Part 11

"Brawly," was the reply of the stiff Grizelda. "They count as far back as the fifth James, who, passing through Tweeddale, was determined to pay nae court to the Thane of Drumelzier; and yet he couldna mak his way--in a country where hill rides upon hill, and moss joins moss, frae Tweedscross to the Cauldstane-slap--without some assistance, the mair by note that he stuck in the mire, and might have been there yet, had it no been for Jock Bertram, a hind, who got the royal traveller and his men out, and led them through the thane's lands, to Glenwhappen. John got the mire whar the king stuck, which was called Duckpool, as a free gift to him and his heirs. But we o' Cauldshouthers are aulder, I ween, than even that, and we maun keep up our dignity."

"So we maun, Grizel; but you've forgot the best part o' the story, how the Thane o' Drumelzier having heard that a stranger had passed through his lands without paying him homage, rode with his men, mounted on white horses, after the rebels, and cam up with them just as the king was carousing after his journey. The thane, I wot, was sune on his knees. But we're aff the pin o' the wheel, Girz. The question is, could the family o' Geddes o' Cauldshouthers stand the shock o' a marriage wi' a doubtfu' descendant o' Jock Bertram, with five thousand in her pouch?"

"We're sae _very, very_ ancient, ye see Gib," replied the sister, as she looked meditatingly, and twirled her two thumbs at the end of her rigid arms. "Indeed, we're a'thegither lost in mist, and, for aught we ken, we may be as auld as the Hunters o' Polmood, wha got a grant o' the twa Hopes frae Malcolm Canmore. Duckpool is a mere bairn to Cauldshouthers, and this woman mayna be a real Bertram after a'. There were English Bertrams, ye ken--Bertram the Archer was o' them, and he followed the trade o' robbery."

"And what auld honourable family about the Borders ever got their lands in ony other way, Girz!" replied the brother.

"Nane, of course," rejoined Grizel; "but maybe Mrs. Shirley comes frae the real Bertrams, and five thousand might be laid out in draining the lands. Nae doubt she wad jump at ye, Gib!"

"That makes me laugh, Girz!" rejoined the brother. "The legatee o' a cotton-spinner jump at the Laird o' Cauldshouthers! Ay, if he wad stoop to let her--that's the question, sister; and there's nae other, for I was wi' the dame this very day, within an hour after Rory Flayem, the Linton writer, gave me the hint o' her gude fortune. I cam on her wi' a' the force o' the dignity o' our family, and the very name o' our lands made her shiver in tory veneration. She was thunderstruck at the honour."

"I dinna wonder at that," replied Grizel. "I mysel hae aften wondered at the ancientness o' our house, and pity the silly fools wha change the names o' their properties. Ha, ha! I fancy if the Duke o' Argyle had been ane o' the auld Blairbogs, he wadna hae changed the name o' their auld inheritance to that o' 'The Whim.'"

"Na, faith he, Girz!"

"And, by my troth," continued the sister, "I think the guidwife o' Middlebie, wha bade us change Cauldshouthers to Blinkbonny, was a wee envious, and deserved a catechising for her pains."

"There's nae doubt o't," added the brother. "But we're aff the wire again, Girz. Is it really your honest opinion that our honour would stand the shock o' the connection wi' the Widow Shirley?"

"The Emperor o' Muscovy," replied the sister, with a toss of her head, "didna lose a jot o' his greatness by marrying the cottager. The eagles o' Glenholme stoop to pick up the stanechaffers and fatten on them; and, really, I think, a'thing considered, that Cauldshouthers might, without a bend o' the back, bear up a burgher."

"The practice is, at least, justified by the aristocracy," added Gilbert; "and, ye ken, that's enough for us. It wad tak a guid drap o' burgher bluid, and mair, I wot, if there's ony o' the Duckpool sap in't, to thin that o' the Geddeses."

"And even if our honour was a wee thing damaged," rejoined the sister, "that might be made up by our lands being changed frae bog to arable, though, I believe, the bog, after a', is the auldest soil o' the country. Even the sad fate o' Nichol Muschet didna a'thegither destroy the respectability o' the Bogha's. There's great ancientness in bogs, yet as there's a kind o' fashion now-a-days about arable, I wadna be against the change to a certain limited extent. Ye hae now my opinion on this important subject, Gilbert, and may act according to the dictates o' the high spirit o' our auld race."

