Читать книгу: «White Heather: A Novel (Volume 2 of 3)», страница 12
'Give me the reins, lass,' he called to her.
'I'll manage him – the stupid beast!' she said; with her teeth shut firm.
But all her pulling seemed to make no impression on the animal – nay, the trap was now swaying and jolting about in a most ominous manner.
'If ye meet anything, we're done for, Kate – run the wheel into the hedge.'
It was excellent advice, if it could have been properly followed; but unluckily, just at the very moment when, with all her might and main, she twisted the head of the cob to the side of the road, there happened to be a deep ditch there. Over the whole thing went – Ronald and Mrs. Menzies being pitched clean into the hedge; mother Paterson, not hanging on so well, being actually deposited on the other side, but in a gradual fashion. Oddly enough, the cob, with one or two pawings of his forefeet, got on to the road again, and the trap righted itself; while a farm-lad who had been coming along ran to the beast's head and held him. As it turned out, there was no harm done at all.
But that, at first, was apparently not Kate Menzies's impression.
'Ronald, Ronald,' she cried, and she clung to him frantically, 'I'm dying – I'm dying – kiss me!'
He had got a grip of her, and was getting her on to her feet again.
'There's nothing the matter wi' ye, woman,' he said, with unnecessary roughness.
'Ronald, Ronald – I'm hurt – I'm dying – kiss me!' she cried, and she would have fallen away from him, but that he gathered her up, and set her upright on the road.
'There's nothing the matter wi' ye – what? tumbling into a hawthorn hedge? – pull yourself together, woman! It's old mother Paterson that may have been hurt.'
He left her unceremoniously to get over to the other side of the hedge, and as he went off she darted a look of anger – of violent rage, even – towards him, which happily he did not see. Moreover, she had to calm herself; the farm lad was looking on. And when at length mother Paterson – who was merely terrified, and was quite uninjured – was hoisted over or through the hedge, and they all prepared to resume their seats in the trap, Kate Menzies was apparently quite collected and mistress of herself, though her face was somewhat pale, and her manner was distinctly reserved and cold. She gave the lad a couple of shillings; got up and took the reins; waited until the others were seated, and then drove away without a word. Mother Paterson was loud in her thankfulness over such a providential escape; she had only had her wrists scratched slightly.
Ronald was sensible of her silence, though he could not well guess the cause of it. Perhaps the fright had sobered down her high spirits; at all events, she was now more circumspect with her driving; and, as her attention was so much devoted to the cob, it was not for him to interfere. As they drew near Glasgow, however, she relaxed the cold severity of her manner, and made a few observations; and when they came in sight of St. Rollox, she even condescended to ask him whether he would not go on with them to the tavern and have some supper with them as usual.
'I ought to go back to my work,' said he, 'and that's the truth. But it would be a glum ending for such an unusual holiday as this.'
'Your prospects are not so very certain,' said Kate, who could talk excellent English when she chose, and kept her broad Scotch for familiar or affectionate intercourse. 'An hour or two one way or the other is not likely to make much difference.'
'I am beginning to think that myself,' he said, rather gloomily.
And then, with a touch of remorse for the depressing speech she had made, she tried to cheer him a little; and, in fact, insisted on his going on with them. She even quoted a couplet from his own song to him —
'An hour or twa 'twill do nae harm,
The dints a' fortune to forget';
and she said that, after the long drive, he ought to have a famous appetite for supper, and that there would be a good story to tell about their being shot into a hawthorn hedge, supposing that the skipper and Laidlaw and Jaap came in in the evening.
Nevertheless, all during the evening there was a certain restraint in her manner. Altogether gone was her profuse friendship and her pride in East Lothian, although she remained as hospitable as ever. Sometimes she regarded him sharply, as if trying to make out something. On his part, he thought she was probably a little tired after the fatigues of the day; perhaps, also, he preferred her quieter manner.
