Chapter XI: Jambe De Bois (2)

"As I opened the door to step forth, I noticed the mark of a man's foot, as if some one had come down the small lane, that ran at right angles with the road, and past the end of the house, towards the little projecting steps in front of the door. 'Well,' thought I--'well--it may have been my father's, or some one of the villagers may have been earlier up than I apprehended;' and I stepped on, wondering in my own mind what made me notice the steps at all. 'But I am a fool, for one does notice the footprints after the first fall of snow of the season with an interest that we cannot always account for,' said I to myself, as I stepped into the path that led to the school, where I was going to light the fire. I again started as I looked down, for I now noticed, to my surprise, that the footprints exactly resembled my own, with the round mark of the ring at the end of my stick-leg distinct in the snow. 'Why, I did not come this way home, did I?' again communed I with myself; 'certainly I did not; and there was no snow when I came from the school, before I set out for the town. How came these footprints here?--what can it mean?' and mechanically I traced them as far as I could, until the mark of the wooden leg suddenly vanished, and was replaced by the print of a boot or shoe, for a few paces farther; when the marks disappeared altogether, as if the person had turned off suddenly through a gap in the hedge. I was a good deal startled at all this--Could I have been walking in my sleep?--This was scarcely credible; I had never done so, and if I had, which I could not believe, how came my shrunk leg to be miraculously straightened on the instant? For whatever it was, man or spirit, it must have stumped along for fifty yards on a leg of flesh, and a tram of wood, and then suddenly have dropped the agency of the latter, and turned sharp into the fields on two feet, such us everyday men wear; besides, the person, whoever he was, wore iron-heeled square-toed boots or shoes; and I saw no mark of my own tackets, or round _brogue_-like toes.

"I walked on until I came to the steps of the schoolroom, in a brown study, with the crisp new-fallen snow crunching beneath my tread, and I had nearly given a second edition of Doctor Soorock's downfall before I fairly awoke to the routine of this sublunary world, and betook myself to the unromantic occupation of lighting the fire. I sat down and took up the bellows, but it seemed I had forgotten to make use of them; for there I had been cowering by the ingle-cheek near an hour, pondering in my own mind what the footprints could mean, and quite unconscious all this time that the morning, in place of getting lighter, had settled down very dark. The wind had also suddenly risen, and the branches of the auld elm that overshadowed the schoolhouse were groaning and rasping on the ridge of the roof; and Betty Mutchkin's sign, that hung on the opposite side of the road from a long projecting beam, as if it had been a flag, was swinging and creaking on its rusty hinges before the angry gusts, as they tore down the small valley. At length I was startled by the fury with which a hail shower dashed against the window at my lug, utterly demolishing in a minute the sheet of brown paper with which, until the village glazier sobered, and got a pane from Edinburgh, I had _battered_ up the fracture occasioned by Dr Soorock's cane, when he was humbling himself, and bowing down before the golden coronet on auld Earl M----'s carriage.

"'Dear me,' said I, 'what a day! It's but gloomy without, and I'm no sure that it's very cheery within; for there's a weight that has been lang accumulating at my heart, and now it has grown heavy, heavy. The lift will clear, and the spring will come again, and all nature, as if risen from the grave, as we puir deevils hope to do, will resume its primeval beauty; but a seared heart, a blighted soul,'--and I gave a heavy sigh, while the very bellows on my knees seemed suddenly to collapse of themselves, as if in sympathy, and to puff out an echo to my groan.

"I felt a rough shake on the shoulder. 'What _are_ you sitting groaning at there, Dominie?' said my father, who had entered unseen and unheard--'what are you grunting and graning at the fireside on such a morning as this for, Saunders, when you should have had a bit cheery fire in the ingle for the drookit school-callants to dry themselves at, instead of dreaming with the bellows on your knee, and the fire black out?'

