The Project Gutenberg EBook of Alec Forbes of Howglen, by George MacDonald

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Title: Alec Forbes of Howglen

Author: George MacDonald

Release Date: July 12, 2006 [EBook #18810]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ALEC FORBES OF HOWGLEN ***




Produced by John Bechard (JaBBechard@aol.com)





ALEC FORBES OF HOWGLEN

BY

GEORGE MACDONALD LL.D.

NEW EDITION

c. 1900

[Note from the producer: I have compiled a glossary with definitions
of most of the Scottish words found in this work and placed it at the
end of this electronic text. This glossary does not belong to the
original work, but is designed to help with the conversations and
references in Broad Scots found in this work. A further explanation of
this list can be found towards the end of this document, preceding the
glossary.]






CHAPTER I.


The farm-yard was full of the light of a summer noontide. Nothing can
be so desolately dreary as full strong sunlight can be. Not a living
creature was to be seen in all the square inclosure, though cow-houses
and stables formed the greater part of it, and one end was occupied by
a dwelling-house. Away through the gate at the other end, far off in
fenced fields, might be seen the dark forms of cattle; and on a road,
at no great distance, a cart crawled along, drawn by one sleepy horse.
An occasional weary low came from some imprisoned cow--or animal of the
cow-kind; but not even a cat crossed the yard. The door of the barn was
open, showing a polished floor, as empty, bright, and clean as that of
a ball-room. And through the opposite door shone the last year's ricks
of corn, golden in the sun.

Now, although a farm-yard is not, either in Scotland or elsewhere, the
liveliest of places in ordinary, and still less about noon in summer,
yet there was a peculiar cause rendering this one, at this moment,
exceptionally deserted and dreary. But there were, notwithstanding, a
great many more people about the place than was usual, only they were
all gathered together in the ben-end, or best room of the house--a room
of tolerable size, with a clean boarded floor, a mahogany table, black
with age, and chairs of like material, whose wooden seats, and high,
straight backs, were more suggestive of state than repose. Every one of
these chairs was occupied by a silent man, whose gaze was either fixed
on the floor, or lost in the voids of space. Each wore a black coat,
and most of them were in black throughout. Their hard, thick, brown
hands--hands evidently unused to idleness--grasped their knees, or,
folded in each other, rested upon them. Some bottles and glasses, with
a plate of biscuits, on a table in a corner, seemed to indicate that
the meeting was not entirely for business purposes; and yet there were
no signs of any sort of enjoyment. Nor was there a woman to be seen in
the company.

Suddenly, at the open door, appeared a man whose shirt-sleeves showed
very white against his other clothing which, like that of the rest, was
of decent black. He addressed the assembly thus:

"Gin ony o' ye want to see the corp, noo's yer time."

To this offer no one responded; and, with a slight air of discomfiture,
for he was a busy man, and liked bustle, the carpenter turned on his
heel, and re-ascended the narrow stairs to the upper room, where the
corpse lay, waiting for its final dismission and courted oblivion.

"I reckon they've a' seen him afore," he remarked, as he rejoined his
companion. "Puir fallow! He's unco (uncouthly) worn. There'll no be
muckle o' _him_ to rise again."

"George, man, dinna jeest i' the face o' a corp," returned the other.
"Ye kenna whan yer ain turn may come."

"It's no disrespeck to the deid, Thamas. That ye ken weel eneuch. I was
only pityin' the worn face o' him, leukin up there atween the buirds,
as gin he had gotten what he wanted sae lang, and was thankin' heaven
for that same. I jist dinna like to pit the lid ower him."

"Hoot! hoot! Lat the Lord luik efter his ain. The lid o' the coffin
disna hide frae his een."

The last speaker was a stout, broad-shouldered man, a stonemason by
trade, powerful, and somewhat asthmatic. He was regarded in the
neighbourhood as a very religious man, but was more respected than
liked, because his forte was rebuke. It was from deference to him that
the carpenter had assumed a mental position generating a poetic mood
and utterance quite unusual with him, for he was a jolly, careless kind
of fellow, well-meaning and good-hearted.

So together they lifted the last covering of the dead, laid it over
him, and fastened it down. And there was darkness about the dead; but
he knew it not, because he was full of light. For this man was one who,
all his life, had striven to be better.

Meantime, the clergyman having arrived, the usual religious ceremonial
of a Scotch funeral--the reading of the Word and prayer--was going on
below. This was all that gave the burial any sacred solemnity; for at
the grave the Scotch terror of Popery forbids any observance of a
religious character. The voice of the reader was heard in the chamber
of death.

"The minister's come, Thamas."

"Come or gang," said Thomas, "it's muckle the same. The word itsel' oot
o' his mou' fa's as deid as chaff upo' clay. Honest Jeames there'll
rise ance mair; but never a word that man says, wi' the croon o' 's
heid i' the how o' 's neck, 'll rise to beir witness o' his
ministrations."

"Hoot, Thamas! It's no for the likes o' me to flee i' your face--but
jist say a fair word for the livin' ower the deid, ye ken."

"Na, na. It's fair words maks foul wark; and the wrath o' the Almichty
maun purge this toon or a' be dune. There's a heap o' graceless gaeins
on in't; and that puir feckless body, the minister, never gies a pu' at
the bridle o' salvation, to haud them aff o' the scaur (cliff) o'
hell."

The stone-mason generally spoke of the Almighty as if he were in a
state of restrained indignation at the wrongs he endured from his
children. If Thomas was right in this, then certainly he himself was
one of his offspring. If he was wrong, then there was much well worth
his unlearning.

The prayer was soon over, and the company again seated themselves,
waiting till the coffin should be placed in the hearse, which now stood
at the door.

"We'll jist draw the cork o' anither boatle," whispered a sharp-faced
man to his neighbour.

And rising, he opened two bottles, and filled the glasses the second
time with wine, red and white, which he handed to the minister first.

"Tak' a drappy mair, sir," he whispered in a coaxing, old-wivish tone;
"it's a lang road to the kirkyard."

But the minister declining, most of the others followed his example.
One after another they withdrew to the door, where the hearse was now
laden with the harvest of the grave.

Falling in behind the body, they moved in an irregular procession from
the yard. Outside, they were joined by several more in gigs and on
horseback; and thus they crept, a curious train, away towards the
resting-place of the dead.

It were a dreary rest, indeed, if that were their resting-place--on the
side of a low hill, without tree or shrub to beautify it, or even the
presence of an old church to seem to sanctify the spot. There was some
long grass in it, though, clambering up as if it sought to bury the
gravestones in their turn. And that long grass was a blessing. Better
still, there was a sky overhead, in which men cannot set up any
gravestones. But if any graveyard be the type of the rest expected by
those left behind, it is no wonder they shrink from joining those that
are away.






CHAPTER II.


When the last man had disappeared, the women, like those of an eastern
harem, began to come out. The first that entered the deserted room was
a hard-featured, reproachful-looking woman, the sister of the departed.
She instantly began to put the place in order, as if she expected her
turn to come on the morrow. In a few moments more a servant appeared,
and began to assist her. The girl had been crying, and the tears would
still come, in spite of her efforts to repress them. In the vain
attempt to dry her eyes with the corner of her apron, she nearly
dropped one of the chairs, which she was simultaneously dusting and
restoring to its usual place. Her mistress turned upon her with a kind
of cold fierceness.

"Is that hoo ye shaw yer regaird to the deid, by brackin' the cheirs he
left ahin' him? Lat sit, an' gang an' luik for that puir, doited thing,
Annie. Gin it had only been the Almichty's will to hae ta'en her, an'
left him, honest man!"

"Dinna daur to say a word again' the bairn, mem. The deid'll hear ye,
an' no lie still."

"Supperstitious quean! Gang an' do as I tell ye this minute. What
business hae ye to gang greetin aboot the hoose? He was no drap's bluid
o' yours!"

To this the girl made no reply, but left the room in quest of Annie.
When she reached the door, she stood for a moment on the threshold,
and, putting her hand over her eyes, shouted "_Annie_!" But, apparently
startled at the sound of her own voice where the unhearing dead had so
lately passed, she let the end of the call die away in a quaver, and,
without repeating it, set off to find the missing child by the use of
her eyes alone. First she went into the barn, and then through the barn
into the stack-yard, and then round the ricks one after another, and
then into the corn-loft; but all without avail. At length, as she was
beginning to feel rather alarmed about the child, she arrived, in the
progress of her search, at the door of one of the cow-houses. The
moment she looked round the corner into the stall next the door, she
stood stock-still, with her mouth wide open. This stall was occupied by
a favourite cow--brown, with large white spots, called therefore
_Brownie_. Her manger was full of fresh-cut grass; and half-buried in
this grass, at one end of the manger, with her back against the wall,
sat Annie, holding one of the ears of the hornless Brownie with one
hand and stroking the creature's nose with the other.

She was a delicate child, about nine years old, with blue eyes, half
full of tears, hair somewhere between dark and fair, gathered in a silk
net, and a pale face, on which a faint moon-like smile was glimmering.
The old cow continued to hold her nose to be stroked.

"Is na Broonie a fine coo, Betty?" said the child, as the maid went on
staring at her. "Puir Broonie! Naebody mindit me, an' sae I cam to you,
Broonie."

And she laid her cheek, white, smooth, and thin, against the broad,
flat, hairy forehead of the friendly cow. Then turning again to Betty,
she said--

"Dinna tell auntie whaur I am, Betty. Lat me be. I'm best here wi'
Broonie."

Betty said never a word, but returned to her mistress.

"Whaur's the bairn, Betty? At some mischeef or ither, I'll wad."

"Hoot! mem, the bairn's weel eneuch. Bairns maunna be followed like
carr (calves)."

"Whaur is she?"

"I canna jist doonricht exackly tak upo' me to say," answered Betty;
"but I hae no fear aboot her. She's a wise bairn."

"Ye're no the lassie's keeper, Betty. I see I maun seek her mysel'.
Ye're aidin' an' abettin' as usual."

So saying, Auntie Meg went out to look for her niece. It was some time
before the natural order of her search brought her at last to the
_byre_. By that time Annie was almost asleep in the grass, which the
cow was gradually pulling away from under her. Through the open door
the child could see the sunlight lying heavy upon the hot stones that
paved the yard; but in here it was so dark-shadowy and cool, and the
cow was such good, kindly company, and she was so safe hidden from
auntie, as she thought--for no one had ever found her there before, and
she knew Betty would not tell--that, as I say, she was nearly asleep
with comfort, half-buried in Brownie's dinner.

But she was roused all at once to a sense of exposure and insecurity.
She looked up, and at the same moment the hawk-nose of her aunt came
round the _door-cheek_. Auntie's temper was none the better than usual
that it had pleased the _Almichty_ to take the brother whom she loved,
and to leave behind the child whom she regarded as a painful
responsibility. And now with her small, fierce eyes, and her big, thin
nose--both red with suppressed crying--she did not dawn upon the sense
of Annie as an embodiment of the maternity of the universe.

"Ye plaguesome brat!" cried Auntie; "there has Betty been seekin' ye,
and I hae been seekin' ye, far an' near, i' the verra rottan-holes; an'
here ye are, on yer ain father's buryin' day, that comes but
ance--takin' up wi' a coo."

But the causes of Annie's preference of the society of Brownie to that
of Auntie might have been tolerably clear to an onlooker, without word
spoken. For to Annie and her needs, notwithstanding the humble
four-footedness of Brownie, there was in her large mild eyes, and her
hairy, featureless face, all nose and no nose, more of the divine than
in the human form of Auntie Meg. And there was something of an
indignation quite human in the way the cow tossed her bound head and
neck towards the woman that darkened the door, as if warning her off
her premises. But without a word of reply, Annie rose, flung her arms
around Brownie's head, kissed the white star on her forehead,
disengaged herself from the grass, and got out of the manger. Auntie
seized her hand with a rough action, but not ungentle grasp, and led
her away to the house. The stones felt very hot to her little bare
feet.






CHAPTER III.


By this time the funeral was approaching the churchyard at a more rapid
pace; for the pedestrians had dropped away one by one, on diverging
roads, or had stopped and retraced their steps. But as they drew near
the place, the slow trot subsided into a slow walk once more. To an
English eye the whole mode would have appeared barbarous. But if the
carved and gilded skulls and cross-bones on the hearse were
ill-conceived, at least there were no awful nodding plumes to make
death hideous with yet more of cloudy darkness; and one of the panels
showed, in all the sunshine that golden rays could yield, the
Resurrection of the Lord--the victory over the grave. And, again, when
they stopped at the gate of the churchyard, they were the hands of
friends and neighbours, and not those of cormorant undertakers and
obscene mutes, that bore the dead man to his grave. And, once more, if
the only rite they observed, when the body had settled into its place
of decay, was the silent uncovering of the head, as a last token of
respect and farewell, it may be suggested that the Church of England
herself, in all her beautiful service, has no prayer for the departed
soul, which cannot be beyond the need of prayer, as the longings that
follow it into the region of the Unknown, are not beyond its comfort.

Before the grave was quite filled the company had nearly gone. Thomas
Crann, the stone-mason, and George Macwha, the _wright_, alone remained
behind, for they had some charge over the arrangements, and were now
taking a share in covering the grave. At length the last sod was laid
upon the mound, and stamped into its place, where soon the earth's
broken surface would heal, as society would flow together again,
closing over the place that had known the departed, and would know him
no more. Then Thomas and George sat down, opposite to each other, on
two neighbouring tombstones, and wiping their brows, gave each a sigh
of relief, for the sun was hot and oppressive.

"Hech! it's a weary warl," said George.

