Ranald Bannerman's Boyhood Part 10

"Look here, Ra.n.a.ld," he said, holding out something like a piece of wood.

"What is it, Peter?" I asked.

"It's the stalk of a cabbage," he answered. "I've scooped out the inside and filled it with tow. We'll set fire to one end, and blow the smoke through the keyhole."

"Whose keyhole, Peter?"

"An old witch's that I know of. She'll be in such a rage! It'll be fun to hear her cursing and swearing. We'd serve the same to every house in the row, but that would be more than we could get off with. Come along. Here's a rope to tie her door with first."

I followed him, not without inward misgivings, which I kept down as well as I could. I argued with myself, "_I_ am not doing it; I am only going with Peter: what business is that of anybody's so long as I don't touch the thing myself?" Only a few minutes more, and I was helping Peter to tie the rope to the latch-handle of a poor little cottage, saying now to myself, "This doesn't matter. This won't do her any harm. This isn't smoke. And after all, smoke won't hurt the nasty old thing. It'll only make her angry. It may do her cough good: I dare say she's got a cough." I knew all I was saying was false, and yet I acted on it. Was not that as wicked as wickedness could be? One moment more, and Peter was blowing through the hollow cabbage stalk in at the keyhole with all his might. Catching a breath of the stifling smoke himself, however, he began to cough violently, and pa.s.sed the wicked instrument to me. I put my mouth to it, and blew with all my might. I believe now that there was some far more objectionable stuff mingled with the tow. In a few moments we heard the old woman begin to cough. Peter, who was peeping in at the window, whispered--

"She's rising. Now we'll catch it, Ra.n.a.ld!"

Coughing as she came, I heard her with shuffling steps approach the door, thinking to open it for air. When she failed in opening it, and found besides where the smoke was coming from, she broke into a torrent of fierce and vengeful reproaches, mingled with epithets by no means flattering. She did not curse and swear as Peter had led me to expect, although her language was certainly far enough from refined; but therein I, being, in a great measure, the guilty cause, was more to blame than she. I laughed because I would not be unworthy of my companion, who was genuinely amused; but I was, in reality, shocked at the tempest I had raised. I stopped blowing, aghast at what I had done; but Peter caught the tube from my hand and recommenced the a.s.sault with fresh vigour, whispering through the keyhole, every now and then between the blasts, provoking, irritating, even insulting remarks on the old woman's personal appearance and supposed ways of living. This threw her into paroxysms of rage and of coughing, both increasing in violence; and the war of words grew, she tugging at the door as she screamed, he answering merrily, and with pretended sympathy for her sufferings, until I lost all remaining delicacy in the humour of the wicked game, and laughed loud and heartily.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

Of a sudden the scolding and coughing ceased. A strange sound and again silence followed. Then came a shrill, suppressed scream; and we heard the voice of a girl, crying:

"Grannie! grannie! What's the matter with you? Can't you speak to me, grannie? They've smothered my grannie!"

Sobs and moans were all we heard now. Peter had taken fright at last, and was busy undoing the rope. Suddenly he flung the door wide and fled, leaving me exposed to the full gaze of the girl. To my horror it was Elsie Duff! She was just approaching the door, her eyes streaming with tears, and her sweet face white with agony. I stood unable to move or speak. She turned away without a word, and began again to busy herself with the old woman, who lay on the ground not two yards from the door. I heard a heavy step approaching. Guilt awoke fear and restored my powers of motion. I fled at full speed, not to find Mason, but to leave everything behind me.

When I reached the manse, it stood alone in the starry blue night.

