John Burnet of Barns: A Romance

CHAPTER III

THE HOUSE WITH THE CHIPPED GABLES

The next morn the weather had changed. When I looked forth through the latticed panes to the street, it was a bleak scene that met my eyes – near a foot of snow, flakes tossing and whirling everywhere, and the roofs and gables showing leaden dull in the gloom. Had I been in another frame of mind I should have lost my spirits, for nothing so disheartened me as heavy, dismal weather. But now I was in such a temper that I welcomed the outlook; the grey, lifeless street was akin to my heart, and I went down from my chamber with the iron of resolution in my soul.

My first care was to enquire at Mistress Macmillan if she knew aught of my cousin's doings, for the town-house of the Eaglesham Burnets was not two streets distant. But she could give me no news, for, said she, since the old laird died and these troublous times succeeded, it was little that the young master came near the place. So without any delay I and my servant went out into the wintry day, and found our way to the old, dark dwelling in the High Street.

The house had been built near a hundred years before, in the time of Ephraim Burnet, my cousin's grandfather. I mind it well to this day, and oft as I think of the city, that dreary, ancient pile rises to fill my vision. The three Burnet leaves, the escutcheon of our family, hung over the doorway. Every window was little and well-barred with iron, nor was any sign of life to be seen behind the dreary panes. But the most notable things to the eye were the odd crow-step gables, which, I know not from what cause, were all chipped and defaced, and had a strange, pied appearance against the darker roof. It faced the street and down one side ran a little lane. Behind were many lesser buildings around the courtyard, and the back opened into a wynd which ran westward to the city walls.

I went up the steps and with my sword-hilt thundered on the door. The blows roused the echoes of the old place. Within I heard the resonance of corridor and room, all hollow and empty. Below me was the snowy street, with now and then a single passer, and I felt an eerie awe of this strange house, as of one who should seek to force a vault of the dead.

Again I knocked, and this time it brought me an answer. I heard feet – slow, shuffling feet, coming from some room, and ascending the staircase to the hall. The place was so void that the slightest sound rang loud and clear, and I could mark the progress of the steps from their beginning. Somewhere they came to a halt, as if the person were considering whether or not to come to the door, but by and by they advanced, and with vast creaking a key was fitted into the lock and the great oak door was opened a little.

It was a little old woman who stood in the opening, with a face seamed and wrinkled, and not a tooth in her head. She wore a mutch, which gave her a most witch-like appearance, and her narrow, grey eyes, as they fastened on me and sought out my errand, did not reassure me.

"What d'ye want here the day, sir?" she said in a high, squeaking voice. "It's cauld, cauld weather, and my banes are auld and I canna stand here bidin' your pleesur."

"Is your master within?" I said, shortly. "Take me to him, for I have business with him."

"Maister, quotha!" she screamed. "Wha d'ye speak o', young sir? If it's the auld laird ye mean, he's lang syne wi' his Makker, and the young yin has no been here thae fower years. He was a tenty bit lad, was Maister Gilbert, but he gaed aff to the wars i' the abroad and ne'er thinks o' returnin'. Wae's me for the puir, hapless cheil." And she crooned on to herself in the garrulity of old age.

"Tell me the truth," said I, "and have done with your lies. It is well known that your master came here in the last two days with two men and a lady, and abode here for the night. Tell me instantly if he is still here or whither has he gone."

She looked at me with a twinkle of shrewdness and then shook her head once more. "Na, na, I'm no leein'. I'm ower neer my accoont wi' the Lord to burden my soul wi' lees. When you tae are faun i' the hinner end o' life, ye'll no think it worth your while to mak up leesome stories. I tell ye the young maister hasna been here for years, though it's blithe I wad be to see him. If ye winna believe my word, ye can e'en gang your ways."

Now I was in something of a quandary. The woman looked to be speaking the truth, and it was possible that my cousin could have left the city on one side and pushed straight on to his house of Eaglesham or even to the remoter western coast. Yet the way was a long one, and I saw not how he could have refrained from halting at Glasgow in the even. He had no cause to fear my following him there more than another place. For that I would come post-haste to the Westlands at the first word he must have well known, and so he could have no reason in covering his tracks from me. He was over-well known a figure in his own countryside to make secrecy possible; his aim must be to outrace me in speed, not to outwit me with cunning.

"Let me gang, young sir," the old hag was groaning. "I've the rheumaticks i' my banes and I'm sair hadden doon wi' the chills, and I'll get my death if I stand here longer."

"I will trust you then," said I, "but since I am a kinsman of your master's and have ridden far on a bootless errand, I will even come in and refresh myself ere I return."

"Na, na," she said, a new look, one of anxiety and cunning coming into her face, "ye maun na dae that. It was the last word my maister bade me ere he gaed awa'. 'Elspeth,' says he, 'see ye let nane intil the hoose till I come back.'"

