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                      THE LADIES LINDORES

                        BY MRS OLIPHANT


    IN THREE VOLUMES
    VOL. I.

    WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS
    EDINBURGH AND LONDON
    MDCCCLXXXIII

    _ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN 'BLACKWOOD'S MAGAZINE'_


    "TWO OF THE SWEET'ST COMPANIONS IN THE WORLD."
                                            --_Cymbeline_.




THE LADIES LINDORES.




CHAPTER I.


The mansion-house of Dalrulzian stands on the lower <DW72> of a hill,
which is crowned with a plantation of Scotch firs. The rugged outline of
this wood, and the close-tufted mass of the tree-tops, stand out against
the pale East, and protect the house below and the "policy," as the
surrounding grounds are called in Scotland; so that though all the winds
are sharp in that northern county, the sharpest of all is tempered. The
house itself is backed by lighter foliage--a feathery grove of birches,
a great old ash or two, and some tolerably well-grown, but less
poetical, elms. It is a house of distinctively local character, with the
curious, peaked, and graduated gables peculiar to Scotch rural
architecture, and thick walls of the roughest stone, washed with a
weather-stained coat of yellow-white. Two wings, each presenting a
gabled end to the avenue, and a sturdy block of building retired between
them,--all strong, securely built, as if hewn out of the rock, formed
the homely house. It had little of the beauty which a building of no
greater pretensions would probably have had in England. Below the wings,
and in front of the hall-door, with its two broad flat stone steps,
there was nothing better than a gravelled square, somewhat mossy in the
corners, and marked by the trace of wheels; but round the south wing
there swept a sort of terrace, known by no more dignified name than that
of "The Walk," from which the ground sloped downwards, broken at a lower
level by the formal little parterres of an old-fashioned flower-garden.
The view from the Walk was of no very striking beauty, but it had the
charm of breadth and distance--a soft sweep of undulating country, with
an occasional glimpse of a lively trout-stream gleaming here and there
out of its covert of crags and trees, and a great, varied, and
ever-changing world of sky,--not a prospect which captivated a stranger,
but one which, growing familiar day by day and year by year, was
henceforth missed like something out of their lives by the people who,
being used to it, had learned to love that silent companionship of
nature. It was the sort of view which a man pauses, not to look at but
to see, even when he is pacing up and down his library thinking of John
Thomson's demand for farm improvements, or, heavier thought, about his
balance at his bankers: and which solaces the eyes of a tired woman,
giving them rest and refreshment through all the vicissitudes of life.
People sought it instinctively in moods of reflection, in moments of
watching, at morning and at twilight, whenever any change was going on
in that great exhaustless atmosphere, bounded by nothing but the pale
distance of the round horizon,--and when was it that there was no change
in that atmosphere?--clouds drifting, shadows flying, gleams of light
like sudden revelations affording new knowledge of earth and heaven.

On the day on which the reader is asked first to visit this house of
Dalrulzian, great things were happening in it. It was the end of one
_régime_ and the beginning of another. The master of the house, a young
man who had been brought up at a distance, was coming home, and the
family which had lived in it for years was taking its leave of the
place.

The last spot which they visited and on which they lingered was the
Walk. When the packing was over, the final remnants gathered up, the
rooms left in that melancholy bareness into which rooms relapse when the
prettinesses and familiarities of habitation have been swept away, the
remaining members of the family came out with pensive faces, and stood
together gazing somewhat wistfully upon the familiar scene. They had
looked on many that were more fair. They were going to a landscape of
greater beauty further south--brighter, richer, warmer in foliage and
natural wealth; but all this did not keep a certain melancholy out of
their eyes. The younger of the party, Nora Barrington, cried a little,
her lip quivering, a big tear or two running over. "It is foolish to
feel it so much," her mother said. "How is it one feels it so much? I
did not admire Dalrulzian at all when we came."

"Out of perversity," said her husband; but he did not smile even at the
cleverness of his own remark.

Nora regarded her father with a sort of tender rage. "It is all very
well for you," she said; "one place is the same as another to you. But I
was such a little thing when we came here. To you it is one place among
many; to me it is home."

