CHAPTER II.

If I may not speak, I pray, All the words I have to say, Where shall I go hide them? Nought say I ’gainst words of thine, Do not listen, father mine-- So you need not chide them.--SONG.

Hope Oswald was very much puzzled. She could by no means understand why this perfectly unreasonable interdict should be put upon her free and unfettered speech, and was not in any degree inclined to submit to it. She resolved to be at the bottom of the mystery.

Mr Oswald and William were no sooner fairly lodged in the office the next morning than Hope began her investigation. Mrs Oswald sat sewing again; she had an old-fashioned horror of idleness.

“Mother,” said Hope, “I want you to tell me what ails Helen Buchanan?”

“Hush, my dear!” said her mother.

“But why should I hush, mamma? and why am I never to speak about Helen? William told me the very same; and it’s too bad--as if you could not trust me!”

“What makes you think there is anything to trust you with, Hope?” said Mrs Oswald.

“Oh, I know--because you will not let me speak, and say always, hush! hush! Mother, do tell me: what is the matter with Helen?--what ails her?”

“Nothing ails her, Hope--she is perfectly well.”

Hope became very impatient.

“But you know you don’t mean that, mamma; there _is_ something wrong; and would it not be better to tell me than to be always saying ‘hush!’”

Mrs Oswald smiled.

“It is not always so easy to tell, Hope:--for instance, why do you call me ‘mamma’ one moment, and ‘mother’ the next?”

“Oh, that is easy,” said Hope; “because the girls at school say mamma, and it sounds best there; and when I come home, William says mother, and it is home-like and--and the right word; but I forget sometimes, and mix them at first. So now, mother, if you please, tell me about Helen Buchanan.”

“You are a very pertinacious girl,” said Mrs Oswald; “but remember, Hope, if I tell you this, that you must be very prudent and sensible, and never mention it again.”

“I will be very prudent and sensible, mother,” promised Hope, with a reservation.

Mrs Oswald hesitated still: the impatient Hope volunteered to thread her mother’s refractory needle, and urged her petition still more warmly. A slight fugitive smile crossed the good mother’s face--then she became very grave.

“Helen’s father died long ago; he used to be very fond of you when you were a baby, Hope; but you cannot remember him.”

“Oh, yes! was he not very thin and pale, mother, with a white high forehead, like Mossgray?--I do mind him.”

“Hush, Hope! you are interrupting me now. He was a very delicate, gentle man, this poor Mr Buchanan; but he was not at all like Mossgray, and when he died, your father and he were not good friends.”

“Yes, mother, I know that,” said the disappointed Hope; “but is that all?”

“Wait a little; do not be so impatient!” said Mrs Oswald. “And foolish people said that your father’s sternness killed this delicate man. I believe Mrs Buchanan thinks so still.”

Hope started.

“Then Helen will not be friends with us because my father was poor Mr Buchanan’s enemy:--is that it, mother?”

“No, Hope, that is not it. Helen knows that her father was a weak man, and Helen is a wise, good girl, and would not do anything so foolish; but Helen is only a poor schoolmistress, Hope, and your brother William, you know, will be rich.”

“Oh, mamma!” exclaimed Hope, clapping her hands as the conjunction of these two names threw sudden light upon the mystery, “are they going to be married?”

“I very much fear you are not the sensible person you call yourself,” said her mother; “your father will not let them be married, Hope.”

Hope’s bright face became suddenly blank.

“Mother, there is nobody like Helen Buchanan in all Fendie! why will my father not let them be married?”

“Because her father did him wrong, Hope; and because she is poor.”

“Because she is poor!--Helen is a gentlewoman, mother!--and because her father did wrong! But that is not Helen’s fault. If my father did wrong, no one would blame William or me.”

“Take care, Hope; you are treading on dangerous ground,” said Mrs Oswald; “and though it is not Helen’s fault, your father has made up his mind, and William must submit.”

“But, mother,” said Hope doubtfully, “William is old--William is a man.”

