Hamish

“ Michael chuckled. “You should hear the sea yarns he can tell when he gets going!”
“By the way,” continued Hamish casually, “I picked up a little present for him when I was over in Millport this morning, something practical and yet fancy.”
“A present for Captain Trout!” We all gazed with curiosity as Hamish proceeded to extract from the pocket of his jacket an oblong package.
“Hamish,” giggled Eve, “is the world’s great gift giver. He just showers tokens of esteem about among his acquaintances. He hasn’t given me anything yet but I’m living in hopes. ”

“ Hamish laughed.
"Just because I wanted a little leisure just now, I've got double work put on my shoulders," went on Roland. "You remember that time at old Galloway's, Hamish, when Jenkins and Arthur were both away together, throwing all the work upon me? Well, we've got a second edition of that here."
"Who is away?" inquired Hamish.
"Little Jenner. And he is good for three of us any day in point of getting through work. The result is, that Mr. Brown"--giving a defiant nod to the gentleman opposite--"keeps me at it like a slave. ”

“ The cousin from Greenock had been hanging rather in the background; but he had kept his ears open.
"Now, Hamish," said he, in the tongue in which they could both speak freely enough, "I will tell you something; and do not think I am an ignorant man, for I know what is going on. Oh yes. And it is a great danger you are running into."
"What do you mean, Colin?" said Hamish; but he would look out of the window.
"When a gentleman goes away in a yacht, does he take an old woman like Christina with him? Oh no; I think not. It is not a customary thing. ”

“ The second, was Lady Augusta Yorke.
Hamish he saw first, as he was turning away from getting his ticket. “Hamish,” said he, “you’ll tell Arthur that I did not come round to him for a last word; I shall write it from London.”
“Roland”—and Hamish spoke more gravely than was his wont—“you are starting upon a wild-goose scheme.”
“It is not,” said Roland; “why do you preach up nonsense? If the worst came to the worst, I should come back to Carrick, and he’d set me on my legs again. I tell you, Hamish, I have a hundred reasons to urge me away from Helstonleigh.” ”

“ The sons of MacGregor, to whom this expostulation was addressed, were youths, of whom the eldest had hardly attained his twentieth year. Hamish, or James, the elder of these youths, was the tallest by a head, and much handsomer than his brother; his light-blue eyes, with a profusion of fair hair, which streamed from under his smart blue bonnet, made his whole appearance a most favourable specimen of the Highland youth. ”

“ Bright, sunny Hamish! whom my mother has, I believe in her heart, loved the best of all of us. Thank you, Constance, for keeping my counsel.”
“How unselfish you are, Arthur!”
“Unselfish! I don’t see it as a merit. It is my simple duty to be so in this case. If I, by a rash word, directed suspicion to Hamish, and our home in consequence got broken up, who would be the selfish one then?”
“There’s the consideration which frightens and fetters us. Papa must have been thinking of that when he thanked God that the trouble had not fallen upon Hamish.” ”

“ But where, Hamish, are all the flappers, the mawsies, and the mallards? What! You have left them—hare, grouse, bag, and all, at the Still! We remember it now—and all the distillers are to-night to be at our Tent, bringing with them feathers, fur, and hide—ducks, pussy, and deer. But take the roe on your stalwart shoulders, Hamish, and bear it down to the sylvan dwelling at the mouth of Gleno. Surefoot has a [Pg 367] sufficient burden in us—for we are waxing more corpulent every day—and ere long shall be a Silenus. ”

“ Hamish declared contemptuously. "The men in this country," he continued with a lofty air, "have too much men's work to do to busy themselves with plaiting hair and wearing a bobbing pig-tail at their ears." He shook his own dangling curls as he spoke.
Fifine babbled out an assortment of words with many an ellipsis and many a breathy aspiration which even those accustomed to the infant infirmities of her tongue could with difficulty interpret. Both Odalie and Hamish, bending attentive eyes upon her, discerned at last the words to mean that Mr. Gilfillan had no hair to plait. ”

