Chapter V: Part 5

"Ha! Allan, man," he said, extending his large hand and grasping that of the fisherman; "if you winna come an' see us, we maun just come an' see you. Lillias an' mysel were afraid the guidwife had frichtened you awa--for she's a near-gaun sort o' body, an' maybe no owre kind spoken; but ye maun just come an' see us whiles, an' no mind her. Except at counting-time, I never mind her mysel." Thomson accommodated his visitors with seats. "Yer life maun be a gay lonely ane here, in this eerie bit o' a glen," remarked the old man, after they had conversed for some time on indifferent subjects; "but I see ye dinna want company a'thegither, such as it is"--his eye glancing as he spoke over a set of deal shelves, occupied by some sixty or seventy volumes. "Lillias there has a liking for that kind o' company too, an' spends some days mair o' her time amang her books than the guidwife or mysel would wish."

Lillias blushed at the charge, and hung down her head; it gave, however, a new turn to the conversation; and Thomson was gratified to find that the quiet, gentle girl, who seemed so much interested in him, and whose gratitude to him, expressed in a language less equivocal than any spoken one, he felt to be so delicious a compliment, possessed a cultivated mind and a superior understanding. She had lived, under the roof of her father, in a little paradise of thoughts and imaginations, the spontaneous growth of her own mind; and, as she grew up to womanhood, she had recourse to the companionship of books--for in books only could she find thoughts and imaginations of a kindred character.

It is rarely that the female mind educates itself. The genius of the sex is rather fine than robust; it partakes rather of the delicacy of the myrtle, than the strength of the oak; and care and culture seem essential to its full development. Who ever heard of a female Burns or Bloomfield? And yet there have been instances, though rare, of women working their way from the lower levels of intellect to well-nigh the highest--not wholly unassisted, 'tis true--the age must be a cultivated one, and there must be opportunities of observation; but, if not wholly unassisted, with helps so slender, that the second order of masculine minds would find them wholly inefficient. There is a quickness of perception and facility of adaptation in the better class of female minds--an ability of catching the tone of whatever is good from the sounding of a single note, if I may so express myself, which we almost never meet with in the mind of man. Lillias was a favourable specimen of the better and more intellectual order of women; but she was yet very young, and the process of self-cultivation carrying on in her mind was still incomplete. And Thomson found that the charm of her society arose scarcely more from her partial knowledge, than from her partial ignorance. The following night saw him seated by her side in the farm-house of Meikle Farness; and scarcely a week passed during the winter in which he did not spend at least one evening in her company.

Who is it that has not experienced the charm of female conversation--that poetry of feeling which developes all of tenderness and all of imagination that lies hidden in our nature? When following the ordinary concerns of life, or engaged in its more active businesses, many of the better faculties of our minds seem overlaid; there is little of feeling and nothing of fancy; and those sympathies which should bind us to the good and fair of nature, lie repressed and inactive. But in the society of an intelligent and virtuous female, there is a charm that removes the pressure. Through the force of sympathy, we throw our intellects for the time into the female mould; our tastes assimilate to the tastes of our companion; our feelings keep pace with hers; our sensibilities become nicer, and our imaginations more expansive; and, though the powers of our mind may not much excel, in kind or degree, those of the great bulk of mankind, we are sensible that, for the time, we experience some of the feelings of genius. How many common men have not female society and the fervour of youthful passion sublimed into poets! I am convinced the Greeks displayed as much sound philosophy as good taste in representing their muses as beautiful women.

Thomson had formerly been but an admirer of the poets--he now became a poet; and, had his fate been a kindlier one, he might perhaps have attained a middle place among at least the minor professors of the incommunicable art. He was walking with Lillias one evening through the wooded ravine. It was early in April, and the day had combined the loveliest smiles of spring with the fiercer blasts of winter. There was snow in the hollows; but, where the sweeping sides of the dell reclined to the south, the violet and the primrose were opening to the sun. The drops of a recent shower were still hanging on the half-expanded buds, and the streamlet was yet red and turbid; but the sun, nigh at his setting, was streaming in golden glory along the field, and a lark was caroling high in the air, as if its day were but begun. Lillias pointed to the bird, diminished almost to a speck, but relieved by the red light against a minute cloudlet.

"Happy little creature!" she exclaimed--"does it not seem rather a thing of heaven than of earth? Does not its song frae the cloud mind you of the hymn heard by the shepherds? The blast is but just owre, an' a few minutes syne it lay cowering and chittering in its nest; but its sorrows are a' gane, an' its heart rejoices in the bonny blink, without ae thought o' the storm that has passed, or the night that comes on. Were you a poet, Allan, like any o' your two namesakes--he o' "The Seasons," or he o' the "Gentle Shepherd"--I would ask you for a song on that bonny burdie." Next time the friends met, Thomson produced the following verses:--

TO THE LARK.

Sweet minstrel of the April cloud!
Dweller the flowers among!
Would that my heart were formed like thine,
And tun'd like thine my song!
Not to the earth, like earth's low gifts,
Thy soothing strain is given;
It comes a voice from middle sky,
A solace breathed from heaven.

Thine is the morn; and when the sun
Sinks peaceful in the west,
The mild light of departing day
Purples thy happy breast.
And, ah! though all beneath that sun
Dire pains and sorrows dwell,
Rarely they visit, short they stay,
Where thou hast built thy cell.