“And what then?”

“I don’t know,” said Hope, hesitating; “perhaps it would be quite wrong, but--mother, is William always to do what my father bids him?”

“And why should he not, Hope?” said Mrs Oswald; “does it alter his duty that he is old?”

“I don’t know, mother,” said Hope again; “but if my grandfather were living now, my father would not always ask him before he did anything, as I ask you; and perhaps William is right, and perhaps--mother, what would my father do if William disobeyed him?”

“I believe he would never speak to him again,” said Mrs Oswald.

Hope shrank back and looked afraid.

“And all that he has, Hope, he would take from William and give to you.”

“To me, mother? that would not do William any harm,” said Hope, looking up brightly; “though if my father would not _speak_ to him--but he would, mother--he could not help it.”

“My dear, I have known your father longer than you have,” said Mrs Oswald; “and besides, Hope, Helen Buchanan would not consent if your father did not consent; she is as firm as he is.”

“Then it is all because everybody is proud, mother,” said Hope, turning away disconsolately, “and would rather make other folk unhappy than give up their own will.”

“There are some things in the world, Hope,” said Mrs Oswald, “that are of more importance than even making people happy.”

“I know, mother,” said Hope: “it is best to be _right_ always, whether we are happy or not; but this is not right, I am sure--my father does not know--there is nobody in Fendie like Helen Buchanan!”

Mrs Oswald sighed.

“You must not speak so of your father, Hope, he knows what is right better than you do.”

Hope looked sceptical; those frank instinctive impulses of the young heart, which had no complicated mesh of secret motives to hinder its prompt out-going, were perhaps better guides after all than the groping, worldly wisdom of elder minds; wisdom whose wary steps are supposed to be guided by the caution of clear-sightedness, when it is only the timid caution of the blind.

“But I may go to see Helen Buchanan, may I not, mother?” asked Hope, after a pause.

“Surely, Hope; I have no wish to restrain you, and your father will not, I dare say, unless you speak of her again before him, as you did yesterday; and you must be cautious of that, for it only aggravates your father’s prejudice and vexes William, without doing any good.”

“And am I not to speak about Helen at all?” said Hope.

“No, my dear, not now. I do not forbid you praising Helen as frankly as you blame Adelaide Fendie--and you must restrain that last propensity of yours a little, Hope--but do it cautiously and warily, and let me see something of this wisdom and good sense which Miss Swinton has discovered. You see I trust you, Hope.”

Hope drew herself up.

“I will be very careful, mother, no fear, but may I go to see Helen now?”

“Helen will be busy now, Hope.”

“Well, then, come to the Waterside, mother; I want to see Mossgray, and I want to see Maggie Irving. Come!”

The indulgent mother laid aside her work and went.

Friarsford was a farm-house standing on a little eminence at some distance from the Water, and Maggie Irving was the farmer’s daughter. She was a year older than Hope Oswald, and one of her Fendie intimates. The house was only a little out of the direct road to Mossgray, and Mrs Oswald and her daughter turned up the winding by-way to make their first visit there.

Matthew Irving of Friarsford was wealthy and had some ambition. He was exceedingly desirous to give his children good education, and with the masculine part of them he had succeeded tolerably well, thanks to the academy of Fendie; but the hapless Maggie was less fortunate. She was the only daughter; especial pains, and care, and labour had been expended upon her training, and the father and mother, exulting over their accomplished girl, thought the process a perfectly satisfactory and successful one.

Maggie had been sent to the house of a relative in one of the busy towns of Lancashire to learn English, and she had learnt it to perfection. Maggie had a piano, and could play you against time, all manner of inarticulate music. Maggie could draw, as three or four copies made from French lithographs--_patterns_, as Maggie and her mother called them--hung there, elaborately framed, upon the walls, to testify.

