Kirsteen

“ And her young womanhood was so withdrawn from the usual thoughts and projects of her age that Kirsteen had put on something of the dignified manners of a person much older, although her fresh youthful colour, the milk-white brow and throat, the ruddy hair all curly with vigour and life, showed no premature fading, and her person, which was always beautifully clothed, and fitted to perfection, had improved in slenderness and grace. ”

“ She sat quite cheerfully over her work “paying no attention,” as Mary said.
“Why should I pay attention? I will just be very glad to see him,” replied Kirsteen. “He is just the kind of person I like best.”
“Whisht, Kirsteen, whatever you may feel ye must not go just so far as that.”
“But it’s true, mother, and why should I not go so far? He’s a very nice man. If he had daughters they would be well off. He is so kind, and he sees through you, and sees what you are thinking of.” ”

“ Kirsteen looked round and met the pleasant eyes, still bright enough, of Glendochart, whom Miss Eelen had bidden to look after the indignant Drumcarro. Kirsteen looked every inch Drumcarro’s daughter as she turned round, an angry flush on her face, and her eyes shining with angry tears.
“I will not dance. I am obliged to you, sir,” she said.
“Not dance,” said Mary, in an indignant whisper, “when we’re both asked! And what would ye have? We cannot all have young men.”
“I will not dance—to make sport for the fine folk,” said Kirsteen in the same tone. ”

“ I told her so, your Grace, but she would not listen to me,” came to Kirsteen’s ears in her anxiety, while she eluded the touch of Lord John’s hand, and tried to respond to all Lady Chatty’s eager questions. “Oh, Kirsteen, you should hear what Miss Eelen says of you,” said Lady Chatty, “and poor old Glendochart, who is such a nice old man. Why were you so unkind? But I would not marry an old gentleman myself, not if he were a royal duke,” cried the girl, raising her voice a little not without intention. ”

“ Kirsteen, my bonny woman, when ye take a man that everybody knows, that is just kent for a good man and a kind man, and one that loves the very ground you tread on, oh, my dear! what does it maitter that he’s not just that young? Is it anything against him that he knows the world and has had trouble of his own, and understands what it is to get a bonny lass and a good bairn like you? ”

“ It would be to steal you away; I dare not do it. If I have been right or wrong in what I did for myself I cannot always tell; but for you, I dare not take it upon me. You heard what Anne said—and it was true.”
“Kirsteen,” said Jeanie raising her face to her{v.2-190} sister. “I have more cause than you. Oh, listen to me, Kirsteen; would you like to see shame at Drumcarro? Would you like to see the name you all think so much of rolled in the dust? Oh, hear what I’m saying, Kirsteen! I have more cause than you.” ”

“ Whiles he says things that are hard to bear. What should bring all this upon ye, Kirsteen? You will be the Leddy of Glendochart and an honoured woman, holding your head as high as ainy in the whole county, and silk gowns as many as ye desire, and coaches and horses; and what ye’ll like best of all, my bonny bairn, the power to be of real service and just a good angel to them that ye like best. ”

“ Kirsteen’s heart fluttered to her throat with a sickening terror; but she looked him in the face with what steadiness she could command, and a dumb resolution. The threat gave her back a sense of something unconquerable in her, although every limb shook.
“Ye’ll see Glendochart when he comes—in my presence—ye’ll have the day fixed and all put in order. Or if ye want to appear like a woman and not a petted bairn before your man that is to be, you’ll settle it yourself. I give you full liberty if you’ll behave yourself. ”

“ Ye may go and tramp from door to door with a meal-pack on your shoulder.”
“I would rather do that,” cried Kirsteen, “far rather than make a false promise and deceive a good man. Oh, father, I’ll do anything ye bid me. I’ll be your servant, I’ll ask for nothing; but dinna, dinna do this! for I will not marry Glendochart, not if you were to kill me, not if you were to turn me from the door.” ”

“ It was no time for controversy, and as Anne trembled so that she could scarcely stand Kirsteen had to consent to take the postchaise on, as far as was practicable without rousing the household at Drumcarro. For herself the chill of the wintry night, the cold freshness in the air, the wild sweep of sound all round her, in the swelling burn, and the rustle of the naked trees and all those inarticulate murmurs of silence which come down from the heights of unseen hills were salutary and sweet. ”

