Читать книгу Betty Grier - Joseph Laing Waugh - Страница 7

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I am as yet only on the threshold of my stay in Thornhill, and I am beginning my long vacation as I intend to end it. Dr Balfour's orders were short and to the point; and, in bidding a temporary farewell to professional work and preparing for a long holiday, I know I am following his instructions and furthering my own interests and future well-being. Time was when this enforced inaction would have been irksome indeed. I have always been alert mentally and physically; but since my accident I have been incapable of any prolonged mental effort, and I have welcomed the languor of this quiet retreat, which has possessed me and claimed me as its own. Betty's ministrations I feel I stand in need of; and Nathan's company, unresponsive and grudging though it be, is all I desire. Betty has no patience with useless, idling folks, for she is herself a bustler, and she talks contemptuously of the hangers-on who daily and nightly support our village corners. Once she told me they were troubled with a complaint called the 'guyfaul.' I had never heard the queer word before, and asked its meaning. 'An inclination for meat, but nane for wark,' she promptly replied; and as I lie abed these beautiful sunny forenoons I wonder if Betty considers that I also am afflicted with the 'guyfaul.'

Correspondence of an official character is tabooed; but a day or two ago I received a long newsy letter from my partner, Murray Monteith, not one line of which had any reference to business. This morning I had a further communication, almost equally free from 'shop;' but in a footnote he remarks as follows: 'We had a call yesterday from our client the Hon. Mrs Stuart, and in course of conversation she informed me that she had leased a house in the vicinity of Thornhill, and that her niece, the late General Stuart's daughter, was staying with her over the autumn. I was strongly tempted to tell her you were at present resident in that village, but refrained, knowing it would be unwise of you in the present circumstances to occupy yourself with her affairs. Our inability to find a will or to trace the record of the General's marriage troubles her very much.'

This postscript set me a-thinking, and I lay long pondering obscure points in a case which had worried and perplexed every one concerned. Not only was the good name of the Stuart family involved; but, in the absence of proof, the General's daughter must be—well, nameless, and the estate must pass to another branch of the family.

So absorbed was I in my train of reflection that I failed to note Betty's entrance with my breakfast-tray. A short cough and the clatter of china recalled my wandering thoughts, and I began a rather disjointed apology. Holding up my firm's letter with the familiar light-blue envelope, I laughingly said, 'Blame this, Betty, and forgive my inattention.'

'Hoots, ay,' said Betty, 'it's a' richt; but ye maunna pucker your broo an' worry your brain. Deil tak' thae lang blue letters, onywey! Nane o' them that ever I got spelt weel to me; an' when Milligan the postman handed this yin in this mornin', an' when I thocht o' taxes an' sic fash, I was sairly tempted to back the fire wi' it. Imphm! that's so, noo. Eh! by the by, the doctor's Mary looked in on the bygaun, an' she tells me Dr Grierson will likely be doon to see ye the day. He has had a letter frae a Dr Balfour o' Edinbro, tellin' him a' aboot ye, an' askin' him to keep his eye on ye. Imphm! Ay, an', Maister Weelum, ye didna tell me that ye lay a week in the infirmary insensible.'

'No, Betty,' I said, 'I dare say I didn't; but—well, the fact is I didn't wish to worry you with details or'——

'Ay, an' naether did ye tell me it was to save your wee dog's life ye gaed back into the burnin' hoose,' she said in the same inquisitive tone. I stirred my coffee vigorously, but said nothing. 'An' is it the case that the stair fell in when ye were on the middle o't, an' that the wee dog was foun' deid in your airms?'

'That is so, Betty,' I said sadly.

Betty was silent for a minute, and she fumbled aimlessly with the corner of her apron. 'Lovan,' she said at length, 'it has been a mair terrible affair than I had ony thocht o'. The heid an' the spine are kittle to get hurt, but it's a guid's blessin' ye werena burnt beyond recognition. Efter siccan an experience it's a wonder ye didna relieve your mind to me regairdin' it lang ere noo. Naebody in this world wad ha'e been mair interested or sympathetic. What wey did ye no'?'

