Barbara Allan, the Provost's Daughter

Front matter

■ H ■ H I I ■ ■ ■ I ■ I ■ ■ I BARBARA ALLAN THE PROVOST'S DAUGHTER " A young man lay on his dying bed For love of Barbara Allan." — Old Song, BARBARA ALLAN THE PROVOST'S? DAUGHTER BY ROBERT CLELAND AUTHOR OF ' INUHBRACKEN,' ' TRUE TO A TYPE,'"' 'a RICH MAN'rf RELATIVES' IN TWO VOLUMES VOL. I. WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS EDINBURGH AND LONDON MDCCCLXXXIX All Rights reserved CONTENTS OF THE FIRST VOLUME. CHAP. PAGE I. THE BENNETSKIRK MAGISTRACY, . . . 1 II. ANGUS BLAITMAN, ..... 20 III. MISS GRISEL BREAKS GROUND, . . .43 IV. BARTER, ....... 63 V. THOSE VIOLETS, ..... 81 VI. " WOULD YOU CALL THAT HONEST ? " . . 96 VII. "RONALD SMITH, . . . . . .113 VIII. GINGER-WINE, ...... 125 IX. BELL FARQUHAR, ..... 143 X. BROTHER AND SISTER, . . . .157 XI. THE TOWN COUNCIL, . . . . .171 XII. THE PROVOST'S FLIGHT, . . . .185 XIII.

THE PROVOST'S REFUGE, . . . .201 XIV. THE WHITTETS, ...... 224 XV. BARBARA, ...... 242 XVI. HER FATHER, ...... 263 XVII. JEALOUS MRS MUIR, ..... 283 XVIII. INVINCIBLE DISTRUST, ....

Chapter I. The Bennetskirk Magistracy

The church-bells of Bennetskirk were rincfino-. They had rung for the customary quarter of an hour ; and the ringers, high up in the steeple loft, were beginning to mop their brows be tween their strong tugs at the bell - ropes, impatient for the cessation of their toil. " Are ye sleepin' there, Jamie \ " one called to the watcher on the bartizan. " The Provost maun hae come, an' you no' heedin'." " Mind ver ain wark, frien', an' never fear. 4/ ' ' I'se tell ye whan it's time to ring in." On the steps of the Town House there was a VOL. I. A knot of loiterers waiting to see the worshipful magistracy set forth for church. The three town officers in their state livery of scarlet knee -breeches and coats, three-cornered hats on their heads, and tall halberds in their hands, stood on the " crown of the causeway," ready to proceed ; and four burgh fathers — two thick men and two thin — were waiting im patiently on the pavement for their chief, who had not yet appeared.

The Provost, arrayed like his brethren in glossy black swallow - tails, with his throat swathed in a many - folded white neckcloth, was at that moment seated in his business room at home, with his letters by the midnight mail open before him, immersed in their con tents. He started and looked confused when the door behind him opened, and his daughter, ready for church, appeared on the threshold. " In here, father 1 — on a Sabbath morning ! The bells have been ringing; ever so lono-. The Council will be waiting on the pavement, and the minister in the vestry, and all the people in the church. What will be said \ " The Provost shut up his pencil-case with a click, crumpled the paper on whose margin he had been jotting into his pocket, and guiltily rose to his feet. Then the chief magistrate and the ruling elder — for he was a man in spiritual as well as secular authority — awoke within him, and he turned austerely to the girl. o "Works of necessity and mercy, Barbara!

Have you forgotten ' How is the Sabbath to be sanctified?' — question number 60: but I fear your studies in human learning have made you obleevious of your Shorter Catechism. We will take up the fourth commandment at our family reading this evening — and the fifth likewise. It is unbecoming in a young woman to be evenin' her parent and chief magistrate to so heinous a transgression as Sabbath breakine*." Barbara made a little niou', and shook out the long bright ringlets compressed between her blooming cheeks and the fresh spring bonnet lined with pale green, which made an arbour about her face like the enclosing collar of leaves round an opening blush -rose, and slipped her hand into her father's arm as they descended into the street together. She was motherless and an only child, not yet eighteen, the ruler of the Provost's household, and also of himself, however bravely he might talk.

