“Like what?” asked Marg’ret with a determination to keep up appearances in the presence of the strange gentleman with whom she had no associations. “The maister’s not very well. He has never been in his richt health since your mother died. That made an awfu’ change in the house, as might have been expected. Such a quiet woman as she was, never making any steer it’s just by ordinar’ how she’s missed.”
“Is it that? Is that all?” cried Jeanie.
“And what else would it be?” asked Marg’ret with a look that could not be gainsaid.
Marg’ret did not know any more than the rest what had happened. Lord John had died of an accident, he had fallen over the linn, and from the Duke himself to the last of the name all were satisfied that it was so. And in Drumcarro House there was not a word said to alter this view. But many heavy thoughts had arisen there of which nothing was said.
Drumcarro did what is also not uncommon in such circumstances: he justified those who explained his strange conduct by illness, and fell ill. The doctor said it was a malady of long standing which had thus developed itself as it was certain to have done sooner or later. He recommended that a doctor should be sent for from Glasgow, who had become very famous for his practice in this particular malady. It is doubtful whether Glendochart, who had the conduct of the business, knew anything about Dr. Dewar. At all events, if he did, it did not prevent him from sending for that special practitioner. The result was a curious scene in the chamber of the patient, who raised himself from his bed to stare at the new comer, and after contemplating him for some time in doubtful silence between wrath and astonishment, suddenly burst out into a great guffaw of laughter. “This was all that was wanted,” he said. But he allowed Anne’s husband to come in, to examine him, to prescribe, and with a grim humour saw him wave away the offered fee. “Na, it’s all in the family,” said the grim patient with a sudden sense of the grotesque illumining the darkness of his sick room. He was not insensible to this irony of circumstance, and he made no resistance. It was the only thing that produced a gleam of amusement in these latter days.
CHAPTER XXIII.
In his newly developed condition as an invalid Mr. Douglas had gone on for more than a year. During this time he had taken no active steps of any kind. Jamie had been left to read as he pleased every book he could lay his hands upon, from Mr. Pyper’s old-fashioned theology to D’Urfey’s Pills to Purge Melancholy, a curious if not very extensive range. Only these two, the dreary boy with his books, and his possible writer-ship hung suspended so to speak, no one taking any steps to put him forth like his brothers into active life, and the grim invalid, who rarely left his room or indeed his bed, remained in Drumcarro. Such an emptiness occurs not unfrequently in the story of a house once full and echoing with the superabundant energies of a large family; but the father and son afforded a deeper emblem of dulness and desolation than almost any mother and daughter could have done. They were more separated from life. The Laird cared nothing for his neighbours, rich or poor, whether they prospered or were in want. Marg’ret, who had the control of everything, kept indeed a liberal hand, and preserved the reputation of Drumcarro as a house from which no poor body was ever sent away without a handful of meal at least, if not more substantial charity.
But her master took no interest in the vicissitudes of the clachan or to hear of either prosperity or need. She still attempted to carry him the news of the district for the relief of her own mind if not for the advantage of his, for to arrange his room in silence or bring his meals without a word was an effort quite beyond Marg’ret’s powers.
“The Rosscraig Carmichaels have come to the end of their tether,” she told him one morning, “there’s a muckle roup proclaimed for next month of a’ the farm things. I might maybe send Duncan to see what’s going, if there’s anything very cheap, and folk say the farm itself.”
“What’s that you’re saying, woman?”