IN WHICH A PRINCESS LEAVES A DARK TOWER AND A PROVISION MERCHANT RETURNS
TO HIS FAMILY
The three days of storm ended in the night, and with the wild weather
there departed from the Cruives something which had weighed on Dickson's
spirits since he first saw the place. Monday--only a week from the
morning when he had conceived his plan of holiday--saw the return of the
sun and the bland airs of spring. Beyond the blue of the yet restless
waters rose dim mountains tipped with snow, like some Mediterranean
seascape. Nesting birds were busy on the Laver banks and in the
Huntingtower thickets; the village smoked peacefully to the clear skies;
even the House looked cheerful if dishevelled. The Garple Dean was a
garden of swaying larches, linnets, and wild anemones. Assuredly,
thought Dickson, there had come a mighty change in the countryside, and
he meditated a future discourse to the Literary Society of the Guthrie
Memorial Kirk on "Natural Beauty in Relation to the Mind of Man."
It remains for the chronicler to gather up the loose ends of his tale.
There was no newspaper story with bold headlines of this the most recent
assault on the shores of Britain. Alexis Nicolaevitch, once a Prince of
Muscovy and now Mr. Alexander Nicholson of the rising firm of Sprot and
Nicholson of Melbourne, had interest enough to prevent it. For it was
clear that if Saskia was to be saved from persecution, her enemies must
disappear without trace from the world, and no story be told of the wild
venture which was their undoing. The constabulary of Carrick and
Scotland Yard were indisposed to ask questions, under a hint from their
superiors, the more so as no serious damage had been done to the persons
of His Majesty's lieges, and no lives had been lost except by the
violence of Nature. The Procurator-Fiscal investigated the case of the
drowned men, and reported that so many foreign sailors, names and
origins unknown, had perished in attempting to return to their ship at
the Garplefoot. The Danish brig had vanished into the mist of the
northern seas. But one signal calamity the Procurator-Fiscal had to
record. The body of Loudon the factor was found on the Monday morning
below the cliffs, his neck broken by a fall. In the darkness and
confusion he must have tried to escape in that direction, and he had
chosen an impracticable road or had slipped on the edge. It was returned
as "death by misadventure" and the _Carrick Herald_ and the
_Auchenlochan Advertiser_ excelled themselves in eulogy. Mr. Loudon,
they said, had been widely known in the south-west of Scotland as an
able and trusted lawyer, an assiduous public servant, and not least as a
good sportsman. It was the last trait which had led to his death, for,
in his enthusiasm for wild nature, he had been studying bird life on the
cliffs of the Cruives during the storm, and had made that fatal slip
which had deprived the shire of a wise counsellor and the best of good
fellows.
The tinklers of the Garplefoot took themselves off, and where they may
now be pursuing their devious courses is unknown to the chronicler.
Dobson, too, disappeared, for he was not among the dead from the boats.
He knew the neighbourhood and probably made his way to some port from
which he took passage to one or other of those foreign lands which had
formerly been honoured by his patronage. Nor did all the Russians
perish. Three were found skulking next morning in the woods, starving
and ignorant of any tongue but their own, and five more came ashore much
battered but alive. Alexis took charge of the eight survivors, and
arranged to pay their passage to one of the British Dominions and to
give them a start in a new life. They were broken creatures, with the
dazed look of lost animals, and four of them had been peasants on
Saskia's estates. Alexis spoke to them in their own language. "In my
grandfather's time," he said, "you were serfs. Then there came a change,
and for some time you were free men. Now you have slipped back into
being slaves again--the worst of slaveries, for you have been the serfs
of fools and scoundrels and the black passion of your own hearts. I give
you a chance of becoming free men once more. You have the task before
you of working out your own salvation. Go, and God be with you."
* * * * *
Before we take leave of these companions of a single week I would
present them to you again as they appeared on a certain sunny afternoon
when the episode of Huntingtower was on the eve of closing. First we see
Saskia and Alexis walking on the thymy sward of the cliff-top, looking
out to the fretted blue of the sea. It is a fitting place for lovers,
above all for lovers who have turned the page on a dark preface, and
have before them still the long bright volume of life. The girl has her
arm linked with the man's, but as they walk she breaks often away from
him, to dart into copses, to gather flowers, or to peer over the brink
where the gulls wheel and oyster-catchers pipe among the shingle. She is
no more the tragic muse of the past week, but a laughing child again,
full of snatches of song, her eyes bright with expectation. They talk of
the new world which lies before them, and her voice is happy. Then her
brows contract, and, as she flings herself down on a patch of young
heather, her air is thoughtful.
