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+Project Gutenberg's Ranald Bannerman's Boyhood, by George MacDonald
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Ranald Bannerman's Boyhood
+
+Author: George MacDonald
+
+Release Date: August 15, 2004 [EBook #9301]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RANALD BANNERMAN'S BOYHOOD ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Jonathan Ingram and PG Distributed Proofreaders.
+Illustrated HTML by David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+
+RANALD BANNERMAN'S BOYHOOD
+
+By
+
+George MacDonald
+
+
+
+1871
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+Chap.
+
+I. INTRODUCTORY
+
+II. THE GLIMMER OF TWILIGHT
+
+III. MY FATHER
+
+IV. KIRSTY
+
+V. I BEGIN LIFE
+
+VI. NO FATHER
+
+VII. MRS. MITCHELL IS DEFEATED
+
+VIII. A NEW SCHOOLMISTRESS
+
+IX. WE LEARN OTHER THINGS
+
+X. SIR WORM WYMBLE
+
+XI. THE KELPIE
+
+XII. ANOTHER KELPIE
+
+XIII. WANDERING WILLIE
+
+XIV. ELSIE DUFF
+
+XV. A NEW COMPANION
+
+XVI. I GO DOWN HILL
+
+XVII. THE TROUBLE GROWS
+
+XVIII. LIGHT OUT OF DARKNESS
+
+XIX. FORGIVENESS
+
+XX. I HAVE A FALL AND A DREAM
+
+XXI. THE BEES' NEST
+
+XXII. VAIN INTERCESSION
+
+XXIII. KNIGHT-ERRANTRY
+
+XXIV. FAILURE
+
+XXV. TURKEY PLOTS
+
+XXVI. OLD JOHN JAMIESON
+
+XXVII. TURKEY'S TRICK
+
+XXVIII. I SCHEME TOO
+
+XXIX. A DOUBLE EXPOSURE
+
+XXX. TRIBULATION
+
+XXXI. A WINTER'S RIDE
+
+XXXII. THE PEAT-STACK
+
+XXXIII. A SOLITARY CHAPTER
+
+XXXIV. AN EVENING VISIT
+
+XXXV. A BREAK IN MY STORY
+
+XXXVI. I LEARN THAT I AM NOT A MAN
+
+
+
+COLOURED PLATES
+
+
+THE BILBERRY PICKERS
+
+THE BABY BROTHER
+
+THE DRESSING OF LITTLE DAVIE
+
+MY ESCAPE
+
+TURKEY LIGHTS A FIRE
+
+I GO INTO THE FIELDS
+
+MAKING THE SNOWBALL
+
+READING TO ELSIE AND TURKEY
+
+A SUDDEN STOP
+
+HELPING ELSIE
+
+A READING LESSON
+
+I RETURN HOME
+
+
+_Coloured Illustrations by A.V. Wheelhouse: and Other 36
+Black-and-White Illustrations by Arthur Hughes_.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+Introductory
+
+
+I do not intend to carry my story one month beyond the hour when I saw
+that my boyhood was gone and my youth arrived; a period determined to
+some by the first tail-coat, to me by a different sign. My reason for
+wishing to tell this first portion of my history is, that when I look
+back upon it, it seems to me not only so pleasant, but so full of
+meaning, that, if I can only tell it right, it must prove rather
+pleasant and not quite unmeaning to those who will read it. It will
+prove a very poor story to such as care only for stirring adventures,
+and like them all the better for a pretty strong infusion of the
+impossible; but those to whom their own history is interesting--to
+whom, young as they may be, it is a pleasant thing to be in the
+world--will not, I think, find the experience of a boy born in a very
+different position from that of most of them, yet as much a boy as any
+of them, wearisome because ordinary.
+
+If I did not mention that I, Ranald Bannerman, am a Scotchman, I
+should be found out before long by the kind of thing I have to tell;
+for although England and Scotland are in all essentials one, there are
+such differences between them that one could tell at once, on opening
+his eyes, if he had been carried out of the one into the other during
+the night. I do not mean he might not be puzzled, but except there was
+an intention to puzzle him by a skilful selection of place, the very
+air, the very colours would tell him; or if he kept his eyes shut, his
+ears would tell him without his eyes. But I will not offend fastidious
+ears with any syllable of my rougher tongue. I will tell my story in
+English, and neither part of the country will like it the worse for
+that.
+
+I will clear the way for it by mentioning that my father was the
+clergyman of a country parish in the north of Scotland--a humble
+position, involving plain living and plain ways altogether. There was
+a glebe or church-farm attached to the manse or clergyman's house, and
+my father rented a small farm besides, for he needed all he could make
+by farming to supplement the smallness of the living. My mother was an
+invalid as far back as I can remember. We were four boys, and had no
+sister. But I must begin at the beginning, that is, as far back as it
+is possible for me to begin.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+The Glimmer of Twilight
+
+
+I cannot tell any better than most of my readers how and when I began
+to come awake, or what it was that wakened me. I mean, I cannot
+remember when I began to remember, or what first got set down in my
+memory as worth remembering. Sometimes I fancy it must have been a
+tremendous flood that first made me wonder, and so made me begin to
+remember. At all events, I do remember one flood that seems about as
+far off as anything--the rain pouring so thick that I put out my hand
+in front of me to try whether I could see it through the veil of the
+falling water. The river, which in general was to be seen only in
+glimpses from the house--for it ran at the bottom of a hollow--was
+outspread like a sea in front, and stretched away far on either
+hand. It was a little stream, but it fills so much of my memory with
+its regular recurrence of autumnal floods, that I can have no
+confidence that one of these is in reality the oldest thing I
+remember. Indeed, I have a suspicion that my oldest memories are of
+dreams,--where or when dreamed, the good One who made me only knows.
+They are very vague to me now, but were almost all made up of bright
+things. One only I can recall, and it I will relate, or more properly
+describe, for there was hardly anything done in it. I dreamed it
+often. It was of the room I slept in, only it was narrower in the
+dream, and loftier, and the window was gone. But the ceiling was a
+ceiling indeed; for the sun, moon, and stars lived there. The sun was
+not a scientific sun at all, but one such as you see in penny
+picture-books--a round, jolly, jocund man's face, with flashes of
+yellow frilling it all about, just what a grand sunflower would look
+if you set a countenance where the black seeds are. And the moon was
+just such a one as you may see the cow jumping over in the pictured
+nursery rhyme. She was a crescent, of course, that she might have a
+face drawn in the hollow, and turned towards the sun, who seemed to be
+her husband. He looked merrily at her, and she looked trustfully at
+him, and I knew that they got on very well together. The stars were
+their children, of course, and they seemed to run about the ceiling
+just as they pleased; but the sun and the moon had regular
+motions--rose and set at the proper times, for they were steady old
+folks. I do not, however, remember ever seeing them rise or set; they
+were always up and near the centre before the dream dawned on me. It
+would always come in one way: I thought I awoke in the middle of the
+night, and lo! there was the room with the sun and the moon and the
+stars at their pranks and revels in the ceiling--Mr. Sun nodding and
+smiling across the intervening space to Mrs. Moon, and she nodding
+back to him with a knowing look, and the corners of her mouth drawn
+down. I have vague memories of having heard them talk. At times I feel
+as if I could yet recall something of what they said, but it vanishes
+the moment I try to catch it. It was very queer talk, indeed--about
+me, I fancied--but a thread of strong sense ran through it all. When
+the dream had been very vivid, I would sometimes think of it in the
+middle of the next day, and look up to the sun, saying to myself: He's
+up there now, busy enough. I wonder what he is seeing to talk to his
+wife about when he comes down at night? I think it sometimes made me a
+little more careful of my conduct. When the sun set, I thought he was
+going in the back way; and when the moon rose, I thought she was going
+out for a little stroll until I should go to sleep, when they might
+come and talk about me again. It was odd that, although I never
+fancied it of the sun, I thought I could make the moon follow me as I
+pleased. I remember once my eldest brother giving me great offence by
+bursting into laughter, when I offered, in all seriousness, to bring
+her to the other side of the house where they wanted light to go on
+with something they were about. But I must return to my dream; for the
+most remarkable thing in it I have not yet told you. In one corner of
+the ceiling there was a hole, and through that hole came down a ladder
+of sun-rays--very bright and lovely. Where it came from I never
+thought, but of course it could not come from the sun, because there
+he was, with his bright coat off, playing the father of his family in
+the most homely Old-English-gentleman fashion possible. That it was a
+ladder of rays there could, however, be no doubt: if only I could
+climb upon it! I often tried, but fast as I lifted my feet to climb,
+down they came again upon the boards of the floor. At length I did
+succeed, but this time the dream had a setting.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+I have said that we were four boys; but at this time we were
+five--there was a little baby. He was very ill, however, and I knew he
+was not expected to live. I remember looking out of my bed one night
+and seeing my mother bending over him in her lap;--it is one of the
+few things in which I do remember my mother. I fell asleep, but by and
+by woke and looked out again. No one was there. Not only were mother
+and baby gone, but the cradle was gone too. I knew that my little
+brother was dead. I did not cry: I was too young and ignorant to cry
+about it. I went to sleep again, and seemed to wake once more; but it
+was into my dream this time. There were the sun and the moon and the
+stars. But the sun and the moon had got close together and were
+talking very earnestly, and all the stars had gathered round them. I
+could not hear a word they said, but I concluded that they were
+talking about my little brother. "I suppose I ought to be sorry," I
+said to myself; and I tried hard, but I could not feel sorry. Meantime
+I observed a curious motion in the heavenly host. They kept looking at
+me, and then at the corner where the ladder stood, and talking on, for
+I saw their lips moving very fast; and I thought by the motion of them
+that they were saying something about the ladder. I got out of bed and
+went to it. If I could only get up it! I would try once more. To my
+delight I found it would bear me. I climbed and climbed, and the sun
+and the moon and the stars looked more and more pleased as I got up
+nearer to them, till at last the sun's face was in a broad smile. But
+they did not move from their places, and my head rose above them, and
+got out at the hole where the ladder came in. What I saw there, I
+cannot tell. I only know that a wind such as had never blown upon me
+in my waking hours, blew upon me now. I did not care much for kisses
+then, for I had not learned how good they are; but somehow I fancied
+afterwards that the wind was made of my baby brother's kisses, and I
+began to love the little man who had lived only long enough to be our
+brother and get up above the sun and the moon and the stars by the
+ladder of sun-rays. But this, I say, I thought afterwards. Now all
+that I can remember of my dream is that I began to weep for very
+delight of something I have forgotten, and that I fell down the ladder
+into the room again and awoke, as one always does with a fall in a
+dream. Sun, moon, and stars were gone; the ladder of light had
+vanished; and I lay sobbing on my pillow.
+
+I have taken up a great deal of room with this story of a dream, but
+it clung to me, and would often return. And then the time of life to
+which this chapter refers is all so like one, that a dream comes in
+well enough in it. There is a twilight of the mind, when all things
+are strange, and when the memory is only beginning to know that it has
+got a notebook, and must put things down in it.
+
+It was not long after this before my mother died, and I was sorrier
+for my father than for myself--he looked so sad. I have said that as
+far back as I can remember, she was an invalid. Hence she was unable
+to be much with us. She is very beautiful in my memory, but during the
+last months of her life we seldom saw her, and the desire to keep the
+house quiet for her sake must have been the beginning of that freedom
+which we enjoyed during the whole of our boyhood. So we were out every
+day and all day long, finding our meals when we pleased, and that, as
+I shall explain, without going home for them. I remember her death
+clearly, but I will not dwell upon that. It is too sad to write much
+about, though she was happy, and the least troubled of us all. Her
+sole concern was at leaving her husband and children. But the will of
+God was a better thing to her than to live with them. My sorrow at
+least was soon over, for God makes children so that grief cannot
+cleave to them. They must not begin life with a burden of loss. He
+knows it is only for a time. When I see my mother again, she will not
+reproach me that my tears were so soon dried. "Little one," I think I
+hear her saying, "how could you go on crying for your poor mother when
+God was mothering you all the time, and breathing life into you, and
+making the world a blessed place for you? You will tell me all about
+it some day." Yes, and we shall tell our mothers--shall we not?--how
+sorry we are that we ever gave them any trouble. Sometimes we were
+very naughty, and sometimes we did not know better. My mother was very
+good, but I cannot remember a single one of the many kisses she must
+have given me. I remember her holding my head to her bosom when she
+was dying--that is all.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+My Father
+
+
+My father was a tall, staid, solemn man, who walked slowly with long
+strides. He spoke very little, and generally looked as if he were
+pondering next Sunday's sermon. His head was grey, and a little bent,
+as if he were gathering truth from the ground. Once I came upon him in
+the garden, standing with his face up to heaven, and I thought he was
+seeing something in the clouds; but when I came nearer, I saw that his
+eyes were closed, and it made me feel very solemn. I crept away as if
+I had been peeping where I ought not. He did not talk much to us. What
+he said was very gentle, and it seemed to me it was his solemnity that
+made him gentle. I have seen him look very angry. He used to walk much
+about his fields, especially of a summer morning before the sun was
+up. This was after my mother's death. I presume he felt nearer to her
+in the fields than in the house. There was a kind of grandeur about
+him, I am sure; for I never saw one of his parishioners salute him in
+the road, without a look of my father himself passing like a solemn
+cloud over the face of the man or woman. For us, we feared and loved
+him both at once. I do not remember ever being punished by him, but
+Kirsty (of whom I shall have to speak by and by) has told me that he
+did punish us when we were very small children. Neither did he teach
+us much himself, except on the occasions I am about to mention; and I
+cannot say that I learned much from his sermons. These gave entire
+satisfaction to those of his parishioners whom I happened to hear
+speak of them; but, although I loved the sound of his voice, and liked
+to look at his face as he stood up there in the ancient pulpit clad in
+his gown and bands, I never cared much about what he said. Of course
+it was all right, and a better sermon than any other clergyman
+whatever could have preached, but what it was all about was of no
+consequence to me. I may as well confess at once that I never had the
+least doubt that my father was the best man in the world. Nay, to this
+very hour I am of the same opinion, notwithstanding that the son of
+the village tailor once gave me a tremendous thrashing for saying so,
+on the ground that I was altogether wrong, seeing _his_ father was the
+best man in the world--at least I have learned to modify the assertion
+only to this extent--that my father was the best man I have ever
+known.
+
+The church was a very old one--had seen candles burning, heard the
+little bell ringing, and smelt the incense of the old Catholic
+service. It was so old, that it seemed settling down again into the
+earth, especially on one side, where great buttresses had been built
+to keep it up. It leaned against them like a weary old thing that
+wanted to go to sleep. It had a short square tower, like so many of
+the churches in England; and although there was but one old cracked
+bell in it, although there was no organ to give out its glorious
+sounds, although there was neither chanting nor responses, I assure my
+English readers that the awe and reverence which fell upon me as I
+crossed its worn threshold were nowise inferior, as far as I can
+judge, to the awe and respect they feel when they enter the more
+beautiful churches of their country. There was a hush in it which
+demanded a refraining of the foot, a treading softly as upon holy
+ground; and the church was inseparably associated with my father.
+
+The pew we sat in was a square one, with a table in the middle of it
+for our books. My brother David generally used it for laying his head
+upon, that he might go to sleep comfortably. My brother Tom put his
+feet on the cross-bar of it, leaned back in his corner--for you see we
+had a corner apiece--put his hands in his trousers pockets, and stared
+hard at my father--for Tom's corner was well in front of the pulpit.
+My brother Allister, whose back was to the pulpit, used to learn the
+_paraphrases_ all the time of the sermon. I, happiest of all in my
+position, could look up at my father, if I pleased, a little sideways;
+or, if I preferred, which I confess I often did, study--a rare sight
+in Scotch churches--the figure of an armed knight, carved in stone,
+which lay on the top of the tomb of Sir Worm Wymble--at least that is
+the nearest I can come to the spelling of the name they gave him. The
+tomb was close by the side of the pew, with only a flagged passage
+between. It stood in a hollow in the wall, and the knight lay under
+the arch of the recess, so silent, so patient, with folded palms, as
+if praying for some help which he could not name. From the presence of
+this labour of the sculptor came a certain element into the feeling of
+the place, which it could not otherwise have possessed: organ and
+chant were not altogether needful while that carved knight lay there
+with face upturned, as if looking to heaven.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+But from gazing at the knight I began to regard the wall about him,
+and the arch over him; and from the arch my eye would seek the roof,
+and descending, rest on the pillars, or wander about the windows,
+searching the building of the place, discovering the points of its
+strength, and how it was upheld. So that while my father was talking
+of the church as a company of believers, and describing how it was
+held together by faith, I was trying to understand how the stone and
+lime of the old place was kept from falling asunder, and thus
+beginning to follow what has become my profession since; for I am an
+architect.
+
+But the church has led me away from my father. He always spoke in
+rather a low voice, but so earnestly that every eye, as it seemed to
+me, but mine and those of two of my brothers, was fixed upon him. I
+think, however, that it was in part the fault of certain teaching of
+his own, better fitted for our understanding, that we paid so little
+heed. Even Tom, with all his staring, knew as little about the sermon
+as any of us. But my father did not question us much concerning it; he
+did what was far better. On Sunday afternoons, in the warm, peaceful
+sunlight of summer, with the honeysuckle filling the air of the little
+arbour in which we sat, and his one glass of wine set on the table in
+the middle, he would sit for an hour talking away to us in his gentle,
+slow, deep voice, telling us story after story out of the New
+Testament, and explaining them in a way I have seldom heard equalled.
+Or, in the cold winter nights, he would come into the room where I and
+my two younger brothers slept--the nursery it was--and, sitting down
+with Tom by his side before the fire that burned bright in the frosty
+air, would open the great family Bible on the table, turn his face
+towards the two beds where we three lay wide awake, and tell us story
+after story out of the Old Testament, sometimes reading a few verses,
+sometimes turning the bare facts into an expanded and illustrated
+narrative of his own, which, in Shakspere fashion, he presented after
+the modes and ways of our own country and time. I shall never forget
+Joseph in Egypt hearing the pattering of the asses' hoofs in the
+street, and throwing up the window, and looking out, and seeing all
+his own brothers coming riding towards him; or the grand rush of the
+sea waves over the bewildered hosts of the Egyptians. We lay and
+listened with all the more enjoyment, that while the fire was burning
+so brightly, and the presence of my father filling the room with
+safety and peace, the wind was howling outside, and the snow drifting
+up against the window. Sometimes I passed into the land of sleep with
+his voice in my ears and his love in my heart; perhaps into the land
+of visions--once certainly into a dream of the sun and moon and stars
+making obeisance to the too-favoured son of Jacob.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+Kirsty
+
+
+My father had a housekeeper, a trusty woman, he considered her. We
+thought her _very_ old. I suppose she was about forty. She was not
+pleasant, for she was grim-faced and censorious, with a very straight
+back, and a very long upper lip. Indeed the distance from her nose to
+her mouth was greater than the length of her nose. When I think of her
+first, it is always as making some complaint to my father against
+us. Perhaps she meant to speak the truth, or rather, perhaps took it
+for granted that she always did speak the truth; but certainly she
+would exaggerate things, and give them quite another look. The bones
+of her story might be true, but she would put a skin over it after her
+own fashion, which was not one of mildness and charity. The
+consequence was that the older we grew, the more our minds were
+alienated from her, and the more we came to regard her as our enemy.
+If she really meant to be our friend after the best fashion she knew,
+it was at least an uncomely kind of friendship, that showed itself in
+constant opposition, fault-finding, and complaint. The real mistake
+was that we were boys. There was something in her altogether
+antagonistic to the boy-nature. You would have thought that to be a
+boy was in her eyes to be something wrong to begin with; that boys
+ought never to have been made; that they must always, by their very
+nature, be about something amiss. I have occasionally wondered how she
+would have behaved to a girl. On reflection, I think a little better;
+but the girl would have been worse off, because she could not have
+escaped from her as we did. My father would hear her complaints to the
+end without putting in a word, except it were to ask her a question,
+and when she had finished, would turn again to his book or his sermon,
+saying--
+
+"Very well, Mrs. Mitchell; I will speak to them about it."
+
+My impression is that he did not believe the half she told him. At all
+events, when he had sent for us, he would ask our version of the
+affair, and listen to that as he had listened to hers. Then he would
+set forth to us where we had been wrong, if we were wrong, and send us
+away with an injunction not to provoke Mrs. Mitchell, who couldn't
+help being short in her temper, poor thing! Somehow or other we got it
+into our heads that the shortness of her temper was mysteriously
+associated with the shortness of her nose.
+
+She was saving even to stinginess. She would do her best to provide
+what my father liked, but for us she thought almost anything good
+enough. She would, for instance, give us the thinnest of milk--we said
+she skimmed it three times before she thought it blue enough for us.
+My two younger brothers did not mind it so much as I did, for I was
+always rather delicate, and if I took a dislike to anything, would
+rather go without than eat or drink of it. But I have told you enough
+about her to make it plain that she could be no favourite with us; and
+enough likewise to serve as a background to my description of Kirsty.
+
+Kirsty was a Highland woman who had the charge of the house in which
+the farm servants lived. She was a cheerful, gracious, kind woman--a
+woman of God's making, one would say, were it not that, however
+mysterious it may look, we cannot deny that he made Mrs. Mitchell too.
+It is very puzzling, I confess. I remember once that my youngest
+brother Davie, a very little fellow then, for he could not speak
+plainly, came running in great distress to Kirsty, crying, "Fee, fee!"
+by which he meant to indicate that a flea was rendering his life
+miserable. Kirsty at once undressed him and entered on the pursuit.
+After a successful search, while she was putting on his garments
+again, little Davie, who had been looking very solemn and thoughtful
+for some time, said, not in a questioning, but in a concluding tone--
+
+"God didn't make the fees, Kirsty!"
+
+"Oh yes, Davie! God made everything. God did make the fleas," said
+Kirsty.
+
+Davie was silent for a while. Then he opened his mouth and spake like
+a discontented prophet of old:
+
+"Why doesn't he give them something else to eat, then?"
+
+"You must ask himself that," said Kirsty, with a wisdom I have since
+learned to comprehend, though I remember it shocked me a little at the
+time.
+
+All this set me thinking. Before the dressing of little Davie was
+over, I had _my_ question to put to Kirsty. It was, in fact, the same
+question, only with a more important object in the eye of it.
+
+"_Then_ I suppose God made Mrs. Mitchell, as well as you and the rest
+of us, Kirsty?" I said.
+
+"Certainly, Ranald," returned Kirsty.
+
+"Well, I wish he hadn't," was my remark, in which I only imitated my
+baby brother, who was always much cleverer than I.
+
+"Oh! she's not a bad sort," said Kirsty; "though I must say, if I was
+her, I would try to be a little more agreeable."
+
+To return to Kirsty: she was our constant resort. The farmhouse was a
+furlong or so from the manse, but with the blood pouring from a cut
+finger, the feet would of themselves devour that furlong rather than
+apply to Mrs. Mitchell. Oh! she was dear, and good, and kind, our
+Kirsty!
+
+In person she was short and slender, with keen blue eyes and dark
+hair; an uncommonly small foot, which she claimed for all Highland
+folk; a light step, a sweet voice, and a most bounteous hand--but
+there I come into the moral nature of her, for it is the mind that
+makes the hand bountiful. For her face, I think that was rather queer,
+but in truth I can hardly tell, so entirely was it the sign of good to
+me and my brothers; in short, I loved her so much that I do not know
+now, even as I did not care then, whether she was nice-looking or not.
+She was quite as old as Mrs. Mitchell, but we never thought of _her_
+being old. She was our refuge in all time of trouble and necessity. It
+was she who gave us something to eat as often and as much as we
+wanted.  She used to say it was no cheating of the minister to feed
+the minister's boys.
+
+And then her stories! There was nothing like them in all that
+countryside. It was rather a dreary country in outward aspect, having
+many bleak moorland hills, that lay about like slow-stiffened waves,
+of no great height but of much desolation; and as far as the
+imagination was concerned, it would seem that the minds of former
+generations had been as bleak as the country, they had left such small
+store of legends of any sort. But Kirsty had come from a region where
+the hills were hills indeed--hills with mighty skeletons of stone
+inside them; hills that looked as if they had been heaped over huge
+monsters which were ever trying to get up--a country where every
+cliff, and rock, and well had its story--and Kirsty's head was full of
+such. It was delight indeed to sit by her fire and listen to them.
+That would be after the men had had their supper, early of a winter
+night, and had gone, two of them to the village, and the other to
+attend to the horses. Then we and the herd, as we called the boy who
+attended to the cattle, whose work was over for the night, would sit
+by the fire, and Kirsty would tell us stories, and we were in our
+heaven.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+I Begin Life
+
+
+I began life, and that after no pleasant fashion, as near as I can
+guess, about the age of six years. One glorious morning in early
+summer I found myself led by the ungentle hand of Mrs. Mitchell
+towards a little school on the outside of the village, kept by an old
+woman called Mrs. Shand. In an English village I think she would have
+been called Dame Shand: we called her Luckie Shand. Half dragged along
+the road by Mrs. Mitchell, from whose rough grasp I attempted in vain
+to extricate my hand, I looked around at the shining fields and up at
+the blue sky, where a lark was singing as if he had just found out
+that he could sing, with something like the despair of a man going to
+the gallows and bidding farewell to the world. We had to cross a
+little stream, and when we reached the middle of the foot-bridge, I
+tugged yet again at my imprisoned hand, with a half-formed intention
+of throwing myself into the brook. But my efforts were still
+unavailing.  Over a half-mile or so, rendered weary by unwillingness,
+I was led to the cottage door--no such cottage as some of my readers
+will picture, with roses and honeysuckle hiding its walls, but a
+dreary little house with nothing green to cover the brown stones of
+which it was built, and having an open ditch in front of it with a
+stone slab over it for a bridge. Did I say there was nothing on the
+walls? This morning there was the loveliest sunshine, and that I was
+going to leave behind. It was very bitter, especially as I had
+expected to go with my elder brother to spend the day at a
+neighbouring farm.
+
+Mrs. Mitchell opened the door, and led me in. It was an awful
+experience.  Dame Shand stood at her table ironing. She was as tall as
+Mrs. Mitchell, and that was enough to prejudice me against her at
+once.  She wore a close-fitting widow's cap, with a black ribbon round
+it. Her hair was grey, and her face was as grey as her hair, and her
+skin was gathered in wrinkles about her mouth, where they twitched and
+twitched, as if she were constantly meditating something unpleasant.
+She looked up inquiringly.
+
+"I've brought you a new scholar," said Mrs. Mitchell.
+
+"Well. Very well," said the dame, in a dubious tone. "I hope he's a
+good boy, for he must be good if he comes here."
+
+"Well, he's just middling. His father spares the rod, Mrs. Shand, and
+we know what comes of that."
+
+They went on with their talk, which, as far as I can recall it, was
+complimentary to none but the two women themselves. Meantime I was
+making what observations my terror would allow. About a dozen children
+were seated on forms along the walls, looking over the tops of their
+spelling-books at the newcomer. In the farther corner two were kicking
+at each other as opportunity offered, looking very angry, but not
+daring to cry. My next discovery was terribly disconcerting. Some
+movement drew my eyes to the floor; there I saw a boy of my own age on
+all-fours, fastened by a string to a leg of the table at which the
+dame was ironing, while--horrible to relate!--a dog, not very big but
+very ugly, and big enough to be frightened at, lay under the table
+watching him. I gazed in utter dismay.
+
+"Ah, you may look!" said the dame. "If you're not a good boy, that is
+how you shall be served. The dog shall have you to look after."
+
+I trembled, and was speechless. After some further confabulation,
+Mrs. Mitchell took her leave, saying--
+
+"I'll come back for him at one o'clock, and if I don't come, just keep
+him till I do come."
+
+The dame accompanied her to the door, and then I discovered that she
+was lame, and hobbled very much. A resolution arose full-formed in my
+brain.
+
+I sat down on the form near the door, and kept very quiet. Had it not
+been for the intention I cherished, I am sure I should have cried.
+When the dame returned, she resumed her box-iron, in which the heater
+went rattling about, as, standing on one leg--the other was so much
+shorter--she moved it to and fro over the garment on the table. Then
+she called me to her by name in a would-be pompous manner. I obeyed,
+trembling.
+
+"Can you say your letters?" she asked.
+
+Now, although I could not read, I could repeat the alphabet; how I had
+learned it I do not know. I did repeat it.
+
+"How many questions of your catechism can you say?" she asked next.
+
+Not knowing with certainty what she meant, I was silent.
+
+"No sulking!" said the dame; and opening a drawer in the table, she
+took out a catechism. Turning back the cover she put it in my hand,
+and told me to learn the first question. She had not even inquired
+whether I could read. I took the catechism, and stood as before.
+
+"Go to your seat," she said.
+
+I obeyed, and with the book before me pondered my plan.
+
+Everything depended on whether I could open the door before she could
+reach me. Once out of the house, I was sure of running faster than she
+could follow. And soon I had my first experience of how those are
+helped who will help themselves.
+
+The ironing of course required a fire to make the irons hot, and as
+the morning went on, the sunshine on the walls, conspiring with the
+fire on the hearth, made the place too hot for the comfort of the old
+dame. She went and set the door wide open. I was instantly on the
+alert, watching for an opportunity. One soon occurred.
+
+A class of some five or six was reading, if reading it could be
+called, out of the Bible. At length it came to the turn of one who
+blundered dreadfully. It was the same boy who had been tied under the
+table, but he had been released for his lesson. The dame hobbled to
+him, and found he had his book upside down; whereupon she turned in
+wrath to the table, and took from the drawer a long leather strap,
+with which she proceeded to chastise him. As his first cry reached my
+ears I was halfway to the door. On the threshold I stumbled and fell.
+
+"The new boy's running away!" shrieked some little sycophant inside.
+
+I heard with horror, but I was up and off in a moment. I had not,
+however, got many yards from the cottage before I heard the voice of
+the dame screaming after me to return. I took no heed--only sped the
+faster. But what was my horror to find her command enforced by the
+pursuing bark of her prime minister. This paralysed me. I turned, and
+there was the fiendish-looking dog close on my heels. I could run no
+longer. For one moment I felt as if I should sink to the earth for
+sheer terror. The next moment a wholesome rage sent the blood to my
+brain. From abject cowardice to wild attack--I cannot call it
+courage--was the change of an instant. I rushed towards the little
+wretch. I did not know how to fight him, but in desperation I threw
+myself upon him, and dug my nails into him. They had fortunately found
+their way to his eyes. He was the veriest coward of his species. He
+yelped and howled, and struggling from my grasp ran with his tail
+merged in his person back to his mistress, who was hobbling after me.
+But with the renewed strength of triumph I turned again for home, and
+ran as I had never run before. When or where the dame gave in, I do
+not know; I never turned my head until I laid it on Kirsty's bosom,
+and there I burst out sobbing and crying. It was all the utterance I
+had left.
+
+As soon as Kirsty had succeeded in calming me, I told her the whole
+story. She said very little, but I could see she was very angry. No
+doubt she was pondering what could be done. She got me some milk--half
+cream I do believe, it was so nice--and some oatcake, and went on with
+her work.
+
+While I ate I reflected that any moment Mrs. Mitchell might appear to
+drag me back in disgrace to that horrible den. I knew that Kirsty's
+authority was not equal to hers, and that she would be compelled to
+give me up. So I watched an opportunity to escape once more and hide
+myself, so that Kirsty might be able to say she did not know where I
+was.
+
+When I had finished, and Kirsty had left the kitchen for a moment, I
+sped noiselessly to the door, and looked out into the farmyard. There
+was no one to be seen. Dark and brown and cool the door of the barn
+stood open, as if inviting me to shelter and safety; for I knew that
+in the darkest end of it lay a great heap of oat-straw. I sped across
+the intervening sunshine into the darkness, and began burrowing in the
+straw like a wild animal, drawing out handfuls and laying them
+carefully aside, so that no disorder should betray my retreat. When I
+had made a hole large enough to hold me, I got in, but kept drawing
+out the straw behind me, and filling the hole in front. This I
+continued until I had not only stopped up the entrance, but placed a
+good thickness of straw between me and the outside. By the time I had
+burrowed as far as I thought necessary, I was tired, and lay down at
+full length in my hole, delighting in such a sense of safety as I had
+never before experienced. I was soon fast asleep.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+No Father
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+I woke, and creeping out of my lair, and peeping from the door of the
+barn, which looked into the cornyard, found that the sun was going
+down. I had already discovered that I was getting hungry. I went out
+at the other door into the close or farmyard, and ran across to the
+house. No one was there. Something moved me to climb on the form and
+look out of a little window, from which I could see the manse and the
+road from it. To my dismay, there was Mrs. Mitchell coming towards the
+farm. I possessed my wits sufficiently to run first to Kirsty's press
+and secure a good supply of oatcake, with which I then sped like a
+hunted hare to her form. I had soon drawn the stopper of straw into
+the mouth of the hole, where, hearing no one approach, I began to eat
+my oatcake, and fell asleep again before I had finished.
+
+And as I slept I dreamed my dream. The sun was looking very grave, and
+the moon reflected his concern. They were not satisfied with me. At
+length the sun shook his head; that is, his whole self oscillated on
+an axis, and the moon thereupon shook herself in response. Then they
+nodded to each other as much as to say, "That is entirely my own
+opinion." At last they began to talk; not as men converse, but both at
+once, yet each listening while each spoke. I heard no word, but their
+lips moved most busily; their eyebrows went up and down; their eyelids
+winked and winked, and their cheeks puckered and relaxed incessantly.
+There was an absolute storm of expression upon their faces; their very
+noses twisted and curled. It seemed as if, in the agony of their talk,
+their countenances would go to pieces. For the stars, they darted
+about hither and thither, gathered into groups, dispersed, and formed
+new groups, and having no faces yet, but being a sort of celestial
+tadpoles, indicated by their motions alone that they took an active
+interest in the questions agitating their parents. Some of them kept
+darting up and down the ladder of rays, like phosphorescent sparks in
+the sea foam.
+
+I could bear it no longer, and awoke. I was in darkness, but not in my
+own bed. When I proceeded to turn, I found myself hemmed in on all
+sides. I could not stretch my arms, and there was hardly room for my
+body between my feet and my head. I was dreadfully frightened at
+first, and felt as if I were being slowly stifled. As my brain awoke,
+I recalled the horrible school, the horrible schoolmistress, and the
+most horrible dog, over whose defeat, however, I rejoiced with the
+pride of a dragon-slayer. Next I thought it would be well to look
+abroad and reconnoitre once more. I drew away the straw from the
+entrance to my lair; but what was my dismay to find that even when my
+hand went out into space no light came through the opening. What could
+it mean? Surely I had not grown blind while I lay asleep. Hurriedly I
+shot out the remainder of the stopper of straw, and crept from the
+hole. In the great barn there was but the dullest glimmer of light; I
+had almost said the clumsiest reduction of darkness. I tumbled at one
+of the doors rather than ran to it. I found it fast, but this one I
+knew was fastened on the inside by a wooden bolt or bar, which I could
+draw back. The open door revealed the dark night. Before me was the
+cornyard, as we called it, full of ricks. Huge and very positive
+although dim, they rose betwixt me and the sky. Between their tops I
+saw only stars and darkness. I turned and looked back into the barn.
+It appeared a horrible cave filled with darkness. I remembered there
+were rats in it. I dared not enter it again, even to go out at the
+opposite door: I forgot how soundly and peacefully I had slept in it.
+I stepped out into the night with the grass of the corn-yard under my
+feet, the awful vault of heaven over my head, and those shadowy ricks
+around me. It was a relief to lay my hand on one of them, and feel
+that it was solid. I half groped my way through them, and got out into
+the open field, by creeping through between the stems of what had once
+been a hawthorn hedge, but had in the course of a hundred years grown
+into the grimmest, largest, most grotesque trees I have ever seen of
+the kind. I had always been a little afraid of them, even in the
+daytime, but they did me no hurt, and I stood in the vast hall of the
+silent night--alone: there lay the awfulness of it. I had never before
+known what the night was. The real sting of its fear lay in this--that
+there was nobody else in it. Everybody besides me was asleep all over
+the world, and had abandoned me to my fate, whatever might come out of
+the darkness to seize me. When I got round the edge of the stone wall,
+which on another side bounded the corn-yard, there was the
+moon--crescent, as I saw her in my dream, but low down towards the
+horizon, and lying almost upon her rounded back. She looked very
+disconsolate and dim. Even she would take no heed of me, abandoned
+child! The stars were high up, away in the heavens. They did not look
+like the children of the sun and moon at all, and _they_ took no heed
+of me. Yet there was a grandeur in my desolation that would have
+elevated my heart but for the fear. If I had had one living creature
+nigh me--if only the stupid calf, whose dull sleepy low startled me so
+dreadfully as I stood staring about me! It was not dark out here in
+the open field, for at this season of the year it is not dark there
+all night long, when the sky is unclouded. Away in the north was the
+Great Bear. I knew that constellation, for by it one of the men had
+taught me to find the pole-star. Nearly under it was the light of the
+sun, creeping round by the north towards the spot in the east where he
+would rise again. But I learned only afterwards to understand this. I
+gazed at that pale faded light, and all at once I remembered that God
+was near me. But I did not know what God is then as I know now, and
+when I thought about him then, which was neither much nor often, my
+idea of him was not like him; it was merely a confused mixture of
+other people's fancies about him and my own. I had not learned how
+beautiful God is; I had only learned that he is strong. I had been
+told that he was angry with those that did wrong; I had not understood
+that he loved them all the time, although he was displeased with them,
+and must punish them to make them good. When I thought of him now in
+the silent starry night, a yet greater terror seized me, and I ran
+stumbling over the uneven field.
+
+Does my reader wonder whither I fled? Whither should I fly but home?
+True, Mrs. Mitchell was there, but there was another there as well.
+Even Kirsty would not do in this terror. Home was the only refuge, for
+my father was there. I sped for the manse.
+
+But as I approached it a new apprehension laid hold of my trembling
+heart. I was not sure, but I thought the door was always locked at
+night. I drew nearer. The place of possible refuge rose before me. I
+stood on the grass-plot in front of it. There was no light in its
+eyes. Its mouth was closed. It was silent as one of the ricks. Above
+it shone the speechless stars. Nothing was alive. Nothing would
+speak. I went up the few rough-hewn granite steps that led to the
+door. I laid my hand on the handle, and gently turned it. Joy of joys!
+the door opened. I entered the hall. Ah! it was more silent than the
+night. No footsteps echoed; no voices were there. I closed the door
+behind me, and, almost sick with the misery of a being where no other
+being was to comfort it, I groped my way to my father's room. When I
+once had my hand on his door, the warm tide of courage began again to
+flow from my heart. I opened this door too very quietly, for was not
+the dragon asleep down below?
+
+"Papa! papa!" I cried, in an eager whisper. "Are you awake, papa?"
+
+No voice came in reply, and the place was yet more silent than the
+night or the hall. He must be asleep. I was afraid to call louder. I
+crept nearer to the bed. I stretched out my hands to feel for him. He
+must be at the farther side. I climbed up on the bed. I felt all
+across it. Utter desertion seized my soul--my father was not there!
+Was it a horrible dream? Should I ever awake? My heart sank totally
+within me. I could bear no more. I fell down on the bed weeping
+bitterly, and wept myself asleep.
+
+Years after, when I was a young man, I read Jean Paul's terrible dream
+that there was no God, and the desolation of this night was my key to
+that dream.
+
+Once more I awoke to a sense of misery, and stretched out my arms,
+crying, "Papa! papa!" The same moment I found my father's arms around
+me; he folded me close to him, and said--
+
+"Hush, Ranald, my boy! Here I am! You are quite safe."
+
+I nestled as close to him as I could go, and wept for blessedness.
+
+"Oh, papa!" I sobbed, "I thought I had lost you."
+
+"And I thought I had lost you, my boy. Tell me all about it."
+
+Between my narrative and my replies to his questionings he had soon
+gathered the whole story, and I in my turn learned the dismay of the
+household when I did not appear. Kirsty told what she knew. They
+searched everywhere, but could not find me; and great as my misery had
+been, my father's had been greater than mine. While I stood forsaken
+and desolate in the field, they had been searching along the banks of
+the river. But the herd had had an idea, and although they had already
+searched the barn and every place they could think of, he left them
+and ran back for a further search about the farm. Guided by the
+scattered straw, he soon came upon my deserted lair, and sped back to
+the riverside with the news, when my father returned, and after
+failing to find me in my own bed, to his infinite relief found me fast
+asleep on his; so fast, that he undressed me and laid me in the bed
+without my once opening my eyes--the more strange, as I had already
+slept so long. But sorrow is very sleepy.
+
+Having thus felt the awfulness and majesty of the heavens at night, it
+was a very long time before I again dreamed my childish dream.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+Mrs. Mitchell is Defeated
+
+
+After this talk with my father I fell into a sleep of perfect
+contentment, and never thought of what might be on the morrow till the
+morrow came. Then I grew aware of the danger I was in of being carried
+off once more to school. Indeed, except my father interfered, the
+thing was almost inevitable. I thought he would protect me, but I had
+no assurance. He was gone again, for, as I have mentioned already, he
+was given to going out early in the mornings. It was not early now,
+however; I had slept much longer than usual. I got up at once,
+intending to find him; but, to my horror, before I was half dressed,
+my enemy, Mrs. Mitchell, came into the room, looking triumphant and
+revengeful.
+
+"I'm glad to see you're getting up," she said; "it's nearly
+school-time."
+
+The tone, and the emphasis she laid on the word _school_, would have
+sufficed to reveal the state of her mind, even if her eyes had not
+been fierce with suppressed indignation.
+
+"I haven't had my porridge," I said.
