ANDREW KISSOCK GOES TO SCHOOL.
Love is, at least in maidens' hearts, of the nature of an
intermittent fever. The tide of Solway flows, but the more rapid
his flow the swifter his ebb. The higher it brings the wrack up
the beach, the deeper, six hours after, are laid bare the roots of
the seaweed upon the shingle. Now Winsome Charteris, however her
heart might conspire against her peace, was not at all the girl to
be won before she was asked. Also there was that delicious spirit
of contrariness that makes a woman even when won, by no means seem
won.
Besides, in the broad daylight of common day she was less attuned
and touched to earnest issues than in the red dawn. She had even
taken the poem and the exercise book out of the sacred enclosure,
where they had been hid so long. She did not really know that she
could make good any claim to either. Indeed, she was well aware
that to one of them at least she had no claim whatever. Therefore
she had placed both the note-book and the poem within the same
band as her precious housekeeping account-book, which she
reverenced next her Bible--which very practical proceeding pleased
her, and quite showed that she was above all foolish sentiment.
Then she went to churn for an hour and a half, pouring in a little
hot water critically from time to time in order to make the butter
come. This exercise may be recommended as an admirable corrective
to foolish flights of imagination. There is something concrete
about butter-making which counteracts an overplus of sentiment--
especially when the butter will not come. And hot water may be
overdone.
Now Winsome Charteris was a hard-hearted young woman--a fact that
may not as yet have appeared; at least so she told herself. She
had come to the conclusion that she had been foolish to think at
all of Ralph Peden, so she resolved to put him at once and
altogether out of her mind, which, as every one knows, is quite a
simple matter. Yet during the morning she went three times into
her little room to look at her housekeeping book, which by
accident lay within the same band as Ralph Peden's lost
manuscripts. First, she wanted to see how much she got for butter
at Cairn Edward the Monday before last; then to discover what the
price was on that very same day last year. It is an interesting
thing to follow the fluctuations of the produce market, especially
when you churn the butter yourself. The exact quotation of
documents is a valuable thing to learn. Nothing is so likely to
grow upon one as a habit of inaccuracy. This was what her
grandmother was always telling her, and it behooved Winsome to
improve. Each time as she strapped the documents together she
said, "And these go back to-day by Andra Kissock when he goes to
school." Then she took another look, in order to assure herself
that no forgeries had been introduced within the band while she
was churning the butter. They were still quite genuine.
Winsome went out to relieve Jess Kissock in the dairy, and as she
went she communed with herself: "It is right that I should send
them back. The verses may belong to somebody else--somebody in
Edinburgh--and, besides, I know them by heart."
A good memory is a fine thing.
The Kissocks lived in one of the Craig Ronald cot-houses. Their
father had in his time been one of the herds, and upon his death,
many years ago, Walter Skirving had allowed the widow and children
to remain in the house in which Andrew Kissock, senior, had died.
Mistress Kissock was a large-boned, soft-voiced woman, who had
supplied what dash of tenderness there was in her daughters. She
had reared them according to good traditions, but as she said,
when all her brood were talking at the same time, she alone
quietly silent:
"The Kissocks tak' efter their faither, they're great hands to
talk--a' bena [except] An'ra'."
Andrew was her youngest, a growing lump of a boy of twelve, who
was exceeding silent in the house. Every day Andra betook himself
to school, along the side of Loch Grannoch, by the path which
looked down on the cloud-flecked mirror of the loch. Some days he
got there, but very occasionally.
His mother had got him ready early this June morning. He had
brought in the kye for Jess. He had helped Jock Gordon to carry
water for Meg's kitchen mysteries. He had listened to a brisk
conversation proceeding from the "room" where his very capable
sister was engaged in getting the old people settled for the day.
All this was part of the ordinary routine. As soon as the whole
establishment knew that Walter Skirving was again at the window
over the marshmallows, and his wife at her latest book, a sigh of
satisfaction went up and the wheels of the day's work revolved. So
this morning it came time for Andra to go to school all too soon.
Andra did not want to stay at home from school, but it was against
the boy's principle to appear glad to go to school, so Andra made
it a point of honour to make a feint of wanting to stay every
morning.
"Can I no bide an' help ye wi' the butter-kirnin' the day, Jess?"
said Andra, rubbing himself briskly all over as he had seen the
ploughmen do with their horses. When he got to his bare red legs
he reared and kicked out violently, calling out at the same time:
"Wad ye then, ye tairger, tuts--stan' still there, ye kickin'
beast!" as though he were some fiery untamed from the desert.
Jess made a dart at him with a wet towel.
