Chapter I: The First Letter

_Hubert Blake to Sophy Meredith._

THE CASTLE FARM, MUIRBURN,
KYLESHIRE, N.B., _Sept. 12, 187-_.

MY DEAR SOPHY,

I only arrived here last night, so you see I am losing no time in redeeming my promise. I can hardly tell you what I think of my new cousins; they are not to be known in a day, I can see that much. As for the country and its inhabitants generally--well, they are as different from an English county and English country-folks as if they were in different continents, and that is all I can say at present.

I left the railway at a tiny station called Kilmartin, and found ‘the coach’ waiting in the station yard. It was not a coach, but a queer dumpy omnibus, about two-thirds of the size of a London ’bus, with three big, raw-boned horses harnessed to it. I was lucky enough to get a seat in front beside the driver. It was just a little before sunset; and I wish I could put before you in words the freshness of the scene. We were ascending a rising ground in a very leisurely fashion. On either side of the road was a steep bank thickly clothed with crowsfoot and wild thyme. Above us on either side stretched a belt of Scotch firs. The sunset rays shone red on the trunks of the pines, and here and there one could catch through them a sight of the ruddy west, showing like a great painted window in a cathedral. The air was soft, and laden with the sweet smell of the firs, and yet it was cool and exhilarating.

As soon as we got to the top of the ridge we began to rattle down the other side at a great rate. It was really very pleasant, and thinking to conciliate the weather-beaten coachman at my side, I confided to him my opinion that of all species of travelling coaching was the most delightful.

‘Specially on a winter’s nicht, wi’ yer feet twa lumps o’ ice, an’ a wee burn o’ snaw-watter runnin’ doon the nape o’ yer neck!’ responded the Scotch Jehu.

I laughed, and glanced at the man sitting on my right, a big, brown-faced, gray-haired farmer, in a suit of heavy tweeds, who sat leaning his two hands on the top of an enormous stick. He was smiling grimly to himself, as if he enjoyed the stranger being set down.

‘Fine country,’ I remarked, by way of conciliating _him_.

‘Ay,’ said he, with a glance at the horizon out of the sides of his eyes, but without moving a muscle of his face.

‘And a very fine evening,’ I persisted.

‘Ay--micht be waur.’

Upon this I gave it up, lighted a cigar, and set myself to study the landscape. We had got to a considerable elevation above the sea-level; and in spite of the glorious evening and the autumn colours just beginning to appear in the hedges, the country had a dreary look. Imagine one great stretch of pasture barely reclaimed from moorland, with the heather and stony ground cropping up every here and there, divided into fields, not by generous spreading hedgerows, but by low walls of blue stone, built without mortar. The only wood to be seen was narrow belts of firs, planted here and there behind a farmhouse, or between two fields, and somehow their long bare stems and heavy mournful foliage did not add to the brightness of the scene, though they gave it a character of its own. But the country is not all moor and pasture. It is broken every now and then by long, deep, winding ravines, clothed with the larch and the mountain ash, each one the home of a bright brawling stream.

We had travelled for half an hour in silence, when the farmer suddenly spoke.

‘Ye’ll be frae the sooth, I’m thinkin’.’

He was not looking at me, but contemplating the road in front of us from under a pair of the bushiest eyebrows I ever saw. For a moment I thought of repaying his bad manners by giving him no answer, but thinking better of it I said ‘Ay,’ after the manner of the country.

‘Ye’ll no hae mony beasts like they in England, I fancy,’ said he.

We were passing some Ayrshire cows at the time, small, but splendid animals of their kind; and I soothed the old man’s feelings by admitting the fact.

‘Are ye traivellin’ faur?’ he asked.

‘Not much farther, I believe.’

‘Ye’re no an agent, are ye?’

‘No,’ I answered.

‘Nor a factor?’

‘No.’

(He was evidently puzzled to make out what an Englishman was about in his country, and I determined not to gratify his curiosity.)

‘Ye’ll maybe be the doctor?’

‘No.’

‘Sharely ye’re no the new minister?’ he exclaimed with an expression of unfeigned alarm.

I calmed his fears, and again we proceeded on our way in silence.

When we had gone perhaps some seven or eight miles from the railway station, I noticed a stout dog-cart standing at the corner of a by-road, under a tall, straggling thorn hedge. The youth who was seated in it made a sign to the coachman to stop, and I was made aware that the dog-cart had been sent for me. I got down, and as I bade good-night to the cross-questioning farmer, I observed a grim smile of triumph on his firmly compressed lips. He evidently knew the dog-cart, and would now be able to trace the mysterious stranger.

I and my portmanteau were finally left on the side of the road, and the young man in the dog-cart civilly turned the vehicle round (with some difficulty on account of the narrow road), and drew up beside me, to save my carrying my luggage a dozen yards. At first I was a little uncertain whether I had one of my third (or fourth, which is it?) cousins before me, or simply a young man from Mr. Lindsay’s farm. He was dressed in very coarse tweeds, and his hands were rough, and spoke of manual labour, and he breathed the incense of the farm-yard; but I thought his finely-cut features and sensitive lips bespoke him to be of gentle blood, and, luckily, I made a hit in the right direction.

‘You are one of Mr. Lindsay’s sons, I think--that is to say, one of my cousins,’ I said, as I shook hands with him.

The youth’s face lighted up with a blush and a pleasant smile as he answered that he was, and held open the apron of the dog-cart for me to get in. In another moment we were off, the sturdy old mare between the shafts carrying us along at a very fair pace.

