SHE had, however, much questioning to go through. There was but little custom to occupy the woman of the inn, and the mingled instincts of kindness and gossip, and that curiosity which is so strong among those who have little to learn save what they can persuade their neighbours to tell them, had much dominion over Mrs. Macfarlane. Kindness perhaps was the strongest quality of all. Her tea was hot and strong and what she considered well “masket” before the fire; and when the Highland maid, who could speak little English, but hung about in silent admiration of the unexpected visitor, who was a new incident in the glen, had “boilt” some eggs, and placed a plate of crisp cakes—the oatcakes which were the habitual bread of Scotland at that period—and another of brown barley scones, upon the table, the mistress herself sat down to encourage her guest to eat.
“There’s some fine salt herrings if ye would like that better, or I could soon fry ye a bit of ham. We’ve baith pork hams and mutton hams in the house. But a fresh boilt egg is just as good as anything, and mair nat’ral to a woman. Ye’ll be gaun to Glasco where everybody goes?”
“Yes,” said Kirsteen, with a doubt in her heart whether it was honest not to add that she was going further on.
“I wonder what they can see in’t—a muckle dirty place, with long lums pouring out smoke. I wouldna gie Arrochar for twenty o’t.”
“I suppose,” said Kirsteen, “it’s because there is aye plenty doing there.”
“I suppose sae. And ye’re going to take up a situation? It’s no a place I would choose for a young lass, but nae doubt your mother kens what she’s doing. Is it a lady’s maid place, or to be with bairns, or—I’m sure I beg your pardon! You’ll be a governess, I might have seen.”
Kirsteen had grown very red at the thought of being taken for a lady’s maid, but she said to herself quickly that her pride was misplaced, and that it was the best service any one could do her to think her so. “Oh, no,” she said, “I’m not clever enough to be a governess. I’m going—to a mantua-maker’s.”
“Weel, weel—that’s a very genteel trade, and many a puir leddy thankful to get into it,” said Mrs. Macfarlane. “I’m doubting you’re one yoursel’, or else ye have lived with better kind of folk, for ye’ve real genty ways, and a bonny manner. Take heed to yourself in Glasco, and take up with none of thae young sprigs in offices that think themselves gentlemen. Will ye no take another cup? Weel, and I wouldna wonder ye would be better in your bed than any other place. And how are ye going on in the morning? There’s a coach from Eelensburgh, but it’s a long walk to get there. If ye like Duncan will get out the gig and drive you. It would be a matter of twelve or maybe fifteen shillings if he couldna get a job back—which is maist unlikely at this time of the year.”
With many thanks for the offer Kirsteen tremblingly explained that she could not afford it. “For I will want all my money when I get to Glasgow,” she said.
“Weel,” said Mrs. Macfarlane, “ye ken your ain affairs best. But there’s sturdy beggars on the road, and maybe ye’ll wish ye had ta’en my offer before you win there.”
Kirsteen thought she never would sleep for the aching of her limbs when she first laid herself down in the hard bed which was all the little Highland inn, or even the best houses in Scotland, afforded in that period. Her mind was silenced by this strange physical inconvenience, so that she was quiescent in spirit and conscious of little except her pangs of fatigue. Youth, however, was stronger than all her pangs, and the influence of the fresh mountain air, though charged with damp, in which she had pursued her journey—and she slept with the perfect abandon and absolute repose of her twenty years, never waking from the time she laid her head upon the pillow until she was awakened by Eelen, the Highland maid, whom she opened her eyes to find standing over her with the same admiring looks as on the previous evening.
“Your hair will be like the red gold and your skin like the white milk,” said Eelen; “and its chappit acht, and it’s time to be wakening.”
Kirsteen did not spring from her bed with her usual alertness, for she was stiff with her first day’s travels. But she rose as quickly as was possible, and got down stairs to share the porridge of a weakly member of the family who was indulged in late hours, and had a little cream to tempt her to consume the robust food.
“I would have given ye some tea but for Jamie,” said Mrs. Macfarlane, “maybe he’ll take his parritch when he sees you supping yours with sic a good heart.”
Though she was thus used as an example Kirsteen took leave of the kind innkeeper with a sense of desolation as if she were once more leaving home.
“’Deed, I just wish ye could bide, and gie the bairns their lessons and please a’ body with your pleasant face,” the landlady said.
Kirsteen went on her way with a “piece” in her pocket and many good wishes.