"I looked, and it was even so. 'I dinna ken, father, I am ill at ease; but if I am spared'----

"'Nonsense!' quoth the hasty old sutor; 'get up, Saunders, and clap a fresh spunk to the fire, whether you're spared or no, or I'll tak ye siccan a clamhewit with my stick,'----The good old man the next moment, however, saw how it was with me, and relenting said--'but come awa hame like a decent callant, and tak yere breakfast, man; and you will have scrimp time to eat it, let me tell you, for see,'--pulling out an old turnip-shaped horologe, with great steel hands--'it is within the twenty minutes of school-time already.'

"I made an effort, lighted the fire again, and rousing myself, went forth with him towards our dwelling. The snow was fast disappearing under the pelting of a heavy shower of sleet, that had succeeded the hailstorm, and a loud clap of thunder shook the firmament as we arrived at home. I started--'It's no common to hear thunder at this time o' year, father.'

"'Come in and tak your breakfast, sir--the deevil's in the gaumerell, that I should say sae.' I did so in silence, and returned to the school, where I found myself without my hat, my hair wet and dripping, and the back of my neck chilled, from the lodging of the hail within the cape of my coat.

"One of my dreamy fits had again come over me, which, however, I struggled hard to overcome; so I sat down at my small desk, and unlocked my drawer, from whence I took out the tawse and laid them on the closed Bible, as a terror to evil-doers; and placing my watch beside them, I waited the entry of my scholars. First one wee drooked chiel came in, and syne another, but most of them were beyond the time, for the day was bad, and after they had all taken their places, there was a perfect volley of hoasting. I could not skelp any of them for being late that morning.--About half an hour had elapsed, and I had set the boys to some task; there was a loud hum in the school, from their murmuring voices, and I was looking out towards the road, at the swollen stream, that I saw but last night sparkling and tinkling over its more than half-dry channel, in a tiny stream that I could have stepped across, but that now surged along brimful, in a red discoloured torrent, tearing the trees and pailings, and whatever else it could reach on its banks away, and rolling them down with such fury, that I expected to see the arch of the small bridge sink and disappear, like a wall going down before the strokes of a battering-ram. A group of the villagers on the opposite side from where I stood were fishing out the floating timber for firewood; but my attention was soon attracted to the carrier's cart from town, that was coming along the road, with auld Hempy himself--that was the man's name that had succeeded poor Jemmy Miller in his vocation--and his wee son Andrew, cocked up in the front of the cart. The river continued to rise, and covered a bend of the road, which the cart was now approaching; it entered the water, which the horse was making flash up in all directions, until it reached the axle, but it gradually shoaled again, and the vehicle was on the point of reaching the dry part of the road, when, like a shot, man and boy, and horse and cart, disappeared amidst the roaring eddies.

"I ran out; the villagers had noticed the accident also; we all hurried to the spot. The horse was struggling and snorting, and standing on his hind legs, between the trams, in a vain attempt to get free from the cart that was dragging him down the stream, but auld Hempy had disappeared.

"'What's that? There's the callant, there's the callant--see his bit head sooming down the stream like an otter'----

"I saw it, threw off my coat, and plunged in; but the upshot was, that although Tam Clink the blacksmith saved the _child_, the _dominie_ was near drowned; for I found to my cost that a stick-leg wasna canny to soom with, the buoyancy thereof producing a corresponding and very dangerous depression of the caput.

"We saved the boy; but the horse and cart, and Hempy himsell, were all drowned; it was the first time, I mind, that I had ever seen a dead corpse. The puir auld chiel was a stout buirdly man--he might have weighed sixteen stone; but when we gat him that forenoon, after the river had cast him ashore, stark and stiff, and carried him, and laid him out in the kirk aisle, it was fearful to observe how he had shrunk in bulk after the water had ran oot o' him; it wasna aften he took muckle o' that same in, so it was a sure sign he was dead; his stomach having fallen, had left the arch of his deep chest in fearful relief, and then the pinching of his blue features and the death-girn on his upper lip, that showed his twa buck teeth as if in anger--It was a maist awfu' sicht.

"'What! are you frichtened, Saunders?' said a voice close to me--'are you frichtened to look on a dead man, dominie? If you had been in Paris with me last summer, man, you would have seen a dozen lying every morning in the Morgue--ay, as nice and caller as if they had been haddies in a fishmonger's shop.'

