![DOI https://doi.org/10.21832/ARTEAG5341
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.
Names: Arteaga, Deborah, editor.
Title: L2 Grammatical Representation and Processing: Theory and Practice /
Edited by Deborah Arteaga.
Description: Bristol; Blue Ridge Summit: Multilingual Matters, [2019] |
Series: Second Language Acquisition: 136 | Includes bibliographical
references. | Summary: ‘This book presents an array of new research on
several current theoretical debates in the field of SLA. The studies address questions
relating to ultimate attainment, first language transfer, universal properties of SLA,
processing and second language (L2) grammar, and explore a number of grammatical
features of the L2’ – Provided by publisher.
Identifiers: LCCN 2019018875 (print) | LCCN 2019022397 (ebook) | ISBN
9781788925341 (hbk : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781788925334 (pbk : alk. paper)
Subjects: LCSH: Second language acquisition. | French
language – Grammar – Study and teaching – Foreign speakers.
Classification: LCC P118.2.L177 2019 (print) | LCC P118.2 (ebook) | DDC
418.0071 – dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019018875
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019022397
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue entry for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN-13: 978-1-78892-534-1 (hbk)
ISBN-13: 978-1-78892-533-4 (pbk)
Multilingual Matters
UK: St Nicholas House, 31-34 High Street, Bristol BS1 2AW, UK.
USA: NBN, Blue Ridge Summit, PA, USA.
Website: www.multilingual-matters.com
Twitter: Multi_Ling_Mat
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/multilingualmatters
Blog: www.channelviewpublications.wordpress.com
Copyright © 2019 Deborah Arteaga and the authors of individual chapters.
All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced in any form or by any
means without permission in writing from the publisher.
The policy of Multilingual Matters/Channel View Publications is to use papers that
are natural, renewable and recyclable products, made from wood grown in sustainable
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Printed and bound in the US by NBN.](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/25988400-250523081151-d750efee/85/L2-Grammatical-Representation-And-Processing-Theory-And-Practice-Deborah-Arteaga-Editor-8-320.jpg)
![4 L2 Grammatical Representation and Processing
than gender. The differences between intermediate and advanced learners
is also highlighted by Achimova and Déprez (Chapter 1), who advance
the hypothesis that processing load leads to differential responses between
different levels of proficiency. More advanced learners, whose grammati-
cal mastery of determiner features is better established, are better able to
bring to bear this knowledge in article selection; less advanced learners,
more susceptible to processing demands, show diminished performance
in the same task.
All approaches have used increasingly complex and sensitive measures
of assessment of language skills, exploiting offline (accuracy tests of com-
prehension and production) and online (real-time measures of L2 process-
ing in comprehension and production) methodologies. While each chapter
in this collection may concentrate on a small part of the L2 grammar,
altogether they use real-time production and comprehension processing
data to deduce the grammatical representation of the interlanguage of
the L2 participants. Ranging from spontaneous production (Arteaga
Herschensohn (Chapter 2), Vainikka and Young-Scholten (Chapter 6)) to
specific testing of classroom learners (Achimova Déprez (Chapter 1),
Ayoun (Chapter 3), Yaden (Chapter 7)), to online reaction time and eye
tracking (Dekydtspotter Gilbert (Chapter 4), Sagarra (Chapter 5)), the
chapters use a broad selection of tools to contribute to L2A scholarship.
Chapters in this Volume
Chapter 1: Achimova and Déprez
Reexamining Ionin’s Fluctuation Hypothesis, Achimova and Déprez
consider the acquisition of the features of definiteness and specificity by
Anglophone L2 learners of French. Definiteness indicates shared presup-
position of a referent by speaker and hearer, while specificity indicates
the speaker’s knowledge of a unique referent in a given context. Unlike
learners – such as Russian or Korean L1 speakers – whose L1 does not
possess articles, Anglophones do have native articles with similar distri-
bution to French of the two features in question, a fact that should lead
to straightforward transfer. Ionin et al. (2004) propose that languages
favor either [definite] or [specific] as the canonical morphological mark
(the Article Choice Parameter), and that learners may use the incorrect
morphological form as they gain mastery of the L2 differing in featural
value (the Fluctuation Hypothesis). Subsequent research has shown fluc-
tuation among learners, but some predictions of the hypothesis have not
been borne out; furthermore, evidence from native speakers has shown
that the Article Choice Parameter is more complex than originally stated.
Achimova and Déprez carry out a cross-sectional study of French learn-
ers (low, mid and advanced college students), using an article choice task
based on short situations and combining [definite] and [specific] features](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/25988400-250523081151-d750efee/85/L2-Grammatical-Representation-And-Processing-Theory-And-Practice-Deborah-Arteaga-Editor-18-320.jpg)
![Introduction 5
in both values. Although both French and English mark definiteness
overtly and use specificity in a similar manner, the learners show increased
article misuse in [+def –spec] and [–def +spec] contexts; that is, when the
two features clash. Furthermore, errors are greater for the less proficient
learners, leading the researchers to look to processing load as a factor.
They argue that specificity is a pragmatic feature related to knowledge of
the speaker with respect to reference. While L1 transfer facilitates article
choice in the French-English pairing, cognitive pressure affects the com-
putation of common ground in the less proficient learners. This chapter
contributes to the growing evidence that knowledge of the L2 is mediated
strongly by the processing load brought to bear in implementation.
Chapter 2: Arteaga and Herschensohn
Arteaga and Herschensohn use data from two advanced learners
of L2 French to explore sociolinguistic competence in second language
acquisition, and they then make recommendations based on their find-
ings to enhance classroom instruction in discourse and pragmatic com-
petence. They begin with a review of earlier work on L2 sociolinguistic
competence, noting that work by Dewaele (2004), Dewaele and Regan
(2002), Regan (1998), Rehner and Mougeon (1999), Rehner et al. (2003)
and Armstrong (2002) has emphasized the importance of mastery of
cultural knowledge and sociopragmatic appropriateness to learners of
a second language. Of particular focus in terms of register in French is
the appropriate use (and deletion) of negative ne, replacement of nous
‘we’ by on and the accurate deployment of second person tu and vous.
First person plural is almost exclusively restricted to on in current spoken
French, whereas ne deletion is a definite mark of informal register. Tu and
vous use depends on a number of factors, more sociocultural than register
based, but is a matter of difficulty for French L2 learners. These points are
the areas of investigation in the new corpus, a collection of six interviews
(three each) from two distinct profiles of language learner, ‘Max’ (an aca-
demic learner whose AoA is 48) and ‘Chloe’ (a more naturalistic learner
whose AoA is 13). Both are interviewed before, during and after a year’s
stay in France. Max’s style favors the formal, especially for ne deletion,
whereas Chloe’s style is more informal due to casual interactions with
peers, diminished formal education and lower age of acquisition onset.
These factors offer her fewer opportunities to switch into more formal
registers. Using the data presented, the authors advocate the instruction of
sociolinguistic competence by furnishing classroom students communi-
cative activities that elicit appropriate register and interpersonal address.
There are suggestions for both beginning/intermediate and for advanced
learners to engage in structured communication through role play, infor-
mation gap and more advanced discussions using films.](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/25988400-250523081151-d750efee/85/L2-Grammatical-Representation-And-Processing-Theory-And-Practice-Deborah-Arteaga-Editor-19-320.jpg)
![Introduction 7
anaphoric dependencies in multiply embedded sentences in French, con-
trasting selected complement (1) versus nonselected modifier (2).
(1) Quelle décision à propos de luii
est-ce que Pauli
a dit que Lydie
avait rejetée [quelle décision à propos de lui] sans hésitation? ‘What
decision about himself did Paul say that Lydie had rejected without
hesitation?’
(2) Quelle décision lei
concernant est-ce que Pauli
a dit que Lydie avait
rejetée [quelle décision] sans hésitation? ‘What decision concerning
him did Paul say Lydie had rejected without hesitation?’
The anaphor lui in (1) is syntactically bound in the embedded position
and raised with its head noun to matrix Complementizer Phrase (CP);
in contrast, le in (2) gains coreference through discourse semantics, not
syntax. The referential chain of (1) should reduce processing load and
increase speed of parsing compared to that of (2). The contrast permits the
authors to design an experiment that will test the hypothesis for both NSs
and NNSs. Using a moving window design, they compare reading times
(RTs) and accuracy of the two groups, finding that the NSs and NNSs are
comparable on both criteria. They also address the issues of environment
(their subjects are not in a target environment) and grammaticality (the
tasks focus on meaning and reference, not grammaticality). The compa-
rability of the native and nonnative groups lead them to conclude that
the noun-complements with matching embedded clause subjects induced
the advanced L2 learners to read the verb generally more quickly than
NP-modifiers did (see Chapter 4, p. 87), thus supporting their contention
that NNSs are capable of processing as do NSs and that anaphoric chains
facilitate syntactic parsing.
Chapter 5: Sagarra
Sagarra gives fresh perspectives on the well-explored area of second
language difficulties with gender agreement, considering the influence
of learner characteristics, morphological markedness and experiment
design. Drawing from the extensive L2 literature of the past 25 years, she
reviews the competing representational and processing accounts. The
former propose either that post-critical period learners are morphologi-
cally impaired if their native language does not have gender
agreement,
or that factors other than age of acquisition onset cause L2 agreement
difficulties. Some morphology-based models propose that default (e.g.
masculine, singular) forms are more available to L2 learners than marked
(feminine, plural) ones in both comprehension and production. The latter
attribute processing factors such as cognitive load, input frequency or
morphological transparency as the source of L2 agreement problems. The
author points out that the conflicting results obtained in earlier studies](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/25988400-250523081151-d750efee/85/L2-Grammatical-Representation-And-Processing-Theory-And-Practice-Deborah-Arteaga-Editor-21-320.jpg)
![CHAPTER VIII.
THE MUSTER OF THE HILL FOLK.
Men who know the strange history of the later life of me, Quintin
MacClellan, may wonder that the present narrative discovers so little
concerning my changes of opinion and stresses of spiritual conflict. But of
these things I have written in extension elsewhere, and those who desire
more than a personal narrative know well where to find the recital of my
difficulties, covenantings, and combatings for the cause.
For myself, the memory of the day on the Bennan top was more than
enough, and made me a high Covenant man for life. So that when I heard
how King James was fled and his son-in-law, William of Orange, landed I
could not contain myself, but bade Hob and David to come with me and
light a beacon-fire on the top of the Millyea, that fair and shapely mountain.
This after severe labour we did, and they say that the light was seen over a
dozen parishes.
Then there came word to the Glenkens that there was to be a Convention
in Edinburgh of men chosen out of every shire and county, called and
presided over by Duke Hamilton. But it was the bruit of the countryside that
this parliament would turn out even as the others, and be ground under the
heel of the old kingsmen and malignants.[4]
So about this time there came to see my father two men grave and grey,
their beards blanched with dripping hill-caves and with sleeping out in the
snell winds and biting frosts of many a winter, without better shelter than
some cold moss-hag or the bieldy side of a snow wreath.
“There is to be a great rising of the Seven Thousand. The whole West is
marching to Edinburgh!” cried in at the door the elder of the two—one
Steel, a noted Covenanter from Lesmahago.
But the other, when his dark cloak blew back, showed a man of slender
figure, but with a face of calm resolve and indomitable courage—the
proven face of a soldier. He was in a fair uniform—that, as I afterwards
found, of one of the Prince of Orange’s Scots-Dutch regiments.](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/25988400-250523081151-d750efee/85/L2-Grammatical-Representation-And-Processing-Theory-And-Practice-Deborah-Arteaga-Editor-25-320.jpg)
![CHAPTER IX.
I MEET MARY GORDON FOR THE SECOND TIME.
And when we arrived, lo! before the little white farm there was a great
muster. My Lord Kenmure himself rode over to review us. For the
Committee of Estates drawn together by the Duke Hamilton had named him
as responsible for the Stewartry of Kirkcudbright.
