Brothers & Sisters - John & Anna Buchan Edition (Collection of Their Greatest Works). Buchan John

two young men the world of six years ago and its denizens had become hazy. They were remotely interested in the fates of their old comrades, but no more. The day would come when they would dwell sentimentally on the past: now they thought chiefly of the present, of the future, and of themselves.

      “And how are you getting on yourself, Dougal?” Dickson asked. “We read your things in the paper, and we whiles read about you. I see you’re running for Parliament.”

      “I’m running, but I won’t get in. Not yet.”

      “Man, I wish you were on a better side. You’ve got into an ill nest. I was reading this very morning a speech by yon Tombs—he’s one of your big men, isn’t he?—blazing away about the sins of the boorjoysee. That’s just Mamma and me.”

      “It’s not you. And Tombs, anyway, is a trumpery body. I have no use for the intellectual on the make, for there’s nothing in him but vanity. But see here, Mr McCunn. The common people of this land are coming to their own nowadays. I know what they need and I know what they’re thinking, for I come out of them myself. They want interpreting and they want guiding. Is it not right that a man like me should take a hand in it?”

      Dickson looked wise. “Yes, if you keep your head. But you know fine, Dougal, that those who set out to lead the mob are apt to end by following. You’re in a kittle trade, my man. And how do you manage to reconcile your views with your profession? You’ve got a good job with the Craw papers. You’ll be aspiring some day to edit one of them. But what does Mr Craw say to your politics?”

      The speaker’s eye had a twinkle in it, but Dougal’s face, hitherto as urbane as its rugged features permitted, suddenly became grim.

      “Craw!” he cried. “Yon’s the worst fatted calf of them all. Yon’s the old wife. There’s no bigger humbug walking on God’s earth to-day than Thomas Carlyle Craw. I take his wages, because I give good value for them. I can make up a paper with any man, and I’ve a knack of descriptive writing. But thank God! I’ve nothing to do with his shoddy politics. I put nothing of myself into his rotten papers. I keep that for the Outward every second Saturday.”

      “You do,” said Dickson dryly. “I’ve been reading some queer things there. What ails you at what you call ‘modern Scotland’? By your way of it we’ve sold our souls to the English and the Irish.”

      “So we have.” Dougal had relapsed again into comparative meekness. It was as if he felt that what he had to say was not in keeping with a firelit room and a bountiful table. He had the air of being a repository of dark things which were not yet ready for the light.

      “Anyway, Scotland did fine the day. It’s time to drink Jaikie’s health.”

      This ceremony over, Dickson remained with his glass uplifted.

      “We’ll drink to your good health, Dougal, and pray Heaven, as the Bible says, to keep your feet from falling. It would be a sad day for your friends if you were to end in jyle… And now I want to hear what you two are proposing to do with yourselves. You say you have a week’s holiday, and it’s a fortnight before Jaikie goes back to Cambridge.”

      “We’re going into the Canonry,” said Jaikie.

      “Well, it’s a fine countryside, the Canonry. Many a grand day I’ve had on its hill burns. But it’s too late for the fishing… I see from the papers that there’s a by-election on now. Is Dougal going to sow tares by the roadside?”

      “He would like to,” said Jaikie, “but he won’t be allowed. We’ll keep to the hills, and our headquarters will be the Back House of the Garroch. It’s an old haunt of ours.”

      “Fine I know it. Many a time when I’ve been fishing Loch Garroch I’ve gone in there for my tea. What’s the wife’s name now? Catterick? Aye, it was Catterick, and her man came from Sanquhar way. We’ll get out a map after supper and you’ll show me your road. The next best thing to tramping the hills yourself is to plan out another man’s travels. There’s grand hills round the Garroch—the Muneraw and the Yirnie and the Calmarton and the Caldron… Stop a minute. Doesn’t Mr Craw bide somewhere in the Canonry? Are you going to give him a call in, Dougal?”

      “That’s a long way down Glen Callowa,” said Jaikie. “We mean to keep to the high tops. If the weather holds, there’s nothing to beat a Canonry October.”

      “You’re a pair of desperate characters,” said Dickson jocosely. “You’re going to a place which is thrang with a by-election, and for ordinary you’ll not keep Dougal away from politics any more than a tyke from an ash-bucket. But you say you’re not heeding the election. It’s the high hills for you—but it’s past the time for fishing, and young legs like yours will cover every top in a couple of days. I wish you mayna get into mischief. I’m afraid of Dougal with his daftness. He’ll be for starting a new Jacobite rebellion. ‘Kenmure’s on and awa’, Willie.’”

      Mr McCunn whistled a stave of the song. His spirits were soaring.

      “Well, I’ll be at hand to bail you out… And remember that I’m old, but not dead-old. If you set up the Standard on Garroch side, send me word and I’ll on with my boots and join you.”

      CHAPTER 2

       INTRODUCES A GREAT MAN IN ADVERSITY

       Table of Contents

      Fifty-eight years before the date of this tale a child was born in the school-house of the landward parish of Kilmaclavers in the Kingdom of Fife. The schoolmaster was one Campbell Craw, who at the age of forty-five had espoused the widow of the provost of the adjacent seaport of Partankirk, a lady his junior by a single summer. Mr Craw was a Scots dominie of the old style, capable of sending boys direct to the middle class of Humanity at St Andrews, one who esteemed his profession, and wore in the presence of his fellows an almost episcopal dignity. He was recognised in the parish and far beyond it as a “deep student,” and, when questions of debate were referred to his arbitrament, he would give his verdict with a weight of polysyllables which at once awed and convinced his hearers. The natural suspicion which might have attached to such profundity was countered by the fact that Mr Craw was an elder of the Free Kirk and in politics a sound Gladstonian. His wife was a kindred spirit, but, in her, religion of a kind took the place of philosophy. She was a noted connoisseur of sermons, who would travel miles to hear some select preacher, and her voice had acquired something of the pulpit monotone. Her world was the Church, in which she hoped that her solitary child would some day be a polished pillar.

      The infant was baptised by the name of Thomas Carlyle, after the sage whom his father chiefly venerated; Mrs Craw had graciously resigned her own preference, which was Robert Rainy, after the leader of her communion. Never was a son the object of higher expectations or more deeply pondered plans. He had come to them unexpectedly; the late Provost of Partankirk had left no offspring; he was at once the child of their old age, and the sole hope of their house. Both parents agreed that he must be a minister, and he spent his early years in an atmosphere of dedication. Some day he would be a great man, and the episodes of his youth must be such as would impress the readers of his ultimate biography. Every letter he wrote was treasured by a fond mother. Each New Year’s Day his father presented him with a lengthy epistle, in the style of an evangelical Lord Chesterfield, which put on record the schoolmaster’s more recent reflections on life: a copy was carefully filed for the future biographer. His studies were minutely regulated. At five, though he was still shaky in English grammar, he had mastered the Greek alphabet. At eight he had begun Hebrew. At nine he had read Paradise Lost, Young’s Night Thoughts, and most of Mr Robert Pollok’s Course of Time. At eleven he had himself, to his parents’ delight, begun the first canto of an epic on the subject of Eternity.

      It was the way to produce a complete prig, but somehow Thomas Carlyle was not the ordinary prig. For one thing, he was clearly not born for high scholastic attainments. There was a chronic inaccuracy in him which vexed his father’s soul. He was made to dabble in many branches