CHAPTER VIITHE DOCTOR’S ADVENT
The firm of lawyers in Dumfries, the agents for the Maitland properties, did not seem to be taking any measures to dispossess Miss Irma and young Sir Louis. Perhaps they, too, had private information. Perhaps those who had brought the children to Marnhoul may have been in the confidence of that notable firm of Smart, Poole & Smart in the High Street. At any rate they made no move towards ejection. They may also have argued that any one who could dispossess the ghosts and make Marnhoul once more a habitable mansion, was welcome to the tenancy.
It was the Reverend Doctor Gillespie who, first of all the distinguished men of the parish, received in some slight degree the confidence of Miss Irma. Grandmother knew more, of course, and perhaps, also, Agnes Anne. But, with the feeling of women towards those whom they approve, they became Irma’s accomplices. Women are like that. When you tell them a secret, if they don’t like you, they become traitors. If they do, they are at once confederates. But the Doctor visited Marnhoul as a deputation, officially, and also for the purpose of setting the minds of the genteel at rest.
The Doctor’s lady gave him no peace till he did his duty. The General’s womenfolk at the Bungalow were clamorous. It was not seemly. Something must be done, and since the action of Mr. Shepstone Oglethorpe on the occasion of the assault on the house had puthimout of the question, and as the Generalflatly refused to have anything to do with the affair, it was obvious that the duty must fall to the Doctor.
Nor could a better choice have been made. Eden Valley has known many preachers, but never another such pastor—never a shepherd of the sheep like the Doctor. I can see him yet walking down the manse avenue—it had been just “the Loaning” in the days before the advent of the second Mrs. Doctor Gillespie—a silver-headed cane in his hand, everything about him carefully groomed, and his very port breathing a peculiarly grave and sober dignity. Grey locks, still plentiful, clustered about his head. His cocked hat (of the antique pattern which, early in his ministry, he had imported by the dozen from Versailles) never altered in pattern. Buckles of unpolished silver shone dully at his knee and bent across his square-toed shoes.
Above all spread his neckcloth, spotless, enveloping, cumbrous, reverence-compelling, a cravat worthy of a Moderator. And indeed the Doctor—our Doctor, parish minister of Eden Valley, had “passed the Chair” of the General Assembly. We were all proud of the fact, even top-lofty Cameronians like my grandmother secretly delighting in the thought of the Doctor in his robes of office.
“There would be few like him away there in Edinburgh,” she would say. “The Doctor’s a braw man, and does us credit afore the great of the land—for a’ that he’s a Moderate!”
And had he been the chief of all the Moderates, the most volcanic and aggressive of Moderates, my grandmother would have found some good thing to say of a fellow-countryman of so noble a presence—“so personable,” and “such a credit to the neighbourhood.”
Wisdom, grave and patient, was in every line of hiskindly face. Something boyish and innocent told that the shades of the prison-house had never wholly closed about him. It was good to lift the hat to Dr. Gillespie as he went along—hat a little tip-tilted off the broadly-furrowed brow. In the city he is very likely to stop and regard the most various wares—children’s dolls or ladies’ underpinnings. But think not that the divine is interested in such things. His mind is absent—in communion with things very far away. Lift your hat and salute him. He will not see you, but—it will doyougood!
William Gillespie was the son of a good ministerial house. His father had occupied the same pulpit. He himself had been born in his own manse—which is to say, in all the purple of which our grey Puritan land can boast. We were proud of the Doctor, and had good reason therefor. I have said that even my field-preaching grandmother looked upon the Erastian with a moisture quasi-maternal in her eyes, and as for us who “sat under him and listened to his speech,” we came well-nigh to worship him.
Yet “the Doctor” was self-effacing beyond many, and only our proper respect for the “Lady of the Manse” kept the parishioners in their places. Discourses which he had preached in the callow days of his youth on the “Book of the Revelation” had brought hearers from many distant parishes, and at that time the Doctor had had several “calls” and “offers” to proceed to other spheres on account of their fame. But he had always refused to repeat any of them.
“I have changed my mind about many things since then,” he would say; “young men are apt to be hasty! The greatest of all heresies is dogmatism.”
But among the older saints of the parish that“series of expositions” was not forgotten. “It was” (they averred) “like the licht o’ anither world to look on his face—just heeven itsel’ to listen to him. Sirce me, there are no such discourses to be heard now-a-days—not even fromhimsel’!”
And be it remembered that our dear Doctor could unbend—that is, in fitting time and place. From the seats of the mighty, from Holyrood and the Moderator’s chair our Cincinnatus returned to shepherd his quiet flock among the bosky silences of Eden Valley. He wore his learning, all his weight of honour lightly—with a smile, even with a slight shrug of the shoulder. The smile, even the jest, rose continually to his lips, especially when his wife was not present. But at all times he remembered his office, and often halted with the ancient maxim at the sight of some intruder, “Let us be sober—yonder comes a fool!” And many of his visitors noticed this sudden sobriety without once suspecting its cause.
