‘Bonny, Dauvid! Ca’d ye the mistress bonny?’
‘She used to be—bonny, that is, as a button or a buckle micht be bonny. What she may be the noo, I dinna ken, for I haena set e’e upon her sin’ she cam to the Knowe orderin me to sen’ back Francie’s powny: she was suppercilly eneuch than for twa cornels and a corporal, but no ill luikin. Gien she hae a spot o’ beaouty left, the drink ’ll tak it or it hae dune wi’ her!’
‘Or she hae dune wi’ hit, Dauvid! It’s ta’en ae colour frae her a’ready, and begud to gie her anither! But it concerns me mair aboot Francie nor my leddy: what’s to come o’ him when a’s gane? what’ll there be for him to come intil?’
Gladly would David have interfered, but he was helpless; he had no legal guardianship over or for the boy! Nothing could be done till he was a man!—‘gien ever he be a man!’ said David to himself with a sigh, and he thought how much better off he was with his half-witted Steenie than his friend with his clever Francie.
Mrs. Bremner was sister-in-law to the schoolmaster, and was then on her way to see him and his daughter Phemy. From childhood the girl had been in the way of going to the castle to see her aunt, and so was well known about the place. Being an engaging child, she had become not only welcome to the servants but something of a favourite with the mistress, whom she amused with her little airs, and pleased with her winning manners. She was now about fourteen, a half-blown beauty of the red and white, gold and blue kind. She had long been a vain little thing, approving of her own looks in the glass, and taking much interest in setting them off, but so simple as to make no attempt at concealing her self-satisfaction. Her pleased contemplation of this or that portion of her person, and the frantic attempts she was sometimes espied making to get a sight of her back, especially when she wore a new frock, were indeed more amusing than hopeful, but her vanity was not yet so pronounced as to overshadow her better qualities, and Kirsty had not thought it well to take notice of it, although, being more than anyone else a mother to her, she was already a little anxious on the score of it, and the rather that her aunt, like her father, neither saw nor imagined fault in her.
That the child had no mother, drew to her the heart of the girl whose mother was her strength and joy; while gratitude to the child’s father, who, in opening for her some doors of wisdom and more of knowledge, had put her under eternal obligations, moved her to make what return she could. It deepened her sense of debt to Phemy that the schoolmaster did not do for his daughter anything like what he had years long been doing for his pupil, whence she almost felt as if she had diverted to her own use much that rightly belonged to Phemy. At the same time she knew very well that had she never existed the relation between the father and the daughter would have been the same. The child of his dearly loved wife, the schoolmaster was utterly content with his Phemy; for he felt as if she knew everything her mother knew, had the same inward laws of being and the same disposition, and was simply, like her, perfect.
That she should ever do anything wrong was an idea inconceivable to him. Nor was there much chance of his discovering it if she did. When not at work, he was constantly reading. Most people close a book without having gained from it a single germ of thought; Mr. Craig seldom opened one without falling directly into a brown study over something suggested by it. But I believe that, even when thus absorbed, Phemy was never far from his thought. At the same time, like many Scots, while she was his one joy, he seldom showed her sign of affection, seldom made her feel, and never sought to make her feel how he loved her. His love was taken by him for understood by her, and was to her almost as if it did not exist.
That his child required to be taught had scarcely occurred to the man who could not have lived without learning, or enjoyed life without teaching—as witness the eagerness with which he would help Kirsty along any path of knowledge in which he knew how to walk. The love of knowledge had grown in him to a possessing passion, paralyzing in a measure those powers of his life sacred to life—that is, to God and his neighbour.
Kirsty could not do nearly what she would to make up for his neglect. For one thing, the child did not take to learning, and though she loved Kirsty and often tried to please her, would not keep on doing anything without being more frequently reminded of her duty than the distance between their two abodes permitted. Kirsty had her to the farm as often as the schoolmaster would consent to her absence, and kept her as long as he went on forgetting it; while Phemy was always glad to go to Corbyknowe, and always glad to get away again. For Mrs. Barclay thought it her part to teach her household matters, and lessons of that sort Phemy relished worse than some of a more intellectual nature. If left with her, the moment Kirsty appeared again, the child would fling from her whatever might be in her hand, and flee as to her deliverer from bondage and hard labour. Then would Kirsty always insist on her finishing what she had been at, and Phemy would obey, with the protest of silent tears, and the airs of a much injured mortal. Had Kirsty been backed by the child’s father, she might have made something of her; but it grew more and more painful to think of her future, when her self-constituted guardian should have lost what influence she had over her.
Phemy was rather afraid of Steenie. Her sunny nature shrank from the shadow, as of a wall, in which Steenie appeared to her always to stand. From any little attention he would offer her, she, although never rude to him, would involuntarily recoil, and he soon learned to leave her undismayed. That the child’s repugnance troubled him, though he never spoke of it, Kirsty saw quite plainly, for she could read his face like a book, and heard him sigh when even his mother did not. Her eyes were constantly regarding him, like sheep feeding on the pasture of his face:—I think I have used a figure of sir Philip Sidney’s. But say rather—the thoughts that strayed over his face were the sheep to which all her life she had been the devoted shepherdess.