Bonnie Prince Charlie | Page 7

his
return, shielded Malcolm from comment or rebuke; but after the very
first day the bailie's wife had declared to herself that it was impossible
that Malcolm could long remain an inmate of the house. She was not
inhospitable, and would have made great sacrifices in some directions
for the long missing brother of her husband; but his conduct outraged
all the best feelings of a good Scotch housewife.
Even on that first day he did not come punctually to his meals. He was
away about the town looking up old acquaintance, came in at dinner
and again at supper after the meal had already begun, and dropped into
his place and began to eat without saying a word of grace. He stamped

about the house as if he had cavalry spurs still on his heels; talked in a
voice that could be heard from attic to basement; used French and
Flemish oaths which horrified the good lady, although she did not
understand them; smoked at all hours of the day, whereas Andrew
always confined himself to his after supper pipe, and, in spite of his
assertions on the previous evening, consumed an amount of liquor
which horrified the good woman.
At his meals he talked loudly, kept the two apprentices in a titter with
his stories of campaigning, spoke slightingly of the city authorities, and
joked the bailie with a freedom and roughness which scandalized her.
Andrew was slow to notice the incongruity of his brother's demeanour
and bearing with the atmosphere of the house, although he soon
became dimly conscious that there was a jarring element in the air. At
the end of a week Malcolm broached the subject to him.
"Andrew," he said, "you are a good fellow, though you are a bailie and
an elder of the kirk, and I thank you for the hearty welcome you have
given me, and for your invitation to stay for a long time with you; but it
will not do. Janet is a good woman and a kindly, but I can see that I
keep her perpetually on thorns. In good truth, fifteen years of
campaigning are but an indifferent preparation for a man as an inmate
of a respectable household. I did not quite know myself how
thoroughly I had become a devil may care trooper until I came back to
my old life here. The ways of your house would soon be as intolerable
to me as my ways are to your good wife, and therefore it is better by far
that before any words have passed between you and me, and while we
are as good friends as on the evening when I returned, I should get out
of this. I met an old friend today, one of the lads who went with me
from Glasgow to join the Earl of Mar at Perth. He is well to do now,
and trades in cattle, taking them in droves down into England. For the
sake of old times he has offered me employment, and methinks it will
suit me as well as any other."
"But you cannot surely be going as a drover, Malcolm!"
"Why not? The life is as good as any other. I would not sit down, after
these years of roving, to an indoor life. I must either do that or cross the
water again and take service abroad. I am only six and thirty yet, and
am good for another fifteen years of soldiering, and right gladly would
I go back if Leslie were again at the head of his regiment, but I have

been spoiled by him. He ever treated me as a companion and as a friend
rather than as a trooper in his regiment, and I should miss him sorely
did I enter any other service. Then, too, I would fain be here to be ready
to join him again if he sends for me or comes, and I should wish to
keep an eye always on his boy. You will continue to take charge of him,
won't you, Andrew? He is still a little strange, but he takes to Elspeth,
and will give little trouble when he once learns the language."
"I don't like it at all, Malcolm," the bailie said.
"No, Andrew, but you must feel it is best. I doubt not that ere this your
wife has told you her troubles concerning me."
As the bailie on the preceding night had listened to a long string of
complaints and remonstrances on the part of his wife as to his brother's
general conduct he could not deny the truth of Malcolm's supposition.
"Just so, Andrew," Malcolm went on; "I knew that it must be so.
Mistress Janet has kept her lips closed firm to me, but I could see how