CAPTAIN AGNEW GREATORIX.
Greatorix Castle sat mightily upon a hill. It could not be hid,
and it looked down superciliously upon the little squiredom of
Craig Ronald, as well as upon farms and cottages a many. In days
not so long gone by, Greatorix Castle had been the hold of the
wearers of the White Cockade, rough riders after Lag and Sir James
Dalzyell, and rebels after that, who had held with Derwentwater
and the prince. Now there was quiet there. Only the Lady Elizabeth
and her son Agnew Greatorix dwelt there, and the farmer's cow and
the cottager's pig grazed and rooted unharmed--not always,
however, it was whispered, the farmer's daughter, for of all
serfdoms the droit du seignior is the last to die. Still,
Greatorix Castle was a notable place, high set on its hill, shires
and towns beneath, the blue breath of peat reek blowing athwart
the plain beneath and rising like an incense about.
Here the Lady Elizabeth dwelt in solemn but greatly reduced state.
She was a woman devoted to the practice of holiness according to
the way of the priest. It was the whole wish of her life that she
might keep a spiritual director, instead of having Father Mahon to
ride over from Dumfries once a month.
Within the castle there were many signs of decay--none of
rehabilitation. The carpets were worn into holes where feet had
oftenest fallen, and the few servants dared not take them out to
be beaten in the due season of the year, for indubitably they
would fall to pieces. So the curtains hung till an unwary stranger
would rest upon them with a hand's weight. Then that hand plucked
a palmbreadth away of the rotten and moth-eaten fabric.
There was an aged housekeeper at Greatorix Castle, who dwelt in
the next room to the Lady Elizabeth, and was supposed to act as
her maid. Mistress Humbie, however, was an exacting person; and
being an aged woman, and her infirmities bearing upon her, she
considered it more fitting that the Lady Elizabeth should wait
upon her. This, for the good of her soul, the Lady Elizabeth did.
Two maids and a boy, a demon boy, in buttons, who dwelt below-
stairs and gave his time to the killing of rats with ingenious
catapults and crossbows, completed the household--except Agnew
Greatorix.
The exception was a notable one. Save in the matter of fortune,
Nature had not dealt unhandsomely with Agnew Greatorix; yet just
because of this his chances of growing up into a strong and useful
man were few. He had been nurtured upon expectations from his
earliest youth. His uncle Agnew, the Lady Elizabeth's childless
brother, who for the sake of the favour of a strongly Protestant
aunt had left the mother church of the Greatorix family, had been
expected to do something for Agnew; but up to this present time he
had received only his name from him, in lieu of all the stately
heritages of Holywood in the Nith Valley hard by Lincluden, and
Stennesholm in Carrick.
So Agnew Greatorix had grown up in the midst of raw youths who
were not his peers in position. He companied with them till his
mother pointed out that it was not for a Greatorix to drink in the
Blue Bell and at the George with the sons of wealthy farmers and
bonnet lairds. By dint of scraping and saving which took a long
time, and influence which, costing nothing, took for a Greatorix
no time at all, the Lady Elizabeth obtained for her son a
commission in the county yeomanry. There he was thrown with
Maxwells of the Braes, Herons from the Shireside, and Gordons from
the northern straths--all young men of means and figure in the
county. Into the midst of these Agnew took his tightly knit
athletic figure, his small firmly set head and full-blooded dark
face--the only faults of which were that the eyes were too closely
set together and shuttered with lids that would not open more than
half way, and that he possessed the sensual mouth of a man who has
never willingly submitted to a restraint. Agnew Greatorix could
not compete with his companions, but he cut them out as a squire
of dames, and came home with a dangerous and fascinating
reputation, the best-hated man in the corps.
So when Captain Agnew clattered through the village in clean-cut
scarlet and clinking spurs, all the maids ran to the door, except
only a few who had once run like the others but now ran no more.
The captain came often to Craig Ronald. It was upon his way to
kirk and market, for the captain for the good of his soul went
occasionally to the little chapel of the Permission at Dumfries.
