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

warn us of the flight of the half-hours. "Ting!" another gone! Then, as the hour drew near, this academic clock cleared its decks for real action--almost it might be said that it cleared its throat, such a roopy gasping crow did it emit. This was technically called "the warning."
And three times a day at the sound of it we rose, gathered our books and fled fleetfoot for the college. The clock at Mistress Craven's was set ten minutes fast, so as to leave us time to flee down the Pleasance, dodge through a side alley, cut Simon's Square diagonally, debouch upon Drummond Street (shunning Rutherford's change-house, with its "kittle" step down into the cellar), and lo! there, big, barren, grey, grave, cauldrife as a Scots winter, was the College of King James--with the bell, unheard in the side-streets, fairly "gollying" at us--an appalling volume of sound--yet one which, on the whole, we minded less than the skirl and rasp of Mistress Craven's family clock.
I have been speaking for myself. Fred Esquillant was always in time, easy, quiet, letting nothing interfere with his duty. But for me I was not built so. I watched for adventure and followed it. The dog I had met yesterday looked not in vain for a pat. A girl waved a kerchief to the student passing with the books under his arm. She did not know me, nor I her. But in the general interests of my class I had to wave back--without prejudice, be it said, to the black lock behind the miniature in my pocket.
We came back, as we had occasion, from our classes to the crowded stair of our "land"--with its greasy handrail, and the faint whiff of humanity clinging about the numbered doorways. Our key grated in the lock. Mrs. Craven opened the kitchen door with a cry that our dinners would be ready in a jiffey. We were done with the world for the day. Henceforth four walls contained us. Many books lay tumbled about, or had to be heaped on the floor whenever the half of the table was laid for a meal.
I sat farthest from the fire, but facing it. Above and directly before my eyes was a full-rigged ship, sailing among furious painted billows directly against the lofty cliffs of a lea-shore, the captain on the bridge regarding this manoeuvre with the utmost complaisance. Beneath was a china shepherdess without the head--opposite a parrot with a bunch of waxen cherries in its beak.
When we took the room, the backs of the chairs had been covered with newly-washed embroidery in raspy woollens and starched linen thread. There had also been a tablecloth, and upon it (neatly arranged by Mrs. Craven's daughter Amelia) a selection of the family "good books"--to wit, the Holy Bible containing entries of the Craven family, with the dates of birth altered or erased, Josephus with steel pictures, the _Saint's Rest_ and some others. These had at once been removed, according to agreement made before taking possession, and now, wrapped in the tablecloth, reposed in a cupboard.
Only _The Cloud of Witnesses_ and Fox's _Martyrs_ were spared at my special request. As for Freddie, he needed no other literature than his text-books, and set himself to win medals like one who had been fitted by machinery for that purpose.
Mrs. Craven was an Englishwoman who had brought herself to this by marrying a carter from Gilmerton. So she retained a pleasant habit of curtseying which her daughter, born in Edinburgh and given to snuffing up the east wind, did not in the least strive to imitate, so far at least as we were concerned.
But on the whole those rooms in Rankeillor Street were pleasant and even model lodgings. Many a fine gentleman settled in the new town fared worse, even artistically. We had on the wall in little black frames many browned prints by a man of whom we had never heard, one Hogarth by name, some of the details of which made Freddie blush and me laugh aloud. But these doubtful subjects were counterbalanced by an equal number illustrative of the Pilgrim's Progress, beginning at the sofa-back with the Slough of Despond, going through the Wicket Gate, past fierce Giant Pope and up craggy Hills of Difficulty to a flaming Celestial City apparently being destroyed by fire with extreme rapidity.
In a glass-fronted corner cupboard were memorials of the late Mr. Craven. To wit, a large punch-bowl, remarkable for having melted down a flourishing business in the "carrying" way, four pair of horses with wagons to match, a yard and suitable stabling, and, finally, Mr. Craven, late of Gilmerton, himself.
On the top shelf was all that remained of the tea-service he had presented to his "intended" when he was still at the head of the Gilmerton "yard"--she being at the time lady's-maid at Dalkeith Palace and high in favour with "her Grace." Much art was needed in dusting these and arranging them to make cups and saucers stand so that their chipped sides would not show.
I was strictly forbidden ever to dance, flap my long arms, or otherwise disport myself near this sacred enclosure, as I sometimes did when the blood ran high or the temperature low. As for Freddie, he could do no wrong. At least, he never did. I was in despair about him, and foresaw trouble.
