ye hae this place here? I was gaun awa' to look for a lass this very
minute. Will ye bide at Sandyknowes, at least till ye will be wantin'
to leave us o' your ain accord some day?"
"Aye, that I will, and heartily!" cried Vara, smiling gladly.
And the tender-hearted little woman in black fairly took Vara in her
arms and wept over her.
"I canna think what's come ower me thae days," she said; "I greet that
easy. And everything that I tak' in my fingers breaks. Since Alick gaed
awa' I think whiles that my fingers hae a' grown to be thumbs!"
There was a rap at the door. Vara rose naturally and went to it as if
she had never been away. It was Cleg Kelly.
All his greeting was just "Weel, Vara!" He did not so much as offer to
take her hand. Clever as he thought himself, Cleg Kelly had a great
deal to learn. Yet that very moment he had been dreaming of the little
house which was to grow out of the General's bounty, and out of the
trefoil and forget-me-not in the bog. Yet, when he found his sweetheart
at the back of the door, he could only mutter "Weel, Vara!" Nothing
more.
Cleg and Vara went in together, without speaking. Mirren rose to shake
hands. But little Hugh was before her. He distinguished himself by
summarily tumbling Gavin heels over head and scrambling towards the
visitor.
"Cleg Kelly! Cleg Kelly!" he cried. "I want ye to fecht the Drabble and
gar him gie me back my pistol. I'm big enough noo! There's an awesome
heap o' wild beasts here to shoot if only I had a pistol. In the wood
at the back there's lots o' elephants, and leepards, and—and teegars,"
he added, when he found that Cleg looked sufficiently credulous.
"And how do ye get on with the daft General?" asked Mirren, with great
interest in her face.
Cleg was amused at her question. He had become quite accustomed to the
wonder on people's faces, usually shading into awe, when they asked him
concerning his position in the household of the redoubtable General
Theophilus Ruff.
"Fine," said Cleg. "Him and me 'grees fine. I hae nae faut to the
General."
"Preserve us," said Mirren, "I never heard the like. The auld wizard
hadna had a leevin' soul aboot him before you came, since his Indian
servant Copper-Blackie died. And that's ten year since. And to think
that ye hae nae faut to him!"
She looked at Cleg again.
"Noo, come," she said, "sit doon and tell us a' aboot what's inside the
hoose."
But Cleg remained uninterestingly discreet. He said nothing about the
General's bedroom; but he filled up the tale with the most minute
details concerning the vaulted passages, the iron-barred casements in
the hall, and the camp-like conveniences of the little brick building
at the back.
Vara and Mirren Douglas listened with close attention. Hugh stopped
teasing the cat with a feather, as it was trying to go to sleep on the
hearthrug. Gavin was already asleep, with a brass door-knob and a whip
clutched in his hands.
"Aweel," said Mirren, when Cleg had finished, "I thought it was a deal
waur than that. But he maun be a fearsome creature to leeve wi', the
General. Yet he is nane so ill a neebour to me."
Cleg uncrossed his legs and became instantly at ease. Mirren looked
affectionately at Vara.
"Heard ye," she said, "that I hae gotten a new servant lass? I am able
to do withoot her wage. And it is worth far mair for the company," she
added.
"I wish I could bide and help ye too, for Alick's sake," said Cleg,
shyly.
Mirren rose and ran to the boy. Hastily Cleg held out his hand, and
Mirren Douglas clasped it. He was afraid that she was going to kiss
him, and though he admitted the thing as an abstract possibility of the
future, it had not quite come to that with him yet.
"Cleg," she said, "ye are a kind, good lad."
"Aye, that he is," chimed in Vara; "and ye wad say so if ye kenned him
as I do."
Cleg began to expand in this atmosphere of appreciation. He decided to
wait for tea. The hours sped all too swiftly, and the appointed time
arrived before he knew it, when he must return to the great barred
prison with the little brick martin's nest attached to the back of it.
But before Cleg went away he brought in the water for the night,
filling all the cans. He scoured the milk pails ready for the milking
of Mirren Douglas's three cows. He split abundance of kindling wood. He
brought in the peats off the stack—enough to do for all the following
day. He swept the yard clean as a hearth, with a worn stable brush. He
promised to come back on the morrow and sweep the chimney, when Mirren
puffed her cheeks at the smoke which blew down it occasionally. Then
he brought home the cows, assisted by Hugh, Vara watching meanwhile a
little wistfully from the gate. She felt sure that if it had been Kit
Kennedy, he would not have chosen Hugh to help him. Mirren watched the
girl with sharp, kindly eyes, but she said nothing.
