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 Another Random Document on
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‘Scotsman’s bigger, and I’m on the Leeberal side mysel’. Toots! solitary!
there’s naebody less solitary than me.”
A cheerful soul is always a social centre, however humble it may be.
Jean’s friends accordingly went to see her, not out of pity, as to cheer a poor
solitary old woman, but for their own amusement, which in this kind of
social duty is by far the strongest motive. She was about the best-informed
woman on all Eskside. Every kind of gossip made its way to her; and I
doubt whether the people in Rosscraig House themselves, knew so well all
that had happened and all that everybody said on the night of little
Valentine’s arrival. She heard a great deal even from Mrs Harding herself,
the housekeeper, who could not resist the temptation of confiding a few
details, not generally known, to her old friend’s keeping. For Jean was
known to be a person in whom it was possible to repose confidence, not one
that would betray the trust placed in her. Besides, Mrs Moffatt had become
a person of importance since it was known in Rosscraig that Mr Pringle had
taken the Hewan for the season. Lady Eskside herself got out of her
carriage one day as she passed, and went to pay the old woman a visit. She
went into the cottage and complimented old Jean on the excellent order in
which she kept it. “I hear it has been taken by a relation of ours—Mr
Pringle,” she said.
“I didna ken he was a relation of your leddyship’s; but it’s Mr Pringle
sure enough. I was sure I kent the face—no doubt I’ve seen him coming or
going about the House.”
“He comes very seldom to see us,” said Lady Eskside. “In fact, before
my grandson was born he considered himself the heir—after my son, you
know; and he has been dreadfully disappointed, poor man, since. Val, don’t
go too near the dyke!”
“And this is the heir, nae doubt, my lady?—eh, what a bonnie bairn!
Nane that see him need ever ask the rank he’s born to. He has the look of a
bit little prince. And I wouldna say but he was fond of his own way whiles
——”
“More than whiles, more than whiles,” said the old lady, graciously; “he
is just a handful. But Mr Pringle has a large family, if it’s him. He will
never find room for his bairns in this little bit of a place.”
“It’s chiefly for the wee Miss he had with him, my lady. She’s delicate,
they say; and if ever a man was wrapt up in a bairn—and her so delicate
——”
“Dear me, I am sorry to hear it!” said Lady Eskside, whose sympathy
was instantly aroused; “will it be anything the matter with the chest? I am
always most afraid for the chest in children. Mr Pringle is a most excellent
man. He has been a little disappointed and soured perhaps—but he is an
excellent person. The air is sharp up here, Jean—too sharp for a delicate
child. If she should want anything, cream or fresh milk in the morning, be
sure you let me know. Cream is excellent for the lungs. I like it better than
that oil that doctors give now—nasty-smelling stuff. But if there is anything
the poor child should want, be sure you send to me.”
Lady Eskside was an acute woman, but she was foolish in this particular.
She caught her own healthy blooming grandchild on the edge of the low
embankment, where he was hazarding his life in warm enjoyment of the
risk, and gave him a kiss though he deserved a whipping, and said, “Poor
Sandy Pringle!” with the most genuine feeling. She went into Lord
Eskside’s library, when her drive was over, full of this information. “You
need not alarm yourself about Sandy Pringle, poor man,” she said; “he has
taken the Hewan on account of his poor little girl who is delicate—her
chest, I am afraid. If you remember, his mother died of consumption quite
young. It’s a terrible scourge when it’s in a family. My heart is sore for him,
poor man. When the child comes we must have her here, and see if anything
can be done. Perhaps if they were to take it in time, and send her to Madeira
or some of these mild places; there is always hope with a bairn.”
“My word, my lady, but you go fast,” said the old lord, with his little
keen eyes twinkling under his shaggy eyebrows. But he did not convince
her any more than she convinced him. And indeed, when the Pringle family
began to appear about the woods, every member of the household at
Rosscraig, down to my lady’s young footman, felt that curiosity of
opposition in respect to them which is almost as eager as the curiosity of
partisanship. Mrs Harding the housekeeper had for her part taken up Lord
Eskside’s view of the subject, and when she too made a visit to Jean Moffatt
one evening of the early summer, her purpose was of a more sternly
investigating order than that of Lady Eskside.
“How do you like the folk ben the house?” she said, as she sat at tea; the
cake she had brought “in a present” was placed on the table in the place of
honour, and the tea was “masking” before the fire. It was a soft evening in
May. The door was open, but the fire was not disagreeable, and the sound of
the Esk far down below the brae, and the rustling of the leaves close round
the house, were softened by the air of spring into a pleasant murmur. The
family “ben the house” being separated by a good Scotch stone wall from
old Mrs Moffatt’s nest, gave no sound of their neighbourhood, and nothing
but that wild but soft cadence of the waters and the trees interrupted the
homely domestic harmonies more closely at hand—the cheery little stir and
pétillement of the fire, the singing of the kettle, the purring of the cat, the
ticking of the old clock. Mrs Harding combined an earnest desire for
information with a very pleasant sense of the immediate comfort and ease
which she was enjoying. My lord and my lady were “out to their dinner,”
and Harding himself had promised to daunder up to the Hewan in the
gloaming and fetch his wife home. Being “out to her tea” was an unusual
event in the housekeeper’s responsible life, and the enjoyment it gave her
was great. “Eh, how quiet and pleasant it is!” she added, almost with
enthusiasm; “this is one of the days you can hear the grass growin’: and to
get away from a’ the stew and bustle o’ the dinner, the hot fire, and the
smell o’ the meat, and thae taupies that let one thing burn, and another boil
over. If I were to envy onybody in the world, I think, Jean Moffatt, it would
be you.”
“Hoots,” said the old woman, with a pleasant consciousness that her lot
was enviable; “when you and your man make up your mind to retire, my
certy, ye’ll be a hantle better off than the like o’ me.”
“And when will that be?” said Mrs Harding, with a sigh; “no as lang as
They live, for they couldna do without my man an’ me. But I was saying,
how do you like the folk ben the house?”
“You shouldna let yourself be keepit in bondage,” said Jean, with a touch
of sarcasm; “when folk maun do without ye, they can do without ye—I’ve
aye seen that. Oh, I like them real well. They come and they gang, and now
it’s a breakfast and now the bairns’ dinner—nothing more—and aye a maid
to serve them; so it suits me fine. The lads are stirring boys, and Missie’s a
darling. She makes me think upon one I lost, that was the sweetest o’ a’ my
flock. Eh, if you could but keep a girlie like that aye the same, what a
pleasure it would be in a house! But the bit things grow up and marry, and
have weans of their own, and get to be just as careworn and wrinkled as
yoursel’. I think whiles my Marg’ret, with ten of a family, and a man no
better than he should be, is aulder than me.”
 “It’s the course of nature,” said Mrs Harding—“we maunna grumble; but
I’m sure when I see a’ that folk have to go through with their families, I’m
thankful I have nane o’ my ain. Ye ken your Mr Pringle sets up to be our
heir! It’s real ridiculous if it wasna provoking. I could laugh when I think
o’t. He must have been terrible cast down when Mr Richard brought hame
his boy.”
