Lorimer Boyd, after assisting to adjust the habit of the lady, and handing her a little whip as slender and flexible as herself, looked after her in a musing manner for a minute or two; then turning to Gertrude, he said, "That is a very nice pony of your sister-in-law's, and would take a long day easily. I should not be surprised if she rode a broom-stick at night." "Ah!" laughed Gertrude," and a little while ago you said she was a 'harmless creature." ❝ Yes. I thought so then. I do not think so now. I think she is a creature full of harm. But Douglas does not." "No. Douglas is fond of ber, and she is getting less afraid of him." "Afraid of Douglas! Miss Ross afraid! Rely upon it, Gertrude, she fears nothing in this world. And I much doubt if she fears anything in the next. "She would be much surprised if she heard your last remark: for she is stricter than strict as to her religious theories." “Theories? — yes. Our religious theories are for our neighbours; the practice is for ourselves." "Well! we will talk of something pleasanter. You can't think how painful it was to me to find I could not like Douglas's sister. He has so few relations, and this the only near one. I wish you were his brother; though, I believe, even then he could not love you better than he does." That very evening did Sir Douglas confide to his wife (making poor Gertrude feel quite guilty in consequence of the memory of the morning's conversation) that he thought it would be a remarkably happy chance if Lorimer were to fall in love with Alice; that it would be a most suitable choice, Alice being extremely sensible and fond of grave employments, and no longer a mere girl-which would not suit Lorimer. He even attempted, in his own unsophisticated way, to further this chance, and open the eyes of Boyd to her merits, by saying one day, "Don't you think there is something very remarkable in Alice, in spite of her quiet ways?" And Lorimer's answer was, "Yes, indeed I do." But, whether grim smile, or grim tone, destroyed the value of the verbal acquiescence, it is certain that Sir Douglas felt so much irritation at the reply that he rejoined rather testily, "You have lived so much abroad, Lorimer, that I don't think a quiet Scotch or English woman has any chance of pleasing you." Lorimer did not speak. He was looking at Gertrude, whose cheek had flushed sud denly during the brief colloquy. He thought of days at Naples, when angry insolent Kenneth had spoken of her as "one of your quiet girls," from whom much evidence of preference could not be expected. Ah! how unlike the quiet of Douglas's half-sister was the nature of his wife, and how strange that the man who so truly loved the one could be taken in by the other! Strange as it might be, however, in Mr. Boyd's opinion, Sir Douglas leaned greatly to his half-sister. And the inexplicable result of all was, that when Alice- aware instinctively that, instead of pleasing, she displeased, withdrew as cautiously as she had advanced, she adopted a certain manner of being timid and rather ill-used — illused in not being more liked, and more petted; but wistful and sorrowful, because of course it was her own fault: it could only be her own fault that she did not please more! She would engage as formerly in the conversation, and then suddenly withdraw from it; give out little final meagre sentences, and cease; as knowing that her talk was not wanted, was not welcome. She would answer Gertrude's call of "Are you coming too, Ailie?" by a doubtful dropping of her work or book, and a sort of appeal to Sir Douglas, if he happened to be present, "Oh! I don't know; do you think they really want me, or that Lady Ross says it out of kindness? I feel so de trop they know each other so well, and I don't know Mr. Boyd at all; -oh! no— - let me go with you. I will wait till you go - please let me !" Once, indeed, she even ventured to say, after long silence and leaning of her head on her hand, with a sort of wondering sigh, "Can I have offended Mr. Boyd in any way, or is it only that I bore him?" Which speech so touched honest Sir Douglas that he suddenly stooped and kissed her on the forehead, saying at the same time, My dear Ailie, how can you be so foolish? How could you bore any one? I'm sure you are better informed than most women. But Lorimer was always rather an odd fellow." And "Ailie" was quite satisfied with the result of her dejected remark, but she only replied humbly, "Do you think so? But you are so good, Douglas; so very good; so good to every one!" So good to every one, that even to her (poor waif and stray as she must consider herself), even to her, some little share of manna must fall and be gathered. That was the tone taken by Ailie, in pursuance of the tactics of Ailie. Oh! if gallant and frank Sir Douglas could but have seen her in her turret chamber, an hour or so afterwards, how extremely startled and puzzled would that excellent soldier have been ! CHAPTER XXIV. "Well, no, mother; it may be wrong, but it is not unnatural." "Don't smile at me in that way, sir; I hate it! You know we're all here in confusion and torment. That shameless sinner from Torrieburn, and her husband, and the drunken old miller her father, have all been up here, actually up at the castle, expecting to see my face, and storming loud enough to be heard round the hall, and up the turrets." GODLY FOLK, AND RELIGIOUS Folk. Standing on tiptoe; watching; leaning "Is it not