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

And so very sulkily Marly moved out, looking for Meg right and
left as she did so. She had her feelings as well as any one, and
she was not the first who had been annoyed by the sly, mischievous
gipsy with the black eyes, who kept so quiet before folk. As she
went out of the byre door, Jess laid her switch smartly across
Marly's loins, much to the loss of dignity of that stately animal,
who, taking a hasty step, slipped on the threshold, and overtook
her neighbours with a slow resentment gathering in her matronly
breast.

When Saunders Mowdiewort heard the last chain drop in the byre,
and the strident tones of Jess exhorting Marly, he took a few
steps to the gate of the hill pasture. He had to pass along a
short home-made road, and over a low parapetless bridge
constructed simply of four tree-trunks laid parallel and covered
with turf. Then he dropped the bars of the gate into the hill
pasture with a clatter, which came to Winsome's ears as she stood
at her window looking out into the night. She was just thinking at
that moment what a good thing it was that she had sent back Ralph
Peden's poem. So, in order to see whether this were so or not, she
repeated it all over again to herself.

When he came back again to the end of the barn, Saunders found
Jess standing there, with the wistful light in her eyes which that
young woman of many accomplishments could summon into them as
easily as she could smile. For Jess was a minx--there is no
denying the fact. Yet even slow Saunders admitted that, though she
was nothing to Meg, of course, still there was something original
and attractive about her--like original sin.

Jess was standing with her head on one side, putting the scarlet
head of a poppy among her black hair. Jess had strange tastes,
which would be called artistic nowadays in some circles. Her
liking was always BIZARRE and excellent, the taste of the
primitive Galloway Pict from whom she was descended, or of that
picturesque Glenkens warrior, who set a rowan bush on his head on
the morning when he was to lead the van at the battle of the
Standard. Scotland was beaten on that great occasion, it is true;
but have the chroniclers, who complain of the place of Galloway
men in the ranks, thought how much more terribly Scotland might
have been beaten had Galloway not led the charge? But this is
written just because Jess Kissock, a Galloway farm lassie, looked
something like a cast back to the primitive Pict of the south, a
fact which indeed concerns the story not at all, for Saunders
Mowdiewort had not so much as ever heard of a Pict.

Jess did not regard Saunders Mowdiewort highly at any time. He was
one of Meg's admirers, but after all he was a man, and one can
never tell. It was for this reason that she put the scarlet poppy
into her hair.

She meditated "I maybe haena Meg's looks to the notion o' some
folk, but I mak' a heap better use o' the looks that I hae, an'
that is a great maitter!"

"Saunders," said Jess softly, going up to the Cuif and pretending
to pick a bit of heather off his courting coat. She did this with
a caressing touch which soothed the widower, and made him wish
that Meg would do the like. He began to think that he had never
properly valued Jess.

"Is Meg comin' oot again?" Jess inquired casually, the scarlet
poppy set among the blue-black raven's wings, and brushing his
beard in a distracting manner.

Saunders would hare given a good deal to be able to reply in the
affirmative, but Meg had dismissed him curtly after the milking,
with the intimation that it was time he was making manseward. As
for her, she was going within doors to put the old folks to bed.

After being satisfied on this point the manner of Jess was
decidedly soothing. That young woman had a theory which was not
quite complimentary either to the sense or the incorruptibility of
men. It was by showing an interest in them and making them think
that they (or at least the one being operated upon) are the
greatest and most fascinating persons under the sun, almost
anything can be done. This theory has been acted upon with results
good and bad, in other places besides the barn end of Craig
Ronald.

"They're a' weel at the Manse?" said Jess, tentatively.

"On aye," said Saunders, looking round the barn end to see if Meg
could see him. Satisfied that Meg was safe in bed, Saunders put
his hand on Jess's shoulder--the sleek-haired, candle-greased
deceiver that he was.

"Jess, ye're bonny," said he.

"Na, na," said Jess, very demurely, "it's no me that's bonny--its
Meg!"

Jess was still looking at him, and interested in getting all the
rough wool off the collar of his homespun coat.

The Samson of the graveyard felt his strength deserting him.

"Davert, Jess lass, but it's a queer thing that it never cam
across me that ye were bonny afore!"

Jess looked down. The Cuif thought that it was because she was
shy, and his easy heart went out to her; but had he seen the smile
that was wasted on a hopping sparrow beneath, and especially the
wicked look in the black eyes, he might have received some
information as to the real sentiments of girls who put red poppies
in their hair in order to meet their sisters' sweethearts at the
barn end.

