“That’s just what I expectit, sir,” said Rolls; “but maybe I ken my ain affairs best, having no man of business. And about Bauby, she’s just what I care for most. I wouldna have her vexed or distresst for siller, or put out of her ordinar. The maister he’s but a young man, and no’ attached to us as he would have been had he been brought up at hame. It’s a great drawback to a young lad, Mr. Monypenny”—Rolls broke off his personal argument to say sententiously—“not to be brought up at hame.”
“Because he does not get the chance of becoming attached to his servants?” said Mr. Monypenny, with an impatient laugh. “Perhaps it may be so, but this is a curious moment to moralise on the subject.”
“No’ so curious as you think, sir; but I will not weary you,” said Rolls, with some dignity. “When I was saying ootlay, I meant mair than just a sixpence here or there. But Bauby’s the grand question. I’m in a strange kind of a poseetion, and the one thing I’m clear in is my duty to her. She’s been a rael guid sister to me; aye made me comfortable, studiet my ways, took an interest in all my bits o’ fykes. I would ill like either scorn or trouble to come to Bauby. She’s awfu’ softhearted,” said the old butler, solemnly gazing into vacancy with a reddening of his eyes. Something of that most moving of all sentiments, self-pity, was in his tone. He foresaw Bauby’s apron at her eyes for him, and in her grief over her brother, his own heart was profoundly moved. “There will be some things that nobody can save her from: but for all that concerns this world, if I could be sure that nothing would happen to Bauby—”
“Well, Rolls, you’re past my comprehension,” said Mr. Monypenny; “but so far as taking care of Bauby in case anything happens to you—though what should happen to you I have yet to learn.”
“That is just so,” said Rolls, getting up slowly. There was about him altogether a great solemnity, like a man at a funeral, Mr. Monypenny said afterwards. “I cannot expect you to know, sir—that’s atween me and my Maker. I’m no’ going back to Dalrulzian. I cannot have my mind disturbed at this awfu’ moment, as ye say, with weemen and their ways. If ye see the English gentleman, ye’ll maybe explain. Marget has a very guid notion o’ waitin’; she can do all that’s necessary; and for me, I’ve ither work in hand.”
“You must not look at everything in so gloomy a spirit, Rolls,” said Mr. Monypenny, holding out his hand. He was not in the habit of shaking hands with the butler, but there are occasions when rules are involuntarily broken through.
“No’ a gloomy spirit, sir, but awfu’ serious,” said Rolls. “You’ll tell the young maister no’ to be downhearted, but at the same time no’ to be that prood. Help may come when it’s little looked for. I’m no’ a man of mony words, but I’ve been, as you say, sir, attached to the family all my days, and I have just a feeling for them more than common. The present gentleman’s mother—her that married the English minister—was no’ just what suited the house. Dalrulzian was nothing to her; and that’s what I compleen o’, that the young man was never brought up at hame, to have confidence in his ain folk. It would have been greatly for his advantage, sir,” continued Rolls, “if he had but had the discernment to see that our bonnie Miss Nora was just the person;—but I mustna think now of making conditions,” he said, hurriedly—“we’ll leave that to his good sense. Mony thanks to you, sir, for hearing me out, and shaking my hand as ye’ve done; though there’s maybe things I have said that are a wee hard to understand.”
“Ay, Rolls,” said Mr. Monypenny, laughing, “you’re just like the other prophets; a great deal of what you’ve said is Greek and Hebrew to me.”
“No doubt, no doubt,” said Rolls, shaking his head; there was no smile in him, not a line in his countenance that marked even incipient humour. Whatever he meant it was deadly earnest to Rolls. Mr. Monypenny stood and watched him go out, with a laugh gurgling low down in his throat. “He was always a conceited body,” he said to himself. But his inclination to laughter subsided as his visitor disappeared. It was no moment for laughing. And when Rolls was gone, the temptation to speculate on his words, and put meaning into them, subsided also, and Mr. Monypenny gave himself up with great seriousness to consider the position. He ordered his little country carriage—something of the phaeton order, but not elegant enough for classification—and drove away as quickly as his comfortable cob would consent to go, to where John was. Such a thing had not happened to any person of importance in the county since he could remember. Debt, indeed—debt was common enough, and plenty of trouble always, about money, Mr. Monypenny said to himself, shaking his head, as he went along. There had been borrowings and hypothecations of all sorts enough to make a financier’s hair stand on end; but crime never! Not that men were better here than in other quarters; but among the gentry that had never happened. The good man ran on, in a rambling inaudible soliloquy, or rather colloquy with himself, as he drove on, asking how it was, after all, that incidents of the kind were so rare among the gentry. Was the breed better? He shook his head, remembering himself of various details which interfered with so easy a solution. Or was it that things were more easily hushed up? or that superior education enforced
