A Girl's Unpleasant Adventure.
by Jessie M.E. Saxby.
Originally published in The Novel Magazine (C. Arthur Pearson, Ltd.) vol.2 #10 (Jan 1906).
Telling how a runaway kitten nearly brought about a terrible tragedy.
Our village was in an uproar. Its belle, little Mattie Morison, had disappeared, and no one could tell, or conjecture, what had become of her. She had no relatives at a distance, she lived with her old aunts in a quiet house close to the High Street of Kirkope, and though she was a terrible flirt no one could say that Mattie had ever been indiscreet.
Her two favoured swains were as much distressed about her disappearance as the rest of us—in fact, it was Bruce Livingstone, the quiet, reserved son of our Laird, who was understood to stand first in Mattie's regard, who started the hubbub about her.
He had called at Miss Morison's house in the evening, and, finding that Mattie was out, lingered near in hope of meeting her; but no Mattie appeared. As the evening wore on he saw first Miss Betsy, then Miss Ann Morison, come to the door and peer anxiously out as if in search of someone. Later both the old ladies came and stood outside, and he heard them exchange wondering remarks as to what was detaining Mattie, who it seemed had only gone for a stroll.
Jealousy suggested to Bruce that it must be Crum Grierson who was detaining the girl, but about half-past ten the suspected rival walked past in company with two other young fellows, and their noisy behaviour indicated that whiskey, not Mattie, had been Crum Grierson's companion that evening.
"Taken another poor chap in tow, as like as not," thought Bruce, feeling angry at Mattie; and yet he lingered until after eleven, when the old ladies again appeared, this time considerably agitated and speaking loudly to each other. The watcher plucked up courage to advance towards them, and they, recognising him as he stopped at the lamp-post close to their house, cried out:
"Mr. Livingstone, do come here! We can't think what has become of Mattie," and asked his advice as to what should be done.
I need not enter into further details of how anxiety grew into alarm, of how Bruce raced from house to house where Mattie might possibly be, of how one after another her friends took fright (or became inquisitive to know what the little minx was up to) and joined in the search. By two o'clock in the morning it was certain that Mattie had disappeared, and her poor old aunts were almost distracted, feeling sure that evil had befallen her.
"Poor girl!" said Mrs. Merton, the mother of five plain, unmarried daughters, "I always feared that flirting way of hers would carry her too far one of these days," and the matron sniffed significantly.
"Mattie was so vain; some vulgar intrigue no doubt," said Miss Wilson, the young lady who came next Mattie in good looks, but lacked her powers of fascination, and consequently hated her rival heartily. Everybody had something to say about Mattie, but no one could suggest what had become of her, for all her lovers, past and present, were en évidence, suspecting each other, and eagerly searching for her. She had not eloped with anybody belonging to the village, or its neighbourhood; no strangers had been about; Mattie was happy and contented in her home. All her little belongings—even her purse with all the money she possessed—were in her room; there were no rivers, ponds, woods, moors, or pitfalls near Kirkope, where she might inadvertently have met with a fatal accident; the neighbourhood for miles around was searched, but no trace of Mattie was found. She had disappeared without rhyme or reason, and no one could guess what had happened!
"Poor lassie!" said one kindly old soul, who always found excuse for youth and its foolishnesses. "Such a bonnie lassie, and blithe of spirit, with her bright eyes and golden hair, and pretty little figure."
The good woman's words brought up a vivid picture of Mattie as we all knew her, and Bruce Livingstone's face paled, while that of Crum Grierson flushed, as they listened, for each knew that he possessed and wore next his heart a photo of our belle, and a small lock of her golden hair.
No one in Kirkope had hair like our Mattie. It was pure golden without the least tinge of red in it; yellow as buttercups, and bright as the sunshine. She wore it flowing straight over her shoulders. It did not curl, but had a wave in it like the flow of a waterfall. Our village beauties were of a dark type as a rule, and the few who were blondes had to resort to dyes if they wished their sandy or brown locks to resemble in a degree that glorious halo which made Mattie Morison's face like that of an angel.
How we all talked of her at that time, of her many graces of person, of her pretty airs and frivolities, and good nature; of her flirtations, and lovers and rivals; of her merriment, her coquettish glances, arch smiles and golden tresses. Yes, one and all talked of Mattie, and most of her chief and unique attraction—that sunny hair of hers.