"Is the young minister aye bidin' at the Manse?" asked Jess.

"Aye, he is that!" said Saunders, "he's a nice chiel' yon. Ye'll
see him whiles ower by here. They say--that is Manse Bell says--
that he's real fond o' yer young mistress here. Ken ye ocht aboot
that, Jess?"

"Hoots, havers, our young mistress is no for penniless students, I
wot weel. There'll be nocht in't, an' sae ye can tell Bell o' the
Manse, gin you an' her is so chief [intimate]."

"Very likely ye're richt. There'll be nocht in't, I'm thinkin'--at
least on her side. But what o' the young man? D'ye think he's sair
ta'en up aboot Mistress Winsome? Meg was sayin' so."

"Meg thinks there's naebody worth lookin' at in the warl' but
hersel' and Mistress Winifred Charteris, as she ca's hersel'; but
there's ithers thinks different."

"What hae ye against her, Jess? I thocht that she's a fell fine
young leddy."

"Oh she's richt eneuch, but there's bonny lasses as weel as her;
an' maybe, gin young Maister Peden comes ower by to Oraig Eonald
to see a lass nnkenned o' a'--what faut wad there be in that?"

"Then it's Meg he comes to see, and no' the young mistress?" said
the alarmed grave-digger.

"Maybes aye an' maybes no--there's bonny lasses forby Meg Kissock
for them that hae gotten een in their heads."

"Wi' Jess! Is't yerself?" said Saunders.

Jess was discreetly silent.

"Ye'll no tell onybody, wull ye, Maister Mowdiewort?" she said
anxiously.

To Saunders this was a great deal better than being called a
"Cuif."

"Na, Jess, lass, I'll no tell a soul--no yin."

"No' even Meg-mind!" repeated Jess, who felt that this was a vital
point.

So Saunders promised, though he had intended to do so on the first
opportunity.

"Mind, if ye do, I'll never gie ye a hand wi' Meg again as lang as
I leeve!" said Jess emphatically.

"Jess, d'ye think she likes me?" asked the widower in a hushed
whisper.

"Saunders, I'm jnist sure o't," replied Jess with great readiness.
"But she's no yin o' the kind to let on."

"Na," groaned Saunders, "I wuss to peace she was. But ye mind me
that I gat a letter frae the young minister that I was to gie to
Meg. But as you're the yin he comes to see, I maun as weel gie't
direct to yoursel'."

"It wad be as weel," said Jess, with a strange sort of sea-fire
like moonshine in her eyes.

Saunders passed over a paper to her readily, and Jess, with her
hand still on his coat-collar, in a way that Meg had never used,
thanked him in her own way.

"Juist bide a wee," she said; "I'll be wi' ye in a minute!"

Jess hurried down into the old square-plotted garden, which ran up
to the orchard trees. She soon found a moss-rose bush from which
she selected a bud, round which the soft feathery envelope was
just beginning to curl back. Then she went round by the edge of
the brook which keeps damp one side of the orchard, where she
found some single stems of forget-me-nots, shining in the dusk
like beaded turquoise. She pulled some from the bottom of the
half-dry ditch, and setting the pale moss-rosebud in the middle,
she bound the whole together with a striped yellow and green
withe. Then snipping the stacks with her pocket scissors, she
brought the posy to Saunders, with instructions to wrap it in a
dock-leaf and never to let his hands touch it the whole way.

Saunders, dazed and fascinated, forgetful even of Meg and loyalty,
promised. The glamour of Jess, the gypsy, was upon him.

"But what am I to say," he asked.

"Say its frae her that he sent the letter to; he'll ken brawly
that Meg hadna the gumption to send him that!" said Jess candidly.

Saunders said his good-night in a manner which would certainly
have destroyed all his chances with Meg had she witnessed the
parting. Then he stolidly tramped away down the loaning.

Jess called after him, struck with a sudden thought. "See that ye
dinna gie it to him afore the minister."

Then she put her hands beneath her apron and walked home
meditating. "To be a man is to be a fool," said Jess Kissock,
putting her whole experience into a sentence. Jess was a daughter
of the cot; put then she was also a daughter of Eve, who had not
even so much as a cot.

CHAPTER XX.

"DARK-BROWED EGYPT."

As soon as Jess was by herself in the empty byre, to which she
withdrew herself with the parcel which the faithful and
trustworthy Cuif had entrusted to her, she lit the lantern which
always stood in the inside of one of the narrow triangular wickets
that admitted light into the byre. Sitting down on the small hay
stall, she pulled the packet from her pocket, looked it carefully
over, and read the simple address, "In care of Margaret Kissock."
There was no other writing upon the outside.

