THE AMBUSH.
For more reasons than one, Fergus judged it prudent to tell not even
auntie Jean of his intention; but, waiting until the house was quiet,
stole softly from his room and repaired to the kitchen--at the other
end of the long straggling house, where he sat down, and taking his
book, an annual of the beginning of the century, began to read the
story of _Kathed and Eurelia_. Having finished it, he read another. He
read and read, but no brownie came. His candle burned into the socket.
He lighted another, and read again. Still no brownie appeared, and,
hard and straight as was the wooden chair on which he sat, he began
to doze. Presently he started wide awake, fancying he heard a noise;
but nothing was there. He raised his book once more, and read until he
had finished the stories in it: for the verse he had no inclination
that night. As soon as they were all consumed, he began to feel very
_eerie_: his courage had been sheltering itself behind his thoughts,
which the tales he had been reading had kept turned away from the
object of dread. Still deeper and deeper grew the night around him,
until the bare, soulless waste of it came at last, when a brave man
might welcome any ghost for the life it would bring. And ever as it
came, the tide of fear flowed more rapidly, until at last it rose over
his heart, and threatened to stifle him. The direst foe of courage is
the fear itself, not the object of it; and the man who can overcome
his own terror is a hero and more. In this Fergus had not yet deserved
to be successful. That kind of victory comes only of faith. Still, he
did not fly the field; he was no coward. At the same time, prizing
courage, scorning fear, and indeed disbelieving in every nocturnal
object of terror except robbers, he came at last to such an all but
abandonment of dread, that he dared not look over his shoulder, lest he
should see the brownie standing at his back; he would rather be seized
from behind and strangled in his hairy grasp, than turn and die of the
seeing. The night was dark--no moon and many clouds. Not a sound came
from the close. The cattle, the horses, the pigs, the cocks and hens,
the very cats and rats seemed asleep. There was not a rustle in the
thatch, a creak in the couples. It was well, for the slightest noise
would have brought his heart into his mouth, and he would have been in
great danger of scaring the household, and for ever disgracing himself,
with a shriek. Yet he longed to hear something stir. Oh! for the stamp
of a horse from the stable or the low of a cow from the byre! But they
were all under the brownie’s spell, and he was coming--toeless feet,
and thumbed but fingerless hands! as if he was made with stockings,
and _hum’le mittens_! Was it the want of toes that made him able to
come and go so quietly?--Another hour crept by; when lo, a mighty
sun-trumpet blew in the throat of the black cock! Fergus sprang to his
feet with the start it gave him--but the next moment gladness rushed
up in his heart: the morning was on its way! and, foe to superstition
as he was, and much as he had mocked at Donal for what he counted some
of his tendencies in that direction, he began instantly to comfort
himself with the old belief that all things of the darkness flee from
the crowing of the cock. The same moment his courage began to return,
and the next he was laughing at his terrors, more foolish than when he
felt them, seeing he was the same man of fear as before, and the same
circumstances would wrap him in the same garment of dire apprehension.
In his folly he imagined himself quite ready to watch the next night
without even repugnance--for it was the morning, not the night, that
came first!
When the grey of the dawn appeared, he said to himself he would lie
down on the bench a while, he was so tired of sitting; he would not
sleep. He lay down, and in a moment was asleep. The light grew and
grew, and the brownie came--a different brownie indeed from the one he
had pictured--with the daintiest-shaped hands and feet coming out of
the midst of rags, and with no hair except roughly parted curls over
the face of a cherub--for the combing of Snowball’s mane and tail had
taught Gibbie to use the same comb upon his own thatch. But as soon as
he opened the door of the dairy, he was warned by the loud breathing
of the sleeper, and looking about, espied him on the bench behind the
table, and swiftly retreated. The same instant Fergus woke, stretched
himself, saw it was broad daylight, and, with his brain muddled by
fatigue and sleep combined, crawled shivering to bed. Then in came the
brownie again; and when Jean Mavor entered, there was her work done as
usual.
