love a little miss and I think my company has charms for them. I
rejoiced to hear from the Scotch serving-man, who by the way is a
worthy fellow, that you were expected to meet us at this place. We are
fortunate in winning here thus early, for presently the snow will so
conglobulate that the road will be impossible for coach and
horses. . . . You have not yet dined, sir? No more have I or the
Scotchman, and my lady has retired to her chamber. Our hostess promised
that the meal should not be long delayed, and I have bidden the
Scotchman to share it, for though his condition is humble he has
becoming manners and a just mind. I do not defend the sitting down of
servants and masters as a quotidian occurrence, but customs abate their
rigidity on a journey."
To Johnson's delight a maid entered at that moment for the purpose of
laying the table. She lit a half-dozen of candles, and closed and
barred the heavy shutters so that the only evidence of the storm that
remained was the shaking of the window frames, the rumbling in the
chimney and the constant fine hissing at the back of the fire where the
snow descended. This distant reminder gave an edge to the delicate
comfort of the place, and as fragrant odours were wafted from the
kitchen through the open door Johnson's spirits rose and his dull eyes
brightened like children's at the sight of sweets.
"Of all the good gifts of a beneficent Providence to men," he cried, "I
think that none excels a well-appointed inn, and I call it a gift, for
our fallible mortal nature is not capable unaided of devising so rare a
thing. Behold me, Captain Maclean. My wealth is less than a crown and,
unless I beg my way, I see not how I can return to Chastlecote. I am
dependent upon my dear young lady for the expense of this journey,
which she chose to command. Therefore I do not feel justified in
ordering what my fancy dictates. Yet so strongly am I delighted by this
place that I propose to spend this my last crown on a bowl of bishop to
supplement the coming meal, which from its odour should be worthy of
it. Like Ariadne in her desertion I find help in Bacchus."
"Nay, sir, I am the host," said Alastair. "Last night I slept by a
tinkler's fire and dined off a tinkler's stew. To-night we shall have
the best the house affords. The food, I take it, is at the discretion
of the landlady, but the wine shall be at yours."
"Oh brave we!" cried Johnson. "Let us have in the landlord forthwith,
for, Captain Maclean, sir, I would be indeed a churl if I scrupled to
assent to your good fellowship."
He rang the bell violently and, when the landlord was fetched, entered
upon a learned disquisition on wines, with the well-thumbed cellar-book
of the inn as his text. "Claret we shall not drink, though our host
recommends his binns and it is the favourite drink of gentlemen in your
country, sir. In winter weather it is too thin, and, even when well
warmed, too cold. Nay, at its best it is but a liquor for boys."
"And for men?" Alastair asked.
"For men port, and for heroes brandy."
"Then brandy be it."
"Nay, sir," he said solemnly. "Brandy on the unheroic, such as I
confess myself to be, produces too soon and certainly the effect of
drunkenness. Drunkenness I love not, for I am a man accustomed to
self-examination, and I am conscious when I am drunk, and that
consciousness is painful. Others know not when they are drunk or sober.
I know a man, a very worthy bookseller, who is so habitually and
equally drunk that even his intimates cannot perceive that he is more
sober at one time than another. Besides, my dear lady may summon us to
a hand at cartes or to drink tea with her."
Eventually he ordered a bottle of port, one of old madeira and one of
brown sherry, that he might try all three before deciding by which he
should abide. Presently Edom was summoned, and on his heels came
dinner. It proved to be an excellent meal to which Mr Johnson applied
himself with a serious resolution. There was thick hare soup, with all
the woods and pastures in its fragrance, and a big dressed pike, caught
that morning in the inn stew-pond. This the two Scots did not touch,
but Mr Johnson ate of it largely, using his fingers, because, as he
said, he was short-sighted and afraid of bones. Then came roast hill
mutton, which he highly commended. "Yesterday," he declared, "we also
dined upon mutton--mutton ill-fed, ill-killed, ill-kept and
ill-dressed. This is as nutty as venison." But he reserved his highest
commendations for a veal pie, made with plums, which he averred was his
favourite delicacy. With the cheese and wheaten cakes which followed he
sampled the three bottles and decided for the port. Alastair and Edom
were by comparison spare eaters, and had watched with admiration the
gallant trencher-work of their companion. For liquor they drank a light
rum punch of Alastair's compounding, while Mr Johnson consumed, in
addition to divers glasses of sherry and Madeira, two bottles of rich
dark port, dropping a lump of sugar into each glass and stirring it
with the butt of a fork.