“ The storm which awakened Marjorie had also roused Hamish. He awoke to hear the rain pouring down, and the burn rushing along in heavy spate.
'Fine fishing, to-morrow,' said Hamish to himself, 'but, whew! how the wind's rising. The rain can't last long at this rate.'
He lay a little longer, listening to the rushing of the burn; then he began to think of the people who might be without shelter that night; Neil (who he hoped would take shelter in one of the cottages if the gale continued) and the gipsies, and Gibbie MacKerrach. ”

“ Eve said thoughtfully, “then I think we ought to tell Aunt Cal. She’s very anxious to have a talk with him.”
“Oh, no, you mustn’t do that—not yet!” Hamish returned quickly.
“But why not?” I protested.
“Oh, gosh, don’t you see!” Hamish’s impatience with the female intellect was apparent. “Don’t you see that Bangs—or whatever his name is—is the only person who can lead us to that treasure—or whatever he’s after at Craven House? If he’s arrested, the game’s up.”
“Hamish is perfectly right,” agreed Hattie May in mounting excitement. “What we’ve got to do is to watch!” ”

“ In the earlier times of the settlement of the State, fraught with troubles with the Indians, who, more timorous than formerly, were yet more skulking, Hamish was wont to take with hearty good-will to the rifle, the knife, the pistol, and the firebrand. He was with Sevier on more than one of those furious forays, when vengeance nerved the hand and hardened the heart, for many of the pioneers avenged the slain of their own household. But as he grew old, the affinity of his hand for the trigger slackened, and he liked only the blaze of the benignant fireside ”

“ Hamish learned afterward that he had lost his scalp rather through this [116] quality of quiet indulgence, so open to treachery, than to inability to keep it. A terrible fighter he was when he was roused, though even then his utmost prowess was exerted without anger. In the Indian fights his friends had often exhorted him to scalp the wretches he slew, as he had been scalped, and thus complete his revenge, for the Indians believed that a scalpless person would be excluded from the happy hunting-grounds of heaven, their fury thus following their foes from this world into the next. ”

“ Hamish gave but one sigh, bursting from an overcharged heart; then he was away at full speed in the darkness that was good to him, and the only friend he had in the world with the power to help him and his.
Captain Demeré that night was more truly cheerful than he had been for a long time, despite his usual port of serene, although somewhat austere, dignity.
"The boy has all the homing qualities you desired in an express," he said to Stuart. "He will come back to his brother's family as certainly as a man with wife and children, and yet in quitting them he leaves no duty to devolve on others." ”

“ Poor Hamish could hardly sustain himself. He felt practically alone. Odalie was, he thought, on the verge of death from exhaustion and realized naught of her surroundings. His brother had been left in these wild woods with a party of savages, who were as likely to murder him for a whim or for the treasures of the bales which the packhorses carried, as to respect the safe conduct of Willinawaugh and the supposed character of French traders. ”

“ Bangs’ smelly old suitcase. It had been just like Pandora’s box, I reflected bitterly, for nothing but trouble had come out of it.
But if it was treasure that Hamish was intent upon, at least he was seeking it in a new spot. For he passed rapidly through the garden and plunged into the underbrush beyond. “Well,” I said determinedly, “I’m not going to get myself all scratched and bitten up again. I’ll wait here by the fountain and if any of you fall down any wells, don’t expect me to do anything about it.”
“All right,” said Hattie May. “But I’ve got to keep Hamish in sight.” ”

“ Hamish spoke for the first time since Michael had begun his story.
“I haven’t any idea—I suppose he was hiding somewhere.”
Hattie May gave a startled glance toward the open kitchen door as if she half expected the form of Mr. Bangs to emerge at any moment. ”

“ Isn’t anything more to eat, is there?”
“One sandwich left,” I said.
He shook his head. “Haven’t got time.”
“Time?” Hattie May cried. “Hamish Farragut Lewis what are you going to do now?”
“Oh, nuthin’,” he muttered. “Just thought it was getting pretty late and if I was goin’ to drive the girls home—on account of their aunt bein’ so particular and all——”
His sister eyed him suspiciously. Apparently this explanation of his haste did not altogether satisfy her. However, we began to pack up the things. Michael extinguished the last remnants of the fire and Hamish went to get his car. ”

