White Heather: A Novel (Volume 1 of 3)

William Black

White Heather: A Novel (Volume 1 of 3)

CHAPTER I

A JOURNEY NORTHWARD

On a certain cold evening in January, and just as the Scotch night-mail was about to start for the north, a stranger drove up to Euston and alighted, and was glad enough to escape from the chill draughts of the echoing station into the glow and warmth and comfort of a sleeping-car. He was a man of means apparently; for one half of this carriage, containing four berths, and forming a room apart, as it were, had been reserved for himself alone; while his travelling impedimenta – fur-lined coats and hoods and rugs and what not – were of an elaborate and sumptuous description. On the other hand, there was nothing of ostentation about either his dress or appearance or demeanour. He was a tall, thin, quiet-looking man, with an aquiline nose, sallow complexion, and keen but not unkindly gray eyes. His short-cropped hair was grizzled, and there were deep lines in the worn and ascetic face; but this may have been the result of an exhausting climate rather than of any mental care, for there was certainly no touch of melancholy in his expression. His costume was somewhat prim and precise; there was a kind of schoolmasterish look about the stiff white collar and small black tie; his gloves were new and neat. For the rest, he seemed used to travelling; he began to make himself at home at once, and scarcely looked up from this setting of things to rights when the conductor made his appearance.

'Mr. Hodson, sir?' the latter said, with an inquiring glance.

'That's about what they call me,' he answered slowly, as he opened a capacious dressing-bag covered with crocodile-hide.

'Do you expect any friends to join you farther along, sir?'

'Not that I know of,' was the answer – and a pair of dark-blue velvet slippers, with initials worked in gold, were fished out and thrown upon the seat beside him.

But when the conductor had got one of the lower sleeping-berths made ready and the traveller had completed his leisurely arrangements for passing the night in comfort, a somewhat one-sided conversation ensued. This gaunt, slow-speaking, reserved man proved to be quite talkative – in a curious, measured, dry, and staccato fashion; and if his conversation consisted chiefly of questions, these showed that he had a very honest and simple concern in the welfare of this other human being whom chance had thrown in his way, and that he could express his friendly interest without any touch of patronage or condescension. He asked first about the railway-line; how the company's servants were paid; what were their hours on duty; whether they had formed any associations for relief in case of sickness; what this particular man got for his work; whether he could look forward to any bettering of his lot, and so forth. And then, fixing his eyes more scrutinisingly on his companion, he began to ask about his family affairs – where he lived; what children he had; how often he saw them; and the like; and these questions were so obviously prompted by no idle curiosity, but by an honest sympathy, and by the apparent desire of one human being to get to understand fully and clearly the position and surroundings and prospects of this other fellow-creature, that it was impossible for any one to take offence.

'And how old is your little girl?'

'Eight, sir: she will be nine in May next.'

'What do you call her?'

'Caroline, sir.'

'Why, you don't say!' he exclaimed, with his eyes – which were usually calm and observant – lighting up with some surprise. 'That is the name of my girl too – though I can't call her little any more. Well now,' he added, as he took out his purse and selected a sovereign from the mass of coins, 'I think this is about what you ought to do. When you get back to Camden Town, you start an account in the Post Office Savings Bank, in your little girl's name, and you put in this sovereign as a first deposit. Then, whenever you have an odd sixpence or shilling to give her – a birthday present, or that – you keep adding on and on; and there will be a nice little sum for her in after years. And if ever she asks, you can tell her it was the father of an American Caroline who made her this little present; and if she grows up to be as good a girl as the American Carry, she'll do very well, I think.'

The conductor scarcely knew how to express his thanks, but the American cut him short, saying coolly —

'I don't give the sovereign to you at all. It is in trust for your daughter. And you don't look to me the kind of man who would go and drink it.'

He took out an evening newspaper, and, at the hint, the conductor went away to get ready the berths in the other end of the car. When he came back again to see if the gentleman wanted anything further for the night, they had thundered along the line until they were nearing Rugby.

'Why, yes,' Mr. Hodson said, in answer to the question, 'you might get me a bottle of soda-water when we get to the station.'

'I have soda-water in the car, sir.'

'Bring me a bottle, then, please.'