"Ye hae no richt to say sae, George," answered Thomas, "for ye hae
never met it, an' foughten wi' 't. Ye hae never draan the soord o' the
Lord and o' Gideon. Ye hae never broken the pitcher, to lat the lamp
shine out, an' I doubt ye hae smo'red it by this time. And sae, whan
the bridegroom comes, ye'll be ill-aff for a licht."

"Hoot, man! dinna speak sic awfu' things i' the verra kirkyard."

"Better hear them i' the kirkyard than at the closed door, George!"

"Weel, but," rejoined Macwha, anxious to turn the current of the
conversation, which he found unpleasantly personal, "jist tell me
honestly, Thamas Crann, do ye believe, wi' a' yer heart an' sowl, that
the deid man--Gude be wi' him!--"

"No prayin' for the deid i' my hearin', George! As the tree falleth, so
it shall lie."

"Weel! weel! I didna mean onything."

"That I verily believe. Ye seldom do!"

"But I jist want to speir," resumed George, with some asperity, getting
rather nettled at his companion's persistent discourtesy, "gin ye
believe that Jeames Anderson here, honest man, aneath our feet,
crumblin' awa', as ye ken, and no ae spoke o' his wheel to the fore, or
lang, to tell what his cart was like--do ye believe that his honest
face will, ae day, pairt the mouls, an' come up again, jist here, i'
the face o' the light, the verra same as it vanished whan we pat the
lid ower him? Do ye believe that, Thamas Crann?"

"Na, na, George, man. Ye ken little what ye're busiest sayin'. It'll be
a glorifeed body that he'll rise wi'. It's sown in dishonour, and
raised in glory. Hoot! hoot! ye _are_ ignorant, man!"

Macwha got more nettled still at his tone of superiority.

"Wad it be a glorifeed timmer-leg he rase wi', gin he had been buried
wi' a timmer-leg?" asked he.

"His ain leg wad be buried some gait."

"Ow ay! nae doubt. An' it wad come happin' ower the Paceefic, or the
Atlantic, to jine its oreeginal stump--wad it no? But supposin' the man
had been born _wantin'_ a leg--eh, Thamas?"

"George! George!" said Thomas, with great solemnity, "luik ye efter yer
sowl, an' the Lord'ill luik after yer body, legs an' a'! Man, ye're no
convertit, an' hoo can ye unnerstan' the things o' the speerit? Aye
jeerin', an' jeerin'!"

"Weel! weel! Thamas," rejoined Macwha, mollified in perceiving that he
had not had altogether the worst in the tilt of words; "I wad only tak'
the leeberty o' thinkin' that, when He was aboot it, the Almighty micht
as weel mak' a new body a'thegither, as gang patchin' up the auld ane.
Sae I s' twa hame."

"Mind ye yer immortal pairt, George," said Thomas with a final thrust,
as he likewise rose to go home with him on the box of the hearse.

"Gin the Lord tak's sic guid care o' the body, Thamas," retorted
Macwha, with less of irreverence than appeared in his words, "maybe he
winna objec' to gie a look to my puir soul as weel; for they say it's
worth a hantle mair. I wish he wad, for he kens better nor me hoo to
set aboot the job."

So saying, he strode briskly over the graves and out of the churchyard,
leaving Thomas to follow as fast as suited his unwieldy strength.






CHAPTER IV.


Meantime another conversation was going on in one of the gigs, as it
bore two of the company from the place of tombs, which will serve a
little for the purposes of this history. One of the twain was a cousin
of the deceased, already incidentally mentioned as taking some
direction in the matter of refreshment. His name was no less than
Robert Bruce. The other was called Andrew Constable, and was a worthy
elder of the kirk.

"Weel, Robert," began the latter, after they had jogged on in silence
for half a mile or so, "what's to be done wi' little Annie Anderson and
her Auntie Meg, noo that the douce man's gane hame, an' left them
theroot, as't war?"

"They canna hae that muckle to the fore efter the doctor an' a' 's
sattled for."

"It's no to be thought. It's lang sin' ever he wrought a day's darg
(contracted from 'daywerk')."

"Jeames Dow luikit weel after the farmin', though."

"Nae doot. He's a guid servant that, to ony man he ca's master. But
there canna be muckle siller to the fore."

A pause followed.

"What think ye noo, Andrew?" recommenced Bruce. "Ye're weel kent for an
honest an' a langheided man. Do ye think that folk wad expec' onything
o' me gin the warst cam to the warst?"

"Weel, Robert, I dinna think there's muckle guid in luikin' to what
fowk micht or micht not expec' o' ye."

"That's jist what I was thinkin' mysel'; for, ye see, I hae a sma'
family o' my ain to haud chowin' already."

"Nae doot--nae doot. But--"

"Ay, ay; I ken what ye wad say. I maunna a'thegither disregaird what
fowk think, 'cause there's the chop (shop); an' gin I ance got--no to
say an ill name, but jist the wind o' no being sae considerate as I
micht hae been, there's no sayin' but twa or three micht gang by my
door, and across to Jamie Mitchell's yonner."

"Do ye what's richt, Robert Bruce, and sae defy fowk and fairy."

"Na, na, that winna _aye_ work. A body maun tak' care o' their ain,
else wha's to do't?"

"Weel," rejoined Andrew with a smile, for he understood Bruce well
enough, although he pretended to have mistaken his meaning--"weel, gin
the bairnie falls to you, nae doot ye maun take chairge o' her."

"I dinna mean Jeames Anderson's bairns--I mean my ain bairns."

"Robert, whatever way ye decide, I houp it may be sic a deceesion as
will admit o' yer castin' yer care upo' _Him_."

"I ken a' aboot that, Andrew. But my opeenion upo' that text is jist
this--that ilka vessel has to haud the fill o' 't, and what rins ower
may be committed to Him, for ye can haud it no langer. Them that winna
tak tent (care) 'll tak scathe. It's a sweer (lazy) thochtless way to
gang to the Almichty wi' ilka fash. Whan I'm driven to ane mair, that
ane sall aye be Him. Ye min' the story about my namesake and the
spidder?"

"Ay, weel eneuch," answered Andrew.

But he did not proceed to remark that he could see no connection
between that story and the subject in hand, for Bruce's question did
not take him by surprise, it being well understood that he was in the
habit of making all possible and some impossible references to his
great namesake. Indeed, he wished everybody to think, though he seldom
ventured to assert it plainly, that he was lineally descended from the
king. Nor did Andrew make further remark of any sort with regard to the
fate of Annie or the duty of Bruce, for he saw that his companion
wanted no advice--only some talk, and possibly some sympathy with his
perplexity as to what the world might think of him. But with this
perplexity Andrew could accord him very little sympathy indeed; for he
could not take much interest in the buttressing of a reputation which
he knew to be already quite undermined by widely-reported acts of petty
meanness and selfishness. Nor was this fact much to be wondered at, if
his principles were really those which he had so openly advocated.
Indeed, Andrew knew well that it would be a bad day for poor Annie when
she came under Bruce's roof, and therefore sincerely hoped that Auntie
Meg might find some way of managing so as to avoid parting with the
child; for he knew, too, that, though her aunt was fierce and hard, she
had yet a warm spot somewhere about her heart.

Margaret Anderson had known perfectly well for some time that she and
Annie must part before long. The lease of the farm would expire at the
close of the autumn of next year; and as it had been rather a losing
affair for some time, she had no inclination to request a renewal. When
her brother's debts should be paid, there would not remain, even after
the sale of the stock, more than a hundred and fifty pounds. For
herself, she believed she must go into service--which would hurt her
pride more than it would alter her position, for her hands had done far
more of the necessary labour than those of the maid who assisted her.
Indeed, in her proudest mood, she would have welcomed death rather than
idleness. What was to become of Annie she did not yet see.

Meantime there remained for the child just a year more of the native
farm, with all the varieties of life which had been so dear to her.
Auntie Meg did not spare to put her in mind of the coming change; but
it seemed to Annie so long in coming that it never would come. The
impression was worn off by the daily attempt to deepen it, she gave
herself up to the childish pleasures within her reach, without thinking
of their approaching loss.






CHAPTER V.


And why should Annie think of the future? The future was not: the
present was--and full of delights. If she did not receive much
tenderness from auntie, at least she was not afraid of her. The
pungency of her temper was but as the salt and vinegar which brought
out the true flavour of the other numberless pleasures around her. Were
her excursions far afield, perched aloft on Dowie's shoulder, and
holding on by the top of his head, or clinging to his back with her
arms round his neck, at all the less delightful that auntie was
scolding at home? They would have been less delightful if she had
thought of the future; but she thought only of the present joy; or
rather she took it as it came, and let it play upon her, without
thinking about it at all. And if she was late for one of her meals, for
Annie had no very correct sense of the lapse of time, and auntie had
declared she should go fasting, it was yet not without her connivance
that rosy-faced Betty got the child the best of everything that was at
hand, and put cream in her milk, and butter on her oat cake, Annie
managing to consume everything with satisfaction, notwithstanding the
hurdy-gurdy accompaniment of her aunt's audible reflections. And
Brownie was always friendly; ever ready on any serious emergency, when
auntie's temper was still less placid than usual, to yield a corner of
her manger for a refuge to the child. And the cocks and hens, even the
peacock and the turkey-cock, knew her perfectly, and would come when
she called them, if not altogether out of affection for her, at least
out of hope in her bounty; and she had not yet arrived at the painful
wisdom of beginning to question motives--a wisdom which misleads more
than it guides. She loved _them_, and that was enough for her. And she
would ride the horses to water, sitting sideways on their broad backs
like a barefooted lady; for Dowie had such respect for his little
mistress, as he called her, that he would never let her get astride
"like a laddie," however much she wanted to do so. And when the morning
was wet, and the sound of the flails came to her from the barn, she
would watch for the moment when her aunt's back would be turned, and
then scurry across the yard, like a mouse to its hole; for auntie's
first impulse was always to oppose whatever Annie desired. Once in the
barn, she would bury herself like a mole in the straw, and listen to
the unfailing metronome of the flails, till she would fall so fast
asleep as to awake only when her uncomfortable aunt, believing that at
last the awful something or other _had_ happened to the _royt_ lassie,
dragged her out ignominiously by the heels. But the _royt_ lassie was
one of the gentlest of girls, what adventurousness she had being the
result of faith, and not of hardihood.

And then came the delights of the harvest-field--soon to become great
golden splendours to the memory. With the reapers she would remain from
morning till night, sharing in their meals, and lightening their labour
with her gentle frolic. Every day, after the noon-tide meal, she would
go to sleep on the shady side of a _stook_, upon two or three sheaves
which Dowie would lay down for her in a choice spot. Indeed the little
mistress was very fond of sleep, and would go to sleep anywhere; this
habit being indeed one of her aunt's chief grounds of complaint. For
before hay-time, for instance, when the grass was long in the fields,
if she came upon any place that took her fancy, she would tumble down
at once, and show that she loved it by going to sleep upon it. Then it
was no easy task to find her amidst the long grass that closed over
her, as over a bird in its nest. But the fact was, this habit indicated
a feebleness of constitution, to which sleep itself was the best
restorative. And in the harvest-field, at least, no harm could come of
it; for Dooie, as she always called him, watched her like a mother; so
that sometimes when she awoke, she would find a second stook of ten
sheaves, with a high-uplifted crowning pair above, built at right
angles to the first, to shelter her from the sun which had peered round
the corner, and would soon have stared her awake.

The only discomfort of the harvest-field was, that the sharp stubble
forced her to wear shoes. But when the corn had all been carried home,
and the potatoes had been dug up and heaped in warm pits against the
winter, and the mornings and evenings grew cold, and, though still
friendly to strong men and women, were rather too keen for delicate
little Annie--she had to put on both shoes and stockings, which she did
not like at all.

So with "gentle gliding," through a whole winter of ice and snow,
through a whole spring of promises tardily fulfilled, through a summer
of glory, and another autumn of harvest joy, the day drew on when they
must leave the farm. And still to Annie it seemed as far off as ever.






CHAPTER VI.


One lovely evening in October, when the shadows were falling from the
western sun, and the light that made them was as yellow as a marigold,
and a keen little wind was just getting ready to come out and blow the
moment the sun would be out of sight, Annie, who was helping to fasten
up the cows for the night, drawing iron chains round their soft necks,
saw a long shadow coming in at the narrow entrance of the yard. It came
in and in; and was so long in coming in, that she began to feel as if
it was something not quite _cannie_, and to fancy herself frightened.
But, at length, she found that the cause of the great shadow was only a
little man; and that this little man was no other than her father's
cousin, Robert Bruce. Alas! how little a man may cast a great shadow!

He came up to Annie, and addressed her in the smoothest voice he could
find, fumbling at the same time in his coat-pocket.

"Hoo are ye the nicht dawtie? Are ye verra weel? An' hoo's yer auntie?"

He waited for no reply to any of these questions, but went on.

"See what I hae brocht ye frae the chop."

So saying, he put into her hand about half-a-dozen _sweeties_, screwed
up in a bit of paper. With this gift he left her, and walked on to the
open door of the house, which, as a cousin, he considered himself
privileged to enter unannounced even by a knock. He found the mistress
of it in the kitchen, superintending the cooking of the supper.

"Hoo are ye the nicht, Marget?" he said, still in a tone of
conciliatory smoothness, through which, however, he could not prevent a
certain hardness from cropping out plentifully. "Ye're busy as usual, I
see. Weel, the hand o' the diligent maketh rich, ye ken."

"That portion o' the Word maun be o' leemited application, I doot,"
returned Marget, as, withdrawing her hand from her cousin's, she turned
again to the pot hanging over the fire. "No man daurs to say that my
han' has not been the han' o' the diligent; but Guid kens I'm nane the
richer."

"We maunna repine, Marget. Richt or wrang, it's the Lord's will."

