Books: Heather and Snow
G >>
George MacDonald >> Heather and Snow
Pages:
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 | 6 |
7 |
8 |
9 |
10 |
11 |
12 |
13 |
14 |
15 |
16
'Wud ye like to come doon, Steenie?' she said. 'It's a queer place.'
'Is 't awfu' fearsome?' asked Steenie, shrinking.
His feeling of dismay at the cavernous, the terrene dark, was not
inconsistent with his pleasure in being out on the wild waste hillside,
when heaven and earth were absolutely black, not seldom the whole of
the night, in utter loneliness to eye or ear, and his never then
feeling anything like dread. Then and there only did he seem to have
room enough. His terror was of the smallest pressure on his soul, the
least hint at imprisonment. That he could not rise and wander about
among the stars at his will, shaped itself to him as the heaviness of
his feet holding him down. His feet were the loaded gyves that made of
the world but a roomy prison. The limitless was essential to his
conscious wellbeing.
'No a bittock,' answered Kirsty, who felt awe anywhere--on hilltop, in
churchyard, in sunlit silent room--but never fear. 'It's as like the
place I was tellin ye aboot--'
'Ay, the cat-place!' interrupted Steenie.
'The place wi' the pictur,' returned Kirsty.
Steenie darted forward, shot head-first into the hole as he had seen
Kirsty do, and crept undismayed to the bottom of the slope. Kirsty
followed close behind, but he was already on his feet when she joined
him. He grasped her arm eagerly, his face turned from her, and his eyes
gazing fixedly into the depth of the gallery, lighted so vaguely by the
candle on the floor of its entrance.
'I think I saw him!' he said in a whisper full of awe and delight. 'I
think I did see him!--but, Kirsty, hoo am I to be sure 'at I saw him?'
'Maybe ye did and maybe ye didna see him,' replied Kirsty; 'but that
disna metter sae muckle, for he's aye seem you; and ye'll see him, and
be sure 'at ye see him, whan the richt time comes.'
'Ye div think that, Kirsty?'
'Ay div I,' returned Kirsty, confidently.
'I s' wait,' answered Steenie, and in silence followed Kirsty along the
gallery.
This was Steenie's first, and all but his last descent into the
_earth-house,_ or _Picts' House_, or _weem_, as a place of the sort is
called: there are many such in the east of Scotland, their age and
origin objects of merest conjecture. The moment he was out of it, he
fled to the Horn.
The next Sunday he heard read at church the story of the burial and
resurrection of the Lord, and unavoidably after their talk about the
catacombs, associated the chamber they had just discovered with the
tomb in which 'they laid him,' at the same time concluding the top of
the hill, where he had, as he believed, on certain favoured nights met
the bonny man, the place whence he ascended--to come again as Steenie
thought he did! The earth-house had no longer any attraction for
Steenie: the bonny man was not there; he was risen! He was somewhere
above the mountain-top haunted by Steenie, and that he sometimes
descended upon it Steenie already knew, for had he not seen him there!
Happy Steenie! Happier than so many Christians who, more in their
brain-senses, but far less in their heart-senses than he, haunt the
sepulchre as if the dead Jesus lay there still, and forget to walk the
world with him who dieth no more, the living one!
But his sister took a great liking to the place, nor was repelled by
her mistaken suspicion that there the people of the land in times
unknown had buried some of their dead. In the hot days, when the
earth-house was cool, and in the winter when the thick blanket of the
snow lay over it, and it felt warm as she entered it from the frosty
wind, she would sit there in the dark, sometimes imagining herself one
of the believers of the old time, thinking the Lord was at hand,
approaching in person to fetch her and her friends. When the spring
came, she carried down sod and turf, and made for herself a seat in the
central chamber, there to sit and think. By and by she fastened an oil
lamp to the wall, and would light its rush-pith-wick, and read by it.
Occasionally she made a good peat fire, for she had found a chimney
that went sloping into the upper air; and if it did not always draw
well, peat-smoke is as pleasant as wholesome, and she could bear a good
deal of its smothering. Not unfrequently she carried her book there
when no one was likely to want her, and enjoyed to the full the rare
and delightful sense of absolute safety from interruption. Sometimes
she would make a little song there, with which as she made it its own
music would come, and she would model the air with her voice as she
wrote the words in a little book on her knee.
CHAPTER XIII
A VISIT FROM FRANCIS GORDON
The summer following Gordon's first session at college, castle Weelset
and Corbyknowe saw nothing of him. No one missed him much, and but for
his father's sake no one would have thought much about him. Kirsty, as
one who had told him the truth concerning himself, thought of him
oftener than anyone except her father.