“But I thought it was a randy wife, not Mr Richard——”
“Whisht!” said the housekeeper; “we’ll say no more about that. It’s no’ a
story I pretend to understand, but I’m rather thinking it was some Italian or
other that Mr Richard sent with the bairn. Foreigners are strange cattle. And
whether it was man or woman I wouldna say, for nobody saw them but my
man, and he’s confused about the story. But this is clear, it was Mr Richard
sent the bairn hame; and reason guid. You should have heard his man on
Eetaly and thae places. You might as well sell your soul to Satan, and better
too, for you would aye get something by the bargain—and there’s no even
that comfort out there. Ye canna but wonder at Providence that lets a’ that
play-acting and fiddling and breaking o’ the Sabbath gang on, and takes nae
mair heed than if a’ thae reprobats were sober, decent, kirk-going folk like
ourselves. But I’m thinking their time will come.”
“Poor bodies! I daur to say they ken nae better,” said Jean. “It’ll be by
the mother’s side that the Pringles and the Rosses count kin?”
“Na, how could that be, when he thinks himsel’ the heir? When ye’ve
ance lived in a high family, ye learn a heap of things. Titles never gang the
way o’ the spinning-wheel, nor land that’s entailed, as they call it. It’s lad
comes after lad, and the lasses never counted. I canna say it’s according to
justice, but it’s law, and there’s nae mair to be said. This is the way of it, for
my lady told me hersel’: A Ross married a Pringle that was an heiress two
or three hunder years ago, and took his wife’s name, which was a poor
exchange, though I’m saying nothing against the name of Pringle; my first
place was with the Pringles of Whytfield, a real fine family. And now that a’
the Rosses have died down to the present family, the Pringles have come
uppermost. My lady herself was six or seven years married before Mr
Richard was born. So ye see they’ve had the cup to their lips, as you may
say, more than once. That’s a thing I could not bide. I would rather be my
man’s wife, knowing I could be no better all my days, than expect to be my
lady, and never win further ben.”
 “It’s much the same in a’ ranks o’ life,” said Jean. “There’s my Marg’ret;
it’s been her desire a’ her days to get the house at the Loanhead, with a nice
bit land, that would gang far to feed her family. She’s had the promise o’t
for ten years back. Old John Thomson was to flit afore he died, but that fell
through; and when he died, they couldna refuse to let his son come in; and
then it was reported through a’ the parish that young John was to emigrate
——”
“I’ve heard that,” said Mrs Harding; “and I aye give my advice against
it: for nae man will ever succeed if he doesna work hard; and if he’ll work
hard, he’ll do very well at hame.”
“Young John was to emigrate,” continued Mrs Moffatt; “and it was a’
settled about his roup, and Marg’ret was sure of getting in by the term;
when what does he do but change his mind! I thought the poor lass would
have broken her heart; and oh, the fecht she has with a’ thae bairns and a
weirdless man. Then he had that awfu’ illness, and it was reported he was
dying. My poor Marg’ret came to me the day he was prayed for in the kirk,
with red een. ‘I’m doing naething but pray for him,’ she said; ‘for oh, if I
didna pray for him to mend, I would wish him dead, mother; and what
comfort could I have in onything that came to me after that?’ The man got
weel,” said the old woman, with a sigh; “he’s as weel as you or me, and a
hantle younger, and he canna make up his mind if he’ll go or bide. It’s
awfu’ tantalising; and it happens in a’ classes of life. I’m real sorry for the
poor gentleman, and I hope he doesna take it to heart like my Marg’ret,
poor lass!”
“Ye mean well,” said Mrs Harding, half affronted; “but to pity the next
heir is like grudging the Almighty’s mercies to us. Folk should learn to be
content. I’m no’ saying for your Marg’ret; but Mr Pringle is as weel off as
he has ony right to be, and why should he come spying upon my lord and
my lady? Folk should learn to be content.”
“It’s awfu’ easy when it’s no’ your ain case,” said Jean; “an’ I suppose
we’ve a’ as much or mair than we deserve; but that does not satisfy your
wame when you’re hungry, nor your back when you’re cauld. The maister
has never been out here since the first time. The leddy came once, a fine
sensible woman, that looks weel after her family; but it’s Missie that’s the
queen o’ the Hewan. As it’s such a fine night, and nane but bairns in the
house, if you’ll come ben we’ll maybe see them. I’ll have to think o’ some
supper for them, for thae lang laddies are just wolves for their supper. Or
maybe you’ll first take another cup o’ tea?”
Mrs Harding declined this hospitable offer, and rose, taking her shawl
and bonnet with her, for it was nearly the time, she remarked, when she
“must be going.” The two lingered outside to look at the hens, and
especially that careful but premature mother who had begun to “sit,” though
the weather was still but moderately adapted for the fledglings; and then
they made a momentary divergence to see “Grumphy,” who was the pride
of his mistress’s heart. “I’ll no’ kill him till after harvest, and I’ll warrant
you there’ll be no better meat between this and Edinburgh. Poor beast!” she
said, with a mixture of the practical and sentimental, “he’s a fine creature,
and has a fine disposition; but it’s what we a’ must come to. And yonder’s
where I would keep the coo—if I had ane,” she added with a sigh, pointing
to a little paddock. The cow was to old Jean what the barony of Eskside was
to Mr Pringle, and the house at the Loanhead to her daughter Marg’ret: but
the old woman’s lot was the easiest, in that the object of her desire was not
almost within her longing grasp.
 CHAPTER XI.
Lord and Lady Eskside, as the reader has seen, were not quite in accord
about their grandson: or at least they took different views of the
circumstances which attended his arrival. They took (perhaps) each the
view which came naturally to man and woman in such a position of affairs.
The old lord, although himself at length absolutely convinced that the boy
was his son’s child and his own heir, was deeply oppressed by the
consciousness that though there was moral certainty of this fact, there was
no legal proof. “Moral certainty’s a grand thing,” said Willie Maitland, the
factor, a man who knew the Eskside affairs to the very depths, and from
whom there were no secrets possible; but he spoke so doubtfully as to
inflame the mind of my lady, who sat by listening to their talk with an
impatience beyond words.
“A grand thing!” cried Lady Eskside; “it is simply everything: what
would you have more? And who can judge in such a question but
ourselves? my son, who must know best, and my old lord and myself, who
are next nearest? What do the men mean by their dubious looks? What can
you have more than certainty? Mr Maitland, with your knowledge of the
law, I would like you to answer me that.”
“Well, madam, as my lord says,” said Willie Maitland, who was old-
fashioned in his manners, “there is legal proof wanted. It may be just a
deficiency on our part—and indeed, according to the Scriptures themselves,
law is a sign of moral deficiency—but everything has to be summered and
wintered before the Lords of Session.”
“And what have the Lords of Session to do with our boy?” said my lady,
indignantly. “I hope we are not so doited but what we can take care of him
ourselves.”
“My dear Catherine, that is not the question.”
