“for my ain part, that there’s not a young leddy in a’ Strathoran like Miss Aytoun. She’s out-o’-sight bonnier than Miss Anne.”
Jacky pushed him indignantly away.
“A fine judge you are. Like a big turnip your ain sel. A clumsy Swede, like what they give to the kye. But, Bessie, do you think Mr. Lewis is in – ” Jacky hesitated, her own singular romance making it sacrilege to speak the usual word in presence of those ruder comrades: “do ye think Mr. Lewis likes Miss Alice? he’s no courting her?”
Bessie smiled, blushed, and looked dignified.
“O, Jacky, how do I ken?”
“Does Miss Alice like him?”
“Jacky, what a question! Miss Alice disna tell me.”
Jacky looked at her inquisitively, and finishing her share of the conversation in her own abrupt fashion, shot into the byre to see the ailing cow, from whence she soon after stole into the Tower, where an irksome hour of compulsory stocking-knitting, in the comfortable housekeeper’s-room of Mrs. Euphan Morison, awaited Mrs. Euphan’s reluctant daughter. The room was a very cosy room in all things, but its disagreeable odor of dried and drying herbs; and Jacky, after a reproof from her mother, so habitual that it had sunk into a formula, took her customary seat and work. Bessie joined her, by-and-bye, with some little piece of sewing that she had to do for Miss Aytoun, and Johnnie Halflin, less dignified, betook himself to the kitchen fire, to read, or joke, or doze the evening out.
The time drew near when Mrs. Catherine’s doubts concerning Archibald Sutherland were to be solved. The strong old lady grew nervous on these dim mornings, and opened her letter-bag with a tremor in her hand; but when the latest day had come, there was still no letter from Paris. Impatiently she tossed them out. There were two or three letters of applicants for her vacant farm, the closely-written sheet of home-news for Alice, business-notes of various kinds, but nothing from the prodigal, whose interests lay so near her heart. She lifted them all separately again, turned out the bag – in vain. Her clear eye had made no blunder in its first quick investigation. Mrs. Catherine’s brow darkened. Alice hardly dared to approach timidly, and withdraw her own letter from the little heap. Not that the face of her kinswoman expressed anger, but it bore the impress of some unknown mental struggle, which Alice, in the serene light of her girlish happiness, did not even know by name.
So Alice stole up stairs to the fireside of her bright dressing-room, to read the long mother’s letter, overflowing with tender counsel and affection, and to weave fair dreams – dreams of joy and honor to that gentle mother, and all things pleasant and prosperous to James – round one unacknowledged centre of her own. Pleasant are those bright dream-mists of youthful reverie, with their vague fairy-land of gladness – pleasant to weave their tinted web, indefinitely rich and glorious, over that universe of golden air, with its long withdrawing vistas – the wealthy future of youth.
But Mrs. Catherine sat still alone, her head bent forward, her keen eyes looking into the blank depths of a mirror on the wall, as though, like the hapless lady in the tale, she could read the wished-for tidings there. The door opened slowly. Jacky, with some strange intuitive knowledge of her mistress’s anxiety, had been on the outlook from the window of the west room, and had now glided down stairs to report. Mrs. Catherine raised her head sharply as the girl’s prefatory “If you please!” fell on her ear.
“What ist’, you elf?”
“If you please,” continued Jacky, “it’s Mr. Ferguson, the Strathoran factor, gallopping up the waterside like to break his neck!”
Mrs. Catherine started to her feet.
“Take him to the library – I will be down myself in a moment. Are you lingering, you fairy? Away with you!”
Jacky vanished, and Mrs. Catherine walked hastily through the room.
“He will have gotten tidings!” And then she was still for a moment, in communion with One mightier than man, nerving herself for the “tidings,” whatever they might be.
Jacky stood at the open door as Mr. Ferguson gallopped up, but he did notice the unusual haste with which he was hurried into the library. A cold dew was on his honest forehead; regret and grief were in his kindly heart; the familiar ordinary things about him bore a strange look of change. The difference was in his own agitated eyes, but he did not think of that. Mrs. Catherine stood before him, calm and stern, in the library.
“Mr. Ferguson, you have gotten tidings?”
The firm, strong figure reeled in Mr. Ferguson’s dizzy eyes.
“Mr. Ferguson, you are troubled. Has the prodigal done his worst? Sit down and calm yourself. I am waiting to hear?”
The factor sat down. Mrs. Catherine did not, but, clasping her hands tightly together, stood before him and waited.
“I have bad news, Mrs. Catherine,” said Mr. Ferguson; “worse news, a hundred times, than ever I suspected – than ever you could expect. Strathoran is fallen – ruined! No hope – no possibility of saving him! It is all over!” And the strong man groaned.
“How and wherefore?” said Mrs. Catherine, sternly.
“He has sold his estate – parted with his home and his land to some titled sharper in Paris. Sold! he has done worse – still more dishonorable and fatal than that, he has gambled it away; what his father spent years to redeem, and set free for him, he has staked on the chances of a game. Bear with me, Mrs. Catherine, if I speak bitterly. The young man has disappointed all my hopes – ruined himself – what will become of him?”
Mrs. Catherine stood with her head bowed down, but otherwise firmly erect, and silent.
“What will he do?” repeated the distressed factor, “what can he do? land and name, fortune and character, all lost. What has he left, as he says, but despair – with his prospects too, his fair beginning. O, it is enough to make a man distracted! What have they done, that unhappy race, that they should be constantly thus – father and son, a wise man and a prodigal, the one wasting his substance and his inheritance, the other denying himself the lawful pleasures of a just life to win it back again.”
“Comfort yourself, Robert Ferguson,” said Mrs. Catherine, bitterly, as drawing forward a chair with emphatic rapidity, she seated herself at the table, “there will be no son of the name again to waste years in building up the house of Strathoran: their history has come to an end – fitly ended in a rioter and a prodigal.”
The factor looked up deprecatingly, the very words which his excitement brought to his own lips, sounding harsh from another’s.
“Mrs. Catherine, Mr. Archibald is young. When other lads were leaving school or entering college, he was launched upon the world his own master, with a great income and a large estate. – You know how easily the light spirit of youth is moved, but you cannot know how the way of a young man is hedged in with temptations – Mrs. Catherine!” the factor raised his hand in appeal.
“Speak not to me,” said Mrs. Catherine, “I know! yes truly, I know more than you think, or give me credit for. Temptations! and what is obedience that has never been tried, or strength that has not been exercised in needful resistance? I bid ye listen to me, Robert Ferguson – was there not a test appointed in Eden? and would you set youself to say that the fool of a woman (that I should say so, who am of her lineage and blood!) might be justified for her ill-doing, because the fruit hung fair upon the tree, and tempted the wandering eye of her? Think better of my judgment and bring no such pleas to me.”
“What
