gray house, where he was now so much at home, looking very glum
indeed. Sandy was with him, wearing a face as solemn as a funeral
procession. Jock and Jean saw them coming and hailed them with a
shout, and Tam, who had not quite recovered from his injury, came
dashing down the brae on three legs to greet them. Even Tam's
joyful bark did not lift the shadow from their faces.
Jean cried out from the top of the brae, "Whatever can be the
matter with you? You're looking as miserable as two hens in a
rainstorm!"
"Trouble enough," answered Sandy, and Jean and Jock at once came
hurrying down the slope to hear the bad news. They met at the
river-side, and Sandy, who was bursting to tell it, cried out,
"What do you think? Alan's got to go home! His mother's sent for
him!" One look at Alan's melancholy face confirmed this dreadful
statement and the gloom instantly became general.
The Clan sat down on the ground in a depressed circle to discuss
the matter and its bearing on their plans.
"Don't you think your mother would let you stay if you should ask
her?" suggested Jock.
"No," said Alan, with sad conviction. "She said I was to come at
once, and I'll have to start this very afternoon. I'm to drive
down to the boat and get to Glasgow by water; I'll spend the
night there and go on to London in the morning."
"Sal, but you'll be seeing a lot of the world," said Jock. "I
wish I were going with you."
"I wish you all were," said Alan.
"We'll likely be having more traveling than we want," said Jean,
"when we have to give up the wee bit hoosie and go out and walk
the world." She looked up at the little gray house as she spoke,
and her eyes filled with tears.
"It's the end of the Clan; that's what it is," said Sandy with
deepening despondency.
"Oh, come now!" said Alan. "It's not so bad as all that, and I'm
surely coming back next summer. I know my mother'll let me, for
she'll see how much good it's done me to be here. Just look at
that," he added, baring his arm and knotting his biceps.
"Climbing around the cave and chasing after Angus Niel have made
me as tough as a knot. She won't know me when she sees me."
"I wonder if we shall know you the next time we see you, if we
ever do," said Jean.
"Ho!" said Alan, trying to smile gayly, "of course you will! I'll
have a sprig of the evergreen pine and give the pewit call, and
then you'll be sure."
"What good will your coming back next summer do us?" said Jock.
"We shan't be here to see you! Our leases run out in October, and
nobody knows where we'll go after that! We've got to move out, so
the Auld Laird can have more space to raise game for Angus Niel
to kill," he finished bitterly.
There seemed no way of brightening this sad prospect, and the
Clan sat for a few moments in mournful silence. Alan tried hard
to think of something comforting to say.
"I'll tell you what," he exclaimed at length. "We can still be a
Clan, whether we see each other or not. We'll remember we're all
blood brothers just the same."
"And that you are our Chief," added Jean, trying to look
cheerful.
"Can't we go back to the cave just once more?" said Sandy.
"I've got to be at the bridge at one o'clock," said Alan. "I've
said good-bye to Eppie, and she is packing my things, and putting
up a lunch, so I don't have to do anything but step into the
carriage when I get there. What time is it now?"
Jean flew up the slope to the house and called back from the
door, "It's ten o'clock."
"Come on, then, my merry men!" cried Alan, and the four started
off at a brisk trot, looking anything but merry as they went.
"We shan't want to come here any more," said Jock, when they
reached the cave. "So we may as well take everything away."
"Oh," said Alan, "something might happen to keep you in the
Glen Easig. You never can tell. You'd better take back the pots
and pans, but leave the wood, and then if we are here next
summer, it will be all ready for cooking a jolly old mess of
trout."
"Whatever shall we do with the boat?" asked Jean. This was a
conundrum, but the Chief, as usual, was equal to the occasion.
"There's only one thing we can do," he said. "It will just dry up
and fall to pieces up here; we'll let it down over the rock by
the ropes and leave it in the pool. Then when Angus finds it,
he'll be perfectly sure he was bewitched and be more afraid of
the falls than ever!"
They worked hurriedly, for the time was short, and in another
hour the boat was floating in the fishing-pool, securely tied to
a pine tree on the bank. They packed pots and pans in the basket
and lowered it over the rock by the rope, and when everything was
done, Alan took the blue chalk and drew a sprig of pine on the
wall of the cave with the initials R. R. C. beside it. The four
children then scrambled down the secret stairway, feeling as if
they had said good-bye forever to a dear friend. When they
reached the little gray house, they left the basket in the
kitchen, and the entire Clan walked with Alan back to the bridge,
where they found the carriage waiting.