The door opened, and Rory Flayem entered.

"Weel, hae ye made the inquiry?" said the laird. "Has Mrs. Shirley really got a legacy o' the five thousand?"

"I have seen the cotton-spinner's will!" replied the writer, "and there can be nae doubt of the legacy."

Why more?--Next day the spruce laird was rapping at the door of the widow heiress. He entered with the cool dignity of his caste; and might have come out under the influence of the same cool prudence, had not his honourable blood been fired by the presence of one of those worthies already hinted at--a Linton laird--who could have been about nothing else in the world than trying to get a lift from off the poor's box, by the assistance of the Widow Shirley.

"Your servant, sir," said the Linton portioner; "I did not think you had been acquainted here. Ane might rather hae expected to hae seen you about Bogend or Glennmuck, where there are still some braw leddies to dispose of."

The remark was impertinent, doubtless, and horribly ill-timed, because Cauldshouthers had been rejected by Bogend, and he was here a suitor competing with one who desecrated the term he gloried in, and whom, along with the whole class of Linton lairds, he hated mortally and he had a good right to hate them, for some of them with no more than ten pounds a-year, were still heritors, and not only heritors, but ancient heritors, not much less ancient than the Geddeses themselves, so that they were a species of mock aristocrats, coming yet so near the real ones in the very attributes which the latter arrogated to themselves, that it required an effort of the mind to distinguish the real from the false. But Mr. Gilbert admitted of no such dubiety, and marked the difference decidedly and effectually. He did not return the Linton aristocrat an answer, but, drawing himself up, turned to the window as if to survey his competitor's estate, which consisted of a rood or two of arable land, and to wait till the latter took his hat. The Linton aristocrat very soon left the room; and however unimportant this slight event may appear, it was in fact decisive of the higher aristocrat's fate, for the blood of the Geddeses was up, and the heat of tory blood is a condition of the precious fluid not to be laughed at.

"Ye'll hae nae want o' thae sma' heritor creatures after ye, dame," said he, as he condescended to sit down by the blushing widow.

"Yes," answered she, with great simplicity. "Fortune, Mr. Geddes, brings friends, or, at least, would-be friends, and one who has few relations requires to be on her guard."

"It is everything in thae matters," said the proprietor, "to look to respectability and station. Thae Linton bodies ca' themselves lairds, because they are proprietors o' about as muckle ground as would mak guid roomy graves to them. A real laird is something very different. And it's a pity when it becomes necessary that _we_ should shew them the difference."

"Ah, you are of an ancient and honourable family, Mr. Geddes," said the widow. "Cauldshouthers is a name as familiar to me as Oliver Castle, or Drochel, or Neidpath, or Drumelzier."

"I see ye hae a proper estimate o' the degrees o' dignity, dame," said he; "and, doubtless, ye'll mak the better use o' the fortune that has been left ye; but I could expect naething less frae ane o' the Duckpools. I'm thinking ye're o' the right Bertrams."

"Yes," replied she; "and then my husband was descended from the Shirleys, Earl Ferrars, and Baron Ferrars of Chartley. His arms were the same as the Beauchamps, at least he used to say so. What are your's, Mr. Geddes?"

"Maybe ye dinna ken heraldry, dame!" replied the laird. "Our arms are vert, _three peat bags_, argent--the maist ancient o' the bearings in Tweeddale; as, indeed, may be evinced frae the description--peat land being clearly the original soil. Would it no be lamentable to think that sae ancient a family should end in my person."

"It is in your own power to prevent that, Mr. Geddes!" answered she.

"Say rather in your power, dame Shirley!" rejoined he, determined to cut out the Linton heritor by one bold stroke.

"O Mr. Geddes!" sighed the widow, holding her head at the proper angle of _naivete_.

"Nae wonder that she's owrepowered by the honour," muttered the suitor, as he took breath to finish what he had so resolutely begun. "I am serious, madam," he continued. "To be plain wi' ye, and come to the point at ance, I want a mistress to Cauldshouthers; and you are the individual wham I hae selected to do the honours o' that important situation."

"Oh--O Mr. Geddes!" again cried the dame. "You have _such_ a winning way of wooing!"