When wild winds rave, and snows descend
And dark clouds gather fast,
And on the surf-encircled shore
The seaman's bark is cast--
Long human grief survives the storm,
But thou, thrice happy bird!
No sooner has it passed away,
Than, lo! thy voice is heard.

When ill is present, grief is thine;
It flies, and thou art free;
But, ah! can aught achieve for man
What nature does for thee!
Man grieves amid the bursting storms
When smiles the calm he grieves;
Nor cease his woes, nor sinks his plaint
Till dust his dust receives.

As the latter month of spring came on, the fisherman again betook himself to his wears, and nearly a fortnight passed in which he saw none of the inmates of the farm-house. Nothing is so efficient as absence, whether self-imposed or the result of circumstances, in convincing a lover that he is truly such, and in teaching him how to estimate the strength of his attachment. Thomson had sat, night after night, beside Lillias Stewart, delighted with the delicacy of her taste and the originality and beauty of her ideas--delighted, too, to watch the still partially developed faculties of her mind, shooting forth and expanding into bud and blossom under the fostering influence of his own more matured powers. But the pleasure which arises from the interchange of idea and the contemplation of mental beauty, or the interest which every thinking mind must feel in marking the aspirations of a superior intellect towards its proper destiny, is not love; and it was only now that Thomson ascertained the true scope and nature of his feelings.

"She is already my _friend_," thought he; "if my schemes prosper, I shall be in a few years what her father is now; and may then ask her whether she will not be _more_. Till then, however, she shall be my friend, and my friend only; I find I love her too well to make her the wife of either a poor, unsettled speculator, or still poorer labourer."

He renewed his visits to the farm-house, and saw, with a discernment quickened by his feelings, that his mistress had made a discovery with regard to her own affections somewhat similar to his, and at a somewhat earlier period. She herself could have, perhaps, fixed the date of it by referring to that of their acquaintance. He imparted to her his scheme and the uncertainties which attended it, with his determination, were he unsuccessful in his designs, to do battle with the evils of penury and dependence without a companion; and, though she felt that she could deem it a happiness to make common cause with him even in such a contest, she knew how to appreciate his motives, and loved him all the more for them. Never, perhaps, in the whole history of the passion, were there two lovers happier in their hopes and each other. But there was a cloud gathering over them.

Thomson had never been an especial favourite with the stepmother of Lillias. She had formed plans of her own for the settlement of her daughter, with which the attentions of the salmon-fisher threatened materially to interfere. And there was a total want of sympathy between them besides. Even William, though he still retained a sort of rough regard for him, had begun to look askance on his intimacy with Lillias;--his avowed love, too, for the modern, gave no little offence. The farm of Meikle Farness was obsolete enough in its usages and modes of tillage, to have formed no uninteresting study to the antiquary. Towards autumn, when the fields vary most in colour, it resembled a rudely executed chart of some large island--so irregular were the patches which composed it, and so broken on every side by a surrounding sea of moor, that here and there went winding into the interior in long river-like strips, or expanded, within, into friths and lakes. In one corner there stood a heap of stones, in another a thicket of furze--here a piece of bog, there a broken bank of clay. The implements with which the old man laboured in his fields were as primitive in their appearance as the fields themselves--there was the one-stilted plough, the wooden-toothed harrow, and the basket-woven cart, with its rollers of wood. With these, too, there was the usual misproportion on the farm, to its extent, of lean, inefficient cattle, four half-starved animals performing, with incredible effort, the work of one. Thomson would fain have induced the old man, who was evidently sinking in the world, to have recourse to a better system--but he gained wondrous little by his advice. And there was another cause which operated still more decidedly against him: a wealthy young farmer in the neighbourhood had been, for the last few months, not a little diligent in his attentions to Lillias. He had lent the old man, at the preceding term, a considerable sum of money; and had ingratiated himself with the stepmother, by chiming in on all occasions with her humour, and by a present or two besides. Under the auspices of both parents, therefore, he had now paid his addresses to Lillias; and, on meeting with a repulse, had stirred them both up against Thomson.

The fisherman was engaged one evening in fishing his nets; the ebb was that of a stream tide, and the bottom of almost the entire bay lay exposed to the light of the setting sun, save that a river-like strip of water wound through the midst. He had brought his gun with him, in the hope of finding a seal or otter asleep on the outer banks; but there were none this evening; and, laying down his piece against one of the poles of the wear, he was employed in capturing a fine salmon that went darting like a bird from side to side of the inner enclosure, when he heard some one hailing him by name from outside the nets. He looked up, and saw three men, one of whom he recognised as the young farmer who was paying his addresses to Lillias, approaching from the opposite side of the bay. They were all apparently much in liquor, and came staggering towards him in a zig-zag track along the sands. A suspicion crossed his mind that he might find them other than friendly; and, coming out of the enclosure, where, from the narrowness of the space and the depth of the water, he would have lain much at their mercy, he employed himself in picking off the patches of sea-weed that adhered to the nets, when they came up to him and assailed him with a torrent of threats and reproaches. He pursued his occupation with the utmost coolness, turning round, from time to time, to repay their abuse by some cutting repartee. His assailants discovered they were to gain little in this sort of contest; and Thomson found in turn that they were much less disguised in liquor than he had at first supposed, or than they seemed desirous to make it appear. In reply to one of his more cutting sarcasms, the tallest of the three, a ruffian-looking fellow, leaped forward and struck him on the face; and in a moment he had returned the blow with such hearty good-will that the fellow was dashed against one of the poles. The other two rushed in to close with him. He seized his gun, and, springing out from beside the nets to the open bank, dealt the farmer, with the but-end a tremendous blow on the face, which prostrated him in an instant; and then cocking the piece and presenting it, he commanded the other two, on peril of their lives, to stand aloof. Odds of weapons, when there is courage to avail oneself of them, forms a thorough counterbalance to odds of number. After an engagement of a brief half minute, Thomson's assailants left him in quiet possession of the field; and he found, on his way home, that he could trace their route by the blood of the young farmer. There went abroad an exaggerated and very erroneous edition of the story, highly unfavourable to the salmon-fisher; and he received an intimation, shortly after, that his visits at the farm-house were no longer expected: But the intimation came not from Lillias.