When Cleg had done everything that he could think of for Vara and her
mistress, he tied a new whip lash on Gavin's driving stick, tossed Hugh
up to the ceiling, and departed.
Vara came with him to the door. Cleg did not even attempt to shake
hands. On the contrary, he edged cautiously away lest Vara should offer
to do it. "A chap looks saft aye shakin' hands" was how he explained
the matter to himself. So when Vara stood a moment at the doorstep,
with her hands wrapped tightly in her white apron and her eyes upon
the beehives, Cleg looked at her a long time. It was exceedingly good
to look upon her, and he had a little heartache all to himself as he
thought of Theophilus Ruff in his terrible bedroom. Vara seemed all
sunshine and pleasantness. But still he could think of nothing to say,
till he was about ten yards down the walk. Then at last he spoke.
"Ye are takkin' your meat weel to a' appearance," he said.
Vara understood his meaning and was pleased. It was more to her from
Cleg than all Kit Kennedy's sweet speeches. Her mind was mightily
relieved. Cleg would learn yet.
But Vara only replied, "Do you think so, Cleg?"
"Guidnicht, Vara," said Cleg, soberly.
And with that he took his way sedately over the fields and disappeared
into the coppice towards the house of Barnbogle. Vara watched him out
of sight; but now not so wistfully. There was a proud little expression
in her face. She looked almost conscious of her growing beauty.
"He maun think an awfu' deal o' me to say that!" she told herself.
When she went back into the house Mirren Douglas was just putting on
her milking apron. She pretended to busy herself with the strings.
"Cleg doesna improve muckle in looks," she said; "he's no great beauty,
is he noo?"
She spoke with intent to see what Vara would reply. For, after her
sorrow, the old Mirren was springing up again like roses in an Indian
summer.
"I never think muckle aboot his looks when I see him," said Vara
quickly. "If he had looked like an angel, he couldna hae been kinder to
me."
"Hoots, lassie," said Mirren hastily, "I was only jokin' ye. He is
growin' a fine, personable lad, and when he has some flesh on his banes
and a wee tait o' mair growth aboot his face, he'll do verra weel."
"He does very weel as he is, I think," said the loyal Vara, who was not
yet appeased. "He has chappit the firewood, fetched the water, brocht
in the peats and stalled the kye, soopit the yaird—and he is coming
back the morn to clean the lum."
"And to see you, Vara," said Mirren Douglas, with wicked meaning in
her tone. "What said ye at the door when he cannily bade ye guidnicht,
Vara?"
"He said I was lookin' like takkin' my meat weel," said Vara, demurely
pulling at the corner of her apron, where a knot of the lace was coming
loose. At least Vara was rapidly loosening it.
"Let your apron be, lassie; what ill-will hae ye at it?" cried Mirren
from the doorstep.
Vara dropped the loop as if it had been a white-hot iron. And as Mirren
Douglas carried her milking stool to the byre, she dropped a few tears.
"I mind sae weel," she said to herself, "the time when Alick was a lad
and coming aboot the place, I used to like naething better than for
folk to be aye botherin' me aboot him!"
And if "bothering" be a provocative to love, Mirren resolved that
neither Vara nor Cleg should lack the amatorious irritant.
ADVENTURE LVI.
THE VOICES IN THE MARSH.
During the days that followed her home-coming Vara was happier than
she had ever been. In the warm sunshine of family love and physical
well-being the curves of her figure filled out. She seemed to shoot
up all at once from the child into the woman. Her eyes lost their old
frightened look. Her arms and shoulders hid their angles and became
curved and dimpled. But Cleg waxed even more shy and awkward. But,
nevertheless, he came every day, and if there was anything to be done
about the house, or in the little grass parks, Cleg Kelly was there to
do it. It was Cleg, for instance, who started the wonderful wild-flower
industry. This was the secret which he had kept in store against the
day when he should fall out with the General.
It was Cleg's idea that if only he could send large enough quantities
of the commoner wild flowers to the market, there would soon be a trade
in them which might, with proper attention, grow to very considerable
dimensions.
Not that Cleg contemplated any great extensions at present. But he
desired to make a beginning, so that he might not have to build up from
the foundations, if anything were suddenly to happen which might cast
him again upon the world.
