Now John Erskine was aware that he did not himself possess political opinions sufficiently strenuous to be acknowledged by either side. He agreed sometimes with one party, sometimes with another, which, politically speaking, is the most untenable of all positions. And so ignorant was he of the immediate traditions of his family, that he could not divine which was "the right side" on which the Erskines were sure to be. It was not a question upon which his mother could have informed him. As Mr Kingsford's wife, an orthodox Church of England clergywoman, she was, of course, soundly Conservative, and thought she hated everything that called itself Liberal – which word she devoutly believed to include all kinds of Radical, revolutionary, and atheistical sentiments. John himself had been a good Tory too when he was at Eton, but at Oxford had veered considerably, running at one time into extreme opinions on the other side, then veering back, and finally settling into a hopeless eclectic, who by turns sympathised with everybody, but agreed wholly with nobody. Still it was whimsical not even to know the side on which the Erskines were declared with so much certainty to be. It pleased him at least to find that they had character enough to have traditionary politics at all.
"You must excuse me as a stranger," he said, "if I don't quite know what side you regard as the – right side."
His friend looked at him with a sarcastic gaze – a look John felt which set him down not only as devoid of ordinary intelligence, but of common feeling. "It's clear to see you are not of that way of thinking," he said.
As he uttered this contemptuous verdict they came opposite to a gate, guarded by a pretty thatched cottage which did duty for a lodge. John felt his heart give a jump, notwithstanding the abashed yet amused sensation with which he felt himself put down. It was the gate of Dalrulzian: he remembered it as if he had left it yesterday. A woman came to the gate and looked out, shielding her eyes with her hand from the level afternoon sun that shone into them. "Have you seen anything of our young master, John Tamson?" she said. "I'm aye thinking it's him every sound I hear."
"There's the road," said the rural politician, briefly addressing John; then he turned to the woman at the gate. "If it's no him, I reckon it's a friend. Ye had better pit your questions here," he said.
"John Thomson," said John, with some vague gleam of recollection. "Are you one of the farmers?" The man looked at him with angry, the woman with astonished, eyes.
"My freend," said John Thomson, indignantly, "I wouldna wonder but you have plenty of book-learning; but you're an ignorant young fop for a' that, if you were twenty times the laird's freend."
John for his part was too much startled and amused to be angry. "Am I an ignorant young fop?" he said. "Well, it is possible – but why in this particular case – "
"Noo, noo," said the woman, who left the lodge, coming forward with her hands spread out, and a tone of anxious conciliation. "Dear bless me! what are you bickering about? He's no a farmer, but he's just as decent a man – nobody better thought of for miles about. And, John Tamson, I'm astonished at you! Can you no let the young gentleman have his joke without taking offence like this, that was never meent?"
"I like nae such jokes," said John Tamson, angrily; and he went off swinging down the road at a great pace. John stood looking after him for a moment greatly perplexed. The man did not touch his hat nor the woman curtsey as they certainly would have done at Milton Magna. He passed her mechanically without thinking of her, and went in at his own gate – not thinking of that either, though it was an event in his life. This little occurrence had given an impulse in another direction to his thoughts.
But the woman of the lodge called after him. She had made a slightly surprised objection to his entrance, which he did not notice in his preoccupation. "Sir, sir!" she cried – "you're welcome to walk up the avenue, which is a bonnie walk; but you'll find nobody in the house. The young laird, if it was him you was wanting to see, is expected every minute; but there's no signs of him as yet – and he canna come now till the four o'clock train."
"Thank you. I'll walk up the avenue," said John, and then he turned back. "Why did you think I was making a joke? and why was your friend offended when I asked if he was one of the farmers? – it was no insult, I hope."
"He's a very decent man, sir," said the woman; "but I wouldna just take it upon me to say that he was my freend."
"That's not the question!" cried John, exasperated – and he felt some gibe about Scotch caution trembling on the tip of his tongue; but he remembered in time that he was himself a Scot and among his own people, and he held that unruly member still.
