Chapter XXI: Sir Hugo Drawn by ‘le Grand Simple.’

Before Sir Hugo quitted Glasgow and returned to Cambridge, he rode out and paid a call at Drysdale Hall, instead of leaving his card. But he was not shown into the picture-gallery. No Cinderella was about the drawing-room or the hall. Indeed, he was unfortunate in missing both of the daughters of the house, who were in Glasgow. He only saw Mrs. Drysdale, and his solitary small consolation was in earnestly recommending himself to that friendly woman.

During this conversation. Sir Hugo caught at the casual mention of a lecture on Health, to be given by Dr. Peter Murray to the work-people at Drysdale Haugh, at which some of the members of their employer’s family were to be present. He was not familiar with any lectures except university lectures. He had never been at a lecture to operatives. He had heard of Dr. Peter Murray as an original--not a mute, but a comparatively inglorious--man of learning and science.

The young Englishman worried Guy Horsburgh into taking him to listen to what Guy was persuaded was not in Sir Hugo’s line; anyhow, Sir Hugo was punished for his pains. The lecture was clever and well delivered, as well as homely and practical. Moreover, the operatives came to hear it. Among them was Lady Semple, whose last hobby was hygiene. But the deputation from Drysdale Hall consisted of auld Tam and young Tam, who had got up the lecture, and Mrs. Drysdale, who accompanied her husband from pure love of his company, and because she owed Athole Murray a visit.

After all, the scene of Dr. Peter’s lecture was not a likely place in which to meet Clary and Eppie. But in spite of the unreasonableness of his expectations, Sir Hugo felt a good deal disgusted by their nonfulfilment, and for a time put up his back at the whole affair, in a manner that would have tended to impair his universal popularity, had not his genial temper recovered itself before it was too late. Then, in the revulsion of feeling, he began to admire the lecture, the lecturer, the audience of respectable, hard-headed, sound-hearted working men and women almost as extravagantly as he had admired everything in Glasgow. And the young man was positively enchanted with Barley Riggs, to which he and his friend Horsburgh went, on the hospitable invitation of Dr. Peter, to have a cup of tea with Lady Semple and the Drysdales at Miss Murray’s tea-table, before they returned home to dinner.

Sir Hugo had no particular thirst for tea, but the enthusiastic side of his temperament was caught by the new surroundings. He had only twice before made the acquaintance of establishments equally plain and simple, and at the same time bearing unmistakable marks of culture--once when he was at school in Germany, and once in the house of a professor at Harvard, which he had visited during a tour in America the previous summer. In each case he had fallen violently in love with the example. What appeared to Sir Hugo the quaint homeliness, together with the real refinement, and in the case of Barley Riggs, the little foreign touches which showed that a man had travelled afar and yet kept faithful to his first love, seized hold of his impulsive fancy, just as Eppie Drysdale’s rusticity and exquisite sweetness had captivated the same rampant imagination.

Sir Hugo persuaded himself that _le grand simple_ was his _beau idéal_, that he cared little for the local standing and antiquarian glory of Willoughby Court--at least, that if he were not Sir Hugo, he would be a young Dr. Peter, and that, on the whole, he would prefer to be a Dr. Peter. He was sure that he would like, above all things, to have such a study, parlour, and living-room as that at Barley Riggs, to be waited on by a single rosy-cheeked maid-servant, to go and come when he chose, to be refreshed by tea and a poached egg, or a slice of mutton ham, instead of a dinner of half a dozen courses. The notion belonged to the attributes which had rendered Sir Hugo, ten years before, the most eager young mock Robinson Crusoe that ever sprang from a high civilization. He was very boyish still, in spite of his easy good-breeding and his having come into his kingdom. What young Eppie Drysdale called ‘the heap of beasts’ at Barley Riggs was as fascinating to him as to her. It was night, and they were most of them in their sheds and roosts; but a few streamed forth--sidling, fluttering, barking, mewing, twittering--to hail their owners. Sir Hugo would have liked to provide himself with Dr. Peter’s lantern and go round on a tour of inspection. The lovely moonlight in some respects supplied the place of the lantern, and shone white on the wealth of spring flowers and on the cribs and perches of the animals.

There must be something subtle and intoxicating in moonlight; if not in all moonlight, in special kinds, such as that which shone on Barley Riggs this night, and got into the brains of all the younger persons present, so that Dr. Peter could hardly keep them in order. They would not rest at Athole’s tea-table, nor could its mistress be said to do much to detain them. She fulfilled her duties, certainly, but when they were done she was on the wing like the others, not to lose the moonlight; as if moonlight were not cheap and common--almost as much so as sunshine--to be had on so many fine nights a month, the whole year round, during all the years of all the centuries. No doubt there were favourable conditions which were not always available, such as weather unusually balmy for a Scotch spring, a pleasant garden to wander in, a group of young people--three young men and two girls, for Athole had a Glasgow girl visiting her--thrown together by chance, and suddenly developing undreamed-of elements of good fellowship. When these extraordinary advantages did occur, perhaps it was well to improve the occasion. It might have been the fact of having been caged up with the rest of the assembly for an hour in a schoolroom, listening to a lecture of any kind, and then let loose like so many school-children. It might have been latent impulses stirring young hearts. Whatever the reason, these older boys and girls, all of them, including young Tam, were gay and unrestrained. They made much merry movement and noise as they tramped and flitted about the garden; stooped to examine and insist upon the points of flowers and vegetables; were mad enough to seek for birds’ nests by the moonbeams, and disturbed the domestic privacy of two broods of ducks and chickens and a litter of puppies, to expatiate and dispute on the rival merits of the flabby, woolly specimens.

