Constant - "The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, v6"

Charles E. Morris - "The Progressive Democracy of James M. Cox"

Oscar Wilde - "Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories"

John Lothrop Motley - "History of the United Netherlands, 1608(b)"

New Philadelphia Book Publisher Highlights Local Talent
Book and Publishing News from Publishers Newswire(tm)

Looking for Child to be on Cover of a New Book, 'The Model Child'
PHILADELPHIA, Pa. -- The Philadelphia literary world will celebrate the launch of two new players today, April 10th: Kay Square Press, a new publishing company focused on Philadelphia-area artists, their stories, and their art; and Kay Square's first release, 'With the Rich and Mighty: Emlen Etting of Philadelphia' (ISBN: 978-0-9815129-0-7), a critical biography by Kenneth C. Kaleta.

FlatSigned Press Alleges Don Imus Remarks Damage Legacy of President Gerald R. Ford
NEW YORK, N.Y. -- Nathan Yungerberg, an accomplished model scout and professional child photographer is launching a nation-wide casting call to find the cover model for his highly anticipated book release, 'The Model Child: A Parents Guide to the Child Modeling Industry' (ISBN: 978-0-9817018-0-6).

Books: The Lilac Sunbonnet

S >> S.R. Crockett >> The Lilac Sunbonnet




Winsome and Ralph walked on into the eye of the day, hand in hand,
as was their wont. They crossed the dreary moor, which yet is not
dreary when you came to look at it on such a morning as this.

The careless traveller glancing at it as he passed might call it
dreary; but in the hollows, miniature lakes glistened, into which
the tiny spurs of granite ran out flush with the water like
miniature piers. The wind of the morning waking, rippled on the
lakelets, and blew the bracken softly northward. The heather was
dark rose purple, the "ling" dominating the miles of moor; for the
lavender-grey flush of the true heather had not yet broken over
the great spaces of the south uplands.

So their feet dragged slower as they drew near to that spot where
they knew they must part. There was no thought of going back.
There was even little of pain.

Perfect love had done its work. All frayed and secondhand loves
may be made ashamed by the fearlessness of these two walking to
their farewell trysting-place, lonely amid the world of heather.
Only daft Jock Gordon above them, like a jealous scout, scoured
the heights--sometimes on all-fours, sometimes bending double,
with his long arms swinging like windmills, scaring even the sheep
and the deer lest they should come too near. Overhead there was
nothing nearer them than the blue lift, and even that had
withdrawn itself infinitely far away, as though the angels
themselves did not wish to spy on a later Eden. It was that
midsummer glory of love-time, when grey Galloway covers up its
flecked granite and becomes a true Purple Land.

If there be a fairer spot within the four seas than this fringe of
birch-fringed promontory which juts into westernmost Loch Ken, I
do not know it. Almost an island, it is set about with the tiniest
beaches of white sand. From the rocks that look boldly up the loch
the heather and the saxifrage reflect themselves in the still
water. To reach it Winsome led Ralph among the scented gall-bushes
and bog myrtle, where in the marshy meadows the lonely grass of
Parnassus was growing. Pure white petals, veined green, with
spikelets of green set in the angles within, five-lobed broidery
of daintiest gold stitching, it shone with so clear a presage of
hope that Ralph stooped to pick it that he might give it to
Winsome.

She stopped him.

"Do not pull it," she said; "leave it for me to come and look at--
when--when you are gone. It will soon wither if it is taken away;
but give me some of the bog myrtle instead," she added, seeing
that Ralph looked a little disappointed.

Ralph gathered some of the narrow, brittle, fragrant leaves.
Winsome carefully kept half for herself, and as carefully inserted
a spray in each pocket of his coat.

"There, that will keep you in mind of Galloway!" she said. And
indeed the bog myrtle is the characteristic smell of the great
world of hill and moss we call by that name. In far lands the mere
thought of it has brought tears to the eyes unaccustomed, so close
do the scents and sights of the old Free Province--the lordship of
the Picts--wind themselves about the hearts of its sons.

"We transplant badly, we plants of the hills. You must come back
to me," said Winsome, after a pause of wondering silence.

