“I think of him maybe mair than some folk that have keepit grand goings on in his auld hoose.”
“What were ye saying?” cried Katrin, fixing him with a commanding eye. She pronounced this, as I have gently insinuated before, “F’what,” which gave great force to the sound. “I might have kent,” she cried, with a toss of her head, “there wasna a man breathing that could hold his tongue when he thought he had a story to tell!”
“Me—tell a story!” said Dougal in instinctive self-defence. Then he added: “It a’ depends—on what a man has to tell.”
“Ye’re born traitors, a’ the race o’ ye, from Adam doun!” cried Katrin in her wrath, “and aye the women to bear the wyte, accordin’ to you. Tell till ye burst!” she exclaimed with concentrated fury, “and it’s no me ’ll say a word; but put the powny in the cart and gang doun to the town, and try what ye can get for my denner. I’ll no have the auld man starved, no, nor yet shamed afore his freends, nor served with an ill denner the first night—him that hasna been in his ain auld hoose for years.”
“Ye’re awfu’ particular about his denner, considering every thing that’s come and gone, and the care you’ve ta’en of him and his.”
“Yes!” cried Katrin, “I’m awfu’ particular about his denner. Are you going? or will I have to leave the rooms to settle themselves and go mysel’?”
Dougal at last obeyed this strong impulsion; but the black powny and the cart were not for so important a person as Sir Robert’s factotum the day his master came home. He put Rory into the geeg, and drove down in such state as was procured by these means, with his countenance full of unutterable things. He was, indeed, when the little quarrel with Katrin was over, a man laden with much thought. Dougal had observed not very clearly, but yet more than he was believed to have observed. His stolid understanding had been played upon unmercifully by the women, and he had been taken in many times in respect to Ronald’s presence or absence in the house. Often it had occurred that he “could have sworn” the visitor was there when he was not there, and still oftener he could have sworn the reverse; but at the end of all the tricks and deceptions he was tolerably clear as to the position of affairs, if he had possessed the faculty of speech, and sufficient indifference to other motives to have used it. But Dougal, who was a very simple soul, was held in the grasp of as great a complication of influences as if he had been the most subtle and the most self-analyzing. Should he tell Sir Robert what he had seen and guessed? Sir Robert was his master, and it was Dougal’s duty, as guardian of the house, to report what had occurred in it. Ay! but would he shame the house by raising a story that maybe never would be got at by the right end? For what could he say? That a gentleman from Edinburgh had been about the place, coming and going by night and by day; that a person could never tell when he was there and when he wasna there; and, finally, that it was clear as daylight him and Miss Lily were “great freends.” Ah, Miss Lily! That brought up again another series of motives. She was his, Dougal’s, young leddy, by every lawful tie, the only bairn of the house, the real heir. If Sir Robert, as he was perfectly capable, were to leave Dalrugas away from her the morn, she would not a whit the less be the only Ramsay left of the old family, Mr. James’s daughter, who had been Dougal’s adoration in his youth. Was he to raise a scandal on Miss Lily—he, her own father’s man? Dougal’s heart revolted at the thought. And Katrin, that spoiled the lassie, that could see nothing that was not perfect in her—Katrin would never have a good word for her man again. She would call him a traitor—that word that burns and never ceases to wound—like black Monteith that betrayed the Wallace wight, like—— But Dougal’s courage was not equal to that anticipation; rather any thing than that, rather flee the country than that—to betray a bit creature that trusted him, Mr. James’s daughter, the last Ramsay, a little lass that could not fight for herself. “No me!” cried Dougal to all the winds that blew. “No me!” he said, confronting old Schiehallion, as if that tranquil mountain had tempted him. He shook his fist at the hills and at the world. “No me, no me!” he said.
I do not believe that Katrin ever was in the least afraid in respect to Dougal, but a very troubled woman was Katrin that day. She had been in Ronald Lumsden’s confidence all along, more than his wife knew, and in her way had abetted him and helped him, though often against her conscience. Beenie had done the same, but she had not Katrin’s head, and meekly followed where the other led. They had both been partially guilty in respect to Marg’ret, a woman introduced into the house by the clumsiest means, which Lily could have seen through in a moment had she tried, but whose presence was so great a comfort and relief to the other two that their eagerness to accede to the artifice by which she was brought as a guest to Dalrugas was very excusable. “What would you and me do, Beenie?” Katrin had said, for once acknowledging a situation with which she was not able to cope. They had been able “to sleep at night,” as they both said, since that woman was there, and there was nothing to be said against the woman. She was not troublesome, she was kind, she knew what she was about. That she was Ronald’s emissary was nothing against her. She was, on the contrary, an evidence of the husband’s tender care for his wife; his anxiety that she should have the best and most costly attention. “And a bonnie penny she will cost him,” the two women said to themselves. But the events of the last twenty-four hours had altogether overwhelmed Katrin, and she had not the comfort even of speaking to any one on the subject, of expressing her horror, her amazement and dismay, for Beenie was shut up with Lily, whose state was such that she could not be left alone for a moment. It was well for the housekeeper that her head was filled with Sir Robert’s dinner and the airing of the mattresses. It gave her a relief from her heavy thoughts to drag down the feather beds and turn them over and over before a blazing fire, though it was August, and the sun blazing hot out of doors. She worked—as a Highland housekeeper works the day the gentlemen are to arrive—for the credit of the house and her own. “Would I let strangers find a word to say, or a thing forgotten, and me the woman in charge of Dalrugas this mony and mony a year?” she said to herself. And it did Katrin a great deal of good, as she did not hesitate to acknowledge. It took off her thoughts.
Sir Robert arrived in the evening with two elderly friends and one young one, with all their guns and paraphernalia, Sir Robert’s own man directing every thing, and at least one other man-servant, bringing dismay to Katrin’s heart. “You will not have more than two or three good days on my little bit of moor,” the old gentleman had said with proud humility, “but the neighbors are very friendly, and no doubt my niece has got a lot of cheerful Highland lassies about her that will enliven the time for you, my young friend.” The friends, young and old, had protested their perfect prospective satisfaction with the entertainment Sir Robert had to offer, none of them believing, as, indeed, he did not believe himself, his own disparaging account of the moor. They arrived very dusty in their post-chaise, but in high spirits, the old gentleman with an excited pleasure in returning to the old house of his fathers, which he had not seen for years. Perhaps it looked to him small and gray and chill, as is the wont of old paternal houses when a long-absent master comes back. He called out almost as soon as he came in sight of the door, where Dougal was waiting with his bonnet poised on the extreme edge of his head, on one hair, and Sandy behind him, ready with awe to follow the directions of the gentlemen’s gentlemen, and carry the luggage upstairs. “Where is Miss Lily? Where is my niece?” Sir Robert cried. “Does she not think it worth her trouble to come and meet her old uncle at the door?”
Katrin came forward from the threshold, within which she had been lurking, and courtesied to the best of her ability. “You’re welcome, Sir Robert; you’re awfu’ welcome,” she said; “but Miss Lily, I’m sorry to say, is just very ill in her bed.”