CHAPTER I.

The merry ploughboy cheers his team, Wi’ joy the tentie seedsman stalks.--BURNS.

“Mossgray,” said Halbert Graeme, as they sat next morning at their cheerful breakfast-table, “I wish you would come out with me to-day, and see these fields at Shortrigg--they are in a very bad state: small, oddly-shaped fields, ‘three neukit,’ as Saunders calls them, with quite a superabundance of hedges. I should like to sweep those encumbrances away, and bring them into better working order. Will you come and see them, Mossgray?”

“Halbert, my man,” said Mossgray, smiling, “I am too old to learn--even your training will scarcely make a good farmer of me, I am afraid; and I give you full discretion, you know.”

“But, Mossgray,” persisted Halbert, “I am sure you have no concern for those thriftless hedges; and good agriculture--”

“Is a very necessary, noble, and honourable art,” said the Laird, “perfectly so, Halbert; and I am by no means a sentimental admirer of thriftless hedges; but I am old, you know, and not a good judge: you must take it into your own hands.”

Halbert was not quite satisfied.

“Still, Mossgray, if you are not engaged--”

The good Mossgray could not deny the youth his request.

“Well, Halbert, if it must be. Come then, let us set about this business of yours.”

Halbert was very full of his undertaking. He began to tell Mossgray what his crops were to be, and the measures he would take with obstinate land, which was not naturally obedient to the discipline of the plough. The country looked very cheerful as they passed on. Round about, skirting the horizon on every side were ranges of low hills, some rich with fir trees and softer young spring foliage to the very top; some dark with moss and heather unbloomed. Winding roads, white far-seen lines, lost themselves among the hills, and through the trees, which divided their path from the river, glimpses of the wan water, flowing on full and broad to the sea, glimmered through the soft, gay, fluttering leaves of spring. Turning back on the elevation which they had reached, the full Firth, quivering like molten silver, stretched between them and the clear creeks and villages of the English shore, over whose stillness muffled mountains watched in the background; and looming out against the pale sky in the West, his broad sides darkened here and there, as if with stationary shadows, rose the bluff Scottish hill, whose strong brow every night was crowned with the glory of the sunset. There was a hum of voices in the pleasant air, and ploughs were turning up the rich, dark, fragrant earth, and the “tentie seedsman” stalked about the fields. The sky and the leaves were soft and fresh, so fresh and soft as they only are in the early year, and the refreshed land seemed to open its moist breast with gladness to the kindly processes of spring.

“I think there is something grand, Halbert,” said the old man, pausing to look back, “in the art, which out of that bare earth can bring seed and bread. I should rather have myself endowed with this wealth of the soil, were I young like you, than choose the barren, metallic fortune you were aspiring after a short time since. This, you know, pleases me; to inherit the soil and the sky, the seed-time and harvest, the sunshine and the rain of heaven; it seems to place us in more immediate dependance on the Maker of all, the great Suzerain above, of whom we hold this feoff, for the honour of His kingly name and the service of His people. I like it, Halbert--it is a greater gift than barren wealth. It pleases me to feel myself, with Paul, a vassal--a _Knecht_, as your German has it--holding my lands under the fealty vow and oath of true service. I would we did but better remember that we stood here feudatories of high Heaven.”

The youth assented modestly; he thought it did not become him to do more.

Mossgray stood for a moment longer, looking with loving eyes over his fair country, as it lay below the sunbeams, stirred with the spring; and then he turned to take Halbert’s arm, and they went on again, resuming their former conversation about crops and ploughs and draining. The old man was not so ignorant of these matters as he called himself, and could give valuable counsel to the young experimentalist.

“But, Halbert,” said Mossgray, “Lilias tells me I am injuring you in keeping you here so long, where you cannot pursue your own course as you desire to do; we should rather talk of it than of those rural matters. What say you, Halbert?”

Halbert was rather startled; he did not know what to say, for, to tell the truth, he had quite forgotten the “course” which his kinsman assumed he was so eager to begin, and at present was perfectly content, and had no wish for change.

“I will be glad to do what you think best, Sir,” he said, with a little hesitation.

“But the question is not what I think best, but what you wish,” said the old man. “Is it the case that you are impatient of losing time at Mossgray, Halbert?”