“What is the question, I would like to know?” said Lady Eskside,
flushing with the heat of argument. “Do I need the Lords of Session to tell
me whose son my own bairn is? I think you are all taking leave of your
senses with your formalities and your legal proof. Poor Alexander Pringle
there, up the water, cannot bring his delicate little girlie to the country for
change of air but you think he’s plotting against Val. If this suspicion and
distrust of every mortal is what your bonnie law brings, I’m thankful for my
part that I know nothing about the law; and I wish everybody was of my
mind.”
Lord Eskside and his factor went out quite cowed from my lady’s
presence. They were half ashamed both of the law and themselves, and I
think the visit which they made to the land which was being marked out for
“feus” was necessary to get up their spirits. Lord Eskside was rather excited
about these feus—allotments of land to be let for building, upon a kind of
copyhold which secured a perpetual revenue in the shape of ground-rent to
the proprietor: though he was a little disposed at the same time to alarm
himself as to the persons who might come to live there, and perhaps bring
Radical votes into the county, and corrupt a constituency still stanch, amid
Scotland’s many defections, to “the right side.” This public anxiety was a
relief to his mind from the private anxiety; for however public-spirited a
man may be, and however profound his interest in politics, the biting of a
little private trouble is more sharp and keen than that patriotic concern for
his country which drives him wild with excitement over a contested
election. Willie Maitland the factor—a man “very well connected,” half a
lawyer, half a farmer, and spoken of by every soul in the parish and on the
estate by his Christian name—was big and burly and easy-minded, and took
things much more easily than his lord. “By the time there is any question of
the succession,” he said, “the story will be clean forgotten. It will be many a
year, I hope, before Richard succeeds, let alone the boy.”
“Ay, ay, that is very true,” said the old lord, knitting his brows; “it may
be many a year; but it might be a question of days, Willie, for anything you
and me can tell. Well, well; for the moment we can make nothing better of
it; and here are the feus. Good morning, doctor! I hope you’re all well at the
Manse. It is a fine day for a walk. We are going to take a look at Willie
Maitland’s pet scheme here.”
“An excellent scheme,” said Dr Bruce, the parish minister, turning to
accompany them, with all that sober pleasure in something new which
moves the inhabitants of a tranquil rural district in favour of such gentle
revolutions as do not affect their own habits or comforts; and the three
gentlemen spent an agreeable half-hour pacing and measuring the
allotments. While they were thus engaged, Lady Eskside drove past with
Val on the coach-box, making believe to drive. “There is my lady with her
boy,” said Lord Eskside, waving his hand to them as they passed; but he
thought he saw an incredulous smile upon the face of the minister, which
took away from him all pleasure in the feus.
My lady worked while my lord thus allowed himself to be overcast by
every doubtful look. Strong in her moral certainty, she took every means
which lay in her power to spread the same conviction far and wide; and as
she worked very hard at this undertaking, she had a right to the success,
which she enjoyed thoroughly. Her chief work, however, was with the child
himself—the strange little unknown being unable to express all the
wonderments that were in him at his change of lot, who was in her hands as
wax in some respects, while in others she could make but little of him. Val
had reconciled himself to the revolution in his fate with wonderful facility.
He was so young, that after a few fits of violent weeping and crying for his
mother and his brother, he had to all appearance forgotten them; and being
indulged in every whim, and petted to the top of his bent, with abundant air,
exercise, toys, and caresses, had so adapted himself to his new position as
to look familiar and at ease in it before many weeks had passed. What
vague recollections and baby thoughts upon the subject might be in him,
nobody knew; but as childish recollections are in most cases carefully
cultivated, and exist by means of constant reminders, I suppose Val,
deprived of such aids, actually did forget much more readily than children
usually do. Lady Eskside devoted herself specially to his polish and social
education, to the amending of his manners and speech, and the imparting of
those acts of politeness which are the special inheritance of small
gentlemen: and she succeeded, to her own surprise, much more perfectly
than she had hoped to do. Val took to the teaching in which no books nor
perplexing printed symbols were involved, with perhaps a precocious sense
of humour, but certainly a readiness of apprehension which filled my lady
with joy. She taught him to bow, to open the door for her when she went out
or in, to listen, and to reply; and what was still more wonderful, to sit still
when circumstances demanded that painful amount of self-restraint. “A
little gentleman tries first of all to be pleasant to other people,” said his
instructress. “When you are out playing, you shall please yourself, Val, and
everybody will help you to enjoy yourself; but in company a gentleman
always thinks of others, not of himself.” And having well laid down this
principle, my lady proceeded, with great minuteness, to details. She thought
it was a certain sign of his gentle blood that he learned his social lesson
with such quickness; but I am inclined to believe that Valentine’s success
was owing much more surely to that latent dramatic power which exists in
almost all children, and which they are so proud and happy to exercise on
every possible occasion.
Certainly, whatever the cause was, the result was triumphant. When Val
was alone—in the nursery, where he ruled like a little despot, or out of
doors, where he conducted himself like a tiny desperado, always in mischief
—he was uncontrollable; but in the drawing-room, when his grandmother
received her visitors, or when he accompanied her on the visits which it was
now a point in her diplomacy to make, no little paladin born in the purple
could have shown more perfect manners, or behaved himself more
gracefully. He was acting a part, well defined and recognisable, and the rôle
gave him pleasure. Not that the child himself was conscious of this, or
could have defined what his instinct enabled him to do so perfectly; but yet
the mental exercise was one that excited him, and called forth all his
powers. The little actor threw himself off, as he jumped from the coach-
box, where he had been driving wildly, with precocious dash and nerve,
restrained, with difficulty, by the cautious old coachman, who knew exactly
how much my lady could put up with—and assumed in a moment the
gracious character of the little prince, suave, soft, and courteous, saying
what he had to say with childish frankness, and keeping himself still and in
order with a virtue which was heroic. From the Dowager Duchess to the
farmers’ wives on Eskside, everybody was satisfied by these performances;
and no reasonable creature who had seen Val’s little exhibition could have
lent a moment’s credence to the vulgar story of the “randy wife.” “I don’t
see the strong likeness to his father,” said the Dowager Duchess, who was,
as it were, the last court of appeal and highest tribunal of social judgment in
the county. “To me there is another type of feature very evident besides the
difference of complexion; but in manners he’s his father’s son. Not a lout,
like Castleton’s boy, who ought to be a gentleman, heaven knows! if race is
anything—on both sides of the house.” Lady Eskside felt the implied sting
about “both sides of the house,” but bore it heroically, knowing that the
Marquis of Hightowers, the Duke of Castleton’s only son, was like any
ploughman’s child beside her own bonnie boy; and it did not occur to her,
any more than it did to Val himself, that the whole secret of his success was
his superiority in dramatic power, and in enjoyment of that suppressed but
exquisite joke of mystification which children by nature love so dearly.
Probably it was the blood of gipsy and tramp and roadside mime in Val’s
veins which gave him more facility than usual in the representation; but the
same gift shows in every nursery in a greater or lesser degree. Little Violet
Pringle, with her dolls around her, discoursing to them—scolding one for its
naughtiness, and another for having neglected its lessons, with high
maternal dignity—was not more purely histrionic than was Val when he
played at being young prince and good boy, according to his grandmother’s
injunctions, and enjoyed the mystification—unless when it chanced to last
too long.
