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diff --git a/old/sbeas10.txt b/old/sbeas10.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..2b8284c --- /dev/null +++ b/old/sbeas10.txt @@ -0,0 +1,4727 @@ +*Project Gutenberg Etext Stories by English Authors in Scotland* +[Also see our Stories by Enlish Authors in France, Germany, Africa +Italy, etc., etc.] + + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world, be sure to check +the copyright laws for your country before posting these files!! + +Please take a look at the important information in this header. +We encourage you to keep this file on your own disk, keeping an +electronic path open for the next readers. Do not remove this. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**Etexts Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*These Etexts Prepared By Hundreds of Volunteers and Donations* + +Information on contacting Project Gutenberg to get Etexts, and +further information is included below. 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FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END* + + + + + +Etext prepared by Dagny, dagnyj@hotmail.com +Emma Dudding, emma_302@hotmail.com +and John Bickers, jbickers@ihug.co.nz + + + + + +STORIES BY ENGLISH AUTHORS + +SCOTLAND + + + + +Editors: Scribners + + + + +CONTENTS + + The Courting of T'nowhead's Bell J. M. Barrie + "The Heather Lintie" S. R. Crockett + A Doctor of the Old School Ian Maclaren + Wandering Willie's Tale Sir Walter Scott + The Glenmutchkin Railway Professor Aytoun + Thrawn Janet R. L. Stevenson + + + +THE COURTING OF T'NOWHEAD'S BELL + +BY + +J. M. BARRIE + +For two years it had been notorious in the square that Sam'l Dickie +was thinking of courting T'nowhead's Bell, and that if Little Sanders +Elshioner (which is the Thrums pronunciation of Alexander Alexander) +went in for her, he might prove a formidable rival. Sam'l was a weaver +in the tenements, and Sanders a coal-carter, whose trade-mark was a +bell on his horse's neck that told when coal was coming. Being +something of a public man, Sanders had not, perhaps, so high a social +position as Sam'l, but he had succeeded his father on the coal-cart, +while the weaver had already tried several trades. It had always been +against Sam'l, too, that once when the kirk was vacant he had advised +the selection of the third minister who preached for it on the ground +that it became expensive to pay a large number of candidates. The +scandal of the thing was hushed up, out of respect for his father, who +was a God-fearing man, but Sam'l was known by it in Lang Tammas's +circle. The coal-carter was called Little Sanders to distinguish him +from his father, who was not much more than half his size. He had +grown up with the name, and its inapplicability now came home to +nobody. Sam'l's mother had been more far-seeing than Sanders's. Her +man had been called Sammy all his life because it was the name he got +as a boy, so when their eldest son was born she spoke of him as Sam'l +while still in the cradle. The neighbours imitated her, and thus the +young man had a better start in life than had been granted to Sammy, +his father. + +It was Saturday evening--the night in the week when Auld Licht young +men fell in love. Sam'l Dickie, wearing a blue glengarry bonnet with a +red ball on the top, came to the door of the one-story house in the +tenements, and stood there wriggling, for he was in a suit of tweed +for the first time that week, and did not feel at one with them. When +his feeling of being a stranger to himself wore off, he looked up and +down the road, which straggles between houses and gardens, and then, +picking his way over the puddles, crossed to his father's hen-house +and sat down on it. He was now on his way to the square. + +Eppie Fargus was sitting on an adjoining dyke knitting stockings, and +Sam'l looked at her for a time. + +"Is't yersel', Eppie?" he said at last. + +"It's a' that," said Eppie. + +"Hoo's a' wi' ye?" asked Sam'l. + +"We're juist aff an' on," replied Eppie, cautiously. + +There was not much more to say, but as Sam'l sidled off the hen-house +he murmured politely, "Ay, ay." In another minute he would have been +fairly started, but Eppie resumed the conversation. + +"Sam'l," she said, with a twinkle in her eye, "ye can tell Lisbeth +Fargus I'll likely be drappin' in on her aboot Mununday or Teisday." + +Lisbeth was sister to Eppie, and wife of Tammas McQuhatty, better +known as T'nowhead, which was the name of his farm. She was thus +Bell's mistress. + +Sam'l leaned against the hen-house as if all his desire to depart had +gone. + +"Hoo d' ye kin I'll be at the T'nowhead the nicht?" he asked, grinning +in anticipation. + +"Ou, I'se warrant ye'll be after Bell," said Eppie. + +"Am no sae sure o' that," said Sam'l, trying to leer. He was enjoying +himself now. + +"Am no sure o' that," he repeated, for Eppie seemed lost in stitches. + +"Sam'l!" + +"Ay." + +"Ye'll be speerin' her sune noo, I dinna doot?" + +This took Sam'l, who had only been courting Bell for a year or two, a +little aback. + +"Hoo d' ye mean, Eppie?" he asked. + +"Maybe ye'll do 't the nicht." + +"Na, there's nae hurry," said Sam'l. + +"Weel, we're a' coontin' on 't, Sam'l." + +"Gae 'wa' wi' ye." + +"What for no?" + +"Gae 'wa' wi' ye," said Sam'l again. + +"Bell's gei an' fond o' ye, Sam'l." + +"Ay," said Sam'l. + +"But am dootin' ye're a fell billy wi' the lasses." + +"Ay, oh, I d'na kin; moderate, moderate," said Sam'l, in high delight. + +"I saw ye," said Eppie, speaking with a wire in her mouth, "gaein' on +terr'ble wi' Mysy Haggart at the pump last Saturday." + +"We was juist amoosin' oorsel's," said Sam'l. + +"It'll be nae amoosement to Mysy," said Eppie, "gin ye brak her heart." + +"Losh, Eppie," said Sam'l, "I didna think o' that." + +"Ye maun kin weel, Sam'l, 'at there's mony a lass wid jump at ye." + +"Ou, weel," said Sam'l, implying that a man must take these things as +they come. + +"For ye're a dainty chield to look at, Sam'l." + +"Do ye think so, Eppie? Ay, ay; oh, I d'na kin am onything by the +ordinar." + +"Ye mayna be," said Eppie, "but lasses doesna do to be ower- +partikler." + +Sam'l resented this, and prepared to depart again. + +"Ye'll no tell Bell that?" he asked, anxiously. + +"Tell her what?" + +"Aboot me an' Mysy." + +"We'll see hoo ye behave yersel', Sam'l." + +"No 'at I care, Eppie; ye can tell her gin ye like. I widna think +twice o' tellin' her mysel'." + +"The Lord forgie ye for leein', Sam'l," said Eppie, as he disappeared +down Tammy Tosh's close. Here he came upon Henders Webster. + +"Ye're late, Sam'l," said Henders. + +"What for?" + +"Ou, I was thinkin' ye wid be gaen the length o' T'nowhead the nicht, +an' I saw Sanders Elshioner makkin' 's wy there an 'oor syne." + +"Did ye?" cried Sam'l, adding craftily, "but it's naething to me." + +"Tod, lad," said Henders, "gin ye dinna buckle to, Sanders'll be +carryin' her off." + +Sam'l flung back his head and passed on. + +"Sam'l!" cried Henders after him. + +"Ay," said Sam'l, wheeling round. + +"Gie Bell a kiss frae me." + +The full force of this joke struck neither all at once. Sam'l began to +smile at it as he turned down the school-wynd, and it came upon +Henders while he was in his garden feeding his ferret. Then he slapped +his legs gleefully, and explained the conceit to Will'um Byars, who +went into the house and thought it over. + +There were twelve or twenty little groups of men in the square, which +was lit by a flare of oil suspended over a cadger's cart. Now and +again a staid young woman passed through the square with a basket on +her arm, and if she had lingered long enough to give them time, some +of the idlers would have addressed her. As it was, they gazed after +her, and then grinned to each other. + +"Ay, Sam'l," said two or three young men, as Sam'l joined them beneath +the town clock. + +"Ay, Davit," replied Sam'l. + +This group was composed of some of the sharpest wits in Thrums, and it +was not to be expected that they would let this opportunity pass. +Perhaps when Sam'l joined them he knew what was in store for him. + +"Was ye lookin' for T'nowhead's Bell, Sam'l?" asked one. + +"Or mebbe ye was wantin' the minister?" suggested another, the same +who had walked out twice with Chirsty Duff and not married her after +all. + +Sam'l could not think of a good reply at the moment, so he laughed +good-naturedly. + +"Ondootedly she's a snod bit crittur," said Davit, archly. + +"An' michty clever wi' her fingers," added Jamie Deuchars. + +"Man, I've thocht o' makkin' up to Bell mysel'," said Pete Ogle. "Wid +there be ony chance, think ye, Sam'l?" + +"I'm thinkin' she widna hae ye for her first, Pete," replied Sam'l, in +one of those happy flashes that come to some men, "but there's nae +sayin' but what she micht tak' ye to finish up wi'." + +The unexpectedness of this sally startled every one. Though Sam'l did +not set up for a wit, however, like Davit, it was notorious that he +could say a cutting thing once in a way. + +"Did ye ever see Bell reddin' up?" asked Pete, recovering from his +overthrow. He was a man who bore no malice. + +"It's a sicht," said Sam'l, solemnly. + +"Hoo will that be?" asked Jamie Deuchars. + +"It's weel worth yer while," said Pete, "to ging atower to the +T'nowhead an' see. Ye'll mind the closed-in beds i' the kitchen? Ay, +weel, they're a fell spoiled crew, T'nowhead's litlins, an' no that +aisy to manage. Th' ither lasses Lisbeth's haen had a michty trouble +wi' them. When they war i' the middle o' their reddin' up the bairns +wid come tum'lin' aboot the floor, but, sal, I assure ye, Bell didna +fash lang wi' them. Did she, Sam'l?" + +"She did not," said Sam'l, dropping into a fine mode of speech to add +emphasis to his remark. + +"I'll tell ye what she did," said Pete to the others. "She juist +lifted up the litlins, twa at a time, an' flung them into the coffin- +beds. Syne she snibbit the doors on them, an' keepit them there till +the floor was dry." + +"Ay, man, did she so?" said Davit, admiringly. + +"I've seen her do 't mysel'," said Sam'l. + +"There's no a lassie mak's better bannocks this side o' Fetter Lums," +continued Pete. + +"Her mither tocht her that," said Sam'l; "she was a gran' han' at the +bakin', Kitty Ogilvy." + +"I've heard say," remarked Jamie, putting it this way so as not to tie +himself down to anything, " 'at Bell's scones is equal to Mag +Lunan's." + +"So they are," said Sam'l, almost fiercely. + +"I kin she's a neat han' at singein' a hen," said Pete. + +"An' wi' 't a'," said Davit, "she's a snod, canty bit stocky in her +Sabbath claes." + +"If onything, thick in the waist," suggested Jamie. + +"I dinna see that," said Sam'l. + +"I d'na care for her hair, either," continued Jamie, who was very nice +in his tastes; "something mair yallowchy wid be an improvement." + +"A'body kins," growled Sam'l, " 'at black hair's the bonniest." + +The others chuckled. + +"Puir Sam'l!" Pete said. + +Sam'l, not being certain whether this should be received with a smile +or a frown, opened his mouth wide as a kind of compromise. This was +position one with him for thinking things over. + +Few Auld Lichts, as I have said, went the length of choosing a +helpmate for themselves. One day a young man's friends would see him +mending the washing-tub of a maiden's mother. They kept the joke until +Saturday night, and then he learned from them what he had been after. +It dazed him for a time, but in a year or so he grew accustomed to the +idea, and they were then married. With a little help he fell in love +just like other people. + +Sam'l was going the way of the others, but he found it difficult to +come to the point. He only went courting once a week, and he could +never take up the running at the place where he left off the Saturday +before. Thus he had not, so far, made great headway. His method of +making up to Bell had been to drop in at T'nowhead on Saturday nights +and talk with the farmer about the rinderpest. + +The farm kitchen was Bell's testimonial. Its chairs, tables, and +stools were scoured by her to the whiteness of Rob Angus's sawmill +boards, and the muslin blind on the window was starched like a child's +pinafore. Bell was brave, too, as well as energetic. Once Thrums had +been overrun with thieves. It is now thought that there may have been +only one, but he had the wicked cleverness of a gang. Such was his +repute that there were weavers who spoke of locking their doors when +they went from home. He was not very skilful, however, being generally +caught, and when they said they knew he was a robber, he gave them +their things back and went away. If they had given him time there is +no doubt that he would have gone off with his plunder. One night he +went to T'nowhead, and Bell, who slept in the kitchen, was awakened by +the noise. She knew who it would be, so she rose and dressed herself, +and went to look for him with a candle. The thief had not known what +to do when he got in, and as it was very lonely he was glad to see +Bell. She told him he ought to be ashamed of himself, and would not +let him out by the door until he had taken off his boots so as not to +soil the carpet. + +On this Saturday evening Sam'l stood his ground in the square, until +by-and-by he found himself alone. There were other groups there still, +but his circle had melted away. They went separately, and no one said +good-night. Each took himself off slowly, backing out of the group +until he was fairly started. + +Sam'l looked about him, and then, seeing that the others had gone, +walked round the town-house into the darkness of the brae that leads +down and then up to the farm of T'nowhead. + +To get into the good graces of Lisbeth Fargus you had to know her ways +and humour them. Sam'l, who was a student of women, knew this, and so, +instead of pushing the door open and walking in, he went through the +rather ridiculous ceremony of knocking. Sanders Elshioner was also +aware of this weakness of Lisbeth's, but though he often made up his +mind to knock, the absurdity of the thing prevented his doing so when +he reached the door. T'nowhead himself had never got used to his +wife's refined notions, and when any one knocked he always started to +his feet, thinking there must be something wrong. + +Lisbeth came to the door, her expansive figure blocking the way in. + +"Sam'l," she said. + +"Lisbeth," said Sam'l. + +He shook hands with the farmer's wife, knowing that she liked it, but +only said, "Ay, Bell," to his sweetheart, "Ay, T'nowhead," to +McQuhatty, and "It's yersel', Sanders," to his rival. + +They were all sitting round the fire; T'nowhead, with his feet on the +ribs, wondering why he felt so warm; and Bell darned a stocking, while +Lisbeth kept an eye on a goblet full of potatoes. + +"Sit into the fire, Sam'l," said the farmer, not, however, making way +for him. + +"Na, na," said Sam'l; "I'm to bide nae time." Then he sat into the +fire. His face was turned away from Bell, and when she spoke he +answered her without looking round. Sam'l felt a little anxious. +Sanders Elshioner, who had one leg shorter than the other, but looked +well when sitting, seemed suspiciously at home. He asked Bell +questions out of his own head, which was beyond Sam'l, and once he +said something to her in such a low voice that the others could not +catch it. T'nowhead asked curiously what it was, and Sanders explained +that he had only said, "Ay, Bell, the morn's the Sabbath." There was +nothing startling in this, but Sam'l did not like it. He began to +wonder if he were too late, and had he seen his opportunity would have +told Bell of a nasty rumour that Sanders intended to go over to the +Free Church if they would make him kirk officer. + +Sam'l had the good-will of T'nowhead's wife, who liked a polite man. +Sanders did his best, but from want of practice he constantly made +mistakes. To-night, for instance, he wore his hat in the house because +he did not like to put up his hand and take it off. T'nowhead had not +taken his off, either, but that was because he meant to go out by-and- +by and lock the byre door. It was impossible to say which of her +lovers Bell preferred. The proper course with an Auld Licht lassie was +to prefer the man who proposed to her. + +"Ye'll bide a wee, an' hae something to eat?" Lisbeth asked Sam'l, +with her eyes on the goblet. + +"No, I thank ye," said Sam'l, with true gentility. + +"Ye'll better." + +"I dinna think it." + +"Hoots aye, what's to hender ye?" + +"Weel, since ye're sae pressin', I'll bide." + +No one asked Sanders to stay. Bell could not, for she was but the +servant, and T'nowhead knew that the kick his wife had given him meant +that he was not to do so, either. Sanders whistled to show that he was +not uncomfortable. + +"Ay, then, I'll be stappin' ower the brae," he said at last. + +He did not go, however. There was sufficient pride in him to get him +off his chair, but only slowly, for he had to get accustomed to the +notion of going. At intervals of two or three minutes he remarked that +he must now be going. In the same circumstances Sam'l would have acted +similarly. For a Thrums man, it is one of the hardest things in life +to get away from anywhere. + +At last Lisbeth saw that something must be done. The potatoes were +burning, and T'nowhead had an invitation on his tongue. + +"Yes, I'll hae to be movin'," said Sanders, hopelessly, for the fifth +time. + +"Guid-nicht to ye, then, Sanders," said Lisbeth. "Gie the door a +fling-to ahent ye." + +Sanders, with a mighty effort, pulled himself together. He looked +boldly at Bell, and then took off his hat carefully. Sam'l saw with +misgivings that there was something in it which was not a +handkerchief. It was a paper bag glittering with gold braid, and +contained such an assortment of sweets as lads bought for their lasses +on the Muckle Friday. + +"Hae, Bell," said Sanders, handing the bag to Bell in an offhand way +as if it were but a trifle. Nevertheless he was a little excited, for +he went off without saying good-night. + +No one spoke. Bell's face was crimson. T'nowhead fidgeted on his +chair, and Lisbeth looked at Sam'l. The weaver was strangely calm and +collected, though he would have liked to know whether this was a +proposal. + +"Sit in by to the table, Sam'l," said Lisbeth, trying to look as if +things were as they had been before. + +She put a saucerful of butter, salt, and pepper near the fire to melt, +for melted butter is the shoeing-horn that helps over a meal of +potatoes. Sam'l, however, saw what the hour required, and, jumping up, +he seized his bonnet. + +"Hing the tatties higher up the joist, Lisbeth," he said, with +dignity; "I'se be back in ten meenits." + +He hurried out of the house, leaving the others looking at each other. + +"What do ye think?" asked Lisbeth. + +"I d'na kin," faltered Bell. + +"Thae tatties is lang o' comin' to the boil," said T'nowhead. + +In some circles a lover who behaved like Sam'l would have been +suspected of intent upon his rival's life, but neither Bell nor +Lisbeth did the weaver that injustice. In a case of this kind it does +not much matter what T'nowhead thought. + +The ten minutes had barely passed when Sam'l was back in the farm +kitchen. He was too flurried to knock this time, and, indeed, Lisbeth +did not expect it of him. + +"Bell, hae!" he cried, handing his sweetheart a tinsel bag twice the +size of Sanders's gift. + +"Losh preserve 's!" exclaimed Lisbeth; "I'se warrant there's a +shillin's worth." + +"There's a' that, Lisbeth--an' mair," said Sam'l, firmly. + +"I thank ye, Sam'l," said Bell, feeling an unwonted elation as she +gazed at the two paper bags in her lap. + +"Ye're ower-extravegint, Sam'l," Lisbeth said. + +"Not at all," said Sam'l; "not at all. But I widna advise ye to eat +thae ither anes, Bell--they're second quality." + +Bell drew back a step from Sam'l. + +"How do ye kin?" asked the farmer, shortly, for he liked Sanders. + +"I speered i' the shop," said Sam'l. + +The goblet was placed on a broken plate on the table, with the saucer +beside it, and Sam'l, like the others, helped himself. What he did was +to take potatoes from the pot with his fingers, peel off their coats, +and then dip them into the butter. Lisbeth would have liked to provide +knives and forks, but she knew that beyond a certain point T'nowhead +was master in his own house. As for Sam'l, he felt victory in his +hands, and began to think that he had gone too far. + +In the meantime Sanders, little witting that Sam'l had trumped his +trick, was sauntering along the kirk-wynd with his hat on the side of +his head. Fortunately he did not meet the minister. + +The courting of T'nowhead's Bell reached its crisis one Sabbath about +a month after the events above recorded. The minister was in great +force that day, but it is no part of mine to tell how he bore himself. +I was there, and am not likely to forget the scene. It was a fateful +Sabbath for T'nowhead's Bell and her swains, and destined to be +remembered for the painful scandal which they perpetrated in their +passion. + +Bell was not in the kirk. There being an infant of six months in the +house it was a question of either Lisbeth or the lassie's staying at +home with him, and though Lisbeth was unselfish in a general way, she +could not resist the delight of going to church. She had nine children +besides the baby, and, being but a woman, it was the pride of her life +to march them into the T'nowhead pew, so well watched that they dared +not misbehave, and so tightly packed that they could not fall. The +congregation looked at that pew, the mothers enviously, when they sang +the lines: + + "Jerusalem like a city is + Compactly built together." + +The first half of the service had been gone through on this particular +Sunday without anything remarkable happening. It was at the end of the +psalm which preceded the sermon that Sanders Elshioner, who sat near +the door, lowered his head until it was no higher than the pews, and +in that attitude, looking almost like a four-footed animal, slipped +out of the church. In their eagerness to be at the sermon many of the +congregation did not notice him, and those who did put the matter by +in their minds for future investigation. Sam'l however, could not take +it so coolly. From his seat in the gallery he saw Sanders disappear, +and his mind misgave him. With the true lover's instinct he understood +it all. Sanders had been struck by the fine turnout in the T'nowhead +pew. Bell was alone at the farm. What an opportunity to work one's way +up to a proposal! T'nowhead was so overrun with children that such a +chance seldom occurred, except on a Sabbath. Sanders, doubtless, was +off to propose, and he, Sam'l, was left behind. + +The suspense was terrible. Sam'l and Sanders had both known all along +that Bell would take the first of the two who asked her. Even those +who thought her proud admitted that she was modest. Bitterly the +weaver repented having waited so long. Now it was too late. In ten +minutes Sanders would be at T'nowhead; in an hour all would be over. +Sam'l rose to his feet in a daze. His mother pulled him down by the +coat-tail, and his father shook him, thinking he was walking in his +sleep. He tottered past them, however, hurried up the aisle, which was +so narrow that Dan'l Ross could only reach his seat by walking +sideways, and was gone before the minister could do more than stop in +the middle of a whirl and gape in horror after him. + +A number of the congregation felt that day the advantage of sitting in +the loft. What was a mystery to those downstairs was revealed to them. +From the gallery windows they had a fine open view to the south; and +as Sam'l took the common, which was a short cut through a steep +ascent, to T'nowhead, he was never out of their line of vision. +Sanders was not to be seen, but they guessed rightly the reason why. +Thinking he had ample time, he had gone round by the main road to save +his boots--perhaps a little scared by what was coming. Sam'l's design +was to forestall him by taking the shorter path over the burn and up +the commonty. + +It was a race for a wife, and several onlookers in the gallery braved +the minister's displeasure to see who won. Those who favoured Sam'l's +suit exultingly saw him leap the stream, while the friends of Sanders +fixed their eyes on the top of the common where it ran into the road. +Sanders must come into sight there, and the one who reached this point +first would get Bell. + +As Auld Lichts do not walk abroad on the Sabbath, Sanders would +probably not be delayed. The chances were in his favour. Had it been +any other day in the week Sam'l might have run. So some of the +congregation in the gallery were thinking, when suddenly they saw him +bend low and then take to his heels. He had caught sight of Sanders's +head bobbing over the hedge that separated the road from the common, +and feared that Sanders might see him. The congregation who could +crane their necks sufficiently saw a black object, which they guessed +to be the carter's hat, crawling along the hedge-top. For a moment it +was motionless, and then it shot ahead. The rivals had seen each +other. It was now a hot race. Sam'l dissembling no longer, clattered +up the common, becoming smaller and smaller to the onlookers as he +neared the top. More than one person in the gallery almost rose to +their feet in their excitement. Sam'l had it. No, Sanders was in +front. Then the two figures disappeared from view. They seemed to run +into each other at the top of the brae, and no one could say who was +first. The congregation looked at one another. Some of them perspired. +But the minister held on his course. + +Sam'l had just been in time to cut Sanders out. It was the weaver's +saving that Sanders saw this when his rival turned the corner; for +Sam'l was sadly blown. Sanders took in the situation and gave in at +once. The last hundred yards of the distance he covered at his +leisure, and when he arrived at his destination he did not go in. It +was a fine afternoon for the time of year, and he went round to have a +look at the pig, about which T'nowhead was a little sinfully puffed +up. + +"Ay," said Sanders, digging his fingers critically into the grunting +animal, "quite so." + +"Grumph," said the pig, getting reluctantly to his feet. + +"Ou, ay, yes," said Sanders thoughtfully. + +Then he sat down on the edge of the sty, and looked long and silently +at an empty bucket. But whether his thoughts were of T'nowhead's Bell, +whom he had lost for ever, or of the food the farmer fed his pig on, +is not known. + +"Lord preserve 's! are ye no at the kirk?" cried Bell, nearly dropping +the baby as Sam'l broke into the room. + +"Bell!" cried Sam'l. + +Then T'nowhead's Bell knew that her hour had come. + +"Sam'l," she faltered. + +"Will ye hae 's, Bell?" demanded Sam'l, glaring at her sheepishly. + +"Ay," answered Bell. + +Sam'l fell into a chair. + +"Bring 's a drink o' water, Bell," he said. But Bell thought the +occasion required milk, and there was none in the kitchen. She went +out to the byre, still with the baby in her arms, and saw Sanders +Elshioner sitting gloomily on the pigsty. + +"Weel, Bell," said Sanders. + +"I thocht ye'd been at the kirk, Sanders," said Bell. + +Then there was a silence between them. + +"Has Sam'l speered ye, Bell?" asked Sanders, stolidly. + +"Ay," said Bell again, and this time there was a tear in her eye. +Sanders was little better than an "orra man," and Sam'l was a weaver, +and yet--But it was too