'And shall I get anything else for you, sir, at Rugby?'

'No, I thank you.'

When the man returned with the soda-water, the traveller had taken from his dressing-bag a bottle labelled 'Bromide of Potassium' and he was just about to mix his customary sleeping-draught when it occurred to him that perhaps this conductor could tell him something of the new and far country into which he was about to adventure for the first time. And in making these inquiries he showed that he was just as frank-spoken about his own plans and circumstances as he expected other people to be about theirs. When the conductor confessed that he knew next to nothing about the north of Scotland, never having been farther than Perth, and even then his knowledge of the country being confined to the railway-line and the stations, Mr. Hodson went on to say – in that methodical way of his, with little rising inflexions here and there —

'Well, it's bound to be different from London, anyway. It can't be like London; and that's the main thing for me. Why, that London fog, never moving, same in the morning, same at night, it's just too dismal for anything; the inside of a jail is a fool to it. 'Pears to me that a London afternoon is just about as melancholy as they make it; if there's anything more melancholy than that anywhere, I don't know it. Well, now, it can't be like that at Cape Wrath.'

'I should think not, sir.'

'I daresay if I lived in the town, and had my club, and knew people, it might be different; and my daughter seems to get through the time well enough; but young folks are easily amused. Say, now, about this salmon fishing in the north: you don't know when it begins?'

'No, sir.'

'You haven't seen anybody going yet with a bundle of rods?'

'No, sir, not this year yet.'

'Hope they haven't been playing it on me – I was told I could begin on the eleventh. But it don't signify much so long's I get out of that infernal cut-throat atmosphere of London.'

At this point the train began to slow into Rugby station, and the conductor left to attend to his duties; and by the time they were moving out again and on their way to the far north, Mr. Hodson had mixed and drunk his nightly potion, and, partially undressed, was wrapped up in the thick and warm coverings of the sleeping-berth, where, whether owing to the bromide of potassium, or the jog-trot rattle of the wheels, he was soon plunged in a profound slumber.

Well, if part of his design in thus venturing upon a journey to the north in mid-winter was to get away from the monotonous mists of London, the next morning showed him that so far he had been abundantly successful. The day breaking caused him to open his eyes; and instinctively he turned to the window. There before him was a strange, and unusual, and welcome sight. No more dismal grays, and the gathering down of a hopeless dusk; but the clear, glad light of the morning – a band of flashing gold all along the eastern horizon, behind the jet-black stems and branches of the leafless trees; and over that the heavens were all of a pale and luminous lilac, with clouds hanging here and there – clouds that were dark and almost thunderous in their purple look, but that really meant nothing but beauty, as they lay there soft and motionless in the glowing and mystical dawn. Quickly he got up. The windows were thrown open. And this air that rushed in – so fresh, so sweet, so full of all kinds of mellow and fragrant messages from the hills, and the pine-woods, and the wide-lying straths – did it not bring a strange kind of joy and surprise with it?

'A beautiful morning, sir; we are getting near to Perth now,' the conductor said, when he made his appearance.

'Are we in time?'

'Yes, in very good time.'

'And no hurry about breakfast?'

'No, sir; you don't start again till nine o'clock.'

Even this big hollow station, with its wide stone platforms and resounding arch: was it the white light that filled it, or the fresh air that blew through it, that made it quite a cheerful place? He was charmed with the accent of the timid handmaiden who brought him his breakfast in the refreshment room, and who waited on him in such a friendly, half-anxious, shy fashion; and he wondered whether he would dare to offer so pretty and well-mannered a young lady anything over the customary charge in token of his gratitude to her for her gentle ways. Perth itself: well, there had been rain in the night, and the streets near the station were full of mud; but then the cart ruts in the mud were gleaming lines of gold; and the beautiful sky hung over the slowly rising smoke of the houses; and the air was everywhere so sweet and welcome. He had got into a new world altogether; the weight of the London atmosphere was lifted from him; he whistled 'Auld Lang Syne' – which was the only Scotch air he knew – and the lugubrious tune sounded quite pleasant on so joyous a morning.

