Chapter IV: Robert Wodrow

Leaving Ellinor and Sir Redmond occupied with the contents of the portfolio, Mary, accompanied by the other two visitors, issued into the garden, where all the flowers of summer were in their brilliance. They lingered for a time at the door of the barnyard, surmounted by the quaint legend, and beyond which they could see Mary's cow standing mid-leg deep among luxuriant clover, while at the sight of her all the fowls, expectant of a feed, came towards her noisily in flights; nor were they quite disappointed, as the pockets of her lawn-tennis apron were not without some handfuls of corn, and Colville could not help thinking what a charming picture she made at that moment, as she stood with her sheeny hair in the sunshine expatiating on the good qualities of her feathered subjects, among whom many of Lord Dunkeld's pheasants came to feed as usual, but the birds looked so beautiful in their brown and golden-tinted plumage that Mary had never the heart to drive them away.

'That is a beautiful Cochin China,' said she to Colville; 'she consumes a gallon of barley every ten days; and is not that black Spanish cock a splendid fellow? His feathers are like the richest satin, and how strongly his plumage contrasts with my snow-white dorkings; and are not these chickens like balls of golden fluff--dear wee darlings!'

And as she spoke, and scattered some grains among them from her quick white hands, the birds fluttered in flights about her, as if she was the mother of them all; and, as she gave Colville some corn to throw among them, the Guardsman, with all his admiration of her, could not resist a covert smile at himself and his surroundings.

She looked so fresh and so innocent, and so ready to tell him all her little plans and of her local interests.

To him, a club man--a man of the world--accustomed to the giddy whirl of London life, the Parks, the Row, Hurlingham and Lillie Bridge; Lord's Cricket Ground, garden and water-parties, 'feeds' at the 'Star and Garter,' and heaven only knows all what more--it was a new sensation this, and a wonderfully pleasant one.

He was next obliged to visit her ducks as they swam to and fro in an artificial pond--

'With glassy necks of emerald hue,
And wings barred with deepest blue
That sapphire gives; and ruddy breast
By the clear dimpling waters pressed,'

as Dr. Wodrow quoted the poet; and then her brown owl, which had been caught by Robert Wodrow, nearly at the risk of his life, in the ruined tower of Invermay, and now sat in a hollow of the garden wall secured by a net, behind which it winked and blinked and waited for a sparrow or a field-mouse; and the girl seemed so bright and independent, so happy and so busy with all the objects which formed her little cares, that Leslie Colville surveyed her with a kind of wonder and curiosity, for, while being perfectly ladylike, perfectly bred and delicately nurtured, she was so unlike any woman he had ever met before; her world was, in many respects, one altogether apart from his.

Meanwhile Sir Redmond, the very picture of bland laziness, though secretly keen as a ferret, with his glass in his left eye and his hands thrust into his trousers pockets, and his hair parted like a woman's in the middle, was standing before Ellinor, and contemplating her with evident satisfaction, for he was a _vaurien_ by nature.

'And you have come here to shoot?' said she, as the portfolio was relinquished at last.

'To shoot--yes,' he replied; 'this will be my first turn at the game in Scotland.'

'Robert tells me that the gleds have sucked half the grouse eggs this season.'

'Gleds--what are they--nasty little boys?'

'They are a kind of crow,' replied Ellinor, laughing excessively.

'And who is Robert?' asked Sir Redmond, slowly, readjusting his eyeglass.

'The son of Dr. Wodrow,' replied Ellinor, colouring a little, as he could perceive.

'He prognosticates a bad look-out for us on the 12th of next month?'

The normal expression of Sir Redmond's face, which was perhaps lazy insolence, seemed to change when a smile spread over it, and then the sensual lips, partly hidden by their fair moustache, became almost handsome. In Ellinor's sketches there had been ample food for ready conversation. Sir Redmond had seen all the picture galleries in Europe, and, whether he understood it or not, could talk of art with all the ease and fluency of a well-bred man of the world who was desirous of pleasing, and he had watched with growing interest her changing face and the brightening expression of her sweet eyes that had become trained to observe all things; but now that the portfolio was closed, the conversation had begun to flag a little.

'Robert also told me,' said Ellinor, to fill up an awkward pause, 'that as the grouse had been seen close to the barn and orchard walls, it is a sign of a severe winter.'

'It is too soon to think of winter yet; but he seems to be an authority in zoological matters, this Mr.--Mr.----'

'Wodrow.'

'Ah, yes--Robert Wodrow.'

'He is here to speak for himself,' said Ellinor, with just the slightest _soupçon_ of confusion or of annoyance in her manner as a young man entered unannounced, and was at once introduced to Sir Redmond Sleath, who, in responding to his bow, proceeded at once to focus him with his eyeglass.

With a well-knit, well-set-up figure, Robert Wodrow was an active-looking young fellow, somewhat less in stature than Sir Redmond, less dignified in air and bearing, yet not less like a gentleman. He had his father's regular features, his open character of face, and honest dark-grey eyes, in which at times there was a thoughtful expression, the result of hard study. At others a merry, devil-may-carish one, the result of life among the rollicking medical students of a great University.