The second year of his speculation had well-nigh come to a close, and, in calculating on the quantum of his shipments and the state of the markets, he could deem it a more successful one than even the first. But his agent seemed to be assuming a new and worse character: he either substituted promises and apologies for his usual remittances, or neglected writing altogether; and, as the fisherman was employed one day in dismantling his wares for the season, his worst fears were realized by the astounding intelligence that the embarrassments of the merchant had at length terminated in a final suspension of payments!

"There," said he, with a coolness which partook in its nature in no slight degree of that insensibility of pain and injury which follows a violent blow--"there go well-nigh all the hard-earned savings of twelve years, and all my hopes of happiness with Lillias!" He gathered up his utensils with an automaton-like carefulness, and, throwing them over his shoulders, struck across the sands in the direction of the cottage. "I must see _her_," he said, "once more, and bid her farewell." His heart swelled to his throat at the thought; but, as if ashamed of his weakness, he struck his foot firmly against the sand, and, proudly raising himself to his full height, quickened his pace. He reached the door, and, looking wistfully, as he raised the latch, in the direction of the farm-house, his eye caught a female figure coming towards the cottage through the bushes of the ravine. "'Tis poor Lillias!" he exclaimed. "Can she already have heard that I am unfortunate, and that we must part?" He went up to her, and, as he pressed her hand between both his, she burst into tears.

It was a sad meeting--meetings must ever be such when the parties that compose them bring each a separate grief, which becomes common when imparted.

"I cannot tell you," said Lillias to her lover, "how unhappy I am. My stepmother has not much love to bestow on any one; and so, though it be in her power to deprive me of the quiet I value so much, I care comparatively little for her resentment. Why should I not? She is interested in no one but herself. As for Simpson, I can despise without hating him; wasps sting, just because it is their nature, and some people seem born in the same way, to be mean-spirited and despicable. But my poor father, who has been so kind to me, and who has so much heart about him--his displeasure has the bitterness of death to me. And then he is so wildly and unjustly angry with you. Simpson has got him, by some means, into his power--I know not how; my stepmother annoys him continually; and, from the state of irritation in which he is kept, he is saying and doing the most violent things imaginable, and making me so unhappy by his threats." And she again burst into tears.

Thomson had but little of comfort to impart to her. Indeed he could afterwards wonder at the indifference with which he beheld her tears, and the coolness with which he communicated to her the story of his disaster. But he had not yet recovered his natural tone of feeling. Who has not observed that, while, in men of an inferior and weaker cast, any sudden and overwhelming misfortune unsettles their whole minds, and all is storm and uproar, in minds of a superior order, when subjected to the same ordeal, there takes place a kind of freezing, hardening process, under which they maintain at least apparent coolness and self-possession? Grief acts as a powerful solvent to the one class--to the other, it is as the waters of a petrifying spring.

"Alas, my Lillias!" said the fisherman, "we have not been born for happiness and each other. We must part--each of us to struggle with our respective evils. Call up all your strength of mind--the much in your character that has as yet lain unemployed--and so despicable a thing as Simpson will not dare to annoy you. You may yet meet with a man worthy of you; some one who will love you as well as--as one who can at least appreciate your value, and who will deserve you better." As he spoke, and his mistress listened in silence and in tears, William Stewart burst in upon them through the bushes; and with a countenance flushed, and a frame tremulous with passion, assailed the fisherman with a torrent of threats and reproaches. He even raised his hand. The prudence of Thomson gave way under the provocation. Ere the blow had descended, he had locked the farmer in his grasp, and with an exertion of strength which scarcely a giant would be capable of in a moment of less excitement, he raised him from the earth, and forced him against the grassy side of the ravine, where he held him despite of his efforts. A shriek from Lillias recalled him to the command of himself. "William Stewart," he said, quitting his hold and stepping back, "you are an old man, and the father of Lillias." The farmer rose slowly and collectedly, with a flushed cheek but a quiet eye, as if all his anger had evaporated in the struggle, and, turning to his daughter--

"Come, Lillias, my lassie," he said, laying hold of her arm, "I have been too hasty--I have been in the wrong." And so they parted.

Winter came on, and Thomson was again left to the solitude of his cottage, with only his books and his own thoughts to employ him. He found little amusement or comfort in either; he could think of only Lillias--that she loved and was yet lost to him.

