The tops of the Stack of Canna were curiously white, and Simeon watched the effect over his shoulder as he rowed.
"Look at the Stack," he said, and the eyes of his companion followed his.
"Is it snow?" she asked.
"No; birds—thousands of them. They are nesting. Let us land and get a boat-load to take back."
But Anna declared that it must not be so. They had come out to hunt theGreat Auk, and no meaner bird would they pursue that day.
Nevertheless, they landed, and made spectacles of themselves by groping in the clay soil on the top of the Stack for Petrels' eggs. But they could not dig far enough without spades to get many, and when they did get to the nest, it was hardly worth taking for the sake of the one white egg and the little splattering, oily inmate.
Yet on the wild sea-cinctured Stack, and in that young fresh morning, the children tasted the joy of life; and only the fascinating vision of the unknown habitant of the Glistering Beaches had power to wile them away.
But there before them, a mile and a half round the point of Stack, lay the Beaches. On either side of the smooth sweep of the sands rose mighty cliffs, black as the eye of the midnight and scarred with clefts like battered fortresses. Then at the Beaches themselves, the cliff wall fell back a hundred yards and left room for the daintiest edging of white sand, shining like coral, crumbled down from the pure granite—which at this point had not been overflowed like the rest of the island of Suliscanna by the black lava.
Such a place for play there was not anywhere—neither on Suliscanna nor on any other of the outer Atlantic isles. Low down, by the surf's edge, the wet sands of the Glistering Beaches were delicious for the bare feet to run and be brave and cool upon. The sickle sweep of the bay cut off the Western rollers, and it was almost always calm in there. Only the sea-birds clashed and clanged overhead, and made the eye dizzy to watch their twinkling gyrations.
Then on the greensward there was the smoothest turf, a band of it only—not coarse grass with stalks far apart, as it is on most sea-beaches; but smooth and short as though it had been cropped by a thousand woolly generations. "Such a place!" they both cried. And Anna, who had never been here before, clapped her hands in delight.
"This is like heaven!" she sighed, as the prow of the boat grated refreshingly on the sand, and Simeon sprang over with a splash, standing to his mid-thigh in the salt water to pull the boat ashore.
Then Simeon and Anna ran races on the smooth turf. They examined carefully the heaped mounds of shells, mostly broken, for the "legs of mutton" that meant to them love and long life and prosperity. They chose out for luck also the smooth little rose-tinted valves, more exquisite than the fairest lady's finger-nails.
Next they found the spring welling up from an over-flow mound which it had built for itself in the ages it had run untended. Little throbbing grains of sand dimpled in it, and the mound was green to the top; so that Simeon and Anna could sit, one on one side and the other upon the other, and with a farle of cake eat and drink, passing from hand to hand alternate, talking all the time.
It was a divine meal.
"This is better than having to go to church!" said Anna.
Simeon stared at her. This was not the Sabbath or a Fast-day. What a day, then, to be speaking about church-going! It was bad enough to have to face the matter when it came.
"I wonder what we should do if the Great Auk were suddenly to fly out of the rocks up there, and fall splash into the sea," he said, to change the subject.
"The Great Auk does not fly," said positive Anna, who had been reading up.
"What does it do, then?" said Simeon. "No wonder it got killed!"
"It could only waddle and swim," replied Anna.
"Then I could shoot it easy! I always can when the things can't fly, or will stand still enough.—It is not often they will," he added after due consideration.
Many things in creation are exceedingly thoughtless.
Thereupon Simeon took to loading his gun ostentatiously, and Anna moved away. Guns were uncertain things, especially in Simeon's hands, and Anna preferred to examine some of the caves. But when she went to the opening of the nearest, there was something so uncanny, so drippy, so clammy about it, with the little pools of water dimpled with drops from above, and the spume-balls rolled by the wind into the crevices, that she was glad to turn again and fall to gathering the aromatic, hay-scented fennel which nodded on the edges of the grassy slopes.
There was no possibility of getting up or down the cliffs that rose three hundred feet above the Glistering Beaches, for the ledges were hardly enough for the dense population of gannets which squabbled and babbled and elbowed one another on the slippery shelves.
Now and then there would be a fight up there, and white eggs would roll over the edge and splash yellow upon the turf. Wherever the rocks became a little less precipitous, they were fairly lined with the birds and hoary with their whitewash.
After Simeon had charged his gun, the children proceeded to explore the caves, innocently taking each other's hands, and advancing by the light of a candle—which, with flint and steel, they had found in the locker of their boat.
First they had to cross a pool, not deep, but splashy and unpleasant. Then more perilously they made their way along the edges of the water, walking carefully upon the slippery stones, wet with the clammy, contracted breath of the cave. Soon, however, the cavern opened out into a wider and drier place, till they seemed to be fairly under the mass of the island; for the cliffs, rising in three hundred feet of solid rock above their heads, stretched away before them black and grim to the earth's very centre.
Anna cried out, "Oh, I cannot breathe! Let us go back!"
But the undaunted Simeon, determined to establish his masculine superiority once for all, denied her plumply.
"We shall go back none," he said, "till we have finished this candle."
So, clasping more tightly her knight-errant's hand, Anna sighed, and resigned herself for once to the unaccustomed pleasure of doing as she was bid.
Deeper and deeper they went into the cleft of the rocks, stopping sometimes to listen, and hearing nothing but the beating of their own hearts when they did so.
There came sometimes, however, mysterious noises, as though the fairy folks were playing pipes in the stony knolls, of which they had both heard often enough. And also by whiles they heard a thing far more awful—a plunge as of a great sea-beast sinking suddenly into deep water.
"Suppose that it is some sea-monster," said Anna with eyes on fire; for the unwonted darkness had changed her, so that she took readily enough her orders from the less imaginative boy—whereas, under the broad light of day, she never dreamed of doing other than giving them.
Once they had a narrow escape. It happened that Simeon was leading and holding Anna by the hand, for they had been steadily climbing upwards for some time. The footing of the cave was of smooth sand, very restful and pleasing to the feet. Simeon was holding up the candle and looking before him, when suddenly his foot went down into nothing. He would have fallen forward, but that Anna, putting all her force into the pull, drew him back. The candle, however, fell from his hand and rolled unharmed to the edge of a well, where it lay still burning.
Simeon seized it, and the two children, kneeling upon the rocky side, looked over into a deep hole, which seemed, so far as the taper would throw its feeble rays downwards, to be quite fathomless.
