“It’s fine romancing,” said Lord Eskside. “Where’s the t’other of your bonnie boys, my lady? And where is your proof of this one that will satisfy a court of law? Likeness is all very well, and natural instinct’s all very well, but they’ll have little effect on the Court of Session. And though he’s a haverel in private life, Sandy Pringle was always a clever lawyer. If you do not find the woman there will be a lawsuit, that will leave Eskside but an empty title, and melt all the lands away.”
“We’ll find the woman,” said the old lady, clasping her fine nervous hands. “I’ll move earth and heaven before I’ll let anything come in my boy’s way.”
At this moment Val burst in, rosy and excited, with his grandfather’s stick, which in the vehemence of their new ideas both the child and the old man had forgotten. “Grandma, I want that little girl to play with. Send over directly,” cried Val, in hot impatience, “to get me the little girl!”
“You have enough on your hands, my lady,” said Lord Eskside.
CHAPTER X.
The Hewan was not a cottage of gentility. It was too small, too homely, too much like a growth of the soil, to belong to any class that could be described as ornée. The roof indeed was not thatched, but it was of red tiles, so overgrown with lichens as almost to resemble a thatch, except in the rich colour, which, to tell the truth, very few people appreciated. Its present owner was a shopkeeper in Lasswade, in whose heart there were many searchings about the vulgarity of its appearance, which he felt sure was the reason why it was not more easily let for the summer; and this good man had almost made up his mind to the expense required for a good slate roof, when Mr Pringle fortunately appeared and engaged it “as it was.” A sort of earthen embankment, low and thick, encircled the little platform on which it stood. There was nothing behind it but sky, with a light embroidery of trees; for it occupied the highest “brae head” in the neighbourhood, and in a more level country would have been described as situated on the top of a hill. Before it lay the whole course of the Esk, not all visible indeed, narrowing here and there between high banks, now and then hiding itself under the foliage, or capriciously turning a corner out of sight,—but always lending to the landscape that charm of life which water more than anything imparts to the inanimate world around. Cliffs and trees, and bits of bold brown bank, and soft stretches of greensward, all took a certain significance, and explained their raison d’être by the river. The houses, too, from the dignified roofs of Rosscraig lower down the stream, showing their turrets, which little Violet supposed to be made of gold, between the clouds of trees—down to the square white houses of the paper-mill people on the other side, and here and there rough red tiles of a cottage of earlier date—were all harmonised by the river, which was the link which held them together. The usual geographical indications on Eskside were not by the points of the compass, as is so common in Scotland, but by the stream—“up the water” or “down the water” was the popular indication; and a more picturesque one it would be difficult to find.
The Hewan was a long way up the water from Lasswade, yet not so far but that many a visitor would climb the brae to “get their tea” with old Mrs Moffatt, who was the mother of the proprietor,—living in charge of the house, and not too proud to superintend the domestic arrangements of small families who hired it for the summer. She had a little room with a “box-bed,” that mystery of discomfort and frowsiness, but which was neither frowsy nor uncomfortable in the hands of the brisk little old woman—which her son had built on to the back of the house for her, and in which she continued summer and winter, retiring herself there in dignified privacy when “a family” was in full possession. Mrs Moffatt’s little room, which had been made on purpose for her, had no communication with the cottage. She considered it a very dignified retirement for her old age. John Moffatt, her son, was a shoemaker in Lasswade; and when the savings of his cobbling enabled him to buy the Hewan, and establish his mother there, no noble matron in a stately jointure-house was ever half so proud. Such a feeling indeed as pride, or even satisfaction, rarely moves the mind of the dethroned queen who has to move out of the house she has swayed for years, and descend into obscurity when the humiliation of widowhood befalls her. Mrs Moffatt, good old soul, had no such past to look back upon. She had been long a widow, knocking about the world, doing whatever homely job she could find, struggling to bring up her children; and the Hewan and the little back room represented a kind of earthly paradise to the cobbler’s mother. The summer lodgers who paid her for cooking and keeping in order their little rooms, gave the frugal old soul enough to live on during the winter; and when by chance “a family” came which had no need of her, good John, out of the abundance of the rent, allowed his mother the few weekly shillings she required. She had a little kitchen-garden to the back, surrounding her nest, as she called it, and kept a pig, which was her pride and joy, and a few chickens. If she could but have had a cow, the old woman would have been perfectly happy; but as it is not, I suppose—or at least so people say—good for us to be perfectly happy, the cow was withheld from her list of mercies granted. Good little soul, her mouth watered sometimes when she thought of the butter she could make, and of the cheeriness of having “a neebor’s lassie” coming in with her pitcher for the milk, or even the luxury of a “wee drap real cream” in her cup of tea. But to mourn for unattainable things had never been her way; and when she went “doon the toun” with a basketful of eggs for her daughter-in-law, she was as proud and happy in her homely gift as if it had been gold or diamonds. She was a friendly body everybody testified, and known up the water and down the water as always serviceable and always cheery. When there was any gossip going on of an interesting nature, some one in Lasswade or the neighbourhood always found opportunity of taking a walk up to the Hewan, and a cup of tea with old Jean, who was every one’s friend.