"I looked up at the heartless creature. 'He was the father of a family, Mr Adderfang, and that drooked and shivering callant, that's greeting there at the head of the corp, is his son; and mair forby, he was a tenant o' yeer ain, sir, and'----

"He turned fiercely--'Keep your sentimentality for your next sermon, sir;' and he looked at me with a withering scowl that sent a chill to my heart. I felt a blighting of the soul that I would not willingly have acknowledged--a sort of crushing consciousness, that the person before me was in very deed my evil genius; but the _consciousness_ of such a feeling drove me in the present instance to return his savage look as haughtily as it was given; and I made a sudden motion with my hand, which made him start back, and grasp the sma' end of his long hammer-headed hunting whip.--'I say, dominie, I do not _quite_ understand you this morning; but, by G--, sir, if you give me an opportunity I will read you a lesson that is not in your primer.'--And he raised his whip threateningly. He was, as I have before mentioned, a tall well-put-together man, as we say in Lincumdodie, and far more than a match for me, at my best, when I had twa legs, and therefore incomparably my superior in bodily strength and activity, maimed as I now was. However, I took no time to consider of all this, but making a sudden spring, I wrenched his whip from him, and as he swerved from me, he fell over the trestle whereon the body of the carrier lay, and upset it, to the great horror of the bystanders; and there lay, side by side, the living scoffer and the dead corpse. A murmur of something that hovered between applause and disapprobation buzzed amongst the group of villagers; and the wee callant cried loud and bitterly, when, as the laird was in the act of gathering himself up, Mr Bland himsell entered the kirk, and with more sternness in his countenance than I had ever seen there before.

"'Mr Adderfang,' said he to the young man, 'what is the meaning of all this?--Is it becoming in a gentleman of your rank to desecrate the House of God by heartless and ill-timed levity, first of all; for I have heard the story from one of my elders; and then to threaten an unoffending schoolmaster--ay, sir,'--for here Adderfang seemed on the point of contradicting the minister--'ay, sir, and, to the credit of your discretion be it said, a maimed man, too? Was this decent? was it gentlemanly?'

"Here the poor wife of the carrier, with her clothes dripping with water, and splashed with red clay stains from the miry road, without her mutch, her grey haffits clotted with rain and perspiration over her blue and shrunken features, and with her lip quivering, rushed into the church.

"'Whar is he--whar is he--whar is my Willie?' The instant her eye rested on the body she gave a long loud shriek, that echoed along the roof, and fell down on it senseless. We had the poor woman removed, and by that time Mr Adderfang had disappeared."

* * * * *

But the plot was fast thickening both with the dominie and poor Jessy Miller.

Widow Miller's humble domicile was divided from the house where our friend the dominie reposed, by a narrow lane. It stood three or four yards back from the frontage of the neighbouring cottages, which afforded space for a small parterre of flowers, at one time the pride of poor Jessy's heart, and watered with her own hands; but many a hot tear had lately trickled on their leaves, down the poor girl's pale and faded countenance, and strange rumours had become rife in the secluded village of the flower of the whole strath having been tainted by the blight of some scoundrel. Her anxious and altered appearance, and the evident misery of the poor widow her mother, were melancholy proofs of the correctness of the surmise.

_Gradually the sough settled down on Saunders Skelp_--for who so likely to be the cause as the avowed lover of the girl, and, as people thought, her betrothed husband?

The report of Jessy's misfortune soon reached the person whom it most concerned. At first it fairly stunned him, and then such crushing misery overwhelmed the poor fellow's whole soul, when he became convinced of its truth, that it nearly drove him mad altogether.

The morning after he had been made acquainted with the heart-breaking fact, the dominie was sitting dejectedly at the breakfast-table (with his elbow planted quite unconcernedly in the very middle of the plate _among the het parritch_), opposite the auld _betherel_,[3] who was munching his food in silence, and eyeing his son every now and then with a most vinegar aspect. At length he broke out--"Braw wark, dominie--braw wark ye have made o't atween ye." (The poor fellow raised his disconsolate visage, and looked innocently in his parent's face.) "Ay, you may look surprised Saunders, but that sham sheep face will no deceive me; for--God forgie me, but I wonder the sicht did not turn me intil stane--I marked you come out o' Jessy Miller's window this blessed morning at grey daylicht, stick-leg and grey coat, just as you sit there, as plain as I see ye the noo."