But that which was of greater interest to me than any commission or
enrollment was the appearing of two women upon the doorstep of the
cottage—the Lady of Earlstoun and her daughter Mary.
Now it is to be remembered that Alexander Gordon’s wife was a sister of
Sir Robert Hamilton, the commander at Bothwell Brig—a man whose
ungovernable temper, and genius for setting one man at variance with his
fellow, had lost us Bothwell Brig and the life of many a brave lad of the
hills. And Mary’s mother, Jean Hamilton, was like her brother in that
somewhat pretentious piety which is of all things the most souring and
embittering.
So that even my father said—good, honest man, that would speak ill of
none all the days of his life: “If I had a wife like yon woman, I declare I
would e’en turn Malignant and shoot her without warrant of law or benefit
of clergy.”
Jean Gordon came down off the doorstep and stood in front of us four
MacClellans, looking out upon us with her keen, black eyes, and seeming as
it had been, ready to peck at us with her long nose, which was hooked like a
parrot’s in the middle.
“Have any of you paid the King’s cess,[5] or had any dealings with the
malignants?” she said, speaking to us as to children taken in a fault.
“Not save along the barrel of a musket, my lady of Earlstoun!” quoth my
father, drily.
The stern-visaged woman smiled at the ready answer.
“E’en stick to that, goodman of Ardarroch—it is the safest commerce
with such ill-favoured cattle!” she said.](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/25988400-250523081151-d750efee/85/L2-Grammatical-Representation-And-Processing-Theory-And-Practice-Deborah-Arteaga-Editor-29-320.jpg)
![with a great, quiet faithfulness. And he has abode with me through many
tears and stern trials.
So in due time to Edinburgh we twain went, and while I trudged it back
and forth to the college Hob bought with his savings a pedlar’s pack, and
travelled town and country with swatches of cloth, taches for the hair, pins
for the dresses of women-folk, and for the men chap-books and Testaments.
But the strange thing is that, slow and silent as our Hob is at most times, he
could make his way with the good wives of the Lothians as none of those
bred to the trade could do. They tell me he was mightily successful.
I only know that many a day we two might have gone hungry to bed had
it not been for what Hob brought home, instead of, as it was, having our
kites panged full with good meat, like Tod Lowrie when the lambs are
young on the hill.[6]
And often when my heart was done with the dull and dowie days, the
hardness of my heart, and the wryness of learning, Hob would come in with
a lightsome quirk on his queer face, or a jest on his tongue, picked up in
some of the outlying villages, so that I could not help but smile at him,
which made the learning all the easier afterward.
Yet the hardest part of my sore toil at college was the thought that the
more I travailed at the theologies, the less of living religion was in my soul.
Indeed, it was not till I had been back some time among the common folk
who sin and die and are buried, that I began again to taste the savour of vital
religion as of old. For to my thinking there is no more godless class than
just the young collegers in divinity. Nor is this only a mock, as Hob would
have made of it, saying with his queer smile, “Quintin, what think ye o’ a
mission to the heathen divinity lads—to set the fire o’ hell to their tails,
even as Peden the Prophet bade Richie Cameron do to the border thieves o’
Annandale?”
Connect and Addition to Chapter XI. made in after years by Me, Hob
MacClellan.
It is well seen from the foregoing that Quintin, my brother, had no easy
time of it while he was at the college, where they called him “Separator,”
“Hill Whig,” “Young Drumclog,” and other nicknames, some of which
grieved the lad sore.
Now they were mostly leather-jawed, slack-twisted Geordies from the
Hieland border that so troubled our Quintin—who, though he was not](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/25988400-250523081151-d750efee/85/L2-Grammatical-Representation-And-Processing-Theory-And-Practice-Deborah-Arteaga-Editor-39-320.jpg)
![had brought with her for her “morning.”
“You are the young minister who is to preach to us this day?” she said,
going over to the edge of the little wood which at that time bounded the
kirkyard.
I answered her that I was and that I had walked all the way from the
great house of Girthon that morning—whereat she held up her hands in
utter astonishment.
“It is just not possible,” she cried.
And after pitying me a long time with her eyes, and urging me to eat her
“piece” up quickly, she featly stooped down to the water and washed her
feet and ankles, before drawing upon them a pair of white hosen, fair and
thin, and fastening her shoes with the buckles of silver after a pretty fashion
which was just coming in.
It was yet a full hour and a half before the beginning of the morning diet
of worship, for I had risen betimes and travelled steadily. Now the kirk of
Balmaghie stands in a lonely place, and even the adjoining little clachan of
folk averts itself some distance from it.
Then being hungry I sat and munched at the lass’s piece, till, with
thinking on my sermon and looking at her by the waterside, I had well-nigh
eaten it every snatch. So when I awoke from my reverie, as from a deep
sleep, I sat with a little bit of bread, the size of my thumb, in my hand,
staring at it as if I had seen a fairlie.[7]
And what was worse, the lass seeing me thus speechless, and with my
jaws yet working on the last of the crust, went off into peal after peal of
laughter.
“What for do ye look at me like that, young lad?” she said, when she had
sufficiently commanded herself.
“I—I have eaten all your midday piece, whiles I was thinking upon my
sermon,” I said.
“More befitting is it that you should think upon your sermon than of
things lighter and less worthy,” said she, without looking up at me. I was
pleased with her solid answer and felt abashed.
“But you will go wanting,” I began.
She gartered one shapely stocking of silk ere she answered me, holding
the riband that was to cincture the other in her mouth, as appears to be the](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/25988400-250523081151-d750efee/85/L2-Grammatical-Representation-And-Processing-Theory-And-Practice-Deborah-Arteaga-Editor-45-320.jpg)
![“Doubtless, doubtless,” quoth auld Drummie; “but the Balmaghie folk
are none of the waur o’ a bit spur in their flank like a reesty[8] powny that
winna gang. They mind a minute’s jag frae the law mair nor the hale grace
o’ God for a month, and mind ye that! Gin ye come amang us, lad, I’ll learn
ye a trick or twa aboot the folk o’ Balmaghie that ye will be the wiser o’.
Mind, I hae been here a’ my life, and an elder o’ the kirk for thirty year!”
“I am much indebted, sir, for your good intentions, but——”
“Nae buts,” cried auld Drummie. “I hae my dochter Jean’s word that ye
are a braw callan and deserve the pairish, and the pairish ye shall hae.”
“I am much indebted to your daughter,” I made answer. “She succoured
me with bread to eat this morning, when in the kirkyard I was ready to faint
with hunger. Without her kindness I know not how I would have come
through the fatigues of this day’s exercises.”
“Ow, aye,” said the old man; “that’s just like my dochter Jean. And a
douce ceevil lassock she is. But ye should see my ither dochter afore ye
craw sae croose aboot Jean.”
“You have another daughter?” I said, politely.
“Aye,” he cried, with enthusiasm. “Man, where hae ye comed frae that
ye haena heard o’ Alexander-Jonita, the lass wha can tame a wild stallion
that horse-dealers winna tackle, and ride it stride-leg like a man. There’s no’
a maiden in a’ the country can hand a cannle to Alexander-Jonita, the
dochter o’ Nathan Gemmell of Drumglass, in the pairish o’ Balmaghie.”](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/25988400-250523081151-d750efee/85/L2-Grammatical-Representation-And-Processing-Theory-And-Practice-Deborah-Arteaga-Editor-51-320.jpg)
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- 6. SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION Series Editors: Professor David Singleton, University of Pannonia, Hungary and Fellow Emeritus, Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland and Associate Professor Simone E. Pfenninger, University of Salzburg, Austria This series brings together titles dealing with a variety of aspects of language acquisition and processing in situations where a language or languages other than the native language is involved. Second language is thus interpreted in its broadest possible sense. The volumes included in the series all offer in their different ways, on the one hand, exposition and discussionof empiricalfindingsand,ontheother,somedegreeof theoretical reflection. In this latter connection, no particular theoretical stance is privileged in the series; nor is any relevant perspective – sociolinguistic, psycholinguistic, neurolinguistic, etc. – deemed out of place. The intended readership of the series includes final-year undergraduates working on second language acquisition projects, postgraduate students involved in second language acquisition research, and researchers, teachers and policy-makers in general whose interests include a second language acquisition component. All books in this series are externally peer-reviewed. Full details of all the books in this series and of all our other publications can be found on http://www.multilingual-matters.com, or by writing to Multilingual Matters, St Nicholas House, 31-34 High Street, Bristol BS1 2AW, UK.
- 7. SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION: 136 L2 Grammatical Representation and Processing Theory and Practice Edited by Deborah Arteaga MULTILINGUAL MATTERS Bristol • Blue Ridge Summit
- 8. DOI https://doi.org/10.21832/ARTEAG5341 Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. Names: Arteaga, Deborah, editor. Title: L2 Grammatical Representation and Processing: Theory and Practice / Edited by Deborah Arteaga. Description: Bristol; Blue Ridge Summit: Multilingual Matters, [2019] | Series: Second Language Acquisition: 136 | Includes bibliographical references. | Summary: ‘This book presents an array of new research on several current theoretical debates in the field of SLA. The studies address questions relating to ultimate attainment, first language transfer, universal properties of SLA, processing and second language (L2) grammar, and explore a number of grammatical features of the L2’ – Provided by publisher. Identifiers: LCCN 2019018875 (print) | LCCN 2019022397 (ebook) | ISBN 9781788925341 (hbk : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781788925334 (pbk : alk. paper) Subjects: LCSH: Second language acquisition. | French language – Grammar – Study and teaching – Foreign speakers. Classification: LCC P118.2.L177 2019 (print) | LCC P118.2 (ebook) | DDC 418.0071 – dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019018875 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019022397 British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue entry for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN-13: 978-1-78892-534-1 (hbk) ISBN-13: 978-1-78892-533-4 (pbk) Multilingual Matters UK: St Nicholas House, 31-34 High Street, Bristol BS1 2AW, UK. USA: NBN, Blue Ridge Summit, PA, USA. Website: www.multilingual-matters.com Twitter: Multi_Ling_Mat Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/multilingualmatters Blog: www.channelviewpublications.wordpress.com Copyright © 2019 Deborah Arteaga and the authors of individual chapters. All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced in any form or by any means without permission in writing from the publisher. The policy of Multilingual Matters/Channel View Publications is to use papers that are natural, renewable and recyclable products, made from wood grown in sustainable forests. In the manufacturing process of our books, and to further support our policy, preference is given to printers that have FSC and PEFC Chain of Custody certification. The FSC and/or PEFC logos will appear on those books where full certification has been granted to the printer concerned. Typeset by Riverside Publishing Solutions Printed and bound in the UK by the CPI Books Group Ltd. Printed and bound in the US by NBN.
- 9. v Contents Contributors vii Introduction 1 Julia Herschensohn 1 Specificity Affects Determiner Choice Even When Definiteness Transfers 12 Asya Achimova and Viviane Déprez 2 What Can Acquisition Studies Contribute to the Instruction of Register? A Case Study of French 28 Deborah Arteaga and Julia Herschensohn 3 The L2 Acquisition of French Morphosyntax by Anglophone Learners: Refocusing on the Input 47 Dalila Ayoun 4 When Nonnative Speakers Show Distinction: Syntax and Task Interactions in Long-Distance Anaphoric Dependencies in French 68 Laurent Dekydtspotter and Charlene Gilbert 5 Age Effects and Morphological Markedness in L2 Processing of Gender Agreement: Insights from Eye Tracking 93 Nuria Sagarra 6 Finding their Heads: How Immigrant Adults Posit L2 Functional Projections 116 Anne Vainikka and Martha Young-Scholten 7 The Acquisition Environment for Instructed L2 Learners: Implementing Hybrid and Online Language Courses 139 Bridget Yaden Conclusion 160 Deborah Arteaga Index 166
- 10. To Julia Herschensohn, for her seminal work in L2 Acquisition and for her mentoring and support of so many of us.
