PASTORAL
I
A July morning had dawned over the Dreichill, and the glen was filled
with sunlight, though as yet there seemed no sun. Behind a peak of hill
it displayed its chastened morning splendours, but a stray affluence of
brightness had sought the nooks of valley in all the wide uplands,
courier of the great lord of heat and light and the brown summer. The
house of Etterick stands high in a crinkle of hill, with a background of
dark pines, and in front a lake, set in shores of rock and heather.
When the world grew bright Lewis awoke, for that strange young man had a
trick of rising early, and as he rubbed sleep from his eyes at the
window he saw the exceeding goodliness of the morning. He roused his
companions with awful threats, and then wandered along a corridor till
he came to a low verandah, whence a little pier ran into a sheltered bay
of the loch. This was his morning bathing-place, and as he ran down the
surface of rough moorland stone he heard steps behind him, and George
plunged into the cold blue waters scarcely a second after his host.
It was as chill as winter save for the brightness of the morning, which
made the loch in open spaces a shining gold. As they raced each other
to the far end, now in the dark blue of shade, now in the gold of the
open, the hill breeze fanned their hair, and the great woody smell of
pines was sweet around them. The house stood dark and silent, for the
side before them was the men's quarters, and at that season given up to
themselves; but away beyond, the smoke of chimneys curled into the still
air. A man was mowing in some field on the hillside, and the cry of
sheep came from the valley. By and by they reached the shelving coast
of fine hill gravel, and as they turned to swim easily back a sleepy
figure staggered down the pier and stumbled rather than plunged into the
water.
"Hullo!" gasped George, "there's old John. He'll drown, for I bet you
anything he isn't awake. Look!"
But in a second a dark head appeared which shook itself vigorously, and
a figure made for the other two with great strokes. He was by so much
the best swimmer of the three that he had soon reached them, and though
in all honesty he first swam to the farther shore, yet he touched the
pier very little behind them. Then came a rush for the house, and in
half an hour three fresh-coloured young men came downstairs, whistling
for breakfast.
The breakfast-room was a place to refresh a townsman's senses. Long and
cool and dark, it was simply Lewis's room, and he preferred to entertain
his friends there instead of wandering among unused dining-rooms. It
had windows at each end with old-fashioned folding sashes; and the view
on one side was to a great hill shoulder, fir-clad and deep in heather,
and on the other to the glen below and the shining links of the Avelin.
It was panelled in dark oak, and the furniture was a strange medley.
The deep arm-chairs by the fire and the many pipes savoured of the
smoking-room; the guns, rods, polo sticks, whips, which were stacked or
hung everywhere, and the heads of deer on the walls, gave it an
atmosphere of sport. The pictures were few but good--two water-colours,
a small Raeburn above the fireplace, and half a dozen fine etchings. In
a corner were many old school and college groups--the Eton Ramblers, the
O.U.A.C., some dining clubs, and one of Lewis on horseback in racing
costume, looking deeply miserable. Low bookcases of black oak ran round
the walls, and the shelves were crammed with books piled on one another,
many in white vellum bindings, which showed pleasantly against the dark
wood. Flowers were everywhere--common garden flowers of old-fashioned
kinds, for the owner hated exotics, and in a shallow silver bowl in the
midst of the snowy table-cloth was a great mass of purple heather-bells.
Three very hungry young men sat down to their morning meal with a hearty
goodwill. The host began to rummage among his correspondence, and
finally extracted an unstamped note, which he opened. His face
brightened as he read, and he laid it down with a broad smile and helped
himself to fish.
"Are you people very particular what you do to-day?" he asked.
Arthur said, No. George explained that he was in the hands of his
beneficent friend.
"Because my Aunt Egeria down at Glenavelin has got up some sort of a
picnic on the moors, and she wants us to meet her at the sheepfolds
about twelve."
"Oh," said George meditatively. "Excellent! I shall be charmed." But
he looked significantly at Arthur, who returned the glance.
"Who are at Glenavelin?" asked that simple young man with an air of
innocence.
"There's a man called Stocks, whom you probably know."
Arthur nodded.
"And there's Bertha Afflint and her sister."
It was George's turn to nod approvingly. The sharp-witted Miss Afflint
was a great ally of his.
"And there's a Miss Wishart--Alice Wishart," said Lewis, without a word
of comment. "And with my Aunt Egeria that will be all."
