Page images
PDF
EPUB

CHAPTER IV.

IVIE McCALL.

BOY of ten years of age, or thereabouts, with a broad forehead, earnest eyes, and

a firm mouth, sat at a table writing with the slow carefulness of a willing but some

what untrained scholar.

Education for even the higher middle classes was a luxury difficult of attainment in the remoter districts of Scotland, in the troubled days of the seventeenth century.

Had the boy's father been alive he would, however, have stood in no need of tuition, nor would he had his uncle, Robert Leighton, been at hand. But his parent had been slain whilst his only son was still an infant, his uncle was at a distance, and the widowed mother had scant leisure for turning governess. Still, difficulties notwithstanding, she had managed something in that way, and the boy's growing ambition was fast managing still more. Will is a strong key for the unlocking of many gates, and it scarcely needed a

second glance at the boy's expressive countenance to understand that there were few difficulties that men have surmounted that Ivie McCall would not also be able to overcome, as time and occasion should allow.

Dame McCall let her eyes wander many a time from her spinning-wheel, to where her only child sat so intent upon his self-sought studies. And there was a proud, thankful joy in their expression, until at last a shadow of a frown appeared upon his forehead, and then she called to him across the wide apartment:

"Ivie, my son."

So abstracted was he that the call had to be repeated before he became aware that he was being addressed. Even then the voice was rather dreamy in tone with which he replied, according to the ceremonious fashion of a bygone age:

"Your pardon, Ma'am, did you speak to me?"

"Nought beyond your name, my son," was the gentle answer. "But I would add to that, now that you are ready to hearken to me, the advice that you should put by your books for the day, and take your favourite walk out to Bridge of Allen, or anywhere else you please."

"Then that will be round about the court, and back again," said Ivie promptly; "even if I am bound by your commands to take so much of an interruption to my work as that. But indeed, mother dearest"—and the laughing accent gave way to one of

pleading "indeed, mother dearest, I do hope you will issue no such orders for, at any rate, a good full hour to come. The morning is not half through yet, and I scarce feel as though I had got fairly settled to my studies, far less tired enough of them to wish to put them by."

Mistress McCall shook her head dubiously.

"Nay, my dear boy, I fear that your resolution may be greater than your strength. It was the sight of a very puckered forehead that made me wish for you to take a rest."

For a few moments the broad, clear forehead was puckered up a second time with an effort of memory. Then it grew smooth again, and laying down his pen he sprang up, and came over to his mother, pushing back the curly auburn hair impatiently as he exclaimed:

"Ah! Ma'am, you remind me. It was not tiredness that made me frown just now, but thinking over what William Blair told me yesterday when he got back from Edinburgh. It is but six months ago that he brought us news of the grand doings there, in honour of our Covenanted King, King Charles the Second, ascending the throne of his fathers, and now, mother, now-"

And young as the lad was his voice shook with agitation. Mrs. McCall gazed at him with surprise not unmingled with alarm.

"And now what, Ivie? you have excited my fears

Speak on, my son, for as well as my curiosity.

Hath ought of mischance befallen our Covenanted Sovereign, would you say?"

"Not our Sovereign, mother; but our Covenant, there is sore need to fear, is threatened, if the rumours which William Blair saith are rife in Edinburgh have aught in them of truth."

Political troubles and religious conflicts are of small account to most boys of ten years of age, but it was no wonder that Ivie McCall took a precocious and strong interest in them. His father was one of those staunch Covenanters who, having sworn allegiance to a Covenanted King, refused to cease praying for him during the days of the Protectorate. He had thus already rendered himself an object for suspicious watchfulness and threats, when William Cuningham, Lord Glencairn, made his offer to the exiled Charles, of receiving the Royal commission from him to raise and command an army of restoration in Scotland.

The tempting offer was of course accepted, 1653, and this gave the laird of McCall the full opportunity he desired to prove his loyalty and faithfulness. The long-protracted struggles and sufferings, of more than a century, had so far deepened the tone of feeling in Scotland, that his wife made scarcely any resistance to his wishes. She knew too well that had she been a man she would have followed the same course. As it was she gave him a proud, fond smile for farewell, and then returned within the gates of their home to pray and weep over their infant

child, the little Ivie, her prayers divided between her King in banishment, and her husband fighting for his restoration.

And at length the sad news came that the Laird of McCall was one of the few who had been slain, before Glencairn's ill-managed, fruitless enterprise finally broke down. And the widow and orphan, driven from their hereditary home, deprived of their property, were compelled to accept, with all gratitude, the asylum found for them, in the neighbourhood of Stirling, by their faithful family retainer, William Blair.

Even had Dame McCall been silent on the subject, Ivie would have been thoroughly posted up as to the troubles and wrongs of himself and his country; for Blair had taken this as another matter of conscience, to instil the story into his young laird's mind in every minutest particular, from the first dawning of reasoning faculties in the child's mind.

Even already, at scarcely five years of age, little Ivie understood, in some fashion, what the Scottish. Covenant was; and knew the nature of the oath that his father, the King, and nearly the whole of his countrymen, high and low, rich and poor, had sworn to guard with their lives.

At ten years of age

he felt bound to it, himself, with a strength and tenacity few people in quiet peaceable times would imagine to be possible.

The news that had been imparted to him the past

« PreviousContinue »