And all the while he talked, wisely, shrewdly, truculently, and with a
gusto comparable to that which he displayed in the business of eating.
"You slept hard last night?" he asked of Alastair. "How came you here?"
"On foot. For ten days I have been in an older world with a man who is
a kind of king there." He spoke for a little of Midwinter, but Johnson
was unimpressed.
"I think I have heard these boasts before, sir. When a man decries
civility and exalts barbarism, it is because he is ill fitted to excel
in good society. So when one praises rusticity it is because he is
denied the joys of town. A man may be tired of the country, but when he
is tired of London he is tired of life."
"Yet the taste can be defended," said Alastair. "A lover of natural
beauty will be impatient of too long a sojourn in town, and if he would
indulge his fancy he must leave the highway."
Mr Johnson raised his head and puffed out his cheeks.
"No, sir, I do not assent to this fashionable cant of natural beauty,
nor will I rave like a green girl over scenery. One part of the earth
is very much as another to me, provided it support life. The most
beautiful garden is that which produces most fruits, and the fairest
stream that which is fullest of fish. As for mountains----"
The food and the wine had flushed Mr Johnson's face, and his uncouth
gestures had become more violent. Now with a wheel of his right hand he
swept two glasses to the floor and narrowly missed Edom's head.
"Mountains!" he cried, "I deny any grandeur in the spectacle. There is
more emotion for me in a furlong of Cheapside than in the contemplation
of mere elevated bodies."
Edom, with an eye on the port, was whispering to Alastair that they
would soon be contemplating another elevated body, when there came a
knocking and the landlady entered.
"Her ladyship's services to you, sirs," she announced, "and she expects
Mr Johnson to wait upon her after the next half-hour, and she begs him
to bring also the gentleman recently arrived with whom she believes she
has the honour of an acquaintance." The landlady, having got the
message by heart, delivered it with the speed and monotony of a
bell-man. Mr Johnson rose to his feet and bowed.
"Our service to my lady," he said, "and we will obey her commands.
_Our_ service, mark you," and he inclined towards Alastair. The summons
seemed to have turned his thoughts from wine, for he refused the bottle
when it was passed to him.
"The dear child is refreshed, it would seem," he said. "She found this
morning's journey irksome, for she has little patience. Reading she
cannot abide, and besides the light was poor."
"Is madam possessed of many accomplishments?" Alastair asked, because
it was clear that the other expected him to speak on the subject.
"Why no, sir. It is not right for a gentlewoman to be trained like a
performing ape. Adventitious accomplishments may be possessed by any
rank, but one can always distinguish the born gentlewoman."
Then he repented.
"But I would not have you think that she is of dull wits. Nay, she is
the most qualitied lady I have ever seen. She has an admirable quick
mind which she puts honestly to yours. I have had rare discussions with
her. Reflect, sir; she has lived always in the broad sunshine of life,
and has had no spur to form her wits save her own fancy. A good mind in
such a one is a greater credit than with those who are witty for a
livelihood. 'Twill serve her well in matrimony, for no woman is the
worse for sense and knowledge. For the present, being not three weeks
married, her mind is in a happy confusion."
He smiled tenderly as he spoke, like a father speaking of a child.
"She is happy, I think," he said, and repeated the phrase three times.
"You have seen her," he turned to Alastair. "You can confirm my belief
that she is happy?"
"She is most deeply in love," was the reply.
"And transmutes it into happiness," said Johnson, and repeated with a
rolling voice some lines of poetry, beating time with his hand,
"Love various minds does variously inspire;
It stirs in gentle bosoms gentle fire
Like that of incense on the altar laid."
"There," said he, "Dryden drew from a profundity which Pope could not
reach. But it is time for us to be waiting on my lady." He hoisted
himself from his chair, brushed the crumbs from his waistcoat,
straightened his rusty cravat, and opened the door with a bow to the
others. He was in the best of spirits.
