Gilian The Dreamer | Page 6

country to be paying to a gentleman who never saw of wars but
skirmish with the Syke. Nothing but Captain, mind you, and do not
forget the salute, so, with the right hand up and thumb on a line with

the right eyebrow. But could your business not be waiting? If it is Miss
Mary who sent for him it is not very reasonable of her, for he is here no
longer than twenty minutes, and it is not sheepshead broth day, I know,
because I saw her servant lass down at the quay for herrings an hour
ago. Captain, mind, it must be that for him even with old soldiers like
myself. I would not dare Paymaster him, it is a name that has a trade
ring about it that suits ill with his Highland dignity. Captain, Captain!"
Gilian stood in front of this spate of talk, becoming more diffident and
fearful every moment. He had never had any thought as to how he
should tell the Paymaster that the goodwife of Ladyfield was dead, that
was a task he had expected to be left to some one else, but Jean Clerk
and her sister had a cunning enough purpose in making him the bearer
of the news.
"I am to tell him the goodwife of Ladyfield is dead," he explained,
stammering, to the Sergeant More.
"Dead!" said John More. "Now is not that wonderful?" He leaned
against the door as he had leaned many a time against sentry-box and
barrack wall, and dwelt a little upon memory. "Is not that wonderful?
The first time I saw her was at a wedding in Karnes, Lochow, and she
was the handsomest woman in the room, and there were sixty people at
the wedding from all parts, and sixty-nine roasted hens at the supper.
Well, well--dead! blessings with her; did I not know her well? Yes, and
I knew her husband too, Long Angus, since the first day he came to
Ladyfield for Old Mar--for the Paymaster--till the last day he came
down the glen in a cart, and he was the only sober body in the funeral,
perhaps because it was his own. Many a time I wondered that the
widow did so well in the farm for Captain Campbell, with no man to
help her, the sowing and the shearing, the dipping and the clipping,
ploughmen and herds to keep an eye on, and bargains to make with
wool merchants and drovers. Oh! she was a clever woman, your
grandmother. And now she's dead. Well, it's a way they have at her age!
And the Paymaster must be told, though I know it will vex him greatly,
because he is a sort of man who does not relish changes. Mind now you
say Captain; you need not say Captain Campbell, but just Captain, and

maybe a 'sir' now and then. I suppose you could not put off telling him
for a half-hour or thereabouts longer, when he would be going home for
dinner any way; it is a pity to spoil an old gentleman's meridian dram
with melancholy news. No. You were just told to come straight away
and tell him--well, it is the good soldier who makes no deviation from
the word of command. Come away in then and--Captain mind--and the
salute."
The Sergeant More threw open the door of the room, filled up the space
a second and gave a sort of free-and-easy salute. "A message for you,
Captain," said he.
The singing was done. The Major's mind was wandering over the plains
of Waterloo to guess by the vacancy of his gaze; on his left Bob
MacGibbon smoked a black segar, the others talked of townsmen still
in the army and of others buried under the walls of Badajos. They all
turned when the Sergeant More spoke, and they saw him push before
him into the room the little boy of Ladyfield with his bonnet in his hand
and his eyes restless and timid like pigeons at a strange gate fluttering.
"Ho! Gilian, it is you?" said the Paymaster, with a very hearty voice;
then he seemed to guess the nature of the message, for his voice
softened from the loud and bumptious tone it had for ordinary. "How is
it in Lecknamban?" he asked in the Gaelic, and Gilian told him,
minding duly his "sir" and his "Captain" and his salute.
"Dead!" said the Paymaster, "Blessings with her!" Then he turned to his
companions and in English--"The best woman in the three parishes and
the cleverest. She could put her hand to anything and now she's no
more. I think that's the last of Ladyfield for me. I liked to go up now
and then and go about the hill and do a little bargaining at a