The laird's secret

Front matter

POPULAR FLORIN SERIESJ ^

Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library

WIS.

Chapter I. Introductory

' Now my heart is so full that a drop overfills it, We are happy now, because God so wills it ; No matter how barren the past may have been, 'Tis enough for us now, that the leaves are green.'

OW strange it is to be back here at Westermuir, my dear old home, and to see all the familiar places again which I remember so well, though I have not seen them since I was a child of seven years old ! They are the very same as ever, though I am so changed. The sunlight as of yore falls on the gravel paths, the birds are singing in the old laburnum-tree just as they used to do sixteen years ago. I listen for the voices of the children who once made the old walls ring with their mirth. I start — I remember : those children, where are they ? One in an exalted sphere sheds a sweet radiance o'er her ' stately home ;' one has carried the light of her childhood's home to distant lands ; one, scarce yet in manhood's prime, gives forth to his people from week to week the words of life ; one has long been sleeping beneath the willow-tree ; and for the other — the youngest of that merry band — clouds and darkness io THE LAIRD'S SECRET.

have rested on her. Ah, yes ! and this task of writing I have set myself to do during my holiday month here, brings back to me in all its freshness, as nothing else could have done, the dear ' langsyne.'

For myself, I would willingly have kept hid in the depths of my own heart those feelings which are all too sacred for common view, — those joys with which a stranger may not intermeddle ; but I have the honour of those dear to me to guard ; and that no act of theirs may be misconstrued or misjudged, it seems right that this record be made public.

An extract from my journal (the only one I shall give) will best begin what I have to say. It was written the morning before I left school, from which I date the beginning of my life. How young the writing seems !

Extract from Journal.

'Belton House, London, ' June 25, 1862.

' Hurrah for my last day here ! We are to go home to-morrow for the holidays, and I am " finished " — I need never learn another lesson, unless to please myself. The girls are all out making good-bye calls, and I am all alone, as I know nobody here. I shall take the opportunity to begin my new diary, and the very first sentence to be specially written down in it is, — that I am going home.

'"Home, sweet home." Such a pretty home, too! Not like poor Louisa Maitland's — (how I should hate to live in Glasgow ! How could Uncle Maitland leave such a beautiful parish to go there — but it is well for us that he did). Everybody who visits Edinburgh is sure to go to Colston, there are so many sights about it — from Queen Mary's castle in the Dalmany grounds to Habbie's Howe and the Poet's Bower of Sir Walter Scott notoriety. The village is first-class, of course ; and the manse ! — but I have no words to describe it, except that I love it. I can see it (in ray mind's eye) at this

INTR OJD UCTOR Y 1 1

moment, standing high up on its quiet "brae," looking serenely across to the dear old church and churchyard, with the Water of Leith sparkling through the trees at its side (I am as proud of the Water of Leith as Richie Moniplies of famous memory), and Arthur's Seat towering in the distance behind, and all the bright golden fields round about— so different in all respects from grim old Westermuir. What would papa say if he saw this 1 Papa says Westermuir is his first love, and he is very loyal to it (but then he lives in his study ; it is all the same to papa where he lives, if only he has his beloved desk and books) ; I am sure it would never be mine. Broom, and whins, and heather, — not to speak of " moors an' mosses many, O," — may be all very nice and pleasant for sportsmen and bees ; but / like corn-fields, and green parks, and flowergardens, and plenty of people coming and going, a great deal better. Who wouldn't?

'How Nurse fires when I tell her this ! She says, "The Minister disna say that ; an' I'm no' heedin' for naebody else " She always will call papa " the Minister," as if there were no other, — just as Mr. Scott of Dalmany rejoices in the designation of " the Laird," because he is the largest land-proprietor in the place.

' Poor dear Nurse ! she is like the Israelites of old, always looking back upon the goodly land we have left, and foreboding that our " cucumber and garlic" days are for ever at an end. But to be sure it is her "Fatherland."

'And yet, how she boasts of "the castle that was ance Queen Mary's (that her faither had ta'en frae the auld Earl o' Colston, the Laird's forbear, for something he had dune), and that she gied back till him hersel' " And how proud she is to point out Dalmany to city friends, as "the biggest gentleman's place in a' the Lowdens " (I wonder, though, what she is saying to the goings on in the chapel there of late !), and to tell what great people the Scotts were about the Court "in the auld Stuart days, when Scotland toas a country," and how true they were to their sovereigns, — losing their title for their loyalty in '• the '4-3.'' — with as much pride as any Colstoniau of them all ! "Speak o' yer Sir Johns, an' yer Lord Hermistons !" she will say in a grand climax. "Pity me ! nane o' them wad hae gotten a nod frae the Dalmany folk in thae days."

