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Heather and Snow

by George MacDonald · English · Gutenberg #9155 · 416,004 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Heather and Snow

Author: George MacDonald


        
Release date: October 1, 2005 [eBook #9155]
                Most recently updated: August 3, 2022

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HEATHER AND SNOW ***




HEATHER AND SNOW

BY GEORGE MACDONALD




CONTENTS

 I.        A RUNAWAY RACE
 II.       MOTHER AND SON
 III.      AT THE FOOT OF THE HORN
 IV.       DOG-STEENIE
 V.        COLONEL AND SERGEANT
 VI.       MAN-STEENIE
 VII.      CORBYKNOWE
 VIII.     DAVID AND HIS DAUGHTER
 IX.       AT CASTLE WEELSET
 X.        DAVID AND FRANCIS
 XI.       KIRSTY AND PHEMY
 XII.      THE EARTH-HOUSE
 XIII.     A VISIT FROM FRANCIS GORDON
 XIV.      STEENIE’S HOUSE
 XV.       PHEMY CRAIG
 XVI.      SHAM LOVE
 XVII.     A NOVEL ABDUCTION
 XVIII.    PHEMY’S CHAMPION
 XIX.      FRANCIS GORDON’S CHAMPION
 XX.       MUTUAL MINISTRATION
 XXI.      PHEMY YIELDS PLACE
 XXII.     THE HORN
 XXIII.    THE STORM AGAIN
 XXIV.     HOW KIRSTY FARED
 XXV.      KIRSTY’S DREAM
 XXVI.     HOW DAVID FARED
 XXVII.    HOW MARION FARED
 XXVIII.   HUSBAND AND WIFE
 XXIX.     DAVID, MARION, KIRSTY, SNOOTIE, AND WHAT WAS LEFT OF STEENIE
 XXX.      FROM SNOW TO FIRE
 XXXI.     KIRSTY SHOWS RESENTMENT
 XXXII.    IN THE WORKSHOP
 XXXIII.   A RACE WITH DEATH
 XXXIV.    BACK FROM THE GRAVE
 XXXV.     FRANCIS COMES TO HIMSELF
 XXXVI.    KIRSTY BESTIRS HERSELF
 XXXVII.   A GREAT GULF
 XXXVIII.  THE NEIGHBOURS
 XXXIX.    KIRSTY GIVES ADVICE
 XL.       MRS. GORDON
 XLI.      TWO HORSEWOMEN
 XLII.     THE LAIRD AND HIS MOTHER
 XLIII.    THE CORONATION
 XLIV.     KIRSTY’S TOCHER
 XLV.      KIRSTY’S SONG




CHAPTER I


A RUNAWAY RACE

Upon neighbouring stones, earth-fast, like two islands of an
archipelago, in an ocean of heather, sat a boy and a girl, the girl
knitting, or, as she would have called it, _weaving_ a stocking, and
the boy, his eyes fixed on her face, talking with an animation that
amounted almost to excitement. He had great fluency, and could have
talked just as fast in good English as in the dialect in which he was
now pouring out his ambitions--the broad Saxon of Aberdeen.

He was giving the girl to understand that he meant to be a soldier like
his father, and quite as good a one as he. But so little did he know of
himself or the world, that, with small genuine impulse to action, and
moved chiefly by the anticipated results of it, he saw success already
his, and a grateful country at his feet. His inspiration was so purely
ambition, that, even if, his mood unchanged, he were to achieve much
for his country, she could hardly owe him gratitude.

‘I’ll no hae the warl’ lichtly (_make light of_) _me_!’ he said.

‘Mebbe the warl’ winna tribble itsel aboot ye sae muckle as e’en to
lichtly ye!’ returned his companion quietly.

‘_Ye_ do naething ither!’ retorted the boy, rising, and looking down on
her in displeasure. ‘What for are ye aye girdin at me? A body canna lat
his thouchts gang, but ye’re doon upo them, like doos upo corn!’

‘I wadna be girdin at ye, Francie, but that I care ower muckle aboot ye
to lat ye think I haud the same opingon o’ ye ’at ye hae o’ yersel,’
answered the girl, who went on with her knitting as she spoke.