The pair got the cue, and resolved to subject the Miss Wishart whose
name came last on their host's tongue to a friendly criticism.
Meanwhile they held their peace on the matter like wise men.
"What a strange name Egeria is!" said Arthur. "Very," said Lewis; "but
you know the story. My respectable aunt's father had a large family of
girls, and being of a classical turn of mind he called them after the
Muses. The Muses held out for nine, but for the tenth and youngest he
found himself in a difficulty. So he tried another tack and called the
child after the nymph Egeria. It sounds outlandish, but I prefer it to
Terpsichore."
Thereafter they lit pipes, and, with the gravity which is due to a great
subject, inspected their friend's rods and guns.
"I see no memorials of your travels, Lewie," said Arthur. "You must
have brought back no end of things, and most people like to stick them
round as a remembrance."
"I have got a roomful if you want to see them," said the traveller; "but
I don't see the point of spoiling a moorland place with foreign odds and
ends. I like homely and native things about me when I am in Scotland."
"You're a sentimentalist, old man," said his friend; and George, who
heard only the last word, assumed that Arthur had then and there
divulged his suspicions, and favoured that gentleman with a wild frown
of disapproval.
As Lewis sat on the edge of the Etterick burn and looked over the
shining spaces of morning, forgetful of his friends, forgetful of his
past, his mind was full of a new turmoil of feeling. Alice Wishart had
begun to claim a surprising portion of his thoughts. He told himself a
thousand times that he was not in love--that he should never be in love,
being destined for other things; that he liked the girl as he liked any
fresh young creature in the morning of life, with youth's beauty and the
grace of innocence. But insensibly his everyday reflections began to be
coloured by her presence. "What would she think of this?" "How that
would please her!" were sentences spoken often by the tongue of his
fancy. He found charm in her presence after his bachelor solitude; her
demure gravity pleased him; but that he should be led bond-slave by
love--that was a matter he valiantly denied.
II
The sheepfolds of Etterick lie in a little fold of glen some two miles
from the dwelling, where the heathy tableland, known all over the glen
as "The Muirs," relieves the monotony of precipitous hills. On this day
it was alert with life. The little paddock was crammed with sheep, and
more stood huddling in the pens. Within was the liveliest scene, for
there a dozen herds sat on clipping-stools each with a struggling ewe
between his knees, and the ground beneath him strewn with creamy folds
of fleece. From a thing like a gallows in a corner huge bags were
suspended which were slowly filling. A cauldron of pitch bubbled over a
fire, and the smoke rose blue in the hot hill air. Every minute a
bashful animal was led to be branded with a great E on the left shoulder
and then with awkward stumbling let loose to join her naked
fellow-sufferers. Dogs slept in the sun and wagged their tails in the
rear of the paddock. Small children sat on gates and lent willing feet
to drive the flocks. In a corner below a little shed was the clippers'
meal of ale and pies, with two glasses of whisky each, laid by under a
white cloth. Meantime from all sides rose the continual crying of
sheep, the intermittent bark of dogs, and the loud broad converse of the
men.
Lewis and his friends jumped a fence, and were greeted heartily in the
enclosure. He seemed to know each herd by name or rather nickname, for
he had a word for all, and they with all freedom grinned _badinage_ back.
"Where's my stool, Yed?" he cried. "Am I not to have a hand in clipping
my own sheep?"
An obedient shepherd rose and fetched one of the triangular seats, while
Lewis with great ease caught the ewe, pulled her on her back, and
proceeded to call for shears. An old pair was found for him, and with
much dexterity he performed the clipping, taking little longer to the
business than the expert herd, and giving the shears a professional wipe
on the sacking with which he had prudently defended his clothes.
From somewhere in the back two boys came forward--the Tam and Jock of a
former day--eager to claim acquaintance. Jock was clearly busy, for his
jacket was off and a very ragged shirt was rolled about two stout brown
arms. The "human collie" seemed to be a gentleman of some leisure, for
he was arrayed in what was for him the pink of fashion in dress. The
two immediately lay down on the ground beside Lewis exactly in the
manner of faithful dogs.
The men talked cheerfully, mainly on sheep and prices. Now talk would
touch on neighbours, and there would be the repetition of some tale or
saying. "There was a man in the glen called Rorison. D'ye mind Jock
Rorison, Sandy?" And Sandy would reply, "Fine I mind Jock," and then
both would proceed to confidences.
