Kitabı oku: «Ranald Bannerman's Boyhood», sayfa 8

CHAPTER XX
I Have a Fall and a Dream

Elsie Duff’s father was a farm-labourer, with a large family. He was what is called a cottar in Scotland, which name implies that of the large farm upon which he worked for yearly wages he had a little bit of land to cultivate for his own use. His wife’s mother was Grannie Gregson. She was so old that she needed someone to look after her, but she had a cottage of her own in the village, and would not go and live with her daughter, and, indeed, they were not anxious to have her, for she was not by any means a pleasant person. So there was no help for it: Elsie must go and be her companion. It was a great trial to her at first, for her home was a happy one, her mother being very unlike her grandmother; and, besides, she greatly preferred the open fields to the streets of the village. She did not grumble, however, for where is the good of grumbling where duty is plain, or even when a thing cannot be helped? She found it very lonely though, especially when her grannie was in one of her gloomy moods. Then she would not answer a question, but leave the poor girl to do what she thought best, and complain of it afterwards. This was partly the reason why her parents, towards the close of the spring, sent a little brother, who was too delicate to be of much use at home, to spend some months with his grannie, and go to school. The intention had been that Elsie herself should go to school, but what with the cow and her grandmother together she had not been able to begin. Of course grannie grumbled at the proposal, but, as Turkey, my informant on these points, explained, she was afraid lest, if she objected, they should take Elsie away and send a younger sister in her place. So little Jamie Duff came to the school.

He was a poor little white-haired, red-eyed boy, who found himself very much out of his element there. Some of the bigger boys imagined it good fun to tease him; but on the whole he was rather a favourite, for he looked so pitiful, and took everything so patiently. For my part, I was delighted at the chance of showing Elsie Duff some kindness through her brother. The girl’s sweetness clung to me, and not only rendered it impossible for me to be rude to any girl, but kept me awake to the occurrence of any opportunity of doing something for her sake. Perceiving one day, before the master arrived, that Jamie was shivering with cold, I made way for him where I stood by the fire; and then found that he had next to nothing upon his little body, and that the soles of his shoes were hanging half off. This in the month of March in the north of Scotland was bad enough, even if he had not had a cough. I told my father when I went home, and he sent me to tell Mrs. Mitchell to look out some old garments of Allister’s for him; but she declared there were none. When I told Turkey this he looked very grave, but said nothing. When I told my father, he desired me to take the boy to the tailor and shoemaker, and get warm and strong clothes and shoes made for him. I was proud enough of the commission, and if I did act the grand benefactor a little, I have not yet finished the penance of it, for it never comes into my mind without bringing its shame with it. Of how many people shall I not have to beg the precious forgiveness when I meet them in the other world! For the sake of this penal shame, I confess I let the little fellow walk behind me, as I took him through the streets. Perhaps I may say this for myself, that I never thought of demanding any service of him in return for mine: I was not so bad as that. And I was true in heart to him notwithstanding my pride, for I had a real affection for him. I had not seen his sister—to speak to I mean—since that Sunday night.

One Saturday afternoon, as we were having a game something like hare and hounds, I was running very hard through the village, when I set my foot on a loose stone, and had a violent fall. When I got up, I saw Jamie Duff standing by my side, with a face of utter consternation. I discovered afterwards that he was in the way of following me about. Finding the blood streaming down my face, and remarking when I came to myself a little that I was very near the house where Turkey’s mother lived, I crawled thither, and up the stairs to her garret, Jamie following in silence. I found her busy as usual at her wheel, and Elsie Duff stood talking to her, as if she had just run in for a moment and must not sit down. Elsie gave a little cry when she saw the state I was in, and Turkey’s mother got up and made me take her chair while she hastened to get some water. I grew faint, and lost my consciousness. When I came to myself I was leaning against Elsie, whose face was as white as a sheet with dismay. I took a little water and soon began to revive.