Then again, when the 'drei Gesellen' came in, there was a little less hilarity than usual; and, contrary to her wont, she did not press them to stay when they proposed to adjourn to the club. Ronald, who had been vaguely resolving not to go near that haunt for some time to come, found that that was the alternative to his returning to his solitary lodging and his books at a comparatively early hour of the evening. Doubtless he should have conquered his repugnance to this later course; but the temptation – after a long day of pleasure-making – to finish up the last hour or so in the society of these good fellows was great. He went to the Harmony Club, and was made more welcome than ever; and somehow, in the excitement of the moment, he was induced to sing another song, and there were more people than ever claiming his acquaintance, and challenging him to have 'another one.'
CHAPTER XVI
THE DOWNWARD WAY
With a fatal certainty he was going from bad to worse; and there was no one to warn him; and if any one had warned him, probably he would not have cared. Life had come to be for him a hopeless and useless thing. His own instinct had answered true, when the American was urging him to go and cast himself into the eager strife of the world, and press forward to the universal goal of wealth and ease and independence. 'I'd rather be "where the dun deer lie,"' he had said. Kingsley's poem had taken firm root in his mind, simply because it found natural soil there.
'Nor I wadna be a clerk, mither, to bide aye ben,
Scrabbling ower the sheets o' parchment with a weary, weary pen:
Looking through the lang stane windows at a narrow strip o' sky,
Like a laverock in a withy cage, until I pine away and die.
Ye'll bury me 'twixt the brae and the burn, in a glen far away,
Where I may hear the heathcock craw and the great harts bray;
And gin my ghaist can walk, mither, I'll go glowering at the sky,
The livelong night on the black hillsides where the dun deer lie.'
His way of existence up there on the far hillsides – unlike that of the luckless outlaw – had been a perfectly happy and contented one. His sound common sense had put away from him that craving for fame which has rendered so miserable the lives of many rustic verse writers; he was proud of his occupation, grateful to the good friends around him, and always in excellent health and spirits. Another thing has to be said – to pacify the worthy folk who imagine that ambition must necessarily fill the mind of youth: had he come away from that sphere of careless content with a sufficient aim to strive for, perhaps affairs might have gone differently. If it could have been said to him: 'Fight your way to the worldly success that the Americans have so liberally prophesied for you; and then come back, and you will find Meenie Douglas awaiting you; and you shall win her and wear her, as the rose and crown of your life, in spite of all the Stuarts of Glengask' – then the little room in Port Dundas Road would no longer have been so gray; and all the future would have been filled with light and hope; and the struggle, however arduous and long, would have been glad enough. But with no such hope; with increasing doubts as to his ultimate success; and with a more dangerously increasing indifference as to whether he should ever reach that success, the temptations of the passing hour became irresistibly strong. And he became feebler to resist them. He did not care. After all, these gay evenings at the Harmony Club were something to look forward to during the long dull days; with a full glass and a good-going pipe and a roaring chorus the hours passed; and then from time to time there was the honour and glory of hearing one of his own songs sung. He was a great figure at these gatherings now; that kind of fame at least had come to him, and come to him unsought; and there were not wanting a sufficiency of rather muddle-headed creatures who declared that he was fit to rank with very distinguished names indeed in the noble roll-call of Scotland's poets; and who, unfortunately, were only too eager to prove the faith that was in them by asking him to drink at their expense.
In this rhyming direction there was one very curious point: when he began to turn over the various pieces that might be made available for Mr. Jaap, he was himself astonished to find how little melody there was in them. Whatever little musical faculty he had seemed to be all locked up in the love-verses he had written about Meenie. Many of the fragments had other qualities – homely common sense; patriotism; a great affection for dumb animals; here and there sometimes a touch of humour or pathos; but somehow they did not sing. It is true that the following piece —
SHOUTHER TO SHOUTHER
From Hudson's Bay to the Rio Grand',
The Scot is ever a rover;
In New South Wales and in Newfoundland,
And all the wide world over;
Chorus: But it's shouther to shouther, my bonnie lads,
And let every Scot be a brither;
And we'll work as we can, and we'll win if we can,
For the sake of our auld Scotch mither.
