Heather and Snow

So far were they from giving him up to his mother, that the mere idea of letting her know he was with them never entered the mind of one of them. To the doctor, whom at once they had called in, there was no need to explain the right by which they constituted themselves his guardians: anyone would have judged it better for him to be with them than with her. David said to himself that when Francie wanted to leave them he should go; but he had sought refuge with them, and he should have it: nothing should make him give him up except legal compulsion.

CHAPTER XXXV

FRANCIS COMES TO HIMSELF

One morning, Kirsty sitting beside him, Francis started to his elbow as if to get up, then seeing her, lay down again with his eyes fixed upon her. She glanced at him now and then, but would not seem to notice him much. He gazed for two or three minutes, and then said, in a low, doubtful, almost timid, voice,

'Kirsty?'

'Ay; what is't, Francie?' returned Kirsty.

'Is't yersel, Kirsty?' he said.

'Ay, wha ither, Francie!'

'Are ye angry at me, Kirsty?'

'No a grain. What gars ye speir sic a queston?'

'Eh, but ye gae me sic a are wi' yer whup—jist here upo' the haffit! Luik.'

He turned the side of his head toward her, and stroked the place, like a small, self-pitying child. Kirsty went to him, and kissed it like a mother. She had plainly perceived that such a scar could not be from her blow, but it added grievously to her pain at the remembrance of it that the poor head which she had struck, had in the very same place been torn by a splinter—for so the doctor said. If her whip left any mark, the splinter had obliterated it.

'And syne,' he resumed, 'ye ca'd me a cooard!'

'Did I du that, ill wuman 'at I was!' she returned, with tenderest maternal soothing.

He laid his arms round her neck, drew her feebly toward him, hid his head on her bosom, and wept.

Kirsty put her arm round him, held him closer, and stroked his head with her other hand, murmuring words of much meaning though little sense. He drew back his head, looked at her beseechingly, and said,

'Div ye think me a cooard, Kirsty?'

'No wi' men,' answered the truthful girl, who would not lie even in ministration to a mind diseased.

'Maybe ye think I oucht to hae strucken ye back whan ye strack me? I wull be a cooard than, lat ye say what ye like. I never did, and I never will hit a lassie, lat her kill me!'

'It wasna that, Francie. Gien I ca'd ye a cooard, it was 'at ye behaved sae ill to Phemy.'

'Eh, the bonny little Phemy! I had 'maist forgotten her! Hoo is she, Kirsty?'

'She's weel—and verra weel,' answered Kirsty; 'she's deid.'

'Deid!' echoed Gordon, with a cry, again raising himself on his elbow. 'Surely it wasna—it wasna 'at the puir wee thing cudna forget me! The thing's no possible! I wasna worth it!'

'Na, na; it wasna ae grain that! Her deein had naething to du wi that—nor wi you in ony w'y. I dinna believe she was a hair waur for ony nonsense ye said til her—shame o' ye as it was! She dee'd upo' the Horn, ae awfu' tempest o' a nicht. She cudna hae suffert lang, puir thing! She hadna the stren'th to suffer muckle. Sae awa she gaed!—and Steenie efter her!' added Kirsty in a lower tone, but Francis did not seem to hear, and said no more for awhile.

'But I maun tell ye the trowth, Kirsty,' he resumed: 'forby yersel, there's them 'at says I'm a cooard!'

'I h'ard ae man say't, only ane, and him only ance.'

'And ye said til 'im, "Ay, I hae lang kenned that!"

'I tellt him whaever said it was a leear!'

'But ye believt it yersel, Kirsty!'

'Wad ye hae me leear and hypocrite forby, to ca' fowk ill names for sayin what I believt mysel!'

'But I am a cooard, Kirsty!'

'Ye are not, Francie. I wunna believe't though yersel say 't! It's naething but a dist o' styte and nonsense 'at's won in throu the cracks ye got i' yer heid, fechtin. Ye was aye a daft kin' o' a cratur, Francie! Gien onybody ever said it, mak ye speed and get yer health again, and syne ye can shaw him plain 'at he's a leear.'

'But I tell ye, Kirsty, I ran awa!'

'I fancy ye wud hae been naething but a muckle idiot gien ye hadna!—Ye didna ley onybody in trouble!—did ye noo?'

'No a sowl 'at I ken o'. Na, I didna do that. The fac was—but nae blame to them—they a' gaed awa and left me my lane, sleepin. I maun hae been terrible tired.'

