Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush Part 12

"Lachlan, what are ye traivellin' in and oot there for with a face that wud sour milk? What ails ye, man? ye're surely no imaginin'

Flora's gaein' to leave ye?

"Lord's sake, it's maist provokin' that if a body hes a bit whup o'

illness in Drumtochty, their freends tak tae propheseein' deith."

Lachlan had crept over to Flora's side, and both were waiting.

"Na, na; ye ken a' never tell lees like the graund ceety doctors, and a'll warrant Flora 'ill be in kirk afore Martinmas, an' kiltin'

up the braes as hardy as a hielan' sheltie by the new year."

Flora puts an arm round her father's neck, and draws down his face to hers, but the doctor is looking another way.

"Dinna fash wi' medicine; gie her plenty o' fresh milk and plenty o'

air. There's nae leevin' for a doctor wi' that Drumtochty air; it hasna a marra in Scotland. It starts frae the Moray Firth and sweeps doon Badenoch, and comes ower the moor o' Rannoch and across the Grampians. There's the salt o' the sea, and the caller air o' the hills, and the smell o' the heather, and the bloom o'mony a flower in't. If there's nae disease in the organs o' the body, a puff o'

Drumtochty air wud bring back a man frae the gates o' deith."

"You hef made two hearts glad this day, Doctor McLure," said Lachlan, outside the door, "and I am calling you Barnabas."

"Ye've ca'd me waur names than that in yir time," and the doctor mounted his horse. "It's dune me a warld o' guid tae see Flora in her hame again, and I'll gie Marget Howe a cry in pa.s.sin' and send her up tae hae a crack, for there's no a wiser wumman in the glen."

When Marget came, Flora told her the history of her letter.

"It wa.s.s a beautiful night in London, but I will be thinking that there iss no living person caring whether I die or live, and I wa.s.s considering how I could die, for there iss nothing so hopeless as to hef no friend in a great city. It iss often that I hef been alone on the moor, and no man within miles, but I wa.s.s never lonely, oh no, I had plenty of good company. I would sit down beside a burn, and the trout will swim out from below a stone, and the cattle will come to drink, and the muirfowl will be crying to each other, and the sheep will be bleating, oh yes, and there are the bees all round, and a string of wild ducks above your head. It iss a busy place a moor, and a safe place too, for there iss not one of the animals will hurt you. No, the big highlanders will only look at you and go away to their pasture. But it iss weary to be in London and no one to speak a kind word to you, and I will be looking at the crowd that iss always pa.s.sing, and I will not see one kent face, and when I looked in at the lighted windows the people were all sitting round the table, but there wa.s.s no place for me. Millions and millions of people, and not one to say 'Flora,' and not one sore heart if I died that night. Then a strange thing happened, as you will be considering, but it iss good to be a Highlander, for we see visions.

You maybe know that a wounded deer will try to hide herself, and I crept into the shadow of a church, and wept. Then the people and the noise and the houses pa.s.sed away like the mist on the hill, and I wa.s.s walking to the kirk with my father, oh yes, and I saw you all in your places, and I heard the Psalms, and I could see through the window the green fields and the trees on the edge of the moor. And I saw my home, with the dogs before the door, and the flowers that I planted, and the lamb coming for her mik, and I heard myself singing, and I awoke. But there wa.s.s singing, oh yes, and beautiful too, for the dark church wa.s.s open, and the light wa.s.s falling over my head from the face of the Virgin Mary. When I arose she wa.s.s looking down at me in the darkness, and then I knew that there wa.s.s service in the church, and this wa.s.s the hymn--

"'There is a fountain filled with blood.'

"So I went in and sat down at the door. The sermon wa.s.s on the Prodigal Son, but there iss only one word I remember. 'You are not forgotten or cast off,' the preacher said; 'you are missed,' and then he will come back to it again, and it wa.s.s always 'missed, missed, missed.' Sometimes he will say, 'If you had a plant, and you had taken great care of it, and it was stolen, would you not miss it?' And I will be thinking of my geraniums, and saying 'yes' in my heart. And then he will go on, 'If a shepherd wa.s.s counting his sheep, and there wa.s.s one short, does he not go out to the hill and seek for it?' and I will see my father coming back with that lamb that lost its mother. My heart wa.s.s melting within me, but he will still be pleading, 'If a father had a child, and she left her home and lost herself in the wicked city, she will still be remembered in the old house, and her chair will be there,' and I will be seeing my father all alone with the Bible before him, and the dogs will lay their heads on his knee, but there iss no Flora. So I slipped out into the darkness and cried 'Father,' but I could not go back, and I knew not what to do. But this wa.s.s ever in my ear, 'missed,' and I wa.s.s wondering if G.o.d will be thinking of me. 'Perhaps there may be a sign,' I said, and I went to my room, and I saw the letter. It wa.s.s not long before I will be in the train, and all the night I held your letter in my hand, and when I wa.s.s afraid I will read 'Your father loves you more than efer,' and I will say, 'This is my warrant.' Oh yes, and G.o.d wa.s.s very good to me, and I did not want for friends all the way home.

