Books: The Lilac Sunbonnet

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THE MOTHER OF KING LEMUEL.

It was not till Ralph Peden had returned to the study of the manse
of the Marrow kirk of Dullarg, and the colour induced by exercise
had had time to die out of his naturally pale cheeks, that he
remembered that he had left his Hebrew Bible and Lexicon, as well
as a half-written exegesis on an important subject, underneath the
fatal whin bush above the bridge over the Grannoch water. He would
have been glad to rise and seek it immediately--a task which,
indeed, no longer presented itself in such terrible colours to
him. He found himself even anxious to go. It would be a serious
thing were he to lose his father's Lexicon and Mr. Welsh's Hebrew
Bible. Moreover, he could not bear the thought of leaving the
sheets of his exposition of the last chapter of Proverbs to be the
sport of the gamesome Galloway winds--or, worse thought, the
laughing-stock of gamesome young women who whistled with two
fingers in their mouths.

Yet the picture of the maid of the loch which rose before him
struck him as no unpleasant one. He remembered for one thing how
the sun shone through the tangle of her hair. But he had quite
forgotten, on the other hand, at what part of his exegesis he had
left off. It was, however, a manifest impossibility for him to
slip out again. Besides, he was in mortal terror lest Mr. Welsh
should ask for his Hebrew Bible, or offer to revise his chapter of
the day with him. All the afternoon he was uneasy, finding no
excuse to take himself away to the loch-side in order to find his
Bible and Lexicon.

"I understand you have been studying, with a view to license, the
last chapter of the Proverbs of Solomon?" said Gilbert Welsh,
interrogatively, bending his shaggy brows and pouting his underlip
at the student.

The Marrow minister was a small man, with a body so dried and
twisted ("shauchelt" was the local word) that all the nerve stuff
of a strong nature had run up to his brain, so that when he walked
he seemed always on the point of falling forward, overbalanced by
the weight of his cliff-like brow.

"Ralph, will you ground the argument of the mother of King Lemuel
in this chapter? But perhaps you would like to refer to the
original Hebrew?" said the minister.

"Oh, no," interrupted Ralph, aghast at the latter suggestion, "I
do not need the text--thank you, sir."

But, in spite of his disclaimer, he devoutly desired to be where
the original text and his written comment upon it were at that
moment--which, indeed, was a consummation even more devoutly to be
wished than he had any suspicion of. The Marrow minister leaned
his head on his hand and looked waitingly at the young man.

Ralph recalled himself with an effort. He had to repeat to himself
that he was in the manse study, and almost to pinch his knee to
convince himself of the reality of his experiences. But this was
not necessary a second time, for, as he sat hastily down on one of
Allen Welsh's hard-wood chairs, a prickle from the gorse bush
which he had brought back with him from Loch Grannoch side was
argument sharp enough to convince Bishop Berkeley.

"Compose yourself to answer my question," said the minister, with
some slight severity. Ralph wondered silently if even a minister
of the Marrow kirk in good standing, could compose himself on one
whin prickle for certain, and the probability of several others
developing themselves at various angles hereafter.

Ralph "grounded" himself as best as he could, explaining the views
of the mother of King Lemuel as to the woman of virtue and
faithfulness. He seemed to himself to have a fluency and a fervour
in exposition to which he had been a stranger. He began to have
new views about the necessity for the creation of Eve. Woman might
possibly, after all, be less purely gratuitous than he had
supposed.

"The woman who is above rubies," said he, "is one who rises early
to care for the house, who oversees the handmaids as they cleanse
the household stuffs--in a" (he just saved himself from saying "in
a black pot")--"in a fitting vessel by the rivers of water."

"Well put and correctly mandated," said Mr. Welsh, very much
pleased. There was unction about this young man. Though a bachelor
by profession, he loved to hear the praises of good women; for he
had once known one.

"She openeth her mouth with wisdom; and--"

Here Ralph paused, biting his tongue to keep from describing the
picture which rose before him.