Without adverting to any subject on which the two had been talking with reference to himself, he proceeded at once to address Ellinor.

'I have brought the ferns you wished for,' said he, placing in her hand a tuft of sprays.

'Oh, thanks; my wish was so slightly expressed.'

'It was a command to me,' he said, in a low voice.

'How far did you walk for them?'

'More than ten miles down Earn side.'

'Ten miles!'

'Near to Strath Allan.'

'Dear me--the Allan Water!' said Sir Redmond. 'Is that the place where the miller's lovely daughter so sadly misconducted herself in the sweet spring time of the year?'

Robert's reply to this question was only a cold and haughty stare, under which even the baronet's _insouciance_ nearly failed him, but from that moment the two men instinctively felt themselves enemies.

'Why did you take so much trouble for a mere trifle, Robert?' asked the girl.

'Because I heard you express a wish to have that particular fern, Ellinor,' replied the young fellow, whose eyes seemed to say that he would have gone ten times the distance ungrudgingly for one of her old smiles, or for the smile she was now according, not to him, but to her strange visitor, whose eyebrows were slightly and inquiringly elevated, as he glanced at the speaker, who seemed so much _en famille_ at Birkwoodbrae, and called Ellinor by her Christian name, and who saw that she placed the fern leaves on the table, and soon--Robert Wodrow thought too soon--forgot all about them apparently.

'You have known Robert long, I presume, Miss Ellinor?' said Sir Redmond, with a twinkle in his cold, china-blue eyes, and as he would have spoken of a boy or a child.

'I have known him all my life,' she replied.

'Indeed!' drawled the other, who now rose and took up his hat, as Colville and Dr. Wodrow appeared, and were about to depart, and, bidding adieu to the ladies, the two visitors from Craigmhor bent their steps in that direction, while the minister lingered behind.

'Isn't she pretty!' exclaimed Sir Redmond, as they proceeded along the highway that seemed like a private avenue, so thickly was it bordered and over-arched by beautiful and drooping silver birches.

'She--who--which?' asked Captain Colville, with a slightly ruffled tone.

'Ellinor--the youngest sister.'

'_Miss_ Ellinor Wellwood,' said Colville, with an accent on the word, 'is downright lovely, man; but you think every girl pretty, especially when in the country.'

'And away from contrasts, you mean; but excuse me; I am neither so facile nor so inflammable as that comes to; yet I do know a handsome girl when I see one; and by Jove, little Ellinor is one to cultivate. Two such girls living there alone seems a singular proceeding.'

'In your eyes, I have no doubt,' replied Colville, stooping to light a cigar, and hide the expression of annoyance that crossed his face; 'but it is not so much, perhaps, in the place where their parents have been respected; and where all know them well, and seem to love them.'

'Dressed as I could dress her,' continued Sleath, still pursuing one thought, and that an evil one, 'she would make quite a sensation--never saw such hair and eyes, by Jove.'

'What do you mean?' asked Leslie Colville, coldly.

'Well, among other things, I mean that she is a deal too pretty to be thrown away upon that Scotch country clodhopper, who is evidently spoony upon her--has known her all her life, and all that sort of thing, don't you know.'

'Whom do you mean now?'

'This--well--ah--what's his deuced name--Robert Wodrow.'

'The son of a very worthy man--a friend of mine, Sir Redmond.'

'Oh--ah--indeed.'

Colville's face darkened and grew rather stern.

Why?

We shall be able to let a little light on his secret emotion in time to come.

Meanwhile the speakers were the source of some speculation among those they had just quitted.

'Who are those gentlemen, Dr. Wodrow?' asked Mary.

'Captain Colville, of the Household Brigade, and Sir Redmond Sleath, a baronet, and wealthy, I believe, friends of the Dunkeld family, come here for the Twelfth. Are you pleased with them?'

'Oh, yes,' replied Ellinor, but Mary remained silent.

'Perhaps one may prove like the hunter who came in the olden time to hunt here, and wooed the pretty maid of Forteviot,' said the doctor, laughing, and pinching her soft cheek.

'And Captain Colville is engaged to Blanche Galloway, is he not?' she asked.

'So I believe. A man of undoubted wealth, he has lately succeeded to property of various kinds, and means, it is said, to urge his claim in the female line to the peerage of Ochiltree, which has been dormant since the death of David, fourth lord, in 1782. He has thus assumed the name of Colville.'

'Lord Colville of Ochiltree,' said Mary, softly and thoughtfully.

'Yes--he claims that peerage, my dear,' replied Dr. Wodrow. 'I have a great and melancholy respect for our dormant, extinct, and--more than all--for our attainted peerages. The men who held them were generally, if not all, true to Scotland, which is more than we can say for our mongrel and often cockney-born peers of the present day; but Captain Colville would be one, good, honest, and true, I doubt not.'

'And his own name?'

'I do not precisely know,' replied the minister, whose son listened to all this with a lowering brow, but lingered a little behind his father, and, while the latter was striding along the green lanes towards the manse, Robert was telling Ellinor over again of all his hopes and plans, and his expectation of certainly graduating in medicine at Edinburgh, and that he would get his diploma very shortly; and then--and then--what then?

