Books: The Lilac Sunbonnet
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S.R. Crockett >> The Lilac Sunbonnet
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After each egg was supplied to him piping hot, Jock would say:
"An' isna that as guid as a half-croon supper?"
Then another pee-wit's egg, delicious and fresh--
"Luckie Morrine couldna beat that," said Jock.
There was a surprising lightness in the evening air, the elastic
life of the wide moorland world settling down to rest for a couple
of hours, which is all the night there is on these hill-tops in
the crown of the year.
Jock Gordon covered himself by no means so elaborately as he had
provided for Ralph, saying: "I hae covered you for winter, for
ye're but a laddie; the like o' me disna need coverin' when the
days follow yin anither like sheep jumpin' through a slap."
Ralph was still asleep when the morning came. But when the young
sun looked over the level moors--for they were on the very top of
the heathery creation--Jock Gordon made a little hillock of dewy
heather to shelter Ralph from the sun. He measured at the same
time a hand's breadth in the sky, saying to himself, "I'll wakken
the lad when he gets to there!" He was speaking of the sun.
But before the flood of light overtopped the tiny break-water and
shot again upon Ralph's face, he sat up bewildered and astonished,
casting a look about him upon the moorland and its crying birds.
Jock Gordon was just coming towards him, having scoured the face
of the ridge for more plover's eggs.
"Dinna rise," said Jock, "till I tak' awa' the beddin'. Ye see,"
continued the expert in camping out on hills, "the hay an' the
heather gets doon yer neck an' mak's ye yeuk [itch] an' fidge a'
day. An' at first ye mind that, though after a while gin ye dinna
yeuk, ye find it michty oninterestin'!"
Ralph sat up. Something in Jock's bare heel as he sat on the grass
attracted his attention.
"Wi', Jock," he said, infinitely astonished, "what's that in yer
heel?"
"Ou!" said Jock, "it's nocht but a nail!"
"A nail!" said Ralph; "what are ye doin' wi' a nail in yer foot?"
"I gat it in last Martinmas," he said.
"But why do you not get it out? Does it not hurt?" said Ralph,
compassionating.
"'Deed did it awhile at the first," said Jock, "but I got used to
it. Ye can use wi' a'thing. Man's a wunnerful craitur!"
"Let me try to pull it out," said Ralph, shivering to think of the
pain he must have suffered.
"Na, na, ye ken what ye hae, but ye dinna ken what ye micht get. I
ken what I hae to pit up wi', wi' a nail in my fit; but wha kens
what it micht be gin I had a muckle hole ye could pit yer finger
in? It wadna be bonny to hae the clocks howkin' [beetles digging]
and the birdies biggin' their nests i' my heel! Na, na, it's a
guid lesson to be content wi' yer doon-settin', or ye may get
waur!"
It was in the bright morning light that these two took the
Edinburgh road, which clambered down over the hillsides by the
village of Leadhills into the valley of the Clyde. Through
Abingdon and Biggar they made their way, and so admirable were
Jock's requisitioning abilities that Winsome's green purse was
never once called into action.
When they looked from the last downward step of the Mid-Lothian
table-land upon the city of Edinburgh, there was a brisk starting
of smoke from many chimneys, for the wives of the burgesses were
kindling their supper fires, and their husbands were beginning to
come in with the expectant look of mankind about meal-time.
"Come wi' me, Jock, and I'll show ye Edinburgh, as ye have showed
me the hills of heather!" This was Ralph's invitation.
"Na," said Jock, "an' thank ye kindly a' the same. There's muckle
loons there that micht snap up a guid-lookin' lad like Jock, an'
ship him ontill their nesty ships afore he could cry 'Mulquarchar
and Craignell!' Jock Gordon may be a fule, but he kens when he's
weel aff. Nae Auld Reekies for him, an' thank ye kindly. When he
wants to gang to the gaol he'll steal a horse an' gang daicent!
