The Laird of Norlaw; A Scottish Story

“Let them bear it as they dow,” said the Mistress, with an angry triumph; “neither comfort nor help to any mortal has come out of Me’mar for mony a day;” and she received the unfortunate little cause of all this commotion with more favor than before. Poor little Desirée came in with a quivering lip and a full eye, scarcely able to speak, but determined not to cry, which was no small trial of resolution. The family of Melmar were her mother’s enemies—some of them had tried to delude, and some had been unkind to herself—yet she knew them; and the Mistress, who came to take her away, was a stranger. It was like going out once more into the unknown world.

So Desirée left Melmar, with a heart which fluttered with pain, anger, indignation, and a strange fear of the future, and the Mistress guided to Norlaw almost with tenderness the child of that Mary who had been a lifelong vexation to herself. They left behind them no small amount of dismay and anxiety, all the house vaguely finding out that something was wrong, while Joanna alone stood by her father’s side, angry, rude, and careless of every one, bestowing her whole impatient regards upon him.

CHAPTER LXII

“Happened!” said bowed Jaacob, with a little scorn; “what should have happened?—you dinna ca’ this place in the world—naething, so far as I can tell, ever happens here except births and deaths and marriages; no muckle food for the intelleck in the like of them, though I wouldna say but they are necessary evils—na, laddie, there’s little to tell you here.”

“Not even about the Bill?” said Cosmo; “don’t forget I’ve been abroad and know nothing of what you’ve all been doing at home.”

“The Bill—humph! it’s a’ very weel for the present,” said Jaacob, with a twinkle of excitement in his one eye, “but as for thae politicians that ca’ it a final measure, I wouldna gie that for them,” and Jaacob snapped his fingers energetically. “It hasna made just a’ that difference in the world ane would have expected, either,” he added, after a moment, a certain grim humor stealing into his grotesque face; “we’re a’ as nigh as possible just where we were. I’m no’ what you would ca’ a sanguine philosopher mysel’. I ken human nature gey weel; and I canna say I ever limited my ain faith to men that pay rent and taxes at so muckle a year; but it doesna make that difference ane might have looked for. A man’s just the same man, callant—especially if he’s a poor creature with nae nobility in him—though you do gie him a vote.”

“Yet it’s all the difference,” cried Cosmo, with a little burst of boyish enthusiasm, “between the freeman and the slave!”

Jaacob eyed him grimly with his one eye. “It’s a’ the like of you ken,” said the cynic, with a little contempt, and a great deal of superiority; “but you’ll learn better if ye have the gift. There’s a certain slave-class in ilka community—that’s my conviction—and I wouldna say but we’ve just had the good fortune to licht upon them in thae ten-pound householders; oh, ay, laddie! let the aristocrats alane—they’re as cunning as auld Nick where their ain interest’s concerned, though nae better than as mony school-boys in a’ greater concerns. Catch them extending the suffrage to the real men, the backbane of the country! Would you say a coof in the town here, that marries some fool of a wife and gets a house of his ain, was a mair responsible person than me! Take it in ony class you please—yoursel’ when you’re aulder—na, Me’mar’s son even, that’s nearer my age than yours—ony Willie A’ thing of a shopkeeper gets his vote—set him up! and his voice in the country—but there’s nae voice for you, my lad, if ye were ane-and-twenty the morn—nor for the young laird.”

The mention of this name instantly arrested Cosmo’s indignation at his own political disabilities. “You say nothing has happened, Jacob,” said Cosmo, “and yet here is this same young laird—what of him?—is he nothing?—he ought to rank high in Kirkbride.”

“Kirkbride and me are seldom of the same opinion,” said the little Cyclops, pushing his red cowl off his brow, and proceeding carelessly to his work, which had been suspended during the more exciting conversation. “I canna be fashed with weakly folk, women or men, though it’s more natural in a woman. There’s that bit thing of a sister of his with the pink e’en—he’s ower like her to please me—but he’s a virtuoso. I’ve been ca’ed one mysel. I’ve mair sympathy with a traveled man than thae savages here. You see I wouldna say but I might think better of baith him and his father if I’m right in a guess o’ mine; and I maun admit I’m seldom wrang when I take a thing into my mind.”

“What is it?” said Cosmo, eagerly.

“There’s a young lass there, a governess,” said Jaacob; “I couldna tell, if I was on my aith, what’s out of the way about her. She’s no’ to ca’ very bonnie, and as for wut, that’s no’ to be looked for in woman—and she’s French, though I’m above prejudice on that score; but there’s just something about her reminds me whiles of another person—though no mair to be compared in ae way than a gowan to a rose. I’m no’ very easy attractit, which is plain to view, seeing, for a’ I’ve met with, I’m no’ a married man, and like enough never will be—but I maun admit I was taken with her mysel’.”