But at the bottom something rose and fell with a deep roaring sound, as regular as a beast breathing. It had a most terrifying effect to hear that measured roaring deep in the bowels of the earth, and at each respiration to see the suck of the air blow the candle-flame about.
Anna would willingly have gone back, but stout Simeon was resolved and not to be spoken to.
They circled cautiously about the well, and immediately began to descend. The way now lay over rock, fine and regular to the feet as though it had been built and polished by the pyramid-builders of Egypt. There was more air, also, and the cave seemed to be opening out.
At last they came to a glimmer of daylight and a deep and solemn pool. There was a path high above it, and the pool lay beneath black like ink. But they were evidently approaching the sea, for the roar of the breaking swell could distinctly be heard. The pool narrowed till there appeared to be only a round basin of rock, full of the purest water, and beyond a narrow bank of gravel. Then they saw the eye of the sea shining in, and the edge of a white breaker lashing into the mouth of the cave.
But as they ran down heedlessly, all unawares they came upon a sight which made them shrink back with astonishment. It was something antique and wrinkled that sat or stood, it was difficult to tell which, in the pool of crystal water. It was like a little old man with enormous white eyebrows, wearing a stupendous mask shaped like a beak. The thing turned its head and looked intently at them without moving. Then they saw it was a bird, very large in size, but so forlorn, old, and broken that it could only flutter piteously its little flippers of wings and patiently and pathetically waggle that strange head.
"It is the Great Auk itself—we have found it!" said Anna in a hushed whisper.
"Hold the candle till I kill it with a stone—or, see! with this bit of timber."
"Wait!" said Anna. "It looks so old and feeble!"
"Our hundred pounds," said Simeon.
"It looks exactly like your grandfather," said Anna; "look at his eyebrows! You would not kill your grandfather!"
"Wouldn't I just—for a hundred pounds!" said Simeon briskly, looking for a larger stone.
"Don't let us kill him at all. We have seen the last Great Auk! That is enough. None shall be so great as we."
The grey and ancient fowl seemed to wake to a sense of his danger, just at the time when in fact the danger was over. He hitched himself out of the pool like an ungainly old man using a stick, and solemnly waddled over the little bank of sand till he came to his jumping-off place. Then, without a pause, he went souse into the water.
Simeon and Anna ran round the pool to the shingle-bank and looked after him.
The Great Auk was there, swimming with wonderful agility. He was heading right for the North and the Iceland skerries—where, it may be, he abides in peace to this day, happier than he lived in the cave of the island of Suliscanna.
The children reached home very late that night, and were received with varying gladness; but neither of them told the ignorant grown-up people of Suliscanna that theirs were the eyes that had seen the last Great Auk swim out into the bleak North to find, like Moses, an unknown grave.
Take cedar, take the creamy card,With regal head at angle dight;And though to snatch the time be hard,To all our loves at home we'll write.
Strange group! in Bowness' street we stand—Nine swains enamoured of our wives,Each quaintly writing on his hand,In haste, as 'twere to save our lives.
O wondrous messenger, to flyAll through the night from post to post!Thou bearest home a kiss, a sigh—And but a halfpenny the cost!
To-morrow when they crack their eggs,They'll say beside each matin urn—"These men are still upon their legs;Heaven bless 'em—may they soon return!"
Pleasant is sunshine after rain,Pleasant the sun;To cheer the parchèd land again,Pleasant the rain.
Sweetest is joyance after pain,Sweetest is joy;Yet sorest sorrow worketh gain,Sorrow is gain.
"As in the Days of Old."
"Weel, he's won awa'!"
"Ay, ay, he is that!"
The minister's funeral was winding slowly out of the little manse loaning. The window-blinds were all down, and their bald whiteness, like sightless eyes looking out of the white-washed walls and the trampled snow, made the Free Church manse of Deeside no cheerful picture that wild New Year's Day. The green gate which had so long hung on one hinge, periodically mended ever since the minister's son broke the other swinging on it the summer of the dry year before he went to college, now swayed forward with a miserably forlorn lurch, as though it too had tried to follow the funeral procession of the man who had shut it carefully the last thing before he went to bed every night for forty years.
Andrew Malcolm, the Glencairn joiner, who was conducting the funeral—if, indeed, Scots funerals can ever be said to be conducted—had given it a too successful push to let the rickety hearse have plenty of sea-room between the granite pillars. It was a long and straggling funeral, silent save for the words that stand at the opening of this tale, which ran up and down the long black files like the irregular fire of skirmishers.
"Ay, man, he's won awa'!"
"Ay, ay, he is that!"
This is the Scottish Lowland "coronach," characteristic and expressive as the wailing of the pipes to the Gael or the keening of women among the wild Eirionach.
"We are layin' the last o' the auld Andersons o' Deeside amang the mools the day," said Saunders M'Quhirr, the farmer of Drumquhat, to his friend Rob Adair of the Mains of Deeside, as they walked sedately together, neither swinging his arms as he would have done on an ordinary day. Saunders had come all the way over Dee Water to follow the far-noted man of God to his rest.
"There's no siccan men noo as the Andersons o' Deeside," said Rob Adair, with a kind of pride and pleasure in his voice. "I'm a dale aulder than you, Saunders, an' I mind weel o' the faither o' him that's gane." (Rob had in full measure the curious South-country disinclination to speak directly of the dead.)
"Ay, an angry man he was that day in the '43 when him that's a cauld corp the day, left the kirk an' manse that his faither had pitten him intil only the year afore. For, of coorse, the lairds o' Deeside were the pawtrons o' the pairish; an' when the auld laird's yae son took it intil his head to be a minister, it was in the nature o' things that he should get the pairish.
"Weel, the laird didna speak to his son for the better part o' twa year; though mony a time he drave by to the Pairish Kirk when his son was haudin' an ootdoor service at the Auld Wa's where the three roads meet. For naesichtcould they get on a' Deeside for kirk or manse, because frae the Dullarg to Craig Ronald a' belanged to the laird. The minister sent the wife an' bairns to a sma' hoose in Cairn Edward, an' lodged himsel' amang sic o' the farmers as werena feared for his faither's factor. Na, an' speak to his son the auld man wadna, for the very dourness o' him. Ay, even though the minister wad say to his faither, 'Faither, wull ye no' speak to yer ain son?' no' ae word wad he answer, but pass him as though he hadna seen him, as muckle as to say—'Nae son o' mine!'
