Complete Works of Robert Louis Stevenson (Illustrated) (338 page)

It was in vain the poor gentleman sought to moderate; took every test and took advantage of every indulgence; went and drank with the dragoons in Balweary; attended the communion and came regularly to the church to Curate Haddo, with his son beside him. The mad, raging, Presbyterian zealot of a wife at home made all of no avail; and indeed the house must have fallen years before if it had not been for the secret indulgence of the curate, who had a great sympathy with the laird, and winked hard at the doings in Montroymont. This curate was a man very ill reputed in the countryside, and indeed in all Scotland. “Infamous Haddo” is Shield’s expression. But Patrick Walker is more copious. “Curate Hall Haddo,” says he,
sub voce
Peden, “or
Hell
Haddo, as he was more justly to be called, a pokeful of old condemned errors and the filthy vile lusts of the flesh, a published whoremonger, a common gross drunkard, continually and godlessly scraping and skirling on a fiddle, continually breathing flames against the remnant of Israel. But the Lord put an end to his piping, and all these offences were composed into one bloody grave.” No doubt this was written to excuse his slaughter; and I have never heard it claimed for Walker that he was either a just witness or an indulgent judge. At least, in a merely human character, Haddo comes off not wholly amiss in the matter of these Traquairs: not that he showed any graces of the Christian, but had a sort of Pagan decency, which might almost tempt one to be concerned about his sudden, violent, and unprepared fate.

CHAPTER II

FRANCIE

Francie was eleven years old, shy, secret, and rather childish of his age, though not backward in schooling, which had been pushed on far by a private governor, one M’Brair, a forfeited minister harboured in that capacity at Montroymont. The boy, already much employed in secret by his mother, was the most apt hand conceivable to run upon a message, to carry food to lurking fugitives, or to stand sentry on the skyline above a conventicle. It seemed no place on the moorlands was so naked but what he would find cover there; and as he knew every hag, boulder, and heather-bush in a circuit of seven miles about Montroymont, there was scarce any spot but what he could leave or approach it unseen. This dexterity had won him a reputation in that part of the country; and among the many children employed in these dangerous affairs, he passed under the by-name of Heathercat.

How much his father knew of this employment might be doubted. He took much forethought for the boy’s future, seeing he was like to be left so poorly, and would sometimes assist at his lessons, sighing heavily, yawning deep, and now and again patting Francie on the shoulder if he seemed to be doing ill, by way of a private, kind encouragement. But a great part of the day was passed in aimless wanderings with his eyes sealed, or in his cabinet sitting bemused over the particulars of the coming bankruptcy; and the boy would be absent a dozen times for once that his father would observe it.

On 2nd of July 2 the boy had an errand from his  mother, which must be kept private from all, the father included in the first of them. Crossing the braes, he hears the clatter of a horse’s shoes, and claps down incontinent in a hag by the wayside. And presently he spied his father come riding from one direction, and Curate Haddo walking from another; and Montroymont leaning down from the saddle, and Haddo getting on his toes (for he was a little, ruddy, bald-pated man, more like a dwarf), they greeted kindly, and came to a halt within two fathoms of the child.

“Montroymont,” the curate said, “the deil’s in ‘t but I’ll have to denunciate your leddy again.”

“Deil’s in ‘t indeed!” says the laird.

“Man! can ye no induce her to come to the kirk?” pursues Haddo; “or to a communion at the least of it? For the conventicles, let be! and the same for yon solemn fule, M’Brair: I can blink at them. But she’s got to come to the kirk, Montroymont.”

“Dinna speak of it,” says the laird. “I can do nothing with her.”

“Couldn’t ye try the stick to her? it works wonders whiles,” suggested Haddo. “No? I’m wae to hear it. And I suppose ye ken where you’re going?”

“Fine!” said Montroymont. “Fine do I ken where: bankrup’cy and the Bass Rock!”

“Praise to my bones that I never married!” cried the curate. “Well, it’s a grievous thing to me to see an auld house dung down that was here before Flodden Field. But naebody can say it was with my wish.”

“No more they can, Haddo!” says the laird. “A good friend ye’ve been to me, first and last. I can give you that character with a clear conscience.”