On such occasions Mrs Moffatt carefully skimmed everything that looked like cream from the milk which had been standing in a bowl for this purpose since the morning, and put on her little kettle, and took out her best china, and even prepared some “toasted breed” over and above the oat-cakes, which were her usual fare. The window of the old woman’s nest looked out upon a dark wilderness of trees, which descended down a steep bank to the upper Esk, and shut out any view. Her door was generally open, as well as the window, so that the rustling of the trees and the singing of the kettle kept pleasant company. Her boarded floor was as clean as soap and water could make it, and her hearth well swept and bright; a huge rug, made by her own hands (for she was a capable old wife) out of strips of cloth of all colours, looked cosy before the fire. Her bed, like a berth in a ship, appeared behind, with a very bright bit of chintz for curtains, and covered with a gay patchwork quilt. She had some brilliantly-coloured pictures on the walls—a wonderful little boy with big eyes and a curly dog, and a little girl with long curls and a doll, not more staring and open-eyed than herself. The old lady thought they were like “our wee Johnnie and Phemie down the town,” and found them “grand company.” She had some brass candlesticks and a glorious tea-caddy on the mantelpiece, and such a tea-tray set up against the wall as would have made all other ornamentation pale. “The worst o’t is, ye maun be awfu’ solitary, especially in the winter time, when there’s naebody ben the house, and few on the road that can help it,” her friends would say. “Me solitary!” said old Jean. “I’m thankful to my Maker I never was ane that was lanesome. I’m fond o’ company, real fond o’ company—but for a while now and then it’s no’ that ill to have your ain thoughts. And then there’s the hens, poor things, aye canty and neighbour-like, troubling their heads about their sma’ families, just as I used to do mysel’—and Grumphy yonder’s just a great diversion; and when it’s a cauld night, and I shut to the door, there’s the fire aye stirring and birring, and the wee nest as warm as can be, and the auld clock, tick, tick, aye doing its duty, poor thing, though it might be tired this hunder year or twa it’s been at it; and there’s a hantle reading in the ‘Courant,’ though maybe the ‘Scotsman’s bigger, and I’m on the Leeberal side mysel’. Toots! solitary! there’s naebody less solitary than me.”
A cheerful soul is always a social centre, however humble it may be. Jean’s friends accordingly went to see her, not out of pity, as to cheer a poor solitary old woman, but for their own amusement, which in this kind of social duty is by far the strongest motive. She was about the best-informed woman on all Eskside. Every kind of gossip made its way to her; and I doubt whether the people in Rosscraig House themselves, knew so well all that had happened and all that everybody said on the night of little Valentine’s arrival. She heard a great deal even from Mrs Harding herself, the housekeeper, who could not resist the temptation of confiding a few details, not generally known, to her old friend’s keeping. For Jean was known to be a person in whom it was possible to repose confidence, not one that would betray the trust placed in her. Besides, Mrs Moffatt had become a person of importance since it was known in Rosscraig that Mr Pringle had taken the Hewan for the season. Lady Eskside herself got out of her carriage one day as she passed, and went to pay the old woman a visit. She went into the cottage and complimented old Jean on the excellent order in which she kept it. “I hear it has been taken by a relation of ours—Mr Pringle,” she said.
“I didna ken he was a relation of your leddyship’s; but it’s Mr Pringle sure enough. I was sure I kent the face—no doubt I’ve seen him coming or going about the House.”