[3] Betherel, or minister's man. _Anglice_, beadle.

The poor fellow was roused almost to madness at this unjust and most cruel aspersion, and denied most vehemently that he had been out of the house that morning at all. But the old man _threeped_ that he saw him bodily stump through the wee garden, and disappear round the corner, where he had no doubt he had stolen in by the window of his room that fronted that way, but which he could not see from where he stood.

"It couldna be me, father; as I sall answer to God it wasna me. My wraith it may have been."

"If it was _your_ wraith, Saunders, it wasna the wraith o' a _timmer-leg_? for there are the prints of ane to be seen till this blessed moment, amang the flowers o' the garden and the glawr of the lane. Tam Clink will vouch for this as well as me, for he saw you too."

Saunders, half crazy at this damning tissue of circumstantial, although false, evidence, rose and went out to satisfy himself. After inspecting the foot-marks, for there they were, sure enough, he returned to the house, and the first thing he did now was to gobble up his food, scalding hot as it was, as if he had been perishing of hunger. He then rose, and was rushing down stairs distractedly--when lo! who should enter but Mr Bland the minister?

Here there was a new scene of crimination; and the poor creature was like to have made an end of himself in his despair, for when he seized the big "ha' Bible," and was about making oath upon it to his innocence, the minister took it forcibly from him.

"Not in my presence, young man--not before me shall you imprecate the curse of the Almighty on the head of a perjurer."

"Minister, minister, wad you hae my death--the death maybe of sowl and body--lie at your door? Send for Jessy Miller--lost creature as she is--send for her. She will not--she cannot condemn me."

"Jessy Miller, sir!--the oath of a limmer like her is no worth a wunnlestrae."

At this he sprang forth like a wild-beast when the goad is struck into him, and out to the hill-side, nor did he venture home that night.

Listen.

"The snow had fallen about the dawning, and, benumbed with cold, I was returning from my night-lair on the damp hill-side towards the village, with a determination to flee the bounds thereof, after once more trying to undeceive my auld father; for it was a dreary thocht to travel forth burdened with my ain misery, and the heavy load of a father's curse forby. As I came down the small lane, and got my first glimpse of Widow Miller's house, I stopped to take a last look at the bit bourock that sheltered her for whom, only twa days gane, I would have shed my reddest heart's-blood rather than sin or sorrow should have scathed her, or come near her dwelling. It was as yet scrimp daylight, naebody was stirring. The only indication of life (barring the twittering of the birdies in the trees, and the crowing of the cocks) was a thread of blue peat smoke rising from a cottage in the village, here and there; but the east was fast reddening, when lo! I saw the window of Jessy's room open gently, and, _what shall I say--what did I see_--but a wooden-leg, so sure as I was a sinful man, protrude therefrom! I went blin'--I went blin';--as I saw mysell, grey frock, timmer-tram and all, jump into the wee garden, open the small wicker-gate, and stump away in the direction of the manse.

"I was petrified with astonishment, frozen to the spot, until my wraith, for assuredly I considered it nothing else, arrived at the gate leading into the minister's garden, when it turned; and then, as if in great alarm, suddenly rushed through the small gate and disappeared. I was roused, and now started off in pursuit at the very top of my speed, but reached the gate only in time to see the figure clear the holly hedge that screened the front of the manse, at a bound, with the wooden-leg unstrapped and flourishing in its hand, and vanish beyond it. I had then to make a small detour to get through the wicket in the fence; but before I got round, whatever it might have been, it was nowhere to be seen.