Halbert was very honest.

“Well, Sir, to speak truly, no--I have not been thinking of losing time; but no doubt it is very necessary that I should begin.”

“Begin what, Halbert?”

“To maintain myself, Sir; to cease to be a burden--”

“My good Halbert,” said Mossgray, interrupting him, “I should never have spoken of it, if that were all; but Lilias does not hesitate to tell me that I do wrong to keep you undecided so long; so you must let me know what your own views are, and how I can help you most agreeably to yourself. Be honest and tell me frankly; and when I have heard your own ideas, you must give me the privilege of my age, and let me decide.”

There was a pause.

“I suppose,” said Halbert, hesitating a little, “that it must be business?”

“Does your gift lie in that way?” said Mossgray, smiling.

Halbert was a little annoyed, and jealous of ridicule.

“I think I might be able to do as much as I undertook,” he answered, with a little warmth. “All sorts of men succeed in business. I do not think, with submission to your better judgment, Mossgray, that, except perseverance and industry, and a stout heart, there is any very special gift required.”

“Bravely answered, Halbert,” said Mossgray; “but these are invaluable qualities all, and as necessary for a conscientious country Laird, as for your great merchant of Glasgow or Liverpool. But let us speak more gravely; before you were so wise and sensible as to come here to me, it was my custom to consider myself the last Graeme of Mossgray. Now, Halbert, supposing that our ancestors had entailed these lands, in what position would you have been?”

Halbert blushed and was embarrassed; it was impossible that such a thought should not have sometimes entered the young man’s mind; but he really had not self-interested views; and now he remained silent with too much good taste to disclaim, while he yet felt awkwardly uncomfortable under the fear of such an imputation.

“The race would have been resuscitated in you,” said the old man; “you would have brought new life to the withering stock; for, Halbert, you are the only remaining heir of the Graemes of Mossgray.”

“I have the name, Sir,” said Halbert quickly, his embarrassment growing on him as he met his kinsman’s eye; “it is the share of the family inheritance which comes to me; and the provision which you made for the helpless portion of my life, Mossgray, is more than a cadet’s share. Now that I am able to make use of the faculties which your kindness and my good master’s have trained and made available, I hope to do no dishonour to the name.”

The Laird of Mossgray looked steadily into his young kinsman’s glowing, animated face; the natural diffidence which subdued its expression, and the charm of its simple, frank manliness were very pleasant in the old man’s eyes. He held out his hand and grasped that somewhat astonished, irresolute one of Halbert’s.

“I have no fear,” he said, kindly; “I believe you will be a good steward of your name; but remember, Halbert, that there devolves upon you an inheritance of old duties, old kindnesses, old generosities, along with the old lands; and that I will as surely leave you heir to all the good purposed and planned by your predecessors, bravely and faithfully to fulfil and increase it, as I leave you heir of Mossgray.”

Halbert looked up with a sudden start; the words did not carry their proper significance to him, for he had expected nothing like this.

“If I had thought you would weary of the lifetime which remains to me,” said Mossgray, “I might have kept this secret from you, lest you should be tempted to wish my few remaining days shortened; but I have all confidence in you, Halbert, and what I give you is your right.”

Halbert said something now; but it was said in so strange a tumult that the words would not bear recording. Nevertheless they answered their purpose, and Mossgray did not think the less either of them or of the speaker, because they were by no means elegantly put together, or rather were not put together at all.

And then the old man, more openly than he had done with Lilias, sought, and after some happy hesitation, received, the confidence of Halbert; and then some arrangements were made, very much to the satisfaction of the heir of Mossgray. The old man decided that Halbert’s “being settled” should be for some time delayed, but did by no means say anything to the detriment of Menie Monikie. To wait a little was all the condition he asked.

The fields at Shortrigg were unfortunate on this particular day. The young farmer had things in his head of more immediate interest than draining, and while he tried to keep his mind awake to the question of the superabundant hedges, incipient sentences of the triumphant letter, which should convey those wonderful tidings to the North, floated through his joyous head, to the entire bewilderment of himself and his companion. It would not do; the young Utopia routed the sober science of agriculture, and Mossgray, with secret smiles, invented some kind pretext for sending Halbert home. It pleased the old man that the youth should be so pleasantly disturbed, and his eagerness to communicate his joy to the only home he had ever known gave additional satisfaction to the gentle heart of Adam Graeme.

