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A
SON OF THE SOIL.
A
SON OF THE SOIL.
BY
MRS. OLIPHANT.
_NEW EDITION._
London:
MACMILLAN AND CO.
1872.
_The Right of Translation and Reproduction is reserved._
LONDON:
R. CLAY, SONS, AND TAYLOR, PRINTERS,
BREAD STREET HILL
A SON OF THE SOIL.
_CHAPTER I._
“I say, you boy, it always rains here, doesn’t it?--or ‘whiles
snaws’--as the aborigines say. You’re a native, ar’nt you? When do you
think the rain will go off?--do you ever have any fine weather here? I
don’t see the good of a fine country when it rains for ever and ever!
What do you do with yourselves, you people, all the year round in such a
melancholy place?”
“You see we know no better”--said the farmer of Ramore, who came in at
this moment to the porch of his house, where the young gentleman was
standing, confronted by young Colin, who would have exploded in boyish
rage before now, if he had not been restrained by the knowledge that his
mother was within hearing--“and, wet or dry, the country-side comes
natural to them it belongs to. If it werena for a twinge o’ the
rheumatics noo and then--and my lads are ower young for that--it’s a
grand country. If it’s nae great comfort to the purse, it’s aye a
pleasure to the e’e. Come in to the fire, and take a seat till the rain
blows by. _My_ lads,” said Colin of Ramore, with a twinkle of
approbation in his eye, “take little heed whether it’s rain or shine.”
“I’m of a different opinion,” said the stranger, “I don’t like walking
up to the ankles in those filthy roads.” He was a boy of fifteen or so,
the same age as young Colin, who stood opposite him breathing hard with
opposition and natural enmity; but the smart Etonian considered himself
much more a man of the world and of experience than Colin the elder, and
looked on the boy with calm contempt. “I’ll be glad to dry my boots if
you’ll let me,” he said, holding up a foot which beside young Colin’s
sturdy hoof looked preternaturally small and dainty.
“A fit like a lassie’s!” the country boy said to himself with
responsive disdain. Young Colin laughed half aloud as his natural enemy
followed his father into the house.
“He’s feared to wet his feet,” said the lad, with a chuckle of mockery,
holding forth his own, which to his consciousness were never dry. Any
moralist, who had happened to be at hand, might have suggested to Colin
that a faculty for acquiring and keeping up wet feet during every hour
of the twenty-four which he did not spend in bed was no great matter to
brag of: but then moralists did not flourish at Ramore. The boy made a
rush out through the soft-falling incessant rain, dashed down upon the
shingly beach with an impetuosity which dispersed the wet pebbles on all
sides of him, and jumping into the boat, pushed out upon the loch, not
for any particular purpose, but to relieve a little his indignation and
boyish discomfiture. The boat was clumsy enough, and young Colin’s
“style” in rowing was not of a high order, but it caught the quick eye
of the Eton lad, as he glanced out from the window.
“That fellow can row,” he said to himself, but aloud, with the
_nonchalance_ of his race, as he went forward, passing the great cradle
which stood on one side of the fire, to the chair which the farmer’s
wife had placed for him. She received with many kindly homely
invitations and welcomes the serene young potentate as he approached her
fireside throne.
“Come awa--come in to the fire. The roads are past speaking o’ in this
soft weather. Maybe the young gentleman would like to change his feet,”
said the soft-voiced woman, who sat in a wicker-work easy chair, with a
very small baby, and cheeks still pale from its recent arrival. She had
soft, dark, beaming eyes, and the softest pink flush coming and going
over her face, and was wrapped in a shawl, and evidently considered an
invalid--which, for the mother of five or six children, and the mistress
of Ramore Farm, was an honourable but inconvenient luxury. “I could
bring you a pair of my Colin’s stockings in a moment. I dare say they’re
about your size--or if you would like to gang ben the house into the
spare room, and change them----”
“Oh, thanks; but there is no need for that,” said the visitor, with a
slight blush, being conscious, as even an Eton boy could not help being,
of the humorous observation of the farmer, who had come in behind him,
and in whose eyes it was evident the experienced “man” of the fifth form
was a less sublime personage than he gave himself credit for being. “I
am living down at the Castle,” he added, hastily; “I lost my way on the
hills, and got dreadfully wet; otherwise I don’t mind the rain.” And he
held the dainty boots, which steamed in the heat, to the fire.
