IT is difficult to calculate the exact moment at which it shall be found out by the members of a family that one of them has disappeared and gone away. It is easy to account for temporary absence: to think that the missing one has walked out too far, has been detained by some visit, has somehow been withdrawn unexpectedly and not by any will of his, from home. Kirsteen did not appear at breakfast; there were a few questions, “Where is Kirsteen?” “She will be with my mother.” Her mother on the other hand was asking Jeanie who had taken up her breakfast, “Where is Kirsteen?” “She is gone out for a walk—or something,” said Jeanie. It was not till after the second meal, at which there was no sign of her, that anything like alarm was excited. “Where is Kirsteen?” her father cried in what the children called his Bull of Bashan’s voice. “I am not my sister’s keeper—no doubt she’s just away on one of her rovings,” said Mary, whose mind however by this time was full of curiosity. She had been early struck by the complete disappearance of Kirsteen and every trace of her from about the place. Neither in the glen, nor by the linn, nor in the garden, was there any sign of her, no evidence that she had passed by either in parlour or in kitchen. She had not been in her mother’s room. Mrs. Douglas had already asked for more than a dozen times where was Kirsteen?—requiring her for a hundred things. It was only however when she found Marg’ret anxiously attempting to do Kirsteen’s special business, to pick up the lost stitches in Mrs. Douglas’s knitting, to arrange her pillows and help her to move that a real suspicion darted through Mary’s mind. Could Kirsteen have gone away? and could Marg’ret know of it? On being interrogated the boys and Jeanie declared that neither on the way to school nor at the merchant’s which they had passed on their return home, had any trace of her been seen. And Mary thought that Marg’ret’s eyes were heavy, that she looked like a person who had been up all night, or who had been crying a great deal, and observed, which was more extraordinary still, that she alone showed no curiosity about Kirsteen. Had all been natural it was she who would have been most easily alarmed. This acute observation helped Mary to the full truth, or at least to as much of it as it was possible to find out. “Where’s Kirsteen?” she said suddenly in Marg’ret’s ear, coming down upon her unawares, after she had left Mrs. Douglas’s room.
Marg’ret was drying her eyes with her apron, and the sound of a sob, which she had not time to restrain, breathed into the air as Mary came upon her. “Oh, what a start ye gave me!” she answered as soon as she could recover her voice.
“Where is Kirsteen?” said Mary again. “You cannot conceal it from me,—where is she, and what have ye done with her? I will not tell upon you if you will explain it to me.”
“Kirsteen—what is all this stir about Kirsteen? She will just have gane up the hill or down the linn, or maybe she’ll have gone to see her old auntie at the toun.” Here Marg’ret betrayed herself by a heave of her solid shoulders that showed she was weeping, though she attempted with a broken laugh to conceal the fact “It’s no so many—diversions—the poor thing has.”
“You know where she is, Marg’ret—and ye’ve helped her to get away.”
“Me!” cried Marg’ret, with convulsive indignation; then she made a great effort to recover herself. “How should I ken where she is? Yes, I do that! She’s on her way home no doubt over the hillside—or down the loch coming back.”
“You’ll perhaps tell me then what you’re greetin’ for?”
“I have plenty of things to make me greet,” Marg’ret said; then after a pause—“Who said I was greetin’? I just canna be fashed with endless questions, and the haill family rantin’ and ravin’. Ye can go and find your sister for yourself.”
“And so I will—or at least I’ll satisfy myself,” said Mary with a determination which, though mild and quiet, was not less assured than the bold resolutions of Kirsteen. She went softly up stairs and proceeded to visit her sister’s room, where her keen perceptions soon showed her a certain amount of disarray. “She cannot have two gowns on her back, both the blue and the brown,” said Mary to herself. “She would never put on her spencer and bonnet to go out on the hillside. She would not have taken that little box with her that she keeps her treasures in and that aye stands by her bedside, had she only gone to see Auntie Eelen. She’s just gone away—and there is an end of it.” Mary stood reflecting for some time after she came to this decision. It did not distress her for the moment, but lit a spark of invention, a keener light than usual in her mild brown eyes that never had been full of light like Kirsteen’s. After a few minutes of consideration, she went to her own room and dressed herself carefully to go out—carefully but not too well, not with the spencer, the Sunday garment, which Kirsteen had taken. Mary put on an old cloth pelisse, and a brown bonnet which was not her best. “I am not going on a journey, I will only be about the doors,” she said to herself.