Her concern and loving interest were unmistakable; but from the tone of her questionings I opined she was smarting under the sense of a slight, real or imagined, and I hastened to reassure her. 'My dear Betty,' I said, 'believe me I had no motive in withholding such news other than that of saving your feelings. At one time I was minded to tell you all about it; but when you met me at Elvanfoot I noted at a glance the pained, surprised look on your face, and I at once decided not to say more than was absolutely necessary. Besides, Betty, everything happened so quickly that I can scarcely remember the details.' In a few words I described what had taken place. 'And now, Betty,' I concluded, 'let us change the subject. Even now the recollection of my experience is like a nightmare, and I would rather not speak of it.'

'Imphm!' said Betty abstractedly; 'that I daur say is no' to be wondered at. I'm sorry if my curiosity has been the means o' bringin' it a' back again; but, oh man, Maister Weelum, it gaed sair against the grain to hear o' a' this frae fremit lips. The doctor's Mary has a' the particulars at her tongue-tap, an' she gaed through it this mornin' like A B C. I could see she was under the impression that I kenned a' aboot it, an' I didna seek to disabuse her mind on that, but juist said, "Imphm! that is so, Mary—what ye say is true;" and she left my doorstep thinkin' I was farer ben in your confidences than I am. But that's a' richt, Maister Weelum. I respect your motives, an' I understaun exactly hoo ye were placed. But, oh, my boy! in ocht that may in the future distress ye dinna leave Betty oot, an' dinna forget that her he'rt is big eneuch to haud your sorrows as weel as her ain. Wheesht! Is that the ooter door openin'? It is; an', dod, that's Dr Grierson's cheepin' buits on the lobby flaer, an' me no' snodit yet. He's an awfu' dingle-doozie in the mornin', is the doctor.'

Moistening the tips of her fingers on her lip and keeking into my little oval looking-glass, she deftly arranged a stray lock of gray-black hair under the neatly goffered border of her white morning-mutch.' Juist a word wi' ye, Maister Weelum, before I gang doon. Are ye quite agreeable that Dr Grierson should veesit ye? He's an auld freen o' your Edinbro doctor, an' that's hoo he cam' to be written to, so the doctor's Mary tells me.'

'Oh, I'm quite agreeable, Betty—delighted, indeed,' I replied.

'Eh—ay—imphm! An' ye've nae feelin' on that point?'

'Most assuredly not,' I said. 'But why do you ask?'

She tiptoed across the floor and half-closed the door.

'That's him rappin' wi' his stick on the kitchen flaer,' she said in a whisper. 'An' tell me this; did the mistress—your mother, I mean—ever say ocht to ye aboot the doctor an'—an' ony o' her ain folks?'

'Not that I remember of'

'Ay, aweel, that's a' richt. When he comes up, dinna refer to my speirin' ye this;' and she hurriedly left me and went downstairs.

Thornhill has never been without its Gideon Gray. Had Dr John Brown been acquainted with its record in this particular respect he could have added to that remarkable chapter of his Horœ Subsecivœ the names of not a few medical benefactors, the memory of whose services is yet fragrant in our midst. Scattered here and there in many a quiet country kirkyard are the graves of heroes of science who in their day ungrudgingly gave of their very best, faithfully ministering to the wants of the poor and needy without thought of fee or reward; men of ability, intellect, tact, and courage of heart, whose life-work lay in the sequestered bypaths, and whose names were unknown outside the glen they called their home. Of such was Dr Grierson; and as he stood by my bedside the thought momentarily flashed through my mind, would that he had been limned by Scott or by the creator of Rab and Ailie!

A little over medium height; wiry, spare, and alert; broad shoulders slightly stooped; long dark hair streaked with gray, without a parting, brushed straight back from his forehead and hanging in clustering locks above his stock; his face serious almost, yet not void of humour, and lit up by kindly, blue, thoughtful eyes; a presence cheering and reassuring, and a bearing which bespoke the scholar and the gentleman. His clothes were of rough gray homespun, badly fitted and carelessly worn. A thin shepherd-tartan plaid, arranged herdwise, hung from his shoulder, and he held in his hand a round soft hat, gray-green from exposure to summer sun and winter rains. Such was the man who stood by my bedside—a Gideon Gray indeed—strong of purpose, keenly observant; shy, yet not suspicious; revelling in his power of doing good; inured to cold and privation; buoyant and hopeful in the face of difficulties; daily in close and loving communion with all nature around him; and girt about with truthfulness and integrity as with a cloak. Though I had never before been in his presence, I hailed him within my heart as a true and honoured friend.

