The Dew of Their Youth Part 3

But my grandmother, my mother's mother--ah, there indeed you were in a different world! She dwelt in a large house on the edge of the Marnhoul woods. My grandfather had the lease of the farm of Heathknowes, with little arable land, but a great hill behind it on which fed black-faced sheep, sundry cattle in the "low parks," and by the river a strip of corn land sufficient for the meal-ark and the stable feeding of his four stout horses. Also on my father's behalf my uncles conducted the lonely saw-mill that ate and ate into the Great Wood and yet never got any farther. There might be seen machinery for making spools--with water-driven lathes, which turned these articles, variously known as "bobbins" and "pirns," literally off the reel by the thousand. It was a sweet, birch-smelling place and my favourite haunt on all holidays.

William Lyon, my grandfather, had had a tempestuous youth, from which, as he said, he had been saved "by the grace of G.o.d and Mary Lyon."

"Many a sore day she had with me," he would confess to me, for he took pleasure in my society, "but got me buckled down at last!"

As my grandmother also kept me in the most affectionate but complete subjection, the fact that neither one nor the other of us dared disobey "Mary Lyon" was a sort of bond between us. Yet my grandmother was not a very tall nor yet to the outward eye a powerful woman. You had to look her in the eye to know. But there you saw a flash that would have cowed a grenadier. There was something masterful and even martial in her walk, in the way she attacked the enemy of the moment, or the work that fell to her hand. All her ways were dominating without ever being domineering. But in the house of Heathknowes all knew that she had just to be obeyed, and there was an end to it.

When my father and she clashed, it was like the meeting of Miltonic thunderclouds over the Caspian. But on the whole it was safe to wager that even then grandmother got her way. John MacAlpine first discharged his Celtic electricity, and then disengaged his responsibility with the shrug of the right shoulder which was habitual to him. After all, was there not always Horace in his pocket--which he would finger to calm himself even in the heat of a family dispute?

A great school-master was my father, far ben in the secrets of the ancient world--and such a man is always very much of a humanist. My grandmother, alert, clear, decided on all doctrinal points, argumentative, with all her wits fine-edged by the Shorter Catechism, could not abide the least haziness of outline in religious belief.

She did not agree with my grandfather's easier ways, but then he did not argue with her, being far too wise a man.

"Eh, William," she would say, "ye will carry even to the grave some rag of the Scarlet Woman. And at the end I will not be surprised to find ye sitting on some knowetap amang the Seven Hills!"

But at least my grandfather was a Cameronian elder, in the little kirk down by the ford, to which the Lyons had resorted ever since the days of the societies--long before even worthy Mr. MacMillan of Balmaghie came into the Church, ordaining elders, and, along with the pious Mr. Logan of Buittle, even ordaining ministers for carrying on the work of the faithful protesting remnant.

But my father, John MacAlpine, both by office and by temperament, belonged to the Kirk of Scotland as by law established. So indeed did nine-tenths of the folk in the parish of Eden Valley. The band of Cameronians at the Ford, and the forlorn hope of Episcopalians in their hewn-stone chapel with the strange decorations, built on the parcel of ground pertaining to Mr. Shepstone Oglethorpe, were the only non-Establishers in the parish. Yet both, nevertheless, claimed to be the only true Church of Scotland, claimed it fiercely, with a fervour sharpened by the antiquity of their claims and the smallness of their numbers. This was especially true of the Cameronians, who were ever ready to give a reason for the faith that was in them. The Episcopalians lacked the Westminster Catechisms as a means of intellectual gymnastic. So far, therefore, they were handicapped, and indeed reduced to the mere persistent a.s.sertion that they, and they alone, were the apostolic Church, and if any out of their communion were saved, it must only be by the uncovenanted mercies of G.o.d.

Yet, though not within the sacred triangle of gentility (as it was known in Eden Valley), of which the manse, the General's bungalow, and the residence of Mr. Shepstone Oglethorpe occupied the three angles, my grandmother was the first caller upon the lonely children in the great house of Marnhoul.

I shall never forget her indignation when I went in to the dairy and told her in detail what had happened--of the forcing of the gates, and the firing upon the back windows. My grandfather, seated within doors, in his great triangular easy-chair at his own corner of the wide fireplace, looked up and remarked in his serene and far-off fashion that "such proceedings filled him with shame and sorrow."

