The body of Andy was recovered three miles down the glen. There was loud lamentation for him among the neighbouring farmers and shepherds, and a great concourse from afar attended the funeral, when he was buried in an almost forgotten churchyard among the hills. The loss of a fine young horse, the marks of whose frantic hoofs were imprinted on the banks for years, was almost equally deplored. He had lately cost thirty pounds in Perth, and the tragedy was never related without due mention of his fate.
Andy Gowdy was drowned, and his widow Jean reigned in his stead. The poor woman found it no easy matter to carry on the farm, and to give her children a bit of schooling; what with minding the bairns, the housework, and the sheep, she was often on the point of breaking down under her burthen, and it is a fact that only for the exertions of three notable collie dogs they might almost have starved. But Jean Gowdy, a woman of true Highland tenacity and indomitable courage, struggled on bravely. Her children throve, thanks to the keen mountain air and the good porridge and milk. The boys, Andrew and Jock, were now able-bodied men, and Maggie, their sister, was a fine sonsie lassie of two-and-twenty. She had received some sort of an education, for their mother had sent them by turns to an aunt in Stirling, and they were all great readers—what else was there to do in the long winter nights? even when their mother drove them to bed at eight o'clock and reminded them that their grandmother, who talked only Gaelic, had always retired at dark. But these were different days, they declared, and no Scotch folk would now consent to pass three-quarters of their time in bed—in order to save lamp oil!
Oh, those winter nights! when the wind swept down through the glen, and they could hear the starving deer stamping outside in the snow and dragging at the wood stack. On these occasions, Mrs. Gowdy knitted stockings, and did curious sums in mental arithmetic; the lads read the paper and such books as they had borrowed from the minister. Jock's shock-haired red head was bent over Adam Smith's "Wealth of Nations." He was clever and ambitious, and had long resolved that he was not going to waste his life in herding sheep, milking cows, and dragging up and down the weary road to the town for coal and groceries. No! Jock had heard the history of his uncle Jamie, and he was educating himself with painful, but continuous, effort, in order that he might also go out into the world and do something—something that would bring him in money and applause. To begin with, he was going to the University of Glasgow, and was reading for a bursary. His family tacitly acquiesced; they respected his ambition and agreed that Jock was to be somebody—some day. He was, therefore, allowed the largest share of lamplight and first claim on the ink bottle. His sister had also her dreams, as she sat with a collie at her feet. Maggie Gowdy hated the hard rough life. It was aye fine for her grandmother, or even her mother; but times were changed; there was no fun or stir beyond a rare jaunt to Stirling or Glasgow. All the other girls in the glen were a thousand times better off than she was. It was easy for her mother to say "bide a wee"; she might bide at Ardnashiel till she was old and toothless. Young Campbell of Lussie used to come up the valley, by way of fishing, and spier for her, and have a crack, but her mother found it out, and made an awful row, and threatened to lock her in her room. The kirk was full six miles away, and a desperate rough walk, and there was no one there foreby some old shepherds, their wives, and a few farming folk. Aye, when she read beautiful stories in the paper penny books she bought with her knitting profits, she felt wild to be away in the big world, to see people—and be seen. She had overheard Mistress Murray tell her mother that it was an awful pity such a bonnie lass should be shut away up the glen. Maggie was a tall, broad-shouldered young woman, with a pair of fine bold eyes, a fresh complexion and ropes of coarse dark hair, and felt perfectly confident that, if she only had a bit of money, she would get a match.
Mrs. Gowdy too had her own schemes and wishes. She was surely and secretly putting by money, and intended Maggie to marry a minister, and if Jock went out in the world, and Andy took a wife, she had made up her mind to end her days in Glasgow, and in peace; leaving the young ones to carry on the farm. Ardnashiel was paying well; they had only lost five sheep that winter; they were getting good prices; she had no shepherds to pay, and no wages; it was little going out and most coming in. Of course, it was main dull for the bairns, puir bodies, but they were young—and could wait.
