Kate Carnegie and Those Ministers Part 6

"'It must, I think, have been '66. We were at Gibraltar in '67.

Please be accurate.'

"'Bother your accuracy, for ye are driving the pigs through my story.

Well, Oi was telling ye about the steeplechase Jimmy Brook rode. It was a mile, and he had led for half, and so he was just four hundred yards from the post.'

"'A half would be eight hundred and eighty yards.'

"'Oi wish from my heart that geography, arithmetic, memory, and accuracy, and every other work of Satan were drowned with Moses in the Red Sea. Go, for any sake, and bring me a gla.s.s of irritated water.'"

"Capital," cried the General. "I heard that myself, or something like it. Pettigrew was a tiresome wretch, but he was devoted to his wife in his own way."

"Which was enough to make a woman throw things at him, as very likely Alethea did when they were alone. What a fool he was to bother about facts; the charm of Lithy was that she had none--dates and such like would have made her quite uninteresting. The only dates I can quote myself are the Rebellion and the Mutiny, and I 'll add the year we came home. I don't like datey women; but then it's rather cheap for one to say that who does n't know anything," and Kate sighed very becomingly at the contemplation of her ignorance.

"Except French, which she speaks like a Parisian," murmured the General.

"That's a fluke, because I was educated at the Scotch convent with these dear old absurd nuns who were Gordons, and Camerons, and Macdonalds, and did n't know a word of English."

"Who can manage her horse like a rough-rider," continued the General, counting on his finger, "and dance like a Frenchwoman, and play whist like a half-pay officer, and--"

"That's not education; those are simply the accomplishments of a besom.

You know, dad, I 've never read a word of Darwin, and I got tired of George Eliot and went back to Scott."

"I 've no education myself," said the General, ruefully, "except the Latin the old dominie thrashed into me; and some French which all our set in Scotland used to have, and . . . I can hold my own with the broadsword. When I think of all those young officers know, I wonder we old chaps were fit for anything."

"Well, you see, dad," and Kate began to count also, "you were made of steel wire, and were never ill; you could march for a day and rather enjoy a fight in the evening; you would go anywhere, and the men followed just eighteen inches behind; you always knew what the enemy was going to do before he did it, and you always did what he did n't expect you to do. That's not half the list of your accomplishments, but they make a good beginning for a fighting man."

"It will be all mathematics in the future, Kit, and there will be no fighting at close quarters. The officers will wear gloves and spectacles--but where are we now, grumbling as if we were sitting in a club window? Besides, these young fellows can fight as well as pa.s.s exams. You were saying that it was a shame of a man to complain of his wife flirting," and the General studied the ceiling.

"You know that I never said anything of the kind; some women are flirty in a nice way, just as some are booky, and some are dressy, and some are witty, and some are horsey; and I think a woman should be herself.

I should say the right kind of man would be proud of his wife's strong point, and give her liberty."

"He is to have none, I suppose, but just be a foil to throw her into relief. Is he to be allowed any opinions of his own? . . . It looks hard, that cushion, Kit, and I 'm an old broken-down man."

"You deserve leather, for you know what I think about a man's position quite well. If he allow himself to be governed by his wife in serious matters, he is not worth calling a man."

"Like poor Major Macintosh."

"Exactly. What an abject he was before that woman, who was simply--"

"Not a besom, Kate," interrupted the General, anxiously--afraid that a cla.s.sical word was to be misused.

"Certainly not, for a besom must be nice, and at bottom a lady--in fact, a woman of decided character."

"Quite so. You 've hit the bull's-eye, Kit, and paid a neat compliment to yourself. Have you a word for Mrs. Macintosh?"

"A vulgar termagant"--the General indicated that would do--"who would call her husband an idiot aloud before a dinner-table, and quarrel like a fishwife with people in his presence.

"Why, he daren't call his soul his own; he belonged to the kirk, you know, and there was a Scotch padre, but she marched him off to our service, and if you had seen him trying to find the places in the Prayer-book. If a man has n't courage enough to stand by his faith, he might as well go and hang himself. Don't you think the first thing is to stick by your religion, and the next by your country, though it cost one his life?"

"That's it, la.s.sie; every gentleman does."

"She was a disgusting woman," continued Kate, "and jingling with money: I never saw so many precious stones wasted on one woman; they always reminded me of a jewel in a swine's snout."

"Kate!" remonstrated her father, "that's . . ."

"Rather coa.r.s.e, but it's her blame; and to hear Mrs. Macintosh calculating what each officer had--I told her we would live in a Lodge at home and raise our own food. My opinion is that her father was a publican, and I 'm sure she had once been a Methodist."

"Why?"

"Because she was so Churchy, always talking about celebrations and vigils, and explaining that it was a sin to listen to a Dissenting chaplain."

"Then, Kate, if your man--as they say here--tried to make you hold his views?"

"I wouldn't, and I'd hate him."

"And if he accepted yours?"

"I 'd despise him," replied Kate, promptly.

"You are a perfect contradiction."

"You mean I 'm a woman, and a besom, and therefore I don't pretend to be consistent or logical, or even fair, but I am right."