'I telled ye sae!' cried Kirsty. 'Jist gang ower the story to me, Francie, and I s' tell ye whether ye're a cooard or no. I dinna believe a stime o' 't! Ye never was, and never was likly to be a cooard. I s' be at the boddom o' 't wi' whaever daur threpe me sic a lee!'

But Francis showed such signs of excitement as well as exhaustion, that Kirsty saw she must not let him talk longer.

'Or I'll tell ye what!' she added: '—ye'll tell father and mother and me the haill tale, this verra nicht, or maybe the morn's mornin. Ye maun hae an egg noo, and a drappy o' milk—creamy milk, Francie! Ye aye likit that!'

She went and prepared the little meal, and after taking it he went to sleep.

In the evening, with the help of their questioning, he told them everything he could recall from the moment he woke to find the place abandoned, not omitting his terrors on the way, until he overtook the rear of the garrison.

'I dinna won'er ye was fleyt, Francie,' said Kirsty. 'I wud hae been fleyt mysel, wantin my swoord, and kennin nae God to trust til! Ye maun learn to ken him, Francie, and syne ye'll be feart at naething!'

After that, his memory was only of utterly confused shapes, many of which must have been fancies. The only things he could report were the conviction pervading them all that he had disgraced himself, and the consciousness that everyone treated him as a deserter, and gave him the cold shoulder.

His next recollection was of coming home to, or rather finding himself with his mother, who, the moment she saw him, flew into a rage, struck him in the face, and called him coward. She must have taken him, he thought, to some place where there were people about him who would not let him alone, but he could remember nothing more until he found himself creeping into a hole which he seemed to know, thinking he was a fox with the hounds after him.

'What's my claes like, Kirsty?' he asked at this point.

'They war no that gran',' answered Kirsty, her eyes smarting with the coming tears; 'but ye'll ne'er see a stick (stitch) o' them again: I pat them awa.'

'What w'y 'ill I win up, wantin' them?' he rejoined, with a tremor of anxiety in his voice.

'We'll see aboot that, time eneuch,' answered Kirsty.

'But my mither may be efter me! I wud fain be up! There's no sayin what she michtna be up til! She canna bide me!'

'Dreid ye naething, Francie. Ye're no a match for my leddy, but I s' be atween ye and her. She's no sae fearsome as she thinks! Onygait, she disna fleg me.'

'I left some guid eneuch claes there whan I gaed awa, and I daursay they're i' my room yet—gien only I kenned hoo to win at them!'

'I s' gang and get them til ye—the verra day ye're fit to rise. But ye maunna speyk a word mair the nicht.'

CHAPTER XXXVI

KIRSTY BESTIRS HERSELF

They held a long consultation that night as to what they must do. Plainly the first and most important thing was to rid Francis of the delusion that he had disgraced himself in the eyes of his fellow-officers. This would at once wake him as from a bad dream to the reality of his condition: convinced of the unreality of the idea that possessed him, he would at once, they believed, resume his place in the march of his generation through life. To find means, then, for the attainment of this end, they set their wits to work; and it was almost at once clear to David that the readiest way would be to enter into communication with any they could reach of the officers under whom he had served. His regiment having by this time, however, with the rest of the Company's soldiers, passed into the service of the Queen, a change doubtless involving many other changes concerning which Francis, even were he fit to be questioned, could give no information, David resolved to apply to sir Haco Macintosh, who had succeeded Archibald Gordon in the command, for assistance in finding those who could bear the testimony he desired to possess.

'Divna ye think, father,' said Kirsty, 'it wud be the surest and speediest w'y for me to gang mysel to sir Haco?'

''Deed it wud be that, Kirsty!' answered David. 'There's naething like the bodily presence o' the leevin sowl to gar things gang!'

To this Marion, although at first not a little appalled at the thought of Kirsty alone in such a huge city as Edinburgh, could not help assenting, and the next morning Kirsty started, bearing a letter from her father to his old officer, in which he begged for her the favour of a few minutes' conference on business concerning her father and the son of the late colonel Gordon.

Sir Haco had retired from the service some years before the mutiny, and was living in one of the serenely gloomy squares of the Scots capital. Kirsty left her letter at the door, and calling the next day, was shown to the library, where lady Macintosh as well as sir Haco awaited, with curious and kindly interest, the daughter of the man they had known so well, and respected so much.

When Kirsty entered the room, dressed very simply in a gown of dark cloth and a plain straw bonnet, the impression she at once made was more than favourable, and they received her with a kindness and courtesy that made her feel herself welcome. They were indeed of her own kind.