“He is a strange child,” said Lady Eskside to her favourite confidant
Mary Percival, whose visits became more frequent and prolonged after this,
and whose curiosity about the boy, whom she was not fond of, gave a
certain point of interest and almost excitement to the pleasure she had in
seeing her old friend. “He is a strange boy. When he goes out with me, you
should see, Mary, the gentleman he is. The politest manners—better than
Richard’s, for Richard was shy; never too forward, nor taking too much
upon him, but a smile and an answer for everybody; and ready to open the
door or hand you anything, as if he had been brought up to it all his life. But
when he comes home, he is just a whirlwind, nothing else—what is the
meaning of it? I sometimes think the spirits of both the bairns have got
together in one frame.”
“You have heard nothing of the other?”
“Nothing; nor of her, which is hard to bear. I cannot say for my own part
either, that I feel it so hard; but I’m sorry for my old lord. I never saw him
so full of fears and fancies. He thinks unless we can find her and the other
boy, that Val’s place in the world will never be sure. I tell him it’s just
nonsense. Who has anything to do with it but ourselves? and who can be
such judges as we are? But he will not listen to me.”
“I think Lord Eskside must be right,” said Mary. “Lawsuits are terrible
things, and bring great trouble. I know something about that.”
“Lawsuits!” said Lady Eskside, with a laugh. “If Sandy Pringle has the
assurance to bring a lawsuit, I think we could soon let him see his mistake.
Besides, what could he bring a lawsuit about? I don’t think you show your
usual sense, my dear. Because my lord and me have found our son’s son,
and have killed the fatted calf for our grand-bairn? The fatted calf is ours,
and not Sandy Pringle’s. He could scarcely make a case of that.”
 “No, indeed,” said Mary; but she did not feel any security in Lady
Eskside’s triumphant argument. Val had been out on one of his expeditions
with his grandmother, in which he had won all hearts, and now was in the
wood making the air ring with shouts, and letting out the confined
exuberance of his spirits in every kind of noise and mischief possible to a
child of his age. “That’s the boy,” said Lady Eskside, leaning from the open
window to listen. “You may be sure he is on the rampage, as Marg’ret
Harding says.” The smile upon the old lady’s face went to Mary’s heart;
there was the foolishness of love in it, as there was the foolishness of
triumphant security in her reasoning. She was not troubled by the problem
of this little creature so strangely thrown upon her hands, nor even by the
twofold life, which she wondered at. People do not analyse the characters of
their children, but accept them—often with a mingling of wonder at their
peculiarities, and frank unconsciousness of any cause for these peculiarities,
which is very strange to the beholder. Lady Eskside took pride in Val’s
versatility, even while it occasioned her some delighted wonder; but she did
not trouble herself by any speculation as to the qualities that produced it, or
the results to which it might lead.
Thus things went on for some years, and the country-side, as Willie
Maitland predicted, partially forgot the story. The boy grew tall and strong,
a favourite in society, and not unpopular among the rougher public of his
own age and kind, who, indeed, were chiefly represented to Val by the
Pringle boys. The Pringles continued to keep possession of the Hewan
partly because the children liked it, partly because the father still cherished
in his secret soul some hope of finding out the fraud which he believed was
being perpetrated against his rights and his boy’s; and as the cottage was
within easy reach of Edinburgh, some member of the family was almost
always there. Sometimes it was the mother, with Violet and the little ones,
—sometimes the boys alone, walking out in a dusty merry party, on a
holiday, for any diversion that happened to be in season. They came for
skating in winter, for fishing in spring and autumn; for the Esk above the
Hewan was sweet, and free from all poisonous paper-mills. And as they
were undoubtedly relations, though in a very distant degree, it was not
within the possibilities of Scotch politeness to refuse the boys some share of
the shooting; and it was in the company of Sandy and his stalwart brethren
that young Val first fired a shot and missed a bird. Though Lord Eskside
looked glum at the associations thus formed, and wondered more than ever
what Sandy Pringle meant, it was impossible to keep his grandson from the
company of the only boys within reach who were of his own class, or
something approaching to it. He learnt all kinds of manly exercises from
them or with them, and knew the way to the Hewan blindfold by night or
day, as well as he knew the way to his own chamber—a result which the
parents on either side were far from desiring, but seemed helpless to
prevent.
One day in the early summer, when the boy was about twelve years old,
he escaped, I don’t know how, from the tutor who had been brought from
Oxford for him, and whose life Val did his best to make a burden. He got
away quite early in the morning, and escaped into the woods, with a double
sense of pleasure in the thought that this holiday was surreptitious, the
conquest of his bow and his spear rather than lawful leisure granted by
lawful authority. Val had had no breakfast, but he did not mind—he was
free. He went away into the thickest of the woods and climbed a tree, and
lay there among the branches in a cradle of boughs which he had long since
found out, looking up at the breaks of blue sky through the leaves in the
fresh early morning, before anything was astir but the birds. Val was great
in birds, like most country boys. He listened to the universal twitter about
him, amusing himself by identifying every separate note, till he tired of this
tranquil pleasure. Then he looked out from his lofty retreat to count how
many different kinds of trees he could see from that leafy throne; and then
for a few minutes he lay back with his face to the sky, and watched the
white airy puffs of cloud which floated slowly across the blue, with a
dreamy enjoyment. But such meditative pleasures could not last very long.
It was true he had the delightful thought that he had played truant, and had a
whole day to himself, to fall back upon when he was tired, and this was
always refreshing. But after a while it weighed heavy upon Val that he had
nothing to do, and presently even the satisfaction of having stolen a march
upon Mr Grinder scarcely bulked so large in his mind as the want of
breakfast, which he saw no easy way of obtaining up here among the
leaves. He did not venture to go to a gamekeeper’s cottage for a share of the
children’s porridge, lest he should be led ignominiously back to Grinder and
grammar. All at once a brilliant idea suggested itself—the Hewan! In a
moment this notion was carried into practice; and Val, jumping down like a
squirrel from his nest in the branches, stole up the brae under the deepest
trees, through the ferns all wet with dew, to the little airy platform on which
the sun was shining, where the windows had just been opened and the day
begun. One little figure sat perched on the low earthen dyke looking down
the course of the Esk over tower and tree, and showing from far like a blue
flower in her bright-coloured frock. “It’s the flag,” said Val at first to
himself, as he toiled upward through the high ferns, keeping carefully away
from the path; then he corrected this first notion, and said, “It’s Sandy’s
cricket-cap;” and then he added to himself with animation, “It’s Vi!”
It was Vi, grown older and a little bigger since the first time she came to
the Hewan—a very stately, splendid, foolish, idle little person, full of
laughter and gravity and baby fun and precocious wisdom. She was as fond
of taking care of everybody as ever she had been, but she forgot herself
oftener, being older, and was not perhaps quite so severe on peccadilloes as
at six. She was a little alarmed when she saw the big thing struggling
upward among the ferns, and wondered whether there might really be a bear
or a wolf in the woods, as there used to be in ancient times. A lion it could
not be, Violet reflected, for the weather was too cold in Scotland for lions.