Moreover, these were but first and commonplace experiences. For by and by, when he had again taken his seat to prosecute his journey – and he found himself the sole occupant of the carriage – the sunrise had widened into the full splendour of a sunlit day; and as the train sped away to the north, he, sitting at the window there, and having nothing to do but examine the new country he was entering, was wholly amazed at the intensity and brilliancy of the colouring around, and at the extraordinary vividness of the light. The wide stretches of the Tay shone like burnished silver; there were yellow straths and fields; and beech hedges of a rich russet-red; and fir-woods of a deep fresh green; and still farther away low-lying hills of a soft and ruddy purple, touched sharp here and there with patches of snow; and over all these a blue sky as of summer. The moist, warm air that blew in at the window seemed laden with pine odours; the country women at the small stations had a fresh pink colour in their cheeks; everywhere a new and glad and wholesome life seemed to be abroad, and cheerfulness, and rich hues, and sunlight.

'This is good enough,' he said to himself. 'This is something like what I shipped for.'

And so they sped on: through the soft, wide-stretching woods of Murthly, and Birnam, and Dunkeld; through the shadow and sudden gleams of Killiecrankie Pass; on by Blair Athol and the banks of the Garry; until, with slow and labouring breath, the train began to force its way up the heights of the Grampians, in the lone neighbourhood of the Drumouchter Forest. The air was keener here; the patches of snow were nearer at hand; indeed, in some places the line had evidently been cleared, and large snow banks heaped up on each side. But by and by the motion of the train seemed to become easier; and soon it was apparent that the descent had begun; presently they were rattling away down into the wide and shining valley of Strathspey; and far over there on the west and north, and keeping guard over the plain, as it were, rose the giant masses of the Cairngorm Hills, the snow sparkling here and there on their shoulders and peaks.

It was not until half-past four in the afternoon that the long railway journey came to an end; and during that time he had come upon many a scene of historical interest and pictorial beauty. He had been within a short distance of the mournful 'haughs of Cromdale;' he had crossed Culloden Moor. Nearing Forres, he had come within sight of the Northern Sea; and thereafter had skirted the blue ruffled waters of the Moray, and Cromarty, and Dornoch Firths. But even when he had got to Lairg, a little hamlet at the foot of Loch Shin, his travelling for the day was not nearly over; there still remained a drive of four-and-twenty miles; and although it was now dusk and the weather threatened a change, he preferred to push on that night. Travelling did not seem to tire him much; no doubt he was familiar with immeasurably greater distances in his own country. Moreover, he had learned that there was nothing particular to look at in the stretch of wild moorland that lay between him and his destination; and then again, if it was dark now, there would be moonlight later on. So he ate his dinner leisurely and in content, until a waggonette with two stout horses was brought round; then he got in; and presently they were away from the little hamlet and out in a strange land of darkness and silence, scarcely anything visible around them, the only sound the jog-trot clatter of the horses' feet.

It was a desperately lonely drive. The road appeared to go over interminable miles of flat or scarcely undulating moorland; and even when the moonlight began to make the darkness faintly visible, that only increased the sense of solitude, for there was not even a single tree to break the monotony of the sombre horizon line. It had begun to rain also: not actual rain, but a kind of thin drizzle, that seemed to mix itself up with the ineffectual moonlight, and throw a wan haze over these far-reaching and desolate wastes. Tramp, tramp went the horses' feet through this ghostly world; the wet mist grew thicker and thicker and clung around the traveller's hair; it was a chilling mist, moreover, and seemed to search for weak places about the throat. The only sharply defined objects that the eye could rest on were the heads and upthrown ears of the horses, that shone in the light sent forward by the lamps: all else was a formless wilderness of gloom, shadows following shadows, and ever the desolate landscape stretching on and on, and losing itself in the night.

The American stood up in the waggonette, perhaps to shake off for a second the clammy sensation of the wet.

'Say, young man,' he observed – but in an absent kind of way, for he was regarding, as far as that was possible, the dusky undulations of the mournful landscape – 'don't you think now, that for a good wholesome dose of God-forsakenness, this'll about take the cake?'

'Ah beg your paurdon, sir,' said the driver, who was apparently a Lowlander.

The stranger, however, did not seem inclined to continue the conversation; he sank into his seat again; gathered his rugs round him; and contented himself as heretofore by idly watching the lamplight touching here and there on the harness and lighting up the horses' heads and ears.

