scattered belongings together. The young minister made no further
objection. He walked with them a little along the way, and before he
parted from them he put another shilling into Vara's hand. Then he
leaped over the stone dyke on his way to a farmhouse where there was
a sick man waiting for him. From the other side of the fence he told
Vara shyly to remember that she had another Father to care for her,
who could always be found. But he was shy about saying so much, this
remarkable young man. However, he had a high sense of duty, and he felt
that the circumstances justified the observation.
"Thank ye," said Vara; "I'll no forget."
This, their second day, had become one of brooding heat, and Vara was
glad to have enough to buy a good meal for them all at the next little
town they passed through. They were fortunate also in the afternoon,
for at a little house by the wayside, a cottage with red creepers
growing all along the wall, the mistress took them all in and gave them
a cup of tea and some of the fresh white scones she was baking. There
was milk too for little Gavin. And as they went away a thought seemed
to strike the woman. She bade them wait a little while. She climbed up
into the attic, and presently returned with a shawl, which she wrapped
about Vara, and settled the baby into the nook of it with her own hands.
"But this is a good shawl. We must not take it from you," said Vara.
"Nonsense," said the good woman; "it is a fair exchange. Leave me the
auld ane; it will make very decent floor-clouts."
[Illustration: "Out with it!" said the minister.]
So it was on the whole a good day for them. And it was not till late
in the evening that misfortune again befell them. Vara's hands were
usually so full of Gavin that she had little thought for anything else.
But at one resting place she put her hand into her pocket and her heart
stood still because she failed to find the slim coins upon which she
had put her trust. She felt the pennies, but not the shilling or the
sixpence. She laid Gavin down on the grass and turned the pocket inside
out. There was nothing whatever there. But Vara found instead a little
slit in the lining, and the thought of her great loss, together with
what it meant to them all, turned her faint and sick.
"The man might just as well have had them, after all," she said.
Night fell with them still upon the road. They had found no friendly
shelter, and they seemed to be alone on the wide moor, through which
the road ran unfenced, like a tangle of string which has been loosely
thrown down. Hugh Boy cried bitterly to be allowed to lie down. Vara
looked about her anxiously and long. But she could see nothing but the
wild moorish hilltops girdling the horizon, too like one another to
give her any idea of the direction in which a habited house might lie.
She only saw the slow twilight of midsummer in the north creeping down
over the brown moors, and in the moist hollows of the bogs shallow
pools of mist gathering.
For the distance, the sound of a voice was borne in the still air.
"Hurley, hurley, hie away hame!" it said. And Vara went to the top of
a heathery knowe and called loudly. But only the moorbirds, making
ready for bed, answered her. They flew round, circling and complaining,
especially the peewits, which, being reassured by the small size of
the three, came almost offensively near.
Boy Hugh filled his pockets with stones to drive them away. He also
got out his whip. He had heard of the Babes in the Wood, and, being
a sensible boy, he did not want any Robin Redbreast nonsense. It was
not that he so much objected to die, but he felt the humiliation of
being covered with leaves by the whaups. He complained bitterly to
Vara, who was preoccupied with Gavin, that the Drabble had stolen from
him the iron barrel of the pistol which Cleg Kelly had given him. Had
it not been for that felony, they would not now have found themselves
defenceless in that wild place.
"Boy Hugh thinks there's sure to be lions an' teegers here!" he said.
It was not long before Vara decided that they must spend another night
out of doors, and looked about for a suitable spot where they could get
water and shelter.
At last she settled upon the lee of a large boulder, and began to
give Gavin what remained of his milk. Boy Hugh thought this was his
opportunity to make sure that they were well defended against their
enemies. The moon was rising, and he remembered that Cleg Kelly
had told him how lions and tigers always hunted by moonlight. That
widely-read journal, "The Bully Boys of New York," was Cleg's authority
for this statement.
There was certainly an appalling silence on the face of the moorland.
Boy Hugh could see, indeed, the rock behind which Vara and Gavin
were. But he tried to forget it. He wanted the sensation of perfect
loneliness. Then the devil entered into Boy Hugh, and he wanted
to explore. The moon came out from behind a cloud, and everything
became bleached and flat, melting away into vague immensities and
nerve-shaking mysteries which vanished as you approached. Of course
that was not the way Boy Hugh put it to himself. It only made him want
to run away. But suddenly a vague fear struck him to the heart, and he
started to run back (as he thought) towards Vara and Gavin. He imagined
that he could hear the sound of some animal trampling about the moss in
search of wandering little boys. And it occurred to him that he had no
means of defence except the whip, and even that served him not so well
now, for the lash was broken. So this was the reason why Boy Hugh ran
away.