Whereupon they separated, and Montroymont rode briskly down into the DuleValley. But of the curate Francis was not to be quit so easily. He went on with his little, brisk steps to the corner of a dyke, and stopped and whistled and waved upon a lassie that was herding  cattle there. This Janet M’Clour was a big lass, being taller than the curate; and what made her look the more so, she was kilted very high. It seemed for a while she would not come, and Francie heard her calling Haddo a “daft auld fule,” and saw her running and dodging him among the whins and hags till he was fairly blown. But at the last he gets a bottle from his plaid-neuk and holds it up to her; whereupon she came at once into a composition, and the pair sat, drinking of the bottle, and daffing and laughing together, on a mound of heather. The boy had scarce heard of these vanities, or he might have been minded of a nymph and satyr, if anybody could have taken long-leggit Janet for a nymph. But they seemed to be huge friends, he thought; and was the more surprised, when the curate had taken his leave, to see the lassie fling stones after him with screeches of laughter, and Haddo turn about and caper, and shake his staff at her, and laugh louder than herself. A wonderful merry pair, they seemed; and when Francie had crawled out of the hag, he had a great deal to consider in his mind. It was possible they were all fallen in error about Mr. Haddo, he reflected, — having seen him so tender with Montroymont, and so kind and playful with the lass Janet; and he had a temptation to go out of his road and question her herself upon the matter. But he had a strong spirit of duty on him; and plodded on instead over the braes till he came near the House of Cairngorm. There, in a hollow place, by the burnside that was shaded by some birks, he was aware of a barefoot boy, perhaps a matter of three years older than himself. The two approached with the precautions of a pair of strange dogs, looking at each other queerly.

“It’s ill weather on the hills,” said the stranger, giving the watchword.

“For a season,” said Francie, “but the Lord will appear.”

“Richt,” said the barefoot boy; “wha’re ye frae?”

“The Leddy Montroymont,” says Francie.

“Ha’e, then!” says the stranger, and handed him a folded paper, and they stood and looked at each other again. “It’s unco’ het,” said the boy.

“Dooms het,” says Francie.

“What do they ca’ ye?” says the other.

“Francie,” says he. “I’m young Montroymont. They ca’ me Heathercat.”

“I’m Jock Crozer,” said the boy. And there was another pause, while each rolled a stone under his foot.

“Cast your jaiket and I’ll fecht ye for a bawbee,” cried the elder boy with sudden violence, and dramatically throwing back his jacket.

“Na, I have nae time the now,” said Francie, with a sharp thrill of alarm, because Crozer was much the heavier boy.

“Ye’re feared. Heathercat indeed!” said Crozer, for among this infantile army of spies and messengers, the fame of Crozer had gone forth and was resented by his rivals. And with that they separated.

On his way home Francie was a good deal occupied with the recollection of this untoward incident. The challenge had been fairly offered and basely refused: the tale would be carried all over the country, and the lustre of the name of Heathercat be dimmed. But the scene between Curate Haddo and Janet M’Clour had also given him much to think of: and he was still puzzling over the case of the curate, and why such ill words were said of him, and why, if he were so merry-spirited, he should yet preach so dry, when coming over a knowe, whom should he see but Janet, sitting with her back to him, minding her cattle! He was always a great child for secret, stealthy ways, having been employed by his mother on errands when the same was necessary; and he came behind the lass without her hearing.

“Jennet,” says he.

“Keep me,” cries Janet, springing up. “O, it’s you, Maister Francie! Save us, what a fricht ye gied me.”

“Ay, it’s me,” said Francie. “I’ve been thinking, Jennet; I saw you and the curate a while back —  — ”

“Brat!” cried Janet, and coloured up crimson; and the one moment made as if she would have stricken him with a ragged stick she had to chase her bestial with, and the next was begging and praying that he would mention it to none. It was “naebody’s business, whatever,” she said; “it would just start a clash in the country”; and there would be nothing left for her but to drown herself in Dule Water.

“Why?” says Francie.

The girl looked at him and grew scarlet again.

“And it isna that, anyway,” continued Francie. “It was just that he seemed so good to ye — like our Father in heaven, I thought; and I thought that mebbe, perhaps, we had all been wrong about him from the first. But I’ll have to tell Mr. M’Brair; I’m under a kind of a bargain to him to tell him all.”

“Tell it to the divil if ye like for me!” cried the lass. “I’ve naething to be ashamed of. Tell M’Brair to mind his ain affairs,” she cried again: “they’ll be hot eneugh for him, if Haddie likes!” And so strode off, shoving her beasts before her, and ever and again looking back and crying angry words to the boy, where he stood mystified.

