On rainy evenings Roderick had to accommodate his Bible-class in his study. The books and pamphlets piled on the floor were removed, and stools and chairs brought in from all the neighbouring cottages. The attendance was large, the room but small, and the window could not be opened without admitting the rain. The sole ventilation therefore was by the chimney, for Roderick's chest was delicate and could not endure open doors or draughts. The breaths of the people and the steam from their plaids and umbrellas made an atmosphere almost too dense to breathe, but no one stayed away on account of that. Discomfort in fact was the chosen salt and relish of popular piety in those days. The old stories of the covenant and the persecutions had been brought out afresh after lying hid for a century under the dust of time and 'moderatism,' so called, which perhaps means only the new ideas begotten of newer circumstances in advancing civilization. These tales told in modern language and addressed to the people from hundreds of pulpits and platforms, and scattered by the thousand in illustrated tracts and broad sheets over the country, roused the best instincts of the people into a sort of fanaticism; common sense appeared sinful latitudinarianism, and there seemed a very hunger for austerity and persecution in a small way, which raised an uncomfortable church-going into a meritorious claim on divine favour. Like other artificial revivals of obsolete feeling with their inevitable unreality and exaggeration--for the one begets the other, seeing that each individual, knowing his own earnestness to be below the standard, compensates by intensity of expression for what is lacking in depth--all that has now passed away. No better cushioned pews now-a-days invite to repose in the green pastures of the word, than those which the Free Church supplies, and the erewhile battle cry of 'Christ's Crown and Covenant' has moderated down into a demand for Disestablishment.
These cottage services were far more exhausting to their conductor than the regular preaching, and after struggling through them under the oppression of heat and bad air, he found when his apartment was left to him, that it had become uninhabitable for the rest of the evening. Whenever, therefore, the weather at all permitted, he conducted his Bible-class in the open air.
Down by the Effick side was a meadow where the villagers washed and dried their clothes, and their cattle browsed. The grass was short and thick, and the stream slid by with a low soft lapping among the stones. An aged beech tree formed a landmark, and there on summer evenings the minister was wont to assemble his class. The faint evening breezes nestled drowsily among the leaves overhead, and the glassy surface of the stream shone in the yellow radiance of the evening light. No scene could be more peaceful and still, or lent itself better to the earnest exhortations of the teacher, and the unflagging attention of his auditors, who had grown to comprise the whole inhabitants of the village, old people and children as well as the youths and maidens for whom the meeting was designed. 'Free Church Principles,' or the superiority of the church to the interference of civil authority, were the stated subjects of consideration, but this pious and indefatigable teacher would not let slip the opportunity of pressing all other branches of religious truth, as occasion offered, in a way more familiar and impressive, as his people thought, than even the regular services of the church.
It was dark ere all was over, and after singing a hymn the meeting dispersed. Then Roderick remembered the errand of mercy with which he had proposed to himself to conclude his day, and set out at once for Widow Tirpie's cottage, which was about a mile from the village. Reaching it, he found the daughter on the threshold, gazing motionless towards the western sky, where the last faint gleams of evening still struggled with the coming night. A girl of about twenty, but looking older, worn with care or illness, but with a face superior to her station, she sat like an image of regret, pale-cheeked and thin, with her great dark eyes looking out into the ebbing twilight. She rose on Roderick's approach and followed him inside.
There knelt the mother crouching on the hearth, where with distended cheeks she was endeavouring to blow two peats into a blaze, that she might boil her pot and prepare their evening meal.
Tibbie's husband had been a gamekeeper on the Inchbracken property, her daughter had been employed there as seamstress, and she herself was in some sort a client of the great house. Therefore it was a point of loyalty or policy with her to keep aloof from the Free Church, and occasionally to attend at Kilrundle, but that was not very often, the church being three miles off, and she herself, as she admitted, 'no kirk greedy.' Roderick had not therefore considered her a member of his flock, and knew little of herself or her daughter or their circumstances. She was poor, but not more so than her neighbours, or much more so now than she had always been, and she had no claim to be described as she had been by Joseph Smiley either in the matter of her poverty or her high principle. She had expected a visit from the minister, and although she had no intention of devolving on him the burden of her support, which she destined for his beadle's shoulders, still she was not averse to profiting by his bounty, and had indeed arranged her little scene so as to justify any touching appeal Joseph might have made on her behalf. She had watched Joseph from the thicket after they parted, and observed his closeting with the minister at the close of the service, and knowing Roderick's eager charity, she had thought it not improbable he might visit her that very evening, and accordingly had arranged the tableau of a scanty supper as more effective than anything she could say; besides that, being honest after her fashion and shrewd, she was unwilling to lie unnecessarily.
Tibbie had risen and followed the minister into the house, looking deprecatingly at her mother over his shoulder. She revolted at the idea of charity-getting, and dreaded the references to her own affairs, which her mother might be led into.
'Here Tibbie!' said the elder woman, 'tak' the stoup an' fesh some water frae the spring on the muir, the minister micht be for a drink; ye hae nae sic water down by in the Glen, sir, sae cauld an' sae caller!'
Tibbie took the stoup, well pleased to get away from whatever conversation might follow.
'I hear you are not very well off, Mrs. Tirpie,' said Roderick, 'and I have come to see if I can give you any help.'
'A' weel, sir! It's thankin' ye kindly a' the same, but I winna complain. Ye can see for yersel'--Some folk can mak oot to live whaur ithers wad starve. But I'm no beggin'.'
'I never heard that you had got relief from the parish, and I know that you have got nothing from us. You know we have a fund, though not a large one, for our poor brethren, and I think it is often quite as usefully employed when we look about for those who are bearing their lot in silence, as when we give to those who claim our help.'
'I dinna belang to yer kirk, sir, an' I hae nae claim on ye ava'; tho' I canna but say it's whiles gye an' hard for a puir body to gar the twa ends meet. What wi' sickness, an' a' things sae dear, it's a sair fecht for puir folk, whiles, to keep saul an' body thegither. But we maun thole. Them 'at sends a' things kens what's for our gude.' And so on. A spirit of fine sturdy independence, uncomplaining poverty, and patient trust in Providence, moderately expressed, furnished out a harangue which refreshed the soul of the worthy preacher. If tares must inevitably be found among the standing corn, it is all the more refreshing to the disappointed husbandman to see the good seed springing up outside his enclosure, and Tibbie Tirpie bore the reputation of being a cold and worldly person with the fervid professors among whom he laboured. He felt himself privileged in being allowed to minister assistance to so much modest worth, and returned home refreshed in spirit.
