“We mustna judge them by ourselves,” she said, in a deprecating tone. “Charlie was aye a weak lad, meaning no harm—and used to depend upon somebody. Edgar, they are not to be judged like you and me.”
“No,” said Edgar, with a smile; then rapidly passing from the subject which he could not enter on. “Does he want to marry Jeanie?” he asked.
“That I canna tell—that I do not know. He cannot keep his eyes off her bonnie face; but, Edgar, the poor lad has strange fancies. He has taken it into his head to be genteel—and Marg’ret, poor thing, is genteel.”
“What has that to do with it?” said Edgar, laughing.
“We are not genteel, Jeanie and me,” said the old woman, with a gleam of humour. “But, Edgar, my man, still you must not judge Charlie. You are a gentleman, that nobody could have any doubt of; but the danger of being a poor man’s son, and brought up to be a gentleman, is that you’re never sure of yourself. You are always in a fear to know if you are behaving right—if you are doing something you ought not to do.”
“Then, perhaps,” said Edgar, “my cousin would have been happier if he had not been brought up, as you say, to be a gentleman.”
“What could I make him? Farming’s but a poor trade for them that have little capital and little energy. Maybe you will say a Minister? but it’s a responsibility bringing up a young man to be a Minister, when maybe he will have no turn that way but just seek a priest’s office for a piece of bread. A good doctor serves both God and man; and Charlie is not an ill doctor,” she added, hurriedly. “His very weakness gives him a soft manner, and as he’s aye on the outlook whether he’s pleasing you or not, it makes him quick to notice folk’s feelings in general. Sick men, and still more sick women, like that.”
“You are a philosopher, grandmother,” said Edgar.
“Na, na, not that,” said the old woman; “but at seventy you must ken something of your fellow-creature’s ways, or you must be a poor creature indeed.”
Meanwhile Charles Murray had gone back to the house, and was talking to Jeanie, who for some reason which she did not herself quite divine, had been shy of venturing out this special evening with the others. Perhaps the young doctor thought she was waiting for him. At all events it was a relief to go and talk to one in whom no criticism could be.