“Besides,” she began again more briskly, “what would be the use? Ye’ll no suppose that Lord John or Lord Thomas would offer for Drumcarro’s lasses. They’re as good blood, maybe better; for it’s cauld watery stuff that rins in those young lads’ veins. But Neil Douglas is a poor man; if he had all or the half that rightly belongs to him, it would be anither matter. We’ll say nothing about that I’m a Douglas myself, and it just fires me up when I think of it. But right or wrong, as I’m saying, Drumcarro’s a poor man and it’s no in the Castle his lasses will find mates. And he’s a proud man. I think upon Anne, puir thing, and I cannot say another word. Na, na, it’s just a case where nobody can interfere.”
“But Miss Anne’s very happy, and plenty of everything, as I hear.”
“Happy, and her father’s doors closed upon her, and her name wiped out as if she were dead, far more than if she were dead! And bearing a name that no man ever heard of, her, a Douglas!” Miss Eelen’s gray cheek took on a flush of colour at the thought. She shook her head, agitating the little gray ringlets on her forehead. “Na, na,” she said, “I’m vexed to think upon the poor things--but I cannot interfere.”
“Maybe their father, if you were to speak to him--”
“Me speak to him! I would as soon speak to Duncan Nicol’s bull. My dear, ye ken a great deal,” said Miss Eelen with irony, “but ye do not ken the Douglases. And that’s all that can be said.”
This, however, was not all that a more devoted friend, the only one they had who feared neither Drumcarro nor anything else in the world, in their interests, found to say. Marg’ret was not afraid of Drumcarro. Even she avoided any unnecessary encounter with “the auld slave-driver,” but when it was needful to resist or even to assail him she did not hesitate. And this time it was not resistance but attack. She marched into the laird’s room with her head held high, trumpets playing and banners flying, her broad white capstrings finely starched and streaming behind her with the impulse of her going, an unusual colour in her cheeks, her apron folded over one hand, the other free to aid the eloquence of her speech. Several months had passed in great quiet, the little stir of Robbie’s departure having died away along with the faint excitement of the preparations for his departure, the making of his linen, the packing of his portmanteaux. All had relapsed again into perfect dulness and the routine of every day. Jamie, the next boy, was only fourteen; a long time must elapse before he was able to follow his brother into the world, and until his time should come there was no likelihood of any other event stirring the echoes at Drumcarro. As for Marg’ret, the routine was quite enough for her. To think what new variety of scone she could make for their tea, how she could adapt the remains of the grouse to make a little change, or improve the flavour of the trout, or com-pound a beef-tea or a pudding which would tempt her mistress to a spoonful more, was diversion enough for Marg’ret among the heavier burdens of her work. But the bairns--and above all Kirsteen, who was her special darling. Kirsteen had carried her head very high after Robbie went away. She had been full of musings and of dreams, she had smiled to herself and sung to herself fragments of a hundred little ditties, even amid the harassments of her sick mother’s incessant demands, and all the dulness of her life. But after a month or two that visionary delight had a little failed, the chill of abandonment, of loneliness, of a life shut out from every relaxation, had ceased to be neutralized by the secret inspiration which kept the smile on her lips and the song in her heart. Kirsteen had not forgotten the secret which was between her and Ronald, or ceased to be sustained by it; but she was young, and the parting, the absence, the silence had begun to tell upon her. He was gone; they were all gone, she said to herself. With everything in the world to sustain the young sufferer, that chill of absence is always a sad one. And her cheerfulness, if not her courage, had flagged. Her heart and her head had drooped in spite of herself. She had been found moping in corners, “thinking,” as she had said, and she had been seen with her eyes wet, hastily drying the irrepressible tears. “Kirsteen greetin’!” One of the boys had seen it, and mocked her with a jibe, of which afterwards he was much ashamed; and little Jeanie had seen it, and had hurried off awestricken to tell Marg’ret, “Kirsteen was in the parlour, just with nobody, and greetin’ like to break her heart.”