I think we were all a bit unstrung after this. It was a good many weeks
before Cissy could bring herself to speak about Elizabeth Fortinbras,
and then it was in a rush, as, indeed, she did everything. It was one
afternoon, over at Young Mrs. Winter's. Mrs. Christopher Camsteary (who
always was as superior as a pussy-cat with a new blue ribbon about her
neck, all because her husband kept three gardeners, one of whom blacked
the Camsteary boots) happened to remark that there was "a rather
ladylike girl" in those butcher-people's sweet-shop opposite the
station.
"She _is_ a lady!" said Cissy Carter, lifting up her proud little chin
with an air of finality.
And, indeed, there was, in Edam at least, no discussing with Miss
Davenant Carter on such a matter. Mrs. Christopher Camsteary, whose
husband, greatly to his credit, had made a large fortune in
cattle-feeding oilcake ("in the wholesale, of course, you know, my
dear!"), could not, even if she had wished, contradict the daughter of
ten generations of Davenant Carters as to who was a lady and who not! So
it was settled that, whenever Cissy Carter was in the room, Elizabeth
Fortinbras was a lady. Which must have been a great comfort to her!
Well, the following summer-time when the good days came--perhaps because
everybody, including even Hugh John, was a little tired and
"edgy"--father took us all off to his own country.
I was the one who had seen the most of it before, as you may see if ever
you have read the book called _Sweetheart Travelers_ that father wrote
about our gypsyings and goings-on. Of course (all our family say "of
course"--and it all fills up first-rate when the man comes to count the
pages up for printing)--well, of course I had forgotten a good deal
about it, only I read over the book on the sly, and so was posted for
everything as it came along.
This time we did not go on "The-Old-Homestead-on-Wheels," as we called
the historic tricycle, but in the nicest and biggest of all wagonettes,
with two lovely horses driven by a friend of ours with a cleverness
which did one's heart good to see. His name was "Jim." We called him so
from the first, and he was dreadfully nice to all of us, because he had
been at school with father. This made us think for a good while that it
was because of his superior goodness and cleverness there that so many
people were glad to remember that they had been at school with father.
Jim, when we asked him, said that it was so, but Hugh John immediately
smelt a rat. So he asked another and yet older friend of father's, named
Massa--because, I think, he sang negro melodies so beautifully. (Who
would have thought that they sang "coon" songs so long ago?--but I
suppose it was really just a kind of "boot-room music," or the sort of
thing they play on board trip-steamers, when the trombone is away taking
up a collection, and everybody is moving to the other side of the deck!)
Well, Massa came along with us and Jim one lovely Saturday to see the
place where my great-grandmother had kept sheep "on the bonny banks of
the Cluden" a full hundred years ago.
Somehow I always liked that. It means more to a girl than even father's
misdeeds, the hearing about which amuses the boys so.
However, it really was about those that I began. So, reluctantly, I must
leave the little hundred-year-old girl keeping her sheep on the green
holms of Cluden, and tell about father and his wonderful influence.
Massa said that we were not to tell on him, and of course we promised.
This is not _telling_, but only writing all about it down in my
Diary--quite a different thing. Well, Massa said that when "Mac" and he
had "done anything," they used to climb up different trees as quickly as
they could, and then, when father came after them (he was not our father
then, of course, but only Roman Dictator and Tyrant of Syracuse), he
could only get one of them. For while he was climbing the tree occupied
by one, the other could drop out of the branches and cut and run. It was
a good way, especially for Number Two, who got away--not quite so fine,
though, for Number One, who was caught. Whenever a new boy visited the
town and the Dictator was seen coming along, they ran the stranger up a
tree and introduced him from there, as it were, lest, by mistake, a
worse thing should befall him! Really it is difficult to believe all
this, even when Massa swears it. Because father, if you let his pet
books alone and don't make too big a row outside the _chalet_ when he is
working, hardly minds at all what you do. We don't really recognize him
in the Roaring Lion, going about seeking whom he might devour, of Mr.
Massa's legends.
So Sir Toady, in the interests of public information, asked Mr. Massa if
the boys of that time were not pretty bad. And Mr. Massa said that they
were, but that "they were not a patch on your----" He stopped just at
the word "your," for father was coming round the corner. And, do you
know, I don't believe he has quite lost his influence with Mr. Massa
even now. It is a fine thing, Hugh John says, to be such a power for
good among your fellows. He had that sort of power himself at school,
and he managed to keep it, even though fellows ever so much bigger came
while he was there.
Well, no matter; what I keep really in my heart, or maybe like an amulet
about my neck, is the memory of the little hundred-year-old girl (that
is, she _would_ be if she were alive now) tending sheep and twining
daisy-chains on the meadows by the Water of Cluden, with the Kirk of
Iron-gray glinting through the trees, and Helen Walker (which is to say
Jeanie Deans) calling in the cows to be milked at the farm across the
burn.