Somehow I could not help thinking of the time when I came home after waking up in the barn. That, too, was a time of misery, but, oh! how different from this! Then I had only been cruelly treated myself; now I had actually committed cruelty. Then I sought my father's bosom as the one refuge; now I dreaded the very sight of my father, for I could not look him in the face. He was my father, but I was not his son. A hurried glance at my late life revealed that I had been behaving very badly, growing worse and worse. I became more and more miserable as I stood, but what to do I could not tell. The cold at length drove me into the house. I generally sat with my father in his study of a winter night now, but I dared not go near it. I crept to the nursery, where I found a bright fire burning, and Allister reading by the blaze, while Davie lay in bed at the other side of the room. I sat down and warmed myself, but the warmth could not reach the lump of ice at my heart. I sat and stared at the fire. Allister was too much occupied with his book to take any heed of me. All at once I felt a pair of little arms about my neck, and Davie was trying to climb upon my knees. Instead of being comforted, however, I spoke very crossly, and sent him back to his bed whimpering. You see I was only miserable; I was not repentant. I was eating the husks with the swine, and did not relish them; but I had not said, "I will arise and go to my father".

How I got through the rest of that evening I hardly know. I tried to read, but could not. I was rather fond of arithmetic; so I got my slate and tried to work a sum; but in a few moments I was sick of it.

At family prayers I never lifted my head to look at my father, and when they were over, and I had said good night to him, I felt that I was sneaking out of the room. But I had some small sense of protection and safety when once in bed beside little Davie, who was sound asleep, and looked as innocent as little Samuel when the voice of G.o.d was going to call him. I put my arm round him, hugged him close to me, and began to cry, and the crying brought me sleep.

It was a very long time now since I had dreamt my old childish dream; but this night it returned. The old sunny-faced sun looked down upon me very solemnly. There was no smile on his big mouth, no twinkle about the corners of his little eyes. He looked at Mrs. Moon as much as to say, "What is to be done? The boy has been going the wrong way: must we disown him?" The moon neither shook her head nor moved her lips, but turned as on a pivot, and stood with her back to her husband, looking very miserable. Not one of the star-children moved from its place. They shone sickly and small. In a little while they faded out; then the moon paled and paled until she too vanished without ever turning her face to her husband; and last the sun himself began to change, only instead of paling he drew in all his beams, and shrunk smaller and smaller, until no bigger than a candle-flame. Then I found that I was staring at a candle on the table; and that Tom was kneeling by the side of the other bed, saying his prayers.

CHAPTER XVII

The Trouble Grows

When I woke in the morning, I tried to persuade myself that I had made a great deal too much of the whole business; that if not a dignified thing to do, it was at worst but a boy's trick; only I would have no more to say to Peter Mason, who had betrayed me at the last moment without even the temptation of any benefit to himself. I went to school as usual. It was the day for the Shorter Catechism. None failed but Peter and me; and we two were kept in alone, and left in the schoolroom together. I seated myself as far from him as I could. In half an hour he had learned his task, while I had not mastered the half of mine. Thereupon he proceeded, regardless of my entreaties, to prevent me learning it. I begged, and prayed, and appealed to his pity, but he would pull the book away from me, gabble bits of ballads in my ear as I was struggling with _Effectual Calling_, tip up the form on which I was seated, and, in short, annoy me in twenty different ways. At last I began to cry, for Mason was a bigger and stronger boy than I, and I could not help myself against him. Lifting my head after the first vexation was over, I thought I saw a shadow pa.s.s from the window. Although I could not positively say I saw it, I had a conviction it was Turkey, and my heart began to turn again towards him. Emboldened by the fancied proximity, I attempted my lesson once more, but that moment Peter was down upon me like a spider. At last, however, growing suddenly weary of the sport, he desisted, and said:

"Ran, you can stay if you like. I've learned my catechism, and I don't see why I should wait _his_ time."

As he spoke he drew a picklock from his pocket--his father was an ironmonger--deliberately opened the schoolroom door, slipped out, and locked it behind him. Then he came to one of the windows, and began making faces at me. But vengeance was nigher than he knew. A deeper shadow darkened my page, and when I looked up, there was Turkey towering over Mason, with his hand on his collar, and his whip lifted.

