[2]Harvest home merrymakings.
[2]Harvest home merrymakings.
CHAPTER XLTHE GREAT “TABERNACLE” REVIVAL
Though Boyd Connoway had not said anything directly threatening the house of Heathknowes or its inmates, his story of his own “conversion” and the death of Dick Wilkes under the Black Flag somehow made us vaguely uneasy. The door of the house was locked at eight. The gates of the yard barricaded as in the old time of the sea raids from theGolden Hind.
So strong was the feeling that Irma would gladly have returned before our time to the little White House above the meadow flats, and to the view of the Pentlands turning a solid green butt towards the Archers’ Hall of the Guid Toon of Edinburgh.
But it was not so easy to quit Heathknowes. My grandmother held tightly to Duncan the Second. I found myself in good case, after the fatigues of the town, to carry out some work on my own account. This, of course, for the sake of my wife’s happiness, I would have given up, but after all Irma’s plans went to pieces upon the invincible determination of Sir Louis to remain. He was now a lad of seventeen, but older looking than his age. He had his own room at Heathknowes, his books, his occupations. Indeed we seldom saw him except at meals, and even then often in the middle of dinner he would rise, bow haughtily to the company, and retire without uttering a word. He had learned the lesson from Lalor that plain farm people were no society for such as he. He went as far as he could in the way ofinsolence, making us pay for the refusal of the lawyers to let him go to London with the member for the county.
I could see the blush rise crimson to Irma’s neck and face after such a performance. But by some mysterious divine law of compensation, no sooner had she Baby in her arms, than she forgot all about the sulky boy, sitting moping among his books in the wood parlour, looking out on the red-boled firs of Marnhoul forest.
Israel Kinmont used to frequent us a good deal about this time. He never preached to us, nor indeed would he talk freely of his “experiences” amongst such Calvinists as my grandfather and grandmother.
“The gold of the kingdom doth not need the refiner’s art!” he had said once when this remissness was made a reproach to him. Since the loss of his boat, theTabernacle, he had bought first one donkey and then two with his little savings. These he loaded with salt for Cairn Edward and the farms on the way, and so by a natural transition, took to the trade of itinerant voyager on land instead of on the sea, bringing back a store of such cloths and spices as were in most request among the goodwives of the farm-towns.
He had been so long a sailor man that he could not help it, if a certain flavour of the brine clung to him still. Besides, there were jerseys and great sea-boots to be worn out. Neddy and Teddy, his two fine donkeys, were soon fitted with “steering gear,” among the intricacies of which their active heels often got “foul.” They “ran aground” with alarming frequency, scraping their pack-saddles against the walls of narrow lanes. Their master knew no peace of mind till, having passed the narrows, he found onsome moor or common “plenty o’ sea-room,” notwithstanding the danger that “plenty o’ sea-room” might induce the too artful Teddy to “turn topsails under,” or in other words indulge in a roll upon the grass.
Finally, Neddy and Teddy were “brought to anchor” in some friendly stable, in none oftener than in ours of Heathknowes, where cargo was unloaded and sometimes even the ships themselves “docked” and laid up for repairs. For this merciful Israel was merciful to his beasts, and often went into repairing dock for a saddle gall, which another would never have even noticed.
When the pair were browsing free in the field he would call them “to receive cargo,” and hoist the Blue Peter by a sounding, “Neddy, ahoy! Ahoy there, Teddy!” And if, as was likely, they only flourished their heels and refused with scorn to come and be saddled, he uttered his sternest summons, “Ship’s company, all hands on deck!” which meant that his son Jacob—starboard watch, must come and help port watch—Israel himself, to capture Teddy and Neddy.
Neddy was generally willing enough, unless when led from the plain course of maritime duty by Teddy. On these occasions Israel used to quote from the “articles” relating to the Mutiny Act, and has even been known to go so far as threaten Teddy with “a round dozen” at the main-mast as soon as he could lay hands on a “rope’s end.”
The which was all the same to Teddy.
It was beautiful to see the flotilla navigating the level surface of Killantringan moor—level, that is, by comparison. For first there were the little waves of the sheep-tracks, then the gentle rollers of the moss-hags, and, last of all, certain black dangerous Maélstromsfrom which last year’s peats had been dug, in which a moment’s folly on the part of Neddy or Teddy might engulf the Armada for ever.