So Cleg advertised in the Scottish city papers that he was prepared to
supply both blooms and entire plants of such ferns and wild flowers as
grew in the neighbourhood of Netherby. He got Vara also to send similar
advertisements to the _Exchange and Mart_ and other papers. And in a
little time he had developed as large a trade as could be carried on
directly by parcel and limited orders. He found, for instance, a hill
not far off which was entirely overgrown with the parsley-fern. And
with this he made great deals in the fern market. For he was able to
supply a dozen or a hundred plants for a very modest remittance, and
that with merely the trouble of walking to the hill for them.
But he saw that the undertaking must have a surer basis than this
haphazard ingathering of chance growths. And so Cleg set himself to
plant out and cultivate the wild flowers in ground naturally suited for
their growth. He had the wet morass at hand for the water-plants, the
burnside for those which loved to be near, but not in, running water.
There were shy nooks about the linn for ferns, and for the rest the
fine light soil of Sandyknowes. He utilised ground which was not in use
for any other purposes, fencing it round with wire, and setting Vara
and Hugh to do the watering and caring for the plants, as they had done
long ago around the old construction hut in Callendar's yard.
Hugh Boy went to school during the day at Netherby Academy, and was
proving a great success. Cleg Kelly taught him how to box, and warned
him at the same time not to fight. But Cleg added that if he needed
to do it, it was better to do it once for all and be done with it. So
these advantages assured Hugh an easy life of it at school.
Cleg had also been thinking much lately of developing the wild-flower
business. He meant to establish an agency in each of the larger towns,
and he had already written a letter to Cleaver's boy offering him terms
as his agent and advising him to look out for openings. For Cleg was
proving himself above all things practical, and seemed destined to turn
out as prosperous a business man as Bailie Holden.
The General often laughed at Cleg's devotion to his flowers and his
children. Yet he liked to hear tidings of them. Sometimes, indeed,
he reproved Cleg for bringing with him a floating atmosphere and
suggestion of womankind. But Cleg always assured him that he had been
careful to change his clothes.
Life at Barnbogle went on uneventfully. Daily the time locks clicked.
Daily the General retired to his strange bedroom, coming forth again
with the pupils of his eyes dilated and his face drawn with the drugs
which he had inhaled and swallowed. Cleg cooked the bacon, brewed the
tea, and made a couple of daily pilgrimages to the room of the three
coffins. Then he came out again and shut the doors carefully behind
him, and slept soundly at nights. Cleg had no spiritual fears and had
outgrown his illusions—at least such of them as interfered with a pound
a week.
But whenever he went into Netherby he found himself an object of great
interest. For not even the peccadilloes of the ministers of Netherby,
nor yet the unbecoming gaiety of their wives' attire, supplied so
favourite a subject for gossip to the good folk of the town as the
madness and the miserliness of General Theophilus Ruff.
The old men would tell over again those tales of the General driving
his coach and six with the lady by his side who was arrayed like the
Queen of Sheba. Netherby had never had any doubt as to the fascinating
moral character of this personage. And Theophilus Ruff still carried
the glory of his former sins about with him, even though he had dwelt
for twenty years a hermit and a madman in his house of Barnbogle.
His fabulous wealth was everywhere a common topic. He received his
rents in person, but none of it, so far as was known, was placed in
the banks of the neighbourhood. The builders, the engineers, and the
locksmiths from the city had, as we have seen, all told tales of the
strong-rooms they had been erecting, and of the secret arrangements
which had been made with a great firm in London for yet more complete
safety.
"It's a perfect Guid's wonder that ye are no a' murdered in your beds,
wi' thae millions of siller lyin' in the hoose," said one of Cleg's
most persistent inquisitors, after vainly trying to extract from Cleg
whether he had ever seen the treasure with his own eyes.
"I wadna be in your shoon for a hundred pounds a week—na, no for a'
the gowd in Barnbogle Hoose," the respectable shopkeeper told him each
time he came in. "The General's servants never leave him. Na, they a'
dee—and generally michty suddenly at the tail o' the day. And naebody
kens in what mainner they come by their ends. I'm thinking that when he
gets tired o' them, he juist locks them up in yin o' his iron rooms and
then—lets them bide there!"
But Cleg was not frightened, as the good grocer had hoped. He bought
his red herrings, his bacon, and his eggs; and he carried them
peacefully back to the brick building in the rear of the vast blind
wall of Barnbogle House, to be ready when the General should come again
from his room.