"I fancy there canna be the slightest breath o' objection," again said he, in his consciousness of having ennobled her in an instant by the mere hint of the honour.

"She would be a bold woman, besides a fool, that would reject so good an offer," replied she, burying her face in a napkin.

"That she would," rejoined Gilbert--"baith bauld and an idiot; and now, since ye hae received the honour wi' suitable modesty and gratitude, there is just ae condition that I wad like satisfied; and that is, that ye wad do your best to support the dignity o' the station to which you are to be elevated. Your ain pedigree, ye see, is at best but a dubious concern; and, therefore, it will require a' your efforts to comport yoursel in such a way as to accord suitably wi' the forms and punctilios o' aristocracy. It is just as weel, by the by, that ye hae few relatives; because, while the honour o' our ancient house may retain its character, in spite o' a match maybe in nae sma' degree below it, it might become a very different affair in the case o' a multitude o' puir beggarly relations."

"I am nearly the last of my race, Mr. Geddes," replied she. "Is it not strange that we should be so very like each other?"

"Ay, in _that_ particular respect," added the laird, as a salvo of their inequality.

And, after some farther concerted arrangements, the heritor left his affianced, and proceeded to Cauldshouthers, to report to Grizelda what he had achieved. In a short time, accordingly, the marriage was solemnized; and a very suitable display was made in the mansion of Cauldshouthers, where there were invited many of the neighbouring aristocrats. There were the Bogends, and the Hallmyres, and the Glenmucks, and others, some of whom, though they had asserted a superiority over the Geddeses, and turned up their noses at the match with a burgher widow with five thousand pounds, made by the vulgar operation of cotton-spinning, yet could not refuse the boon of their presence at the wedding of one of their own sect of exclusives. Miss Grizelda acted as mistress of the ceremonies, and contrived, by proper training, to make the bride go through the aristocratic drill with much eclat. She had correct opinions, as well as good practice, in this department. It is only the degenerate modern town-elite, among the exclusives, who pretend that _easiness_ of manners--meaning thereby the total absence of all dignified _stiffness_--is the true test of aristocratic breeding. The older and truer stock of the country--such as the Geddeses--despise this beggarly town-born maxim: with them nothing can be too stiff; buckram-attitudes and dresses are the very staple of their calling. And why not? Any graceful snab or snip, of good spirits, when freed from the stool or board, may be as free and frisky as a kitten; but to carry out a legitimate and consistent stiffness of the godlike machine with an according costiveness of speech and loftiness of sentiment, can belong only to those who have been born great; and so, to be sure, these were the maxims on which Grizelda acted in qualifying the bride to appear in a becoming manner before the Tweeddale grandees. Everything went off well. The dame was given out as a Duckpool; and it must have been fairly admitted, even by the proud Bogends, that she could not have acted her part better though she had been in reality descended from that house, so favoured by the fifth James, at the very time that he brought Drumelzier to his knees at Glenwhappen.

And it may thus be augured, that the Thane of Cauldshouthers was satisfied. The manners imparted to Mrs. Geddes by the sister, seemed to adhere to her; and though the Glenmucks alleged that her dignified rigidity was nothing but burgher awkwardness, it was not believed by those who knew that gentle blood hath in it some seeds of spleen.

"She performs her pairt wi' native dignity," was Gilbert's opinion expressed to his sister; "and seems to feel as if she had been born to sustain the important character she has to play, as the wife o' ane o' the auldest heritors o' Tweeddale. But ye maun keep at her, Girz; and, while you are improving her, I'll be busy with the bogs. We'll mak a' arable that will be arable."

And straightway, accordingly, he set about disposing of a part of his wife's tocher, in planting, and draining, and hedging, and ditching, with a view to impart some heat to Cauldshouthers, in return for the warmth which the fleeces of coarse wool had yielded to him and others. Meanwhile, the training within doors went on. Tea-parties were good discipline; and at one of these, the mistress of Bogend and her two daughters, and the mistress of Hallmyre and her daughter and nephew, and a number of others, witnessed the improvement of their new married neighbour. Pedigrees were always the favourite topic at Cauldshouthers.