Fergus was hours late for breakfast, and when he went into the common
room, found his aunt alone there.
“Weel, auntie,” he said, “I think I fleggit yer broonie!”
“Did ye that, man? Aye!--An’ syne ye set tee, an’ did the wark yersel
to save yer auntie Jean’s auld banes?”
“Na, na! I was o’er tiret for that. Sae wad ye hae been yersel’, gien
ye had sitten up a’ nicht.”
“Wha did it, than?”
“Ow, jist yersel’, I’m thinkin’, auntie.”
“Never a finger o’ mine was laid till ’t, Fergus. Gien ye fleggit ae
broonie, anither cam; for there’s the wark done, the same ’s ever.”
“Damn the cratur!” cried Fergus.
“Whisht, whisht, laddie! he’s maybe hearin’ ye this meenute. An’ gien
he binna, there’s ane ’at is, an’ likesna sweirin’.”
“I beg yer pardon, auntie, but it’s jist provokin’!” returned Fergus,
and therewith recounted the tale of his night’s watch, omitting mention
only of his feelings throughout the vigil.
As soon as he had had his breakfast, he went to carry his report to
Glashruach.
The laird was vexed, and told him he must sleep well before night, and
watch to better purpose.
The next night, Fergus’s terror returned in full force; but he watched
thoroughly notwithstanding, and when his aunt entered, she found him
there, and her kitchen in a mess. He had caught no brownie, it was
true, but neither had a stroke of her work been done. The floor was
unswept; not a dish had been washed; it was churning-day, but the
cream stood in the jar in the dairy, not the butter in the pan on the
kitchen-dresser. Jean could not quite see the good or the gain of it.
She had begun to feel like a lady, she said to herself, and now she
must tuck up her sleeves and set to work as before. It was a come-down
in the world, and she did not like it. She conned her nephew little
thanks, and not being in the habit of dissembling, let him feel the
same. He crept to bed rather mortified. When he woke from a long sleep,
he found no meal waiting him, and had to content himself with cakes[1]
and milk before setting out for “the Muckle Hoose.”
[1] It amuses a Scotchman to find that the word _cakes_, as in “_The
Land of Cakes_,” is taken, not only by foreigners, but by some English
people--as how, indeed, should it be otherwise?--to mean compositions
of flour, more or less enriched, and generally appreciable; whereas,
in fact, it stands for the dryest, simplest preparation in the world.
The genuine cakes is--(My grammar follows usage: cakes _is_; broth
_are_.)--literally nothing but oatmeal made into a dough with cold
water and dried over the fire--sometimes then in front of it as well.
“You must add cunning to courage, my young friend,” said Mr. Galbraith;
and the result of their conference was that Fergus went home resolved
on yet another attempt.
He felt much inclined to associate Donal with him in his watch this
time, but was too desirous of proving his courage both to himself and
to the world, to yield to the suggestion of his fear. He went to bed
with a book immediately after the noon-day meal and rose in time for
supper.
There was a large wooden press in the kitchen, standing out from the
wall; this with the next wall made a little recess, in which there was
just room for a chair; and in that recess Fergus seated himself, in the
easiest chair he could get into it. He then opened wide the door of the
press, and it covered him entirely.
This night would have been the dreariest of all for him, the laird
having insisted that he should watch in the dark, had he not speedily
fallen fast asleep, and slept all night--so well that he woke at the
first noise Gibbie made.
It was broad clear morning, but his heart beat so loud and fast with
apprehension and curiosity mingled, that for a few moments Fergus dare
not stir, but sat listening breathless to the movement beside him, none
the less appalling that it was so quiet. Recovering himself a little he
cautiously moved the door of the press, and peeped out.
He saw nothing so frightful as he had, in spite of himself,
anticipated, but was not therefore, perhaps, the less astonished.
