Маргарет Олифант
Merkland: or, Self Sacrifice
“Andrew’s maister, I’m meaning the doctor he’s serving his time wi’, has ta’en in a daft gentleman to board wi’ him,” said Jean Miller, aside to the sympathetic Jacky, “and so there wasna room for the callant, and it was needful he should get up-putting in a strange house. Sae it chanced, when I was in seeing him, that I saw some mair neighbors o’ his, collegianers, and ae young doctor, that was unco chief wi’ him; and it appears Andrew – he’s a kindly callant, and has been a’ his days – had been telling them o’ his auntie, and how I was anxious about him in the strange place, where he had nae mother’s e’e ower him, nor onybody to keep him right. Sae what did they do – the young doctor and the auldest o’ the students, but they said, that if Andrew would get his auntie to come in and take a house, they would a’ bide wi’ me, and that they would be mair comfortable a’thegither, and could help ane anither in their learning. Sae ye may think Andrew was blythe to come out to tell me, and seeing I’m wearing into years, and a’body likes to have a house o’ their ain, and in especial for the laddie’s sake, that he may be wiled to care mair for hame, than for the vanities that have ruined lads of promise by the hunder before him, as I ken ower weel, I didna swither; and the house is ta’en, and the plenishing’s bought, and I’m gaun hame the day. It’s a great change to me, but – Andrew, my man, yon blue box is mine too – it’ll be a great ease to my mind to hae my laddie aye in my ain e’e; and I hope the Lord will send a blessing on’t. It’s a’ for the lad’s guid I’m anxious. Guid kens, I would have little thought o’ mysel that am withered, and auld, and past my strength, if it werena for him.”
The journey was accomplished in safety. Little Alice was established again at the rounded window of that pretty bower of hers, looking over, through the golden air, to the quiet house of Merkland, with no phantom of grief or pain or sorrow, throwing its shadow now between; but everything around and before, throwing out that sunny light of hope and promise, beautiful to see.
The day after their arrival, Anne set out to visit Esther Fleming. Lewis had not thought of any anxiety of Esther’s; unfortunately, very much as his intercourse with the Aytouns had improved him Lewis was still by no means given to any great consideration of other people’s anxieties, and therefore he had suffered the paper which Anne sent specially for her, containing the first public notice of Norman’s innocence, to lie useless in his library without the least remembrance of Esther. He had not the same bond to her as Anne had, it is true, for Esther had never bestowed any great share of her patronage upon “the strange woman’s bairn.”
A little way from the gate of Merkland, Anne met Marjory Falconer. Marjory had the slightest possible air of timidity hanging upon her, with a singular grace. She was a little afraid of Anne’s reception of her intended marriage – whether she already knew – and if she would lecture, or rally her.
“Come with me to the Tower first,” said Marjory, drawing Anne’s arm within her own. “I want to see little Alice Aytoun – and I have a great deal to say to you.”
“I am glad you have the grace to acknowledge that,” said Anne, smiling; “but I do think, Marjory, that some of it should have been said sooner.”
“Anne!” exclaimed Marjory Falconer, with one of her violent blushes, “you would not have had me speak to you, the way young ladies speak in novels.”
“Many young ladies in novels speak very sensibly, Marjory,” said Anne.
“Very well – never mind, that is all over now. Tell me of your own matters, Anne – you have not returned to Merkland as you went away; there is to be no more brooding, no more unhappiness?”
Anne told her story briefly, as they went up Oranside. Marjory was much affected. To her strong, joyous spirit, in its vigorous contendings with mere external evil, and now in the prospective strength and honor of its new, grave, happy household life, the mention of these agonies came with strange power. Nothing like them, as the fair promise of her future went, should ever enter the healthful precincts of the Manse of Portoran, yet her heart swelled within her in deep sympathy as the hearts of those swell who feel that they themselves also could bear like perils and miseries – the true fraternity.
In the inner drawing-room they found little Alice alone, and there ensued some gayer badinage, which Marjory bore with wonderful patience and a considerable amount of blushing laughter, inevitable in the circumstances. “The only thing is,” said Marjory, with a look of comical distress, “what I shall do with Ralph – I wish somebody would marry him – I do wish some one would do me the special favor of marrying Ralph!”
Little Alice Aytoun looked up in wonder. It was Alice’s wont to be greatly puzzled with those speeches of Marjory’s, and quite at a loss to know how much was joke, and how much earnest.