"Weel, sir," said the woman, "if ye will ken – but, bless me! it's easy to see for yourself. The farmers about here are just as well put on and mounted and a' that as you are. John Tamson! he's a very decent man, as good as any of them – but he's just the joiner after a', and a cotter's son. He thought you were making a fool of him, and he's not a man to be made a fool o'. We're no so civil-like – nor may be so humble-minded, for anything I can tell – as the English, sir. Baith the Cornel and his lady used to tell me that."
It was with a mixture of irritation and amusement that John pursued his way after this little encounter. And an uncomfortable sensation, a chill, seemed to creep over his mind, and arrest his pleasurable expectations as he went on. The avenue was not so fine a thing as its name implied. It was not lined with noble trees, nor did it sweep across a green universe of parks and lawns like many he had known. It led instead up the slope of the hill, through shrubberies which were not more than copsewood in some places, and under lightly arching trees not grand enough or thick enough to afford continuous shade. And yet it was sweet in the brightness of the spring tints, the half-clothed branches relieved against that variable yet smiling sky, the birds in full-throated chorus, singing welcome with a hundred voices, – no nightingales there, but whole tribes of the "mavis and the merle," north-country birds and kindly. His heart and mind were touched alike with that half-pathetic pleasure, that mixture of vague recollections and forgetfulness, with which we meet the half-remembered faces, and put out our hands to meet the grasp of old friends still faithful though scarcely known. A shadow of the childish delight with which he had once explored these scanty yet fresh and friendly woods came breathing about him: "The winds came to me from the fields of sleep." He felt himself like two people: one, a happy boy at home, familiar with every corner; the other a man, a spectator, sympathetically excited, faltering upon the forgotten way, wondering what lay round the next curve of the road. It was the strangest blending of the known and the unknown.
But when John Erskine came suddenly, as he turned the corner of that great group of ash-trees, in sight of his house, these vague sensations, which were full of sweetness, came to an end with a sharp jar and shock of the real. Dalrulzian was a fact of the most solid dimensions, and dispersed in a moment all his dreams. He felt himself come down suddenly through the magical air, with a sensation of falling, with his feet upon the common soil. So that was his home! He felt in a moment that he remembered it perfectly, – that there had never been any illusions about it in his mind, – that he had known all along every line of it, every step of the gables, the number of the little windows, the slopes of the grey roof. But it is impossible to describe the keen sense of disenchantment which went through his mind as he said this to himself. It was not only that the solid reality dispersed his vision, but that it afforded a measure by which to judge himself and his fortunes, till now vaguely and pleasantly exaggerated in his eyes. It is seldom indeed that the dim image of what was great and splendid to us in our childhood does not seem ludicrously exaggerated when we compare it with the reality. He who had felt himself a young prince in disguise, approaching his domains incognito, in order to enjoy at his leisure the incense of universal interest, curiosity, and expectation! John Erskine blushed crimson though nobody saw him, as he stood alone at the corner of his own avenue and recognised the mistake he had made, and his own unimportance, and all the folly of his simple over-estimate. Fortunately, indeed, he had brought nobody with him to share in the glories of his entry upon his kingdom. He thanked heaven for that, with a gasp of horror at the thought of the crowning ridicule he had escaped. It was quite hard enough to get over the first startling sensation of reality alone.
