THE LAIRD.
Thomas Galbraith was by birth Thomas Durrant, but had married an
heiress by whom he came into possession of Glashruach, and had,
according to previous agreement, taken her name. When she died he
mourned her loss as well as he could, but was consoled by feeling
himself now first master of both position and possession, when the
ladder by which he had attained them was removed. It was not that she
had ever given him occasion to feel that marriage and not inheritance
was the source of his distinction in the land, but that having a soul
as keenly sensitive to small material rights as it was obtuse to great
spiritual ones, he never felt the property quite his own until his wife
was no longer within sight. Had he been a little more sensitive still,
he would have felt that the property was then his daughter’s, and his
only through her; but this he failed to consider.
Mrs. Galbraith was a gentle sweet woman, who loved her husband,
but was capable of loving a greater man better. Had she lived long
enough to allow of their opinions confronting in the matter of their
child’s education, serious differences would probably have arisen
between them; as it was, they had never quarrelled except about the
name she should bear. The father, having for her sake--so he said to
himself--sacrificed his patronymic, was anxious that in order to her
retaining some rudimentary trace of himself in the ears of men, she
should be overshadowed with his Christian name, and called Thomasina.
But the mother was herein all the mother, and obdurate for her
daughter’s future; and, as was right between the two, she had her way,
and her child a pretty name. Being more sentimental than artistic,
however, she did not perceive how imperfectly the sweet Italian
_Ginevra_ concorded with the strong Scotch _Galbraith_. Her father
hated the name, therefore invariably abbreviated it after such fashion
as rendered it inoffensive to the most conservative of Scotish ears;
and for his own part, at length, never said _Ginny_, without seeing and
hearing and meaning _Jenny_. As _Jenny_, indeed, he addressed her in
the one or two letters which were all he ever wrote to her; and thus he
perpetuated the one matrimonial difference across the grave.
Having no natural bent to literature, but having in his youth studied
for and practised at the Scotish bar, he had brought with him into the
country a taste for certain kinds of dry reading, judged pre-eminently
respectable, and for its indulgence had brought also a not insufficient
store of such provender as his soul mildly hungered after, in the
shape of books bound mostly in yellow-calf--books of law, history, and
divinity. What the books of law were, I would not foolhardily add to
my many risks of blundering by presuming to recall; the history was
mostly Scotish, or connected with Scotish affairs; the theology was
entirely of the New England type of corrupted Calvinism, with which in
Scotland they saddle the memory of great-souled, hard-hearted Calvin
himself. Thoroughly respectable, and a little devout, Mr. Galbraith was
a good deal more of a Scotchman than a Christian; growth was a doctrine
unembodied in his creed; he turned from everything new, no matter how
harmonious with the old, in freezing disapprobation; he recognized no
element in God or nature which could not be reasoned about after the
forms of the Scotch philosophy. He would not have said an Episcopalian
could not be saved, for at the bar he had known more than one good
lawyer of the episcopal party; but to say a Roman Catholic would not
necessarily be damned, would to his judgment have revealed at once the
impending fate of the rash asserter. In religion he regarded everything
not only as settled but as understood; but seemed aware of no call in
relation to truth, but to bark at anyone who showed the least anxiety
to discover it. What truth he held himself, he held as a sack holds
corn--not even as a worm holds earth.
To his servants and tenants he was what he thought _just_--never
condescending to talk over a thing with any of the former but the
game-keeper, and never making any allowance to the latter for
misfortune. In general expression he looked displeased, but meant to
look dignified. No one had ever seen him wrathful; nor did he care
enough for his fellow-mortals ever to be greatly vexed--at least he
never manifested vexation otherwise than by a silence that showed more
of contempt than suffering.
In person, he was very tall and very thin, with a head much too small
for his height; a narrow forehead, above which the brown hair looked
like a wig; pale-blue, ill-set eyes, that seemed too large for their
sockets, consequently tumbled about a little, and were never at once
brought to focus; a large, but soft-looking nose; a loose-lipped mouth,
and very little chin. He always looked as if consciously trying to keep
himself together. He wore his shirt-collar unusually high, yet out of
it far shot his long neck, notwithstanding the smallness of which, his
words always seemed to come from a throat much too big for them. He
had greatly the look of a hen, proud of her maternal experiences, and
silent from conceit of what she could say if she would. So much better
would he have done as an underling than as a ruler--as a journeyman
even, than a master, that to know him was almost to disbelieve in
the good of what is generally called education. His learning seemed
to have taken the wrong fermentation, and turned to folly instead
of wisdom. But he did not do much harm, for he had a great respect
for his respectability. Perhaps if he had been a craftsman, he might
even have done more harm--making rickety wheelbarrows, asthmatic
pumps, ill-fitting window-frames, or boots with a lurking divorce
in each welt. He had no turn for farming, and therefore let all his
land, yet liked to interfere, and as much as possible kept a personal
jurisdiction.