A kiss given in secret seemed more than a reward for all his labours and consumption of the midnight oil in a lonely lodging up a common stair near the old '_Academia Jacobi VI. Scotorum Regis_,' and where he had pored for many a weary hour over 'Quain's Anatomy,' 'Christison's Dispensatory,' 'Balfour's Botany,' and so forth, inspired by his love for Ellinor Wellwood, and now he left her, with his heart full of happy dreams of the future.

'Why did Dr. Wodrow bring those two strange gentlemen here?' remarked Ellinor.

'You may well surmise,' said Mary; 'to visit two girls living alone as we do. It is so unlike him and his usual care.'

'_That_ Captain Colville struck me as being very inquisitive about us and our surroundings.'

'I do not think so,' replied Mary; 'but his friend appeared a very _blasé_ man of the world indeed, if I am a correct judge. But, if afternoon tea was merely their object, why not have gone to the manse?'

Gentlemen visitors--especially of such a style as these two--one a baronet, the other a Guardsman and claimant of a peerage--were not very usual at Birkwoodbrae; so, apart from the natural surmises as to why the old minister, usually so wary, chary, and shy about all introductions, should have brought these two to pass, the two girls had much to speculate upon that proved of considerable interest to both.

Old Colonel Wellwood, as we have said, when on his death-bed, had verbally left his two orphan daughters in the care and custody of his old friend the minister, and faithfully and kindly had the latter and his worthy better-half taken the trust upon them.

But no influence could induce the sisters, Mary especially, to quit Birkwoodbrae and reside at the manse. There was a strong spirit of independence in the girls, and believing in self-help they continued to reside in the house wherein their parents died, undisturbed, as we have said, by their kinsman, who was far away abroad.

Till the next Sunday in church the sisters of Birkwoodbrae saw nothing of their two visitors. The latter--ignoring the service, or seeming at least rather indifferent about it--were in Lord Dunkeld's pew, a large, old-fashioned one, panelled with carved oak, lined with crimson velvet, and having a little oak table in the centre of it. An arched window, in which some fragments of the original stained glass of pre-Reformation times remained, was near, and through it the sunshine streamed on the handsome face and unexceptionable bonnet of Blanche Galloway, who barely accorded the sisters a bow, and then bent her over her book, which she shared with Captain Colville.

Her father, the old lord--of whom more anon--seemed to doze, while Sir Redmond, when not glancing towards Mary and Ellinor Wellwood, seemed to occupy himself with studying the faces, not of the hard-featured country congregation, but of the Scoto-Norman chancel arch, which exhibited elaborate zig-zag rows of heads of fabulous figures and animals, characteristic of church architecture in the days of William the Lion and Alexander I. A few coats armorial were discernible here and there, emblems of races, conquests, honours, and dignities of later times, all of which had passed away; tombs where whilom hung the helmets, banners, and swords of those who defended Scotland when Scotland was true to herself, and the days when she would sink to be a neglected province were unforeseen.

Of Dr. Wodrow's sermon Ellinor took little heed. With the watchful and loving eyes of Robert upon her she was only anxious to get away from church without being addressed by Sir Redmond Sleath, and as the latter and his friend the captain were on 'escort duty' with the fair Blanche, Mary fully shared her anxiety and wish; thus both sisters were on the wing by the close of the last psalm, that sound so welcome to the shepherd-dogs, who were coiled under their master's pews, and at the first notes thereof were seen to yawn and stretch forth their legs in anticipation of a fight in the churchyard, or a scamper after the sheep on the breezy sides of the hills.

Leslie Colville and Sir Redmond were not, however, though we have said it, 'friends.' Their natures were too dissimilar for that; they were merely acquaintances, and, like some other guests, had met for perhaps the first time at Craigmhor.

Both were--to the casual eye--unexceptionable in manner and appearance; but Colville's nature and disposition were open, manly, candid, and genuinely honest; while those of Sir Redmond, whose baronetcy dated from 'yesterday,' were crooked, selfish, and secretly prone to many kinds of dissipation and evil. He had gone through the worst curriculum of both that the worlds of London and Paris can furnish. His very eyes and lips, at times, told as much.

Discovering speedily that Leslie Colville resented any loose or slighting remarks concerning the young ladies at Birkwoodbrae, and that he still more would be disposed to resent any attentions on his part towards them, though why or wherefore seemed very mysterious, Sir Redmond Sleath contrived to pay more than one visit, and to bestow more than one attention in secret, at least unknown to Colville; he, a sly Englishman of the worst type, conceiving that the other was only a 'sly Scotsman,' with views of his own, as he himself had.

On the pretence of bringing books, music, flowers, and so forth to the sisters, but more particularly Ellinor, Sir Redmond had found his way to the little villa rather oftener than Dr. Wodrow, and still more than the latter's son, would have relished. Hence, one day when Robert came to Birkwoodbrae, he saw the wished-for ferns he had gone so far and so lovingly to procure--not planted in her little fernery, but--lying dead, withered, and forgotten in a walk of the garden.

Robert Wodrow made no remark on this, but the neglect seemed somehow to tell a bitter tale to his heart.