The Lilac Sunbonnet, Samuel Rutherford Crockett [best ebook reader for ubuntu TXT] 📗

and sharpened with a whiff of mordant heather smoke, were most delicious to Ralph, who smiled to himself, well pleased under his warm covering of hay and overthatching of heather.
After each egg was supplied to him piping hot, Jock would say:
"An' isna that as guid as a half-croon supper?"
Then another pee-wit's egg, delicious and fresh--
"Luckie Morrine couldna beat that," said Jock.
There was a surprising lightness in the evening air, the elastic life of the wide moorland world settling down to rest for a couple of hours, which is all the night there is on these hill-tops in the crown of the year.
Jock Gordon covered himself by no means so elaborately as he had provided for Ralph, saying: "I hae covered you for winter, for ye're but a laddie; the like o' me disna need coverin' when the days follow yin anither like sheep jumpin' through a slap."
Ralph was still asleep when the morning came. But when the young sun looked over the level moors--for they were on the very top of the heathery creation--Jock Gordon made a little hillock of dewy heather to shelter Ralph from the sun. He measured at the same time a hand's breadth in the sky, saying to himself, "I'll wakken the lad when he gets to there!" He was speaking of the sun.
But before the flood of light overtopped the tiny break-water and shot again upon Ralph's face, he sat up bewildered and astonished, casting a look about him upon the moorland and its crying birds.
Jock Gordon was just coming towards him, having scoured the face of the ridge for more plover's eggs.
"Dinna rise," said Jock, "till I tak' awa' the beddin'. Ye see," continued the expert in camping out on hills, "the hay an' the heather gets doon yer neck an' mak's ye yeuk [itch] an' fidge a' day. An' at first ye mind that, though after a while gin ye dinna yeuk, ye find it michty oninterestin'!"
Ralph sat up. Something in Jock's bare heel as he sat on the grass attracted his attention.
"Wi', Jock," he said, infinitely astonished, "what's that in yer heel?"
"Ou!" said Jock, "it's nocht but a nail!"
"A nail!" said Ralph; "what are ye doin' wi' a nail in yer foot?"
"I gat it in last Martinmas," he said.
"But why do you not get it out? Does it not hurt?" said Ralph, compassionating.
"'Deed did it awhile at the first," said Jock, "but I got used to it. Ye can use wi' a'thing. Man's a wunnerful craitur!"
"Let me try to pull it out," said Ralph, shivering to think of the pain he must have suffered.
"Na, na, ye ken what ye hae, but ye dinna ken what ye micht get. I ken what I hae to pit up wi', wi' a nail in my fit; but wha kens what it micht be gin I had a muckle hole ye could pit yer finger in? It wadna be bonny to hae the clocks howkin' [beetles digging] and the birdies biggin' their nests i' my heel! Na, na, it's a guid lesson to be content wi' yer doon-settin', or ye may get waur!"
It was in the bright morning light that these two took the Edinburgh road, which clambered down over the hillsides by the village of Leadhills into the valley of the Clyde. Through Abingdon and Biggar they made their way, and so admirable were Jock's requisitioning abilities that Winsome's green purse was never once called into action.
When they looked from the last downward step of the Mid-Lothian table-land upon the city of Edinburgh, there was a brisk starting of smoke from many chimneys, for the wives of the burgesses were kindling their supper fires, and their husbands were beginning to come in with the expectant look of mankind about meal-time.
"Come wi' me, Jock, and I'll show ye Edinburgh, as ye have showed me the hills of heather!" This was Ralph's invitation.
"Na," said Jock, "an' thank ye kindly a' the same. There's muckle loons there that micht snap up a guid-lookin' lad like Jock, an' ship him ontill their nesty ships afore he could cry 'Mulquarchar and Craignell!' Jock Gordon may be a fule, but he kens when he's weel aff. Nae Auld Reekies for him, an' thank ye kindly. When he wants to gang to the gaol he'll steal a horse an' gang daicent! He'll no gang wi' his thoom in his mooth, an' when they say till him, 'What are ye here for?' be obleeged to answer, 'Fegs, an' I dinna ken what for!' Na, na, it wadna be mensefu' like ava'. A' the Gordons that ever was hae gaen to the gaol--but only yince. It's aye been a hangin' maitter, an' Jock's no the man to turn again the rule an' custom o' his forebears. 'Yince gang, yince hang,' is Jock's motto."
Ralph did not press the point. But he had some unexpected feeling in saying good-bye to Jock. It was not so easy. He tried to put three of Winsome's guineas into his hand, but Jock would have none of them.
"ME wi' gowden guineas!" he said. "Surely ye maun hae an ill-wull at puir Jock, that wusses ye weel; what wad ony body say gin I poo'ed out sic a lump of gowd? 'There's that loon Jock been breakin' somebody's bank,' an' then 'Fare-ye-weel, Kilaivie,' to Jock's guid name. It's gane, like his last gless o' whusky, never to return."
"But you are a long way from home, Jock; how will you get back?"
"Hoots, haivers, Maister Ralph, gin Jock has providit for you that needs a' things as gin ye war in a graund hoose, dinna be feared for Jock, that can eat a wamefu' o' green heather-taps wi' the dew on them like a bit flafferin' grouse bird. Or Jock can catch the muir-fowl itsel' an' eat it ablow a heather buss as gin he war a tod [fox]. Hoot awa' wi' ye! Jock can fend for himsel' brawly. Sillar wad only tak' the edge aff his genius."
