"THERE'S NAE LUCK ABOOT THE HOOSE"
There's a bit more to tell about this part, though you might not expect
it. It always makes me shiver to think of. But I could not help it.
Nobody could--and anyway, the thing has got to be told. It is about
Mad Jeremy, and what befell him when he fled upward through the smoke
and flame, clambering by the balusters, my father says, more like a
monkey than any human man.
And, by the way, I am not sure that he really was a man--except that a
wild beast would not have been so clever, and the devil ever so much
cleverer! Or, at least, he has the credit of being.
Did you ever see the burning of a great house--not in a city, I mean,
but far in the country? Well, I have. There is not much to see till
one is close by. A few pale, shivering flames, like the fires that
boil the tea at a summer picnic--volumes of smoke rising over the
parapet, mostly pale, and the sun serene above the scurry of helpless
men, running this way and that, like ants when you thrust your stick
into an ant hill to see what will happen. Hither and thither they
go--all busy, all doing nothing. For one thing, water is lacking. The
local fire brigade is always just about to arrive. If, by any chance,
it does come, a boy with a garden squirt would do more good.
Well, it was like that on the morning of the eleventh of February.
When the day did come at last, there was nothing mean about
it--considered as an early spring morning in Scotland. It was of the
colour of pale straw, with a glint low down like newly thatched houses
before the winter's storm has had a turn at them.
Meanwhile, underneath, and looking so petty and foolish, was the
crackling of the timbers, the falling in of the tiles, the smoke
puffing and mounting like great strings of onions linked together, blue
and stifling from the burning wood, white and steamy as the faggots
slid outward into the moat, or fell with a crash into the pond.
All about swarmed a crowd of eager and curious folk. My father, as
soon as he was recognized, and before he could condescend to tell his
tale, had taken command, all soiled and bleeding as he was. I believe
now that most there considered that he had rescued Elsie from the wild
tribe after a desperate struggle, in which all the others had been
annihilated. And it is characteristic of Breckonside, of the position
my father held there, and especially of public sentiment with regard to
the folk of the Moat, that no one for a moment dreamed that in so doing
he had exceeded his legal right.
There was not much attempt at saving the building. Elsie had come a
little to herself. At first she could say little, save that "her
grandfather was dead--Mad Jeremy had killed him," which information did
not greatly interest the people, save in so far as it detracted from my
father's glory in having made a "clean sweep!"
Mr. Ball, whom everybody respected--in spite of the service in which he
lived--caused a horse to be put between the shafts, and Elsie was
conveyed home to Nance Edgar's by Mr. Ball himself. My father wanted
her to go on to "the Mount." But Elsie no sooner heard the word
mentioned, than, recovering from her swoon, she declared that "she
would never set foot there--so long as---- No, indeed, that she would
not!"
"So long as what, my girl?" my father asked, gently.
You really can't imagine how gentle my father was with her. It took me
by surprise, as I did not, of course, yet know anything about the
events which had drawn them together in the deep places underground.
"Because--because--just because!" she answered. "Besides, it is not
fitting at present!"
"I understand--perhaps you are right," sighed my father, somewhat
disappointed.
For all that, he did not understand a little bit. It was because of
Harriet and Constantia Caw--especially Harriet. It is an eternal
wonder how women misunderstand each other--the best, the kindest, and
especially the prettiest of them.
I would gladly have gone with her, but, of course, that would have been
too marked. Besides, I dared not face my mother without my father.
There was a little fountain made of the mouths of lions on the terrace,
which spouted out thin streams of water into a large oyster shell--the
kind they call _pecten_, I think, only the round part as big as a
horseshoe. And once Elsie was away with Mr. Bailiff Ball, I got father
to wash his face and hands there, which were black and terrible with
matted hair and hardened blood. So that my mother, for all her
outcries, did not really see him at his worst, or anything like it.
The fire mounted always, but somehow in the light of day it did not
seem real. The faces of all the folk as we returned from the water,
were directed to the tower which was called Hobby's Folly. The gabled,
crow-stepped mansion of the Moat had nothing very ancient about
it--that is, to the common view. You had to know the older secrets of
the monks for that. But at the angle overlooking the pond, Mr. Stennis
had caused to be built a square tower in the old Robert the Bruce
donjon fashion, each chamber opening out of the other. These
communicated by ladders, which could be drawn up and all access
prevented. At least that was the tale which the masons who were at the
building brought back to Breckonside. The tower was square on the top
and had low battlements, save at one corner where there was a kind of
pepper-pot cupola in which--so they said--Hobby Stennis used to sit and
count his gold.