He'll no gang wi' his thoom in his mooth, an' when they say till
him, 'What are ye here for?' be obleeged to answer, 'Fegs, an' I
dinna ken what for!' Na, na, it wadna be mensefu' like ava'. A'
the Gordons that ever was hae gaen to the gaol--but only yince.
It's aye been a hangin' maitter, an' Jock's no the man to turn
again the rule an' custom o' his forebears. 'Yince gang, yince
hang,' is Jock's motto."
Ralph did not press the point. But he had some unexpected feeling
in saying good-bye to Jock. It was not so easy. He tried to put
three of Winsome's guineas into his hand, but Jock would have none
of them.
"ME wi' gowden guineas!" he said. "Surely ye maun hae an ill-wull
at puir Jock, that wusses ye weel; what wad ony body say gin I
poo'ed out sic a lump of gowd? 'There's that loon Jock been
breakin' somebody's bank,' an' then 'Fare-ye-weel, Kilaivie,' to
Jock's guid name. It's gane, like his last gless o' whusky, never
to return."
"But you are a long way from home, Jock; how will you get back?"
"Hoots, haivers, Maister Ralph, gin Jock has providit for you that
needs a' things as gin ye war in a graund hoose, dinna be feared
for Jock, that can eat a wamefu' o' green heather-taps wi' the dew
on them like a bit flafferin' grouse bird. Or Jock can catch the
muir-fowl itsel' an' eat it ablow a heather buss as gin he war a
tod [fox]. Hoot awa' wi' ye! Jock can fend for himsel' brawly.
Sillar wad only tak' the edge aff his genius."
"Then is there nothing that I can bring you from Edinburgh when I
come again?" said Ralph, with whom the coming again was ever
present.
"'Deed, aye, gin ye are so ceevil--it's richt prood I wad be o' a
boxfu' o' Maister Cotton's Dutch sneeshin'--him that's i' the High
Street--they say it's terrible graund stuff. Wullie Hulliby gat
some when he was up wi' his lambs, an' he said that, after the
first snifter, he grat for days. It maun be graund!"
Ralph promised, with gladness to find some way of easing his load
of debt to Jock.
"Noo, Maister Ralph, it's a wanchancy [uncertain] place, this
Enbra', an' I'll stap aff an' on till the morrow's e'en here or
hereaboots, for sae it micht be that ye took a notion to gang back
amang kent fowk, whaur ye wad be safe an' soun'."
"But, Jock," urged Ralph, "ye need not do that. I was born and
brought up in Edinburgh!"
"That's as may be; gin I bena mista'en, there's a byous
[extraordinary] heap o' things has happened since then. Gang yer
ways, but gin ye hae message or word for Jock, juist come cannily
oot, an' he'll be here till dark the morn."
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
BEFORE THE REFORMER'S CHAIR.
"The Lord save us, Maister Ralph, what's this?" said John
Bairdieson, opening the door of the stair in James's Court. It was
a narrow hall that it gave access to, more like a passage than a
hall. "Hoo hae ye come? An' what for didna Maister Welsh or you
write to say ye war comin'? An' whaur's a' the buiks an' the
gear?" continued John Bairdieson.
"I have walked all the way, John," said Ralph. "I quarrelled with
the minister, and he turned me to the door."
"Dear sirce!" said John anxiously, "was't ill-doing or unsound
doctrine?"
"Mr. Welsh said that he could not company with unbelievers."
"Then it's doctrine--wae's me, wae's me! I wuss it had been the
lasses. What wull his faither say? Gin it had been ill-doin', he
micht hae pitten it doon to the sins o' yer youth; but ill-
doctrine he canna forgie. O Maister Ralph, gin ye canna tell a lee
yersel', wull ye no haud yer tongue--I can lee, for I'm but an
elder--an' I'll tell him that at a kirn [harvest festival] ye war
persuaded to drink the health o' the laird, an' you no bein'
acquant wi' the strength o' Glenlivat--"
"John, John, indeed I cannot allow it. Besides, you're a sailor-
man, an' even in Galloway they do not have kirns till the corn's
ripe," replied Ralph with a smile.
