CHAPTER II.

PEGGY’S WEDDING.

There came a crisis to all those thoughtless daring doings, and it did not proceed from the old Lady of Drumsheugh, much as she loved to lead in life. She had ruled with a high hand her old husband, who, if all tales were true, was not an easy person to guide; but his young son, with his easy temper and pleasant speech to the world at large, though he was a good son at home when he was let alone, threatened to prove too much for her.

There was another mother in the case, as has been signified,--poor old Luckie Hedderwick--who had never been considered more than a sickly ‘feckless’ body in her best days, and who was now bed-ridden and dependent on her daughter’s industry for her daily bread. Whether Luckie had been from the first an accomplished and hardened deceiver so that she could at last bring forward a strategy worthy of the rival mother--the Lady of Drumsheugh; whether the approach of death began to unseal her dim and dull eyes, and to teach the foolish, ignorant old woman wisdom beyond all earthly sagacity; whether the former dominie who visited his aged and sick parishioner at the cottage in Peggy’s unavoidable absence, was secretly at the bottom of the manœuvre, Luckie Hedderwick suddenly set an interdict on all future friendship and love-making between Peggy and the laird. The old woman had been till then as silly and inconsiderate as any lass in her teens in taking the greatest pride and pleasure in Peggy’s triumphs and conquests, and in encouraging the girl in what other people held to be Peggy’s sins of vanity and unwarrantable ambition; but she now forbade her child, under pain of her mother’s lamentations and reproaches--which were worse than her wrath--so much as to have a meeting with the gentleman, if she could possibly foresee and prevent it.

Peggy was broken-hearted and in despair, but she never dreamt of defying, and still less of cheating, her mother.

The laird, arrested in the full force of his passion, was goaded to the brink of madness and driven half beside himself. No more well-understood foregatherings with Peggy; no more interceptings of the girl on her way to the well, or the shop, or a neighbour’s house; no more strolls among the whins and broom[3] in the twilight, careless who saw; no more walking of his horse--or leaping from the saddle and walking himself--beside her when he came up with her, which he was pretty sure to do, on the return of both from Craigie market; no more climbing of the breezy, heathery hill and descending on the other side where the green trees shaded the road, throwing a white shower of blossom there in the spring, being full of birds singing as they rifled the fruit in summer, and in autumn dropping blood-shot leaves among the mud and mire. The laird would gallantly insist on placing Peggy’s basket before him on the saddle, or would carry it for her. Balcairnie either trotting on with a passing nod, or falling discreetly into the background, determined to show that he was not curious over much, or bent on spoiling sport.

The spectacle had hardly been an improving one. The young laird had been demeaning himself in some lights, trifling with a poor country girl, and exposing her, as he ought not to have done, to serious misconstruction and harm. Peggy, like a senseless girl, had been laying herself open to scandal and slander and a hundred graver dangers. Still the pair had been a pretty pair, however ill-matched--there is no denying it. The laird in his riding-coat and boots and tops, gaily flourishing his silver-mounted whip; Peggy in her blue-and-red striped linsey-woolsey petticoat, white apron, blue-and-buff striped jacket, and her duffle mantle if it chanced to be wintry weather; her fair hair either bare and tied up with a riband--the relic of the old snood or cockernonie, or else covered by a Bessie-kell-a quilted cotton or woollen hood--under the curtains of which the bonnie face beamed with the mingled shyness and gladness of a child’s face.

In a similar manner the larger groups, in which many minor figures had been represented with varying effect, were effaced from the canvas. These had shown Peggy on the harvest field where the laird, like Boaz of old, shared the labour and the mid-day meal of his servants. Detaching Peggy from the rest, he would act as ‘bandster’ to her shearing, or he would sit at her feet, and decree that as an equivalent to dipping her morsel in the vinegar, she should have her choice of the scones in the basket and the first draught of ale from the pitcher. In those days Peggy was the queen of the autumn fields--a gentle queen who bore the honours thrust upon her meekly. Still she did not fail to arouse animadversion, and the entire _tableau_ tended rather to the entertainment than the edification of the spectators.

The sensations of the company were not of a much more generous or amiable description when Peggy was persuaded to fling her handkerchief to Drumsheugh in the coquettish old dance of ‘The Country Bumpkin;’ or when, at the entreaty of her lover, she sang with her flute-like pipe to a decorously hushed assembly, or sat as mute as a mouse while he sang in his trumpet tones. Her song might be ‘Ye Banks and Braes,’ or ‘Aye wauken O! wauken aye and weary’--both of which ditties held tender warnings to heedless girls, if they would but have taken the hints--or it might be some blyther measure. But his song never varied. It was always the bold, barefaced declaration--

Young Peggy blooms our bonniest lass, Her breath is like the morning, The rosy dawn, the springing grass With early gems adorning.

with a peculiar emphasis on the verse--

Ye powers of honour, love, and truth, From every ill defend her; Inspire the highly-favoured youth The destinies intend her.