late now. Sanders gave the pig a vicious poke +with a stick, and when it had ceased to grunt, Bell was back in the +kitchen. She had forgotten about the milk, however, and Sam'l only got +water after all. + +In after-days, when the story of Bell's wooing was told, there were +some who held that the circumstances would have almost justified the +lassie in giving Sam'l the go-by. But these perhaps forgot that her +other lover was in the same predicament as the accepted one--that of +the two, indeed, he was the more to blame, for he set off to T'nowhead +on the Sabbath of his own accord, while Sam'l only ran after him. And +then there is no one to say for certain whether Bell heard of her +suitors' delinquencies until Lisbeth's return from the kirk. Sam'l +could never remember whether he told her, and Bell was not sure +whether, if he did, she took it in. Sanders was greatly in demand for +weeks to tell what he knew of the affair, but though he was twice +asked to tea to the manse among the trees, and subjected thereafter to +ministerial cross-examinations, this is all he told. He remained at +the pigsty until Sam'l left the farm, when he joined him at the top of +the brae, and they went home together. + +"It's yersel', Sanders," said Sam'l. + +"It is so, Sam'l," said Sanders. + +"Very cauld," said Sam'l. + +"Blawy," assented Sanders. + +After a pause-- + +"Sam'l," said Sanders. + +"Ay." + +"I'm hearing ye're to be mairit." + +"Ay." + +"Weel, Sam'l, she's a snod bit lassie." + +"Thank ye," said Sam'l. + +"I had ance a kin o' notion o' Bell mysel'," continued Sanders. + +"Ye had?" + +"Yes, Sam'l; but I thocht better o' 't." + +"Hoo d' ye mean?" asked Sam'l, a little anxiously. + +"Weel, Sam'l, mairitch is a terrible responsibeelity." + +"It is so," said Sam'l, wincing. + +"An' no the thing to tak' up withoot conseederation." + +"But it's a blessed and honourable state, Sanders; ye've heard the +minister on 't." + +"They say," continued the relentless Sanders, " 'at the minister +doesna get on sair wi' the wife himsel'." + +"So they do," cried Sam'l, with a sinking at the heart. + +"I've been telt," Sanders went on, " 'at gin ye can get the upper han' +o' the wife for a while at first, there's the mair chance o' a +harmonious exeestence." + +"Bell's no the lassie," said Sam'l, appealingly, "to thwart her man." + +Sanders smiled. + +"D' ye think she is, Sanders?" + +"Weel, Sam'l, I d'na want to fluster ye, but she's been ower-lang wi' +Lisbeth Fargus no to hae learned her ways. An' a'body kins what a life +T'nowhead has wi' her." + +"Guid sake, Sanders, hoo did ye no speak o' this afore?" + +"I thocht ye kent o' 't, Sam'l." + +They had now reached the square, and the U. P. kirk was coming out. +The Auld Licht kirk would be half an hour yet. + +"But, Sanders," said Sam'l, brightening up, "ye was on yer wy to speer +her yersel'." + +"I was, Sam'l," said Sanders, "and I canna but be thankfu' ye was +ower-quick for 's." + +"Gin 't hadna been you," said Sam'l, "I wid never hae thocht o' 't." + +"I'm saying naething agin Bell," pursued the other, "but, man, Sam'l, +a body should be mair deleeberate in a thing o' the kind." + +"It was michty hurried," said Sam'l wofully. + +"It's a serious thing to speer a lassie," said Sanders. + +"It's an awfu' thing," said Sam'l. + +"But we'll hope for the best," added Sanders, in a hopeless voice. + +They were close to the tenements now, and Sam'l looked as if he were +on his way to be hanged. + +"Sam'l!" + +"Ay, Sanders." + +"Did ye--did ye kiss her, Sam'l?" + +"Na." + +"Hoo?" + +"There's was varra little time, Sanders." + +"Half an 'oor," said Sanders. + +"Was there? Man Sanders, to tell ye the truth, I never thocht o' 't." + +Then the soul of Sanders Elshioner was filled with contempt for Sam'l +Dickie. + +The scandal blew over. At first it was expected that the minister +would interfere to prevent the union, but beyond intimating from the +pulpit that the souls of Sabbath-breakers were beyond praying for, and +then praying for Sam'l and Sanders at great length, with a word thrown +in for Bell, he let things take their course. Some said it was because +he was always frightened lest his young men should intermarry with +other denominations, but Sanders explained it differently to Sam'l. + +"I hav'na a word to say agin' the minister," he said; "they're gran' +prayers; but, Sam'l, he's a mairit man himsel'." + +"He's a' the better for that, Sanders, isna he?" + +"Do ye no see," asked Sanders, compassionately, " 'at he's trying to +mak' the best o' 't?" + +"O Sanders, man!" said Sam'l. + +"Cheer up, Sam'l," said Sanders; "it'll sune be ower." + +Their having been rival suitors had not interfered with their +friendship. On the contrary, while they had hitherto been mere +acquaintances, they became inseparables as the wedding-day drew near. +It was noticed that they had much to say to each other, and that when +they could not get a room to themselves they wandered about together +in the churchyard. When Sam'l had anything to tell Bell he sent +Sanders to tell it, and Sanders did as he was bid. There was nothing +that he would not have done for Sam'l. + +The more obliging Sanders was, however, the sadder Sam'l grew. He +never laughed now on Saturdays, and sometimes his loom was silent half +the day. Sam'l felt that Sanders's was the kindness of a friend for a +dying man. + +It was to be a penny wedding, and Lisbeth Fargus said it was the +delicacy that made Sam'l superintend the fitting up of the barn by +deputy. Once he came to see it in person, but he looked so ill that +Sanders had to see him home. This was on the Thursday afternoon, and +the wedding was fixed for Friday. + +"Sanders, Sanders," said Sam'l, in a voice strangely unlike his own, +"it'll a' be ower by this time the morn." + +"It will," said Sanders. + +"If I had only kent her langer," continued Sam'l. + +"It wid hae been safer," said Sanders. + +"Did ye see the yallow floor in Bell's bonnet?" asked the accepted +swain. + +"Ay," said Sanders, reluctantly. + +"I'm dootin'--I'm sair dootin' she's but a flichty, light-hearted +crittur after a'." + +"I had aye my suspeecions o' 't," said Sanders. + +"Ye hae kent her langer than me," said Sam'l. + +"Yes," said Sanders, "but there's nae getting' at the heart o' women. +Man Sam'l, they're desperate cunnin'." + +"I'm dootin' 't; I'm sair dootin' 't." + +"It'll be a warnin' to ye, Sam'l, no to be in sic a hurry i' the +futur'," said Sanders. + +Sam'l groaned. + +"Ye'll be gaein' up to the manse to arrange wi' the minister the +morn's mornin'," continued Sanders, in a subdued voice. + +Sam'l looked wistfully at his friend. + +"I canna do 't, Sanders," he said; "I canna do 't." + +"Ye maun," said Sanders. + +"It's aisy to speak," retorted Sam'l, bitterly. + +"We have a' oor troubles, Sam'l," said Sanders, soothingly, "an' every +man maun bear his ain burdens. Johnny Davie's wife's dead, an' he's no +repinin'." + +"Ay," said Sam'l, "but a death's no a mairitch. We hae haen deaths in +our family too." + +"It may a' be for the best," added Sanders, "an' there wid be a michty +talk i' the hale country-side gin ye didna ging to the minister like a +man." + +"I maun hae langer to think o' 't," said Sam'l. + +"Bell's mairitch is the morn," said Sanders, decisively. + +Sam'l glanced up with a wild look in his eyes. + +"Sanders!" he cried. + +"Sam'l!" + +"Ye hae been a guid friend to me, Sanders, in this sair affliction." + +"Nothing ava," said Sanders; "doun't mention 'd." + +"But, Sanders, ye canna deny but what your rinnin' oot o' the kirk +that awfu' day was at the bottom o' 'd a'." + +"It was so," said Sanders, bravely. + +"An' ye used to be fond o' Bell, Sanders." + +"I dinna deny 't." + +"Sanders, laddie," said Sam'l, bending forward and speaking in a +wheedling voice, "I aye thocht it was you she likit." + +"I had some sic idea mysel'," said Sanders. + +"Sanders, I canna think to pairt twa fowk sae weel suited to ane +anither as you an' Bell." + +"Canna ye, Sam'l?" + +"She wid mak' ye a guid wife, Sanders. I hae studied her weel, and +she's a thrifty, douce, clever lassie. Sanders, there's no the like o' +her. Mony a time, Sanders, I hae said to mysel', 'There's a lass ony +man micht be prood to tak'.' A'body says the same, Sanders. There's +nae risk ava, man--nane to speak o'. Tak' her, laddie; tak' her, +Sanders; it's a gran' chance, Sanders. She's yours for the speerin'. +I'll gie her up, Sanders." + +"Will ye, though?" said Sanders. + +"What d' ye think?" asked Sam'l. + +"If ye wid rayther," said Sanders, politely. + +"There's my han' on 't," said Sam'l. "Bless ye, Sanders; ye've been a +true frien' to me." + +Then they shook hands for the first time in their lives, and soon +afterward Sanders struck up the brae to T'nowhead. + +Next morning Sanders Elshioner, who had been very busy the night +before, put on his Sabbath clothes and strolled up to the manse. + +"But--but where is Sam'l?" asked the minister; "I must see himself." + +"It's a new arrangement," said Sanders. + +"What do you mean, Sanders?" + +"Bell's to marry me," explained Sanders. + +"But--but what does Sam'l say?" + +"He's willin'," said Sanders. + +"And Bell?" + +"She's willin' too. She prefers 't." + +"It is unusual," said the minister. + +"It's a' richt," said Sanders. + +"Well, you know best," said the minister. + +"You see the hoose was taen, at ony rate," continued Sanders, "an' +I'll juist ging in til 't instead o' Sam'l." + +"Quite so." + +"An' I cudna think to disappoint the lassie." + +"Your sentiments do you credit, Sanders," said the minister; "but I +hope you do not enter upon the blessed state of matrimony without full +consideration of its responsibilities. It is a serious business, +marriage." + +"It's a' that," said Sanders, "but I'm willin' to stan' the risk." + +So, as soon as it could be done, Sanders Elshioner took to wife +T'nowhead's Bell, and I remember seeing Sam'l Dickie trying to dance +at the penny wedding. + +Years afterward it was said in Thrums that Sam'l had treated Bell +badly, but he was never sure about it himself. + +"It was a near thing--a michty near thing," he admitted in the square. + +"They say," some other weaver would remark, " 'at it was you Bell +liked best." + +"I d'na kin," Sam'l would reply; "but there's nae doot the lassie was +fell fond o' me; ou, a mere passin' fancy, 's ye micht say." + + + +"THE HEATHER LINTIE" + +BY + +S. R. CROCKETT + +Janet Balchrystie lived in a little cottage at the back of the Long +Wood of Barbrax. She had been a hard-working woman all her days, for +her mother died when she was but young, and she had lived on, keeping +her father's house by the side of the single-track railway-line. Gavin +Balchrystie was a foreman plate-layer on the P.P.R., and with two men +under him, had charge of a section of three miles. He lived just where +that distinguished but impecunious line plunges into a moss-covered +granite wilderness of moor and bog, where there is not more than a +shepherd's hut to the half-dozen miles, and where the passage of a +train is the occasion of commotion among scattered groups of black- +faced sheep. Gavin Balchrystie's three miles of P.P.R. metals gave him +little work, but a good deal of healthy exercise. The black-faced +sheep breaking down the fences and straying on the line side, and the +torrents coming down the granite gullies, foaming white after a water- +spout, and tearing into his embankments, undermining his chairs and +plates, were the only troubles of his life. There was, however, a +little public-house at The Huts, which in the old days of construction +had had the license, and which had lingered alone, license and all, +when its immediate purpose in life had been fulfilled, because there +was nobody but the whaups and the railway officials on the passing +trains to object to its continuance. Now it is cold and blowy on the +west-land moors, and neither whaups nor dark-blue uniforms object to a +little refreshment up there. The mischief was that Gavin Balchrystie +did not, like the guards and engine-drivers, go on with the passing +train. He was always on the spot, and the path through Barbrax Wood to +the Railway Inn was as well trodden as that which led over the bog +moss, where the whaups built, to the great white viaduct of Loch +Merrick, where his three miles of parallel gleaming responsibility +began. + +When his wife was but newly dead, and his Janet just a smart elf- +locked lassie running to and from the school, Gavin got too much in +the way of "slippin' doon by." When Janet grew to be woman muckle, +Gavin kept the habit, and Janet hardly knew that it was not the use +and wont of all fathers to sidle down to a contiguous Railway Arms, +and return some hours later with uncertain step, and face pricked out +with bright pin-points of red--the sure mark of the confirmed drinker +of whisky neat. + +They were long days in the cottage at the back of Barbrax Long Wood. +The little "but an' ben" was whitewashed till it dazzled the eyes as +you came over the brae to it and found it set against the solemn +depths of dark-green firwood. From early morn, when she saw her father +off, till the dusk of the day, when he would return for his supper, +Janet Balchrystie saw no human being. She heard the muffled roar of +the trains through the deep cutting at the back of the wood, but she +herself was entirely out of sight of the carriagefuls of travellers +whisking past within half a mile of her solitude and meditation. + +Janet was what is called a "through-gaun lass," and her work for the +day was often over by eight o'clock in the morning. Janet grew to +womanhood without a sweetheart. She was plain, and she looked plainer +than she was in the dresses which she made for herself by the light of +nature and what she could remember of the current fashions at Merrick +Kirk, to which she went every alternate Sunday. Her father and she +took day about. Wet or shine, she tramped to Merrick Kirk, even when +the rain blattered and the wind raved and bleated alternately among +the pines of the Long Wood of Barbrax. Her father had a simpler way of +spending his day out. He went down to the Railway Inn and drank +"ginger-beer" all day with the landlord. Ginger-beer is an unsteadying +beverage when taken the day by the length. Also the man who drinks it +steadily and quietly never enters on any inheritance of length of +days. + +So it came to pass that one night Gavin Balchrystie did not come home +at all--at least, not till he was brought lying comfortably on the +door of a disused third-class carriage, which was now seeing out its +career anchored under the bank at Loch Merrick, where Gavin had used +it as a shelter. The driver of the "six-fifty up" train had seen him +walking soberly along toward The Huts (and the Railway Inn), letting +his long surface-man's hammer fall against the rail-keys occasionally +as he walked. He saw him bend once, as though his keen ear detected a +false ring in a loose length between two plates. This was the last +that was seen of him till the driver of the "nine-thirty-seven down" +express--the "boat-train," as the employees of the P.P.R. call it, +with a touch of respect in their voices--passed Gavin fallen forward +on his face just when he was flying down grade under a full head of +steam. It was duskily clear, with a great lake of crimson light dying +into purple over the hills of midsummer heather. The driver was John +Platt, the Englishman from Crewe, who had been brought from the great +London and Northwestern Railway, locally known as "The Ell-nen- +doubleyou." In these remote railway circles the talk is as exclusively +of matters of the four-foot way as in Crewe or Derby. There is an +inspector of traffic, whose portly presence now graces Carlisle +Station, who left the P.P.R. in these sad days of amalgamation, +because he could not endure to see so many "Sou'west" waggons passing +over the sacred metals of the P.P.R. permanent way. From his youth he +had been trained in a creed of two articles: "To swear by the P.P.R. +through thick and thin, and hate the apple green of the 'Sou'west.' " +It was as much as he could do to put up with the sight of the +abominations; to have to hunt for their trucks when they got astray +was more than mortal could stand, so he fled the land. + +So when they stopped the express for Gavin Balchrystie, every man on +the line felt that it was an honour to the dead. John Platt sent a +"gurring" thrill through the train as he put his brakes hard down and +whistled for the guard. He, thinking that the Merrick Viaduct was down +at least, twirled his brake to such purpose that the rear car +progressed along the metals by a series of convulsive bounds. Then +they softly ran back, and there lay Gavin fallen forward on his knees, +as though he had been trying to rise, or had knelt down to pray. Let +him have "the benefit of the doubt" in this world. In the next, if all +tales be true, there is no such thing. + +So Janet Balchrystie dwelt alone in the white "but an' ben" at the +back of the Long Wood of Barbrax. The factor gave her notice, but the +laird, who was not accounted by his neighbours to be very wise, +because he did needlessly kind things, told the factor to let the +lassie bide, and delivered to herself with his own handwriting to the +effect that Janet Balchrystie, in consideration of her lonely +condition, was to be allowed the house for her lifetime, a cow's +grass, and thirty pound sterling in the year as a charge on the +estate. He drove down the cow himself, and having stalled it in the +byre, he informed her of the fact over the yard dyke by word of mouth, +for he never could be induced to enter her door. He was accounted to +be "gey an' queer," save by those who had tried making a bargain with +him. But his farmers liked him, knowing him to be an easy man with +those who had been really unfortunate, for he knew to what the year's +crops of each had amounted, to a single chalder and head of nowt. + +Deep in her heart Janet Balchrystie cherished a great ambition. When +the earliest blackbird awoke and began to sing, while it was yet gray +twilight, Janet would be up and at her work. She had an ambition to be +a great poet. No less than this would serve her. But not even her +father had known, and no other had any chance of knowing. In the black +leather chest, which had been her mother's, upstairs, there was a +slowly growing pile of manuscript, and the editor of the local paper +received every other week a poem, longer or shorter, for his Poet's +Corner, in an envelope with the New Dalry postmark. He was an obliging +editor, and generally gave the closely written manuscript to the +senior office boy, who had passed the sixth standard, to cut down, +tinker the rhymes, and lope any superfluity of feet. The senior office +boy "just spread himself," as he said, and delighted to do the job in +style. But there was a woman fading into a gray old-maidishness which +had hardly ever been girlhood, who did not at all approve of these +corrections. She endured them because over the signature of "Heather +Bell" it was a joy to see in the rich, close luxury of type her own +poetry, even though it might be a trifle tattered and tossed about by +hands ruthless and alien--those, in fact, of the senior office boy. + +Janet walked every other week to the post-office at New Dalry to post +her letters to the editor, but neither the great man nor yet the +senior office boy had any conception that the verses of their +"esteemed correspondent" were written by a woman too early old who +dwelt alone at the back of Barbrax Long Wood. + +One day Janet took a sudden but long-meditated journey. She went down +by rail from the little station of The Huts to the large town of Drum, +thirty miles to the east. Here, with the most perfect courage and +dignity of bearing, she interviewed a printer and arranged for the +publication of her poems in their own original form, no longer staled +and clapper-clawed by the pencil of the senior office boy. When the +proof-sheets came to Janet, she had no way of indicating the +corrections but by again writing the whole poem out in a neat print +hand on the edge of the proof, and underscoring the words which were +to be altered. This, when you think of it, is a very good way, when +the happiest part of your life is to be spent in such concrete +pleasures of hope, as Janet's were over the crackly sheets of the +printer of Drum. Finally the book was produced, a small rather +thickish octavo, on sufficiently wretched gray paper which had +suffered from want of thorough washing in the original paper-mill. It +was bound in a peculiarly deadly blue, of a rectified Reckitt tint, +which gave you dazzles in the eye at any distance under ten paces. +Janet had selected this as the most appropriate of colours. She had +also many years ago decided upon the title, so that Reckitt had +printed upon it, back and side, "The Heather Lintie," while inside +there was the acknowledgment of authorship, which Janet felt to be a +solemn duty to the world: "Poems by Janet Balchrystie, Barbrax +Cottage, by New Dalry." First she had thought of withholding her name +and style; but, on the whole, after the most prolonged consideration, +she felt that she was not justified in bringing about such a +controversy as divided Scotland concerning that "Great Unknown" who +wrote the Waverley Novels. + +Almost every second or third day Janet trod that long lochside road to +New Dalry for her proof-sheets, and returned them on the morrow +corrected in her own way. Sometimes she got a lift from some farmer or +carter, for she had worn herself with anxiety to the shadow of what +she had once been, and her dry bleached hair became gray and grayer +with the fervour of her devotion to letters. + +By April the book was published, and at the end of this month, laid +aside by sickness of the vague kind called locally "a decline," she +took to her bed, rising only to lay a few sticks upon the fire from +her store gathered in the autumn, or to brew herself a cup of tea. She +waited for the tokens of her book's conquests in the great world of +thought and men. She had waited so long for her recognition, and now +it was coming. She felt that it would not be long before she was +recognised as one of the singers of the world. Indeed, had she but +known it, her recognition was already on its way. + +In a great city of the north a clever young reporter was cutting open +the leaves of "The Heather Lintie" with a hand almost feverishly +eager. + +"This is a perfect treasure. This is a find indeed. Here is my chance +ready to my hand." + +His paper was making a specialty of "exposures." If there was anything +weak and erring, anything particularly helpless and foolish which +could make no stand for itself, the "Night Hawk" was on the pounce. +Hitherto the junior reporter had never had a "two-column chance." He +had read--it was not much that he /had/ read--Macaulay's too famous +article on "Satan" Montgomery, and, not knowing that Macaulay lived to +regret the spirit of that assault, he felt that if he could bring down +the "Night Hawk" on "The Heather Lintie," his fortune was made. So he +sat down and he wrote, not knowing and not regarding a lonely woman's +heart, to whom his word would be as the word of a God, in the lonely +cottage lying in the lee of the Long Wood of Barbrax. + +The junior reporter turned out a triumph of the new journalism. "This +is a book which may be a genuine source of pride to every native of +the ancient province of Galloway," he wrote. "Galloway has been +celebrated for black cattle and for wool, as also for a certain +bucolic belatedness of temperament, but Galloway has never hitherto +produced a poetess. One has arisen in the person of Miss Janet Bal-- +something or other. We have not an interpreter at hand, and so cannot +wrestle with the intricacies of the authoress's name, which appears to +be some Galwegian form of Erse or Choctaw. Miss Bal--and so forth--has +a true fount of pathos and humour. In what touching language she +chronicles the death of two young lambs which fell down into one of +the puddles they call rivers down there, and were either drowned or +choked with the dirt: + + " 'They were two bonny, bonny lambs, + That played upon the daisied lea, + And loudly mourned their woolly dams + Above the drumly flowing Dee.' + +"How touchingly simple!" continued the junior reporter, buckling up +his sleeves to enjoy himself, and feeling himself born to be a +"Saturday Reviewer." + +"Mark the local colour, the wool and the dirty water of the Dee-- +without doubt a name applied to one of their bigger ditches down +there. Mark also the over-fervency of the touching line, + + " 'And loudly mourned their woolly dams,' + +"Which, but for the sex of the writer and her evident genius, might be +taken for an expression of a strength hardly permissible even in the +metropolis." + +The junior reporter filled his two columns and enjoyed himself in the +doing of it. He concluded with the words: "The authoress will make a +great success. If she will come to the capital, where genius is always +appreciated, she will, without doubt, make her fortune. Nay, if Miss +Bal--but again we cannot proceed for the want of an interpreter--if +Miss B., we say, will only accept a position at Cleary's Waxworks and +give readings from her poetry, or exhibit herself in the act of +pronouncing her own name, she will be a greater draw in this city than +Punch and Judy, or even the latest American advertising evangelist, +who preaches standing on his head." + +The junior reporter ceased here from very admiration at his own +cleverness in so exactly hitting the tone of the masters of his craft, +and handed his manuscript in to the editor. + +It was the gloaming of a long June day when Rob Affleck, the woodman +over at Barbrax, having been at New Dalry with a cart of wood, left +his horse on the roadside and ran over through Gavin's old short cut, +now seldom used, to Janet's cottage with a paper in a yellow wrapper. + +"Leave it on the step, and thank you kindly, Rob," said a weak voice +within; and Rob, anxious about his horse and his bed, did so without +another word. In a moment or two Janet crawled to the door, listened +to make sure that Rob was really gone, opened the door, and protruded +a hand wasted to the hard, flat bone--an arm that ought for years to +have been full of flesh and noble curves. + +When Janet got back to bed it was too dark to see anything except the +big printing at the top of the paper. + +"Two columns of it!" said Janet, with great thankfulness in her heart, +lifting up her soul to God who had given her the power to sing. She +strained her prematurely old and weary eyes to make out the sense. "A +genuine source of pride to every native of the ancient province," she +read. + +"The Lord be praised!" said Janet, in a rapture of devout +thankfulness; "though I never really doubted it," she added, as though +asking pardon for a moment's distrust. "But I tried to write these +poems to the glory of God and not to my own praise, and He will accept +them and keep me humble under the praise of men as well as under their +neglect." + +So clutching the precious paper close to her breast, and letting tears +of thankfulness fall on the article, which, had they fallen on the +head of the junior reporter, would have burned like fire, she +patiently awaited the coming dawn. + +"I can wait till the morning now to read the rest," she said. + +So hour after hour, with her eyes wide, staring