Books: The Lilac Sunbonnet

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Ralph looked so interested that Saunders quite felt for him.

"And what then?" said he.

"Then," said Saunders, nodding his head, so that it made the
assertion of itself without any connection with his body--"then,
say ye, then is juist whaur the besom comes in"--he paused a
moment in deep thought--"i' the sma' o' yer back!" he added, in a
low and musing tone, as of one who chews the cud of old and
pleasant memories. "An' ye may thank a kind Providence gin there's
plenty o' heather on the end o't. Keep aye plenty o' heather on
the end o' the besom," said Saunders; "a prudent man aye sees to
that. What is't to buy a new besom or twa frae a tinkler body,
whan ye see the auld yin gettin' bare? Nocht ava, ye can tak' the
auld yin oot to the stable, or lose it some dark nicht on the
moor! O aye, a prudent man aye sees to his wife's besom." Saunders
paused, musing. "Ye'll maybe no believe me, but often what mak's
a' the hale differ atween a freendly turn up wi' the wife, that
kind o' cheers a man up, an' what ye micht ca' an onpleesantness--
is juist nae mair nor nae less than whether there's plenty o'
heather on his wife's besom."

Saunders had now finished all his buckles to his satisfaction. He
summed up thus the conclusion of his great argument: "A besom i'
the sma' o' yer back is interestin' an' enleevinin', whan it's new
an' bushy; but it's the verra mischief an' a' whan ye get the bare
shank on the back o' yer heid--an' mind ye that."

"I am very much indebted to you for the advice, Saunders."

"Aye, sir," said Saunders, "it's sound! it's sound! I can vouch
for that."

Ralph went towards the door and looked out. The minister was still
walking with his hands behind his back. He did not in the least
hear what Saunders had said. He turned again to him. "And what do
you want another wife for, then, Saunders?"

"'Deed, Maister Ralph, to tell ye the Guid's truth, it's awfu'
deevin' [deafening] leevin' wi' yin's mither. She's a awfu' woman
to talk, though a rale guid mither to me. Forbye, she canna tak'
the besom to ye like yer ain wife--the wife o' yer bosom, so to
speak--when ye hae been to the Black Bull. It's i' the natur' o'
things that a man maun gang there by whiles; but on the ither
haund it's richt that he should get a stap ta'en oot o' his bicker
when he comes hame, an' some way or ither the best o' mithers
haena gotten the richt way o't like a man's ain wife."

"And you think that Meg would do it well?" said Ralph, smiling.

"Aye, sir, she Avad that, though I'm thinkin' that she wad be
kindlier wi' the besom-shank than Jess; no that I wad for a moment
expect that there wad be ony call for siclike," he said, with a
look of apology at Ralph, which was entirely lost on that young
man, "but in case, sir--in case--"

Ralph looked in bewilderment at Saunders, who was indulging in
mystic winks and nods.

"You see, the way o't is this, sir: yin's mither--(an' mind, I'm
far frae sayin' a word agin my ain mither--she's a guid yin, for
a' her tongue, whilk, ye ken, sir, she canna help ony mair than
bein' a woman;) but ye ken, that when ye come hame frae the Black
Bull, gin a man has only his mither, she begins to flyte on
[scold] him, an' cast up to him what his faither, that's i' the
grave, wad hae said, an' maybe on the back o' that she begins the
greetin'. Noo, that's no comfortable, ava. A man that gangs to the
Black Bull disna care a flee's hin' leg what his faither wad hae
said. He disna want to be grutten ower [wept over]; na, what he
wants is a guid-gaun tongue, a wullin' airm, an' a heather besom
no ower sair worn."

Ralph nodded in his turn in appreciative comment.

"Then, on the morrow's morn, when ye rub yer elbow, an' fin'
forbye that there's something on yer left shoother-blade that's
no on the ither, ye tak' a resolve that ye'll come straught hame
the nicht. Then, at e'en, when ye come near the Black Bull, an'
see the crony that ye had a glass wi' the nicht afore, ye
naturally tak' a bit race by juist to get on the safe side o' yer
hame. I'm hearin' aboot new-fangled folk that they ca' 'temperance
advocates,' Maister Ralph, but for my pairt gie me a lang-shankit
besom, an' a guid-wife's wullin airm!"

These are all the opinions of Saunders Mowdiewort about besom-
shanks.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

THAT GIPSY JESS.

Saunders took Ralph's letter to Craig Ronald with him earlier that
night than usual, as Ralph had desired him. At the high hill gate,
standing directing the dogs to gather the cows off the hill for
milking, he met Jess.