Cosmo’s face was crimson with suppressed anger and laughter both combined.

“How dare you?” he cried at last, with a violent and sudden burst of the latter impulse. Bowed Jaacob turned round upon him, swelling to his fullest stature, and settling his red cowl on his head with an air of defiance, yet with a remote and grim consciousness of fun in the corner of his eye.

“Daur!” exclaimed the gallant hunchback. “Mind what you say, my lad! Women hae ae gift—they aye ken merit when they see it. I’ve kent a hantle in my day; but the bonniest of them a’ never said ‘How daur ye’ to me.”

“Very well, Jacob,” said Cosmo, laughing; “I had forgotten your successes. But what of this young lady at Melmar, and your guess about Oswald Huntley? I know her, and I am curious to hear.”

“Just the lad yonder, if you will ken, is taken with her like me—that’s a’. I advise you to say ‘you daur’ to him,” said Jaacob, shortly, ending his words with a prolonged chorus of hammering.

An involuntary and unconscious exclamation burst from Cosmo’s lips. He felt a burning color rise over his face. Why, he could not tell; but his sudden shock of consternation and indignant resentment quite overpowered his composure for the moment—a thrill of passionate displeasure tingled through his heart. He was violently impatient of the thought, yet could not tell why.

“Whatfor no?” said Jaacob. “I’m nane of your romantic men mysel’—but I’ve just this ae thing to say, I despise a lad that thinks on the penny siller when a woman’s in the question. I wouldna tak a wife into the bargain with a wheen lands or a pickle gear, no’ if she was a king’s daughter—though she might be that, and yet be nae great things. Na, laddie, a man that has the heart to be real downricht in love has aye something in him, take my word for’t; and even auld Me’mar himsel’—”

“The old villain!” cried Cosmo, violently; “the mean old rascal! That is what he meant by bringing her here. It was not enough to wrong the mother, but he must delude the child! Be quiet, Jaacob! you don’t know the old gray-haired villain! They ought to be tried for conspiracy, every one of them. Love!—it is profanation to name the name!”

“Eh, what’s a’ this?” cried Jaacob. “What does the callant mean by conspiracy?—what’s about this lassie? She’s gey bonnie—no’ to say very, but gey—and she’s just a governess. I respect the auld rascal, as you ca’ him—and I wouldna say you’re far wrang—for respecting his son’s fancy. The maist o’ thae moneyed men, I can tell ye, are as mean as an auld miser; therefore ye may say what ye like, my lad. I’m friends with Me’mar and his son the noo.”

Jaacob went on accordingly with his hammering, professing no notice of Cosmo, who, busy with his own indignant thoughts, did not even observe the vigilant, sidelong regards of the blacksmith’s one eye. He scarcely even heard what Jaacob said, as the village philosopher resumed his monologue, keeping always that solitary orb of vision intent upon his visitor. Jaacob, with all his enlightenment, was not above curiosity, and took a very lively interest in the human character and the concerns of his fellow-men.

“And the minister’s dead,” said Jaacob. “For a man that had nae experience of life, he wasna such a fuil as he might have been. I’ve seen waur priests. The vulgar gave him honor, and it’s aye desirable to have a man in that capacity that can impose upon the vulgar;—and the bairns are away. I miss Katie Logan’s face about the town mysel’. She wasna in my style; but I canna deny her merits. Mair folks’ taste than mine has to be consulted. As for me, I have rather a notion of that French governess at Melmar. If there’s onything wrang there, gie a man a hint, Cosmo, lad. I’ve nae objection to cut Oswald Huntley out mysel’.”

“Find some other subject for your jests,” cried Cosmo, haughtily; “Mademoiselle Desirée’s name is not to be used in village gossip. I will not permit it while I am here.”

Jaacob turned round upon him with his eye on fire.

“Wha the deevil made you a judge?” said Jaacob; “what’s your madame-oiselle, or you either, that you’re ower guid for an honest man’s mouth? Confound your impidence! a slip of a callant that makes verses, do ye set up your face to me?”

At this point of the conversation Cosmo began to have a glimmering perception that Desirée’s name was quite as unsuitable in a quarrel with Jaacob as in any supposed village gossip; and that the dispute between himself and the blacksmith was on the whole somewhat ridiculous. He evaded Jaacob’s angry interrogatory with a half laugh of annoyance and embarrassment.

“You know as well as I do, Jacob, that one should not speak so of young ladies,” said Cosmo, who did not know what to say.