"If you take it so seriously, Nora, we shall have you making up to young
Erskine for the love of his house."

"Edward," cried Mrs Barrington in a tone of reproof, "I feel disposed to
cry too. We have had a great many happy days in it. But don't let old
Rolls see you crying, Nora. Here he is coming to say good-bye. When do
you expect Mr Erskine, Rolls? You must tell him we were sorry not to see
him; but he will prefer to find his house free when he returns. I hope
he will be as happy at Dalrulzian as we have been since we came here."

"Wherefore would he no' be happy, mem? He is young and weel off: and
you'll no' forget it's his own house."

Rolls had stepped out from one of the windows to take farewell of the
family, whom he was sorry to lose, yet anxious to get rid of. There was
in him the satisfied air of the man who remains in possession, and whose
habits are unaffected by the coming and going of ephemeral beings such
as tenants. The Barringtons had been at Dalrulzian for more than a dozen
years; but what was that to the old servant who had seen them arrive and
saw them go away with the same imperturbable aspect? He stood relieved
against the wall in his well-brushed black coat, concealing a little
emotion under a watchful air of expectancy just touched with impatience.
Rolls had condescended more or less to the English family all the time
they had been there, and he was keeping up his _rôle_ to the last,
anxious that they should perceive how much he wanted to see them off the
premises. Mrs Barrington, who liked everybody to like her, was vexed by
this little demonstration of indifference; but the Colonel laughed. "I
hope Mr Erskine will give you satisfaction," he said. "Come, Nora, you
must not take root in the Walk. Don't you see that Rolls wishes us
away?"

"Dear old Walk!" cried Nora; "dear Dalrulzian!" She rolled the _r_ in
the name, and turned the _z_ into a _y_ (which is the right way of
pronouncing it), as if she had been to the manner born; and though an
English young lady, had as pretty a fragrance of northern Scotland in
her voice as could be desired. Rolls did not trust himself to look at
this pretty figure lingering, drying wet eyes, until she turned round
upon him suddenly, holding out her hands: "The moment we are off, before
we are down the avenue, you will be wishing us back," she cried with
vehemence; "you can't deceive _me_. You would like to cry too, if you
were not ashamed," said the girl, with a smile and a sob, shaking the
two half-unwilling hands she had seized.

"Me cry! I've never done that since I came to man's estate," cried Rolls
indignantly, but after a suspicious pause. "As for wishing you back,
Miss Nora, wishing you were never to go,--wishing you would grow to the
Walk, as the Cornel says----" This was so much from such a speaker, that
he turned, and added in a changed tone, "You'll have grand weather for
your journey, Cornel. But you must mind the twa ferries, and no' be late
starting,"--a sudden reminder which broke up the little group, and made
an end of the scene of leave-taking. It was the farewell volley of
friendly animosity with which Rolls put a stop to his own perverse
inclination to be soft-hearted over the departure of the English
tenants. "He could not let us go without that parting shot," the
"Cornel" said, as he put his wife into the jingling "coach" from the
station, which, every better vehicle having been sent off beforehand,
was all that remained to carry them away.

The Barringtons during their residence at Dalrulzian had been received
into the very heart of the rural society, in which at first there had
sprung up a half-grudge against the almost unknown master of the place,
whose coming was to deprive them of a family group so pleasant and so
bright. The tenants themselves, though their turn was over, felt
instinctively as if they were expelled for the benefit of our intruder,
and entertained this grudge warmly. "Mr Erskine might just as well have
stayed away," Nora said. "He can't care about it as we do." Her mother
laughed and chid, and shared the sentiment. "But then it's 'his ain
place,' as old Rolls says." "And I daresay he thinks there is twice as
much shooting," said the Colonel, complacently: "I did, when we came.
He'll be disappointed, you'll see." This gave him a faint sort of
satisfaction. In Nora's mind there was a different consolation, which
yet was not a consolation, but a mixture of expectancy and curiosity,
and that attraction which surrounds an unconscious enemy. She was going
to make