When he left the cottage the night had closed in, with only the glimmering stars to light him on his way. He walked slowly homewards, musing as he went on the trials and hardships of the poor, and the pious fortitude and noble courage with which they so often bear them. He fell into a reverie, and did not perceive that two men coming down behind him had overtaken and passed him. It was quite otherwise with them. Like the owls and other creatures which fly by night, their faculties were all awake.
'Preserve us a! Saw ye e'er the like? Slinkin' hame e'y dark, wi' his head atween 's feet, like a dug scaddet wi' puddin' brue. He ne'er turned round e'en whan we gaed by, like's he thocht shame to meet the glint o' honest folk's e'en.'
'What mean ye? Peter Malloch. Yon's the minister! or I'm sair mistaen, stappin' cannily hame. He's been readin', belike, an' prayin wi' some auld puir body 'at's ower frail to gang t'ey kirk. My certie! but he's the faithfu' servant, 'at sees the folk hae their meat i' due season. I wuss there were mair like him. It gars a body think shame o' their ain puir fushionless godliness, to see the gude he's aye after. Ne'er sparin' himsel', but juist spendin,' an' spent for the gude o' ither folk. He'll hae his reward!'
'Man, Tummas, ye're a rael Nathanael! It diz a body gude to hear til ye whiles. Ye hae the charity 'at thinketh no evil, an' mony's the time I'm juist winderin' hoo ye can carry on wi't. Ye do weel to think nae ill, but hoo ye can look about ye, an' stick til't, passes me. I dinna see either 'at we're ca'd on to let folk mak a fuil o's wi' their sough o' godliness an them nae better than oorsels, but rather waur, seein' what they set up for. I'm thinkin' they're juist maist like whitet sepulchers ower the dead men's banes; an' naebody's ca'd on to think weel o' sic like, ye ken.'
'I see na what ye're drivin' at. But I'se lippen 'til our young minister afore ony man I hae e'er clappit my eyen on!'
'Trust not in princes nor men's sons,' as the Psalm says, 'an' the ministers are kittle cattle to tackle wi'. Saw na ye whause house yon was he cam out o', richt afore yer eyen?'
'I ken Tibbie Tirpie brawly, an' it's her bides up yonder.'
'An' what kind tak ye Tibbie to be? She's no a kirk member ava, I'm thinkin'; a bonny ane for a minister to be sitten' aside a' Sabbath forenicht!'
'I ken naething against her; but gin she be worldly or waur, she has mair need o' the minister's advice.'
'An' there's that hizzie, her dochter! Ye'll be for makin' out the minister was adveesin her belike?'
'An' what for no? Gin she be young an' fu' o' daffin' she'll a' the mair need to be adveesed.'
'Young an' fu' o' daffin'! Ye're for letting her down easy. There's mair wrang nor that, I'm feared. Some folk say she's nae better nor she suld be. But there's nae gude threapin' wi' you. Ye'se think nae harm--ye'se tell me he was sympatheezin wi' her in her misfortun.'
'Whisht man! Let the lassie's gude name be gin ye hae nae proof.'
'But there maun be pruif some gate seein' it's true. The gentles hae heard tell o't. An' what's mair, it's them 'at's sayin' up by at Inchbracken 'at Mister Brown's at the fundation o' the hale mischief. Sae noo ye ken a' about it, an ye'll own yersel it's gye an' like it, to see him slinkin' up here after dark. An' ye'll mind hoo you an' me saw him bringin' hame the bairn yon mornin' early, whan the roads war that bad there wasna like to be ony body about, to see what he was after. We a' ken hoo he gaed awa for the bairn the verra nicht 'at Tibbie cam hame. Think o't! Tummas. Pet that an' that thegither, an' syne ye'll may be hae mair charity, an' no be accuisin' me o' evil speakin'. Charity thinketh no evil, sae what for suld ye be thinkin' I wad tak awa a decent lass's gude name? But gin she be na decent, an' hae nae richt til the gude name, I see nae wrang to say sae. Let the skelpet wein skirl! What says Scripture? Is na the maugistrate for the terror o' evil doers an' the praise o' them 'at do weel? An' be na I wan in authority? The Convener o' the Deacons' Court? Tak tent, Tummas, and dinna be impuitin' yer ain sinfu' thochts til ither folk, an' them folk setten ower ye in the Lord! Speak not evil of dignities! It's against a' Scripter--an' I may sae as weel, in a' luve and faithfulness, seein I hae a kin' o' charge o' ye, an' may hae to gie account, ye're juist a wee pridefu' whiles, an' ower set in yer ain notions, for a humble private member o' the kirk. Think o't, Tummas, an' lay't to heart!'
Tummas was silenced, fairly overthrown and carried away by the torrent of words, and every meek stirring of self-assertion completely devoured out. He had meant to defend his pastor from what he thought were improbable and poorly supported suspicions; but he was meek and diffident, and accustomed to be over-borne by his arrogant companion, so he held his peace, content to cherish unuttered the assurance that there was some mistake, and to leave time to disabuse others of their misconceptions.
Mrs. Sangster decided that Mr. Wallowby ought to see something of the country during his stay. An excursion was planned, and to introduce some appearance of novelty into the party, the Rev. Roderick was summoned to join the expedition.
It was an early September morning when they started from Auchlippie. Peter drove the phaeton, and his friend sat beside him on the box. Inside were the ladies and the minister, in his quality of priest, or one of the third sex, which, as though not either male or female, possesses all the claims to deference of both, and owes the duties of neither. Roderick sat in the back seat beside his hostess, while the two young ladies faced him. The two gentlemen on the box looked back from time to time with some remark which was gaily responded to by the ladies, and Roderick occasionally joined in with a quiet jest. The presence of Sophia filled his mind with happiness too deep for merriment, and there she sat before him in full view.
