by John Buchan
“I have come to thank you for your kindness,” said I awkwardly, “and to let you know something of myself, for ‘tis ill to be harboring folk without names or dwelling.”
“Tush!” said the younger; “‘twere a barbarity to leave anyone without, so travel-worn as you. The Levite in the Scriptures did no worse. But how feel you now? I trust your fatigue is gone.”
“I thank you a thousand times for your kindness. Would I knew how to repay it!”
“Nay, young man,” said the elder, “give thanks not to us, but to the Lord who led you to this place. The moors are hard bedding, and right glad I am that you fell in with us here. ‘Tis seldom we have a stranger with us, since my brother at Drumlanrig died in the spring o’ last year. But I trust you are better, and that Anne has looked after you well. A maid is a blessing to sick folk, if a weariness to the hale.”
“You speak truly,” I said, “a maid is a blessing to the sick. ‘Tis sweet to be well tended when you have fared hardly for days. Your kindness has set me at peace with the world again. Yesterday all was black before me, and now, I bethink me, I see a little ray of light.”
“‘Twas a good work,” said the old man, “to give you hope and set you right with yourself, if so chance we have done it. What saith the wise man, ‘He that hath no rule over his own spirit is like a city that is broken down and without walls’? But whence have you come? We would hear your story.”
So I told them the whole tale of my wanderings, from my coming to Kennedy to my fainting fit at their own threshold. At the story of my quarrel they listened eagerly, and I could mark their eyes flashing, and as I spake of my sufferings in the desert I could see sympathy in their faces. When I concluded, neither spake for a little, till the elder man broke silence with:
“May God bless and protect you in all your goings! Well I see that you are of the upright in heart. It makes me blithe to have you in my house.”
The younger said nothing but rose and came to me.
“M. de Rohaine,” he said, speaking my name badly, “give me your hand. I honor you for a gentleman and a man of feeling.”
“And I am glad to give it you,” said I, and we clasped hands and looked into each other’s eyes. Then we stepped back well satisfied. For myself I love to meet a man, and in the great-limbed young fellow before me I found one to my liking.
“And now I must tell you of ourselves,” said the old man, “for ‘tis fitting that a guest should know his entertainers. This is the manse of Lindean, and I am the unworthy man, Ephraim Lambert, whom God hath appointed to watch over his flock in this place. Sore, sore are we troubled by evil men, such as you have known; and my folk, from dwelling in decent cots, have to hide in peat-hags and the caves of the hills. The Lord’s hand is heavy upon this country; ‘tis a time of trial, a passing through the furnace. God grant we be not found faithless! This home is still left to us, and thankful we should be for it; and I demand that you dwell with us till you have settled on your course. This man,” he went on, laying his hand on the shoulder of the younger, “is Master Henry Semple of Clachlands, a fine inheritance, all ridden and rieved by these devils on earth, Captain Keith’s dragoons. Henry is of our belief, and a man of such mettle that the Privy Council was fain to send down a quartering of soldiers to bide in his house and devour his substance. ‘Twas a thing no decent man could thole, so off he comes here to keep us company till the wind blows by. If you look out of the window over by the side of yon rig of hill, ye’ll get a glimmer of Clachlands chimneys, reeking with the smoke of their evil preparations. Ay, ay, lads, burn you your peats and fill up the fire with logs till the vent’s choked, but you’ll burn brawly yourselves some fine day, when your master gives you your wages.”
He looked out as he spoke, and into his kindly eyes came a gleam of such anger and decision as quite transfigured his face and made it seem more like that of a troop captain than a peaceful minister.
And now Master Semple spoke up: “God send, sir, they suffer for no worse a crime than burning my peats and fire-wood. I should count myself a sorry fellow if I made any complaint about a little visitation, when the hand of the Lord is smiting so sorely among my fellows. I could take shame to myself every time I eat good food or sleep in a decent bed, to think of better men creeping aneath the lang heather like etherts, or shivering on the cauld hill-side. There’ll be no such doings in your land, M. de Rohaine? I’ve heard tell of folk there like us, dwelling in the hills to escape the abominations of Rome. But perhaps,” and he hesitated, “you are not of them?”