The words and still more the tone roused my grandmother.

"William Lyon," she said, standing before him in the clean middle of the hearth which she had just been sweeping, and threatening him with the brush (she would not have touched him for anything in the world, for she recognized his position as an elder). "Hear to ye--'shame and sorrow'!

Aye, well may ye say it. Had I been there I would have 'sinned and sorrowed' them. To go breaking into houses with swords and staves, and firing off powder and shot--all to frighten a pair of poor bairns!

Certes, but I would have sorted them to rights--with tongue, aye, and with arm also."

And at this point Mary Lyon advanced a step so fiercely and with such martial energy, that, well inured as my grandfather was to the generous outbursts of his wife, he moved his chair back with a certain alacrity.

"Mary," he remonstrated, "Mr. Shepstone Oglethorpe was with them. So at least I understand, and also Mr. Kettle, who is a Justice of the Peace--these in addition to the constable----"

He got no further. My grandmother swooped upon the names, as perhaps he expected. It was by no means the first time that, in order to draw off the hounds of his wife's wrath, he had skilfully drawn a red herring across the trail.

"Shepstone--Shepstone!" she cried, "a useless, daidling body! What was he ever good for in this world but to tie his neckcloth and twirl his cane? Oh aye, he can maybe b.u.t.ton his 'spats'! That is, if he doesna get the servant la.s.s to do it for him. And Josiah Kettle! William, I wonder you are not shamed, goodman--to sit there in your own hearth-corner and name such a hypocrite to me----"

"Stop there, Mary," said her husband; "only a man's Maker has the right to call him a hypocrite----"

"Well, I am an Elder's wife, and I'll e'en be his Viceroy. Josiah Kettle _is_ a hypocrite, and I hae telled him so to his face--not once, but a score of times. He has robbed the widow. He has impoverished the orphan.

Fegs, if I were a man, I could not keep my hands off him, and, 'deed, I have hard enough work as it is. If there was a man about the house worth his salt----"

"Forgive your enemies----" suggested my grandfather, "do good----"

"So I would--so I would," cried my grandmother, "but first I would give the best cheese out o' the dairy-loft to see Josiah ducked head over heels in Blackmire Dub! Forgive--aye, certainly, since it is commanded.

But a bit dressing down would do the like o' him no harm, and then the Lord could take His own turn at him after!"

Thus did my grandmother address all who came into contact with her, and there is every reason to believe that she had more than once similarly exhorted Mr. Josiah Kettle, rich farmer and money-lender though he was.

Yet it is equally certain that if Mr. Kettle had been stricken with a dangerous and deadly malady which made his nearest kin flee from him, it would have been my grandmother who would have flown to nurse him with the same robust and forcible tenderness with which she oversaw the teething and other ills incidental to her daughter's children.

"As for Jocky Black," continued my grandmother, "the pomp of the atomy--'In the name of the law,' says he--I'd law him! I would e'en nip his bit stick from his puir twisted fingers and gie him his paiks--that is, if it were worth the trouble! As for me, get me my bonnet, Jen--my best Sunday leghorn with the puce _chenille_ in it--I must look my featest going to a great house to pay my respects. And you shall come too, Duncan!" (She turned to me with her usual alertness.) "Run home and tidy--quick! Bid your mother put on your Sunday suit. No, Jen, I will _not_ take you to fright the poor things out of their wits. Afterwards, we shall see. But at first, Duncan there, if he gets over his blateness, will be more of their age, and fear them less."

"If all I hear be true," said my Aunt Jen, pursing up her mouth as if she had bitten into a crab apple, "the la.s.sie is little likely to be feared of you or any mortal on the earth!"

"Maybe aye--maybe no," snapped my grandmother, "at any rate be off with you into the back kitchen and see that the dishes are washed, so as not to be a show to the public. You and Meg have so little sense that whiles I wonder that I am your mother."

"You are not Meg's mother that I ken of!" her daughter responded acridly.

"I am her mistress, and the greater fool to keep such a handless hempie about the house! You, Janet, I have to provide for in some wise--such being the will of the Lord--His and your father's there. Now then, clear! Be douce! Let me get on my cloak and leghorn bonnet."

My grandmother being thus accoutred, and I invested with a black jacket, knee-breeches, shoes, and the regulation fluffy tie that tickled my throat and made me a week-day laughing stock to all who dared, Mistress Mary Lyon and I started to make our first call at the Great House of Marnhoul.

