“OH, sir, no, sir,” said the smiling landlord at the Black Bull, where Mr Pringle went to have some luncheon and to order “a machine,” to take Vi and himself to the Hewan—the little cottage, which was the ostensible end of his mission—“there’s different stories going about the country, but we must not believe all we hear. The real truth is, I’m assured by them that ought to know, that the little boy came over from foreign parts with his father, the Honourable Richard Ross, to be brought up as is befitting, in a decent-like house, and among folk that have some fear of God before their eyes,—which it’s no easy to find, so far as I can hear, abroad.”
“Came over with his father!” cried Mr Pringle, through whose soul this information smote like a sword. If this was the case, farewell to the beggar’s brat theory, and to all hope both for Sandy and himself.
“Well, that’s the most reasonable story,” said the landlord; “there’s plenty of other nonsense flying about the country. What we a’ heard at first was, that some gangrel body knockit loud and lang at the ha’ door the night of that awfu’ storm, and threw in a bundle, nigh knocking over auld Harding the butler; and when lights were got—for the lamp was blown out by the wind—it was found to be this boy. It’s an awfu’ age for sensation this, and that’s the sensational story, folk ca’ it. But Mr Richard, there can be nae doubt, has been home direct from Florence and Eitaly, and what so likely as that he should bring the bairn himsel’? So far as I can learn, a’body that is anybody, so to speak, the gentry and them that ought to ken, believes he came with his father. The servants and folk about the town uphold the other story; but you ken, sir, the kind of story that pleases common folk best? Aye something wonderful; fancy afore reason.”
“But surely it is very easy to get to the bottom of it,” said Mr Pringle, with a beating heart. “Was the child with Mr Ross, for instance, when he arrived?”
“Na, I never heard that,” said the landlord, swaying over to the other side. “The carriage passed by our windows. So far as I could see, there was but himself inside, and his man on the box. We maunna inquire too close into details, sir—especially you that are a relation of the family.”
“That is exactly why it is so important I should know.”
“Well-a-well, sir! they do say, I allow,” said the man, sinking his voice, “that the little laddie was here before his father; that’s rather my own opinion—no that I ever saw him. They sent down here, about a week before Mr Ross came home, to inquire about a woman and a wean; nae woman or wean had been here. There was one I heard, at Jean Macfarlane’s on the other side of the bridge, which is a place no decent person can be expected to ken about.”
“And who was the woman?” said Mr Pringle, with breathless interest.
“Na, that’s mair than I can tell. Some say a randy wife that’s been seen of late about the country-side; some says one thing and some another. Auld Simon the postman and Merran Miller were twa I’m told that saw her; but this is a’ hearsay—a’ hearsay; I ken naething of my own knowledge. I must say, however,” added the landlord, seriously, “that I blame themselves up at the big house for most of the stir. They sent down inquiring and inquiring, putting things into folk’s heads about this woman and the wean. My lord had a’ them that saw her up to the house, and put them through an examination. It was not a prudent thing to do—it was that, more than anything else, that made folk begin to talk.”
“And was that before Richard Ross came home?”
“Oh ay, sir—oh ay; a good week before.”
“At the time, in short, that the child came?” said Mr Pringle, with legal clearness.
“Well, Mr Pringle—about the time the bairn was said to have come, I’ll no deny; but a’body that’s best able to judge has warned me no to build my faith on a coincidence like that. Maist likely it was nothing more than a co-inn-cidence. They’re queer things, as you that are a lawyer must know.”
“Yes, they are queer things,” said Mr Pringle, with a flicker of hope; and then he changed the conversation, and began to inquire about the Hewan, and whether it was let for the season, or if any one had been in treaty for it. “My wife has a fancy for the place. She knew it when she was young,” he said, half apologetically.
“But it’s a wee bit box of a place—no fit for your fine family. It would bring the roses, though, into little Miss’s cheeks, for the air’s grand up on that braehead.”
“It is just for her we want it,” Mr Pringle said, with an unusual openness of confidence. “She is rather pale. Come, Vi, there is the gig at the door.”
Vi walked down-stairs very demurely and got into the gig, trying to look as if she mounted with some dignified difficulty, and not to clamber up with the speed and sureness which her breeding among so many boys had taught her. She had been listening, though she took no part in the talk. “Who is the little boy, papa?” she said, curiously, as they drove briskly along through the keen but sunshiny air.
“A little boy at Rosscraig up yonder among the trees. Do you see the turrets, Vi?”
“Yes, I see them: are they made of gold? and is he a bad little boy, papa?”
“No, Vi; I don’t suppose he means it, and you don’t understand, my pet; but it would be very bad for Sandy and the rest if he were to stay there.”