"Hae ye ouy news, Saunders?" she asked, running down to the little
foot-bridge to meet him. Saunders took it as a compliment; and,
indeed, it was done with a kind of elfish grace, which cast a
glamour over his eyes. But Jess, who never did anything without a
motive, really ran down to be out of sight of Ebie Farrish, who
stood looking at her from within the stable door.

"Here's a letter for ye, Jess," Saunders said, importantly,
handing her Ralph's letter. "He seemed rale agitatit when he
brocht it in to me, but I cheered him up by tellin' him how ye wad
dreel him wi' the besom-shank gin he waur to gang to the Black
Bull i' the forenichts."

"Gang to the Black Bull!--what div ye mean, ye gomeril?--Saunders
I mean; ye ken weel that Maister Peden wadna gang to ony Black
Bull."

"Weel, na, I ken that; it was but a mainner o' speakin'; but I can
see that he's fair daft ower ye, Jess. I ken the signs o' love as
weel as onybody. But hoo's Meg--an' do ye think she likes me ony
better?"

"She was speakin' aboot ye only this mornin'," answered Jess
pleasantly, "she said that ye waur a rale solid, sensible man, no
a young ne'er-do-weel that naebody kens whaur he'll be by the
Martinmas term."

"Did Meg say that!" cried Saunders in high delight, "Ye see what
it is to be a sensible woman. An' whaur micht she be noo?"

Now Jess knew that Meg was churning the butter, with Jock Forrest
to help her, in the milk-house, but it did not suit her to say so.
Jess always told the truth when it suited as well as anything
else; if not, then it was a pity.

"Meg's ben the hoose wi' the auld fowk the noo," she said, "but
she'll soon be oot. Juist bide a wee an' bind the kye for me."

Down the brae face from the green meadowlets that fringed the moor
came the long procession of cows. Swinging a little from side to
side, they came--black Galloways, and the red and white breed of
Ayrshire in single file--the wavering piebald line following the
intricacies of the path. Each full-fed, heavy-uddered mother of
the herd came marching full matronly with stately tread, blowing
her flower-perfumed breath from dewy nostrils. The older and
staider animals--Marly, and Dumple, and Flecky--came stolidly
homeward, their heads swinging low, absorbed in meditative
digestion, and soberly retasting the sweetly succulent grass of
the hollows, and the crisper and tastier acidity of the sorrel-
mixed grass of the knolls. Behind them came Spotty and Speckly,
young and frisky matrons of but a year's standing, who yet knew no
better than to run with futile head at Roger, and so encourage
that short-haired and short-tempered collie to snap at their
heels. Here also, skirmishing on flank and rear, was Winsome's pet
sheep, "Zachary Macaulay"--so called because he was a living
memorial to the emancipation of the blacks. Zachary had been named
by John Dusticoat, who was the politician of Cairn Edward, and
"took in" a paper. He was an animal of much independence of mind.
He utterly refused to company with the sheep of his kind and
degree, and would only occasionally condescend to accompany the
cows to their hill pasture. Often he could not be induced to quit
poking his head into every pot and dish about the farm-yard. On
these occasions he would wander uninvited with a little pleading,
broken-backed bleat through every room in the house, looking for
his mistress to let him suck her thumb or to feed him on oatcake
or potato parings.

To-night he came down in the rear of the procession. Now and then
he paused to take a random crop at the herbage, not so much from
any desire for wayside refreshment, as to irritate Roger into
attacking him. But Roger knew better. There was a certain
imperiousness about Zachary such as became an emancipated black.
Zachary rejoiced when Speckly or any of the younger or livelier
kine approached to push him away from a succulent patch of
herbage. Then he would tuck his belligerent head between his legs,
and drive fore-and-aft in among the legs of the larger animals,
often bringing them down full broadside with the whole of their
extensive systems ignominiously shaken up.

By the time that Saunders had the cows safe into the byre, Jess
had the letter opened, read, and resealed. She had resolved, for
reasons of her own, on this occasion to give the letter to
Winsome. Jess ran into the house, and finding Winsome reading in
the parlour, gave her the letter in haste.

"There's a man waiting for the answer," she said, "but he can easy
bide a while if it is not ready."

Winsome, seeing it was the handwriting she knew so well, that of
the note-book and the poem, went into her own room to read her
first love-letter. It seemed very natural that he should write to
her, and her heart beat within her quickly and strongly as she
opened it. As she unfolded it her eye seemed to take in the whole
of the writing at once as if it were a picture. She knew, before
she had read a word, that "beloved" occurred twice and "Winsome
dear" twice, nor had she any fault to find, unless it were that
they did not occur oftener.