She did not like to run away, but she thanked Providence devoutly that none
of “the children” were here, and wondered with a delightful thrill of
excitement whether, if it should be a lion, it would do anything to her. Then
there came a whistle which Violet knew, and looking down through the
bushes with a pleasant sense of safety, she recognised the wayfarer. “Oh, is
it you?” she cried, calling to him from the top of her fortress: “I thought it
was a bear.” “Ay, it’s me. There are no bears nowadays. Who has come?”
said Val, laconic and sans cérémonie, as is the use of children, as he panted
upwards to the embankment, and putting his foot in a crevice swung
himself up with the aid of a tree. “You will break your neck,” said little Vi,
with great gravity; “how can you do such things, you foolish boys?—
nobody has come but me.”
“Nobody but you!” said Val, with a whistle of surprise and half regret.
Then he added with animation, “I’m awfully hungry; give us some
breakfast, Vi. I have run off from Grinder, and I don’t mean to go home till
night. You can’t think how jolly it is in the woods when there’s nobody to
stop you, and you have everything your own way.”
“Oh, Val!” cried Violet, not knowing how to express the tumult of her
feelings. She could not approve of such wickedness, but yet “playing
truant” bore a glorious sound about it. She had heard the words from
fraternal lips, mingled with sighs of envy. Sandy and the rest had never
gone so far as to play truant that she knew of; but the words suggested
endless rambles, woods and streams and wild flowers, and everything that
stirs a child’s imagination; and it was the beginning of June when the woods
are at their freshest, and Vi was all alone at the Hewan, hoping for nothing
better than a story from old Jean Moffatt to beguile the endless summer day.
Her eyes lighted up with excitement and curiosity. “Oh, Val! if they find
you, what will they do to you?” she cried with awe; “and where will you go,
and what will you play at?” she added, eager interest following close upon
terror. There was not a soul visible about the Hewan in the morning
sunshine. Old Jean had gone away to her own quarters on the other side of
the house, after putting Violet’s breakfast upon the table in the little parlour
—and was busy with her beloved Grumphy, out of sight and hearing. The
innocent doors and windows stood wide open; the child, in her blue frock,
musing on the dyke in childish dreaminess, had forgotten all about her
breakfast. Absolute solitude, absolute stillness, infinitely more deep than
that of the forest, which indeed was full of chatter and movement and
inarticulate gay society, was about this silent sunny place. The bold brown
boy, with his curls pushed off his forehead, his cheeks glowing, his dress
stained with the moss and ferns and morning dew, and his young bosom
panting with exertion, looked the very emblem of Adventure and outdoor
enterprise—the young reiver born to carry peace and quiet away.
“I’m awfully hungry,” was Val’s only response. “Vi, have you had your
breakfast? I think I could eat you.”
“To be sure I had forgotten my breakfast,” said Violet, tranquilly; “you
are always so hungry, you boys. Come in, there’s sure to be plenty for both
of us;” and she led the way in with a certain bustle of hospitality. There was
a little coffee and a great deal of fresh milk on the table (for old Jean by this
time had attained in a kind of vicarious way to the summit of earthly
delight, and had, if not her own, yet Mrs Pringle’s cow to care for, and made
her butter, and dispensed the milk to the children with a lavish hand)—with
two little bantam’s eggs in a white napkin, and fresh scones, and fresh
butter, and jam and marmalade in abundance. Val made a very rueful face at
the bantam’s eggs.
“Is that the kind of things girls eat?” he said; “they’re only a mouthful. I
should like a dozen.”
 “You may have one,” said Vi, graciously. “It’s my own little white
bantam, and they’re always saved for me; but if you’re so hungry, I’ll call
Jean—or I’ll go myself, and see what’s in the larder——”
“That is best,” said Val; “it’s nice to be by ourselves, just you and me.
Don’t call Jean; she might tell the gamekeeper, and the gamekeeper would
tell Harding, and somebody would be sent after me. You go to the larder,
Vi; and I’ll tell you when you come back what we’ll do.”
Violet ran, swift as her little feet could carry her, and came back laden
with all the riches the larder contained, the chief article of which was a
chicken-pie, old Mrs Moffatt’s state dish, which had been prepared for the
arrival of Mr and Mrs Pringle, who were expected in the afternoon. Vi
either forgot, or did not know, the august purpose of this lordly dish: and
when were there ever bounds to a child’s hospitality when thus left free to
entertain an unexpected visitor? She had some of the pie herself, neglecting
her little eggs in compliment to Valentine, who plunged into it, so to speak,
body and soul; and they made the heartiest of meals together, with a
genuine enjoyment which might have filled an epicure with envy.
“I’ll tell you what we’ll do,” said Val, with his mouth full; “we’ll go
away down by the water-side as far as the linn—were you ever as far as the
linn? There’s plenty of primroses there still, if you want them, and I might
get you a bird’s nest if you like, though the eggs are all over; and I’ll take
one of Sandy’s rods, and perhaps we’ll get some fish; and we can light a
fire and roast potatoes: you can’t think how jolly it will be——”
“We?” said Violet, her brown eyes all one glow of brilliant wonder and
delight; “do you mean me too?”
“Of course I mean you too—you are the best of them all,” said Val,
enthusiastic after his pie; “you never sneak nor whinge, nor say you’re
tired, like other girls. Run and get your hat; two is far better fun than one—
though it’s very jolly,” he added, not to elate her too much—“all by yourself
among the woods. But stop a minute, let’s think all we’ll take; if we stay all
day we’ll get hungry, and you can’t always catch fish when you want to.
Where’s a basket?—I think we’d better have the pie.”
A cold shiver came over Violet as she asked herself what old Jean would
say; but the virtue of hospitality was too strong in her small bosom to
permit any objection to her guest’s proposal. “After all, it’s papa’s and
mamma’s, not old Jean’s—it’s not like stealing,” Vi said to herself. So the
pie was put into the basket, and some cheese from the larder, and some
scones, and biscuits, and oatcake; the jam Vi objected to, tidiness here
outdoing even hospitality. “The jam always upsets, and there’s a mess,” she
said, with a little moue of disgust, remembering past experiences; therefore
the jam was left behind. Valentine shouldered the basket manfully when all
was packed. “You can bring it home full of flowers,” he said—a suggestion
which filled up the silent transport in Violet’s mind. Had it really arrived to
her, who was only a girl, nothing more, to “play truant” for a whole day in
the woods? the thought was almost too ecstatic—for you see Violet in all
her little life had never done anything very wicked before, and her whole
being thrilled with delightful expectation. Val put the basket down upon the
dyke, pausing for one last deliberation upon all the circumstances before
they made their start; while Violet, scarcely able to fathom his great
thoughts and advanced generalship, watched him eagerly, divining each
word before he said it, with her glowing eyes.
“We shan’t go by the road,” said Val, meditatively, “for we might be
seen. You don’t mind the ferns being a little damp, do you, Vi? If you hold
the basket till I get down, I’ll lift you over. But look here, haven’t you got a
cloak or something? Run and fetch your cloak—look sharp; I’ll wait here
till you come back.”