When Turkey’s mother had tied up my head, I rose to go home, but she persuaded me to lie down a while. I was not unwilling to comply. What a sense of blissful repose pervaded me, weary with running, and perhaps faint with loss of blood, when I stretched myself on the bed, whose patchwork counterpane, let me say for Turkey’s mother, was as clean as any down quilt in chambers of the rich. I remember so well how a single ray of sunlight fell on the floor from the little window in the roof, just on the foot that kept turning the spinning-wheel. Its hum sounded sleepy in my ears. I gazed at the sloping ray of light, in which the ceaseless rotation of the swift wheel kept the motes dancing most busily, until at length to my half-closed eyes it became a huge Jacob’s ladder, crowded with an innumerable company of ascending and descending angels, and I thought it must be the same ladder I used to see in my dream. The drowsy delight which follows on the loss of blood possessed me, and the little garret with the slanting roof, and its sloping sun-ray, and the whirr of the wheel, and the form of the patient woman that span, had begun to gather about them the hues of Paradise to my slowly fading senses, when I heard a voice that sounded miles away, and yet close to my ear:

“Elsie, sing a little song, will you?”

I heard no reply. A pause followed, and then a voice, clear and melodious as a brook, began to sing, and before it ceased, I was indeed in a kind of paradise.

But here I must pause. Shall I be breaking my promise of not a word of Scotch in my story, if I give the song? True it is not a part of the story exactly, but it is in it. If my reader would like the song, he must have it in Scotch or not at all. I am not going to spoil it by turning it out of its own natural clothes into finer garments to which it was not born—I mean by translating it from Scotch into English. The best way will be this: I give the song as something extra—call it a footnote slipped into the middle of the page. Nobody needs read a word of it to understand the story; and being in smaller type and a shape of its own, it can be passed over without the least trouble.

[Footnote 1: The Yellow-hammer.]

[Footnote 2: Birch-trees.]

[Footnote 3: Singing.]

[Footnote 4: Nonsense.]

[Footnote 5: Slippery.]

Elsie’s voice went through every corner of my brain: there was singing in all its chambers. I could not hear the words of the song well enough to understand them quite; but Turkey gave me a copy of them afterwards. They were the schoolmaster’s work. All the winter, Turkey had been going to the evening school, and the master had been greatly pleased with him, and had done his best to get him on in various ways. A friendship sprung up between them; and one night he showed Turkey these verses. Where the air came from, I do not know: Elsie’s brain was full of tunes. I repeated them to my father once, and he was greatly pleased with them.

On this first acquaintance, however, they put me to sleep; and little Jamie Duff was sent over to tell my father what had happened. Jamie gave the message to Mrs. Mitchell, and she, full of her own importance, must needs set out to see how much was the matter.

I was dreaming an unutterably delicious dream. It was a summer evening. The sun was of a tremendous size, and of a splendid rose-colour. He was resting with his lower edge on the horizon, and dared go no farther, because all the flowers would sing instead of giving out their proper scents, and if he left them, he feared utter anarchy in his kingdom before he got back in the morning. I woke and saw the ugly face of Mrs. Mitchell bending over me. She was pushing me, and calling to me to wake up. The moment I saw her I shut my eyes tight, turned away, and pretended to be fast asleep again, in the hope that she would go away and leave me with my friends.

“Do let him have his sleep out, Mrs. Mitchell,” said Turkey’s mother.

“You’ve let him sleep too long already,” she returned, ungraciously. “He’ll do all he can, waking or sleeping, to make himself troublesome. He’s a ne’er-do-well, Ranald. Little good’ll ever come of him. It’s a mercy his mother is under the mould, for he would have broken her heart.”

I had come to myself quite by this time, but I was not in the least more inclined to acknowledge it to Mrs. Mitchell.

“You’re wrong there, Mrs. Mitchell,” said Elsie Duff; and my reader must remember it required a good deal of courage to stand up against a woman so much older than herself, and occupying the important position of housekeeper to the minister. “Ranald is a good boy. I’m sure he is.”

“How dare you say so, when he served your poor old grandmother such a wicked trick? It’s little the children care for their parents nowadays. Don’t speak to me.”

“No, don’t, Elsie,” said another voice, accompanied by a creaking of the door and a heavy step. “Don’t speak to her, Elsie, or you’ll have the worst of it. Leave her to me.—If Ranald did what you say, Mrs. Mitchell, and I don’t deny it, he was at least very sorry for it afterwards, and begged grannie’s pardon; and that’s a sort of thing you never did in your life.”

