Chapter Twenty-Five.
BEGINNING OF THE TWENTY-FOUR HOURS.
I can tell still how the whole of the glen was engaged about the hourof noon on the fourth of August month; a day to be among the lastforgotten by any of us, though it began as quietly as a roaring March.At the Spittal, between which and Thrums this is a halfway house, weregathered two hundred men in kilts, and many gentry from theneighboring glens, to celebrate the earl's marriage, which was to takeplace on the morrow, and thither, too, had gone many of my pupils togather gossip, at which girls of six are trustier hands than boys oftwelve. Those of us, however, who were neither children nor of gentleblood, remained at home, the farmers more taken up with the want ofrain, now become a calamity, than with an old man's wedding, and theirwomenfolk wringing their hands for rain also, yet finding time tomarvel at the marriage's taking place at the Spittal instead of inEngland, of which the ignorant spoke vaguely as an estate of thebride's.
For my own part I could talk of the disastrous drought with WasterLunny as I walked over his parched fields, but I had not such cause ashe to brood upon it by day and night; and the ins and outs of theearl's marriage were for discussing at a tea-table, where there werewomen to help one to conclusions, rather than for the reflections of asolitary dominie, who had seen neither bride nor bridegroom. So itmust be confessed that when I might have been regarding the skymoodily, or at the Spittal, where a free table that day invited all,I was sitting in the school-house, heeling my left boot, on which Ihave always been a little hard.
I made small speed, not through lack of craft, but because one can nomore drive in tackets properly than take cities unless he gives hiswhole mind to it; and half of mine was at the Auld Licht manse. Sinceour meeting six months earlier on the hill I had not seen Gavin, but Ihad heard much of him, and of a kind to trouble me.
"I saw nothing queer about Mr. Dishart," was Waster Lunny's frequentstory, "till I hearkened to Elspeth speaking about it to the lasses(for I'm the last Elspeth would tell onything to, though I'm her man),and syne I minded I had been noticing it for months. Elspeth says," hewould go on, for he could no more forbear quoting his wife thancomplaining of her, "that the minister'll listen to you nowadays wi'his een glaring at you as if he had a perfectly passionate interest inwhat you were telling him (though it may be only about a hen wi' thecroup), and then, after all, he hasna heard a sylib. Ay, I listened toElspeth saying that, when she thocht I was at the byre, and yet, wouldyou believe it, when I says to her after lousing time, 'I've beennoticing of late that the minister loses what a body tells him,' allshe answers is 'Havers.' Tod, but women's provoking."
"I allow," Birse said, "that on the first Sabbath o' June month, andagain on the third Sabbath, he poured out the Word grandly, but I'veta'en note this curran Sabbaths that if he's no michty magnificenthe's michty poor. There's something damming up his mind, and when hegets by it he's a roaring water, but when he doesna he's a despizabletrickle. The folk thinks it's a woman that's getting in his way, butdinna tell me that about sic a scholar; I tell you he would gang owera toon o' women like a loaded cart ower new-laid stanes."
Wearyworld hobbled after me up the Roods one day, pelting me withremarks, though I was doing my best to get away from him. "Even RobDow sees there's something come ower the minister," he bawled, "forRob's fou ilka Sabbath now. Ay, but this I will say for Mr. Dishart,that he aye gies me a civil word," I thought I had left the policemanbehind with this, but next minute he roared, "And whatever is thematter wi' him it has made him kindlier to me than ever." He must havetaken the short cut through Lunan's close, for at the top of the Roodshis voice again made up on me. "Dagone you, for a cruel pack to putyour fingers to your lugs ilka time I open my mouth."
As for Waster Lunny's daughter Easie, who got her schooling free forredding up the school-house and breaking my furniture, she would neverhave been off the gossip about the minister, for she was her mother inminiature, with a tongue that ran like a pump after the pans are full,not for use but for the mere pleasure of spilling.
On that awful fourth of August I not only had all this confused talkin my head but reason for jumping my mind between it and the Egyptian(as if to catch them together unawares), and I was like one who, withthe mechanism of a watch jumbled in his hand, could set it going if hehad the art.
