Nothing could be more satisfactory than this report. It ran up the loch and across the mountains. The Duchess heard of it in her quarters among the hills. It flew east to another duchess on the lowland side. Of course I need not say to people who know the country which was the one duchess and which the other. In the course of time they both called, which was a prodigious distinction: and so did all the smaller gentry, and some of those great Glasgow potentates who build themselves new castles upon the banks of the Clyde. Some of them were very fine gentlemen indeed, but they were “mixed,” and some were only “Glasgow builders” of a kind quite unknown to Evelyn. One whose carriage would have made a sensation in Hyde Park, even in the days of hammercloth, with two powdered footmen behind, had the manners still of the blacksmith he had originally been. Mr. Rowland rather liked these personages, especially the old gentleman who had been a blacksmith. He stood up in a group with two or three of them who represented among them heaven knows how many millions, and thrust his hands into his pockets and talked investments and money. Why should not people talk money who have more of that than of anything else? Painters talk of their pictures, and literary men of their books. Why not millionaires of that which makes them so? Rowland was very intelligent, and he liked to talk upon money subjects; but an occasional laying of the heads together with a few other rich men over the subject of money was refreshing to him, as it is refreshing to an artist after long deprivation to find himself once more among his own kind.
With all this flash of fine society, however, which so soon made an end of Rowland’s fears, it is astounding how much in the foreground of the picture was Miss Eliza, briefly described as “of the Burn,” in the nomenclature of the parish. What Miss Eliza’s surname was, and what was implied by the designation “of the Burn,” it was really quite unnecessary to add. The same surname is so very general in Scotch west country parishes, that it confers little distinction in itself. Miss Eliza came to call in a little wickerwork carriage, called a clothes-basket by her friends, with a russet pony to draw it and equally russet groom or stable-boy to look after the vehicle when she made a call. Miss Eliza drove the pony herself, with Colin generally behind, to whom she threw a word occasionally when a longer time than usual elapsed without meeting anybody on the road: but as the kind woman knew everybody, from the fishwife who came over with her creels from Kilrossie during the season of the saut water, up to the Earl himself, when he happened to be seen in those regions, or even the Duchess, who was a still more rare visitor, there was but little time for her to entertain Colin with a special remark. “How do you do the day?” she said with a wave of her whip in salutation of her friends. “How’s a’ with you, David? I hope the hoast is better, and that you like the lozenges.—Good morning, Mrs. Dean, and isn’t it just a pleasure to see such a fine day: grand for the hay, as I have been saying all the way down the loch, fifty times if I’ve said it once. I’m hoping they’ll get it all well carted in at Rowanson, and a fine heavy crop it is, just a pleasure to see.—Eh, is that you, Lizzie, with your basket? It’s awfu’ heavy for you, my poor lass, and you not got up your strength yet. Climb up beside Colin: I’ll take ye a bittie of the way.—Good day to ye, minister. Ye see I’ve got Lizzie Chalmers in the basket. Ye must just give her a good talking to, for she’s come out before she has got up her strength. Would you like any of her fish at the Manse? I would call and leave them on my way back, with pleasure, and it would aye be something for her to take home. I will have some of the herrings and the little haddies myself, though the haddies are not equal to the Fife haddies, and the herrings are not so good as Loch Fyne. Oh yes, I am just going to Rosmore. I hear she’s just an uncommon nice person, and a credit to the loch-side.—Dear me, there’s Lady Jean. It’s a sight for sore eyes to see you now, and a sore trouble to think you’re in the parish no longer, and I can scarcely offer to give you a lift when I have Lizzie Chalmers in the cart. Isn’t she just a very presentable sort of person? I’m meaning the new lady at the house, no Lizzie: we all know everything there is to know about her. And I hope his lordship is quite well, and you are not finding Ardnachrean damp.—Dear, bless me, there is the doctor, and I want to ask him about young Rankin, and make him speak his mind to Lizzie there. Good-day to you all, good-day.”