Alan made short work of his good-byes. He shook hands all round
and sprang quickly into the carriage, and as it rattled away with
him down the road, he stood up, waving his bonnet with the spray
of evergreen pine in it and whistling the pewit call.
"Dagon't," said Sandy, when the carriage passed out of sight
around a bend in the road. "Dagon't, we'll never find another
like the Chief." If Jean and Jock had felt able to say anything,
they would have echoed the statement. As it was, Sandy drew his
kilmarnock bonnet over his eyes, thrust his hands into his
pockets, and started dejectedly toward his own house, leaving
Jean and Jock, equally miserable, to return alone to the wee bit
hoosie on the brae.
XII. NEWS
The rest of the week seemed at least a month long to the lonely
twins. Sandy came to see them, to be sure, but with the passing
of the Chief, the flavor seemed gone from the play, and the Clan
made no further expeditions after Angus Niel.
"He can just kill all the game he wants to," said Jean. "It's
the worse for the Auld Laird, I doubt, but who cares for that, so
long as he leaves Tam alone and keeps away from here? It's
nothing to me."
Their father had been so taken up with his work and with turning
over in his mind plans for the future, when they should be
"walking the world," that he paid little attention to their
punishment of Angus Niel, about which he knew little and cared
less. He was absorbed in planning the best market for his sheep
and in getting as much from his garden as he could, hoping to
sell what he was unable to use himself, when the time came to
leave. His usually cheerful face had grown more and more troubled
as the summer wore on, and it was seldom now that his bagpipes
woke the mountain echoes, and whenever he did while away a rainy
evening with music, the melodies were as wild and mournful as his
own sad thoughts.
Angus Niel's barometer now rose again. Finding himself no longer
pursued by his unseen foes, his waning self-confidence returned, and
it was only a week or two after Alan's departure that wonderful
stories began to go about the village concerning his prowess in
ridding the woods of thieves and marauders single-handed.
"I've even found my boat," he announced one evening to a group of
men lounging about the village store, "and it was no human hands
that put it where I found it either! It was below the falls, if
you'll believe me, safe and sound and tight as ever. Any man that
is easily scared would better not be walking the woods in that
direction, I'm telling you, or likely he'd be whisked away by the
little people and shut up in some cave in the hills. I felt the
drawing myself once, but I knew how to manage. I was just gey
firm with them, and they knew I wasna fearful and let me go. It's
none so easy being a gamekeeper. It takes a bold man, and a canny
one, and well the poacher gang knew that. They're gone and good
riddance. It's taken me all summer to bring it about."
"Oh," murmured Jock to Jean, when this was repeated to them by
Sandy the following Sabbath, "wouldn't Alan like to hear that?"
It was on that very Sabbath, too, that they learned the Dominie
had recovered and that school was to reopen on the following day.
This was good news to the Twins, for like all Scotch children
they longed for an education, and the next morning, bright and
early, they were on the road to the village, carrying some scones
and hard-boiled eggs for their luncheon, in a little tin pail.
The days passed swiftly after that, for, with the house to care
for, lessons to get, and the walk of five miles to school and
back, there was little time for moping or even dreading the day
when they must leave their highland home.
It was late August when they came rushing home one afternoon,
bursting with a great piece of news, which they had learned in
the village. Never had they covered the five miles of the
homeward journey more quickly, but when they reached the little
gray house, their father had not yet returned from the pastures,
though it was after his time. The two children ran back of the
house to the cow byre, and there in the distance they saw him
coming across the barren moor. He was walking slowly, with his
head bent as though he were tired and discouraged, and Tam,
limping along beside him, looked discouraged too. The Twins gave
a wild whoop and raced across the moor to meet them. Jock got
there first, but was too out of breath to speak for an instant.
"Dear, dear! What can the matter be?" said their father, looking
from one excited face to the other.
"Oh, Father," gasped Jean, finding her tongue first, "you never
can guess, so I'll tell you. The Auld Laird's dead."
