The Marquis of Lossie, George MacDonald [freda ebook reader .TXT] 📗

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Scaurnose, on the receipt of the papers, all at the same time, by the hand of the bellman of Portlossie, was like a hive about to swarm. Endless and complicated were the comings and goings between the houses, the dialogues, confabulations, and consultations, in the one street and its many closes. In the middle of it, in front of the little public house, stood, all that day and the next, a group of men and women, for no five minutes in its component parts the same, but, like a cloud, ever slow dissolving, and as continuously reforming, some dropping away, others falling to. Such nid nodding, such uplifting and fanning of palms among the women, such semi-revolving side shakes of the head, such demonstration of fists, and such cursing among the men, had never before been seen and heard in Scaurnose. The result was a conclusion to make common cause with the first victim of the factor's tyranny, namely Blue Peter, whose expulsion would arrive three months before theirs, and was unquestionably head and front of the same cruel scheme for putting down the fisher folk altogether.

Three of them, therefore, repaired to Joseph's house, commissioned with the following proposal and condition of compact: that Joseph should defy the notice given him to quit, they pledging themselves that he should not be expelled. Whether he agreed or not, they were equally determined, they said, when their turn came, to defend the village; but if he would cast in his lot with them, they would, in defending him, gain the advantage of having the question settled three months sooner for themselves. Blue Peter sought to dissuade them, specially insisting on the danger of bloodshed. They laughed. They had anticipated objection, but being of the youngest and roughest in the place, the idea of a scrimmage was, neither in itself nor in its probable consequences, at all repulsive to them. They answered that a little blood letting would do nobody any harm, neither would there be much of that, for they scorned to use any weapon sharper than their fists or a good thick rung: the women and children would take stones of course. Nobody would be killed, but every meddlesome authority taught to let Scaurnose and fishers alone. Peter objected that their enemies could easily starve them out. Dubs rejoined that, if they took care to keep the sea door open, their friends at Portlossie would not let them starve. Grosert said he made no doubt the factor would have the Seaton to fight as well as Scaurnose, for they must see plainly enough that their turn would come next. Joseph said the factor would apply to the magistrates, and they would call out the militia.

"An' we'll call out Buckie," answered Dubs.

"Man," said Fite Folp, the eldest of the three, "the haill shore, frae the Brough to Fort George, 'll be up in a jiffie, an' a' the cuintry, frae John o' Groat's to Berwick, 'ill hear hoo the fisher fowk 's misguidit; an' at last it'll come to the king, an' syne we'll get oor richts, for he'll no stan' to see't, an' maitters 'll sane be set upon a better futtin' for puir fowk 'at has no freen' but God an' the sea."

The greatness of the result represented laid hold of Peter's imagination, and the resistance to injustice necessary to reach it stirred the old tar in him. When they took their leave, he walked halfway up the street with them, and then returned to tell his wife what they had been saying, all the way murmuring to himself as he went, "The Lord is a man of war." And ever as he said the words, he saw as in a vision the great man of war in which he had served, sweeping across the bows of a Frenchman, and raking him, gun after gun, from stem to stern. Nor did the warlike mood abate until he reached home and looked his wife in the eyes. He told her all, ending with the half repudiatory, half tentative words.

"That's what they say, ye see, Annie."

"And what say ye, Joseph?" returned his wife.

"Ow! I'm no sayin'," he answered.

"What are ye thinkin' than, Joseph?" she pursued. "Ye canna say ye're no thinkin'."

"Na; I'll no say that, lass," he replied, but said no more.

"Weel, gien ye winna say," resumed Annie, "I wull; an' my say is, 'at it luiks to me unco like takin' things intil yer ain han'."

"An' whase han' sud we tak them intil but oor ain?" said Peter, with a falseness which in another would have roused his righteous indignation.

"That's no the p'int. It's whase han' ye're takin' them oot o'," returned she, and spoke with solemnity and significance.

Peter made no answer, but the words Vengeance is mine began to ring in his mental ears instead of The Lord is a man of war.

Before Mr Graham left them, and while Peter's soul was flourishing, he would have simply said that it was their part to endure, and leave the rest to the God of the sparrows.. But now the words of men whose judgment had no weight with him, threw him back upon the instinct of self defence-driven from which by the words of his wife, he betook himself, not alas! to the protection, but to the vengeance of the Lord!

The next day he told the three commissioners that he was sorry to disappoint them, but he could not make common cause with them, for he could not see it his duty to resist, much as it would gratify the natural man. They must therefore excuse him if he left Scaurnose at the time appointed. He hoped he should leave friends behind him.