The dread brownie of his idea shrunk to a tiny ragged urchin, with
a wonderful head of hair, azure eyes, and deft hands, noiselessly
bustling about on bare feet. He watched him at his leisure, watched him
keenly, assured that any moment he could spring upon him.
As he watched, his wonder sank, and he grew disappointed at the
collapsing of the lubber-fiend into a poor half-naked child upon
whom both his courage and his fear had been wasted. As he continued
to watch, an evil cloud of anger at the presumption of the unknown
minimus began to gather in his mental atmosphere, and was probably the
cause of some movement by which his chair gave a loud creak. Without
even looking round, Gibbie darted into the dairy, and shut the door.
Instantly Fergus was after him, but only in time to see the vanishing
of his last heel through the hole in the wall, and that way Fergus was
much too large to follow him. He rushed from the house, and across the
corner of the yard to the barn-door. Gibbie, who did not believe he had
been seen, stood laughing on the floor, when suddenly he heard the key
entering the lock. He bolted through the cat-hole--but again just one
moment too late, leaving behind him on Fergus’s retina the light from
the soles of two bare feet. The key of the door to the rick-yard was
inside, and Fergus was after him in a moment, but the ricks came close
to the barn-door, and the next he saw of him was the fluttering of his
rags in the wind, and the flashing of his white skin in the sun, as
he fled across the clover field; and before Fergus was over the wall,
Gibbie was a good way ahead towards the Lorrie. Gibbie was a better
runner for his size than Fergus, and in better training too; but, alas!
Fergus’s legs were nearly twice as long as Gibbie’s. The little one
reached the Lorrie first, and dashing across it, ran up the side of the
Glashburn, with a vague idea of Glashgar in his head. Fergus behind
him was growing more and more angry as he gained upon him but felt his
breath failing him. Just at the bridge to the iron gate to Glashruach,
he caught him at last, and sunk on the parapet exhausted. The smile
with which Gibbie, too much out of breath to laugh, confessed himself
vanquished, would have disarmed one harder-hearted than Fergus, had he
not lost his temper in the dread of losing his labour; and the answer
Gibbie received to his smile was a box on the ear that bewildered him.
He looked pitifully in his captor’s face, the smile not yet faded from
his, only to receive a box on the other ear, which, though a contrary
and similar both at once, was not a cure, and the water gathered in his
eyes. Fergus, a little eased in his temper by the infliction, and in
his breath by the wall of the bridge, began to ply him with questions;
but no answer following, his wrath rose again, and again he boxed both
his ears--without better result.
Then came the question what was he to do with the redoubted brownie,
now that he had him. He was ashamed to show himself as the captor of
such a miserable culprit, but the little rascal deserved punishment,
and the laird would require him at his hands. He turned upon his
prisoner and told him he was an impudent rascal. Gibbie had recovered
again, and was able once more to smile a little. He had been guilty of
burglary, said Fergus; and Gibbie smiled. He could be sent to prison
for it, said Fergus; and Gibbie smiled--but this time a very grave
smile. Fergus took him by the collar, which amounted to nearly a third
part of the jacket, and shook him till he had half torn that third
from the other two; then opened the gate, and, holding him by the back
of the neck, walked him up the drive, every now and then giving him a
fierce shake that jarred his teeth. Thus, over the old gravel, mossy
and damp and grassy, and cool to his little bare feet, between rowan
and birk and pine and larch, like a malefactor, and looking every
inch the outcast he was, did Sir Gilbert Galbraith approach the house
of his ancestors for the first time. Individually, wee Gibbie was
anything but a prodigal; it had never been possible to him to be one;
but none the less was he the type and result and representative of his
prodigal race, in him now once more looking upon the house they had
lost by their vices and weaknesses, and in him now beginning to reap
the benefits of punishment. But of vice and loss, of house and fathers
and punishment, Gibbie had no smallest cognition. His history was about
him and in him, yet of it all he suspected nothing. It would have made
little difference to him if he had known it all; he would none the less
have accepted everything that came, just as part of the story in which
he found himself.