"Gang oot o' my back kitchen wi' yer nonsense!" she said. Andra
passaged like a strongly bitted charger to the back door, and
there ran away with himself, flourishing in the air a pair of very
dirty heels. Ebie Farrish was employed over a tin basin at the
stable door, making his breakfast toilet, which he always
undertook, not when he shook himself out of bed in the stable loft
at five o'clock, but before he went in to devour Jess with his
eyes and his porridge in the ordinary way. It was at this point
that Andra Kissock, that prancing Galloway barb, breaking away
from all restrictions, charged between Ebie's legs, and overset
him into his own horse-trough. The yellow soap was in Ebie's eyes,
and before he got it out the small boy was far enough away. The
most irritating thing was that from the back kitchen came peal on
peal of laughter.
"It's surely fashionable at the sea-bathin' to tak' a dook [swim]
in the stable-trough, nae less!"
Ebie gathered himself up savagely. His temperature was something
considerably above summer heat, yet he dared not give expression
to his feelings, for his experiences in former courtships had led
him to the conclusion that you cannot safely, having regard to
average family prejudice, abuse the brothers of your sweetheart.
After marriage the case is believed to be different.
Winsome Charteris stood at the green gate which led out of the
court-yard into the croft, as Andra was making his schoolward
exit. She had a parcel for him. This occasioned no surprise, nor
did the very particular directions as to delivery, and the dire
threatenings against forgetfulness or failure in the least dismay
Andra. He was entirely accustomed to them. From his earliest years
he had heard nothing else. He never had been reckoned as a "sure
hand," and it was only in default of a better messenger that
Winsome employed him. Then these directions were so explicit that
there did not appear to be any possibility of mistake. He had only
to go to the manse and leave the parcel for Mr. Ralph Peden
without a message.
So Andrew Kissock, nothing loath, promised faithfully. He never
objected to promising; that was easy. He carried the small, neatly
wrapped parcel in his hand, walking most sedately so long as
Winsome's eyes were upon him. He was not yet old enough to be
under the spell of the witchery of those eyes; but then Winsome's
eye controlled his sister Meg's hand, and for that latter organ he
had a most profound respect.
Now we must take the trouble to follow in some detail the course
of this small boy going to school, for though it may be of no
interest in itself save as a study in scientific procrastination,
a good deal of our history directly depends upon it.
As soon as Andrew was out of sight he pulled his leather satchel
round so that he could open it with ease, and, having taken a
handful of broken and very stale crumbs out of it for immediate
use, he dropped Winsome's parcel within. There it kept company
with a tin flask of milk which his mother filled for him every
morning, having previously scalded it well to restore its
freshness. This was specially carefully done after a sad occasion
upon which his mother, having poured in the fine milk for Andra's
dinner fresh from Crummie the cow, out of the flask mouth there
crawled a number of healthy worms which that enterprising youth
had collected from various quarters which it is best not to
specify. Not that Andra objected in the least. Milk was a good
thing, worms were good things, and he was above the paltry
superstition that one good thing could spoil another. He will
always consider to his dying day that the very sound licking which
his mother administered to him, for spoiling at once the family
breakfast and his own dinner, was one of the most uncalled-for and
gratuitous, which, even in his wide experience, it had been his
lot to recollect.
So Andra took his way to school. He gambolled along, smelling and
rooting among the ragged robin and starwort in the hedges like an
unbroken collie. It is safe to say that no further thought of
school or message crossed his mind from the moment that the
highest white steading of Craig Ronald sank out of view, until his
compulsory return. Andra had shut out from his view so commonplace
and ignominious facts as home and school.
At the first loaning end, where the road to the Nether Crae came
down to cross the bridge, just at the point where the Grannoch
lane leaves the narrows of the loch, Andra betook himself to the
side of the road, with a certain affectation of superabundant
secrecy.
With prodigious exactness he examined the stones at a particular
part of the dyke, hunted about for one of remarkable size and
colour, said "Hist! hist!" in a mysterious way, and ran across the
road to see that no one was coming.
As we have seen, Andra was the reader of the family. His eldest
brother had gone to America, where he was working in New York as a
joiner. This youth was in the habit of sending across books and
papers describing the terrible encounters with Indians in the
Boone country--the "dark and bloody land" of the early romancers.
Not one in the family looked at the insides of these relations of
marvels except Andra, who, when he read the story of the Indian
scout trailing the murderers of his squaw across a continent in
order to annihilate them just before they entered New York city,
felt that he had found his vocation--which was to be at least an
Indian scout, if indeed it was too late for him to think of being
a full-blooded Indian.
The impressive pantomime at the bridge was in order to ascertain
whether his bosom companion, Dick Little, had passed on before
him. He knew, as soon as he was within a hundred yards of the
stone, that he had NOT passed. Indeed, he could see him at that
very moment threading his way down through the tangle of heather
and bog myrtle, or, as he would have said, "gall busses opposite."
