishes in any such way. -I will not take your money, Buchanan. No! man, though you are the -minister, you are not a Pope, and we’re not priest-ridden in this -country. I’ll be hanged if you shall ride rough shod over my head. I -have my instructions, and if you were to preach at me till doomsday, -you’ll not change my clear duty. Pay away, if it’s any pleasure to you. -Yon wild woman, I dare to say, would snatch it up, or any siller you -would put within reach of her; but deil a receipt or acquittance or any -lawful document will you get from auld John Anderson’s estate, to which -you owe not a penny. Bless me, Mrs. Buchanan, you’re a sensible woman. -Can you not make him see this? You cannot want him to make ducks and -drakes of your bairns’ revenue. John Anderson was his leal friend, do -you think it likely he would leave him to be harried at a lawyer’s -mercy? Do you not see, with the instincts of my race, I would have put -you all to the horn years ago if it had been in my power?” he cried, -jumping suddenly up. “Bless me, I never made so long a speech<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_295" id="page_295"></a>{295}</span> in my -life. For goodsake, Buchanan, draw yourself together and give up this -nonsense, like a man.”</p> - -<p>“It is nonsense,” said the minister, who, during all this long speech, -had gone through an entire drama of emotions, “that has taken all the -pleasure for five long years and more out of my life.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, but, Claude, my man! you will mind I always said——”</p> - -<p>“Ye hear her? That’s a woman’s consolation,” said the minister, with a -short laugh, in which it need not be said he was extremely unjust.</p> - -<p>“It’s sound sense, anyway,” said Mr. Morrison, “so far as this fable of -yours is concerned. Are you satisfied now? Well, now that we’ve got -clear of that, I’ll tell you my news. The Scotch property—as they call -it, those two—has come out fine from all its troubles. What with good -investments and feus, and a variety of favourable circumstances, for -which credit to whom credit is due—I am not the person to speak—John -Anderson’s estate has nearly doubled itself since the good man was taken -away. He was just a simpleton in his neglect of all his chances, saying, -as he did—you must have heard him many a day—‘there will aye be enough -to serve my time.’ I am not saying it was wonderful—seeing the laddie -was all but a stranger—but he thought very, very little of his heir. -But you see it has been my business to see to the advantage of his -heir.”<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_296" id="page_296"></a>{296}</span></p> - -<p>“Your behaviour to-day is not very like it, Morrison.”</p> - -<p>“Hoots!” said the man of business, “that’s nothing but your nonsense. I -can give myself the credit for never having neglected a real honest -opening. To rob or to fleece a neighbour was not in that line. I am -telling you I’ve neglected no real opening, and I will not say but that -the result is worth the trouble, and Frank Mowbray is a lucky lad. And -what has brought me here to-day—for I knew nothing of all this nonsense -of yours that has taken up our time—was just to ask your advice if -certain expedients were lawful for covering up this daft mother’s -shortcomings—certain expedients which I have been turning over in my -head.”</p> - -<p>“What is lawful I am little judge of,” said the minister, mournfully. “I -have shown you how very little I am to be trusted even for what is -right.”</p> - -<p>“Toots!” was the impatient reply. “I am not meaning the law of Scotland. -If I do not know that, the more shame to me.” It is another law I am -thinking of. When I’m in with the King in the house of Rimmon, and him -leaning on my shoulder, and the King bows down in the house of Rimmon, -and me to be neighbourlike I bow with him, is this permitted to thy -servant? You mind the text? That’s what I’ve come to ask. There may be -an intent to deceive that has no ill motive, and there may be things -that the rigid would call lies. I’ve<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_297" id="page_297"></a>{297}</span> no respect for her to speak of, -but she’s a woman: and if a man could shield a creature like that——”</p> - -<p>“I’m thinking,” said Mrs. Buchanan, “now that your own business is over, -Claude, and Mr. Morrison with his business to talk to you about, you -will want me no longer. Are you really as sure as you say, Mr. Morrison, -about the siller? You would not deceive him and me? It is not a lee as -you say, with the best of motives? for that I could not bide any more -than the minister. Give me your word before I go away.”</p> - -<p>“It is God’s truth,” said the lawyer, taking her hand. “As sure as -death, which is a solemn word, though it’s in every callant’s mouth.”</p> - -<p>“Then I take it as such,” she said, grasping his hand. “And, Claude, ye -have no more need of me.”