Up in Ardmuirland Part 9

"Aye, sure!" cried Maggie Jean, seconding her father's hospitable invitation. And without another word she produced from various hidden receptacles tablecloth, knives and forks, bread, oatcake, b.u.t.ter, cheese, and jam, with the rapidity of a conjurer--as the dazed Bonar thought. Then down came a frying-pan, and she began to cook eggs and ham over the bright fire.

It was impossible to resist, and Bonar had no wish to refuse the food he needed so badly.

"You're very good, I'm sure!" he faltered out. "I really think it was hunger alone that made me faint. I've never done such a thing in my life before!"

"Ye'd be nane the worse for a wee drappie sperrits afore y'r supper,"

said Davie. "Peter, lad, fetch oot a drap frae yon jar beyont!"

Peter dutifully obeyed, retiring into some back recess and returning with a small jug of whiskey, from which his father poured out drams for the guest and himself.

"Y'r guid health, sir!" he said hospitably, lifting his gla.s.s. "May ye be nane the worse for y'r wettin', the nicht!"

Bonar would have been less than human to have refused. He quietly sipped his whiskey, which was excellent. The spirit gave him renewed strength; the savor of Maggie Jean's cooking whetted his appet.i.te. He owed it to himself to take ordinary care of his health, he reasoned interiorly. He would tell them who he was, though, before he left.

He had indeed been saved from serious disaster, if not from death, by means of this family. Peter's lantern--which he had not troubled to extinguish when the moon rendered it no longer necessary--had been Bonar's first guiding-star. Don's bark had renewed his energy, and the result was shelter and hospitality. Like a sensible man he accepted the good fortune which had fallen to him, and ate a hearty meal.

When it came to the question of starting out again, he found it less easy than he had antic.i.p.ated.

"Ye'll nae think o' leavin' this hoose the nicht!" the old man declared, when, after his supper and a pipe, Bonar touched on the subject.

"It's an impossibeelity for ony mon as disna' ken the hill yon to find his wye up or doon in siclike weather," Jock added grimly.

Bonar knew how true was Jock's remark. Nevertheless, he felt very uncomfortable at the prospect of remaining there for the night, as Davie had proposed. Did they know who he was? It seemed most unlikely, with the kindness they had shown him! Yet he could not stay, he told himself, under false pretences.

"It's more than kind of you to treat me like this," he said. "I could never have expected such a friendly welcome to one who is a perfect stranger to you all."

"Nae altogither a stranger, whateever," returned Davie--and for a moment there was ever so slight a suspicion of a twinkle in his kindly old eyes. "Ye're the new gauger we've haird sae muckle aboot, I'm thinkin'."

"Quite so," stammered Bonar, rather shamefacedly, "and--it's really very good of you to show me so much kindness."

"Na, na, sir," said the old man warmly. "I should be wantin' in human feelin' if I wes to turn a dog oot sic a nicht--still mair a fellow-creetur. Na, na, sir! Juist ye sit still, and Maggie Jean'll redd up the bed for ye beyont for y'r nicht's rest!"

So in the smuggler's very house the smuggler's natural enemy was bound to rest for the night, having been warmed at the smuggler's hearth and cheered and invigorated by whiskey that had paid no duty!

It was with changed mien that Bonar trod his downward path next morning under Peter's guidance.

Be sure he lost no time in applying for removal to a new sphere of labor! Let others tackle Davie Forbes and his sons if they wished; as for himself, he could never so repay the fearless generosity to which he owed--as he firmly believed--the saving of his life!

VIII

PHENOMENA

"This spirit, dumb to us, will speak to him."

(_"Hamlet" Act I, Sc. 1._)

Strolling across the little stableyard one day to have a look at Tim, our pony, I heard from the open door of the kitchen Penny's voice, raised in expostulation.

"_Ghost_, indeed!" And withering scorn was expressed in the very tone of her e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n. "When you're my _h_age you'll have learned to take no 'eed of such nonsense! There's no such a thing; and I'm surprised as a Catholic girl, born and bred, should be that superst.i.tious! You mustn't believe such rubbish!"

I scented entertainment, for Penny dogmatizing on spiritualism was likely to prove interesting.

"What's up, Penny?" I inquired with an air of innocence, as she suddenly emerged from the kitchen, wrathfully brandishing a huge knife--as who should say, in Hamlet's words:

"I'll make a ghost of him that lets me!"

had she not been bent upon the more peaceful, if prosaic, slaughter of a lettuce for the luncheon salad.

Penny was just in the mood to give vent to her theological opinions concerning the possibility of visits from another world, and at once seized the opportunity of imparting a little wholesome instruction to any audience obtainable.

"The nonsense that folks get into their 'eads nowadays, Mr. Edmund--what with these trashy novels and 'apenny papers--is something past belief!

