So requested, Window Willie disburdened himself by drawing from his pockets a dozen razors in their respective cases, some of them having a very common appearance, and he proceeded to arrange and specify them as follows:
'There's one from Dickson of Hartree; one from Loch of Rachan; one from Murray at Drachal; one from Kerr, minister of Stobo; one from Marshall, minister of Manor; and one from Bowed Davie; it's sair lippit, but it will stand grunden. That makes six. Then comes one from Mr Findlater, the minister of Newlands; next one from Sir James Naesmyth; one from Robbie Symington at Edston; one from Mr Alexander at Easter Happrew; one from Toll Tammie at the Neidpath, which I got yesterday in passing; and last of all, one from your lordship's friend and adviser, Commissary Robertson, at Peebles. That makes the dozen.'
The row of razors made a splendid array, and put the Earl in high spirits. Window Willie must stay to dinner to talk over his adventures in securing the razors, for each has its story, which will furnish some amusement. Willie, of course, as he had expected, dines with the Earl, and pops home to Cabbage Hall in the evening.
Not to keep the reader in suspense: The Earl of Traquair had a profound passion for sharpening razors. Thankfully and gratuitously his Lordship sharpened not only all the razors of his tenants and their servants, but of all the landed gentlemen, farmers, and traders throughout the county who would favour him with a commission of the kind. In his time, no one in Peeblesshire needed to torture himself by shaving with a blunt razor. Of course, the razors were not sent for sharpening in a business fashion. Window Willie's professional rounds gave him an excellent opportunity of collecting razors for the Earl, and of returning them properly cuttled to their proprietors. When he brought one batch he took away another. It was a satisfactory arrangement all round. The Earl was delighted to be kept working at his favourite pursuit; people were glad to get their razors on all occasions sharpened for nothing; and Window Willie was pleased to have an employment which made him everywhere an acceptable guest, and afforded opportunities of visiting at Traquair. I happen to have an agreeable remembrance of various persons in Peebles telling me several of the foregoing particulars, and of how Window Willie used to call to ask if their razors did not want a little touching up, as he was going next day to visit the Earl.
The world was not then constituted exactly as it now is. Nobody thought there was anything particularly strange in an Earl sharpening razors as a recreation. It was a harmless hobby; and, besides, there was a gratification in thinking that your razor was put in trim by a nobleman. The Earl of Traquair was a general benefactor. He was a sort of artist. He should have been born and bred a cutler, in which capacity he excelled; but as he had the misfortune to be born an heir to an earldom, he had just to make the best of it. As for Window Willie, he seemed to have been born to be the Earl's provider with blunt razors to be sharpened; in which line he acquitted himself admirably. Working to each other's hands, they in their time kept the county well and comfortably shaved, and that is saying a good deal in the way of eulogium.
The Earl had another eccentricity. He did not patronise London or Edinburgh tailors. After some experience, he had a firm belief that no man could make clothes for him that would thoroughly fit but Thorburn, a tailor at Eddleston, a small village of forty to fifty houses, close to Darnhall, the residence of Lord Elibank. We have never heard how the Earl discovered Thorburn; in all likelihood he heard of him through his factotum, Window Willie, who knew something of everybody. Having tried, he stuck to Thorburn. One thing materially guided this selection. Thorburn was exactly his own shape, body, legs, and arms. That was a great point. The Earl had an invincible hatred of putting on new-made clothes, which required some time to settle down into the required figure, and were at first a little awkward. Thorburn was an accommodating fellow. He volunteered to wear the Earl's new clothes for a day or two, to give them a set. The obliging offer was accepted. When the Earl wanted a new pair of black velvet breeches, Thorburn took care to wear them for a Sunday at church, which gave the legs the appropriately round baggy form, and then they were ready for use. By the agency of Window Willie and his little pony, the garment safely reached Traquair House.
Dear old Earl, and dear good-hearted Window Willie! Both have long since passed away. The beards of the county are said to have been sensibly affected by their decease. Charles, the eighth Earl, had unfortunately none of his father's aptitude for razor-sharpening. As a bachelor and a recluse, he was mainly noted for effecting improvements on his various farm-steadings, which was by no means a bad hobby for a nobleman. Partly perhaps on account of a stammering in his speech, he shrank from general society, and vegetated till the last in the queer antiquated mansion of his forefathers, in the society of his only sister, Lady Louisa Stuart. We had the honour of several interviews with him in relation to railways for the district, and could not help feeling pained with that distressing stammer. A very curious fact afterwards came to our knowledge. The Earl having spent a number of his early years abroad, acquired a proficiency in speaking French, which he ever afterwards retained. When he spoke French, he never stammered! At his decease in 1861, the male line and peerage became extinct; and on the death of Lady Louisa Stuart in 1875, in the hundredth year of her age, all the family had departed, the property devolving by will on a distant relative. Traquair House, which looks like two ancient feudal keeps rolled into one, remains embosomed in trees almost as it was left by the Lord High Treasurer upwards of two hundred years ago, and as it used to be visited of old by Window Willie.
THE LAST OF THE HADDONS
Great was my relief the next day when, on Lilian and I returning from a ramble in our beloved woods, we heard Robert Wentworth talking to Mrs Tipper in the parlour. But at first sight of him, I shrank back. How altered he looked, how terribly altered since we had last met! The kind little lady's hurried explanation as we entered the room, that illness had kept him away, gave me another blow, and he saw that it did.
'Only a sort of cold,' he cheerfully explained, extending his hand towards me with a smile. 'How do you do, Mary?'
My own hand shook; but he kept it long enough in his own to steady it, giving me a reassuring look before releasing it.
But Lilian could not get over the shock which the first sight of him had given her, involuntarily exclaiming: 'But I fear you have been ill – very ill; and it has made you quite' – She paused, not liking to go on; but he lightly replied: 'Gray, do you mean? My dear Lilian, the gray season had set in long ago, only you saw me too frequently to notice it.'
Mrs Tipper laid her hand for a moment on his shoulder as she passed him on her way out of the room to prepare some special dainty to tempt him at tea-time; and I noticed that she was looking much graver than usual.
'And how have you been going on with your work during my absence?' he asked; 'not carelessly, I hope? I am in the humour to be very exacting and critical to-night; so you must not expect me to treat sins of omission or commission with my usual amiability.'
'Amiability, indeed!' ejaculated Lilian. 'The idea of your setting up for being amiable! I do not consider you at all considerate and good-natured to failure, sir.'
He smiled. 'I certainly have not much sympathy with failure; it would not be orthodox, you know. But get out your work, and let me find a safe outlet for my savage propensity.'
He saw that it did me good to be taken to task in the old fashion; and was quite as unsparing as I could desire, when he came upon any error. Whatever it cost him, Robert Wentworth succeeded in setting my heart as well as theirs at rest before he took his departure that night. If Mrs Tipper saw something of the truth, she shewed her consideration for me by carefully avoiding to give any expression to her thoughts. Lilian evidently guessed nothing. She openly expressed her surprise and regret at the alteration which she perceived in him.
'I really felt quite shocked for the first few moments,' she said. 'Even serious illness does not seem quite to account for such an alteration as there is in him. He looks as though he had suddenly grown old. Do not you think so, auntie? – Don't you, Mary?'
Mrs Tipper was silent, leaving me to reply, though I knew that she was watching me somewhat closely the while. It required all the nerve and self-command I could muster to make something like a suitable reply; but I did make it; and Lilian