Crockett Samuel Rutherford
The Standard Bearer

CHAPTER XXI
THE EYES OF A MAID

Now throughout all the parish, aye, and throughout all Galloway there arose infinite noise and bruit of this thing. Specially was there the buzz of anger in the hill parishes, where the men who had lain in the moss-hags and fought for the ancient liberties dwelt thickest – in Carsphairn, in the Glenkens, and in mine own Balmaghie.

As I went over the hill from farm-town to farm-town the herds would cry down “Well done!” from among the sheep. Old men who had seen the high days of the Kirk before the fatal home-coming of King Charles; rough, buirdly men who had done their share of hiding and fighting in the troubles; young men who, like myself, had heard in their cradles but the murmur of the fray, came to shake my hand and bid me strengthen my knees and stick to my testimony.

“For,” said a venerable elder, one Anthony Lennox of the Duchrae, who had been a famous man in the sufferings, “this is the very truth for which we bled. We asked for the kernel, and lo! they have given us the dry and barren husk. We fought for ‘Christ’s Crown and Covenant,’ and they have sent us a banner with the device – ‘Queen Anne’s Crown and the Test!’”

But I think that the women were even more warmly on our side, for the canker of persecution had eaten deeper into their hearts, that had only waited and mourned while their men folk were out suffering and fighting.

“Be ye none feared, laddie,” said Millicent Hannay, an ancient dame who had stood the thumbikins thrice in the gaol of Kirkcudbright; “the most part of the ministers may stick like burrs to their manses and glebes, their tiends and tithings. But if so be, ye are thrust forth into the wilderness, ye will find manna there – aye, and water from the rock and a pillar of fire going before to lead you out again.”

But nowhere was I more warmly welcomed than in the good house of Drumglass. The herd lads and ploughmen were gathered at the house-end when I came up the loaning, and even as I passed one of them came forward with his blue bonnet in his hand.

“Fear not, sir,” he said, with a kind of bold, self-respecting diffidence common among our Galloway hinds. “I speak for all our lads with hearts and hands. We will fight for you. Keep the word of your testimony, and we will sustain you and stand behind you. If we will unfurl the blue banner again, we will plant right deep the staff.”

And from the little group of stalwart men at the barn-end there came a low murmur of corroboration, “We will uphold you!”

Strange as it is to-day to think on these things when most men are so lukewarm for principle. But in those days the embers of the fires of persecution were yet warm and glowing, and men knew not when they might again be blown up and fresh fuel added thereto.

“Come awa’,” cried Nathan Gemmell heartily, from where he sat on the outer bench of moss-oak by the door-cheek, worn smooth by generations of sitters, “come awa’, minister, and tell us the news. Faith, it makes me young-like again to hear there is still a man that thinks on the Covenants and the blue banner wi’ the denty white cross. And though they forget the auld flag noo, I hae seen it gang stacherin’ doon the streets o’ the toon o’ Edinburg wi’ a’ the folk cryin’ ‘Up wi’ the Kirk an’ doon wi’ the King!’ till there wasna a sodjer-body dare show his face, nor a King’s man to be found between the Castle and the Holyrood House. Hech-how-aye! auld Drumglass has seen that.

“And eke he saw the lads that were pitten doon on the green Pentland slopes in the saxty-sax start frae the Clachan o’ Saint John wi’ hopes that were high, sharpening their bits o’ swords and scythes to withstand the guns o’ Dalzyell. And but few o’ them ever wan back. But what o’ that? It’s a brave thrang there wad be about heaven’s gates that day – the souls o’ the righteous thranging and pressing to win through, the rejoicing of a multitude that had washed their robes and made them white in the blood o’ the Lamb.

“Ow, aye, ye wonder at me, that am a carnal man, speakin’ that gate. But it is juist because I am a man wha’ has been a sore sinner, that I wear thae things sae near my heart. My time is at hand. Soon, soon will auld Drumglass, wastrel loon that he is, be thrown oot like a useless root ower the wa’ and carried feet foremost from out his chamber door. But if it’s the Lord’s will” (he rose to his feet and shook his oaken staff) “if it’s the Lord’s will, auld Drumglass wad like to draw the blade frae the scabbard yince mair, and find the wecht o’ the steel in his hand while yet his auld numb fingers can meet aboot the basket hilt.