“But you maunna gang out to the hills in such slight things again,” said
Mrs. Campbell, looking at them compassionately; “I’ll get you a pair of
my Colin’s strong shoes and stockings that’ll keep your feet warm. I’ll
just lay the wean in the cradle, and you can slip them off the time I’m
away,” said the good woman, with a passing thought for the boy’s
bashfulness. But the farmer caught her by the arm and kept her in her
chair.
“I suppose there’s mair folk than you about the house, Jeannie?” said
her husband, “though you’re so positive about doing everything yoursel’.
I’ll tell the lass; and I advise you, young gentleman, not to be
shamefaced, but take the wife’s advice. It’s a great quality o’ hers to
ken what’s good for other folk.”
“I ken by mysel’,” said the gentle-voiced wife, with a smile--and she
got up and went softly to the window, while the young stranger took her
counsel. “There’s Colin out in the boat again, in a perfect pour of
rain,” she said to herself, with a gentle sigh--“he’ll get his death o’
cauld; but, to be sure, if he had been to get his death that gate, it
would have come afore now. There’s a great deal of rain in this country,
you’ll be thinking?--a’ the strangers say sae; but I canna see that they
bide away for a’ that, though they’re aye grumbling. And if you’re fond
o’ the hills, you’ll get reconciled to the rain. I’ve seen mony an
afternoon when there was scarce an hour without two or three rainbows,
and the mist liftin’ and droppin’ again, as if it was set to music. I
canna say I have any experience mysel’, but so far as ane can imagine, a
clear sky and a shining sun, day after day, would be awfu’
monotonous--like a face wi’ a set smile. I tell the bairns it’s as guid
as a fairy-tale to watch the clouds--and it’s no common sunshine when it
does come, but a kind o’ wistful light, as if he couldna tell whether he
ever might see you again; but it’s awfu’ when the crops are out, as they
are the noo--the Lord forgive me for speaking as if I liked the rain!”
And by this time her boy-visitor, having succeeded, much to his comfort
and disgust, in replacing his wet _chaussures_ by Colin’s dry, warm
stockings and monstrous shoes, Mrs. Campbell came back to her seat and
lifted her baby again on her knee. The baby was of angelic disposition,
and perfectly disposed to make itself comfortable in its cradle, but the
usually active mother evidently made it a kind of excuse to herself for
her compulsory repose.
“The wife gets easy to her poetry,” said the farmer, with a smile,
“which is pleasant enough to hear, though it doesn’t keep the grain from
sprouting. You’re fond o’ the hills, you Southland folk? You’ll be from
level land yoursel’, I reckon?--where a’ the craps were safe housed
afore the weather broke? We have nae particular reason to complain yet,
if we could but make sure o’ a week or twa’s dry weather. It’ll be the
holidays still with you?”
“Yes,” said young Frankland, slightly disgusted at being so calmly set
down as a schoolboy.
“I hear there’s some grand schools in England,” said Mrs. Campbell; “no’
that they’re to compare wi’ Edinburgh, I suppose? Colin, there’s some
sherry wine in the press; I think a glass wouldna’ harm the young
gentleman after his wetting. He’ll take something any-way, if you would
tell Jess. It’s hungry work climbing our hills for a laddie like you--at
least if I may reckon by my ain laddies that are aye ready at meal
times,” said the farmer’s wife, with a gracious smile that would not
have misbecome a duchess. “You’ll be at ane o’ the great schools, I
suppose? I aye like to learn what I can when there’s ony opportunity. I
would like my Colin to get a’ the advantages, for he’s well worthy o’ a
good education, though we’re rather out of the way of it here.”
“I am at Eton,” said the English boy, who could scarcely refrain from a
little ridicule at the idea of sharing “a’ the advantages” of that
distinguished foundation with a colt like young Colin; “but I should
think you would find it too far off to send your son there,” he added,
all his good breeding being unable to smother a slight laugh as he
looked round the homely apartment, and wondered what “all the fellows”
would say to a schoolfellow from Ramore.
“Nae occasion to laugh, young gentleman,” said Colin the elder; “there’s
been Lord Chancellors o’ England, and generals o’ a’ the forces, that
have come out of houses nae better than this. I am just as ye find me,
but I wouldna’ say what might befall our Colin. In this country there’s
nae law to bind a man, to the same line o’ life as his fathers. Despise
naebody, my man, or you may live to be despised in your turn.”
