“Go round,” said Jean Clerk, “and tell the Paymaster; he’ll be the sorry
man to lose his manager.”
“Will he be in his house?” asked Gilian, eating the last of his town
bread with butter and sugar.
“In his house indeed!” cried Jean, her eyes still red with weeping. “It
is easy to see you are from the glen, when at this time of day you would
be for seeking a gentleman soldier in his own house in this town. No!
no! go round to Sergeant More’s change-house, at the quay-head, and
you’ll find the Captain there with his cronies.”
So round went Gilian, and there he came upon the pensioners, with
Captain John Campbell, late Paymaster of his Majesty’s 46th Foot, at
their head.
The pensioners, the officers, ah! when I look up the silent street of
the town nowadays and see the old houses empty but for weavers, and
merchants, and mechanics, people of useful purposes but little manly
interest, and know that all we have of martial glory is a dust under a
score of tombstones in the yard, I find it ill to believe that ever wars
were bringing trade for youth and valour to our midst. The warriors are
gone; they do not fight their battles over any more at a meridian dram,
or late sitting about the bowl where the Trinidad lemon floated in
slices on the philtre of joy. They are up bye yonder in the shadow of
the rock with the sea grumbling constantly beside them, and their names
and offices, and the dignities of their battles, and the long number of
their years, are carved deeply, but not deeply enough, for what is there
of their fame and valour to the fore when the threshing rain and the
crumbling frost have worn the legend off the freestone slab? We are left
stranded high and dry upon times of peace, but the old war-dogs, old
heroes, old gentles of the stock and cane--they had seen the glories
of life, and felt the zest of it. Bustling times! the drums beat at the
Cross in those days, the trumpeters playing alluringly up the lanes to
young hearts to come away; pipers squeezed out upon their instruments
the fine tunes that in the time I speak of no lad of Gaelic blood could
hear but he must down with the flail or sheep-hook and on with the
philabeg and up with the sword. Gentlemen were for ever going to wars
or coming from them; were they not of the clan, was not the Duke their
cousin, as the way of putting it was, and by his gracious offices many
a pock-pudding English corps got a colonel with a touch of the Gaelic
in his word of command as well as in his temper. They went away
ensigns--some of them indeed went to the very tail of the rank and file
with Mistress Musket the brown besom--and they came back Majors-General,
with wounds and pensions. “Is not this a proud day for the town with
three Generals standing at the Cross?” said the Paymaster once, looking
with pride at his brother and Turner of Maam and Campbell of Strachur
standing together leaning on their rattans at a market. It was in the
Indies I think that this same brother the General, parading his command
before a battle, came upon John, an ensign newly to the front with a
draft from the sea.
“Who sent you here, brother John?” said he, when the parade was over.
“You would be better at home in the Highlands feeding your mother’s
hens.”
In one way it might have been better, in another way it was well enough
for John Campbell to be there. He might have had the luck to see more
battles in busier parts of the world, as General Dugald did, or Colin,
who led the Royal Scots at Salamanca, Vittoria, and Waterloo; but he
might have done worse, for he of all those gallants came home at the end
a hale man, with neither sabre-cut nor bullet. To give him his due he
was willing enough to risk them all. It bittered his life at the last,
that behind his back his townspeople should call him “Old Mars,” in an
irony he was keen enough to feel the thrust of.
“Captain Mars, Captain Mars,
Who never saw wars,”
said Evan MacColl, the bard of the parish, and the name stuck as the
bye-names of that wonderful town have a way of doing.
“Old Mars,” Paymaster, sat among the pensioners in the change-house of
the Sergeant More when Gilian came to the door. His neck overflowed in
waves of fat upon a silk stock that might have throttled a man who had
not worn the king’s stock in hot lands over sea; his stockings fitted
tightly on as neat a leg as ever a kilt displayed, though the kilt was
not nowadays John Campbell’s wear but kerseymore knee-breeches. He had a
figured vest strewn deep with snuff that he kept loose in a pocket (the
regiment’s gold mull was his purse), and a scratch wig of brown sat
askew on his bullet head, raking with a soldier’s swagger. He had his
long rattan on the table before him, and now and then he would lift its
tasseled head and beat time lightly to the chorus of Dugald MacNicol’s
song. Dugald was Major once of the 1st Royals; he had carried the sword
in the Indies, East and West, and in the bloody Peninsula, and came
home with a sabre-slash on the side of the head, so that he was a little
weak-witted. When he would be leaving his sister’s door to go for the
meridian dram at the quay-head he would dart for cover to the Cross,
then creep from close to close, and round the church, and up the Ferry
Land, in a dread of lurking enemies; yet no one jeered at his want, no
boy failed to touch his bonnet to him, for he was the gentleman in the
very weakest moment of his disease. He had but one song in his budget:
“O come and gather round me, lads,
and help the chorus through,
When I tell you how we fought the French
on the plains of Waterloo.”