The summer after, he paid a short visit to castle Weelset, and went one
day to Corbyknowe, where he left a favourable impression upon all,
which impression Kirsty had been the readier to receive because of the
respect she felt for him as a student. The old imperiousness which made
him so unlike his father had retired into the background; his smile,
though not so sweet, came oftener; and his carriage was full of
courtesy. But something was gone which his old friends would gladly
have seen still. His behaviour in the old time was not so pleasant, but
he had been as one of the family. Often disagreeable, he was yet
loving. Now, he laid himself out to make himself acceptable as a
superior. Freed so long from his mother's lowering influences, what was
of his father in him might by this time have come more to the surface
but for certain ladies in Edinburgh, connections of the family, who,
influenced by his good looks and pleasant manners, and possibly by his
position in the Gordon country, sought his favour by deeds of flattery,
and succeeded in spoiling him not a little.
Steenie happening to be about the house when he came, Francis behaved
to him so kindly that the gentle creature, overcome with grateful
delight, begged him to go and see a house he and Kirsty were building.
In some families the games of the children mainly consist in the
construction of dwellings, of this kind or that--castle, or ship, or
cave, or nest in the treetop--according to the material attainable. It
is an outcome of the aboriginal necessity for shelter, this instinct of
burrowing: Welbeck Abbey is the development of a _weem_ or _Picts'
house_. Steenie had very early shown it, probably from a vague
consciousness of weakness, and Kirsty came heartily to his aid in
following it, with the reaction of waking in herself a luxurious idea
of sheltered safety. Northern children cherish in their imaginations
the sense of protection more, I fancy, than others. This is partly
owing to the severity of their climate, the snow and wind, the rain and
sleet, the hail and darkness they encounter. I doubt whether an English
child can ever have such a sense of protection as a Scots bairn in bed
on a winter night, his mother in the nursery, and the wind howling like
a pack of wolves about the house.
Francis consented to go with Steenie to see his house, and Kirsty
naturally accompanied them. By this time she had gathered the little
that was known, and there is very little known yet, concerning _Picts'
houses_, and as they went it occurred to her that it would be pleasant
to the laird to be shown a thing on his own property of which he had
never heard, and which, in the eyes of some, would add to its value.
She took the way, therefore, that led past the weem.
She had so well cleared out its entrance, that it was now comparatively
easy of access, else I doubt if the young laird would have risked the
spoiling of his admirably fitting clothes to satisfy the mild curiosity
he felt regarding Kirsty's discovery. As it was, he pulled off his coat
before entering, despite her assurance that he 'needna fear blaudin
onything.'
She went in before him to light her candle and he followed. As she
showed him the curious place, she gave him the results of her reading
about such constructions, telling him who had written concerning them,
and what they had written. 'There's mair o' them, I gether,' she said,
'and mair remarkable anes, in oor ain coonty nor in ony ither in
Scotlan'. I hae mysel seen nane but this.' Then she told him how
Steenie had led the way to its discovery. By the time she ended, Gordon
was really interested--chiefly, no doubt, in finding himself possessor
of a thing which many men, learned and unlearned, would think worth
coming to see.
'Did you find this in it?' he asked, seating himself on her little
throne of turf.
'Na; I put that there mysel,' answered Kirsty. 'There was naething
intil the place, jist naething ava! There was naething ye cud hae
pickit aff o' the flure. Gien it hadna been oot o' the gait o' the
win', ye wud hae thoucht it had sweepit it clean. Ye cud hae tellt by
naething intil't what ever it was meant for, hoose or byre or barn,
kirk or kirkyard. It had been jist a hidy-hole in troubled times, whan
the cuintry wud be swarmin wi' stravaguin marauders!'
'What made ye the seat for, Kirsty?' asked Gordon, calling her by her
name for the first time, and falling into the mother tongue with a
flash of his old manner.
'I come here whiles,' she answered, 'to be my lane and read a bit. It's
sae quaiet. Eternity seems itsel to come and hide in 't whiles. I'm
tempit whiles to bide a' nicht.'
'Isna 't awfu' cauld?'
'Na, no aften that. It's fine and warm i' the winter. And I can licht a
fire whan I like.--But ye hae na yer coat on, Francie! I oucht na to
hae latten ye bide sae lang!'
He shivered, rose, and made his way out. Steenie stood in the sunlight
waiting for them.
'Why, Steenie,' said Gordon, 'you brought me to see your house: why
didn't you come in with me?'