So, without a moment's hesitation, she sat down and wrote only a
line, knowing that it would be all-sufficient. It was her first
love-tryst. Yet if it had been her twentieth she could not have
been readier.

"I shall be at the gate of the hill pasture," so she wrote, "at
ten o'clock to-night."

It was with a very tumultuous heart that she closed this missive,
and went out quickly to give it to Jess lest she should repent. A
day before, even, it had never entered her mind that by any
possibility she could write such a note to a young man whom she
had only known so short a time. But then she reflected that
certainly Ralph Peden was not like any other young man; so that in
this case it was not only right but also commendable. He was so
kind and good, and so fond of her grandmother, that she could not
let him go so far away without a word. She ought at least to go
and tell him that he must never do the like again. But she would
forgive him this time, after being severe with him for breaking
his word, of course. She sighed when she thought of what it is to
be young and foolish. Once the letter in Jess's hands, these
doubts and fears came oftener to her. After a few minutes of
remorse, she ran out in order to reclaim her letter, but Jess was
nowhere to be seen. She was, in fact, at her mother's cottage up
on the green, where she was that moment employed in coercing her
brother Andra to run on a message for her. "When she went out of
the kitchen with Winsome's reply in her pocket she made it her
first duty to read it. This there was no difficulty in doing, for
opening letters was one of Jess's simplest accomplishments. Then
Jess knitted her black brows, and thought dark and Pictish
thoughts. In a few moments she had made her dispositions. She was
not going to let Winsome have Ralph without a struggle. She felt
that she had the rude primogeniture of first sight. Besides, since
she had no one to scheme for her, she resolved that she would
scheme for herself. Shut in her mother's room she achieved a fair
imitation of Winsome's letter, guiding herself by the genuine
document spread out before her. She had thought of sending only a
verbal message, but reflecting that Ralph Peden had probably never
seen Winsome's handwriting, she considered it safer, choosing
between two dangers, to send a written line.

"Meet me by the waterside bridge at ten o'clock," she wrote. No
word more. Then arose the question of messengers. She went out to
find Saunders Mowdiewort; she got him standing at the byre door,
looking wistfully about for Meg. "Saunders," she said, "you are to
take back this answer instantly to the young Master Peden."

"Na, na, Jess, what's the hurry? I dinna gang a fit till I hae
seen Meg," said Saunders doggedly. "Your affairs are dootless
verra important, but sae are mine. Your lad maun een wait wi'
patience till I gang hame, the same as I hae had mony a day to
wait. It's for his guid."

Jess stamped her foot. It was too irritating that her combinations
should fail because of a Cuif whom she had thought to rule with a
word, and upon whom she had counted without a thought.

She could not say that it was on Winsome's business, though she
knew that in that case he would have gone at once on the chance of
indirectly pleasuring Meg. She had made him believe that she
herself was the object of Ralph Peden's affections. But Jess was
not to be beaten, for in less than a quarter of an hour she had
overcome the scruples of Andra, and despatched Jock Gordon on
another message in another direction. Jess believed that where
there is a will there are several ways: the will was her own, but
she generally made the way some one else's. Then Jess went into
the byre, lifting up her house gown and covering it with the dust-
coloured milking overall, in which she attended to Speckly and
Crummy. She had done her best--her best, that is, for Jess
Kissock--and it was with a conscience void of offence that she set
herself to do well her next duty, which happened to be the milking
of the cows. She did not mean to milk cows any longer than she
could help, but in the meantime she meant to be the best milker in
the parish. Moreover, it was quite in accordance with her
character that, in her byre flirtations with Ebie Farrish, she
should take pleasure in his rough compliments, smacking of the
field and the stable. Jess had an appetite for compliments
perfectly eclectic and cosmopolitan. Though well aware that she
was playing this night with the sharpest of edged tools, till her
messengers should return and her combinations should close, Jess
was perfectly able and willing to give herself up to the game of
conversational give-and-take with Ebie Farrish. She was a girl of
few genteel accomplishments, but with her gipsy charm and her
frankly pagan nature she was fitted to go far.

CHAPTER XXIX.

THE DAKK OF THE MOON AT THE GKANNOCH BRIDGE.