The moor surrounding the grim blue-grey home of the Gowdys was celebrated for an historical past, and a certain wild beauty peculiarly its own; the romantic winding glen, guarded by steep mountains, was watered by a capricious and picturesque river, which received many tributaries. A rough cart track connected the glen with a high road, which was seven miles distant, and in winter time the farmers and cotters of Ardnashiel were frequently cut off from the outer world for weeks. No wonder Maggie Gowdy dreaded these dark, dour days, the leaden skies, the vast outlook on snow—snow, nothing but snow. Her heart sank within her when, late in October, she watched the tenants of a neighbouring shooting lodge pass down the rutty tracks, with their servants, and luggage, and dogs—a long and imposing procession. As the last cart turned the corner and was lost to sight, Maggie had known what it was to rest her head between her knees and sob aloud.
Oh, winter was cruel to all the world, and especially to her; but her mother was a woman of extraordinary force of character, and kept everything going—the lads at the sheep-feeding and their books, and herself at sewing and knitting. Summer and Autumn made some amends; the streams ran merrily, the curlew called, the sheep bleated, the swallows and the shooters returned, and the white mountains were clothed in purple. When the day's work was over, the cows milked, the fowls fed, Mrs. Gowdy would repair to her parlour in order to add up her accounts. This was her period of mental refreshment, and if the lambs had sold well, and fleeces were heavy, her heart was light. Jean Gowdy lived meagrely below, in four rooms, a kitchen and three bedrooms. She and Maggie washed at the pump, and shared one bed and a sixpenny looking-glass.
But, like most self-respecting Scots folk, they had a sacred place apart—a parlour, where they received company and entertained the minister. This parlour had been handsomely plenished when Jean had come to the glen a newly-wedded wife. She was proud of it then—she was proud of it still. There was a green and red carpet, good mahogany chairs, and a shiny sofa in horsehair, a variety of framed photographs, two dyed sheepskin rugs, held down unnecessarily in the corners by large foreign shells, some oleographs of Rome and Naples, and a large picture of Queen Victoria; it was here, in a locked bureau, that Mrs. Gowdy kept her business documents, her bank book, and her will. Sitting there in her every-day gown and blue apron, with her bare arms and toil-worn hands, she looked more like a servant who was poking through her mistress's papers than the proprietor of the apartment. These were her moments of delicious relaxation. Her daughter's diversion took the form of a stroll as far as the next farm gate in the faint hope of meeting someone, or else she climbed up to the old churchyard, which commanded a magnificent prospect, and sat on a tombstone, building castles in the air, and railing at her fate. Her thoughts frequently turned to her father's brother Jamie, who, fifty years before, had gone to the East Indies, and got on from one thing to another, had owned hundreds of black men, and, it was even reported, elephants, and had died as rich as a duke, leaving thousands and thousands to his widow, but not one blessed bawbee to his own folk. Certainly, it was true that her father and Uncle Jamie had had high words and a bitter quarrel before he sailed, folks said, over a five-shilling piece, but they might be wrong. Anyhow, her mother allowed they had no good will to one another; but that was an old story, and she and her brothers were his near kin. He had married a foreign woman, had no family, and had made his home in the Indies, and never once came back to Scotland. His widow had, so they heard, adopted a baby, and brought her up like a princess; and there was she, his own flesh and blood, living on porridge, and working and washing like any common woman. What a scandal!
When Maggie thought of this other girl, set out in silks and jewels, and getting a grand education, and "chances," the blood fairly boiled in her veins. She was far more embittered and furious against this intruder than against her Uncle Jamie, or even his foreign wife. Here was she, Maggie Gowdy, imprisoned and held fast within these glens by poverty and a strong-willed mother, and she, though well enough looking and educated and young, would never have a chance to be anything but a drudge. She dared not throw off her mother's thrall; she had once talked of service, but it was to deaf ears, and here she was, nigh three-and-twenty and, as Jock had cruelly reminded her, "getting past her market." Oh, she felt mad-like—to think of the wasted years!
When Maggie's mind dwelt on these matters and on the remorseless monotony of her life, she felt distracted. She recalled how young Joe Macdonald used to come up the moor, by way of looking for a stray sheep, and how he had appeared at their chapel two Sundays running, and met her once in Perth; and then, all of a sudden, he cooled off, and took up with Allie McCrone, a yellow-haired girl, with a fortune of three hundred pounds! Her mother had said, "Never you mind, my lass, you shall have a fortune, too, as well as Allie. I was up for forty when I got married, but I brought your father four hundred pounds. It went to stock this place, and where we had one sheep then we have a score the noo. You have plenty of time yet—you wait."