Red Rowans Part 2

The children caught it up _con amore_ with a vague feeling of relief.

A terrible thing indeed, to Presbyterians or Episcopalians alike, if the Prophet Daniel had been left hanging between heaven and another place! So great a relief, that the gay progress of the tune and the saint was barely marred by the master's renewed interest in a postcard; which distraction led him into making an unwarrantable statement that--

"_He went up in a fiery char-yot_."

True, the elder pupils t.i.ttered a little over the a.s.sertion, but the young ones piped away contentedly, vociferously. The Promised Land once attained, the means were necessarily quite a secondary consideration; and mayhap to their simple imaginings a fiery chariot was preferable to the den of lions.

"_Where is noo' the twal A-postles?_" led off the master again, after a whispered remark to Donald Post, which provoked so interesting a reply that the fate of the twelve remained trembling in the balance long enough for the old refrain to startle the scholars from growing inattention.

"_Safe intil the Promised Land_."

The sound echoed up into the rafters. Truly a blessed relief to reach the haven after delays and difficulties.

"_They went through_"--began the master. But whether in orthodox fas.h.i.+on it would have been "_great tri-bu-la-tion_," or whether, on the principle of compensation, the den of lions would have been allowed twelve saints, will never be known. The mote-speckled beam of suns.h.i.+ne through the door was darkened by a slight girlish figure, the children hustled to their feet with much clatter of the unaccustomed boots and shoes, and the schoolmaster, drowning his last nasal note under a guilty cough, busied himself over a registered letter. For Miss Marjory Carmichael objected on principle to the Litany of the Prophets.

The rather imperious frown, struggling with an equally obstinate smile which showed on the newcomer's face, vanished at the sight of Donald Post.

"Any for me?" she asked eagerly. It was a charming voice, full of interest and totally devoid of anxiety. An acute ear would have told at once that life had as yet brought nothing to the speaker which would make post-time a delight or a dread. She had for instance no right to expect a love-letter or a dun; and her eagerness was but the desire of youth for something new, her expectancy only the girlish belief in something which must surely come with the coming years. For the rest, a winsome young lady with a pair of honest hazel eyes and honest walking boots.

"'Deed no, Miss Marjory," replied the schoolmaster, selecting a thin envelope and holding it up shamelessly to the light--a bold stroke to divert attention from the greater offence of the hymn, "Forbye ain wi'

the Glasky post-mark that will just be ain o' they weary circulars, for as ye may see for yoursel', Miss Marjory, the inside o't's leethographed."

"Thank you, Mr. McColl," said the girl, severely, as she took the letter, "but if you have no objection I should prefer finding out its contents in a more straightforward fas.h.i.+on."

"Surely! Surely!" Mr. McColl, having got a little more than he expected, gave another exculpatory cough, and looked round to Donald Post for moral support. Perhaps from a sense that he often needed a like kindness, this was an appeal which the latter never refused, and if he could not draw upon real reminiscence for a remark or anecdote bearing on the point, he never had any hesitation in giving an I. O. U. on fancy and so confounding his creditors. On the present occasion, however, he was taken at a disadvantage, being engaged in trying to conceal from Marjory's uncompromising eyes a bottle of whiskey which formed a contraband item in his bag; consequently he had only got as far as a preliminary murmur that "there wa.s.s a good mony wa.s.s liking to be reading their ain letters but that it was James Macniven"--when the schoolmaster plucked up courage for further defence.

"Aye! Aye! 'tis but natur'l to sinfu' man to be liking his ain. Not that they circulars interestin' readin', even if a body is just set on learnin' like Miss Marjory. And I'm thinkin' it will only be from a wine mairchant likely. It's extraordinair' the number of circulars they'll be sending out; but the whiskey is a' the same. Bad, filthy stuff, what will give parral--y--ses to them that drinks it."

This second bid for favour, accompanied as it was by an unfortunate glance for support at Donald--who was struggling unsuccessfully with the neck of the black bottle--proved too much for Marjory's dignity, and the consequent smile encouraged Mr. McColl to go on, oblivious apparently of his last remark.

