THE 12th of January was a still, gray winter day, not very cold and exceedingly calm, the winds all hushed, the clouds hanging low, with a possibility of rain—a possibility which is never remote in a Highland landscape. As the slow daylight began to bring the hills into sight, not with any joyous sunrising but with a faint diffusion of gray upon the dark, a gradual growing visible of the greater points, then very slowly of the details of the landscape, there came also into sight, first ghost-like, a moving, noiseless shadow, then something which consolidated into the slim figure of a woman, a solitary traveller moving steadily along the dewy mountain road. It came in sight like the hills, not like an interruption to the landscape but a portion of it, becoming visible along with it, having been in the dark as well as in the light. Before the day was fully awake it was there, a gliding shadow going straight up the hills and over the moors, at the same measured pace, not so much quick as steady, with a wonderful still intensity of progress. The road was more than dewy, it was glistening wet with the heavy damps of the night, every crevice among the rocks green and sodden, every stone glistening. The traveller did not keep exactly to the road, was not afraid of the wet hillside turf, nor even of a gray dyke to climb if it shortened the way. She passed lightly over bits of moss among the rustling, faded heather, and spots of suspicious greenness which meant bog, choosing her footing on the black roots of the wild myrtle, and the knolls of blackberries, like one to the manner born. She gave a soul to the wild and green landscape, so lonely, so washed with morning dews. She was going—where? From the impossible to the possible—from the solitudes of the hills into the world.
Kirsteen had been walking for hours before she thus came into sight, and the dark and the silence had filled her with many a flutter of terror. It took something from what might have been in other circumstances the overwhelming excitement of thus leaving home to encounter that other bewildering and awful sensation of going out into the night, with every one asleep and all wrapped in the profound blackness of winter, through which it was hard enough even for the most familiar to find a way. This horror and alarm had so occupied her mind, and the sensation of being the one creature moving and conscious in that world of darkness that she had scarcely realized the severance she was making, the tearing asunder of her life. Even Marg’ret, repressing her emotion lest a sob should catch some wakeful ear in the sleeping house, had faded from Kirsteen’s mind when she took the first step into the dark. She knew there were no wild beasts who could devour her, no robbers who would seize her, as she had fancied when a child: she had a trembling sense that God would protect her from ghosts and spiritual evils; but her young soul trembled with fears both physical and spiritual, just as much as when she had wandered out in the dark at six years old. Reason convinces but does not always support the inexperienced spirit. When the ever wakeful dogs at the little clachan heard the faint footfall upon the edge of the path and barked, Kirsteen was half-consoled and half-maddened with terror. If some one should wake and wonder, and suspect a midnight thief, and burst open a door and find her; but on the other hand it was a little comfort to feel that even a dog was waking in that black expanse of night.
She had already come a long way, before the daylight, when she and the landscape that inclosed her came dimly, faintly into sight in the first gray of the morning. Her eyes had got accustomed to the darkness, her heart a little calmed and sustained by the fact that nothing had happened to her yet, no hidden malefactor in the dark, nor sheeted whiteness from the churchyard interrupting her on her way. Her heart had beat while she passed, loud enough to have wakened the whole clachan, but nothing had stirred, save the dogs—and safe as in the warmest daylight she had got by the graves. Nothing could be so bad as that again. Partly by familiar knowledge and partly by the consciousness of certain gradations in the darkness as she became used to it, she had got forward on her way until she had reached the head of the loch where the water was a guide to her. Kirsteen had resolved that she would not venture to approach the town or cross the loch in the boat, the usual way, but taking a large sweep round the end of the loch, strike at once into the wilds which lay between her and the comparatively higher civilization of the regions within reach of Glasgow. If she could but reach that great city, which was only second in her dim conceptions to London itself, she would feel that she was safe, but not before. She came round the head of the loch in the beginnings of the dawn and had pushed her way far into the gloomy mystery of Hell’s Glen, with its bare hills rising to the dim sky on either side, before the height of noon. It is gloomy there even when the height of noon means the dazzling of a Highland summer day. But when the best of the daylight is a dull gray, the long lines of the glen, unbroken by anything but a shepherd’s hut here and there at long intervals, and the road that could be seen winding through like a strip of ribbon all the way gave the fugitive a mingled sense of serenity and of that tingling, audible solitude and remoteness from all living aid or society which thrills every nerve. When she was half way through the glen, however, the thrill was subdued by that experience of no harm as yet which is the most perfect of support, and Kirsteen began to be conscious that she had eaten nothing and scarcely rested since she set out. She had swallowed a mouthful as she walked—she had thrown herself down for a moment on the hillside—but now it seemed possible to venture upon a little real rest.
