“You should have told me that you were intending to fritter and fool your afternoon away.”
“My mither bid me go and speir after Norman’s little laddie. He had a sair cold and fever, and – ”
“Sit down. Are your hands clean? I want you to copy a very important paper.”
“What aboot?”
“Differences in the English and Scotch Law.”
“I don’t want to hae anything to do wi’ the Law. I canna understand it, and I’m no wanting to understand it.”
“It is not necessary that you should understand it, but you know what a peculiar writing comes from my pen. I can manage Latin or Greek, but I cannot write plainly the usual English. Now, you write a clear, firm hand, and I want you to copy my important papers. I believe I have lost honors at college, just through my singular writing.”
“I wouldn’t wonder. It is mair like the marks the robin’s wee feet make on the snow, than the writing o’ human hands. I wonder, too, if the robin kens his ain footmarks, and if they mean anything to him. Maybe they say, ‘It’s vera cold this morning – and the ground is covered wi’ snow – and I’m vera hungry – hae ye anything for me this morning?’ The sma footmarks o’ the wee birds might mean all o’ this, and mair too, Neil.”
“What nonsense you are talking! Run away and wash your hands. They are stained and soiled with something.”
“Wi’ the wild thyme, and the rosemary, and the wall-flowers.”
“And the rough, tarry hand of Cluny Macpherson. Be quick! I am in a hurry.”
“It is Saturday afternoon, Neil. Feyther and Eneas will be up from the boats anon. I dinna care to write for you, the now. Mither said I was to please mysel’ what I did, and I’m in the mind to go and see Faith Balcarry, and hae a long crack wi’ her.”
Neil looked at her in astonishment. There was a stubborn set to her lovely mouth, he had never seen there before. It was a feminine variety of an expression he understood well when he saw it on his father’s lips. Immediately he changed his tactics.
“Your eyes look luck on anything you write, Christine, and you know how important these last papers are to me – and to all of us.”
“Wouldna Monday suit them, just as weel?”
“No. There will be others for Monday. I am trusting to you, Christine. You always have helped me. You are my Fail-Me-Never!”
She blushed and smiled with the pleasure this acknowledgment gave her, but she did not relinquish her position. “I am vera sorry, Neil,” she answered, “but I dinna see how I can break my promise to Faith Balcarry. You ken weel what a friendless creature she is in this world. How could I disappoint a lass whose cup is running o’er wi’ sorrow?”
“I will make a bargain with you, Christine. I will wait until Monday, if you will promise me to keep Cluny Macpherson in his place. He has no business making love to you, and I will make trouble for him if he does so.”
“What ails you at Cluny? He is in feyther’s boat, and like to stay there. Feyther trusts him, and Eneas never has a word out o’ the way with him, and you ken that Eneas is often gey ill to wark wi’, and vera demanding.”
“Cluny Macpherson is all right in the boat, but he is much out of his place holding your two hands, and making love to you. I saw him doing it, not ten minutes ago.”
“Cluny has made love to me a’ his life lang. There is nae harm in his love.”
“There is no good in it. Just as soon as I am one of Her Majesty’s Councilors at Law, I shall take an office in the town, and rent a small floor, and then I shall require you to keep house for me.”
“You are running before you can creep, Neil. How are you going to pay rents, and buy furnishings? Forbye, I couldna leave Mither her lane. She hasna been hersel’ this year past, and whiles she has sair attacks that gie us all a fearsome day or twa.”
“Mither has had those attacks for years.”
“All the more reason for us to be feared o’ them. Neil, I canna even think o’ my life, wanting Mither.”
“But you love me! I am bound to bring all kinds o’ good luck to our family.”
“Mither is good luck hersel’. There would be nae luck about the house, if Mither went awa’.”
“Well then, you will give Cluny up?”
“I canna say that I will do anything o’ that kind. Every lass wants a lover, and I have nane but Cluny.”
“I have a grand one in view for you.”
“Wha may the lad be?”
“My friend at the Maraschal. He is the young Master of Brewster and Ballister, and as fine a young fellow as walks in shoe leather. The old Ballister mansion you must have seen every Sabbath, as you went to the kirk.”
“Ay, I hae seen the roof and turrets o’ it, among the thick woods; but naebody has lived there, since I was born.”
“You are right, but Ballister is going to open the place, and spend gold in its plenishing and furnishing. It is a grand estate, and the young master is worthy of it. I am his friend, and I mean to bring you two together. You are bonnie, and he is rich; it would be a proper match. I owe you something, Christine, and I’ll pay my debt with a husband worthy of you.”
“And how would I be worthy o’ him? I hae neither learning nor siller. You are talking foolishness, Neil.”
“You are not without learning. In my company you must have picked up much information. You could not hear my lessons and copy my exercises without acquiring a knowledge of many things.”
“Ay, a smattering o’ this and that. You wouldna call that an education, would you?”
“It is a better one than most girls get, that is, in the verities and the essentials. The overcome is only in the ornamentals, or accomplishments – piano-playing, singing, dancing, and maybe what you call a smattering of the French tongue. There is a piano in Ballister, and you would pick out a Scotch song in no time, for you sing like a mavis. As for dancing, you foot it like a fairy, and a mouthful of French words would be at your own desire or pleasure.”
“I hae that mouthfu’ already. Did you think I wrote book after book full o’ your French exercises, and heard you recite Ollendorf twice through, and learned naething while I was doing it? Neil, I am awa’ to Faith, I canna possibly break my word to a lass in trouble.”
“A moment, Christina – ”
“I havna half a moment. I’ll do your writing Monday, Neil.”
“Christine! Christine!”
She was beyond his call, and before he got over his amazement, she was out of sight. Then his first impulse was to go to his mother, but he remembered that she had not been sympathetic when he had before spoken of Christine and Cluny Macpherson.
“I will be wise, and take my own counsel,” he thought, and he had no fear of wanting his own sympathy; yet when he reviewed his conversation with Christine, he was annoyed at its freedom.
“I ought not to have told her about Ballister,” he thought, “she will be watching for him at the kirk, and looking at the towers o’ Ballister House as if they were her own. And whatever made me say I thought of her as my housekeeper? She would be the most imprudent person. I would have the whole fishing-village at my house door, and very likely at my fireside; and that would be a constant set-down for me.”
This train of thought was capable of much discreet consideration, and he pursued it until he heard the stir of presence and conversation in the large living room. Then he knew that his father and brother were at home, to keep the preparation for the Sabbath. So he made himself look as lawyer-like as possible, and joined