"Aweel, can ye no say, or let me say for ye, gin ye be particular,
that ye war a wee late oot at nicht seein' a bit lassie--or ocht
but the doctrine? It wasna anything concernin' the fundamentals o'
the Marrow, Maister Ralph, though, surely," continued John
Bairdieson, whose elect position did not prevent him from doing
his best for the interests of his masters, young and old. Indeed,
to start with the acknowledged fact of personal election sometimes
gives a man like John Bairdieson an unmistakable advantage. Ralph
went to his own room, leaving John Bairdieson listening, as he
prayed to be allowed to do, at the door of his father's room.
In a minute or two John Bairdieson came up, with a scared face.
"Ye're to gang doon, Maister Ralph, an' see yer faither. But, O
sir, see that ye speak lown [calm] to him. He hasna gotten sleep
for twa nichts, an' he's fair pitten by himsel' wi' thae ill-set
Conformists--weary fa' them! that he's been in the gall o'
bitterness wi'."
Ralph went down to his father's study. Knocking softly, he
entered. His father sat in his desk chair, closed in on every
side. It had once been the pulpit of a great Reformer, and each
time that Gilbert Peden shut himself into it, he felt that he was
without father or mother save and except the only true and proper
Covenant-keeping doctrine in broad Scotland, and the honour and
well-being of the sorely dwindled Kirk of the Marrow.
Gilbert Peden was a noble make of a man, larger in body though
hardly taller than his son. He wore a dark-blue cloth coat with
wide flaps, and the immense white neckerchief on which John
Bairdieson weekly expended all his sailor laundry craft. His face
was like his son's, as clear-cut and statuesque, though larger and
broader in frame and mould. There was, however, a coldness about
the eye and a downward compression of the lips, which speaks the
man of narrow though fervid enthusiasms.
Ralph went forward to his father. As he came, his father stayed
him with the palm of his hand, the finger-tips turned upward.
"Abide, my son, till I know for what cause you have left or been
expelled from the house of the man to whom I committed you during
your trials for license. Answer me, why have you come away from
the house of Allan Welsh like a thief in the night?"
"Father," said Ralph, "I cannot tell you everything at present,
because the story is not mine to tell. Can you not trust me?"
"I could trust you with my life and all that I possess," said his
father; "they are yours, and welcome; but this is a matter that
affects your standing as a probationer on trials in the kirk of
the Marrow, which is of divine institution. The cause is not mine,
my son. Tell me that the cause of your quarrel had nothing to do
with the Marrow kirk and your future standing in it, and I will
ask you no more till you choose to tell me of your own will
concerning the matter."
The Marrow minister looked at his son with a gleam of tenderness
forcing its way through the sternness of his words.
But Ralph was silent.
"It was indeed in my duty to the Marrow kirk that Mr. Welsh
considered that I lacked. It was for this cause that he refused to
company further with me."
Then there came a hardness as of grey hill stone upon the
minister's face. It was not a pleasant thing to see in a father's
face.
"Then," he said slowly, "Ralph Peden, this also is a manse of the
Marrow kirk, and, though ye are my own son, I cannot receive ye
here till your innocence is proven in the presbytery. Ye must
stand yer trials."
Ralph bowed his head. He had not been unprepared for something
like this, but the pain he might have felt at another time was
made easier by a subtle anodyne. He hardly seemed to feel the
smart as a week before he might have done. In some strange way
Winsome was helping him to bear it--or her prayers for him were
being answered.
John Bairdieson broke into the study, his grey hair standing on
end, and the shape of the keyhole cover imprinted on his brow
above his left eye. John could see best with his left eye, and
hear best with his right ear, which he had some reason to look
upon as a special equalization of the gifts of Providence, though
not well adapted for being of the greatest service at keyholes.