“Then, papa, if it will be bad for Sandy, and the little boy is naughty, why not drive up the avenue and take him and carry him away somewhere where he can do no harm?”
This was Violet’s incisive way of dealing with difficulties. She had all the instincts of a grand inquisitor: and would have acted with the same benevolent absorption in the grand object of doing good to her patient whether he liked it or no. The pair drove at a spanking pace up the pretty road among the budding trees, through which at intervals there were glimpses of Esk brawling over his boulders, his brown impetuous stream all flecked with foam, like a horse in full career. A sensation of positive happiness was in Mr Pringle’s mind as he drove along the familiar road through the country which he hoped might yet acknowledge his influence and authority. He could not have kidnapped the little offender as Violet suggested; but he was glad to think that there was every chance he was an impostor, and the field clear for himself and his heir. A lawsuit rose up before him in fullest dramatic detail, a kind of thing very attractive to his professional imagination. He saw how much more difficult it would be on the other side to prove the right of this supposititious heir, than it would be on his to throw doubt upon him. I do not think the thought ever crossed his mind that the child might not be supposititious at all, but the real grandson of Lord Eskside. It is so much easier when you are deeply interested in a subject to see your own side of the question, and to believe that yours is the side of right. In his sense of the possibilities of the case his spirits rose, and he enjoyed his drive to the Hewan with his innocent little girl beside him. Up they went, mounting the long slope, now letting the horse walk at the steep parts, now urging him to a momentary spurt, now rolling rapidly along on a shady level, with the branches almost meeting overhead. The day was warm for April, yet the wind was fresh and chilly, and blew in their faces with a keen and sweet freshness which brought the colour to little Violet’s cheek. “Little Vi would change into Little Rose up here on Eskside,” said Violet’s father—he had not felt so light of heart for many a day.
The Hewan is the tiniest of little cottages, perched high up on a bank of the Esk, and surveying for a mile or two the course of the picturesque little stream between its high wooded banks, with here and there a pretty house shining far off among the trees, on some little plateau of greensward, and the sound of the river filling the air with a soft rustling and tinkling. Alas! there are paper-mills now along the course of that romantic stream. I was but six years old, like Violet, when I first saw that wild little place, and ever since (how long a time!) it has remained in my mind, charming me with vague longings. Vi trotted to the grassy ridge and gazed down the course of the stream, and said nothing: for what can a child say, who has no phrases about the beautiful at her tongue’s end, and can only stare and wonder, and recollect all her life after, that brawling, surging river, those high trees, inclining from either bank towards each other, and that ineffable roof of sky? The old woman who kept the cottage consented that it was still unlet, and threw no difficulties in the way; and Mr Pringle secured it there and then for the summer. “I should like to buy it,” he said to himself, “if it were not——” If it were not?—that perhaps the turrets within sight might one day be his—a castle of dreams. The idea of the great possibilities before him suddenly surged upwards, flooding his soul; and then a hunger seized him for the river, and the woods, and the fair country which they threaded through. He wanted to have them, to possess them—not the rent of them, or the wealth of them, but themselves—a passion of acquisition which is something like love, swelling suddenly in his heart. He forgot himself gazing at them, till Vi roused him, plucking at his coat, “Papa, it is bonnie; but why do you look and look, with your eyes so big and strange, like the wolf that ate little Red Riding Hood?”
“Am I like a wolf?” he said, half laughing, yet tremulous in his momentary passion, seizing the child in his arms, and lifting her up to share his view. “Look, Vi! perhaps some day all that may be yours and mine.”
Violet looked gravely as a duty; but there was something in his strenuous grasp that frightened her, and she struggled to be put down. “I do not think,” she said, with precocious philosophy, “that it would be any bonnier if it was yours, papa—or even mine.”