most unnatural that you should up against the shutter of her high window; prefer staying on, as you are doing, at twisting and untwisting, with slow though Glenrossie, instead of being, as you ought restless fingers, the long boa of light-col- to be, at Clochnaben, Lorimer?" oured fur which was coiled round her neck, to protect her throat from the evening air; her eyes half-closed, as short-sighted persons habitually close them to assist their vision giving out a sort of trembling glitters; her brows set in a hard frown, and her lips in a compressed smile, the union of which contradictory expressions make up the "demoniac " pattern, followed in Mephistopheles, and such like representations. If he could have seen her! And all because Clochnaben's brother would not like her, and she knew, from old Lady Clochnaben, that he had liked her sister-in-law; and she wondered, as unconscious Gertrude advanced with her companion up the steep terraces to the oaken doors, how all would turn out, and whether they were talking of her, or of old times, or what. As she watched, they stopped; a short distance from the entrance. Gertrude had been smiling; now she looked suddenly grave; more than grave - her face wore a look of painful pity; Lorimer was telling her something that moved her greatly. What could it be? Presently he struck with his cane at the lower branch of one of two stunted old fir trees, whose picturesque appearance saved them from being uprooted and carted away for firewood. Then, all of a sudden, it flashed upon Alice Ross what Lorimer was narrating! He was telling the memorable story of the hanging of the two dogs, which preceded the sending of Douglas to Eton, where he and Douglas first became friends. No doubt abusing her mother, and making out a fine story of ill-usage and cruelty to the boys long ago. And, though Alice had not loved her mother (being indeed herself too much of that mother's nature), she resented the supposed abuse. She would have liked to have thrown a sharp stone at the speaker: to have shot a poisoned arrow at him: but he and Gertrude passed on, under the archway; and the fierce illumination of Alice's cat-like eyes subsided as she turned away from the window, and prepared to smooth her hair and dress in soft white muslin, and go in to dinner with a noiseless velvety step, leaning humbly on her brother's arm. "And did you see them?" "I? I see that low-bred sinner with two names? Lorimer, you disgust me." "Really, mother, the inscription of Maggie Ross's sins on my memory "Don't call her Maggie Ross, if you've any sense left of propriety!" "Well, of Maggie Heaton's sins, - on my memory, is mossed over by Time, like an old tombstone." "Then you read Scripture to little purpose,' The worm that dieth not, and the fire that is not quenched,'- that's Scripture dictum !" "So is Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be white as wool,' mother." "Lorimer, you would try the patience of a saint." "Saints never have any patience — not, at least, with their neighbours and fellowcreatures; oply with their martyrdoms.” "Will you be serious? or will you tell me at once you don't choose to assist me when I send for you, and so take yourself off again to Glenrossie?" I will be serious, mother, quite serious; but we think so differently on these topics. Maggie Ross or Maggie Heaton I believe, a girl of sixteen when Kenneth Ross chose to tempt and ruin her. I consider her, therefore, more sinned against than sinning. She is now a woman of middle age, re-married, and to a clergyman Clergyman, indeed! the boy's tutor!" "Re-married to a gentleman who was her boy's tutor. And, apparently, with no fault towards her present husband, except her vulgarity, which she cannot help, and which must have been just as evident (though her beauty may have excused it) when he first took her to wife. They are your neighbours, and connexions of Douglas; and I should have thought that Christian charity". "Lorimer, don't exasperate me by talking of Christian charity! Leave Christian charity to the cooks that sell and give away the dripping that don't belong to them. Don't preach such abominable nonsense about charity to a woman who's as fat as a porpoise, and as bold as brass; with her hair all blowzy, and a tongue like the clack of a mill-wheel! Such a woman to dare to come here to Clochnaben! Here, where her very existence was never acknowledged." "Bless me! poor annulled and ignored Maggie. But now, my dear mother, what has she been here about? and how has she at last compelled you, by some riot you have not explained to me, to give her a hearing, and, though late in life, at last to acknowledge her existence?" "I gave her no hearing, I tell you; except that my ears were dinned and deafened by her brawling below. And I refused to see the miller, or her husband the tutor." "Then you did a very uncourteous thing. What did they come here about?" 66 They came here brawling and complain ing, and saying they had made the discovery (discovery, forsooth!) that the plugged cart-wheel that was blown up under Heaton's ridiculous ornamented window was part of a cart left on my factor's ground, and that he must have had something to do with it; and that they insisted on seeing me, and having an inquiry into the whole matter." "Well, that seems simple enough; and the agreeing to it ought to have satisfied them, and sent them away." "Agreeing to it! I do think, of all the provoking sons that ever were born, you are the worst. Agreeing to it! I just sent the factor himself, honest man, to speak with them, and give them their answer.' "And he exculpated himself, of course, and denied it?" "Exculpate!