Though, indeed, his progress could hardly be called running. For at
every few steps he tripped in some intricate twist of heather, tough
as wire, and, falling forward, he instinctively bent his body into a
half-hoop, like a young hedgehog. Thus he rolled down the brae, often
coming upon his feet at the bottom and continuing his flight with
energy unabated and without pausing a single moment even to ascertain
damages.
And so soon as she missed him Vara stood up, with Gavin in her arms,
and cried, "Come back, Boy Hugh!" But Boy Hugh continued his wild
flight, driven by the unreasoning terror of the vast and uncomprehended
which had seized him suddenly and without warning.
At last Boy Hugh paused, not so much because he wished it as because
he had fallen into a moss-hole up to the neck, and so could run no
further. He sustained himself by grasping a bush of blaeberry plants,
and he dug his toes into the soft black peat.
Then Boy Hugh, who had not gone to Hunker Court for nothing, bethought
him that, since there was nothing else that he could do, it was time to
say his prayers. "O Lord!" he prayed—"O Lord, forgive us our sins, and
remember not our trans-somethings against us! Look down from heaven
and help"—(so far his supplications had run in the accustomed groove
in which Samson Langpenny conducted the "opening exercises" of Hunker
Court, but at this point Boy Hugh diverged into originality, as Samson
did sometimes when he stuck in the middle of the Lord's prayer)—"Look
down from heaven and help—a—wee laddie in a moss-hole. Keep him frae
teegers and lions, and bogles and black horses that come oot o' lochs
and eat ye up, and frae the green monkeys that hing on to trees and
claw ye as ye gang by. And gie me something to eat, and Vara and Gavin
after me. For I'm near dead o' hunger, and I want nae mair yesterday's
bread, and help me to find my whup-lash. And make me grow up into a man
fast, for I want to do as I like—and then, my certes, but I'll warm the
Drabble for stealin' my pistol. And bless Vara and Gavin, my faither
and Cleg Kelly, and a' inquirin' freends. Amen."
And if anybody knows a more comprehensive prayer, let him instantly
declare it, or, as the charge runs, be for ever silent.
ADVENTURE XXXVII.
BOY HUGH FINDS OUT THE NATURE OF A KISS.
Vara always looks back upon that night of fear and loneliness as the
worst in all their wanderings. She wrapped Gavin tightly in the shawl,
till only a little space was left for him to breathe. Then she ran from
knowe-top to knowe-top to look for Boy Hugh, and to call him to come
back to her. She dared not go far from the boulder lest she should miss
her way, and so not be able to find her way to the baby.
While Vara was wandering distracted over the moor, calling pitifully to
him, Boy Hugh was comfortably asleep beneath a heather bush. And the
June nights are brief and merciful in Scotland. It was not long before
a broad bar of light lay across the eastern hills. The pale sea-green
lingering in the west where the sun had gone down had not altogether
faded into the ashy grey of uncoloured night ere the eastern sky began
to flame.
The clouds of sunrise are like ocean-rollers on a wide beach—long,
barred, and parallel—for the sun rises through them with majestic
circumspection. But the clouds of sunset are apt to converge to a
point, like the wake which the sun draws after him in his tumultuous
downward plunge.
But the sun rose quite sharply this morning, as though he must be
businesslike and alert, in spite of the fact that he had a whole long
day before him. As he did so the shadows of every bush of bog-myrtle
and each tuft of heather started westwards with a rush. And the cool
blue image of a lonely boulder, like a Breton menhir, lay far half a
mile across the moor. On the sunny side of this landmark the red rays
fell on a bare and curly head. There was dew upon the draggled hair,
just as there was upon the yellow bent grass upon which it pillowed
itself.
Boy Hugh lay curled up, like a collie drowsing in the sun. He continued
to sleep quietly and naturally the undisturbed sleep of childhood. Nor
did he waken till the dew had dried from the bent and from off the
tangles of his hair.
At last he awoke, when the sun was already high. He uncoiled him like
a lithe young animal, and started to find himself under the open
heaven instead of under a roof. With a shake and a toss of his head he
made his toilet. Then suddenly he remembered about Vara, and hoped
vaguely that he would soon find her. But, alas! the day was bright.
The sunshine began to run in his veins, and all the moorland world
was before him. He did not think much more about her at all. For the
moment he was as merry as the larks singing above him. He hallooed
to the plovers, and occasionally he threw stones at them, just as
the mood took him. By-and-bye Boy Hugh came to a wide burn, and at
once proceeded to cross it, as many a time he had crossed a plank in
Callendar's yard, upon all-fours like a monkey.