Loch Ken lay like a dream in the clear dispersed light of the
morning, the sun shimmering upon it as through translucent ground
glass. Teal and moor-hen squattered away from the shore as Winsome
and Ralph climbed the brae, and stood looking northward over the
superb levels of the loch. On the horizon Cairnsmuir showed golden
tints through his steadfast blue.

Whaups swirled and wailed about the rugged side of Bennan above
their heads. Across the loch there was a solitary farm so
beautifully set that Ralph silently pointed it out to Winsome, who
smiled and shook her head.

"The Shirmers has just been let on a nineteen years' lease," she
said, "eighteen to run."

So practical was the answer, that Ralph laughed, and the strain of
his sadness was broken. He did not mean to wait eighteen years for
her, fathers or no fathers.

Then beyond, the whole land leaped skyward in great heathery
sweeps, save only here and there, where about some hill farm the
little emerald crofts and blue-green springing oatlands clustered
closest. The loch spread far to the north, sleeping in the
sunshine. Burnished like a mirror it was, with no breath upon it.
In the south the Dee water came down from the hills peaty and
brown. The roaring of its rapids could faintly be heard. To the
east, across the loch, an island slept in the fairway, wooded to
the water's edge.

It were a good place to look one's last on the earth, this wooded
promontory, which might indeed have been that mountain, though a
little one, from which was once seen all the kingdoms of the earth
and the glory of them. For there are no finer glories on the earth
than red heather and blue loch, except only love and youth.

So here love and youth had come to part, between the heather that
glowed on the Bennan Hill and the sapphire pavement of Loch Ken.

For a long time Winsome and Ralph were silent--the empty interior
sadness, mixed of great fear and great hunger, beginning to grip
them as they stood. Lives only just twined and unified were again
to twain. Love lately knit was to be torn asunder. Eyes were to
look no more into the answering eloquence of other eyes.

"I must go," said Ralph, looking down into his betrothed's face.

"Stay only a little," said Winsome. "It is the last time."

So he stayed.

Strange, nervous constrictions played at "cat's cradle" about
their hearts. Vague noises boomed and drummed in their ears,
making their own words sound strange and empty, like voices heard
in a dream.

"Winsome!" said Ralph.

"Ralph!" said Winsome.

"You will never for a moment forget me?" said Winsome Charteris.

"You will never for a moment forget me?" said Ralph Peden.

The mutual answer taken and given, after a long silence of soul
and body in not-to-be-forgotten communion, they drew apart.

Ralph went a little way down the birch-fringed hill, but turned to
look a last look. Winsome was standing where he had left her.
Something in her attitude told of the tears steadily falling upon
her summer dress. It was enough and too much.

Ralph ran back quickly.

"I cannot go away, Winsome. I cannot bear to leave you like this!"

Winsome looked at him and fought a good fight, like the brave girl
she was. Then she smiled through her tears with the sudden
radiance of the sun upon a showery May morning when the white
hawthorn is coming out.

At this a sob, dangerously deep, rending and sudden, forced itself
from Ralph's throat. Her smile was infinitely more heart-breaking
than her tears. Ralph uttered a kind of low inarticulate roar at
the sight--being his impotent protest against his love's pain. Yet
such moments are the ineffaceable treasures of life, had he but
known it. Many a man's deeds follow his vows simply because his
lips have tasted the salt water of love's ocean upon the face of
the beloved.

"Be brave, Winsome," said Ralph; "it shall not be for long."

Yet she was braver than he, had he but known it; for it is the
heritage of the woman to be the stronger in the crises which
inevitably wait upon love and love's achievement.

Winsome bent to kiss, with a touch like a benediction, not his
lips now but his brow, as he stood beneath her on the hill slope.

"Go," she said; "go quickly, while I have the strength. I will be
brave. Be thou brave also. God be with thee!"

So Ralph turned and fled while he could. He dared not trust
himself to look till he was past the hill and some way across the
moor. Then he turned and looked back over the acres of heather
which he had put between himself and his love.

