Chapter IX: Coquette's Promise

"Good morning, Miss Cassilis," said Lord Earlshope, as he met Coquette coming over the moorland road. "I hear you had an adventure last night. But why did not you go into the lodge and get dried?"

"Why?" said Coquette--"why, because my cousin Tom and I were as wet as we could be, and it was better to go on straight to the Manse without waiting. Have you seen him this morning?"?

"Your cousin? No."

"I am looking for him. I think he believes he is in disgrace at the Manse, and has gone off for some wild mischief. He has taken all his brothers with him; and I did hear him laughing and singing as he always does when he--how do you call it?--when he breaks out."

"Let me help you to look for him," said Earlshope. "I am sure he ought to be proud of your solicitude, if anything is wanted to make him happier than he is. How thoroughly that handsome lad seems to enjoy the mere routine of living!"

"You talk as if you were an old man," said Coquette, with one of her bright laughs. "Do not you enjoy living?"

"Enjoy it? No. If the days pass easily, without much bother, I am contented; but happiness does not visit a man who looks upon himself as a failure at twenty-seven."

"I do not understand you," said Coquette, with a puzzled air.

"You would provoke me into talking about myself, as if I were a hypochondriac. Yet I have no story--nothing to amuse you with."

"Oh, I do wish you to tell me all about yourself," said Coquette, with a gracious interest. "Why you remain by yourself in this place? Why you have no companions--no occupation? You are mysterious."

"I am not even that," he said, with a smile. "I have not even a mystery. Yet I will tell you all about myself, if you care to hear, as we go along. Stop me when I tire you."

So her companion began and told her all about himself and his friends, his college life, his relations, his acquaintances, his circumstances--a rather lengthy narrative, which need not be repeated here. Coquette learned a great deal during that time, however, and saw for the first time Lord Earlshope in a true light. He was no longer to her a careless and light-hearted young man, who had made her acquaintance out of indolent curiosity, and seemed inclined to flirt with her for mere amusement. He was, in his own words, a failure at twenty-seven--a man whose extremely morbid disposition had set to work years ago to eat into his life. He had had his aspirations and ambitions; and had at length convinced himself that he had not been granted the intellect to accomplish any of his dreams. What remained to him?

"I was not fit to do anything," he said, "with those political, social, and other instruments that are meant to secure the happiness of multitudes. All I could do was to try to secure my own happiness, and help the philanthropists by a single unit."

"Have you done that?" said Coquette.

"No," he rejoined, with a careless shrug, "I think I have failed in that, too. All my life I have been cutting open my bellows to see where the wind came from; and if you were to go over Earlshope, you would discover the remains of twenty different pursuits that I have attempted and thrown aside. Do you know, Miss Cassilis, that I have even ceased to take any interest in the problem of myself--in the spectacle of a man physically as strong as most men, and mentally so vacillating that he has never been able to hold an opinion or get up a prejudice to swear by. Even the dullest men have convictions about politics; but I am a Tory in sympathy and a Radical in theory, so that I am at war with myself on pretty nearly every point. Sometimes I have fancied that there are a good many men in this country more or less in my condition; and then it has occurred to me that an invasion of England would be a good thing."

"Ah, you would have something to believe in then--something to fight for!" said Coquette.

"Perhaps. Yet I don't know. If the invaders should happen to have better educational institutions than England--as is very likely--oughtn't I to fight on their side, and wish them to be successful, and give us a lesson? England, you know, owes everything to successive invasions; for the proper test of the invader's political institutions was whether they could hold their own in the country after he had planted his foot there. But I have really to beg your pardon. I must not teach you the trick of following everything to the vanishing point. You have the greatest of earthly blessings; you enjoy life without asking yourself why."

"But I do not understand," said Coquette, "how I can enjoy more than you. Is it not pleasant to come out in the sunshine like this, after the night's rain, and see the clear sky, and smell the sweet air? You enjoy that----"

"I cannot help wondering what appetite it will give me."

Coquette made an impatient gesture with her hands.

"At least you do enjoy speaking with me here on this pleasant morning?"

"The more we talk," he said, "the more I am puzzled by the mystery of the difference between you and me. Why, the passing of a bright-coloured butterfly is an intense pleasure to you! I have seen you look up to a gleam of blue sky, and clasp your hands, and laugh with delight. Every scent of a flower, every pleasant sound, every breath of sunshine and air, is a new joy to you; and you are quite satisfied with merely being alive. Of course, it is an advantage to be alive; but there are few who make so much of it as you do."

"You think too much about it," said Coquette; "when you marry some day, you will have more practical things to think of, and you will be happier."