</p> - -<p>But what the further discussion was between the two men, which Mrs. -Buchanan was so high-minded as not to wait to hear, I can tell no more -than she did. They had a long consultation; and when the lawyer took his -leave, Mr. Buchanan, with a strong step as if nothing had ever ailed -him, not only conducted him to the door but went out with him, walking -briskly up the street with a head as high as any man’s; which perhaps -was the consequence of his release, by Morrison’s energetic refusal, -from the burden which he had bound on his shoulders and hugged to his -bosom for so long; and certainly was the happy result of having his -thoughts directed towards another’s troubles, and thus finally diverted -from his own.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_298" id="page_298"></a>{298}</span></p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIII" id="CHAPTER_XXIII"></a>CHAPTER XXIII.<br /><br /> -<small>THE LAST.</small></h2> - -<p><span class="smcap">“Elsie</span>,” said Mrs. Buchanan in the evening, when they were seated again -together at their work, at the same hour in which they had discussed and -settled on the previous night the necessary economies by which three -hundred pounds were to be scraped together in as many years.</p> - -<p>“Elsie, you will think I am going back of my word. But we are now seeing -clearer, papa and I. There will be no need for what we were thinking of. -I will keep on Betty who is a good lass on the whole, if she would get -sweethearts and nonsense out of her head—and my dear there will be no -reason why you should not go to the ball.”</p> - -<p>“Mother,” said Elsie, “is it Willie?”</p> - -<p>“No, it’s not Willie—it’s just the nature of events—Mr. Morrison he -will not hear a word of it. He says Mr. Anderson, who was a good man, -and a leal friend, and well I know would never have let harm come to -your father, had left full instructions. Mr. Morrison is a fine honest -man, but he is a little rough in his ways. He just insulted papa—and -said he might throw away his siller if he liked, but not to<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_299" id="page_299"></a>{299}</span> him, for he -would not receive it. And what is to be said after that? I always -thought——”</p> - -<p>“I would rather, far rather it had been paid! What am I caring about -balls or white hands. I would rather have worked them to the bone and -got it paid,” Elsie cried.</p> - -<p>“To whom,” replied her mother, with an unconscious copy of the lawyer’s -tone, “to yon silly woman that has nothing to do with it, to throw away -on her feathers and her millinery, and shame the auld man’s settled -plan? Your father was hard to move, but he was convinced at the last. -And what do you think,” she added, quickly, eager to abandon so -dangerous a subject in view of Elsie’s sudden excitement and glowing -eyes, “Frank Mowbray turns out to be a very lucky laddie—and Mr. -Morrison has as good as doubled his estate. What do you think of that? -He will be a rich man.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, I am glad to hear it,” cried Elsie with great indifference, “but, -mother, about this money. Oh would you not rather pay it and be done -with it, and wipe it out for ever and ever? What am I caring about -balls? It will be years and years before you need take any thought for -me. I would rather be of some use than go to the Queen’s balls, let -alone the Golf—and nobody that I am heeding would care a pin the less -for me if my hands were as red as Betty’s.” She looked at them with a -toss of her head, as she spoke, stretching them out in their smoothness<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_300" id="page_300"></a>{300}</span> -and softness. This was the point at which Elsie’s pride was touched. She -did not like to think of these small members becoming as red as Betty’s, -who, for her part, was perfectly pleased with her hands.</p> - -<p>“What were you meaning if I might ask about it being years and years -before we need take any thought for you?”</p> - -<p>Elsie was much startled by this question. She knew what she meant very -well, but she had not intended to betray to her mother, or any one, what -that hidden meaning was, and the words had come to her lips in the tide -of feeling without thought. She gave one hurried glance at her mother’s -face, herself crimson red from chin to brow.</p> - -<p>“I was meaning nothing,” she said.</p> - -<p>“That is not the way folk look when they mean nothing,” her mother said.</p> - -<p>“But it’s true. I meant just nothing, nothing! I meant I would want no -plenishing like Marion. I meant—that you need not take account of me, -or say, as I’ve heard you saying, ‘I must put this by for’—it used -always to be for Marion. You are not to think of me like that,” Elsie -cried.</p> - -<p>“And wherefore no? If I were not to think of you like that, I would be -an ill mother: and why you less than another? You are taking no whimsies -into your head, I hope, Elsie—for that is a thing I could not put up -with at all.”