CHAPTER I.
MY GOSSIP, MAISIE MAY.
It was upon the fair green braes that look over the Black Water of Deenear by where it meets the clear Ken, that Maisie May and I played manya morning at Wanderers and King's men. I mind it as it were yesterday,for the dales and holms were pranked out with white hawthorn and broadgowans, and by our woodland hiding-places little frail wildflowers grew,nodding at us as we lay and held our breath.
Now Maisie Lennox (for that was her proper given name) was my cousin,and had been gossip of mine ever since we came to the age of five years;Sandy, my elder brother, making nothing of me because I was so muchyounger and he ever hot upon his own desires. Neither, if the truth mustbe told, did I wear great love upon him at any time. When we fell out,as we did often, he would pursue after me and beat me; but mostly Iclodded him with pebble stones, whereat I had the advantage, being everstraight of eye and sure of aim. Whereas Sandy was gleyed[1] and threwstones like a girl, for all the stoutness of his arm.
[Footnote 1: Could not see straight.]
But that is not to say like Maisie Lennox, who was Anthony Lennox'sdaughter, and could throw stones with any one. She lived at the LesserDuchrae above the Black Water. As for me I lived at Earlstoun on thehillside above the Ken, which is a far step from the Duchrae. But ourfathers were of the one way of thinking, and being cousins by someformer alliance and friends of an ancient kindliness, it so happened, asI say, that Maisie Lennox and I played much together. Also my mother hadgreat tenderness of heart for the bit lass that had no mother, and afather as often on the moors with the wildfowl, as at home with his onelittle maid.
For the times were very evil. How evil and contrary they were, we thathad been born since 1660 and knew nothing else, could but dimlyunderstand. For though fear and unrest abode in our homes as constantindwellers, with the fear of the troopers and plunderers, yet because ithad always been so, it seemed not very hard to us. Indeed we bairns ofthese years played at Covenanting, as it had been the game of "Scots andEnglish" on the hillside, even from the time when we first began to runalone.
Well do I mind that day when I pleaded and fleeched on my father to takeme before him on Gay Garland, as he rode to the Duchrae. It was a briskMay day with an air vigorous as a draught of wine, yet cool, clear, andsweet as spring water is--a pearl of a day, such as hardly seems to comein these sullen later years.
So I cried out upon my father to take me. And as his manner was, he toldme to inquire of my mother. But I desired rather that he should ask forme himself. So I lingered about the doors till he should ride forth uponhis great black horse, that he might catch me up beside him on thecantle and cry in at the door, "Mother, I am taking William," as was hiskindly wont. Never a man so brave and true and simple as my father.
While I bided there, Alexander my brother seeing me wait, called me tocome with him to the hill. But because my heart was set to ride to theDuchrae with my father, I had no desire to go to the rabbit hunting. Sowhen he saw that I would not company with him, he mocked me and calledme "Lassie-boy!" Whereupon I smote him incontinent with a round pebblebetween the shoulder-blades, and he pursued me to the hallan door withinwhich was my mother, looking to the maids and the ordering of the house.
From thence I mocked him, but under my breath, for fear that forill-doing my mother would not permit me to go to the Duchrae.
"Stable-boy!" I called him, for he loved to be ever among the lowns ofthe wisp and currying comb, and as my mother said, grew like them evenin manners. "Faugh, keep wide from me, mixen-varlet!"
These were no more than our well-accustomed greetings.
"Wait till I catch you, little snipe, down by the water-side!" Sandycried, shaking his fist at me from the barn-end.
"And that will be a good day for your skin," answered I, "for I shallmake you wash your face thoroughly--ay, even behind your ears."
For Sandy, even when in after days he went a-courting, was nowayspartial to having many comings and goings with a basin of cold water.
So he departed unsatisfied, because that in words I had the better ofhim.
Then came my father, and as I expected, stooping from the saddle heswung me up before him, supposing that I had already advised my mother.But indeed I had not said so, and happily he asked me nothing.
"A good day and an easy mind, sweetheart," he cried up the stairs to mymother, "I ride to the Duchrae for Conference. William goes with me forcompany."
And my mother came down the steps to see us ride off. For my father andshe were like lad and lass after their years together, though not so asto make a show before strangers.
"Watch warily for the dragoons as you come to the narrows of the Loch,"she said, "and bide not at Kenmuir. For if there be mounted muskets inall the neighbourhood, it is at the Kenmuir that they will be found."
And she watched us out of sight with her hand to her brows, beforeturning inward to the maids--a bonny woman in these years, fair as ablowing rose, was my mother. Or at least, so the picture rises before meas I write.