"And it's whiskey we shall all be wanting, and plenty of it, to drink the young laird's health. But I was forgetting you could scarcely have heard the news, Miss Marjory, since it is only coming in the post just now. It is the laird, Miss Marjory, that is to be home to-morrow by the boat!"

The girl forgot an incipient frown in sheer surprise. "Here! Captain Macleod?"

"Aye! it's the machine is to meet him at the ferry, the light cart for his traps, and the house to be ready." In his desire for importance Mr. McColl in the last words had given himself away completely, for Marjory lived at Gleneira Lodge with her cousin, the factor.

"The house to be got ready! Impossible! Mrs. Cameron had heard nothing when I came out. Where did the news come from?" Marjory's voice, especially to those who knew and loved her, as these good folks did, never admitted of refusal, so the postmaster coughed again between the thumps of the office stamp, which he had begun to use in a hurry.

"It will be Mistress Macniven that was telling Donald Post, and Donald Post he will be telling it to me." The words came in a sort of sing-song, echoed by Donald himself in a croon of conviction.

"Hou-ay! it was Mistress Macniven wa.s.s tellin' it to me, and it iss me that iss tellin' it to Mr. McColl, and it is fine news--tamn me, but it is fine news whatever."

A twinkle came to Marjory's eyes, for in her character of Grand Inquisitress to the Glen, such startling language was too evidently a drag across the trail.

"But where did Mrs. Macniven hear it?"

"Aye! aye!" a.s.sented Donald, rising to go abruptly, "that is what it will be, but she was tellin' it to me, whatever."

"I don't believe a word of it," continued the girl; "Captain Macleod would have written to my cousin, I know. It is just idle gossip."

This was too much for the postmaster, who posed, as well as he might, for being an authority on such questions. In the present instance he preferred the truth to incredulity.

'"Deed, Miss Marjory," he said, with unblus.h.i.+ng effrontery, "it'll just be one o' they postcards."

"Hou-ay!" echoed Donald, softly. "She'll be yon o' they postcards, whatever."

"A postcard! What postcard?"

Mr. McColl handed her one with the air of a man who has done his duty.

"Will you be taking it with you, or shall I be giving it to Donald, here?"

Marjory looked at him with speechless indignation; at least, she trusted that was her expression, though the keen sense of humour, which is the natural heritage of the Celt, struggled with her dignity at first.

"I am really ashamed of you, Mr. McColl," she said at last, with becoming severity. "Of you and Mrs. Macniven; you ought to know better than pry into other folks' secrets."

But now that the cat was out of the bag, the postmaster showed fight.

"'Deed, and I'm no for seeing it was a secret at all! It is a penny people will be paying if they're needin' secrets. And the laird is not so poor, but he would put a penny to it if he was caring; though yon crabbed writin' they teach the gentlefolk nowadays, is as most as gude as an envelope. Lorsh me! Miss Marjory, but my laddies would be gettin' tawse for a postcard like yon. It was just awful ill to read."

"To read! Mr. McColl, I really am surprised at you! It is most dishonourable to read other people's letters," protested the girl, with great heat.

"Surely! Surely! but yon's a postcard."

From this position he refused to budge an inch, being backed up in it by Donald, who, being unable to read, was busy in stowing away various letters in different hiding-places in his person, with a view to their future safe delivery at the proper destination. "It was a ferry useful thing," he said, "was postcards, and if Miss Marjory would mind it wa.s.s, when old Mistress Macgregor died her sons wa.s.s sending to Oban for the whiskey to come by the ferry. But it wa.s.s the day before the buryin' that a postcard wa.s.s coming to say the whiskey was to be at the pier. But young Peter's cart wa.s.s going to the ferry to fetch the whiskey and he was meeting Peter and telling him of the postcard. So if it had not been for the postcaird it wa.s.s no whiskey they would be having to Mistress Macgregor's funeral, whatever." A judicious mingling of fact and fiction which outlasted Marjory's wrath. She put the cause of offence in her pocket, remarking pointedly that as Donald had such a budget of important news to retail, that would most likely be the quickest mode of delivery, and then turned to her task of giving the children their usual Sunday lesson, which she began with such a detailed homily on the duty towards your neighbour, that Mr.

