THE TRENCH.
Malcolm had not yet, after all the health-giving of the voyage,
entirely recovered from the effects of the ill-compounded potion.
Indeed, sometimes the fear crossed his mind that never would he be the
same man again, that the slow furnace of the grave alone would destroy
the vile deposit left in his house of life. Hence it came that he was
weary, and overslept himself the next day--but it was no great matter;
he had yet time enough. He swallowed his breakfast as a working man
alone can, and set out for Duff Harbour. At Leith, where they had put
in for provisions, he had posted a letter to Mr Soutar, directing him
to have Kelpie brought on to his own town, whence he would fetch her
himself. The distance was about ten miles, the hour eight, and he was a
good enough walker, although boats and horses had combined to prevent
him, he confessed, from getting over-fond of Shanks’ mare. To men
who delight in the motions of a horse under them, the legs of a man
are a tame, dull means of progression, although they too have their
superiorities; and one of the disciplines of this world is to have to
get out of the saddle and walk afoot. He who can do so with perfect
serenity, must very nearly have learned with St Paul in whatsoever
state he is therein to be content. It was the loveliest of mornings,
however, to be abroad in upon any terms, and Malcolm hardly needed
the resources of one who knew both how to be abased and how to abound
--enviable perfection---for the enjoyment of even a long walk. Heaven
and earth were just settling to the work of the day after their morning
prayer, and the whole face of things yet wore something of that look
of expectation which one who mingled the vision of the poet with the
faith of the Christian might well imagine to be their upward look of
hope after a night of groaning and travailing --the earnest gaze of
the creature waiting for the manifestation of the sons of God; and
for himself, though the hardest thing was yet to come, there was a
satisfaction in finding himself almost up to his last fence, with the
heavy ploughed land through which he had been floundering nearly all
behind him--which figure means that he had almost made up his mind what
to do.
When he reached the Duff Arms, he walked straight into the yard, where
the first thing he saw was a stable boy in the air, hanging on to a
twitch on the nose of the rearing Kelpie. In another instant he would
have been killed or maimed for life, and Kelpie loose, and scouring
the streets of Duff Harbour. When she heard Malcolm’s voice and the
sound of his running feet, she stopped as if to listen. He flung the
boy aside and caught her halter. Once or twice more she reared, in the
vain hope of so ridding herself of the pain that clung to her lip and
nose, nor did she, through the mist of her anger and suffering, quite
recognize her master in his yacht uniform. But the torture decreasing,
she grew able to scent his presence, welcomed him with her usual glad
whinny, and allowed him to do with her as he would.
Having fed her, found Mr Soutar, and arranged several matters with him,
he set out for home.
That was a ride! Kelpie was mad with life. Every available field he
jumped her into, and she tore its element of space at least to shreds
with her spurning hoofs. But the distance was not great enough to
quiet her before they got to hard turnpike and young plantations. He
would have entered at the grand gate, but found no one at the lodge,
for the factor, to save a little, had dismissed the old keeper. He had
therefore to go on, and through the town, where, to the awe-stricken
eyes of the population peeping from doors and windows, it seemed as
if the terrible horse would carry him right over the roofs of the
fisher-cottages below, and out to sea.
“Eh, but he’s a terrible cratur that Ma’colm MacPhail!” said the old
wives to each other, for they felt there must be something wicked in
him to ride like that. But he turned her aside from the steep hill, and
passed along the street that led to the town-gate of the House.--Whom
should he see, as he turned into it, but Mrs Catanach!--standing on her
own doorstep, opposite the descent to the Seaton, shading her eyes with
her hand, and looking far out over the water through the green smoke of
the village below. As long as he could remember her, it had been her
wont to gaze thus; though what she could at such times be looking for,
except it were the devil in person, he found it hard to conjecture.
At the sound of his approach she turned; and such an expression crossed
her face in a momentary flash ere she disappeared in the house, as
added considerably to his knowledge of fallen humanity. Before he
reached her door she was out again, tying on a clean white apron as she
came, and smiling like a dark pool in sunshine. She dropped him a low
courtesy, and looked as if she had been occupying her house for months
of his absence. But Malcolm would not meet even cunning with its own
weapons, and therefore turned away his head, and took no notice of her.
She ground her teeth with the fury of hate, and swore that she would
yet disappoint him of his purpose, whatever it were, in this masquerade
of service. Her heart being scarcely of the calibre to comprehend one
like Malcolm’s, her theories for the interpretation of the mystery were
somewhat wild, and altogether of a character unfit to see the light.
