A FEW days afterwards Glendochart appeared at Drumcarro riding a fine horse, and dressed with great care, in a costume very different from the rough and ill-made country clothes to which the family were accustomed. Jock and Jeanie who had come home from school rushed emulously to take the horse to the stable, and the household was stirred to its depths with the unaccustomed sensation of a visitor, a personage of importance bringing something of the air of the great world with him. He was conducted to the laird’s room by Marg’ret herself, much interested in the stranger—and there remained for a short time to the great curiosity of the family, all of whom were engaged in conjectures as to what was being said within those walls, all but Kirsteen, who, being as it appeared most closely concerned, had as yet awakened to no alarm on the subject, and assured her mother quietly that there was nothing to be fluttered about. “For he is just very pleasant, and makes you feel at home, and like a friend,” she said. Mrs. Douglas had come down to the parlour earlier than usual in expectation of this visit. She had put on her best cap; and there was a little fresh colour of excitement in her cheeks. “But what will he be saying to your father?” she said. “Sitting so long together, and them so little acquainted with each other.”
“Oh, but they were at the school together, and at the ball they were great friends,” replied Kirsteen. She was the only one about whom there was no excitement. She sat quite cheerfully over her work “paying no attention,” as Mary said.
“Why should I pay attention? I will just be very glad to see him,” replied Kirsteen. “He is just the kind of person I like best.”
“Whisht, Kirsteen, whatever you may feel ye must not go just so far as that.”
“But it’s true, mother, and why should I not go so far? He’s a very nice man. If he had daughters they would be well off. He is so kind, and he sees through you, and sees what you are thinking of.”
“You must not let him see what you are thinking of, Kirsteen!”
“Why not?” she said, glancing up with candid looks. But after a moment a vivid colour came over Kirsteen’s milk-white forehead. Then a smile went over it like a sudden ray of sunshine. “I would not be feared,” she cried, “for he would understand.” She was thinking of his own story which he had told her, and of the one who was like him, away in a far distant country. How well he would understand it! and herself who was waiting, more faithful than the poor lady who had not waited long enough. Oh, but that should never be said of Kirsteen!
Presently the two gentlemen were seen to be walking round the place, Drumcarro showing to his visitor all that there was to show in the way of garden and stables and farm offices, which was not much. But still this was the right thing for one country gentleman to do to another. The ladies watched them from the window not without an acute sense of the shortcomings of the place, and that there was no horse in the stable that could stand a moment’s comparison with Mr. Campbell of Glendochart’s beautiful beast. Drumcarro was a house in the wilds, standing on a grassy bank without so much as a flower plot near, or any “grounds” or “policy,” or even garden to separate and enclose it, and a sense of its shabbiness and poverty came into the minds of all, instinctively, involuntarily. “If that’s what he’s thinking of he will never mind,” Mrs. Douglas said under her breath. “Whisht, mother,” said Mary. Kirsteen did not even ask Mary what her mother meant. Mrs. Douglas indeed said a great many things that meant little or nothing, but this did not quite explain the fatal unconsciousness of the girl upon whose preoccupied ear all these warnings seemed to fall in vain.
The dinner had been prepared with more than usual care, and Marg’ret herself carried in several of the dishes in order to make a further inspection of the visitor. She had not been precisely taken into anybody’s confidence, and yet she knew very well that he had come more or less in the capacity of a suitor, and that Drumcarro’s extreme politeness and the anxiety he displayed to please and propitiate the stranger were not for nothing. Marg’ret said to herself that if it had been anybody but the laird, she would have thought it was a question of borrowing money, but she knew that Drumcarro would rather die than borrow, with a horror and hatred not only of debt but of the interest he must have had to pay. So it could not be that; nor was the other gentleman who was so well preserved, so trim, “so weel put on,” at all like a money-lender. It became clear to her, as she appeared in the dining-room at intervals, what the real meaning was. Glendochart had been placed next to Kirsteen at table, and when he was not disturbed by the constant appeals of Drumcarro, he talked to her with an evident satisfaction which half flattered, half disgusted the anxious spectator. He was a real gentleman, and it was a compliment to Miss Kirsteen that a man who had no doubt seen the world and kings’ courts and many fine places should distinguish her so—while on the other hand the thought was dreadful that, in all her bloom of youth, Kirsteen should be destined to a man old enough to be her father. As old as her father! and she so blooming and so young. But Marg’ret was perhaps the only one in the party who thought so. The others were all excited by various interests of their own, which might be affected by this union between January and May. Mrs. Douglas, with that fresh tint of excitement on her cheeks, was wholly occupied by the thought of having a married daughter near her, within her reach, with all the eventualities of a new household to occupy and give new interest to life; and Mary with a sense that her sister’s house to visit, in which there would be plenty of company and plenty of money, and opportunity of setting herself forth to the best advantage, would be like a new existence. The young ones did not know what it was that was expected to happen, but they too were stirred by the novelty and the grand horse in the stable, and Glendochart’s fine riding-coat and silver-mounted whip. Kirsteen herself was the only one unexcited and natural. There was little wonder that Glendochart liked her to talk to him. She was eager to run out with him after dinner, calling to little Jeanie to come too to show him the den, as it was called, where the burn tumbled over successive steps of rock into a deep ravine, throwing up clouds of spray. She took care of the old gentleman with a frank and simple sense that it was not he but she who was the best able to guide and guard the other, and used precautions to secure him a firm footing among the slippery rocks without a single embarrassing thought of that change of the relationship between old and young which is made by the fictitious equality of a possible marriage. Far, very far were Kirsteen’s thoughts from anything of the kind. She felt very tenderly towards him because of the tragedy he had told her of, and because he had gone away like Ronald, and had trusted in some one less sure to wait than herself. The very sight of Glendochart was an argument to Kirsteen, making her more sure that she never could waver, nor ever would forget.
