CHAPTER XV
WHEREIN A SITUATION OFFERS AND I ENGAGE TO GO TRAVELLING WITH THE PRIEST
A week passed with no further incident particularly affecting thishistory. With my reduced and antique mentor I studied _la belle langue_,sedulous by day, at night pacing the front of the sea, giving words toits passion as it broke angry on the bar or thundered on the beach--thesea that still haunts me and invites, whose absence makes often lonelythe moorland country where is my home, where are my people's graves. Itcalled me then, in the dripping weather of those nights in France--itcalled me temptingly to try again my Shoes of Fortune (as now I namedthem to myself), and learn whereto they might lead.
But in truth I was now a prisoner to that inviting sea. The last Englishvessel had gone; the Channel was a moat about my native isle, and Iwas a tee'd ball with a passport that was no more and no less than awarder's warrant in my pouch. It had come to me under cover of Thurottwo days after Miss Walkinshaw's promise; it commanded _tous lesgouverneurs et tous les lieutenants-generaux de nos provinces et de nosarmees, gouverneurs particuliers et commandants de nos villes, placeset troupes_ to permit and pass the Sieur Greig anywhere in the country,_sans lui donner aucun empechement_, and was signed for the king by theDuc de Choiseuil.
I went round to make my devoirs to the lady to whom I owed the favour,and this time I was alone.
"Where's your shoon, laddie?" said she at the first go-off. "Losh! doye no' ken that they're the very makin' o' ye? If it hadna been for themClementina Walkinshaw wad maybe never hae lookit the gait ye were on.Ye'll be to put them on again!" She thrust forth a _bottine_ like adoll's for size and trod upon my toes, laughing the while withher curious suggestion of unpractised merriment at my first solemnacceptance of her humour as earnest.
"Am I never to get quit o' thae shoes?" I cried; "the very deil maun bein them."
"It was the very deil," said she, "was in them when it was your UncleAndrew." And she stopped and sighed. "O Andy Greig, Andy Greig! had Ibeen a wise woman and ta'en a guid-hearted though throughither Mearnsman's advice--toots! laddie, I micht be a rudas auld wife by mypreachin'. Oh, gie's a sang, or I'll dee."
And then she flew to the spinet (a handsome instrument singularly out ofkeeping with the rest of the plenishing in that odd lodging in the Ruede la Boucherie of Dunkerque), and touched a prelude and broke into anair.
To-day they call that woman lost and wicked; I have seen it said inbooks: God's pity on her! she was not bad; she was the very football offate, and a heart of the yellow gold. If I was warlock or otherwise hadcharms, I would put back the dial two score years and wrench her fromher chains.
O waly, waly up the bank, O waly, waly doon the brae. And waly, waly yon burn-side, Where I and my love wont to gae. I leaned my back unto an aik, I thocht it was a trusty tree, But first it bowed and syne it brak, Sae my true love did lichtly me.
They have their own sorrow even in script those ballad words of anexile like herself, but to hear Miss Walkinshaw sing them was one of thesaddest things I can recall in a lifetime that has known many sorrows.And still, though sad, not wanting in a sort of brave defiance ofcalumny, a hope, and an unchanging affection. She had a voice as sweetas a bird in the thicket at home; she had an eye full and melting; herlips, at the sentiment, sometimes faintly broke.
I turned my head away that I might not spy upon her feeling, for here,it was plain, was a tragedy laid bare. She stopped her song mid-way witha laugh, dashed a hand across her eyes, and threw herself into a chair.
"Oh, fie! Mr. Greig, to be backing up a daft woman, old enough to knowbetter, in her vapours. You must be fancying I am a begrutten bairn tobe snackin' my daidlie in this lamentable fashion, but it's just you andyour Mearns, and your Ballageich, and your douce Scots face and tonguethat have fair bewitched me. O Scotland! Scotland! Let us look oot atthis France o' theirs, Mr. Greig." She came to the window (her movementswere ever impetuous, like the flight of a butterfly), and "Do I no' wishthat was the Gallowgate," said she, "and Glasgow merchants were inthe shops and Christian signs abin the doors, like 'MacWhannal' and'Mackay,' and 'Robin Oliphant'? If that was Bailie John Walkinshaw, wi'his rattan, and yon was the piazza o' Tontine, would no' his dochterbe the happy woman? Look! look! ye Mearns man, look! look! at the bairnplaying pal-al in the close. 'Tis my little sister Jeanie that's marriedon the great Doctor Doig--him wi' the mant i' the Tron kirk--and bairnso' her ain, I'm tell't, and they'll never hear their Aunt Clemie namedbut in a whisper. And yon auld body wi' the mob cap, that's the baxter'swidow, and there's carvie in her scones that you'll can buy for a bawbeeapiece."
The maddest thing!--but here was the woman smiling through her tears,and something tremulous in her as though her heart was leaping at herbreast. Suddenly her manner changed, as if she saw a sobering sight,and I looked out again, and there was Father Hamilton heaving round thecorner of a lane, his face as red as the moon in a fog of frost.