"Save us, minister!" he burst out; "the laddie's but a laddie, an'
na doot his pranks hae upset guid Maister Welsh a wee. Lads will
be lads, ye ken. But Maister Ralph's soond on the fundamentals--I
learned him the Shorter Questions mysel', sae I should ken--forbye
the hunner an' nineteenth Psalm that he learned on my knee, and
how to mak' a Fifer's knot, an' the double reef, an' a heap o'
usefu' knowledge forbye; an' noo to tak' it into your heid that
yer ain son's no soond in the faith, a' because he has fa'en oot
wi' a donnert auld carle--"
"John," said the minister sternly, "leave the room! You have no
right to speak thus of an honoured servant of the kirk of the
Marrow."
Ralph could see through the window the light fading off the Fife
Lomonds, and the long line of the shore darkening under the night
into a more ethereal blue.
There came to him in this glimpse of woods and dewy pastures
overseas a remembrance of a dearer shore. The steading over the
Grannoch Loch stood up clear before him, the blue smoke going
straight up, Winsome's lattice standing open with the roses
peeping in, and the night airs breathing lovingly through them,
airing it out as a bed-chamber for the beloved.
The thought made his heart tender. To his father he said:
"Father, will you not take my word that there is nothing wicked or
disgraceful in what I have done? If it were my own secret, I would
gladly tell you at once; but as it is, I must wait until in his
own time Mr. Welsh communicates with you."
The minister, sitting in the Reformer's seat, pulling at his stern
upper lip, winced; and perhaps had it not been for the pulpit the
human in him might have triumphed. But he only said:
"I am quite prepared to support you until such time as at a
meeting of the presbytery the matter be tried, but I cannot have
in a Marrow Manse one living under the fama of expulsion from the
house of a brother minister in good standing."
"Thank you, father," said his son, "for your kind offer, but I do
not think I shall need to trouble you."
And so with these words the young man turned and went out proudly
from the father's sight, as he had gone from the manse of the
other minister of the Marrow kirk.
As he came to the outside of the door, leaving his father sitting
stately and stern in the Reformer's pulpit, he said, in the deeps
of his heart:
"God do so to me, and more also, if I ever seek again to enter the
Marrow kirk, if so be that, like my father, I must forget my
humanity in order worthily to serve it!"
After he had gone out, the Reverend Gilbert Peden took his Bible
and read the parable of the prodigal son. He closed the great
book, which ever lay open before him, and said, as one who both
accuses and excuses himself:
"But the prodigal son was not under trials for license in the kirk
of the Marrow!"
At the door, John Bairdieson, his hair more than ever on end, met
Ralph. He held up his hands.
"It's an awfu'--like thing to be obleegit to tell the hale truth!
O man, couldna ye hae tell't a wee bit lee? It wad hae saved an
awfu' deal o' fash! But it's ower late now; ye can juist bide i'
the spare room up the stair, an' come an' gang by door on the
Castle Bank, an' no yin forbye mysel' 'ill be a hair the wiser. I,
John Bairdieson, 'll juist fetch up yer meals the same as
ordinar'. Ye'll be like a laddie at the mastheid up there; it'll
be braw an' quate for the studyin'!"
"John, I am much obliged to you for your kind thought," said
Ralph, "but I cannot remain in his house against my father's
expressed wish, and without his knowledge."
"Hear till him! Whaur else should he bide but in the hoose that he
was born in, an' his faither afore him? That would be a bonny like
story. Na, na, ye'll juist bide, Maister Ralph, an'--"
"I must go this very night," said Ralph. "You mean well, John, but
it cannot be. I am going down to see my uncle, Professor
Thriepneuk."
"Leave yer faither's hoose to gang to that o' a weezened auld--"
"John!" said Ralph, warningly.
"He's nae uncle o' yours, onygate, though he married your mother's
sister. An' a sair life o't she had wi' him, though I doot na but
thae dochters o' his sort him to richts noo."