It was a bright morning, and the sun, as soon as he had succeeded in rising over the shoulders of the great hills, shone upon Loch Long as upon a burnished mirror, and lit up the path which Kirsteen had to travel with a chequered radiance through the bare branches of the trees, which formed the most intricate network of shadow upon the brown path. The deep herbage and multitudinous roadside plants all wet and glistening, the twinkle of a hundred burns that crossed the road at every step, the sound of the oars upon the rowlocks of a fisherboat upon the loch, the shadows that flew over the hills in swift, instantaneous succession added their charms to the spell of the morning, the freshest and most rapturous of all the aspects of nature. Before long Kirsteen forgot everything, both trouble of body and trouble of mind. The fascination of the morning brightness entered into her heart. In a sunny corner she found a bit of yellow blossom of the wild St. John’s wort, that “herb of grace” which secures to the traveller who is so happy as to find it unawares a prosperous day’s journey, and in another the rare, delicate star of the Grass of Parnassus. These with a sprig of the “gale,” the sweet wild myrtle which covers those hills, made a little bouquet which she fastened in the belt of her spencer with simple pleasure. She hesitated a moment to wear the badge of the Campbells, and then with a fantastic half-amused sentiment reminded herself that if she had become the Lady of Glendochart, as she might have done (though ignorant folk took her for a governess or even a lady’s waiting woman) she would have had a right to wear it. Poor Glendochart! It would hurt his feelings to find that she had flown away from her home to escape him. Kirsteen was grieved beyond measure to hurt Glendochart’s feelings. She put the gale in her belt with a compunctious thought of her old, kind wooer. But at that moment her young spirit, notwithstanding all its burdens, was transported by the morning and the true delight of the traveller, leaving all that he has known behind him for love of the beautiful and the new. It seemed to Kirsteen that she had never seen the world so lovely nor the sun so warm and sweet before.
She had walked several miles in the delight of these novel sensations and was far down Loch Long side, without a house or sign of habitation nigh, when there suddenly rose from among the bushes of brown withered heather on the slope that skirted the road a man whose appearance did not please Kirsteen. He had his coat-sleeve pinned to his breast as if he had lost an arm, and a forest of wild beard and hair inclosing his face. In these days when the wars of the Peninsula were barely over, and Waterloo approaching, nothing was so likely to excite charitable feelings as the aspect of an old soldier—and the villainous classes of the community who existed then, as now, were not slow to take advantage of it. This man came up to Kirsteen with a professional whine. He gave her a list of battles at which he had been wounded which her knowledge was not enough to see were impossible, though her mind rejected them as too much. But he was an old soldier (she believed) and that was enough to move the easily flowing fountains of charity. No principle on the subject had indeed been invented in those days, and few people refused a handful of meal at the house door, or a penny on the road to the beggar of any degree, far less the soldier who had left the wars with an empty sleeve or a shattered leg. Kirsteen stopped and took her little purse from her pocket and gave him sixpence with a look of sympathy. She thought of the boys all away to the endless Indian wars, and of another besides who might be fighting or losing his arm like this poor man. “And I’m very sorry for ye, and I hope you will win safe home,” said Kirsteen passing on. But different feelings came into her mind when she found that she was being followed, and that the man’s prayer for “anither saxpence” was being repeated in a rougher and more imperative tone. Kirsteen had a great deal of courage as a girl so often has, whose natural swift impulses have had no check of practical danger. She was not at first afraid. She faced round upon him with a rising colour and bade him be content. “I have given ye all I can give ye,” she said, “for I’ve a long, long journey before me and little siller.”
“Ye have money in your purse, my bonny lady, and no half so much to do with it as me.”
“If I’ve money in my purse it’s my own money, for my own lawful uses,” said Kirsteen.
“Come, come,” cried the man. “I’ll use nae violence unless ye force me. Gie me the siller.”
“I will not give ye a penny,” cried Kirsteen. And then there ensued a breathless moment. All the possibilities swept through her mind. If she took to flight he would probably overtake her, and in the meantime might seize her from behind when she could not see what he was doing. She had no staff or stick in her hand but was weighted with her bundle and her cloak. She thought of flinging the latter over his head and thus blinding and embarrassing him to gain a little time, but he was wary and on his guard. She gave a glance towards the boat on the loch, but it was in mid-water, and the bank was high and precipitous. Nowhere else was there a living creature in sight.
“Man,” said Kirsteen, “I cannot fight with ye, but I’m not just a weak creature either, and what I have is all I have, and I’ve a long journey before me—I’ll give ye your sixpence if you’ll go.”
“I’ll warrant ye will,” said the sturdy beggar, “but I’m a no so great a fuil as I look. Gie me the purse, and I’ll let ye go.”
“I’ll not give ye the purse. If ye’ll say a sum and it’s within my power I’ll give ye that.”
“Bring out the bit pursie,” said the man, “and we’ll see, maybe with a kiss into the bargain,” and he drew nearer, with a leer in the eyes that gleamed from among his tangled hair.
“I will fling it into the loch sooner than ye should get it,” cried Kirsteen, whose blood was up—“and hold off from me or I’ll push you down the brae,” she cried, putting down her bundle, and with a long breath of nervous agitation preparing for the assault.
“You’re a bold quean though ye look so mim—gie me a pound then and I’ll let ye go.”
Kirsteen felt that to produce the purse at all was to lose it, and once more calculated all the issues. The man limped a little. She thought that if she plunged down the bank to the loch, steep as it was, her light weight and the habit she had of scrambling down to the linn might help her—and the sound of the falling stones and rustling branches might catch the ear of the fisher on the water, or she might make a spring up upon the hill behind and trust to the tangling roots of the heather to impede her pursuer. In either case she must give up the bundle and her cloak. Oh, if she had but taken Donald and the gig as Mrs. Macfarlane had advised!
