GAY GARLAND COMES HOME SADDLE EMPTY.
The night of the twenty-second of June, 1679, shall never be forgotten
among us while Earlstoun House stands. It was the eve of the day whereon
befell the weary leaguer of Bothwell when the enemy beset the Brig, and
the good Blue Banner gat fyled and reddened with other dye-stuff than
the brown moss-water. I mind it well, for I had grown to be man-muckle
since the day on the Tinklers' Loup. After a day of heat there fell a
night like pitch. A soughing wind went round the house and round the
house, whispering and groping, like a forlorn ghost trying to find his
way within.
If there was a shut eye in the great House of Earlstoun that night, it
was neither mine nor my mother's. We lay and thought of them that were
over the hill, striving for the Other King and the good cause. And our
thoughts were prayers, though there was none to "take the Book" in
Earlstoun that night, for I was never gifted that way. So we bedded
without sound of singing or voice of prayer, though I think Jean
Hamilton had done it for the asking.
I lay in my naked bed and listened all the night with unshut eye. I
could hear in my mother's room the boards creak as she rose every
quarter hour and looked out into the rayless dark. Maisie Lennox of the
Duchrae, old Anton's daughter, now a well grown lass, lay with her. And
Sandy's young wife, Jean Hamilton, with her sucking bairn, was in the
little angled chamber that opens off the turret stair near by.
It befell at the back of one, or mayhap betwixt that and two, that there
came a sound at the nether door that affrighted us all.
"Rise, William! Haste ye," cried my mother with great eagerness in her
voice, coming to my door in the dark. "Your father is at the nether
door, new lichted doon from off Gay Garland. Rise an' let him in!"
And as I sat up on my elbow and hearkened, I heard as clearly as now I
hear the clock strike, the knocking of my father's riding-boots on the
step of the outer door. For it was ever his wont, when he came that way,
to knap his toes on the edge of the step, that the room floorings might
not be defiled with the black peat soil which is commonest about the
Earlstoun. I have heard my father tell it a thousand times in his
pleasantry, how it was when my mother was a bride but newly come home
and notionate, that she learned him these tricks. For otherwise his ways
were not dainty, but rather careless--and it might be, even rough.
So, as I listened, I heard very clear outside the house the knocking of
my father's feet, and the little hoast he always gave before he tirled
at the pin to be let in, when he rode home late from Kirkcudbright.
Hearing which we were greatly rejoiced, and I hasted to draw on my
knee-breeks, crying "Bide a wee, faither, an' briskly I'll be wi' ye to
let ye in!"
For I was a little lame, halting on one foot ever since the affair of
Tinkler Marshall, though I think not to any noticeable extent.
My mother at the door of her chamber cried, "Haste ye, William, or I
must run mysel'!"
For my father had made her promise that she would not go out of her
chamber to meet him at the return, being easily touched in her breast
with the night air.
So I hasted and ran down as I was, with my points all untied, and set
wide open the door.
"Faither!" I cried as I undid the bolt and pushed the leaves of the door
abroad, "Faither, ye are welcome hame!" And I could hear my mother
listening above, for his foot over the threshold. Yet he came not
within, which was a wonder to me. So I went out upon the step of the
nether door, but my father was not there. Only the same strange chill
wind went round the house, soughing and moaning blindly as before, and a
smoor of white fog blew like muirburn past the door.
Then my hair rose upon my head and the skin of my brow pricked, because
I knew that strange portents were abroad that night.
"What for does your faither no come ben the hoose to me?" cried my
mother impatiently from the stairhead. I could hear her clasping and
unclasping her hands, for my ears are quick at taking sounds.
"I think he must be gone to the stable with Gay Garland, to stall him
beside Philiphaugh," I answered, for so my father's old white horse was
named, because in his young days my father had been at that place on the
day when Montrose and his Highlandmen got their settling. This is what I
said to my mother, but indeed my thought was far other.
