BY WATER AND THE WORD
During my holidays at Heathknowes I found myself necessarily in frequent
communication with my Lord Advocate. For though I was the actual, he was
the ultimate editor of the _Universal Review_. I felt that he had done
so much for me, and that we were now on such terms that I might without
presumption ask him a private question about Lalor Maitland. Because,
knowing the man to have been mixed with some very doubtful business, I
wondered that a man of such honour and probity as the Advocate would in
any circumstances act by such means--much less countenance his being put
forward in the Government interest at a contested election.
I will give the text of the Advocate's reply in so far as it deals with
Lalor: "Have as little as possible to do in a private capacity with
'your Connection by Marriage'" (for so he continued to style him). "In
public affairs we must often use sweeps to explore dark and tortuous
passages. Persons who object to fyle themselves cannot be expected to
clean drains. You take my metaphor? Your 'Relative by Marriage' has
proved himself a useful artist in cesspools. That is all. He has not
swept clean, but he has swept. He has, on several occasions, been useful
to the Government when a better man would never have earned salt to his
kail. Publicly, therefore, he is an estimable servant of the Government.
Privately I would not touch him with the point of my shoe. For in
personal relations such men are always dangerous. See to it that you
and yours have as little to do with him as possible."
There in a nutshell was the whole philosophy of politics. "For dirty
jobs use dirty tools"--and of such undoubtedly was Lalor Maitland.
But I judged that, having come through so many vicissitudes, and moving
now with a certain name and fame, he would, for his own sake, do us no
open harm. Rather, as witness little Louis, he would exploit the ancient
renown of the Maitlands, their standing in Galloway, and his friendship
with the heir of their estates.
It seemed to me that Louis was entirely safe, especially in the good
hands of the Lord Lieutenant, and that the great rewards which Lalor
Maitland had received from the Government constituted in some measure
the best security against any dangerous plotting.
And in all the electoral campaign that followed, certain it is that
Lalor showed only his amiable side, taking all that was said against him
with a smiling face, yet as ready with his sword as with his tongue, and
so far as courage went (it must be allowed) in no way disgracing the old
and well-respected name of the Maitlands of Marnhoul. But I must tell
you of the fate which befell the jewel he had left in my hands for Irma.
Whether it had ever belonged to the family of Maitland or not, I should
greatly doubt. It was a hoop of rubies set with brilliants, which at
will could make a bracelet for the wrist, or a kind of tiara for the
hair. It was placed in a lined box of morocco leather, called an
"ecrin," and stood out as beautifully against the faded blue of the
velvet as a little tangled wisp of sunset cloud lost in an evening sky.
But Irma flashed out when I showed it her.
"How dare you?" she cried, and seizing the box she shut it with a snap
like her own white teeth. Then, the window being open, she threw it into
the low shrubbery at the orchard end, whence, after she had gone to
baby, I had no great trouble in recovering it. For it seemed to me too
good to waste, and would certainly be of more use to me than to the
first yokel who should pass that way.
Under ordinary circumstances Lalor would certainly have been defeated.
First of all, though doubtless belonging to an ancient family of the
country, he was, with his gilded coach and display of wealth gotten no
one could just say how or where, in speech and look an outsider. His
opponent, Colonel MacTaggart of the Stroan, called familiarly "The
Cornel" was one of the brave, sound, stupid, jovial country gentlemen
who rode once a week to market at Dumfries, never missed a Court day at
Kirkcudbright, did his duty honourably in a sufficiently narrow round,
and was worshipped by his tenantry, with whose families he was on terms
of extraordinary fondness and friendship. Altogether, to use the vulgar
idiom, "The Cornel" was felt to be a safe man to "bring back Galloway
fish-guts to Galloway sea-maws." Or, in other words, he would see to it
that patronage, like charity, should begin at home--and stop there.
To set off against this, there was a strong feeling that Galloway had
been long enough in opposition. There appeared to be (and indeed there
was) no chance of overturning the Government. Why, then, should Galloway
dwell for seven more years in the cold and hungry shades of
opposition--able to growl, but quite unable to get the bone?
Lalor was brim-full of promises. He had been, if not a smuggler, at
least an associate of smugglers, and all along Solwayside that was no
disadvantage to him--in a country where all either dabbled in the
illicit traffic, or, at best, looked the other way as the jingling
caravans went by.
Briefly, then, his Excellency Lalor Maitland, late Governor of the
Province of the Meuse, now a law-abiding subject of King George, was
duly elected and sent to Westminster to take his seat as representing
the lieges. The excitement calmed down almost at once. The gold coach
was seen no more. The preventive men and supervisors of excise were
neither up nor down. Galloway felt vaguely defrauded. I think many of
those who voted for Lalor imagined that the excisemen and coastguards
would at once be recalled, and that henceforward cargoes from the Isle
of Man and Rotterdam would be unloaded in broad daylight, instead of by
the pale light of the moon, without a single question being asked on
behalf of the revenue officers of King George.
After Lalor's disappearance Louis Maitland was heavy and depressed for
several days, staying long in his room and returning the shortest
answers when spoken to. Suddenly one morning he declared his intention
of going to Dumfries, and so on the following Wednesday my grandfather
and he drove thither by the coach road while I followed behind on
horseback. It was the purpose of Louis Maitland to have speech with the
lawyers. So, knowing the temper in which he had been since his uncle's
departure, I let him go up alone, but afterwards had speech with the
younger Mr. Smart on my own account.
He smiled when I mentioned Sir Louis and his mission.
"He wishes to go up to London to his cousin--he calls him his uncle,
Mr. Lalor, your fine new Government member for the county!"
"I judged as much," said I, "but I hope you have not given him any such
permission."
