by John Buchan
They married women like themselves, hard, prudent, and close-lipped; seeking often far and wide for such a wife and never varying from their choice. Such marriages were seldom fruitful but never barren; one or two sons or daughters were always left to hand on the name and the inheritance. No man had yet been found of sufficient courage to mate with a daughter of the house, and so it fell out that those gaunt women, strong and tall as the men, stayed in the Birkenshaw Tower till their brothers’ marriage, and then flitted to the lonely dwelling of Markit, where there always waited some brother or uncle in need of a housekeeper. Such an order in life brought its reward. There were no weaklings to spoil the family credit, and like a stripped unlovely pine the stock survived, abiding solitary on its hill-top and revelling in storms.
But in their lives they paid assiduous court to a certain kind of virtue. In the old riding days the house had robbed and harried, as it were, under protest; and now, being fallen on settled times, they cultivated honesty with the greatest diligence. A Birkenshaw’s word was as good as his oath, and his oath as his bond, and woe befall the man who doubted one or the other. The milk of human kindness was confined with them to family channels and embittered with the grudging which comes of obedience to the letter. By the canon of the Word of God they were men of a singular uprightness, but it was a righteousness which took the colour of the family traits. They set diligence, honour, and a freedom from gross vices on the one hand, and passion, relentless severity, and little love for their neighbours on the other, and, finding the result to be a species of pride, labelled it an excellence. Withal their penuriousness made their lives frugal and their toils gave them health, so that, a race of strong men, they ran their imperious course, feared in their faults and hated in their virtues.
The pastimes of their class were little thought of. It was long since one of the name had been seen with the deer-hounds or playing a salmon in the floods of Tweed. Long days of riding over their broad lands were varied with noisy mornings in the clatter of a market-place or evenings filled with the sleep of well-fed lassitude. But when they came among their fellows it was with something of a presence, — the air of masters who cared little for the quibblings of superiority but were ready if occasion came to prove it by deed. Hence came the owercomes of “A Birkenshaw’s glower,” and “‘Gang out o’ my gate,’ quo’ auld Birkenshaw,” with which the conversation of the valley was garnished to repletion.
In such manner did life pass by in the grey stone dwelling which crowned the Yarrow braes, with Yarrow crooning in the nooks below. It was but yesterday I passed the place, which no lapse of years can change. The vale of long green hills which falls eastward from the lochs is treeless and desert for miles, with a wan stream sweeping ‘neath barren hill-shoulders and the grey-green bent lending melancholy to all. But of a sudden it changes to a defile; the hills huddle together till the waters can scarce find passage; and a forest of wildwood chokes the gorge. Brown heather and green hazels crest every scarred rock and fringe the foot of Birkenshaw Tower, which looks steeply down on its woodland valley. Soft meadowgrass is shaded by a tangle of ashes, and in every dell the burn’s trickle slips through a wild flower-garden; while in broad pools and shining stretches Yarrow goes singing her ageless song for evermore.
Of the two sons born to Gideon Birkenshaw in the house on the hill, the elder was even as his father, a man of few words and hard deeds, ungenial, honest, and with all his qualities grounded on that rock of devilment which lay deep in the temper of his house. His person was such as his nature, and it was not hard to see in the spare and sinewy figure of the son the immature presentment of the father. But the younger, Francis, was like a changeling in the place. From his birth he had none of the ways of the rest; his very form was like a caricature of the family traits, and whatever was their strength was in him perverted to weakness. He had the Birkenshaw high cheek bones, the fleshy chin and the sunken eyes, but all were set carelessly together, as if by nature in a moment of sport. He had his father’s long limbs and broad back, but in him the former were feeble and knoitering, the latter bent in an aimless stoop. In character the parody was the more exaggerated. Shrewdness became a debased cunning which did not halt at a fraud; energy, mere restlessness; and persistence, stupidity. Also the mastery over the bodily appetites which marked the kin was wholly absent in him, and early in life he took to brandy-drinking and tavern-loafing. Every fold has its black sheep and every house its weakling, but to the proud family whence he sprung Francis was something more than a ne’er-do-weel. He was a lasting disgrace, always at the doors, staring in their faces at kirk and market. It is the curse of such a kin that a man who shows somewhat weaker than the rest goes straight to the devil without a chance of redemption, and the house of Birkenshaw with drawn lips and averted eyes suffered the prodigal to go his way.