Even the Cameronians agreed that there was “unction” in the Doctor. For his brave word’s sake they forgave the heresies of his church about the Civil Magistrate, and said freely among themselves that if in every parish there was such a minister as Dr. Gillespie, the civil magistrate would be compelled to take a very back seat indeed. But it was on Communion Sabbath days that the Doctor became, as it were, transfigured, the face of him shining, though he wist not of it.
Something of the spirit of the Crucified was poured forth that day upon men and women humbly bowing their heads over the consecrated memorials of His love.
A silence of a rare and peculiar sanctity filled the little bare, deep-windowed kirk. The odour of theflowering lilacs came in like Nature’s own incense, and the plain folk of Eden Valley got a foretaste, faint and dim, but sufficient, of the Land where the tables shall never be withdrawn.
Better preachers than the Doctor?—We grant it you, though there are many in the Valley who will not agree, but not one more fitted to break the bread of communion before the white-spread tables.
It was Agnes Anne who opened the door of Marnhoul, and stood a moment astonished at the sight of the Doctor all in black and silver—hat, coat, knee-breeches, silken hose and leathern shoes of the first, locks, studs, knee-buckles, shoe-buckles all of the second.
But our Agnes Anne was truly of the race of Mary Lyon, so in a moment she said, “Pray come in, sir!” with the self-respect of the daughter of a good house, as well as the dutifulness which she owed to one so reverend and so revered.
The Doctor was not surprised. He smiled as he recognized the school-master’s daughter. But he betrayed nothing. He laid his hand as usual on her smooth locks by way of a blessing, and inquired if Miss Maitland and Sir Louis were at home.
“They are in the school-room,” said Agnes Anne, in the most business-like tone in the world; “come this way, sir.”
It was a very different house—that which Agnes Anne showed the Doctor—from the cobweb-draped, dust-strewn, deserted mansion of a few weeks ago. Simply considering them as caretakers, the Dumfries lawyers ought to have welcomed their new tenants. So far as cleanliness went, Miss Irma had done a great deal—so much, indeed, as to earn the praise of that severest of critics, my grandmother.
But there was much that no girl could do alone. Chair-seats and sofa-cushions had been beaten till no speck of dust was left. This had had to be carefully gone about. For though, apparently, no thieves had broken through to steal, it was evident that the house had last been occupied by people of excessively careless habits, who had put muddy boots on chairs and trampled regardlessly everywhere. But the other half of the text held good. Moth and rust had certainly corrupted.
However, Agnes Anne was handy with her needle, in spite of her father and his class on Ovid. There was always a good deal to do in our house, and since mother made no great effort, and was generally tired, it fell to Agnes Anne to do it.
She it was who had re-covered the worn old drawing-room chairs with brocade found in the deep, cedar-wood lined cupboards, along with wealth of ancient court dresses, provision of household linen, and all that had belonged to the Maitlands on the day when, after the falling of the head of their house upon Tower Hill, the great old mansion had been shut up.
The Doctor had been strictly enjoined to take good heed to write everything down on his mental tablets, and to give careful account to his lady. He found the two young Maitlands seated at a table from which the cloth had been lifted at one corner to make room for copybooks, ink, pens and reading-books. Evidently Miss Irma was instructing her brother.
“Now, Louis,” they heard her say as they came in, “remember the destiny to which you are called, and that now is the time——”
“The Doctor to call upon you!” Agnes Anne announced in a tone of awe befitting the occasion.
Then the stately apparition in black and silver whichfollowed her into the room came slowly forward, smiling with outstretched hand. Miss Irma was not in the least put out. She rose and swept a curtsey with bowed head. Little Sir Louis, evidently awed by the sedate grandeur which sat so well upon the visitor, paused a moment as if uncertain how he ought to behave.
He was a little behind his sister, and completely out of the range of her vision, so he felt himself safe in sucking the ink from the side of his second finger, and rubbing the wet place hard on his black velvet breeches. Then, as Miss Irma glanced round, he fell also to his manners and bowed gravely—unconsciously imitating the grand manner of the Doctor himself.
The room used for lessons was a wide, pleasant place, rather low in the roof, plainly panelled and wainscotted in dark oak, with a single line of dull gold beading running about it high up. There was a large fireplace, with a seat all the way round, and a stout iron basket to hold the fire of sea-coal, when such was used. Brass and irons stood at the side, convenient for faggots. A huge crane and many S-shaped pot-hooks discovered the fact that at some time this place had been occupied as a kitchen, perhaps in the straitened days of the last “attainted” Maitlands.
But now the chamber was pleasant and warm, the windows open to the air and the song of the birds. Dimity curtains hung on the great poles by the windows and stirred in the breeze, as if they had been lying for half a century in dusky cupboards. Agnes Anne looked carefully to see if the darning showed, and decided that not even her grandmother could spy it out—how much less, then, the Doctor.
She was, however, annoyed that the tall, brass-faced clock in the corner, dated “Kilmaurs, 1695,” could notbe made to go. But she had a promise from Boyd Connoway that he would “take a look at her” as soon as he had attended to three gardens and docked the tails of a litter of promising puppies.
The Doctor bowed graciously over the hand of Miss Irma, and shook hands gravely with Sir Louis, who a second time had rubbed his finger on his black velvet suit, just to make assurance doubly sure.
