Scottish sketches Part 28

Badly enough Sandy wanted both; and a dreadful story he told. He had indeed engaged himself at Wick for a whaling voyage, but at the last moment had changed his mind and deserted. For somewhere among the wilds of Rhiconich in Sutherland he had a mother, a wild, superst.i.tious, half-heathen Highland woman, and he wanted to see her.

Coming back to the coast, after his visit, he had stopped a night at a little wayside inn, and hearing some drovers talking of their gold in Gallic, a language which he well understood, he had followed them into the wild pa.s.s of Gualon, and there shot them from behind a rock. For this murder he had been tracked, and was now so closely pursued that he had bribed with all the gold he had a pa.s.sing fis.h.i.+ng-smack to drop him at Stromness during the night.

"She'll gae awa now ta some ither place; 'teet will she! An' she's hungry--an' unco dry;" all of which Sandy emphasized by a desperate and very evil look.

The man was not to be trifled with, and Ragon knew that he was in his power. If Sandy was taken, he would confess all, and Ragon knew well that in such case transportation for life and hard labor would be his lot. Other considerations pressed him heavily--the shame, the loss, the scorn of Margaret, the triumph of all his ill-wishers. No, he had gone too far to retreat.

He fed the villain, gave him a suit of his own clothes, and 50, and saw him put off to sea. Sandy promised to keep well out in the bay, until some vessel going North to Zetland or Iceland, or some Dutch skipper bound for Amsterdam, took him up. All the next day Ragon was in misery, but nightfall came and he had heard nothing of Sandy, though several craft had come into port. If another day got over he would feel safe; but he told himself that he was in a gradually narrowing circle, and that the sooner he leaped outside of it the better.

When he reached home the old couple who hung about the place, and who had learned to see nothing and to hear nothing, came to him and voluntarily offered a remark.

"Queer folk an' strange folk have been here, an' ta'en awa some claes out o' the cellar."

Ragon asked no questions. He knew what clothes they were--that suit of John Sabay's in which Sandy Beg had killed Peter Fae, and the rags which Sandy had a few hours before exchanged for one of his own sailing-suits. He needed no one to tell him what had happened. Sandy had undoubtedly bespoke the very vessel containing the officers in search of him, and had confessed all, as he said he would. The men were probably at this moment looking for him.

He lifted the gold prepared for any such emergency, and, loosening his boat, pulled for life and death towards Mayness Isle. Once in the rapid "race" that divides it and Olla from the ocean, he knew no boat would dare to follow him. While yet a mile from it he saw that he was rapidly pursued by a four-oared boat. Now all his wild Norse nature a.s.serted itself. He forgot everything but that he was eluding his pursuers, and as the chase grew hotter, closer, more exciting, his enthusiasm carried him far beyond all prudence.

He began to shout or chant to his wild efforts some old Norse death-song, and just as they gained on him he shot into the "race" and defied them. Oars were useless there, and they watched him fling them far away and stand up with outstretched arms in the little skiff. The waves tossed it hither and thither, the boiling, racing flood hurried it with terrific force towards the ocean. The tall, ma.s.sive figure swayed like a reed in a tempest, and suddenly the half despairing, half defying song was lost in the roar of the bleak, green surges. All knew then what had happened.

"Let me die the death o' the righteous," murmured one old man, piously veiling his eyes with his bonnet; and then the boat turned and went silently back to Stromness.

Sandy Beg was in Kirkwall jail. He had made a clean breast of all his crimes, and measures were rapidly taken for John Sabay's enlargement and justification. When he came out of prison Christine and Margaret were waiting for him, and it was to Margaret's comfortable home he was taken to see his mother. "For we are ane household now, John," she said tenderly, "an' Christine an' mother will ne'er leave me any mair."

Sandy's trial came on at the summer term. He was convicted on his own confession, and sentenced to suffer the penalty of his crime upon the spot where he stabbed Peter Fae. For some time he sulkily rejected all John's efforts to mitigate his present condition, or to prepare him for his future. But at last the tender spot in his heart was found.

