Читать книгу The Devil's Mistress - J W Brodie Innes - Страница 6

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THE news of the terrible disaster at the farm of Culben spread rapidly over the countryside, and from every hand lairds, farmers and labourers flocked to see the desolation. All work was for the time abandoned, and the harvest lay ungathered. The farm of Lochloy was utterly deserted. Isabel alone remained in the empty house. Looking out over the muir towards the sea to the right, she saw the line of the old bar, now only just visible above the water, the enormous hills of sand on its western end that she had watched under the red sunset the previous evening were gone; only away to the eastward the great sandhills still remained, piled like a miniature island mountain in the midst of the blue waters.

What had happened was now clear; the furious north-easterly tempest had cut like a line across the end of the bar, coming straight from the direction of the Souters of Cromarty, and had swept all that accumulation of sand, piled up during years, perhaps centuries, by the winds and tides, over the narrow intervening water on to the farm. The debris of the crumbling sandstone of the eastward coast had gone on unheeded piling itself up on the old bar; now suddenly, and without a moment's warning, almost a quarter of the whole mass had been hurled on to the fertile land known as 'the granary of Moray' from their wonderful fertility. Only the westernmost farm, known as the Mains of Culben had been buried, but over this the sand was heaped to a depth varying from four feet to upwards of twenty. The mansion-house and its policies and the eastern farms were untouched. The line of the storm must have been very narrow and sharply defined; it swept over the farm lands, but stopped almost in a rigid line, avoiding the Chapel and Chapel Garth of St. Ninians, where in older and more pious days the lairds of Culben had worshipped.

Hay of Lochloy and Park, immediately he heard of the disaster, rode out from his mansion-house to see the scene of destruction, and meeting on his way with Master Harry Forbes, the minister of Aulderne, they rode together, the minister's blind old pony with difficulty keeping pace with the laird's sorrel nag, albeit the laird frequently reined in his steed in deference to his companion.

Isabel saw them coming, and turned back into the house, but from the window she saw the laird cast a look of venomous anger at her door, and lean over to say something to the minister, whereat the latter also looked towards the farmhouse, first in surprise and then aversion.

Mr Patrick Innes records how, long years after, Mr. Harry Forbes had told him of that ride, and of the surprise with which he had heard of the ill-repute of Mistress Isabel Goudie, whose husband was a right godly man, and an elder of his own kirk. Concerning the curious track of the storm which avoided the mansion-house and the Chapel and Chapel Garth, Mr. Patrick, who witnessed the final catastrophe whereby these were overwhelmed in the great sand storm of 1694, was clearly convinced that the wickedness of the laird of Culben and the heathen papistry of that chapel which was preserved when it should have been totally destroyed, were the cause of the final ruin of the fair estate, but that at the time we are now speaking of, the measure of their iniquity was not yet full. Harry Forbes seems to have described very graphically the state of terror that was over the whole country, and how this occurrence at Culben, coming on the head of all the other things of which mention has been made, had brought the country folk to a condition of panic that bordered on madness. They clamoured for a victim, but none could at the moment be found. True, the laird of Culben was unquestionably a very wicked man, for cards as everyone knows are the Devil's own books, and besides, he persistently profaned the blessed Sabbath day. But the vengeance in this case had fallen on him, and Lord Brodie, who was a senator of the College of Justice up in Edinburgh, astutely argued that a man could scarcely be the author of his own ruin. 'For if Satan,' he said, 'be divided against himself, how shall his kingdom stand'; and Lord Brodie was not only a most eminent lawyer, but a man of exemplary piety. These matters then did the laird of Park and the minister discuss, during that ride to the sand-whelmed farm of Culben. And neither of them doubted that the wickedness of men had brought this signal judgment on the land.

Mistress Isabel Goudie, watching them pass, had caught that look exchanged between them, and knew well the anger of the laird against her.

'Beast!' she said once more. 'Oh, if that stranger only spoke the truth! If he will but give me the power he spoke of, I'll be even with you yet. May you never have male child to come after you!'