By the time he had got home his mind was made up that he would say nothing to his mother. My Lady Montroymont was in the keeping-room, reading a godly book; she was a wonderful frail little wife to make so much noise in the world and be able to steer about that patient sheep her husband; her eyes were like sloes, the fingers of her hands were like tobacco-pipe shanks, her mouth shut tight like a trap; and even when she was the most serious, and still more when she was angry,  there hung about her face the terrifying semblance of a smile.

“Have ye gotten the billet, Francie?” said she; and when he had handed it over, and she had read and burned it, “Did you see anybody?” she asked.

“I saw the laird,” said Francie.

“He didna see you, though?” asked his mother.

“Deil a fear,” from Francie.

“Francie!” she cried. “What’s that I hear? an aith? The Lord forgive me, have I broughten forth a brand for the burning, a fagot for hell-fire?”

“I’m very sorry, ma’am,” said Francie. “I humbly beg the Lord’s pardon, and yours, for my wickedness.”

“H’m,” grunted the lady. “Did ye see nobody else?”

“No, ma’am,” said Francie, with the face of an angel, “except Jock Crozer, that gied me the billet.”

“Jock Crozer!” cried the lady. “I’ll Crozer them! Crozers indeed! What next? Are we to repose the lives of a suffering remnant in Crozers? The whole clan of them wants hanging, and if I had my way of it, they wouldna want it long. Are you aware, sir, that these Crozers killed your forebear at the kirk-door?”

“You see, he was bigger ‘n me,” said Francie.

“Jock Crozer!” continued the lady. “That’ll be Clement’s son, the biggest thief and reiver in the countryside. To trust a note to him! But I’ll give the benefit of my opinions to Lady Whitecross when we two forgather. Let her look to herself! I have no patience with half-hearted carlines, that complies on the Lord’s day morning with the kirk, and comes taigling the same night to the conventicle. The one or the other! is what I say: hell or heaven — Haddie’s abominations or the pure word of God dreeping from the lips of Mr. Arnot,

My lady was now fairly launched, and that upon two  congenial subjects: the deficiencies of the Lady Whitecross and the turpitudes of the whole Crozer race — which, indeed, had never been conspicuous for respectability. She pursued the pair of them for twenty minutes on the clock with wonderful animation and detail, something of the pulpit manner, and the spirit of one possessed. “O hellish compliance!” she exclaimed. “I would not suffer a complier to break bread with Christian folk. Of all the sins of this day there is not one so God-defying, so Christ-humiliating, as damnable compliance”: the boy standing before her meanwhile, and brokenly pursuing other thoughts, mainly of Haddo and Janet, and Jock Crozer stripping off his jacket. And yet, with all his distraction, it might be argued that he heard too much: his father and himself being “compliers” — that is to say, attending the church of the parish as the law required.

Presently, the lady’s passion beginning to decline, or her flux of ill words to be exhausted, she dismissed her audience. Francie bowed low, left the room, closed the door behind him: and then turned him about in the passage-way, and with a low voice, but a prodigious deal of sentiment, repeated the name of the evil one twenty times over, to the end of which, for the greater efficacy, he tacked on “damnable” and “hellish.”
Fas est ab hoste doceri
— disrespect is made more pungent by quotation; and there is no doubt but he felt relieved, and went upstairs into his tutor’s chamber with a quiet mind. M’Brair sat by the cheek of the peat-fire and shivered, for he had a quartan ague and this was his day. The great nightcap and plaid, the dark unshaven cheeks of the man, and the white, thin hands that held the plaid about his chittering body, made a sorrowful picture. But Francie knew and loved him; came straight in, nestled close to the refugee, and told his story. M’Brair had been at the College with Haddo; the Presbytery had licensed both on the same day; and at this tale,  told with so much innocency by the boy, the heart of the tutor was commoved.

“Woe upon him! Woe upon that man!” he cried. “O the unfaithful shepherd! O the hireling and apostate minister! Make my matters hot for me? quo’ she! the shameless limmer! And true it is, that he could repose me in that nasty, stinking hole, the Canongate Tolbooth, from which your mother drew me out — the Lord reward her for it! — or to that cold, unbieldy, marine place of the Bass Rock, which, with my delicate kist, would be fair ruin to me. But I will be valiant in my Master’s service. I have a duty here: a duty to my God, to myself, and to Haddo: in His strength, I will perform it.”