At length, the quieter company within doors--Dr. Peter, Lady Semple, auld Tam, and Mrs. Drysdale--were brought to the door to see what the commotion was about, whether treasure-trove had turned up in the garden, or treason was being plotted in the usually peaceful domain.

Athole Murray, Sir Hugo, and young Tam were the ringleaders. Athole’s friend and Guy Horsburgh were merely serving as echoes. Athole was marching between her two squires, and was bantering them impartially. Did Sir Hugo really approve of the moon? Had he ever gone a-hunting by its light? Had he shot a wandering calf for a stag royal? Was Mr. Tom prepared to treat moonlight as a colour, and to bring it out in chemicals? There were moonlight beads, why not moonlight calicoes? Might she be allowed to draw the pattern, and call it the lunatic design?

Both the young men were answering her in the same vein, and young Tam was speaking as briskly and with as much idle glee as Sir Hugo spoke; the moonlight had touched and transformed him. For the moment he was as unthinking and unheeding as a young man need be. The inequalities of life had ceased to exist for him. He was impervious to his own lack of desert and hopelessness of attaining his ends. He feared nothing, and anticipated nothing.

Snatches of the senseless gaiety, which was getting slightly wild, reached the listeners, and coming from certain sources bewildered the hearers. Mrs. Drysdale, especially, was much exercised by what she saw and heard, and confided her perplexity to its natural recipient on the drive homeward.

‘I have always had a regard for that lassie of Dr. Peter’s,’ she began slowly; ‘for one thing, she’s a mitherless lassie, and she has played her part well, and been a gude housekeeper and a gude dochter to her father--honest man. I have aye thought her a fine lassie, beyond the common, with her management, and industry, and sense, though maybe Dr. Peter has spoiled her with learnin’; yet she’s not conceited. I never reckoned her anythin’ but modest and unaffected, and as gude company as if she had never opened a book. But, weel-a-wat she’s no bonnie--a blecket thing with a muckle mouth. What a fine lad and grand gentleman like Sir Hughie can see in her, to daff [jest] with her as he war doin’ the night, passes my comprehension.’

‘Every man to his mind,’ said Tam a little stiffly. ‘But your new friend Sir Hugie seems to have a variety of minds. However, he’s welcome. Nobody will object.’

‘Oh, I pay little heed to a lad, whatever his rank, bein’ led awa’ by a bit of funnin’ with a lass, and enjoyin’ it at his age,’ said Mrs. Drysdale quickly. ‘More by token, there was nobody he liked better standin’ by; and I’m willin’ to make every allowance for a lassie such as Athole Murray--a clever lassie with a quick tongue that lives alane with an auld man, hooever fond she may be of him, and is fain to get her head out with her kind, whiles. But what troubles me is that she has the face to laugh at oor Tam, who is so far aboon her in his solidity and superiority, as if he had been ony triflin’ lad like Sir Hughie.’

‘If you noticed so much as that, mother,’ said Tam with decision, ‘you might have gone farther and seen that the felly did not find faut with bein’ laughed at by her; he was carryin’ her on as if the joke were marry to his banes.’

‘It would hae been a pity in him to condescend to be wrathful,’ said Eppie, holding her head high; ‘but she should mind what she’s about, and no’ take sic liberties--they are no’ becomin’ in a young lass.’

‘And so should he mind,’ corrected Tam, holding the scales more evenly between the offending parties, and speaking sharply, ‘for this will never do.’

‘What will never do, Tam?’ cried Eppie, in a high key of mingled indignation and derision. ‘Have you gane gyte [lost your senses]? Do you think for a moment that oor Tam, who has but to wag his finger to have the bonniest, brawest lassie, with the biggest tocher in Glasgy, could be in earnest in makin’ up to a plain-lookin’, ill-dressed lassie like Athole Murray?’

‘You women think owre muckle of looks and claes [dress],’ protested Tam.

‘Well, it’s the first time I’ve heard you men cast laith at them,’ declared Eppie sarcastically.

‘Onyway,’ cried Tam, ‘there’s mair roads to a man’s heart than by his een--and mair roads to please them in, too, than by lily skins and red cheeks, strecht noses and wee mous--though these are all gude things of their kind. I’m no’ disputin’ it. I’m the last man that should dispute it--eh, Eppie, my doo! But I dare say if it were examined into, men like Tam are as often caught by their lugs [ears] as by their een, and you’ll own that lassie has a tongue that would wile a bird from a tree.’

