Chapter 14

If Mysie Craig had appeared shortly before to Miss Gilroy paler than any snow her ladyship had ever seen, she must now have been as pale as some other kind of snow that nobody ever saw. The dreadful words had indeed produced the adequate effect, but not in the most common way, for we are to keep in view that it is not the most shrinking and sensitive natures that are always the readiest to faint; and there was, besides, the aforesaid conviction of impossibility which, grasping the mind by a certain force, deadened the ear to words implying the contrary. Mysie stood fixed to the spot, as if she were trying to realize some certainty she dared not think was possible, her lips apart, her eyes riveted on the face of the lady--mute as that kind of picture which a certain ancient calls a silent poem, and motionless as a figure of marble.

An attitude and appearance still more inexplicable to Anabella, perhaps irritating as an unlucky omen, and therefore not possessing any claim for sympathy--at least it got none.

"Are you the Mysie Craig," she cried, as she looked at the girl, "who used to chat to me about the dresses you brought, and the flowers on them? Ah, jealous and envious, is that it? But you forget, George Balgarnie never could have made _you_ his wife--a working needlewoman; he only fancied you as the plaything of an hour. He told me so himself when I charged him with having been seen in your company. So, Mysie, you may as well look cheerful. Your turn will come next with some one in your own station."

There are words which stimulate and confirm; there are others that seem to kill the nerve and take away the sense, nor can we ever tell the effect till we see it produced; and so we could not have told beforehand--nay, we would have looked for something quite opposite--that Mysie, shrinking and irritable as she was by nature, was saved from a faint (which had for some moments been threatening her) by the cruel insult which thus had been added to her misfortune. She had even power to have recourse to that strange device of some natures, that of "affecting to be not affected;" and casting a glance at the fine lady, she turned and went away without uttering a single word. But who knows the pain of the conventional concealment of pain except those who have experienced the agony of the trial? Even at the moment when she heard that George Balgarnie was to be married, and that she came to know that she had been for weeks sewing the marriage dress of his bride, she was carrying under her heart the living burden which was the fruit of her love for that man. Yet not the burden of shame and dishonour, as our story will show, for she was justified by the law of her country--yea, by certain words once written by an apostle to the Corinthians, all which may as yet appear a great mystery; but as regards Mysie Craig's agony, as she staggered down Miss Gilroy's stairs on her way home, there could be no doubt or mystery whatever.

Nor, when she got home, was there any comfort there for the daughter who had been so undutiful as to depart from her mother's precepts, and conceal from her not only her unfortunate connection with a villain, but the condition into which that connection had brought her. But she was at least saved from the pain of a part of the confession, for her mother had learned enough from Miss Allardice to satisfy her as to the cause of her daughter's change from the happy creature she once was, singing in the long nights, as she wrought unremittingly at her beautiful work, and the poor, sighing, pale, heart-broken thing she had been for months. Nor did she fail to see, with the quick eye of a mother, that as Mysie immediately on entering the house laid herself quietly on the bed, and sobbed in her great agony, she had learned the terrible truth from Miss Gilroy that the robe she had embroidered was to deck the bride of her destroyer. Moreover, her discretion enabled her to perceive that this was not the time for explanation, for the hours of grief are sacred, and the heart must be left to do its work by opening the issues of Nature's assuagement, or ceasing to beat. So the night passed, without question or answer; and the following day, that of the marriage, was one of silence, even as if death had touched the tongue that used to be the medium of cheerful words and tender sympathies--a strange contrast to the joy, if not revelry, in Advocate's Close.