“Oh, I ken, I ken; ye think the weapons of our warfare are not to be swords and staves, minister – truth will fight for us, ye say.

“I daresay ye are right. But gin the hoodie-craws o’ the Presbytery come wi’ swords and staves to put ye forth from your parish and your kindly down-sitting, ye will be none the worse of the parcel o’ braw lads ye saw at the barn-end, every man o’ them wi’ a basket-hilted blade in his richt hand and a willing Galloway heart thump-thumpin’ high wi’ itching desire to be at the red coaties o’ the malignants.”

Then we went in, and there by the fireside, looking very wistfully out of her meek eyes at me, stood the young lass, Jean Gemmell. She came forward holding out her hand, saying no word, but the tears still wet on her lashes – why, I know not. And she listened as her father asked of the doings at the Presbytery, and looked eager and anxious while I was answering. Presently Auld Drumglass went forth on some errand about the work of the ploughlads, and the lass and I were left alone together in the wide kitchen.

“And they will indeed put you forth out of house and home?” she asked, looking at me with sweet, reluctant eyes, the eyes of a mourning dove. She stood by the angle of the hearth where the broad ingle-seat begins. I sat on her father’s chair where he had placed me and looked over at her. A comely lass she was, with her pale cheeks and a blush on them that went and came responsive to the beating of her heart.

I had not answered, being busy with looking at her and thinking how I wished Mistress Mary Gordon had been as gentle and biddable as this lass. So she asked again, “They will not put you forth from your kirk and parish, will they?”

“Nay, that I know not,” I said, smiling; “doubtless they will try.”

“Oh, I could not listen to another minister after – ”

She stopped and sighed.

It was in my mind to rebuke her, and to bid her remember that the Word of God is not confined to any one vessel of clay, but just then she put her hand to her side, and went withal so pale that I could not find it in my heart to speak harshly to the young lass.

Then I told her, being stirred within me by her emotion, of the two who had stood by me in the Presbytery, and how little hope I had that they would manfully see it out to the end.

“’Tis a fight that I must fight alone,” I said.

For I knew well that it would come to that, and that so soon as the affair went past mere empty words those two who had stood at my shoulder would fall behind or be content to bide snugly at home.

“Not alone!” said the young lass, quickly, and moved a step towards me with her hand held out. Then, with a deep and burning blush, her maiden modesty checked her, and she stood red like a July rose in the clear morning.

She swayed as if she would have fallen, and, leaping up quickly, I caught her in my arms ere she had time to fall.

Her eyes were closed. The blood had ebbed from her face and left her pale to the very lips. I stood with her light weight in my arms, thrilling strangely, for, God be my judge, never woman had lain there before.

Presently she gave a long snatching breath and opened her eyes. I saw the tears gather in them as her head lay still and lax in the hollow of my arm. The drops did not fall, but rather gathered slowly like wells that are fed from beneath.

“You will not go away?” she said, and at last lifted her lashes, with a little pearl shining wet on each, like a swallow that has dipped her wings in a pool.

Then, because I could not help it, I did that which I had never done to any woman born of woman: I stooped and kissed the wet sweet eyes. And then, ere I knew it, with a little cry of frightened joy, the girl’s arms were about me. She lifted up her face, and kissed me again and again and yet again.

…

When I came to myself I was conscious of another presence in the kitchen. I looked up quickly, and there before me, standing with an ash switch swaying in her hand, was Alexander-Jonita. I had not supposed that she could have looked so stern.

“Well?” she said, as if waiting for my explanation.

“I love your sister,” I replied; for indeed, though I had not thought thus of the matter before, there seemed nothing else to be said.

But the face of Alexander-Jonita did not relax. She stood gazing at her sister, whose head rested quiet and content on my shoulder.

“Jean,” she said at last, “knowing that which you know, why have you done this?”

