I Go Down Hill
It came in the following winter.
My father had now begun to teach me as well as Tom, but I confess I
did not then value the privilege. I had got much too fond of the
society of Peter Mason, and all the time I could command I spent with
him. Always full of questionable frolic, the spirit of mischief
gathered in him as the dark nights drew on. The sun, and the wind, and
the green fields, and the flowing waters of summer kept him within
bounds; but when the ice and the snow came, when the sky was grey with
one cloud, when the wind was full of needle-points of frost and the
ground was hard as a stone, when the evenings were dark, and the sun
at noon shone low down and far away in the south, then the demon of
mischief awoke in the bosom of Peter Mason, and, this winter, I am
ashamed to say, drew me also into the net.
Nothing very bad was the result before the incident I am about to
relate. There must have been, however, a gradual declension towards
it, although the pain which followed upon this has almost obliterated
the recollection of preceding follies. Nobody does anything bad all at
once. Wickedness needs an apprenticeship as well as more difficult
trades.
It was in January, not long after the shortest day, the sun setting
about half-past three o’clock. At three school was over, and just as
we were coming out, Peter whispered to me, with one of his merriest
twinkles in his eyes:
“Come across after dark, Ranald, and we’ll have some fun.”
I promised, and we arranged when and where to meet. It was Friday, and
I had no Latin to prepare for Saturday, therefore my father did not
want me. I remember feeling very jolly as I went home to dinner, and
made the sun set ten times at least, by running up and down the
earthen wall which parted the fields from the road; for as often as I
ran up I saw him again over the shoulder of the hill, behind which he
was going down. When I had had my dinner, I was so impatient to join
Peter Mason that I could not rest, and from very idleness began to
tease wee Davie. A great deal of that nasty teasing, so common among
boys, comes of idleness. Poor Davie began to cry at last, and I,
getting more and more wicked, went on teasing him, until at length he
burst into a howl of wrath and misery, whereupon the Kelpie, who had
some tenderness for him, burst into the room, and boxed my ears
soundly. I was in a fury of rage and revenge, and had I been near
anything I could have caught up, something serious would have been the
result. In spite of my resistance, she pushed me out of the room and
locked the door. I would have complained to my father, but I was
perfectly aware that, although _she_ had no right to strike me, I had
deserved chastisement for my behaviour to my brother. I was still
boiling with anger when I set off for the village to join Mason. I
mention all this to show that I was in a bad state of mind, and thus
prepared for the wickedness which followed. I repeat, a boy never
disgraces himself all at once. He does not tumble from the top to the
bottom of the cellar stair. He goes down the steps himself till he
comes to the broken one, and then he goes to the bottom with a
rush. It will also serve to show that the enmity between Mrs. Mitchell
and me had in nowise abated, and that however excusable she might be
in the case just mentioned, she remained an evil element in the
household.
When I reached the village, I found very few people about. The night
was very cold, for there was a black frost. There had been a thaw the
day before which had carried away the most of the snow, but in the
corners lay remnants of dirty heaps which had been swept up there. I
was waiting near one of these, which happened to be at the spot where
Peter had arranged to meet me, when from a little shop near a girl
came out and walked quickly down the street. I yielded to the
temptation arising in a mind which had grown a darkness with slimy
things crawling in it. I kicked a hole in the frozen crust of the
heap, scraped out a handful of dirty snow, kneaded it into a snowball,
and sent it after the girl. It struck her on the back of the head. She
gave a cry and ran away, with her hand to her forehead. Brute that I
was, I actually laughed. I think I must have been nearer the devil
then than I have been since. At least I hope so. For you see it was
not with me as with worse-trained boys. I knew quite well that I was
doing wrong, and refused to think about it. I felt bad inside. Peter
might have done the same thing without being half as wicked as I
was. He did not feel the wickedness of that kind of thing as I did. He
would have laughed over it merrily. But the vile dregs of my wrath
with the Kelpie were fermenting in my bosom, and the horrid pleasure I
found in annoying an innocent girl because the wicked Kelpie had made
me angry, could never have been expressed in a merry laugh like
Mason’s. The fact is, I was more displeased with myself than with
anybody else, though I did not allow it, and would not take the
trouble to repent and do the right thing. If I had even said to wee
Davie that I was sorry, I do not think I should have done the other
wicked things that followed; for this was not all by any means. In a
little while Peter joined me. He laughed, of course, when I told him
how the girl had run like a frighted hare, but that was poor fun in
his eyes.
“Look here, Ranald,” he said, holding out something like a piece of
wood.
“What is it, Peter?” I asked.
“It’s the stalk of a cabbage,” he answered. “I’ve scooped out the
inside and filled it with tow. We’ll set fire to one end, and blow the
smoke through the keyhole.”
“Whose keyhole, Peter?”
“An old witch’s that I know of. She’ll be in such a rage! It’ll be fun
to hear her cursing and swearing. We’d serve the same to every house
in the row, but that would be more than we could get off with. Come
along. Here’s a rope to tie her door with first.”