Marg’ret was standing outside when she came down stairs, with a look of anxiety on her face, which changed into subdued derision when Mary appeared. “Ye’ll be going after her?” she said. “Well, I wish ye may find her; but if she’s gane, as ye think, she’ll have gotten a long start.”
“I’m going—to put some things right,” said Mary enigmatically. The consciousness that Marg’ret stood and watched as she went along the road quickened her senses, and confirmed her in her conviction. It was afternoon, and the wintry sun was shining red through a haze of frost out of the western sky. It dazzled her with its long level lines of light as she walked down the road. There would be a moon that night, so that the visitor who was expected at Drumcarro would have light enough to ride home by, however late he might be; yet he was a little late, and Mary was anxious to meet him at some distance from the house. She walked very quickly for about half a mile towards the hamlet, in which the merchant’s shop stood surrounded by three or four cottages. And then she perceived in the distance riding over the little bridge which crossed the stream, the red light catching the metal buttons of his riding-coat and the silver top of his whip, the trim figure of Glendochart coming towards her. At such a distance his grey hair and the lines of his face were of course quite invisible, and he rode like a young man, with all the advantages of good horsemanship and a fine horse to set off his well-formed figure. Mary slackened her pace at once. She looked at him with a little sigh. What a happy windfall would that be to one, which to another was a hardship and misfortune! She herself would not have objected at all to Glendochart’s age. She would have liked him the better for it, as likely to make a more complaisant husband. However, it was not to her that he had come wooing, but to Kirsteen, with whom he had no chance, so troublesome and contrary were the decisions of fate.
Mary gave a sigh to this thought, and turned over in her mind rapidly the purpose with which she had come out and what she was to say. She decided that even if Kirsteen came back, which was not probable, she could do no harm by warning Glendochart. It would save him a refusal at least, it would let him know the real state of affairs. She walked more and more slowly as the horseman advanced. There was a corner of the road where a projecting rock formed a sort of angle, shutting out a little the noise of the brawling burn and making a natural halting-place. She contrived that she should meet the wayfarer here. Glendochart perceived her as he came along before they actually met. She appeared just beyond the corner, recognized him, paused a little, and then waving her hand to him turned back. Nothing could be more evident than that she had something to say. When he had reached the corner he found her standing, modest and quiet, within the shadow of the rock.
“I hope nothing’s wrong, Miss Mary, at the house?” he said hurriedly.
“Well,” she said, “that is as may be. I have perhaps done a bold thing, but I was wanting a word with ye, Glendochart, before you go on.”
“What is the matter?” he cried with alarm. He was evidently very unwilling to be detained. “Your father is expecting me, Miss Mary,” he said, “and I hope your sister——”
“It is just about Kirsteen, Glendochart, that I wish to speak to you.”
“What is it?” he said. “Is she ill?—has anything happened?”
“There has just this happened,” said Mary. “I would not let ye have a trouble or a shock that I could spare you—Kirsteen has left her home.”
“Left her home!” His ruddy colour disappeared in a moment; he threw himself off his horse. “What do you mean? I do not understand you!” he cried.
“Glendochart,” said Mary seriously, “nobody has told me; but I don’t think you were meaning to make any secret of it, that it was after Kirsteen you were coming to our house.”
The elderly lover coloured a little. “I would not hide it from you that that was my intention. It was her,” he said with a little apologetic wave of his hand, “that I saw first of the family, and upon her I fixed my fancy; not that all the daughters of Drumcarro were not worthy of every admiration.”
“Oh, Glendochart, ye need not apologize. Fancy is free, as is well known. I saw it well from the first, for a sister’s eyne are quick to observe; but, if ye will believe me, the one that never noticed was just Kirsteen herself.”
“Not possible!” said the wooer, with this time a little flush of offence.
“But it is just very possible—her mind was not set on anything of the kind. And it was her opinion that just friendship and kindness—for all the family——”
“Did she bid ye tell me this?”
“No, no—she said nothing, poor thing. If she had but spoken either to me, that could have explained for her, or to you that would never have forced her——”
“Forced her!” cried the old beau, who had always prided himself upon the fact that his was neither the form nor the eye,
“Which youthful maidens wont to fly.”