Winsome still stood on the hill-top, the sun shining on her face.
In her hand was the lilac sunbonnet, making a splash of faint pure
colour against the blonde whiteness of her dress. Ralph could just
catch the golden shimmer of her hair. He knew but he could not see
how it crisped and tendrilled about her brow, and how the light
wind blew it into little cirrus wisps of sun-flossed gold. The
thought that for long he should see it no more was even harder
than parting. It is the hard things on this earth that are the
easiest to do. The great renunciation is easy, but it is
infinitely harder to give up the sweet, responsive delight of the
eye, the thought, the caress. This also is human. God made it.

The lilac sunbonnet waved a little heartless wave which dropped in
the middle as if a string were broken. But the shining hair blew
out, as a waft of wind from the Bennan fretted a moving patch
across the loch.

Ralph flung out his hand in one of the savage gestures men use
when they turn bewildered and march away, leaving the best of
their lives behind them.

So shutting his eyes Ralph plunged headlong into the green glades
of the Kenside and looked no more. Winsome walked slowly and
sedately back, not looking on the world any more, but only twining
and pulling roughly the strings of her sunbonnet till one came
off. Winsome threw it on the grass. What did it matter now? She
would wear it no longer. There was none to cherish the lilac
sunbonnet any more.





CHAPTER XXXVI.

OVER THE HILLS AND FAR AWA'.


Winsome came back to a quiet Craig Ronald. The men were in the
field. The farmsteading was hushed, Meg not to be seen, the dogs
silent, the bedroom blind undrawn when she entered to find the key
in the door. She went within instantly and threw herself down upon
the bed. Outside, the morning sun strengthened and beat on the
shining white of the walls of Craig Ronald, and on Ralph far
across the moors.

Winsome must wait. We shall follow Ralph. It is the way of the
world at any rate. The woman always must wait and nothing said.
With the man are the keen interests of the struggle, the grip of
opposition, the clash of arms. With the woman, naught worth
speaking of--only the silence, the loneliness, and waiting.

Ralph went northward wearing Winsome's parting kiss on his brow
like an insignia of knighthood. It meant much to one who had never
gone away before. So simple was he that he did not know that there
are all-experiencing young men who love and sail away, clearing as
they go the decks of their custom-staled souls for the next
action.

He stumbled, this simple knight, blindly into the ruts and pebbly
water courses down which the winter rains had rushed, tearing the
turf clean from the granite during the November and February
rains.

So he journeyed onward, heedless of his going.

To him came Jock Gordon, skipping like a wild goat down the Bennan
side.

"Hey, mon, d'ye want to drive intil Loch Ken? Ye wad mak' braw
ged-bait. Haud up the hill, breest to the brae."

Through his trouble Ralph heard and instinctively obeyed. In a
little while he struck the beautiful road which runs north and
south along the side of the long loch of Ken. Now there are fairer
bowers in the south sunlands. There are Highlands and Alp-lands of
sky-piercing beauty. But to Galloway, and specially to the central
glens and flanking desolations thereof, one beauty belongs. She is
like a plain girl with beautiful eyes. There is no country like
her in the world for colour--so delicately fresh in the rain-
washed green of her pasture slopes, so keen the viridian
[Footnote: Veronese green] of her turnip-fields when the dew is on
the broad, fleshy, crushed leaves, so tender and deep the blue in
the hollow places. It was small wonder that Ralph had set down in
the note-book in which he sketched for future use all that passed
under his eye:

"Hast thou seen the glamour that follows
The falling of summer rain-
The mystical blues in the hollows,
The purples and greys on the plain?"

It is true that all these things were but the idle garniture of a
tale that had lost its meaning to Ralph this morning; but yet in
time the sense that the beauty and hope of life lay about him
stole soothingly upon his soul. He was glad to breathe the
gracious breaths of spraying honeysuckle running its creamy riot
of honey-drenched petals over the hedges, and flinging daring
reconnaissances even to the tops of the dwarf birches by the
wayside.

