Inchbracken: The Story of a Fama Clamosa

  CHAPTER IV.

  _DOWN BY THE BURNSIDE_.

  Mary Brown arose even earlier than her wont on the morning thatsucceeded the gale. The air was fresh and sweet with the scent of bogmyrtle, fir, and early heather. The hillsides, new washed, werevividly green in their clothing of pasture coppice and feathery birch.The sombre moors were warming into crimson when they met the morningsun, and the shadows among the rocks and distant hilltops showed thewhole gamut of blues and purple greys.

  Mary perforce had to take a morning walk. Their breakfast-room was atsome distance from the cottage in which she spent the night, and thesweet air tempted her to extend the stroll through the village to anold bridge that crossed the stream at its western extremity. There shesat down on the stone parapet to sun herself, and thaw out thechilliness which she had absorbed from the walls of her damp littlecottage chamber.

  How the poor seem to thrive and bloom and flourish into ripe andhearty old age in those houses with their turf and stone walls! vyingin health and gaiety with the lusty house leek that ridges the roofthatch! Can it be that they are made of another clay from those whowalk on planked floors, and shiver at every draught that sifts throughan ill-adjusted casement? Mary was no hothouse plant: her health wasgood, and she had always spent much of her time out of doors, carelessof weather; but the clammy dampness and closeness of the littlecottage rooms oppressed her, and she now drank in the pure clear airof the hills with thirsty content.

  The swiftly passing waters beneath the bridge, were a darker brownafter the rain, and spotted with patches of white foam, and they sungwith a low continuous movement as they slid over the rocks and brokeon the piers of the arch. Down the stream on a grassy flat the villagewomen were spreading out their little heaps of wet linen fresh wrungfrom the stream, to bleach in the sun. Farther on a few cattle hadcome down to drink; and beyond that, cottage roofs and palings closedin the view.

  In the village street the grey shadows of the cottages alone broke themonotony of the deserted road, till as she looked a figure issued fromthe door of the inn, and slowly came towards her. The distance was toogreat to enable her to identify the person; yet some vagueassociation, indefinite but altogether pleasant, was called up by thegait and set of the shoulders as he approached, and added a new chordof feeling which filled up the harmony of the peaceful scene. Thebreeze flitting through a neighbouring wood came laden with a spicierfragrance of resinous pine, and the hum of vagrant bees mixed with themelody of babbling waters, and all the music of all the sunny morningsshe had ever known came back on her with a mysterious gladness as shewatched the approaching stranger. He was coming nearer, however, andshe turned her head till he would pass.

  The gentleman came forward smoking an early cigar, and likewiseenjoying the quiet beauty of the morning. The view looking up the glenwas wilder than in other directions. About a mile above the villagethe woods ended, and the shoulders of the hills swept down into theascending valley in breadths of green pasture and brown and purplemoor, while the jagged outline of the more distant hills, bounded inthe background a broad bank of grey which stood sharply out againstthe transparent horizon.

  The steep ascent of the old-fashioned bridge, and its brown stoneparapet, picked out in all the sunlit greens and yellows of moss andwall rue, made a bold foreground to the picture, and the sable-cladfigure of Mary Brown on the summit, gave life and purpose to thewhole.

  The gentleman ascended the bridge. Mary's back seemed not unfamiliarto him, but it was only on casting a side-long glance in passing thata recognition became possible.

  'Mary Brown!'

  Mary started. Her thoughts had wandered away in a day-dream; shelooked round, and there stood the stranger at her elbow, with bothhands held out.

  "He was coming nearer, ... she turned her head till hewould pass." Page 24.]

  'Ken--Mister--Captain Drysdale!' The light came suddenly into hereyes, and perhaps a shade of warmer color into her cheeks as she gaveher hand.

  'Why not Kenneth, as of old? Am I to say "Miss Brown?" I fear you havea bad memory for old friends!'

  'Not that--but who would have expected to see you here?'

  'And who could have thought to see you here,---sitting upon a bridge,in Glen Effick, at seven o'clock in the morning?'

  'We live in this village now. But where have you fallen from? When weheard of you last you were at Gibraltar.'

  'And so I was till the other day, when the doctors ordered me home onsick leave. But tell me. How come you to be staying in this poorlittle place? Some of your old charity doings I suppose. Will you notlet me drive you over to the manse, my gig is getting ready now. Asyou may suppose, I was storm-staid here last night, and I am justsetting out for home. Though, of course, I shall be only too glad towait till you are ready to start.'

  'Then you have not heard of my dear father's death, and that Roderickhas been appointed to the Free Church congregation in the parish.'

  'I knew about Doctor Brown, and felt deeply grieved. But I understoodRoderick had succeeded him in the parish. The General always said heintended that he should.'

  'General Drysdale meant to be very kind; but Roderick has joined theFree Church, so he could not accept, and I fear both the General andLady Caroline are a good deal displeased. But you know he had to dowhat he thought right. Tell me, however, have you been very ill?'

  'Oh! I have been broiling on that terrible rock all the summer, likethe rest, and I had a pretty sharp attack of fever. But the week atsea, coming home, has set me up again. But about you and Roddie,--doyou mean to say that for his church crotchets he has dragged you outof the old manse where you were born? And that you and he are livingdown here? Where do you live, by the way? Not in the village tavern,surely!--with its pipe-smoking and toddy-drinking--and yet I see noplace else.'

  'We live in the cottages. Several of the villagers each give us aroom, so we are not so badly off for space, though the rooms arepretty far apart.'

  'I would not have believed that your brother could have behaved sobadly as to bring you down to that. And I did not think my motherwould have allowed it. Were you not asked to stay at Inchbracken?'

