THERE were a great many spectators of this scene in the church-yard. Mrs. Burnside, the minister’s wife, had been detained most unwillingly by some importunate “poor bodies” from the “laigh toun,” and was hurrying round from the other end of the church, with her son Randal, to speak to “the Earl’s-hall family,” when Rob Glen thus made himself conspicuous. There were various people who held the opinion that he had made himself conspicuous, and none more than Mrs. Burnside, who thought the group very incongruous. Margaret on one side, and a young country lad, Janet Glen’s son, on the other! It was quite out of the question. But an old man was an ill guide for a young girl. She hastened round, calling Randal to follow, and reached the gate just as John was putting up the carriage steps.
“Margaret, my dear Margaret, will you not come to the Manse and get a glass of wine? And, Sir Ludovic, I hope you’re not hurt. The Doctor will be quite disappointed if he does not see you.”
Rob Glen stood at the carriage-door, but Mrs. Burnside took no notice of him.
“Thank you,” said Sir Ludovic. “I’m not hurt; but I’ve got a shake, and the best thing I can do is to get home. Tell the Doctor I will be glad to see him, very glad to see him, whenever he will come so far—with my thanks for a very good sermon.” He smiled, but he was still very pale, and old John stood upon little ceremony. He took his seat beside the coachman, and bade him in low tones “no to bide a moment if it was the Queen, but to get hame, to get hame.” The consequence of this was that the carriage was already in motion when Mrs. Burnside resumed.
“A glass of wine will do you good, Sir Ludovic; and here’s my son Randal. Margaret, my dear, you’re not going like this, without a word!” cried the Minister’s wife; but Margaret only waved her hand, and said something that was inaudible in the rush of the carriage-wheels.
“I don’t call this civil,” said Mrs. Burnside, growing red. “I cannot think it civil, Randal, either to you or to me.”
“It was not intended for incivility,” said Rob Glen. “But Sir Ludovic was shaken. He was more shaken than you would have thought possible. It was the best thing he could do to get home, and I think I will go and tell the doctor. He has certainly grown much weaker within the last month.”
How did Rob Glen know how Sir Ludovic had been for the last month? Mrs. Burnside looked upon him with a disapproving countenance. He had made himself a great deal too conspicuous. Janet Glen’s son, a lad of no consideration! what right had he to put himself in the way?
“Sir Ludovic shows himself so little that there’s very few can be able to judge,” she said, meaning to snub the forward young man. And what should Randal do but neutralize all her dignity by making a step forward with friendly hand outstretched?
“Why this,” he said, “must be Rob Glen?”
“Oh yes, it is Rob Glen,” said his annoyed mother; while Rob accepted the overture graciously. Randal was a year or two older than Rob, and had begun life in the company of the whole juvenile family at the parish school; an early association which made all his father’s parishioners his friends. He was a handsome young fellow, full of high spirits and kindness, but so shy that the paths of society were pain and grief to him. He had been absent for a long time, studying in Germany, and had but lately returned, and taken his place in Edinburgh, with every prospect of success at the bar; for he had a family firm of Writers to the Signet behind him. Though Randal had an old boyish kindness for little Margaret, her grown-up looks had somewhat disconcerted him, and it was with more relief than regret that he had seen the carriage turn away. But Randal’s shyness did not affect him in respect to the people of the parish, to most of whom his notice was a favor; and, indeed, at this moment he had no idea that it was anything else than an honor to Rob Glen.
“You may as well tell your father, Randal, that Sir Ludovic has gone,” said Mrs. Burnside, with a little nod to the intruder. “Good-morning, Rob; I saw your mother, worthy woman, was out this morning. I am glad her cold is better;” and, so saying, she went slowly away toward the Manse in anything but a tranquil state of mind. She was not mercenary, nor had she really engaged in any matrimonial speculations for her son. But he was a young man, she well knew, who would be a credit to everybody belonging to him; and if Margaret and he had met, and if they had taken a fancy to each other, why then— They had both a little money; indeed, it was generally known that Margaret had more than a little; but upon this point the minister’s wife assured herself that she had no information; and they were both well-born (for the Burnsides were as old as anything in the county), and it would have been very suitable: he a rising young lawyer, with a good profession and a good head, and the best of prospects before him. There was no unworthy scheming in her desire to bring these two perfectly matched young people together. The question in her eyes was not, was Randal good enough for Margaret? but, was Margaret good enough for Randal? But they had played together when they were children, and there was nobody far or near so like Margaret as Randal, so like Randal as Margaret. This was what Mrs. Burnside was thinking, as she walked very gently toward the Manse. The children and the old women did not courtesy when they met her, for such are not the habits of rural Scotland; but the little things looked at her with shy smiles, and the women wished her good-day, and were blithe to see Mr. Randal back. “And so am I, Jenny,” she said; “more glad than words can say.”