Sophia being a placid person abounding in the beauty of repose, had worked her spell upon him more by looks, which he had interpreted into sympathy, and what he chose to imagine the beauty of her virgin soul, than by anything she had ever said. Looking in her eyes he had dreamt of all that was loveliest and then fancied he saw it there. Another Narcissus, he had gazed in their crystal depths, and, mistaking his own reflection for the spirit of the flood, had fallen in love with it.
It made little matter to him that they were in the midst of a merry company, he could sun himself in the presence that was so much of his own creating all the same, and save that he was more silent than at other times, no one could have observed any departure from his usual bearing. Sophia was aware of his mute observance, and thought it 'very nice,' she was used to it, and it required from her no irksome effort in response, which, as her thinking part was neither imaginative nor emotional, and somewhat sluggish besides, was comfortable. The contrast between Roderick's quiet and the lively loquacity of Mr. Wallowby, told all in favour of the former; for although Mary and her mother with their greater readiness relieved her from the necessity of reply, it was mortifying thus to realize her own slowness, and she found the constant smiling and laughter over jests whose point she had missed, fatiguing to her facial muscles, and at last she took refuge in a private chat with Roderick as to whether he thought the day would keep fine and such like weighty matters.
page 79
Loch Gorton and Inchbracken. Page 79.
They drove across the upland moors and the ridge dividing Glen Effick from the neighbouring valley of the Gorton, and down Gorton side to where it spreads into the lake of the same name. At that point it is crossed by a bridge, the road passing an old posting inn which looks down the loch, and is backed by Craig Findochart, the highest mountain of the district, and the goal of the day's expedition.
Loch Gorton is a basin among the hills, deep and narrow at its upper end, but broadening and shallowing towards its base. It fills the mouth of a valley whose precipitous slopes crowd down upon the water at its head, but draw back in lessening and ever-widening undulations from the lower end. Near the outlet is the broad low island of Inchbracken, connected with the mainland by a narrow neck of land. Here in the old time stood the castle of the Drysdales, commanding the isthmus, which they cut across and commanded by a drawbridge. The moat is filled up now, and the square old keep, ivy-grown and ruinous, has sunk into a mere picturesque feature in the shrubbery of the modern mansion.
Leaving their phaeton at the Bridge of Gorton Inn, the party secured a guide, and proceeded to ascend the hill. A steep footpath led across several enclosed fields, and brought them through a stretch of oak copsewood to a track of open pasture, whence they could look down on the lake spread out at their feet, while the great purple mountain reared its steep shoulders above them, swelling in broad sweeps of heath backward and upward to the beetling crags far up, thrusting their jagged outlines into the sky, and shutting out the climber from the distant summit.
The belt of pasture past, climbing began in earnest. The shaggy heather was knee deep in many places, and every here and there the rocky knuckles of the mountain projected through the peaty soil.
The party began to straggle. Mary, sound of wind and limb, light-footed and active, was in front with the guide. Peter and Wallowby toiled closely behind, the latter showing the first signs of distress in shortening breath, and handkerchief applied occasionally to his brow. Mrs. Sangster followed in steady mechanical fashion. Her fifty odd summers had no doubt impaired the elasticity of her frame, but had left behind a fund of tough endurance and sturdy will, which did very well in its stead. Sophia and Roderick brought up the rear, the coolest and calmest of the party. Her fine physique made the exertion both light and pleasant, and her tranquil soul supplied a wellspring of inward coolness, which even hill-climbing was unable to overheat, while Roderick by her side among the sunshine and the ever-widening view, walked on air, held forth at will, and dreamed aloud in words overflowingly; while his placid companion smiled and looked at him out of her beautiful eyes, listening, and sometimes understanding what he said. The path became steeper after a while, and Mrs. Sangster stopped to take breath, looking around the while for the others.
Mary and the young men were perched upon a rock high over her head, and when she looked down Roderick and Sophia came calmly following her. It seemed too much that Mary should monopolize not only Peter (though that was well enough), but also the wealthy party from Manchester, who had been sent by Providence, as she still thought, to open a larger sphere of usefulness to her daughter; meaning really, if self-delusion would ever let us speak plainly to ourselves, a carriage and pair and a handsome establishment. The ice between the two had been hard to break, what better way could there be to thaw it, than the small difficulties and adventures of a mountain ramble? And here the stupid girl was letting her opportunity escape, and trifling it away with a young man whom she could beckon to her side any day, and could always fall back upon if more ambitious aims did not succeed. A more worldly or a more single-minded mamma would no doubt have spoken plainly to her daughter, and so might have influenced that not very perspicuous person more effectually, but Mrs. Sangster had the misfortune to be looking two ways at once, or like the boatman in the Pilgrim's Progress, she looked one way while she pulled the other. She loved and appreciated the good things of the world, as thoroughly as any one, but at the same time she was wont to say, and to really think that she thought they were a snare, or dross, in comparison with higher interests. She could not bring her tongue to frame such advice to her daughter as would in any way derogate from true religion, or the old-fashioned 'true, true love,' she had thought and sang of in her own youth. She could only suggest and influence in a half-ashamed sort of way. But she was disappointed and mortified that a daughter of hers should be so wanting in common sense. After all the advantages of her upbringing, how came it that she should fail of that well-regulated mind, which, seeing both sides of a question, can both say what is 'nice' in regard to the higher, and at the same time follow the more profitable. The thing requires a little casuistry, but it must be of the unspoken kind. It cannot be decently uttered, so each must work it out alone in those secret chambers of the brain, where not the prying eye of conscience even may intrude. Any one would feel annoyed at a carefully and expensively-educated daughter throwing herself away, and all the proud hopes that have been formed for her, on a poor match; yet openly to preach the mercenary would be infamy. So felt Mrs. Sangster, and she was greatly disturbed; for hers was virtue of the uncomfortable, rather than of the heroic kind,--it could not make her choose the better way, but it would reproach her if she followed the worse. As for Sophia, her mother wronged her if she suspected her of unwisely preferring the good to the profitable. She was only dull. Money and all it could buy would, she felt, be delightful to have, but she did not feel equal to winning it. Roderick had looked and succumbed to her beauty, and it would be very pleasant if Mr. Wallowby would do likewise; it would be grand,--and no personal preference should prevent her making her fortune; but if Mr. Wallowby was only to be captured by something she was to do, she resigned the idea at once; she felt she could do nothing, and the very idea of doing anything to win his regard made her ashamed, which was what might have been expected. If people will bring up their girls to be high-minded and good, they have no right to expect scheming and meanness from them after they are grown.