The landlady was waiting to show the two upstairs, Edom having meantime
retired to smoke a pipe in the bar. As they ascended, the gale was
still pounding on the roof and an unshuttered lattice showed a thick
drift of snow on the outer sill, but over the tumult came the echo of a
clear voice singing. To Alastair's surprise it was a song he knew, the
very song that Midwinter had played two nights before. "Diana and her
darling crew" sang the voice, and as the door opened it was Diana
herself that seemed to the young man to be walking to meet him. _Vera
incessu patuit Dea._
Mrs Peckover had dressed her hair, which the coach journey had
disarranged, but to Alastair's eye her air was childlike, as contrasted
with the hooped and furbelowed ladies of the French court. Her skirts
were straight and unmodish, so that her limbs moved freely, and the
slim young neck was encircled with her only jewel--a string of pearls.
The homely inn chamber, which till a few hours before had been but the
Brown Room, was now to him a hall in a palace, a glade in the
greenwood, or wherever else walk princesses and nymphs.
She gave him her hand and then dropped into a chair, looking at him
earnestly from under her long eyelashes.
"I thought that b-by this time you would be in L-Lancashire, Captain
Maclean."
"So also did I," and he told her the story of Gypsy Ben and his
morning's hunt. "There is business I have had news of in these parts, a
riddle I must unravel before I can ride north with a quiet mind. The
enemy musters in Nottinghamshire, and I must carry word of his
dispositions."
Her brown eyes had kindled. "Ben is a rogue then! By Heaven, sir, I
will have him stript and whipt from Thames to Severn. Never fear but my
vengeance shall reach him. Oh, I am heartily glad to know the truth,
for though I have used him much I have had my misgivings. He carried
letters for me to my dear Sir John." She stopped suddenly. "That is why
the replies are delayed. Oh, the faithless scoundrel! I can love a foe
but I do abhor all traitors. . . . Do you say the enemy musters in
Nottingham?" The anger in her voice had been replaced by eagerness at
this new thought.
"So it is reported, and, as I read it, he may march by this very road
if he hopes to take the Prince's flank. You at Brightwell may have the
war in your garden."
Her eyes glistened. "If only Sir John were here! There is the chance of
a famous exploit. You are a soldier, sir. Show me, for I love the
gossip of war."
On the hearthstone with a charred stick he drew roughly the two roads
from the north. "Here or hereabouts will lie the decision," he said.
"Cumberland cannot suffer the Prince to approach nearer London without
a battle. If you hear of us south of Derby undefeated, then you may
know, my lady, that honesty has won."
She cried out, twining her hands.
"Tell me more, sir. I had thought to pass the evening playing Pope Joan
with my Puffin, but you are here to teach me a better pastime. Instruct
me, for I am desperate ignorant."
Alastair repeated once again his creed in which during the past days he
had come the more firmly to believe. There must be a victory in
England, but in the then condition of Wales and the West a very little
victory would suffice to turn the scale. The danger lay in doubting
counsels in the Prince's own circle. Boldness, and still boldness, was
the only wisdom. To be cautious was to be rash; to creep soberly south
with a careful eye to communications was to run a deadly peril; to cut
loose and march incontinent for London was safe and prudent. "Therefore
I must get quickly to the Prince's side," he said, "for he has many
doubting Thomases around him, and few with experience of war."
"He has my Sir John," she said proudly. "Sir John is young, and has not
seen such service as you, but he is of the same bold spirit. I know his
views, for he has told them me, and they are yours."
"There are too many half-hearted, and there is also rank treason about.
Your Gypsy Ben is the type of thousands."
She clenched her hands and held them high. "How I l-loathe it! Oh, if I
thought I could betray the Cause I should hang myself. If I thought
that one I loved could be a traitor I should d-die." There was such
emotion in her voice that the echo of it alarmed her and she changed
her tone.
"Puffin," she cried, "are you honest on our side? I have sometimes
doubted you."
"Madam," Mr Johnson replied in the same bantering voice, "I can promise
that at any rate I will not betray you. Being neither soldier nor
statesman, I am not yet called to play an overt part in the quarrel,
but I am a Prince's man inasmuch as I believe in the divine origin of
the Christian state and therefore in the divine right of monarchs to
govern. I am no grey rat from Hanover."
"Yet," she said, with a chiding finger, "I have heard you say that a
Tory was a creature generated between a non-juring parson and one's
grandmother."