Opening the envelope carefully, he let the light of the byre
lantern rest on the missive. It was written in a delicate but
strong handwriting--the hand of one accustomed to forming the
smaller letters of ancient tongues into a current script. "To
Mistress Winifred Charteris," it ran. "Dear Lady: That I have
offended you by the hastiness of my words and the unforgivable
wilfulness of my actions, I know, but cannot forgive myself. Yet,
knowing the kindness of your disposition, I have thought that you
might be better disposed to pardon me than I myself. For I need
not tell you, what you already know, that the sight of you is
dearer to me than the light of the morning. You are connected in
my mind and heart with all that is best and loveliest. I need not
tell now that I love you, for you know that I love the string of
your bonnet. Nor am I asking for anything in return, save only
that you may know my heart and not be angry. This I send to ease
its pain, for it has been crying out all night long, 'Tell her--
tell her!' So I have risen early to write this. Whether I shall
send it or no, I cannot tell. There is no need, Winsome, to answer
it, if you will only let it fall into your heart and make no
noise, as a drop of water falls into the sea. Whether you will be
angry or not I cannot tell, and, truth to tell you, sweetheart, I
am far past caring. I am coming, as I said, to Craig Ronald to see
your grandmother, and also, if you will, to see you. I shall not
need you to tell me whether you are angered with a man's love or
no; I shall know that before you speak to me. But keep a thought
for one that loves you beyond all the world, and as if there were
no world, and naught but God and you and him. For this time fare
you well. Ralph Peden."

Jess turned it over with a curious look on her face. "Aye, he has
the grip o't, an' she micht get him gin she war as clever as Jess
Kissock; but him that can love yin weel can lo'e anither better,
an' I can keep them sindry [asunder]. I saw him first, an' he spak
to me first. 'Ye're no to think o' him,' said my mither. Think o'
him! I hae thocht o' nocht else. Think of him! Since when is
thinkin' a crime? A lass maun juist do the best she can for
hersel', be she cotman's dochter or laird's. Love's a' yae thing--
kitchen or byre, but or ben. See a lad, lo'e a lad, get a lad,
keep a lad! Ralph Peden will kiss me afore the year's oot," she
said with determination.

So in the corner of the byre, among the fragrant hay and fresh-cut
clover, Jess Kissock the cottar's lass prophesied out of her
wayward soul, baring her intentions to herself as perhaps her
sister in boudoir hushed and perfumed might not have done. There
are Ishmaels also among women, whose hand is against every woman,
and who stand for their own rights to the man on whom they have
set their love; and the strange thing is, that such are by no
means the worst of women either.

Stranger still, so strong and dividing to soul and marrow is a
clearly defined purpose and determinately selfish, that such women
do not often fail. And indeed Jess Kissock, sitting in the hay-
neuk, with her candle in the lantern throwing patterns on the
cobwebby walls from the tiny perforations all round, made a
perfectly correct prophecy. Ralph Peden did indeed kiss her, and
that of his own free will as his love of loves within a much
shorter space of time than a year.

Strangely also, Jess the gipsy, the dark-browed Pictess, was
neither angry nor jealous when she read Ralph's letter to Winsome.
According to all rules she ought to have been. She even tried to
persuade herself that she was. But the sight of Ralph writing to
Winsome gave no pang to her heart. Nor did this argue that she did
not love really and passionately. She did; but Jess had in her the
Napoleon instinct. She loved obstacles. So thus it was what she
communed with herself, sitting with her hand on her brow, and her
swarthy tangle of hair falling all about her face. All women have
a pose in which they look best. Jess looked best leaning forward
with her elbows on her knees. Had there been a fender at her
father's fireside Jess would have often sat on it, for there is a
dangerous species of girl that, like a cat, looks best sitting on
a fender. And such a girl is always aware of the circumstance.

