Books: Heather and Snow
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George MacDonald >> Heather and Snow
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Her forehead was wide and rather low, with straight eyebrows. Her eyes
were of a gentle hazel, not the hazel that looks black at night. Her
nose was strong, a little irregular, with plenty of substance, and
sensitive nostrils. A decided and well-shaped chin dominated a neck by
no means slender, and seemed to assert the superiority of the face over
the whole beautiful body. Its chief expression was of a strong repose,
a sweet, powerful peace, requiring but occasion to pass into
determination. The sensitiveness of the nostrils with the firmness in
the meeting of the closed lips, suggested a faculty of indignation
unsparing toward injustice; while the clearness of the heaven of the
forehead gave confidence that such indignation would never show itself
save for another.
I wish, presumptuous wish! that I could see the mind of a woman grow as
she sits spinning or weaving: it would reveal the process next highest
to creation. But the only hope of ever understanding such things lies
in growing oneself. There is the still growth of the moonlit night of
reverie; cloudy, with wind, and a little rain, comes the morning of
thought, when the mind grows faster and the heart more slowly; then
wakes the storm in the forest of human relation, tempest and lightning
abroad, the soul enlarging by great bursts of vision and leaps of
understanding and resolve; then floats up the mystic twilight
eagerness, not unmingled with the dismay of compelled progress, when,
bidding farewell to that which is behind, the soul is driven toward
that which is before, grasping at it with all the hunger of the new
birth. The story of God's universe lies in the growth of the individual
soul. Kirsty's growth had been as yet quiet and steady.
Once more as she shifted her needle her glance went flitting over the
waste before her. This time there was more life in sight. Far away
Kirsty descried something of the nature of man upon horse: to say how
far would have been as difficult for one unused to the flat moor as for
a landsman to reckon distances at sea. Of the people of the place,
hardly another, even under the direction of Kirsty, could have
contrived to see it. At length, after she had looked many times, she
could clearly distinguish a youth on a strong, handsome hill-pony, and
remained no longer in the slightest doubt as to who he might be.
They came steadily over the dark surface of the moor, and it was clear
that the pony must know the nature of the ground well; for now he
glided along as fast as he could gallop, now made a succession of short
jumps, now halted, examined the ground, and began slowly picking his
way.
Kirsty watched his approach with gentle interest, while every movement
of the youth indicated eagerness. Gordon had seen her on the hillside,
probably long before she saw him, had been coming to her in as straight
a line as the ground would permit, and at length was out of the boggy
level, and ascending the slope of the hillfoot to where she sat. When
he was within about twenty yards of her she gave him a little nod, and
then fixed her eyes on her knitting. He held on till within a few feet
of her, then pulled up and threw himself from his pony's back. The
creature, covered with foam, stood a minute panting, then fell to work
on the short grass.
Francis had grown considerably, and looked almost a young man. He was a
little older than Kirsty, but did not appear so, his expression being
considerably younger than hers. Whether self-indulgence or aspiration
was to come out of his evident joy in life, seemed yet undetermined.
His countenance indicated nothing bad. He might well have represented
one at the point before having to choose whether to go up or down hill.
He was dressed a little showily in a short coat of dark tartan, and a
highland bonnet with a brooch and feather, and carried a lady's
riding-whip--his mother's, no doubt--its top set with stones--so that
his appearance was altogether a contrast to that of the girl. She was a
peasant, he a gentleman! Her bare head and yet more her bare feet
emphasized the contrast. But which was by nature and in fact the
superior, no one with the least insight could have doubted.
He stood and looked at her, but neither spoke. She cast at length a
glance upward, and said,
'Weel?'
Francis did not open his mouth. He seemed irresolute. Nothing in
Kirsty's look or carriage or in the tone of her one word gave sign of
consciousness that she was treating him, or he her, strangely. With
complete self-possession she left the initiative to the one who had
sought the interview: let him say why he had come!
In his face began to appear indication of growing displeasure. Two or
three times he turned half away with a movement instantly checked which
seemed to say that in a moment more, if there came no change, he would
mount and ride: was this all his welcome?
At last she appeared to think she must take mercy on him: he used to
say thirty words to her one!
'That's a bonny powny ye hae,' she remarked, with a look at the
creature as he fed.
'He's a' that,' he answered dryly.
'Whaur did ye get him?' she asked.
'My mither coft (_bought_) him agen my hame-comin,' he replied.
He prided himself on being able to speak the broadest of the dialect.
'She maun hae a straucht e'e for a guid beast!' returned Kirsty, with a
second glance at the pony.