McColl took the excuse of Donald's departure to accompany him into the garden, and remain there until she pa.s.sed on to another subject.

For Marjory Carmichael ruled the Glen absolutely; perhaps because she was the only young lady in it. Girls there were and plenty, but none in her own cla.s.s of life, and the result on her character had been to make her at once confident and unconscious of her own powers. She was not, for instance, at all aware what a very learned young person she was, and the fact that she had been taught the differential calculus and the theory of Greek accents affected her no more than it affects the average young man of one-and-twenty. The consequence being a restfulness which, as a rule, is sadly wanting in the clever girls of the period, who never can forget their own superiority to the ma.s.s of their female relations. Having been brought up entirely among men, her strongest characteristic was not unnaturally an emotional reserve, and up to the present her life had been pre-eminently favourable to the preservation of that bloom which is as great a charm to a girl as it is to a flower, and which morbid self-introspection utterly destroys.

To tell the truth, however, she was apt to be over contemptuous of gush, while her hatred of scenes was quite masculine. In fact, at one-and-twenty, Marjory knew more about her head than her heart, chiefly because, as yet, the call on her affections had been very small. Her father, a s.h.i.+ftless delicate dreamer, brought up by a brother years his senior, had married against that brother's wish, the offence being aggravated by the fact that the bride with whom he ran away was his brother's ward. One of those calm but absolutely hopeless quarrels ensued which come sometimes to divide one portion of a family from the other, without apparently much regret on either side. The young couple had the b.u.t.terfly instinct, and lived for the present.

They also had the faculty for making friends in a light airy fas.h.i.+on, and after various vicissitudes, borne with the gayest good temper, some one managed to find him a post as consul in some odd little seaport in the south, where suns.h.i.+ne kept them alive and contented until Marjory chose to put in an appearance and cost her mother's life. The blow seemed to make the husband still more dreamy and unpractical than ever, and, when cholera carried him off suddenly four years afterwards, he made no provision whatever for the child's future, save a scrawl, written with difficulty at the last moment, begging his brother to look after Marjory for the sake of old times.

Perhaps it was the best thing he could have done, since nothing short of despair would have affected Dr. Carmichael, who had by this time become so absorbed in the effort to understand life that he had almost forgotten how to feel it. People wondered why a man, who had gained a European reputation for his researches, should have cared to linger on in a remote country district like Gleneira, and some went so far as to hint that something more than mere displeasure at his brother's disobedience lay at the bottom of his dislike to the marriage and his subsequent misanthropy.

Be that as it may, his first look at little Marjory's curly head was absolutely unemotional, and he remarked to his housekeeper that it was a good thing she seemed to take more after her mother than her father, who had always been a cause of anxiety. For the rest, it was a pity she was not a boy. Orphans should always be boys; it simplified matters so much for the relations. However, Mrs. Campbell, the housekeeper, must make the best of it, and bring her up as a girl. He could not.

But Marjory took a different view of the situation, and before six months had pa.s.sed it dawned upon the Doctor that, as often as not, she was trotting round with her doll in his shadow as he paced the garden, or sitting in a corner of his study intent on some game of her own.

She was a singularly silent un.o.bjectionable child at such times; at others, if he might judge from the sounds that reached him, quite the reverse. He laid down his pen to watch her as she sate in the suns.h.i.+ne by the window one day, and heard her instantly tell her doll, that if she was naughty and disturbed Dr. Carmichael she must be sent into the garden. Another day he came upon her in his chair poring over a Greek treatise in an att.i.tude which even he recognised as a faithful copy of his own. Finally, he discovered that she had taught her doll to draw geometrical figures such as she often saw on the papers littered about the room. This palpable preference for him and his occupations being distinctly flattering, he began to take more notice of her, and try experiments with her memory. So, by degrees, becoming interested in her quick intelligence, he deliberately began to educate her, as he would have educated a boy, with a view to her making her own living in the future. As indeed she would have to do, in the event of his death; since years before her advent he had sunk all his private means in an annuity, and the expenses of his scientific work did not allow of his saving much. The prospect neither pleased nor displeased the girl. It came simply, naturally, to her, as it does to a boy. On the other hand, she certainly worked harder than any boy would have done, partly because she took it for granted that the tasks set her by Dr.