"A pound a week was never easier earned," said practical and
unimaginative Cleg.
Vara felt that this time of bliss was too sweet to last. Yet, with
the fatalism of those bred up in the midst of misery, she was content
to bask carelessly in the sunshine of present prosperity. She was like
a bird taking its fill of the warmth and delight of summer, without
a thought of blusterous winter winds and the shrewd pinch of nipping
skies.
But one night, when the year was already drawing to its end, and
November was expiring in a clear silver-grey rime of frost, Vara was
locking up the outhouses at Sandyknowes in the gloaming. She had
already been at the byre, and had given the cows their last bit of
fodder, and a pat each on the flank as she passed—a pat so remote from
the sentient and operative end of the animal, that it seemed almost as
ridiculous as caressing the porch of a church in order to please the
parson.
Nevertheless, Vara never omitted the ceremony on any consideration.
Yet this particular evening, all the time she was foddering the cattle
Vara had a strange consciousness that she heard voices somewhere over
towards the marsh. The crisp air of coming frost sharpened her hearing,
and as the stars pricked themselves out, the whole night rang like a
bell with unknown and far-away sounds.
Voices Vara certainly did hear. But she thought that it might be only
a lad and lass on their way to the dancing-school, or a herd talking
aloud to his dog for company as he went homeward. Yet the sounds did
not resemble any of those with which Vara had been recently acquainted.
Some awful dread, inherited from a former and a more terrible
existence, returned upon her.
Her breath came hard and quick. She grew first hot and then cold, as
she stole down by the barn-end to listen. She was nearer to the voices
there. The murmur of them came more instant and terrible up from the
swamp above which Sandyknowes sat on its hill. Vara stole on tiptoe
nearer and nearer. The old hut in the hollow was a deserted cot-house
of the General's—a mere but-and-ben—which Muckle Alick had been
accustomed to use for storing old railway sleepers in. For these are
the winter fuel of men who work upon the railway.
Presently Vara saw its white gable-end staring out at her through
the bare branches of the underbrush. The angry voices became louder
and more threatening. A ray of light stole through a chink in the
boarded-up window. Stealthily Vara went on tiptoe round the gable till
she could put her eye to the chink. A cloth had been hung up over the
window, past one corner of which Vara could just see a fire flickering
in the grateless fireplace of the deserted cottage.
But her heart sank within her at the words she heard, which rang like
the very trump of doom in her ears: "Timothy Kelly," cried a voice
which Vara well knew—even that of her mother—"I tell ye I will have no
murder done! And on your own son! Shame on ye! It is enough to bring
a judgment on us all just to talk about it. I tell ye we can get the
stuff out of the house o' the loony General without the like of that."
Then the piping voice of the weasel-faced Tim Kelly answered, "'Tis
little that ye know, Sal Kavannah, you that never were at the taking
of a farthing's worth in your life, except off boosy softies in the
street. I tell ye, woman, that if Clig Kelly were to come in my road
when I am getting out the cargo I'd spit him like a rat!"
"But, maybes," said the other voice, which thrilled Vara the most,
"maybes, if ye was to speak peaceable-like to the lad ye might get him
to stand in with us."
"Sorra a fear of him," replied Tim; "Clig Kelly might have been like a
lump of paving-stone, for all the kindness he ever showed to his kin.
Aye, and after all that I have done for the boy!"
"Childer! poison them!" cried Sal Kavannah, "'tis little you have had
to suffer with your childer, Timothy Kelly! It's me that knows to the
roots of my heart. But wait till we have this stuff lifted and safe in
Mistress Roy's tea-kettle. Then we'll bring sweating sorrow on them
that's the proud ones this day."
"Set a match to the house this very night, and burn it about their
ears," said Tim Kelly. "Say the word and I'll do the job for you, and
that willin', Sal."
"I declare my heart's broke entirely with ungrateful children," said
Sal Kavannah; "but when once we get clear away with the old General's
jewels, we will have time and to spare to bring them to their senses."
Vara listened, now with fire glowing hot in her heart, and the next
moment she was again cold as a stone. She had her ear close down
against the bottom of the window-sill, and thus for a time she stood,
the thought that her enemy had found her out once more overwhelming all
other thoughts.
But presently the knowledge of Cleg Kelly's instant and terrible danger
came to her. Cleg was in sole charge of the great house of Barnbogle
with all its wonderful treasures. The master of it was reported to be
away. But, so strange and unaccountable were his comings and goings,
that no one knew whether General Theophilus Ruff was really in the
neighbourhood or not.