Of the gypsy I knew nothing save what I had seen that night, yetwhat more was there to learn? I was aware that she loved Gavin andthat he loved her. A moment had shown it to me. Now with the AuldLichts, I have the smith's acquaintance with his irons, and so Icould not believe that they would suffer their minister to marry avagrant. Had it not been for this knowledge, which made me fearfulfor Margaret, I would have done nothing to keep these two young peopleapart. Some to whom I have said this maintain that the Egyptianturned my head at our first meeting. Such an argument is not perhapsworth controverting. I admit that even now I straighten under thefire of a bright eye, as a pensioner may salute when he sees ayoung officer. In the shooting season, should I chance to be leaningover my dyke while English sportsmen pass (as is usually the caseif I have seen them approaching), I remember nought of them save thatthey call me "she," and end their greetings with "whatever" (whichWaster Lunny takes to be a southron mode of speech), but theirladies dwell pleasantly in my memory, from their engaging faces tothe pretty crumpled thing dangling on their arms, that is a hat or abasket, I am seldom sure which. The Egyptian's beauty, therefore,was a gladsome sight to me, and none the less so that I had comeupon it as unexpectedly as some men step into a bog. Had she beenalone when I met her I cannot deny that I would have been content tolook on her face, without caring what was inside it; but she waswith her lover, and that lover was Gavin, and so her face was to meas little for admiring as this glen in a thunderstorm, when I knowthat some fellow-creature is lost on the hills.
If, however, it was no quick liking for the gypsy that almost temptedme to leave these two lovers to each other, what was it? It was thewarning of my own life. Adam Dishart had torn my arm from Margaret's,and I had not recovered the wrench in eighteen years. Rather than acthis part between these two I felt tempted to tell them, "Deplorable asthe result may be, if you who are a minister marry this vagabond, itwill be still more deplorable if you do not."
But there was Margaret to consider, and at thought of her I cursed theEgyptian aloud. What could I do to keep Gavin and the woman apart? Icould tell him the secret of his mother's life. Would that besufficient? It would if he loved Margaret, as I did not doubt. Pityfor her would make him undergo any torture rather than she shouldsuffer again. But to divulge our old connection would entail herdiscovery of me, and I questioned if even the saving of Gavin coulddestroy the bitterness of that.
I might appeal to the Egyptian. I might tell her even what I shudderedto tell him. She cared for him, I was sure, well enough to have thecourage to give him up. But where was I to find her?
Were she and Gavin meeting still? Perhaps the change which had comeover the little minister meant that they had parted. Yet what I hadheard him say to her on the hill warned me not to trust in any suchsolution of the trouble.
Boys play at casting a humming-top into the midst of others on theground, and if well aimed it scatters them prettily. I seemed to beplaying such a game with my thoughts, for each new one sent the othershere and there, and so what could I do in the end but fling my topsaside, and return to the heeling of my boot?
I was thus engaged when the sudden waking of the glen into life tookme to my window. There is seldom silence up here, for if the wind benot sweeping the heather, the Quharity, that I may not have heard fordays, seems to have crept nearer to the school-house in the night, andif both wind and water be out of earshot, there is the crack of a gun,or Waster Lunny's shepherd is on a stone near at hand whistling, or alamb is scrambling through a fence, and kicking foolishly with itshind legs. These sounds I am unaware of until they stop, when I lookup. Such a stillness was broken now by music.
