It was a Lover and His Lass

by Mrs. Oliphant

"It might be all my doing," said Mrs. Stormont, "but it was not my doing that you let yourself be left in the lurch and made a fool of by a parcel of women. If you have no proper pride, I have some for you. There's Lady Ida, that is a far finer girl than Lilias Murray, there's no comparison between them; the one is but a country girl, and the other is a titled lady: and young Bellendean has not behaved as he ought. If I were you, Philip, a strapping, personable young man——"

Philip did not stop to ask what his mother's inference meant. He went down in the rain to the river, and pondered the whole business among the boulders in the bed of Tay, up to his knees in the brown rushing water. Here Philip reflected that women were no judges, that he would have none of Lady Ida, who would expect a man to be always on his knees to her, and that, though Lilias was a pretty creature, there was still as good fish in the sea as ever came to the net. He reflected, too, with some warmth of satisfaction, that he was a personable man, as his mother had said, and need not be afraid of showing himself anywhere, and that there was no hurry; for though girls must make their hay while the sun shines, poor things, as for a man, he could wait. This course of reflection made him respond with careless good-humour to the greeting of the minister, who called to him from the river-side to ask what sport he was having.

"Not bad," Philip replied. "I thought I had lost the knack of it, but it's coming back."

"Little doubt but it would come back," Mr. Seton said, and they had a talk about the habits of the fish, and the bait they preferred, and all their wily ways, which was refreshing to Philip, and in which Adam Bennet, who was in his usual place, took part.

"They're just as cunning as the auld gentleman himsel'," Adam said. "They would make grand lawyers, they're that full of tricks and devices; but tak' them when they're no thinking, and they'll just bite at onything."

"My wife would like some of your trout, Adam, for to-morrow," the minister said; "and talking of that, Stormont, there's some nonsense going on in the evening among the young folk; no doubt they will be glad to see you."

"I'm afraid," cried Philip across the rush of the river and amid the patter of the rain, "that I have an engagement."

"Well, well," said the minister, good-humouredly nodding at him from under his umbrella as he went on, "just as you please—just as you please."

This was all that passed; and it was not a thing that could be called an invitation, as Mrs. Seton said afterwards. "No, no; not an invitation: just one gentleman to another, which is as different as possible. We'll be glad to see you, or my wife will be glad to see you; just the kind of thing that Robert says to everybody, for he's far too free."

But it disturbed Philip in his fishing more than he could have imagined possible. It came into his mind in the morning as soon as he woke, it accompanied him in his thoughts all day.