Margaret Oliphant - It was a Lover and his Lass

"I should be an ungrateful wretch if I did," said Lewis, "especially as I am very anxious to see what pleasant surprise you have prepared for me under the name of collops."

"Ah!" said Janet, shaking her head, but relaxing in spite of herself, "you're just a whillie whaw."

When she was gone, however, Lewis shook his head still more gravely at himself. Was it not very imprudent of him to have said anything about that project? – and it was scarcely even a project, only an idea; and now it was ridiculous. He had been very imprudent. No doubt this woman would repeat it, and it would get into the air, and everyone would know. The question now was whether he should confine himself in future to the collops, or whether he should explain to Janet that he had meant nothing, and that his communication was confidential. He had certainly been a fool to speak at all. To tell the truth, he had never been alone in a totally new world without any outlet for his thoughts before, and his laugh had been so inevitable, and the explanation so simple. When Janet re-appeared with the collops, however, she was in haste, and nothing more was said; and by-and-by he forgot that he had said anything that it was not quite natural to say.

The presence of this young stranger at a little village inn so unimportant as the "Murkley Arms" was a surprising event in the village, and set everybody talking. To be sure an enthusiastic fisherman like Pat Lindsay, from Perth, had been known to live there for a month at a time during the season, and to nod his head with great gusto when Janet's merits as a cook were discussed. Most people in Murkley were quite aware of Janet's merits, but the outside world, the travellers and tourists who passed, so to speak, on the other side, had no information on the subject. This was one of the points, indeed, in which it was an endless vexation to her that her husband had "nae pith" nor spirit in him. Had the little house been furbished up and made into a fine hotel, Janet knew that she had it in her to make that hotel a success; but with a man who could neither look imposing and dignified at the head of such an establishment, nor do any of the hard work necessary, what could a woman do? She had to give up the hope of rising in the world; but, when it so happened that a guest did come, Janet's treatment of him was royal. And she felt a certain gratitude to the visitor who gave her an opportunity of showing what was in her.

"What is he here for?" she said. "What for should he no be here, if ye please? He's here for his ain pleasure. He's from foreign parts, and it's good for him to see what the life is in a real quiet, honest place. They havena ower much of that abroad. They have your gambling-tables, and music playing morning, noon, and nicht. Eh, but they maun be sick o't! A band once in a way I say naething against, and when it's a regiment marching it's grand; but trumpets blaring and flaring like thae Germans, losh me! it would send a body out of her wits in nae time. He's come away from that, and I think he's a wise man. And though he's no fisher himself he likes to see Adam catch the trout. And he's a fine lad. He's welcome to bide as long as he likes, for me."

This was her answer to the many questions with which at first she was plied on the subject. The minister, who was a man of very liberal mind and advanced views was soon interested in the stranger, and made acquaintance with him as he lingered about on Sunday after church looking at the monuments in the church-yard. Lewis went to church cheerfully as a sort of tribute to society, and also as the only social meeting to which he could get admittance. He loved to be among his fellow-creatures, to see other people round him, and, unknown as he was, this was almost his only way of enjoying the pleasure. The minister, whose name was Seton, accosted him with very friendly intentions.

"You will find, I fear, a great difference in our services from those you are used to," he said. "I would fain hope things were a little better with us than they used to be; but we're far behind in ritual. The sister Church has always held up a far different standard."

"Which Church is that?" said Lewis, with his friendly candour of mind. "I am a very great ignoramus."

"Ah, I suppose you are High," said the minister, "and don't acknowledge our orders. Of course, you cannot expect me to consent to that. The Church of England is a great institution, but apt to carry things with a high hand, and look down upon Protestant brethren."

"Ah, yes – but I don't know anything about England," said Lewis, still puzzled; upon which Mr. Seton made many apologies.

"I ought to have known – of course, your complexion and all that; you come from the land of enlightenment, where everything is subservient to intellect. How glad I shall be of the opportunity ask to your advice about some passages I am in doubt about! Your fatherland is the home of biblical science."

"I am not a German," said Lewis, "but I know the language well enough, and if I can be of any use – Oh, no, I am an Englishman, though I never was in England – unless I may call this England."

"Which you certainly must not do," said the minister; "we've fought hard enough on that account in our day. I suppose you are here for the fishing," he added, as everybody did, but with a little disingenuousness, for by this time all the world was aware that Lewis did not fish, nor pretend to fish, nor, indeed, do anything but what the good people of Murkley called idling his time away.

"I am no fisher," he said – "not a sportsman at all, and not much of an artist either. I am not very good at anything. I came here because it struck my fancy."

He laughed somewhat uneasily, because it was not true, and he was a bad deceiver; but then Mr. Seton had no reason to suppose that it was not true, and he took it with great composure as a natural reason enough.

"It is a fine country," he said. "I am free to say it, for it is not my country. I am from the south myself."

"The south!" said Lewis, deceived in his turn, and looking with a little surprise at the fine burly form and grizzled locks of the clergyman, who seemed to him of the same type as Adam, and not like anything that he realized as the south. "Do you mean of France, or still nearer the mezzo-giorno? Oh, I know the south very well. I have been through the wildest parts of Sicily and Calabria, as well as most civilized regions."

"I meant Dumfriesshire," said the minister, with a blush. He felt as if he had been guilty of false pretences. "That is south to us. You have been a great traveller, Mr. – "

"Murray," said Lewis, quickly.

"You are a Murray, too? Then I suppose you had ancestors in this district. That's very common; I have had people come here from all the ends of the world anxious to look at the tombstones or the parish register."

"I shall not need to do that," the young man said. "The name came to me with some property," he added, with his usual mixture of caution and imprudence – "from my god-father," he added, after another pause. This was so far true that it was the name by which the young dependent on his bounty had been used to call old Sir Patrick; his voice softened at the word, which he had not used for so long. "He brought me up – he was very good to me. I have lost him, there is about a year."

The minister felt that it was necessary to reply in his professional capacity.

"Ah," he said, "such losses shatter the world to us; but so long as they turn our thoughts to better things, to the land whither we must all travel – "

Lewis was not used to spiritual consolation; he gave his companion a nod of not uncheerful assent.

"He always wished me to travel," he said. "It has become to me a second nature. I am told that it is to the Highlands that tourists go, but otherwise this pleases me very much."