'He's a bonny cratur and a willin,' answered the youth. 'He'll gang
skelp throuw onything--watter onygait;--I'm no sae sure aboot fire.'
A long silence followed, broken this time by the youth.
'Winna ye gie me luik nor word, and me ridden like mad to hae a sicht
o' ye?' he said.
She glanced up at him.
'Weel ye hae that!' she answered, with a smile that showed her lovely
white teeth: 'ye're a' dubs (_all bemired_)! What for sud ye be in sic
a hurry? Ye saw me no three days gane!'
'Ay, I saw ye, it's true; but I didna get a word o' ye!'
'Ye was free to say what ye likit. There was nane by but my mither!'
'Wud ye hae me say a'thing afore yer mither jist as I wud til ye yer
lane (_alone_)?' he asked.
Ay wud I,' she returned. 'Syne she wad ken, 'ithoot my haein to tell
her sic a guse as ye was!'
Had he not seen the sunny smile that accompanied her words he might
well have taken offence.
'I wuss ye war anither sic-like!' he answered simply.
'Syne there wud be twa o' 's!' she returned, leaving him to interpret.
Silence again fell.
'Weel, what wud ye hae, Francie?' said Kirsty at length.
'I wud hae ye promise to merry me, Kirsty, come the time,' he answered;
'and that ye ken as well as I du mysel!'
'That's straucht oot ony gait!' rejoined Kirsty. 'But ye see, Francie,'
she went on, 'yer father, whan he left ye a kin' o' a legacy, as ye may
ca' 't, to mine, hed no intention that _I_ was to be left oot; neither
had _my_ father whan he acceppit o' 't!'
'I dinna unerstan ye ae styme (_one atom_)!' interrupted Gordon.
'Haud yer tongue and hearken,' returned Kirsty. 'What I'm meanin 's
this: what lies to my father's han' lies to mine as weel; and I'll
never hae 't kenned or said that, whan my father pu't (_pulled_) ae
gait, I pu't anither!'
'Sakes, lassie! what _are_ ye haverin at? Wud it be pu'in agen yer
father to merry me?'
'It wud be that.'
'I dinna see hoo ye can mak it oot! I dinna see hoo, bein sic a freen'
o' my father's, he sud objeck to my father's son!'
'Eh, but laddies _ir_ gowks!' cried Kirsty. 'My father was your
father's freen' for _his_ sake, no for his ain! He thinks o' what wud
be guid for you, no for himsel!'
'Weel, but,' persisted Gordon, 'it wud be mair for my guid nor onything
ither he cud wuss for, to hae you for my wife!'
Kirsty's nostrils began to quiver, and her lip rose in a curve of
scorn.
'A bonnie wife ye wud hae, Francie Gordon, wha, kennin her father duin
ilk mortal thing for the love o' his auld maister and comrade, tuik the
fine chance to mak her ain o' 't, and haud her grip o' the callan til
hersel!--Think ye aither o' the auld men ever mintit at sic a thing as
fatherin baith? That my father had a lass-bairn o' 's ain shawed mair
nor onything the trust your father pat in 'im! Francie, the verra grave
wud cast me oot for shame 'at I sud ance hae thoucht o' sic a thing!
Man, it wud maist drive yer leddy-mither dementit!'
'It's my business' Kirsty, wha I merry!'
'And I houp yer grace 'll alloo it's pairt _my_ business wha ye sail
_not_ merry--and that's me, Francie!'
Gordon sprang to his feet with such a look of wrath and despair as for
a moment frightened Kirsty who was not easily frightened. She thought
of the terrible bog-holes on the way her lover had come, sprang also to
her feet, and caught him by the arm where, his foot already in the
stirrup, he stood in the act of mounting.
'Francie! Francie!' she cried, 'hearken to rizzon! There's no a body,
man or wuman, I like better nor yersel to du ye ony guid or turn o'
guid--'cep' my father, of coorse, and my mither, and my ain Steenie!'
'And hoo mony mair, gien I had the wull to hear the lang bible-chapter
o' them, and see mysel comin in at the tail o' them a', like the
hin'most sheep, takin his bite as he cam? Na, na! it's time I was hame,
and had my slip (_pinafore_) on, and was astride o' a stick! Gien ye
had a score o' idiot-brithers, ye wud care mair for ilk are o' them nor
for me! I canna bide to think o' 't.'