‘Ye’ll never believe a body!’ he rejoined, and turned half away. ‘I
canna think what gars me keep comin to see ye! Ye haena ae guid word to
gie a body!’

‘It’s nane ye s’ get frae me, the gait ye’re gaein, Francie! Ye think a
heap ower muckle o’ yersel. What ye expec, may some day a’ come true,
but ye hae gien nobody a richt to expec it alang wi’ ye, and I canna
think, gien ye war fair to yersel, ye wad coont yersel ane it was to be
expeckit o’!’

‘I tauld ye sae, Kirsty! Ye never lay ony weicht upo what a body says!’

‘That depen’s upo the body. Did ye never hear maister Craig p’int oot
the differ atween believin a body and believin _in_ a body, Francie?’

‘No--and I dinna care.’

‘I wudna like ye to gang awa thinking I misdoobtit yer word, Francie! I
believe onything ye tell me, as far as _I_ think ye ken, but maybe no
sae far as _ye_ think ye ken. I believe ye, but I confess I dinna
believe _in_ ye--yet. What hae ye ever dune to gie a body ony richt to
believe in ye? Ye’re a guid rider, and a guid shot for a laddie, and ye
rin middlin fest--I canna say like a deer, for I reckon I cud lick ye
mysel at rinnin! But, efter and a’,--’

‘Wha’s braggin noo, Kirsty?’ cried the boy, with a touch of not
ill-humoured triumph.

‘Me,’ answered Kirsty; ‘--and I’ll do what I brag o’!’ she added,
throwing her stocking on the patch of green sward about the stone, and
starting to her feet with a laugh. ‘Is ’t to be uphill or alang?’

They were near the foot of a hill to whose top went the heather, but
along whose base, between the heather and the bogland below, lay an
irregular belt of moss and grass, pretty clear of stones. The boy did
not seem eager to accept the challenge.

‘There’s nae guid in lickin a lassie!’ he said with a shrug.

‘There micht be guid in tryin to du ’t though--especially gien ye war
lickit at it!’ returned the girl.

‘What guid _can_ there be in a body bein lickit at onything?’

‘The guid o’ haein a body’s pride ta’en doon a wee.’

‘I’m no sae sure o’ the guid o’ that! It wud only haud ye ohn tried
(_from trying_) again.’

‘Jist there’s what yer pride dis to ye, Francie! Ye maun aye be first,
or ye’ll no try! Ye’ll never du naething for fear o’ no bein able to
gang on believin ye cud du ’t better nor ony ither body! Ye dinna want
to fin’ oot ’at ye’re naebody in particlar. It’s a sair pity ye wunna
hae yer pride ta’en doon. Ye wud be a hantle better wantin aboot three
pairts o’ ’t.--Come, I’m ready for ye! Never min’ ’at I’m a lassie:
naebody ’ill ken!’

‘Ye hae nae sheen (_shoes_)!’ objected the boy.

‘Ye can put aff yer ain!’

‘My feet’s no sae hard as yours!’

‘Weel, I’ll put on mine. They’re here, sic as they are. Ye see I want
them gangin throuw the heather wi’ Steenie; that’s some sair upo the
feet. Straucht up hill throuw the heather, and I’ll put my sheen on!’

‘I’m no sae guid uphill.’

‘See there noo, Francie! Ye tak yersel for unco courteous, and
honourable, and generous, and k-nichtly, and a’ that--oh, I ken a’
aboot it--and it’s a’ verra weel sae far as it gangs; but what the
better are ye for ’t, whan, a’ the time ye’re despisin a body ’cause
she’s but a quean; ye maun hae ilka advantage o’ her, or ye winna gie
her a chance o’ lickin ye!--Here! I’ll put on my sheen, and rin ye
alang the laich grun’! My sheen’s twice the weicht o’ yours, and they
dinna fit me!’