Carmichael were very ordinary ones, and partly because of that feminine tolerance of mere drudgery which makes it so difficult to compare the intellectual work of a man and a woman. For while you can safely a.s.sume that an undergraduate has not worked more than so many hours or minutes a day, it is quite possible that a girl student may have sate up half the night over a trivial exercise. The primal curse on labour, it must be remembered, was not extended to the woman, who had a peculiar ban of her own.

So, by the time she was seventeen, Marjory Carmichael was learned beyond her years in Greek and Latin, and displayed a genius for mathematics which fairly surprised her uncle. Then he died suddenly, leaving her to the guardians.h.i.+p of a distant relation and ardent disciple in Edinburgh, who was instructed to spend what small sum might remain, after paying just debts, on completing the girl's education, and starting her, not before the age of twenty-one, in a career; preferably teaching, which he considered the most suitable opening for her. She was strong, he said, in the letter in which he informed Dr. Kennedy of his wishes, and singularly sensible for a girl, despite a distressing want of proportion in her estimate of things. Being neither sentimental nor sensitive, she was not likely to give trouble. So far good, but at the very end of the letter came a remark showing that the old man was not quite the fossil he pretended to be. It ran thus: "All this concerns her head only; of her heart I know nothing. Let us hope she has none; for it is a terrible drawback to a woman who has brains. Anyhow, it has had no education from me."

The description somehow did not prepare Dr. Tom Kennedy for either the face or manner which greeted him on his arrival at the house of mourning, but then he himself had the softest heart in the world, and the mere sight of a lonely slip of a thing in a black dress gave him a pang. But that was only for a moment; five minutes afterwards he wondered how that suggestion of kissing and comforting her in semi-fatherly fas.h.i.+on could have arisen. Yet the same evening after she had bidden him good-night with a little stilted hope that he would be comfortable, the temptation returned with redoubled force, when, on going into the study for another volume of the book he had taken up to his bedroom to read, he found her fast asleep in the dead man's chair, her arms flung out over the table, her cheek resting on one of the ponderous volumes which had been the dead man's real companions. Her fresh young face looked happy enough in its sleep, though the marks of tears were still visible, and yet Dr. Kennedy felt another pang. Had the child no better confidante than that musty, fusty old book? Yet he did not dare to rouse her, even though the room struck cold and dreary, for he felt that the knowledge that he had so far been witness of her weakness would be an offence, a barrier between them, and that was the last thing he desired. So he crept out of the room again discreetly, and smoked another cigar over the not uninteresting novelty of his guardians.h.i.+p. For Tom Kennedy was sentimental, and gloried in the fact.

"You are very kind," said Marjory to him, a day or two afterwards, with a half-puzzled and critical appreciation of his tact and consideration. "But I don't see why you should take such trouble about me. I shall get on all right, I expect. I think it is a mistake that uncle has forbidden my beginning work till I am twenty-one, but, as it can't be helped, I must go on as I've been doing, I suppose. I would rather not go to school if that can be arranged. You see I don't know any girls, and I am not sure if I should get on with them. If I could stop here, Mr. Wilson at the Manse would look over my work, and I could come up to Edinburgh for my examinations, you know."

Evidently his guardians.h.i.+p was not going to be a burden to him. This clear-eyed young damsel, despite a very dainty feminine appearance, was evidently quite capable of looking ahead.

"I will do my best to arrange everything as you wish," he replied, feeling somehow a little hurt in his feelings. "My great object, of course, will be that you shall be as happy as possible."

"Happy?" she echoed, quaintly. "Uncle never said anything about that.