Part 15

And they might well be sorry, for there were not many people so kind and strong-hearted as Mary Bell to be met with between the Town of Pilgrimage and the City of the Twelve Foundations. And some of these are rough-handed and weather-beaten men and women, who work out their Christianity in feeding calves and bairns instead of parading texts, keeping the word of God in their hearts according to the commandment.

ADVENTURE XXXV.

THE KNIGHT IN THE SOFT HAT.

And so their second day was a good day, as most days are that are well begun with a good breakfast. For, together with a good conscience, that makes all the difference. And especially when you are Hugh Boy's age, for then even the conscience does not so much matter.

Hugh Boy had never been in the country before, and, being a lad of much observation, he had to watch all that there was there. And there were many things for Hugh Boy to see that day. Robin redbreasts peeped with their summer shyness upon them from the low bushes on the banks. Sparrows pecked among flower patches, instead of at the mud in the streets, as Hugh Boy had always seen them do before. There was a big bird which floated above the farmyard of one of the farms they passed. Hugh wondered what sort of bird it could be. He heard a motherly hen, which had been scraping and clucking among the dust when they came round the corner, suddenly give a strange screech, just like that which Vara had given the other night when the "awfu' woman" came to their door. He saw the hen droop her wings and crouch in the dust, keeping her beak up in the air, her timid eyes glittering with anger.

Hugh Boy questioned Vara, but Vara had the baby to attend to, and answered that it was just a bird. But soon the big shadow on the sky with the outstretched wings floated away, and the hen went back to its contented picking. The children also went along the wayside to-day with many more rests and lingerings. For they had no longer the instant spur of pursuit driving them on.

They stopped to take their meal by a little bridge, under which a moorland burn ran bickering down to join a big river which flowed to the distant sea.

They sat down in the dark of the arch, and Vara had spread out all the provision which her kind friend, Mary Bell, had given her before she saw that at the other end a young man was sitting close in by the wall. At sight of him Vara started, and would have put her bread and milk back again. But the man cried over to her, "Not so fast, my pretty dears; there's another hungry stomach here."

"You are welcome to a share o' what we have," said Vara, who had been too often hungry herself not to know the pain it meant.

The youth came and sat down by them. He was a lean and unwholesome-looking vagrant. The whites of his eyes had turned an unpleasant lead colour, while the pupils were orange-coloured, like the stripes on a tiger's skin.

Vara gave him one of the largest of Mary Bell's scones, and some of the butter they had got from the baker's wife the day before. The young man ate these up greedily, and reached out his hand for more. Vara offered him some of the loaf which she had bought.

"None o' that dry choko-tuck for me; gimme the soft bread!" said he, rudely snatching at it.

Vara told him civilly that it was not for herself that she wanted to keep it, but to break up in the baby's milk.

In spite of her pitiful protest, however, the young man snatched the scone and ate it remorselessly, looking at Vara all the time with evil eyes, and smiling a smirk of satisfaction. There was no snivelling weakness about him. Hugh Boy never took his eyes off him. Then, when he had finished, the lout rose, coolly stuffed the remainder of their provision into his pocket, and came over towards Vara with his hand stretched out. He caught her by the wrist and sharply twisted her arm.

"Shell out your tin," he said. "Out with it now, and no bones about it!"

Vara bore the pain as well as she could without crying out. Suddenly, however, the rascal dropped her hand, and snatched Gavin from her arms. He stood on the edge of the ravine over which the bridge went, holding the child, and threatened to throw him over if she did not give him all the money she had. He was, of course, as he told himself, only "kidding" her, but Vara was in wild terror for Gavin. Her particular evil genius had never hesitated to carry out such threatenings.

"I will! I will!" cried Vara. And she took the byre lass's shilling out of her pocket and gave it to the man.

"Any more?" said he. "Yes, I see there is. Out with it!"

And Vara drew out the remainder of the sixpence which the young lover had thrown to her from his cart yesterday.