"And what," said the minister, tentatively, leaning forward to
look into the open face of the young man, "what is the distinction
or badge of true beauty and favour of countenance, as so well
expressed by the mother of King Lemuel?"

"A LILAC SUNBONNET!" said Ralph Peden, student in divinity.

CHAPTER III.

A TREASURE-TROVE.

Winsome CHARTERIS was a self-possessed maid, but undeniably her
heart beat faster when she found on the brae face, beneath the
bush of broom, two books the like of which she had never seen
before, as well as an open notebook with writing upon it in the
neatest and delicatest of hands. First, as became a prudent woman
of experience, she went up to the top of the hill to assure
herself that the owner of this strange treasure was not about to
return. Then she carefully let down her high-kilted print dress
till only her white feet "like little mice" stole in and out. It
did not strike her that this sacrifice to the conventions was just
a trifle belated.

As she returned she said "Shoo!" at every tangled bush, and
flapped her apron as if to scare whatever curious wild fowl might
have left behind it in its nest under the broom such curious nest-
eggs as two great books full of strange, bewitched-looking
printing, and a note-book of curious and interesting writings.
Then, with a half sigh of disappointment, Winsome Charteris sat
herself down to look into this matter. Meg Kissock from the bridge
end showed signs of coming up to see what she was about; but
Winsome imperiously checked the movement.

"Bide where you are, Meg; I'll be down with you presently."

She turned over the great Hebrew Bible reverently. "A. Welsh" was
written on the fly-leaf. She had a strange idea that she had seen
it before. It seemed somehow thrillingly familiar.

"That's the minister's Hebrew Bible book, no doubt," she said.
"For that's the same kind of printing as between the double verses
of the hundred-and-nineteenth Psalm in my grandfather's big
Bible," she continued, sapiently shaking her head till the crispy
ringlets tumbled about her eyes, and she had impatiently to toss
them aside.

She laid the Bible down and peeped into the other strange-looking
book. There were single words here of the same kind as in the
other, but the most part was in ordinary type, though in a
language of which she could make nothing. The note-book was a
resource. It was at least readable, and Winsome Charteris began
expectantly to turn it over. But something stirred reprovingly in
her heart. It seemed as if she were listening to a conversation
not meant for her. So she kept her finger on the leaf, but did not
turn it.

"No," she said, "I will not read it. It is not meant for me."
Then, after a pause, "At least I will only read this page which is
open, and then look at the beginning to see whose it is; for, you
know, I may need to send it back to him." The back she had seen
vanish round the Far Away Turn demanded the masculine pronoun.

She lifted the book and read:

"Alas!" (so ran the writing, fluent and clear, small as printer's
type, Ralph Peden's beautiful Hellenic script), "alas, that the
good qualities of the housewives of Solomon's days are out of date
and forgotten in these degenerate times! Women, especially the
younger of them, are become gadabouts, chatterers in the public
ways, idle, adorners of their vain selves, pamperers of their
frail tabernacles--"

Winsome threw down the book and almost trod upon it as upon a
snake.

"'Tis some city fop," she said, stamping her foot, "who is tired
of the idle town dames. I wonder if he has ever seen the sun rise
or done a day's work in his life? If only I had the wretch! But I
will read no more!"

In token of the sincerity of the last assertion, she picked up the
note-book again. There was little more to read. It was at this
point that the humble-bee had startled the writer.

But underneath there were woids faintly scrawled in pencil: "Must
concentrate attention"--"The proper study of mankind is"--this
last written twice, as if the writer were practising copy-lines
absently. Then at the very bottom was written, so faintly that
hardly any eyes but Winsome's could have read the words:

"Of all colours I do love the lilac. I wonder all maids do not
wear gear of that hue!"

"Oh!" said Winsome Charteris quickly.