Violet flew like the wind for her little blue cloak, which, by good luck,
was waterproof, before she plunged down with her leader into the wet ferns.
Poor little Vi! that first plunge was rather disheartening, after all her
delightful anticipations. The ferns were almost as tall as she was; and her
little varnished shoes, her cotton stockings and frock, were small protection
from the wet. Excitement kept her up for some time; but when her
companion, far in advance of her, called loudly to Vi to come on, I think
nothing but the dread of being taunted with cowardice ever after, and shut
out from further participation in such expeditions, kept the child from
breaking down. She held out valiantly, however, and after various
adventures—one of which consisted in a scramble up to Val’s favourite seat
among the high branches, whither he half dragged, half carried her, leaving
the basket at the foot of the tree—they reached the bank on the side of the
water where the sun shone, and dried her wet skirts and shoes. Here the true
delight of the truants began. “Take off your shoes and stockings, and I’ll put
them in the sun to dry,” said Val, who, in his rough way, took care of her;
and Violet had never known any sensation so delightful as the touch of the
warm, mossy, velvet grass upon her small bare feet, except the other
sensation of feeling the warm shallow water ripple over them, as Val helped
her out by the stepping-stones to the great boulders at the side of the linn.
The opposite bank was one waving mass of foliage, in all the tender tints of
the early summer; whilst on that along which the children had been
strolling, the trees retired a little, to leave a lovely grassy knoll, with an
edge of golden sand and sparkling pebbles. Through this green world the
Esk ran, fretted by the opposition of the rocks, foaming over them so close
by Violet’s side that, perched upon her boulder, she could put her hand into
the foaming current, and feel it rush in silken violence, warm and strong,
carrying away with lightning speed the flowers she dropped into it—till her
own childish head grew giddy, and she felt all but whirled away herself,
notwithstanding that she sat securely in an arm-chair of rock, where her
guardian had placed her. Vi would have been happy, beyond words to tell,
thus seated almost in the middle of the stream, with the water rushing and
foaming, the leaves shining and rustling, the whole universe full of nothing
but melodious storms of soft sound—loud, yet soft, penetrating heart and
soul—had it not been for the freaks of that wild guardian, who would perch
himself on the topmost point of the boulder on one foot, with the other
extended over the rushing linn; or jump the chasm back and forward with
shouts of joyous laughter, indifferent to all her remonstrances, which,
indeed, he did not hear in the roar of the waterfall. But the fearful joy was
sweet, though mixed with panic indescribable. “Oh, Val, if you had fallen
in!” she cried, half hysterical with fright and pleasure, when they got back
in safety to the grassy bank. I suspect Val was rather glad to be back too in
safety, though he could not restrain the masculine impulse of showing his
prowess, and dazzling and frightening the small woman who furnished the
most appreciative audience Val had ever yet encountered in his short life.
I need not attempt to describe the consternation which filled all bosoms
in the two houses from which the truants had fled, when their absence was
discovered. The Pringles arrived to find their chicken-pie gone, and their
daughter—and Lady Eskside white with terror, consulting with old Jean
Moffatt at the cottage door. Jean was not so deeply alarmed, and could not
restrain her sense of the joke, the ravished larder, and the prudent provision
of the runaways; but poor Lady Eskside did not see the joke. “How can we
tell the children alone did it?” she cried, with terrible thoughts in her mind
of some gipsy rescue—some wild attempt of the boy’s mother to take him
away again. She was ghastly with fear as she examined the marks on the
dyke where the culprits had scrambled over. “No bairn ever did that,” cried
the old lady, infecting Mr Pringle at least with her terrors. Lord Eskside and
Harding and the gamekeepers were dispersed over the woods in all
directions, searching for the lost children, and the old lady was on her way
to the lower part of the stream, though all agreed it was almost impossible
that little Vi could have walked so far as the linn, the most dangerous spot
on Esk. “Would you like to come with me?” my lady said with white lips to
Mrs Pringle, whose steady bosom, accustomed to the vagaries of seven
boys, took less alarm, but who was sufficiently annoyed and anxious to
accept the offer. Mr Pringle got over the dyke in the traces of the fugitives,
to follow their route to the same spot, and thus all was excitement and alarm
in the peaceful place. “It is not the linn I fear—it is those wild folk,” cried
poor Lady Eskside in the misery of her suspense, forgetting that it was her
adversary’s wife who was also her fellow-sufferer. But good Mrs Pringle
was nobody’s adversary, and had long ago given up all thought of the
Eskside lordship. She received this agitated confidence calmly. “They could
have no reason to carry off my little Vi,” she said, with unanswerable good
sense. The two ladies drove down the other side of the hill to the water-side,
a little below the linn, and leaving the carriage, walked up the stream—one
of them at least with such tortures of anxiety in her breast, as the mother of
an only child alone can know. Mrs Pringle was a little uneasy too, but her
boys had been in so many scrapes, out of which they had scrambled with
perfect safety, that her feelings were hardened by long usage. At the linn
some traces were visible, which still further consoled Violet’s mother, but
did not affect Lady Eskside—Violet’s little handkerchief to wit, very wet,
rather dirty, and full of wild flowers. “They have been playing here,” said
the more composed mother. “She has been here,” cried the old lady; “but
oh, my boy! my boy!”
“I see something among the trees yonder,” cried Mrs Pringle, running
on. Lady Eskside was over sixty, but she ran too, lighter of foot than her
younger companion, and inspired with fears impossible to the other. The
sun had set by this time, but the light had not waned—it had only changed
its character, as the light of a long summer evening in Scotland changes,
magically, into a something which is not day, but as clear as day, sweeter
and paler—a visionary light in which spirits might walk abroad, and all
sweet visions become possible. Hurrying through this tender, pale
illumination of the woodland world about them, the two ladies came
suddenly upon a scene which neither of them, I think, ever forgot. It was
like a tender travesty, half touching, half comic, of some maturer tale.
Between two great trees lay a little glade of the softest mossy grass, with all
kinds of brown velvet touches of colour breaking its soft green; vast beech-
boughs, stretching over it like a canopy, and a gleam of the river just
visible. Over the foreground were scattered the remains of a meal, the
central point of which—the dish which had once been a pie—caught Mrs
Pringle’s rueful gaze at once. A mass of half-faded flowers, a few late
primroses, mixed with the pretty though scentless blue violet which grows
along with them, lay dropped about in all directions, having been, it
appeared, crazily propped up as an ornament to the rustic dinner-table.
Against the further tree were the little runaways—Violet huddled up in her
blue cloak, with nothing of her visible but her little head slightly thrown
back, leaning half on the tree, half on her companion, who, supporting
himself against the trunk, gave her a loyal shoulder to rest upon. The little
girl had cried herself to sleep—tears were still upon her long eyelashes, and
the little pouting rose-mouth was drawn down at the corners. But Valentine
was not sleeping. He was pondering terrible thoughts under his knitted
brows. How he was ever to get home—how he was ever to get her home!
