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THE AMBUSH.
For more reasons than one, Fergus judged it prudent to tell not even
auntie Jean of his intention; but, waiting until the house was
quiet, stole softly from his room and repaired to the kitchen -- at
the other end of the long straggling house, where he sat down, and
taking his book, an annual of the beginning of the century, began to
read the story of Kathed and Eurelia. Having finished it, he read
another. He read and read, but no brownie came. His candle burned
into the socket. He lighted another, and read again. Still no
brownie appeared, and, hard and straight as was the wooden chair on
which he sat, be began to doze. Presently he started wide awake,
fancying he heard a noise; but nothing was there. He raised his
book once more, and read until he had finished the stories in it:
for the verse he had no inclination that night. As soon as they
were all consumed, he began to feel very eerie: his courage had been
sheltering itself behind his thoughts, which the tales he had been
reading had kept turned away from the object of dread. Still deeper
and deeper grew the night around him, until the bare, soulless waste
of it came at last, when a brave man might welcome any ghost for the
life it would bring. And ever as it came, the tide of fear flowed
more rapidly, until at last it rose over his heart, and threatened
to stifle him. The direst foe of courage is the fear itself, not
the object of it; and the man who can overcome his own terror is a
hero and more. In this Fergus had not yet deserved to be
successful. That kind of victory comes only of faith. Still, he
did not fly the field; he was no coward. At the same time, prizing
courage, scorning fear, and indeed disbelieving in every nocturnal
object of terror except robbers, he came at last to such an all but
abandonment of dread, that he dared not look over his shoulder, lest
he should see the brownie standing at his back; he would rather be
seized from behind and strangled in his hairy grasp, than turn and
die of the seeing. The night was dark -- no moon and many clouds.
Not a sound came from the close. The cattle, the horses, the pigs,
the cocks and hens, the very cats and rats seemed asleep. There was
not a rustle in the thatch, a creak in the couples. It was well,
for the slightest noise would have brought his heart into his mouth,
and he would have been in great danger of scaring the household, and
for ever disgracing himself, with a shriek. Yet he longed to hear
something stir. Oh! for the stamp of a horse from the stable or the
low of a cow from the byre! But they were all under the brownie's
spell, and he was coming -- toeless feet, and thumbed but fingerless
hands! as if he was made with stockings, and hum'le mittens! Was it
the want of toes that made him able to come and go so
quietly? -- Another hour crept by; when lo, a mighty sun-trumpet blew
in the throat of the black cock! Fergus sprang to his feet with the
start it gave him -- but the next moment gladness rushed up in his
heart: the morning was on its way! and, foe to superstition as he
was, and much as he had mocked at Donal for what he counted some of
his tendencies in that direction, he began instantly to comfort
himself with the old belief that all things of the darkness flee
from the crowing of the cock. The same moment his courage began to
return, and the next he was laughing at his terrors, more foolish
than when he felt them, seeing he was the same man of fear as
before, and the same circumstances would wrap him in the same
garment of dire apprehension. In his folly he imagined himself
quite ready to watch the next night without even repugnance -- for it
was the morning, not the night, that came first!
When the grey of the dawn appeared, he said to himself he would lie
down on the bench a while, he was so tired of sitting; he would not
sleep. He lay down, and in a moment was asleep. The light grew and
grew, and the brownie came -- a different brownie indeed from the one
he had pictured -- with the daintiest-shaped hands and feet coming out
of the midst of rags, and with no hair except roughly parted curls
over the face of a cherub -- for the combing of Snowball's mane and
tail had taught Gibbie to use the same comb upon his own thatch.
But as soon as he opened the door of the dairy, he was warned by
the loud breathing of the sleeper, and looking about, espied him on
the bench behind the table, and swiftly retreated. The same instant
Fergus woke, stretched himself, saw it was broad daylight, and, with
his brain muddled by fatigue and sleep combined, crawled shivering
to bed. Then in came the brownie again; and when Jean Mavor
entered, there was her work done as usual.
Fergus was hours late for breakfast, and when he went into the
common room, found his aunt alone there.
"Weel, auntie." he said, "I think I fleggit yer broonie!"
"Did ye that, man? Ay! -- An' syne ye set tee, an' did the wark
yersel to save yer auntie Jean's auld banes?"
"Na, na! I was o'er tiret for that. Sae wad ye hae been yersel',
gien ye had sitten up a' nicht."
"Wha did it, than?"
"Ow, jist yersel', I'm thinkin', auntie."
"Never a finger o' mine was laid till't, Fergus. Gien ye fleggit ae
broonie, anither cam; for there's the wark done, the same's ever.!"
"Damn the cratur!" cried Fergus.
"Whisht, whisht, laddie! he's maybe hearin' ye this meenute. An'
gien he binna, there's ane 'at is, an' likesna sweirin'."
"I beg yer pardon, auntie, but it's jist provokin'!" returned
Fergus, and therewith recounted the tale of his night's watch,
omitting mention only of his feelings throughout the vigil.
As soon as he had had his breakfast, he went to carry his report to
Glashruach.
The laird was vexed, and told him he must sleep well before night,
and watch to better purpose.
The next night, Fergus's terror returned in full force; but he
watched thoroughly notwithstanding, and when his aunt entered, she
found him there, and her kitchen in a mess. He had caught no
brownie, it was true, but neither had a stroke of her work been
done. The floor was unswept; not a dish had been washed; it was
churning-day, but the cream stood in the jar in the dairy, not the
butter in the pan on the kitchen-dresser. Jean could not quite see
the good or the gain of it. She had begun to feel like a lady, she
said to herself, and now she must tuck up her sleeves and set to
work as before. It was a come-down in the world, and she did not
like it. She conned her nephew little thanks, and not being in the
habit of dissembling, let him feel the same. He crept to bed rather
mortified. When he woke from a long sleep, he found no meal waiting
him, and had to content himself with cakes1 and milk before setting
out for "the Muckle Hoose."