It was not till after several days had passed that Mysie was able, as she still lay in bed, to whisper, amidst the recurring sobs, in the ear of her mother, as the latter bent over her, the real circumstances of her condition; and still, amidst the trembling words, came the vindication that she considered herself to be as much the wife of George Balgarnie as if they had been joined by "Holy Kirk;" a statement which the mother could not understand, if it was not to her a mystery, rendered even more mysterious by a reference which Mysie made to the law of the country, as she had heard the same from her cousin, George Davidson, a writer's clerk in the Lawnmarket. Much of which, as it came in broken syllables from the lips of the disconsolate daughter, the mother put to the account of the fond dreams of a mind put out of joint by the worst form of misery incident to young women. But what availed explanations, mysteries or no mysteries, where the fact was patent that Mysie Craig lay there, the poor heartbroken victim of man's perfidy--her powers of industry broken and useless--the fine weaving genius of her fancy, whereby she wrought her embroidered devices to deck and adorn beauty, only engaged now on portraying all the evils of her future life; and above all, was she not soon to become a mother?

Meanwhile, and in the midst of all this misery, the laid-up earnings of Mysie's industry wore away, where there was no work by those cunning fingers, now thin and emaciated; and before the days passed, and the critical day came whereon another burden would be imposed on the household, there was need for the sympathy of neighbours in that form which soon wears out--pecuniary help. That critical day at length came. Mysie Craig gave birth to a boy, and their necessities from that hour grew in quicker and greater proportion than the generosity of friends. There behoved something to be done, and that without delay. So when Mysie lay asleep, with the innocent evidence of her misfortune by her side, Mrs. Craig put on her red plaid and went forth on a mother's duty, and was soon in the presence of George Balgarnie and his young wife. She was under an impulse which made light of delicate conventionalities, and did not think it necessary to give the lady an opportunity of being absent: nay, she rather would have her to be present; for was she, who had been so far privy to the intercourse between her husband and Mysie, to be exempt from the consequences which she, in a sense, might have been said to have brought about?

"Ye have ruined Mysie Craig, sir!" cried at once the roused mother. "Ye have ta'en awa her honour. Ye have ta'en awa her health. Ye have ta'en awa her bread. Ay, and ye have reduced three human creatures to want, it may be starvation; and I have come here in sair sorrow and necessity to ask when and whaur is to be the remeid?"

"When and where you may find it, woman!" said the lady, as she cast a side-glance to her husband, probably by way of appeal for the truth of what she thought it right to say. "Mr. Balgarnie never injured your daughter. Let him who did the deed yield the remeid!"

"And do you stand by this?" said Mrs. Craig.

But the husband had been already claimed as free from blame by his wife, who kept her eye fixed upon him; and the obligation to conscience, said by sceptics to be an offspring of society, is sometimes weaker than what is due to a wife, in the estimation of whom a man may wish to stand in a certain degree of elevation.

"You must seek another father to the child of your daughter," said he lightly. And not content with the denial, he supplemented it by a laugh as he added, "When birds go to the greenwood, they must take the chance of meeting the goshawk."

"And that is your answer?" said she.

"It is; and you need never trouble either my wife or me more on this subject," was the reply.

"Then may the vengeance o' the God of justice light on the heads o' baith o' ye!" added Mrs. Craig, as she went hurriedly away.

Nor was her threat intended as an empty one, for she held on her way direct to the Lawnmarket, where she found George Davidson, to whom she related as much as she had been able to get out of Mysie, and also what had passed at the interview with Balgarnie and his lady. After hearing which, the young writer shook his head.

"You will get a trifle of aliment," said he; "perhaps half-a-crown a week, but no more; and Mysie could have made that in a day by her beautiful work."

"And she will never work mair," said the mother, with a sigh.

"For a hundred years," rejoined he, more to himself than to her, and probably in congratulation of himself for his perspicacity, "and since ever there was a College of Justice, there never was a case where a man pulled up on oath for a promise of marriage admitted the fact. It is a good Scotch law, only we want a people to obey it. But what," he added again, "if we were to try it, though it were only as a grim joke and a revenge in so sad and terrible a case as that of poor Mysie Craig!"