-exculpate to that brazen sinner! He told them to go about their business, and not come flyting among respectable people. He called Maggie's father a drunken old carle, and Maggie herself some name or other - a forswearing jade, I think it was and said something about her not being married, and the conduct of the people at the Mill "Oh, mother!" "You may say 'Oh, mother!' but I'll tell you what it is, Lorimer: if you can't take reasonable part with your own people, and choose to leave your mother's house to be invaded and insulted, I'm no mother of yours; and the sooner you get back to Italy, or elsewhere, the better I shall be pleased." There was gloom and a sort of sorrowful contempt in Lorimer Boyd's eyes, as he raised them to his mother's face; who, tall and gaunt, had stood up in the angry excitement of the last sentence. "Mother," he said, "you desired me, just now, to be serious. Will you be serious, and tell me clearly what these people have done, and what you want me to do?" "I want you to prevent my being subjected to such insolence." "How can I prevent it? In my opinion, you should have received, at all events, Mr. Saville Heaton, courteously; assured him that the strictest inquiry should be made into the outrage he justly complains of, even though you felt convinced no one employed by you on this estate could have had art of part in such an atrocious act; and so dismissed him. I think it was an insult to send to him the very person of whom he came to complain." 66 Then you think precisely the contrary of what I do. I sent the factor to deny it, and there's an end. I'm not going to interfere with any inquiry, or anything at all of the sort. They've made their beds, and now they may lie in them, that's my dic tum." "I'll you what, Lorimer: though Clochnaben's a poor creature and a sickly goose, he's a better son to me than you are, with all your brains and your book-writing. You know well enough what I mean. I mean that they've chosen with their newfangled notions of singing, and glass windows, and indecent consecration of bits of ground, where parishioners lay in their proper graves before ever Mr. Heaton was thought of to set the whole neigborhood against them. The place is in a perfect uproar with his ways; and I'm sure I don't wonder at plugged cart-wheels, or anything else, with that Jezebel living at Torrieburn, and he preaching fancy sermons wide of the doctrine, and burying folks as if they were Roman papists." "Do you seriously think that, because a man preaches as an Episcopalian, and endeavours to get a bit of unused burialground consecrated for the reception of the dead bodies whose occupying souls were, in their life, of his own persuasion, it is therefore fair, right, and not to be wondered at, that an attempt should be made to blow up his house, injure his property, and, for aught | ever she had sons, could there come a day the criminal could tell, destroy lives?" "Before I go," said he, with gloomy gravity, "I will once more put the question I ought simply to have asked at once, instead of jesting on these subjects-What do you want done; and why did you send for me?" "I want to-to sweep these people away," answered Lady Clochnaben, fiercely. "I want you to desire your friend Sir Douglas to get Mr. Heaton removed to some other neighbourhood. He can do it if he chooses. He has plenty of interest; let Mr. Heaton have another living." "My dear mother! Do you consider that Torrieburn is Mrs. Heaton's home? Do you suppose she would consent?” "Who asks her consent? You really are too young to be rocked in a cradle, Lorimer. Let Mr. Heaton find her a home; where he goes, she can go. That young ne'er-do-well, Kenneth, is of age; indeed, he must now be two and twenty, or more. How is he to bring a wife (if ever he does anything so decent as take one) to live with that red-haired flaunting Jezebel?" "Lady Ross. I, for one, have little desire to see her, if she keeps such company." A short scornful laugh, followed by a sigh from the very depth of his discontented heart, was all Lorimer's reply. when her son would feel as he did now? Oh! mothers, and wives, and sisters, and daughters, -never let a man, connected with you by the nearest and dearest links that God can establish between His creatures, compare you with other women, and find you so wanting in all women's best attributes, that his heart aches at the result of his comparison ! While Lorimer Boyd, lost in painful thought, slowly reached his hat and prepared to depart, the door of the dark oaken room where they sat suddenly opened, and Alice Ross appeared in the light on the threshold. She was agitated, obviously agitated; and Lorimer, who was accustomed to all her artificial ways, looked at her now with startled curiosity. "What is the matter?" said Lady Clochnaben, sharply; showing that to her also Alice's manner appeared to betoken something unusual, as she stood, pale and quiet, in her grey riding-habit. "We want help. Douglas is in the glen with a man- a man who has fainted; quite a young man; he began telling us the circumstances, but he fainted away. He has escaped from confinement in some Roman Catholic college, where the priests held him for