"But a week or twa after the minister had lost yon twa nice bairns wi' the scarlet fever, his faither an' him forgathered at the fishin'—whaur he had gane, thinkin' to jook the sair thochts that he carried aboot wi' him, puir man. They were baith keen fishers an' graun' at it. The minister was for liftin' his hat to his faither an' gaun by, but the auld man stood still in the middle o' the fit-pad wi' a gey queer look in his face. 'Wattie!' he said, an' for ae blink the minister thocht that his faither was gaun to greet, a thing that he had never seen him do in a' his life. But the auld man didna greet. 'Wattie,' says he to his son, 'hae ye a huik?'
"Ay, Saunders, that was a' he said, an' the minister juist gied him the huik and some half-dizzen fine flees forbye, an' the twa o' them never saidDisruptionmair as lang as they leeved.
"'Ye had better see the factor aboot pittin' up a meetin'-hoose and a decent dwallin', gin ye hae left kirk and manse!' That was a' that the auld laird ever said, as his son gaed up stream and he down.
"Ay, he's been a sair-tried man in his time, your minister, but he's a' by wi't the day," continued Saunders M'Quhirr, as they trudged behind the hearse.
"Did I ever tell ye, Rob, aboot seem' young Walter—his boy that gaed wrang, ye ken—when I was up in London the year afore last? Na? 'Deed, I telled naebody binna the mistress. It was nae guid story to tell on Deeside!
"Weel, I was up, as ye ken, at Barnet Fair wi' some winter beasts, so I bade a day or twa in London, doin' what sma' business I had, an' seein' the sichts as weel, for it's no' ilka day that a Deeside body finds themsel's i' London.
"Ae nicht wha should come in but a Cairn Edward callant that served his time wi' Maxwell in theAdvertiseroffice. He had spoken to me at the show, pleased to see a Gallawa' face, nae doot. And he telled me he was married an' workin' on theTimes. An' amang ither things back an' forrit, he telled me that the minister o' Deeside's son was here. 'But,' says he, 'I'm feared that he's comin' to nae guid.' I kenned that the laddie hadna been hame to his faither an' his mither for a maitter o' maybe ten year, so I thocht that I wad like to see the lad for his faither's sake. So in a day or twa I got his address frae the reporter lad, an' fand him after a lang seek doon in a gey queer place no' far frae where Tammas Carlyle leeves, near the water-side. I thocht that there was nae ill bits i' London but i' the East-end; but I learned different.
"I gaed up the stair o' a wee brick hoose nearly tumlin' doon wi' its ain wecht—a perfect rickle o' brick—an' chappit. A lass opened the door after a wee, no' that ill-lookin', but toosy aboot the heid an' unco shilpit aboot the face.
"'What do you want?' says she, verra sharp an' clippit in her mainner o' speech.
"'Does Walter Anderson o' Deeside bide here?' I asked, gey an' plain, as ye ken a body has to speak to thae Englishers that barely can understand their ain language.
"'What may you want with him?' says she.
"'I come frae Deeside,' says I—no' that I meaned to lichtly my ain pairish, but I thocht that the lassie micht no' be acquant wi' the name o' Whunnyliggate. 'I come frae Deeside, an' I ken Walter Anderson's faither.'
"'That's no recommend,' says she. 'The mair's the peety,' says I, 'for he's a daicent man.'
"So she took ben my name, that I had nae cause to be ashamed o', an' syne she brocht word that I was to step in. So ben I gaed, an' it wasna a far step, eyther, for it was juist ae bit garret room; an' there on a bed in the corner was the minister's laddie, lookin' nae aulder than when he used to swing on the yett an' chase the hens. At the verra first glint I gat o' him I saw that Death had come to him, and come to bide. His countenance was barely o' this earth—sair disjaskit an' no' manlike ava'—mair like a lassie far gane in a decline; but raised-like too, an' wi' a kind o' defiance in it, as if he was darin' the Almichty to His face. O man, Rob, I hope I may never see the like again."
"Ay, man, Saunders, ay, ay!" said Rob Adair, who, being a more demonstrative man than his friend, had been groping in the tail of his "blacks" for the handkerchief that was in his hat. Then Rob forgot, in the pathos of the story, what he was searching for, and walked for a considerable distance with his hand deep in the pocket of his tail-coat.
The farmer of Drumquhat proceeded on his even way.
"The lassie that I took to be his wife (but I asked nae questions) was awfu' different ben the room wi' him frae what she was wi' me at the door—fleechin' like wi' him to tak' a sup o' soup. An' when I gaed forrit to speak to him on the puir bit bed, she cam' by me like stour, wi' the water happin' off her cheeks, like hail in a simmer thunder-shoo'er."
"Puir bit lassockie!" muttered Rob Adair, who had three daughters of his own at home, as he made another absent-minded and unsuccessful search for his handkerchief. "There's a smurr o' rain beginnin' to fa', I think," he said, apologetically.
"'An' ye're Sandy MacWhurr frae Drumquhat,' says the puir lad on the bed. 'Are your sugar-plums as guid as ever?'
"What a quastion to speer on a dying bed, Saunders!" said Rob.
"'Deed, ye may say it. Weel, frae that he gaed on talkin' aboot hoo Fred Robson an' him stole the hale o' the Drumquhat plooms ae back-end, an' hoo they gat as far as the horse waterin'-place wi' them when the dogs gat after them. He threepit that it was me that set the dogs on, but I never did that, though I didna conter him. He said that Fred an' him made for the seven-fit march dike, but hadna time to mak' ower it. So there they had to sit on the tap o' a thorn-bush in the meadow on their hunkers, wi' the dogs fair loupin' an' yowlin' to get haud o' them. Then I cam' doon mysel' an' garred them turn every pooch inside oot. He minded, too, that I was for hingin' them baith up by the heels, till what they had etten followed what had been in their pooches. A' this he telled juist as he did when he used to come ower to hae a bar wi' the lassies, in the forenichts after he cam' hame frae the college the first year. But the lad was laughin' a' the time in a way I didna like. It wasna natural—something hard an' frae the teeth oot, as ye micht say—maist peetifu' in a callant like him, wi' the deid-licht shinin' already in the blue een o' him."