“Eh, mem, ye hae nae need to say it; a’ the kirk,” said the old woman, sympathetic, “could see it in your face.” And why should she not ask herself, what was the very best thing to be had—the fairest and the sweetest to get for her boy? But that intrusive Rob Glen making himself so conspicuous! what was he, a country lad, nobody at all, not a gentleman, to put himself in Randal’s way?
“And what have you been doing, Rob, all these years? I’ve heard of you from time to time; but I’ve been wandering, as you know, and for some time back I know nothing. Little Margaret Leslie, I thought her a child, and lo! she’s a lovely lady. I thought I should have found you in the pulpit preaching for my father; but here you are, without so much as a black coat. What has happened to you?”
“Not much,” said Rob. He paused rather nervously, and looked at his gray coat, wondering, perhaps, was it the proper dress to come to church in, even when you have ceased to think of being a minister. Randal’s coat was black, and he seemed to Rob a young man of fashion. This thought made him very uncomfortable. “Indeed nothing at all has happened to me. I am a failure, Mr. Burnside. Your father tries to set me right; but I am afraid we don’t even agree as to the meaning of words.”
“A failure?” said Randal, puzzled.
“Yes; the church is too exacting for me. I can’t sign a creed because my great-grandfather believed it.”
“Ah! oh!” said the other young man. It meant that he had nothing to say on the subject, and did not care to enter into it; but it meant at the same time the slightest tone of disapproval, a gravity which would not smile. Randal thought a man should stick to his colors, whatever they were. “And what are you doing now?”
“Nothing; idling, drawing, dreaming, losing my time; absolutely nothing;” then he added, for he did not want to conceal his privileges, “I have been busy for the last fortnight with a picture of Earl’s-hall.”
“Are you turning artist, then? I did not think the parish had any such possession. I hope I may come and see it,” said young Burnside, wondering whether he might venture to ask his old school-fellow to dinner. He would have done it instantly had he been alone. But his mother was not to be trifled with. As he hesitated, however, his father joined him, coming from the church.
“So Sir Ludovic has gone,” said the doctor; “I expected he would have waited to see you, Randal, and perhaps gone on to the Manse; but he is looking frail, and perhaps he was wearied. It’s an unusual exertion for him, a very unusual exertion. Good-day, Rob; I am glad to see you have resumed church-going; I hope it’s a good sign.”
“I don’t think it means much,” said Rob; “but perhaps it would be a good thing if I were to go on to the doctor, and tell him of Sir Ludovic’s stumble. It might be well that he should know at once.”
“What’s about Sir Ludovic’s stumble?” said the Minister; while Randal called after the other as he went away, “I will come and see you to-morrow.”
Rob Glen replied with an acquiescing nod and wave of his hand. But he said within himself, “if you find me,” and went along with a jubilant step and all kinds of dreams in his head. Sir Ludovic had not received Rob with enthusiasm when he had gone to Earl’s-hall. He had not applauded his drawings as Margaret did, who knew nothing about it, though he allowed them to be clever. But at the same time he had always tolerated Rob, never objected to his visits, nor to the hours which Margaret had spent flitting about his encampment among the potatoes. If he had disapproved of this association, surely he would have prevented it; and what could those words mean, as the old man grasped at his offered arm, “This is all I want?” Wonderful words! meaning all, and more than all, that the brightest hopes could look for. “This is all I want.” Margaret had taken no notice, but it did not seem possible to Rob that she could have heard such words unmoved. It is astonishing how easy it is to believe miracles on our own behalf. In any other case, Rob Glen would have had enough of the shrewd good-sense of his class to know how very unlikely it was that Sir Ludovic Leslie should choose for his young daughter, who was an heiress, in addition to every other advantage she possessed, an alliance with the son of a small farmer in the neighborhood, a “stickit minister,” not at all successful or satisfactory even to his own humble kith and kin. But the fact that it was he himself, Rob Glen, who was the hero, dazzled him, and threw a fictitious air of probability upon things the most unlikely. “This is all I want.” What could the fond father, who has selected an Admirable Crichton to insure his child’s happiness, say more?