punishment. And he was making his way south; but he has taken so little nourishment that he could not get on." "There!" said Lady Clochnaben, triumphantly, "that comes of your teachers and preachers like Mr. Heaton. Send down some of my people to the glen: and you Lorimer, come with me. Will you take anything, Alice?" No. Alice did not want anything for herself: but would it not be better to take some refreshment or stimulant to the man in the glen? He might be dying. He seemed very ill. She spoke with her usual drawl, but her eyes gleamed. To the glen the whole party proceeded; and there, somewhat recovered from his faiuting fit, and leaning exhausted against the bole of a tree, they found the stranger, attended by Sir Douglas. Alice's surefooted pony was placed at his service, Alice herself mounting Sir Douglas's horse; and the rest of the group returned slowly, keeping company with the riders. Arrived at Clochnaben, the young man, so opportunely assisted, entered into full explanation of his unfortunate position. A Between him and that gaunt fierce moth-convert from the Roman Catholic faith, he er rose the soft blushing vision of Gertrude, had intended entering orders, if possible, in -Gertrude, shy, passionate, pitiful, wo- England; but, on returning to the college manly, Gertrude, fond and loving. If where he had been educated, he was de < to be tained, threatened, cajoled, and again men- treme hollowness of his cheeks, and a cosaced. He was finally put into durance, tume rather in the style that is termed where he had remained six weeks, daily "shabby genteel," prepossessed the female visited by the priests, and urged to return portion of the group in his favour; and to the real fold. Escaping, during a wild gaunt Lady Clochnaben condescended, after stormy night, by the romantic expedient of a pause, to command "the red room catching hold of a branch that swung past got ready for him; observing, with very the window of the chapel where he had obvious truth, that Glenrossie was a good been permitted to attend a midnight mass, way off, and, as the young man was then in he descended to the glen, by following the the very grounds of Clochnaben he might course of the rocky river which divided the just as well remain there. Alice, Lady lands of Clochnaben from the secluded spot Clochnaben also invited to stay the night, where the obnoxious seminary was situated, by way of company for the stranger. Sir and which indeed was little more than a Douglas rode home, with the story of their substantial farm-house and outbuildings, to morning's adventure to interest Gertrude; which a chapel and surrounding stone walls and Lorimer executed his intention of seekhad been attached. ing the inmates of Torrieburn, and hearing their reasons for supposing the Clochnaben people had anything to do with the dangerous act of malice directed against the safety and comfort of Mr. Saville Heaton. Six weeks of a diet approaching starvation; in confined air; tormented by exhortations and watching, and forbidden ever to recline even for an hour's rest, had so reduced him, that he was unable at length The "red-haired Jezebel," whose warm to do more than crawl into what appeared golden locks were still as blowzy as in the to him the vicinity of fellow-creatures. He morning visit to the irate dowager, and her described very graphically the dreadful ample bust still heaving with hysterical remixture of hope and fear with which he mainder of past sobs - was greatly touched beheld, high above and beyond him, the by the courtesy and kindness of Lorimer grey towers with scattered lights, standing Boyd's manner, and the interest and symup in the night, while he lay helpless on the pathy he showed in the unwarrantable atearth; and the sensations produced in his tack made upon them. But, if she could mind by the slow approach of the sound of have torn gaunt Lady Clochnaben to pieces horses' feet leisurely coming onwards, till with her wild white arms, she certainly the re-assuring sight of the grey habit of would not have shown much mercy; and Alice and the stately form of Sir Douglas the extraordinary vehemence with which emerged into view from the woods. He she kept striking her own knees, in anvil desired only a day or two's hospitality till fashion, with her well-shaped hands doubled he could communicate with friends in as if for boxing, half amused and half irriShropshire, who would arrange for his re- tated Lorimer while talking to her. So turn to them; and in a very gentlemanlike did the remarks she did not scruple to make and natural manner he thanked the persons on his mother; seeming entirely to forget round him earnestly for his rescue. "I the relationship, and, with a confused referthink," said he, "if I had not fallen in with ence to her narrow stock of books and their Christian friends just when I did, I was in subjects, calling that lofty dowager "Auld such a state of exhaustion that I should Jack the Giant-Killer," and the have succumbed to it, and you would have had to conjecture respecting the stray corpse of an apparently starved man, instead of assisting a living one." He smiled faintly as he spoke; and his countenance, meagre as it was with suffering, was far from unpleasing. Large dark intelligent eyes, looking larger from the ex "Bogle-bo o' Billy Myre, Wha kills the bairns a"." But a yet greater disturbance of Maggie's peace (if Maggie ever knew the word peace) was to come. |