Moreover, Hope Oswald’s quick movements had swept upon the ground a couple of handsome specimens of knitting, displayed upon the arm and cushions of the sofa, before Hope had been ten minutes in the lightsome cheerful apartment, which was the comfortable parlour once, but had now obtained brevet rank as drawing-room. As Maggie hastened to arrange them, she pointed out the stitch to her visitor, and offered to show her the various stock she had. Hope was dismayed; never girl of fourteen was more innocent of stitches than she, and this branch of her friend’s acquirements had very little interest for her. It was not so with Mrs Irving, a comfortable, kindly, vulgar woman, who was very proud of her daughter’s accomplishments, and eager to exhibit them.

“Miss Hope will give you a tune, Maggie,” she said; “and you can let her hear how you come on yoursel. She’s very good at it, Mrs Oswald, though she hasna had the same advantages as Miss Hope.”

Hope started in alarm.

“On, don’t let us have any music, Mrs Irving!--I mean, I shall be very glad to hear Maggie, but I don’t like playing.”

Mrs Irving thought the young lady only coy.

“Hout, Miss Hope! a’body that’s very good at it makes that excuse, ye ken; and I’m sure ye must aye be getting new tunes in Edinburgh.”

“But I don’t like new tunes,” pleaded Hope.

“Oh, Miss Oswald!” said the astonished Maggie, in gentle reproof.

Hope was offended; Maggie Irving called her Miss Oswald; Maggie Irving had nothing to talk about, after so long a separation, but stitches and new tunes! Their friendship was at an end. Hope walked indignantly to the piano, and played her favourite air of “Hame, hame, hame!”

“It’s a bonnie bit simple thing that,” said Mrs Irving, looking proudly at her own accomplished performer, as she took her place at the instrument, by the side of which Hope and her mother were reluctantly compelled to sit for a dull half hour, listening to jingling pieces of music, whose brief moment of fashion was long ago over, and which had never had anything but fashion to recommend them.

But Mrs Irving was delighted, and Maggie was exceedingly complacent. Alas, poor Maggie! her fingers were highly educated; her mind was fallow. The thorough training of Hope’s Edinburgh school these good folk in Fendie could not reach; but they could reach the superficials, and they were contented.

“Well, Hope,” said Mrs Oswald, in answer to a burst of wonder and disappointment, when they had left Friarsford and its accomplishments behind them; “you remember how you used to resist and be disobedient when your father said that Matthew Irving’s daughter was no companion for you.”

“But, mother,” said Hope solemnly, “Adelaide Fendie is just the same--and Adelaide ought to be a lady, if being anybody’s daughter would make her one; but she is not, for all that.”

“Adelaide is only a girl like yourself, Hope.”

“But she is not a gentlewoman, mamma; and she talks about stitches and tunes like Maggie Irving--and I’m sure I don’t know what’s the use of them.”

Hope could not forget her disappointment; there was only one consolation in it. In the midst of all these twinkling artificial lights, the star of Helen Buchanan rose clearer and clearer. Helen was a gentlewoman; and what did it matter that she was poor?

“Yonder is Mossgray!” exclaimed Hope, as they approached the house; “yonder he is, up among the trees, and he has got something like a letter in his hand. Do you see him, mother?”

The bank of the wan Water sloped upward into gentle braes, a little beyond the house of Mossgray, and the laird was certainly there, walking among the trees, with a step altogether unlike his usual meditative, slow pace. Hope Oswald was an especial favourite with Mr Graeme of Mossgray, and he liked her mother; but Mrs Oswald had too much regard and sympathy for the old man to intrude on his retirement.

“We will go in and see Mrs Mense, Hope,” she said; “Mossgray seems occupied just now. You will see him another day.”

The large old-fashioned kitchen had a separate entrance to itself. The mass of buildings altogether bore evident testimony to the different periods of their erection, and looked, as their owner said, a natural growth of the homesoil in which the grey walls and rude, dark, massy tower seemed so firmly rooted. A large garden descended from the most modern front of the house to the water, where it was deeply fringed with willows. The clipt, fantastic trees of a generation which admired such clumsy gambols of art were scattered through it, and there was a sun-dial, and many prim flower-beds; but the cherished lilies of Mossgray were not in these stiffly-angled enclosures; their fresh green leaves were beginning to shoot up in the freer borders--those borders on which they gleamed in the dim summer evenings, like errant rays of the moon.