+
+"Your porridge is waiting you--as cold as a stone," she answered. "If
+boys will lie in bed so late, what can they expect?"
+
+"Nothing from you," I muttered, with more hardihood than I had yet
+shown her.
+
+"What's that you're saying?" she asked angrily.
+
+I was silent.
+
+"Make haste," she went on, "and don't keep me waiting all day."
+
+"You needn't wait, Mrs. Mitchell. I am dressing as fast as I can. Is
+papa in his study yet?"
+
+"No. And you needn't think to see him. He's angry enough with you,
+I'll warrant"
+
+She little knew what had passed between my father and me already. She
+could not imagine what a talk we had had.
+
+"You needn't think to run away as you did yesterday. I know all about
+it Mrs. Shand told me all about it I shouldn't wonder if your papa's
+gone to see her now, and tell her how sorry he is you were so
+naughty."
+
+"I'm not going, to school."
+
+"We'll see about that"
+
+"I tell you I won't go."
+
+"And I tell you we'll see about it"
+
+"I won't go till I've seen papa. If he says I'm to go, I will of
+course; but I won't go for you."
+
+"You _will_, and you _won't_!" she repeated, standing staring at me,
+as I leisurely, but with hands trembling partly with fear, partly with
+rage, was fastening my nether garments to my waistcoat. "That's all
+very fine, but I know something a good deal finer. Now wash your
+face."
+
+"I won't, so long as you stand there," I said, and sat down on the
+floor. She advanced towards me.
+
+"If you touch me, I'll scream," I cried.
+
+She stopped, thought for a moment, and bounced out of the room. But I
+heard her turn the key of the door.
+
+I proceeded with my dressing as fast as I could then; and the moment I
+was ready, opened the window, which was only a few feet from the
+ground, scrambled out, and dropped. I hurt myself a little, but not
+much, and fled for the harbour of Kirsty's arms. But as I turned the
+corner of the house I ran right into Mrs. Mitchell's, who received me
+with no soft embrace. In fact I was rather severely scratched with
+a. pin in the bosom of her dress.
+
+"There! that serves you right," she cried. "That's a judgment on you
+for trying to run away again. After all the trouble you gave us
+yesterday too! You are a bad boy."
+
+"Why am I a bad boy?" I retorted.
+
+"It's bad not to do what you are told."
+
+"I will do what my papa tells me."
+
+"Your papa! There are more people than your papa in the world."
+
+"I'm to be a bad boy if I don't do what anybody like you chooses to
+tell me, am I?"
+
+"None of your impudence!"
+
+This was accompanied by a box on the ear. She was now dragging me into
+the kitchen. There she set my porridge before me, which I declined to
+eat.
+
+"Well, if you won't eat good food, you shall go to school without it."
+
+"I tell you I won't go to school."
+
+She caught me up in her arms. She was very strong, and I could not
+prevent her carrying me out of the house. If I had been the bad boy
+she said I was, I could by biting and scratching have soon compelled
+her to set me down; but I felt that I must not do that, for then I
+should be ashamed before my father. I therefore yielded for the time,
+and fell to planning. Nor was I long in coming to a resolution. I drew
+the pin that had scratched me from her dress. I believed she would not
+carry me very far; but if she did not set me down soon, I resolved to
+make her glad to do so. Further I resolved, that when we came to the
+foot-bridge, which had but one rail to it, I would run the pin into
+her and make her let me go, when I would instantly throw myself into
+the river, for I would run the risk of being drowned rather than go to
+that school. Were all my griefs of yesterday, overcome and on the
+point of being forgotten, to be frustrated in this fashion? My whole
+blood was boiling. I was convinced my father did not want me to go. He
+could not have been so kind to me during the night, and then send me
+to such a place in the morning. But happily for the general peace,
+things did not arrive at such a desperate pass. Before we were out of
+the gate, my heart leaped with joy, for I heard my father calling,
+"Mrs. Mitchell! Mrs. Mitchell!" I looked round, and seeing him coming
+after us with his long slow strides, I fell to struggling so violently
+in the strength of hope that she was glad to set me down. I broke from
+her, ran to my father, and burst out crying.
+
+"Papa! papa!" I sobbed, "don't send me to that horrid school. I can
+learn to read without that old woman to teach me."
+
+"Really, Mrs. Mitchell," said my father, taking me by the hand and
+leading me towards her, where she stood visibly flaming with rage and
+annoyance, "really, Mrs. Mitchell, you are taking too much upon you! I
+never said the child was to go to that woman's school. In fact I don't
+approve of what I hear of her, and I have thought of consulting some
+of my brethren in the presbytery on the matter before taking steps
+myself. I won't have the young people in my parish oppressed in such a
+fashion. Terrified with dogs too! It is shameful."
+
+"She's a very decent woman, Mistress Shand," said the housekeeper.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"I don't dispute her decency, Mrs. Mitchell; but I doubt very much
+whether she is fit to have the charge of children; and as she is a
+friend of yours, you will be doing her a kindness to give her a hint
+to that effect. It _may_ save the necessity for my taking further and
+more unpleasant steps."
+
+"Indeed, sir, by your leave, it would be hard lines to take the bread
+out of the mouth of a lone widow woman, and bring her upon the parish
+with a bad name to boot. She's supported herself for years with her
+school, and been a trouble to nobody."
+
+"Except the lambs of the flock, Mrs. Mitchell.--I like you for
+standing up for your friend; but is a woman, because she is lone and a
+widow, to make a Moloch of herself, and have the children sacrificed
+to her in that way? It's enough to make idiots of some of them. She
+had better see to it. You tell her that--from me, if you like. And
+don't you meddle with school affairs. I'll take my young men," he
+added with a smile, "to school when I see fit."
+
+"I'm sure, sir," said Mrs. Mitchell, putting her blue striped apron to
+her eyes, "I asked your opinion before I took him."
+
+"I believe I did say something about its being time he were able to
+read, but I recollect nothing more.--You must have misunderstood me,"
+he added, willing to ease her descent to the valley of her
+humiliation.
+
+She walked away without another word, sniffing the air as she went,
+and carrying her hands folded under her apron. From that hour I
+believe she hated me.
+
+My father looked after her with a smile, and then looked down on me,
+saying--
+
+"She's short in the temper, poor woman! and we mustn't provoke her."
+
+I was too well satisfied to urge my victory by further complaint. I
+could afford to let well alone, for I had been delivered as from the
+fiery furnace, and the earth and the sky were laughing around me. Oh!
+what a sunshine filled the world! How glad the larks, which are the
+praisers amongst the birds, were that blessed morning! The demon of
+oppression had hidden her head ashamed, and fled to her den!
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+A New Schoolmistress
+
+
+"But, Ranald," my father continued, "what are we to do about the
+reading? I fear I have let you go too long. I didn't want to make
+learning a burden to you, and I don't approve of children learning to
+read too soon; but really, at your age, you know, it is time you were
+beginning. I have time to teach you some things, but I can't teach you
+everything. I have got to read a great deal and think a great deal,
+and go about my parish a good deal. And your brother Tom has heavy
+lessons to learn at school, and I have to help him. So what's to be
+done, Ranald, my boy? You can't go to the parish school before you've
+learned your letters."
+
+"There's Kirsty, papa," I suggested.
+
+"Yes; there's Kirsty," he returned with a sly smile. "Kirsty can do
+everything, can't she?"
+
+"She can speak Gaelic," I said with a tone of triumph, bringing her
+rarest accomplishment to the forefront.
+
+"I wish you could speak Gaelic," said my father, thinking of his wife,
+I believe, whose mother tongue it was. "But that is not what you want
+most to learn. Do you think Kirsty could teach you to read English?"
+
+"Yes, I do."
+
+My father again meditated.
+
+"Let us go and ask her," he said at length, taking my hand.
+
+I capered with delight, nor ceased my capering till we stood on
+Kirsty's earthen floor. I think I see her now, dusting one of her deal
+chairs, as white as soap and sand could make it, for the minister to
+sit on. She never called him _the master_, but always _the minister_.
+She was a great favourite with my father, and he always behaved as a
+visitor in her house.
+
+"Well, Kirsty," he said, after the first salutations were over, "have
+you any objection to turn schoolmistress?"
+
+"I should make a poor hand at that," she answered, with a smile to me
+which showed she guessed what my father wanted. "But if it were to
+teach Master Ranald there, I should like dearly to try what I could
+do."
+
+She never omitted the _Master_ to our names; Mrs. Mitchell by no
+chance prefixed it. The natural manners of the Celt and Saxon are
+almost diametrically opposed in Scotland. And had Kirsty's speech been
+in the coarse dialect of Mrs. Mitchell, I am confident my father would
+not have allowed her to teach me. But Kirsty did not speak a word of
+Scotch, and although her English was a little broken and odd, being
+formed somewhat after Gaelic idioms, her tone was pure and her phrases
+were refined. The matter was very speedily settled between them.
+
+"And if you want to beat him, Kirsty, you can beat him in Gaelic, and
+then he won't feel it," said my father, trying after a joke, which was
+no common occurrence with him, whereupon Kirsty and I laughed in great
+contentment.
+
+The fact was, Kirsty had come to the manse with my mother, and my
+father was attached to her for the sake of his wife as well as for her
+own, and Kirsty would have died for the minister or any one of his
+boys. All the devotion a Highland woman has for the chief of her clan,
+Kirsty had for my father, not to mention the reverence due to the
+minister.
+
+After a little chat about the cows and the calves, my father rose,
+saying--
+
+"Then I'll just make him over to you, Kirsty. Do you think you can
+manage without letting it interfere with your work, though?"
+
+"Oh yes, sir--well that! I shall soon have him reading to me while I'm
+busy about. If he doesn't know the word, he can spell it, and then I
+shall know it--at least if it's not longer than Hawkie's tail."
+
+Hawkie was a fine milker, with a bad temper, and a comically short
+tail. It had got chopped off by some accident when she was a calf.
+
+"There's something else short about Hawkie--isn't there, Kirsty?" said
+my father.
+
+"And Mrs. Mitchell," I suggested, thinking to help Kirsty to my
+father's meaning.
+
+"Come, come, young gentleman! We don't want your remarks," said my
+father pleasantly.
+
+"Why, papa, you told me so yourself, just before we came up."
+
+"Yes, I did; but I did not mean you to repeat it. What if Kirsty were
+to go and tell Mrs. Mitchell?"
+
+Kirsty made no attempt at protestation. She knew well enough that my
+father knew there was no danger. She only laughed, and I, seeing
+Kirsty satisfied, was satisfied also, and joined in the laugh.
+
+The result was that before many weeks were over, Allister and wee
+Davie were Kirsty's pupils also, Allister learning to read, and wee
+Davie to sit still, which was the hardest task within his capacity.
+They were free to come or keep away, but not to go: if they did come,
+Kirsty insisted on their staying out the lesson. It soon became a
+regular thing. Every morning in summer we might be seen perched on a
+form, under one of the tiny windows, in that delicious brown light
+which you seldom find but in an old clay-floored cottage. In a
+fir-wood I think you have it; and I have seen it in an old castle; but
+best of all in the house of mourning in an Arab cemetery. In the
+winter, we seated ourselves round the fire--as near it as Kirsty's
+cooking operations, which were simple enough, admitted. It was
+delightful to us boys, and would have been amusing to anyone, to see
+how Kirsty behaved when Mrs. Mitchell found occasion to pay her a
+visit during lesson hours. She knew her step and darted to the door.
+Not once did she permit her to enter. She was like a hen with her
+chickens.
+
+"No, you'll not come in just now, Mrs. Mitchell," she would say, as
+the housekeeper attempted to pass. "You know we're busy."
+
+"I want to hear how they're getting on."
+
+"You can try them at home," Kirsty would answer.
+
+We always laughed at the idea of our reading to her. Once I believe
+she heard the laugh, for she instantly walked away, and I do not
+remember that she ever came again.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+We Learn Other Things
+
+
+We were more than ever at the farm now. During the summer, from the
+time we got up till the time we went to bed, we seldom approached the
+manse. I have heard it hinted that my father neglected us. But that
+can hardly be, seeing that then his word was law to us, and now I
+regard his memory as the symbol of the love unspeakable. My elder
+brother Tom always had his meals with him, and sat at his lessons in
+the study. But my father did not mind the younger ones running wild,
+so long as there was a Kirsty for them to run to; and indeed the men
+also were not only friendly to us, but careful over us. No doubt we
+were rather savage, very different in our appearance from town-bred
+children, who are washed and dressed every time they go out for a
+walk: that we should have considered not merely a hardship, but an
+indignity. To be free was all our notion of a perfect existence. But
+my father's rebuke was awful indeed, if he found even the youngest
+guilty of untruth, or cruelty, or injustice. At all kinds of
+escapades, not involving disobedience, he smiled, except indeed there
+were too much danger, when he would warn and limit.
+
+A town boy may wonder what we could find to amuse us all day long; but
+the fact is almost everything was an amusement, seeing that when we
+could not take a natural share in what was going on, we generally
+managed to invent some collateral employment fictitiously related to
+it. But he must not think of our farm as at all like some great farm
+he may happen to know in England; for there was nothing done by
+machinery on the place. There may be great pleasure in watching
+machine-operations, but surely none to equal the pleasure we had. If
+there had been a steam engine to plough my father's fields, how could
+we have ridden home on its back in the evening? To ride the
+horses home from the plough was a triumph. Had there been a
+thrashing-machine, could its pleasures have been comparable to that of
+lying in the straw and watching the grain dance from the sheaves under
+the skilful flails of the two strong men who belaboured them? There was
+a winnowing-machine, but quite a tame one, for its wheel I could drive
+myself--the handle now high as my head, now low as my knee--and watch at
+the same time the storm of chaff driven like drifting snowflakes from
+its wide mouth. Meantime the oat-grain was flowing in a silent slow
+stream from the shelving hole in the other side, and the wind, rushing
+through the opposite doors, aided the winnower by catching at the
+expelled chaff, and carrying it yet farther apart. I think I see old
+Eppie now, filling her sack with what the wind blew her; not with the
+grain: Eppie did not covet that; she only wanted her bed filled with
+fresh springy chaff, on which she would sleep as sound as her rheumatism
+would let her, and as warm and dry and comfortable as any duchess in the
+land that happened to have the rheumatism too. For comfort is inside
+more than outside; and eider down, delicious as it is, has less to do
+with it than some people fancy. How I wish all the poor people in the
+great cities could have good chaff beds to lie upon! Let me see: what
+more machines are there now? More than I can tell. I saw one going in
+the fields the other day, at the use of which I could only guess.
+Strange, wild-looking, mad-like machines, as the Scotch would call them,
+are growling and snapping, and clinking and clattering over our fields,
+so that it seems to an old boy as if all the sweet poetic twilight of
+things were vanishing from the country; but he reminds himself that God
+is not going to sleep, for, as one of the greatest poets that ever lived
+says, _he slumbereth not nor sleepeth_; and the children of the earth
+are his, and he will see that their imaginations and feelings have food
+enough and to spare. It is his business this--not ours. So the work must
+be done as well as it can. Then, indeed, there will be no fear of the
+poetry.
+
+I have just alluded to the pleasure of riding the horses, that is, the
+work-horses: upon them Allister and I began to ride, as far as I can
+remember, this same summer--not from the plough, for the ploughing was
+in the end of the year and the spring. First of all we were allowed to
+take them at watering-time, watched by one of the men, from the stable
+to the long trough that stood under the pump. There, going hurriedly
+and stopping suddenly, they would drop head and neck and shoulders
+like a certain toy-bird, causing the young riders a vague fear of
+falling over the height no longer defended by the uplifted crest; and
+then drink and drink till the riders' legs felt the horses' bodies
+swelling under them; then up and away with quick refreshed stride or
+trot towards the paradise of their stalls. But for us came first the
+somewhat fearful pass of the stable door, for they never stopped, like
+better educated horses, to let their riders dismount, but walked right
+in, and there was just room, by stooping low, to clear the top of the
+door. As we improved in equitation, we would go afield, to ride them
+home from the pasture, where they were fastened by chains to short
+stakes of iron driven into the earth. There was more of adventure
+here, for not only was the ride longer, but the horses were more
+frisky, and would sometimes set off at the gallop. Then the chief
+danger was again the door, lest they should dash in, and knock knees
+against posts and heads against lintels, for we had only halters to
+hold them with. But after I had once been thrown from back to neck,
+and from neck to ground in a clumsy but wild gallop extemporized by
+Dobbin, I was raised to the dignity of a bridle, which I always
+carried with me when we went to fetch them. It was my father's express
+desire that until we could sit well on the bare back we should not be
+allowed a saddle. It was a whole year before I was permitted to mount
+his little black riding mare, called Missy. She was old, it is
+true--nobody quite knew how old she was--but if she felt a light
+weight on her back, either the spirit of youth was contagious, or she
+fancied herself as young as when she thought nothing of twelve stone,
+and would dart off like the wind. In after years I got so found of
+her, that I would stand by her side flacking the flies from her as she
+grazed; and when I tired of that, would clamber upon her back, and lie
+there reading my book, while she plucked on and ground and mashed away
+at the grass as if nobody were near her.
+
+Then there was the choice, if nothing else were found more attractive,
+of going to the field where the cattle were grazing. Oh! the rich hot
+summer afternoons among the grass and the clover, the little
+lamb-daisies, and the big horse-daisies, with the cattle feeding
+solemnly, but one and another straying now to the corn, now to the
+turnips, and recalled by stern shouts, or, if that were unavailing, by
+vigorous pursuit and even blows! If I had been able to think of a
+mother at home, I should have been perfectly happy. Not that I missed
+her then; I had lost her too young for that. I mean that the memory of
+the time wants but that to render it perfect in bliss. Even in the
+cold days of spring, when, after being shut up all the winter, the
+cattle were allowed to revel again in the springing grass and the
+venturesome daisies, there was pleasure enough in the company and
+devices of the cowherd, a freckle-faced, white-haired, weak-eyed boy
+of ten, named--I forget his real name: we always called him Turkey,
+because his nose was the colour of a turkey's egg. Who but Turkey knew
+mushrooms from toadstools? Who but Turkey could detect earth-nuts--and
+that with the certainty of a truffle-hunting dog? Who but Turkey knew
+the note and the form and the nest and the eggs of every bird in the
+country? Who but Turkey, with his little whip and its lash of brass
+wire, would encounter the angriest bull in Christendom, provided he
+carried, like the bulls of Scotland, his most sensitive part, the
+nose, foremost? In our eyes Turkey was a hero. Who but Turkey could
+discover the nests of hens whose maternal anxiety had eluded the
+_finesse_ of Kirsty? and who so well as he could roast the egg with
+which she always rewarded such a discovery? Words are feeble before
+the delight we experienced on such an occasion, when Turkey,
+proceeding to light a fire against one of the earthen walls which
+divided the fields, would send us abroad to gather sticks and straws
+and whatever outcast combustibles we could find, of which there was a
+great scarcity, there being no woods or hedges within reach. Who like
+Turkey could rob a wild bee's nest? And who could be more just than he
+in distributing the luscious prize? In fine, his accomplishments were
+innumerable. Short of flying, we believed him capable of everything
+imaginable.
+
+What rendered him yet dearer to us, was that there was enmity between
+him and Mrs. Mitchell. It came about in this way. Although a good
+milker, and therefore of necessity a good feeder, Hawkie was yet upon
+temptation subject to the inroads of an unnatural appetite. When she
+found a piece of an old shoe in the field, she would, if not compelled
+to drop the delicious mouthful, go on, the whole morning or afternoon,
+in the impossibility of a final deglutition, chewing and chewing at
+the savoury morsel. Should this have happened, it was in vain for
+Turkey to hope escape from the discovery of his inattention, for the
+milk-pail would that same evening or next morning reveal the fact to
+Kirsty's watchful eyes. But fortunately for us, in so far as it was
+well to have an ally against our only enemy, Hawkie's morbid craving
+was not confined to old shoes. One day when the cattle were feeding
+close by the manse, she found on the holly-hedge which surrounded it,
+Mrs. Mitchell's best cap, laid out to bleach in the sun. It was a
+tempting morsel--more susceptible of mastication than shoe-leather.
+Mrs. Mitchell, who had gone for another freight of the linen with
+which she was sprinkling the hedge, arrived only in time to see the
+end of one of its long strings gradually disappearing into Hawkie's
+mouth on its way after the rest of the cap, which had gone the length
+of the string farther. With a wild cry of despair she flew at Hawkie,
+so intent on the stolen delicacy as to be more open to a surprise than
+usual, and laying hold of the string, drew from her throat the
+deplorable mass of pulp to which she had reduced the valued gaud. The
+same moment Turkey, who had come running at her cry, received full in
+his face the slimy and sloppy extract. Nor was this all, for Mrs.
+Mitchell flew at him in her fury, and with an outburst of abuse boxed
+his ears soundly, before he could recover his senses sufficiently to
+run for it. The degradation of this treatment had converted Turkey
+into an enemy before ever he knew that we also had good grounds for
+disliking her. His opinion concerning her was freely expressed to us
+if to no one else, generally in the same terms. He said she was as bad
+as she was ugly, and always spoke of her as _the old witch_.
+
+But what brought Turkey and us together more than anything else, was
+that he was as fond of Kirsty's stories as we were; and in the winter
+especially we would sit together in the evening, as I have already
+said, round her fire and the great pot upon it full of the most
+delicious potatoes, while Kirsty knitted away vigorously at her blue
+broad-ribbed stockings, and kept a sort of time to her story with the
+sound of her needles. When the story flagged, the needles went slower;
+in the more animated passages they would become invisible for
+swiftness, save for a certain shimmering flash that hovered about her
+fingers like a dim electric play; but as the story approached some
+crisis, their motion would at one time become perfectly frantic, at
+another cease altogether, as finding the subject beyond their power of
+accompanying expression. When they ceased, we knew that something
+awful indeed was at hand.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+In my next chapter I will give a specimen of her stories, choosing one
+which bears a little upon an after adventure.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+Sir Worm Wymble
+
+
+It was a snowy evening in the depth of winter. Kirsty had promised to
+tell us the tale of the armed knight who lay in stone upon the tomb in
+the church; but the snow was so deep, that Mrs. Mitchell, always glad
+when nature put it in her power to exercise her authority in a way
+disagreeable to us, had refused to let the little ones go out all day.
+Therefore Turkey and I, when the darkness began to grow thick enough,
+went prowling and watching about the manse until we found an
+opportunity when she was out of the way. The moment this occurred we
+darted into the nursery, which was on the ground floor, and catching
+up my two brothers, I wee Davie, he Allister, we hoisted them on our
+backs and rushed from the house. It was snowing. It came down in huge
+flakes, but although it was only half-past four o'clock, they did not
+show any whiteness, for there was no light to shine upon them. You
+might have thought there had been mud in the cloud they came from,
+which had turned them all a dark grey. How the little ones did enjoy
+it, spurring their horses with suppressed laughter, and urging us on
+lest the old witch should hear and overtake us! But it was hard work
+for one of the horses, and that was myself. Turkey scudded away with
+his load, and made nothing of it; but wee Davie pulled so hard with
+his little arms round my neck, especially when he was bobbing up and
+down to urge me on, half in delight, half in terror, that he nearly
+choked me; while if I went one foot off the scarcely beaten path, I
+sunk deep in the fresh snow.
+
+"Doe on, doe on, Yanal!" cried Davie; and Yanal did his very best, but
+was only halfway to the farm, when Turkey came bounding back to take
+Davie from him. In a few moments we had shaken the snow off our shoes
+and off Davie's back, and stood around Kirsty's "booful baze", as
+Davie called the fire. Kirsty seated herself on one side with Davie on
+her lap, and we three got our chairs as near her as we could, with
+Turkey, as the valiant man of the party, farthest from the centre of
+safety, namely Kirsty, who was at the same time to be the source of
+all the delightful horror. I may as well say that I do not believe
+Kirsty's tale had the remotest historical connection with Sir Worm
+Wymble, if that was anything like the name of the dead knight. It was
+an old Highland legend, which she adorned with the flowers of her own
+Celtic fancy, and swathed around the form so familiar to us all.
+
+"There is a pot in the Highlands," began Kirsty, "not far from our
+house, at the bottom of a little glen. It is not very big, but
+fearfully deep; so deep that they do say there is no bottom to it."
+
+"An iron pot, Kirsty?" asked Allister.
+
+"No, goosey," answered Kirsty. "A pot means a great hole full of
+water--black, black, and deep, deep."
+
+"Oh!" remarked Allister, and was silent.
+
+"Well, in this pot there lived a kelpie."
+
+"What's a kelpie, Kirsty?" again interposed Allister, who in general
+asked all the necessary questions and at least as many unnecessary.
+
+"A kelpie is an awful creature that eats people."
+
+"But what is it like, Kirsty?"
+
+"It's something like a horse, with a head like a cow."
+
+"How big is it? As big as Hawkie?"
+
+"Bigger than Hawkie; bigger than the biggest ox you ever saw."
+
+"Has it a great mouth?"
+
+"Yes, a terrible mouth."
+
+"With teeth?"
+
+"Not many, but dreadfully big ones."
+
+"Oh!"
+
+"Well, there was a shepherd many years ago, who lived not far from the
+pot. He was a knowing man, and understood all about kelpies and
+brownies and fairies. And he put a branch of the rowan-tree
+(_mountain-ash_), with the red berries in it, over the door of his
+cottage, so that the kelpie could never come in.
+
+"Now, the shepherd had a very beautiful daughter--so beautiful that
+the kelpie wanted very much to eat her. I suppose he had lifted up his
+head out of the pot some day and seen her go past, but he could not
+come out of the pot except after the sun was down."
+
+"Why?" asked Allister.
+
+"I don't know. It was the nature of the beast. His eyes couldn't bear
+the light, I suppose; but he could see in the dark quite well.--One
+night the girl woke suddenly, and saw his great head looking in at her
+window."
+
+"But how could she see him when it was dark?" said Allister.
+
+"His eyes were flashing so that they lighted up all his head,"
+answered Kirsty.
+
+"But he couldn't get in!"
+
+"No; he couldn't get in. He was only looking in, and thinking how he
+_should_ like to eat her. So in the morning she told her father. And
+her father was very frightened, and told her she must never be out one
+moment after the sun was down. And for a long time the girl was very
+careful. And she had need to be; for the creature never made any
+noise, but came up as quiet as a shadow. One afternoon, however, she
+had gone to meet her lover a little way down the glen; and they
+stopped talking so long, about one thing and another, that the sun was
+almost set before she bethought herself. She said good-night at once,
+and ran for home. Now she could not reach home without passing the
+pot, and just as she passed the pot, she saw the last sparkle of the
+sun as he went down."
+
+"I should think she ran!" remarked our mouthpiece, Allister.
+
+"She did run," said Kirsty, "and had just got past the awful black
+pot, which was terrible enough day or night without such a beast in
+it, when--"
+
+"But there _was_ the beast in it," said Allister.
+
+"When," Kirsty went on without heeding him, "she heard a great _whish_
+of water behind her. That was the water tumbling off the beast's back
+as he came up from the bottom. If she ran before, she flew now. And
+the worst of it was that she couldn't hear him behind her, so as to
+tell whereabouts he was. He might be just opening his mouth to take
+her every moment. At last she reached the door, which her father, who
+had gone out to look for her, had set wide open that she might run in
+at once; but all the breath was out of her body, and she fell down
+flat just as she got inside."
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Here Allister jumped from his seat, clapping his hands and crying--
+
+"Then the kelpie didn't eat her!--Kirsty! Kirsty!"
+
+"No. But as she fell, one foot was left outside the threshold, so that
+the rowan branch could not take care of it. And the beast laid hold of
+the foot with his great mouth, to drag her out of the cottage and eat
+her at his leisure."
+
+Here Allister's face was a picture to behold! His hair was almost
+standing on end, his mouth was open, and his face as white as my
+paper.
+
+"Make haste, Kirsty," said Turkey, "or Allister will go in a fit."
+
+"But her shoe came off in his mouth, and she drew in her foot and was
+safe."
+
+Allister's hair subsided. He drew a deep breath, and sat down
+again. But Turkey must have been a very wise or a very unimaginative
+Turkey, for here he broke in with--
+
+"I don't believe a word of it, Kirsty."
+
+"What!" said Kirsty--"don't believe it!"
+
+"No. She lost her shoe in the mud. It was some wild duck she heard in
+the pot, and there was no beast after her. She never saw it, you
+know."
+
+"She saw it look in at her window."
+
+"Yes, yes. That was in the middle of the night. I've seen as much
+myself when I waked up in the middle of the night. I took a rat for a
+tiger once."
+
+Kirsty was looking angry, and her needles were going even faster than
+when she approached the climax of the shoe.
+
+"Hold your tongue, Turkey," I said, "and let us hear the rest of the
+story."
+
+But Kirsty kept her eyes on her knitting, and did not resume.
+
+"Is that all, Kirsty?" said Allister.
+
+Still Kirsty returned no answer. She needed all her force to overcome
+the anger she was busy stifling. For it would never do for one in her
+position to lose her temper because of the unbelieving criticism of a
+herd-boy. It was a curious instance of the electricity flashed out in
+the confluence of unlike things--the Celtic faith and the Saxon
+works. For anger is just the electric flash of the mind, and requires
+to have its conductor of common sense ready at hand. After a few
+moments she began again as if she had never stopped and no remarks had
+been made, only her voice trembled a little at first.
+
+"Her father came home soon after, in great distress, and there he
+found her lying just within the door. He saw at once how it was, and
+his anger was kindled against her lover more than the beast. Not that
+he had any objection to her going to meet him; for although he was a
+gentleman and his daughter only a shepherd's daughter, they were both
+of the blood of the MacLeods."
+
+This was Kirsty's own clan. And indeed I have since discovered that
+the original legend on which her story was founded belongs to the
+island of Rasay, from which she came.
+
+"But why was he angry with the gentleman?" asked Allister.
+
+"Because he liked her company better than he loved herself," said
+Kirsty. "At least that was what the shepherd said, and that he ought
+to have seen her safe home. But he didn't know that MacLeod's father
+had threatened to kill him if ever he spoke to the girl again."
+
+"But," said Allister, "I thought it was about Sir Worm Wymble--not
+Mr. MacLeod."
+
+"Sure, boy, and am I not going to tell you how he got the new name of
+him?" returned Kirsty, with an eagerness that showed her fear lest the
+spirit of inquiry should spread. "He wasn't Sir Worm Wymble then. His
+name was--"
+
+Here she paused a moment, and looked full at Allister.
+
+"His name was Allister--Allister MacLeod."
+
+"Allister!" exclaimed my brother, repeating the name as an incredible
+coincidence.
+
+"Yes, Allister," said Kirsty. "There's been many an Allister, and not
+all of them MacLeods, that did what they ought to do, and didn't know
+what fear was. And you'll be another, my bonnie Allister, I hope," she
+added, stroking the boy's hair.
+
+Allister's face flushed with pleasure. It was long before he asked
+another question.
+
+"Well, as I say," resumed Kirsty, "the father of her was very angry,
+and said she should never go and meet Allister again. But the girl
+said she ought to go once and let him know why she could not come any
+more; for she had no complaint to make of Allister; and she had agreed
+to meet him on a certain day the week after; and there was no
+post-office in those parts. And so she did meet him, and told him all
+about it. And Allister said nothing much then. But next day he came
+striding up to the cottage, at dinner-time, with his claymore
+(_gladius major_) at one side, his dirk at the other, and his little
+skene dubh (_black knife_) in his stocking. And he was grand to
+see--such a big strong gentleman I And he came striding up to the
+cottage where the shepherd was sitting at his dinner.
+
+"'Angus MacQueen,' says he, 'I understand the kelpie in the pot has
+been rude to your Nellie. I am going to kill him.' 'How will you do
+that, sir?' said Angus, quite short, for he was the girl's father.
+'Here's a claymore I could put in a peck,' said Allister, meaning it
+was such good steel that he could bend it round till the hilt met the
+point without breaking; 'and here's a shield made out of the hide of
+old Rasay's black bull; and here's a dirk made of a foot and a half of
+an old Andrew Ferrara; and here's a skene dubh that I'll drive through
+your door, Mr. Angus. And so we're fitted, I hope.' 'Not at all,' said
+Angus, who as I told you was a wise man and a knowing; 'not one bit,'
+said Angus. 'The kelpie's hide is thicker than three bull-hides, and
+none of your weapons would do more than mark it.'  'What am I to do
+then, Angus, for kill him I will somehow?' 'I'll tell you what to do;
+but it needs a brave man to do that.' 'And do you think I'm not brave
+enough for that, Angus?' 'I know one thing you are not brave enough
+for.' 'And what's that?' said Allister, and his face grew red, only he
+did not want to anger Nelly's father. 'You're not brave enough to
+marry my girl in the face of the clan,' said Angus. 'But you shan't go
+on this way. If my Nelly's good enough to talk to in the glen, she's
+good enough to lead into the hall before the ladies and gentlemen.'
+
+"Then Allister's face grew redder still, but not with anger, and he
+held down his head before the old man, but only for a few moments.
+When he lifted it again, it was pale, not with fear but with
+resolution, for he had made up his mind like a gentleman. 'Mr. Angus
+MacQueen,' he said, 'will you give me your daughter to be my wife?'
+'If you kill the kelpie, I will,' answered Angus; for he knew that the
+man who could do that would be worthy of his Nelly."
+
+"But what if the kelpie ate him?" suggested Allister.
+
+"Then he'd have to go without the girl," said Kirsty, coolly. "But,"
+she resumed, "there's always some way of doing a difficult thing; and
+Allister, the gentleman, had Angus, the shepherd, to teach him.
+
+"So Angus took Allister down to the pot, and there they began. They
+tumbled great stones together, and set them up in two rows at a little
+distance from each other, making a lane between the rows big enough
+for the kelpie to walk in. If the kelpie heard them, he could not see
+them, and they took care to get into the cottage before it was dark,
+for they could not finish their preparations in one day. And they sat
+up all night, and saw the huge head of the beast looking in now at one
+window, now at another, all night long. As soon as the sun was up,
+they set to work again, and finished the two rows of stones all the
+way from the pot to the top of the little hill on which the cottage
+stood. Then they tied a cross of rowan-tree twigs on every stone, so
+that once the beast was in the avenue of stones he could only get out
+at the end. And this was Nelly's part of the job. Next they gathered a
+quantity of furze and brushwood and peat, and piled it in the end of
+the avenue next the cottage. Then Angus went and killed a little pig,
+and dressed it ready for cooking.
+
+"'Now you go down to my brother Hamish,' he said to Mr. MacLeod; 'he's
+a carpenter, you know,--and ask him to lend you his longest wimble.'"
+
+"What's a wimble?" asked little Allister.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"A wimble is a long tool, like a great gimlet, with a cross handle,
+with which you turn it like a screw. And Allister ran and fetched it,
+and got back only half an hour before the sun went down. Then they put
+Nelly into the cottage, and shut the door. But I ought to have told
+you that they had built up a great heap of stones behind the
+brushwood, and now they lighted the brushwood, and put down the pig to
+roast by the fire, and laid the wimble in the fire halfway up to the
+handle. Then they laid themselves down behind the heap of stones and
+waited.
+
+"By the time the sun was out of sight, the smell of the roasting pig
+had got down the avenue to the side of the pot, just where the kelpie
+always got out. He smelt it the moment he put up his head, and he
+thought it smelt so nice that he would go and see where it was. The
+moment he got out he was between the stones, but he never thought of
+that, for it was the straight way to the pig. So up the avenue he
+came, and as it was dark, and his big soft web feet made no noise, the
+men could not see him until he came into the light of the fire. 'There
+he is!' said Allister. 'Hush!' said Angus, 'he can hear well enough.'
+So the beast came on. Now Angus had meant that he should be busy with
+the pig before Allister should attack him; but Allister thought it was
+a pity he should have the pig, and he put out his hand and got hold of
+the wimble, and drew it gently out of the fire. And the wimble was so
+hot that it was as white as the whitest moon you ever saw. The pig was
+so hot also that the brute was afraid to touch it, and before ever he
+put his nose to it Allister had thrust the wimble into his hide,
+behind the left shoulder, and was boring away with all his might. The
+kelpie gave a hideous roar, and turned away to run from the wimble.
+But he could not get over the row of crossed stones, and he had to
+turn right round in the narrow space before he could run.  Allister,
+however, could run as well as the kelpie, and he hung on to the handle
+of the wimble, giving it another turn at every chance as the beast
+went floundering on; so that before he reached his pot the wimble had
+reached his heart, and the kelpie fell dead on the edge of the
+pot. Then they went home, and when the pig was properly done they had
+it for supper. And Angus gave Nelly to Allister, and they were
+married, and lived happily ever after."
+
+"But didn't Allister's father kill him?"
+
+"No. He thought better of it, and didn't. He was very angry for a
+while, but he got over it in time. And Allister became a great man,
+and because of what he had done, he was called Allister MacLeod no
+more, but Sir Worm Wymble. And when he died," concluded Kirsty, "he
+was buried under the tomb in your father's church. And if you look
+close enough, you'll find a wimble carved on the stone, but I'm afraid
+it's worn out by this time."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+The Kelpie
+
+
+Silence followed the close of Kirsty's tale. Wee Davie had taken no
+harm, for he was fast asleep with his head on her bosom. Allister was
+staring into the fire, fancying he saw the whorls of the wimble
+heating in it. Turkey was cutting at his stick with a blunt
+pocket-knife, and a silent whistle on his puckered lips. I was sorry
+the story was over, and was growing stupid under the reaction from its
+excitement. I was, however, meditating a strict search for the wimble
+carved on the knight's tomb. All at once came the sound of a latch
+lifted in vain, followed by a thundering at the outer door, which
+Kirsty had prudently locked. Allister, Turkey, and I started to our
+feet, Allister with a cry of dismay, Turkey grasping his stick.
+
+"It's the kelpie!" cried Allister.
+
+But the harsh voice of the old witch followed, something deadened by
+the intervening door.
+
+"Kirsty! Kirsty!" it cried; "open the door directly."
+
+"No, no, Kirsty!" I objected. "She'll shake wee Davie to bits, and
+haul Allister through the snow. She's afraid to touch me."
+
+Turkey thrust the poker in the fire; but Kirsty snatched it out, threw
+it down, and boxed his ears, which rough proceeding he took with the
+pleasantest laugh in the world. Kirsty could do what she pleased, for
+she was no tyrant. She turned to us.
+
+"Hush!" she said, hurriedly, with a twinkle in her eyes that showed
+the spirit of fun was predominant--"Hush!--Don't speak, wee Davie,"
+she continued, as she rose and carried him from the kitchen into the
+passage between it and the outer door. He was scarcely awake.
+
+Now, in that passage, which was wide, and indeed more like a hall in
+proportion to the cottage, had stood on its end from time immemorial a
+huge barrel, which Kirsty, with some housewifely intent or other, had
+lately cleaned out. Setting Davie down, she and Turkey lifted first me
+and popped me into it, and then Allister, for we caught the design at
+once. Finally she took up wee Davie, and telling him to lie as still
+as a mouse, dropped him into our arms. I happened to find the open
+bung-hole near my eye, and peeped out. The knocking continued.
+
+"Wait a bit, Mrs. Mitchell," screamed Kirsty; "wait till I get my
+potatoes off the fire."
+
+As she spoke, she took the great bow-pot in one hand and carried it to
+the door, to pour away the water. When she unlocked and opened the
+door, I saw through the bung-hole a lovely sight; for the moon was
+shining, and the snow was falling thick. In the midst of it stood
+Mrs. Mitchell, one mass of whiteness. She would have rushed in, but
+Kirsty's advance with the pot made her give way, and from behind
+Kirsty Turkey slipped out and round the corner without being seen.
+There he stood watching, but busy at the same time kneading snowballs.
+
+"And what may you please to want to-night, Mrs. Mitchell?" said
+Kirsty, with great civility.
+
+"What should I want but my poor children? They ought to have been in
+bed an hour ago. Really, Kirsty, you ought to have more sense at your
+years than to encourage any such goings on."
+
+"At my years!" returned Kirsty, and was about to give a sharp retort,
+but checked herself, saying, "Aren't they in bed then, Mrs. Mitchell?"
+
+"You know well enough they are not."
+
+"Poor things! I would recommend you to put them to bed at once."
+
+"So I will. Where are they?"
+
+"Find them yourself, Mrs. Mitchell. You had better ask a civil tongue
+to help you. I'm not going to do it."
+
+They were standing just inside the door. Mrs. Mitchell advanced. I
+trembled. It seemed impossible she should not see me as well as I saw
+her. I had a vague impression that by looking at her I should draw her
+eyes upon me; but I could not withdraw mine from the bung-hole. I was
+fascinated; and the nearer she came, the less could I keep from
+watching her. When she turned into the kitchen, it was a great relief;
+but it did not last long, for she came out again in a moment,
+searching like a hound. She was taller than Kirsty, and by standing on
+her tiptoes could have looked right down into the barrel. She was
+approaching it with that intent--those eyes were about to overshadow
+us with their baleful light. Already her apron hid all other vision
+from my one eye, when a whizz, a dull blow, and a shriek from Mrs.
+Mitchell came to my ears together. The next moment, the field of my
+vision was open, and I saw Mrs. Mitchell holding her head with both
+hands, and the face of Turkey grinning round the corner of the open
+door. Evidently he wanted to entice her to follow him; but she had
+been too much astonished by the snowball in the back of her neck even
+to look in the direction whence the blow had come. So Turkey stepped
+out, and was just poising himself in the delivery of a second missile,
+when she turned sharp round.
