CHAPTER I.

There was a hardness in his cheek, There was a hardness in his eye.--PETER BELL.

“I beg you will not misunderstand me, Mrs Oswald; I vow to you that this girl shall never cross my threshold, and if William persists in his folly he must choose between her and me; for assuredly he shall not keep his place with both. I tell you her father was a fool and a weakling, and you know the injury he did me. My mind is made up; before I receive this girl (I care nothing for her own good qualities--they do not concern me in the slightest) as my daughter, I will disown my son. If he wants to prolong her poverty, and to make himself a servant all his life, let him persist in his madness; and if you encourage him further in it, the consequences lie with yourselves. I have toiled and laboured to enrich him, and if he thwarts me thus, he shall rue it!”

The speaker was a wiry, dark man, about the middle height, with a face in which you could read habitual obstinacy. It had redeeming qualities; you could see how a great enough matter might elevate the constitutional pertinacity into brave determination, and the eyes were intelligent and clear; but the rigid muscles of his mouth wore their sternest expression to-day, and a cloud lowered darkly upon his face. He was standing with his back to the fire in a good-sized, comfortable dining-room, the front windows of which looked out upon the Main Street of Fendie. The house was withdrawn a little from the line of the neighbouring buildings, in modest dignity, and bore over its portico and stone pillars the important title “Bank;” and the obstinate gentleman in the dining-room within was Mr George Oswald, at that time the sole representative of banking interests in the borough of Fendie.

The very emphatic speech which we have already recorded, was addressed to his wife, who sat opposite to him. She was very calmly engaged with her sewing, though her face was sufficiently grave to show that her husband’s words were not mere empty breath. When he had concluded, she raised her head.

“I cannot see what necessity there is for making any vows to me, George. If you are determined not to hear what I say, and what William says about this very sweet and innocent girl, of course you must have your own way, as you always have; but as for your vows--you know that is quite unnecessary.”

“I know no such thing!” said Mr Oswald, imperiously. “You fancy I will forget by and by, and that you may renew this subject again; but I protest to you, Jane, that neither your son nor you shall ever move me on this point--that--”

“George,” interrupted his wife, “I hear Hope coming down-stairs; pray do not let her be a party to this discussion. I am reluctant that she should even know how you regard the Buchanans, for Hope is inclined to have an opinion of her own, and to express it more freely perhaps than she should at her years. Let us drop this subject, I beg; I promise you _I_ will not renew it.”

The cloud passed from the banker’s face--his stern mouth relaxed. It was the young voice without, singing so gaily as its owner came bounding down-stairs, “Hame, hame, hame! oh, it’s hame fain wad I be--” that chased the mist from his face and from his mind. He was kind enough in all his relationships, if somewhat exacting and rigid; but he was indulgent to an extent, which only the stern and vehement nature can reach, of all the whims and caprices of his favourite child.

Hope Oswald was fourteen, and had been for two or three years at a famous educational establishment in Edinburgh. Her father looked with natural satisfaction on the houses and lands which his industry had acquired, read with satisfaction his own name high in the list of bank shareholders in his own private office; was pleased when he saw “George Oswald, Esq., of Fendie,” figuring in his local newspaper as connected with some county or borough reform, or public good-work; but the banker’s eye looked never so proud as when a metropolitan broad-sheet informed him how, at the examination of the famed establishment in Edinburgh, “Miss Hope Oswald, Fendie,” had carried off prize on prize. The stern man read the half-yearly list of school-girl honours with secret exultation. It was a matter of genuine happy pride to him; and Mrs Oswald smiled within herself, as year after year her husband expressed in joyous terms his wonder, that the name of Miss Adelaide Fendie of Mount Fendie, the daughter of their aristocratic neighbour “up the water” did never by any chance make its appearance among this honoured number, while “our Hope” had won almost as many distinctions as there were distinctions to win.

But Hope was weary of gaining prizes, and longed exceedingly to return home; so she was granted an interregnum. Six blithe holiday months were to pass before she returned to Edinburgh, and on this same day she had arrived in Fendie.

The age of awkwardness had scarcely commenced with Hope. She had not begun to be self-conscious, and in consequence escaped the inevitable physical attendant of that unpleasant mental state. She did not yet think of people seeing her when she danced about through the rooms and passages, and ran races in the garden, and waded secretly in the water; nor of people hearing her, as she went about everywhere, singing aloud in the exuberance of her joy. She was only a girl yet: she scarcely felt the budding woman begin to stir within her healthful breast.

So the dining-room door swung open, wider than it needed to do, and Hope came in with a bound. She had hazel eyes and auburn hair, and an animated blithe face, whose claims to beauty, if it had any, no one ever thought of deciding. She was tolerably tall and tolerably stout, and exceedingly firm, and active, and vigorous. The “Misses” in Edinburgh whispered among themselves, that Hope had a predilection for masculine games, and was as strong as a boy; but Hope denied the slander stoutly, affirming that its solitary foundation was one unlucky slide, and two or three snowballs, in both of which the stupid and docile Adelaide Fendie, whom no one thought of blaming, was as much implicated as she.

Hope was rather talkative; she had a great deal to say about her Edinburgh experiences, and both the father and the mother were good listeners; the sterner parent however being by far the most indulgent now.

“And what did your friends say when you came away, Hope?” asked Mr Oswald; “was there much lamentation?”

“They were all very sorry,” said Hope, “and they all wished they were coming too; only big Miss Mansfield that’s going to India, she did not care, for she thinks we are only girls and she’s a woman, and she’s always speaking about Calcutta--as if anybody was caring for Calcutta!--and little Mary Wood would hardly let me go, mamma--she wanted to come too. Will you let her come at the vacation, mother?--for when all the rest go away, Mary has to stay with Miss Swinton, because she has no friends.”

