CHAPTER XXIII
Knight-Errantry
I must mention that my father never objected now to my riding his
little mare Missy, as we called her. Indeed, I had great liberty with
regard to her, and took her out for a trot and a gallop as often as I
pleased. Sometimes when there was a press of work she would have to go
in a cart or drag a harrow, for she was so handy they could do
anything with her; but this did not happen often, and her condition at
all seasons of the year testified that she knew little of hard work.
My father was very fond of her, and used to tell wonderful stories of
her judgment and skill. I believe he was never quite without a hope
that somehow or other he should find her again in the next world. At
all events I am certain that it was hard for him to believe that so
much wise affection should have been created to be again uncreated. I
cannot say that I ever heard him give utterance to anything of the
sort; but whence else should I have had such a firm conviction, dating
from a period farther back than my memory can reach, that whatever
might become of the other horses, Missy was sure to go to heaven? I
had a kind of notion that, being the bearer of my father upon all his
missions of doctrine and mercy, she belonged to the clergy, and,
sharing in their privileges, must have a chance before other animals
of her kind. I believe this was a right instinct glad of a foolish
reason. I am wiser now, and extend the hope to the rest of the horses,
for I cannot believe that the God who does nothing in vain ever
creates in order to destroy.
I made haste to learn my lessons for the Monday, although it was but
after a fashion, my mind was so full of the adventure before me. As
soon as prayers and supper were over--that is, about ten o'clock--I
crept out of the house and away to the stable. It was a lovely night.
A kind of grey peace filled earth and air and sky. It was not dark,
although rather cloudy; only a dim dusk, like a vapour of darkness,
floated around everything. I was fond of being out at night, but I had
never before contemplated going so far alone. I should not, however,
feel alone with Missy under me, for she and I were on the best of
terms, although sometimes she would take a fit of obstinacy, and
refuse to go in any other than the direction she pleased. Of late,
however, she had asserted herself less frequently in this manner. I
suppose she was aware that I grew stronger and more determined.
I soon managed to open the door of the stable, for I knew where the
key lay. It was very dark, but I felt my way through, talking all the
time that the horses might not be startled if I came upon one of them
unexpectedly, for the stable was narrow, and they sometimes lay a good
bit out of their stalls. I took care, however, to speak in a low tone
that the man who slept with only a wooden partition between him and
the stable might not hear. I soon had the bridle upon Missy, but would
not lose time in putting on the saddle. I led her out, got on her back
with the help of a stone at the stable door, and rode away. She had
scarcely been out all day, and was rather in the mood for a ride. The
voice of Andrew, whom the noise of her feet had aroused, came after
me, calling to know who it was. I called out in reply, for I feared he
might rouse the place; and he went back composed, if not contented. It
was no use, at all events, to follow me.
I had not gone far before the extreme stillness of the night began to
sink into my soul and make me quiet. Everything seemed thinking about
me, but nothing would tell me what it thought. Not feeling, however,
that I was doing wrong, I was only awed not frightened by the
stillness. I made Missy slacken her speed, and rode on more gently, in
better harmony with the night. Not a sound broke the silence except
the rough cry of the land-rail from the fields and the clatter of
Missy's feet. I did not like the noise she made, and got upon the
grass, for here there was no fence. But the moment she felt the soft
grass, off she went at a sudden gallop. Her head was out before I had
the least warning of her intention. She tore away over the field in
quite another direction from that in which I had been taking her, and
the gallop quickened until she was going at her utmost speed. The
rapidity of the motion and the darkness together--for it seemed
darkness now--I confess made me frightened. I pulled hard at the
reins, but without avail. In a minute I had lost my reckoning, and
could not tell where I was in the field, which was a pretty large one;
but soon finding that we were galloping down a hill so steep that I
had trouble in retaining my seat, I began, not at all to my comfort,
to surmise in what direction the mare was carrying me. We were
approaching the place where we had sat that same afternoon, close by
the mound with the trees upon it, the scene of my adventure with
Wandering Willie, and of the fancied murder. I had scarcely thought of
either until the shadows had begun to fall long, and now in the night,
when all was shadow, both reflections made it horrible. Besides, if
Missy should get into the bog! But she knew better than that, wild as
her mood was. She avoided it, and galloped past, but bore me to a far
more frightful goal, suddenly dropping into a canter, and then
standing stock-still.
