“It’s just Rosscraig—our own land, that’s been in the Douglas name for hundreds of years, and out of it since the attainder. I would be ready to depart in peace if I had it back.”
Kirsteen’s eyes flashed in response. “If it’s possible—but they will want a great sum for Rosscraig.”
“Possible!” he cried with furious impatience. “How dare ye beguile me with your offer, if it’s only to think of what’s possible? I can do that mysel’. Does one of your name condescend to a dirty trade, and serve women that are not fit to tie a Douglas’s shoe, and then come to me and talk of what’s possible? If that’s all, give up your mantua-making and your trading that’s a disgrace to your family, and come back and look after the house which will set you better. Possible!” he cried, the fire flying from his eyes and the foam from his mouth. “For what do you demean yourself—and me to permit it—if it’s no possible?” He came to the end on a high note, with the sharpness of indignant passion in his voice.
Kirsteen had followed every word with a kindling countenance, with responsive flame in her eyes. “Ye speak justly,” she said, with a little heaving of her breast. “For them to whom it’s natural a little may suffice. But I that do it against nature am bound to a different end.” She paused a little, thinking; then raised her head. “It shall be possible,” she said.
He held out his thin and trembling fingers, which were like eagle’s claws.
“Your hand upon it,” he cried. The hot clutch made Kirsteen start and shiver. He dropped her hand with an excited laugh. “That’s the first bargain,” he said, “was ever made between father and child to the father’s advantage—at least, in this house. And a lass,—and all my fine lads that I sent out for honour and for gain!” He leant back on his pillows with feeble sobs of sound, the penalty of his excitement. “Not for me,” he said, “not for me, though I would be the first—but for the auld name, that was once so great.”
Kirsteen unfolded the paper tremulously, with tears lingering on her eyelashes. “Father, if ye will look here——”
“Go away with your news and your follies,” he said roughly. “You think much of your London town and your great world, as ye call it, but I think more of my forbears’ name and the lands they had, and to bring to confusion a false race. Kirsteen,” he put out his hand again, and drew her close to the bedside, clutching her arm. “I’ll tell you a thing I’ve told nobody. It was me that did it. I just took and threw him down the linn. Me an old man, him a young one, and as false as hell. He was like the serpent at that bairn’s lug; and I just took him by the scruff of the neck. My hand’s never got the better of it,” he added, thrusting her away suddenly, and looking at his right hand, blowing upon it as if to remove the stiffness of the strain.
“Father!” Kirsteen cried, with subdued horror. “What was it you did?”
He chuckled with sounds of laughter that seemed to dislocate his throat. “I took him by the scruff of the neck—I never thought I could have had the strength. It was just pawsion. The Douglases have that in them; they’re wild when they’re roused. I took him—by the scruff of the neck. He never made a struggle. I know nothing more about it, if he was living or dead.”