THE WICKED FLAG
"There's Boyd Connoway has been sitting on my front doorstep," cried my
Aunt Jen, "and if I've telled the man once, I've telled him twenty
times!"
"But how do ye ken, Janet?" said her mother out of the still-room where
she was brewing nettle-beer. "He is not there now!"
"How do I ken--fine that!" snapped Jen. "Do I no see my favourite check
pattern on his trousers!" said Jen, which, indeed, being plain to the
eye of every beholder, admitted of no denial--except perhaps, owing to
point of view, by the unconscious wearer himself. He had sat down on
these mystic criss-crossings and whorls dear to the Galloway housewife
for her floor ornaments, while the whiting was still wet.
"It's no wonder," Jen pursued vengefully, "they may say what they like.
An I were that man's wife, I wad brain him. Here he has been the
livelong day. Twa meals has he eaten. Six hours has he hung about
malingering. He came to roof the pigstye. He tore off the old thatch,
and there it lies, and there will lie for him. If there is frost,
Girzie's brood will be stiff by the morning. Then he 'had a look' at my
roasting-jack and ... there it is!"
She indicated with an indignant sweep of the hand what she designated "a
rickle o' rubbish" as the net proceeds of Boyd's industry.
The artist explained himself between the mouthfuls at his third repast.
"Ye see, Miss Lyon, there's nocht that spoils good work like worry on
the mind. The pigs will do fine. I'll put a branch or two over them and
a corn-sack over that. If a drap o' rain comes through it will only
harden the wee grunties for the trials o' life. Aye" (here Boyd relapsed
into philosophy), "life is fu' o' trials, for pigs as weel as men. But
men the worst--for as for pigs, their bread is given them and their
water is sure. Now as for myself----"
"Yourself," cried Aunt Jen, entering into one of her sudden rages, "if
ye were half as much worth to the world as our old sow Girzie, ye wad be
salted and hanging up by the heels now! As it is, ye run the country
like Crazy, our collie, a burden to yourself and a nuisance to the world
at lairge!
"Eh, Miss Jen, but it's the word ye have, as I was sayin' to Rob McTurk
up at the pirn-mill last Tuesday week. 'If only our Miss Jen there had
been a man,' says I, 'it's never Lalor Maitland that would have been
sent to sit in King George's High House o' Parliament.'"
Again Boyd Connoway took up his burden of testimony.
"Aye, Miss Jen, there's some that's born to trouble as the sparks fly
upward. That's me, Miss Jen. Now there's my brother that's a farmer in
County Donegal. Niver a market night sober--and _yet_ he's not to say
altogether content. An' many is the time I say to our Bridget, 'What
would you do if I was Brother Jerry of Ballycross, coming home to ye in
the box of the gig, and the reins on the horse's neck?'
"'Ye never _had_ a horse,' says she, and thinks that an answer! Women's
heads are born void of logic, and what they fill them with--axing your
pardon, Mistress Lyon, ah, if they were all like you--'tis a happier
place this world would be!"
"Finish, and let us get the dishes cleared away!" said my grandmother,
who did not stand upon fashions of speech, least of all with Boyd
Connoway.
Boyd hastened to obey, ladling everything within reach into his mouth as
fast as knife and spoon could follow each other.
He concluded, crooning over his eternal ditty, by way of thanksgiving
after meat--
"If I was in bed and fast asleep
I wouldn't get up for a score of sheep."
This distich had the gift of always infuriating Aunt Janet.
"You may well say so," she cried, clattering away with an armful of
dishes in a way that was a protest in itself; "considering all you are
good for when you _do_ get up, you might just as well be in bed fast
asleep, and----"
"Now there you're wrong, Miss Janet," said Boyd. "It was only last
Sunday that I gave up all my evil courses and became one of Israel
Kinmont's folk. My heart is changed," he added solemnly; "I gave it to
the Lord, and He seen fit to convart me!"
The whole household looked up. Anything bearing on personal religion
instantly touched Scots folk of the humble sort. But Aunt Jen was
obdurate. Long experience had rendered her sceptical with regard to Boyd
Connoway.
"We'll soon see if you are converted to the Lord," she said. "_He_ is a
hard worker. There are no idlers on His estates. If it's true, we may
get these pigs covered in to-night yet."
