shadowy like holes with the dusk shiningthrough. ‘Ye’ll not tell?’ said she. ‘Hugh Herriot, ye’ll not tell on my lady?’
‘Is it likely?’ said I. ‘Ach away, lassie, do ye think I’m the telling kind?’
And I never have told, not until this day, when it is an old, old story, and will not be mattering to either of them any more.
5
The Dutch Painter
I CARRIED A sore heart with me to my sleeping place in the loft that night, for it seemed that I was soon to be losing all that made Paisley a bonnie place to me. My lady, and like enough Laverock and the old mare, for I made no doubt that if my lady went to her man she would take those two with her. And with his wife somewhere the other side of Scotland (for I knew that his home was somewhere Dundee way) it was not likely that Claverhouse would be much at Paisley, save in time of dealing with the ‘Saints’. And it would be another year at least, maybe two, before I could be going for a soldier. Oh, I could have ‘listed as a drummer boy if I had had the skill, but I had not, and in any case that would not have got me where I would be, since it was the cavalry I had set my heart on, and they do not take laddies for the kettle-drums.
Lying awake that night, staring into the dark, I knew for the first time that it was not so much the soldiering my heart was set on, as that I would be following Claverhouse.
There is no knowing how much pleading my lady Jean had to do with her grandfather, but I think not much (Claverhouse’s superiors set their faces dead against it for a while, but that was another matter), for before long it was known throughout the household, and among the troops and over all the country round, that she and Colonel Graham were betrothed. And afterthat I saw what she had meant when she said that once it was out, they would never be alone to each other again until after they were wed.
The coming and the going that there was! The notaries and the silk-merchants and seamstresses, and the great folk visiting from all around! There was a painter coming, too; a Dutch painter who was in Edinburgh at the time, coming to paint a wedding portrait. And that made me prick up my ears, for I had not seen brush laid to canvas since my father died; though indeed it was not much of the painting I’d be seeing, it going up in the great house, and me down in the stable-yard.
And meanwhile Claverhouse came and went about his business of peacekeeping all across Ayrshire and the South West; and many’s the time I saw him walking to and fro, waiting until my lady should be free of her dressmakers and her grandmother, until often he could wait no more but must call for his horse and be off back to his headquarters at Stranraer without ever seeing her at all.
She never had time to come down to the stable-yard, either, nor to go riding in the early mornings as she had been used to do; so he was not the only one that missed her.
And then there came a day – the swallows had arrived and the cuckoo was calling in the woods across the river – when three things happened all within a few hours of each other. It was one of those days when a little wind rises and changes the life one woke to in the morning, so that by nightfall one is travelling by a different way.
The first of the three things came with the carrier, who brought me word that my grandfather was dead.Not word from Aunt Margaret, you will understand. The carrier, who was always the bearer of news, as well as goods and gear, picked up the word at Wauprigg and dropped it again in the stable-yard at Place of Paisley, knowing that I was there.
I had heard from the old man two-three times since I had left, but that was all; and I had no thought ever to see him again; but the news fetched me a buffet under the heart, all the same.
‘How did he come to die?’ I asked.
The carrier shook his head. ‘Seems like he just grew old an’ weary an’ his heart stopping beating. He was in the byre seeing to a
‘Is it likely?’ said I. ‘Ach away, lassie, do ye think I’m the telling kind?’
And I never have told, not until this day, when it is an old, old story, and will not be mattering to either of them any more.
5
The Dutch Painter
I CARRIED A sore heart with me to my sleeping place in the loft that night, for it seemed that I was soon to be losing all that made Paisley a bonnie place to me. My lady, and like enough Laverock and the old mare, for I made no doubt that if my lady went to her man she would take those two with her. And with his wife somewhere the other side of Scotland (for I knew that his home was somewhere Dundee way) it was not likely that Claverhouse would be much at Paisley, save in time of dealing with the ‘Saints’. And it would be another year at least, maybe two, before I could be going for a soldier. Oh, I could have ‘listed as a drummer boy if I had had the skill, but I had not, and in any case that would not have got me where I would be, since it was the cavalry I had set my heart on, and they do not take laddies for the kettle-drums.
Lying awake that night, staring into the dark, I knew for the first time that it was not so much the soldiering my heart was set on, as that I would be following Claverhouse.
There is no knowing how much pleading my lady Jean had to do with her grandfather, but I think not much (Claverhouse’s superiors set their faces dead against it for a while, but that was another matter), for before long it was known throughout the household, and among the troops and over all the country round, that she and Colonel Graham were betrothed. And afterthat I saw what she had meant when she said that once it was out, they would never be alone to each other again until after they were wed.
The coming and the going that there was! The notaries and the silk-merchants and seamstresses, and the great folk visiting from all around! There was a painter coming, too; a Dutch painter who was in Edinburgh at the time, coming to paint a wedding portrait. And that made me prick up my ears, for I had not seen brush laid to canvas since my father died; though indeed it was not much of the painting I’d be seeing, it going up in the great house, and me down in the stable-yard.
And meanwhile Claverhouse came and went about his business of peacekeeping all across Ayrshire and the South West; and many’s the time I saw him walking to and fro, waiting until my lady should be free of her dressmakers and her grandmother, until often he could wait no more but must call for his horse and be off back to his headquarters at Stranraer without ever seeing her at all.
She never had time to come down to the stable-yard, either, nor to go riding in the early mornings as she had been used to do; so he was not the only one that missed her.
And then there came a day – the swallows had arrived and the cuckoo was calling in the woods across the river – when three things happened all within a few hours of each other. It was one of those days when a little wind rises and changes the life one woke to in the morning, so that by nightfall one is travelling by a different way.
The first of the three things came with the carrier, who brought me word that my grandfather was dead.Not word from Aunt Margaret, you will understand. The carrier, who was always the bearer of news, as well as goods and gear, picked up the word at Wauprigg and dropped it again in the stable-yard at Place of Paisley, knowing that I was there.
I had heard from the old man two-three times since I had left, but that was all; and I had no thought ever to see him again; but the news fetched me a buffet under the heart, all the same.
‘How did he come to die?’ I asked.
The carrier shook his head. ‘Seems like he just grew old an’ weary an’ his heart stopping beating. He was in the byre seeing to a
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