hard at the gray +window-squares, she waited the dawn from the east. About half-past two +there was a stirring and a moaning among the pines, and the roar of +the sudden gust came with the breaking day through the dark arches. In +the whirlwind there came a strange expectancy and tremor into the +heart of the poetess, and she pressed the wet sheet of crumpled paper +closer to her bosom, and turned to face the light. Through the spaces +of the Long Wood of Barbrax there came a shining visitor, the Angel of +the Presence, he who comes but once and stands a moment with a +beckoning finger. Him she followed up through the wood. + + + +They found Janet on the morning of the second day after, with a look +so glad on her face, and so natural an expectation in the unclosed +eye, that Rob Affleck spoke to her and expected an answer. The "Night +Hawk" was clasped to her breast with a hand that they could not +loosen. It went to the grave with her body. The ink had run a little +here and there, where the tears had fallen thickest. + +God is more merciful than man. + + + +A DOCTOR OF THE OLD SCHOOL + +BY + +IAN MACLAREN + + +I +A GENERAL PRACTITIONER + +Drumtochty was accustomed to break every law of health, except +wholesome food and fresh air, and yet had reduced the psalmist's +furthest limit to an average life-rate. Our men made no difference in +their clothes for summer or winter, Drumsheugh and one or two of the +larger farmers condescending to a top-coat on Sabbath, as a penalty of +their position, and without regard to temperature. They wore their +blacks at a funeral, refusing to cover them with anything, out of +respect to the deceased, and standing longest in the kirkyard when the +north wind was blowing across a hundred miles of snow. If the rain was +pouring at the junction, then Drumtochty stood two minutes longer +through sheer native dourness till each man had a cascade from the +tail of his coat, and hazarded the suggestion, half-way to Kildrummie, +that it had been "a bit scrowie," and "scrowie" being as far short of +a "shoor" as a "shoor" fell below "weet." + +This sustained defiance of the elements provoked occasional judgments +in the shape of a "hoast" (cough), and the head of the house was then +exhorted by his women folk to "change his feet" if he had happened to +walk through a burn on his way home, and was pestered generally with +sanitary precautions. It is right to add that the gudeman treated such +advice with contempt, regarding it as suitable for the effeminacy of +towns, but not seriously intended for Drumtochty. Sandy Stewart +"napped" stones on the road in his shirt-sleeves, wet or fair, summer +and winter, till he was persuaded to retire from active duty at +eighty-five, and he spent ten years more in regretting his hastiness +and criticising his successor. The ordinary course of life, with fine +air and contented minds, was to do a full share of work till seventy, +and then to look after "orra" jobs well into the eighties, and to +"slip awa' " within sight of ninety. Persons above ninety were +understood to be acquitting themselves with credit, and assumed airs +of authority, brushing aside the opinions of seventy as immature, and +confirming their conclusions with illustrations drawn from the end of +last century. + +When Hillocks's brother so far forgot himself as to "slip awa' " at +sixty, that worthy man was scandalised, and offered laboured +explanations at the "beerial." + +"It's an awfu' business ony wy ye look at it, an' a sair trial tae us +a'. A' never heard tell of sic a thing in oor family afore, an' it 's +no easy accoontin' for 't. + +"The gudewife was sayin' he wes never the same sin' a weet nicht he +lost himsel' on the muir and slept below a bush; but that's neither +here nor there. A' 'm thinkin' he sappit his constitution thae twa +years he wes grieve aboot England. That wes thirty years syne, but +ye're never the same after thae foreign climates." + +Drumtochty listened patiently to Hillocks's apologia, but was not +satisfied. + +"It's clean havers aboot the muir. Losh keep's, we've a' sleepit oot +and never been a hair the waur. + +"A' admit that England micht hae dune the job; it's no canny +stravagin' yon wy frae place tae place, but Drums never complained tae +me as if he hed been nippit in the Sooth." + +The parish had, in fact, lost confidence in Drums after his wayward +experiment with a potato-digging machine, which turned out a +lamentable failure, and his premature departure confirmed our vague +impression of his character. + +"He's awa' noo," Drumsheugh summed up, after opinion had time to form; +"an' there were waur fouk than Drums, but there's nae doot he wes a +wee flichty." + +When illness had the audacity to attack a Drumtochty man, it was +described as a "whup," and was treated by the men with a fine +negligence. Hillocks was sitting in the post-office one afternoon when +I looked in for my letters, and the right side of his face was blazing +red. His subject of discourse was the prospects of the turnip "breer," +but he casually explained that he was waiting for medical advice. + +"The gudewife is keepin' up a ding-dong frae mornin' till nicht aboot +ma face, and a' 'm fair deaved (deafened), so a' 'm watchin' for +MacLure tae get a bottle as he comes wast; yon's him noo." + +The doctor made his diagnosis from horseback on sight, and stated the +result with that admirable clearness which endeared him to Drumtochty: + +"Confound ye, Hillocks, what are ye ploiterin' aboot here for in the +weet wi' a face like a boiled beer? Div ye no ken that ye've a tetch +o' the rose (erysipelas), and ocht tae be in the hoose? Gae hame wi' +ye afore a' leave the bit, and send a halflin' for some medicine. Ye +donnerd idiot, are ye ettlin tae follow Drums afore yir time?" And the +medical attendant of Drumtochty continued his invective till Hillocks +started, and still pursued his retreating figure with medical +directions of a simple and practical character: + +"A' 'm watchin', an' peety ye if ye pit aff time. Keep yir bed the +mornin', and dinna show yir face in the fields till a' see ye. A'll +gie ye a cry on Monday,--sic an auld fule,--but there's no ane o' them +tae mind anither in the hale pairish." + +Hillocks's wife informed the kirkyard that the doctor "gied the +gudeman an awful' clearin'," and that Hillocks "wes keepin' the +hoose," which meant that the patient had tea breakfast, and at that +time was wandering about the farm buildings in an easy undress, with +his head in a plaid. + +It was impossible for a doctor to earn even the most modest competence +from a people of such scandalous health, and so MacLure had annexed +neighbouring parishes. His house--little more than a cottage--stood on +the roadside among the pines toward the head of our Glen, and from +this base of operations he dominated the wild glen that broke the wall +of the Grampians above Drumtochty--where the snow-drifts were twelve +feet deep in winter, and the only way of passage at times was the +channel of the river--and the moorland district westward till he came +to the Dunleith sphere of influence, where there were four doctors and +a hydropathic. Drumtochty in its length, which was eight miles, and +its breadth, which was four, lay in his hand; besides a glen behind, +unknown to the world, which in the night-time he visited at the risk +of life, for the way thereto was across the big moor with its peat- +holes and treacherous bogs. And he held the land eastward toward +Muirtown so far as Geordie. The Drumtochty post travelled every day, +and could carry word that the doctor was wanted. He did his best for +the need of every man, woman, and child in this wild, straggling +district, year in, year out, in the snow and in the heat, in the dark +and in the light, without rest, and without holiday for forty years. + +One horse could not do the work of this man, but we liked best to see +him on his old white mare, who died the week after her master, and the +passing of the two did our hearts good. It was not that he rode +beautifully, for he broke every canon of art, flying with his arms, +stooping till he seemed to be speaking into Jess's ears, and rising in +the saddle beyond all necessity. But he could ride faster, stay longer +in the saddle, and had a firmer grip with his knees than any one I +ever met, and it was all for mercy's sake. When the reapers in +harvest-time saw a figure whirling past in a cloud of dust, or the +family at the foot of Glen Urtach, gathered round the fire on a +winter's night, heard the rattle of a horse's hoofs on the road, or +the shepherds, out after the sheep, traced a black speck moving across +the snow to the upper glen, they knew it was the doctor, and, without +being conscious of it, wished him God-speed. + +Before and behind his saddle were strapped the instruments and +medicines the doctor might want, for he never knew what was before +him. There were no specialists in Drumtochty, so this man had to do +everything as best he could, and as quickly. He was chest doctor, and +doctor for every other organ as well; he was accoucheur and surgeon; +he was oculist and aurist; he was dentist and chloroformist, besides +being chemist and druggist. It was often told how he was far up Glen +Urtach when the feeders of the threshing-mill caught young Burnbrae, +and how he only stopped to change horses at his house, and galloped +all the way to Burnbrae, and flung himself off his horse, and +amputated the arm, and saved the lad's life. + +"You wud hae thocht that every meenut was an hour," said Jamie Soutar, +who had been at the threshing, "an' a' 'll never forget the puir lad +lyin' as white as deith on the floor o' the loft, wi' his head on a +sheaf, and Burnbrae haudin' the bandage ticht an' prayin' a' the +while, and the mither greetin' in the corner. + +" 'Will he never come?' she cries, an' a' heard the soond o' the +horse's feet on the road a mile awa' in the frosty air. + +" 'The Lord be praised!' said Burnbrae, and a' slipped doon the ladder +as the doctor came skelpin' intae the close, the foam fleein' frae his +horse's mooth. + +" 'Whar is he?' wes a' that passed his lips, an' in five meenuts he +hed him on the feedin' board, and wes at his wark--sic wark, neeburs! +but he did it weel. An' ae thing a' thocht rael thochtfu' o' him: he +first sent aff the laddie's mither tae get a bed ready. + +" 'Noo that's feenished, and his constitution 'ill dae the rest,' and +he carried the lad doon the ladder in his airms like a bairn, and laid +him in his bed, and waits aside him till he wes sleepin', and then +says he, 'Burnbrae, yir a gey lad never tae say, "Collie, will ye +lick?" for a' hevna tasted meat for saxteen hoors.' + +"It was michty tae see him come intae the yaird that day, neeburs; the +verra look o' him wes victory." + +Jamie's cynicism slipped off in the enthusiasm of this reminiscence, +and he expressed the feeling of Drumtochty. No one sent for MacLure +save in great straits, and the sight of him put courage in sinking +hearts. But this was not by the grace of his appearance, or the +advantage of a good bedside manner. A tall, gaunt, loosely made man, +without an ounce of superfluous flesh on his body, his face burned a +dark brick colour by constant exposure to the weather, red hair and +beard turning gray, honest blue eyes that look you ever in the face, +huge hands with wrist-bones like the shank of a ham, and a voice that +hurled his salutations across two fields, he suggested the moor rather +than the drawing-room. But what a clever hand it was in an operation-- +as delicate as a woman's! and what a kindly voice it was in the humble +room where the shepherd's wife was weeping by her man's bedside! He +was "ill pitten thegither" to begin with, but many of his physical +defects were the penalties of his work, and endeared him to the Glen. +That ugly scar, that cut into his right eyebrow and gave him such a +sinister expression, was got one night Jess slipped on the ice and +laid him insensible eight miles from home. His limp marked the big +snowstorm in the fifties, when his horse missed the road in Glen +Urtach, and they rolled together in a drift. MacLure escaped with a +broken leg and the fracture of three ribs, but he never walked like +other men again. He could not swing himself into the saddle without +making two attempts and holding Jess's mane. Neither can you "warstle" +through the peat-bogs and snow-drifts for forty winters without a +touch of rheumatism. But they were honourable scars, and for such +risks of life men get the Victoria Cross in other fields. MacLure got +nothing but the secret affection of the Glen, which knew that none had +ever done one tenth as much for it as this ungainly, twisted, battered +figure, and I have seen a Drumtochty face soften at the sight of +MacLure limping to his horse. + +Mr. Hopps earned the ill-will of the Glen for ever by criticising the +doctor's dress, but indeed it would have filled any townsman with +amazement. Black he wore once a year, on sacrament Sunday, and, if +possible, at a funeral; top-coat or water-proof never. His jacket and +waistcoat were rough homespun of Glen Urtach wool, which threw off the +wet like a duck's back, and below he was clad in shepherd's tartan +trousers, which disappeared into unpolished riding-boots. His shirt +was gray flannel, and he was uncertain about a collar, but certain as +to a tie,--which he never had, his beard doing instead,--and his hat +was soft felt of four colours and seven different shapes. His point of +distinction in dress was the trousers, and they were the subject of +unending speculation. + +"Some threep that he's worn thae eedentical pair the last twenty year, +an' a mind masel' him getting' a tear ahint, when he was crossin' oor +palin', an the mend's still veesible. + +"Ithers declare 'at he's got a wab o' claith, and hes a new pair made +in Muirtown aince in the twa year maybe, and keeps them in the garden +till the new look wears aff. + +"For ma ain pairt," Soutar used to declare, "a' canna mak' up my mind, +but there's ae thing sure: the Glen wudna like tae see him withoot +them; it wud be a shock tae confidence. There's no muckle o' the check +left, but ye can aye tell it, and when ye see thae breeks comin' in ye +ken that if human pooer can save yir bairn's life it 'ill be dune." + +The confidence of the Glen--and the tributary states--was unbounded, +and rested partly on long experience of the doctor's resources, and +partly on his hereditary connection. + +"His father was here afore him," Mrs. Macfadyen used to explain; +"atween them they've hed the country-side for weel on tae a century; +if MacLure disna understand oor constitution, wha dis, a' wud like tae +ask?" + +For Drumtochty had its own constitution and a special throat disease, +as became a parish which was quite self-contained between the woods +and the hills, and not dependent on the lowlands either for its +diseases or its doctors. + +"He's a skilly man, Dr. MacLure," continued my friend Mrs. Macfadyen, +whose judgment on sermons or anything else was seldom at fault; "an' a +kind-hearted, though o' coorse he hes his faults like us a', an' he +disna tribble the kirk often. + +"He aye can tell what's wrong wi' a body, an' maistly he can put ye +richt, and there's nae new-fangled wys wi' him; a blister for the +ootside an' Epsom salts for the inside dis his wark, an' they say +there's no an herb on the hills he disna ken. + +"If we're tae dee, we're tae dee; an' if we're tae live, we're tae +live," concluded Elspeth, with sound Calvinistic logic; "but a' 'll +say this for the doctor, that, whether yir tae live or dee, he can aye +keep up a sharp meisture on the skin. + +"But he's no verra ceevil gin ye bring him when there's naethin' +wrang," and Mrs. Macfadyen's face reflected another of Mr. Hopps's +misadventures of which Hillocks held the copyright. + +"Hopps's laddie ate grosarts (gooseberries) till they hed to sit up a' +nicht wi' him, an' naethin' wud do but they maum hae the doctor, an' +he writes 'immediately' on a slip o' paper. + +"Weel, MacLure had been awa' a' nicht wi' a shepherd's wife Dunleith +wy, and he comes here withoot drawin' bridle, mud up tae the een. + +" 'What's adae here, Hillocks?' he cries; 'it's no an accident, is +'t?' and when he got aff his horse he cud hardly stand wi' stiffness +and tire. + +" 'It's nane o' us, doctor; it's Hopps's laddie; he's been eatin' +ower-mony berries.' + +"If he didna turn on me like a tiger! + +" 'Div ye mean tae say--' + +" 'Weesht, weesht,' an' I tried tae quiet him, for Hopps wes coomin' +oot. + +" 'Well, doctor,' begins he, as brisk as a magpie, 'you're here at +last; there's no hurry with you Scotchmen. My boy has been sick all +night, and I've never had a wink of sleep. You might have come a +little quicker, that's all I've got to say.' + +" 'We've mair tae dae in Drumtochty than attend tae every bairn that +hes a sair stomach,' and a' saw MacLure was roosed. + +" 'I'm astonished to hear you speak. Our doctor at home always says to +Mrs. 'Opps, "Look on me as a family friend, Mrs. 'Opps, and send for +me though it be only a headache." ' + +" 'He'd be mair spairin' o' his offers if he hed four and twenty mile +tae look aifter. There's naethin' wrang wi' yir laddie but greed. Gie +him a gud dose o' castor-oil and stop his meat for a day, an' he 'ill +be a'richt the morn.' + +" 'He 'ill not take castor-oil, doctor. We have given up those +barbarous medicines.' + +" 'Whatna kind o' medicines hae ye noo in the Sooth?' + +" 'Well, you see Dr. MacLure, we're homoeopathists, and I've my little +chest here,' and oot Hopps comes wi' his boxy. + +" 'Let's see 't,' an' MacLure sits doon and tak's oot the bit bottles, +and he reads the names wi' a lauch every time. + +" 'Belladonna; did ye ever hear the like? Aconite; it cowes a'. Nux +vomica. What next? Weel, ma mannie,' he says tae Hopps, 'it's a fine +ploy, and ye 'ill better gang on wi' the nux till it's dune, and gie +him ony ither o' the sweeties he fancies. + +" 'Noo, Hillocks, a' maun be aff tae see Drumsheugh's grieve, for he's +doon wi' the fever, and it's tae be a teuch fecht. A' hinna time tae +wait for dinner; gie me some cheese an' cake in ma haund, and Jess +'ill take a pail o' meal an' water. + +" 'Fee? A' 'm no wantin' yir fees, man; wi' that boxy ye dinna need a +doctor; na, na, gie yir siller tae some puir body, Maister Hopps,' an' +he was doon the road as hard as he cud lick." + +His fees were pretty much what the folk chose to give him, and he +collected them once a year at Kildrummie fair. + +"Weel, doctor, what am a' awin' ye for the wife and bairn? Ye 'ill +need three notes for that nicht ye stayed in the hoose an' a' the +vessits." + +"Havers," MacLure would answer, "prices are low, a' 'm hearin'; gie 's +thirty shillin's." + +"No, a' 'll no, or the wife 'ill tak' ma ears aff," and it was settled +for two pounds. + +Lord Kilspindie gave him a free house and fields, and one way or +other, Drumsheugh told me the doctor might get in about one hundred +and fifty pounds a year, out of which he had to pay his old +housekeeper's wages and a boy's, and keep two horses, besides the cost +of instruments and books, which he bought through a friend in +Edinburgh with much judgment. + +There was only one man who ever complained of the doctor's charges, +and that was the new farmer of Milton, who was so good that he was +above both churches, and held a meeting in his barn. (It was Milton +the Glen supposed at first to be a Mormon, but I can't go into that +now.) He offered MacLure a pound less than he asked, and two tracts, +whereupon MacLure expressed his opinion of Milton, both from a +theological and social standpoint, with such vigour and frankness that +an attentive audience of Drumtochty men could hardly contain +themselves. + +Jamie Soutar was selling his pig at the time, and missed the meeting, +but he hastened to condole with Milton, who was complaining everywhere +of the doctor's language. + +"Ye did richt tae resist him; it 'ill maybe roose the Glen tae mak' a +stand; he fair hands them in bondage. + +"Thirty shillin's for twal' vessits, and him no mair than seeven mile +awa', an' a' 'm telt there werena mair than four at nicht. + +"Ye 'ill hae the sympathy o' the Glen, for a'body kens yir as free wi' +yir siller as yir tracts. + +"Wes 't 'Beware o' Gude Warks' ye offered him? Man, ye chose it weel, +for he's been colleckin' sae mony thae forty years, a' 'm feared for +him. + +"A' 've often thocht oor doctor's little better than the Gude +Samaritan, an' the Pharisees didna think muckle o' his chance aither +in this warld or that which is tae come." + + +II +THROUGH THE FLOOD + +Dr. MacLure did not lead a solemn procession from the sick-bed to the +dining-room, and give his opinion from the hearth-rug with an air of +wisdom bordering on the supernatural, because neither the Drumtochty +houses nor his manners were on that large scale. He was accustomed to +deliver himself in the yard, and to conclude his directions with one +foot in the stirrup; but when he left the room where the life of Annie +Mitchell was ebbing slowly away, our doctor said not one word, and at +the sight of his face her husband's heart was troubled. + +He was a dull man, Tammas, who could not read the meaning of a sign, +and laboured under a perpetual disability of speech; but love was eyes +to him that day, and a mouth. + +"Is 't as bad as yir lookin', doctor? Tell 's the truth. Wull Annie no +come through?" and Tammas looked MacLure straight in the face, who +never flinched his duty or said smooth things. + +"A' wud gie onythin' tae say Annie has a chance, but a' daurna; a' +doot yir gaein' to lose her, Tammas." + +MacLure was in the saddle, and, as he gave his judgment, he laid his +hand on Tammas's shoulder with one of the rare caresses that pass +between men. + +"It's a sair business, but ye 'ill play the man and no vex Annie; she +'ill dae her best, a' 'll warrant." + +"And a' 'll dae mine," and Tammas gave MacLure's hand a grip that +would have crushed the bones of a weakling. Drumtochty felt in such +moments the brotherliness of this rough-looking man, and loved him. + +Tammas hid his face in Jess's mane, who looked round with sorrow in +her beautiful eyes, for she had seen many tragedies; and in this +silent sympathy the stricken man drank his cup, drop by drop. + +"A' wesna prepared for this, for a' aye thocht she wud live the +langest. . . . She's younger than me by ten year, and never was ill. +. . . We've been mairit twal' year last Martinmas, but it's juist like +a year the day. . . . A' wes never worthy o' her, the bonniest, +snoddest (neatest), kindliest lass in the Glen. . . . A' never cud +mak' oot hoo she ever lookit at me, 'at hesna hed ae word tae say +about her till it's ower-late. . . . She didna cuist up to me that a' +wesna worthy o' her--no her; but aye she said, 'Yir ma ain gudeman, +and nane cud be kinder tae me.' . . . An' a' wes minded tae be kind, +but a' see noo mony little trokes a' micht hae dune for her, and noo +the time is by. . . . Naebody kens hoo patient she wes wi' me, and aye +made the best o' me, an' never pit me tae shame afore the fouk. . . . +An' we never hed ae cross word, no ane in twal' year. . . . We were +mair nor man and wife--we were sweethearts a' the time. . . . Oh, ma +bonnie lass, what 'ill the bairnies an' me dae without ye, Annie?" + +The winter night was falling fast, the snow lay deep upon the ground, +and the merciless north wind moaned through the close as Tammas +wrestled with his sorrow dry-eyed, for tears were denied Drumtochty +men. Neither the doctor nor Jess moved hand or foot, but their hearts +were with their fellow-creature, and at length the doctor made a sign +to Marget Howe, who had come out in search of Tammas, and now stood by +his side. + +"Dinna mourn tae the brakin' o' yir hert, Tammas," she said, "as if +Annie an' you hed never luved. Neither death nor time can pairt them +that luve; there's naethin' in a' the warld sae strong as luve. If +Annie gaes frae the sicht o' yir een she 'ill come the nearer tae yir +hert. She wants tae see ye, and tae hear ye say that ye 'ill never +forget her nicht nor day till ye meet in the land where there's nae +pairtin'. Oh, a' ken what a' 'm sayin', for it's five year noo sin' +George gied awa', an' he's mair wi me noo than when he was in +Edinboro' and I wes in Drumtochty." + +"Thank ye kindly, Marget; thae are gude words an' true, an' ye hev the +richt tae say them; but a' canna dae without seein' Annie comin' tae +meet me in the gloamin', an' gaein' in an' oot the hoose, an' hearin' +her ca' me by ma name; an' a' 'll no can tell her that a' luve her +when there's nae Annie in the hoose. + +"Can naethin' be dune, doctor? Ye savit Flora Cammil, and young +Burnbrae, an' yon shepherd's wife Dunleith wy; an' we were a' sae +prood o' ye, an' pleased tae think that ye hed keepit deith frae +anither hame. Can ye no think o' somethin' tae help Annie, and gie her +back her man and bairnies?" and Tammas searched the doctor's face in +the cold, weird light. + +"There's nae pooer in heaven or airth like luve," Marget said to me +afterward; "it mak's the weak strong and the dumb tae speak. Oor herts +were as water afore Tammas's words, an' a' saw the doctor shake in his +saddle. A' never kent till that meenut hoo he hed a share in a'body's +grief, an' carried the heaviest wecht o' a' the Glen. A' peetied him +wi' Tammas lookin' at him sae wistfully, as if he hed the keys o' life +an' deith in his hands. But he wes honest, and wudna hold oot a false +houp tae deceive a sore hert or win escape for himsel'." + +"Ye needna plead wi' me, Tammas, to dae the best a' can for yir wife. +Man, a' kent her lang afore ye ever luved her; a' brocht her intae the +warld, and a' saw her through the fever when she wes a bit lassikie; +a' closed her mither's een, and it wes me hed tae tell her she wes an +orphan; an' nae man wes better pleased when she got a gude husband, +and a' helpit her wi' her fower bairns. A' 've naither wife nor bairns +o' ma own, an' a' coont a' the fouk o' the Glen ma family. Div ye +think a' wudna save Annie if I cud? If there wes a man in Muirtown 'at +cud dae mair for her, a' 'd have him this verra nicht; but a' the +doctors in Perthshire are helpless for this tribble. + +"Tammas, ma puir fallow, if it could avail, a' tell ye a' wud lay doon +this auld worn-oot ruckle o' a body o' mine juist tae see ye baith +sittin' at the fireside, an' the bairns round ye, couthy an' canty +again; but it's nae tae be, Tammas, it's nae tae be." + +"When a' lookit at the doctor's face," Marget said, "a' thocht him the +winsomest man a' ever saw. He wes transfigured that nicht, for a' 'm +judgin' there's nae transfiguration like luve." + +"It's God's wull an' maun be borne, but it's a sair wull fur me, an' +a' 'm no ungratefu' tae you, doctor, for a' ye've dune and what ye +said the nicht," and Tammas went back to sit with Annie for the last +time. + +Jess picked her way through the deep snow to the main road, with a +skill that came of long experience, and the doctor held converse with +her according to his wont. + +"Eh, Jess, wumman, yon wes the hardest wark a' hae tae face, and a' +wud raither hae taen ma chance o' anither row in a Glen Urtach drift +than tell Tammas Mitchell his wife wes deein'. + +"A' said she cudna be cured, and it was true, for there's juist ae man +in the land fit for 't, and they micht as weel try tae get the mune +oot o' heaven. Sae a' said naethin' tae