Back Aa

Doom Castle

Close

<h2> CHAPTER XX — AN EVENING'S MELODY IN THE BOAR'S HEAD INN </h2> The Boar's Head Inn, for all its fine cognomen, was little better than any of the numerous taverns that kept discreet half-open doors to the wynds and closes of the Duke's burgh town, but custom made it a preserve of the upper class in the community. There it was the writers met their clients and cozened them into costly law pleas over the genial jug or chopine; the through-going stranger took his pack there and dwelt cheaply in the attics that looked upon the bay and upon the little harbour where traffic dozed upon the swinging tide, waiting the goodwill of mariners in no hurry to leave a port so alluring; in its smoke-grimed public-room skippers frequented, full of loud tales of roving, and even the retinue of MacCailen was not averse from an evening's merriment in a company where no restraint of the castle was expected, and his Grace was mentioned but vaguely as a personal pronoun. There was in the inn a sanctum sanctorum where only were allowed the bailies of the burgh, a tacksman of position, perhaps, from the landward part, or the like of the Duke's Chamberlain, who was no bacchanal, but loved the company of honest men in their hours of manumission. Here the bottle was of the best, and the conversation most genteel—otherwise there had been no Sim MacTaggart in the company where he reigned the king. It was a state that called for shrewd deportment. One must not be too free, for an excess of freedom cheapened the affability, and yet one must be hail fellow with magistrate—and even an odd master mariner—with no touch of condescension for the Highland among them who could scent the same like aqua vito and resent it like a push of the hand. He came not often, but ever was he welcome, those nights the more glorious for his qualities of humour and generosity, his tales that stirred like the brassy cry of trumpets, his tolerance of the fool and his folly, his fatalist excuse for any sin except the scurviest. And there was the flageolet! You will hear the echo of it yet in that burgh town where he performed; its charm lingers in melodies hummed or piped by old folks of winter nights, its magic has been made the stuff of myth, so that as children we have heard the sound of Simon's instrument in the spring woods when we went there white-hay-gathering, or for fagots for the schoolhouse fire. A few nights after that thundering canter from the spider's den where Kate Petullo sat amid her coils, the Chamberlain went to wander care among easy hearts. It was a season of mild weather though on the eve of winter; even yet the perfume of the stubble-field and of fruitage in forest and plantation breathed all about the country of Mac-Cailen Mor. Before the windows of the inn the bay lay warm and placid, and Dunchuach, wood-mantled, and the hills beyond it vague, remote, and haunted all by story, seemed to swim in a benign air, and the outer world drew the souls of these men in a tavern into a brief acquaintanceship. The window of the large room they sat in looked out upon this world new lit by the tender moon that hung on Strome. A magistrate made to shutter it and bring the hour of Bacchus all the faster. "Hold there, Bailie!" cried the Chamberlain. "Good God! let us have so long as we can of a night so clean and wholesome." It needed but a hint of that nature from this creature of romance and curious destiny to silence their unprofitable discourse over herds and session discipline, and for a space they sat about the window, surrendered to the beauty of the night. So still that outer world, so vacant of living creature, that it might have been a picture! In the midst of their half circle the Chamberlain lay back in his chair and drank the vision in by gloating eyes. "Upon my word," said he at last in a voice that had the rich profound of passion—"upon my word, we are the undeserving dogs!" and at an impulse he took his flageolet and played a Highland air. It had the proper spirit of the hour—the rapturous evening pipe of birds in dewy thickets, serene yet someway touched by melancholy; there was no man there among them who did not in his breast repeat its words that have been heard for generations in hillside milking-folds where women put their ruddy cheeks against the kine and look along the valleys, singing softly to the accompaniment of the gushing pail. He held his audience by a chain of gold: perhaps he knew it, perhaps he joyed in it, but his half-shut eyes revealed no more than that he still saw the beauty and peace of the night and thus rendered an oblation. His melody ceased as abruptly as it began. Up he got hastily and stamped his foot and turned to the table where the bottle lay and cried loud out for lights, as one might do ashamed of a womanly weakness, and it is the Highland heart that his friends should like him all the more for that display of sentiment and shyness to confess it. "By the Lord, Factor, and it's you have the skill of it!" said the Provost, in tones of lofty admiration. "Is't the bit reed?" said the Chamberlain, indifferently. "Your boy Davie could learn to play better than I in a month's lessons." "It's no' altogether the playing though," said the Provost