Doctor Congalton's Legacy. A chronicle of north country by-ways

Front matter

BY THE SAME AUTHOR Chronicles of Glenbuckie Kilmallie Martha Spreull A CHRONICLE OF NORTH COUNTRY BY-WAYS BY HENRY JOHNSTON METHUEN & CO. 36 ESSEX STREET, W.C. LONDON TO THE MEMORY OF DEAR FRIENDS WHOSE PRESENCE NO LO..GER BRIGHTENS KILSPINDIE CONTENTS CHAF. PAGE THE READING OF THE WILL ... I. I II. THE OPINION OF COUNSEL ... ... 17 III. MRS. COWIE OF WINDY-YETT ... ... 28 IV. SAUNDERS M'PHEE ... ... ... 40 V. THE GOVERNESS ARRIVES AT BROOM- FIELDS ... .. ... ... 49 VI. A NARROW ESCAPE ... ... ... 62 VII. WINDY-YETT MAKES A MISTAKE ... 72 VIII. THE PRODIGAL'S RETURN ... ... 89 IX. A ROUP AT SMIDDY-YARD IOI X. ISAAC KILGOUR COGITATES 117 XL A JOURNALIST ON FURLOUGH 130 XII. KILSPINDIE ... ... 144 XIII. MRS. COWIE'S LIBRARY ... ... ... 1 58 XIV. LOVE-MAKING ... ... ... ... 1 77 XV. TROUBLE AT BROOMFIELDS ... ... 1 92 XVI.

HETTY HAZLET AT HOME ... ... CONTENTS CHAP. PAGE XVII. A CHAPTER OF ACCIDENTS ... ... 2 20 XVIII. ISAAC KILGOUR ARRIVES AT A DECISION 235 XIX. NATURE'S NURTURING AND PAIRING TIME ... ... ... ... 251 XX. FATEFUL INTELLIGENCE ... ... 261 XXI. SETTLEMENTS ... ... ... ... 272 XXII. NANCE M'WEE'S CONFIDANTS 283 XXIII. BELL COWIE'S WEDDING ... ... 292 XXIV. THE RESCUE ... ... ... .,, 306 XXV. THE SPAE-WIFE AND HER CUPS ... 3 18 XXVI. CONCLUSION ,3,

Chapter I The Reading Of The Will

The click and purr of the shuttle had ceased. No line of weft had been laid in the furrowed woof during that still and sultry afternoon. Tinny Walker's mallet was at rest beside squares of white metal on the workshop bench, and there was not even a quiver of heat at the chimney-head of the smithy. Nature, too, seemed in sympathy with the general cessation of human industry. It may have been the apathy of the listless air, but the twisted silver lines of the waterfall at the Brig-end, held to gether by a blue liquid film, fell more drowsily than usual among the lichened rocks. Sliding past, the river lipped its loamy banks with B lingering gentleness, and fretted less than common at the intrusion of the bleachfield wall. From nests that had served the season's purpose, and that were now well hidden by the deepening greenness, youthful and impressionable crows, not having heard the kirk bell, rose and circled over the scene in silent but questioning observation.

No wonder, for being a healthy parish, such occasions of week-day inactivity were not frequent. The village of Kilspindie was scattered on two sides of the river Garnet, and was held together by a three-arched bridge. The bulk of it, including the kirk and the manse, was on the same side as the general store. The candle-maker's workshop stood at the corner of the bridge on the other side, and was so situated that Robin Brough, leaning over his half-door, and looking up the acclivity to right or left on such days as Gingham John, the packman, paid his visits, could see him, with ell-stick in hand, moving from door to door, and could guess with a fair degree of certainty where he made sales ; and judge, from the houses at which he paused, what the nature of the purchase might be. The candle-maker was by habit a leisurely man, and nothing loath at any time to suspend his frame over the dipping-vat and indulge in surmises as to other people's affairs, or gather the news from a passing neighbour.