vex Tammas's hert, for it's +heavy eneuch withoot regrets. + +"But it's hard, Jess, that money will buy life after a', an' if Annie +wes a duchess her man wudna lose her; but bein' only a puir cotter's +wife, she maun dee afore the week 's oot. + +"Gin we hed him the morn there's little doot she wud be saved, for he +hesna lost mair than five per cent. o' his cases, and they 'ill be +puir toons-craturs, no strappin' women like Annie. + +"It's oot o' the question, Jess, sae hurry up, lass, for we've hed a +heavy day. But it wud be the grandest thing that wes ever done in the +Glen in oor time if it could be managed by hook or crook. + +"We'll gang and see Drumsheugh, Jess; he's anither man sin' Geordie +Hoo's deith, and he was aye kinder than fouk kent." And the doctor +passed at a gallop through the village, whose lights shone across the +white frost-bound road. + +"Come in by, doctor; a' heard ye on the road; ye 'ill hae been at +Tammas Mitchell's; hoo's the gudewife? A' doot she's sober." + +"Annie's deein', Drumsheugh, an' Tammas is like tae brak his hert." + +"That's no lichtsome, doctor, no lichtsome, ava, for a' dinna ken ony +man in Drumtochty sae bund up in his wife as Tammas, and there's no a +bonnier wumman o' her age crosses oor kirk door than Annie, nor a +cleverer at her work. Man ye 'ill need tae pit yir brains in steep. Is +she clean beyond ye?" + +"Beyond me and every ither in the land but ane, and it wud cost a +hundred guineas tae bring him tae Drumtochty." + +"Certes, he's no blate; it's a fell chairge for a short day's work; +but hundred or no hundred we 'ill hae him, and no let Annie gang, and +her no half her years." + +"Are ye meanin' it, Drumsheugh?" and MacLure turned white below the +tan. + +"William MacLure," said Drumsheugh, in one of the few confidences that +ever broke the Drumtochty reserve, "a' 'm a lonely man, wi' naebody o' +ma ain blude tae care for me livin', or tae lift me intae ma coffin +when a' 'm deid. + +"A' fecht awa' at Muirtown market for an extra pund on a beast, or a +shillin' on the quarter o' barley, an' what's the gude o' 't? Burnbrae +gaes aff tae get a goon for his wife or a buke for his college laddie, +an' Lachlan Campbell 'ill no leave the place noo without a ribbon for +Flora. + +"Ilka man in the Kildrummie train has some bit fairin' in his pooch +for the fouk at hame that he's bocht wi' the siller he won. + +"But there's naebody tae be lookin' oot for me, an' comin' doon the +road tae meet me, and daffin' (joking) wi' me aboot their fairin', or +feelin' ma pockets. Ou, ay! A' 've seen it a' at ither hooses, though +they tried tae hide it frae me for fear a' wud lauch at them. Me +lauch, wi' ma cauld, empty hame! + +"Yir the only man kens, Weelum, that I aince luved the noblest wumman +in the Glen or onywhere, an' a' luve her still, but wi' anither luve +noo. + +"She hed given her hert tae anither, or a' 've thocht a' micht hae won +her, though nae man be worthy o' sic a gift. Ma hert turned tae +bitterness, but that passed awa' beside the brier-bush what George Hoo +lay yon sad simmer-time. Some day a' 'll tell ye ma story, Weelum, for +you an' me are auld freends, and will be till we dee." + +MacLure felt beneath the table for Drumsheugh's hand, but neither man +looked at the other. + +"Weel, a' we can dae noo, Weelum, gin we haena mickle brightness in +oor ain hames, is tae keep the licht frae gaein' oot in anither hoose. +Write the telegram, man, and Sandy 'ill send it aff frae Kildrummie +this verra nicht, and ye 'ill hae yir man the morn." + +"Yir the man a' coonted ye, Drumsheugh, but ye 'ill grant me a favour. +Ye 'ill lat me pay the half, bit by bit. A' ken yir wullin' tae dae 't +a'; but a' haena mony pleasures, an' a' wud like tae hae ma ain share +in savin' Annie's life." + +Next morning a figure received Sir George on the Kildrummie platform, +whom that famous surgeon took for a gillie, but who introduced himself +as "MacLure of Drumtochty." It seemed as if the East had come to meet +the West when these two stood together, the one in travelling furs, +handsome and distinguished, with his strong, cultured face and +carriage of authority, a characteristic type of his profession; and +the other more marvellously dressed than ever, for Drumsheugh's top- +coat had been forced upon him for the occasion, his face and neck one +redness with the bitter cold, rough and ungainly, yet not without some +signs of power in his eye and voice, the most heroic type of his noble +profession. MacLure compassed the precious arrival with observances +till he was securely seated in Drumsheugh's dog-cart,--a vehicle that +lent itself to history,--with two full-sized plaids added to his +equipment--Drumsheugh and Hillocks had both been requisitioned; and +MacLure wrapped another plaid round a leather case, which was placed +below the seat with such reverence as might be given to the Queen's +regalia. Peter attended their departure full of interest, and as soon +as they were in the fir woods MacLure explained that it would be an +eventful journey. + +"It's a'richt in here, for the wind disna get at the snow; but the +drifts are deep in the Glen, and th' 'ill be some engineerin' afore we +get tae oor destination." + +Four times they left the road and took their way over fields; twice +they forced a passage through a slap in a dyke; thrice they used gaps +in the paling which MacLure had made on his downward journey. + +"A' seleckit the road this mornin', an' a' ken the depth tae an inch; +we 'ill get through this steadin' here tae the main road, but our +worst job 'ill be crossin' the Tochty. + +"Ye see, the bridge hes been shakin' wi' this winter's flood, and we +daurna venture on it, sae we hev tae ford, and the snaw's been meltin' +up Urtach way. There's nae doot the water's gey big, and it's +threatenin' tae rise, but we 'ill win through wi' a warstle. + +"It micht be safer tae lift the instruments oot o' reach o' the water; +wud ye mind haddin' them on yir knee till we're ower, an' keep firm in +yir seat in case we come on a stane in the bed o' the river." + +By this time they had come to the edge, and it was not a cheering +sight. The Tochty had spread out over the meadows, and while they +waited they could see it cover another two inches on the trunk of a +tree. There are summer floods, when the water is brown and flecked +with foam, but this was a winter flood, which is black and sullen, and +runs in the centre with a strong, fierce, silent current. Upon the +opposite side Hillocks stood to give directions by word and hand, as +the ford was on his land, and none knew the Tochty better in all its +ways. + +They passed through the shallow water without mishap, save when the +wheel struck a hidden stone or fell suddenly into a rut; but when they +neared the body of the river MacLure halted, to give Jess a minute's +breathing. + +"It 'ill tak' ye a' yir time, lass, an' a' wud raither be on yir back; +but ye never failed me yet, and a wumman's life is hangin' on the +crossin'." + +With the first plunge into the bed of the stream the water rose to the +axles, and then it crept up to the shafts, so that the surgeon could +feel it lapping in about his feet, while the dog-cart began to quiver, +and it seemed as if it were to be carried away. Sir George was as +brave as most men, but he had never forded a Highland river in flood, +and the mass of black water racing past beneath, before, behind him, +affected his imagination and shook his nerves. He rose from his seat +and ordered MacLure to turn back, declaring that he would be condemned +utterly and eternally if he allowed himself to be drowned for any +person. + +"Sit doon!" thundered MacLure. "Condemned ye will be, suner or later, +gin ye shirk yir duty, but through the water ye gang the day." + +Both men spoke much more strongly and shortly, but this is what they +intended to say, and it was MacLure that prevailed. + +Jess trailed her feet along the ground with cunning art, and held her +shoulder against the stream; MacLure leaned forward in his seat, a +rein in each hand, and his eyes fixed on Hillocks, who was now +standing up to the waist in the water, shouting directions and +cheering on horse and driver: + +"Haud tae the richt, doctor; there's a hole yonder. Keep oot o' 't for +ony sake. That's it; yir daein' fine. Steady, man, steady. Yir at the +deepest; sit heavy in yir seats. Up the channel noo, and ye 'ill be +oot o' the swirl. Weel dune, Jess! Weel dune, auld mare! Mak' straicht +for me, doctor, an' a' 'll gie ye the road oot. Ma word, ye've dune +yir best, baith o' ye, this mornin'," cried Hillocks, splashing up to +the dog-cart, now in the shallows. + +"Sall, it wes titch an' go for a meenut in the middle; a Hielan' ford +is a kittle (hazardous) road in the snaw-time, but ye 're safe noo. + +"Gude luck tae ye up at Westerton, sir; nane but a richt-hearted man +wud hae riskit the Tochty in flood. Ye 're boond tae succeed aifter +sic a graund beginnin'," for it had spread already that a famous +surgeon had come to do his best for Annie, Tammas Mitchell's wife. + +Two hours later MacLure came out from Annie's room and laid hold of +Tammas, a heap of speechless misery by the kitchen fire, and carried +him off to the barn, and spread some corn on the threshing-floor, and +thrust a flail into his hands. + +"Noo we 've tae begin, an' we 'ill no be dune for an' 'oor, and ye 've +tae lay on without stoppin' till a' come for ye; an' a' 'll shut the +door tae haud in the noise, an' keep yir dog beside ye, for there +maunna be a cheep aboot the house for Annie's sake." + +"A' 'll dae onythin' ye want me, but if--if----" + +"A' 'll come for ye, Tammas, gin there be danger; but what are ye +feard for wi' the Queen's ain surgeon here?" + +Fifty minutes did the flair rise and fall, save twice, when Tammas +crept to the door and listened, the dog lifting his head and whining. + +It seemed twelve hours instead of one when the door swung back, and +MacLure filled the doorway, preceded by a great burst of light, for +the sun had arisen on the snow. + +His face was as tidings of great joy, and Elspeth told me that there +was nothing like it to be seen that afternoon for glory, save the sun +itself in the heavens. + +"A' never saw the marrow o' 't, Tammas, an' a' 'll never see the like +again; it's a' ower, man, withoot a hitch frae beginnin' tae end, and +she's fa'in' asleep as fine as ye like." + +"Dis he think Annie--'ill live?" + +"Of course he dis, and be aboot the hoose inside a month; that's the +gude o' bein' a clean-bluided, weel-livin'-- + +"Preserve ye, man, what's wrang wi' ye? It's a mercy a' keppit ye, or +we wud hev hed anither job for Sir George. + +"Ye 're a'richt noo; sit doon on the strae. A' 'll come back in a +while, an' ye 'ill see Annie, juist for a meenut, but ye maunna say a +word." + +Marget took him in and let him kneel by Annie's bedside. + +He said nothing then or afterward for speech came only once in his +lifetime to Tammas, but Annie whispered, "Ma ain dear man." + +When the doctor placed the precious bag beside Sir George in our +solitary first next morning, he laid a check beside it and was about +to leave. + +"No, no!" said the great man. "Mrs. Macfadyen and I were on the gossip +last night, and I know the whole story about you and your friend. + +"You have some right to call me a coward, but I 'll never let you +count me a mean, miserly rascal," and the check with Drumsheugh's +painful writing fell in fifty pieces on the floor. + +As the train began to move, a voice from the first called so that all +the station heard: + +"Give 's another shake of your hand, MacLure; I'm proud to have met +you; your are an honour to our profession. Mind the antiseptic +dressings." + +It was market-day, but only Jamie Soutar and Hillocks had ventured +down. + +"Did ye hear yon, Hillocks? Hoo dae ye feel? A' 'll no deny a' 'm +lifted." + +Half-way to the Junction Hillocks had recovered, and began to grasp +the situation. + +"Tell 'us what he said. A' wud like to hae it exact for Drumsheugh." + +"Thae's the eedentical words, an' they're true; there's no a man in +Drumtochty disna ken that, except ane." + +"An' wha's that Jamie?" + +"It's Weelum MacLure himsel'. Man, a' 've often girned that he sud +fecht awa' for us a', and maybe dee before he kent that he had +githered mair luve than ony man in the Glen. + +" 'A' 'm prood tae hae met ye,' says Sir George, an' him the greatest +doctor in the land. 'Yir an honour tae oor profession.' + +"Hillocks, a' wudna hae missed it for twenty notes," said James +Soutar, cynic in ordinary to the parish of Drumtochty. + + + +WANDERING WILLIE'S TALE + +BY + +SIR WALTER SCOTT + +"Honest folks like me! How do ye ken whether I am honest, or what I +am? I may be the deevil himsell for what ye ken, for he has power to +come disguised like an angel of light; and, besides, he is a prime +fiddler. He played a sonata to Corelli, ye ken." + +There was something odd in this speech, and the tone in which it was +said. It seemed as if my companion was not always in his constant +mind, or that he was willing to try if he could frighten me. I laughed +at the extravagance of his language, however, and asked him in reply +if he was fool enough to believe that the foul fiend would play so +silly a masquerade. + +"Ye ken little about it--little about it," said the old man, shaking +his head and beard, and knitting his brows. "I could tell ye something +about that." + +What his wife mentioned of his being a tale-teller as well as a +musician now occurred to me; and as, you know, I like tales of +superstition, I begged to have a specimen of his talent as we went +along. + +"It is very true," said the blind man, "that when I am tired of +scraping thairm or singing ballants I whiles make a tale serve the +turn among the country bodies; and I have some fearsome anes, that +make the auld carlines shake on the settle, and the bits o' bairns +skirl on their minnies out frae their beds. But this that I am going +to tell you was a thing that befell in our ain house in my father's +time--that is, my father was then a hafflins callant; and I tell it to +you, that it may be a lesson to you that are but a young thoughtless +chap, wha ye draw up wi' on a lonely road; for muckle was the dool and +care that came o' 't to my gudesire." + +He commenced his tale accordingly, in a distinct narrative tone of +voice, which he raised and depressed with considerable skill; at times +sinking almost into a whisper, and turning his clear but sightless +eyeballs upon my face, as if it had been possible for him to witness +the impression which his narrative made upon my features. I will not +spare a syllable of it, although it be of the longest; so I make a +dash--and begin: + + + +Ye maun have heard of Sir Robert Redgauntlet of that ilk, who lived in +these parts before the dear years. The country will lang mind him; and +our fathers used to draw breath thick if ever they heard him named. He +was out wi' the Hielandmen in Montrose's time; and again he was in the +hills wi' Glencairn in the saxteen hundred and fifty-twa; and sae when +King Charles the Second came in, wha was in sic favour as the laird of +Redgauntlet? He was knighted at Lonon Court, wi' the king's ain sword; +and being a red-hot prelatist, he came down here, rampauging like a +lion, with commission of lieutenancy (and of lunacy, for what I ken), +to put down a' the Whigs and Covenanters in the country. Wild wark +they made of it; for the Whigs were as dour as the Cavaliers were +fierce, and it was which should first tire the other. Redgauntlet was +aye for the strong hand; and his name is kend as wide in the country +as Claverhouse's or Tam Dalyell's. Glen, nor dargle, nor mountain, nor +cave could hide the puir hill-folk when Redgauntlet was out with bugle +and bloodhound after them, as if they had been sae mony deer. And, +troth, when they fand them, they didna make muckle mair ceremony than +a Hielandman wi' a roebuck. It was just, "Will ye tak' the test?" If +not--"Make ready--present--fire!" and there lay the recusant. + +Far and wide was Sir Robert hated and feared. Men thought he had a +direct compact with Satan; that he was proof against steel, and that +bullets happed aff his buff-coat like hailstanes from a hearth; that +he had a mear that would turn a hare on the side of Carrifra-gauns (a +precipitous side of a mountain in Moffatdale); and muckle to the same +purpose, of whilk mair anon. The best blessing they wared on him was, +"Deil scowp wi' Redgauntlet!" He wasna a bad master to his ain folk, +though, and was weel aneugh liked by his tenants; and as for the +lackeys and troopers that rade out wi' him to the persecutions, as the +Whigs caa'd those killing-times, they wad hae drunken themsells blind +to his health at ony time. + +Now you are to ken that my gudesire lived on Redgauntlet's grund--they +ca' the place Primrose Knowe. We had lived on the grund, and under the +Redgauntlets, since the riding-days, and lang before. It was a pleasant +bit; and, I think the air is callerer and fresher there than onywhere +else in the country. It's a' deserted now; and I sat on the broken +door-cheek three days since, and was glad I couldna see the plight the +place was in--but that's a' wide o' the mark. There dwelt my gudesire, +Steenie Steenson; a rambling, rattling chiel' he had been in his young +days, and could play weel on the pipes; he was famous at "hoopers and +girders," a' Cumberland couldna touch him at "Jockie Lattin," and he +had the finest finger for the back-lilt between Berwick and Carlisle. +The like o' Steenie wasna the sort that they made Whigs o'. And so he +became a Tory, as they ca' it, which we now ca' Jacobites, just out of +a kind of needcessity, that he might belang to some side or other. He +had nae ill-will to the Whig bodies, and liked little to see the blude +rin, though, being obliged to follow Sir Robert in hunting and +hoisting, watching and warding, he saw muckle mischief, and maybe did +some that he couldna avoid. + +Now Steenie was a kind of favourite with his master, and kend a' the +folk about the castle, and was often sent for to play the pipes when +they were at their merriment. Auld Dougal MacCallum, the butler, that +had followed Sir Robert through gude and ill, thick and thin, pool and +stream, was specially fond of the pipes, and aye gae my gudesire his +gude word wi' the laird; for Dougal could turn his master round his +finger. + +Weel, round came the Revolution, and it had like to hae broken the +hearts baith of Dougal and his master. But the change was not +a'thegether sae great as they feared and other folk thought for. The +Whigs made an unco crawing what they wad do with their auld enemies, +and in special wi' Sir Robert Redgauntlet. But there were ower-mony +great folks dipped in the same doings to make a spick-and-span new +warld. So Parliament passed it a' ower easy; and Sir Robert, bating +that he was held to hunting foxes instead of Covenanters, remained +just the man he was. His revel was as loud, and his hall as weel +lighted, as ever it had been, though maybe he lacked the fines of the +nonconformists, that used to come to stock his larder and cellar; for +it is certain he began to be keener about the rents than his tenants +used to find him before, and they behooved to be prompt to the rent- +day, or else the laird wasna pleased. And he was sic an awsome body +that naebody cared to anger him; for the oaths he swore, and the rage +that he used to get into, and the looks that he put on made men +sometimes think him a devil incarnate. + +Weel, my gudesire was nae manager--no that he was a very great +misguider--but he hadna the saving gift, and he got twa terms' rent in +arrear. He got the first brash at Whitsunday put ower wi' fair word +and piping; but when Martinmas came there was a summons from the grund +officer to come wi' the rent on a day preceese, or else Steenie +behooved to flit. Sair wark he had to get the siller; but he was weel +freended, and at last he got the haill scraped thegether--a thousand +merks. The maist of it was from a neighbour they caa'd Laurie Lapraik +--a sly tod. Laurie had wealth o' gear, could hunt wi' the hound and +rin wi' the hare, and be Whig or Tory, saunt or sinner, as the wind +stood. He was a professor in the Revolution warld, but he liked an +orra sough of the warld, and a tune on the pipes weel aneugh at a by- +time; and, bune a', he thought he had gude security for the siller he +len my gudesire ower the stocking at Primrose Knowe. + +Away trots my gudesire to Redgauntlet Castle wi' a heavy purse and a +light heart, glad to be out of the laird's danger. Weel, the first +thing he learned at the castle was that Sir Robert had fretted himsell +into a fit of the gout because he did no appear before twelve o'clock. +It wasna a'thegether for sake of the money, Dougal thought, but +because he didna like to part wi' my gudesire aff the grund. Dougal +was glad to see Steenie, and brought him into the great oak parlour; +and there sat the laird his leesome lane, excepting that he had beside +him a great, ill-favoured jackanape that was a special pet of his. A +cankered beast it was, and mony an ill-natured trick it played; ill to +please it was, and easily angered--ran about the haill castle, +chattering and rowling, and pinching and biting folk, specially before +ill weather, or disturbance in the state. Sir Robert caa'd it Major +Weir, after the warlock that was burnt; and few folk liked either the +name or the conditions of the creature--they thought there was +something in it by ordinar--and my gudesire was not just easy in mind +when the door shut on him, and he saw himsell in the room wi' naebody +but the laird, Dougal MacCallum, and the major--a thing that hadna +chanced to him before. + +Sir Robert sat, or, I should say, lay, in a great arm-chair, wi' his +grand velvet gown, and his feet on a cradle, for he had baith gout and +gravel, and his face looked as gash and ghastly as Satan's. Major Weir +sat opposite to him, in a red-laced coat, and the laird's wig on his +head; and aye as Sir Robert girned wi' pain, the jackanape girned too, +like a sheep's head between a pair of tangs--an ill-faur'd, fearsome +couple they were. The laird's buff-coat was hung on a pin behind him +and his broadsword and his pistols within reach; for he keepit up the +auld fashion of having the weapons ready, and a horse saddled day and +night, just as he used to do when he was able to loup on horseback, +and sway after ony of the hill-folk he could get speerings of. Some +said it was for fear of the Whigs taking vengeance, but I judge it was +just his auld custom--he wasna gine not fear onything. The rental- +book, wi' its black cover and brass clasps, was lying beside him; and +a book of sculduddery sangs was put betwixt the leaves, to keep it +open at the place where it bore evidence against the goodman of +Primrose Knowe, as behind the hand with his mails and duties. Sir +Robert gave my gudesire a look, as if he would have withered his heart +in his bosom. Ye maun ken he had a way of bending his brows that men +saw the visible mark of a horseshoe in his forehead, deep-dinted, as +if it had been stamped there. + +"Are ye come light-handed, ye son of a toom whistle?" said Sir Robert. +"Zounds! If you are--" + +My gudesire, with as gude a countenance as he could put on, made a +leg, and placed the bag of money on the table wi' a dash, like a man +that does something clever. The laird drew it to him hastily. "Is all +here, Steenie, man?" + +"Your honour will find it right," said my gudesire. + +"Here, Dougal," said the laird, "gie Steenie a tass of brandy, till I +count the siller and write the receipt." + +But they werena weel out of the room when Sir Robert gied a yelloch +that garr'd the castle rock. Back ran Dougal; in flew the liverymen; +yell on yell gied the laird, ilk ane mair awfu' than the ither. My +gudesire knew not whether to stand or flee, but he ventured back into +the parlour, where a' was gaun hirdie-girdie--naebody to say "come in" +or "gae out." Terribly the laird roared for cauld water to his feet, +and wine to cool his throat; and 'Hell, hell, hell, and its flames', +was aye the word in his mouth. They brought him water, and when they +plunged his swoln feet into the tub, he cried out it was burning; and +folks say that it /did/ bubble and sparkle like a seething cauldron. +He flung the cup at Dougal's head and said he had given him blood +instead of Burgundy; and, sure aneugh, the lass washed clotted blood +aff the carpet the neist day. The jackanape they caa'd Major Weir, it +jibbered and cried as if it was mocking its master. My gudesire's head +was like to turn; he forgot baith siller and receipt, and downstairs +he banged; but, as he ran, the shrieks came fainter and fainter; there +was a deep-drawn shivering groan, and word gaed through the castle +that the laird was dead. + +Weel, away came my gudesire wi' his finger in his mouth, and his best +hope was that Dougal had seen the money-bag and heard the laird speak +of writing the receipt. The young laird, now Sir John, came from +Edinburgh to see things put to rights. Sir John and his father never +'greed weel. Sir John had been bred an advocate, and afterward sat in +the last Scots Parliament and voted for the Union, having gotten, it +was thought, a rug of the compensations--if his father could have come +out of his grave he would have brained him for it on his awn +hearthstane. Some thought it was easier counting with the auld rough +knight than the fair-spoken young ane--but mair of that anon. + +Dougal MacCallum, poor body, neither grat nor graned, but gaed about +the house looking like a corpse, but directing, as was his duty, a' +the order of the grand funeral. Now Dougal looked aye waur and waur +when night was coming, and was aye the last to gang to his bed, whilk +was in a little round just opposite the chamber of dais, whilk his +master occupied while he was living, and where he now lay in state, as +they can'd it, weeladay! The night before the funeral Dougal could +keep his awn counsel nae longer; he came doun wi' his proud spirit, +and fairly asked auld Hutcheon to sit in his room with him for an +hour. When they were in the round, Dougal took a tass of brandy to +himsell, and gave another to Hutcheon, and wished him all health and +lang life, and said that, for himsell, he wasna lang for this warld; +for that every night since Sir Robert's death his silver call had +sounded from the state chamber just as it used to do at nights in his +lifetime to call Dougal to help to turn him in his bed. Dougal said +that being alone with the dead on that floor of the tower (for naebody +cared to wake Sir Robert Redgauntlet like another corpse), he had +never daured to answer the call, but that now his conscience checked +him for neglecting his duty; for, "though death breaks service," said +MacCallum, "it shall never weak my service to Sir Robert; and I will +answer his next whistle, so be you will stand by me, Hutcheon." + +Hutcheon had nae will to the wark, but he had stood by Dougal in +battle and broil, and he wad not fail him at this pinch; so doun the +carles sat ower a stoup of brandy, and Hutcheon, who was something of +a clerk, would have read a chapter of the Bible; but Dougal would hear +naething but a blaud of Davie Lindsay, whilk was the waur preparation. + +When midnight came, and the house was quiet as the grave, sure enough +the silver whistle sounded as sharp and shrill as if Sir