'Na, na! I'm feart for my feet: this is no _my_ hoose!' answered
Steenie. 'I'm biggin ane. Kirsty's helpin me: I cudna big a hoose
wantin Kirsty! That's what I wud hae ye see, no this ane. This is
Kirsty's hoose. It was Kirsty wantit ye to see this ane.--Na, it's no
mine,' he added reflectively. 'I ken I maun come til 't some day, but I
s' bide oot o' 't as lang's I can. I like the hill a heap better.'
'What _does_ he mean?' asked Francis, turning to Kirsty.
'Ow, he has a heap o' notions o' 's ain!' answered Kirsty, who did not
care, especially in his presence, to talk about her brother save to
those who loved him.
When Francis turned again, he saw Steenie a good way up the hill.
'Where does he want to take me, Kirsty? Is it far?' he asked.
'Ay, it's a gey bitty; it's nearhan' at the tap o' the Horn, a wee
ayont it.'
'Then I think I shall not go,' returned Francis. 'I will come another
day.'
'Steenie! Steenie!' cried Kirsty, 'he'll no gang the day. He maun gang
hame. He says he'll come anither time. Haud ye awa on to yer hoose; I
s' be wi' ye by and by.'
Steenie went up the hill, and Kirsty and Francis walked toward
Corbyknowe.
'Has no young man appeared yet to put Steenie's nose out of joint,
Kirsty?' asked Gordon.
Kirsty thought the question rude, but answered, with quiet dignity, 'No
ane. I never had muckle opinion o' _yoong_ men, and dinna care aboot
their company.--But what are ye thinkin o' duin yersel--I mean, whan
ye're throu wi' the college?' she continued. 'Ye'll surely be comin
hame to tak things intil yer ain han'? My father says whiles he's some
feart they're no bein made the maist o'.'
'The property must look after itself, Kirsty. I will be a soldier like
my father. If it could do without him when he was in India, it may just
as well do without me. As long as my mother lives, she shall do what
she likes with it.'
Thus talking, and growing more friendly as they went, they walked
slowly back to the house. There Francis mounted his horse and rode
away, and for more than two years they saw nothing of him.
CHAPTER XIV
STEENIE'S HOUSE
Steenie seemed always to experience a strange sort of terror while
waiting for anyone to come out of the weem, into which he never
entered; and it was his repugnance to the place that chiefly moved him
to build a house of his own. He may have also calculated on being able,
with such a refuge at hand, to be on the hill in all weathers. They
still made use of their little hut as before, and Kirsty still kept her
library in it, but it was at the root of the Horn, and Steenie loved
the peak of it more than any other spot in his narrow world.
I have already said that when, on the occasion of its discovery,
Steenie, for the first and the last time, came out of the weem, he fled
to the Horn. There he roamed for hours, possessed with the feeling that
he had all but lost Kirsty who had taken possession of a house into
which he could never accompany her. For himself he would like a house
on the very top of the Horn, not one inside it!
Near the top was a little scoop out of the hill, sheltered on all sides
except the south, which, the one time I saw it, reminded me strongly of
Dante's _grembo_ in the purgatorial hill, where the upward pilgrims had
to rest outside the gate, because of the darkness during which no man
could go higher. Here, it is true, were no flowers to weave a pattern
upon its carpet of green; true also, here were no beautiful angels, in
green wings and green garments, poised in the sweet night-air, watchful
with their short, pointless, flaming swords against the creeping enemy;
but it was, nevertheless, the loveliest carpet of grass and moss, and
as to the angels, I find it impossible to imagine, even in the heavenly
host, one heart more guardant than that of Kirsty, one truer, or more
devoted to its charge. The two were together as the child of earth, his
perplexities and terrors ever shot through with flashes of insight and
hope, and the fearless, less imaginative, confident angel, appointed to
watch and ward and see him safe through the loose-cragged mountain-pass
to the sunny vales beyond.
On the northern slope of the hollow, full in the face of the sun, a
little family of rocks had fallen together, odd in shapes and positions
but of long stable equilibrium, with narrow spaces between them. The
sun was throwing his last red rays among these rocks when Steenie the
same evening wandered into the little valley. The moment his eyes fell
upon them, he said in his heart, 'Yon's the place for a hoose! I'll get
Kirsty to big ane, and mebbe she 'll come and bide in 't wi' me
whiles!'
In his mind there were for some years two conflicting ideas of refuge,
one embodied in the heathery hut with Kirsty, the other typified by the
uplifted loneliness, the air and the space of the mountain upon which
the bonny man sometimes descended: for the last three years or more the
latter idea had had the upper hand: now it seemed possible to have the
two kinds of refuge together, where the more material would render the
more spiritual easier of attainment! Such were not Steenie's words;
indeed he used none concerning the matter; but such were his vague
thoughts--feelings rather, not yet thoughts.