"You must add cunning to courage, my young friend," said Mr.
Galbraith; and the result of their conference was that Fergus went
home resolved on yet another attempt.
He felt much inclined to associate Donal with him in his watch this
time, but was too desirous of proving his courage both to himself
and to the world, to yield to the suggestion of his fear. He went
to bed with a book immediately after the noon-day meal and rose in
time for supper.
There was a large wooden press in the kitchen, standing out from the
wall; this with the next wall made a little recess, in which there
was just room for a chair; and in that recess Fergus seated himself,
in the easiest chair he could get into it. He then opened wide the
door of the press, and it covered him entirely.
This night would have been the dreariest of all for him, the laird
having insisted that he should watch in the dark, had he not
speedily fallen fast asleep, and slept all night -- so well that he
woke at the first noise Gibbie made.
It was broad clear morning, but his heart beat so loud and fast with
apprehension and curiosity mingled, that for a few moments Fergus
dare not stir, but sat listening breathless to the movement beside
him, none the less appalling that it was so quiet. Recovering
himself a little he cautiously moved the door of the press, and
peeped out.
He saw nothing so frightful as he had, in spite of himself,
anticipated, but was not therefore, perhaps, the less astonished.
The dread brownie of his idea shrunk to a tiny ragged urchin, with
a wonderful head of hair, azure eyes, and deft hands, noiselessly
bustling about on bare feet. He watched him at his leisure, watched
him keenly, assured that any moment he could spring upon him.
As he watched, his wonder sank, and he grew disappointed at the
collapsing of the lubber-fiend into a poor half-naked child upon
whom both his courage and his fear had been wasted. As he continued
to watch, an evil cloud of anger at the presumption of the unknown
minimus began to gather in his mental atmosphere, and was probably
the cause of some movement by which his chair gave a loud creak.
Without even looking round, Gibbie darted into the dairy, and shut
the door. Instantly Fergus was after him, but only in time to see
the vanishing of his last heel through the hole in the wall, and
that way Fergus was much too large to follow him. He rushed from
the house, and across the corner of the yard to the barn-door.
Gibbie, who did not believe he had been seen, stood laughing on the
floor, when suddenly he heard the key entering the lock. He bolted
through the cat-hole -- but again just one moment too late, leaving
behind him on Fergus's retina the light from the soles of two bare
feet. The key of the door to the rick-yard was inside, and Fergus
was after him in a moment, but the ricks came close to the
barn-door, and the next he saw of him was the fluttering of his rags
in the wind, and the flashing of his white skin in the sun, as he
fled across the clover field; and before Fergus was over the wall,
Gibbie was a good way ahead towards the Lorrie. Gibbie was a better
runner for his size than Fergus, and in better training too; but,
alas! Fergus's legs were nearly twice as long as Gibbie's. The
little one reached the Lorrie, first, and dashing across it, ran up
the side of the Glashburn, with a vague idea of Glashgar in his
head. Fergus behind him was growing more and more angry as he
gained upon him but felt his breath failing him. Just at the bridge
to the iron gate to Glashruach, he caught him at last, and sunk on
the parapet exhausted. The smile with which Gibbie, too much out of
breath to laugh, confessed himself vanquished, would have disarmed
one harder-hearted than Fergus, had he not lost his temper in the
dread of losing his labour; and the answer Gibbie received to his
smile was a box on the ear that bewildered him. He looked pitifully
in his captor's face, the smile not yet faded from his, only to
receive a box on the other ear, which, though a contrary and similar
both at once, was not a cure, and the water gathered in his eyes.
Fergus, a little eased in his temper by the infliction, and in his
breath by the wall of the bridge, began to ply him with questions;
but no answer following, his wrath rose again, and again he boxed
both his ears -- without better result.
Then came the question what was he to do with the redoubted brownie,
now that he had him. He was ashamed to show himself as the captor
of such a miserable culprit, but the little rascal deserved
punishment, and the laird would require him at his hands. He turned
upon his prisoner and told him he was an impudent rascal. Gibbie
had recovered again, and was able once more to smile a little. He
had been guilty of burglary, said Fergus; and Gibbie smiled. He
could be sent to prison for it, said Fergus; and Gibbie smiled -- but
this time a very grave smile. Fergus took him by the collar, which
amounted to nearly a third part of the jacket, and shook him till he
had half torn that third from the other two; then opened the gate,
and, holding him by the back of the neck, walked him up the drive,
every now and then giving him a fierce shake that jarred his teeth.
Thus, over the old gravel, mossy and damp and grassy, and cool to
his little bare feet, between rowan and birk and pine and larch,
like a malefactor, and looking every inch the outcast he was, did
Sir Gilbert Galbraith approach the house of his ancestors for the
first time. Individually, wee Gibbie was anything but a prodigal;
it had never been possible to him to be one; but none the less was
he the type and result and representative of his prodigal race, in
him now once more looking upon the house they had lost by their
vices and weaknesses, and in him now beginning to reap the benefits
of punishment. But of vice and loss, of house and fathers and
punishment, Gibbie had no smallest cognition. His history was about
him and in him, yet of it all he suspected nothing. It would have
made little difference to him if he had known it all; he would none
the less have accepted everything that came, just as part of the
story in which he found himself.
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