From my window I saw a string of peop
le walking rapidly down the glen,and Waster Lunny crossing his potato-field to meet them. Rememberingthat, though I was in my stocking soles, the ground was dry, Ihastened to join the farmer, for I like to miss nothing. I saw acurious sight. In front of the little procession coming down the glenroad, and so much more impressive than his satellites that they may beput of mind as merely ploughman and the like following a show, was aHighlander that I knew to be Lauchlan Campbell, one of the pipersengaged to lend music to the earl's marriage. He had the name of athrawn man when sober, but pretty at the pipes at both times, and hecame marching down the glen blowing gloriously, as if he had the clanof Campbell at his heels. I know no man who is so capable on occasionof looking like twenty as a Highland piper, and never have I seen aface in such a blaze of passion as was Lauchlan Campbell's that day.His following were keeping out of his reach, jumping back every timehe turned round to shake his fist in the direction of the Spittal.While this magnificent man was yet some yards from us, I saw WasterLunny, who had been in the middle of the road to ask questions, fallback in fear, and not being a fighting man myself, I jumped the dyke.Lauchlan gave me a look that sent me farther into the field, andstrutted past, shrieking defiance through his pipes, until I lost himand his followers in a bend of the road.
"That's a terrifying spectacle," I heard Waster Lunny say when themusic had become but a distant squeal. "You're bonny at louping dykes,dominie, when there is a wild bull in front o' you. Na, I canna tellwhat has happened, but at the least Lauchlan maun hae dirked the earl.Thae loons cried out to me as they gaed by that he has been blawingawa' at that tune till he canna halt. What a wind's in the crittur!I'm thinking there's a hell in ilka Highlandman."
"Take care then, Waster Lunny, that you dinna licht it," said an angryvoice that made us jump, though it was only Duncan, the farmer'sshepherd, who spoke.
"I had forgotten you was a Highlandman yoursel', Duncan," Waster Lunnysaid nervously; but Elspeth, who had come to us unnoticed, orderedthe shepherd to return to the hillside, which he did haughtily.
"How did you no lay haud on that blast o' wind, Lauchlan Campbell,"asked Elspeth of her husband, "and speir at him what had happened atthe Spittal? A quarrel afore a marriage brings ill luck."
"I'm thinking," said the farmer, "that Rintoul's making his ain illluck by marrying on a young leddy."
"A man's never ower auld to marry," said Elspeth.
"No, nor a woman," rejoined Waster Lunny, "when she gets the chance.But, Elspeth, I believe I can guess what has fired that fearsomepiper. Depend upon it, somebody has been speaking disrespectful aboutthe crittur's ancestors."
"His ancestors!" exclaimed Elspeth, scornfully. "I'm thinking minecould hae bocht them at a crown the dozen."
"Hoots," said the farmer, "you're o' a weaving stock, and dinnaunderstand about ancestors. Take a stick to a Highland laddie, andit's no him you hurt, but his ancestors. Likewise it's his ancestorsthat stanes you for it. When Duncan stalked awa the now, what thinkyou he saw? He saw a farmer's wife dauring to order about hisancestors; and if that's the way wi' a shepherd, what will it be wi' apiper that has the kilts on him a' day to mind him o' his ancestorsilka time he looks down?"
Elspeth retired to discuss the probable disturbance at the Spittalwith her family, giving Waster Lunny the opportunity of saying to meimpressively--
"Man, man, has it never crossed you that it's a queer thing the likeo' you and me having no ancestors? Ay, we had them in a manner o'speaking, no doubt, but they're as completely lost sicht o' as aflagon lid that's fallen ahint the dresser. Hech, sirs, but they wouldneed a gey rubbing to get the rust off them now. I've been thinkingthat if I was to get my laddies to say their grandfather's name acurran times ilka day, like the Catechism, and they were to do thesame wi' their bairns, and it was continued in future generations, wemicht raise a fell field o' ancestors in time. Ay, but Elspeth wouldnahear o't. Nothing angers her mair than to hear me speak o' plantingtrees for the benefit o' them that's to be farmers here after me; andas for ancestors, she would howk them up as quick as I could plantthem. Losh, dominie, is that a boot in your hand?"
To my mortification I saw that I had run out of the school-housewith the boot on my hand as if it were a glove, and back I wentstraightway, blaming myself for a man wanting in dignity. It wasbut a minor trouble this, however, even at the time; and to recallit later in the day was to look back on happiness, for though I didnot know it yet, Lauchlan's playing raised the curtain on the greatact of Gavin's life, and the twenty-four hours had begun, to whichall I have told as yet is no more than the prologue.