But in the trivial Mr. Francis there remained some shreds and rags of quality unperceived by his kinsfolk. He alone in the whole history of his race possessed some tincture of the humanities, picked up in a ragged way but worthy of some note. He had something of a poetic soul and saw wonders in hill and water which were not for the busy men of affairs who rode their horses over the countryside solely that they might reach an end. He was humane in little matters and no dumb creature suffered ill-usage at his hands. Even in his vices he preserved some tatters of kindliness and bonhomie which endeared him to the folk with whom he consorted. In a dim, confused way he strove to guide his shambling life in the way of mercy, and in his stumbling made helpless efforts to rise.
It was clear to all that such a state of matters could not long continue, and the mind of the countryside waited for a crisis. It arrived at length and in the expected way. The blacksmith of Birkenshaw was one Reuben Gowanlock, a drunken ill-conditioned fellow, with a set hatred of the family in the Tower and a marvellous power of quarrelling. His daughter Marion, a handsome girl of twenty, fell much in the way of Mr. Francis in his village sojournings, and an intimacy sprang up between them which endured all through the spring and summer of a year. No record exists of its nature, but it is certain that the couple took long walks in the sunset vale, during which Francis would charm her ears with his flowery rhapsodical talk and her vanity with his presence. In the winter a child was born, and in the eyes of all, the laird’s son stood confessed as the father. The blacksmith cursed deep and swore vengeance; poor Marion dared not show herself abroad; and things looked black enough for both. But worse was still to follow, for the place was startled one morn by the news that Francis had married the girl in all honour and good faith. Here was food for gossip and speculation, and it was the common verdict that the man had made such reparation in terror of Reuben’s menaces. Yet it is certain that nothing was less in Francis’s mind. Whatever grave lack he had, there was no stint in his share of the family courage. His motive for the deed was an indistinct sense of honour, a certain ill-defined compassionateness of heart, which he scarcely realised and would not have sought to defend.
For the twain the end came sharp and cruel. There was long speech in the place of the interview between Francis and his father, and stray fragments of what passed were spread abroad. The wretched creature with his farcical handsomeness and strength stood shivering before the terrible old man, who represented the essence of a long line which knew no mercy. Every inch of his face was browned and wrinkled with sun and wind; his eye glanced steely as an October sun; and his figure was alive with vigour and wrath. He had been absent on a visit to Markit when the events occurred and all was over ere he returned. So in riding-boots and greatcoat he sat at the table’s end with a hunting crop before him. He heard the village explanation of his son’s folly and he was not slow to believe it. His sentences came out with a dry rasp and with an ominous accompaniment of lowering brows. “I will not speak of the crime against God’s law as written in His book, for that is a matter between you and your saul.” Indeed, it was said that others of the Birkenshaws had erred in like manner, and in any case it was not
a sin which involved any surcease of pride. “But of one thing I will speak,” he went on, “and that is of your offence against the bluid of the man that begat ye and the house that gives ye your name. Ye have mairrit a tinkler lass, you, ye splaittering body, because ye were feared at her faither’s mauvering. By God, there was never yet ane o’ your race wi’ sic a taid’s hert.”
The wretched son made no attempt at a defence which he would have scarcely told to himself. He shuffled with ineffectual feeling, a prey to sentiment and inward tears.
“But ‘my son’ did I say?” the other went on. “Na, na, ye are nae son o’ mine. Gang to the midden ye’ve been pikin’ on and let a cleanly honest house be quit o’ ye. Gang off, the pair o’ ye, and breed up bairns to rin for porters and serve in byres. By the Lord Almichty I disown ye, and I wis nae mair than to see ye in the kennel ye’ve made for yoursel’. Gang out o’ my sicht, ye thing o’ strae.”