Over the manse of Dullarg, still and grey, with only the two men
in it; over the low-walled rectangular farm steading of Craig
Ronald, fell alike the midsummer night. Ten o'clock on an early
July evening is in Galloway but a modified twilight. But as the
sun went down behind the pines he sent an angry gleam athwart the
green braes. The level cloud-band into which he plunged drew
itself upward to the zenith, and, like the eyelid of a gigantic
eye, shut down as though God in his heaven were going to sleep,
and the world was to be left alone.

It was the dark of the moon, and even if there had been full moon
its light would have been as completely shut out by the cloud
canopy as was the mild diffusion of the blue-grey twilight. So it
happened that, as Ralph Peden took his way to his first love-
tryst, it was all that he could do to keep the path, so dark had
it become. But there was no rain--hardly yet even the hint or
promise of rain.

Yet under the cloud there was a great solitariness--the murmur of
a land where no man had come since the making of the world. Down
in the sedges by the lake a blackcap sang sweetly, waesomely, the
nightingale of Scotland. Far on the moors a curlew cried out that
its soul was lost. Nameless things whinnied in the mist-filled
hollows. On the low grounds there lay a white mist knee-deep, and
Ralph Peden waded in it as in a shallow sea. So in due time he
came near to the place of his tryst.

Never had he stood so before. He stilled the beating of his heart
with his hand, so loud and riotous it was in that silent place. He
could hear, loud as an insurrection, the quick, unequal double-
knocking in his bosom.

A grasshopper, roosting on a blade of grass beneath, his feet,
tumbled off and gave vent to his feelings in a belated "chirr."
Overhead somewhere a raven croaked dismally and cynically at
intervals. Ralph's ears heard these things as he waited, with
every sense on the alert, at the place of his love-tryst.

He thrilled with the subtle hope of strange possibilities. A mill-
race of pictures of things sweet and precious ran through his
mind. He saw a white-spread table, with Winsome seated opposite to
himself, tall, fair, and womanly, the bright heads of children
between them. And the dark closed in. Again he saw Winsome with
her head on his arm, standing looking out on the sunrise from the
hilltop, whence they had watched it not so long ago. The thought
brought him to his pocket-book. He took it out, and in the
darkness touched his lips to the string of the lilac sunbonnet. It
surely must be past ten now, he thought. Would she not come? He
had, indeed, little right to ask her, and none at all to expect
her. Yet he had her word of promise--one precious line. What would
he say to her when she came? He would leave that to be settled
when his arms were about her. But perhaps she would be colder than
before. They would sit, he thought, on the parapet of the bridge.
There were no fir-branches to part them with intrusive spikes. So
much at least should be his.

But then, again, she might not come at all! What more likely than
that she had been detained by her grandmother? How could he expect
it? Indeed, he told himself he did not expect it. He had come out
here because it was a fine night, and the night air cooled his
brain for his studies. His heart, hammering on his life's anvil,
contradicted him. He could not have repeated the Hebrew alphabet.
His head, bent a little forward in the agony of listening, whirled
madly round; the ambient darkness surrounding all.

There! He heard a footstep. There was a light coming down the
avenue under the elders. At last! No, it was only the glow-worms
under the leaves, shining along the grass by the wayside. The
footstep was but a restless sheep on the hillside. Then some one
coughed, with the suppressed sound of one who covers his mouth
with his hand. Ralph was startled, but almost laughed to think
that it was still only the lamb on the other side of the wall
moving restlessly about in act to feed. Time and again the blood
rushed to his temples, for he was sure that he heard her coming to
him. But it was only the echo of the blood surging blindly through
his own veins, or some of the night creatures fulfilling their
love-trysts, and seeking their destinies under the cloud of night.

Suddenly his whole soul rose in revolt against him. Certainly now
he heard a light and swift footstep. There was a darker shape
coming towards him against the dim, faint grey glimmer of the
loch. It was his love, and she had come out to him at his bidding.
He had dreamed of an angel, and lo! now he should touch her in the
hollow night, and find that she was a warm, breathing woman.

Wrapped from head to foot in a soft close shawl, she came to him.
He could see her now, but only as something darker against the
canopy of the night. So, in the blissful dark, which makes lovers
brave, he opened his arms to receive her. For the first time in
his life he drew them to him again not empty.