"Generous, and affectionate, and confiding," he has said, when thinking of her, "I know she would willingly share with me in my poverty; but ill would I repay her kindness in demanding of her such a sacrifice. Besides, how could I endure to see her subjected to the privations of a destiny so humble as mine? The same heaven that seems to have ordained me to labour and to be unsuccessful, has given me a mind not to be broken by either toil or disappointment; but keenly and bitterly would I feel the evils of both, were she to be equally exposed. I must strive to forget her, or think of her only as my friend." And, indulging in such thoughts as these, and repeating and re-repeating similar resolutions--only, however, to find them unavailing--winter, with its long, dreary nights, and its days of languor and inactivity, passed heavily away. But it passed.

He was sitting beside his fire, one evening late in February, when a gentle knock was heard at the door. He started up, and, drawing back the bar, William Stewart entered the apartment.

"Allan," said the old man, "I have come to have some conversation with you, and would have come sooner, but pride and shame kept me back. I fear I have been much to blame."

Thomson motioned him to a seat, and sat down beside him.

"Farmer," he said, "since we cannot recall the past, we had, perhaps, better forget it."

The old man bent forward his head till it rested almost on his knee, and for a few moments remained silent.

"I fear, Allan, I have been much to blame," he at length reiterated. "Ye maun come an' see Lillias. She is ill, very ill--an' I fear no very like to get better." Thomson was stunned by the intelligence, and answered he scarcely knew what. "She has never been richt hersel," continued the old man, "sin' the unlucky day when you an' I met in the burn here; but for the last month she has been little out o' her bed. Since mornin there has been a great change on her, an' she wishes to see you. I fear we havena meikle time to spare, an' had better gang." Thomson followed him in silence.

They reached the farm-house of Meikle Farness, and entered the chamber where the maiden lay. A bright fire of brushwood threw a flickering gloom on the floor and rafters, and their shadows, as they advanced, seemed dancing on the walls. Close beside the bed there was a small table, bearing a lighted candle, and with a Bible lying open upon it, at that chapter of Corinthians in which the Apostle assures us that the dead shall rise and the mortal put on immortality. Lillias half sat, half reclined, in the upper part of the bed. Her thin and wasted features had already the stiff rigidity of death, her cheeks and lips were colourless, and, though the blaze seemed to dance and flicker on her half-closed eyes, they served no longer to intimate to the departing spirit the existence of external things.

"Ah, my Lillias!" exclaimed Thomson, as he bent over her, his heart swelling with an intense agony. "Alas! has it come to this!"

His well-known voice served to recall her, as from the precincts of another world. A faint melancholy smile passed over her features, and she held out her hand.

"I was afraid," she said, in a voice sweet and gentle as ever, though scarcely audible through extreme weakness, "I was afraid that I was never to see you more. Draw nearer--there is a darkness coming over me, and I hear but imperfectly. I may now say with a propriety which no one will challenge, what I durst not have said before. Need I tell you that you were the dearest of all my friends--the only man I ever loved--the man whose lot, however low and unprosperous, I would have deemed it a happiness to be invited to share? I do not, however--I cannot reproach you. I depart and for ever; but, oh, let not a single thought of me render you unhappy; my few years of life have not been without their pleasures, and I go to a better and brighter world. I am weak and cannot say more; but let me hear you speak. Read to me the eighth chapter of Romans."

Thomson, with a voice tremulous and faltering through emotion, read the chapter. Ere he had made an end, the maiden had again sunk into the state of apparent insensibility out of which she had been so lately awakened; though, occasionally, a faint pressure of his hand, which she still retained, shewed him that she was not unconscious of his presence. At length, however, there was a total relaxation of the grasp--the cold damp of the stiffening palm struck a chill to his heart--there was a fluttering of the pulse, a glazing of the eye--the breast ceased to heave, the heart to beat--the silver cord parted in twain, and the golden bowl was broken. Thomson contemplated, for a moment, the body of his mistress, and, striking his hand against his forehead, rushed out of the apartment.

He attended her funeral--he heard the earth falling heavy and hollow on the coffin-lid--he saw the green sod placed over her grave--he witnessed the irrepressible anguish of her father, and the sad regret of her friends--and all this without shedding a tear. He was turning to depart, when some one thrust a letter into his hand; he opened it almost mechanically. It contained a considerable sum of money, and a few lines from his agent, stating that, in consequence of a favourable change in his circumstances, he had been enabled to satisfy all his creditors. Thomson crumpled up the bills in his hand. He felt as if his heart stood still in his breast; a noise seemed ringing in his ears; a mist cloud appeared as if rising out of the earth and darkening round him. He was caught, when falling, by old William Stewart, and, on awakening to consciousness and the memory of the past, found himself in his arms. He lived for about ten years after, a laborious and speculative man, ready to oblige, and successful in all his designs. And no one deemed him unhappy. It was observed, however, that his dark brown hair was soon mingled with masses of grey, and that his tread became heavy and his frame bent. It was remarked, too, that, when attacked by a lingering epidemic, which passed over well-nigh the whole country, he of all the people was the only one that sank under it.

THE LINTON LAIRDS, OR EXCLUSIVES AND INCLUSIVES.