"I ran up to the door in breathless haste, and, early as it was, began to knock furiously for admittance, without well thinking what I was about. No one answered, and an open window on the ground-floor now attracted my attention. I looked in--and who should I see snoring on 'the bred of his back,' in his wee fold-down pallet, but young Moses Bland, the helper, with--I went frantic at the sight--the ghost of my ain wooden leg lying across the body!

"'Now I have run the fox to earth,' said I.

"'And wha makes such an indecent uproar at the door, at such an untimeous season?' quoth the _auld minister_, from an upper window.

"'It is me, sir--I Saunders Skelp, wha ye hae sae unjustly maligned, minister. Gude forgie me that I should say so.'

"'Off with you, ye scoonrel,' quoth the usually mild minister--'off with you, sir, or I'll make you repent it.'

"'Na, minister, when you are cool, you will yoursell repent your conduct to me. Here, sir, tak your cloak about you, and come down _here_--you'll soon see that the evildoer is nearer a-kin to you than Saunders Skelp.'"

The minister came down, and now there was the devil to pay between him and his helper; but the latter protested his innocence so vehemently, that at length the dominie was unceremoniously ejected, with the additional accusation sticking to him, of having in cold blood, and for purposes of deceit, actually made a duplicate of his wooden-leg, in order to cast the blame on young Mr Bland. He was thus on the eve of getting set deeper and faster in the mire than ever, when in came the betherel and Tam Clink, who, being on the watch, had seen Saunders pursue his own _double_ towards the manse, so that Moses Bland once more became the subject of suspicion.

The affair was largely canvassed that forenoon at a meeting of the elders, and the injurious surmises were gaining strength against poor Moses, notwithstanding: his frantic protestations that he "kenn'd na whether Jessy Miller was man or woman." But Saunders, when he brought his sober judgment to bear on the matter, was the first to acquit him, for his kind heart would not allow him to believe that his tried friend and old schoolfellow, the helper, could be guilty of such atrocious conduct; while something whispered him that his evil genius, William Adderfang, was the villain; however little appearances in the mean time might tend to such a conclusion.

During that day, the mysterious transaction of the _double_ got wind in the village, and every ingle cheek was filled with the sound of keen disputation. The fact of the apparition was unquestionably proved by Tam Clink and the betherel, putting Saunders' own evidence out of the question; but whether it was the deil himsell, or a dweller on this earth, afforded large scope for doubt and argument. Tam Clink was inclined to believe in the mortality of the duplicate Saunders, "as he had weel examined the counterfeit tram, and it was sound maple, with nae smell of fire ava, let abee brimstane," and Tam was a judge. It happened to be a holiday at the small school, so the poor fellow again stole away to commune with himself on the hill-side, and to escape the gaze of his humble acquaintances.

It was a most beautiful breezy forenoon, and from the spot where he had planted himself, he had a bird's-eye view of the _duke's_ hounds, on the opposite swell of the river-divided valley, and the whole field of gallant sportsmen. It was the last day of the season, and in the cover they were drawing, that was alive with red coats and white hounds (the latter diminished by distance to a handful of hailstones pattering and glancing among the dark bushes), the whips, and three _scoonrel chields_ were busy digging out a litter of cub foxes from one of the earths, amidst a chorus of merry voices and loud laughter. Presently the old bitch broke cover from another mouth, when the whole pack opened most musically, and away went the jovial party as hard as they could split, their tallyho's making the whole strath ring again.

At first, the fresh air and quiet loveliness of nature had gradually stolen over his soul in spite of himself, and stilled its troubled heavings, like oil calming the stormy waters of the sea; and now the exhilaration of the scene, like the flowing tide lifting a stranded vessel off the rocks, was imperceptibly lightening that more perilous stuff, the duller load of misery that pressed closer and more suffocatingly on the poor fellow's heart--when lo! just as the foxhounds disappeared from the river, the wasted form of poor Jessy Miller was seen slowly and painfully crawling up the hill towards where the dominie sat, leaning on her staff, and feeble as an infant.