His austere rebukes were but the brutum fulmen proper to his eminence in Church and State : she thought of and accepted them as such, assured that she could make him do as she liked, whatever he might say in the way of magisterial platitude. Provost Allan, having reached the Town House, assumed his gold chain of office, joined the waiting bailies with all seemly speed, and the procession started. The three town officers, with their halberds twinkling in the sun, walked grandly in front, taking the full breadth of the street ; and after an interval of some paces followed the magistrates, all five abreast, with their Provost in the centre. Provost Allan was spare even to leanness, his steps were slow and of wondrous length, while his carriage was of remarkable stiffness. It seemed as though the starch of his neck cloth had spread all over him, permeating mind as well as bod)", to see how straight he looked before him as he strode along, under the respectful observation of his fellow-towns men.

To his right and left walked the Dean of Guild and senior bailie, substantial and portly men ; while the junior bailies, who flanked the line, with difficulty conforming to the length of stride, were of slight pro portions. In the words of an irreverent on looker, " the Bennetskirk magistracy was like streaky bacon, where the lean and the fat are nicely alternated. " The procession walked sedately up the High Street, the air full of the music of ringing bells, the street alive with people on their way to church. When it reached the end of the Kirkgate, it came in view of the watcher on the bartizan. Immediately the bell chime changed, the pauses aud intervals were dropped, and the clang sank into a continuous throbbing hum of sound, known as the " ringing in," which lasted till the procession reached the church-door, when it sank into silence.

The officers, so far as three men could, arranged themselves in an avenue with presented hal berds, and their worships the magistrates entered the sacred fane. At the same moment the minister, preceded by his beadle, issued from the vestry and ascended the pulpit, remaining standing while the town fathers entered their great pew over against him ; and the spiritual and secular authority, brought face to face, sat down together in the house of God. It was but a poor little pageant ; but it has passed away with other picturesque tra ditions, and therefore it is worth recording in this bald and utilitarian age. Already in '46 it had begun to be spoken against. The tide of schism and sectarian jealousy was rising — it is rising still — and all the kindly customs which sprang from the once venerated motto, " Fear God and honour the king," and yet survive, are in peril.

Provost Allan sat in the centre of a roomy pew, emblazoned with the arms of the burgh, having a Bible of the largest size laid open before him, and his brethren were provided with similar folios, which sent an audible sough across the hushed assembly each time a leaf was simultaneously turned. The Provost's attention, however, seemed to flag. His leaf forgot to turn with the others, and then made an independent rustle of its own ; and the youngest bailie, more alert or less devout than his fellows, glanced up surprised at the irregularity of sound, and wondered what could be the matter with his chief, sitting, not square with the book-board as was his wont, but lolling in a corner of his throne-like 7 -O chair, his eyes looking into vacancy, his pencil case between the fingers of one hand, while the other fumbled with papers which were lurking in the bosom of his coat, The service ended, the congregation rose to go, and the magistrates took their hats and prepared to separate like ordinary men.

" Bailie Whittet I " the Provost whispered to his right-hand neighbour. "Just a word be fore we go upon the street." "Ay, Provost! I'm at your service." "About our Curriemuchler Junction. It comes on before the Lords' Committee this week. The subscription list is still open, though very nearly filled up. It's safe to pass, for all the squally signs that are threatening the big lines ; though, for myself, I think even their troubles will blowover. Our agent says the Junction must come right. The scrip is firm, and sure to rise so soon as this cold fit of public feeling passes off." " Ay 1 I'm glad to hear it. Thae cold fits on the public mind are bad things and do a heap of harm. A body never knows how they are to end." " It seems to me, Bailie, that there is a duty laid on a public man in your poseetion."

