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                              COLLECTION
                                  OF
                            BRITISH AUTHORS

                          TAUCHNITZ EDITION.

                              VOL. 2719.

                      KIRSTEEN BY MRS. OLIPHANT.

                            IN TWO VOLUMES.

                                VOL. I.




            TAUCHNITZ EDITION.

           By the same Author,


     _The Chronicles of Carlingford_:

  THE RECTOR AND THE DOCTOR’S FAMILY      1 vol.
  SALEM CHAPEL                            2 vols.
  THE PERPETUAL CURATE                    2 vols.
  MISS MARJORIBANKS                       2 vols.
  PHŒBE, JUNIOR                           2 vols.

       *       *       *       *       *

  THE LAST OF THE MORTIMERS                 2 v.
  MARGARET MAITLAND                         1 v.
  AGNES                                     2 v.
  MADONNA MARY                              2 v.
  THE MINISTER’S WIFE                       2 v.
  OMBRA                                     2 v.
  MEMOIR OF COUNT DE MONTALEMBERT           2 v.
  MAY                                       2 v.
  INNOCENT                                  2 v.
  FOR LOVE AND LIFE                         2 v.
  A ROSE IN JUNE                            1 v.
  THE STORY OF VALENTINE AND HIS BROTHER    2 v.
  WHITELADIES                               2 v.
  THE CURATE IN CHARGE                      1 v.
  MRS. ARTHUR                               2 v.
  CARITÀ                                    2 v.
  YOUNG MUSGRAVE                            2 v.
  THE PRIMROSE PATH                         2 v.
  WITHIN THE PRECINCTS                      3 v.
  THE GREATEST HEIRESS IN ENGLAND           2 v.
  HE THAT WILL NOT WHEN HE MAY              2 v.
  HARRY JOSCELYN                            2 v.
  IN TRUST                                  2 v.
  IT WAS A LOVER AND HIS LASS               3 v.
  THE LADIES LINDORES                       3 v.
  HESTER                                    3 v.
  THE WIZARD’S SON                          3 v.
  A COUNTRY GENTLEMAN AND HIS FAMILY        2 v.
  NEIGHBOURS ON THE GREEN                   1 v.
  THE DUKE’S DAUGHTER                       1 v.
  THE FUGITIVES                             1 v.




                               KIRSTEEN

                               THE STORY
                                  OF
                   A SCOTCH FAMILY SEVENTY YEARS AGO

                                  BY
                            MRS. OLIPHANT,
              AUTHOR OF “THE CHRONICLES OF CARLINGFORD,”
                               ETC. ETC.

                         _COPYRIGHT EDITION._

                       IN TWO VOLUMES.--VOL. I.

                                LEIPZIG
                          BERNHARD TAUCHNITZ
                                 1891.




                               INSCRIBED

                         WITH LOVE AND RESPECT

                                  TO

                          CHRISTINA ROGERSON.




KIRSTEEN.




PART I.




CHAPTER I.


“Where is Kirsteen?”

“’Deed, mem, I canna tell you; and if you would be guided by me you
wouldna wail and cry for Kirsteen, night and day. You’re getting into
real ill habits with her to do everything for you. And the poor lassie
has not a meenit to hersel’. She’s on the run from morning to night.
Bring me this, and get me that. I ken you’re very weakly and life’s a
great trouble, but I would fain have ye take a little thought for her
too.”

Mrs. Douglas looked as if she might cry under Marg’ret’s reproof. She
was a pale pink woman seated in a large high easy-chair, so-called,
something like a porter’s chair. It was not particularly easy, but it
was filled with pillows, and was the best that the locality and the time
could supply. Her voice had a sound of tears in it as she replied:

“If you were as weak as I am, Marg’ret, and pains from head to foot, you
would know better--and not grudge me the only comfort I have.”

“Me grudge ye ainything! no for the world; except just that bairn’s time
and a’ her life that might be at its brightest; but poor thing, poor
thing!” said Marg’ret, shaking her head.

The scene was the parlour at Drumcarro, in the wilds of Argyllshire, the
speakers, the mistress of the house _de jure_, and she who was at the
head of affairs _de facto_, Marg’ret the housekeeper, cook, lady’s maid,
and general manager of everything. Mrs. Douglas had brought Marg’ret
with her as her maid when she came to Drumcarro as a bride some thirty
years before; but as she went on having child after child for nearly
twenty years, without much stamina of either mind or body to support
that continual strain, Marg’ret had gradually become more and more the
deputy and representative, the real substitute of the feminine head of
the house. Not much was demanded of that functionary so far as the
management of its wider affairs went. Her husband was an arbitrary and
high-tempered man, whose will was absolute in the family, who took
counsel with no one, and who after the few complaisances of a grim
honeymoon let his wife drop into the harmless position of a nonentity,
which indeed was that which was best fitted for her. All her active
duties one by one had fallen into the hands of Marg’ret, whose first
tender impulse to save the mistress whom she loved from toils unfitted
for her, had gradually developed into the self-confidence and universal
assumption of an able and energetic housekeeper born to organize and
administer. Marg’ret did not know what these fine words meant, but she
knew “her work,” as she would have said, and by degrees had taken
everything in the house and many things outside it into her hands. It
was to her that the family went for everything, who was the giver of all
indulgences, the only person who dared speak to “the maister,” when
clothes were wanted or any new thing. She was an excellent cook, a good
manager, combining all the qualities that make a house comfortable, and
she was the only one in the house who was not afraid of “the maister,”
of whom on the contrary he stood in a little awe. A wife cannot throw up
her situation with the certainty of finding another at a moment’s notice
as a good housekeeper can do--even if she has spirit enough to entertain
such an idea. And poor Mrs. Douglas had no spirit, no health, little
brains to begin with and none left now, after thirty years of domestic
tyranny and “a bairntime” of fourteen children. What could such a poor
soul do but fall into invalidism with so many excellent reasons
constantly recurring for adopting the habits of that state and its
pathos and helplessness? especially with Marg’ret to fall back upon,
who, though she would sometimes speak her mind to her mistress, nursed
and tended, watched over and guarded her with the most unfailing care.
Drumcarro himself (as he liked to be called) scarcely dared to be very
uncivil to his wife in Marg’ret’s presence. He knew better than to
quarrel with the woman who kept so much comfort with so little expense
in his spare yet crowded house.

“Who is your ‘poor thing, poor thing’?” said a cheerful voice, with a
mimicry of Marg’ret’s manner and her accent (for Marg’ret said poor as
if it were written with a French u, that sound so difficult to English
lips) “would it be the colley dogue or the canary bird or maybe the
mistress of the house?”

Marg’ret turned round upon the only antagonist in the house who could
hold head against her, or whom she could not crush at a blow--Kirsteen,
the second daughter, who came in at this moment, quite softly but with a
sudden burst open of the door, a sort of compromise between the noise it
would have been natural to her to make, and the quietness essential to
the invalid’s comfort. She was a girl of nearly twenty, a daughter of
the hills, strongly built, not slim but trim, with red hair and brown
eyes and a wonderful complexion, the pure whiteness like milk which so
often goes with those ruddy locks, and the colour of health and fine air
on her cheeks. I would have darkened and smoothed my Kirsteen’s abundant
hair if I could, for in those days nobody admired it. The type of beauty
to which the palm was given was the pale and elegant type, with hair
like night and starry eyes either blue or dark; and accordingly Kirsteen
was not considered a pretty girl, though there were many who liked her
looks in spite of her red hair, which was how people expressed their