The girl lifted her head, and looked at Jonita with a kind of glad defiance.

“Sister,” she said, “you do not understand love. How should you know what one would do for love?”

“You love my sister Jean?” Jonita began again, turning to me with a sharpness in her words like the pricking of a needle’s point.

“Yes!” I answered, but perhaps a little uncertainly.

“Did you know as much when you came into the kitchen?”

“No,” said I.

For indeed I knew not what to answer, never having been thus tangled up with women’s affairs in my life before.

“I thought not,” said Jonita, curtly. Then to Jean, “How did this come about?” she said.

Jean lifted her head, her face being lily-pale and her body swaying a little to me.

“I thought he would go away and that I should never see him again!” she replied, a little pitifully, with the quavering thrill of unshed tears in her voice.

“And you did this knowing – what you know!” said Jonita again, sternly.

“I saw him first,” said Jean, a little obstinately, looking down the while.

Her sister flushed crimson.

“Oh, lassie,” she cried, “ye will drive me mad with your whims and foolish speeches; what matters who saw him first? Ye ken well that ye are not fit to be – ”

“She is fit to be my wife,” I said, for I thought that this had gone far enough; “she is fit to be my wife, and my wife she shall surely be if she will have me!”

With a little joyful cry Jean Gemmell’s arms went about my neck, and her wet face was hidden in my breast. It lay there quiet a moment; then she lifted it and looked with a proud, still defiance at her sister.

Alexander-Jonita lifted up her hands in hopeless protest.

She seemed about to say more, but all suddenly she changed her mind.

“So be it,” she said. “After all, ’tis none of my business!”

And with that she turned and went out through the door of the kitchen.

CHAPTER XXII
THE ANGER OF ALEXANDER-JONITA

(Comment and Addition by Hob MacClellan.)

I met my lass Jonita that night by the sheep-fold on the hill. It was not yet sundown, but the spaces of the heavens had slowly grown large and vague. The wind also had gradually died away to a breathing stillness. The scent of the bog-myrtle was in our nostrils, as if the plant itself leaned against our faces.

I had been waiting a long time ere I heard her come, lissomly springing from tuft to tuft of grass and whistling that bonny dance tune, “The Broom o’ the Cowdenknowes.” But even before I looked up I caught the trouble in her tones. She whistled more shrilly than usual, and the liquid fluting of her notes, mellow mostly like those of the blackbird, had now an angry ring.

“What is the matter, Alexander-Jonita?” I cried, e’er I had so much as set eyes on her.

The whistling ceased at my question. She came near, and leaning her elbows on the dyke, she regarded me sternly.

“Then you know something about it?” she said, looking at me between the eyes, her own narrowed till they glinted wintry and keen as the gimlet-tool wherewith the joiner bores his holes.

“Has your father married the dairymaid, or Meg the pony cast a shoe?” I asked of her, with a lightness I did not feel.

“Tut,” she cried, “’tis the matter of your brother, as well you know.”

“What of my brother?”

“Why, our silly Jean has made eyes at him, and let the salt water fall on the breast of his black minister’s coat. And now the calf declares that he loves her!”

I stood up in sharp surprise.

“He no more loves her than – than – ”

“Than you love me,” said Alexander-Jonita; “I know – drive on!”

I did not notice her evil-conditioned jibe.

“Why, Jonita, he has all his life been in love with the Lady Mary – the Bull of Earlstoun’s daughter.”

Alexander-Jonita nodded pensively.

“Even so I thought,” she said, “but, as I guess, Mary Gordon has sent him about his business, and so he has been taken with our poor Jean’s puling pussydom. God forgive me that I should say so much of a dying woman.”

“A dying woman!” cried I, “there is nothing the matter with Jean.”

Alexander-Jonita shook her head.

“Jean is not long for this world,” she said, “I bid you remember. Saw you ever the red leap through the white like yon, save when the life burns fast to the ashes and the pulse beats ever more light and weak?”

“And how long hath this thing been afoot?”