As they set sail Jacob Kinmont was first and second mate, but in particular, look-out-man. He went ahead, keeping a wary eye for dangers and obstacles, and on the whole the donkeys followed docilely enough in his wake. Israel’s post as captain was behind at the tiller-ropes, whence he shouted exact instructions with nautical exactitude, such as “A point to the west, Neddy!” Or, pathetically, “DID I say nor’-nor’-east, Teddy, or didn’t I?”
This last had a ring of affection in it, for, in spite of his naughty habits (or because of them) Teddy was distinctly the favourite. Also he had a habit of nuzzling his moist nose into the breast of the old man’s reefer coat in search of sweet things, a trick which the more patient and reliable Neddy never acquired. And if Teddy forgot to come inquiring after the hidden sweets, Israel was quite heart-broken.
At first the boys from the village would follow and perhaps imitate these naval manœuvres—in the hope, never fulfilled, of catching “Ranter Israel” using some nautical language, such as old Pirate Wilkes had made but too familiar to their ears. But they never caught him, for Israel’s “yea” remained “yea” and his “nay” “nay,” even when navigating donkeys over the trackless waste of Killantringan Common. But in revenge, every now and then, Israel would get hold of a village lad and lead him triumphantly to his meeting, whence he would not come forth till, as like as not, “he had gotten the blessin’.”
The fathers of Eden Valley held in utter contempt the theology of “Old Tabernacle Israel,” but the mothers, seeing a troublesome boy forsaking the errorof his ways and settling down to be the comfort of his folk—looked more to results, and thanked God for old Israel and his Tabernacle. After a while the fathers also came to be of his opinion. And on one memorable occasion, the great Doctor Gillespie himself went in by the door of Israel’s tar-smelling Tabernacle, and seated himself in all the glory of his black coat and ruffled shirt on the back seat among the riff-raff of the port, just as if he were nobody at all.
At first Israel did not see him, so quietly had he entered. He went on with his prayer that “sinners might be turned from their way, and saints confirmed in their most holy faith.”
But when he had opened his eyes, and beheld the white head and reverend countenance of Doctor Gillespie the human soul within him trembled a little. Nevertheless, commanding himself, he descended the narrow aisle till he came to where the minister was seated. Then with head humbly bent and a voice that shook, he begged that “the Doctor might to-day open up the Word of Life to them.” Which accordingly, with the simplest directness, the Doctor did, using as his pulpit the middle section of a longboat, which had been sawn across and floored for Israel. The Doctor told the story of Peter walking on the waters, and of the hand stretched out to save. And this the Doctor, as Israel said afterwards, “fastened into them with nails.”
“Some of you will believe anything except the Gospel,” was one of these. Yet all he said was the simplest evangel. The Doctor was a Justice of the Peace, but this time he spoke of another peace—that of believing. He had an audience of smugglers, but he never mentioned Cæsar. He only advised them to “Render unto God the things that are God’s.”
And when he finished, after the last solemn words of exhortation, he added very quietly, “I will again preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ in the Parish Kirk, next Sabbath at noonday.”
And so when the Sabbath came and in the Tabernacle those of Israel’s sowing and gleaning were gathered together, the old Ranter addressed them thus: “All hands on deck to worship with the Doctor! He hath kept his watch with us—let us do the like by him!”
And so the astonishing thing was seen. The great Spence gallery of Eden Valley Parish Kirk was filled with such a mixed assembly as had never been seen there before. Smugglers, privateersmen, the sweepings of ports, home and foreign, some who had blood on their hands—though with the distinction that it had been shed in encounters with excisemen. But the blessing had come upon some of them—others a new spirit had touched, lighted at the fire of an almost apostolic enthusiasm.
It was the proudest moment in Israel Kinmont’s life when he heard the Doctor, in all the panoply of his gown and bands, hold up his hands and ask for a blessing upon “the new shoot of Thy Vine, planted by an aged servant of Thine in this parish. Make it strong for Thyself, that the hills may be covered with the shadow of it, and that, like the goodly cedar, many homeless and wayfaring men under it may rest and find shelter.”
And in the Spence gallery these sea- and wayfaring men nudged each other, not perhaps finding the meaning so clear as they did at the Tabernacle, but convinced, nevertheless, that “He means us—and our old Israel!”
And so in faith, if not wholly in understanding,they listened to the sermon in which the Doctor, all unprepared for such an invasion, inculcated with much learning the doctrine of submission to the civil magistrate with the leading cases of Saint Paul and Saint Augustine illustrated by copious quotations from the original.