Mrs Mense was a very old woman now, and invalided. She sat in a great elbow-chair by the fireside, spinning feebly sometimes, and sometimes giving counsel, by no means feebly, to her self-willed niece, the housekeeper _de facto_. The establishment was a very limited one; besides Janet, and the miscellaneous personage known as “Mossgray’s man,” there was only one other servant in the house.

“Eh, Miss Hope, is this you?” said Mrs Mense, “and your mamma nae less, minding the auld wife as she aye does. Effie, ye tawpie, get chairs to the ladies--or are ye gaun ben, Mrs Oswald, to wait for Mossgray?”

“Mossgray is out, I see,” said Mrs Oswald. “No, Hope came to see you, Mrs Mense; we will sit down beside you awhile. That will do, Effie.”

“And look till her how she’s grown!” exclaimed the old woman, “and stout wi’t. Ye’re no gaun to let down our credit, Miss Hope. Ye’ll let the Edinburgh folk see what guid bluid is in thir southland parts. Effie, gar Janet gie ye the wee cheeny luggie fu’ o’ cream. Ye mind it, Miss Hope? it belangs mair to you than to onybody about Mossgray.”

“But, Mrs Mense,” said Hope, “you did not call Crummie’s calf after me, as you said you would.”

“My dear lamb! ye wadna have had me to ca’ the muckle langleggit haverel of a beast after you, and you a winsome young lady? Na, I ken better manners--and forbye Mossgray said it was nae compliment. But I’ll tell ye what, Miss Hope, there’s a new powny--the bonniest creature!--and ye’se get the naming o’t, gin ye like.”

“Where is it?--wait till I see it, mamma!” cried Hope, starting up. Hope had, like most country girls, an especial liking for youthful animals.

“Ye maun hae your cream first,” said the housekeeper, as Effie approached with the china luggie, in which, from time immemorial, Hope had received a draught of rich cream on her every visit to Mossgray. Hope hardly took time to taste it; she was too eager to see the “new powny.”

“Did you see the laird, Mem?” said Mrs Mense, with some appearance of anxiety, as Mrs Oswald waited for her daughter’s return.

“We saw him on the knowe,” said Mrs Oswald; “but did not disturb him, as he seemed occupied. I fancy that is one of his favourite spots, Mrs Mense.”

“Na--I’m meaning I dinna ken,” said the old woman; “but he’s gotten some letter the day that’s troubled him--I canna bide to see him fashed, and he’s just unco easy putten about. Janet, div ye hear the clock? it’s twa chappit, and the dinner no to the fire!”

“I ken what I’m doing, auntie,” returned the impatient Janet.

“Ye dinna ken onything very wise then,” said the dethroned monarch of the kitchen; “it’s a bonnie-like thing that the laird, honest man, maun wait for his dinner, aboon a’ the rest o’ his troubles! I heard him travelling up and down in his ain study-room in the tower, after thae weary letters came in. What gars folk write when they’ve naething but ill-tidings to tell about, I wad like to ken? and syne out to the Waterside as he aye does when he’s troubled--I canna bide, as I was saying, to see him fashed, for--”

“Oh, Mrs Mense!” exclaimed Hope, bounding in, “be sure and tell Mossgray that he is not to call the pony anything till I come back again. Mamma, come and see it; it’s like as if its coat was all sprinkled with snow--I think I will call it Spunkie; but that’s not a bonnie name. Mind, Mrs Mense, that nobody is to give it its name but me.”

Mrs Mense promised, and after some further lamentation about her master’s supposed trouble, resumed so keenly the dinner controversy with Janet, that her visitors withdrew. It was yet too early to visit Helen Buchanan, so Hope, expatiating on the beauty of the pony, returned with her mother, home.