Then she gathered up the books very gently, and taking a kerchief
from her neck, she folded the two great books within it, fastening
them with a cunning knot. She was carrying them slowly up towards
the farm town of Craig Ronald in her bare arms when Ralph Peden
sat answering his catechism in the study at the manse. She entered
the dreaming courtyard, and walked sedately across its silent sun-
flooded spaces without a sound. She passed the door of the cool
parlour where her grandfather and grandmother sat, the latter with
her hands folded and her great tortoiseshell spectacles on her
nose, taking her afternoon nap. A volume of Waverley lay beside
her. Into her own white little room Winsome went, and laid the
bundle of books in the bottom of the wall-press, which was lined
with sheets of the Cairn Edward Miscellany. She looked at it some
time before she shut the door.

"His name is Ralph," she said. "I wonder how old he is--I shall
know tomorrow, because he will come back; but--I would like to
know tonight."

She sighed a little--so light a breath that it was only the dream
of a sigh. Then she looked at the lilac sunbonnet, as if it ought
to have known.

"At any rate he has very good taste," she said.

But the lilac sunbonnet said never a word.

CHAPTER IV.

A CAVALIER PURITAN.

The farm town of Craig Ronald drowsed in the quiet of noon. In the
open court the sunshine triumphed, and only the purple-grey marsh
mallows along the side of the house under the windows gave any
sign of life. In them the bees had begun to hum at earliest dawn,
an hour and a half before the sun looked over the crest of Ben
Gairn. They were humming busily still. In all the chambers of the
house there was the same reposeful stillness. Through them Winsome
Charteris moved with free, light step. She glanced in to see that
her grandfather and grandmother were wanting for nothing in their
cool and wide sitting-room, where the brown mahogany-cased eight-
day clock kept up an unequal ticking, like a man walking upon two
wooden legs of which one is shorter than the other.

It said something for Winsome Charteris and her high-hearted
courage, that what she was accustomed to see in that sitting-room
had no effect upon her spirits. It was a pleasant room enough,
with two windows looking to the south--little round-budded, pale-
petalled monthly roses nodding and peeping within the opened
window-frames. Sweet it was with a great peace, every chair
covered with old sprigged chintz, flowers of the wood and heather
from the hill set in china vases about it. The room where the old
folk dwelt at Craig Ronald was fresh within as is the dew on
sweetbrier. Fresh, too, was the apparel of her grandmother, the
flush of youth yet on her delicate cheek, though the Psalmist's
limit had long been passed for her.

As Winsome looked within,

"Are ye not sleeping, grandmother?" she said.

The old lady looked up with a resentful air.

"Sleepin'! The lassie's gane gyte! [out of her senses]. What for
wad I be sleepin' in the afternune? An' me wi' the care o' yer
gran'faither--sic a handling, him nae better nor a bairn, an' you
a bit feckless hempie wi' yer hair fleeing like the tail o' a twa-
year-auld cowt! [colt]. Sleepin' indeed! Na, sleepin's nane for
me!"

The young girl came up and put her arms about her grandmother.

"That's rale unceevil o' ye, noo, Granny Whitemutch!" she said,
speaking in the coaxing tones to which the Scots' language lends
itself so easily, "an' it's just because I hae been sae lang at
the blanket-washin', seein' till that hizzy Meg. An' ken ye what I
saw!-ane o' the black dragoons in full retreat, grannie; but he
left his camp equipage ahint him, as the sergeant said when--Ye
ken the story, grannie. Ye maun hae been terrible bonny in thae
days!"

"'Deed I'm nane sae unbonny yet, for a' yer helicat
flichtmafleathers, sprigget goons, an' laylac bonnets," said the
old lady, shaking her head till the white silk top-knots trembled.
"No, nor I'm nane sae auld nayther. The gudeman in the corner
there, he's auld and dune gin'ye like, but no me--no me! Gin he
warna spared to me, I could even get a man yet," continued the
lively old lady, "an' whaur wad ye be then, my lass, I wad like to
ken?"

"Perhaps I could get one too, grannie," she said. And she shook
her head with an air of triumph. Winsome kissed her grandmother
gently on the brow.

"Nane o' yer Englishy tricks an' trokin's," said she, settling the
white muslin band which she wore across her brow wrinkleless and
straight, where it had been disarrayed by the onslaught of her
impulsive granddaughter.

