Scotch Marriages, Volume 1 by Sarah Tytler

The woman who sang ‘Huntingtower' as Primrose Ramsay sang it could / neither be hard-hearted nor narrow-minded, Balcairnie said to himself, / and he acted on the speech.

The visit to Balcairnie was paid. The ladies behaved as graciously as / the host was intent on rendering the visit a pleasure to his guests. / Everything was propitious, even to a recent fortuitous moulting of / the guinea-fowls. There was quite a heap of the clear grey and black / and white spotted feathers, which Primrose called ‘second mourning / feathers,' at their fanciers' disposal. The cherries were at their / best, the curds and cream as rich and sweet as could be desired. Yellow / ragwart, small pink and white convolvuluses, great purple mallows grew / among last autumn's russet stacks, which sheltered the farm-house / more effectually than the fir-tree avenue sheltered the mansion of / Drumsheugh. The garden was fragrant with red and white gilliflower, / pink cabbage-roses and lilac lavender, and gay with orange marigolds. / The kye were coming home from the pasture, the sheep were in the / fauld, the pigeons were flying back to the pigeon-house as the evening / drew on. The whole place looked so ‘couthie' and sweet and bright, so / home-like and cheery, that the women felt it hard it should be wasted / on a single man and his servants. The hardship to her sex surprised / Mrs. Forsyth into something like an aggrieved wonder that Balcairnie / did not take a wife.

The remark in its turn startled a deeper colour into Balcairnie's ruddy / cheeks, and provoked a laugh from Dr. Forsyth and Primrose Ramsay.

At last Balcairnie found an opportunity when the party were still / strolling about the garden, and Dr. Forsyth had called away his wife / to examine one of the Dutch summer-houses which were then in great / favour, and of which he proposed erecting a specimen in their garden at / Craigie. Balcairnie and Primrose Ramsay were left sauntering along a / broad box-edged walk, listening to a blackbird in a neighbouring lilac / bush. Balcairnie interrupted the bird, and went to the gist of the / matter and of his purpose at once. He had no notion of courtly fencing. / Artful preambles were not in his way. ‘Miss Ramsay, I want to speak to / you about your cousin's lady up at Drumsheugh.'

Primrose met his request, which was more like a demand, with a look / of surprise and some annoyance. She was not easily offended, but she / felt vexed that this man -- her cousin's friend, whom she had begun to / respect as well as to like -- should introduce an unpalatable subject, / one on which they could not be expected to agree, at his own place too. / He was less of a gentleman -- one of nature's gentlemen -- than she had / been thinking him. Then she said, with a shade of distance and dryness / in her manner and tone, ‘I beg your pardon, Mr. Home, but I am not / acquainted with young Mrs. Ramsay, though she is my cousin's wife.'

‘That is the very reason I want to speak to you about her,' he said, / looking her straight in the face. ‘What for are you not acquainted with / Drumsheugh's wife? ' he asked bluntly. ‘You should be. Not only has she / become your relation by marriage, you could be of the first service to / her; you could do her all the gude in the world. And I have conceived / such an opinion of you, madam, that I believe you would be pleased to / confer a favour even on a stranger, and do gude to one you might never / see again.'

She stood still, perplexed and a little softened.

He was forced to go on; he must speak out now or be silent for ever. / ‘Young Mrs. Ramsay is lonesome in the laird's absence. For mair reasons / than one she has great need of a friend. If I mistake not, you could be / the best friend she has ever had in this world.'

‘How could I? ' stammered Primrose. ‘She is your acquaintance, not mine. / Why cannot you help her if she requires help?'

He waived aside the proposal with an impatient swing of his arm. ‘A / man body is worse than nothing to a woman in some straits. A woman / friend -- a gude woman to give gude advice from her own experience, / is everything. If I were even to mint the trouble in a letter to / Drumsheugh, I might only breed more mischief. I tell you what, Miss / Ramsay, you may rue it to the day of your death, if you do not give a / thocht to what I'm asking from you.'

‘Be reasonable, Mr. Home,' remonstrated Primrose, whom his earnestness / infected and stirred with agitation. ‘How can I interfere? I have no / commission from my cousin Jamie or my aunt, even supposing I could move / in this matter. From what I have heard -- forgive me, if she is a friend / of yours -- I could do no good. Young Mrs. Ramsay is taking her own / course -- a foolish, downward course, I fear -- with which it would not be / fitting that I should intermeddle.'

‘Then what is the gude of your being a young leddy, so muckle cleverer / and wiser and better-bred, with no chance of your making a mistake / or the world's finding faut with you? ' Balcairnie put the question / sharply, almost sternly, and the next moment grew abashed and shocked / at his own rudeness. ‘I beg your pardon, humbly, Miss Ramsay, I've no / manners, as I need not tell you, but it makes me mad' -- with a quick / groan -- ‘to think of another woman, a leddy gude and kind, as I can see, / leaving a poor sister lass to be sorned on, trodden down and driven / desperate -- never by her own wickedness and hardness of heart, but just / because she's as tender and gentle as any leddy in the land.'

Primrose was struck by his passionate advocacy. How he must have loved / this girl, who had forsaken him for a grander suitor, to be so deceived / in his view of her character -- if he were deceived. She had already had / a conception of him as a larger-minded man than Jamie Ramsay, and his / present appeal proved his largeness of heart.