"Nay, my dear lady," he cried, "such heresy was never mine. I only
quoted it as a pernicious opinion of another, and I quoted too my
answer that 'the Devil, as the first foe to constituted authority, was
the first Whig.'"
At this juncture Mrs Peckover appeared with a kettle of boiling water
and the rest of the equipment of tea, which the girl dispensed out of
the coarse inn earthenware and sweetened with the coarse sugar which Mr
Johnson had used for his port. While the latter drank his dish noisily,
she looked curiously at Alastair.
"You are no politician, Captain Maclean, and doubtless have no concern
with the arguments with which our gentlemen soothe their consciences.
You do not seek wealth or power--of that I am certain. What are the
bonds that join you to the Prince?"
"I am a plain soldier," he said, "and but fulfil my orders."
"Nay, but you do not answer me. You do more than obey your orders; you
are an enthusiast, as Sir John is--as I am--as that dull Puffin is not.
I am curious to know the reason of your faith."
Alastair, looking into the fire, found himself constrained to reply.
"I am of the old religion," he said, "and loyalty to my king is one of
its articles."
She nodded. "I am a daughter of another church, which has also that
teaching."
"Also I am of the Highlands, and I love the ancient ways. My clan has
fought for them and lost, and it is in my blood to fight still and risk
the losing."
Her eyes encouraged him, and he found himself telling the tale of Clan
Gillian--the centuries-long feud with Clan Diarmaid, the shrinking of
its lands in Mull and Morvern, the forays with Montrose and Dundee, the
sounding record of its sons in the wars of Europe. He told of the old
tower of Glentarnit, with the loch lapping about it, and his father who
had no other child but him; of the dreams of his youth in the hot
heather; of that little ragged clan which looked to him as leader and
provider; and into his voice there came the pathos and passion of long
memories.
"I fight for that," he said; "for the old things."
It seemed that he had touched her. Her eyes were misty and with a
child's gesture she laid a hand on his sleeve and stroked it. The spell
which had fallen on them was broken by Mr Johnson.
"I conceive," he said, "that the power of the Scottish chief is no less
than Homeric, and his position more desirable than that of any grandee
in England. He may be poor, but he has high duties and exacts a fine
reverence. When I was a child my father put into my hands Martin's book
on the Western Isles, and ever since I have desired to visit them and
behold the patriarchal life with my own eyes."
"Your Highlanders are good soldiers?" she asked.
"They are the spear-point of the Prince's strength," said Alastair.
"It is a strange time," said Johnson, "which sees enlisted on the same
side many superfine gentlemen of France, certain sophisticated
politicians of England, and these simple, brave, ignorant clansmen."
"There is one bond which unites them all," she cried with enthusiasm,
"which places my Sir John and the humblest Scotch peasant on an
equality. They have the honesty to see their duty and the courage to
follow it. What can stand against loyalty? It is the faith that moves
mountains."
"Amen, my dear lady," said Johnson, and Alastair with a sudden impulse
seized her hand and carried it to his lips.
* * * * * *
The next morning dawned as silent as midnight. The wind had died, the
snowfall had ceased, and the world lay choked, six-foot drifts in the
road, twenty foot in the dells, and, with it all, patches of hill-top
as bare as a man's hand. The shepherds were out with the first light
digging sheep from the wreaths, and the cows after milking never left
the byres. No traveller appeared on the road, for a coach was a
manifest impossibility, and a horse little better. Alastair and Johnson
breakfasted at leisure, and presently the elder of the Weston servants
brought word of the condition of the highway. This was borne by Mrs
Peckover to her mistress, who summoned Mr Johnson to her to discuss the
situation. The landlord was unhopeful. Unless he could put six horses
to it the coach would not get to Brightwell, though a squad of men went
ahead to clear the drifts. The extra four horses he could not provide
since his waggons were all at Marlock and the two riding horses were
useless for coach work. The best plan would be to send to Brightwell
for the requisite horses, and this should be done later in the day, if
no further snow fell. The lady pouted, but settled herself comfortably
at cartes with her maid.