Mattie was lost on Thursday evening, and no clue to her fate had come on Saturday morning; but then Kirkope was startled by a strange incident.
Bruce Livingstone and Crum Grierson chanced to meet in the High Street; they were passing each other with a grave nod—we were all very grave during those days—when the eyes of young Grierson were caught by something glittering on the dark coat of his rival. The something shone like a golden thread tangled about a button, and Crum, flushing hotly, sprang upon Bruce, shouting:
"Murderer! Scoundrel! What have you done with her?"
Livingstone struggled to free himself, but the other held on to him, glaring fiercely, and shouting every opprobrious term he could think of until the policeman came up and wanted to know what was the matter.
"I give this villain in charge," cried Crum. "He knows what has become of—of—her. See! he carries a witness of his treachery on his false heart. Oh, scoundrel!"
A crowd had collected, and before the eyes of all, Crum pointed to what we recognised at once—a few, long, glittering, golden hairs twisted round the top button of Bruce Livingstone's coat!
A deep breath came from each one of the onlookers, and then a savage growl, as the accused staggered back, lifting his hands in a kind of piteous appeal as the policeman gravely and carefully disentangled, and drew out to their shining length, those golden threads which had graced the head of poor little Mattie Morison.
Wrath and suspicion reached a climax when the old aunts, expecting any moment to hear tidings of their lost darling, came out to know what the disturbance boded, and seeing those eloquent, if mute, tokens of her person in the constable's hands, screamed out as Crum had done:
"Murderer! Wretch! Where is our child?"
I think Livingstone would have been lynched on the spot if his father, the Laird, had not chanced to ride up. A few questions put him in possession of what had occurred; then half-a-dozen of us, young and determined, feeling a little for the accused, now standing quite calm in the midst of the raging crowd, surrounded him.
The policeman forced a way for us to proceed, while the Laird on his horse kept us from being molested in the rear. In this manner we got Bruce to the Municipal Buildings, and safely behind locked gates. He was quite bewildered; he was always a quiet, sensitive fellow, and the accusation so unexpectedly made, as well as the violent demonstration which the sight of Mattie's golden hair had evoked, had shaken his manhood.
He looked a guilty man indeed when he stood in the Town Hall with the policeman at his back, Crum Grierson in front of him, his stately, grey-haired father looking sternly at him, and asking:
"What explanation can you give of this—this incriminating evidence against you?"
Bruce tried to pull himself together, but looked down as he replied, in a very low voice:
"I have no explanation, father."
I think that last word, spoken in a tender, appealing tone, impressed us all favourably. It certainly softened the Laird's heart, and silenced Crum Grierson's tongue.
The policeman, looking at the golden hair he still held, remarked:
"Not much evidence, after all, in the like; carries no proof or suspicion, I should say, of false play," and he smiled grimly.
We all smiled, and one of us said:
"A girl's hair left in single threads about the button on a young fellow's coat certainly does not testify to anything very bad—is proof of kindness rather than the reverse! And, mind you, cruelty, not kindness, is keeping the girl's fate a secret."
The Laird nodded to the speaker and the policeman remarked:
"No evidence, Sir George, to commit upon."
The Laird looked round, and said:
"If anything further is discovered which may lead anyone to desire that my son should present himself to answer inquiries, I give my word he shall appear here."
"Your word is enough, Sir George," someone who had a right to speak said; and even Crum Grierson did not utter a syllable of dissent, though he scowled on Bruce in a manner more expressive of his feelings than any words could have been.
The crowd were still lingering outside, therefore the policeman suggested that Bruce and his father should leave by a back door, and so avoid all further disturbance; but Sir George would not do that. With his arm through that of his son, he stepped out, and walked away. Both held their heads up, and though pale, faced the folk like the honourable men we had known them to be. There was a power in their noble bearing which impressed everyone, and no word was spoken as the crowd parted respectfully and let them pass. But when they disappeared, tongues were loosened, heads were shaken, suspicion raised its serpent-crest again, and hissed forth its evil bodings.
