Chamberss Edinburgh Journal, No. 436 | Page 9

It was surely a better place
than this?'
'You know what the old proverb says, Master Willie: "Change is
lightsome,"' said John, beginning to dig, as if he would fain stave off
the explanation.
'Ha, John, that wont do!' said I; 'your mind was never so unsteady. Tell
me the truth, for old times' sake; and if there is anything in the story
that should not be made public, you know I was always a capital
secret-keeper. Maybe it was a love-matter, John: are you married yet?'
'No, Master Willie,' cried my old friend, with a look of the most sincere
self-gratulation I ever saw. 'But it's a queer story, and one I shouldn't
care for telling; only, you were always a discreet boy, and it rather
presses on my mind at times. The master won't be back for awhile; he'll
have the roast to try, and the pudding to taste--not to talk of seeing the
table laid out, for there are to be some half-dozen besides yourself
to-day at dinner. That's his way, you see. And I'll tell you what took me
from the toll-house--but mind, never mention it, as you would keep
peace in the west country.'
This is John's story, as nearly in his own words as I can call them to
mind:--
* * * * *
The family in whose service I was brought up lived on their estate in
Dumbartonshire, which came through the mistress of the mansion, who
had been heiress of entail, and a lady in her own right; we called her
Lady Catherine, and a prouder woman never owned either estate or title.
Her father had been a branch of the Highland family to whom the
property originally belonged. Her mother was sprung from the old
French nobility, an emigrant of the first Revolution, and she had been

brought up in England, and married in due time to an Honourable Mr
---- there. When she first came to the estate, her husband had been
some years dead, and Lady Catherine brought with her a son, who was
to be heir--at that time a boy like myself--and two handsome grown-up
daughters. The castle was a great fabric, partly old and partly new. It
stood in the midst of a noble park, with tall trees and red deer in it. Its
last possessor had been a stingy old bachelor; but after Lady
Catherine's coming, the housekeeping was put on a grand scale. There
was a retinue of English servants, and continual company. I remember
it well, for just then my poor mother died. She had been a widow,
living in a low cottage hard by the park-wall, with me and a gray cat for
company, and her spinning-wheel for our support. I was but a child
when she died; and having neither uncle nor aunt in the parish, they
took me, I think, by her ladyship's order, into the castle, to run small
errands, and help in the garden; from which post, in process of time, I
rose to that of footman. Lady Catherine was in great odour with the
country gentry for her high-breeding, her fashionable connections, and
her almost boundless hospitality. She was popular with the tenantry too,
for there was not a better managed estate in the west, and the factor had
general orders against distress and ejectment.
They said her ladyship had been reckoned a beauty in London
drawing-rooms, and our parish thought her wonderfully grand for the
gay dresses and rich jewellery she wore. Doubtless, these were but the
cast-offs of the season, for regularly every spring she and the family
went up to London, where they kept a fine house, and what is called the
best society. How much the gay dresses had to do with the beauty is not
for me to say, but Lady Catherine was a large, stately woman, with a
dark complexion, and very brilliant red, which the servants whispered
was laid on in old court fashion. Her manner to her equals was graceful,
and to her inferiors, gracious; but there was a look of pride in her dark
gray eyes, and a stern resolution about the compressed lips, which
struck my childish mind with strange fear, and kept older hearts in awe.
Her daughters, Florence and Agnes, were pictures of their
mother--proud, gay ladies, but thought the flower of the county. Their
portions were good, and they would have been co-heiresses but for
their brother Arthur. He was the youngest, but so different from his

mother and sisters, that you wouldn't have thought him of the same
family. His fair face and clear blue eyes, his curly brown hair and
merry look, had no likeness to them, though he was not a whit behind
them in air or stature. At eighteen, there was not