Within an hour after I had left him, Waster Lunny walked into the
school-house and handed me his snuff-mull, which I declined politely.
It was with this ceremony that we usually opened our conversations.
"I've seen the post," he said, "and he tells me there has been a queer
ploy at the Spittal. It's a wonder the marriage hasna been turned into
a burial, and all because o' that Highland stirk, Lauchlan Campbell."
Waster Lunny was a man who had to retrace his steps in telling a story
if he tried short cuts, and so my custom was to wait patiently while
he delved through the ploughed fields that always lay between him and
his destination.
"As you ken, Rintoul's so little o' a Scotchman that he's no muckle
better than an Englisher. That maun be the reason he hadna mair sense
than to tramp on a Highlandman's ancestors, as he tried to tramp on
Lauchlan's this day."
"If Lord Rintoul insulted the piper," I suggested, giving the farmer a
helping hand cautiously, "it would be through inadvertence. Rintoul
only bought the Spittal a year ago, and until then, I daresay, he had
seldom been on our side of the Border."
This was a foolish interruption, for it set Waster Lunny off in a new
direction.
"That's what Elspeth says. Says she, 'When the earl has grand estates
in England, what for does he come to a barren place like the Spittal
to be married? It's gey like,' she says, 'as if he wanted the
marriage to be got by quietly; a thing,' says she, 'that no woman can
stand. Furthermore,' Elspeth says, 'how has the marriage been
postponed twice?' We ken what the servants at the Spittal says to
that, namely, that the young lady is no keen to take him, but Elspeth
winna listen to sic arguments. She says either the earl had grown
timid (as mony a man does) when the wedding-day drew near, or else his
sister that keeps his house is mad at the thocht o' losing her place;
but as for the young leddy's being sweer, says Elspeth, 'an earl's an
earl however auld he is, and a lassie's a lassie however young she is,
and weel she kens you're never sure o' a man's no changing his mind
about you till you're tied to him by law, after which it doesna so
muckle matter whether he changes his mind about you or no.' Ay,
there's a quirk in it some gait, dominie; but it's a deep water
Elspeth canna bottom."
"It is," I agreed; "but you were to tell me what Birse told you of the
disturbance at the Spittal."
"Ay, weel," he answered, "the post puts the wite o't on her little
leddyship, as they call her, though she winna be a leddyship till the
morn. All I can say is that if the earl was saft enough to do sic a
thing out of fondness for her, it's time he was married on her, so
that he may come to his senses again. That's what I say; but Elspeth
conters me, of course, and says she, 'If the young leddy was so
careless o' insulting other folks' ancestors, it proves she has nane
o' her ain; for them that has china plates themsel's is the maist
careful no to break the china plates of others.'"
"But what was the insult? Was Lauchlan dismissed?"
"Na, faags! It was waur than that. Dominie, you're dull in the uptake
compared to Elspeth. I hadna telled her half the story afore she
jaloused the rest. However, to begin again; there's great feasting and
rejoicings gaen on at the Spittal the now, and also a banquet, which
the post says is twa dinners in one. Weel, there's a curran Ogilvys
among the guests, and it was them that egged on her little leddyship
to make the daring proposal to the earl. What was the proposal? It was
no less than that the twa pipers should be ordered to play 'The Bonny
House o' Airlie.' Dominie, I wonder you can tak it so calm when you
ken that's the Ogilvy's sang, and that it's aimed at the clan o'
Campbell."
"Pooh!" I said. "The Ogilvys and the Campbells used to be mortal
enemies, but the feud has been long forgotten."
"Ay, I've heard tell," Waster Lunny said sceptically, "that Airlie and
Argyle shakes hands now like Christians; but I'm thinking that's just
afore the Queen. Dinna speak now, for I'm in the thick o't. Her little
leddyship was all hinging in gold and jewels, the which winna be her
ain till the morn; and she leans ower to the earl and whispers to him
to get the pipers to play 'The Bonny House.' He wasna willing, for
says he, 'There's Ogilvys at the table, and ane o' the pipers is a
Campbell, and we'll better let sleeping dogs lie.' However, the
Ogilvys lauched at his caution; and he was so infatuated wi' her
little leddyship that he gae in, and he cried out to the pipers to
strike up 'The Bonny House.'"
Waster Lunny pulled his chair nearer me and rested his hand on my
knees.
"Dominie," he said in a voice that fell now and again into a whisper,
"them looking on swears that when Lauchlan Campbell heard these
monstrous orders his face became ugly and black, so that they kent in
a jiffy what he would do. It's said a' body jumped back frae him in a
sudden dread, except poor Angus, the other piper, wha was busy tuning
up for 'The Bonny House.' Weel, Angus had got no farther in the tune
than the first skirl when Lauchlan louped at him, and ripped up the
startled crittur's pipes wi' his dirk. The pipes gae a roar o' agony
like a stuck swine, and fell gasping on the floor. What happened next
was that Lauchlan wi' his dirk handy for onybody that micht try to
stop him, marched once round the table, playing 'The Campbells are
Coming,' and then straucht out o' the Spittal, his chest far afore
him, and his head so weel back that he could see what was going on
ahint. Frae the Spittal to here he never stopped that fearsome tune,
and I'se warrant he's blawing away at it at this moment through the
streets o' Thrums."
Waster Lunny was not in his usual spirits, or he would have repeated
his story before he left me, for he had usually as much difficulty in
coming to an end as in finding a beginning. The drought was to him as
serious a matter as death in the house, and as little to be forgotten
for a lengthened period.
