Books: The Lilac Sunbonnet
S >>
S.R. Crockett >> The Lilac Sunbonnet
Pages:
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 | 5 |
6 |
7 |
8 |
9 |
10 |
11 |
12 |
13 |
14 |
15 |
16 |
17 |
18 |
19 |
20 |
21
"Gae wa' wi' ye, John Scott! wha's gaun aboot doin' sae muckle ill
then, I wad like to ken?" said Meg Kissock.
"Dinna tell me," said Jock Gordon, "that the puir deil's deed, and
that we'll hae to pit up wi' Ebie Farrish. Na, na, Jock's maybe
daft, but he kens better than that!"
"They say," said John Scott, pulling meditatively at his cutty,
"that the pooer is vested noo in a kind o' comy-tee [committee]!"
"I dinna haud wi' comy-tees mysel'," replied Meg; "it's juist
haein' mony maisters, ilka yin mair cankersome and thrawn than
anither!"
"Weel, gin this news be true, there's a heep o' fowk in this
parish should be mentioned in his wull," said Jock Gordon,
significantly. "They're near kin till him--forby a heep o' bairns
that he has i' the laich-side o' the loch. They're that hard
there, they'll no gie a puir body a meal o' meat or the shelter o'
a barn."
"But," said Ebie Farrish, who had been thinking that, after all,
the new plan might have its conveniences, "gin there's nae deil to
tempt, there'll be nae deil to punish."
But the herd was a staunch Marrow man. He was not led away by any
human criticism, nor yet by the new theology.
"New Licht here, New Licht there," he said; "I canna' pairt wi' ma
deil. Na, na, that's ower muckle to expect o' a man o' my age!"
Having thus defined his theological position, without a word more
he threw his soft checked plaid of Galloway wool over his
shoulders, and fell into the herd's long swinging heather step,
mounting the steep brae up to his cot on the hillside as easily as
if he were walking along a level road.
There was a long silence; then a ringing sound, sudden and sharp,
and Ebie Farrish fell inexplicably from the axe-chipped hag-clog,
which he had rolled up to sit upon. Ebie had been wondering for
more than an hour what would happen if he put his arm round Jess
Kissock's waist. He knew now.
Then, after a little Saunders Mowdiewort, who was not unmindful of
his prearranged programme nor yet oblivious of the flight of time,
saw the stars come out, he knew that if he were to make any
progress, he must make haste; so he leaned over towards his
sweetheart and whispered, "Meg, my lass, ye're terrible bonny."
"D'ye think ye are the first man that has telled me that, cuif?"
said Meg, with point and emphasis.
Jock Forrest, the senior ploughman--a very quiet, sedate man with
a seldom stirred but pretty wit, laughed a short laugh, as though
he knew something about that. Again there was a silence, and as
the night wind began to draw southward in cool gulps of air off
the hills, Winsome Charteris's window was softly closed.
"Hae ye nocht better than that to tell us, cuif?" said Meg,
briskly, "nocht fresh-like?"
"Weel," said Saunders Mowdiewort, groping round for a subject of
general interest, his profession and his affection being alike
debarred, "there's that young Enbra' lad that's come till the
manse. He's a queer root, him."
"What's queer aboot him?" asked Meg, in a semi-belligerent manner.
A young man who had burned his fingers for her mistress's sake
must not be lightly spoken of.
"Oh, nocht to his discredit ava, only Manse Bell heard him arguin'
wi' the minister aboot the weemen-folk the day that he cam'. He
canna' bide them, she says."
"He has but puir taste," said Ebie Farrish; "a snod bit lass is
the bonniest work o' Natur'. Noo for mysel'--"
"D'ye want anither?" asked Jess, without apparent connection.
"He'll maybe mend o' that opeenion, as mony a wise man has dune
afore him," said Meg, sententiously. "Gae on, cuif; what else
aboot the young man?"