"Aye," she went on, stretching out a hand which would have done
credit to a great dame, so white and slender was it in spite of
the hollows which ran into a triangle at the wrist, and the pale-
blue veins which the slight wrinkles have thrown into relief.

"An' I mind the time when three o' his Majesty's officers--nane
o' yer militia wi' horses that rin awa' wi' them ilka time they
gang oot till exerceese, but rale sodgers wi' sabre-tashies to
their heels and spurs like pitawtie dreels. Aye, sirs, but that
was before I married an elder in the Kirk o' the Marrow. I wasna
twenty-three when I had dune wi' the gawds an' vanities o' this
wicked world."

"I saw a minister lad the day--a stranger," said Winsome, very
quietly.

"Sirce me," returned her grandmother briskly; "kenned I e'er the
like o' ye, Winifred Chayrteris, for licht-heedit-ness an' lack o'
a' common sense! Saw a minister an' ne'er thocht, belike, o'
sayin' cheep ony mair nor if he had been a wutterick [weasel]. An'
what like was he, na? Was he young, or auld--or no sae verra auld,
like mysel'? Did he look like an Establisher by the consequence o'
the body, or--"

"But, grannie dear, how is it possible that I should ken, when all
that I saw of him was but his coat-tails? It was him that was
running away."

"My certes," said grannie, "but the times are changed since my
day! When I was as young as ye are the day it wasna sodger or
minister ayther that wad hae run frae the sicht o' me. But a
minister, and a fine, young-looking man, I think ye said,"
continued Mistress Walter Skirving anxiously.

"Indeed, grandmother, I said nothing--" began Winsome.

"Haud yer tongue, Deil's i' the lassie, he'll be comin' here.
Maybes he's comin' up the loan this verra meenit. Get me my best
kep [cap], the French yin o' Flanders lawn trimmed wi' Valenceenes
lace that Captain Wildfeather, of his Majesty's--But na, I'll no
think o' thae times, I canna bear to think o' them wi' ony
complaisance ava. But bring me my kep--haste ye fast, lassie!"

Obediently Winsome went to her grandmother's bedroom and drew from
under the bed the "mutch" box lined with pale green paper,
patterned with faded pink roses. She did not smile when she drew
it out. She was accustomed to her grandmother's ways. She too
often felt the cavalier looking out from under her Puritan
teaching; for the wild strain of the Gordon blood held true to its
kind, and Winsome's grandmother had been a Gordon at Lochenkit,
whose father had ridden with Kenmure in the great rebellion.

When she brought the white goffered mutch with its plaits and
puckers, granny tried it on in various ways, Winsome meanwhile
holding a small mirror before her.

"As I was sayin', I renounced thinkin' aboot the vanities o' youth
langsyne. Aye, it'll be forty years sin'--for ye maun mind that I
was marriet whan but a lassie. Aye me, it's forty-five years since
Ailie Gordon, as I was then, wed wi' Walter Skirving o' Craig
Ronald (noo o' his ain chammer neuk, puir man, for he'll never
leave it mair)," added she with a brisk kind of acknowledgment
towards the chair of the semi-paralytic in the corner.

There silent and unregarding Walter Skirving sat--a man still
splendid in frame and build, erect in his chair, a shawl over his
knees even in this day of fervent heat, looking out dumbly on the
drowsing, humming world of broad, shadowless noonshine, and often
also on the equable silences of the night.

"No that I regret it the day, when he is but the name o' the man
he yince was. For fifty years since there was nae lad like Walter
Skirving cam into Dumfries High Street frae Stewartry or frae
Shire. No a fit in buckled shune sae licht as his, his weel-shapit
leg covered wi' the bonny 'rig-an'-fur' stockin' that I knitted
mysel' frae the cast on o' the ower-fauld [over-fold] to the bonny
white forefit that sets aff the blue sae weel. Walter Skirving
could button his knee-breeks withoot bendin' his back--that nane
could do but the king's son himsel'; an' sic a dancer as he was
afore guid an' godly Maister Cauldsowans took hand o' him at the
tent, wi' preachin' a sermon on booin' the knee to Baal. Aye, aye,
its a' awa'--an' its mony the year I thocht on it, let alane
thocht on wantin' back thae days o' vanity an' the pride o' sinfu'
youth!"