I lifted a loaded pistol that lay ever in the aumrie by the door-cheek
and went off in the direction of the stable. The door was shut, but I
undid the pin and went within. _My father was not there._ The horses
were moving restlessly and lifting their feet uneasily as they do on ice
or other kittle footing. Then of a truth I knew there was something more
than canny abroad about Earlstoun that night, and that we should hear
ill news or the morning. And when a bundle of reins slipped from the
shelf and fell on my shoulder like a man's hand clapping on me unaware,
I cried out like a frighted fowl and dropped almost to the ground. Yet
though I am delicate and not overly well grown in my body, I do not
count myself a coward; even though my brother Sandy's courage be not
mine. "Blind-eye, hard-head" was ever his sort, but I love to take my
danger open-eyed and standing up--and as little of it as possible.
As I went back--which I did instantly, leaving the stable door swinging
open--I heard my mother's voice again. She was calling aloud and the
sound of her voice was yearning and full like that of a young woman.
"William!" she called, and again "William!"
Now though that is my name I knew full well that it was not to me, her
son, that she called. For that is the voice a woman only uses to him who
has been her man, and with her has drunk of the fountain of the joy of
youth. Once on a time I shot an eagle on the Millyea, and his mate came
and called him even thus, with a voice that was as soft as that of a
cushie dove crooning in the tall trees in the early summer, till I could
have wept for sorrow at my deed.
Then as I went in, I came upon my mother a step or two from the open
door, groping with her arms wide in the darkness.
"Oh," she cried, "William, my William, the Lord be thankit!" and she
clasped me to her heart.
But in a moment she flung me from her.
"Oh! it's you," she said bitterly, and went within without another word,
her harshness jangling on my heart.
Yet I understood, for my mother was always greatly set on my father. And
once when in jest we teased her to try her, telling her the story of the
pious AEneas, and asking her to prophesy to us which one of us she would
lift, if so it was that the house of Earlstoun were in a lowe.
"Faith," said my mother, "I wad tak' your faither on my back, gin a' the
lave o' ye had to bide and burn!"
So it was ever with my mother. She was my father's sweetheart to her
latest hour.
But when I went in I found her sitting, sheet-white and trembling on the
settle.
"What's ta'en ye, mither?" I said to her, putting a shawl about her.
"O my man, my bonny man," she said, "there's nane to steek your e'en the
nicht! An' Mary Gordon maun lie her leesome lane for evermair!"
"Hoot, mither," I said, "speak not so. My faither will come his ways
hame i' the mornin' nae doot, wi' a' the lads o' the Kenside clatterin'
ahint him. Sandy is wi' him, ye ken."
"Na," she said calmly enough, but as one who has other informations,
"Sandy is no wi' him. Sandy gaed through the battle wi' his heid doon
and his sword rinnin' reed. I see them a' broken--a' the pride o' the
West, an' the dragoons are riding here an' there amang them, an' haggin'
them doon. But your faither I canna see--I canna see my man----"
"Mither," I said, mostly, I think, for something to say, "Mind the Guid
Cause!"
She flung her hands abroad with a fine gesture as of scorn. "What cause
is guid that twines a woman frae her ain man--an' we had been thegither
three-an'-thirty year!"
In a little I got her to lie down, but the most simple may understand
how much more sleep there was in Earlstoun that night. Yet though we
listened with all our ears, we heard no other sound than just that blind
and unkindly wind reestling and soughing about the house, groping at the
doors and trying the lattices. Not a footstep went across the courtyard,
not the cry of a bird came over the moors, till behind the barren ridges
of the east the morning broke.
Then when in the grey and growing light I went down and again opened the
door, lo! there with his nose against the latchet hasp was Gay Garland,
my father's war-horse. He stood and trembled in every limb. He was
covered with the lair of the moss-hags, wherein he had sunk to the
girths. But on his saddle leather, towards the left side, there was a
broad splash of blood which had run down to the stirrup iron; and in the
holster on that side, where the great pistol ought to have been, a thing
yet more fearsome--a man's bloody forefinger, taken off above the second
joint with a clean drawing cut.
My mother came down the turret stair, fully dressed, and with her
company gown upon her. Yet when she saw Gay Garland standing there at
the door with his head between his knees, she did not seem to be
astonished or afraid, as she had been during the night. She came near to
him and laid a hand on his neck.
"Puir beast," she said, "ye have had sore travel. Take him to the stable
for water and corn, and bid Jock o' the Garpel rise."
The dark shades of the night were flown away, and my mother now spoke
quietly and firmly as was her wont. Much in times bygone had we spoken
about sufferings in the House of Earlstoun, and, lo! now they were come
home to our own door.