Francis went out of the room with an indistinct pain of heart, for he was no more than sober from his morning cups. Yet the grating tones had scarcely ceased, the door was scarcely closed, ere the old man laid his head on his hands and suffered in dry-eyed misery the pangs of pride wounded through affection.
Of the exact movements of Mr. Francis after that hour there remains no adequate record. He could not bide in the house, nor did his remnants of pride suffer him to remain in the village. With such small belongings as were his he took himself and his wife to Edinburgh and set up dwelling in a dingy room in the Monk’s Vennel. How he lived no man could tell, but it seems likely that when all his gear had gone for brandy this scion of a reputable house did odd jobs for whoever was willing to hire him, from copying a bill to carrying a bundle. One thing is certain, that his course, whatever it was, soon drew to an end. His body was never strong, and his impressionable and capricious temper of mind was not far removed from craziness. Poverty and dram-drinking so wrought upon him that soon he was little better than an enfeebled idiot, sitting melancholy on tavern benches and feeding the fire of life on crude spirits. Two more children — daughters — were born to him, and some five years after his departure from home, Mr. Francis Birkenshaw had become a mere wreck of his former wreckage, a parody of a parody. Six months later a fever took him, and kindly Death stepped in with his snuffer and turned the guttering candle into blackness.
Hitherto we have not spoken of Mistress Marion Birkenshaw who adorned the dim house in the Monk’s Vennel. Her beauty, at first considerable, had grown with the years to heaviness, and nought remained but singular black eyes. Her nature was not extraordinary, but rejoiced in the niceties of gossip and the refinements of housekeeping. Her early behaviour was the sudden blossoming of romance in an orderly mind, and with the advancing months she returned to the placid level of the common. Had she married decently and dwelled in her native village she would have been a matron without reproach, a mistress of gossip and old-wives’ tales, glorying in little hospitalities and petty hatreds, an incarnation of the respectable. As it was, she ruled the household with a bustling hand, and found neighbours in a desert of strangers. The clack of her tongue sounded all day about the doors, or was sunk in the afternoon to a contented sing-song when Mistress Gilfillan dropped in to sew with her and tell her woes. Even in so hard a place she attained to some measure of happiness, and speedily ordered sprawling children and feckless husband with a pride in the very toil which would have cheered one’s heart. Loud-tongued, noisy, coarse as sackcloth, a wallower in the juicily sentimental, she yet had something of the spirit of a general, and marshalled her ragged forces in decent array.
On the death of Mr. Francis her action took a characteristic path. For, meeting Robert, now master of the broad lands of Birkenshaw, in the High Street, one chill February morn, she forthwith detailed to him his brother’s debts, and with the abandon of her class glided from becoming tears into the necessary question of maintenance. The Laird’s feelings at the moment would be hard to tell. The thought that one of his house should have sunk so low that his widow had to beg her bread, stung him like a lash. He lost for the moment his habitual reserve. With a mumbled “Tak’ it, wumman, tak’ it; there’ll be mair to follow,” he thrust some gold into her hand; and thenceforth came quarterly payments from Birkenshaw with a bare word of communication. Marion took them gladly, for she had no other choice, and on such means she reared her children to grown age.
One incident in her character remains which is eloquent in its strangeness. From the day of her departure she held no communication with her folk at the smithy, manifesting no interest in their doings and shunning even the mention of their names. Deep in her soul was a well of sentiment. She had mated with a Birkenshaw and some peace-offering was due to the fetich of the family pride. A sense of an honour paid to her hung ever on her conscience; it made her look with respect on her own children as something higher than herself; and it forced her to the severance of natural ties. It is doubtful, indeed, whether they were ever tightly knit, for the drunken father had little kindness for any. But, such as they were, they were gladly renounced, and with something not far from heroism this foolish woman took loneliness for her portion, a solitude brightened with the halo of a great connection.
CHAPTER II. How Mr. Francis Birkenshaw Departed His Native City.