In no part of her Majesty's widespread dominions does mighty Aristocracy rear its proud head with greater majesty than at Linton. There are, or were, in the neighbourhood of that ancient borough, no fewer than forty-five lairds, all possessing portions of the soil; and from the soil it is that the big genius of aristocratic pride derives, like the old oak, the pith of her power. It is of no avail to say--and we, being ourselves of an ancient family, as poor as the old dark denizens of the soil who were displaced by the Norwegian brown species, despise the taunt--that fifteen out of the whole number of Linton lairds were, at one period, on the poor's box. Gentry, with old noble blood in their veins, are not a whit less to be valued that they are beggars, for it is the peculiar character of gentle blood, that it never gets thinner by poor meat. A low marriage sometimes deteriorates it; and hence the horror of the privileged species at that kind of degradation; but the tenth cousin of a scurvy baronet will retain the purity of the noble fluid, in spite of husks, acorns, and onions. All the efforts of the patriots called radicals--even if they should have recourse to the starving system, by taking the properties of their masters--will never be able to bring down to a proper popular equal consistency the blood of the old stock; and so long as they dare not, for the spilling of their own thin stuff, _let out_ the life stream of their lords, they must submit to see it running in the old channels as ruby and routhy as it did in the reign of Malcolm Canmore.

But you may say that Laird Geddes of Cauldshouthers was no Linton laird, and was never on the poor's box. Take it as you please, we will not dispute with you if you come from Tweeddale. You are, perhaps, of the old Hamiltons of Cauldcoats, or the Bertrams of Duckpool, or the Hays of Glenmuck, or the old tory lairds of Bogend, Hallmyre, or Windylaws, and may challenge us, like a true knight, for endeavouring to reduce the grandeur of your compeers; and therefore, to keep peace, we will be contented with the admission that Gilbert Geddes was the thane, or, as Miss Joanna Baillie would have it, according to the distinction indicated in the line, "the _thanies_ drinking in the hall," the thanie--that is, the lesser Thane of Cauldshouthers, in the shire of Peebles. True, there was in that county, properly only one thane, viz., he of Drumelzier, whose castle, now in ruins, may still be seen near Powsail; but of the lesser order there were many; and, if any gutter-blooded burgher of Linton had, in his cups at Cantswalls, alleged anything to the contrary, he might have been set down as a leveller. The property of Cauldshouthers was of that kind comprehending a mixture of bog, mire, and moss, which is indicated by its name. Indeed, almost all the estates in that shire bore names no less appropriate; and, though some proprietors, such as Montgomerie, Veitch, Keith, and Kennedy, have endeavoured to impart a gentility to their possessions by rechristening them, they did so, we shrewdly suspect, to conceal the fact that they were new comers, and not of the noble old Hallmyres, Bogends, Blairbogs, and Cauldcoats. Not so, however, Gilbert Geddes, for the laird was of the good ancient stock of Cauldshouthers, and gloried in the name as he did in the old blood that had come down through honourable veins, unadulterated and unobstructed--save probably by a partial congelation, the effect of the cold barren lands--until it landed, with an accumulation of dignity, in his own arteries, and those of his sister, Miss Grizelda.

Nothing in the world could have been more natural than that one of so old a family should endeavour to keep up the stock by marriage; yet it was true, and as lamentable as true, that Mr. Gilbert had not been able--though the fiftieth summer had shone on Cauldshouthers since he was born in the old house--to get matters so arranged as to place himself within the noose in a manner befitting his dignity. Somehow or another, the other proprietors around, such as Bogend and Glenmuck, pretended to discover that their blood was thicker than that of the Geddeses, and not a scion of their stocks would they allow to be engrafted on the good old oak of Cauldshouthers. It is, however, an old saying, that fortune favours the brave in marriage as in war, and the adage seemed fair to be realized, for, one day, the laird came from Linton a walking omen of prospective success, and the very first words he said to his sister Grizelda boded good.

"Ken ye the dame Shirley, wha lives at the east end o' Linton?" said he, as he sat down on the big oak chair in the mansion of Cauldshouthers.

"Better than you do, Gilbert," rejoined the sister. "Her maiden name is Bertram; but wha her husband was is no easy tauld. They say he was a captain in England, but I canna say she has ony o' the dignity o' a captain's widow. Report says naething in her favour, unless it be that she's a descendant o' the Bertrams o' Duckpool."

"Ah, Grizel!" ejaculated Gilbert, "if ye could mak out that pedigree, a' her fauts would be easily covered, especially with the help of the five thousand she has got left her by a cotton-spinner in St. Mungo's. Ye maun try and mak out the pedigree, Grizel. Set about it, woman; mair depends on't than ye wot."

"What depends on't?" replied the sister.

"Maybe the junction o' the twa ancient families," rejoined he.

"Are ye serious, brother?" said Grizel, as she stroked down her boddice, and sat as upright as the dignity of the family of Cauldshouthers required.

"Indeed am I," rejoined the laird. "I want to be about with Bogend and Glenmuck, who refused me their dochters. Ken ye the antiquity o' the Bertrams?"

"Brawly," was the reply of the stiff Grizelda. "They count as far back as the fifth James, who, passing through Tweeddale, was determined to pay nae court to the Thane of Drumelzier; and yet he couldna mak his way--in a country where hill rides upon hill, and moss joins moss, frae Tweedscross to the Cauldstane-slap--without some assistance, the mair by note that he stuck in the mire, and might have been there yet, had it no been for Jock Bertram, a hind, who got the royal traveller and his men out, and led them through the thane's lands, to Glenwhappen. John got the mire whar the king stuck, which was called Duckpool, as a free gift to him and his heirs. But we o' Cauldshouthers are aulder, I ween, than even that, and we maun keep up our dignity."