"I have been back among fairy tales," she says. "I do not quite
understand, Alesha. Those gallant little boys! They are youth, and youth
is always full of strangeness. Mr. Heritage! He is youth, too, and
poetry, perhaps, and a soldier's tradition. I think I know him.... But
what about Dickson? He is the _petit bourgeois_, the _épicier_, the
class which the world ridicules. He is unbelievable. The others with
good fortune I might find elsewhere--in Russia perhaps. But not
Dickson."
"No," is the answer. "You will not find him in Russia. He is what we
call the middle-class, which we who were foolish used to laugh at. But
he is the stuff which above all others makes a great people. He will
endure when aristocracies crack and proletariats crumble. In our own
land we have never known him, but till we create him our land will not
be a nation."
* * * * *
Half a mile away on the edge of the Laver glen Dickson and Heritage are
together, Dickson placidly smoking on a tree-stump and Heritage walking
excitedly about and cutting with his stick at the bracken. Sundry
bandages and strips of sticking plaster still adorn the Poet, but his
clothes have been tidied up by Mrs. Morran, and he has recovered
something of his old precision of garb. The eyes of both are fixed on
the two figures on the cliff-top. Dickson feels acutely uneasy. It is
the first time that he has been alone with Heritage since the arrival of
Alexis shivered the Poet's dream. He looks to see a tragic grief; to his
amazement he beholds something very like exultation.
"The trouble about you, Dogson," says Heritage, "is that you're a bit of
an anarchist. All you false romantics are. You don't see the
extraordinary beauty of the conventions which time has consecrated. You
always want novelty, you know, and the novel is usually the ugly and
rarely the true. I am for romance, but upon the old, noble classic
lines."
Dickson is scarcely listening. His eyes are on the distant lovers and he
longs to say something which will gently and graciously express his
sympathy with his friend.
"I'm afraid," he begins hesitatingly, "I'm afraid you've had a bad blow,
Mr. Heritage. You're taking it awful well, and I honour you for it."
The Poet flings back his head. "I am reconciled," he says. "After all
''tis better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all.'
It has been a great experience and has shown me my own heart. I love
her, I shall always love her, but I realise that she was never meant for
me. Thank God I've been able to serve her--that is all a moth can ask of
a star. I'm a better man for it, Dogson. She will be a glorious memory,
and Lord! what poetry I shall write! I give her up joyfully, for she has
found her true mate. 'Let us not to the marriage of true minds admit
impediments!' The thing's too perfect to grieve about.... Look! There is
romance incarnate."
He points to the figures now silhouetted against the further sea. "How
does it go, Dogson?" he cries. "'And on her lover's arm she leant'--what
next? You know the thing."
Dickson assists and Heritage declaims:
"And on her lover's arm she leant,
And round her waist she felt it fold,
And far across the hills they went
In that new world which is the old:
Across the hills, and far away
Beyond their utmost purple rim,
And deep into the dying day
The happy princess followed him."
He repeats the last two lines twice and draws a deep breath. "How
right!" he cries. "How absolutely right! Lord! It's astonishing how that
old bird Tennyson got the goods!"
* * * * *
After that Dickson leaves him and wanders among the thickets on the edge
of the Huntingtower policies above the Laver glen. He feels childishly
happy, wonderfully young, and at the same time supernaturally wise.
Sometimes he thinks the past week has been a dream, till he touches the
sticking-plaster on his brow, and finds that his left thigh is still a
mass of bruises and that his right leg is wofully stiff. With that the
past becomes very real again, and he sees the Garple Dean in that stormy
afternoon, he wrestles again at midnight in the dark House, he stands
with quaking heart by the boats to cut off the retreat. He sees it all,
but without terror in the recollection, rather with gusto and a modest
pride. "I've surely had a remarkable time," he tells himself, and then
Romance, the goddess whom he has worshipped so long, marries that
furious week with the idyllic. He is supremely content, for he knows
that in his humble way he has not been found wanting. Once more for him
the Chavender or Chub, and long dreams among summer hills. His mind
flies to the days ahead of him, when he will go wandering with his pack
in many green places. Happy days they will be, the prospect with which
he has always charmed his mind. Yes, but they will be different from
what he had fancied, for he is another man than the complacent little
fellow who set out a week ago on his travels. He has now assurance of
himself, assurance of his faith. Romance, he sees, is one and
indivisible....