“ Kirsteen put a stern negation upon this proposal. “Besides,” she said, “it would be no advantage, for I am going on to London without delay.”
“To London?” cried the doctor. “That’s a long journey for ye by yourself. Are you really going alone?”
“I’m told,” said Kirsteen composedly, “that the guards are very attentive, and that nobody meddles with one that respects herself. I have no fear.”
“Well, perhaps there is no fear—not what ye can call fear; for, as you say, a woman is her own best protector, and few men are such fools as to go too far when there’s no response. ”

“ Kirsteen at length managed to get out of the crowd, and stood in a corner waiting till the din should be over, observing with all the keenness that was left in her till she found some one whose face she could trust. She found at last a man who was “a decent-like man,” whom she thought she could venture to address, and, going up to him, asked if he could direct her to Miss Jean Brown’s, the mantua-maker? ”

“ Kirsteen was even pleased with the sense that she herself was Glendochart’s favourite, that he had talked more to her than to any one, perhaps even had come to see her rather than the rest, with the pleasant partiality of an old friend. To be preferred is delightful to everybody, and especially to a girl who has had little petting in her life. It was an exhilarating consciousness, and she took the little jibes that flew about in the family and the laugh of Mary and the shout of the boys with perfect good humour. ”

“ He is just a man after my own heart,” said Kirsteen with warmth, with a sigh at the thought of his sad story, and a rising colour which was due to the fact that her imagination had linked the idea of young Ronald with that of this old and delightful gentleman who had been what her young lover was—but born to a less happy fate. ”

“ Kirsteen set it all down to the score of the dreadful town in which every evil thing flourished, and with a sad heart and great discouragement pushed her way to the highest story, which was cleaner than below though all the evil smells rose and poisoned the air which had no outlet. The right-hand door was opened to her hurriedly before she could knock, and an old woman with a large mutch upon her head and a tartan shawl on her shoulders came out to meet her. “Ye’ll be the leddy from Loch Fyne,” she said with a homely curtsey. “Come ben, my bonny leddy, come ben.” ”

“ Then he said, “Your mantua-making must have thriven. I would like to know one thing about ye, have you put my name intill your miserable trade?”
“No,” she said; “so far as any name is in it, it is Miss Kirsteen.”
He gave a sigh of relief. “I’m glad at least that ye have not brought disgrace upon the name of Douglas.”
“The name of Douglas will never get disgrace from me,” cried Kirsteen proudly, with an answering glance of fire. “There is no one that bears it that has more care of it than me. ”

“ Lord John! Kirsteen had made no attempt to identify Jeanie’s wooer whom the girl held in such strange terror. Her own heart gave a bound of alarm yet disdain. She asked with her eyes, “Is that the man?” and received from Jeanie an answering look of confusion and trouble. There were no words exchanged between them. Kirsteen shook her head with a gesture which to Jeanie’s eyes expressed not only disapproval but surprise and scorn, and Jeanie let go her hold of her sister’s hand with an impulse of impatience much like that with which she had cried, “I thought you would understand!” ”

“ She will get away to him. She will go where he is. But I’m young{v.2-112} and we are all dour livers, that will not die—I’ll live—maybe a hundred years,” cried Kirsteen with a hard sob and a wave of her hand as if in demonstration of the hardness of her fate. ”

“ CHAPTER X.
“It was just a very bonny ball,” said Mary. “No, I was not disappointed at all. I danced with young Mr. Campbell of the Haigh, and once with old Glendochart, who is a very well-mannered man, though he is not so young as once he was.”
“He was by far, and by far, the nicest there,” cried Kirsteen with enthusiasm.
“For them that like an auld joe,” said Mary demurely. Kirsteen had no thought of “joes” old or young, but she thought with pleasure that she had gained a friend.
“The Duke took me for his daughter—and oh! if there was such a person she would be a happy lass. ”