There was one thing, however, which, if it did not throw the laird
into a passion--nothing, as I have said, did that--brought him nearer
to the outer verge of displeasure than any other, and that was,
anything whatever to which he could affix the name of superstition.
The indignation of better men than the laird with even a confessedly
harmless superstition, is sometimes very amusing; and it was a
point of Mr. Galbraith’s poverty-stricken religion to denounce all
superstitions, however diverse in character, with equal severity. To
believe in the second sight, for instance, or in any form of life as
having the slightest relation to this world, except that of men, that
of animals, and that of vegetables, was with him wicked, antagonistic
to the Church of Scotland, and inconsistent with her perfect doctrine.
The very word _ghost_ would bring upon his face an expression he meant
for withering scorn, and indeed it withered his face, rendering it
yet more unpleasant to behold. Coming to the benighted country, then,
with all the gathered wisdom of Edinburgh in his gallinaceous cranium,
and what he counted a vast experience of worldly affairs besides, he
brought with him also the firm resolve to be the death of superstition,
at least upon his own property. He was not only unaware, but incapable
of becoming aware, that he professed to believe a number of things,
any one of which was infinitely more hostile to the truth of the
universe, than all the fancies and fables of a countryside, handed down
from grandmother to grandchild. When, therefore, within a year of his
settling at Glashruach, there arose a loud talk of the Mains, his best
farm, as haunted by presences making all kinds of tumultuous noises,
and even throwing utensils bodily about, he was nearer the borders
of a rage, although he kept, as became a gentleman, a calm exterior,
than ever he had been in his life. For were not ignorant clodhoppers
asserting as facts what he knew never could take place! At once he set
himself, with all his experience as a lawyer to aid him, to discover
the buffooning authors of the mischief; where there were deeds there
were doers, and where there were doers they were discoverable. But his
endeavours, uninterrmitted for the space of three weeks, after which
the disturbances ceased, proved so utterly without result, that he
could never bear the smallest allusion to the hateful business. For he
had not only been unhorsed, but by his dearest hobby.
He was seated with a game pie in front of him, over the top of which
Ginevra was visible. The girl never sat nearer her father at meals than
the whole length of the table, where she occupied her mother’s place.
She was a solemn-looking child, of eight or nine, dressed in a brown
merino frock of the plainest description. Her hair, which was nearly of
the same colour as her frock, was done up in two triple plaits, which
hung down her back, and were tied at the tips with black ribbon. To the
first glance she did not look a very interesting or attractive child;
but looked at twice, she was sure to draw the eyes a third time. She
was undeniably like her father, and that was much against her at first
sight; but it required only a little acquaintance with her face to
remove the prejudice; for in its composed, almost resigned expression,
every feature of her father’s seemed comparatively finished, and
settled into harmony with the rest; its chaos was subdued, and not a
little of the original underlying design brought out. The nose was
firm, the mouth modelled, the chin larger, the eyes a little smaller,
and full of life and feeling. The longer it was regarded by any seeing
eye, the child’s countenance showed fuller of promise, or at least
of hope. Gradually the look would appear in it of a latent sensitive
anxiety--then would dawn a glimmer of longing question; and then, all
at once, it would slip back into the original ordinary look, which,
without seeming attractive, had yet attracted. Her father was never
harsh to her, yet she looked rather frightened at him; but then he was
cold, very cold, and most children would rather be struck and kissed
alternately than neither. And the bond cannot be very close between
father and child, when the father has forsaken his childhood. The bond
between any two is the one in the other; it is the father in the child,
and the child in the father, that reach to each other eternal hands. It
troubled Ginevra greatly that, when she asked herself whether she loved
her father better than anybody else, as she believed she ought, she
became immediately doubtful whether she loved him at all.
She was eating porridge and milk: with spoon arrested in mid-passage,
she stopped suddenly, and said:--
“Papa, what’s a broonie?”
“I have told you, Jenny, that you are never to talk broad Scotch in my
presence,” returned her father. “I would lay severer commands upon you,
were it not that I fear tempting you to disobey me, but I will have no
vulgarity in the dining-room.”
His words came out slowly, and sounded as if each was a bullet wrapped
round with cotton wool to make it fit the barrel. Ginevra looked
perplexed for a moment.
“Should I say _brownie_, papa?” she asked.
“How can I tell you what you should call a creature that has no
existence?” rejoined her father.
“If it be a creature, papa, it must have a name!” retorted the little
logician, with great solemnity.
Mr. Galbraith was not pleased, for although the logic was good, it was
against him.