“I beg your pardon,” said young Frankland, blushing hotly, and feeling
Colin’s shoes weigh upon his feet like lead; “I did not intend----”
“No, no,” said Mrs. Campbell, soothingly; “it’s the maister that takes
up fancies; but nae doubt Eton is far ower expensive for the like of us,
and a bit callant like you may laugh without ony offence. When Colin
comes to be a man he’ll make his ain company, or I’m mista’en; but I’ve
no wish to pit him amang lords and gentlemen’s sons that would jeer at
his homely ways. And they tell me there’s schules in Edinburgh far afore
onything that’s kent in England--besides the college,” said the mother,
with a little pride; “our Colin’s done with his schuling. Education
takes longer wi’ the like of you. After Martinmas he’s gaun in to
Glasgow to begin his _course_.”
To this proud intimation the young visitor listened in silence, not
being able to connect the roughshod lad in the boat with a University,
whatever might be its form. He addressed himself instead to the scones
and butter which Jess the servant, a handsome, powerful woman of five
feet eight or so, had set before him on the table. Jess lingered a
little, ere she left the room, to pinch the baby’s cheeks, and say,
“Bless the lamb! eh, what a guid bairn!” with patriarchal friendly
familiarity. Meanwhile the farmer sat down, with a thump which made it
creak, upon the large old haircloth sofa which filled up one end of the
room.
“I’ve heard there’s a great difference between our colleges and the
colleges in England,” said Colin. “Wi’ you they dinna train a lad to
onything in particular; wi’ us it’s a’ for a profession,--the kirk, or
the law, or physic, as it may be,--a far mair sensible system. I’m no
sure it’s just civil, though,” said the farmer, with a quaint mingling
of Scotch complacency and Scotch politeness, “to talk to a stranger of
naething but the inferiority o’ his ain country. It may be a’ true
enough, but there’s pleasanter topics o’ discourse. The Castle’s a
bonnie situation? and if you’re fond o’ the water, yachting, and
boating, and that kind o’ thing, there’s grand opportunity amang our
lochs.”
“We’ve got a yacht,” said the boy, who found the scones much to his
taste, and began to feel a glow of comfort diffusing itself through his
inner man--“the fastest sailer I know. We made a little run yesterday
down to the Kyles; but Sir Thomas prefers the grouse, though it’s
awfully hard work, I can tell you, going up those hills. It’s so beastly
wet,” said the young hero. “I never was down here before; but Sir Thomas
comes every year to the Highlands; he likes it--he’s as strong as a
horse--but I prefer the yacht, for my part.”
“And who’s Sir Thomas, if ane may speer--some friend?” said the farmer’s
wife.
“Oh--he’s my father!” said the Etonian; and a natural flush of
shamefacedness at acknowledging such a relationship rose upon the
countenance of the British boy.
“Your father?” said Mrs. Campbell, with some amazement, “that’s an awfu’
queer way to speak of your father; and have you ony brothers and sisters
that you’re this lang distance off your lane,--and your mamma maybe
anxious about you?” continued the kind mother, with a wistful look of
inquiry. She was prepared to be sorry for him, concluding that a boy who
spoke of his father in such terms, must be motherless, and a neglected
child. It was the most tender kind of curiosity which animated the good
woman. She formed a theory about the lad on the spot, as women do, and
concluded that his cruel father paid no regard to him, and that the
boy’s heart had been hardened by neglect and want of love. “Figure our
Colin ca’ing the maister Mr. Campbell!” she said to herself, and looked
very pitifully at young Frankland, who ate his scone without any
consciousness of her amiable imaginations.
“Oh, I’m not afraid,” said the calm youth. “She knows better; there’s
ten of us, and some one of the family comes to grief most days, you
know. She’s used to that. Besides, I’ll get home long before Sir Thomas.
It’s only four now, and I suppose one could walk down from here--how
soon?” All this time he went on so steadily at the scones and the milk,
that the heart of the farmer’s wife warmed to the possessor of such a
frank and appreciative appetite.
“You might put the horse in the gig and drive the young gentleman down,”
said the soft-hearted woman; “or Colin could row him in the boat as far
as the pier. It’s a lang walk for such a callant, and you’re no thrang.
