"Ye'll be for the fushin', sir? Adam, that's my man, will give ye a' the information. He's fell at the saumon; and muckle need to be fell at something," added Janet; "for a mair fusionless man about a house doesna exist. He's no made for an innkeeper. I'm aye telling him that; but I might just as weel keep my breath for ither purposes. It never does him ony good."
"It is all the more to your credit, Mrs.——"
"Oh, you needna fash your head about the mistress. I've aye been Janet, and Janet I'll be to the end o' the chapter. If there had been ony pith in the man, we might, maybe, have risen like the rest of the world; for he's no ignorant, nor yet a gommeral, though ye might think sae to see him: but no pith in him—you would call it spirit, maybe, in English. That's 'the stalk o' carle-hemp in man,' that Robert Burns speaks about. You'll maybe mind? Na, he's no an ill man, but there's nae carle-hemp in him. Sae I have a' upon my shoulders. And, if everything shouldna be just as you wish, it'll be real kind to name it, Mr. Murray. So you're Murray, too? there are a hantle Murrays hereabout. Ye'll be of the Athol family, or——"
"I have lived abroad all my life," said Lewis, "and I have been an orphan since I was very young—so that I know very little about my relations."
He felt very self-conscious as he made this little explanation, and thought it so awkward that he must be found out, but Janet was entirely unsuspicious, and accepted it as a matter of course.
"Eh, that's an awfu' pity," she said, sympathetically; then added, "If ye've been abroad so lang as that, ye'll maybe have met with auld Sir Patrick about the world. That's the grandfather of our misses here—a real grand-looking auld gentleman as ever I set eyes on—but, I'm feared, sir, no sae good as he looked. He's been aye abroad sin ever I mind, and the general and him didna gree; and he has left every penny of his siller that he could meddle with, away frae his family. It's an awfu' hard case," Janet said.
"I have heard something of that: and I think—I have met Sir Patrick."
"I wonder," said Janet, "if ye've seen the lad that did a' the mischief!—a young Frenchman or foreigner he was—that creepit into the auld gentleman's heart, and turned him against his ain flesh and blood. I wouldna have that man's conscience for a' the siller."
"I've seen," said Lewis, colouring in spite of himself, "a young man—to whom Sir Patrick had been very kind—and who loved him as if he had been his father. They were like father and son for years. I don't think he knew anything about the money."
"Eh, that's mair nor I can believe," said Janet, shaking her head. "What was a' that for, if he kent nothing about the money? I canna believe that."
"Do you think foreigners, as you call them, are such canaille—I mean, such brutes and dogs——"
"I ken very well what canailye means," said Janet. "Well, I wouldna be uncharitable. There's maybe some that are mair high-minded, but the most of them, you'll allow, sir, are just for what they can get—'deed the English are maistly the same, in my opinion;—and twa-three Scots, too, for that matter," she added, with a laugh.
"You are entirely wrong in that," said Lewis, with some heat. "Don't you know, in other places, it is the Scotch who are said to be so interested and greedy—always grasping at advantage, always thinking what is to pay."
"Weel," said Janet, "that just shows what I'm saying, how little we ken about our neighbours. Murkley folk canna bide the Braehead, and Braehead has aye an ill word conter Murkley. That's just the way o' the world. Me that's a philosopher's wife, if I'm no philosophical mysel'——"
"Are you a philosopher's wife?" said Lewis, restored to good-humour, as she probably meant he should be, by this statement.
"Oh, sir, do you no ken that? That shows you're little acquaint with this countryside," said Janet. "And yonder he is, just starting for the water; and if I was a fine young gentleman like you, instead of 'biding in the house this fine morning, I would just be aff to the water, too, with Adam. Ye'll find him a diverting companion, sir, though it's maybe no me that should say it. He has a great deal to say for himself when he is in the humour. Hi!" she said, raising her voice, and tapping loudly on the window, "here's the gentleman coming with you, Adam."
This way of getting him out of the house amused Lewis greatly. He did not resist it, indeed the sun was shining so brightly, yet the air was so cool and sweet, a combination little known to the stranger, that he had already felt his blood frisking in his veins. Adam was going leisurely along, with his basket slung around him, and a great machinery of rods and lines over his shoulder. He scarcely paused to let Lewis come up with him, and all he said by way of salutation was, "Ye've nae rod," said somewhat sulkily, Lewis thought, out of the depths of his beard and his chest. And it cannot be said that the description of Janet was very closely fulfilled. Adam was much intent upon his work. If he could be "diverting" when he was in the humour, he was not in the humour to-day.