'It's true a' the same, whether ye can bide to think o' 't or no,
Francie!' returned the girl, her face, which had been very pale, now
rosy with indignation. 'My Steenie's mair to me nor a' the Gordons
thegither, Bow-o'-meal or Jock-and-Tam as ye like!'
She drew back, sat down again to the stocking she was knitting for
Steenie, and left her lover to mount and ride, which he did without
another word.
'There's mair nor ae kin' o' idiot,' she said to herself, 'and
Steenie's no the kin' that oucht to be ca'd ane. There's mair in
Steenie nor in sax Francie Gordons!'
If ever Kirsty came to love a man, it would be just nothing to her to
die for him; but then it never would have been anything to her to die
for her father or her mother or Steenie!
Gordon galloped off at a wild pace, as if he would drive his pony
straight athwart the terrible moss, taking hag and well-eye as it came.
But glancing behind and seeing that Kirsty was not looking after him,
he turned the creature's head in a safer direction, and left the moss
at his back.
CHAPTER IV
DOG-STEENIE
She sat for some time at the foot of the hill, motionless as itself,
save for her hands. The sun shone on in silence, and the blue
butterflies which haunted the little bush of bluebells, that is
harebells, beside her, made no noise; only a stray bee, happy in the
pale heat, made a little music to please itself--and perhaps the
butterflies. Kirsty had an unusual power of sitting still, even with
nothing for her hands to do. On the present occasion, however, her
hands and fingers went faster than usual--not entirely from eagerness
to finish her stocking, but partly from her displeasure with Francis.
At last she broke her 'worset,' drew the end of it through the final
loop, and, drawing it, rose and scanned the side of the hill. Not far
off she spied the fleecy backs of a few feeding sheep, and straightway
sent out on the still air a sweet, strong, musical cry. It was
instantly responded to by a bark from somewhere up the hill. She sat
down, clasped her hands over her knees, and waited.
She had not to wait long. A sound of rushing came through the heather,
and in a moment or two, a fine collie, with long, silky, wavy coat of
black and brown, and one white spot on his face, shot out of the
heather, sprang upon her, and, setting his paws on her shoulders, began
licking her face. She threw her arms round him, and addressed him in
words of fondling rebuke:--
'Ye ill-mennered tyke!' she said; 'what richt hae ye to tak the place
o' yer betters? Gang awa doon wi' ye, and wait. What for sud ye tak
advantage o' your fower legs to his twa, and him the maister o' ye!
But, eh man, ye're a fine doggie, and I canna bide the thoucht 'at yer
langest day maun be sae short, and tak ye awa hame sae lang afore the
lave o' 's!'
While she scolded, she let him caress her as he pleased. Presently he
left her, and going a yard or two away, threw himself on the grass with
such _abandon_ as no animal but a weary dog seems capable of reaching.
He had made haste to be first that he might caress her before his
master came; now he heard him close behind, and knew his opportunity
over.
Stephen came next out of the heather, creeping to Kirsty's feet on
all-fours. He was a gaunt, longbacked lad, who, at certain seasons
undetermined, either imagined himself the animal he imitated, or had
some notion of being required, or, possibly, compelled to behave like a
dog. When the fit was upon him, all the day long he would speak no word
even to his sister, would only bark or give a low growl like the
collie. In this last he succeeded much better than in running like him,
although, indeed, his arms were so long that it was comparatively easy
for him to use them as forelegs. He let his head hang low as he went,
throwing it up to bark, and sinking it yet lower when he growled, which
was seldom, and to those that loved him indicated great trouble. He did
not like Snootie raise himself on his hindlegs to caress his sister,
but gently subsided upon her feet, and there lay panting, his face to
the earth, and his fore-arms crossed beneath his nose.
Kirsty stooped, and stroked and patted him as if he were the dog he
seemed fain to be. Then drawing her feet from under him, she rose, and
going a little way up the hill to the hut, returned presently with a
basin full of rich-looking milk, and _a quarter_ of thick oat-cake,
which she had brought from home in the morning. The milk she set beside
her as she resumed her seat. Then she put her feet again under the
would-be dog, and proceeded to break small pieces from the oat-cake and
throw them to him. He sought every piece eagerly as it fell, but with
his mouth only, never moving either hand, and seemed to eat it with a
satisfaction worthy of his simulated nature. When the oat-cake was
gone, she set the bowl before him, and he drank the milk with care and
neatness, never putting a hand to steady it.
'Now you must have a sleep, Steenie!' said his sister.
She rose, and he crawled slowly after her up the hill on his hands and
knees. All the time he kept his face down, and, his head hanging toward
the earth, his long hair hid it quite. He strongly suggested a great
Skye-terrier.