"The English guard noticed me cry, and he will take care of me all the night, and see me off at Muirtown, and this iss what he will say as the train wa.s.s leaving, in his cheery English way, 'Keep up your heart, la.s.s, there's a good time coming,' and Peter Bruce will be waiting for me at the Junction, and a gentle man iss Peter Bruce, and Maister Moncur will be singing a psalm to keep up my heart, and I will see the light, and then I will know that the Lord ha.s.s had mercy upon me. That iss all I have to tell you, Marget, for the rest I will be saying to G.o.d."

"But there iss something I must be telling," said Lachlan, coming in, "and it iss not easy."

He brought over the Bible and opened it at the family register where his daughter's name had been erased; then he laid it down before Flora, and bowed his head on the bed.

"Will you ever be able to forgive your father?"

"Give me the pen, Marget;" and Flora wrote for a minute, but Lachlan never moved.

When he lifted his head, this was what he read in a vacant s.p.a.ce:--

FLORA CAMPBELL.

Missed April 1873.

Found September 1873.

"Her father fell on her neck and kissed her."

IV

AS A LITTLE CHILD

Drumtochty made up its mind slowly upon any new-comer, and for some time looked into the far distance when his name was mentioned. He himself was struck with the studied indifference of the parish, and lived under the delusion that he had escaped notice. Perhaps he might have felt uncomfortable if he had suspected that he was under a microscope, and the keenest eyes in the country were watching every movement at kirk and market. His knowledge of theology, his preference in artificial manures, his wife's Sabbath dress, his skill in cattle, and his manner in the Kildrummie train, went as evidence in the case, and were duly weighed. Some morning the floating opinion suddenly crystallized in the kirkyard, and there is only one historical instance in which judgment was reversed. It was a strong proof of Lachlan Campbell's individuality that he impressed himself twice on the parish, and each time with a marked adjective.

Lachlan had been superintending the theology of the glen and correcting our ignorance from an unapproachable height for two years before the word went forth, but the glen had been thinking.

"Lachlan is a carefu' shepherd and fine wi' the ewes at the lambing time, there's nae doot o' that, but a' canna thole (bear) himsel'.

Ye wud think there was nae releegion in the parish till he came frae Auchindarroch. What say ye, Domsie?"

"Campbell's a censorious body, Drumsheugh," and Domsie shut his snuff-box lid with a snap.

Drumsheugh nodded to the fathers of our commonwealth, and they went into kirk with silent satisfaction. Lachlan had been cla.s.sified, and Peter Bruce, who prided himself on keeping in touch with Drumtochty, pa.s.sed the word round the Kildrummie train next market night.

"Ye haena that censorious body, Lachlan Campbell, wi' ye the nicht,"

thrusting his head in on the thirds.

"There's naething Peter disna ken," Hillocks remarked with admiration afterwards; "he's as gude as the _Advertiser_."

When Flora had come home, and Drumtochty resumed freedom of criticism, I noticed for the first time a certain vacillation in its treatment of Lachlan.

"He's pluckit up his speerit maist extraordinar," Hillocks explained, "and he whuppit by me like a three year auld laist Sabbath.

"'I'm glad tae hear the Miss is comin' roond fine,' says I.

"'It's the fouk o' Drumtochty hes made her weel. G.o.d bless you, for you hev done good for evil,' and wi' that he was aff afore I cud fin' a word.

"He's changed, the body, some wy or ither, and there's a kind o'

warmth aboot him ye canna get ower."

Next day I turned into Mrs. Macfadyen's cottage for a cup of tea and the smack of that wise woman's conversation, but was not able to pa.s.s the inner door for the sight which met my eyes.

Lachlan was sitting on a chair in the middle of the kitchen with Elsie, Mrs. Macfadyen's pet child, on his knee, and their heads so close together that his white hair was mingling with her burnished gold. An odour of peppermint floated out at the door, and Elsie was explaining to Lachlan, for his guidance at the shop, that the round drops were a better bargain than the black and white rock.

When Lachlan had departed, with gracious words on his lips and a very sticky imprint on his right cheek, I settled down in the big chair, beyond the power of speech, and Mrs. Macfadyen opened the mystery.

"Ye may weel look, for twa month syne I wudna hae believed this day, though a' hed seen him wi' ma ain een.

"It was juist this time laist year that he cam here on his elder's veesitation, and he catches the bairn in this verra kitchen.

"'Elspeth,' says he--it was Elsie the day, ye mind--'div ye ken that ye're an oreeginal sinner?'

"It was nichtfa' afore she got over the fricht, and when she saw him on the road next Sabbath, she cooried in ahint ma goon, and cried till I thocht her hert wud break.

"'It's meeserable wark for Christ's Elder,' says Jeems, 'tae put the fear o' death on a bairn, and a'm thinkin' he wudna get muckle thanks frae his Maister if He wes here,' and Jeems wasna far wrong, though, of course, a' told him tae keep a quiet sough, and no conter the elder.

"Weel, I sees Lachlan comin' up the road the day, and a' ran oot to catch Elsie and hide her in the byre. But a' micht hae saved mysel'