"John, my man! at your age you think little of good advice—above all, from an old woman; but just one word. You must not bind yourself hand and foot to the Lindores. You have your own place to uphold, and the credit of your family. We've all formed our opinion of them; and if you're to be considered as one of them, a kind of retainer of theirs——"
"Retainer!" cried John, deeply piqued. Then he made an effort to recover his temper. "You must see how unreasonable this is," he said, with a forced smile. "They are the only people I know. I have the greatest respect for them all, but I have done nothing to—identify myself with the family."
He spoke with some heat, and reddened, much to his annoyance. What way but one was there of identifying himself with them? and what hope was there that he would ever be permitted to do that? The mere suggestion in his own bosom made him red, and then pale.
"You take up their opinions—you support their plans; you're a partisan, or so they tell me. All that is bad for you, John, my man! You'll excuse me speaking; but who should take an interest in you if it's not me?"
"All this is absurd," he cried. "Take up their opinions! I think the Earl is right about a county hospital. I will support him in that with all my heart. Your favourite minister, Aunt Barbara——"
"I have no favourite minister," said Miss Barbara, somewhat sharply. "I never let myself be influenced by one of them. You mean the Doctor, I suppose?—he's far too advanced for me. Ay, that's just the man I'm meaning. He tells me you're taking up all the Lindores's plans—a great satisfaction to him, for he's a partisan too. Mind, I say nothing against the hospital. What other places have, we ought to have too. We have the same needs as our neighbours. If Perth has one, I would have one—that's my principle. But I would not take it up because it's a plan of Lord Lindores's. And I hear you and that muckle lout Pat Torrance were nearly coming to blows——"
"Is that the minister too?" John cried, angrily.
"No, it's not the minister; the minister had nothing to say to it. Don't you take up a prejudice against the minister. That's just as silly as the other way. It was another person. Pat Torrance is just a brute; but you'll make little by taking up the defence of the weaker side there. A woman should hold her tongue, whatever happens. You must not set up, at your age, as the champion of ill-used wives."
"So far from that," said John, with fierce scorn, "the tipsy brute swore eternal friendship. It was all I could do to shake him off."
But Miss Barbara still shook her head. "Let them redd their quarrels their own way," she said. "Stand you on your own feet, John. You should lay hands suddenly on no man, the Apostle says. Mr Monypenny, is that you? I am reading our young man a lecture. I am telling him the old vulgar proverb, that every herring should hang by its ain head."