- 11. vii Contributors Asya Achimova is a postdoc at the University of Tübingen in a Research Training Group ‘Ambiguity – Perception and Production’. She got her PhD in Psychology from Rutgers University where she worked on the scopal ambiguities in questions with quantifiers. She was also involved in research on the acquisition of determiners in second language French. After her PhD, she taught courses on bilingualism and second language acquisition at the University of Leipzig. Asya now focuses on modeling the pragmatics of ambiguity resolution in conversation within the Rational Speech Acts framework. Deborah Arteaga is Professor of Spanish at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, where she has held a variety of administrative positions (Chair, Associate Dean, Enrollment Management Coordinator), in addition to teaching all levels of Spanish and French language and linguistics, and coordination of Spanish teaching assistants and part-time instructors. She received her MA in French at the University of Colorado, Boulder, and her PhD in Romance Linguistics at the University of Washington. Her research topics include Diachronic French Syntax, Second Language Acquisition (with Julia Herschensohn), and Teaching Social and Regional Variation in Spanish. Dalila Ayoun is Professor of French Linguistics and SLAT at the University of Arizona. Her research focuses on the second language acquisition of morphosyntax as well as French theoretical and applied linguistics from a generative perspective. Her most recent publications include a co-edited volume (Ayoun et al., 2018. Tense, Aspect, Modality and Evidentiality: Cross-Linguistic Perspectives. Amsterdam: John Benjamins), a mono- graph (The Second Language Acquisition of French Tense, Aspect and Mood and Modality. Amsterdam: John Benjamins) and an article (2018. Grammatical gender assignment in French: Dispelling the native speaker myth. Journal of French Language Studies 28, 113–148). LaurentDekydtspotterisaProfessorintheDepartmentof FrenchItalian and in the Department of Second Language Studies at Indiana University Bloomington. He is also the Chair of the Department of Second Language Studies. His research mostly addresses second language sentence interpre- tation. His primary interests reside in the role of natural language syntax
- 12. viii Contributors in the real-time integration of information in interpreting a second lan- guage. A string of experiments so far suggests a structural reflex in second language learners of French, challenging the notion that second language learners do not engage in real-time structural computations. Viviane Déprez is a native of Paris, France, who grew up in German- speaking Switzerland. She went to the United States to complete her PhD in the Department of Linguistics and Philosophy at MIT. After graduat- ing she joined the Rutgers Department of Linguistics and also became a Research affiliate of the Cognitive Science Lab at Princeton University until 1993, and subsequently an affiliate member of the Rutgers University Center for Cognitive Sciences and of the Rutgers Graduate Faculty of Psychology. She is currently a member of the CNRS Lab on Language, Brain and Cognition in Bron and the director of the Comparative Experimental Linguistics (CELL) Lab at Rutgers. Charlene Gilbert is a PhD candidate in the Department of French Italian as well as in the Department of Linguistics at Indiana University Bloomington. Her research interests lie in second language sentence inter- pretation and processing. More specifically, her dissertation work focuses on how English speakers who are learning French process various syntactic structures under anaphora resolution and in the context of long- distance dependencies. Preliminary results suggest that learners of French as a second language compute syntactic details within working memory con- straints, and do not solely relying on lexical and contextual information. Julia Herschensohn earned her doctorate in Linguistics at the University of Washington and subsequently held teaching positions at Middlebury College and Cornell University before returning to the University of Washington where she served as Professor and Chair of Linguistics for 15 years. She has published seven books and dozens of articles spanning the areas of generative syntax, second language acquisition theory, and applied linguistics, especially in the Romance languages (synchronic and diachronic). The main areas of specialization are theoretical syntax and nonnative language learning, linked in her current research dealing with language processing and age effects. Nuria Sagarra (PhD, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign) researches how monolinguals and bilinguals process morphosyntax and syntax. In particular, she explores how processing is modulated by age of acquisition, language experience with the L1 and the L2, proficiency, learning context (immersion), and linguistic characteristics, such as morphological markedness, saliency, animacy, and redundancy. She also investigates whether monolinguals and bilinguals use suprasegmental cues to anticipate morphological information during word recognition, and whether anticipatory abilities are trainable. Finally, she examines
- 13. Contributors ix processing patterns in monolingual and bilingual typically and atypically developing children. She investigates these topics using self-paced reading, eye-tracking, and ERPs. Anne Vainikka (PhD, UMass/Amherst) was adjunct professor at the University of Delaware in Linguistics and Cognitive Science. Her PhD on Finnish syntax laid the groundwork for most subsequent work on its syntax and her continued work on Finnish was a major contribution to work on Uralic languages. During her graduate studies, she started to work on child language acquisition, and then in Germany with Martha Young-Scholten on second language acquisition. Her interest in tack- ling long-standing problems recently led to her Verb Company and more systematic introduction of English spelling to beginning readers includ- ing those using the Digital Literacy Instructor software Martha Young- Scholten helped develop. Martha Young-Scholten (PhD) (University of Washington, Seattle) is professor of second language acquisition at Newcastle University. Since the 1980s she has conducted research on uninstructed adults’ acquisition of German and English morphosyntax. In the early 2000s, she began to investigate acquisition of morphosyntax, phonology and development of phonological awareness and reading by adult migrants with little formal education. She has taught and presented at universities and at conferences on five continents, serves on journal editorial boards and co-edits series for de Gruyter Mouton and Narr Francke Verlag. With Julia Herschensohn, she co-edited the 2013/2018 Cambridge University Press Handbook of Second Language Acquisition. Bridget Yaden, PhD, is Professor of Hispanic Studies and Director of the Language Resource Center at Pacific Lutheran University (PLU) in Tacoma, Washington. She holds a PhD and MA in Romance Linguistics (UW) and a BA in Spanish (WWU). She began her involvement in lan- guage centers during her graduate studies at the University of Washington (1995–1996, Language Learning Center) and has continued this work at PLU since 1996. Her research interests include online language programs, bilingual education, and world language teacher preparation. She has served on many professional boards, including president-elect of ACTFL, NWALL, AATSP Juan de Fuca Chapter, WAFLT, and PNCFL.
- 15. 1 Introduction Julia Herschensohn Overview From a historical perspective, theoretical approaches to second lan- guage (L2) studies can be viewed as both cyclic and innovative. Scholarship in the mid-20th century focused on contrastive analysis (Lado, 1957), the role of the native language (transfer) in acquisition of the L2, while recommending audiolingual pedagogy based on behaviorist principles (Lado, 1964). Two decades later, scholarship focused on universal prop- erties of language and acquisition (Bailey et al., 1974) while advocating communicative language teaching. From the 1980s, in both formalist Universal Grammar (UG), (White, 1989) and functionalist – sociocultural (Lantolf, 1994), cognitive (McLaughlin, 1987), and interactionist (Swain, 1985) – theoretical approaches, L2 acquisition (L2A) research expanded significantly. Interest in native transfer and concentration on universal properties have repeated cyclically over the decades, whereas theoretical innovations and empirical evidence have moved scholarship forward over many decades. The link between theory of L2A and pedagogical practice has also varied cyclically. L2 research may ignore any pedagogical impli- cations, particularly with respect to studies of naturalistic L2A (Klein Perdue, 1992). Likewise, Gil et al. (2017: 4) point out that ‘the approach to second language acquisition that assumes a formal generative linguistic orientation to the properties of language has, in the bulk of its research, abstracted away from the language classroom.’ In contrast, some L2 research may involve actual instruction, for example in terms of minia- ture language systems (Ellis Sagarra, 2010) or it may point to a bene- ficial methodology (e.g. Hopp, 2016). In the same spirit, Gil et al. (2017) advocate for experimental classroom research based on formal generative theory, a reprise of earlier work bridging theory and practice (e.g. Arteaga Herschensohn, 1995; Arteaga et al., 2003; Whong, 2011). The chapters in the current collection are aimed at Second Language Acquisition (SLA) researchers with interest in pedagogical implications, including scholars who use SLA expertise to assist teaching, and touch on both L2 theory and its application in pedagogical settings. The major- ity of the authors work in the formal generative paradigm (hence they presume some familiarity with that framework) and gather their evidence
- 16. 2 L2 Grammatical Representation and Processing for the most part from classroom learners, with each chapter presenting a new set of empirical data. In terms of theory and practice, the chap- ters range from very theoretical (Chapter 4, Dekydtspotter Gilbert) to very pedagogical (Chapter 7, Yaden), although most fall in the middle of the continuum. While the collection is not designed to be a lesson in language pedagogy, many of the chapters do address classroom applica- tions. Arteaga and Herschensohn (Chapter 2) make concrete suggestions for teaching sociocultural pragmatic skills at beginning and advanced levels. Ayoun (Chapter 3) considers the use of certain assessment tools as measures of advanced student mastery of verbal morphology. Yaden (Chapter 7) presents a detailed picture of both overall curriculum and classroom implementation of technology in online and hybrid course- work. Finally, the Conclusion presents pedagogical implications of each study on a chapter by chapter basis, so that readers are led to consider the importance of linguistic theory to classroom L2 learning. Currently,theoreticalframeworksexaminingL2Acontinuetolineupin formalist versus functionalist camps, but both share similar concerns and methodologies. Connectionist–emergentist and functionalist approaches (e.g. Ellis Larsen-Freeman, 2009; Elman et al., 1996) view language as a learned phenomenon that uses similar cognitive mechanisms as for other (animal and machine) learning, based on frequency of input and strength of activation of certain factors. Functionalist approaches are less interested in grammatical features than the role of token mastery and analogy in language learning. In contrast, formalist UG approaches (Herschensohn, 2000; White, 2003) aim to discern the properties of the interlanguage (between L1 and L2) grammar of the language learner at different stages of the L2 development. Scholarship in the UG tradition is often concentrated on a single stage in a property theory framework, but some work aims to view the developmental process in a transition theory framework (Gregg, 2003), through longitudinal or cross-sectional studies. The chapters in this collection are mainly situated in a UG framework from both property and transition perspectives. Vainikka and Young-Scholten’s (Chapter 6) Organic Grammar is a transition theory noting the stages that characterize L2 development; they examine a broad range of native and second languages in providing an account of the filler words that have been documented for decades. Achimova and Déprez (Chapter 1) use a cross-sectional population to do a longitudinal investigation of L2 article mastery. Arteaga and Herschensohn (Chapter 2) and Yaden (Chapter 7) report on evaluations of L2 learners that span a year. The other studies present a snapshot of a static level of competence, from intermediate to highly advanced learners. Within formalist theory, there are two perspectives on the role of the native language for the abstract grammatical features in the developing L2, for both grammatical representation and processing. For representa- tion, the contrast is set in terms of the availability of grammatical features
- 17. Introduction 3 at early stages of L2 acquisition, with structure building approaches (Hawkins, 2001) assuming limited availability, and full access approaches (Schwartz Sprouse, 1996) assuming theoretical availability of L2 gram- matical features. Schwartz and Sprouse propose that at the initial stage of L2A, the learner’s grammar is a full transfer of the native one, but that UG is fully accessible for the learner at all stages; this is characterized as full transfer/full access (FTFA). The learner’s task is to unconsciously infer the similarities and differences between the L1 and L2 grammars based on the primary linguistic data received from the input. A number of real- life intervening factors such as age of acquisition onset (AoA), amount of input or cognitive overload may hinder the learner’s acquisition or their use of the grammar in real-time processing. Subsequent research has explored such factors and built accounts for the oft-observed weaknesses in L2 morphological realization (Lardiere, 2009). In contrast to FTFA, grammatical deficit approaches (Snape et al., 2009) view the morpho- logical errors as evidence of defective syntax. The initial state of the L2 grammar may transfer lexical categories, but not functional ones, and for adults it will be difficult to acquire L2 functional categories given a critical period (late AoA) handicap. In this volume, Vainikka and Young-Scholten (Chapter 6) address the debate directly in arguing for structure building in their Organic Grammar proposal. Ayoun (Chapter 3) tests hypotheses related to morphological errors in terms of verbal tense and aspect, while Achimova and Déprez (Chapter 1) test determiner features of definiteness and specificity. For processing, the contrast may be seen as qualitatively different (Clahsen Felser, 2006) versus qualitatively similar (Hopp, 2013) pro- cessing strategies in both native and second language. Clahsen and Felser (2006), following in the path of fundamental difference due to critical period effects (Bley-Vroman, 1990), propose that adult L2 learners differ substantially in their parsing of the target language from child learners of the language. They propose that native speakers, in parsing the incom- ing language, are able to assign complex structures as they receive input, whereas L2 adults are only capable of doing ‘shallow’ processing (the Shallow Structure Hypothesis) that remains linear and local. In contrast, Hopp (2013) argues for fundamental similarity between L1 and L2 pro- cessing, attributing differences to factors other than AoA, such as reaction speed (L2 adults are inevitably much slower than natives) or representa- tional lacunae (e.g. lack of knowledge of accurate gender for a given lexical item). The chapters collected here include two addressing the processing debate directly. Dekydtspotter and Gilbert (Chapter 4) set out to test very advanced speakers of L2 French and find that they actually outperform native French speakers in terms of processing subtle differences between long-distance anaphora. Sagarra (Chapter 5) looks at intermediate learn- ers of L2 Spanish, whose processing of gender and number agreement definitely shows influence of L1 English in their greater skill with number