“Yes, indeed,” said Marjory, laying her hand on Alice’s shoulder. “I think it would have been a very much more sensible thing for you, little Alice Aytoun, to have fallen in love with my poor brother Ralph, who needs somebody to take care of him, than with that rational, prudent Lewis of Anne’s who can take such very good care of himself.”
Alice drew herself up, and was half inclined to be angry; but glancing up to Marjory’s face, ended in laughing, blushing and wondering.
“And yet that must have been very unsatisfactory too,” said Marjory, smoothing Alice’s fair hair as she would have done a child’s, “for then, I had been certainly thirled to Falcon’s Craig to take care of you both – to see that Ralph was not too rough with you, and that you were too gentle with him. No, we must have some one who can hold the reins. Altogether you have chosen better for yourself, little Alice – Lewis will take care of you. But who shall I get to manage Ralph?”
“Perhaps Anne will,” suggested Alice wickedly.
Anne was full three-and-twenty, and she was not even engaged! Little Alice, with a touch of girlish generosity, felt the superiority of her own position almost painful.
“Hush, little girl,” said the prompt Marjory. “Anne is not a horsewoman; besides I won’t endanger a friend’s interest, even for the sake of getting Ralph off my hands. Anne is – ”
“Oh! is Anne engaged? – is Anne engaged?” cried little Alice, clapping her hands. Alice had been a good deal troubled by this same want of an engagement for Anne, and had even been secretly cogitating, in her own mind, whether it might not be possible to direct the attention of her grave brother James to the manifold good qualities of Lewis’s sister.
“Now, pray, do you two brides leave me undisturbed in my humble quietness,” said Anne, good-humoredly. “Why there is Jeanie Coulter to be married next week – and then yourselves – if I do not hold my ground, there will not be a single representative left of the young womanhood of Strathoran and that is a calamity to be avoided by all means. I must really go to Esther Fleming’s now. Do you go with me, Marjory?”
Marjory assented, and they left the Tower; instead of going directly to Esther Fleming’s house, Anne went round by the mill. On reaching Mrs. Melder’s, they found that good woman standing, with a puzzled look, before her table, on which lay a parcel, which Anne had sent with Jacky, of mourning for the child. Lilie herself stood by, regarding the little black frock, in which she was dressed, with a look of childish gravity. The mourning chilled the little heart, though after being convinced that nothing ailed papa, mamma, or Lawrie, Lilie, in Anne’s bed-chamber, the previous night, had heard of her uncle’s death, with only that still awe natural to the blythe little spirit, “feeling its life in every vein.” She did not know the strange uncle Patrick, who was dead. It only subdued the gay voice a very little, and sent some sad speculations into the childish head – a place where grave speculations are rife enough sometimes, whether we of the elder generation discern them or no.
When Anne and Marjory approached the door, the child ran to meet them. “Oh, aunt Anne – my aunt Anne!”
Marjory Falconer looked puzzled – she had not heard this part of Anne’s story.
“This is my niece,” said Anne, with a slight tremor. “This is Lilias Rutherford, my brother Norman’s child.”
“Anne!” exclaimed Marjory, in amazement, “what do you mean?” Mrs. Melder pressed forward no less astonished.
“This little stranger,” said Anne, holding the child’s hand, “is the daughter of my brother Norman, of whom you have heard so much, Marjory – my niece, Lilias Rutherford.”
Marjory Falconer, in the extremity of her astonishment, snatched up Lilie in her arms, and ran out with her into the open sunlight, as if to satisfy herself that Anne’s new-found niece was indeed the little Spanish Lilie, whose strange coming to the mill had been so great a wonder to the countryside.
“Ye’re no meaning you, Miss Anne?” exclaimed Mrs. Melder, anxiously, “it’s only a joke wi’ Miss Falconer – ye’re no meaning it?”
“Indeed I am,” said Anne, “Lilie is truly my niece, Mrs. Melder; the daughter of a brother who has been long lost to us, but whom we have now found again.”
“Eh!” cried Mrs. Melder, “that’ll be the auld leddy’s son that was said to have killed anither man – and ye wad aye ken it, Miss Anne? Keep me! To think of me telling ye about the leddy, and you kenning a’ the time wha the bairn was.”
“No, you do me injustice,” said Anne, eagerly. “At that time I had not the slightest idea who Lilie was, and it is only a week or two since I was certain.”
Mrs. Melder did not look perfectly contented. “Weel, nae doubt it’s my pairt to be thankfu’ that the bairn has friends o’ her ain, that can be better for her than me – and it’s like ye’ll do taking her to Merkland, Miss Anne?” Mrs. Melder lifted the corner of her apron to her eye, and tried to look offended and indifferent.
