Part 5 (2/2)
Yet he followed obediently enough.
Within the shadowed ”ben”-room of Craig Ronald all the morning this oddly a.s.sorted pair of old people had been sitting--as indeed every morning they sat, one busily reading and often looking up to talk; while the other, the master of the house himself, sat silent, a majestic and altogether pathetic figure, looking solemnly out with wide-open, dreamy eyes, waking to the actual world of speech and purposeful life only at rare intervals.
But Walter Skirving was keenly awake when Ralph Peden entered. It was in fact he, and not his partner, who spoke first--for Walter Skirving's wife had among other things learned when to be silent-- which was, when she must.
”You honour my hoose,” he said; ”though it grieves me indeed that I canna rise to receive yin o' your family an' name! But what I have is at your service, for it was your n.o.ble faither that led the faithful into the wilderness on the day o' the Great Apostasy!”
The young man shook him by the hand. He had no bashfulness here.
He was on his own ground. This was the very accent of the society in which he moved in Edinburgh.
”I thank you,” he said, quietly and courteously, stepping back at once into the student of divinity; ”I have often heard my father speak of you. You were the elder from the south who stood by him on that day. He has ever retained a great respect for you.”
”It WAS a great day,” Walter Skirving muttered, letting his arm rest on the little square deal table which stood beside him with his great Bible open upon it--”a great day--aye, Maister Peden's laddie i' my hoose! He's welcome, he's mair nor welcome.”
So saying, he turned his eyes once more on the blue mist that filled the wide Grannoch Valley, and the bees hummed again in the honey-scented marshmallows so that all heard them.
”This is my grandmother,” said Winsome, who stood quite quiet behind her chair, swinging the sunbonnet in her hand. From her flower-set corner the old lady held out her band. With a touch of his father's old-fas.h.i.+oned courtesy he stooped and kissed it.
Winsome instinctively put her hand quickly behind her as though he had kissed that. Once such practices have a beginning, who knows where they may end? She had not expected it of him, though, curiously, she thought no worse of him for his gallantry.
But the lady of Craig Ronald was obviously greatly pleased.
”The lad has guid bluid in him. That's the minnie [mother] o' him, nae doot. She was a Gilchrist o' Linwood on Nithsdale. What she saw in your faither to tak' him I dinna ken ony mair than I ken hoo it cam' to pa.s.s that I am the mistress o' Walter Skirving's hoose the day.--Come oot ahint my chair, la.s.sie; dinna be lauchin'
ahint folks's backs. D'ye think I'm no mistress o' my ain hoose yet, for a' that ye are sic a grand hoosekeeper wi' your way o't.”
The accusation was wholly gratuitous. Winsome had been grave with a great gravity. But she came obediently out, and seated herself on a low stool by her grandmother's side. There she sat, holding her hand, and leaning her elbow on her knee. Ralph thought he had never seen anything so lovely in his life--an observation entirely correct. The old lady was clad in a dress of some dark stiff material, softer than brocade, which, like herself, was more beautiful in its age than even in youth. Folds of snowy lawn covered her breast and fell softly about her neck, fastened there by a plain black pin. Her face was like a portrait by Henry Raeburn, so beautifully venerable and sweet. The twinkle in her brown eyes alone told of the forceful and restless spirit which was imprisoned within. She had been reading a new volume of the Great Unknown which the Lady Elizabeth had sent her over from the Big House of Greatorix. She had laid it down on the entry of the young man. Now she turned sharp upon him.
”Let me look at ye, Maister Ralph Peden. Whaur gat ye the 'Ralph'?
That's nae westland Whig name. Aye, aye, I mind--what's comin' o'
my memory? Yer grandfaither was auld Ralph Gilchrist; but ye dinna tak' after the Gilchrists--na, na, there was no ane o' them weel faured--muckle moo'd [large-mouthed] Gilchrists they ca'ed them.
It'll be your faither that you favour.”
And she turned him about for inspection with her hand.
”Grandmother--” began Winsome, anxious lest she should say something to offend the guest of the house. But the lady did not heed her gentle monition.
”Was't you that ran awa' frae a bonny la.s.s yestreen?” she queried, sudden as a flash of summer lightning.
It was now the turn of both the younger folk to blush. Winsome reddened with vexation at the thought that he should think that she had seen him run and gone about telling of it. Ralph grew redder and redder, and remained speechless. He did not think of anything at all.
”I am fond of exercise,” he said falteringly.
The gay old lady rippled into a delicious silver stream of laughter, a little thin, but charmingly provocative. Winsome did not join, but she looked up imploringly at her grandmother, leaning her head back till her tresses swept the ground.
When Mistress Skirving recovered herself,
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