'Oh, Mr. Roderick,' said Mrs. Sangster, 'I fear I must ask you to take pity on an old woman. This climbing is hot work, with the sun beating down so on my old back. I can bear the weight of my shawl no longer. If there was only a breeze! But the air seems stagnant, and my old limbs are not what they once were.'
'We have only to get a very little higher now to have wind enough,' said Roderick, doubling the shawl on his arm. 'See Mr. Wallowby's handkerchief up there how it blows about. If you will accept a little assistance over this steep place, you will soon reach the cooler level.'
'Sophia!' continued the mother, 'I believe that guide will break a bottle, or something, the way he swings the basket about. Pray bid him take care or we shall have a dry luncheon to eat when we get to the top of the hill,--there will be no water up there. It makes me quite nervous to look at him.'
So Sophia was despatched in advance while the older lady made a leisurely survey of the prospect at her feet.
'A beautiful place Inchbracken, with its woods spreading out beyond the island and rolling away into the distance, and the steeple of Kilrundle church rising from among them. Dives with his good things, and Lazarus with his evil things! You must feel thankful to have chosen the better part, Mr. Roderick.'
'I feel no misgiving about my choice whatever, but I hope there is no reason to look on General Drysdale as another Dives. Difference in people's circumstances, shows things in so different a light.'
'Ah! my young friend, charity is good, but it must be according to knowledge.'
'But, Mrs. Sangster, the General is a most worthy man, a kind master and a good landlord, and an honourable gentleman.'
'I will not say, Mr. Roderick, that his hands are red with the blood of the saints, because it has not been left in his power to take the lives of the Lord's people; but he has been very bitter against the Free Church. We may fairly include him among the persecutors, driving us forth to worship God according to our conscience, on the bare hill-side, and refusing us a stance to build our church on any part of his property. Now, I have always said, that that open place facing Inchbracken gate is where our new church should stand. There it could testify before the very walls of the Erastian temple, instead of being huddled away in the corner of widow Forester's kale-yard.'
'But how would you like a Roman Catholic or even an Episcopal Chapel set down opposite your own gate at Auchlippie?'
'Mr. Roderick! Popery and Prelacy! To hear you evening our true scriptural protesting Free Church to the Babylonish apostacy, with their white gowns, and their organs, and their traditions of men! I fear there's a leaven of latitudinarianism among you younger men. You should follow the staunch old lights like Mr. Dowlas, to steady your principles. How you can recall the doings of Archbishop Sharp, and speak lightly of Episcopacy, is what I can't comprehend!'
They had now reached the last steep ascent which ended on the summit. This left the old lady no spare breath to hold forth, and she was glad to catch hold of Roderick's arm to assist in pulling herself up the nearly vertical slope. The wind-swept cairn at the top was at length reached, and, notwithstanding her late complaints, Mrs. Sangster was forced to shelter herself from the keen breeze, under its lee, and to resume the shawl she had discarded.
Craig Findochart rises high over the surrounding hills especially towards the east. On that side they gradually diminish and die away in the belt of cultivation that borders the sea. To the north is a narrow glen running down into a fertile strath well-wooded and watered by a river of some size; beyond, the lofty Highland mountains toss their battered summits in the air, a very sea of emulously-surging peaks. Westward it is mountainous again but more various. The eye travels far up more than one winding strath, while glancing lakes shine out every here and there among the greys and purples of mountain and moor. Southward the view is narrower and loses itself in haze, a greyness which rises indistinctly from the distant country, but when once fairly launched in heaven, swells and curls and rears itself into vast white battlements of cloud, and drifts before the wind shining and luminous, like some great iceberg in a transparent sea.
Having surveyed the view, the party sought such shelter from the chilling breeze as was attainable, on the leeward slope, and proceeded to rest and refresh themselves, after their fatigues; the old lady, with some elation at having climbed the hill as cleverly as the youngest, doing the honours of her provision basket with garrulous hospitality, while the others reclined on the scanty herbage with infinite zeal. The warmth gained by exercise withstood the sharp upper air, whose biting keenness felt only bracing and exhilarating to those toilers upward from the airless heat below; but after half an hour they had parted with the surplus heat gained by exertion, and began to feel distinctly cold. There seemed a failing too in the brightness of the light, except over the distant sea, which still glittered crisp and bright in unclouded sunshine. A wan greyness seemed to be stealing over the landscape, not as when passing clouds dapple the view with well defined blocks of shadow, but rather a diffused withdrawal of warmth and light all undefined and vague, but ever deepening like the stealthy advances of sickness or death upon a living thing. Looking upwards they now for the first time observe great vaporous arms and wreaths extending over their heads and stretching out towards the still bright heavens in the north-east. Turning round they find the outlook completely obliterated. The shining cloud-masses of an hour before in the south-west have drifted down upon them, and are now nothing but curling wreaths of cold damp mist, seething and twisting, but ever downward and onward. They seem scarcely to have descried overhead its first advancing arms ere it has descended on them and lapped them from the world in cold damp greyness, above, below, and all around them. From far down the hill ascends the report of a gun, and by and by another, telling them that others besides themselves are on the mountain, and that they are still upon firm ground; but for that they might be anywhere or nowhere, the mist hems them in utterly, the very ground they stand on becomes indistinct, and they stretch their arms to touch each other and make sure they are not each alone. They gather close together standing perfectly still, a step in any direction may precipitate them they know not whither, and the damp clammy vapour creeps close about them soaking hair and clothing, and chilling them to the bone.
'It is only a cloud and will soon pass,' some one says; so they agree it will be safer to wait than to attempt a descent not knowing where their next step may carry them. They huddle closely together and watch and shiver; at one moment it seems growing lighter overhead, and glimmerings of the bright sky shine through, but anon a surging wreath drifts up, and the promising rift closes in again denser than before.
For more than an hour they stood thus afraid to move, stiffening and shivering in the cold. The day was passing, but the mist showed no sign of rising; on the contrary it grew thicker and more wetting, and the idea of spending the night where they were, began to present itself as a possibility unless they made a bold venture to move. To die of cold where they were, appeared a certainty if they remained, while there was at least a hope of escape, in tempting the uncertain dangers of the descent.