They sat with fixed attention, never flinching even when the Doctor, doing his duty, as he said, both as a magistrate and as a Christian man, gave the Free Traders many a word to make their ears sing. They were in his place, and every man had the right to speak as he chose in his own house. But when Israel led them back to the old Tabernacle, with its pleasant smell of tar obscuring the more ancient bilge, and had told them that they were all “a lot of hell-deserving sinners who, if they missed eternal damnation, it would be with their rags badly singed,” they sighed a blissful sigh and felt themselves once more at home, sitting under a man who understood them and their needs.
Nevertheless, when Israel gave out the closing hymn it was one which, as he explained, “prays for the Church of God visible upon the earth, as well in the Parish Kirk as in their own little Tabernacle.” “Now then, men,” he concluded, “let us have it with a will. Put all that you have got between your beards and your shoulder-blades into it. If I see a man hanging in stays, he shall sing it by himself!”
So the Ranters sang till the sound went from the little dissenting Bethel on the shore up to the stately Kirk of the parish cinctured with its double acre of ancient grave-stones—
“I love Thy Kingdom, Lord,The house of Thine abode:The Church our blest Redeemer savedWith His own precious blood.
For her my tears shall fall,For her my prayers ascend:To her my cares and toils be givenTill toils and cares shall end!“
“Andthree cheers for the Doctor!” shouted swearing Imrie, who had been worked up by the events of the day to such a pitch of excitement that only the sound of his own thunderous voice had power to calm him.
And douce Cameronians coming over Eden Valley hill stood still and wondered at the profanation of the holy day, not knowing. Even sober pillars of the Kirk Erastian going homeward smiled and shook their heads pityingly.
“It was doubtless a good thing,” said my father to a fellow elder, a certain McMinn of the Croft, “to see so many of the wild and regardless at the Kirk, but I’m sore mistaken if there’s not some of the old Adam left in the best of them yet, to judge by the noise they are making down yonder.”
“Except Israel himsel’!” said McMinn of the Croft, “man, dominie, since he converted Jock, my ploughman, he hasna been drunk yince, and I get twice the work oot o’ the craitur for the same wage.”
Which, being the proof of the pudding, settled the question.
CHAPTER XLIIN THE WOOD PARLOUR
On the 19th of October the sky overhead was clear as sapphire, but all round the circle of the horizon the mists of autumn blurred the landscape. The hills stood no more in their places. Gone were the Kips, with their waving lines. Of the Cruives, with the heather thick and purple upon them, not a trace. Gone the graceful swirl of the Cooran Hill, which curls over like a wave just feathering to break.
To Irma it had been a heavy and a sorrowful day. She had actually wept, and even gone on her knees to her brother to beg him tell her what strange thing had come between them. He would only answer, “You have chosen your path without consulting me. Now I choose mine.”
She charged him with listening to one who had always been an enemy of all who had been good to him ever since he was a little child—of setting himself against those on whose bounty they had lived.
He replied, “If I have lived on their bounty, they know very well that they will not lose by it.”
She mentioned Lalor Maitland’s name, and told him the history of the early attacks on the house of Marnhoul. Louis answered, “He has explained all that. It was done to save me from these people who were already besetting me, in order to rob me.”
When she mentioned all that I had done for him, he put on an air of frigid detachment.
“You are right, no doubt, to stand up for yourhusband,” he said; “but, then, I have not the same reasons. I can judge for myself.”
Then she went on to show that there was no motive for the Lyons of Heathknowes showing them any interested kindness. As for me, she had only brought me herself and her love—no money, nor would she ever have any money—I had married her for herself.
“So would Lalor Maitland,” he retorted, “and he is a gentleman.”
After this Irma discussed no more. She felt it to be useless. Naturally, also, she was hurt to the heart that Louis, once her own little Louis, should compare her husband to Lalor Maitland. Well, for that I do not blame her.
All day long Louis stayed in the Wood Parlour with his books. I was busy with an important article on the “Moors in Spain,” suggested by my recent researches into the history of the irrigation of fields and gardens in the south of Europe.
Louis came down to dinner at twelve, or a few minutes after. He seemed somewhat more cheerful than was usual with him, and actually spoke a little to me, asking me lend him my grandfather’s shotgun, to put it in order for him, and that powder and ball might be placed in his chamber. He had seen game-birds feeding quite close, and thought that by opening the window he might manage to shoot some of them.