“ She grew greatly in beauty as her youth matured, the softening influence of this sweet spring of life keeping in check the pride which was so strong in her character, and the perhaps too great independence and self-reliance which her early elevation to authority and influence developed. And everything prospered with Kirsteen. Miss Jean’s business became the most flourishing and important in town. Not only commoners, whom she had so haughtily rejected, but persons of the most exalted pretensions had to cast away their pride and sue for the services of Miss Brown and Miss Kirsteen ”

“ Would they send and tell Glendochart, poor old gentleman—would they warn him not to come to a distressed house? Or would he be allowed to come and her father say to him: “She is not worthy of a thought. She is no bairn of mine from this day”? “And my mother will go to her bed,” said Kirsteen to herself with a tear or two, yet with the faint gleam of a smile. She could see them all in their different ways—her father raging, her mother weeping, and Mary telling everybody that she was not surprised. ”

“ I cannot be idle any more.”
“Miss Kirsteen, there will be grand connections seeking you out and angry at me that let you have your will—and I will lose customers and make unfriends.”
“I have no grand connections,” said Kirsteen. “You see for yourself nobody has troubled their heads about me. I’m just as lone as the sparrow on the housetop. I’ve left my own folk and Marg’ret, and I have nobody but you in the world. Why should ye stop me? When my heart’s set upon it nobody can stop me,” Kirsteen cried, with a flash of her eyes like the flash in her father’s when his blood was up. ”

“ They say ye’ll be very rich, Kirsteen, when you go with Glendochart.”
“But I will never go with Glendochart!” Kirsteen cried.
“Oh, will ye no? And why will ye no, Kirsteen? Will ye send him away? Oh, you could never be so cruel as to do that! Will he come here no more?—and everything be just as it used to be? Oh, Kirsteen!” cried Jeanie, “I wish you would marry Glendochart!—I woul{v.1-166}d if it was me. He is the kindest man in the whole world. He speaks to me as if he was—No, fathers are not kind like that. I like him, Kirsteen, I am awfu’ fond of him ”

“ Laddies are a great handful, they’re aye forgetting. But they’re like the man’s wife, they’re ill to have, but worse to want. Gang in, gang in out of the night air,” said Marg’ret with a faint sob, softly pushing Kirsteen before her. The smell of the peat fires, which was pleasant, and of the smoke of the candles, which was not, and of the penetrating fumes of the toddy again filled Kirsteen’s nostrils as she came in. ”

“ A long table ran down the middle at which were seated a{v.1-269} number of young women, every one of whom to Kirsteen’s inexperienced perceptions was infinitely more fashionable, more imposing than her highest conception of herself had ever come to; and they spoke fine English, with an accent which was to be sure not so easily understood as her own, but had an air of refinement which impressed Kirsteen much. Were they all gentlewomen, come like herself to make their fortunes? ”

“ You will be a finer lady than ever your mother was, with a carriage and horses of your own, and no doubt everything that heart can desire; for an auld man is far more silly than a young one.”
Kirsteen gave the wool a jerk which tangled it wildly. “Mother, I just wonder what you are all havering about,” she said.
“Kirsteen, I’m well used to rude speaking,” cried the mother, ready to cry at a moment’s notice; “but not from my own bairns.”
“Oh, mother, I beg your pardon. It was not you that was havering. Dinna speak to me, for I cannot bear it. My heart is just like to break.” ”

“ Mary said with a sigh. “The one that would do it, that would not think of herself, but just do it, is never the one that has it in her power. I’ve seen the same thing many a time. The wilful one that will please herself, it is her that folk seek—”
Kirsteen’s heart swelled high with mortification and pain. If there was anything that she had desired in her visionary moods it had been to sacrifice herself, to do some great thing for her mother, to be the saving of little Jeanie. ”

“ We have the natives once a year and make ’em dance. Wait a little till they warm to it, and then you shall see what you shall see.” Kirsteen turned and flashed a passionate glance{v.1-112} at the young speaker, which made him step backwards and blush all over his foolish young face; for to be sure he had only been beguiled into saying what the poor young man thought was clever, and did not mean it. Kirsteen’s bosom swelled with pride and scorn and injured feeling. And she had thought everybody would be kind! and she had thought it would all be so bonny! ”