Mile after mile, hour after hour, went by in this monotonous fashion; and to the stranger it seemed as if he were piercing farther and farther into some unknown land unpeopled by any human creatures. Not a ray of light from any hut or farmhouse was visible anywhere. But as the time went on, there was at least some little improvement in the weather. Either the moonlight was growing stronger, or the thin drizzle clearing off; at all events he could now make out ahead of him – and beyond the flat moorland – the dusky masses of some mountains, with one great peak overtopping them all. He asked the name.

'That is Ben Clebrig, sir.'

And then through the mist and the moonlight a dull sheet of silver began to disclose itself dimly.

'Is that a lake down there?'

'Loch Naver, sir.'

'Then we are not far from Inver-Mudal?'

'No far noo; just a mile or two, sir,' was the consoling answer.

And indeed when he got to the end of his journey, and reached the little hostelry set far amid these moorland and mountain wilds, his welcome there made ample amends. He was ushered into a plain, substantially furnished, and spacious sitting-room, brightly lit up by the lamp that stood on the white cloth of the table, and also by the blazing glare from the peats in the mighty fireplace; and when his eyes had got accustomed to this bewilderment of warmth and light, he found, awaiting his orders, and standing shyly at the door, a pretty, tall, fair-haired girl, who, with the softest accent in the world, asked him what she should bring him for supper. And when he said he did not care to have anything, she seemed quite surprised and even concerned. It was a long, long drive, she said, in her shy and pretty way; and would not the gentleman have some hare-soup – that they had kept hot for him? and so forth. But her coaxing was of no avail.

'By the way, what is your name, my girl?' he said.

'Nelly, sir.'

'Well, then, Nelly, do you happen to know whether Lord Ailine's keeper is anywhere in the neighbourhood?'

'He is in the unn, sir, waiting for you.'

'Oh, indeed. Well, tell him I should like to see him. And say, what is his name?'

'Ronald, sir.'

'Ronald?'

'That is his first name,' she explained.

'His "first name"? I thought that was one of our Americanisms.'

She did not seem to understand this.

'Ronald Strang is his name, sir; but we jist call him Ronald.'

'Very well, Nelly; you go and tell him I want to see him.'

'Ferry well, sir,' she said; and away she went.

But little indeed did this indefatigable student of nature and human nature – who had been but half interested by his observations and experiences through that long day's travel – know what was yet in store for him. The door opened; a slim-built and yet muscular young man of eight-and-twenty or so appeared there, clad in a smart deer-stalking costume of brownish green; he held his cap in his hand; and round his shoulder was the strap from which hung behind the brown leather case of his telescope. This Mr. Hodson saw at a glance; and also something more. He prided himself on his judgment of character. And when his quick look had taken in the keen, sun-tanned face of this young fellow, the square, intellectual forehead, the firm eyebrows, the finely cut and intelligent mouth, and a certain proud set of the head, he said to himself, 'This is a man: there's something here worth knowing.'

'Good evening, sir,' the keeper said, to break the momentary silence.

'Good evening,' said Mr. Hodson (who had been rather startled out of his manners). 'Come and sit down by the fire; and let's have a talk now about the shooting and the salmon-fishing. I have brought the letters from the Duke's agent with me.'

'Yes, sir,' said Strang; and he moved a bit farther into the room; but remained standing, cap in hand.

'Pull in a chair,' said Mr. Hodson, who was searching for the letters.

'Thank ye, sir; thank ye,' said the keeper; but he remained standing nevertheless.

Mr. Hodson returned to the table.

'Sit down, man, sit down,' said he, and he himself pulled in a chair. 'I don't know what your customs are over here, but anyhow I'm an American citizen; I'm not a lord.'