The conversation followed a high plane of social commonplace.
“Yes,” said Miss Irma, “it is true that our family has been a long time absent from the neighbourhood, but you are right in supposing that we mean to settle down here for some time.”
Then she deigned to enter into particulars. She had her brother to bring up according to his rank, for, since there was no one else to undertake the charge, it fell to her lot. Luckily she had received a good education up to the time when she had the misfortune——
“Ah,” said the Doctor quickly, “I understand.”
He said nothing further in words, but his sympathetic silence conveyed a great deal, and was more eloquent and consolatory than most people’s speech.
“And where were you educated?” asked the Doctor gently.
“My father sent me to the Ursuline Sisters in Paris,” said Miss Irma calmly.
The Doctor was secretly astonished and much disappointed, but his face expressed nothing beyond his habitual good nature. He replied, “Then your father has had you brought up a Catholic, Miss Maitland?”
“Indeed, no,” answered Miss Irma, “only he had often occasion to be away on his affairs, and to keep me out of mischief he left me with the Ursulines andmy aunt the Abbess. At my father’s death I might have stayed on with the good sisters, but I left because I was not allowed to see my brother.”
“Then am I right in thinking that—that—in fact—you are a Presbyterian?” said the Doctor, playing with the inlaid snuffbox which he carried in his hand. The amount of time he occupied in tapping the lid and the invisibility of the pinches he had ever been seen to take were alike marvels in the district.
“I have no religious prejudices,” said Miss Irma to the Doctor, in a calm, well-bred manner which must have secretly amused that distinguished theologian, fresh from editing the works of Manton.
“I did not speak of prejudices, dear young lady” (he spoke gently, yet with the thrill in his voice which showed how deeply he was moved), “but of belief, of religion, of principles of thought and action.”
Miss Irma opened her eyes very wide. The sound of the Doctor’s words came to her ears like the accents of an unknown tongue.
“The sisters were very good people,” she said at last; “they give themselves a great deal of trouble——”
“What kind of trouble?” said the Doctor.
“Kneeling and scrubbing floors for one thing,” said Miss Irma; “getting up at all hours, doing good works, praying, and burning candles to the Virgin.”
“I should advise you,” said the Doctor, with his most gentle accent, “to say as little as possible about that part of your experience here in Eden Valley.”
Miss Irma looked exceedingly surprised.
“I thought I told you they were exceedingly good people. They were very kind to me, though they looked on me as a lost heretic. I am sure they said prayers for me many times a day!”
The Doctor looked more hopeful. He was thinking that after all he might make something of his strange parishioner, when the young lady recalled him by a repetition of her former declaration, “As I said, I have no religious prejudices!”
“No,” said the Doctor a little sharply—for him, “but still each one of us ought to be fully persuaded in his own mind.”
“And that means,” Miss Irma answered, quick as a flash, “that most of us are fully persuaded according to our father and mother’s mind, and the way they have brought us up. But then, you see, I neverwasbrought up. I know very well that my family were Presbyterians. Once I read about their sufferings in two great volumes by a Mr. Wodrow, or some such name. But then my grandfather lost most of his estates fighting for the King——”
“For the Popish Pretender,” said the Doctor, who could speak no smooth things when it was a matter of the Revolution Settlement and the government of King George.
“For the man he believed to be king, while others stayed snugly at home,” persisted Miss Irma. “Then my mother was a Catholic, and my father too busy to care——”
“My poor young maid,” said the Doctor, “it is wonderful to see you as you are!”
And secretly the excellent man was planning out a campaign to lead this lamb into the fold of that Kirk of Scotland, for the purity of whose doctrine and intact spiritual independence her forefathers had shed their blood.
“At any rate,” said he, rising and bending again over the girl’s hand with old-fashioned politeness, “you will remember that your family pew is in thefront of our laft—I mean in the gallery of the parish kirk of Eden Valley.”
And the Doctor took his leave without ever remembering that he had failed in the principal part of his mission, having quite forgotten to find out by what means these two young things came to find themselves alone in the Great House of Marnhoul.
CHAPTER VIIIKATE OF THE SHORE
It was, I think, ten days after Agnes Anne had left us for the old house of the Maitlands when she came to me at the school-house. My father had Fred Esquillant in with him, and the two were busy with Sophocles. I was sitting dreaming with a book of old plays in my hand when Agnes Anne came in.
“Duncan,” she said, “I am feared to bide this night at Marnhoul. And I think so is Miss Irma. Now I would rather not tell grandmother—so you must come!”
“Feared?” said I; “surely you never mean ghosts—and such nonsense, Agnes Anne—and you the daughter of a school-master!”
“It’s the solid ghosts I am feared of,” said Agnes Anne; “haste you, and ask leave of father. He is so busy, he will never notice. He has Freddy in with him, I hear.”
So Agnes Anne and I went in together. We could see the man’s head and the boy’s bent close together, and turned from us so that the westering light could fall upon their books. Fred Esquillant was to be a great scholar and to do my father infinite credit when he went to the university. For me I was only a reader of English, a scribbler of verses in that language, a paltry essayist, with no sense of the mathematics and no more than an average classic. Therefore in the school I was a mere hewer of wood and drawer of water to my father.