The central situation of Brough's workshop, combined with the social disposition of its occu pant, made the place a favourite rendezvous for such as had leisure to exchange views on the topics of the hour. Robin pushed on with his tea without loss of time, and repaired across the bridge to the work shop in his white shirt-sleeves. Once inside, he closed the lower half of the door, and placing his elbows on it restfully, turned his eyes to the left. The mellow air was charged with the fragrance of hawthorn and apple-blossom. Ch ch-ch-chir-ee, chir-ee sang the robin among the chestnut spikes overhead ; but the candle-maker was not a thinking man, and did not bother with nature. His eye listlessly followed the white ascending road which ran for a space between green hedges. Further on to the right the sylvan wall was broken by a modest thatched building, in front of which swung a sign-plate, illustrating in appropriate colour that the designation of the place was the Wheat-Sheaf inn.

Higher still, a row of cottar dwellings, with green house-leek shining among the grey thatch, chal lenged notice, until at Nancy Beedam's cottage on the one hand, and Broomfields on the other, the narrowing road cut into another at right angles, and was lost to view. At first there was no human object in sight, but a flash of moving colour brought the gazer back to the inn, from which a woman emerged with a number of labelled bottles in a small yellow basket. For a moment the unusual sight of Mistress Izet, the housekeeper at Broomfields, trafficking at the inn puzzled him. "The lawyer will be biding for his denner," he said. " I'se warrant the doctor's will has been dry wark." Inference played an important part in the knowledge they possessed of each other's affairs in Kilspindie. As the housekeeper passed, the sonsy form of David McLennan appeared outside his own door, and seeing the candle-maker at his post, he dashed the superfluous ham gravy from his mouth with the back of his hand, and stepped down the brae.

At the lower end of the row he was joined by William Caughie, who wore his Sunday stock, and displayed one leg of his trousers partially caught up in the hurried fastening of his Blucher boot. William was a tall, slim, cold-rife man, who bore his head above the burly form of the carrier, and seemed to breathe a chillier air. Satisfied as to the approach of company, Brough glanced to the right with out disturbing his pose of body. At the same moment Tinny Walker and Zedie Lawson made their appearance at the merchant's corner, and so they came, singly or in pairs, these rustic gossips, and planted themselves at the end of the bridge in front of the candle-maker's work shop. Each wore some remnant or other of his Sunday attire. Their manner both of speech and movement was characterized by Sabbatic leisure.

That day they had laid the mortal remains of a notable member of the community in their last resting-place. A funeral in Kil spindie meant a day's idle-set to the male heads of families. On these occasions, there being time, the Seventh day's grace was said in full at breakfast. Adult male faces, lengthening for the melancholy duty in prospect, took a propor tionately longer period to shave. Dressing afterwards was done in leisurely stages, for on this particular day they did not " lift " till one. While these preparations engaged the attention of the men, the women-folk with needle and scissors prepared crape-bands for the hats, and " weepers " for the coat-sleeves, with subtle appraisement in crape and book-muslin as to the degree of respect to which the deceased was entitled at the hands of the wearers and their families.

Work as a rule was not resumed after returning from a funeral. No native could account for this custom • — it had lasted as long as the memory could stretch, and even steam and electricity had not altered it much. Dr. Congalton, whose remains had that day been laid in the kirkyard, was one of the oldest inhabitants. He had been for some time out of practice, but was justly held in respect, for he had stood single-handed by the portals of birth and death of his rural constituency for over thirty-five years, bidding welcome and saying good-bye. The doctor was a bachelor, and a person of uncommon individuality. Native gossip averred that he was once on the eve of marriage, but the match was broken off on sanitary grounds. The lady's dresses were too long for his taste, and the chain of mutual regard could not stand the strain of his ineffectual de sire to shorten them.

Her feet had no need to shame her, 'twas said, but he declined to bind himself for life to a person who not only trailed good things in the dirt, but made herself at the same time a circular receptacle for the seeds of trouble. Dr. Congalton's death was the result of an accident. Since his retirement from practice gossip whispered he had lived rather freely. At all events it was a fact, that one night, on returning from Windy-yett with his head full of whisky toddy, he drew rein for his own gate prematurely, was thrown heavily against a stone wall, and arrived home bearing injuries from which he never recovered. Doctor Congalton, having enjoyed a long, un disturbed practice, was known to be wealthy, and while it was naturally supposed that what he possessed would go to his brother George, a journalist in London, an element of uncertainty had come on the back of this supposition by the news that Windy-yett had been invited to the reading of the will.