"Oh, he's a lad o' great lear. He can read ony language back or
forrit, up or doon, as easy as suppin' sowens. He can speak
byordinar' graund. They say he'll beat the daddy o' him for
preachin' when he's leecensed. He rade Birsie this mornin' too,
after the kickin' randie had cuist me aff his back like a draff
sack."
"Then what's queer aboot him?" said Jess.
Meg said nothing. She felt a draft of air suck into Winsome's
room, so that she knew that the subject was of such interest that
her mistress had again opened her window. Meg leaned back so far
that she could discern a glint of yellow hair in the darkness.
The cuif was about to light his pipe. Meg stopped him.
"Nane o' yer lichts here, cuif," she said; "it's time ye were
thinkin' aboot gaun ower the hill. But ye haena' telled us yet
what's queer aboot the lad."
"Weel, woman, he's aye write--writin', whiles on sheets o' paper,
and whiles on buiks."
"There's nocht queer aboot that," says Meg; "so does ilka
minister."
"But Manse Bell gied me ane o' his writings, that she had gotten
aboot his bedroom somewhere. She said that the wun' had blawn't
aff his table, but I misdoot her."
"Yer ower great wi' Manse Bell an' the like o' her, for a man that
comes to see me!" said Meg, who was a very particular young woman
indeed.
"It was cuttit intil lengths like the metre psalms, but it luikit
gye an' daft like, sae I didna' read it," said the cuif hastily.
"Here it's to ye, Meg. I was e'en gaun to licht my cutty wi't."
Something shone gray-white in Saunders's hand as he held it out to
Meg, It passed into Meg's palm, and then was seen no more.
The session at the house end was breaking up. Jess had vanished
silently. Ebie Farrish was not. Jock Forrest had folded his tent
and stolen away. Meg and Saunders were left alone. It was his
supreme opportunity.
He leaned over towards his sweetheart. His blue bonnet had fallen
to the ground, and there was a distinct odour of warm candle-
grease in the air.
"Meg," he said, "yer maist amazin' bonny, an' I'm that fond o' ye
that I am faain' awa' frae my meat! O Meg, woman, I think o' ye i'
the mornin' afore the Lord's Prayer, I sair misdoot! Guid forgie
me! I find mysel' whiles wonderin' gin I'll see ye the day afore I
can gang ower in my mind the graves that's to howk, or gin
Birsie's oats are dune. O Meg, Meg, I'm that fell fond o' ye that
I gruppit that thrawn speldron Birsie's hint leg juist i' the
fervour o' thinkin' o' ye."
"Hoo muckle hae ye i' the week?" said Meg, practically, to bring
the matter to a point.
"A pound a week," said Saunders Mowdiewort, promptly, who though a
cuif was a business man, "an' a cottage o' three rooms wi' a
graun' view baith back an' front!"
"Ow aye," said Meg, sardonically, "I ken yer graund view. It's o'
yer last wife's tombstane, wi' the inscriptions the length o' my
airm aboot Betty Mowdiewort an' a' her virtues, that Robert
Paterson cuttit till ye a year past in Aprile. Na, na, ye'll no
get me to leeve a' my life lookin' oot on that ilk' time I wash my
dishes. It wad mak' yin be wantin' to dee afore their time to get
sic-like. Gang an' speer [ask] Manse Bell. She's mair nor half
blind onyway, an' she's fair girnin' fain for a man, she micht
even tak' you."
With these cruel words Meg lifted her milking-stool and vanished
within. The cuif sat for a long time on his byne lost in thought.
Then he arose, struck his flint and steel together, and stood
looking at the tinder burning till it went out, without having
remembered to put it to the pipe which he held in his other hand.
After the last sparks ran every way and flickered, he threw the
glowing red embers on the ground, kicked the pail on which he had
been sitting as solemnly as if he had been performing a duty to
the end of the yard, and then stepped stolidly into the darkness.
