CHAPTER XVII
A NOVEL ABDUCTION
Phemy went seldom to the castle, but the young laird and she met pretty often: there was solitude enough in that country for an army of lovers. Once or twice Gordon, at Phemy’s entreaty, went and took tea with her at her father’s, and was cordially received by the schoolmaster, who had no sense of impropriety in their strolling out together afterward, leaving him well content with the company of his books. Before this had happened twice, all the town was talking about it, and predicting evil. Phemy heard nothing and feared nothing; but if feeling had been weather and talk tempest, she would have been glad enough to keep within. So rapidly, however, did the whirlwind of tongues extend its giration that within half a week it reached Kirsty, and cast her into great trouble: her poor silly defenceless Phemy, the child of her friend, was in danger from the son of her father’s friend! Her father could do nothing, for Francis would not listen to him, therefore she herself must do something! She could not sit still and look on at the devil’s work! Having always been on terms of sacred intimacy with her mother, she knew more of the dangers of the world, while she was far safer from them, than such girls as their natural guardians watch instead of fortifying, and understood perfectly that an unwise man is not to be trusted with a foolish girl. She felt, therefore, that inaction on her part would be faithlessness to the teaching of her mother, as well as treachery to her father, whose friend’s son was in peril of doing a fearful wrong to one to whom he owed almost a brother’s protection for his schoolmaster’s sake. She did not believe that Francis meant Phemy any harm, but she was certain he thought too much of himself ever to marry her, and were the poor child’s feelings to go for nothing? She had no hope that Phemy would listen to expostulation from her, but she must in fairness, before she did anything, have some speech with her!
She made repeated efforts, therefore, to see her, but without success. She tried one time of the day after another, but, now by accident and now by clever contrivance, Phemy was not to be come at. She had of late grown tricky. One of the windows of the schoolmaster’s house commanded the street in both directions, and Phemy commanded the window. When she saw Kirsty coming, she would run into the garden and take refuge in the summer-house, telling the servant on her way that she was going out, and did not know what time she would be in. On more occasions than one Kirsty said she would wait, when Phemy, learning she was not gone, went out in earnest, and took care she had enough of waiting. Such shifts of cunning no doubt served laughter to the lovers when next they met, but they showed that Phemy was in some degree afraid of Kirsty.
Had Kirsty known the schoolmaster no better than his sister-in-law knew him, she would, like her, have gone to him; but she was perfectly certain that it would be almost impossible to rouse him, and that, once convinced that his confidence had been abused, he would be utterly furious, and probably bear himself in such fashion as to make Phemy desperate, perhaps make her hate him. As it was, he turned a deaf ear and indignant heart to every one of the reports that reached him. To listen to it would be to doubt his child! Why should not the young laird fall in love with her? What more natural? Was she not worth as much honour as any man, be he who he might, could confer upon her? He cursed the gossips of the town, and returned to his book.
Convinced at length that Phemy declined an interview, Kirsty resolved to take her own way. And her way was a somewhat masterful one.
About a mile from castle Weelset, in the direction of Tiltowie, the road was, for a few hundred yards, close-flanked by steep heathery braes. Now Kirsty had heard of Phemy’s being several times seen on this road of late; and near the part of it I have just described, she resolved to waylay her. From the brae on the side next Corbyknowe she could see the road for some distance in either direction.
For a week she watched in vain. She saw the two pass together more than once, and she saw Francis pass alone, but she had never seen Phemy alone.
One morning, just as she arrived at her usual outlook, she saw Mrs. Bremner in the road below, coming from the castle, and ran down to speak to her. In the course of their conversation she learned that Francis was to start for London the next morning. When they parted, the old woman resuming her walk to Tiltowie, Kirsty climbed the brae and sat down in the heather. She was more anxious than ever. She had done her best, but it had come to nothing, and now she had but one chance more! That Francis Gordon was going away so soon was good news, but what might not happen even yet before he went! At the same time she could think of nothing better than keep watch as hitherto, firm as to her course if she saw Phemy alone, but now determined to speak to both if Francis was with her, and all but determined to speak to Francis alone, if an opportunity of doing so should be given her.
All the morning and afternoon she watched in vain, eating nothing but a piece of bread that Steenie brought her. At last, in the evening—it was an evening in September, cold and clear, the sun down, and a melancholy glory hanging over the place of his vanishing—she spied the solitary form of Phemy hastening along the road in the direction of the castle. Although she had been on the outlook for her all day, she was at the moment so taken up with the sunset, that Phemy was almost under where she stood before she saw her. She ran at full speed a hundred yards, then slid down a part of the brae too steep to climb, and leaped into the road a few feet in front of Phemy—so suddenly that the girl started with a cry, and stopped. The moment she saw who it was, however, she drew herself up, and would have passed with a stiff greeting. But Kirsty stood in front of her, and would not permit her.
‘What do you want, Kirsty Barclay?’ demanded Phemy, who had within the last week or two advanced considerably in confidence of manner; ‘I am in a hurry!’