“Since the day of your brother’s first preaching, when to save her shoon Jean must needs go barefoot and wash her feet in the burn that slips down by the kirkyard wall.”

“That was the day Quintin first spoke with her, when she gave him her nooning piece of bread to stay his hunger.”

“Aye,” said Alexander-Jonita; “better had he gone hungry all sermon-time than eaten of our Jean’s piece.”

“For shame, Alexander-Jonita!” I cried, “and a double shame to speak thus of a lassie that is, by your own tale, dying on her feet – and your sister forbye. I believe that ye are but jealous!”

She flamed up in sudden anger. If she had had a knife or a pistol in her hand, I believe she would have killed me.

“Get out of our ewe-buchts before I twist your impudent neck, Hob MacClellan!” she cried. “I care not a docken for any man alive – least of all for you and your brother. Yet I thought, from what I heard of his doings at the Presbytery, that he was more of a man than any of you. But now I see that he is feckless and feeble like the rest.”

“Ah, Jonita, you snooded folk tame us all. From David the King to Hob MacClellan there is no man so wise but a woman may tie him in knots about her little finger.”

“I thought better of your brother!” she said more mildly, her anger dying away as suddenly as it had risen, and I think she sighed.

“But not better of me!” I said.

She looked at me with contempt, but yet a contempt mightily pleasant.

“Good e’en to ye, Hob,” she cried. “I was not so far left to myself as to think about you at all!”

And with that she took her light plaid over her arm with a saucyish swirl, and whistling on her dogs, she swung down the hill, carrying, if you please, her shoulders squared and her head in the air like a young conceited birkie going to see his sweetheart.

And then, when the thing became public, what a din there was in the parish of Balmaghie! Only those who know the position of a young minister and the interest in his doings can imagine. It was somewhat thus that the good wives wagged their tongues.

“To marry Jean Gemmell! Aye, juist poor Jean, the shilpit, pewlin’ brat that never did a hand’s turn in her life, indoor or oot! Fegs, a bonny wife she will mak’ to him. Apothecaries’ drugs and red claret wine she maun hae to leeve on. A bonnie penny it will cost him, gin ever she wins to the threshold o’ his manse!

“But she’s no there yet, kimmer! Na – certes no! I mind o’ her mither weel. Jean was her name, too, juist sich anither ‘cloyt’ – a feckless, white-faced bury-me-decent, withoot as muckle spirit as wad gar her turn a sow oot o’ the kail-yard. And a’ the kin o’ her were like her – no yin to better anither. There was her uncle Jacob Ahanny a’ the Risk; he keepit in wi’ the Government in the auld Persecution, and when Clavers cam’ to the door and asked him what religion he was o’, he said that the estate had changed hands lately, and that he hadna had time to speer at the new laird. And at that Clavers laughed and laughed, and it wasna often that Jockie Graham did the like. Fegs no, kimmers! But he clappit Jacob on the shooder. ‘Puir craitur,’ quo’ he; ‘ye are no the stuff that rebels are made o’. Na, there’s nocht o’ Richie Cameron aboot you.’”

“Aye, faith, do ye tell me, and Jean is to mairry the minister, and him sae bauld and croose before the Presbytery. What deil’s cantrip can hae ta’en him?”

“Hoot, Mary McKeand, I wonder to hear ye. Do ye no ken that the baulder and greater a man the easier a woman can get round him?”

“Aweel, even sae I hae heard. I wish oor Jock was a great man, then; I could maybe, keep him awa’ frae the change-hoose in the clachan. But the minister, he had far better hae ta’en yon wild sister – ”

“Her? I’se warrant she wadna look at him. She doesna even gang to Balmaghie Kirk to hear him preach.”

“Mary McKeand, hae ye come to your age withoot kennin, that the woman that wad refuse the minister o’ a parish when he speers her, hasna been born?”

“Aweel, maybe no! But kimmer harken to me, there’s mony an egg laid in the nest that never leeved to craw in the morn. Him and her are no married yet. Hoot na, woman!”

