Here, however, the pleasant delusion with which Nora’s humble champion was delighting himself was suddenly dispersed by a question which proved his young master to be thinking nothing about Nora. “I used to know some of the Lindores family,” John repeated, “a brother of the Earl. I wonder if they ever come here?”
“I ken nothing about their relations, sir,” said Rolls, promptly. “It’s thought the Earl’s awfu’ ambitious. They’re no that rich, and he has an eye to everything that will push the family on. There’s one of them marriet, poor thing!”
“I am afraid you are a fierce old bachelor,” said John, rising from the table; “this is the second time you have said ‘poor thing.’ ”
“That’s my Lady Caroline, sir,” said Rolls, with a grave face, “that’s married upon Torrance of Tinto, far the richest of all our neighbour gentlemen. You’ll no remember him? He was a big mischievous callant when you were but a little thing, begging your pardon, sir, for the freedom,” said the old servant, with a little bow of apology; but the gravity of his countenance did not relax. “It’s not thought in the countryside that the leddy was very fain of the marriage—poor thing!”
“You are severe critics in the countryside. One must take care what one does, Rolls.”
“Maybe, sir, that’s true; they say public opinion’s a grand thing: whiles it will keep a person from going wrong. But big folk think themselves above that,” Rolls said. And then, having filled out a glass of wine, which his master did not want; he withdrew. Rolls was not quite satisfied with the young laird. He betook himself to the kitchen with his tray and a sigh, unburdening himself to Bauby as he set down the remains of the meal on the table. “I wouldna wonder,” he said, shaking his head, “if he turned out mair English than the Cornel himsel’.”
“Hoot, Tammas!” said Bauby, always willing to take the best view, “that’s no possible. When ye refleck that he was born at Dalrulzian, and brought up till his thirteenth year—”
“Sic bringing up!” cried old Rolls; “and a step-faither that never could learn so much as to say the name right o’ the house that took him in!”
Meanwhile John, left alone with his own thoughts, found a curious vein of new anticipations opened to him by the old man’s talk. The smile that had lighted on the corners of his mouth came back and settled there, betraying something of the maze of pleased recollections, the amused yet tender sentiment, which these familiar yet half-forgotten names had roused again. Caroline and Edith Lindores! No doubt they were family names, and the great young ladies who were his neighbours were the cousins of those happy girls whom he remembered so well. The Lindores had been at a Swiss mountain inn where he and some of his friends had lived for six weeks under pretence of reading. They had made friends on the score of old family acquaintance “at home”; and he never remembered so pleasant a holiday. What had become of the girls by this time? Carry, the eldest, was sentimental and poetical, and all the young men were of opinion that Beaufort the young University Don, who was at the head of the party, had talked more poetry than was good for him with that gentle enthusiast. Beaufort had gone to the Bar since then, and was said to be getting on. Had they kept up their intercourse, or had it dropped, John wondered, as his own acquaintance with the family had dropped? They were poor people, living abroad for economy and education, notwithstanding that Mr. Lindores was brother to an earl. Surely sometimes the Earl must invite his relations, or at least he would be sure to hear of them, to come within the circle of their existence again. Young Erskine had almost forgotten, to tell the truth, the existence of the Lindores; yet when they were thus recalled to him, and the possibility of a second meeting dawned on his mind, his heart gave a jump of pleasure in his bosom. On the instant there appeared before him the prettiest figure in short frocks, with an aureola of hair about the young head—a child, yet something more than a child. Edith had been only sixteen, he remembered; indeed he found that he remembered everything about her as soon as her image was thus lightly called back. What might she be now, in her grown-up condition? Perhaps not so sweet, perhaps married—a contingency which did not please him to think of. And what if he should be on the eve of seeing her again!
The smile of pleasure, of amusement, even of innocent vanity with which in this airy stage a young man contemplates such a possibility, threw a pleasant light over his face. He went out with that smile half hidden under his fair moustache, which gave it a kind of confidential character between him and himself so to speak. As he had nothing else to do, it occurred to him to take a walk on the road to Dunearn, where he had seen the French-Scotch tourelles of Lindores Castle through the trees the day before, and “take a look at” the place—why, he did not know—for no particular reason, merely to amuse himself. And as he went down the avenue, that old episode came back to him more and more fully. He remembered all the little expeditions, the little misadventures, the jokes, though perhaps they were not brilliant. Carry lingering behind with Beaufort, talking Shelley, with a flush of enthusiasm about her: Edith always foremost, chidden and petted, and made much of by everybody, with her long hair waving, and those fine little shoes which he had tied once—thick mountain shoes—but such wonderful Cinderella articles! All these recollections amused him like a story as he went down the avenue, taking away his attention from external things; and it was not till
