I and my portmanteau were finally left on the side of the road, and the young man in the dog-cart civilly turned the vehicle round (with some difficulty on account of the narrow road), and drew up beside me, to save my carrying my luggage a dozen yards. At first I was a little uncertain whether I had one of my third (or fourth, which is it?) cousins before me, or simply a young man from Mr. Lindsay’s farm. He was dressed in very coarse tweeds, and his hands were rough, and spoke of manual labour, and he breathed the incense of the farm-yard; but I thought his finely-cut features and sensitive lips bespoke him to be of gentle blood, and, luckily, I made a hit in the right direction.
‘You are one of Mr. Lindsay’s sons, I think—that is to say, one of my cousins,’ I said, as I shook hands with him.
The youth’s face lighted up with a blush and a pleasant smile as he answered that he was, and held open the apron of the dog-cart for me to get in. In another moment we were off, the sturdy old mare between the shafts carrying us along at a very fair pace.
There are some people, Sophy, who wear their characters written on their faces, and Alec Lindsay is one of them. I could see, even as we drove together along that solitary lane in the autumn twilight, that his was a frank, ingenuous nature, shy, sensitive, and reserved. I mean that his shyness made him reserved, but his thoughts and feelings showed themselves in his face without his knowing it, so little idea had he of purposely concealing himself. Such a face is always interesting; and besides, there was an under-expression of dissatisfaction, of unrest, I hardly know what to call it, in his eyes, which was scarcely natural in so young a lad. He could not be more than eighteen or nineteen.
After half an hour’s drive we approached the little town, or village—it is rather too large for a village, and much too small to be called a town—of Muirburn. It consists of one long double row of two-storied houses built of stone and whitewashed, with one or two short cross streets at intervals. The houses had not a scrap of garden in front of them, nothing but a broad footpath, the playground of troops of children. The lower part of these dwellings had a bare, deserted appearance, but I found that they were used in almost every case as workrooms, being fitted up with looms. In one or two of the windows a light twinkled, and we could hear the noise of the shuttle as we passed.
In the middle of the village stood a large square building, whitewashed all over, and provided with two rows of small square windows, placed at regular intervals, one above and one below.
‘What is that building?’ I asked.
‘The Free Church,’ answered my companion, with a touch of pride.
A church! Why, it was hardly fit to be a school-house. A mean iron railing, which had been painted at some remote epoch, alone protected it from the street. It was the very embodiment of ugliness; its sole ornament being a stove-pipe which protruded from one corner of the roof. Never, in all my life, whether among Hindoos, Mahometans, or Irish peasants, had I seen so supremely ugly an edifice dedicated to the service of the Almighty.
‘That’s the United Presbyterian one,’ said Alec, pointing with his whip to a building on the other side of the street, similar to the one we had just passed, but of less hideous aspect. It was smaller, and it could boast a front of hewn stone, and neat latticed windows, while a narrow belt of greensward fenced it off from the road.