But what of that?--For mighty is the power of make-believe, and in
Andra, repressed as he was at home, there was concentrated the
very energy and power of some imaginative ancestry. He had a full
share of the quality which ran in the family, and was exceeded
only by his brother Jock in New York, who had been "the biggest
leer in the country side" before he emigrated to a land where at
that time this quality was not specially marked among so many
wielders of the long bow. Jock, in his letters, used to frighten
his mother with dark tales of his hair-breadth escapes from
savages and desperadoes on the frontier, yet, strangely enough,
his address remained steadily New York.
Now it is not often that a Galloway boy takes to lying; but when
he does, a mere Nithsdale man has no chance with him, still less a
man from the simple-minded levels of the "Shire."[Footnote:
Wigtonshire is invariably spoken of in Galloway as the Shire,
Kirkcudbrightshire as the Stewardry.] But Andra Kissock always
lied from the highest motives. He elevated the saying of the thing
that was not to the height of a principle. He often lied, knowing
that he would be thrashed for it--even though he was aware that he
would be rewarded for telling the truth. He lied because he would
not demean himself to tell the truth.
It need not therefore surprise us in the least that when Dick
Little came across the bridge he was greeted by Andra Kissock with
the information that he was in the clutches of The Avenger of
Blood, who, mounted upon a mettle steed with remarkably dirty
feet, curveted across the road and held the pass. He was required
to give up a "soda scone or his life." The bold Dick, who had
caught the infection, stoutly refused to yield either. His life
was dear to him, but a soda scone considerably dearer. He had
rather be dead than hungry.
"Then die, traitor!" said Andra, throwing down his bag, all
forgetful of Winsome Charteris's precious parcel and his promises
thereanent. So these two brave champions had at one another with
most surprising valour.
They were armed with wooden swords as long as themselves, which
they manoeuvred with both hands in a marvellously savage manner.
When a blow did happen to get home, the dust flew out of their
jackets. But still the champions fought on. They were in the act
of finishing the quarrel by the submission of Dick in due form,
when Allan Welsh, passing across the bridge on one of his pastoral
visitations, came upon them suddenly. Dick was on his knees at the
time, his hands on the ground, and Andra was forcing his head
determinedly down toward the surface of the king's highway.
Meanwhile Dick was objecting in the most vigorous way.
"Boys," said the stern, quiet voice of the minister, "what are you
doing to each other? Are you aware it is against both the law of
God and man to fight in this way? It is only from the beasts that
perish that we expect such conduct."
"If ye please, sir," answered Andra in a shamefaced way, yet with
the assurance of one who knows that he has the authorities on his
side, "Dick Little wull no bite the dust."
"Bite the dust!--what do you mean, laddie?" asked the minister,
frowning.
"Weel sir, if ye please, sir, the Buik says that the yin that got
his licks fell down and bit the dust. Noo, Dick's doon fair
aneuch. Ye micht speak till him to bite the dust!"
And Andra, clothed in the garments of conscious rectitude, stood
back to give the minister room to deliver his rebuke.
The stern face of the minister relaxed.
"Be off with you to school," he said; "I'll look in to see if you
have got there in the afternoon."
Andra and Dick scampered down the road, snatching their satchels
as they ran. In half an hour they were making momentary music
under the avenging birch rod of Duncan Duncanson, the learned
Dullarg schoolmaster. Their explanations were excellent. Dick said
that he had been stopped to gather the eggs, and Andra that he had
been detained conversing with the minister. The result was the
same in both cases--Andra getting double for sticking to his
statement. Yet both stories were true, though quite accidentally
so, of course. This is what it is to have a bad character. Neither
boy, however, felt any ill-will whatever at the schoolmaster. They
considered that he was there in order to lick them. For this he
was paid by their parents' money, and it would have been a fraud
if he had not duly earned his money by dusting their jackets
daily. Let it be said at once that he did most conscientiously
earn his money, and seldom overlooked any of his pupils even for a
day.
Back at the Grannoch bridge, under the parapet, Allan Welsh, the
minister of the Kirk of the Marrow, found the white packet lying
which Winsome had tied with such care. He looked all round to see
whence it had come. Then taking it in his hand, he looked at it a
long time silently, and with a strange and not unkindly expression
on his face. He lifted it to his lips and kissed the handwriting
which addressed it to Master Ralph Peden. As he paced away he
carefully put it in the inner pocket of his coat. Then, with his
head farther forward than ever, and the immanence of his great
brow overshadowing his ascetic face, he set himself slowly to
climb the brae.