The whip did not look formidable. Mason received the threat as a joke, and laughed in Turkey's face. Perceiving, however, that Turkey looked dangerous, with a sudden wriggle, at which he was an adept, he broke free, and, trusting to his tried speed of foot, turned his head and made a grimace as he took to his heels. Before, however, he could widen the s.p.a.ce between them sufficiently, Turkey's whip came down upon him. With a howl of pain Peter doubled himself up, and Turkey fell upon him, and, heedless of his yells and cries, pommelled him severely. Although they were now at some distance, too great for the distinguis.h.i.+ng of words, I could hear that Turkey mingled admonition with punishment. A little longer, and Peter crept past the window, a miserable ma.s.s of collapsed and unstrung impudence, his face bleared with crying, and his knuckles dug into his eyes. And this was the boy I had chosen for my leader! He had been false to me, I said to myself; and the n.o.ble Turkey, seeing his behaviour through the window, had watched to give him his deserts. My heart was full of grat.i.tude.

Once more Turkey drew near the window. What was my dismay and indignation to hear him utter the following words:

"If you weren't your father's son, Ra.n.a.ld, and my own old friend, I would serve you just the same."

Wrath and pride arose in me at the idea of Turkey, who used to call himself my horse, behaving to me after this fas.h.i.+on; and, my evil ways having half made a sneak of me, I cried out:

"I'll tell my father, Turkey."

"I only wish you would, and then I should be no tell-tale if he asked me why, and I told him all about it. You young blackguard! You're no gentleman! To sneak about the streets and hit girls with s...o...b..a.l.l.s! I scorn you!"

"You must have been watching, then, Turkey, and you had no business to do that," I said, plunging at any defence.

"I was not watching you. But if I had been, it would have been just as right as watching Hawkie. You ill-behaved creature! You're a true minister's son."

"It's a mean thing to do, Turkey," I persisted, seeking to stir up my own anger and blow up my self-approval.

"I tell you I did not do it. I met Elsie Duff crying in the street because you had hit her with a dirty s...o...b..ll. And then to go and smoke her and her poor grannie, till the old woman fell down in a faint or a fit, I don't know which! You deserve a good pommelling yourself, I can tell you, Ra.n.a.ld. I'm ashamed of you."

He turned to go away.

"Turkey, Turkey," I cried, "isn't the old woman better?"

"I don't know. I'm going to see," he answered.

"Come back and tell me, Turkey," I shouted, as he disappeared from the field of my vision.

"Indeed I won't. I don't choose to keep company with such as you. But if ever I hear of you touching them again, you shall have more of me than you'll like, and you may tell your father so when you please."

I had indeed sunk low when Turkey, who had been such a friend, would have nothing to say to me more. In a few minutes the master returned, and finding me crying, was touched with compa.s.sion. He sent me home at once, which was well for me, as I could not have repeated a single question. He thought Peter had crept through one of the panes that opened for ventilation, and did not interrogate me about his disappearance.

The whole of the rest of that day was miserable enough. I even hazarded one attempt at making friends with Mrs. Mitch.e.l.l, but she repelled me so rudely that I did not try again. I could not bear the company of either Allister or Davie. I would have gone and told Kirsty, but I said to myself that Turkey must have already prejudiced her against me. I went to bed the moment prayers were over, and slept a troubled sleep. I dreamed that Turkey had gone and told my father, and that he had turned me out of the house.

CHAPTER XVIII

Light out of Darkness

I woke early on the Sunday morning, and a most dreary morning it was. I could not lie in bed, and, although no one was up yet, rose and dressed myself. The house was as waste as a sepulchre. I opened the front door and went out. The world itself was no better. The day had hardly begun to dawn. The dark dead frost held it in chains of iron.

