The Dew of Their Youth - Samuel Rutherford Crockett (chromebook ebook reader TXT) 📗

the door wi' your feet foremost!"
"My good woman," said the lawyer, "I was but using an ordinary word, in perfect ignorance of any----"
"Come na, nane o' that crooked talk! Mary Lyon is nae bit silly Jenny Wren to be whistled off the waa' wi' ony siccan talk. Dinna tell me that a lawvier body doesna ken what 'harbouring rogues and vagabonds' means--the innocent lamb that he is--and him reading the _Courier_ every Wednesday!"
"But," said the solicitor, with more persistent firmness than his emaciated body and timorous manner would have led one to expect, "the children are here, and it is my duty to warn you that in withholding them from their natural guardian you are defying the law. I come to require that the children be given up to me at once, that I may put them under their proper tutelage."
"Here, William," my grandmother called out, recognizing the footsteps of her husband approaching, "gae cry the lads and lock the doors! There's a body here that will need some guid broad Scots weared on him."
But the lawyer was not yet frightened. As it appeared, he had only known the safe plainstones of Dumfries--so at least Mary Lyon thought. For he continued his discourse as if nothing were the matter.
"I came here in a friendly spirit, madam," he said, "but I have good reason to believe that every male of your household is deeply involved in the smuggling traffic, and that several of them, in spite of their professions of religion, assaulted and took possession of the House of Marnhoul for the purpose of unlawfully concealing therein undutied goods from the proper officers of the crown!"
"Aye, and ken ye wha it was that tried to burn doon your Great House," cried my grandmother--"it was your grand tutor--your wonderfu' guardian, even Lalor Maitland, the greatest rogue and gipsy that ever ran on two legs. There was a grandson o' mine put a charge o' powder-and-shot into him, though. But here come the lads. They will tell ye news o' your tutor and guardian, him that ye daur speak to me aboot committing the puir innocent bairns to--what neither you nor a' the law in your black bag will ever tak' frae under the roof-tree o' Mary Lyon. Here, this way, lads--dinna be blate! Step ben!"
And so, without a shadow of blateness, there stepped "ben" Tom and Eben and Rob. Tom had his scythe in his hand, for he had come straight from the meadow at his father's call, the sweat of mowing still beading his brow, and the broad leathern strap shining wet about his waist. Eben folded a pair of brawny arms across a chest like an oriel window, but Rob always careful for appearances, had his great-grandfather's sword, known in the family as "Drumclog," cocked over his shoulder, and carried his head to the side with so knowing an air that the blade was cold against his right ear.
Last of all my grandfather stepped in, while I kept carefully out of sight behind him. He glanced once at his sons.
"Lads, be ashamed," he said; "you, Thomas, and especially you, Rob. Put away these gauds. We are not 'boding in fear of weir.' These ill days are done with. Be douce, and we will hear what this decent man has to say."
There is no doubt that the lawyer was by this display of force somewhat intimidated. At least, he looked about him for some means of escape, and fumbled with the catch of his black hand-bag.
"Deil's in the man," cried Mary Lyon, snatching the bag from him, "but it's a blessing I'm no so easy to tak' in as the guidman there. Let that bag alane, will ye, na! Wha kens what may be in it? There--what did I tell you?"
Unintentionally she shook the catch open, and within were two pistols cocked and primed, of which Eben and Tom took instant possession. Meanwhile, as may be imagined, my grandmother improved the occasion.
"A lawvier, are you, Master Wringham Poole o' Dumfries," she cried? "A bonny lawvier, that does his business wi' a pair o' loaded pistols. Like master, like man, I say! There's but ae kind o' lawvier that does his business like that--he's caa'ed a cut-purse, a common highwayman, and ends by dancing a bonny saraband at the end o' a tow-rope! Lalor Maitland assaulted Marnhoul wi' just such a band o' thieves and robbers--to steal away the bairns. This will be another o' the gang. Lads, take hold, and see what he has on him."
But with one bound the seemingly weak and slender man flung himself in the direction of the door. Before they could move he was out into the lobby among the lavender bags containing Mary Lyon's Sunday wardrobe, and but for the fact that he mistook the door of a preserve closet for the front door, he might easily have escaped them all. But Rob, who was young and active, closed in upon him. The slim man squirmed like an eel, and even when on the ground drew a knife and stuck it into the calf of Rob's leg. A yell, and a stamp followed, and then a great silence in which we looked at one another awe-stricken. Mr. Wringham Poole lay like a crushed caterpillar, inert and twitching. It seemed as if Rob had killed him; but my grandfather, with proper care and precautions drew away the knife, and after having passed a hand over the body in search of further concealed weapons, laid him out on the four haircloth chairs, with a footstool under his head for a pillow.
