The Dew of Their Youth

by S. R. Crockett

I plotted deep, dark, terrible deeds. She urged me to yet another help of dumpling. She had made the jam herself, she said. Or the shortbread—now there was something like shortbread, made after a recipe learned in Brabant! (I wondered the word did not choke her, thinking of Lalor—but, perhaps, who knew? she would not after all be so unwilling!) I had shed my blood for naught—not that I had really shed any, but it felt like that. I had gone forth to conquer the world for the sake of a faithless girl—though, again, I had not even done quite that, seeing that Freddy Esquillant bade fair to beat me in all the classes—except, perhaps, in the Mathematic, for which he had no taste. But the principle was the same. I was deserted, and my whole aspect became so dejected that my mother spoke to my father about my killing myself in Edinburgh with study, which caused that good (and instructed) man to exclaim, “Fiddlesticks!” Then she went to my grandmother, who prescribed senna tea, which she brewed and stood by till I had drunk. I resolved to wear my heart a little less on my sleeve, and always after that assured my grandmother that I was feeling very well indeed. Also I made shift to eat a little, even in public, contriving it so, however, that the effort to appear brave and gay ought to have been evident even to Miss Irma.

Every day Louis and she went to the Academy, and I went with them, one of the uncles—generally Eben, the universally disposable—following to the village with a loaded pistol in his tail-coat pocket.

For though there had been, as yet, no more than the ordinary winter traffic by the well-recognized Free Traders of the Solway board, no man could tell when the lugger from the Texel, or even the Golden Hind herself might try again the fortune of our coasts. The latter vessel had been growing famous, multiplying her captures and cruelties; indeed, behaving little otherwise than if she carried the black flag with the skull and cross-bones. And though a large part of his Majesty’s navy had been trying to catch her, hardly a monthly number of the Scots Magazine came to my father without some new exploit being deplored in the monthly chronicle over near the end.

Nearer home, Messrs. Smart and Smart had offered by post to occupy themselves with the future of the young baronet Sir Louis, on condition that he should be given up to them to be sent to school, but in their communication nothing was said about Miss Irma. So my grandfather sent word that, subject to the law of the land, he would continue to protect both the children whom Providence had placed in his care. And this was doubtless what the Dumfries lawyers expected. The care and culture of the estate during a long minority was what they thought about as being most to their advantage, and it was quite evident that little Louis, for the present, could hardly be better situated than at Heathknowes. Messrs. Smart and Smart sent a man down to spy out the land, on pretext of offering compensation, but his report must have been favourable both as to the security of the farm-town and as to my grandfather’s repute for generosity and open-handedness. For he did not return, and as to payment, nothing more was ever heard at Heathknowes about the matter.

The young people were now quite fixtures there, and though they were spoken of as Miss Irma and Master Louis, Irma had carried her main point, which was that they should be treated in all respects as of the family. The sole difference made was that now the farm lads and lasses, and the two men from the pirn-mill (whom my grandfather’s increasing trade with the English weavers had compelled him to take on), had their meals at a second table, placed crosswise to that at which the family dined and supped. But this was chiefly to prevent little Louis from occupying himself with watching to see when they would swallow their knives, and nudging his neighbours Irma and Aunt Jen to “look out,” at any particular dangerous and intricate feat of conjuring.

As for me, I could not at all understand why Irma cold-shouldered me during these first Christmas vacations, and indeed I had secretly resolved to return no more to the house of Heathknowes till I had made sure of a better reception. I began to count it a certainty that Irma, feeling that she had gone too far and too fast with me before I went off, was now getting out of the difficulty by a régime of extraordinary coldness and severity. And if that were the case, I was not the man to baulk her.

For about this time a man I began to count myself.

Worst of all, going home to the school-house there came into my head one of the most stupid ideas that had ever got lodging there—though, according to my grandmother, I am rather a don at harbouring suchlike.

It occurred to me that a plan I had read of in some book or other might suit my case. If I could only make Irma jealous, the tables might be turned, and she become as anxious and desirous of making up as I was.

It seemed to me a marvellously original idea. Irma had cared enough to give me her mother’s miniature. She had cut off a lock of her hair, which she had not done for all the world of her admirers—else she would long have gone bald.