"Hullo, Tam," said Lewis at last, realizing his henchman's grandeur. "Why
this magnificence of dress?
"I'm gaun to the Sabbath-school treat this afternoon," said that worthy.
"And you, Jock-are you going too?"
"No me! I'm ower auld, and besides, I've cast out wi' the minister."
"How was that?"
"Oh, I had been fechtin'," said Jock airily. "It was Andra Laidlaw. He
called me ill names, so I yokit on him and bate him too, but I got my
face gey sair bashed. The minister met me next day when I was a' blue
and yellow, and, says he, 'John Laverlaw, what have ye been daein'?
Ye're a bonny sicht for Christian een. How do ye think a face like
yours will look between a pair o' wings in the next warld?' I ken I'm no
bonny," added the explanatory Jock; "but ye canna expect a man to thole
siccan language as that."
Lewis laughed and, being engaged in clipping his third sheep, forgot the
delicacy of his task and let the shears slip. A very ugly little cut on
the animal's neck was the result.
"Oh, confound it!" cried the penitent amateur. "Look what I've done,
Yed. I'll have to rub in some of that stuff of yours and sew on a
bandage. The files will kill the poor thing if we leave the cut bare in
this infernal heat."
The old shepherd nodded, and pointed to where the remedies were kept.
Jock went for the box, which contained, besides the ointment, some rolls
of stout linen and a huge needle and twine. Lewis doctored the wound as
best he could, and then proceeded to lay on the cloth and sew it to the
fleece. The ewe grew restless with the heat and the pinching of the
cut, and Jock was given the task of holding her head.
Clearly Lewis was not meant by Providence for a tailor. He made
lamentable work with the needle. It slipped and pricked his fingers,
while his unfeeling friends jeered and Tam turned great eyes of sympathy
upwards from his Sunday garments.
"Patience, patience, man!" said the old herd. "Ca' cannier and be a wee
thing quieter in your langwidge. There's a wheen leddies comin' up the
burn."
It was too late. Before Lewis understood the purport of the speech Lady
Manorwater and her party were at the folds, and as he made one final
effort with the refractory needle a voice in his ear said:
"Please let me do that, Mr. Haystoun. I've often done it before."
He looked up and met Alice Wishart's laughing eyes. She stood beside
him and deftly finished the bandage till the ewe was turned off the
stool. Then, very warm and red, he turned to find a cool figure
laughing at his condition.
"I'll have to go and wash my hands, Miss Wishart," he said gravely.
"You had better come too." And the pair ran down to a deep brown pool in
the burn and cleansed from their fingers the subtle aroma of fleeces.
"Ugh! my clothes smell like a drover's. That's the worst of being a
dabbler in most trades. You can never resist the temptation to try your
hand."
"But, really, your whole manner was most professional, Mr. Haystoun.
Your language--"
"Please, don't," said the penitent; and they returned to the others to
find that once cheerful assembly under a cloud. Every several man there
was nervously afraid of women and worked feverishly as if under some
great Taskmistress's eye. The result was a superfluity of shear-marks
and deep, muffled profanity. Lady Manorwater ran here and there asking
questions and confusing the workers; while Mr. Stocks, in pursuance of
his democratic sentiments, talked in a stilted fashion to the nearest
clipper, who called him "Sir" and seemed vastly ill at ease.
Lewis restored some cordiality. Under her nephew's influence Lady
Manorwater became natural and pleasing. Jock was ferreted out of some
corner and, together with the reluctant Tam, brought up for
presentation.
"Tam," said his patron, "I'll give you your choice. Whether will you go
to the Sabbath-school treat, or come with us to a real picnic? Jock is
coming, and I promise you better fun and better things to eat."
It was no case for hesitation. Tam executed a doglike gambol on the
turf, and proceeded to course up the burn ahead of the party, a vision
of twinkling bare legs and ill-fitting Sunday clothes. The sedate Jock
rolled down his sleeves, rescued a ragged jacket, and stalked in the
rear.
III
Once on the heathy plateau the party scattered. Mr. Stocks caught the
unwilling Arthur and treated him to a disquisition on the
characteristics of the people whose votes he was soon to solicit. As
his acquaintance with the subject was not phenomenal, the profit to the
aggrieved listener was small. George, Lady Manorwater, and the two Miss
Afflints sought diligently for a camping-ground, which they finally
found by a clear spring of water on the skirts of a great grey rock.
