Day by day, the summer went over Cosmo’s head, leaving his thoughts in
the same glow and tumult of uncertainty, for which, now and then, the
lad blamed himself bitterly, but which, on the whole, he found very
bearable. Every thing went on briskly at Norlaw. The Mistress,
thoroughly occupied, and feeling herself, at last, after so many
unprosperous years, really making some forward progress, daily recovered
heart and spirit, and her constant supervision kept every thing alive
and moving in the house. Here Cosmo filled the place of natural
privilege accorded to him alike as the youngest child and the
scholar-son. Though the Mistress’s heart yearned over the boys who were
away, she expected to be most tenderly proud of Cosmo, whose kirk and
manse she could already see in prospect.
It is not a very great thing to be a minister of the Church of Scotland,
but, in former days, at least, when the Church was less divided than it
is now, the people of Scotland regarded with a particular tenderness of
imagination the parish pastor. He was less elevated above his flock than
the English rector, and sprang very seldom from the higher classes; but
even among wealthy yeomen families in the country, the manse was still a
kind of _beau ideal_ of modest dignity and comfort, the pride and
favorite fancy of the people. It was essentially so to the Mistress,
whose very highest desire it had been to move her boy in this direction,
and whose project of romance now, in which her imagination amused
itself, was, above all other things, the future home and establishment
of Cosmo. She had no idea to what extent her favorite idea was
threatened in secret.
For the moment, however, Melmar and their connection with that house
seemed to have died out of everybody’s mind save Cosmo’s. It never could
quite pass from his so long as he took his place at sunset in that
vacant window of the old castle, where the ivy tendrils waved about him,
and where the romance of Norlaw’s life seemed to have taken up its
dwelling. The boy could not help wandering over the new ground which
Joanna had opened to him--could not help associating that Mary of
Melmar, long lost in some unknown country, with Oswald Huntley, a
stranger from home for years; and the boy started with a jealous pang of
pain to think how likely it was that these two might meet, and that
another than his father’s son should restore the inheritance to its true
heir. This idea was galling in the extreme to Cosmo. He had never
sympathized much in the thought that Melmar was Huntley’s, nor been
interested in any proceedings by which his brother’s rights were to be
established; but he had always reserved for himself or for Huntley the
prerogative of finding and reinstating the true lady of the land, and
Cosmo was human enough to regard “the present Melmar” with any thing but
amiable feelings. He could not bear the idea of being left out entirely
in the management of the concern, or of one of the Huntleys exercising
this champion’s office, and covering the old usurpation with a vail of
new generosity. It was a most uncomfortable view of the subject to
Cosmo, and when his cogitations came to that point, the lad generally
swung himself down from his window-seat and went off somewhere in high
excitement, scarcely able to repress the instant impulse to sling a
bundle over his shoulder and set off upon his journey. But he never
could rouse his courage to the point of reopening this subject with his
mother, little witting, foolish boy, that this admirable idea of his
about Oswald Huntley was the very inducement necessary to make the
Mistress as anxious about the recovery of Mary of Melmar as he himself
was--and the only thing in the world which could have done so.
It happened on one of these summer evenings, about this time, when his
own mind was exceedingly restless and unsettled, that Cosmo, passing
through Kirkbride as the evening fell, encountered bowed Jaacob just out
of the village, on the Melrose road. The village street was full of
little groups in earnest and eager discussion. It was still daylight,
but the sun was down, and lights began to sparkle in some of the
projecting gable windows of the Norlaw Arms, beneath which, in the
corner where the glow of the smithy generally warmed the air, a little
knot of men stood together, fringed round with smaller clusters of
women. A little bit of a moon, scarcely so big as the evening star which
led her, was already high in the scarcely shadowed skies. Every thing
was still--save the roll of the widow’s mangle and the restless feet of
the children, so many of them as at this hour were out of bed--and most
of the cottage doors stood open, revealing each its red gleam of fire,
and many their jugs of milk, and bowls set ready on the table for the
porridge or potatoes which made the evening meal. On the opposite brae
of Tyne was visible the minister, walking home with an indescribable
consciousness and disapproval, not in his face, for it was impossible to
see that in the darkness, but in his figure and bearing, as he turned
his back upon his excited parishioners, which was irresistibly ludicrous
when one knew what it meant. Beyond the village, at the opposite
extremity, was Jaacob, in his evening trim, with a black coat and hat,
which considerably changed the little dwarf’s appearance, without
greatly improving it. He had his face to the south, and was pushing on
steadily, clenching and opening, as he walked, the great brown fist
which came so oddly out of the narrow cuff of his black coat. Cosmo, who
was quite ready to give up his own vague fancies for the general
excitement, came up to Jaacob quite eagerly, and fell into his pace
without being aware of it.
