THE LAIRD’S QUEST.
Things were going pretty well with the laird: Phemy and he drew
yet closer to each other, and as he became yet more peaceful in her
company, his thoughts flowed more freely, and his utterance grew
less embarrassed; until at length, in talking with her, his speech
was rarely broken with even a slight impediment, and a stranger
might have overheard a long conversation between them without
coming to any more disparaging conclusion in regard to him than
that the hunchback was peculiar in mind as well as in body. But his
nocturnal excursions continuing to cause her apprehension, and his
representations of the delights to be gathered from Nature while
she slept, at the same time alluring her greatly, Phemy had become,
both for her own pleasure and his protection, anxious in these also
to be his companion.
With a vital recognition of law, and great loyalty to any utterance
of either parent, she had yet been brought up in an atmosphere of
such liberty, that except a thing were expressly so conditioned,
or in itself appeared questionable, she never dreamed of asking
permission to do it; and, accustomed as she had been to go with
the laird everywhere, and to be out with him early and late, her
conscience never suggested the possibility of any objection to her
getting up at twelve, instead of four or five, to accompany him.
It was some time, however, before the laird himself would consent;
and then he would not unfrequently interpose with limitations,
especially, if the night were not mild and dry, sending her always
home again to bed. The mutual rule and obedience between them was
something at once strange and lovely.
At midnight Phemy would enter the shop, and grope her way until
she stood under the trap-door. This was the nearest she could come
to the laird’s chamber, for he had not only declined having the
ladder stand there for his use, but had drawn a solemn promise from
the carpenter that at night it should always be left slung up to
the joists. For himself he had made a rope-ladder, which he could
lower from beneath when he required it, invariably drew up after
him, and never used for coming down.
One night Phemy made her customary signal by knocking against the
trap-door with a long slip of wood: it opened, and, as usual, the
body of the laird appeared, hung for a moment in the square gap,
like a huge spider, by its two hands, one on each side, then dropped
straight to the floor, when, without a word, he hastened forth,
and Phemy followed.
The night was very still--and rather dark, for it was cloudy about
the horizon, and there was no moon. Hand-in-hand the two made for
the shore--here very rocky--a succession of promontories with
little coves between. Down into one of these they went by a winding
path, and stood at the lip of the sea. A violet dimness, or, rather,
a semi-transparent darkness, hung over it, through which came now
and then a gleam, where the slow heave of some Triton shoulder caught
a shine of the sky; a hush also, as of sleep, hung over it, which
not to break, the wavelets of the rising tide carefully stilled
their noises; and the dimness and the hush seemed one. They sat
down on a rock that rose but a foot or two from the sand and for
some moments listened in silence to the inarticulate story of the
night. At length the laird turned to Phemy, and taking one of her
hands in both of his, very solemnly said, as if breaking to her
his life’s trouble,--
“Phemy, I dinna ken whaur I cam frae.”
“Hoot, laird! ye ken weel eneuch ye cam frae Go-od,” answered Phemy,
lengthening out the word with solemn utterance.
The laird did not reply, and again the night closed around them,
and the sea hushed at their hearts. But a soft light air began
to breathe from the south, and it waked the laird to more active
thought.
“Gien he wad but come oot an’ shaw himsel’!” he said. “What for
disna he come oot?”
“Wha wad ye hae come oot?” asked Phemy.
“Ye ken wha, weel eneuch. They say he’s a’ gait at ance: jist
hearken. What for will he aye bide in, an’ _never_ come oot an’ lat
a puir body see him?”
The speech was broken into pauses, filled by the hush rather than
noise of the tide, and the odour-like wandering of the soft air in the
convolutions of their ears.
“The lown win’ maun be his breath--sae quaiet!--He’s no hurryin’
himsel’ the nicht.--There’s never naebody rins efter _him_.--Eh, Phemy!
I jist thoucht he was gauin’ to speyk!”
This last exclamation he uttered in a whisper, as the louder gush of a
larger tide-pulse died away on the shore.
“Luik, Phemy, luik!” he resumed. “Luik oot yonner! Dinna ye see
something ’at micht grow to something?”
