THE CAVE OF ADULLAM
Night by night the mists came up from the sea. Morning by morning the
gusts from the hills blew them back again. Winter began to settle on the
rugged confines of the moors, and still Julian Wemyss stayed on with
Stair Garland at the Bothy on the Wild of Blairmore. First, because it
agreed with the mystery-loving side of his nature, and also because, so
long as the weight of Napoleon's rule pressed upon Europe, he did not
know where he could be safer. At Vienna, perhaps, but so long as the
Princess Elsa remained at Hanover Lodge, he could not bring himself to
make the long and circuitous journey by Gibraltar and Trieste.
And, indeed, he was in no great hurry to move. He had been outlawed for
failing to appear, even as he had expected, to answer for the killing of
Lord Wargrove. Also he knew that the wounding of the Duke of Lyonesse
had been laid to his charge. The word which had gone forth that his
capture would be grateful to the Regency and its camarilla of Dukes,
would naturally sharpen the pursuit.
Fresh bodies of cavalry were still occasionally drafted from Glasgow and
Carlisle to override the moors. But the lack of any local intelligencer
of the calibre of Eben McClure, the natural secretiveness of the people
as to "lads among the heather" and all folk in trouble, caused the
search to be spun out so long, that the general opinion was that Julian
Wemyss had escaped in an emigrant ship to America.
Stair occasionally showed himself at Glenanmays, and even made bold to
walk in the High Street of Cairnryan on a fair-day, none daring to
meddle with him, and the very officers of local justice turning aside
for a dram at the first sight of him. He was believed never to move
without such a body-guard as could cut its way through a squadron.
He was thus enabled to go about apparently alone, disquieted by none,
for the people were on his side, and it would have proved a dear bargain
to any man who had "sold" him. Stair made these appearances as often as
he knew that the soldiers were off on an expedition in a safe direction.
His object was to draw away attention from the Wild of Blairmore, and to
give the people of Cairnryan the idea that he was lying up in the
immediate neighbourhood of their town.
Meanwhile he and Julian Wemyss had added greatly to the comfort of the
Bothy. A solid rampart of turf, doubled on the western side, protected
it against the fierce winds of the moors. The whole of one end was
filled with an abundant stock of firewood and peat which his brothers
had cut, cast and prepared, and the troop had brought in one night of
full moon. The peat-cutting had increased the difficulty of reaching the
central fastness of the Wild, for the ink-black tarns had been cunningly
united, and the wide morass in front, where from black pools great
bubbles for ever rose and lazily burst, had been dammed till it
overflowed the meadows and lapped the sand-dunes behind the house of
Abbey Burnfoot. Of course a pathway was left, indeed more than one, to
provide a way of escape if the Bothy should happen to be blockaded. For
all which reasons Julian Wemyss was exceedingly content to abide on this
little platform of hard turf mixed with sea-shells, with the misty
water-logged bog all about.
He had many books, for his own house was not so far off, and his good
Joseph remained in charge of everything at Abbey Burnfoot. On dark
nights, at the edge of the Wild, Joseph met Stair always with a large
parcel of provender and a small parcel of books.
Joseph was in great trouble because he had not been allowed to accompany
his master to his hiding-place, but he retained his self-respect and
kept himself so fine that his black court-dress and immaculate white
cravat made a blur before Stair's eyes in the upward phosphorescent
shining of the sea.
"The master sent no message by you, sir?" he would inquire, always with
a wistful hope that "His Excellency" might relent.
"You will find all that he wishes you to do set down in that letter,"
Stair would say, handing the document over.
"But--he said nothing about my coming to him?"
"Not a word, Joseph!" Stair would answer, as carelessly as might be.
"Then who looks after Mr. Julian? Who lays out his shirts and sees to
his studs? Oh, Mr. Stair, that it should come to this! Sometimes I
cannot sleep for thinking of it!"
