Girlhood and Womanhood<br />The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes, Sarah Tytler [books for men to read TXT] 📗

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The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes




By SARAH TYTLER AUTHOR OF "PAPERS FOR THOUGHTFUL GIRLS,"
"CITOYENNE JACQUELINE," ETC. ETC.







LONDON Wm. ISBISTER, Limited 56, LUDGATE HILL 1883 CONTENTS. Page I. CAIN'S BRAND, 1 ON THE MOOR, 1 THE ORDEAL, 16 "HE LAY DOWN TO SLEEP ON THE MOORLAND SO DREARY," 29 MERCY AND NOT SACRIFICE, 37   II. ON THE STAGE AND OFF THE STAGE, 62 THE "BEAR" AT BATH, 62 LADY BETTY ON THE STAGE, 72 MISTRESS BETTY BECOMES NURSE, 77 MASTER ROWLAND GOES UP TO LONDON, 86 MISTRESS BETTY TRAVELS DOWN INTO SOMERSETSHIRE, 90 BETWEEN MOSELY AND LARKS' HALL, 96   III. A CAST IN THE WAGGON, 108 DULCIE'S START IN THE WAGGON FOR HER COMPANY, 108 TWO LADS SEEK A CAST IN THE WAGGON, 113 REDWATER HOSPITALITY, 122 OTHER CASTS FOLLOWING THE CAST IN THE WAGGON, 134 DULCIE AND WILL, AT HOME IN ST. MARTIN'S LANE, 151 SAM AND CLARISSA IN COMPANY IN LEICESTER SQUARE, 158 STRIPS SOME OF THE THORNS FROM THE HEDGE AND THE GARDEN ROSES, 161   IV. ADAM HOME'S REPENTANCE, 167 WILD, WITTY NELLY CARNEGIE, 167 A GALLANT REBUFFED.—NELLY'S PUNISHMENT, 172 A MOURNFUL MARRIAGE EVE, 177 NELLY CARNEGIE IN HER NEW HOME, 179 NELLY'S NEW PASTIMES, 185 THE LAIRD CONSCIENCE-SMITTEN, 186 BLESSING AND AFFLICTION.—ADAM HOME'S RETURN, 192 THE RECONCILIATION AND RETURN TO STANEHOLME, 197   V. HECTOR GARRET OF OTTER, 202 THE FIRE, 202 THE OFFER, 211 THE NEW HOME, 228 THE PAGES OF THE PAST, 236 THE MOTHER AND CHILD, 248 THE STORM, 259   VI. THE OLD YEOMANRY WEEKS, 268 THE YEOMEN'S ADVENT.—PRIORTON SPRUCES ITSELF UP, 268 A MATCH-MAKER'S SCHEME, 275 A MORNING MEETING AND AN EVENING'S READING, 280 THE BALL, AND WHAT CAME OF IT, 293   VII. DIANA, 302 AN UNDERTAKING, 302 THE FULFILMENT, 311 HAZARD, 316 THE LAST THROW, 323   VIII. MISS WEST'S CHRISTMAS ADVENTURE, 337 CAIN'S BRAND I.—ON THE MOOR.

CAIN'S BRAND! that is no fact of the far past, no legend of the Middle Ages, for are there not Cains among us; white-faced, haggard-featured Cains to the last? Men who began with a little injury, and did not dream that their gripe would close in deadly persecution? Cains who slew the spirit, and through the spirit murdered the body? Cains unintentionally, whom all men free from the stain of blood, and to whom in the Jewish economy the gates of the Cities of Refuge would have stood wide open, yet who are never again light of thought and light of heart? On their heads the grey is soon sprinkled, and in the chamber of their hearts is drawn a ghastly picture, whose freshness fades, but whose distinct characters are never obliterated.

Of this class of men, of hot passions, with rash advisers, who meditated wrong, but not the last wrong, victims of a narrow, imperious code of honour, only to-day expunged from military and social etiquette, was the Laird of the [Page 2]Ewes. Many of us may have seen such another—a tall, lithe figure, rather bent, and very white-headed for his age, with a wistful eye; but otherwise a most composed, intelligent, courteous gentleman of a laird's degree. Take any old friend aside, and he will tell, with respectful sympathy, that the quiet, sensible, well-bred Laird, has suffered agonies in the course of his life, though too wise and modest a man to hold up his heart for daws to peck at, and you will believe him. Look narrowly at the well-preserved, well-veiled exterior, and you will be able to detect, through the nicely adjusted folds, or even when it is brightened by smiles, how remorse has sharpened the flesh, and grief hollowed it, and long abiding regret shaded it.

Twenty years before this time, Crawfurd of the Ewes, more accomplished than many of the lairds, his contemporaries, and possessed of the sly humour on which Scotchmen pride themselves, had been induced to write a set of lampoons against a political opponent of his special chief. He was young then, and probably had his literary vanity; at least he executed his task to the satisfaction of his side of the question; and without being particularly broad and offensive, or perhaps very fine in their edge, his caricatures excited shouts of laughter in the parish, and in the neighbouring town.