It’s awfu’ to think o’ the rain, how it’s taking the bread out of us
poor folk’s mouths; but to be sure it’s the Lord’s will--if it be na,”
said the homely speculator, “that the weather’s ane of the things that
has been permitted, for wise reasons, to fa’ into Ither Hands; and I’m
sure, judging by the way it comes just when it’s no’ wanted, ane might
think so, mony a time, in this country side. But ah! it’s sinfu’ to
speak,--and look at yon bonnie rainbow,” she continued, turning to the
window with her baby in her arms.
Young Frankland got up slowly as he finished his scone. He was only
partially sensible of the extreme beauty of the scene before him; but
the farmer’s wife stood with her baby in her arms, with hidden lights
kindling in her soft eyes, expanding and beaming over the lovely
landscape. It did her good like a cordial; though even Colin, her
sensible husband, looked on, with a smile upon his good-humoured
countenance, and was a little amused and much puzzled, as he had been a
hundred times before--seeing his wife’s pleasure in those common and
every-day processes of nature, to know why.
Young Colin in the boat understood better,--he was lying on his oars
gazing at it the same moment; arrested in his petulant boyish thoughts,
as she had been in her anxieties, the lad came out of, and lost himself
in the scene. The sun had burst out suddenly upon the noble range of
hills which stretched across the upper end of the loch--that wistful
tender sun which shone out always, dazzling with pathetic gleams of
sudden love in this country, “as if he couldna tell whether he might
ever see you again,” as Mrs. Campbell said--and, just catching the
skirts of the rain, had flung a double rainbow across the sheltered
lovely curve of the upper banks. One side of the arch stooping over the
heathery hillside, lighted it up with an unearthly glory, and the other
came down in stately columns one grand shaft within the other, with
solid magnificence and steadiness, into the water. Young Frankland at
the window could not help thinking within himself, what a beautiful
picture it would make, “if any of those painter fellows could do a
rainbow;” but as for young Colin in the boat, the impulse in his heart
was to dash up to those heavenly archways, and embrace the shining
pillar, and swing himself aloft half-boy, half-poet, to that celestial
world, where fiery columns may stand fast upon moving waters--and all is
true, but nothing real. The hills, for their share, lay very quiet,
taking no part in the momentary drama of the elements; standing passive,
letting the sudden light search them over and over, as if seeking for
hidden treasure. Just in the midst of the blackness of the rain, never
was light and joy so sweet and sudden. The farmer’s wife came away from
the window with a sigh of pleasure, as the baby stirred in her arms;
“Eh, but the world’s bonnie, bonnie!” she said to herself, with a
feeling that some event of joyful importance had just been enacted
before her. As for the boy on the loch, who, being younger, was more
abstracted from common affairs, his dream was interrupted loudly by a
call from the door: “Come in wi’ the boat; I’ve a message to gie ye for
the pier,” cried the farmer, at the top of his voice; and the country
boy started back to himself, and made a dash at his oars, and pulled
inshore as violently and unhandsomely as if the nature of his dreams had
been found out, and he was ashamed of himself. Colin forgot all the
softening influences of the scene, and all the fine thoughts that had,
unconscious to himself, come into his head, when he found that the
commission his father meant to give him was that of rowing the
stranger-boy as far as the pier, which was about three miles farther
down the loch. If disobedience had been an offence understood at Ramore,
possibly he might have refused; but neither boy nor man, however
well-inclined, is likely to succeed in doing, the first time of trying,
a kind of sin with which he has no acquaintance. To give Colin justice,
he did his best, and showed a cordial inclination to make himself
disagreeable. He came in so clumsily that the boat grounded a yard or
two off shore, and would not by any coaxing be persuaded to approach
nearer. And when young Frankland, much to his amazement, leapt on board
without wetting his feet, as the country lad maliciously intended, and
came against Colin with such force as almost to knock him down, the
young boatman thrust his passenger forward very rudely, and was as near
capsizing the boat as pride would permit him. “Sit forrit in the stern,
sit forrit. Were ye never in a boat afore, that ye think I can row and
you sitting there?” said the unchristian Colin, bringing one of the oars
heavily against his adversary’s shins.