Wallowby being a stranger was told to keep hold of the guide, and Sophia was entrusted to their joint care. Mary and Peter having both some knowledge of the hills and the country followed next, while Roderick who had often shot over the ground, undertook to pilot the old lady. The three groups were to keep together as well as they could, and by constant shouting they hoped to keep within each other's ken.
With infinite care, groping and feeling around at every step, they commenced to descend, the grey obscurity swallowing them up, and concealing each group from the others. The voices seemed muffled by the fog, but they enabled them still to hold together.
Down they went, stumbling over loose stones, clambering down rocks and slipping among the heather now dripping with moisture, Mrs. Sangster vowing it should be her last expedition of the kind, if ever she got safe to 'bigget land' again.
'Hold more to the left!' shouted the guide, an injunction which Mrs. Sangster hastened to obey, though still very far from the point it was meant to apply to and thereby found herself on a steep rock face, where she was compelled to turn round, and grasping the heather bushes above, to step gingerly backwards, down into the unknown.
'Oh! Mr. Roderick, this is awful!'
'Another step and you will come to level foothold again.'
'Oh! but I can't; I am caught in something. There it goes--and now I have lost my gold spy-glass, something has caught the chain and broken it. Oh, Mr. Roderick! will you help me to find it! I shall never be able to read my psalm-book on Sunday, if I lose it. Oh dear! oh dear! what an old fool I have been. Skemmeling over Findochart like a nine-year old!'
Roderick shouted to the others to wait, but the cry lost itself in the mist, or was misunderstood. The voices from below came up fainter and fainter, and finally they were heard no more.
The search for the 'spy-glass' occupied some time, and all their attention, but eventually it was found within a foot or two of where they stood, and it was not till then that they discovered they were alone on the hillside. Roderick shouted till he was hoarse, but there came no response, and it became evident they must shift for themselves.
'Most disgraceful conduct! such heartlessness! To think that Peter Sangster, my own son, whom I have sat up with, and nursed through measles and hooping-cough, till my back was like to break, should drag his old mother up here among the clouds, and then desert her!' and here the old lady began to whimper, but took care to make the 'spy-glass' secure in some inner receptacle of her dress.
Roderick suggested that it was getting late, and that by making haste they might yet overtake the runaways.
'I hope we may. But who knows? They may have fallen over a precipice, and be lying maimed and mangled at the bottom. Oh dear! it may be days before they are found. My poor Sophia! that would have looked so well riding about Manchester in her own carriage! She may have broken her neck, or disfigured herself for life! lying bruised and bleeding on a heap of stones. And the crows come and pick at people, they tell me, when they are too much hurt to drive them away. Oh dear, oh dear!
Her active mind conjured up every imaginable horror, till, distracted by the pictures of her own invention, she lifted up her voice and wept sore.
Roderick stood by powerless, and eventually silent. Each word of consolation served but to start her imagination on a new track of suggestions more frightful than the last, so he held his peace and waited. Tears brought relief in time, and now fear for herself took the place of more fanciful terrors.
'Oh, come away, Roderick!' she cried, 'what are you standing there for?--glowering at nothing! Come away!'
The descent proceeded. And now they were on an extended flat, undulating in all directions, and lying between the steep ascent to the summit and the declivity which sloped to the next level below. Without the guidance afforded by continuous descent, they found very soon that they had completely lost their way, and could form no idea of what direction they were moving in.
'I thought you had often shot over this hill, and knew it well, Roderick Brown, or I would never have trusted myself in your hands; but it seems to me you know nothing about it. I'm thinkin' we may wander about here all night, for anything you can do to bring us home. So I am just going to sit down till the Lord sends us help! Home! I'll never see home again; and a sorrowful woman I am, that I ever set out on this fool's errand!'
'We must do as I have had to do more than once before, Mrs. Sangster, when I got befogged in the hills, follow a stream of running water--the first we can find. The water will find its way down somewhere, and will bring us to a house eventually, though it may take us through some difficult places.'
A burn was by-and-by found, and they set themselves to follow its course wherever that might lead, like the clue by which some devious labyrinth is disentangled. It led through swampy places sometimes, and sometimes tumbled downward among rocks and under high banks, but they were already so wet that walking in its bed where the sides were too craggy and difficult made small difference, and after clambering downwards for more than an hour, they were rejoiced by the barking of a dog some distance below them.
'Do you hear that? Mrs. Sangster; I think we are nearing a habitation at last!'
Mrs. Sangster drew a long breath, and stood upright to listen; letting go her hold of the bushes by whose help she was scrambling down in the bed of the burn. The rock she stood on was slippery. On changing her poise her feet slid from under her, and with a scream, and a clattering of stones, she shot forward and downward upon her companion, landing them both in a pool of water.
'Oh, Roderick Brown! You'll be the death of me! How dare you try your cantrips on a woman old enough to be your mother? Dragging me through bogs and down precipices, and ducking me in burns till I haven't a dry stitch on my back, or an easy bone in my body! I'll have ye up before the presbytery for a graceless loon! Oh, laddie! never mind what I say. My head's just going round and round, I think I'm demented! Lay me on the bank to drip--and let me die in peace! I can go no further.'
page 88
"She shot forward and downward upon her companion,
landing them both in a pool of water." Page 88.
'Nonsense, Mrs. Sangster. Just a few steps more! We must be very close to some shieling now. I declare I can smell the peat reek in the air! Here is a footpath going down the hill--come! let us follow it.'
'Give me your hand, then, for I do not think I have courage left to stand alone, far less walk. Oh! What an experience!'
They reached a shepherd's cottage in a few minutes more, where the wife of Stephen Boague, surrounded by dogs and children, came out to receive them. Roderick was not sorry to hand over his charge to the good woman's care, but he would not linger himself, he must hasten to the inn, though that was three miles off, to learn if the others had not arrived there, and if not to send searchers up the mountain after them. The mist had changed into a drizzling rain, but he was already too wet to feel it, and too anxious for the others to have any thought for himself.
The rest of the party stumbled and groped their way slowly down the hill, Peter and Mary endeavouring to follow the voices of those in front, and shouting to them from time to time.
By and by, when they came to more level ground, another shout reached them through the gloom.
'Ah! there is your mother!' said Mary, and shouted her loudest. 'But we cannot go to them, or we will miss the guide.'