The Shepherd stood still in his tracks, too stunned for words.
"Aye!" cried Jock, wishing to share in the glory of such an
exciting revelation. "He's as dead as a salt herring."
"Oh, Father!" cried Jean, "aren't you glad? Now we won't have to
leave the wee bit hoosie and the Glen."
"I'm none so sure of that," said the Shepherd slowly, when he had
recovered from the first shock of surprise. "The new Laird may be
worse than the old. Be that as it may, I'm not one to rejoice at
the death of any man. Death is a solemn thing, my dawtie, but the
Lord's will be done, and I'm not pretending to mourn."
"We went to the village," cried Jean, "to get a bit of meat for the
pot, and there was a whole crowd of people around the post-office
door. 'T was the post-master gave us the news, and Mr. Craigie and
Angus Niel have put weeds on their hats and look as mournful as Tam
when he's scolded. We saw them out of the school-house window not two
hours gone."
"They have reason to mourn," said the Shepherd grimly, "not for
the Auld Laird's death only, but for their own lives as well.
Aye, that's a subject for grief." He shook his head dubiously,
and, seeming to feel it was an occasion for a moral lesson, he
added, "'Mark the perfect man and behold the upright, for the end
of that man is peace.'"
"What has that to do with the Auld Laird?" asked Jock, much
mystified.
"Nothing at all, maybe," answered the Shepherd, "but it's a wise
word to remember against our own time."
"I wish Angus Niel would remember it," exclaimed Jean.
"And Mr. Craigie no less," added Jock.
"Well, well," said the Shepherd, "heard ye anything more in the
village?"
"Aye, that we did," said Jean, who loved to prolong the
excitement of news.
"Let me tell that," said Jock. "You told about the Auld Laird.
Well, then, Father, there's all kinds of tales about the new
Laird. It's said he's a wee bit of a laddie, not more than four
years old, and not the son of the Auld Laird at all, but a cousin
or something. It's said he's weak and sickly-like and not long
for this world."
"Sandy's mother was in the village and walked with us to the
bridge," interrupted Jean, "and she heard that the heir is a
young man living in Edinburgh, and not even known to the Auld
Laird, who had no near kin. She had it from the minister's wife,
so it must be true."
"Didn't Mr. Craigie say anything? He ought to know more about it
than any one. He's the Auld Laird's factor to carry out his will
while he was living. It's likely he'd know more than any other
about his will, now he's dead," said the Shepherd.
"Mrs. Crumpet says he goes about with his mouth shut up as tight
as an egg, as though he knew a great deal more than other folk,
being so intimate-like with the Laird," said Jean.
"Aye!" added Jock, "but she said she believed there was a muckle
he did not know at all, and he was keeping his mouth shut to make
folks think he knew but wasna telling."
Jean now took up the tale. "Mrs. Crumpet had all the news in
town," she said, "and she told us that Angus Niel said he hoped
the new Laird was fond of the hunting and would appreciate his
work in preserving the game and driving poachers from the forests
of Glen Cairn. He said he had done the work of ten men, and it
was well that people should know it and be able to tell the new
Laird, when he comes into his own!"
Even the Shepherd couldn't help smiling at that, and as for Jean
and Jock, they shouted with laughter. In spite of themselves, the
children and their father felt such relief from anxiety that they
walked back to the little gray house with lighter hearts than
they had felt for some time. Whoever the new Laird might be, it
would take time to settle the estate and find out the will of its
new owner, and meanwhile they could live on in their old home.
Beyond that, they could even hope that they might not have to go
at all.
That night Jean cooked the first of their early potatoes from the
garden for supper and a bit of ham to eat with them, by way of
celebrating their reprieve, and after supper the Shepherd got out
his bagpipes and played "The Blue Bells of Scotland" until the
rafters rang again. Jean stepped busily about the kitchen in tune
to the music, humming the words to herself.
"Oh where, tell me where is your Highland laddie gone?
He's gone with streaming banners where noble deeds are done,
And it's oh! in my heart, I wish him safe at home."
And she thought of Alan as she sang. Afterward, when Jock and
Jean were safely stowed away for the night, the Shepherd went
over and brought from the table in the room his well-worn copy of
Robert Burns's "Poems," and the last view Jean had of him before
she went to sleep, he was reading "The Cotter's Saturday Night"
aloud to himself by the light of a flickering candle.