' Well, I have been very happy here, — quite at home. It is really not at all like Avhat my ideas of a boarding-school were, except in being packed off to bed every night at half-past nine, — which I decidedly object to; and in the morning when the great bell rings at six o'clock, and you must get up, or you will be hauled out by the hand or foot — whichever is most in the way. Mr. and Mrs. Lambert have been like a father and mother to us ; and they are both so good. Papa was right when he said (when Harriet and Marianne came here four years ago) that he was sending us where Ave would be educated for another world as well as for this. I shall be sorry to part with the girls ; some of them are very nice. I think we have put some spirit (not brandy) into each other, and done each other good in many ways.

' I think, too, that we have seen all that is worth seeing in London (and in Paris, where we went at Christmas), and that is a great deal. Papa wished us to do so, and Mr. Lambert says we cannot form a proper estimate of things, even our own, — until Ave have had a wide experience. So Ave have been everywhere — even to the opera and the theatres (which I didn't care for at all, though it was Miss Faucit all the three times 1 Avas there). We have also heard all the great preachers, — the Bishops, Deans, etc.. — and seen the Queen, and the Court ladies, and all the exhibitions, to our hearts' content. I am sure it Avill give me, and Louisa too, plenty to think of, all the rest of our lives.

' How delicious it was yesterday coming from Kew to stand on the bridge at mid-day, Avhile the clocks were striking the hour, and look down the river, Avith the boats sailing up and lown, just like a picture (a living one) ! The University boat-races came off a short time since, and the girls tied their

INTR OD UCTOR Y. 13

hair with dark-blue ribbons, as they were nearly all on the Oxford side. I was asked why I had not on blue, and my answer was that I had no interest in Oxford, till all at once it occurred to my memory that Mr. Scott had been there ; and I forthwith adopted a dark-blue dress, a blue tie, and such a profusion of blue ribbons that I felt quite in the blues !

' By the way, I wonder if Mr. Scott was amongst those swells we saw arriving from the Derby that clay we" were coming from the Horticultural Gardens ? They had on blue veils, and were driving at a dashing rate, in hansoms, — in fact, in my opinion, doing the thing han'som'ly ! He must be tremendously " fast," if he is all that Robbie Gourlay depicts him !

'(iV.JS. — That is a dear old man, second dux of the lovable people in Colston, Sir John Maitland being first ; and, by the way, I must state here that Cousin Louisa is no relation to Sir John ; she has the same name, that is all.)

' Speaking of Robbie Gourlay, I wonder if nothing has been heard of his poor daughter all this time. It was such a strange, thing to disappear from her situation all at once, and never to be heard of again ! They were all so proud of her, too ; and such a lovely girl she was, to be sure ; but a vain Flibbertigibbet as ever was ! Poor Kitty ! she must be dead ; she would never have stayed away these two years without let tins; her friends hear of her if she were alive.

' Mrs. Lambert called me to the parlour, when I was writing the last line, to see the new bonnet I am taking home to show Marianne the fashions. Such a beauty ! all tulle and forgetme-nots. The idea of me wearing such a bonnet ! — /, who was told by the girls when I arrived here, that when they first saw me they thought me the ugliest girl they had ever seen, though they qualified the remark a little by adding, " that when they knew me they didn't think of it." Complimentary, to be sure, and something like a talk I overheard about myself at a little party at aunt's, the night before I came here.

How angry Marianne was when I told her, though I only laughed !

' I was sittinsr at a table looking at some ensravinirs near a group of ladies, who were so busy discussing everybody in the room that they never noticed me, when my attention was suddenly roused by hearing my own name mentioned, and certain! v not in the most flattering terms.

' " She's not improving in her looks," were the first words I caught, in a voice I did not recognise.

' " Who \ " asked a lady, who had not been attending to the remarks.

' " That girl Helen Fitz-James, with her sallow face and groat staring eyes, and those ropes of black hair coiled round her head. It is to be hoped she will be taught to dress it properly at school."

' " Oh, well, but she has a very nice expression,'' said the lady who had spoken before. " I think it quite redeems all that."