"Ah!" cried Miss Walkinshaw, "here's France, sure enough, Mr. Greig. Wemust put by our sentiments, and be just witty or as witty as we can be.If you're no' witty here, my poor Mr. Greig, you might as well be dumb.A heart doesna maitter much; but, oh! be witty."
The priest was making for the house. She dried her tears before me, afrankness that flattered my vanity; "and let us noo to our English, Mr.Greig," said she as the knock came to the door. "It need be nae honestScots when France is chappin'. Would you like to travel for a season?"
The question took me by surprise; it had so little relevance to what hadgone before.
"Travel?" I repeated.
"Travel," said she again quickly. "In a glass coach with a companionwho has plenty of money--wherever it comes from--and see all Europe, andmaybe--for you are Scots like myself--make money. The fat priest wants asecretary; that's the long and the short of it, for there's his foot onthe stairs, and if you'll say yes, I fancy I can get you the situation."
I did not hesitate a second.
"Why, then yes, to be sure," said I, "and thank you kindly."
"Thank _you_, Paul Greig," said she softly, for now the Swiss had openedthe door, and she squeezed my wrist.
"_Benedicite!_" cried his reverence and came in, puffing hugely afterhis climb, his face now purple almost to strangulation. "May the devilfly away with turnpike stairs, Madame!--puff-puff--I curse them whetherthey be wood or marble;--puff-puff--I curse them Dunkerque; in Ostend,Paris, all Europe itself, ay even unto the two Americas. I curse theirdesigners, artisans, owners, and defenders in their waking and sleeping!Madame, kindly consider your stairs anathema!"
"You need all your wind to cool your porridge, as we say in Scotland,Father Hamilton," cried Miss Walkinshaw, "and a bonny-like thing it isto have you coming here blackguarding my honest stairs."
He laughed enormously and fell into a chair, shaking the house as if theworld itself had quaked. "Pardon, my dear Miss Walkinshaw," said he whenhis breath was restored, "but, by the Mass, you must confess 'tis thedeuce and all for a man--a real man that loves his viands, and sleepswell o' nights, and has a contented mind and grows flesh accordingly,to trip up to Paradise--" here he bowed, his neck swelling in massivefolds--"to trip up to Paradise, where the angels are, as easily as aballet-dancer--bless her!--skips to the other place where, by my faith!I should like to pay a brief visit myself, if 'twere only to see oldfriends of the Opera Comique. Madame, I give you good-day. Sir, MonsieurGreig--'shalt never be a man like thine Uncle Andrew for all thyconfounded elixir. I favour not your virtuous early rising in the young.There! thine uncle would a-been abed at this hour an' he were alive andin Dunkerque; thou must be a confoundedly industrious and sober Greig tobe dangling at a petticoat-tail--Pardon, Madame, 'tis the dearest tail,anyway!--before the hour meridian."
"And this is France," thought I. "Here's your papistical gospeller athome!" I minded of the Rev. Scipio Walker in the kirk of Mearns, animage ever of austerity, waling his words as they had come from Solomon,groaning even-on for man's eternal doom.
The priest quickly comprehended my surprise at his humour, and laughedthe more at that till a fit of coughing choked him. "_Mon Dieu_" saidhe; "our Andy reincarnate is an Andy most pestilent dull, or I'm acockle, a convoluted cockle, and uncooked at that. Why, man! cheer up,thou _croque mort_, thou lanthorn-jaw, thou veal-eye, thou melancholiouseater of oaten-meal!"
"It's a humblin' sicht!" said I. The impertinence was no sooner utteredthan I felt degraded that I should have given it voice, for here was apriest of God, however odd to my thinking, and, what was more, a man whomight in years have been my father.
But luckily it could never then, or at any other time, be said of FatherHamilton that he was thin-skinned. He only laughed the more at me."Touche!" he cried. "I knew I could prick the old Andy somewhere. Still,Master Paul, thine uncle was not so young as thou, my cockerel. Had seenhis world and knew that Scotland and its--what do you call them?--itsmanses, did not provide the universal ensample of true piety."
"I do not think, Father Hamilton," said I, "that piety troubled him verymuch, or his shoes had not been so well known in Dunkerque."
Miss Walkinshaw laughed.
"There you are, Father Hamilton!" said she. "You'll come little speedwith a man from the Mearns moors unless you take him a little moreseriously."
Father Hamilton pursed his lips and rubbed down his thighs, an imageof the gross man that would have turned my father's stomach, who alwaysliked his men lean, clean, and active. He was bantering me, this fatpriest of Dixmunde, but all the time it was with a friendly eye. ThinksI, here's another legacy of goodwill from my extraordinary uncle!
"Hast got thy pass yet, Master Dull?" said he.
"Not so dull, Master Minister, but what I resent the wrong word even ina joke," I replied, rising to go.
Thurot's voice was on the stair now, and Clan-carty's. If they were notto find their _protege_ in an undignified war of words with the priestof Dixmunde, it was time I was taking my feet from there, as the sayingwent.