John discovered his affection for his half-savage mother, and promised to provide for all her necessities.

"It's only ta poun' o' taa, an' ta bit cabin ta shelter her she'll want at a'," but the tears fell heavily on the red, hairy hands; "an'

she'll na tell her fat ill outsent cam to puir Sandy."

"Thou kens I will gie her a' she needs, an' if she chooses to come to Orkney--"

"Na, na, she wullna leave ta Hieland hills for naught at a'."

"Then she shall hae a siller crown for every month o' the year, Sandy."

The poor, rude creature hardly knew how to say a "thanks;" but John saw it in his glistening eyes and heard it in the softly-muttered words, "She was ta only are tat e'er caret for Santy Beg."

It was a solemn day in Stromness when he went to the gallows. The bells tolled backward, the stores were all closed, and there were prayers both in public and private for the dying criminal. But few dared to look upon the awful expiation, and John spent the hour in such deep communion with G.o.d and his own soul that its influence walked with him to the end of life.

And when his own sons were grown up to youths, one bound for the sea and the other for Marischal College, Aberdeen, he took them aside and told them this story, adding,

"An' know this, my lads: the shame an' the sorrow cam a' o' ane thing--I made light o' my mother's counsel, an' thought I could do what nane hae ever done, gather mysel' with the deil's journeymen, an'

yet escape the wages o' sin. Lads! lads! there's nae half-way house atween right and wrang; know that."

"But, my father," said Hamish, the younger of the two, "thou did at the last obey thy mother."

"Ay, ay, Hamish; but mak up thy mind to this: it isna enough that a man rins a gude race; he maun also _start at the right time_. This is what I say to thee, Hamish, an' to thee, Donald: fear G.o.d, an' ne'er lightly heed a gude mother's advice. It's weel wi' the lads that carry a mother's blessing through the warld wi' them."

Lile Davie.

LILE DAVIE.

In Yorks.h.i.+re and Lancas.h.i.+re the word "lile" means "little," but in the c.u.mberland dales it has a far wider and n.o.bler definition. There it is a term of honor, of endearment, of trust, and of approbation. David Denton won the pleasant little prefix before he was ten years old.

When he saved little w.i.l.l.y Sabay out of the cold waters of Thirlmere, the villagers dubbed him "Lile Davie." When he took a flogging to spare the crippled lad of Farmer Grimsby, men and women said proudly, "He were a lile lad;" and when he gave up his rare half-holiday to help the widow Gates glean, they had still no higher word of praise than "kind lile Davie."

However, it often happens that a prophet has no honor among his own people, and David was the black sheep of the miserly household of Denton Farm. It consisted of old Christopher Denton, his three sons, Matthew, Sam, and David, and his daughter Jennie. They had the reputation of being "people well-to-do," but they were not liked among the c.u.mberland "states-men," who had small sympathy for their n.i.g.g.ardly hospitality and petty deeds of injustice.

One night in early autumn Christopher was sitting at the great black oak table counting over the proceeds of the Kendal market, and Matt and Sam looked greedily on. There was some dispute about the wool and the number of sheep, and Matt said angrily, "There's summat got to be done about Davie. He's just a clish-ma-saunter, lying among the ling wi' a book in his hand the lee-long day. It is just miff-maff and nonsense letting him go any longer to the schoolmaster. I am fair jagged out wi' his ways."

"That's so," said Sam.

"Then why don't you gie the lad a licking, and make him mind the sheep better? I saw him last Sat.u.r.day playing sogers down at Thirlston with a score or more of idle lads like himsel'." The old man spoke irritably, and looked round for the culprit. "I'll lay thee a penny he's at the same game now. Gie him a licking when he comes in, son Matt."

