ONE WAY OF LOVE.
It was the prime of the morning when I set out for Earlstoun. My mother
called after me to mind my manners, as if I had still been but a herdboy
summoned into the presence of the great. My father asked me when I would
be back. Only Anna said nothing, but her eyes were sad. Well she knew
that I went to give myself an aching heart.
Now the Ken is a pleasant water, and the road up the Glenkens a fine
road to travel. But I went it that morning heavily--rather, indeed, like
one who goes to the burying of a friend than like a lover setting out to
see his mistress.
I turned me down through the woods to Earlstoun. There were signs of the
still recent return of the family. Here on the gate of the lodge was the
effaced escutcheon of Colonel Theophilus Oglethorpe, which Alexander
Gordon had not yet had time to replace with the ancient arms of his
family. For indeed it was to Colonel William, Sandy Gordon’s brother, he
who had led us to Edinburgh in the Convention year, that the recovery of
the family estates was due.
I had not expected any especially kind welcome. The laird of Earlstoun
had been a mighty Covenanter, and now wore his prisonments and
sufferings somewhat ostentatiously, like so many orders of merit. He
would think little of one who was a minister of the uncovenanted Kirk,
and who, though holding the freedom of that Kirk as his heart’s belief,
yet, nevertheless, demeaned him to take the pay of the State. To be
faithful and devoted in service were not enough for Alexander Gordon. To
please him one must do altogether as he had done, think entirely as he
thought.
Yet I was to be more kindly received than I anticipated.
It was in the midst of the road where the wood, turning sharp along the
waterside, a narrow path twines and twists through sparkling birches and
trembling alders. The pools slept black beneath as I looked down upon
them from some craggy pinnacle to which the grey hill lichen clung. The
salmon poised themselves motionless, save for a waving fin, below the
fish-leaps, ready for their rush upstream when the floods should come
down brown with peat water from Cairnsmore and the range of Kells.
All at once, as I stood dreaming, I heard a gay voice lilting at a song.
I wavered a moment in act to flee, my heart almost standing still to
listen.
For I knew among a thousand the voice of Mary Gordon. But I had no time
to conceal myself. A gleam of white and lilac through the bushes, a
bright reflection as of sunshine on the pool--then the whole day
brightened and she stood before me.
The song instantly stilled itself on her lips.
We stood face to face. It seemed to me that she paled a little. But
perhaps it was only that I, who desired so greatly to see any evidence
of emotion, saw part of that which I desired.
The next moment she came forward with her hand frankly outstretched.
“I bid you welcome to Earlstoun,” she said. “Alas! that my father should
this day be from home. He is gone to Kirkcudbright. But my mother and I
will show you hospitality till he return. My father hears a great word
of you, he tells us. The country tongue speaks well of your labours.”
Now it seemed to me that in thus speaking she smiled to herself, and
that put me from answering. I could do naught but be stiffly silent.
“I thank you, Mistress Mary, for your kind courtesy!” was all that I
found within me to say. For I felt that she must despise me for a
country lout of no manners and ungentle birth. So at least I thought at
the time.
We passed without speech through the scattering shadows of the birches,
and I saw that her hair (on which she wore no covering) had changed from
its ancient yellow as of ripened corn into a sunny brown. Yet as I
looked furtively, here and there the gentle crispen wavelets seemed to
be touched and flecked with threads of its ancient sheen, a thing which
filled me strangely with a desire to caress with my hand its desirable
beauty--so carnal and wicked are the thoughts of the heart of man.
But when I saw her so lightsome and dainty, so full of delight and the
admirable joy of living, a sullen sort of anger came over me that I
should chance to love one who could in no wise love me again, nor yet
render me the return which I so greatly desired.
“You have travelled all the long way from the Manse of Balmaghie?” she
said, suddenly falling back to my side where the path was wider, as if
she, too, felt the pause of constraint.
“Nay,” I answered, “I have been at Ardarroch with my father and mother
for two days. And to-morrow I must return to the people among whom I
labour.”
She stole a quick glance at me from beneath her long dark lashes. There
was infinite teasing mischief in the flashing of her eyes.
“You have an empty manse by the waterside of Dee. Ye will doubtless be
looking for some douce country lass to fill it.”
The words were kindly enough spoken, yet in the very frankness of the
speech I recognised the distance she was putting between us. But I had
not been trained in the school of quick retorts nor of the light debate
of maidens. For all that I had a will of mine own, and would not permit
that any woman born of woman should play cat’s-cradle with Quintin
MacClellan.