“I canna wait a’ day till ye’ve made up your mind. If I have to use violence it’s your ain wyte. I’m maist willing to be friendly,” he said with another leer pressing upon her. She could feel his breath upon her face. A wild panic seized Kirsteen. She made one spring up the hill before he could seize her. And in a moment her bounding heart all at once became tranquil and she stood still, her terror gone.
For within a few paces of her was a sportsman with his gun, a young man in dark undress tartan scarcely distinguishable from the green and brown of the hillside, walking slowly downwards among the heather bushes. Kirsteen raised her voice a little. She called to her assailant, “Ye can go your way, for here’s a gentleman!” with a ring of delight in her voice.
The man clambering after her (he did “hirple” with the right foot, Kirsteen observed with pleasure) suddenly slipped down with an oath, for he too had seen the newcomer, and presently she heard his footsteps on the road hurrying away.
“What is the matter, my bonny lass?” said the sportsman; “are ye having a quarrel with your joe? Where’s the impudent fellow? I’ll soon bring him to reason if you’ll trust yourself to me.”
Kirsteen dropped over the bank without reply with a still more hot flush upon her cheeks. She had escaped one danger only to fall into another more alarming. What the country folk had said to her had piqued her pride; but to be treated by a gentleman as if she were a country lass with her joe was more than Kirsteen could bear.
He had sprung down by her side however before she could do more than pick up the bundle and cloak which the tramp had not touched.
“He’s a scamp to try to take advantage of you when you’re in a lone place like this. Tell me, my bonny lass, where ye are going? I’ll see you safe over the hill if you’re going my way.”
“It is not needful, sir, I thank ye,” said Kirsteen. “I’m much obliged to you for appearing as you did. It was a sturdy beggar would have had my purse; he ran at the sight of a gentleman; but I hope there are none but ill-doers need to do that,” she added with heightened colour drawing back from his extended hand.
The young man laughed and made a step forward, then stopped and stared, “You are not a country lass,” he said. “I’ve seen you before—where have I seen you before?”
Kirsteen felt herself glow from head to foot with overpowering shame. She remembered if he did not. She had not remarked his looks in the relief which the first sight of him had brought, but now she perceived who it was. It was the very Lord John whose remarks upon the antediluvians had roused her proud resentment at the ball. He did not mistake the flash of recognition, and a recognition which was angry, in her eyes.
“Where have we met?” he said. “You know me, and not I fear very favourably. Whatever I’ve done I hope you’ll let me make peace now.”
“There is no peace to make,” said Kirsteen. “I’m greatly obliged to you, sir; I can say no more, but I’ll be more obliged to you still if you will go your own gait and let me go mine, for I am much pressed for time.”
“What! and leave you at the mercy of the sturdy beggar?” he cried lightly. “This is my gait as well as yours, I’m on my way across Whistlefield down to Roseneath—a long walk. I never thought to have such pleasant company. Come, give me your bundle to carry, and tell me, for I see you know, where we met.”
“I can carry my own bundle, sir, and I’ll give it to nobody,” said Kirsteen.
“What a churl you make me look—a bonny lass by my side over-weighted, and I with nothing but my gun. Give me the cloak then,” he said, catching it lightly from her arm. “If you will not tell me where we met tell me where you’re going, and I’ll see you home.”
“My home is not where I am going,” said Kirsteen. “Give me back my cloak, my Lord John. It’s not for you to carry for me.”
“I thought you knew me,” he cried. “Now that’s an unfair advantage, let me think, was it in the schoolroom at Dalmally? To be sure! You are the governess. Or was it?—”
He saw that he had made an unlucky hit. Kirsteen’s countenance glowed with proud wrath. The governess, and she a Douglas! She snatched the cloak from him and stood at bay. “My father,” she cried, “is of as good blood as yours, and though you can scorn at the Scots gentry in your own house you shall not do it on the hill-side. I have yon hill to cross,” said the girl with a proud gesture, holding herself as erect as a tower, “going on my own business, and meddling with nobody. So go before, sir, or go after, but if you’re a gentleman, as ye have the name, let me pass by myself.”
The young man coloured high. He took off his hat and stood aside to let her pass. After all there are arguments which are applicable to a gentleman that cannot be applied to sturdy beggars. But Kirsteen went on her way still more disturbed than by the first meeting. He had not recognized her, but if they should ever meet again he would recognize her. And what would he think when he knew it was Drumcarro’s daughter that had met him on the hill-side with her bundle on her arm, and been lightly addressed as a bonny lass. The governess at Dalmally! Hot tears came into Kirsteen’s eyes as she made her way across the stretch of moorland which lies between Loch Long and the little Gairloch, that soft and verdant paradise. She walked very quickly neither turning to the right hand nor the left, conscious of the figure following her at a distance. Oh, the governess! She will be a far better person than me, and know a great deal more, thought Kirsteen with keen compunction, me to think so much of myself that am nobody! I wish I was a governess or half so good. I’m a poor vagrant lass, insulted on the road-side, frighted with beggars, scared by gentlemen. Oh, if I had but taken that honest woman’s offer of Donald and the gig!