' " Nonsense ; she's hideous ! " pronounced the other (who, I am sure, must have been an old maid) ; " I can't imagine how such a Gordon ever trot amomrst such a erood-lookiiiir family !

O o ~ O Ok

It's most extraordinary.''

' " Good-looking ! '' ejaculated another voice ; " that is surely not the word. Harriet and Marianne Fitz-James are lovely ! you couldn't possibly pick out a fault in their features."

'"Well, I don't know," was the retort, spoken crossly enough; "Harriet is a vain peacock ; she thinks every gentleman she meets is in love with her (she's in love with herself, at all events), and she has such an affected way of lifting her eyes and looking you all over, and then turning away, as if nobody was anything at all beside her. Oh, 1 don't like her ! As for the other one, she's not so affected, but she's just a doll ■ — there's nothing in her."

' What further agreeable remarks might have followed I had no means of judging, as some one came up just then and bewail to talk to me ; but I think I had heard enoutrh for one night. Really I had never thought myself so very ugly till

INTR OD UCTOR Y. 1 5

then, and I don't quite believe it yet, though I know I'm not a, beauty. My own opinion is, that I would bo passable enough if I had not two such beautiful sisters ; but of course when people speak of the " two lovely Miss Fitz-Jameses," / am altogether left out of the question. "Well, as Nurse says, " I'm no' carin'," the fox's philosophy is the best ; and as Miss Ophelia says, "People may like you though you're black." It must be very nice, though, to be able to give pleasure just by showing one's face, and a beauty can always do that whatever she may be otherwise. I ought to be proud of my sisters, and so I am. How they are followed ! Marianne not so much, perhaps — she is in a less out-of-the-way style ; but Harriet — what a lot of beaux Harriet always has about her wherever she goes ! At parties it is a perfect scramble who will dance with her, or hold her gloves or bouquet if she lays them down for an instant, sometimes actually "tossing for it " who is to have the chance of taking her in to supper. If I were Harriet, I should think it extremely annoying to be beset and watched and waited on in that way all for my looks ; but, to be sure, it may be a case of " fox and grapes," as nothing of the sort is likely to befall me.

' I must be sure to take home all my photographs. What a comfort it is to have all one's friends beside one to look at in a foreign land ! Marianne and I very nearly quarrelled once about my taking possession of this one of Cousin Charlie, but that was before I had found out that they were engaged ; and then she showed me her ring and all the other treasures he had given her. Poor dear Charlie, no wonder May loves him ! he is such a fine, handsome, manly fellow, it is positive sunshine to look at him ! What a f ; ty he had to go so far away as India ! I hope he will soon make his fortune and be able to come home.

' Really, those are most extraordinary changes going on at Colston, to judge from home letters ; I wish I may know the dear old place again. To think of Queen Mary's old chapel, of all places, being re-erected as a place for Protestant worship !

It makes me angry to think of it, on that pretty velvet slope, staring our dear old church out of countenance ! Mr. Scott, of coarse, is at the bottom of all that. I am beginning to hate him already, before I have even seen him. And Mr. Charteris ! Well, he has come out at last, with his candles and crosses and millinery ! but I am not surprised at him , he was always a great deal more like a Popish priest than an English clergyman, and I fully expect he will turn out to be one some of these days, But what will Robbie Gourlay and all our sturdy Colstonians say to these new-fangled doings in our very midst 1 And Tom ! I wonder what Turn is saying about them ; he hates all that sort of flummsry. I remember Robbie's ire long ago when Pat Murphy, the tailor at Colmuir End, boasted (to tease him, no doubt) that " he would see Queen Mary's chapel hould up its head again before he died." " I wad \\ke to see ye try't," said Robbie, with an admonitory shake of the fist at the aforesaid Pat ; "I wad like to see ye try t, as lang as there's ae hatchet to the fore an'- ae arm to hand it up." But whatever Robbie's thoughts and threats, and whatever Pat's, certain it is that the chapel " holds up its head again" as high as ever, and has service in it duly performed ewrv dav, '■ no man forbidding it." It is marvellous what the wolf can achieve when he puts on the sheep's skin !