Robert was +blowing it; and up got the twa auld serving-men, and tottered into the +room where the dead man lay. Hutcheon saw aneugh at the first glance; +for there were torches in the room, which showed him the foul fiend, +in his ain shape, sitting on the laird's coffin! Ower he couped as if +he had been dead. He could not tell how lang he lay in a trance at the +door, but when he gathered himsell he cried on his neighbour, and +getting nae answer raised the house, when Dougal was found lying dead +within twa steps of the bed where his master's coffin was placed. As +for the whistle, it was gane anes and aye; but mony a time was it +heard at the top of the house on the bartizan, and amang the auld +chimneys and turrets where the howlets have their nests. Sir John +hushed the matter up, and the funeral passed over without mair bogie +wark. + +But when a' was ower, and the laird was beginning to settle his +affairs, every tenant was called up for his arrears, and my gudesire +for the full sum that stood against him in the rental-book. Weel, away +he trots to the castle to tell his story, and there he is introduced +to Sir John, sitting in his father's chair, in deep mourning, with +weepers and hanging cravat, and a small walking-rapier by his side, +instead of the auld broadsword that had a hunderweight of steel about +it, what with blade, chape, and basket-hilt. I have heard their +communings so often tauld ower that I almost think I was there mysell, +though I couldna be born at the time. (In fact, Alan, my companion, +mimicked, with a good deal of humour, the flattering, conciliating +tone of the tenant's address and the hypocritical melancholy of the +laird's reply. His grandfather, he said, had while he spoke, his eye +fixed on the rental-book, as if it were a mastiff-dog that he was +afraid would spring up and bite him.) + +"I wuss ye joy, sir, of the head seat and the white loaf and the brid +lairdship. Your father was a kind man to freends and followers; muckle +grace to you, Sir John, to fill his shoon--his boots, I suld say, for +he seldom wore shoon, unless it were muils when he had the gout." + +"Ay, Steenie," quoth the laird, sighing deeply, and putting his napkin +to his een, "his was a sudden call, and he will be missed in the +country; no time to set his house in order--weel prepared Godward, no +doubt, which is the root of the matter; but left us behind a tangled +hesp to wind, Steenie. Hem! Hem! We maun go to business, Steenie; much +to do, and little time to do it in." + +Here he opened the fatal volume. I have heard of a thing they call +Doomsday book--I am clear it has been a rental of back-ganging +tenants. + +"Stephen," said Sir John, still in the same soft, sleekit tone of +voice--"Stephen Stevenson, or Steenson, ye are down here for a year's +rent behind the hand--due at last term." + +/Stephen./ Please your honour, Sir John, I paid it to your father. + +/Sir John./ Ye took a receipt, then, doubtless, Stephen, and can +produce it? + +/Stephen./ Indeed, I hadna time, an it like your honour; for nae +sooner had I set doun the siller, and just as his honour, Sir Robert, +that's gaen, drew it ill him to count it and write out the receipt, he +was ta'en wi' the pains that removed him. + +"That was unlucky," said Sir John, after a pause. "But ye maybe paid +it in the presence of somebody. I want but a /talis qualis/ evidence, +Stephen. I would go ower-strictly to work with no poor man." + +/Stephen./ Troth, Sir John, there was naebody in the room but Dougal +MacCallum, the butler. But, as your honour kens, he has e'en followed +his auld master. + +"Very unlucky again, Stephen," said Sir John, without altering his +voice a single note. "The man to whom ye paid the money is dead, and +the man who witnessed the payment is dead too; and the siller, which +should have been to the fore, is neither seen nor heard tell of in the +repositories. How am I to believe a' this?" + +/Stephen./ I dinna ken, your honour; but there is a bit memorandum +note of the very coins, for, God help me! I had to borrow out of +twenty purses; and I am sure that ilka man there set down will take +his grit oath for what purpose I borrowed the money. + +/Sir John./ I have little doubt ye /borrowed/ the money, Steenie. It +is the /payment/ that I want to have proof of. + +/Stephen./ The siller maun be about the house, Sir John. And since +your honour never got it, and his honour that was canna have ta'en it +wi' him, maybe some of the family may hae seen it. + +/Sir John./ We will examine the servants, Stephen; that is but +reasonable. + +But lackey and lass, and page and groom, all denied stoutly that they +had ever seen such a bag of money as my gudesire described. What saw +waur, he had unluckily not mentioned to any living soul of them his +purpose of paying his rent. Ae quean had noticed something under his +arm, but she took it for the pipes. + +Sir John Redgauntlet ordered the servants out of the room and then +said to my gudesire, "Now, Steenie, ye see ye have fair play; and, as +I have little doubt ye ken better where to find the siller than ony +other body, I beg in fair terms, and for your own sake, that you will +end this fasherie; for, Stephen, ye maun pay or flit." + +"The Lord forgie your opinion," said Stephen, driven almost to his +wits' end--"I am an honest man." + +"So am I, Stephen," said his honour; "and so are all the folks in the +house, I hope. But if there be a knave among us, it must be he that +tells the story he cannot prove." He paused, and then added, mair +sternly: "If I understand your trick, sir, you want to take advantage +of some malicious reports concerning things in this family, and +particularly respecting my father's sudden death, thereby to cheat me +out of the money, and perhaps take away my character by insinuating +that I have received the rent I am demanding. Where do you suppose the +money to be? I insist upon knowing." + +My gudesire saw everything look so muckle against him that he grew +nearly desperate. However, he shifted from one foot to another, looked +to every corner of the room, and made no answer. + +"Speak out, sirrah," said the laird, assuming a look of his father's, +a very particular ane, which he had when he was angry--it seemed as if +the wrinkles of his frown made that selfsame fearful shape of a +horse's shoe in the middle of his brow; "speak out, sir! I /will/ know +your thoughts; do you suppose that I have this money?" + +"Far be it frae me to say so," said Stephen. + +"Do you charge any of my people with having taken it?" + +"I wad be laith to charge them that may be innocent," said my +gudesire; "and if there be any one that is guilty, I have nae proof." + +"Somewhere the money must be, if there is a word of truth in your +story," said Sir John; "I ask where you think it is--and demand a +correct answer!" + +"In hell, if you /will/ have my thoughts of it," said my gudesire, +driven to extremity--"in hell! with your father, his jackanape, and +his silver whistle." + +Down the stairs he ran (for the parlour was nae place for him after +such a word), and he heard the laird swearing blood and wounds behind +him, as fast as ever did Sir Robert, and roaring for the bailie and +the baron-officer. + +Away rode my gudesire to his chief creditor (him they caa'd Laurie +Lapraik), to try if he could make onything out of him; but when he +tauld his story, he got the worst word in his wame--thief, beggar, and +dyvour were the saftest terms; and to the boot of these hard terms, +Laurie brought up the auld story of dipping his hand in the blood of +God's saunts, just as if a tenant could have helped riding with the +laird, and that a laird like Sir Robert Redgauntlet. My gudesire was, +by this time, far beyond the bounds of patience, and, while he and +Laurie were at deil speed the liars, he was wanchancie aneugh to abuse +Lapraik's doctrine as weel as the man, and said things that garr'd +folks' flesh grue that heard them--he wasna just himsell, and he had +lived wi' a wild set in his day. + +At last they parted, and my gudesire was to ride hame through the wood +of Pitmurkie, that is a' fou of black firs, as they say. I ken the +wood, but the firs may be black or white for what I can tell. At the +entry of the wood there is a wild common, and on the edge of the +common a little lonely change-house, that was keepit then by an +hostler wife,--they suld hae caa'd her Tibbie Faw,--and there puir +Steenie cried for a mutchkin of brandy, for he had had no refreshment +the haill day. Tibbie was earnest wi' him to take a bite of meat, but +he couldna think o' 't, nor would he take his foot out of the stirrup, +and took off the brandy, wholely at twa draughts, and named a toast at +each. The first was, the memory of Sir Robert Redgauntlet, and may he +never lie quiet in his grave till he had righted his poor bond-tenant; +and the second was, a health to Man's Enemy, if he would but get him +back the pock of siller, or tell him what came o' 't, for he saw the +haill world was like to regard him as a thief and a cheat, and he took +that waur than even the ruin of his house and hauld. + +On he rode, little caring where. It was a dark night turned, and the +trees made it yet darker, and he let the beast take its ain road +through the wood; when all of a sudden, from tired and wearied that it +was before, the nag began to spring and flee and stend, that my +gudesire could hardly keep the saddle. Upon the whilk, a horseman, +suddenly riding up beside him, said, "That's a mettle beast of yours, +freend; will you sell him?" So saying, he touched the horse's neck +with his riding-wand, and it fell into its auld heigh-ho of a +stumbling trot. "But his spunk's soon out of him, I think," continued +the stranger, "and that is like mony a man's courage, that thinks he +wad do great things." + +My gudesire scarce listened to this, but spurred his horse, with +"Gude-e'en to you, freend." + +But it's like the stranger was ane that doesna lightly yield his +point; for, ride as Steenie liked, he was aye beside him at the +selfsame pace. At last my gudesire, Steenie Steenson, grew half angry, +and, to say the truth, half feard. + +"What is it that you want with me, freend?" he said. "If ye be a +robber, I have nae money; if ye be a leal man, wanting company, I have +nae heart to mirth or speaking; and if ye want to ken the road, I +scarce ken it mysell." + +"If you will tell me your grief," said the stranger, "I am one that, +though I have been sair miscaa'd in the world, am the only hand for +helping my freends." + +So my gudesire, to ease his ain heart, mair than from any hope of +help, told him the story from beginning to end. + +"It's a hard pinch," said the stranger; "but I think I can help you." + +"If you could lend me the money, sir, and take a lang day--I ken nae +other help on earth," said my gudesire. + +"But there may be some under the earth," said the stranger. "Come, +I'll be frank wi' you; I could lend you the money on bond, but you +would maybe scruple my terms. Now I can tell you that your auld laird +is disturbed in his grave by your curses and the wailing of your +family, and if ye daur venture to go to see him, he will give you the +receipt." + +My gudesire's hair stood on end at this proposal, but he thought his +companion might be some humoursome chield that was trying to frighten +him, and might end with lending him the money. Besides, he was bauld +wi' brandy, and desperate wi' distress; and he said he had courage to +go to the gate of hell, and a step farther, for that receipt. The +stranger laughed. + +Weel, they rode on through the thickest of the wood, when, all of a +sudden, the horse stopped at the door of a great house; and, but that +he knew the place was ten miles off, my father would have thought he +was at Redgauntlet Castle. They rode into the outer courtyard, through +the muckle faulding yetts, and aneath the auld portcullis; and the +whole front of the house was lighted, and there were pipes and +fiddles, and as much dancing and deray within as used to be at Sir +Robert's house at Pace and Yule, and such high seasons. They lap off, +and my gudesire, as seemed to him, fastened his horse to the very ring +he had tied him to that morning when he gaed to wait on the young Sir +John. + +"God!" said my gudesire, "if Sir Robert's death be but a dream!" + +He knocked at the ha' door just as he was wont, and his auld +acquaintance, Dougal MacCallum--just after his wont, too--came to open +the door, and said, "Piper Steenie, are ye there lad? Sir Robert has +been crying for you." + +My gudesire was like a man in a dream--he looked for the stranger, but +he was gane for the time. At last he just tried to say, "Ha! Dougal +Driveower, are you living? I thought ye had been dead." + +"Never fash yoursell wi' me," said Dougal, "but look to yoursell; and +see ye tak' naething frae onybody here, neither meat, drink, or +siller, except the receipt that is your ain." + +So saying, he led the way out through the halls and trances that were +weel kend to my gudesire, and into the auld oak parlour; and there was +as much singing of profane sangs, and birling of red wine, and +blasphemy and sculduddery, as had ever been in Redgauntlet Castle when +it was at the blythest. + +But Lord take us in keeping! What a set of ghastly revellers there +were that sat around that table! My gudesire kend mony that had long +before gane to their place, for often had he piped to the most part in +the hall of Redgauntlet. There was the fierce Middleton, and the +dissolute Rothes, and the crafty Lauderdale; and Dalyell, with his +bald head and a beard to his girdle; and Earlshall, with Cameron's +blude on his hand; and wild Bonshaw, that tied blessed Mr. Cargill's +limbs till the blude sprung; and Dumbarton Douglas, the twice turned +traitor baith to country and king. There was the Bludy Advocate +MacKenyie, who, for his worldly wit and wisdom, had been to the rest +as a god. And there was Claverhouse, as beautiful as when he lived, +with his long, dark, curled locks streaming down over his laced buff- +coat, and with his left hand always on his right spule-blade, to hide +the wound that the silver bullet had made. He sat apart from them all, +and looked at them with a melancholy, haughty countenance; while the +rest hallooed and sang and laughed, that the room rang. But their +smiles were fearfully contorted from time to time; and their laughter +passed into such wild sounds as made my gudesire's very nails grow +blue, and chilled the marrow in his banes. + +They that waited at the table were just the wicked serving-men and +troopers that had done their work and cruel bidding on earth. There +was the Lang Lad of the Nethertown, that helped to take Argyle; and +the bishop's summoner, that they called the Deil's Rattlebag; and the +wicked guardsmen in their laced coats; and the savage Highland +Amorites, that shed blood like water; and mony a proud serving-man, +haughty of heart and bloody of hand, cringing to the rich, and making +them wickeder than they would be; grinding the poor to powder when the +rich had broken them to fragments. And mony, mony mair were coming and +ganging, a' as busy in their vocation as if they had been alive. + +Sir Robert Redgauntlet, in the midst of a' this fearful riot, cried, +wi' a voice like thunder, on Steenie Piper to come to the board-head +where he was sitting, his legs stretched out before him, and swathed +up with flannel, with his holster pistols aside him, while the great +broadsword rested against his chair, just as my gudesire had seen him +the last time upon earth; the very cushion for the jackanape was close +to him, but the creature itsell was not there--it wasna its hour, it's +likely; for he heard them say, as he came forward, "Is not the major +come yet?" And another answered, "The jackanape will be here betimes +the morn." And when my gudesire came forward, Sir Robert or his +ghaist, or the deevil in his likeness, said, "Weel, piper, hae ye +settled wi' my son for the year's rent?" + +With much ado my father gat breath to say that Sir John would not +settle without his honour's receipt. + +"Ye shall hae that for a tune of the pipes, Steenie," said the +appearance of Sir Robert--"play us up 'Weel Hoddled, Luckie.' " + +Now this was a tune my gudesire learned frae a warlock, that heard it +when they were worshipping Satan at their meetings; and my gudesire +had sometimes played it at the ranting suppers in Redgauntlet Castle, +but never very willingly; and now he grew cauld at the very name of +it, and said, for excuse, he hadna his pipes wi' him. + +"MacCallum, ye limb of Beelzebub," said the fearfu' Sir Robert, "bring +Steenie the pipes that I am keeping for him!" + +MacCallum brought a pair of pipes might have served the piper of +Donald of the Isles. But he gave my gudesire a nudge as he offered +them; and looking secretly and closely, Steenie saw that the chanter +was of steel, and heated to a white heat; so he had fair warning not +to trust his fingers with it. So he excused himsell again, and said he +was faint and frightened, and had not wind aneugh to fill the bag. + +"Then ye maun eat and drink, Steenie," said the figure; "for we do +little else here; and it's ill speaking between a fou man and a +fasting." Now these were the very words that the bloody Earl of +Douglas said to keep the king's messenger in hand while he cut the +head off MacLellan of Bombie, at the Threave Castle; and put Steenie +mair and mair on his guard. So he spoke up like a man, and said he +came neither to eat nor drink, nor make minstrelsy; but simply for his +ain--to ken what was come o' the money he had paid, and to get a +discharge for it; and he was so stout-hearted by this time that he +charged Sir Robert for conscience's sake (he had no power to say the +holy name), and as he hoped for peace and rest, to spread no snares +for him, but just to give him his ain. + +The appearance gnashed its teeth and laughed, but it took from a large +pocket-book the receipt, and handed it to Steenie. "There is your +receipt, ye pitiful cur; and for the money, my dog-whelp of a son may +go look for it in the Cat's Cradle." + +My gudesire uttered mony thanks, and was about to retire, when Sir +Robert roared aloud, "Stop, though, thou sack-doudling son of a --! I +am not done with thee. HERE we do nothing for nothing; and you must +return on this very day twelvemonth to pay your master the homage that +you owe me for my protection." + +My father's tongue was loosed of a suddenty, and he said aloud, "I +refer myself to God's pleasure, and not to yours." + +He had no sooner uttered the word than all was dark around him; and he +sank on the earth with such a sudden shock that he lost both breath +and sense. + +How lang Steenie lay there he could not tell; but when he came to +himsell he was lying in the auld kirkyard of Redgauntlet parochine, +just at the door of the family aisle, and the scutcheon of the auld +knight, Sir Robert, hanging over his head. There was a deep morning +fog on grass and gravestane around him, and his horse was feeding +quietly beside the minister's twa cows. Steenie would have thought the +whole was a dream, but he had the receipt in his hand fairly written +and signed by the auld laird; only the last letters of his name were a +little disorderly, written like one seized with sudden pain. + +Sorely troubled in his mind, he left that dreary place, rode through +the mist to Redgauntlet Castle, and with much ado he got speech of the +laird. + +"Well, you dyvour bankrupt," was the first word, "have you brought me +my rent?" + +"No," answered my gudesire, "I have not; but I have brought your +honour Sir Robert's receipt for it." + +"How, sirrah? Sir Robert's receipt! You told me he had not given you +one." + +"Will your honour please to see if that bit line is right?" + +Sir John looked at every line, and at every letter, with much +attention; and at last at the date, which my gudesire had not observed +--"From my appointed place," he read, "this twenty-fifth of November." + +"What! That is yesterday! Villain, thou must have gone to hell for +this!" + +"I got it from your honour's father; whether he be in heaven or hell, +I know not," said Steenie. + +"I will debate you for a warlock to the Privy Council!" said Sir John. +"I will send you to your master, the devil, with the help of a tar- +barrel and a torch!" + +"I intend to debate mysell to the Presbytery," said Steenie, "and tell +them all I have seen last night, whilk are things fitter for them to +judge of than a borrel man like me." + +Sir John paused, composed himsell, and desired to hear the full +history; and my gudesire told it him from point to point, as I have +told it you--neither more nor less. + +Sir John was silent again for a long time, and at last he said, very +composedly: "Steenie, this story of yours concerns the honour of many +a noble family besides mine; and if it be a leasing-making, to keep +yourself out of my danger, the least you can expect is to have a red- +hot iron driven through your tongue, and that will be as bad as +scaulding your fingers wi' a red-hot chanter. But yet it may be true, +Steenie; and if the money cast up, I shall not know what to think of +it. But where shall we find the Cat's Cradle? There are cats enough +about the old house, but I think they kitten without the ceremony of +bed or cradle." + +"We were best ask Hutcheon," said my gudesire; "he kens a' the odd +corners about as weel as--another serving-man that is now gane, and +that I wad not like to name." + +Aweel, Hutcheon, when he was asked, told them that a ruinous turret +lang disused, next to the clock-house, only accessible by a ladder, +for the opening was on the outside, above the battlements, was called +of old the Cat's Cradle. + +"There will I go immediately," said Sir John; and he took--with what +purpose Heaven kens--one of his father's pistols from the hall table, +where they had lain since the night he died, and hastened to the +battlements. + +It was a dangerous place to climb, for the ladder was auld and frail, +and wanted ane or twa rounds. However, up got Sir John, and entered at +the turret door, where his body stopped the only little light that was +in the bit turret. Something flees at him wi' a vengeance, maist dang +him back ower--bang! gaed the knight's pistol, and Hutcheon, that held +the ladder, and my gudesire, that stood beside him, hears a loud +skelloch. A minute after, Sir John flings the body of the jackanape +down to them, and cries that the siller is fund, and that they should +come up and help him. And there was the bag of siller sure aneaugh, +and mony orra thing besides, that had been missing for mony a day. And +Sir John, when he had riped the turret weel, led my gudesire into the +dining-parlour, and took him by the hand, and spoke kindly to him, and +said he was sorry he should have doubted his word, and that he would +hereafter be a good master to him, to make amends. + +"And now, Steenie," said Sir John, "although this vision of yours +tends, on the whole, to my father's credit as an honest man, that he +should, even after his death, desire to see justice done to a poor man +like you, yet you are sensible that ill-dispositioned men might make +bad constructions upon it concerning his soul's health. So, I think, +we had better lay the haill dirdum on that ill-deedie creature, Major +Weir, and say naething about your dream in the wood of Pitmurkie. You +had taen ower-muckle brandy to be very certain about onything; and, +Steenie, this receipt"--his hand shook while he held it out--"it's but +a queer kind of document, and we will do best, I think, to put it +quietly in the fire." + +"Od, but for as queer as it is, it's a' the voucher I have for my +rent," said my gudesire, who was afraid, it may be, of losing the +benefit of Sir Robert's discharge. + +"I will bear the contents to your credit in the rental-book, and give +you a discharge under my own hand," said Sir John, "and that on the +spot. And, Steenie, if you can hold your tongue about this matter, you +shall sit, from this time downward, at an easier rent." + +"Mony thanks to your honour," said Steenie, who saw easily in what +corner the wind was; "doubtless I will be conformable to all your +honour's commands; only I would willingly speak wi' some powerful +minister on the subject, for I do not like the sort of soumons of +appointment whilk your honour's father--" + +"Do not call the phantom my father!" said Sir John, interrupting him. + +"Well then, the thing that was so like him," said my gudesire; "he +spoke of my coming back to see him this time twelvemonth, and it's a +weight on my conscience." + +"Aweel then," said Sir John, "if you be so much distressed in mind, +you may speak to our minister of the parish; he is a douce man, +regards the honour of our family, and the mair that he may look for +some patronage from me." + +Wi' that, my father readily agreed that the receipt should be burnt; +and the laird threw it into the chimney with his ain hand. Burn it +would not for them, though; but away it flew up the lum, wi' a lang +train of sparks at its tail, and a hissing noise like a squib. + +My gudesire gaed down to the manse, and the minister, when he had +heard the story, said it was his real opinion that, though my gudesire +had gane very far in tampering with dangerous matters, yet as he had +refused the devil's arles (for such was the offer of meat and drink), +and had refused to do homage by piping at his bidding, he hoped that, +if he held a circumspect walk hereafter, Satan could take little +advantage by what was come and gane. And, indeed, my gudesire, of his +ain accord, lang forswore baith the pipes and the brandy--it was not +even till the year was out, and the fatal day past, that he would so +much as take the fiddle or drink usquebaugh or tippenny. + +Sir John made up his story about the jackanape as he liked himsell; +and some believe till this day there was no more in the matter than +the filching nature of the brute. Indeed, ye 'll no hinder some to +thread that it was nane o' the auld Enemy that Dougal and Hutcheon saw +in the laird's room, but only that wanchancie creature the major, +capering on the coffin; and that, as to the blawing on the laird's +whistle that was heard after he was dead, the filthy brute could do +that as weel as the laird himsell, if no better. But Heaven kens the +truth, whilk first came out by the minister's wife, after Sir John and +her ain gudeman were baith in the moulds. And then my gudesire, wha +was failed in his limbs, but not in his judgment or memory,--at least +nothing to speak of,--was obliged to tell the real narrative to his +freends, for the credit of his good name. He might else have been +charged for a warlock. + +The shades of evening were growing thicker around us as my conductor +finished his long narrative with this moral: "You see, birkie, it is +nae chancy thing to tak' a stranger traveller for a guide when you are +in an uncouth land." + +"I should not have made that inference," said I. "Your grandfather's +adventure was fortunate for himself, whom it saves from ruin and +distress; and fortunate for his landlord." + +"Ay, but they had baith to sup the sauce o' 't sooner or later," said +Wandering Willie; "what was fristed wasna forgiven. Sir John died +before he was much over threescore; and it was just like a moment's +illness. And for my gudesire, though he departed in fulness of life, +yet there was my father, a yauld man of forty-five, fell