"Nay, but Matt wont," said Jennie Denton, with a quiet decision. She stood at her big wheel, spinning busily, though it was nine o'clock; and though her words were few and quiet, the men knew from her face and manner that Davie's licking would not be easily accomplished. In fact, Jennie habitually stood between Davie and his father and brothers. She had nursed him through a motherless babyhood, and had always sympathized in his eager efforts to rise above the sordid life that encompa.s.sed him. It was Jennie who had got him the grudging permission to go in the evening to the village schoolmaster for some book-learning. But peculiar circ.u.mstances had favored her in this matter, for neither the old man nor his sons could read or write, and they had begun to find this, in their changed position, and in the rapid growth of general information, a serious drawback in business matters.

Therefore, as Davie could not be spared in the day, the schoolmaster agreed for a few s.h.i.+llings a quarter to teach him in the evening. This arrangement altered the lad's whole life. He soon mastered the simple branches he had been sent to acquire, and then master and pupil far outstepped old Christopher's programme, and in the long snowy nights, and in the balmy summer ones, pored with glowing cheeks over old histories and wonderful lives of great soldiers and sailors.

In fact, David Denton, like most good sons, had a great deal of his mother in him, and she had been the daughter of a long line of brave Westmoreland troopers. The inherited tendencies which had pa.s.sed over the elder boys a.s.serted themselves with threefold force in this last child of a dying woman. And among the sheepcotes in the hills he felt that he was the son of the men who had defied Cromwell on the banks of the Kent and followed Prince Charlie to Preston.

But the stern discipline of a c.u.mberland states-man's family is not easily broken. Long after David had made up his mind to be a soldier he continued to bear the cuffs and sneers and drudgery that fell to him, watching eagerly for some opportunity of securing his father's permission. But of this there was little hope. His knowledge of writing and accounts had become of service, and his wish to go into the world and desert the great cause of the Denton economies was an unheard-of piece of treason and ingrat.i.tude.

David ventured to say that he "had taught Jennie to write and count, and she was willing to do his work."

The ignorant, loutish brothers scorned the idea of "women-folk meddling wi' their 'counts and wool," and, "besides," as Matt argued, "Davie's going would necessitate the hiring of two shepherds; no hired man would do more than half of what folk did for their ain."

These disputes grew more frequent and more angry, and when Davie had added to all his other faults the unpardonable one of falling in love with the schoolmaster's niece, there was felt to be no hope for the lad. The Dentons had no poor relations; they regarded them as the one thing _not_ needful, and they concluded it was better to give Davie a commission and send him away.

Poor Jennie did all the mourning for the lad; his father and brothers were in the midst of a new experiment for making wool water-proof, and pretty Mary b.u.t.terworth did not love David as David wished her to love him. It was Jennie only who hung weeping on his neck and watched him walk proudly and sorrowfully away over the hills into the wide, wide world beyond.

Then for many, many long years no more was heard of "Lile Davie Denton." The old schoolmaster died and Christopher followed him. But the Denton brothers remained together. However, when men make saving money the sole end of their existence, their life soon becomes as uninteresting as the multiplication table, and people ceased to care about the Denton farm, especially as Jennie married a wealthy squire over the mountains, and left her brothers to work out alone their new devices and economies.

Jennie's marriage was a happy one, but she did not forget her brother.

There was in Esthwaite Grange a young man who bore his name and who was preparing for a like career. And often Jennie Esthwaite told to the lads and la.s.ses around her knees the story of their "lile uncle,"

whom every one but his own kin had loved, and who had gone away to the Indies and never come back again. "Lile Davie" was the one bit of romance in Esthwaite Grange.

Jennie's brothers had never been across the "fells" that divided Denton from Esthwaite; therefore, one morning, twenty-seven years after Davie's departure, she was astonished to see Matt coming slowly down the Esthwaite side. But she met him with hearty kindness, and after he had been rested and refreshed he took a letter from his pocket and said, "Jennie, this came from Davie six months syne, but I thought then it would be seeking trouble to answer it."

"Why, Matt, this letter is directed to me! How dared you open and keep it?"

"Dared, indeed! That's a nice way for a woman to speak to her eldest brother!' Read it, and then you'll see why I kept it from you."

Poor Jennie's eyes filled fuller at every line. He was sick and wounded and coming home to die, and wanted to see his old home and friends once more.