“I never had any occasion, Turkey; so you hold your tongue.”

“Now don’t you call me Turkey. I won’t stand it. I was christened as well as you.”

“And what are you to speak to me like that? Go home to your cows. I dare say they’re standing supperless in their stalls while you’re gadding about. I’ll call you Turkey as long as I please.”

“Very well, Kelpie—that’s the name you’re known by, though perhaps no one has been polite enough to use it to your face, for you’re a great woman, no doubt—I give you warning that I know you. When you’re found out, don’t say I didn’t give you a chance beforehand.”

“You impudent beggar!” cried Mrs. Mitchell, in a rage. “And you’re all one pack,” she added, looking round on the two others. “Get up, Ranald, and come home with me directly. What are you lying shamming there for?”

As she spoke, she approached the bed; but Turkey was too quick for her, and got in front of it. As he was now a great strong lad, she dared not lay hands upon him, so she turned in a rage and stalked out of the room, saying,

“Mr. Bannerman shall hear of this.”

“Then it’ll be both sides of it, Mrs. Mitchell,” I cried from the bed; but she vanished, vouchsafing me no reply.

Once more Turkey got me on his back and carried me home. I told my father the whole occurrence. He examined the cut and plastered it up for me, saying he would go and thank Turkey’s mother at once. I confess I thought more of Elsie Duff and her wonderful singing, which had put me to sleep, and given me the strange lovely dream from which the rough hands and harsh voice of the Kelpie had waked me too soon.

After this, although I never dared go near her grandmother’s house alone, I yet, by loitering and watching, got many a peep of Elsie. Sometimes I went with Turkey to his mother’s of an evening, to which my father had no objection, and somehow or other Elsie was sure to be there, and we spent a very happy hour or two together. Sometimes she would sing, and sometimes I would read to them out of Milton—I read the whole of Comus to them by degrees in this way; and although there was much I could not at all understand, I am perfectly certain it had an ennobling effect upon every one of us. It is not necessary that the intellect should define and separate before the heart and soul derive nourishment. As well say that a bee can get nothing out of a flower, because she does not understand botany. The very music of the stately words of such a poem is enough to generate a better mood, to make one feel the air of higher regions, and wish to rise “above the smoke and stir of this dim spot”. The best influences which bear upon us are of this vague sort—powerful upon the heart and conscience, although undefined to the intellect.

But I find I have been forgetting that those for whom I write are young—too young to understand this. Let it remain, however, for those older persons who at an odd moment, while waiting for dinner, or before going to bed, may take up a little one’s book, and turn over a few of its leaves. Some such readers, in virtue of their hearts being young and old both at once, discern more in the children’s books than the children themselves.

CHAPTER XXI
The Bees’ Nest

It was twelve o’clock on a delicious Saturday in the height of summer. We poured out of school with the gladness of a holiday in our hearts. I sauntered home full of the summer sun, and the summer wind, and the summer scents which filled the air. I do not know how often I sat down in perfect bliss upon the earthen walls which divided the fields from the road, and basked in the heat. These walls were covered with grass and moss. The odour of a certain yellow feathery flower, which grew on them rather plentifully, used to give me special delight. Great humble-bees haunted the walls, and were poking about in them constantly. Butterflies also found them pleasant places, and I delighted in butterflies, though I seldom succeeded in catching one. I do not remember that I ever killed one. Heart and conscience both were against that. I had got the loan of Mrs. Trimmer’s story of the family of Robins, and was every now and then reading a page of it with unspeakable delight. We had very few books for children in those days and in that far out-of-the-way place, and those we did get were the more dearly prized. It was almost dinner-time before I reached home. Somehow in this grand weather, welcome as dinner always was, it did not possess the same amount of interest as in the cold bitter winter. This day I almost hurried over mine to get out again into the broad sunlight. Oh, how stately the hollyhocks towered on the borders of the shrubbery! The guelder-roses hung like balls of snow in their wilderness of green leaves; and here and there the damask roses, dark almost to blackness, and with a soft velvety surface, enriched the sunny air with their colour and their scent. I never see these roses now. And the little bushes of polyanthus gemmed the dark earth between with their varied hues. We did not know anything about flowers except the delight they gave us, and I dare say I am putting some together which would not be out at the same time, but that is how the picture comes back to my memory.