Kirsteen was dressed in a dark woollen gown of homespun stuff, made like all the dresses of the time, with a straight, long, narrow skirt, and a short bodice cut low round her shoulders. Over this she had a warm spencer, another bodice with long sleeves, rising to her throat, where it was finished with a frill. She had strong country shoes and woollen stockings just visible under her skirt. Her bonnet was a little of the coal-scuttle shape but not very large; and flung back over it, but so that she could put it down over her face at a moment’s notice, was a large black veil, such an imitation of Spanish lace as was practicable at the time, better in workmanship, worse in material than anything we have now. The large pattern with its gigantic flowers in thick work hid the face better than any lighter fabric, and it hung over the bonnet when thrown back like a cloud. She had a bundle on one arm, done up carefully in a handkerchief containing two changes of linen, and another gown, carefully folded by Marg’ret into the smallest possible space; and on the other a camlet cloak, dark blue, with a fur collar and metal clasps, which was Marg’ret’s own. This was sore lading for a long walk, but it was indispensable in face of the January winds, and the cold on the coach, of which Marg’ret knew dreadful things. To Kirsteen it seemed that if she could but reach that coach, and pursue her journey by the aid of other legs than her own, and with company, all her troubles would be over. She sat upon the hillside anxiously watching the path lest any suspicious figure should appear upon it, and took out from her wallet the last scones of Marg’ret’s she was likely to eat for a long time. Should she ever eat Marg’ret’s scones again? Salt tears came to Kirsteen’s eyes and moistened her comely face. It was done now—the dreadful step taken, never to be altered, the parting made. Her life and her home lay far behind her, away beyond the hills that shut her in on every side. She said to herself with trembling lips that the worst was over; by this time every one in Drumcarro would know that she was gone. They would have looked for her in every corner, up on the hill and down by the linn where the water poured into the vexed and foaming gulf. Would it come into anybody’s head that she had thrown herself in and made an end of everything?
“The only art her guilt to cover.”
Would they send and tell Glendochart, poor old gentleman—would they warn him not to come to a distressed house? Or would he be allowed to come and her father say to him: “She is not worthy of a thought. She is no bairn of mine from this day”? “And my mother will go to her bed,” said Kirsteen to herself with a tear or two, yet with the faint gleam of a smile. She could see them all in their different ways—her father raging, her mother weeping, and Mary telling everybody that she was not surprised. And Marg’ret—Marg’ret would put on a steady countenance so that nobody could tell what she knew and what she didn’t know. It almost amused Kirsteen though it made her breath come quick, and brought the tears to her eyes, to sit thus in the deep solitude with the silence of the hills all thrilling round, and look down as it were upon that other scene, a strangely interested spectator, seeing everything, and her own absence which was the strangest of all.
But perhaps she sat too long and thought too much, or the damp of the sod had cramped her young limbs, or the tremendous walk of the morning told more after an interval of rest, for when she roused herself at last and got up again, Kirsteen felt a universal ache through her frame, and stumbled as she came down from her perch to the road below. How was she to get through Glencroe to Arrochar—another long and weary course? The solitude of the glen came upon her again with a thrill of horror. If she could not walk any better than this it would be dark, dark night again before she came to the end of her journey—would she ever come to the end of her journey? Would she drop down upon the hill and lie there till some one found her? A wave of discouragement and misery came over her. There was a house within sight, one of those hovels in which still the Highland shepherd or crofter is content to live. Kirsteen knew such interiors well—the clay floor, the black, smoke-darkened walls, the throng of children round the fire: there was no room to take in a stranger, no way of getting help for her to push on with her journey. All the pictures of imagination fled from her, scant and troubled though they had been. Everything in the world seemed wept out except the sensation of this wild solitude, the aching of her tired limbs, the impossibility of getting on, her own dreadful loneliness and helplessness in this wild, silent, unresponsive world.
