“Indeed you will, Tibbie; here are my brother’s orders that you should go down, as soon as you can conveniently make ready, and see about the new plenishing.”
“They may see to the plenishing that’s to guide it after han, an’ that’ll no be me. My lord’ll behove to tak’ his orders aff his young leddy ance he’s married on her, may be a whilie afore, but that’s no to bind ither folk, an’ it’s no to be thought that at my years I’m to be puttin’ up wi’ a’ ther new fangled English fykes an’ nonsense maggots. Na, na, Maister Colin, his lordship’ll fend weel aneugh wantin’ Tibbie; an’ what for suld I leave yerself, an’ you settin’ up wi’ a house o’ yer ain? Deed an’ my mind’s made up, I’ll e’en bide wi’ ye, an’ nae mair about it.”
“Stay, stay,” cried Colin, a glow coming into his cheeks, “don’t reckon without your host, Tibbie. Do you think Gowanbrae the second is never to have any mistress but yourself?”
“Haud awa’ wi’ ye, laddie, I ken fine what ye’ra ettlin’ at, but yon’s a braw leddy, no like thae English folk, but a woman o’ understandin’, an’ mair by token I’m thinkin’ she’ll be gleg aneugh to ken a body that’ll serve her weel, an’ see to the guidin’ o’ thae feckless queens o’ servant lasses, for bad’s the best o’ them ye’ll fin’ hereawa’. Nae fear but her an’ me’ll put it up weel thegither, an’ a’ gude be wi’ ye baith.”
After this Colin resigned himself and his household to Tibbie’s somewhat despotic government, at least for the present. To Ermine’s suggestion that her appellation hardly suited the dignity of her station, he replied that Isabel was too romantic for southern ears, and that her surname being the same as his own, he was hardly prepared to have the title of Mrs. Keith preoccupied. So after Mrs. Curtis’s example, the world for the most part knew the colonel’s housekeeper as Mrs. Tibbs.
She might be a tyrant, but liberties were taken with her territory; for almost the first use that the colonel made of his house was to ask a rheumatic sergeant, who had lately been invalided, to come and benefit by the Avonmouth climate. Scottish hospitality softened Tibbie’s heart, and when she learnt that Sergeant O’Brien had helped to carry Master Colin into camp after his wound, she thought nothing too good for him. The Colonel then ventured to add to the party an exemplary consumptive tailor from Mr. Mitchell’s parish, who might yet be saved by good living and good air. Some growls were elicited, but he proved to be so deplorably the ninetieth rather than the ninth part of a man, that Tibbie made it her point of honour to fatten him; and the sergeant found him such an intelligent auditor of the Indian exploits of the ⸺th Highlanders that mutual respect was fully established, and high politeness reigned supreme, even though the tailor could never be induced to delight in the porridge, on which the sergeant daily complimented the housekeeper in original and magnificent metaphors.
Nor had the Colonel any anxieties in leaving the representatives of the three nations together while he went to attend his brother’s wedding. He proposed that Tibbie should conduct Rose for the daily walk of which he had made a great point, thinking that the child did not get exercise enough, since she was so averse to going alone upon the esplanade that her aunt forbore to press it. She manifested the same reluctance to going out with Tibbie, and this the Colonel ascribed to her fancying herself too old to be under the charge of a nurse. It was trying to laugh her out of her dignity, but without eliciting an answer, when, one afternoon just as they were entering together upon the esplanade, he felt her hand tighten upon his own with a nervous frightened clutch, as she pressed tremulously to his side.
“What is it, my dear? That dog is not barking at you. He only wants to have a stick thrown into the sea for him.”
“Oh not the dog! It was—”
“Was, what?”
“Him!” gasped Rose.
“Who?” inquired the Colonel, far from prepared for the reply, in a terrified whisper—
“Mr. Maddox.”
“My dear child! Which, where?”
“He is gone! he is past. Oh, don’t turn back! Don’t let me see him again.”
“You don’t suppose he could hurt you, my dear.”
“No,” hesitated Rose, “not with you.”
“Nor with anyone.”
“I suppose not,” said Rose, common sense reviving, though her grasp was not relaxed.
“Would it distress you very much to try to point him out to me?” said the Colonel, in his irresistibly sweet tone.
“I will. Only keep hold of my hand, pray,” and the little hand trembled so much that he felt himself committing a cruel action in leading her along the esplanade, but there was no fresh start of recognition, and when they had gone the whole length, she breathed more freely, and said, “No, he was not there.”
Recollecting how young she had been at the time of Maddox’s treason, the Colonel began to doubt if her imagination had not raised a bugbear, and he questioned her, “My dear, why are you so much afraid, of this person? What do you know about him?”
“He told wicked stories of my papa,” said Rose, very low.
“True, but he could not hurt you. You don’t think he goes about like Red Ridinghood’s wolf?”
“No, I am not so silly now.”
“Are you sure you know him? Did you often see him in your papa’s house?”
“No, he was always in the laboratory, and I might not go there.”
“Then you see, Rose, it must be mere fancy that you saw him, for you could not even know him by sight.”
“It was not fancy,” said Rose, gentle and timid as ever, but still obviously injured at the tone of reproof.
“My dear child,” said Colonel Keith, with some exertion of patience, “you must try to be reasonable. How can