CHAPTER V

THE CENSOR OF MORALS

As my grandmother and I went down the little loaning from Heathknowes Farm she had an eye for everything. She "shooed" into duty's path a youngling hen with vague maternal aspirations which was wandering off to found a family by laying an egg in the underbrush about the saw-mill.

She called back final directions to her daughter Jen and maidservant Meg, and saw that they were attended to before she would go on. She looked into the saw-mill itself in the by-going, and made sure that Rob McTurk was in due attendance on the whirling machinery which was turning off the spools, as it seemed to me, with the rapidity of light. She inquired as to the whereabouts of her husband.

"Oh, he was in a minute since!" said the politic Rob, who knew very well that my grandfather had climbed into the bark storage loft, and was at that moment sitting on a bundle, with a book in his hand and content in his heart at having escaped the last injunctions of his wife.

"Well, then," said Mistress Mary Lyon, "tell him from me----" And, as usual, a long list of recommendations followed.

"I'll see to it that he hears," said Rob McTurk imperturbably, knowing full well that his master could by no means help hearing, since my grandmother, in order to drown the noise of the whirling spindles and clattering cogs, had raised her voice till her every word must have penetrated to the pleasant, bark-scented place where, under his solitary skylight, Mr. William Lyon was so calmly reading his favourite _Memoirs of the Life of Thomas Boston of Ettrick_.

Besides my clothes, there were two things which interfered with the happiness of my jaunt. One was the presence of a third and most uncertain party to the affair--our rough, red house-collie Crazy, and the other was a doubt as to the way in which we would be received. For, be it remembered, I had seen Miss Irma Maitland shut the great door at the top of the Marnhoul steps on the raging crowd of a.s.sailants, and I wondered if we would not also find it slammed in our faces.

I had, however, confidence in my grandmother.

On the way to the padlocked gate at the entrance of the avenue which led to the Haunted House, my grandmother had abundant room for the exercise of her gifts. Never was there a woman who came across so many things that "she could not abide."

Such, for instance, were Widow Tolmie's ideas as to disposal of her nocturnal household rubbish on the King's highway. Into the Tolmie house went Mistress Mary Lyon, well aware that words would have no avail. In a minute she had requisitioned broom, bucket, and "claut," or byre-rake.

In other three minutes all was over. Widow Tolmie had a clean frontage.

The utensils had been washed and hung up, and my grandmother was delivering a lecture from one of the most frequently-quoted texts which are not to be found in Holy Writ, while she drew again upon her strong, energetic old hands the pair of lisle thread "mitts" she had taken off in order to effect her clean sweep.

After she had duly lectured the Widow Tolmie, she bade her in all amity "Good-day," and started to reform Crazy, who had been gyrating furiously across her path, trying apparently to bite his tail out by the roots.

Crazy was, it appeared, a useless, good-for-nothing beast, a disgrace to a decent Elder's house, and I was ordered to stone him home.

Now I did not particularly wish Crazy to go with us to the Great House.

I thought of the smiling carelessness of the girl's face I had seen there. Crazy might, and very likely would, misbehave himself. But still, Crazy was my friend, my companion, my joy. _Stone Crazy!_ It was not to be thought of. He would certainly consider it some new kind of game and run barking after the missiles. I therefore shot so far beyond that the pebbles fell over the hedge, till my grandmother, whose sole method was an ungainly cross between a hurl and a jerk, took up the fusillade on her own account, with the result that Crazy was wrought up to the highest point of excitement, and, as I had foreseen, brought each stone back to my grandmother, barking joyously and pulling at her skirts for her to throw again.

"And just wait till I get you home," gasped Mrs. Mary Lyon, shaking her rough white head, "there shall a rope be put about your neck, my lad!"

But whether for the purpose of mere tying up, or to carry out the extreme sentence of the law, I did not gather. I resolved that, in the latter case, Crazy should come with me to the school-house. There was a place I knew of there, a crib at the end of the stick-cellar, which at a pinch would do admirably for Crazy. And I felt sure that Crazy, wholly incompetent at his own business of shepherding, would be a perfect "boys' dog" and a permanent acquisition to the Academy of Eden Valley.

There was, of course, my father to consider. But I did not stop to think of that. The cla.s.sics and Fred Esquillant were enough for him at the moment.