Kirsteen could scarcely tell how she dragged herself to the entrance of the glen. A little solitary mountain farm or gillie’s house stood at some distance from the road, approached by a muddy cart-track. The road was bad enough, not much more than a track, for there were as yet no tourists (nay, no magician to send them thither) in those days. A rough cart came lumbering down this path as she crept her way along, and soon made up to her. Kirsteen had made up her mind to ask for a “cast” or “lift” to help her along, but her courage failed her when the moment came, and she allowed the rude vehicle to lumber past with a heart that ached as much as her limbs to see this chance of ease slip by. She endeavoured as much as she could to keep within a certain distance of the cart “for company,” to cheat the overwhelming loneliness which had come over her. And perhaps the carter, who was an elderly rustic with grizzled hair, perceived her meaning, perhaps he saw the longing look in her eyes. After he had gone on a little way he turned and came slowly back. “Maybe you’re ower genteel for the like of that,” he said, “but I would sooner ye thought me impident than leave you your lane on this rough long road. Would you like a lift in the cart? There’s clean straw in it, and you’re looking weariet.”
Poor Kirsteen had nearly wept for pleasure. She seated herself upon the clean straw with a sense of comfort which no carriage could have surpassed. It was a mode of conveyance not unknown to her. The gig had seldom been vouchsafed to the use of the girls in Drumcarro. They had much more often been packed into the cart. She thanked the friendly carter with all her heart. “For I am weariet,” she said, “and the road’s wet and heavy both for man and beast.”
“Ye’ll have come a far way,” he said, evidently feeling that desire for information or amusement which unexpected company is wont to raise in the rustic heart.
Kirsteen answered that she had come from a little place not far from Loch Fyne, then trembled lest she had betrayed herself.
“It’s very Hieland up there,” said the carter; “that’s the country of the Lord their God the Duke, as Robbie Burns calls him. We have him here too, but no so overpowering. Ye’ll be a Campbell when you’re at hame?”
“No, I am not a Campbell,” said Kirsteen. It occurred to her for the first time that she must give some account of herself. “I’m going,” she said, “to take up—a situation.”
“I just thought that. ’Twill be some pingling trade like showing or hearing weans their letters, keeping ye in the house and on a seat the haill day long?”
“Something of that kind,” Kirsteen said.
“And you’re a country lass, and used to the air of the hills. Take you care—oh, take care! I had one mysel’—as fine a lass as ye would see, with roses on her cheeks, and eyes just glancing bright like your ain; and as weel and as hearty as could be. But before a twelvemonth was o’er, her mother and me we had to bring her hame.”
“Oh,” cried Kirsteen, “I am very sorry—but she’s maybe better.”
“Ay, she’s better,” said the carter. “Weel—wi’ her Faither which is in heaven.”
“Oh, I’m sorry, sorry!” cried Kirsteen, with tears in her eyes.
“Thank ye for that: ye have a look of her: I couldna pass ye by: but eh, for Gudesake if ye have faither and mother to break their hearts for you, take care.”
“You must have liked her well, well!” said the girl. Fatigue and languor in herself added to the keen sense of sympathy and pity. “I wish it had been me instead of her,” she said hastily.
“Eh,” said the man, “that’s a sair thing to say! Ye must be an orphan with none to set their hearts on you—but you’re young, poor thing, and there’s nae telling what good may come to ye. Ye must not let down your heart.”