He sang it in a high quavering voice with curious lapses in the vigour
of his singing and cloudings in the fire of his eyes, so that now and
then the company would have to jolt him awake to give the air more
lustily. Colonel Hall was there (of St John’s) and Captain Sandy
Campbell of the Marines, Bob MacGibbon, old Lochgair, the Fiscal with
a ruffled shirt, and Doctor Anderson. The Paymaster’s brothers were
not there, for though he was the brother with the money they were
field-officers and they never forgot it.
The chorus was ringing, the glasses and the Paymaster’s stick were
rapping on the table, the Sergeant More, with a blue brattie tied tight
across his paunch to lessen its unsoldierly amplitude, went out and in
with the gill-stoups, pausing now and then on the errand to lean against
the door of the room with the empty tray in his hand, drumming on it
with his finger-tips and joining in the officers’ owercome.
He turned in the middle of a chorus, for the boy was standing abashed in
the entry, his natural fears at meeting the Paymaster greatly increased
by the sound of revelry.
“Well, little hero,” said the Sergeant More, in friendly Gaelic, “are
you seeking any one?”
“I was sent to see the Paymaster, if it’s your will,” said Gilian, with
his eyes falling below the scrutiny of this swarthy old sergeant.
“The Paymaster!” cried the landlord, shutting the door of the room ere
he said it, and uplifting farmed hands, “God’s grace! do not talk of the
Paymaster here! He is Captain Campbell, mind, late of his Majesty’s 46th
Foot, with a pension of £4 a week, and a great deal of money it is
for the country to be paying to a gentleman who never saw of wars but
skirmish with the Syke. Nothing but Captain, mind you, and do not forget
the salute, so, with the right hand up and thumb on a line with the
right eyebrow. But could your business not be waiting? If it is Miss
Mary who sent for him it is not very reasonable of her, for he is here
no longer than twenty minutes, and it is not sheepshead broth day, I
know, because I saw her servant lass down at the quay for herrings an
hour ago. Captain, mind, it must be that for him even with old soldiers
like myself. I would not dare Paymaster him, it is a name that has a
trade ring about it that suits ill with his Highland dignity. Captain,
Captain!”
Gilian stood in front of this spate of talk, becoming more diffident and
fearful every moment. He had never had any thought as to how he should
tell the Paymaster that the goodwife of Ladyfield was dead, that was a
task he had expected to be left to some one else, but Jean Clerk and
her sister had a cunning enough purpose in making him the bearer of the
news.
“I am to tell him the goodwife of Ladyfield is dead,” he explained,
stammering, to the Sergeant More.
“Dead!” said John More. “Now is not that wonderful?” He leaned against
the door as he had leaned many a time against sentry-box and barrack
wall, and dwelt a little upon memory. “Is not that wonderful? The first
time I saw her was at a wedding in Karnes, Lochow, and she was the
handsomest woman in the room, and there were sixty people at the
wedding from all parts, and sixty-nine roasted hens at the supper. Well,
well--dead! blessings with her; did I not know her well? Yes, and I knew
her husband too, Long Angus, since the first day he came to Ladyfield
for Old Mar--for the Paymaster--till the last day he came down the
glen in a cart, and he was the only sober body in the funeral, perhaps
because it was his own. Many a time I wondered that the widow did so
well in the farm for Captain Campbell, with no man to help her, the
sowing and the shearing, the dipping and the clipping, ploughmen and
herds to keep an eye on, and bargains to make with wool merchants and
drovers. Oh! she was a clever woman, your grandmother. And now she’s
dead. Well, it’s a way they have at her age! And the Paymaster must be
told, though I know it will vex him greatly, because he is a sort of man
who does not relish changes. Mind now you say Captain; you need not say
Captain Campbell, but just Captain, and maybe a ‘sir’ now and then. I
suppose you could not put off telling him for a half-hour or thereabouts
longer, when he would be going home for dinner any way; it is a pity
to spoil an old gentleman’s meridian dram with melancholy news. No. You
were just told to come straight away and tell him--well, it is the good
soldier who makes no deviation from the word of command. Come away in
then and--Captain mind--and the salute.”
The Sergeant More threw open the door of the room, filled up the space
a second and gave a sort of free-and-easy salute. “A message for you,
Captain,” said he.
The singing was done. The Major’s mind was wandering over the plains of
Waterloo to guess by the vacancy of his gaze; on his left Bob MacGibbon
smoked a black segar, the others talked of townsmen still in the army
and of others buried under the walls of Badajos. They all turned when
the Sergeant More spoke, and they saw him push before him into the room
the little boy of Ladyfield with his bonnet in his hand and his eyes
restless and timid like pigeons at a strange gate fluttering.
“Ho! Gilian, it is you?” said the Paymaster, with a very hearty voice;
then he seemed to guess the nature of the message, for his voice
softened from the loud and bumptious tone it had for ordinary. “How is
it in Lecknamban?” he asked in the Gaelic, and Gilian told him, minding
duly his “sir” and his “Captain” and his salute.