XIII. THE NEW LAIRD
It was Friday when news of the Auld Laird's death reached the village,
and on the following Sabbath there was not an empty seat in the kirk,
for every one was anxious to hear the latest gossip about the event
which meant so much to every one in the region. There was no newspaper
in the village, and the news of the week was passed about by word of
mouth in the kirkyard after service, or on week days was retailed over
the counter at the village post-office, which was post-office and
general store in one.
The Campbells were early in their pew, and the Twins watched the
other worshipers as they came slowly up the aisle and took their
places before time for the service to begin. Sandy winked at them
most indecorously across the church, but his mother poked him to
remind him of his duty, and he sent no more silent messages to
the other members of the Clan.
There was an air of expectation, which seemed to affect every one
in the kirk. Even the minister looked as if he had something
special on his mind, and as for Mr. Craigie, he was as solemnly
important, Sandy said afterwards, "as though he were the corpse
himself," while Angus Niel acted like nothing less than the chief
mourner.
In the kirkyard he let it be known that he was entirely familiar
with the details of the Auld Laird's funeral, which had occurred
in London the day before, though how the particulars reached him
in so short a time must forever remain a mystery.
It was Mr. Craigie, however, who gave out the important news
which every one had felt must be coming. On the steps after
service he said to Mr. Crumpet, "It's likely, Andrew, that you
may have more time about your lease. I've had news that the new
Laird is coming soon to the castle with his lawyers and some
other people to look over the estate and take possession. Eppie
McLean is to get ready for quite a party of the gentry."
Mrs. Crumpet was standing near her husband, and she was a bold
woman who would have asked a question of the Auld Laird himself,
if she had had occasion. "Then it's the sickly bit laddie who's
the heir?" she said, "and not the Edinburgh man?"
Mr. Craigie looked majestic and waved her aside, merely saying,
as he went down the steps, "It isna an Edinburgh body," but
giving no hint as to whether it was man, woman, or child. The
people who had gathered about him thinking to hear something
definite looked resentfully at his back as he walked away, and
Mrs. Crumpet openly expressed her opinion that he knew nothing
more about it himself. "If he did, he couldn't help letting it
dribble out by degrees, like a leaky kirn, being too stingy to
tell it out free, like any other body," she said.
Mrs. Crumpet was a woman of rare penetration. Even Sandy didn't
often get ahead of his mother.
For another week the village waited in suspense for further news,
and then on Saturday the report spread like wildfire through the
town that the new Laird with his party had arrived at the castle
the night before.
It was Sandy who brought the news to the little gray house. "And
they say there were three carriage-loads of them and they never
got to Glen Cairn until dark," he cried; "and the tale is that
the castle ovens have never been cool since the word came a week
ago! Mother says Eppie McLean has been laying in provisions as if
she looked for seven lean years like Joseph in Egypt."
"Losh!" interrupted Jock, "I wish Alan was here. Wouldn't we get
some of those good things for the cave, though."
"But that isn't all the news," cried Sandy, who had come three
miles to tell it and was not going to let it burst from him too
suddenly. "There's more."
"What is it, Sandy?" cried Jean, dancing with impatience. "Hurry,
lad; let out what's bottled up in you or you'll blow the cork!"
"Well," exploded Sandy, "you'll get some of the good things
without Alan, I'm telling you, for there's to be a grand feast at
the castle, and everybody is asked to come! There's a sign up in
the village, and it's to be Monday at five o'clock. They say
Eppie McLean has fowls waiting by the dozen and a barrel of
tatties ready for the pot. Losh! I don't see how the new Laird
can stay weakly with so much to fill him up."
"Sal!" cried Jean, "if he's such a wee laddie as they say, it's
likely his mother will be the one to say what's to be done in
Glen Cairn, and it's not likely she'll be wanting to go rampaging
over the country shooting game like the Auld Laird."
"Ye can never tell," said Sandy, with a worldly air. "Some say
ladies is worse than men."
"Never believe that," said Jean, promptly, and then she added a
little wistfully, "especially if they are mothers."