Then, having listened to the beating of the wounded man's heart, he reassured us with a nod. All would be right. Next, from an inner pocket he drew a pocket-book, out of the first division of which dropped a black mask, like those worn at the assault upon Marnhoul, with pierced eyeholes and strings for fastening behind the ears. There were also a few papers and a card on which was printed a name--
"Wringham Pollixfen Poole"; and then underneath, written in pencil in a neat lawyer-like hand, were the words, "Consultation at the Old Port at midnight to-morrow."
At this we all looked at one another with a renewal of our perturbation. The firm of Smart, Poole and Smart had existed in Dumfries for a long time, and was highly considered. But in these troubled times one never knew how far his neighbour might have been led. A man could only answer for himself, and even as to that, he had sometimes a difficulty in explaining himself. One of the firm of lawyers in the High Street might have been tempted out of his depth. But, at any rate, here was one of them damaged, and that by the hasty act of one of the sons of the house of Heathknowes--which in itself was a serious matter.
My grandfather, therefore, judged it well that the lawyers in Dumfries should be informed of what had befallen as soon as possible. But Mr. Wringham Pollixfen Poole, if such were his name, was certainly in need of being watched till my grandfather's return, specially as of necessity he would be in the same house as Miss Irma and Sir Louis.
None of the young men, therefore, could be spared to carry a message to Dumfries. My father could not leave his school, and so it came to pass that I was dispatched to saddle my grandfather's horse. He would ride to Dumfries with me on a pillion behind him, one hand tucked into the pocket of his blue coat, while with the other I held the belt about his waist to make sure. I had to walk up the hills, but that took little of the pleasure away. Indeed, best of all to me seemed that running hither and thither like a questing spaniel, in search of all manner of wild flowers, or the sight of strange, unknown houses lying in wooded glens--one I mind was Goldielea--which, as all the mead before the door was one mass of rag-weed (which only grows on the best land), appeared to me the prettiest and most appropriate name for a house that ever was.
And so think I still.


CHAPTER XX
THE REAL MR. POOLE
So in time we ran to Dumfries. And my grandfather put up at a hostelry in English Street, where were many other conveyances with their shafts canted high in the air, the day being Wednesday. He did not wait a moment even to speak to those who saluted him by name, but betook himself at once (and I with him) to the lawyers' offices in the High Street--where it runs downhill just below the Mid Steeple.
Here we found a little knot of people. For, as it turned out (though at the time we did not know it), Messrs. Smart, Poole and Smart were agents for half the estates in Dumfriesshire, and our Galloway Marnhoul was both a far cry and a very small matter to them.
So when we had watched a while the tremors of the ingoers, all eager to ask favours, and compared them with the chastened demeanour of those coming out, my grandfather said to me with his hand on my shoulder, "I fear, Duncan lad, we shall sleep in Dumfries Tolbooth this night for making so bauld with one of a house like this!"
And from this moment I began to regard our captive Mr. Poole with a far greater respect, in spite of his pistols--which, after all, he might deem necessary when travelling into such a wild smuggling region as, at that day and date, most townsbodies pictured our Galloway to be.
We had a long time to wait in a kind of antechamber, where a man in a livery of canary and black stripes, with black satin knee-breeches and paste buckles to his shoes took our names, or at least my grandfather's and the name of the estate about which we wanted to speak to the firm.
For, you see, there being so many to attend to on market day, they had parted them among themselves, so many to each. And when it came to our turn it was old Mr. Smart we saw. The grand man in canary and black ushered us ben, told our name, adding, "of Marnhoul estate," as if we had been the owners thereof.
We had looked to see a fine, noble-appearing man sitting on a kind of throne, receiving homage, but there was nobody in the room but an old man in a dressing-gown and soft felt slippers, stirring the fire--though, indeed, it was hot enough outside.
He turned towards us, the poker still in his hand, and with an eye like a gimlet seemed to take us in at a single glance.
"What's wrong? What's wrong the day?" he cried in an odd sing-song; "what news of the Holy Smugglers? More battle, murder, and sudden death along the Solway shore?"
I had never seen my grandfather so visibly perturbed before. He actually stammered in trying to open out his business--which, now I come to think of it, was indeed of the delicatest.
"I have," he began, "the honour of speaking to Mr. Smart the elder?"
"It is an honour you share with every Moffat Tam that wants a new roof to his pigstye," grumbled the old man in the dressing-gown, "but such as it is, say on. My time is short! If ye want mainners ye must go next door!"
"Mr. Smart," said my grandfather, "I have come all the way from the house of Heathknowes on the estate of Marnhoul to announce to you a misfortune."
"What?" cried the old fellow in the blanket dressing-gown briskly, "has the dead come to life again, or is Lalor Maitland turned honest?"
But my grandfather shook his