The Dew of Their Youth Part 17

But Jen had showed so much of the unwonted milk of human kindness that she felt she must in some degree retrieve her character. She waited, therefore, for the second rap, louder than the first, then lifted a wand from the corner and went "down-the-house," quietly as she did all things.

Aunt Jen concealed the rod behind her. Her private intention was to wait for the third knock, and then open suddenly, with the deadly resolve to teach us what we were about--a mental reservation being made in the case of Baby Louis, who (if the knocker turned out to be he) must obviously have been put up to it.

The third knock fell. Aunt Jen leaped upon the door-handle. Bolts creaked and shot back, but swollen by many rainy seasons, the door held stoutly as is the wont of farm front doors. Then suddenly it gave way and Aunt Jen staggered back against the wall, swept away by the energy of her own effort. The wand fell from her hand, and she stood with the inner door handle still clutched in nervous fingers before a slight dapper man in a shiny brown coat, double-breasted and closely b.u.t.toned, even on this broiling day--while the strident "_weesp-weesp_" of brother Tom down in the meadow, sharpening his scythe with a newly fill "strake," made a keen top-note to the mood of summer.

"Mr. Poole," said the slim man, uncovering and saluting obsequiously, and then seeing that my aunt rested dumb-stricken, the rod which had been in pickle fallen to the floor behind her, he added with a little mincing smile and a kind of affected heel-and-toe dandling of his body, "I am Mr. Wrighton Poole, of the firm of Smart, Poole, and Smart of Dumfries."

CHAPTER XIX

LOADED-PISTOL POLLIXFEN

Now Aunt Jen's opinion of lawyers was derived from two sources, observation and a belief in the direct inspiration of two lines of Dr.

Watts, his hymns.

In other words, she had noticed that lawyers sat much in their offices, twiddling with papers, and that they never went haymaking nor stood erect in carts dumping manure on the autumnal fields. So two lines of Dr. Watts, applicable for such as they, and indeed every one not so aggressively active as herself, were calculated to settle the case of Mr. Wrighton Poole.

"Satan finds some mischief For idle hands to do."

Indeed, I had heard of them more than once myself, when she caught me lying long and lazy in the depths of a haymow with a book under my nose.

At any rate Aunt Jen suspected this Mr. Poole at once. But so she would the Lord Chancellor of England himself, for the good reason that by choice and custom he sat on a woolsack!

"I'd woolsack him!" Aunt Jen had cried when this fact was first brought to her notice; "I'd make him get up pretty quick and earn his living if he was my man!"

My grandfather had pointed out that the actual Lord Chancellor of the moment was a bachelor, whereupon Aunt Jen retorted, "Aye, and doubtless that's the reason. The poor body has n.o.body to do her duty by him!"

For these excellent reasons my Aunt Jen took a dislike to Mr. Wrighton Poole (of the firm of Smart, Poole, and Smart, solicitors, Dumfries) at the very first glance.

And yet, when he was introduced into the state parlour with the six mahogany-backed, haircloth-seated chairs, the two narrow arm-chairs, the four ugly mirrors, and the little wire basket full of odds and ends of crockery and foreign coins--covered by the skin of a white blackbird, found on the farm and prepared for stuffing--he looked a very dapper, respectable, personable man. But my Aunt Jen would have none of his compliments on the neatness of the house or the air of bien comfort that everything about the farm had worn on his way thither.

She drew out a chair for him and indicated it with her hand.

"Bide there," she commanded, "till I fetch them that can speak wi' you!"

An office which, had she chosen, Jen was very highly qualified to undertake, save for an early and deep-rooted conviction that business matters had better be left to the dealing of man and man.

This belief, however, was not in the least that of my grandmother. She would come in and sit down in the very middle of one of my grandfather's most private bargainings with the people to whom he sold his spools and "pirns." She had her say in everything, and she said it so easily and so much as a matter of course that no one was ever offended.