I did as he asked me before going back to my work. Irma smiled at me, being well pleased. For it seemed to her that Louis’s ill-temper was wearing away. Now my grandmother and Aunt Jen were inveterate tea-lovers, which was then not so common a drink in the country as it is now. Irma sometimes took a cup with them for company, and, because it also refreshedme in my labours, I also joined them. But with me it was done chiefly for the sake of the pleasant talk, being mostly my grandmother’s reminiscences, and sometimes for a sight of my mother, who would run across of a sunny afternoon for a look at baby.
That day we sat and talked rather longer than usual. A certain strain seemed to have departed from the house. I think all of us believed that the humour of Louis, execrable as it had been, was the effect of the insinuations of a wicked man, and that after a time he would be restored to us again the simple, pleasant-faced boy he had been in former years.
He did not come down to tea, but then he seldom did so. Indeed, none of the men-folk except myself had taken to the habit, and I (as I say) chiefly for the sake of the talk, which sharpened my wits and refreshed my working vocabulary. But as I passed back to my writing-den I could hear my brother-in-law moving restlessly about his room, and talking to himself, which was a recently-acquired habit of his. However, I took this as a good sign. Anything in the way of occupation was better than his former chill indifference to all that went forward about Heathknowes.
It was, as it chanced, a busy day at the pirn-mill. The labours of the farm being fairly over for the year, the mill had been shut down for hasty repairs, which Alec McQuhirr had come down from Ironmacannie to superintend. He was, so they said, the best mill-wright in the half-dozen counties of the south and west. He had, however, the one fault common to all his tribe, that of dilatoriness. So my grandfather, who had his “pirn” contracts to be shipped for England on certain days, used to call his sons about him, and devote himself and all of them to the service ofrepairing. Boyd Connoway, also, usually gave us the benefit of his universal genius for advice, and, when he chose, for handiness also.
After tea some provisions had been carried to the mill by my mother on her way home. “One of the boys”—meaning my uncles—was to bring back the basket.
That night, also, supper was somewhat later than usual. Up in the mill men were still crawling about along the machinery with carefully protected lanterns. Buckets of water stood handy. For a pirn-mill is no place in which to play with fire. The sound of male voices and the thud of wooden mallets did not cease till long after dark. Supper was, therefore, later than usual, and the moon had risen before the sound of their footsteps was heard coming down among the tree-roots in the clearing which they themselves had made. The kitchen, which was also the living-room of Heathknowes, glowed bright, and the supper-table was a-laying. Aunt Jen bustled about. I had laid aside my writing, satisfied with a goodly tale of sheets to my credit. My grandmother was in the milk-house, but every now and then made darts out to the fire on which the precious “het supper” was cooking—roast fowl, bacon, and potatoes—traditional on occasions when the men had been “working late at the mill and had brought home company.”
It was a bright and cheerful sight. The high dresser, the kitchen pride of Galloway, was in a state of absolute perfection. Aunt Jen despised men, but she had a way of reproving their congenital untidiness by the shine of her plates and the mirror-like polish of her candlesticks. She had spent a couple of hours over the dresser that afternoon, answering all the taunts of her mother as to her occupation, “It’s true,mither,theywill never ken the difference; but, then, I will!”
“Go up, Irma, and tell your brother that we are waiting,” said my grandmother. But as Irma was busy with Duncan the Second, I offered myself instead. I remember still the long corridor, and I wondered at the moment why no ray of light penetrated through the keyhole of Sir Louis’s door. He must be sitting in the dark, and I smiled to myself as I thought how I had been wasting a couple of my grandmother’s best candles for an hour. The explanation was that Louis, in fear of being spied upon, had carefully plugged up the keyhole and every crack of the door. But this I only knew later.
I stood a moment in the passage, keeping very still. I could hear his voice. He seemed in some way indignant. But the sound was dulled by the thickness of the walls and the care with which the chinks of the door had been “made up.” Then I also heard—what sent the blood chill to my heart—another voice, shorter, harsher, older. For a moment I was struck dumb, and then—I laughed at myself. Of course the lad was simply stage-struck. For some time he had been reading and declaiming Hamlet, Julius Cæsar, and anything he could lay his hands upon, as well as scraps of the Greek tragedies he had learnt at school.
But as I leaned nearer, there pierced sharp as a pang to my heart the certainty that the other voice which I heard was not that of any of the characters ofJulius Cæsar. A trembling horror of what I had once seen in that very room, and a memory of the great hearty Richard Poole entering there in all his amplitude of vivid life, quickly arrested me.