Meanwhile, Alice Wishart and Lewis, having an inordinate love of high
places, set out for the ridge summit, and reached it to find a wind
blowing from the far Gled valley and cooling the hot air.
Alice found a scrap of rock and climbed to the summit, where she sat
like a small pixie, surveying a wide landscape and her warm and
prostrate companion. Her bright hair and eyes and her entrancing grace
of form made the callous Lewis steal many glances upwards from his lowly
seat. The two had become excellent friends, for the man had that honest
simplicity towards women which is the worst basis for love and the best
for friendship. She felt that at any moment he might call her by some
one or other of the endearing expressions used between men. He, for his
part, was fast drifting from friendship to another feeling, but as yet
he gave no sign of it, and kept up the brusque, kindly manners of his
common life.
As she looked east and north to the heart of the hill-land, her eyes
brightened, and she rose up and strained on tiptoe to scan the farthest
horizon. Eagerly she asked the name of this giant and that, of this
glint of water--was it loch or burn? Lewis answered without hesitation,
as one to whom the country was as well known as his own name.
By and by her curiosity was satisfied and she slipped back into her old
posture, and with chin on hand gazed into the remote distances. "And
most of that is yours? Do you know, if I had a land like this I should
never leave it again. You, in your ingratitude, will go wandering away
in a year or two, as if any place on earth could be better than this.
You are simply 'sinning away your mercies,' as my grandfather used to
say."
"But what would become of the heroic virtues that you adore?" asked the
cynical Lewis. "If men were all home-keepers it would be a prosaic
world."
"Can you talk of the prosaic and Etterick in the same breath? Besides,
it is the old fallacy of man that the domestic excludes the heroic,"
said Alice, fighting for the privileges of her sex.
"But then, you know, there comes a thing they call the go-fever, which
is not amenable to reason. People who have it badly do not care a straw
for a place in itself; all they want is to be eternally moving from one
spot to another."
"And you?"
"Oh, I am not a sufferer yet, but I walk in fear, for at any moment it
may beset me." And, laughing, he climbed up beside her.
It may be true that the last subject of which a man tires is himself,
but Lewis Haystoun in this matter must have been distinct from the
common run of men. Alice had given him excellent opportunities for
egotism, but the blind young man had not taken them. The girl, having
been brought up to a very simple and natural conception of talk, thought
no more about it, except that she would have liked so great a traveller
to speak more generously. No doubt, after all, this reticence was
preferable to self-revelation. Mr. Stocks had been her companion that
morning in the drive to Etterick, and he had entertained her with a
sketch of his future. He had declined, somewhat nervously, to talk of
his early life, though the girl, with her innate love of a fighter,
would have listened with pleasure. But he had sketched his political
creed, hinted at the puissance of his friends, claimed a monopoly of the
purer sentiments of life, and rosily augured the future. The girl had
been silent--the man had thought her deeply impressed; but now the
morning's talk seemed to point a contrast, and Mr. Lewis Haystoun
climbed to a higher niche in the temple of her esteem.
Afar off the others were signaling that lunch was ready, but the two on
the rock were blind.
"I think you are right to go away," said Alice. "You would be too well
off here. One would become a very idle sort of being almost at once."
"And I am glad you agree with me, Miss Wishart. 'Here is the shore, and
the far wide world's before me,' as the song says. There is little
doing in these uplands, but there's a vast deal astir up and down the
earth, and it would be a pity not to have a hand in it."
Then he stopped suddenly, for at that moment the light and colour went
out of his picture of the wanderer's life, and he saw instead a homelier
scene--a dainty figure moving about the house, sitting at his table's
head, growing old with him in the fellowship of years. For a moment he
felt the charm of the red hearth and the quiet life. Some such sketch
must the Goddess of Home have drawn for Ulysses or the wandering Olaf,
and if Swanhild or the true Penelope were as pretty as this lady of the
rock there was credit in the renunciation. The man forgot the wide
world and thought only of the pin-point of Glenavelin.
