The Shoes of Fortune
Page 40
CHAPTER XLIII
BACK TO THE MOORLAND
I had seen yon remnant of a man in the Tolbooth cell, and an immediatedeath upon the gallows seemed less dreadful than the degradation and thedoubt he must suffer waiting weary months behind bars. But gallows orcell was become impossible for the new poltroon of Dan Risk's making tocontemplate with any equanimity, and I made up my mind that America wasa country which would benefit greatly by my presence, if I could get apassage there by working for it.
Perhaps I would not have made so prompt a decision upon America hadnot America implied a Clyde ship, and the Clyde as naturally implieda flying visit to my home in Mearns. Since ever I had set foot onScotland, and saw Scots reek rise from Scots lums, and blue bonnets onScots heads, and heard the twang of the true North and kindly from thepeople about me, I had been wondering about my folk. It was plain theyhad never got the letter I had sent by Horn, or got it only recently,for he himself had only late got home.
To see the house among the trees, then, to get a reassuring sight of itssmoke and learn about my parents, was actually of more importance in mymind than my projected trip to America, though I did not care to confessso much to myself.
I went to Glasgow on the following day; the snow was on the roofs; thestudents were noisily battling; the bells were cheerfully ringing ason the day with whose description I open this history. I put up at the"Saracen Head," and next morning engaged a horse to ride to Mearns. Inthe night there had come a change in the weather; I splashed throughslush of melted snow, and soaked in a constant rain, but objected noneat all because it gave me an excuse to keep up the collar of my cloak,and pull the brim of my hat well forward on my face and so minimise therisk of identification.
There is the lichened root of an ancient fallen saugh tree by the sideof Earn Water between Kirkillstane and Driepps that I cannot till thisday look on without a deep emotion. Walter's bairns have seen me sittingthere more than once, and unco solemn so that they have wondered, thecause beyond their comprehension. It was there I drew up my horse to seethe house of Kirkillstane from the very spot where I had rambled with myshabby stanzas, and felt the first throb of passion for a woman.
The country was about me familiar in every dyke and tree and eminence;where the water sobbed in the pool it had the accent it had in mydreams; there was a broken branch of ash that trailed above the fall,where I myself had dragged it once in climbing. The smell of moss androtten leafage in the dripping rain, the eerie aspect of the moorland inthe mist, the call of lapwings--all was as I had left it. There was notthe most infinite difference to suggest that I had seen another world,and lived another life, and become another than the boy that wanderedhere.
I rode along the river to find the smoke rising from my father'shouse--thank God! but what the better was the outlaw son for that? Darehe darken again the door he had disgraced, and disturb anew the heartshe had made sore?
I pray my worst enemy may never feel torn by warring dictates of thespirit as I was that dreary afternoon by the side of Earn; I pray he maynever know the pang with which I decided that old events were best letlie, and that I must be content with that brief glimpse of home beforesetting forth again upon the roads of dubious fortune. Fortune! Did Inot wear just now the very Shoes of Fortune? They had come I knew notwhence, from what magic part and artisan of heathendom I could not evenguess, to my father's brother; they had covered the unresting foot ofhim; to me they had brought their curse of discontent, and so in wearingthem I seemed doomed to be the unhappy rover, too.
The afternoon grew loud with wind as I sat my horse beside theincreasing water; I felt desolate beyond expression.
"Well, there must be an end of it some way!" I said bitterly, and Iturned to go.
The storm opposed me as I cantered over Whig-gitlaw, and won by Brooms,and Bishops Offerance, and Kilree. Shepherds sheltered in the leeof dykes, and women hurried out and shuttered windows. I saw sheephastening into the angles of the fields, and the wild white sea-gullbeating across the sky. The tempest thrashed on me as though it couldnot have me go too soon from the country of my shame; I broke the horseto gallop, and fields and dykes flew by like things demented.
Then of a sudden the beast grew lame; I searched for a stone or a castshoe, but neither ailed him, and plainly the ride to town that night wasimpossible. Where the beast failed was within half a mile of Newton,and at all hazards I decided I must make for the inn there. I felt therewere risks of recognition, but I must run them. I led the horse by aside path, and reached the inn no sooner than the darkness that fellthat night with unusual suddenness. Lights were in the house, and thesound of rural merriment in the kitchen, where farm lads drank twopennyale, and sang.
A man--he proved to be the innkeeper--came to my summons with a lanternin his hand, and held it up to see what wayfarer was this in such anight. He saw as little of me as my hat and cloak could reveal, and Isaw, what greatly relieved me, that he was not John Warnock, who hadtenanted the inn when I left the country, but a new tenant and oneunknown to me. He helped me to unsaddle the horse, discovered with methat the lameness would probably succumb to a night in the stall, andunburdened himself to the questions every unknown traveller in the shireof Renfrew may expect.
"You'll be frae Ayr, maybe, or Irvine?"
No, I was from neither; I was from Glasgow.
"Say ye sae, noo! Dod! it's nae nicht for travelling and nae wonder yourhorse is lamed. Ye'll be for ower Fenwick way, noo, i' the mornin'?" Norwas I for over Fenwick way in the morning. I was for Glasgow again.