- 18. 4 L2 Grammatical Representation and Processing than gender. The differences between intermediate and advanced learners is also highlighted by Achimova and Déprez (Chapter 1), who advance the hypothesis that processing load leads to differential responses between different levels of proficiency. More advanced learners, whose grammati- cal mastery of determiner features is better established, are better able to bring to bear this knowledge in article selection; less advanced learners, more susceptible to processing demands, show diminished performance in the same task. All approaches have used increasingly complex and sensitive measures of assessment of language skills, exploiting offline (accuracy tests of com- prehension and production) and online (real-time measures of L2 process- ing in comprehension and production) methodologies. While each chapter in this collection may concentrate on a small part of the L2 grammar, altogether they use real-time production and comprehension processing data to deduce the grammatical representation of the interlanguage of the L2 participants. Ranging from spontaneous production (Arteaga Herschensohn (Chapter 2), Vainikka and Young-Scholten (Chapter 6)) to specific testing of classroom learners (Achimova Déprez (Chapter 1), Ayoun (Chapter 3), Yaden (Chapter 7)), to online reaction time and eye tracking (Dekydtspotter Gilbert (Chapter 4), Sagarra (Chapter 5)), the chapters use a broad selection of tools to contribute to L2A scholarship. Chapters in this Volume Chapter 1: Achimova and Déprez Reexamining Ionin’s Fluctuation Hypothesis, Achimova and Déprez consider the acquisition of the features of definiteness and specificity by Anglophone L2 learners of French. Definiteness indicates shared presup- position of a referent by speaker and hearer, while specificity indicates the speaker’s knowledge of a unique referent in a given context. Unlike learners – such as Russian or Korean L1 speakers – whose L1 does not possess articles, Anglophones do have native articles with similar distri- bution to French of the two features in question, a fact that should lead to straightforward transfer. Ionin et al. (2004) propose that languages favor either [definite] or [specific] as the canonical morphological mark (the Article Choice Parameter), and that learners may use the incorrect morphological form as they gain mastery of the L2 differing in featural value (the Fluctuation Hypothesis). Subsequent research has shown fluc- tuation among learners, but some predictions of the hypothesis have not been borne out; furthermore, evidence from native speakers has shown that the Article Choice Parameter is more complex than originally stated. Achimova and Déprez carry out a cross-sectional study of French learn- ers (low, mid and advanced college students), using an article choice task based on short situations and combining [definite] and [specific] features
- 19. Introduction 5 in both values. Although both French and English mark definiteness overtly and use specificity in a similar manner, the learners show increased article misuse in [+def –spec] and [–def +spec] contexts; that is, when the two features clash. Furthermore, errors are greater for the less proficient learners, leading the researchers to look to processing load as a factor. They argue that specificity is a pragmatic feature related to knowledge of the speaker with respect to reference. While L1 transfer facilitates article choice in the French-English pairing, cognitive pressure affects the com- putation of common ground in the less proficient learners. This chapter contributes to the growing evidence that knowledge of the L2 is mediated strongly by the processing load brought to bear in implementation. Chapter 2: Arteaga and Herschensohn Arteaga and Herschensohn use data from two advanced learners of L2 French to explore sociolinguistic competence in second language acquisition, and they then make recommendations based on their find- ings to enhance classroom instruction in discourse and pragmatic com- petence. They begin with a review of earlier work on L2 sociolinguistic competence, noting that work by Dewaele (2004), Dewaele and Regan (2002), Regan (1998), Rehner and Mougeon (1999), Rehner et al. (2003) and Armstrong (2002) has emphasized the importance of mastery of cultural knowledge and sociopragmatic appropriateness to learners of a second language. Of particular focus in terms of register in French is the appropriate use (and deletion) of negative ne, replacement of nous ‘we’ by on and the accurate deployment of second person tu and vous. First person plural is almost exclusively restricted to on in current spoken French, whereas ne deletion is a definite mark of informal register. Tu and vous use depends on a number of factors, more sociocultural than register based, but is a matter of difficulty for French L2 learners. These points are the areas of investigation in the new corpus, a collection of six interviews (three each) from two distinct profiles of language learner, ‘Max’ (an aca- demic learner whose AoA is 48) and ‘Chloe’ (a more naturalistic learner whose AoA is 13). Both are interviewed before, during and after a year’s stay in France. Max’s style favors the formal, especially for ne deletion, whereas Chloe’s style is more informal due to casual interactions with peers, diminished formal education and lower age of acquisition onset. These factors offer her fewer opportunities to switch into more formal registers. Using the data presented, the authors advocate the instruction of sociolinguistic competence by furnishing classroom students communi- cative activities that elicit appropriate register and interpersonal address. There are suggestions for both beginning/intermediate and for advanced learners to engage in structured communication through role play, infor- mation gap and more advanced discussions using films.
- 20. 6 L2 Grammatical Representation and Processing Chapter 3: Ayoun Ayoun brings to bear her extensive research background in tense- aspect-modality (TAM) to examine short-term development of TAM mastery by fourth year college students of L2 French. She compares students with three different native languages: heritage French, heritage Spanish (with a similar TAM system to French) and English. After review- ing previous studies showing that TAM is a persistent learnability issue for L2 learners – especially the less frequent perfect tenses (e.g. pluperfect, future perfect) – she outlines three theoretical approaches to morpholog- ical feature-form mapping: the Missing (Surface) Inflection Hypothesis, the Prosodic Transfer Hypothesis and the Interface Hypothesis. She notes the following points of difficulty for Anglophones learning L2 French: abstract features of aspect and their correlation to surface forms (e.g. passé composé versus imparfait, être en train de progressive) and the mood differences between indicative and subjunctive. The semester-long study (with a post-test after completion of the term) investigated longitu- dinal changes in the ability of the students to produce target verb forms in a cloze test format. Classroom pedagogy included communicative meth- odology, audiovisual materials, recasts and interpersonal involvement in a course that used movies as the launching point for the study of the cor- responding novel that the students discussed over a period of weeks. The results indicated quite a bit of variability among the students, with dispro- portionate mastery of present tense over others and of stative over telic and activity verbs. There was also no advantage in TAM for French and Spanish heritage learners (despite their advantage in the initial general proficiency test). Ayoun concludes that cloze tests are not a good instru- ment for testing students, because they produce quite varied results for the native speaker controls, who sometimes scored but half of the targeted forms (yet were appropriate). She suggests that explicit instruction and corrective feedback may be more effective than implicit instruction and recasts, whose ‘correction’ may be missed by the student. Chapter 4: Dekydtspotter and Gilbert Dekydspotter and Gilbert investigate the relationship of grammatical knowledge (representation) and its implementation in real-time process- ing while comparing native speakers (NSs) and nonnative speakers (NNSs) on two tasks involving long distance anaphora. They consider Clahsen and Felser’s (2006) Shallow Processing Hypothesis – which holds that L2 learners use only superficial parsing, whereas native speakers employ detailed grammatical representations in their parse – and the possibility that shallow processing may become more detailed under environmental circumstances (e.g. living in L2 target environment or performing a task focused on grammaticality). Their area of investigation is long distance
- 21. Introduction 7 anaphoric dependencies in multiply embedded sentences in French, con- trasting selected complement (1) versus nonselected modifier (2). (1) Quelle décision à propos de luii est-ce que Pauli a dit que Lydie avait rejetée [quelle décision à propos de lui] sans hésitation? ‘What decision about himself did Paul say that Lydie had rejected without hesitation?’ (2) Quelle décision lei concernant est-ce que Pauli a dit que Lydie avait rejetée [quelle décision] sans hésitation? ‘What decision concerning him did Paul say Lydie had rejected without hesitation?’ The anaphor lui in (1) is syntactically bound in the embedded position and raised with its head noun to matrix Complementizer Phrase (CP); in contrast, le in (2) gains coreference through discourse semantics, not syntax. The referential chain of (1) should reduce processing load and increase speed of parsing compared to that of (2). The contrast permits the authors to design an experiment that will test the hypothesis for both NSs and NNSs. Using a moving window design, they compare reading times (RTs) and accuracy of the two groups, finding that the NSs and NNSs are comparable on both criteria. They also address the issues of environment (their subjects are not in a target environment) and grammaticality (the tasks focus on meaning and reference, not grammaticality). The compa- rability of the native and nonnative groups lead them to conclude that the noun-complements with matching embedded clause subjects induced the advanced L2 learners to read the verb generally more quickly than NP-modifiers did (see Chapter 4, p. 87), thus supporting their contention that NNSs are capable of processing as do NSs and that anaphoric chains facilitate syntactic parsing. Chapter 5: Sagarra Sagarra gives fresh perspectives on the well-explored area of second language difficulties with gender agreement, considering the influence of learner characteristics, morphological markedness and experiment design. Drawing from the extensive L2 literature of the past 25 years, she reviews the competing representational and processing accounts. The former propose either that post-critical period learners are morphologi- cally impaired if their native language does not have gender agreement, or that factors other than age of acquisition onset cause L2 agreement difficulties. Some morphology-based models propose that default (e.g. masculine, singular) forms are more available to L2 learners than marked (feminine, plural) ones in both comprehension and production. The latter attribute processing factors such as cognitive load, input frequency or morphological transparency as the source of L2 agreement problems. The author points out that the conflicting results obtained in earlier studies
- 22. 8 L2 Grammatical Representation and Processing can be in part attributed to the experiment designs’ using explicit (requir- ing more cognitive resources) rather than implicit tasks and noncumu- lative presentation. Her investigation studies intermediate Anglophone L2 Spanish learners’ perception of agreement/disagreement of adjectives with respect to gender and number, asking two research questions: (1) do L2 learners process gender agreement/disagreement as do native speak- ers of Spanish? and (2) does morphological markedness affect native and L2 processing? A corollary question is whether experimental design may have an impact on results. Using eye tracking of self-paced reading (an implicit, cumulative methodology that is cognitively facilitative), she tests native and L2 reading responses in terms of reaction time and cumula- tive eye movement. Her results indicate that L2 learners are slower than native speakers, but that the processing of agreement and disagreement of adjectives is qualitatively similar for both groups, and that morpholog- ical markedness is not a factor in processing for either native speakers or for L2 learners. She also finds a distinction for both groups in processing gender versus number, which she convincingly explains in the discussion. Chapter 6: Vainikka and Young-Scholten Working within a Universal Grammar framework, Vainikka and Young-Scholten elaborate their model of Organic Grammar (OG) as a theoretical account of L2 acquisition. OG is a theory of transition that accounts for the evolving grammar of the learner at different stages of acquisition. In this chapter, they particularly focus on the use of what they call placeholders as a stage in the development of the morphosyntax of Tense Phrase (TP). The authors first outline the two theoretical ‘camps’ in developmental L1 and L2 acquisition: those who maintain that functional projections are absent in the earliest grammars (e.g. Radford, 1995 for L1A, Hawkins, 2001 for L2A) and those who argue that functional pro- jections are present but unrealized (e.g. Lust, 2006 for L1A, Lardiere, 2009 for L2A). For both L1 and L2, production from the earliest stages is devoid of inflectional morphology, function words and accurate syntactic order. The authors belong to the first camp and have built their framework over decades for both L1 and L2; the current chapter contributes to the ongoing elaboration of their theory. Learners begin with only lexical projections, not functional ones, and in the case of L2A they start with their L1 direc- tionality bias. OG is based on four assumptions: (1) a master tree is the backbone of syntactic structure, containing all functional projections for a given language; (2) inflectional morphology mirrors syntax; (3) acqui- sition is constrained by UG; and (4) development of grammar proceeds from lowest to highest functional projection. In intermediate stages, the authors argue that learners substitute placeholders – closed class items that are not target-like, yet are functional not lexical items – to transi- tion to the correct target morphosyntax. Examples from L2 German,
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- 24. “I am sore vexed to have made our father angry,” he said, “but the answer came upon me suddenly, and in truth it was a proper jest—for, of course, a leopard could not play back-sword.”