"I maun hae Mrs Geddes's reduced to paper," said the laird, "for the satisfaction o' ye a'. I like a tree--there's a certainty about it that defies a' envy. There's few o' us, I wot, that can count sae far back as the Bertrams."

"Mrs. Geddes might tell us off hand," said the mistress of Bogend, piqued of course. "I could gie the Bogends from the first to the last."

"And I hae a' the Ha'myres on my tongue's end," said she of that old family.

"And I could gie the Geddeses, stock and stem," added Grizelda.

"But it doesna follow that Mrs. Geddes has just the same extent o' memory," said the laird, as a cover to his half-marrow.

"Indeed, my memory is very poor on family descents," said the wife; "and there is now none of our family left to assist my recollections."

"Ah, Janet," cried a voice from the door, which had opened in the meantime and let in a stout huckster-looking dame and two children. "I am right glad to see you sae weel settled," she continued, as she bustled forward and seized the mistress of the house by the hand. "But it wasna friendly, it wasna like a sister, woman, no to write and tell me o' yer marriage. Heigh! but I am tired after that lang ride frae Glasgow. Sit down, childer; it's yer aunty's house, and, by my faith, it's nae sma affair; but oh, it has an awfu name."

The speaker had it all to herself, save for a whisper from the lady of Bogend, who asked her of Hallmyres if this would be another of the Duckpools. The others were dumb from amazement; and the new-comer gloried in the silence.

"Wasna that a lucky affair--that siller left us by the cotton spinner?" she rattled forth with increasing volubility. "Be quiet, childer. Faith, lass, if we hadna got our legacy just in the nick as it were, our John, wha was only makin six shillings a week at the heckling, wad hae gi'en up the ghaist a'thegither."

The laird was getting fidgetty, and looked round for the servant; Grizelda was still dumb; the Bogends and Hallmyres were all curiosity; and Mrs. Geddes looked as if she could not help it. All was still an open field for the speaker.

"But, dear me, lass," again cried the visiter, "we never heard o' Serjeant Shirley's death."

"If ye're ony friend o' Mrs. Geddes's," said the laird, recovering himself, "you had better step ben to the parlour, and she'll see you there."

"Ou, I'm brawly where I am, sir," replied she of St. Mungo's. "There's nae use for ceremony wi' friends. Ye'll be Janet's husband, I fancy? Keep aff the back o' yer uncle's chair, ye ill-mannered brat."

"There is a woman in the parlour wishes to see yon, Mrs. Geddes," said the servant.

"What like is she?" cried the Glasgow friend. "Is she a weel-faured woman, wi' a bairn at her foot?"

"Yes," was the reply.

"Just bring her in here, then," continued the speaker. "It's our sister Betty. I asked her to meet me here the day, and she was to get a cast o' a cart as far as Linton. She was to hae brocht Saunders wi' her, but there's some great folk dead about Lithgow, and he's been sae thrang wi' their mournings that I fancy he couldna win."

"Are these your sisters, Mrs. Geddes?" said the lady of Bogend, who probably enjoyed secretly the perplexity around her.

"I can answer for mysel," replied the visiter; "and whether this be Betty or no, I'll soon tell ye;" and she rose to waddle to the door to satisfy the inquiry of the lady of Bogend. "The truth is, madam," she said, by way of favoured intelligence, as she passed the chair of the latter, "we're a' sisters; but, if we had been on the richt side o' the blanket--ye ken what I mean, if our faither and mither had been married--the siller left us by our uncle the cotton-spinner wad hae been twice as muckle. Is that you, Betty?" she bawled at the door. "Come in, woman."

"Save us!--save us!--the honour o' the Geddeses is gane for ever," groaned Gilbert.

"It's just me, Peggy," responded another voice from the passage; and the heavy tread of a weary traveller, mixed with the cries of a child, announced an approach. The two entered. The woman was dressed like the wife of a man of her husband's profession, who had got a recent legacy.

"Saunders is coming, after a," cried Betty, as she entered. "He got done with the mournings on Wednesday. He's in the public-house, alang the road there, taking a dram wi' a friend, and will be here immediately. John, I fancy, couldna win. Ye're weel set doon, Janet," she continued, as she stood and stared at the room, turning round and round. "My troth, lass, ye hae fa'n on yer feet at last. It was just as weel the sergeant de'ed. Sit ye there, Geordie, and see if ye can learn manners enough to haud yer tongue."