The keeper of the town-gate greeted Malcolm, as he let him in, with a
pleased old face and words of welcome; but added instantly, as if it
was no time for the indulgence of friendship, that it was a terrible
business going on at the Nose.
“What is it?” asked Malcolm, in alarm.
“Ye ha’e been ower lang awa’, I doobt,” answered the man, “to ken hoo
the factor----But, Lord save ye! haud yer tongue,” he interjected,
looking fearfully around him. “Gien he kenned ’at I said sic a thing,
he wad turn me oot o’ hoose an’ ha’.”
“You’ve said nothing yet,” rejoined Malcolm.
“I said _factor_, an’ that same’s ’maist eneuch, for he’s like a
roarin’ lion an’ a ragin’ bear amang the people, an’ that sin’ ever ye
gaed. Bow-o’-meal said i’ the meetin’ the ither nicht ’at he bude to
be the verra man, the wickit ruler propheseed o’ sae lang sin’ syne i’
the beuk o’ the Proverbs. Eh! it’s an awfu’ thing to be foreordeent to
oonrichteousness!”
“But you haven’t told me what is the matter at Scaurnose,” said Malcolm
impatiently.
“Ow, it’s jist this--at this same ’s midsimmer-day, an’ Blew Peter,
honest fallow! he’s been for the last three month un’er nottice frae
the factor to quit. An’ sae, ye see,----”
“To quit!” exclaimed Malcolm. “Sic a thing was never h’ard tell o’!”
“Haith! it’s h’ard tell o’ noo,” returned the gatekeeper. “Quittin’
’s as plenty as quicken (_couch-grass_). ’Deed there’s maist naething
ither h’ard tell o’ _bit_ quittin’; for the full half o’ Scaurnose is
un’er like nottice for Michaelmas, an’ the Lord kens what it’ll a’ en’
in!”
“But what’s it for? Blue Peter’s no the man to misbehave himsel’.”
“Weel, ye ken mair yersel’ nor ony ither as to the warst fau’t there is
to lay till ’s chairge; for they say--that is, _some_ say, it’s a’ yer
ain wyte, Ma’colm.”
“What mean ye, man? Speyk oot,” said Malcolm.
“They say it’s a’ anent the abduckin’ o’ the markis’s boat, ’at you an’
him gaed aff wi’ thegither.”
“That’ll hardly haud, seeing the marchioness hersel’ cam hame in her
the last nicht.”
“Ay, but ye see the decree’s gane oot, an’ what the factor says is
like the laws o’ the Medes an’ the Prussians, ’at they say’s no to be
altert; I kenna mysel’.”
“Ow weel! gien that be a’, I’ll see efter that wi’ the marchioness.”
“Ay, but ye see there’s a lot o’ the laads there, as I’m tellt, ’at
has vooed ’at factor nor factor’s man sall ever set fut in Scaurnose
frae this day furth. Gang ye doon to the Seaton, an’ see hoo mony o’
yer auld freen’s ye’ll fin’ there. Man, they’re a’ oot to Scaurnose to
see the plisky! The factor he’s there, I ken, an’ some constables wi’
’im--to see ’at his order’s cairried oot. An’ the laads they ha’e been
fortifeein’ the place--as they ca’ ’t--for the last oor. They’ve howkit
a trenk, they tell me, ’at nane but a hunter on ’s horse cud win ower,
an’ they’re postit alang the toon side o’ ’t wi’ sticks an’ stanes,
an’ boat-heuks, an’ guns an’ pistils. An’ gien there bena a man or twa
killt a’ready,----”
Before he finished his sentence, Kelpie was levelling herself for the
sea-gate.
Johnny Bykes was locking it on the other side, in haste to secure his
eye-share of what was going on, when he caught sight of Malcolm tearing
up. Mindful of the old grudge, also that there was no marquis now
to favour his foe, he finished the arrested act of turning the key,
drew it from the lock, and to Malcolm’s orders, threats, and appeals,
returned for all answer that he had no time to attend to _him_, and
so left him looking through the bars. Malcolm dashed across the burn,
and round the base of the hill on which stood the little windgod
blowing his horn, dismounted, unlocked the door in the wall, got Kelpie
through, and was in the saddle again before Johnny was half-way from
the gate. When the churl saw him, he trembled, turned, and ran for its
shelter again in terror--nor perceived until he reached it, that the
insulted groom had gone off like the wind in the opposite direction.
