John Burnet of Barns: A Romance

by John Buchan

  CHAPTER VI

  HOW MASTER GILBERT BURNET PLAYED A GAME AND WAS CHECKMATED

  That night I was too wearied and sore in body to sleep. My mind alsowas troubled, for I had made an enemy of my cousin, who, as I knew, wasnot of a nature to forgive readily. His words about Marjory had put meinto a ferment of anxiety. Here was my love, bound to me by no promise,at the mercy of all the gallants of the countryside. Who was I, to callmyself her lover, when, as yet, no word of love had passed between us?Yet, in my inmost heart, I knew that I might get the promise any day Ichose. Then thoughts of my cousin came to trouble me. I feared him nomore than a fly in matters betwixt man and man; but might he not take itinto his head to make love to the mistress of Dawyck? and all maidsdearly love a dashing cavalier. At length, after much stormyindecision, I made up my mind. I would ride to Dawyck next morn and getmy lady's word, and so forestall Gilbert, or any other.

  I woke about six o'clock; and, looking out from the narrow window, forBarns had been built three hundred years before, I saw that the sky wascloudless and blue, and the morning as clear as could be seen in spring.I hastily dressed, and, getting some slight breakfast from Jean Morran,saddled Maisie, who was now as active as ever, and rode out among thetrees. I feared to come to Dawyck too early, so I forded Tweed belowthe island, and took the road up the further bank by Lyne and Stobo.All the world was bright; an early lark sang high in the heaven; merlesand thrushes were making fine music among the low trees by the river.The haze was lifting off the great Manor Water hills; the Red Syke, thescene of the last night's escapade, looked very distant in the morninglight; and far beyond all Dollar Law and the high hills about Manorheadwere flushed with sunlight on their broad foreheads. A great gladnessrose in me when I looked at the hills, for they were the hills of my owncountry; I knew every glen and corrie, every water and little burn.Before me the Lyne Water hills were green as grass with no patch ofheather, and to the left, the mighty form of Scrape, half-clothed inforest, lay quiet and sunlit. I know of no fairer sight on earth; andthis I say, after having travelled in other countries, and seensomething of their wonders; for, to my mind, there is a grace, a wildloveliness in Tweedside, like a flower-garden on the edge of a moorland,which is wholly its own.

  I crossed Lyne Water by the new bridge, just finished in the yearbefore, and entered the wood of Dawyck. For this great forest stretcheson both sides of Tweed, though it is greater on the side on which standsthe house. In the place where I rode it was thinner, and the treessmaller, and, indeed, around the little village of Stobo, there lies anopen part of some fields' width. At the little inn there, I had amorning's draught of ale, for I was somewhat cold with riding in thespring air. Then I forded Tweed at a place called the Cow Ford, and,riding through a wide avenue of lime-trees, came in sight of the greytowers of Dawyck.

  I kept well round to the back, for I did not care that the serving-folkshould see me and spread tales over all the countryside. I knew thatMarjory's window looked sharp down on a patch of green lawn, bordered bylime-trees, so I rode into the shadow and dismounted. I whistled thricein a way which I had, and which Marjory had learned to know long before,when we were children, and I used to come and beguile her out for longtrampings among the hills. To-day it had no effect, for the singing ofbirds drowned my notes, so I had nothing left but to throw bits of barkagainst her window. This rude expedient met with more success than itdeserved, for in a minute I saw her face behind the glass. She smiledgladly when she saw me, and disappeared, only to appear again in thelittle door beside the lilacs. She had no hat, so her bright hair hungloose over her neck and was blown about by the morning winds. Her cheekswere pink and white, like apple-blossom, and her lithe form was clad ina dress of blue velvet, plainly adorned as for a country maiden. Aspray of lilac was in her breast, and she carried a bunch ofsweet-smelling stuff in her hands.

  She came gladly towards me, her eyes dancing with pleasure. "How soonyou have returned! And how brave you look," said she, with many morepretty and undeserved compliments.

  "Ay, Marjory," I answered, "I have come back to Tweeddale, for I havehad enough of Glasgow College and books, and I was wearying for thehills and Tweed and a sight of your face. There are no maidens who comenear to you with all their finery. You are as fair as the spring liliesin the garden at Barns."

  "Oh, John," she laughed, "where did you learn to pay fine compliments?You will soon be as expert at the trade as any of them. I met a manyesterday in the woods who spoke like you, though with a more practisedair; but I bade him keep his fine words for his fine ladies, for theysuited ill with the hills and a plain country maid."