So, in spite of John Bairdieson's utmost endeavours, and waiting
only to put his clothes together, Ralph took his way over to the
Sciennes, where his uncle, the professor, lived in a new house
with his three daughters, Jemima, Kezia, and Keren-happuch. The
professor had always been very kind to Ralph. He was not a Marrow
man, and therefore, according to the faith of his father, an
outcast from the commonwealth. But he was a man of the world of
affairs, keen for the welfare of his class at the University
College--a man crabbed and gnarled on the surface, but within him
a strong vein of tenderness of the sort that always seems ashamed
of catching its possessor in a kind action.
To him Ralph knew that he could tell the whole story. The Sciennes
was on the very edge of the green fields. The corn-fields
stretched away from the dyke of the Professor's garden to the
south towards the red-roofed village of Echo Bank and the long
ridge of Liberton, crowned by the square tower on which a stone
dining-room table had been turned up, its four futile legs waving
in the air like a beetle overset on its back.
CHAPTER XXXIX.
JEMIMA, KEZIA, AND LITTLE KEREN-HAPPUCH.
Ralph found the professor out. He was, indeed, engaged in an
acrimonious discussion on the Wernerian theory, and at that moment
he was developing a remarkable scientific passion, which
threatened to sweep his adversaries from the face of the earth in
the debris of their heresies.
Within doors, however, Ralph found a very warm welcome from his
three cousins--Jemima, Kezia, and Keren-happuch. Jemima was tall
and angular, with her hair accurately parted in the middle, and
drawn in a great sweep over her ears--a fashion intended by Nature
for Keren-happuch, who was round of face, and with a complexion in
which there appeared that mealy pink upon the cheeks which is
peculiar to the metropolis. Kezia was counted the beauty of the
family, and was much looked up to by her elder and younger
sisters.
These three girls had always made much of Ralph, ever since he
used to play about the many garrets and rooms of their old mansion
beneath the castle, before they moved out to the new house at the
Sciennes. They had long been in love with him, each in her own
way; though they had always left the first place to Kezia, and
wove romances in their own heads with Ralph for the central
figure. Jemima, especially, had been very jealous of her sisters,
who were considerably younger, and had often spoken seriously to
them about flirting with Ralph. It was Jemima who came to the
door; for, in those days, all except the very grandest persons
thought no more of opening the outer than the inner doors of their
houses.
"Ralph Peden, have you actually remembered that there is such a
house as the Sciennes?" said Jemima, holding up her face to
receive the cousinly kiss.
Ralph bestowed it chastely. Whereupon followed Kezia and little
Keren-happuch, who received slightly varied duplicates.
Then the three looked at one another. They knew that this Ralph
had eaten of the tree of knowledge.
"That is not the way you kissed us before you went away," said
outspoken Kezia, who had experience in the matter wider than that
of the others, looking him straight in the eyes as became a
beauty.
For once Ralph was thoroughly taken aback, and blushed richly and
long.
Kezia laughed as one who enjoyed his discomfiture.
"I knew it would come," she said. "Is she a milkmaid? She's not
the minister's daughter, for he is a bachelor, you said!"
Jemima and Keren-happuch actually looked a little relieved, though
a good deal excited. They had been standing in the hall while this
conversation was running its course.
"It's all nonsense, Kezia; I am astonished at you!" said Jemima.
"Come into the sitting-parlour," said Kezia, taking Ralph's hand;
"we'll not one of us bear any malice if only you tell us all about
it."
Jemima, after severe consideration, at last looked in a curious
sidelong way to Ralph.
"I hope," she said, "that you have not done anything hasty."
"Tuts!" said Kezia, "I hope he has. He was far too slow before he
went away. Make love in haste; marry at leisure--that's the right
way."
"Can I have the essay that you read us last April, on the origin
of woman?" asked Keren-happuch unexpectedly. "You won't want it
any more, and I should like it."
Even little Keren-happuch had her feelings.
