A Fortnight of Folly

by Maurice Thompson; Hugh Conway

Then, with the liberty a close friend may take, I drew toward me a portfolio, full, I presumed, of sketches of surrounding scenery. To my surprise Carriston jumped up hastily and snatched it from me. “They are too bad to look at,” he said. As I struggled to regain possession, sundry strings broke, and, lo and behold! the floor was littered, not with delineations of rock, lake, and torrent, but with images of the young girl I had seen a few minutes before. Full face, profile, three quarter face, five, even seven eight face, all were there—each study perfectly executed by Carriston’s clever pencil. I threw myself into a chair and laughed aloud, whilst the young man, blushing and discomforted, quickly huddled the portraits between the covers, just as a genuine Scotch lassie bore in the plentiful and, to me, very welcome breakfast.

Carriston did favor me with his company during the whole of that day; but, in spite of my having come to Scotland to enjoy his society, that day, from easily-guessed reasons, was the only one in which I had undisputed possession of my friend.

Of course I bantered him a great deal on the portfolio episode. He took it in good part, attempting little or no defence. Indeed, before night he had told me, with all a boy’s fervor, how he had loved Madeline Rowan at first sight, how in the short space of time which had elapsed since that meeting he had wooed her and won her; how good and beautiful she was; how he worshipped her; how happy he felt; how, when I went south, he should accompany me; and, after making a few necessary arrangements, return at once and bear his bride away.

I could only listen to him, and congratulate him. It was not my place to act the elder, and advise him either for or against the marriage. Carriston had only himself to please, and, if he made a rash step, only himself to blame for the consequences. And why should I have dissuaded? I who, in two days, envied the boy’s good fortune.

I saw a great deal of Madeline Rowan. How strange and out-of-place her name and face seemed amid our surroundings. If at first somewhat shy and retiring, she soon, if only for Carriston’s sake, consented to look upon me as a friend, and talked to me freely and unreservedly. Then I found that her nature was as sweet as her face. Such a conquest did she make of me that, save for one chimerical reason, I should have felt quite certain that Carriston had chosen well, and would be happy in wedding the girl of his choice, heedless of her humble position in the world, and absence of fitting wealth. When once his wife, I felt sure that if he cared for her to win social success her looks and bearing would insure it, and from the great improvement which, as I have already said, I noticed in his health and spirits, I believed that his marriage would make his life longer, happier, and better.

Now for my objection, which seems almost a laughable one. I objected on the score of the extraordinary resemblance which, so far as a man may resemble a woman, existed between Charles Carriston and Madeline Rowan. The more I saw them together, the more I was struck by it. A stranger might well have taken them for twin brother and sister. The same delicate features, drawn in the same lines; the same soft, dark, dreamy eyes; even the same shaped heads. Comparing the two, it needed no phrenologist or physiognomist to tell you that where one excelled the other excelled; where one failed, the other was wanting. Now, could I have selected a wife for my friend, I would have chosen one with habits and constitution entirely different from his own. She should have been a bright, bustling woman, with lots of energy and common-sense—one who would have rattled him about and kept him going—not a lovely, dark-eyed, dreamy girl, who could for hours at a stretch make herself supremely happy if only sitting at her lover’s feet and speaking no word. Yet they were a handsome couple, and never have I seen two people so utterly devoted to each other as those two seemed to be during those autumn days which I spent with them.

I soon had a clear proof of the closeness of their mental resemblance. One evening Carriston, Madeline, and I were sitting out-of-doors, watching the gray mist deepening in the valley at our feet. Two of the party were, of course, hand-in-hand, the third seated at a discreet distance—not so far away as to preclude conversation, but far enough off to be able to pretend that he saw and heard only what was intended for his eyes and ears.

How certain topics, which I would have avoided discussing with Carriston, were started I hardly remember. Probably some strange tale had been passed down from wilder and even more solitary regions than ours—some ridiculous tale of Highland superstition, no doubt embellished and augmented by each one who repeated it to his fellows. From her awed talk I soon found that Madeline Rowan, perhaps by reason of the Scotch blood in her veins, was as firm a believer in things visionary and beyond nature as ever Charles Carriston in his silliest moments could be. As soon as I could I stopped the talk, and the next day, finding the girl for a few minutes alone, told her plainly that subjects of this kind should be kept as far as possible from her future husband’s thoughts. She promised obedience, with dreamy eyes which looked as far away and full of visions as Carriston’s.

“By the by,” I said, “has he ever spoken to you about seeing strange things?”