  At this, I must suppose that my brows grew dark, for she went onlaughingly.

  "Nay, you are not jealous? It ill becomes a scholar and a philosopheras you are, Master John, to think so much of an idle word. Confess,sir, that you are jealous. Why, you are as bad as a lady in a play."

  I could not make out her mood, which was a new one to me--a mockingpleasant raillery, which I took for the rightful punishment of my pastfollies.

  "I am not jealous," I said, "for jealousy is a feeling which needs anobject ere it can exist. No man may be jealous, unless he has somethingto be jealous about."

  "John, John," she cried, and shook her head prettily, "you areincorrigible. I had thought you had learned manners in the town, andbehold, you are worse than when you went away. You come here, and yourfirst word to me is that I am nothing."

  "God knows," I said, "I would fain be jealous, and yet--" I becameawkward and nervous, for I felt that my mission was not prospering, andthat I was becoming entangled in a maze of meaningless speech. Theshortest and plainest way is still the best in love as in all things.

  But I was not to be let off, and she finished my sentence for me. "Ifonly you could find a worthy object for your feeling, you mean," shesaid. "Very well, sir, since I am so little valued in your eyes, we willspeak no more on the matter."

  "Marjory," I said, coming to the matter at once, "you and I have beenold comrades. We have fished and walked together, we have climbed thehills and ridden in the meadows. I have done your bidding for manyyears."

  "True, John," she said with an accent of grudging reminiscence, "youhave dragged me into many a pretty pickle. I have torn my dress onrough rocks and soaked my shoes in bogs, all in your company. Surely wehave had a brave time together."

  "You met a man in the wood yesterday who would fain have made love toyou. That man was my cousin Gilbert."

  "Oh," she replied in a tone of mock solemnity and amused wonder, for Ihad blurted out my last words like the last dying confession of someprisoner. "Verily you are honoured in your cousinship, John."

  "It is against him and such as him that I would protect you," I said.

  "Nay," she cried, with an affected remonstrance. "I will have nofighting between cousins on my account. I will even defend myself, asAlison did when the miller made love to her."

  "O Marjory," I burst out, "will you not give me this right to defendyou? We have been old companions, but it was only yesterday that I knewhow dearly I loved you. I have had more cares since yester-night thanever in my life. We have been comrades in childhood; let us be comradeson the rough paths of the world."

  I spoke earnestly, and her face, which had been filled with mockery,changed gently to something akin to tenderness.

  "How little you know of women!" she cried. "I have loved you for years,thinking of you at all times, and now you come to-day, speaking as ifyou had scarce seen me before. Surely I will bear you company in life,as I have been your comrade at its beginning."

  What followed I need scarce tell, since it is but part of the old comedyof life, which our grandfathers and grandmothers played before us, andmayhap our grand-children will be playing even now when our back isturned. Under the spring sky among the lilies we plighted our troth forthe years, and I entered from careless youth into the dim and resoluteregion of manhood.<
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  With a great joy in my heart I rode home. I took the high way over theshoulder of Scrape, for I knew that few folk ever went that road, and Iwished to be alone. The birds were singing, the fresh clean air wasblowing on my face, and the primroses and wind-flowers made a gay carpetunder my horse's feet. All the earth seemed to partake in my gladness.It was a good world, I thought, full of true hearts, fair faces, andmuch good; and though I have seen much wickedness and sorrow in my day,I am still of the same way of thinking. It is a brave world; a royalworld for brave-hearted men.

  When I came to Barns I found that my cousin had gone out an hour sinceand left my father greatly wondering at my absence. He sat in the chairby the fireplace, looking more withered and old than I had ever seenhim. My heart smote me for not staying at his side, and so I sat downby him and told him many things of my doings in Glasgow, and how Idesired above all things to see the world, having had my fill of booksand colleges. Then I told him what he had long guessed, of my love forMarjory Veitch and the promise which she had given me. He heard me insilence, but when he spoke, his words were cheerful, for he had longliked the lass. He made no refusal, too, to the rest of my plans. "Youshall go and see the world, John," he said, "and take my blessing withyou. It ill becomes a young mettlesome lad in these stirring times tolounge at home, when he might be wearing a steel breastplate in theKing's Guards, or trying the manners of twenty nations. Though I couldwish you to bide at home, for I am an old broken man with few pleasures,and I love the sight of your face."