The little cousins, Geordie, Johnny, and Jessie, entered instantly into a clattering of friendly recognizances; and the two mothers bustled forward to chairs alongside of their sister, the lady of the house, whose colour had come and gone twenty times, and all power of speech had been taken away from her by a discovery as sudden as it was unpleasant. Yet what was to be done? Was the aristocratic Grizelda to sit and see tea filled out for the wives and weans of a dresser of yarns, and an artificer of garments? Was the honour of the Geddeses of Cauldshouthers to be scuttled by a needle and a hackle-tooth? But matters were not destined to remain even upon the poise of these pivots. The little nephew of Hallmyres, annoyed by the burgher-bairns, struck one of them a blow in the face, which the spruce scion of the Lithgow tailor returned with far more gallantry than might have been expected from one of his degenerate caste. The cousin Johnny took the part of his relative; and matters were fast progressing towards hostilities, when the lady of Hallmyres rose to quell the incipient affair.

"Aff hands, my woman," cried Peggy, suddenly leaving her chair.

"Ay, ay," added Betty, "we hae at least a right to civility in the house o' our sister. We come kindly and friendly, as may be seen frae what's in my bundle--a gude bacon ham, and a gude cassimir waistcoat, sewed by Saunders' ain hands, for the guidman o' Cauldshouthers, and a' we want is something like friendliness in return. Just let the bairns alane. They'll gree fine when better acquaint."

"Mrs. Geddes," said Grizelda, with a puckered face and a starched manner, "ye'll better tak yer friends ben the house."

"Awa wi' them!" added the laird. "We maun hae a reckoning about a' this."

"There's no the sma'est occasion for't," responded Betty. "The bairns will agree fine. Just let them play themselves while we're taking our tea. Saunders will be here immediately."

"A guid advice," added Peggy; "but wha are our friends, Janet? Canna ye speak, woman? This will be Mr. Geddes, my brither-in-law, I fancy; and this will be Girzie, my gude-sister; but as for the ithers, I ken nae mair about them than I do o' the brothers and sisters o' the sergeant, wham I never saw."

"And here comes Saunders, at last," cried Betty, rising, and running to the window. "I will gang and let him in."

Bustling to the door, she executed her purpose, and straightway appeared again, ushering in, with a face that told her pride in her husband, a Crispinite, wonderfully _bien fait_, dressed in a suit of glossy black, clean shaven, and as pale as any sprig of nobility.

"Mr. Geddes, I presume," said he, rubbing his hands, which retained the marks of the needle, if not the dye of the mournings.

"Here's a chair for ye, Saunders," cried Betty. "Ye'll no be caring for tea, after the gill ye had wi' yer auld foreman, at the sign o' the 'Harrow,' yonder. Had ye ony mair after I left ye? I'm no sure about yer e'e. There's mair glamour in't than there should be. Sit ye down, and I'll bring the bundle with the ham and the waistcoat."

Grizelda held up her hands in amazement.

"For the love o' heaven, leave us, good leddies," she said to her friends.

"Oh ay," added the laird, "leave us, leave us, for mercy's sake."

"You have got into a duckpool," whispered the lady of Hallmyres, as she rose, followed by the others; "and I wish you fair out of it. Good by--good by."

BON GUALTIER'S TALES.

COUNTRY QUARTERS.

A pleasanter little town than Potterwell does not exist in that part of her Majesty's dominions called Scotland. On one side, the hand of cultivation has covered a genial soil with richness and fertility. The stately mansion, "bosomed high in tufted trees," occasionally invites the eye, as it wanders over the landscape; while here and there, the river Wimpledown may be seen peeping out amid the luxuriant verdure of wood and plain, and seeming to concentrate on itself all the radiance of any little sunshine that may be going. On the other side, again, are nothing but impracticable mountains--fine bluff old fellows--that evidently have an extensive and invincible contempt for Time, and, like other great ones of the earth, never carry any _change_ about them. Look beyond these, and the prospect is indeed a fine one--a little monotonous, perhaps, but still a fine one--peak receding behind peak in endless series, a multitudinous sea of mountain tops, with noses as blue as a disappointed man's face, or Miss Harriet Martineau's stockings.