My father was not what you would call a deeply religious man; at least, if he were, he said little about it, though he read daily in the Scriptures, and also expected me to read a chosen part, questioning me sharply on the meaning. But he did not company with the lairds of the countryside, nor with the tenants either for the matter of that. He took no part in the services which were held by the Society Men who collected in the neighbourhood, and who met statedly for their diets of worship at Springholm and Crocketford. Yet his sympathies were plainly with these men and with Mr Macmillan of Balmaghie who subscribed to them – not at all with the settled ministers of the parishes. On Sabbaths he always encouraged me to take the pony over in the great wide-bottomed boat to the shore, and ride on Donald to the Kirk of Dullarg or the Societies meeting.
‘Ye see, Paitrick, for mysel’ I hae tried a’ ways o’t. I hae been oot wi’ the King’s riders in the auld bad days. Silver Sand kens where. I hae been in the haggs o’ the peat-mosses wi’ the sants. I hae lain snug an’ cosy in Peden’s cave wi’ the auld man himsel’ at my back. So ye see I hae tried a’ ways o’t. My advice to you, Paitrick, is no to be identified wi’ ony extremes, to read yer Bible strictly, an’ gin ye get a guid minister to sit under, to listen eidently to the word preached. It’s mair than your faither ever got for ony length o’ time.’
By bit and bit he grew weaker, as the days grew longer.
‘Noo, Paitrick,’ he said, over in the still time of one morning, at the hour of slack tide, when a watcher sitting up with the sick gets chill and cauldrife and when the night lies like a solid weight on the earth and sea, though heavier on the sea. At this time my father called to me.
‘I’m gaun, Paitrick,’ he said, just as though he were going over to the Dullarg in the boat; ‘it’s time I was awa’. I could wish for your sake that I had mair to leave ye. Had I been a better boy at your time o’ life, ye wad hae had mair amang your hands; but then maybe it’s you that wad hae been the ill boy. It’s better that it was me. But there’ll be a pickle siller in Matthew Erskine’s hands for a’ that. But gin I can leave ye the content to be doing wi’ little, an’ the saving salt o’ honour to be kitchen to your piece, that’s better than the lairdship o’ a barony.’
He was silent for a while, and then he said:
‘Ye are no feared, Paitrick?’
‘Feared, father,’ I said, ‘what for would I be feared of you?’
‘Aweel, no,’ he answered, very calm, ‘I am no a man to mak’ a to-do aboot deein’. I bid ye guid-nicht, my son Paitrick.’ And so passed, as one might fall on sleep.
He was a quiet man, a surprisingly humorsome man, and I believe a true Christian man, though all his deathbed testimony was no more than I have told.
IF THERE BE anything bonnier or sweeter in this world than a May morning on the Isle of Rathan by the Solway shore, I have yet to see it – except it be the blush that comes over a young maid’s face when one that is not her lad, but who yet may be, comes chapping at the door.
Some months after my father’s death I mind me of just such a morning. There had drawn to me in the old house of Rathan certain other lads of my age, of good burgher families, that did not find themselves entirely comfortable at home. The house and lands with all the sheep upon them and some six thousand pounds sterling of money in the public funds were left to me to deal with as I liked, though I was not yet of age. Matthew Erskine, the douce Dumfries lawyer, who was in my father’s confidence, put no barriers on my doing as I pleased; and thus carried out my father’s intentions, which were that I should neither be hampered in well-doing nor in ill-doing, but do even as it seemed good to me. For this was ever his way and custom.
‘When I was a lad,’ he used to say, ‘I was sore hampered in coming and going, and most of the evils of my life have come upon me because I was not early left to choose right and wrong, nosing them for myself like a Scent-Dog after birds. So I will even leave you, Paitrick, as says the Carritches, to “the freedom of your own will.”’
The lads who had come to bide with me on Isle Rathan, at least for the summer season, were Andrew Allison, that was a burgher’s son at Carlinwark (where there are but few decent people abiding, which made his father the more remarkable) and his brother John. Also there was a cousin of the Allisons that came from the ancient town of Kilconquhar, high up on the Nith Water. There was also, to our joy, one Jerry MacWhirter, a roguish fellow that came to me to help me with my land-surveying, but was keener to draw with colours on paper the hues of the landskip and the sea. But he was dearest to us because of his continual merry heart, which did us good like a medicine.
So the five of us lads abode in that house, and of them I was much the biggest and oldest. Also the house was mine and it was my duty to rule, else had we been an unruly crew. But in truth it was also my pleasure to rule, and that with the iron hand. With us at times there was one Silver Sand, who deserves a chapter to himself, and in time shall receive it.
Now I must tell of the kind of house we had on the Isle Rathan. It stood in a snug angle of the bay that curved inward towards the land and looked across some mossy, boguish ground to a range of rugged, heathery mountains, on which there were very many grey boulders, about which the heath and bracken grew deep.
The ancient house of the Herons of Rathan was not large, but it was very high, with only two little doors to back and front – the front one set into the wall and bolted with great bars into the solid rock beneath and above, and into the thickness of the wall at either side. The back door opened not directly, but entered into a passage which led first to a covered well in a kind of cave, where a good spring of water for ever bubbled up with little sand grains dancing in it, and then by a branch passage to an opening among the heather of the isle, which you might search for a summer’s day. But unless you knew it of others’ knowledge, you would never find it of your own. The windows were very far up the sides, and there were very few of them, as being made for defence in perilous times. Upon the roof there was a flagstaff and so strong a covering of lead and stone flags that it seemed as though another tower might have been founded upon it. The Tower of Rathan stood alone, with its offices, stables, byres, or other appurtenances back under the cliff, the sea on one side of it, and on the other the heathery and rocky isle, with its sheep pastures on the height. Beneath the sea-holly and dry salt plants bloomed blue and pink down near the blatter of the sea.
Fresh air and sound appetites were more common with us lads on the isle than the wherewithal to appease our belly cravings. It was not our pleasure to be served by any woman. Indeed we could not abide the thought of it. It was not seemly that any young one should be with us, nor did we wish to put our wild doings under the observation of any much older than ourselves. So it came that we had to fend for ourselves, and as it drew near to term day, when I got my little pickle money from Matthew Erskine, the Dumfries lawyer (riding there on Donald, my sheltie), the living was very scanty on the isle. For when I had money, it was ever freely spent. But at the worst of times we had a stake salmon net which we fished every morning when the fish were clean, and there were flounders all the year round. Thus we lived, and, take it all in all, none so evilly, considering that the country was a poor one and we had no friends that bore any goodwill to help us – except May Mischief at Craigdarroch, who, for all her jeers, set a great tankard of milk aside for us every morning and night.
So on this morn in May I rose long before the dawn, and went out into the cool, damp air of the night. The tide was going back quickly, and it was this which had raised me at such untimeous hours. It has always struck me that when the creation was, and that justly, pronounced very good, sufficient attention was not paid to the matter of the tides. But in a great job like the making of the earth, small points are apt to be mislippened. For instance, it would have been a great