Malcolm soon left the high road and cut across the fields--over which
the wind bore cries and shouts, mingled with laughter and the animal
sounds of coarse jeering. When he came nigh the cart-road which led
into the village, he saw at the entrance of the street a crowd, and
rising from it the well-known shape of the factor on his horse.
Nearer the sea, where was another entrance through the back-yards of
some cottages, was a smaller crowd. Both were now pretty silent, for
the attention of all was fixed on Malcolm’s approach. As he drew up
Kelpie foaming and prancing, and the group made way for her, he saw
a deep wide ditch across the road, on whose opposite side was ranged
irregularly the flower of Scaurnose’s younger manhood, calmly, even
merrily prepared to defend their entrenchment. They had been chaffing
the factor, and loudly challenging the constables to come on, when they
recognised Malcolm in the distance, and expectancy stayed the rush of
their bruising wit. For they regarded him as beyond a doubt come from
the marchioness with messages of goodwill. When he rode up, therefore,
they raised a great shout, everyone welcoming him by name. But the
factor, who, to judge by appearances, had had his forenoon dram ere
he left home, burning with wrath, moved his horse in between Malcolm
and the assembled Scaurnoseans on the other side of the ditch. He had
self-command enough left, however, to make one attempt at the loftily
superior.
“Pray what is your business?” he said, as if he had never seen Malcolm
in his life before, “I presume you come with a message.”
“I come to beg you, sir, not to go further with this business. Surely
the punishment is already enough!” said Malcolm respectfully.
“Who sends me the message?” asked the factor, his teeth clenched, and
his eyes flaming.
“One,” answered Malcolm, “who has some influence for justice, and will
use it, upon whichever side the justice may lie.”
“Go to hell,” cried the Factor, losing utterly his slender
self-command, and raising his whip.
Malcolm took no heed of the gesture, for he was at the moment beyond
his reach.
“Mr Crathie,” he said calmly, “you are banishing the best man in the
place.”
“No doubt! no doubt! seeing he’s a crony of yours,” laughed the factor
in mighty scorn. “A canting, prayer-meeting rascal!” he added.
“Is that ony waur nor a drucken elyer o’ the kirk?” cried Dubs from the
other side of the ditch, raising a roar of laughter.
The very purple forsook the factor’s face, and left it a corpse-like
grey in the fire of his fury.
“Come, come, my men! that’s going too far,” said Malcolm.
“An’ wha ir ye for a fudgie (_truant_) fisher, to gi’e coonsel ohn
speired?” shouted Dubs, altogether disappointed in the poor part
Malcolm seemed taking. “Haud to the factor there wi’ yer coonsel.”
“Get out of my way,” said Mr Crathie, still speaking through his set
teeth, and came straight upon Malcolm. “Home with you! or--r--r----”
Again he raised his whip, this time plainly with intent.
“For God’s sake, factor, min’ the mere,” cried Malcolm. “Ribs an’ legs
an’ a’ ’ill be to crack, gien ye anger her wi’ yer whuppin’.”
As he spoke, he drew a little aside that the factor might pass if he
pleased. A noise arose in the smaller crowd, and Malcolm turned to see
what it meant: off his guard, he received a stinging cut over the head
from the factor’s whip. Simultaneously, Kelpie stood up on end, and
Malcolm tore the weapon from the treacherous hand.
“If I gave you what you deserve, Mr Crathie, I should knock you and
your horse together into that ditch. A touch of the spur would do
it. I am not quite sure that I ought not. A nature like yours takes
forbearance for fear.”
While he spoke, his mare was ramping and kicking, making a clean sweep
all about her. Mr Crathie’s horse turned restive from sympathy, and it
was all his rider could do to keep his seat. As soon as he got Kelpie
a little quieter, Malcolm drew near and returned him his whip. He
snatched it from his outstretched hand, and essayed a second cut at
him, which Malcolm rendered powerless by pushing Kelpie close up to
him. Then suddenly wheeling, he left him.
On the other side of the trench the fellows were shouting and roaring
with laughter.
“Men,” cried Malcolm, “you have no right to stop up this road. I want
to go and see Blue Peter.”
“Come on,” cried one of the young men, emulous of Dubs’s humour, and
spread out his arms as if to receive Kelpie to his bosom.
“Stand out of the way then,” said Malcolm, “I _am_ coming.”
As he spoke, he took Kelpie a little round, keeping out of the way of
the factor, who sat trembling with rage on his still excited animal,
and sent her at the trench.