"Mr. Julian looks after himself," said Stair, brusquely; "at present he
is wearing one of my grey woollen shirts, and I have not heard him
complain. Go home, Joseph, and look after the house. Keep the doors
locked, the guns loaded, and the dogs loose. Mr. Julian was never better
in his life!"
After this Joseph complained less, and probably slept better. It had
always been in his mind that perhaps this unknown Stair Garland might
supplant him in the personal service of his master. But when once he
understood that Stair was of a breed so extraordinary that he recognized
no difference in rank between himself and his guest, that instead of
proffering service, he exacted that Mr. Julian should do his fair share
of the work, and finally, that many of the books he carried were
designed for the enlightenment of Stair Garland, whom his master had
taken as a pupil, he ceased to be jealous and became again merely
serviceable.
Stair had his full share of the local thirst for knowledge, and the
determination to get it in one way or another. So with the
self-assertion without which a Scot ceases to be a Scot, he had fastened
upon those winter months with Julian Wemyss to fill in the lacunes of
Dominie McAll's instruction. A good good deal of classics, daily
readings in the French and German tongues, conversation after the
Socratic method--these were the pillars of Stair's temple of learning at
the Bothy. And because the root of the matter had always been in
him--which is the determination to excel--he progressed with a rapidity
that astounded his teacher.
Every morning Julian Wemyss said to himself, "It is impossible that he
can have remembered and assimilated all that we went over yesterday!"
But once the breakfast-things cleared away, he found Stair as sharp-set
as a terrier at a rat-hole, as it were, nosing after knowledge. Nothing
seemed to come wrong to him, and if he did not understand anything, an
apt question set him right, and when Stair flung up his head, his eye
misty and his intelligence withdrawn, Julian Wemyss stopped also,
because he understood.
"He is filing that away where he can find it," he thought to himself.
And far into the night he could see reflected on the roof a faint
glimmer from Stair's dark-lantern. His curiosity was aroused, and he
looked into the gloomy kitchen with the heaped peats filling all the
space even to the roof. There, with his feet to the smouldering fire of
red ashes, lay Stair Garland, his notebooks in front of him and a volume
propped against an upturned pot, threshing his way pioneer-wise through
the work of the next day. Julian Wemyss went softly back to bed, but did
not sleep for a long while.
"If that fellow fights for the Emperor," he said to himself, "he will do
it with his head. Yet they call him the 'fechtin' fool' in these parts.
The boy has never had a chance, that is all. His ambition and facility
have given him the leading-place among these smugglers and defiers of
the press-gang, because no other career opened itself to him. We shall
see when the _Good Intent_ comes in the spring. In the meanwhile, never
tutor had such a pupil!"
Yet more marvellous were the weeks as they went past for Stair Garland.
Every morning he woke fresh to the romantic adventure of books. His eyes
flashed down marvellous pages, taking in their gist, and then he settled
himself with a happy sigh to analyze line upon line, to warehouse
precept upon precept.
Yet he did not leave any of his outside duties unattended to. He knew of
every change made in the garrison at Stranryan. Fergus and Agnew came
nightly to the verge of the Wild. He met with Jean at the alder copse.
His father talked with him standing upon Peden's Stone, and (as he said)
"tairged him tightly" for his occasional neglect in reading the Bible,
which was the root of all things of good report in this world as well as
in the next.
To which Julian Wemyss added that it was also the foundation of good
manners and good style. For all which reasons and also because of the
reverence natural to his people, Stair Garland read a good deal in the
Bible, and it was the only book concerning which he asked no
enlightenment from his master, Julian Wemyss.
Stair heard extracts from the letters from London which Patsy sent to
her father and uncle under the frank of the Earl Raincy, but he had one
or two altogether his own, and these he judged more precious than gold.
They came to him by way of his sister Jean, and the trysting-place in
the alder copse by the side of the Mays Water.
On such occasions, Stair, being in furious haste, took the bundle of
clean clothes Jean had brought him, and strode away over the rough fells
in the direction of the Wild. Half-way, however, he changed his course.
