THE CURATE OF DALRY
Peter McCaskill received the weight deftly, as though he had been
accustomed all his life to be charged down upon without a moment's
notice by unconscious men.
"Easy does it, my lord," he said; "ye will soon be better. He's been
owertaken, ye see--a wee drappie does it on an empty stomach," he
explained to Jean Gordon. "Often hae I warned my folk--aye, even frae
the pulpit, the very horns o' the altar, as it were--no' to tak' drink
on an empty stomach!"
"Empty fiddlestick! Lay the laddie here!" cried Jean Gordon; "do ye no'
see that the lad is deein' on his feet? He hasna seen drink for weeks,
I'll wager--no, nor Christian meat either, by a' appearances."
She stopped to take off his boots. The soaked remnants of the sole came
away in her hand.
"Mercy!" she cried, "the poor lad maun hae been in sore want. Tak' haud
o' him soothly and tentily, Peter."
And so the kindly old lady, peering closely with her dim, short-sighted
eyes, and the burly, red-gilled curate undressed Wat Gordon gently, and
laid him in the bed on which his mother had died--the flanking pillars
of which were hacked with the swords of the troopers from Carsphairn
who had come to seek him after the sentence of outlawry.
"Peety me!" said Jean Gordon, "what will we do wi' the puir laddie?
I'll get him some broth gin he can tak' them."
So, in a trice, Wat, having come a little to himself, was sitting up
and taking "guid broth o' the very best, wi' a beef-bane boiled to
ribbons intil't," as Jean Gordon nominated the savory stew, while she
sat on the bed and fed him in mouthfuls with the only silver spoon
Grier of Lag had left in the once well-plenished house of Lochinvar.
Wat sat fingering his gold heart and looking about him. He seemed like
a man who has risen to the surface and finds himself unexpectedly in a
boat after a nightmare experience of death in perilous deeps of the sea.
"Is there a horse about the house?" queried Wat, presently, looking at
Jean Gordon out of his hollow, purple-rimmed eyes.
She thought that he still dreamed or doted.
"A horse, my laddie!" she cried. "How should there be a horse aboot
the house of Lochinvar? The stables were never so extensive that I
heard o'; and, troth, Rob Grier o' Lag, deil's lick-pot that he is,
has no' left mony aboot the estates. There's a plough-horse ower by
Gordiestoun, if that's what ye want."
And in her heart she said, "It's a lee, Guid forgie me. But onything to
pacify the lad and get him asleep."
"I ken the best horse in a' this country-side," said the curate, going
back to his ale as if nothing had happened, "and that's muckle Sandy
Gordon's chairger ower at the Earlstoun. He's roarin' at the Convention
in Edinburgh, I'se warrant, and he'll no' need 'Drumclog.' Gin ye hae a
notion of the beast, I can borrow him for ye."
Wat started up with eager eyes.
"On the morning of the tenth have the horse at the loch-side, and I
shall be forever bound and obligated to ye."
The curate nodded his head like one that grants the smallest and
easiest favor.
"It shall be done; by six o' the clock Drumclog will be there, or my
name is not Peter Mac--Eh! what is't, woman?" he exclaimed, turning a
little testily to Jean Gordon, who for the last minute had been nudging
him vehemently with her elbow to be quiet. "I'll no' haud my tongue
for a bletherin' auld wretch. I hae held my tongue ower often in this
pairish. Gin the lad wants a horse, e'en let him hae a horse. It is ane
o' the best symptoms that I ken o'. I mind weel, yince, when I was a
laddie like him and in love--"
But the reminiscence of Peter McCaskill's early love was not destined
to be recorded, at least in this place, for Jean Gordon took the matter
into her own hands and pushed the indignant curate out of the room. But
even as he went he turned in the doorway and said, "Bide ye still in
your bed the day, laddie. Ye shall find muckle Sandy Gordon's horse,
Drumclog, at the west landing on the mornin' o' the tenth."
"Deil a fear o' ye," muttered Jean Gordon; "ye'll lie doucely and
quietly in your bed till Jean gies ye leave to rise--tenth or no tenth!"
* * * * *
Then sleep descended like a brown hissing cloud upon the tortured soul
and weary body of Wat Gordon, and deep, dreamless, billowy oblivion
held him till the morrow. It was ten of the clock when he awoke, with a
frenzied start, demanding how long he had slept.