Grandfather was at the mill and in consequence it was my grandmother who entered from the dairy, still wiping her hands from the good, warm b.u.t.termilk which had just rendered up its tale of b.u.t.ter. There was a kind of capable and joyous fecundity about my grandmother, in spite of her sharp tongue, her masterful ways, the strictness of her theology and her old-fashioned theories, which seemed to produce an effect even on inanimate things. So light and loving was her hand--the hand that had loved (and smacked) many children, brooded over innumerable hatchings of things domestic, tended whole byrefuls of cows, handled suckling lambs with dead mothers lying up on the hill--aye, played the surgeon even to robins with broken legs, for one of which she constructed a leg capable of being strapped on, made it out of the whalebone of an old corset of her own for which she had grown too abundant!

So kindly was the eye that could flash fire on an argumentative Episcopalian parson--and send him over two pounds of b.u.t.ter and a dozen fresh-laid eggs for his sick wife--that (as I say) even inanimate objects seemed to respond to her look and conform themselves to the wish of her finger tips. She had been known to "set" a d.y.k.e which had twice resolved itself into rubbish under the hands of professionals. The useless rocky patch she had taken as a herb garden blossomed like the rose, bringing forth all manner of spicy things. For in these days in Galloway most of the garnishments of the table were grown in the garden itself, or brought in from the cranberry bogs and the blaeberry banks, where these fruits grew among a short, crumbly stubble of heather, dry and elastic as a cushion, and most admirable for resting upon while eating.

Well, grandmother came in wiping her hands. It seems to me now that I see her--and, indeed, whenever she does make an entry into the story, I always feel that I must write yet another page about the dear, warm-hearted, tumultuous old lady.

She saw the slender lawyer with the brown coat worn shiny, the scratch wig tied with its black wisp of silk, and the black bag in his hand. He had been taking a survey of the room, and started round quickly at the entrance of my grandmother. Then he made a deep bow, and grandmother, who could be very grand indeed when she liked, bestowed upon him a curtsey the like of which he had not seen for a long while.

"My name is Poole," he said apologetically. "I presume I have the honour of speaking to Mistress Mary Lyon, spouse and consort of William Lyon, tacksman of the Mill of Marnhoul with all its lades, weirs, and pendicles----"

"If you mean that William Lyon is my man, ye are on the bit so far,"

said my grandmother; "pa.s.s on. What else hae ye to say? I dinna suppose that ye cam' here to ask a sicht o' my marriage lines."

"It is, indeed, a different matter which has brought me thus far," said the lawyer man, with a certain diffidence, "but I think that perhaps I ought to wait till--till your husband, in fact----"

"If you are waiting for Weelyum," said Mary Lyon, "ye needna fash. He is o' the same mind as me--or will be after I have spoken wi' him. Say on!"

"Well, then," the lawyer continued, "it is difficult--but the matter resolves itself into this. I understand--my firm understands, that you are harbouring in or about this house a young woman calling herself Irma Sobieski Maitland, and a child of the male s.e.x whom the aforesaid Irma Sobieski affirms to be the rightful owner of this estate--in fact, Sir Louis Maitland. Now, my firm have been long without direct news of the family whom they represent. Our intelligence of late years has come from their t.i.tular and legal guardian, Mr. Lalor Maitland, Governor of the district of the Upper Meuse in the Brabants. Now we have recently heard from this gentleman that his wards--two children bearing a certain resemblance to those whom, we are informed, you have been harbouring----"

My grandmother's temper, always uncertain with adults with whom she had no sympathy, had been gradually rising at each repet.i.tion of an offending word.

"Harbouring," she cried, "harbouring--let me hear that word come out o'

your impident mouth again, ye upsettin' body wi' the black bag, and I'll gie ye the weight o' my hand against the side o' your face. Let me tell you that in the house of Heathknowes we harbour neither burrowing rats nor creepin' foumarts, nor any manner of unclean beasts--and as for a lawvier, if lawvier ye be, ye are the first o' your breed to enter here, and if my sons hear ye talkin' o' harbourin'--certes, ye stand a chance to gang oot the door wi' your feet foremost!"