- 25. CHAPTER VIII. THE MUSTER OF THE HILL FOLK. Men who know the strange history of the later life of me, Quintin MacClellan, may wonder that the present narrative discovers so little concerning my changes of opinion and stresses of spiritual conflict. But of these things I have written in extension elsewhere, and those who desire more than a personal narrative know well where to find the recital of my difficulties, covenantings, and combatings for the cause. For myself, the memory of the day on the Bennan top was more than enough, and made me a high Covenant man for life. So that when I heard how King James was fled and his son-in-law, William of Orange, landed I could not contain myself, but bade Hob and David to come with me and light a beacon-fire on the top of the Millyea, that fair and shapely mountain. This after severe labour we did, and they say that the light was seen over a dozen parishes. Then there came word to the Glenkens that there was to be a Convention in Edinburgh of men chosen out of every shire and county, called and presided over by Duke Hamilton. But it was the bruit of the countryside that this parliament would turn out even as the others, and be ground under the heel of the old kingsmen and malignants.[4] So about this time there came to see my father two men grave and grey, their beards blanched with dripping hill-caves and with sleeping out in the snell winds and biting frosts of many a winter, without better shelter than some cold moss-hag or the bieldy side of a snow wreath. “There is to be a great rising of the Seven Thousand. The whole West is marching to Edinburgh!” cried in at the door the elder of the two—one Steel, a noted Covenanter from Lesmahago. But the other, when his dark cloak blew back, showed a man of slender figure, but with a face of calm resolve and indomitable courage—the proven face of a soldier. He was in a fair uniform—that, as I afterwards found, of one of the Prince of Orange’s Scots-Dutch regiments.
- 26. “This,” said Steel to my father, “is Colonel William Gordon, brother of Earlstoun, who is come directly from the Prince of Orange to represent his cause in his own country of the West.” In a moment a spark lighted in my heart, blazed up and leaped to my tongue. “What,” I cried, “William Gordon—who carried the banner at Sanquhar and fought shoulder to shoulder with Cameron at Ayrsmoss.” For it was my mother’s favourite tale. The slender man with the calm soldier-like face smiled quietly and made me a little bow, the like of which for grace I had never seen in our land. It had so much of foreign habitude in it, mixed with a simple and personal kindliness native to the man. “Ah,” he said, “I am ten years older since then—I fear me not ten years wiser.” His voice sounded clear and pleasant, yet it was indubitably the voice of a man to be obeyed. “How many sons and limber house-carles can you spare, Ardarroch,” said he, watching my father’s face, “to march with me to keep the Convention out of the clutches of my Lord Dundee?” “Of the devil’s hound, Clavers, mean ye?” corrected my father suddenly, the fierce, rooted light of hatred gleaming keen and sharp, like the blade of a dagger which is drawn just an inch from its sheath and then returned. “There are three of us on the farm, besides the boy Quintin, my youngest son. And every one of them shall ride to Edinburgh with you on their own horses.” “Four shall ride, father,” said I, stepping forward. “I am the youngest, but let me also strike a blow. I am as fit of my body as either Hob or David there, and have a better desire and goodwill than either of them.” “But, lad,” said my father, not ill pleased, “there are your mother and sister to look after. Bide you here and take care of the house.” “There needs none to take care of the house while ye leave us here with a musket or two and plenty of powder and lead,” cried my mother. “Anna and I shall be safer, aye, and the fuller of gladness that ye are all in Edinburgh doing the Lord’s work. Ride ye, therefore, all the four of you!”
- 27. “Yes,” added Anna, with the sweet stillness of her eye on the ground, “let Quintin go, father. None would harm us in all the countryside.” “Indeed, I think so,” growled my father, “having John MacClellan to reckon with on our return.” Whereat for very thankfulness I took the two women’s hands, and Colonel Gordon said, “Aye, Ardarroch, give the lad his will. In time past I had my share of biding by the house while my elders rode to battle, and I love the boy’s eagerness. He has in him the stuff of good soldiers.” And for these words I could have kissed the feet of Colonel William Gordon. The muster was appointed to be at Earlstoun on the morrow, and immediately there befell at Ardarroch a great polishing of accoutrement and grinding of swords, for during the late troubles the arms had been searched for over and over again. So it befel that they were hidden in the thatch of outhouse roofs, wrapped in cloths and carried to distant sandhills to be buried, or laid away in the damp caves of the linns. Yet by the time all was brought in we were armed none so ill. My father had first choice, and then we three lads drew lots for the other weapons. To me came the longest straw, and I took the musket and a broad-bladed dagger, because I knew that our madcap David had set his heart on the basket-hilted sword to swing by his side, and I saw Hob’s eyes fixed on the pair of excellent horse-pistols which my father had bought when the effects of Patrick Verner (called “the Traitor”) were sold in Dumfries. At Earlstoun, then, we assembled, but not immediately at the great house —for that was presently under repair after its occupation by troops in the troubles—but at a farmhouse near by, where at the time were abiding Mistress Alexander Gordon and her children, waiting for the final release of her husband from Blackness Castle. When it came to the point of our setting out, there came word from Colonel Gordon that no more than two of us were to go to Edinburgh on horseback, owing to the scarcity of forage in the city and the difficulty of stabling horses. “Let us again draw lots!” said my father. But we told him that there was no question of that, for that he and David must ride while Hob and I would march afoot. “And if I cannot keep up with the best that our David can ride on Kittle Kate, I will drown myself in the first six-inch duck-pond upon the road to
- 28. Edinburgh!” cried Hob MacClellan. So we went down the green loaning of Ardarroch with the women’s tears yet wet upon our cheeks, and a great opening of larger hopes dominating the little hollow qualms of parting in our hearts. Wider horizons beckoned us on. Intents and resolves, new and strange, thrilled us. I for one felt for the first time altogether a man, and I said within my heart as I looked at the musket which my father carried for me across his saddle-bow in order that I might run light, “Gladly will I die for the sake of the lad whom I saw murdered on the Bennan top!”
- 29. CHAPTER IX. I MEET MARY GORDON FOR THE SECOND TIME. And when we arrived, lo! before the little white farm there was a great muster. My Lord Kenmure himself rode over to review us. For the Committee of Estates drawn together by the Duke Hamilton had named him as responsible for the Stewartry of Kirkcudbright. But that which was of greater interest to me than any commission or enrollment was the appearing of two women upon the doorstep of the cottage—the Lady of Earlstoun and her daughter Mary. Now it is to be remembered that Alexander Gordon’s wife was a sister of Sir Robert Hamilton, the commander at Bothwell Brig—a man whose ungovernable temper, and genius for setting one man at variance with his fellow, had lost us Bothwell Brig and the life of many a brave lad of the hills. And Mary’s mother, Jean Hamilton, was like her brother in that somewhat pretentious piety which is of all things the most souring and embittering. So that even my father said—good, honest man, that would speak ill of none all the days of his life: “If I had a wife like yon woman, I declare I would e’en turn Malignant and shoot her without warrant of law or benefit of clergy.” Jean Gordon came down off the doorstep and stood in front of us four MacClellans, looking out upon us with her keen, black eyes, and seeming as it had been, ready to peck at us with her long nose, which was hooked like a parrot’s in the middle. “Have any of you paid the King’s cess,[5] or had any dealings with the malignants?” she said, speaking to us as to children taken in a fault. “Not save along the barrel of a musket, my lady of Earlstoun!” quoth my father, drily. The stern-visaged woman smiled at the ready answer. “E’en stick to that, goodman of Ardarroch—it is the safest commerce with such ill-favoured cattle!” she said.
- 30. And with that she stepped further on to interrogate some newcomers who had arrived after us in the yard of the farm. But indeed I minded her nothing. For there was a sweeter and fairer thing to see standing by the cheek of the door—even young Mary Gordon, the very maid I had once carried so far in my arms, now grown a great lass and a tall, albeit still slender as a year-old wand of willow by the water’s edges. Her hair, which had been lint white when I brought her down the side of Bennan after the shooting of the poor lad, was now darkening into a golden brown, with thick streaks of a warmer hue, ruddy as copper, running through it. This girl leaned against the doorstep, her shapely head inclined a little sideways, and her profile clear and cold as the graving on a seal ring, turned away from me. For my life I could not take my eyes off her. “I, even I, Quintin MacClellan, have carried that girl in my arms and thought nothing of it!” I said the words over and over to myself, and somehow they were exceedingly pleasing to me. I had ever sneered at love and love-making before, but (I own it) after seeing that fair young lass stand by the low entering in of the farmhouse door, I scoffed no more. Yet she seemed all unconscious that I or any other was near her. But it came to me with power I could not resist, that I should make myself known to her. And though I expected nothing of remembrance, grace, or favour, yet —such is the force of compelling love, the love that comes at the first sight (and I believe in no other kind) that I put all my pride under my feet, and went forward humbly to speak with her, holding my bonnet of blue in my hand. For as yet we of the Earlstoun levies had fallen into no sort of order, neither had we been drilled according to the rules of war, but stood about in scattering groups, waiting for the end of the conference between my Lord of Kenmure and Colonel William Gordon. As I approached, awkwardly enough, the maid turned her eyes upon me with some surprise, and the light of them shone cold as winter moonlight glinting upon new-fallen snow. I made my best and most dutiful obedience, even as my mother had showed me, for she was gentle of kin and breeding, far beyond my father.