“No,” said I, “I am of your enemies by upbringing; but I dearly love a brave man, whereever I meet him. ‘Tis poor religion, say I, which would lead one to see no virtue in those of another belief. There is one God above all.”
“Ay, you speak truly,” said the old man. “He has made of one blood all the nations of the earth. But I yearn to see you of a better way of thinking. Mayhap I may yet show you your errors?”
“I thank you, but I hold by ‘every man to his upbringing.’ Each man to the creed of his birth. ‘Tis a poor thing to be changing on any pretext. For, look you, God, who appointed a man his place of birth, set him his religion with it, and I hold if he but stick to it he is not far in error.”
I spoke warmly, but in truth I had thought all too little about such things. One who has to fight his way among men and live hardly, has, of necessity, little time for his devotions, and if he but live cleanly, his part is well done. Mon Dieu! Who will gainsay me?
“I fear your logic is faulty,” said Master Semple, “but it is mighty inhospitable to be arguing with a guest. See, here Anne comes with the lamp, and supper will soon be ready.”
The girl came in as he spake, bearing a great lamp, which she placed on a high shelf, and set about laying the table for supper. I had noticed her little at first sight, for I was never given to staring at maids; but now, as she moved about, I found myself ever watching her. The ruddy firelight striving with the serene glow of the lamp met and flickered about her face and hair. She was somewhat brown in skin, like a country maiden; but there was no semblance of rusticity in her fair features and deep brown eyes. Her hair hung over her neck as brown as the soft fur of a squirrel, and the fire filled it with fantastic shadows. She was singularly graceful in figure, moving through the room and bending over the table with a grace which ‘twas pretty to contemplate. ‘Twas strange to note that when her face was averted one might have guessed her to be some village girl or burgher’s daughter; but as soon as she had turned her imperial eyes on you she looked like a queen in a play. Her face was a curious one, serious and dignified beyond her years and sex, yet with odd sparkles of gayety dancing in her eyes and the corners of her rosy mouth.
Master Semple had set about helping her, and a pretty sight it was to see her reproving and circumventing his clumsiness. ‘Twas not hard to see the relation between the two. The love-light shone in his eye whenever he looked toward her; and she, for her part, seemed to thrill at his chance touch. One strange thing I noted, that, whereas in France two young folks could not have gone about the business of setting a supper-table without much laughter and frolic, all was done here as if ‘twere some solemn ceremonial.
To one who was still sick with the thought of the black uplands he had traversed, of the cold, driving rain and the deadly bogs, the fare in the manse was like the apple to Eve in the garden. ‘Twas fine to be eating crisp oaten cakes, and butter fresh from the churn, to be drinking sweet, warm milk — for we lived on the plainest; and, above all, to watch kindly faces around you in place of marauders and low ruffians. The minister said a lengthy grace before and after the meal; and when the table was cleared the servants were called in to evening prayer. Again the sight pleased me — the two maids with their brown country faces seated decently by the door; Anne, half in shadow, sitting demurely with Master Semple not far off, and at the table-head the white hairs of the old man bowed over the Bible. He read I know not what, for I am not so familiar with
the Scriptures as I should be, and, moreover, Anne’s grave face was a more entrancing study. Then we knelt, and he prayed to God to watch over us in all our ways and bring us at last to his prepared kingdom. Truly, when I arose from my knees, I felt more tempted to be devout than I have any remembrance of before.
Then we sat and talked of this and that, and I must tell over all my misfortunes again for mademoiselle’s entertainment. She listened with open wonder, and thanked me with her marvelous eyes. Then to bed with a vile-smelling lamp, in a wide, low-ceilinged sleeping room, where the sheets were odorous of bog-myrtle and fresh as snow. Sleep is a goddess easy of conquest when wooed in such a fashion.
