“Good morrow to you, madam,” said the master of ceremonies; “I trust your early rising will not skaith ye.”
The dame apologised to Captain Knockunder, as she was pleased to term their entertainer; “but, as we say in Cheshire,” she added, “I was like the Mayor of Altringham, who lies in bed while his breeches are mending, for the girl did not bring up the right bundle to my room, till she had brought up all the others by mistake one after t’other—Well, I suppose we are all for church to-day, as I understand—Pray may I be so bold as to ask, if it is the fashion for your North country gentlemen to go to church in your petticoats, Captain Knockunder?”
“Captain of Knockdunder, madam, if you please, for I knock under to no man; and in respect of my garb, I shall go to church as I am, at your service, madam; for if I were to lie in bed like your Major What-d’ye-callum, till my preeches were mended, I might be there all my life, seeing I never had a pair of them on my person but twice in my life, which I am pound to remember, it peing when the Duke brought his Duchess here, when her Grace pehoved to be pleasured; so I e’en porrowed the minister’s trews for the twa days his Grace was pleased to stay—but I will put myself under sic confinement again for no man on earth, or woman either, but her Grace being always excepted, as in duty pound.”
The mistress of the milking-pail stared but, making no answer to this round declaration, immediately proceeded to show, that the alarm of the preceding evening had in no degree injured her appetite.
When the meal was finished, the Captain proposed to them to take boat, in order that Mrs. Jeanie might see her new place of residence, and that he himself might inquire whether the necessary preparations had been made there, and at the Manse, for receiving the future inmates of these mansions.
The morning was delightful, and the huge mountain-shadows slept upon the mirrored wave of the firth, almost as little disturbed as if it had been an inland lake. Even Mrs. Dutton’s fears no longer annoyed her. She had been informed by Archibald, that there was to be some sort of junketting after the sermon, and that was what she loved dearly; and as for the water, it was so still that it would look quite like a pleasuring on the Thames.
The whole party being embarked, therefore, in a large boat, which the captain called his coach and six, and attended by a smaller one termed his gig, the gallant Duncan steered straight upon the little tower of the old-fashioned church of Knocktarlitie, and the exertions of six stout rowers sped them rapidly on their voyage. As they neared the land, the hills appeared to recede from them, and a little valley, formed by the descent of a small river from the mountains, evolved itself as it were upon their approach. The style of the country on each side was simply pastoral, and resembled, in appearance and character, the description of a forgotten Scottish poet, which runs nearly thus:—
The water gently down a level slid,
With little din, but couthy what it made;
On ilka side the trees grew thick and lang,
And wi’ the wild birds’ notes were a’ in sang;
On either side, a full bow-shot and mair,
The green was even, gowany, and fair;
With easy slope on every hand the braes
To the hills’ feet with scatter’d bushes raise;
With goats and sheep aboon, and kye below,
The bonny banks all in a swarm did go.*
* Ross’s Fortunate Shepherdess. Edit. 1778, p. 23.
They landed in this Highland Arcadia, at the mouth of the small stream which watered the delightful and peaceable valley. Inhabitants of several descriptions came to pay their respects to the Captain of Knockdunder, a homage which he was very peremptory in exacting, and to see the new settlers. Some of these were men after David Deans’s own heart, elders of the kirk-session, zealous professors, from the Lennox, Lanarkshire, and Ayrshire, to whom the preceding Duke of Argyle had given rooms in this corner of his estate, because they had suffered for joining his father, the unfortunate Earl, during his ill-fated attempt in 1686. These were cakes of the right leaven for David regaling himself with; and, had it not been for this circumstance, he has been heard to say, “that the Captain of Knockdunder would have swore him out of the country in twenty-four hours, sae awsome it was to ony thinking soul to hear his imprecations, upon the slightest temptation that crossed his humour.”