‘I own naething of the sort,’ said Mother Eppie, fairly nettled; ‘a tongue that would clip cloots [cut cloth], if that is what you mean. I never heard sic nonsense as you’ve been speakin’ the nicht, Tam.’

‘I expected you to say sae,’ said Tam composedly; ‘yet not five minutes syne you were praising the lass to the masthead--you began by not findin’ words gude enough to wale upon her. And you were richt,’ said Tam, with sudden emphasis. ‘She’s a perfect leddy--as my auld friend, whom I’m proud to call sae, Dr. Peter, is every inch a gentleman; she’s a lass among a thousand. Dod! when I think of what she did for the auld Miss Mackinnons, I could find it in my heart not only to waur [spend] Tam upon her, but to count him not half gude enough for her, and a happy and honoured man if he could get her.’

‘Tam, oor Tam!’ gasped poor Mrs. Drysdale, overcome by the infatuation of another of her men-folk. ‘But you never thocht enough of my fine sedate lad. The lassie’s weel enough, forbye she has not a mither. I never said an ill word of her; but you’re clean daft about her--a black-a-viced [dark complexioned] thing. I would not give a five-pound note for every steek [stitch] in her possession.’

‘You need not fash your head, Eppie, my woman,’ said Tam more soberly. ‘If a man lives in the world, he has to use the world’s measurements. I ken what folk would think and say. For all Athole Murray’s gudeness and cleverness, and though she’s a leddy born and bred, they would hold her as little better than a millhand or a bleacher--a plain-headed, insignificant-looking lass, without a penny, that drew patterns for the pattern-shop. They would say that young Tam had demeaned himself, instead of risin’ a step higher in the world. Na, na; it will not do. Whether young Tam and her are wooin’ Scotch fashion, or waging war, there must be an end of it. She’s a gude dochter, and a word to Dr. Peter would be enough, as I would let the chiel, who’ll never have done with his maggots [whims], ken on the deafest side of his head. But I want no unpleasantness with an old friend that I can help. The folly may blow over, or die a natural death of itself; or the lassie, who has wit enough to see round a corner, may put an end to it by havin’ no more to say to the perverse beggar.’

‘Athole Murray no more to say to young Tam!’ echoed young Tam’s mother almost faintly, in her horror at the supposition. She was unable to add any more stinging suggestion than what was summed up in Miss Janet Mackinnon’s favourite protest, ‘Set her up!’

Lady Semple had her version of the garden scene, which she confided to the pages of her diary.

‘That boy, Sir Hugo, does need somebody to look after him. I wish Claribel Drysdale would be quick in taking him in hand, or she may lose her chance, and there may be other losses. Is he falling in love all round, as an introduction to a grand passion for Claribel? These introductions are not always to be trusted. It was all very well to pay his devoirs to the little sister, and ensure her being on his side, but what has Miss Murray got to do with it? There is something piquante about that girl--the dangerous fascination which enables some plain women to get the better of all the pretty ones. I am not sure that if she cared she might not be a greater social success than Claribel--more original, racier. But the thing is not to be thought of for a moment. The plain daughter of a country doctor, without the ghost of a fortune! It would be using poor dear Lady Willoughby quite too badly to entertain the idea for a second--indeed, not to take strong steps to guard against it, if it were not that Sir Hugo is going back to his tutor in a week at the latest. (I wish the man joy of his charge; such romantic boys are nearly as bad as _mauvais sujets_; I am glad Dick’s romance has taken a different form.) Besides, Dr. Peter Murray is the soul of honour; there is nothing to be feared from him; on the contrary, if he dreamed of such an absurdity, I do believe he would be the first to put a stop to it.’

It was true that Dr. Peter took Athole to task--very gently, however, and in a few words--before the night was over.

‘My dear, I think you let your spirits run away with you. In the first place, you ought to have stayed in the house and entertained the married ladies. Then one of them was Lady Semple, and though she sets little store on her rank, in a general way, that is no reason why we should do the same. You ought to have kept Annie [Athole’s visitor] with you, and left the lads to divert themselves as they liked in the moonlit garden. There was no great harm done, but it was not like you to be so---- ’

‘So “royd”’ [foolishly gay].

Athole took the word out of his mouth, using one of the Doric expressions which the Drysdale Haugh mothers applied to their riotous children. She shook her head and smiled a little, while her face was pale, as if the reflection of the moonlight was still upon it.

‘I don’t know what came over me. I suppose I wanted a “rallyie” [frolic], as girls like Jeannie say in self-defence. It was ill-judged and ill-bred. I shall take care it does not happen again; but one has such a desire sometimes to cast care--which means decorum in this instance--to the winds, let one’s spirits loose, and give the reins to the impulse of the moment--in fact, to be carried away like a mad creature for five minutes--when one is pretty sure to be brought up by some scrape, and feel sorry and ashamed for the next twenty-four hours.’

As for the two men who had matched Athole, one of them, young Tam, was not well out of her presence before he suffered a collapse.

Sir Hugo held out longer. ‘Miss Murray is simply charming,’ he told Guy Horsburgh with effusion, provoking Guy to cry, ‘Hold, enough! Willoughby, we’ll have you in ecstasies with my grandmother next.’