“But Miss Swinton is very kind, is she not?” said Mrs Oswald.

“Miss Swinton is always good to everybody,” said Hope promptly, “but when little Mary sees us all going away, and nobody coming for her, she greets--”

“She _greets_, Hope!” said Mr Oswald, holding up his hand in reproof.

“Well, father,” said the brave Hope, “it is a far better word than cries:--cries! as if folk had only cut their finger! and Miss Swinton says our tongue is as good a tongue as the English, and we need not think shame of it.”

Mr Oswald submitted to be defeated, well-pleased and smiling--

“And what does Miss Swinton do at the vacations, Hope?” asked her mother.

“I don’t know, mother; sometimes she stays at home, sometimes she goes away to some of those places that the Glasgow girls are always talking about--Rothesay, or somewhere about the Clyde. She was there with Miss Buchanan last year; and oh, mamma, I had almost forgotten--how is _our_ Helen Buchanan? I must go to see her to-day.”

The banker’s brow contracted suddenly. His wife was wary, and a good politician; she took no notice of Hope’s unsuitable inquiry.

“Miss Swinton went to stay with one of the young ladies, did she? does she do that often, Hope?”

“Sometimes, mother; they are all so fond of her--and I don’t think she has ever been in the south country. Perhaps she would come to Fendie, if you were to ask her, mother, and bring little Mary Wood.”

“Well we shall see,” said Mrs Oswald; “and what about Adelaide Fendie, Hope?”

“Oh, Adelaide Fendie is coming home; the school is not good enough for her; and they’re going to have a governess at Mount Fendie, for her, and Victoria, and little Fred--Poor governess! I am very sorry for her, I am sure, whoever she is. I would far rather keep a school like--”

Mrs Oswald interposed hastily, “Is it some one from Edinburgh, Hope?”

“No, indeed, mamma. Only somebody from England that Mrs Heavieliegh knows; and I almost hope she will be as stupid as they are, for if she is not, they will kill her. I would not live at Mount Fendie for all the world; and no one can teach Adelaide anything, except to do Berlin work, and thump, thump upon the piano.”

“Come, Hope, this is too bad,” said her smiling father. “I hope you can thump upon the piano to some purpose yourself. We must hear you to-night, you know.”

“I don’t care about it, father,” said Hope; “it is very dreary, except folk will just let me play my own tunes; but then there’s these awful waltzes and things, that were never made for anything but people’s fingers. Adelaide could play them for days, father; but they make me dizzy; for there’s nothing but noise in them.”

“I am afraid you are quite giddy enough already, Hope,” said Mr Oswald.

“Miss Swinton says I am sensible,” said Hope, with offended dignity. “Miss Swinton says she can trust me with the little ones better than Miss Mansfield,--and Miss Mansfield’s seventeen!”

The father and mother laughed; but Miss Swinton’s testimony to Hope’s good sense pleased them nevertheless.

“Adelaide is coming home in a week,” said Hope, “and she said the new governess would be at the Mount before her. I am to go up every day, Adelaide says, if you will let me, mother; and I would like to go sometimes, but not so often; and I want to go to Mossgray, to see old Mrs Mense, and the Laird; and up to Friarsford to Maggie Irving, and down to the Waterfoot to see the Flower of Fendie; but first of all--”

“That will do, Hope,” said her mother, fearful that the interdicted name might fall from Hope’s gay lips again; “but I think you might show us those drawings of yours that you used to write so much about:--you can arrange your visits to-morrow.”

“But I want to go into Fendie to-night, mother,” urged Hope, “to see--”

“We cannot part with you to-night, Hope,” said Mrs Oswald; “and now go and bring your drawings and let your father see them.”

Hope obeyed. Mr Oswald began to walk about the room, almost inclined to be angry with his daughter; this pertinacious attachment to the one person in Fendie whom he tabooed, and the constant recurrence of her name, annoyed him greatly; and the banker had a consciousness that his wife and his son William were much more likely to submit, so far as external action went, to his stern will, than was the much privileged girl-daughter, who appeared fully as much inclined to sway him as he was to sway her, and did it as effectually. The grave and painful constraint with which William curbed a will as strong as his father’s, raised in the banker’s mind an angry feeling of antagonism; but the frank resistance of Hope was much less easily managed. Mr Oswald began to feel an involuntary “_drither_” as to his success in this part of the contest--a dubious consciousness that Hope might be too many for him.

The exhibition of drawings did not succeed. Hope perceived that there was something wrong, and with eager girlish curiosity could not rest till she had fathomed it. William was strangely grave and taciturn, she thought; she seized the earliest opportunity of questioning him.

By the dining-room fireside, the brother and sister sat in the twilight alone. Hope took advantage of the propitious moment.

“William, is there anything the matter?”

William stirred the fire thoughtfully and sighed. The light threw a gleam upon his face, and made it look very grey and grim, as his sister thought. Hope was not inclined to wait for his tardy answer; she plunged into the middle of the _questio vexata_.

“William, I want to know about Helen Buchanan.”

William started.

“Hush, Hope--do not speak of her, I beg.”

“Why?” said Hope. “I like her better than anybody else in Fendie: why should I not speak of her?”

There was no point on which Hope and her taciturn brother agreed so perfectly. He smiled a momentary smile, and then answered gravely,--

“Because you do like her better than any one else in Fendie, you must not speak of her, Hope--and especially recollect that her name must not be mentioned before my father, unless you wish to hear her spoken of with anger and disrespect, which I am sure you do not.”