And yet it was the same house upon which the Barringtons had looked back so affectionately a few hours before – which the county regarded with approval, and which was visited by the best families. It would be hard to say what its young master had expected, – a dream-castle, a habitation graceful and stately, a something built out of clouds, not out of old Scotch rubble-work and grey stone. It was not looking its best, it must be added. The corps du logis lay in gloom, thrown into shade by the projecting rustic gable, upon the other side of which the setting sun still played; the yellowish walls, discoloured here and there by damp, had no light upon them to throw a fictitious glow over their imperfections. The door stood open, showing the hall with its faded fittings, gloomy and unattractive, and, what was more, deserted, as if the house had been abandoned to dreariness and decay – not so much as a dog to give some sign of life. When the young man, rousing himself with an effort, shook off the stupor of his disappointment and vexation, and went on to the open door, his foot on the gravel seemed to wake a hundred unaccustomed echoes: and nobody appeared. He walked in unchallenged, unwelcomed, going from room to room, finding all equally desolate. Was there ever a more dismal coming home? When he reached the library, where a little fire was burning, this token of human life quite went to the young fellow's heart. He was standing on the hearth very gloomy, gazing wistfully at the portrait of a gentleman in a periwig over the mantelpiece, when the door was pushed open and old Rolls appeared with his coat off, carrying a basket of wood. Rolls was as much startled as his master was disappointed, and he was vexed to be seen by a stranger in so unworthy an occupation. He put down his basket and glanced at his shirt-sleeves with confusion. "I was expecting nobody," he said in his own defence. "And wha may ye be," he added, "that comes into the mansion-house of Dalrulzian without speering permission, or ringing a bell, or chapping at a door?" John smiled at the old man's perplexity, but said nothing. "You'll be a friend of our young master's?" he said, tentatively; then after an interval, in a voice with a quiver in it, "Your no meaning, sir, that you're the laird himself?"
"For want of a better," said John, amused in spite of himself. "And you're old Rolls. I should have known you anywhere. Shake hands, man, and say you're glad to see me. It's like a house of the dead."
"Na, sir, no such things; there's no death here. Lord bless us! wha was to think you would come in stealing like a thief in the night, as the Bible says?" said Rolls, aggrieved. He felt that it was he who was the injured person. "It was all settled how you were to be received as soon as the wheels were heard in the avenue, – me on the steps, and the women behind, and Andrew, – the haill household, to wit. If there's any want of respect, it's your ain fault. And if you'll just go back to the avenue now and give us warning, I'll cry up the women in a moment," the old servant said.
CHAPTER III
That night dispersed illusions from the mind of John Erskine which it had taken all his life to set up. He discovered in some degree what his real position was, and that it was not a great one. He got rid of many of his high notions as he walked about the pleasant, comfortable, but somewhat dingy old house, which no effort of the imagination could make into a great house. He made acquaintance with the household. Mrs Rolls the cook, who curtseyed and cried for pleasure at the sight of him, and two smiling, fair-haired young women, and old Andrew the gardener – a quite sufficient household for the place, he felt, but very different from the army of servants, all so noiseless, punctilious, carefully drilled, whom he had seen at country-houses, with which he had fondly hoped his own might bear comparison. What a fool he had been! These good honest folk have little air of being servants at all. Their respect was far less than their interest in him; and their questions were more like those of poor relatives than hired attendants. "I hope your mammaw is well, Mr John," Bauby the cook had said. "Let the master alone with your Mr Johns," Rolls had interrupted; "he's come to man's estate, and you must learn to be more respectful. The women, sir, are all alike; you can never look for much sense from them." "Maybe you're right, Tammas," said Bauby; "but for all that I cannot help saying that its an awfu' pleasure to see Mr John, that was but that height when I saw him last, come home a braw gentleman like what I mind his father." John could do nothing but stand smiling between them, hearing himself thus discussed. They made it very clear that he had come home where he would be taken ample care of – but how different it was from his thoughts! He thought of the manor-house at Milton Magna, and laughed and blushed at the ridiculous comparisons he had once made. It was a keen sort of self-ridicule, sharp and painful. He did not like to think what a fool he had been. Now he came to think of it, he had quite well remembered