When they reached the hut, Kirsty went in, and Steenie crept after her.
They had covered the floor of it with heather, the stalks set upright
and close packed, so that, even where the bells were worn off, it still
made a thick long-piled carpet, elastic and warm. When the door was
shut, they were snug there even in winter.
Inside, the hut was about six feet long, and four wide. Its furniture
was a little deal table and one low chair. In the turf of which the
wall consisted, at the farther end from the door, Kirsty had cut out a
small oblong recess to serve as a shelf for her books. The hut was
indeed her library, for in that bole stood, upright with its back to
the room, in proper and tidy fashion, almost every book she could call
her own. They were about a dozen, several with but one board and some
with no title, one or two very old, and all well used. Most of her time
there, when she was not knitting, Kirsty spent in reading and thinking
about what she read; many a minute, even when she was knitting, she
managed to read as well. She had read two of sir Walter's novels, and
several of the Ettrick-shepherd's shorter tales, which the schoolmaster
had lent her; but on her shelf and often in her hands were a Shakspere,
a Milton, and a translation of Klopstock's _Messiah_--which she liked
far better than the _Paradise Lost_, though she did not admire it
nearly so much. Of the latter she would say, 'It's unco gran', but it
never maks my hert grit (_great_), meaning that it never caused her any
emotion. Among her treasures was also a curious old book of
ghost-stories, concerning which the sole remark she was ever heard to
make was, that she would like to know whether they were true: she
thought Steenie could tell, but she would not question him about them.
Ramsay's _Gentle Shepherd was_ there too, which she liked for the good
sense in it. There was a thumbed edition of Burns also, but I do not
think much of the thumbing was Kirsty's, though she had several of his
best poems by heart.
Between the ages of ten and fifteen, Kirsty had gone to the parish
school of the nearest town: it looked a village, but they always called
it _the town_. There a sister of her father lived, and with her she was
welcome to spend the night, so that she was able to go in most
weathers. But when she staid there, her evening was mostly spent at the
schoolmaster's.
Mr. Craig was an elderly man, who had married late, and lost his wife
early. She had left him one child, a delicate, dainty, golden-haired
thing, considerably younger than Kirsty, who cherished for her a love
and protection quite maternal. Kirsty was one of the born mothers, who
are not only of the salt, but are the sugar and shelter of the world. I
doubt if little Phemie would have learned anything but for Kirsty. Not
to the day of her death did her father see in her anything but the
little girl his wife had left him. He spoiled her a good deal, nor ever
set himself to instruct her, leaving it apparently to the tendency of
things to make of her a woman like her mother.
He was a real student and excellent teacher. When first he came as
schoolmaster to Tiltowie, he was a divinity student, but a man so far
of thought original that he saw lions in the way of becoming a
minister. Such men as would be servants of the church before they are
slaves of the church's Master will never be troubled with Mr. Craig's
difficulties. For one thing, his strong poetic nature made it
impossible for him to believe in a dull, prosaic God: when told that
God's thoughts are not as our thoughts, he found himself unable to
imagine them inferior to ours. The natural result was that he remained
a schoolmaster--to the advantage of many a pupil, and very greatly to
the advantage of Kirsty, whose nature was peculiarly open to his
influences. The dominie said he had never had a pupil that gave him
such satisfaction as Kirsty; she seemed to anticipate and catch at
everything he wanted to make hers. There was no knowledge, he declared,
that he could offer her, which the lassie from Corbyknowe would not
take in like her porridge. Best thing of all for her was that,
following his own predilections, he paid far more attention, in his
class for English, to poetry than to prose. Colin Craig was himself no
indifferent poet, and was even a master of the more recondite forms of
verse. If, in some measure led astray by the merit of the form, he was
capable of admiring verse essentially inferior, he yet certainly
admired the better poetry more. He had, besides, the faculty of
perceiving whether what he had written would or would not _convey_ his
thought--a faculty in which even a great poet may be deficient.
In a word, Kirsty learned everything Mr. Craig brought within her
reach; and long after she left school, the Saturday on which she did
not go to see him was a day of disappointment both to the dominie and
to his little Phemie.
When she had once begun to follow a thing, Kirsty would never leave the
trail of it. Her chief business as well as delight was to look after
Steenie, but perfect attention to him left her large opportunity of
pursuing her studies, especially at such seasons in which his peculiar
affection, whatever it really was, required hours of untimely sleep.