"He has written to Winsome," Jess communed with herself. "Well, he
shall write to me. He loves her, he thinks; then in time he shall
love me, and be sure perfectly o't. Let me see. Gin she had gotten
this letter, she wadna hae answered it. So he'll come the morn,
an' he'll no say a word to her aboot the letter. Na, he'll juist
look if she's pleased like, and gin that gomeral Saunders gied him
the rose, he'll no be ill to please eyther! But afore he gangs
hame he shall see Jess Kissock, an' hear frae her aboot the young
man frae the Castle!" Jess took another look at the letter." It's
a bonny hand o' write," she said, "but Dominie Cairnochan learned
me to write as weel as onybody, an' some day he'll write to me.
I'se no be byre lass a' my life. Certes no. There's oor Meg, noo;
she'll mairry some ignorant landward man, an' leeve a' her life in
a cot hoose, wi' a dizzen weans tum'lin' aboot her! What yin canna
learn, anither can," continued Jess. "I hae listened to graun'
fowk speakin', an' I can speak as weel as onybody. I'll disgrace
nane. Gin I canna mak' mysel' fit for kirk or manse, my name's no
Jess Kissock. I'm nae country lump, to be left where I'm set doon,
like a milkin' creepie [stool], an' kickit ower when they are dune
wi' me."

It is of such women, born to the full power and passion of sex,
and with all the delicate keenness of the feminine brain, utterly
without principle or scruple, that the Cleopatras are made. For
black-browed Egypt, the serpent of old Nile, can sit in a country
byre, and read a letter to another woman. For Cleopatra is not
history; she is type.

CHAPTER XXI.

THE RETURN OF EBIE FARRISH.

Now Ebie Farrish had been over at the Nether Crae seeing the
lassies there in a friendly way after the scene in the byre, for
Galloway ploughmen were the most general of lovers. Ebie
considered it therefore no disloyalty to Jess that he would
display his watch-guard and other accomplishments to the young
maids at the Crae. Nor indeed would Jess herself have so
considered it. It was only Meg who was so particular that she did
not allow such little practice excursions of this kind on the part
of her young men.

When Ebie started to go home, it was just midnight. As he came
over the Grannoch bridge he saw the stars reflected in the water,
and the long stretches of the loch glimmering pearl grey in the
faint starlight and the late twilight. He thought they looked as
if they were running down hill. His thoughts and doings that day
and night had been earthly enough. He had no regrets and few
aspirations. But the coolness of the twilight gave him the sense
of being a better man than he knew himself to be. Ebie went to sit
under the ministrations of the Reverend Erasmus Teends at twelve
by the clock on Sunday. He was a regular attendant. He always was
spruce in his Sunday blacks. He placed himself in the hard pews so
that he could have a view of his flame for the time being. As he
listened to the minister he thought sometimes of her and of his
work, and of the turnip-hoeing on the morrow, but oftenest of
Jess, who went to the Marrow kirk over the hills. He thought of
the rise of ten shillings that he would ask at the next half-
year's term, all as a matter of course--just as Robert Jamieson
the large farmer, thought of the rent day and the market ordinary,
and bringing home the "muckle greybeard "full of excellent
Glenlivat from the Cross Keys on Wednesday. Above them both the
Reverend Erasmus Teends droned and drowsed, as Jess Kissock said
with her faculty for expression, "bummelin' awa like a bubbly-Jock
or a bum-bee in a bottle."

But coming home in the coolness of this night, the ploughman was,
for the time being, purged of the grosser humours which come
naturally to strong, coarse natures, with physical frames ramping
with youth and good feeding. He stood long looking into the lane
water, which glided beneath the bridge and away down to the Dee
without a sound.

He saw where, on the broad bosom of the loch, the stillness lay
grey and smooth like glimmering steel, with little puffs of night
wind purling across it, and disappearing like breath from a new
knife-blade. He saw where the smooth satin plane rippled to the
first water-break, as the stream collected itself, deep and black,
with the force of the water behind it, to flow beneath the bridge.
When Ebie Farrish came to the bridge he was a material Galloway
ploughman, satisfied with his night's conquests and chewing the
cud of their memory.

He looked over. He saw the stars, which were perfectly reflected a
hundred yards away on the smooth expanse, first waver, then
tremble, and lastly break into a myriad delicate shafts of light,
as the water quickened and gathered. He spat in the water, and
thought of trout for breakfast. But the long roar of the rapids of
the Dee came over the hill, and a feeling of stillness with it,
weird and remote. Uncertain lights shot hither and thither under
the bridge, in strange gleams of reflection. The ploughman was
awed. He continued to gaze. The stillness closed in upon him. The
aromatic breath of the pines seemed to cool him and remove him
from himself. He had a sense that it was Sabbath morning, and that
he had just washed his face to go to church. It was the nearest
thing to worship he had ever known. Such moments come to the most
material, and are their theology. Far off a solitary bird whooped
and whinnied. It sounded mysterious and unknown, the cry of a lost
soul. Ebie Farrish wondered where he would go to when he died. He
thought this over for a little, and then he concluded that it were
better not to dwell on this subject. But the crying on the lonely
hills awed him. It was only a Jack snipe from whose belated nest
an owl had stolen two eggs. But it was Ebie Farrish's good angel.
He resolved that he would go seldomer to the village public o'
nights, and that he would no more find cakes and ale sweet to his
palate. It was a foregone conclusion that on Saturday night he
would be there, yet what he heard and saw on Grannoch Bridge
opened his sluggish eyes. Of a truth there was that in the world
which had not been there for him before. It is to Jess Kissock's
credit, that when Ebie was most impressed by the stillness and
most under the spell of the night, he thought of her. He was only
an ignorant, godless, good-natured man, who was no more moral than
he could help; but it is both a testimonial and a compliment when
such a man thinks of a woman in his best and most solemn moments.