Then she fell a-thinking. The stranger had foretold this destruction of the lands of Culben. On this very day, he had said, the farmer was to 'hold a great feast of all his men to celebrate the ingathering of the harvest. But that feast, he had said, never would be held, for the lands would be buried. An empty foolish boast it had seemed then. But now it was verified. Was it possible to think that he had done this? Even if he had only foreseen it, he must have extraordinary power. What had chanced to the farmer of Culben chance to the laird of Park. She thrilled at the thought.

Meantime a continuous stream of folk were going past bound for Culben to see this last work of the Devil as they believed, and as she gathered from scraps of conversation that drifted to her ears. She longed to go herself, but shame of her poor attire held her back. Surely if she could have that wonderful power that he spoke of, a new gown or so might not be out of the question. It was a remarkable sight that presented itself to these pilgrims when they emerged from the Brodie woods and passed Dunbar's fine house on Grangehill. The lands that only yesterday had been dotted over with the rich sheaves, and golden with the harvest, now lay a desert of dazzling white sand that hurt the eye. All sense of the furious tempest of the night had vanished, the sun shone from an absolutely cloudless sky on wastes and hills of sand, in which the foot sank ankle-deep; a weird golden haze seemed brooding over the bleak white land, making it look strange and unreal, and the men working on it appear like phantoms. Busily they were working, trying hard, poor souls, to save such little property as they could by burrowing into their buried houses, or to rescue their horses and cattle, for they had been roused in the middle of the night by the rush of the storm, and had only just time to save their own lives by fleeing to shelter anywhere beyond the bounds of that awful sand stream.

From all directions folk were pouring in to see and to render what help they could.

Sir Robert Gordon drove over from Gordonstown in his famous old chariot, the same which was said to have driven over Loch Spynie after one night's frost, and with him came his kinswoman the Lady Mary Gordon, with her niece Jean, the same who had been kind to Isabel Goudie in olden days, and who was now betrothed, despite much opposition, to young Hamilton. Sir Robert was a remarkable-looking man, grave and forceful, with a broad brow, keen eyes, and a short dark beard carefully trimmed. He had been a Privy Councillor of King Charles I, but since the execution of the king and the coming of Oliver Cromwell he had retired to his country house of Gordonstown. As he stood among the crowd by the edge of the sand, talking with Thomas Kinnaird the laird of Culben, one could not help noticing that the people round, though markedly deferential, yet shrank from him with looks of fear. In truth Sir Robert Gordon was a man they dreaded, but dared not meddle with; strange tales were told of his weird powers. And in times when, as was well known, the Devil had licence such as never before for the vexing of the holy Kirk of Scotland, it was only common prudence to be careful. Yet some there were who did not hesitate to say that the laird of Culben and the laird of Gordonstown were both of them vessels of wrath fitted for destruction. But these sentiments were only whispered behind doffed bonnets in the ear of trusted cronies.

Lady Mary, who stood beside him, was a stately dame of a queenly presence, but Jean, her niece, took captive the hearts of all who saw her. She was of a rare type of fragile beauty, with soft, darkish-brown hair, and a wild rose complexion, and eyes of the true cornflower blue. The sensitive face was full of sympathy and understanding; and while the wonderful spectacle evidently interested her keenly, and its weird picturesqueness moved her imagination and her artistic sense profoundly, her soul went out in pity for all the poor people who had been rendered homeless and had lost all their little belongings in that terrible catastrophe.

The minister of Aulderne and the laird of Park passed close by her, and she caught a few words of their conversation, the word Lochloy occurring frequently, and she heard the laird say:

'A very wild cat, I assure you; flew at me like a fury, though I was only trying to see how I could repair their house and make them more comfortable.'

Then the two passed out of hearing.

