DAY by day, the summer went over Cosmo’s head, leaving his thoughts in the same glow and tumult of uncertainty, for which, now and then, the lad blamed himself bitterly, but which, on the whole, he found very bearable. Every thing went on briskly at Norlaw. The Mistress, thoroughly occupied, and feeling herself, at last, after so many unprosperous years, really making some forward progress, daily recovered heart and spirit, and her constant supervision kept every thing alive and moving in the house. Here Cosmo filled the place of natural privilege accorded to him alike as the youngest child and the scholar-son. Though the Mistress’s heart yearned over the boys who were away, she expected to be most tenderly proud of Cosmo, whose kirk and manse she could already see in prospect.
It is not a very great thing to be a minister of the Church of Scotland, but, in former days, at least, when the Church was less divided than it is now, the people of Scotland regarded with a particular tenderness of imagination the parish pastor. He was less elevated above his flock than the English rector, and sprang very seldom from the higher classes; but even among wealthy yeomen families in the country, the manse was still a kind of beau ideal of modest dignity and comfort, the pride and favorite fancy of the people. It was essentially so to the Mistress, whose very highest desire it had been to move her boy in this direction, and whose project of romance now, in which her imagination amused itself, was, above all other things, the future home and establishment of Cosmo. She had no idea to what extent her favorite idea was threatened in secret.
For the moment, however, Melmar and their connection with that house seemed to have died out of everybody’s mind save Cosmo’s. It never could quite pass from his so long as he took his place at sunset in that vacant window of the old castle, where the ivy tendrils waved about him, and where the romance of Norlaw’s life seemed to have taken up its dwelling. The boy could not help wandering over the new ground which Joanna had opened to him—could not help associating that Mary of Melmar, long lost in some unknown country, with Oswald Huntley, a stranger from home for years; and the boy started with a jealous pang of pain to think how likely it was that these two might meet, and that another than his father’s son should restore the inheritance to its true heir. This idea was galling in the extreme to Cosmo. He had never sympathized much in the thought that Melmar was Huntley’s, nor been interested in any proceedings by which his brother’s rights were to be established; but he had always reserved for himself or for Huntley the prerogative of finding and reinstating the true lady of the land, and Cosmo was human enough to regard “the present Melmar” with any thing but amiable feelings. He could not bear the idea of being left out entirely in the management of the concern, or of one of the Huntleys exercising this champion’s office, and covering the old usurpation with a vail of new generosity. It was a most uncomfortable view of the subject to Cosmo, and when his cogitations came to that point, the lad generally swung himself down from his window-seat and went off somewhere in high excitement, scarcely able to repress the instant impulse to sling a bundle over his shoulder and set off upon his journey. But he never could rouse his courage to the point of reopening this subject with his mother, little witting, foolish boy, that this admirable idea of his about Oswald Huntley was the very inducement necessary to make the Mistress as anxious about the recovery of Mary of Melmar as he himself was—and the only thing in the world which could have done so.
It happened on one of these summer evenings, about this time, when his own mind was exceedingly restless and unsettled, that Cosmo, passing through Kirkbride as the evening fell, encountered bowed Jaacob just out of the village, on the Melrose road. The village street was full of little groups in earnest and eager discussion. It was still daylight, but the sun was down, and lights began to sparkle in some of the projecting gable windows of the Norlaw Arms, beneath which, in the corner where the glow of the smithy generally warmed the air, a little knot of men stood together, fringed round with smaller clusters of women. A little bit of a moon, scarcely so big as the evening star which led her, was already high in the scarcely shadowed skies. Every thing was still—save the roll of the widow’s mangle and the restless feet of the children, so many of them as at this hour were out of bed—and most of the cottage doors stood open, revealing each its red gleam of fire, and many their jugs of milk, and bowls set ready on the table for the porridge or potatoes which made the evening meal. On the opposite brae of Tyne was visible the minister, walking home with an indescribable consciousness and disapproval, not in his face, for it was impossible to see that in the darkness, but in his figure and bearing, as he turned his back upon his excited parishioners, which was irresistibly ludicrous when one knew what it meant. Beyond the village, at the opposite extremity, was Jaacob, in his evening trim, with a black coat and hat, which considerably changed the little dwarf’s appearance, without greatly improving it. He had his face to the south, and was pushing on steadily, clenching and opening, as he walked, the great brown fist which came so oddly out of the narrow cuff of his black coat. Cosmo, who was quite ready to give up his own vague fancies for the general excitement, came up to Jaacob quite eagerly, and fell into his pace without being aware of it.
