"Looking round," she said, "on a' the auld things in their auld places, I feel as if I had been dreamin' aboot livin' in a strange country, and that I had waukened up to find mysel at hame. There is only ae great want,—the presence o' yer faither. But I canna help thinkin' that he is here in spirit, and shares in our joy. And oh, Gilbert! glad he maun be that a' his debts are paid, and that naebody can say that they hae lost onything by him. You were richt, and I was wrang."
John Fairgrieve, better known as Hillend, the name of his farm, had been born with a strong appetite for knowledge. Had his education been attended to in his youth, he would very likely have been a great reader. But as he had never got into the way of using books with facility, he was driven to seek his mental food in the actual world around him; and this he did with the greatest assiduity. In plain language, he was a notorious newsmonger, a collector of all the "clashes" of the neighbourhood. In bright summer weather, before the hay harvest came on, and when "there was naething pushin'," it was his delight to stand at his farm gate, under the large plane tree, with his snuff-box in his hand, and exchange news with all the passers-by. It did not matter who they were. The farmer in his gig, the ploughman on his cart, the baker driving his van, the beggarwife with her brats and her wallets, were all obliged to "stand and deliver." In fact, Hillend was a sort of informal turnpike man, levying mental toll on the king's highway.
Very like him in this inveterate love for tittle-tattle were his two sisters, Lizzie and Grizzie, who kept house for him. They were seldom seen separate. They hunted in couples. And their prey was generally some country laddie that came into the farmyard for milk or butter. They took complete possession of the unlucky urchin. He had no more chance of escape than a gooseberry which has fallen before two greedy hens. The one examined him, and then the other cross-examined him, or (to use the old Scotch phraseology) the one speired and the other back-speired, until the poor child was turned inside out, or, as Geordie Faw, the cattleman, expressed it, "fairly flypeit."
It was eight o'clock on a wild October night. Outside, in the farmyard, were darkness and a fierce gale that rattled at the windows and howled at the chimney tops, and swirled round the stacks and into every hole and corner. Inside, in the farm kitchen, were light and warmth and bright dishes on the walls, and still brighter faces grouped round the blazing fire. With the exception of Collie the dog and Mottie the cat, all were busy in their own different ways. Miss Lizzie was at the churn, and Miss Grizzie at the spinning-wheel. Willie Foster and Pate Mackie, the two ploughmen, were playing at draughts, or, as they called it, "the dam-brod." Geordie Faw was cobbling his shoes. The itinerant tailor, John Glen, seated cross-legged on a chair, was mending the farmer's coat. And Hillend himself, what was he doing? Occupying the place of honour at the left side of the fire, and, with the usual snuff-box in his hand, he was keeping up the conversation, or, in other words, "ca'in the crack." As the corn and the potatoes were safely gathered in, he was in capital spirits, and bent upon making both himself and the others happy.
You would have thought that there was very little entertainment to be got in that quiet homely scene; but you would have been mistaken. First of all, there was Glen, the tailor, with a tongue as sharp and slick as his own shears, and with odds and ends of scandal as many and varied as his own clippings. Then in came Sandy Livingstone, fresh from a visit to the smithy, and bursting with all the "clavers" of the parish—who was dead, who was going to be married, who had failed, who had been fou last July fair, who had been up before the Session, how Grangemire Mary had got her leave, and Geordie Clephane had lost his watch at Kirkcaldy market. And while they were still enjoying these tit-bits, and rolling them like sweet morsels under their tongue, who should appear but a mysterious stranger, foot-sore and tired with travel. All grew quiet to look at him. This was no ordinary tramp.
His clothes were fashionably cut, though threadbare and soiled; and his features and hands were thin and delicate, though tanned by the weather. The company were prepared to hear that he had once seen better days; but they broke into a murmur of astonishment when he told them that he had been an Oxford man and a man about town, and that he had tramped all the way from London. "An Oxford swell!" "A London man!" "Tramped all the way!" Hillend's face glowed with the anticipation of hearing a wonderful story, and in his excitement he took four or five snuffs consecutively. Miss Lizzie and Miss Grizzie stopped their work, rose to their feet, drew near to the stranger, devouring him with their eyes, and eager to "speir and back-speir." They, indeed, set him down to a supper of bread and cheese and milk; but they began at the same time to question him about himself and his adventures. However, he said that if they would kindly wait till he had refreshed and strengthened himself with the meal they had placed before him, he would give them a full and true account of his strange career. They were therefore obliged, meanwhile, to satisfy their curiosity by watching him while he stowed away the viands with wonderful celerity. At length his ravenous appetite was appeased; and, wiping his mouth with his coat sleeve, and begging pardon for doing so, and giving as an excuse that he hadn't a pocket-handkerchief, he began the story of his adventures. In after days it was often repeated, first by himself and then by others, so that I am able to give it for the most part in his own words.
"My father was rich, but I am almost ashamed to confess that he did not make his money in a very nice way. He was, you see, a pawnbroker in the High Street of Edinburgh. When I was a boy I used often to be in the shop on a Saturday night, and, upon my soul, I used to pity the poor quivering wretches that came in, raising money on their furniture, their very bed, and even the family Bible. I have seen a poor woman, half-stripped herself, take off the clothes from a puny child in her arms, and pawn them. All kinds of scenes went on, haggling and arguing, and cursing and swearing. The words of one customer, especially, I can never forget. He was a broken-down author, puffy and shaky. He was angry because he had not got enough upon his silver watch.