Books: The Lilac Sunbonnet

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"Have you ever noticed," continued Winsome, all unconscious, going
on with that fruitful comparison of feelings which has woven so
many gossamer threads into three-fold cords, "how everything in
the fields and the woods is tamer in the morning? They seem to
have forgotten that man is their natural enemy while they slept."

"Perhaps," said Ralph theologically, "when they awake they forget
that they are not still in that old garden that Adam kept."

Winsome was looking at him now, for he had looked away in his
turn, lost in a poet's thought. It struck her for the first time
that other people might think him handsome. When a girl forgets to
think whether she herself is of this opinion, and begins to think
what others will think on a subject like this (which really does
not concern her at all), the proceedings in the case are not
finished.

They walked on together down by the sunny edge of the great
plantation. The sun was now rising well into the sky, climbing
directly upward as if on this midsummer day he were leading a
forlorn hope to scale the zenith of heaven. He shone on the russet
tassels of the larches, and the deep sienna boles of the Scotch
firs. The clouds, which rolled fleecy and white in piles and
crenulated bastions of cumulus, lighted the eyes of the man and
maid as they went onward upon the crisping piny carpet of fallen
fir-needles.

"I have never seen Nature so lovely," said Ralph, "as when the
bright morning breaks after a night of shower. Everything seems to
have been new bathed in freshness."

"As if Dame Nature had had her spring cleaning," answered Winsome,
"or Andrew Kissock when he has had his face washed once a week,"
who had been serious long enough, and who felt that too much
earnestness even in the study of Nature might be a dangerous
thing.

But the inner thought of each was something quite different. This
is what Ralph thought within his heart, though his words were also
perfectly genuine:

"There is a dimple on her chin which comes out when she smiles,"
so he wanted her to smile again. When she did so, she was lovely
enough to peril the Faith or even the denomination.

Ralph tried to recollect if there were no more stiles on this hill
path over which she might have to be helped. He had taken off his
hat and walked beside her bareheaded, carrying his hat in the hand
farthest from Winsome, who was wondering how soon she would be
able to tell him that he must keep his shoulders back.

Winsome was not a young woman of great experience in these
matters, but she had the natural instinct for the possibilities of
love without which no woman comes into the world--at once armour
defensive and weapon offensive. She knew that one day Ralph Peden
would tell her that he loved her, but in the meantime it was so
very pleasant that it was a pity the days should come to an end.
So she resolved that they should not, at least not just yet. If
to-morrow be good, why confine one's self to to-day? She had not
yet faced the question of what she would say to him when the day
could be no longer postponed. She did not care to face it.
Sufficient unto the day is the good thereof, is quite as excellent
a precept as its counterpart, or at least so Winsome Charteris
thought. But, all the same, she wished that she could tell him to
keep his shoulders back.

A sudden resolve sprang full armed from her brain. Winsome had
that strange irresponsibility sometimes which comes irresistibly
to some men and women in youth, to say something as an experiment
which she well knew she ought not to say, simply to see what would
happen. More than once it had got her into trouble.

"I wish you would keep back your shoulders when you walk!" she
said, quick as a flash, stopping and turning sideways to face
Ralph Peden.

Ralph, walking thoughtfully with the student stoop, stood aghast,
as though not daring to reply lest his ears had not heard aright.

"I say, why do you not keep your shoulders back?" repeated Winsome
sharply, and with a kind of irritation at his silence.

He had no right to make her feel uncomfortable, whatever she might
say.

"I did not know--I thought--nobody ever told me," said Ralph,
stammering and catching at the word which came uppermost, as he
had done in college when Professor Thriepneuk, who was as fierce
in the class-room as he was mild at home, had him cornered upon a
quantity.

"Well, then," said Winsome, "if every one is so blind, it is time
that some one did tell you now."

Ralph squared himself like a drill-sergeant, holding himself so
straight that Winsome laughed outright, and that so merrily that
Ralph laughed too, well content that the dimple on her cheek
should play at hide and seek with the pink flush of her clear
skin.

So they had come to the stile, and Ralph's heart beat stronger,
and a nervous tension of expectation quivered through him,
bewildering his judgment. But Winsome was very clear-headed, and
though the white of her eyes was as dewy and clear as a child's,
she was no simpleton. She had read many men and women in her time,
for it is the same in essence to rule Craig Ronald as to rule
Rome.

"This is your way," she said, sitting down on the stile. "I am
going up to John Scott's to see about the lambs. It will be
breakfast-time at the manse before you got back."

Ralph's castle fell to the ground.