His eyes were fixed on a faint spot of steely blue, out on the sea,
not far from the horizon. It was hard to account for, with such a
sky overheard, wherein was no lighter part to be seen that might be
reflected in the water below; but neither of the beholders was troubled
about its cause: there it glimmered on in the dimness of the wide
night--a cold, faint splash of blue-grey.
“I dinna think muckle o’ that, sir,” said Phemy.
“It micht be the mark o’ the sole o’ his fut, though,” returned the
laird. “He micht hae jist setten ’t doon, an’ the watter hae lowed
(_flamed_) up aboot it, an’ the low no be wullin’ to gang oot! Luik
sharp, Phemy; there may come anither at the neist stride-- anither
fut-mark. Luik ye that gait an’ I’ll luik this.--What for willna he
come oot? The lift maun be fu’ o’ ’im, an’ I’m hungert for a sicht o’
’im. Gien ye see ony thing, Phemy, cry oot.”
“What will I cry?” asked Phemy.
“Cry ‘Father o’ lichts!’” answered the laird.
“Will he hear to that--div ye think, sir?”
“Wha kens! He micht jist turn his heid; an’ ae luik wad sair me for a
hunner year.”
“I s’ cry, gien I see onything,” said Phemy.
As they sat watching, by degrees the laird’s thought swerved a little.
His gaze had fixed on the northern horizon, where, as if on the outer
threshold of some mighty door, long low clouds, with varied suggestion
of recumbent animal forms, had stretched themselves, like creatures of
the chase, watching for their lord to issue.
“Maybe he’s no oot o’ the hoose yet,” he said. “Surely it canna be but
he comes oot ilka nicht! He wad never hae made sic a sicht o’ bonny
things to lat them lie wi’oot onybody to gaither them! An’ there’s
nae ill fowk the furth at this time o’ nicht, ta mak an oogly din,
or disturb him wi’ the sicht o’ them. He maun come oot i’ the quaiet
o’ the nicht, or else what’s ’t a’ for?--Ay! he keeps the nicht till
himsel’, an’ lea’s the day to hiz (_us_). That’ll be what the deep
sleep fa’s upo’ men for, doobtless--to haud them oot o’ his gait! Eh! I
wuss he wad come oot whan I was by! I micht get a glimp o’ ’m.--Maybe
he wad tak the hump aff o’ me, an’ set things in order i’ my heid, an’
mak me like ither fowk. Eh me! that wad be gran’! Naebody wad daur
to touch me syne. Eh! Michty! come oot! Father o’ lichts! Father o’
lichts!”
He went on repeating the words till, growing softer and softer, his
voice died away in silence, and still as his seat of stone he sat, a
new Job, on the verge of the world-waters, like the old Job on his
dunghill when he cried out,--
“Lo, he goeth by me, and I see him not; he passeth on also, but I
perceive him not.--Call thou, and I will answer; or let me speak and
answer thou me.--Oh that I knew where I might find him! that I might
come even to his seat!--Behold I go forward, but he is not there; and
backward, but I cannot perceive him; on the left hand, where he doth
work, but I cannot behold him; he hideth himself on the right hand,
that I cannot see him.”
At length he rose and wandered away from the shore, his head sunk upon
his chest. Phemy rose also and followed him in silence. The child had
little of the poetic element in her nature, but she had much of that
from which everything else has to be developed-- heart. When they
reached the top of the brae, she joined him, and said, putting her hand
in his, but not looking at, or even turning towards him,--
“Maybe he’ll come oot upo’ ye afore ye ken some day --whan ye’re no
luikin’ for him.”
The laird stopped, gazed at her for a moment, shook his head, and
walked on.
Grassy steeps everywhere met the stones and sands of the shore,
and the grass and the sand melted, as it were, and vanished each
in the other. Just where they met in the next hollow, stood a small
building of stone with a tiled roof. It was now strangely visible
through the darkness, for from every crevice a fire-illumined smoke
was pouring. But the companions were not alarmed or even surprised.
They bent their way towards it without hastening a step, and coming
to a fence that enclosed a space around it, opened a little gate,
and passed through. A sleepy watchman challenged them. “It’s me,”
said the laird.
“A fine nicht, laird,” returned the voice, and said no more.
The building was divided into several compartments, each with
a separate entrance. On the ground in each burned four or five
little wood fires, and the place was filled with smoke and glow.