At first I could not make out what it was that the folk were craning
their necks upward to look at. Evidently it was on the far side, that
nearest the small lake, and, of course, invisible from the court out of
which my father and I were coming.
But we followed the movement of the people, and there on the utmost
pinnacle of the battlements, that outer corner which was higher than
the rest and shaped like a miniature dome, his long legs twined about
the broken stalk of the weathercock, and his melodeon in his hands, sat
Mad Jeremy! Of the gilt weathercock itself nothing remained save the
butt. With a single clutch of his great hairy hand, Jeremy had rooted
the uneasy fowl out of its socket and hurled it far before him into the
pond.
Up till now the flames had hardly reached the tower, and it seemed at
least a possible thing that the maniac might be saved. But none of the
Breckonsiders were keen about it. Only Mr. Ablethorpe and my father
were willing to make any attempt to save him. Indeed, I was absolutely
with the majority on this occasion, and could not, for my part, imagine
a better solution than that which seemed to be imminent.
Nevertheless, the two tried to get into the tower from behind, but
found all a seething mass of flames, which had swept across the whole
main body of the building as if to swallow up Hobby's Folly for a last
_bonne bouche_. There was no arguing with such a spate of fire. There
remained, however, a little low door, reported to be of iron, but
which, being near to the water and exposed to the fury of damp westerly
winds and the moist fogs off the pond, had probably rusted half away.
[Illustration: "The two tried to get into the Tower from behind, but
found all a seething mass of flames."]
"Come, let us do our duty," said Mr. Ablethorpe; "here is a human life!
Let us save it!"
But nobody but Mr. Yarrow, senior, followed him. I was with the
majority on this point, as I have said before, and so stayed where I
was. Besides, Mad Jeremy was so curious to see and hear. He laughed
and sang, his shrill voice carrying well through the crackle of the
rafters and the snap and spit of the smaller shredded fragments of
flame. As soon as he caught sight of Mr. Ablethorpe and my father he
began to hurl down the copings of the battlements upon their heads. So
that in the end they had to desist from the attempt, though they had
nobly done their best.
And all the while he sang. It was the trampling measure of "There's
nae luck" that the madman had chosen for his swan song. Never had been
seen or heard such a thing. As he finished each verse he would rise
and dance, balancing himself on the utmost point of the cupola, his
melodeon swaying in his hand and his voice declaring ironically that--
"There's nae luck aboot the hoose,
There's nae luck ava,
There's little pleasure i' the hoose,
When oor guidman's awa'!"
Then he would laugh, and call out to the people beneath that the luck
had come back.
"The guidman o' the Grange is safe!" he would cry. "He is at his loom,
but never more will he weave, I ken. Jeremy has seen to that. And
what for that, quo' ye? Juist to learn him that when Jeremy asks for
his ain, he is no to be denied as if he were a beggar wantin' alms!"
Then he took a new tack, and launched into "The Toom Pooch"--which is
to say, the "empty pocket"--a very popular ditty in the Scots language,
and especially about Breckonside:
"An empty purse is slichtit sair,
Gang ye to market, kirk, or fair,
Ye'll no be muckle thocht o' there,
Gin ye gang wi' a toom pooch!"
He finished with a shout of derision.
"Ye puir feckless lot!" he shouted down to the crowd beneath. "I ken
you and Breckonside. Here's charity for ye! Catch a haud!" And he
showered the contents of a pocket-book down upon their heads.
"Here are notes o' ten pound, and notes o' twenty, and notes o' a
hundred! What man o' ye ever saw the like? Only Jeremy, Jeremy and
his maister. They wan them a', playin' at a wee bit game wi' rich
lonely folk. Jeremy was fine company to them. And whiles it ended in
a bit jab wi' the knife in the ribs, and whiles in a tug o' the hemp
aboot a lad's neck, if he wasna unco clever. But it was never Jeremy's
neck, nor was the knife ever in Hobby's back till Jeremy--but that's
tellin'! Oh, Hobby's a'richt. I saw him sitting screedin' awa' at his
windin' sheet, and thinkin' the time no lang."
He rose and danced, singing as he danced--
"There's nae luck aboot the hoose,
There's nae luck ava----"
The flames shot up like the cracking of a mighty whip. The madman felt
the sting, and with a wild yell he launched himself over the parapet
into the muddy sludge at the bottom of Deep Moat pond. He must have
gone in head foremost, for he never rose. Only the melodeon, with the
water trickling in drops off its bell chime in silver gilt, and the
glittering tinsel of its keys, rose slowly to the surface among a few
air bubbles and floated there among a little brownish mud.