"There's to be a prayer-meeting for rain in the Auld Licht kirk the
night," he told me as I escorted him as far as my side of the
Quharity, now almost a dead stream, pitiable to see, "and I'm gaen;
though I'm sweer to leave thae puir cattle o' mine. You should see how
they look at me when I gie them mair o' that rotten grass to eat. It's
eneuch to mak a man greet, for what richt hae I to keep kye when I
canna meat them?"
Waster Lunny has said to me more than once that the great surprise of
his life was when Elspeth was willing to take him. Many a time,
however, I have seen that in him which might have made any weaver's
daughter proud of such a man, and I saw it again when we came to the
river side.
"I'm no ane o' thae farmers," he said, truthfully, "that's aye girding
at the weather, and Elspeth and me kens that we hae been dealt wi'
bountifully since we took this farm wi' gey anxious hearts. That
woman, dominie, is eneuch to put a brave face on a coward, and it's
no langer syne than yestreen when I was sitting in the dumps, looking
at the aurora borealis, which I canna but regard as a messenger o'
woe, that she put her hand on my shoulder and she says, 'Waster Lunny,
twenty year syne we began life thegither wi' nothing but the claethes
on our back, and an it please God we can begin it again, for I hae you
and you hae me, and I'm no cast down if you're no.' Dominie, is there
mony sic women in the warld as that?"
"Many a one," I said.
"Ay, man, it shamed me, for I hae a kind o' delight in angering
Elspeth, just to see what she'll say. I could hae ta'en her on my knee
at that minute, but the bairns was there, and so it wouldna hae dune.
But I cheered her up, for, after all, the drought canna put us so far
back as we was twenty years syne, unless it's true what my father
said, that the aurora borealis is the devil's rainbow. I saw it sax
times in July month, and it made me shut my een. You was out admiring
it, dominie, but I can never forget that it was seen in the year
twelve just afore the great storm. I was only a laddie then, but I
mind how that awful wind stripped a' the standing corn in the glen in
less time than we've been here at the water's edge. It was called the
deil's besom. My father's hinmost words to me was, 'It's time eneuch
to greet, laddie, when you see the aurora borealis.' I mind he was so
complete ruined in an hour that he had to apply for relief frae the
poor's rates. Think o' that, and him a proud man. He would tak'
nothing till one winter day when we was a' starving, and syne I gaed
wi' him to speir for't, and he telled me to grip his hand ticht, so
that the cauldness o' mine micht gie him courage. They were doling out
the charity in the Town's House, and I had never been in't afore. I
canna look at it now without thinking o' that day when me and my
father gaed up the stair thegither. Mr. Duthie was presiding at the
time, and he wasna muckle older than Mr. Dishart is now. I mind he
speired for proof that we was needing, and my father couldna speak. He
just pointed at me. 'But you have a good coat on your back yoursel','
Mr. Duthie said, for there were mony waiting, sair needing. 'It was
lended him to come here,' I cried, and without a word my father opened
the coat, and they saw he had nothing on aneath, and his skin blue wi
'cauld. Dominie, Mr. Duthie handed him one shilling and saxpence, and
my father's fingers closed greedily on't for a minute, and syne it
fell to the ground. They put it back in his hand, and it slipped out
again, and Mr. Duthie gave it back to him, saying, 'Are you so cauld
as that?' But, oh, man, it wasna cauld that did it, but shame o' being
on the rates. The blood a' ran to my father's head, and syne left it
as quick, and he flung down the siller and walked out o' the Town
House wi' me running after him. We warstled through that winter, God
kens how, and it's near a pleasure to me to think o't now, for, rain
or no rain, I can never be reduced to sic straits again."
The farmer crossed the water without using the stilts which were no
longer necessary, and I little thought, as I returned to the
school-house, what terrible things were to happen before he could
offer me his snuff-mull again. Serious as his talk had been it was
neither of drought nor of the incident at the Spittal that I sat down
to think. My anxiety about Gavin came back to me until I was like a
man imprisoned between walls of his own building. It may be that my
presentiments of that afternoon look gloomier now than they were,
because I cannot return to them save over a night of agony, black
enough to darken any time connected with it. Perhaps my spirits only
fell as the wind rose, for wind ever takes me back to Harvie, and when
I think of Harvie my thoughts are of the saddest. I know that I sat
for some hours, now seeing Gavin pay the penalty of marrying the
Egyptian, and again drifting back to my days with Margaret, until the
wind took to playing tricks with me, so that I heard Adam Dishart
enter our home by the sea every time the school-house door shook.
I became used to the illusion after starting several times, and thus
when the door did open, about seven o'clock, it was only the wind
rushing to my fire like a shivering dog that made me turn my head.
Then I saw the Egyptian staring at me, and though her sudden
appearance on my threshold was a strange thing, I forgot it in the
whiteness of her face. She was looking at me like one who has asked a
question of life or death, and stopped her heart for the reply.
"What is it?" I cried, and for a moment I believe I was glad she did
not answer. She seemed to have told me already as much as I could
bear.
"He has not heard," she said aloud in an expressionless voice, and,
turning, would have slipped away without another word.
"Is any one dead?" I asked, seizing her hands and letting them fall,
they were so clammy. She nodded, and trying to speak could not.
"He is dead," she said at last in a whisper. "Mr. Dishart is dead,"
and she sat down quietly.
At that I covered my face, crying, "God help Margaret!" and then she
rose, saying fiercely, so that I drew back from her, "There is no
Margaret; he only cared for me."
"She is his mother," I said hoarsely, and then she smiled to me, so
that I thought her a harmless mad thing. "He was killed by a piper
called Lauchlan Campbell," she said, looking up at me suddenly. "It
was my fault."
"Poor Margaret!" I wailed.
"And poor Babbie," she entreated pathetically; "will no one say, 'Poor
Babbie'?"
Chapter Twenty-Seven.