"It's easy to you, Robert Bruce, wi' yer siller i' the bank, to speik
that gait til a puir lone body like me, that maun slave for my bread
whan I'm no sae young as I micht be. No that I'm like to dee o' auld
age either."

"I haena sae muckle i' the bank as some folk may think; though what
there is is safe eneuch. But I hae a bonny business doun yonner, and it
micht be better yet. It's jist the land o' Goshen, only it wants a
wheen mair tap-dressin'."

"Tak it frae the bank, than, Robert."

"The bank! said ye, Marget? I canna do that."

"And what for no?"

"'Cause I'm jist like the hens, Marget. Gin they dinna see ae egg i'
the nest, they hae no hert to lay anither. I daurna meddle wi' the
bank."

"Weel, lat sit than; an' lay awa' at yer leisur'. Hoo's the mistress?"

"No that weel, and no that ill. The faimily's rather sair upo' her. But
I canna haud her oot o' the chop for a' that. She's like mysel'--she
wad aye be turnin' a bawbee. But what are ye gaein to do yersel',
Marget?"

"I'm gaein to my uncle and aunt--auld John Peterson and his wife.
They're gey and frail noo, and they want somebody to luik efter them."

"Than ye're weel provided for; Praise be thankit! Marget."

"Ow, ay; nae doot," replied Marget, with bitterness, of which Bruce
took no notice.

"And what's to come o' the bairnie?" pursued he.

"I maun jist get some dacent auld body i' the toon to tak' her in, and
lat her gang to the schuil. It's time. The auld fowk wadna pit up wi'
her a week."

"And what'll that cost ye, Marget?"

"I dinna ken. But the lassie's able to pay for her ain upbringin'."

"It's no far 'at a hunner and fifty'll gang i' thae times, woman. An'
it's a pity to tak frae the prencipal. She'll be merryin' some day."

"Ow, 'deed, maybe. Bairns will be fules."

"Weel, end na ye pit it oot at five per cent., and there wad aye be
something comin' o' 't? That wad be seven pun' ten i' the year, an' the
bairnie micht amaist--no freely but nigh-han'--be broucht up upo'
that."

Margaret lifted her head and looked at him.

"An' wha wad gie five per cent. for her bit siller, whan he can get it
frae the bank, on guid security, for four an' a half?"

"Jist mysel', Marget. The puir orphan has naebody but you and me to
luik till; an' I wad willin'ly do that muckle for her. I'll tell ye
what--I'll gie her five per cent. for her siller; and for the bit
interest, I'll tak her in wi' my ain bairns, an' she s' hae bit and sup
wi' them, an' gang to the school wi' them, and syne--efter a bit--we'll
see what comes neist."

To Margaret this seemed a very fair offer. It was known to all that the
Bruce children were well-enough dressed for their station, and looked
well-fed; and although Robert had the character of being somewhat mean,
she did not regard that as the worst possible fault, or one likely to
operate for the injury of the child. So she told her cousin that she
would think about it; which was quite as much as he could have
expected. He took his leave all but satisfied that he had carried his
point, and not a little uplifted with his prospects.

For was it not a point worth carrying--to get both the money and the
owner of it into his own hands? Not that he meant conscious dishonesty
to Annie. He only rejoiced to think that he would thus satisfy any
expectations that the public might have formed of him, and would enjoy
besides a splendid increase of capital for his business; while he hoped
to keep the girl upon less than the interest would come to. And then,
if anything should happen to her--seeing she was not over vigorous--the
result was worth waiting for; whereas--if she throve--he had sons
growing up, one of whom might take a fancy to the heiress, and would
have facilities for marrying her, &c. &c.; for Grocer Robert was as
deep in his foresight and scheming as King Robert, the crowning triumph
of whose intellect, in the eyes of his descendant, was the strewing of
the caltrops on the field of Bannockburn.

But James Dow was _ill-pleased_ when he heard of the arrangement--which
was completed in due time. "For," said he, "I canna bide that Bruce.
He's a naisty mean cratur. He wadna fling a bane till a dog, afore he
had ta'en a pyke at it himsel'." He agreed, however, with his mistress,
that it would be better to keep Annie in ignorance of her destiny as
long as possible; a consideration which sprung from the fact that her
aunt, now that she was on the eve of parting with her, felt a little
delicate growth of tenderness sprouting over the old stone wall of her
affection for the child, owing its birth, in part, to the doubt whether
she would be comfortable in her new home.






CHAPTER VII.


A day that is fifty years off comes as certainly as if it had been in
the next week; and Annie's feeling of infinite duration did not stop
the sand-glass of Old Time. The day arrived when everything was to be
sold by public _roup_. A great company of friends, neighbours, and
acquaintances gathered; and much drinking of whisky-punch went on in
the kitchen as well as in the room where, a few months before, the
solemn funeral-assembly had met.

Little Annie speedily understood what all the bustle meant: that the
day of desolation so long foretold by the Cassandra-croak of her aunt,
had at length actually arrived, and that all the things she knew so
well were vanishing from her sight for ever.

She was in the barn when the sound of the auctioneer's voice in the
corn-yard made her look over the half-door and listen. Gradually the
truth dawned upon her; and she burst into tears over an old rake which
she had been accustomed to call hers, because she had always dragged it
at hay-making. Then wiping her eyes hastily--for, partly from her
aunt's hardness, she never could bear to be seen crying, even when a
child--she fled to Brownie's stall, and burying herself in the manger,
began weeping afresh. After a while, the fountain of tears was for the
time exhausted, and she sat disconsolately gazing at the old cow
feeding away, as if food were everything and a _roup_ nothing at all,
when footsteps approached the _byre_, and, to her dismay, two men, whom
she did not know, came in, untied Brownie, and actually led her away
from before her eyes. She still stared at the empty space where Brownie
had stood,--stared like a creature stranded by night on the low coast
of Death, before whose eyes in the morning the sea of Life is visibly
ebbing away. At last she started up. How could she sit there without
Brownie! Sobbing so that she could not breathe, she rushed across the
yard, into the crowded and desecrated house, and up the stair to her
own little room, where she threw herself on the bed, buried her eyes in
the pillow, and, overcome with grief, fell fast asleep.

When she woke in the morning, she remembered nothing of Betty's
undressing and putting her to bed. The dreadful day that was gone
seemed only a dreadful dream, that had left a pain behind it. But when
she went out, she found that yesterday would not stay amongst her
dreams. Brownie's stall was empty. The horses were all gone, and many
of the cattle. Those that remained looked like creatures forgotten. The
pigs were gone, and most of the poultry. Two or three favourite hens
were left, which auntie was going to take with her. But of all the
living creatures she had loved, not one had been kept for Annie. Her
life grew bitter with the bitterness of death.

In the afternoon, her aunt came up to her room, where she sat in
tearful silence, and telling her that she was going to take her into
the town, proceeded, without further explanation, to put all her little
personal effects into an old hair-trunk, which Annie called her own.
Along with some trifles that lay about the room, she threw into the
bottom of the box about a dozen of old books, which had been on the
chest of drawers since long before Annie could remember. She, poor
child, let her do as she pleased, and asked no questions; for the
shadow in which she stood was darkening, and she did not care what came
next. For an hour the box stood on the floor like a coffin, and then
Betty came, with red eyes and a red nose, and carried it downstairs.
Then auntie came up again, dressed in her Sunday clothes. She put on
Annie's best frock and bonnet--adorning the victim for sacrifice--at
least, so Annie's face would have suggested--and led her down to the
door. There stood a horse and cart. In the cart was some straw, and a
sack stuffed with hay. As auntie was getting into the cart, Betty
rushed out from somewhere upon Annie, caught her up, kissed her in a
vehement and disorderly manner, and before her mistress could turn
round in the cart, gave her into James Dow's arms, and vanished with
strange sounds of choking. Dowie thought to put her in with a kiss, for
he dared not speak; but Annie's arms went round his neck, and she clung
to him sobbing--clung till she roused the indignation of auntie, at the
first sound of whose voice, Dowie was free, and Annie lying in the
cart, with her face buried in the straw. Dowie then mounted in front,
with his feet on the shaft; the horse--one Annie did not know--started
off gently; and she was borne away helpless to meet the unknown.

And the road was like the going. She had often been upon it before, but
it had never looked as it did now. The first half-mile went through
fields whose crops were gone. The stubble was sticking through the
grass, and the potato stalks, which ought to have been gathered and
burnt, lay scattered about all over the brown earth. Then came two
miles of moorland country, high, and bleak, and barren, with hillocks
of peat in all directions, standing beside the black holes whence they
had been dug. These holes were full of dark water, frightful to look
at; while along the side of the road went deep black ditches half-full
of the same dark water. There was no danger of the cart getting into
them, for the ruts were too deep to let the wheels out; but it jolted
so dreadfully from side to side, as it crawled along, that Annie was
afraid every other moment of being tilted into one of the frightful
pools. Across the waste floated now and then the cry of a bird, but
other sound there was none in this land of drearihead. Next came some
scattered and ragged fields, the skirts of cultivation, which seemed to
draw closer and closer together, while the soil grew richer and more
hopeful, till, after two miles more, they entered the first straggling
precincts of the grey market-town.

By this time the stars were shining clear in the cold, frosty sky, and
candles or train-oil lamps were burning in most of the houses; for all
these things took place long before gas had been heard of in those
quarters. A few faces were pressed close to the window-panes as the
cart passed; and some rather untidy women came to the house-doors to
look. And they spoke one to another words which, though inaudible
through the noise of the cart, were yet intelligible enough to Annie,
with her own forebodings to interpret the expression of their faces.

"That'll be little Annie Anderson," they said. "She's gaein hame to
bide wi' her cousin, Robert Bruce, up i' the Wast Wynd. Puir wee
lassie!"

For, on the way, Annie had been informed of her destination.

But she was too miserable already, because of leaving her old home, to
care much to what new one she was going. Had it not been for the
absorption of this grief, she could not have been indifferent to the
prospect of going to live with her cousin, although her dislike to him
had never assumed a more active form than that of wishing to get away
from him, as often as he came near her.

The cart stopped at Bruce's shop-door. It looked a heavy door, although
the upper half was of glass--in small panes. Dowie got down and went
into the shop; and before he returned Annie had time to make some
listless observations. The house was a low one, although of two
stories, built of grey stone, and thatched. The heavy door was between
two windows belonging to the shop, in each of which burned a single
tallow candle, revealing to the gaze of Annie, in all the enhancing
mystery of candlelight, what she could not but regard as a perfect mine
of treasures. For besides calico and sugar, and all the multifarious
stock in the combined trades of draper and grocer, Robert Bruce sold
penny toys, and halfpenny picture-books, and all kinds of confectionery
which had been as yet revealed to the belated generations of Glamerton.

But she had not to contemplate these wonders long from the outside; for
Bruce came to the door, and, having greeted his cousin and helped her
down, turned to take Annie. Dowie had been before him, however, and now
held the pale child silent in his arms. He carried her into the shop,
and set her down on a sack that stood outside the counter, leaning
against it. He then went back to his horse's head.

The sack made no bad seat, for it was half-full of turnip-seed; and
upon it Annie sat, and drearily surveyed the circumstances.

Auntie was standing in the middle of the shop. Bruce was holding the
counter open, and inviting her to enter.

"Ye'll come in and tak a cup o' tay, efter yer journey, Marget?" said
he.

"Na, I thank ye, Robert Bruce. Jeames and I maun jist turn and gae hame
again. There's a hantle to look efter yet, and we maunna neglec' oor
wark. The hoose-gear's a' to be roupit the morn."

Then turning to Annie, she said:

"Noo, Annie, lass, ye'll be a guid bairn, and do as ye're tell't. An'
min' and no pyke the things i' the chop."

A smile of peculiar import glimmered over Bruce's face at the sound of
this injunction. Annie made no reply, but stared at Mr Bruce, and sat
staring.

"Good-bye to ye, Annie!" said her aunt, and roused her a little from
her stupor.

She then gave her a kiss--the first, as far as the child knew, that she
had ever given her--and went out. Bruce followed her out, and Dowie
came in. He took her up in his arms, and said:

"Good-bye to ye, my bonnie bairn. Be a guid lass, and ye'll be ta'en
care o'. Dinna forget that. Min' and say yer prayers."

Annie kissed him with all her heart, but could not reply. He set her
down again, and went out. She heard the harness rattle, and the cart go
off. She was left sitting on the sack.

Presently Mr Bruce came in, and passing behind his counter, proceeded
to make an entry in a book. It could have been no order from poor,
homeless Margaret. It was, in fact, a memorandum of the day and the
hour when Annie was set down on that same sack--so methodical was he!
And yet it was some time before he seemed to awake to the remembrance
of the presence of the child. Looking up suddenly at the pale, weary
thing, as she sat with her legs hanging lifelessly down the side of the
sack, he said--pretending to have forgotten her--

"Ow, bairn, are ye there yet?"

And going round to her, he set her on the floor, and leading her by the
hand through the mysterious gate of the counter, and through a door
behind it, called in a sharp decided tone:

"Mother, ye're wanted!"

Thereupon a tall, thin, anxious-looking woman appeared, wiping her
hands in her apron.

"This is little Miss Anderson," said Bruce, "come to bide wi's. Gie her
a biscuit, and tak' her up the stair till her bed."

As it was the first, so it was the last time he called her _Miss_
Anderson, at least while she was one of his household.--Mrs Bruce took
Annie by the hand in silence, and led her up two narrow stairs, into a
small room with a skylight. There, by the shine of the far-off stars,
she undressed her. But she forgot the biscuit; and, for the first time
in her life, Annie went supperless to bed.