Words which the mother understood no more than she did law Latin; and so she was sent away as sorrowful as she had come, for Davidson did not want to raise hopes which there was no chance of being fulfilled; but he knew as a Scotchman that a man who trusts himself to a "strae rape" in the hope of its breaking, may possibly hang himself; and so it happened that the very next day a summons was served upon George Balgarnie, to have it found and declared by the Lords of Session that he had promised to marry Mysie Craig, whereupon a child had been born by her; or, in fault of that, he was bound to sustain the said child. Thereupon, without the ordinary law's delay, certain proceedings went on, in the course of which Mysie herself was examined as the mother to afford what the lawyers call a _semiplena probatio_, or half proof, to be supplemented otherwise, and thereafter George Balgarnie stood before the august fifteen. He denied stoutly all intercourse with Mysie, except an occasional walk in the Hunter's Bog; and this he would have denied also, but he knew that he had been seen, and that it would be sworn to by others. And then came the last question, which Mr. Greerson, Mysie's advocate, put in utter hopelessness. Nay, so futile did it seem to try to catch a Scotchman by advising him to put his head in a noose on the pretence of seeing how it fitted his neck, that he smiled even as the words came out of his mouth--

"Did you ever promise to marry Mysie Craig?"

Was prudence, the chief of the four cardinal virtues, ever yet consistent with vice? Balgarnie waxed clever--a dangerous trick in a witness. He stroked his beard with a smile on his face, and answered--

"_Yes, once--when I was drunk_!"

Words which were immediately followed by the crack of a single word in the dry mouth of one of the advocates--the word "NICKED."

And nicked he was; for the presiding judge, addressing the witness, said--

"The drunkenness may be good enough in its own way, sir; but it does not take away the effect of your promise; nay, it is even an aggravation, insomuch as having enjoyed the drink, you wanted to enjoy with impunity what you could make of the promise also."

If Balgarnie had been a reader, he might have remembered Waller's verse--

"That eagle's fate and mine are one, Which on the shaft that made him die Espied a feather of his own, Wherewith he wont to soar so high."

So Mysie gained her plea, and the marriage with Anabella, for whom she had embroidered the marriage gown, was dissolved. How matters progressed afterwards for a time, we know not; but the Scotch know that there is wisdom in making the best of a bad bargain, and in this case it was a good one; for, as the Lady of Balgruddery, Mysie Craig did no dishonour to George Balgarnie, who, moreover, found her a faithful wife, and a good mother to the children that came of this strange marriage.

THE TWIN BROTHERS.

William Sim was the son of a feuar in the southern part of Dumfriesshire, who, by dint of frugality, had hoarded together from three to four hundred pounds. This sum he was resolved to employ in setting up his son in business; and, in pursuance of this resolution, at the age of fourteen William was bound as an apprentice to a wealthy old grocer in Carlisle; and it was his fortune in a few months to ingratiate himself into the favour and confidence of his master. The grocer had a daughter, who, though not remarkable for the beauty of her face or the elegance of her person, had nevertheless an agreeable countenance, and ten thousand independent charms to render it more agreeable. She was some eighteen months older than William; and when he first came to be an apprentice with her father, and a boarder in his house, she looked upon him as quite a boy, while she considered herself to be a full-grown woman. He was, indeed, a mere boy--and a clownish-looking boy too. He wore a black leathern cap, edged and corded with red, which his mother called a _bendy_; a coarse grey jacket; a waistcoat of the same; and his trousers were of a brownish-green cord, termed _thickset_. His shoes were of the double-soled description, which ought more properly to be called brogues; and into them, on the evening previous to his departure, his father had driven tackets and sparables innumerable, until they became like a plate of iron or a piece of warlike workmanship, resembling the scaled cuirass of a mailed knight in the olden time; "for," said he, "the callant will hae runnin' about on the causeway and plainstanes o' Carlisle sufficient to drive a' the shoon in the world aff his feet." When, therefore, William Sim made his debut behind the counter of Mr. Carnaby, the rich grocer of Carlisle, and as he ran on a message through the streets, with his bendy cap, grey jacket, thickset trousers, and ironed shoes, striking fire behind him as he ran, and making a noise like a troop of cavalry, the sprucer youngsters of the city said he was "new caught." But William Sim had not been two years in Carlisle when he began to show his shirt collar; his clattering brogues gave place to silent pumps, his leathern bendy to a fashionable hat, and his coarse grey jacket to a coat with tails. Moreover, he began to bow and smile to the ladies when they entered the shop; he also became quite a connoisseur in teas and confections; he recommended them to them, and he bowed and smiled again as they left. Such was the work of less than two years; and before three went round, there was not a smarter or a better dressed youth in all Carlisle than William Sim. He became a favourite subject of conversation amongst the young belles; and there was not one of them who, if disengaged, would have said to him, "Get thee behind me." Miss Carnaby heard the conversation of her young companions, and she gradually became conscious that William was not a boy; in fact, she began to wonder how she had ever thought so, for he, as she said unto herself, was "certainly a very interesting _young man_." Within other four years, and before the period of his apprenticeship had expired, William began to repeat poetry--some said to write it, but that was not the fact; he only twisted or altered a few words now and then, to suit the occasion; and almost every line ended with words of such soft sounds as bliss, kiss--love, dove--joy, cloy, and others equally sweet, the delightful meanings of which are only to be met with in the sentimental glossary. He now gave Miss Carnaby his arm to church; and, on leaving it in the afternoons, they often walked into the fields together. On such occasions,