If it may be suggested that a country lady driving her own machine could scarcely be likely to meet so much company on a country road, I must say in my own defence that it was the same day on which Lady Jean had paid her visit to Mrs. Rowland, which accounted for her; and as for the usual inhabitants of Rosmore, from the minister down to old David, they were all to be met with in the afternoon, within a few hundred yards. Lizzie Chalmers, it is true, was from Kilrossie, and did not come every day, but she was the only one of the party with the exception of Lady Jean who was not to be met with about the same hour on the same road every day.
“Is he any better, doctor?” said Miss Eliza, coming down upon the doctor with a little rush of the russet pony, prompted by a smarter than ordinary flourish of the whip. “Yes, I was afraid it was his own fault, the foolish fellow. Men are just idiots rushing upon destruction, and him so sensible when he is himself. There is Lizzie Chalmers, behind me in the basket, just as silly in another way, coming out with her heavy creel before she is well over her trouble. I would wish you to speak very seriously to her, doctor. You must just lay me out my herrings and haddies, and the codfish for the manse, it will make your creel the lighter. And Colin, fill you that long basket with grass to make a nice caller bed for the fish.—And here we are at the gate of Rosmore, and to take you further would just be to take you out of your way. Help her out, Colin, and you can put out the biggest codfish—if it’s too much for them, I’ll make them a present of it, and they can send the rest to that ne’er-do-weel’s poor wife, poor thing. And Lizzie, my woman, here’s another shilling for you. Stay at home and look after the bairns, and don’t come out to-morrow. Now, Rufus, on you go, my man. It’s a stiff brae, and I know you don’t like it; but we’ll just make Colin get out and run. Come away, my bonnie man,” said Miss Eliza, with a chirrup, as she slanted the pony’s head towards the brae. Having no one else to speak to, she talked to Rufus, who was very well used to it, and responded by little shakings of his head and jinglings of his harness. “Come away,” she added, meaning “go on”; “It’s a stey brae, but ye must just go at it with a stout heart, and it will be over in a moment. Come away, my bonnie man! Just jump in to Colin, and not let him cool after that fine burst, for I like to come in at the door with a dash, and Rufus can do it if he likes. Now down with ye again, and give a good peal to the bell.—Will Mrs. Rowland be in this afternoon?” she added, with a sweep of the whip towards the footman at the door. Then Miss Eliza got down a little more dexterously than an inexperienced spectator would have looked for. She went into Rosmore in the same cheerful manner, talking all the way. The footman, it is true, was English, and an unknown quantity, but even to him Miss Eliza found something to say.
“They will be in, both Mrs. Rowland and the young lady? That is very lucky for me, for in a fine day like this most people are on the road. They will be using the long drawing-room with the view? Well, I do not blame them: it is best, though Lady Jean used to keep it for company.—Who will ye say? Oh, there is my card, that is the most sensible way.—My dear Mrs. Rowland, I am very glad to make your acquaintance. We have heard just everything that is good of you, and I have been most anxious to welcome you to the parish. And this is Miss Rowland? Dear me, how delighted all the young folk will be to hear of such an addition. And now that you have got settled down a little, I hope you like the house?”
“The house is delightful,” said Evelyn, “and so are the views. My husband prepared me for the beauty of the country, but he said very little about the excellence inside.”
“He would know but little,” said Miss Eliza. “They’re not noticing about houses, the men folk. And as for the views, we have been settled here this forty years since we came quite young creatures ourselves; but I’ve never tired of this. I’ve never got indifferent, as you generally do, with what you’ve seen every day: it’s just as new to me now as it was at the first.”
“It is a beautiful country,” said Evelyn civilly.
“Is it not—just a blessed country! Eh, if the people were but equal. ‘Every prospect pleases,’ you remember the hymn says, ‘and only man—’ No, no, I will not say that man is vile: that is a great deal too strong. What I complain of in very religious folk is that they are censuring their neighbours, when perhaps, if the truth was known, their neighbours—But we must not pursue that subject. Man is not vile, but he’s not so satisfying as the everlasting hills.”
“Oh,” said Marion, with the little fictitious intonation which copied Evelyn’s, “but men are more amusing than the mountains.” She herself was not by any means so amusing in her diction since she had become an echo of Mrs. Rowland in her gesture and voice.