Below him by the edge of the stream he sees the encampment of the
Gorbals Die-Hards. He calls and waves a hand, and his signal is
answered. It seems to be washing day, for some scanty and tattered
raiment is drying on the sward. The band is evidently in session, for it
is sitting in a circle, deep in talk.
As he looks at the ancient tents, the humble equipment, the ring of
small shockheads, a great tenderness comes over him. The Die-Hards are
so tiny, so poor, so pitifully handicapped, and yet so bold in their
meagreness. Not one of them has had anything that might be called a
chance. Their few years have been spent in kennels and closes, always
hungry and hunted, with none to care for them; their childish ears have
been habituated to every coarseness, their small minds filled with the
desperate shifts of living.... And yet, what a heavenly spark was in
them! He had always thought nobly of the soul; now he wants to get on
his knees before the queer greatness of humanity.
A figure disengages itself from the group, and Dougal makes his way up
the hill towards him. The Chieftain is not more reputable in garb than
when we first saw him, nor is he more cheerful of countenance. He has
one arm in a sling made out of his neckerchief, and his scraggy little
throat rises bare from his voluminous shirt. All that can be said for
him is that he is appreciably cleaner. He comes to a standstill and
salutes with a special formality.
"Dougal," says Dickson, "I've been thinking. You're the grandest lot of
wee laddies I ever heard tell of, and, forbye, you've saved my life.
Now, I'm getting on in years, though you'll admit that I'm not that dead
old, and I'm not a poor man, and I haven't chick or child to look after.
None of you has ever had a proper chance or been right fed or educated
or taken care of. I've just the one thing to say to you. From now on
you're _my_ bairns, every one of you. You're fine laddies, and I'm going
to see that you turn into fine men. There's the stuff in you to make
Generals and Provosts--ay, and Prime Ministers, and Dod! it'll not be my
blame if it doesn't get out."
Dougal listens gravely and again salutes.
"I've brought ye a message," he says. "We've just had a meetin' and I've
to report that ye've been unanimously eleckit Chief Die-Hard. We're a'
hopin' ye'll accept."
"I accept," Dickson replies. "Proudly and gratefully I accept."
* * * * *
The last scene is some days later, in a certain southern suburb of
Glasgow. Ulysses has come back to Ithaca, and is sitting by his
fireside, waiting on the return of Penelope from the Neuk Hydropathic.
There is a chill in the air, so a fire is burning in the grate, but the
laden tea-table is bright with the first blooms of lilac. Dickson, in a
new suit with a flower in his buttonhole, looks none the worse for his
travels, save that there is still sticking-plaster on his deeply
sunburnt brow. He waits impatiently with his eye on the black marble
timepiece, and he fingers something in his pocket.
Presently the sound of wheels is heard, and the peahen voice of Tibby
announces the arrival of Penelope. Dickson rushes to the door and at the
threshold welcomes his wife with a resounding kiss. He leads her into
the parlour and settles her in her own chair.
"My! but it's nice to be home again!" she says. "And everything that
comfortable. I've had a fine time, but there's no place like your own
fireside. You're looking awful well, Dickson. But losh! What have you
been doing to your head?"
"Just a small tumble. It's very near mended already. Ay, I've had a
grand walking tour, but the weather was a wee bit thrawn. It's nice to
see you back again, Mamma. Now that I'm an idle man you and me must take
a lot of jaunts together."
She beams on him as she stays herself with Tibby's scones, and when the
meal is ended, Dickson draws from his pocket a slim case. The jewels
have been restored to Saskia, but this is one of her own which she has
bestowed upon Dickson as a parting memento. He opens the case and
reveals a necklet of emeralds, any one of which is worth half the
street.
"This is a present for you," he says bashfully.
Mrs. McCunn's eyes open wide. "You're far too kind," she gasps. "It
must have cost an awful lot of money."
"It didn't cost me that much," is the truthful answer.
She fingers the trinket and then clasps it round her neck, where the
green depths of the stones glow against the black satin of her bodice.
Her eyes are moist as she looks at him. "You've been a kind man to me,"
she says, and she kisses him as she has not done since Janet's death.
She stands up and admires the necklet in the mirror. Romance once more,
thinks Dickson. That which has graced the slim throats of princesses in
far-away Courts now adorns an elderly matron in a semi-detached villa;
the jewels of the wild Nausicaa have fallen to the housewife Penelope.
Mrs. McCunn preens herself before the glass. "I call it very genteel,"
she says. "Real stylish. It might be worn by a queen."
"I wouldn't say but it has," says Dickson.
THE END