I followed him, not without inward misgivings, which I kept down as
well as I could. I argued with myself, “_I_ am not doing it; I am only
going with Peter: what business is that of anybody’s so long as I
don’t touch the thing myself?” Only a few minutes more, and I was
helping Peter to tie the rope to the latch-handle of a poor little
cottage, saying now to myself, “This doesn’t matter. This won’t do her
any harm. This isn’t smoke. And after all, smoke won’t hurt the nasty
old thing. It’ll only make her angry. It may do her cough good: I dare
say she’s got a cough.” I knew all I was saying was false, and yet I
acted on it. Was not that as wicked as wickedness could be? One moment
more, and Peter was blowing through the hollow cabbage stalk in at the
keyhole with all his might. Catching a breath of the stifling smoke
himself, however, he began to cough violently, and passed the wicked
instrument to me. I put my mouth to it, and blew with all my might. I
believe now that there was some far more objectionable stuff mingled
with the tow. In a few moments we heard the old woman begin to
cough. Peter, who was peeping in at the window, whispered--
“She’s rising. Now we’ll catch it, Ranald!”
Coughing as she came, I heard her with shuffling steps approach the
door, thinking to open it for air. When she failed in opening it, and
found besides where the smoke was coming from, she broke into a
torrent of fierce and vengeful reproaches, mingled with epithets by no
means flattering. She did not curse and swear as Peter had led me to
expect, although her language was certainly far enough from refined;
but therein I, being, in a great measure, the guilty cause, was more
to blame than she. I laughed because I would not be unworthy of my
companion, who was genuinely amused; but I was, in reality, shocked at
the tempest I had raised. I stopped blowing, aghast at what I had
done; but Peter caught the tube from my hand and recommenced the
assault with fresh vigour, whispering through the keyhole, every now
and then between the blasts, provoking, irritating, even insulting
remarks on the old woman’s personal appearance and supposed ways of
living. This threw her into paroxysms of rage and of coughing, both
increasing in violence; and the war of words grew, she tugging at the
door as she screamed, he answering merrily, and with pretended
sympathy for her sufferings, until I lost all remaining delicacy in
the humour of the wicked game, and laughed loud and heartily.
[Illustration]
Of a sudden the scolding and coughing ceased. A strange sound and
again silence followed. Then came a shrill, suppressed scream; and we
heard the voice of a girl, crying:
“Grannie! grannie! What’s the matter with you? Can’t you speak to me,
grannie? They’ve smothered my grannie!”
Sobs and moans were all we heard now. Peter had taken fright at last,
and was busy undoing the rope. Suddenly he flung the door wide and
fled, leaving me exposed to the full gaze of the girl. To my horror it
was Elsie Duff! She was just approaching the door, her eyes streaming
with tears, and her sweet face white with agony. I stood unable to
move or speak. She turned away without a word, and began again to busy
herself with the old woman, who lay on the ground not two yards from
the door. I heard a heavy step approaching. Guilt awoke fear and
restored my powers of motion. I fled at full speed, not to find Mason,
but to leave everything behind me.
When I reached the manse, it stood alone in the starry blue night.
Somehow I could not help thinking of the time when I came home after
waking up in the barn. That, too, was a time of misery, but, oh! how
different from this! Then I had only been cruelly treated myself; now
I had actually committed cruelty. Then I sought my father’s bosom as
the one refuge; now I dreaded the very sight of my father, for I could
not look him in the face. He was my father, but I was not his son. A
hurried glance at my late life revealed that I had been behaving very
badly, growing worse and worse. I became more and more miserable as I
stood, but what to do I could not tell. The cold at length drove me
into the house. I generally sat with my father in his study of a
winter night now, but I dared not go near it. I crept to the nursery,
where I found a bright fire burning, and Allister reading by the
blaze, while Davie lay in bed at the other side of the room. I sat
down and warmed myself, but the warmth could not reach the lump of ice
at my heart. I sat and stared at the fire. Allister was too much
occupied with his book to take any heed of me. All at once I felt a
pair of little arms about my neck, and Davie was trying to climb upon
my knees. Instead of being comforted, however, I spoke very crossly,
and sent him back to his bed whimpering. You see I was only miserable;
I was not repentant. I was eating the husks with the swine, and did
not relish them; but I had not said, “I will arise and go to my
father”.
How I got through the rest of that evening I hardly know. I tried to
read, but could not. I was rather fond of arithmetic; so I got my
slate and tried to work a sum; but in a few moments I was sick of it.
At family prayers I never lifted my head to look at my father, and
when they were over, and I had said good night to him, I felt that I
was sneaking out of the room. But I had some small sense of protection
and safety when once in bed beside little Davie, who was sound asleep,
and looked as innocent as little Samuel when the voice of God was
going to call him. I put my arm round him, hugged him close to me, and
began to cry, and the crying brought me sleep.
It was a very long time now since I had dreamt my old childish dream;
but this night it returned. The old sunny-faced sun looked down upon
me very solemnly. There was no smile on his big mouth, no twinkle
about the corners of his little eyes. He looked at Mrs. Moon as much
as to say, “What is to be done? The boy has been going the wrong way:
must we disown him?” The moon neither shook her head nor moved her
lips, but turned as on a pivot, and stood with her back to her
husband, looking very miserable. Not one of the star-children moved
from its place. They shone sickly and small. In a little while they
faded out; then the moon paled and paled until she too vanished
without ever turning her face to her husband; and last the sun himself
began to change, only instead of paling he drew in all his beams, and
shrunk smaller and smaller, until no bigger than a candle-flame. Then
I found that I was staring at a candle on the table; and that Tom was
kneeling by the side of the other bed, saying his prayers.