The hag-clog was now left alone against the wall beneath Winsome's
window, within which there was now the light of a candle and a
waxing and waning shadow on the blind as some one went to and fro.
Then there was a sharp noise as of one clicking in the "steeple"
or brace of the front door (which opened in two halves), and then
the metallic grit of the key in the lock, for Craig Ronald was a
big house, and not a mere farm which might be left all night with
unbarred portals.
Winsome stepped lightly to her own door, which opened without
noise. She looked out and said, in a compromise between a coaxing
whisper and a voice of soft command:
"Meg, I want ye."
Meg Kissock came along the passage with the healthy glow of the
night air on her cheeks, and her candle in her hand. She seemed as
if she would pause at the door, but Winsome motioned her
imperiously within. So Meg came within, and Winsome shut to the
door. Then she simply held out her hand, at which Meg gazed as
silently.
"Meg!" said Winsome, warningly.
A queer, faint smile passed momentarily over the face of Winsome's
handmaid, as though she had been long trying to solve some problem
and had suddenly and unexpectedly found the answer. Slowly she
lifted up her dark-green druggit skirt, and out of a pocket of
enormous size, which was swung about her waist like a captured
leviathan heaving inanimate on a ship's cable, she extracted a
sheet of crumpled paper.
Winsome took it without a word. Her eye said "Good-night" to Meg
as plain as the minister's text.
Meg Kissock waited till she was at the door, and then, just as she
was making her silent exit, she said:
"Ye'll tak' as guid care o't as the ither yin ye fand. Ye can pit
them baith thegither."
Winsome took a step towards her as if with some purpose of
indignant chastisement. But the red head and twinkling eyes of
mischief vanished, and Winsome stood with the paper in her hand.
Just as she had begun to smooth out the crinkles produced by the
hands of Manse Bell who could not read it, Saunders who would not,
and Meg Kissock who had not time to read it, the head of the last
named was once more projected into the room, looking round the
edge of the rose-papered door.
"Ye'll mak' a braw mistress o' the manse, Mistress--Ralph--
Peden!" she said, nodding her head after each proper name.
CHAPTER X.
THE LOVE-SONG OF THE MAVIS.
Winsome stamped her little foot in real anger now, and crumpling
the paper in her hand she threw it indignantly on the floor. She
was about to say something to Meg, but that erratic and privileged
domestic was in her own room by this time at the top of the house,
with the door barred.
But something like tears stood in Winsome's eyes. She was very
angry indeed. She would speak to Meg in the morning. She was
mistress of the house, and not to be treated as a child. Meg
should have her warning to leave at the term. It was ridiculous
the way that she had taken to speaking to her lately. It was clear
that she had been allowing her far too great liberties. It did not
occur to Winsome Charteris that Meg had been accustomed to tease
her in something like this manner about every man under forty who
had come to Craig Ronald on any pretext whatever--from young
Johnnie Dusticoat, the son of the wholesale meal-miller from
Dumfries, to Agnew Greatorix, eldest son of the Lady Elizabeth,
who came over from the castle with books for her grandmother
rather oftener than might be absolutely necessary, and who, though
a papist, had waited for Winsome three Sabbath days at the door of
the Marrow kirk, a building which he had never previously entered
during his life.
Winsome went indignant to bed. It was altogether too aggravating
that Meg should take on so, she said to herself.
"Of course I do not care a button," she said as she turned her hot
cheek upon the pillow and looked towards the pale gray-blue of the
window-panes, in which there was already the promise of the
morning; though yet it was hardly midnight of the short midsummer
of the north.
"It would be too ridiculous to suppose that I should care for
anybody whom I have only seen twice. Why, it was more than a year
before I really cared for dear old grannie! Meg might know better,
and it is very silly of her to say things like that. I shall send
back his book and paper to-morrow morning by Andrew Kissock when
he goes to school." Still even after this resolution she lay
sleepless.