The burn was fringed, like many of the watercourses of the southern
uplands, with a growth of sparse and ill-favoured birches. Hugh
Boy found one of these which leaned far over the water, having had
its roots undermined by the winter spates. He crawled out upon its
swaying top without hesitation till it became too slender to bear
him. He counted upon the slender trunk bending like a fishing-rod and
depositing him near enough to the opposite bank to drop safely to the
ground. But just when Hugh Boy was ready to leap, the treacherous birch
gave way entirely, and fell souse into the water, with the small human
squirrel still clinging to it. The birch lay across the pool, and Boy
Hugh held fast. He was up to the neck in water. He wondered how he
would get out. First he managed to kick his legs free of the twigs
which clutched him and tried to drag him down.
"Here, nice little boy!" suddenly a voice above him cried. "Take hold
of my hand, and I will pull you out of the water."
It was the clearest little voice in the world, and it spoke with a
trill which Boy Hugh seemed to have heard somewhere before. It conveyed
somehow, indeed, a reminiscence of Miss Celie Tennant. But the little
lady who spoke was only a year or two older than Boy Hugh himself, and
she was dressed in the daintiest creamy stuff, fine like cobweb. Boy
Hugh looked at her in such amazement that he came near to letting go
the birch-tree altogether. She seemed to him to be all wonderful, with
yellow hair like summer clouds, and blue eyes full of pity.
Boy Hugh recalled certain things which he had heard at Hunker Court.
"Are you an angel?" he said, quite seriously.
"Oh no, silly!" cried the maiden gaily, shaking her fleece
bewilderingly at him. "Of course, I am only a little girl. I just
tooked my parolsol and comed a walk. And you are the very nicest little
boy that ever I saw—quite a child, of course," she added patronisingly.
"But take hold of my parolsol. Be careful not to splash me when you
shake yourself. And after that I'll give you a kiss. I like nice little
boys!"
"What is a kiss?" asked Boy Hugh.
They did not deal in the commodity in the Tinklers' Lands. And even if
his sister Vara did kiss him to sleep every night, and was for ever
kissing the baby as if its mouth was a sweetmeat, she did not think it
becoming or menseful to mention the word. So that, quite sincerely, Boy
Hugh asked again, "What is a kiss, little girl?"
"Come up here, nice boy, and I will show you!" replied the maiden
promptly.
And somehow Hugh knew that this was an invitation by no means to be
declined.
ADVENTURE XXXVIII.
OF MISS BRIGGS AND HER TEN CATS.
"Now then, do you like it?" asked this frank young person. But Hugh Boy
was silent as to what he thought of his first knowledgable kiss. Not
that it mattered, for the gay little lady rattled on regardless. "And
what is your name, little boy? You are very ragged, and you have come
a long way. But you are clean, and Aunt Robina can't scold me, for she
tells me to be kind to the poor, especially when they are quite clean."
Boy Hugh bashfully answered that his name was Hugh Kavannah. "And a
very nice name it is, nice little boy!" the maid rattled on, heeding
him but little, but loving the sound of her own twitter.
The children went over the moor together, till it began to feather into
sparse birch-woods and thicker copses towards the plain. Sometimes
as they went the little girl's hair whipped Boy Hugh's brow. He had
forgotten all about Vara and the baby.
"Do they make you say your prayers in the morning as well as at night?"
she asked; "they do me—such a bother! Aunt Robina, she said last week,
that it was self-denial week, and we must give up something for the
Lord. So I said I did not mind giving up saying my prayers in the
morning. 'Oh, but,' said cousin Jimmy, 'you must give up something you
_like_ doing.' Horrid little boy, Jimmy, always blowing his nose—you
don't, well, I don't believe you have a handkerchief—and Aunt Robina,
she says, 'Well, and what do you think God would say if you gave up
saying your prayers?' 'God _has_ said already,' I told her. 'What has
God said?' she wanted to know, making a face like this——. So I told
her that God said, 'Pray don't mention it, Miss Briggs.' My name is
Miss Briggs, you know. I have ten cats. Their names are Tom and Jim,
and Harry and Dick, and Bob and Ben and Peter. But Peter's an awful
thief."
She paused for breath, and shook her head at the same time. Hugh Boy
listened with the open mouth of unbounded astonishment.
"Yes, indeed," said Miss Briggs, "and I fear he will come to a bad end.