But Miss Walkinshaw would not hear of it. "No, no," she protested, "wehave some business before you go to your ridiculous French--weary be onthe language that ever I heard _Je t'aime_ in it!--and how does the samemarch with you, Mr. Greig?"
"I know enough of it to thank my good friends in," said I, "but thatmust be for another occasion."
"Father Hamilton," said she, "here's your secretary."
A curious flash came to those eyes pitted in rolls of flabby flesh, Ithought of an eagle old and moulting, languid upon a mountain cliff inmisty weather, catching the first glimpse of sun and turned therebyto ancient memories. He said nothing; there was at the moment noopportunity, for the visitors had entered, noisily polite and posturingas was their manner, somewhat touched by wine, I fancied, and for thatreason scarcely welcomed by the mistress of the house.
There could be no more eloquent evidence of my innocence in these daysthan was in the fact that I never wondered at the footing upon whichthese noisy men of the world were with a countrywoman of mine. The causethey often spoke of covered many mysteries; between the Rue de Parisand the Rue de la Boucherie I could have picked out a score of Scots inexile for their political faiths, and why should not Miss Walkinshaw beone of the company? But sometimes there was just the faintest hint ofover-much freedom in their manner to her, and that I liked as little asshe seemed to do, for when her face flushed and her mouth firmed, andshe became studiously deaf, I felt ashamed of my sex, and could haveretorted had not prudence dictated silence as the wisest policy.
As for her, she was never but the minted metal, ringing true and decent,compelling order by a glance, gentle yet secure in her own strength,tolerant, but in bounds.
They were that day full of the project for invading England. It hadgone so far that soldiers at Calais and Boulogne were being practised inembarkation. I supposed she must have a certain favour for a step thatwas designed to benefit the cause wherefor I judged her an exile, butshe laughed at the idea of Britain falling, as she said, to a parcel of_crapauds_. "Treason!" treason!" cried Thurot laughingly.
"Under the circumstances, Madame----"
"--Under the circumstances, Captain Thurot," she interrupted quickly,"I need not pretend at a lie. This is not in the Prince's interest, thisinvasion, and it is a blow at a land I love. Mr. Greig here has just putit into my mind how good are the hearts there, how pleasant the tongue,and how much I love the very name of Scotland. I would be sorry to thinkof its end come to pleasure the women in Versailles."
"Bravo! bravo! _vive la bagatelle!_" cried my Lord Clancarty. "Gad! Isometimes feel the right old pathriot myself. Sure I have a good mind--"
"Then 'tis not your own, my lord," she cried quickly, displeasure in herexpression, and Clancarty only bowed, not a whit abashed at the sarcasm.
Father Hamilton drew me aside from these cheerful contentions, andplunged into the matter that was manifestly occupying all his thoughtssince Miss Walkinshaw had mooted me as his secretary.
"Monsieur Greig," he said, placing his great carcase between me and theothers in the room, "I declare that women are the seven plagues, and yethere we come chasing them from _petit lever_ till--till--well, till aslate as the darlings will let us. By the Mass and Father Hamilton knowstheir value, and when a man talks to me about a woman and the love hebears her, I think 'tis a maniac shouting the praise of the snake thathas crept to his breast to sting him. Women--chut!--now tell me what themischief is a woman an' thou canst."
"I fancy, Father Hamilton," said I, "you could be convinced of themerits of woman if your heart was ever attacked by one--your heart, thatdoes not believe anything in that matter that emanates from your head."
Again the eagle's gleam from the pitted eyes; and, upon my word, a sigh!It was a queer man this priest of Dixmunde.
"Ah, young cockerel," said he, "thou knowest nothing at all about it,and as for me--well, I dare not; but once--once--once there were dews inthe woods, and now it is very dry weather, Master Greig. How about thinehonour's secretaryship? Gripp'st at the opportunity, young fellow?Eh? Has the lady said sooth? Come now, I like the look of my oldAndrew's--my old Merry Andrew's nephew, and could willingly toleratehis _croque-mort_ countenance, his odour of the sanctuary, if he couldweather it with a plethoric good liver that takes the world as he findsit."
He was positively eager to have me. It was obvious from his voice. Hetook me by the button of my lapel as if I were about to run away fromhis offer, but I was in no humour to run away. Here was the very officeI should have chosen if a thousand offered. The man was a fatted sow tolook on, and by no means engaging in his manner to myself, but what wasI and what my state that I should be too particular? Here was a chanceto see the world--and to forget. Seeing the world might have been ofmost importance some months ago in the mind of a clean-handed younglad in the parish of Mearns in Scotland, but now it was of vastly moreimportance that I should forget.
"We start in a week," said the priest, pressing me closely lest I shouldchange my mind, and making the prospects as picturesque as he could."Why should a man of flesh and blood vex his good stomach with all thisbabblement of king's wars? and a pox on their flat-bottomed boats!I have seen my last Mass in Dixmunde; say not a word on that to ourfriends nor to Madame; and I suffer from a very jaundice of gold. Is't apact, friend Scotland?"
A pact it was; I went out from Miss Walkinshaw's lodging that afternoontravelling secretary to the fat priest.