“Duncan is coming with me to bide the night atMarnhoul,” said Agnes Anne, “and he is going to take ‘King George’ with him to—scare the foxes!”
“From the hen-coops?” said my father, looking carelessly up. “Let him take care not to shoot himself then. He has no nicety of handling!”
I am sure that really he meant in the classics, for his thoughts were running that way and I could see that he was itching to be at it again with Freddy.
“Tell your mother,” he said, adjusting his spectacles on his nose, “and please shut the door after you!”
Having thus obtained leave from the power-that-was, the matter was broken to my mother. She only asked if we had told John, and being assured of that, felt that her entire responsibility was cleared, and so subsided into the fifth volume of Sir Charles Grandison, where thrilling things were going on in the cedar parlour. It was my mother’s favourite book, but was carefully laid aside when my grandmother came—nay, even concealed as conscientiously as I under my coat conveyed away the bell-mouthed, silver-mounted blunderbuss which hung over the hat-rack in the lobby. Buckshot, wads, and a powderhorn I also secreted about my person.
On our way I catechized Agnes Anne tightly as to the nature of the danger which had put her so suddenly in fear. But she eluded me. Indeed, I am not sure she knew herself. All I could gather was that a letter which had reached Miss Irma that morning, had given warning of trouble of some particular deadly sort impending upon the dwellers in the house of Marnhoul. When Agnes Anne opened the door of the hall to let the sunshine and air into the gloomy recesses where the shadows still lurked in spite of the light from the high windows, she had found afolded letter nailed to the door of Marnhoul. The blade of a foreign-looking knife had been thrust through it deep into the wood, and the stag’s-horn handle turned down in the shape of a reversed capital V—the spring holding the paper firm. It was addressed to Miss Irma Maitland, and evidently had reference to something disastrous, for all day Miss Irma had gone about with a pale face, and a pitiful wringing action of her fingers. No words, however, had escaped her except only “What shall I do? Oh, what shall I do? My Louis—my poor little Louis!”
The danger, then, whatever it might be, was one which particularly touched the boy baronet. I could not help hoping that it might not be any plot of the lawyers in Dumfries to get him away. For if I were obliged to fire off “King George,” and perhaps kill somebody, I preferred that it should not be against those who had the law on their side. For in that case my father might lose his places, both as chief teacher and as postmaster.
I got Agnes Anne to look after “King George,” my blunderbuss, while I went round to the village to see if anything was stirring about the dwelling of Constable Jacky. She would only permit me to do this on condition that I proved the gun unloaded, and permitted her to lock it carefully in one cupboard, while the powder and shot reposed each on a separate shelf outside in the kitchen, lest being left to themselves the elements of destruction might run together and blow up the house.
I scudded through the village, passing from one end of the long street to the other. Constable Jacky in his shirt sleeves, was peaceably peeling potatoes on his doorstep, while with a pipe in his mouth Boyd Connoway was looking on and telling him how. Thevillage of Eden Valley was never quieter. Several young men of the highest consideration were waiting within call of the millinery establishment of the elder Miss Huntingdon, on the chance of being able to lend her “young ladies” stray volumes of Rollin’sAncient History, Defoe’sReligious Courtship, or such other volumes as were likely to fan the flame of love’s young dream in their hearts. I saw Miss Huntingdon herself taking stock of them through the window, and as it were, separating the sheep from the goats. For she was a particular woman, Miss Huntingdon, and never allowed the lightest attentions to “her young ladies” without keeping the parents of her charges fully posted on the subject.
All, therefore, was peace in the village of Eden Valley. Yet I nearly chanced upon war. My grandmother called aloud to some one as I passed along the street. For a moment I thought she had caught me, in spite of the cap which I had pulled down over my eyes and the coat collar I had pulled up above my ears.
If she got me, I made sure that she would instantly come to the great house of Marnhoul with all the King’s horses and all the King’s men—and so, as it were, spoil the night from which I expected so much.
But it was the slouching figure of Boyd Connoway which had attracted her attention. As I sped on I heard her asking details as to the amount of work he had done that day, how he expected to keep his wife and family through the winter, whether he had split enough kindling wood and brought in the morning’s supply of water—also (most unkindly of all) who had paid for the tobacco he was smoking.
To these inquiries, all put within the space of half-a-minute, I could not catch Connoway’s replies. Nordid I wait to hear. It was enough for me to find myself once more safe between the hedges and going as hard as my feet could carry me in the direction of the gate of Marnhoul.
No sooner was I in the kitchen with the stone floor and the freshly scoured tin and pewter vessels glinting down from the dresser, than I heard the voice of Miss Irma asking to be informed if I had come. To Agnes Anne she called me “your big brother,” and I hardly ever remember being so proud of anything as of that adjective.
Then after my sister had answered, Miss Irma came down the stairs with her quick light step, not like any I had ever heard. With a trip and a rustle she came bursting in upon us, so that all suddenly the quaint old kitchen, with its shining utensils catching the red sunshine through the low western window and the swaying ivy leaves dappling the floor of bluish-grey, was glorified by her presence.