She's a puir auld wife, wi' little to give;
And she's rather stint o' caressing;
But she's shown us how honest lives we may live,
And she's sent us out wi' her blessing.
Chorus: And it's shouther to shouther, etc.
Her land's no rick; and her crops are slim;
And I winna say much for the weather;
But she's given us legs that can gaily clim'
Up the slopes o' the blossoming heather.
Chorus: And it's shouther to shouther, etc.
And she's given us hearts that, whatever they say
(And I trow that we might be better)
There's one sair fault they never will hae —
Our mither, we'll never forget her!
Chorus: And it's shouther to shouther, my bonnie lads,
And let every Scot be a brither;
And we'll work as we can, and we'll win if we can,
For the sake of our auld Scotch mither!
had attained a great success at the Harmony Club; but that was merely because Mr. Jaap had managed to write for it an effective air, that could be easily caught up and sung in chorus; in itself there was no simple, natural 'lilt' whatever. And then, again, in his epistolary rhymes to friends and acquaintances (alas! that was all over now) there were many obvious qualities, but certainly not the lyrical one. Here, for example, are some verses he had sent in former days to a certain Johnnie Pringle, living at Tongue, who had had his eye on a young lass down Loch Loyal way:
O Johnnie, leave the lass alane;
Her mother has but that one wean;
For a' the others have been ta'en,
As weel ye ken, Johnnie.
'Tis true her bonnie e'en would rive
The heart o' any man alive;
And in the husry3 she would thrive —
I grant ye that, Johnnie.
But wad ye tak' awa the lass,
I tell ye what would come to pass,
The mother soon would hae the grass
Boon her auld head, Johnnie.
They've got some gear, and bit o' land
That well would bear another hand;
Come down frae Tongue, and take your stand
By Loyal's side, Johnnie!
Ye'd herd a bit, and work the farm,
And keep the widow-wife frae harm:
And wha would keep ye snug and warm
In winter-time, Johnnie? —
The lass hersel' – that I'll be sworn!
And bonnier creature ne'er was born:
Come down the strath the morrow's morn,
Your best foot first, Johnnie!
Well, there may be wise and friendly counsel in verses such as these; but they do not lend themselves readily to the musician who would adapt them for concert purposes. No; all such lyrical faculty as he possessed had been given in one direction. And yet not for one moment was he tempted to show Mr. Jaap any of those little love-lyrics that he had written about Meenie – those careless verses that seemed to sing themselves, as it were, and that were all about summer mornings, and red and white roses, and the carolling of birds, and the whispering of Clebrig's streams. Meenie's praises to be sung at the Harmony Club! – he could as soon have imagined herself singing there.
One wet and miserable afternoon old Peter Jaap was passing through St. Enoch Square when, much to his satisfaction, he ran against the big skipper, who had just come out of the railway station.
'Hallo, Captain,' said the little old man, 'back already?'
'Just up frae Greenock; and precious glad to be ashore again, I can tell ye,' said Captain M'Taggart. 'That Mary Jane 'll be my grave, mark my words; I never get as far south as the Mull o' Galloway without wondering whether I'll ever see Ailsa Craig or the Tail o' the Bank again. Well, here I am this time; and I was gaun doon to hae a glass on the strength o't – to the widow's – '
'We'll gang in some other place,' Mr. Jaap said. 'I want to hae a word wi' ye about that young fellow Strang.'
They easily discovered another howf; and soon they were left by themselves in a little compartment, two big tumblers of ale before them.
'Ay, and what's the matter wi' him?' said the skipper.
'I dinna rightly ken,' the little old musician said, 'but something is. Ye see, I'm feared the lad has no' muckle siller – '
'It's a common complaint, Peter!' the skipper said, with a laugh.
