The Men of the Moss-Hags Part 28

"But aboot yoursel', Aunty Jean?" I ventured, in order to stir her to reckless speech, which was like fox-hunting to me.

"Wha? Me? Certes, no! I gat the stoor oot o' my e'en braw an' early. I took the cure-all betimes, as the lairds tak' their mornin' o' French brandy. When Tam Lindsay gaed aff wi' his fleein' flagarie o' a muckle-tochered Crawford la.s.s, _I_ vowed that I wad hae dune wi' men.

An' so I had!

"Whenever a loon cam' here in his best breeks, and a hingin' look in the e'e o' the craitur that meant courtin', faith, I juist set the dowgs on the scullion. I keepit a fearsome tyke on purpose, wi' a jaw ontill him like Jonah's whale. Aye, aye, mony's the braw lad that has gane doon that brae, wi' Auld Noll ruggin' an' reevin' at the hinderlands o'

him--bonny it was to see!"

"Did ye think, as ye watched them gang, that it was your Lindsay, Aunty Jean?" I asked; for, indeed, her well-going talk eased my heart in the midst of so many troubles. For I declare that during these thirty years in Scotland, and especially in the Glenkens, folk had almost forgotten the way to laugh.

"Na, na, callant," so she would say to me in return, "I ne'er blamed him sair ava'. Tam Lindsay was never sair fashed wi' sense a' the days o'

his life--at least no to hurt him, ony mair nor yersel', as yin micht say. It was the Crawford woman and her weel-feathered nest that led him awa', like a bit silly cuddie wi' a carrot afore his nose. But I'll never deny the randy that she was clever; for she took the craitur's size at the first look, as neat as if she had been measurin' him for a suit o' claes. But she did what I never did, or my name had been Jean Lindsay this day. The Lord in His mercy be thankit continually that it is as it is, and that I hae nae auld dotard, grumphin' an' snortin' at the chimley lug. She cuitled Tam Lindsay an' flairdied him an' spak' him fair, till the poor fathom o' pump water thocht himsel' the brawest lad in braid Scotland. Faith, I wadna sae bemean mysel' to get the king oot o' Whitehall--wha they tell me is no that ill to get, gin yin had the chance--and in muckle the same way as Tam Lindsay. Oh, what a set o'

blind, brainless, handless, guid-for-naethings are men!"

"It was with that ye began, Aunty Jean," I said.

"Aye, an' I shall end wi' it too," she answered. "I'm no theology learned, but it looks terribly like as if the rib story were gye near the truth. For the poorest o' weemen can mak' a great muckle oot o' a very little, an' the best o' men are sadly troubled wi' a sair want. I misdoot that Aydam maun hae missed mair nor the rib when he waukened."

My pleasant time in the cottage by the Garpel came all too soon to an end. It is, indeed, a rare and heartsome place to bide in on a summer's day. There is the sound of the birds singing, the plash of the water into the pool beneath the Holy Linn, where the ministers held the great baptizing of bairns, when the bonny burn water dropped of its own accord on their brows as their fathers held them up. There are the leaves rubbing against one another with a pleasant soughing noise. These kept my heart stirring and content as long as I abode in the Glen of the Garpel.

There is in particular one little hill with a flat top, from which one may spy both up and down the Glen, yet be hidden under the leaves. Here I often frequented to go, though Sandy warned me that this would be my death. Yet I liked it best of all places in the daytime, and lay there p.r.o.ne on my belly for many hours together, very content, chewing sorrel, clacking my heels together, and letting on that I was meditating. But, indeed, I never could look at water slipping away beneath me, without letting it bear my thoughts with it and leave me to the dreaming. And the Garpel is an especially pleasant burn to watch thus running from you. I have had the same feelings in church when the sermon ran rippleless and even over my head.

The only thing that annoyed me was that on the Sabbath days the Garpel became a great place for lovers to convene. And above all, at one angle behind Jean Gordon's cot, there is a bower planted with wild flowers--pleasant and retired doubtless, for them that are equipped with a la.s.s. But as for me, I pleased myself by thinking that one day I should shape to bring Maisie Lennox there to see my hiding-place, for, as a little maid, she ever loved woods that rustle and waters that flow softly. So chiefly on the Sabbath I kept close in my covert with a book; but whether from motives of safety or envy, it misliketh me to tell.

CHAPTER x.x.xIII.

THE GARDENER OF BALMAGHIE.

I was wakened one morning by Jean coming to the side of my bed. She was fully dressed, as if to receive company, and her tall and straight figure looked imposing enough.