“I want to take her down with me to-day,” said Anne, “and we can arrange about that afterwards. Lilie, come here, I want you to go with me to Merkland.”
Mrs. Melder took Lilie’s little bonnet, and drew the child to her knee to put it on. “And they’re gaun to take ye away frae me, my lamb! but ye’ll aye mind us, Lilie? and when ye’re a grand laddy, ye’ll no forget the wee house at the mill, that ye lived in when ye were a bairn?” Mrs. Melder’s eyes were over-flowing.
“Dinna greet,” whispered Lilie, clinging to her kind nurse, “if my aunt Anne takes me to stay at Merkland, I’ll come down every day – me and Jacky – and when mamma comes, she’ll come and see you. Eh!” cried Lilie, forgetting her sympathy with Mrs. Melder in her remembrance of one dearer than she; “you never saw a lady so bonnie as my mamma!”
“Ay, but, Lilie,” said the good woman, applying the apron to her eyes again, “ye dinna think how we’ll miss ye here. There’ll aye be the wee bed empty at nicht, and aye the wee facie away in the morning. Oh! Lilie, my lamb!”
“But I’ll come down every day,” said Lilie, in consolation; “and when mamma comes, I’ll bring her to see you, and papa, and Lawrie; and Jacky will bring me every day, and when I’m a big lady, I’ll come my lane.”
They went down Oranside together, Lilie holding a hand of Anne and Marjory, and skipping gaily between them. Marjory Falconer spoke little: she had not yet overcome her surprise.
Esther Fleming sat by the door of her cottage, knitting a stocking, and enjoying the sunshine. Her young niece was going lightly about within, “redding up” the lightsome clean apartment. The old woman looked very cheerful, neat and comfortable, her snow-white muslin cap covering her gray hair, and closely surrounding her sensible, kindly face. She started from her seat as she saw Anne.
“Eh, Miss Anne, are ye come at last?” but her face darkened with disappointment as she perceived Marjory and the child.
“I would have come sooner, Esther,” said Anne, “but that I thought you had been told.”
“Told what?” Esther staggered back to her seat, and sitting down there, supported her head firmly between her hands. “For guid sake, Miss Anne, say it out, whatever it is. Let me hear it at once. Young lady go away, and let my bairn tell me her tidings.”
“I may tell them before all the world Esther,” said Anne. “Norman is innocent, known and declared to be so, in the face of all men, free to return to his own house and name, in honor and peace, and good fame. All our sorrow and trouble for him are over. He is safe, Esther. He is justified in the sight of the world.”
The old woman uttered a cry – a low, wild, unconscious cry. She might have done the same had it been bitter sorrow that overwhelmed her, instead of a very agony and deluge of joy and thankfulness. She threw her apron over her head – under its covering they could see the motion of her hands, the bowing of her head. Prayers innumerable, offered by night and day for eighteen years, that had lain unanswered till this time, before yon Throne in Heaven, were pouring back upon her now in a flood of blessedness. It was meet that they should stand apart in silent reverence, while thus, in the presence of the Highest, His old and faithful servant rendered thanks, where so long she had poured forth her petition for mercy.
At last she raised her head – her clear and kindly features trembling yet with the storm of joy that had swept over them; her eye fell upon the child. She had seen Lilie once or twice before, but never before in this strong light which tinged everything with a remembrance of Norman. She started to her feet: “Wha are ye, bairn? wha are ye? – for ony sake, Miss Anne, tell me wha this is?”
Anne took Lilie’s hand, and led her to Esther’s side; the child looked up wonderingly with those large dark wistful eyes of hers, almost as Christian Lilie had been wont to look – Anne placed her in the arms of her father’s devoted, loving friend. “Esther, you have a better right to her than I – she is my brother’s child – she is the daughter of Norman, for whom you have sorrowed and prayed so long.”
And Marjory Falconer stood apart, repeating to herself in a low voice, which trembled sometimes, that Psalm, the blessing of the good man, sung by the Hebrew people in the old time, as they journeyed to Jerusalem, and familiar now to us in Scotland, as the household words of our own land —
“Behold each man that fears the Lord,
Thus blessed shall he be,
The Lord shall out of Sion send,
His blessing unto thee,
Thou shalt Jerusalem’s good behold,
While thou on earth dost dwell,
Thou shalt thy children’s children see,
And peace on Israel!”