"Tell me about the officer men, granny," said Winsome.

"'Deed wull I no. It wad be mair tellin' ye gin ye were learnin'
yer Caritches" [Westminster Catechism].

"But, grandmammy dear, I thought that you said that the officer
men ran away from you--"

"Hear till her! Rin frae me? Certes, ye're no blate. They cam'
frae far an' near to get a word wi' me. Na, there was nae rinnin'
frae a bonny lass in thae days. Weel, there was three o' them; an'
they cam' ower the hill to see the lasses, graund in their reed
breeks slashed wi' yellow. An' what for no, they war his Majesty's
troopers; an' though nae doot they had been on the wrang side o'
the dyke, they were braw chiels for a' that!"

"An' they cam' to see you, granny?" asked Winsome, who approved of
the subject.

"What else--but they got an unco begunk [cheat]. Ye see, my
faither had bocht an awfu' thrawn young bull at the Dumfries fair,
an' he had been gaun gilravagin' aboot; an' whaur should the
contrary beast betak' himsel' to but into the Roman camp on Craig
Ronald bank, where the big ditch used to be? There we heard him
routin' for three days till the cotmen fand him i' the hinderend,
an' poo'ed him oot wi' cart-rapes. But when he got oot--certes,
but he was a wild beast! He got at Jock Hinderlands afore he could
climb up a tree; an', fegs, he gaed up a tree withoot clim'in',
I'se warrant, an' there he hung, hanket by the waistband o' his
breeks, baa-haain' for his minnie to come and lift him doon, an'
him as muckle a clampersome [awkward] hobbledehoy as ever ye saw!

"Then what did Carlaverock Jock do but set his heid to a yett
[gate] and ding it in flinders; fair fire-wood he made o't; an'
sae, rampagin' into the meadow across whilk," continued the old
lady, with a rising delight in her eye, "the three cavalry men
were comin' to see me, wi' the spurs on them jangling clear. Reed
breeks did na suit Jock's taste at the best o' times, and he had
no been brocht up to countenance yellow facin's. So the three braw
King George's sodgers that had dune sic graund things at Waterloo
took the quickest road through the meadow. Captain St. Clair, he
trippit on his sword, an' was understood to cry oot that he had
never eaten beef in his life. Ensign Withershins threw his shako
ower his shoother and jumpit intil the water, whaur he expressed
his opinion o' Carlaverock Jock stan'in' up to his neck in Luckie
Mowatt's pool--the words I dinna juist call to mind at this
present time, which, indeed, is maybe as weel; but it was
Lieutenant Lichtbody, o' his Majesty's Heavy Dragoons, that cam'
aff at the waurst. He made for the stane dyke, the sven-fite march
dyke that rins up the hill, ye ken. Weel, he made as if he wad
mak' ower it, but Boreland'a big Heelant bull had heard the
routin' o' his friend Carlaverock Jock, an' was there wi' his
horns spread like a man keppin' yowes [catching sheep]. Aye, my
certes!" here the old lady paused, overcome by the humour of her
recollections, laughing in her glee a delightfully catching and
mellow laugh, in which Winsome joined.

"Sae there was my braw beau, Lieutenant Lichtbody, sittin' on his
hunkers on the dyke tap girnin' at Carlaverock Jock an' the
Boreland Hielantman on baith sides o' him, an' tryin' tae hit them
ower the nose wi' the scabbard o' his sword, for the whinger
itsel' had drappit oot in what ye micht ca' the forced retreat. It
was bonny, bonny to see; an' whan the three cam' up the loanin'
the neist day, 'Sirs,' I said, 'I'm thinkin' ye had better be
gaun. I saw Carlaverock Jock the noo, fair tearin' up the
greensward. It wudna be bonny gin his Majesty's officers had twice
to mak' sae rapid a march to the rear--an' you, Lieutenant
Lichtbody, canna hae a'thegither gotten the better o' yer lang
sederunt on the tap o' the hill dyke. It's a bonny view that ye
had. It was a peety that ye had forgotten yer perspective
glasses.'