- 31. “Mistress Mary,” I said, scarce daring to raise my eyes to hers, but keeping them fixed upon the point of my own rough brogans. “You have without doubt forgotten me. Yet have I never for an hour forgotten you.” I knew all the while that her eyes were burning auger holes into me. But I could not raise my awkward coltish face to hers. She stood a little more erect, waiting for me to speak again. I could see so much without looking. Whereat, after many trials, I mustered up courage to go on. “Mind you not the lad who brought you down from the Bennan top so long ago, and took you under cloud of night to the tower of Lochinvar on the raft beneath the shelter of beech leaves?” I knew there was a kindly interest growing now in her eyes. But, dolt that I was, I could not meet them a whit the more readily because of that. “I scarcely remember aught of it,” she said, “yet I have been told a hundred times the tale of your bringing me home to my aunt at Lochinvar. It is somewhat belated, but I thank you, sir, for your courtesy.” “Nay,” said I, “ ’tis all I have to be thankful for in my poor life, that I took you safely past the cruel persecutors.” She gave me a quick, strange look. “Yet now do I not see you ready to ride and persecute in your turn?” These words, from the daughter of Alexander Gordon of Earlstoun, who was scarcely yet liberate from the prison of Blackness, astonished me so much that I stood speechless. “To persecute in my turn?” said I. “Nay, my dear mistress, I go to uphold the banner of Christ’s Kingdom against those that hate Him.” Very scornfully she smiled. “In my short life,” she said, “I’ve heard overmuch of such talk. I know to an ell how much it means. I have a mother, and she has friends and gossips. To me the triumph of what you call ‘the Kingdom’ means but two things— the Pharisee exalted and the bigot triumphant. Prince Jacob of Orange may supplant his father and take the crown; every canting Jack may fling away the white rose and shout for the Orange lily. But not I—not I?” She flaunted a little white hand suddenly palm upward, like an apple blossom blown off the branch by the wind. To say that I was astounded by this outbreak is to say little. It was like an earthquake, the trembling and resolving of solid land under my feet.
- 32. Alexander Gordon’s child—“the Bull of Earlstoun’s” daughter—standing openly and boldly for the cause of those who had prisoned and, perhaps, tortured her father, and brought about the ruin of her house! At last I managed to speak. “You are a young maiden,” I said, as quietly as I could, “and you know nothing of the great occasions of state, the persecutions of twenty-five years, the blood shed on lonely hillsides, the deaths by yet wearier sickness, the burials under cloud of night of those who have suffered——!” I would have said more, but that she prevented me imperiously. “I know all there is to know,” she cried, almost insolently. “Have I not broken fast with it, dined with it, taken my Four-hours with it, supped with it ever since I was of age to hear words spoken? But to my thinking the root of the matter is that you, and those like you, will not obey the rightful King, who alone is to be obeyed, whose least word ought to be sufficient.” “But not in religion—not in the things of conscience,” I stammered. Again she waved her hand floutingly. “ ’Tis not my idea of loyalty only to be loyal when it suits my whim, only to obey when obedience is easy and pleasant. The man whom I shall honour shall know nothing of such summer allegiance as that!” She paused a moment and I listened intently. “Nay,” she said, “he shall speak and I shall obey. He shall be my King, even as King James is the sovereign of his people. His word shall be sacred and his will law.” There was a light of something like devout obedience in her eyes. A holy vestal flame for a moment lighted up her face. I knew it was useless to argue with her then. “Nevertheless,” I answered very meekly, “at least you will not wholly forget that I brought you to a place of safety, sheltering you in my arms and venturing into dark waters for your sake!” Now though I looked not directly at her, I could see the cold light in her eyes grow more scornful. “You do well to remind me of my obligation. But do not be afraid; you shall be satisfied. I will speak of you to my father. Doubtless, when he comes home he will be great with the Usurper and those that bear rule under him. You shall be rewarded to the top of your desires.”
- 33. Then there rose a hot indignation in my heart that she should thus wilfully misunderstand me. “You do me great wrong, my Lady Mary,” I answered; “I desire no reward from you or yours, saving only your kindly remembrance, nor yet any advancement save, if it might be, into your favour.” “That,” she said, turning petulantly away, “you will never get till I see the white rose in your bonnet instead of those Whiggish and rebel colours.”
- 34. CHAPTER X. THE BLUE BANNER IS UP. Now though at first I was grievously astonished that the daughter of Alexander Gordon and his wife Janet Hamilton should so speak, yet when I come to consider further of the matter it appears noways so wonderful. For her father, when I came to know him, showed himself a great, strong, kindly, hard-driving “nowt” of a man, with a spiritual conceit equal to his knowledge of his bodily powers. But, for all his great pretensions, Sandy Gordon was essentially a man carnal and of the world, ever more ready to lay on lustily with the arm of the flesh than trust to the sword of the Spirit. The “Bull of Earlstoun” was he right fitly called. And with his children his method of training would doubtless be “Believe this! Receive that other!” Debate and appeal there would be none. So there is nothing to wonder at in the revolt of a nature every whit as imperious as that of her father, joined to a woman’s natural whimsies and set within the periphery of a girl’s slender form. And then her mother! If Sandy Gordon had proved trying to such a mind as that of Mary Gordon, what of Janet Hamilton, his wife? She had been reared in the strictest sect of the Extremists. Every breath of difference or opposition to her orthodoxies or those of her brother Sir Robert was held rank treason to the cause. She had constant visions, and these visions pointed ever to the cardinal truth that Janet Hamilton was eternally right and every one else eternally wrong. So Alexander Gordon, as often as he was at home, bullied back and forth concerning Covenants and sufferings, while at other times his wife worried and yammered, bitter as the east wind and irritant as a thorn in the flesh, till the girl was driven, as it were, in self-defence into other and as intolerant extremes. Yet when her parents were most angered with her for this perversity, some sudden pretty wile or quaint bairnliness would set them laughing in
- 35. spite of themselves, or a loving word of penitence bring the tears into their eyes. And while she chose to be good Mary Gordon, the family rebel, the disgrace of a godly home, would be again their own winsome little May, with a smile as sweet as the Benediction after sermon on a summer Sabbath morn, when the lilac and the hawthorn blossom scent all the kirk. But as for me, having had trial of none of these wiles and witchcrafts, I was grieved indeed to hear one so fair take the part of the cruel persecutors and murderers of our brethren, the torturers of her father, the men to whose charge could be laid the pillage and spoiling of the bonny house of Earlstoun, and the turning of her mother out upon the inclement pitilessness of a stormy winter. But with old and young alike the wearing iteration of a fretful woman’s yammering tongue will oftentimes drive further and worse than all the clattering horses and pricking bayonets of persecution. Yet even then I thought within me, “Far be it from me that I should ever dream of winning the heart of so fair and great a lady.” But if by the wondrous grace of God, so I ever did, I should be none afraid but that in a little blink of time she would think even as I did. And this was the beginning of the feeling I had for Mary Gordon. Yet being but little more than a shepherd lad from off the hills of heather she was to me almost as one of the angels, and I thought of her not at all as a lad thinks in his heart of a pretty lass, to whom one day if he prosper he may even himself in the way of love. After a day or two at Earlstoun, spent in drilling and mustering, in which time I saw nothing more of Mary Gordon, we set off in ordered companies towards Edinburgh. The word had been brought to us that the Convention was in great need of support, for that Clavers (whom now they called my Lord Dundee) was gathering his forces to disperse it, so that every one of the true Covenant men went daily in fear of their lives. Whereupon the whole Seven Thousand of the West and South were called up by the Elders. And to those among us who had no arms four thousand muskets and swords were served out, which were sent by the Convention to the South and West under cover of a panic story that the wild Irishers had landed and burnt Kirkcudbright. Hob and I marched shoulder to shoulder, and our officer was of one name with us, one Captain Clelland, a young soldier of a good stock who in
- 36. Holland had learnt the art of war. But Colonel William Gordon, the uncle of the lass Mary, commanded all our forces. So in time we reached the brow of the hill of Liberton and looked northward towards the town of Edinburgh, reeling slantways down its windy ridge, and crowned with the old Imperial coronet of St. Giles where Knox had preached, while the castle towered in pride over all. It was a great day for me when first I saw those grey towers against the sky. But down in the howe of the Grassmarket there was a place that was yet dearer—the black ugly gibbet whereon so many saints of God, dear and precious, had counted their lives but dross that they might win the crown of faithfulness. And when we marched through the West Port, and passed it by, it was in our heart to cheer, for we knew that with the tyrant’s fall all this was at an end. But Colonel William Gordon checked us. “Rather your bonnets off, lads,” he cried, “and put up a prayer!” And so we did. And then we faced about and filed straight up into the town. And as the sound of our marching echoed through the narrows of the West Bow, the waiting faithful threw up their windows and blessed us, hailing us as their saviours. Company after company went by, regular and disciplined as soldiers; but in the Lawmarket, where the great folk dwelt, there were many who peeped in fear through their barred lattices. “The wild Whigs of the West have risen and are marching into Edinburgh!” so ran the cry. We of Colonel Gordon’s Glenkens Foot were set to guard the Parliament House, and as we waited there, though I carried a hungry belly, yet I stood with my heart exulting proudly within me to see the downtrodden at last set on high and those of low estate exalted. For the sidewalks and causeways of the High-street were filled with eager crowds, but the crown of it was kept as bare as for the passing of a royal procession. And down it towards Holyrood tramped steadily and ceaselessly, company by company, the soldiers of the Other Kingdom. Stalwart men in grey homespun they were, each with his sword belted to him, his musket over his shoulder, and his store of powder and lead by his side. Then came squadrons of horses riding two and two, some well
- 37. mounted, and others on country nags, but all of them steady in their saddles as King’s guards. And when these had passed, again company after company of footmen. Never a song or an oath from end to end, not so much as a cheer along all the ranks as the Hill Men marched grimly in. “Tramp! tramp! tramp!” So they passed, as if the line would never end. And at the head of each company the blue banner of Christ’s Covenant— the standard that had been trailed in the dust, but that could never be wholly put down. Then after a while among the new flags, bright with silk and blazening, there came one tattered and stained, ragged at the edges, and pierced with many holes. There ran a whisper. “It is the flag of Ayrsmoss!” And at sight of its torn folds, and the writing of dulled and blistered gold upon it, “For Christ’s Cause and Covenant,” I felt the tears well from the heart up to my eyes, and something broke sharply with a little audible cry in my throat. Then an old Covenant man who had been both at Drumclog and the Brig of Bothwell, turned quickly to me with kindly eyes. “Nay, lad,” he said, “rather be glad! The standard that was sunken in a sea of blood is cleansed and set up again. And now in this our day woe be to the persecutors! The banner they trailed in the dust behind the dripping head of Richard Cameron shall wave on the Nether Bow of Edinburgh, where the corbies picked his eyes and his fair cheeks blackened in the sun.” And so it was, for they set it there betwixt the High-street and the Canongate, and from that day forth, during all the weeks of the Convention, the Covenant men held the city quiet as a frighted child under their hand.