She inquired after Alastair's plans, and was told that he would make a
shift to travel, since his errand brooked no delay. Thereafter he found
the landlord and drew him aside. "You were bidden by our friend to take
orders from me," he said. "I have but the one. I stay on here, but you
will let it be known that I have gone--this day after noon. You will
give me a retired room with a key, forbid it to chambermaids, serve me
with your own hand, and show me some way of private entry. It is
important that I be thought to have left the countryside."
The man did as he was told and Alastair spent the morning with Mr
Johnson, who suffered from a grievous melancholy after the exhilaration
of the night before. At first he had turned the pages of the only book
in the inn, an ancient devotional work entitled "A Shove for a
Heavy-sterned Christian." But presently he flung it from him and sat
sidelong in a chair with his shoulders humped, his eye dull and
languid, and his left leg twitching like a man with the palsy. His
voice was sharp-pitched, as if it came from a body in pain.
"I am subject to such fits," he told Alastair. "They come when my mind
is unemployed and when I have pampered my body with over-rich food. Now
I suffer from both causes. Nay, sir, do not commiserate me. Each of us
must live his life on the terms on which it is given him. Others have
some perpetual weakness of mind or some agonising pain. I have these
black moods when I see only the littleness of life and the terrors of
death."
Lady Norreys had written a letter to her husband's great-uncle at
Brightwell, and armed with it Alastair set out a little before midday.
He had dressed himself in the frieze and leather with which Midwinter
had provided him, for it was as good a garb as a kilt for winter snows.
The direction was simple. He had but to follow the valley, for
Brightwell was at its head, before the road began to climb to the
watershed.
To one who had shot hinds on steeper hills in wilder winters the
journey was child's play. He made his road by the barer ridges, and
circumvented the hollows or crossed them where matted furze or hazel
made a foundation. He found that the higher he moved up the vale the
less deep became the fall, and the shallower the wreaths, as if the
force of the wind had been abated by the loftier mountains. Brightwell
lay in a circle of woods on whose darkness the snow had left only a
powder; before it ran the upper streams of a little river; behind it
the dale became a ravine and high round-shouldered hills crowded in on
it.
A thin column of smoke rose from a chimney into the bitter windless
noon, so the place was inhabited. But the gates of the main entrance
were shut--massive gates flanked by stone pillars bearing a cognisance
of three mullets on a chief--and the snow of the avenue was a virgin
sheet of white. Alastair entered the park by a gap in the wall, crossed
the snow-filled river, and came by way of a hornbeam avenue to the back
parts of the house. There he found signs of humanity. The courtyard was
trampled into slush, and tracks led out from it to the woody hills. But
nevertheless an air of death sat on the place, as if this life it bore
witness to was only a sudden start in a long slumber. With his spirits
heavily depressed he made his way to what seemed to be the door, and
entered a lesser courtyard, where he was at once attacked by two noisy
dogs.
As he drove them off, half thankful for their cheerful violence, an old
man, dressed in black like a butler, appeared. He had a thin peevish
face, and eyes that squinted so terribly that it was impossible to
guess the direction of his gaze. He received the letter without a word
and disappeared. After a considerable lapse of time he returned and
bade Alastair follow him through a labyrinth of passages, till they
reached a high old panelled hall, darkened by lozenged heraldic
windows, and most feebly warmed by a little fire of damp faggots. There
he was left alone a second time, while he had leisure to observe the
immense dusty groining and the antlers and horns, black as bog oak, on
the walls. Then suddenly a woman stood before him.
She was tall as a grenadier and beaked like a falcon, and to defend her
against the morning cold she wore what seemed to be a military coat and
a turban. Her voice was surprisingly deep and large.
"You are the messenger from the Sleeping Deer? My lady Norreys lies
there storm-stayed, because of the snow and asks for horses? You
travelled that road yourself. Would six horses bring a coach through?"
Alastair, coarsening his accent as best he could, replied that with
care six horses could get a coach to Brightwell.
"Then return at once and say that the horses will be there an hour
before sunset."
A new voice joined in, which came from an older woman, fat as the other
was lean, who had waddled to her side.
"But, sister, bethink you we have not the animals."
The first speaker turned fiercely. "The animals must and shall be
found. We cannot have our new cousin moping in a public hostel on her
first visit to us. For shame, Caroline."
"Back with you," she turned to Alastair. "Bennet will give you a glass
of ale, but see you do not dally over it."