She was younger in years than myself, but something of race, of refinement, of experience, some flavour of an adventurous past and of strange things seen and known, made her appear half-a-dozen years the senior of a country boy like me.
“Has he come?” she asked, before ever she came into the kitchen; “is he afraid?”
“Only of being in a house alone with two girls,” said Agnes Anne, “but I am most afraid of father’s blunderbuss which he has brought with him.”
“Nonsense,” said Miss Irma, determination marked in every line of her face. “We have a well-armed man on the premises. It is a house fit to stand a siege. Why, I turned away three score of them with a darning needle.”
“Not but what it is far more serious this time!” she said, a little sadly. By this time I was reassembling the scattered pieces of “King George’s” armament, while Agnes Anne, in terror of her life, was searching on the floor and along the passages for things she had not lost.
As soon as I had got over my first awe of Miss Irma, I asked her point-blank what was the danger, so that I might know what dispositions to take.
I had seen the phrase in an old book, thin and tall, which my father possessed, calledMonro’s Expedition. But Irma bade me help to make the ground floor of the mansion as strong as possible, and then come up-stairs to the parlour, where she would tell me “all that it was necessary for me to know.”
I wished she had said “everything”—for, though not curious by nature, I should have been happy to be confided in by Miss Irma. To my delight, on going round I found that all the lower windows had been fitted with iron shutters, and these, though rusty, were in perfectly good condition. In this task of examination Miss Irma assisted me, and though I would not let her put a finger to the sharp-edged flaky iron, it was a pleasure to feel the touch of her skirt, while once she laid a hand on my arm to guide me to a little dark closet the window of which was protected by a hingeless plate of iron, held in position by a horizontal bar fitting into the stonework on either side.
There was not so much to be done above stairs, where the shutters were of fine solid oak and easily fitted. But I sought out an oriel window of a tower which commanded the pillared doorway. For I did not forget what I had seen when the Great House of Marnhoul was besieged by the rabble of Eden Valley.It was there that the danger was if the house should be attempted.
But I so arranged it, that whoever attacked the house, I should at least get one fair chance at them with “King George,” our very wide-scattering blunderbuss.
In the little room in which this window was, we gathered. It made a kind of watch-tower, for from it one could see both ways—down the avenue to the main road, and across the policies towards the path that led up from the Killantringan shore.
I felt that it was high time for me to know against what I was to fight. Not that I was any way scared. I do not think I thought about that at all, so pleased was I at being where I was, and specially anxious that no one should come to help, so as to share with me any of the credit that was my due from Miss Irma.
Agnes Anne, indeed, was afraid of what she was going to hear. For as yet she had been told nothing definite. But then she was tenfold more afraid of “King George”—mostly, I believe, because it had been made a kind of fetish in our house, and the terrible things that would happen if we meddled with it continually represented to us by our mother. Finally, we arranged that “King George” should be set in the angle of the oriel window, the muzzle pointing to the sky, and that in the pauses of the tale, I should keep a look-out from the watch-tower.
“It is my brother Louis—Sir Louis Maitland—whom they are seeking!”
Miss Irma made this statement as if she had long faced it, and now found nothing strange about the matter. But I think both Agnes Anne and I were greatly astonished, though for different reasons. For my sister had never imagined that there was anydanger worse than the presence of “King George” in the window corner, and as for me, the hope of helping to protect Miss Irma herself from unknown peril was enough. I asked for no better a chance than that.
“We have a cousin,” she continued, “Lalor Maitland is his name, who was in the rebellion, and was outlawed just like my father. He took up the trade of spying on the poor folk abroad and all who had dealings with them. He was made governor of the strong castle of Dinant on the Meuse, deep in the Low Countries. With him my father, who wrongly trusted him as he trusted everybody, left little Louis. I was with my aunt, the Abbess of the Ursulines, at the time, or the thing had not befallen. For from the first I hated Lalor Maitland, knowing that though he appeared to be kind to us, it was only a pretence.
“He entertained us hospitably enough in a suite of rooms very high up in the Castle of Dinant above the Meuse river, and came to see us every day. He was waiting till he should make his peace with the English. Then he would do away with my brother and——”
She paused, and a kind of shuddering whiteness came across the girl’s face. It was like the flashing of lightning from the east to the west that my grandmother reads about in her Bible—a sort of shining of hatred and determination like a footstep set on wet sand. “But no,” she added, “he would not have married me, even if he had kept me shut up for ever in his Castle of Dinant on the Meuse!”
Then all at once I began very mightily to hate this Lalor Maitland, Governor of the Castle of Dinant. I resolved to charge “King George” to the very muzzle, wait till he was within half-a-dozen paces, and—let him have it. For I made no doubt that it was hewho was coming in person to carry off Miss Irma and Sir Louis back again to his dungeons. For though Irma had not called them that, I felt sure that she had been shamefully used. And though I did not proclaim the fact, I knew the name and address of a willing deliverer. I grew so anxious about the matter that Agnes Anne three times bade me put down “King George” or I should be sure to shoot some of them, or, most likely of all, little Louis in his cot-bed up-stairs.