Richard Cowie, the tenant DOCTOR CONGALTON'S LEGACY of Windy-yett, was a keen and fairly successful farmer, but outside of practical farm-work he was, as his wife said, but a "puir stock," and needed " haudin' in." Mrs. Cowie possessed the power of doing this, and exercised it. But those who were observant said she could slacken the reins at times when it served her purpose. Alec Brodie, the cartwright, whose workshop was situated about half-way between Broomfields and Windy-yett, and who had opportunities of knowing, was responsible for saying that it was her hospitality and her management that drew Dr. Congalton so frequently to the farm, and her toddy, though she could not be blamed for it, that " dottlit " him on the night of the accident. A consuming but smouldering desire to know something of the destination of Dr. Con galton's belongings had brought the neighbours to the Brig-end that afternoon in considerable numbers.

Want of directness was one of the parish failings. Tilly Brogan, the merchant, who came from Motherwell as successor to Matha Spens, was at first put off his guard by it. When neighbours came to his store to purchase, their desires were shrouded by a seeming of indifference, as if they were simply indulging a curiosity to price things — beginning with articles they had no mind for, and ending with what they actually wanted — offering for it so much less than was asked, as if shamed into purchasing for decency sake, after giving trouble. As yet the gossips were in the outer courts of inquiry regarding what they had met to discover. Zedie Lawson (his kirk name was Zedekiah, and he knew this when his wife was angry) was sitting on the edge of a candle-crate, looking skyward over the bleachfield chimney, directed thither owing to meteorological observations made by the carrier some minutes previously.

Zedie was a stunted, timorous man, with a tilted nose, and a mouth like the letter O. The expression was apologetic, but to a stranger conveyed the idea that he was whistling a tune ; being short sighted, he was said to observe things with " mouth and een." The look skyward, however, was mechanical rather than indicative of exhaust ive contemplation, for at the moment he was in confused wonderment as to whether the new laird of Broomfields would continue the services DOCTOR CONGALTON'S LEGACY of his sister-in-law, Janet Izet, who had long acted as housekeeper to Dr. Congalton. " Look nane anxious," was the masterful in junction given to him on leaving his own door step ; " fin' oot things by degrees ; let the crack come roun' nait'ral, and no clyte intil't as if we feared Janet wud tyne her place."

In the sequence of discourse the carrier had passed on to remark that the hay was requiring the sun " after that lang blash o' rain." Hairmyres had been telling him that the " feck o' his was cut this time last 'ear." He remembered it by " the bursting o' the dam, that carried half the meadow fu' o't into the Garnet." " Hairmyres should mind it for better reasons than that," the little tinsmith took liberty to remark through his tin-trumpet of a voice. " His wife dee't a week after the dam broke — I have heard tell it was wi' fricht." "It was fricht nane," remonstrated Brough, declaiming confidently from the half-door. " It was Buchan's Domestic Medicine that killed Jean Lowry. Dr. Congalton telt the schule maister, and Mrs. Lonen made no secret o't to my wife, that Jean Lowry read that book till she had a' the troubles it speaks o', ane after the ither, and whiles she had twa're three on her at ae time."

" And like enough she wud be takin' med'cins and stuffs that her system couldna staun'," de plored William Caughie, looking sapiently through his horn specs. William was great on human organs and ailments. " Just that — she took whatever the book said was guid for the trouble she had on her mind at the time. What mortal woman, or man either, could thole that ? I alloo the fricht wud help, but the doctor said when he opened her it was nothing but Buchan here and Buchan there, a' through her inside." " It was mortal skilly o'm to fin' that oot," Lawson ventured, fondly hoping the colloquy might now set on Broomfields. " The doctor was an eccentric being," the carrier said. "That's about it," Jaik Short announced, with approval. Short was the engine-driver on the branch line. Trains had to be run, as he said, in spite of fairs and funerals, and he had come over from the junction, after stabling his steed, to hear the news.

" Eccentric's the word — a wheel wi' a hole in it nearer the tae side than the tither, put it on a rinnin spin'le, and, my word, it'll waggle. Lod, McLennan, ye never said an apter thing — the doctor was eccentric. Had ye a gran' funeral the day?" " A big gathering," answered Robin Brough ; " Gushets, and Harelaw, General Alexander, the factor, Robert Thomson, frae Glenbuckie, and ither big-wigs. The minister spoke real feeling." " The accident was enlarged on — telt us to prepare, and the like," said William Caughie, working his nose. He was an elder. " Talking o' big-wigs," interposed the tinsmith, attitudinizing to check sentiment, " the biggest in yon company the day, to my mind, was the undertaker's man. Gor! even the minister daurna open his lips till he says the word. At his nod the whisky gangs roun'.