He looked from the corners of his eyes at this oddity who travelledlike a shuttle in such weather. I was drenched with rain, and myspatter-dashes, with which I had thought to make up in some degree forthe inadequate foot-wear of red shoes on horseback, were foul with clay.He presumed I was for supper?
"No," I answered; "I'm more in the humour for bed, and I will be obligedif you send to my room for my clothes in a little so that they may bedry by the time I start in the morning, and I shall set out at seven ifby that time my horse is recovered."
I drank a tankard of ale for the good of the house, as we say, duringa few minutes in the parlour, making my dripping clothes and a headachethe excuse for refusing the proffered hospitality of the kitchen wherethe ploughboys sang, and then went to the little cam-ceiled room where ahasty bed had been made for me.
The world outside was full of warring winds and plashing rains, intowhich the yokels went at last reluctantly, and when they were gone Ifell asleep, wakening once only for a moment when my wet clothes werebeing taken from the room.
CHAPTER XLIV
WHEREIN THE SHOES OF FORTUNE BRING ME HOME
I came down from my cam-ceiled room to a breakfast by candle-light in amorning that was yet stormy. The landlord himself waited on me ('twas noother than Ralph Craig that's now retired at the Whinnell), and he hada score of apologies for his servant lass that had slept in too long, ashe clumsily set a table with his own hand, bringing in its equipment insingle pieces.
There was a nervousness in his manner that escaped me for a little inthe candle-light, but I saw it finally with some wonder, rueing I hadagreed to have breakfast here at all, and had not taken my horse, nowrecovered of his lameness, and pushed on out of a neighbourhood where Ihad no right in common sense to be.
If the meal was slow of coming it was hearty enough, though the hostembarrassed me too much with his attentions. He was clearly interestedin my personality.
"It's not the first time ye've been in the 'Red Lion,'" said he withan assurance that made me stare.
"And what way should you be thinking that?" I asked, beginning to feelmore anxious about my position.
"Oh, jist a surmise o' my ain," he answered. "Ye kent your way to thestable in the dark, and then--and then there's whiles a twang o' theMearns in your speech."
This was certainly coming too close! I hastened through my breakfast,paid my lawing, and ordered out my horse. That took so long that Isurmised the man was wilf
ully detaining me. "This fellow has certainlysome project to my detriment," I told myself, and as speedily as I mightgot into the saddle. Then he said what left no doubt:
"They'll be gey glad to see ye at the Hazel Den, Mr. Greig."
I felt a stound of anguish at the words that might in othercircumstances have been true but now were so remote from it.
"You seem to have a very gleg eye in your head," I said, "and to have agreat interest in my own affairs."
"No offence, Mr. Paul, no offence!" said he civilly, and indeed abashed."There's a lassie in the kitchen that was ance your mither's servant andshe kent your shoes."
"I hope then you'll say nothing about my being here to any one--for thesake of the servant's old mistress--that was my mother."
"That _was_ your mither!" he repeated. "And what for no' yet? She'll beprood to see ye hame."
"Is it well with them up there?" I eagerly asked.
I rode like fury home. The day was come before I reached the dykes ofHazel Den. Smoke was rising from its chimneys; there was a homelysound of lowing cattle, and a horse was saddling for my father who waspreparing to ride over to the inn at Newton to capture his errant son.He stood before the door, a little more grey, a little more bent, alittle more shrunken than when I had seen him last. When I drew upbefore him with my hat in my hand and leaped out of the saddle, hescarcely grasped at first the fact that here was his son.
"Father! Father!" I cried to him, and he put his arms about myshoulders.
"You're there, Paul!" said he at last. "Come your ways in; your dearmother is making your breakfast."
I could not have had it otherwise--'twas the welcome I would havechosen!
His eyes were brimming over; his voice was full of sobs and laughter ashe cried "Katrine! Katrine!" and my mother came to throw herself into myarms.
My Shoes of Fortune had done me their one good office; they had broughtme home.
And now, my dear David, and Quentin, and Jean, my tale is ended, leavingsome folks who figured therein a space with their ultimate fortunesunexplained. There is a tomb in Rome that marks the end of PrinceCharles Edward's wanderings and exploits, ambitions, follies, andpassions. Of him and of my countrywoman, Clementina Walkinshaw, youwill by-and-by read with understanding in your history-books. Shedied unhappy and disgraced, yet I can never think of her but asyoung, beautiful, kind, the fool of her affections, the plaything ofCircumstance. Clancarty's after career I never learned, but Thurot,not long after I escaped from him in Dunkerque, plundered the town ofCarrickfergus, in Ireland, and was overtaken by three frigates when hewas on his way back to France. His ships were captured and he himselfwas killed. You have seen Dr. MacKellar here on a visit from his nativeBadenoch; his pardon from the Government was all I got, or all I wishedfor, from Mr. Pitt. "And where is Isobel Fortune?" you will ask. Youknow her best as your grandmother, my wife. My Shoes of Fortune, shewill sometimes say, laughing, brought me first and last Miss Fortune;indeed they did! I love them for it, but I love you, too, and hope tokeep you from the Greig's temptation, so they are to the fore no longer.
THE END