Vain Intercession
He had a small farm of his own at the foot of the hill of which he had
the charge. It was a poor little place, with a very low thatched
cottage for the dwelling. A sister kept house for him. When we
approached it there was no one to be seen. We advanced to the door
along a rough pavement of round stones, which parted the house from
the dunghill. I peeped in at the little window as we passed. There, to
my astonishment, I saw Jamie Duff, as I thought, looking very happy,
and in the act of lifting a spoon to his mouth. A moment after,
however, I concluded that I must have been mistaken, for, when Turkey
lifted the latch and we walked in, there were the awful John and his
long sister seated at the table, while poor Jamie was in a corner,
with no basin in his hand, and a face that looked dismal and dreary
enough. I fancied I caught a glimpse of Turkey laughing in his sleeve,
and felt mildly indignant with him--for Elsie’s sake more, I confess,
than for Jamie’s.
“Come in,” said Adam, rising; but, seeing who it was, he seated
himself again, adding, “Oh, it’s you, Turkey!”--Everybody called him
Turkey. “Come in and take a spoon.”
“No, thank you,” said Turkey; “I have had my supper. I only came to
inquire after that young rascal there.”
“Ah! you see him! There he is!” said Adam, looking towards me with an
awful expression in his dead brown eyes. “Starving. No home and no
supper for him! He’ll have to sleep in the hay-loft with the rats and
mice, and a stray cat or two.”
Jamie put his cuffs, the perennial handkerchief of our poor little
brothers, to his eyes. His fate was full of horrors. But again I
thought I saw Turkey laughing in his sleeve.
“His sister is very anxious about him, Mr. Adam,” he said. “Couldn’t
you let him off this once?”
“On no account. I am here in trust, and I must do my duty. The duke
gives the forest in charge to me. I have got to look after it.”
I could not help thinking what a poor thing it was for a forest. All I
knew of forests was from story-books, and there they were full of ever
such grand trees. Adam went on--
“And if wicked boys will break down the trees--”
“I only pulled the bilberries,” interposed Jamie, in a whine which
went off in a howl.
“James Duff!” said Adam, with awful authority, “I saw you myself
tumble over a young larch tree, not two feet high.”
“The worse for me!” sobbed Jamie.
“Tut! tut! Mr. Adam! the larch tree wasn’t a baby,” said Turkey. “Let
Jamie go. He couldn’t help it, you see.”
“It _was_ a baby, and it _is_ a baby,” said Adam, with a solitary
twinkle in the determined dead brown of his eyes. “And I’ll have no
intercession here. Transgressors must be prosecuted, as the board
says. And prosecuted he shall be. He sha’n’t get out of this before
school-time to-morrow morning. He shall be late, too, and I hope the
master will give it him well. We must make some examples, you see,
Turkey. It’s no use your saying anything. I don’t say Jamie’s a worse
boy than the rest, but he’s just as bad, else how did he come to be
there tumbling over my babies? Answer me that, Master Bannerman.”
He turned and fixed his eyes upon me. There was question in his mouth,
but neither question nor speculation in his eyes. I could not meet the
awful changeless gaze. My eyes sank before his.
“Example, Master Bannerman, is everything. If you serve my trees as
this young man has done--”
The idea of James Duff being a young man!
“--I’ll serve you the same as I serve him--and that’s no sweet
service, I’ll warrant.”
As the keeper ended, he brought down his fist on the table with such a
bang, that poor Jamie almost fell off the stool on which he sat in the
corner.
“But let him off just this once,” pleaded Turkey, “and I’ll be surety
for him that he’ll never do it again.”
“Oh, as to him, I’m not afraid of him,” returned the keeper; “but will
you be surety for the fifty boys that’ll only make game of me if I
don’t make an example of him? I’m in luck to have caught him. No, no,
Turkey; it won’t do, my man. I’m sorry for his father and his mother,
and his sister Elsie, for they’re all very good people; but I must
make an example of him.”
At mention of his relatives Jamie burst into another suppressed howl.
“Well, you won’t be over hard upon him anyhow: will you now?” said
Turkey.
“I won’t pull his skin _quite_ over his ears,” said Adam; “and that’s
all the promise you’ll get out of me.”
The tall thin grim sister had sat all the time as if she had no right
to be aware of anything that was going on, but her nose, which was
more hooked than her brother’s, and larger, looked as if, in the
absence of eyes and ears, it was taking cognizance of everything, and
would inform the rest of the senses afterwards.
I had a suspicion that the keeper’s ferocity was assumed for the
occasion, and that he was not such an ogre as I had considered him.
Still, the prospect of poor little Jamie spending the night alone in
the loft amongst the cats and rats was sufficiently dreadful when I
thought of my midnight awaking in the barn. There seemed to be no
help, however, especially when Turkey rose to say good night.
I felt disconsolate, and was not well pleased with Turkey’s
coolness. I thought he had not done his best.
When we got into the road--
“Poor Elsie!” I said; “she’ll be miserable about Jamie.”
“Oh no,” returned Turkey. “I’ll go straight over and tell her. No harm
will come to Jamie. John Adam’s bark is a good deal worse than his
bite. Only I should have liked to take him home if I could.”
It was now twilight, and through the glimmering dusk we walked back to
the manse. Turkey left me at the gate and strode on towards the
village; while I turned in, revolving a new scheme which had arisen in
my brain, and for the first time a sense of rivalry with Turkey awoke
in my bosom. He did everything for Elsie Duff, and I did nothing. For
her he had robbed the bees’ nest that very day, and I had but partaken
of the spoil. Nay, he had been stung in her service; for, with all my
care--and I think that on the whole I had done my best--he had
received what threatened to be a bad sting on the back of his neck.
Now he was going to comfort her about her brother whom he had failed
to rescue; but what if I should succeed where he had failed, and carry
the poor boy home in triumph!
As we left the keeper’s farm, Turkey had pointed out to me, across the
yard, where a small rick or two were standing, the loft in which Jamie
would have to sleep. It was over the cart-shed, and its approach was a
ladder. But for the reported rats, it would have been no hardship to
sleep there in weather like this, especially for one who had been
brought up as Jamie had been. But I knew that he was a very timid boy,
and that I myself would have lain in horror all the night. Therefore I
had all the way been turning over in my mind what I could do to
release him. But whatever I did must be unaided, for I could not
reckon upon Turkey, nor indeed was it in my heart to share with him
the honour of the enterprise that opened before me.