"Then is there nothing that I can bring you from Edinburgh when I come again?" said Ralph, with whom the coming again was ever present.
"'Deed, aye, gin ye are so ceevil--it's richt prood I wad be o' a boxfu' o' Maister Cotton's Dutch sneeshin'--him that's i' the High Street--they say it's terrible graund stuff. Wullie Hulliby gat some when he was up wi' his lambs, an' he said that, after the first snifter, he grat for days. It maun be graund!"
Ralph promised, with gladness to find some way of easing his load of debt to Jock.
"Noo, Maister Ralph, it's a wanchancy [uncertain] place, this Enbra', an' I'll stap aff an' on till the morrow's e'en here or hereaboots, for sae it micht be that ye took a notion to gang back amang kent fowk, whaur ye wad be safe an' soun'."
"But, Jock," urged Ralph, "ye need not do that. I was born and brought up in Edinburgh!"
"That's as may be; gin I bena mista'en, there's a byous [extraordinary] heap o' things has happened since then. Gang yer ways, but gin ye hae message or word for Jock, juist come cannily oot, an' he'll be here till dark the morn."


CHAPTER XXXVIII.
BEFORE THE REFORMER'S CHAIR.
"The Lord save us, Maister Ralph, what's this?" said John Bairdieson, opening the door of the stair in James's Court. It was a narrow hall that it gave access to, more like a passage than a hall. "Hoo hae ye come? An' what for didna Maister Welsh or you write to say ye war comin'? An' whaur's a' the buiks an' the gear?" continued John Bairdieson.
"I have walked all the way, John," said Ralph. "I quarrelled with the minister, and he turned me to the door."
"Dear sirce!" said John anxiously, "was't ill-doing or unsound doctrine?"
"Mr. Welsh said that he could not company with unbelievers."
"Then it's doctrine--wae's me, wae's me! I wuss it had been the lasses. What wull his faither say? Gin it had been ill-doin', he micht hae pitten it doon to the sins o' yer youth; but ill- doctrine he canna forgie. O Maister Ralph, gin ye canna tell a lee yersel', wull ye no haud yer tongue--I can lee, for I'm but an elder--an' I'll tell him that at a kirn [harvest festival] ye war persuaded to drink the health o' the laird, an' you no bein' acquant wi' the strength o' Glenlivat--"
"John, John, indeed I cannot allow it. Besides, you're a sailor- man, an' even in Galloway they do not have kirns till the corn's ripe," replied Ralph with a smile.
"Aweel, can ye no say, or let me say for ye, gin ye be particular, that ye war a wee late oot at nicht seein' a bit lassie--or ocht but the doctrine? It wasna anything concernin' the fundamentals o' the Marrow, Maister Ralph, though, surely," continued John Bairdieson, whose elect position did not prevent him from doing his best for the interests of his masters, young and old. Indeed, to start with the acknowledged fact of personal election sometimes gives a man like John Bairdieson an unmistakable advantage. Ralph went to his own room, leaving John Bairdieson listening, as he prayed to be allowed to do, at the door of his father's room.
In a minute or two John Bairdieson came up, with a scared face.
"Ye're to gang doon, Maister Ralph, an' see yer faither. But, O sir, see that ye speak lown [calm] to him. He hasna gotten sleep for twa nichts, an' he's fair pitten by himsel' wi' thae ill-set Conformists--weary fa' them! that he's been in the gall o' bitterness wi'."
Ralph went down to his father's study. Knocking softly, he entered. His father sat in his desk chair, closed in on every side. It had once been the pulpit of a great Reformer, and each time that Gilbert Peden shut himself into it, he felt that he was without father or mother save and except the only true and proper Covenant-keeping doctrine in broad Scotland, and the honour and well-being of the sorely dwindled Kirk of the Marrow.
Gilbert Peden was a noble make of a man, larger in body though hardly taller than his son. He wore a dark-blue cloth coat with wide flaps, and the immense white neckerchief on which John Bairdieson weekly expended all his sailor laundry craft. His face was like his son's, as clear-cut and statuesque, though larger and broader in frame and mould. There was, however, a coldness about the eye and a downward compression of the lips, which speaks the man of narrow though fervid enthusiasms.
Ralph went forward to his father. As he came, his father stayed him with the palm of his hand, the finger-tips turned upward.
"Abide, my son, till I know for what cause you have left or been expelled from the house of the man to whom I committed you during your trials for license. Answer me, why have you come away from the house of Allan Welsh like a thief in the night?"
"Father," said Ralph, "I cannot tell you everything at present, because the story is not mine to tell. Can you not trust me?"
"I could trust you with my life and all that I possess," said his father; "they are yours, and welcome; but this is a matter that affects your standing as a probationer on trials in the kirk of the Marrow, which is of divine institution. The cause is not mine, my son. Tell me that the cause of your quarrel had nothing to do with the Marrow kirk and your future standing in it, and I will ask you no more till you choose to tell me of your own will concerning the matter."
The Marrow minister looked at his son with