He led the way down the riverside with scarcely a word, and crossing the unsheltered meadow which lay along the bank, with only a few trees on the edge, soon got within the shelter of the woods. Tay was smooth and smiling as he passed by the meadows and the village; a few yards up the stream there was a ferry, with a large boat, intended to carry horses and carriages over the water, but here, where the fisherman established himself, the placid reach ended abruptly in rapids, rushing among huge boulders, through which the water foamed and fretted, with cliffs rising high on the opposite bank, and an abundance of great trees bending over the water's edge and on the bank, and nodding from the cliff that looked like a ruined tower.
"I was about to ask you if you had much boating here," Lewis said, with a laugh; "but Nature seems to have stopped that."
"You'll no boat much here," said the philosopher, grimly, which was not a profound remark.
He came to a pause upon a green bank, a little opening between the trees opposite the great cliff which reared itself like a great fortification out of the water. The village, the bit of level meadow, the stillness and serene air of comfort seemed to have passed away in a moment to give place to a mountain torrent, the dark water frowning and leaping against the rocks. Adam took some time to arrange all his paraphernalia, to fit his rod, and arrange his bait, during which time he did not deign to address a word to his companion, who watched him with curiosity, but, unfortunately, with a curiosity which was that of ignorance. After he had asked several questions which made this very distinct, the philosopher at last turned round upon him with a sort of slow defiance.
"You're no a fisher," he said. "What will have brocht ye here?"
This was to Adam the most simple and natural of questions; but it somewhat disturbed Lewis, who was conscious of intentions not perfectly straightforward. Necessity, which is the best quickener of wit, came to his aid. He bethought himself of a little sketch-book he had in his pocket, and drew that out.
"There are other things than fishing to bring one into a beautiful country," he said.
"Oh, ay," said Adam, "if you're o' the airtist class—" Perhaps there was a shade of contempt in his tone. But, if so, he changed it quickly, with a respect for his companion's feelings, which was the height of politeness. "There's mony comes this way, but to my mind they should a' gang a wee further. We're naething in comparison with the real Highlands."
For nearly an hour he said no more; the little click of the reel, the sweep of the water, the occasional leap of a fish, the multitudinous hum of insects were all the sounds about. Lewis seated himself on the grass, and began to justify his title of artist by beginning a sketch at once. He had a pretty amateur talent, and could accomplish without much difficulty the kind of sketch which seems to promise great things. The promise was never fulfilled, but that mattered little. The bold cliff opposite, the mass of rock half way across the stream, which at that point lashed the rapid water into fury, the deeper shadow under the bank, the blaze of light where the trees opened, and flickering intermixture of light and shade where the foliage was thicker, gave exactly the picturesque effect necessary for such a composition as amateurs love.
As he sat on the grass, sketching this unfamiliar landscape, with the silent figure by his side, manipulating his line, and the rush of the water in his ears like a new language, Lewis could not but smile to himself at the strange revolution in his own thoughts and surroundings. His connections had been entirely urban. Old historical towers, churches, and palaces had been the shrines at which he had paid his devotions. Of Nature he knew next to nothing, and to think that his first acquaintance with her should be made on the banks of the Tay was strange indeed. The Tiber would have been more likely, that yellow stream to which its sons paid a most undeserved compliment when they hailed the noble Tay as its resemblance. But there was something in the coolness and sweetness of this still hour which moved Lewis strangely. He had been more used to the cicali in the trees than to the endless twitter of the northern woods, the perpetual concert in which "the mavis and the merle were singing," and to avoid the grass as perhaps full of snakes, and to fear the sun as it is feared where its fury gives sudden death. He sat in the full blaze of it now with a pleased abandonment of all precautions. It was altogether like a pleasant dream.
"Is that a house behind the cliff high up among those trees?" he said. He could not help thinking of a similar corner of old masonry peering through the olive groves on a slope of the Apennines; but how different this was! "And who may live there, I wonder?" he added, pausing to look sideways at his sketch, in the true artistic pose.
Adam was very busy at that moment; he gave a sort of oblique glance upwards from the corner of his eyes, but he was struggling with his first fish, which was far too important a crisis to be mixed up with talk, or vain answers to useless questions. It was not till he had pulled out his prize, and deposited the glistening, gasping trout upon the grass with a grunt of fatigue and satisfaction, that he took any notice of what his companion said. Lewis got up to look at it as it leaped its last in a convulsive flutter. He was no sportsman—indeed, he was so little of his race that the sight of dying was painful to him even in this uninteresting example. But he knew better than to show this.