V. — I PLEDGE MY WORD
Of my life at Lindean for the next three days I have no clear remembrance. The weather was dry and languid, as often follows a spell of rain, and the long hills which huddled around the house looked near and imminent. The place was so still that if one shouted it seemed almost a profanation. ‘Twas so Sabbath-like that I almost came to dislike it. Indeed, I doubt I should have found it irksome had there not been a brawling stream in the glen, which kept up a continuous dashing and chattering. It seemed the one link between me and that far-away world in which not long agone I had been a dweller.
The life, too, was as regular as in the king’s court. Sharp at six I was awakened, and ere seven we were assembled for breakfast. Then to prayers, and then to the occupations of the day. The minister would be at his books or down among his people on some errand of mercy. The church had been long closed, for the Privy Council, seeing that Master Lambert was opposed to them, had commanded him to be silent; and yet, mark you, so well was he loved in the place that they durst set no successor in his stead. They tried it once and a second time, but the unhappy man was so taken with fear of the people that he shook the dust of Lindean off his feet, and departed in search of a more hospitable dwelling. But the minister’s mouth was shut, save when covertly, and with the greatest peril to himself, he would preach at a meeting of the hill-folk in the recesses of the surrounding uplands.
The library I found no bad one — I who in my day have been considered to have something of a taste in books. To be sure there was much wearisome stuff, the work of old divines, and huge commentaries on the Scriptures, written in Latin and plentifully interspersed with Greek and Hebrew. But there was good store of the Classics, both prose and poetry, — Horace, who has ever been my favorite, and Homer, who, to my thinking, is the finest of the ancients. Here, too, I found a Plato, and I swear I read more of him in the manse than I have done since I went through him with M. Clerselier, when we were students together in Paris.
The acquaintance which I had formed with Master Semple speedily ripened into a fast friendship. I found it in my heart to like this great serious man — a bumpkin if you will, but a man of courage and kindliness. We were wont to take long walks, always in some lonely part of the country, and we grew more intimate in our conversation than I should ever have dreamed of. He would call me John, and this much I suffered him, to save my name from the barbarity of his pronunciation; while in turn I fell to calling him Henry, as if we had been born and bred together. I found that he loved to hear of my own land and my past life, which, now that I think of it, must have had no little interest to one dwelling in such solitudes. From him I heard of his father, of his brief term at the College of Edinburgh, which he left when the strife in the country grew high, and of his sorrow and anger at the sufferings of those who withstood the mandate of the king. Though I am of the true faith, I think it no shame that my sympathy was all with these rebels, for had I not seen something of their misery myself? But above all, he would speak of la belle Anne as one gentleman will tell another of his love, when he found that I was a willing listener. I could scarce have imagined such warmth of passion to exist in the man as he showed at the very mention of her name.
“Oh!” he would cry out, “I would die for her; I would gang to the world’s end to pleasure her! I whiles think that I break the first commandment every day of my life, for I canna keep her a moment out of my thoughts, and I fear she’s more to me than any earthly thing should be. I think of her at nicht. I see her name in every page of the Book. I thought I was bad when I was over at Clachlands, and had to ride five miles to see her; but now I’m tenfold worse when I’m biding aside her. God grant it be not counted to me for sin!”
“Amen to that,” said I. ‘Tis a fine thing to see the love of a maid; but I hold ‘tis a finer to witness the passion of a strong man.
Yet, withal, there was something sinister about the house and its folk which to me was the fly in the ointment. They were kindness and charity incarnate, but they were cold and gloomy to boot, lacking any grace or sprightliness in their lives. I find it hard to write this, for their goodness to me was beyond recompense; yet I must set it down, since in some measure it has to do with my story. The old man would look at me at times and sigh, nor did I think it otherwise than fitting, till I found from his words that the sighs were on account of my own spiritual darkness. I have no quarrel with any man for wishing to convert me, but to sigh at one’s approach seems a doleful way of setting about it. Then he would break out from his wonted quietness at times to rail at his foes, calling down the wrath of Heaven to blight them. Such a fit was always followed by a painful exhaustion, which left him as weak as a child, and shivering like a leaf. I bitterly cursed the state of a country which could ruin the peace of mind of a man so sweet-tempered by nature, and make him the sport of needless rage. ‘Twas pitiful to see him creep off to his devotions after any such outbreak, penitent and ashamed. Even to his daughter he was often cruelly sharp, and would call her to account for the merest trifle.