The thrill electric of the contact, the yielding quiescence of the
girl whom he held to his breast, stilled his heart's tumultuous
beating. She raised her head, and their lips drew together into a
long kiss. What was this thing? It was a kiss in which he tasted a
strange alien flavour even through the passion of it. A sense of
wrong and disappointment flowed round Ralph's heart. So on the
bridge in the darkness, where many lovers had stood ever since the
first Pict trysted his dark-browed bride by the unbridged water,
the pair stood very still. They only breathed each other's breath.
Something familiar struck on Ralph's senses. He seemed to be
standing silent in the parlour at Craig Ronald--not here, with his
arms round his love--and somehow between them there rose
unmistakable the perfume of the flower which for an hour he had
carried in his coat on the day that he and she went a-fishing.

"Beloved," he said tenderly, looking down, "you are very good to
me to come!"

For all reply a face was held close pressed to his. The mists of
night had made her cheek damp. He passed his hand across the
ripples of her hair. Half hidden by the shawl he could feel the
crisping of the curls under his fingers.

It was harder in texture than he had fancied Winsome's hair would
be. He half smiled that he had time at such a moment to think such
a thing. It was strange, however. He had thought a woman's hair
was like floss silk--at least Winsome's, for he had theorized
about none other.

"Winsome, dear!" he said, again bending his head to look down, "I
have to go far away, and I wanted to tell you. You are not angry
with me, sweetest, for asking you to come? I could not go without
bidding you good-bye, and in the daytime I might not have seen you
alone. You know that I love you with all my life and all my heart.
And you love me--at least a little. Tell me, beloved!"

Still there was no answer. Ralph waited with some certitude and
ease from pain, for indeed the clasping arms told him all he
wished to know.

There was a brightness low down in the west. Strangely and slowly
the gloomy eyelid of cloud which had fallen athwart the evening
lifted for a moment its sullen fringe; a misty twilight of lurid
light flowed softly over the land. The shawl fell back like a hood
from off the girl's shoulders. She looked up throbbing and
palpitating. Ralph Peden was clasping Jess Kissock in his arms.
She had kept her word. He had kissed her of his own free will, and
that within a day. Her heart rejoiced over Winsome. "So much, at
least, she cannot take from me."

Ralph Peden's heart stopped beating for a tremendous interval of
seconds. Then the dammed-back blood-surge drave thundering in his
ears. He swayed, and would have fallen but for the parapet of the
bridge and the clinging arms about his neck. All his nature and
love in full career stopped dead. The shock almost unhinged his
soul and reason. It was still so dark that, though he could see
the outline of her head and the paleness of her face, nothing held
him but the intense and vivid fascination of her eyes. Ralph would
have broken away, indignant and amazed, but her arms and eyes held
him close prisoner, the dismayed turmoil in his own heart aiding.

"Yes, Ralph Peden," Jess Kissock said, cleaving to him, "and you
hate me because it is I and not another. You think me a wicked
girl to come to you in her place. But you called her because you
loved her, and I have come because I loved you as much. Have I not
as much right? Do not dream that I came for aught but that. Have I
not as good a right to love as you?"

She prisoned his face fiercely between her hands, and held him off
from her as if to see into his soul by the light of the lingering
lake of ruddy light low in the west.

"In your Bible where is there anything that hinders a woman from
loving? Yet I know you will despise me for loving you, and hate me
for coming in her place."

"I do not hate you!" said Ralph, striving to go without rudely
unclasping the girl's hands. Her arms fell instantly again about
his neck, locking themselves behind.

"No, you shall not go till you have heard all, and then you can
cast me into the loch as a worthless thing that you are better rid
of."

Through his disappointment and his anger, Ralph was touched. He
would have spoken, but the girl went on:

"No, you do not hate me--I am not worth it. You despise me, and do
you think that is any better? I am only a cottar's child. I have
been but a waiting-maid. But I have read how maids have loved the
kings and the kings loved them. Yes, I own it. I am proud of it. I
have schemed and lain awake at nights for this. Why should I not
love you? Others have loved me without asking my leave. Why should
I ask yours? And love came to me without your leave or my own that
day on the road when you let me carry your books."

She let her arms drop from his neck and buried her face in her
hands, sobbing now with very genuine tears. Ralph could not yet
move away, even though no longer held by the stringent coercion of
this girl's arms. He was too grieved, too suddenly and bitterly
disappointed to have any fixed thought or resolve. But the good
man does not live who can listen unmoved to the despairing catch
of the sobbing in a woman's throat. Then on his hands, which he
had clasped before him, he felt the steady rain of her tears; his
heart went out in a great pity for this wayward girl who was
baring her soul to him.

The whole note and accent of her grief was of unmistakable
feeling. Jess Kissock had begun in play, but her inflammable
nature kindled easily into real passion. For at least that night,
by the bridge of the Grannoch water, she believed that her heart
was broken.

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