Then the cruel hobbledehoy tossed her the child with a laugh, and sprang sharply round the parapet of the bridge. Pale as ivory, Vara ran after him to watch. The rascal was quite at his ease, for he stopped to light his pipe and take a drink out of a little square bottle. This he stowed away in the tails of his coat, which were very long. Then he waved his hand humorously at Vara and Boy Hugh as they stood by the arch of the bridge.

A tall, well-built young fellow, was coming down the road, and a hope sprang up in Vara's mind that he might do something for her. The stranger's round soft hat and dark clothes marked him for a clergyman. But he swung his stick and whistled, which were new things to Vara in one of his cloth.

At sight of him the thief pulled down the corners of his mouth and put on his regulation mendicant's whine.

"For the love o' God, sir, help a poor fellow that's dyin' o' hunger. I've walked fifty miles without a bite—hope to die if I haven't, sir. I wouldn't tell you a lie, sir."

The stalwart young minister smiled, and gave his stick another swing before he spoke.

"You have not walked five miles without drinking, anyway, as my nose very plainly tells me. And your pipe is setting your coat on fire at this very moment!"

The hobbledehoy plucked his lighted pipe out of his pocket and set his thumb in the bowl.

"You are one of the good kind," he persisted; "you are not the sort that would deny a poor chap a sixpence because he takes a draw of tobacco when he can get it?"

"Not a bit," said the minister, good-humouredly; "I can take a whiff myself. But I don't ask anybody else to pay for it. It's a fine business, yours, my lad. But I'm not keeping a free rum and tobacco shop. So you had best tramp, my man."

At this the tramp began to pour forth a volley of the most foul-mouthed abuse, cursing all parsons for rogues, liars, and various other things. The minister listened patiently for some time.

"Now," he said, when at last there came a pause, "I have given you your say—away with you! And if I hear another foul word out of your mouth, I will draw my stick soundly across your back."

"Oh!" said the other impudently, "I thought you were one of the softish kind—the sort that when you smote them on the one cheek, turned the other also."

The young man in the round hat squared his shoulders.

"Did anyone smite me on the one cheek?" he asked. "If they did, I didn't know it. Perhaps you would like to try?"

And he came nearer to the rascal, who drew off as if not at all inclined to make the experiment. He made no reply.

"But," said the minister, "since you are so ready with your Scripture, you will not object to another text, just as good, and more suitable for application to the like of you. It is—'A rod for the fool's back!'"

And with that he lifted his stick and brought it down on the young rough's shoulders with the swing of a cricketer cutting a high ball to the boundary.

Never was there a more astonished scoundrel. He turned on the instant and ran. But Vara was close beside them by this time.

"He stole my money!" she cried; "catch him! O dinna let him away!"

The young minister clapped his hat firmly on the back of his head and gave chase. The thief was for the moment the swifter, but he had not the wind nor the training of his opponent.

"Stop!" cried the pursuer.

The thief glanced about, and seeing the stick he had tasted before hovering in the air, he dropped in a heap across the path to trip his pursuer. The minister cleared him in his stride and turned upon him. The rascal kept perfectly still till his captor approached. Then suddenly he shot out his foot in a vicious kick. But the young fellow in the round hat had been in France and knew all about that game. He caught the foot in his hand and turned the fellow over on his back. Vara came panting up.

"Give this girl her money," said the minister. "How much was it, my lassie?"

"It was a shilling and two pence," said Vara.

"Out with it or I'll go through you!" said the minister. And the thick stick again hovered an ultimatum.

So Vara got her money, and without even a parting curse the cowed and frightened rascal took himself off down the road at a slow trot, keeping his eyes on the ground all the way.

Vara was left alone with her knight of the soft hat.

ADVENTURE XXXVI.

THE MADNESS OF HUGH BOY.

The young minister put out his hand to Vara and the two walked quietly back to where Boy Hugh was kneeling on the grass, and baby Gavin was sitting grasping a dandelion with one hand and looking with wide deep-set eyes of philosophic calm upon the world.

"Tell me all about it," said her champion. And Vara told the tale with her heart again beginning to beat with terror. "But how is it that you are here?" said he. And Vara explained as much as she could.