The sound of hoofs was now heard, and the crack of a gun fired as a signal, and presently a mounted figure loomed up in the mist.
'Captain Drysdale!' said Peter.
'Mr. Sangster! and a lady! Miss Brown, you had better get on my pony. He will save you a good many stumbles.' So saying, he dismounted and lifted her on the saddle.
When people meet in the mist, and are hastening after an invisible guide, there is no time for ceremonious speeches. Mary was mounted and Kenneth leading the pony, before she had made up her mind whether she should accept his proffer or not.
'You may trust Dandy, Miss Mary; he never stumbles, and he will overtake the rest of your party sooner than you could.' But here their path ended in rock and precipice.
'We are at the bottom, climb straight down,' came up out of the abyss. 'It is not difficult, and we will wait for you.'
Peter began to descend.
'I know where we are,' said Captain Drysdale. 'If Miss Brown will trust herself to my guidance, I will bring her round these cliffs without her needing to dismount, and we, with the pony's help, will reach the inn before you, so do not be uneasy, Mr. Sangster;' and before Mary or Peter could express an opinion, the pony had turned, and they were swallowed up in the mist.
The pony broke into a jog trot, and Kenneth ran by his side. Shortly they came upon a path which zigzagged easily down hill, but tended more and more to the left. Kenneth fired again, and shortly an answering report came up from the depths below. The pony mended his pace at the answering signal, and it was not very long before they came on General Drysdale with a gillie or two and a couple of ponies. It was the spot where he had agreed with his friends to meet for luncheon, if the mist had not put an end to their sport.
'So, Kenneth, you have found the people you heard shouting. What! a lady, and alone?' The old gentleman advanced to welcome the new arrival.
'Miss Mary Brown! To meet you here!'
'She has been to the top of the hill with Mr. Sangster, and got caught in the mist. I came on them just as they were on the point of scrambling down a precipice, and I have promised to take her round by the road to rejoin them at the inn.'
'You must be drenched by this drizzling mist, Miss Brown, and it will take you more than an hour to reach the inn by the road. You had much better accompany us to Inchbracken, where Lady Caroline will be charmed to see you made comfortable, and we will drive you home to-morrow morning. Here, Duncan! you will find a short cut over the hill. Find Mrs. Sangster at the inn, and tell her, with my compliments, I have insisted on Miss Brown's remaining at Inchbracken for the night. She is too much fatigued and wetted to make it safe for her to go farther to-night.'
Mary demurred and resisted as well as she could, but the old gentleman was somewhat autocratic, and not used to being gainsaid on his own land. Her remonstrances were over-ruled or disregarded, and she had to submit, with no great reluctance after all, for she was chilled miserably, and thoroughly wet, and the prospect of an hour's ride ending in the make-shift drying to be obtained at a wayside inn was not very alluring. Having exchanged her wet shawl for a dry plaid and a mackintosh, she found herself riding along the hill track at a brisk pace, the General on one side and Kenneth on the other, the men having orders to remain and fire their guns occasionally till Captain John and his friends should reach the rendezvous.
It was later that afternoon when Miss Julia Finlayson entered the housekeeper's room at Inchbracken. In her character of young lady, if not daughter of the house, she had taken on herself the care of its floral decoration, a matter less generally thought of thirty years ago than now, and therefore even less to be entrusted to the servants. She had made the round of the conservatories, and carried on her arm a large basket of flowers to be arranged in vases which William the footman was then bringing in. There she found the lady's maid preparing tea to carry up-stairs.
'Has Lady Caroline a headache, Mrs. Briggs? I do wish she would vary the dissipation a little. Tea before getting up!--more tea at breakfast!--tea before dressing for dinner, and tea after dinner again! Why will Dr. Pilcox not intervene, and save her poor nerves? But nobody ever does venture to advise rich people till it is too late. But tea after luncheon as well! I almost think I must take upon me to suggest a little Madeira, unless the headache is very severe.
'La! Miss Finlayson! The tea is for a young lady just arrived. Did you not know? She have rid up with General Drysdale and the Capting all in a titty tit. And my lady, far from being poorly, is quite set up and lively about having a stranger to entertain this drizzly afternoon, and indeed, Miss, she have made us all pooty lively upstairs with so many orders. Rooms to prepare--a hot bath--tea--and all the young lady's things to be dried. For indeed she had not a dry stitch to sit down in. And oh! such tears and tatters along of her having been climbing hills and precipices in the mist, and the Capting bringing her home safe and sound--for my lady says it is most remarkable. But how she is agoing to go down to dinner in that black stuff dress I confess I do not understand. Seeing as how she appears a sweet young lady indeed, and it would be a pity if she were not properly dressed, and she an old friend of the family, as I could see by my lady. Though she has not been here before in my time. But here comes Mrs. Kipper herself; no doubt she knows the young lady--'
'Hoot!' responded the housekeeper, 'it's juist auld Doctor Brown's daughter. I've kenned the lassie sin' she could rin. My lady would often have her mother up from the manse, and she would be sent down here to me, and the young laird with her, to keep them out of mischief, and two bonnie bairns they were, and unco couthie; and thinks I to mysel', I'm wonderin' will my leddy ever rue the way the castle and the manse have forgathered. And I wad no say but the Captain may have a kindness for Miss Mary yet. I thought her brother, with his Free Kirk havers and his goin' clean against the master's wishes, would have peuten sic notions out of his head. But there's no tellin'. They're dour chields the Drysdales, that kenna how to let go; and if our young Captain has wance ta'en the notion, they may save their breath to cool their parritch, that would gainsay him. He'll gang his ain gate.'
Julia heard it all, while with her scissors she snipped the ends of her flower stalks, and arranged her nosegays. In her rôle of affability and general good nature with the household, her presence imposed no restraint on those confidential servants; in fact, it rather stimulated them to talk, and show how much at heart they had the interests of the family, and how well they understood whatever was going on. It suited her to know whatever was to be thus picked up, so long as it could be done without betraying unseemly curiosity, and she was much too wise to compromise herself by putting questions to a domestic; but this intelligence was far from welcome to her, and what was worse, Mrs. Kipper's speculations were but confirmation of her own fears.
