Christine by Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr (the two towers ebook TXT) 📖

DEAR NEIL,

I am going to spend the rest of vacation at Ballister Mansion, and
I want you with me. I require your help in a particular business
investigation. I will pay you for your time and knowledge, and
your company will be a great pleasure to me. This afternoon I will
call and see you, and if you are busy with the nets, I shall enjoy
helping you.

Your friend,

ANGUS BALLISTER.

Neil was really much pleased with the message, and glad to hear of an opportunity to make money, for though the young man was selfish, he was not idle; and he instantly perceived that much lucrative business could follow this early initiation into the Ballister affairs. He quickly finished his arrangement of the dishes and the kitchen, and then, putting on an old academic suit, made his room as scholarly and characteristic as possible. And it is amazing what an _air_ books and papers give to the most commonplace abode. Even the old inkhorn and quill pens seemed to say to all who entered--"Tread with respect. This is classic ground."

His predominating thought during this interval was, however, not of himself, but of Christine. She had promised to come to him at three o'clock. How would she come? He was anxious about her first appearance. If he could in any way have reached her, he would have sent his positive command to wear her best kirk clothes, but at this great season neither chick nor child was to be seen or heard tell of, and he concluded finally to leave what he could not change or direct to those household influences which usually manage things fairly well.

As the day went on, and Ballister did not arrive, he grew irritably nervous. He could not study, and he found himself scolding both Ballister and Christine for their delay. "Christine was so ta'en up wi' the feesh, naething else was of any import to her. Here was a Scottish gentleman coming, who might be the makin' o' him, and a barrel o' herrin' stood in his way." He had actually fretted himself into his Scotch form of speech, a thing no Gael ever entirely forgets when really worried to the proper point.

When he had said his heart's say of Christine, he turned his impatience on Ballister--his behavior was that o' the ordinary rich young man, who has naething but himsel' to think o'. He, Neil Ruleson, had lost a hale morning's wark, waiting on his lairdship. Weel, he'd have to pay for it, in the long run. Neil Ruleson had no waste hours in his life. Nae doubt Ballister had heard o' a fast horse, or a fast----

Then Ballister knocked at the door, and Neil stepped into his scholarly manner and speech, and answered Ballister's hearty greeting in the best English style.

"I am glad to see you, Neil. I only came to Ballister two days ago, and I have been thinking of you all the time." With these words the youth threw his Glengary on the table, into the very center and front of Neil's important papers. Then he lifted his chair, and placed it before the open door, saying emphatically as he did so--


Lands may be fair ayont the sea,
But Scotland's hills and lochs for me!


O Neil! Love of your ain country is a wonderful thing. It makes a man of you."

"Without it you would not be a man."

Ballister did not answer at once, but stood a moment with his hand on the back of the deal, rush-bottomed chair, and his gaze fixed on the sea and the crowd of fishing boats waiting in the harbor.

Without being strictly handsome, Ballister was very attractive. He had the tall, Gaelic stature, and its reddish brown hair, also brown eyes, boyish and yet earnest. His face was bright and well formed, his conversation animated, his personality, in full effect, striking in its young alertness.

"Listen to me, Neil," he said, as he sat down. "I came to my majority last March, when my uncle and I were in Venice."

"Your uncle on your mother's side?"

"No, on the sword side, Uncle Ballister. He told me I was now my own master, and that he would render into my hands the Brewster and Ballister estates. I am sure that he has done well by them, but he made me promise I would carefully go over all the papers relating to his trusteeship, and especially those concerning the item of interests. It seems that my father had a good deal of money out on interest--I know nothing about interest. Do you, Neil?"

"I know everything that is to be known. In my profession it is a question of importance."

"Just so. Now, I want to put all these papers, rents, leases, improvements, interest accounts, and so forth, in your hands, Neil. Come with me to Ballister, and give the mornings to my affairs. Find out what is the usual claim for such service, and I will gladly pay it."

"I know the amount professionally charged, but----"

"I will pay the professional amount. If we give the mornings to this work, in the afternoons we will ride, and sail, fish or swim, or pay visits--in the evenings there will be dinner, billiards, and conversation. Are you willing?"

"I am delighted at the prospect. Let the arrangement stand, just so."

"You will be ready tomorrow?"

"The day after tomorrow."

"Good. I will----"

Then there was a tap at the door, and before Neil could answer it, Christine did so. As she entered, Ballister stood up and looked at her, and his eyes grew round with delighted amazement. She was in full fisher costume--fluted cap on the back of her curly head, scarlet kerchief on her neck, long gold rings in her ears, gold beads round her throat, and a petticoat in broad blue and yellow stripes.