The boy did not dare go on refusing: he feared what Kirsty would say
next. But he relished nothing at all in the challenge. It was not fit
for a man to run races with a girl: there were no laurels, nothing but
laughter to be won by victory over her! and in his heart he was not at
all sure of beating Kirsty: she had always beaten him when they were
children. Since then they had been at the parish school together, but
there public opinion kept the boys and girls to their own special
sports. Now Kirsty had left school, and Francis was going to the
grammar-school at the county-town. They were both about fifteen. All
the sense was on the side of the girl, and she had been doing her best
to make the boy practical like herself--hitherto without much success,
although he was by no means a bad sort of fellow. He had not yet passed
the stage--some appear never to pass it in this world--in which an
admirer feels himself in the same category with his hero. Many are
content with themselves because they side with those whose ways they do
not endeavour to follow. Such are most who call themselves Christians.
If men admired themselves only for what they did, their conceit would
be greatly moderated.

Kirsty put on her heavy tacketed (_hob-nailed_) shoes--much too large
for her, having been made for her brother--stood up erect, and putting
her elbows back, said,

‘I’ll gie ye the start o’ me up to yon stane wi’ the heather growin oot
o’ the tap o’ ’t.’

‘Na, na; I’ll hae nane o’ that!’ answered Francis. ‘Fairplay to a’!’

‘Ye’d better tak it!’

‘Aff wi’ ye, or I winna rin at a’!’ cried the boy,--and away they went.

Kirsty contrived that he should yet have a little the start of her--how
much from generosity, and how much from determination that there should
be nothing doubtful in the result, I cannot say--and for a good many
yards he kept it. But if the boy, who ran well, had looked back, he
might have seen that the girl was not doing her best--that she was in
fact restraining her speed. Presently she quickened her pace, and was
rapidly lessening the distance between them, when, becoming aware of
her approach, the boy quickened his, and for a time there was no change
in their relative position. Then again she quickened her pace--with an
ease which made her seem capable of going on to accelerate it
indefinitely--and was rapidly overtaking him. But as she drew near, she
saw he panted, not a little distressed; whereupon she assumed a greater
speed still, and passed him swiftly--nor once looked round or slackened
her pace until, having left him far behind, she put a shoulder of the
hill between them.

The moment she passed him, the boy flung himself on the ground and lay.
The girl had felt certain he would do so, and fancied she heard him
flop among the heather, but could not be sure, for, although not even
yet at her speed, her blood was making tunes in her head, and the wind
was blowing in and out of her ears with a pleasant but deafening
accompaniment. When she knew he could see her no longer, she stopped
likewise and threw herself down while she was determining whether she
should leave him quite, or walk back at her leisure, and let him see
how little she felt the run. She came to the conclusion that it would
be kinder to allow him to get over his discomfiture in private. She
rose, therefore, and went straight up the hill.

About half-way to the summit, she climbed a rock as if she were a goat,
and looked all round her. Then she uttered a shrill, peculiar cry, and
listened. No answer came. Getting down as easily as she had got up, she
walked along the side of the hill, making her way nearly parallel with
their late racecourse, passing considerably above the spot where her
defeated rival yet lay, and descending at length a little hollow not
far from where she and Francis had been sitting.

In this hollow, which was covered with short, sweet grass, stood a very
small hut, built of turf from the peat-moss below, and roofed with sods
on which the heather still stuck, if, indeed, some of it was not still
growing. So much was it, therefore, of the colour of the ground about
it, that it scarcely caught the eye. Its walls and its roof were so
thick that, small as it looked, it was much smaller inside; while
outside it could not have measured more than ten feet in length, eight
in width, and seven in height. Kirsty and her brother Steenie, not
without help from Francis Gordon, had built it for themselves two years
before. Their father knew nothing of the scheme until one day, proud of
their success, Steenie would have him see their handiwork; when he was
so much pleased with it that he made them a door, on which he put a
lock:--

‘For though this be na the kin’ o’ place to draw crook-fingered
gentry,’ he said, ‘some gangrel body micht creep in and mak his bed
intil ’t, and that lock ’ill be eneuch to haud him oot, I’m thinkin!’