Dalrulzian. It was not his youthful imagination that was to blame, but a hundred little self-deceits, and all the things that he had been in the habit of hearing about his own importance and his Scotch property. His mother had done more than any one else to deceive him, he thought; and then he said to himself, "Poor mother!" wondering if, perhaps, her little romance was all involved in Dalrulzian, and if it was a sacred place to her. To think that the Kingsford household was prose, but the early life in which she had been Harry Erskine's wife and little John's mother, the poetry of her existence, was pleasant to her son, who was fond of his mother, though she was not clever, nor even very sensible. John thought, with a blush, of the people whom he had invited to Dalrulzian under that extraordinary mistake – some of his friends at college, young fellows who were accustomed to houses full of company and stables full of horses. There was nothing in the stables at Dalrulzian but the hired horse which had been provided by Rolls in a hired dogcart to bring him up from the station; and as he looked round upon the room in which he sat after dinner, and which was quite comfortable and highly respectable, though neither dignified nor handsome, poor John burst into a laugh, in which there was more pain than amusement. He seemed to himself to be stranded on a desert shore. What should he do with himself, especially during the long summer, when there could be no hunting, no shooting, – the summer which he had determined to occupy, with a fine sense of duty, in making acquaintance with his house and his surroundings, and in learning all his duties as a country gentleman and person of importance? This thought was so poignant, that it actually touched his eyelids with a sense of moisture. He laughed – but he could have cried. There would turn out, he supposed, to be about three farms on this estate of his; and Scotch farmers were very different people from the small farmers of the South. To talk about his tenants would be absurd. Three pragmatical Scotchmen, much better informed in all practical matters at least than himself, and looking down upon him as an inexperienced young man. What a fool he had been! If he had come down in August for the shooting, – if there was any shooting, – and let his friends understand that it was a mere shooting-box – a "little place in Scotland," such as they hired when they came to the moors, – all would have been well. But he had used no disparaging adjectives in speaking of Dalrulzian. He had called it "my place" boldly, and had believed it to be a kind of old castle – something that probably had been capable of defence in its day. Good heavens! what a fool he had been!
He had thought he would be glad to get to bed, and felt pleased that he was somewhat tired with his journey; but he found that, on the contrary, the night flew by amidst these thoughts, – fathomless night, slow and dark and noiseless. Rolls had made repeated attempts to draw him into conversation in what that worthy called the fore-night; but by ten o'clock or so, the house was as still as death, not a sound anywhere, and the hours passed over him while he sat and thought. A little fire crackled and burned in the grate, with little pétillements and bursts of flame. There were a good many books on the shelves; that was always something: and Mrs Rolls had given him an excellent dinner, which he ought to have considered also as a very great alleviation of the situation. John scarcely knew what hour it was when, starting suddenly up in the multitude of his thoughts, he threw open the window which looked upon the Walk, and gazed out moodily upon the night. The night was soft and clear, and the great stretch of the landscape lay dimly defined under a half-veiled poetic sky, over which light floating vapours were moving with a kind of gentle solemnity. There was not light enough to distinguish the individual features of the scene, save here and there a pale gleam of water, a darkness of wood, and the horizon marked by that faint silvery edge which even by night denotes the limit of human vision. The width, the freshness, the stillness, the dewy purity of the air, soothed the young man as he stood and looked out. What was he, a human unit in the great round of space, to be so disconcerted by the little standing-ground he had? He felt abased as he gazed, and a strange sense of looking out upon his life came over him. His future was like that – all vague, breathing towards him a still world full of anticipations, full of things hidden and mysterious – his, and yet not his, as was the soil and the fields. He could mortgage it as he could his estate, but he could not sell it away from him, or get rid of what was in it, whether it carried out his foolish expectations or not. Certainly the sight of this wide scenery, in which he was to perform his part, did him good, though he could not see it. He closed the window, which was heavy, almost with violence, as he came back to the ascertained, – to the limited walls with their books, the old-fashioned original lamp, and crackling fire.