The boy was chilled and depressed and worn out, and awful anticipations
were in his mind. What would happen if they had to stay there all night
through the midnight darkness, among the stirrings of the mysterious
woods? Val knew what strange sounds the woods make when it is dark, and
you are alone in them—and a whole night! His mind was too much
confused to hear the soft steps of the two ladies who stood behind the other
big beech, looking, without a word, at this pretty scene—Lady Eskside, for
her part, too much overpowered by the sudden sense of relief to be able to
speak. I am not sure that a momentary regret over her chicken-pie did not
make itself felt in Mrs Pringle’s soul; but she, too, paused with a little
emotion to look at the unconscious baby-pair, leaning against each other in
mutual support; the little woman overwhelmed with remorse and fatigue,
the little man moody and penitent over the dregs of the feast, and the wild
career of pleasure past. But just then there came a crash of branches, and
louder steps resounding down the brae among the ferns, which made Val’s
face light up with hope and shame, and woke little Violet from her
momentary oblivion. Lord Eskside’s party of beaters, and Mr Pringle,
solitary but vigorous, all converged at the same moment upon this spot.
“Here, my lord,” said Willie Maitland’s hearty voice, with laughter that
made the woods ring—“here are your babes in the wood.”
 CHAPTER XII.
The exploit of the Babes in the Wood, as Willie Maitland called it, was
one of the last freaks which Valentine played in his childhood by Eskside.
Mr Grinder, who was from Oxford, a cultured and dainty young Don, was
recognised to be no fit tutor for a child who preferred the woods to the
classics, and could not construe a bit of Greek decently to save his life.
What agonies Mr Grinder went through while his term of office lasted I will
not attempt to describe. He was a young man of fine mind, one of the finest
minds of his day, and that was saying a great deal. He loved pictures and
fine furniture and dainty decorations as well as Richard Ross did, though
perhaps he was not quite so learned; and when he first saw the great green
cabinets in the drawing-room, could barely say the common civilities to
Lady Eskside before he went on his knees to adore the Vernis-Martin. It
may be supposed how little this dainty personage had in common with the
boy, always carrying an atmosphere of fresh air about him, his pockets
bulged out with unknown implements, his boots often clogged with mud,
and his hands not always clean, whom it seemed a kind of desecration to
introduce, all rustic and noisy, into the shadowy world of the Greek drama.
Mr Grinder, I am afraid, had looked with lenient eye upon his pupil’s
absence on that June day. He had not reported the truant, but reconciled
himself easily to the want of him; and it was only when the day was almost
over that he had taken fright at the boy’s prolonged absence. Lady Eskside
could not forgive him the panic he had caused her, and as soon as the most
exquisite politeness and delicate pretences of regret made it possible, Mr
Grinder and his knick-knacks were got rid of; and a hard-working student
from Edinburgh College, toiling mightily to make his way into the Scotch
Church, and indifferent what labours he went through to attain this end,
reigned in his stead. He was perhaps not so pleasant a person to have in the
house, my lady allowed, but far better for the boy, which was the first
object. The new man cared nothing about the sanctity of the Greek drama,
and perhaps did not know very much, if the truth were told. He turned
Valentine on to Homer, and marched him through battle and tempest with
some rough sense of the poetry, but very little delicacy about the grammar.
But he kept his eye upon his pupil, and got a certain amount of work out of
him, and prevented all such runaway expeditions, relieving the old people
from their anxieties for the moment at least.
Val was not an easy boy to manage. He had two natures in him, as Lady
Eskside said,—the one wild, adventurous, uncontrollable; the other more
than ordinarily impressionable by social influences. But when a boy gets
into his teens he is not so easily kept up to the pitch of drawing-room polish
as is a dainty little gentleman of eight in velvet and lace. With the period of
black jackets the histrionic power begins to wane—temporarily at least: and
when Val at thirteen turned his back upon the Dowager Duchess, and fretted
furiously against being taken to make calls, his terrified grandmother
thought immediately, not of his age, but of the mother’s blood, which made
him clownish; and not only thought so herself, but was seized with a panic
lest others should think so. It had made her proud to see how far her little
Val surpassed in manners the Marquis of Hightowers; but it did not console
her to think that Valentine now was no worse than his exalted neighbour.
For, alas! the mother of Hightowers had as many quarterings on her shield
as his august father, and the boy might be as great a lout as he liked without
exciting any remark or suspicion; whereas poor Val could never be free of
possible criticism on the score of his mother’s blood.
This troubled the serenity of his childhood, though Val himself did not
know the reason why. His recollections of the earlier period of his life had
grown very vague in these years. Val had been well disposed to be
communicative on the subject when he came to Eskside first. He had shown
on many occasions a dangerous amount of interest and knowledge as to the
economy of the travelling vans which sometimes passed through Lasswade
with shows of various kinds, or basketmakers or tinkers; and once had
followed one of them for miles along the road, and had been brought back
again much disfigured with weeping, whimpering that his mammy must be
there. But children are very quick to perceive when their recollections are
not acceptable to the people about them, and still more easily led into other
channels of thought; and as he had nothing near him to recall that chapter of
his life to his mind, he gradually forgot it. There was still a vague light of
familiarity and interest in his eyes if, by any chance, he came upon an
encampment of gipsies, or the vans of a show, or even the travelling tramps
upon the road; but the boy, I think, came to be ashamed of this feeling of
interest, and to divine that his early life was no credit to him, but rather
something to be concealed, about the same time as he ceased to be the
perfect little actor and social performer he had been in his first stage. He
began to be conscious of himself, that most confusing and bewildering of
experiences. This consciousness comes later or earlier, according to the
constitution of the individual; but when it comes it has always a confusing
influence upon the young mind and life. When one’s self thrusts into sight,
and insists upon filling up the foreground of the scene, it changes all natural
rules of proportion and perspective. The child or the youth has to review
everything around him over again to get it into keeping with this new
phantom suddenly arisen, which does nothing but harass his mind, and puts
him out in all his calculations. Me—how much has been said about it,
philosophies based upon it, the whole heaven and earth founded on this
atom! but there is nothing that bewilders the young soul so much as to see it
surging up through the fair, sunny, matter-of-fact universe, and through the
world of dreams, disturbing and disarranging everything. This change befell
Valentine early. I think it began from that day in the woods, which was full
of so many experiences. Even then he had been faintly conscious of himself
—conscious of “showing off” to dazzle Violet on the linn—conscious of
deceiving her as to their safety when she began to cry with fatigue and
loneliness, and he, upon whom all the responsibility of the escapade lay,
had to think how she was to be got home. In the chaotic bit of existence
which followed, when Oxford, worsted, left the field, and Edinburgh,
dauntless, came in, Valentine had a tough fight with this Frankenstein of
himself, this creature which already had lived two lives, and possessed a
vague confusing world of memories half worn out, yet not altogether
extinct, alongside of his actual existence. I do not mean to pretend that the
boy was a prodigy of reflectiveness, and brooded over these thoughts night
and day; but yet there were times when they would come into his mind,
taking all his baby grace away from him, and all the security and power of
unconsciousness. Lady Eskside did not know what had come over her boy.