" Ay ? An' what may that be, Provost ? " "Just to put your shoulder to the wheel, like the rest of us, for the general good. There can be no doubt about the public benefit that will accrue in this matter. And then, Bailie, there's profit in it ! — a premium on the scrip — who knows ? — before even the first in stalment comes due. Look at the Tullielum and Forgan last October ! — five-eighths per cent ! — that's twelve and sixpence the share — or ever the subscribers had paid a penny ! and old Smith of Drumtakit cleared his six hundred and twenty-five pounds, for nothing but just the pen-scrape that signed his name when he took up his thousand shares. It might have been nine hundred, if he had not been in such a hurry to sell ; for the premium rose to three-quarters the very next week." " And now it's at a heavy discount.

I wuss he mayna be called on to stump up the whole hundred thousand pounds he subscribed for ! A quarter o' that wad break him, or I'm sore mista'en. Ye'll no' have heard that there has been a second call on the subscribers ? An'. they tell me you're still liable though you may have sauld your shares, if the buyer canna meet the calls. I've small brew o' railways, Provost! — though ye know more about them nor I do. I'm just a simple auld-fashioned body, ye see, that have had muckle fash to gather my bawbees, and could ill thole to lose them." The Provost's countenance fell. The Bailie, he perceived, had read his midnight-mail de spatches as well as himself, and he had noted items in the share list which himself had un luckily overlooked. He wished he had been more careful in his choice of an illustration.

" You do not mean to compare the Currie muchler Junction with the Tullielum, Bailie ? Look at our connections with trunk lines " he was beginning, but his friend cut him short. " Come away, Provost ! The kirk has .skelled. We'll be lockit in our lains till the exercise, and nothing to divert us but the psalm-books. Auld Peter Dowie is aye in a terrible hurry to get home to his kale. A bonny laugh it wad raise in the town if the Provost and the head Bailie were to be seen skirling from a kirk windie for a ladder to help them out. Folk wad say we'd been sleepin' ! We'd ne'er hear the end o't, . . . And Grisel waiting at the church-door a' this time ! My certie ! she'll no' be pleased." The two hastened out to find Miss Whittet, as anticipated, waiting with clouded brow. The brow cleared, however, as the lady greeted the Provost, and the three walked amicably along, the Provost shaping his talk to his estimate of the female understanding, which was not high.

The change was a relief, and enabled him to recall his forces, scattered and discomfited by the discovery that the Bailie's railway information was as well up to date as his own. Living, as he did, in a sequestered burgh, to which the news of the great world filtered but slowly in those stage-coach days, when the scrappy intelligence of the weekly local paper afforded most of his neighbours their sole supply of news, he set great store upon his Edinburgh correspondence, and had felt confident that he could instruct all Bennetskirk in the ways of the money market, so far as was to his own advantage ; yet here was this plodding old-fashioned writer body, who never looked beyond his nose, able to prick his windy bubbles with a single sentence. It was humiliating ; and worse, it foreboded ill, and gave weight to fears already oppressing his mind.

The railway storm was upon him ; he had not taken in sail, as in prudence he should have done the year before, and already he saw before him coming wreck. He needed a respite in trivial talk to enable him to put a fair face on his chagrin. " See yonder! " cried Miss Grisel. " If that's not Nellie Tamson, my old tablemaid, flaunting another new silk gown before the eyes of the public ! Pity she couldna buy herself a second back, and so spread two of them at once before our eyes ! ' There's muckle ado when cadgers ride,' as the saying is. To think of her being married out of our kitchen two years ago come next Marti'mas, to a flunky of Lord Pitthevlis ! But the flunky was a clever fellow — made a deal of money in railways, and threw up his place. And now Nellie Tamson is Mistress Proudfoot, and no less, and they've taken one of those nice new houses at the Town End, and just revel in luxuries, with forced rhubarb and sparrow-grass to their dinner every day of their lives : so Lizzie Penny, the egg-wife, tells me, and says they're her best customers, and pay tuppence a bunch for it more than any body else will give.