"He can take all the permission he wishes after he is twenty-one," said
Mr. Smart; "at present he has a good many years before him at Sympson's
Academy. There he may occupy himself in turning the old curate's _Three
Patriarchs_ into Latin. As to his holidays, he can spend them with his
sister or stay on in Edinburgh with the Doctor. But London is not a
place for a young gentleman of such exalted notions of his own
importance--'You bury me at a farmhouse with a family of boors!'--was
what he said. Now, that smells Mr. Lalor a mile off. But the lad is not
much to blame, and I hope you will not let it go any farther."
"Certainly not," said I, "the boy was only quoting!"
I returned from this interview considerably relieved, but for some days
Sir Louis was visibly cast down.
However, I said nothing to Irma, only advising her to devote herself a
little more to her brother, at times when the exigencies of Duncan the
Second would leave her time and opportunity.
"Why!" she said, with a quick gasp of astonishment, "I never forget
Louis--but of course baby needs me sometimes. I can't help that!"
If I had dared, I should have reminded her that baby appeared to need
every woman about the house of Heathknowes--to whom may be added my
mother from the school-house, Mrs. Thomas Gallaberry (late Anderson),
and a great and miscellaneous cloud of witnesses, to all of whom the
commonest details of toilet--baby's bath, his swathing and unbandaging,
the crinkling of his face and the clenching of his fists, the curious
curdled marbling upon his fat arms, even the inbending of his toes, were
objects of a cult to which that of the Lama of Thibet was a common and
open secret.
Even fathers were excluded as profane on such occasions, and the gasps
of feminine delight at each new evidence of genius were the only sounds
that might be heard even if you listened at the door, as, I admit, I was
often mean enough to do. Yet the manifestations of the object of
worship, as overheard by me, appeared sufficiently human and ordinary to
be passed over in silence.
I admit, however, that such was not the opinion of any of the regular
worshippers at the shrine, and that the person of the opposite sex who
was permitted to warm the hero's bath-towel at the fire, became an
object of interest and envy to the whole female community. As for my
grandmother, I need only say that while Duncan the Second abode within
the four walls of Heathknowes, not an ounce of decent edible butter
passed out of her dairy. Yet not a man of us complained. We knew better.
There still remained, however, a ceremony to be faced which I could not
look forward to with equanimity. It had been agreed upon between us,
that, though by the interference of our good friend the Advocate, we had
been married in the old private chapel attached to the Deanery, we
should defer the christening of Duncan the Second till "the Doctor"
could perform the office--there being, of course, but one "Doctor" for
all Eden Valley people--Doctor Gillespie, erstwhile Moderator of the
Kirk of Scotland.
I had long been under reproach for my slackness in this matter.
Inuendoes were mixed with odious comparisons upon Mary Lyon's tongue.
If her daughter had only married a Cameronian, the bairn would have been
baptized within seven days! Never had she seen an unchristened bairn so
long about a house! But for them that sit at ease in an Erastian
Zion--she referred to my father, who was not only precentor but also
session-clerk, and could by no means be said to sit at ease--she
supposed anything was good enough. It was different in her young days.
She, at least, had been properly brought up.
Finally, however, I went and put the case to the Doctor. He was ready to
come up to Heathknowes for the baptism. After his usual protest that
according to rule it ought to be performed in sight of all the
congregation, he accepted the good reason that my grandfather and
grandmother, being ardent Cameronians, could not in that case be
present. The Doctor had, of course, anticipated this objection. For he
knew and respected the "kind of people" reared by four generations of
"Societies," and often (in private) held them up as ensamples to his own
flock.
So to Heathknowes, the house of the Cameronian elder, there came, with
all befitting solemnity, Doctor Gillespie, ex-Moderator of the Kirk of
Scotland. Stately he stepped up the little loaning, followed by his
session, their clerk, my father at their head. At the sight of the
Doctor arrayed in gown and bands, his white hair falling on his neck and
tied with a black ribbon, the whole family of us instinctively uncovered
and stood bareheaded. My grandfather had gone down to the foot of the
little avenue to open the gate for the minister. The Doctor smilingly
invited him to walk by his side, but William Lyon had gravely shaken his
head and said, "I thank you, Doctor, but to-day, if you will grant me
the privilege, I will walk with my brethren, the other elders of the
Kirk of God."
And so he did, and as they came within sight of the house I took Irma by
the hand. For she trembled, and tears rose to her eyes as she saw that
simple but dignified procession (like to that which moved out of the
vestry on the occasion of the Greater Sacrament) approaching the house.
The lads stood silent with bared heads. For once Duncan lay quiet in the
arms of Mary Lyon--who that day would yield her charge to none, till she
gave him to the mother, when the time should come, according to the
Presbyterian rite, to stand up and place the firstborn in his father's
arms.
There was only one blank in that gathering. Louis had gone to his own
room, pretexing a headache, but really (as he blurted out afterwards)
because his Uncle Lalor had said that Presbyterianism was no religion
for a gentleman.
However, it was only afterwards that he was missed.
The Doctor was great on such occasions. A surprising soft radiance,
almost like a halo, surrounded his smooth snowy locks. A holy calm,
exhaling from half a century of spotless life lived in the sight of all
men, spoke in every word, moved in every gesture. The elders stood about
grave and quiet. The great Bible lay open. The psalm of dedication was
sung--of which the overword is, "Lo, children are God's heritage," and
the conclusion the verse which no Scot forgets the world over, perhaps
because it contains, quite unintentionally, so delightful a revelation
of his own national character--
"O happy is the man that hath
His quiver filled with those:
_They unashamed in the gate
Shall speak unto their foes._"