“I did not think,” said Mossgray to himself half-aloud, as he lingered at the corner of one of the condemned ‘three-neukit’ fields, watching the rapid progress of Halbert, as, bounding over all manner of obstacles, he carried his exulting heart home to Mossgray, “I did not think that my old pragmatical friend, Monikie, could have succeeded in producing such a lad as Halbert; and I fancy I must see this Menie of his, and renew my acquaintance with her father. And I too have children. Resolutions, resolutions! what mockery they are; that I might have debarred myself such companions as these for the sake of words rashly spoken!”

He turned round, shaking his head with a smile. Saunders Delvie was standing near, evidently listening. He had heard the conclusion of the soliloquy.

“Well, Saunders,” said Mossgray, “I believe you do not agree with me?”

“Na, Mossgray,” answered Saunders, harshly, “I haud by the auld law. Thou shalt not forswear thyself, but shalt perform unto the Lord thine oath.”

“But I am speaking of resolutions, Saunders,” said the Laird, “uncertain mortal resolves, ignorantly made, which better knowledge shows us were foolish and wrong. You would not have me hold by anything so weak as that?”

“Ay, Mossgray,” said the stern old man, holding his ground decidedly; “but an ane was wise, ane would make nae vows in ignorance; and when a vow was made, would keep it, if it was to the very death.”

“But, Saunders, my man,” said the good master, kindly, “you know me well enough to know that I am not so wise as that; and I am too old to learn.”

“Mossgray,” said Saunders Delvie, “I’m just your serving-man, but I’m in years mysel’--and I can take nae rule but Scripture, though I would do as muckle to pleasure my maister as most folk; but the Word’s positive and clear. Vow unto the Lord and pay.”

“You are more skilled in argument than I am, Saunders,” said Mossgray, “but I think we can settle that point between us. The vow was a vow of offering--of special service, or special gifts, or of the sacrifices of that grand old symbolic Hebrew law. It did not by any means refer to such frail, inconsiderate resolutions, Saunders, as are common to this humanity of ours.”

“Ay, but if it was a vow before the Lord,” said Saunders, in his strong, harsh, emphatic voice; “if before the Lord, Mossgray, ye had spread out the ill that troubled ye, as the guid King Hezekiah did the proud words of the Assyrian langsyne, and put forth ane--I’m saying nae man in particular; it’s a case just like what micht happen wi’ onybody--put forth ane, I say, solemnly out of your heart and out of your house, as an ill-doer and a reprobate; would the man that daured to break that no be man-sworn, Mossgray, having vowed before the Lord?”

There was a certain huskiness and tremor in the harsh voice of the old man. They stood together strangely contrasted; the master in his benign and gentle humbleness, the servant in the stern and rugged strength of his pride.

“Saunders,” said Mossgray, “the utmost vision of our wisdom, you know, is very poor and dim; and will the Lord hold you, do you think, to an oath made in ignorance, and dimly, as are all things mortal, even though you place it in His keeping? If what you vowed in His presence was an ill vow, Saunders, be thankful that this privilege of humanity is left to you, and that God gives you power to change--to change; it is a great gift this. That when the purer light comes upon us we may follow its course wherever it travels, and that all our vain purposes and foolish vows are not bound on us, but that gratefully in sight of heaven we may throw our old encumbrances away, and change. We are growing old, Saunders, we are travelling towards the setting sun; and by and by we will lose this power. Think of it before it leaves your hands--mind what a gracious thing it is, given of God--and make merciful use of it while you may.”

Mossgray turned round as he concluded, and bent his steps to his favourite Waterside. He had not unfrequently had such controversies with his stern old serving-man; and pitying the forlorn heart which, out of its very excess of harsh, strong love, could debar itself so relentlessly from the mild humanities of nature, he had taken pains to leaven the mind of Saunders with his own gracious philosophy. But it would not do; the rugged, intense spirit buckled its harsh vow upon itself like armour, while the wiser poet-man opened the heart which could not be old to all the gentle influences of the earth and of the heaven.