"D'ye no' mind, Saunders, o' him comin' hame frae the college wi' a hantle o' medals an' prizes?" said Rob Adair, breaking in as if he felt that he must contribute his share to the memories which shortened, if they did not cheer, their road. "His faither was rael prood o' him, though it wasna his way to say muckle. But his mither could talk aboot naething else, an' carriet his picture aboot wi' her a' ower the pairish in her wee black retical basket. Fegs, a gipsy wife gat a saxpence juist for speerin' for a sicht o' it, and cryin', 'Blessings on the laddie's bonny face!'"
"Weel," continued Saunders, imperturbably taking up the thread of his narrative amid the blattering of the snow, "I let the lad rin on i' this way for a while, an' then says I, 'Walter, ye dinna ask after yer faither!'
"'No, I don't,' says he, verra short. 'Nell, gie me the draught.' So wi' that the lassie gied her een a bit quick dab, syne cam' forrit, an' pittin' her airm aneath his heid she gied him a drink. Whatever it was, it quaitened him, an' he lay back tired-like.
"'Weel,' said I, after a wee, 'Walter, gin ye'll no' speer for yer faither, maybe ye'll speer for yer ain mither?'
"Walter Anderson turned his heid to the wa'. 'Oh, my mither! my ain mither!' he said, but I could hardly hear him sayin' it. Then more fiercely than he had yet spoken he turned on me an' said, 'Wha sent ye here to torment me before my time?'
* * * * *
"I saw young Walter juist yince mair in life. I stepped doon to see him the next mornin' when the end was near. He was catchin' and twitchin' at the coverlet, liftin' up his hand an' lookin' at it as though it was somebody else's. It was a black fog outside, an' even in the garret it took him in his throat till he couldna get breath.
"He motioned for me to sit doon beside him. There was nae chair, so I e'en gat doon on my knees. The lass stood white an' quaite at the far side o' the bed. He turned his een on me, blue an' bonnie as a bairn's; but wi' a licht in them that telled he had eaten o' the tree o' knowledge, and that no' seldom.
"'O Sandy,' he whispered, 'what a mess I've made o't, haven't I? You'll see my mither when ye gang back to Deeside. Tell her it's no' been so bad as it has whiles lookit. Tell her I've aye loved her, even at the warst—an'—an' my faither too!' he said, with a kind o' grip in his words.
"'Walter,' says I, 'I'll pit up a prayer, as I'm on my knees onyway.' I'm no' giftit like some, I ken; but, Robert, I prayed for that laddie gaun afore his Maker as I never prayed afore or since. And when I spak' aboot the forgiein' o' sin, the laddie juist steekit his een an' said 'Amen!'
"That nicht as the clock was chappin' twal' the lassie cam' to my door (an' the landlady wasna that weel pleased at bein' raised, eyther), an' she askit me to come an' see Walter, for there was naebody else that had kenned him in his guid days. So I took my stave an' my plaid an' gaed my ways wi' her intil the nicht—a' lichtit up wi' lang raws o' gas-lamps, an' awa' doon by the water-side whaur the tide sweels black aneath the brigs. Man, a big lichtit toun at nicht is far mair lanesome than the Dullarg muir when it's black as pit-mirk. When we got to the puir bit hoosie, we fand that the doctor was there afore us. I had gotten him brocht to Walter the nicht afore. But the lassie was nae sooner within the door than she gied an unco-like cry, an' flang hersel' distrackit on the bed. An' there I saw, atween her white airms and her tangled yellow hair, the face o' Walter Anderson, the son o' the manse o' Deeside, lyin' on the pillow wi' the chin tied up in a napkin!
"Never a sermon like that, Robert Adair!" said Saunders M'Quhirr solemnly, after he had paused a moment.
Saunders and Robert were now turning off the wind-swept muir-road into the sheltered little avenue which led up to the kirk above the white and icebound Dee Water. The aged gravedigger, bent nearly double, met them where the roads parted. A little farther up the newly elected minister of the parish kirk stood at the manse door, in which Walter Anderson had turned the key forty years ago for conscience' sake.
Very black and sombre looked the silent company of mourners who now drew together about the open grave—a fearsome gash on the white spread of the new-fallen snow. There was no religious service at the minister's grave save that of the deepest silence. Ranked round the coffin, which lay on black bars over the grave-mouth, stood the elders, but no one of them ventured to take the posts of honour at the head and the foot. The minister had left not one of his blood with a right to these positions. He was the last Anderson of Deeside.
"Preserve us! wha's yon they're pittin' at the fit o' the grave? Wha can it be ava?" was whispered here and there back in the crowd. "It's Jean Grier's boy, I declare—him that the minister took oot o' the puirhoose, and schuled and colleged baith. Weel, that cowes a'! Saw ye ever the like o' that?"
It was to Rob Adair that this good and worthy thought had come. In him more than in any of his fellow-elders the dead man's spirit lived. He had sat under him all his life, and was sappy with his teaching. Some would have murmured had they had time to complain, but no one ventured to say nay to Rob Adair as he pushed the modest, clear-faced youth into the vacant place.
Still the space at the head of the grave was vacant, and for a long moment the ceremony halted as if waiting for a manifestation. With a swift, sudden startle the coil of black cord, always reserved for the chief mourner, slipped off the coffin-lid and fell heavily into the grave.
"He's there afore his faither," said Saunders M'Quhirr.
So sudden and unexpected was the movement, that, though the fall of the cord was the simplest thing in the world, a visible quiver passed through the bowed ranks of the bearers. "It was his ain boy Wattie come to lay his faither's heid i' the grave!" cried Daft Jess, the parish "natural," in a loud sudden voice from the "thruch" stone near the kirkyaird wall where she stood at gaze.
And there were many there who did not think it impossible.
As the mourners "skailed" slowly away from the kirkyaird in twos and threes, there was wonderment as to who should have the property, for which the late laird and minister had cared so little. There were very various opinions; but one thing was quite universally admitted, that there would be no such easy terms in the matter of rent and arrears as there had been in the time of "him that's awa'." The snow swept down with a biting swirl as the groups scattered and the mourners vanished from each other's sight, diving singly into the eddying drifts as into a great tent of many flapping folds. Grave and quiet is the Scottish funeral, with a kind of simple manfulness as of men in the presence of the King of Terrors, but yet possessing that within them which enables every man of them to await without unworthy fear the Messenger who comes but once. On the whole, not so sad as many things that are called mirthful.