"So we maun, Grizel; but you've forgot the best part o' the story, how the Thane o' Drumelzier having heard that a stranger had passed through his lands without paying him homage, rode with his men, mounted on white horses, after the rebels, and cam up with them just as the king was carousing after his journey. The thane, I wot, was sune on his knees. But we're aff the pin o' the wheel, Girz. The question is, could the family o' Geddes o' Cauldshouthers stand the shock o' a marriage wi' a doubtfu' descendant o' Jock Bertram, with five thousand in her pouch?"

"We're sae _very, very_ ancient, ye see Gib," replied the sister, as she looked meditatingly, and twirled her two thumbs at the end of her rigid arms. "Indeed, we're a'thegither lost in mist, and, for aught we ken, we may be as auld as the Hunters o' Polmood, wha got a grant o' the twa Hopes frae Malcolm Canmore. Duckpool is a mere bairn to Cauldshouthers, and this woman mayna be a real Bertram after a'. There were English Bertrams, ye ken--Bertram the Archer was o' them, and he followed the trade o' robbery."

"And what auld honourable family about the Borders ever got their lands in ony other way, Girz!" replied the brother.

"Nane, of course," rejoined Grizel; "but maybe Mrs. Shirley comes frae the real Bertrams, and five thousand might be laid out in draining the lands. Nae doubt she wad jump at ye, Gib!"

"That makes me laugh, Girz!" rejoined the brother. "The legatee o' a cotton-spinner jump at the Laird o' Cauldshouthers! Ay, if he wad stoop to let her--that's the question, sister; and there's nae other, for I was wi' the dame this very day, within an hour after Rory Flayem, the Linton writer, gave me the hint o' her gude fortune. I cam on her wi' a' the force o' the dignity o' our family, and the very name o' our lands made her shiver in tory veneration. She was thunderstruck at the honour."

"I dinna wonder at that," replied Grizel. "I mysel hae aften wondered at the ancientness o' our house, and pity the silly fools wha change the names o' their properties. Ha, ha! I fancy if the Duke o' Argyle had been ane o' the auld Blairbogs, he wadna hae changed the name o' their auld inheritance to that o' 'The Whim.'"

"Na, faith he, Girz!"

"And, by my troth," continued the sister, "I think the guidwife o' Middlebie, wha bade us change Cauldshouthers to Blinkbonny, was a wee envious, and deserved a catechising for her pains."

"There's nae doubt o't," added the brother. "But we're aff the wire again, Girz. Is it really your honest opinion that our honour would stand the shock o' the connection wi' the Widow Shirley?"

"The Emperor o' Muscovy," replied the sister, with a toss of her head, "didna lose a jot o' his greatness by marrying the cottager. The eagles o' Glenholme stoop to pick up the stanechaffers and fatten on them; and, really, I think, a'thing considered, that Cauldshouthers might, without a bend o' the back, bear up a burgher."

"The practice is, at least, justified by the aristocracy," added Gilbert; "and, ye ken, that's enough for us. It wad tak a guid drap o' burgher bluid, and mair, I wot, if there's ony o' the Duckpool sap in't, to thin that o' the Geddeses."

"And even if our honour was a wee thing damaged," rejoined the sister, "that might be made up by our lands being changed frae bog to arable, though, I believe, the bog, after a', is the auldest soil o' the country. Even the sad fate o' Nichol Muschet didna a'thegither destroy the respectability o' the Bogha's. There's great ancientness in bogs, yet as there's a kind o' fashion now-a-days about arable, I wadna be against the change to a certain limited extent. Ye hae now my opinion on this important subject, Gilbert, and may act according to the dictates o' the high spirit o' our auld race."

The door opened, and Rory Flayem entered.

"Weel, hae ye made the inquiry?" said the laird. "Has Mrs. Shirley really got a legacy o' the five thousand?"

"I have seen the cotton-spinner's will!" replied the writer, "and there can be nae doubt of the legacy."

Why more?--Next day the spruce laird was rapping at the door of the widow heiress. He entered with the cool dignity of his caste; and might have come out under the influence of the same cool prudence, had not his honourable blood been fired by the presence of one of those worthies already hinted at--a Linton laird--who could have been about nothing else in the world than trying to get a lift from off the poor's box, by the assistance of the Widow Shirley.

"Your servant, sir," said the Linton portioner; "I did not think you had been acquainted here. Ane might rather hae expected to hae seen you about Bogend or Glennmuck, where there are still some braw leddies to dispose of."

The remark was impertinent, doubtless, and horribly ill-timed, because Cauldshouthers had been rejected by Bogend, and he was here a suitor competing with one who desecrated the term he gloried in, and whom, along with the whole class of Linton lairds, he hated mortally and he had a good right to hate them, for some of them with no more than ten pounds a-year, were still heritors, and not only heritors, but ancient heritors, not much less ancient than the Geddeses themselves, so that they were a species of mock aristocrats, coming yet so near the real ones in the very attributes which the latter arrogated to themselves, that it required an effort of the mind to distinguish the real from the false. But Mr. Gilbert admitted of no such dubiety, and marked the difference decidedly and effectually. He did not return the Linton aristocrat an answer, but, drawing himself up, turned to the window as if to survey his competitor's estate, which consisted of a rood or two of arable land, and to wait till the latter took his hat. The Linton aristocrat very soon left the room; and however unimportant this slight event may appear, it was in fact decisive of the higher aristocrat's fate, for the blood of the Geddeses was up, and the heat of tory blood is a condition of the precious fluid not to be laughed at.