Not but what Elsie is a good, quiet girl enough, and reg'lar at her duties every first Sunday in the month; but she's young, and I suppose we 'ave to make allowance for young folk."

I murmured in token of acquiescence.

"I let her off for the afternoon yesterday, to take tea with her _h_aunt from America, and back she comes with a c.o.c.k-and-bull story of a _h_apparition her youngest brother Aleck imagined he saw the night before last."

"An apparition!" I cried. "That's strange! Where did the boy see it?"

"He couldn't have seen it, Mr. Edmund, as you must know very well, with your _h_education and experience. He was running home in the moonlight and thought he saw some figure in the old mill, which, of course, he says must have been a ghost."

"A ghost at the old mill!" I laughed heartily myself at the notion. "It couldn't have been poor old Archie. It's not like him to terrify his neighbors in that way."

"I gave the girl a good talking to," continued Penny. (I did not doubt it!) "'Read your Penny Catechism,' I said, 'and see how strong it is against dealing with the Devil by consulting spiritualists, and don't let me hear another word about it.'"

It seemed rather hard on poor Elsie, who was, beyond doubt, innocent of any such forbidden practices. But I refrained from comment, for I wanted to hear more about the _h_apparition.

But Penny could not be drawn out. She professed herself so disgusted at Elsie's "superst.i.tion" that I could get no coherent account of what Aleck was supposed to have seen. So I left her to vent her wrath on the defenceless vegetables, and determined to seek a more copious source of information.

w.i.l.l.y and Bell would be capable of second-hand descriptions only, so I resolved to approach the fountain-head and interrogate Aleck in person.

I found the youth in the garden of Fanellan farm, evidently just pa.s.sing the time by a cursory pruning of berry bushes. He had on his Sunday suit, and was unusually smartened up for a weekday; for it was but natural that neighbors might be expected to drop in for information as to the supernatural manifestations he had experienced, and it was well to be prepared. He was a fresh-looking, fair-haired lad of eighteen or thereabouts. I had often noticed him on Sundays among the gathering under the pine-trees near the church door, but had never spoken to him.

Aleck had not expected so ill.u.s.trious a visitor as "the priest's brother," and, though evidently gratified by my interest, was so painfully shy that it would have needed an expert barrister to draw out any satisfactory information from so bashful a witness. Luckily his mother had espied me from the window, and promptly appeared on the scene, and by means of her judicious prompting the youth was induced to tell his tale.

It appeared that Aleck was out on the night in question at the unusual hour of twelve. He had been "bidden," as his mother explained, to a marriage in the neighborhood, and his father had allowed him to accept the invitation on the condition of his return home by midnight. As is not unusual in such cases, the attractions of the dance had led the youth to postpone his departure, minute by minute, until it was questionable whether he could possibly reach home by the appointed time, even if he ran his best. Consequently he took all the short cuts he knew, and one of them led him by the old mill.

I was well aware, from an anecdote related to me by Penny, that John Farquhar, the lad's father, was a stern disciplinarian. Elsie's elder sister, Jean, a la.s.s of nineteen, had once happened to return home from confession rather later than usual one Sat.u.r.day evening, owing to the exceptionally large number awaiting their turn in the church. On reaching home about half-past eight on a spring evening, she became aware of her father standing in the dusk at the garden gate, holding an ominously slender walking-stick in his hand. With this he proceeded to deal several far from gentle strokes upon the girl's shoulders, regardless of her frightened remonstrances and explanations.

"I dinna' care wha ye come frae, chaipel or nae chaipel; ye'll nae be alloowed oot at sic an hoor!"

In the light of this circ.u.mstance it was not difficult to understand Aleck's desire to reach Fanellan punctually. But to return to his adventure.

As he approached the old mill he became aware of a light shining from one of the windows. Thinking that some traveling tinkers had taken up free lodgings there, he was preparing to pa.s.s as quickly and quietly as possible, to avoid drawing attention upon himself and delaying his progress. But, to his astonishment, the light suddenly went out, and by the time he reached the house it was wrapped in darkness. There was little moonlight (spite of Penny's indignant insinuations), for it was a cloudy night, and the lad would have had difficulty in finding his way had it not been so familiar. Curiosity urged Aleck to investigate the mystery of the light, and, forgetful for the moment of his father's injunction, he crept quietly to the unglazed window and looked through the opening. Not a sound revealed the presence of any human being within. A silence, accentuated no doubt by his startled imagination, seemed to hang over the place. He was starting on again when a strange sight met his eyes. Suddenly out of the darkness of the cottage shone out the figure of a human hand! It seemed to glow with a faint greenish light, and it held a long pointed knife, which burned with the same pale hue. Nothing else could be seen except a kind of gauzy floating sleeve, from which the mysterious hand emerged. Aleck had no wish to investigate further, but promptly took to his heels, and made for home with all speed, frightened out of his wits.