So the last Anderson of Deeside, and the best of all their ancient line, was gathered to his fathers in an equal sleep that snowy January morning. There were two inches of snow in the grave when they laid the coffin in. As Saunders said, "Afore auld Elec could get him happit, his Maister had hidden him like Moses in a windin'-sheet o' His ain." In the morning, when Elec went hirpling into the kirkyaird, he found at the grave-head a bare place which the snow had not covered. Then some remembered that, hurrying by in the rapidly darkening gloaming of the night after the funeral, they had seen some one standing immovable by the minister's grave in the thickly drifting snow. They had wondered why he should stand there on such a bitter night.
There were those who said that it was just the lad Archibald Grier, gone to stand a while by his benefactor's grave.
But Daft Jess was of another opinion.
"On this day Men consecrate their souls, As did their fathers."
* * * * *
And ah! the sacred morns that crowned the week—The path betwixt the mountains and the sea,The Sannox water and the wooden bridge,The little church, the narrow seats—and weThat through the open window saw the ridgeOf Fergus, and the peakOf utmost Cior Mohr—nor held it wrong,When vext with platitude and stirless air,To watch the mist-wreaths clothe the rock-scarps bareAnd in the pauses hear the blackbird's song.
"Memory Harvest."
Walter Carmichael often says in these latter days that his life owed much of its bent to his first days of the week at Drumquhat.
The Sabbath morning broke over the farm like a benediction. It was a time of great stillness and exceeding peace. It was, indeed, generally believed in the parish that Mrs. M'Quhirr had trained her cocks to crow in a fittingly subdued way upon that day. To the boy the Sabbath light seemed brighter. The necessary duties were earlier gone about, in order that perfect quiet might surround the farm during all the hours of the day. As Walter is of opinion that his youthful Sabbaths were so important, it may be well to describe one of them accurately. It will then be obvious that his memory has been playing him tricks, and that he has remembered only those parts of it which tell somewhat to his credit—a common eccentricity of memories.
It is a thousand pities if in this brief chronicle Walter should be represented as a good boy. He was seldom so called by the authorities about Drumquhat. There he was usually referred to as "that loon," "thehyule" "Wattie, ye mischéevious boy." For he was a stirring lad, and his restlessness frequently brought him into trouble. He remembers his mother's Bible lessons on the green turn of the loaning by the road, and he is of opinion now that they did him a great deal of good. It is not for an outside historian to contradict him; but it is certain that his mother had to exercise a good deal of patience to induce him to give due attention, and a species of suasion that could hardly be called moral to make him learn his verses and his psalm.
Indeed, to bribe the boy with the promise of a book was the only way of inspiring in him the love of scriptural learning. There was a book-packman who came from Balmathrapple once a month, and by the promise of a new missionary map of the world (with the Protestants in red, floating like cream on the top, and the pagans sunk in hopeless black at the bottom) Wattie could be induced to learn nearly anything. Walter was, however, of opinion that the map was a most imperfect production. He thought that the portion of the world occupied by the Cameronians ought to have been much more prominently charted. This omission he blamed on Ned Kenna the bookman, who was a U.P.
Walter looked for the time when all the world, from great blank Australia to the upper Icy Pole, should become Cameronian. He anticipated an era when the black savages would have to quit eating one another and learn the Shorter Catechism. He chuckled when he thought of them attackingEffectual Calling.
But he knew his duty to his fellows very well, and he did it to the best of his ability. It was, when he met a Free Kirk or Established boy, to throw a stone at him; or alternatively, if the heathen chanced to be a girl, to put out his tongue at her. This he did, not from any special sense of superiority, but for the good of their souls.
When Walter awoke, the sun had long been up, and already all sounds of labour, usually so loud, were hushed about the farm. There was a breathless silence, and the boy knew even in his sleep that it was the Sabbath morning. He arose, and unassisted arrayed himself for the day. Then he stole forth, hoping that he would get his porridge before the "buik" came on. Through the little end window he could see his grandfather moving up and down outside, leaning on his staff—his tall, stooped figure very clear against the background of beeches. As he went he looked upward often in self-communion, and sometimes groaned aloud in the instancy of his unspoken prayer. His brow rose like the wall of a fortress. A stray white lock on his bare head stirred in the crisp air.
Wattie was about to omit his prayers in his eagerness for his porridge, but the sight of his grandfather induced him to change his mind. He knelt reverently down, and was so found when his mother came in. She stood for a moment on the threshold, and silently beckoned the good mistress of the house forward to share in the sight. But neither of the women knew how near the boy's prayers came to being entirely omitted that morning. And what is more, they would not have believed it had they been informed of it by the angel Gabriel. For this is the manner of women—the way that mothers are made. The God of faith bless them for it! The man has indeed been driven out of Paradise, but the woman, for whose expulsion we have no direct scriptural authority, certainly carries with her materials for constructing one out of her own generous faith and belief. Often men hammer out a poor best, not because they are anxious to do the good for its own sake, but because they know that some woman expects it of them.
The dwelling-house of Drumquhat was a low one-storied house of a common enough pattern. It stood at one angle of the white fortalice of buildings which surrounded the "yard." Over the kitchen and the "ben the hoose" there was a "laft," where the "boys"[3] slept. The roof of this upper floor was unceiled, and through the crevices the winter snows sifted down upon the sleepers. Yet were there no finer lads, no more sturdy and well set-up men, than the sons of the farmhouse of Drumquhat. Many a morning, ere the eldest son of the house rose from his bed in the black dark to look to the sheep, before lighting his candle he brushed off from the coverlet a full arm-sweep of powdery snow. It was a sign of Walter's emancipation from boyhood when he insisted on leaving his mother's cosy little wall-chamber and climbing up the ladder with the boys to their "laft" under the eaves. Nevertheless, it went with a sudden pang to the mother's heart to think that never more should she go to sleep with her boy clasped in her arms. Such times will come to mothers, and they must abide them in silence. A yet more bitter tragedy is when she realises that another woman is before her in her son's heart.
[Footnote 3: As in Ireland, all the sons of the house are "boys" so long as they remain under the roof-tree, even though they may carry grey heads on their shoulders.]