"And wad ye believe it, lassie, the threesome turned on the braid
o'their fit an' marched doon the road withoot as muckle as Fair-
guid-e'en or Fair-guid-day!"

"And what said ye, grannie dear?" said Winsome, who sat on a low
seat looking up at her granny.

"O lassie, I juist set my braid hat ower my lug wi' the bonny
white cockade intil't an' gied them 'The Wee, Wee German Lairdie'
as they gaed doon the road, an' syne on the back o't:

"'Awa, Whigs, awa'!
Ye're but a pack----'"

But the great plaid-swathed figure of Winsome's grandfather turned
at the words of the long-forgotten song as though waking from a
deep sleep. A slumberous fire gleamed momentarily in his eye.

"Woman," he said, "hold your peace; let not these words be heard
in the house of Walter Skirving!"

Having thus delivered himself, the fire faded out of his eyes dead
as black ashes; he turned to the window, and lost himself again in
meditation, looking with steady eyes across the ocean of sunshine
which flooded the valley beneath.

His wife gave him no answer. She seemed scarce to have heard the
interruption. But Winsome went across and pulled the heavy plaid
gently off her grandfather's shoulder. Then she stood quietly by
him with one hand upon his head and with the other she gently
stroked his brow. A milder light grew in his dull eye, and he put
up his hand uncertainly as if to take hers.

"But what for should I be takin' delicht in speakin' o' thae auld
unsanctified regardless days," said her grandmother, "that 'tis
mony a year since I hae ta'en ony pleesure in thinkin' on? Gae
wa', ye hempie that ye are!" she cried, turning with a sudden and
uncalled-for sparkle of temper on her granddaughter; "There's nae
time an' little inclination in this hoose for yer flichty
conversation. I wonder muckle that yer thouchts are sae set on the
vanities o' young men. And such are all that delight in them." She
went on somewhat irrelevantly, "Did not godly Maister Cauldsowans
redd up [settle] the doom o' such--'all desirable young men riding
upon horses--'"

"An' I'll gae redd up the dairy, an' kirn the butter, grannie!"
said Winsome Charteris, breaking in on the flow of her
grandmother's reproaches.

CHAPTER V.

A LESSON IN BOTANY.

No lassie in all the hill country went forth more heart-whole
into the June morning than Winsome Charteris. She was not, indeed,
wholly a girl of the south uplands. Her grandmother was never done
reminding her of her "Englishy" ways, which, according to that
authority, she had contracted during those early years she had
spent in Cumberland. From thence she had been brought to the farm
town of Craig Ronald, soon after the death of her only uncle, Adam
Skirving--whose death, coming after the loss of her own mother,
had taken such an effect upon her grandfather that for years he
had seldom spoken, and now took little interest in the ongoings of
the farm.

Walter Skirving was one of a class far commoner in Galloway sixty
years ago than now. He was a "bonnet laird" of the best type, and
his farm, which included all kinds of soil--arable and pasture,
meadow and moor, hill pasture and wood--was of the value of about
L300 a year, a sum sufficient in those days to make him a man of
substance and consideration in the country.

He had been all his life, except for a single year in his youth
when he broke bounds, a Marrow man of the strictest type; and it
had been the wonder and puzzle of his life (to others, not to
himself) how he came to make up to Ailie Gordon, the daughter of
the old moss-trooping Lochenkit Gordons, that had ridden with the
laird of Redgauntlet in the killing time, and more recently had
been out with Maxwell of Nithsdale, and Gordon of Kenmure, to
strike a blow for the "King-over-the-Water." And to this very day,
though touched with a stroke which prevented her from moving far
out of her chair, Ailie Skirving showed the good blood and high-
hearted lightsomeness that had won the young laird of Craig Ronald
upon the Loch Grannoch side nearly fifty years before.

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