"Rise!" she said. "Rise! there's a chiel here, that wants ye to gang wi'

him."

"A chiel, Jean Gordon?" said I, in a sleepy kind of surprise. "What ken ye aboot him?"

"Oh, I ken he's a honest lad," she said, "an' he brings ye a message frae the gardener o' Balmaghie that ye are to accompany him there for greater safety."

"A likely story!" returned I, for I was none too well pleased to be wakened up out of my sleep at that time in the morning to see a regiment of Balmaghie gardeners. "There is great safety in the neighbourhood of the eagle's nest!"

"There is so," said Jean Gordon, dryly--"for sparrows. 'Tis the safest place in the world for the like of them to build, for the eagle will not touch them, an' the lesser gleds dare not come near."

Nor do I think that this saying pleased me over well, because I thought that a Gordon of Earlstoun, of whatever rank, was a city set on a hill that could not be hid.

Then Jean Gordon, the hermit of the Garpel glen, bade me an adieu, giving me an old-fashioned salutation as well, which savoured little of having forgotten all that she had lightlied to me.

"Tak' tent to yoursel'," she said. "Ye are a good lad and none so f.e.c.kless as ye look. There's stuff and fushion in ye, an' ye micht even tak' the e'e o' woman--gin ye wad pad your legs."

And with this she went in, leaving me in a quandary whether to throw a stone at her, or run back and take her round the neck.

I found the gardener of Balmaghie standing with his back towards me. He walked on a little before me without speaking, as though wishing me to follow him. He was, to the back view, dressed but ordinarily, yet with some of the neatness of a proper gentleman's servant.

And this was a great deal in a country where for common the men wear little that is handsome, save and except the Sabbath cloak--which if it do not, like charity, cover a mult.i.tude of sins, of a truth hides a mult.i.tude of old duddy clothes.

At the foot of the burn, where by the bridge it runs over some black and rugged rocks, the gardener stopped and turned round. I declare I never gat a greater or more pleasant surprise in my life, save as it may be, once--of what I have yet to tell.

"Wat, dear Wat!" I cried, and ran to him. We clasped one another's hands, and then we stood a little off, gazing each at the other. I had not known that I was so fond of him. But nothing draws the heart like coming through trials together. At least, so it is with men. 'Twixt women and men so many things draw the heart, that it is well-nigh impossible to separate one thing from the other.

"How came Jean Gordon to say that you were the gardener at Balmaghie?" I asked of him, when I was a little satisfied with looking at him.

"Why, because I am the gardener at Balmaghie--second gardener!" answered Wat, smiling in a sly way that he had when he meant to provoke and mystify me. Yet a way that I liked not ill, for he never used it save when he had within him a light and merry heart.

But I knew by this time how to counter his stroke, which was to hold one's peace, as if one cared nothing about the matter. For in this Wat was just like a woman, or a fencer, whom it provokes more to measure a thrust and avoid, than a hundred times to parry and return.

But for all I could not keep the anxiety out of my eyes as we walked along.

"You do not want to hear," said he, provoking me; for because of Maisie Lennox and my mother, he knew that he had the better of me.

"But I do, though!" That was all I could say.

For indeed the matter was a mystery to me, as well it might be. Wat Gordon of Lochinvar, sometime favourite of her Grace the d.u.c.h.ess of Wellwood, now gardener to a lat.i.tudinarian and cavalier Galloway laird, that had been a ferlie even on a day of miracles.

Wat continued to smile and smile.

"Well, I will tell you," he said. Yet for a while did not, but only walked on smiling.

At last he pursed his mouth and began to whistle. It was a bar or two of the air "Kate Kennedy is my darling."

Now at that time I own that I was not bright in the uptake about such things. For I had not till lately concerned me much with love and women's favours, but it came across me all in an instant.

"Oh!" I said.

"Ah!" said Wat.

And we looked at one another and nodded--Wat defiantly.

"Kate of the black eyebrows!" I said musingly. "They are joined over her brow," I went on, "and her ear comes straight down to her neck without any rounded lobe. They are two well-considered signs!"

Wat Gordon stopped suddenly, and cried out at me.

"See here, William Gordon, what mean you by that? What if her eyebrows meet under her chin and her ears hang down like band strings? What is that to you?"

"Happily nothing!" said I--for I was patiently paying him out, as it is ever easy to do with a spit-fire like young Lochinvar.

"Speak plain, Will," he cried, "or by the Lord I will immediately run you through!"

"With a spade," said I, mocking. "Mind, Wat, you are a laird's second gardener now."