' A letter from home ! More commissions for that Soldier's Home Bazaar Lady Maitland is getting up. It is just a p<>.-t too late for me ; my trunks are all packed and corded ready to start in the morning; I must just get these things in Edinburgh. Dr. Blackburn again ! Can thev not write a single letter without mentioning him? He will be another of Harriet's victims, 1 suppose. If so, 1 pity him. Harriet is expecting something far grander than a country doctor ! But here comes Louisa to go with me for a farewell walk in the park. I mu>t put away my journal, and get ready to go out, and for the last time in London. Hurrah ! '

CHAPTEE IL

HOME.

' Hame, hame, hame, — oh, it's hame fain -wad I be ! '

HE parting with our teachers and school companions, when it really came to the point, was harder than we had thought, for we had heen more than a year together. But at last we got it over, and a few hours' flying through the air effectually restored us.

I little thought — I little dreamed — that, in leaving my school days behind me, I was quitting the safe and sunny shallows of the brook for the river into whose currents I had already entered, though I knew it not, where the great deep sea would be all around me, and where my feet might find no standing. Ah ! God help all those who must ford that river, for vain is the help of man.

We remained all night in Edinburgh, as it was late when we arrived ; and we had of course a great deal to tell as well as to hear from our cousins after our long absence, and very merry and happy we all were as we sat at our ten o'clock tea, the joy of finding ourselves once again in Charlotte Street, and so near home, after being away for a year and three months, making all else delightful.

Next morning, soon after breakfast, brought papa and Uncle Maitland to claim their respective daughters, — some special church business (I forget now what) having necessi-

B tated their presence in Edinburgh on that particular day. They soon went away to their meeting, and we went out on a shopping expedition to execute the commissions I had omitted in London. Oh the joy of finding myself once again in Edinburgh streets ! I had seen no city like it since I left it ; and I remember I used to wonder as a child if the New Jerusalem would be finer than ' mine own romantic town.'

Then came our mid-day dinner, and the good-bye kisses (partings these, like a pair of scissors, to meet again, as my aunt and cousins were to follow me in a few days to Colston for the summer). Then Uncle Maitland and my dear Cousin Louisa went away to their home in the west, while my other cousins and I (my luggage having been sent home the night before) walked leisurely along Princes Street to the S.S. Library to meet papa.

And here befell a thing which was rather odd to think of afterwards, though it did not strike me so much at the time.

We had not gone far from aunt's door when a gentleman crossed from the gardens and came towards us, whom I saw to be the Dalmany factor, whom I knew to bow to, though that was all. He was not liked on the estate, — very much the reverse : he was a tyrannical, disagreeable man to be under, and suspected of many underhand practices — the chief of which being that his principles were other than he professed ; and people wondered not a little that the late Mr. Scott should have put such a person into power ; but of course I had nothing to do with that.

He lifted his hat as he approached, and then, to my no small astonishment, he stopped, with the air of an old acquaintance, to express his great pleasure at seeing me home again.

I thanked him, of course ; but it must have been with some degree of reserve, for I felt considerably surprised that the acquaintance between him and the Manse should have

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progressed so remarkably during my absence, as his manner seemed to indicate, and I to have heard nothing of it. My cousins had walked on, while Mr. Morton proceeded in the most insinuating manner :

'May I detain you for one moment, Miss Fitz-James, — ■ just to ask a single question I I am aware you take a great interest in the village people, as I do myself. Do you happen to know whether the Gourlay family have heard any tidings of late of the daughter who disappeared so strangely two years ago % '

I told him that so far as I was aware nothing whatever had been heard of her since her disappearance.

' I do not myself know the family so well as I would wish to do, being an old residenter in the place,' he went on. ' The old man has always avoided me ; he is a bigot of the old fanatical school, which I thought had been exploded in these enlightened days (I am sure your good father disapproves of that spirit, Miss Fitz-James), and cannot pass over my being of a diffirent persuasion.' (Mr. Morton was an Episcopalian, he said, but there were not wanting those who openly accused him of being a Papist at heart, and the conjecture had gained great ground of late by his zealous patronage of the chapel at Dalmany and its clergyman, who had all at once become so suspiciously ' high.') ' But I would willingly hear of his welfare for all that. Then the report current in the village, that the girl had turned up some time ago, is without foundation ? '

I shook my head. I was sorry I could give him no information, — adding, however, that I feared the rumour could not have been true, else I should have heard.

' I am very sorry. I was in hopes they had had good news. I must apologize for having detained you, Miss Fitz-James. I shall wish you good morning now.'

But go away Mr. Morton did not.

