The Black Colonel

by James Milne

  _XVI--The Wooin' O't!_

  There are two kinds of people who make a difference in our lives whenthey leave us: those we like and who like us, and those we do not likeand who dislike us, for that is one way in which the world wags.

  We feel, in the first case, a quick sadness, we dwell on happymemories, now tinted to a soft melancholy, and we ask ourselves, "Havewe been all to them we could have been, and they the most to us?"

  Our feeling in the second case is one of relief, coupled with thepassing of an influence which, if not sympathetic, may yet have been astimulus to us. Something that has been roused in our nature, goesback into its hidden place with the cause which unhappily called itout, rivalry, perhaps. It is a whip that may carry you to the top of ahill when otherwise, tempted by a warm sun and a soft wind, you mightrecline on a half-way bank of heather. Ah! it is good to day-dream atthe sun, our Highland sun, which plays hide-and-seek with the sailingclouds.

  But, may be, the incomplete parting is the best, that which has manythings unsaid, silences which are not silent; because it leaves roomfor the imagination, lets us gild the picture in the roses of hope.

  The going of the Black Colonel had meant a difference for myselfcertainly, and also, I could suppose, for Marget and her mother. Butit was a mixture of the two feelings which I have suggested, because,in a fashion, I had a regard for the man, as well as something else,and to the ladies of the Dower House he was both the kinsman and theventurer who wanted to be more. I admired his manly qualities and waswilling to clothe the others in a veil, as long as he did not make thatimpossible. They had the bond of family with him, a quiet pride in hischampionage of the Stuart side, which had been theirs, and, well, theywished no more of him. But what, perhaps, we mostly felt, Marget andI, without daring for a moment to confess as much, was that someelement which kept us apart, and might, unhappily, even divide us, hadpassed across the sea to the New World with the Black Colonel.

  We began unconsciously, and then, I suspect, noticeably, to growcloser, to live the vital little things of life nearer to each other,as it this were natural. That, perhaps, is the most critical period inthe mating of two young people, as you may learn from the delicatenurturing of Mother Nature herself in the spring-time, when the earthgrows warm. They are so in the thrill of emotion, that they have nothought for the building of the permanent house of the spirit in whichthey are to dwell. But it goes forward about them and otherwise theprospect would be bleak for them, sad for them, and sadness should notcome to lovers in the honeymoon of their hopes.

  "I suppose," Marget said to me one evening while we chatted in theDower House and her mother, tempted by the long summer light of thenorth, read in the garden, "I suppose you really have nothing to do nowthat the Black Colonel is gone, and his disturbance--for you--with him."

  "Oh," answered I, "there are still things to do, things, some of them,which I don't like, as my military superiors down there in Aberdeentown may be suspecting, for only last week, you know, they sent up atroop of horse to make a special search of Corgarff for any hiddenJacobite powder and shot. What happened you also know. Our friends ofyour Stuart faith heard of this expedition long before it arrived,filled their knapsacks with bannocks, and went to the hills. Thetroopers came, found, by persistent search in deserted homes, a fewbarrels of Spanish powder, some hundreds of bullets and a brokencannon, and threw them all into the Water of Don. It was not veryexciting, especially to me, because it was a kind of censure; butnothing worse happened than the breaking of a drunken trooper's neck,by a fall from his horse. Here was one more way of death, not a prettyway, for the man's commanding officer said jocosely, 'The idiot, hemust have come upon bad drink in his searches, and a bad woman is lessdangerous.'"

  "Your statement," said Marget, "is, I see, a confidential apology to mefor the ongoings of those set over us and you! I hope you don't spendtoo many hours in reflections as unprofitable as the subject of these,"and she made, with this advice, to be a very serious young woman.

  "What," I asked, "would you have me do with my spare time?"

  "I'm afraid I don't know."

  "Well, if you don't, who does?"

  "I think I see a compliment in what you say, but I'm not quite sure."

  "It's against rules, isn't it, to repeat a compliment? It would be nocompliment then."

  "The more need to make it clear at first."

  "I thought I had."

  "Men think such a lot of things which are too unsubtle, too clumsy, fora woman to comprehend. Yes, it is so."

  "Men--myself--the Black Colonel?"

  "He is far away; why bring him back?"

  "Only because it may concern you, and anything which concerns you . . .is not to be spoken."

  "It is more interesting to speculate on what might have happened if hehad stayed, instead of running from his guns--no, I mean to his guns,for he was no coward. Discount a good deal from him and he remains ataking man. It flatters any woman to be coveted by a man of parts,good or bad. She likes the homage thus implied, and if she did not shewould be no woman. She says to herself, 'What a pity that man shouldbe in love with me because I would not have him at all.' With her nextbreath she says, 'A resolute lover, something like a lover, a greatlover.'"

  "The unconventional lover--and more," said I; "that's it, all downtime, the primitive trait of sex, he who can lift a woman out of hergroove into a surprise."

  "Well," said Marget, "the Black Colonel has the right blood for anunconventional lover. You cannot make a Farquharson respectable byforce, and I'm not sure about the Gordons!"

  She looked at me with amusement in one eye and the rebel woman in theother and I laughed, and that was all. No; not all.

  Such talks between Marget and myself may have seemed to lead nowhere,but actually they did. The unspoken side of them was full of thosesecrets which cannot be put into language, because they would perish inthe effort. What is spoken may be good, but what is unspoken in loveis still better. Behind the word, there hides the speech of the soul.You say one thing, and with the eye mean another, or you say it in afashion only intelligible to a particular person. There is atelegraphy of souls, as well as of hearts and minds, and the lesson isnever to believe your ears.

  Things came to be understood between myself and Marget, and the BlackColonel had a part in this, far away as he had taken himself and histroubles. He was not out of the picture, because he might return toit, but we could paint him in or out as we liked, and that left uscanvas room. One day he was returning to set us all by the heelsagain; another day he was gone, to return no more, leaving us tofashion our own lives, as we were doing.

  "Marget," I asked, "suppose the Colonel comes back, is he to find usjust as he left us?"

  "Not very friendly--or more friendly?" she replied vaguely, teasingly.And then a little anxiously, as I thought, "Did you and the BlackColonel make any bargain about our old Forbes property which need evercall him back?"

  "Dear me, no! But if it would give you pleasure to see him again soon,why, let us pray for his coming."

  Marget was hurt at this, for she said, "I was only wondering whetherthe Black Colonel will renew the quest here, if he does not reach hisends through the New France venture."

  That question was to be answered by a last long epistle from him, whichcame to me about this time, and which tells his further part in ourstory, a wandering story, like Jock Farquharson.