“Well, I know that!” said Mary with fervour; “and there are few that would have needed any fleeching, if I may say so. But I reckon that she just heard it from my father, very suddenly. My father is a dour man, Glendochart. Whatever ye may have to say he will never hear ye speak. He will listen to the boys—whiles—but to us never. Just you must do this, or you must do that, and not a word more.”
“Drumcarro,” said Glendochart, now full of passion, “has done me a cruel wrong in putting my suit before any lady in such a way. Your sister was free to have taken it or left it, Miss Mary. Me press a proposition that was not acceptable!—not for all the world!”
“I am well aware of that,” said Mary with feeling; “but my father is a dour man, and he would say, ‘Not a word! just take the offer and be thankful.’ And indeed,” said Mary diffidently, “in most cases there would be little difficulty, but Kirsteen is one that is very much set upon her own way.”
“She had but to say so,” cried the offended suitor; “I promise she would have had no more trouble with me!”
“Oh, Glendochart, do not be angry—I am just sure that he would not let her say a word. She has not been like herself this week past. It has just been on her mind night and day. And at last she has taken, a despair, seeing no way of getting out of it—and she has gone away.”
“I am not in the habit,” said Glendochart, “of finding myself a bugbear. I would seem to cut a pretty figure in all this—a sort of old Robin Gray,” he said with a furious laugh. “I am sure I am obliged to you all! ‘With tears in his e’e, said Jenny, for their sake will ye marry me?’ I beg to say, Miss Mary, that this was not my attitude at all.”
“Do you need to say that to me, Glendochart?” said Mary reproachfully. “Oh, no! nor even to poor Kirsteen either, who would have been fain to hear every word ye had to say—for she was very fond of ye, Glendochart.”
“It is a strange way of showing it,” he said, but he was mollified in spite of himself.
“As we all were. It will be a great heart-break and a great downfall if ye come no more to the house because of Kirsteen. But she would have been fain, fain to hear whatever ye had to say, if it had not been——”
“What hindered her, then?” he said.
“It’s no for me to betray her secrets,” said Mary, “and indeed she never told them to me, for she was not one that opened her heart. But there is little that can be hidden from a sister’s eye. And it was just this—there was one before ye, Glendochart. If she had seen you first I am very sure she would never have thought of him—for to my mind there’s no more comparison—but, poor thing, she had given her word. Take what you offered her and be mansworn to the other lad was all that was before her; and no true to you either, for she would never have dared to tell you.”
Glendochart was still much offended and disturbed. He had fastened his horse to a tree, and was now pacing about the road within the corner of the rock with mingled rage and pain. But he was moved by the soft voice and pleading accents of the very mild and pleasing intercessor, whose suggestion of her own superior taste was put in with so much gentle insistence. Mary’s eyes, which were cast down when he looked at her, but raised with much meaning to his face when he did not seem to be observing, softened his mood in spite of himself.
“If that was the case,” he said, “there was perhaps an excuse for her, though when she knew it was so she should not have encouraged and drawn on—another man.”
It was Mary’s policy to give a very charitable representation of Kirsteen’s action, and it was also quite congenial to her feelings, for she was not spiteful nor malicious, notwithstanding that it seemed to be a very sensible thing to turn her sister’s failure to her own advantage if that could be done.
“Glendochart,” she said, “there’s some things in which gentlemen never can understand the heart of a girl. She had no thought of encouraging and drawing on. That never came into her head. She liked you well, and she thought no harm in showing it.”
“Because,” cried Glendochart, with mingled offence and emotion, “she thought I was an old man, and out of the question. That is easy to see——”
“It was not that,” said Mary softly. “She saw that you were kind to all of us—every one. Perhaps she may have thought that you had—other intentions. And oh,” said the gentle girl, raising her eyes to his, “it made such a difference to us all! It’s been so lightsome and so heartsome, Glendochart, to see ye always coming. There is little diversion at Drumcarro. My father is a very dour man, wrapped up in the boys, and my mother, she is always ailing, poor body; and we see nobody; and to have you coming just like sunshine, with a smile to one and a kind word to another, and thinking no shame to be pleasant even to me—that ye thought nothing of—or little Jeanie, that is but a bairn.”
Glendochart was very much touched. He took Mary’s hand in both his. “Do not say that I thought nothing of you, for that would be far from the case; and how am I to thank you now for taking so much thought for me? You have just behaved like an angel so far as I can see, both to me and to her.”
“Oh, Glendochart, not that! But just what I could do in the way of kindness,” she said.