“What the deuce do you mean by that? Give me the oar! We don’t row like
that on the Thames, I can tell you,” said the stranger; and the brief
skirmish between them for the possession of the oar having terminated
abruptly by the intervention of Colin the elder, who was still within
hearing, the two boys set off, sullenly enough, down the loch. The
rainbow was dying off by this time, the clouds rolling out again over
the hills; and the celestial pillars and heavenly archways had no
longer, as may be supposed, since this rude invasion of the real and
disagreeable, the least remnant of ground to stand upon in the thoughts
of young Colin of Ramore.
CHAPTER II.
“Ye saw the young gentleman safe to the pier? He’s a bonnie lad, though
maybe no as weel-mannered as ane would like to see,” said Mrs. Campbell.
“Keep me! such a way to name his father--Bairns maun be awfu’ neglected
in such a grand house--aye left wi’ servants, and never trained to trust
their bits of secrets to father or mother. Laddies,” said the farmer’s
wife, with a little solemnity, looking across the sleeping baby upon the
four heads of different sizes which bent over their supper at the table
before her, “mind you aye, that, right or wrong, them that’s maist
interested in whatever befalls you is them that belongs to you--maist
ready to praise if ye’ve done weel, and excuse you if ye’ve done wrang.
I hope you were civil to the strange callant, Colin, my man?”
“Oh, ay,” said young Colin, not without a movement of conscience; but he
did not think it necessary to enter into details.
“When a callant like that is pridefu’, and looks as if he thought
himself better than other folk, I hope my laddies are no the ones to
mind,” said the mistress of Ramore. “It shows he hasna had the
advantages that might have been expected. It’s nae harm to you, but a
great deal o’ harm to him. Ye dinna ken how weel off you are, you boys,”
said the mother, making a little address to them as they sat over their
supper; Little Johnnie, whose porridge was too hot for him, turned
towards her the round, wondering black eyes, which beamed out like a
pair of stray stars from his little freckled face, and through his wisps
of flaxen hair, bleached white by rain and sun; but the three others
went on very steadily with their supper, and did not disturb themselves;
“there’s aye your father at hand ready to tell ye whatever you want to
ken--no like yon poor callant, that would have to gang to a tutor, or a
servant, or something worse; no that he’s an ill laddie; but I’m aye
keen to see ye behave yoursels like gentlemen, and yon wasna ony great
specimen, as it was very easy to see.”
After this there was a pause, for none of the boys were disposed to
enter into that topic of conversation. After a little period of silence,
during which the spoons made a diversion and filled up the vacancy, they
began to find their tongues again.
“It’s awfu’ wet up on the hill,” said Archie, the second boy, “and they
say the glass is aye falling, and the corn on the Barnton fields has
been out this three weeks, and Dugald Macfarlane, he says it’s
sprouting--and oh, mother!”
“What is it, Archie?”
“The new minister came by when I was down at the smiddy with the brown
mare. You never saw such a red head. It is red enough to set the kirk on
fire. They were saying at the smiddy that naebody would stand such a
colour of hair--it’s waur than no preaching weel--and I said I thought
that too,” said the enterprising Archie; “for I’m sure I never mind ony
o’ the sermon, but I couldna forget such red hair.”
“And I saw him too,” said little Johnnie; “he clapped me on the head,
and said how was my mammaw; and I said we never ca’ed onybody mammaw,
but just mother; and then he clapped me again, and said I was a good
boy. What for was I a good boy?” said Johnnie, who was of an inquiring
and philosophical frame of mind, “because I said we didna say mammaw? or
just because it was me?”
“Because he’s a kind man, and has a kind thought for even the little
bairns,” said Mrs. Campbell, “and it wasna’ like a boy o’ mine to say an
idle word against him. Do you think they know better at the smiddy,
Archie, than here? Poor gentleman,” said the good woman, “to be a’ this
time wearyin’ and waitin’, and his heart yearnin’ within him to get a
kirk, and do his Master’s work; and then to ha’e a parcel of haverels
set up and make a faction against him because he has a red head. It
makes ane think shame o’ human nature and Scotch folk baith.”
“But he canna preach, mother,” said Colin, breaking silence almost for
the first time; “the red head is only an excuse.”