Everybody looks to him ; but the tap rung o' his greatness is reached when he clears his throat and says, ' If onybody wants to see the corp before it's screwed down, come this wye.' Dod, Robin, if I wasna a maister tinsmith, I wud be an undertaker's man." " There's no enough o' ye," said McLennan unfeelingly. The tinsmith, like some other little people, required keeping down. " That job wants a big, presentable, sober-looking man, like William Caughie. Still-an-on, Walker, yer a decent wee fellow compared wi' yon shirpet body, the factor, wha walked wi' his nose i' the air as if he was immortal. It was oot o' place behind a corp. If that man was half as big as he thinks himself, he wud let oot for a saullie " (hired mourner). Short had reason to have a different opinion of the factor, and changed the subject by asking bluntly if anything had been heard about the doctor's will.

The engine-driver was not a native. Zedie Lawson jumped from the crate as if shot up by a spring. He felt things would be redd up now. " I suppose the brither gets a' ? " Short pre sumed. "Windy-yett was invited to the reading," answered Brough. " There's no saying." " He'll be a daer " (trustee), the engine-driver concluded. " Cowie and the doctor were great frien's. It'll no astonish me if he has left his siller to build a college for watching the staurs, or for telling what airt the win' blaws." "Think ye Maister Congalton wud settle in these pairts gin he got the doctor's siller, as ye say ? " Lawson's opportunity had come. " Settle ! " Short retorted, " did ye ever hear o' a newspaper man settling at the tail o' a junction ? Na, na, if he settles it'll be somewhere on the main line, but Edinbro' or Lunnon's a mair likely place."

Lawson resumed his seat dolefully. The sister in-law after all was to be thrown on them ; surely she had as much saved as would pay them a weekly allowance for board and lodging till she got another place. This thought occupied him heavily till the smith arrived with startling news. That functionary had been driven off in Hare law's gig after the funeral to see a beast that was suffering from pneumonia — peenumonia the parish called it ; the school-master had kept the smith right, being a professional man, but somehow the conviction remained even with him that the initial letter of the word was need lessly thrown away. He was telling how, when passing the cross roads near the cartwright's workshop on his way home, he met Windy yett "swinging alang the gate in a terrible swither." The carrier planted his shoulder doggedly against the candle-maker's door-post.

" Ay, man." " His mind wud be fu' o' the will," said Short, " He was like a man clean oot o' the body," continued the smith. " Whiles he wud gie a hotch o' a laugh, syne he wud gang on a piece wi' his head doon, cracking to himsel' " " But ye buckled to him ? " interrupted the candle-maker. " Man, he didna see me till I was three pairts into his lang shadow that hurried on before him, but I stood ; then he looked up at me wi' an eerie face. ' Getting foret, Windy-yett,' quo' I, wondering if he was in drink. Wi' that he raised his richt hand, brocht it doon on his knee, and hotched till the tears trinkled owre the nose o' him. ' Man smith,' says he to me at last, ' were you ever at the reading o' a will ? ' ' Na,' quo' I, ' but it maun be fine when ye're named in it.' ' Dod, I dinna ken, I can hardly say I've got the leeze o't yet ; man, yon lang-nebbit, auld farrant words are by-ord'nar for senselessness.

It was first party this, and second party that, and aforesaid the ither, till I was clean dumfoonert. Lord, I wis' the mistress had been there ; but somehoo it rins in my head that the doctor has left his ain brither and the feck o' his siller to oor Bell.'"

Chapter II The Opinion Of Counsel Broomfields

was a substantial baronial building erected within about an acre of ground. It commanded a view of the village and the valley of the Garnet. There was a patch of lawn in front, broken at intervals by crescents and squares, in which pansies and white lilies were in the meridian of blossom. An old fashioned garden behind, with gnarled fruit trees, common vegetables, and herbaceous plants justified the inference that the gardener, to be fully employed, must have other duties to perform. It was a beautiful June morning some days after Dr. Congalton's funeral. A soft shower had raced over the landscape, leaving a perfume of white clover and sweet briar on the relapsing air. A blackbird out of sight somewhere among the blue-green palms 17 c of the -larch, refreshed by the moisture, gave evidence of its simple joy of living in tones liquid and melodious.