I was leaning in utter idleness over the gate that separated the little lawn and its surroundings from the road, when a troop of children passed, with little baskets and tin pails in their hands; and amongst them Jamie Duff. It was not in the least necessary to ask him where he was going.

Not very far, about a mile or so from our house, rose a certain hill famed in the country round for its store of bilberries. It was the same to which Turkey and I had fled for refuge from the bull. It was called the Ba’ Hill, and a tradition lingered in the neighbourhood that many years ago there had been a battle there, and that after the battle the conquerors played at football with the heads of the vanquished slain, and hence the name of the hill; but who fought or which conquered, there was not a shadow of a record. It had been a wild country, and conflicting clans had often wrought wild work in it. In summer the hill was of course the haunt of children gathering its bilberries. Jamie shyly suggested whether I would not join them, but they were all too much younger than myself; and besides I felt drawn to seek Turkey in the field with the cattle—that is, when I should get quite tired of doing nothing. So the little troop streamed on, and I remained leaning over the gate.

I suppose I had sunk into a dreamy state, for I was suddenly startled by a sound beside me, and looking about, saw an old woman, bent nearly double within an old grey cloak, notwithstanding the heat. She leaned on a stick, and carried a bag like a pillow-case in her hand. It was one of the poor people of the village, going her rounds for her weekly dole of a handful of oatmeal. I knew her very well by sight and by name—she was old Eppie—and a kindly greeting passed between us. I thank God that the frightful poor-laws had not invaded Scotland when I was a boy. There was no degradation in honest poverty then, and it was no burden to those who supplied its wants; while every person was known, and kindly feelings were nourished on both sides. If I understand anything of human nature now, it comes partly of having known and respected the poor of my father’s parish. She passed in at the gate and went as usual to the kitchen door, while I stood drowsily contemplating the green expanse of growing crops in the valley before me. The day had grown as sleepy as myself. There were no noises except the hum of the unseen insects, and the distant rush of the water over the dams at our bathing-place. In a few minutes the old woman approached me again. She was an honest and worthy soul, and very civil in her manners. Therefore I was surprised to hear her muttering to herself. Turning, I saw she was very angry. She ceased her muttering when she descried me observing her, and walked on in silence—was even about to pass through the little wicket at the side of the larger gate without any further salutation. Something had vexed her, and instinctively I put my hand in my pocket, and pulled out a halfpenny my father had given me that morning—very few of which came in my way—and offered it to her. She took it with a half-ashamed glance, an attempt at a courtesy, and a murmured blessing. Then for a moment she looked as if about to say something, but changing her mind, she only added another grateful word, and hobbled away. I pondered in a feeble fashion for a moment, came to the conclusion that the Kelpie had been rude to her, forgot her, and fell a-dreaming again. Growing at length tired of doing nothing, I roused myself, and set out to seek Turkey.

I have lingered almost foolishly over this day. But when I recall my childhood, this day always comes back as a type of the best of it.

I remember I visited Kirsty, to find out where Turkey was. Kirsty welcomed me as usual, for she was always loving and kind to us; and although I did not visit her so often now, she knew it was because I was more with my father, and had lessons to learn in which she could not assist me. Having nothing else to talk about, I told her of Eppie, and her altered looks when she came out of the house. Kirsty compressed her lips, nodded her head, looked serious, and made me no reply. Thinking this was strange, I resolved to tell Turkey, which otherwise I might not have done. I did not pursue the matter with Kirsty, for I knew her well enough to know that her manner indicated a mood out of which nothing could be drawn. Having learned where he was, I set out to find him—close by the scene of our adventure with Wandering Willie. I soon came in sight of the cattle feeding, but did not see Turkey.

When I came near the mound, I caught a glimpse of the head of old Mrs. Gregson’s cow quietly feeding off the top of the wall from the other side, like an outcast Gentile; while my father’s cows, like the favoured and greedy Jews, were busy in the short clover inside. Grannie’s cow managed to live notwithstanding, and I dare say gave as good milk, though not perhaps quite so much of it, as ill-tempered Hawkie. Mrs. Gregson’s granddaughter, however, who did not eat grass, was inside the wall, seated on a stone which Turkey had no doubt dragged there for her. Trust both her and Turkey, the cow should not have a mouthful without leave of my father. Elsie was as usual busy with her knitting. And now I caught sight of Turkey, running from a neighbouring cottage with a spade over his shoulder. Elsie had been minding the cows for him.