"Tut, tut, I am his own cousin. I will enter if I please," and calling my servant, I made to force an admittance.

Then suddenly, ere I knew, the great door was slammed in my face, and I could hear the sound of a key turning and a bar being dropped.

Here was a pretty to-do. Without doubt there was that in the house which the crone desired to keep from my notice. I sprang to the door and thundered on it like a madman, wrestling with the lock, and calling for the woman to open it. But all in vain, and after a few seconds' bootless endeavour, I turned ruefully to my servant.

"Can aught be done?" I asked.

"I saw a dyke as we cam here," said Nicol, "and ower the back o't was a yaird. There was likewise a gate i' the dyke. I'm thinkin' that'll be the back door o' the hoose. If ye were awfu' determined, Laird, ye micht win in there."

I thought for a moment. "You are right," I cried. "I know the place. But we will first go back and fetch the horses, for it is like there will be wild work before us ere night."

But lo and behold! when we went to the inn stable my horse was off. "I thocht he needit a shoe," said the ostler, "so I just sent him doun to Jock Walkinshaw's i' the East Port. If ye'll bide a wee, I'll send a laddie doun to bring him up."

Five, twenty, sixty minutes and more we waited while that accursed child brought my horse. Then he came back a little after midday; three shoes had been needed, he said, and he had rin a' the way, and he wasna to blame. So I gave him a crown and a sound box on the ears, and then the two of us set off.

The place was high and difficult of access, being in a narrow lane where few passers ever went, and nigh to the city wall. I bade Nicol hold the horses, and standing on the back of one I could just come to within a few feet of the top. I did my utmost by springing upward to grasp the parapet, but all in vain, so in a miserable state of disappointed hopes I desisted and consulted with my servant. Together we tried the door, but it was of massive wood, clamped with iron, and triply bolted. There was nothing for it but to send off to Mistress Macmillan and seek some contrivance. Had the day not been so wild and the lane so quiet we could scarce have gone unnoticed. As it was, one man passed, a hawker in a little cart, seeking a near way, and with little time to stare at the two solitary horsemen waiting by the wall.

Nicol went off alone, while I kept guard – an aimless guard – by the gate. In a little he returned with an old boat-hook, with the cleek at the end somewhat unusually long. Then he proposed his method. I should stand on horseback as before, and hang the hook on the flat surface of the wall. When, by dint of scraping, I had fixed it firmly, I should climb it hand over hand, as a sailor mounts a rope, and with a few pulls I might hope to be at the summit.

I did as he bade, and, with great labour, fixed the hook in the hard stone. Then I pulled myself up, very slowly and carefully, with the shaft quivering in my hands. I was just gripping the stone when the wretched iron slipped and rattled down to the ground, cutting me sharply in the wrist. Luckily I did not go with it, for in the moment of falling, I had grasped the top and hung there with aching hands and the blood from the cut trickling down my arm. Then, with a mighty effort, I swung myself up and stood safe on the top.

Below me was a sloping roof of wood which ended in a sheer wall of maybe twelve feet. Below that in turn was the great yard, flagged with stone, but now hidden under a cloak of snow. Around it were stables, empty of horses, windy, cold, and dismal. I cannot tell how the whole place depressed me. I felt as though I were descending into some pit of the dead.

Staunching the blood from my wrist – by good luck my left – as best I might with my kerchief, I slipped down the white roof and dropped into the court. It was a wide, empty place, and, in the late afternoon, looked grey and fearsome. The dead black house behind, with its many windows all shuttered and lifeless, shadowed the place like a pall. At my back was the back door of the house, like the other locked and iron-clamped. I seemed to myself to have done little good by my escapade in coming thither.

Wandering aimlessly, I entered the stables, scarce thinking what I was doing. Something about the place made me stop and look. I rubbed my eyes and wondered. There, sure enough, were signs of horses having been recently here. Fresh hay and a few oats were in the mangers, and straw and dung in the stalls clearly proclaimed that not long agone the place had been tenanted.

I rushed out into the yard, and ran hither and thither searching the ground. There were hoof-marks – fool that I was not to have marked them before – leading clearly from the stable door to the gate on the High Street. I rushed to the iron doors and tugged at them. To my amazement I found that they yielded, and I was staring into the darkening street.

So the birds had been there and flown in our brief absence. I cursed my ill-fortune with a bitter heart.

Suddenly I saw something dark lying amid the snow. I picked it up and laid it tenderly in my bosom. For it was a little knot of blue velvet ribbon, such as my lady wore.

CHAPTER IV

UP HILL AND DOWN DALE

I rushed up the street, leaving the gates swinging wide behind me, and down the lane to where Nicol waited. In brief, panting words I told him my tale. He heard it without a movement, save to turn his horse's head up the street. I swung myself into the saddle, and, with no more delay, we made for our lodgings.