Isaac Kilgour, perhaps the most taciturn man in the parish, had paused in his work with feet enveloped in a swathe of grass. Mayhap 'twas to listen to the feathery poet overhead, or to revel in the glorious feeling of summer that pervaded the scene. One had to put one's own interpretation on Isaac's moods. It would be contrary to fact to say that economy of speech necessarily betokens wisdom, though thoughtful people, perceiving the unruly character of the tongue, will grant that there is often wisdom in reticence. Isaac, however, was wise to this extent, he did not allow indulgence in speech to betray lack of knowledge. To Mistress Izet he was a perfect pundit, nevertheless she was not slow to declare that he was " a provoking craitur ; for though he heard and saw maist things, he never let on."

What his present thoughts were need not occasion concern, for they were soon interrupted. He had mechanically inverted his scythe, the handle resting on the lawn, and was wiping the blade with a handful of grass, when an agile collie, burning probably with the memory of some unrequited wrong, flashed past him like a bird-shadow, and next moment was in the throes of what seemed mortal conflict with Help, the house-dog, who was chained to his kennel in the garden behind. Isaac dropped his scythe, and, seizing a wooden-toothed rake with a safely long handle, literally but ineffectually hastened to tear the combatants asunder. The housekeeper, who was amongst the early vege tables catering for the mid-day meal, seeing Isaac's failure to promote amity with the rake, took up the broken handle of a spade, and laid on till her back ached ; but the blows added fury to the conflict, which seemed likely to ter minate only with the life of one or other of the dogs.

While Isaac was raking and Mistress Izet was belabouring, a small, bright-faced figure emerged from the kitchen door carrying a jug of cold water in her hand. This she pro ceeded to pour coolly over the writhing animals. In a moment the conflict ceased. The intruder passed the gate like an arrow, and Help, as precipitately, retired to his kennel, refusing to come out either to receive sympathy or show the injuries he had received in the encounter. Isaac looked at the housekeeper with the spade handle, and Mistress Izet gazed at the gardener with the rake, while the girl stood calmly smiling at the foolish attitude of both. "Weel, I declare," said Mistress Izet, " if that wasna like a wumman in Houston parish" — Isaac was accustomed to the housekeeper's parallels from Houston parish, and stopped further palaver with a characteristic grunt.

" Umph'm," he said, wiping the perspiration from his brow with his sleeve, and speaking to the kennel : " That was clever." " It was clever nane," deprecated the girl. " I've seen the keeper at Mossfennan doing the like mony a time. It's the only wye to pairt fechtin' dougs." To their dismay they became aware that a gentleman was overlooking them from the study window, and that a bright child at his side was clapping her hands in recognition of the little maidservant's triumph. The party was dispersed by the ringing of the front-door bell, which the housekeeper hastened to answer. "Eh, Maister Sibbald, it's you," she said, recognizing her late master's legal adviser ; " I'm hardly presentable, being sair flustered wi' layin' on a couple o' fechtin' dougs. Come awa', ye'll find Maister Congalton i' the study."

She led the way up-stairs to that apartment, and taking the little girl by the hand under the pretext of telling her about the canine encounter, left the two men alone. By his last will and testament Dr. Congalton had directed that his estate, with the exception of the house, which he left to his brother, was to be divided into three equal parts. One part was to go to his brother, and one part to his niece, Eva Congalton, while the remaining part was bequeathed to Miss Cowie, daughter of Richard Cowie, of Windy-yett, whom the doctor evidently intended his brother to marry, for there followed this important and significant stipulation, namely, should his brother marry while Miss Cowie was still a spinster, the whole estate with the excep tion of the house was to go to her. Similarly, on the other hand, should Miss Cowie marry while George Congalton remained single, her share was to be forfeited, and pass to Eva Congalton.