"Now I will go to sleep," said Winsome, resolutely shutting her
eyes. "I will not think about him any more." Which was assuredly a
noble and fitting resolve. But Winsome had yet to discover in
restless nights and troubled morrows that sleep and thought are
two gifts of God which do not come or go at man's bidding. In her
silent chamber there seemed to be a kind of hushed yet palpable
life. It seemed to Winsome as if there were about her a thousand
little whispering voices. Unseen presences flitted everywhere. She
could hear them laughing such wicked, mocking laughs. They were
clustering round the crumpled piece of paper in the corner. Well,
it might lie there forever for her.
"I would not read it even if it were light. I shall send it back
to him to-morrow without reading it. Very likely it is a Greek
exercise, at any rate."
Yet, for all these brave sayings, neither sleep nor dawn had come,
when, clad in shadowy white and the more manifest golden glimmer
of her hair, she glided to the windowseat, and drawing a great
knitted shawl about her, she sat, a slender figure enveloped from
head to foot in sheeny white. The shawl imprisoned the pillow
tossed masses of her rippling hair, throwing them forward about
her face, which, in the half light, seemed to be encircled with an
aureole of pale Florentine gold.
In her hand Winsome held Ralph Peden's poem, and in spite of her
determination not to read it, she sat waiting till the dawn should
come. It might be something of great importance. It might only be
a Greek exercise. It was, at all events, necessary to find out, in
order that she might send it back.
It was a marvellous dawning, this one that Winsome waited for.
Dawn is the secret of the universe. It thrills us somehow with a
far-off prophecy of that eternal dawning when the God That Is
shall reveal himself--the dawning which shall brighten into the
more perfect day.
It was just the slack water--the water-shed of the night. So clear
it was this June night that the lingering gold behind the western
ridge of the Orchar Hill, where the sun went down, was neither
brighter nor yet darker than the faint tinge of lucent green, like
the colour of the inner curve of the sea-wave just as it bends to
break, which had begun to glow behind the fir woods to the east.
The birds were waking sleepily. Chaffinches began their clear,
short, natural bursts of song. "CHURR!" said the last barn owl as
he betook himself to bed. The first rook sailed slowly overhead
from Hensol wood. He was seeking the early worm. The green lake in
the east was spreading and taking a roseate tinge just where it
touched the pines on the rugged hillside.
Beneath Winsome's window a blackbird hopped down upon the grass
and took a tentative dab or two at the first slug he came across;
but it was really too early for breakfast for a good hour yet, so
he flew up again into a bush and preened his feathers, which had
been discomposed by the limited accommodation of the night. Now he
was on the topmost twig, and Winsome saw him against the crimson
pool which was fast deepening in the east.
Suddenly his mellow pipe fluted out over the grove. Winsome
listened as she had never listened before. Why had it become so
strangely sweet to listen to the simple sounds? Why did the rich
Tyrian dye of the dawn touch her cheek and flush the flowering
floss of her silken hair? A thrush from the single laurel at the
gate told her:
"There--there--there--" he sang,
"Can't you see, can't you see, can't you see it?
Love is the secret, the secret!
Could you but know it, did you but show it!
Hear me! hear me! hear me!
Down in the forest I loved her!
Sweet, sweet, sweet!
Would you but listen,
I would love you!
All is sweet and pure and good!
Twilight and morning dew,
I love it, I love it,
Do you, do you, do you?"
This was the thrush's love-song. Now it was light enough for
Winsome to read hers by the red light of the midsummer's dawn.
This was Ralph's Greek exercise:
"Sweet mouth, red lips, broad unwrinkled brow,
Sworn troth, woven hands, holy marriage vow,
Unto us make answer, what is wanting now?
Love, love, love, the whiteness of the snow;
Love, love, love, and the days of long ago.
"Broad lands, bright sun, as it was of old;
Red wine, loud mirth, gleaming of the gold;
Something yet a-wanting--how shall it be told?