"To look for your father in Liverpool?" he said. "It is a long, sad way—a terrible journey." He mused.

He had a passion for setting things right, this young fellow, and it occurred to him that it would be a good thing if he could get these children into a home of some kind, and then communicate with the police on the subject of their father.

But as soon as the young man began to speak in his low, persuasive tones of a home where they could be safe and quiet, Vara stood up.

"O no, sir, I thank you, but we can not bide. Somebody might come and find us."

At the mere thought she began to tremble and hastily to put her scattered belongings together. The young minister made no further objection. He walked with them a little along the way, and before he parted from them he put another shilling into Vara's hand. Then he leaped over the stone dyke on his way to a farmhouse where there was a sick man waiting for him. From the other side of the fence he told Vara shyly to remember that she had another Father to care for her, who could always be found. But he was shy about saying so much, this remarkable young man. However, he had a high sense of duty, and he felt that the circumstances justified the observation.

"Thank ye," said Vara; "I'll no forget."

This, their second day, had become one of brooding heat, and Vara was glad to have enough to buy a good meal for them all at the next little town they passed through. They were fortunate also in the afternoon, for at a little house by the wayside, a cottage with red creepers growing all along the wall, the mistress took them all in and gave them a cup of tea and some of the fresh white scones she was baking. There was milk too for little Gavin. And as they went away a thought seemed to strike the woman. She bade them wait a little while. She climbed up into the attic, and presently returned with a shawl, which she wrapped about Vara, and settled the baby into the nook of it with her own hands.

"But this is a good shawl. We must not take it from you," said Vara.

"Nonsense," said the good woman; "it is a fair exchange. Leave me the auld ane; it will make very decent floor-clouts."

So it was on the whole a good day for them. And it was not till late in the evening that misfortune again befell them. Vara's hands were usually so full of Gavin that she had little thought for anything else. But at one resting place she put her hand into her pocket and her heart stood still because she failed to find the slim coins upon which she had put her trust. She felt the pennies, but not the shilling or the sixpence. She laid Gavin down on the grass and turned the pocket inside out. There was nothing whatever there. But Vara found instead a little slit in the lining, and the thought of her great loss, together with what it meant to them all, turned her faint and sick.

"The man might just as well have had them, after all," she said.

Night fell with them still upon the road. They had found no friendly shelter, and they seemed to be alone on the wide moor, through which the road ran unfenced, like a tangle of string which has been loosely thrown down. Hugh Boy cried bitterly to be allowed to lie down. Vara looked about her anxiously and long. But she could see nothing but the wild moorish hilltops girdling the horizon, too like one another to give her any idea of the direction in which a habited house might lie. She only saw the slow twilight of midsummer in the north creeping down over the brown moors, and in the moist hollows of the bogs shallow pools of mist gathering.

For the distance, the sound of a voice was borne in the still air.

"Hurley, hurley, hie away hame!" it said. And Vara went to the top of a heathery knowe and called loudly. But only the moorbirds, making ready for bed, answered her. They flew round, circling and complaining, especially the peewits, which, being reassured by the small size of the three, came almost offensively near.

Boy Hugh filled his pockets with stones to drive them away. He also got out his whip. He had heard of the Babes in the Wood, and, being a sensible boy, he did not want any Robin Redbreast nonsense. It was not that he so much objected to die, but he felt the humiliation of being covered with leaves by the whaups. He complained bitterly to Vara, who was preoccupied with Gavin, that the Drabble had stolen from him the iron barrel of the pistol which Cleg Kelly had given him. Had it not been for that felony, they would not now have found themselves defenceless in that wild place.

"Boy Hugh thinks there's sure to be lions an' teegers here!" he said.

It was not long before Vara decided that they must spend another night out of doors, and looked about for a suitable spot where they could get water and shelter.

At last she settled upon the lee of a large boulder, and began to give Gavin what remained of his milk. Boy Hugh thought this was his opportunity to make sure that they were well defended against their enemies. The moon was rising, and he remembered that Cleg Kelly had told him how lions and tigers always hunted by moonlight. That widely-read journal, "The Bully Boys of New York," was Cleg's authority for this statement.