“Lady,” said I, “there is, indeed, an empty manse down yonder by the
Dee, and I am looking for one to fill it. But I will have none who
cannot love me for myself, and also who will not love the work to which
I have set my hand.”
She held up her hand in quick merriment.
“Do not be afraid,” she cried, gaily. “I was not thinking of making you
an offer!”
And then she laughed so mirthsome a peal that all against my will I was
forced to join her.
And this mended matters wonderfully. For after that, though I had my own
troubles with her and my heart-breaks as all shall hear, yet never was
she again the haughty maiden of the first sermon and the midsummer kirk
door.
“They tell me that once ye brought me all the way from the Bennan-top to
the tower of Lochinvar, where our Auntie Jean was biding?”
“I found no claims to your good-will on that,” said I, mindful of the
day of my first way going to Edinburgh; “but I would fain have you think
well of me now.”
“Ye are still over great a Whig. Mind that I stand for the White Rose,”
she said, stamping her foot merrily.
“’Tis a matter ye ken nothing about,” said I, roughly. “Maidens had
better let the affairs of State alone. Methinks the White Rose has
brought little good to you and yours.”
“I tell you what, Sir Minister,” she cried, mocking me, “there are two
great tubs in the pool below the falls. Do you get into one and I will
take the other. I will fly the white pennon and you the blue. Then let
us each take a staff and tilt at one another. If you upset me, ’pon
honour, I will turn Whig, but if you are ducked in the pond, you must
wear henceforth the colours of the true King. ’Tis an equal bargain. You
agree?”
But before I could reply we were near by the gate of Earlstoun, and
there came out a lady wrapped in a shawl, and this though the day was
hot and the autumnal air had never an edge upon it.
“Mother,” cried Mary Gordon, running eagerly to meet her. The lady in
the plaid seemed not to hear, but turned aside by the path which led
along the water to the north.
The girl ran after her and caught her mother by the arm.
“Here is Mr. MacClellan, the minister from Balmaghie, come to see my
father,” said she. “Bide, mother, and make him welcome.”
The lady stopped stiffly till I had come immediately in front of her.
“You are a minister of the Established and Uncovenanted Kirk?” she
asked me, eyeing me sternly enough.
I told her that I had been ordained a week before.
“Then you have indeed broken your faith with the Persecuted Remnant, as
they tell me?” she went on, keeping her eyes blankly upon my face.
“Nay,” said I; “I have the old ways still at heart and will stand till
death by the faith delivered to the martyrs.”
“What do ye, then, clad in the rags of the State?”
Whereat I told the Lady of Earlstoun how that I was with all my heart
resolved to fight the Kirk’s battle for her ancient liberties and for
the power to rule within her own borders. But that if those in authority
gave us not the hearing and liberty we desired, I, for one, would shake
off the dust of the unworthy Kirk of Scotland from my feet--as, indeed,
I was well resolved to do.
But Mary Gordon broke in on my eager explanation.
“Mother, mother,” she cried, “come your ways in and entertain the guest.
Let your questionings keep till our father comes from Kirkcudbright.
Assuredly they will have a stormy fortnight of it then. Let the lad now
break bread and cheese.”
The lady sighed and clasped her hands.
“I suppose,” she said, “it must even be so; for men are carnal and their
bodies must be fed. Alas, there are but few who care for the health of
their souls! As for me, I was about to retire to the wood that I might
for the hundred three score and ninth time renew my covenanting
engagements.”
“You must break them very often, mother, that they are ever needing
mending,” said her daughter, not so unkindly as the words look when
written down, but rather carelessly, like one who has been oftentimes
over the same ground and knows the landmarks by heart.
“Mary, Mary,” answered her mother, “I fear there is no serious or
spiritual interest in you. Your father spoils and humours you. And so
you have grown up--not like that godly lad Alexander Gordon the younger,
who when he was but three years of his age had read the Bible through
nineteen times, and could rattle off the books of the Old and New
Testaments whiles I was counting ten.”
“Aye, mother,” replied the lass, “and in addition could make faces
behind your back all the time he was doing it!”
But the lady appeared not to hear her daughter. She continued to clasp
her hands convulsively before her, and to repeat over and over again the
words, “Eh, the blessed laddie--the blessed, blessed laddie!”
How long we might have stood thus in the glaring sun I know not; but,
without waiting for her mother to take the lead or to go in of her own
accord, Mary Gordon wheeled her round by the arm and led her unresisting
towards the courtyard gate. She accompanied her daughter with the same
weary unconcern and passionless preoccupation she had shown from the
first, twisting and pulling the fringes of the shawl between her
fingers, while her thin lips moved, either in covenant-making or in the
murmured praises of her favourite child.