"Christine," said Neil, who, suddenly relieved of his great anxiety, was unusually good-tempered. "Christine, this is my friend, Mr. Angus Ballister. You must have heard me speak of him?"

"That's a fact. The man was your constant talk"--then turning to Ballister--"I am weel pleased to see you, Sir;" and she made him a little curtsey so full of independence that Ballister knew well she was making it to herself--"and I'm wondering at you twa lads," she said, "sitting here in the house, when you might be sitting i' the garden, or on the rocks, and hae the scent o' the sea, or the flowers about ye."

"Miss Ruleson is right," said Ballister, in his most enthusiastic mood. "Let us go into the garden. Have you really a garden among these rocks? How wonderful!"

How it came that Ballister and Christine took the lead, and that Neil was in a manner left out, Neil could not tell; but it struck him as very remarkable. He saw Christine and his friend walking together, and he was walking behind them. Christine, also, was perfectly unembarrassed, and apparently as much at home with Ballister as if he had been some fisher-lad from the village.

Yet there was nothing strange in her easy manner and affable intimacy. It was absolutely natural. She had never realized the conditions of riches and poverty, as entailing a difference in courtesy or good comradeship; for in the village of Culraine, there was no question of an equality founded on money. A man or woman was rated by moral, and perhaps a little by physical qualities--piety, honesty, courage, industry, and strength, and knowledge of the sea and of the fisherman's craft. Christine would have treated the great Duke of Fife, or Her Majesty, Victoria, with exactly the same pleasant familiarity.

She showed Ballister her mother's flower garden, that was something beyond the usual, and she was delighted at Ballister's honest admiration and praise of the lovely, rose-sweet plot. Both seemed to have forgotten Neil's presence, and Neil was silent, blundering about in his mind, looking for some subject which would give him predominance.

Happily strolling in and out the narrow walks, and eating ripe gooseberries from the bushes, they came to a little half-circle of laburnum trees, drooping with the profusion of their golden blossoms. There was a wooden bench under them, and as Christine sat down a few petals fell into her lap.

"See!" she cried, "the trees are glad o' our company," and she laid the petals in her palm, and added--"now we hae shaken hands."

"What nonsense you are talking, Christine," said Neil.

"Weel then, Professor, gie us a bit o' gude sense. Folks must talk in some fashion."

And Neil could think of nothing but a skit against women, and in apologetic mood and manner answered:

"I believe it is allowable, to talk foolishness, in reply to women's foolishness."

"O Neil, that is cheap! Women hae as much gude sense as men hae, and whiles they better them"--and then she sang, freely and clearly as a bird, two lines of Robert Burns' opinion--


"He tried His prentice hand on man,
And then He made the lasses O!"


She still held the golden blossoms in her hand, and Ballister said:

"Give them to me. Do!"

"You are vera welcome to them, Sir. I dinna wonder you fancy them. Laburnum trees are money-bringers, but they arena lucky for lovers. If I hed a sweetheart, I wouldna sit under a laburnum tree wi' him, but Feyther is sure o' his sweetheart, and he likes to come here, and smoke his pipe. And Mither and I like the place for our bit secret cracks. We dinna heed if the trees do hear us. They may tell the birds, and the birds may tell ither birds, but what o' that? There's few mortals wise enough to understand birds. Now, Neil, come awa wi' your gude sense, I'll trouble you nae langer wi' my foolishness. And good day to you, Sir!" she said. "I'm real glad you are my brother's friend. I dinna think he will go out o' the way far, if you are wi' him."

Ballister entreated her to remain, but with a smile she vanished among the thick shrubbery. Ballister was disappointed, and somehow Neil was not equal to the occasion. It was hard to find a subject Ballister felt any interest in, and after a short interval he bade Neil good-bye and said he would see him on the following day.

"No, on the day after tomorrow," corrected Neil. "That was the time fixed, Angus. Tomorrow I will finish up my work for the university, and I will be at your service, very happily and gratefully, on Friday morning." Then Neil led him down the garden path to the sandy shore, so he did not return to the cottage, but went away hungry for another sight of Christine.

Neil was pleased, and displeased. He felt that it would have been better for him if Christine had not interfered, but there was the delayed writing to be finished, and he hurried up the steep pathway to the cottage. Some straying vines caught his careless footsteps, and threw him down, and though he was not hurt, the circumstance annoyed him. As soon as he entered the cottage, he was met by Christine, and her first remark added to his discomfort:

"Whate'er hae you been doing to yoursel', Neil Ruleson? Your coat is torn, and your face scratched. Surely you werna fighting wi' your friend."

"You know better, Christine. I was