“I dinna like excuses,” said his mother, “and I never kent before that
you were a judge o’ preaching. You may come to ken better about it
yoursel before a’ ’s done. I canna but think there’s something wrang
when the like o’ that can be,” said Mrs. Campbell; “he’s studied, and
he’s learned Latin and Greek, and found out a’ the ill that can be said
about Scripture, and a’ the lies that ever have been invented against
the truth; and he’s been brought up to be a minister a’ his days, and
knows what’s expected. But as soon as word gangs about that the Earl has
promised him our kirk, there’s opposition raised. No’ that onybody kens
ony ill of him; but there’s the smith, and the wright, and Thomas Scott
o’ Lintwearie, maun lay their heads thegether--and first they say he
canna preach, and then that he’ll no’ visit, and at least, if a’thing
else fails, that he has a red head. If it was a new doctor that was
coming, wha would be heeding about the colour o’ his hair? but it’s the
minister that’s to stand by our deathbeds, and baptize our bairns, and
guide us in the right way: and we’re no to let him come in peace, or sit
down in comfort. If we canna keep him from getting the kirk, we can make
him miserable when he does get it. Eh, bairns; I think shame! and I’m
no’ so sure as I am in maist things,” said the farmer’s wife, looking up
with a consciousness of her husband’s presence, “that the maister
himsel--”
“Weel, I’m aye for popular rights,” said Colin of Ramore. He had just
come in, and had been standing behind taking off his big coat, on which
the rain glistened, and listening to all that his wife said. “But if
Colin was a man and a minister,” said the farmer with a gleam of humour,
as he drew his chair towards the fire, “and had to fight his way to a
kirk like a’ the young men now-a-days, I wouldna say I would like it.
They might object to his big mouth; and you’ve ower muckle a mouth
yoursel’, Jeanie,” continued big Colin, looking admiringly at the comely
mother of his boys. “I might tell them wha he took it from, and that if
he had as grand a flow of language as his mother, there would be nae
fear o’ him. As for the red head, the Earl himsel’s a grand example, and
if red hair’s right in an earl it canna be immoral in a minister; but
Jeanie, though you’re an awfu’ revolutionary, ye maunna meddle with the
kirk, nor take away popular rights.”
“I’m no gaun to be led into an argument,” said the mistress, with a
slightly vexed expression; “but I’m far from sure about the kirk. After
you’ve opposed the minister’s coming in, and held committees upon him,
and offered objections, and done your best to worry the life out o’ him,
and make him disgusted baith at himsel’ and you, do you think after that
ye can attend to him when you’re weel, and send for him when you’re
sick, wi’ the right feelings? But I’m no gaun to speak ony mair about
the minister. Is the corn in yet, Colin, from the East Park? Eh, bless
me! and it was cut before this wean was born?”
“We’ll have but a poor harvest after a’,” said the farmer; “it’s a
disappointment, but it canna be helpit. It’s strange how something aye
comes in, to keep a man down when he thinks he’s to have a bit margin;
but we must jog on, Jeanie, my woman. As long as we have bread to eat,
let us be thankful. And as for Colin, it needna make ony difference.
Glasgow’s no so far off, but he can still get his parritch out of the
family meal; and as long as he’s careful and diligent we’ll try and fend
for him. It’s hard work getting bread out of our hillside,” said big
Colin; “but ye may have a different life from your father’s, lad, if you
take heed to the opportunities in your hands.”
“A’ the opportunities in the world,” said Colin the younger, in a burst,
“wouldna give me a chance like yon English fellow. Everything comes
ready to him. It’s no fair. I’ll have to make up wi’ him first, and then
beat him--and so I would,” said the boy, with a glow on his face, and a
happy unconsciousness of contradicting himself, “if I had the chance.”
“Well,” said big Colin, “that’s just ane o’ the things we have to count
upon in our way of living. It’s little credit to a man to be strong,”
said the farmer, stretching his great arms with a natural consciousness
of power, “unless he has that to do that tries it. It’s harder work to
me, you may be sure, to get a pickle corn off the hillside, than for the
English farmers down in yon callant’s country to draw wheat and fatness
out o’ their furrows. But I think mysel’ nane the worse a man,”
continued Colin of Ramore, with a smile; “Sir Thomas, as the laddie ca’s
him, gangs wading over the heather a’ day after the grouse and the
paitricks; he thinks he’s playing, himsel’, but he’s as hard at work as
I am. We’re a’ bluid relations, though the family likeness whiles lies
deep and is hard to find. A man maun be fighting wi’ something. If it’s
no the dour earth that refuses him bread, it’s the wet bog and the
heather that comes atween him and his sport, as he ca’s it. Never you
mind wha’s before you on the road. Make up to him, Colin. Many a day
he’ll stray out o’ the path gathering straws to divert himsel’, when
you’ve naething to do but to push on.”