The laird could not stand the abrupt, harsh interference which in the twinkling of an eye dissolved these enchanting scenes. It would cost him his wits. He would rather carry off Peggy, with or without her will, where nobody should ever come between them. What did she mean by giving him up at any third person’s word, be that person her mother twice over? Had the two-faced lass no heart in her breast? He would be upsides with her yet, for the pain and mortification she was causing him. He confided all this to Balcairnie, who gave no further answer than a shake of his head and a resolute ‘I’ll no be your man in sic an ill job, Drumsheugh,’ so the laird went on fuming and storming if he did not speak of ‘louping ower a linn.’

The comical side of the question was that he was his own master all the time to do what he liked in the circumstances. He had been left the Laird of Drumsheugh without limitation. He could marry Peggy Hedderwick to-morrow, in spite of his mother, and it was not likely that Peggy or her mother for her, would decline a plain offer of marriage from so high a quarter, or that either would draw so fine a distinction as to refuse the proposed honour, unless it were accompanied by the free and full consent of the Lady to her son’s throwing himself away.

But, somehow, the laird stopped short of such rank insubordination and thoroughgoing independence. There was a strain of weakness in his wilfulness, or else the times were against him. People had not yet shaken off the old feudal prejudices. Drumsheugh, in his simplicity and homeliness, was still, both in his own estimation and in that of other people, the Laird, the scion of the great house of Dalwolsie, and Peggy was the cotter lass, come of hynds and nobodies. Balcairnie, who was not so far before her in the last respect, might have married her without reservation, though she was by no means his social equal; but the most disinterested unworldly version of the affair which the most single-hearted judges looked for from Drumsheugh was that he should be found fond enough of Peggy, and faithful enough to her, while he was sufficiently regardless of his own interests, to engage in a secret ancient troth-plight equivalent to a marriage with her, and right in the eyes of the law, though it was censurable by the Kirk. It would be a contract which must hamper him all his days, and if he were ever so far left to himself as to seek to evade it, might drag him down to crime and misery. Why on such small temptation, out of two courses--the one clear and above-board, the worst consequences of which would be faced at once--the other a flattering more than half-cowardly compromise done in the dark, and only coming to the light and encountering the natural results after a long interval--a manly fellow like the laird should inevitably, as if it were a matter of necessity, have adopted the second and lower course, remains a testimony to the force of habit and of one-sided reasoning.

The laird had been accustomed to set his mother at nought in what seemed right in his own eyes. He was not dependent on her in money matters, and did not give a thought to the risk of forfeiting the savings of her jointure, since he was at this stage of his development as free-handed as he was open-hearted. Still, he could not summon up his courage to brave the high-spirited, determined old woman altogether. In the same way he could not make up his mind to despise the clamour and opposition of his circle of gentry, little as he had hitherto prized the hereditary association with them.

Drumsheugh, when he was compelled to a decision, never dreamed of a more generous and honourable step than that of running away with Peggy, and vowing that he was her husband before two available witnesses; nay, the idea of anything less temporising and more magnanimous did not even cross Balcairnie’s mind. It was in serene satisfaction with the concession that he agreed to back the laird as usual in waylaying Peggy, in spite of her mother’s commands, and in propounding to her the grand yet sorry expedient for getting rid of all objections in future, by establishing the couple in the sure, if unacknowledged, relations of man and wife.

After some spying and picking up of floating information, the two friends learnt that Peggy, while she now kept religiously indoors with her mother, for the most part of her time, was in the custom of recompensing the neighbour who went most of the girl’s errands. This reward consisted in Peggy’s ‘ca’ing,’ or driving out, the neighbour’s cow in the cool of the morning and late evening of the June season, to feed for an hour or two on the grass by the dyke sides and ditches, or on the short turf of a single knowe, which rose in solitary dignity among the flat corn-fields. The road to the knowe was for a certain distance that to Craigie, so often trodden in happier circumstances. The knowe itself, with its patches of rushes, had been Peggy’s seat when as a child she had played at plaiting the ‘thrashies’ into a crown and sceptre. She was an only child like her lover, and had known few playmates save her school companions. She had been used to lonely hours and single-handed games. Her most intimate friend in later times had been her ardent admirer the laird, whom she was now forbidden to see or speak to. He had been with her on this knowe when the dew lay on the grass and the corn-craik was ‘chirming,’ as it was at the present moment. He had made a posy for her of what Peggy merely called ‘bonnie floors,’ but which were in detail the dead white grass of Parnassus that grew among the rushes, together with the crimson and pink fumitory and the yellow avens which he had gathered idly as they came along, leaving hedge-row and dyke-side behind them. He had shown the greatest kindness and patience in helping her to draw out the pith of the rushes and plait it--no longer into a mock crown and sceptre, but into a real wick for her mother’s cruizie.

