‘I’ll not believe it,’ said Jean. ‘She’s prouder than the Marchioness, if you come to that. Her give way to a lad! I wouldna believe it if it was sworn to by a’ the Loch. She has mair spirit than that.’
‘Love’s blind,’ said the maister, with a melting tone in his harsh old voice; ‘it thinks no evil. He swears to her he means her well, and I would not say he did not mean well; but the day she’s that lad’s wife will be an ill day for Isabel, and all the more if she runs off with him. Whisht! and hear me out. They have quarrelled to-day, but to-morrow they will be ‘greed again—and she has no mother. I trust her, Jean Campbell, to you.’
‘I dinna believe it, no a word,’ said Jean, rising from her chair: but I ay do my best. No but Isabel is a sair handful, with her pride and her hasty ways. It’s the flower of a’ that the Lord winna spare. Eh, maister, it’s mair than I can understand.’
‘No a word of that,’ said the Dominie, ‘or you and me will criticise our Maker, and that mustna be. He must have some reason. Thae birds’ eggs are your Jamie’s, Jean. He’s a strange callant, awfu’ slow at his lessons, and awfu’ gleg on the hill.’
‘The hill will do him little good, maister,’ said Jean, discontented, ‘if you would but make him mind his book! It would be a terrible cross to me if he didna get on with his education, and him the Captain’s son.’
‘He’ll never mind his book,’ said the Dominie, promptly, ‘no more than his father before him. Make him a sodger if you please, like Duncan. If ye insist on schools and college, he’ll never be wiser than a stickit minister, like me.’
‘Eh, but it’s ower muckle learning with you!’ cried Jean, bewildered by the smile with which the maister described his condition. She had so described him herself, not without a touch of contempt. But at the present moment her mortification about her boy was swallowed up in reverential terror for the man who thus appreciated his own misfortunes. ‘It’s because my Jamie’s ower useful with the birds’ eggs, and the trash o’ flowers they are ay gathering,’ Jean said to herself, as she went home; ‘but I’ll send him where he’ll be well kept to his book, if the maister speaks like that to his mother again.’
CHAPTER VII
Excitement had once more sunk into calm at the Glebe Cottage; but Margaret, though she had recovered her composure, had suffered so much from the shock as to be unable to leave her bed next day.
On the other side of the wall sat Isabel trying in vain to occupy herself with her usual work. Her sister’s state had filled all her thoughts the previous night. Hopes and fears about her recovery, awe and excitement about the means to be used, a terrible strain of suspense, and blank of disappointment when all was over, had withdrawn Isabel’s mind entirely from her own affairs.