"I will come up with you to John Scott's," he said with an
undertone of eagerness.

"Indeed, that you will not," said Winsome promptly, who did not
want to arrive at seven o'clock in the morning at John Scott's
with any young man. "You will go home and take to your book, after
you have changed your shoes and stockings," she said practically.

"Well, then, let me bid you good-bye, Winsome!" said Ralph.

Her heart was warm to hear him say Winsome--for the first time. It
certainly was not unpleasant, and there was no need that she
should quarrel about that. She was about to give him her hand,
when she saw something in his eye.

"Mind, you are not to kiss it as you did grannie's yesterday;
besides, there are John Scott's dogs on the brow of the hill," she
said, pointing upward.

Poor Ralph could only look more crestfallen still. Such knowledge
was too high for him. He fell back on his old formula:

"I said before that you are a witch--"

"And you say it again?" queried Winsome, with careless
nonchalance, swinging her bonnet by its strings. "Well, you can
come back and kiss grannie's hand some other day. You are
something of a favourite with her."

But she had presumed just a hair-breadth too far on Ralph's
gentleness. He snatched the lilac sunbonnet out of her hands,
tearing, in his haste, one of the strings off, and leaving it in
Winsome's hand. Then he kissed it once and twice outside where the
sun shone on it, and inside where it had rested on her head. "You
have torn it," she said complainlngly, yet without anger.

"I am very glad," said Ralph Peden, coming nearer to her with a
light in his eye that she had never seen before.

Winsome dropped the string, snatched up the bonnet, and fled up
the hill as trippingly as a young doe towards the herd's cottage.
At the top of the fell she paused a moment with her hand on her
side, as if out of breath. Ralph Peden was still holding the torn
bonnet-string in his hand.

He held it up, hanging loose like a pennon from his hand. She
could hear the words come clear up the hill:

"I'm very--glad--that--I--tore--it, and I will come and--see--
your--grandmother!"

"Of all the--" Winsome stopped for want of words, speaking to
herself as she turned away up the hill--"of all the insolent and
disagreeable--"

She did not finish her sentence, as she adjusted the outraged
sunbonnet on her curls, tucking the remaining string carefully
within the crown; but as she turned again to look, Ralph Peden was
calmly folding tip the string and putting it in a book.

"I shall never speak to him again as long as I live," she said,
compressing her lips so that a dimple that Ralph had never seen
came out on the other side. This, of course, closed the record in
the case. Yet in a little while she added thoughtfully: "But he is
very handsome, and I think he will keep his shoulders back now.
Not, of course, that it matters, for I am never to speak to him
any more!"

John Scott's dogs were by this time leaping upon her, and that
worthy shepherd was coming along a steep slope upon the edges of
his boot-soles in the miraculous manner, which is peculiar to
herds, as if he were walking on the turnpike.

Winsome turned for the last time. Against the broad, dark sapphire
expanse of the loch, just where the great march dyke stepped off
to bathe in the summer water, she saw something black which waved
a hand and sprang over lightly.

Winsome sighed, and said a little wistfully yet not sadly:

"Who would have thought it of him? It just shows!" she said. All
which is a warning to maids that the meekest worm may turn.

CHAPTER XIV.

CAPTAIN AGNEW GREATORIX.

Greatorix Castle sat mightily upon a hill. It could not be hid,
and it looked down superciliously upon the little squiredom of
Craig Ronald, as well as upon farms and cottages a many. In days
not so long gone by, Greatorix Castle had been the hold of the
wearers of the White Cockade, rough riders after Lag and Sir James
Dalzyell, and rebels after that, who had held with Derwentwater
and the prince. Now there was quiet there. Only the Lady Elizabeth
and her son Agnew Greatorix dwelt there, and the farmer's cow and
the cottager's pig grazed and rooted unharmed--not always,
however, it was whispered, the farmer's daughter, for of all
serfdoms the droit du seignior is the last to die. Still,
Greatorix Castle was a notable place, high set on its hill, shires
and towns beneath, the blue breath of peat reek blowing athwart
the plain beneath and rising like an incense about.

Here the Lady Elizabeth dwelt in solemn but greatly reduced state.
She was a woman devoted to the practice of holiness according to
the way of the priest. It was the whole wish of her life that she
might keep a spiritual director, instead of having Father Mahon to
ride over from Dumfries once a month.

Within the castle there were many signs of decay--none of
rehabilitation. The carpets were worn into holes where feet had
oftenest fallen, and the few servants dared not take them out to
be beaten in the due season of the year, for indubitably they
would fall to pieces. So the curtains hung till an unwary stranger
would rest upon them with a hand's weight. Then that hand plucked
a palmbreadth away of the rotten and moth-eaten fabric.