…

And so without further eavesdropping I took my way out of the clachan of Pluckamin, and left the good wives to arrange my brother’s future. I had not yet spoken to him on the subject, but I resolved to do so that very night.

It was already well upon the grey selvage of the dark when I strode up the manse-loaning, intent to have the matter out with my brother forthwith. It was not often that I took it on me to question him; for after all I was but a landward lout by comparison with him. I understood little of the high aims and purposes that inspired him, being at best but a plain country lad with my wits a little sharpened by the giff-gaff of the pedlar’s trade. But when it came to the push I think that Quintin had some respect for my opinion – all the more that I so seldom troubled him with it.

I found my brother in the little gable-room where he studied, with the window open that he might hear the sough of the soft-flowing river beneath, and perhaps also that the drowsy hum of the bees and the sweet-sour smell of the hives might drift in to him upon the balmy air of night.

The minister had a great black-lettered book propped up before him, which from its upright thick and thin letters (like pea-sticks dibbled in the ground) I knew to be Hebrew. But I do not think he read in it, nor gathered much lear for his Sabbath’s sermon.

He looked up as I came in.

“Quintin,” said I, directly, lest by waiting I should lose courage, “are you to marry Jean Gemmell?”

He kept his eyes straight upon me, as indeed he did ever with whomsoever he spake.

“Aye, Hob,” he said, quietly; “have ye any word to say against that?”

“I do not know that I have,” I answered, “but what will Mary Gordon say?”

I could see him wince like one that is touched on an unhealed wound.

But he recovered himself at once, and said calmly, “She will say nothing, feel nothing, care nothing.”

“I am none so sure of that,” said I, looking as straightly at him as ever he did at me.

He started up, one hand on the table, his long hair thrown back with a certain jerk he had when he was touched, which made him look like a roused lion that stands at bay. “By what right do ye speak thus, Hob MacClellan?”

“By the right of that which I know,” said I; “but a man who will pull up the seed which he has just planted, and cast it away because he finds not ripened ears, deserves to starve all his life on sprouted and musty corn.”

“Riddle me no riddles,” said my brother, knocking on the table with his palm till the great Hebrew book slid from its prop and fell heavily to the floor; “this is too terrible a venture. Speak plainly and tell me all you mean.”

“Well,” said I, “the matter is not all mine to tell. But you are well aware that Hob MacClellan can hold his peace, and is no gossip-monger. I tell you that when you went from Earlstoun the last time the Lady Mary went to the battlement tower to watch you go, and came down with her kerchief wringing with her tears.”

“It is a thing impossible, mad, incredible!” said he, putting his elbow on the table and his hand to his eyes as if he had been looking into the glare of an overpowering sun. Yet there was hardly enough light in the little room for us to see one another by. After a long silence Quintin turned to me and said, “Tell me how ye came to ken this.”

“That,” said I, bluntly, “is not a matter that can concern you. But know it I do, or I should not have troubled you with the matter.”

At this he gave a wild kind of throat cry that I never heard before. It was the driven, throttled cry of a man’s agony, once heard, never forgotten. Would that Mary Gordon had hearkened to it! It is the one thing no woman can stand. It either melts or terrifies her. But with another man it is different.

“Ah, you have troubled me – you have troubled me sore!” he cried. And with no more than that he left me abruptly and went out into the night. I looked through the window and saw him marching up and down by the kirk, on a strip of greensward for which he had ever a liking. It was pitiful to watch him. He walked fast like one that would have run away from melancholy thoughts, turning ever when he came opposite the low tomb-stone of the two martyr Hallidays. He was bareheaded, and I feared the chilling night dews. So I lifted down his minister’s hat from the deer’s horn by the hallan door and took it out to him.

At first he did not see me, being enwrapped in his own meditations, and it was only when a couple of blackbirds flew scolding out of the lilac bushes that he heard my foot and turned.

“Man Hob,” he said, speaking just the plain country speech he used to do at Ardarroch, before ever he went to the college of Edinburgh, “it’s an awfu’ thing that a man should care mair for the guid word of a lass than about the grace o’ God and the Covenanted Kirk of Scotland!”