down betwixt +the stilts of his plough, and rase never again, and left nae bairn but +me, a puir, sightless, fatherless, motherless creature, could neither +work nor want. Things gaed weel aneugh at first; for Sir Regwald +Redgauntlet, the only son of Sir John, and the oye of auld Sir Robert, +and, wae's me! the last of the honourable house, took the farm aff our +hands, and brought me into his household to have care of me. My head +never settled since I lost him; and if I say another word about it, +deil a bar will I have the heart to play the night. Look out, my +gentle chap," he resumed, in a different tone; "ye should see the +lights at Brokenburn Glen by this time." + + + +THE GLENMUTCHKIN RAILWAY + +BY + +PROFESSOR AYTOUN + +[The following tale appeared in "Blackwood's Magazine" for October, +1845. It was intended by the writer as a sketch of some of the more +striking features of the railway mania (then in full progress +throughout Great Britain), as exhibited in Glasgow and Edinburgh. +Although bearing the appearance of a burlesque, it was in truth an +accurate delineation (as will be acknowledged by many a gentleman who +had the misfortune to be "out in the Forty-five"); and subsequent +disclosures have shown that it was in no way exaggerated. + +Although the "Glenmutchkin line" was purely imaginary, and was not +intended by the writer to apply to any particular scheme then before +the public, it was identified in Scotland with more than one reckless +and impracticable project; and even the characters introduced were +supposed to be typical of personages who had attained some notoriety +in the throng of speculation. Any such resemblances must be considered +as fortuitous; for the writer cannot charge himself with the +discourtesy of individual satire or allusion.] + + + +I was confoundedly hard up. My patrimony, never of the largest, had +been for the last year on the decrease,--a herald would have +emblazoned it, "ARGENT, a money-bag improper, in detriment,"--and +though the attenuating process was not excessively rapid, it was, +nevertheless, proceeding at a steady ratio. As for the ordinary means +and appliances by which men contrive to recruit their exhausted +exchequers, I knew none of them. Work I abhorred with a detestation +worthy of a scion of nobility; and, I believe, you could just as soon +have persuaded the lineal representative of the Howards or Percys to +exhibit himself in the character of a mountebank, as have got me to +trust my person on the pinnacle of a three-legged stool. The rule of +three is all very well for base mechanical souls; but I flatter myself +I have an intellect too large to be limited to a ledger. "Augustus," +said my poor mother to me, while stroking my hyacinthine tresses, one +fine morning, in the very dawn and budding-time of my existence-- +"Augustus, my dear boy, whatever you do, never forget that you are a +gentleman." The maternal maxim sank deeply into my heart, and I never +for a moment have forgotten it. + +Notwithstanding this aristocratic resolution, the great practical +question, "How am I to live?" began to thrust itself unpleasantly +before me. I am one of that unfortunate class who have neither uncles +nor aunts. For me, no yellow liverless individual, with characteristic +bamboo and pigtail,--emblems of half a million,--returned to his +native shores from Ceylon or remote Penang. For me, no venerable +spinster hoarded in the Trongate, permitting herself few luxuries +during a long protracted life, save a lass and a lanthorn, a parrot, +and the invariable baudrons of antiquity. No such luck was mine. Had +all Glasgow perished by some vast epidemic, I should not have found +myself one farthing the richer. There would have been no golden balsam +for me in the accumulated woes of Tradestown, Shettleston, and +Camlachie. The time has been when--according to Washington Irving and +other veracious historians--a young man had no sooner got into +difficulties than a guardian angel appeared to him in a dream, with +the information that at such and such a bridge, or under such and such +a tree, he might find, at a slight expenditure of labour, a gallipot +secured with bladder, and filled with glittering tomans; or, in the +extremity of despair, the youth had only to append himself to a cord, +and straightway the other end thereof, forsaking its staple in the +roof, would disclose amid the fractured ceiling the glories of a +profitable pose. These blessed days have long since gone by--at any +rate, no such luck was mine. My guardian angel was either wofully +ignorant of metallurgy, or the stores had been surreptitiously +ransacked; and as to the other expedient, I frankly confess I should +have liked some better security for its result than the precedent of +the "Heir of Lynn." + +It is a great consolation, amid all the evils of life, to know that, +however bad your circumstances may be, there is always somebody else +in nearly the same predicament. My chosen friend and ally, Bob +M'Corkindale, was equally hard up with myself, and, if possible, more +averse to exertion. Bob was essentially a speculative man--that is, in +a philosophical sense. He had once got hold of a stray volume of Adam +Smith, and muddled his brains for a whole week over the intricacies of +the "Wealth of Nations." The result was a crude farrago of notions +regarding the true nature of money, the soundness of currency, and +relative value of capital, with which he nightly favoured an admiring +audience at "The Crow"; for Bob was by no means--in the literal +acceptation of the word--a dry philosopher. On the contrary, he +perfectly appreciated the merits of each distinct distillery, and was +understood to be the compiler of a statistical work entitled "A Tour +through the Alcoholic Districts of Scotland." It had very early +occurred to me, who knew as much of political economy as of the +bagpipes, that a gentleman so well versed in the art of accumulating +national wealth must have some remote ideas of applying his principles +profitably on a smaller scale. Accordingly I gave M'Corkindale an +unlimited invitation to my lodgings; and, like a good hearty fellow as +he was, he availed himself every evening of the license; for I had +laid in a fourteen-gallon cask of Oban whisky, and the quality of the +malt was undeniable. + +These were the first glorious days of general speculation. Railroads +were emerging from the hands of the greater into the fingers of the +lesser capitalists. Two successful harvests had given a fearful +stimulus to the national energy; and it appeared perfectly certain +that all the populous towns would be united, and the rich agricultural +districts intersected, by the magical bands of iron. The columns of +the newspapers teemed every week with the parturition of novel +schemes; and the shares were no sooner announced than they were +rapidly subscribed for. But what is the use of my saying anything more +about the history of last year? Every one of us remembers it perfectly +well. It was a capital year on the whole, and put money into many a +pocket. About that time, Bob and I commenced operations. Our available +capital, or negotiable bullion, in the language of my friend, amounted +to about three hundred pounds, which we set aside as a joint fund for +speculation. Bob, in a series of learned discourses, had convinced me +that it was not only folly, but a positive sin, to leave this sum +lying in the bank at a pitiful rate of interest, and otherwise +unemployed, while every one else in the kingdom was having a pluck at +the public pigeon. Somehow or other, we were unlucky in our first +attempts. Speculators are like wasps; for when they have once got hold +of a ripening and peach-like project, they keep it rigidly for their +own swarm, and repel the approach of interlopers. Notwithstanding all +our efforts, and very ingenious ones they were, we never, in a single +instance, succeeded in procuring an allocation of original shares; and +though we did now and then make a bit by purchase, we more frequently +bought at a premium, and parted with our scrip at a discount. At the +end of six months we were not twenty pounds richer than before. + +"This will never do," said Bob, as he sat one evening in my rooms +compounding his second tumbler. "I thought we were living in an +enlightened age; but I find I was mistaken. That brutal spirit of +monopoly is still abroad and uncurbed. The principles of free trade +are utterly forgotten, or misunderstood. Else how comes it that David +Spreul received but yesterday an allocation of two hundred shares in +the Westermidden Junction, while your application and mine, for a +thousand each were overlooked? Is this a state of things to be +tolerated? Why should he, with his fifty thousand pounds, receive a +slapping premium, while our three hundred of available capital remains +unrepresented? The fact is monstrous, and demands the immediate and +serious interference of the legislature." + +"It is a burning shame," said I, fully alive to the manifold +advantages of a premium. + +"I'll tell you what, Dunshunner," rejoined M'Corkindale, "it's no use +going on in this way. We haven't shown half pluck enough. These +fellows consider us as snobs because we don't take the bull by the +horns. Now's the time for a bold stroke. The public are quite ready to +subscribe for anything--and we'll start a railway for ourselves." + +"Start a railway with three hundred pounds of capital!" + +"Pshaw, man! you don't know what you're talking about--we've a great +deal more capital than that. Have not I told you, seventy times over, +that everything a man has--his coat, his hat, the tumblers he drinks +from, nay, his very corporeal existence--is absolute marketable +capital? What do you call that fourteen-gallon cask, I should like to +know?" + +"A compound of hoops and staves, containing about a quart and a half +of spirits--you have effectually accounted for the rest." + +"Then it has gone to the fund of profit and loss, that's all. Never +let me hear you sport those old theories again. Capital is +indestructible, as I am ready to prove to you any day, in half an +hour. But let us sit down seriously to business. We are rich enough to +pay for the advertisements, and that is all we need care for in the +meantime. The public is sure to step in, and bear us out handsomely +with the rest." + +"But where in the face of the habitable globe shall the railway be? +England is out of the question, and I hardly know a spot in the +Lowlands that is not occupied already." + +"What do you say to a Spanish scheme--the Alcantara Union? Hang me if +I know whether Alcantara is in Spain or Portugal; but nobody else +does, and the one is quite as good as the other. Or what would you +think of the Palermo Railway, with a branch to the sulphur-mines?-- +that would be popular in the north--or the Pyrenees Direct? They would +all go to a premium." + +"I must confess I should prefer a line at home." + +"Well then, why not try the Highlands? There must be lots of traffic +there in the shape of sheep, grouse, and Cockney tourists, not to +mention salmon and other etceteras. Couldn't we tip them a railway +somewhere in the west?" + +"There's Glenmutchkin, for instance--" + +"Capital, my dear fellow! Glorious! By Jove, first-rate!" shouted Bob, +in an ecstasy of delight. "There's a distillery there, you know, and a +fishing-village at the foot--at least, there used to be six years ago, +when I was living with the exciseman. There may be some bother about +the population, though. The last laird shipped every mother's son of +the aboriginal Celts to America; but, after all, that's not of much +consequence. I see the whole thing! Unrivalled scenery--stupendous +waterfalls--herds of black cattle--spot where Prince Charles Edward +met Macgrugar of Glengrugar and his clan! We could not possibly have +lighted on a more promising place. Hand us over that sheet of paper, +like a good fellow, and a pen. There is no time to be lost, and the +sooner we get out the prospectus the better." + +"But, Heaven bless you, Bob, there's a great deal to be thought of +first. Who are we to get for a provisional committee?" + +"That's very true," said Bob, musingly. "We /must/ treat them to some +respectable names, that is, good-sounding ones. I'm afraid there is +little chance of our producing a peer to begin with?" + +"None whatever--unless we could invent one, and that's hardly safe; +'Burke's Peerage' has gone through too many editions. Couldn't we try +the Dormants?" + +"That would be rather dangerous in the teeth of the standing orders. +But what do you say to a baronet? There's Sir Polloxfen Tremens. He +got himself served the other day to a Nova Scotia baronetcy, with just +as much title as you or I have; and he has sported the riband, and +dined out on the strength of it ever since. He'll join us at once, for +he has not a sixpence to lose." + +"Down with him, then," and we headed the provisional list with the +pseudo Orange tawny. + +"Now," said Bob, "it's quite indispensable, as this is a Highland +line, that we should put forward a chief or two. That has always a +great effect upon the English, whose feudal notions are rather of the +mistiest, and principally derived from Waverley." + +"Why not write yourself down as the laird of M'Corkindale?" said I. "I +dare say you would not be negatived by a counter-claim." + +"That would hardly do," replied Bob, "as I intend to be secretary. +After all, what's the use of thinking about it? Here goes for an +extempore chief;" and the villain wrote down the name of Tavish +M'Tavish of Invertavish. + +"I say, though," said I, "we must have a real Highlander on the list. +If we go on this way, it will become a justiciary matter." + +"You're devilish scrupulous, Gus," said Bob, who, if left to himself, +would have stuck in the names of the heathen gods and goddesses, or +borrowed his directors from the Ossianic chronicles, rather than have +delayed the prospectus. "Where the mischief are we to find the men? I +can think of no others likely to go the whole hog; can you?" + +"I don't know a single Celt in Glasgow except old M'Closkie, the +drunken porter at the corner of Jamaica Street." + +"He's the very man! I suppose, after the manner of his tribe, he will +do anything for a pint of whisky. But what shall we call him? Jamaica +Street, I fear, will hardly do for a designation." + +"Call him THE M'CLOSKIE. It will be sonorous in the ears of the +Saxon!" + +"Bravo!" and another chief was added to the roll of the clans. + +"Now," said Bob, "we must put you down. Recollect, all the management, +that is, the allocation, will be intrusted to you. Augustus--you +haven't a middle name, I think?--well then, suppose we interpolate +'Reginald'; it has a smack of the crusades. Augustus Reginald +Dunshunner, Esq. of--where, in the name of Munchausen!" + +"I'm sure I don't know. I never had any land beyond the contents of a +flower-pot. Stay--I rather think I have a superiority somewhere about +Paisley." + +"Just the thing!" cried Bob. "It's heritable property, and therefore +titular. What's the denomination?" + +"St. Mirrens." + +"Beautiful! Dunshunner of St. Mirrens, I give you joy! Had you +discovered that a little sooner--and I wonder you did not think of it +--we might both of us have had lots of allocations. These are not the +times to conceal hereditary distinctions. But now comes the serious +work. We must have one or two men of known wealth upon the list. The +chaff is nothing without a decoy-bird. Now, can't you help me with a +name?" + +"In that case," said I, "the game is up, and the whole scheme +exploded. I would as soon undertake to evoke the ghost of Croesus." + +"Dunshunner," said Bob, very seriously, "to be a man of information, +you are possessed of marvellous few resources. I am quite ashamed of +you. Now listen to me. I have thought deeply upon this subject, and am +quite convinced that, with some little trouble, we may secure the +cooperation of a most wealthy and influential body--one, too, that is +generally supposed to have stood aloof from all speculation of the +kind, and whose name would be a tower of strength in the moneyed +quarters. I allude," continued Bob, reaching across for the kettle, +"to the great dissenting interest." + +"The what?" cried I, aghast. + +"The great dissenting interest. You can't have failed to observe the +row they have lately been making about Sunday travelling and +education. Old Sam Sawley, the coffin-maker, is their principal +spokesman here; and wherever he goes the rest will follow, like a +flock of sheep bounding after a patriarchal ram. I propose, therefore, +to wait upon him to-morrow, and request his cooperation in a scheme +which is not only to prove profitable, but to make head against the +lax principles of the present age. Leave me alone to tickle him. I +consider his name, and those of one or two others belonging to the +same meeting-house,--fellows with bank-stock and all sorts of tin,--as +perfectly secure. These dissenters smell a premium from an almost +incredible distance. We can fill up the rest of the committee with +ciphers, and the whole thing is done." + +"But the engineer--we must announce such an officer as a matter of +course." + +"I never thought of that," said Bob. "Couldn't we hire a fellow from +one of the steamboats?" + +"I fear that might get us into trouble. You know there are such things +as gradients and sections to be prepared. But there's Watty Solder, +the gas-fitter, who failed the other day. He's a sort of civil +engineer by trade, and will jump at the proposal like a trout at the +tail of a May-fly." + +"Agreed. Now then, let's fix the number of shares. This is our first +experiment, and I think we ought to be moderate. No sound political +economist is avaricious. Let us say twelve thousand, at twenty pounds +apiece." + +"So be it." + +"Well then, that's arranged. I'll see Sawley and the rest to-morrow, +settle with Solder, and then write out the prospectus. You look in +upon me in the evening, and we'll revise it together. Now, by your +leave, let's have a Welsh rabbit and another tumbler to drink success +and prosperity to the Glenmutchkin Railway." + +I confess that, when I rose on the morrow, with a slight headache and +a tongue indifferently parched, I recalled to memory, not without +perturbation of conscience and some internal qualms, the conversation +of the previous evening. I felt relieved, however, after two spoonfuls +of carbonate of soda, and a glance at the newspaper, wherein I +perceived the announcement of no less than four other schemes equally +preposterous with our own. But, after all, what right had I to assume +that the Glenmutchkin project would prove an ultimate failure? I had +not a scrap of statistical information that might entitle me to form +such an opinion. At any rate, Parliament, by substituting the Board of +Trade as an initiating body of inquiry, had created a responsible +tribunal, and freed us from the chance of obloquy. I saw before me a +vision of six months' steady gambling, at manifest advantage, in the +shares, before a report could possibly be pronounced, or our +proceedings be in any way overhauled. Of course, I attended that +evening punctually at my friend M'Corkindale's. Bob was in high +feather; for Sawley no sooner heard of the principles upon which the +railway was to be conducted, and his own nomination as a director, +than he gave in his adhesion, and promised his unflinching support to +the uttermost. The prospectus ran as follows: + + + +"DIRECT GLENMUTCHKIN RAILWAY. + + IN 12,000 SHARES OF L20 EACH. DEPOSIT L1 PER SHARE. + + Provisional Committee. + + SIR POLLOXFEN TREMENS, Bart. Of Toddymains. + TAVISH M'TAVISH of Invertavish. + THE M'CLOSKIE. + AUGUST REGINALD DUNSHUNNER, Esq. of St. Mirrens. + SAMUEL SAWLEY, Esq., Merchant. + MHIC-MHAC-VICH-INDUIBH. + PHELIM O'FINLAN, Esq. of Castle-Rock, Ireland. + THE CAPTAIN of M'ALCOHOL. + FACTOR for GLENTUMBLERS. + JOHN JOB JOBSON, Esq., Manufacturer. + EVAN M'CLAW of Glenscart and Inveryewky. + JOSEPH HECKLES, Esq. + HABAKKUK GRABBIE, Portioner in Ramoth-Drumclog. + /Engineer/, WALTER SOLDER, Esq. + /Interim Secretary/, ROBERT M'CORKINDALE, Esq. + +"The necessity of a direct line of Railway communication through the +fertile and populous district known as the VALLEY OF GLENMUTCHKIN has +been long felt and universally acknowledged. Independently of the +surpassing grandeur of its mountain scenery, which shall immediately +be referred to, and other considerations of even greater importance, +GLENMUTCHKIN is known to the capitalist as the most important +BREEDING-STATION in the Highlands of Scotland, and indeed as the +great emporium from which the southern markets are supplied. It has +been calculated by a most eminent authority that every acre in the +strath is capable of rearing twenty head of cattle; and as it has been +ascertained, after a careful admeasurement, that there are not less +than TWO HUNDRED THOUSAND improvable acres immediately contiguous to +the proposed line of Railway, it may confidently be assumed that the +number of Cattle to be conveyed along the line will amount to FOUR +MILLIONS annually, which, at the lowest estimate, would yield a +revenue larger, in proportion to the capital subscribed, than that of +any Railway as yet completed within the United Kingdom. From this +estimate the traffic in Sheep and Goats, with which the mountains are +literally covered, has been carefully excluded, it having been found +quite impossible (from its extent) to compute the actual revenue to be +drawn from that most important branch. It may, however, be roughly +assumed as from seventeen to nineteen per cent. upon the whole, after +deduction of the working expenses. + +"The population of Glenmutchkin is extremely dense. Its situation on +the west coast has afforded it the means of direct communication with +America, of which for many years the inhabitants have actively availed +themselves. Indeed, the amount of exportation of live stock from this +part of the Highlands to the Western continent has more than once +attracted the attention of Parliament. The Manufactures are large and +comprehensive, and include the most famous distilleries in the world. +The Minerals are most abundant, and among these may be reckoned +quartz, porphyry, felspar, malachite, manganese, and basalt. + +"At the foot of the valley, and close to the sea, lies the important +village known as the CLACHAN of INVERSTARVE. It is supposed by various +eminent antiquaries to have been the capital of the Picts, and, among +the busy inroads of commercial prosperity, it still retains some +interesting traces of its former grandeur. There is a large fishing +station here, to which vessels from every nation resort, and the +demand for foreign produce is daily and steadily increasing. + +"As a sporting country Glenmutchkin is unrivalled; but it is by the +tourists that its beauties will most greedily be sought. These consist +of every combination which plastic nature can afford: cliffs of +unusual magnitude and grandeur; waterfalls only second to the sublime +cascades of Norway; woods of which the bark is a remarkably valuable +commodity. It need scarcely be added, to rouse the enthusiasm +inseparable from this glorious glen, that here, in 1745, Prince +Charles Edward Stuart, then in the zenith of his hopes, was joined by +the brave Sir Grugar M'Grugar at the head of his devoted clan. + +"The Railway will be twelve miles long, and can be completed within +six months after the Act of Parliament is obtained. The gradients are +easy, and the curves obtuse. There are no viaducts of any importance, +and only four tunnels along the whole length of the line. The shortest +of these does not exceed a mile and a half. + +"In conclusion, the projectors of this Railway beg to state that they +have determined, as a principle, to set their face AGAINST ALL SUNDAY +TRAVELLING WHATSOEVER, and to oppose EVERY BILL which may hereafter be +brought into Parliament, unless it shall contain a clause to that +effect. It is also their intention to take up the cause of the poor +and neglected STOKER, for whose accommodation, and social, moral, +religious, and intellectual improvement, a large stock of evangelical +tracts will speedily be required. Tenders of these, in quantities of +not less than 12,000, may be sent in to the Interim Secretary. Shares +must be applied for within ten days from the present date. + + "By order of the Provisional Committee, + "ROBERT M'CORKINDALE, /Secretary/." + +"There!" said Bob, slapping down the prospectus on the table with as +much triumph as if it had been the original of Magna Charta, "what do +you think of that? If it doesn't do the business effectually, I shall +submit to be called a Dutchman. That last touch about the stoker will +bring us in the subscriptions of the old ladies by the score." + +"Very masterly indeed," said I. "But who the deuce is Mhic-Mhac-vich- +Induibh?" + +" A bona-fide chief, I assure you, though a little reduced. I picked +him up upon the Broomielaw. His grandfather had an island somewhere to +the west of the Hebrides; but it is not laid down in the maps." + +"And the Captain of M'Alcohol?" + +"A crack distiller." + +"And the Factor for Glentumblers?" + +"His principal customer. But, bless you, my dear St. Mirrens! Don't +bother yourself any more about the committee. They are as respectable +a set--on paper at least--as you would wish to see of a summer's +morning, and the beauty of it is that they will give us no manner of +trouble. Now about the allocation. You and I must restrict ourselves +to a couple of thousand shares apiece. That's only a third of the +whole, but it won't do to be greedy." + +"But, Bob, consider! Where on earth are we to find the money to pay up +the deposits?" + +"Can you, the principal director of the Glenmutchkin Railway, ask me, +the secretary, such a question? Don't you know that any of the banks +will give us tick to the amount 'of half the deposits.' All that is +settled already, and you can get your two thousand pounds whenever you +please merely for the signing of a bill. Sawley must get a thousand +according to stipulation; Jobson, Heckles, and Grabbie, at least five +hundred apiece; and another five hundred, I should think, will exhaust +the remaining means of the committee. So that, out of our whole stock, +there remain just five thousand shares to be allocated to the +speculative and evangelical public. My eyes! Won't there be a scramble +for them!" + +Next day our prospectus appeared in the newspapers. It was read, +canvassed, and generally approved of. During the afternoon I took an +opportunity of looking into the Tontine, and, while under shelter of +the Glasgow "Herald," my ears were solaced with such ejaculations as +the following: + +"I say, Jimsy, hae ye seen this grand new prospectus for a railway tae +Glenmutchkin?" + +"Ay. It looks no that ill. The Hieland lairds are pitting their best +foremost. Will ye apply for shares?" + +"I think I'll tak' twa hundred. Wha's Sir Polloxfen Tremens?" + +"He'll be yin o' the Ayrshire folk. He used to rin horses at the +Paisley races." + +("The devil he did!" thought I.) + +"D' ye ken ony o' the directors, Jimsy?" + +"I ken Sawley fine. Ye may depend on 't, it's a gude thing if he's in +'t, for he's a howkin' body. + +"Then it's sure to gae up. What prem. d' ye think it will bring?" + +"Twa pund a share, and maybe mair." + +" 'Od, I'll apply for three hundred!" + +"Heaven bless you, my dear countrymen!" thought