There was an aged housekeeper at Greatorix Castle, who dwelt in
the next room to the Lady Elizabeth, and was supposed to act as
her maid. Mistress Humbie, however, was an exacting person; and
being an aged woman, and her infirmities bearing upon her, she
considered it more fitting that the Lady Elizabeth should wait
upon her. This, for the good of her soul, the Lady Elizabeth did.
Two maids and a boy, a demon boy, in buttons, who dwelt below-
stairs and gave his time to the killing of rats with ingenious
catapults and crossbows, completed the household--except Agnew
Greatorix.

The exception was a notable one. Save in the matter of fortune,
Nature had not dealt unhandsomely with Agnew Greatorix; yet just
because of this his chances of growing up into a strong and useful
man were few. He had been nurtured upon expectations from his
earliest youth. His uncle Agnew, the Lady Elizabeth's childless
brother, who for the sake of the favour of a strongly Protestant
aunt had left the mother church of the Greatorix family, had been
expected to do something for Agnew; but up to this present time he
had received only his name from him, in lieu of all the stately
heritages of Holywood in the Nith Valley hard by Lincluden, and
Stennesholm in Carrick.

So Agnew Greatorix had grown up in the midst of raw youths who
were not his peers in position. He companied with them till his
mother pointed out that it was not for a Greatorix to drink in the
Blue Bell and at the George with the sons of wealthy farmers and
bonnet lairds. By dint of scraping and saving which took a long
time, and influence which, costing nothing, took for a Greatorix
no time at all, the Lady Elizabeth obtained for her son a
commission in the county yeomanry. There he was thrown with
Maxwells of the Braes, Herons from the Shireside, and Gordons from
the northern straths--all young men of means and figure in the
county. Into the midst of these Agnew took his tightly knit
athletic figure, his small firmly set head and full-blooded dark
face--the only faults of which were that the eyes were too closely
set together and shuttered with lids that would not open more than
half way, and that he possessed the sensual mouth of a man who has
never willingly submitted to a restraint. Agnew Greatorix could
not compete with his companions, but he cut them out as a squire
of dames, and came home with a dangerous and fascinating
reputation, the best-hated man in the corps.

So when Captain Agnew clattered through the village in clean-cut
scarlet and clinking spurs, all the maids ran to the door, except
only a few who had once run like the others but now ran no more.
The captain came often to Craig Ronald. It was upon his way to
kirk and market, for the captain for the good of his soul went
occasionally to the little chapel of the Permission at Dumfries.
Still oftener he came with the books which the Lady Elizabeth
obtained from Edinburgh, the reading of which she shared with
Mistress Walter Skirving, whose kinship with the Lochinvars she
did not forget, though her father had been of the moorland branch
of that honourable house, and she herself had disgraced her
ancient name by marrying with a psalm-singing bonnet laird. But
the inexplicability of saying whom a woman may not take it into
her head to marry was no barrier to the friendship of the Lady
Elizabeth, who kept all her religion for her own consumption and
did not even trouble her son with it--which was a great pity, for
he indeed had much need, though small desire, thereof.

On the contrary, it was a mark of good blood sometimes to follow
one's own fancy. The Lady Elizabeth had done that herself against
the advice of the countess her mother, and that was the reason why
she dwelt amid hangings that came away in handfuls, and was
waiting-maid to Mistress Humbie her own housekeeper.

Agnew Greatorix had an eye for a pretty face, or rather for every
pretty face. Indeed, he had nothing else to do, except clean his
spurs and ride to the market town. So, since the author of
Waverley began to write his inimitable fictions, and his mother to
divide her time between works of devotion and the adventures of
Ivanhoe and Nigel, Agnew Greatorix had made many pilgrimages to
Craig Ronald. Here the advent of the captain was much talked over
by the maids, and even anticipated by Winsome herself as a
picturesque break in the monotony of the staid country life.
Certainly he brought the essence of strength and youth and
athletic energy into the quiet court-yard, when he rode in on his
showily paced horse and reined him round at the low steps of the
front door, with the free handling and cavalry swing which he had
inherited as much from the long line of Greatorixes who had ridden
out to harry the Warden's men along the marches, as from the
yeomanry riding-master.

Now, the captain was neither an obliging nor yet a particularly
amiable young man, and when he took so kindly to fetching and
carrying, it was not long before the broad world of farm towns and
herds' cot-houses upon which Greatorix Castle looked down
suspected a motive, and said so in its own way.

