The handkerchiefs were not yet finished when two young men came into the room, one so like Kirsteen that there was no difficulty in identifying him as her brother, the other a swarthy youth a little older, tall and strong and well knit. Robbie was on the eve of his start in life, leaving home, and Ronald Drummond, who was the son of a gentleman in the neighbourhood, was going with him. They were both bound with commissions in the Company’s service for India, where half of the long-legged youths, sons of little Highland lairds and Lowland gentlemen, with good blood and plenty of pride and no money, the Quentin Durwards of the early nineteenth century, found an appropriate career. The period was that of the brief peace which lasted only so long as Napoleon was at Elba, long enough, however, to satisfy the young men that there was to be no chance of renewed fighting nearer home and to make them content with their destination. They had been bred for this destination from their cradles, and Robbie Douglas at least was not sorry to escape from the dullness of Drumcarro to a larger life. Several of his brothers were already in India, and the younger ones looked to no other fate but that of following. As for the girls they did not count for much. He was sorry to say good-bye to Kirsteen, but that did not weigh down his heart. He was in high excitement, eager about his new outfit, his uniform, all the novel possessions which were doubly enchanting to a boy who had never before possessed anything of his own. He was eighteen, and to become all at once a man, an officer, an independent individuality, was enough to turn the head of any youth.
Ronald Drummond was different. He was going from a much more genial home: he had already tasted the sweets of independence, having served in the last campaign in the Peninsula and been wounded, which was a thing that raised him still higher in the scale of life than the three years’ advantage in respect of age which he had over his young comrade. He was neither so cheerful nor so much excited as Robbie. He came and stood over Kirsteen as she drew closer and closer to the window to end her work before the light had gone.
“You are working it with your hair!” he said, suddenly, perceiving the nature of the long curling thread with which she threaded her needle.
“Yes,” she said, demurely, holding up her work to the light. “What did you think it was?”
“I thought it was gold thread,” he said. And then he took up one of the handkerchiefs already completed from the table. “R. D.,” he said. “That’s my name too.”
“So it is,” said Kirsteen, as if she had now discovered the fact for the first time.
“Nobody will do anything like that for me,” he added, pathetically.
“Oh, Ronald! if not the hairs of their heads but the heads themselves would do ye good ye should have them—and that ye know.”
“It is very true,” said Ronald, “and thank you, Kirsteen, for reminding me how good they are; but,” he added, after a moment, in a low voice, “they are not you.”
She gave vent to a very feeble laugh which was full of emotion. “No, they could not be that,” she said.