The whole family of Saunders M'Quhirr was collected every Sabbath morning at the "buik." It was a solemn time. No one was absent, or could be absent for any purpose whatever. The great Bible, clad rough-coated in the hairy hide of a calf, was brought down from the press and laid at the table-end. Saunders sat down before it and bowed his head. In all the house there was a silence that could be felt. It was at this time every Sabbath morning that Walter resolved to be a good boy for the whole week. The psalm was reverently given out, two lines at a time—
"They in the Lord that firmly trust,Shall be like Zion hill"—
and sung to the high quavering strains of "Coleshill," garnished with endless quavers and grace-notes.
The chapter was then read with a simple trust and manfulness like that of an ancient patriarch. Once at this portion of the service the most terrible thing that ever happened at Drumquhat took place. Walter had gone to school during the past year, and had been placed in the "sixpenny"; but he had promptly "trapped" his way to the head of the class, and so into the more noble "tenpenny," which he entered before he was six. The operation of "trapping" was simply performed. When a mistake was made in pronunciation, repetition, or spelling, any pupil further down the class held out his hand, snapping the finger and thumb like a pop-gun Nordenfeldt. The master's pointer skimmed rapidly down the line, and if no one in higher position answered, the "trapper," providing always that his emendation was accepted, was instantly promoted to the place of the "trapped." The master's "taws" were a wholesome deterrent of persistent or mistaken trapping; and, in addition, the trapped boys sometimes rectified matters at the back of the school at the play-hour, when fists became a high court of appeal and review.
Walter had many fights—"Can ye fecht?" being the recognised greeting to the new comer at Whinnyliggate school. When this was asked of Walter, he replied modestly that he did not know, whereupon his enemy, without provocation, smote him incontinently on the nose. Him our boy-from-the-heather promptly charged, literally with tooth and nail, overbore to the dust, and, when he held him there, proceeded summarily to disable him for further conflict, as he had often seen Royal do when that mild dog went forth to war. Walter could not at all understand why he was dragged off his assailant by the assembled school, and soundly cuffed for a young savage who fought like the beasts. Wattie knew in his heart that this objection was unreasonable, for whom else had he seen fight besides the beasts? But in due time he learned to fight legitimately enough, and to take his share of the honours of war. Moreover, the reputation of a reserve of savagery did him no harm, and induced many an elder boy who had been "trapped" to forego the pleasure of "warming him after the schule comes oot," which was the formal challenge of Whinnyliggate chivalry.
But this Sabbath morning at the "buik," when the solemnity of the week had culminated, and the portion was being read, Walter detected a quaint antiquity in the pronunciation of a Bible name. His hand shot out, cracking like a pistol, and, while the family waited for the heavens to fall, Walter boldly "trapped" the priest of the household at his own family altar!
Saunders M'Quhirr stopped, and darted one sharp, severe glance at the boy's eager face. But even as he looked, his face mellowed into what his son Alec to this day thinks may have been the ghost of a smile. But this he mentions to no one, for, after all, Saunders is his father.
The book was closed. "Let us pray," Saunders said.
The prayer was not one to be forgotten. There was a yearning refrain in it, a cry for more worthiness in those whom God had so highly favoured. Saunders was allowed to be highly gifted in intercession. But he was also considered to have some strange notions for a God-fearing man.
For instance, he would not permit any of his children to be taught by heart any prayer besides the Lord's Prayer. After repeating that, they were encouraged to ask from God whatever they wanted, and were never reproved, however strange or incongruous their supplications might be. Saunders simply told them that if what they asked was not for their good they would not get it—a fact which, he said, "they had as lief learn sune as syne."
This excellent theory of prayer was certainly productive of curious results. For instance, Alec is recorded in the family archives to have interjected the following petition into his devotions. While saying his own prayers, he had been keeping a keen fraternal eye upon sundry delinquencies of his younger brother. These having become too outrageous, Alec continued without break in his supplications—"And now, Lord, will you please excuse me till I gang an' kick that loon Rab, for he'll no' behave himsel'!" So the spiritual exercises were interrupted, and in Alec's belief the universe waited till discipline allowed the petitionary thread to be taken up.
The "buik" being over, the red farm-cart rattled to the door to convey such of the churchgoers as were not able to walk all the weary miles to the Cameronian kirk in Cairn Edward. The stalwart, long-legged sons cut across a shorter way by the Big Hoose and the Deeside kirk. Both the cart and the walkers passed on the way a good many churches, both Established and Free; but they never so much as looked the road they were on.
This hardly applied to Alec, whose sweetheart (for the time-being) attended the Free kirk at Whinnyliggate. He knew within his own heart that he would have liked to turn in there, and the consciousness of his iniquity gave him an acute sense of the fallen nature of man—at least, till he got out of sight of the spireless rigging of the kirk, and out of hearing of the jow of its bell. Then his spirits rose to think that he had resisted temptation. Also, he dared not for his life have done anything else, for his father's discipline, though kindly, was strict and patriarchal.
And, moreover, there was a lass at the Cameronian kirk, a daughter of the Arkland grieve, whose curls he rather liked to see in the seat before him. He had known her when he went to the neighbouring farm to harvest—for in that lowland district the corn was all cut and led, before it was time to begin it on the scanty upland crop which was gathered into the barns of Drumquhat. Luckily, she sat in a line with the minister; and when she was there, two sermons on end were not too long.
The clean red farm-cart rattled into the town of Cairn Edward at five minutes past eleven. The burghers looked up and said, "Hoo is the clock?" Some of them went so far as to correct any discrepancy in their time-keepers, for all the world knew that the Drumquhat cart was not a moment too soon or too late, so long as Saunders had the driving of it. Times had not been too good of late; and for some years—indeed, ever since the imposition of the tax on light-wheeled vehicles—the "tax-cart" had slumbered wheelless in the back of the peat-shed, and the Drumquhat folk had driven a well-cleaned, heavy-wheeled red cart both to kirk and market. But they were respected in spite of their want of that admirable local certificate of character, "He is a respectable man. He keeps a gig." One good man in Whinnyliggate says to this day that he had an excellent upbringing. He was brought up by his parents to fear God and respect the Drumquhat folks!
Walter generally went to church now, ever since his granny had tired of conveying him to the back field overlooking the valley of the Black Water of the Dee, while his mother made herself ready. He was fond of going there to see the tents of the invading army of navvies who were carrying the granite rock-cuttings and heavy embankments of the Portpatrick Railway through the wilds of the Galloway moors. But Mary M'Quhirr struck work one day when the "infant," being hungry for a piece, said calmly, "D'ye no think that we can gang hame? My mither will be awa' to the kirk by noo!"
