The Reluctant Baronet by Elizabeth W. Watkins

Author:Elizabeth W. Watkins
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Covenant Communications, Inc.
Published: 2023-02-01T19:32:11+00:00

Chapter Seven

Hogmanay

“So what do you think, having seen the lad?”

Russell could see Uncle Tor’s point. “He has certainly surpassed his father in height, and his hair is black, whereas his father’s has decidedly grayed. Does Mr. Gathercole mind being displaced by his sixteen-year-old son?”

“Not at all. This is merely for Hogmanay, after all, and not a challenge to anyone’s livelihood.”

“You are right, of course. What of the whiskey?”

Uncle smirked slyly. “I have all the women’s vote for small ale in place of whiskey. They are prepared to quell any rebellion the menfolk might try to mount.”

“It does not bother you to break that tradition, then?”

“Not in this instance. Few Englishmen have mastered the ability to savor Scotch whiskey in moderation, rather than guzzle it as if it were water in a bone-dry desert. You have better uses for the estate’s money, I feel sure, than to fuel a drunken midwinter revel.” Uncle’s smile widened to a complacent grin. “Less alcohol means less brawling as the night goes on and fewer headaches to treat come morning—all the better to enjoy the steak pie in peace.”

Russell acknowledged the enlightened self-interest in his uncle’s remark with a quiet smile. “What of the saining?” he asked. “I know that you disapprove of the juniper torches and their smoke.”

Uncle snorted in mild contempt. “I see no value to breathing smoke of any kind. It put young Anna with her weak lungs in bed for a week last year. Nae, I forbade torches, but I gave Mrs. Orcutt leave to make juniper candles to light our Ne’erday processions. The barrels of ford water are already loaded on the wagon. I took care to collect it when the stream was as clear as it ever gets.”

Russell smiled again. Uncle’s bias for clean water, along with his other medically acquired biases, always clashed with his respect for the old traditions at Hogmanay. The ford near the parish church—Uncle still referred to it as the kirk, even after all his years in England—ran over mossy stones for the most part but was frequently roiled with mud raised by parishioners and funeral processions alike. Still, as the only ford in the area crossed regularly by both the living and the dead, it provided the only possible candidate for magic water.

The two men sat on the terrace overlooking the park for which Oakhurst was renowned. Bordered by flourishing hedgerows, studded with trees, and sectioned here and there by neat fences, its green expanse extended nearly to the horizon in every direction. It had always represented familiarity and comfort to Russell. Today, these were tinged with the sorrow and loneliness he had hoped to leave behind him when he left Town. He ought to have realized that they would follow him wherever he went to the end of his days.

In an effort to distance the specters, he said lightly, “It still surprises me that the staff and tenants have adopted our Scottish customs with such fervor.”

“Not so surprising as all that,” Uncle Tor replied easily.

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