And many a night wanderer on land and many a benighted fisherman bearing
up Loch Ryan-ward on the northward set of the tide, was awed by a
strange light in the Corpse Yard above the Elrich Strand, where the
Blackshore folk bury the drowned who come to them from the sea. Here
among the wooden head-boards (bearing dates only) of the unknown dead,
Stair Garland read his first letter from Patsy in London.
"Stair" (it began without qualitative either formal or
affectionate), "I did not promise to write to you, so I am doing
it. London is very full of gay things which are not so gay as they
look. I would rather see you and Whitefoot (give him a kiss from
me!) than the procession of the Regent to open Parliament.
"The Princess would spoil me were I spoilable. But you know I am
made of the guinea gold that does not need gilding. However, she
does her best. I have a maid to wait on me, but I think I do very
much more for her. Still, she mends the holes that I dance in the
heels of my stockings--all of silk, Stair, and smuggled from
France! For they 'run' things here, just as they do in Galloway--in
Sussex and Cornwall mainly. They have only luggers, however--at
least so one of my partners told me last night. He had seen John
Carter himself down at Prussia Cove! Think of that, Stair! And the
old man had preached him a sermon!
"I have dresses in Valenceens lace over pale-blue silk, and all
sorts of lovely things; don't you wish you could see me? I see
Louis often, but not so often as I used to. They say he is in love
with Mrs. Arlington, a great beauty at the Regent's court. You know
that Louis is now aide-de-camp to the Duke of York, who is
Commander-in-Chief, so his chief duty is to draw up ball programmes
and write dinner invitations, which I have no doubt he does in a
very warlike manner.
"When he remembers he comes round to tell me that he loves me
still. But, alas! he mostly forgets. Whitefoot is more faithful
than that, eh, Stair? I could wager that at the moment you are
reading this nonsense, he is sitting with his head on your knees,
looking up in your face."
(Stair put down his hand from the edge of the paper and touched the
rough head, and at the caress Whitefoot whined joyously, as he did
in church when the congregation sang "Coleshill.")
"Stair" (the letter went on), "I hold the Princess and you
responsible for Uncle Julian. I hear from him sometimes and he
tells me that you are getting to be a wonderful scholar. Well,
playing with your books will pass the time for both of you, and
keep you from thinking too much about me. As to my welfare, do not
pine away with worrying about that. I, Patricia Wemyss Ferris,
swear on the old oath, that I am fat and fair to see. I find that I
can answer the fool according to his folly, and leave wherewithal
to talk on terms of some quality with the few poor lost and
forwandered wise men whom one meets in these parts. The dear old
king with his David-and-Solomon beard, is really the most sensible
person I have yet talked with. So they shut him up, take his crown
from him, and say that he is mad.
"The Wise Young People who bear rule drink each other under the
table, race to Brighthelmstone, killing half-a-dozen children by
the way, and ruin themselves at play during the night. Altogether
it is a fine place, this London, and if you were here you might
very well say, with the witty Frenchman, 'The more I see of human
beings, the more I love my dog!'
"But you must not tell all this to Uncle Julian. I am learning
fast--though perhaps not quite what he expected me to learn. His
Princess is most kind to me, and, indeed, so is everybody. There is
a Prince, a rosy young man who walks delicately like a cat on wet
grass, and they say that he would like to lay his Princedom at my
feet. Which do you think I would rather be, Stair, a Princess with
her chin in the air (Ho! Menial, fetch me my crown. No, the one in
the left-hand drawer, most ignorant of varlets! Now I pose it on my
princessly locks! So!), or just Patsy Ferris, in blue gown and
yellow sandals, very much out of breath, washing the dishes in the
Bothy of the Wild of Blairmore?
"Tell me which you think I should like best. I deliver this subject
to your meditations. You are not to show my letter to Jean nor
allow her to read a single word of hers to you. If you do, I shall
hold you for ever faithless and mansworn!
"Your obedient, faithful scullery-maid _or_ princess,
"PATSY."