She lay for a while trying to fancy herself in Brownie's stall among
the grass and clover, and so get rid of the vague fear she felt at
being in a strange place without light, for she found it unpleasant not
to know what was next her in the dark. But the fate of Brownie and of
everything she had loved came back upon her; and the sorrow drove away
the fear, and she cried till she could cry no longer, and then she
slept. It is by means of sorrow, sometimes, that He gives his beloved
sleep.






CHAPTER VIII.


She woke early, rose, and dressed herself. But there was no water for
her to wash with, and she crept down-stairs to look for help in this
her first need. Nobody, however, was awake. She looked long and
wistfully at the house-door, but seeing that she could not open it, she
went back to her room. If she had been at home, she would soon have had
a joyous good-morrow from the burst of fresh wind meeting her as she
lifted the ready latch, to seek the companionship of yet earlier risers
than herself; but now she was as lonely as if she had anticipated the
hour of the resurrection, and was the little only one up of the buried
millions. All that she had left of that home was her box, and she would
have betaken herself to a desolate brooding over its contents; but it
had not been brought up, and neither could she carry it up herself, nor
would she open it in the kitchen where it stood. So she sat down on the
side of her bed, and gazed round the room. It was a cheerless room. At
home she had had chequered curtains to her bed: here there were none of
any kind; and her eyes rested on nothing but bare rafters and boards.
And there were holes in the roof and round the floor, which she did not
like. They were not large, but they were dreadful. For they were black,
nor did she know where they might go to. And she grew very cold.

At length she heard some noise in the house, and in her present mood
any human noise was a sound of deliverance. It grew; was presently
enriched by the admixture of baby-screams, and the sound of the
shop-shutters being taken down; and at last footsteps approached her
door. Mrs Bruce entered, and finding her sitting dressed on her bed,
exclaimed:

"Ow! ye call dress yersel! can ye?"

"Ay, weel that," answered Annie, as cheerily as she could. "But," she
added, "I want some water to wash mysel' wi'."

"Come doon to the pump, than," said Mrs Bruce.

Annie followed her to the pump, where she washed in a tub. She then ran
dripping into the house for a towel, and was dried by the hands of Mrs
Bruce in her dirty apron.--This mode of washing lasted till the first
hoar-frost, after which there was a basin to be had in the kitchen,
with plenty of water and not much soap.

By this time breakfast was nearly ready, and in a few minutes more, Mrs
Bruce called Mr Bruce from the shop, and the children from the yard,
and they all sat round the table in the kitchen--Mr Bruce to his tea
and oat-cake and butter--Mrs Bruce and the children to badly-made
oatmeal porridge and sky-blue milk. This quality of the milk was
remarkable, seeing they had cows of their own. But then they sold milk.
And if any customer had accused her of watering it, Mrs Bruce's best
answer would have been to show how much better what she sold was than
what she retained; for she put twice as much water in what she used for
her own family--with the exception of the portion destined for her
husband's tea, whose two graces were long and strong enough for a
better breakfast. But then his own was good enough.

There were three children, two boys with great jaws--the elder rather
older than Annie--and a very little baby. After Mr Bruce had prayed for
the blessing of the Holy Spirit upon their food, they gobbled down
their breakfasts with all noises except articulate ones. When they had
finished--that is, eaten everything up--the Bible was brought; a psalm
was sung, after a fashion not very extraordinary to the ears of Annie,
or, indeed, of any one brought up in Scotland; a chapter was read--it
happened to tell the story of Jacob's speculations in the money-market
of his day and generation; and the _exercise_ concluded with a prayer
of a quarter of an hour, in which the God of Jacob especially was
invoked to bless the Bruces, His servants, in their basket and in their
store, and to prosper the labours of that day in particular. The prayer
would have been longer, but for the click of the latch of the
shop-door, which brought it to a speedier close than one might have
supposed even Mr Bruce's notions of decency would have permitted. And
almost before the _Amen_ was out of his month, he was out of the
kitchen.

When he had served the early customer, he returned, and sitting down,
drew Annie towards him--between his knees, in fact, and addressed her
with great solemnity.

"Noo, Annie," said he, "ye s' get the day to play yersel'; but ye maun
gang to the school the morn. We can hae no idle fowk i' this hoose, sae
we maun hae nae words aboot it."

Annie was not one to make words about that or anything. She was only
too glad to get away from him. Indeed the prospect of school, after
what she had seen of the economy of her home, was rather enticing. So
she only answered,

"Verra weel, sir. Will I gang the day?"

Whereupon, finding her so tractable, Mr Bruce added, in the tone of one
conferring a great favour, and knowing that he did so,

"Ye can come into the shop for the day, and see what's gaein on. Whan
ye're a muckle woman, ye may be fit to stan' ahin' the coonter some day
yersel'--wha kens?"

Robert Bruce regarded the shop as his Bannockburn, where all his
enemies, namely customers, were to be defeated, that he might be
enriched with their spoils. It was, therefore, a place of so great
interest in his eyes, that he thought it must be interesting to
everybody else. And, indeed, the permission did awake some ill-grounded
expectations in the mind of Annie.

She followed him into the shop, and saw quite a fabulous wealth of good
things around her; of which, however, lest she should put forth her
hand and take, the militant eyes of Robert Bruce never ceased watching
her, with quick-recurring glances, even while he was cajoling some
customer into a doubtful purchase.

Long before dinner-time arrived, she was heartily sick of the monotony
of buying and selling in which she had no share. Not even a
picture-book was taken down from the window for her to look at; so that
she soon ceased to admire even the picture-books--a natural result of
the conviction that they belonged to a sphere above her reach. Mr
Bruce, on the other hand, looked upon them as far below the notice of
his children, although he derived a keen enjoyment from the
transference, by their allurements, of the half-pence of other children
from their pockets into his till.

"Naisty trash o' lees," he remarked, apparently for Annie's behoof, as
he hung the fresh bait up in his window, after two little urchins, with
_bawbees_ to spend, had bought a couple of the radiant results of
literature and art combined. "Naisty trash o' lees--only fit for dirrty
laddies and lassies."

He stood on the watch in his shop like a great spider that ate
children; and his windows were his web.

They dined off salt herrings and potatoes--much better fare than bad
porridge and watered milk. Robert Bruce the younger, who inherited his
father's name and disposition, made faces at Annie across the table as
often as he judged it prudent to run the risk of discovery; but Annie
was too stupefied with the awful change to mind it much, and indeed
required all the attention she had at command, for the arrest of
herring bones on their way to her throat.

After dinner, business was resumed in the shop, with at least the
resemblance of an increase of vigour, for Mrs Bruce went behind the
counter, and gave her husband time to sit down at the desk to write
letters and make out bills. Not that there was much of either sort of
clerkship necessary; but Bruce, like Chaucer's Man of Law, was so fond
of business, that he liked to seem busier than he was. As it happened
to be a half-holiday, Annie was sent with the rest of the children into
the garden to play up and down the walks.

"An' min'," said Bruce, "an' haud oot ower frae the dog."

In the garden Annie soon found herself at the mercy of those who had
none.

It is marvellous what an amount of latent torment there is in boys,
ready to come out the moment an object presents itself. It is not
exactly cruelty. The child that tears the fly to pieces does not
represent to himself the sufferings the insect undergoes; he merely
yields to an impulse to disintegrate. So children, even ordinarily good
children, are ready to tease any child who simply looks teasable, and
so provokes the act. Now the Bruces were not good children, as was
natural; and they despised Annie because she was a girl, and because
she had no self-assertion. If she had shown herself aggressively
disagreeable, they would have made some attempt to conciliate her; but
as it was, she became at once the object of a succession of spiteful
annoyances, varying in intensity with the fluctuating invention of the
two boys. At one time they satisfied themselves with making grimaces of
as insulting a character as they could produce; at another they rose to
the rubbing of her face with dirt, or the tripping up of her heels.
Their persecution bewildered her, and the resulting stupefaction was a
kind of support to her for a time; but at last she could endure it no
longer, being really hurt by a fall, and ran crying into the shop,
where she sobbed out,

"Please, sir, they winna lat me be."

"Dinna come into the chop wi' yer stories. Mak' it up amo' yersels."

"But they winna mak' it up."

Robert Bruce rose indignant at such an interruption of his high
calling, and went out with the assumption of much parental grandeur. He
was instantly greeted with a torrent of assurances that Annie had
fallen, and then laid the blame upon them; whereupon he turned sternly
to her, and said--

"Annie, gin ye tell lees, ye'll go to hell."

But paternal partiality did not prevent him from reading them also a
lesson, though of a quite different tone.

"Mind, boys," he said, in a condescending whine, "that poor Annie has
neither father nor mither; an' ye maun be kind till her."

He then turned and left them for the more important concerns
within-doors; and the persecution recommenced, though in a somewhat
mitigated form. The little wretches were perfectly unable to abstain
from indulging in a pleasure of such intensity. Annie had indeed fallen
upon evil days.

I am thus minute in my description of her first day, that my reader,
understanding something similar of many following days, may be able to
give due weight to the influence of other events, when, in due time,
they come to be recorded. But I must not conclude the account without
mentioning something which befell her at the close of the same day, and
threatened to be productive of yet more suffering.

After _worship_, the boys crawled away to bed, half-asleep already; or,
I should rather say, only half-awake from their prayers. Annie
lingered.

"Can ye no tak' aff yer ain claes, as weel as pit them on, Annie?"
asked Mrs Bruce.

"Ay, weel eneuch. Only I wad sair like a bittie o' can'le," was Annie's
trembling reply, for she had a sad foreboding instinct now.

"Can'le! Na, na, bairn," answered Mrs Bruce. "Ye s' get no can'le here.
Ye wad hae the hoose in a low (flame) aboot oor lugs (ears). I canna
affoord can'les. Ye can jist mak' a can'le o' yer han's, and fin (feel)
yer gait up the twa stairs. There's thirteen steps to the firs, and
twal to the neist."

With choking heart, but without reply, Annie went.

Groping her way up the steep ascent, she found her room without any
difficulty. As it was again a clear, starlit night, there was light
enough for her to find everything she wanted; and the trouble at her
heart kept her imagination from being as active as it would otherwise
have been, in recalling the terrible stories of ghosts and dead people
with which she was far too familiar. She soon got into bed, and, as a
precautionary measure, buried her head under the clothes before she
began to say her prayers, which, under the circumstances, she had
thought she might be excused for leaving till she had lain down. But
her prayers were suddenly interrupted by a terrible noise of scrambling
and scratching and scampering in the very room beside her.

"I tried to cry oot," she said afterwards, "for I kent 'at it was
rottans; but my tongue booed i' my mou' for fear, and I cudna speak ae
word."

The child's fear of rats amounted to a frenzied horror. She dared not
move a finger. To get out of bed with those creatures running about the
room was as impossible as it was to cry out. But her heart did what her
tongue could not do--cried out with a great and bitter cry to one who
was more ready to hear than Robert and Nancy Bruce. And what her heart
cried was this:

"O God, tak care o' me frae the rottans."

There was no need to send an angel from heaven in answer to this little
one's prayer: the cat would do. Annie heard a scratch and a mew at the
door. The rats made one frantic scramble and were still.

"It's pussy!" she cried, recovering the voice for joy that had failed
her for fear.

Fortified by her arrival, and still more by the feeling that she was a
divine messenger sent to succour her because she had prayed, she sprang
out of bed, darted across the room, and opened the door to let her in.
A few moments and she was fast asleep, guarded by God's angel, the cat,
for whose entrance she took good care ever after to leave the door
ajar.

There are ways of keeping the door of the mind also, ready as it is to
fall to, ajar for the cat.






CHAPTER IX.


"Noo, Annie, pit on yer bonnet, an' gang to the schuil wi' the lave
(rest); an' be a good girrl."

This was the Bruce's parting address to Annie, before he left the
kitchen for the shop, after breakfast and worship had been duly
observed; and having just risen from his knees, his voice, as he
stooped over the child, retained all the sanctity of its last
occupation. It was a quarter to ten o'clock, and the school was some
five minutes distant.

With a flutter of fearful hope, Annie obeyed. She ran upstairs, made
herself as tidy, as she could, smoothed her hair, put on her bonnet,
and had been waiting a long time at the door when her companions joined
her. It was very exciting to look forward to something that might not
be disagreeable.

As they went, the boys got one on each side of her in a rather sociable
manner. But they had gone half the distance and not a word had been
spoken, when Robert Bruce, junior, opened the conversation abruptly.

"Ye'll get it!" he said, as if he had been brooding upon the fact for
some time, and now it had broken out.

"What'll I get?" asked Annie timidly, for his tone had already filled
her with apprehension.

"Sic lickins," answered the little wretch, drawing back his lips till
his canine teeth were fully disclosed, as if he gloated in a
carnivorous sort of way over the prospect. "Wonna she, Johnnie?"

"Ay wull she," answered Johnnie, following his leader with confidence.

Annie's heart sank within her. The poor little heart was used to
sinking now. But she said nothing, resolved, if possible, to avoid all
occasion for "getting it."

Not another word was spoken before they reached the school, the door of
which was not yet open. A good many boys and a few girls were
assembled, waiting for the master, and filling the lane, at the end of
which the school stood, with the sound of voices fluctuating through a
very comprehensive scale. In general the school-door was opened a few
minutes before the master's arrival, but on this occasion no one
happened to have gone to his house to fetch the key, and the scholars
had therefore to wait in the street. None of them took any notice of
Annie; so she was left to study the outside of the school. It was a
long, low, thatched building, of one story and a garret, with five
windows to the lane, and some behind, for she could see light through.
It had been a weaving-shop originally, full of hand-looms, when the
trade in linen was more prosperous than it was now. From the thatch
some of the night's frost was already dripping in slow clear drops.
Past the door, which was in a line with the windows, went a gutter, the
waters of which sank through a small grating a few steps further on.
But there was no water running in it now.

