Betty Grier Part 3

He shook hands without saying good-morning, and seated himself on a chair at the foot of my bed. Betty, who had preceded him upstairs, and announced him, walked across the room, took up a position at the gable window, and feigned an interest in our grocer neighbour's back-yard. He looked at me pointedly and earnestly, the while stroking his long straggling beard, and then, half-turning his head toward Betty, he said with a low, little laugh, and with a p.r.o.nounced yet euphonious 'burr,'

'Our young friend, Betty, is more of a Kennedy than a Russell.'

'Ay, doctor, that he is,' said Betty, without taking her eyes from the window. 'He aye took efter his mither's folk. When he was a bairn o'

three he was the very spit o' his aunt Marget. Not that I ha'e ony recollection o' her, but that's what I mind the mistress used to say.'

'He's like her yet,' the doctor promptly added.--'And in saying so I can pay no higher compliment to you, my young man.'

'I've heard it said, doctor, that ye kenned the Kennedys aince on a time,' said Betty, and she changed the position of a pot of musk on the window-sill.

He looked quickly and questioningly at Betty; but she was busying herself with the flowers, the while humming, timmer-tuned as usual, the opening lines of 'The Farmer's Boy.'

Then he looked from her to me, slowly and deliberately crossed his legs, and, putting his long, thin hands lengthwise on his knee, he said, more to himself than to Betty, 'Yes, yes, I, as you say, once knew them well.'

'Ye wad ken Miss Marget, then?' asked Betty after a pause.

To me Betty's questioning was an enigma; but I wasn't slow to notice it was distinctly disconcerting to the doctor, who quickly changed his position and sat with his back to the light.

'Miss Marget and I were very, very dear friends,' he said, 'very dear friends, a long, long time ago;' and he abstractedly traced with the tip of his finger an irregular circle round the brim of his old soft hat.

Betty with a flick of her ap.r.o.n removed imaginary dust from the window-sill, and then, coming up to the doctor, she laid her hand on the back of his chair. 'In that case, then, doctor,' she earnestly said, 'for her sake, for Miss Marget's sake, ye'll do your best for her nephew, for it breaks my he'rt to see him lyin' there amaist as helpless as a bairn.' And she hurriedly left the room, and I don't know for certain, but I think she was crying.

The doctor rose, quietly closed the door, and resumed his seat.

'Betty has undoubtedly your welfare at heart, Mr Russell,' he said.

'Unconsciously, or maybe consciously, she has awakened many memories of the long ago--memories of times and people that are with me now only in dreams. Ay, ay;' and he pa.s.sed his hand slowly adown his face. 'But this is not getting on with my work,' he said, after a pause.

Putting his hand in his coat pocket, he brought out, not a handkerchief, as he had intended or as I expected, but a rather sickly-looking hart's-tongue fern, the root of which was carefully wrapped in a piece of newspaper and tied with a bootlace.

'Well, well!' he said reproachfully, turning it over in his hand, 'that is indeed stupid of me. I ought to have planted this immediately on my arrival this morning; but fortunately I was careful to take sufficient soil with it, and maybe it is not yet too late.'

'Have you been from home, doctor?' I asked.

'Oh, only for twelve hours,' he said, returning the plant to his pocket.

'I was on the point of going to bed last night, when the Benthead shepherd called me out to attend his wife. He was driving an old nag I knew well, a Mitchelslacks pensioner--willing enough, you may be sure, or he wouldn't have been owned by a Harkness, but long past his best; so, in order to be as soon as possible beside my patient, I quickly saddled my own mare, and was trotting down the Gashouse Brae when the kirk clock was striking eleven. I pa.s.sed the old nag near Laught; but unfortunately at Camplemill Daisy cast a shoe; so, rather than trouble the smith at such an untimely hour, I put her into his stable, the door of which was unlocked, waited the upcoming of the shepherd, and drove the rest of the journey with him in his spring-cart. After sitting for an hour or two at a smoky peat fire, reading by the aid of a guttering tallow-candle a back-number of the _Agricultural Gazette_, I was called to work, and very soon added another arrow--the tenth--to the shepherd's quiver. When everything was "a' bye," as we say locally, Benthead kindly offered to drive me down to the mill; but, as the early morning was so delightfully fine, and nature outside so pleading and inviting, I took to the moor on "Shanks' naigie." Ah, the delight of that moorland walk!