- 38. CHAPTER XI. THE RED GRANT. It was while we continued to sojourn in Edinburgh for the protection of the Convention that first I began to turn my mind to the stated ministry of the Kirk, for I saw well that this soldiering work must ere long come to an end. And yet all my heart went out towards something better than the hewing of peats upon the moor and the foddering of oxen in stall. Yet for long I could not see how the matter was to be accomplished, for the Cameronian hill-folk had never had a minister since James Renwick bade his farewell to sun and moon and Desirable General Meetings down in the Edinburgh Grassmarket. There was no authority in Scotland capable of ordaining a Cameronian minister. I knew how impossible it was that I could go to Holland, as Renwick and Linning and Shields had done, at the expense of the societies—for the way of some of these men had even now begun to sour and disgust the elders of the Hill Folk. So since no better might be I turned my mind to the ministry of the Reformed Kirk as it had been established by law, and resolved to spend my needful seasons as a student of the theologies in the town of Edinburgh. I spoke to my father of my decision, and he was willing that I should try the work. “I will gladly be at your college charges, Quintin,” he said; “but mind, lad, it will depend how I sell my sheep, whether ye get muckle to put in your belly. Yet, perchance, as the auld saw hath it, ‘hungry dogs hunt best,’ So mayhap that may likewise hold true of the getting of learning.” So in the autumn of that year of the Convention, and some months after our return, I made me ready to go to college, and to my infinite surprise Hob, my brother, declared that he would come also. “For,” said he, “my father does not need me now at home, at least, not till the spring and the lambing time.” My father demurred a little. But Hob got his way because he had, as I well saw, my mother behind him. Now Hob was (and is) the best of brothers—slow, placid, self-contained, with little humour in him, but filled
- 39. with a great, quiet faithfulness. And he has abode with me through many tears and stern trials. So in due time to Edinburgh we twain went, and while I trudged it back and forth to the college Hob bought with his savings a pedlar’s pack, and travelled town and country with swatches of cloth, taches for the hair, pins for the dresses of women-folk, and for the men chap-books and Testaments. But the strange thing is that, slow and silent as our Hob is at most times, he could make his way with the good wives of the Lothians as none of those bred to the trade could do. They tell me he was mightily successful. I only know that many a day we two might have gone hungry to bed had it not been for what Hob brought home, instead of, as it was, having our kites panged full with good meat, like Tod Lowrie when the lambs are young on the hill.[6] And often when my heart was done with the dull and dowie days, the hardness of my heart, and the wryness of learning, Hob would come in with a lightsome quirk on his queer face, or a jest on his tongue, picked up in some of the outlying villages, so that I could not help but smile at him, which made the learning all the easier afterward. Yet the hardest part of my sore toil at college was the thought that the more I travailed at the theologies, the less of living religion was in my soul. Indeed, it was not till I had been back some time among the common folk who sin and die and are buried, that I began again to taste the savour of vital religion as of old. For to my thinking there is no more godless class than just the young collegers in divinity. Nor is this only a mock, as Hob would have made of it, saying with his queer smile, “Quintin, what think ye o’ a mission to the heathen divinity lads—to set the fire o’ hell to their tails, even as Peden the Prophet bade Richie Cameron do to the border thieves o’ Annandale?” Connect and Addition to Chapter XI. made in after years by Me, Hob MacClellan. It is well seen from the foregoing that Quintin, my brother, had no easy time of it while he was at the college, where they called him “Separator,” “Hill Whig,” “Young Drumclog,” and other nicknames, some of which grieved the lad sore. Now they were mostly leather-jawed, slack-twisted Geordies from the Hieland border that so troubled our Quintin—who, though he was not
- 40. averse to the sword or the pistol in a good cause, yet would not even be persuaded to lift his fist to one of these rascals, lest it should cause religion to be spoken against. But I was held by none of these scruples. So it chanced that one night as we came out of the College Wynd in the early falling winter gloaming, one of these bothy-men from the North called out an ill name after us—“porridge-fed Galloway pigs,” or something of the kind. Whereat very gladly I dealt him so sound a buffet on the angle of his jaw that his head was not set on straight again all the winter. After this we adjourned to settle our differences at the corner of the plainstones; but Quintin and the other theologians who had characters to lose took their way home, grieved in spirit. Or so at least I think he pretended to himself. For when I came in to our lodging an hour after his first words were: “Did ye give him his licks, Hob?” And that question, to which I answered simply that I had and soundly, did not argue that the ancient Adam had been fully exorcised from our Quintin. All the same the Highlandman was none so easy to handle, being a red- headed Grant from Speyside, and more inclined to come at you with his thick skull, like a charging boar of Rothiemurchus, than decently to stand up with the brave bare knuckles, as we are wont to do in the South. A turn or two at Kelton Hill fair would have done him no harm and taught him that he must not fight with such an ungodly battering-ram as his head. I know lads there who would have met him on the crown with the toe of their brogans. But this I scorned, judging it feater to deal him a round-arm blow behind the ear and leap aside. The first of these discouraged the Grant; the second dropped him on the causeway dumb and limp. “Well done, Galloway!” cried a voice above; “but ye shall answer for this the morn, every man o’ ye!” “Run, lads, run! ’Tis the Regent!” came the answering cry from the collegers. And with that every remaining student lad ran his best in the direction of his own lodging. “Well, sir, have ye killed the Speyside Hielandman?” said the Doctor from his window, when I remained alone by the fallen chieftain. The Regent
- 41. came from the West himself, and, they say, bore the Grants no love, for all that he was so holy a man. “I think not,” I answered doubtfully, “but I’ll take him round to the infirmary and see!” And with that I hoisted up the Red Grant on my shoulders, carried him down the Infirmary Close, and hammered on the door till the young chirurgeon who kept the place, thinking me to be drunk, came to threaten me with the watch. Then, the bolts being drawn, I backed the Highlandman into the crack of the door and discharged him upon the floor. “There’s a heap of good college divinity,” I said. “The Regent sent me to bid ye find out if he be dead or alive.” So with no more said we got him on a board, and at the first jag of the lancet my Grant lad sat him up on end with a loup like a Jack-in-the-box. But when he saw where he was, and the poor bits of dead folk that the surgeon laddies had been learning on that day, he fetched a yell up from the soles of his Highland shoon, and bounced off the board, crying, “Ye’ll no cut me up as lang as Donald Grant’s a leeving man, whatever ye may do when he’s dead!” And so he took through the door as if the dogs had been after him. Then the blood-letting man was for charging me with the cost of his time, but I bade him apply to Regent Campbell over at the college, telling him that it was he who had sent me. But whether ever he did so or not I never heard. Now the rarest jest of the whole matter was on the morrow, when Quintin went to attend his prelection in Hall. The lesson, so he told me, was in the Latin of Essenius, his Compend, and Quintin was called up. After he had answered upon his portion, and well, as I presume, for Quintin was no dullard at his books, Dr. Campbell looked down a little queerly at him. “Can you tell me which is the sixth commandment?” says he. “Thou shalt not kill!” answers Quintin, as simple as supping brose. “Then, are you a murderer or no—this morning?” Quintin, thinking that, after the fashion of the time, the Regent meant some divinity quirk or puzzle, laid his brains asteep, and answered that as
- 42. he had certainly “hated his brother,” in that sense he was doubtless, like all the rest of the human race, technically and theologically a murderer. “But,” said the Professor, “what of the Highland Grant lad that ye felled like a bullock yestreen under my window?” Now it had never struck me that I was like my brother Quintin in outward appearance, save in the way that all we black MacClellans are like one another—long in the nose, bushy in the eyebrows, which mostly reach over to meet one another. And I grant it that Quintin was ever better mettle for a lass’s eye than I—though not worth a pail of calf’s feed in the matter of making love as love ought to be made, which counts more with women than all fine appearings. But for the nonce let that fly stick to the wall; at any rate, sure it is that the Professor loon had taken me for Quintin. Now it will greatly help those who read this chronicle to remember what Quintin did on this occasion. I would not have cared a doit if he had said, in the plain hearing of the class, that it was his brother Hob the Lothian packman who had felled the Red Grant. But would the lad betray his brother? No! He rather hung his head, and said no more than that he heard the Red Grant was not seriously hurt. For as he said afterwards, “I did not know what such a tribe of angry, dirked Highlandmen might have done to you, Hob, if they had so much as guessed it was no colleger’s fist which had taken Donald an inch beneath the ear. “Then,” said the Regent to Quintin, “my warrior of Wild Whigdom, you may set to the learning of thirty psalms by heart in the original Hebrew. And after you have said them without the book I will consider of your letters of certification from this class.” To which task my brother owes that familiarity with the Psalms of David which has often served him to such noble purpose—both when, like Boanerges, he thundered in the open fields to the listening peoples, and when at closer range he spoke with his enemies in the gate. For thirty would not suit this hungrisome Quintin of ours. He must needs learn the whole hundred and fifty (is it not?) by rote before he went back to the Regent. “Which thirty psalms are ye prepared to recite?” queried the Professor under the bush of his eyebrows. “Any thirty!” answered brave Quintin, unabashed, yet noways uplifted.
- 43. . . . . . . . . . . . . . Now the rest of my brother’s college life may be told in a word. I know that he had written many chapters upon his struggles and heart-questionings as to duty and guidance at that time. But whether he destroyed them himself, or whether they exist in some undiscovered repository, certain it is that the next portion of his autobiography which has come into my hands deals with the time of his settlement in the parish of Balmaghie, where he was to endure so many strange things. It is enough to say that year after year Quintin and I returned to the college with the fall of the leaf, I with my pack upon my back, ever gaining ready hospitality because of the songs and merry tales in my wallet. When we journeyed to and fro Quintin abode mostly at the road-ends and loaning- foots while I went up to chaffer with the good-wives in the hallans and ben- rooms of the farmhouses. Then, in the same manner as at first, we fought our way through the dull, iron-grey months of winter in Auld Reekie. Each spring, as the willow buds furred and yellowed, saw us returning to the hill- farm again with our books and packs. And all the while I kept Quintin cheerful company, looking to his clothes and mending at his stockings and body-gear as he sat over his books. Mainly it was a happy time, for I knew that the lad would do us credit. And as my mother said many and many a time, “Our Quintin has wealth o’ lear and wealth o’ grace, but he hasna as muckle common-sense as wad seriously blind a midge.” So partly because my mother put me through a searching catechism on my return, and also because I greatly loved the lad, I watched him night and day, laid his clothes out, dried his rig-and-fur hose, greased his shoon of home-tanned leather to keep out the searching snow-brew of the Edinburgh streets. For, save when the frost grips it, sharp and snell, ’tis a terrible place to live in, that town of Edinburgh in the winter season. Here begins again the narrative of Quintin my brother.
- 44. CHAPTER XII. THE LASS IN THE KIRKYARD. I had been well-nigh a year about the great house of Girthon as family chaplain to the laird, when there came a call to accept the ministry of the Gospel among the people of Balmaghie. It was a parish greatly to my mind. It lies, as all know, in the heart of Galloway, between the slow, placid sylvan stretches of the Ken and the rapid, turbulent mill-race of the Black Water of Dee. From a worldly point of view the parish was most desirable. For though the income in money and grain was not great, nevertheless the whole amount was equal to the income of most of the smaller lairds in the neighbourhood. Yet for all these things, I trust that those in future times who may read this my life record will acquit me of the sin of self-seeking. I mind well the first time that I preached in the parish which was to be mine own. I had walked with naught but my Bible in my pocket over the long, lone hill-road from Girthon to Balmaghie. I had with me no provender to comfort my stomach by the way, or to speed my feet over the miles of black heather moors and green morass. For the housekeeper, to whom (for reasons into which I need not enter) everything in the laird’s house of Girthon was committed, was a fair-faced, hard-natured, ill-hearted woman, who liked not the coming of a chaplain into the house—as she said, “stirring up the servants to gad about to preachings, and taking up their time with family worship and the like foolishness.” So she went out of her way to ensure that the chaplains would stay only until they could obtain quittance of so bare and thankless a service. When I arrived at the kirk of Balmaghie, having come all the long journey from Girthon on foot and fasting, I sat me down on a flat stone in the kirkyard, near by where the martyrs lie snug and bieldy at the gable-end. So exhausted was I that I know not what I should have done but for a young lass, comely and well put on, who gave me the farle of oatcake she
- 45. had brought with her for her “morning.” “You are the young minister who is to preach to us this day?” she said, going over to the edge of the little wood which at that time bounded the kirkyard. I answered her that I was and that I had walked all the way from the great house of Girthon that morning—whereat she held up her hands in utter astonishment. “It is just not possible,” she cried. And after pitying me a long time with her eyes, and urging me to eat her “piece” up quickly, she featly stooped down to the water and washed her feet and ankles, before drawing upon them a pair of white hosen, fair and thin, and fastening her shoes with the buckles of silver after a pretty fashion which was just coming in. It was yet a full hour and a half before the beginning of the morning diet of worship, for I had risen betimes and travelled steadily. Now the kirk of Balmaghie stands in a lonely place, and even the adjoining little clachan of folk averts itself some distance from it. Then being hungry I sat and munched at the lass’s piece, till, with thinking on my sermon and looking at her by the waterside, I had well-nigh eaten it every snatch. So when I awoke from my reverie, as from a deep sleep, I sat with a little bit of bread, the size of my thumb, in my hand, staring at it as if I had seen a fairlie.[7] And what was worse, the lass seeing me thus speechless, and with my jaws yet working on the last of the crust, went off into peal after peal of laughter. “What for do ye look at me like that, young lad?” she said, when she had sufficiently commanded herself. “I—I have eaten all your midday piece, whiles I was thinking upon my sermon,” I said. “More befitting is it that you should think upon your sermon than of things lighter and less worthy,” said she, without looking up at me. I was pleased with her solid answer and felt abashed. “But you will go wanting,” I began. She gartered one shapely stocking of silk ere she answered me, holding the riband that was to cincture the other in her mouth, as appears to be the
- 46. curious fashion of women. “What matter,” she said, presently, as she stroked down her kirtle over her knee modestly, with an air that took me mightily, it was so full of distance and respect. “I come not far, but only from the farm town of Drumglass down there on the meadow’s edge. Ye are welcome to the bit piece; I am as glad to see ye eat it as of a sunny morn in haytime. You have come far, and a brave day’s wark we are expecting from you this Sabbath day.” Then, as was my duty, I rebuked her for looking to man for that which could alone come from the Master and Maker of man. She listened very demurely, with her eyes upon the silver buckles of her shoon, which she had admiringly placed side by side on the grass, when she set herself down on the low boundary wall of the kirkyard. “I ken I am too young and light and foolish to be fit company even for a young minister,” she said, and there was a blush upon her cheek which vexed me, though it was bonny enough to look upon. “Nay,” answered I quickly; “there you mistake me. I meant no such thing, bonnie lass. We are all both fond and foolish, minister and maid.” (Well might I say it, for—God forgive me!—at that very moment my mind ran more on how the lass looked and on the way she had of tapping the grass with her foot than on the solemn work of the day.) “No, no,” she interrupted, hastily; “I am but a silly lass, poor and ignorant, and you do well to fault me.” Now this put me in a painful predicament, for I still held in my hand the solitary scraplet left of the young lass’s “piece,” and I must needs, like a dull, splenetic fool, go on fretting her for a harmless word. She turned away her head a little; nevertheless, I was not so ill-learned in the ways of maids but that I could see she was crying. “What is your name, sweet maid?” I asked, for my heart was wae that I had grieved her. She did not answer me till she had a little recovered herself. “Jean Gemmell,” she said, at last, “and my father is the tenant of Drumglass up by there. He is an elder, and will be here by kirk-time. The session is holding a meeting at the Manse.”