The next day being Sunday, the whole village turned out, for nothing further was known of Mattie, and we expected that the minister would make special allusion to her mysterious disappearance. Indeed, it was known in Kirkope that the Misses Morison had requested that prayer should be offered in church that morning for themselves in sore affliction, and for the lost girl. Probably a touching scene would take place, and our village enjoyed exhibiting its feelings in its own kirk, so there were not many people absent that day.
The Laird and his son were in the family pew, Bruce looking very pale and downcast. Crum Grierson was scowling from his place, and the old aunts were weeping in theirs. There was certainly the preliminary to a moving spectacle in church when the minister arrived, and when he rose to begin the service with the psalm (so well-known in Scotland) commencing:
"God is our refuge and our strength,
In straits a present aid;"
all felt that something more than usual was to be expected from him on this occasion.
Our village is old-fashioned and rather primitive. We had not an organ, but trusted to the old precentor to lead the choir in our service of praise.
The minister read a few verses of the Psalm and paused. The precentor stood up and cleared his throat before "raising the tune."
At that moment, while no sound was in the church, there suddenly rang through it a shriek, so wild, so broken, so unearthly, that we all screamed out, and some dropped swooning in their places.
The precentor's book fell from his hands upon a bonnet in the choir, whose wearer was too frightened at the shriek to think of her crushed headgear. We looked in one another's faces fearfully. The minister lifted his eyes to the roof, as if praying Heaven to avert evil.
Again, but fainter and more uncertain, that piteous wail rang out, and then I chancing to glance at Bruce Livingstone—saw his white face leap into vivid life and colour. He sprang from his seat, dashed out of the church, and in a moment we heard him beating madly at a door which led into the bell-tower.
Crash! We heard the door fall in; the motionless silence in which we remained gave us the sound of his feet rushing up the narrow ladder in the tower. Then his voice, hoarse and horror-stricken, crying out:
"Mattie! Help! Help there! Father! Quick!"
As one man we rushed from the church, Crum Grierson and Sir George in front. They disappeared in the tower and we crowded by its opened door. In a few minutes Bruce appeared, carrying the senseless form of Mattie Morison; her head hung over his arm, eyes closed, features pinched and ghastly, and the golden hair cut short. But the girl was not dead, and in a few minutes, after her aunts had applied smelling bottles, and other ladies had helped with further remedies, which somehow appeared as by magic from hidden pockets, Mattie opened her eyes and sighed in a manner that showed she was coming to.
Meanwhile Sir George and Crum had re-appeared, the latter bearing in one hand the luxuriant mass of Mattie's golden hair all tangled into a wisp, and in the other a pruning knife, which we all knew Sir George invariably carried about with him.
"What was it! How was it?" the minister asked of Sir George, who only shook his head, saying: "All must be mere conjecture until the girl herself can explain."
She was borne to the Manse close by, and the minister begged us to return to the kirk. "Perhaps," he said, "before our morning service is ended I may be in a position to explain the mystery, and join you in giving thanks for the girl's life."
At the end of the sermon Bruce Livingstone came into the church and briefly told us of Mattie's adventure.
She had been followed in her stroll by a favourite kitten, which, finding the tower door open, scampered up the ladder and would not come down. Afraid that it might be locked in, Mattie went up after it, but pussie was out for a frolic and would not be tempted from her position on a projecting beam. Impatiently Mattie stretched over to seize her pet, but over balanced, and, in falling, her long hair caught among some nails projecting from a beam.
For a few minutes she hung suspended by her hair and with no foothold. At last her frantic struggles, though tangling her hair the more firmly about the beam, brought her toes to rest upon a projection in the ladder. In that horrible position the girl had remained from Thursday evening till Sunday morning. She had screamed for help until she was exhausted, but no one had heard, and the tower door had been closed upon her while she was unconscious, in which condition she remained more than half the time.
The ringing of the bell for service had brought back her wandering faculties and given her strength to utter the awful cries which had so startled the congregation: Sir George's knife in Crum's hand had set her free in the shortest manner possible, while Bruce supported her helpless form:
We were all satisfied with this explanation, and a few months later we thought that the manner in which a few golden threads from Mattie's halo got tangled with Bruce's buttons was also explained, for the kirk bells rang a merry peal for their wedding.
So it has become a saying in our village that a young man's coat-buttons and long locks on a maiden's head have an affinity for each other.