the exhilarating air of the uplands! Why, man, it was like quaffing wine, and the cobwebs--warp and woof of the sleepless hours--were charmed away as if by magic. The sun was just peeping over the crest of Bellybucht, and his rays were lying lovingly athwart the budding heather and the silver mist-wreathed bents. Bracken and juniper, blaeberry and crowberry; dewdrops here, dewdrops there, sparkling and s.h.i.+mmering; tiny springs of crystal water oozing out from whinstone c.h.i.n.ks, gurgling and trickling down pebbled ruts, seen awhile, then unseen, lost in spongy moss and tangled seggs. Overhead the morning song of the gladsome lark; to my right the _wheep_ of the snipe and the quack of a startled duck; to my left the _yittering_ of the curlew and the _chirrup_ of the flitting, restless cheeper; and over all the spirit of the wild which isolates and draws within her mantle-folds all those who cuddle close to Nature's breast. Ah, what a morning! what a scene! Hat in hand I walked, with my head bared to the throbbing air and the glorious suns.h.i.+ne. "Surely, surely," I said to myself, "it is good for me to be here;" and with a sense of thankfulness in my heart, and turning my face to the shadowy Lowthers, I sang with the Psalmist, "I to the hills will lift mine eyes."

'I struck the Crichope about six o'clock; wandered leisurely down the linn; pulled this hart's-tongue fern, and a few more which I must have lost; picked up this fossil--part of a frog, I think--which will make a welcome addition to my collection.' He hesitated for a moment, with half-closed eyes and his chin resting on his folded stock. Then he suddenly looked toward me and asked, 'Have you ever walked down Crichope alone?'

'No, not alone,' I replied.

'Then Crichope has never spoken to you. You have never heard its message. To me, this morning, it was the mouthpiece of the Creator--the great Architect; _for I was alone_. With those who love and admire His handiwork He is ever in communion, and He speaks in the rustle of the leaf, the tinkle of the stream, the whisper of the gra.s.s, and the echo of the linn. But you must be alone, humble, reverent, stripped to the pelt, as it were, of everything sordid, boastful, and vainglorious; and then that old ravine will be a sanctuary where in its solitude you will find solace, comfort in its caverns, food for reflection in its story and traditions.'

Again he paused, and I lay with eager eyes fixed on his animated face.

Betty's cat, with arched back and long tail, brushed slowly past his knee. With an ingratiating 'p.u.s.s.y, puss,' he stroked her fur.

'About half-past seven,' he continued, 'I reached the smithy, had a cup of tea with Smith Martin and his wife, got Daisy's shoe made siccar, and was mounting for home, when news was brought from Dresserland that a farm-worker had fallen from his cart and broken his leg. Off Daisy and I trotted up the brae. But, tut! tut! why should I waste my precious time, and weary and fatigue you to boot, by detailing all my morning round?'

'Oh, doctor, don't stop!' I pleaded. 'I know and love that whole countryside, and a talk with you is like a walk in the open. Indeed, my limbs twitched as you strode along, and I felt as if I were keeping step with you.'

'Ay, your limbs twitched, did they? That's a good sign.'

'A sign of my appreciation of your love of nature and poetry of language, doctor?' I asked.

'No, no; something far more important than appreciation. But this is not business. I know you will be anxious to learn in how far Dr Balfour and I agree, so let me have a look at that damaged spine of yours.'

Betty tells me that she's 'feart the doctor's a careless, G.o.dless man, for he never enters a kirk door.' I could have told her that he had attended church that morning, and that he had had communion with G.o.d and a glimpse of heaven which would have been an unknown experience and an unfamiliar sight to many who occupy a church pew every Sunday; but Betty wouldn't have understood--nay, wouldn't have believed me--and I was silent.

His visit has cheered and encouraged me, and his conversation has made me proud of his acquaintance. He is to call on me again in a few days; and meanwhile I have to take more exercise; so with the aid of a friendly hazel I shall have a daily 'daunder' and an opportunity of renewing my acquaintance with Douglas the barber in his wee back-room, John Sterling the shoemaker at his souter's stool, and Deacon Webster at his tool-laden bench.

CHAPTER IV.

Tom Jardine the grocer--Betty's next-door neighbour--will be thirty-four years old on the 23rd of January next. He is to a day exactly four years my senior. I remember it was when his mother and Betty were putting out clothes together in the back-green that I, a boy of five, heard for the first time that we had a birthday in common.

To me the fact vested Tom with a special interest. I looked upon him in more than a mere neighbourly spirit. Though we were rarely a.s.sociated in our boys' games, we often casually met about the doors or had disjointed conversations through the garden hedge; and on these occasions the desire was always strong within me to talk of our birthday, and to ask if he wasn't wearying for the 23rd to come round. And when that auspicious date was ushered in, and my birthday-cake, in all its white-iced glory, was ceremoniously placed before me at table, I used to wonder if Tom had one also, and if he, like me, had the honour of cutting and distributing it.

On looking back, I cannot remember when the Jardines were not our neighbours. Long ago Robert Jardine, Tom's father, was a tenant of ours, and twice a year, at the Martinmas and Whitsunday terms, he called upon us; and when the rent had been paid and sundry repairs and alterations agreed upon, he and my father drank a gla.s.s of wine together. It had, however, long been the height of Robert's ambition to be the owner of his own roof-tree. Times then being good, he soon saved the amount necessary to effect a purchase; and after many calls and conferences, terms were ultimately arranged to the satisfaction of both vender and buyer.