The cart rumbled on with many a jolt, the carter jogged by the side and talked, the sound and motion were both drowsy, and Kirsteen was extremely tired. By and by these sounds and sensations melted into a haze of almost beatitude, the drowsiness that comes over tired limbs and spirit when comparative ease succeeds to toil. After a while she lost consciousness altogether and slept nestled in the straw, like a tired child. She was awakened by the stoppage of the cart, and opening her eyes to the gray yet soft heavens above and the wonder of waking in the open air, found herself at the end of a road which led up to a farmstead at the mouth of Glencroe where the valley opens out upon the shore of that long inlet of the sea which is called Loch Long.
“I’m wae to disturb ye, but I must take the cairt back to the town, and my ain house is two miles down the loch. But there’s a real dacent woman at the inn at Arrochar.”
“It’s there I was going,” said Kirsteen hurriedly sliding from her place. She had been covered with her camlet cloak as she lay, and the straw had kept her warm. “I’m much obliged to you,” she said—“will ye take a—will ye let me give you—”
“No a farden, no a farden,” cried the man. “I would convoy ye to Mrs. Macfarlane’s door, but I have to supper my horse. Will ye gie me a shake of your hand? You’re a bonny lass and I hope ye’ll be a guid ane—but mind there’s awfu’ temptations in thae towns.”
Kirsteen walked away very stiff but refreshed, half angry, half amused by this last caution. She said to herself with a blush that he could not have known who she was—a lady! or he would not have given her that warning, which was not applicable to the like of her. They said poor lassies in service, out among strangers, stood in need of it, poor things. It was not a warning that had any meaning to a gentlewoman; but how was the man to know?
She went on still in a strange confusion of weariness and the haze of awakening to where the little town of Arrochar lay low by the banks of the loch. It was dark there sooner than in other places, and already a light or two began to twinkle in the windows. Two or three men were lingering outside the inn when Kirsteen reached the place, and daunted her—she who was never daunted. She went quickly past, as quickly as her fatigue would admit, as if she knew where she was going. She thought to herself that if any one remarked it would be thought she was going home to her friends, going to some warm and cheerful kent place—and she a waif and outcast on the world! When she had passed, she loitered and looked back, finding a dim corner where nobody could see her, behind the little hedge of a cottage garden. Presently a woman in a widow’s cap came briskly out to the door of the little inn, addressing a lively word or two to the loitering men, which made them move and disperse; and now was Kirsteen’s time. She hurried back and timidly approached the woman at the inn door as if she had been a princess. “Ye’ll maybe be Mistress Macfarlane?” said Kirsteen.
“I’m just that; and what may ye be wanting? Oh, I see you’re a traveller,” said the brisk landlady; “you’ll be wanting lodging for the night.”
“If you have a room ye can give me—with a bed—I’ve had a long walk—from near Loch Fyne,” said Kirsteen, feeling that explanation was necessary, and looking wistfully in the face of the woman on whom her very life seemed to depend. For what if she should refuse her, a young girl all alone, and turn her away from the door?
Mrs. Macfarlane was too good a physiognomist for that—but she looked at Kirsteen curiously in the waning light. “That’s a far way to come on your feet,” she said, “and you’re a young lass to be wandering the country by yourself.”
“I’m going—to take up a situation,” said Kirsteen. “If ye should have a room——”
“Oh, it’s no for want of a room. Come in, there’s plenty of room. So ye’re going to take up a situation? Your minnie must have been sair at heart to let you gang afoot such a weary way.”
“There was no other—convenience,” said Kirsteen, sick and faint. She had to make an effort not to cry. She had not thought of this ordeal, and her limbs would scarcely sustain her.
“Come in,” said the woman. “Would you rather go to your bed, or sit down by the fire with me? Lord bless us, the poor thing’s just fainting, Eelen. Take her into the parlour, and put her in the big chair by the fire.”
“I’m not fainting—I’m only so tired I cannot speak,” said Kirsteen, with a faint smile.
“Go ben, go ben,” said Mrs. Macfarlane, “and I’ll make the tea, and ye shall have a cup warm and strong. There’s naething will do you so much good.”
And to lie back in the big chair by the warm fire seemed like paradise to Kirsteen. This was her fortunate lot on her first night from home.