“Do I?” said Jaacob; “what would ye hae a man to talk about? they’re no muckle to crack o’ in the way o’ wisdom, but they’re bonnie objecks in creation, as a’body maun allow. I would just like to ken, though, my lad, what’s a’ your particular interest in this madame-oiselle?”

“Hush,” said Cosmo, whose cheeks began to burn; “she is my kinswoman; by this time perhaps she is with my mother in Norlaw; she is the child of—”

Cosmo paused, thinking to stop at that half-confidence. Jaacob stood staring at him, with his red cowl on one side, and his eye gleaming through the haze. As he gazed, a certain strange consciousness came to the hunchback’s face. His dwarf figure, which you could plainly see had the strength of a giant’s, his face swart and grotesque, his one gleaming eye and puckered forehead, became suddenly softened by a kind of homely pathos which stole over them like a breath of summer wind. When he had gazed his full gaze of inquiry into Cosmo’s face, Jaacob turned his head aside hurriedly.

“So you’ve found her!” said the blacksmith, with a low intensity of voice which made Cosmo respectful by its force and emotion; and when he had spoken he fell to upon his anvil with a rough and loud succession of blows which left no time for an answer. Cosmo stood beside him, during this assault, with a grave face, looking on at the exploits of the hammer as if they were something serious and important. The introduction of this new subject changed their tone in a moment.

When Jaacob paused to take breath he resumed the conversation, still in a somewhat subdued tone, though briskly enough.

“So she’s aye living,” said Jaacob; “and this is her daughter? A very little mair insight and I would have found it out mysel’. I aye thought she was like. And what have you done with her now you’ve found her? Is she to come hame?”

“Immediately,” said Cosmo.

“She’s auld by this time, nae doubt,” said Jaacob, carelessly; “women are such tender gear, a’thing tells upon them. It’s their beauty that’s like a moth—the like of me wears langer; and so she’s aye to the fore?—ay! I doubt she’ll mind little about Me’mar, or the folk here about. I’m above prejudices mysel’, and maybe the French are mair enlightened in twa three points than we are—I’ll no’ say—but I wouldna bring up youngsters to be natives of a strange country. So you found her out with your ain hand, callant, did you? You’re a clever chield! and what’s to be done when she comes hame?”

“She is the Lady of Melmar, as she always was,” said Cosmo, with a little pride.

“And what’s to become of the auld family—father and son—no’ to say of the twa sisters and the auld auntie,” said Jaacob, with a grim smile. “So that’s the story! Confound them a’! I’m no’ a man to be cheated out of my sympathies. And I’m seldom wrang—so if you’ve ony thoughts that way, callant, I advise ye to relinquish them. Ye may be half-a-hunder’ poets if ye like, and as mony mair to the back o’ that, but if the Huntley lad liket her she’ll stick to him.”

“That is neither your concern nor mine!” cried Cosmo, loftily. But, as Jaacob laughed and went on, the lad began to feel unaccountably aggravated, to lose his temper, and make angry answers, which made his discomfiture capital fun to the little giant. At length, Cosmo hurried away. It was the same day on which the Mistress paid her visit to Desirée, and Cosmo could not help feeling excited and curious about the issue of his mother’s invitation. Thoughts which made the lad blush came into his mind as he went slowly over Tyne, looking up at that high bank, from which the evening sunshine, chill, yet bright, was slowly disappearing—where the trees began to bud round the cottages, and where the white gable of the manse still crowned the peaceful summit—that manse where Katie Logan, with her elder-sister smile, was no longer mistress. Somehow, there occurred to him a wandering thought about Katie, who was away—he did not know where—and Huntley, who was at the ends of the earth. Huntley had not actually lost any thing, Cosmo said to himself, yet Huntley seemed disinherited and impoverished to the obstinate eyes of fancy. Cosmo could not have told, either, why he associated his brother with Katie Logan, now an orphan and absent, yet he did so involuntarily. He thought of Huntley and Katie, both poor, far separated, and perhaps never to meet again; he thought of Cameron in his sudden trouble; and then his thoughts glided off with a little bitterness, to that perverse woman’s love, which always seemed to cling to the wrong object. Madame Roche herself, perhaps, first of all, though the very fancy seemed somehow a wrong to his mother, Marie fretting peevishly for her French husband, Desirée giving her heart to Oswald Huntley. The lad turned upon his heel with a bitter impatience, and set off for a long walk in the opposite direction as these things glided into his mind. To be sure, he had nothing to do with it; but still it was all wrong—a distortion of nature—and it galled him in his thoughts.