Tom was the youngest of a large family, the other members of which had all emigrated; and when Robert Jardine died--his wife had predeceased him by a few years--there was no one else to look after affairs. Tom at once gave up a responsible position in a wholesale grocery establishment in Glasgow, came south with a wife and three young children, and took over what I now understand every Thornhill villager believed to be a dying, if not an altogether dead, concern.

All these changes had taken place in my absence during these past fourteen years; but it was nevertheless pleasing to me to know from Betty, shortly after my return, that as neighbours the family was still represented, the more so as the representative in question was none other than my old friend Tom.

In describing my attic room I omitted to say that it has a little, round, gable window through which, from my fireside chair, I can look down upon the Jardines' back-yard. Long ago I used to sit here and watch old Robert grooming his horse, cleaning his harness, and packing his long-bodied spring-cart with bags of flour or meal, and grocery parcels of tea and sugar, for distribution on his long cadger rounds.

During the past few weeks my interest has often been centred on his son similarly employed. Tom sings and whistles cheery tunes as he works, and his iron-shod clogs make a merry clatter on the stone-paved court. His wife and the two eldest children--blue-eyed, curly-haired bairns they are--give him willing help, and, standing in his cart or on a chair placed beside the wheel, he cheerily receives and checks off in a weather-beaten note-book the various articles for his country clients.

Like Nathan, Tom is no lie-abed in the morning. Of necessity he must be up betimes, for his journeys are often long and his days are always too short. When Betty is preparing the early breakfast I hear Tom's ringing footstep outside, the taming of the key in the stable-door lock, and the antic.i.p.ating whinny of the gray mare. Then a horse-pail is filled from the tap at the stable-door; a minute later it is returned empty and deposited outside; the lid of the corn-bin, which has been poised on its creaky hinges, descends with a bang, and I know that his faithful dappled friend has her nose buried in countless piles of sweet-smelling corn.

Betty is not an inquisitive woman, nor does she interest herself in a meddling way in her neighbours' concerns; yet her big, kindly heart and her never-failing sympathetic nature invite many confidences, and she is therefore more fully versed in what I might call the inward life of those around her than many of a more zealously prying and newsvending disposition.

We were talking one day about the Jardines of a past generation, and our conversation naturally turned to Tom. I commended him for his industry, for his sobriety, and for the undivided attention he gave to his business, and finished up by asking if he was a successful man. Betty made no reply; but she shook her head doubtfully, from which I argued that it was not all suns.h.i.+ne and whistling and singing with our young grocer neighbour; and as she showed no desire to continue the conversation, I allowed the matter to drop.

After tea, however, she reverted to the subject, and reopened our chat by asking if it was usual in business for a son to take over his dead father's debts.

In my short professional career I remembered one such case, in which I was interested, but only one, and I told her of it. I didn't go into details, but gave her the bald outstanding points; and after I had finished she said, 'Ay, and that's the only case ye ever heard o'?'

'Yes, that is so, Betty,' I replied.

She was standing at the round gable window, vacantly looking down into our neighbour's back-yard. Then I saw her eyebrows begin to pucker, and I knew there was something on her mind.

'Maister Weelum,' she said at length, 'I've nae concern in the ongauns o' the folks aboot me, an' I never talk aboot them. But ye asked me regairdin' Tom Jardine, an' I'm no' betrayin' ony confidences when I tell ye that young Tom took ower his dead faither's debts, so that will be twae cases ye ken o'.'

'Tom Jardine!' I said with surprise. 'Surely Robert Jardine wasn't in debt when he died?'

'That he was, Maister Weelum--the mair's the pity. Ye see, for a lang time--I micht say for at least five years afore he died--he wasna able to gang his roons; in fact, he was barely able to stand ahint the c.o.o.nter. Younger an' mair active compet.i.tors took up the same gr'und; an' what wi' failin' trade, increasin' compet.i.tion, an' cuttin' prices, there wasna a livin' in it. Then his wife had a lang, lingerin' illness, an' when she slippit away he kind o' lost he'rt. I was often wae for him, puir man, an' I did a' I could for him in my ain sma' wey. Except to yin or twae he keepit a smilin' face, though, aye wrote cheerily to Tom, an' gaed to kirk an' market as lang as he was able wi' his heid in the air; but, losh me! when his time cam' it was nae surprise to me an'

yin or twae mair that the whole affair--shop, hoose, an' business--didna show much mair than ten s.h.i.+llin's in the pound. Tom--him that's doon there noo--was in a guid wey o' doin' in Glesca, an' nothing wad ser'