“Are you going to Melrose for news? I’ll go with you,” said Cosmo.
The road was by no means lonely; there were already both men and boys
before them on the way.
“We should hear to-night, as you ken without me telling you,” said
Jaacob. “I’m gaun to meet the coach; you may come if you like--but what
matter is’t to the like o’ you?”
“To me! as much as to any man in Scotland,” cried Cosmo, growing red; he
thought the dignity of his years was impugned.
“Pish! you’re a blackcoat, going to be,” said Jaacob; “there’s your
friend the minister there, gaun up the brae. I sent _him_ hame wi’ a
flea in his lug. What the deevil business has the like of him to meddle
in our concerns? The country’s coming to ruin, forsooth! because the
franchise is coming to a man like me! Get away with you, callant! as
soon as you come to man’s estate you’ll be like a’ the rest! But ye may
just as weel take an honest man’s, advice, Cosmo. If we dinna get it
we’ll tak it, and that’ll be seen before the world afore mony days are
past.”
“What do you think the news will be?” asked Cosmo.
“Think! I’m past thinking,” cried Jaacob, thrusting some imaginary
person away; “haud your tongue--can a man think when he’s wound up the
length of taking swurd in hand, if need should be? If we dinna get it,
we’ll tak it--do ye hear?--that’s a’ I’m thinking in these days.”
And Jaacob swung along the road, working his long arms rather more than
he did his feet, so that their action seemed part of his locomotive
power. It was astonishing, too, to see how swiftly, how steadily, and
with what a “way” upon him, the little giant strode onward, swinging the
immense brown hands, knotted and sinewy, which it was hard to suppose
could ever have been thrust through the narrow cuffs of his coat, like
balancing weights on either side of him. Before them was the long line
of dusty summer road disappearing down a slope, and cut off, not by the
sky, but by the Eildons, which began to blacken in the fading
light--behind them the lights of the village--above, in a pale, warm
sky, the one big dilating star and the morsel of moon; but the thoughts
of Jaacob, and even of Cosmo, were on a lesser luminary--the red lantern
of the coach, which was not yet to be seen by the keenest eyes advancing
through the summer dimness from the south.
“Hang the lairds and the ministers!” cried Jaacob, after a pause, “it’s
easy to see what a puir grip they have, and how well they ken it. Free
institutions dinna agree with the like of primogeniture and thae
inventions of the deevil. Let’s but hae a reformed Parliament, and we’ll
learn them better manners. There’s your grand Me’mar setting up for a
leader amang the crew, presenting an address, confound his impudence! as
if he wasna next hand to a swindler himself.”
“Jacob, do you know any thing about his son?” asked Cosmo, eagerly.
“He’s a virtuoso--he’s a dilettawnti; I ken nae ill of him,” said
Jaacob, who pronounced these titles with a little contempt, yet secretly
had a respect for them; “he hasna been seen in this country, so far as
I’ve heard tell of, for mony a day. A lad’s no aye to blame for his
father and his mother; it’s a thing folk in general have nae choice
in--but he’s useless to his ain race, either as friend or foe.”
“Is he a good fellow, then? or is he like Me’mar?” cried Cosmo.
“Tush! dinna afflict me about thae creatures in bad health,” said
Jaacob; “what’s the use o’ them, lads or lasses, is mair than I can
tell--can they no’ dee and be done wi’t? I tell you, a docken on the
roadside is mair guid to a country than the like of Me’mar’s son!”
“Is he in bad health?” asked the persistent Cosmo.
“They’re a’ in bad health,” said Jaacob, contemptuously, “as any auld
wife could tell you; a’ but that red-haired lassie, that Joan. Speak o’
your changelings! how do ye account to me, you that’s a philosopher, for
the like of an honest spirit such as that, cast into the form of a
lassie, and the midst of a hatching o’ sparrows like Me’mar? If she had
but been a lad, she would have turned them a’ out like a cuckoo in the
nest.”
“And Oswald Huntley is ill--an invalid?” said Cosmo, softly returning to
the thread of his own thoughts.
Jaacob once more thrust with contempt some imaginary opponent out of the
way.
“Get away with you down Tyne or into the woods wi’ your Oswald
Huntleys!” cried Jaacob, indignantly--“do you think I’m heeding about
ane of the name? Whisht! what’s that? Did you hear onything?--haud your
tongue for your life!”