You may be sure she makes them pay roundly for their upsetting ways, for Lizzie is a decent woman who knows the difference between gentry and trash. . . . And see to the heavy chain and the gold spy-glass ! I wonder she doesna string the guineas themselves together and hang them round her neck. The folk could count them better that way, and tell how rich she was." " She's wise to take the use of them when she has them. I'm feared there will be few left come next settlement day upon the Stock Exchange," observed the brother. The Provost winced, and glanced under his eyelids to see if the thurst were aimed at him self ; but no, the Bailie was walking sedately on his sister's other side, surveying Mrs Proud foot in her bravery with a pitying smile. " You'll come in, Provost ? " said Miss Whittet, arrived at her own doorsteps.

" It's just the auld-fashioned Sabbath dinner of sheep's-head and trotters. But you're welcome. My mother never varied from that on the Sabbath-day, and I keep up the custom. It just simmers all morning by the kitchen fire without minding, and lets the lasses go to the church ; and it's a soothing kind of meal for the long afternoon when we're sitting with our good books, resting from the cares and trials of the week, and then we waken up blithe and pirky in time for the evening exercise." " There is nothing I like better than sheep's head, Miss Whittet ; though Barbara seems never to give me one. But " " Ah ! puir dawtie ! " cried the spinster ; " she lost her mother when she was very young. I mind it well — a sore affliction for you both. And ye've murned her long and truly, Provost. The puir bairn never got the chance to learn good housekeeping.

And servants nowadays are not what they used to be. They need a heap o' mindin'. My heart's often wae for ye both when I think of ye. But come away in." "You are most kind, ma'am; but I never dine from home on the Lord's Day. We have an example to set, Miss Whittet, the Bailie and me." " Ah well, Provost, I will no' gainsay ye there. And if folk wad just tak' the example, it wad be tellin' them. Ye know best what's proper, but you might come round after the exercise and take your toddy with us. The exercise closes the duties, so to speak, of the day, and we're no' bound to call it Sabbath after the candles are lighted — or so I say ; though there are some unco guid, especiallj* among the Seceder bodies, that hold different, and say that it's the beddin' that com pletes a'." " I am of your mind, Miss Whittet.

Moderation in all things. You may expect me ; " and so the Provost went. " I'm misdoubtin', Grizzie," was the Bailie's observation when both were safe within doors, " but the Provost, honest man, has burnt his fingers. To think that a sensible man should be ta'en in by thae prospectus-mongers, and expect to make his fortune in six months, when it has ta'en me, and my father before me, our lifetimes of care and prudence — and I haena a' I want yet ! " "Ye're ill to please, then, Reuben. But you're that carefu' ! . . . Look at Drumtakit, that hasna half-crowns to set against your guineas ; and see the different way ye live — him and you. Him with his lands and his liveries, his county meetin's, and his for gathering wi' lords and honourables ; and you, just a bit town bailie, sitting in your office, and bowin' before men ye might buy up ony day."

" Drumtakit said ye ? The property's more mine than his. The deeds are in my safe, security for his bonds, and he's behind at this moment with the interest. I can snuff out Drumtakit wi' that" — and he snapped his fingers — " ony day I like. I didna think ye were sae easy ta'en in by appearances, Grizzie." " And you think the Provost is in deep water, then, Reuben ? " " Time will show. He's a close man, our Provost, that keeps his mind to himsel'. I respect him for that. But he let out some thing the day in the church — more than he intended — more than I would have be lieved." " What did he say, Reuben ? But, puir man ! I wuss ye may be wrong. Him ! so judeecious and greatly respeckit, It wad be grievous if onything befell him. The staidest and genteelest person in the town ! It canna be, Reuben.

If it is, ye maun help him. It's a thing ye don't often do, to help folk in difficulty ; but for a man like that, an honour to the burgh, ye maun stretch a pint. Ye maun make a push to keep him on his feet — him and his motherless daughter." Reuben had been looking at his sister with opening eyes. It was so unusual for her — a careful and penny-wise person — to betray warmth of interest in any one's affairs but her own — least of all in those of a losing man ; her favourite axiom being that " the gear should go to him who knows how to keep it," He expressed no surprise, however, but answered her question. VOL. I. B "He said but 'deed it was the way he looked when I mentioned the fall in Tullielum and Forgans that staggered me. And as you say, there's his young daughter depending on him — the very flower of Bennetskirk.