On the long journey to church, Walter nominally accompanied the cart. Occasionally he seated himself on the clean straw which filled its bottom; but most of the time this was too fatiguing an occupation for him. On the plea of walking up the hills, he ranged about on either side of the highway, scenting the ground like a young collie. He even gathered flowers when his grandfather was not looking, and his mother or his "gran," who were not so sound in the faith, aided and abetted him by concealing them when Saunders looked round. The master sat, of course, on the front of the cart and drove; but occasionally he cast a wary eye around, and if he saw that they were approaching any houses he would stop the cart and make Walter get in. On these occasions he would fail to observe it even if Walter's hands contained a posy of wild-flowers as big as his head. His blindness was remarkable in a man whose eyesight was so good. The women-folk in the cart generally put the proceeds of these forays under the straw or else dropped them quietly overboard before entering Cairn Edward.
The old Cameronian kirk sits on a hill, and is surrounded by trees, a place both bieldy and heartsome. The only thing that the Cameronians seriously felt the want of was a burying-ground round about it. A kirk is never quite commodious and cheery without monuments to read and "thruchs" to sit upon and "ca' the crack." Now, however, they have made a modern church of it, and a steeple has been set down before it, for all the world as if Cleopatra's needle had been added to the front wall of a barn.
But Cairn Edward Cameronian kirk has long been a gate of heaven. To many who in their youth have entered it the words heard there have brought the beginning of a new life and another world. Of old, as the morning psalm went upward in a grand slow surge, there was a sense of hallowed days in the very air. And to this day Walter has a general idea that the mansions of the New Jerusalem are of the barn class of architecture and whitewashed inside, which will not show so much upon the white robes when it rubs off, as it used to do on plain earthly "blacks."
There were not many distractions for a boy of active habits and restless tendencies during the long double service of two hours and a bittock in the Cameronian kirk of Cairn Edward. The minister was the Reverend Richard Cameron, the youngest scion of a famous Covenanting family.
He had come to Cairn Edward as a stripling, and he was now looked upon as the future high priest of the sect in succession to his father, at that time minister of the metropolitan temple of the denomination. Tall, erect, with flowing black hair that swept his shoulders, and the exquisitely chiselled face of some marble Apollo, Richard Cameron was, as his name-sake had been, an ideal minister of the Hill Folk. His splendid eyes glowed with still and chastened fire, as he walked with his hands behind him and his head thrown back, up the long aisle from the vestry.
His successor was a much smaller man, well set and dapper, who wore black gloves when preaching, and who seemed to dance a minuet under his spectacles as he walked. Alas! to him also came in due time the sore heart and the bitter draught. They say in Cairn Edward that no man ever left that white church on the wooded knoll south of the town and was happier for the change. The leafy garden where many ministers have written their sermons, has seemed to them a very paradise in after years, and their cry has been, "O why left I my hame?"
But these were happy days for Richard Cameron when he brought his books and his violin to the manse that nestled at the foot of the hill. He came among men strict with a certain staid severity concerning things that they counted material, but yet far more kindly-hearted and charitable than of recent years they have gotten credit for.
Saunders did not object to the minister's violin, being himself partial to a game at the ice, and willing that another man should also have his chosen relaxation. Then, again, when the young man began to realise himself, and lay about him in the pulpit, there were many who would tell how they remembered his father—preaching on one occasion the sermon that "fenced the tables," on the Fast Day before the communion, when the partitions were out and the church crowded to the door. Being oppressed with the heat, he craved the indulgence of the congregation to be allowed to remove his coat; and thereafter in his shirt-sleeves, struck terror into all, by denunciations against heresy and infidelity, against all evil-doing and evil-speaking. It was interesting as a battle-tale how he barred the table of the Lord to "all such as have danced or followed after play-actors, or have behaved themselves unseemly at Kelton Hill or other gathering of the ungodly, or have frequented public-houses beyond what is expedient for lawful entertainment; against all such as swear minced oaths, such as 'losh,' 'gosh,' 'fegs,' 'certes,' 'faith'; and against all such as swear by heaven or earth, or visit their neighbours' houses upon the Lord's Day, saving as may be necessary in coming to the house of the Lord."
The young man could not be expected at once to come up to the high standard of this paternal master-work—which, indeed, proved to be too strong meat for any but a few of the sterner office-bearers, who had never heard their brother-elders' weaknesses so properly handled before. But they had, nevertheless, to go round the people and tell them that what the Doctor had said was to be understood spiritually, and chiefly as a warning to other denominations, else there had been a thin kirk and but one sparse table instead of the usual four or five, on the day of high communion in the Cairn Edward Cameronian kirk.
Now, Walter could be a quiet boy in church for a certain time. He did not very much enjoy the service, except when they sang "Old Hundred" or "Scarborough," when he would throw back his head and warble delightedly with the best. But he listened attentively to the prayers, and tracked the minister over that well-kenned ground. Walter was prepared for his regular stint, but he did not hold with either additions or innovations. He liked to know how far he was on in the prayer, and it was with an exhausted gasp of relief that he caught the curious lowering of the preacher's voice which tells that the "Amen" is within reasonable distance.
The whole congregation was good at that, and hearers began to relax themselves from their standing postures as the minister's shrill pipe rounded the corner and tacked for the harbour; but Walter was always down before them. Once, however, after he had seated himself, he was put to shame by the minister suddenly darting off on a new excursion, having remembered some other needful supplication which he had omitted. Walter never quite regained his confidence in Mr. Cameron after that. He had always thought him a good and Christian man hitherto, but thereafter he was not so sure.
Once, also, when the minister visited the farm of Drumquhat, Walter, being caught by his granny in the very act of escaping, was haled to instant execution with the shine of the soap on his cheeks and hair. But the minister was kind, and did not ask for anything more abstruse than "Man's Chief End." He inquired, however, if the boy had ever seen him before.
"Ou ay," said Walter, confidently; "ye're the man that sat at the back window!"
This was the position of the manse seat, and at the Fast Day service Mr. Cameron usually sat there when a stranger preached. Not the least of Walter's treasures, now in his library, is a dusky little squat book calledThe Peep of Day, with an inscription on it in Mr. Cameron's minute and beautiful backhand: "To Walter Carmichael, from the Man at the Back Window."