“Eh, but I wouldna like a laddie o’ mine to think,” interrupted his
mother, eagerly, “that there’s nae guid but getting on in the world.
I’ll not have my bairns learn ony such lesson; laddies,” said the
farmer’s wife, in all the solemnity of her innocence, “mind you this
aboon a’. You might be princes the morn, and no as good men as your
father. There’s nae Sir Thomases, nor Earls, nor Lord Chancellors I ever
heard tell o’, that was mair thought upon nor wi’ better reason----”
At this moment Jess entered from the kitchen, to suggest that it was
bedtime.
“And lang enough for the mistress to be sitting up, and she so
delicate,” said the sole servant of the house. “If ye had been in your
ain room wi’ a fire and a book to read, it would have been wiser-like,
than among a’ thae noisy laddies, wi’ the wean and a seam as if ye were
as strong as me. Maister, I wish you would speak to Colin; he’s awfu’
masterfu’; instead of gaun to his bed, like a civilized lad, yonder he
is awa’ ben to the kitchen and down by the fire to read his book, till
his hair’s like a singed sheep’s-head, and his cheeks like burning
peats. Ane canna do a hand’s-turn wi’ a parcel o’ callants about the
place day and nicht,” said Jess, in an aggrieved tone.
“And just when Archie Candlish has suppered his horses and come in for
half an hour’s crack,” said the master. “I’ll send Colin to his bed; but
dinna have ower muckle to say to Archie, he’s a rover,” continued the
good-tempered farmer, who “made allowances” for a little love-making. He
raised himself out of his arm-chair with a little hesitation, like a
great mastiff uncoiling itself out of a position of comfort, and went
slowly away as he spoke, moving off through the dimly-lighted room like
an amiable giant as he was.
“Eh, keep me!--and Archie Candlish had just that very minute lookit in
at the door,” said Jess, lifting her apron to her cheeks, which were
glowing with blushes and laughter. “No that I wanted him; but he came in
wi’ the news aboot the new minister, and noo I’ll never hear an end o’t,
and the maister will think he’s aye there.”
“If he’s a decent lad and means weel, its nae great matter,” said the
mistress; “but I dinna approve of ower mony lads. Ye may gang through
the wood and through the wood and take but a crooked stick at the end.”
“There’s naebody I ken o’ that the mistress can mean, but Bowed Jacob,”
said Jess reflectively, “and are might do waur than take him though he’s
nae great figure of a man. The siller that body makes is a miracle, and
it would be grand to live in a twa-storied house, and keep a lass; but
he’s an awfu’ Establishment man, and he micht interfere wi’ my
convictions,” said the young woman with a glimmer of humour which found
no response in the mistress’s serious eyes; for Mrs. Campbell, being of
a poetical and imaginative temperament, took most things much in
earnest, and was slow to perceive a joke.
“You shouldna speak about convictions in that light way, Jess,” said the
farmer’s wife. “I wouldna meddle wi’ them mysel’, no for a’ the wealth
o’ the parish; but though the maister and me are strong Kirk folk, ye
ken ye never were molested here.”
“To hear Archie Candlish about the new minister!” cried Jess, whose
quick ear had already ascertained that her master had paused in the
kitchen to speak to her visitor, “ye would laugh; but though it’s grand
fun for the folk, maybe it’s no so pleasant for the poor man. We put
down our names for the man we like best, us Free Kirk folk, but it’s
different in the parish. There’s Tammas Scott, he vows he’ll object to
every presentee the Earl puts in. I’m no heeding for the Earl,” said
Jesse; “he’s a dour tory and can fecht for himsel’; but eh I wouldna be
that poor minister set up there for a’ the parish to object to. I’d
rather work at a weaver’s loom or sell herrings about the country-side,
if it was me!”
“Weel, weel, things that are hard for the flesh are guid for the
spirit--or at least folk say so,” cried the mistress of Ramore.