CHAPTER LXIII

The presence of Desirée made no small sensation in the house of Norlaw, which did not quite know what to make of her. The Mistress herself, after that first strange impulse of kin and kindness which prompted her to bring the young stranger home, relapsed into her usual ways, and did not conceal from either son or servant that she expected to be “fashed” by the little Frenchwoman; while Marget, rather displeased that so important a step should be taken without her sanction, and mightily curious to know the reason, was highly impatient at first of Desirée’s name and nation, and discontented with her presence here.

“I canna faddom the Mistress,” said Marget, angrily; “what she’s thinking upon, to bring a young flirt of a Frenchwoman into this decent house, and ane of our lads at home is just beyond me. Do I think her bonnie? No’ me! She’s French, and I daur to say, a papisher to the boot; but the lads will, take my word for it—callants are aye keen about a thing that’s outray. I’m just as thankfu’ as I can be that Huntley’s at the other end of the world—there’s nae fears of our Patie—and Cosmo, you see, he’s ower young.”

This latter proposition Marget repeated to herself as she went about her dairy. It did not seem an entirely satisfactory statement of the case, for if Cosmo was too young to be injured, Desirée was also a couple of years his junior, and could scarcely be supposed old enough to do any great harm.

“Ay, but it’s in them frae their cradle,” said the uncharitable Marget, as she rinsed her great wooden bowls and set them ready for the milk. The honest retainer of the family was quite disturbed by this new arrival. She could not “get her mouth about the like of thae outlandish names,” so she never called Desirée any thing but Miss, which title in Marget’s lips, unassociated with a Christian name, was by no means a title of high respect, and she grumbled as she was quite unwont to grumble, over the additional trouble of another inmate. Altogether Marget was totally dissatisfied.

While Desirée, suddenly dropped into this strange house, every custom of which was strange to her, and where girlhood and its occupations were unknown, felt somewhat forlorn and desolate, it must be confessed, and sometimes even longed to be back again in Melmar, where there were many women, and where her pretty needle-works and graceful accomplishments were not reckoned frivolous, the Mistress was busy all day long, and when she had ended her household employments, sat down with her work-basket to mend shirts or stockings with a steadiness which did not care to accept any assistance.

“Thank you, they’re for my son, Huntley; I like to do them a’ mysel’,” she would answer to Desirée’s offer of aid. “Much obliged to you, but Cosmo’s stockings, poor callant, are no work for the like of you.” In like manner, Desirée was debarred from the most trifling assistance in the house. Marget was furious when she ventured to wash the Mistress’s best tea-service, or to sweep the hearth on occasion.

“Na, miss, we’re no’ come to that pass in Norlaw that a stranger visitor needs to file her fingers,” said Marget, taking the brush from Desirée’s hand; so that, condemned to an uncomfortable idleness in the midst of busy people, and aware that the Mistress’s “Humph!” on one occasion, at least, referred to her pretty embroideries, poor little Desirée found little better for it than to wander round and round the old castle of Norlaw, and up the banks of Tyne, where, to say truth, Cosmo liked nothing better than to wander along with her, talking about her mother, about St. Ouen, about his travels, about every thing in earth and heaven.

And whether Cosmo was “ower young” remains to be seen.

But Desirée had not been long in Norlaw when letters came from Madame Roche, one to the Mistress, brief yet effusive, thanking that reserved Scottish woman for her kindness to “my little one;” another to Cosmo, in which he was called my child and my friend so often, that though he was pleased, he was yet half ashamed to show the epistle to his mother; and a third to Desirée herself. This was the most important of the three, and contained Madame Roche’s scheme of poetic justice. This is what the Scotch-French mother said to little Desirée:—

“My child, we, who have been so poor, are coming to a great fortune. It is as strange as a romance, and we can never forget how it has come to us. Ay, my Desirée, what noble hearts! what princely young men! Despite of our good fortune, my heart bleeds for the generous Huntley, for it is he who is disinherited. Must this be, my child? He is far away, he knows not we are found; he will return to find his inheritance gone. But I have trained my Desirée to love honor and virtue, and to be generous as the Livingstones. Shall I say to you, my child, what would glad my heart most to see? Our poor Marie has thrown away her happiness and her liberty; she can not reward any man, however noble; she can not make any compensation to those whom we must supplant, and her heart wanders after that vagabond, that abandoned one! But my Desirée is young, only a child, and has not begun to think of lovers. My love, keep your little heart safe till Huntley returns—your mother bids you, Desirée. Look not at any one, think not of any one, till you have seen this noble Huntley; it is the only return you can give—nay, my little one! it is all I can do to prove that I am not ungrateful. This Melmar, which I had lost and won without knowing it, will be between Marie and you when I die. You can not give it all back to your kinsman, but he will think that half which your sister has doubly made up, my child, when I put into his hand the hand of my Desirée; and we shall all love each other, and be good and happy, like a fairy tale.

