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Updated: April 30, 2025
Waiting for the train, as we stood upon the platform, I looked back again toward the wooded uplands of Bartram; and far behind, the fine range of mountains, azure and soft in the distance, beyond which lay beloved old Knowl, and my lost father and mother, and the scenes of my childhood, never embittered except by the sibyl who sat beside me.
Rusk and Mary Quince, in their several ways, used to enhance, by occasional anecdotes and frequent reflections, the terrors of such an intrusion. I suppose they did not wish a revolution and all its consequences at Knowl, and thought it no harm to excite my vigilance. But it was impossible long to be vexed with Cousin Monica. 'You know, my dear, your father is an oddity, she said.
When my dear mamma died I was not nine years old; and I remember, two days before the funeral, there came to Knowl, where she died, a thin little man, with large black eyes, and a very grave, dark face. He was shut up a good deal with my dear father, who was in deep affliction; and Mrs. Rusk used to say, 'It is rather odd to see him praying with that little scarecrow from London, and good Mr.
How dared anyone in my uncle's house in my house mix my name up with her detestable scurrilities? 'For Heaven's sake, Miss, don't ye go out, cried poor Quince; 'it's some drunken creature. But I was very angry, and, like a fool as I was, I threw open the door, exclaiming in a loud and haughty key 'Here is Miss Ruthyn of Knowl. Who wants to see her?
The funeral was conducted, in obedience to his brief but peremptory direction, very privately and with little expense. But of course there was an attendance, and the tenants of the Knowl estate also followed the hearse to the mausoleum, as it is called, in the park, where he was laid beside my dear mother. And so the repulsive ceremonial of that dreadful day was over.
Still no response from Milly, and I, provoked, though myself a little shy, made answer 'My uncle, Mr. Ruthyn, is very well, thank you, and I felt that I blushed as I spoke. 'Ah, pray excuse me, may I take a great liberty? you are Miss Ruthyn, of Knowl? Will you think me very impertinent I'm afraid you will if I venture to introduce myself?
I was soon to understand it all soon, too, to know all about my father's impending journey, whither, with what visitor, and why guarded from me with so awful a mystery. That day there came a lively and goodnatured letter from Lady Knollys. She was to arrive at Knowl in two or three days' time. I thought my father would have been pleased, but he seemed apathetic and dejected.
This despatch was written from Paisley on the morning of the 13th, while fresh horses were being saddled. By noon he was off again, and for the next three days rode fast and far, leaving "no den, no knowl, no moss, no hill unsearched." He could track his game from Aird's Moss to within two miles of Cumnock town, and thence on towards Cairntable. But there all traces of them had vanished.
'Yes certainly you. I did, uncle, answered I. 'And where was it, my dear? Not at Knowl, I fancy. Poor dear Austin did not trouble me or mine much with his hospitalities. This was not a pleasant tone to take in speaking of his dead brother and benefactor; but at the moment I was too much engaged upon the one point to observe it.
It lay down with me at night and got up with me in the morning, tinting and disturbing my dreams, and making my daily life terrible. I wonder now that I lived through the ordeal. The torment was secret and incessant, and kept my mind in unintermitting activity. Externally things went on at Knowl for some weeks in the usual routine.
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