A gentlewoman of slender means, and with no near relations, she had to make her own way in the world and effect a lodgment in it somewhere by the aid of such wits as relenting nature had bestowed, when she withheld the brute strength that is given to vulgar humanity. In fact, my poor Julia was, I fear, something of a schemer. Is it not shocking?
And yet, dear lady, if I may ask--how long would that charming candour and transparency of soul, not to speak of the high-spirited independence of character, which so delight your friends, survive, if you had to depend on the hospitality of some one, whom no social law ordained to offer it? We must all eat three times a day if possible, and those who have no money themselves must arrange that some one else who has, shall pay for the dinner, or worse will come of it. Inchbracken had been the oyster offered by fortune to Julia, and very well she had acquitted herself in the task of opening it. Friends and every comfort she had been able to achieve thereby, with every prospect of their continuance so long as her kinswoman should survive. But then good things of life are not enough, so soon at least as they are once secured. Man is not an oyster, whatever his remote ancestors may have been, nor woman either; and as regards ancestors, without impugning the oyster's claim, if we are to infer anything from a never-failing hereditary trait, a place should be found somewhere in the pedigree for the horseleech; all human desire, aim, aspiration, may be expressed by the one simple formula--'a little more.' With that ahead and within view, how contentedly we can struggle along, and with how little! Progress is what we need to make us happy. Julia was becoming less young each day, and she was still unwed. No suitor had appeared, but while her kinsman remained single she had still looked forward with some confidence in her own skill and good fortune. That good fortune had sent Kenneth abroad when Mary Brown appeared to be getting dangerous, and had given herself the opportunity to slide into intimate correspondence with him as a substitute for his indolent mother. Again kind fortune had intervened in removing the Browns from the scene before Kenneth's return, and in involving them in such disfavour as to remove all danger of their being invited to the house. Then, too, she had aimed her own little shaft to aggravate the alienation by clouding his fair fame with insinuations of a disreputable scandal.
If she could but have left her ears in the housekeeper's room when she went up stairs she would have learned how successful had been her little device to make people entangle their ideas, by accepting juxtaposition for connection, and thereby mistaking, like their hostess, the post hoc for the propter hoc. William coming for the dinner bouquets while the confidential talk was in progress, was able to contribute his quota to it by repeating the appalling facts and surmises which his friends on the moor had discussed the previous Sunday, and which, in fact, had been started by himself, though his memory had failed to record that circumstance. The lady's maid raised her eyes to the ceiling, and declared that 'she never----,' while the housekeeper was 'thankful Roderick's godly father was safe in heaven, or it would have killed him outright.' In due time all this would filter upwards to Lady Caroline's ears, and yet what would it avail to Julia? Here was Mary already in the house. A fog on the hill had been able to undo all that Fortune and herself had been able to effect in two years time, as the blundering broom of a housemaid will carry away at one sweep the cobwebs that have been weeks in spinning. Mary Brown in the house, and Kenneth at her side for a whole evening--but at least she would be true to herself, and not yield till she was defeated. Mary would be at a disadvantage in more respects than one, certainly as regards dress, and also in accomplishments and knowledge of the world. Mary on the other hand had youth, but then, as Julia told herself, youth means rawness, and 'I won't give in yet!' she added, 'I must go to her now to reconnoitre, and behave my very prettiest, and that will at least keep her upstairs till the dressing bell rings.'
So thinking, she entered Lady Caroline's sitting-room with her flowers.
'Oh, Julia! such pretty flowers! What should I do without your kind clever fingers to brighten my room for me? Have you seen the visitor my General has brought me? But of course not. She is bathing and dressing, and what not. The poor child seemed actually dripping when General Drysdale brought her in;--found her in the mist! Away up on Craig Findochart. I have handed her over to Briggs, and by and by I hope she will be able to see us. So nice to have somebody arrive this dismal afternoon. I really felt too dawny even to open the new book box from London, and as for my knitting, the stitches wouldn't count somehow, and that fool Briggs went and dropped some of them in trying to put it right, and altogether the appearance of a new face has made a most pleasing variety. You remember Mary Brown, of course,--a nice little girl, and very like her poor mother. A great friend of mine her mother was--a most dear woman. I believe I miss her sadly still, sometimes. In fact, I always do miss the Browns when I see the new people that have come to the manse,--not, my dear, that I would have you imagine I could undervalue any clergyman of our national church. Indeed, I consider it an honour to be able to contribute to its well-being in these levelling times, when if we who have a stake in the country do not support the Church, we shall have the State too tumbling in about our ears. Those dreadful levellers seem to reverence nothing, wanting to repeal the Corn Laws, and to call their dissenting meeting-places churches! and putting steeples on them, and actually ringing bells. What is to become of the British constitution if every dissenting chapel is to have a steeple and call itself a church, and ring a bell? As my dear General says sometimes, I think the flood gates must be opening. If it was only the English chapels, it would be of less consequence. You know my brother Pitthevlis is an Episcopalian, and I belonged to that Church till my marriage (the Drysdales have always held to the Establishment and the Revolution Settlement), not to mention that it is the Established form across the Border; but that every little gathering of impudent seceder bodies is to hang up its kettle and deave the whole parish, whenever it wishes to say its prayers, I consider it most improper, and neither to the glory of God or man. And therefore, my dear, I would be most scrupulous in paying the clergy every attention. Still, when I asked Mrs. Snodgrass and her children to come up and eat strawberries one summer's day, you may remember it, I could not but think of poor dear Mrs. Brown, and miss her sadly. I think in future I shall send my strawberries to Mrs. Snodgrass. I believe she would rather eat them at home, and I know I shall prefer it. Then it was so convenient in Dr. Brown's time, whenever a gentleman was required to make up the number at dinner, he would come so obligingly on the shortest notice, and be so useful in the conversation;--a most accomplished man, my dear. But this Mr. Snodgrass is different, dining out does not appear to be his forte; though he is a most excellent man, and I am sure we ought to appreciate him highly. But, as I was saying, this little Mary Brown was always a favourite of mine--a nice, quiet, soft little thing, and so bright and pretty, just like one of your charming posies there, and quite a relief on a grey colourless afternoon like this. But here is Briggs to say Miss Brown is ready to receive us. Come.'
They passed into an adjoining apartment, where, seated in an elbow chair by the fire, was Mary. She was wrapped in a large white peignoir, and her hair, gathered in a knot behind, had partly escaped from the comb, and fell in a stream of sunny brown across her shoulders.