I, as I sallied forth +to refresh myself with a basin of soup, "do but maintain this liberal +and patriotic feeling--this thirst for national improvement, internal +communication, and premiums--a short while longer, and I know whose +fortune will be made." + +On the following morning my breakfast-table was covered with shoals of +letters, from fellows whom I scarcely ever had spoken to,--or who, to +use a franker phraseology, had scarcely ever condescended to speak to +me,--entreating my influence as a director to obtain them shares in +the new undertaking. I never bore malice in my life, so I chalked them +down, without favouritism, for a certain proportion. While engaged in +this charitable work, the door flew open, and M'Corkindale, looking +utterly haggard with excitement, rushed in. + +"You may buy an estate whenever you please, Dunshunner," cried he; +"the world's gone perfectly mad! I have been to Blazes, the broker, +and he tells me that the whole amount of the stock has been subscribed +for four times over already, and he has not yet got in the returns +from Edinburgh and Liverpool!" + +"Are they good names, though, Bob--sure cards--none of your M'Closkies +and M'Alcohols?" + +"The first names in the city, I assure you, and most of them holders +for investment. I wouldn't take ten millions for their capital." + +"Then the sooner we close the list the better." + +"I think so too. I suspect a rival company will be out before long. +Blazes says the shares are selling already conditionally on allotment, +at seven and sixpence premium." + +"The deuce they are! I say, Bob, since we have the cards in our hands, +would it not be wise to favour them with a few hundreds at that rate? +A bird in the hand, you know, is worth two in the bush, eh?" + +"I know no such maxim in political economy," replied the secretary. +"Are you mad, Dunshunner? How are the shares to go up, if it gets wind +that the directors are selling already? Our business just now is to +/bull/ the line, not to /bear/ it; and if you will trust me, I shall +show them such an operation on the ascending scale as the Stock +Exchange has not witnessed for this long and many a day. Then +to-morrow I shall advertise in the papers that the committee, having +received applications for ten times the amount of stock, have been +compelled, unwillingly, to close the lists. That will be a slap in the +face to the dilatory gentlemen, and send up the shares like wildfire." + +Bob was right. No sooner did the advertisement appear than a +simultaneous groan was uttered by some hundreds of disappointed +speculators, who, with unwonted and unnecessary caution, had been +anxious to see their way a little before committing themselves to our +splendid enterprise. In consequence, they rushed into the market, with +intense anxiety to make what terms they could at the earliest stage, +and the seven and sixpence of premium was doubled in the course of a +forenoon. + +The allocation passed over very peaceably. Sawley, Heckles, Jobson, +Grabbie, and the Captain of M'Alcohol, besides myself, attended, and +took part in the business. We were also threatened with the presence +of the M'Closkie and Vich-Induibh; but M'Corkindale, entertaining some +reasonable doubts as to the effect which their corporeal appearance +might have upon the representatives of the dissenting interest, had +taken the precaution to get them snugly housed in a tavern, where an +unbounded supply of gratuitous Ferintosh deprived us of the benefit of +their experience. We, however, allotted them twenty shares apiece. Sir +Polloxfen Tremens sent a handsome, though rather illegible, letter of +apology, dated from an island in Loch Lomond, where he was said to be +detained on particular business. + +Mr. Sawley, who officiated as our chairman, was kind enough, before +parting, to pass a very flattering eulogium upon the excellence and +candour of all the preliminary arrangements. It would now, he said, go +forth to the public that the line was not, like some others he could +mention, a mere bubble, emanating from the stank of private interest, +but a solid, lasting superstructure, based upon the principles of +sound return for capital, and serious evangelical truth (hear, hear!). +The time was fast approaching when the gravestone with the words "HIC +OBIT" chiselled upon it would be placed at the head of all the other +lines which rejected the grand opportunity of conveying education to +the stoker. The stoker, in his (Mr. Sawley's) opinion, had a right to +ask the all-important question, "Am I not a man and a brother?" +(Cheers.) Much had been said and written lately about a work called +"Tracts for the Times." With the opinions contained in that +publication he was not conversant, as it was conducted by persons of +another community from that to which he (Mr. Sawley) had the privilege +to belong. But he hoped very soon, under the auspices of the +Glenmutchkin Railway Company, to see a new periodical established, +under the title of "Tracts for the Trains." He never for a moment +would relax his efforts to knock a nail into the coffin which, he +might say, was already made and measured and cloth-covered for the +reception of all establishments; and with these sentiments, and the +conviction that the shares must rise, could it be doubted that he +would remain a fast friend to the interests of this company for ever? +(Much cheering.) + +After having delivered this address, Mr. Sawley affectionately +squeezed the hands of his brother directors, and departed, leaving +several of us much overcome. As, however, M'Corkindale had told me +that every one of Sawley's shares had been disposed of in the market +the day before, I felt less compunction at having refused to allow +that excellent man an extra thousand beyond the amount he had applied +for, notwithstanding his broadest hints and even private entreaties. + +"Confound the greedy hypocrite!" said Bob; "does he think we shall let +him burke the line for nothing? No--no! let him go to the brokers and +buy his shares back, if he thinks they are likely to rise. I'll be +bound he has made a cool five hundred out of them already." + +On the day which succeeded the allocation, the following entry +appeared in the Glasgow sharelists: "Direct Glenmutchkin Railway 15s. +15s. 6d. 15s. 6d. 16s. 15s. 6d. 16s. 16s. 6d. 16s. 6d. 16s. +17s. 18s. 18s. 19s. 6d. 21s. 21s. 22s. 6d. 24s. 25s. 6d. 27s. +29s. 29s. 6d. 30s. 31s." + +"They might go higher, and they ought to go higher," said Bob, +musingly; "but there's not much more stock to come and go upon, and +these two share-sharks, Jobson and Grabbie, I know, will be in the +market to-morrow. We must not let them have the whip-hand of us. I +think upon the whole, Dunshunner, though it's letting them go dog- +cheap, that we ought to sell half our shares at the present premium, +while there is a certainty of getting it." + +"Why not sell the whole? I'm sure I have no objections to part with +every stiver of the scrip on such terms." + +"Perhaps," said Bob, "upon general principles you may be right; but +then remember that we have a vested interest in the line." + +"Vested interest be hanged!" + +"That's very well; at the same time it is no use to kill your salmon +in a hurry. The bulls have done their work pretty well for us, and we +ought to keep something on hand for the bears; they are snuffing at it +already. I could almost swear that some of those fellows who have sold +to-day are working for a time-bargain." + +We accordingly got rid of a couple of thousand shares, the proceeds of +which not only enabled us to discharge the deposit loan, but left us a +material surplus. Under these circumstances a two-handed banquet was +proposed and unanimously carried, the commencement of which I +distinctly remember, but am rather dubious as to the end. So many +stories have lately been circulated to the prejudice of railway +directors that I think it my duty to state that this entertainment was +scrupulously defrayed by ourselves and /not/ carried to account, +either of the preliminary survey, or the expenses of the provisional +committee. + +Nothing effects so great a metamorphosis in the bearing of the outer +man as a sudden change of fortune. The anemone of the garden differs +scarcely more from its unpretending prototype of the woods than Robert +M'Corkindale, Esq., Secretary and Projector of the Glenmutchkin +Railway, differed from Bob M'Corkindale, the seedy frequenter of "The +Crow." In the days of yore, men eyed the surtout--napless at the +velvet collar, and preternaturally white at the seams--which Bob +vouchsafed to wear with looks of dim suspicion, as if some faint +reminiscence, similar to that which is said to recall the memory of a +former state of existence, suggested to them a notion that the garment +had once been their own. Indeed, his whole appearance was then +wonderfully second-hand. Now he had cast his slough. A most undeniable +taglioni, with trimmings just bordering upon frogs, gave dignity to +his demeanour and twofold amplitude to his chest. The horn eye-glass +was exchanged for one of purest gold, the dingy high-lows for well- +waxed Wellingtons, the Paisley fogle for the fabric of the China loom. +Moreover, he walked with a swagger, and affected in common +conversation a peculiar dialect which he opined to be the purest +English, but which no one--except a bagman--could be reasonably +expected to understand. His pockets were invariably crammed with +sharelists; and he quoted, if he did not comprehend, the money article +from the "Times." This sort of assumption, though very ludicrous in +itself, goes down wonderfully. Bob gradually became a sort of +authority, and his opinions got quoted on 'Change. He was no ass, +notwithstanding his peculiarities, and made good use of his +opportunity. + +For myself, I bore my new dignities with an air of modest meekness. A +certain degree of starchness is indispensable for a railway director, +if he means to go forward in his high calling and prosper; he must +abandon all juvenile eccentricities, and aim at the appearance of a +decided enemy to free trade in the article of Wild Oats. Accordingly, +as the first step toward respectability, I eschewed coloured +waistcoats and gave out that I was a marrying man. No man under forty, +unless he is a positive idiot, will stand forth as a theoretical +bachelor. It is all nonsense to say that there is anything unpleasant +in being courted. Attention, whether from male or female, tickles the +vanity; and although I have a reasonable, and, I hope, not unwholesome +regard for the gratification of my other appetites, I confess that +this same vanity is by far the most poignant of the whole. I therefore +surrendered myself freely to the soft allurements thrown in my way by +such matronly denizens of Glasgow as were possessed of stock in the +shape of marriageable daughters; and walked the more readily into +their toils because every party, though nominally for the purposes of +tea, wound up with a hot supper, and something hotter still by way of +assisting the digestion. + +I don't know whether it was my determined conduct at the allocation, +my territorial title, or a most exaggerated idea of my circumstances, +that worked upon the mind of Mr. Sawley. Possibly it was a combination +of the three; but, sure enough few days had elapsed before I received +a formal card of invitation to a tea and serous conversation. Now +serious conversation is a sort of thing that I never shone in, +possibly because my early studies were framed in a different +direction; but as I really was unwilling to offend the respectable +coffin-maker, and as I found that the Captain of M'Alcohol--a decided +trump in his way--had also received a summons, I notified my +acceptance. + +M'Alcohol and I went together. The captain, an enormous brawny Celt, +with superhuman whiskers and a shock of the fieriest hair, had figged +himself out, /more majorum/, in the full Highland costume. I never saw +Rob Roy on the stage look half so dignified or ferocious. He glittered +from head to foot with dirk, pistol, and skean-dhu; and at least a +hundredweight of cairngorms cast a prismatic glory around his person. +I felt quite abashed beside him. + +We were ushered into Mr. Sawley's drawing-room. Round the walls, and +at considerable distances from each other, were seated about a dozen +characters, male and female, all of them dressed in sable, and wearing +countenances of woe. Sawley advanced, and wrung me by the hand with so +piteous an expression of visage that I could not help thinking some +awful catastrophe had just befallen his family. + +"You are welcome, Mr. Dunshunner--welcome to my humble tabernacle. Let +me present you to Mrs. Sawley"--and a lady, who seemed to have bathed +in the Yellow Sea, rose from her seat, and favoured me with a profound +curtsey. + +"My daughter--Miss Selina Sawley." + +I felt in my brain the scorching glance of the two darkest eyes it +ever was my fortune to behold, as the beauteous Selina looked up from +the perusal of her handkerchief hem. It was a pity that the other +features were not corresponding; for the nose was flat, and the mouth +of such dimensions that a harlequin might have jumped down it with +impunity; but the eyes /were/ splendid. + +In obedience to a sign from the hostess, I sank into a chair beside +Selina; and, not knowing exactly what to say, hazarded some +observation about the weather. + +"Yes, it is indeed a suggestive season. How deeply, Mr. Dunshunner, we +ought to feel the pensive progress of autumn toward a soft and +premature decay! I always think, about this time of the year, that +nature is falling into a consumption!" + +"To be sure, ma'am," said I, rather taken aback by this style of +colloquy, "the trees are looking devilishly hectic." + +"Ah, you have remarked that too! Strange! It was but yesterday that I +was wandering through Kelvin Grove, and as the phantom breeze brought +down the withered foliage from the spray, I thought how probable it +was that they might ere long rustle over young and glowing hearts +deposited prematurely in the tomb!" + +This, which struck me as a very passable imitation of Dickens's +pathetic writings, was a poser. In default of language, I looked Miss +Sawley straight in the face, and attempted a substitute for a sigh. I +was rewarded with a tender glance. + +"Ah," said she, "I see you are a congenial spirit! How delightful, and +yet how rare, it is to meet with any one who thinks in unison with +yourself! Do you ever walk in the Necropolis, Mr. Dunshunner? It is my +favourite haunt of a morning. There we can wean ourselves, as it were, +from life, and beneath the melancholy yew and cypress, anticipate the +setting star. How often there have I seen the procession--the funeral +of some very, /very/ little child--" + +"Selina, my love," said Mrs. Sawley, "have the kindness to ring for +the cookies." + +I, as in duty bound, started up to save the fair enthusiast the +trouble, and was not sorry to observe my seat immediately occupied by +a very cadaverous gentleman, who was evidently jealous of the progress +I was rapidly making. Sawley, with an air of great mystery, informed +me that this was a Mr. Dalgleish of Raxmathrapple, the representative +of an ancient Scottish family who claimed an important heritable +office. The name, I thought, was familiar to me, but there was +something in the appearance of Mr. Dalgleish which, notwithstanding +the smiles of Miss Selina, rendered a rivalship in that quarter +utterly out of the question. + +I hate injustice, so let me do the honour in description to the Sawley +banquet. The tea-urn most literally corresponded to its name. The +table was decked out with divers platters, containing seed-cakes cut +into rhomboids, almond biscuits, and ratafia-drops. Also on the +sideboard there were two salvers, each of which contained a +congregation of glasses, filled with port and sherry. The former +fluid, as I afterward ascertained, was of the kind advertised as +"curious," and proffered for sale at the reasonable rate of sixteen +shillings per dozen. The banquet, on the whole, was rather peculiar +than enticing; and, for the life of me, I could not divest myself of +the idea that the self-same viands had figured, not long before, as +funeral refreshments at a dirgie. No such suspicion seemed to cross +the mind of M'Alcohol, who hitherto had remained uneasily surveying +his nails in a corner, but at the first symptom of food started +forward, and was in the act of making a clean sweep of the china, when +Sawley proposed the singular preliminary of a hymn. + +The hymn was accordingly sung. I am thankful to say it was such a one +as I never heard before, or expect to hear again; and unless it was +composed by the Reverend Saunders Peden in an hour of paroxysm on the +moors, I cannot conjecture the author. After this original symphony, +tea was discussed, and after tea, to my amazement, more hot brandy- +and-water than I ever remember to have seen circulated at the most +convivial party. Of course this effected a radical change in the +spirits and conversation of the circle. It was again my lot to be +placed by the side of the fascinating Selina, whose sentimentality +gradually thawed away beneath the influence of sundry sips, which she +accepted with a delicate reluctance. This time Dalgleish of +Raxmathrapple had not the remotest chance. M'Alcohol got furious, sang +Gaelic songs, and even delivered a sermon in genuine Erse, without +incurring a rebuke; while, for my own part, I must needs confess that +I waxed unnecessarily amorous, and the last thing I recollect was the +pressure of Mr. Sawley's hand at the door, as he denominated me his +dear boy, and hoped I would soon come back and visit Mrs. Sawley and +Selina. The recollection of these passages next morning was the surest +antidote to my return. + +Three weeks had elapsed, and still the Glenmutchkin Railway shares +were at a premium, though rather lower than when we sold. Our +engineer, Watty Solder, returned from his first survey of the line, +along with an assistant who really appeared to have some remote +glimmerings of the science and practice of mensuration. It seemed, +from a verbal report, that the line was actually practicable; and the +survey would have been completed in a very short time, "if," according +to the account of Solder, "there had been ae hoos in the glen. But +ever sin' the distillery stoppit--and that was twa year last +Martinmas--there wasna a hole whaur a Christian could lay his head, +muckle less get white sugar to his toddy, forby the change-house at +the clachan; and the auld lucky that keepit it was sair forfochten wi' +the palsy, and maist in the dead-thraws. There was naebody else living +within twal' miles o' the line, barring a taxman, a lamiter, and a +bauldie." + +We had some difficulty in preventing Mr. Solder from making this +report open and patent to the public, which premature disclosure might +have interfered materially with the preparation of our traffic tables, +not to mention the marketable value of the shares. We therefore kept +him steadily at work out of Glasgow, upon a very liberal allowance, to +which, apparently, he did not object. + +"Dunshunner," said M'Corkindale to me one day, "I suspect that there +is something going on about our railway more than we are aware of. +Have you observed that the shares are preternaturally high just now?" + +"So much the better. Let's sell." + +"I did so this morning, both yours and mine, at two pounds ten +shillings premium." + +"The deuce you did! Then we're out of the whole concern." + +"Not quite. If my suspicions are correct, there's a good deal more +money yet to be got from the speculation. Somebody had been bulling +the stock without orders; and, as they can have no information which +we are not perfectly up to, depend upon it, it is done for a purpose. +I suspect Sawley and his friends. They have never been quite happy +since the allocation; and I caught him yesterday pumping our broker in +the back shop. We'll see in a day or two. If they are beginning a +bearing operation, I know how to catch them." + +And, in effect, the bearing operation commenced. Next day, heavy sales +were effected for delivery in three weeks; and the stock, as if water- +logged, began to sink. The same thing continued for the following two +days, until the premium became nearly nominal. In the meantime, Bob +and I, in conjunction with two leading capitalists whom we let into +the secret, bought up steadily every share that was offered; and at +the end of a fortnight we found that we had purchased rather more than +double the amount of the whole original stock. Sawley and his +disciples, who, as M'Corkindale suspected, were at the bottom of the +whole transaction, having beared to their hearts' content, now came +into the market to purchase, in order to redeem their engagements. + +I have no means of knowing in what frame of mind Mr. Sawley spent the +Sunday, or whether he had recourse for mental consolation to Peden; +but on Monday morning he presented himself at my door in full funeral +costume, with about a quarter of a mile of crape swathed round his +hat, black gloves, and a countenance infinitely more doleful than if +he had been attending the interment of his beloved wife. + +"Walk in, Mr. Sawley," said I, cheerfully. "What a long time it is +since I have had the pleasure of seeing you--too long indeed for +brother directors! How are Mrs. Sawley and Miss Selina? Won't you take +a cup of coffee?" + +"Grass, sir, grass!" said Mr. Sawley, with a sigh like the groan of a +furnace-bellows. "We are all flowers of the oven--weak, erring +creatures, every one of us. Ah, Mr. Dunshunner, you have been a great +stranger at Lykewake Terrace!" + +"Take a muffin, Mr. Sawley. Anything new in the railway world?" + +"Ah, my dear sir,--my good Mr. Augustus Reginald,--I wanted to have +some serious conversation with you on that very point. I am afraid +there is something far wrong indeed in the present state of our +stock." + +"Why, to be sure it is high; but that, you know, is a token of the +public confidence in the line. After all, the rise is nothing compared +to that of several English railways; and individually, I suppose, +neither of us has any reason to complain." + +"I don't like it," said Sawley, watching me over the margin of his +coffee-cup; "I don't like it. It savours too much of gambling for a +man of my habits. Selina, who is a sensible girl, has serious qualms +on the subject." + +"Then why not get out of it? I have no objection to run the risk, and +if you like to transact with me, I will pay you ready money for every +share you have at the present market price." + +Sawley writhed uneasily in his chair. + +"Will you sell me five hundred, Mr. Sawley? Say the word and it is a +bargain." + +"A time-bargain?" quavered the coffin-maker. + +"No. Money down, and scrip handed over." + +"I--I can't. The fact is, my dear young friend, I have sold all my +stock already!" + +"Then permit me to ask, Mr. Sawley, what possible objection you can +have to the present aspect of affairs? You do not surely suppose that +we are going to issue new shares and bring down the market, simply +because you have realised at a handsome premium?" + +"A handsome premium! O Lord!" moaned Sawley. + +"Why, what did you get for them?" + +"Four, three, and two and a half." + +"A very considerable profit indeed," said I; "and you ought to be +abundantly thankful. We shall talk this matter over at another time, +Mr. Sawley, but just now I must beg you to excuse me. I have a +particular engagement this morning with my broker--rather a heavy +transaction to settle--and so--" + +"It's no use beating about the bush any longer," said Mr. Sawley, in +an excited tone, at the same time dashing down his crape-covered +castor on the floor. "Did you ever see a ruined man with a large +family? Look at me, Mr. Dunshunner--I'm one, and you've done it!" + +"Mr. Sawley! Are you in your senses?" + +"That depends on circumstances. Haven't you been buying stock lately?" + +"I am glad to say I have--two thousand Glenmutchkins, I think, and +this is the day of delivery." + +"Well, then, can't you see how the matter stands? It was I who sold +them!" + +"Well!" + +"Mother of Moses, sir! Don't you see I'm ruined?" + +"By no means--but you must not swear. I pay over the money for your +scrip, and you pocket a premium. It seems to me a very simple +transaction." + +"But I tell you I haven't got the scrip!" cried Sawley, gnashing his +teeth, while the cold beads of perspiration gathered largely on his +brow. + +"That is very unfortunate! Have you lost it?" + +"No! the devil tempted me, and I oversold!" + +There was a very long pause, during which I assumed an aspect of +serious and dignified rebuke. + +"Is it possible?" said I, in a low tone, after the manner of Kean's +offended fathers. "What! you, Mr. Sawley--the stoker's friend--the +enemy of gambling--the father of Selina--condescend to so equivocal a +transaction? You amaze me! But I never was the man to press heavily on +a friend"--here Sawley brightened up. "Your secret is safe with me, +and it shall be your own fault if it reaches the ears of the Session. +Pay me over the difference at the present market price, and I release +you of your obligation." + +"Then I'm in the Gazette, that's all," said Sawley, doggedly, "and a +wife and nine beautiful babes upon the parish! I had hoped other +things from you, Mr. Dunshunner--I thought you and Selina--" + +"Nonsense, man! Nobody goes into the Gazette just now--it will be time +enough when the general crash comes. Out with your cheque-book, and +write me an order for four and twenty thousand. Confound fractions! In +these days one can afford to be liberal." + +"I haven't got it," said Sawley. "You have no idea how bad our trade +has been of late, for nobody seems to think of dying. I have not sold +a gross of coffins this fortnight. But I'll tell you what--I'll give +you five thousand down in cash, and ten thousand in shares; further I +can't go." + +"Now, Mr. Sawley," said I, "I may be blamed by worldly-minded persons +for what I am going to do; but I am a man of principle, and feel +deeply for the situation of your amiable wife and family. I bear no +malice, though it is quite clear that you intended to make me the +sufferer. Pay me fifteen thousand over the counter, and we cry quits +for ever." + +"Won't you take the Camlachie Cemetery shares? They are sure to go +up." + +"No!" + +"Twelve hundred Cowcaddens Water, with an issue of new stock next +week?" + +"Not if they disseminated the Gauges!" + +"A thousand Ramshorn Gas--four per cent. guaranteed until the act?" + +"Not if they promised twenty, and melted down the sun in their +retort!" + +"Blawweary Iron? Best spec. going." + +"No, I tell you once for all! If you don't like my offer,--and it is +an uncommonly liberal one,--say so, and I'll expose you this afternoon +upon 'Change." + +"Well then, there's a cheque. But may the--" + +"Stop, sir! Any such profane expressions, and I shall insist upon the +original bargain. So then, now we're quits. I wish you a very good- +morning, Mr. Sawley, and better luck next time. Pray remember me to +your amiable family." + +The door had hardly closed upon the discomfited coffin-maker, and I +was still in the preliminary steps of an extempore /pas seul/, +intended as the outward demonstration of exceeding inward joy, when +Bob M'Corkindale entered. I told him the result of the morning's +conference. + +"You have let him off too easily," said the political economist. "Had +I been his creditor, I certainly should have sacked the shares into +the bargain. There is nothing like rigid dealing between man and man." + +"I am contented with moderate profits," said I; "besides, the image of +Selina overcame me. How goes it with Jobson and Grabbie?" + +"Jobson had paid, and Grabbie compounded. Heckles--may he die an evil +death!