Mr Pringle was tremulous after this burst of unusual emotion, for what has a respectable middle-aged lawyer to do with passion either of one kind or another? The fit went off, and he felt slightly ashamed of himself; but the thrill and flutter of feeling did not go off for some time. He sent the gig and horse to meet him at the Eskside gates, and taking Vi’s hand in his, went down by a pathway through the woods to a side entrance. “Perhaps we shall see this little boy we were talking of,” he said; but he was far from having made up his mind to confront the two old people, my lord and my lady, who would see through his pretences, as people are clever to see through the guiles of their heirs. He was reluctant to face them boldly; but yet he was—how curious!—eager to look the present crisis in the face, and see for himself what he had to fear. After they had gone a little way along the woodland path, which was still high above the course of the stream, though accompanied all the way by the sound of its waters as by a song, Violet escaped from her father’s hand, and ran on in advance, making excursions of her own, hither and thither, darting about in her brown coat and scarlet ribbons like a robin-redbreast under the budding branches. Mr Pringle, lost in his own thoughts, let her stray before him, expecting no encounter. Presently, however, there came from Vi a little cry of surprise and excitement, which quickened his steps. He hurried on after her, and came to an opening in the trees where the path widened out. It was a small circular platform, open to the slope of the river-bank, and with a rustic seat placed in an excavation on the higher side of the way. Into this open space another little figure had rushed from the other side, panting and flushed, grasping a tall stick, and stood, suddenly arrested, in front of Violet, facing her, with an answering cry, with big brown eyes expanded to twice their natural size, and a face suddenly filled with curiosity and wonder. Mr Pringle it may be supposed was blasé in the matter of boys, and I do not think that the affectionate father of an honest plain family is ever a great amateur of childish beauty. This little figure, however, in his fantastic velvet dress, with his hat perched on the back of his head, and all his dark curls ruffled back from his bold brown forehead, struck him with a certain keen perception of beauty which was almost pain. Ah! and with a perception of something else which was still sharper pain. He fell back a step to recollect himself, staggered by the sudden impression. What made the child so like Richard Ross? What malignant freak of fortune had so amalgamated with the dark complexion and look which was not Richard’s, those family features? Mr Pringle stood as if spell-bound, contemplating the child about whom he had been so curious, about whom his curiosity was so fatally satisfied now.
“You are the little boy that lives at Rosscraig,” said Violet, feeling the responsibility of a first address to lie with her, but somewhat frightened, with tremblings in her voice.
“Yes; and who are you?” cried the little fellow. Mr Pringle behind noticed with a pang that he spoke with an “English accent,” that advantage which the ambitious Scotch parent so highly estimates. This gave him a still deeper pang than the resemblance, for it seemed to give the final blow to the beggar’s brat theory. Beggar’s brats in Mr Pringle’s experience spoke Scotch.
“Who are you?” said Val. “I never saw you before. Will you come and play? It’s dull here, with no one to play with. Do you hear any one coming? I’ve run away from grandpapa.”
“But you oughtn’t to run away from your grandpapa,” said Violet. “It is very naughty to run away, especially when the other people can’t run so fast as you.”
“That’s the fun,” cried the other, with a laugh. “If you’ll come and play, I’ll show you squirrels and heaps of things. But help me first to hide this big stick. I think I hear him coming—quick, quick!”
“Would he beat you with it?” said Vi, growing pale with terror.
“Quick, quick!” cried the boy, seizing her by the wrist; but just then there was a rush of steps along the sloping path which wound down the brae to this centre, and Lord Eskside himself appeared, half angry, half laughing, pulling aside the branches to look through. “Give me back my stick, you rogue!” he cried, then paused, arrested, as Mr Pringle had been, by that pretty woodland picture. It was something between a Watteau group, and the ruder common rendering of the “Babes in the Wood:” the girl in her scarlet ribbons with liquid dark eyes uplifted, her face somewhat pale, with mingled terror, and self-control; the boy, all flushed and beautiful in his cavalier dress, grasping her by the wrist; with the faintly green branches meeting over their heads, and the brown harmonious woods, all musical with evening notes of birds and echoes of the running water, for a background. The men on either side were so impressed by the picture that they paused mutually, in involuntary admiration. But they had both perceived each other, and though their sentiments were not very friendly, politeness commanded that they should speak.
“I hope you are well, Lord Eskside,” said Mr Pringle, stepping with an effort into the charmed circle. “I had just brought my little girl through the woods to see how beautiful they are. This is my Violet; and this fine little fellow is—a visitor, I suppose?”
“Is it you, Alexander Pringle?” said Lord Eskside. “I could not believe my eyes. It is a sight for sore een to see you here.”
“Indeed it is chance—mere chance,” said Pringle, with a fulness of apology which he was himself uneasily conscious was quite uncalled for. “I have been up at the Hewan, which I have taken for the summer.”
“The Hewan for the summer! why, man, it’s a mere cottage; and what has become of your own place?”
“Oh, I retain my old place; but it is a long way off, and best for the autumn, when we can flit altogether. My wife is fond of the Hewan, though it is so small; and we thought it would be handy to run out for a day, now and then. In short, it suits us. Does this little fellow, Lord Eskside, belong to the place? or is he a visitor? He seems to have struck up a sudden friendship with my little girl.”
“A visitor!” said Lord Eskside. “Do you mean to say you have not heard—do you see no likeness in him? This is my grandson, Pringle—my successor one day, I hope—Richard’s eldest son.”
“Richard’s son!—you are joking,” said Mr Pringle, growing pale, but with a smile that hurt him,—“you are joking, Lord Eskside; a child of that complexion Richard’s son!”