'Ay; but ye see, the maist o' us hae some way o' leevin. That's no the case wi' Ronald. He came to Glasgow, as I understand it, wi' a sma' bit nest-egg; and he's been leevin on that ever since – every penny coming out o' his capital, and never a penny being added. That's enough to make a young fellow anxious.'
'Ay?'
'But there's mair than that. He's a proud kind o' chiel. It's just wonderfu' the way that Mrs. Menzies humours him, and pretends this and that so he'll no be at any expense; and when they gang out driving she takes things wi' her – and a lot o' that kind o' way o' working; but a' the same there's sma' expenses that canna be avoided, and deil a bit – she says – will he let her pay. And the sma' things maun be great things to him, if he's eating into his nest-egg in that way.'
'It's easy getting out o' that difficulty,' said the big skipper, who was of a less sympathetic nature than the old musician. 'What for does he no stay at hame? He doesna need to gang driving wi' her unless he likes.'
'It's no easy getting away frae Mrs. Menzies,' the old man said shrewdly, 'if she has a mind to take ye wi' her. And she hersel' sees that he canna afford to spend money even on little things; and yet she's feared to say anything to him. Man, dinna ye mind when she wanted him to take a room in the house? – what was that but that she meant him to have his board free? But no – the deevil has got some o' the Hielan pride in him; she was just feared to say anything mair about it. And at the club, too, it's no every one he'll drink wi' though there's plenty ready to stand Sam, now that Ronald is kent as a writer o' poetry. Not that but wi' ithers he's ower free – ay, confound him, he's getting the reputation o' a harum-scarum deil – if he takes a liking to a man, he'll gang off wi' him and his neighbours for the time being, and goodness knows when or where they'll stop. A bottle o' whisky in their pocket, and off they'll make; I heard the other week o' him and some o' them finding themselves at daybreak in Helensburgh – naught would do the rascal the night before but that he maun hae a sniff o' the saut sea-air; and off they set, him and them, the lang night through, until the daylight found them staring across to Roseneath and Kempoch Point. He's no in the best o' hands, that's the fact. If he would but marry the widow – '
'What would Jimmy Laidlaw say to that?' the skipper said, with a loud laugh.
'Jimmy Laidlaw? He hasna the ghost o' a chance so long as this young fellow's about. Kate's just daft about him; but he's no inclined that way, I can see – unless hunger should tame him. Weel, M'Taggart, I dinna like to see the lad being led away to the mischief. He's got into ill hands. If it's the want o' a settled way o' leevin that's worrying him, and driving him to gang wild and reckless at times, something should be done. I'm an auld man now; I've seen ower many young fellows like that gang to auld Harry; and I like this lad – I'm no going to stand by and look on without a word.'
'Ay, and what would ye hiv me dae, Peter? Take him as a hand on board the Mary Jane?'
'Na, na. The lad maun gang on wi' his surveying and that kind o' thing – though he seems less and less to think there'll be any solid outcome frae it. But what think ye o' this? There's Mr. Jackson paying they professionals from week to week; and here's a fellow wi' a finer natural voice than any o' them – if it had but a little training. Well, now, why shouldna Jackson pay the lad for his singing?'
'Not if he can get it for nothing, Peter!'
'But he canna – that's just the thing, man,' retorted the other. 'It's only when Ronald has had a glass and is in the humour that he'll sing anything. Why shouldna he be engaged like the others? It would be a stand-by. It would take up none o' his time. And it might make him a wee thing steadier if he kent he had to sing every night.'
'Very well, then, ask Tom Jackson about it,' the big skipper said. 'Ye may say it would please the members – I'll back ye up wi' that. Confound him, I didna ken the deevil had got his leg ower the trace.'
The old man answered with a cautious smile:
'Ye're rough and ready, M'Taggart; but that'll no do. Ronald's a camstrairy chiel. There's Hielan blood in his veins; and ye never ken when his pride is gaun to bleeze oot and be up the lum wi'm in a fluff.'