“Dead!” said the Paymaster, “Blessings with her!” Then he turned to his
companions and in English--“The best woman in the three parishes and the
cleverest. She could put her hand to anything and now she’s no more. I
think that’s the last of Ladyfield for me. I liked to go up now and then
and go about the hill and do a little bargaining at a wool market, or
haggle over a pound with a drover at the fair, but the farm did little
more than pay me and I had almost given it up when her husband died.”
He looked flushed and uncomfortable. His stock seemed to fit him more
tightly than before and his wig sat more askew than ever upon his
bald head. For a little he seemed to forget the young messenger still
standing in the room, no higher than the table whereon the glasses
ranged. Gilian turned his bonnet about in his hand and twisted the
ribbons till they tore, then he thought with a shock of the scolding he
would get for spoiling his Sunday bonnet, but the thought was quickly
followed by the recollection that she who would have scolded him would
chide no more.
The pensioners shared their attention between the Paymaster and the boy.
While the Paymaster gave them the state of his gentleman farming (about
which the town was always curious), they looked at him and wondered at
a man who had seen the world and had £4 a week of a pension wasting life
with a paltry three-hundred sheep farm instead of spending his money
royally with a bang. When his confidence seemed likely to carry their
knowledge of his affairs no further than the town’s gossip had already
brought it, they lost their interest in his reflections and had time to
feel sorry for the boy. None of them but knew he was an orphan in the
most grievous sense of the term, without a relative in the wide world,
and that his future was something of a problem.
Bob MacGibbon--he was Captain in the 79th--leaned forward and tried to
put his hand upon the child’s shoulder, not unkindly, but with a rough
playfulness of the soldier. Gilian shrank back, his face flushing
crimson, then he realised the stupidity of his shyness and tried
to amend it by coming a little farther into the room and awkwardly
attempting the salute in which the Sergeant More had tutored him. The
company was amused at the courtesy, but no one laughed. In a low voice
the Paymaster swore. He was a man given to swearing with no great
variety in his oaths, that were merely a camp phrase or two at the most,
repeated over and over again, till they had lost all their original
meanings and could be uttered in front of Dr. Colin himself without
any objection to them. In print they would look wicked, so they must
be fancied by such as would have the complete picture of the elderly
soldier with the thick neck and the scratch wig. The Sergeant More
had gently withdrawn himself and shut the door behind him the more
conveniently to hear what reception the messenger’s tidings would
meet with from the Paymaster. And the boy felt himself cut off most
helplessly from escape out of that fearful new surrounding. It haunted
him for many a day, the strong smell of the spirits and the sharp
odour of the slices floating in the glasses, for our pensioners
were extravagant enough to flavour even the cold midday drams of the
Abercrombie with the lemon’s juice. Gilian shifted from leg to leg and
turned his bonnet continuously, and through his mind there darted many
thoughts about this curious place and company that he had happened upon.
As they looked at him he felt the darting tremor of the fawn in the
thicket, but alas he was trapped! How old they were! How odd they looked
in their high collars and those bands wound round their necks! They were
not farmers, nor shepherds, nor fishermen, nor even shopkeepers; they
were people with some manner of life beyond his guessing. The Paymaster
of course he knew; he had seen him often come up to Ladyfield, to talk
to the goodwife about the farm and the clipping, to pay her money twice
yearly that was called wages, and was so little that it was scarcely
worth the name. Six men in a room, all gentle (by their clothes), all
with nothing better to do than stare at a boy who could not stare back!
How many things they had seen; how many thoughts they must share between
them! He wished himself on the other side of Aora river in the stillness
of Kincreggan wood, or on the hill among the sheep--anywhere away from
the presence of those old men with the keen scrutiny in their eyes,
doubtless knowing all about him and seeing his very thoughts. Had they
been shepherds, or even the clever gillies that sometimes came to the
kitchen of Ladyfield on nights of _ceilidh_ or gossip, he would have
felt himself their equal. He would have been comfortable in feeling
that however much they might know about the hills, and woods, and wild
beasts, it was likely enough better known to himself, who lived among
them and loved them. And the thoughts of the gillie, and the shepherd,
were rarely beyond his shrewd guess as he looked at them; they had
but to say a word or two, and he knew the end of their story from the
beginning. But these old gentlemen were as far beyond his understanding
as Gillesbeg Aotram, the wanderer who came about the glens and was
called daft by the people who did not know, as Gilian did, that he was
wiser than themselves.
The Paymaster took his rattan and knocked noisily on the table for the
landlord.
The Sergeant More stepped softly on his tiptoes six steps into the
kitchen, then six steps noisily back again and put his head in.
“What’s your will, Captain?” said he, polishing a tray with the corner
of his brattie.
“Give this boy some dinner, for me,” said the Paymaster. “There is
nothing at our place to-day but herrings, and it’s the poorest of meals
for melancholy. Miss Mary would make it all the more melancholy with her
weeping over the goodwife of Ladyfield.”
Gilian went out with the Sergeant More and made a feeble pretence at
eating his second dinner that day.