In the event of any of the parties deceasing before marriage, the share of the person deceasing was to be equally divided between the remaining lives. Meantime, the estate had been committed to trustees, whose duty was to hold and conserve it for the legatees ; but should his brother marry Miss Cowie, the trust was then to cease and determine in so far as the senior legatees were concerned, and their respective shares were to be placed entirely under their own control. To do Mr. Sibbald justice, he had no sympathy with the doctor's whimsical disposition of his means. At first he had treated the proposal as a joke, due to some passing caprice, but the deed had remained unaltered. The doctor's thought, according to Mr. Sibbald, was that his brother should marry again, particularly for the sake of his child.

He felt that the younger man's un settled life as a newspaper free-lance afforded him few opportunities of mingling in the society of women, and the terms of the will had, he believed, sufficient suggestiveness to lead his mind in the direction of matrimony. As to the person intended for his wife, the will left little dubiety. The doctor had been feasted and flattered not with the expectation of what had occurred, but in the hope that he himself might pro pose, and thereby bring the money into the Windy-yett family. It can hardly be said that either the farmer or his daughter realized the purport of these schemes. Windy-yett enjoyed the personal licence and social amenities which his wife's hospitality to their neighbour afforded him. The habitual curb was on these occasions removed, and he jogged on happily with the driving rein resting lightly on his neck — that was enough for him.

Bell simply and unconsciously acted the part assigned to her by the diplomatic head of the house. She was a rosy-faced, healthy, rollicking young person of about twenty. She had something of her mother's activity of mind and firmness of temper, but there was also her father's lack of worldly ambition, which Mrs. Cowie secretly deplored. Bell was tutored to be " blyth and couthie " to their guest, an injunction which thoroughly accorded with her own buoyant nature ; and the exercise of these agreeable qualities during the doctor's visits had suggested the terms of his will. The trustees, of whom Mr. Sibbald was one, had, at the suggestion of the latter, taken the opinion of counsel for their own protection. This opinion was to the effect that the will was perfectly valid, and could not be set aside.

Such was the information the lawyer had brought to Broomfields. Congalton had not doubted the result. " The doctor's money is really an unimportant matter to me," he said, smiling. " He had a perfect right, of course, to do what he liked with his own. But his humour was always of a grimish order, and this is part and parcel of the man. I remember the night before he died — he was comparatively free from pain — ' George,' he said, after beckoning me to his side, ' I have been thinking of you both — you and the bairn. You will see after I am gone how thoughtful I have been — philosophically thoughtful. I have not laboured and saved for nothing — money there will be, but I have endeavoured to put within your reach that which money cannot buy. Man, you will be surprised — you will think me a rare good fellow ! ' He lay back on the pillow ; he was too weak to laugh, but the tears came into his eyes with the stress of inward merriment. ' You always accused me of want of sentiment,' he resumed, ' but I have put all the sentiment of my life into a nutshell, and now bequeath it to you.' Poor Harry !

" " I presume you have seen this young lady — this Miss Cowie," the lawyer inquired. " No, I have not had that honour. Her mother, a bulky, loud-speaking woman, called several times during my brother's illness to inquire for him. She was full of professions of concern and maternal confidences. Nothing would do but that I should break the monotony of my stay at Broomfields by drinking tea with them at the farm." " The doctor was not slow to inform me that the daughter is a ' weel-faured ' dame and very presentable," the lawyer said, laughing. " It would be an excellent, or, as I might say, a curious coincidental joke if she caught your fancy after all." " It would indeed," Congalton replied, not insensible to the humour of the thought ; " but that is a contingency exceedingly doubtful. My mind was certainly not tending in the direction of matrimony, but even if it had been, so contradictory is human nature, that my brother's good intentions have put marriage in that quarter out of the question.

Let matters drift. Neither of us, I presume, is under compulsion to marry the other. As for me, if ever I should think of marrying, the thought of relinquishing poor Harry's money will not stand in the way. Meantime, I presume I am free to occupy this house ? " " Most certainly. In express terms of the will it is your own." " That is so far well. As yet my plans are rather uncertain. I have a book of war sketches in the press, and other irons in the literary fire which will necessitate an immediate journey to London. Indeed, I shall be pretty much on the wing for some time to come. I should like, however, to leave my little girl in a comfortable home, to which I may return as occasion permits. Mistress Izet, I see, is an excellent housekeeper, and a motherly woman, but she is not exactly the kind of person to train Eva, nor would I like her to be dependent on the parish school for her education.