“ Hattie May had gone with Hamish in his car. It was with some difficulty that we had succeeded in prying the latter loose from the man whom he considered his lawful prisoner. What was the use, he insisted, of pulling off a capture if you had to turn the fellow loose again?
But Aunt Cal’s wishes of course had prevailed and Hamish, still grumbling, had been obliged to depart and leave the villain, as he dubbed him, to his own devices.
As we turned into the main highway at The Corners, Miss Rose settled back. “Well, it does beat all,” she said, “the mysterious ways Providence does work. ”

“ The return of Hamish MacLeod, at the moment when starvation seemed imminent, and his instant departure at so great a peril, for the circumstances of his escape had been learned by the soldiers from the confidences of Choo-qualee-qualoo to young Eske, who was always free with his tongue, implied that Hamish's earlier mission had failed, and that no troops were now on the march to their succor. ”

“ While enchaining man's deepest interest, it yet insensibly led his thoughts to Heaven. Simple though it was in its pure Saxon diction, its sentiments were noble, generous, and exalted. Not a thought was there to offend, not a line that, for its parity, might not have been placed in the hands of his child. Modest, as all gifted with true genius are, yet possessing (for that must always be) , a latent consciousness of his great power, Hamish had looked forward for success to his book, as surely as he looked for Heaven. That it could be a failure, he had simply never thought of ”

“ Hamish’s gaze traveled from him to Eve’s face and mine. “You all look ’sif I’d committed a crime or sumpin! I guess the stuff isn’t poison and anyhow nobody’s going to drink it. The way I figure with a head like Trout’s, anything he can do—even if it only grows him a couple of hairs—is better than leavin’ things go the way they are!”
“Look here,” asked Michael. “This fellow you bought the stuff of, is he still in Millport?” ”

“ They follow mad Hamish afar up the crag toward the sea,
And the lady cries: “Clansmen, run for a fee! —
Yon castle and lands to the two first hands that shall hook him and hold
Fast Hamish back from the brink!” —and ever she flies up the steep,
And the clansmen pant, and they sweat, and they jostle and strain.
But, mother, ‘tis vain; but, father, ‘tis vain;
Stern Hamish stands bold on the brink, and dangles the child o’er the deep.
Now a faintness falls on the men that run, and they all stand still.
And the wife prays Hamish as if he were God, on her knees,
Crying: “Hamish! O Hamish! ”

“ After the partition of the earth among the sons of Noah, when all had gone to their allotted portions, it happened that Canaan son of Ham saw that the land extending from the Lebanon to the River of Egypt was fair to look upon, and he refused to go to his own allotment, westward by the sea. He settled in the land upon Lebanon, eastward and westward from the border of the Jordan and the border of the sea. And Ham, his father, and his brothers Cush and Mizraim spoke to him, and said: "Thou livest in a land that is not thine, for it was not assigned unto us when the lots were drawn. ”

“ Ham, his middlest son, laughed and scorned his father, and called his brethren to see, which rebuked Ham of his folly and sin. And Noah awoke, and when he understood how Ham his son had scorned him, he cursed him and also his son Canaan, and blessed Shem and Japhet. All the days of Noah were nine hundred and fifty years and then he died. And after his death his sons dealed all the world between them, Shem had all Asia, Ham Africa, and Japhet all Europe. Thus was it departed. Asia is the best part and is as much as the other two, and that is in the east. ”

“ The learned world, however, sees the difficulty of how Ham could be the progenitor of a race so distinct from that of Ham's family; and proceed upon their own assumptions, but without one particle of Bible authority for doing so, to account why Ham's descendants should now have kinky heads, low foreheads, flat noses, thick lips, and black skin (not to mention the exceptions to his leg and foot) , which they charge to the curse denounced by Noah, not against Ham, but against Ham's youngest son—Canaan. ”

“ But afar off, as from some half-forgotten world, he seemed to hear the mellow, golden patterning of bells, bells weaving their intricate spell of beauty about another city than this dark Babel, a City of grave spires and a curving street and quiet immemorial lanes....
“No, carissima,” he smiled at her with the true ffoulis charm. “No. Your body is beautiful. But my soul is beautiful. We can never, never understand each other.” ”