But this sound was very unusual in the house in the middle of the night. Bauby, whose room was next her brother's, knocked upon the wall to rouse him. "D'ye hear that, Tammas? There's somebody trying to get into the house." Her voice came to Rolls faintly muffled by the partition between. He had heard the noise as well as she, but he did not think fit to answer save by a grunt. Then Bauby knocked again more loudly. "Tammas! Man, will ye no put on your breeks and go down and see what it is?" Rolls, for his part, was already in the midst of a calculation. So much plate as there was in the house he had brought up with him to his room. "They cannot steal tables and chairs," he said to himself; "and as for the young laird, if he's not able to take care of himself, he'll be none the better of me for a defender." Audibly he answered, "Hold your tongue, woman. If the master likes to take the air in the sma' hours, what's that to you or me?" There was a pause of dismay on Bauby's part, and then a faint ejaculation of "Lord bless us! take the air!" But she was less easily satisfied than her brother. When John went up-stairs with his candle, he saw a light glimmering in the gallery above, and a figure in white, far too substantial to be a ghost, leaning over the banisters. "Eh, sir! is it you, Mr John?" Bauby said. "I was feared it was robbers;" and then she added in her round, soft, caressing voice, "but you mustna take the air in the middle of the night: you'll get your death of cold, and then, what will your mammaw say to me, Mr John?" John shut himself up in his room, half laughing, half affronted. It was many years since he had been under the sway of his "mamma" in respect to his hours and habits; and nothing could be more droll than to go back to the kind annoyance of domestic surveillance just at the moment when his manhood and independence were most evident. He laughed, but the encounter brought him back, after he had been partly freed from it, to a consciousness of all his limitations once more.
But things were better in the morning. Unless you have something bitter to reproach yourself with, or some calamity impending over you, things are generally better in the morning. John looked about him with more hopeful eyes. He had an excellent, a truly Scotch, breakfast, which, at five-and-twenty, puts a man in good-humour with himself; and there were one or two features about Dalrulzian which, in the morning sunshine, looked more encouraging. The stables were tolerably good, made habitable, and furnished with some of the latest improvements by Colonel Barrington; and "the policy" was in admirable order, – the turf faultless, the shrubberies flourishing, the trees – well, not like the trees at Milton Magna, but creditable performances for the North. John's countenance cleared as he inspected everything. Rolls led or followed him about with great importance, introducing and explaining. Had he been an English butler, John would have dismissed him very summarily to his pantry; but it was part of the natural mise en scène to have a Caleb Balderstone attached to an old Scotch house. He was half proud of this retainer of the family, though he threatened to be something of a bore; even Bauby, and her care for his health, and her sense of responsibility to his "mammaw," was tolerable in this light. When one is born a Scotch laird, one must accept the natural accompaniments of the position; and if they were sometimes annoying, they were at least picturesque. So John put up with Rolls, and "saw the fun" of him with a kind of feeling that Dalrulzian was a Waverley novel, and he himself the hero. He had been seeing things so much through the eyes of his problematical visitors, that he was glad to see this also through their eyes. To them, these servants of his would be altogether "characteristic," and full of "local colour." And then the subtle influence of property began to affect the young man and modify his disappointment. "A poor thing, sir, but mine own," he said to himself. These were "my plantations" that crested the hill; the fishing on the river was said to be excellent, and belonged to Dalrulzian; the moorland on the eastern side of the hill was "my moor." Things began to mend. When he went back again after his examination to the room from which he had started, John found a luncheon spread for him, which was not inferior to the breakfast, and Rolls, in his black coat, having resumed the butler, and thrown off the factotum, but not less disposed to be instructive than before.
"You may as well," young Erskine said, eating an admirable cutlet, "tell me something about my neighbours, Rolls."
"I'll do that, sir," said Rolls, with cordiality; and then he made a pause. "The first to be named is no to call a neighbour; but I hope, sir, you'll think far mair of her than of any neighbour. She's your ain best blood, and a leddy with a great regard for Dalrulzian, and not another friend so near to her as you. It came from Dalrulzian, and it'll come back to Dalrulzian with careful guiding," said Rolls, oracularly; "not to say that blood's thicker than water, as the auld Scots byword goes."