"Never trouble your head about the pigs, Miss Janet," said Boyd, "they
will surely sleep safe under a roof this night. Strive to fix your mind
on higher things, Miss Jen. There's such a thing as makin' a god of this
here transient evil world, as I said to Bridget when the potatoes went
bad just because I got no time to 'pit' them, having had to play the
fiddle at four kirns'[2] in different parishes during potato-lifting
week!"
"Never mind about that," said my grandfather from his seat in the
chimney corner, "tell us about your 'conversion'!"
For the word was then a new one in Galloway, and of no good savour
either among orthodox Cameronians or pillars of the Kirk as by law
established. But Israel Kinmont had been a sailor to far ports. In his
youth he had heard Whitefield preach. He had followed Wesley's folk afar
off. The career of a humble evangelist attracted him, and when in his
latter days he had saved enough to buy the oldest and worst of all
luggers that ever sailed the sea, he devoted himself, not to the gainful
traffic of smuggling, but to the unremunerative transport of sea-coal
and lime from Cockermouth and Workington to the small ports and inlets
of the Galloway coast.
No excisemen watching on the cliffs gave more than a single glance at
"Israel's Tabernacle," as, without the least irreverence, he had named
his boat. But, using the same ports as the smugglers, he was often
brought into close relations with them. They asked him for information
which was freely given, as from one friend to another. They trusted him,
for though often interrogated by the supervisor and riding officers,
Israel could develop upon occasion an extraordinary deafness, so that
the questions to which he could give a clear answer were never such as
to commit any one. In exchange for this the smugglers would go aboard
the Tabernacle and allow Israel to preach to them. And woe betide the
irreverent on these occasions! Black Rob o' Garlies or Roaring Imrie
from Douglas-ha' thought nothing of taking such a one by convenient
parts of his clothing and dropping him overboard.
"Aye," said Boyd, encouraged by my grandfather's request, "Israel
Kinmont has made a new man of many a hardened sinner!"
"I dare you to say so," cried my grandmother; "only the Lord that is on
High can do that."
"But He can make use of instruments," argued Boyd, who had learned his
lesson, "and Israel Kinmont is one of them. He has showed me where to
get grace."
"Maybe," snapped Jen, that unswerving Calvinist, "seeing is believing.
Boyd Connoway _may_ have got grace. I put no limit to the Almighty's
power. But it takes more than grace to convert a man from laziness!"
Boyd lifted his hand with a gesture so dignified that even from the
good-for-nothing it commanded respect.
"'Tis from the Lord, Miss Jen, and it behoves us poor mortals noways to
resist. Israel Kinmont never would smuggle, as ye know, and yet he never
had any luck till the highest tide of the year brought the 'Old
Tabernacle' up, with a cargo of sea-coal in her, half-way between
Killantringan Village and the Nitwood.
"'She's settling, Israel,' said his son Jacob, that's counted soft, but
can raise the tune at meeting--none like him for that.
"'Even so,' said Israel, 'the will of the Lord be done!'
"'She's settling fast! Both my feet are wet!' said Jacob, holding on to
a rope.
"'Amen!' cried Israel, 'if it only were His will that she should come
ten yards higher up, she would be on the very roadside. Then I would
open a door into the hold of her after the coal is out, and you and I,
Jacob, could rig up seats and windows like a proper Tabernacle--fit for
Mr. Whitefield himself to preach in! Truly the service of the Lord is
joyful. His law doth rejoice the heart.'
"So said Israel, and, just as I am tellin' you, there came a great
inward swirling of the tide, a very merracle, and lo! the _Tabernacle_
was laid down as by compass alongside the Nitwood road, whence she will
never stir till the day of Final Judgment, as the scripture is. And
Israel, he cuts the door, and Jacob, he gets out the coals and sells
them to the great folk, and the supervisor, he stands by, watching in
vain till he was as black as a sweep, for the brandy that was not there.
But he petitioned Government that Israel should have a concession of
that part of the foreshore--being against all smuggling and maybe
thinking to have him as a sort of spiritual exciseman.
"Yes, Mr. Lyon," Boyd went on, gratified by the interest in his tale,
"'tis wonderful, when you think on't. Empty from stem to stern she is,
with skylights in her deck and windows in her side! Why, there are
benches for the men and a pulpit for Israel. As for Jacob, he has
nothing but his tuning-fork and a seat with the rest.
"And indeed there's more chance that Israel will put a stop to the
Free-trading than all the preventives in the land. He preaches against
it, declaring that it makes the young men fit for nothing else, like
every other way of making money without working for it."
