“I want to hear about Norlaw,” cried Joanna, screaming into the old woman’s ear.
“Aunt Jean!” cried Mrs. Huntley, making a sudden step out of her chair. “If you do, Me’mar will kill me—oh! hold your tongues, children! Do you think I can bear one of papa’s passions—a person in my poor health? Aunt Jean, if you do, I’ll never speak to you again!”
Aunt Jean contemplated her niece, with her twinkling black eyes, making a moue of vivid contempt as she nodded her head impatiently.
“Fat for can ye no hold your peace for a fool-wife?” said Aunt Jean; “did ye think I had as little wit as you? What about Norlaw? You see the laird here and him were aye ill friends. Hout ay! mony a ane’s ill friends with Me’mar. I mind the bairns just fun you were born, Joan. Twa toddling wee anes, and ane in the cradle. Pity me! I mind it because I was losing my hearing, and turning a cankered auld wife; and it was them that took and buried their father? Honest lads! I would like to do them a good turn.”
“But I know there’s something more about Norlaw,” cried Joanna, “and I’ll say you’re a cankered auld wife till you tell me—I will! and you would have told me before now but for mamma. Do you hear, Aunt Jean?”
“Hout ay, I hear,” said the old woman, who could manage her deafness like most people who possess that defect—(where it is not extreme, a little deafness is in its way quite a possession) “but I maun take time to think fat it was I promised to tell you. Something that happened when I was a young lass. Just that, Joan—I was staying at my married sister’s, that was your grandmother, and Jeanie, there, your mamaw, was a bit little bairn—she was aye a sma’ thing of her years, taking physic for a constancy. There was a poor gentleman there, ane of the Gordons, as good blood in his veins as ony man in the kingdom, and better than the king’s ain, that was only a German lairdie—but ye see this lad was poor, and fat should save him but he got into debt, and fat should help him but he died. So the sheriff’s officers came and stopped the funeral; and the lads rose, a’ the friends that were at it, and all the men on the ground, and fat should ail them to crack the officers’ crowns, and lay them up in a chamber; but I’ve heard say it was a sair sicht to see the hearse rattling away at a trot, and a’ the black coaches afterhand, as if it was a bridal—oh fie!—nothing else was in everybody’s mouth on our side of the water, a’ the mair because the Gordon lad that died was of the English chapel, and behoved to have a service o’er his grave, and the English minister was faint-hearted and feared. It wasna done at nicht, but in broad daylicht, and by the strong hand—and that happened—I wouldna say but it was forty year ago; for I was a young lass and your mamaw there a little bairn.”
“I daresay, mamma,” said Patricia, who had dried her tears, “that people don’t know of it yet; and at the worst it was all papa’s fault—I don’t think we should be afraid to go—it wasn’t our blame, I’m sure.”
“If I should be able, my dear,” said Mrs. Huntley, with her languid sigh—whereupon Patricia exerted herself to arrange her mother’s pillow, and render her sundry little attentions which pleased her.
Poor little Patricia loved “society;” she wanted to shine and to be admired “like other girls"—even the dull dinner-parties of the surrounding lairds excited the fragile little soul, who knew no better, and she spent the rest of the day, oblivious of her former terrors concerning public opinion, in coaxing Mrs. Huntley into betterness; while Joanna, for her part, persecuted Aunt Jean with an unavailing but violent pertinacity, vainly hoping to gain some insight into a family secret. Patricia was successful in her endeavors; but there never was a more signal failure than that attack upon Aunt Jean.
CHAPTER XV
“Bless me callants! what are ye doing here?” said Marget, looking in at the door of the mid-chamber, where Huntley and Patrick Livingstone were together.
It was a small apartment, originally intended for a dressing-room, and communicating by a door locked and barricaded on both sides with the east room, which was the guest-chamber of the house. Almost its sole piece of furniture was a large old-fashioned mahogany desk, standing upon a heavy frame of four tall legs, and filling half the space; it was not like the bureau of romance, with that secret drawer where some important document is always being discovered. The heavy lid was held open by Huntley’s head, as he carried on his investigations. There were drawers enough, but they were all made by the hand of the joiner of Kirkbride, who knew nothing of secret contrivances—and these, as well as all the remaining space of the desk, were filled with the gatherings of Norlaw’s life, trifles which some circumstance or other made important to him at the moment they were placed there, but which were now pathetic in their perfect insignificance and uselessness, closely connected as they were with the dead man’s memory. Old letters, old receipts, old curiosities, a few coins and seals, and trifling memorials, and a heap of papers quite unintelligible and worthless, made up the store. In one drawer, however, Huntley had found what he wanted—the will—and along with it, carefully wrapped in at least a dozen different folds of paper, a little round curl of golden hair.
They were looking at this when Marget, whose question had not been answered, entered and closed the door. The lads were not aware of her presence till this sound startled them; when they heard it, Huntley hurriedly refolded the covers of this relic, which they had been looking at with a certain awe. Eye of stranger, even though it was this faithful old friend and servant, ought not to pry into their father’s secret treasure. The Mistress’s hair was of the darkest brown. It was not for love of their mother that Norlaw had kept so carefully this childish curl of gold.
“Laddies,” said Marget, holding the door close behind her, and speaking low as she watched with a jealous eye the covering up of this secret, “some of ye’s been minding the Mistress of auld troubles. I said to myself I would come and give you a good hearing—the haill three—what’s Mary o’ Melmar to you?”
“Did my mother tell you?” asked Huntley, with amazement.
“Her, laddies! na, it’s little ye ken! her name the like o’ that to the like o’ me! But Cosmo behoved to ask about the story—he would part with his little finger to hear a story, that bairn—and ’deed I ken fine about it. What for could ye no’ speak to me?”
“There was more than a story in Huntley’s thoughts and in mine,” said Patrick, shutting up the desk with some decision and authoritativeness.
“Hear him! my certy! that’s setting up!” cried Marget; “I ken every thing about it for a’ you’re so grand. And I ken the paper in Huntley’s hand is the will, and I ken I would run the risk o’ firing the haill house, but I would have burnt it, afore he got sight o’t, if it had been me.”
“Why?” said Huntley, with a little impatience. It was not possible that the youth could read this bequest conferring Melmar, failing the natural heiress, on his father and himself, without a thrill of many emotions. He was ambitious, like every young man; he could not think of this fortune, which seemed almost to lie within his reach, without a stirring of the heart.
“It did nothing but harm to your father, and it can do nothing but mischief to you,” said Marget, solemnly; “you’re young and strong, and fit to make a fortune. But I tell you, Huntley Livingstone, if you attempt to seek this lass over the world, as your father did, you’re a ruined man.”
“Neither Huntley nor me believe in ruined men,” said Patie; “we’ll take care for that—go to your kye, and never mind.”
“Don’t be angry, Marget,” said Huntley, who was more tender of the faithful retainer of the house; “trust us, as Patie says—besides, if she should never be found, Melmar’s mine.”
“Eh, whisht, lad! she’ll come hame with half a dozen bairns before e’er your feet’s across the