But Jean caught the name Lochloy. There was a moment of indecision while she searched her memory for the association of that name. Then she remembered it was where her old friend Isabel Goudie, who used to kneel beside her in the little Catholic chapel, had gone on her marriage. Since then she knew and secretly mourned over the fact that Isabel had joined the Reformd faith. But in those days of persecution very few were steadfast. Now she thought of it, Lochloy could not be far away. It would be nice to see Isabel again.

'Uncle,' she said, for so she always affectionately called Sir Robert, though in fact he was only a distant cousin, 'would it be too far for the horses to go on to Lochloy?'

'Lochloy, child! That's on Hay's place, just the other side of Brodie. Why, it's not more than three or four Scots miles at most. My horses do what I bid 'em, or I know the reason why. Are ye wanting to see it? It's a dreary place.'

'No, uncle; but there's an old friend of mine married to the farmer there, Mistress Isabel Goudie, and I would fain greet her again now that we are so near.'

'Isabel Goudie! Surely I know the name,' said Sir Robert, who knew everyone in the neighbourhood, and never forgot a name. 'A red-haired slip of a wench, was she not? Far above her class, ought to be one of us, the sort that would make a great saint, or a great sinner. Yes, we'll drive out and see her. What the devil did she marry that lout of a farmer for! As the minister says, it's a sheer waste of God's mercies.'

So it chanced that the lumbering old coach and the four black horses headed away through Brodie Woods, and Sir Robert entertained the ladies with sundry sarcastic comments on Lord Brodie, for truth to say he held that distinguished senator in but small respect. The old scholar, who had been an ornament of the gallant and witty Court of the Stuarts, and whose learning was famed over half Europe, had small patience with the narrow and pedantic piety and store of legal maxims of Oliver Cromwell's follower and admirer.

And so it was that the neighbours, returning from gaping over the buried fields of Culben, beheld the unwonted spectacle of a great family coach and four coal-black horses rocking and plunging along the miry, broken road between the loch and the cultivated fields of Lochloy, and halting before the door of the little thatched farmhouse, Whereat there were sundry whisperings, and lifting of eyebrows, and some hinted broadly enough that Sir Robert Gordon had taken the place of Hay of Lochloy and Park, and that indeed it was just as well that John Gilbert was from home; but these gossips were somewhat nonplussed to see two ladies descend from the coach, for a man does not generally take his womankind with him when he goes a-courting his neighbour's wife.

But of these glances and whispers Sir Robert and his ladies knew and recked nothing, and hardly had they climbed down from the ponderous and unwieldy vehicle than Jean and Isabel were in each other's arms, talking both at once, exchanging affectionate greetings, asking for each other's news, till at length, in a pause, Jean bethought her, and presented her aunt and Sir Robert Gordon, who had stood by, amused spectators of the gush of feminine confidences. Isabel recollected herself, and greeted her guests with a long sweeping curtsy. Sir Robert doffed his hat with a courtly grace as though to a duchess.

'I pray ye enter,' she said. ''Tis a poor house, but a right blithe welcome to the kin of my dear friend here.'

'Save you, Mistress!' quoth the baronet, 'we look not at the setting when the jewel is of such fine quality.'

Beside Isabel the tender fragile beauty of Jean Gordon was more than usually apparent; already the delicacy that grew afterwards to serious illness seemed to throw a prophetic shadow over her.

'I pray you, take some refreshment,' said Isabel; 'ye have come far, and ye must be wearied.'

'Nay, we will taste nothing,' said Sir Robert, feeling with instinctive courtesy the narrow resources of the farmhouse, and divining a certain hesitating shyness, betokening a distrust of her larder. 'We return to Gordonstown for supper. Another day, I trust, we may have the honour to welcome you there, Mistress Isabel. There are things there I think might interest you.'

Isabel, craving pardon of the baronet and Lady Mary, carried off her friend to her own little room, and showed her the tiny gold crucifix, and told her of the dreariness and sorrow of her own life. But she said nothing of the stranger. Jean in return told of her own troubles, of how she and her gallant young lover were persecuted, of the delicacy of health that troubled her, and of the dark, hopeless future that lay before them. Then they returned, their arms affectionately twined round each other.