+
+The snowball missed her, and came with a great bang against the
+barrel.  Wee Davie gave a cry of alarm, but there was no danger now,
+for Mrs. Mitchell was off after Turkey. In a moment, Kirsty lowered
+the barrel on its side, and we all crept out. I had wee Davie on my
+back instantly, while Kirsty caught up Allister, and we were off for
+the manse. As soon as we were out of the yard, however, we met Turkey,
+breathless. He had given Mrs. Mitchell the slip, and left her
+searching the barn for him. He took Allister from Kirsty, and we sped
+away, for it was all downhill now. When Mrs. Mitchell got back to the
+farmhouse, Kirsty was busy as if nothing had happened, and when, after
+a fruitless search, she returned to the manse, we were all snug in
+bed, with the door locked. After what had passed about the school,
+Mrs. Mitchell did not dare make any disturbance.
+
+From that night she always went by the name of _the Kelpie_.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+Another Kelpie
+
+
+In the summer we all slept in a large room in the wide sloping roof.
+It had a dormer window, at no great distance above the eaves. One day
+there was something doing about the ivy, which covered all the gable
+and half the front of the house, and the ladder they had been using
+was left leaning against the back. It reached a little above the
+eaves, right under the dormer window. That night I could not sleep, as
+was not unfrequently the case with me. On such occasions I used to go
+wandering about the upper part of the house. I believe the servants
+thought I walked in my sleep, but it was not so, for I always knew
+what I was about well enough. I do not remember whether this began
+after that dreadful night when I woke in the barn, but I do think the
+enjoyment it gave me was rooted in the starry loneliness in which I
+had then found myself. I wonder if I can explain my feelings.  The
+pleasure arose from a sort of sense of protected danger. On that
+memorable night, I had been as it were naked to all the silence, alone
+in the vast universe, which kept looking at me full of something it
+knew but would not speak. Now, when wandering about sleepless, I could
+gaze as from a nest of safety out upon the beautiful fear. From window
+to window I would go in the middle of the night, now staring into a
+blank darkness out of which came, the only signs of its being, the
+raindrops that bespattered or the hailstones that berattled the panes;
+now gazing into the deeps of the blue vault, gold-bespangled with its
+worlds; or, again, into the mysteries of soft clouds, all gathered
+into an opal tent by the centre-clasp of the moon, thinking out her
+light over its shining and shadowy folds.
+
+This, I have said, was one of those nights on which I could not sleep.
+It was the summer after the winter-story of the kelpie, I believe; but
+the past is confused, and its chronology worthless, to the continuous
+_now_ of childhood. The night was hot; my little brothers were
+sleeping loud, as wee Davie called _snoring_; and a great moth had got
+within my curtains somewhere, and kept on fluttering and whirring. I
+got up, and went to the window. It was such a night! The moon was
+full, but rather low, and looked just as if she were thinking--"Nobody
+is heeding me: I may as well go to bed." All the top of the sky was
+covered with mackerel-backed clouds, lying like milky ripples on a
+blue sea, and through them the stars shot, here and there, sharp
+little rays like sparkling diamonds. There was no awfulness about it,
+as on the night when the gulfy sky stood over me, flashing with the
+heavenly host, and nothing was between me and the farthest world. The
+clouds were like the veil that hid the terrible light in the Holy of
+Holies--a curtain of God's love, to dim with loveliness the grandeur
+of their own being, and make his children able to bear it. My eye fell
+upon the top rounds of the ladder, which rose above the edge of the
+roof like an invitation. I opened the window, crept through, and,
+holding on by the ledge, let myself down over the slates, feeling with
+my feet for the top of the ladder. In a moment I was upon it. Down I
+went, and oh, how tender to my bare feet was the cool grass on which I
+alighted! I looked up. The dark housewall rose above me. I could
+ascend again when I pleased. There was no hurry. I would walk about a
+little. I would put my place of refuge yet a little farther off,
+nibble at the danger, as it were--a danger which existed only in my
+imagination. I went outside the high holly hedge, and the house was
+hidden. A grassy field was before me, and just beyond the field rose
+the farm buildings. Why should not I run across and wake Turkey? I was
+off like a shot, the expectation of a companion in my delight
+overcoming all the remnants of lingering apprehension. I knew there
+was only one bolt, and that a manageable one, between me and Turkey,
+for he slept in a little wooden chamber partitioned off from a loft in
+the barn, to which he had to climb a ladder. The only fearful part was
+the crossing of the barn-floor. But I was man enough for that. I
+reached and crossed the yard in safety, searched for and found the key
+of the barn, which was always left in a hole in the wall by the
+door,--turned it in the lock, and crossed the floor as fast as the
+darkness would allow me. With outstretched groping hands I found the
+ladder, ascended, and stood by Turkey's bed.
+
+"Turkey! Turkey! wake up," I cried. "It's such a beautiful night! It's
+a shame to lie sleeping that way."
+
+Turkey's answer was immediate. He was wide awake and out of bed with
+all his wits by him in a moment.
+
+"Sh! sh!" he said, "or you'll wake Oscar."
+
+Oscar was a colley (_sheep dog_) which slept in a kennel in the
+cornyard. He was not much of a watch-dog, for there was no great
+occasion for watching, and he knew it, and slept like a human child;
+but he was the most knowing of dogs. Turkey was proceeding to dress.
+
+"Never mind your clothes, Turkey," I said. "There's nobody up."
+
+Willing enough to spare himself trouble, Turkey followed me in his
+shirt. But once we were out in the cornyard, instead of finding
+contentment in the sky and the moon, as I did, he wanted to know what
+we were going to do.
+
+"It's not a bad sort of night," he said; "what shall we do with it?"
+
+He was always wanting to do something.
+
+"Oh, nothing," I answered; "only look about us a bit."
+
+"You didn't hear robbers, did you?" he asked.
+
+"Oh dear, no! I couldn't sleep, and got down the ladder, and came to
+wake you--that's all."
+
+"Let's have a walk, then," he said.
+
+Now that I had Turkey, there was scarcely more terror in the night
+than in the day. I consented at once. That we had no shoes on was not
+of the least consequence to Scotch boys. I often, and Turkey always,
+went barefooted in summer.
+
+As we left the barn, Turkey had caught up his little whip. He was
+never to be seen without either that or his club, as we called the
+stick he carried when he was herding the cattle. Finding him thus
+armed, I begged him to give me his club. He ran and fetched it, and,
+thus equipped, we set out for nowhere in the middle of the night. My
+fancy was full of fragmentary notions of adventure, in which shadows
+from The Pilgrim's Progress predominated. I shouldered my club, trying
+to persuade my imagination that the unchristian weapon had been won
+from some pagan giant, and therefore was not unfittingly carried. But
+Turkey was far better armed with his lash of wire than I was with the
+club. His little whip was like that fearful weapon called the morning
+star in the hand of some stalwart knight.
+
+We took our way towards the nearest hills, thinking little of where we
+went so that we were in motion. I guess that the story I have just
+related must, notwithstanding his unbelief, have been working in
+Turkey's brain that night, for after we had walked for a mile or more
+along the road, and had arrived at the foot of a wooded hill, well
+known to all the children of the neighbourhood for its bilberries, he
+turned into the hollow of a broken track, which lost itself in a field
+as yet only half-redeemed from the moorland. It was plain to me now
+that Turkey had some goal or other in his view; but I followed his
+leading, and asked no questions. All at once he stopped, and said,
+pointing a few yards in front of him:
+
+"Look, Ranald!"
+
+I did look, but the moon was behind the hill, and the night was so dim
+that I had to keep looking for several moments ere I discovered that
+he was pointing to the dull gleam of dark water. Very horrible it
+seemed. I felt my flesh creep the instant I saw it. It lay in a hollow
+left by the digging out of peats, drained thither from the surrounding
+bog. My heart sank with fear. The almost black glimmer of its surface
+was bad enough, but who could tell what lay in its unknown depth? But,
+as I gazed, almost paralysed, a huge dark figure rose up on the
+opposite side of the pool. For one moment the scepticism of Turkey
+seemed to fail him, for he cried out, "The kelpie! The kelpie!" and
+turned and ran.
+
+I followed as fast as feet utterly unconscious of the ground they trod
+upon could bear me. We had not gone many yards before a great roar
+filled the silent air. That moment Turkey slackened his pace, and
+burst into a fit of laughter.
+
+"It's nothing but Bogbonny's bull, Ranald!" he cried.
+
+Kelpies were unknown creatures to Turkey, but a bull was no more than
+a dog or a sheep, or any other domestic animal. I, however, did not
+share his equanimity, and never slackened my pace till I got up with
+him.
+
+"But he's rather ill-natured," he went on, the instant I joined him,
+"and we had better make for the hill."
+
+Another roar was a fresh spur to our speed. We could not have been in
+better trim for running. But it was all uphill, and had it not been
+that the ground for some distance between us and the animal was boggy,
+so that he had to go round a good way, one of us at least would have
+been in evil case.
+
+"He's caught sight of our shirts," said Turkey, panting as he ran,
+"and he wants to see what they are. But we'll be over the fence before
+he comes up with us. I wouldn't mind for myself; I could dodge him
+well enough; but he might go after you, Ranald."
+
+What with fear and exertion I was unable to reply. Another bellow
+sounded nearer, and by and by we could hear the dull stroke of his
+hoofs on the soft ground as he galloped after us. But the fence of dry
+stones, and the larch wood within it, were close at hand.
+
+"Over with you, Ranald!" cried Turkey, as if with his last breath; and
+turned at bay, for the brute was close behind him.
+
+But I was so spent, I could not climb the wall; and when I saw Turkey
+turn and face the bull, I turned too. We were now in the shadow of the
+hill, but I could just see Turkey lift his arm. A short sharp hiss,
+and a roar followed. The bull tossed his head as in pain, left Turkey,
+and came towards me. He could not charge at any great speed, for the
+ground was steep and uneven. I, too, had kept hold of my weapon; and
+although I was dreadfully frightened, I felt my courage rise at
+Turkey's success, and lifted my club in the hope that it might prove
+as good at need as Turkey's whip. It was well for me, however, that
+Turkey was too quick for the bull. He got between him and me, and a
+second stinging cut from the brass wire drew a second roar from his
+throat, and no doubt a second red streamlet from his nose, while my
+club descended on one of his horns with a bang which jarred my arm to
+the elbow, and sent the weapon flying over the fence. The animal
+turned tail for a moment--long enough to place us, enlivened by our
+success, on the other side of the wall, where we crouched so that he
+could not see us. Turkey, however, kept looking up at the line of the
+wall against the sky; and as he looked, over came the nose of the
+bull, within a yard of his head. Hiss went the little whip, and bellow
+went the bull.
+
+"Get up among the trees, Ranald, for fear he come over," said Turkey,
+in a whisper.
+
+I obeyed. But as he could see nothing of his foes, the animal had had
+enough of it, and we heard no more of him.
+
+After a while, Turkey left his lair and joined me. We rested for a
+little, and would then have clambered to the top of the hill, but we
+gave up the attempt as awkward after getting into a furze bush. In our
+condition, it was too dark. I began to grow sleepy, also, and thought
+I should like to exchange the hillside for my bed. Turkey made no
+objection, so we trudged home again; not without sundry starts and
+quick glances to make sure that the bull was neither after us on the
+road, nor watching us from behind this bush or that hillock. Turkey
+never left me till he saw me safe up the ladder; nay, after I was in
+bed, I spied his face peeping in at the window from the topmost round
+of it. By this time the east had begun to begin to glow, as Allister,
+who was painfully exact, would have said; but I was fairly tired now,
+and, falling asleep at once, never woke until Mrs. Mitchell pulled the
+clothes off me, an indignity which I keenly felt, but did not yet know
+how to render impossible for the future.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+Wandering Willie
+
+
+[illustration]
+
+At that time there were a good many beggars going about the country,
+who lived upon the alms of the charitable. Among these were some
+half-witted persons, who, although not to be relied upon, were seldom
+to any extent mischievous. We were not much afraid of them, for the
+home-neighbourhood is a charmed spot round which has been drawn a
+magic circle of safety, and we seldom roamed far beyond it. There was,
+however, one occasional visitor of this class, of whom we stood in
+some degree of awe. He was commonly styled Foolish Willie. His
+approach to the manse was always announced by a wailful strain upon
+the bagpipes, a set of which he had inherited from his father, who had
+been piper to some Highland nobleman: at least so it was said. Willie
+never went without his pipes, and was more attached to them than to
+any living creature. He played them well, too, though in what corner
+he kept the amount of intellect necessary to the mastery of them was a
+puzzle. The probability seemed that his wits had not decayed until
+after he had become in a measure proficient in the use of the chanter,
+as they call that pipe by means of whose perforations the notes are
+regulated. However this may be, Willie could certainly play the pipes,
+and was a great favourite because of it--with children especially,
+notwithstanding the mixture of fear which his presence always
+occasioned them. Whether it was from our Highland blood or from
+Kirsty's stories, I do not know, but we were always delighted when the
+far-off sound of his pipes reached us: little Davie would dance and
+shout with glee. Even the Kelpie, Mrs. Mitchell that is, was
+benignantly inclined towards Wandering Willie, as some people called
+him after the old song; so much so that Turkey, who always tried to
+account for things, declared his conviction that Willie must be Mrs.
+Mitchell's brother, only she was ashamed and wouldn't own him. I do
+not believe he had the smallest atom of corroboration for the
+conjecture, which therefore was bold and worthy of the inventor. One
+thing we all knew, that she would ostentatiously fill the canvas bag
+which he carried by his side, with any broken scraps she could gather,
+would give him as much milk to drink as he pleased, and would speak
+kind, almost coaxing, words to the poor _natural_--words which sounded
+the stranger in our ears, that they were quite unused to like sounds
+from the lips of the Kelpie.
+
+It is impossible to describe Willie's dress: the agglomeration of
+ill-supplied necessity and superfluous whim was never exceeded. His
+pleasure was to pin on his person whatever gay-coloured cotton
+handkerchiefs he could get hold of; so that, with one of these behind
+and one before, spread out across back and chest, he always looked
+like an ancient herald come with a message from knight or nobleman. So
+incongruous was his costume that I could never tell whether kilt or
+trousers was the original foundation upon which it had been
+constructed. To his tatters add the bits of old ribbon, list, and
+coloured rag which he attached to his pipes wherever there was room,
+and you will see that he looked all flags and pennons--a moving grove
+of raggery, out of which came the screaming chant and drone of his
+instrument. When he danced, he was like a whirlwind that had caught up
+the contents of an old-clothes-shop. It is no wonder that he should
+have produced in our minds an indescribable mixture of awe and
+delight--awe, because no one could tell what he might do next, and
+delight because of his oddity, agility, and music. The first sensation
+was always a slight fear, which gradually wore off as we became anew
+accustomed to the strangeness of the apparition. Before the visit was
+over, wee Davie would be playing with the dangles of his pipes, and
+laying his ear to the bag out of which he thought the music came
+ready-made. And Willie was particularly fond of Davie, and tried to
+make himself agreeable to him after a hundred grotesque fashions. The
+awe, however, was constantly renewed in his absence, partly by the
+threats of the Kelpie, that, if so and so, she would give this one or
+that to Foolish Willie to take away with him--a threat which now fell
+almost powerless upon me, but still told upon Allister and Davie.
+
+One day, in early summer--it was after I had begun to go to school--I
+came home as usual at five o'clock, to find the manse in great
+commotion. Wee Davie had disappeared. They were looking for him
+everywhere without avail. Already all the farmhouses had been
+thoroughly searched. An awful horror fell upon me, and the most
+frightful ideas of Davie's fate arose in my mind. I remember giving a
+howl of dismay the moment I heard of the catastrophe, for which I
+received a sound box on the ear from Mrs. Mitchell. I was too
+miserable, however, to show any active resentment, and only sat down
+upon the grass and cried. In a few minutes, my father, who had been
+away visiting some of his parishioners, rode up on his little black
+mare. Mrs. Mitchell hurried to meet him, wringing her hands, and
+crying--
+
+"Oh, sir! oh, sir! Davie's away with Foolish Willie!"
+
+This was the first I had heard of Willie in connection with the
+affair. My father turned pale, but kept perfectly quiet.
+
+"Which way did he go?" he asked.
+
+Nobody knew.
+
+"How long is it ago?"
+
+"About an hour and a half, I think," said Mrs. Mitchell.
+
+To me the news was some relief. Now I could at least do something. I
+left the group, and hurried away to find Turkey. Except my father, I
+trusted more in Turkey than in anyone. I got on a rising ground near
+the manse, and looked all about until I found where the cattle were
+feeding that afternoon, and then darted off at full speed. They were
+at some distance from home, and I found that Turkey had heard nothing
+of the mishap. When I had succeeded in conveying the dreadful news, he
+shouldered his club, and said--
+
+"The cows must look after themselves, Ranald!"
+
+With the words he set off at a good swinging trot in the direction of
+a little rocky knoll in a hollow about half a mile away, which he knew
+to be a favourite haunt of Wandering Willie, as often as he came into
+the neighbourhood. On this knoll grew some stunted trees, gnarled and
+old, with very mossy stems. There was moss on the stones too, and
+between them grew lovely harebells, and at the foot of the knoll there
+were always in the season tall foxgloves, which had imparted a certain
+fear to the spot in my fancy. For there they call them _Dead Man's
+Bells_, and I thought there was a murdered man buried somewhere
+thereabout. I should not have liked to be there alone even in the
+broad daylight. But with Turkey I would have gone at any hour, even
+without the impulse which now urged me to follow him at my best
+speed. There was some marshy ground between us and the knoll, but we
+floundered through it; and then Turkey, who was some distance ahead of
+me, dropped into a walk, and began to reconnoitre the knoll with some
+caution. I soon got up with him.
+
+"He's there, Ranald!" he said.
+
+"Who? Davie?"
+
+"I don't know about Davie; but Willie's there."
+
+"How do you know?"
+
+"I heard his bagpipes grunt. Perhaps Davie sat down upon them."
+
+"Oh, run, Turkey!" I said, eagerly.
+
+"No hurry," he returned. "If Willie has him, he won't hurt him, but it
+mayn't be easy to get him away. We must creep up and see what can be
+done."
+
+Half dead as some of the trees were, there was foliage enough upon
+them to hide Willie, and Turkey hoped it would help to hide our
+approach. He went down on his hands and knees, and thus crept towards
+the knoll, skirting it partly, because a little way round it was
+steeper. I followed his example, and found I was his match at crawling
+in four-footed fashion. When we reached the steep side, we lay still
+and listened.
+
+"He's there!" I cried in a whisper.
+
+"Sh!" said Turkey; "I hear him. It's all right. We'll soon have a
+hold of him."
+
+A weary whimper as of a child worn out with hopeless crying had
+reached our ears. Turkey immediately began to climb the side of the
+knoll.
+
+"Stay where you are, Ranald," he said. "I can go up quieter than you."
+
+I obeyed. Cautious as a deer-stalker, he ascended, still on his hands
+and knees. I strained my eyes after his every motion. But when he was
+near the top he lay perfectly quiet, and continued so till I could
+bear it no longer, and crept up after him. When I came behind him, he
+looked round angrily, and made a most emphatic contortion of his face;
+after which I dared not climb to a level with him, but lay trembling
+with expectation. The next moment I heard him call in a low whisper:
+
+"Davie! Davie! wee Davie!"
+
+But there was no reply. He called a little louder, evidently trying to
+reach by degrees just the pitch that would pierce to Davie's ears and
+not arrive at Wandering Willie's, who I rightly presumed was farther
+off. His tones grew louder and louder--but had not yet risen above a
+sharp whisper, when at length a small trembling voice cried "Turkey!
+Turkey!" in prolonged accents of mingled hope and pain. There was a
+sound in the bushes above me--a louder sound and a rush. Turkey sprang
+to his feet and vanished. I followed. Before I reached the top, there
+came a despairing cry from Davie, and a shout and a gabble from
+Willie.  Then followed a louder shout and a louder gabble, mixed with
+a scream from the bagpipes, and an exulting laugh from Turkey. All
+this passed in the moment I spent in getting to the top, the last step
+of which was difficult. There was Davie alone in the thicket, Turkey
+scudding down the opposite slope with the bagpipes under his arm, and
+Wandering Willie pursuing him in a foaming fury. I caught Davie in my
+arms from where he lay sobbing and crying "Yanal!  Yanal!" and stood
+for a moment not knowing what to do, but resolved to fight with teeth
+and nails before Willie should take him again. Meantime Turkey led
+Willie towards the deepest of the boggy ground, in which both were
+very soon floundering, only Turkey, being the lighter, had the
+advantage. When I saw that, I resolved to make for home. I got Davie
+on my back, and slid down the farther side to skirt the bog, for I
+knew I should stick in it with Davie's weight added to my own. I had
+not gone far, however, before a howl from Willie made me aware that he
+had caught sight of us; and looking round, I saw him turn from Turkey
+and come after us. Presently, however, he hesitated, then stopped, and
+began looking this way and that from the one to the other of his
+treasures, both in evil hands. Doubtless his indecision would have
+been very ludicrous to anyone who had not such a stake in the turn of
+the scale. As it was, he made up his mind far too soon, for he chose
+to follow Davie. I ran my best in the very strength of despair for
+some distance, but, seeing very soon that I had no chance, I set Davie
+down, telling him to keep behind me, and prepared, like the Knight of
+the Red Cross, "sad battle to darrayne". Willie came on in fury, his
+rags fluttering like ten scarecrows, and he waving his arms in the
+air, with wild gestures and grimaces and cries and curses. He was more
+terrible than the bull, and Turkey was behind him. I was just, like a
+negro, preparing to run my head into the pit of his stomach, and so
+upset him if I could, when I saw Turkey running towards us at full
+speed, blowing into the bagpipes as he ran. How he found breath for
+both I cannot understand. At length, he put the bag under his arm, and
+forth issued such a combination of screeching and grunting and
+howling, that Wandering Willie, in the full career of his rage, turned
+at the cries of his companion. Then came Turkey's masterpiece. He
+dashed the bagpipes on the ground, and commenced kicking them before
+him like a football, and the pipes cried out at every kick. If
+Turkey's first object had been their utter demolition, he could not
+have treated them more unmercifully. It was no time for gentle
+measures: my life hung in the balance. But this was more than Willie
+could bear. He turned from us, and once again pursued his pipes. When
+he had nearly overtaken him, Turkey gave them a last masterly kick,
+which sent them flying through the air, caught them as they fell, and
+again sought the bog, while I, hoisting Davie on my back, hurried,
+with more haste than speed, towards the manse.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+What took place after I left them, I have only from Turkey's report,
+for I never looked behind me till I reached the little green before
+the house, where, setting Davie down, I threw myself on the grass. I
+remember nothing more till I came to myself in bed.
+
+When Turkey reached the bog, and had got Wandering Willie well into
+the middle of it, he threw the bagpipes as far beyond him as he could,
+and then made his way out. Willie followed the pipes, took them, held
+them up between him and the sky as if appealing to heaven against the
+cruelty, then sat down in the middle of the bog upon a solitary hump,
+and cried like a child. Turkey stood and watched him, at first with
+feelings of triumph, which by slow degrees cooled down until at length
+they passed over into compassion, and he grew heartily sorry for the
+poor fellow, although there was no room for repentance. After Willie
+had cried for a while, he took the instrument as if it had been the
+mangled corpse of his son, and proceeded to examine it. Turkey
+declared his certainty that none of the pipes were broken; but when at
+length Willie put the mouthpiece to his lips, and began to blow into
+the bag, alas! it would hold no wind. He flung it from him in anger
+and cried again. Turkey left him crying in the middle of the bog. He
+said it was a pitiful sight.
+
+It was long before Willie appeared in that part of the country again;
+but, about six months after, some neighbours who had been to a fair
+twenty miles off, told my father that they had seen him looking much
+as usual, and playing his pipes with more energy than ever. This was a
+great relief to my father, who could not bear the idea of the poor
+fellow's loneliness without his pipes, and had wanted very much to get
+them repaired for him. But ever after my father showed a great regard
+for Turkey. I heard him say once that, if he had had the chance,
+Turkey would have made a great general. That he should be judged
+capable of so much, was not surprising to me; yet he became in
+consequence a still greater being in my eyes.
+
+When I set Davie down, and fell myself on the grass, there was nobody
+near. Everyone was engaged in a new search for Davie. My father had
+rode off at once without dismounting, to inquire at the neighbouring
+toll-gate whether Willie had passed through. It was not very likely,
+for such wanderers seldom take to the hard high road; but he could
+think of nothing else, and it was better to do something. Having
+failed there, he had returned and ridden along the country road which
+passed the farm towards the hills, leaving Willie and Davie far behind
+him. It was twilight before he returned. How long, therefore, I lay
+upon the grass, I do not know. When I came to myself, I found a sharp
+pain in my side. Turn how I would, there it was, and I could draw but
+a very short breath for it. I was in my father's bed, and there was no
+one in the room. I lay for some time in increasing pain; but in a
+little while my father came in, and then I felt that all was as it
+should be. Seeing me awake, he approached with an anxious face.
+
+"Is Davie all right, father?" I asked.
+
+"He is quite well, Ranald, my boy. How do you feel yourself now?"
+
+"I've been asleep, father?"
+
+"Yes; we found you on the grass, with Davie pulling at you and trying
+to wake you, crying, 'Yanal won't peak to me. Yanal! Yanal!' I am
+afraid you had a terrible run with him. Turkey, as you call him, told
+me all about it. He's a fine lad Turkey!"
+
+"Indeed he is, father!" I cried with a gasp which betrayed my
+suffering.
+
+"What is the matter, my boy?" he asked.
+
+"Lift me up a little, please," I said, "I have _such_ a pain in my
+side!"
+
+"Ah!" he said, "it catches your breath. We must send for the old
+doctor."
+
+The old doctor was a sort of demigod in the place. Everybody believed
+and trusted in him; and nobody could die in peace without him any more
+than without my father. I was delighted at the thought of being his
+patient. I think I see him now standing with his back to the fire, and
+taking his lancet from his pocket, while preparations were being made
+for bleeding me at the arm, which was a far commoner operation then
+than it is now.
+
+That night I was delirious, and haunted with bagpipes. Wandering
+Willie was nowhere, but the atmosphere was full of bagpipes. It was an
+unremitting storm of bagpipes--silent, but assailing me bodily from
+all quarters--now small as motes in the sun, and hailing upon me; now
+large as feather-beds, and ready to bang us about, only they never
+touched us; now huge as Mount AEtna, and threatening to smother us
+beneath their ponderous bulk; for all the time I was toiling on with
+little Davie on my back. Next day I was a little better, but very
+weak, and it was many days before I was able to get out of bed. My
+father soon found that it would not do to let Mrs. Mitchell attend
+upon me, for I was always worse after she had been in the room for any
+time; so he got another woman to take Kirsty's duties, and set her to
+nurse me, after which illness became almost a luxury. With Kirsty
+near, nothing could go wrong. And the growing better was pure
+enjoyment.
+
+Once, when Kirsty was absent for a little while, Mrs. Mitchell brought
+me some gruel.
+
+"The gruel's not nice," I said.
+
+"It's perfectly good, Ranald, and there's no merit in complaining when
+everybody's trying to make you as comfortable as they can," said the
+Kelpie.
+
+"Let me taste it," said Kirsty, who that moment entered the
+room.--"It's not fit for anybody to eat," she said, and carried it
+away, Mrs. Mitchell following her with her nose horizontal.
+
+Kirsty brought the basin back full of delicious gruel, well boiled,
+and supplemented with cream. I am sure the way in which she
+transformed that basin of gruel has been a lesson to me ever since as
+to the quality of the work I did. No boy or girl can have a much
+better lesson than--to do what must be done as well as it can be
+done. Everything, the commonest, well done, is something for the
+progress of the world; that is, lessens, if by the smallest
+hair's-breadth, the distance between it and God.
+
+Oh, what a delight was that first glowing summer afternoon upon which
+I was carried out to the field where Turkey was herding the cattle! I
+could not yet walk. That very morning, as I was being dressed by
+Kirsty, I had insisted that I could walk quite well, and Kirsty had
+been over-persuaded into letting me try. Not feeling steady on my
+legs, I set off running, but tumbled on my knees by the first chair I
+came near. I was so light from the wasting of my illness, that Kirsty
+herself, little woman as she was, was able to carry me. I remember
+well how I saw everything double that day, and found it at first very
+amusing. Kirsty set me down on a plaid in the grass, and the next
+moment, Turkey, looking awfully big, and portentously healthy, stood
+by my side. I wish I might give the conversation in the dialect of my
+native country, for it loses much in translation; but I have promised,
+and I will keep my promise.
+
+"Eh, Ranald!" said Turkey, "it's not yourself?"
+
+"It's me, Turkey," I said, nearly crying with pleasure.
+
+"Never mind, Ranald," he returned, as if consoling me in some
+disappointment; "we'll have rare fun yet."
+
+"I'm frightened at the cows, Turkey. Don't let them come near me."
+
+"No, that I won't," answered Turkey, brandishing his club to give me
+confidence, "_I_'ll give it them, if they look at you from between
+their ugly horns."
+
+"Turkey," I said, for I had often pondered the matter during my
+illness, "how did Hawkie behave while you were away with me--that day,
+you know?"
+
+"She ate about half a rick of green corn," answered Turkey, coolly.
+"But she had the worst of it. They had to make a hole in her side, or
+she would have died. There she is off to the turnips!"
+
+He was after her with shout and flourish. Hawkie heard and obeyed,
+turning round on her hind-legs with a sudden start, for she knew from
+his voice that he was in a dangerously energetic mood.
+
+"You'll be all right again soon," he said, coming quietly back to
+me. Kirsty had gone to the farmhouse, leaving me with injunctions to
+Turkey concerning me.
+
+"Oh yes, I'm nearly well now; only I can't walk yet."
+
+"Will you come on my back?" he said.
+
+When Kirsty returned to take me home, there was I following the cows
+on Turkey's back, riding him about wherever I chose; for my horse was
+obedient as only a dog, or a horse, or a servant from love can
+be. From that day I recovered very rapidly.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+Elsie Duff
+
+
+How all the boys and girls stared at me, as timidly, yet with a sense
+of importance derived from the distinction of having been so ill, I
+entered the parish school one morning, about ten o'clock! For as I
+said before, I had gone to school for some months before I was taken
+ill. It was a very different affair from Dame Shand's tyrannical
+little kingdom. Here were boys of all ages, and girls likewise, ruled
+over by an energetic young man, with a touch of genius, manifested
+chiefly in an enthusiasm for teaching. He had spoken to me kindly the
+first day I went, and had so secured my attachment that it never
+wavered, not even when, once, supposing me guilty of a certain breach
+of orders committed by my next neighbour, he called me up, and, with
+more severity than usual, ordered me to hold up my hand. The lash
+stung me dreadfully, but I was able to smile in his face
+notwithstanding. I could not have done that had I been guilty. He
+dropped his hand, already lifted for the second blow, and sent me back
+to my seat. I suppose either his heart interfered, or he saw that I
+was not in need of more punishment. The greatest good he did me, one
+for which I shall be ever grateful, was the rousing in me of a love
+for English literature, especially poetry. But I cannot linger upon
+this at present, tempting although it be. I have led a busy life in
+the world since, but it has been one of my greatest comforts when the
+work of the day was over--dry work if it had not been that I had it to
+do--to return to my books, and live in the company of those who were
+greater than myself, and had had a higher work in life than mine. The
+master used to say that a man was fit company for any man whom he
+could understand, and therefore I hope often that some day, in some
+future condition of existence, I may look upon the faces of Milton and
+Bacon and Shakspere, whose writings have given me so much strength and
+hope throughout my life here.
+
+The moment he saw me, the master came up to me and took me by the
+hand, saying he was glad to see me able to come to school again.
+
+"You must not try to do too much at first," he added.
+
+This set me on my mettle, and I worked hard and with some success. But
+before the morning was over I grew very tired, and fell fast asleep
+with my head on the desk. I was informed afterwards that the master
+had interfered when one of my class-fellows was trying to wake me, and
+told him to let me sleep.
+
+When one o'clock came, I was roused by the noise of dismissal for the
+two hours for dinner. I staggered out, still stupid with sleep, and
+whom should I find watching for me by the door-post but Turkey!
+
+"Turkey!" I exclaimed; "you here!"
+
+"Yes, Ranald," he said; "I've put the cows up for an hour or two, for
+it was very hot; and Kirsty said I might come and carry you home."
+
+So saying he stooped before me, and took me on his strong back. As
+soon as I was well settled, he turned his head, and said:
+
+"Ranald, I should like to go and have a look at my mother. Will you
+come? There's plenty of time."
+
+"Yes, please, Turkey," I answered. "I've never seen your mother."
+
+He set off at a slow easy trot, and bore me through street and lane
+until we arrived at a two-storey house, in the roof of which his
+mother lived. She was a widow, and had only Turkey. What a curious
+place her little garret was! The roof sloped down on one side to the
+very floor, and there was a little window in it, from which I could
+see away to the manse, a mile off, and far beyond it. Her bed stood in
+one corner, with a check curtain hung from a rafter in front of it. In
+another was a chest, which contained all their spare clothes,
+including Turkey's best garments, which he went home to put on every
+Sunday morning. In the little grate smouldered a fire of oak-bark,
+from which all the astringent virtue had been extracted in the pits at
+the lanyard, and which was given to the poor for nothing.
+
+Turkey's mother was sitting near the little window, spinning. She was
+a spare, thin, sad-looking woman, with loving eyes and slow speech.
+
+"Johnnie!" she exclaimed, "what brings you here? and who's this
+you've brought with you?"
+
+Instead of stopping her work as she spoke, she made her wheel go
+faster than before; and I gazed with admiration at her deft fingering
+of the wool, from which the thread flowed in a continuous line, as if
+it had been something plastic, towards the revolving spool.
+
+"It's Ranald Bannerman," said Turkey quietly. "I'm his horse. I'm
+taking him home from the school. This is the first time he's been
+there since he was ill."
+
+Hearing this, she relaxed her labour, and the hooks which had been
+revolving so fast that they were invisible in a mist of motion, began
+to dawn into form, until at length they revealed their shape, and at
+last stood quite still. She rose, and said:
+
+"Come, Master Ranald, and sit down. You'll be tired of riding such a
+rough horse as that."
+
+"No, indeed," I said; "Turkey is not a rough horse; he's the best
+horse in the world."
+
+"He always calls me Turkey, mother, because of my nose," said Turkey,
+laughing.
+
+"And what brings you here?" asked his mother. "This is not on the road
+to the manse."
+
+"I wanted to see if you were better, mother."
+
+"But what becomes of the cows?"
+
+"Oh! they're all safe enough. They know I'm here."
+
+"Well, sit down and rest you both," she said, resuming her own place
+at the wheel. "I'm glad to see you, Johnnie, so be your work is not
+neglected. I must go on with mine."
+
+Thereupon Turkey, who had stood waiting his mother's will, deposited
+me upon her bed, and sat down beside me.
+
+"And how's your papa, the good man?" she said to me.
+
+I told her he was quite well.
+
+"All the better that you're restored from the grave, I don't doubt,"
+she said.
+
+I had never known before that I had been in any danger.
+
+"It's been a sore time for him and you too," she added. "You must be a
+good son to him, Ranald, for he was in a great way about you, they
+tell me."
+
+Turkey said nothing, and I was too much surprised to know what to say;
+for as often as my father had come into my room, he had always looked
+cheerful, and I had had no idea that he was uneasy about me.
+
+After a little more talk, Turkey rose, and said we must be going.
+
+"Well, Ranald," said his mother, "you must come and see me any time
+when you're tired at the school, and you can lie down and rest
+yourself a bit. Be a good lad, Johnnie, and mind your work."
+
+"Yes, mother, I'll try," answered Turkey cheerfully, as he hoisted me
+once more upon his back. "Good day, mother," he added, and left the
+room.
+
+I mention this little incident because it led to other things
+afterwards. I rode home upon Turkey's back; and with my father's
+leave, instead of returning to school that day, spent the afternoon in
+the fields with Turkey.
+
+In the middle of the field where the cattle were that day, there was a
+large circular mound. I have often thought since that it must have
+been a barrow, with dead men's bones in the heart of it, but no such
+suspicion had then crossed my mind. Its sides were rather steep, and
+covered with lovely grass. On the side farthest from the manse, and
+without one human dwelling in sight, Turkey and I lay that afternoon,
+in a bliss enhanced to me, I am afraid, by the contrasted thought of
+the close, hot, dusty schoolroom, where my class-fellows were talking,
+laughing, and wrangling, or perhaps trying to work in spite of the
+difficulties of after-dinner disinclination. A fitful little breeze,
+as if itself subject to the influence of the heat, would wake up for a
+few moments, wave a few heads of horse-daisies, waft a few strains of
+odour from the blossoms of the white clover, and then die away
+fatigued with the effort. Turkey took out his Jews' harp, and
+discoursed soothing if not eloquent strains.
+
+At our feet, a few yards from the mound, ran a babbling brook, which
+divided our farm from the next. Those of my readers whose ears are
+open to the music of Nature, must have observed how different are the
+songs sung by different brooks. Some are a mere tinkling, others are
+sweet as silver bells, with a tone besides which no bell ever had.
+Some sing in a careless, defiant tone. This one sung in a veiled
+voice, a contralto muffled in the hollows of overhanging banks, with a
+low, deep, musical gurgle in some of the stony eddies, in which a
+straw would float for days and nights till a flood came, borne round
+and round in a funnel-hearted whirlpool. The brook was deep for its
+size, and had a good deal to say in a solemn tone for such a small
+stream. We lay on the side of the hillock, I say, and Turkey's Jews'
+harp mingled its sounds with those of the brook. After a while he laid
+it aside, and we were both silent for a time.
+
+At length Turkey spoke.
+
+"You've seen my mother, Ranald."
+
+"Yes, Turkey."
+
+"She's all I've got to look after."
+
+"I haven't got any mother to look after, Turkey."
+
+"No. You've a father to look after you. I must do it, you know. My
+father wasn't over good to my mother. He used to get drunk sometimes,
+and then he was very rough with her. I must make it up to her as well
+as I can. She's not well off, Ranald."
+
+"Isn't she, Turkey?"
+
+"No. She works very hard at her spinning, and no one spins better than
+my mother. How could they? But it's very poor pay, you know, and
+she'll be getting old by and by."
+
+"Not to-morrow, Turkey."
+
+"No, not to-morrow, nor the day after," said Turkey, looking up with
+some surprise to see what I meant by the remark.
+
+He then discovered that my eyes had led my thoughts astray, and that
+what he had been saying about his mother had got no farther than into
+my ears. For on the opposite side of the stream, on the grass, like a
+shepherdess in an old picture, sat a young girl, about my own age, in
+the midst of a crowded colony of daisies and white clover, knitting so
+that her needles went as fast as Kirsty's, and were nearly as
+invisible as the thing with the hooked teeth in it that looked so
+dangerous and ran itself out of sight upon Turkey's mother's
+spinning-wheel. A little way from her was a fine cow feeding, with a
+long iron chain dragging after her. The girl was too far off for me to
+see her face very distinctly; but something in her shape, her posture,
+and the hang of her head, I do not know what, had attracted me.
+
+"Oh! there's Elsie Duff," said Turkey, himself forgetting his mother
+in the sight--"with her granny's cow! I didn't know she was coming
+here to-day."
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"How is it," I asked, "that she is feeding her on old James Joss's
+land?"
+
+"Oh! they're very good to Elsie, you see. Nobody cares much about her
+grandmother; but Elsie's not her grandmother, and although the cow
+belongs to the old woman, yet for Elsie's sake, this one here and that
+one there gives her a bite for it--that's a day's feed generally. If
+you look at the cow, you'll see she's not like one that feeds by the
+roadsides. She's as plump as needful, and has a good udderful of milk
+besides."
+
+"I'll run down and tell her she may bring the cow into this field
+to-morrow," I said, rising.
+
+"I would if it were _mine_" said Turkey, in a marked tone, which I
+understood.
+
+"Oh! I see, Turkey," I said. "You mean I ought to ask my father."
+
+"Yes, to be sure, I do mean that," answered Turkey.
+
+"Then it's as good as done," I returned. "I will ask him to-night."
+
+"She's a good girl, Elsie," was all Turkey's reply.
+
+How it happened I cannot now remember, but I know that, after all, I
+did not ask my father, and Granny Gregson's cow had no bite either off
+the glebe or the farm. And Turkey's reflections concerning the mother
+he had to take care of having been interrupted, the end to which they
+were moving remained for the present unuttered.
+
+I soon grew quite strong again, and had neither plea nor desire for
+exemption from school labours. My father also had begun to take me in
+hand as well as my brother Tom; and what with arithmetic and Latin
+together, not to mention geography and history, I had quite enough to
+do, and quite as much also as was good for me.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+A New Companion
+
+[Illustration]
+
+During this summer, I made the acquaintance at school of a boy called
+Peter Mason. Peter was a clever boy, from whose merry eye a sparkle
+was always ready to break. He seldom knew his lesson well, but, when
+_kept in_ for not knowing it, had always learned it before any of the
+rest had got more than half through. Amongst those of his own standing
+he was the acknowledged leader in the playground, and was besides
+often invited to take a share in the amusements of the older boys, by
+whom he was petted because of his cleverness and obliging
+disposition. Beyond school hours, he spent his time in all manner of
+pranks. In the hot summer weather he would bathe twenty times a day,
+and was as much at home in the water as any dabchick. And that was how
+I came to be more with him than was good for me.