He shook hands without saying good-morning, and seated himself on a chair at the foot of my bed. Betty, who had preceded him upstairs, and announced him, walked across the room, took up a position at the gable window, and feigned an interest in our grocer neighbour's back-yard. He looked at me pointedly and earnestly, the while stroking his long straggling beard, and then, half-turning his head toward Betty, he said with a low, little laugh, and with a pronounced yet euphonious 'burr,' 'Our young friend, Betty, is more of a Kennedy than a Russell.'

'Ay, doctor, that he is,' said Betty, without taking her eyes from the window. 'He aye took efter his mither's folk. When he was a bairn o' three he was the very spit o' his aunt Marget. Not that I ha'e ony recollection o' her, but that's what I mind the mistress used to say.'

'He's like her yet,' the doctor promptly added.—'And in saying so I can pay no higher compliment to you, my young man.'

'I've heard it said, doctor, that ye kenned the Kennedys aince on a time,' said Betty, and she changed the position of a pot of musk on the window-sill.

He looked quickly and questioningly at Betty; but she was busying herself with the flowers, the while humming, timmer-tuned as usual, the opening lines of 'The Farmer's Boy.'

Then he looked from her to me, slowly and deliberately crossed his legs, and, putting his long, thin hands lengthwise on his knee, he said, more to himself than to Betty, 'Yes, yes, I, as you say, once knew them well.'

'Ye wad ken Miss Marget, then?' asked Betty after a pause.

To me Betty's questioning was an enigma; but I wasn't slow to notice it was distinctly disconcerting to the doctor, who quickly changed his position and sat with his back to the light.

'Miss Marget and I were very, very dear friends,' he said, 'very dear friends, a long, long time ago;' and he abstractedly traced with the tip of his finger an irregular circle round the brim of his old soft hat.

Betty with a flick of her apron removed imaginary dust from the window-sill, and then, coming up to the doctor, she laid her hand on the back of his chair. 'In that case, then, doctor,' she earnestly said, 'for her sake, for Miss Marget's sake, ye'll do your best for her nephew, for it breaks my he'rt to see him lyin' there amaist as helpless as a bairn.' And she hurriedly left the room, and I don't know for certain, but I think she was crying.

The doctor rose, quietly closed the door, and resumed his seat.

'Betty has undoubtedly your welfare at heart, Mr Russell,' he said. 'Unconsciously, or maybe consciously, she has awakened many memories of the long ago—memories of times and people that are with me now only in dreams. Ay, ay;' and he passed his hand slowly adown his face. 'But this is not getting on with my work,' he said, after a pause.

Putting his hand in his coat pocket, he brought out, not a handkerchief, as he had intended or as I expected, but a rather sickly-looking hart's-tongue fern, the root of which was carefully wrapped in a piece of newspaper and tied with a bootlace.

'Well, well!' he said reproachfully, turning it over in his hand, 'that is indeed stupid of me. I ought to have planted this immediately on my arrival this morning; but fortunately I was careful to take sufficient soil with it, and maybe it is not yet too late.'

'Have you been from home, doctor?' I asked.