It's just a treat to see her hinging on his arm as he comes down the street, like an early dilly x aside a leafless groser-buss ; and it's ill I'd like to see her come to want." " Keep me, Reuben ! " It was Miss Grizzie's turn now to look surprised. " A body wad think it was forty years syne wi' you, to hear your discoursing about the dillies and the young lasses ! Do ye mind what age ye are ? It's a sensible widdy, no ower young, that can toast your flannels and see to your house, that ye should look out for if you're gaun to part wi' me, and no a young tawpie that might be your granddochter. A bonny dance she'd lead ye gin ye war to get her ! It's a horn beam and no a groser-buss she'd mak o' you, I'm thinkin'." Reuben's bald forehead flushed with anger, 1 Daffodil. but he controlled his features sufficiently to sneer instead of scowling, and replied — " You're sae young yoursel', Grizzie !

Ye can afford to laugh at your auld brother. Gin ye got the Provost, there's nane could say that either o' ye was ower soon married. I wonder ye hae bed sae lang single, gin his like could please ye." " Gin I hae bidden lang, it wasna for want of offers, mind ye that ! But it's like ye to cast up to me the years I hae waured on you and your housekeepin'. If the flower o' my age is by, it comes ill fra you to mind me o't, that hae wasted it in takin' tent o' you and your substance — a thankless job ! " " Hoot, toot, Grisel ! We're growin' auld thegether, and real canty hae we been. Sae, nae mair about it. I meant no ill ; but it was you took the first word of flytin'." " And you hae the last, like the cankered auld wife o' a man ye'll turn till, if ye takna heed." And Miss Grisel having thus secured the final retort — her sex's due — escaped from the room.

Chapter II. Angus Blaitman

The Provost's daughter had slipped her hand out of his arm when they reached the Town House, private claims having no further hold on the civic dignitary there. She stood for an instant in the crowd, and then turned to walk alone to church. " Barbara, my dear, you look sweet this morning ! " was the greeting which struck her ear, as she got clear of the standing idlers. She turned her head and found herself be tween the hands of Mrs Blaitman, her next door neighbour, caressingly extended as if for an embrace. Barbara took one of them, but drew back smiling, unwilling to assist in a demonstrative salutation on the public street. " I saw the milliner oirl bringing home your new bonnet last night. Most becoming, I assure you, and very smart. She never makes anything so nice as that for me ; but then I am turning an old woman- — and oh, Barbara, I am a sorrowful one this day !

But you're not noticing Angus ? What makes you so backward, Angus? — hanging away there, behind your mother, like a bashful bit stripling, and you six foot high ! Think shame of yourself ! " Angus, thus adjured, advanced with a painful smile — reddening to the tips of his ears, and looking wistfully in the girl's face. She took his hand with friendly indifference, and turned again to his loquacious mother. " He's just been yearning to meet you all this morning, my dear, and keeking out be hind the blinds to see you and the Provost setting out, before he would come to the church. Ye needna be jogging me with your elbow, Ano'us ! Ye know it's true ! And I 7 O beut to tell on you, Angus. You're that bashfu', you winna take your own part ; and what should be said will never be spoken if I dinna give you a helping hand.

When you're sitting your lone upon the stormy seas, you'll mind of to-day, and you'll be thanking the old mother that broke the ice, when you hadna the pluck to venture for yourself. It's your last chance, Angus, for many a day ; and I winna have my son misunderstood, if I can help it. Do ye think people are going to wTait for years, if you dinna promise them something to wait for ? We'll none of us be young when you come home again, in ten years' time ; and there's much to come and go or then." Poor Angus wished he might sink into the ground. He was very tall, and had a difficulty in disposing of the length of limb with which he had too suddenly become endowed. He was nineteen — a year and four months older than Barbara, as his mother never lost an opportunity to mention — but he was les3 versed in the ways of the world, as men of his age and stature are apt to be.