There are some people, Sophy, who wear their characters written on their faces, and Alec Lindsay is one of them. I could see, even as we drove together along that solitary lane in the autumn twilight, that his was a frank, ingenuous nature, shy, sensitive, and reserved. I mean that his shyness made him reserved, but his thoughts and feelings showed themselves in his face without his knowing it, so little idea had he of purposely concealing himself. Such a face is always interesting; and besides, there was an under-expression of dissatisfaction, of unrest, I hardly know what to call it, in his eyes, which was scarcely natural in so young a lad. He could not be more than eighteen or nineteen.

After half an hour’s drive we approached the little town, or village--it is rather too large for a village, and much too small to be called a town--of Muirburn. It consists of one long double row of two-storied houses built of stone and whitewashed, with one or two short cross streets at intervals. The houses had not a scrap of garden in front of them, nothing but a broad footpath, the playground of troops of children. The lower part of these dwellings had a bare, deserted appearance, but I found that they were used in almost every case as workrooms, being fitted up with looms. In one or two of the windows a light twinkled, and we could hear the noise of the shuttle as we passed.

In the middle of the village stood a large square building, whitewashed all over, and provided with two rows of small square windows, placed at regular intervals, one above and one below.

‘What is that building?’ I asked.

‘The Free Church,’ answered my companion, with a touch of pride.

A church! Why, it was hardly fit to be a school-house. A mean iron railing, which had been painted at some remote epoch, alone protected it from the street. It was the very embodiment of ugliness; its sole ornament being a stove-pipe which protruded from one corner of the roof. Never, in all my life, whether among Hindoos, Mahometans, or Irish peasants, had I seen so supremely ugly an edifice dedicated to the service of the Almighty.

‘That’s the United Presbyterian one,’ said Alec, pointing with his whip to a building on the other side of the street, similar to the one we had just passed, but of less hideous aspect. It was smaller, and it could boast a front of hewn stone, and neat latticed windows, while a narrow belt of greensward fenced it off from the road.

Just then we passed a knot of men, perhaps ten or a dozen, standing at the corner of one of the side streets. All had their hands in their pockets, all were in their shirt-sleeves, and all wore long white aprons. They were doing nothing whatever--not talking, nor laughing, nor quarrelling, but simply looking down the street. At present our humble equipage was evidently an object of supreme interest to them.

‘What are these men doing there?’ I asked.

‘They’re weavers,’ answered Alec, as if the fact contained a reason in itself for their conduct. ‘They always stand there when they are not working, in all weathers, wet and dry; it’s their chief diversion.’

‘Diversion!’ I repeated; but at that moment the sweet tinkle of a church-bell fell upon my ears. I almost expected to see the people cross themselves, it sounded so much like the Angelus. It is the custom, I find, to ring the bell of the parish church at six in the morning and eight in the evening, though there is no service, and no apparent need for the ceremony. I wonder if it can be really a survival of the Vesper-bell?

The bell was still ringing as we passed the church that possessed it. This was ‘the Established Church,’ my companion informed me--a building larger than either of its competitors, and boasting a belfry.

‘What does a small town like this want with so many chapels?’ I asked my cousin.

I could see that I had displeased him, whether by speaking of Muirburn as a small town, or by inadvertently calling the ‘churches’ chapels, I was not sure. As he hesitated for an answer I hastened to add:

‘You are all of the same religion--substantially, I mean?’

‘Well, yes.’

‘Then why don’t you club together and have one handsome place of worship instead of three very--well, plain buildings?’

‘What?’ exclaimed Alec, and then he burst into a roar of laughter. ‘That’s a good joke,’ said he, as if I had said something superlatively witty; ‘but I say,’ he continued, with a serious look in his bonny blue eyes, ‘you’d better not say anything of that kind to my father.’

‘Why not?’ I asked, but Alec did not answer me.

His attention was attracted by a child which was playing in the road, right in front of us. He called out, but the little one did not seem to hear him, and he slackened the mare’s pace almost to a walk. We were just approaching the last of the side streets, and at that moment a gig, drawn by a powerful bay horse, appeared coming rapidly round the corner. It was evident that there must be a collision, though, owing to Alec’s having slackened his pace so much, it could not be a serious one.

But the child? Before I could cry out, before I could think, Alec was out of the trap and snatching the little boy from under the horse’s very nose. I never saw a narrower escape; how he was not struck down himself, I cannot imagine.

The next moment the gig, which had brushed against our vehicle without doing it much damage, had disappeared down the road; and a woman, clad in a short linsey petticoat and a wide sleeveless bodice of printed cotton, had rushed out of the opposite house and was roundly abusing Alec for having nearly killed her child. Without paying much attention to her, Alec walked round to the other side of the dog-cart to see what damage had been done, and muttering to himself, ‘I’m thankful it’s no worse,’ he climbed back into his place, and we resumed our journey, while the young Caledonian was acknowledging sundry tender marks of his mother’s affection with screams like those of a locomotive.

Another half-hour’s drive brought us to a five-barred gate which admitted us to a narrow and particularly rough lane. We jolted on for a few minutes, and then the loud barking of several dogs announced that we had arrived at the farm. But I must keep my description of its inhabitants for my next epistle. I am too sleepy to write more. Good-night.

Your affectionate cousin,
HUBERT BLAKE.