“Oh ay,” said Mrs. Glen, on her way home from church. “The Earl’s-hall family makes a great work with our Rob. He’s there morning, noon, and nicht. I never see him, for my part. Either he’s drawing pictures of the house, or he’s learning Miss Margret to draw them, or he’s doin’ something for Sir Ludovic. They take up a’ his time that he never does a hand’s turn for his ain affairs. It’s an awfu’ waste of time; but when there are young folk concerned, really you never can ken what’s the maist profitable occupation; just nonsense, in that kind of way, is sometimes mair for their advantage in the long-run; but that’s no my way of judging in the general, far enough from my way.”
“That is just what I was thinking,” said Mrs. Cupar, of the Longriggs, a neighboring farm, but a much more important one. If Mrs. Cupar walked, it was because she chose to do so, not from any need to employ this vulgar natural mode of locomotion; for, besides her husband’s gig, there was a pony-chaise at her orders, and her dress was made by one of the best artistes in Edinburgh, and her daughters, who came behind, were young ladies who might have walked through the Park without remark, infinitely better dressed than Margaret Leslie. They were better than Margaret in a great many ways; they could play on the piano; and it was their mother’s determination to keep them clear of Rob Glen, or any other suitor of his class, that made her so “neighbor-like” with Rob Glen’s mother. If he had finished his studies in an orthodox way, and become a “placed minister,” then, indeed, she might have relaxed her vigilance; but as matters were, no fox could have been more dangerous to the hen-roost than this idle young man of education, who was only a sma’ farmer’s son. Small farmers, who cannot be denied as part of the profession, yet who sink it down among the ranks of the commonalty, are not liked by their larger neighbors in the kingdom of Fife.
“That is just what I was thinking,” said Mrs. Cupar. “I did not imagine you were one who would give in to idleness under any excuse.”
“No me,” said Mrs. Glen; “if my lad had taken up his head with foreign travel, and wanderings about the world like that son of the minister’s, Randal—no that it’s our place to judge our neighbors; but there is a time for everything, as is said in Scripture, and I’ve confidence in my Rob that it’s no just for nothing his stopping here so long. They make a great work with him at Earl’s-hall. Sir Ludovic, you see for yourself, is very frail. How he grippit to Rob’s arm! It’s a grand thing for an auld man to find a young arm to lean upon, and a kind person to be good to him.”
Mrs. Glen could not help bragging a little. She was as much elated as Rob was, and as entirely blind to all the difficulties, though in any other case, who would have seen more clearly? She had kept herself in the background, having sense enough to see that Rob’s mother could not further his pursuits; but she could not hold her tongue, or refrain from waving her flag of triumph before her neighbors—these neighbors who were themselves “upsetting,” and gave themselves airs much beyond any possible at Earl’s-lee. Mrs. Glen was not by any means sure that “the Misses” at Longriggs, and their mother had not designs of their own upon her son, and, to tell the truth, either Bessie or Jessie Cupar would have been an excellent match for Rob. If he had fulfilled his fate and become “a placed minister,” what could have been better? But Margaret Leslie and her fortune had intoxicated Mrs. Glen. She could not help flourishing this sublime hope before her neighbors’ eyes.
“Then we need not be surprised if we hear of an engagement,” said Mrs. Cupar, “in that quarter.” She thought the woman was daft, as she said to the girls afterward. Miss Leslie! a beauty, and an heiress, and one of the proudest families in Fife. Surely the woman was out of her wits! But it was as well to give her her own way, and hear all that there was to hear.
“Na, it’s no for me to say,” said Mrs. Glen. “I’m no saying just that. I’m saying nothing, it’s no my part, and Rob, he’s no a lad to brag; but I keep my een open, and I form my ain opinions for all that. My son’s not just a common lad. Till something opens him up, he’s real hard to divine. He’s more than ordinar clever, for one thing, and when he gets with folk that can enter into his ways— I’m free to confess I’m no one of that kind mysel’. I’ve nae education to put me on a par with him. There’s his pictures. You’ve no seen his pictures? I’m told, and I can well believe it,” said the proud mother, “that there’s many a warse in the National Gallery, though that’s considered the best collection in a’ the world.”
“Dear me, now, to think of that!” said the other farmer’s wife. “Jessie and Bessie are both very good at drawing. They were considered to have a great taste for it; but for my part I’ve always thought for a man that it was a great wastery of time.”