He also cut for them a hole through the wall, and fitted it with a
window that opened and shut, which was more than could be said of every
window at the farmhouse.

Into this nest Kirsty went, and in it remained quiet until it began to
grow dark. She had hoped to find her brother waiting for her, but,
although disappointed, chose to continue there until Francis Gordon
should be well on his way to the castle, and then she crept out, and
ran to recover her stocking.

When she got home, she found Steenie engrossed in a young horse their
father had just bought. She would fain have mounted him at once, for
she would ride any kind of animal able to carry her; but, as he had
never yet been backed, her father would not permit her.




CHAPTER II

MOTHER AND SON


Francis lay for some time, thinking Kirsty sure to come back to him,
but half wishing she would not. He rose at length to see whether she
was on the way, but no one was in sight. At once the place was aghast
with loneliness, as it must indeed have looked to anyone not at peace
with solitude. Having sent several ringing shouts, but in vain, after
Kirsty, he turned, and, in the descending light of an autumn afternoon,
set out on the rather long walk to his home, which was the wearier that
he had nothing pleasant at hand to think about.

Passing the farm where Kirsty lived, about two miles brought him to an
ancient turreted house on the top of a low hill, where his mother sat
expecting him, ready to tyrannize over him as usual, and none the less
ready that he was going to leave her within a week.

‘Where have you been all day, Frank?’ she said.

‘I have been a long walk,’ he answered.

‘You’ve been to Corbyknowe!’ she returned. ‘I know it by your eyes! I
know by the very colour of them you’re going to deceive me! Now don’t
tell me you haven’t been there; I shall not believe you.’

‘I haven’t been near the place, mother,’ said Francis; but as he said
it his face glowed with a heat that did not come from the fire. He was
not naturally an untruthful boy, and what he said was correct, for he
had passed the house half a mile away; but his words gave, and were
intended to give the impression that he had not been that day with any
of the people of Corbyknowe. His mother objected to his visiting the
farmer, but he knew instinctively she would have objected yet more to
his spending half the day with Kirsty, whom she never mentioned, and of
whom she scarcely recognized the existence. Little as she loved her
son, Mrs. Gordon would have scorned to suspect him of preferring the
society of such a girl to her own. In truth, however, there were very
few of his acquaintance whose company Francis would not have chosen
rather than his mother’s--except indeed he was ill, when she was
generally very good to him.

‘Well, this once I shall believe you,’ she answered, ‘and I am glad to
be able. It is a painful thought to me, Frank, that son of mine should
feel the smallest attraction to low company. I have told you twenty
times that the man was nothing but a private in your father’s
regiment.’

‘He was my father’s friend!’ answered the boy.

‘He tells you so, I do not doubt,’ returned his mother. ‘He was not
likely to leave that mouldy old stone unturned!’

The mother sat, and the son stood before her, in a drawing-room whose
furniture of a hundred years old must once have looked very modern and
new-fangled under windows so narrow and high up, and within walls so
thick: without a fire it was always cold. The carpet was very dingy,
and the mirrors were much spotted; but the poverty of the room was the
respectable poverty of age: old furniture had become fashionable just
in time to save it from being metamorphosed by its mistress into a show
of gay meanness and costly ugliness. A good fire of mingled peat and
coal burned bright in the barrel-fronted steel grate, and shone in the
brass fender. The face of the boy continued to look very red in the
glow, but still its colour came more from within than from without: he
cherished the memory of his father, and did not love his mother more
than a little.

‘He has told me a great deal more about my father than ever you did,
mother!’ he answered.

‘Well he may have!’ she returned. ‘Your father was not a young man when
I married him, and they had been together through I don’t know how many
campaigns.’

‘And you say he was not my father’s friend!’

‘Not his _friend_, Frank; his servant--what do they call them?--his
orderly, I dare say! certainly not his friend.’

‘Any man may be another man’s friend!’

‘Not in the way you mean; not that his son should go and see him every
other day! A dog may be a man’s good friend, and so was sergeant
Barclay your father’s--a very good friend that way, I don’t doubt!’