+
+There was a small river not far from my father's house, which at a
+certain point was dammed back by a weir of large stones to turn part
+of it aside into a mill-race. The mill stood a little way down, under
+a steep bank. It was almost surrounded with trees, willows by the
+water's edge, and birches and larches up the bank. Above the dam was a
+fine spot for bathing, for you could get any depth you liked--from two
+feet to five or six; and here it was that most of the boys of the
+village bathed, and I with them. I cannot recall the memory of those
+summer days without a gush of delight gurgling over my heart, just as
+the water used to gurgle over the stones of the dam. It was a quiet
+place, particularly on the side to which my father's farm went down,
+where it was sheltered by the same little wood which farther on
+surrounded the mill. The field which bordered the river was kept in
+natural grass, thick and short and fine, for here on the bank it grew
+well, although such grass was not at all common in that part of the
+country: upon other parts of the same farm, the grass was sown every
+year along with the corn. Oh the summer days, with the hot sun drawing
+the odours from the feathery larches and the white-stemmed birches,
+when, getting out of the water, I would lie in the warm soft grass,
+where now and then the tenderest little breeze would creep over my
+skin, until the sun baking me more than was pleasant, I would rouse
+myself with an effort, and running down to the fringe of rushes that
+bordered the full-brimmed river, plunge again headlong into the quiet
+brown water, and dabble and swim till I was once more weary! For
+innocent animal delight, I know of nothing to match those days--so
+warm, yet so pure-aired--so clean, so glad. I often think how God must
+love his little children to have invented for them such delights!
+For, of course, if he did not love the children and delight in their
+pleasure, he would not have invented the two and brought them
+together. Yes, my child, I know what you would say,--"How many there
+are who have no such pleasures!" I grant it sorrowfully; but you must
+remember that God has not done with them yet; and, besides, that there
+are more pleasures in the world than you or I know anything about.
+And if we had it _all_ pleasure, I know I should not care so much
+about what is better, and I would rather be made good than have any
+other pleasure in the world; and so would you, though perhaps you do
+not know it yet.
+
+One day, a good many of us were at the water together. I was somebody
+amongst them in my own estimation because I bathed off my father's
+ground, while they were all on a piece of bank on the other side which
+was regarded as common to the village. Suddenly upon the latter spot,
+when they were all undressed, and some already in the water, appeared
+a man who had lately rented the property of which that was part,
+accompanied by a dog, with a flesh-coloured nose and a villainous
+look--a mongrel in which the bull predominated. He ordered everyone
+off his premises. Invaded with terror, all, except a big boy who
+trusted that the dog would be more frightened at his naked figure than
+he was at the dog, plunged into the river, and swam or waded from the
+inhospitable shore. Once in the embrace of the stream, some of them
+thoughtlessly turned and mocked the enemy, forgetting how much they
+were still in his power. Indignant at the tyrant, I stood up in the
+"limpid wave", and assured the aquatic company of a welcome to the
+opposite bank. So far all was very well. But their clothes! They,
+alas! were upon the bank they had left!
+
+The spirit of a host was upon me, for now I regarded them all as my
+guests.
+
+"You come ashore when you like," I said; "I will see what can be done
+about your clothes."
+
+I knew that just below the dam lay a little boat built by the miller's
+sons. It was clumsy enough, but in my eyes a marvel of engineering
+art. On the opposite side stood the big boy braving the low-bred cur
+which barked and growled at him with its ugly head stretched out like
+a serpent's; while his owner, who was probably not so unkind as we
+thought him, stood enjoying the fun of it all. Reckoning upon the big
+boy's assistance, I scrambled out of the water, and sped, like
+Achilles of the swift foot, for the boat. I jumped in and seized the
+oars, intending to row across, and get the big boy to throw the
+clothes of the party into the boat. But I had never handled an oar in
+my life, and in the middle passage--how it happened I cannot tell--I
+found myself floundering in the water.
+
+Now, although you might expect that the water being dammed back just
+here, it would be shallow below the dam, it was just the opposite. Had
+the bottom been hard, it would have been shallow; but as the bottom
+was soft and muddy, the rush of the water over the dam in the
+winter-floods had here made a great hollow. There was besides another
+weir a very little way below which again dammed the water back; so
+that the depth was greater here than in almost any other part within
+the ken of the village boys. Indeed there were horrors afloat
+concerning its depth. I was but a poor swimmer, for swimming is a
+natural gift, and is not equally distributed to all. I might have done
+better, however, but for those stories of the awful gulf beneath me.
+I was struggling and floundering, half-blind, and quite deaf, with a
+sense of the water constantly getting up and stopping me, whatever I
+wanted to do, when I felt myself laid hold of by the leg, dragged
+under water, and a moment after landed safe on the bank. Almost the
+same moment I heard a plunge, and getting up, staggering and
+bewildered, saw, as through the haze of a dream, a boy swimming after
+the boat, which had gone down with the slow current. I saw him
+overtake it, scramble into it in midstream, and handle the oars as to
+the manner born. When he had brought it back to the spot where I
+stood, I knew that Peter Mason was my deliverer. Quite recovered by
+this time from my slight attack of drowning, I got again into the
+boat, and leaving the oars to Peter, was rowed across and landed.
+There was no further difficulty. The man, alarmed, I suppose, at the
+danger I had run, recalled his dog; we bundled in the clothes; Peter
+rowed them across; Rory, the big boy, took the water after the boat,
+and I plunged in again above the dam. For the whole of that summer and
+part of the following winter, Peter was my hero, to the forgetting
+even of my friend Turkey. I took every opportunity of joining him in
+his games, partly from gratitude, partly from admiration, but more
+than either from the simple human attraction of the boy. It was some
+time before he led me into any real mischief, but it came at last.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+I Go Down Hill
+
+
+It came in the following winter.
+
+My father had now begun to teach me as well as Tom, but I confess I
+did not then value the privilege. I had got much too fond of the
+society of Peter Mason, and all the time I could command I spent with
+him. Always full of questionable frolic, the spirit of mischief
+gathered in him as the dark nights drew on. The sun, and the wind, and
+the green fields, and the flowing waters of summer kept him within
+bounds; but when the ice and the snow came, when the sky was grey with
+one cloud, when the wind was full of needle-points of frost and the
+ground was hard as a stone, when the evenings were dark, and the sun
+at noon shone low down and far away in the south, then the demon of
+mischief awoke in the bosom of Peter Mason, and, this winter, I am
+ashamed to say, drew me also into the net.
+
+Nothing very bad was the result before the incident I am about to
+relate. There must have been, however, a gradual declension towards
+it, although the pain which followed upon this has almost obliterated
+the recollection of preceding follies. Nobody does anything bad all at
+once. Wickedness needs an apprenticeship as well as more difficult
+trades.
+
+It was in January, not long after the shortest day, the sun setting
+about half-past three o'clock. At three school was over, and just as
+we were coming out, Peter whispered to me, with one of his merriest
+twinkles in his eyes:
+
+"Come across after dark, Ranald, and we'll have some fun."
+
+I promised, and we arranged when and where to meet. It was Friday, and
+I had no Latin to prepare for Saturday, therefore my father did not
+want me. I remember feeling very jolly as I went home to dinner, and
+made the sun set ten times at least, by running up and down the
+earthen wall which parted the fields from the road; for as often as I
+ran up I saw him again over the shoulder of the hill, behind which he
+was going down. When I had had my dinner, I was so impatient to join
+Peter Mason that I could not rest, and from very idleness began to
+tease wee Davie. A great deal of that nasty teasing, so common among
+boys, comes of idleness. Poor Davie began to cry at last, and I,
+getting more and more wicked, went on teasing him, until at length he
+burst into a howl of wrath and misery, whereupon the Kelpie, who had
+some tenderness for him, burst into the room, and boxed my ears
+soundly. I was in a fury of rage and revenge, and had I been near
+anything I could have caught up, something serious would have been the
+result. In spite of my resistance, she pushed me out of the room and
+locked the door. I would have complained to my father, but I was
+perfectly aware that, although _she_ had no right to strike me, I had
+deserved chastisement for my behaviour to my brother. I was still
+boiling with anger when I set off for the village to join Mason. I
+mention all this to show that I was in a bad state of mind, and thus
+prepared for the wickedness which followed. I repeat, a boy never
+disgraces himself all at once. He does not tumble from the top to the
+bottom of the cellar stair. He goes down the steps himself till he
+comes to the broken one, and then he goes to the bottom with a
+rush. It will also serve to show that the enmity between Mrs. Mitchell
+and me had in nowise abated, and that however excusable she might be
+in the case just mentioned, she remained an evil element in the
+household.
+
+When I reached the village, I found very few people about. The night
+was very cold, for there was a black frost. There had been a thaw the
+day before which had carried away the most of the snow, but in the
+corners lay remnants of dirty heaps which had been swept up there. I
+was waiting near one of these, which happened to be at the spot where
+Peter had arranged to meet me, when from a little shop near a girl
+came out and walked quickly down the street. I yielded to the
+temptation arising in a mind which had grown a darkness with slimy
+things crawling in it. I kicked a hole in the frozen crust of the
+heap, scraped out a handful of dirty snow, kneaded it into a snowball,
+and sent it after the girl. It struck her on the back of the head. She
+gave a cry and ran away, with her hand to her forehead.  Brute that I
+was, I actually laughed. I think I must have been nearer the devil
+then than I have been since. At least I hope so. For you see it was
+not with me as with worse-trained boys. I knew quite well that I was
+doing wrong, and refused to think about it. I felt bad inside. Peter
+might have done the same thing without being half as wicked as I
+was. He did not feel the wickedness of that kind of thing as I did. He
+would have laughed over it merrily. But the vile dregs of my wrath
+with the Kelpie were fermenting in my bosom, and the horrid pleasure I
+found in annoying an innocent girl because the wicked Kelpie had made
+me angry, could never have been expressed in a merry laugh like
+Mason's. The fact is, I was more displeased with myself than with
+anybody else, though I did not allow it, and would not take the
+trouble to repent and do the right thing. If I had even said to wee
+Davie that I was sorry, I do not think I should have done the other
+wicked things that followed; for this was not all by any means. In a
+little while Peter joined me. He laughed, of course, when I told him
+how the girl had run like a frighted hare, but that was poor fun in
+his eyes.
+
+"Look here, Ranald," he said, holding out something like a piece of
+wood.
+
+"What is it, Peter?" I asked.
+
+"It's the stalk of a cabbage," he answered. "I've scooped out the
+inside and filled it with tow. We'll set fire to one end, and blow the
+smoke through the keyhole."
+
+"Whose keyhole, Peter?"
+
+"An old witch's that I know of. She'll be in such a rage! It'll be fun
+to hear her cursing and swearing. We'd serve the same to every house
+in the row, but that would be more than we could get off with. Come
+along. Here's a rope to tie her door with first."
+
+I followed him, not without inward misgivings, which I kept down as
+well as I could. I argued with myself, "_I_ am not doing it; I am only
+going with Peter: what business is that of anybody's so long as I
+don't touch the thing myself?" Only a few minutes more, and I was
+helping Peter to tie the rope to the latch-handle of a poor little
+cottage, saying now to myself, "This doesn't matter. This won't do her
+any harm. This isn't smoke. And after all, smoke won't hurt the nasty
+old thing. It'll only make her angry. It may do her cough good: I dare
+say she's got a cough." I knew all I was saying was false, and yet I
+acted on it. Was not that as wicked as wickedness could be? One moment
+more, and Peter was blowing through the hollow cabbage stalk in at the
+keyhole with all his might. Catching a breath of the stifling smoke
+himself, however, he began to cough violently, and passed the wicked
+instrument to me. I put my mouth to it, and blew with all my might. I
+believe now that there was some far more objectionable stuff mingled
+with the tow. In a few moments we heard the old woman begin to
+cough. Peter, who was peeping in at the window, whispered--
+
+"She's rising. Now we'll catch it, Ranald!"
+
+Coughing as she came, I heard her with shuffling steps approach the
+door, thinking to open it for air. When she failed in opening it, and
+found besides where the smoke was coming from, she broke into a
+torrent of fierce and vengeful reproaches, mingled with epithets by no
+means flattering. She did not curse and swear as Peter had led me to
+expect, although her language was certainly far enough from refined;
+but therein I, being, in a great measure, the guilty cause, was more
+to blame than she. I laughed because I would not be unworthy of my
+companion, who was genuinely amused; but I was, in reality, shocked at
+the tempest I had raised. I stopped blowing, aghast at what I had
+done; but Peter caught the tube from my hand and recommenced the
+assault with fresh vigour, whispering through the keyhole, every now
+and then between the blasts, provoking, irritating, even insulting
+remarks on the old woman's personal appearance and supposed ways of
+living. This threw her into paroxysms of rage and of coughing, both
+increasing in violence; and the war of words grew, she tugging at the
+door as she screamed, he answering merrily, and with pretended
+sympathy for her sufferings, until I lost all remaining delicacy in
+the humour of the wicked game, and laughed loud and heartily.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Of a sudden the scolding and coughing ceased. A strange sound and
+again silence followed. Then came a shrill, suppressed scream; and we
+heard the voice of a girl, crying:
+
+"Grannie! grannie! What's the matter with you? Can't you speak to me,
+grannie? They've smothered my grannie!"
+
+Sobs and moans were all we heard now. Peter had taken fright at last,
+and was busy undoing the rope. Suddenly he flung the door wide and
+fled, leaving me exposed to the full gaze of the girl. To my horror it
+was Elsie Duff! She was just approaching the door, her eyes streaming
+with tears, and her sweet face white with agony. I stood unable to
+move or speak. She turned away without a word, and began again to busy
+herself with the old woman, who lay on the ground not two yards from
+the door. I heard a heavy step approaching. Guilt awoke fear and
+restored my powers of motion. I fled at full speed, not to find Mason,
+but to leave everything behind me.
+
+When I reached the manse, it stood alone in the starry blue night.
+Somehow I could not help thinking of the time when I came home after
+waking up in the barn. That, too, was a time of misery, but, oh!  how
+different from this! Then I had only been cruelly treated myself; now
+I had actually committed cruelty. Then I sought my father's bosom as
+the one refuge; now I dreaded the very sight of my father, for I could
+not look him in the face. He was my father, but I was not his son. A
+hurried glance at my late life revealed that I had been behaving very
+badly, growing worse and worse. I became more and more miserable as I
+stood, but what to do I could not tell. The cold at length drove me
+into the house. I generally sat with my father in his study of a
+winter night now, but I dared not go near it. I crept to the nursery,
+where I found a bright fire burning, and Allister reading by the
+blaze, while Davie lay in bed at the other side of the room. I sat
+down and warmed myself, but the warmth could not reach the lump of ice
+at my heart. I sat and stared at the fire. Allister was too much
+occupied with his book to take any heed of me. All at once I felt a
+pair of little arms about my neck, and Davie was trying to climb upon
+my knees. Instead of being comforted, however, I spoke very crossly,
+and sent him back to his bed whimpering. You see I was only miserable;
+I was not repentant. I was eating the husks with the swine, and did
+not relish them; but I had not said, "I will arise and go to my
+father".
+
+How I got through the rest of that evening I hardly know. I tried to
+read, but could not. I was rather fond of arithmetic; so I got my
+slate and tried to work a sum; but in a few moments I was sick of it.
+At family prayers I never lifted my head to look at my father, and
+when they were over, and I had said good night to him, I felt that I
+was sneaking out of the room. But I had some small sense of protection
+and safety when once in bed beside little Davie, who was sound asleep,
+and looked as innocent as little Samuel when the voice of God was
+going to call him. I put my arm round him, hugged him close to me, and
+began to cry, and the crying brought me sleep.
+
+It was a very long time now since I had dreamt my old childish dream;
+but this night it returned. The old sunny-faced sun looked down upon
+me very solemnly. There was no smile on his big mouth, no twinkle
+about the corners of his little eyes. He looked at Mrs. Moon as much
+as to say, "What is to be done? The boy has been going the wrong way:
+must we disown him?" The moon neither shook her head nor moved her
+lips, but turned as on a pivot, and stood with her back to her
+husband, looking very miserable. Not one of the star-children moved
+from its place. They shone sickly and small. In a little while they
+faded out; then the moon paled and paled until she too vanished
+without ever turning her face to her husband; and last the sun himself
+began to change, only instead of paling he drew in all his beams, and
+shrunk smaller and smaller, until no bigger than a candle-flame. Then
+I found that I was staring at a candle on the table; and that Tom was
+kneeling by the side of the other bed, saying his prayers.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+The Trouble Grows
+
+
+When I woke in the morning, I tried to persuade myself that I had made
+a great deal too much of the whole business; that if not a dignified
+thing to do, it was at worst but a boy's trick; only I would have no
+more to say to Peter Mason, who had betrayed me at the last moment
+without even the temptation of any benefit to himself. I went to
+school as usual. It was the day for the Shorter Catechism. None failed
+but Peter and me; and we two were kept in alone, and left in the
+schoolroom together. I seated myself as far from him as I could. In
+half an hour he had learned his task, while I had not mastered the
+half of mine. Thereupon he proceeded, regardless of my entreaties, to
+prevent me learning it. I begged, and prayed, and appealed to his
+pity, but he would pull the book away from me, gabble bits of ballads
+in my ear as I was struggling with _Effectual Calling_, tip up the
+form on which I was seated, and, in short, annoy me in twenty
+different ways. At last I began to cry, for Mason was a bigger and
+stronger boy than I, and I could not help myself against him. Lifting
+my head after the first vexation was over, I thought I saw a shadow
+pass from the window. Although I could not positively say I saw it, I
+had a conviction it was Turkey, and my heart began to turn again
+towards him. Emboldened by the fancied proximity, I attempted my
+lesson once more, but that moment Peter was down upon me like a
+spider. At last, however, growing suddenly weary of the sport, he
+desisted, and said:
+
+"Ran, you can stay if you like. I've learned my catechism, and I don't
+see why I should wait _his_ time."
+
+As he spoke he drew a picklock from his pocket--his father was an
+ironmonger--deliberately opened the schoolroom door, slipped out, and
+locked it behind him. Then he came to one of the windows, and began
+making faces at me. But vengeance was nigher than he knew. A deeper
+shadow darkened my page, and when I looked up, there was Turkey
+towering over Mason, with his hand on his collar, and his whip lifted.
+The whip did not look formidable. Mason received the threat as a joke,
+and laughed in Turkey's face. Perceiving, however, that Turkey looked
+dangerous, with a sudden wriggle, at which he was an adept, he broke
+free, and, trusting to his tried speed of foot, turned his head and
+made a grimace as he took to his heels. Before, however, he could
+widen the space between them sufficiently, Turkey's whip came down
+upon him. With a howl of pain Peter doubled himself up, and Turkey
+fell upon him, and, heedless of his yells and cries, pommelled him
+severely. Although they were now at some distance, too great for the
+distinguishing of words, I could hear that Turkey mingled admonition
+with punishment. A little longer, and Peter crept past the window, a
+miserable mass of collapsed and unstrung impudence, his face bleared
+with crying, and his knuckles dug into his eyes. And this was the boy
+I had chosen for my leader! He had been false to me, I said to myself;
+and the noble Turkey, seeing his behaviour through the window, had
+watched to give him his deserts. My heart was full of gratitude.
+
+Once more Turkey drew near the window. What was my dismay and
+indignation to hear him utter the following words:
+
+"If you weren't your father's son, Ranald, and my own old friend, I
+would serve you just the same."
+
+Wrath and pride arose in me at the idea of Turkey, who used to call
+himself my horse, behaving to me after this fashion; and, my evil ways
+having half made a sneak of me, I cried out:
+
+"I'll tell my father, Turkey."
+
+"I only wish you would, and then I should be no tell-tale if he asked
+me why, and I told him all about it. You young blackguard! You're no
+gentleman! To sneak about the streets and hit girls with snowballs!  I
+scorn you!"
+
+"You must have been watching, then, Turkey, and you had no business to
+do that," I said, plunging at any defence.
+
+"I was not watching you. But if I had been, it would have been just as
+right as watching Hawkie. You ill-behaved creature! You're a true
+minister's son."
+
+"It's a mean thing to do, Turkey," I persisted, seeking to stir up my
+own anger and blow up my self-approval.
+
+"I tell you I did not do it. I met Elsie Duff crying in the street
+because you had hit her with a dirty snowball. And then to go and
+smoke her and her poor grannie, till the old woman fell down in a
+faint or a fit, I don't know which! You deserve a good pommelling
+yourself, I can tell you, Ranald. I'm ashamed of you."
+
+He turned to go away.
+
+"Turkey, Turkey," I cried, "isn't the old woman better?"
+
+"I don't know. I'm going to see," he answered.
+
+"Come back and tell me, Turkey," I shouted, as he disappeared from the
+field of my vision.
+
+"Indeed I won't. I don't choose to keep company with such as you. But
+if ever I hear of you touching them again, you shall have more of me
+than you'll like, and you may tell your father so when you please."
+
+I had indeed sunk low when Turkey, who had been such a friend, would
+have nothing to say to me more. In a few minutes the master returned,
+and finding me crying, was touched with compassion. He sent me home at
+once, which was well for me, as I could not have repeated a single
+question. He thought Peter had crept through one of the panes that
+opened for ventilation, and did not interrogate me about his
+disappearance.
+
+The whole of the rest of that day was miserable enough. I even
+hazarded one attempt at making friends with Mrs. Mitchell, but she
+repelled me so rudely that I did not try again. I could not bear the
+company of either Allister or Davie. I would have gone and told
+Kirsty, but I said to myself that Turkey must have already prejudiced
+her against me. I went to bed the moment prayers were over, and slept
+a troubled sleep. I dreamed that Turkey had gone and told my father,
+and that he had turned me out of the house.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+Light out of Darkness
+
+
+I woke early on the Sunday morning, and a most dreary morning it
+was. I could not lie in bed, and, although no one was up yet, rose and
+dressed myself. The house was as waste as a sepulchre. I opened the
+front door and went out. The world itself was no better. The day had
+hardly begun to dawn. The dark dead frost held it in chains of iron.
+The sky was dull and leaden, and cindery flakes of snow were thinly
+falling. Everywhere life looked utterly dreary and hopeless. What was
+there worth living for? I went out on the road, and the ice in the
+ruts crackled under my feet like the bones of dead things. I wandered
+away from the house, and the keen wind cut me to the bone, for I had
+not put on plaid or cloak. I turned into a field, and stumbled along
+over its uneven surface, swollen into hard frozen lumps, so that it
+was like walking upon stones. The summer was gone and the winter was
+here, and my heart was colder and more miserable than any winter in
+the world. I found myself at length at the hillock where Turkey and I
+had lain on that lovely afternoon the year before. The stream below
+was dumb with frost. The wind blew wearily but sharply across the bare
+field. There was no Elsie Duff, with head drooping over her knitting,
+seated in the summer grass on the other side of a singing brook. Her
+head was aching on her pillow because I had struck her with that vile
+lump; and instead of the odour of white clover she was breathing the
+dregs of the hateful smoke with which I had filled the cottage. I sat
+down, cold as it was, on the frozen hillock, and buried my face in my
+hands. Then my dream returned upon me. This was how I sat in my dream
+when my father had turned me out-of-doors. Oh how dreadful it would
+be! I should just have to lie down and die.
+
+I could not sit long for the cold. Mechanically I rose and paced
+about. But I grew so wretched in body that it made me forget for a
+while the trouble of my mind, and I wandered home again. The house was
+just stirring. I crept to the nursery, undressed, and lay down beside
+little Davie, who cried out in his sleep when my cold feet touched
+him. But I did not sleep again, although I lay till all the rest had
+gone to the parlour. I found them seated round a blazing fire waiting
+for my father. He came in soon after, and we had our breakfast, and
+Davie gave his crumbs as usual to the robins and sparrows which came
+hopping on the window-sill. I fancied my father's eyes were often
+turned in my direction, but I could not lift mine to make sure. I had
+never before known what misery was.
+
+Only Tom and I went to church that day: it was so cold. My father
+preached from the text, "Be sure your sin shall find you out". I
+thought with myself that he had found out my sin, and was preparing to
+punish me for it, and I was filled with terror as well as dismay. I
+could scarcely keep my seat, so wretched was I. But when after many
+instances in which punishment had come upon evil-doers when they least
+expected it, and in spite of every precaution to fortify themselves
+against it, he proceeded to say that a man's sin might find him out
+long before the punishment of it overtook him, and drew a picture of
+the misery of the wicked man who fled when none pursued him, and
+trembled at the rustling of a leaf, then I was certain that he knew
+what I had done, or had seen through my face into my conscience. When
+at last we went home, I kept waiting the whole of the day for the
+storm to break, expecting every moment to be called to his study. I
+did not enjoy a mouthful of my food, for I felt his eyes upon me, and
+they tortured me. I was like a shy creature of the woods whose hole
+had been stopped up: I had no place of refuge--nowhere to hide my
+head; and I felt so naked!
+
+My very soul was naked. After tea I slunk away to the nursery, and sat
+staring into the fire. Mrs. Mitchell came in several times and scolded
+me for sitting there, instead of with Tom and the rest in the parlour,
+but I was too miserable even to answer her. At length she brought
+Davie, and put him to bed; and a few minutes after, I heard my father
+coming down the stair with Allister, who was chatting away to him. I
+wondered how he could. My father came in with the big Bible under his
+arm, as was his custom on Sunday nights, drew a chair to the table,
+rang for candles, and with Allister by his side and me seated opposite
+to him, began to find a place from which to read to us. To my yet
+stronger conviction, he began and read through without a word of
+remark the parable of the Prodigal Son. When he came to the father's
+delight at having him back, the robe, and the shoes, and the ring, I
+could not repress my tears. "If I could only go back," I thought, "and
+set it all right! but then I've never gone away." It was a foolish
+thought, instantly followed by a longing impulse to tell my father all
+about it. How could it be that I had not thought of this before? I had
+been waiting all this time for my sin to find me out; why should I not
+frustrate my sin, and find my father first?
+
+As soon as he had done reading, and before he had opened his mouth to
+make any remark, I crept round the table to his side, and whispered in
+his ear,--
+
+"Papa, I want to speak to you."
+
+"Very well, Ranald," he said, more solemnly, I thought, than usual;
+"come up to the study."
+
+[Illustration]
+
+He rose and led the way, and I followed. A whimper of disappointment
+came from Davie's bed. My father went and kissed him, and said he
+would soon be back, whereupon Davie nestled down satisfied.
+
+When we reached the study, he closed the door, sat down by the fire,
+and drew me towards him.
+
+I burst out crying, and could not speak for sobs. He encouraged me
+most kindly. He said--
+
+"Have you been doing anything wrong, my boy?"
+
+"Yes, papa, very wrong," I sobbed. "I'm disgusted with myself."
+
+"I am glad to hear it, my dear," he returned. "There is some hope of
+you, then."
+
+"Oh! I don't know that," I rejoined. "Even Turkey despises me."
+
+"That's very serious," said my father. "He's a fine fellow, Turkey. I
+should not like him to despise me. But tell me all about it."
+
+It was with great difficulty I could begin, but with the help of
+questioning me, my father at length understood the whole matter. He
+paused for a while plunged in thought; then rose, saying,--
+
+"It's a serious affair, my dear boy; but now you have told me, I shall
+be able to help you."
+
+"But you knew about it before, didn't you, papa? Surely you did!"
+
+"Not a word of it, Ranald. You fancied so because your sin had found
+you out. I must go and see how the poor woman is. I don't want to
+reproach you at all, now you are sorry, but I should like you just to
+think that you have been helping to make that poor old woman wicked.
+She is naturally of a sour disposition, and you have made it sourer
+still, and no doubt made her hate everybody more than she was already
+inclined to do. You have been working against God in this parish."
+
+I burst into fresh tears. It was too dreadful.
+
+"What _am_ I to do?" I cried.
+
+"Of course you must beg Mrs. Gregson's pardon, and tell her that you
+are both sorry and ashamed."
+
+"Yes, yes, papa. Do let me go with you."
+
+"It's too late to find her up, I'm afraid; but we can just go and
+see. We've done a wrong, a very grievous wrong, my boy, and I cannot
+rest till I at least know the consequences of it."
+
+He put on his long greatcoat and muffler in haste, and having seen
+that I too was properly wrapped up, he opened the door and stepped
+out. But remembering the promise he had made to Davie, he turned and
+went down to the nursery to speak to him again, while I awaited him on
+the doorsteps. It would have been quite dark but for the stars, and
+there was no snow to give back any of their shine. The earth swallowed
+all their rays, and was no brighter for it. But oh, what a change to
+me from the frightful morning! When my father returned, I put my hand
+in his almost as fearlessly as Allister or wee Davie might have done,
+and away we walked together.
+
+"Papa," I said, "why did you say _we_ have done a wrong? You did not
+do it."
+
+"My dear boy, persons who are so near each other as we are, must not
+only bear the consequences together of any wrong done by one of them,
+but must, in a sense, bear each other's iniquities even. If I sin, you
+must suffer; if you sin, you being my own boy, I must suffer. But this
+is not all: it lies upon both of us to do what we can to get rid of
+the wrong done; and thus we have to bear each other's sin. I am
+accountable to make amends as far as I can; and also to do what I can
+to get you to be sorry and make amends as far as you can."
+
+"But, papa, isn't that hard?" I asked.
+
+"Do you think I should like to leave you to get out of your sin as you
+best could, or sink deeper and deeper into it? Should I grudge
+anything to take the weight of the sin, or the wrong to others, off
+you? Do you think I should want not to be troubled about it? Or if I
+were to do anything wrong, would you think it very hard that you had
+to help me to be good, and set things right? Even if people looked
+down upon you because of me, would you say it was hard? Would you not
+rather say, 'I'm glad to bear anything for my father: I'll share with
+him'?"
+
+"Yes, indeed, papa. I would rather share with you than not, whatever
+it was."
+
+"Then you see, my boy, how kind God is in tying us up in one bundle
+that way. It is a grand and beautiful thing that the fathers should
+suffer for the children, and the children for the fathers. Come
+along. We must step out, or I fear we shall not be able to make our
+apology to-night. When we've got over this, Ranald, we must be a good
+deal more careful what company we keep."
+
+"Oh, papa," I answered, "if Turkey would only forgive me!"
+
+"There's no fear. Turkey is sure to forgive you when you've done what
+you can to make amends. He's a fine fellow, Turkey. I have a high
+opinion of Turkey--as you call him."
+
+"If he would, papa, I should not wish for any other company than his."
+
+"A boy wants various kinds of companions, Ranald, but I fear you have
+been neglecting Turkey. You owe him much."
+
+"Yes, indeed I do, papa," I answered; "and I have been neglecting
+him. If I had kept with Turkey, I should never have got into such a
+dreadful scrape as this."
+
+"That is too light a word to use for it, my boy. Don't call a
+wickedness a scrape; for a wickedness it certainly was, though I am
+only too willing to believe you had no adequate idea at the time _how_
+wicked it was."
+
+"I won't again, papa. But I am so relieved already."
+
+"Perhaps poor old Mrs. Gregson is not relieved, though. You ought not
+to forget her."
+
+Thus talking, we hurried on until we arrived at the cottage. A dim
+light was visible through the window. My father knocked, and Elsie
+Duff opened the door.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+Forgiveness
+
+
+When we entered, there sat the old woman on the farther side of the
+hearth, rocking herself to and fro. I hardly dared look up. Elsie's
+face was composed and sweet. She gave me a shy tremulous smile, which
+went to my heart and humbled me dreadfully. My father took the stool
+on which Elsie had been sitting. When he had lowered himself upon it,
+his face was nearly on a level with that of the old woman, who took no
+notice of him, but kept rocking herself to and fro and moaning. He
+laid his hand on hers, which, old and withered and not very clean, lay
+on her knee.
+
+"How do you find yourself to-night, Mrs. Gregson?" he asked.
+
+"I'm an ill-used woman," she replied with a groan, behaving as if it
+was my father who had maltreated her, and whose duty it was to make an
+apology for it.
+
+"I am aware of what you mean, Mrs. Gregson. That is what brought me to
+inquire after you. I hope you are not seriously the worse for it."
+
+"I'm an ill-used woman," she repeated. "Every man's hand's against
+me."
+
+"Well, I hardly think that," said my father in a cheerful tone. "_My_
+hand's not against you now."
+
+"If you bring up your sons, Mr. Bannerman, to mock at the poor, and
+find their amusement in driving the aged and infirm to death's door,
+you can't say your hand's not against a poor lone woman like me."
+
+"But I don't bring up my sons to do so. If I did I shouldn't be here
+now. I am willing to bear my part of the blame, Mrs. Gregson, but to
+say I bring my sons up to that kind of wickedness, is to lay on me
+more than my share, a good deal.--Come here, Ranald."
+
+I obeyed with bowed head and shame-stricken heart, for I saw what
+wrong I had done my father, and that although few would be so unjust
+to him as this old woman, many would yet blame the best man in the
+world for the wrongs of his children. When I stood by my father's
+side, the old woman just lifted her head once to cast on me a scowling
+look, and then went on again rocking herself.
+
+"Now, my boy," said my father, "tell Mrs. Gregson why you have come
+here to-night."
+
+I had to use a dreadful effort to make myself speak. It was like
+resisting a dumb spirit and forcing the words from my lips. But I did
+not hesitate a moment. In fact, I dared not hesitate, for I felt that
+hesitation would be defeat.
+
+"I came, papa----" I began.
+
+"No no, my man," said my father; "you must speak to Mrs. Gregson, not
+to me."
+
+Thereupon I had to make a fresh effort. When at this day I see a child
+who will not say the words required of him, I feel again just as I
+felt then, and think how difficult it is for him to do what he is
+told; but oh, how I wish he would do it, that he might be a conqueror
+I for I know that if he will not make the effort, it will grow more
+and more difficult for him to make any effort. I cannot be too
+thankful that I was able to overcome now.
+
+"I came, Mrs. Gregson," I faltered, "to tell you that I am very sorry
+I behaved so ill to you."
+
+"Yes, indeed," she returned. "How would you like anyone to come and
+serve you so in your grand house? But a poor lone widow woman like me
+is nothing to be thought of. Oh no! not at all."
+
+"I am ashamed of myself," I said, almost forcing my confession upon
+her.
+
+"So you ought to be all the days of your life. You deserve to be
+drummed out of the town for a minister's son that you are! Hoo!"
+
+"I'll never do it again, Mrs. Gregson."
+
+"You'd better not, or you shall hear of it, if there's a sheriff in
+the county. To insult honest people after that fashion!"
+
+I drew back, more than ever conscious of the wrong I had done in
+rousing such unforgiving fierceness in the heart of a woman. My father
+spoke now.
+
+"Shall I tell you, Mrs. Gregson, what made the boy sorry, and made him
+willing to come and tell you all about it?"
+
+"Oh, I've got friends after all. The young prodigal!"
+
+"You are coming pretty near it, Mrs. Gregson," said my father; "but
+you haven't touched it quite. It was a friend of yours that spoke to
+my boy and made him very unhappy about what he had done, telling him
+over and over again what a shame it was, and how wicked of him. Do you
+know what friend it was?"
+
+"Perhaps I do, and perhaps I don't. I can guess."
+
+"I fear you don't guess quite correctly. It was the best friend you
+ever had or ever will have. It was God himself talking in my poor
+boy's heart. He would not heed what he said all day, but in the
+evening we were reading how the prodigal son went back to his father,
+and how the father forgave him; and he couldn't stand it any longer,
+and came and told me all about it."
+
+"It wasn't you he had to go to. It wasn't you he smoked to death--was
+it now? It was easy enough to go to you."
+
+"Not so easy perhaps. But he has come to you now."
+
+"Come when you made him!"
+
+"I didn't make him. He came gladly. He saw it was all he could do to
+make up for the wrong he had done."
+
+"A poor amends!" I heard her grumble; but my father took no notice.
+
+"And you know, Mrs. Gregson," he went on, "when the prodigal son did
+go back to his father, his father forgave him at once."
+
+"Easy enough! He was his father, and fathers always side with their
+sons."
+
+I saw my father thinking for a moment.
+
+"Yes; that is true," he said. "And what he does himself, he always
+wants his sons and daughters to do. So he tells us that if we don't
+forgive one another, he will not forgive us. And as we all want to be
+forgiven, we had better mind what we're told. If you don't forgive
+this boy, who has done you a great wrong, but is sorry for it, God
+will not forgive you--and that's a serious affair."
+
+"He's never begged my pardon yet," said the old woman, whose dignity
+required the utter humiliation of the offender.
+
+"I beg your pardon, Mrs. Gregson," I said. "I shall never be rude to
+you again."
+
+"Very well," she answered, a little mollified at last.
+
+"Keep your promise, and we'll say no more about it. It's for your
+father's sake, mind, that I forgive you."
+
+I saw a smile trembling about my father's lips, but he suppressed it,
+saying,
+
+"Won't you shake hands with him, Mrs. Gregson?"
+
+She held out a poor shrivelled hand, which I took very gladly; but it
+felt so strange in mine that I was frightened at it: it was like
+something half dead. But at the same moment, from behind me another
+hand, a rough little hand, but warm and firm and all alive, slipped
+into my left hand. I knew it was Elsie Duff's, and the thought of how
+I had behaved to her rushed in upon me with a cold misery of shame. I
+would have knelt at her feet, but I could not speak my sorrow before
+witnesses. Therefore I kept hold of her hand and led her by it to the
+other end of the cottage, for there was a friendly gloom, the only
+light in the place coming from the glow--not flame--of a fire of peat
+and bark. She came readily, whispering before I had time to open my
+mouth--
+
+I'm sorry grannie's so hard to make it up."
+
+"I deserve it," I said. "Elsie, I'm a brute. I could knock my head on
+the wall. Please forgive me."
+
+"It's not me," she answered. "You didn't hurt me. I didn't mind it."
+
+"Oh, Elsie! I struck you with that horrid snowball."
+
+"It was only on the back of my neck. It didn't hurt me much. It only
+frightened me."
+
+"I didn't know it was you. If I had known, I am sure I shouldn't have
+done it. But it was wicked and contemptible anyhow, to any girl."
+
+I broke down again, half from shame, half from the happiness of having
+cast my sin from me by confessing it. Elsie held my hand now.
+
+"Never mind; never mind," she said; "you won't do it again."
+
+"I would rather be hanged," I sobbed.
+
+That moment a pair of strong hands caught hold of mine, and the next I
+found myself being hoisted on somebody's back, by a succession of
+heaves and pitches, which did not cease until I was firmly seated.
+Then a voice said--
+
+"I'm his horse again, Elsie, and I'll carry him home this very night."
+
+Elsie gave a pleased little laugh; and Turkey bore me to the fireside,
+where my father was talking away in a low tone to the old woman. I
+believe he had now turned the tables upon her, and was trying to
+convince her of her unkind and grumbling ways. But he did not let us
+hear a word of the reproof.
+
+"Eh! Turkey, my lad! is that you? I didn't know you were there," he
+said.
+
+I had never before heard my father address him as Turkey.
+
+"What are you doing with that great boy upon your back?" he continued.
+
+"I'm going to carry him home, sir."
+
+"Nonsense! He can walk well enough."
+
+Half ashamed, I began to struggle to get down, but Turkey held me
+tight.
+
+"But you see, sir," said Turkey, "we're friends now. _He's_ done what
+he could, and _I_ want to do what I can."
+
+"Very well," returned my father, rising; "come along; it's time we
+were going."
+
+When he bade her good night, the old woman actually rose and held out
+her hand to both of us.
+
+"Good night, Grannie," said Turkey. "Good night, Elsie." And away we
+went.
+
+Never conqueror on his triumphal entry was happier than I, as through
+the starry night I rode home on Turkey's back. The very stars seemed
+rejoicing over my head. When I think of it now, the words always come
+with it, "There is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one
+sinner that repenteth," and I cannot but believe they rejoiced then,
+for if ever I repented in my life I repented then. When at length I
+was down in bed beside Davie, it seemed as if there could be nobody in
+the world so blessed as I was: I had been forgiven. When I woke in the
+morning, I was as it were new born into a new world. Before getting up
+I had a rare game with Davie, whose shrieks of laughter at length
+brought Mrs. Mitchell with angry face; but I found myself kindly
+disposed even towards her. The weather was much the same; but its
+dreariness had vanished. There was a glowing spot in my heart which
+drove out the cold, and glorified the black frost that bound the
+earth. When I went out before breakfast, and saw the red face of the
+sun looking through the mist like a bright copper kettle, he seemed to
+know all about it, and to be friends with me as he had never been
+before; and I was quite as well satisfied as if the sun of my dream
+had given me a friendly nod of forgiveness.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+I Have a Fall and a Dream
+
+
+Elsie Duff's father was a farm-labourer, with a large family. He was
+what is called a cottar in Scotland, which name implies that of the
+large farm upon which he worked for yearly wages he had a little bit
+of land to cultivate for his own use. His wife's mother was Grannie
+Gregson. She was so old that she needed someone to look after her, but
+she had a cottage of her own in the village, and would not go and live
+with her daughter, and, indeed, they were not anxious to have her, for
+she was not by any means a pleasant person. So there was no help for
+it: Elsie must go and be her companion. It was a great trial to her at
+first, for her home was a happy one, her mother being very unlike her
+grandmother; and, besides, she greatly preferred the open fields to
+the streets of the village. She did not grumble, however, for where is
+the good of grumbling where duty is plain, or even when a thing cannot
+be helped? She found it very lonely though, especially when her
+grannie was in one of her gloomy moods. Then she would not answer a
+question, but leave the poor girl to do what she thought best, and
+complain of it afterwards. This was partly the reason why her parents,
+towards the close of the spring, sent a little brother, who was too
+delicate to be of much use at home, to spend some months with his
+grannie, and go to school. The intention had been that Elsie herself
+should go to school, but what with the cow and her grandmother
+together she had not been able to begin. Of course grannie grumbled at
+the proposal, but, as Turkey, my informant on these points, explained,
+she was afraid lest, if she objected, they should take Elsie away and
+send a younger sister in her place. So little Jamie Duff came to the
+school.
