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The Dew of Their Youth, a novel by S. R. Crockett |
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Part 3 - Chapter 38. By Water And The Word |
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_ PART III CHAPTER XXXVIII. BY WATER AND THE WORD During my holidays at Heathknowes I found myself necessarily in frequent communication with my Lord Advocate. For though I was the actual, he was the ultimate editor of the Universal Review. I felt that he had done so much for me, and that we were now on such terms that I might without presumption ask him a private question about Lalor Maitland. Because, knowing the man to have been mixed with some very doubtful business, I wondered that a man of such honour and probity as the Advocate would in any circumstances act by such means--much less countenance his being put forward in the Government interest at a contested election. I will give the text of the Advocate's reply in so far as it deals with Lalor: "Have as little as possible to do in a private capacity with 'your Connection by Marriage'" (for so he continued to style him). "In public affairs we must often use sweeps to explore dark and tortuous passages. Persons who object to fyle themselves cannot be expected to clean drains. You take my metaphor? Your 'Relative by Marriage' has proved himself a useful artist in cesspools. That is all. He has not swept clean, but he has swept. He has, on several occasions, been useful to the Government when a better man would never have earned salt to his kail. Publicly, therefore, he is an estimable servant of the Government. Privately I would not touch him with the point of my shoe. For in personal relations such men are always dangerous. See to it that you and yours have as little to do with him as possible." There in a nutshell was the whole philosophy of politics. "For dirty jobs use dirty tools"--and of such undoubtedly was Lalor Maitland. But I judged that, having come through so many vicissitudes, and moving now with a certain name and fame, he would, for his own sake, do us no open harm. Rather, as witness little Louis, he would exploit the ancient renown of the Maitlands, their standing in Galloway, and his friendship with the heir of their estates. It seemed to me that Louis was entirely safe, especially in the good hands of the Lord Lieutenant, and that the great rewards which Lalor Maitland had received from the Government constituted in some measure the best security against any dangerous plotting. And in all the electoral campaign that followed, certain it is that Lalor showed only his amiable side, taking all that was said against him with a smiling face, yet as ready with his sword as with his tongue, and so far as courage went (it must be allowed) in no way disgracing the old and well-respected name of the Maitlands of Marnhoul. But I must tell you of the fate which befell the jewel he had left in my hands for Irma. Whether it had ever belonged to the family of Maitland or not, I should greatly doubt. It was a hoop of rubies set with brilliants, which at will could make a bracelet for the wrist, or a kind of tiara for the hair. It was placed in a lined box of morocco leather, called an "ecrin," and stood out as beautifully against the faded blue of the velvet as a little tangled wisp of sunset cloud lost in an evening sky. But Irma flashed out when I showed it her. "How dare you?" she cried, and seizing the box she shut it with a snap like her own white teeth. Then, the window being open, she threw it into the low shrubbery at the orchard end, whence, after she had gone to baby, I had no great trouble in recovering it. For it seemed to me too good to waste, and would certainly be of more use to me than to the first yokel who should pass that way. Under ordinary circumstances Lalor would certainly have been defeated. First of all, though doubtless belonging to an ancient family of the country, he was, with his gilded coach and display of wealth gotten no one could just say how or where, in speech and look an outsider. His opponent, Colonel MacTaggart of the Stroan, called familiarly "The Cornel" was one of the brave, sound, stupid, jovial country gentlemen who rode once a week to market at Dumfries, never missed a Court day at Kirkcudbright, did his duty honourably in a sufficiently narrow round, and was worshipped by his tenantry, with whose families he was on terms of extraordinary fondness and friendship. Altogether, to use the vulgar idiom, "The Cornel" was felt to be a safe man to "bring back Galloway fish-guts to Galloway sea-maws." Or, in other words, he would see to it that patronage, like charity, should begin at home--and stop there. To set off against this, there was a strong feeling that Galloway had been long enough in opposition. There appeared to be (and indeed there was) no chance of overturning the Government. Why, then, should Galloway dwell for seven more years in the cold and hungry shades of opposition--able to growl, but quite unable to get the bone? Lalor was brim-full of promises. He had been, if not a smuggler, at least an associate of smugglers, and all along Solwayside that was no disadvantage to him--in a country where all either dabbled in the illicit traffic, or, at best, looked the other way as the jingling caravans went by. Briefly, then, his Excellency Lalor Maitland, late Governor of the Province of the Meuse, now a law-abiding subject of King George, was duly elected and sent to Westminster to take his seat as representing the lieges. The excitement calmed down almost at once. The gold coach was seen no more. The preventive men and supervisors of excise were neither up nor down. Galloway felt vaguely defrauded. I think many of those who voted for Lalor imagined that the excisemen and coastguards would at once be recalled, and that henceforward cargoes from the Isle of Man and Rotterdam would be unloaded in broad daylight, instead of by the pale light of the moon, without a single question being asked on behalf of the revenue officers of King George. After Lalor's disappearance Louis Maitland was heavy and depressed for several days, staying long in his room and returning the shortest answers when spoken to. Suddenly one morning he declared his intention of going to Dumfries, and so on the following Wednesday my grandfather and he drove thither by the coach road while I followed behind on horseback. It was the purpose of Louis Maitland to have speech with the lawyers. So, knowing the temper in which he had been since his uncle's departure, I let him go up alone, but afterwards had speech with the younger Mr. Smart on my own account. He smiled when I mentioned Sir Louis and his mission. "He wishes to go up to London to his cousin--he calls him his uncle, Mr. Lalor, your fine new Government member for the county!" "I judged as much," said I, "but I hope you have not given him any such permission." "He can take all the permission he wishes after he is twenty-one," said Mr. Smart; "at present he has a good many years before him at Sympson's Academy. There he may occupy himself in turning the old curate's Three Patriarchs into Latin. As to his holidays, he can spend them with his sister or stay on in Edinburgh with the Doctor. But London is not a place for a young gentleman of such exalted notions of his own importance--'You bury me at a farmhouse with a family of boors!'