Love, love, love, the whiteness of the snow;
Love, love, love, and the days of long ago.
"Large heart, true love, service void of sound,
Life-trust, death-trust, here on Scottish ground,
As in olden story, surely I have found--
Love, love, love, the whiteness of the snow,
Love, love, love, and the days of long ago."
The thrush had ceased singing while Winsome read. It was another
voice which she heard--the first authentic call of the springtime
for her. It coursed through her blood. It quickened her pulse. It
enlarged the pupil of her eye till the clear germander blue of the
iris grew moist and dark. It was a song for her heart, and hers
alone. She felt it, though no more than a leaf blown to her by
chance winds. It might have been written for any other, only she
knew that it was not. Ralph Peden had said nothing. The poem
certainly did not suggest a student of divinity in the Kirk of the
Marrow. There were a thousand objections--a thousand reasons--
every one valid, against such a thing. But love that laughs at
locksmiths is equally contemptuous of logic. It was hers, hers,
and hers alone. A breath from Love's wing as he passed came again
to Winsome. The blackbird was silent, but a thrush this time broke
in with his jubilant love-song, while Winsome, with her love-song
laid against a dewy cheek, paused to listen with a beating heart
and a new comprehension:
"Hear! hear! hear!
Dear! dear! dear!
Far away, far away, far away,
I saw him pass this way,
Tirrieoo, tirrieoo! so tender and true,
Chippiwee, chippiwee, oh, try him and see!
Cheer up! cheer up! cheer up!
He'll come and he'll kiss you,
He'll kiss you and kiss you,
And I'll see him do it, do it, do it!"
"Go away, you wicked bird!" said Winsome, when the master singer
in speckled grey came to this part of his song. So saying, she
threw, with such exact aim that it went in an entirely opposite
direction, a quaint, pink seashell at the bird, a shell which had
been given her by a lad who was going away again to sea three
years ago. She was glad now, when she thought of it, that she had
kissed him because he had no mother, for he never came back any
more.
"Keck, keck!" said the mavis indignantly, and went away.
Then Winsome lay down on her white bed well content, and pillowed
her cheek on a crumpled piece of paper.
CHAPTER XI
ANDREW KISSOCK GOES TO SCHOOL.
Love is, at least in maidens' hearts, of the nature of an
intermittent fever. The tide of Solway flows, but the more rapid
his flow the swifter his ebb. The higher it brings the wrack up
the beach, the deeper, six hours after, are laid bare the roots of
the seaweed upon the shingle. Now Winsome Charteris, however her
heart might conspire against her peace, was not at all the girl to
be won before she was asked. Also there was that delicious spirit
of contrariness that makes a woman even when won, by no means seem
won.
Besides, in the broad daylight of common day she was less attuned
and touched to earnest issues than in the red dawn. She had even
taken the poem and the exercise book out of the sacred enclosure,
where they had been hid so long. She did not really know that she
could make good any claim to either. Indeed, she was well aware
that to one of them at least she had no claim whatever. Therefore
she had placed both the note-book and the poem within the same
band as her precious housekeeping account-book, which she
reverenced next her Bible--which very practical proceeding pleased
her, and quite showed that she was above all foolish sentiment.
Then she went to churn for an hour and a half, pouring in a little
hot water critically from time to time in order to make the butter
come. This exercise may be recommended as an admirable corrective
to foolish flights of imagination. There is something concrete
about butter-making which counteracts an overplus of sentiment--
especially when the butter will not come. And hot water may be
overdone.