+
+He was a poor little white-haired, red-eyed boy, who found himself
+very much out of his element there. Some of the bigger boys imagined
+it good fun to tease him; but on the whole he was rather a favourite,
+for he looked so pitiful, and took everything so patiently. For my
+part, I was delighted at the chance of showing Elsie Duff some
+kindness through her brother. The girl's sweetness clung to me, and
+not only rendered it impossible for me to be rude to any girl, but
+kept me awake to the occurrence of any opportunity of doing something
+for her sake. Perceiving one day, before the master arrived, that
+Jamie was shivering with cold, I made way for him where I stood by the
+fire; and then found that he had next to nothing upon his little body,
+and that the soles of his shoes were hanging half off. This in the
+month of March in the north of Scotland was bad enough, even if he had
+not had a cough. I told my father when I went home, and he sent me to
+tell Mrs. Mitchell to look out some old garments of Allister's for
+him; but she declared there were none. When I told Turkey this he
+looked very grave, but said nothing. When I told my father, he desired
+me to take the boy to the tailor and shoemaker, and get warm and
+strong clothes and shoes made for him. I was proud enough of the
+commission, and if I did act the grand benefactor a little, I have not
+yet finished the penance of it, for it never comes into my mind
+without bringing its shame with it. Of how many people shall I not
+have to beg the precious forgiveness when I meet them in the other
+world! For the sake of this penal shame, I confess I let the little
+fellow walk behind me, as I took him through the streets. Perhaps I
+may say this for myself, that I never thought of demanding any service
+of him in return for mine: I was not so bad as that. And I was true in
+heart to him notwithstanding my pride, for I had a real affection for
+him. I had not seen his sister--to speak to I mean--since that Sunday
+night.
+
+One Saturday afternoon, as we were having a game something like hare
+and hounds, I was running very hard through the village, when I set my
+foot on a loose stone, and had a violent fall. When I got up, I saw
+Jamie Duff standing by my side, with a face of utter consternation. I
+discovered afterwards that he was in the way of following me about.
+Finding the blood streaming down my face, and remarking when I came to
+myself a little that I was very near the house where Turkey's mother
+lived, I crawled thither, and up the stairs to her garret, Jamie
+following in silence. I found her busy as usual at her wheel, and
+Elsie Duff stood talking to her, as if she had just run in for a
+moment and must not sit down. Elsie gave a little cry when she saw the
+state I was in, and Turkey's mother got up and made me take her chair
+while she hastened to get some water. I grew faint, and lost my
+consciousness. When I came to myself I was leaning against Elsie,
+whose face was as white as a sheet with dismay. I took a little water
+and soon began to revive.
+
+When Turkey's mother had tied up my head, I rose to go home, but she
+persuaded me to lie down a while. I was not unwilling to comply. What
+a sense of blissful repose pervaded me, weary with running, and
+perhaps faint with loss of blood, when I stretched myself on the bed,
+whose patchwork counterpane, let me say for Turkey's mother, was as
+clean as any down quilt in chambers of the rich. I remember so well
+how a single ray of sunlight fell on the floor from the little window
+in the roof, just on the foot that kept turning the spinning-wheel.
+Its hum sounded sleepy in my ears. I gazed at the sloping ray of
+light, in which the ceaseless rotation of the swift wheel kept the
+motes dancing most busily, until at length to my half-closed eyes it
+became a huge Jacob's ladder, crowded with an innumerable company of
+ascending and descending angels, and I thought it must be the same
+ladder I used to see in my dream. The drowsy delight which follows on
+the loss of blood possessed me, and the little garret with the
+slanting roof, and its sloping sun-ray, and the whirr of the wheel,
+and the form of the patient woman that span, had begun to gather about
+them the hues of Paradise to my slowly fading senses, when I heard a
+voice that sounded miles away, and yet close to my ear:
+
+"Elsie, sing a little song, will you?"
+
+I heard no reply. A pause followed, and then a voice, clear and
+melodious as a brook, began to sing, and before it ceased, I was
+indeed in a kind of paradise.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+But here I must pause. Shall I be breaking my promise of not a word of
+Scotch in my story, if I give the song? True it is not a part of the
+story exactly, but it is in it. If my reader would like the song, he
+must have it in Scotch or not at all. I am not going to spoil it by
+turning it out of its own natural clothes into finer garments to which
+it was not born--I mean by translating it from Scotch into English.
+The best way will be this: I give the song as something extra--call it
+a footnote slipped into the middle of the page. Nobody needs read a
+word of it to understand the story; and being in smaller type and a
+shape of its own, it can be passed over without the least trouble.
+
+                     SONG
+
+Oh! the bonny, bonny dell, whaur the yorlin[1] sings,
+Wi' a clip o' the sunshine atween his wings;
+Whaur the birks[2] are a' straikit wi' fair munelicht,
+And the broom hings its lamps by day and by nicht;
+Whaur the burnie comes trottin' ower shingle and stane,
+Liltin'[3] bonny havers[4] til 'tsel alane;
+And the sliddery[5] troot, wi' ae soop o' its tail,
+Is awa' 'neath the green weed's swingin' veil!
+Oh! the bonny, bonny dell, whaur I sang as I saw
+The yorlin, the broom, an' the burnie, an' a'!
+
+Oh! the bonny, bonny dell, whaur the primroses wonn,
+Luikin' oot o' their leaves like wee sons o' the sun;
+Whaur the wild roses hing like flickers o' flame,
+And fa' at the touch wi' a dainty shame;
+Whaur the bee swings ower the white clovery sod,
+And the butterfly flits like a stray thoucht o' God;
+Whaur, like arrow shot frae life's unseen bow,
+The dragon-fly burns the sunlicht throu'!
+Oh! the bonny, bonny dell, whaur I sang to see
+The rose and the primrose, the draigon and bee!
+
+Oh! the bonny, bonny dell, whaur the mune luiks doon,
+As gin she war hearin' a soundless tune,
+Whan the flowers an' the birds are a' asleep,
+And the verra burnie gangs creepy-creep;
+Whaur the corn-craik craiks in the lang lang rye,
+And the nicht is the safter for his rouch cry;
+Whaur the wind wad fain lie doon on the slope,
+And the verra darkness owerflows wi' hope!
+Oh! the bonny, bonny dell, whaur, silent, I felt
+The mune an' the darkness baith into me melt.
+
+Oh! the bonny, bonny dell, whaur the sun luiks in,
+Sayin', Here awa', there awa', baud awa', sin!
+Wi' the licht o' God in his flashin' ee,
+Sayin', Darkness and sorrow a' work for me!
+Whaur the lark springs up on his ain sang borne,
+Wi' bird-shout and jubilee hailin' the morn;
+For his hert is fu' o' the hert o' the licht,
+An', come darkness or winter, a' maun be richt!
+Oh! the bonny, bonny dell, whaur the sun luikit in,
+Sayin', Here awa', there awa', hand awa', sin.
+
+Oh! the bonny, bonny dell, whaur I used to lie
+Wi' Jeanie aside me, sae sweet and sae shy!
+Whaur the wee white gowan wi' reid reid tips,
+Was as white as her cheek and as reid as her lips.
+Oh, her ee had a licht cam frae far 'yont the sun,
+And her tears cam frae deeper than salt seas run!
+O' the sunlicht and munelicht she was the queen,
+For baith war but middlin' withoot my Jean.
+Oh! the bonny, bonny dell, whaur I used to lie
+Wi' Jeanie aside me, sae sweet and sae shy!
+
+Oh! the bonny, bonny dell, whaur the kirkyard lies,
+A' day and a' nicht, luikin' up to the skies;
+Whaur the sheep wauk up i' the summer nicht,
+Tak a bite, and lie doon, and await the licht;
+Whaur the psalms roll ower the grassy heaps,
+And the wind comes and moans, and the rain comes and
+weeps!
+
+But Jeanie, my Jeanie--she's no lyin' there,
+For she's up and awa' up the angels' stair.
+Oh! the bonny, bonny dell, whaur the kirkyard lies,
+And the stars luik doon, and the nicht-wind sighs!
+
+[Footnote 1: The Yellow-hammer.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Birch-trees.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Singing.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Nonsense.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Slippery.]
+
+Elsie's voice went through every corner of my brain: there was singing
+in all its chambers. I could not hear the words of the song well
+enough to understand them quite; but Turkey gave me a copy of them
+afterwards. They were the schoolmaster's work. All the winter, Turkey
+had been going to the evening school, and the master had been greatly
+pleased with him, and had done his best to get him on in various ways.
+A friendship sprung up between them; and one night he showed Turkey
+these verses. Where the air came from, I do not know: Elsie's brain
+was full of tunes. I repeated them to my father once, and he was
+greatly pleased with them.
+
+On this first acquaintance, however, they put me to sleep; and little
+Jamie Duff was sent over to tell my father what had happened. Jamie
+gave the message to Mrs. Mitchell, and she, full of her own
+importance, must needs set out to see how much was the matter.
+
+I was dreaming an unutterably delicious dream. It was a summer
+evening. The sun was of a tremendous size, and of a splendid
+rose-colour. He was resting with his lower edge on the horizon, and
+dared go no farther, because all the flowers would sing instead of
+giving out their proper scents, and if he left them, he feared utter
+anarchy in his kingdom before he got back in the morning. I woke and
+saw the ugly face of Mrs. Mitchell bending over me. She was pushing
+me, and calling to me to wake up. The moment I saw her I shut my eyes
+tight, turned away, and pretended to be fast asleep again, in the hope
+that she would go away and leave me with my friends.
+
+"Do let him have his sleep out, Mrs. Mitchell," said Turkey's mother.
+
+"You've let him sleep too long already," she returned, ungraciously.
+"He'll do all he can, waking or sleeping, to make himself troublesome.
+He's a ne'er-do-well, Ranald. Little good'll ever come of him. It's a
+mercy his mother is under the mould, for he would have broken her
+heart."
+
+I had come to myself quite by this time, but I was not in the least
+more inclined to acknowledge it to Mrs. Mitchell.
+
+"You're wrong there, Mrs. Mitchell," said Elsie Duff; and my reader
+must remember it required a good deal of courage to stand up against a
+woman so much older than herself, and occupying the important position
+of housekeeper to the minister. "Ranald is a good boy. I'm sure he
+is."
+
+"How dare you say so, when he served your poor old grandmother such a
+wicked trick? It's little the children care for their parents
+nowadays.  Don't speak to me."
+
+"No, don't, Elsie," said another voice, accompanied by a creaking of
+the door and a heavy step. "Don't speak to her, Elsie, or you'll have
+the worst of it. Leave her to me.--If Ranald did what you say, Mrs.
+Mitchell, and I don't deny it, he was at least very sorry for it
+afterwards, and begged grannie's pardon; and that's a sort of thing
+_you_ never did in your life."
+
+"I never had any occasion, Turkey; so you hold your tongue."
+
+"Now don't you call me _Turkey_. I won't stand it. I was christened as
+well as you."
+
+"And what are _you_ to speak to me like that? Go home to your cows. I
+dare say they're standing supperless in their stalls while you're
+gadding about. I'll call you _Turkey_ as long as I please."
+
+"Very well, Kelpie--that's the name you're known by, though perhaps no
+one has been polite enough to use it to your face, for you're a great
+woman, no doubt--I give you warning that I know you. When you're found
+out, don't say I didn't give you a chance beforehand."
+
+"You impudent beggar!" cried Mrs. Mitchell, in a rage. "And you're all
+one pack," she added, looking round on the two others. "Get up,
+Ranald, and come home with me directly. What are you lying shamming
+there for?"
+
+As she spoke, she approached the bed; but Turkey was too quick for
+her, and got in front of it. As he was now a great strong lad, she
+dared not lay hands upon him, so she turned in a rage and stalked out
+of the room, saying,
+
+"Mr. Bannerman shall hear of this."
+
+"Then it'll be both sides of it, Mrs. Mitchell," I cried from the bed;
+but she vanished, vouchsafing me no reply.
+
+Once more Turkey got me on his back and carried me home. I told my
+father the whole occurrence. He examined the cut and plastered it up
+for me, saying he would go and thank Turkey's mother at once. I
+confess I thought more of Elsie Duff and her wonderful singing, which
+had put me to sleep, and given me the strange lovely dream from which
+the rough hands and harsh voice of the Kelpie had waked me too soon.
+
+After this, although I never dared go near her grandmother's house
+alone, I yet, by loitering and watching, got many a peep of Elsie.
+Sometimes I went with Turkey to his mother's of an evening, to which
+my father had no objection, and somehow or other Elsie was sure to be
+there, and we spent a very happy hour or two together. Sometimes she
+would sing, and sometimes I would read to them out of Milton--I read
+the whole of Comus to them by degrees in this way; and although there
+was much I could not at all understand, I am perfectly certain it had
+an ennobling effect upon every one of us. It is not necessary that the
+intellect should define and separate before the heart and soul derive
+nourishment. As well say that a bee can get nothing out of a flower,
+because she does not understand botany. The very music of the stately
+words of such a poem is enough to generate a better mood, to make one
+feel the air of higher regions, and wish to rise "above the smoke and
+stir of this dim spot". The best influences which bear upon us are of
+this vague sort--powerful upon the heart and conscience, although
+undefined to the intellect.
+
+But I find I have been forgetting that those for whom I write are
+young--too young to understand this. Let it remain, however, for those
+older persons who at an odd moment, while waiting for dinner, or
+before going to bed, may take up a little one's book, and turn over a
+few of its leaves. Some such readers, in virtue of their hearts being
+young and old both at once, discern more in the children's books than
+the children themselves.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+The Bees' Nest
+
+
+It was twelve o'clock on a delicious Saturday in the height of summer.
+We poured out of school with the gladness of a holiday in our hearts.
+I sauntered home full of the summer sun, and the summer wind, and the
+summer scents which filled the air. I do not know how often I sat down
+in perfect bliss upon the earthen walls which divided the fields from
+the road, and basked in the heat. These walls were covered with grass
+and moss. The odour of a certain yellow feathery flower, which grew on
+them rather plentifully, used to give me special delight. Great
+humble-bees haunted the walls, and were poking about in them
+constantly. Butterflies also found them pleasant places, and I
+delighted in butterflies, though I seldom succeeded in catching one. I
+do not remember that I ever killed one. Heart and conscience both were
+against that. I had got the loan of Mrs. Trimmer's story of the family
+of Robins, and was every now and then reading a page of it with
+unspeakable delight. We had very few books for children in those days
+and in that far out-of-the-way place, and those we did get were the
+more dearly prized. It was almost dinner-time before I reached home.
+Somehow in this grand weather, welcome as dinner always was, it did
+not possess the same amount of interest as in the cold bitter winter.
+This day I almost hurried over mine to get out again into the broad
+sunlight. Oh, how stately the hollyhocks towered on the borders of the
+shrubbery! The guelder-roses hung like balls of snow in their
+wilderness of green leaves; and here and there the damask roses, dark
+almost to blackness, and with a soft velvety surface, enriched the
+sunny air with their colour and their scent. I never see these roses
+now. And the little bushes of polyanthus gemmed the dark earth between
+with their varied hues. We did not know anything about flowers except
+the delight they gave us, and I dare say I am putting some together
+which would not be out at the same time, but that is how the picture
+comes back to my memory.
+
+I was leaning in utter idleness over the gate that separated the
+little lawn and its surroundings from the road, when a troop of
+children passed, with little baskets and tin pails in their hands; and
+amongst them Jamie Duff. It was not in the least necessary to ask him
+where he was going.
+
+Not very far, about a mile or so from our house, rose a certain hill
+famed in the country round for its store of bilberries. It was the
+same to which Turkey and I had fled for refuge from the bull. It was
+called the Ba' Hill, and a tradition lingered in the neighbourhood
+that many years ago there had been a battle there, and that after the
+battle the conquerors played at football with the heads of the
+vanquished slain, and hence the name of the hill; but who fought or
+which conquered, there was not a shadow of a record. It had been a
+wild country, and conflicting clans had often wrought wild work in
+it. In summer the hill was of course the haunt of children gathering
+its bilberries. Jamie shyly suggested whether I would not join them,
+but they were all too much younger than myself; and besides I felt
+drawn to seek Turkey in the field with the cattle--that is, when I
+should get quite tired of doing nothing. So the little troop streamed
+on, and I remained leaning over the gate.
+
+I suppose I had sunk into a dreamy state, for I was suddenly startled
+by a sound beside me, and looking about, saw an old woman, bent nearly
+double within an old grey cloak, notwithstanding the heat. She leaned
+on a stick, and carried a bag like a pillow-case in her hand. It was
+one of the poor people of the village, going her rounds for her weekly
+dole of a handful of oatmeal. I knew her very well by sight and by
+name--she was old Eppie--and a kindly greeting passed between us. I
+thank God that the frightful poor-laws had not invaded Scotland when I
+was a boy. There was no degradation in honest poverty then, and it was
+no burden to those who supplied its wants; while every person was
+known, and kindly feelings were nourished on both sides. If I
+understand anything of human nature now, it comes partly of having
+known and respected the poor of my father's parish. She passed in at
+the gate and went as usual to the kitchen door, while I stood drowsily
+contemplating the green expanse of growing crops in the valley before
+me. The day had grown as sleepy as myself. There were no noises except
+the hum of the unseen insects, and the distant rush of the water over
+the dams at our bathing-place. In a few minutes the old woman
+approached me again. She was an honest and worthy soul, and very civil
+in her manners. Therefore I was surprised to hear her muttering to
+herself. Turning, I saw she was very angry. She ceased her muttering
+when she descried me observing her, and walked on in silence--was even
+about to pass through the little wicket at the side of the larger gate
+without any further salutation. Something had vexed her, and
+instinctively I put my hand in my pocket, and pulled out a halfpenny
+my father had given me that morning--very few of which came in my
+way--and offered it to her. She took it with a half-ashamed glance, an
+attempt at a courtesy, and a murmured blessing. Then for a moment she
+looked as if about to say something, but changing her mind, she only
+added another grateful word, and hobbled away. I pondered in a feeble
+fashion for a moment, came to the conclusion that the Kelpie had been
+rude to her, forgot her, and fell a-dreaming again. Growing at length
+tired of doing nothing, I roused myself, and set out to seek Turkey.
+
+I have lingered almost foolishly over this day. But when I recall my
+childhood, this day always comes back as a type of the best of it.
+
+I remember I visited Kirsty, to find out where Turkey was. Kirsty
+welcomed me as usual, for she was always loving and kind to us; and
+although I did not visit her so often now, she knew it was because I
+was more with my father, and had lessons to learn in which she could
+not assist me. Having nothing else to talk about, I told her of Eppie,
+and her altered looks when she came out of the house. Kirsty
+compressed her lips, nodded her head, looked serious, and made me no
+reply. Thinking this was strange, I resolved to tell Turkey, which
+otherwise I might not have done. I did not pursue the matter with
+Kirsty, for I knew her well enough to know that her manner indicated a
+mood out of which nothing could be drawn. Having learned where he was,
+I set out to find him--close by the scene of our adventure with
+Wandering Willie. I soon came in sight of the cattle feeding, but did
+not see Turkey.
+
+When I came near the mound, I caught a glimpse of the head of old
+Mrs. Gregson's cow quietly feeding off the top of the wall from the
+other side, like an outcast Gentile; while my father's cows, like the
+favoured and greedy Jews, were busy in the short clover inside.
+Grannie's cow managed to live notwithstanding, and I dare say gave as
+good milk, though not perhaps quite so much of it, as ill-tempered
+Hawkie. Mrs. Gregson's granddaughter, however, who did not eat grass,
+was inside the wall, seated on a stone which Turkey had no doubt
+dragged there for her. Trust both her and Turkey, the cow should not
+have a mouthful without leave of my father. Elsie was as usual busy
+with her knitting. And now I caught sight of Turkey, running from a
+neighbouring cottage with a spade over his shoulder. Elsie had been
+minding the cows for him.
+
+"What's ado, Turkey?" I cried, running to meet him.
+
+"Such a wild bees' nest!" answered Turkey. "I'm so glad you're come! I
+was just thinking whether I wouldn't run and fetch you. Elsie and I
+have been watching them going out and in for the last half-hour.--Such
+lots of bees! There's a store of honey _there_."
+
+"But isn't it too soon to take it, Turkey? There'll be a great deal
+more in a few weeks.--Not that I know anything about bees," I added
+deferentially.
+
+"You're quite right, Ranald," answered Turkey; "but there are several
+things to be considered. In the first place, the nest is by the
+roadside, and somebody else might find it. Next, Elsie has never
+tasted honey all her life, and it _is_ so nice, and here she is, all
+ready to eat some. Thirdly, and lastly, as your father says--though
+not very often," added Turkey slyly, meaning that the _lastly_ seldom
+came with the _thirdly_,--"if we take the honey now, the bees will
+have plenty of time to gather enough for the winter before the flowers
+are gone, whereas if we leave it too long they will starve."
+
+I was satisfied with this reasoning, and made no further objection.
+
+"You must keep a sharp look-out though, Ranald," he said; "for they'll
+be mad enough, and you must keep them off with your cap."
+
+He took off his own, and gave it to Elsie, saying: "Here, Elsie: you
+must look out, and keep off the bees. I can tell you a sting is no
+joke. I've had three myself."
+
+"But what are _you_ to do, Turkey?" asked Elsie, with an anxious face.
+
+"Oh, Ranald will keep them off me and himself too. I shan't heed them.
+I must dig away, and get at the honey."
+
+All things being thus arranged, Turkey manfully approached the _dyke_,
+as they call any kind of wall-fence there. In the midst of the grass
+and moss was one little hole, through which the bees kept going and
+coming very busily. Turkey put in his finger and felt in what
+direction the hole went, and thence judging the position of the hoard,
+struck his spade with firm foot into the dyke. What bees were in came
+rushing out in fear and rage, and I had quite enough to do to keep
+them off our bare heads with my cap. Those who were returning, laden
+as they were, joined in the defence, but I did my best, and with
+tolerable success. Elsie being at a little distance, and comparatively
+still, was less the object of their resentment. In a few moments
+Turkey had reached the store. Then he began to dig about it carefully
+to keep from spoiling the honey. First he took out a quantity of cells
+with nothing in them but grub-like things--the cradles of the young
+bees they were. He threw them away, and went on digging as coolly as
+if he had been gardening. All the defence he left to me, and I assure
+you I had enough of it, and thought mine the harder work of the two:
+hand or eye had no rest, and my mind was on the stretch of anxiety all
+the time.
+
+But now Turkey stooped to the nest, cleared away the earth about it
+with his hands, and with much care drew out a great piece of
+honeycomb, just as well put together as the comb of any educated bees
+in a garden-hive, who know that they are working for critics. Its
+surface was even and yellow, showing that the cells were full to the
+brim of the rich store. I think I see Turkey weighing it in his hand,
+and turning it over to pick away some bits of adhering mould ere he
+presented it to Elsie. She sat on her stone like a patient, contented
+queen, waiting for what her subjects would bring her.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"Oh, Turkey! what a piece!" she said as she took it, and opened her
+pretty mouth and white teeth to have a bite of the treasure.
+
+"Now, Ranald," said Turkey, "we must finish the job before we have any
+ourselves."
+
+He went on carefully removing the honey, and piling it on the bank.
+There was not a great deal, because it was so early in the year, and
+there was not another comb to equal that he had given Elsie. But when
+he had got it all out--
+
+"They'll soon find another nest," he said. "I don't think it's any use
+leaving this open for them. It spoils the dyke too."
+
+As he spoke he began to fill up the hole, and beat the earth down
+hard. Last of all, he put in the sod first dug away, with the grass
+and flowers still growing upon it. This done, he proceeded to divide
+what remained of the honey.
+
+"There's a piece for Allister and Davie," he said; "and here's a piece
+for you, and this for me, and Elsie can take the rest home for herself
+and Jamie."
+
+Elsie protested, but we both insisted. Turkey got some nice clover,
+and laid the bits of honeycomb in it. Then we sat and ate our shares,
+and chatted away for a long time, Turkey and I getting up every now
+and then to look after the cattle, and Elsie too having sometimes to
+follow her cow, when she threatened an inroad upon some neighbouring
+field while we were away. But there was plenty of time between, and
+Elsie sung us two or three songs at our earnest request, and Turkey
+told us one or two stories out of history books he had been reading,
+and I pulled out my story of the Robins and read to them. And so the
+hot sun went down the glowing west, and threw longer and longer
+shadows eastward. A great shapeless blot of darkness, with legs to it,
+accompanied every cow, and calf, and bullock wherever it went. There
+was a new shadow crop in the grass, and a huge patch with long
+tree-shapes at the end of it, stretched away from the foot of the
+hillock. The weathercock on the top of the church was glistening such
+a bright gold, that the wonder was how it could keep from breaking out
+into a crow that would rouse all the cocks of the neighbourhood, even
+although they were beginning to get sleepy, and thinking of going to
+roost. It was time for the cattle, Elsie's cow included, to go home;
+for, although the latter had not had such plenty to eat from as the
+rest, she had been at it all day, and had come upon several very nice
+little patches of clover, that had overflowed the edges of the fields
+into the levels and the now dry ditches on the sides of the road. But
+just as we rose to break up the assembly, we spied a little girl come
+flying across the field, as if winged with news. As she came nearer we
+recognized her. She lived near Mrs. Gregson's cottage, and was one of
+the little troop whom I had seen pass the manse on their way to gather
+bilberries.
+
+"Elsie! Elsie!" she cried, "John Adam has taken Jamie. Jamie fell, and
+John got him."
+
+Elsie looked frightened, but Turkey laughed, saying: "Never mind,
+Elsie. John is better than he looks. He won't do him the least harm.
+He must mind his business, you know."
+
+The Ba' Hill was covered with a young plantation of firs, which, hardy
+as they were, had yet in a measure to be coaxed into growing in that
+inclement region. It was amongst their small stems that the coveted
+bilberries grew, in company with cranberries and crowberries, and
+dwarf junipers. The children of the village thus attracted to the
+place were no doubt careless of the young trees, and might sometimes
+even amuse themselves with doing them damage. Hence the keeper, John
+Adam, whose business it was to look after them, found it his duty to
+wage war upon the annual hordes of these invaders; and in their eyes
+Adam was a terrible man. He was very long and very lean, with a
+flattish yet Roman nose, and rather ill-tempered mouth, while his face
+was dead-white and much pitted with the small-pox. He wore corduroy
+breeches, a blue coat, and a nightcap striped horizontally with black
+and red. The youngsters pretended to determine, by the direction in
+which the tassel of it hung, what mood its owner was in; nor is it for
+me to deny that their inductions may have led them to conclusions
+quite as correct as those of some other scientific observers. At all
+events the tassel was a warning, a terror, and a hope. He could not
+run very fast, fortunately, for the lean legs within those ribbed grey
+stockings were subject to rheumatism, and could take only long not
+rapid strides; and if the children had a tolerable start, and had not
+the misfortune to choose in their terror an impassable direction, they
+were pretty sure to get off. Jamie Duff, the most harmless and
+conscientious creature, who would not have injured a young fir upon
+any temptation, did take a wrong direction, caught his foot in a hole,
+fell into a furze bush, and, nearly paralysed with terror, was seized
+by the long fingers of Adam, and ignominiously lifted by a portion of
+his garments into the vast aerial space between the ground and the
+white, pock-pitted face of the keeper. Too frightened to scream, too
+conscious of trespass to make any resistance, he was borne off as a
+warning to the rest of the very improbable fate which awaited them.
+
+But the character of Adam was not by any means so frightful in the
+eyes of Turkey; and he soon succeeded in partially composing the
+trepidation of Elsie, assuring her that as soon as he had put up the
+cattle, he would walk over to Adam's house and try to get Jamie off,
+whereupon Elsie set off home with her cow, disconsolate but hopeful. I
+think I see her yet--for I recall every picture of that lovely day
+clear as the light of that red sunset--walking slowly with her head
+bent half in trouble, half in attention to her knitting, after her
+solemn cow, which seemed to take twice as long to get over the ground
+because she had two pairs of legs instead of one to shuffle across it,
+dragging her long iron chain with the short stake at the end after her
+with a gentle clatter over the hard dry road. I accompanied Turkey,
+helped him to fasten up and bed the cows, went in with him and shared
+his hasty supper of potatoes and oatcake and milk, and then set out
+refreshed, and nowise apprehensive in his company, to seek the abode
+of the redoubtable ogre, John Adam.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+Vain Intercession
+
+
+He had a small farm of his own at the foot of the hill of which he had
+the charge. It was a poor little place, with a very low thatched
+cottage for the dwelling. A sister kept house for him. When we
+approached it there was no one to be seen. We advanced to the door
+along a rough pavement of round stones, which parted the house from
+the dunghill. I peeped in at the little window as we passed. There, to
+my astonishment, I saw Jamie Duff, as I thought, looking very happy,
+and in the act of lifting a spoon to his mouth. A moment after,
+however, I concluded that I must have been mistaken, for, when Turkey
+lifted the latch and we walked in, there were the awful John and his
+long sister seated at the table, while poor Jamie was in a corner,
+with no basin in his hand, and a face that looked dismal and dreary
+enough. I fancied I caught a glimpse of Turkey laughing in his sleeve,
+and felt mildly indignant with him--for Elsie's sake more, I confess,
+than for Jamie's.
+
+"Come in," said Adam, rising; but, seeing who it was, he seated
+himself again, adding, "Oh, it's you, Turkey!"--Everybody called him
+Turkey. "Come in and take a spoon."
+
+"No, thank you," said Turkey; "I have had my supper. I only came to
+inquire after that young rascal there."
+
+"Ah! you see him! There he is!" said Adam, looking towards me with an
+awful expression in his dead brown eyes. "Starving. No home and no
+supper for him! He'll have to sleep in the hay-loft with the rats and
+mice, and a stray cat or two."
+
+Jamie put his cuffs, the perennial handkerchief of our poor little
+brothers, to his eyes. His fate was full of horrors. But again I
+thought I saw Turkey laughing in his sleeve.
+
+"His sister is very anxious about him, Mr. Adam," he said. "Couldn't
+you let him off this once?"
+
+"On no account. I am here in trust, and I must do my duty. The duke
+gives the forest in charge to me. I have got to look after it."
+
+I could not help thinking what a poor thing it was for a forest. All I
+knew of forests was from story-books, and there they were full of ever
+such grand trees. Adam went on--
+
+"And if wicked boys will break down the trees--"
+
+"I only pulled the bilberries," interposed Jamie, in a whine which
+went off in a howl.
+
+"James Duff!" said Adam, with awful authority, "I saw you myself
+tumble over a young larch tree, not two feet high."
+
+"The worse for me!" sobbed Jamie.
+
+"Tut! tut! Mr. Adam! the larch tree wasn't a baby," said Turkey. "Let
+Jamie go. He couldn't help it, you see."
+
+"It _was_ a baby, and it _is_ a baby," said Adam, with a solitary
+twinkle in the determined dead brown of his eyes. "And I'll have no
+intercession here. Transgressors must be prosecuted, as the board
+says. And prosecuted he shall be. He sha'n't get out of this before
+school-time to-morrow morning. He shall be late, too, and I hope the
+master will give it him well. We must make some examples, you see,
+Turkey. It's no use your saying anything. I don't say Jamie's a worse
+boy than the rest, but he's just as bad, else how did he come to be
+there tumbling over my babies? Answer me that, Master Bannerman."
+
+He turned and fixed his eyes upon me. There was question in his mouth,
+but neither question nor speculation in his eyes. I could not meet the
+awful changeless gaze. My eyes sank before his.
+
+"Example, Master Bannerman, is everything. If you serve my trees as
+this young man has done--"
+
+The idea of James Duff being a young man!
+
+"--I'll serve you the same as I serve him--and that's no sweet
+service, I'll warrant."
+
+As the keeper ended, he brought down his fist on the table with such a
+bang, that poor Jamie almost fell off the stool on which he sat in the
+corner.
+
+"But let him off just this once," pleaded Turkey, "and I'll be surety
+for him that he'll never do it again."
+
+"Oh, as to him, I'm not afraid of him," returned the keeper; "but will
+you be surety for the fifty boys that'll only make game of me if I
+don't make an example of him? I'm in luck to have caught him. No, no,
+Turkey; it won't do, my man. I'm sorry for his father and his mother,
+and his sister Elsie, for they're all very good people; but I must
+make an example of him."
+
+At mention of his relatives Jamie burst into another suppressed howl.
+
+"Well, you won't be over hard upon him anyhow: will you now?" said
+Turkey.
+
+"I won't pull his skin _quite_ over his ears," said Adam; "and that's
+all the promise you'll get out of me."
+
+The tall thin grim sister had sat all the time as if she had no right
+to be aware of anything that was going on, but her nose, which was
+more hooked than her brother's, and larger, looked as if, in the
+absence of eyes and ears, it was taking cognizance of everything, and
+would inform the rest of the senses afterwards.
+
+I had a suspicion that the keeper's ferocity was assumed for the
+occasion, and that he was not such an ogre as I had considered him.
+Still, the prospect of poor little Jamie spending the night alone in
+the loft amongst the cats and rats was sufficiently dreadful when I
+thought of my midnight awaking in the barn. There seemed to be no
+help, however, especially when Turkey rose to say good night.
+
+I felt disconsolate, and was not well pleased with Turkey's
+coolness. I thought he had not done his best.
+
+When we got into the road--
+
+"Poor Elsie!" I said; "she'll be miserable about Jamie."
+
+"Oh no," returned Turkey. "I'll go straight over and tell her. No harm
+will come to Jamie. John Adam's bark is a good deal worse than his
+bite. Only I should have liked to take him home if I could."
+
+It was now twilight, and through the glimmering dusk we walked back to
+the manse. Turkey left me at the gate and strode on towards the
+village; while I turned in, revolving a new scheme which had arisen in
+my brain, and for the first time a sense of rivalry with Turkey awoke
+in my bosom. He did everything for Elsie Duff, and I did nothing. For
+her he had robbed the bees' nest that very day, and I had but partaken
+of the spoil. Nay, he had been stung in her service; for, with all my
+care--and I think that on the whole I had done my best--he had
+received what threatened to be a bad sting on the back of his neck.
+Now he was going to comfort her about her brother whom he had failed
+to rescue; but what if I should succeed where he had failed, and carry
+the poor boy home in triumph!
+
+As we left the keeper's farm, Turkey had pointed out to me, across the
+yard, where a small rick or two were standing, the loft in which Jamie
+would have to sleep. It was over the cart-shed, and its approach was a
+ladder. But for the reported rats, it would have been no hardship to
+sleep there in weather like this, especially for one who had been
+brought up as Jamie had been. But I knew that he was a very timid boy,
+and that I myself would have lain in horror all the night. Therefore I
+had all the way been turning over in my mind what I could do to
+release him. But whatever I did must be unaided, for I could not
+reckon upon Turkey, nor indeed was it in my heart to share with him
+the honour of the enterprise that opened before me.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+Knight-Errantry
+
+
+I must mention that my father never objected now to my riding his
+little mare Missy, as we called her. Indeed, I had great liberty with
+regard to her, and took her out for a trot and a gallop as often as I
+pleased. Sometimes when there was a press of work she would have to go
+in a cart or drag a harrow, for she was so handy they could do
+anything with her; but this did not happen often, and her condition at
+all seasons of the year testified that she knew little of hard work.
+My father was very fond of her, and used to tell wonderful stories of
+her judgment and skill. I believe he was never quite without a hope
+that somehow or other he should find her again in the next world. At
+all events I am certain that it was hard for him to believe that so
+much wise affection should have been created to be again uncreated. I
+cannot say that I ever heard him give utterance to anything of the
+sort; but whence else should I have had such a firm conviction, dating
+from a period farther back than my memory can reach, that whatever
+might become of the other horses, Missy was sure to go to heaven? I
+had a kind of notion that, being the bearer of my father upon all his
+missions of doctrine and mercy, she belonged to the clergy, and,
+sharing in their privileges, must have a chance before other animals
+of her kind. I believe this was a right instinct glad of a foolish
+reason. I am wiser now, and extend the hope to the rest of the horses,
+for I cannot believe that the God who does nothing in vain ever
+creates in order to destroy.
+
+I made haste to learn my lessons for the Monday, although it was but
+after a fashion, my mind was so full of the adventure before me. As
+soon as prayers and supper were over--that is, about ten o'clock--I
+crept out of the house and away to the stable. It was a lovely night.
+A kind of grey peace filled earth and air and sky. It was not dark,
+although rather cloudy; only a dim dusk, like a vapour of darkness,
+floated around everything. I was fond of being out at night, but I had
+never before contemplated going so far alone. I should not, however,
+feel alone with Missy under me, for she and I were on the best of
+terms, although sometimes she would take a fit of obstinacy, and
+refuse to go in any other than the direction she pleased. Of late,
+however, she had asserted herself less frequently in this manner. I
+suppose she was aware that I grew stronger and more determined.
+
+I soon managed to open the door of the stable, for I knew where the
+key lay. It was very dark, but I felt my way through, talking all the
+time that the horses might not be startled if I came upon one of them
+unexpectedly, for the stable was narrow, and they sometimes lay a good
+bit out of their stalls. I took care, however, to speak in a low tone
+that the man who slept with only a wooden partition between him and
+the stable might not hear. I soon had the bridle upon Missy, but would
+not lose time in putting on the saddle. I led her out, got on her back
+with the help of a stone at the stable door, and rode away. She had
+scarcely been out all day, and was rather in the mood for a ride. The
+voice of Andrew, whom the noise of her feet had aroused, came after
+me, calling to know who it was. I called out in reply, for I feared he
+might rouse the place; and he went back composed, if not contented. It
+was no use, at all events, to follow me.
+
+I had not gone far before the extreme stillness of the night began to
+sink into my soul and make me quiet. Everything seemed thinking about
+me, but nothing would tell me what it thought. Not feeling, however,
+that I was doing wrong, I was only awed not frightened by the
+stillness. I made Missy slacken her speed, and rode on more gently, in
+better harmony with the night. Not a sound broke the silence except
+the rough cry of the land-rail from the fields and the clatter of
+Missy's feet. I did not like the noise she made, and got upon the
+grass, for here there was no fence. But the moment she felt the soft
+grass, off she went at a sudden gallop. Her head was out before I had
+the least warning of her intention. She tore away over the field in
+quite another direction from that in which I had been taking her, and
+the gallop quickened until she was going at her utmost speed. The
+rapidity of the motion and the darkness together--for it seemed
+darkness now--I confess made me frightened. I pulled hard at the
+reins, but without avail. In a minute I had lost my reckoning, and
+could not tell where I was in the field, which was a pretty large one;
+but soon finding that we were galloping down a hill so steep that I
+had trouble in retaining my seat, I began, not at all to my comfort,
+to surmise in what direction the mare was carrying me. We were
+approaching the place where we had sat that same afternoon, close by
+the mound with the trees upon it, the scene of my adventure with
+Wandering Willie, and of the fancied murder. I had scarcely thought of
+either until the shadows had begun to fall long, and now in the night,
+when all was shadow, both reflections made it horrible. Besides, if
+Missy should get into the bog! But she knew better than that, wild as
+her mood was. She avoided it, and galloped past, but bore me to a far
+more frightful goal, suddenly dropping into a canter, and then
+standing stock-still.
+
+It was a cottage half in ruins, occupied by an old woman whom I dimly
+recollected having once gone with my father to see--a good many years
+ago, as it appeared to me now. She was still alive, however, very old,
+and bedridden. I recollected that from the top of her wooden bed hung
+a rope for her to pull herself up by when she wanted to turn, for she
+was very rheumatic, and this rope for some cause or other had filled
+me with horror. But there was more of the same sort. The cottage had
+once been a smithy, and the bellows had been left in its place. Now
+there is nothing particularly frightful about a pair of bellows,
+however large it may be, and yet the recollection of that huge
+structure of leather and wood, with the great iron nose projecting
+from the contracting cheeks of it, at the head of the old woman's bed,
+so capable yet so useless, did return upon me with terror in the dusk
+of that lonely night. It was mingled with a vague suspicion that the
+old woman was a bit of a witch, and a very doubtful memory that she
+had been seen on one occasion by some night-farer, when a frightful
+storm was raging, blowing away at that very bellows as hard as her
+skinny arms and lean body could work the lever, so that there was
+almost as great a storm of wind in her little room as there was
+outside of it. If there was any truth in the story, it is easily
+accounted for by the fact that the poor old woman had been a little
+out of her mind for many years,--and no wonder, for she was nearly a
+hundred, they said. Neither is it any wonder that when Missy stopped
+almost suddenly, with her fore-feet and her neck stretched forward,
+and her nose pointed straight for the door of the cottage at a few
+yards' distance, I should have felt very queer indeed. Whether my hair
+stood on end or not I do not know, but I certainly did feel my skin
+creep all over me. An ancient elder-tree grew at one end of the
+cottage, and I heard the lonely sigh of a little breeze wander through
+its branches. The next instant a frightful sound from within the
+cottage broke the night air into what seemed a universal shriek. Missy
+gave a plunge, turned round on her hind-legs, and tore from the place.
+I very nearly lost my seat, but terror made me cling the faster to my
+only companion, as _ventre-a-terre_ she flew home. It did not take her
+a minute to reach the stable-door. There she had to stop, for I had
+shut it when I brought her out. It was mortifying to find myself there
+instead of under John Adam's hayloft, the rescuer of Jamie Duff. But I
+did not think of that for a while. Shaken with terror, and afraid to
+dismount and be next the ground, I called upon Andrew as well as my
+fear would permit; but my voice was nearly unmanageable, and I could
+do little more than howl with it.