Suddenly a boy cried out: "The maister's comin'!" and instantly the
noise sunk to a low murmur. Looking up the lane, which rose
considerably towards the other end, Annie saw the figure of the
descending dominie. He was dressed in what seemed to be black, but was
in reality gray, almost as good as black, and much more thrifty. He
came down the hill swinging his arms, like opposing pendulums, in a
manner that made the rapid pace at which he approached like a long slow
trot. With the door-key in his hand, already pointed towards the
key-hole, he went right through the little crowd, which cleared a wide
path for him, without word or gesture of greeting on either side. I
might almost say he swooped upon the door, for with one hand on the
key, and the other on the latch, he seemed to wrench it open the moment
he touched it. In he strode, followed at the heels by the troop of
boys, big and little, and lastly by the girls--last of all, at a short
distance, by Annie, like a motherless lamb that followed the flock,
because she did not know what else to do. She found she had to go down
a step into a sunk passage or lobby, and then up another step, through
a door on the left, into the school. There she saw a double row of
desks, with a clear space down the middle between the rows. Each
scholar was hurrying to his place at one of the desks, where, as he
arrived, he stood. The master already stood in solemn posture at the
nearer end of the room on a platform behind his desk, prepared to
commence the extempore prayer, which was printed in a kind of blotted
stereotype upon every one of their brains. Annie had hardly succeeded
in reaching a vacant place among the girls when he began. The boys were
as still as death while the master prayed; but a spectator might easily
have discovered that the chief good some of them got from the ceremony
was a perfect command of the organs of sound; for the restraint was
limited to those organs; and projected tongues, deprived of their
natural exercise, turned themselves, along with winking eyes, contorted
features, and a wild use of hands and arms, into the means of
telegraphic despatches to all parts of the room, throughout the
ceremony. The master, afraid of being himself detected in the attempt
to combine prayer and vision, kept his "eyelids screwed together
tight," and played the spy with his ears alone. The boys and girls,
understanding the source of their security perfectly, believed that the
eyelids of the master would keep faith with them, and so disported
themselves without fear in the delights of dumb show.

As soon as the prayer was over they dropped, with no little noise and
bustle, into their seats. But presently Annie was rudely pushed out of
her seat by a hoydenish girl, who, arriving late, had stood outside the
door till the prayer was over, and then entered unperceived during the
subsequent confusion. Some little ones on the opposite form, however,
liking the look of her, and so wishing to have her for a companion,
made room for her beside them. The desks were double, so that the two
rows at each desk faced each other.

"Bible-class come up," were the first words of the master, ringing
through the room, and resounding awfully in Annie's ears.

A moment of chaos followed, during which all the boys and girls,
considered capable of reading the Bible, were arranging themselves in
one great crescent across the room in front of the master's desk. Each
read a verse--neither more nor less--often leaving the half of a
sentence to be taken up as a new subject in a new key; thus perverting
what was intended as an assistance to find the truth into a means of
hiding it--a process constantly repeated, and with far more serious
results, when the words of truth fall, not into the hands of the
incapable, but under the protection of the ambitious.

The chapter that came in its turn was one to be pondered over by the
earnest student of human nature, not one to be blundered over by boys
who had still less reverence for humanity than they had for Scripture.
It was a good thing that they were not the sacred fountains of the New
Testament that were thus dabbled in--not, however, that the latter were
considered at all more precious or worthy; as Saturday and the Shorter
Catechism would show.

Not knowing the will of the master, Annie had not dared to stand up
with the class, although she could read very fairly. A few moments
after it was dismissed she felt herself overshadowed by an awful
presence, and, looking up, saw, as she had expected, the face of the
master bending down over her. He proceeded to question her, but for
some time she was too frightened to give a rational account of her
acquirements, the best of which were certainly not of a kind to be
appreciated by the master, even if she had understood them herself
sufficiently to set them out before him. For, besides her aunt, who had
taught her to read, and nothing more, her only instructors had been
Nature, with her whole staff, including the sun, moon, and wind; the
grass, the corn, Brownie the cow, and her own faithful subject, Dowie.
Still, it was a great mortification to her to be put into the
spelling-book, which excluded her from the Bible-class. She was also
condemned to follow with an uncut quill, over and over again, a single
straight stroke, set her by the master. Dreadfully dreary she found it,
and over it she fell fast asleep. Her head dropped on her outstretched
arm, and the quill dropped from her sleeping fingers--for when Annie
slept she all slept. But she was soon roused by the voice of the
master. "Ann Anderson!" it called in a burst of thunder to her ear; and
she awoke to shame and confusion, amidst the titters of those around
her.

Before the morning was over she was called up, along with some children
considerably younger than herself, to read and spell. The master stood
before them, armed with a long, thick strap of horse-hide, prepared by
steeping in brine, black and supple with constant use, and cut into
fingers at one end, which had been hardened in the fire.

Now there was a little pale-faced, delicate-looking boy in the class,
who blundered a good deal. Every time he did so the cruel serpent of
leather went at him, coiling round his legs with a sudden, hissing
swash. This made him cry, and his tears blinded him so that he could
not even see the words which he had been unable to read before. But he
still attempted to go on, and still the instrument of torture went
swish-swash round his little thin legs, raising upon them, no doubt,
plentiful blue wales, to be revealed, when he was undressed for the
night, to the indignant eyes of pitying mother or aunt, who would yet
send him back to the school the next morning without fail.

At length either the heart of the master was touched by the sight of
his sufferings and repressed weeping, or he saw that he was compelling
the impossible; for he stayed execution, and passed on to the next, who
was Annie.

It was no wonder that the trembling child, who could read very fairly,
should yet, after such an introduction to the ways of school, fail
utterly in making anything like coherence of the sentence before her.
What she would have done, had she been left to herself, would have been
to take the little boy in her arms and cry too. As it was, she
struggled mightily with her tears, and yet she did not read to much
better purpose than the poor boy, who was still busy wiping his eyes
with his sleeves, alternately, for he never had had a handkerchief. But
being a new-comer, and a girl to boot, and her long frock affording no
facilities for this kind of incentive to learning, she escaped for the
time.

It was a dreadful experience of life, though, that first day at school.
Well might the children have prayed with David--"Let us fall now into
the hand of the Lord, for his mercies are great; and let us not fall
into the hand of man." And well might the children at many another
school respond with a loud _Amen_!

At one o'clock they were dismissed, and went home to dinner, to return
at three.

In the afternoon she was set to make figures on a slate. She made
figures till her back ached. The monotony of this occupation was
relieved only by the sight of the execution of criminal law upon
various offending boys; for, as must be already partially evident, the
master was a hard man, with a severe, if not an altogether cruel
temper, and a quite savage sense of duty. The punishment was mostly in
the form of _pandies_,--blows delivered with varying force, but
generally with the full swing of the _tag_, as it was commonly called,
thrown over the master's shoulder, and brought down with the whole
strength of his powerful right arm upon the outstretched hand of the
culprit. But there were other modes of punishment, of which the
restraints of art would forbid the description, even if it were
possible for any writer to conquer his disgust so far as to attempt it.

Annie shivered and quaked. Once she burst out crying, but managed to
choke her sobs, if she could not hide her tears.

A fine-looking boy, three or four years older than herself, whose open
countenance was set off by masses of dark brown hair, was called up to
receive chastisement, merited or unmerited as the case might be; for
such a disposition as that of Murdoch Malison must have been more than
ordinarily liable to mistake. Justice, according to his idea, consisted
in vengeance. And he was fond of justice. He did not want to punish the
innocent, it is true; but I doubt whether the discovery of a boy's
innocence was not a disappointment to him. Without a word of
expostulation or defence, the boy held out his hand, with his arm at
full length, received four stinging blows upon it, grew very red in the
face, gave a kind of grotesque smile, and returned to his seat with the
suffering hand sent into retirement in his trowsers-pocket. Annie's
admiration of his courage as well as of his looks, though perhaps
unrecognizable as such by herself, may have had its share with her pity
in the tears that followed. Somehow or other, at all events, she made
up her mind to bear more patiently the persecutions of the little
Bruces, and, if ever her turn should come to be punished, as no doubt
it would, whether she deserved it or not, to try to take the whipping
as she had seen Alec Forbes take it. Poor Annie! If it should come to
that--nervous organizations are so different!

At five, the school was dismissed for the day, not without another
extempore prayer. A succession of jubilant shouts arose as the boys
rushed out into the lane. Every day to them was a cycle of strife,
suffering, and deliverance. Birth and death, with the life-struggle
between, were shadowed out in it--with this difference, that the God of
a corrupt Calvinism, in the person of Murdoch Malison, ruled that
world, and not the God revealed in the man Christ Jesus. And most of
them having felt the day more or less a burden, were now going home to
heaven for the night.

Annie, having no home, was amongst the few exceptions. Dispirited and
hopeless--a terrible condition for a child--she wondered how Alec
Forbes could be so merry. But he had had his evil things, and they were
over; while hers were all about her still. She had but one comfort
left--that no one would prevent her from creeping up to her own
desolate garret, which was now the dreary substitute for Brownie's
stall. Thither the persecuting boys were not likely to follow her. And
if the rats were in that garret, so was the cat; or at least the cat
knew the way to it. There she might think in peace about some things
about which she had never before seemed to have occasion to think.






CHAPTER X.


Thus at home, if home it could be called, and at school, Annie's days
passed--as most days pass--with family resemblance and individual
difference wondrously mingled. She became interested in what she had to
learn, if not from the manner in which it was presented to her
comprehension, yet from the fact that she had to learn it. Happily or
unhappily, too, she began to get used to the sight of the penal
suffering of her schoolfellows. Nor had anything of the kind as yet
visited her; for it would have been hard for even a more savage master
than Mr Malison to find occasion, now that the first disabling
influences had passed away, to punish the nervous, delicate, anxious
little orphan, who was so diligent, and as quiet as a mouse that fears
to awake a sleeping cat. She had a scared look too, that might have
moved the heart of Malison even, if he had ever paid the least
attention to the looks of children. For the absence of human
companionship in bestial forms; the loss of green fields, free to her
as to the winds of heaven, and of country sounds and odours; and an
almost constant sense of oppression from the propinquity of one or
another whom she had cause to fear, were speedily working sad effects
upon her. The little colour she had died out of her cheek. Her face
grew thin, and her blue eyes looked wistful and large out of their
sulken cells. Not often were tears to be seen in them now, and yet they
looked well acquainted with tears--like fountains that had been full
yesterday. She never smiled, for there was nothing to make her smile.

But she gained one thing by this desolation: the thought of her dead
father came to her, as it had never come before; and she began to love
him with an intensity she had known nothing of till now. Her mother had
died at her birth, and she had been her father's treasure; but in the
last period of his illness she had seen less of him, and the blank left
by his death had, therefore, come upon her gradually. Before she knew
what it was, she had begun to forget. In the minds of children the
grass grows very quickly over their buried dead. But now she learned
what death meant, or rather what love had been; not, however, as an
added grief: it comforted her to remember how her father had loved her;
and she said her prayers the oftener, because they seemed to go
somewhere near the place where her father was. She did not think of her
father being where God was, but of God being where her father was.

The winter was drawing nearer too, and the days were now short and
cold. A watery time began, and for many days together the rain kept
falling without intermission. I almost think Annie would have died, but
for her dead father to think about. On one of those rainy days,
however, she began to find that it is in the nature of good things to
come in odd ways. It had rained the whole day, not tamely and
drizzingly, but in real earnest, dancing and rebounding from the pools,
and raising a mist by the very "crash of water-drops." Now and then the
school became silent, just to listen to the wide noise made by the busy
cataract of the heavens, each drop a messenger of good, a sweet
returning of earth's aspirations, in the form of Heaven's _Amen_! But
the boys thought only of the fun of dabbling in the torrents as they
went home; or the delights of net-fishing in the swollen and muddy
rivers, when the fish no longer see their way, but go wandering about
in perplexity, just as we human mortals do in a thick fog, whether of
the atmosphere or of circumstance.

The afternoon was waning. It was nearly time to go; and still the rain
was pouring and plashing around. In the gathering gloom there had been
more than the usual amount of wandering from one part of the school to
another, and the elder Bruce had stolen to a form occupied by some
little boys, next to the one on which Annie sat with her back towards
them. If it was not the real object of his expedition, at least he took
the opportunity to give Annie a spiteful dig with his elbow; which,
operating even more powerfully than he had intended, forced from her an
involuntary cry. Now the master indulged in an occasional refinement of
the executive, which consisted in this: he threw the _tawse_ at the
offender, not so much for the sake of hurting--although that, being a
not infrequent result, may be supposed to have had a share in the
intention--as of humiliating; for the culprit had to bear the
instrument of torture back to the hands of the executioner. He threw
the tawse at Annie, half, let us suppose, in thoughtless cruelty, half
in evil jest. It struck her rather sharply, before she had recovered
breath after the blow Bruce had given her. Ready to faint with pain and
terror, she rose, pale as death, and staggered up to the master,
carrying the tawse with something of the same horror she would have
felt had it been a snake. With a grim smile, he sent her back to her
seat. The moment she reached it her self-control gave way, and she
burst into despairing, though silent tears. The desk was still shaking
with her sobs, and some of the girls were still laughing at her grief,
when a new occurrence attracted their attention. Through the noise of
the falling rain a still louder rushing of water was heard, and the
ears and eyes of all sought the source of the sound. Even Annie turned
her wet cheeks and overflowing eyes languidly towards the door. Mr
Malison went and opened it. A flood of brown water was pouring into the
sunk passage already described. The grating by which the rain-torrent
that flowed past the door should have escaped, had got choked, the
stream had been dammed back, and in a few moments more the room itself
would be flooded. Perceiving this, the master hastily dismissed his
pupils.