"Ah, Israel's right there!" came from my grandfather.
"But every light has its shadow, and he's made a failure of it with Dick
Wilkes, and may do the like with my wife, Bridget.
"For Bridget, she will be for ever crying at me these days, 'Here, you
Tabernacle man, have you split the kindling wood?' Or 'No
praise-the-Lord for you, lad, till your day's work is done! Go and mend
that spring-cart of the General's that his man has been grumbling about
for a month!'
"And sometimes I have to fill my mouth with the hundred and twenty-first
psalm to keep from answering improper, and after all, Bridget will only
ask if I don't know the tune to that owld penny ballad. 'Tis true enough
about the tune" (Boyd confessed), "me having no pitch-pipe, but Bridget
has no business to miscall scripture, whether said or sung!
"As to Dick Wilkes, that got his lame leg at the attack on--well, we
need not go opening up old scores, but we all know where--has been
staying with us, and that maybe made Bridget worse. Aye, that he has.
There's no one like Bridget for drawing all the riff-raff of the
countryside about her--I know some will say that comes of marrying me.
But 'tis the ould gennleman's own falsehood. You'll always find Boyd
Connoway in the company of his betters whenever so be he can!
"But Dick Wilkes had our 'ben' room, and there were a little, light,
active man that came to see him--not that I know much of him, save from
the sound of voices and my wife Bridget on the watch to keep me in the
kitchen, and all that.
"But Old Israel would never give up Dick Wilkes. He kept coming and
coming to our house, and what he called 'wrestling for Dick's soul.'
Sometimes he went away pleased, thinking he had gotten the upper hand.
Then the little light man would come again, and there was Dick just as
bad as ever. 'Backsliding' was what Israel called it, and a good name, I
say, for then the job was all to do over again from the beginning. But
it was the Adversary that carried off Dick Wilkes at the long and last."
"Ah!" came a subdued groan from all the kitchen. Boyd gloomily nodded
his head.
"Yes," he said, "'tis a great and terrible warning to Bridget, and so I
tell her. 'Twas the night of the big meeting at the Tabernacle, when
Israel kept it up for six hours, one lot coming and another going--the
Isle o' Man fleet being in--that was the night of all nights in the year
that Dick Wilkes must choose for to die in. Aught more contrary than
that man can't be thought of.
"It happened just so, as I say. About four o'clock we were all of us
shut up in the kitchen, and by that we knew (Jerry and I, at least) that
Dick Wilkes had company--also that so far as repentance went, old
Israel's goose was cooked till he had another turn at his man. And then
after six we heard him shouting that he was going to die--which seemed
strange to us. For we could hear him tearing at his sea-chest and
stamping about his room, which is not what is expected of a dying man.
"But Dick knew better. For when we went down and peeped at the keyhole,
he heard us, and called on us all to come our ways in. And--you will
never guess in a thousand years--he had routed a flag out of his
sea-chest. The 'Wicked Flag' it was,--the pirates' flag--black, with the
Death's Head and cross-bones done in white upon it, the same that he had
hoisted on seas where no questions were asked, when he commanded the
old _Golden Hind_. And wrapping himself in that, he said, 'Tell old
Israel that I died _so_!' And we, thinking it was, as one might say,
braving the Almighty and his poor old servant, kept silence. And then he
shouted, 'Promise, ye white-livered rascals, or I've strength to slit
your wizzards yet. Tell him I died under the Black!'
"And Bridget, who was feared herself, said, 'Whist, for God's sake, do
not bring a curse on the house!'
"And then he just cursed the house from flooring to roof-tree, and so
went to his own place!
"Dead? Well, yes--dead and buried is old Dickie Wilkes. But poor Israel
Kinmont is quite brokenhearted. He says that Dick was the first that
ever broke away, and that he is not long for this world himself now that
he has lost Dick. It was always cut-and-come-again when you were
converting Dick.
"But Israel has an explanation, poor old fellow.
"'It was not Grace that missed fire,' he says, 'but me, the unworthy
marksman. And for that I shall be smitten like the men who, with
unanointed eyes, looked on the ark of God that time it went up the
valley from Ekron to Bethshemish, with the cows looking back and lowing
for their calves all the way. I were always main sorry for them cows!'
old Israel says."
[Footnote 2: Harvest home merrymakings.]