  "Nay, I will never leave you," I said, "an you wish it. I am young yetand a boy's road is a long road. Time enough for all."

  After this I went out to see if the Weasel had come to any mishap in thelast night's ride. I found him as stout as ever, so I saddled him androde away by the green haughlands up the valley of the Manor, for Ilonged for motion and air to relieve my spirit: and coming home in theafternoon, I found my cousin returned and sitting with my father in thedining-hall.

  He glanced sharply at me when I entered, and I saw by his looks that hewas in no good temper. His heavy face was flushed and his shaggyeyebrows were lowered more than their wont.

  "Where have you been, Gilbert?" I asked. "I found you gone when I cameback in the morning."

  "I took my horse down to Peebles to the farrier. Its knees were sorelyhurt last night on your infernal hills."

  Now I knew that this was a lie, for I had looked at his horse before Iwent out in the morning, and its wounds were so slight that it wouldhave been mere folly to take him to a farrier; and Gilbert, I well knew,was not the man to be in error where horses were concerned. So I judgedthat he had ridden in the contrary direction, and gone to Dawyck, and,as I inferred from his sour looks, met with no good reception there. Icould afford to be generous; I felt a sort of half-pity for hisdiscomfiture, and forbore to ask him any further questions.

  We sat down to supper, he and I and my father, in a sober frame of mind.I was full of my own thoughts, which were of the pleasantest; my cousinwas plainly angry with something or other; and my father, in hisweakness dimly perceiving that all was not right, set himself to mendmatters by engaging him in talk.

  "You're a good shot with the musket, they tell me, Gibbie," he said,using the old name which he had called him by when he first came toBarns as a boy, "and I was thinking that it would be a rare ploy for youand John to go down the water to Traquair, where Captain Keith's horseare lying. He is an old friend of mine, and would be blithe to see anyof my kin. They tell me he has great trials of skill in all exercises,and that he has gathered half the gentry in the place about him."

  "John," said my cousin in a scornful voice, "John is too busily employedat Dawyck to care much for anything else. A flighty maid is a soreburden on any man."

  "I would have you learn, Master Gilbert," I said angrily, "to speak in abetter way of myself and my friends. You may be a very great gentlemanelsewhere, but you seem to leave your gentility behind when you comehere."

  Now my cousin and I were of such opposite natures that I took mostthings seriously, while he found matter for a jest in all--yet not infull good-nature, but with a touch of acrid satire.

  "Even a barn-door cock will defend his own roost. How one sees the truthof proverbs!"

  And then he added that which I will not set down, but which brought myfather and myself to our feet with flashing eyes and quivering lips. Iwould have spoken, but my father motioned me to be silent.

  "Gilbert," he said, his voice shaking with age and anger, "you willleave this house the morn. I will have no scoundrelly fellow of yourkidney here. You are no true nephew of mine, and God pity the fatherthat begat you."

  My cousin smiled disdainfully and rose from his chair. "Surely I willgo and at once when my hospitable uncle bids me. The entertainment inthis damned hole is not so good as to keep me long. As for you, CousinJohn," and he eyed me malignantly, "you and I will meet some day, wherethere are no dotards and wenches to come between us. Then I promise yousome sport. Till then, farewell. I will down to Peebles to-night andtrouble you no more." With a wave of his hand he was gone, and fiveminutes later we heard his horse's hooves clatter over the stones of theyard.

  When he was gone his conduct came back to my father with a rush, and hefell to upbraiding himself for his breach of hospitality and familyhonour. He would have me call Gilbert back, and when I showed him howfutile it was, fell into low spirits and repented in great bitterness.

  Now the worst of this day's business remains to be told. For when Ilooked at my father some time after I found him sunk in his chair withhis face as pale as death. With the help of Jean Morran and Tam Todd Igot him to bed, from which he never rose, but passed peacefully away inthe fear of God two days later. The heat into which he had been thrownwas the direct cause, and though I could not very well lay the thing tomy cousin's charge when the man was already so far down the vale ofyears, yet in my heart I set it against him. Indeed from this day Idate my antagonism to the man, which before had been a mere boyishrivalry.

  I stayed with my father to the end. Just before he died he bade me comenear and gave me his blessing, bidding me be a better gentleman than hehad been. We did not bury him in the Kirk of Lyne, for he had alwayssaid he never could abide to lie within walls. but on a green flat aboveTweed, where the echo of the river and the crying of moorbirds are neverabsent from his grave.