"Talk of various kinds deceived the road;"

and even when they were silent, their silence had an eloquence of its own. One day they had wandered farther than their wont, and they stood on the little bridge where the two kingdoms meet, about half a mile below Gretna. I know not what soft persuasion he employed, but she accompanied him up the hill which leadeth through the village of Springfield, and they went towards the far-famed Green together. In less than an hour, Miss Carnaby that was, returned towards Carlisle as Mrs. Sim, leaning affectionately on her husband's arm.

When the old grocer heard of what had taken place, he was exceedingly wroth; and although, as has been said, William stood high in his favour, he thus addressed him--

"Ay, ay, sir!--fine doings! This comes of your Sunday walking! And I suppose you say that my daughter is yours--that she is your wife; and _she_ may be _yours_--but I'll let you know, sir, my _money_ is _mine_; and I'll cut you both off. You shan't have a sixpence. I'll rather build a church, sir; I'll give it towards paying off the national debt, you rascal. You would steal my daughter--eh!"

Thus spoke Mr. Carnaby in his wrath; but when the effervescence of his indignation had subsided, he extended to both the hand of forgiveness, and resigned his business in favour of his son-in-law.

Mr. William Sim, therefore, began the world under the most favourable circumstances. He found a fortune prepared to his hands; he had only to improve it. In a few years the old grocer died; and he bequeathed to them the gains of half a century. For twenty years Mr. Sim continued in business, and he had nearly doubled the fortune which he obtained with his wife. Mrs. Sim was a kind-hearted woman; but by nature, or through education, she had also a considerable portion of vanity, and she began to think that it was the duty of her opulent husband to retire from business, and assume the character of an independent gentleman; or rather, I ought to say, of a country gentleman--a squire. She professed to be the more anxious that he should do this on account of the health of her daughter--the sole survivor of five children--and who was then entering upon womanhood. Maria Sim (for such was their daughter's name) was a delicate and accomplished girl of seventeen. The lovely hue that dwelt upon her cheeks, like the blush of a rainbow, was an emblem of beauty, not of health. At the solicitations of her mother, her father gave up his business, and purchased a neat villa, and a few acres that surrounded it, in the neighbourhood of Windermere. The house lay in the bosom of poetry; and the winds that shouted like a triumphant army through the mountain glens, or in gentle zephyrs sighed upon the lake, and gambolled with the ripples, made music around it.

The change, the beauty, I had almost said the deliciousness of their place of abode, had effected a wondrous improvement in the health of Maria; yet her mother was not happy. She was not treated by her neighbours with the obsequious reverence which she believed to be due to persons possessed of twenty thousand pounds. The fashionable ladies in the neighbourhood, also, called her "a mean person"--"a nobody"--"an upstart of yesterday." In truth, there were not a few who so spoke, because they envied the wealth of the Sims, and were resolved to humble them.