'Mary, my dear, keep your seat, and try to get rested,' said Lady Caroline. 'Why, child, how like your mother you grow! and so pretty! I was so fond of your mother, my dear, and you remind me of her. I hope they have attended to you, and brought you whatever you want. Be sure and ask Briggs for anything that has been forgotten.'
And so she went on in a continuous monody, while the younger women listened; for, when Lady Caroline felt disposed to talk, she gave little heed to what was said by any one else, but followed the tangled thread of her own ideas, never doubting but they must be as interesting to persons of lower degree, as she found them herself. An Earl's daughter, and of a historical house, she deemed nothing so reverent as its traditional glories, and insisted with gracious pertinacity on the full measure of deference according thereto; and there is little doubt that when in after years she was duly gathered to her noble fathers, it would not have been the 'Law and the Testimony,' but the tables of precedence that would have been found graven on her heart. In one house at the other end of the county she had been led out to dinner behind the daughter of a more recent creation, but she had never crossed that threshold since, nor were the offenders ever again permitted to share in the festivities of Inchbracken.
'Well, girls, here comes Briggs with my tea, so I shall leave you to your own chit-chat; it will be half-an-hour yet before the dressing-bell rings.'
Julia drew her seat nearer to the fire, and spread her hands to the cheerful blaze: like the cats, she loved warmth.
'It seems long since we have met, Miss Brown. One never sees you in this neighbourhood now, though you are still so near. Pray, how do you like your new way of life? I heard a gentleman say, not long ago, that as it was on spiritual grounds you left Kilrundle, you would no doubt feel you were advancing, and becoming more like the spirits, in so far at least as being able to live in several houses at once goes. From what we hear, you live all over the village at Glen Effick,--a sort of ubiquity, in short. But perhaps 'living' is too gross a name for that sort of thing; 'pervade' has a more spiritual sound, only it does not suggest much in the way either of bed or dinner. Do you like it?'
Mary raised her eyes enquiringly to the other's face. Did she mean to be impertinent? And why?
'A woman lives with her natural protector, Miss Finlayson. Wherever my brother fixes his home, if he chooses to share it with me, of course I shall like it.'
Julia's eyelids winced. She had a rheumatic old aunt who lived in a sea-side village all the winter with a solitary maid, and who was wont to disappear in spring, when some family from an inland town would rent her cottage for the summer. With this ancient relative, Julia had been thankful to take up her abode when the demise of her parents left her homeless, and her own small income, added to that of the old lady, had made a better provision for both. Circumstances had changed since then. When Lady Caroline found she wanted a companion, Julia recognised the greater congeniality of a wealthy household. The old aunt might talk of ingratitude, but she was quietly dropped, and Lady Caroline enthroned in her 'heart' as nearest of kin. Julia's conscience, however, was not a troublesome organ, and Mary could have meant no retaliating shot, since she had never heard of the aunt; so she continued as though Mary had not spoken.
'And now you have extended your pervading presence to Craig Findochart! What a strange choice! You do not expect to do good to souls up there, do you?'
'Oh, Miss Finlayson, pray don't! I never was clever at understanding drolleries, and it pains me to hear sacred things lightly mentioned. But if you want to know how I came there, it is simple enough. Mr. Sangster has her son and another gentleman on a visit, and I have been staying there for a few days. We made a party to Findochart to show the stranger the view, the mist came down when we were on the top of the hill, we lost our way and were all scattered, General Drysdale found me and kindly insisted on bringing me here. It seems all natural enough when you come to know it, does it not?'
'Quite natural, dear, and very nice. Pray, forgive my poor, poor little joke. You remember my foolish fondness for being lively, or trying, at least; for it is not easily done in the lonely country life we lead here. Oh, why will Lady Caroline not improve her health by an autumn at Baden Baden? Pray now, tell me the news, since you are staying at a house full of visitors. Young Sangster is home, is he? Home for the holidays, one might say, for he is duller than many a schoolboy. But his friend. Tell me about him--what is he like! Rich, I suppose, or mamma would not endanger Miss Sophia's peace of mind by his presence. He will be eligible from an Auchlippie point of view, and if that is not a very ornamental one, at least it is pretty solid. Old MacSiccar, the writer, dined with the General last week, and he spoke of old Sangster as one of the warmest men hereabouts. So, my dear, you might do worse than go in for gaukie Peter. I half meditate a descent myself, only it would be a long run over a very heavy country, as a Leicestershire friend of mine phrases it. But tell me about the friend. Is he nice? The two shot with Captain John yesterday over Whauprigg moor, and they were expected for dinner, but there was some mistake about dressing bags, so we ladies never saw them. Cousin Kenneth says they are horrid cads both, but then his regiment are a parcel of supercilious puppies, so we need not mind that. What is the friend's name?'
'Wallowby.'
'Don't like the sound of it. Is he moderately nice? and is he rich?'
'They say he is very rich indeed, and has more in expectation from a bachelor uncle--a mill owner.'
'Ah! Those mill owners are tremendous people. And is he nice?'
'Really I don't know--That is a matter of taste.'
'Well, does he please your taste, Miss Precision?'
'I find him very polite and attentive, more so indeed than I care for. I think fussy people are apt to put me out, and it seems difficult to converse with him. I suppose my being Scotch prevents my knowing the things he talks best about.'
'And has Miss Sophia made an impression, do you think? Or is she impressed herself?'
'Indeed I don't know.'
'Ah! forgive me. I am so forgetful, but you know I mean no harm. I remember now, there is some tendresse between your brother and her. She certainly is handsome, and I hope he will get her if he wishes it, though, entre nous, she always struck me as a dull girl. Like a wedding cake, only good to look at.'
Here Briggs knocked and entered, with a bundle of white roses, each flushing into pinkish creaminess at the heart.
'With Captain Drysdale's compliments for Miss Brown.'
'Poor Colewort!' cried Julia, with just a thrill of viciousness in her voice, 'there go his hopes of a prize at the flower show next week! I know he has been nursing that rose for weeks past. For all that, Miss Brown, they will go nicely with your black gown, so I shall leave you now to embellish yourself with the poor man's broken hopes--Pathetic sentiment that? Ha! ha!'