The Railway Man and His Children - Mrs. Oliphant

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thought one just as good as another.” On the whole, it was this that struck the company, especially the gentlemen, most—that she was just as civil to a little lieutenant as she was to the General commanding. The ladies had other things to distract their minds, the jewels, the bridal dress, the table. Such a commotion had never been made in the Station before by any marriage: the Colonel’s daughter’s wedding feast was nothing in comparison: and that this should all be for the poor lady who had been nothing more than nursery governess to the Stanhopes, was quite bewildering. When the pair went away, the whole Station turned out. It was, of course, quite late when they started, as they were only going as far as Cumsalla. The Station was lit with coloured lamps, which blazed softly in the evening dusk, turning that oasis in the sand into a magical place. And the big moon got up with a bound into the sky, as she sometimes does when at the full, thrusting her large round lustrous face into the centre of all, as if to see what it meant. “By Jove, she’s come out to look at you too,” said the bridegroom to his bride. He was considerably excited, as was but natural—enchanted with the success of all his plans, and the éclat of the whole performance. It was altogether a trying moment—for perhaps something of a vulgar fibre in the man was betrayed by his eagerness that it should be “a grand affair,” and his delight in its success.

      But fortunately Evelyn was not in possession of her usual clear-sightedness, and she was still of opinion that the presence of the great people had been accidental, and the extraordinary sumptuousness of all the preparations a piece of loving extravagance on the part of the Stanhopes, which should not, if she could help it, go without its reward. “I hope,” she said, “the moon is loyal, and means it as a demonstration for the Lieutenant-Governor, as all these rejoicings have been already to-day.”

      “Not a bit of it,” said Rowland; “all the demonstrations have been for you. The Governor and the General were only my—I mean, Fred Stanhope’s guests.”

      Evelyn thought her husband must have had too much champagne: but she would not let this vex her or disturb her, seeing that it was so great an occasion. She calmed him with her soothing voice, and did not show the faint movement of fright and alarm that was in her breast.

      “I am very glad they were there, anyhow,” she said, “for Fred’s sake. I hope he will get that appointment now. It was a fortunate chance for him.”

      “It was no chance at all,” said Rowland, half piqued at her obtuseness. “I dare say it will be good for him as well: but it was all to do honour to you, my dear. I was determined that you should have all the honour and glory a bride could have. These swells came for you, and all that is for you, the illuminations, and everything. But when I saw you among them, Evelyn, I just said—how superior you were to everything of the sort. Talk about women’s heads being turned! You went from one place to another, and looked down upon it all like a queen.”

      “Hush! hush!” she said; “indeed I did not look down upon anything. I did not think of it. I am very different from a queen. I am setting out upon a great voyage, and my mind is too full of that to think of swells, as you call them. You are the swell that occupies me most.”

      “You are my queen,” said Rowland in his pride and delight, “and I am not good enough to tie your shoe: for I’ve been thinking of a great flash to dazzle them all, while you were thinking of—look back, there’s the bouquet going off! nobody in this presidency has seen such fireworks as they’ve got there to-night. I wanted every black baby of them all to remember the day of Miss Ferrars’ wedding. And now when I look at you, I’m ashamed of it all, to think such folly as that should be any honour to you!”

      These devoted sentiments, however, were not the prevalent feeling at the Station, where there was a ball after the fireworks with everything of the most costly and splendid description, and where the health of the bride and bridegroom was drank with acclamations in far too excellent champagne. The ladies who had daughters looked out contemptuously over the heads of the subalterns to see if there was not another railway man in the background who would give a similar triumph to one of their girls. But young railway men are not any more satisfactory than young soldiers, and there was not another James Rowland far or near. When it was all over, Helen Stanhope rushed into her husband’s arms with tears of joy, “You have got it, Fred,” she said, “you have got it! and it’s all on account of that kind thought you had (for it was your thought) when you went and fetched Evelyn Ferrars home out of her misery. It’s brought a blessing as I knew it would.”

      Fred pulled his long moustache, and was not very ready in his reply. “I wish we hadn’t got so tired of it, Nelly. It might be a kind thought at the first, but neither you nor I kept up to the start. God Almighty didn’t owe us much for that.”

      “Oh, don’t be profane,” cried his wife, “taking God’s name in vain! She didn’t think so. What would she have done without us? And it’s all thanks to her that we have got it at last.”

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      Rowland was able to carry out the programme which he had made for himself. He was a man to whom pieces of what is called luck are apt to come. Luck goes rather against the more serious claims of deserving, and is a thing which many of us would like to ignore—but it is hard to believe there is not something in it. One man who is just as worthy as another gets little that he wants, while his neighbour gets much; one who is just as unworthy as another gets all the blows while his fellow sinner escapes. Mr. Rowland had always been a lucky man. The things he desired seemed to drop into his mouth. That white house on the peninsula looking down upon Clyde, with its noble groups of trees, its fine woods behind, its lochs and inlets, and the great noble estuary at its foot, proved as soon as he set his heart upon it procurable. Had you or I wanted it, it would have been hopeless. Even he, though his luck was so great and he possessed that golden key which opens so many doors, was not able to move the noble proprietor to a sale; but he was permitted to rent it upon a long lease which was almost as satisfactory. “I should have preferred to buy it outright and settle it upon you, Evelyn,” he said to his wife as they sat at breakfast in their London hotel, and he read aloud the lawyer’s letter about this coveted dwelling. “But when one comes to think of it, you might not care for a big house in Scotland after I am out of the way. It was to please me, I know, that you fixed on Scotland first. And then you might find it a trouble to keep up if you were alone.”

      “There is no occasion for thinking what I should do when I am alone, thank heaven,” said Mrs. Rowland; “there is little likelihood of that.”

      “We must be prepared for everything,” he said with a beaming face, which showed how little the possibility weighed upon him. “However, perhaps it is just as well. Now, my dear, I will tell you what I am going to do. I am going up to the North to see after it all. You shall stay comfortably here and see the pictures and that sort of thing, and I shall run up and prepare everything for you, settle about Rosmore on the longest term I can get, look after the furniture a bit: well—I should like, you know, to look after the children a bit, too.”

      “To be sure you would,” she said cheerfully. “You know I wanted you to have them here to meet us; but I understand very well, my dear James, that you would rather have your first day with them alone.”

      “It’s not that,” he said rising and marching about the room—“it’s not that. I’d rather see you with them, and taking to them than anything else in the world—but—perhaps I’d better go first and see how the land lies. You don’t mind my leaving you—for a few days.” He said this with a sort of timid air which sat strangely on the otherwise self-confident and consciously fortunate man, so evidently inviting an expression of regret, that Evelyn could scarcely restrain a smile.

      “I do mind very much,” she said: and he was so genial, so kind, even so amusing in his simplicity, that it was strictly true. “I don’t like at all to be left alone in London; but still I understand it perfectly, and approve—though I’d rather you stayed with me.”

      “Oh,

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