But before the party took their leave, Sir Robert, rising from the settle by the kitchen fire where he had ensconced himself, said to Isabel: 'I pray you, Mistress, of your courtesy, that ye will show me how your loch lieth. Ye may know that I have great interest in drainage, and there is on my property a very great loch, ye may have heard of it, called the Loch of Spynie, which I design to drain.'

'Come ye this way, sir,' said Isabel. 'If the ladies will excuse us. You will see the loch finely from the hill just to the east of us.'

'Robert must have his way,' said Lady Mary. 'When he talks drainage there is no room for any other topic in the world. But when ye have done, Robert, we must e'en take the road or night will be on us.'

But so soon as they had got beyond the cottage, Sir Robert turned round to his companion.

'I brought ye out here, Mistress Isabel, not to talk of drainage, whereof I deem ye know little, but because I see that ye are in trouble, and I would help ye, if that I may.'

'Oh, sir!' she faltered, 'you are over good to me, and indeed there is much of trouble and but little of satisfaction in my lot; but more than for myself am I now exercised for my dear Jean Gordon. We were the closest of friends, and my heart bleeds for her; she is delicate and overtaxes her strength, and they persecute her for the man she loves.'

'And in all this,' said Sir Robert kindly, 'you can help better than any other. The power lies close to your hand, if you will but dare to take it. You can help your friend, and you can do much for yourself too; I deem there are things you would do for yourself.'

'Yea, indeed, and there are, Sir Robert, and there are those who have dealt ill by me; and ye see how poorly I am lodged, and scarce even a sup or a crust to offer a friend who should come to see me,' she cried, with a sudden burst of confidence, for she felt this strong, wonderful man who so generously offered his help was one on whom she might rely. It was absurd to be reticent with him.

'All this you can do too if ye will. But remember, fear is failure. When the chance comes, ye must be brave and take it. And remember this too. The ministers tell you if you need anything you should come to the kirk and ask for it, and this is true, but not in their sense. Indeed, they know not how true it is. Fare ye well; Mistress! Perhaps in time to come ye may do something for me too. I need a secretary badly, but I have found none capable to do my work. Gladly would I have you in that office, for think ye could help me well.'

So with many mutual compliments and affectionate leave-takings, they parted, and Isabel remained in a strangely elated condition, thinking over the events of the day. Circumstances seemed to be pushing her irresistibly. It was now no longer merely the chance-met stranger on the road. Sir Robert Gordon, a wise man, a scholar, and a Privy Councillor, had spoken almost as though he knew of the stranger, and were, without seeming to do so, urging her not to let the opportunity slip. 'Fear is failure,' he said. 'Power was within her reach,' he said, what other possible way than by the stranger's offer? And what held her back; to be honest with herself, was it not fear? Both Sir Robert and the stranger had been kind and courteous. They had not insulted her like the coarse and brutal laird of Park. Sir Robert admired her, he told her she was beautiful, but he said it as a courteous gentleman might to a lady of his own rank, with grave deference. Then there was that enigmatical reference to the kirk. Why was everything combining to drive her to the kirk, where, sooth to say, she never desired go? Midnight at the kirk of Aulderne! It savoured of a weird, mysterious adventure. Would sheeted ghosts prowl around? It was curious to hear Sir Robert Gordon talk of the kirk, for his reputation was quite otherwise. But after all, a fig for country gossip, and if indeed Sir Robert did collogue with the Devil, if as they said he had made some sort of elemental spirit or creature out of the fire who did his bidding, well! he seemed none the worse for it. He was a grave prosperous, learned gentleman, far superior to the average country laird.

In all of which anyone who knows the subtleties of human nature may discern that Mistress Isabel, down in the depths of her nature, did desire, perhaps only half consciously, to keep the tryst with the stranger, and sought for arguments and justification in so doing.