The Deevil’s Jock, as they called him, kept jumping, with his arms
outspread, from one place to another, as if to receive Kelpie’s charge,
but when he saw her actually coming, in short, quick bounds, straight
to the trench, he was seized with terror, and, half-paralysed, slipped
as he turned to flee, and rolled into the ditch, just in time to let
Kelpie fly over his head. His comrades scampered right and left, and
Malcolm, rather disgusted, took no notice of them.
A cart, loaded with their little all, the horse in the shafts, was
standing at Peter’s door, but nobody was near it. Hardly was Malcolm
well into the close, however, when out rushed Annie, and, heedless of
Kelpie’s demonstrative repellence, reached up her hands like a child,
caught him by the arm, while yet he was busied with his troublesome
charge, drew him down towards her, and held him till, in spite of
Kelpie, she had kissed him again and again.
“Eh, Ma’colm! eh, my lord!” she said, “ye ha’e saved my faith. I kenned
ye wad come!”
“Haud yer tongue, Annie. I mauna be kenned,” said Malcolm.
“There’s nae danger. They’ll tak it for sweirin’,” answered Annie,
laughing and crying both at once.
Out next came Blue Peter, his youngest child in his arms.
“Eh, Peter man! I’m blythe to see ye,” cried Malcolm. “Gie ’s a grup o’
yer honest han’.”
More than even the sight of his face beaming with pleasure, more than
that grasp of the hand that would have squeezed the life out of a
pole-cat, was the sound of the mother-tongue from his lips. The cloud
of Peter’s long distrust broke and vanished, and the sky of his soul
was straightway a celestial blue. He snatched his hand from Malcolm’s,
walked back into the empty house, ran into the little closet off
the kitchen, bolted the door, fell on his knees in the void little
sanctuary that had of late been the scene of so many foiled attempts to
lift up his heart, and poured out speechless thanksgiving to the God of
all grace and consolation, who had given him back his friend, and that
in the time of his sore need. So true was his heart in its love, that,
giving thanks for his friend, he forgot that friend was the Marquis of
Lossie, before whom his enemy was but as a snail in the sun.
When he rose from his knees, and went out again, his face shining and
his eyes misty, his wife was on the top of the cart, tying a rope
across the cradle.
“Peter,” said Malcolm, “ye was quite richt to gang, but I’m glaid they
didna lat ye.”
“I wad ha’e been half w’y to Port Gordon or noo,” said Peter.
“But noo ye’ll no gang to Port Gordon,” said Malcolm. “Ye’ll jist gang
to the Salmon for a feow days, till we see hoo things gang.”
“I’ll du onything ye like, Ma’colm,” said Peter, and went into the
house to fetch his bonnet.
In the street arose the cry of a woman, and into the close rushed one
of the fisher-wives, followed by the factor. He had found a place on
the eastern side of the village, where, jumping a low earth wall, he
got into a little back yard, and was trampling over its few stocks of
kail, and its one dusty miller and double daisy, when the woman to
whose cottage it belonged caught sight of him through the window, and
running out fell to abusing him in no measured language. He rode at her
in his rage, and she fled shrieking into Peter’s close, where she took
refuge behind the cart, never ceasing her vituperation, but calling him
every choice name in her vocabulary. Beside himself with the rage of
murdered dignity, he rode up, and struck at her over the corner of the
cart, whereupon, from the top of it, Annie Mair ventured to expostulate.
“Hoot, sir! It’s no mainners to lat at a wuman like that.”
He turned upon her, and gave her a cut on the arm and hand, so stinging
that she cried out, and nearly fell from the cart. Out rushed Peter and
flew at the factor, who from his seat of vantage began to ply his whip
about his head. But Malcolm, who, when the factor appeared, had moved
aside to keep Kelpie out of mischief, and saw only the second of the
two assaults, came forward with a scramble and a bound.
“Haud awa’, Peter,” he cried. “This belangs to me. I ga’e him back ’s
whup, an’ sae I’m accoontable.--Mr Crathie,”--and as he spoke he edged
his mare up to the panting factor, “the man who strikes a woman must be
taught that he is a scoundrel, and that office I take. I would do the
same if you were the lord of Lossie instead of his factor.”
Mr Crathie, knowing himself now in the wrong, was a little frightened
at the set speech, and began to bluster and stammer, but the swift
descent of Malcolm’s heavy riding whip on his shoulders and back made
him voluble in curses. Then began a battle that could not last long
with such odds on the side of justice. It was gazed at from the mouth
of the close by many spectators, but none dared enter because of the
capering and plunging and kicking of the horses. In less than a minute
the factor turned to flee, and spurring out of the court, galloped up
the street at full stretch.