So quickly Nature eased his smart, that--for such is the nature of
the best men, even of the very best--at the moment when Winsome
threw herself, dazed and blinded with pain, upon her low white bed
in the little darkened chamber over the hill at Craig Ronald,
Ralph was once more, even though with the gnaw of emptiness and
loss in his heart, looking forward to the future, and planning
what the day would bring to him on which he should return.

Even as he thought he began to whistle, and his step went lighter,
Jock Gordon moving silently along the heather by his side at a
dog's trot. Let no man think hardly of Ralph, for this is the
nature of the man. It was not that man loves the less, but that
with him in his daring initiative and strenuous endeavour the
future lies.

The sooner, then, that he could compass and overpass his
difficulties the more swiftly would his face be again set to the
south, and the aching emptiness of his soul be filled with a
strange and thrilling expectancy. The wind whistled in his face as
he rounded the Bennan and got his first glimpse of the Kells
range, stretching far away over surge after surge of heather and
bent, through which, here and there, the grey teeth of the granite
shone. It is no blame to him that, as he passed on from horizon to
horizon, each step which took him farther and farther from Craig
Ronald seemed to bring him nearer and nearer to Winsome. He was
going away, yet with each mile he regained the rebounding spirit
of youth, while Winsome lay dazed in her room at Craig Ronald. But
let it not be forgotten that he went in order that no more she
might so lie with the dry mechanic sobs catching ever and anon in
her throat. So the world is not so ill divided, after all. And,
being a woman, perhaps Winsome's grief was as dear and natural to
her as Ralph's elastic hopefulness.

Soon Ralph and Jock Gordon were striding across the moors towards
Moniaive. Ralph wished to breakfast at one of the inns in New
Galloway, but this Jock Gordon would not allow. He did not like
that kind o' folk, he said.

"Gie's tippens, an' that'll serve brawly," said Jock.

Ralph drew out Winsome's purse; he looked at it reverently and put
it back again. It seemed too early, and too material a use of her
love-token.

"Nae sillar in't?" queried Jock. "How's that? It looks brave and
baggy."

"I think I will do without for the present," said Ralph.

"Aweel," said Jock, "ye may, but I'm gaun to hae my breakfast a'
the same, sillar or no sillar."

In twenty minutes he was back by the dykeside, where he had left
Ralph sitting, twining Winsome's purse through his fingers, and
thinking on the future, and all that was awaiting him in Edinburgh
town.

Jock seemed what he had called Winsome's purse--baggy.

Then he undid himself. From under the lower buttons of his long
russet "sleeved waistcoat" with the long side flaps which, along
with his sailor-man's trousers, he wore for all garment, he drew a
barn-door fowl, trussed and cooked, and threw it on the ground.
Now came a dozen farles of cake, crisp and toothsome, from the
girdle, and three large scones raised with yeast.

Then followed, out of some receptacle not too strictly to be
localized, half a pound of butter, wrapped in a cabbage-leaf, and
a quart jug of pewter.

Ralph looked on in amazement.

"Where did you get all these?" he asked.

"Get them? Took them!" said Jock succinctly. "I gaed alang to
Mistress MacMorrine's, an' says I, 'Guid-mornin' till ye,
mistress, an' hoo's a' wi' ye the day?' for I'm a ceevil chiel
when folks are ceevil to me."

"'Nane the better for seein' you, Jock Gordon,' says she, for
she's an unceevil wife, wi' nae mair mainners nor gin she had just
come ower frae Donnachadee--the ill-mainnered randy.

"'But,' says I, 'maybes ye wad be the better o' kennin' that the
kye's eatin' your washin' up on the loan. I saw Provost Weir's
muckle Ayreshire halfway through wi' yer best quilt,' says I.

"She flung up her hands.

"'Save us!' she cries; 'could ye no hae said that at first?'

"An' wi' that she ran as if Auld Hornie was at her tail, screevin'
ower the kintra as though she didna gar the beam kick at twa
hunderweicht guid."

"But was that true, Jock Gordon?" asked Ralph, astounded.

"True!--what for wad it be true? Her washin' is lyin' bleachin',
fine an' siccar, but she get a look at it and a braw sweet. A race
is guid exercise for ony yin that its as muckle as Luckie
MacMorrine."