I rapped and called vehemently, trying the latch and feeling that the door resisted. I could hear atrampling beneath me. Men were on the way to my assistance. At the door I sprang. The bolts were as old as the door, and the nails of the lintel fastening only knocked in after its former rough handling.
I got one waft of light as the door opened, half from the candle on the table, half from the moonlight falling dim without. I saw something that crouched—manlike indeed, but with bearded face and head held between its shoulders—leap from the window into the darkness. I did not see Louis clearly. His head was lying on the table, and immediately all the circumstances of the former drama came back to me. But this time I wasted no time. Something glittered on the table, hilt towards me—knife or sword, I hardly knew which. I only knew that with it in my hand I was armed. I sprang through the window and gave chase.
Then very loud in my ears I heard the crack of a pistol, but felt no wound. I now think it had not even been fired at me. I pursued with the energy of a young stag. My mornings on the hills with Eben looking for the sheep now stood me in good stead—that is, good or bad according as to whether the man in front of me had another loaded pistol ready or not.
Behind me, but alas, too far to be any help, I could hear the shouting of men. Heathknowes was alarmed. Then came the pounding of feet, but I knew that none of them could run with me, while the thing or man in front proved fresher, and, as I feared at first, fleeter.
But, after all, I was young, and though I panted, and had a burning pain in my side, I held to it till I began to get my second wind. Then I made sure that, barring accidents, I could run him down. What should happen then I did not know. I had a vision, only for a moment but yet very clear and distinct,of Irma in the black gown of a young widow. But even this did not make me slacken in my stride.
Somehow the shine of the steel in my hand gave me courage, as also the crying of the men behind, albeit they did not seem to gain but rather to lose ground. Thirty yards ahead I could see my man running, his head very low, his arms close to his sides, a slender figure with a certain look of deformity. A long beard of some indeterminate colour like hay was blown back over one shoulder. Ever and anon he glanced round as he ran to measure my progress.
Suddenly the root of a tree tripped him and he went headlong. But he was agile too, for before I could be upon him, he was up again, and with something that shone like a long thin dagger in his hand, he threw himself upon me as if to take me by surprise. Now, it is very difficult when running hard to put oneself at once into a proper position of defence. And so, as it happened, I was nearly done. But I had been carrying the sword in my hand almost at arm’s length. I was conscious of no shock. Only all suddenly my assailant doubled and lay writhing, his dagger still shining in his hand.
I stopped and kept wide circling about him, fearing a trick. The moon was shining full on the open clearing of the glade where he had fallen. It was the little lawyer—he who had called himself Wringham Pollixfen Poole. Yet somehow he was different. His beard had grown to be of a curious foreign fashion and colour—but that perhaps might be the effect of the moonlight.
He never took his eyes off the shining steel in my hand.
“It is poisoned,” he groaned, his hand clapped to his breast, “I am a dead man—poisoned, poisoned!”
And looking more carefully at what I had simply snatched in haste, I saw that I had in my hand the golden-hilted sword of honour which Lalor Maitland had given to the boy Louis to seal their friendship.
But immediately a greater wonder oppressed me, and rendered speechless those who now came panting up—my uncles and Boyd Connoway. The hay-coloured beard and disguises came away, snatched off in the man’s death-agony. The shiny brown coat opened to show a spotless ruffled shirt beneath. The wounded man never ceased to exclaim, “It is poisoned! It is poisoned! I am a dead man!” The wig fell off, and as life gave place to the stillness of death, out of the lined and twisted lineaments of the half-deformed lawyer Poole emerged the pale, calm, clear-cut features of Lalor Maitland.
CHAPTER XLIITHE PLACE OF DREAMS
The key of the mystery was brought us by one who seemed the most unlikely person in the world, Boyd Connoway.
“And her to come of decent folk down there by Killibegs,” he exclaimed in opening the matter; “no rapparees out of Connemara—but O’Neil’s blood to a man, both Bridget and all her kindred before her!”
“What’s the matter now?” said the Fiscal, who with much secret satisfaction had come to have that made plain which had troubled him so sorely before. So Boyd and Jerry brought Bridget Connoway in to the outhouse where the dead man lay.
“Tis all my fault—my fault,” wailed Bridget, “yet ’twas because him that’s me husband gave me no help with the arning of money to bring up the childer. So I was tempted and took in this man after the Black Smugglers had tried to burn the great house of Marnhoul.
