LONDON STREETS.
Leaving Davy to keep the sloop, the two fishermen went on shore.
Passing from the narrow precincts of the river, they found themselves
at once in the roar of London city. Stunned at first, then excited,
then bewildered, then dazed, without plan to guide their steps, they
wandered about until, unused to the hard stones, their feet ached. It
was a dull day in March. A keen wind blew round the corners of the
streets. They wished themselves at sea again.
“Sic a sicht o’ fowk!” said Blue Peter.
“It’s hard to think,” rejoined Malcolm, “what w’y the God ’at made them
can luik efter them a’ in sic a tumult. But they say even the sheep-dog
kens ilk sheep i’ the flock ’at’s gien him in chairge.”
“Ay, but ye see,” said Blue Peter, “they’re mair like a shoal o’
herrin’ nor a flock o’ sheep.”
“It’s no the num’er o’ them ’at plagues me,” said Malcolm. “The gran’
diffeeculty is hoo He can lat ilk ane tak his ain gait an’ yet luik
efter them a’. But gien He does ’t, it stan’s to rizzon it maun be in
some w’y ’at them ’at’s sae luikit efter canna by ony possibeelity
un’erstan’.”
“That’s trowth, I’m thinkin’. We maun jist gi’e up an’ confess there’s
things abune a’ human comprehension.”
“Wha kens but that may be ’cause i’ their verra natur’ they’re ower
semple for craturs like hiz ’at’s made sae mixed-like, an’ see sae
little intill the hert o’ things?”
“Ye’re ayont me there,” said Blue Peter, and a silence followed.
It was a conversation very unsuitable to London Streets--but then these
were raw Scotch fisherman, who had not yet learned how absurd it is to
suppose ourselves come from anything greater than ourselves, and had no
conception of the liberty it confers on a man to know that he is the
child of a protoplasm, or something still more beautifully small.
At length a policeman directed them to a Scotch eating-house, where
they fared after their country’s fashions, and from the landlady
gathered directions by which to guide themselves towards Curzon Street,
a certain number in which Mr Soutar had given Malcolm as Lady Bellair’s
address.
The door was opened to Malcolm’s knock by a slatternly charwoman, who,
unable to understand a word he said, would, but for its fine frank
expression, have shut the door in his face. From the expression of
hers, however, Malcolm suddenly remembered that he must speak English,
and having a plentiful store of the book sort, he at once made himself
intelligible in spite of tone and accent. It was, however, only a
shifting of the difficulty, for he now found it nearly impossible to
understand her. But by repeated questioning and hard listening he
learnt at last that Lady Bellair had removed her establishment to Lady
Lossie’s house in Portland Place.
After many curious perplexities, odd blunders, and vain endeavours to
understand shop signs and notices in the windows; after they had again
and again imagined themselves back at a place they had left miles
away; after many a useless effort to lay hold of directions given
so rapidly that the very sense could not gather the sounds, they at
length stood--not in Portland Place, but in front of Westminster Abbey.
Inquiring what it was, and finding they could go in, they entered.
For some moments not a word was spoken between them, but when they
had walked slowly half-way up the nave, Malcolm turned and said, “Eh,
Peter! sic a blessin’!” and Peter replied, “There canna be muckle o’
this i’ the warl’!”
Comparing impressions afterwards, Peter said that the moment he stepped
in, he heard the rush of the tide on the rocks of Scaurnose; and
Malcolm declared he felt as if he had stepped out of the world into the
regions of eternal silence.
“What a mercy it maun be,” he went on, “to mony a cratur, in sic a
whummle an’ a rum’le an’ a remish as this Lon’on, to ken ’at there is
sic a cave howkit oot o’ the din, ’at he can gang intill an’ say his
prayers intill! Man, Peter! I’m jist some feared whiles ’at the verra
din i’ my lugs mayna ’maist drive the thoucht o’ God oot o’ me.”
At length they found their way into Regent Street, and leaving its mean
assertion behind, reached the stately modesty of Portland Place; and
Malcolm was pleased to think the house he sought was one of those he
now saw.
It was one of the largest in the Place. He would not, however, yield
to the temptation to have a good look at it, for fear of attracting
attention from its windows and being recognised. They turned therefore
aside into some of the smaller thoroughfares lying between Portland
Place and Great Portland Street, where searching about, they came upon
a decent-looking public house and inquired after lodgings. They were
directed to a woman in the neighbourhood, who kept a dingy little
curiosity-shop. On payment of a week’s rent in advance, she allowed
them a small bedroom. But Malcolm did not want Peter with him that
night; he wished to be perfectly free; and besides it was more than
desirable that Peter should go and look after the boat and the boy.
Left alone he fell once more to his hitherto futile scheming: How was
he to get near his sister? To the whitest of lies he had insuperable
objection, and if he appeared before her with no reason to give, would
she not be far too offended with his presumption to retain him in her
service? And except he could be near her as her servant, he did not see
a chance of doing anything for her without disclosing facts which might
make all such service as he would most gladly render her impossible,
by causing her to hate the very sight of him. Plan after plan rose and
passed from his mind rejected, and the only resolution he could come to
was to write to Mr Soutar, to whom he had committed the protection of
Kelpie, to send her up by the first smack from Aberdeen. He did so, and
wrote also to Miss Horn, telling her where he was, then went out, and
made his way back to Portland Place.
Night had closed in, and thick vapours hid the moon, but lamps and
lighted windows illuminated the wide street. Presently it began
to snow. But through the snow and the night went carriages in all
directions, with great lamps that turned the flakes into white stars
for a moment as they gleamed past. The hoofs of the horses echoed hard
from the firm road.
Could that house really belong to him? It did, yet he dared not enter
it. That which was dear and precious to him was in the house, and just
because of that he could not call it his own. There was less light
in it than in any other within his range. He walked up and down the
opposite side of the street its whole length some fifty times, but saw
no sign of vitality about the house. At length a brougham stopped at
the door, and a man got out and knocked. Malcolm instantly crossed, but
could not see his face. The door opened, and he entered. The brougham
waited. After about a quarter of an hour he came out again, accompanied
by two ladies, one of whom he judged by her figure to be Florimel. They
all got into the carriage, and Malcolm braced himself for a terrible
run. But the coachman drove carefully, the snow lay a few inches deep,
and he found no difficulty in keeping near them, following with fleet
foot and husbanded breath.
They stopped at the doors of a large dark-looking building in a narrow
street. He thought it was a church, and wondered that so his sister
should be going there on a week night. Nor did the aspect of the
entrance hall, into which he followed them, undeceive him. It was more
showy, certainly, than the vestibule of any church he had ever been
in before, but what might not churches be in London? They went up a
great flight of stairs--to reach the gallery, as he thought, and still
he went after them. When he reached the top, they were just vanishing
round a curve, and his advance was checked: a man came up to him, said
he could not come there, and gruffly requested him to show his ticket.
“I haven’t got one. What is this place?” said Malcolm, whom the aspect
of the man had suddenly rendered doubtful, mouthing his English with
Scotch deliberation.
The man gave him a look of contemptuous surprise, and turning to
another who lounged behind him with his hands in his pockets, said--
“Tom, here’s a gentleman as wants to know where he is: can you tell
him?”
The person addressed laughed, and gave Malcolm a queer look.
“Every cock crows on his own midden,” said Malcolm, “but if I were on
mine, I would try to be civil.”
“You go down there, and pay for a pit ticket, and you’ll soon know
where you are, mate,” said Tom.
He obeyed, and after a few inquiries, and the outlay of two shillings,
found himself in the pit of one of the largest of the London theatres.