"Ye'll hae nae want o' thae sma' heritor creatures after ye, dame," said he, as he condescended to sit down by the blushing widow.

"Yes," answered she, with great simplicity. "Fortune, Mr. Geddes, brings friends, or, at least, would-be friends, and one who has few relations requires to be on her guard."

"It is everything in thae matters," said the proprietor, "to look to respectability and station. Thae Linton bodies ca' themselves lairds, because they are proprietors o' about as muckle ground as would mak guid roomy graves to them. A real laird is something very different. And it's a pity when it becomes necessary that _we_ should shew them the difference."

"Ah, you are of an ancient and honourable family, Mr. Geddes," said the widow. "Cauldshouthers is a name as familiar to me as Oliver Castle, or Drochel, or Neidpath, or Drumelzier."

"I see ye hae a proper estimate o' the degrees o' dignity, dame," said he; "and, doubtless, ye'll mak the better use o' the fortune that has been left ye; but I could expect naething less frae ane o' the Duckpools. I'm thinking ye're o' the right Bertrams."

"Yes," replied she; "and then my husband was descended from the Shirleys, Earl Ferrars, and Baron Ferrars of Chartley. His arms were the same as the Beauchamps, at least he used to say so. What are your's, Mr. Geddes?"

"Maybe ye dinna ken heraldry, dame!" replied the laird. "Our arms are vert, _three peat bags_, argent--the maist ancient o' the bearings in Tweeddale; as, indeed, may be evinced frae the description--peat land being clearly the original soil. Would it no be lamentable to think that sae ancient a family should end in my person."

"It is in your own power to prevent that, Mr. Geddes!" answered she.

"Say rather in your power, dame Shirley!" rejoined he, determined to cut out the Linton heritor by one bold stroke.

"O Mr. Geddes!" sighed the widow, holding her head at the proper angle of _naivete_.

"Nae wonder that she's owrepowered by the honour," muttered the suitor, as he took breath to finish what he had so resolutely begun. "I am serious, madam," he continued. "To be plain wi' ye, and come to the point at ance, I want a mistress to Cauldshouthers; and you are the individual wham I hae selected to do the honours o' that important situation."

"Oh--O Mr. Geddes!" again cried the dame. "You have _such_ a winning way of wooing!"

"I fancy there canna be the slightest breath o' objection," again said he, in his consciousness of having ennobled her in an instant by the mere hint of the honour.

"She would be a bold woman, besides a fool, that would reject so good an offer," replied she, burying her face in a napkin.

"That she would," rejoined Gilbert--"baith bauld and an idiot; and now, since ye hae received the honour wi' suitable modesty and gratitude, there is just ae condition that I wad like satisfied; and that is, that ye wad do your best to support the dignity o' the station to which you are to be elevated. Your ain pedigree, ye see, is at best but a dubious concern; and, therefore, it will require a' your efforts to comport yoursel in such a way as to accord suitably wi' the forms and punctilios o' aristocracy. It is just as weel, by the by, that ye hae few relatives; because, while the honour o' our ancient house may retain its character, in spite o' a match maybe in nae sma' degree below it, it might become a very different affair in the case o' a multitude o' puir beggarly relations."

"I am nearly the last of my race, Mr. Geddes," replied she. "Is it not strange that we should be so very like each other?"

"Ay, in _that_ particular respect," added the laird, as a salvo of their inequality.

And, after some farther concerted arrangements, the heritor left his affianced, and proceeded to Cauldshouthers, to report to Grizelda what he had achieved. In a short time, accordingly, the marriage was solemnized; and a very suitable display was made in the mansion of Cauldshouthers, where there were invited many of the neighbouring aristocrats. There were the Bogends, and the Hallmyres, and the Glenmucks, and others, some of whom, though they had asserted a superiority over the Geddeses, and turned up their noses at the match with a burgher widow with five thousand pounds, made by the vulgar operation of cotton-spinning, yet could not refuse the boon of their presence at the wedding of one of their own sect of exclusives. Miss Grizelda acted as mistress of the ceremonies, and contrived, by proper training, to make the bride go through the aristocratic drill with much eclat. She had correct opinions, as well as good practice, in this department. It is only the degenerate modern town-elite, among the exclusives, who pretend that _easiness_ of manners--meaning thereby the total absence of all dignified _stiffness_--is the true test of aristocratic breeding. The older and truer stock of the country--such as the Geddeses--despise this beggarly town-born maxim: with them nothing can be too stiff; buckram-attitudes and dresses are the very staple of their calling. And why not? Any graceful snab or snip, of good spirits, when freed from the stool or board, may be as free and frisky as a kitten; but to carry out a legitimate and consistent stiffness of the godlike machine with an according costiveness of speech and loftiness of sentiment, can belong only to those who have been born great; and so, to be sure, these were the maxims on which Grizelda acted in qualifying the bride to appear in a becoming manner before the Tweeddale grandees. Everything went off well. The dame was given out as a Duckpool; and it must have been fairly admitted, even by the proud Bogends, that she could not have acted her part better though she had been in reality descended from that house, so favoured by the fifth James, at the very time that he brought Drumelzier to his knees at Glenwhappen.

And it may thus be augured, that the Thane of Cauldshouthers was satisfied. The manners imparted to Mrs. Geddes by the sister, seemed to adhere to her; and though the Glenmucks alleged that her dignified rigidity was nothing but burgher awkwardness, it was not believed by those who knew that gentle blood hath in it some seeds of spleen.

