Weir of Hermiston | Page 4

long, and dying on a sudden in a bloody
flux.
In all these generations, while a male Rutherford was in the saddle with
his lads, or brawling in a change-house, there would be always a white-
faced wife immured at home in the old peel or the later mansion-house.
It seemed this succession of martyrs bided long, but took their
vengeance in the end, and that was in the person of the last descendant,
Jean. She bore the name of the Rutherfords, but she was the daughter of
their trembling wives. At the first she was not wholly without charm.
Neighbours recalled in her, as a child, a strain of elfin wilfulness, gentle
little mutinies, sad little gaieties, even a morning gleam of beauty that
was not to be fulfilled. She withered in the growing, and (whether it
was the sins of her sires or the sorrows of her mothers) came to her
maturity depressed, and, as it were, defaced; no blood of life in her, no
grasp or gaiety; pious, anxious, tender, tearful, and incompetent.
It was a wonder to many that she had married - seeming so wholly of
the stuff that makes old maids. But chance cast her in the path of Adam
Weir, then the new Lord-Advocate, a recognised, risen man, the
conqueror of many obstacles, and thus late in the day beginning to
think upon a wife. He was one who looked rather to obedience than
beauty, yet it would seem he was struck with her at the first look.
"Wha's she?" he said, turning to his host; and, when he had been told,
"Ay," says he, "she looks menseful. She minds me - "; and then, after a
pause (which some have been daring enough to set down to sentimental
recollections), "Is she releegious?" he asked, and was shortly after, at
his own request, presented. The acquaintance, which it seems profane
to call a courtship, was pursued with Mr. Weir's accustomed industry,
and was long a legend, or rather a source of legends, in the Parliament
House. He was described coming, rosy with much port, into the
drawing-room, walking direct up to the lady, and assailing her with
pleasantries, to which the embarrassed fair one responded, in what
seemed a kind of agony, "Eh, Mr. Weir!" or "O, Mr. Weir!" or "Keep

me, Mr. Weir!" On the very eve of their engagement, it was related that
one had drawn near to the tender couple, and had overheard the lady
cry out, with the tones of one who talked for the sake of talking, "Keep
me, Mr. Weir, and what became of him?" and the profound accents of
the suitor reply, "Haangit, mem, haangit." The motives upon either side
were much debated. Mr. Weir must have supposed his bride to be
somehow suitable; perhaps he belonged to that class of men who think
a weak head the ornament of women - an opinion invariably punished
in this life. Her descent and her estate were beyond question. Her
wayfaring ancestors and her litigious father had done well by Jean.
There was ready money and there were broad acres, ready to fall
wholly to the husband, to lend dignity to his descendants, and to
himself a title, when he should be called upon the Bench. On the side of
Jean, there was perhaps some fascination of curiosity as to this
unknown male animal that approached her with the roughness of a
ploughman and the APLOMB of an advocate. Being so trenchantly
opposed to all she knew, loved, or understood, he may well have
seemed to her the extreme, if scarcely the ideal, of his sex. And besides,
he was an ill man to refuse. A little over forty at the period of his
marriage, he looked already older, and to the force of manhood added
the senatorial dignity of years; it was, perhaps, with an unreverend awe,
but he was awful. The Bench, the Bar, and the most experienced and
reluctant witness, bowed to his authority - and why not Jeannie
Rutherford?
The heresy about foolish women is always punished, I have said, and
Lord Hermiston began to pay the penalty at once. His house in George
Square was wretchedly ill-guided; nothing answerable to the expense of
maintenance but the cellar, which was his own private care. When
things went wrong at dinner, as they continually did, my lord would
look up the table at his wife: "I think these broth would be better to
sweem in than to sup." Or else to the butler: "Here, M'Killop, awa' wi'
this Raadical gigot - tak' it to the French, man, and bring me some
puddocks! It seems rather a sore kind of a business that I should be all
day in Court haanging Raadicals, and get nawthing to my