At the mention of the word marriage a quick look of annoyance seemed to pass across his face; but she did not notice it, and he replied lightly,

"Marriages are made in heaven, Miss Cassilis; and I am afraid they won't do much for me there."

"Ah! do not you believe in heaven?" she said, and the brown eyes were turned anxiously to his face.

"Do not let us talk about that," said he, indifferently; "I do not wish to alienate from me the only companion I have ever found in this place. Yet I do not disbelieve in what you believe, I know. What were you saying about marriage?" he added, with an apparent effort; "do you believe that marriages are made in heaven?"

"I do not know," replied Coquette; "the people say that sometimes."

"I was only thinking," remarked Lord Earlshope, with an apparently careless laugh, "that if the angels employ their leisure in making marriages, they sometimes turn out a very inferior article. Don't you think so?"

Coquette was not a very observant young person--she was much too occupied with her own round of innocent little enjoyments; but it did strike her that her companion spoke with a touch of bitterness in his tone. However, they did not pursue the subject further, for, much to their surprise, they suddenly stumbled upon the Whaup and his brothers.

The boys were at a small bridge crossing the stream that ran down from Airlie moor; and they were so intent upon their own pursuits that they took no notice of the approach of Coquette and her companion. Lord Earlshope, indeed, at once motioned to Coquette to preserve silence; and, aided by a line of small alder and hazel bushes which grew on the banks of the rivulet, they drew quite near to the Minister's sons without being perceived.

Coquette was right: the Whaup had "broken out." Feeling assured that he would be held responsible for all the crimes of yesterday--the affair of the crucifix, the clandestine excursion to Saltcoats, and the mishaps that accrued therefrom--the Whaup had reflected that it was as well to be hanged for a sheep as a lamb. When Coquette and her companion came in sight of him, he was fulfilling the measure of his iniquities.

What had moved him to vent his malignity on his younger brother Wattie must remain a mystery--unless it was that Wattie was the "best boy" of the Manse, and, further, that he had shown an enmity to Coquette; but at this moment Wattie was depending from the small bridge, his head a short distance from the water, his feet held close to the parapet by the muscular arms of the Whaup, while one of the other boys had been made an accomplice to the extent of holding on to Wattie's trousers.

"Noo, Wattie," said the Whaup, "ye maun say a sweer before ye get up. I'm no jokin', and unless ye be quick, ye'll be in the water."

But would Wattie, the paragon of scholars, the exemplar to his brothers, imperil his soul by uttering a "bad word?" Surely not! Wattie was resolute. He knew what punishment was held in reserve for swearers; and preferred the colder element.

"Wattie," said the Whaup, "say a sweer, or ye'll gang into the burn, as sure as daith!"

No; Wattie would rather be a martyr. Whereupon--the bridge being a very low one--the Whaup and his brothers dipped Wattie a few inches, so that the ripples touched his head. Wattie set up a fearful howl; and his brothers raised him to his former position.

"Now, will ye say it?"

"_Devil!_" cried Wattie. "Let me up; I hae said a sweer."

The other brothers raised a demoniac shout of triumph over this apostacy; and the Whaup's roars of laughter had nearly the effect of precipitating Wattie into the stream in downright earnest. But this backsliding on the part of their pious brother did not seem to the tempters sufficiently serious.

"Ye maun say a worse sweer, Wattie. '_Deevil_' is no bad enough."

"I'll droon first!" said Wattie, whimpering in his distress, "and then ye'll get your paiks, I'm thinking."

Down went Wattie's head into the burn again; and this time he was raised with his mouth sputtering out the contents it had received.

"I'll say what ye like--I'll say what ye like! _D--n_; is that bad enough?"

With another unholy shout of derision, Wattie was raised and set on the bridge.

"Noo," said the Whaup, standing over him, "let me tell you this, my man. The next time ye gang to my faither, and tell a story about any one o' us, or the next time ye say a word against the French lassie, as ye ca' her, do ye ken what I'll do? I'll take ye back to my faither by the lug, and I'll tell him ye were swearin' like a trooper down by the burn; and every one o' us will testify against ye. Ma certes, my man, I'm thinking it will be your turn to consider paiks. My faither has a bonnie switch, Wattie--a braw switch, Wattie; and what think ye he'll do to his well-behaved son that gangs about the countryside swearin' just like a Kilmarnock carter?"

Coquette held out her hand to her companion.

"Good-bye," she said, "and I do thank you for bringing me here."

Lord Earlshope perceived that he was dismissed, but did not know why. He was not aware that Coquette was trembling lest she should be seen in his forbidden company.

"Shall I see you to-morrow?" he said, as he took her hand.

"When it is fine I do always go out for a walk after breakfast," she said lightly; and so they parted.