<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_301" id="page_301"></a>{301}</span></p> - -<p>“I have no whimsies in my head, mother,” cried Elsie bending low over -her work.</p> - -<p>“You have something in it, whimsey or no,” said her mother severely, -“that is not known to me.”</p> - -<p>And there was a little relapse into silence and sewing for both. Elsie’s -breath came quick over her lengthened seam, the needle stumbled in her -hold and pricked her fingers. She cast about all around her desperately -for something to say. Indeed no—she had not meant anything, not -anything that could be taken hold of and discussed: though it was -equally true that she knew what she meant. How to reconcile these -things! but they were both true.</p> - -<p>“Mother,” she said, after five dreadful moments of silence, and assuming -a light tone which was very unlike her feelings. “Do you mind you told -me that if there was any way I could make it up to Frank—but now that -he’s to be so well off there will be no need of that any more.”</p> - -<p>“Were you ever disposed to make it up to Frank?” her mother said -quickly, taking the girl by surprise.</p> - -<p>“I never thought about it—I—might never have had any -occasion—I—don’t know what I could have—done,” Elsie replied, -faltering.</p> - -<p>“Because,” said Mrs. Buchanan in the same rapid tone, “it would just be -better than ever now. He will have a very good estate, and he’s a very -nice callant—kind and true, and not so silly as you might expect from -his upbringing. If that was your thought, Elsie,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_302" id="page_302"></a>{302}</span> it would be far wiser -than I ever gave you credit for—and your father and me, we would never -have a word but good and blessing to say——”</p> - -<p>“Oh, mother,” cried Elsie, “you to say the like of that to me—because a -person was to have a good estate!”</p> - -<p>“And wherefore no? A good estate is a very good thing: and plenty of -siller, if it is not the salt of life—oh, my dear, many a time it gives -savour to the dish. Wersh, wersh without it is often the household -bread.”</p> - -<p>“It is not me,” cried Elsie, flinging high her head, “that would ever -take a man for his siller: I would rather have no bread at all. Just a -mouthful of cake,<a name="FNanchor_A_1" id="FNanchor_A_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_A_1" class="fnanchor">[A]</a> and my freedom to myself.”</p> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_A_1" id="Footnote_A_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_A_1"><span class="label">[A]</span></a> It may here be explained for the benefit of the Souther -that cake in the phraseology of old Scotland meant oat cake, in -distinction from the greater luxury of “loaf-bread:” so that the little -princess who suggested that the poor people who had no bread might eat -cake, might have been a reasonable and wise Scot, instead of the silly -little person we have all taken her to be.</p></div> - -<p>“I said there were whimsies in the lassie’s head,” said Mrs. Buchanan, -“it’s the new-fangled thing I hear that they are setting up themselves -against their natural lot. And what would you do with your freedom if -you had it, I would like to know? Freedom, quotha! and she a lassie, and -little over twenty. If you were not all fools at that age!”</p> - -<p>“I was meaning just my freedom—to bide at home, and make no change,” -said Elsie, a little abashed.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_303" id="page_303"></a>{303}</span></p> - -<p>“’Deed there are plenty,” said Mrs. Buchanan, “that get that without -praying for’t. There are your aunties, two of them, Alison and -Kirsteen—the old Miss Buchanans, very respectable, well-living women. -Would you like to be like them? And Lizzie Aitken, she has let pass her -prime, and the Miss Wemysses that are settling down in their father’s -old house, just very respectable. If that is what you would like, Elsie, -you will maybe get it, and that without any force on Providence. They -say there are always more women than men in every country-side.”</p> - -<p>Elsie felt herself insulted by these ironical suggestions. She made no -answer, but went on at her work with a flying needle, as if it were a -matter of life and death.</p> - -<p>“But if that’s not to your mind,” Mrs. Buchanan added, “I would not take -a scorn at Frank. There is nothing to object to in him. If there was -anything to make up to him for, I would say again—make it up to him, -Elsie: but being just very well off as he is, there is another way of -looking at it. I never saw you object to him dangling after you when -nothing was meant. But in serious earnest he well just be a very good -match, and I would be easy in my mind about your future, if I saw -you——”</p> - -<p>“That you will never see me, mother,” cried Elsie, with hot tears, “for -his siller! I would rather die——”</p> - -<p>“It need not be altogether for his siller,” Mrs. Buchanan said, “and, -oh! if you but knew what a<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_304" id="page_304"></a>{304}</span> difference that makes. To marry a poor man -is just often like this. Your youth flies away fighting, and you grow -old before your time, with nothing but bills on every hand, bills for -your man, and bills for your bairns, hosen and shoes, meat and meal—and -then to put the lads and lassies out in the world when all’s done. Oh, -Elsie, the like of you! how little you know!”