'Beggars canna be choosers, my good freen – '
'Beggars? They Hielan folk are never beggars; they'll rob and plunder ye, and fling ye ower a hedge, and rifle your pockets, but deil a bit o' them 'll beg. Na, na; we'll have to contrive some roundabout way to see how he'll take it. But I'll speak to Jackson; and we'll contrive something, I doubtna. Sae finish up your beer, Captain; and if ye're gaun doon to see Mrs. Menzies, I'll gang as far wi' ye; I havena been there this nicht or twa.'
Now that was an amiable and benevolent, but, as it turned out, most unfortunate design. That same night Ronald did show up at the Harmony Club; and there was a little more than usual of hilarity and good fellowship over the return of the skipper from the perils of the deep. Laidlaw was there too; and he also had been acquainted with the way in which they meant to approach Ronald, to see whether he could not be induced to sing regularly at these musical meetings for a stipulated payment.
Their first difficulty was to get him to sing at all; and for a long time he was good-humouredly obdurate, and they let him alone. But later on in the evening one of his own songs was sung – 'The fisher lads are bound for hame' – and was received with immense applause, which naturally pleased him; and then there was a good deal of talking and laughing and conviviality; in the midst of which the skipper called to him —
'Now, Ronald, lad, tune up; I havena heard a song frae ye this three weeks and mair; man, if I had a voice like yours wouldna I give them —
'"The boat rocks at the pier o' Leith,
Fu' loud the wind blaws frae the ferry;
The ship rides by the Berwick Law,
And I maun leave my bonnie mary!"'
And indeed he did, in this loud and general hum, sing these lines, in tones resembling the sharpening of a rusty saw.
'Very well, then,' Ronald said. 'But I'll sing it where I am – once there's quietness. I'm not going up on that platform.'
Of course, the chairman was glad enough to make the announcement, for Ronald's singing was highly appreciated by the members; moreover there was a little experiment to be tried. So peace was restored; the accompanist struck a few notes; and Ronald, with a little indecision at first, but afterwards with a clear-ringing courage, sang that gayest of all parting songs. In the hubbub of applause that followed none but the conspirators saw what now took place. The chairman called a waiter, and spoke a few words to him in an undertone; the waiter went over to the table where Ronald was sitting and handed him a small package; and then Ronald, naturally thinking that this was merely a written message or something of the kind, opened the folded piece of white paper.
There was a message, it is true, – 'with T. Jackson's compliments,' – and there was also a sovereign and a shilling. For an instant Ronald regarded this thing with a kind of bewilderment; and then his eyes blazed; the money was dashed on to the ground; and, without a word or a look to any one in the place, he had clapped on his hat and stalked to the door, his mouth firm shut, his lips pale. This glass door was a private door leading to an outer passage formerly described; the handle seemed stiff or awkward; so by main force he drove it before him, and the door swinging back into the lobby, smashed its glass panels against the wall. The 'breenge' – for there is no other word – caused by this violent departure was tremendous; and the three conspirators could only sit and look at each other.
'The fat's in the fire now,' said the skipper.
'I wonder if the guinea 'll pay for the broken glass,' said Jimmy Laidlaw.
But it was the little old musician, whose scheme this had been, who was most concerned.
'We'll have to get hold o' the lad and pacify him,' said he. 'The Hielan deevil! But if he doesna come back here, he'll get among a worse lot than we are – we'll have to get hold o' him, Captain, and bring him to his senses.'
Well, in the end – after a day or two – Ronald was pacified; and he did go back to the club, and resumed his relations with the friends and acquaintances he had formed there. And that was how it came about that Meenie's married sister – who happened to know certain members of the Rev. Andrew Strang's congregation, and who was very curious to discover why it was that Meenie betrayed such a singular interest in this mere gamekeeper, and was repeatedly referring to him in her correspondence – added this postscript to a letter which she was sending to Inver-Mudal:
'I don't know whether it may interest you to hear that Ronald Strang, Mr. Strang's brother, whom you have several times asked about, is drinking himself to death, and that in the lowest of low company.'
