The Ladies Lindores (Romance Classic) - Mrs. Oliphant

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I was at Oxford myself. I'm not one of your local men. The Earl would like me to take his way and follow his lead, as if I were a country bumpkin, you know. That's his opinion of every man that has stuck to his own country and not wandered abroad; and now he finds I have my own way of thinking, he doesn't half like it. We can think for ourselves down in the country just as well as the rest of you." After he had given vent to these sentiments, however, Torrance got up with a half-abashed laugh. "If you come over to Tinto, Lady Car and I will be glad to see you. We'll show you some things you can't see every day—though we are in an out-of-the-way corner, you're thinking," he said.

      "I have already heard of the treasures of Tinto," said John, glad that there was something civil to say.

      Pat Torrance nodded his head with much self-satisfaction. "Yes, we've got a thing or two," he said. "I'm not a connoisseur myself. I know they've cost a fortune—that's about all I'm qualified to judge of. But Lady Car knows all about them. You would think it was she and not I they belonged to by nature. But come and judge for yourself. I'm not a man to be suspicious of old friends."

      And here he laughed once more, with obvious offensive meaning; but it took John some time to make out what that meaning could be. His visitor had been for some time gone, fortunately for all parties, before it burst upon him. He divined then, that it was he who was supposed to have been poor Carry's lover, and that her husband's object was the diabolical one of increasing her misery by the sight of the man whom she had loved and forsaken. Why had she forsaken Beaufort for this rude barnyard hero? Was it for the sake of his great house, which happily was not visible from Dalrulzian, but which dominated half the county with gingerbread battlements, and the flag that floated presumptuous as if the house were a prince's? Had Carry preferred mere wealth, weighed by such a master, to the congenial spirit of her former lover? It fretted the young man even to think of such a possibility. And the visitors had fretted him each in some special point. They neutralised the breadth of the external landscape with their narrow individuality and busy bustling little schemes. He went out to breathe an air more wholesome, to find refuge from that close pressure of things personal, and circumscribed local scenery, in the genial quietness and freshness of the air outside. How busy they all were in their own way, how intent upon their own plans, how full of suspicion and criticism of each other! Outside all was quiet—the evening wind breathing low, the birds in full chorus. John refreshed himself with a long walk, shaking off his discouragement and partial disgust. Peggy Burnet was at her door, eager to open the gate for him as he passed. She had just tied a blue handkerchief about the pot containing her "man's" tea, which her eldest child was about to carry. As he sauntered up the avenue, this child, a girl about ten, tied up so far as her shoulders were concerned in a small red-tartan shawl, but with uncovered head and bare legs and feet, overtook him, skimming along the road with her bundle. She admitted, holding down her head shyly, that she was little Peggy, and was carrying her father his tea. "He's up in the fir-wood on the top of the hill. He'll no' be back as long as it's light."

      "But that is a long walk for you," said John.

      "It's no' twa miles, and I'm fond, fond to get into the woods," said Peggy. She said "wudds," and there was a curious sing-song in the speech to John's unaccustomed ears. When she went on she did not curtsey to him as a well-conditioned English child would have done, but gave him a merry nod of her flaxen head, which was rough with curls, and sped away noiseless and swift, the red shawl over her shoulders, which was carefully knotted round her waist and made a bunch of her small person, showing far off through the early greenness of the brushwood. When she had gone on a little, she began to sing like a bird, her sweet young voice rising on the air as if it had wings. It was an endless song that Peggy sang, like that of Wordsworth's reaper—

      "Whate'er the theme, the maiden sang

       As if her song could have no ending."

      It went winding along, a viewless voice, beyond the house, along the slopes, away into the paleness of the hill-top, where the tall pine-trunks stood up like columns against the light. It was like the fresh scent of those same pines—like the aromatic peat-smoke in the air—a something native to the place, which put the troubles and the passions he had stumbled against out of the mind of the young laird. He was reconciled somehow to Scotland and to nature by little Peggy's love for the "wudds," and the clear ringing melody of her endless song.

      CHAPTER VIII.

       Table of Contents

      In the midst of all the attentions paid him by his neighbours and the visitors who followed each other day by day, there was one duty which John Erskine had to fulfil, and which made a break in the tide of circumstances which seemed to be drifting him towards the family at Lindores, and engaging him more and more to follow their fortunes. When a life is as yet undecided and capable of turning in a new direction, it is common enough, in fact as well as in allegory, that a second path should be visible, branching off from the first, into which the unconscious feet of the wayfarer might still turn, were the dangers of the more attractive way divined. There is always one unobtrusive turning which leads to the safe track; but how is the traveller to know that, whose soul is all unconscious of special importance in the immediate step it takes? John Erskine contemplated his rapprochement to the Lindores with the greatest complacency and calm. That it could contain any dangers, he neither knew nor would have believed: he wanted nothing better than to be identified with them, to take up their cause and be known as their partisan. Nevertheless Providence silently, without giving him any warning, opened up the other path to him, and allowed him in ignorance to choose. If he had known, probably it would not have made the least difference. Young heroes have never in any known history obeyed the dictates of any monitor, either audible or inaudible, who warned them against one connection and in favour of another. Nevertheless he had his chance, as shall be seen. The morning after his first dinner at the Castle, which had been the reopening of a delightful world to him, he decided that he had put off too long his visit to his only relative, and set off through the soft May sunshine, for it was beautiful weather, to pay his respects to his old aunt at Dunearn.

      The house of Miss Barbara Erskine at Dunearn opened direct from the street. It was one of the same class of homely Scotch houses to which Dalrulzian itself belonged; but whereas Dalrulzian, being a mansion-house, had two gables, Miss Barbara's Lodging, as she liked it to be called, had but one, stepping out into the broad pathway, not paved, but composed of sand and gravel, which ran along one side of the South Street. This gable was broad enough to give considerable size to the drawing-room which filled the upper story, and which had windows every way, commanding the street and all that went on in it, which was not much. The house was entered by an outside stair, which gave admission to the first floor, on which all the rooms of "the family" were, the floor below being devoted to the uses of the servants, with the single exception of the dining-parlour, which was situated near the kitchen for the convenience of the household. Behind there was a large fragrant old-fashioned garden full of sweet-smelling flowers, interspersed with fruit-trees, and going off into vegetables at the lower end. Notwithstanding that it was so far north, there were few things that would not grow in this garden, and it was a wilderness of roses in their season. Except one or two of the pale China kind—the monthly rose, as Miss Barbara called it, which is so faithful and blows almost all the year round—there were no roses in May; but there was a wealth of spring flowers filling all the borders, and the air was faintly sweet as the old lady walked about in the morning sunshine enjoying the freshness and stir of budding life. She was a portly old lady herself, fresh and fair, with a bright complexion, notwithstanding seventy years of wear and tear, and lively hazel eyes full of vivacity and inquisitiveness. She was one of the fortunate people who take an interest in everything, and to whom life continues full of excitement and variety to the end. She walked as briskly as though she had been twenty years younger, perhaps more so; for care does not press upon seventy as upon fifty, and the only burden upon her ample shoulders was that of years. She had a soft white Indian shawl wrapped round her, and a hood with very soft blue ribbons tied over her cap. She liked a pretty ribbon as well as ever, and was always well dressed. From the garden, which sloped downwards towards the river, there was an extensive view—a prospect of fields and scattered farmhouses spreading into blue distance,

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