On one occasion, riding down the long loaning of Craig Ronald, the
captain came upon the slight, ascetic figure of Allan Welsh, the
Marrow minister, leaning upon the gate which closed the loaning
from the road. The minister observed him, but showed no signs of
moving. Agnew Greatorix checked his horse.

"Would you open the gate and allow me to pass on my way?" he said,
with chill politeness. The minister of the Marrow kirk looked
keenly at him from under his grey eyebrows.

"After I have had a few words with you, young sir," said Mr.
Welsh.

"I desire no words with you," returned the young man impatiently,
backing his horse.

"For whom are your visits at Craig Ronald intended?" said the
minister calmly. "Walter Skirving and his spouse do not receive
company of such dignity; and besides them there are only the maids
that I know of."

"Who made you my father confessor?" mocked Agnew Greatorix, with
an unpleasant sneer on his handsome face.

"The right of being minister in the things of the Spirit to all
that dwell in Craig Ronald House," said the minister of the Marrow
firmly.

"Truly a pleasant ministry, and one, no doubt, requiring frequent
ministrations; yet do I not remember to have met you at Craig
Ronald," he continued. "So faithful a minister surely must be
faithful in his spiritual attentions."

He urged his horse to the side of the gate and leaned over to open
the gate himself, but the minister had his hand firmly on the
latch.

"I have seen you ride to many maids' houses, Agnew Greatorix,
since the day your honoured father died, but never a one have I
seen the better of your visits. Woe and sorrow have attended upon
your way. You may ride off now at your ease, but beware the
vengeance of the God of Jacob; the mother's curse and the father's
malison ride not far behind!"

"Preach me no preachments," said the young man; "keep such for
your Marrow folk on Sundays; you but waste your words."

"Then I beseech you by the memory of a good father, whom, though
of another and an alien communion, I shall ever respect, to cast
your eyes elsewhere, and let the one ewe lamb of those whom God
hath stricken alone."

The gate was open now, and as he came through, Agnew Greatorix
made his horse curvet, pushing the frail form of the preacher
almost into the hedge.

"If you would like to come and visit us up at the castle," he said
mockingly, "I dare say we could yet receive you as my forefathers,
of whom you are so fond, used to welcome your kind. I saw the
thumbikins the other day; and I dare say we could fit you with
your size in boots."

"The Lord shall pull down the mighty from their seats, and exalt
them that are of low estate!" said the preacher solemnly.

"Very likely," said the young man as he rode away.

CHAPTER XV.

ON THE EDGE OF THE ORCHARD.

But Agnew Greatorix came as often as ever to Craig Ronald.
Generally he found Winsome busy with her household affairs,
sometimes with her sleeves buckled above her elbows, rolling the
tough dough for the crumpy farles of the oat-cake, and scattering
handfuls of dry meal over it with deft fingers to bring the mass
to its proper consistency for rolling out upon the bake-board.
Leaving his horse tethered to the great dismounting stone at the
angle of the kitchen (a granite boulder or "travelled stone," as
they said thereabouts), with an iron ring into it, he entered and
sat down to watch. Sometimes, as to-day, he would be only silent
and watchful; but he never failed to compass Winsome with the
compliment of humility and observance. It is possible that better
things were stirring in his heart than usually brought him to such
places. There is no doubt, indeed, that he appreciated the
frankness and plain speech which he received from the very
practical young mistress of Craig Ronald.

When he left the house it was Agnew Greatorix's invariable custom
to skirt the edge of the orchard before mounting. Just in the dusk
of the great oak-tree, where its branches mingle with those of the
gean [wild cherry], he was met by the slim, lithe figure of Jess
Kissock, in whose piquant elvishness some strain of Romany blood
showed itself.

Jess had been waiting for him ever since he had taken his hat in
his hand to leave the house. As he came in sight of the watcher,
Agnew Greatorix stopped, and Jess came closer to him, motioning
him imperiously to bring his horse close in to the shadow of the
orchard wall. Agnew did so, putting out his arm as if he would
kiss her; but, with a quick fierce movement, Jess thrust his hand
away.

"I have told you before not to play these tricks with me--keep
them for them that ye come to Craig Ronald to see. It's the
mistress ye want. What need a gentleman like you meddle with the
maid?"

"Impossible as it may seem, the like has been done," said Agnew,
smiling down at the black eyes and blowing elf locks.

"Not with this maid," replied Jess succinctly, and in deed slhe
looked exceedingly able to take care of herself, as became Meg
Kissock's sister.