This address gave John some sense of perplexity; but after an interval he discovered what it meant. "It is my old Aunt Barbara of whom you are speaking," he said. "Certainly, I shall see her first of all."
"She is an excellent lady, sir; careful of her money. It will be real good for the estate when – But, bless me! I wadna have you to be looking forward to what may never come, – that is to say, that auld Miss Barbara, being real comfortable, sir, in this life, will not go out of it a moment sooner than she can help: and for a' that we ken o' heaven, I wouldna blame her; for, grand as it may be, it will aye be a strange place. There's nobody more thought upon in the county than Miss Barbara Erskine at Dunearn. Weel, sir, and the neighbours. There's the Earl of Lindores first of a'. We maun give him the paw, as the French say. Maybe you've met with some of the family in London? You'll see plenty and hear plenty of them here. The Earl he is a very pushing man. He would like to take the lead in a' the county business; but there's many of the gentry that are not exactly of that opinion. And my lady Countess, she's of the booky kind, with authors, and painters, and that kind of cattle aye about the place. I'm not that fond of thae instructed leddies. Weemen are best no to be ower clever, in my poor opinion. Young Rintoul, that's the son, is away with his regiment; I ken nothing of him: and there's two young leddies – "
"Now I remember," said John. "You are the most concise of chroniclers, Rolls. I like your style. I once knew some of the Lindores family – cousins, I suppose. There were young ladies in that family too. I knew them very well." Here he paused, a smile stealing about the corners of his mouth.
"I ken nothing about their relations," said Rolls. "It was an awfu' melancholy story; but it's an ill wind that blaws nobody good. The late Earl was liked by everybody. But I'm saying nothing against this family. One of the young daughters is married, poor thing! The other one at hame, my Lady Edith, is a bonnie bit creature. She was great friends with oor young lady. But if you were to ask my opinion, sir – which is neither here nor there," said Rolls, in insinuating tones – "I would say there was not one that was fit to hold the candle to Miss Nora. We had our bits of tiffs, the Cornel and me. There were some things he would never see in a proper light; but they were much thought o', and saw a' the best company. When you let a place, it's a grand thing to have tenants that never let down the character of the house."
"You mean the Barringtons," said John. He was not much interested in this subject. They had been unexceptionable tenants; but he could scarcely help regarding them with a little jealousy, almost dislike, as if they had been invaders of his rights.
"And they were awfu' fond of it," said Rolls, watching his young master's countenance. "Miss Nora above a'. You see she's grown up at Dalrulzian. It was all they could do to get her away from the Walk this last morning. I thought she would have grown till't. If you and Miss Nora was ever to meet," the old servant added, in his most engaging tones, "I cannot but believe you would be real good – freends – "
"I see you have provided for every contingency," said the young laird, with a laugh. His Caleb Balderstone, he said to himself, was almost better, if that was possible, than Scott's. But John's mind had been set afloat on a still more pleasant channel, and he let the old man maunder on.
"It's true she's English," said Rolls; "but that matters nothing in my opinion, on what they call the side of the distaff. I'll no say but it's offensive in a man: putting up so long with the Cornel and his ways of thinking, I'm no a bad authority on that. But weemen are a different kind of creatures. A bit discrepancy, if ye may so call it – a kind of a different awkcent, so to speak, baith in the soul and the tongue, is just a pleasant variety. It gives new life to a family sometimes, and mends the breed, if you'll no think me coarse. A little of everything is good in a race. And besides being so good and so bonnie, Miss Nora will have a little siller of her ain, which spoils nothing. Not one of your great fortunes, but just a little siller – enough for their preens and rubbitch – of her ain."
Here, however, the pleasant delusion with which Nora's humble champion was delighting himself was suddenly dispersed by a question which proved his young master to be thinking nothing about Nora. "I used to know some of the Lindores family," John repeated, "a brother of the Earl. I wonder if they ever come here?"