"That's a fine ane," said Adam—"no so big as mony, but a strong creature; he has most strained my wrist wi' his acteevity. Ye were asking what house is yon. It is old Stormont Tower, a bit poor place, but as old as the hills themselves. You that makes pictures, did ye ever see a bonnier picture than that?"
"Is it for the value of the fish or the pleasure of catching it," said Lewis, "that you put a stop to its enjoyment? That's a more pleasant picture, I think," and he pointed to the sudden gleam of a salmon leaping in the middle of the stream.
Adam cast a glance at him of mingled curiosity and disdain.
"I said ye were nae fisher the first look I got at ye," he said. "And ye find more pleasure in making scarts upon paper than in sport?" he added, a minute after, in a solemn tone.
"At least, the scarts on the paper do no one any harm," said Lewis, laughing. But he acknowledged the ineffectualness of his occupation by forthwith putting away his sketch-book.
Adam saw this too with the corner of his eye, and apparently was mollified by the withdrawal of that peaceful competitor Art from the regions sacred to a stouter occupation. After a while, he spoke again,
"Sport," he said, "I'll no deny, is a mystery. That ye should take your pleasure in what's pain and death to another poor creature, maybe just as good as yoursel'—it's a real funny thing when you come to think o't. I can gi'e no explanation. I've taken mony a thought on the subject mysel'. That's how we're made, I suppose—to see the thing fecht for its life, that's your pleasure, and to battle wi' 't and get the upper hand. I canna be sorry for a trout," he said, casting a slow glance at the fish; "it's just made for a man's dinner, and that's the short and the long of it; but a deer, now—a grand creature, carrying yon muckle horns like a king his crown, and a wheen skulking murderers lying in wait for him, letting fly when the poor beast comes up unsuspecting! I'm not a deer-stalker," said Adam, with more simplicity than philosophy, making up
|
"For sins he was inclined to |
"and I just canna bide yon."
Upon which he cast his line once more, and Lewis, though he did not feel any pleasure in the sight of the last convulsions, began to watch with interest, which gradually grew into excitement, the skill with which Adam plied his trade, the cunning arts by which he beguiled a wary old Tay trout, up to a great many things, into acceptance of the fly which dangled before his nose. The trout was experienced, but the man was too much for him. Then there ensued that struggle between the two which strained the fisherman's skill and patience to the utmost. The little drama roused the spectator out of his calm and almost repugnance. He followed it to its conclusion with almost as much real, and considerably more apparent, excitement than Adam himself, and scarcely repressed a "hurrah!" of triumph when the prey was finally secured.
"I tell't you sae," said Adam. "That's just the way with man; ye canna get the pleasure without the killing o' the creature. It's a queer thing, but most things are queer. You'll have been at the college, and studied pheelosophy, nae doubt? but you'll no explain that to me: nor me, I can give no explanation, that have turned the thing o'er and o'er in my head. Life's just a long puzzle from the beginning o't to the end o't, and if you once begin to question what it means, ye'll never be done, nor ye'll never get any satisfaction," Adam said.
Lewis did not take this bait as perhaps a young scholar, one of the Oxford men to whom Adam was accustomed, who haunted these banks in the autumn, or still more keenly an argumentative youth from Aberdeen or St. Andrews might have done. He had known no college training, and had little reading of the graver sort, but he pleased the fisherman almost as much by his conversion to the excitement of sport to which indeed he was as little accustomed as to philosophy. The hours passed on quickly in the sweet air and sunshine, with the rhythm of the quick-flowing river and the dramatic episodes of trout catching, and all the novelty and freshness of the new world which was widening out around the young man. He tried to beguile Adam to talk about matters which were still more interesting to himself, but the philosopher had not that lively interest in his fellow-creatures, at least of the human kind, which usually characterizes the village sage.
When Adam's creel was full they went back, but by a round which brought them in sight of the gate which Lewis remembered having passed through on the previous night; the turrets of the old house showed over the trees, and the young man looked at them with a quickened beating of his heart. He was strangely simple in some matters, straightforward in his ideas as Englishmen rarely are, and the secret intention in his mind which had actuated his coming here moved all his pulses at this sudden reminder. He looked curiously at the trees which hid this dwelling-place. He did not know how to get access to it, how to carry out his intention; but there it was, the aim of his journey, the future scene of—how could he tell what? The future was all vague, but yet alight with pleasant chances, he did not even know whether to call them hopes. He was standing still gazing at the old house when he suddenly heard voices behind him, kind salutations to Adam, to which the fisherman replied with some cordiality. Lewis turned round quickly, for the voices were feminine and refined, though they had a whiff of accent to which he was as yet unaccustomed. It was a group of three ladies who had paused to speak to Adam, and were looking with interest at his fish. They were all in black dresses, standing out in the midst of the sunshine, three slim, clear-marked figures. The furthest from him was shorter than the others, and wore a veil which partially concealed her face; the two who were talking were evidently sisters and of ripe years. They talked both together, one voice overlapping the other.