At all events, any way that Vara thought about it, there was little
doubt that Cleg was in imminent peril of his life. For if he refused to
give up the treasures of the General, his father would certainly kill
him. And if he were frightened or tortured into telling, then no one
would believe anything else than that he had been sent by his father
to worm himself into the confidence of the mad General and so open the
house to the robber.
Vara meditated what she should do. Could she get to the house of
Barnbogle before Tim Kelly, she might be able to put Cleg on his guard.
But a curious something, more disabling than fear, kept her chained to
the spot.
"The thing is easy as throat-slitting," said Tim emphatically. "I tell
you the lad has the keys; for I know he can let himself out and in at
his pleasure. Now, he shall give up the keys willingly, or I know a way
to make him. If the mad ould General comes in the road, I have that
in my pocket which will settle him dead for life. But I hear he's off
again on his thundering rounds, restless devil that he is!"
"But how," said Sal Kavannah, "is the like o' me to hold the boy? He
will be as strong as a young bullock by now."
"He'll be wake—wake as pump-water—when I get him in them hands,"
whispered Timothy Kelly, so that the listener barely heard him.
But Vara could see his narrow, weasel face thrust forward and hear the
hateful jar in his voice. "God's truth!" he said, "do I not owe him
wan? See them holes?" he cried more loudly, his hate mastering him,
"pockmarks ye could lose sixpence in. 'Twas the whelp that did that to
me! Ah! a fine man was Tim Kelly before that sorra came into the world."
"Vara! Vara!" cried suddenly a shrill voice behind the listening girl,
as she stood with her brow down on the window-sill. Her heart leaped
with wild terror; for it was the voice of little Gavin, come out to
seek her, and she feared that he would suddenly appear at the door of
the house on the bog. He had a curious faculty for following his sister
and finding her. Ever since she came back from Loch Spellanderie he
had not cared to let her out of his sight.
"Vara! Vara!" the shrill childish voice came again. She could hear
Gavin coming nearer, pushing his way through the crackling copsewood.
The wrangling voices within stilled themselves. The tell-tale light
went out at the crack in the board, and Vara knew that the wild beasts
inside would be after her in a moment.
If she could only silence Gavin, she thought. She rose to her feet and
dashed towards him.
"Vara! Vara!" rose the child's voice, clear on the frost-bitten air;
"where are ye, Vara?"
She could hear him beating gleefully with a stick on a wire fence which
ran down into the marsh, so that the very hills gave back the clear
humming sound. The wire was Gavin's telegraph, and he pleased himself
with the thought that he could always communicate with Vara by means
of it. The girl ran towards him, leaping over the frozen ditches, and
speeding through the briars, heedless of how she might hurt herself.
She came on Gavin at the edge of the wood, beating on the wire with his
stick and shouting boldly, "Vara, Vara, come forth!" as he had heard
the Netherby minister do in church.
"Hush, hush, Gavin!" she cried anxiously, holding out her arms to him,
"for God's sake, hush!"
And, in an agony of apprehension, she lifted him and strained him to
her breast. There came the sound of footsteps running through the
wood, and Vara dragged Gavin back into the shelter of the alders which
grew thick and rank in the marsh at the end of the fence. She covered
Gavin's mouth with her shawl as the flying footsteps clattered nearer.
Presently the dark figure of Tim Kelly ran past them, with his head
set very far forward, scenting from side to side like a beast of
prey hunting upon a hot trail. He held a knife point downwards in his
hand. Vara stood still while the terrifying vision passed. Tim Kelly
was running towards the house of Barnbogle. She could hear another—and
heavier—foot following. And before she had time to move, lo! Sal
Kavannah moved into the grey-litten space, and stood still within ten
yards of her children.
"The Awfu' Woman!" came from Gavin's lips, even through the folds of
the shawl. All terrifying things were summed up for him in that phrase
he had learned from his brother Hugh. Something seemed to tell Sal
Kavannah that she was near her children. She stood for what seemed an
eternity, stark and staring, rooted to the spot, only turning her head
slowly from side to side and straining her ears to hear the crack of a
twig or the rustle of a leaf.
Vara prayed as she had never done before. Gavin's eyes were fixed
in his head with terror. The end of the world had indeed come. "The
Awfu' Woman" was back again, and in a moment the quiet and safety of
Sandyknowes had ended for them.