“Are you going to Melrose for news? I’ll go with you,” said Cosmo.
The road was by no means lonely; there were already both men and boys before them on the way.
“We should hear to-night, as you ken without me telling you,” said Jaacob. “I’m gaun to meet the coach; you may come if you like—but what matter is’t to the like o’ you?”
“To me! as much as to any man in Scotland,” cried Cosmo, growing red; he thought the dignity of his years was impugned.
“Pish! you’re a blackcoat, going to be,” said Jaacob; “there’s your friend the minister there, gaun up the brae. I sent him hame wi’ a flea in his lug. What the deevil business has the like of him to meddle in our concerns? The country’s coming to ruin, forsooth! because the franchise is coming to a man like me! Get away with you, callant! as soon as you come to man’s estate you’ll be like a’ the rest! But ye may just as weel take an honest man’s, advice, Cosmo. If we dinna get it we’ll tak it, and that’ll be seen before the world afore mony days are past.”
“What do you think the news will be?” asked Cosmo.
“Think! I’m past thinking,” cried Jaacob, thrusting some imaginary person away; “haud your tongue—can a man think when he’s wound up the length of taking swurd in hand, if need should be? If we dinna get it, we’ll tak it—do ye hear?—that’s a’ I’m thinking in these days.”
And Jaacob swung along the road, working his long arms rather more than he did his feet, so that their action seemed part of his locomotive power. It was astonishing, too, to see how swiftly, how steadily, and with what a “way” upon him, the little giant strode onward, swinging the immense brown hands, knotted and sinewy, which it was hard to suppose could ever have been thrust through the narrow cuffs of his coat, like balancing weights on either side of him. Before them was the long line of dusty summer road disappearing down a slope, and cut off, not by the sky, but by the Eildons, which began to blacken in the fading light—behind them the lights of the village—above, in a pale, warm sky, the one big dilating star and the morsel of moon; but the thoughts of Jaacob, and even of Cosmo, were on a lesser luminary—the red lantern of the coach, which was not yet to be seen by the keenest eyes advancing through the summer dimness from the south.
“Hang the lairds and the ministers!” cried Jaacob, after a pause, “it’s easy to see what a puir grip they have, and how well they ken it. Free institutions dinna agree with the like of primogeniture and thae inventions of the deevil. Let’s but hae a reformed Parliament, and we’ll learn them better manners. There’s your grand Me’mar setting up for a leader amang the crew, presenting an address, confound his impudence! as if he wasna next hand to a swindler himself.”
“Jacob, do you know any thing about his son?” asked Cosmo, eagerly.
“He’s a virtuoso—he’s a dilettawnti; I ken nae ill of him,” said Jaacob, who pronounced these titles with a little contempt, yet secretly had a respect for them; “he hasna been seen in this country, so far as I’ve heard tell of, for mony a day. A lad’s no aye to blame for his father and his mother; it’s a thing folk in general have nae choice in—but he’s useless to his ain race, either as friend or foe.”
“Is he a good fellow, then? or is he like Me’mar?” cried Cosmo.
“Tush! dinna afflict me about thae creatures in bad health,” said Jaacob; “what’s the use o’ them, lads or lasses, is mair than I can tell—can they no’ dee and be done wi’t? I tell you, a docken on the roadside is mair guid to a country than the like of Me’mar’s son!”
“Is he in bad health?” asked the persistent Cosmo.
“They’re a’ in bad health,” said Jaacob, contemptuously, “as any auld wife could tell you; a’ but that red-haired lassie, that Joan. Speak o’ your changelings! how do ye account to me, you that’s a philosopher, for the like of an honest spirit such as that, cast into the form of a lassie, and the midst of a hatching o’ sparrows like Me’mar? If she had but been a lad, she would have turned them a’ out like a cuckoo in the nest.”
“And Oswald Huntley is ill—an invalid?” said Cosmo, softly returning to the thread of his own thoughts.
Jaacob once more thrust with contempt some imaginary opponent out of the way.
“Get away with you down Tyne or into the woods wi’ your Oswald Huntleys!” cried Jaacob, indignantly—“do you think I’m heeding about ane of the name? Whisht! what’s that? Did you hear onything?—haud your tongue for your life!”