CHAPTER XXX
THE months travelled on peacefully; Jeanie Coulter and Walter Foreman were married with all due mirth and rejoicing. Ada Mina was reigning now, in the absence of all rival powers, acknowledged belle and youthful beauty of Strathoran; and had been thrown into an immense flutter, to the great dismay and manifest injury of a young Muirland laird from the west, who had come to take lessons in agriculture from Mr. Coulter, and was very assiduously paying court to Mr. Coulter’s daughter – by a hint from Mrs. Catherine, of a possible visit to the Tower of the Honorable Giles. Little Harry Coulter, the Benjamin of Harrows, was more desperately in love than ever with the stranger Lilie, now living at Merkland, in her full dignity as Merkland’s niece; and with his first knife had already constructed, with mighty deliberation and care, a splendid model of a patent plough, to be laid at the small feet of his liege lady, who unfortunately had no manner of appreciation of patent ploughs, and greatly preferred Charlie Ferguson’s present, a boat – a veritable boat with little white silken sails, elaborated in the Woodsmuir nursery by Mary Ferguson and Flora Macalpine, and which could actually, with a fairy cargo of moss and ruddy autumnal wild-flowers, make genuine voyages upon the Oran, to the delight of Lilie and the Woodsmuir party, and the immense disgust of Harry Coulter. Lilie was becoming a great pet at Merkland, “evendown spoiled,” as Mrs. Melder said, with the slightest possible tinge of jealousy; the constant companion and pupil of Anne, the plaything of Lewis, and even – so great was the witchery of the fair fresh childhood – a favorite with Mrs. Ross herself, whom aunt Anne taught Lilie to approach with the greatest reverence, and to call grand-mamma – mamma would not do. Lilie stoutly resisted the bestowal of that sacred name upon any individual except the one enthroned in the loyal little heart, the bonniest of all existent ladies; the especial mother of the loving child.
In the beginning of winter, Anne paid her promised visit to Christian, carrying little Lilie with her. New life was budding again in the large melancholy heart which had lived through a lingering death for so many years. A deep sorrow, and tender remembrance of the dead carried about with her in religious silence, shunning common sight and common comment, did not prevent this. It was not meet that the griefs of such a spirit should pass lightly away, or was it possible; but bordering the deep stillness of that lasting sorrow were other holds on life. Hope for Marion, the little sister of her happier days; reverent enjoyment of God’s mercies, which one who had bowed to His chastisements so long was not like to hold lightly; a sympathy, exquisitely deep and tender, with everything of nature, and much of humanity – all swelling up from the strong vitality, healthful and pure and heaven-dependant, which God had placed, as a fountain in his servant’s heart, before He laid her mighty load upon her.
Anne and the child remained for a considerable time with Christian. She had settled again in the old cottage, and was already making arrangements for the repair of Redheugh. When Anne parted with her, it was in the confidence of meeting her again in the end of the year, when Norman and Marion should have returned; a light passed over the wan face, as Christian said those words, but still she did not say from whence the exiles were to return. Anne could not press the question, and the time was not very long to wait. Lilie returned with her to Merkland.
The year waned; the December days again darkened over the sky of Strathoran. Mr. Lumsden of Portoran had refurnished his Manse, in a style which utterly scandalized Mrs. Bairnsfather. – Some one presented him with a whole library of additional books – the same individual that had lately put into his hand money enough to build a school-house in the hamlet at Oran Brig, at which already masons and joiners were working merrily, and under whose shelter Mr. Lumsden himself had vowed to preach, let the Presbytery storm as it pleased. Mrs. Bairnsfather moved her husband to appeal the case to the Assembly this time, if the Synod’s thunders proved unavailing. Mr. Bairnsfather, very much disgusted as he was – was dubious. A certain mighty man in an obscure Fife parish, lying on the south side of the Tay – a wondrous visionary man, who seeing the first experiments made with gas in the streets of the mighty cities, had tubes laid for the conveyance of the same to the pleasant parlors of that rural Manse of Kilmany, had discovered a mighty truth by that time, and was beginning to throw the rays of it from that marvellous lamp of his, over the Tay, to be over all Scotland ere long. The truth that preaching proprieties would not do; that ministers of Christ’s holy evangel must preach Christ – nothing less, and that the name of the Lord was the strong Tower – it and no other – in which purity of soul and life could be kept unsullied and undimmed for ever. And vigorous athletic forces, whose front rank, among other sons of Anak, stood that restless man of might and labor, so long called fire-brand and fanatic, the Rev. John Lumsden of Portoran, were pressing into the highest places of the Church, with this greatest of Scottish men at their head. So Mr. Bairnsfather sagaciously, over his gardening, resolved that it might be well to proceed with caution in this matter, and that the eye of a General Assembly in this great renewing of its youth, might see shortcomings in his own ministerial life and conversation, not particularly adapted for the light of the day; in consequence of which prudent doubts Mr. Lumsden escaped a call to the bar of the supreme judicatory of the Church.