There remained John Gilbert. If John came home that night the adventure would be impossible, and she half hoped he might, and so cut the perplexity. But as the darkness deepened after sunset, and a step sounded outside, she thought he had come, and a sick disappointment came over her--the adventure, the chance of her life, was to turn to nothing after all. It was only one of the men going to see to the sick cows. She breathed again.

As she ate her solitary supper, the feminine question occurred to her, what should she wear? The stranger was neat and fastidious, the old homespun gown wherein was sewn the little gold crucifix was too poor, too shabby, and the gown she had worn when she met him yesterday was worse. In the old kist, whence she had taken the flimsy robe with which she had so disastrously sought to fascinate John Gilbert, were still some dresses, the relics of the old days when the lawyer's daughter was an acknowledged beauty and much fêted, but all too fine and out of keeping with her present state. They had never been worn since, never even looked at. She had no heart for finery she could not wear. Here she found a dress of an exquisite soft green, given to her long ago by Jean Gordon, with a little gold embroidery, and a wimple and a hood of white. Could she, dare she, wear this? It was light and thin, and open at the neck and breast as was the mode of the time for ladies for evening wear at fashionable assemblies. She looked out on the night. It was calm and warm. The tempest of the previous night had swept the air clear and clean. The full moon would be rising soon. Not a soul would be abroad at that hour. She would risk it.

She had all the country woman's knowledge of time, without any aid of clocks or watches, and she knew that when the moon touched the top of the blighted fir tree to the east of the farmhouse on that night, it would want half an hour of midnight. At that moment then she would start. She laid out the green robe.

''Tis the fairies' colour,' she murmured as she looked at it lovingly. Would the time ever come when she would wear such robes habitually, and associate again with cultured men and women? Yes, surely, if Sir Robert were to be believed.

She was restless and impatient. She wandered round the farm, looked into the byre to see how the sick cows fared, listened to hear if the men were asleep, and was reassured by their heavy snores; the herd girls too were sound asleep; the whole farm seemed under a drowsy spell, only herself stirring, and she very wide awake. A sound on the road made her heart plunge. Was it Gilbert after all, returning so late? It was only a stray horse, probably belonging to some gipsies, cropping the roadside grass.

At last the edge of the moon appeared above the desolate muir. It was the signal she had set to herself. She turned into the farm, and rapidly, with trembling hands, cast off her homespun gown, and stood in the clear moonlight only in her shift, with her wonderful flaming red hair shed like a veil around her. Then she put on the green gown, thinking, it must be said, but little of the golden crucifix. The wimple and the hood were adjusted, but the mass of hair she simply tied back with a green ribbon, after the fashion of a snood. She would take no memory of John Gilbert, nor of her ill-fated marriage; she would revert to the simple fashion of her girlhood. Why she did this she could not have told; she simply felt impelled to go thus to the tryst.

So southward she took her way, just when the full moon touched the top of the fir tree. She had succeeded at last in driving all hesitation from her mind. She looked forward feverishly to seeing again that courteous stranger who had met her in the road, and she passed with a thrill at her heart just over the very place where he had stood as he talked to her. What a wonderful man he was! All other men seemed faint shadows beside him, and she was to see him again. A faint fear came over her. What if he should never come, what if he were only playing with her? She dismissed the thought as too dreadful to contemplate, and walked rapidly on.

Aulderne Kirk stood boldly up among the thronging graves. Isabel now felt nerved for anything by her excitement and expectation. If, indeed, she had seen the pale sheeted forms of the dead of the many generations she would have felt no fear now. It was a species of intoxication that possessed her. She was expected. He, the marvellous man who had stooped from the heights to recognise and to ask for her, was there, actually there. She was going to him.

Through the windows of the kirk there gleamed a strange light. Not the light of a service on a dark winter Sabbath evening, when a few rush-lights made the darkness only more dense, except by the reader's desk, but rather as if it were on fire. He had done this, then, in her honour. Would there be any others there? She hoped there would, for a certain shyness was creeping over her again, and she hurried now in fear lest she might be late.