Sir Haco was one of the few men who, regarding constantly the reality, not the show of things, keep throughout their life, however long, great part of their youth, and all their childhood. Deeper far in his heart than any of the honours he had received, all unsought but none undeserved, lay the memory of a happy and reverential boyhood. Sprung from a peasant stock, his father was a man of 'high erected thought seated in a heart of courtesy.'

He was well matched with his wife, who, though born to a far higher social position in which simplicity is rarer, was, like him, true and humble and strong. They had one daughter, who grew up only to die: the moment they saw Kirsty, their hearts went out to her.

For there was in Kirsty that unassumed, unconscious dignity, that simple propriety, that naturalness of a carriage neither trammeled nor warped by thought of self, which at once awakes confidence and regard; while her sweet, unaffected 'book English,' in which appeared no attempt at speaking like a fine lady, no disastrous endeavour to avoid her country's utterance, revealed at once her genuine cultivation. Sir Haco said afterward that when she spoke Scotch it was good and thorough, and when she spoke English it was Wordsworthian.

Listening to her first words, and reminded of the solemn sententious way in which sergeant Barclay used to express himself, his face rose clear in his mind's eye, he saw it as it were reflected in his daughter's, and broke out with—

'Eh, lassie, but ye're like yer father!'

'Ye min' upon him, sir?' rejoined Kirsty, with her perfect smile.

'Min' upon him! Naebody worth his min'in upo' could ever forget him! Sit ye doon, and tell's a' aboot him!'

Kirsty did as she was told. She began at the beginning, and explained first, what doubtless sir Haco knew at least something of before, the relation between her father and colonel Gordon, whence his family as well as himself had always felt it their business to look after the young laird. Then she told how, after a long interval, during which they could do nothing, a sad opportunity had at length been given them of at least attempting to serve him; and it was for aid in this attempt that she now sought sir Haco, who could direct her toward the procuring of certain information.

'And what sort of information do you think I can give or get for you, Miss Barclay?' asked sir Haco.

'I'll explain the thing to ye, sir, in as feow words as I can,' answered Kirsty, dropping her English. 'The young laird has taen 't intil his heid that he didna carry himsel like a man i' the siege, and it's grown to be in him what they ca' a fixt idea. He was left, ye see, sir, a' himlane i' the beleaguert toon, and I fancy the suddent waukin and the discovery that he was there his lee lane, jist pat him beside himsel.'

Here she told the whole story, as they had gathered it from Francis, mingling it with some elucidatory suggestions of her own, and having ended her narration, went on thus:—

'Ye see, sir, and my leddy, he was little better nor a laddie, and fowk 'at sair needs company, like Francie, misses company ower sair. Men's no able—some men, my leddy—to tak coonsel wi' their ain herts, as women whiles learns to du. And sae, whan he cam oot o' the fricht, he was ower sair upon himsel for bein i' the fricht. For it seems to me there's no shame in bein frichtit, sae lang as ye dinna serve and obey the fricht, but trust in him 'at sees, and du what ye hae to du. Naebody 'at kenned Francie as I did, cud ever believe he faun' mair fear in 's hert nor was lawfu' and rizzonable—sae lang, that is, as he was in his richt min': ayont that nane but his maker can jeedge him. I dinna mean Francie was a pettern, but, sir, he was no cooard—and that I ken, for I 'm no cooard mysel, please God to keep me as he 's made me. But the laddie—the man, I suld say—he's no to be persuaudit oot o' the fancy o' his ain cooardice; and I dinna believe he'll ever win oot o' 't wantin the testimony o' his fellow-officers, wha o' them may be left to grant the same. And I canna but think, gien ye'll excuse me, sir, that, for his father's sake, it wud be a gracious ac' to tak him intil the queen's service, and lat him baud on fechtin for 's country, whaurever it may please her mejesty to want him.—Oot whaur he was afore micht be best for him—I dinna ken. It wad be to put his country's seal upo' their word.'

'Surely, Miss Barclay, you wouldn't set the poor lad in the forefront of danger again!' said lady Macintosh.

'I wud that, my lady! I canna but think the airmy, savin for this misadventur—gien there be ony sic thing as misadventur—hed a fair chance o' makin a man o' Francie; and whiles I canna help doobtin gien onything less 'ill ever restore him til himsel but restorin him til 's former position. It wud ony gait gie him the best chance o' shawin til himsel 'at there wasna a hair o' the cooard upon him.'

'But,' said sir Haco, 'would her majesty be justified in taking the risk involved? Would it not be to peril many for a doubtful good to one?'

Kirsty was silent for a moment, with downcast eyes.