At that moment Jess Kissock was putting Winsome Charteris's letter
into her pocket.

There is no doubt that poor, ignorant Ebie, with his highly
developed body and the unrestrained and irregular propensities of
his rudimentary soul, was nearer the Almighty that night than his
keen-witted and scheming sweetheart.

A trout leaped in the calm water, and Ebie stopped thinking of the
eternities to remember where he had set a line. Far off a cock
crew, and the well-known sound warned Ebie that he had better be
drawing near his bed. He raised himself from the copestone of the
parapet, and solemnly tramped his steady way up to the "onstead"
of Craig Ronald, which took shape before him as he advanced like a
low, grey-bastioned castle. As he entered the low square on his
way across to the stable door he was surprised to notice a gleam
of light in the byre. Ebie thought that some tramps were
trespassing on the good nature of the mistress of the house, and
he had the feeling of loyalty to his master's interests which
distinguished the Galloway ploughman of an older time. He was
mortally afraid of bogles, and would not have crossed the kirkyard
after the glimmer of midnight without seeing a dozen corpse-
candles; but tramps were quite another matter, for Ebie was not in
the least afraid of mortal man--except only of Allan Welsh, the
Marrow minister.

So he stole on tiptoe to the byre door, circumnavigating the
"wicket," which poured across the yard its tell-tale plank of
light. Standing within the doorway and looking over the high
wooden stall, tenanted in winter by Jock, the shaggy black bull,
Ebie saw Jess Kissock, lost in her dreams. The lantern was set on
the floor in front of her. The candle had nearly burned down to
the socket. Jess's eyes were large and brilliant. It seemed to
Ebie Farrish that they were shining with light. Her red lips were
pouted, and there was a warm, unwonted flush on her cheeks. In her
dreams she was already mistress of a house, and considering how
she would treat her servants. She would treat them kindly and
well. She had heard her sister, who was servant at Earlston, tell
how the ladies there treated their servants. Jess meant to do just
the same. She meant to be a real lady. Ambition in a woman has a
double chance, for adaptation is inborn along with it. Most men do
not succeed very remarkably in anything, because at heart they do
not believe in themselves. Jess did. It was her heritage from some
Pict, who held back under the covert of his native woods so long
as the Roman tortoise crept along, shelved in iron, but who drave
headlong into a gap with all his men, when, some accident of
formation showed the one chance given in a long day's march.

Ebie thought he had never seen Jess so beautiful. It had never
struck him before that Jess was really handsomer than Meg. He only
knew that there was a stinging wild-fruit fragrance about Jess and
her rare favours he had never experienced in the company of any
other woman. And he had a large experience.

Was it possible that she knew that he was out and was waiting for
him? In this thought, which slowly entered in upon his
astonishment, the natural Ebie forced himself to the front.

"Jess!" he exclaimed impulsively, taking a step within, the door.
Instantly, as though some night-flying bat had flown against it,
the candle went out--a breath wafted by him as lightly and as
silently as a snowy owl flies home in the twilight. A subtle
something, the influence of a presence, remained, which mingled
strangely with the odours of the clover in the neuk, and the sour
night-smell of the byre. Again there was a perfect silence.
Without, a corncrake ground monotonously. A rat scurried along the
rafter. Ebie in the silence and the darkness had almost persuaded
himself that he had been dreaming, when his foot clattered against
something which fell over on the cobble-stones that paved the
byre. He stopped and picked it up. It was the byre lantern. The
wick was still glowing crimson when he opened the little tin door.
As he looked it drew slowly upward into a red star, and winked
itself out. It was no dream. Jess had been in the byre. To meet
whom? he asked himself.

Ebie went thoughtfully up-stairs, climbing the stable ladder as
the first twilight of the dawn was slowly pouring up from beneath
into a lake of light and colour in the east, as water gushes from
a strong well-eye.

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21