+
+In a few minutes, to me a time of awful duration--for who could tell
+what might be following me up from the hollow?--Andrew appeared
+half-dressed, and not in the best of tempers, remarking it was an odd
+thing to go out riding when honest people were in their beds, except,
+he added, I meant to take to the highway. Thereupon, rendered more
+communicative by the trial I had gone through, I told him the whole
+story, what I had intended and how I had been frustrated. He listened,
+scratched his head, and saying someone ought to see if anything was
+the matter with the old woman, turned in to put on the rest of his
+clothes.
+
+"You had better go home to bed, Ranald," he said.
+
+"Won't you be frightened, Andrew?" I asked.
+
+"Frightened? What should I be frightened at? It's all waste to be
+frightened before you know whether the thing is worth it."
+
+My courage had been reviving fast in the warm presence of a human
+being. I was still seated on Missy. To go home having done nothing for
+Jamie, and therefore nothing for Elsie, after all my grand ideas of
+rescue and restoration, was too mortifying. I should feel so small
+when I woke in the morning! And yet suppose the something which gave
+that fearful cry in the cottage should be out roaming the fields and
+looking for mel I had courage enough, however, to remain where I was
+till Andrew came out again, and as I sat still on the mare's back, my
+courage gradually rose. Nothing increases terror so much as running
+away. When he reappeared, I asked him:
+
+"What do you think it could be, Andrew?"
+
+"How should I tell?" returned Andrew. "The old woman has a very queer
+cock, I know, that always roosts on the top of her bed, and crows like
+no cock I ever heard crow. Or it might be Wandering Willie--he goes to
+see her sometimes, and the demented creature might strike up his pipes
+at any unearthly hour."
+
+I was not satisfied with either suggestion; but the sound I had heard
+had already grown so indistinct in my memory, that for anything I
+could tell it might have been either. The terror which it woke in my
+mind had rendered me incapable of making any observations or setting
+down any facts with regard to it. I could only remember that I had
+heard a frightful noise, but as to what it was like I could scarcely
+bear the smallest testimony.
+
+I begged Andrew to put the saddle on for me, as I should then have
+more command of Missy. He went and got it, appearing, I thought, not
+at all over-anxious about old Betty; and I meantime buckled on an old
+rusty spur which lay in the stable window, the leathers of it
+crumbling off in flakes. Thus armed, and mounted with my feet in the
+stirrups, and therefore a good pull on Missy's mouth, I found my
+courage once more equal to the task before me. Andrew and I parted at
+right angles; he across the field to old Betty's cottage, and I along
+the road once more in the direction of John Adam's farm.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+Failure
+
+
+It must have been now about eleven o'clock. The clouds had cleared
+off, and the night had changed from brown and grey to blue sparkling
+with gold. I could see much better, and fancied I could hear better
+too. But neither advantage did much for me. I had not ridden far from
+the stable, before I again found myself very much alone and
+unprotected, with only the wide, silent fields about me, and the wider
+and more silent sky over my head. The fear began to return. I fancied
+something strange creeping along every ditch--something shapeless, but
+with a terrible cry in it. Next I thought I saw a scarcely visible
+form--now like a creature on all-fours, now like a man, far off, but
+coming rapidly towards me across the nearest field. It always
+vanished, however, before it came close. The worst of it was, that the
+faster I rode, the more frightened I became; for my speed seemed to
+draw the terrors the faster after me. Having discovered this, I
+changed my plan, and when I felt more frightened, drew rein and went
+slower. This was to throw a sort of defiance to the fear; and
+certainly as often as I did so it abated. Fear is a worse thing than
+danger.
+
+I had to pass very nigh the pool to which Turkey and I had gone the
+night of our adventure with Bogbonny's bull. That story was now far
+off in the past, but I did not relish the dull shine of the water in
+the hollow, notwithstanding. In fact I owed the greater part of the
+courage I possessed--and it was little enough for my needs--to Missy.
+I dared not have gone on my own two legs. It was not that I could so
+easily run away with four instead, but that somehow I was lifted above
+the ordinary level of fear by being upon her back. I think many men
+draw their courage out of their horses.
+
+At length I came in sight of the keeper's farm; and just at that
+moment the moon peeped from behind a hill, throwing as long shadows as
+the setting sun, but in the other direction. The shadows were very
+different too. Somehow they were liker to the light that made them
+than the sun-shadows are to the sunlight. Both the light and the
+shadows of the moon were strange and fearful to me. The sunlight and
+its shadows are all so strong and so real and so friendly, you seem to
+know all about them; they belong to your house, and they sweep all
+fear and dismay out of honest people's hearts. But with the moon and
+its shadows it is very different indeed. The fact is, the moon is
+trying to do what she cannot do. She is trying to dispel a great
+sun-shadow--for the night is just the gathering into one mass of all
+the shadows of the sun. She is not able for this, for her light is not
+her own; it is second-hand from the sun himself; and her shadows
+therefore also are second-hand shadows, pieces cut out of the great
+sun-shadow, and coloured a little with the moon's yellowness. If I
+were writing for grown people I should tell them that those who
+understand things because they think about them, and ask God to teach
+them, walk in the sunlight; and others, who take things because other
+people tell them so, are always walking in the strange moonlight, and
+are subject to no end of stumbles and terrors, for they hardly know
+light from darkness. Well, at first, the moon frightened me a
+little--she looked so knowing, and yet all she said round about me was
+so strange. But I rode quietly up to the back of the yard where the
+ricks stood, got off Missy and fastened the bridle to the gate, and
+walked across to the cart-shed, where the moon was shining upon the
+ladder leading up to the loft. I climbed the ladder, and after several
+failures succeeded in finding how the door was fastened. When I opened
+it, the moonlight got in before me, and poured all at once upon a heap
+of straw in the farthest corner, where Jamie was lying asleep with a
+rug over him. I crossed the floor, knelt down by him, and tried to
+wake him. This was not so easy. He was far too sound asleep to be
+troubled by the rats; for sleep is an armour--yes, a castle--against
+many enemies. I got hold of one of his hands, and in lifting it to
+pull him up found a cord tied to his wrist. I was indignant: they had
+actually manacled him like a thief! I gave the cord a great tug of
+anger, pulled out my knife, and cut it; then, hauling Jamie up, got
+him half-awake at last. He stared with fright first, and then began to
+cry. As soon as he was awake enough to know me, he stopped crying but
+not staring, and his eyes seemed to have nothing better than moonlight
+in them.
+
+"Come along, Jamie," I said. "I'm come to take you home."
+
+"I don't want to go home," said Jamie. "I want to go to sleep again."
+
+"That's very ungrateful of you, Jamie," I said, full of my own
+importance, "when I've come so far, and all at night too, to set you
+free."
+
+"I'm free enough," said Jamie. "I had a better supper a great deal
+than I should have had at home. I don't want to go before the
+morning."
+
+And he began to whimper again.
+
+"Do you call this free?" I said, holding up his wrist where the
+remnant of the cord was hanging.
+
+"Oh!" said Jamie, "that's only--"
+
+But ere he got farther the moonlight in the loft was darkened. I
+looked hurriedly towards the door. There stood the strangest figure,
+with the moon behind it. I thought at first it was the Kelpie come
+after me, for it was a tall woman. My heart gave a great jump up, but
+I swallowed it down. I would not disgrace myself before Jamie. It was
+not the Kelpie, however, but the keeper's sister, the great, grim,
+gaunt woman I had seen at the table at supper. I will not attempt to
+describe her appearance. It was peculiar enough, for she had just got
+out of bed and thrown an old shawl about her. She was not pleasant to
+look at. I had myself raised the apparition, for, as Jamie explained
+to me afterwards, the cord which was tied to his wrist, instead of
+being meant to keep him a prisoner, was a device of her kindness to
+keep him from being too frightened. The other end had been tied to her
+wrist, that if anything happened he might pull her, and then she would
+come to him.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"What's the matter, Jamie Duff?" she said in a gruff voice as she
+advanced along the stream of moonlight.
+
+I stood up as bravely as I could.
+
+"It's only me, Miss Adam," I said.
+
+"And who are you?" she returned.
+
+"Ranald Bannerman," I answered.
+
+"Oh!" she said in a puzzled tone. "What are you doing here at this
+time of the night?"
+
+"I came to take Jamie home, but he won't go."
+
+"You're a silly boy to think my brother John would do him any harm,"
+she returned. "You're comfortable enough, aren't you, Jamie Duff?"
+
+"Yes, thank you, ma'am, quite comfortable," said Jamie, who was now
+wide-awake. "But, please ma'am, Ranald didn't mean any harm."
+
+"He's a housebreaker, though," she rejoined with a grim chuckle; "and
+he'd better go home again as fast as he can. If John Adam should come
+out, I don't exactly know what might happen. Or perhaps he'd like to
+stop and keep you company."
+
+"No, thank you, Miss Adam," I said. "I will go home."
+
+"Come along, then, and let me shut the door after you."
+
+Somewhat nettled with Jamie Duff's indifference to my well-meant
+exertions on his behalf, I followed her without even bidding him good
+night.
+
+"Oh, you've got Missy, have you?" she said, spying her where she
+stood. "Would you like a drink of milk or a piece of oatcake before
+you go?"
+
+"No, thank you," I said. "I shall be glad to go to bed."
+
+"I should think so," she answered. "Jamie is quite comfortable, I
+assure you; and I'll take care he's in time for school in the
+morning. There's no harm in _him_, poor thing!"
+
+She undid the bridle for me, helped me to mount in the kindest way,
+bade me good night, and stood looking after me till I was some
+distance off. I went home at a good gallop, took off the saddle and
+bridle and laid them in a cart in the shed, turned Missy loose into
+the stable, shut the door, and ran across the field to the manse,
+desiring nothing but bed.
+
+When I came near the house from the back, I saw a figure entering the
+gate from the front. It was in the full light of the moon, which was
+now up a good way. Before it had reached the door I had got behind the
+next corner, and peeping round saw that my first impression was
+correct: it was the Kelpie. She entered, and closed the door behind
+her very softly. Afraid of being locked out, a danger which had
+scarcely occurred to me before, I hastened after her; but finding the
+door already fast, I called through the keyhole. She gave a cry of
+alarm, but presently opened the door, looking pale and frightened.
+
+"What are you doing out of doors this time of the night?" she asked,
+but without quite her usual arrogance, for, although she tried to put
+it on, her voice trembled too much.
+
+I retorted the question.
+
+"What were you doing out yourself?" I said.
+
+"Looking after you, of course."
+
+"That's why you locked the door, I suppose--to keep me out."
+
+She had no answer ready, but looked as if she would have struck me.
+
+"I shall let your father know of your goings on," she said, recovering
+herself a little.
+
+"You need not take the trouble. I shall tell him myself at breakfast
+to-morrow morning. I have nothing to hide. You had better tell him
+too."
+
+I said this not that I did not believe she had been out to look for
+me, but because I thought she had locked the door to annoy me, and I
+wanted to take my revenge in rudeness. For doors were seldom locked in
+the summer nights in that part of the country. She made me no reply,
+but turned and left me, not even shutting the door. I closed it, and
+went to bed weary enough.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+Turkey Plots
+
+
+The next day, at breakfast, I told my father all the previous day's
+adventures. Never since he had so kindly rescued me from the misery of
+wickedness had I concealed anything from him. He, on his part, while
+he gave us every freedom, expected us to speak frankly concerning our
+doings. To have been unwilling to let him know any of our proceedings
+would have simply argued that they were already disapproved of by
+ourselves, and no second instance of this had yet occurred with me.
+Hence it came that still as I grew older I seemed to come nearer to my
+father. He was to us like a wiser and more beautiful self over us,--a
+more enlightened conscience, as it were, ever lifting us up towards
+its own higher level.
+
+This was Sunday; but he was not so strict in his ideas concerning the
+day as most of his parishioners. So long as we were sedate and
+orderly, and neither talked nor laughed too loud, he seldom interfered
+with our behaviour, or sought to alter the current of our
+conversation.  I believe he did not, like some people, require or
+expect us to care about religious things as much as he did: we could
+not yet know as he did what they really were. But when any of the
+doings of the week were referred to on the Sunday, he was more strict,
+I think, than on other days, in bringing them, if they involved the
+smallest question, to the standard of right, to be judged, and
+approved or condemned thereby. I believe he thought that to order our
+ways was our best preparation for receiving higher instruction
+afterwards. For one thing, we should then, upon failure, feel the
+burden of it the more, and be the more ready to repent and seek the
+forgiveness of God, and that best help of his which at length makes a
+man good within himself.
+
+He listened attentively to my story, seemed puzzled at the cry I had
+heard from the cottage, said nothing could have gone very wrong, or we
+should have heard of it, especially as Andrew had been to inquire,
+laughed over the apparition of Miss Adam, and my failure in rescuing
+Jamie Duff. He said, however, that I had no right to interefere with
+constituted authority--that Adam was put there to protect the trees,
+and if he had got hold of a harmless person, yet Jamie was certainly
+trespassing, and I ought to have been satisfied with Turkey's way of
+looking at the matter.
+
+I saw that my father was right, and a little further reflection
+convinced me that, although my conduct had a root in my regard for
+Jamie Duff, it had a deeper root in my regard for his sister, and one
+yet deeper in my regard for myself--for had I not longed to show off
+in her eyes? I suspect almost all silly actions have their root in
+selfishness, whether it take the form of vanity, of conceit, of greed,
+or of ambition.
+
+While I was telling my tale, Mrs. Mitchell kept coming into the room
+oftener, and lingering longer, than usual. I did not think of this
+till afterwards. I said nothing about her, for I saw no occasion; but
+I do not doubt she was afraid I would, and wished to be at hand to
+defend herself. She was a little more friendly to me in church that
+day: she always sat beside little Davie.
+
+When we came out, I saw Andrew, and hurried after him to hear how he
+had sped the night before. He told me he had found all perfectly quiet
+at the cottage, except the old woman's cough, which was troublesome,
+and gave proof that she was alive, and probably as well as usual. He
+suggested now that the noise was all a fancy of mine--at which I was
+duly indignant, and desired to know if it was also Missy's fancy that
+made her go off like a mad creature. He then returned to his former
+idea of the cock, and as this did not insult my dignity, I let it
+pass, leaning however myself to the notion of Wandering Willie's
+pipes.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+On the following Wednesday we had a half holiday, and before dinner I
+went to find Turkey at the farm. He met me in the yard, and took me
+into the barn.
+
+"I want to speak to you, Ranald," he said.
+
+I remember so well how the barn looked that day. The upper half of one
+of the doors had a hole in it, and a long pencil of sunlight streamed
+in, and fell like a pool of glory upon a heap of yellow straw. So
+golden grew the straw beneath it, that the spot looked as if it were
+the source of the shine, and sent the slanting ray up and out of the
+hole in the door. We sat down beside it, I wondering why Turkey looked
+so serious and important, for it was not his wont.
+
+"Ranald," said Turkey, "I can't bear that the master should have bad
+people about him."
+
+"What do you mean, Turkey?" I rejoined.
+
+"I mean the Kelpie."
+
+"She's a nasty thing, I know," I answered. "But my father considers
+her a faithful servant."
+
+"That's just where it is. She is not faithful. I've suspected her for
+a long time. She's so rough and ill-tempered that she looks honest;
+but I shall be able to show her up yet. You wouldn't call it honest to
+cheat the poor, would you?"
+
+"I should think not. But what do you mean?"
+
+"There must have been something to put old Eppie in such an ill-temper
+on Saturday, don't you think?"
+
+"I suppose she had had a sting from the Kelpie's tongue."
+
+"No, Ranald, that's not it. I had heard whispers going about; and last
+Saturday, after we came home from John Adam's, and after I had told
+Elsie about Jamie, I ran up the street to old Eppie. You would have
+got nothing out of her, for she would not have liked to tell you; but
+she told me all about it."
+
+"What a creature you are, Turkey! Everybody tells you everything."
+
+"No, Ranald; I don't think I am such a gossip as that. But when you
+have a chance, you ought to set right whatever you can. Right's the
+only thing, Ranald."
+
+"But aren't you afraid they'll call you a meddler, Turkey? Not that
+_I_ think so, for I'm sure if you do anything _against_ anybody, it's
+_for_ some other body."
+
+"That would be no justification if I wasn't in the right," said
+Turkey. "But if I am, I'm willing to bear any blame that comes of
+it. And I wouldn't meddle for anybody that could take care of
+himself. But neither old Eppie nor your father can do that: the one's
+too poor, and the other too good."
+
+"I _was_ wondering what you meant by saying my father couldn't take
+care of himself."
+
+"He's too good; he's too good, Ranald. He believes in everybody. _I_
+wouldn't have kept that Kelpie in _my_ house half the time."
+
+"Did you ever say anything to Kirsty about her?"
+
+"I did once; but she told me to mind my own business. Kirsty snubs me
+because I laugh at her stories. But Kirsty is as good as gold, and I
+wouldn't mind if she boxed my ears--as indeed she's done--many's the
+time."
+
+"But what's the Kelpie been doing to old Eppie?"
+
+"First of all, Eppie has been playing her a trick."
+
+"Then she mustn't complain."
+
+"Eppie's was a lawful trick, though. The old women have been laying
+their old heads together--but to begin at the beginning: there has
+been for some time a growing conviction amongst the poor folk that the
+Kelpie never gives them an honest handful of meal when they go their
+rounds. But this was very hard to prove, and although they all
+suspected it, few of them were absolutely certain about it. So they
+resolved that some of them should go with empty bags. Every one of
+those found a full handful at the bottom. Still they were not
+satisfied. They said she was the one to take care what she was about.
+Thereupon old Eppie resolved to go with something at the bottom of her
+bag to look like a good quantity of meal already gathered. The moment
+the door was closed behind her--that was last Saturday--she peeped
+into the bag. Not one grain of meal was to be discovered. That was why
+she passed you muttering to herself and looking so angry. Now it will
+never do that the manse, of all places, should be the one where the
+poor people are cheated of their dues. But we roust have yet better
+proof than this before we can say anything."
+
+"Well, what do you mean to do, Turkey?" I asked. "Why does she do it,
+do you suppose? It's not for the sake of saving my father's meal, I
+should think."
+
+"No, she does something with it, and, I suppose, flatters herself she
+is not stealing--only saving it off the poor, and so making a right to
+it for herself. I can't help thinking that her being out that same
+night had something to do with it. Did you ever know her go to see old
+Betty?"
+
+"No, she doesn't like her. I know that."
+
+"I'm not so sure. She pretends perhaps. But we'll have a try. I think
+I can outwit her. She's fair game, you know."
+
+"How? What? Do tell me, Turkey," I cried, right eagerly.
+
+"Not to-day. I will tell you by and by."
+
+He got up and went about his work.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+Old John Jamieson
+
+
+As I returned to the house I met my father.
+
+"Well, Ranald, what are you about?" he said, in his usual gentle tone.
+
+"Nothing in particular, father," I answered.
+
+"Well, I'm going to see an old man--John Jamieson--I don't think you
+know him: he has not been able to come to church for a long time. They
+tell me he is dying. Would you like to go with me?"
+
+"Yes, father. But won't you take Missy?"
+
+"Not if you will walk with me. It's only about three miles."
+
+"Very well, father. I should like to go with you."
+
+My father talked about various things on the way. I remember in
+particular some remarks he made about reading Virgil, for I had just
+begun the AEneid. For one thing, he told me I must scan every line
+until I could make it sound like poetry, else I should neither enjoy
+it properly, nor be fair to the author. Then he repeated some lines
+from Milton, saying them first just as if they were prose, and after
+that the same lines as they ought to be sounded, making me mark the
+difference. Next he did the same with a few of the opening lines of
+Virgil's great poem, and made me feel the difference there.
+
+"The sound is the shape of it, you know, Ranald," he said, "for a poem
+is all for the ear and not for the eye. The eye sees only the sense of
+it; the ear sees the shape of it. To judge poetry without heeding the
+sound of it, is nearly as bad as to judge a rose by smelling it with
+your eyes shut. The sound, besides being a beautiful thing in itself,
+has a sense in it which helps the other out. A psalm tune, if it's the
+right one, helps you to see how beautiful the psalm is. Every poem
+carries its own tune in its own heart, and to read it aloud is the
+only way to bring out its tune."
+
+I liked Virgil ever so much better after this, and always tried to get
+at the tune of it, and of every other poem I read.
+
+"The right way of anything," said my father, "may be called the tune of
+it. We have to find out the tune of our own lives. Some people don't
+seem ever to find it out, and so their lives are a broken and
+uncomfortable thing to them--full of ups and downs and disappointments,
+and never going as it was meant to go."
+
+"But what is the right tune of a body's life, father?"
+
+"The will of God, my boy."
+
+"But how is a person to know that, father?"
+
+"By trying to do what he knows of it already. Everybody has a
+different kind of tune in his life, and no one can find out another's
+tune for him, though he _may_ help him to find it for himself."
+
+"But aren't we to read the Bible, father?"
+
+"Yes, if it's in order to obey it. To read the Bible thinking to
+please God by the mere reading of it, is to think like a heathen."
+
+"And aren't we to say our prayers, father?"
+
+"We are to ask God for what we want. If we don't want a thing, we are
+only acting like pagans to speak as if we did, and call it prayer, and
+think we are pleasing him."
+
+I was silent. My father resumed.
+
+"I fancy the old man we are going to see found out the tune of _his_
+life long ago."
+
+"Is he a very wise man then, father?"
+
+"That depends on what you mean by _wise_. _I_ should call him a wise
+man, for to find out that tune is the truest wisdom. But he's not a
+learned man at all. I doubt if he ever read a book but the Bible,
+except perhaps the Pilgrim's Progress. I believe he has always been
+very fond of that. _You_ like that--don't you, Ranald?"
+
+"I've read it a good many times, father. But I was a little tired of
+it before I got through it last time."
+
+"But you did read it through--did you--the last time, I mean?"
+
+"Oh yes, father. I never like to leave the loose end of a thing
+hanging about."
+
+"That's right, my boy; that's right. Well, I think you'd better not
+open the book again for a long time--say twenty years at least. It's a
+great deal too good a book to let yourself get tired of. By that time
+I trust you will be able to understand it a great deal better than you
+can at present."
+
+I felt a little sorry that I was not to look at the Pilgrim's Progress
+for twenty years; but I am very glad of it now.
+
+"We must not spoil good books by reading them too much," my father
+added. "It is often better to think about them than to read them; and
+it is best never to do either when we are tired of them. We should get
+tired of the sunlight itself, beautiful as it is, if God did not send
+it away every night. We're not even fit to have moonlight always. The
+moon is buried in the darkness every month. And because we can bear
+nothing for any length of time together, we are sent to sleep every
+night, that we may begin fresh again in the morning."
+
+"I see, father, I see," I answered.
+
+We talked on until we came in sight of John Jamieson's cottage.
+
+What a poor little place it was to look at--built of clay, which had
+hardened in the sun till it was just one brick! But it was a better
+place to live in than it looked, for no wind could come through the
+walls, although there was plenty of wind about. Three little windows
+looked eastward to the rising sun, and one to the south: it had no
+more. It stood on the side of a heathy hill, which rose up steep
+behind it, and bending round sheltered it from the north. A low wall
+of loose stones enclosed a small garden, reclaimed from the hill,
+where grew some greens and cabbages and potatoes, with a flower here
+and there between. In summer it was pleasant enough, for the warm sun
+makes any place pleasant. But in winter it must have been a cold
+dreary place indeed. There was no other house within sight of it. A
+little brook went cantering down the hill close to the end of the
+cottage, singing merrily.
+
+"It is a long way to the sea, but by its very nature the water will
+find it at last," said my father, pointing to the stream as we crossed
+it by the single stone that was its bridge.
+
+He had to bend his head low to enter the cottage. An old woman, the
+sick man's wife, rose from the side of the chimney to greet us. My
+father asked how John was.
+
+"Wearing away," was her answer. "But he'll be glad to see you."
+
+We turned in the direction in which her eyes guided us. The first
+thing I saw was a small withered-looking head, and the next a
+withered-looking hand, large and bony. The old man lay in a bed closed
+in with boards, so that very little light fell upon him; but his hair
+glistened silvery through the gloom. My father drew a chair beside
+him. John looked up, and seeing who it was, feebly held out his
+hand. My father took it and stroked it, and said:
+
+"Well, John, my man, you've had a hard life of it."
+
+"No harder than I could bear," said John.
+
+"It's a grand thing to be able to say that," said my father.
+
+"Oh sir! for that matter, I would go through it all again, if it was
+_his_ will, and willingly. I have no will but his, sir."
+
+"Well, John, I wish we could all say the same. When a man comes to
+that, the Lord lets him have what he wants. What do you want now,
+John?"
+
+"To depart and be with the Lord. It wouldn't be true, sir, to say that
+I wasn't weary. It seems to me, if it's the Lord's will, I've had
+enough of this life. Even if death be a long sleep, as some people
+say, till the judgment, I think I would rather sleep, for I'm very
+weary. Only there's the old woman there! I don't like leaving her."
+
+"But you can trust God for her too, can't you?"
+
+"It would be a poor thing if I couldn't, sir."
+
+"Were you ever hungry, John--dreadfully hungry, I mean?"
+
+"Never longer than I could bear," he answered. "When you think it's
+the will of God, hunger doesn't get much hold of you, sir."
+
+"You must excuse me, John, for asking so many questions. You know God
+better than I do, and I want my young man here to know how strong the
+will of God makes a man, old or young. He needn't care about anything
+else, need he?"
+
+"There's nothing else to care about, sir. If only the will of God be
+done, everything's all right, you know. I do believe, sir, God cares
+more for me than my old woman herself does, and she's been as good a
+wife to me as ever was. Young gentleman, you know who says that God
+numbers the very hairs of our heads? There's not many of mine left to
+number," he added with a faint smile, "but there's plenty of
+yours. You mind the will of God, and he'll look after you. That's the
+way he divides the business of life."
+
+I saw now that my father's talk as we came, had been with a view to
+prepare me for what John Jamieson would say. I cannot pretend,
+however, to have understood the old man at the time, but his words
+have often come back to me since, and helped me through trials pretty
+severe, although, like the old man, I have never found any of them too
+hard to bear.
+
+"Have you no child to come and help your wife to wait upon you?" my
+father asked.
+
+"I have had ten, sir, but only three are left alive. There'll be
+plenty to welcome me home when I go. One of the three's in Canada, and
+can't come. Another's in Australia, and he can't come. But Maggie's
+not far off, and she's got leave from her mistress to come for a
+week--only we don't want her to come till I'm nearer my end. I should
+like her to see the last of her old father, for I shall be young again
+by the next time she sees me, please God, sir. He's all in all--isn't
+he, sir?"
+
+"True, John. If we have God, we have all things; for all things are
+his and we are his. But we mustn't weary you too much. Thank you for
+your good advice."
+
+"I beg your pardon, sir; I had no intention of speaking like that. I
+never could give advice in all my life. I always found it was as much
+as I could do to take the good advice that was given to me. I should
+like to be prayed for in the church next Sunday, sir, if you please."
+
+"But can't you pray for yourself, John?"
+
+"Yes, sir; but I would like to have some spiritual gift because my
+friends asked it for me. Let them pray for more faith for me. I want
+more and more of that. The more you have, the more you want. Don't
+you, sir? And I mightn't ask enough for myself, now I'm so old and so
+tired. I sleep a great deal, sir."
+
+"Then don't you think God will take care to give you enough, even if
+you shouldn't ask for enough?" said my father.
+
+"No doubt of that. But you see I am able to think of it now, and so I
+must put things in a train for the time when I shan't be able to think
+of it."
+
+Something like this was what John said; and although I could not
+understand it then, my father spoke to me several times about it
+afterwards, and I came to see how the old man wanted to provide
+against the evil time by starting prayers heavenward beforehand, as it
+were.
+
+My father prayed by his bedside, pulled a parcel or two from his
+pocket for his wife, and then we walked home together in silence. My
+father was not the man to heap words upon words and so smother the
+thought that lay in them. He had taken me for the sake of the lesson I
+might receive, and he left it to strike root in my mind, which he
+judged more likely if it remained undisturbed.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII
+
+Turkey's Trick
+
+
+When we came to the farm on our way home, we looked in to see Kirsty,
+but found the key in the door, indicating that she had gone out. As we
+left the yard, we saw a strange-looking woman, to all appearance a
+beggar, approaching. She had a wallet over her shoulder, and walked
+stooping with her eyes on the ground, nor lifted them to greet
+us--behaviour which rarely showed itself in our parish. My father took
+no notice, but I could not help turning to look after the woman. To my
+surprise she stood looking after us, but the moment I turned, she
+turned also and walked on. When I looked again she had vanished. Of
+course she must have gone into the farm-yard. Not liking the look of
+her, and remembering that Kirsty was out, I asked my father whether I
+had not better see if any of the men were about the stable. He
+approved, and I ran back to the house. The door was still locked. I
+called Turkey, and heard his voice in reply from one of the farthest
+of the cow-houses. When I had reached it and told him my story, he
+asked if my father knew I had come back. When he heard that he did
+know, he threw down his pitchfork, and hastened with me. We searched
+every house about the place, but could find no sign whatever of the
+woman.
+
+"Are you sure it wasn't all a fancy of your own, Ranald?" said Turkey.
+
+"Quite sure. Ask my father. She passed as near us as you are to me
+now."
+
+Turkey hurried away to search the hayloft once more, but without
+success; and at last I heard my father calling me.
+
+I ran to him, and told him there was no woman to be seen.
+
+"That's odd," he said. "She must have passed straight through the yard
+and got out at the other side before you went in. While you were
+looking for her, she was plodding away out of sight. Come along, and
+let us have our tea."
+
+I could not feel quite satisfied about it, but, as there was no other
+explanation, I persuaded myself that my father was right.
+
+The next Saturday evening I was in the nursery with my brothers. It
+was growing dusk, when I heard a knocking. Mrs. Mitchell did not seem
+to hear it, so I went and opened the door. There was the same beggar
+woman. Rather frightened, I called aloud, and Mrs. Mitchell came. When
+she saw it was a beggar, she went back and reappeared with a wooden
+basin filled with meal, from which she took a handful as she came in
+apparent preparation for dropping it, in the customary way, into the
+woman's bag. The woman never spoke, but closed the mouth of her
+wallet, and turned away. Curiosity gave me courage to follow her. She
+walked with long strides in the direction of the farm, and I kept at a
+little distance behind her. She made for the yard. She should not
+escape me this time. As soon as she entered it, I ran as fast as I
+could, and just caught sight of her back as she went into one of the
+cow-houses. I darted after her. She turned round upon me--fiercely, I
+thought, but judge my surprise when she held out the open mouth of the
+bag towards me, and said--
+
+"Not one grain, Ranald! Put in your hand and feel."
+
+It was Turkey.
+
+I stared in amazement, unable for a time to get rid of the apparition
+and see the reality. Turkey burst out laughing at my perplexed
+countenance.
+
+"Why didn't you tell me before, Turkey?" I asked, able at length to
+join in the laugh.
+
+"Because then you would have had to tell your father, and I did not
+want him to be troubled about it, at least before we had got things
+clear. I always _did_ wonder how he could keep such a creature about
+him."
+
+"He doesn't know her as we do, Turkey."
+
+"No. She never gives him the chance. But now, Ranald, couldn't you
+manage to find out whether she makes any store of the meal she
+pretends to give away?"
+
+A thought struck me.
+
+"I heard Davie the other day asking her why she had two meal-tubs:
+perhaps that has something to do with it."
+
+"You must find out. Don't ask Davie."
+
+For the first time it occurred to me that the Kelpie had upon that
+night of terror been out on business of her own, and had not been
+looking for me at all.
+
+"Then she was down at old Betty's cottage," said Turkey, when I
+communicated the suspicion, "and Wandering Willie was there too, and
+Andrew was right about the pipes. Willie hasn't been once to the house
+ever since he took Davie, but she has gone to meet him at Betty's.
+Depend on it, Ranald, he's her brother, or nephew, or something, as I
+used to say. I do believe she gives him the meal to take home to her
+family somewhere. Did you ever hear anything about her friends?"
+
+"I never heard her speak of any."
+
+"Then I don't believe they're respectable. I don't, Ranald. But it
+will be a great trouble to the minister to have to turn her away. I
+wonder if we couldn't contrive to make her go of herself. I wish we
+could scare her out of the country. It's not nice either for a woman
+like that to have to do with such innocents as Allister and Davie."
+
+"She's very fond of Davie."
+
+"So she is. That's the only good thing I know of her. But hold your
+tongue, Ranald, till we find out more."
+
+Acting on the hint Davie had given me, I soon discovered the second
+meal-tub. It was small, and carefully stowed away. It was now nearly
+full, and every day I watched in the hope that when she emptied it, I
+should be able to find out what she did with the meal. But Turkey's
+suggestion about frightening her away kept working in my brain.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII
+
+I Scheme Too
+
+
+I began a series of persecutions of the Kelpie on my own account. I
+was doubtful whether Turkey would approve of them, so I did not tell
+him for some time; but I was ambitious of showing him that I could do
+something without him. I doubt whether it is worth while to relate the
+silly tricks I played her--my father made me sorry enough for them
+afterwards. My only excuse for them is, that I hoped by them to drive
+the Kelpie away.
+
+There was a closet in the hall, the floor of which was directly over
+the Kelpie's bed, with no ceiling between. With a gimlet I bored a
+hole in the floor, through which I passed a piece of string. I had
+already got a bit of black cloth, and sewed and stuffed it into
+something of the shape of a rat. Watching an opportunity, I tied this
+to the end of the string by the head, and hid it under her bolster.
+When she was going to bed, I went into the closet, and, laying my
+mouth to the floor, began squeaking like a rat, and scratching with my
+nails. Knowing by the exclamation she made that I had attracted her
+attention, I tugged at the string; this lifted the bolster a little,
+and of course out came my rat. I heard her scream, and open her door.
+I pulled the rat up tight to the ceiling. Then the door of the
+nursery, where we slept only in the winter, opened and shut, and I
+concluded she had gone to bed there to avoid the rat. I could hardly
+sleep for pleasure at my success.
+
+As she waited on us at breakfast next morning, she told my father that
+she had seen in her bed the biggest rat she ever saw in her life, and
+had not had a wink of sleep in consequence.
+
+"Well," said my father, "that comes of not liking cats. You should get
+a pussy to take care of you."
+
+She grumbled something and retired.
+
+She removed her quarters to the nursery. But there it was yet easier
+for me to plague her. Having observed in which bed she lay, I passed
+the string with the rat at the end of it over the middle of a bar that
+ran across just above her head, then took the string along the top of
+the other bed, and through a little hole in the door. As soon as I
+judged her safe in bed, I dropped the rat with a plump. It must have
+fallen on or very near her face. I heard her give a loud cry, but
+before she could reach the door, I had fastened the string to a nail
+and got out of the way.
+
+It was not so easy in those days to get a light, for the earliest form
+of lucifer match was only just making its appearance in that part of
+the country, and was very dear: she had to go to the kitchen, where
+the fire never went out summer or winter. Afraid lest on her return
+she should search the bed, find my harmless animal suspended by the
+neck, and descend upon me with all the wrath generated of needless
+terror, I crept into the room, got down my rat, pulled away the
+string, and escaped. The next morning she said nothing about the rat,
+but went to a neighbour's and brought home a fine cat. I laughed in my
+sleeve, thinking how little her cat could protect her from my rat.
+
+Once more, however, she changed her quarters, and went into a sort of
+inferior spare room in the upper part of the house, which suited my
+operations still better, for from my own bed I could now manage to
+drop and pull up the rat, drawing it away beyond the danger of
+discovery. The next night she took the cat into the room with her, and
+for that one I judged it prudent to leave her alone, but the next,
+having secured Kirsty's cat, I turned him into the room after she was
+in bed: the result was a frightful explosion of feline wrath.
+
+I now thought I might boast of my successes to Turkey, but he was not
+pleased.
+
+"She is sure to find you out, Ranald," he said, "and then whatever
+else we do will be a failure. Leave her alone till we have her quite."
+
+I do not care to linger over this part of my story. I am a little
+ashamed of it.
+
+We found at length that her private reservoir was quite full of meal.
+I kept close watch still, and finding one night that she was not in
+the house, discovered also that the meal-tub was now empty. I ran to
+Turkey, and together we hurried to Betty's cottage.
+
+It was a cloudy night with glimpses of moonlight. When we reached the
+place, we heard voices talking, and were satisfied that both the
+Kelpie and Wandering Willie were there.
+
+"We must wait till she comes out," said Turkey. "We must be able to
+say we saw her."
+
+There was a great stone standing out of the ground not far from the
+door, just opposite the elder-tree, and the path lay between them.
+
+"You get behind that tree--no, you are the smaller object--you get
+behind that stone, and I'll get behind the tree," said Turkey; "and
+when the Kelpie comes out, you make a noise like a beast, and rush at
+her on all-fours."
+
+"I'm good at a pig, Turkey," I said. "Will a pig do?"
+
+"Yes, well enough."
+
+"But what if she should know me, and catch me, Turkey?"
+
+"She will start away from you to my side; I shall rush out like a mad
+dog, and then she'll run for it."
+
+We waited a long time--a very long time, it seemed to me. It was well
+it was summer. We talked a little across, and that helped to beguile
+the weary time; but at last I said in a whisper:
+
+"Let's go home, Turkey, and lock the doors, and keep her out."
+
+"You go home then, Ranald, and I'll wait. I don't mind if it be till
+to-morrow morning. It is not enough to be sure ourselves; we must be
+able to make other people sure."
+
+"I'll wait as long as you do, Turkey; only I'm very sleepy, and she
+might come out when I was asleep."
+
+"Oh, I shall keep you awake!" replied Turkey; and we settled down
+again for a while.
+
+At the long last the latch of the door was lifted. I was just falling
+asleep, but the sound brought me wide awake at once. I peeped from
+behind my shelter. It was the Kelpie, with an empty bag--a
+pillow-case, I believe--in her hand. Behind her came Wandering Willie,
+but did not follow her from the door. The moment was favourable, for
+the moon was under a thick cloud. Just as she reached the stone, I
+rushed out on hands and knees, grunting and squeaking like a very wild
+pig indeed. As Turkey had foretold, she darted aside, and I retreated
+behind my stone. The same instant Turkey rushed at her with such
+canine fury, that the imitation startled even me, who had expected
+it. You would have thought the animal was ready to tear a whole army
+to pieces, with such a complication of fierce growls and barks and
+squeals did he dart on the unfortunate culprit. She took to her heels
+at once, not daring to make for the cottage, because the enemy was
+behind her. But I had hardly ensconced myself behind the stone,
+repressing my laughter with all my might, when I was seized from
+behind by Wandering Willie, who had no fear either of pig or dog. He
+began pommelling me.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"Turkey! Turkey!" I cried.
+
+The cry stopped his barking pursuit of the Kelpie. He rose to his
+feet and rushed to my aid. But when he saw the state of affairs, he
+turned at once for the cottage, crying:
+
+"Now for a kick at the bagpipes!"
+
+Wandering Willie was not too much a fool to remember and understand.
+He left me instantly, and made for the cottage. Turkey drew back and
+let him enter, then closed the door, and held it.
+
+"Get away a bit, Ranald. I can run faster than Willie. You'll be out
+of sight in a few yards."
+
+But instead of coming after us, Wandering Willie began playing a most
+triumphant tune upon his darling bagpipes. How the poor old woman
+enjoyed it, I do not know. Perhaps she liked it. For us, we set off to
+outstrip the Kelpie. It did not matter to Turkey, but she might lock
+me out again. I was almost in bed before I heard her come in. She went
+straight to her own room.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX
+
+A Double Exposure
+
+
+Whether the Kelpie had recognized us I could not tell, but not much of
+the next morning passed before my doubt was over. When she had set our
+porridge on the table, she stood up, and, with her fists in her sides,
+addressed my father:
+
+"I'm very sorry, sir, to have to make complaints. It's a thing I don't
+like, and I'm not given to. I'm sure I try to do my duty by Master
+Ranald as well as everyone else in this house."
+
+I felt a little confused, for I now saw clearly enough that my father
+could not approve of our proceedings. I whispered to Allister--
+
+"Run and fetch Turkey. Tell him to come directly."
+
+Allister always did whatever I asked him. He set off at once. The
+Kelpie looked suspicious as he left the room, but she had no pretext
+for interference. I allowed her to tell her tale without interruption.
+After relating exactly how we had served her the night before, when
+she had gone on a visit of mercy, as she represented it, she accused
+me of all my former tricks--that of the cat having, I presume,
+enlightened her as to the others; and ended by saying that if she were
+not protected against me and Turkey, she must leave the place.
+
+"Let her go, father," I said. "None of us like her."
+
+"I like her," whimpered little Davie.
+
+"Silence, sir!" said my father, very sternly. "Are these things true?"
+
+"Yes, father," I answered. "But please hear what _I_'ve got to say.
+She's only told you _her_ side of it."
+
+"You have confessed to the truth of what she alleges," said my
+father. "I did think," he went on, more in sorrow than in anger,
+though a good deal in both, "that you had turned from your bad
+ways. To think of my taking you with me to the death-bed of a holy
+man, and then finding you so soon after playing such tricks!--more
+like the mischievousness of a monkey than of a human being!"
+
+"I don't say it was right, father; and I'm very sorry if I have
+offended you."
+
+"You _have_ offended me, and very deeply. You have been unkind and
+indeed cruel to a good woman who has done her best for you for many
+years!"
+
+I was not too much abashed to take notice that the Kelpie bridled at
+this.
+
+"I can't say I'm sorry for what I've done to her," I said.
+
+"Really, Ranald, you are impertinent. I would send you out of the room
+at once, but you must beg Mrs. Mitchell's pardon first, and after that
+there will be something more to say, I fear."
+
+"But, father, you have not heard my story yet."
+
+"Well--go on. It is fair, I suppose, to hear both sides. But nothing
+can justify such conduct."