"What fine fish you have got, Adam!" "And what a creel-ful! you've been lucky to-day." "If Janet can spare us a couple, the cook will be very thankful." "Dear me, that will be pleasant if Janet can spare us a couple," they said.
After a few more questions they passed on, nodding and waving their hands. "Come, Lilias," they called both together, looking back to the third, who said nothing but "Good day, Adam," in a younger, softer voice.
Lewis stood aside to let them pass, and took off his hat. It was evidently a surprise to the ladies to see the stranger stand uncovered as they passed. They looked at him keenly, and made some half audible comments to each other. "Who will that be now, Jean?" "It will be some English lad for the fishing, Margaret," Lewis heard, and laughed to himself. Though he did not know much about Scotland, he had of course picked up a Scotch novel now and then, and knew well enough that what he profanely and carelessly, in the unconscious insolence of his youth, called eccentric old ladies were figures invariable in such productions. These no doubt were the Miss Grizzy and Miss Jacky of Murkley. The little encounter pleased him. He should no doubt make acquaintance with them and see the humours of the country at first hand. The third little figure with the blue veil scarcely attracted his eye at all; he saw her, but did not observe her. The blinding gauze hid anything that might have raised his curiosity. She was less imposing in every way, and when they both turned again with a "Come, Lilias," their air gave their little companion the aspect of a child. He quickened his pace to make up to Adam, who, though he seemed to plod along with slow, large steps which had no appearance of speed, yet tasked his younger companion, who was easily beguiled by any temptation of the way, to keep up with him.
"Are those village people?" Lewis said.
"Eh? What was that you were saying?"
"Are those two ladies—village people? I mean do they live hereabout?"
Adam turned slowly half round upon him. His large and somewhat hazy blue eyes uprose from between the bush of his shaggy eyebrows and the redness of his beard, and contemplated the young man curiously.
"Yon's—the misses at the castle," Adam said.
"The misses?" Still Lewis did not take in what was meant; he repeated the word with a smile.
"Our misses, the leddies at the castle," said Adam, laconically.
Lewis was so profoundly astonished that he gave a cry of dismay.
"The ladies at the castle?—Miss Murray of Murkley?" he said.
"Ay," said Adam, once more fixing him with a tranquil but somewhat severe gaze. Then after a minute's reflection, "And wherefore no?"
Then Lewis laughed loud and long, with a mixture of excitement and derision in his astonishment: the derision was at himself, but Adam was not aware of this, and a shade of offence gradually came over as much as was visible of his face.
"You're easy pleased with a joke," he said. "I canna say I see it." And went on with his long steps devouring the way.
Lewis followed after a little, perhaps slightly ashamed of his self-betrayal, although there was no betrayal in it save to himself. As he looked round again he saw the group of ladies standing at the Murkley gate. Probably their attention had been roused by the sudden peal of his laughter, of which he now felt deeply ashamed. They were going in at the smaller gate, which the lodgekeeper stood holding open for them, but had paused apparently to look what it was that called forth the young stranger's mirth. He was so self-conscious altogether that he could scarcely believe the occasion of his laugh must be a mystery to them, and felt ashamed of it as if they had been in the secret. His impulse was to rush up to them, to assure them that it did not matter, with an eagerness of shame and compunction which already made his face crimson. What was it that did not matter? But then he came to himself, and blushed more deeply than ever, and slunk away. He did not hear the remarks the ladies made, but divined them in his heart. What they said was brief enough, and he had indeed divined it more or less.
"What is the lad laughing at? Do you think he is so ill-bred as to be laughing at us, Jean?"
"What could he find to laugh at in us, Margaret?"
"'Deed that is what I don't know. Let me look at you. There is nothing wrong about you that I can see, Jean."
"Nor about you, Margaret. It is, maybe, Lilias and her blue veil."
"Yes; it's odious of you," cried the third, suddenly seizing that disguise in her hands and plucking it from her face, "to muffle me up in this thing."
"You will not think that, my dear, when you see how it saves your complexion. No doubt it was just the blue veil; but he must be a very ill-bred young man."