They listened respectfully, showed no offence, and did not even attempt to argue the matter with him. But certain looks passed between them.

After this Blue Peter was a little happier in his mind, and went more briskly about his affairs.


CHAPTER LV: THE WANDERER


It was a lovely summer evening, and the sun, going down just beyond the point of the Scaurnose, shone straight upon the Partan's door. That it was closed in such weather had a significance-general as well as individual. Doors were oftener closed in the Seaton now. The spiritual atmosphere of the place was less clear and open than hitherto. The behaviour of the factor, the trouble of their neighbours, the conviction that the man who depopulated Scaurnose would at least raise the rents upon them, had brought a cloud over the feelings and prospects of its inhabitants-which their special quarrel with the oppressor for Malcolm's sake, had drawn deeper around the Findlays; and hence it was that the setting sun shone upon the closed door of their cottage.

But a shadow darkened it, cutting off the level stream of rosy red. An aged man, in Highland garments, stood and knocked. His overworn dress looked fresher and brighter in the friendly rays, but they shone very yellow on the bare hollows of his old knees. It was Duncan MacPhail, the supposed grandfather of Malcolm. He was older and feebler, I had almost said blinder, but that could not be, certainly shabbier than ever. The glitter of dirk and broadsword at his sides, and the many coloured ribbons adorning the old bagpipes under his arms, somehow enhanced the look of more than autumnal, of wintry desolation in his appearance.

Before he left the Seaton, the staff he carried was for show rather than use, but now he was bent over it, as if but for it he would fall into his grave. His knock was feeble and doubtful, as if unsure of a welcoming response. He was broken, sad, and uncomforted.

A moment passed. The door was unlatched, and within stood the Partaness, wiping her hands in her apron, and looking thunderous. But when she saw who it was, her countenance and manner changed utterly.

"Preserve's a'! Ye're a sicht for sair e'en, Maister MacPhail!" she cried, holding out her hand, which the blind man took as if he saw as well as she. "Come awa' but the hoose. Wow! but ye're walcome."

"She thanks your own self, Mistress Partan," said Duncan, as he followed her in; "and her heart will pe thanking you for ta coot welcome; and it will pe a long time since she'll saw you howefer."

"Noo, noo!" exclaimed Meg, stopping in the middle of her little kitchen, as she was getting a chair for the old man, and turning upon him to revive on the first possible chance what had been a standing quarrel between them, "what can be the rizon 'at gars ane like you, 'at never saw man or wuman i' yer lang life, the verra meenute ye open yer mou', say it's lang sin' ye saw me. A mensefu' body like you, Maister MacPhail, sud speyk mair to the p'int."

"Ton't you'll pe preaking her heart with ta one hand while you'll pe clapping her head with ta other," said the piper. "Ton't be taking her into your house to pe telling her she can't see. Is it that old Tuncan is not a man as much as any woman in ta world, tat you'll pe telling her she can't see? I tell you she can see, and more tan you'll pe think. And I will tell it to you, tere iss a pape in this house, and tere was pe none when Tuncan she'll co away."

"We a' ken ye ha'e the second sicht," said Mrs Findlay, who had not expected such a reply; "an' it was only o' the first I spak. Haith! it wad be ill set o' me to anger ye the moment ye come back to yer ain. Sit ye doon there by the chimla neuk, till I mask ye a dish o' tay. Or maybe ye wad prefar a drap o' parritch an' milk? It's no muckle I ha'e to offer ye, but ye cudna be mair walcome."

As easily appeased as irritated, the old man sat down with a grateful, placid look, and while the tea was drawing Mrs Findlay, by judicious questions, gathered from him the history of his adventures.

Unable to rise above the disappointment and chagrin of finding that the boy he loved as his own soul, and had brought up as his own son was actually the child of a Campbell woman, one of the race to which belonged the murderer of his people in Glencoe, and which therefore he hated with an absolute passion of hatred, unable also to endure the terrible schism in his being occasioned by the conflict between horror at the Campbell blood, and ineffaceable affection for the youth in whose veins it ran, and who so fully deserved all the love he had lavished upon him, he had concluded to rid himself of all the associations of place and people and event now grown so painful, to make his way back to his native Glencoe, and there endure his humiliation as best he might, beheld of the mountains which had beheld the ruin of his race. He would end the few and miserable days of his pilgrimage amid the rushing of the old torrents, and the calling of the old winds about the crags and precipices that had hung over his darksome yet blessed childhood. These were still his friends. But he had not gone many days' journey before a farmer found him on the road insensible, and took him home. As he recovered, his longing after his boy Malcolm grew, until it rose to agony, but he fought with his heart, and believed he had overcome it. The boy was