“However, at last we escaped” (Miss Irma went on), “and I will tell you how—what I have not told to any here—not even to your good grandmother or the clergyman. It was through our nurse, a Kirkbean woman and her name Kate Maxwell, called Mickle Kate o’ the Shore. Her father and all her folk were smugglers, as, I understand, are the most of the farmers along the Solway side. Some of these she could doubtless have married, but Kate herself had always looked higher. The son of a farmer over the hill, from a place called the Boreland of Colvend, had wintered sheep on her father’s lands. Many a sore cold morning (so she said) had they gone out together to clear the snow from the feeding troughs. I suppose that was how it began, but in addition the lad had ambition. He learned well and readily, and after a while he went into a lawyer’s office in Dumfries, while Kate o’ the Shore went abroad with the family of a Leith merchant, to serve at Rotterdam. She wanted to save money for the house she was going to set up with the lawyer’s clerk. So, rather than come back at the year’s end, she took the place which the Governor of Dinant Castle offered her, and he was no other than our cousin Lalor.
“In a little while Kate of the Shore had grown tohate our cousin. Why, I cannot tell, for he always bowed to her as to a lady, and indeed showed her far more kindness than ever he used to us. When we wanted a little play on the terrace or a sweetcake from the town, we tried at first to get Kate to ask for us. But afterwards she would not. And she grew determined to leave the Castle of Dinant as soon as might be, making her escape and taking us with her. Her Boreland lad, Tam Hislop, had told her all about the estates and the great house standing empty. So nothing would do but that Kate o’ the Shore would come to this house with us, where we would take possession, and hold it against all comers.
“‘It is very difficult,’ said Kate’s friend, the Dumfries clerk, ‘to put any one out of his own house.’ Indeed he did not think that even the very Court of Session could do it.”
“So during the governor’s absence we brought little Louis from Dinant to Antwerp, where we hid him with some friends of Kate’s who are Free Traders, and ran cargoes to the Isle of Man and the Solway shore. Kind they were, stout bold men and appeared to hold their lives cheap enough—also, for that matter, the lives of those who withstood them.
“Many of them were Kirkbean men, near kinsfolk of Kate o’ the Shore, and others from Colvend—Hislops, Hendersons and McKerrows, long rooted in the place. But when we were in mid-passage, we were chased and almost taken by a schooner that fired cannon and bade us heave to, but the Kirkbean men, who had Kate o’ the Shore with them, bade our boat carry on, and engaged the pursuer. We could see the flash of their guns a long distance, and cries came to us mixed with the thunderclap of the schooner’s guns. The Colvend men would have turned back tohelp, but they had received strict orders to put us on shore, whatever might happen, the which they did at Killantringan.
“After that” (Miss Irma still went on) “I had so much ado to look after my brother, being fearful to let him out of my hands lest he should be taken from me, that I only heard the names of a place or two spoken among them—particularly the Brandy Knowe, a dark hole in a narrow ravine, under the roots of a great tree, with a burn across which we had to be carried. I remember the rushing sound of the water in the blackness of the night, and Louis’s voice calling out, as the men trampled the pebbles, ‘Are you there, sister Irma?’
“But long before it was day they had finished stowing their cargo. We were again on the march and the men took good care of us, leaving us here according to their orders with plenty of provisions for a week—also money, all good unclipped silver pieces and English gold. They bade us not to leave the house on any account, and in case of any sudden danger to light the fire on the tower head!
“‘For the present our duty is done,’ said one of them, a kind of chief or leader who had carried me before him on his own horse, ‘but there may be more and worse yet to do, wherein we of the Free Trade may help you more than all the power of King George—to whom, however, we are very good friends, in all that does not concern our business of the private Over-Seas Traffic’—for so they named their trade of smuggling.”
“I would like much to see this beacon,” I said; “perhaps we may have to light it. At any rate it is well to be sure that we have all the ingredients of the pudding at hand in case of need.”
CHAPTER IXTHE EVE OF ST. JOHN
We went up the narrow stair—that is, Miss Irma and I—because, since I carried my father’s blunderbuss, Agnes Anne would not come, but stopped half-way, where the little Louis lay asleep in his cot-bed. On the top of the tower, and swinging on a kind of iron tripod bolted into the battlements, we found an iron basket, like that in which sea-coal is burned, but wider in the mesh. Then, in the “winnock cupboard” at the turn of the stair-head, were all the necessaries for a noble blaze—dry wood properly cut, tow, tar, and a firkin of spirit, with some rancid butter in a brown jar. There was even a little kindling box of foreign make, all complete with flint, steel and tinder lying on a shelf, enclosed in a small bag of felt.
Whoever had placed these things there was a person of no small experience, and left nothing to chance. It was obvious that such a beacon lit on the tower of the ancient house of Marnhoul would be seen far and near over the country.
Who should come to our rescue, supposing us to be beset, was not so clear. I did not believe that we could depend on the people of the village. They would, if I knew them, cuddle the closer between their blankets, while as for Constable Jacky, by that time of night he would certainly be in no condition to know his right hand from his left.