There could be no better fun for most of the boys and some of the
girls, than to wade through the dirty water. Many of the boys dashed
through it at once, shoes and all; but some of the boys, and almost all
the girls, took off their shoes and stockings. When Annie got a peep of
the water, writhing and tumbling in the passage, it looked so ugly,
that she shrunk from fording it, especially if she must go in with her
bare feet. She could not tell what might be sweeping about in that
filthy whirlpool. She was still looking at it as it kept rising, in
pale perplexity and dismay, with the forgotten tears still creeping
down her checks, when she was caught up from behind by a boy, who, with
his shoes and stockings in one hand, now seated her on the other arm.
She peeped timidly round to see who it was, and the brave brown eyes of
Alec Forbes met hers, lighted by a kind, pitying smile. In that smile
the cloudy sky of the universe gently opened, and the face of God
looked out upon Annie. It gave her, for the moment, all that she had
been dying for want of for many weeks--weeks long as years. She could
not help it--she threw her arms round Alec Forbes's neck, laid her wet
cheek against his, and sobbed as if her heart would break. She did not
care for the Bruces, or the rats, or even the schoolmaster now. Alec
clasped her tighter, and vowed in his heart that if ever that brute
Malison lifted the tag to her, he would fly at his throat. He would
have carried her all the way home, for she was no great weight; but as
soon as they were out of the house Annie begged him to set her down so
earnestly, that he at once complied, and, bidding her good night, ran
home barefoot through the flooded roads.

The Bruces had gone on with the two umbrellas, one of which, more to
her discomfort than protection, Annie had shared in coming to the
school; so that she was very wet before she got home. But no notice was
taken of the condition she was in; the consequence of which was a
severe cold and cough, which however, were not regarded as any
obstacles to her going to school the next day.

That night she lay awake for a long time, and when at last she fell
asleep, she dreamed that she took Alec Forbes home to see her
father--out the street and the long road; over the black moor, and
through the fields; in at the door of the house, and up the stair to
her father's room, where he lay in bed. And she told him how kind Alec
had been to her, and how happy she was going to be now. And her father
put his hand out of the bed, and laid it on Alec's head, and said:
"Thank ye, Alec for being kind to my poor Annie." And then she cried,
and woke crying--strange tears out of dreamland, half of delicious
sorrow and half of trembling joy.

With what altered feelings she seated herself after the prayer, next
day, and glanced round the room to catch a glimpse of her new friend!
There he was, radiant as usual. He took no notice of her, and she had
not expected that he would. But it was not long before he found out,
now that he was interested in her, that her cousins were by no means
friendly to her; for their seats were not far from the girl's quarter,
and they took every sheltered opportunity of giving her a pinch or a
shove, or of making vile grimaces at her.

In the afternoon, while she was busy over an addition sum which was
more than usually obstinate, Robert came stealthily behind her, and,
licking his hand, watched his opportunity, and rubbed the sum from her
slate. The same moment he received a box on the ear, that no doubt
filled his head with more noises than that of the impact. He yelled
with rage and pain, and, catching sight of the administrator of justice
as he was returning to his seat, bawled out in a tone of fierce
complaint: "Sanny Forbes!"

"Alexander Forbes! come up," responded the voice of the master. Forbes
not being a first-rate scholar, was not a favourite with him, for Mr
Malison had no sense for what was fine in character or disposition. Had
the name been that of one of his better Latin scholars, the cry of
Bruce would most likely have passed unheeded.

"Hold up your hand," he said, without requesting or waiting for an
explanation.

Alec obeyed. Annie gave a smothered shriek, and, tumbling from her
seat, rushed up to the master. When she found herself face to face with
the tyrant, however, not one word could she speak. She opened her
mouth, but throat and tongue refused their offices, and she stood
gasping. The master stared, his arm arrested in act to strike, and his
face turned over his left shoulder, with all the blackness of his anger
at Forbes lowering upon Annie. He stood thus for one awful moment, then
motioning her aside with a sweep of his head, brought down the tawse
upon the hand which Alec had continued to hold outstretched, with the
vehemence of accumulated wrath. Annie gave a choking cry, and Alec, so
violent was the pain, involuntarily withdrew his hand. But instantly,
ashamed of his weakness, he presented it again, and received the
remainder of his punishment without flinching. The master then turned
to Annie; and finding her still speechless, gave her a push that nearly
threw her on her face, and said,

"Go to your seat, Ann Anderson. The next time you do that I will punish
you severely."

Annie sat down, and neither sobbed nor cried. But it was days before
she recovered from the shock. Once, long after, when she was reading
about the smothering of the princes in the Tower, the whole of the
physical sensations of those terrible moments returned upon her, and
she sprang from her seat in a choking agony.






CHAPTER XI.


For some time neither of the Bruces ventured even to make a wry face at
her in school; but their behaviour to her at home was only so much the
worse.

Two days after the events recorded, as Annie was leaving the kitchen,
after worship, to go up to bed, Mr Bruce called her.

"Annie Anderson," he said, "I want to speak to ye."

Annie turned, trembling.

"I see ye ken what it's aboot," he went on, staring her full in the
pale face, which grew paler as he stared. "Ye canna luik me i' the
face. Whaur's the candy-sugar an' the prunes? I ken weel eneuch whaur
they are, and sae do ye."

"I ken naething aboot them," answered Annie, with a sudden revival of
energy.

"Dinna lee, Annie. It's ill eneuch to steal, without leein'."

"I'm no leein'," answered she, bursting into tears of indignation. "Wha
said 'at I took them?"

"That's naething to the pint. Ye wadna greit that gait gin ye war
innocent. I never missed onything afore. And ye ken weel eneuch there's
an ee that sees a' thing, and ye canna hide frae hit."

Bruce could hardly have intended that it was by inspiration from on
high that he had discovered the thief of his sweets. But he thought it
better to avoid mentioning that the informer was his own son Johnnie.
Johnnie, on his part, had thought it better not to mention that he had
been incited to the act by his brother Robert. And Robert had thought
it better not to mention that he did so partly to shield himself, and
partly out of revenge for the box on the ear which Alec Forbes had
given him. The information had been yielded to the inquisition of the
parent, who said with truth that he had never missed anything before;
although I suspect that a course of petty and cautious pilfering had at
length passed the narrow bounds within which it could be concealed from
the lynx eyes inherited from the kingly general. Possibly a bilious
attack, which confined the elder boy to the house for two or three
days, may have had something to do with the theft; but if Bruce had any
suspicions of the sort, he never gave utterance to them.

"I dinna want to hide frae 't," cried Annie. "Guid kens," she went on
in desperation, "that I wadna touch a grain o' saut wantin' leave."

"It's a pity, Annie, that some fowk dinna get their ain share o' Mr
Malison's tards." (_Tards_ was considered a more dignified word than
_tag_.) "I dinna like to lick ye mysel', 'cause ye're ither fowk's
bairn; but I can hardly haud my han's aff o' ye."

It must not be supposed from this speech that Robert Bruce ever
ventured to lay his hands on his own children. He was too much afraid
of their mother, who, perfectly submissive and sympathetic in ordinary,
would have flown into the rage of a hen with chickens if even her own
husband had dared to chastise one of _her_ children. The shop might be
more Robert's than hers, but the children were more hers than Robert's.

Overcome with shame and righteous anger, Annie burst out in the midst
of fresh tears:

"I wish Auntie, wad come an tak me awa'! It's an ill hoose to be in."

These words had a visible effect upon Bruce. He expected a visit from
Marget Anderson within a day or two; and he did not know what the
effect of the representations of Annie might be. The use of her money
had not been secured to him for any lengthened period--Dowie, anxious
to take all precautions for his little mistress, having consulted a
friendly lawyer on the subject, lest she should be left defenceless in
the hands of a man of whose moral qualities Dowie had no exalted
opinion. The sale having turned out better than had been expected, the
sum committed to Bruce was two hundred pounds, to lose which now would
be hardly less than ruin. He thought it better, therefore, not doubting
Annie to be the guilty person, to count the few lumps of sugar he might
lose, as an additional trifle of interest, and not quarrel with his
creditor for extorting it. So with the weak cunning of his kind, he
went to the shop, and bringing back a bit of sugar-candy, about the
size of a pigeon's egg, said to the still weeping child:

"Dinna greit, Annie. I canna bide to see ye greitin'. Gin ye want a
bittie o' sugar ony time, jist tell me, an' dinna gang helpin'
yoursel'. That's a'. Hae."

He thrust the lump into Annie's hand; but she dropped it on the floor
with disgust, and rushed up-stairs to her bed as fast as the darkness
would let her: where, notwithstanding her indignation, she was soon
fast asleep.

Bruce searched for the sugar-candy which she had rejected, until he
found it. He then restored it to the drawer whence he had taken
it--which he could find in the dark with perfect ease--resolving as he
did so, to be more careful in future of offending little Annie
Anderson.

When the day arrived upon which he expected Marget's visit, that being
a Saturday, Bruce was on the watch the whole afternoon. From his
shop-door he could see all along the street, and a good way beyond it;
and being very quick-sighted, he recognized Marget at a great distance
by her shawl, as she sat in a slow-nearing cart.

"Annie!" he called, opening the inner door, as he returned behind the
counter.

Annie, who was up-stairs in her own room, immediately appeared.

"Annie," he said, "rin oot at the back door, and through the yard, and
ower to Laurie Lumley's, and tell him to come ower to me direckly.
Dinna come back withoot him. There's a guid bairn!"

He sent her upon this message, knowing well enough that the man had
gone into the country that day, and that there was no one at his house
who would be likely to know where he had gone. He hoped, therefore,
that she would go and look for him in the town, and so be absent during
her aunt's visit.

"Weel, Marget," he said, with his customary greeting, in which the
foreign oil sought to overcome the home-bred vinegar, "hoo are ye the
day?"

"Ow! nae that ill," answered Marget with a sigh.

"And hoo's Mr and Mistress Peterson?"

"Brawly. Hoo's Annie comin' on?"

"Nae that ill. She's some royt (riotous) jist."

He thought to please her by the remark, because she had been in the
habit of saying so herself. But distance had made Annie dearer; and her
aunt's nose took fire with indignation, as she replied:

"The lassie's weel eneuch. _I_ saw naething o' the sort aboot her. Gin
ye canna guide her, that's _your_ wyte."

Bruce was abashed, but not confounded. He was ready in a moment.

"I never kent ony guid come o' bein' ower sair upo' bairns," said he.
"She's as easy guidit as a coo gaein' hame at nicht, only ye maun jist
lat her ken that ye're there, ye ken."

"Ow! ay," said Marget, a little nonplussed in her turn.

"Wad ye like to see her?"

"What ither did I come for?"

"Weel, I s' gang and luik for her."

He went to the back door, and called aloud: "Annie, yer auntie's here
and wants to see ye."

"She'll be here in a minute," he said to Marget, as he re-entered the
shop.

After a little more desultory conversation, he pretended to be
surprised that she she did not make her appearance, and going once more
to the door, called her name several times. He then pretended to search
for her in the garden and all over the house, and returned with the
news that she was nowhere to be seen.

"She's feared that ye're come to tak her wi' ye, and she's run awa oot
aboot some gait. I'll sen' the laddies to luik for her."

"Na, na, never min'. Gin she disna want to see me, I'm sure I needna
want to see her. I'll awa doon the toon," said Margaret, her face
growing very red as she spoke.

She bustled out of the shop, too angry with Annie to say farewell to
Bruce. She had not gone far, however, before Annie came running out of
a narrow close, almost into her aunt's arms. But there was no refuge
for her there.

"Ye little limmer!" cried Margaret, seizing her by the shoulder, "what
gart ye rin awa'? I dinna want ye, ye brat!"

"I didna rin awa', Auntie."

"Robert Bruce cried on ye to come in, himsel'."

"It wis himsel' that sent me to Laurie Lumley's to tell him to come
till him direckly."

Margaret could not make "head or tail" of it. But as Annie had never
told her a lie, she could not doubt her. So taking time to think about
it, she gave her some rough advice and a smooth penny, and went away on
her errands. She was not long in coming to the conclusion that Bruce
wanted to sunder her and the child; and this offended her so much, that
she did not go near the shop for a long time. Thus Annie was forsaken,
and Bruce had what he wanted.

He needed not have been so full of scheming, though. Annie never said a
word to her aunt about their treatment of her. It is one of the marvels
in the constitution of children, how much they will bear without
complaining. Parents and guardians have no right to suppose that all is
well in the nursery or school-room, merely from the fact that the
children do not complain. Servants and tutors may be cruel, and
children will be silent--partly, I presume, because they forget so
soon.

But vengeance of a sort soon overtook Robert Bruce the younger; for the
evil spirit in him, derived from no such remote ancestor as the king,
would not allow him a long respite from evil-doing, even in school. He
knew Annie better than his father, that she was not likely to complain
of anything, and that the only danger lay in the chance of being
discovered in the deed. One day when the master had left the room to
confer with some visitor at the door, he spied Annie in the act of
tying her shoe. Perceiving, as he believed, at a glance, that Alec
Forbes was totally unobservant, he gave her an ignominious push from
behind, which threw her out on her face in the middle of the floor. But
Alec did catch sight of him in the very deed, was down upon him in a
moment, and, having already proved that a box on the ear was of no
lasting effect, gave him a downright good thrashing. He howled
vigorously, partly from pain, partly in the hope that the same
consequences as before would overtake Forbes; and therefore was still
howling when Mr Malison re-entered.

"Robert Bruce, come up," bawled he, the moment he opened the door.