The room to which we were brought was a large one with panels of oak
carven at the cornices into quaint and formal ornaments.
Mary went to the stairhead and cried down as to one in the kitchen:
“Thomas Allen! Thomas Allen!”
A thin, querulous voice arose from the depths: “Sic a fash! Wha’s come
stravagin’ at this time o’ day? He will be wantin’ victual dootless. I
never saw the like----”
“Thomas Allen! Haste ye fast, Thomas!”
“Comin’, mem, comin’! What’s your fret? There’s naebody in the
deid-thraws,[10] is there?”
As the last words were uttered, an old serving-man, in a blue side-coat
of thirty years before, with threadbare lace falling low at the neck and
hands in a forgotten fashion, appeared at the doorway. His bald and
shining head had still a few lyart locks clinging like white fringes
about the sides. These, however, were not allowed to grow downward in
the natural manner, but were trained as gardeners train fruit trees
against walls that look to the south. They climbed directly upward so
that the head of Thomas Allen was criss-crossed in both directions by
streaks of hair, interlaced like the fingers of one’s hands netted
together. But owing to the natural haste with which Thomas did his work,
these were never all seen in place at one time. Invariably they had
fallen to one side or the other, and being stiffened with candle grease
or other greyish unguent, they stood out at all angles like goose
quills from a scrivener’s inkpot.
During the perfunctory repast which was finally brought forward and
placed on the table by the reluctant Thomas, Mistress Mary sat directly
opposite to me with her chin resting on her fingers and her elbows on
the table. Her mother, at the upper end of the chamber, occupied herself
in looking out of the window, occasionally clasping her hands in the
urgency of her supplications or giving vent to a pitiful moan which
indicated her sense of the hopeless iniquity of mankind.
Then with more kindliness than she had ever yet shown me, Mary Gordon
asked of my people of Balmaghie, whether the call had been unanimous,
who abode with me in the manse, and many other questions, to all of
which I answered as well as I could. For the truth is, that the nearness
of so admirable a maid and the directness of her gaze wrought in me a
kind of desperation, so that it was all I could do to keep from telling
her then that I had come to the house of Earlstoun to ask her to be my
wife.
Not that I had the wildest hope of a favourable answer, but simply from
inexperience at the business of making love to a young lass I blundered
blindly on. Plain ram-stam Hob could have bested me fairly at that. For
he had not talked so long to the good-wives of the Lothians without
getting a well-hung tongue in the head of him.
I looked sideways at the Lady of Earlstoun. She was mumbling at her
devotions, or perhaps meditating other and more personal covenantings.
Mary Gordon and I were in a manner alone.
“Mistress Mary,” I said, suddenly leaning towards her, my desperation
getting the better of my natural prudence, “I know that I speak wholly
without hope. But I came to-day to tell you that I love you. I am but a
cotter’s lad, but I have loved you ever since I ferried you, a little
maid, past the muskets of the troopers.”
I looked straight enough at her now. I could see the colour rise a
little in her cheek, while a strange expression of wonder and pride,
with something that was neither, overspread her face. Up to this point I
might have been warned, but I was not to be holden now.
“Before I had no right, nor, indeed, any opportunity to tell you this.
But now, as minister of a parish, I have an income that will compare
not unfavourably with that of most of the smaller gentry of the county.”
The girl nodded, with a swift hardening of the nostril.
“It will doubtless be a fine income,” she said, with a touch of scorn.
“Did I understand you to offer me your manse and income?”
“I offer you that which neither dishonours an honest girl to hear or yet
an honest man to speak. I am offering you my best service, the faith and
devotion of a man who truly loves you.”
“I thank you, sir,” she said, lifting up her head and letting her eyes
dwell on me with some of their former haughtiness; “I am honoured
indeed. Your position, your manse, your glebe! How many acres did you
say it was? Your income, good as that of a laird. And you come offering
all these to Mary Gordon? Sir, I bid you carry your business
transactions to the county market-place. Mary Gordon is not to be bought
and sold. When she loves, she will give herself for love and love alone.
Aye, were it to a poke-laden houseless cadger by the roadside, or a
ploughman staggering between the furrows!”
And with that she rose and walked swiftly to the door. I could hear her
foot die away through the courtyard; and going blankly to the window, I
watched her slim figure glance between the clumps of trees, now in the
light, now in the shadow, and anon lost in the yellowing depths of the
forest.
Nor, though I watched all through the long hot afternoon, did she return
till she came home riding upon her father’s horse, with Sandy Gordon
himself walking bareheaded beside his daughter, as if he had been
escorting a queen on her coronation day.