“And the message fixed to the front door with the knife—of which my sister told me,” I suggested to Miss Irma, “what did it threaten?”
For in spite of her obvious reluctance to tell me even necessary things, I was resolved to make her speak out. She hesitated, but finally yielded, when I pointed out that we must decide whether it came from a friendly or an unfriendly hand.
She handed it to me out of the pocket of her dress, the two of us standing all the while on the top of the tower, the rusty basket wheezing in the wind, and her blown hair whipping my cheek in the sharp breeze from the north.
I may say that just at that moment I was pretty content with myself. I do not deny that I had fancied this maid and that before, or that some few things that might almost be called tender had passed between me and Gerty Greensleeves, chiefly cuffing and pinching of the amicable Scottish sort. Only I knew for certain that now I was finally and irrevocably in love—but it was with a star. Or rather, it might just as well have been, for any hope I had with Miss Irma Maitland, with her ancient family and her eyes fairly snapping with pride. What could she ever have to say to the rather stupid son of a village school-master?
But I took the paper, and for an instant Irma’s eyes rested on mine with something different in them from anything I had ever seen there before. The contemptuous chill was gone. There was even a kind of soft appeal, which, however, she retracted and even seemed to excuse the next moment.
“Understand,” she said, “it is not for myself that I care. It is for—for my brother, Sir Louis.”
“But, Miss Irma, do not forget that I——” The words came bravely, but halted before the enormity of what I was going to say. So I had perforce to alter my formation in face of my dear enemy, and onlycontinued lamely enough, “I had better see what the letter says.”
“Yes,” she answered shortly, “I suppose that is necessary.”
The letter was written on a sheet of common paper, ruled vertically in red at either side as for a bill of lading. It had simply been folded once, not sealed in the ordinary way, but thrust through sharply with the knife which had pinned it to the wood, traversing both folds. The knife, which I saw afterwards down-stairs, was a small one, with a broadish blade shaped and pointed like a willow leaf. I had it a good while in my hand, and I can swear that it had been lately used in cutting the commonest kind of sailor tobacco.
The message read in these words exactly, which I copied carefully on my killivine-tablets—
“The first danger is for this night, being the eve of Saint John. Admit no one excepting those who bring with them friends you can trust. Fear not to use the signal agreed upon. Help will be near.”
Now this seemed to me to be very straightforward. None but a friend to the children would speak of the beacon so familiarly, yet so discreetly—“the signal agreed upon.” Nor would an enemy advise caution as to any being admitted to the house.
But Miss Irma had not passed through so many troubles without acquiring a certain lack of confidence in the fairest pretences. She shook her head when I ventured to tell her what I thought. She was willing to take my help, but not my judgment.
The words, “Admit no one,excepting those who bring with them friends you can trust,” did not ring true in her ear. And the phrase, “the signal agreed upon,” might possibly show that while the writer madesure of there being a signal of some kind, he was ignorant of its nature.
In face of all this there seemed nothing for it but to wait—doors shut, windows barred, “King George” ready charged, and the stuff for the beacon knowingly arranged.
And this last I immediately proceeded to set in order. I had had considerable experience. For during the late French wars we of Eden Valley, though the most peaceful people in the world, had often been turned upside down by reports of famous victories. After each of these every one had to illuminate, if it were only with a tallow dip, on the penalty of having his windows broken by the mob of loyal, but stay-at-home patriots. At the same time, all the boys of Eden Valley had full permission to carry off old barrels and other combustibles from the houses of the zealous, or even to commandeer them without permission from the barns and fences of suspected “black-nebs” to raise nearer heaven the flare of our victorious bonfires.
With all the ingredients laid ready to my hand, it was exceedingly simple for me to put together such a brazier as could be seen over half the county. Not the least useful of my improvements was the lengthening of the chain, so that the whole fire-basket could be hoisted to the top of the tripod, and so stand clear of the battlements of the tower, showing over the tree-tops to the very cliffs of Killantringan, and doubtless far out to sea.
Last of all, before descending, I covered everything over with a thick mat of tarred cloth, which would keep the fuel dry as tinder even in case of rain, or the dense dews that pearled down out of the clear heavens on these short nights of a northern June.
It is a strange thing, watching together, and in the case of young people it is apt to make curious things hop up in the heart all unexpectedly. It was so, at least, with myself. As to Miss Irma I cannot say, and, of course, Agnes Anne does not count, for she sat back in the shelter of a great cupboard, well out of range of “King George,” and went on with her knitting till she fell asleep.
However, Miss Irma and I sat together in the jutting window, where, as the night darkened and the curtains of the clouds drew down to meet the sombre tree-tops, a kind of black despair came over me. Would “King George” really do any good? Would I prove myself stout and brave when the moment came? Would the beacon we had prepared really burn, and, supposing it did, would any one see it, drowned in woods as we were, and far from all folk, except the peaceable villagers of Eden Valley?
But I had the grace to keep such thoughts to myself, and if they visited Miss Irma, she did the like. The crying of the owls made the place of a strange eeriness, especially sometimes when a bat or other night creature would come and cling a moment under the leaden pent of the window.