But he laughs best who laughs last. A brother laird, blind with fury, and having more of the old border man in him than the Laird of the Ewes, took to his natural arms, and dispatched Mr. Crawfurd a challenge to fight him on the Corn-Cockle Moor. No refusal was possible then, none except for a man of rare principle, nerve, and temper. The [Page 3]Laird of the Ewes had no pretensions to mighty gifts; so he walked out with his second one autumn morning when his reapers were flourishing their sickles, met his foe, and though without the skill to defend himself, he shot his man right through the head. He was tried and acquitted. He was the challenged, not the challenger; he might have given the provocation, but no blame was suffered to attach to him. His antagonist, with a foreboding of his fate, or by way of clearing his conscience, as the knights used to confess of a morning before combat, had exonerated Mr. Crawfurd before he came upon the ground. The Court was strongly in his favour, and he was sent back to his family and property without anything more severe than commiseration; but that could never reach his deep sore.

How was this gentle, nervous, humorous Laird to look out upon the world, from which he had sent the soul of a companion who had never even harmed him? The widow, whom he had admired as a gay young matron, dwelt not a mile from him in her darkened dwelling; the fatherless boy would constantly cross the path of his well-protected, well-cared-for children. How bear the thousand little memories—the trifling dates, acts, words, pricking him with anguish? They say the man grew sick at the mere sight of the corn-cockle, which, though not plentiful on other moors, chanced to abound on this uncultivated tract, and bestowed on it its name; and he shivered as with an ague fit, morning after morning, when the clock struck the hour at which he had left his house. He did in some measure overcome this weakness, for he was a man of ordinary courage and extraordinary reserve, but it [Page 4]is possible that he endured the worst of his punishment when he made no sign.

The Laird was a man of delicate organism, crushed by a blow from which he could not recover. Had he lived a hundred years earlier, or been a soldier on active service, or a student walking the hospitals, he might have been more hardened to bloodshed. Had his fate been different, he might have borne the brunt of the offence as well as his betters; but the very crime which he was least calculated to commit and survive encountered him in the colours he had worn before the eventful day.

Yet there was nothing romantic about Crawfurd of the Ewes, or about the details of his deed, with one singular exception, and this was connected with his daughter Joanna. The rest of the family were commonplace, prosperous young people, honest enough hearts, but too shallow to be affected by the father's misfortune. The father's sour grapes had not set these children's teeth on edge. Joanna—Jack, or Joe, as they called her in sport—whom they all, without any idea of selfishness or injustice, associated with the Laird, as one member of the family is occasionally chosen to bear the burdens of the others,—Joanna was papa's right hand, papa's secretary, steward, housekeeper, nurse. It had always been so; Joanna had been set aside to the office, and no one thought of depriving her of it, any more than she dreamt of resigning it.

Joanna was the child born immediately after the duel, and on the waxen brow of the baby was a crimson stain, slight but significant, which two fingers might have co[Page 5]vered. Was this the token of retribution—the threat of vengeance? The gossips' tongues wagged busily. Some said it was Cain's brand, "the iniquity of the fathers visited on the children;" others alleged more charitably that it ought to prove a sign in the Laird's favour, to have the symbol of his guilt transferred to a scape-goat—the brow of a child. However, the gossips need not have hidden the child's face so sedulously for the first few days from the mother. Mrs. Crawfurd took the matter quite peaceably, and was relieved that no worse misfortune had befallen her or her offspring. "Poor little dear!" it was sad that she should carry such a trace; but she daresayed she would outgrow it, or she must wear flat curls—it was a pity that they had gone quite out of fashion. It was the father who kissed the mark passionately, and carried the child oftenest in his arms, and let her sit longest on his knee; and so she became his darling, and learnt all his ways, and could suit herself to his fancies, and soothe his pains, from very youthful years. The public recognised this peculiar property of her father in Joanna, and identified her with the sorrowful period of his history. She was pointed out in connexion with the story—the tragedy of the county,—and she knew instinctively that there would be a whispered reference to her whenever it was told in society.

The Crawfurds had a cousin visiting them—an English cousin, Polly Musgrave—from the luxury and comparative gaiety of her rich, childless aunt's house in York. Polly was a well-endowed orphan, had no near family ties, and had been educated in the worldly wisdom and epicurean philosophy of a fashionable girls' school. She had come [Page 6]to spend a few weeks, and get acquainted with her Scotch country cousins. Polly had not found her heart, but it was to the credit of her sense and good-nature that she made the very best of a sojourn that had threatened to be a bore to her. She dazzled the girls, she romped with the boys, she entered with the greatest glee into rural occupations, rode on the roughest pony, saw sunset and sunrise from Barnbougle, and threatened to learn to milk cows and cut corn. She brought inconceivable motion and sparkle into the rather stagnant country house, and she was the greatest possible contrast to Joanna Crawfurd. Joanna was a natural curiosity to Polly, and the study amused her, just as she made use of every other variety and novelty, down to the poultry-yard and kitchen-garden at the Ewes.

The girls were out on the moor, in the drowsy heat of a summer day, grouped idly and prettily into such a cluster as girls will fall into without effort. Susan, the beauty—there is always a beauty among several girls—in languid propriety, with her nice hair, and her scrupulously falling collar and sleeves, and her blush of a knot of ribbon; Lilias, the strong-minded, active person, sewing busily at charity work, of which all estimable households have now their share; Constantia, the half-grown girl, lying in an awkward lump among the hay, intently reading her last novel, and superlatively scorning the society of her grown-up relatives; Joanna, sitting thoughtfully, stroking old Gyp, the ragged terrier, that invariably ran after either Joanna or her father; and Polly, who had been riding with Oliver,