He was not married yet, however, for Marjory Falconer was still disconsolately, and in vain, looking out for some one who would do her the especial favor of marrying Ralph.
Mrs. Ross was becoming reconciled to the inevitable marriage of Lewis. It was to take place some time about the new year – the special period depending upon the looked for arrival of Norman. Little Alice, with her girlish kindness of heart, had put a decided negative upon Lewis’s proposal, that his mother should leave Merkland. Surely they could all dwell together in unity. Alice had considerable confidence in her own powers of charming. To a little bride of eighteen, whom all the stronger natures round her instinctively conspired to guard and defend from evil, the confidence was natural and becoming enough.
In the meantime, Alice had been plotting somewhat ineffectually to direct the especial attention of that grave brother James of hers to Anne, and Anne’s to him. It by no means succeeded. – They were the best friends in the world, but clearly, even to the solicitous eye of Alice, as comfortably indifferent to each other as it was possible for very good friends to be.
Mr. Ferguson’s work went on prosperously in the bleak lands of Loelyin and Lochend. The sides of the glen of Oranmore were covered with the flocks of the Southland farmer. In the glen itself, those roofless walls stood still desolate and silent, the end of many a stern pilgrimage made by the ejected Macalpines, who from their cottages in the low-country, and from fishing-boats on the wide seashore beyond Portoran, looked forward constantly with silent prayers, and stern onwaiting for the return of their chief, and the recovery of their homes.
He, this hapless chief of theirs, had heard ere now of their calamity, and in an agony of bitter earnestness had plunged again into his labor, his hope swelling within him, in a burst of force which made it almost painful – for them – also like himself heirs of the soil – and for their inheritance. It had been some relief to his burning eagerness, could he have cried his war-cry as his ancestors did, and rushed on —
To the rescue! There never was deed of olden arms, or bold knight-errantry more instinct with chivalrous honor and energy than this, though the battle-field was counting-room and market-place, and the wrestler a broken man!
Lord Gillravidge had returned to Strathoran, greatly to the chagrin of his useful friend, Mr. Fitzherbert, who had been, through all the intervening time laboriously endeavoring to convince his Lordship of the insupportable ennui of this out-of-the-world place of his. His Lordship was more than half convinced; nevertheless there was excellent shooting, and Lord Gillravidge filled his house with sportsmen, to the defiance of ennui, which reigning supreme in presence of one bore, seems to be expected to dissipate itself in the society of twenty.
One evening late in the year, Mr. Fitzherbert chanced inconsiderately to pass through the little hamlet at the Brig of Oran, after the darkening. It was a beautiful, clear, frosty night. – Hardy, strong, red and blue children, were sliding on the frozen Oran; young men and douce fathers, had been tempted to join them. Cottage doors were open on all sides, revealing homely interiors, partially lighted by the kindly firelight; grandmothers seated by the firesides; mothers stirring with care and pains-taking the mighty pot of wholesome “parritch” for their evening meal; elder sisters, eager to be out upon the slide, rapidly, and with much noise, putting upon the table bowls and plates to receive the same; while some who had finished the process stood at the door calling impatiently to boys and men, to “come in afore the parritch cules.” Through this peaceful place, Mr. Fitzherbert inconsiderately passed alone. He had scarcely entered it, when he was recognised by a band of children on the ice. The youngsters of the Brig of Oran were just in such a state of exhilaration, as made them ready for mischief in all its possible varieties. “Eh!” cried out a stout lad of fourteen, at the top of his considerable voice, “younder’s the man that Angus Macalpine shore like a sheep at the stepping stanes!”
“Great cry and little woo!” shouted another, adding also the latter line of the proverb, in all its ludicrous expressiveness.
“Eh man!” continued a third, “I wadna hae lain still, and gotten my head cuttit when I wasna wanting it.”
Mr. Fitzherbert was perfectly blind and dumb with rage; in the midst of a chorus of laughter he hurried on.
“Never you heed, my man,” said the shoe-maker’s wife, known as “a randy” beyond the precincts of the Brig of Oran, “ye’ve gotten new anes – they’re grown again.”