Cosmo grew almost as excited as Jaacob—he seized upon the lowest bough of a big ash tree, and swung himself up, with the facility of a country boy, among the fragrant dark foliage which rustled about him as he stood high among the branches as on a tower.
“D’ye see onything?” cried Jaacob, who could have cuffed the boy for the noise he made, even while he pushed him up from beneath.
“Hurra! here she comes—I can see the light!” shouted Cosmo.
The lad stood breathless among the rustling leaves, which hummed about him like a tremulous chorus. Far down at the foot of the slope, nothing else perceptible to mask its progress, came rushing on the fiery eye of light, red, fierce, and silent, like some mysterious giant of the night. It was impossible to hear either hoofs or wheels in the distance, still more to see the vehicle itself, for the evening by this time was considerably advanced, and the shadow of the three mystic hills lay heavy upon the road.
“She’s late,” said Jaacob, between his set teeth. The little Cyclops held tight by the great waving bough of the ash, and set his foot in a hollow of its trunk, crushing beneath him the crackling underwood. Here the boy and he kept together breathless, Cosmo standing high above, and his companion thrusting his weird, unshaven face over the great branch on which he leaned. “She’s up to Plover ha’—she’s at the toll—she’s stopped. What’s that! listen!” cried Cosmo, as some faint, far-off sound, which might have been the cry of a child, came on the soft evening air towards them.
Jaacob made an imperative gesture of silence with one hand, and grasped at the branch with the other till it shook under the pressure.
“She’s coming on again—she’s up to the Black ford—she’s over the bridge—another halt—hark again!—that’s not for passengers—they’re hurraing—hark, Jaacob! hurra! she’s coming—they’ve won the day!”
Jaacob, with the great branch swinging under his hands like a willow bough, bade the boy hold his peace, with a muttered oath through his set teeth. Now sounds became audible, the rattle of the hoofs upon the road, the ring of the wheels, the hum of exclamations and excited voices, under the influence of which the horses “took the brae” gallantly, with a half-human intoxication. As they drew gradually nearer, and the noise increased, and the faint moonlight fell upon the flags and ribbons and dusty branches, with which the coach was ornamented, Cosmo, unable to contain himself, came rolling down on his hands and feet over the top of Jaacob, and descended with a bold leap in the middle of the road. Jaacob, muttering fiercely, stumbled after him, just in time to drag the excited boy out of the way of the coach, which was making up for lost time by furious speed, and on which coachman, guard, and outside passengers, too much excited to be perfectly sober, kept up their unanimous murmurs of jubilee, with only a very secondary regard to the road or any obstructions which might be upon it.
“Wha’s there? get out o’ my road, every soul o’ ye! I’ll drive the gait blindfold, night or day, but I’ll no’ undertake the consequence if ye rin among my wheels,” cried the driver.
“Hurra! lads! the Bill’s passed—we’ve won! Hurra!” shouted another voice from the roof of the vehicle, accompanying the shout with a slightly unsteady wave of a flag, while, with a little swell of sympathetic cheers, and a triumphant flourish of trumpet from the guard, the jubilant vehicle dashed on, rejoicing as never mail-coach rejoiced before.
Jaacob took off his hat, tossed it into the air, crushed it between his hands as it came down, and broke into an extraordinary shout, bellow, or groan, which it was impossible to interpret; then, turning sharp round, pursued the coach with a fierce speed, like the run of a little tiger, setting all his energies to it, swinging his long arms on either side of him, and raising about as much dust as the mail which he followed. Cosmo, left behind, followed more gently, laughing in spite of himself, and in spite of the heroics of the day, which included every national benefit and necessity within the compass of “the Bill,” at the grotesque little figure disappearing before him, twisting its great feet, and swinging its arms in that extraordinary race. When the boy reached Kirkbride, the coach was just leaving the village amid a chorus of cheers and shouts of triumph. No one could think of any thing else, or speak of any thing else; everybody was shaking hands with everybody, and in the hum of amateur speechifying, half a dozen together, Cosmo had hard work to recall even that sober personage, the postmaster, who felt himself to some extent a representative of government and natural moderator of the general excitement, to some sense of his duties. Cosmo’s exertions, however, were rewarded by the sight of three letters, with which he hastened home.