An opportunity for them to do so soon occurred. A subscription ball or assembly, patronized by all the fashionables in the district, was to take place at Keswick. Mrs. Sim, in some measure from a desire of display, and also, as she said, to bring out Maria, put down her husband's name, her own, and their daughter's, on the list. Many of the personages above referred to, on seeing the names of the Sim family on the subscription paper, turned upon their heel, and exclaimed--"Shocking!"

But the important evening arrived. Mrs. Sim had ordered a superb dress from London expressly for the occasion. A duchess might have worn it at a drawing-room. The dress of Maria was simplicity typified, and consisted of a frock of the finest and the whitest muslin; while her slender waist was girdled with a lavender ribbon, her raven hair descended down her snowy neck in ringlets, and around her head she wore a wreath of roses.

When Mr. Sim, with his wife and daughter, entered the room, there was a stare of wonderment amongst the company. No one spoke to them, no one bowed to them. The spirit of dumbness seemed to have smitten the assembly. But a general whispering, like the hissing of a congregation of adders, succeeded the silence. Then, at the head of the room, the voices of women rose sharp, angry, and loud. Six or eight, who appeared as the representatives of the company, were in earnest and excited conversation with the stewards; and the words--"low people!"--"vulgar!" --"not to be borne!"--"cheese! faugh!"--"impertinence!"--"must be humbled!" --became audible throughout the room. One of the stewards, a Mr. Morris of Morris House, approached Mr. Sim, and said--

"You, sir, are Mr. Sim, I believe, late grocer and cheesemonger in Carlisle?"

"I suppose, sir," replied the other, "you know that without me telling you; if you do not, you have some right to know me."

"Well, sir," continued the steward of the assembly, "I come to inform you that you have made a mistake. This is not a _social dance_ amongst _tradesmen_, but an _assembly_ of _ladies_ and _gentlemen_; therefore, sir, your presence cannot be allowed here."

Poor Maria became blind, the hundred different head-dresses seemed to float around her. She clung to her father's arm for support. Her mother was in an agony of indignation.

"Sir," said Mr. Sim, "I don't know what you call _gentlemen_; but if it be not _genteel_ to have sold teas and groceries, it is at least more _honourable_ than to use them and never pay for them. You will remember, sir, there is a considerable sum standing against you in my books; and if the money be not paid to me tonight, you shall have less space to dance in before morning."

"Insolent barbarian!" exclaimed Squire Morris, stamping his foot upon the floor.

Mrs. Sim screamed; Maria's head fell upon her father's shoulder. A dozen gentlemen approached to the support of the steward; and one of them, waving his hand and addressing Mr. Sim, said, "Away, sir!"

The retired merchant bowed and withdrew, not in confusion, but with a smile of malignant triumph. He strove to soothe his wife--for his daughter, when relieved from the presence of the disdainful eyes that gazed on her, bore the insult that had been offered them meekly--and, after remaining an hour in Keswick, they returned to their villa in the same chaise in which they had arrived.

In the assembly room the dance began, and fairy forms glided through the floor, lightly, silently, as a falling blossom embraceth the earth. Mr. Morris was leading down a dance, when a noise was heard at the door. Some person insisted on being admitted, and the door-keepers resisted him. But the intruder carried with him a small staff, on the one end of which was a brass crown, and on its side the letters G. R. It was a talisman potent as the wand of a magician; the doorkeepers became powerless before it. The intruder entered the room--he passed through the mazes of the whirling dance--he approached Mr. Morris--he touched him on the shoulder--he put a piece of paper in his hand--he whispered in his ear--

"You are my prisoner!--come with me!"

His lady and his daughters were present, and they felt most bitterly the indignity which a low tradesman had offered them. Confusion paralyzed them; they stood still in the middle of the dance, and one of the young ladies swooned away and fell upon the ground. The time, the place, the manner of arrest, all bespoke malignant and premeditated insult.