Nathan, at the upper end, was a bachelor, hale, fresh, and hearty as when he had finished his 'prenticeship. Doog at forty possessed several children, all that remained of a poor, over-worked, downtrodden wife, and a countenance so marled and purpled with drink, that he looked an old man before his time. Nathan's shop was his own, and he was understood to have already a "weel-filled stocking-fit up the lum," or, in the modern interpretation, a comfortable balance down at Cairn Edward Bank, and a quiet old age assured to him by a life of industrious self-denial.
Doog never had a penny to bless himself with, later in the week than Tuesday; and, indeed, often enough very few to bless his wife withal even on Saturday nights, when, as was his custom, he staggered homewards with the poor remnants of his week's wage in his pocket.
Nathan's wit was of the kind which goes best with the sedate tapping of a snuffmull, or the tinkling of brass weights into counter-scales—Doog's rang loudest to the jingling of toddy tumblers. Nathan loved to gossip doucely at the door of even-tide with the other tradesmen of the village, with Bob Carter the joiner, his apron twisted about his scarred hands, with bluff prosperous Joe Mitchell the mason, and with Peter Miles the tailor, as he sat on the low seat outside his door picking the last basting threads out of a new waistcoat.
Doog's witticisms, on the other hand, were chiefly launched in the "Golden Lion," amid the uproarious laughter of Jake McMinn, the "cattle dealer frae Stranraer," Leein' Tam, the local horse-doctor (without diploma), and "Chuckie" Orchison, the village ne'er-do-weel and licensed sponger for drinks upon the neighbourhood.
Yet there existed a curious and inexplicable liking between the two men. There was never a day that Nathan, the douce and respectable, did not leave his quiet white cottage at the head of the brae, where he dwelt all alone with his groceries, and step sedately down, stopping every twenty yards to gossip, or drop a word, flavoured with one of his kindly smiles, with every passer-by. He never seemed to be going anywhere in particular, yet he always visited Doog Carnochan's house before he returned. And many a night did Nathan, finding the husband not at home, pursue and recapture the truant, and bring him back to the tumble-down shanty, where the five ill-fed children and the one weary-faced woman furnished a tragic comment upon the far-renowned convivial humours of the husband and father.
The tale of Nathan and Doog is one which wants not examples in all ages of the earth's history. It is the story of a woman's mistake. Once Dahlia Ogilvy had been a bright frolicsome girl, winding the young fellows of the parish round her fingers with arch mischief, granting a favour here and denying one there, with that pleasant and innocent abuse of power which comes so suddenly to a girl who, in any rank of life, awakes to find herself beautiful.
There was nothing of the wilful beauty now about Dahlia Carnochan. A stronger woman might have mastered her fate, a weaker would have fled from it; but she only accepted the inevitable, and, like one who knows beforehand that her task is hopeless, she did what she could with silent resignation, waiting clear-eyed for that death which alone would bring her to the end of her pain.
Yet at the time it had seemed natural enough that Dahlia should prefer the handsome debonair Douglas Carnochan, to quiet Nathan Monypenny, who had so little to say for himself, and so seldom said it. Besides, Dahlia had always known that she could with a word send Nathan to the ends of the earth, whilst there were certain wild ways about the other even then, which had, for a foolish ignorant maid, all the attraction of the unknown. She was a little afraid of Doog Carnochan, and there is no better subsoil whereon to grow love in a girl's heart, than just the desire of conquest mixed with a little fear.
So it came to pass that, though Nathan had carried little Dahlia's school-bag and fought her battles ever since she could toddle across from one cottage to the other, it was not he who, in the fulness of time, when the blossom came to its brightest and most beautiful, gathered it and set it on his bosom. It ought to have been, but it was not.
As a young man Doog Carnochan was bright and clever. Most people in the village prophesied a brilliant future for him—that is, those who knew not the "unstable as water" which was written like a legend across his character. He was the son of a small crofter in the neighbourhood, but he companied habitually with those above him in rank, with the sons of large farmers and rich stock-breeders. Some of these, his cronies and boon companions, would be sure to assist him, so every one said. They would set him up as a "dealer"—they would put him in charge of a "led" farm or two. Doog's fortune was as good as made.