Cosmo grew almost as excited as Jaacob--he seized upon the lowest bough
of a big ash tree, and swung himself up, with the facility of a country
boy, among the fragrant dark foliage which rustled about him as he stood
high among the branches as on a tower.
“D’ye see onything?” cried Jaacob, who could have cuffed the boy for the
noise he made, even while he pushed him up from beneath.
“Hurra! here she comes--I can see the light!” shouted Cosmo.
The lad stood breathless among the rustling leaves, which hummed about
him like a tremulous chorus. Far down at the foot of the slope, nothing
else perceptible to mask its progress, came rushing on the fiery eye of
light, red, fierce, and silent, like some mysterious giant of the night.
It was impossible to hear either hoofs or wheels in the distance, still
more to see the vehicle itself, for the evening by this time was
considerably advanced, and the shadow of the three mystic hills lay
heavy upon the road.
“She’s late,” said Jaacob, between his set teeth. The little Cyclops
held tight by the great waving bough of the ash, and set his foot in a
hollow of its trunk, crushing beneath him the crackling underwood. Here
the boy and he kept together breathless, Cosmo standing high above, and
his companion thrusting his weird, unshaven face over the great branch
on which he leaned. “She’s up to Plover ha’--she’s at the toll--she’s
stopped. What’s that! listen!” cried Cosmo, as some faint, far-off
sound, which might have been the cry of a child, came on the soft
evening air towards them.
Jaacob made an imperative gesture of silence with one hand, and grasped
at the branch with the other till it shook under the pressure.
“She’s coming on again--she’s up to the Black ford--she’s over the
bridge--another halt--hark again!--that’s not for passengers--they’re
hurraing--hark, Jaacob! hurra! she’s coming--they’ve won the day!”
Jaacob, with the great branch swinging under his hands like a willow
bough, bade the boy hold his peace, with a muttered oath through his set
teeth. Now sounds became audible, the rattle of the hoofs upon the road,
the ring of the wheels, the hum of exclamations and excited voices,
under the influence of which the horses “took the brae” gallantly, with
a half-human intoxication. As they drew gradually nearer, and the noise
increased, and the faint moonlight fell upon the flags and ribbons and
dusty branches, with which the coach was ornamented, Cosmo, unable to
contain himself, came rolling down on his hands and feet over the top of
Jaacob, and descended with a bold leap in the middle of the road.
Jaacob, muttering fiercely, stumbled after him, just in time to drag the
excited boy out of the way of the coach, which was making up for lost
time by furious speed, and on which coachman, guard, and outside
passengers, too much excited to be perfectly sober, kept up their
unanimous murmurs of jubilee, with only a very secondary regard to the
road or any obstructions which might be upon it.
“Wha’s there? get out o’ my road, every soul o’ ye! I’ll drive the gait
blindfold, night or day, but I’ll no’ undertake the consequence if ye
rin among my wheels,” cried the driver.
“Hurra! lads! the Bill’s passed--we’ve won! Hurra!” shouted another
voice from the roof of the vehicle, accompanying the shout with a
slightly unsteady wave of a flag, while, with a little swell of
sympathetic cheers, and a triumphant flourish of trumpet from the guard,
the jubilant vehicle dashed on, rejoicing as never mail-coach rejoiced
before.
Jaacob took off his hat, tossed it into the air, crushed it between his
hands as it came down, and broke into an extraordinary shout, bellow, or
groan, which it was impossible to interpret; then, turning sharp round,
pursued the coach with a fierce speed, like the run of a little tiger,
setting all his energies to it, swinging his long arms on either side of
him, and raising about as much dust as the mail which he followed.
Cosmo, left behind, followed more gently, laughing in spite of himself,
and in spite of the heroics of the day, which included every national
benefit and necessity within the compass of “the Bill,” at the grotesque
little figure disappearing before him, twisting its great feet, and
swinging its arms in that extraordinary race. When the boy reached
Kirkbride, the coach was just leaving the village amid a chorus of
cheers and shouts of triumph. No one could think of any thing else, or
speak of any thing else; everybody was shaking hands with everybody, and
in the hum of amateur speechifying, half a dozen together, Cosmo had
hard work to recall even that sober personage, the postmaster, who felt
himself to some extent a representative of government and natural
moderator of the general excitement, to some sense of his duties.
Cosmo’s exertions, however, were rewarded by the sight of three letters,
with which he hastened home.