"I'll go no further with Winsome," said Greatorix gloomily,
breaking the silence. "You said that if I consulted her about the
well-being of the poor rats over at the huts, and took her advice
about the new cottages for the foresters, she would listen to me.
Well, she did listen, but as soon as I hinted at any other
subject, I might as well have been talking to the old daisy in the
sitting-room with the white band round her head."

"Did anybody ever see the like of you menfolk?" cried Jess,
throwing up her hands hopelessly; "d'ye think that a bonny lass is
just like a black ripe cherry on a bough, ready to drap into your
mooth when it pleases your high mightinesses to hold it open?"

"Has Winsome charteris any sweetheart?" asked the captain.

"What for wad she be doing with a sweetheart? She has muckle else
to think on. There's a young man that's baith braw an' bonny, a
great scholar frae Enbra' toon that comes gye an' aften frae the
manse o' Dullarg, whaur he's bidin' a' the simmer for the
learnin'. He comes whiles, an' Winsome kind o' gies him a bit
convoy up the hill."

"Jess Kissock," said the young man passionately, "tell me no lies,
or--"

"Nane o' yer ill tongue for me, young man; keep it for yer mither.
I'm little feared o' ye or ony like ye. Ye'll maybe get a bit dab
frae the neb o' a jockteleg [point of a sheath-knife] that will
yeuk [tickle] ye for a day or twa gin ye dinna learn an' that
speedily, as Maister Welsh wad say, to keep yer Han's aff my
faither's dochter." Jess's good Scots was infinitely better and
more vigorous than the English of the lady's maid.

"I beg your pardon, Jess. I am a passionate, hasty man. I am sure
I meant no harm. Tell me more of this hulking landlouper
[intruder], and I'll give you a kiss."

"Keep yer kisses for them that likes them. The young man's no
landlouper ony mair nor yersel'--no as mickle indeed, but a very
proper young man, wi' a face as bonny as an angel--"

"But, Jess, do you mean to say that you are going to help him with
Winsome?" asked the young man.

"Feint a bit!" answered the young woman frankly. "She'll no get
him gin I can help it. I saw him first and bid him guid-day afore
ever she set her een on him. It's ilka yin for hersel' when it
comes to a braw young man," and Jess tossed her gipsy head, and
pouted a pair of handsome scarlet lips.

Greatorix laughed. "The land lies that way, does it?" he said.
"Then that's why you would not give me a kiss to-day, Jess," he
went on; "the black coat has routed the red baith but an' ben--but
we'll see. You cannot both have him, Jess, and if you are so very
fond of the parson, ye'll maybe help me to keep Winsome Charteris
to myself."

"Wad ye mairry her gin ye had the chance, Agnew Greatorix?"

"Certainly; what else?" replied the young man promptly.

"Then ye shall hae her," replied Jess, as if Winsome were within
her deed of gift,

"And you'll try for the student, Jess?" asked the young man. "I
suppose he would not need to ask twice for a kiss?"

"Na, for I would kiss him withoot askin'--that is, gin he hadna
the sense to kiss ME," said Jess frankly.

"Well," said Greatorix, somewhat reluctantly, "I'm sure I wish you
joy of your parson. I see now what the canting old hound from the
Dullarg Manse meant when he tackled me at the loaning foot. He
wanted Winsome for the young whelp."

"I dinna think that," replied Jess; "he disna want him to come
aboot here ony mair nor you."

"How do you know that, Jess?"

"Ou, I juist ken."

"Can you find out what Winsome thinks herself?"

"I can that, though she hasna a word to say to me--that am far
mair deservin' o' confidence than that muckle peony faced hempie,
Meg, that an ill Providence gied me for a sis ter. Her keep a
secret?--the wind wad waft it oot o' her." Thus affectionately
Jess.

"But how can you find out, then?" persisted the young man, yet
unsatisfied.

"Ou fine that," said Jess. "Meg talks in her sleep."

Before Agnew Greatorix leaped on to his horse, which all this time
had stood quiet on his bridle-arm, only occasion ally jerking his
head as if to ask his master to come away, he took the kiss he had
been denied, and rode away laugh ing, but with one cheek much
redder than the other, the mark of Jess's vengeance.

"Ye hae ower muckle conceit an' ower little sense ever to be a
richt blackguard," said Jess as he went, "but ye hae the richt
intention for the deil's wark. Ye'll do the young mistress nae
hurt, for she wad never look twice at ye, but I cannot let her get
the bonny lad frae Embra'-na, I saw him first, an' first come
first served!"

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