"But the provisions--and the hen?" asked Ralph, fearing the worst.

"They were on her back-kitchen table. There they are now," said
Jock, pointing with his foot, as though that was all there was to
say about the matter.

"But did you pay for them?" he asked.

"Pay for them! Does a dowg pay for a sheep's heid when he gangs
oot o' the butcher's shop wi' yin atween his teeth, an' a twa-pund
wecht playin' dirl on his hench-bane? Pay for't! Weel, I wat no!
Didna yer honour tell me that ye had nae sillar, an' sae gaed it
in hand to Jock?"

Ralph started up. This might be a very serious matter. He pulled
out Winsome's purse again. In the end he tried first there was
silver, and in the other five golden guineas in a little silken
inner case. One of the guineas Ralph took out, and, handing it to
Jock, he bade him gather up all that he had stolen and take his
way back with them. Then he was to buy them from Luckie MacMorrine
at her own price.

"Sic a noise aboot a bit trifle!" said Jock. "What's aboot a bit
chuckle an' a heftin' o' cake? Haivers!"

But very quickly Ralph prevailed upon him, and Jock took the
guinea. At his usual swift wolf's lope he was out of sight over
the long stretches of heather and turf so speedily that he arrived
at the drying-ground on the hillside before Luckie MacMorrine,
handicapped by her twenty stone avoirdupois, had perspired
thither.

Jock met her at the gate.

"Noo, mistress," exclaimed Jock, busily smoothing out the wrinkles
and creases of a fine linen sheet, with "E. M. M." on the corner,
"d'ye see this? I juist gat here in time, and nae mair. Ye see,
thae randies o' kye, wi' their birses up, they wad sune hae seen
the last o' yer bonny sheets an' blankets, gin I had letten them."

Mistress MacMorrine did not waste a look on the herd of cows, but
proceeded to go over her washing with great care. Jock had just
arrived in time to make hay of it, before the owner came puffing
up the road. Had she looked at the cows curiously it might have
struck her that they were marvellously calm for such ferocious
animals. This seemed to strike Jock, for he went after them,
throwing stones at them in the manner known as "henchin'" [jerking
from the side], much practised in Galloway, and at which Jock was
a remarkable adept. Soon he had them excited enough for anything,
and pursued them with many loud outcryings till they were
scattered far over the moor.

When he came back he said: "Mistress MacMorrine, I ken brawly that
ye'll be wushin' to mak' me some sma' recompense for my trouble
an' haste. Weel, I'll juist open my errand to ye. Ye see the way
o't was this: There is twa gentlemen shooters on the moors, the
Laird o' Balbletherum an' the Laird o' Glower-ower-'em-twa
respectit an' graund gentlemen. They war wantin' some luncheon,
but they were that busy shootin' that they hadna time to come, so
they says to me, 'Jock Gordon, do ye ken an honest woman in this
neighbourhood that can supply something to eat at a reasonable
chairge?' 'Yes,' says I, 'Mistress MacMorrine is sic a woman, an'
nae ither.' 'Do ye think she could pit us up for ten days or a
fortnight?' says they. 'I doot na', for she's weel plenisht an'
providit,' I says. 'Noo, I didna ken but ye micht be a lang time
detained wi' the kye (as indeed ye wad hae been, gin I hadna come
to help ye), an' as the lairds couldna be keepit, I juist took up
the bit luncheon that I saw on your kitchie table, an' here it is,
on its way to the wames o' the gentlemen--whilk is an honour
till't.'"

Mistress MacMorrine did not seem to be very well pleased at the
unceremonious way in which Jock had dealt with the contents of her
larder, but the inducement was too great to be gainsaid.

"Ye'll mak' it reasonable, nae doot," said Jock, "sae as to gie
the gentlemen a good impression. There's a' thing in a first
impression."

"Tak' it till them an' welcome--wi' the compliments o' Mrs.
MacMorrine o' the Blue Bell, mind an' say till them. Ye may
consider it a recognition o' yer ain trouble in the matter o' the
kye; but I will let the provost hear o't on the deafest side o'
his heid when he ca's for his toddy the nicht."

