Читать книгу: «The Laird of Norlaw; A Scottish Story», страница 35
CHAPTER LXXVI
“There’s aye plenty fools in this world,” said bowed Jaaoob; “a’thing else that’s human fails; but that commodity’s aye ready. I had my hopes of that laddie Livingstone. He has nae discrimination, and hasna seen the world, like some other folk, but for a’ that I thought I could perceive a ring of the right metal in him, and I’m no’ often wrang. And so Cosmo’s to be marriet! I dinna disapprove of his taste—that’s a different matter. I even had a great notion of her mysel’; but when the lad’s married there’s an end of him. Wha ever heard tell of a man coming to distinction with a wife at his tail?—na! I wash my hands of Cosmo—he shall never mair be officer of mine.”
Jaacob did not address himself to any one in particular. The news with which Kirkbride was ringing was great news in its way, and a little crowd had collected in the corner, close by the smithy, to discuss it, a crowd composed chiefly of women, chief among whom, in a flush of triumph and importance, stood Marget of Norlaw. Jaacob did not often concern his lofty intelligence with the babble of women, but the little giant was interested in spite of himself, and had a warm corner in his heart for both the heroes who were under present discussion. A lusty blacksmith apprentice puffed at the great bellows within that ruddy cavern, and Jaacob stood at the door, with one or two male gossips lingering near him, which was a salve to his dignity; but Jaacob’s words were not addressed even to his own cronies; they were a spontaneous effusion of observant wisdom, mingled with benevolent regret.
“The man’s in a creel!” cried the indignant Marget—“an officer of yours, Jaacob Bell?—yours, ye objeck! and I would just like to ken wha gave the like of you ony right to ca’ our son by his christened name? Na, sirs, ye’re a’ wrang—it just shows how little folk ken about onything out of their ain road; and canna haud their peace either, or let them speak that have the knowledge. The auld lady—her that was Mary of Melmar—would have given our Huntley baith the land and the bonnie lass, if it had been her will, for she’s a real sensible woman, as it’s turned out, and kens the value of lads like ours. But Huntley Livingstone, he said no. He’s no’ the lad, our Huntley, to be ony wife’s man—and he has his awn yestate, and an aulder name and fame than Melmar. There’s no’ an auld relick in the whole country-side like our auld castle. I’ve heard it from them that ken; and our Huntley would no mair part with the name than wi’ his right hand. Eh! if auld Norlaw, puir man, had but lived to see this day! Our Cosmo is very like his father. He’s just as like to be kent far and near for his poems and his stories as Walter Scott ower yonder at Abbotsford. It’s just like a story in a book itsel’. When he was but a laddie—no’ muckle bigger than bowed Jaacob—he fell in with a bonnie bit wee French lady, in Edinburgh. I mind him telling me—there’s never ony pride about our sons—just as well as if it was yesterday. The callant’s head ran upon naething else—and wha was this but just Miss Deseera! and he’s courted her this mony a year, whaever might oppose; and now he’s won and conquered, and there’s twa weddings to be in Kirkbride, baith in the very same day!”
“In Kirkbride? but, dear woman, Miss Logan’s no’ here,” suggested one of the bystanders.
“Wha’s heeding!” cried Marget, in her triumph, “if ane’s in Kirkbride, and ane in anither kirk, is that onything against the truth I am telling? Sirs, haud a’ your tongues—I’ve carried them a’ in my arms, and told them stories. I’ve stood by them and their mother, just me and no other person, when they were in their sorest trouble; and I would like to hear wha daur say a word, if Norlaw Marget is just wild and out of her wits for aince in her life to see their joy!”
“I never look for discretion at a woman’s hand mysel’,” said bowed Jaacob, though even Jaacob paused a little before he brought the shadow of his cynicism over Marget’s enthusiasm; “they’re easy pleased, puir things, and easy cast down—a man of sense has aye a compassion for the sex—it’s waste o’ time arguing with them. Maybe that’s a reason for lamenting this lad Livingstone. A man, if he’s no’ a’ the stronger, is awfu’ apt to fall to the level of his company—and to think of a promising lad, no’ five-and-twenty, lost amang a haill tribe—wife, mother, mother-in-law, sister-in-law, and gude kens how mony friends forbye—it’s grievous—that’s just what it is; a man goes down, a man comes to the calibre of the woman. For which cause,” said bowed Jaacob, thrusting his cowl on one side of his head, twisting still higher his high shoulder, and fixing a defiant gaze upon the admiring crowd with his one eye; “in spite of mony temptations—for I’ll say that for the women, that they ken a man of sense when they see him—I’m no’, and never will be, a marrying man mysel’!”
“Eh, but Jaacob,” cried a saucy voice, “if you could have gotten her, you might have put up with Miss Roche.”