He saw her from the first, but could not move--something nailed him to the spot. She approached, but for a minute was so breathless and exhausted, that she could not speak--"Saunders Skelp!"--at length moaned the poor broken-hearted girl--"Saunders!--ye are going to tak the sacrament the morn," she paused, and leant, "_peching_ on her staff," as the MS. hath it--"Ay, Saunders, ye are going to commemorate our Saviour's death, and--and--I am gaun to dee, Saunders."

"The tears ran down her cheeks, and I was like to be worried mysell, for greet I couldna.

"'Saunders. Is it no written, that if thou hast ought against thy brother, thou shalt leave thy gift before the altar, and first go and be reconciled unto thy brother?'

"'Even sae--sae is it even written, Jessy.'

"'Time _has_ been when you aften said I was dearer till you than mony sisters--but that's past and gane--gane like the last winter's snaw; yet is Saunders Skelp's hate sae deadly that he refuses to tak off Jessy Miller's parting and sin-clogged soul, the grievous weight of his own bitter, bitter curse.' She waited lang for an answer, but I gied her nane--'I cam to ask yere forgiveness, Saunders--_and I hae asked it_'--here she grat as if her heart was bursting--'and--and--oh God, whom I have offended, cast me not off in this my utmost need--_and I have been refused_--one struggle more, and my task is ended, Saunders'--and she caught my hand in baith of hers whether I would or no--they were cauld, cauld as lead--'I hae deserved this; but hand my heart, _I didna expect it_--Saunders, I have only now to say God bless you, and to bid you fareweel for ever.' She sank down on the whin-stane at my feet--the fiend had seared my heart harder than it, and I never even offered to help her up.

"I thought she was _awa_ awthegither; at last, gathering strength, she spak the last words I ever heard her utter.

"'I am come to clear Moses Bland, and to richt you, Saunders.'

"Oh, the sweet low music of that mournful voice!

"'The young laird--Mr Adderfang'--she _gasped_, it could nae langer be called speaking--'that _serpent_, William Adderfang, has been the ruin o' me--ruin here, and--and--condemnation in the world to come.'

"She bent her head, and hid her face with her wasted fingers, through which the hot tears fell fast as the rain-drops in the breeze from the shower-bedashed tree above us--when the sound of hound and horn once more swelled in the gale; and first the fox came over the wall above us, then the whole pack, tumbling tumultuously one over another down the face of the rocky precipice, twinkling hither and thither, and dropping from stone to cliff like the breeze-scattered foam of a cataract, _then one solitary cavalier, who was dashed, horse and man, to the ground, close to us where we sat_, the rider falling senseless, and the blood flowing from his mouth and ears. The gallant horse, however, struggled to get on his legs again, until he reached the brink of the old quarry close beneath us, over which he rolled, dragging the wounded man along with him by the stirrup, and disappeared, rattling and rasping among the loose stones and bushes. Jessy was roused in an instant; she had caught a glimpse of the wounded man's face as he was dragged past her, and giving a loud shriek, as if her heart had split in twain, dashed herself down the precipice after him, and vanished for ever from my eyes amongst the furze--_it was William Adderfang!_"

The issue of all this complicated misery was the unfortunate girl being carried home, and that night prematurely confined of a dead child--_she never saw the sun rise again_.

As for the poor Dominie, although his character was cleared both by Jessy Miller on her death-bed, and ultimately by Adderfang himself, his heart was nearly broken; indeed, the blow was heavy enough to "drive his wits a wee bit ajee," as he phrased it, ever after. In this half crazy, half desperate condition, he suddenly left friends, and house, and home, and wandered about the country, until his means of subsistence failing, he enlisted into the militia; and afterwards, as related by Serjeant Lorimer, into the marines, on the reduction of the former.

Enough and to spare of the Sorrows of Dominie Skelp; those who desire more must wait until he publishes them: but the Midge is but a little vessel, and a heavy episode would swamp her. So--

"Here, Mr Peak," struck in Dick Lanyard, who was standing close beside the small open skylight,--"clap on that purchase, and take a small pull of the main-halyards, before we keep away, do you hear? Belay all that. Now, Dogvane, put the helm up--so. Let draw the foresheet there."

"Ay, ay, sir."

And once more the wicked little Midge buzzes along free.