"There is but one thing that we may do," said I. "The night is an ill one, but if it is ill for us 'tis ill for them." And at the words I groaned, for I thought of my poor Marjory in the storm and cold.

At Mistress Macmillan's I paid the lawing, and having eaten a hearty meal, we crammed some food into our saddle-bags and bade the hostess good-bye. Then we turned straight for the west port of the city.

It was as I had expected. The gates were just at the closing when the twain of us rode up to them and were suffered to pass. The man looked curiously at my strange dress, but made no remark, as is the fashion of these taciturn Westland folk, and together we rode through and into the bleak night. The snow had ceased to fall early in the day, but now it came on again in little intermittent driftings, while a keen wind whistled from the hills of the north. The land was more or less strange to me, and even my servant, who had a passing acquaintance with many countrysides, professed himself ignorant. It was the way to the wild highlands – the county of Campbells and Lennoxes – and far distant from kindly Christian folk. I could not think why my cousin had chosen this path, save for the reason of its difficulty and obscurity. I was still in doubt of his purpose, whether he was bound for his own house of Eaglesham or for the more distant Clyde coast. He had clearly gone by this gate from the city, for this much we had learned from the man at the port. Now, if he sought Eaglesham, he must needs cross the river, which would give us some time to gain on his track. But if he still held to the north, then there was naught for it but to follow him hot-foot and come up with him by God's grace and our horses' speed.

I have been abroad on many dark nights, but never have I seen one so black as this. The path to the west ran straight from our feet to the rugged hills which dip down to the river edge some ten miles off. But of it we could make nothing, nor was there anything to tell us of its presence save that our horses stumbled when we strayed from it to the moory land on either side. All about us were the wilds, for the town of Glasgow stood on the last bounds of settled country, near to the fierce mountains and black morasses of the Highlandmen. The wind crooned and blew in gusts over the white waste, driving little flakes of snow about us, and cutting us to the bone with its bitter cold. Somewhere in the unknown distances we heard strange sounds – the awesome rumble of water or the cry of forlorn birds. All was as bleak as death, and, in the thick darkness, what might otherwise have seemed simple and homelike, was filled with vague terrors. I had shaped no path – all that I sought was to hasten somewhere nearer those we followed, and on this mad quest we stumbled blindly forward.

When we had gone some half-dozen miles a light shone out from the wayside, and we descried a house. It was a little, low dwelling, with many sheds at the rear; clearly a smithy or a humble farm. My servant leaped down and knocked. The door was opened, a warm stream of light lay across the snowy road. I had a glimpse within, and there was a cheerful kitchen with a fire of logs crackling. A man sat by the hearth, shaping something or other with a knife, and around him two children were playing. The woman who came to us was buxom and comely, one who delighted in her children and her home. The whole place gave me a sharp feeling of envy and regret. Even these folk, poor peasants, had the joys of comfort and peace, while I, so long an outlaw and a wanderer, must still wander hopeless seeking the lost, cumbered about with a thousand dangers.

"Did any riders pass by the road to-day?" I asked.

"Ay, four passed on horses about midday or maybe a wee thing after it, twae stoot fellows, and a braw-clad gentleman and a bonny young leddy. They didna stop but gaed by at a great rate."

"What was the lady like?" I asked, breathlessly.

"Oh, a bit young thing, snod and genty-like. But I mind she looked gey dowie and I think she had been greetin'. But wherefore d'ye speir, sir? And what are ye daein' oot hereaways on siccan a nicht? Ye best come in and bide till mornin'. We've an orra bed i' the house for the maister, and plenty o' guid, saft straw i' the barn for the man."

"Did they go straight on?" I cried, "and whither does this way lead?"

"They went straight on," said she, "and the road is the road to the toun o' Dumbarton." And she would have told me more, but with a hasty word of thanks, I cut her short, and once more we were off into the night.

From this place our way and the incidents thereof are scarce clear in my memory. For one thing the many toils of the preceding time began at last to tell upon me, and I grew sore and wearied. Also a heavy drowsiness oppressed me, and even in that cold I could have slept on my horse's back. We were still on the path, and the rhythmical jog of the motion served to lull me, till, as befell every now and then, there came a rut or a tussock, and I was brought to my senses with a sharp shock. Nicol rode silently at my side, a great figure in the gloom, bent low, as was always his custom, over his horse's neck. In one way the state was more pleasing than the last, for the turmoil of cares in my heart was quieted for the moment by the bodily fatigue. I roused myself at times to think of my purpose and get me energy for my task, but the dull languor would not be exorcised, and I always fell back again into my sloth. Nevertheless we kept a fair pace, for we had given the rein to our animals, and they were fresh and well-fed.

Suddenly, ere I knew, the way began to change from a level road into a steep hill-path. Even in the blackness I could see a great hillside rising steeply to right and to left. I pulled up my horse, for here there would be need of careful guidance, and was going on as before when Nicol halted me with his voice.