“This is your mamma’s fondest wish, my pretty one: you must keep your heart safe, you must love Huntley, you must give him back half of the inheritance. My poor Marie and I shall live together, and you shall be near us; and then no one will be injured, but all shall have justice. I would I had another little daughter for the good Cosmo, who found me out in St. Ouen. I love the boy, and he shall be with us when he pleases, and we will do for him all we can. But keep your heart safe, my Desirée, for Huntley, and thus let us reward him when he comes home.”

Poor Madame Roche! she little knew what a fever of displeasure and indignation this pretty sentimental letter of hers would rouse in her little daughter’s heart. Desirée tore the envelope in pieces in her first burst of vexation, which was meant to express by similitude that she would have torn the letter, and blotted out its injunctions, if she dared. She threw the epistle itself out of her hands as if it had stung her. Not that Desirée’s mind was above those sublime arrangements of poetic justice, which in this inconsequent world are always so futile; but, somehow, a plan which might have looked pretty enough had it concerned another, filled Madame Roche’s independent little daughter with the utmost shame and mortification when she herself was the heroine.

“Let him take it all!” she cried out half aloud to herself, in her little chamber. “Do I care for it? I will work—I will be a governess; but I will not sell myself to this Huntley—no, not if I should die!”

And having so recorded her determination, poor little Desirée sat down on the floor and had a hearty cry, and after that thought, with a girlish effusion of sympathy, of poor Cosmo, who, after all, had done it all, yet whom no one thought of compensating. When straightway there came into Desirée’s heart some such bitter thoughts of justice and injustice as once had filled the mind of Cosmo Livingstone. Huntley!—what had Huntley done that Madame Roche should dedicate her—her, an unwilling Andromeda, to compensate this unknown monster; and Desirée sprang up and stamped her little foot, and clapped her hands, and vowed that no force in the world, not even her mother’s commands, should compel her to show her mother’s gratitude by becoming Huntley’s wife.

A most unnecessary passion; for there was Katie Logan all the time, unpledged and unbetrothed, it is true, but thinking her own thoughts of some one far away, who might possibly break in some day upon those cares of elder-sisterhood, which made her as important as a many-childed mother, even in those grave days of her orphan youth; and there was Huntley in his hut in the bush, not thriving over well, poor fellow, thinking very little of Melmar, but thinking a great deal of that manse parlor, where the sun shone, and Katie darned her children’s stockings—a scene which always would shine, and never could dim out of the young man’s recollection. Poor Madame Roche, with her pretty plan of compensation, and poor Desirée, rebelliously resistant to it, how much trouble they might both have saved themselves, could some kind fairy have shown to them a single peep of Huntley Livingstone’s solitary thoughts.

CHAPTER LXIV

Five years had made countless revolutions in human affairs, and changed the order of things in more houses than Melmar, but had not altered the fair face of the country, when, late upon a lovely June evening, two travelers alighted from the coach at the door of the Norlaw Arms. They were not anglers, nor tourists, though they were both bronzed and bearded. The younger of the two looked round him with eager looks of recognition, directing his glances to particular points—a look very different from the stranger’s vague gaze at every thing, which latter was in the eyes of his companion. At the manse, where the white gable was scarcely visible through the thick foliage of the great pear-tree—at the glimmering twilight path through the fields to Norlaw—even deep into the corner of the village street, where bowed Jaacob, with his red cowl pushed up from his bullet head behind, stood, strongly relieved against the glow within, at the smithy door. To all these familiar features of the scene, the new-comer turned repeated and eager glances. There was an individual recognition in every look he gave as he sprang down from the top of the coach, and stood by with a certain friendly, happy impatience and restlessness, not easy to describe, while the luggage was being unpacked from the heavy-laden public conveyance; that was a work of time. Even now, in railway days, it is not so easy a matter to get one’s portmanteau embarked or disembarked at Kirkbride station as one might suppose; and the helpers at the Norlaw Arms were innocent of the stimulus and external pressure of an express train. They made a quantity of bustle, but did their business at their leisure, while this new arrival, whom none of them knew, kept looking at them all with their names upon his lips, and laughter and kindness in his eyes. He had “seen the world,” since he last saw these leisurely proceedings at the Norlaw Arms—he had been on the other side of this big globe since he last stood in the street of Kirkbride; and the young man could not help feeling himself a more important person now than when he set out by this same conveyance some seven years ago, to make his fortune and his way in the world.