I'm answert, sir—as to that p'int,' she said, looking up.

'For my part,' said lady Macintosh, 'I can't help thinking that the love of a good woman like yourself must do more for the poor fellow than the approval of all the soldiers in the world.—Pardon me, Haco.'

'Indeed, my lady, you're perfectly right!' returned her husband with a smile.

But lady Macintosh hardly heard him, so startled, almost so frightened was she at the indignation instantly on Kirsty's countenance.

'Putna things intil ony held, my leddy, 'at the hert wud never put there. It wad be an ill fulfillin o' my father's duty til his auld colonel, no to say his auld frien, to coontenance sic a notion!'

'I beg your pardon, Miss Barclay; I was wrong to venture the remark. But may I say in excuse, that it is not unnatural to imagine a young woman, doing so much for a young man, just a little bit in love with him?'

'I wud fain hae yer leddyship un'erstaun,' returned Kirsty, 'that my father, my mother, and mysel, we're jist are and nae mair. No are o' 's hes a wuss that disna belang to a' three. The langest I can min', it's been my ae ambition to help my father and mother to du what they wantit. I never desirit merriage, my leddy, and gien I did, it wudna be wi' sic as Francie Gordon, weel as I lo'e him, for we war bairnies, and laddie and lassie thegither: I wudna hae a man it was for me to fin' faut wi'! 'Deed, mem, what fowk ca's love, hes neither airt nor pairt i' this metter!'

Not to believe the honest glow in Kirsty's face, and the clear confident assertion of her eyes, would have shown a poor creature in whom the faculty of belief was undeveloped.

Sir Haco and lady Macintosh insisted on Kirsty's taking up her abode with them while she was in Edinburgh; and Kirsty, partly in the hope of expediting the object of her mission thereby, and partly because her heart was drawn to her new friends, gladly consented. Before a week was over, like understanding like, her hostess felt as if she were a daughter until now long waiting for her somewhere in the infinite.

The self-same morning, sir Haco sat down to his study-table, and began writing to every officer alive who had served with Francis Gordon, requesting to know his feeling, and that of the regiment about him. Within three days he received the first of the answers, which kept dropping in for the next six months. They all described Gordon as rather a scatterbrain, as not the less a favourite with officers and men, and as always showing the courage of a man, or rather of a boy, seeing he not unfrequently acted with a reprehensible recklessness that smacked a little of display.

'That's Francie himsel!' cried Kirsty, with the tears in her eyes, when her host read, to this effect, the first result of his inquiry.

Within a fortnight he received also, from one high in office, the assurance that, if Mr. Gordon, on his recovery, wished to enter her majesty's service, he should have his commission.

While her husband was thus kindly occupied, lady Macintosh was showing Kirsty every loving attention she could think of, and, in taking her about Edinburgh and its neighbourhood, found that the country girl knew far more of the history of Scotland than she did herself.

She would gladly have made her acquainted with some of her friends, but Kirsty shrank from the proposal: she could not forget how her hostess had herself misinterpreted the interest she took in Francie Gordon. As soon as she felt that she could do so without seeming ungrateful, she bade her new friends farewell, and hastened home, carrying with her copies of the answers which sir Haco had up to that time received.

When she arrived it was with such a glad heart that, at sight of Francis in her father's Sunday clothes, she laughed so merrily that her mother said 'The lassie maun be fey!' Haggard as he looked, the old twinkle awoke in his eye responsive to her joyous amusement; and David, coming in the next moment from putting up the gray mare with which he had met the coach to bring Kirsty home, saw them all three laughing in such an abandonment of mirth as, though unaware of the immediate motive, he could not help joining.

The same evening Kirsty went to the castle, and Mrs. Bremner needed no persuasion to find the suit which the young laird had left in his room, and give it to her to carry to its owner; so that, when he woke the next morning, Francis saw the gray garments lying by his bed-side in place of David's black, and felt the better for the sight.

The letters Kirsty had brought, working along, with returning health, and the surrounding love and sympathy most potent of all, speedily dispelled his yet lingering delusion. It had occasionally returned in force while Kirsty was away, but now it left him altogether.