“What’s ado, Turkey?” I cried, running to meet him.

“Such a wild bees’ nest!” answered Turkey. “I’m so glad you’re come! I was just thinking whether I wouldn’t run and fetch you. Elsie and I have been watching them going out and in for the last half-hour.—Such lots of bees! There’s a store of honey there.”

“But isn’t it too soon to take it, Turkey? There’ll be a great deal more in a few weeks.—Not that I know anything about bees,” I added deferentially.

“You’re quite right, Ranald,” answered Turkey; “but there are several things to be considered. In the first place, the nest is by the roadside, and somebody else might find it. Next, Elsie has never tasted honey all her life, and it is so nice, and here she is, all ready to eat some. Thirdly, and lastly, as your father says—though not very often,” added Turkey slyly, meaning that the lastly seldom came with the thirdly,—“if we take the honey now, the bees will have plenty of time to gather enough for the winter before the flowers are gone, whereas if we leave it too long they will starve.”

I was satisfied with this reasoning, and made no further objection.

“You must keep a sharp look-out though, Ranald,” he said; “for they’ll be mad enough, and you must keep them off with your cap.”

He took off his own, and gave it to Elsie, saying: “Here, Elsie: you must look out, and keep off the bees. I can tell you a sting is no joke. I’ve had three myself.”

“But what are you to do, Turkey?” asked Elsie, with an anxious face.

“Oh, Ranald will keep them off me and himself too. I shan’t heed them. I must dig away, and get at the honey.”

All things being thus arranged, Turkey manfully approached the dyke, as they call any kind of wall-fence there. In the midst of the grass and moss was one little hole, through which the bees kept going and coming very busily. Turkey put in his finger and felt in what direction the hole went, and thence judging the position of the hoard, struck his spade with firm foot into the dyke. What bees were in came rushing out in fear and rage, and I had quite enough to do to keep them off our bare heads with my cap. Those who were returning, laden as they were, joined in the defence, but I did my best, and with tolerable success. Elsie being at a little distance, and comparatively still, was less the object of their resentment. In a few moments Turkey had reached the store. Then he began to dig about it carefully to keep from spoiling the honey. First he took out a quantity of cells with nothing in them but grub-like things—the cradles of the young bees they were. He threw them away, and went on digging as coolly as if he had been gardening. All the defence he left to me, and I assure you I had enough of it, and thought mine the harder work of the two: hand or eye had no rest, and my mind was on the stretch of anxiety all the time.

But now Turkey stooped to the nest, cleared away the earth about it with his hands, and with much care drew out a great piece of honeycomb, just as well put together as the comb of any educated bees in a garden-hive, who know that they are working for critics. Its surface was even and yellow, showing that the cells were full to the brim of the rich store. I think I see Turkey weighing it in his hand, and turning it over to pick away some bits of adhering mould ere he presented it to Elsie. She sat on her stone like a patient, contented queen, waiting for what her subjects would bring her.

“Oh, Turkey! what a piece!” she said as she took it, and opened her pretty mouth and white teeth to have a bite of the treasure.

“Now, Ranald,” said Turkey, “we must finish the job before we have any ourselves.”

He went on carefully removing the honey, and piling it on the bank. There was not a great deal, because it was so early in the year, and there was not another comb to equal that he had given Elsie. But when he had got it all out—

“They’ll soon find another nest,” he said. “I don’t think it’s any use leaving this open for them. It spoils the dyke too.”

As he spoke he began to fill up the hole, and beat the earth down hard. Last of all, he put in the sod first dug away, with the grass and flowers still growing upon it. This done, he proceeded to divide what remained of the honey.

“There’s a piece for Allister and Davie,” he said; “and here’s a piece for you, and this for me, and Elsie can take the rest home for herself and Jamie.”

