and Francie grew to be good friends; and after they went to the parish school, there were few days indeed on which they did not walk at least as far homeward together as the midway divergence of their roads permitted. It was not wonderful, therefore, that at length Francis should be, or should fancy himself in love with Kirsty. But I believe all the time he thought of marrying her as a heroic deed, in raising the girl his mother despised to share the lofty position he and that foolish mother imagined him to occupy. The anticipation of opposition from his mother naturally strengthened his determination; of opposition on the part of Kirsty, he had not dreamed. He took it as of course that, the moment he stated his intention, Kirsty would be charmed, her mother more than pleased, and the stern old soldier overwhelmed with the honour of alliance with the son of his colonel. I do not doubt, however, that he had an affection for Kirsty far deeper and better than his notion of their relations to each other would indicate. Although it was mainly his pride that suffered in his humiliating dismissal, he had, I am sure, a genuine heartache as he galloped home. When he reached the castle, he left his pony to go where he would, and rushed to his room. There, locking the door that his mother might not enter, he threw himself on his bed in the luxurious consciousness of a much-wronged lover. An uneducated country girl, for as such he regarded her, had cast from her, not without insult, his splendidly generous offer of himself!
Poor king Cophetua did not, however, shed many tears for the loss of his recusant beggar-maid. By and by he forgot everything, found he had gone to sleep, and, endeavouring to weep again, did not succeed.
He grew hungry soon, and went down to see what was to be had. It was long past the usual hour for dinner, but Mrs. Gordon had not seen him return, and had had it put back—so to make the most of an opportunity of quarrel not to be neglected by a conscientious mother. She let it slide nevertheless.
'Gracious, you've been crying!' she exclaimed, the moment she saw him.
Now certainly Francis had not cried much; his eyes were, notwithstanding, a little red.
He had not yet learned to lie, but he might then have made his first assay had he had a fib at his tongue's end; as he had not, he gloomed deeper, and made no answer.
'You've been fighting!' said his mother.
'I haena,' he returned with rude indignation. 'Gien I had been, div ye think I wud hae grutten?'
'You forget yourself, laird!' remarked Mrs. Gordon, more annoyed with his Scotch than the tone of it. 'I would have you remember I am mistress of the house!'
'Till I marry, mother!' rejoined her son.
'Oblige me in the meantime,' she answered, 'by leaving vulgar language outside it.'
Francis was silent; and his mother, content with her victory, and in her own untruthfulness of nature believing he had indeed been fighting and had had the worse of it, said no more, but began to pity and pet him. A pot of his favourite jam presently consoled the love-wounded hero—in the acceptance of which consolation he showed himself far less unworthy than many a grown man, similarly circumstanced, in the choice of his.
CHAPTER X
DAVID AND FRANCIS
One day there was a market at a town some eight or nine miles off, and thither, for lack of anything else to do, Francis had gone to display himself and his pony, which he was riding with so tight a curb that the poor thing every now and then reared in protest against the agony he suffered.
On one of these occasions Don was on the point of falling backward, when a brown wrinkled hand laid hold of him by the head, half pulling the reins from his rider's hand, and ere he had quite settled again on his forelegs, had unhooked the chain of his curb, and fastened it some three links looser. Francis was more than indignant, even when he saw that the hand was Mr. Barclay's: was he to be treated as one who did not know what he was about!
'Hoots, my man!' said David gently, 'there's no occasion to put a water-chain upo' the bonny beastie: he has a mou like a leddy's! and to hae 't linkit up sae ticht is naething less nor tortur til 'im!—It's a won'er to me he hasna broken your banes and his ain back thegither, puir thing!' he added, patting and stroking the spirited little creature that stood sweating and trembling. 'I thank you, Mr. Barclay,' said Francis insolently, 'but I am quite able to manage the brute myself. You seem to take me for a fool!'
''Deed, he's no far aff ane 'at cud ca' a bonny cratur like that a brute!' returned David, nowise pleased to discover such hardness in one whom he would gladly treat like a child of his own. It was a great disappointment to him to see the lad getting farther away from the possibility of being helped by him. 'What 'ud yer father say to see ye illuse ony helpless bein! Yer father was awfu guid til 's horse-fowk.'
The last word was one of David's own: he was a great lover of animals.
'I'll do with my own as I please!' cried Francis, and spurred the pony to pass David. But one stalwart hand held the pony fast, while the other seized his rider by the ankle. The old man was now thoroughly angry with the graceless youth.
'God bless my sowl!' he cried, 'hae ye the spurs on as weel? Stick ane o' them intil him again, and I'll cast ye frae the seddle. I' the thick o' a fecht, the lang blades playin aboot yer father's heid like lichts i' the north, he never stack spur intil 's chairger needless!'
'I don't see,' said Francis, who had begun to cool down a little, 'how he could have enjoyed the fight much if he never forgot himself! I should forget everything in the delight of the battle!'
'Yer father, laddie, never forgot onything but himsel. Forgettin himsel left him free to min' a'thing forbye. Ye wud forget ilka thing but yer ain rage! Yer father was a great man as weel's a great soger, Francie, and a deevil to fecht, as his men said. I hae mysel seen by the set mou 'at the teeth war clinched i' the inside o' 't, whan a' the time on the broo o' 'im sat never a runkle. Gien ever there was a man 'at cud think o' twa things at ance, your father cud think o' three; and thae three war God, his enemy, and the beast aneath him. Francie, Francie, i' the name o' yer father I beg ye to regaird the richts o' the neebour ye sit upo'. Gien ye dinna that, ye'll come or lang to think little o' yer human neebour as weel, carin only for what ye get oot o' 'im!'
A voice inside Francis took part with the old man, and made him yet angrier. Also his pride was the worse annoyed that David Barclay, his tenant, should, in the hearing of two or three loafers gathered behind him, of whose presence the old man was unaware, not only rebuke him, but address him by his name, and the diminutive of it. So when David, in the appeal that burst from his enthusiastic remembrance of his officer in the battle-field, let the pony's head go, Francis dug his spurs in his sides, and darted off like an arrow. The old man for a moment stared open-mouthed after him. The fools around laughed: he turned and walked away, his head sunk on his breast.
Francis had not ridden far before he was vexed with himself. He was not so much sorry, as annoyed that he had behaved in fashion undignified. The thought that his childish behaviour would justify Kirsty in her opinion of him, added its sting. He tried to console himself with the reflection that the sort of thing ought to be put an end to at once: how far, otherwise, might not the old fellow's interference go! I am afraid he even said to himself that such was a consequence of familiarity with inferiors. Yet angry as he was at his fault-finding, he would have been proud of any approval from the lips of the old soldier. He rode his pony mercilessly for a mile or so, then pulled up, and began to talk pettingly to him, which I doubt if the little creature found consoling, for love only makes petting worth anything, and the love here was not much to the front.
About halfway home, he had to ford a small stream, or go round two miles by a bridge. There had been much rain in the night, and the stream was considerably swollen. As he approached the ford, he met a knife-grinder, who warned him not to attempt it: he had nearly lost