“Well might I think so, indeed, your honours. For wounded the man was right sore, and I nursed him for the sake of the goold he gave me. Lashin’s of goold, and the like had never been seen in our house since before Boyd Connoway there, that now has the face to call himself a convarted man, was the head of it.”
“What did this man call himself?” the Fiscal demanded.
“Sure, he called himself Wringham Pollixfen Poole, my lord, and it was not for me to be disbelievin’ him.”
“And after, when he was under strong suspicion of having wilfully made away with Mr. Richard Poole of Dumfries, why did you say nothing?”
“Now, your honour,” exclaimed Bridget, holding up her hands, “wad I be telling aught like that to bring worse and worse on the head of any man in trouble? If it had been yourself, now, how wad you have liked that, your honour?”
“Leave me alone, Bridget. Answer what you are asked,” said the Fiscal; “when did you find out that this man was not what he pretended to be?”
“Is it the name he gave you mean, sorr?” said Bridget.
“Yes,” said the Fiscal, watching her.
“Faith, then, just when he towld it me!” was the unexpected answer. And then, moving a little nearer, she added confidentially in the Fiscal’s ear, “Would you have believed yourself, my lord, that a Black Smuggler, newly off theGolden Hind, and a shipmate of old Dick Wilkes, that died under the Wicked Flag, would be likely to give his true name and address?”
“Then, by your story, you never knew that the deceased was in truth Mr. Lalor Maitland, a member of his Majesty’s present loyal parliament?”
“Faith, as to that, no,” said Bridget, “and it’s the saints’ own pity, for if I had known that in time—it’s independent I would have been. No more wash-tubs for Bridget Connoway!”
“For shame on you, Bridget, you that are an O’Neil, and the wife of a Connoway!” cried Boyd indignantly.
“And the less you say of that, the better will the butter lie on your bread!” said Bridget, advancing a step towards him threateningly. “Your lordship, hearken to me—not an honest day’s work has thatman done from January to December—nay, nor dishonest either, for the matter o’ that! ’Tis ashamed of himself he ought to be.”
“Well,” said the Fiscal, “it is a very good thing for you, Mrs. Connoway, that young Sir Louis is likely to recover after the knock on the head he got from your friend. But the wonder to me is that you did not speak more plainly when there was a former fatal assault in the same place.”
“Now, I put it to ye, sorr, what was a poor woman like me to know about the affairs of the great, my lord?” said Bridget. “Now, in my country, two gentlemen sit late at the wine, and maybe there’s a little difference of opinion, the cartes, or politics, or a lady—or maybe just a differ for the sake of a differ. And wan gives t’other a skelp on the side of the head, and if the man’s skull’s sound, where’s the harm? ’Tis done every day in Donegal and nobody a bit the worse! For it’s O’Neil’s country, my lord, and the skulls there are made thicker on purpose—such being the intintion of a merciful providence that created nothing in vain.”
“And can you give us no light on why Mr. Lalor Maitland wished harm to Mr. Richard Poole?”
Bridget shook her head slowly.
“Doubtless,” she said, “’twas something about property and a lass. For if money’s the root of all evil, as the Book says, sure and t’other—(that’s the woman) is the trunk and branches, the flowers, and the fruit!”
The mystery of the death of Mr. Richard Poole was never wholly cleared up. If anything was found among the private correspondence of the late member of the firm of Smart, Poole and Smart, certainly the firm did not allow it to transpire. It is practicallycertain that Bridget told all she knew. But, poring over the mystery afterwards, and putting all things carefully together, I became convinced that, under the name of Wringham Pollixfen Poole, Mr. Richard had mixed himself up in some highly treasonable business, which put his life within the power of the informer and traitor Lalor.
Consequently when the latter, an expert in disguises, found it necessary to take refuge with Bridget Connoway after the failure of the attack on Marnhoul, he could not have chosen a safer name or disguise.
Mr. Richard, he knew, could not betray him. If any trouble befell he would come at once and see him. So, in fact, when Richard Poole arrived, he demanded that, by the influence of his firm, the children should be at once returned to his tutelage. That Lalor dreamed of marrying Irma is evident, and what he meant to do with little Louis is equally clear—for his death would leave him heir to the properties.
But Richard proved unexpectedly stubborn. He refused flatly to have anything to do with Lalor’s schemes—whereupon the wild beast in the man broke loose. He struck and escaped. But it was a sudden fit of anger, probably repented of as soon as done, because it rendered unsafe a useful disguise.
