Gordon Stables - Kenneth McAlpine - A Tale of Mountain, Moorland and Sea

Away went Archie and Kenneth and Shot. It didn’t take them long to gallop through the heather and furze. Of course the furze made their bare knees bleed, but they did not mind that.

They reached the road in twenty minutes, and went straight away to the clachan to report themselves at the manse, or minister’s house.

It wasn’t much of a manse, only an ordinary-looking, blue-slated house of two stories, but it had a nice lawn in front and gardens round it, where ash trees, limes, planes, and elms grew almost in too great abundance. The windows were large, and one was a French one, and opened under a verandah on to the lawn. This was the Rev. David Grant’s study.

Before they came round the hedgerow, both boys stopped, dipped their handkerchiefs in the running brook, and polished their faces; then they warned Shot to be on his best behaviour, and looking as sedate and solemn as they could, they opened the gate, and made their way to the hall door. And Shot tried to look as old as he could, and followed behind with his nose pretty near the ground, and his tail almost between his heels.

But Mr Grant himself saw them, opened the casement window, and cried, —

“Come this way, boys.”

Mr Grant was the clergyman of the village. The living was a poor one, and as he had seven grown-up daughters, he was obliged to turn sheep farmer. It was his sheep that Kenneth herded, and that his father had herded before him, after “the bad years” had ruined the poor man.

“Miss Grant will soon be here,” he said. “And how have you left the sheep, Kenneth?”

“They are all nicely, thank you, sir,” replied Kenneth.

“All healthy and thriving, I hope?”

“Oh, yes, sir, we won’t have any more trouble, and Kooran is minding them. He will take capital care of them, sir. And Duncan McCrane, Archie’s father, is going up himself to see them.”

“That’s right,” said Mr Grant.

The Misses Grant were the mothers of the clachan. I haven’t space to tell you half of the good they did, so I shall not attempt it, but they taught in school and Sunday-school, they knew all the deserving poor, and attended them when sick, and advised them, and prayed with them, and read to them, and never went empty-handed to see them. Why, they even begged for them. And they knew the undeserving poor, and did good to them also. Even Gillespie, the most dreaded poacher and wildest man in the clachan, was softened in tone and like a child when talking to the “good Miss Grants,” as they were always called.

Well, every one loved these homely sisterly lassies of the parson’s.

“By-the-bye, Kennie,” said Mr Grant, “I hear the glen is going to be evicted.”

“Surely, sir, that isn’t true?” replied Kenneth.

Miss Grant the elder was Kenneth’s teacher, one of them, old Nancy Dobbell was another, and Nature was a third.

“Did you come for a lesson to-day?” said Miss Grant, entering.

“No, thank you. Miss Grant.”

“Well, I’m glad, because I was going out. Little Miss Redmond is here with her governess. They have the pony trap, and I am going to their glen with them to lunch. Come to the drawing-room; they are there.”

Miss Redmond was the only daughter of an Englishman of wealth, who had bought land in an adjoining glen. Mr Redmond himself was seldom at home – if, indeed, Scotland could be called his home – and his wife was an invalid.

But there was nothing of the invalid about little Jessie, the daughter. Quite a child she was, hardly more than eight, but with all the quiet dignity and easy affability that is only to be found among children of the bon ton .

Archie was simply afraid of her. Kenneth got on better, however. He answered all her innocent but pointed questions, as if he were talking to his grandmother. But Jessie was really asking for information, and Kenneth knew it, so the two had quite a serious old-fashioned conversation.

Well, Kenneth seemed a gentleman born. He sat easily in his chair, he held his cap easily, and behaved himself with polite sang froid . Miss Grant was proud of Kenneth.

But poor Archie looked ill at ease.

Kenneth told Jessie the story of the little black rabbit, and Jessie was much interested.

“What did it look like?” she asked.

Kenneth glanced towards Archie.

“He just looked,” he answered, “as Archie is looking now, as if waiting a chance to bolt.”

This was a very mischievous speech, but Kenneth could not refrain from saying what he thought.

“Poor boy?” said Jessie, as if she had been Archie’s mother; “he appears to be very frightened. What beautiful hair he has! It is just like mine.”

This was true, only Jesssie’s was longer and not bleached. Kenneth sat looking half wonderingly at Jessie, longer than politeness would dictate.

“What are you thinking about?” said Jessie.

“I was thinking,” said Kenneth, candidly, “I’d give all the world to be able to talk English in the pretty way you do.”

“Some day,” Jessie said to her governess, “we will go and see the sheep, Miss Gale. Remember that place. Put it down in your notes. We are to see a fairy knoll and a smugglers’ cave. It will be so delightful.”

“We go to London soon for the winter,” said Miss Gale, “but will come and see you, Kenneth, in spring or summer.”

“Miss Gale,” insisted the imperious Jessie, “I haven’t seen you use your tablets.”

So Miss Gale smilingly took her tablets out and noted the engagement to visit the sheep and see the fairy knoll.

“He has a flute,” said Archie, with sudden determination not to sit mute all the time; “make him play.”

And Kenneth had to play, just the same old melodies that the Scotch so dearly love; but as he played there came so sweet and sad an expression into English Jessie’s face, that Kenneth would have played for hours to please her.

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