“What foolish person has been insinuating such contemptible
superstition into your silly head?” he asked. “Tell me, child,” he
continued, “that I may put a stop to it at once.”
He was rising to ring the bell, that he might give the orders
consequent on the information he expected: he would have asked Mammon
to dinner in black clothes and a white tie, but on Superstition in the
loveliest garb would have loosed all the dogs of Glashruach, to hunt
her from the property. Her next words, however, arrested him, and just
as she ended, the butler came in with fresh toast.
“They say,” said Ginevra, anxious to avoid the forbidden
Scotch, therefore stumbling sadly in her utterance, “there’s a
broonie--brownie--at the Mains, who dis a’--does all the work.”
“What is the meaning of this, Joseph?” said Mr. Galbraith, turning from
her to the butler, with the air of rebuke, which was almost habitual to
him, a good deal heightened.
“The meanin’ o’ what, sir?” returned Joseph, nowise abashed, for to
him his master was not the greatest man in the world, or even in the
highlands. “He’s no a Galbraith,” he used to say, when more than
commonly provoked with him.
“I ask you, Joseph,” answered the laird, “what this--this outbreak
of superstition imports? You must be aware that nothing in the world
could annoy me more than that Miss Galbraith should learn folly in her
father’s house. That staid servants, such as I had supposed mine to be,
should use their tongues as if their heads had no more in them than so
many bells hung in a steeple, is to me a mortifying reflection.”
“Tongues as weel ’s clappers was made to wag, sir; an, wag they wull,
sir, sae lang ’s the tow (_string_) hings oot at baith lugs,” answered
Joseph. The forms of speech he employed were not unfrequently obscure
to his master, and in that obscurity lay more of Joseph’s impunity than
he knew. “Forby (_besides_), sir,” he went on, “gien tongues didna wag,
what w’y wad you, ’at has to set a’ thing richt, come to ken what was
wrang?”
“That is not a bad remark, Joseph,” replied the laird, with woolly
condescension. “Pray acquaint me with the whole matter.”
“I hae naething till acquaint yer honour wi’, sir, but the ting-a-ling
o’ tongues,” replied Joseph; “an’ ye’ll hae till arreenge ’t like, till
yer ain settisfaction.”
Therewith he proceeded to report what he had heard reported, which
was in the main the truth, considerably exaggerated--that the work of
the house was done over night by invisible hands--and the work of the
stables, too; but that in the latter, cantrips were played as well;
that some of the men talked of leaving the place; and that Mr. Duff’s
own horse, Snowball, was nearly out of his mind with fear.
The laird clenched his teeth, and for a whole minute said nothing. Here
were either his old enemies again, or some who had heard the old story,
and in their turn were beating the drum of consternation in the ears of
superstition.
“It is one of the men themselves,” he said at last, with outward
frigidity. “Or some ill-designed neighbour,” he added. “But I shall
soon be at the bottom of it. Go to the Mains at once, Joseph, and
ask young Fergus Duff to be so good as step over, as soon as he
conveniently can.”
Fergus was pleased enough to be sent for by the laird, and soon told
him all he knew from his aunt and the men, confessing that he had
himself been too lazy of a morning to take any steps towards personal
acquaintance with the facts, but adding that, as Mr. Galbraith took an
interest in the matter, he would be only too happy to carry out any
suggestion he might think proper to make on the subject.
“Fergus,” returned the laird, “do you imagine things inanimate can
of themselves change their relations in space? In other words, are
the utensils in your kitchen endowed with powers of locomotion? Can
they take to themselves wings and fly? Or to use a figure more to the
point, are they provided with members necessary to the washing of their
own--_persons_, shall I say? Answer me those points, Fergus.”
“Certainly not, sir,” answered Fergus solemnly, for the laird’s face
was solemn, and his speech was very solemn.
“Then, Fergus, let me assure you, that to discover by what agency these
apparent wonders are effected, you have merely to watch. If you fail,
I will myself come to your assistance. Depend upon it, the thing when
explained will prove simplicity itself.”
Fergus at once undertook to watch, but went home not quite so
comfortable as he had gone; for he did not altogether, notwithstanding
his unbelief in the so-called supernatural, relish the approaching
situation. Belief and unbelief are not always quite plainly
distinguishable from each other, and Fear is not always certain which
of them is his mother. He was not the less resolved, however, to
carry out what he had undertaken--that was, to sit up all night, if
necessary, in order to have an interview with the extravagant and
erring--spirit, surely, whether embodied or not, that dared thus wrong
“domestic awe, night-rest, and neighbourhood,” by doing people’s work
for them unbidden. Not even to himself did he confess that he felt
frightened, for he was a youth of nearly eighteen; but he could not
quite hide from himself the fact that he anticipated no pleasure in the
duty which lay before him.