"I ken nothing about their relations, sir," said Rolls, promptly. "It's thought the Earl's awfu' ambitious. They're no that rich, and he has an eye to everything that will push the family on. There's one of them marriet, poor thing!"
"I am afraid you are a fierce old bachelor," said John, rising from the table; "this is the second time you have said 'poor thing.'"
"That's my Lady Caroline, sir," said Rolls, with a grave face, "that's married upon Torrance of Tinto, far the richest of all our neighbour gentlemen. You'll no remember him? He was a big mischievous callant when you were but a little thing, begging your pardon, sir, for the freedom," said the old servant, with a little bow of apology; but the gravity of his countenance did not relax. "It's not thought in the country-side that the leddy was very fain of the marriage – poor thing!"
"You are severe critics in the country-side. One must take care what one does, Rolls."
"Maybe, sir, that's true; they say public opinion's a grand thing: whiles it will keep a person from going wrong. But big folk think themselves above that," Rolls said. And then, having filled out a glass of wine, which his master did not want; he withdrew. Rolls was not quite satisfied with the young laird. He betook himself to the kitchen with his tray and a sigh, unburdening himself to Bauby as he set down the remains of the meal on the table. "I wouldna wonder," he said, shaking his head, "if he turned out mair English than the Cornel himsel'."
"Hoot, Tammas!" said Bauby, always willing to take the best view, "that's no possible. When ye refleck that he was born at Dalrulzian, and brought up till his thirteenth year – "
"Sic bringing up!" cried old Rolls; "and a step-faither that never could learn so much as to say the name right o' the house that took him in!"
Meanwhile John, left alone with his own thoughts, found a curious vein of new anticipations opened to him by the old man's talk. The smile that had lighted on the corners of his mouth came back and settled there, betraying something of the maze of pleased recollections, the amused yet tender sentiment, which these familiar yet half-forgotten names had roused again. Caroline and Edith Lindores! No doubt they were family names, and the great young ladies who were his neighbours were the cousins of those happy girls whom he remembered so well. The Lindores had been at a Swiss mountain inn where he and some of his friends had lived for six weeks under pretence of reading. They had made friends on the score of old family acquaintance "at home;" and he never remembered so pleasant a holiday. What had become of the girls by this time? Carry, the eldest, was sentimental and poetical, and all the young men were of opinion that Beaufort the young University Don, who was at the head of the party, had talked more poetry than was good for him with that gentle enthusiast. Beaufort had gone to the Bar since then, and was said to be getting on. Had they kept up their intercourse, or had it dropped, John wondered, as his own acquaintance with the family had dropped? They were poor people, living abroad for economy and education, notwithstanding that Mr Lindores was brother to an earl. Surely sometimes the Earl must invite his relations, or at least he would be sure to hear of them, to come within the circle of their existence again. Young Erskine had almost forgotten, to tell the truth, the existence of the Lindores; yet when they were thus recalled to him, and the possibility of a second meeting dawned on his mind, his heart gave a jump of pleasure in his bosom. On the instant there appeared before him the prettiest figure in short frocks, with an aureola of hair about the young head – a child, yet something more than a child. Edith had been only sixteen, he remembered; indeed he found that he remembered everything about her as soon as her image was thus lightly called back. What might she be now, in her grown-up condition? Perhaps not so sweet, perhaps married – a contingency which did not please him to think of. And what if he should be on the eve of seeing her again!