As to situation, we had the Meadows behind us, and (except the Sciennes and Merchiston), all was free and open as far as Bruntsfield and the Borough Muir. But towards Holyrood and the College, what a warren! You entered by deep archways into secluded yards. Here was a darksome passage where murder might be (and no doubt had been) done. Here was an echoing gateway to a coaching inn, with a watchman ready to hit evil boys over the head with his clapper if they tried to ring his bell, the bell that announced the arrival of the Dumfries coach "Gladiator" after thirty hours' detention at the Beeftub in Moffatdale, or the shorter breathed "four" from Selkirk and Peebles that had changed horses last at Cockmuir Inn at the back of Kingside.
All this I describe so minutely, once for all, because there is more to come of it, and these precincts on the southern border of Edinburgh, where Cromwell had once encamped, were mightily familiar to me before all was done.


CHAPTER XXV
SATAN FINDS
Of course Christmas time soon came, when we collegers had our first vacation, and Fred and I footed it down to Eden Valley. They had been preparing for us, and the puddings, white and black, hung in rows along the high cross-bars in the kitchen.
Everybody was glad to see us, except, as it appeared at first, Miss Irma. I called her Irma when I thought of the round locket with the hair and her mother's picture in it, also the letters she had sent me--though these were but few, and, for all that was in them, might have been written to the Doctor. But when I returned and met her full in the doorway of my grandmother's house, she gave me her hand as calmly as if she had clean forgotten all that had ever been between us.
For me, I was all shaken and blushing--a sight to be seen. So much so that Aunt Jen, coming in with the milk for the evening's porridge, cocked an eye at me curiously. But if Irma felt anything, I am very sure that it did not show on her face. And that is one of the greatest advantages girls have--care or not care, they can always hide it.
My mother shed tears over me. My father took stock of my progress, and asked me for new light on certain passages we had been reading, but soon deserted me with the familiar contemptuous toss of the head, which meant that he must wait for Fred Esquillant. He might have learned by this time. At anything practical I was miles ahead of Freddie, who had no world outside of his classical books. But then my father was of the same type, with, in addition, the power of imparting and enthusing strong in him--_his_ practical side, which Freddie did not possess--indeed, never felt the lack of, much less the ambition to possess. He was content to know. He had no desire to impart his knowledge.
I spent six mornings and five evenings out of my scanty twenty days at the little thicket by the well. But the lilac was leafless now, and the path which led back to the house of Heathknowes empty and deserted.
Once while I was in hiding my Uncle Rob came and stood so long by his water-pails, looking across the hills in the direction of the Craig Farm, that I made sure he had found me out, or was trying for a talk with Miss Irma on his own account.
But Rob, as I might have known, was far too inconstant. As the saying went, "He had a lass for ilka day in the week and twa for the Sabbath." It is more than likely that his long rumination at the well was the result of uncertainty as to whether it was the turn of Jeannie at the Craig or Bell down by at Parkhill.
At any rate, it had no connection with me, for he went off home with his burden, where presently I could hear him arranging with Eben as to the foddering of the "beasts" and the "bedding" of the horses. For my three uncles kept accounts as to exchanges of work, and were very careful as to balancing them, too--though Rob occasionally "took the loan" of good-tempered Eben without repayment of any sort.
After my fifth solitary vigil among the rustling of the frozen stems and the dank desolation of the icebound copse on the edge of the marsh, I began to go about with a huge affectation of gloom on my face. It was clear that I was being played with. For this I had scorned the red-cheeked dairy-lass at Echobank, and the waved kerchiefs of the baker's daughter opposite. And the more unhappy and miserable I looked, the closer I drew my inky cloak about me, the gayer, the more light-hearted became Miss Irma.
I plotted deep, dark, terrible deeds. She urged me to yet another help of dumpling. She had made the jam herself, she said. Or the shortbread--now there _was_ something like shortbread, made after a recipe learned in Brabant! (I wondered the word did not choke her, thinking of Lalor--but, perhaps, who knew? she would not after all be so unwilling!) I had shed my blood for naught--not that I had really shed any, but it felt like that. I had gone forth to conquer the world for the sake of a faithless girl--though, again, I had not even done quite that, seeing that Freddy Esquillant bade fair to beat me in all the classes--except, perhaps, in the Mathematic, for which he had no taste. But the principle was the same. I was deserted, and my whole aspect became so dejected that my mother spoke to my father about my killing myself in Edinburgh with study, which caused that good (and instructed) man to exclaim, "Fiddlesticks!" Then she went to my grandmother, who prescribed senna tea, which she brewed and stood by till I had drunk. I resolved to wear my heart a little less on my sleeve, and always after that assured my grandmother that I was feeling very well indeed. Also I made shift to eat a little, even in public, contriving it so, however, that the effort to appear brave and gay ought to have been evident even to Miss Irma.
Every day Louis and she went to the Academy, and I went with them, one of the uncles--generally Eben, the universally disposable--following to the village with