"She performs her pairt wi' native dignity," was Gilbert's opinion expressed to his sister; "and seems to feel as if she had been born to sustain the important character she has to play, as the wife o' ane o' the auldest heritors o' Tweeddale. But ye maun keep at her, Girz; and, while you are improving her, I'll be busy with the bogs. We'll mak a' arable that will be arable."

And straightway, accordingly, he set about disposing of a part of his wife's tocher, in planting, and draining, and hedging, and ditching, with a view to impart some heat to Cauldshouthers, in return for the warmth which the fleeces of coarse wool had yielded to him and others. Meanwhile, the training within doors went on. Tea-parties were good discipline; and at one of these, the mistress of Bogend and her two daughters, and the mistress of Hallmyre and her daughter and nephew, and a number of others, witnessed the improvement of their new married neighbour. Pedigrees were always the favourite topic at Cauldshouthers.

"I maun hae Mrs Geddes's reduced to paper," said the laird, "for the satisfaction o' ye a'. I like a tree--there's a certainty about it that defies a' envy. There's few o' us, I wot, that can count sae far back as the Bertrams."

"Mrs. Geddes might tell us off hand," said the mistress of Bogend, piqued of course. "I could gie the Bogends from the first to the last."

"And I hae a' the Ha'myres on my tongue's end," said she of that old family.

"And I could gie the Geddeses, stock and stem," added Grizelda.

"But it doesna follow that Mrs. Geddes has just the same extent o' memory," said the laird, as a cover to his half-marrow.

"Indeed, my memory is very poor on family descents," said the wife; "and there is now none of our family left to assist my recollections."

"Ah, Janet," cried a voice from the door, which had opened in the meantime and let in a stout huckster-looking dame and two children. "I am right glad to see you sae weel settled," she continued, as she bustled forward and seized the mistress of the house by the hand. "But it wasna friendly, it wasna like a sister, woman, no to write and tell me o' yer marriage. Heigh! but I am tired after that lang ride frae Glasgow. Sit down, childer; it's yer aunty's house, and, by my faith, it's nae sma affair; but oh, it has an awfu name."

The speaker had it all to herself, save for a whisper from the lady of Bogend, who asked her of Hallmyres if this would be another of the Duckpools. The others were dumb from amazement; and the new-comer gloried in the silence.

"Wasna that a lucky affair--that siller left us by the cotton spinner?" she rattled forth with increasing volubility. "Be quiet, childer. Faith, lass, if we hadna got our legacy just in the nick as it were, our John, wha was only makin six shillings a week at the heckling, wad hae gi'en up the ghaist a'thegither."

The laird was getting fidgetty, and looked round for the servant; Grizelda was still dumb; the Bogends and Hallmyres were all curiosity; and Mrs. Geddes looked as if she could not help it. All was still an open field for the speaker.

"But, dear me, lass," again cried the visiter, "we never heard o' Serjeant Shirley's death."

"If ye're ony friend o' Mrs. Geddes's," said the laird, recovering himself, "you had better step ben to the parlour, and she'll see you there."

"Ou, I'm brawly where I am, sir," replied she of St. Mungo's. "There's nae use for ceremony wi' friends. Ye'll be Janet's husband, I fancy? Keep aff the back o' yer uncle's chair, ye ill-mannered brat."

"There is a woman in the parlour wishes to see yon, Mrs. Geddes," said the servant.

"What like is she?" cried the Glasgow friend. "Is she a weel-faured woman, wi' a bairn at her foot?"

"Yes," was the reply.

"Just bring her in here, then," continued the speaker. "It's our sister Betty. I asked her to meet me here the day, and she was to get a cast o' a cart as far as Linton. She was to hae brocht Saunders wi' her, but there's some great folk dead about Lithgow, and he's been sae thrang wi' their mournings that I fancy he couldna win."

"Are these your sisters, Mrs. Geddes?" said the lady of Bogend, who probably enjoyed secretly the perplexity around her.

"I can answer for mysel," replied the visiter; "and whether this be Betty or no, I'll soon tell ye;" and she rose to waddle to the door to satisfy the inquiry of the lady of Bogend. "The truth is, madam," she said, by way of favoured intelligence, as she passed the chair of the latter, "we're a' sisters; but, if we had been on the richt side o' the blanket--ye ken what I mean, if our faither and mither had been married--the siller left us by our uncle the cotton-spinner wad hae been twice as muckle. Is that you, Betty?" she bawled at the door. "Come in, woman."

"Save us!--save us!--the honour o' the Geddeses is gane for ever," groaned Gilbert.

"It's just me, Peggy," responded another voice from the passage; and the heavy tread of a weary traveller, mixed with the cries of a child, announced an approach. The two entered. The woman was dressed like the wife of a man of her husband's profession, who had got a recent legacy.

"Saunders is coming, after a," cried Betty, as she entered. "He got done with the mournings on Wednesday. He's in the public-house, alang the road there, taking a dram wi' a friend, and will be here immediately. John, I fancy, couldna win. Ye're weel set doon, Janet," she continued, as she stood and stared at the room, turning round and round. "My troth, lass, ye hae fa'n on yer feet at last. It was just as weel the sergeant de'ed. Sit ye there, Geordie, and see if ye can learn manners enough to haud yer tongue."