I stayed with my father to the end. Just before he died he bade me come near and gave me his blessing, bidding me be a better gentleman than he had been. We did not bury him in the Kirk of Lyne, for he had always said he never could abide to lie within walls. but on a green flat above Tweed, where the echo of the river and the crying of moorbirds are never absent from his grave.
CHAPTER VII
THE PEGASUS INN AT PEEBLES AND HOW A STRANGER RETURNED FROM THE WARS
Of my doings for some months after my father's death I must tell hastily. I fell heir to the lands of Barns, and being of age entered at once into my possession. The place remained the same as in my father's time, the same servants and the same ways about the house. I lived simply as I had always lived, spending my days in seeing to the land, in field sports, and some little study, for I had not altogether forsaken the Muses. But all the time I felt as one who is kept at home against his will, being conscious of a restlessness and an inclination to travel which was new to me, but which I doubt not is common to all young men at this time of life. I talked much with Tam Todd of the lands which he had visited, and heard of the Dutch towns with their strange shipping, their canals and orderly houses, and of the rough Norlanders, clad in the skins of wild animals, who came down to the Swedish markets to trade; of the soldiery of Germany and France and the Scots who had gone over there to push their fortunes with their swords; and what I loved best, of the salt sea with its boundless waste of waters and wild tales of shipwreck. Formerly I had been wont often to bid Tam sharply to hold his peace when he entered on one of his interminable narrations; but now I sat and drank in every word like a thirsty man. It was the winter-time, when the roads were often snowed up and all the folk of the place gathered in the great kitchen at nights round the fire; so it was the time for stories and we had our fill of them.
One blustering day, the first Monday, I think, after the New Year, when the ice was beginning to melt from the burns and a wet, cold wind from the north-west was blowing, I rode down to Peebles to settle some matters about money with Saunders Blackett, who had managed my father's affairs and was now intrusted with mine. All things were done to my satisfaction; so bethinking myself that the way to Barns was cold and long and that it was yet early in the afternoon, being scarce four o'clock, I found myself thinking pleasantly of the warm inn-parlour of the Pegasus, so thither I went.
The Pegasus or "Peg" Inn stands at the corner of the Northgate and the High Street, a black-gabled building, once the town-house of the Govans of Cardrona, and still retaining marks of its gentility in the arms carved above the door. A great sign flapped in the wind, bearing on a white ground a gorgeous representation of a winged horse soaring through clouds. The landlord at this time was one Horsbrock, a portly, well-looking man, who claimed to be kin to the Horsbrocks of that ilk and held his chin two inches higher in consequence. The place was famed in all the country round for good wine and comfort.
I stabled my horse and, bidding the host bring me a bottle of Rhenish (so fine a thing it is to have succeeded to lands and money), I went into the low-ceilinged room where the company sat. It was panelled in a darkish wood, and hung round with old weapons, halberds and falchions and what not, which glimmered brightly in the firelight. A narrow window gave it light, but now it sufficed only to show the grey winter dusk coming swiftly on. Around the fire sat some few of the men of Peebles, warming themselves and discussing the landlord's ale and the characters of their neighbours.
They rose to give me welcome when I entered, for my name and family were well known in the countryside.
"It's awfu' weather for man and beast, Laird," said an old man with a bent back, but still hale and hearty in the face. "A snawy winter I can abide, and a wet yin, but drizzlin', dreepin', seepin' weather wi' a wind that taks the heart out o' ye is mair than my patience can stand."
"You have little need to speak, you folk," I said, "living in a well-paved town with stones beneath your feet and nothing more to do than go round a street corner all day. Up at Barns, with Tweed swirling in at the yard gate, and the stables flowing like a linn, and the wind playing cantrips day and night in and out of the windows, you might talk."