Scotch Marriages, Volume 1 by Sarah Tytler

Drumsheugh recovered gradually from the consequences of his fall; but / he had a long and dangerous illness, during which there was much to / subdue any human being to whom he was first and dearest.

Peggy proved herself a harmless, guileless, fond and faithful creature. / She was meek in her exaltation, which, to begin with, consisted mainly / of the liberty to nurse day and night a young man who had been too / much spoilt by rude health, an active life, and the getting of his own / way, though it had not necessarily been a base -- not even a mean and / heartless way -- to come out strong as a patient, considerate invalid.

The old lady opened her eyes more and more to the truth, and did not / repent of her wise generosity. She was won so far as to take Peggy / into a degree of favour on her own account. Still, there could not / fail to be an amount of reaction here also. Mrs. Ramsay made the best / of Peggy: she brought herself to think that the laird's mother might / be the most suitable person to train the laird's wife and to mould her / in the course of years into the future Lady as well as mistress of / Drumsheugh. She, the present Lady, might do it and get over the contact / with all Peggy's innumerable rusticities and gaucheries, not merely / out of unselfish regard for her son, but because of some grains of / tenderness already springing up, whether she would or not, in her by no / means unmotherly heart, for her daughter. Poor little Peggy Hedderwick / that was, had been thrust on an undesirable eminence, which brought / her in unsuitable rivalry -- not with one alone, but with every former / aggrieved Lady of Drumsheugh; yet Peggy deferred so sincerely to Mrs. / Ramsay in the smallest particular, and looked up to her from such a / lowly depth of respect that was almost awe, and of gratitude which in / its intensity was well-nigh anguish, that the worst part of the offence / became cancelled.

But when all was said and done, it galled and fretted Mrs. Ramsay's / proud, punctilious nature to see Peggy scared and ashamed, floundering / and bungling hugely and grotesquely whenever she could not avoid / taking the place which had been vacated to her. For the old lady did / nothing by halves. The head of the dinner-table, the central seat / on the principal settee in the drawing-room, the top of the front / gallery ‘bucht' in Craigture Kirk, the front seat of that coach which / Balcairnie had not caused to be driven to the Cotton to bring Peggy / home, the ordering of the servants, the receiving of the guests -- all / belonged now to Peggy's duties and privileges. She might discharge / them very unworthily, but she might not refuse to accept them; and no / third person who had Peggy's interest at heart might decline them for / her or appropriate them in order to save her from suffering. This was / not to be done for young Mrs. Ramsay's own sake, to avoid injuring her / fatally, since if any rash, short-sighted person were to interfere / and adopt this course, worse would be sure to come of it, and for the / sake of shielding her present the poor young woman's future would be / irretrievably ruined.

No, as Peggy had brewed she must drink -- as she had aspired, and by / what would universally be held a wonderful stroke of good fortune, / gained her aspirations, she must consent to rise to them, and fit / herself for a new sphere. She must learn to live up to the blue china / of a hundred years ago. She must agree to learn the lessons of her / womanhood, with whatever toil and torture; she must struggle upwards / against overwhelming obstacles and crushing defeats; she must resign in / exchange for her dearly bought success, all the peace, ease, and happy / equality of her hardest day's work as a labouring woman.

There were others besides Peggy who had to endure mental pain when / Drumsheugh was sufficiently recovered to quit the retirement of / his rooms and appear even in the small publicity of family life. / At first, though the news had gone abroad at once, as the Lady had / intended it should, since the marriage was confessed and could never / be controverted, that Peggy Hedderwick had been acknowledged in the / presence of the household of Drumsheugh, and received by the mother of / the laird, as Jamie Ramsay's wife, there were few witnesses of the / cotter's girl's lack of qualifications for her dignities. Only the / doctor and the minister and Drumsheugh's confidant, Balcairnie, besides / Mrs. Ramsay and Peggy, and the elder servants, entered the sick room. / These spectators were bound in honour to keep their own counsel on the / subject of Peggy's mistakes and eccentricities.

Besides, when a man lies hovering between life and that death which / ends all social distinctions, grades and rank, with their different / standards and clashing practices, dwindle into vagueness and unreality. / Love may be as strong as death, and so capable of doing battle with the / last enemy; but there is a tendency, even in the noblest antecedents, / the best breeding, and the most polished manners, to collapse before / the primitive foe with his rude directness of dealing. It hardly / signified in these circumstances whether Peggy were a laird's or a / hind's daughter, though it did matter still that she was Drumsheugh's / first and last love, that it was to her his eye turned in every wrestle / with the assailant, that her voice could soothe or rouse him when / not even his mother's tones could penetrate through the turmoil of / unaccustomed torture, fever, and weakness under which his senses were / reeling.