Still oftener he came with the books which the Lady Elizabeth
obtained from Edinburgh, the reading of which she shared with
Mistress Walter Skirving, whose kinship with the Lochinvars she
did not forget, though her father had been of the moorland branch
of that honourable house, and she herself had disgraced her
ancient name by marrying with a psalm-singing bonnet laird. But
the inexplicability of saying whom a woman may not take it into
her head to marry was no barrier to the friendship of the Lady
Elizabeth, who kept all her religion for her own consumption and
did not even trouble her son with it--which was a great pity, for
he indeed had much need, though small desire, thereof.
On the contrary, it was a mark of good blood sometimes to follow
one's own fancy. The Lady Elizabeth had done that herself against
the advice of the countess her mother, and that was the reason why
she dwelt amid hangings that came away in handfuls, and was
waiting-maid to Mistress Humbie her own housekeeper.
Agnew Greatorix had an eye for a pretty face, or rather for every
pretty face. Indeed, he had nothing else to do, except clean his
spurs and ride to the market town. So, since the author of
Waverley began to write his inimitable fictions, and his mother to
divide her time between works of devotion and the adventures of
Ivanhoe and Nigel, Agnew Greatorix had made many pilgrimages to
Craig Ronald. Here the advent of the captain was much talked over
by the maids, and even anticipated by Winsome herself as a
picturesque break in the monotony of the staid country life.
Certainly he brought the essence of strength and youth and
athletic energy into the quiet court-yard, when he rode in on his
showily paced horse and reined him round at the low steps of the
front door, with the free handling and cavalry swing which he had
inherited as much from the long line of Greatorixes who had ridden
out to harry the Warden's men along the marches, as from the
yeomanry riding-master.
Now, the captain was neither an obliging nor yet a particularly
amiable young man, and when he took so kindly to fetching and
carrying, it was not long before the broad world of farm towns and
herds' cot-houses upon which Greatorix Castle looked down
suspected a motive, and said so in its own way.
On one occasion, riding down the long loaning of Craig Ronald, the
captain came upon the slight, ascetic figure of Allan Welsh, the
Marrow minister, leaning upon the gate which closed the loaning
from the road. The minister observed him, but showed no signs of
moving. Agnew Greatorix checked his horse.
"Would you open the gate and allow me to pass on my way?" he said,
with chill politeness. The minister of the Marrow kirk looked
keenly at him from under his grey eyebrows.
"After I have had a few words with you, young sir," said Mr.
Welsh.
"I desire no words with you," returned the young man impatiently,
backing his horse.
"For whom are your visits at Craig Ronald intended?" said the
minister calmly. "Walter Skirving and his spouse do not receive
company of such dignity; and besides them there are only the maids
that I know of."
"Who made you my father confessor?" mocked Agnew Greatorix, with
an unpleasant sneer on his handsome face.
"The right of being minister in the things of the Spirit to all
that dwell in Craig Ronald House," said the minister of the Marrow
firmly.
"Truly a pleasant ministry, and one, no doubt, requiring frequent
ministrations; yet do I not remember to have met you at Craig
Ronald," he continued. "So faithful a minister surely must be
faithful in his spiritual attentions."
He urged his horse to the side of the gate and leaned over to open
the gate himself, but the minister had his hand firmly on the
latch.
"I have seen you ride to many maids' houses, Agnew Greatorix,
since the day your honoured father died, but never a one have I
seen the better of your visits. Woe and sorrow have attended upon
your way. You may ride off now at your ease, but beware the
vengeance of the God of Jacob; the mother's curse and the father's
malison ride not far behind!"
"Preach me no preachments," said the young man; "keep such for
your Marrow folk on Sundays; you but waste your words."
"Then I beseech you by the memory of a good father, whom, though
of another and an alien communion, I shall ever respect, to cast
your eyes elsewhere, and let the one ewe lamb of those whom God
hath stricken alone."
The gate was open now, and as he came through, Agnew Greatorix
made his horse curvet, pushing the frail form of the preacher
almost into the hedge.
"If you would like to come and visit us up at the castle," he said
mockingly, "I dare say we could yet receive you as my forefathers,
of whom you are so fond, used to welcome your kind. I saw the
thumbikins the other day; and I dare say we could fit you with
your size in boots."
"The Lord shall pull down the mighty from their seats, and exalt
them that are of low estate!" said the preacher solemnly.
"Very likely," said the young man as he rode away.