Passing through the kirkyard, she felt an arm cast round her waist, and looked up with a half-acknowledged hope. Was it the stranger?

The next instant she knew Margaret Brodie.

'Welcome, my dearie! I knew ye would come, but I thought not it would be so soon.'

'Indeed, I knew not myself, said Isabel, glad to meet a friend there, yet with a queer catch of jealousy. Did Margaret also know him? Was she familiar with the wondrous man? Nay, but he must know very many, and at any rate he had singled her out, her, Isabel Goudie, for singular honour.

'I know,' said Margaret gently. 'He has invited you himself. Oh, but lassie it's a rare honour ye have gotten; come away ben. He is waiting for ye.'

So they entered the kirk. A warm red glow pervaded the whole place, very different from the forbidding chill that Isabel had associated with it. Many were there gathered, but she knew them not, she was only aware of one fact. In the reader's desk stood the stranger, and as she passed through the door his eyes sought hers, and hers were fixed on him, as though in all that assemblage they two were alone, and she scarce felt Margaret Brodie's supporting arm.

'Mistress Isabel Goudie,' he said, and his voice was sad and musical, like the tone of a great bell, 'have ye thought of what I said to you but yester e'en, and are ye prepared?'

'It needs no thought,' she made answer. 'I sought no baptism, I desired it not. Gladly I renounce it.'

'Will ye then come to me? Will ye devote yourself body and soul to me for ever?'

The marvellous attraction of the man drew her like a magnet. Electric thrills ran through her limbs, till she would have fallen, but for Margaret's arm around her. To go to him, to belong to him, it was a bliss beyond all she had ever dreamed. She was mad, delirious, all power of thought, even of knowledge of where she was, or how she came there, was gone. Only faintly could she gasp out, 'I will.'

'Then you will place one hand beneath the sole of your foot, and the other on the crown of your head, and say after me--'

Stooping down, and leaning hard on the arms that held her, she did so while he dictated the words of the oath.

'I swear by the height of heaven, and the depth of the sea, by the flux of air, and by the glory of the fire, I renounce and pledge and give unto thee all that lieth between my two hands. Yes, for ever, soul and body, I will belong unto thee, whom men call the Devil.'

'Whom men call the Devil,' she repeated firmly. A murmur of applause and of greeting went round, but she heeded not.

'Bring her to me,' said the stranger, closing the black book he held in his hand.

Margaret led, half carrying, her up to the desk.

Gently he laid his hand on her shoulder, sweeping aside the green gown, and laying the white flesh bare. Then he placed his other hand palm downwards below the shoulder, and she felt a sharp prick like a stab, and a gush of blood came over the soft skin. The stranger stooped with the air of a courtier, and kissed the wound, sucking out the blood till it was all staunched, then putting his finger in his mouth he drew it out covered with her blood, and marking a strange figure on her forehead, he said:

'Thou hast renounced thy false baptism, now I rebaptise thee in my own name. Thy earth name is lost now among us; thou shalt henceforth be known as Janet in our assemblies. Thou art now one of us. If thou wilt learn more, and have the wisdom and the power and the joy that I can give thee, come to me where I shall appoint.'

'I will,' she whispered.

A crash of thunder rolled across the sky, and as though the very windows of heaven were opened, a rush of rain tore against the wall of the kirk. All was in darkness--only against her cheek she heard that deep musical voice saying:

'At the Wards of Inshoch, on Sabbath next, during the time of service.' Then all was still.

'How will I win home through this?' she said, thinking Margaret Brodie was there.

Then, thinking but to shelter till the storm had abated, she sank into a pew, and for a moment seemed to dream, but roused again to see a familiar gleam of light, and knew it was coming through the little window of her own room in the farmhouse.

How she got there she never knew, but it was a fact that she was lying in her own bed, and the dawn was breaking.