It was a cottage half in ruins, occupied by an old woman whom I dimly
recollected having once gone with my father to see--a good many years
ago, as it appeared to me now. She was still alive, however, very old,
and bedridden. I recollected that from the top of her wooden bed hung
a rope for her to pull herself up by when she wanted to turn, for she
was very rheumatic, and this rope for some cause or other had filled
me with horror. But there was more of the same sort. The cottage had
once been a smithy, and the bellows had been left in its place. Now
there is nothing particularly frightful about a pair of bellows,
however large it may be, and yet the recollection of that huge
structure of leather and wood, with the great iron nose projecting
from the contracting cheeks of it, at the head of the old woman's bed,
so capable yet so useless, did return upon me with terror in the dusk
of that lonely night. It was mingled with a vague suspicion that the
old woman was a bit of a witch, and a very doubtful memory that she
had been seen on one occasion by some night-farer, when a frightful
storm was raging, blowing away at that very bellows as hard as her
skinny arms and lean body could work the lever, so that there was
almost as great a storm of wind in her little room as there was
outside of it. If there was any truth in the story, it is easily
accounted for by the fact that the poor old woman had been a little
out of her mind for many years,--and no wonder, for she was nearly a
hundred, they said. Neither is it any wonder that when Missy stopped
almost suddenly, with her fore-feet and her neck stretched forward,
and her nose pointed straight for the door of the cottage at a few
yards' distance, I should have felt very queer indeed. Whether my hair
stood on end or not I do not know, but I certainly did feel my skin
creep all over me. An ancient elder-tree grew at one end of the
cottage, and I heard the lonely sigh of a little breeze wander through
its branches. The next instant a frightful sound from within the
cottage broke the night air into what seemed a universal shriek. Missy
gave a plunge, turned round on her hind-legs, and tore from the place.
I very nearly lost my seat, but terror made me cling the faster to my
only companion, as _ventre-à-terre_ she flew home. It did not take her
a minute to reach the stable-door. There she had to stop, for I had
shut it when I brought her out. It was mortifying to find myself there
instead of under John Adam's hayloft, the rescuer of Jamie Duff. But I
did not think of that for a while. Shaken with terror, and afraid to
dismount and be next the ground, I called upon Andrew as well as my
fear would permit; but my voice was nearly unmanageable, and I could
do little more than howl with it.
In a few minutes, to me a time of awful duration--for who could tell
what might be following me up from the hollow?--Andrew appeared
half-dressed, and not in the best of tempers, remarking it was an odd
thing to go out riding when honest people were in their beds, except,
he added, I meant to take to the highway. Thereupon, rendered more
communicative by the trial I had gone through, I told him the whole
story, what I had intended and how I had been frustrated. He listened,
scratched his head, and saying someone ought to see if anything was
the matter with the old woman, turned in to put on the rest of his
clothes.
"You had better go home to bed, Ranald," he said.
"Won't you be frightened, Andrew?" I asked.
"Frightened? What should I be frightened at? It's all waste to be
frightened before you know whether the thing is worth it."
My courage had been reviving fast in the warm presence of a human
being. I was still seated on Missy. To go home having done nothing for
Jamie, and therefore nothing for Elsie, after all my grand ideas of
rescue and restoration, was too mortifying. I should feel so small
when I woke in the morning! And yet suppose the something which gave
that fearful cry in the cottage should be out roaming the fields and
looking for mel I had courage enough, however, to remain where I was
till Andrew came out again, and as I sat still on the mare's back, my
courage gradually rose. Nothing increases terror so much as running
away. When he reappeared, I asked him:
"What do you think it could be, Andrew?"
"How should I tell?" returned Andrew. "The old woman has a very queer
cock, I know, that always roosts on the top of her bed, and crows like
no cock I ever heard crow. Or it might be Wandering Willie--he goes to
see her sometimes, and the demented creature might strike up his pipes
at any unearthly hour."
I was not satisfied with either suggestion; but the sound I had heard
had already grown so indistinct in my memory, that for anything I
could tell it might have been either. The terror which it woke in my
mind had rendered me incapable of making any observations or setting
down any facts with regard to it. I could only remember that I had
heard a frightful noise, but as to what it was like I could scarcely
bear the smallest testimony.
I begged Andrew to put the saddle on for me, as I should then have
more command of Missy. He went and got it, appearing, I thought, not
at all over-anxious about old Betty; and I meantime buckled on an old
rusty spur which lay in the stable window, the leathers of it
crumbling off in flakes. Thus armed, and mounted with my feet in the
stirrups, and therefore a good pull on Missy's mouth, I found my
courage once more equal to the task before me. Andrew and I parted at
right angles; he across the field to old Betty's cottage, and I along
the road once more in the direction of John Adam's farm.
