The Railway Man and His Children

by Mrs. Oliphant

It was October when the young Saumarez’s arrived at Rosmore. October is very lovely in the west of Scotland. The trees are thinned but still glowing, the birches like lamps of gold among the darker woods, scattering round them, as the leaves drop, a golden underground that gives out light. The great line of mountains at the head of the loch were lightly touched with snow. The villas on the banks came out more brightly from the thinned foliage, and stood reflected in the shining water, with all the tints round them of red rowan berries and dazzling autumnal leaves. The air had a clearness as of the rarified air of high altitudes. There had not been any rain for ten days, so remarkable a fact that the district in general was beginning to fear the failure of its wells.

In such an evening, while the sun lavished its last rays upon the loch and the opposite shore, bathing them in golden light, Rosamond and Edward came across in the steamboat to the whole Rowland family, which awaited them on the pier. I am wrong, however, to say the whole family: for Archie, who had been seized by a strong repugnance to the newcomers without any reason—a fact which, of course, made it more strong—was not of the number. He had gone up the loch or the hill with a determined intention of returning only in time for dinner. If truth had been told, he was extremely curious, even anxious about the young man who was of his own age, about whom there could be no doubt that he was a gentleman born to everything which Archie had not been born to, yet possessed. He did not think at all about the pretty sister, who probably would have most engaged the interest of the ordinary youth of twenty. But the more Archie was curious, the less had he any intention of showing it. He listened himself to what was said, but he asked no questions. Finally he started, half an hour before they went to meet the newcomers, for a long walk up the hill.

“It is too lovely,” said Rosamond, presenting her cheek, as usual, that Mrs. Rowland should kiss it. “I wish some one had told me that it was a beautiful place. I never began to look till we got into the steamboat. I am not in the least tired, thank you. Eddy! where are you, Eddy? One never knows where to find him. He is always picking up everywhere some fellow he knows. He is not nice to travel with, because there are so many fellows he knows.”

Here there advanced from the other end of the boat, and bounded across the gangway just before it was withdrawn, a short young man, with a travelling cap upon one side of his head and a cigar in his mouth. He had to make a jump upon the pier amid a shout of “Take care, will ye!” and “What are ye doing, lad?” from the man at the pier; and dropped like a projectile in the midst of the group which, so undistinguished was Eddy’s appearance, were not looking for him except his sister, who put out a hand as if to help him. “That was cleverly done,” said Rowland, opposing his own substantial bulk to arrest the stranger who was standing in their midst; “but I would advise you, my young friend, to bestir yourself sooner, and not run such a risk again.”

“Oh, it is his way,” replied Rosamond. “You would not think it, but this is Eddy, Mrs. Rowland. He is like nobody one ever saw.”

Certainly he was not like his handsome father, the young Edward Saumarez whom Evelyn remembered so well. She had been half afraid of seeing a reproduction of his old look. But that was one of the anticipatory troubles that she might well have spared herself. He was short; his hair was light and scanty; his eyes half lost under many folds of loose eyebrows, and a brow which contracted with what some unkind critic has called the short-sighted soul, was rather small. His nose was turned up a little. Marion, who, in the interests of Archie, had been looking forward, half with hope and half with fear, to the arrival of a beautiful youth—a darling of society, exquisitely clothed and of distinguished appearance—felt a pang, half of disappointment, half of relief. Perhaps the relief was the stronger. Archie!—why Archie was taller, better looking, and more a man than this little shambling fellow! The foolish father felt much more cordial to Eddy, and grasped him strongly by the hand.

“You’re welcome to Rosmore, both you and your sister,” he said.

There came an answer from Eddy’s lips which sounded very much like “Who’s this?” but a glance from his sister brought him to himself, and he made his bow accordingly.

“I’m very glad to be here, I can tell you,” said Eddy. “Never knew such a beast of a journey—tumbled out of one carriage into another, and then Glasgow, and then a boat, and I don’t know all what. How do you do? Been here long?—and have you got any sport? It’s just like my luck to come so late.”

“My son,” said Rowland with ineffable pleasure—for he did not feel ashamed of his son now, quite the reverse in sight of this shabby young lad, who looked like nothing at all—“has arranged a day for you, and I think you’ll find a bird or two yet.”