Somewhat reluctantly the keeper obeyed this injunction, and for a minute or two seemed to be rather uncomfortable; but when he began to answer the questions concisely put to him with regard to the business before them, his shyness wholly wore away, for he was the master of this subject, not the stranger who was seeking for information. Into the details of these matters it is needless to enter here; and, indeed, so struck was the American with the talk and bearing of this new acquaintance that the conversation went far afield. And the farther afield it went, the more and more was he impressed with the extraordinary information and intelligence of the man, the independence of his views, the shrewdness and sometimes sarcasm of his judgments. Always he was very respectful; but in his eyes – which seemed singularly dark and lustrous here indoors, but which, out of doors and when he was after the wary stag, or the still more wary hinds, on the far slopes of Clebrig, contracted and became of a keen brownish gray – there was a kind of veiled fire of humour which, as the stranger guessed, might in other circumstances blaze forth wildly enough. Mr. Hodson, of Chicago, was entirely puzzled. A gamekeeper? He had thought (from his reading of English books) that a gamekeeper was a velveteen-coated person whose ideas ranged from the ale-house to the pheasant-coverts, and thence and quickly back again. But this man seemed to have a wide and competent knowledge of public affairs; and, when it came to a matter of argument (they had a keen little squabble about the protection tariffs of America) he could reason hard, and was not over-compliant.

'God bless me,' Mr. Hodson was driven to exclaim at last, 'what is a man of your ability doing in a place like this? Why don't you go away to one of the big cities – or over to America – where a young fellow with his wits about him can push himself forward?'

'I would rather be "where the dun deer lie,"' said he, with a kind of bashful laugh.

'You read Kingsley?' the other said, still more astonished.

'My brother lends me his books from time to time,' Ronald said modestly. 'He's a Free Church minister in Glasgow.'

'A Free Church minister? He went through college, then?'

'Yes, sir; he took his degree at Aberdeen.'

'But – but – ' said the newcomer, who had come upon a state of affairs he could not understand at all – 'who was your father, then? He sent your brother to college, I presume?'

'Oh no, sir. My father is a small farmer down the Lammermuir way; and he just gave my brother Andrew his wages like the rest, and Andrew saved up for the classes.'

'You are not a Highlander, then?'

'But half-and-half, like my name, sir,' he said (and all the shyness was gone now: he spoke to this stranger frankly and simply as he would have spoken to a shepherd on the hillside). 'My mother was Highland. She was a Macdonald; and so she would have me called Ronald; it's a common name wi' them.'

Mr. Hodson stared at him for a second or two in silence.

'Well,' said he, slowly, 'I don't know. Different men have different ways of looking at things. I think if I were of your age, and had your intelligence, I would try for something better than being a gamekeeper.'

'I am very well content, sir,' said the other placidly; 'and I couldna be more than that anywhere else. It's a healthy life; and a healthy life is the best of anything – at least that is my way of thinking. I wadna like to try the toun; I doubt it wouldn't agree wi' me.' And then he rose to his feet. 'I beg your pardon, sir; I've been keeping ye late.'

Well, Mr. Hodson was nothing loth to let him go; for although he had arrived at the conviction that here was a valuable human life, of exceptional quality and distinction, being absolutely thrown away and wasted, still he had not formed the arguments by which he might try to save it for the general good, and for the particular good of the young man himself. He wanted time to think over this matter – and in cool blood; for there is no doubt that he had been surprised and fascinated by the intellectual boldness and incisiveness of the younger man's opinions and by the chance sarcasms that had escaped him.

'I could get him a good opening in Chicago soon enough,' he was thinking to himself, when the keeper had left, 'but upon my soul I don't know the man who is fit to become that man's master. Why, I'd start a newspaper for him myself, and make him editor – and if he can't write, he has got mother-wit enough to guide them who can – but he and I would be quarrelling in a week. That fellow is not to be driven by anybody.'

He now rang the bell for a candle; and the slim and yellow-haired Nelly showed him upstairs to his room, which he found to be comfortably warm, for there was a blazing peat fire in the grate, scenting all the air with its delicious odour. He bade her good-night, and turned to open his dressing-bag; but at the same moment he heard voices without, and, being of an inquiring turn of mind, he went to the window. The first thing he saw was that outside a beautiful clear moon was now shining; the leafless elm-trees and the heavy-foliaged pines throwing sharp black shadows across the white road. And this laughing and jesting at the door of the inn? – surely he heard Ronald's voice there – the gayest of any – among the jibes that seemed to form their farewells for the night? Then there was the shutting of a door; and in the silence that ensued he saw the solitary, straight-limbed, clean-made figure of a man stride up the white road, a little dog trotting behind him.