There was certainly an appalling silence on the face of the moorland. Boy Hugh could see, indeed, the rock behind which Vara and Gavin were. But he tried to forget it. He wanted the sensation of perfect loneliness. Then the devil entered into Boy Hugh, and he wanted to explore. The moon came out from behind a cloud, and everything became bleached and flat, melting away into vague immensities and nerve-shaking mysteries which vanished as you approached. Of course that was not the way Boy Hugh put it to himself. It only made him want to run away. But suddenly a vague fear struck him to the heart, and he started to run back (as he thought) towards Vara and Gavin. He imagined that he could hear the sound of some animal trampling about the moss in search of wandering little boys. And it occurred to him that he had no means of defence except the whip, and even that served him not so well now, for the lash was broken. So this was the reason why Boy Hugh ran away.

Though, indeed, his progress could hardly be called running. For at every few steps he tripped in some intricate twist of heather, tough as wire, and, falling forward, he instinctively bent his body into a half-hoop, like a young hedgehog. Thus he rolled down the brae, often coming upon his feet at the bottom and continuing his flight with energy unabated and without pausing a single moment even to ascertain damages.

And so soon as she missed him Vara stood up, with Gavin in her arms, and cried, "Come back, Boy Hugh!" But Boy Hugh continued his wild flight, driven by the unreasoning terror of the vast and uncomprehended which had seized him suddenly and without warning.

At last Boy Hugh paused, not so much because he wished it as because he had fallen into a moss-hole up to the neck, and so could run no further. He sustained himself by grasping a bush of blaeberry plants, and he dug his toes into the soft black peat.

Then Boy Hugh, who had not gone to Hunker Court for nothing, bethought him that, since there was nothing else that he could do, it was time to say his prayers. "O Lord!" he prayed—"O Lord, forgive us our sins, and remember not our trans-somethings against us! Look down from heaven and help"—(so far his supplications had run in the accustomed groove in which Samson Langpenny conducted the "opening exercises" of Hunker Court, but at this point Boy Hugh diverged into originality, as Samson did sometimes when he stuck in the middle of the Lord's prayer)—"Look down from heaven and help—a—wee laddie in a moss-hole. Keep him frae teegers and lions, and bogles and black horses that come oot o' lochs and eat ye up, and frae the green monkeys that hing on to trees and claw ye as ye gang by. And gie me something to eat, and Vara and Gavin after me. For I'm near dead o' hunger, and I want nae mair yesterday's bread, and help me to find my whup-lash. And make me grow up into a man fast, for I want to do as I like—and then, my certes, but I'll warm the Drabble for stealin' my pistol. And bless Vara and Gavin, my faither and Cleg Kelly, and a' inquirin' freends. Amen."

And if anybody knows a more comprehensive prayer, let him instantly declare it, or, as the charge runs, be for ever silent.

ADVENTURE XXXVII.

BOY HUGH FINDS OUT THE NATURE OF A KISS.

Vara always looks back upon that night of fear and loneliness as the worst in all their wanderings. She wrapped Gavin tightly in the shawl, till only a little space was left for him to breathe. Then she ran from knowe-top to knowe-top to look for Boy Hugh, and to call him to come back to her. She dared not go far from the boulder lest she should miss her way, and so not be able to find her way to the baby.

While Vara was wandering distracted over the moor, calling pitifully to him, Boy Hugh was comfortably asleep beneath a heather bush. And the June nights are brief and merciful in Scotland. It was not long before a broad bar of light lay across the eastern hills. The pale sea-green lingering in the west where the sun had gone down had not altogether faded into the ashy grey of uncoloured night ere the eastern sky began to flame.

The clouds of sunrise are like ocean-rollers on a wide beach—long, barred, and parallel—for the sun rises through them with majestic circumspection. But the clouds of sunset are apt to converge to a point, like the wake which the sun draws after him in his tumultuous downward plunge.