"Thank ye, mistress," said Jock, quickly withdrawing with his
purchases; "there's nocht like obleegements for makin' freends."

At last Ralph saw Jock coming at full speed over the moor.

He went forward to him anxiously.

"Is it all right?" he asked.

"It's a' richt, an' a' paid for, an' mair, gin ye like to send
Jock for't; an' I wasna to forget Mistress MacMorrine's
compliments to ye intil the bargain."

Ralph looked mystified.

"Ye wadna see the Laird o' Balbletherum? Did ye?" said Jock,
cocking his impudent, elvish head to the side.

"Who is he?" asked Ralph.

"Nor yet the Laird o' Glower--ower--'em?"

"I have seen nobody from the time you went away," said Ralph.

"Then we'll e'en fa' to. For gin thae twa braw gentlemen arena
here to partake o' the guid things o' this life, then there's the
mair for you an' Jock Gordon."

Jock never fully satisfied Ralph's curiosity as to the manner in
which he obtained this provender. Luckie Morrine bestowed it upon
him for services rendered, he said; which was a true, though
somewhat abbreviated and imperfect account of the transaction.

What the feelings of the hostess of the Blue Bell were when night
passed without the appearance of the two lairds, for whom she had
spread her finest sheets, and looked out her best bottles of wine,
we have no means of knowing. Singularly enough, for some
considerable time thereafter Jock patronized the "Cross Keys" when
he happened to be passing that way. He "preferred it to the Blue
Bell," he said.





CHAPTER XXXVII.

UNDER THE BED HEATHER.


So refreshed, Ralph and Jock passed on their way. All the forenoon
they plodded steadily forward. From Moniaive they followed the
windings of a flashing burn, daching and roaring in a shallow
linn, here and there white with foam and fretting, and again
dimpling black in some deep and quiet pool. Through the ducal
village of Thornhill and so northward along the Nithside towards
the valley of the Menick they went. The great overlapping purple
folds of the hills drew down about these two as they passed. Jock
Gordon continually scoured away to either side like a dog fresh
off the leash. Ralph kept steadily before him the hope in his
heart that before long the deep cleft would be filled up and that
for always.

It so happened that it was night when they reached the high summit
of the Leadhills and the village of Wanlockhead gleamed grey
beneath them. Ralph proposed to go down and get lodgings there;
but Jock had other intentions.

"What for," he argued, "what for should ye pay for the breadth of
yer back to lie doon on? Jock Gordon wull mak' ye juist as
comfortable ablow a heather buss as ever ye war in a bed in the
manse. Bide a wee!"

Jock took him into a sheltered little "hope," where they were shut
in from the world of sheep and pit-heads.

With his long, broad-bladed sheath-knife Jock was not long in
piling under the sheltered underside of a great rock over which
the heather grew, such a heap of heather twigs as Ralph could
hardly believe had been cut in so short a time. These he compacted
into an excellent mattress, springy and level, with pliable
interlacings of broom.

"Lie ye doon there, an' I'll mak' ye a bonnie plaidie," said Jock.

There was a little "cole" or haystack of the smallest sort close
at hand. To this Jock went, and, throwing off the top layer as
possibly damp, he carried all the rest in his arms and piled it on
Ralph till he was covered up to his neck.

"We'll mak' a' snod [neat] again i' the mornin'!" he said. "Noo,
we'll theek [thatch] ye, an' feed ye!" said Jock comprehensively.
So saying, he put other layers of heather, thinner than the
mattress underneath, but arranged in the same way, on the top of
the hay.

"Noo ye're braw an' snug, are ye na'? What better wad ye hae been
in a three-shillin' bed?"

Then Jock made a fire of broken last year's heather. This he
carefully watched to keep it from spreading, and on it he roasted
half a dozen plover's eggs which he had picked up during the day
in his hillside ranging. On these high moors the moor-fowls go on
laying till August. These being served on warmed and buttered
scones, and sharpened with a whiff of mordant heather smoke, were
most delicious to Ralph, who smiled to himself, well pleased under
his warm covering of hay and overthatching of heather.