White Heather: A Novel (Volume 1 of 3). William Black

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СКАЧАТЬ she could be induced to go – for a proper consideration; and you could begin the training of her now, and have her quite accomplished by the time we got home. Sounds rather like slavery, don't it? – but she would be going to the land of the free, and the banner would wave over her. She gets eighty dollars a year and her board; I'd go better than that, if you took a fancy to her.

      'But the most remarkable person here – perhaps it is the contrast between his personal abilities and his position that is the striking thing – is a deerstalker and gamekeeper whom they familiarly call Ronald; and I confess that, with all I had heard of the intelligence of the Scotch peasantry, this fellow, before I had been talking with him ten minutes, rather made me open my eyes. And yet, looking back over the different subjects we fell upon, I don't know that he said anything so very remarkable on any one of them. I think it is rather the personal character of the man that is impressive – the manliness and independence of his judgment, and yet his readiness to consider the other side if you can convince him; his frank (and, I should say, foolish) recognition of the differences of social position; and then a kind of curious self-respect he has which refuses to allow him to become quite friendly, though you may be willing enough to forget that you are talking of taking a shooting on which he is one of the employés, and anxious only to converse with him as man to man. I'm afraid this is rather mixed, but you would have to see him to understand quite well what manner of person he is – a good-looking fellow too, well knit together, with a keen, hard face, full of life and a half-concealed force of humour. I should judge he would make a pretty fair king of good company in the unrestrained intercourse of a few boon companions; and I imagine he has a hard head if there should be any drinking going on. What to do with him I don't know. It is absurd he should be where he is. His brother has been to college, taken his degree, and is now in the Scotch Church somewhere. But this fellow seems quite content to trap foxes and shoot gray crows, and, in the autumn, look after the grouse-shooting and deerstalking of other people. A man of his brains would not be in that position for a fortnight in our country. Here everything is fixed. He thinks it is natural for him to be in a subservient position. And yet there is a curious independence about the fellow; I don't know what inducement I could put before him to get him out of it. Suppose we said, "Come you with us to America, and we'll run you for President;" I'm afraid he'd quote Kingsley in our face, and be off to "where the dun deer lie." In fact his reverence for the star-spangled banner appears to be of a mitigated description. I found he knew more than I expected about our wire-pulling gentry at home; but then, on the other hand, I discovered that he knew nothing about the necessity of protecting the industries of a young country beyond what he had read in the English papers, and you know what high old Mother Hubbardism that is. Now I want to do something for this fellow, and don't know how. He's too good a man to be thrown away – a kind of upper servant, as it were, of his lordship. He has plenty of ability and he has plenty of knowledge in a dozen different directions, if they could only be applied. But then he is a dogged kind of a creature – he is not pliant; if you can show him sufficient reason for changing he might change, otherwise not one inch will he budge. What is the inducement to be? It is useless offering him an allotment of land in Nebraska; here he has miles and miles of the most picturesque territory conceivable, of which, save for a month or two in the autumn, he is the absolute master. He enjoys an ownership over these hills and moors and lochs more obvious than that of the Duke himself; he would not exchange that for the possession of a bit of table-land on the Platte Valley, unless he were a fool, and that he is far from being. The Presidentship? Well, I waved your beloved banner over him, but he didn't enthuse worth a cent. However, I must cast about and see what is to be done with him, for I am really interested in the man.'

      At this moment there was a tapping at the door, and Nelly appeared with a huge armful of peats, which she began to build up dexterously in the fireplace, always leaving a central funnel open.

      'Say, my girl, when will this letter go south?' Mr. Hodson asked.

      'To-morrow moarning,' was the answer.

      'And the fish, too?'

      'Yes, sir, by the mail cart.'

      'Has Duncan packed it in the rushes yet?'

      'Oh no, sir, Ronald will do that; he can do it better as any of them; he would not let any one else do it, for they're saying it iss the first fish of the year, and he's very proud of your getting the fish, sir.'

      'Ich auch!' observed Mr. Hodson to himself; and he would probably have continued the conversation, but that suddenly a strange noise was heard, coming from some distant part of the inn – a harsh, high, note, all in monotone.

      'What's that now, Nelly?'

      'It will be Ronald tuning his pipes,' said she, as she was going to the door.

      'Oh, he can play the pipes too?'

      'Indeed, yes, sir; and better as any in Sutherland, I hef heard them say,' she added.

      Just as she opened the door the drones and chanter broke away into a shrill and lively march that seemed to flood the house with its penetrating tones.

      'I think it's "Dornoch Links" he's playing,' Nelly said, with a quiet smile, 'for there's some of the fisher-lads come through on their way to Tongue.'

      She left then; but the solitary occupant of the sitting-room thought he could not do better than go to the door and listen for a while to this strange sort of music, which he had never heard played properly before. And while he could scarcely tell one tune from another except by the time – the slow, wailing, melancholy Lament, for example, was easily enough distinguished from the bright and lively Strathspey – here and there occurred an air – the '79th's Farewell,' or the 'Barren Rocks of Aden,' or the 'Pibroch of Donald Dhu,' had he but known the names of them – which had a stately and martial ring about it; he guessed that it was meant to lead the tramp of soldiers. And he said to himself —

      'Here, now, is this fellow, who might be piper to a Highland regiment, and I daresay all the use he makes of his skill is to walk up and down outside the dining-room window of the Lodge and play to a lot of white-kneed Englishmen when they come down for the autumn shooting.'

      He returned to his letter.

      'I have the honour to inform you that the first salmon caught on any Scotch loch this year was caught by me this afternoon, and to-morrow will be on its way to you. If you don't believe the story, look at the salmon itself for evidence. And as regards this loch-fishing, it appears to me you might have a turn at it when we come up in March – taking one of the two rods; a little practice with Indian clubs meanwhile would enable you to make a better fight of it when you have to keep a continuous strain on a fourteen-pound fish for twenty minutes or half an hour. You must have some amusement or occupation; for there is no society – except, by the way, the doctor's daughter, who might be a companion for you. I have not seen her yet; but the handmaiden I have mentioned above informs me that she is "a ferry pretty young lady, and ferry much thought of, and of a ferry great family too." I should not imagine, however, that her Highland pride of blood would bar the way against your making her acquaintance; her father is merely the parish doctor – or rather, the district doctor, for he has either two or three parishes to look after – and I don't suppose his emoluments are colossal. They have a pretty cottage; it is the swell feature of the village, if you can call the few small and widely scattered houses a village. You could practise Texas talk on her all day long; I daresay she wouldn't know.

      'Good-night; it's rather sleepy work being out in that boat in the cold. Good-night, good-night; and a kiss from the Herr Papa.'

      Well, by this time the fisher-lads had left the inn and were off on the way to Tongue – and glad enough to have a moonlight night for the weary trudge. Ronald remained behind for a while, drinking a glass of ale with the inn-keeper; and generally having to keep his wits about him, for there was a good deal of banter going on. Old John Murray was СКАЧАТЬ