Jean Gordon, in whose hands was the morning porridge-spurtle (and, as
it were, the care of all the churches), tried the method of sarcasm.
"Weel, laddie," she said, "ye juist cam' here yestreen, and gin
yesterday was the eighth, as Peter telled ye, ye will maybe be able to
mak' oot that this will be the ninth. And come off the dead-cauld flags
this instant with your bare feet, and you in a pour of sweat. There's
nae sense ava in the callant! What are ye in sic a fyke for aboot the
tenth and the tenth? Are the eleventh and the twelfth no' as guid days?
Did the same Lord no' make them a'?"
Wat went back obediently to bed.
"Mind," he said, "if you are lying to me, you shall fry in hell-fire
for that lie. For a man's life and soul are on your truth."
"The boy's fair dementit," cried Jean; "what for should auld Jean
Gordon lee to him? Tell me your trouble, laddie," she said, going
nearer to him. "For I've had trouble o' my ain a' my life, and weel I
ken there are few things so evil that they canna be mended--that is, if
ye are minded to stroke them the richt way o' the hair."
At this point Peter McCaskill was heard shuffling along the passage,
but Jean was over quick for him. She rose and very promptly and
unceremoniously shut the door in his face.
"Gae 'way wi' ye the noo, Peter," she said, peremptorily; "tak' the
fish-pole and fetch in a fry o' trouts for the breakfast. Ye'll get
naething else to eat gin ye dinna."
"Noo, laddie," she said, sitting down beside Wat, with a world of
sympathetic invitation in her voice, "tell me a' your heart's trouble."
So, with a great sense of relief, Wat told the tale to the old lady,
whose own love-trouble of fifty years before had kept her maiden all
her life.
As he spoke, Jean stroked the hand which hung over the edge of the bed.
"Laddie, my laddie!" were all the articulate words she said, but she
soothed Wat with a little, low, continuous murmur of sound as he
fretted and fumed at his helplessness.
"Ye shall get your lass--fear ye not that," she said, when he had
finished. "I hae heard o' the wedding. They say the lass does naething
but bide in her chamber and greet. She has fallen away to a shadow.
But be that as it may, there is a great repair o' folk to the house o'
Balmaghie. I saw a heap o' the queer, daftlike folk o' the north riding
by, wi' feathers in their checked bonnets, and tartan trews on their
hurdies--aye, trews of bonny tartan claith--ye never saw the like. But
ye shall hae your lass, were it only to spite the menseless crew. Peter
and me will help ye to her."
In what manner Jean Gordon was to help him Wat Gordon knew not--nor,
for the matter of that, Peter McCaskill either--save by getting
him the loan of his cousin Sandy's horse, and even that might be a
Highlandman's loan--taken without the asking. But Wat said nothing,
only laid him down contentedly, while Jean Gordon set off to provide
the breakfast she had so abruptly denied to the curate.
Presently Peter came in with his trouts, for in the loch of Lochinvar
the spotted beauties were infinitely less shy and infrequent than in
later days they have become.
"_Benedictus benedicat!_" quoth Peter, who knew his Latin by ear, and
sat him down.
"That's a daft, heathen-like grace," said Jean. "I shouldna wonder gin
the folks did rabble ye and tear your white clouts ower your head, if
ye gied them balderdash like that in the pulpit."
The curate smiled a wry, discomfortable smile at the prophecy, but
nevertheless he proceeded to take his breakfast with some fortitude,
looking up occasionally to see that the trouts did not burn as they
made a pleasant skirling noise in the pan.
"There's nocht like a loch trout newly catched, in a' this bonny God's
warld," he said. "I wonder how men can be haythens and ill-doers when
there's sic braw loch trout in Gallowa'! And burn trout are just as
guid--in fact, there's some that actually prefers them!"
All this day Jean Gordon might have been heard in solemn confabulation
with the curate, while Wat lay and listened to the din of their voices,
sometimes uplifted in controversy, sometimes hushed in gossip, but ever
coming to him pleasantly dulled and harmonized through the thick walls
and long echoing passages of the house of Lochinvar. It was a windy day
also, and the water sang him a lullaby of his childhood, as it lapped
and swished all about him, with a noise like the leafy boughs of trees
brushing against the foundations of his ancient castle.
"To-morrow! To-morrow! To-morrow!" said Wat, over and over to himself.
"To-morrow my die will be cast for life or death."