And Robert Bruce went up, and notwithstanding his protestations,
received a second, and far more painful punishment from the master,
who, perhaps, had been put out of temper by his visitor. But there is
no good in speculating on that or any other possibility in the matter;
for, as far at least as the boys could see, the master had no fixed
principle as to the party on whom the punishment should fall.
Punishment, in his eyes, was perhaps enough in itself. If he was
capable of seeing that _punishment_, as he called it, falling on the
wrong person, was not _punishment_, but only _suffering_, certainly he
had not seen the value of the distinction.

If Bruce howled before, he howled tenfold now, and went home howling.
Annie was sorry for him, and tried to say a word of comfort to him; but
he repelled her advances with hatred and blows. As soon as he reached
the shop he told his father that Forbes had beaten him without his
having even spoken to him, which was as correct as it was untrue, and
that the master had taken Forbes's part, and _licked_ him over again,
of which latter assertion there was proof enough on his person. Robert
the elder was instantly filled with smouldering wrath, and from that
moment hated Alec Forbes. For, like many others of low nature, he had
yet some animal affection for his children, combined with an endless
amount of partisanship on their behalf, which latter gave him a full
right to the national motto of Scotland. Indeed, for nothing in the
world but money, would he have sacrificed what seemed to him their
interests.

A man must learn to love his children, not because they are his, but
because they are _children_, else his love will be scarcely a better
thing at last than the party-spirit of the faithful politician. I doubt
if it will prove even so good a thing.

From this hatred to Alec Forbes came some small consequences at length.
But for the present it found no outlet save in sneers and prophetic
hints of an "ill hinner en'."






CHAPTER XII.


In her inmost heart Annie dedicated herself to the service of Alec
Forbes. Nor was it long before she had an opportunity of helping him.

One Saturday the master made his appearance in black instead of white
stockings, which was regarded by the scholars as a bad omen; and fully
were their prognostications justified, on this occasion, at least. The
joy of the half-holiday for Scotch boys and girls has a terrible weight
laid in the opposite scale--I mean the other half of the day. This
weight, which brings the day pretty much on a level with all other
days, consists in a free use of the Shorter Catechism. This, of course,
made them hate the Catechism, though I am not aware that that was of
any great consequence, or much to be regretted. For my part, I wish the
spiritual engineers who constructed it had, after laying the grandest
foundation-stone that truth could afford them, glorified God by going
no further. Certainly many a man would have enjoyed Him sooner, if it
had not been for their work. But, alas! the Catechism was not enough,
even of the kind. The tormentors of youth had gone further, and
provided what they called Scripture proofs of the various assertions of
the Catechism; a support of which it stood greatly in need. Alas! I
say, for the boys and girls who had to learn these proofs, called texts
of Scripture, but too frequently only morsels torn bleeding and
shapeless from "the lovely form of the Virgin Truth!" For these tasks,
combined with the pains and penalties which accompanied failure, taught
them to dislike the Bible as well as the Catechism, and that was a
matter of altogether different import.

Every Saturday, then, Murdoch Malison's pupils had to learn so many
questions of the Shorter Catechism, with proofs from Scripture; and
whoever failed in this task was condemmed to imprisonment for the
remainder of the day, or, at least, till the task should be
accomplished. The imprisonment was sometimes commuted for
chastisement--or finished off with it, when it did not suit the
convenience of the master to enforce the full term of a school-day.
Upon certain Saturdays, moreover, one in each month, I think, a
repetition was required of all the questions and proofs that had been,
or ought to have been, learned since the last observance of the same
sort.

Now the day in question was one of these of accumulated labour, and
Alec Forbes only succeeded in bringing proof of his inability for the
task, and was in consequence condemned "to be keepit in"--a trial hard
enough for one whose chief delights were the open air and the active
exertion of every bodily power.

Annie caught sight of his mortified countenance, the expression of
which, though she had not heard his doom, so filled her with concern
and indignation, that--her eyes and thoughts fixed upon him, at the
other end of the class--she did not know when her turn came, but
allowed the master to stand before her in bootless expectation. He did
not interrupt her, but with a refinement of cruelty that ought to have
done him credit in his own eyes, waited till the universal silence had
at length aroused Annie to self-consciousness and a sense of
annihilating confusion. Then, with a smile on his thin lips, but a
lowering thunder-cloud on his brow, he repeated the question:

"What doth every sin deserve?"

Annie, bewildered, and burning with shame at finding herself the core
of the silence--feeling is if her poor little spirit stood there naked
to the scoffs and jeers around--could not recall a word of the answer
given in the Catechism. So, in her bewilderment, she fell back on her
common sense and experience, which, she ought to have known, had
nothing to do with the matter in hand.

"What doth every sin deserve?" again repeated the tyrant.

"A lickin'," whimpered Annie, and burst into tears.

The master seemed much inclined to consider her condemned out of her
own mouth, and give her a whipping at once; for it argued more than
ignorance to answer _a whipping_, instead of _the wrath and curse of
God_, &c., &c., as plainly set down in the Scotch Targum. But
reflecting, perhaps, that she was a girl, and a little one, and that
although it would be more gratification to him to whip her, it might be
equal suffering to her to be _kept in_, he gave that side wave of his
head which sealed the culprit's doom, and Annie took her place among
the condemned, with a flutter of joy at her heart that Alec Forbes
would not be left without a servant to wait upon him. A few more boys
made up the unfortunate party, but they were all little ones, and so
there was no companion for Forbes, who evidently felt the added
degradation of being alone. The hour arrived; the school was dismissed;
the master strode out, locking the door behind him; and the defaulters
were left alone, to chew the bitter cud of ill-cooked Theology.

For some time a dreary silence reigned. Alec sat with his elbows on his
desk, biting his nails, and gnawing his hands. Annie sat dividing her
silent attention between her book and Alec. The other boys were, or
seemed to be, busy with their catechisms, in the hope of getting out as
soon as the master returned. At length Alec took out his knife, and
began, for very vacancy, to whittle away at the desk before him. When
Annie saw that, she crept across to his form, and sat down on the end
of it. Alec looked up at her, smiled, and went on with his whittling.
Annie slid a little nearer to him, and asked him to hear her say her
catechism. He consented, and she repeated the lesson perfectly.

"Now let me hear you, Alec," she said.

"Na, thank ye, Annie. I canna say't. And I wonna say't for a' the
dominies in creation."

"But he'll lick ye, Alec; an' I 'canna bide it," said Annie, the tears
beginning to fill her eyes.

"Weel, I'll try--to please you, Annie," said Alec, seeing that the
little thing was in earnest.

How her heart bounded with delight! That great boy, so strong and so
brave, trying to learn a lesson to please her!

But it would not do.

"I canna min' a word o' 't, Annie. I'm dreidfu' hungry, forbye. I was
in a hurry wi' my brakfast the day. Gin I had kent what was comin', I
wad hae laid in a better stock," he added, laughing rather drearily.

As he spoke he looked up; and his eyes wandered from one window to
another for a few moments after he had ceased speaking.

"Na; it's no use," he resumed at last. "I hae eaten ower muckle for
that, ony gait."

Annie was as pitiful over Alec's hunger as any mother over her child's.
She felt it pure injustice that he should ever be hungry. But, unable
to devise any help, she could only say,

"I dinna ken what ye mean, Alec."

"Whan I was na bigger than you, Annie, I could win oot at a less hole
than that," answered he, and pointed to the open wooden pane in an
upper corner of one the windows; "but I hae eaten ower muckle sin
syne."

And he laughed again; but it was again an unsuccessful laugh.

Annie sprang to her feet.

"Gin ye could win throu that hole ance, I can win throu't noo, Alec.
Jist haud me up a bit. Ye _can_ lift me, ye ken."

And she looked up at him shyly and gratefully.

"But what will ye do when ye _are_ oot, Annie?"

"Rin hame, and fess a loaf wi' me direckly."

"But Rob Bruce'll see yer heid atween yer feet afore he'll gie ye a
loaf, or a mou'fu' o' cakes either; an' it's ower far to rin to my
mither's. Murdoch wad be back lang or that."

"Jist help me oot, an' lea' the lave to me," said Annie, confidently.
"Gin I dinna fess a loaf o' white breid, never lippen (trust) to me
again."

The idea of the bread, always a rarity and consequent delicacy to
Scotch country boys, so early in the century as the date of my story,
was too much for Alec's imagination. He jumped up, and put his head out
of one of those open panes to reconnoitre. He saw a woman approaching
whom he knew.

"I say, Lizzie," he called.

The woman stopped.

"What's yer wull, Maister Alec?"

"Jist stan' there an' pu' this lassie oot. We're a' keepit in
thegither, and nearhan' hungert."

"The Lord preserve 's! I'll gang for the key."

"Na, na; _we_ wad hae to pay for that. Tak her oot--that's a' we want."

"He's a coorse crayter--that maister o' yours. I wad gang to see him
hangt."

"Bide a wee; that'll come in guid time," said Alec,
pseudo-prophetically.

"Weel I s' hae a pu' at the legs o' him, to help him to jeedgement; for
he'll be the deith o' ane or twa o' ye afore lang."

"Never min' Murder Malison. Will ye tak oot the bit lassie?"

"Od will I! Whaur is she?"

Alec jumped down and held her up to the open pane, not a foot square.
He told her to put her arms through first. Then between them they got
her head through, whereupon Lizzie caught hold of her--so low was the
school-room--and dragged her out, and set her on her feet. But alas, a
window was broken in the process!

"Noo, Annie," cried Alec, "never min' the window. Rin."

She was off like a live bullet.

She scampered home prepared to encounter all dangers. The worst of them
all to her mind was the danger of not succeeding, and of so breaking
faith with Alec. She had sixpence of her own in coppers in her
box,--the only difficulty was to get into the house and out again
without being seen. By employing the utmost care and circumspection,
she got in by the back or house door unperceived, and so up to her
room. In a moment more the six pennies were in her hand, and she in the
street; for she did not use the same amount of precaution in getting
out again, not minding discovery so much now, if she could only have a
fair start. No one followed her, however. She bolted into a baker's
shop.

"A saxpenny-loaf," she panted out.

"Wha wants it?" asked the baker's wife.

"There's the bawbees," answered Annie, laying them on the counter.

The baker's wife gave her the loaf, with the biscuit which, from time
immemorial, had always graced a purchase to the amount of sixpence; and
Annie sped back to the school like a runaway horse to his stable.

As she approached, out popped the head of Alec Forbes. He had been
listening for the sound of her feet. She held up the loaf as high as
she could, and he stretched down as low as he could, and so their hands
met on the loaf.

"Thank ye, Annie," said Alec with earnestness. "I shanna forget this.
Hoo got ye't?"

"Never ye min' that. I didna steal't," answered Annie. "But I maun win
in again," she added, suddenly awaking to that difficult necessity, and
looking up at the window above her head.

"I'm a predestined idiot!" said Alec, with an impious allusion to the
Shorter Catechism, as he scratched his helpless head. "I never thocht
o' that."

It was clearly impossible.

"Ye'll catch't," said one of the urchins to Annie, with his nose
flattened against the window.

The roses of Annie's face turned pale, but she answered stoutly,

"Weel! I care as little as the lave o' ye, I'm thinkin'."

By this time the "idiot" had made up his mind. He never could make up
any other than a bull-headed mind.

"Rin hame, Annie," he said; "and gin Murder offers to lay a finger o'
ye upo' Monday, _I'll_ murder him. Faith! I'll kill him. Rin hame afore
he comes and catches ye at the window."

"No, no, Alec," pleaded Annie.

"Haud yer tongue," interrupted Alec, "and rin, will ye?"

Seeing he was quite determined, Annie, though loath to leave him, and
in terror of what was implied in the threats he uttered against the
master and might be involved in the execution of them, obeyed him and
walked leisurely home, avoiding the quarters in which there was a
chance of meeting her gaoler.

She found that no one had observed her former visit; the only remarks
made being some _goody_ ones about the disgrace of being kept in.

When Mr Malison returned to the school about four o'clock, he found all
quiet as death. The boys appeared totally absorbed in _committing_ the
Shorter Catechism, as if the Shorter Catechism was a sin, which perhaps
it was not. But, to his surprise, which he pretended to be considerably
greater than it really was, the girl was absent.

"Where is Ann Anderson?" were the first words he condescended to utter.

"Gane hame," cried two of the little prisoners.

"Gone home!" echoed the master in a tone of savage incredulity;
although not only was it plain that she was gone, but he must have
known well enough, from former experience, how her escape had been
effected.

"Yes," said Forbes; "it was me made her go. I put her out at the
window. And I broke the window," he added, knowing that it must soon be
found out, "but I'll get it mended on Monday."

Malison turned as white as a sheet with venomous rage. Indeed, the
hopelessness of the situation had made Alec speak with too much
nonchalance.

Anxious to curry favour, the third youngster now called out,

"Sandy Forbes gart her gang an' fess a loaf o' white breid."

Of this bread, the wretched informer had still some of the crumbs
sticking to his jacket--so vitiating is the influence of a reign of
terror. The bread was eaten, and the giver might be betrayed in the
hope of gaining a little favour with the tyrant.

"Alexander Forbes, come up."

Beyond this point I will not here prosecute the narrative.

Alec bore his punishment with great firmness, although there were few
beholders, and none of them worth considering. After he had spent his
wrath, the master allowed them all to depart without further reference
to the Shorter Catechism.






CHAPTER XIII.


