Part 29 (1/2)
Some impulse brought her forward, and she took both my hands in her own.
”Ye'll forgive an auld woman, sir,” she said, with a dignity that matched her son's, ”but ye're sae young, an' ye hae sic a leuk in yere bonny gray e'e that I ken yell aye be a true friend o' John's. He's been a guid sin to me, an' ye maunna reek what they say o' him.”
When now I think of the triumph John Paul has achieved, of the scoffing world he has brought to his feet, I cannot but recall that sorrowful evening in the gardener's cottage, when a son was restored but to be torn away. The sisters came in from their day's work,--both well-favoured la.s.ses, with John's eyes and hair,--and cooked the simple meal of broth and porridge, and the fowl they had kept so long against the captain's home-coming. He carved with many a light word that cost him dear. Did Janet reca' the simmer nights they had supped here, wi'
the b.u.mclocks bizzin' ower the candles? And was Nancy, the cow, still i' the byre? And did the bees still give the same bonnie hiney, and were the red apples still in the far orchard? Ay, Meg had thocht o' him that autumn, and ran to fetch them with her ap.r.o.n to her face, to come back smiling through her tears. So it went; and often a lump would rise in my throat that I could not eat, famished as I was, and the mother and sisters scarce touched a morsel of the feast.
The one never failing test of a son, my dears, lies in his treatment of his mother, and from that hour forth I had not a doubt of John Paul. He was a man who had seen the world and become, in more than one meaning of the word, a gentleman. Whatever foibles he may have had, he brought no conscious airs and graces to this lowly place, but was again the humble gardener's boy.
But time pressed, as it ever does. The hour came for us to leave, John Paul firmly refusing to remain the night in a house that belonged to Mr.
Craik. Of the tenderness, nay, of the pity and cruelty of that parting, I have no power to write. We knelt with bowed heads while the mother prayed for the son, expatriated, whom she never hoped to see again on this earth. She gave us bannocks of her own baking, and her last words were to implore me always to be a friend to John Paul.
Then we went out into the night and walked all the way to Dumfries in silence.
We lay that night at the sign of the ”Twa Naigs,” where Bonnie Prince Charlie had rested in the Mars year(1715). Before I went to bed I called for pen and paper, and by the light of a tallow dip sat down to compose a letter to my grandfather, telling him that I was alive and well, and recounting as much of my adventures as I could. I said that I was going to London, where I would see Mr. Dix, and would take pa.s.sage thence for America. I prayed that he had been able to bear up against the ordeal of my disappearance. I dwelt upon the obligations I was under to John Paul, relating the misfortunes of that worthy seaman (which he so little deserved!). And said that it was my purpose to bring him to Maryland with me, where I knew Mr. Carvel would reward him with one of his s.h.i.+ps, explaining that he would accept no money. But when it came to accusing Grafton and the rector, I thought twice, and bit the end of the feather.
The chances were so great that my grandfather would be in bed and under the guardians.h.i.+p of my uncle that I forbore, and resolved instead to write it to Captain Daniel at my first opportunity.
I arose early to discover a morning gray and drear, with a mist falling to chill the bones. News travels apace the world over, and that of John Paul's home-coming and of his public renunciation of Scotland at the ”Hurcheon” had reached Dumfries in good time, substantiated by the arrival of the teamster with the chests the night before. I descended into the courtyard in time to catch the captain in his watchet-blue frock haggling with the landlord for a chaise, the two of them surrounded by a muttering crowd anxious for a glimpse of Mr. Craik's gardener's son, for he had become a nine-day sensation to the country round about. But John Paul minded them not so much as a swarm of flies, and the teamster's account of the happenings at Kirkcudbright had given them so wholesome a fear of his speech and presence as to cause them to mis...o...b.. their own wit, which is saying a deal of Scotchmen. But when the bargain had been struck and John Paul gone with the 'ostler to see to his chests, mine host thought it a pity not to have a fall out of me.
”So ye be the Buckskin laud,” he said, with a wink at a leering group of farmers; ”ye hae braw gentles in America.”
He was a man of sixty or thereabout, with a shrewd but not unkindly face that had something familiar in it.
”You have discernment indeed to recognize a gentleman in Scotch clothes,” I replied, turning the laugh on him.
”Dinna raise ae Buckskin, Mr. Rawlinson,” said a man in corduroy.
”Rawlinson!” I exclaimed at random, ”there is one of your name in the colonies who knows his station better.”
”Trowkt!” cried mine host, ”ye ken Ivie o' Maryland, Ivie my brither?”
”He is my grandfather's miller at Carvel Hall,” I said.
”Syne ye maun be nane ither than Mr. Richard Carvel. Yere servan', Mr.
Carvel,” and he made me a low bow, to the great dropping of jaws round about, and led me into the inn. With trembling hands he took a packet from his cabinet and showed me the letters, twenty-three in all, which Ivie had written home since he had gone out as the King's pa.s.senger in '45. The sight of them brought tears to my eyes and carried me out of the Scotch mist back to dear old Maryland. I had no trouble in convincing mine host that I was the lad eulogized in the scrawls, and he put hand on the very sheet which announced my birth, nineteen years since,--the fourth generation of Carvels Ivie had known.
So it came that the captain and I got the best chaise and pair in place of the worst, and sat down to a breakfast such as was prepared only for my Lord Selkirk when he pa.s.sed that way, while I told the landlord of his brother; and as I talked I remembered the day I had caught the arm of the mill and gone the round, to find that Ivie had written of that, too!
After that our landlord would not hear of a reckoning. I might stay a month, a year, at the ”Twa Naigs” if I wished. As for John Paul, who seemed my friend, he would say nothing, only to advise me privately that the man was queer company, shaking his head when I defended him. He came to me with ten guineas, which he pressed me to take for Ivies sake, and repay when occasion offered. I thanked him, but was of no mind to accept money from one who thought ill of my benefactor.
The refusal of these recalled the chaise, and I took the trouble to expostulate with the captain on that score, pointing out as delicately as I might that, as he had brought me to Scotland, I held it within my right to incur the expense of the trip to London, and that I intended to reimburse him when I saw Mr. Dix. For I knew that his wallet was not over full, since he had left the half of his savings with his mother.
Much to my secret delight, he agreed to this as within the compa.s.s of a gentleman's acceptance. Had he not, I had the full intention of leaving him to post it alone, and of offering myself to the master of the first schooner.
Despite the rain, and the painful scenes gone through but yesterday, and the sour-looking ring of men and women gathered to see the start, I was in high spirits as we went spinning down the Carlisle road, with my heart leaping to the crack of the postilion's whip.
I was going to London and to Dorothy!
CHAPTER XXII. ON THE ROAD