Such things as these, together with the strain of the waiting on the unknown, drew us insensibly together—I do not mean Agnes Anne—but just the two of us who were shut off apart in the window-seat. No, whatever her faults and shortcomings (too many of them recorded in this book), Agnes Anne acted the part of a good sister to me that night, and her peaceful breathing seemed to wall us off from the world.
“Duncan?” queried Miss Irma, repeating my name softly as to herself; “you are called Duncan, are you not?”
I nodded. “And you?” I asked, though of course I knew well enough.
“Irma Sobieski,” she answered. And then, perhaps because everything inside and out was so still and lonely, she shivered a little, and, without any reason at all, we moved nearer to each other on the window-seat—ever so little, but still nearer.
“You may call me Irma, if you like!” she said, very low, after a long pause.
Just then something brushed the window, going by with a softwoofof feathers.
“An owl! A big white one—I saw him!” I said. For indeed the bird had seemed as large as a goose, and appeared alarming enough to people so strung as we were, with ears and eyes grown almost intolerably acute in the effort of watching.
“Are you not frightened?” she demanded.
“No, Irma—no, Miss Irma!” I faltered.
“Well, I am,” she whispered; “I was not before when the mob came, because I had to do everything. But now—I am glad that you are here” (she paused the space of a breath), “you and your sister.”
I was glad, too, though not particularly about Agnes Anne.
“How old are you, Duncan?” she asked next.
I gave my age with the usual one year’s majoration. It was not a lie, for my birthday had been the day before. Still, it made Irma thoughtful.
“I did not think you were so much older than your sister,” she said musingly; “why, you are older than I am!”
“Of course I am,” I answered, gallantly facing the danger, and determined to brave it out.
On the spot I resolved to have a privateinterview with Agnes Anne as soon as might be, and, after reminding her of my birthday just past, tell her that in future I was to be referred to as “going on for twenty”—and that there was no real need to insert the words “going on for.”
Irma Sobieski considered the subject a while longer, and I could see her eyes turned towards me as if studying me deeply. I wondered what she was thinking about with a brow so knotted, and I knew instinctively that it must be something of consequence, because it made her forget the letter nailed to the door, and the warning which might veil a threat. She fixed me so long that her eyes seemed to glow out of the pale face which made an oval patch against the darkness of the trees. Irma’s face was only starlit, but her eyes shone by their own light.
“Yes, I will trust you,” she said at last. “I saw you the day when the mob came. You were ashamed, and would have helped me if you could. Even then I liked your face. I did not forget you, and when Agnes Anne spoke of her brother who was afraid of nothing, I was happy that you should come. I wanted you to come.”
The words made my heart leap, but the next moment I knew that I was a fool, and might have known better. This was no Gerty Gower, to put her hand on your arm unasked, and let her face say what her lips had not the words to utter.
“I want a friend,” she said; “I need a friend—a big brother—nothing else, remember. If you think I want to be made love to, you are mistaken. And, if you do, there will be an end. You cannot help me that way. I have no use for what people call love. But I have a mission, and that mission is my brother, Sir Louis. If you will consent to help me, I shall loveyou as I love him, and you—can care about me—as you care about Agnes Anne!”
Now I did not see what was the use of bringing Agnes Anne into the business. At home she and I were quarrelling about half our time. But since it was to be that or nothing, of course I was not such a fool as to choose the nothing.
All the same, after the promising beginning, I was enormously disappointed, and if only it had been lighter, doubtless my chagrin would have showed on my face. It seemed to me (not knowing) the death-blow to all my hopes. I did not then understand that in all the unending and necessarily eternal game of chess, which men and women play one against the other, there is no better opening than this.
But I was still crassly ignorant, intensely disappointed. I even swore that I would not have given a brass farthing to be “cared about” by Irma as I myself did about Agnes Anne.
Dimly, however, I did feel, even then, that there was a fallacy somewhere. And that, however much human beings with youthful hearts and answering eyes may pretend they are brother and sister, there is something deep within them that moves the Previous Question—as we are used to say in the Eden Valley Debating Parliament, which Mr. Oglethorpe and my father have organized on the model of that in theGentleman’s Magazine.
But Irma, at least, had no such fear. She had, she believed, solved for ever a difficult and troublesome question, and, on easy terms, provided herself with a new relative, useful, safe and insured against danger by fire. Perhaps the underwriters of the city would not have taken the latter risk, but at that moment it seemed a slight one to Irma Sobieski.
At any rate, to seal the new alliance, in all sisterly freedom she gave me her hand, and did not appear to notice how long I kept it in the darkness. This was certainly a considerable set-off against the feeling of loneliness, and, if not quite content, I was at least more so. I wondered, among other things, if Irma’s heart kept knocking in a choking kind of way against the bottom of her throat.
At least mine did, and I had never, to my knowledge, felt just so about Agnes Anne. Indeed, I don’t think I had ever held Agnes Anne’s hand so long in my life, except to pick a thorn out of it with a needle, or to point out how disgracefully grubby it was.