</p> - -<p>“You married a poor man yourself, mother,” the girl cried.</p> - -<p>“The better I’m fitted to speak,” said Mrs. Buchanan. “But,” she said, -putting down her work, and rising from her chair, “I married your -father, Elsie! and that makes all the difference,” she said with -dignity, as she went away.</p> - -<p>What was the difference it made? Elsie asked herself the question, -shaking back her hair from her face, and the tears from her eyes. Her -cheeks were so hot and flushed with this argument, that the drops from -her eyes boiled as they touched them. What made the difference? If ever -she married a man, she said to herself, he should be a man of whom she -would think as her mother did, that being <i>him</i> was what made all the -difference. The image that rose before her mind was not, alas! of a man -like her father, handsome and dignified and suave, a man of whom either -girl or woman might be proud. She was not proud of his appearance, if -truth must be told: there were many things in him that did not please -her. Sometimes she<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_305" id="page_305"></a>{305}</span> was impatient, even vexed at his inaptitudes, the -unconscious failures of a man who was not by birth or even by early -breeding a gentleman. This thought stung her very sorely. Upon the sands -ploutering, as she said, in the salt water, his bonnet pushed back, his -shirt open at the neck, his coat hanging loosely on his shoulders! Elsie -would have liked to re-dress that apparition, to dust the yellow sand -from him and the little ridges of shattered shells which showed on his -rough clothes as they did on the sea-shore. But no hand could keep that -figure in order, even in a dream. And alas! he would be no placed -minister like her father, or like Marion’s husband, with a pleasant -manse and a kirk in which all men would do him honour. Alas, alas, no! -They did not reverence Johnny. They came plucking at him, crowding about -him, calling to him, the very littlest of them, the very poorest of -them, Elsie said to herself, to let them see the new beast! But at this -thought her heart melted into the infinite softness of that approval, -which is perhaps the most delightful sentiment of humanity, the approval -of those we love—our approval of them more exquisite still than their -approval of us. Elsie did not care the least for the new beast. She was -altogether unscientific. She did not see the good of it, any more than -the most ignorant. But when she thought of his genial countenance -beaming over the small, the poor, the ignorant, her heart swelled, and -she approved of him with all her soul.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_306" id="page_306"></a>{306}</span></p> - -<p>Elsie had no easy life during the remaining months of the summer. After -Frank Mowbray’s birthday, when all was settled, and he had begun to trim -up and brighten Mr. Anderson’s old house, which was to be his future -home, she had a great deal to bear from the members of her family, who -one and all supported Frank’s suit, which the young man lost no time in -making. He for himself would take no refusal, but came back and back -with a determination to be successful, which everybody said would -eventually carry the day: and each one in succession took up his cause. -All St. Rule’s indeed, it may be said, were partisans of Frank. What -ailed her at him, her friends said indignantly? who was Elsie Buchanan -that she should look for better than that? A fine fellow, a good income, -a nice house, and so near her mother! Girls who were going to India, or -other outlandish places, asked, with tears in their eyes, what she could -desire more? It was not as if there was any one else to disturb her -mind, they said: for by this time Ralph Beaton and the rest were all -drifting away to India and the Colonies to fulfil their fate: and to -think of Johnny Wemyss as lifting his eyes to the minister’s daughter, -was such a thing as no one could have believed. Marion came in expressly -from the country, with her three babies, to speak powerfully to the -heart of her sister. “You will regret but once, and that will be all -your life,” she said solemnly. And it has already been seen how her -mother addressed her on<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_307" id="page_307"></a>{307}</span> the subject. Rodie, too, made his wishes -distinctly known.