Then they went up the west tower to the General's room, and looked out on the woods and the river, and on a field of ripe corn upon the height across the river, flooded with the moonlight.

"Home at last, la.s.sie, you and I, and another not far off, maybe."

Kate kissed her father, and said, "One in love, dad . . . and faith."

CHAPTER VI.

A PLEASAUNCE.

The General read Morning Prayers in brief, omitting the Psalms and lessons, and then after breakfast, with much gossip and ancient stories from Donald, the father and daughter went out to survey their domain, and though there be many larger, yet there can be few more romantic in the north. That Carnegie had a fine eye and a sense of things who, out of all the Glen--for the Hays had little in Drumtochty in those days--fastened on the site of the Lodge and planted three miles of wood, birch and oak, and beech and ash, with the rowan tree, along the river that goes out and in seven times in that distance, so that his descendants might have a fastness for their habitation and their children might grow up in kindly woods on which the south sun beats from early spring till late autumn, and within the sight and sound of clean, running water. No wonder they loved their lonely home with tenacious hearts, and left it only because it was in their blood to be fighting. They had been out at Langside and Philiphaugh, in the '15 and the '45, and always on the losing side. The Lodge had never been long without a young widow and a fatherless lad, but family history had no warning for him--in fact, seemed rather to be an inspiration in the old way--for no sooner had the young laird loved and married than he would hear of another rebellion, and ride off some morning to fight for that ill-fated dynasty whose love was ever another name for death.

There was always a Carnegie ready as soon as the white c.o.c.kade appeared anywhere in Scotland, and each of the house fought like the men before him, save that he brought fewer at his back and had less in his pocket.

Little was left to the General and our Kate, and then came the great catastrophe that lost them the Lodge, and so the race has now neither name nor house in Scotland, save in the vault in Drumtochty Kirk. It is a question whether one is wise to revisit any place where he has often been in happier times and see it desolate. For me, at least, it was a mistake, and the melancholy is still upon me. The deserted house falling at last to pieces, the over-grown garden, the crumbling paths, the gaping bridges over the little burns, and the loneliness, chilled one's soul. There was no money to spare in the General's time, but it is wonderful what one gardener, who has no hours, and works for love's sake, can do, even in a place that needed half a dozen. Then he was a.s.sisted unofficially by Donald, who declared that working in the woods was "fery healthy and good for one or two small cuts I happened to get in India," and Kate gave herself to the garden. The path by the river was kept in repair, and one never knew when Kate might appear round the corner. Once I had come down from the cottage on a fine February day to see the snowdrops in the sheltered nooks, for there were little dells white as snow at that season in Tochty woods, and Kate, hearing that I had pa.s.sed, came of her kindness to take me back to luncheon.

She had on a jacket of sealskin that we greatly admired, and a felt hat with three grouse feathers on the side, and round her throat a red satin scarf. The sun was shining on the bend of the path, and she came into the light singing "Jack o' Hazeldean," walking, as Kate ever did in song, with a swinging step like soldiers on a march. It seemed to me that day that she was born to be the wife either of a n.o.ble or a soldier, and I still wish at times within my heart she were Countess of Kilspindie, for then the Lodge had been a fair sight to-day, and her father had died in his own room. And other times I have imagined myself Kilspindie, who was then Lord Hay, and questioned whether I should have ordered Tochty to be dismantled and left a waste as it is this day, and would have gone away to the wars, or would not have loved to keep it in order for her sake, and visited it in the springtime when the primroses are out, and the autumn when the leaves are blood-red.

Then I declare that Hay, being of a brave stock, and having acted as a man of honour--for that is known to all now--ought to have put a good face on his disappointment; but all the time I know one man who would have followed Lord Hay's suit, and who regrets that he ever again saw Tochty Lodge.

[Ill.u.s.tration: One gardener who . . . works for love's sake.]

"First of all," said the General as they sallied forth, "we shall go to the Beeches, and see a view for which one might travel many days, and pay a ransom."

So they went out into the court with its draw-well, from which they must needs have a draught. Suddenly the General laid down the cup like a man in sudden pain, for he was thinking of Cawnpore, and they pa.s.sed quickly through the gateway and turned into a path that wound among great trees that had been planted, it was said, by the Carnegie who rode with Montrose. They were walking on a plateau stretching out beyond the line of the Lodge, and therefore commanding the Glen, if one had eyes to see and the trees were not in the way. Kate laid her hand on the General's arm beneath an ancient beech, and they stood in silence to receive the blessing of the place, for surely never is the soul so open to the voice of nature as by the side of running water and in the heart of a wood. The fretted sunlight made shifting figures of brightness on the ground; above the innumerable leaves rustled and whispered; a squirrel darted along a branch and watched the intruders with bright, curious eyes; the rooks cawed from the distance; the pigeons cooed in sweet, sad cadence close at hand. They sat down on the bare roots at their feet and yielded themselves to the genius of the forest--the G.o.d who will receive the heart torn and distracted by the fierce haste and unfinished labours and vain ambitions of life, and will lay its fever to rest and encompa.s.s it with the quietness of eternity.

"Father," whispered Kate, after a while, as one wishing to share confidences, for there must be something to tell, "where are you?"