Now Winsome Charteris was a hard-hearted young woman--a fact that
may not as yet have appeared; at least so she told herself. She
had come to the conclusion that she had been foolish to think at
all of Ralph Peden, so she resolved to put him at once and
altogether out of her mind, which, as every one knows, is quite a
simple matter. Yet during the morning she went three times into
her little room to look at her housekeeping book, which by
accident lay within the same band as Ralph Peden's lost
manuscripts. First, she wanted to see how much she got for butter
at Cairn Edward the Monday before last; then to discover what the
price was on that very same day last year. It is an interesting
thing to follow the fluctuations of the produce market, especially
when you churn the butter yourself. The exact quotation of
documents is a valuable thing to learn. Nothing is so likely to
grow upon one as a habit of inaccuracy. This was what her
grandmother was always telling her, and it behooved Winsome to
improve. Each time as she strapped the documents together she
said, "And these go back to-day by Andra Kissock when he goes to
school." Then she took another look, in order to assure herself
that no forgeries had been introduced within the band while she
was churning the butter. They were still quite genuine.
Winsome went out to relieve Jess Kissock in the dairy, and as she
went she communed with herself: "It is right that I should send
them back. The verses may belong to somebody else--somebody in
Edinburgh--and, besides, I know them by heart."
A good memory is a fine thing.
The Kissocks lived in one of the Craig Ronald cot-houses. Their
father had in his time been one of the herds, and upon his death,
many years ago, Walter Skirving had allowed the widow and children
to remain in the house in which Andrew Kissock, senior, had died.
Mistress Kissock was a large-boned, soft-voiced woman, who had
supplied what dash of tenderness there was in her daughters. She
had reared them according to good traditions, but as she said,
when all her brood were talking at the same time, she alone
quietly silent:
"The Kissocks tak' efter their faither, they're great hands to
talk--a' bena [except] An'ra'."
Andrew was her youngest, a growing lump of a boy of twelve, who
was exceeding silent in the house. Every day Andra betook himself
to school, along the side of Loch Grannoch, by the path which
looked down on the cloud-flecked mirror of the loch. Some days he
got there, but very occasionally.
His mother had got him ready early this June morning. He had
brought in the kye for Jess. He had helped Jock Gordon to carry
water for Meg's kitchen mysteries. He had listened to a brisk
conversation proceeding from the "room" where his very capable
sister was engaged in getting the old people settled for the day.
All this was part of the ordinary routine. As soon as the whole
establishment knew that Walter Skirving was again at the window
over the marshmallows, and his wife at her latest book, a sigh of
satisfaction went up and the wheels of the day's work revolved. So
this morning it came time for Andra to go to school all too soon.
Andra did not want to stay at home from school, but it was against
the boy's principle to appear glad to go to school, so Andra made
it a point of honour to make a feint of wanting to stay every
morning.
"Can I no bide an' help ye wi' the butter-kirnin' the day, Jess?"
said Andra, rubbing himself briskly all over as he had seen the
ploughmen do with their horses. When he got to his bare red legs
he reared and kicked out violently, calling out at the same time:
"Wad ye then, ye tairger, tuts--stan' still there, ye kickin'
beast!" as though he were some fiery untamed from the desert.
Jess made a dart at him with a wet towel.
"Gang oot o' my back kitchen wi' yer nonsense!" she said. Andra
passaged like a strongly bitted charger to the back door, and
there ran away with himself, flourishing in the air a pair of very
dirty heels. Ebie Farrish was employed over a tin basin at the
stable door, making his breakfast toilet, which he always
undertook, not when he shook himself out of bed in the stable loft
at five o'clock, but before he went in to devour Jess with his
eyes and his porridge in the ordinary way. It was at this point
that Andra Kissock, that prancing Galloway barb, breaking away
from all restrictions, charged between Ebie's legs, and overset
him into his own horse-trough. The yellow soap was in Ebie's eyes,
and before he got it out the small boy was far enough away. The
most irritating thing was that from the back kitchen came peal on
peal of laughter.
"It's surely fashionable at the sea-bathin' to tak' a dook [swim]
in the stable-trough, nae less!"
Pages:
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 | 5 |
6 |
7 |
8 |
9 |
10 |
11 |
12 |
13 |
14 |
15 |
16 |
17 |
18 |
19 |
20 |
21