The spot had indeed many advantages. For one thing, the group of rocks
was the ready skeleton of the house Steenie wanted. Again, if the snow
sometimes lay deeper there than in other parts of the hill, there first
it began to melt. A third advantage was that, while, as I have said,
the valley was protected by higher ground everywhere but on the south,
it there afforded a large outlook over the boggy basin and over the
hills beyond its immediate rim, to a horizon in which stood some of the
loftier peaks of the highland mountains.
When Steenie's soul was able for a season to banish the nameless forms
that haunt the dim borders of insanity, he would sit in that valley for
hours, regarding the wider-spread valley below him, in which he knew
every height and hollow, and, with his exceptionally keen sight, he
could descry signs of life where another would have beheld but an
everyway dead level. Not a live thing, it seemed almost, could spread
wing or wag tail, but Steenie would become thereby aware of its
presence. Kirsty, boastful to her parents of the faculty of Steenie,
said to her father one day,
'I dinna believe, father, wi' Steenie on the bog, a reid worm cud stick
up his heid oot o' 't ohn him seen 't!'
'I'm thinkin that's no sayin over muckle, wuman!' returned David. 'I
never jist set mysel to luik, but I dinna think I ever did tak notice
o' a worm settin up that heid o' his oot o' a bog. I dinna think it's a
sile they care aboot. I kenna what they would get to please them there.
It's the yerd they live upo'. Whaur craps winna grow, I doobt gien
worms can live.'
Kirsty laughed: she had made herself ridiculous, but the ridicule of
some is sweeter than the praise of others.
Steenie set about his house-building at once, and when he had got as
far as he could without her, called for help from Kirsty, who never
interfered with, and never failed him. Divots he was able to cut, and
of them he provided a good quantity, but when it came to moving stones,
two pairs of hands were often wanted. Indeed, before the heavier work
of 'Steenie's hoosie' was over, the two had to beg the help of more--of
their father, and of men from the farm.
During its progress, Phemy Craig paid rather a lengthened visit to
Corbyknowe, and often joined the two in their labour on the Horn. She
was not very strong, but would carry a good deal in the course of the
day; and through this association with Steenie, her dread of him
gradually vanished, and they became comrades.
When Steenie's design was at length carried out, they had built up with
stone and lime the open spaces between several of the rocks; had cased
these curtain-walls outside and lined them inside with softer and
warmer walls of fells or divots cut from the green sod of the hill; and
had covered in the whole as they found it possible--very irregularly no
doubt, but smoothing up all the corners and hollows with turf and
heather. This done, one of the men who was a good thatcher, fastened
the whole roof down with strong lines, so that the wind should not get
under and strip it off. The result was a sort of burrow, consisting of
several irregular compartments with open communication--or rather,
perhaps, of a single chamber composed of recesses. One small rock they
included quite: Steenie would make it serve for a table, and some of
its inequalities for shelves. In one of the compartments or recesses,
they contrived a fireplace, and in another a tolerably well concealed
exit; for Steenie, like a trap-door-spider, could not endure the
thought of only one way out: one way was enough for getting in, but two
were needful for getting out, his best refuge being the open hill.
The night came at length when Steenie, in whose heart was a solemn,
silent jubilation, would take formal possession of his house. It was
soft and warm, in the middle of the month of July. The sun had been set
about an hour when he got up to leave the parlour, where the others
always sat in the summer, and where Steenie would now and then appear
among them. As usual he said goodnight to no one of them, but stole
gently out.
Kirsty knew what was in his mind, but was careful not to show that she
took any heed of his departure. As soon as her father and mother
retired, however, when he had been gone about half an hour, she put
aside her work, and hastened out. She felt a little anxious about him,
though she could not have said why. She had no dread of displeasing by
rejoining him; nothing, but a sight of the bonny man could, she knew,
give him more delight than having her to share his night-watch with
him. This she had done several times, and they were the only occasions
on which, so far as he could tell, he had slept any part of the night.
Folded in the twilight, Earth lay as still and peaceful as if she had
never done any wrong, never seen anything wrong in one of her children.
There was light everywhere, and darkness everywhere to make it strange.
A pale green gleam prevailed in the heavens, as if the world were a
glow-worm that sent abroad its home-born radiance into space, and
coloured the sky. In the green light rested a few small solid clouds
with sharp edges, and almost an assertion of repose. Throughout the
night it would be no darker! The sun seemed already to have begun to
rise, only he would be all night about it. From the door she saw the
point of the Horn clear against the green sky: Steenie would be up
there soon! he was hurrying thither! Sometimes he went very leisurely,
stopping and gazing, or sitting down to meditate: he would not do so
that night! A special solemnity in his countenance made her sure that
he would go straight to his new house. But she could walk faster than
he, and would not be long behind him!