When they came back from this expedition to the dish of tea which was served before the visitor set out again, Mrs. Douglas exerted herself to fill out the cups, a thing she had not been known to do for years. “Indeed,” she said, “I have heard of nothing but Mr. Campbell since they came back from the ball: it has been Glendochart this and Glendochart that all the time, and it would ill become me not to show my gratitude. For I’m but a weak woman, not able myself to go out with my daughters; and they are never so well seen to, Mr. Campbell, when they are without a mother’s eye.”
Drumcarro uttered a loud “Humph!” of protest when this bold principle was enunciated; but he dared not contradict his wife, or laugh her to scorn in the presence of a visitor so particular and precise.
“You might trust these young ladies, madam,” said Glendochart gallantly, “in any company without fear; for their modest looks would check any boldness, whatever their beauty might call forth.”
This was still the day of compliments, and Glendochart was an old beau and had the habits of his race.
“Oh, you are very kind,” said Mrs. Douglas, her faint colour rising, her whole being inspired. “If gentlemen were all like you, there would be little reason for any uneasiness; but that is more than we can expect, and to trust your bairns to another’s guidance is always a very heavy thought.”
“Madam, you will soon have to trust them to the guidance of husbands, there can be little doubt.”
“But that’s very different: for then a parent is free of responsibility,” said the mother, rising to the occasion; “that is just the course of nature. And if they are so happy as to chance upon good, serious, God-fearing men.”
“Let us hope,” said Glendochart, not without a glance at Kirsteen, “that your bonny young misses will be content with that sober denomination; but they will no doubt add for themselves, young and handsome and gay.”
“No, no,” Mrs. Douglas said, led away by enthusiasm, “you will hear no such wishes out of the mouths of lassies of mine.”
“Let them answer for themselves,” said Drumcarro, “they’re old enough: or maybe they will wait till they’re asked, which would be the wisest way. Glendochart, I am very sorry to name it, and if ye would take a bed with us, I would be most pleased. But if you’re determined to go to-day, I must warn ye the days are short and it’s late enough to get daylight on the ford.”
“If ye would take a bed—“ Mrs. Douglas repeated.
The visitor protested that he was much obliged but that he must go. “But I will take your permission to come again,” he said, “and my only fear is that you will see too much of me, for there are strong temptations here.”
“Ye cannot come too often nor stay too long; and the more we see of you, the more we will be pleased,” said the mistress of the house. And the girls went out to see him mount his horse, which the boys had gone to fetch from the stable. Never was a visitor more honoured. A third person no doubt might have thought the welcome excessive and the sudden interest in so recent an acquaintance remarkable. But no one, or at least very few are likely to consider themselves and the civilities shown to them in the same light as an impartial spectator would do. It seems always natural that friends new or old should lavish civilities upon ourselves. Glendochart rode away with a glow of pleasure. He was not at all afraid of the ford, dark or light. He was as safe in his saddle as he ever had been, and had no fear of taking cold or getting damp. He feared neither rheumatism nor bronchitis. He said to himself, as he trotted steadily on, that fifty-five was the prime of life. He was a little over that golden age, but not much, nothing to count; and if really that bonny Kirsteen with her Highland bloom, and her fine spirits, and her sense—It was a long time since that tragedy of which he had told her. Perhaps, as his Grace had said, it was never too late.
“Ye havering woman,” said Drumcarro to his wife, “you are just like your silly kind. I would not wonder if going so fast ye had not just frightened the man away.”
“I said nothing but what ye said I was to say,” said Mrs. Douglas, still strong in her excitement; “and it was never me that began it, and if him and you are so keen, it’s not for me to put obstacles in the way.”
Drumcarro stood for a moment astonished that his feeble wife should venture to indulge in a personal effort even when it was in his own aid: then he gave a shrug of his shoulders. “A man knows when to speak and when to refrain from speaking,” he said; “but you womenfolk, like gabbling geese ye can never keep still if once you have anything to cackle about.”