But the sun rose quite sharply this morning, as though he must be businesslike and alert, in spite of the fact that he had a whole long day before him. As he did so the shadows of every bush of bog-myrtle and each tuft of heather started westwards with a rush. And the cool blue image of a lonely boulder, like a Breton menhir, lay far half a mile across the moor. On the sunny side of this landmark the red rays fell on a bare and curly head. There was dew upon the draggled hair, just as there was upon the yellow bent grass upon which it pillowed itself.

Boy Hugh lay curled up, like a collie drowsing in the sun. He continued to sleep quietly and naturally the undisturbed sleep of childhood. Nor did he waken till the dew had dried from the bent and from off the tangles of his hair.

At last he awoke, when the sun was already high. He uncoiled him like a lithe young animal, and started to find himself under the open heaven instead of under a roof. With a shake and a toss of his head he made his toilet. Then suddenly he remembered about Vara, and hoped vaguely that he would soon find her. But, alas! the day was bright. The sunshine began to run in his veins, and all the moorland world was before him. He did not think much more about her at all. For the moment he was as merry as the larks singing above him. He hallooed to the plovers, and occasionally he threw stones at them, just as the mood took him. By-and-bye Boy Hugh came to a wide burn, and at once proceeded to cross it, as many a time he had crossed a plank in Callendar's yard, upon all-fours like a monkey.

The burn was fringed, like many of the watercourses of the southern uplands, with a growth of sparse and ill-favoured birches. Hugh Boy found one of these which leaned far over the water, having had its roots undermined by the winter spates. He crawled out upon its swaying top without hesitation till it became too slender to bear him. He counted upon the slender trunk bending like a fishing-rod and depositing him near enough to the opposite bank to drop safely to the ground. But just when Hugh Boy was ready to leap, the treacherous birch gave way entirely, and fell souse into the water, with the small human squirrel still clinging to it. The birch lay across the pool, and Boy Hugh held fast. He was up to the neck in water. He wondered how he would get out. First he managed to kick his legs free of the twigs which clutched him and tried to drag him down.

"Here, nice little boy!" suddenly a voice above him cried. "Take hold of my hand, and I will pull you out of the water."

It was the clearest little voice in the world, and it spoke with a trill which Boy Hugh seemed to have heard somewhere before. It conveyed somehow, indeed, a reminiscence of Miss Celie Tennant. But the little lady who spoke was only a year or two older than Boy Hugh himself, and she was dressed in the daintiest creamy stuff, fine like cobweb. Boy Hugh looked at her in such amazement that he came near to letting go the birch-tree altogether. She seemed to him to be all wonderful, with yellow hair like summer clouds, and blue eyes full of pity.

Boy Hugh recalled certain things which he had heard at Hunker Court.

"Are you an angel?" he said, quite seriously.

"Oh no, silly!" cried the maiden gaily, shaking her fleece bewilderingly at him. "Of course, I am only a little girl. I just tooked my parolsol and comed a walk. And you are the very nicest little boy that ever I saw—quite a child, of course," she added patronisingly. "But take hold of my parolsol. Be careful not to splash me when you shake yourself. And after that I'll give you a kiss. I like nice little boys!"

"What is a kiss?" asked Boy Hugh.

They did not deal in the commodity in the Tinklers' Lands. And even if his sister Vara did kiss him to sleep every night, and was for ever kissing the baby as if its mouth was a sweetmeat, she did not think it becoming or menseful to mention the word. So that, quite sincerely, Boy Hugh asked again, "What is a kiss, little girl?"

"Come up here, nice boy, and I will show you!" replied the maiden promptly.

And somehow Hugh knew that this was an invitation by no means to be declined.

ADVENTURE XXXVIII.

OF MISS BRIGGS AND HER TEN CATS.

"Now then, do you like it?" asked this frank young person. But Hugh Boy was silent as to what he thought of his first knowledgable kiss. Not that it mattered, for the gay little lady rattled on regardless. "And what is your name, little boy? You are very ragged, and you have come a long way. But you are clean, and Aunt Robina can't scold me, for she tells me to be kind to the poor, especially when they are quite clean."