The sky was full of pale stars, and Kirsty amused herself, as she went,
with arranging them--not into their constellations, though she knew the
shapes and names of most of them, but into mathematical figures. The
only star Steenie knew by name was the pole star, which, however, he
always called _The bonny man's lantern._ Kirsty believed he had
thoughts of his own about many another, and a name for it too.
She had climbed the hill, and was drawing near the house, when she was
startled by a sound of something like singing, and stopped to listen.
She had never heard Steenie attempt to sing, and the very thought of
his doing so moved her greatly: she was always expecting something
marvellous to show itself in him. She drew nearer. It was not singing,
but it was something like it, or something trying to be like it--a
succession of broken, harsh, imperfect sounds, with here and there a
tone of brief sweetness. She thought she perceived in it an attempt at
melody, but the many notes that refused to be made, prevented her from
finding the melody intended, or the melody, rather, after which he was
feeling. The broken music ceased suddenly, and a different kind of
sound succeeded. She went yet nearer. He could not be reading: she had
tried to teach him to read, but the genuine effort he put forth to
learn made his head ache, and his eyes feel wild, he said, and she at
once gave up the endeavour. When she reached the door, she could
plainly hear him praying.
He had been accustomed to hear his father pray--always extempore. To
the Scots mind it is a perplexity how prayer and reading should ever
seem one. Kirsty went a little deeper into the matter when she said:--
'The things that I want, I ken; and I maun hae them! There's nae
necessity ava to tell me what I want. The buik may wauk a sense o'
want, I daursay, I dinna ken, but it maistly pits intil me the thoucht
o' something a body micht weel want, withoot makin me awaur o' wantin
't at that preceese moment.'
Prayer, with Steenie, as well as with Kirsty, was the utterance,
audible or silent, in the ever open ear, of what was moving in him at
the time. This was what she now heard him say:--
'Bonny man, I ken ye weel: there's naebody in h'aven or earth 'at's
like ye! Ye ken yersel I wad jist dee for ye; or gien there be onything
waur to bide nor deein, that's what I would du for ye--gien ye wantit
it o' me, that is, for I'm houpin sair 'at ye winna want it, I'm that
awfu cooardly! Oh bonny man, tak the fear oot o' my hert, and mak me
ready just to walk aff o' the face o' the warl', weichty feet and a',
to du yer wull, ohn thoucht twise aboot it! And eh, bonny man, willna
ye come doon sometime or lang, and walk the hill here, that I may luik
upo' ye ance mair--as i' the days of old, whan the starlicht muntain
shook wi' the micht o' the prayer ye heavit up til yer father in
h'aven? Eh, gien ye war but ance to luik in at the door o' this my
hoose that ye hae gien me, it wud thenceforth be to me as the gate o'
paradise! But, 'deed, it's that onygait, forit's nigh whaur ye tak yer
walks abro'd. But gien ye _war_ to luik in at the door, and cry,
_Steenie_! sune wud ye see whether I was in the hoose or no!--I thank
ye sair for this hoose: I'm gaein to hae a rich and a happy time upo'
this hill o' Zion, whaur the feet o' the ae man gangs walkin!--And eh,
bonny man, gie a luik i' the face o' my father and mither i' their bed
ower at the Knowe; and I pray ye see 'at Kirsty's gettin a fine sleep,
for she has a heap o' tribble wi' me. I'm no worth min'in', yet ye min'
me: she is worth min'in'!--and that clever!--as ye ken wha made her!
And luik upo' this bit hoosie, 'at I ca' my ain, and they a' helpit me
to bigg, but as a lean-to til the hoose at hame, for I'm no awa frae it
or them--jist as that hoose and this hoose and a' the hooses are a'
jist but bairnies' hooses, biggit by themsels aboot the big flure o'
thy kitchie and i' the neuks o' the same--wi' yer ain truffs and stanes
and divots, sir.'
Steenie's voice ceased, and Kirsty, thinking his prayer had come to an
end, knocked at the door, lest her sudden appearance should startle
him. From his knees, as she knew by the sound of his rising, Steenie
sprang up, came darting to the door with the cry, 'It's yersel! It's
yersel, bonny man!' and seemed to tear it open. Oh, how sorry was
Kirsty to stand where the loved of the human was not! She had almost
turned and fled.
Pages:
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 | 6 |
7 |
8 |
9 |
10 |
11 |
12 |
13 |
14 |
15 |
16