CHAPTER XXXVII

A GREAT GULF

It was now midsummer, and Francis Gordon was well, though thin and looking rather delicate. Kirsty and he had walked together to the top of the Horn, and there sat, in the heart of old memories. The sun was clouded above; the boggy basin lay dark below, with its rim of heathery hills not yet in bloom, and its bottom of peaty marsh, green and black, with here and there a shining spot; the growing crops of the far-off farms on the other side but little affected the general impression the view gave of a waste world; yet the wide expanse of heaven and earth lifted the heart of Kirsty with an indescribable sense of presence, purpose, promise. For was it not the country on which, fresh from God, she first opened the eyes of this life, the visible region in which all her efforts had gone forth, in which all the food of her growth had been gathered, in which all her joys had come to her, in which all her loves had had their scope, the place whence by and by she would go away to find her brother with the bonny man!

Francis saw without heeding. His heart was not uplifted. His earthly future, a future of his own imagining, drew him.

'This winna du ony langer, Kirsty!' he said at length. 'The accusin angel 'll be upo' me again or I ken! I maunna be idle 'cause I'm happy ance mair—thanks to you, Kirsty! Little did I think ever to raise my heid again! But noo I maun be at my wark! I'm fit eneuch!'

'I'm richt glaid to hear't!' answered Kirsty. 'I was jist thinkin lang for a word o' the sort frae ye, Francie. I didna want to be the first to speyk o' 't.'

'And I was just thinkin lang to hear ye speyk o' 't!' returned Francis. 'I wantit to du't as the thing ye wad hae o' me!'

'Even than, Francie, ye wudna, it seems, hae been doin 't to please me, and that pleases me weel! I wud be nane pleast to think ye duin 't for me! It wud gie me a sair hert, Francie!'

'What for that, Kirsty?'

''Cause it wud shaw ye no a man yet! A man's a man 'at dis what's richt, what's pleasin to the verra hert o' richt. Ye'll please me best by no wantin to please me; and ye'll please God best by duin what he's putten intil yer hert as the richt thing, and the bonny thing, and the true thing, though ye suld dee i' the duin o' 't.—Tell me what ye're thinkin o' duin.'

'What but gaeing efter this new commission they hae promised me? There's aye a guid chance o' fechtin upo' the borders—the frontiers, as they ca' them!'

Kirsty sat silent. She had been thinking much of what Francis ought to do, and had changed her mind on the point since the time when she talked about him with sir Haco.

'Isna that what ye wud hae me du, Kirsty?' he said, when he found she continued silent. 'A body's no a fule for wantin guid advice!'

'No, that's true eneuch! What for wad ye want to gang fechtin?'

'To shaw the warl' I'm nane o' what my mither ca'd me.'

'And shawn that, hoo muckle the better man wud ye be for 't? Min' ye it's ae thing to be, and anither to shaw. Be ye maun; shaw ye needna.'

'I dinna ken; I micht be growin better a' the time!'

'And ye micht be growin waur.—What the better wud ony neebour be for ye gane fechtin? Wudna it be a' for yersel? Is there naething gien intil yer ban' to du—naething nearer hame nor that? Surely o' twa things, are near and are far, the near comes first!'

'I dinna ken. I thoucht ye wantit me to gang!'

'Ay, raither nor bide at hame duin naething; but michtna there be something better to du?'

'I dinna ken. I thoucht to please ye, Kirsty, but it seems naething wull!'

'Ay; that's whaur the mischief lies. Ye thoucht to please me!'

'I did think to please you, Kirsty! I thoucht, ance dune weel afore the warl as my father did, I micht hae the face to come hame to you, and say—"Kirsty, wull ye hae me?"'

'Aye the same auld Francie!' said Kirsty, with a deep sigh.

'Weel?'

'I tell ye, Francie, i' the name o' God, I'll never hae ye on nae sic terms!—Suppose I was to merry some-body whan ye was awa pruvin to yersel, and a' the lave 'at never misdoobted ye, 'at ye was a brave man—what wud ye du whan ye cam hame?'

'Naething o' mortal guid! Tak to the drink, maybe.'

'Ye tell me that! and ye think, wi' my een open to ken 'at ye say true, I wud merry ye?—a man like you! Eh, Francie, Francie! ye're no worth my takin' and ye're no like to be worth the takin o' ony honest wuman!—Can ye possibly imegine a wuman merryin a man 'at she kenned wud drive her to coontless petitions to be hauden ohn despisit him? Ye mak my hert unco sair, Francie! I hae dune my best wi' ye, and the en' o' 't is, 'at ye're no worth naething!'

'For the life o' me, Kirsty, I dinna ken what ye're drivin at, or what ye wud hae o' me! I canna but think ye're usin me as ye wudna like to be used yersel!'

''Deed I wud not like it gien I was o' your breed, Francie! Man, did ye never ance i' yer life think what ye hed to du—what was gien ye to du—what it was yer duty to du?'