The smoke escaped partly by openings above the doors, but mostly
by the crannies of the tiled roof. Ere it reached these, however,
it had to pass through a great multitude of pendent herrings. Hung
up by the gills, layer above layer, nearly to the roof, their last
tails came down as low as the laird’s head. From beneath nothing
was to be seen but a firmament of herring-tails. These fish were
the last of the season, and were thus undergoing the process of
kippering. It was a new venture in the place, and its success as
yet a question.
The laird went into one of the compartments, and searching about
a little amongst the multitude within his reach, took down a plump
one, then cleared away the blazing wood from the top of one of the
fires, and laid his choice upon the glowing embers beneath.
“What are ye duin’ there, laird?” cried Phemy from without, whose
nostrils the resulting odour had quickly reached. “The fish is no
yours.”
“Ye dinna think I wad tak it wantin’ leave, Phemy!” returned the
laird. “Mony a supper hae I made this w’y, an’ mony anither I houp
to mak. It’ll no be this sizzon though, for this lot’s the last o’
them. They’re fine aitin’, but I’m some feart they winna keep.”
“Wha gae ye leave, sir?” persisted Phemy, showing herself the
indivertible guardian of his morals as well as of his freedom.
“Ow, Mr Runcie himsel’, of coorse!” answered the laird. “--Wull I
pit ane on to you?”
“Did ye speir leave for me tu?” asked the righteous maiden.
“Ow, na; but I’ll tell him the neist time I see him.”
“I’m nae for ony,” said Phemy.
The fish wanted little cooking. The laird turned it, and after
another half-minute of the fire, took it up by the tail, sat down
on a stone beside the door, spread a piece of paper on his knees,
laid the fish upon it, pulled a lump of bread from his pocket, and
proceeded to make his supper. Ere he began, however, he gazed all
around with a look which Phemy interpreted as a renewed search for
the Father of lights, whom he would fain thank for his gifts. When
he had finished, he threw the remnants into one of the fires, then
went down to the sea, and there washed his face and hands in a
rock-pool, after which they set off again, straying yet further along
the coast.
One of the peculiarities in the friendship of the strange couple
was that, although so closely attached, they should maintain such
a large amount of mutual independence. They never quarrelled, but
would flatly disagree, with never an attempt at compromise; the
whole space between midnight and morning would sometimes glide by
without a word spoken between them; and the one or the other would
often be lingering far behind. As, however, the ultimate goal of
the night’s wandering was always understood between them, there
was little danger of their losing each other.
On the present occasion, the laird, still full of his quest, was
the one who lingered. Every few minutes he would stop and stare, now
all around the horizon, now up to the zenith, now over the wastes
of sky--for, any moment, from any spot in heaven, earth, or sea,
the Father of lights might show foot, or hand, or face. He had
at length seated himself on a lichen-covered stone with his head
buried in his hands, as if, wearied with vain search for him outside
he would now look within and see if God might not be there, when
suddenly a sharp exclamation from Phemy reached him. He listened.
“Rin! rin! rin!” she cried--the last word prolonged into a scream.
While it yet rang in his ears, the laird was half-way down the steep.
In the open country he had not a chance; but, knowing every cranny
in the rocks large enough to hide him, with anything like a start
near enough to the shore for his short-lived speed, he was all but
certain to evade his pursuers, especially in such a dark night as
this.
He was not in the least anxious about Phemy, never imagining she
might be less sacred in other eyes than in his, and knowing neither
that her last cry of loving solitude had gathered intensity from
a cruel grasp, nor that while he fled in safety, she remained a
captive.
Trembling and panting like a hare just escaped from the hounds,
he squeezed himself into a cleft, where he sat half covered with
water until the morning began to break. Then he drew himself out and
crept along the shore, from point to point, with keen circumspection,
until he was right under the village and within hearing of its
inhabitants, when he ascended hurriedly, and ran home. But having
reached his burrow, pulled down his rope ladder, and ascended, he
found, with trebled dismay, that his loft had been invaded during
the night. Several of the hooked cords had been cut away, on one
or two were shreds of clothing, and on the window-sill was a drop
of blood.
He threw himself on the mound for a moment, then started to his
feet, caught up his plaid, tumbled from the loft, and fled from
Scaurnose as if a visible pestilence had been behind him.