All these soft recollections proved too much for poor Peggy, as she ca’d Hawkie; the girl put up her apron to her eyes to dry the blinding tears which rendered her more incapable of detecting prowlers in her vicinity.

Then with the practical agility of the riever of old, the laird ‘cam’ skipping ower the hill’ from the little hollow on the other side, to which he and Balcairnie had ridden, and where the latter stayed with the horses.

In a moment Jamie Ramsay was by the sorrowful girl’s side, detaining her when she sought to retreat.

Peggy wore her summer house dress, the pretty light cotton jacket which has been immortalised by Wilkie and Sir William Allen. It had a little collar or ‘neck,’ turned over where the sunburn of the throat met the whiteness of the bosom, and was only confined at the waist by the string of her apron. Her round arms were bare to the elbow, the sleeves of her jacket being rolled up for convenience’ sake. The arms were mottled and dimpled like those of a child. Her brown little feet too were bare. Her uncovered hair was arranged in the most primitive style--after all it is the fashion of the great Greek statues. The locks ‘which the wind used to blaw’ were ‘shed’ behind the ears, wound round the head, rippling in natural ripples as they were wound, until they were fastened in a knot at the back of the shapely head. Yet no stately ball-room belle in flowing gauze or rustling brocade, with high-heeled shoes and a higher powdered _tête_, had ever appeared half so sweet as Peggy to the enamoured young laird. He was not caught in undress. He came a-courting her--as he was bound to do, though she had been a beggar maid, and not merely an industrious cotter lass, who supported herself and her mother by the fruits of her honest industry. He wore his best snuff-brown coat, his last flowered waistcoat, his dress buckles in his shoes, with his dark hair combed carefully and neatly back and tied in a _queue_, the riband of which, in skilfully disposed bows and ends, hung half-way down his shoulders.

‘I mauna bide. Let me gang, laird. Oh! why are you here, when I canna lichtlie my mither’s word?’ cried the faithful and despairing Peggy, with streaming eyes and heaving bosom, torn as she was by conflicting obligations.

‘Na, but hear me, Peggy,’ insisted Drumsheugh, strong to carry the day in his confidence in the honesty of his intentions, and the truth of what he was going to say. ‘Take a message from me to your mother, and she will not stand in our gate, or make another thrawn rule to keep us apart. Tell her I am willing to join hands with you and exchange written lines. Lass, I’ll take the half-merk with you the morn if you like; neither king nor minister has power to come between us after that. You’ll be to all intents and purposes my wife and the young Leddy of Drumsheugh from that moment.’

Peggy was not only staggered, she was deeply touched and proudly joyful. She had it in her power to become the ‘Leddy of Drumsheugh.’ The laird had vindicated his sincerity and honour. There was no more question of tampering with her affections and betraying her trust. He had come out of the test nobly, as not one man in a thousand would have come.

Peggy had not the least doubt that her mother would feel more than satisfied--she would be greatly uplifted by her daughter’s wonderful good fortune. Instead of thwarting Drumsheugh again in his wildest fancy, Mrs. Hedderwick would now defer to his least whim, and consent to pay him the humblest, most grateful homage. Peggy was ready to go with the laird to her mother and see if it were not so--to settle for life her grand and happy destiny.

The laird, carried out of himself by the excitement of the moment, delighted with the effect of his words, thinking himself nearly as true and kind as Peggy thought him--more in love with her than ever--was prepared to start that instant to fulfil his pledge and knock the nail on the head.

To Luckie Hedderwick, accordingly, the infatuated couple went straightway, without an attempt at concealment, widely removed as they were, in the exaltation of their feelings, from any consideration of prudence. They only waited till Drumsheugh hallooed for Balcairnie to come up and wish Peggy and the laird joy, and then to bring on the horses to the Cotton.

Poor old Luckie, lying powerless in her box-bed, could hardly believe her fast-failing eyes and ears, when Peggy came in (followed by Drumsheugh in full feather), and when he sat down on the kist in the window, which was the only disengaged seat, her own arm-chair being occupied by the unmannerly cat, and Peggy’s stool at the wheel taken up by the tray of reeled pirns of yarn.

There was no vow of vengeance on the laird’s smooth brow, or of reprisal on his smiling lips. On the contrary, there was the most abundant security and provision for Peggy Hedderwick in his presence there in her mother’s cottage, and his frankly undertaking to marry the lass at once, before competent witnesses. It was not from such a good end as this that her conscience and her minister alike had begun to frighten the widow. Her dear little Peggy would be a lady after all, and some day she would take her stand among the best and be freely acknowledged by the whole of the county side. She could not expect that just at first, but anyway she would be kept an honest and innocent woman. Her children, if she ever had children, would be born in lawful wedlock. She need neither fear God nor man, and poverty would no longer hover at her door, only held at bay by her courageous, diligent young arm.