Thus my father, William Gordon of Earlstoun, rode away through thesesweet holms and winding paths south toward the Duchrae. Nowhere is theworld to my thinking so gracious as between the green woodlands ofEarlstoun and the grey Duchrae Craigs. For the pools of the water of Kenslept, now black, now silver, beneath us. They were deep set about withthe feathers of the birches, and had the green firs standing bravelylike men-at-arms on every rocky knoll. Then the strath opened out and wesaw Ken flow silver-clear between the greenest and floweriest banks inthe world. The Black Craig of Dee gloomed on our right side as we rode,sulky with last year's heather. And the great Kells range sank behindus, ridge behind ridge of hills whose very names make a storm ofmusic--Millyea, Milldown, Millfire, Corscrine, and the hauntedfastnesses of the Meaull of Garryhorn in the head end of Carsphairn. Notthat my father saw any of this, for he minded only his riding and hisprayers; but even then I was ever taken up with what I had better havelet alone. However, I may be held excused if the memory rises unbiddennow, before the dimmer eye of one that takes a cast back into his youth,telling the tale as best he may, choosing here and there like a dortychild, only that which liketh him best.
In a little we clattered through the well-thatched roofs of New Gallowayand set Gay Garland's head to the southward along the water-side, wherethe levels of the Loch are wont to open out upon you blue and broad andbonny. All that go that way know the place. Gay Garland was the name ofmy father's black horse that many a time and oft had carried him insafety, and was loved like another child by my mother and all of us. Ihave heard it said that in the Praying Society of which he was a graveand consistent member, my father was once called in question because hegave so light a name to his beast.
"Ye have wives of your own," was all the answer he made them, "I supposethey have no freits and fancies, but such as you are ready to beanswerable for this day."
When my mother heard of this she said, "Ay, William, thy excuse was butold and lame, even that of our first father Adam--'The woman thou gavestme she called my horse Gay Garland.'"
I suppose that to-day Ken flashes as clear and the heather blooms asbonny on the Bennan side. But not for me, for I have laid away so manythat I loved in the howe of the Glen since then, and seen so many placesof this Scotland red with a crimson the bell heather never made. Ay mefor the times that were, and for all that is come and gone, whereof itshall be mine to tell!
But we came at long and last to the Duchrae, which is a sweet bit house,sitting on a south-looking brae-face, though not a laird's castle likethe tower of Earlstoun. Maisie Lennox met us at the loaning foot,whereat I begged that my father would put me down so that I might runbarefoot with her. And I think my father was in nowise unwilling, for atwelve-year-old callant on the saddle before one is no comfort, thoughGay Garland bore me like a feather.
So Maisie Lennox and I fell eagerly a-talking together after our firstshy chill of silence, having many things to say. But as soon as ever wereached the Craigs w
e fell to our fantasy. It was an old game with us,like the sand houses we used to build in bairns' play. We drew lots,long stalk and short stalk, which of us should be the Wanderer. MaisieLennox won the lot--as she always did, for I had no good fortune at thedrawing of cuts. So she went to hide in some bosky bouroch or moss-hag,while I bode still among the hazels at the woodside, accoutring myselfas a trooper with sword and pistol of tree.
Then I rode forth crying loud commands and sending my soldiers to seekout all the hidie-holes by the water-sides, and under all the tussocksof heather on the benty brows of the black mosses.
Soon Maisie Lennox began to cry after the manner of the huntedhill-folk--peeping like the nestlings of the muir-birds, craiking likethe bird of the corn, laughing like the jack-snipe--and all with soclear a note and such brisk assurance that I declare she had imposedupon Tom Dalyell himself.
After seeking long in vain, I spied the fugitive hiding behind apeat-casting on the edge of the moss, and immediately cried on the mento shoot. So those that were men-at-arms of my command pursued after andcracked muskets, as the Wanderers jooked and fled before us. Yetcumbered with cavalry as I was on the soft bog land, the light-footenemy easily escaped me.
Then when I saw well that catch her I could not, I sat me down on aheather bush and cried out to her that it was a silly game to play, andthat we should begin something else. So she stopped and came back slowlyover the heather. What I liked at all times about Maisie Lennox was thatshe never taunted back, but only took her own way when she wantedit--and she mostly did--silently and as if there were no other way inthe world. For in all things she had an excellent humour of silence,which, though I knew it not then, is rarer and worthier than diamonds.Also she knew, what it seems to me that a woman but rarely knows, whenit is worth while making a stand to gain her will.