I've thrown him into the mill-dam three times already, like Jonah out
of the ship of Tarshish. Aunt Robina says I may play Bible stories on
Sundays, you know. So I play Jonah. But he always gets out again. Next
time I'm going to sit squash on him till he's dead. Once I set on a
nestful of eggs because I wanted some dear wee fluffy chickens—but I
need not tell you about that. I got whipped, but Aunt Robina had to buy
me a new pair of—oh, I forgot, I was telling you about wicked Peter.
Peter is not a house-cat like the rest, you see. He is a bad, wicked
cat. He lives in the barn or in the coach house and eats the pigeons.
And he lies on the cows' backs on cold nights. But in the daytime Peter
sleeps on the roof of the outhouses, and when any one of the other cats
gets anything nice to eat, Peter comes down on them like a shot——"
"Oh aye!" cried Boy Hugh, excited to hear about something he
understood, "I hae seen them do like that. Then there's a graund fecht,
lying on their backs and tearing at ane anither wi' their claws, and
spittin' and rowin' ower yin anither like a ba'——"
"My cats are not horrid creatures like that!" said Miss Briggs, in a
dignified manner, "as soon as ever they see Peter coming they take to
their heels and—oh, you should just see them run for the kitchen door!
And their tails are just like the fox's brush that Aunt Robina dusts
the pictures with. And then in a minute after you can see wicked Peter
sitting on the rigging of the barn eating my poor darling house-cat's
nice breakfast."
"Three cheers for Peter!" cried Hugh, who did not know any better than
to express his real sentiments to a lady.
Miss Briggs instantly withdrew her hand from his. Her nose turned up
very much, till its expression of scorn became almost an aspiration.
"I am afraid you are not such a nice little boy after all," she said,
severely.
As they went on together the children came to the very edge of the
moorland. They ascended a few steps to a place where there were many
tumbled crags and cunning hiding-places. From the edge of these they
looked down upon a plain of tree tops, in the midst of which peeped out
the front of a considerable mansion. The lower windows and the door
were hidden in a green haze of beech leaves.
"That is where I live, little boy," said Miss Briggs, grandly. "The
propriety will belong to me some day. And then I shall send Peter away
for good."
Miss Briggs looked down on the house and gardens with the eye of the
possessor of a "propriety."
"Tissy, wissy—tissy—wissy!" she cried, suddenly forgetting her dignity.
There was a stirring here and there among the trees. And lo! from off
the roofs of the barn and the byre, out of the triangular wickets,
from off round-topped corn-stacks and out of different doors in the
dwelling-house, there sprang a host of cats. "See them," said Miss
Briggs, impressively, "every one of them comes to meet me. That's
Peter, wicked Peter," she said, pointing to a large brindled pussy
which led the field by half-a-dozen lengths. Over the bridge they came,
all mewing their best, and all arching their tails.
"Their ten tails over their ten backs!" said Miss Briggs, as if she
found much spiritual comfort in the phrase.
The cats rubbed themselves against her. Some of them leaped upon her
shoulder and sat there, purring loudly. Hugh Boy was unspeakably
delighted.
"I wish Vara could see," he said, remembering for the first time his
sister and Gavin.
A harsh voice broke in upon them.
"Elizabeth Briggs! Elizabeth Briggs! What is all this play-acting? And
what gangrel loon is this that ye are bringing to the door by the hand?
Is there not enough wastry and ruination aboot the house of Rascarrel
already, without your wiling hame every gypsy's brat and prowling
sorrow of a gutter-bluid? Think shame o' yoursel', Elizabeth Briggs!"
Hugh Boy dropped the hand which held his. He would not bring disgrace
on the friend who had helped him.
"Aunt Robina, you forget yourself," interposed the young lady with prim
dignity, "and you forget 'what sayeth the Scripture.'"
She took Boy Hugh's hand again, and held it tighter. "Forget the
Scripture," cried a tall dark-browed woman who came limping out from a
seat under a weeping elm. She was leaning heavily with both hands upon
a staff, which she rattled angrily on the ground as she spoke.
"Yes," said Miss Briggs, "do you not know that I am Pharaoh's daughter,
and this is little Moses that I drew out of the water?"
"Hold your tongue, Elizabeth Briggs, and come here instantly!" said
the dark woman, tapping the ground again with her staff.
Hugh Boy knew the tone. He had heard something like this before.
"Is that your 'awfu' woman'?" he said aloud, pointing with his finger
at the woman leaning upon the stick.