Of course, it was not for Mrs. Hedderwick to say the laird nay. It was for her to thank him from a lowly, thankful heart for not merely doing justly by her daughter, but for being minded to endow her with his favour and with her share of his portion of the world’s goods, which many people would reckon far beyond her deserts.

A glimpse of Balcairnie and the horses as they walked up and down the road, which the old woman saw through the bole of a window at the head of her bed, completed the dazzling of any sense Mrs. Hedderwick possessed. She described the scene afterwards as too splendid for this world--like a verse of the Bible, or a line of an ‘auld ballant.’ It was as when ‘Abraham’s servant baud the lassie munt and ride wi’ him to be the wife of his maister’s son. To be sure the horses were camels then, whatever the odds. It was as when the auld knicht crossed the sea to bring the king o’ Norrowa’s dochter ower the faem to be his queen, and then the nags were boats--whilk it was a mercy they were not here, lest the cobbles had coupet wi’ her Peggy among the prood waves, as gude Sir Patrick Spens’s ship sank down, in forty fathoms deep. Whatever, it was a maist fine ferlie for Drumsheugh to come wooing and speering for her dochter at a puir body like her, and for Balcairnie--with whose mither, worthy woman, she hersel had been a servant lass for three year afore she and Simon Hedderwick yoked thegither--to sit or stand at her door wi’ the beasts in braid daylicht, in the sicht of the whole Cotton, as gin she were the leddy and Balcairnie the serving-man.’

The entire arrangements were agreed on that evening, the laird chalking them out very much according to his vagrant fancy, Peggy and her mother assenting with meek, swelling hearts, simply entering a humble protest and venturing on a mild amendment when he suggested a clean impossibility. It would be far pleasanter as well as safer, since the marriage was not to be made public immediately, for the affair to take place from home. Peggy had a cousin--a decent man--a cow-keeper near Edinburgh. She could go on a visit to his wife. Such a visit would be made worth the couple’s while; in fact, they were likely to be filled with importance at the part they were called on to play. Drumsheugh and Balcairnie could easily take a ride to town treading on Peggy’s heels early one fine morning, or late one propitious evening; Peggy, with her cousins to bear her company, and the laird, with Balcairnie as his supporter, would join in a stroll to look at the shop windows or admire the big houses, until they reached the particular house the laird spoke of as the Temple of Hymen, to the mystified ears hanging on his words. There Peggy and he would take the half-merk together in the most popular mode. They would acknowledge themselves man and wife, and sign the lines before some queer sort of mass-John and a notary, as well as before Peggy’s cousins and Balcairnie; and the knot would be so securely tied that only death could sever it. Peggy would come back to her mother and the Cotton, and he would return to his mother and Drumsheugh. Nobody need be any wiser till the couple chose to proclaim what had been accomplished, when he should be at liberty to put his wife into his mother’s seat. But he felt sure his Peggy would not refuse to bide a wee for her honours, and would not weary while she had his love and care. And Mrs. Hedderwick would not seek to come between the pair when they were man and wife.

Peggy would not weary, would not refuse to wait a hundred years--always supposing she lived a century and retained Drumsheugh’s unshaken love and faith while the years lasted. Was she to dictate terms and exact favours which were far beyond her original estate? She would be well off if Drumsheugh owned her for his wife, though it were but with his dying breath. As for Luckie Hedderwick, she would no more interfere with the laird’s rights when he had established them, than she would challenge the prerogative of the King.

It all came to pass as Drumsheugh had ordained it. In an irregular and yet in a deliberate, formal manner, quite legal according to the liberal law of Scotland, and with ancient custom to justify the act, by no mock marriage, but by a binding rite, as both knew, Jamie Ramsay wedded Peggy Hedderwick. No exposure followed the event, though it did not go unattended by vague suspicions and fitful rumours. Such marriages were not so unheard of as to prevent the signs of their recurrence from being quickly noted and eagerly caught up.

But as the Lady of Drumsheugh did not see fit to cause an investigation, to cross-question her son, or to go out of her way to assail and harass Peggy; as Peggy’s mother in her box-bed did not stir in the matter by proxy; as it was the old daffing intercourse between the laird and the lass, which was openly resumed, and went on much as formerly to hoodwink the public, what was everybody’s business proved nobody’s business. Nothing was said or done to clear up the mystery as to the precise terms on which the Laird of Drumsheugh stood with the lass of low degree.

FOOTNOTES:

[3]

He’s low down, he’s in the broom, That’s waiting for me.