Now I don't know how _you_ feel, but the story of this great-grandmother
of mine always seems sort of kind and warm and sacred to me, a mixture
of the stillness of an old-fashioned Sabbath and the first awakening
hush when you remember that it is your birthday--a sort of religious
fairyland, if you know what I mean--like "playing house" (oh, such a
long time ago!) with Puck and Ariel and the Queen of the Fairies, while
several of the very nicest people out of the Bible stories sat in the
shade and watched--perhaps Ruth and, of course, her mother-in-law, and
David when he was very young, and kept sheep also. He would certainly
come to see our play--his shepherd's crook in his hand, and his eye
occasionally taking a survey of great-grandmother's flocks and herds to
see that there were no lions or bears about!
Yes, I know it's fearfully silly. Of course it is. But, all the same, I
have oftener put myself happily to sleep thinking about that, and with
the music of the Cluden Water low in my ear, than with all the wisdom
that ever I learned at school! So there!
Of course you mustn't suppose that at the time I said a word of all this
even to the Maid, much less to the others. Though I do think that
father, who knows a lot of things without being told, partly guessed
what I was thinking of. For once when we had all got down to gather
flowers, he led me down to the water's edge, and, pointing across the
clear purl of the stream to the opposite bank (where is a little green
level, with, in the midst, a still greener Fairy Ring), he took my hand
and, standing behind me, pointed with it. "It was there!" he whispered.
He did not say a word more. But that was enough. I understood, and he
knew that I understood. It was like the old days when we made our
travels together, he and I, with the Things of the Wide World running
back past us, all beautiful and all sweet as dreaming of plucking
flowers in the kindly shade of woods.
Soon after this, on our journey through father's country, we came to a
little village--the cleanest and dearest that ever was seen. It was the
one after which father had called one of his early books of
verse--"Dulce Cor." Here we were very happy, for there was a lovely old
Abbey, roofless, of course, but all blooming like one great rose when
the sun shone on it at evening and morning. The colors of the stones
were so rich with age and mellowing that from the little walk on the
other side of the valley it seemed as if the whole had been dipped for a
thousand years in a bath of sunset clouds, and then left out among the
cornstooks to dry! Even more beautiful and kindly was a certain nice
Doctor--only he wasn't the sort that come to see you when you are ill,
to tap you on the back and write prescriptions. He took me to see the
Abbey, and told me about the Last of all the Abbots, who was so kind
that the people would not let him be sent away, but kept him always
hidden here and there among them. And about how he died at long and
last, "much respected and deeply regretted," as the papers say, even by
those who did not go to his church--which, indeed, very few in these
parts did.
And though it was, of course, foolish, and I would never have said it to
the Doctor himself for worlds, I could not help thinking that this Last
of all the Abbots (Gilbert Brown, I think his name was) must have been a
good deal like this friend of mine, with his beautiful silvery head, and
maybe the same gentle break in his voice when he gave out such a text as
"I came not to call the righteous but sinners to repentance."
We went through the cornfields very early next morning, father and I. It
was Sunday, at dawn or a little after. The dew was still on all the
little fairy cobwebs, but the sun had been before us in getting out of
bed, and now was busy as he could be, drinking up the dew. We had to
cross the churchyard under the big eastern side of the Abbey, all
drowned in level sunshine, yellow as primrose-beds. We crossed a stile,
and there, pacing slowly, his hands behind his back, saffron cornstooks
on his one side and five centuries of well-peopled holy ground on the
other, was the minister. He did not see us--lost in high thoughts, his
lips moving with the unspoken prayer.
"Come away," whispered father, hurrying me along. "He speaks with his
Master! A stranger intermeddleth not therewith!"
Then I did not know very well what he meant, nor did I ask. Only the
two of us slipped down where, beyond the cornfields, a little road, all
fern-grown, saunters half hidden; and where, a bit farther on, there is
a bridge and a burn in which, in the daytime, children play and women
wash their linen. But this morning all was still and quiet--as father
said, "with the Peace of Jubilee, when all the land had rest!" I like to
hear things like that--things I only half understand, but can think over
afterwards. They make me feel all nice and thrilly, like after a
shower-bath--only it is a mind-bath, and not a body-bath! Perhaps a
soul-bath, if I knew what that was.
We came back another way by a higher path, and through a lane of tall
old trees. When we got to our inn, the door was closed just as we had
left it, and not a soul astir. We had seen no one at all that Sabbath
morn except the silver-haired minister, his hands behind his
back--perhaps, as the Psalm says, looking to the hills from which cometh
his aid. Going up-stairs, I opened my grandmother's Bible at the
metrical Psalms, and the first words that met my eyes were these: "In
Salem is his tabernacle--in Sion is his seat!" Now I will confess again
that I always like texts and poems out of which I can take my own
meaning, without being bothered with notes and explanations. And so I
thought how that morning I had surely gone out by Salem His Tabernacle
and come back by Sion His Holy Seat!