He grew purple in the face, and at the wrists, between his gloves and coat. His sight became dim. His head seemed swimming. He gasped for breath, clutching convulsively at the volumi nous neckcloth in which his chin was buried. Even Barbara grew uncomfortable, and turned her eyes resolutely away, fearing that the sight of the young man's confusion might upset her gravity ; while the old lady, unconscious of the trouble she was working, maundered eagerly on. " This is Angus's last Sunday at home, Barbara ! He's off to the Indies this incoming week. It's a sore trial, the parting, as you may well understand, for me. But I must bear it. It's for his advancement in life. It's what a mother must expect, and no doubt I'll be supported by a Higher Hand. Ten years will wear over before we know. Oh yes, my dear ! it seems a long time to young things like you ; but it's just wonderful the way the years slip by — ' like a tale that is told, or a veesion of the night,' as the Psalmist says : and then he'll be coming home a braw man of thirty, with his fortune made or making, turning the ladies' heads with his consequence and his fine presence.

But it's old friends my Angus will aye like the best, Barbara. You may keep your mind easy on that point. Take his mother's word for it. He's true and tender, and never forgets. You and he are very old friends, and ye were always very thick. I can mind you playing together, and him in frocks ! And he hasna forgotten, Barbara. Mind ye that ! He never will ! " Barbara coloured, and drew up her head. " What was it to her ? " she thought. Mrs Blaitman's rather awkward Prince Charming was indeed her play-fellow of long ago, but so were all the nice boys and girls of her age in Bennetskirk ; and his mother had no right to talk as she was doing Angus had not said anything to her — or not much; and if his colour had come and gone in the saying it, it had only made him look a little absurd ; and, but for hurting his feelings, she would perhaps have laughed.

Fortunately, they were now at the church-door ; Mrs Blaitman had no opportunity to say more, and Barbara made haste to gain the security of her aunts' pew. Barbara's aunts, or rather grand-aunts, were the aunts of her dead mother. They were old, no doubt, but how old no one knew. Time seemed to have forgotten them, and passed on, without marking them with his yearly notches and pitiable subtractions. Bennetskirk had no recollection of the Misses Dumbole as having ever been other than they still were, — two wiry little ladies, who showed no sign of ever having been young, though they still sat hale and erect in their little pony-chaise, driving in from the rose-covered cottage a mile out of town, in which they had dwelt time out of mind- — a pair of fairy god mothers they might have been, if such things had been thought of in sober-minded Scot land.

Miss Jeannie and Miss Bawbie was how they were spoken of behind their backs, but no one presumed to address them save as Miss Dumbole and Miss Barbara, always excepting their maid, Bell Farquhar, who had grown old in their service, and who, as they frequently complained, "took great liberties," beiuoindeed more mistress of their establish rnent than they were themselves. " Come home with us, Bab," was Miss Jean uie's greeting, when service was over and they were at liberty to speak. " We have not seen you all the week. Peter will leave word as we go bye your door." Barbara consented, nothing loath. A tranquil afternoon with the old ladies was better than the enforced seclusion of a Sunday at home, where her father was wont to withdraw to his chamber during the long afternoon, and custom forbade her to appear out of doors.

Her aunts in their little drawing-room were at least cheerful, in a sober way ; and if prone to advise unneces.sarily about housekeeping and making calls — the two great businesses of their lives — they at least did not accuse her of worldly - mindedness when she ven tured to converse on the ordinary interests of life. " I see no profit in talking about sermons and the ministers all Sunday," Miss Jeannie would observe. " In my young days we thought more of the red coats and less of the black ; and I still think the meelitary are more amusing, and their manners are better. If people would be content with doing their duty, instead of just talking so much about it. the world would be a merrier place to live in. But I'm an old woman, and behind the times maybe, for I own I'd rather hear what is going on than be lamenting my neighbours' shortcomings, like some of the serious people one meets nowadays."