The smile of pleasure, of amusement, even of innocent vanity with which in this airy stage a young man contemplates such a possibility, threw a pleasant light over his face. He went out with that smile half hidden under his fair moustache, which gave it a kind of confidential character between him and himself so to speak. As he had nothing else to do, it occurred to him to take a walk on the road to Dunearn, where he had seen the French-Scotch tourelles of Lindores Castle through the trees the day before, and "take a look at" the place – why, he did not know – for no particular reason, merely to amuse himself. And as he went down the avenue, that old episode came back to him more and more fully. He remembered all the little expeditions, the little misadventures, the jokes, though perhaps they were not brilliant. Carry lingering behind with Beaufort, talking Shelley, with a flush of enthusiasm about her: Edith always foremost, chidden and petted, and made much of by everybody, with her long hair waving, and those fine little shoes which he had tied once – thick mountain shoes – but such wonderful Cinderella articles! All these recollections amused him like a story as he went down the avenue, taking away his attention from external things; and it was not till he was close upon the gate that he was aware of the presence of two ladies, who seemed to have paused on their walk to speak to Peggy Burnet, the gardener's wife, who inhabited the lodge. His ear was caught by his own name, always an infallible means of rousing the most careless attention. He could not help hearing what Peggy was saying, for her voice was somewhat high-pitched, and full of rural freedom. "Oh ay, my leddy; the young maister, that's Mr John, that's the laird, came hame yestreen," Peggy was saying, "before he was expectit. The carriage – that's the bit dogcart, if you can ca' it a carriage, for there's nothing better left, nor so much as a beast to draw it that we can ca' oor ain – was sent to the station to meet him. When, lo! he comes linking along the road on his ain twa legs, and no so much as a bag or a portmanty behind him, and asks at the gate, Is this Dalrulzian? kenning nothing of his ain house! And me, I hadna the sense to think, This is him; but just let him in as if he had been a stranger. And no a creature to take the least notice! Mr Rolls was just out o' himsel, with vexation, to let the young maister come hame as if he had been ony gangrel body; but it couldna be called my fault."
"Surely it could not be your fault; if he wanted a reception, he should have come when he was expected," said a softer voice, with a little sound of laughter. Surely, John thought, he had heard that voice before. He hurried forward wondering, taking off his hat instinctively. Who were they? Two ladies, one elder, one younger, mother and daughter. They looked up at him as he approached. The faces were familiar, and yet not familiar. Was it possible? He felt himself redden with excitement as he stood breathless, his hat off, the blood flushing to the very roots of his hair, not able to get out a word in his surprise and pleasure. They on their side looked at him smilingly, not at all surprised, and the elder lady held out her hand. "After so long a time you will scarcely know us, Mr Erskine," she said; "but we knew you were expected, and all about you, you see."
"Know you?" cried John, almost speechless with the wonder and delight. "Mrs Lindores! The thing is, can I venture to believe my eyes? There never was such luck in the world! I think I must be dreaming. Who would have expected to meet you here, and the very first day?"
Peggy Burnet was much disturbed by this greeting. She pushed forward, making an anxious face at him. "Sir! sir! you maun say my leddy," she breathed, in a shrill whisper, which he was too much excited to take any notice of, but which amused the ladies. They cast a laughing look at each other. "Didn't you know we were here?" the mother said. "Then we had the advantage of you. We have been speculating about you for weeks past – whether you would be much changed, whether you would come at once to Lindores to renew old acquaintance – "
"That you may be sure I should have done," said John, "as soon as I knew you were there. And are you really at Lindores? living there? for good? It seems too delightful to be true."
They were both changed. And he did not know why they should look at each other with such a laughing interchange of glances. It made him somewhat uncomfortable, though his mind was too full of the pleasure of seeing them to be fully conscious of it. It was Edith, as was natural, who was most altered in appearance. She had been a tall girl, looking more than her age; and now she was a small, very young woman. At that period of life such changes happen sometimes; but the difference was delightful, though embarrassing. Yes, smaller, she was actually smaller, he said to himself, – "as high as my heart," as Orlando says: yet no longer little Edith, but an imposing stately personage at whom he scarcely ventured to look boldly, but only snatched shy glances at, abashed by her soft regard. He went on stammering out his pleasure, his delight, his surprise, hardly knowing what he said. "I had just begun to hope that you might come sometimes, that I might have a chance of seeing you," he was saying; whereupon Edith smiled gravely, and her mother gave a little laugh aloud.