“No when it’s the best kind,” said Mrs. Glen, in her superior knowledge. “I wouldna say for the young ladies’ bits of drawings; but when it’s the right kind, there’s nothing I ken that brings in more money.” Rob’s mother felt justly that this was the true test. “There’s thousands on thousands o’ pounds to be made by it; but it wants a real genius, and that’s just what Rob has shown.”
“Dear me,” said her listener again. Notwithstanding a natural undercurrent of scorn, she could not help being impressed by so positive an assertion. Had Jessie and Bessie shown real genius? There was something deeply impressive, even though she scarcely believed in it, in a thing by which thousands and thousands could be made.
“I must look out the girls’ sketches to-morrow,” she said, “and see what your son thinks of them. It must be a great comfort for you, Mrs. Glen, when he has made up his mind not to follow one thing, to find he has a good prospect in another. It’s not often a young man has that luck when he gives up what he’s been brought up to. But now I must bid you good-day, for this is our nearest road; and I hope you’ll let me hear when anything happens.” “The woman’s daft,” Mrs. Cupar said, as she went on. “She thinks because Sir Ludovic, poor old frail gentleman, gripped Rob’s arm, finding him the foremost, that he’s going to give her son his daughter Margaret Leslie!—that thinks herself of a different kind of flesh and blood from the like of you; and I would think myself sore brought down in the world if I had to give one o’ you to Rob Glen!”
“Well, mamma,” said one of the girls, “he is what the maids call a bonnie lad.” “And very like a gentleman,” said the other. They both gave a glance behind them as they spoke, not at all unwilling, if truth were told, to be overtaken by Rob Glen.
“Jessie, Jessie, how often must I tell you not to be vulgar? There is nothing so vulgar as that broad Scotch,” cried the genteel farmer’s wife. She was more horrified than Sir Ludovic was with Margaret’s idioms and Fifish confusion of grammar; but the girls were not nearly so decided as to the folly of Mrs. Glen. They thought there was something to say on the other side. Margaret Leslie had no education; she had never been out of that old crow’s-nest of a house. She had never had masters for anything, or seen the world. Family was not everything, nor money either; and if there was a nice-looking, handsome, well-educated young man who did not mind her want of education— Mrs. Cupar thought her own girls were almost as daft as Mrs. Glen.
But there was another humble pedestrian coming after them, who was of the same opinion as the girls. Jeanie had seen Mrs. Glen and her son from a distance, but had not been seen by Rob, who had eyes only for Margaret, and, under the shade of her book, the poor girl had watched him, all unconscious of her observation. He had not been at church before since he returned to his mother’s house, and all his thoughts were bent, it seemed to Jeanie, upon the large, square, red-lined pew which held her master and Miss Margaret. Even if Margaret were not there, was it likely that he would have greeted her in the face of day—he, a gentleman, and she but a servant-lass? Jeanie felt the impossibility of the connection more than she had ever done before. She had seen nothing, indeed, that was impossible in it when she had gone to his uncle’s shop, or taken a Sunday walk with Rob out by Glasgow Green and upon the waterside. But here the reality of the matter burst upon her. She saw him walk past with Sir Ludovic leaning on his arm, while she hung back while “the kirk skaaled.” She saw him shake hands with Randal Burnside. And she was nothing but Bell’s helper, a servant-lass. Her father had been one of the elders who stood at the plate on this eventful day, and John Robertson understood the wistful look his daughter gave him when the service was over.
“Ay, ay, he saw me weel enough—he could not help seeing me. He gave me a little nod as he passed, quite civil: but— I would think na mair of such a whillie-wha,” said John.
“You must not ca’ names, faither,” said gentle Jeanie; but it was a heavy heart which she carried along that same road, keeping far behind Mrs. Glen and Mrs. Cupar and the young ladies. It was no wonder to Jeanie, nor had she any doubt about Sir Ludovic. Who would not be glad of such a lad as Rob? She was not angry with Margaret, nor even with Rob himself, for that matter. It was her own fault ever to think that she was his equal. What was he but a laddie, that did not know his own mind, when he had pledged himself to her that ought to have known better? She was younger than he was, yet she ought to have known better. He was not a whillie-wha, as her father said, but only too tender-hearted, liking to please those he was with. Only this could ever have made him waste so much of his time and kindness upon John Robertson’s daughter—a servant-lass—he that, at the least, would be “a placed minister!” At last Jeanie saw clearly the absurdity of the thought.