Some such fancy too may have crossed the girl's mind. At any rate she
cast one glance at the abstracted Lewis and welcomed a courier from the
rest of the party. This was no other than the dandified Tam, who had
been sent post-haste by George--that true friend having suffered the
agonies of starvation and a terrible suspicion as to what rash step his
host might be taking. Plainly the young man had not yet made Miss
Wishart's acquaintance.
IV
The sun set in the thick of the dark hills, and a tired and merry party
scrambled down the burnside to the highway. They had long outstayed
their intention, but care sat lightly there, and Lady Manorwater alone
was vexed by thoughts of a dinner untouched and a respectable household
in confusion. The sweet-scented dusk was soothing to the senses, and
there in the narrow glen, with the wide blue strath and the gleam of the
river below, it was hard to find the link of reality and easy to credit
fairyland. Arthur and Miss Wishart had gone on in front and were now
strayed among boulders. She liked this trim and precise young man,
whose courtesy was so grave and elaborate, while he, being a recluse by
nature but a humanitarian by profession, was half nervous and half
entranced in her cheerful society. They talked of nothing, their hearts
being set on the scramble, and when at last they reached the highway and
the farm where the Glenavelin traps had been put up, they found
themselves a clear ten minutes in advance of the others.
As they sat on the dyke in the soft cool air Alice spoke casually of the
place. "Where is Etterick?" she asked; and a light on a hillside
farther up the glen was pointed out to her.
"It's a very fresh and pleasant place to stay at," said Arthur. "We're
much higher than you are at Glenavelin, and the house is bigger and
older. But we simply camp in a corner of it. You can never get Lewie
to live like other people. He is the best of men, but his tastes are
primeval. He makes us plunge off a verandah into a loch first thing in
the morning, you know, and I shall certainly drown some day, for I am
never more than half awake, and I always seem to go straight to the
bottom. Then he is crazy about long expeditions, and when the Twelfth
comes we shall never be off the hill. He is a long way too active for
these slack modern days."
Lewie, Lewie! It was Lewie everywhere! thought the girl. What could
become of a man who was so hedged about by admirers? He had seemed to
court her presence, and her heart had begun to beat faster of late when
she saw his face. She dared not confess to herself that she was in
love--that she wanted this Lewis to herself, and bated the pretensions of
his friends. Instead she flattered herself with a fiction. Her ground
was the high one of an interest in character. She liked the young man
and was sorry to see him in a way to be spoiled by too much admiration.
And the angel who records our innermost thoughts smiled to himself, if
such grave beings can smile.
Meantime Lewis was delivered bound and captive to the enemy. All down
the burn his companion had been Mr. Stocks, and they had lagged behind
the others. That gentleman had not enjoyed the day; he had been bored
by the landscape and scorched by the sun; also, as the time of contest
approached, he was full of political talk, and he had found no ears to
appreciate it. Now he had seized on Lewis, and the younger man had lent
him polite attention though inwardly full of ravening and bitterness.
"Your friend Mr. Mordaunt has promised to support my candidature. You,
of course, will be in the opposite camp."
Lewis said he did not think so--that he had lost interest in party
politics, and would lie low.
Mr. Stocks bowed in acquiescence.
"And what do you think of my chances?"
Lewis replied that he should think about equal betting. "You see the
place is Radical in the main, with the mills at Gledfoot and the weavers
at Gledsmuir. Up in Glenavelin they are more or less Conservative.
Merkland gets in usually by a small majority because he is a local man
and has a good deal of property down the Gled. If two strangers fought
it the Radical would win; as it is it is pretty much of a toss-up either
way."
"But if Sir Robert resigns?"
"Oh, that scare has been raised every time by the other party. I should
say that there's no doubt that the old man will keep on for years."
Mr. Stocks looked relieved. "I heard of his resignation as a
certainty, and I was afraid that a stronger man might take his place."
So it fell out that the day which began with pastoral closed, like many
another day, with politics. Since Lewis refrained from controversy, Mr.
Stocks seemed to look upon him as a Gallio from whom no danger need be
feared, nay, even as a convert to be fostered. He became confident and
talked jocularly of the tricks of his trade. Lewis's boredom was
complete by the time they reached the farmhouse and found the Glenavelin
party ready to start.
"We want to see Etterick, so we shall come to lunch to-morrow, Lewie,"
said his aunt. "So be prepared, my dear, and be on your best
behaviour."
Then, with his two friends, he turned towards the lights of his home.