The sky was dull and leaden, and cindery flakes of snow were thinly falling. Everywhere life looked utterly dreary and hopeless. What was there worth living for? I went out on the road, and the ice in the ruts crackled under my feet like the bones of dead things. I wandered away from the house, and the keen wind cut me to the bone, for I had not put on plaid or cloak. I turned into a field, and stumbled along over its uneven surface, swollen into hard frozen lumps, so that it was like walking upon stones. The summer was gone and the winter was here, and my heart was colder and more miserable than any winter in the world. I found myself at length at the hillock where Turkey and I had lain on that lovely afternoon the year before. The stream below was dumb with frost. The wind blew wearily but sharply across the bare field. There was no Elsie Duff, with head drooping over her knitting, seated in the summer gra.s.s on the other side of a singing brook. Her head was aching on her pillow because I had struck her with that vile lump; and instead of the odour of white clover she was breathing the dregs of the hateful smoke with which I had filled the cottage. I sat down, cold as it was, on the frozen hillock, and buried my face in my hands. Then my dream returned upon me. This was how I sat in my dream when my father had turned me out-of-doors. Oh how dreadful it would be! I should just have to lie down and die.

I could not sit long for the cold. Mechanically I rose and paced about. But I grew so wretched in body that it made me forget for a while the trouble of my mind, and I wandered home again. The house was just stirring. I crept to the nursery, undressed, and lay down beside little Davie, who cried out in his sleep when my cold feet touched him. But I did not sleep again, although I lay till all the rest had gone to the parlour. I found them seated round a blazing fire waiting for my father. He came in soon after, and we had our breakfast, and Davie gave his crumbs as usual to the robins and sparrows which came hopping on the window-sill. I fancied my father's eyes were often turned in my direction, but I could not lift mine to make sure. I had never before known what misery was.

Only Tom and I went to church that day: it was so cold. My father preached from the text, "Be sure your sin shall find you out". I thought with myself that he had found out my sin, and was preparing to punish me for it, and I was filled with terror as well as dismay. I could scarcely keep my seat, so wretched was I. But when after many instances in which punishment had come upon evil-doers when they least expected it, and in spite of every precaution to fortify themselves against it, he proceeded to say that a man's sin might find him out long before the punishment of it overtook him, and drew a picture of the misery of the wicked man who fled when none pursued him, and trembled at the rustling of a leaf, then I was certain that he knew what I had done, or had seen through my face into my conscience. When at last we went home, I kept waiting the whole of the day for the storm to break, expecting every moment to be called to his study. I did not enjoy a mouthful of my food, for I felt his eyes upon me, and they tortured me. I was like a shy creature of the woods whose hole had been stopped up: I had no place of refuge--nowhere to hide my head; and I felt so naked!

My very soul was naked. After tea I slunk away to the nursery, and sat staring into the fire. Mrs. Mitch.e.l.l came in several times and scolded me for sitting there, instead of with Tom and the rest in the parlour, but I was too miserable even to answer her. At length she brought Davie, and put him to bed; and a few minutes after, I heard my father coming down the stair with Allister, who was chatting away to him. I wondered how he could. My father came in with the big Bible under his arm, as was his custom on Sunday nights, drew a chair to the table, rang for candles, and with Allister by his side and me seated opposite to him, began to find a place from which to read to us. To my yet stronger conviction, he began and read through without a word of remark the parable of the Prodigal Son. When he came to the father's delight at having him back, the robe, and the shoes, and the ring, I could not repress my tears. "If I could only go back," I thought, "and set it all right! but then I've never gone away." It was a foolish thought, instantly followed by a longing impulse to tell my father all about it. How could it be that I had not thought of this before? I had been waiting all this time for my sin to find me out; why should I not frustrate my sin, and find my father first?

As soon as he had done reading, and before he had opened his mouth to make any remark, I crept round the table to his side, and whispered in his ear,--

"Papa, I want to speak to you."

"Very well, Ra.n.a.ld," he said, more solemnly, I thought, than usual; "come up to the study."