Elsie protested, but we both insisted. Turkey got some nice clover, and laid the bits of honeycomb in it. Then we sat and ate our shares, and chatted away for a long time, Turkey and I getting up every now and then to look after the cattle, and Elsie too having sometimes to follow her cow, when she threatened an inroad upon some neighbouring field while we were away. But there was plenty of time between, and Elsie sung us two or three songs at our earnest request, and Turkey told us one or two stories out of history books he had been reading, and I pulled out my story of the Robins and read to them. And so the hot sun went down the glowing west, and threw longer and longer shadows eastward. A great shapeless blot of darkness, with legs to it, accompanied every cow, and calf, and bullock wherever it went. There was a new shadow crop in the grass, and a huge patch with long tree-shapes at the end of it, stretched away from the foot of the hillock. The weathercock on the top of the church was glistening such a bright gold, that the wonder was how it could keep from breaking out into a crow that would rouse all the cocks of the neighbourhood, even although they were beginning to get sleepy, and thinking of going to roost. It was time for the cattle, Elsie’s cow included, to go home; for, although the latter had not had such plenty to eat from as the rest, she had been at it all day, and had come upon several very nice little patches of clover, that had overflowed the edges of the fields into the levels and the now dry ditches on the sides of the road. But just as we rose to break up the assembly, we spied a little girl come flying across the field, as if winged with news. As she came nearer we recognized her. She lived near Mrs. Gregson’s cottage, and was one of the little troop whom I had seen pass the manse on their way to gather bilberries.

“Elsie! Elsie!” she cried, “John Adam has taken Jamie. Jamie fell, and John got him.”

Elsie looked frightened, but Turkey laughed, saying: “Never mind, Elsie. John is better than he looks. He won’t do him the least harm. He must mind his business, you know.”

The Ba’ Hill was covered with a young plantation of firs, which, hardy as they were, had yet in a measure to be coaxed into growing in that inclement region. It was amongst their small stems that the coveted bilberries grew, in company with cranberries and crowberries, and dwarf junipers. The children of the village thus attracted to the place were no doubt careless of the young trees, and might sometimes even amuse themselves with doing them damage. Hence the keeper, John Adam, whose business it was to look after them, found it his duty to wage war upon the annual hordes of these invaders; and in their eyes Adam was a terrible man. He was very long and very lean, with a flattish yet Roman nose, and rather ill-tempered mouth, while his face was dead-white and much pitted with the small-pox. He wore corduroy breeches, a blue coat, and a nightcap striped horizontally with black and red. The youngsters pretended to determine, by the direction in which the tassel of it hung, what mood its owner was in; nor is it for me to deny that their inductions may have led them to conclusions quite as correct as those of some other scientific observers. At all events the tassel was a warning, a terror, and a hope. He could not run very fast, fortunately, for the lean legs within those ribbed grey stockings were subject to rheumatism, and could take only long not rapid strides; and if the children had a tolerable start, and had not the misfortune to choose in their terror an impassable direction, they were pretty sure to get off. Jamie Duff, the most harmless and conscientious creature, who would not have injured a young fir upon any temptation, did take a wrong direction, caught his foot in a hole, fell into a furze bush, and, nearly paralysed with terror, was seized by the long fingers of Adam, and ignominiously lifted by a portion of his garments into the vast aërial space between the ground and the white, pock-pitted face of the keeper. Too frightened to scream, too conscious of trespass to make any resistance, he was borne off as a warning to the rest of the very improbable fate which awaited them.

But the character of Adam was not by any means so frightful in the eyes of Turkey; and he soon succeeded in partially composing the trepidation of Elsie, assuring her that as soon as he had put up the cattle, he would walk over to Adam’s house and try to get Jamie off, whereupon Elsie set off home with her cow, disconsolate but hopeful. I think I see her yet—for I recall every picture of that lovely day clear as the light of that red sunset—walking slowly with her head bent half in trouble, half in attention to her knitting, after her solemn cow, which seemed to take twice as long to get over the ground because she had two pairs of legs instead of one to shuffle across it, dragging her long iron chain with the short stake at the end after her with a gentle clatter over the hard dry road. I accompanied Turkey, helped him to fasten up and bed the cows, went in with him and shared his hasty supper of potatoes and oatcake and milk, and then set out refreshed, and nowise apprehensive in his company, to seek the abode of the redoubtable ogre, John Adam.