The minister was grand. In fact, he usuallywasgrand. On this particular Sunday he preached his two discourses with only the interval of a psalm and a prayer; and his second sermon was on the spiritual rights of a Covenanted kirk, as distinguished from the worldly emoluments of an Erastian establishment. Nothing is so popular as to prove to people what they already believe and that day's sermon was long remembered among the Cameronians. It redd up their position so clearly, and settled their precedence with such finality, that Walter, hearing that the Frees had done far wrong in not joining the Church of the Protests and Declarations in the year 1843, resolved to have his school-bag full of good road-metal on the following morning, in order to impress the Copland boys, who were Frees, with a sense of their position.
But as the sermon proceeded on its conclusive way, the bowed ranks of the attentive Hill Folk bent further and further forward, during the long periods of the preacher; and when, at the close of each, they drew in a long, united breath like the sighing of the wind, and leaned back in their seats, Walter's head began to nod over the chapters of First Samuel, which he was spelling out.
David's wars were a great comfort to him during long sermons. Gradually he dropped asleep, and wakened occasionally with a start when his granny nudged him when Saunders happened to look his way.
As the little fellow's mind thus came time and again to the surface, he heard snatches of fiery oratory concerning the Sanquhar Declarations and the Covenants, National and Solemn League, till it seemed to him as though the trump of doom would crash before the minister had finished. And he wished it would! But at last, in sheer desperation, having slept apparently about a week, he rose with his feet upon the seat, and in his clear, childish treble he said, being still dazed with sleep—
"Will that man no' soon be dune?"
It was thus that the movement for short services began in the Cameronian kirk of Cairn Edward. They are an hour and twenty minutes now—a sore declension, as all will admit.
Again the red farm-cart rattled out of the town into the silence of the hedges. For the first mile or two, the church-folk returning to the moor-farm might possibly meet and, if they did so, frankly reprove with word or look the "Sunday walkers," who bit shamefacedly, as well they might, the ends of hawthorn twigs, and communed together apparently without saying a word to each other. There were not many pairs of sweethearts among them—any that were, being set down as "regardless Englishry," the spawn of the strange, uncannylike building by the lochside, which the "General" had been intending to finish any time these half-dozen years.
For the most part the walkers were young men with companions of their own sex and age, who were anxious to be considered broad in their views. Times have changed now, for we hear that quite respectable folk, even town-councillors, take their walks openly on Sabbath afternoons. It was otherwise in those days.
But none of their own kind did the Drumquhat folk meet or overtake, till at the bottom rise of the mile-long Whinnyliggate Wood the red cart came up with the three brave little old maids who, leaving a Free kirk at their very door, and an Established over the hill, made their way seven long miles to the true kirk of the persecutions.
It had always been a grief to them that there was no Clavers to make them testify up to the chin in Solway tide, or with a great fiery match between their fingers to burn them to the bone. But what they could they did. They trudged fourteen miles every Sabbath day, with their dresses "fait and snod" and their linen like the very snow, to listen to the gospel preached according to their conscience. They were all the smallest of women, but their hearts were great, and those who knew them hold them far more worthy of honour than the three lairds of the parish.
Of them all only one remains. (Alas, no more!) But their name and honour shall not be forgotten on Deeside while fire burns and water runs, if this biographer can help it. The M'Haffies were all distinguished by their sturdy independence, but Jen M'Haffie was ever the cleverest with her head. The parish minister had once mistaken Jen for a person of limited intelligence; but he altered his opinion after Jen had taken him through-hands upon the Settlement of "Aughty-nine" (1689), when the Cameronians refused to enter into the Church of Scotland as reconstructed by the Revolution Settlement.
The three sisters had a little shop which the two less active tended; while Mary, the business woman of the family, resorted to Cairn Edward every Monday and Thursday with and for a miscellaneous cargo. As she plodded the weary way, she divided herself between conning the sermons of the previous Sabbath, arranging her packages, and anathematising the cuddy. "Ye person—ye awfu' person!" was her severest denunciation.
Billy was a donkey of parts. He knew what houses to call at. It is said that he always brayed when he had to pass the Established kirk manse, in order to express his feelings. But in spite of this Billy was not a true Cameronian. It was always suspected that he could not be much more than Cameronian by marriage—a "tacked-on one," in short. His walk and conversation were by no means so straightforward, as those of one sound in the faith ought to have been. It was easy to tell when Billy and his cart had passed along the road, for his tracks did not go forward, like all other wheel-marks, but meandered hither and thither across the road, as though he had been weaving some intricate web of his own devising. He was called the Whinnyliggate Express, and his record was a mile and a quarter an hour, good going.
Mary herself was generally tugging at him to come on. She pulled Billy, and Billy pulled the cart. But, nevertheless, in the long-run, it was the will of Billy that was the ultimate law. Walter was very glad to have the M'Haffies on the cart, both because he was allowed to walk all the time, and because he hoped to get Mary into a good temper against next Tuesday.
Mary came Drumquhat way twice a week—on Tuesdays and Fridays. As Wattie went to school he met her, and, being allowed by his granny one penny to spend at Mary's cart, he generally occupied most of church time, and all the school hours for a day or two before these red-letter occasions, in deciding what he would buy.
It did not make choice any easier that alternatives were strictly limited. While he was slowly and laboriously making up his mind as to the long-drawn-out merits of four farthing biscuits, the way that "halfpenny Abernethies" melted in the mouth arose before him with irresistible force. And just as he had settled to have these, the thought of the charming explorations after the currants in a couple of "cookies" was really too much for him. Again, the solid and enduring charms of a penny "Jew's roll," into which he could put his lump of butter, often entirely unsettled his mind at the last moment. The consequence was that Wattie had always to make up his mind in the immediate presence of the objects, and by that time neither Billy nor Mary could brook very long delays.
It was important, therefore, on Sabbaths, to propitiate Mary as much as possible, so that she might not cut him short and proceed on her way without supplying his wants, as she had done at least once before. On that occasion she said—
"D'ye think Mary M'Haffie has naething else in the world to do, but stan' still as lang as it pleases you to gaup there! Gin ye canna tell us what ye want, ye can e'en do withoot! Gee up, Billy! Come oot o' the roadside—ye're aye eat-eatin', ye bursen craitur ye!"