“Grown again!” ejaculated a little old wifie, whose profession was that of an itinerant small-ware dealer, and who was privileged as an original, “grown again!” and she lifted her quick little withered hand to Fitzherbert’s face, as she glided in before him; “let-abee shearing – I wad a bawbee the new anes wadna stand a pouk.”
And secure in the protection of the hardy mason, under whose roof-tree she was to receive shelter for the night, the old wifie extended her fingers to the graceful ornament of hair which curled over Mr. Fitzherbert’s lip. We cannot tell what dread revelations might have followed, had not Lord Gillravidge’s unfortunate friend dashed the old woman aside, and saved himself by flight. Poor old Nannie paid for her boldness by a slight cut upon her withered brow – her host growled a thundery anathema, and the well-disposed lads of the hamlet pursued the fugitive with gibes and shoutings of revengeful derision up to the very gate of Strathoran.
After which stimulating adventure, Mr. Fitzherbert’s arguments became so potent and earnest, that Lord Gillravidge was moved by them, and finding likewise that Mr. Whittret turned out by no means the most honorable of stewards, and that this great house was enormously expensive, his Lordship took it into his serious consideration whether it might not be the wisest course to get rid of Strathoran.
December passed away – the new year came, and still there were no tidings of Norman. Anne became anxious and uneasy; but Christian’s letters said, and said with reason, that the delay of a week or so, was no unusual matter in a long sea voyage. Where was he then, this exile brother?
Lewis was not to be put off so easily. He did not see why a matter of so much importance as his marriage should be delayed for the uncertain arrival of Norman. So the day was determined on at last; the ceremony was to be performed at the Tower, by Mrs. Catherine’s especial desire – in the end of January; if Norman came before that time, so much the better; if not they would go on without him.
A fortnight of the new year was gone already; the Aytouns had arrived at the Tower. Mrs. Aytoun and her son, under the escort of Lewis, had gone down to Merkland to pay a formal visit to Mrs. Ross. Anne was at the Tower with Lilie. She had been there of late, even more than usual. It was Mrs. Catherine’s desire that her favorite should remain with her permanently, when Alice had taken her place in Merkland. It pleased Anne greatly to have the alternative, but until the return of Norman, she made no definite arrangement.
The afternoon was waning – Alice was in very high spirits, a little tremulous and even something excited. Her wedding-day began to approach so nearly.
She had been sitting close by Anne’s side, engaged in a long and earnest conversation, wherein the elder sister had many grave things to speak of, while the younger, leaning on her in graceful dependence, listened and assented reverently, forgetting for the moment what a very important little personage, she herself, the future Mrs. Ross of Merkland, was.
Mrs. Catherine entered the room suddenly, with a newspaper in her hand, and a triumphant expression in her face. “Here is news, Anne, news worth hearkening to. Did I not know the cattle would not be suffered to do their evil pleasure long in the house of a good man? Now in a brief hour, we will be clear of the whole race of them – unclean beasts and vermin as they are. Look at this.”
Anne started when she did so; it was a long advertisement setting forth, in auctioneer eloquence, the beauties and eligibilities of the desirable freehold property of Strathoran, which was to be offered for sale, on a specified day in spring, within a specified place in Edinburgh.
“What think you of that?” said Mrs. Catherine. “We have smitten the Philistines and driven them out of the land – a land that it is my hope will be polluted with the footsteps of the like of them never more in my day, though truly I am in doubt how we can get the dwelling purified, to make it fit for civilized folk.”
“And what do you mean to do?” said Anne, eagerly. “It may be bought by some other stranger: it may be – ”
“Hold your peace, Anne,” said Mrs. Catherine; “are you also joining yourself to the witless bairns that would give counsel to gray hairs. It may be! I say it shall be! The siller will aye be to the fore, whether I am or no, and think you I will ever stand by again, and let a strange man call himself master of Strathoran – the house that Isabel Balfour went into a bride, and went out of again, only to her rest? It has been a thorn in my very side, this one unclean and strange tenant of it. Think you I will ever suffer another?”
“And what then?” said Anne, with anxious interest.
“We must get it bought, without doubt,” said Mrs. Catherine. “You are slower of the uptake, Anne, than is common with you. Whether I myself have, or have not, sufficient siller is another matter. There are folk in Scotland, who know the word of Catherine Douglas, and can put faith in it. Before three months are over our heads, an it be not otherwise ordained, Archie Sutherland shall be master of his land again.”