</p> - -<p>“Why will you not take him?” he said; “he is as decent a chap as any in -the town. If you scorn him, very likely you will never get another: and -you must mind you will not always have me to take you about everywhere, -and to get your partners at the balls.”</p> - -<p>“You to get me partners!” cried Elsie, wildly indignant; “you are a -bonnie one! You just hang for your own partners on me; and as for taking -me to places, where do you ever take me? That was all ended long ago.”</p> - -<p>But things became still more serious for Elsie, when her father himself -came to a pause in front of her one day, with a grave face.</p> - -<p>“Elsie,” he said, “I hear it is in your power to make a young man’s -life, or to mar it; at least that is what he says to me.”</p> - -<p>“You will not put any faith in that, father. Who am I, that I should -either make or mar?”</p> - -<p>“I am tempted to think so myself,” he said, with a smile; “but at your -age people are seldom so wise. You are like your mother, my dear, and, I -doubt not, would be a tower of strength to your husband, as I have good -reason to say she has been; but that is not to say that any man has a -right to put the responsibility of his being to another’s charge. No, -no; I would not say that. But there is no harm in the lad,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_308" id="page_308"></a>{308}</span> Elsie. He -has good dispositions. I would be at ease in my mind about your future, -if you could find it in your heart to trust it to him.”</p> - -<p>“Father,” cried Elsie, very earnestly, “I care no more about him than I -do for old Adam, your old caddie. Just the same, neither more nor less.”</p> - -<p>Her father laughed, and said that was not encouraging for Frank.</p> - -<p>“But, my dear,” he said, “they say a lassie’s mind is as light as air, -and blows this way and that way, like the turn of the tide.”</p> - -<p>“They may say what they like, father,” cried Elsie, with some -indignation. “If you think my mother is like that, then your daughter -can have no reason to complain.”</p> - -<p>“Bless me, no,” cried Mr. Buchanan; “your mother! that makes all the -difference.”</p> - -<p>These were the same words that Mrs. Buchanan had said. “As if because -she was my mother she was not a woman, and because he was my father he -was not a man,” said Elsie to herself; “and where is the difference?” -But she understood all the same.</p> - -<p>“I will not say another word,” said the minister. “If you care for him -no more than for old Adam, there is not another word to say; but I would -have been glad, on my own account, if you could have liked him, Elsie. -It would have been a compensation. No matter, no matter, we’ll say no -more.”<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_309" id="page_309"></a>{309}</span></p> - -<p>Elsie would have been more touched if her father had not alluded to that -compensation. She had within herself a moment of indignation. “Me, a -compensation,” she cried to herself, “for your weary three hundred -pounds. It is clear to me papa does not think his daughter very muckle -worth, though he makes a difference for his wife!”</p> - -<p>While all this was going on in the front of affairs, another little -drama was proceeding underneath, in which Elsie was a far more -interested performer, though she had no acknowledged title to take part -in it at all.</p> - -<p>For great and astonishing things followed the discovery of the new -beast. Letters addressed to John Wemyss, Esq., letters franked by great -names, which the people in the post-office wondered over, and which were -the strangest things in the world to be sent to one of the student’s -lodgings, near the West Port, that region of humility—kept coming and -going all the summer through, and when the time approached for the next -College Session, and red gowns began to appear about the streets, Johnny -Wemyss in his best clothes appeared one day in the minister’s study, -whither most people in St. Rule’s found their way one time or other: for -Mr. Buchanan, though, as we have seen, not quite able always to guide -himself, was considered a famous adviser in most of the difficulties of -life. Johnny was shamefaced and diffident, blushing like a girl, and -squeezing his hat so tightly between<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_310" id="page_310"></a>{310}</span> his hands, that it presented -strange peculiarities of shape when it appeared in the open air once -more. Johnny, too, was by way of asking the minister’s advice—that is -to say, he had come to tell him what he meant to do, with some anxiety -to know what impression the remarks he was about to make might have upon -Elsie’s father, but no thought of changing his resolutions for anything -the minister might say. Johnny told how his discovery had brought him -into communication with great scientific authorities in London, and that -he had been advised to go there, where he would find books and -instruction that might be of great use to him, and where he was told -that his interests would be looked after by some persons of great -influence and power. Mr. Buchanan listened with a smile, much amused to -hear that the discovery of an unknown kind of “jeely fish” could give a -man a claim for promotion: but when he heard that Johnny intended to go -to London, he looked grave and shook his head.