"Elizabeth Briggs," she commanded again, pointing at the little girl
with her stick, "come in to your lesson this minute. And you, whatever
you may call yourself, take yourself off at once or I'll get the police
to you!"
"Yes, do go away, nice little boy," said Miss Briggs; "but when you
grow big, come back to the house of Rascarrel and Miss Briggs will
marry you. And I will give you another kiss at the garden stile—and
so will Peter!" she added. For she felt that some extra kindness and
attention was due from her, to make up for the most unscriptural
hardheartedness of her Aunt Robina.
So the children took their way together to the garden stile, and as
they went out of sight, Boy Hugh turned round to the dark-browed woman:
"My name is Boy Hugh," he said, "but I'm not a beggar, awfu' woman!"
The children went slowly and sorrowfully along a gravel walk thickly
overgrown with chickweed and moss. Their feet made no sound upon it.
On either side box borders rose nearly three feet, straggling untended
over the walks. Still further over were territories of gooseberry
bushes, senile and wellnigh barren, their thin-leaved, thorny branches
trailing on the ground and crawling over each other. Beyond these again
was a great beech hedge rising up into the sky. Boy Hugh looked at the
dark Irish yews standing erect at the corner of every plot. He thought
they were like the sentinels at the gate of Holyrood, at whom he used
to look as often as he could slip away from the Tinklers' Lands.
Then all suddenly and unexpectedly he began to cry. Miss Briggs stopped
aghast. She was, like all womenfolk, well accustomed to her own sex's
tears. But a male creature's emotion took her by surprise.
"What is the matter?" she said; "tell me instantly, nice little boy."
"This maun be heaven, after a'," said he, "an' your awfu' woman winna
let Boy Hugh bide."
Presently they came out upon a circular opening where the bounding
beech edge bent into a circle, and the gloomy yew tree sentinels stood
wider about. Overhead the crisp leafage of the beeches clashed and
rustled.
Here was a great garden seat of stone, and there at the back rose a
fountain with stone nymphs—a fountain long since dry and overgrown with
green moss. It seemed to Boy Hugh as if they could never get out of
this vast enclosure.
There was also a little stone building at the end down the vista of the
gravel walk. Its door stood open and Boy Hugh looked within. It was
empty like a church. The floor was made of unpainted wood in squares
and crosses. There were painted pictures on the walls, and a shining
thing with candles standing upon it at the far end. Behind this the sun
shone through a window of red, and yellow, and blue.
"Is that God?" said Hugh Boy, after gazing a long time at the glory
of the shining crimson and violet panes and the shining gold upon the
altar.
But Miss Briggs dragged him away without making him any answer.
Presently they came to half-a-dozen steps in an angle, which led over
the outer wall. They had slipped under a mysterious archway of leaves
and so through the beech hedge in order to reach this ladder of stone.
"Good-bye!" said Miss Briggs; "remember—come back, nice little boy, as
soon as you are growed up, and I will marry you. And then we will send
Aunt Robina to the poorhouse. Kiss me, nice boy—and now kiss Peter."
With that Miss Briggs disappeared, running as hard as ever she could,
so that she would not need to cry within sight.
But as soon as she got to the great circle of the beeches and yews, she
burst out sobbing. "He was the very nicest boy—the nicest boy. But of
course there could be nothing in it. For he is only a mere child, you
know!"
But Boy Hugh walked stolidly up the steps, and so out of Paradise.
"I am very hungry!" he said.
ADVENTURE XXXIX.
THE ADVENTURE OF SNAP'S PORRIDGE.
But he found Providence just over the wall. For there sat Vara and
there was the great stone behind which they had spent the night. All
his wanderings had just brought him back to where he had started from.
But for all that he was exceedingly glad to see Vara.
He called her, standing still on the top of the wall. She started up as
if she had heard a voice from the grave. And the face which she turned
to him was colourless like chalk.
"Wi' Vara," said Hugh, "what's wrang? Your face looks terrible clean?"
"O, Boy Hugh—Boy Hugh," she cried, bursting into relieving tears, "it's
you. What a night you have given me!"
But not a word of reproach came from the lips of Vara Kavannah. She
had, indeed, enough to do to keep the babe quiet. For having run hither
and thither over the moor looking for her brother, she had not had time
to seek for any farmhouse where she could get some milk for Gavin's
bottle.
In a little, however, they were again walking hand in hand, and Boy
Hugh was pouring out all the story of his adventures in the Paradise of
the House of Rascarrel.
Chiefly he dwelt upon the divine beauty and abounding merits of Miss
Briggs.
"Dinna you think she was an angel frae heeven?" said Boy Hugh.