“Humph—I had a great notion of the lassie,” said Jaacob, loftily; “men at my years get above the delusion of looking for a woman as a companion. It makes nae muckle matter whether she’s ca’ed a foolish woman or a sensible ane; its naething but a question of degree; and when a man finds that out, he has a right to please his e’e. When you hear of me married, it’s a wife of sixteen, that’s what I’ll have gotten; but you see, as for Miss Deeseera, puir thing, she may be breaking her heart, for onything I ken. I’m a man of honor, and Cosmo’s a great friend of mine—I wouldna, for twenty Melmars, come between my friend and his love.”
And amid the laughter which echoed this magnanimous speech, bowed Jaacob retired into the ruddy gloom of the smithy and resumed his hammer, which he played with such manful might and intention upon the glowing iron, that the red light illuminated his whole swarthy face and person, and the red sparks flashed round him like the rays round a saint in an old picture. He was not in the least a saintly individual, but Rembrandt himself could not have found a better study for light and shade.
A little time sufficed to accomplish these momentous changes. The Mistress gave up her trust of Norlaw, the cows and dairies which were the pride of her heart, the bank-book, with its respectable balance, and all the rural wealth of the farmsteading, to her son. And Huntley warned the tenants to whom his mother had let the land that he should resume the farming of it himself at the end of the year, when their terms were out. Every thing about Norlaw began to wear signs of preparation. The Mistress spoke vaguely of going with Patie, the only one of her sons who still “belonged to his mother"—and making a home for him in Glasgow. But Patie was an engineer, involved over head and ears in the Herculean work of the new railways; he was scarcely three months in the year, take them altogether, at the lodging which he called his head quarters—and perhaps, on the whole, he rather discouraged the idea.
“At least, mother, you must wait to welcome Katie,” said this astute and long-headed adviser of the family—and the Mistress, with her strong sense of country breeding and decorum, would not have done less, had it broken her heart. But she rather longed for the interval to be over, and the matter concluded. The Mistress, somehow, could not understand or recognize herself adrift from Norlaw.
“But I dinna doubt it would be best—it’s natural,” said the Mistress—“they should have their good beginning to themselves,” and with that she sighed, and grew red with shame to think it was a sigh, and spoke sharply to Marget, and put the old easy chair which had been “their father’s!” away into a corner, with a little momentary ebullition of half resentful tears. But she never lost her temper to Huntley—it was only Nature, and not her son who was to blame.
It was early in August when Katie came home. The Mistress stood at the door waiting to receive her, on a night which was worthy such a homecoming. Just sunset, the field-laborers going home, the purple flush folded over the Eildons like a regal mantle, the last tender ray catching the roofless wall of the Strength of Norlaw, and the soft hill rising behind, with yellow corn waving rich to its summit, soon to be ripe for the harvest. Tears were in the Mistress’s heart, but smiles in her face; she led her new daughter in before even Huntley, brought her to the dining-parlor, and set her in her own chair.
“This is where I sat first myself the day I came home,” said the Mistress, with a sob, “and sit you there; and God bless my bairns, and build up Norlaw—amen!”
But Katie said the amen too, and rose again, holding the Mistress fast and looking up in her face.
“I have not said mother for ten years,” said Katie. “Mother! do you think dispeace can ever rise between you and me, that you should think once of going away?”
The Mistress paused.
“No dispeace, Katie—no, God forbid!” said Huntley’s mother, “but I’m a hasty woman in my speech, and ever was.”
“But not to me,” said the Katie who was no more Katie Logan—“never to me! and Huntley will be a lonely man if his mother goes from Norlaw, for where thou goest I will go, and where thou dwellest I will dwell. Mother, tell me! is it Patie or poor Huntley who is to have you and me?”
The Mistress did not say a word. She suffered herself to be placed in the chair where she had placed Katie, and then put her apron over her face and wept, thinking strangely, all at once, not of a new daughter-in-law and a changed place, but of him who lay sleeping among the solemn ruins at Dryburgh, and all the sacred chain of years that made dear this house of Norlaw.
The other marriage took place after that, with much greater glory and distinction, to the pride of the Mistress’s heart. It was a great festival when it came—which was not till the season of mourning was over—to all of whom Madame Roche could reach. Even Joanna Huntley and Aunt Jean were persuaded to come to gladden the wedding of Desirée and Cosmo; and it is even said that Joanna, who is of a very scientific turn of mind, and has a little private laboratory of her own, where she burns her pupils’ fingers, was the finder of that strange little heap of dust and cinders which revealed to Huntley the mineral wealth in the corner of the Norlaw lands, which now has made him rich enough to buy three Norlaws. At any rate, Joanna was put into perfect good humor by her visit, and thenceforward, with the chivalry of a knight-errant, worshiped above all loveliness the beautiful old face of Madame Roche.
This is about all there is to tell of the Livingstone family. They had their troubles, and are having them, like all of us; but, like all of us, have great joy-cordials now and then to make them strong; and always Providence to work a clear web out of the tangled exertions which we make without witting, and which God sorts into His appointed lot.