“I dinna believe in that for my part,” said the energetic Jess, as she
lifted the wooden cradle in her strong arms. “Leave the wean still,
mistress, and draw your shawl about ye. I could carry you too, for that
matter. Eh me, I’m no o’ that way o’ thinking; when ye’re happy and weel
likit, ye’re aye good in proportion. No to gang against the words o’
Scripture,” said Jess, setting down the big cradle with a bump in her
mistress’s bedroom, and looking anxiously at the sleeping baby, which
with a little start and gape, resisted this attempt to break its
slumbers; “but eh, mistress, it’s aye my opinion that the happier folk
are the better they are. I never was as happy as in this house,”
continued the grateful handmaiden, furtively pursuing a tear into the
corner of her eye, with a large forefinger, “no that I’m meaning to say
I’m guid; but yet--”
“You might be waur,” said the mistress, with a smile. “You’ve aye a kind
heart and a blythe look, and that gangs a far way wi’ the maister and
me. But it’s time Archie Candlish was hame to his mother. When there’s
nae moon and such heavy roads, you shouldna bring a decent man three
mile out of his way at this hour o’ the nicht to see you.”
“Me? as if _I_ was wanting him,” said Jess, “and him no a word to say to
me or ony lass, but about the beasts and the new minister. I’ll be back
in half a minute; I wouldna waste my time upon a gomeril like you.”
While Jess sallied forth through the chilly passages to which the
weeping atmosphere had communicated a sensation of universal damp, the
mistress knelt down to arrange her infant more commodiously in its
homely nest. The red firelight made harmless glimmers all over her
figure, catching now and then a sidelong glance out of her eyes as she
smoothed the little pillow, and laid the tiny coverlet over the small
unconscious creature wrapt closely in webs and bands of sleep. When she
had done, she still knelt watching it as mothers will, with a smile upon
her face. After a while the beaming soft dark eyes turned to the light
with a natural attraction, to the glimmers of the fire shooting
accidental rays into all the corners, and to the steady little candle on
the mantel-shelf. The mistress looked round on all the familiar objects
of the homely low-roofed chamber. Outside, the rain fell heavily still
upon the damp and sodden country, soaking silently in the dark into the
forlorn wheat-sheaves, which had been standing in the fields to dry in
ineffectual hopefulness for past weeks. Matters did not look promising
on the farm of Ramore, and nothing had occurred to add any particular
happiness to its mistress’s lot. But happiness is perverse and follows
no rule, and Jess’s sentiment found an echo in Mrs. Campbell’s mind. As
she knelt by the cradle, her heart suddenly swelled with a consciousness
of the perfection of life and joy in her and around her. It was in
homely words enough that she gave it expression--“A’ weel, and under ae
roof,” she said to herself with exquisite dews of thankfulness in her
eyes. “And the Lord have pity on lone folk and sorrowful,” added the
tender woman, with a compassion beyond words, a yearning that all might
be glad like herself; the pity of happiness, which is of all pity, the
most divine. Her boys were saying abrupt prayers, one by one, as they
sank in succession into dreamless slumber. The master had gone out in
the rain to take one last look over his kyne and his farmyard, and see
that all was safe for the night, and Archie Candlish had just been
dismissed with a stinging jest from the kitchen door, which Jess bolted
and barred with cheerful din, singing softly to herself as she went
about the house putting up the innocent shutters, which could not have
resisted the first touch of a skilful hand. The rain was falling all
over the wet silent country; the Holy Loch gleamed like a kind of
twilight spot in the darkness, and the house of Ramore stood shut up and
hushed, no light at all to be seen but that from the open door, which
the farmer suddenly extinguished as he came in. But when that solitary
light died out from the invisible hillside, and the darkness and the
rain and the whispering night took undisturbed possession, was just the
moment when the mother within, kneeling over her cradle in the
firelight, was surprised by that sudden conscious touch of
happiness.--“Happiness? oh, ay, weel enough; we’ve a great deal to be
thankfu’ for,” said big Colin, with a little sleepy surprise; “if it
werna for the sprouting corn and the broken weather; but I dinna see
onything particular to be happy about at this minute, and I’m gaun to my
bed.”
For the prose and the poetry did not exactly understand each other at
all times, even in the primitive farm-house of Ramore.