Lord Eskside felt that his adversary had hit the blot—and, to tell the truth, he himself had never perceived Val’s resemblance to Richard. “Colouring is not everything,” he said; “I suppose he has his complexion from his mother:” then with a return blow,—“but I cannot expect you to be very much delighted with the sight of him, Pringle; he takes the wind out of your sails—yours and your boys’.”
“I hope my boys will be able to manage for themselves,” said Pringle, with a forced laugh. “If I say that I don’t see the resemblance, it is for no such reason. I have never hungered for other folk’s rights: but that is one thing and justice is another. Vi, my dear, we must go.”
“What! won’t you come and see my lady? She will be affronted if you pass so near without calling; and you see,” said the old lord, with an effort at cordiality, “the children have made friends already. Come and have some dinner, man, before you go home. You know me of old. My bark is waur than my bite—I meant no harm.”
“Oh, there is no offence,” said the heir-at-law; “but it’s getting late for a delicate child, and our gig is waiting at the Woodgate. Violet, you must bid the little man good-bye.”
“He is not a naughty boy, papa, as you said—he is a nice boy,” said Vi, looking up with an appeal in her eyes; “please, I should like to stay.”
“And what made you think he was naughty, my bonnie little girl?” said Lord Eskside, in insinuating tones.
“Come, come, Violet, you must be obedient,” said her father, hastily, shaking hands with his kinsman, whose old face, half grim, half humorous, was lighted up with sudden and keen enjoyment of the situation. Mr Pringle hurried his daughter on almost harshly in the confusion of his feelings. He had never been harsh to her before; and Violet, in her disappointment, took to crying quietly under her breath. “I should like to stay—I should like to stay!” she murmured; till out of pure exasperation the kindest of fathers could have whipped her, and thought of that operation as an actual relief to his feelings. Lord Eskside, on his part, stood still in the clearing, holding back Val, who was more vehement. “I want her to play with me; and you said I was to have whatever I wanted,” the boy cried, struggling with all his might to break away.
“You must know, my man, that there are many things which we all want and cannot get,” cried the old lord, holding him fast; and then he burst into a low laugh. “Here’s a bonnie state of affairs already,” he said to himself: “Richard’s son breaking bounds to be after Sandy Pringle’s daughter! It’s the best joke I’ve heard for many a day. Come, Val, come, like a good boy. We’ll go and tell grandma. She may have a little girl in her pocket for anything you and I know.”
“But I don’t want any little girl; I want that little girl,” cried Val, with precocious discrimination. The old lord chuckled more and more as he half led, half dragged him up the steep path towards the house.
“Man, if you’re after them like this already, we’ll have our hands full by the time you’re of age!” But when he had said this, Lord Eskside paused and contemplated his grandson, and shook his head. “Can he be Richard’s son after all?” the old man asked himself.
Lord Eskside, however, looked grim enough before he went into the house, where he betook himself at once to the drawing-room in which his wife sat alone, at a window overlooking the river. He went in to her moody, with the air of a man who has something to say.
“What is the matter?” said Lady Eskside.
“Oh, nothing’s the matter. We’re entering into the botherations I foresaw, that’s all that’s the matter. Who do you think I met in the woods but that lawyer-rascal Sandy Pringle, come to spy out the nakedness of the land!”
“And what nakedness is there to spy into? and what can Sandy Pringle do to you or me?” said the old lady, with a slight elevation of her head.
“Not much, perhaps, to you or me. He’s taken the Hewan, Catherine, where he can lie in wait like an auld spider till he gets us into his net.”
“I don’t understand you,” said the old lady, with the light of battle waking in her eyes. “What does it matter to us where Sandy Pringle lives? He has been out of the question, poor man, as everybody knows, since Providence sent to my son Richard his two bonnie boys.”
“It’s fine romancing,” said Lord Eskside. “Where’s the t’other of your bonnie boys, my lady? And where is your proof of this one that will satisfy a court of law? Likeness is all very well, and natural instinct’s all very well, but they’ll have little effect on the Court of Session. And though he’s a haverel in private life, Sandy Pringle was always a clever lawyer. If you do not find the woman there will be a lawsuit, that will leave Eskside but an empty title, and melt all the lands away.”
“We’ll find the woman,” said the old lady, clasping her fine nervous hands. “I’ll move earth and heaven before I’ll let anything come in my boy’s way.”
At this moment Val burst in, rosy and excited, with his grandfather’s stick, which in the vehemence of their new ideas both the child and the old man had forgotten. “Grandma, I want that little girl to play with. Send over directly,” cried Val, in hot impatience, “to get me the little girl!”
“You have enough on your hands, my lady,” said Lord Eskside.