+
+I began with trembling voice. I had gone over in my mind the night
+before all I would say, knowing it better to tell the tale from the
+beginning circumstantially. Before I had ended, Turkey made his
+appearance, ushered in by Allister. Both were out of breath with
+running.
+
+My father stopped me, and ordered Turkey away until I should have
+finished. I ventured to look up at the Kelpie once or twice. She had
+grown white, and grew whiter. When Turkey left the room, she would
+have gone too. But my father told her she must stay and hear me to the
+end. Several times she broke out, accusing me of telling a pack of
+wicked lies, but my father told her she should have an opportunity of
+defending herself, and she must not interrupt me. When I had done, he
+called Turkey, and made him tell the story. I need hardly say that,
+although he questioned us closely, he found no discrepancy between our
+accounts. He turned at last to Mrs. Mitchell, who, but for her rage,
+would have been in an abject condition.
+
+"Now, Mrs. Mitchell!" he said.
+
+She had nothing to reply beyond asserting that Turkey and I had always
+hated and persecuted her, and had now told a pack of lies which we had
+agreed upon, to ruin her, a poor lone woman, with no friends to take
+her part.
+
+"I do not think it likely they could be so wicked," said my father.
+
+"So I'm to be the only wicked person in the world! Very well, sir! I
+will leave the house this very day."
+
+"No, no, Mrs. Mitchell; that won't do. One party or the other _is_
+very wicked--that is clear; and it is of the greatest consequence to
+me to find out which. If you go, I shall know it is you, and have you
+taken up and tried for stealing. Meantime I shall go the round of the
+parish. I do not think all the poor people will have combined to lie
+against you."
+
+"They all hate me," said the Kelpie.
+
+"And why?" asked my father.
+
+She made no answer.
+
+"I must get at the truth of it," said my father. "You can go now."
+
+She left the room without another word, and my father turned to
+Turkey.
+
+"I am surprised at you, Turkey, lending yourself to such silly
+pranks. Why did you not come and tell me."
+
+"I am very sorry, sir. I was afraid you would be troubled at finding
+how wicked she was, and I thought we might frighten her away somehow.
+But Ranald began his tricks without letting me know, and then I saw
+that mine could be of no use, for she would suspect them after his.
+Mine would have been better, sir."
+
+"I have no doubt of it, but equally unjustifiable. And you as well as
+he acted the part of a four-footed animal last night."
+
+"I confess I yielded to temptation then, for I knew it could do no
+good. It was all for the pleasure of frightening her. It was very
+foolish of me, and I beg your pardon, sir."
+
+"Well, Turkey, I confess you have vexed me, not by trying to find out
+the wrong she was doing me and the whole parish, but by taking the
+whole thing into your own hands. It is worse of you, inasmuch as you
+are older and far wiser than Ranald. It is worse of Ranald because I
+was his father. I will try to show you the wrong you have done.--Had
+you told me without doing anything yourselves, then I might have
+succeeded in bringing Mrs. Mitchell to repentance. I could have
+reasoned with her on the matter, and shown her that she was not merely
+a thief, but a thief of the worst kind, a Judas who robbed the poor,
+and so robbed God. I could have shown her how cruel she was--"
+
+"Please, sir," interrupted Turkey, "I don't think after all she did it
+for herself. I do believe," he went on, and my father listened, "that
+Wandering Willie is some relation of hers. He is the only poor person,
+almost the only person except Davie, I ever saw her behave kindly to.
+He was there last night, and also, I fancy, that other time, when
+Ranald got such a fright. She has poor relations somewhere, and sends
+the meal to them by Willie. You remember, sir, there were no old
+clothes of Allister's to be found when you wanted them for Jamie
+Duff."
+
+"You may be right, Turkey--I dare say you are right. I hope you are,
+for though bad enough, that would not be quite so bad as doing it for
+herself."
+
+"I am very sorry, father," I said; "I beg your pardon."
+
+"I hope it will be a lesson to you, my boy. After what you have done,
+rousing every bad and angry passion in her, I fear it will be of no
+use to try to make her be sorry and repent. It is to her, not to me,
+you have done the wrong. I have nothing to complain of for
+myself--quite the contrary. But it is a very dreadful thing to throw
+difficulties in the way of repentance and turning from evil works."
+
+"What can I do to make up for it?" I sobbed.
+
+"I don't see at this moment what you can do. I will turn it over in my
+mind. You may go now."
+
+Thereupon Turkey and I walked away, I to school, he to his cattle. The
+lecture my father had given us was not to be forgotten. Turkey looked
+sad, and I felt subdued and concerned.
+
+Everything my father heard confirmed the tale we had told him. But the
+Kelpie frustrated whatever he may have resolved upon with regard to
+her: before he returned she had disappeared. How she managed to get
+her chest away, I cannot tell. I think she must have hid it in some
+outhouse, and fetched it the next night. Many little things were
+missed from the house afterwards, but nothing of great value, and
+neither she nor Wandering Willie ever appeared again. We were all
+satisfied that poor old Betty knew nothing of her conduct. It was easy
+enough to deceive her, for she was alone in her cottage, only waited
+upon by a neighbour who visited her at certain times of the day.
+
+My father, I heard afterwards, gave five shillings out of his own
+pocket to every one of the poor people whom the Kelpie had defrauded.
+Her place in the house was, to our endless happiness, taken by Kirsty,
+and faithfully she carried out my father's instructions that, along
+with the sacred handful of meal, a penny should be given to every one
+of the parish poor from that time forward, so long as he lived at the
+manse.
+
+Not even little Davie cried when he found that Mrs. Mitchell was
+really gone. It was more his own affection than her kindness that had
+attached him to her.
+
+Thus were we at last delivered from our Kelpie.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX
+
+Tribulation
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+After the expulsion of the Kelpie, and the accession of Kirsty, things
+went on so peaceably, that the whole time rests in my memory like a
+summer evening after sundown. I have therefore little more to say
+concerning our home-life.
+
+There were two schools in the little town--the first, the parish
+school, the master of which was appointed by the presbytery; the
+second, one chiefly upheld by the dissenters of the place, the master
+of which was appointed by the parents of the scholars. This
+difference, however, indicated very little of the distinction and
+separation which it would have involved in England. The masters of
+both were licentiates of the established church, an order having a
+vague resemblance to that of deacons in the English church; there were
+at both of them scholars whose fees were paid by the parish, while
+others at both were preparing for the University; there were many
+pupils at the second school whose parents took them to the established
+church on Sundays, and both were yearly examined by the
+presbytery--that is, the clergymen of a certain district; while my
+father was on friendly terms with all the parents, some of whom did
+not come to his church because they thought the expenses of religion
+should be met by the offerings of those who prized its ministrations,
+while others regarded the unity of the nation, and thought that
+religion, like any other of its necessities, ought to be the care of
+its chosen government. I do not think the second school would ever
+have come into existence at all except for the requirements of the
+population, one school being insufficient. There was little real
+schism in the matter, except between the boys themselves. They made
+far more of it than their parents, and an occasional outbreak was the
+consequence.
+
+At this time there was at the second school a certain very rough lad,
+the least developed beyond the brute, perhaps, of all the scholars of
+the village. It is more amazing to see how close to the brute a man
+may remain than it is to see how far he may leave the brute behind.
+How it began I cannot recall; but this youth, a lad of seventeen,
+whether moved by dislike or the mere fascination of injury, was in the
+habit of teasing me beyond the verge of endurance as often as he had
+the chance. I did not like to complain to my father, though that would
+have been better than to hate him as I did. I was ashamed of my own
+impotence for self-defence; but therein I was little to blame, for I
+was not more than half his size, and certainly had not half his
+strength. My pride forbidding flight, the probability was, when we met
+in an out-of-the-way quarter, that he would block my path for half an
+hour at least, pull my hair, pinch my cheeks, and do everything to
+annoy me, short of leaving marks of violence upon me. If we met in a
+street, or other people were in sight, he would pass me with a wink
+and a grin, as much as to say--_Wait_.
+
+One of the short but fierce wars between the rival schools broke
+out. What originated the individual quarrel I cannot tell. I doubt if
+anyone knew. It had not endured a day, however, before it came to a
+pitched battle after school hours. The second school was considerably
+the smaller, but it had the advantage of being perched on the top of
+the low, steep hill at the bottom of which lay ours. Our battles
+always began with missiles; and I wonder, as often as I recall the
+fact, that so few serious accidents were the consequence. From the
+disadvantages of the ground, we had little chance against the
+stone-showers which descended upon us like hail, except we charged
+right up the hill, in the face of the inferior but well-posted enemy.
+When this was not in favour at the moment, I employed myself in
+collecting stones and supplying them to my companions, for it seemed
+to me that every boy, down to the smallest in either school, was
+skilful in throwing them, except myself: I could not throw halfway up
+the hill. On this occasion, however, I began to fancy it an unworthy
+exercise of my fighting powers, and made my first attempt at
+organizing a troop for an up-hill charge. I was now a tall boy, and of
+some influence amongst those about my own age. Whether the enemy saw
+our intent and proceeded to forestall it, I cannot say, but certainly
+that charge never took place.
+
+A house of some importance was then building, just on the top of the
+hill, and a sort of hand-wagon, or lorry on low wheels, was in use for
+moving the large stones employed, the chips from the dressing of which
+were then for us most formidable missiles. Our adversaries laid hold
+of this chariot, and turned it into an engine of war. They dragged it
+to the top of the hill, jumped upon it, as many as it would hold, and,
+drawn by their own weight, came thundering down upon our troops. Vain
+was the storm of stones which assailed their advance: they could not
+have stopped if they would. My company had to open and make way for
+the advancing prodigy, conspicuous upon which towered my personal
+enemy Scroggie.
+
+"Now," I called to my men, "as soon as the thing stops, rush in and
+seize them: they're not half our number. It will be an endless
+disgrace to let them go."
+
+Whether we should have had the courage to carry out the design had not
+fortune favoured us, I cannot tell. But as soon as the chariot reached
+a part of the hill where the slope was less, it turned a little to one
+side, and Scroggie fell off, drawing half of the load after him. My
+men rushed in with shouts of defiant onset, but were arrested by the
+non-resistance of the foe. I sprung to seize Scroggie. He tried to get
+up, but fell back with a groan. The moment I saw his face, my mood
+changed. My hatred, without will or wish or effort of mine, turned all
+at once into pity or something better. In a moment I was down on my
+knees beside him. His face was white, and drops stood upon his
+forehead. He lay half upon his side, and with one hand he scooped
+handfuls of dirt from the road and threw them down again. His leg was
+broken. I got him to lean his head against me, and tried to make him
+lie more comfortably; but the moment I sought to move the leg he
+shrieked out. I sent one of our swiftest runners for the doctor, and
+in the meantime did the best I could for him. He took it as a matter
+of course, and did not even thank me. When the doctor came, we got a
+mattress from a neighbouring house, laid it on the wagon, lifted
+Scroggie on the top, and dragged him up the hill and home to his
+mother.
+
+I have said a little, but only a little, concerning our master, Mr.
+Wilson. At the last examination I had, in compliance with the request
+of one of the clergymen, read aloud a metrical composition of my own,
+sent in by way of essay on the given subject, _Patriotism_, and after
+this he had shown me a great increase of favour. Perhaps he recognized
+in me some germ of a literary faculty--I cannot tell: it has never
+come to much if he did, and he must be greatly disappointed in me,
+seeing I labour not in living words, but in dead stones. I am certain,
+though, that whether I build good or bad houses, I should have built
+worse had I not had the insight he gave me into literature and the
+nature of literary utterance. I read Virgil and Horace with him, and
+scanned every doubtful line we came across. I sometimes think now,
+that what certain successful men want to make them real artists, is
+simply a knowledge of the literature--which is the essence of the
+possible art--of the country.
+
+My brother Tom had left the school, and gone to the county town, to
+receive some final preparation for the University; consequently, so
+far as the school was concerned, I was no longer in the position of a
+younger brother. Also Mr. Wilson had discovered that I had some
+faculty for imparting what knowledge I possessed, and had begun to
+make use of me in teaching the others. A good deal was done in this
+way in the Scotch schools. Not that there was the least attempt at
+system in it: the master, at any moment, would choose the one he
+thought fit, and set him to teach a class, while he attended to
+individuals, or taught another class himself. Nothing can be better
+for the verification of knowledge, or for the discovery of ignorance,
+than the attempt to teach. In my case it led to other and unforeseen
+results as well.
+
+The increasing trust the master reposed in me, and the increasing
+favour which openly accompanied it, so stimulated the growth of my
+natural vanity, that at length it appeared in the form of presumption,
+and, I have little doubt, although I was unaware of it at the time,
+influenced my whole behaviour to my school-fellows. Hence arose the
+complaint that I was a favourite with the master, and the accusation
+that I used underhand means to recommend myself to him, of which I am
+not yet aware that I was ever guilty. My presumption I confess, and
+wonder that the master did not take earlier measures to check it. When
+teaching a class, I would not unfrequently, if Mr. Wilson had vacated
+his chair, climb into it, and sit there as if I were the master of the
+school. I even went so far as to deposit some of my books in the
+master's desk, instead of in my own recess. But I had not the least
+suspicion of the indignation I was thus rousing against me.
+
+One afternoon I had a class of history. They read very badly, with
+what seemed wilful blundering; but when it came to the questioning on
+the subject of the lesson, I soon saw there had been a conspiracy. The
+answers they gave were invariably wrong, generally absurd, sometimes
+utterly grotesque. I ought to except those of a few girls, who did
+their best, and apparently knew nothing of the design of the others.
+One or two girls, however, infected with the spirit of the game, soon
+outdid the whole class in the wildness of their replies. This at last
+got the better of me; I lost my temper, threw down my book, and
+retired to my seat, leaving the class where it stood. The master
+called me and asked the reason. I told him the truth of the matter. He
+got very angry, and called out several of the bigger boys and punished
+them severely. Whether these supposed that I had mentioned them in
+particular, as I had not, I do not know; but I could read in their
+faces that they vowed vengeance in their hearts. When the school broke
+up, I lingered to the last, in the hope they would all go home as
+usual; but when I came out with the master, and saw the silent waiting
+groups, it was evident there was more thunder in the moral atmosphere
+than would admit of easy discharge. The master had come to the same
+conclusion, for instead of turning towards his own house, he walked
+with me part of the way home, without alluding however to the reason.
+Allister was with us, and I led Davie by the hand: it was his first
+week of school life. When we had got about half the distance,
+believing me now quite safe, he turned into a footpath and went
+through the fields back towards the town; while we, delivered from all
+immediate apprehension, jogged homewards.
+
+When we had gone some distance farther, I happened to look about--why,
+I could not tell. A crowd was following us at full speed. As soon as
+they saw that we had discovered them, they broke the silence with a
+shout, which was followed by the patter of their many footsteps.
+
+"Run, Allister!" I cried; and kneeling, I caught up Davie on my back,
+and ran with the feet of fear. Burdened thus, Allister was soon far
+ahead of me.
+
+"Bring Turkey!" I cried after him. "Run to the farm as hard as you can
+pelt, and bring Turkey to meet us."
+
+"Yes, yes, Ranald," shouted Allister, and ran yet faster.
+
+They were not getting up with us quite so fast as they wished; they
+began therefore to pick up stones as they ran, and we soon heard them
+hailing on the road behind us. A little farther, and the stones began
+to go bounding past us, so that I dared no longer carry Davie on my
+back. I had to stop, which lost us time, and to shift him into my
+arms, which made running much harder. Davie kept calling, "Run,
+Ranald!--here they come!" and jumping so, half in fear, half in
+pleasure, that I found it very hard work indeed.
+
+Their taunting voices reached me at length, loaded with all sorts of
+taunting and opprobrious words--some of them, I dare say, deserved,
+but not all. Next a stone struck me, but not in a dangerous place,
+though it crippled my running still more. The bridge was now in sight,
+however, and there I could get rid of Davie and turn at bay, for it
+was a small wooden bridge, with rails and a narrow gate at the end to
+keep horsemen from riding over it. The foremost of our pursuers were
+within a few yards of my heels, when, with a last effort, I bounded on
+it; and I had just time to set Davie down and turn and bar their way
+by shutting the gate, before they reached it. I had no breath left but
+just enough to cry, "Run, Davie!" Davie, however, had no notion of the
+state of affairs, and did not run, but stood behind me staring. So I
+was not much better off yet. If he had only run, and I had seen him
+far enough on the way home, I would have taken to the water, which was
+here pretty deep, before I would have run any further risk of their
+getting hold of me. If I could have reached the mill on the opposite
+bank, a shout would have brought the miller to my aid. But so long as
+I could prevent them from opening the gate, I thought I could hold the
+position. There was only a latch to secure it, but I pulled a thin
+knife from my pocket, and just as I received a blow in the face from
+the first arrival which knocked me backwards, I had jammed it over the
+latch through the iron staple in which it worked. Before the first
+attempt to open it had been followed by the discovery of the obstacle,
+I was up, and the next moment, with a well-directed kick, disabled a
+few of the fingers which were fumbling to remove it. To protect the
+latch was now my main object, but my efforts would have been quite
+useless, for twenty of them would have been over the top in an
+instant.  Help, however, although unrecognized as such, was making its
+way through the ranks of the enemy.
+
+They parted asunder, and Scroggie, still lame, strode heavily up to
+the gate. Recalling nothing but his old enmity, I turned once more and
+implored Davie. "Do run, Davie, dear! it's all up," I said; but my
+entreaties were lost upon Davie. Turning again in despair, I saw the
+lame leg being hoisted over the gate. A shudder ran through me: I
+could _not_ kick that leg; but I sprang up and hit Scroggie hard in
+the face. I might as well have hit a block of granite. He swore at me,
+caught hold of my hand, and turning to the assailants said:
+
+"Now, you be off! This is my little business. I'll do for him!"
+
+Although they were far enough from obeying his orders, they were not
+willing to turn him into an enemy, and so hung back expectant.
+Meantime the lame leg was on one side of the gate, the splints of
+which were sharpened at the points, and the sound leg was upon the
+other. I, on the one side--for he had let go my hand in order to
+support himself--retreated a little, and stood upon the defensive,
+trembling, I must confess; while my enemies on the other side could
+not reach me so long as Scroggie was upon the top of the gate.
+
+The lame leg went searching gently about, but could find no rest for
+the sole of its foot, for there was no projecting cross bar upon this
+side; the repose upon the top was anything but perfect, and the leg
+suspended behind was useless. The long and the short, both in legs and
+results, was, that there Scroggie stuck; and so long as he stuck, I
+was safe. As soon as I saw this, I turned and caught up Davie,
+thinking to make for home once more. But that very instant there was a
+rush at the gate; Scroggie was hoisted over, the knife was taken out,
+and on poured the assailants, before I had quite reached the other end
+of the bridge.
+
+"At them, Oscar!" cried a voice.
+
+The dog rushed past me on to the bridge, followed by Turkey. I set
+Davie down, and, holding his hand, breathed again. There was a scurry
+and a rush, a splash or two in the water, and then back came Oscar
+with his innocent tongue hanging out like a blood-red banner of
+victory. He was followed by Scroggie, who was exploding with laughter.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Oscar came up wagging his tail, and looking as pleased as if he had
+restored obedience to a flock of unruly sheep. I shrank back from
+Scroggie, wishing Turkey, who was still at the other end of the
+bridge, would make haste.
+
+"Wasn't it fun, Ranald?" said Scroggie. "You don't think I was so lame
+that I couldn't get over that gate? I stuck on purpose."
+
+Turkey joined us with an inquiring look, for he knew how Scroggie had
+been in the habit of treating me.
+
+"It's all right, Turkey," I said. "Scroggie stuck on the gate on
+purpose."
+
+"A good thing for you, Ranald!" said Turkey. "Didn't you see Peter
+Mason amongst them?"
+
+"No. He left the school last year."
+
+"He was there, though, and I don't suppose _he_ meant to be
+agreeable."
+
+"I tell you what," said Scroggie: "if you like, I'll leave my school
+and come to yours. My mother lets me do as I like."
+
+I thanked him, but said I did not think there would be more of it. It
+would blow over.
+
+Allister told my father as much as he knew of the affair; and when he
+questioned me, I told him as much as I knew.
+
+The next morning, just as we were all settling to work, my father
+entered the school. The hush that followed was intense. The place
+might have been absolutely empty for any sound I could hear for some
+seconds. The ringleaders of my enemies held down their heads, as
+anticipating an outbreak of vengeance. But after a few moments'
+conversation with Mr. Wilson, my father departed. There was a mystery
+about the proceeding, an unknown possibility of result, which had a
+very sedative effect the whole of the morning. When we broke up for
+dinner, Mr. Wilson detained me, and told me that my father thought it
+better that, for some time at least, I should not occupy such a
+prominent position as before. He was very sorry, he said, for I had
+been a great help to him; and if I did not object, he would ask my
+father to allow me to assist him in the evening-school during the
+winter. I was delighted at the prospect, sank back into my natural
+position, and met with no more annoyance. After a while I was able to
+assure my former foes that I had had no voice in bringing punishment
+upon them in particular, and the enmity was, I believe, quite
+extinguished.
+
+When winter came, and the evening-school was opened, Mr. Wilson called
+at the manse, and my father very willingly assented to the proposed
+arrangement. The scholars were mostly young men from neighbouring
+farms, or from workshops in the village, with whom, although I was so
+much younger than they, there was no danger of jealousy. The
+additional assistance they would thus receive, and their respect for
+superior knowledge, in which, with my advantages, I had no credit over
+them, would prevent any false shame because of my inferiority in
+years.
+
+There were a few girls at the school as well--among the rest, Elsie
+Duff. Although her grandmother was very feeble, Elsie was now able to
+have a little more of her own way, and there was no real reason why
+the old woman should not be left for an hour or two in the evening. I
+need hardly say that Turkey was a regular attendant. He always, and I
+often, saw Elsie home.
+
+My chief pleasure lay in helping her with her lessons. I did my best
+to assist all who wanted my aid, but offered unsolicited attention to
+her. She was not quick, but would never be satisfied until she
+understood, and that is more than any superiority of gifts. Hence, if
+her progress was slow, it was unintermitting. Turkey was far before me
+in trigonometry, but I was able to help him in grammar and geography,
+and when he commenced Latin, which he did the same winter, I assisted
+him a good deal.
+
+Sometimes Mr. Wilson would ask me to go home with him after school,
+and take supper. This made me late, but my father did not mind it, for
+he liked me to be with Mr. Wilson. I learned a good deal from him at
+such times. He had an excellent little library, and would take down
+his favourite books and read me passages. It is wonderful how things
+which, in reading for ourselves, we might pass over in a half-blind
+manner, gain their true power and influence through the voice of one
+who sees and feels what is in them. If a man in whom you have
+confidence merely lays his finger on a paragraph and says to you,
+"Read that," you will probably discover three times as much in it as
+you would if you had only chanced upon it in the course of your
+reading. In such case the mind gathers itself up, and is all eyes and
+ears.
+
+But Mr. Wilson would sometimes read me a few verses of his own; and
+this was a delight such as I have rarely experienced. My reader may
+wonder that a full-grown man and a good scholar should condescend to
+treat a boy like me as so much of an equal; but sympathy is precious
+even from a child, and Mr. Wilson had no companions of his own
+standing. I believe he read more to Turkey than to me, however.
+
+As I have once apologized already for the introduction of a few of his
+verses with Scotch words in them, I will venture to try whether the
+same apology will not cover a second offence of the same sort.
+
+        JEANIE BRAW[1]
+
+I like ye weel upo' Sundays, Jeanie,
+  In yer goon an' yer ribbons gay;
+But I like ye better on Mondays, Jeanie,
+  And I like ye better the day.[2]
+
+[Footnote 1: Brave; well dressed.].
+[Footnote 2: To-day.]
+
+For it _will_ come into my heid, Jeanie,
+  O' yer braws[1] ye are thinkin' a wee;
+No' a' o' the Bible-seed, Jeanie,
+  Nor the minister nor me.
+
+[Footnote 1: Bravery; finery.]
+
+And hame across the green, Jeanie,
+  Ye gang wi' a toss o' yer chin:
+Us twa there's a shadow atween, Jeanie,
+  Though yer hand my airm lies in.
+
+But noo, whan I see ye gang, Jeanie,
+  Busy wi' what's to be dune,
+Liltin' a haveless[2] sang, Jeanie,
+  I could kiss yer verra shune.
+
+[Footnote 2: Careless.]
+
+Wi' yer silken net on yer hair, Jeanie,
+  In yer bonny blue petticoat,
+Wi' yer kindly airms a' bare, Jeanie,
+  On yer verra shadow I doat.
+
+For oh! but ye're eident[3] and free, Jeanie,
+  Airy o' hert and o' fit[4];
+There's a licht shines oot o' yer ee, Jeanie;
+  O' yersel' ye thinkna a bit.
+
+[Footnote 3: Diligent.]
+[Footnote 4: Foot.]
+
+Turnin' or steppin' alang, Jeanie,
+  Liftin' an' layin' doon,
+Settin' richt what's aye gaein' wrang, Jeanie,
+  Yer motion's baith dance an' tune.
+
+Fillin' the cogue frae the coo, Jeanie,
+  Skimmin' the yallow cream,
+Poorin' awa' the het broo, Jeanie,
+  Lichtin' the lampie's leme[5]--
+
+[Footnote 5: Flame.]
+
+I' the hoose ye're a licht an' a law, Jeanie,
+  A servant like him that's abune:
+Oh! a woman's bonniest o' a', Jeanie,
+  Whan she's doin' what _maun_ be dune.
+
+Sae, dressed in yer Sunday claes, Jeanie,
+  Fair kythe[1] ye amang the fair;
+But dressed in yer ilka-day's[2], Jeanie,
+  Yer beauty's beyond compare.
+
+[Footnote 1: Appear.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Everyday clothes.]
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI
+
+A Winter's Ride
+
+
+In this winter, the stormiest I can recollect, occurred the chief
+adventure of my boyhood--indeed, the event most worthy to be called an
+adventure I have ever encountered.
+
+There had been a tremendous fall of snow, which a furious wind,
+lasting two days and the night between, had drifted into great mounds,
+so that the shape of the country was much altered with new heights and
+hollows. Even those who were best acquainted with them could only
+guess at the direction of some of the roads, and it was the easiest
+thing in the world to lose the right track, even in broad daylight. As
+soon as the storm was over, however, and the frost was found likely to
+continue, they had begun to cut passages through some of the deeper
+wreaths, as they called the snow-mounds; while over the tops of
+others, and along the general line of the more frequented roads,
+footpaths were soon trodden. It was many days, however, before
+vehicles could pass, and coach-communication be resumed between the
+towns. All the short day, the sun, though low, was brilliant, and the
+whole country shone with dazzling whiteness; but after sunset, which
+took place between three and four o'clock, anything more dreary can
+hardly be imagined, especially when the keenest of winds rushed in
+gusts from the north-east, and lifting the snow-powder from untrodden
+shadows, blew it, like so many stings, in the face of the freezing
+traveller.
+
+Early one afternoon, just as I came home from school, which in winter
+was always over at three o'clock, my father received a message that a
+certain laird, or _squire_ as he would be called in England--whose
+house lay three or four miles off amongst the hills, was at the point
+of death, and very anxious to see him: a groom on horseback had
+brought the message. The old man had led a life of indifferent repute,
+and that probably made him the more anxious to see my father, who
+proceeded at once to get ready for the uninviting journey.
+
+Since my brother Tom's departure, I had become yet more of a companion
+to my father; and now when I saw him preparing to set out, I begged to
+be allowed to go with him. His little black mare had a daughter, not
+unused to the saddle. She was almost twice her mother's size, and none
+the less clumsy that she was chiefly employed upon the farm. Still she
+had a touch of the roadster in her, and if not capable of elegant
+motion, could get over the ground well enough, with a sort of speedy
+slouch, while, as was of far more consequence on an expedition like
+the present, she was of great strength, and could go through the
+wreaths, Andrew said, like a red-hot iron. My father hesitated, looked
+out at the sky, and hesitated still.
+
+"I hardly know what to say, Ranald. If I were sure of the weather--but
+I am very doubtful. However, if it should break up, we can stay there
+all night. Yes.--Here, Allister; run and tell Andrew to saddle both
+the mares, and bring them down directly.--Make haste with your dinner,
+Ranald."
+
+Delighted at the prospect, I did make haste; the meal was soon over,
+and Kirsty expended her utmost care in clothing me for the journey,
+which would certainly be a much longer one in regard of time than of
+space. In half an hour we were all mounted and on our way--the groom,
+who had so lately traversed the road, a few yards in front.
+
+I have already said, perhaps more than once, that my father took
+comparatively little notice of us as children, beyond teaching us of a
+Sunday, and sometimes of a week-evening in winter, generally after we
+were in bed. He rarely fondled us, or did anything to supply in that
+manner the loss of our mother. I believe his thoughts were tenderness
+itself towards us, but they did not show themselves in ordinary shape:
+some connecting link was absent. It seems to me now sometimes, that
+perhaps he was wisely retentive of his feelings, and waited a better
+time to let them flow. For, ever as we grew older, we drew nearer to
+my father, or, more properly, my father drew us nearer to him,
+dropping, by degrees, that reticence which, perhaps, too many parents
+of character keep up until their children are full grown; and by this
+time he would converse with me most freely. I presume he had found, or
+believed he had found me trustworthy, and incapable of repeating
+unwisely any remarks he made. But much as he hated certain kinds of
+gossip, he believed that indifference to your neighbour and his
+affairs was worse. He said everything depended on the spirit in which
+men spoke of each other; that much of what was called gossip was only
+a natural love of biography, and, if kindly, was better than
+blameless; that the greater part of it was objectionable, simply
+because it was not loving, only curious; while a portion was amongst
+the wickedest things on earth, because it had for its object to
+believe and make others believe the worst. I mention these opinions of
+my father, lest anyone should misjudge the fact of his talking to me
+as he did.
+
+Our horses made very slow progress. It was almost nowhere possible to
+trot, and we had to plod on, step by step. This made it more easy to
+converse.
+
+"The country looks dreary, doesn't it, Ranald?" he said.
+
+"Just like as if everything was dead, father," I replied.
+
+"If the sun were to cease shining altogether, what do you think would
+happen?"
+
+[Illustration]
+
+I thought a bit, but was not prepared to answer, when my father spoke
+again.
+
+"What makes the seeds grow, Ranald--the oats, and the wheat, and the
+barley?"
+
+"The rain, father," I said, with half-knowledge.
+
+"Well, if there were no sun, the vapours would not rise to make
+clouds.  What rain there was already in the sky would come down in
+snow or lumps of ice. The earth would grow colder and colder, and
+harder and harder, until at last it went sweeping through the air, one
+frozen mass, as hard as stone, without a green leaf or a living
+creature upon it."
+
+"How dreadful to think of, father!" I said. "That would be frightful."
+
+"Yes, my boy. It is the sun that is the life of the world. Not only
+does he make the rain rise to fall on the seeds in the earth, but even
+that would be useless, if he did not make them warm as well--and do
+something else to them besides which we cannot understand. Farther
+down into the earth than any of the rays of light can reach, he sends
+other rays we cannot see, which go searching about in it, like long
+fingers; and wherever they find and touch a seed, the life that is in
+that seed begins to talk to itself, as it were, and straightway begins
+to grow. Out of the dark earth he thus brings all the lovely green
+things of the spring, and clothes the world with beauty, and sets the
+waters running, and the birds singing, and the lambs bleating, and the
+children gathering daisies and butter-cups, and the gladness
+overflowing in all hearts--very different from what we see now--isn't
+it, Ranald?"
+
+"Yes, father; a body can hardly believe, to look at it now, that the
+world will ever be like that again."
+
+"But, for as cold and wretched as it looks, the sun has not forsaken
+it. He has only drawn away from it a little, for good reasons, one of
+which is that we may learn that we cannot do without him. If he were
+to go, not one breath more could one of us draw. Horses and men, we
+should drop down frozen lumps, as hard as stones. Who is the sun's
+father, Ranald?"
+
+"He hasn't got a father," I replied, hoping for some answer as to a
+riddle.
+
+"Yes, he has, Ranald: I can prove that. You remember whom the apostle
+James calls the Father of Lights?"
+
+"Oh yes, of course, father. But doesn't that mean another kind of
+lights?"
+
+"Yes. But they couldn't be called lights if they were not like the
+sun. All kinds of lights must come from the Father of Lights. Now the
+Father of the sun must be like the sun, and, indeed of all material
+things, the sun is likest to God. We pray to God to shine upon us and
+give us light. If God did not shine into our hearts, they would be
+dead lumps of cold. We shouldn't care for anything whatever."
+
+"Then, father, God never stops shining upon us. He wouldn't be like
+the sun if he did. For even in winter the sun shines enough to keep us
+alive."
+
+"True, my boy. I am very glad you understand me. In all my experience
+I have never yet known a man in whose heart I could not find proofs of
+the shining of the great Sun. It might be a very feeble wintry shine,
+but still he was there. For a human heart though, it is very dreadful
+to have a cold, white winter like this inside it, instead of a summer
+of colour and warmth and light. There's the poor old man we are going
+to see. They talk of the winter of age: that's all very well, but the
+heart is not made for winter. A man may have the snow on his roof, and
+merry children about his hearth; he may have grey hairs on his head,
+and the very gladness of summer in his bosom. But this old man, I am
+afraid, feels wintry cold within."
+
+"Then why doesn't the Father of Lights shine more on him and make him
+warmer?"
+
+"The sun is shining as much on the earth in the winter as in the
+summer: why is the earth no warmer?"
+
+"Because," I answered, calling up what little astronomy I knew, "that
+part of it is turned away from the sun."
+
+"Just so. Then if a man turns himself away from the Father of
+Lights--the great Sun--how can he be warmed?"
+
+"But the earth can't help it, father."
+
+"But the man can, Ranald. He feels the cold, and he knows he can turn
+to the light. Even this poor old man knows it now. God is shining on
+him--a wintry way--or he would not feel the cold at all; he would be
+only a lump of ice, a part of the very winter itself. The good of what
+warmth God gives him is, that he feels cold. If he were all cold, he
+couldn't feel cold."
+
+"Does he want to turn to the Sun, then, father?"
+
+"I do not know. I only know that he is miserable because he has not
+turned to the Sun."
+
+"What will you say to him, father?"
+
+"I cannot tell, my boy. It depends on what I find him thinking. Of all
+things, my boy, keep your face to the Sun. You can't shine of
+yourself, you can't be good of yourself, but God has made you able to
+turn to the Sun whence all goodness and all shining comes. God's
+children may be very naughty, but they must be able to turn towards
+him. The Father of Lights is the Father of every weakest little baby
+of a good thought in us, as well as of the highest devotion of
+martyrdom. If you turn your face to the Sun, my boy, your soul will,
+when you come to die, feel like an autumn, with the golden fruits of
+the earth hanging in rich clusters ready to be gathered--not like a
+winter. You may feel ever so worn, but you will not feel withered. You
+will die in peace, hoping for the spring--and such a spring!"
+
+Thus talking, in the course of two hours or so we arrived at the
+dwelling of the old laird.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII
+
+The Peat-Stack
+
+
+How dreary the old house looked as we approached it through the
+gathering darkness! All the light appeared to come from the snow which
+rested wherever it could lie--on roofs and window ledges and turrets.
+Even on the windward walls, every little roughness sustained its own
+frozen patch, so that their grey was spotted all over with whiteness.
+Not a glimmer shone from the windows.
+
+"Nobody lives _there_, father," I said,--"surely?"
+
+"It does not look very lively," he answered.
+
+The house stood upon a bare knoll. There was not a tree within sight.
+Rugged hills arose on all sides of it. Not a sound was heard but the
+moan of an occasional gust of wind. There was a brook, but it lay
+frozen beneath yards of snow. For miles in any direction those gusts
+might wander without shaking door or window, or carrying with them a
+puff of smoke from any hearth. We were crossing the yard at the back
+of the house, towards the kitchen-door, for the front door had not
+been opened for months, when we recognized the first sign of life.
+That was only the low of a bullock. As we dismounted on a few feet of
+rough pavement which had been swept clear, an old woman came to the
+door, and led us into a dreary parlour without even a fire to welcome
+us.
+
+I learned afterwards that the laird, from being a spendthrift in his
+youth, had become a miser in his age, and that every household
+arrangement was on the narrowest scale. From wasting righteous pounds,
+he had come to scraping unrighteous farthings.
+
+After we had remained standing for some time, the housekeeper
+returned, and invited my father to go to the laird's room. As they
+went, he requested her to take me to the kitchen, which, after
+conducting him, she did. The sight of the fire, although it was of the
+smallest, was most welcome. She laid a few more peats upon it, and
+encouraged them to a blaze, remarking, with a sidelong look: "We
+daren't do this, you see, sir, if the laird was about. The honest man
+would call it waste."
+
+"Is he dying?" I asked, for the sake of saying something; but she only
+shook her head for reply, and, going to a press at the other end of
+the large, vault-like kitchen, brought me some milk in a basin, and
+some oatcake upon a platter, saying,
+
+"It's not my house, you see, or I would have something better to set
+before the minister's son."
+
+I was glad of any food however, and it was well for me that I ate
+heartily. I had got quite warm also before my father stepped into the
+kitchen, very solemn, and stood up with his back to the fire. The old
+woman set him a chair, but he neither sat down nor accepted the
+refreshment which she humbly offered him.
+
+"We must be going," he objected, "for it looks stormy, and the sooner
+we set out the better."
+
+"I'm sorry I can't ask you to stop the night," she said, "for I
+couldn't make you comfortable. There's nothing fit to offer you in the
+house, and there's not a bed that's been slept in for I don't know how
+long."
+
+"Never mind," said my father cheerfully. "The moon is up already, and
+we shall get home I trust before the snow begins to fall. Will you
+tell the man to get the horses out?"
+
+When she returned from taking the message, she came up to my father
+and said, in a loud whisper,
+
+"Is he in a bad way, sir?"
+
+"He is dying," answered my father.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"I know that," she returned. "He'll be gone before the morning. But
+that's not what I meant. Is he in a bad way for the other world?
+That's what I meant, sir."
+
+"Well, my good woman, after a life like his, we are only too glad to
+remember what our Lord told us--not to judge. I do think he is ashamed
+and sorry for his past life. But it's not the wrong he has done in
+former time that stands half so much in his way as his present
+fondness for what he counts his own. It seems like to break his heart
+to leave all his little bits of property--particularly the money he
+has saved; and yet he has some hope that Jesus Christ will be kind
+enough to pardon him. I am afraid he will find himself very miserable
+though, when he has not one scrap left to call his own--not a
+pocket-knife even."
+
+"It's dreadful to think of him flying through the air on a night like
+this," said she.
+
+"My good woman," returned my father, "we know nothing about where or
+how the departed spirit exists after it has left the body. But it
+seems to me just as dreadful to be without God in the world, as to be
+without him anywhere else. Let us pray for him that God may be with
+him wherever he is."
+
+So saying, my father knelt down, and we beside him, and he prayed
+earnestly to God for the old man. Then we rose, mounted our horses,
+and rode away.
+
+We were only about halfway home, when the clouds began to cover the
+moon, and the snow began to fall. Hitherto we had got on pretty well,
+for there was light enough to see the track, feeble as it was. Now,
+however, we had to keep a careful lookout. We pressed our horses, and
+they went bravely, but it was slow work at the best. It got darker and
+darker, for the clouds went on gathering, and the snow was coming down
+in huge dull flakes. Faster and thicker they came, until at length we
+could see nothing of the road before us, and were compelled to leave
+all to the wisdom of our horses. My father, having great confidence in
+his own little mare, which had carried him through many a doubtful and
+difficult place, rode first. I followed close behind. He kept on
+talking to me very cheerfully--I have thought since--to prevent me
+from getting frightened. But I had not a thought of fear. To be with
+my father was to me perfect safety. He was in the act of telling me
+how, on more occasions than one, Missy had got him through places
+where the road was impassable, by walking on the tops of the walls,
+when all at once both our horses plunged into a gulf of snow. The more
+my mare struggled, the deeper we sank in it. For a moment I thought it
+was closing over my head.
+
+"Father! father!" I shouted.
+
+"Don't be frightened, my boy," cried my father, his voice seeming to
+come from far away. "We are in God's hands. I can't help you now, but
+as soon as Missy has got quieter, I shall come to you. I think I know
+whereabouts we are. We've dropped right off the road. You're not hurt,
+are you?"
+
+"Not in the least," I answered. "I was only frightened."
+
+A few moments more, and my mare lay or rather stuck quiet, with her
+neck and head thrown back, and her body deep in the snow. I put up my
+hands to feel. It rose above my head farther than I could reach. I got
+clear of the stirrups and scrambled up, first on my knees, and then on
+my feet. Standing thus upon the saddle, again I stretched my hands
+above my head, but still the broken wall of snow ascended above my
+reach. I could see nothing of my father, but I heard him talking to
+Missy. My mare soon began floundering again, so that I tumbled about
+against the sides of the hole, and grew terrified lest I should bring
+the snow down. I therefore cowered upon the mare's back until she was
+quiet again. "Woa! Quiet, my lass!" I heard my father saying, and it
+seemed his Missy was more frightened than mine.
+
+My fear was now quite gone, and I felt much inclined to laugh at the
+fun of the misadventure. I had as yet no idea of how serious a thing
+it might be. Still I had sense enough to see that something must be
+done--but what? I saw no way of getting out of the hole except by
+trampling down the snow upon the back of my poor mare, and that I
+could not think of; while I doubted much whether my father even could
+tell in what direction to turn for help or shelter.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Finding our way home, even if we got free, seemed out of the question.
+Again my mare began plunging violently, and this time I found myself
+thrown against some hard substance. I thrust my hand through the snow,
+and felt what I thought the stones of one of the dry walls common to
+the country. I might clear away enough of the snow to climb upon that;
+but then what next--it was so dark?
