Mary had done her best to save the story from becoming public by warning the expectant suitor, who on his side had thought himself safely out of the ridicule of it by his quick withdrawal. But the voices of the servants and the children were not to be silenced. “Have ye heard the news?” said Duncan the carter at the toll-bar. “The maister up at the house is neither to haud nor to bind. Our Kirsteen has ta’en her fit in her hand and run away, the Lord kens where, for fear he would mairry her against her will to auld Glendochart.” “Eh, do ye ken what’s happened?” said Marg’ret’s help in the kitchen as soon as she could find an excuse to run to the merchant’s. “Miss Kirsteen, she’s aff to the ends of the earth, and the mistress near deed with trouble, and Marg’ret raging just like a sauvage beast.” The boys whispered it to their mates at school with a certain sense of distinction, as of people to whom something out of the common had happened, and Jeanie who had no one else to communicate the wonderful fact to, told the little girl that brought the letters, by whom it was published far and near. Miss Eelen heard it the next morning by means of Jock, who rode the pony over almost before daylight to inquire if his sister had been seen there. “Indeed she might have been too proud to have had the offer of Glendochart,” the old lady said. “He should just take Mary instead.” “He will maybe think that’s not the same thing,” said Mr. Pyper, the minister, who went over to the town in his gig soon after about some Presbytery business, and to hear what people were saying. “Well it will be very near the same thing,” Miss Eelen said.
This was how it had come to the ears of the Duke and Duchess and all the best society in the county, who were immensely entertained, and told a hundred stories about the gallant wooer whose attempt at courtship had been so disastrous. He went away himself the next day, sending a letter to Drumcarro to say that he had heard that his suit was disagreeable to the young lady, and that nothing could induce him to press it after he knew this fact; but that he hoped on his return to pay his respects to Mrs. Douglas and the young ladies. Drumcarro was not to be spoken to by any member of his family after this happened for several days. Had he met with the gallant old gentleman who had thus, in his own opinion, retired so gracefully, it is to be feared the trim Glendochart might have found his martial science of but little avail against “the auld slave-driver’s” brutal energy and strength. But after a while Mr. Douglas calmed down. He flung Kirsteen’s little possessions out of doors, and swore with many oaths that whoever named that hizzy’s name again should leave his house on the moment. But when Glendochart, coming back in the spring, came out formally to pay a visit at Drumcarro, bringing boxes of French chocolate and other tokens of his residence abroad, the laird, though he gave him the briefest salutation, did not knock him down, which was what the family feared. And by dint of a diplomacy which would have done credit to any ambassador, Mary continued so to close her mother’s mouth that no reference should be made to the past. Mrs. Douglas was too much afraid of her husband to introduce Kirsteen’s name, but she was ready with a hundred little allusions. “Ah, Glendochart, when ye were here last! That was before our last misfortune. I will never be so well again as I was in those days, when I had one by me that never forgot her mother.” She would have sympathized with him and claimed his sympathy in this furtive way from the moment of his arrival. But Mary had taken by this time very much the upper hand and brought her mother into great subjection. “Ye will just drive him away if ye say a word.” “I am sure,” Mrs. Douglas said weeping, “her name never crosses my lips.” “But what does that matter when you are just full of allusions and talk of her that’s away.” “Alas! there is another that I might be meaning,” said the poor mother; “two of them, bonny lassies as ever lived, and one with weans of her own that I will never see.” “Oh, mother, why should ye make such a work about them that never think of you? They would have bided at home if their hearts had been here. But it’s a grand thing for the boys and Jeanie,” said the astute elder sister, “that Glendochart should come back. It sets us right with the world, and see the things he’s always bringing them.” “Mainy sweeties are not good for children, though thae chocolate ones are maybe wholesome enough,” said Mrs. Douglas. “And what does he ever do for them but bring them sweeties?” “Mother, it’s just education for them to hear such a man speak,” cried Mary, which silenced Mrs. Douglas at the end.