As for Master Henry, what shall I say of him? I grew to love him like my own brother, yet I no more understood him than the Sultan of Turkey. He had strange fits of gloom, begotten, I must suppose, of the harsh country and his many anxieties, in which he was more surly than a bear, speaking little, and that mainly from the Scriptures. I have one case in my memory, when, had I not been in a sense his guest, I had scarce refrained from quarreling. ‘Twas in the afternoon of the second day, when we returned weary from one of our long wanderings. Anne tripped forth into the autumn sunlight singing a catch, a simple glee of the village folk.
“Peace, Anne,” says Master Henry savagely; “it little becomes you to be singing in these days, unless it be a godly psalm. Keep your songs for better times.”
“What ails you?” I ventured to say. “You praised her this very morning for singing the self-same verses.”
“And peace, you,” he says roughly, as he entered the house; “if the lass hearkened to your accursed creed, I should have stronger words for her.”
My breath was fairly taken from me at this incredible rudeness. I had my hand on my sword, and had I been in my own land we should soon have settled it. As it was, I shut my lips firmly and choked down my choler.
Yet I cannot leave with this ill word of the man. That very night he talked with me so pleasingly, and with so friendly a purport, that I conceived he must have been scarce himself when he so insulted me. Indeed, I discerned two natures in the man — one, hard, saturnine, fanatically religious; the other, genial and kindly, like that of any other gentleman of family. The former I attributed to the accident of his fortune; the second I held to be the truer, and in my thoughts of him still think of it as the only one.
But I must pass to the events which befell on the even of the third day, and wrought so momentous a change in the life at Lindean. ‘Twas just at the lighting of the lamp, when Anne and the minister and myself sat talking in the little sitting room, that Master Henry entered with a look of great concern on his face, and beckoned the elder man out.
“Andrew Gibb is here,” said he.
“And what may Andrew Gibb be wanting?” asked the old man, glancing up sharply.
“He brings nae guid news, I fear, but he’ll tell them to none but you; so hasten out, sir, to the ba
ck, for he’s come far, and he’s ill at the waiting.”
The twain were gone for some time, and in their absence I could hear high voices in the back end of the house, conversing as on some matter of deep import. Anne fetched the lamp from the kitchen and trimmed it with elaborate care, lighting it and setting it in its place. Then, at last, the minister returned alone.
I was shocked at the sight of him as he re-entered the room. His face was ashen pale and tightly drawn about the lips. He crept to a chair and leaned his head on the table, speaking no word. Then he burst out of a sudden into a storm of pleading.
“O Lord God,” he cried, “thou hast aye been good to us, thou has kept us weel, and bielded us frae the wolves who have sought to devour us. Oh, dinna leave us now. It’s no’ for mysel’ or Henry that I care. We’re men, and can warstle through ills; but oh, what am I to dae wi’ the bit helpless lassie? It’s awfu’ to have to gang oot among hills and bogs to bide, but it’s ten times waur when ye dinna ken what’s gaun to come to your bairn. Hear me, O Lord, and grant me my request. I’ve no’ been a’ that I micht have been, but oh, if I ha’e tried to serve thee at a’, dinna let this danger overwhelm us!”
He had scarcely finished, and was still sitting with bowed head, when Master Henry also entered the room. His eyes were filled with an austere frenzy, such as I had learned to look for.
“Ay, sir,” said he, “‘tis a time for us a’ to be on our knees. But ha’e courage, and dinna let us spoil the guid cause by our weak mortal complaining. Is’t no’ better to be hunkering in a moss-hole and communing with the Lord than waxing fat like Jeshurun in carnal corruption? Call on God’s name, but no’ wi’ sighing, but wi’ exaltation, for He hath bidden us to a mighty heritage.”
“Ye speak brave and true, Henry, and I’m wi’ your every word. But tell me what’s to become o’ my bairn? What will Anne dae? I once thought there was something atween you — —” He stopped abruptly and searched the face of the young man.