slowly, ruminating as on a problem; "it's that too, but it's more than that; it's the seizing of the time and tune to play. I'm no great musicianer myself, though I have tried the trump; but there the now—with the night like that, and us like this, and all the rest of it—that lilt of yours—oh, damn! pass the bottle; what for should a man be melancholy?" He poured some wine and gulped it hurriedly. "Never heard the beat of it!" said the others. "Give us a rant, Factor," and round the table they gathered: the candles were being lit, the ambrosial night was to begin. Simon MacTaggart looked round his company—at some with the maudlin tear of sentiment still on their cheeks, at others eager to escape this soft moment and make the beaker clink. "My sorrow!" thought he, "what a corps to entertain! Is it the same stuff as myself? Is this the best that Sim MacTaggart that knows and feels things can be doing? And still they're worthy fellows, still I must be liking them." "Rants!" he cried, and stood among them tall and straight and handsome, with lowering dark brows, and his face more pale than they had known it customarily,—"a little less rant would be the better for us. Take my word for it, the canty quiet lilt in the evening, and the lights low, and calm and honest thoughts with us, is better than all the rant and chorus, and I've tried them both. But heaven forbid that Sim MacTaggart should turn to preaching in his middle age." "Faith! and it's very true what you say, Factor," acquiesced some sycophant. The Chamberlain looked at him half in pity, half in amusement. "How do you ken, Bailie?" said he; "what are yearlings at Fa'kirk Tryst?" And then, waiting no answer to what demanded none, he put the flageolet to his lips again and began to play a strathspey to which the company in the true bucolic style beat time with feet below the table. He changed to the tune of a minuet, then essayed at a melody more sweet and haunting than them all, but broken ere its finish. "A hole in the ballant," commented the Provost. "Have another skelp at it, Factor." "Later on perhaps," said Sim MacTaggart. "The end of it aye escapes my memory. Rather a taking tune, I think—don't you? Just a little—just a little too much of the psalm in it for common everyday use, but man! it grips me curiously;" and then on a hint from one at his shoulder he played "The Devil in the Kitchen," a dance that might have charmed the imps of Hallowe'en. He was in the midst of it when the door of the room opened and a beggar looked in—a starven character of the neighbourhood parish, all bedecked with cheap brooches and babs of ribbon, leading by the hand the little child of his daughter wronged and dead. He said never a word but stood just within the door expectant—a reproach to cleanliness, content, good clothes, the well fed, and all who make believe to love their fellows. "Go away, Baldy!" cried the Bailies sharply, vexed by this intrusion on their moments of carouse; no one of them had a friendly eye for the old wanderer, in his blue coat, and dumb but for his beggar's badge and the child that clung to his hand. It was the child that Sim MacTaggart saw. He thought of many things as he looked at the little one, white-haired, bare-footed, and large-eyed. "Come here, my dear!" said he, quite tenderly, smiling upon her. She would have been afraid but for the manifest kindness of that dark commanding stranger; it was only shyness that kept her from obeying. The Chamberlain rose and went over to the door and cried upon the landlord. "You will have a chopine of ale, Baldy," said he to the old wreck; "sometimes it's all the difference between hell-fire and content, and—for God's sake buy the bairn a pair of boots!" As he spoke he slipped, by a motion studiously concealed from the company, some silver into the beggar's poke. The ale came in, the beggar drank for a moment, the Chamberlain took the child upon his knee, his face made fine and noble by some sweet human sentiment, and he kissed her, ere she went, upon the brow. For a space the sanctum sanctorum of the Boar's Head Inn was ill at ease. This sort of thing—so common in Sim MacTaggart,who made friends with every gangrel he met—was like a week-day sermon, and they considered the Sunday homilies of Dr. Macivor quite enough. They much preferred their Simon in his more common mood of wild devilry, and nobody knew it better than the gentleman himself. "Oh, damn the lousy tribe of them!" cried he, beating his palm upon the table; "what's Long Davie the dempster thinking of to be letting such folk come scorning here?" "I'll warrant they get more encouragement here than they do in Lorn," said the Provost, shrewdly, for he had seen the glint of coin and knew his man. "You beat all, Factor! If I lived a hundred years, you would be more than I could fathom. Well, well, pass the bottle, and ye might have another skelp at yon tune if it's your pleasure." The Chamberlain most willingly complied: it was the easiest retort to the Provost's vague allusion. He played the tune again; once more its conclusion baffled him, and as he tried a futile repetition Count Victor stood listening in the lobby of the Boar's Head Inn. <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

1 of 2

2 of 2