The Sunday following was anything but a day of repose for Annie--she
looked with such frightful anticipation to the coming Monday. Nor was
the assurance with which Alec Forbes had sent her away, and which she
was far from forgetting, by any means productive of unmingled
consolation; for, in a conflict with such a power of darkness as Mr
Malison, how could Alec, even if sure to be victorious as any knight of
old story, come off without injury terrible and not to be contemplated!
Yet, strange to tell--or was it really strange?--as she listened to the
evening sermon, a sermon quietly and gently enforcing the fate of the
ungodly, it was not with exultation at the tardy justice that would
overtake such men as Murdock Malison or Robert Bruce, nor yet with pity
for their fate, that she listened; but with anxious heart-aching fear
for her friend, the noble, the generous Alec Forbes, who withstood
authority, and was therefore in danger of hell-fire. About her own
doom, speculation was uninteresting.

The awful morning dawned. When she woke, and the thought of what she
had to meet came back on her, though it could hardly be said to have
been a moment absent all night long, she turned, not metaphorically,
but physically sick. Yet breakfast time would come, and worship did not
fail to follow, and then to school she must go. There all went on as
usual for some time. The Bible-class was called up, heard, and
dismissed; and Annie was beginning to hope that the whole affair was
somehow or other wrapt up and laid by. She had heard nothing of Alec's
fate after she had left him imprisoned, and except a certain stoniness
in his look, which a single glance discovered, his face gave no sign.
She dared not lift her eyes from the spelling-book before her, to look
in the direction of the master. No murderer could have felt more keenly
as if all the universe were one eye, and that eye fixed on him, than
Annie.

Suddenly the awful voice resounded through the school, and the words it
uttered--though even after she heard them it seemed too terrible to be
true--were,

"Ann Anderson, come up."

For a moment she lost consciousness--or at least memory. When she
recovered herself, she found herself standing before the master. His
voice seemed to have left two or three unanswered questions somewhere
in her head. What they were she had no idea. But presently he spoke
again, and, from the tone, what he said was evidently the repetition of
a question--probably put more than once before.

"Did you, or did you not, go out at the window on Saturday?"

She did not see that Alec Forbes had left his seat, and was slowly
lessening the distance between them and him.

"Yes," she answered, trembling from head to foot.

"Did you, or did you not, bring a loaf of bread to those who were kept
in?"

"Yes, sir."

"Where did you get it?"

"I bought it, sir."

"Where did you get the money?"

Of course every eye in the school was fixed upon her, those of her
cousins sparkling with delight.

"I got it oot o' my ain kist, sir."

"Hold up your hand."

Annie obeyed, with a most pathetic dumb terror pleading in her face.

"Don't touch her," said Alec Forbes, stepping between the executioner
and his victim. "You know well enough it was all my fault. I told you
so on Saturday."

Murder Malison, as the boys called him, turned with the tawse over his
shoulder, whence it had been on the point of swooping upon Annie, and
answered him with a hissing blow over his down-bent head, followed by a
succession of furious blows upon every part of his person, as it
twisted and writhed and doubled; till, making no attempt at resistance,
he was knocked down by the storm, and lay prostrate under the fierce
lashes, the master holding him down with one foot, and laying on with
the whole force of the opposite arm. At length Malison stopped,
exhausted, and turning, white with rage, towards Annie, who was almost
in a fit with agony, repeated the order:

"Hold up your hand."

But as he turned Alec bounded to his feet, his face glowing, and his
eyes flashing, and getting round in front, sprang at the master's
throat, just as the tawse was descending. Malison threw him off, and
lifting his weapon once more, swept it with a stinging lash round his
head and face. Alec, feeling that this was no occasion on which to
regard the rules of fair fight, stooped his head, and rushed, like a
ram, or a negro, full tilt against the pit of Malison's stomach, and
doubling him up, sent him with a crash into the peat fire which was
glowing on the hearth. In the attempt to save himself, he thrust his
hand right into it, and Alec and Annie were avenged.

Alec rushed to drag him off the fire; but he was up before he reached
him.

"Go home!" he bawled to the scholars generally, and sat down at his
desk to hide his suffering.

For one brief moment there was silence. Then a tumult arose, a
shouting, and holloing, and screeching, and the whole school rushed to
the door, as if the devil had been after them to catch the hindmost.
Strange uproar invaded the ears of Glamerton--strange, that is, at
eleven o'clock in the forenoon of Monday--the uproar of jubilant
freedom.

But the culprits, Annie and Alec, stood and stared at the master, whose
face was covered with one hand, while the other hung helpless at his
side. Annie stopped partly out of pity for the despot, and partly
because Alec stopped. Alec stopped because he was the author of the
situation--at least he never could give any better reason.

At length Mr Malison lifted his head, and made a movement towards his
hat. He started when he saw the two standing there. But the moment he
looked at them their courage failed them.

"Rin, Annie!" said Alec.

Away she bolted, and he after her, as well as he could, which was not
with his usual fleetness by any means. When Annie had rounded a corner,
not in the master's way home, she stopped, and looked back for Alec. He
was a good many paces behind her; and then first she discovered the
condition of her champion. For now that the excitement was over, he
could scarcely walk, and evidence in kind was not wanting that from
head to foot he must be one mass of wales and bruises. He put his hand
on her shoulder to help him along, and made no opposition to her
accompanying him as far as the gate of his mother's garden, which was
nearly a mile from the town, on the further bank of one of the rivers
watering the valley-plain in which Glamerton had stood for hundreds of
years. Then she went slowly home, bearing with her the memory of the
smile which, in spite of pain, had illuminated his tawse-waled cheeks,
as she took her leave.

"Good-bye, dear Alec!" she had said.

"Good-bye, Annie dear," he had answered, with the smile; and she had
watched him crawl into the house before she turned away.

When she got home, she saw at once, from the black looks of the Bruce,
that the story, whether in its trite shape or not, had arrived before
her.

Nothing was said, however, till after worship; when Bruce gave her a
long lecture, as impressive as the creature was capable of making it,
on the wickedness and certain punishment of "takin' up wi' ill loons
like Sandy Forbes, wha was brakin' his mither's hert wi' his baad
behaviour." But he came to the conclusion, as he confided to his wife
that night, that the lassie "was growin' hardent already;" probably
from her being in a state of too great excitement from the events of
the day to waste a tear upon his lecture; for, as she said in the
hearing of the rottans, when she went up to bed, she "_didna care a
flee for't_." But the moment she lay down she fell to weeping bitterly
over the sufferings of Alec. She was asleep in a moment after, however.
If it had not been for the power of sleeping that there was in the
child, she must long before now have given way to the hostile
influences around her, and died.

There was considerable excitement about the hearths of Glamerton,
generally, in consequence of the news of the master's defeat carried
home by the children. For, although it was amazing how little of the
doings at school the children were in the habit of reporting--so
little, indeed, that this account involved revelations of the character
and proceedings of Mr Malison which appeared to many of the parents
quite incredible--the present occurrence so far surpassed the ordinary,
and had excited the beholders so much, that they could not be quiet
about it. Various were the judgments elicited by the story. The
religious portion of the community seemed to their children to side
with the master; the worldly--namely, those who did not profess to be
particularly religious--all sided with Alec Forbes; with the exception
of a fish-cadger, who had one son, the plague of his life.

Amongst the religious, there was, at least, one exception, too; but he
had no children of his own, and had a fancy for Alec Forbes. That
exception was Thomas Crann, the stone-mason.






CHAPTER XIV.


Thomas Crann was building a house; for he was both contractor--in a
small way, it is true, not undertaking to do anything without the
advance of a good part of the estimate--and day-labourer at his own
job. Having arrived at the point in the process where the assistance of
a carpenter was necessary, he went to George Macwha, whom he found at
his bench, planing. This bench was in a work-shop, with two or three
more benches in it, some deals set up against the wall, a couple of red
cart-wheels sent in for repair, and the tools and materials of his
trade all about. The floor was covered with shavings, or _spales_, as
they are called by northern consent, which a poor woman was busy
gathering into a sack. After a short and gruff greeting on the part of
Crann, and a more cordial reply from Macwha, who ceased his labour to
attend to his visitor, they entered on the business-question, which
having been carefully and satisfactorily discussed, with the aid of
various diagrams upon the half-planed deal, Macwha returned to his
work, and the conversation took a more general scope, accompanied by
the sounds of Macwha's busy instrument.

"A terrible laddie, that Sandy Forbes!" said the carpenter, with a sort
of laugh in the _whishk_ of his plane, as he threw off a splendid
_spale_. "They say he's lickit the dominie, and 'maist been the deid o'
him."

"I hae kent waur laddies nor Sandy Forbes," was Thomas's curt reply.

"Ow, deed ay! I ken naething agen the laddie. Him an' oor Willie's unco
throng."

To this the sole answer Thomas gave was a grunt, and a silence of a few
seconds followed before he spoke, reverting to the point from which
they had started.

"I'm no clear but Alec micht hae committed a waur sin than thrashin'
the dominie. He's a dour crater, that Murdoch Malison, wi' his fair
face and his picket words. I doot the bairns hae the warst o' 't in
general. And for Alec I hae great houpes. He comes o' a guid stock. His
father, honest man, was ane o' the Lord's ain, although he didna mak'
sic a stan' as, maybe, he ought to hae dune; and gin his mither has
been jist raither saft wi' him, and gi'en him ower lang a tether, he'll
come a' richt afore lang, for he's worth luikin efter."

"I dinna richtly unnerstan' ye, Thamas."

"I dinna think the Lord 'll tyne the grip o' his father's son. He's no
convertit yet, but he's weel worth convertin', for there's guid stuff
in him."

Thomas did not consider how his common sense was running away with his
theology. But Macwha was not the man to bring him to book on that
score. His only reply lay in the careless _whishk whashk_ of his plane.
Thomas resumed:

"He jist wants what ye want, Gleorge Macwha."

"What's that, Thamas?" asked George, with a grim attempt at a smile, as
if to say: "I know what's coming, but I'm not going to mind it."

"He jist wants to be weel shaken ower the mou' o' the pit. He maun
smell the brunstane o' the everlastin' burnin's. He's nane o' yer saft
buirds, that ye can sleek wi' a sweyp o' yer airm; he's a blue
whunstane that's hard to dress, but, anes dressed, it bides the weather
bonnie. I like to work upo' hard stane mysel. Nane o' yer saft
freestane, 'at ye cud cut wi' a k-nife, for me!"

"Weel, I daursay ye're richt, Thamas."

"And, forbye, they say he took a' his ain licks ohn said a word, and
flew at the maister only whan he was gaein to lick the puir orphan
lassie--Jeames Anderson's lassie, ye ken."

"Ow! ay. It's the same tale they a' tell. I hae nae doobt it's
correck."

"Weel, lat him tak it, than, an' be thankfu'! for it's no more than was
weel waured (spent) on him."

With these conclusive words, Thomas departed. He was no sooner out of
the shop, than out started, from behind the deal boards that stood
against the wall, Willie, the eldest hope of the house of Macwha, a
dusky-skinned, black-eyed, curly-headed, roguish-looking boy, Alec
Forbes's companion and occasional accomplice. He was more mischievous
than Alec, and sometimes led him into unforeseen scrapes; but whenever
anything extensive had to be executed, Alec was always the leader.

"What are ye hidin' for, ye rascal?" said his father. "What mischeef
hae ye been efter noo?"

"Naething by ordinar'," was Willie's cool reply.

"What garred ye hide, than?"

"Tam Crann never sets ee upo' me, but he misca's me, an' I dinna like
to be misca'd, mair nor ither fowk."

"Ye get nae mair nor ye deserve, I doobt," returned George. "Here, tak
the chisel, and cut that beadin' into len'ths."

"I'm gaein' ower the water to speir efter Alec," was the excusatory
rejoinder.

"Ay, ay! pot and pan!--What ails Alec noo?"

"Mr Malison's nearhan' killed him. He hasna been at the schuil this twa
days."

With these words Willie bolted from the shop, and set off at full
speed. The latter part of his statement was perfectly true.

The day after the fight, Mr Malison came to the school as usual, but
with his arm in a sling. To Annie's dismay, Alec did not make his
appearance.

It had of course been impossible to conceal his corporal condition from
his mother; and the heart of the widow so yearned over the suffering of
her son, though no confession of suffering escaped Alec's lips, that
she vowed in anger that he should never cross the door of that school
again. For three or four days she held immovably to her resolution,
much to Alec's annoyance, and to the consternation of Mr Malison, who
feared that he had not only lost a pupil, but made an enemy. For Mr
Malison had every reason for being as smooth-faced with the parents as
he always was: he had ulterior hopes in Glamerton. The clergyman was
getting old, and Mr Malison was a licentiate of the Church; and
although the people had no direct voice in the filling of the pulpit,
it was very desirable that a candidate should have none but friends in
the parish.

Mr Malison made no allusion whatever to the events of Monday, and
things went on as usual in the school, with just one exception: for a
whole week the tawse did not make its appearance. This was owing in
part at least to the state of his hand; but if he had ever wished to be
freed from the necessity of using the lash, he might have derived hope
from the fact that somehow or other the boys were during this week no
worse than usual. I do not pretend to explain the fact, and beg leave
to refer it to occult meteorological influences.

As soon as school was over on that first day of Alec's absence, Annie
darted off on the road to Howglen, where he lived, and never dropped
into a walk till she reached the garden-gate. Fully conscious of the
inferiority of her position, she went to the kitchen door. The door was
opened to her knock before she had recovered breath enough to speak.
The servant, seeing a girl with a shabby dress, and a dirty bonnet,
from underneath which hung disorderly masses of hair--they would have
_glinted_ in the eye of the sun, but in the eye of the maid they looked
only dusky and disreputable--for Annie was not kept so tidy on the
interest of her money as she had been at the farm--the girl, I say,
seeing this, and finding besides, as she thought, that Annie had
nothing to say, took her for a beggar, and returning into the kitchen,
brought her a piece of oat-cake, the common dole to the young
mendicants of the time. Annie's face flushed crimson, but she said
gently, h