She discussed it eagerly with her old lord, who tried in vain to dismiss the
subject. “He’s at the uncouth age, that’s all,” said Lord Eskside. “Oh, I hope
it is not his mother’s blood!” said the old lady. And thus the delightful day
of playing truant in the woods was the primary cause of a wonderful
revolution in Val’s affairs. The grandfather and grandmother made up their
minds to deny themselves, and send him to school.
The incident of the Babes in the Wood made a still greater impression on
the other culprit. Mrs Pringle took her little daughter home, not without
some emotion—for what mother can resist the delighted look of absolute
security which comes to the face even of a naughty child, when, out of
unimaginable danger and tragic desolation, it suddenly beholds the
Deliverer appear—the parent in whom Providence and Power and Supreme
Capacity are conjoined? But she was half amused at the same time; and
indeed the whole household at the Hewan regarded Vi’s escapade with more
amusement than alarm. “Oh, Miss Violet, to tak’ the pie!—that was a’ I had
for your papa’s and mamma’s dinner,” said old Jean. “They maun be
content with ham and eggs noo, for I’ve naething else in the hoose. My
larder’s sweepit clean,” she added, when Violet had been carried off to have
her damp and draggled garments changed. “Cheese and biscuits and
everything there was: my word, but yon laddie maun have a good stomach!
You wouldna think to bring the pie-dish back?”
“Indeed, we were too thankful,” said Mrs Pringle, “to find the bairns
——”
“Oh, the bairns! bless you, there was never ony fear o’ the bairns; but my
dish was new, or as good as new. I’ll give little Johnny at the farm a penny
to gang and look for’t. There was three fine fat young chickens, no’ to speak
of eggs and a’ the seasoning. If that laddie’s no’ ill the morn he maun be an
ostridge, or whatever ye ca’ the muckle bird ye get the feathers from; and a’
the morning’s milk and the new bread I laid in for your suppers! Just an
ostridge! I wish the laddie nae harm, but he should have a sair head the
morn, and a good licking, if he gets what he deserves.”
“Alexander,” said Mrs Pringle, an hour or two later, when she, with a
warm shawl on, took a seat for ten minutes on the earthen dyke to keep her
husband company while he smoked his cigar. The night was still clear, and
pale with the lingering of the light, though it was past ten o’clock; and the
western sky shone with such silvery tints of celestial hue, sublime visions of
colour, free of all earthly crudeness, as are never visible save in a northern
summer. “Alexander, Sandy’s wife, if he lives to have one, will never be
Lady Eskside; but I would not wonder if you and me had more interest in
that title than any daughter-in-law could give us. We’ll see what tune may
bring forth.”
“You mean you’ll have it yourself? I am sure I hope so, one day, my
dear,” said Mr Pringle, complacently: “not meaning any harm to Dick Ross;
but his was never a very strong life.”
 “I am not meaning myself,” said Mrs Pringle, provoked. “How obtuse
you are, you men! Neither you nor Sandy will ever have the lordship, you
may take my word for that.”
“And what do I care then who is my lady?” said the heavy husband. “I
don’t really see, my dear, why you should be so very decided against your
husband and son. One would think you would be more likely to take our
side.”
Mrs Pringle shrugged her shoulders slightly, and drew her shawl closer
round her. What was the use of throwing away her pearls—her higher
insight? She changed the subject; and by-and-by, having no consolation of a
cigar, and finding the lovely twilight chilly, though it was so beautiful, she
went in, and went up-stairs to the little room in the roof where Violet lay
warm and cosy, with her bright eyes still open, and turned to the soft clear
sky of which her attic window was full. “Oh, mamma, was it very, very
wicked to go?” said Violet. Her mother stooped to kiss the little tearful face.
“We’ll say no more about it, Vi—but you must never play truant again.”
“Never!” cried Vi, with a half sob which prolonged the word, and made
it echo through the tiny chamber. Alas! there was more than penitence in
that vow; there was regret, there was the ghost of a delight made doubly
precious by trouble and terror. Oh no, never again! but what had all Violet’s
discreet and exemplary life—a life irreproachable and full of every
(nursery) virtue—to show, which could compare with the transport, and
terror, and misery, and sweetness, of that one never-to-be-repeated day?
Vi had a great deal to bear afterwards, when the boys heard the story, and
held over her the recollection of the “day she played truant,” with all that
delight in torture which is natural to their kind. But with all this they could
not take from her the memory of it, which grew dearer in proportion as she
buried it in her own small bosom. The running of the water, the rustling of
the leaves, the solemn drowse of noon in the full sunshine, the soft velvet
rush of the foaming linn over the little fingers with which she tried to stop
its torrent, and all the stirs and movements among the trees, peopled the
child’s recollection for many a day. Seated at a dull window in Moray
Place, looking out upon the stiff garden with its shrubs—public property,
and unlovely as public property generally is—Violet could see once more
her bold companion leaping from one boulder to another, with the furious
Esk underneath, and feel again a delicious thrill of visionary terror. She had
learned more about “the country,” about woods and wilds, and birds and
squirrels, and about the sensations of explorers in a new-discovered land,
than anything else could have taught her. “I too in Arcadia,” she could have
said: her one day of playing truant was the possession out of which she
drew most enjoyment; and I leave the gentle reader to imagine, as Violet
grew older, whether she could dismiss the partner of this celestial piece of
wickedness into the mere common region of indifference, and leave him
there undistinguished by any preference. She was always Val’s defender
afterwards, when any discussion of his merits arose among the boys; and
what was more remarkable still, Mrs Pringle became Val’s warm partisan
and supporter, dismissing almost with indignation any suggestion which
might be made to his disfavour. She was impatient of what she called her
husband’s “whimsey” about his heirship. “It is just a piece of folly,” she
would say with some heat. “Are the Esksides fools to take up a false heir?
or what motive could they have? Your father is a very clever man, and has a
great deal of sense in a general way. But, boys, don’t you build any hopes
upon this, for it’s just nonsense. You may be sure they are not the kind of
folk to commit themselves, or expose the property to certain waste and
destruction, with an impostor for an heir——” That he should have so
important a deserter from his standard filled Mr Pringle with surprise. He
was justified in thinking that it would have been natural that, right or
wrong, she should have placed herself on her own boy’s side. But Mrs
Pringle was a woman who was given to an opinion of her own, and was not
to be persuaded out of it when once formed upon sufficient cause.
And thus the soft-paced time went on, gently, dallying with the children,
spinning out long tranquil days for them, and years that seemed as if they
would never be over, as he does not do with their elders. They grew up
slowly like the grass, which never shows itself in the act of growing, but is,
while yet we are unaware of it; the happiest of all life’s various periods—
not only to the younglings, who are unconscious of it, but also to the fathers
and mothers, who sometimes have an inkling of the truth. It looks long
while it is in progress, thank heaven—though after, I suppose, when it is
over, and the birds are out of the nest, it is like everything else in life, as
short to look back upon as a tale that is told. But in the meantime there is
little more to be said than that the children grew. And by-and-by Rosscraig
House fell into sudden shadow, as if the sun had gone behind a cloud, and
the voices in it died down into subdued sounds of old people’s voices, as
had been the case before the child came to it, turning everything topsy-
turvy. Val had been sent to school.
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