--has repudiated, become a lame duck, and waddled; but no doubt +his estate will pay a dividend." + +"So then, we are clear of the whole Glenmutchkin business, and at a +handsome profit." + +"A fair interest for the outlay of capital--nothing more. But I'm not +quite done with the concern yet." + +"How so? not another bearing operation?" + +"No; that cock would hardly fight. But you forget that I am secretary +to the company, and have a small account against them for services +already rendered. I must do what I can to carry the bill through +Parliament; and, as you have now sold your whole shares, I advise you +to resign from the direction, go down straight to Glenmutchkin, and +qualify yourself for a witness. We shall give you five guineas a day, +and pay all your expenses." + +"Not a bad notion. But what has become of M'Closkie, and the other +fellow with the jaw-breaking name?" + +"Vich-Induibh? I have looked after their interests as in duty bound, +sold their shares at a large premium, and despatched them to their +native hills on annuities." + +"And Sir Polloxfen?" + +"Died yesterday of spontaneous combustion." + +As the company seemed breaking up, I thought I could not do better +than take M'Corkindale's hint, and accordingly betook myself to +Glenmutchkin, along with the Captain of M'Alcohol, and we quartered +ourselves upon the Factor for Glentumblers. We found Watty Solder very +shaky, and his assistant also lapsing into habits of painful +inebriety. We saw little of them except of an evening, for we shot and +fished the whole day, and made ourselves remarkably comfortable. By +singular good luck, the plans and sections were lodged in time, and +the Board of Trade very handsomely reported in our favour, with a +recommendation of what they were pleased to call "the Glenmutchkin +system," and a hope that it might generally be carried out. What this +system was, I never clearly understood; but, of course, none of us had +any objections. This circumstance gave an additional impetus to the +shares, and they once more went up. I was, however, too cautious to +plunge a second time in to Charybdis, but M'Corkindale did, and again +emerged with plunder. + +When the time came for the parliamentary contest, we all emigrated to +London. I still recollect, with lively satisfaction, the many pleasant +days we spent in the metropolis at the company's expense. There were +just a neat fifty of us, and we occupied the whole of a hotel. The +discussion before the committee was long and formidable. We were +opposed by four other companies who patronised lines, of which the +nearest was at least a hundred miles distant from Glenmutchkin; but as +they founded their opposition upon dissent from "the Glenmutchkin +system" generally, the committee allowed them to be heard. We fought +for three weeks a most desperate battle, and might in the end have +been victorious, had not our last antagonist, at the very close of his +case, pointed out no less than seventy-three fatal errors in the +parliamentary plan deposited by the unfortunate Solder. Why this was +not done earlier, I never exactly understood; it may be that our +opponents, with gentlemanly consideration, were unwilling to curtail +our sojourn in London--and their own. The drama was now finally +closed, and after all preliminary expenses were paid, sixpence per +share was returned to the holders upon surrender of their scrip. + +Such is an accurate history of the Origin, Rise, Progress, and Fall of +the Direct Glenmutchkin Railway. It contains a deep moral, if anybody +has sense enough to see it; if not, I have a new project in my eye for +next session, of which timely notice shall be given. + + + +THRAWN JANET + +BY + +ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON + +The Reverend Murdoch Soulis was long minister of the moorland parish +of Balweary, in the vale of Dule. A severe, bleak-faced old man, +dreadful to his hearers, he dwelt in the last years of his life, +without relative or servant or any human company, in the small and +lonely manse under the Hanging Shaw. In spite of the iron composure of +his features, his eye was wild, scared, and uncertain; and when he +dwelt, in private admonitions, on the future of the impenitent, it +seemed as if his eye pierced through the storms of time to the terrors +of eternity. Many young persons, coming to prepare themselves against +the season of the holy communion, were dreadfully affected by his +talk. He had a sermon on I Pet. V. 8, "The devil as a roaring lion," +on the Sunday after every 17th of August, and he was accustomed to +surpass himself upon that text both by the appalling nature of the +matter and the terror of his bearing in the pulpit. The children were +frightened into fits, and the old looked more than usually oracular, +and were, all that day, full of those hints that Hamlet deprecated. +The manse itself, where it stood by the water of Dule among some thick +trees, with the Shaw overhanging it on the one side, and on the other +many cold, moorish hilltops rising toward the sky, had begun, at a +very early period of Mr. Soulis's ministry, to be avoided in the dusk +hours by all who valued themselves upon their prudence; and guidmen +sitting at the clachan alehouse shook their heads together at the +thought of passing late by that uncanny neighbourhood. There was one +spot, to be more particular, which was regarded with especial awe. The +manse stood between the highroad and the water of Dule, with a gable +to each; its bank was toward the kirktown of Balweary, nearly half a +mile away; in front of it, a bare garden, hedged with thorn, occupied +the land between the river and the road. The house was two stories +high, with two large rooms on each. It opened not directly on the +garden, but on a causewayed path, or passage, giving on the road on +the one hand, and closed on the other by the tall willows and elders +that bordered on the stream. And it was this strip of causeway that +enjoyed among the young parishioners of Balweary so infamous a +reputation. The minister walked there often after dark, sometimes +groaning aloud in the instancy of his unspoken prayers; and when he +was from home, and the manse door was locked, the more daring school- +boys ventured, with beating hearts, to "follow my leader" across that +legendary spot. + +This atmosphere of terror, surrounding, as it did, a man of God of +spotless character and orthodoxy, was a common cause of wonder and +subject of inquiry among the few strangers who were led by chance or +business into that unknown, outlying country. But many even of the +people of the parish were ignorant of the strange events which had +marked the first year of Mr. Soulis's ministrations; and among those +who were better informed, some were naturally reticent, and others shy +of that particular topic. Now and again, only, one of the older folk +would warm into courage over his third tumbler, and recount the cause +of the minister's strange looks and solitary life. + + + +Fifty years syne, when Mr. Soulis cam' first into Ba'weary, he was +still a young man,--a callant, the folk said,--fu' o' book-learnin' +and grand at the exposition, but, as was natural in sae young a man, +wi' nae leevin' experience in religion. The younger sort were greatly +taken wi' his gifts and his gab; but auld, concerned, serious men and +women were moved even to prayer for the young man, whom they took to +be a self-deceiver, and the parish that was like to be sae ill +supplied. It was before the days o' the Moderates--weary fa' them; but +ill things are like guid--they baith come bit by bit, a pickle at a +time; and there were folk even then that said the Lord had left the +college professors to their ain devices, an' the lads that went to +study wi' them wad hae done mair and better sittin' in a peat-bog, +like their forebears of the persecution, wi' a Bible under their oxter +and a speerit o' prayer in their heart. There was nae doubt, onyway, +but that Mr. Soulis had been ower-lang at the college. He was careful +and troubled for mony things besides the ae thing needful. He had a +feck o' books wi' him--mair than had ever been seen before in a' that +presbytery; and a sair wark the carrier had wi' them, for they were a' +like to have smoored in the Deil's Hag between this and Kilmackerlie. +They were books o' divinity, to be sure, or so they ca'd them; but the +serious were o' opinion there was little service for sae mony, when +the hail o' God's Word would gang in the neuk of a plaid. Then he wad +sit half the day and half the nicht forby, which was scant decent-- +writin', nae less; and first they were feard he wad read his sermons; +and syne it proved he was writin' a book himsel', which was surely no +fittin' for ane of his years an' sma' experience. + +Onyway, it behooved him to get an auld, decent wife to keep the manse +for him an' see to his bit denners; and he was recommended to an auld +limmer,--Janet M'Clour, they ca'd her,--and sae far left to himsel' as +to be ower-persuaded. There was mony advised him to the contrar', for +Janet was mair than suspeckit by the best folk in Ba'weary. Lang or +that, she had had a wean to a dragoon; she hadnae come forrit for +maybe thretty year; and bairns had seen her mumblin' to hersel' up on +Key's Loan in the gloamin', whilk was an unco time an' place for a +God-fearin' woman. Howsoever, it was the laird himsel' that had first +tauld the minister o' Janet; and in thae days he wad have gane a far +gate to pleesure the laird. When folk tauld him that Janet was sib to +the deil, it was a' superstition by his way of it; and' when they cast +up the Bible to him, an' the witch of Endor, he wad threep it doun +their thrapples that thir days were a' gane by, and the deil was +mercifully restrained. + +Weel, when it got about the clachan that Janet M'Clour was to be +servant at the manse, the folk were fair mad wi' her an' him +thegether; and some o' the guidwives had nae better to dae than get +round her door-cheeks and chairge her wi' a' that was kent again' her, +frae the sodger's bairn to John Tamson's twa kye. She was nae great +speaker; folk usually let her gang her ain gait, an' she let them gang +theirs, wi' neither fair guid-e'en nor fair guid-day; but when she +buckled to, she had a tongue to deave the miller. Up she got, an' +there wasnae an auld story in Ba'weary but she gart somebody lowp for +it that day; they couldnae say ae thing but she could say twa to it; +till, at the hinder end, the guidwives up and claught haud of her, and +clawed the coats aff her back, and pu'd her doun the clachan to the +water o' Dule, to see if she were a witch or no, soum or droun. The +carline skirled till ye could hear her at the Hangin' Shaw, and she +focht like ten; there was mony a guid wife bure the mark of her neist +day an' mony a lang day after; and just in the hettest o' the +collieshangie, wha suld come up (for his sins) but the new minister. + +"Women," said he (and he had a grand voice), "I charge you in the +Lord's name to let her go." + +Janet ran to him--she was fair wud wi' terror--an' clang to him, an' +prayed him, for Christ's sake, save her frae the cummers; an' they, +for their pairt, tauld him a' that was kent, and maybe mair. + +"Woman," says he to Janet, "is this true?" + +"As the Lord sees me," says she, "as the Lord made me, no a word o' +'t. Forby the bairn," says she, "I've been a decent woman a' my days." + +"Will you," says Mr. Soulis, "in the name of God, and before me, His +unworthy minister, renounce the devil and his works?" + +Weel, it wad appear that, when he askit that, she gave a girn that +fairly frichtit them that saw her, an' they could hear her teeth play +dirl thegether in her chafts; but there was naething for it but the ae +way or the ither; an' Janet lifted up her hand and renounced the deil +before them a'. + +"And now," says Mr. Soulis to the guidwives, "home with ye, one and +all, and pray to God for His forgiveness." + +And he gied Janet his arm, though she had little on her but a sark, +and took her up the clachan to her ain door like a leddy of the land, +an' her scrieghin' and laughin' as was a scandal to be heard. + +There were mony grave folk lang ower their prayers that nicht; but +when the morn cam' there was sic a fear fell upon a' Ba'weary that the +bairns hid theirsel's, and even the men folk stood and keekit frae +their doors. For there was Janet comin' doun the clachan,--her or her +likeness, nane could tell,--wi' her neck thrawn, and her heid on ae +side, like a body that has been hangit, and a girn on her face like an +unstreakit corp. By-an'-by they got used wi' it, and even speered at +her to ken what was wrang; but frae that day forth she couldnae speak +like a Christian woman, but slavered and played click wi' her teeth +like a pair o' shears; and frae that day forth the name o' God cam' +never on her lips. Whiles she wad try to say it, but it michtnae be. +Them that kenned best said least; but they never gied that Thing the +name o' Janet M'Clour; for the auld Janet, by their way o' 't, was in +muckle hell that day. But the minister was neither to haud nor to +bind; he preached about naething but the folk's cruelty that had gien +her a stroke of the palsy; he skelpt the bairns that meddled her; and +he had her up to the manse that same nicht, and dwalled there a' his +lane wi' her under the Hangin' Shaw. + +Weel, time gaed by, and the idler sort commenced to think mair lichtly +o' that black business. The minister was weel thocht o'; he was aye +late at the writing--folk wad see his can'le doon by the Dule Water +after twal' at e'en; and he seemed pleased wi' himsel' and upsitten as +at first, though a' body could see that he was dwining. As for Janet, +she cam' an' she gaed; if she didnae speak muckle afore, it was reason +she should speak less then; she meddled naebody; but she was an +eldritch thing to see, an' nane wad hae mistrysted wi' her for +Ba'weary glebe. + +About the end o' July there cam' a spell o' weather, the like o' 't +never was in that countryside; it was lown an' het an' heartless; the +herds couldnae win up the Black Hill, the bairns were ower-weariet to +play; an' yet it was gousty too, wi' claps o' het wund that rummled in +the glens, and bits o' shouers that slockened naething. We aye thocht +it but to thun'er on the morn; but the morn cam', an' the morn's +morning, and it was aye the same uncanny weather; sair on folks and +bestial. Of a' that were the waur, nane suffered like Mr. Soulis; he +could neither sleep nor eat, he tauld his elders; an' when he wasnae +writin' at his weary book, he wad be stravaguin' ower a' the country- +side like a man possessed, when a' body else was blithe to keep caller +ben the house. + +Abune Hangin' Shaw, in the bield o' the Black Hill, there's a bit +enclosed grund wi' an iron yert; and it seems, in the auld days, that +was the kirkyaird o' Ba'weary, and consecrated by the papists before +the blessed licht shone upon the kingdom. It was a great howff, o' Mr. +Soulis's onyway; there he would sit an' consider his sermons' and +inded it's a bieldy bit. Weel, as he came ower the wast end o' the +Black Hill, ae day, he saw first twa, an' syne fower, an' syne seeven +corbie craws fleein' round an' round abune the auld kirkyaird. They +flew laigh and heavy, an' squawked to ither as they gaed; and it was +clear to Mr. Soulis that something had put them frae their ordinar. He +wasna easy fleyed, an' gaed straucht up to the wa's; and what suld he +find there but a man, or the appearance of a man, sittin' in the +inside upon a grave. He was of a great stature, an' black as hell, and +his een were singular to see. Mr. Soulis had heard tell o' black men, +mony's the time; but there was something unco abut this black man that +daunted him. Het as he was, he took a kind o' cauld grue in the marrow +o' his banes; but up he spak' for a' that; an' says he, "My friend, +are you a stranger in this place?" The black man answered never a +word; he got upon his feet, an' begude to hirsel to the wa' on the far +side; but he aye lookit at the minister; an' the minister stood an' +lookit back; till a' in a meenute the black man was ower the wa' an' +rinnin' for the bield o' the trees. Mr. Soulis, he hardly kenned why, +ran after him; but he was sair forjaskit wi' his walk an' the het, +unhalesome weather; and rin as he likit, he got nae mair than a glisk +o' the black man amang the birks, till he won doun to the foot o' the +hillside, an' there he saw him ance mair, gaun, hap, step, an' lowp, +ower Dule Water to the manse. + +Mr. Soulis wasna weel pleased that this fearsome gangrel suld mak' sae +free wi' Ba'weary manse; an' he ran the harder, an' wet shoon, ower +the burn, an' up the walk; but the deil a black man was there to see. +He stepped out upon the road, but there was naebody there; he gaed a' +ower the gairden, but na, nae black man. At the hinder end, and a bit +feard as was but natural, he lifted the hasp and into the manse; and +there was Janet M'Clour before his een, wi' her thrawn craig, and nane +sae pleased to see him. And he aye minded sinsyne, when first he set +his een upon her, he had the same cauld and deidy grue. + +"Janet," says he, "have you seen a black man?" + +"A black man?" quo' she. "Save us a'! Ye 're no wise, minister. +There's nae black man in a' Ba'weary." + +But she didna speak plain, ye maun understand; but yam-yammered, like +a powny wi' the bit in its moo. + +"Weel," says he, "Janet, if there was nae black man, I have spoken +with the Accuser of the Brethren." + +And he sat down like ane wi' a fever, an' his teeth chittered in his +heid. + +"Hoots!" says she, "think shame to yoursel', minister," an' gied him a +drap brandy that she keept aye by her. + +Syne Mr. Soulis gaed into his study amang a' his books. It's a lang, +laigh, mirk chalmer, perishin' cauld in winter, an' no very dry even +in the top o' the simmer, for the manse stands near the burn. Sae doun +he sat, and thocht of a' that had come an' gane since he was in +Ba'weary, an' his hame, an' the days when he was a bairn an' ran +daffin' on the braes; and that black man aye ran in his heid like the +owercome of a sang. Aye the mair he thocht, the mair he thocht o' the +black man. He tried the prayer, an' the words wouldnae come to him; +an' he tried, they say, to write at his book, but he couldnae mak' nae +mair o' that. There was whiles he thocht the black man was at his +oxter, an' the swat stood upon him cauld as well-water; and there was +other whiles when he cam' to himsel' like a christened bairn and +minded naething. + +The upshot was that he gaed to the window an' stood glowrin' at Dule +Water. The trees are unco thick, an' the water lies deep an' black +under the manse; and there was Janet washing' the cla'es wi' her coats +kilted. She had her back to the minister, an' he for his pairt, hardly +kenned what he was lookin' at. Syne she turned round, an' shawed her +face; Mr. Soulis had the same cauld grue as twice that day afore, an' +it was borne in upon him what folk said, that Janet was deid lang +syne, an' this was a bogle in her clay-cauld flesh. He drew back a +pickle and he scanned her narrowly. She was tramp-trampin' in the +cla'es, croonin' to hersel'; and eh! Gude guide us, but it was a +fearsome face. Whiles she sang louder, but there was nae man born o' +woman that could tell the words o' her sang; an' whiles she lookit +sidelang doun, but there was naething there for her to look at. There +gaed a scunner through the flesh upon his banes; and that was Heeven's +advertisement. But Mr. Soulis just blamed himsel', he said, to think +sae ill of a puir auld afflicted wife that hadnae a freend forby +himsel'; an' he put up a bit prayer for him an' her, an' drank a +little caller water,--for his heart rose again' the meat,--an' gaed up +to his naked bed in the gloaming. + +That was a nicht that has never been forgotten in Ba'weary, the nicht +o' the seeventeenth of August, seventeen hun'er' an' twal'. It had +been het afore, as I hae said, but that nicht it was hetter than ever. +The sun gaed doun amang unco-lookin' clouds; it fell as mirk as the +pit; no a star, no a breath o' wund; ye couldnae see your han' afore +your face, and even the auld folk cuist the covers frae their beds and +lay pechin' for their breath. Wi' a' that he had upon his mind, it was +gey and unlikely Mr. Soulis wad get muckle sleep. He lay an' he +tummled; the gude, caller bed that he got into brunt his very banes; +whiles he slept, and whiles he waukened; whiles he heard the time o' +nicht, and whiles a tike yowlin' up the muir, as if somebody was deid; +whiles he thocht he heard bogles claverin' in his lug, an' whiles he +saw spunkies in the room. He behooved, he judged, to be sick; an' sick +he was--little he jaloosed the sickness. + +At the hinder end, he got a clearness in his mind, sat up in his sark +on the bedside, and fell thinkin' ance mair o' the black man an' +Janet. He couldnae weel tell how,--maybe it was the cauld to his feet, +--but it cam' in upon him wi' a spate that there was some connection +between thir twa, an' that either or baith o' them were bogles. And +just at that moment, in Janet's room, which was neist to his, there +cam' a stamp o' feet as if men were wars'lin', an' then a loud bang; +an' then a wund gaed reishling round the fower quarters of the house; +an' then a' was ance mair as seelent as the grave. + +Mr. Soulis was feard for neither man nor deevil. He got his tinder- +box, an' lit a can'le, an' made three steps o' 't ower to Janet's +door. It was on the hasp, an' he pushed it open, an' keeked bauldly +in. It was a big room, as big as the minister's ain, an' plenished wi' +grand, auld, solid gear, for he had naething else. There was a fower- +posted bed wi' auld tapestry; and a braw cabinet of aik, that was fu' +o' the minister's divinity books, an' put there to be out o' the gate; +an' a wheen duds o' Janet's lying here and there about the floor. But +nae Janet could Mr. Soulis see, nor ony sign of a contention. In he +gaed (an' there's few that wad hae followed him), an' lookit a' round, +an' listened. But there was naethin' to be heard neither inside the +manse nor in a' Ba'weary parish, an' naethin' to be seen but the +muckle shadows turnin' round the can'le. An' then a' at aince the +minister's heart played dunt an' stood stock-still, an' a cauld wund +blew amang the hairs o' his heid. Whaten a weary sicht was that for +the puir man's een! For there was Janet hangin' frae a nail beside the +auld aik cabinet; her heid aye lay on her shouther, her een were +steeked, the tongue projecket frae her mouth, and her heels were twa +feet clear abune the floor. + +"God forgive us all!" thocht Mr. Soulis, "poor Janet's dead." + +He cam' a step nearer to the corp; an' then his heart fair whammled in +his inside. For--by what cantrip it wad ill beseem a man to judge--she +was hingin' frae a single nail an' by a single wursted thread for +darnin' hose. + +It's an awfu' thing to be your lane at nicht wi' siccan prodigies o' +darkness; but Mr. Soulis was strong in the Lord. He turned an' gaed +his ways oot o' that room, and locket the door ahint him; and step by +step doon the stairs, as heavy as leed; and set doon the can'le on the +table at the stair-foot. He couldnae pray, he couldnae think, he was +dreepin' wi' caul' swat, an' naething could he hear but the dunt-dunt- +duntin' o' his ain heart. He micht maybe have stood there an hour, or +maybe twa, he minded sae little; when a' o' a sudden he heard a laigh, +uncanny steer upstairs; a foot gaed to an' fro in the cham'er whair +the corp was hingin'; syne the door was opened, though he minded weel +that he had lockit it; an' syne there was a step upon the landin', an' +it seemed to him as if the corp was lookin' ower the tail and doun +upon him whaur he stood. + +He took up the can'le again (for he couldnae want the licht), and, as +saftly as ever he could, gaed straucht out o' the manse an' to the far +end o' the causeway. It was aye pit-mirk; the flame o' the can'le, +when he set it on the grund, brunt steedy and clear as in a room; +naething moved, but the Dule Water seepin' and sabbin' doon the glen, +an' yon unhaly footstep that cam' plodding' doun the stairs inside the +manse. He kenned the foot ower-weel, for it was Janet's; and at ilka +step that cam' a wee thing nearer, the cauld got deeper in his vitals. +He commended his soul to Him that made an' keepit him; "and, O Lord," +said he, "give me strength this night to war against the powers of +evil." + +By this time the foot was comin' through the passage for the door; he +could hear a hand skirt alang the wa', as if the fearsome thing was +feelin' for its way. The saughs tossed an' maned thegether, a long +sigh cam' ower the hills, the flame o' the can'le was blawn aboot; an' +there stood the corp of Thrawn Janet, wi' her grogram goun an' her +black mutch, wi' the heid aye upon the shouther, an' the girn still +upon the face o' 't,--leevin', ye wad hae said--deid, as Mr. Soulis +weel kenned,--upon the threshold o' the manse. + +It's a strange thing that the saul of man should be thirled into his +perishable body; but the minister saw that, an' his heart didnae +break. + +She didnae stand there lang; she began to move again, an' cam' slowly +toward Mr. Soulis whaur he stood under the saughs. A' the life o' his +body, a' the strength o' his speerit, were glowerin' frae his een. It +seemed she was gaun to speak, but wanted words, an' made a sign wi' +the left hand. There cam' a clap o' wund, like a cat's fuff; oot gaed +the can'le, the saughs skrieghed like folk' an' Mr. Soulis kenned +that, live or die, this was the end o' 't. + +"Witch, beldam, devil!" he cried, "I charge you, by the power of God, +begone--if you be dead, to the grave; if you be damned, to hell." + +An' at that moment the Lord's ain hand out o' the heevens struck the +Horror whaur it stood; the auld, deid, desecrated corp o' the witch- +wife, sae lang keepit frae the grave and hirselled round by deils, +lowed up like a brunstane spunk and fell in ashes to the grund; the +thunder followed, peal on dirling peal, the rairing rain upon the back +o' that; and Mr. Soulis lowped through the garden hedge, and ran, wi' +skelloch upon skelloch, for the clachan. + +That same mornin' John Christie saw the black man pass the Muckle +Cairn as it was chappin' six; before eicht, he gaed by the change- +house at Knockdow; an' no lang after, Sandy M'Lellan saw him gaun +linkin' doun the braes frae Kilmackerlie. There's little doubt but it +was him that dwalled sae lang in Janet's body; but he was awa' at +last; and sinsyne the deil has never fashed us in Ba'weary. + +But it was a sair dispensation for the minister; lang, lang he lay +ravin' in his bed; and frae that hour to this, he was the man ye ken +the day. + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg Etext Stories by English Authors in Scotland + diff --git a/old/sbeas10.zip b/old/sbeas10.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..af5ab3b --- /dev/null +++ b/old/sbeas10.zip |