In the case of Sir Louis the plot was deeper laid. From the boy’s borrowing of the gun, I believe that Louis had made up his mind to escape with his so-called uncle. But some condition or chance word of Lalor’s had caused a shadow of suspicion to arise in Louis’s mind. He had drawn back at the last moment. Whereupon, exasperated by failure, and possibly shaken by hearing me thundering at the door, Lalor had smitten, just as he had done in the case of Mr. Richard. Happily, however, with less result. Thenecessary weapon was not to his hand. The poisoned sword, with which he no doubt expected the boy to play till he pricked himself, was lying with the handle turned away from him.
At any rate he missed his stroke. But it was only by a hair’s breadth, and had it not been for his own sword and my fleetness of foot, the false Wringham Pollixfen might for the second time have vanished as completely as before, while if Louis had died, no one would have suspected as his murderer a man so important as his Excellency Lalor Maitland, Member of Parliament for the county, and presently carrying out the commission of the lieges within the precincts of the city of Westminster.
As to Sir Louis, it was many months before we could obtain any account of his experiences from him, and even then he shrank from all reference to that night in the Wood Parlour. Indeed, he grew up to be a silent, rather moody young man, and as soon as he could obtain permission from the lawyers he went abroad, where at the University of Heidelberg he settled himself with his books and fencing foils. All this happened ten years ago, yet he manifested not the least desire to come home. His affairs are safe in the hands of the Dumfries lawyers, while my grandfather, not to all appearance aged by a day, cares on the spot for his more immediate concerns. Sir Louis has, however, made Duncan the Second laird of the farm and lands of Heathknowes, on the condition that during the tenancy of my grandfather and grandmother they are to sit rent free. Irma and I are still in the house above the meadows, and Duncan has just begun to attend Dr. Carson at the High School. We have been able to buy the Little White House, and have made many improvements, including a coupleof servants’ bedrooms. But we were just as happy when I rose to make the fire in the morning, and Mrs. Pathrick came over early on washing days to “get them clothes out on the line at a respectable hour!”
My father still teaches his Ovid, and looks to Freddy Esquillant to succeed him. He is now first assistant and has taken a house for Agnes Anne. In a year or two they expect to begin thinking about getting married. But really there is no hurry. They have only been engaged twelve years, and an immediate purpose of marriage would be considered quite indecent haste in Eden Valley. And Aunt Jen ... is still Aunt Jen. No man, she says, has ever proved himself worthy of her, but I myself think that, if there is no infringement of the table of consanguinity on the first page of the Bible after “James, by the Grace of God, King of Great Britain, France, and Ireland,” she has an eye on Duncan the Second, when he shall shed the trappings of the school-boy and endue himself with the virility of knee-breeches, cocked hat, and a coat with adult tails.
At least she certainly shows more partiality to him than to any one, and wonders incessantly how he managed to pick up so unworthy and harum-scarum a father.
For the rest, Heathknowes stands where it did, excepting always the Wood Parlour, whichmygrandfather had pulled down. And where it stood the full-rounded corn-stacks almost lean against the blind wall, so that the maids will not pass that way unattended—for fear of Wringham Pollixfen, or poor hot-blooded, turbulent Richard, his victim, or perhaps more exactly the victim of his own unstable will.
And as for Irma, years have not aged her. She has the invincible gift of youth, of lightsome, winsome,buoyant youth. She still has that way of poising herself for flight, like a tit on a thistle, or a plume of dandelion-down, ready to break off and float away on any wind, which I tell her is not respectable in a married woman of her age and standing. But my Lord Advocate does not agree with me. He rests from his labours—not in the grave, thank goodness, but in his house on the bright slopes of Corstorphine.
Also the Dean sings an “Amen” to his praises of Irma, but neither of the Kirkpatricks has ever deigned to cross our doorstep.
“They were glad to be rid of you!” I tell Irma.
“Dear place!” she answers. And she does not mean either the house at Sciennes or the Kirkpatrick mansion near the Water of Leith. She is thinking of that once open space by the Greyfriars where, to the accompaniment of keen chisel-stroke and dull mallet-thud, once on a day she came to me, more dream-like than my dream, and said, “I have found it, the Little White House!”
THE END
Richard Clay & Sons, Limited, London and Bungay.
Transcriber’s Note: block relocated from front matter.