A VISIT FROM BOYD CONNOWAY
"I wonder," said Irma one Saturday morning when, by a happy accident, I
had no pressing need to go from home, so could stay and linger over
breakfast with my little wife like a Christian, "I wonder what that man
is doing down there? He has been sitting on the step outside our gate
ever since it was light, and he looks as if he were taking root there!"
I made but one bound from the table to the window. For I remembered the
cloaked man who had crossed me in the Meadows the other night. Also my
inbred, almost instinctive curiosity as to the purposes and antecedents
of lurking folk of all kinds, pricked me. We were easy enough to get on
with in Eden Valley once you knew us, but our attitude towards strangers
was distinctly hostile.
This man was muffled to the nose in a cloak, and might very well have
been my inquiring friend of the other night. But when I had opened the
door and marched with the firm ringing steps of a master down the paven
walk towards the gate, the face I saw turned to my approach, altered my
mood in a second.
"Why, Boyd Connoway," I cried, "who would have thought of seeing you
here? What are you doing in Edinburgh? But first come in--there is a
friend here who will be glad to see you!"
"Eh, Mr. Duncan, but I am not sure that I dare venture. 'Tis no more
than decent I am, and the young lady, your wife--oh, but though to see
her sweet face would be a treat for poor Boyd Connoway, what might she
not be sayin' about me dirtying her carpets, the craitur? And as for
sittin' in her fine arm-chairs----"
"Come your ways in, Boyd," I cried. "Have you had any breakfast?
No--then you are just in time! And you will find that our chairs are
only wood, and you would not hurt our fine carpets, not if you danced on
them with clogs!"
"D'ye tell me, now?" said Boyd, much relieved. "Sure, and it's a told
tale through the whole parish that you are livin' in the very lap of
luxury--with nothing in the world to do for it but just make
scratch-scratches on paper with a quill-pen!"
By this time Irma was at the door, hiding herself a little, for she had
still the morning apron on--that in which she had been helping Mrs.
Pathrick. But she was greatly delighted to see Boyd, who, if the truth
must be told, made his best service like an Irishman and a
gentleman--for, as he said, "Even five-and-thirty years of Galloway had
not wiped the sclate of his manners!"
Now Boyd was always a favourite with Irma, and I fear that she was
fonder of him than she ought to have been, instead of pitying his
hard-driven Bridget--just because Bridget had not his beautiful manners.
Presently, as his mouth ceased to fill and empty itself so wonderfully
expeditiously, Boyd began to talk.
"As to what fetched me, Miss Irma," he said, in answer to questions,
"faith, I walked all the road, taking many a house on the way where
kenned folk dwelt. Here were pigs to kill and cure. And I killed and
cured them. Farther on there were floors to lay, and I laid them, or
fish-hooks to busk, and I busked them."
I put a question here.
"Oh, Bridget," he said, shrugging his shoulders with a wearied air,
"Bridget doesn't know when she's well off. Och, the craitur! It began
with the night of the September Fair. Now, it is known to all the
countryside that Boyd Connoway is no drinker. He will sit and talk, as
is just and sociable, but nothing more. No, Miss Irma. And so I told
Bridget. But it so chanced that Fair Monday was a stormy day, which is
the most temptatious for poor lads in from the country, with only two
holidays in the year, most of them. And what with the new watch and the
councilmen being so strict against disorder--why, I could not let a dog
get into trouble if I could help it. So I spent the most of the night
seeing them home out of harm's way--and if ever there was a work of
necessity and mercy, that was.
"But Bridget, she thought different, and declared that I had never so
much as thought of her and the childer all day, but left her at the
wash-tub, while they, the poor craiturs, were poppin' out and in of the
stalls and crawlin' under the slatting canvas of the shows, as happy as
larks, having their fun all for nothing, and double rations of it when
they were caught, cuffed, and chased out. Well, Bridget kept it up on me
so long and got so worked up that she would not have a bite ready for me
when I came home tired and weary, bidding me go and eat my meat where I
had worked my work. So it seemed a good time for me to be off somewhere
for my health. But--such was my consideration, that not to leave Bridget
in distress I went asking about till I got her the washin' at General
Johnstone's--the minister's she had before--so there was Bridget well
provided for, Miss Irma--and here am I, Boyd Connoway, a free man on my
travels!"
We asked news of friends and acquaintances--the usual Galloway round of
questions.
"Faith," said Boyd, "but there's just one cry among them--when are ye
coming down to let us have a look at your treasure, Mister Duncan? Sure,
it's selfish ye are, now, to keep her all this long time to yourself!
The little chap's holidays! Ah, true for you. We had forgotten him. And
ye are sure that he is well done to, and safely lodged where they have
put him, Miss Irma?"
"If you bide a minute or two, Boyd," said Irma, smiling, well-pleased,
"you may very likely have the chance of judging for yourself. For it is
almost his time to be here, for to-day is a holiday!"
In fact, it was not a quarter of an hour before a shout, the triumphal
opening of the outer gate with a rush and a clang, and a merciless
pounding on the front door announced the arrival of Sir Louis. He had
grown out of all knowledge, declared the visitor, "but no doubt the
young gentleman had forgotten old Boyd Connoway."
"Oh, no," said Louis; "come and show me some more cat's cradles; I know
two more 'liftings' already than any boy in the school. But _you_ can do
at least a dozen!"
And so, with the woven string about his long clever fingers, Louis
watched the deft and sure manipulation of Boyd Connoway as he "lifted"
and wove, changing the pattern indefinitely. For the time being the
village "do-nothing"--in the sense that he was the busiest man in the
place about other folk's business--was merely another boy at Louis's
school. And as he worked, he talked, delightfully, easily, dramatically.
He made the old life of Eden Valley pass before us. We heard the brisk
tongue of my grandmother from the kitchen, that of Aunt Jen ruling as
much of the roost as was permitted to her, but constantly made aware of
herself by her mother's dominating personality.
With equal facility he recalled my father in his classes, looking out
for collegers to do him credit, my mother passing silently along her
retired household ways, Agnes Anne dividing her time between helping her
mother in the house, and teaching the classes for which I used to be
responsible in the school.
It was a memorable day in the little house above the Meadows. Louis
played with Boyd Connoway all the time, learning infinite new tricks
with string, with knife-blades, perfecting himself in the art of making
fly-hooks, of kite manufacture, and the art of lighting a fire.
He had presented to him Boyd's spare "sulphur" box, in which were
tinder, flint and steel, matches dipped in brimstone, and a pair of
short thick candles which could be set one at a time in a socket formed
by the box itself, the raised lid sheltering the flame from the wind.
Never was a happier boy. And when the Advocate looked in, the surprising
boyishness of Boyd rubbed off even on him. We did not inform our old
friend of the high place which "the Advocate" held in the judicial
hierarchy of his country. For we knew well that nothing Boyd said in our
house would ever be used as evidence against him.
But no doubt my lord gained a great deal of useful information as to the
habits of smugglers, their cargoes, destinations, ports of call and
sympathizers. Boyd crowned his performances by inviting the Advocate
down to undertake the defence of the next set of smugglers tried at the
assizes, a task which the Advocate accepted with apparent gratitude and
humility. For from the little man's snuff-taking and easy-going, idling
ways, Boyd had taken him for a briefless advocate.
"Faith, sir, come to Galloway," he cried open-heartedly--"there's the
place to provide work for the like of you lads. And it's Boyd Connoway
will introduce you to all the excise-case defendants from Annan Port to
Loch Ryan. It's him that knows every man and mother's son of them! And
who, if ye plaise, has a better right?"