  'I fear she and General Drysdale are too much displeased with mybrother for bringing the Free Church controversy into the parish, andwith me for following him, even to waste another thought upon eitherof us. And perhaps, Captain Drysdale, it is wrong in me to stand heretalking to you, when I know how deeply we have offended your family.Perhaps they might not like it.'

  'And what then? Miss Brown. Am I still in pinafores ateight-and-twenty, that my mamma is to give consent before I may beallowed to speak to my very oldest friend? Why! Mary, girl, I have hadyou in my arms before you could walk, and I have fished you out ofmore than one burn, where you might very well have been drowned if Ihad not been near. And you know when you were eight years old youpromised'--

  'Pray stop! Captain Drysdale. Those are old stories, and neither younor I are to be bound by the foolish speeches of our childhood. Dearold Kilrundle! I shall never forget our happy days there. But thingshave changed--I think this must be your gig.'

  It _was_ his gig, and with a very hearty shake-hands on either side,he got into it, and drove away.

  'Prettier than ever,' he kept saying to himself, and the touch of thesoft hands and the light in the violet eyes seemed to remain with him,and to vibrate about his heart, like the echo of a pleasant strain,till an hour later be alighted at Inchbracken.

  Mary Brown strolled back to the village, her thoughts running on manythings at once, the pleasant memories of the long ago and the somewhatsordid experiences of the present. Had Mrs. Sangster of Auchlippiebeen by, and known what was passing in her mind, she would surely havetold her she was looking back to the fleshpots of Egypt, and exhortedher to take warning by the melancholy fate of Lot's wife.

  Mrs. Sangster was a lady who took a particular interest in her ownside of the ecclesiastical contest; and indeed it paid her to do so.She
was the wife of the great man of the congregation, and seeing howmightily her consequence had prospered under the schism, she mightwell be zealous. From being an unpretending gentleman farmer, and thesmallest heritor in the parish, her husband was now one of the fewlanded proprietors adhering to the Free Church, and one of those,therefore, whom she delighted to honour. Their snug home with itsarable land and pastures, had now become a territorial designationattached to his name by an accented 'of,' like a German 'von,' andwhen he attended the General Assembly at Edinburgh he found himselfsitting in committee and on platforms with the Church's solitaryMarquis and the great magnates of the cause, while Madame had her seatin the Assembly among the honourable women, behind the Moderator'schair.

  Fortunately for Mary, Mrs. Sangster did not appear. It was only hermessenger in the person of a bare-foot herd laddie, who brought aninvitation to drink tea; so Mary might let her thoughts linger inEgypt as they would. Indeed, in her case the rebuke could hardly beheld to apply, seeing it was not the Free Church she had followed intothe wilderness, but only the steps of her dear brother, that she mightsupport and minister to him wherever and however he might need herhelp; consequently her religion manifested itself only as it hadalways done, in charities and good deeds, and as she had littleto say on controversial subjects she was held to be 'juist a weecauldrife'--a weakly sister after the pattern of Martha, troubledabout many things and much serving, but hardly sound on the importanceof the Headship, seeing she was disposed to look on all ministers asalike good, whether they had come out or stayed in.

  Mary lingered long over her breakfast, but at length it was concluded,and she rose and returned to the study over the way. In the distancecoming down the hill road, she now descried her brother jogging slowlydown towards her.

  'Eppie,' she cried, 'here comes my brother at last; will you make himsome tea?'

  'Hoot, mem! He's no wantin' his breakfast, I'm thinkin', or he'd befor makin' mair speed, saw ye e'er a hungry man danderin' down theroad like yon? But preserve us a'! What's yon he's carryin' afore himon the bit pownie? It micht e'en be a bairn by the looks o' thebun'le, an' the tent he taks on't.' 'A' weel, sir!' she shouted as hedrew near, 'Ye've had a sore traivel. Hoo's a' wi' ye, sir? An' wad yelike a dish o' tea, sir! Or a drap kale? My pat's on this twa hour, anI'm thinkin' there's a hantle mair fushion in that, nor a' yerdribblin' teapats. Tak tent, sir!' she added as he proceeded to alightbefore the door, 'gie us the bun'le an' ye'll licht easy. Lord sakes!sir, wha's acht the bairn? A gangin' fit's aye gettin', folk says, butwha'ar gat ye the wein?'

  'Well Eppie! It's a poor little shipwrecked sailor, and I believe anorphan. I picked it up among the wreck of a ship that was lost atEffick Mouth last night, and we must care for it till we find out whomit belongs to. Though I fear its parents are among those lost in theshipwreck. Poor little soul! See how it takes to you already, Eppie!'

  'The bonny lamb! an' sae it diz, an' it micht tak up wi' waur folk norEppie Ness. I'se tent ye, my birdie! Hoot awa! Miss Mary, what ken ayoung thing like you about fendin' for a bairnie? Young folk haemuckle to learn, an' yer time 'ull come, hinnie, or I'm mucklemistaen. I'll seek out the bit cradle whaur my ain bonny wee lambielay, 'at's been wi' the Lord noo gaun on twenty year, gin ye'll haudthis wee birdie, Miss Mary. An' ye can be seein' til its claes, an'we'll hae to mak meat til't.'

  So the baby was carried into the house, undressed and bathed and fed,and put to sleep in Eppie's cradle. When the shawls were removed theydisclosed a little girl dressed in many delicate embroideries, andaround its body was entwined part of a gold chain corresponding to thelinks which Roderick had observed in the grasp of the drowned woman onthe beach. These properties they carefully folded up and put away toassist in the future identification of the child, and Roderick wrote aletter to the _Edinburgh Witness_ describing the waif he had rescuedfrom the sea, in hopes it might meet the eye of some friend orrelation.