'Oh, only for twelve hours,' he said, returning the plant to his pocket. 'I was on the point of going to bed last night, when the Benthead shepherd called me out to attend his wife. He was driving an old nag I knew well, a Mitchelslacks pensioner—willing enough, you may be sure, or he wouldn't have been owned by a Harkness, but long past his best; so, in order to be as soon as possible beside my patient, I quickly saddled my own mare, and was trotting down the Gashouse Brae when the kirk clock was striking eleven. I passed the old nag near Laught; but unfortunately at Camplemill Daisy cast a shoe; so, rather than trouble the smith at such an untimely hour, I put her into his stable, the door of which was unlocked, waited the upcoming of the shepherd, and drove the rest of the journey with him in his spring-cart. After sitting for an hour or two at a smoky peat fire, reading by the aid of a guttering tallow-candle a back-number of the Agricultural Gazette, I was called to work, and very soon added another arrow—the tenth—to the shepherd's quiver. When everything was "a' bye," as we say locally, Benthead kindly offered to drive me down to the mill; but, as the early morning was so delightfully fine, and nature outside so pleading and inviting, I took to the moor on "Shanks' naigie." Ah, the delight of that moorland walk! the exhilarating air of the uplands! Why, man, it was like quaffing wine, and the cobwebs—warp and woof of the sleepless hours—were charmed away as if by magic. The sun was just peeping over the crest of Bellybucht, and his rays were lying lovingly athwart the budding heather and the silver mist-wreathed bents. Bracken and juniper, blaeberry and crowberry; dewdrops here, dewdrops there, sparkling and shimmering; tiny springs of crystal water oozing out from whinstone chinks, gurgling and trickling down pebbled ruts, seen awhile, then unseen, lost in spongy moss and tangled seggs. Overhead the morning song of the gladsome lark; to my right the wheep of the snipe and the quack of a startled duck; to my left the yittering of the curlew and the chirrup of the flitting, restless cheeper; and over all the spirit of the wild which isolates and draws within her mantle-folds all those who cuddle close to Nature's breast. Ah, what a morning! what a scene! Hat in hand I walked, with my head bared to the throbbing air and the glorious sunshine. "Surely, surely," I said to myself, "it is good for me to be here;" and with a sense of thankfulness in my heart, and turning my face to the shadowy Lowthers, I sang with the Psalmist, "I to the hills will lift mine eyes."

'I struck the Crichope about six o'clock; wandered leisurely down the linn; pulled this hart's-tongue fern, and a few more which I must have lost; picked up this fossil—part of a frog, I think—which will make a welcome addition to my collection.' He hesitated for a moment, with half-closed eyes and his chin resting on his folded stock. Then he suddenly looked toward me and asked, 'Have you ever walked down Crichope alone?'

'No, not alone,' I replied.

'Then Crichope has never spoken to you. You have never heard its message. To me, this morning, it was the mouthpiece of the Creator—the great Architect; for I was alone. With those who love and admire His handiwork He is ever in communion, and He speaks in the rustle of the leaf, the tinkle of the stream, the whisper of the grass, and the echo of the linn. But you must be alone, humble, reverent, stripped to the pelt, as it were, of everything sordid, boastful, and vainglorious; and then that old ravine will be a sanctuary where in its solitude you will find solace, comfort in its caverns, food for reflection in its story and traditions.'

Again he paused, and I lay with eager eyes fixed on his animated face. Betty's cat, with arched back and long tail, brushed slowly past his knee. With an ingratiating 'Pussy, puss,' he stroked her fur.

'About half-past seven,' he continued, 'I reached the smithy, had a cup of tea with Smith Martin and his wife, got Daisy's shoe made siccar, and was mounting for home, when news was brought from Dresserland that a farm-worker had fallen from his cart and broken his leg. Off Daisy and I trotted up the brae. But, tut! tut! why should I waste my precious time, and weary and fatigue you to boot, by detailing all my morning round?'

'Oh, doctor, don't stop!' I pleaded. 'I know and love that whole countryside, and a talk with you is like a walk in the open. Indeed, my limbs twitched as you strode along, and I felt as if I were keeping step with you.'

'Ay, your limbs twitched, did they? That's a good sign.'

'A sign of my appreciation of your love of nature and poetry of language, doctor?' I asked.

'No, no; something far more important than appreciation. But this is not business. I know you will be anxious to learn in how far Dr Balfour and I agree, so let me have a look at that damaged spine of yours.'

Betty tells me that she's 'feart the doctor's a careless, godless man, for he never enters a kirk door.' I could have told her that he had attended church that morning, and that he had had communion with God and a glimpse of heaven which would have been an unknown experience and an unfamiliar sight to many who occupy a church pew every Sunday; but Betty wouldn't have understood—nay, wouldn't have believed me—and I was silent.

His visit has cheered and encouraged me, and his conversation has made me proud of his acquaintance. He is to call on me again in a few days; and meanwhile I have to take more exercise; so with the aid of a friendly hazel I shall have a daily 'daunder' and an opportunity of renewing my acquaintance with Douglas the barber in his wee back-room, John Sterling the shoemaker at his souter's stool, and Deacon Webster at his tool-laden bench.