At church the next day the congregation was in such a state of
excitement it was with the greatest difficulty that the proper
Sabbath decorum was observed. Sandy Crumpet brazenly looked over
his shoulder every time any one passed up the aisle, thinking
that perhaps the new Laird and his mother might come in at any
moment, and even the grown people looked sidewise, but no new
faces appeared and fear was expressed afterwards that the mother
of the heir was of the Established Church. Mrs. Crumpet said she
had always heard that among the gentry the women were fiercer in
their religion than the men. The Shepherd remembered the Laird of
Kinross, but said nothing.
On the way home from church Jean and Jock noticed that smoke was
issuing from all the castle chimneys. It was now early autumn,
and, as Jean said, the castle must be damp from, standing so long
empty, and they had the right to warm it up for the wee Laird,
him being so sickly.
The suspense of the long weeks of summer had now become acute. If
the Auld Laird's wish to turn the tenants out of their holdings
to make Glen Cairn into a large game preserve was to be carried
out, the time for doing it was near, and the people looked
forward to the supper at the castle with both hope and dread.
Every one was to be there, and on Monday a wonderful amount of
preparation was going forward in every cottage and farmhouse on
the estate. Jean had her father's blacks on the line and
thoroughly brushed early in the morning, and the Sabbath clothes
for all three of them laid out on the chairs in "the room" by
noon. At four o'clock they were on their way to the castle. Jock
had wanted to start at three, but Jean was firm.
"It isna genteel to be going so early," she said. "T'will look
greedy, and you'll not get fed the sooner."
Any one would have said Jean looked pretty that day, for she was
not wearing her "Saturday face," and the little curls had crept
around her head unbeknownst and were blowing in bright tendrils
about her forehead under the edge of her bonnet with its sprig of
pine. Her cheeks were pink and her eyes bright with health and
excitement, and Robert Campbell, looking with pride at his sturdy
son and daughter, said to himself, "It's a sonsie lassie and braw
lad. I wish their mother could see them."
They walked down the river road, where the autumn colors were
beginning to appear, and at the bridge met the Crumpet family all
dressed in their best, also on their way to the castle. Sandy had
scrubbed himself till his face was shining like a glass bottle, and
the sprig of pine waved proudly from his bonnet, too. At every branch
road they were joined by others, and when they neared the castle gates
there was already quite a large group of people from the village as
well. Every one was in a state of tense excitement, for the fate of
all hung in the balance. Since the tenure of their homes was at the
mercy of the new Laird, his ideas and disposition were of vital
importance in their lives, and they were keen to see him and find out
for themselves what manner of person he might be. Mr. Crumpet was
looking very glum. He took a morose view of life at best, and the
present circumstances certainly warranted apprehension.
"If it's a wee bit of a laddie, as we are led to expect," he said
to the Shepherd, "he'll have no judgment of his own, and be
dependent on them as has him in charge. Mr. Craigie will not be
loosening his hold, and with only a weak woman and a sickly boy
to deal with, he'll wind 'em around his finger like a wisp o'
wool. It's my opinion we'll have Mr. Craigie to deal with more
than ever."
"Well," said Mrs. Crumpet philosophically, "and if we jump at all
't will be but from the fire back to the frying-pan again, I'm
thinking."
Various other opinions were expressed by one and another as the
tenants of Glen Cairn followed the wide drive which led to the
castle doors. Most of them had never before been inside the walls
of the park, and they looked about them with interest at the
unkempt and overgrown drive and at the bracken and heather
spreading even over the lawns. It was evident that the place had
been left to take care of itself for many years.
It was a warm day in late September, and though there was a touch
of red in the ivy which draped the gray castle walls, the air was
mellow with the haze of autumn and musical with the buzzing of
bees.
Mr. Craigie, looking more like a pair of tongs than ever, stood
on the terrace with the minister and his wife, while Angus Niel,
swelling with importance, ranged round the outskirts of the crowd
as they approached the castle, gradually herding them toward the
entrance. When they were all gathered in front of the terrace,
the minister came forward to the steps and lifted his hand. A
hush instantly fell upon the waiting people, and the minister
spoke.
"Her ladyship has asked me to say to you that she and the new
Laird will meet you here," he said, "and afterward conduct you to
the banqueting-hall, where supper will be served. It is their
desire to know you all personally, and I will be here to present
you as you come up the steps."