' You would hear that Mr. Scott is expected down shortly 1 ' he resumed (as if the news were likely to interest me as much as himself), at the same time walking forward with me. ' He will reside amongst us for the future, I hope, and I am glad of it ; it is always a blessing to a locality to have the landlord resident in it. But would you believe it 1 the people are far from appreciating the benefit ; they have taken up a prejudice against Mr. Scott, before they have even seen him, simply because he is an Englishman, and of course belongs to a different church. They are an awful set of bigots the Colston people ; I never saw their equals anywhere. Miss Fitz-James,' he added in an insinuating tone, as I walked on rather impatiently, ' you could do a great deal to modify this feeling, if you would kindly interest yourself in the matter. I know your influence among the village people, and I am sure your recent residence away from home must have taught you to be tolerant of the opinions — especially the religious opinions — of other people.'

' Certainly,' I said, rather at a loss what answer to make to this, and doubtful of my ground altogether. ' But I did not need to go from home to learn that lesson.'

' Then you will do what I ask 1 ' he said eagerly. ' You will try to instil some of your own liberality into the minds of those bigots 1 And allow me to say that the way to do so most effectually is to influence Dr. Blackburn : only get him to suspend his judgment of Mr. Scott, and he may be trusted to do all the rest.'

' I have no acquaintance with Dr. Blackburn,' I said shortly and coldly, for I was indignant now at being detained so long in the public street, and by a person I disliked.

'But you will make his acquaintance now. He is on the most intimately friendly terms at the Manse, and he is beyond all question the most popular man in Colston. The rest of us — clergymen, priests, and laymen — may hide our diminished heads as soon as we choose. The influence he has among the working classes — even the Irish at Colmuir End — is extraordinary ! If we could secure his friendship for Mr. Scott, and that of your family, Miss Fitz-James, I think it would be

HOME. 21

a boon not merely to himself personally, but to the entire parish.'

' Mr. Scott is not likely to want friends/ I said, not a little amused at Mr. Morton's comfortable conviction that lie could arrange Mr. Scott's friendships.

' No ; but good friends, Miss Fitz-James, are not to be had every day; and Mr. Scott (I may say it, for I have known him all his life) deserves to have good friends. He is a most amiable and estimable young man, and will be an acquisition to the neighbourhood. I am sure you will like him when you know him, which I hope will be very soon.' And again shaking hands most cordially, and raising his hat, my unexpected companion at length bowed himself off, and I hastened to overtake my cousins.

' What on earth were you and Mr. Morton talking about so long 1 ' they asked in a breath, as I came up to them. ' We did not know you were on such intimate terms.'

' I did not know it myself,' I answered, laughing, ' but it appears that we are ; ' and we all three hastened on to the library, as papa must have been waiting a long time.

Surely there is nothing in all this world of ours more delightful than a welcome home, after an absence long or short. To know that loved ones are eagerly watching our coming, — a large circle, it may be, — to whom we are as part and parcel of their being, and whose smile would be less bright if we were away, is a happiness indeed seldom, perhaps, fully realized until we have lost it ; and then, if never before, we realize in all its sweetness, when too late, the priceless treasure that was ours. But my home was still blessed, and a joyous greeting awaited me there.

It was the sweetest hour of the June day — the hour I always like best for arriving anywhere — when papa and I reached Colston. The labourers were trooping homewards from the fields, implements on shoulders, tired, doubtless, with their day's work, but still able to malre the roads resound with their heavy tread and cheerful voices; while through the open doors their wives might be seen hurrying to and fro, in busy preparation of the evening meal, or out among the strawberry-beds in the little gardens behind. The hedges were full of roses and singing-birds; with such a sky overhead ! and the fields on either side were alive with troops of children loose from school, and enjoying themselves to their hearts' content. Life looked very bright and cheerful everywhere about.

It was worth my fifteen months of absence to be embraced and welcomed as I was that night, when the train stopped at the pretty little station, with its white paling, and deep hedge of sweet-brier, through which the pretty wild roses, pink, red, and white, twined their fairy tendrils.

' The Manse has turned out to meet us, Ellie,' said papa ; and, looking eagerly from the window, I saw a well-known group looking as eagerly for us, — Marianne half dancing, and Harriet holding back little Harry (the ' Benjamin ' of the family by eleven years) as he was springing forward. The darling boy ! what a shout he gave when he saw ' Ellie's head at the window ' !