The beautiful time! when every foundation stood fast, and all that was, was true and constant, and of kin to the pure heavens.
Yet Lilias was only the daughter of Mr Johnstone of Greenshaw, who had little honour or standing beyond the bounds of Fendie. Murrayshaugh would have growled the utmost thunder of his anathema upon Lucy, had he known that in her sisterly kindness she had accompanied me to the comfortable plebeian parlour where shone my star, and electrified good Mr Johnstone into hopes of future friendships with those adjacent landed families, who had not hitherto condescended to notice him. But Lilias was shy of Lucy, and seemed, to my chagrin, indifferent to her visit; so I had to console myself with a transitory belief that Lilias felt proudly the injustice of those artificial barriers of society, and was sensible of wrong done to her native dignity by the false rule which made the Laird’s daughter of Murrayshaugh a greater person than she, and by Lucy’s quiet smile and gentle word of consolation. “By and by, Adam—we will be better friends, by and by.”
Yes—there was no landed family of them all which could boast a line so long and so unbroken as that of Mossgray. The encumbrances on the estate had gradually melted away during my frugal minority. I was able to maintain appropriately the position I had inherited. Only this one external matter of rank did Lilias want, and I had it, to lay it at her feet—the name itself acquired new honour and dignity, when my heart beat to anticipate the advent of a new lady of Mossgray, who should eclipse all who went before.
I greatly affected Mr Johnstone’s company then. He was a shrewd man, if not a refined one; and albeit he did not possess that fearful command of words which strikes one with utter panic when one comes to the beginning of a speech of his fellow-craftsman the “Wanderer” of Wordsworth, he yet could manage to keep up a conversation tolerably well, by help of an occasional monosyllable from the other interlocutor—we became great friends. He gave me counsel about the management of my lands; he told me that Matthew Irving of Friarsford, whose tack was nearly out, had been holding his farm for some years past nearly rent free, so greatly had the land increased in value, since his father got the lease. He talked to me of foreign wars and home politics—I listened in happy unconsciousness, feeling only that I was conciliating the goodwill of the father of Lilias, and advancing slowly to my aim.
Mr Johnstone was too shrewd a man not to perceive by and by what brought me so often, bashful and absorbed, into that corner of his parlour. The good man evidently believed at first that I sought the benefit and enlightenment of his conversation; but through a flood of random answers, and unhappy lack of comprehension on my part, of arguments which I never heard, his eyes were opened. He was by no means displeased, I fancied. I was “Mossgray” already, my income was good, my prospects better. I was altogether eligible for a son-in-law.
And by and by, I thought I discovered that the Fendie young ladies, who bore Lilias company sometimes, looked at her with wicked secret laughs and whisperings when I entered the room. Could Lilias guess herself? Alas, I could not tell! I was too self-conscious to be at ease with her, and she had always been shy to me.
And matters remained in this uncertain state for a considerable time. I became of age. Murrayshaugh gruffly resigned, as he had gruffly undertaken, the guardianship of myself and my possessions. His house grew more and more desolate as I fancied, and Lucy paler and more thoughtful every day. She was quite alone, and we used to walk together sometimes on the old terrace in silent sympathy, thinking of Hew. He had reached his destination safely, and entered with cheerfulness (as he told us) into the duties of his office; but the loss of him cast a sad shadow over the house of his fathers. Perhaps it might be only that—perhaps there was something more; but a sadder decay seemed to be gathering over it every time I visited Murrayshaugh.
CHAPTER V.
I leaned my back unto an aik,
I thought it was a trusty tree;
But first it bowed, and syne it brake,
And sae did my true love to me.—Old Song.
Our three students, Charlie, Walter, and Edward, at length completed their studies, and entered upon the duties of their respective professions. Charlie got his first brief from an old friend of the family, and there actually was a report of his speech on the case, by no means an important one, but greatly interesting and very momentous to us, in one of the Edinburgh papers. It was something about a quarry, I think, though what about it, I cannot very well remember. I hurried up to Murrayshaugh with the paper. It was a bright day of early summer, and Charlie himself was to be with us in a week; a visit to which we had long looked forward, and of which Lucy and I had more than once spoken.