“Haud oot o’ the gait,” cried Malcolm, and rode after him. But more
careful of the people, he did not get a good start, and the factor
was over the trench and into the fields before he caught him up. Then
again the stinging switch buckled about the shoulders of the oppressor,
driven with all the force of Malcolm’s brawny arm. The factor yelled
and cursed and swore, and still Malcolm plied the whip, and still the
horses flew--over fields and fences and ditches. At length in the last
field, from which they must turn into the high road, the factor groaned
out--
“For God’s sake, Ma’colm, ha’e mercy!”
The youth’s uplifted arm fell by his side. He turned his mare’s head,
and when the factor turned his, he saw the avenger already halfway back
to Scaurnose, and the constables in full flight meeting him.
While Malcolm was thus occupied, his sister was writing to Lady
Bellair. She told her that, having gone out for a sail in her yacht,
which she had sent for from Scotland, the desire to see her home had
overpowered her to such a degree that of the intended sail she had
made a voyage, and here she was, longing just as much now to see Lady
Bellair; and if she thought proper to bring a gentleman to take care
of her, he also should be welcomed for her sake. It was a long way for
her to come, she said, and Lady Bellair knew what sort of a place it
was; but there was nobody in London now, and if she had nothing more
enticing on her tablets, &c., &c. She ended with begging her, if she
was mercifully inclined to make her happy with her presence, to bring
to her Caley and her hound Demon. She had hardly finished when Malcolm
presented himself.
She received him very coldly, and declined to listen to anything about
the fishers. She insisted that, being one of their party, he was
prejudiced in their favour; and that of course a man of Mr Crathie’s
experience must know better than he what ought to be done with such
people, in view of protecting her rights, and keeping them in order.
She declared that she was not going to disturb the old way of things
to please him; and said that he had now done her all the mischief he
could, except, indeed, he were to head the fishers and sack Lossie
House.
Malcolm found that, by making himself known to her as her brother,
he had but given her confidence in speaking her mind to him, and set
her free from considerations of personal dignity when she desired
to humiliate him. But he was a good deal surprised at the ability
with which she set forth and defended her own view of her affairs,
for she did not tell him that the Rev. Mr Cairns had been with her
all the morning, flattering her vanity, worshipping her power, and
generally instructing her in her own greatness--also putting in a
word or two anent his friend Mr Crathie and his troubles with her
ladyship’s fisher-tenants. She was still, however, so far afraid of her
brother--which state of feeling was, perhaps, the main cause of her
insulting behaviour to him--that she sat in some dread lest he might
chance to see the address of the letter she had been writing.
I may mention here that Lady Bellair accepted the invitation with
pleasure for herself and Liftore, promised to bring Caley, but utterly
declined to take charge of Demon, or allow him to be of the party.
Thereupon Florimel, who was fond of the animal, and feared much, as
he was no favourite, that something would _happen_ to him, wrote to
Clementina, praying her to visit her in her lovely loneliness --good
as The Gloom in its way, though not quite so dark--and to add a hair
to the weight of her obligations if she complied, by allowing her
deerhound to accompany her. Clementina was the only one, she said, of
her friends for whom the animal had ever shown a preference.
Malcolm retired from his sister’s presence much depressed, saw Mrs
Courthope, who was kind as ever, and betook himself to his own room,
next to that in which his strange history began. There he sat down
and wrote urgently to Lenorme, stating that he had an important
communication to make, and begging him to start for the north the
moment he received the letter. A messenger from Duff Harbour well
mounted, he said, would ensure his presence within a couple of hours.
He found the behaviour of his old acquaintances and friends in the
Seaton much what he had expected: the few were as cordial as ever,
while the many still resented, with a mingling of the jealousy of
affection, his forsaking of the old life for a calling they regarded
as unworthy of one bred at least if not born a fisherman. A few there
were besides who always had been, for reasons perhaps best known to
themselves, less than friendly. The women were all cordial.
“Sic a mad-like thing,” said old Futtocks, who was now the leader of
the assembly at the barn, “to gang scoorin’ the cuintry on that mad
brute o’ a mere! What guid, think ye, can come o’ sic like?”
“H’ard ye him ever tell the story aboot Colonsay Castel yon’er?”
“Ay hev I.”
“Weel, isna his mere ’at they ca’ Kelpie jist the pictur o’ the deil’s
ain horse ’at lay at the door an’ watched, whan he flaw oot an’ tuik
the wa’ wi’ ’im ?”
“I cudna say till I saw whether the deil himsel’ cud gar her lie still.”