The three Misses Thriepneuks were a little jealous of one another
before, but already they had forgotten this slight feeling, which
indeed was no more than the instinct of proprietorship which young
women come to feel in one who has never been long out of their
house, and with whom they have been brought up.
But in the face of this new interest they lost their jealousy of
one another; so that, in place of presenting a united front to the
enemy, these three kindly young women, excited at the mere hint of
a love-story, vied with one another which should be foremost in
interest and sympathy. The blush on Ralph's face spoke its own
message, and now, when he was going to speak, his three cousins
sat round with eager faces to listen.
"I have something to tell, girls," said Ralph, "but I meant to
tell it first to my uncle. I have been turned out of the manse of
Dullarg, and my father will not allow me to live in his house till
after the meeting of the presbytery."
This was more serious than a love-story, and the bright expression
died down into flickering uncertainty in the faces of Jemima,
Kezia, and Keren-happuch.
"It's not anything wrong?" asked Jemima, anxiously.
"No, no," said Ralph quickly, "nothing but what I have reason to
be proud enough of. It is only a question of the doctrines and
practice of the Marrow kirk--"
"Oh!" said all three simultaneously, with an accent of mixed scorn
and relief. The whole matter was clear to them now.
"And of the right of the synod of the Marrow kirk to control my
actions," continued Ralph.
But the further interest was entirely gone from the question.
"Tell us about HER," they said in unison.
"How do you know it is a 'her'?" asked Ralph, clumsily trying to
put off time, like a man.
Kezia laughed on her own account, Keren-happuch, because Kezia
laughed, but Jemima said solemnly:
"I hope she is of a serious disposition."
"Nonsense! _I_ hope she is pretty," said Kezia.
"And _I_ hope she will love me," said little Keren-happuch.
Ralph thought a little, and then, as it was growing dark, he sat
on the old sofa with his back to the fading day, and told his
love-story to these three sweet girls, who, though they had played
with him and been all womanhood to him ever since he came out of
petticoats, had not a grain of jealousy of the unseen sister who
had come suddenly past them and stepped into the primacy of
Ralph's life.
When he was half-way through with his tale he suddenly stopped,
and said:
"But I ought to have told all this first to your father, because
he may not care to have me in his house. There is only my word for
it, after all, and it is the fact that I have not the right to set
foot in my own father's house."
"We will make our father see it in the right way," said Jemima
quietly.
"Yes," interposed Kezia, "or I would not give sixpence for his
peace of mind these next six months."
"It is all right if you tell us," said little Keren-happuch, who
was her father's playmate. Jemima ruled him, Kezia teased him--the
privilege of beauty--but it was generally little Keren-happuch who
fetched his slippers and sat with her cheek against the back of
his hand as he smoked and read in his great wicker chair by the
north window.
There was the sound of quick nervous footsteps with an odd halt in
their fall on the gravel walk outside. The three girls ran to the
door in a tumultuous greeting, even Jemima losing her staidness
for the occasion. Ralph could hear only the confused babble of
tongues and the expressions, "Now you hear, father--" "Now you
understand--" "Listen to me, father--" as one after another took
up the tale.
Ralph retold the story that night from the very beginning to the
professor, who listened silently, punctuating his thoughts with
the puffs of his pipe.
When he had finished, there was an unwonted moisture in the eyes
of Professor Thriepneuk--perhaps the memory of a time when he too
had gone a-courting.
He stretched the hand which was not occupied with his long pipe to
Ralph, who grasped it strongly.
"You have acted altogether as I could have desired my own son to
act; I only wish that I had one like you. Let the Marrow Kirk
alone, and come and be my assistant till you see your way a little
into the writer's trade. Pens and ink are cheap, and you can take
my classes in the summer, and give me quietness to write my book
on 'The Abuses of Ut with the Subjunctive.'"
"But I must find lodgings--" interrupted Ralph.
"You must find nothing--just bide here. It is the house of your
nearest kin, and the fittest place for you. Your meat's neither
here nor there, and my lasses--"
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