"My good woman," said the lawyer, "I was but using an ordinary word, in perfect ignorance of any----"

"Come na, nane o' that crooked talk! Mary Lyon is nae bit silly Jenny Wren to be whistled off the waa' wi' ony siccan talk. Dinna tell me that a lawvier body doesna ken what 'harbouring rogues and vagabonds'

means--the innocent lamb that he is--and him reading the _Courier_ every Wednesday!"

"But," said the solicitor, with more persistent firmness than his emaciated body and timorous manner would have led one to expect, "the children are here, and it is my duty to warn you that in withholding them from their natural guardian you are defying the law. I come to require that the children be given up to me at once, that I may put them under their proper tutelage."

"Here, William," my grandmother called out, recognizing the footsteps of her husband approaching, "gae cry the lads and lock the doors!

There's a body here that will need some guid broad Scots weared on him."

But the lawyer was not yet frightened. As it appeared, he had only known the safe plainstones of Dumfries--so at least Mary Lyon thought. For he continued his discourse as if nothing were the matter.

"I came here in a friendly spirit, madam," he said, "but I have good reason to believe that every male of your household is deeply involved in the smuggling traffic, and that several of them, in spite of their professions of religion, a.s.saulted and took possession of the House of Marnhoul for the purpose of unlawfully concealing therein undutied goods from the proper officers of the crown!"

"Aye, and ken ye wha it was that tried to burn doon your Great House,"

cried my grandmother--"it was your grand tutor--your wonderfu' guardian, even Lalor Maitland, the greatest rogue and gipsy that ever ran on two legs. There was a grandson o' mine put a charge o' powder-and-shot into him, though. But here come the lads. They will tell ye news o' your tutor and guardian, him that ye daur speak to me aboot committing the puir innocent bairns to--what neither you nor a' the law in your black bag will ever tak' frae under the roof-tree o' Mary Lyon. Here, this way, lads--dinna be blate! Step ben!"

And so, without a shadow of blateness, there stepped "ben" Tom and Eben and Rob. Tom had his scythe in his hand, for he had come straight from the meadow at his father's call, the sweat of mowing still beading his brow, and the broad leathern strap shining wet about his waist. Eben folded a pair of brawny arms across a chest like an oriel window, but Rob always careful for appearances, had his great-grandfather's sword, known in the family as "Drumclog," c.o.c.ked over his shoulder, and carried his head to the side with so knowing an air that the blade was cold against his right ear.

Last of all my grandfather stepped in, while I kept carefully out of sight behind him. He glanced once at his sons.

"Lads, be ashamed," he said; "you, Thomas, and especially you, Rob. Put away these gauds. We are not 'boding in fear of weir.' These ill days are done with. Be douce, and we will hear what this decent man has to say."

There is no doubt that the lawyer was by this display of force somewhat intimidated. At least, he looked about him for some means of escape, and fumbled with the catch of his black hand-bag.

"Deil's in the man," cried Mary Lyon, s.n.a.t.c.hing the bag from him, "but it's a blessing I'm no so easy to tak' in as the guidman there. Let that bag alane, will ye, na! Wha kens what may be in it? There--what did I tell you?"

Unintentionally she shook the catch open, and within were two pistols c.o.c.ked and primed, of which Eben and Tom took instant possession.

Meanwhile, as may be imagined, my grandmother improved the occasion.

"A lawvier, are you, Master Wringham Poole o' Dumfries," she cried? "A bonny lawvier, that does his business wi' a pair o' loaded pistols. Like master, like man, I say! There's but ae kind o' lawvier that does his business like that--he's caa'ed a cut-purse, a common highwayman, and ends by dancing a bonny saraband at the end o' a tow-rope! Lalor Maitland a.s.saulted Marnhoul wi' just such a band o' thieves and robbers--to steal away the bairns. This will be another o' the gang.

Lads, take hold, and see what he has on him."