For, although at all times he wandered at his will without her, he
invariably wanted to be near her when he slept; while she, satisfied
that so he slept better, had not once at such a time left him. During
summer, and as long before and after as the temperature permitted, the
hut was the place he preferred when his necessity was upon him; and it
was Kirsty's especial delight to sit in it on a warm day, the door open
and her brother asleep on her feet, reading and reading while the sun
went down the sky, to fill the hut as he set with a glory of promise;
after which came the long gloamin, like a life out of which the light
but not the love has vanished, in which she neither worked nor read,
but brooded over many things.
Leaving the door open behind them, Kirsty took a book from the bole,
and seated herself on the low chair; instantly Steenie, who had waited
motionless until she was settled, threw himself across her feet on the
carpet of heather, and in a moment was fast asleep.
There they remained, the one reading, the other sleeping, while the
hours of the warm summer afternoon slipped away, ripples on the ocean
of the lovely, changeless eternity, the consciousness of God. For a
time the watching sister was absorbed in King Lear; then she fell to
wondering whether Cordelia was not unkindly stiff toward her old
father, but perceived at length that, with such sisters listening, she
could not have spoken otherwise. Then she wondered whether there could
be women so bad as Goneril and Regan, concluding that Shakspere must
know better than she. At last she drew her bare feet from under
Steenie, and put them on his back, where the coolness was delightful.
Then first she became aware that the sun was down and the gloamin come,
and that the whole world must be feeling just like her feet. The long
clear twilight, which would last till morning, was about her, the eerie
sleeping day, when the lovely ghosts come out of their graves in the
long grass, and walk about in the cool world, with little ghosty sighs
at sight of the old places, and fancy they are dreaming. Kirsty was
always willing to believe in ghosts: awake in the dark nights she did
not; but in her twilight reveries she grew very nearly a ghost herself.
It was a wonder she could sit so long and not feel worn out; but Kirsty
was exceptionally strong, in absolute health, and specially gifted with
patience. She had so early entertained and so firmly grasped the idea
that she was sent into the world expressly to take care of Steenie,
that devotion to him had grown into a happy habit with her. The waking
mind gave itself up to the sleeping, the orderly to the troubled brain,
the true heart to the heart as true.
CHAPTER V
COLONEL AND SERGEANT
There was no difference of feeling betwixt the father and mother in
regard to this devotion of Kirsty's very being to her Steenie; but the
mother in especial was content with it, for while Kirsty was the apple
of her eye, Steenie was her one loved anxiety.
David Barclay, a humble unit in the widespread and distinguished family
of the Barclays or Berkeleys, was born, like his father and grandfather
and many more of his ancestors, on the same farm he now occupied. While
his father was yet alive, with an elder son to succeed him, David
_listed_--mainly from a strong desire to be near a school-friend, then
an ensign in the service of the East India Company. Throughout their
following military career they were in the same regiment, the one
rising to be colonel, the other sergeant-major. All the time, the
schoolboy-attachment went on deepening in the men; and, all the time,
was never man more respectfully obedient to orders than David Barclay
to those of the superior officer with whom in private he was on terms
of intimacy. As often as they could without attracting notice, the
comrades threw aside all distinction of rank, and were again the Archie
Gordon and Davie Barclay of old school-days--as real to them still as
those of the hardest battles they had fought together. In more
primitive Scotland, such relations are, or were more possible than in
countries where more divergent habits of life occasion wider social
separations; and then these were sober-minded men, who neither made
much of the shows of the world, nor were greedy after distinction,
which is the mere coffin wherein Duty-done lies buried.
When they returned to their country, both somewhat disabled, the one
retired to his inherited estate, the other to the family farm upon that
estate, where his brother had died shortly before; so that Archie was
now Davie's landlord. But no new relation would ever destroy the
friendship which school had made close, and war had welded. Almost
every week the friends met and spent the evening together--much
oftener, by and by, at Corbyknowe than at Castle Weelset. For both
married soon after their return, and their wives were of different
natures.
'My colonel has the glory,' Barclay said once, and but once, to his
sister, 'but, puir fallow, I hae the wife!' And truly the wife at the
farm had in her material enough, both moral and intellectual, for ten
ladies better than the wife at the castle.
David's wife brought him a son the first year of their marriage, and
the next year came a son to the colonel and a daughter to the sergeant.
One night, as the two fathers sat together at the farm, some twelve
hours after the birth of David's girl, they mutually promised that the
survivor would do his best for the child of the other. Before he died
the colonel would gladly have taken his boy from his wife and given him
to his old comrade.
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