</p> - -<p>“I am afraid that will very much interfere,” he said, “with what seems -to me far more important, your studies for your profession.”</p> - -<p>“Sir,” said Johnny, “I’m afraid I have not made myself very clear. I -never was very much set on the Church. I never thought myself good -enough. And then I have no interest with any patron, and I would have -little hope of a kirk.”</p> - -<p>The minister frowned a little, and then he smiled.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_311" id="page_311"></a>{311}</span> “That mood of mind,” -he said, “is more promising than any other. I would far rather see a -young lad that thought himself not good enough, than one that was over -sure. And as for interest, an ardent student and a steady character, -especially when he has brains, as you have, will always find interest to -push him on.”</p> - -<p>“You are very kind to say so, Mr. Buchanan,” said Johnny; “but,” he -added, “I have just a passion for the beasts.”</p> - -<p>“Sir,” said the minister, looking grave, “no earthly passion should come -in the way of the service of God.”</p> - -<p>“Unless, as I was thinking,” said Johnny, “that might maybe be for the -service of God too.”</p> - -<p>But this the minister was so doubtful of—and perhaps with some reason, -for the discoverers of jelly fishes are not perhaps distinguished as -devout men—that the interview ended in a very cool parting, Mr. -Buchanan even hinting that this was a desertion of his Master’s -standard, and that the love of beasts was an unhallowed passion. And -Johnny disappeared from St. Rule’s shortly after, and was long absent, -and silence closed over his name. In those days perhaps people were less -accustomed to frequent letters than we are, and could live without them, -for the most anxious heart has to acknowledge the claim of the -impossible. Johnny Wemyss, however, wrote to Rodie now and then, and -Elsie had the advantage of many<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_312" id="page_312"></a>{312}</span> things which Rodie never understood at -all in these epistles. And sometimes a newspaper came containing an -account of some of Mr. Wemyss’s experiments, or of distinctions won by -him, which electrified his old friends. For one thing, he went upon a -great scientific voyage, and came home laden with discoveries, which -were, it appeared, though no one in St. Rule’s could well understand -how, considered of great importance in the scientific world. And from -that time his future was secure. It was just after his return from this -expedition, that one day there came a letter franked by a great man, -whose name on the outside of an envelope was of value as an autograph, -openly and boldly addressed to Miss Elsie Buchanan, The Manse, St. -Rule’s. It was written very small, on a sheet of paper as long as your -arm, and it poured out into Elsie’s heart the confidences of all those -silent years. She showed it to her mother, and Mrs. Buchanan gasped and -could say no word. She took it to her father, and the minister cried -“Johnny Wemyss!” in a voice like a roar of astonishment and fury.</p> - -<p>“Do you mean this has been going on all the time,” he cried, “and not a -word said?”</p> - -<p>“Nothing has been going on,” said Elsie, pale but firm.</p> - -<p>“Oh, it was settled, I suppose, before he went away.”</p> - -<p>“Never word was spoken either by him or me,” said Elsie; “but I will not -say but what we knew<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_313" id="page_313"></a>{313}</span> each other’s meaning, I his, and he mine,” she -added, softly, after a pause.</p> - -<p>There was a good deal of trouble about it one way and another, but you -may believe that neither father nor mother, much less Rodie and John, -though the one was a W. S., and the other an advocate, could interfere -long with a wooing like this.</p> - -<p class="c">THE END.</p> - -<hr class="full" /> - - - - - - - -<pre> - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Unjust Steward, by Margaret Oliphant - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE UNJUST STEWARD *** - -***** This file should be named 55166-h.htm or 55166-h.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/5/5/1/6/55166/ - -Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed -Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was -produced from images available at The Internet Archive) - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions -will be renamed. - -Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no -one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation -(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without -permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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