+
+"Ranald!" cried my father; "how do you get on?"
+
+"Much the same, father," I answered.
+
+"I'm out of the wreath," he returned. "We've come through on the other
+side. You are better where you are I suspect, however. The snow is
+warmer than the air. It is beginning to blow. Pull your feet out and
+get right upon the mare's back."
+
+"That's just where I am, father--lying on her back, and pretty
+comfortable," I rejoined.
+
+All this time the snow was falling thick. If it went on like this, I
+should be buried before morning, and the fact that the wind was rising
+added to the danger of it. We were at the wrong end of the night too.
+
+"I'm in a kind of ditch, I think, father," I cried--the place we fell
+off on one side and a stone wall on the other."
+
+"That can hardly be, or I shouldn't have got out," he returned. "But
+now I've got Missy quiet, I'll come to you. I must get you out, I see,
+or you will be snowed up. Woa, Missy! Good mare! Stand still."
+
+The next moment he gave a joyous exclamation.
+
+"What is it, father?" I cried.
+
+"It's not a stone wall; it's a peat-stack. That _is_ good."
+
+"I don't see what good it is. We can't light a fire."
+
+"No, my boy; but where there's a peat-stack, there's probably a
+house."
+
+He began uttering a series of shouts at the top of his voice,
+listening between for a response. This lasted a good while. I began to
+get very cold.
+
+"I'm nearly frozen, father," I said, "and what's to become of the poor
+mare--she's got no clothes on?"
+
+"I'll get you out, my boy; and then at least you will be able to move
+about a little."
+
+I heard him shovelling at the snow with his hands and feet.
+
+"I have got to the corner of the stack, and as well as I can judge you
+must be just round it," he said.
+
+"Your voice is close to me," I answered.
+
+"I've got a hold of one of the mare's ears," he said next. "I won't
+try to get her out until I get you off her."
+
+I put out my hand, and felt along the mare's neck. What a joy it was
+to catch my father's hand through the darkness and the snow! He
+grasped mine and drew me towards him, then got me by the arm and began
+dragging me through the snow. The mare began plunging again, and by
+her struggles rather assisted my father. In a few moments he had me in
+his arms.
+
+"Thank God!" he said, as he set me down against the peat-stack. "Stand
+there. A little farther. Keep well off for fear she hurt you. She must
+fight her way out now."
+
+He went back to the mare, and went on clearing away the snow. Then I
+could hear him patting and encouraging her. Next I heard a great
+blowing and scrambling, and at last a snort and the thunder of hoofs.
+
+"Woa! woa! Gently! gently!--She's off!" cried my father.
+
+Her mother gave one snort, and away she went, thundering after
+her. But their sounds were soon quenched in the snow.
+
+"There's a business!" said my father. "I'm afraid the poor things will
+only go farther to fare the worse. We are as well without them,
+however; and if they should find their way home, so much the better
+for us. They might have kept us a little warmer though. We must fight
+the cold as we best can for the rest of the night, for it would only
+be folly to leave the spot before it is light enough to see where we
+are going."
+
+It came into my mind suddenly how I had burrowed in the straw to hide
+myself after running from Dame Shand's. But whether that or the
+thought of burrowing in the peat-stack came first, I cannot tell. I
+turned and felt whether I could draw out a peat. With a little
+loosening I succeeded.
+
+"Father," I said, "couldn't we make a hole in the peat-stalk, and
+build ourselves in?"
+
+"A capital idea, my boy!" he answered, with a gladness in his voice
+which I venture to attribute in part to his satisfaction at finding
+that I had some practical sense in me. "We'll try it at once."
+
+"I've got two or three out already," I said, for I had gone on
+pulling, and it was easy enough after one had been started.
+
+"We must take care we don't bring down the whole stack though," said
+my father.
+
+"Even then," I returned, "we could build ourselves up in them, and
+that would be something."
+
+"Right, Ranald! It would be only making houses to our own shape,
+instead of big enough to move about in--turning crustaceous animals,
+you know."
+
+"It would be a peat-greatcoat at least," I remarked, pulling away.
+
+"Here," he said, "I will put my stick in under the top row. That will
+be a sort of lintel to support those above."
+
+He always carried his walking-stick whether he rode or walked.
+
+We worked with a will, piling up the peats a little in front that we
+might with them build up the door of our cave after we were inside. We
+got quite merry over it.
+
+"We shall be brought before the magistrates for destruction of
+property," said my father.
+
+"You'll have to send Andrew to build up the stack again--that's all."
+
+"But I wonder how it is that nobody hears us. How can they have a
+peat-stack so far from the house?"
+
+"I can't imagine," I said; "except it be to prevent them from burning
+too many peats. It is more like a trick of the poor laird than anybody
+else."
+
+Every now and then a few would come down with a rush, and before long
+we had made a large hole. We left a good thick floor to sit upon.
+
+Creeping in, we commenced building up the entrance. We had not
+proceeded far, however, before we found that our cave was too small,
+and that as we should have to remain in it for hours, we must find it
+very cramped. Therefore, instead of using any more of the peats
+already pulled out, we finished building up the wall with others fresh
+drawn from the inside. When at length we had, to the best of our
+ability, completed our immuring, we sat down to wait for the
+morning--my father as calm as if he had been seated in his
+study-chair, and I in a state of condensed delight; for was not this a
+grand adventure--with my father to share it, and keep it from going
+too far? He sat with his back leaning against the side of the hole,
+and I sat between his knees, and leaned against him. His arms were
+folded round me; and could ever boy be more blessed than I was then?
+The sense of outside danger; the knowledge that if the wind rose, we
+might be walled up in snow before the morning; the assurance of
+present safety and good hope--all made such an impression upon my mind
+that ever since when any trouble has threatened me, I have invariably
+turned first in thought to the memory of that harbour of refuge from
+the storm. There I sat for long hours secure in my father's arms, and
+knew that the soundless snow was falling thick around us, and marked
+occasionally the threatening wail of the wind like the cry of a wild
+beast scenting us from afar.
+
+"This is grand, father," I said.
+
+"You would like better to be at home in bed, wouldn't you?" he asked,
+trying me.
+
+"No, indeed, I should not," I answered, with more than honesty; for I
+felt exuberantly happy.
+
+"If only we can keep warm," said my father. "If you should get very
+cold indeed, you must not lose heart, my man, but think how pleasant
+it will be when we get home to a good fire and a hot breakfast."
+
+"I think I can bear it all right. I have often been cold enough at
+school."
+
+"This may be worse. But we need not anticipate evil: that is to send
+out for the suffering. It is well to be prepared for it, but it is ill
+to brood over a fancied future of evil. In all my life, my boy--and I
+should like you to remember what I say--I have never found any trial
+go beyond what I could bear. In the worst cases of suffering, I think
+there is help given which those who look on cannot understand, but
+which enables the sufferer to endure. The last help of that kind is
+death, which I think is always a blessing, though few people can
+regard it as such."
+
+I listened with some wonder. Without being able to see that what he
+said was true, I could yet accept it after a vague fashion.
+
+"This nest which we have made to shelter us," he resumed, "brings to
+my mind what the Psalmist says about dwelling in the secret place of
+the Most High. Everyone who will, may there, like the swallow, make
+himself a nest."
+
+"This can't be very like that, though, surely, father," I ventured to
+object.
+
+"Why not, my boy?"
+
+"It's not safe enough, for one thing."
+
+"You are right there. Still it is like. It is our place of refuge."
+
+"The cold does get through it, father."
+
+"But it keeps our minds at peace. Even the refuge in God does not
+always secure us from external suffering. The heart may be quite happy
+and strong when the hands are benumbed with cold. Yes, the heart even
+may grow cold with coming death, while the man himself retreats the
+farther into the secret place of the Most High, growing more calm and
+hopeful as the last cold invades the house of his body. I believe that
+all troubles come to drive us into that refuge--that secret place
+where alone we can be safe. You will, when you go out into the world,
+my boy, find that most men not only do not believe this, but do not
+believe that you believe it. They regard it at best as a fantastic
+weakness, fit only for sickly people. But watch how the strength of
+such people, their calmness and common sense, fares when the grasp of
+suffering lays hold upon them. It was a sad sight--that abject
+hopeless misery I saw this afternoon. If his mind had been an
+indication of the reality, one must have said that there was no
+God--no God at least that would have anything to do with him. The
+universe as reflected in the tarnished mirror of his soul, was a chill
+misty void, through which blew the moaning wind of an unknown fate. As
+near as ever I saw it, that man was without God and without hope in
+the world. All who have done the mightiest things--I do not mean the
+showiest things--all that are like William of Orange--the great
+William, I mean, not our King William--or John Milton, or William
+Penn, or any other of the cloud of witnesses spoken of in the Epistle
+to the Hebrews--all the men I say who have done the mightiest things,
+have not only believed that there was this refuge in God, but have
+themselves more or less entered into the secret place of the Most
+High. There only could they have found strength to do their mighty
+deeds. They were able to do them because they knew God wanted them to
+do them, that he was on their side, or rather they were on his side,
+and therefore safe, surrounded by God on every side. My boy, do the
+will of God--that is, what you know or believe to be right, and fear
+nothing."
+
+I never forgot the lesson. But my readers must not think that my
+father often talked like this. He was not at all favourable to much
+talk about religion. He used to say that much talk prevented much
+thought, and talk without thought was bad. Therefore it was for the
+most part only upon extraordinary occasions, of which this is an
+example, that he spoke of the deep simplicities of that faith in God
+which was the very root of his conscious life.
+
+He was silent after this utterance, which lasted longer than I have
+represented, although unbroken, I believe, by any remark of mine. Full
+of inward repose, I fell asleep in his arms.
+
+When I awoke I found myself very cold. Then I became aware that my
+father was asleep, and for the first time began to be uneasy. It was
+not because of the cold: that was not at all unendurable; it was that
+while the night lay awful in white silence about me, while the wind
+was moaning outside, and blowing long thin currents through the peat
+walls around me, while our warm home lay far away, and I could not
+tell how many hours of cold darkness had yet to pass before we could
+set out to find it,--it was not all these things together, but that,
+in the midst of all these, I was awake and my father slept. I could
+easily have waked him, but I was not selfish enough for that: I sat
+still and shivered and felt very dreary. Then the last words of my
+father began to return upon me, and, with a throb of relief, the
+thought awoke in my mind that although my father was asleep, the great
+Father of us both, he in whose heart lay that secret place of refuge,
+neither slumbered nor slept. And now I was able to wait in patience,
+with an idea, if not a sense of the present care of God, such as I had
+never had before. When, after some years, my father was taken from us,
+the thought of this night came again and again, and I would say in my
+heart: "My father sleeps that I may know the better that The Father
+wakes."
+
+At length he stirred. The first sign of his awaking was, that he
+closed again the arms about me which had dropped by his sides as he
+slept.
+
+"I'm so glad you're awake, father," I said, speaking first.
+
+"Have _you_ been long awake then?"
+
+"Not so very long, but I felt lonely without you."
+
+"Are you very cold? _I_ feel rather chilly."
+
+So we chatted away for a while.
+
+"I wonder if it is nearly day yet. I do not in the least know how long
+we have slept. I wonder if my watch is going. I forgot to wind it up
+last night. If it has stopped I shall know it is near daylight."
+
+He held his watch to his ear: alas! it was ticking vigorously. He felt
+for the keyhole, and wound it up. After that we employed ourselves in
+repeating as many of the metrical psalms and paraphrases of Scripture
+as we could recollect, and this helped away a good part of the weary
+time.
+
+But it went very slowly, and I was growing so cold that I could hardly
+bear it.
+
+"I'm afraid you feel very cold, Ranald," said my father, folding me
+closer in his arms. "You must try not to go to sleep again, for that
+would be dangerous now. I feel more cramped than cold."
+
+As he said this, he extended his legs and threw his head back, to get
+rid of the uneasiness by stretching himself. The same moment, down
+came a shower of peats upon our heads and bodies, and when I tried to
+move, I found myself fixed. I could not help laughing.
+
+"Father," I cried, as soon as I could speak, "you're like Samson:
+you've brought down the house upon us."
+
+"So I have, my boy. It was very thoughtless of me. I don't know what
+we _are_ to do now."
+
+"Can you move, father? _I_ can't," I said.
+
+"I can move my legs, but I'm afraid to move even a toe in my boot for
+fear of bringing down another avalanche of peats. But no--there's not
+much danger of that: they are all down already, for I feel the snow on
+my face."
+
+With hands and feet my father struggled, but could not do much, for I
+lay against him under a great heap. His struggles made an opening
+sideways however.
+
+"Father! father! shout," I cried. "I see a light somewhere; and I
+think it is moving."
+
+We shouted as loud as we could, and then lay listening. My heart beat
+so that I was afraid I should not hear any reply that might come. But
+the next moment it rang through the frosty air.
+
+"It's Turkey! That's Turkey, father!" I cried. "I know his shout. He
+makes it go farther than anybody else.--Turkey! Turkey!" I shrieked,
+almost weeping with delight.
+
+Again Turkey's cry rang through the darkness, and the light drew
+wavering nearer.
+
+"Mind how you step, Turkey," cried my father. "There's a hole you may
+tumble into."
+
+"It wouldn't hurt him much in the snow," I said.
+
+"Perhaps not, but he would probably lose his light, and that we can
+hardly afford."
+
+"Shout again," cried Turkey. "I can't make out where you are."
+
+My father shouted.
+
+"Am I coming nearer to you now?"
+
+"I can hardly say. I cannot see well. Are you going along the road?"
+
+"Yes. Can't you come to me?"
+
+"Not yet. We can't get out. We're upon your right hand, in a
+peat-stack."
+
+"Oh! I know the peat-stack. I'll be with you in a moment."
+
+He did not however find it so easily as he had expected, the peats
+being covered with snow. My father gave up trying to free himself and
+took to laughing instead at the ridiculous situation in which we were
+about to be discovered. He kept directing Turkey, however, who at
+length after some disappearances which made us very anxious about the
+lantern, caught sight of the stack, and walked straight towards it.
+Now first we saw that he was not alone, but accompanied by the silent
+Andrew.
+
+"Where are you, sir?" asked Turkey, throwing the light of the lantern
+over the ruin.
+
+"Buried in the peats," answered my father, laughing. "Come and get us
+out."
+
+Turkey strode up to the heap, and turning the light down into it said,
+
+"I didn't know it had been raining peats, sir."
+
+"The peats didn't fall quite so far as the snow, Turkey, or they would
+have made a worse job of it," answered my father.
+
+Meantime Andrew and Turkey were both busy; and in a few moments we
+stood upon our feet, stiff with cold and cramped with confinement, but
+merry enough at heart.
+
+"What brought you out to look for us?" asked my father.
+
+"I heard Missy whinnying at the stable-door," said Andrew. "When I saw
+she was alone, I knew something had happened, and waked Turkey. We
+only stopped to run to the manse for a drop of whisky to bring with
+us, and set out at once."
+
+"What o'clock is it now?" asked my father.
+
+"About one o'clock," answered Andrew.
+
+"One o'clock!" thought I. "What a time we should have had to wait!"
+
+"Have you been long in finding us?"
+
+"Only about an hour."
+
+"Then the little mare must have had great trouble in getting home. You
+say the other was not with her?"
+
+"No, sir. She's not made her appearance."
+
+"Then if we don't find her, she will be dead before morning. But what
+shall we do with you, Ranald? Turkey had better go home with you
+first."
+
+"Please let me go too," I said.
+
+"Are you able to walk?"
+
+"Quite--or at least I shall be, after my legs come to themselves a
+bit."
+
+Turkey produced a bottle of milk which he had brought for me, and
+Andrew produced the little flask of whisky which Kirsty had sent; and
+my father having taken a little of the latter, while I emptied my
+bottle, we set out to look for young Missy.
+
+"Where are we?" asked my father.
+
+Turkey told him.
+
+"How comes it that nobody heard our shouting, then?"
+
+"You know, sir," answered Turkey, "the old man is as deaf as a post,
+and I dare say his people were all fast asleep."
+
+The snow was falling only in a few large flakes now, which sank
+through the air like the moultings of some lovely bird of heaven. The
+moon had come out again, and the white world lay around us in lovely
+light. A good deal of snow had fallen while we lay in the peats, but
+we could yet trace the track of the two horses. We followed it a long
+way through the little valley into which we had dropped from the side
+of the road. We came to more places than one where they had been
+floundering together in a snow-wreath, but at length reached the spot
+where one had parted from the other. When we had traced one of the
+tracks to the road, we concluded it was Missy's, and returned to the
+other. But we had not followed it very far before we came upon the
+poor mare lying upon her back in a deep runnel, in which the snow was
+very soft. She had put her forefeet in it as she galloped heedlessly
+along, and tumbled right over. The snow had yielded enough to let the
+banks get a hold of her, and she lay helpless. Turkey and Andrew,
+however, had had the foresight to bring spades with them and a rope,
+and they set to work at once, my father taking a turn now and then,
+and I holding the lantern, which was all but useless now in the
+moonlight. It took more than an hour to get the poor thing on her legs
+again, but when she was up, it was all they could do to hold her. She
+was so wild with cold, and with delight at feeling her legs under her
+once more, that she would have broken loose again, and galloped off as
+recklessly as ever. They set me on her back, and with my father on one
+side and Turkey on the other, and Andrew at her head, I rode home in
+great comfort. It was another good hour before we arrived, and right
+glad were we to see through the curtains of the parlour the glow of
+the great fire which Kirsty had kept up for us. She burst out crying
+when we made our appearance.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII
+
+A Solitary Chapter
+
+
+During all that winter I attended the evening school and assisted the
+master. I confess, however, it was not by any means so much for the
+master as to be near Elsie Duff, of whom I now thought many times an
+hour. Her sweet face grew more and more dear to me. When I pointed out
+an error in her work, or suggested a better mode of working, it would
+flush like the heart of a white rose, and eagerly she would set
+herself to rectification or improvement, her whole manner a dumb
+apology for what could be a fault in no eyes but her own. It was this
+sweetness that gained upon me: at length her face was almost a part of
+my consciousness. I suppose my condition was what people would call
+being in love with her; but I never thought of that; I only thought of
+her. Nor did I ever dream of saying a word to her on the subject. I
+wished nothing other than as it was. To think about her all day, so
+gently that it never disturbed Euclid or Livy; to see her at night,
+and get near her now and then, sitting on the same form with her as I
+explained something to her on the slate or in her book; to hear her
+voice, and look into her tender eyes, was all that I desired. It never
+occurred to me that things could not go on so; that a change must
+come; that as life cannot linger in the bud, but is compelled by the
+sunshine and air into the flower, so life would go on and on, and
+things would change, and the time blossom into something else, and my
+love find itself set out-of-doors in the midst of strange plants and a
+new order of things.
+
+When school was over, I walked home with her--not alone, for Turkey
+was always on the other side. I had not a suspicion that Turkey's
+admiration of Elsie could ever come into collision with mine. We
+joined in praising her, but my admiration ever found more words than
+Turkey's, and I thought my love to her was greater than his.
+
+We seldom went into her grandmother's cottage, for she did not make us
+welcome. After we had taken her home we generally repaired to Turkey's
+mother, with whom we were sure of a kind reception. She was a patient
+diligent woman, who looked as if she had nearly done with life, and
+had only to gather up the crumbs of it. I have often wondered since,
+what was her deepest thought--whether she was content to be unhappy,
+or whether she lived in hope of some blessedness beyond. It is
+marvellous with how little happiness some people can get through the
+world. Surely they are inwardly sustained with something even better
+than joy.
+
+"Did you ever hear my mother sing?" asked Turkey, as we sat together
+over her little fire, on one of these occasions.
+
+"No. I should like very much," I answered.
+
+The room was lighted only by a little oil-lamp, for there was no flame
+to the fire of peats and dried oak-bark.
+
+"She sings such queer ballads as you never heard," said Turkey. "Give
+us one, mother; do."
+
+She yielded, and, in a low chanting voice, sang something like this:--
+
+Up cam' the waves o' the tide wi' a whush,
+  And back gaed the pebbles wi' a whurr,
+Whan the king's ae son cam' walking i' the hush,
+  To hear the sea murmur and murr.
+
+The half mune was risin' the waves abune,
+  An' a glimmer o' cauld weet licht
+Cam' ower the water straucht frae the mune,
+  Like a path across the nicht.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+What's that, an' that, far oot i' the grey
+  Atwixt the mune and the land?
+It's the bonny sea-maidens at their play--
+  Haud awa', king's son, frae the strand.
+
+Ae rock stud up wi' a shadow at its foot:
+  The king's son stepped behind:
+The merry sea-maidens cam' gambolling oot,
+  Combin' their hair i' the wind.
+
+O merry their laugh when they felt the land
+  Under their light cool feet!
+Each laid her comb on the yellow sand,
+  And the gladsome dance grew fleet.
+
+But the fairest she laid her comb by itsel'
+  On the rock where the king's son lay.
+He stole about, and the carven shell
+  He hid in his bosom away.
+
+And he watched the dance till the clouds did gloom,
+  And the wind blew an angry tune:
+One after one she caught up her comb,
+  To the sea went dancin' doon.
+
+But the fairest, wi' hair like the mune in a clud,
+  She sought till she was the last.
+He creepin' went and watchin' stud,
+  And he thought to hold her fast.
+
+She dropped at his feet without motion or heed;
+  He took her, and home he sped.--
+All day she lay like a withered seaweed,
+  On a purple and gowden bed.
+
+But at night whan the wind frae the watery bars
+  Blew into the dusky room,
+She opened her een like twa settin' stars,
+  And back came her twilight bloom.
+
+The king's son knelt beside her bed:
+  She was his ere a month had passed;
+And the cold sea-maiden he had wed
+  Grew a tender wife at last.
+
+And all went well till her baby was born,
+  And then she couldna sleep;
+She would rise and wander till breakin' morn,
+  Hark-harkin' the sound o' the deep.
+
+One night when the wind was wailing about,
+  And the sea was speckled wi' foam,
+From room to room she went in and out
+  And she came on her carven comb.
+
+She twisted her hair with eager hands,
+  She put in the comb with glee:
+She's out and she's over the glittering sands,
+  And away to the moaning sea.
+
+One cry came back from far away:
+  He woke, and was all alone.
+Her night robe lay on the marble grey,
+  And the cold sea-maiden was gone.
+
+Ever and aye frae first peep o' the moon,
+  Whan the wind blew aff o' the sea,
+The desert shore still up and doon
+  Heavy at heart paced he.
+
+But never more came the maidens to play
+  From the merry cold-hearted sea;
+He heard their laughter far out and away,
+  But heavy at heart paced he.
+
+I have modernized the ballad--indeed spoiled it altogether, for I have
+made up this version from the memory of it--with only, I fear, just a
+touch here and there of the original expression.
+
+"That's what comes of taking what you have no right to," said Turkey,
+in whom the practical had ever the upper hand of the imaginative.
+
+As we walked home together I resumed the subject.
+
+"I think you're too hard on the king's son," I said. "He couldn't help
+falling in love with the mermaid."
+
+"He had no business to steal her comb, and then run away with
+herself," said Turkey.
+
+"She was none the worse for it," said I.
+
+"Who told you that?" he retorted. "I don't think the girl herself
+would have said so. It's not every girl that would care to marry a
+king's son. She might have had a lover of her own down in the sea. At
+all events the prince was none the better for it."
+
+"But the song says she made a tender wife," I objected.
+
+"She couldn't help herself. She made the best of it. I dare say he
+wasn't a bad sort of a fellow, but he was no gentleman."
+
+"Turkey!" I exclaimed. "He was a prince!"
+
+"I know that."
+
+"Then he must have been a gentleman."
+
+"I don't know that. I've read of a good many princes who did things I
+should be ashamed to do."
+
+"But you're not a prince, Turkey," I returned, in the low endeavour to
+bolster up the wrong with my silly logic.
+
+"No. Therefore if I were to do what was rude and dishonest, people
+would say: 'What could you expect of a ploughboy?' A prince ought to
+be just so much better bred than a ploughboy. I would scorn to do what
+that prince did. What's wrong in a ploughboy can't be right in a
+prince, Ranald. Or else right is only right sometimes; so that right
+may be wrong and wrong may be right, which is as much as to say there
+is no right and wrong; and if there's no right and wrong, the world's
+an awful mess, and there can't be any God, for a God would never have
+made it like that."
+
+"Well, Turkey, you know best. I can't help thinking the prince was not
+so much to blame, though."
+
+"You see what came of it--misery."
+
+"Perhaps he would rather have had the misery and all together than
+none of it."
+
+"That's for him to settle. But he must have seen he was wrong, before
+he had done wandering by the sea like that."
+
+"Well now, Turkey, what would you have done yourself, suppose the
+beautifulest of them all had laid her comb down within an inch of
+where you were standing--and never saw you, you know?"
+
+Turkey thought for a moment before answering.
+
+"I'm supposing you fell in love with her at first sight, you know," I
+added.
+
+"Well, I'm sure I should not have kept the comb, even if I had taken
+it just to get a chance of speaking to her. And I can't help fancying
+if he had behaved like a gentleman, and let her go without touching
+her the first time, she might have come again; and if he had married
+her at last of her own free will, she would not have run away from
+him, let the sea have kept calling her ever so much."
+
+[Illustration]
+
+The next evening, I looked for Elsie as usual, but did not see her.
+How blank and dull the schoolroom seemed! Still she might arrive any
+moment. But she did not come. I went through my duties wearily, hoping
+ever for the hour of release. I could see well enough that Turkey was
+anxious too. The moment school was over, we hurried away, almost
+without a word, to the cottage. There we found her weeping. Her
+grandmother had died suddenly. She clung to Turkey, and seemed almost
+to forget my presence. But I thought nothing of that. Had the case
+been mine, I too should have clung to Turkey from faith in his help
+and superior wisdom.
+
+There were two or three old women in the place. Turkey went and spoke
+to them, and then took Elsie home to his mother. Jamie was asleep, and
+they would not wake him.
+
+How it was arranged, I forget, but both Elsie and Jamie lived for the
+rest of the winter with Turkey's mother. The cottage was let, and the
+cow taken home by their father. Before summer Jamie had got a place in
+a shop in the village, and then Elsie went back to her mother.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIV
+
+An Evening Visit
+
+
+I now saw much less of Elsie; but I went with Turkey, as often as I
+could, to visit her at her father's cottage. The evenings we spent
+there are amongst the happiest hours in my memory. One evening in
+particular appears to stand out as a type of the whole. I remember
+every point in the visit. I think it must have been almost the last.
+We set out as the sun was going down on an evening in the end of
+April, when the nightly frosts had not yet vanished. The hail was
+dancing about us as we started; the sun was disappearing in a bank of
+tawny orange cloud; the night would be cold and dark and stormy; but
+we cared nothing for that: a conflict with the elements always added
+to the pleasure of any undertaking then. It was in the midst of
+another shower of hail, driven on the blasts of a keen wind, that we
+arrived at the little cottage. It had been built by Duff himself to
+receive his bride, and although since enlarged, was still a very
+little house. It had a foundation of stone, but the walls were of
+turf. He had lined it with boards, however, and so made it warmer and
+more comfortable than most of the labourers' dwellings. When we
+entered, a glowing fire of peat was on the hearth, and the pot with
+the supper hung over it. Mrs. Duff was spinning, and Elsie, by the
+light of a little oil lamp suspended against the wall, was teaching
+her youngest brother to read. Whatever she did, she always seemed in
+my eyes to do it better than anyone else; and to see her under the
+lamp, with one arm round the little fellow who stood leaning against
+her, while the other hand pointed with a knitting-needle to the
+letters of the spelling-book which lay on her knee, was to see a
+lovely picture. The mother did not rise from her spinning, but spoke a
+kindly welcome, while Elsie got up, and without approaching us, or
+saying more than a word or two, set chairs for us by the fire, and
+took the little fellow away to put him to bed.
+
+"It's a cold night," said Mrs. Duff. "The wind seems to blow through
+me as I sit at my wheel. I wish my husband would come home."
+
+"He'll be suppering his horses," said Turkey. "I'll just run across
+and give him a hand, and that'll bring him in the sooner."
+
+"Thank you, Turkey," said Mrs. Duff as he vanished.
+
+"He's a fine lad," she remarked, much in the same phrase my father
+used when speaking of him.
+
+"There's nobody like Turkey," I said.
+
+"Indeed, I think you're right there, Ranald. A better-behaved lad
+doesn't step. He'll do something to distinguish himself some day. I
+shouldn't wonder if he went to college, and wagged his head in a
+pulpit yet."
+
+The idea of Turkey wagging his head in a pulpit made me laugh.
+
+"Wait till you see," resumed Mrs. Duff, somewhat offended at my
+reception of her prophecy. "Folk will hear of him yet."
+
+"I didn't mean he couldn't be a minister, Mrs. Duff. But I don't think
+he will take to that."
+
+Here Elsie came back, and lifting the lid of the pot, examined the
+state of its contents. I got hold of her hand, but for the first time
+she withdrew it. I did not feel hurt, for she did it very gently. Then
+she began to set the white deal table in the middle of the floor, and
+by the time she had put the plates and spoons upon it, the water in
+the pot was boiling, and she began to make the porridge, at which she
+was judged to be first-rate--in my mind, equal to our Kirsty. By the
+time it was ready, her father and Turkey came in. James Duff said
+grace, and we sat down to our supper. The wind was blowing hard
+outside, and every now and then the hail came in deafening rattles
+against the little windows, and, descending the wide chimney, danced
+on the floor about the hearth; but not a thought of the long, stormy
+way between us and home interfered with the enjoyment of the hour.
+
+After supper, which was enlivened by simple chat about the crops and
+the doings on the farm, James turned to me, and said:
+
+"Haven't you got a song or a ballad to give us, Ranald? I know you're
+always getting hold of such things."
+
+I had expected this; for, every time I went, I tried to have something
+to repeat to them. As I could not sing, this was the nearest way in
+which I might contribute to the evening's entertainment. Elsie was
+very fond of ballads, and I could hardly please her better than by
+bringing a new one with me. But in default of that, an old one or a
+story would be welcomed. My reader must remember that there were very
+few books to be had then in that part of the country, and therefore
+any mode of literature was precious. The schoolmaster was the chief
+source from which I derived my provision of this sort. On the present
+occasion, I was prepared with a ballad of his. I remember every word
+of it now, and will give it to my readers, reminding them once more
+how easy it is to skip it, if they do not care for that kind of thing.
+
+"Bonny lassie, rosy lassie,
+  Ken ye what is care?
+Had ye ever a thought, lassie,
+  Made yer hertie sair?"
+
+Johnnie said it, Johnnie luikin'
+  Into Jeannie's face;
+Seekin' in the garden hedge
+  For an open place.
+
+"Na," said Jeannie, saftly smilin',
+  "Nought o' care ken I;
+For they say the carlin'
+  Is better passit by."
+
+"Licht o' hert ye are, Jeannie,
+  As o' foot and ban'!
+Lang be yours sic answer
+  To ony spierin' man."
+
+"I ken what ye wad hae, sir,
+  Though yer words are few;
+Ye wad hae me aye as careless,
+  Till I care for you."
+
+"Dinna mock me, Jeannie, lassie,
+  Wi' yer lauchin' ee;
+For ye hae nae notion
+  What gaes on in me."
+
+"No more I hae a notion
+  O' what's in yonder cairn;
+I'm no sae pryin', Johnnie,
+  It's none o' my concern."
+
+"Well, there's ae thing, Jeannie,
+  Ye canna help, my doo--
+Ye canna help me carin'
+  Wi' a' my hert for you."
+
+Johnnie turned and left her,
+  Listed for the war;
+In a year cam' limpin'
+  Hame wi' mony a scar.
+
+Wha was that was sittin'
+  Wan and worn wi' care?
+Could it be his Jeannie
+  Aged and alter'd sair?
+
+Her goon was black, her eelids
+  Reid wi' sorrow's dew:
+Could she in a twalmonth
+  Be wife and widow too?
+
+Jeannie's hert gaed wallop,
+  Ken 't him whan he spak':
+"I thocht that ye was deid, Johnnie:
+  Is't yersel' come back?"
+
+"O Jeannie, are ye, tell me,
+  Wife or widow or baith?
+To see ye lost as I am,
+  I wad be verra laith,"
+
+"I canna be a widow
+  That wife was never nane;
+But gin ye will hae me,
+  Noo I will be ane."
+
+His crutch he flang it frae him,
+  Forgetful o' war's harms;
+But couldna stan' withoot it,
+  And fell in Jeannie's arms.
+
+"That's not a bad ballad," said James Duff. "Have you a tune it would
+go to, Elsie?"
+
+Elsie thought a little, and asked me to repeat the first verse. Then
+she sung it out clear and fair to a tune I had never heard before.
+
+"That will do splendidly, Elsie," I said. "I will write it out for
+you, and then you will be able to sing it all the next time I come."
+
+She made me no answer. She and Turkey were looking at each other, and
+did not hear me. James Duff began to talk to me. Elsie was putting
+away the supper-things. In a few minutes I missed her and Turkey, and
+they were absent for some time. They did not return together, but
+first Turkey, and Elsie some minutes after. As the night was now
+getting quite stormy, James Duff counselled our return, and we
+obeyed. But little either Turkey or I cared for wind or hail.
+
+I saw Elsie at church most Sundays; but she was far too attentive and
+modest ever to give me even a look. Sometimes I had a word with her
+when we came out, but my father expected us to walk home with him; and
+I generally saw Turkey walk away with her.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXV
+
+A Break in my Story
+
+
+I am now rapidly approaching the moment at which I said I should bring
+this history to an end--the moment, namely, when I became aware that
+my boyhood was behind me.
+
+I left home this summer for the first time, and followed my brother
+Tom to the grammar school in the county-town, in order afterwards to
+follow him to the University. There was so much of novelty and
+expectation in the change, that I did not feel the separation from my
+father and the rest of my family much at first. That came afterwards.
+For the time, the pleasure of a long ride on the top of the
+mail-coach, with a bright sun and a pleasant breeze, the various
+incidents connected with changing horses and starting afresh, and then
+the outlook for the first peep of the sea, occupied my attention too
+thoroughly.
+
+I do not care to dwell on my experience at the grammar school. I
+worked fairly, and got on; but whether I should gain a scholarship
+remained doubtful enough. Before the time for the examination arrived,
+I went to spend a week at home. It was a great disappointment to me
+that I had to return again without seeing Elsie. But it could not be
+helped. The only Sunday I had there was a stormy day, late in October,
+and Elsie had a bad cold, as Turkey informed me, and could not be out;
+while my father had made so many engagements for me, that, with one
+thing and another, I was not able to go and see her.
+
+Turkey was now doing a man's work on the farm, and stood as high as
+ever in the estimation of my father and everyone who knew him. He was
+as great a favourite with Allister and Davie as with myself, and took
+very much the same place with the former as he had taken with me. I
+had lost nothing of my regard for him, and he talked to me with the
+same familiarity as before, urging me to diligence and thoroughness in
+my studies, pressing upon me that no one had ever done lasting work,
+"that is," Turkey would say--"work that goes to the making of the
+world," without being in earnest as to the _what_ and conscientious as
+to the _how_.
+
+"I don't want you to try to be a great man," he said once. "You might
+succeed, and then find out you had failed altogether."
+
+"How could that be, Turkey?" I objected. "A body can't succeed and
+fail both at once."
+
+"A body might succeed," he replied, "in doing what he wanted to do,
+and then find out that it was not in the least what he had thought
+it."
+
+"What rule are you to follow, then, Turkey?" I asked.
+
+"Just the rule of duty," he replied. "What you ought to do, that you
+must do. Then when a choice comes, not involving duty, you know,
+choose what you like best."
+
+This is the substance of what he said. If anyone thinks it pedantic, I
+can only say, he would not have thought so if he had heard it as it
+was uttered--in the homely forms and sounds of the Scottish tongue.
+
+"Aren't you fit for something better than farm-work yourself, Turkey?"
+I ventured to suggest, foolishly impelled, I suppose, to try whether I
+could not give advice too.
+
+"It's _my_ work," said Turkey, in a decisive tone, which left me no
+room for rejoinder.
+
+This conversation took place in the barn, where Turkey happened to be
+thrashing alone that morning. In turning the sheaf, or in laying a
+fresh one, there was always a moment's pause in the din, and then only
+we talked, so that our conversation was a good deal broken. I had
+buried myself in the straw, as in days of old, to keep myself warm,
+and there I lay and looked at Turkey while he thrashed, and thought
+with myself that his face had grown much more solemn than it used to
+be. But when he smiled, which was seldom, all the old merry sweetness
+dawned again. This was the last long talk I ever had with him. The
+next day I returned for the examination, was happy enough to gain a
+small scholarship, and entered on my first winter at college.
+
+My father wrote to me once a week or so, and occasionally I had a
+letter with more ink than matter in it from one of my younger
+brothers. Tom was now in Edinburgh, in a lawyer's office. I had no
+correspondence with Turkey. Mr. Wilson wrote to me sometimes, and
+along with good advice would occasionally send me some verses, but he
+told me little or nothing of what was going on.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVI
+
+I Learn that I am not a Man
+
+
+It was a Saturday morning, very early in April, when I climbed the
+mail-coach to return to my home for the summer; for so the university
+year is divided in Scotland. The sky was bright, with great fleecy
+clouds sailing over it, from which now and then fell a shower in large
+drops. The wind was keen, and I had to wrap myself well in my cloak.
+But my heart was light, and full of the pleasure of ended and
+successful labour, of home-going, and the signs which sun and sky gave
+that the summer was at hand.
+
+Five months had gone by since I last left home, and it had seemed such
+an age to Davie, that he burst out crying when he saw me. My father
+received me with a certain still tenderness, which seemed to grow upon
+him. Kirsty followed Davie's example, and Allister, without saying
+much, haunted me like my shadow. I saw nothing of Turkey that evening.
+
+In the morning we went to church, of course, and I sat beside the
+reclining stone warrior, from whose face age had nearly worn the
+features away. I gazed at him all the time of the singing of the first
+psalm, and there grew upon me a strange solemnity, a sense of the
+passing away of earthly things, and a stronger conviction than I had
+ever had of the need of something that could not pass. This feeling
+lasted all the time of the service, and increased while I lingered in
+the church almost alone until my father should come out of the vestry.
+
+I stood in the passage, leaning against the tomb. A cloud came over
+the sun, and the whole church grew dark as a December day--gloomy and
+cheerless. I heard for some time, almost without hearing them, two old
+women talking together close by me. The pulpit was between them and
+me, but when I became thoroughly aware of their presence, I peeped
+round and saw them.
+
+"And when did it happen, said you?" asked one of them, whose head
+moved with an incessant capricious motion from palsy.
+
+"About two o'clock this morning," answered the other, who leaned on a
+stick, almost bent double with rheumatism. "I saw their next-door
+neighbour this morning, and he had seen Jamie, who goes home of a
+Saturday night, you know; but William being a Seceder, nobody's been
+to tell the minister, and I'm just waiting to let him know; for she
+was a great favourite of his, and he's been to see her often. They're
+much to be pitied--poor people! Nobody thought it would come so sudden
+like. When I saw her mother last, there was no such notion in her
+head."
+
+Before I could ask of whom they were talking, my father came up the
+aisle from the vestry, and stopped to speak to the old women.
+
+"Elsie Duff's gone, poor thing!" said the rheumatic one.
+
+I grew stupid. What followed I have forgotten. A sound was in my ears,
+and my body seemed to believe it, though my soul could not comprehend
+it. When I came to myself I was alone in the church. They had gone
+away without seeing me. I was standing beside the monument, leaning on
+the carved Crusader. The sun was again shining, and the old church was
+full of light. But the sunshine had changed to me, and I felt very
+mournful. I should see the sweet face, hear the lovely voice, no more
+in this world. I endeavoured to realize the thought, but could not,
+and I left the church hardly conscious of anything but a dull sense of
+loss.
+
+I found my father very grave. He spoke tenderly of Elsie; but he did
+not know how I had loved her, and I could not make much response. I
+think, too, that he said less than he otherwise would, from the fear
+of calling back to my mind too vivid a memory of how ill I had once
+behaved to her. It was, indeed, my first thought the moment he uttered
+her name, but it soon passed, for much had come between.
+
+In the evening I went up to the farm to look for Turkey, who had not
+been at church morning or afternoon. He was the only one I could talk
+to about Elsie. I found him in one of the cow-houses, bedding the
+cows. His back was towards me when I entered.
+
+"Turkey," I said.
+
+He looked round with a slow mechanical motion, as if with a conscious
+effort of the will. His face was so white, and wore such a look of
+loss, that it almost terrified me like the presence of something
+awful. I stood speechless. He looked at me for a moment, and then
+came slowly up to me, and laid his hand on my shoulder.
+
+"Ranald," he said, "we were to have been married next year."
+
+Before the grief of the man, mighty in its silence, my whole being was
+humbled. I knew my love was not so great as his. It grew in my eyes a
+pale and feeble thing; and I felt worthless in the presence of her
+dead, whom alive I had loved with peaceful gladness. Elsie belonged to
+Turkey, and he had lost her, and his heart was breaking. I threw my
+arms round him, and wept for him, not for myself. It was thus I ceased
+to be a boy.
+
+Here, therefore, my story ends. Before I returned to the university,
+Turkey had enlisted and left the place.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+My father's half-prophecy concerning him is now fulfilled. He is a
+general. I will not tell his name. For some reason or other he had
+taken his mother's, and by that he is well known. I have never seen
+him, or heard from him, since he left my father's service; but I am
+confident that if ever we meet, it will be as old and true friends.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Ranald Bannerman's Boyhood, by George MacDonald
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