--was what he said. Now, that smells Mr. Lalor a mile off. But the lad is not much to blame, and I hope you will not let it go any farther." "Certainly not," said I, "the boy was only quoting!" I returned from this interview considerably relieved, but for some days Sir Louis was visibly cast down. However, I said nothing to Irma, only advising her to devote herself a little more to her brother, at times when the exigencies of Duncan the Second would leave her time and opportunity. "Why!" she said, with a quick gasp of astonishment, "I never forget Louis--but of course baby needs me sometimes. I can't help that!" If I had dared, I should have reminded her that baby appeared to need every woman about the house of Heathknowes--to whom may be added my mother from the school-house, Mrs. Thomas Gallaberry (late Anderson), and a great and miscellaneous cloud of witnesses, to all of whom the commonest details of toilet--baby's bath, his swathing and unbandaging, the crinkling of his face and the clenching of his fists, the curious curdled marbling upon his fat arms, even the inbending of his toes, were objects of a cult to which that of the Lama of Thibet was a common and open secret. Even fathers were excluded as profane on such occasions, and the gasps of feminine delight at each new evidence of genius were the only sounds that might be heard even if you listened at the door, as, I admit, I was often mean enough to do. Yet the manifestations of the object of worship, as overheard by me, appeared sufficiently human and ordinary to be passed over in silence. I admit, however, that such was not the opinion of any of the regular worshippers at the shrine, and that the person of the opposite sex who was permitted to warm the hero's bath-towel at the fire, became an object of interest and envy to the whole female community. As for my grandmother, I need only say that while Duncan the Second abode within the four walls of Heathknowes, not an ounce of decent edible butter passed out of her dairy. Yet not a man of us complained. We knew better. There still remained, however, a ceremony to be faced which I could not look forward to with equanimity. It had been agreed upon between us, that, though by the interference of our good friend the Advocate, we had been married in the old private chapel attached to the Deanery, we should defer the christening of Duncan the Second till "the Doctor" could perform the office--there being, of course, but one "Doctor" for all Eden Valley people--Doctor Gillespie, erstwhile Moderator of the Kirk of Scotland. I had long been under reproach for my slackness in this matter. Inuendoes were mixed with odious comparisons upon Mary Lyon's tongue. If her daughter had only married a Cameronian, the bairn would have been baptized within seven days! Never had she seen an unchristened bairn so long about a house! But for them that sit at ease in an Erastian Zion--she referred to my father, who was not only precentor but also session-clerk, and could by no means be said to sit at ease--she supposed anything was good enough. It was different in her young days. She, at least, had been properly brought up. Finally, however, I went and put the case to the Doctor. He was ready to come up to Heathknowes for the baptism. After his usual protest that according to rule it ought to be performed in sight of all the congregation, he accepted the good reason that my grandfather and grandmother, being ardent Cameronians, could not in that case be present. The Doctor had, of course, anticipated this objection. For he knew and respected the "kind of people" reared by four generations of "Societies," and often (in private) held them up as ensamples to his own flock. So to Heathknowes, the house of the Cameronian elder, there came, with all befitting solemnity, Doctor Gillespie, ex-Moderator of the Kirk of Scotland. Stately he stepped up the little loaning, followed by his session, their clerk, my father at their head. At the sight of the Doctor arrayed in gown and bands, his white hair falling on his neck and tied with a black ribbon, the whole family of us instinctively uncovered and stood bareheaded. My grandfather had gone down to the foot of the little avenue to open the gate for the minister. The Doctor smilingly invited him to walk by his side, but William Lyon had gravely shaken his head and said, "I thank you, Doctor, but to-day, if you will grant me the privilege, I will walk with my brethren, the other elders of the Kirk of God." And so he did, and as they came within sight of the house I took Irma by the hand. For she trembled, and tears rose to her eyes as she saw that simple but dignified procession (like to that which moved out of the vestry on the occasion of the Greater Sacrament) approaching the house. The lads stood silent with bared heads. For once Duncan lay quiet in the arms of Mary Lyon--who that day would yield her charge to none, till she gave him to the mother, when the time should come, according to the Presbyterian rite, to stand up and place the firstborn in his father's arms. There was only one blank in that gathering. Louis had gone to his own room, pretexing a headache, but really (as he blurted out afterwards) because his Uncle Lalor had said that Presbyterianism was no religion for a gentleman. However, it was only afterwards that he was missed. The Doctor was great on such occasions. A surprising soft radiance, almost like a halo, surrounded his smooth snowy locks. A holy calm, exhaling from half a century of spotless life lived in the sight of all men, spoke in every word, moved in every gesture. The elders stood about grave and quiet. The great Bible lay open. The psalm of dedication was sung--of which the overword is, "Lo, children are God's heritage," and the conclusion the verse which no Scot forgets the world over, perhaps because it contains, quite unintentionally, so delightful a revelation of his own national character-- |
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