The child Francis grew up to manhood with something of precipitancy, for in that house life was not suited for a lengthy play-day. At five he had been as ugly as sin in face, though well-grown and straight in body. His father’s hard features and ruddy skin were joined to Marion’s sloe-black eyes and hair, and such a conjunction is not fair in childhood. So peculiarly sinister an appearance would have made him the butt of his coevals, had he not possessed a hot temper and an uncommonly hard fist. From his sixth year battles were of daily occurrence, and it was rarely that the week-end found him with his face unmarked. But inch by inch, wound by wound, he fought his way to fame, till the mere sight of his black countenance was more than enough to hush the wrangling of the others and incline their ears to his words.
But with those days we have little to do, and it is at the maturity of eighteen that we would take up the tale of his life. His sisters, Jean and Lisbeth, were now grown to high-coloured, loud-spoken girls, who shared their mother’s likings and their mother’s comeliness. The Birkenshaw payments made comfort possible, and the house was conducted in a pleasant stir, with gossips sitting at all hours and the sharp tones of the housewife guarding its cleanliness and order. The two lasses were the blacksmith’s true grandchildren, and in no way different from a thousand such maids in the city. They loved to dress in their best of a Sabbath and walk in decent procession to the Cross Kirk, where the ministrations of Mr. Linklater were sugared with the attentions of the young apprentices. They were notable cooks and wrought all day to their mother’s bidding with a cheery bustle. In a word, they were of their mother’s pattern, — honest, fresh-coloured, hearty, and friendly to all.
Had it not been for their brother’s presence, the household in the Monk’s Vennel might have been an abode of prosperous peace. But Francis was a puzzle to most folk and a grief to his mother such as her foolish loose-lived husband had never been. The years brought him height and strength and a handsome face. It would have been hard to find in all the town a nobler figure of a man, when anger did not distort the features. From some unknown forebear he derived an air of uncommon masterfulness, and a carriage which might have vied with that of the greatest buck of the day, my Lord Craigforth himself. His temper was like his body, fierce, and strong, and hot as a red fire, so that no man could anger him with safety. In happier conditions he might have followed the paths of virtue, for there seemed nothing ignoble in that brow and eye. But in the kitchen of his home, among the clatter of neighbour tongues and women’s gossip, in the presence of his mother and sisters and the rotund housewives who called them friends, he was wofully out of place.
In his childhood he had cared little for the thing, for the street was his home at most hours
; but as he grew to age the whole life oppressed him with deep disgust. To him alone had fallen a share of the Birkenshaw temper, and he revolted from this unctuous existence. For his kin he had fits of tenderness, but at his age no feeling is so weak as domestic love. The result was not hard to foresee. With such share as he had of the family income he took to his own pleasures, and the house saw him not save at meal-time and the late night.
Who shall tell of the glorious Edinburgh of that age in all its colour and splendour and dirt? The years of last century were still young, the second George was but new on the throne, and in the northern city life flowed freely and hotly in a muddy, turbulent stream. The drums of war were still in men’s memories, and soldiers from the Castle still thronged the street. In the narrow alleys which wound like snakes among the high, dark houses there lurked filth and disease which have long since gone from the land. Ragged Highland lairds and broken gillies, fine periwigged gentlemen, ministers many with their sombre black, fair ladies and country wives, honest shepherds in homespun from the South, half the gentry of the land, as well as the staid merchant or the wandering southerner, were jostled on the narrow causeway by French agents and priests in hiding, or fell a prey at dark corners to the lurking cut-purse. Roaring east winds disturbed the trials in the Parliament House, where half a dozen learned judges administered the law, ere hurrying back to dinner and their unfinished treatises on Taste and the Sublime. And the same wind caught at the throats of half-starved loyalists shivering in entries, and praying and plotting for that day when the King should come back to his own. Every now and again the streets were in an uproar over some straggling news of a fresh landing, and the good citizens listened to the bugle on the Castle rock with a feeling of confirmed security. It was the day of riot and bright colour, of fine dresses and rags, of honest poverty and the blackguard shuffling in the same kennel, — a day when no man knew his own mind or his neighbours’, and the King’s peace was more brittle than the King desired.