- 47. I had pulled a Bible from my pocket and was thinking of my sermon by this time. Jean Gemmell rose and stood a moment picking at a flower by the wall. “My father will be on your side,” she said, slowly. “But,” cried I, in some astonishment, “your father has not yet heard me preach.” “No more have I,” she made answer, smiling on me with her eyes, “but, nevertheless, my father will be on your side.” And she moved away, looking still very kindly upon me. I cannot tell whether or no I was helped by this rencounter in my conduct of the worship that day in the parish kirk of Balmaghie. At any rate, I went down and walked in the meadows by the side of Dee Water till the folk gathered and the little cracked bell began to clank and jow from the kirk on the hill.
- 48. CHAPTER XIII. MY LADY OF PRIDE. Within the kirk of Balmaghie there spread from gable to gable a dim sea of faces, men standing in corners, men holding by windows, men peering in at the low doorway, while the women cowered upon folded plaids, or sat closely wedged together upon little creepie stools. So great a multitude had assembled that day that the bairns who had no voice in the ministerial call were in danger of being put without to run wild among the gravestones. But this I forbade, though I doubt not many of the youthful vagabondage would have preferred such an exodus to the hot and crowded kirk that day of high summer. I was well through my discourse, and entering upon my last “head,” when I heard a stir at the door. I paused somewhat markedly lest there should be some unseemly disturbance. But I saw only a great burly red- bearded gentleman with his hair a little touched with grey. The men about the porch made room for him with mighty deference. Clinging to his arm was a young girl, with a face lily-pale, dark eyes and wealth of hair. And instead of the bare head and modest snood of the country maid, or the mutch of the douce matron, there was upon the lady’s head a brave new-fashioned hat with a white feather. I knew them in a moment—Alexander Gordon of Earlstoun and his daughter Mary. I cannot tell if my voice trembled, or whether I showed any signs of the abounding agitation of my spirit. But certain it is that for a space, which to me seemed ages, the course of my thought went from me. I spoke words idle and empty, and it was only by the strongest effort of will that I recalled myself to the solemn matters in hand. That this should have happened in my trial sermon vexed me sore. For at that time I knew not that these disturbances, so great-seeming to the speaker, are little, if at all, observed by his hearers, who are ever willing to lay the blame upon their own lack of comprehension rather than upon their instructor’s want of clearness. But the moment after, with a strong uprising of my spirit, I won above the turmoil of my intellects, and ended with a great outgoing of my heart,
- 49. charging those before me to lay aside the evils of their life and enter upon the better way with zeal and assured confidence. And seeing that the people were much moved by my appeal I judged wise to let them go with what fire of God they had gotten yet burning in their hearts. I closed therefore quickly, and so dismissed the congregation. Then, when I came down to go from the kirk, the people were already dispersing. The great red-bearded man came forward and put his hand on my shoulder. “Young sir,” he said, “it is true that ye have left the hill-folk, and with your feet have walked in devious ways. Notwithstanding, if what we have heard to-day be your message, we shall yet have you on your knees before the Eldership of the Societies. For the heart of the man who can thus speak is with us of the wilderness, and not among the flesh-pots of an Erastian Egypt.” At which I shook my head, not seeing how true his words were to prove, nor yet how soon the Kirk of Scotland was to bow the head, which hitherto had only bent to her heavenly Lord, to the sceptre of clay and the rule of a feckless earthly monarch. But though I looked wistfully at Mary Gordon, and would have gone forward to help her upon her horse where it stood tethered at the kirk- liggate, she passed me by as though she had not seen me, which surely was not well done of her. Instead she beckoned a young man from the crowd in the kirkyard, who came forward with his hat in his hand and convoyed her to her horse with a privileged and courtly air. Then the three rode off together, Alexander Gordon turning about in his saddle and crying back to me in his loud, hearty manner, “Haste ye and come over to the Earlstoun, and we will yet show you the way across the Red Sea out of the Land of Bondage.” And I was left standing there sadly enough, yet for my life I cannot tell why I should have been sad. For the folk came thronging about me, shaking me by the hand, and saying that now they had found their minister and would choose me in spite of laird or prince or presbytery. For it seems that already some of my sayings had given offence in high quarters. Yet it was as if I heard not these good folk, for (God forgive me) even at that solemn moment my thoughts were circling about that proud young lass,
- 50. who had not deigned me a look even in the hour of triumph, but had ridden so proudly away with the man who was doubtless her lover. Thus I stood awhile dumbly at gaze, without finding a word to say to any. And the folk, thinking that the spirit of the spoken Word was yet upon me, drew off a little. Then there came a voice in mine ear, low and persuasive, that awoke me from my dream. “This is my father, who would bid ye welcome, and that kindly, to his house of Drumglass.” It was the young maid whose piece I had eaten in the morning. The feeling in my heart that I had been shamed and slighted by Mary Gordon made Mistress Jean Gemmell’s word sweet and agreeable to me. I turned me about and found myself clasping the hands of a rugged old man with a broad and honest face, who took snuff freely with one hand, while he shook mine with the other. “I’m prood to see ye, young sir,” he said, “prood to see ye! My dochter Jean here, a feat and bonny bit lass, has telled me that I am to gie ye my guid word. And my guid word ye shall hae. And mony o’ the elders and kirk-members owes siller to auld Drummie; aye, aye, and they shall do as I say or I shall ken the reason——” “But, sir,” I said hastily, “I desire no undue influence to be used. Let my summons, if it come, be the call of a people of one mind concerning the fitting man to have the oversight of them in the things of the spirit.” “Of one mind!” exclaimed the old man, taking snuff more freely than ever. “Ye are dootless a maist learned and college-bred young lad, with rowth o’ lear and lashin’s o’ grace, but ye dinna ken this pairish o’ Balmaghie if ye think that ye can ever hae the folk o’ wan mind. Laddie, the thing’s no possible. There’s as mony minds in Balmaghie as there’s folk in it. And a mair unruly, camsteery pairish there’s no between Kirkmaiden and the wild Hieland border. But auld Drummie can guide them—ow, aye, auld Drummie can work them. He can turn them that owes him siller round his finger, and they can leaven the congregation—hear ye that, young man!” “If the people of this parish desire me for their minister, they will send me the call,” answered I, pointedly. For these things, as I have ever believed, are in a Higher Hand.
- 51. “Doubtless, doubtless,” quoth auld Drummie; “but the Balmaghie folk are none of the waur o’ a bit spur in their flank like a reesty[8] powny that winna gang. They mind a minute’s jag frae the law mair nor the hale grace o’ God for a month, and mind ye that! Gin ye come amang us, lad, I’ll learn ye a trick or twa aboot the folk o’ Balmaghie that ye will be the wiser o’. Mind, I hae been here a’ my life, and an elder o’ the kirk for thirty year!” “I am much indebted, sir, for your good intentions, but——” “Nae buts,” cried auld Drummie. “I hae my dochter Jean’s word that ye are a braw callan and deserve the pairish, and the pairish ye shall hae.” “I am much indebted to your daughter,” I made answer. “She succoured me with bread to eat this morning, when in the kirkyard I was ready to faint with hunger. Without her kindness I know not how I would have come through the fatigues of this day’s exercises.” “Ow, aye,” said the old man; “that’s just like my dochter Jean. And a douce ceevil lassock she is. But ye should see my ither dochter afore ye craw sae croose aboot Jean.” “You have another daughter?” I said, politely. “Aye,” he cried, with enthusiasm. “Man, where hae ye comed frae that ye haena heard o’ Alexander-Jonita, the lass wha can tame a wild stallion that horse-dealers winna tackle, and ride it stride-leg like a man. There’s no’ a maiden in a’ the country can hand a cannle to Alexander-Jonita, the dochter o’ Nathan Gemmell of Drumglass, in the pairish o’ Balmaghie.”
- 52. CHAPTER XIV. THE TALE OF MESS HAIRRY. So the service being ended for the day, I walked quietly over to Drumglass with Jean and her father. There I found a house well furnished, oxen and kine knee-deep in water, meadows, pastures, crofts of oats and bear in the hollows about the door, and over all such an air of bien and hospitable comfort that the place beckoned me to abide there. Nathan Gemmell went beside me, regaling me with tales of the ancient days spoken in the broad and honourable sounding speech of the province. “Hear ye, laddie,” he said, “gin ye come to the pairish o’ Balmaghie ye will need the legs o’ a racer horse, and the airms o’ Brawny Kim, the smith o’ Carlinwark. Never a chiel has been fit to be the minister o’ Balmaghie since Auld Mess Hairry died! “He was a man—losh me, but he was a man! “I tell ye, sir, this pairish needs its releegion tightly threshed into it wi’ a flail. Sax change-houses doon there hae I kenned oot o’ seven cot-houses at the Kirk-clachan o’ Shandkfoot, and a swearin’, drinkin’ set in ilka yin o’ them. “And siccan reamin swatrochs of Hollands an’ French brandy, lad! Every man toomin’ his glass and cryin’ for mair, tossing it ower their thrapples hand ower fist, as hard as the sweatin’ landlords could open the barrels. And the ill words and the fechtin’—Lord, callant, ye never heard the like! They tell me that ye come frae the Kells. A puir feckless lot they are in the Kells! Nae spirit in their drink. Nae power or variety in their oaths and cursings! “But Balmaghie!—-- That was a pairish in the old time, till Mess Hairry came in the days after John Knox. He had been a Papish priest some-gate till he had turned his cassock alang wi’ dour black Jock o’ the Hie Kirk o’ Edinburgh. But Mess Hairry they aye caa’ed him, for a’ that. And there were some that said he hadna turned that very far, but was a Papish as great as ever under the black Geneva gown! “For he wad whiles gie them swatches o’ the auld ill-tongued Laitin, till the folk kenned na whether they werena bein’ made back again into limbs
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