She was a sonsie mayden
Of substance eke, and weight,
Nae cares did vex her, nae thoughts perplex her,
And her name it was callit Kate.—Old Song.
On the following morning, a low pony carriage, very little above the rank of a gig, and packed in its lower departments with sundry empty baskets, drew up at the door of the Bank. It was the market-day in Fendie, and the strong rustic driver of the little vehicle seemed considerably more interested in the acquaintances whom he noticed in the crowded Main Street than in the young ladies whom he assisted to alight. The elder of them was about fifteen, a little older than Hope Oswald. She was a large, clumsy, heavy girl, with soft fair features, and sleepy blue eyes. The face was well enough, so far as mere form went, and had a certain slumbrous, passive good-humour in it, not unprepossessing; but speculation there was none under the heavy lids of those large eyes. The soft face had its tolerable proportions of white and red, but was informed by no inspiring light; for this was Hope Oswald’s stupid schoolfellow—Miss Adelaide Fendie.
With her was a younger sister, a girl of ten, whose face only was less stupid, because it had a spitefulness and shrewish expression perfectly alien to the soft good-humour of Adelaide. They were both dressed after that peculiar fashion which belongs to the caterpillar state (if we may venture on such an expression) of young ladies—in unhandsome dresses of faded colours, short enough to display quite too much of Adelaide’s white trousers and considerable feet, and hanging wide and clumsily on shoulders which needed no addition to their natural proportions.
The Fendies of Mount Fendie were an old family; but Mr George Oswald the banker had also some pretensions to blood, and Mrs Oswald was a laird’s daughter; so there was no great derogation in the intimacy with which the youthful Misses of the more aristocratic house honoured the sprightly Hope. Miss Victoria was the more condescending of the two. She felt to the full the superiority of Mount Fendie, with its wide grounds and sweeping avenues and lodges ornamented by the delicate taste of “mamma,” and considerably despised the great stone building in the main street of Fendie, with the mechanical inscription of “Bank” over its stately portico.
Adelaide knew better; even in the dignified educational establishment in Edinburgh there was some certain degree of republicanism, and Adelaide had attained to a dull consciousness of Hope’s superiority, and a habit of being guided by her will, much to the comfort of her slumbrous self, whom Hope managed to carry through scrapes and difficulties in a manner which even excited a faint degree of passive wonder in the slugglish inert nature, which could not comprehend her quick intelligence. And Adelaide liked Hope, and by good fortune did not envy her; and Hope had a sort of affection of habit for Adelaide, whose dulness she laid siege to with girlish impetuosity, understanding it as little as her companion understood her; for Hope could not persuade herself that it was natural to be stupid, and so assailed the impenetrable blank of Adelaide’s mind with all manner of weapons, but always unsuccessfully.
John Brown, the trusty major-domo of Mount Fendie, was bound for the market, and, not without some coaxing, had consented to bring the young ladies with him. John touched his hat in gruff good-humour as Hope Oswald’s bright face looked out from the open door, and after depositing Miss Victoria safely on the pavement, drove off with a sigh of relief, muttering,—
“That lassie’ll be twenty stane afore she’s dune growing. I wad as sune lift the brockit quey. Gude day to ye, Tam,—hoo’s the wife? Gar the laddie gie the beast a feed—I haena muckle time.”
With which prudent beginning John descended, and evinced his haste practically, by entering into a lengthened controversy with Tam Dribble, the master of a little inn which it pleased John to patronize. Tam was a man very great in the “affairs of the state,” and the Provost of Fendie was his especial scapegoat for the sins of those in authority; so there was so much to be said for and against some recent act of this dignitary—for John Brown was a constitutional man, and defended the powers that be—that it was not until they had moistened their argument with a dram or two, and suffered the pony to make a very leisurely and substantial meal, that the factotum of Mount Fendie summed up with a clap of his hands, which made the room ring.
“Man, Tam, ye’re a born gowk—and it’s a’ havers—and here am I wasting guid daylicht listening to you. An it had been night, I might hae bidden to gie ye your answer—but me, that’s a responsible man, and under authority—hout awa’ wi’ ye!”
With which triumphant conclusion John Brown strode forth to the market.