‘You said a moment ago he was but a private, and now you call him
sergeant Barclay!’

‘Well, where’s the difference?’

‘To be made sergeant shows that he was not a common man. If he had
been, he would not have been set over others!’

‘Of course he was then, and is now, a very respectable man. If he were
not I should never have let you go and see him at all. But you must
learn to behave like the gentleman you are, and that you never will
while you frequent the company of your inferiors. Your manners are
already almost ruined--fit for no place but a farmhouse! There you
are, standing on the side of your foot again!--Old Barclay, I dare say,
tells you no end of stories about your mother!’

‘He always asks after you, mother, and then never mentions you more.’

She knew perfectly that the boy spoke the truth.

‘Don’t let me hear of your being there again before you go to school!’
she said definitively. ‘By the time you come home next year I trust
your tastes will have improved. Go and make yourself tidy for dinner. A
soldier’s son must before everything attend to his dress.’

Francis went to his room, feeling it absolutely impossible to have told
his mother that he had been with Kirsty Barclay, that he had run a race
with her, and that she had left him alone at the foot of the Horn. That
he could not be open with his mother, no one that knew her unreasoning
and stormy temper would have wondered; but the pitiful boy, who did not
like lying, actually congratulated himself that he had got through
without telling a downright falsehood! It would not have bettered
matters in the least had he disclosed to her the good advice Kirsty
gave him: she would only have been furious at the impudence of the
hussey in talking so to _her_ son.




CHAPTER III

AT THE FOOT OF THE HORN


The region was like a waste place in the troubled land of dreams--a
spot so waste that the dreamer struggles to rouse himself from his
dream, finding it too dreary to dream on. I have heard it likened to
‘the ill place, wi’ the fire oot;’ but it did not so impress me when
first, after long desire, I saw it. There was nothing to suggest the
silence of once roaring flame, no half-molten rocks, no huge,
honey-combed scoriæ, no depths within depths glooming mystery and
ancient horror. It was the more desolate that it moved no active sense
of dismay. What I saw was a wide stretch of damp-looking level, mostly
of undetermined or of low-toned colour, with here and there a black
spot, or, on the margin, the brighter green of a patch of some growing
crop. Flat and wide, the eye found it difficult to rest upon it and not
sweep hurriedly from border to border for lack of self-asserted object
on which to alight. It looked low, but indeed lay high; the bases of
the hills surrounding it were far above the sea. These hills, at this
season a ring of dull-brown high-heaved hummocks, appeared to make of
it a huge circular basin, miles in diameter, over the rim of which
peered the tops and peaks of mountains more distant. Up the side of the
Horn, which was the loftiest in the ring, ran a stone wall, in the
language of the country a dry-stane-dyke, of considerable size,
climbing to the very top--an ugly thing which the eye could not avoid.
There was nothing but the grouse to have rendered it worth the
proprietor’s while to erect such a boundary to his neighbour’s
property, plentiful as were the stones ready for that poorest use of
stones--division.

The farms that border the hollow, running each a little way up the side
of the basin, are, some of them at least, as well cultivated as any in
Scotland, but Winter claims there the paramountcy, and yields to Summer
so few of his rights that the place must look forbidding, if not
repulsive, to such as do not live in it. To love it, I think one must
have been born there. In the summer, it is true, it has the character
of _bracing_, but can be such, I imagine, only to those who are pretty
well braced already; the delicate of certain sorts, I think it must
soon brace with the bands of death.

The region is in constant danger of famine. If the snow come but a
little earlier than usual, the crops lie green under it, and no store
of meal can be laid up in the cottages. Then, if the snow lie deep, the
difficulty in conveying supplies of the poor fare which their hardihood
counts sufficient, will cause the dwellers there no little suffering.
Of course they are but few. A white cottage may be seen here and there
on the southerly slopes of the basin, but hardly one in its bottom.

It was now summer, and in a month or two the landscape would look more
cheerful; the heather that covered the hills would no longer be dry and
brown and in places black with fire, but a blaze of red purple, a rich
mantle of bloom. Even now, early in July, the sun had a little power. I
cannot say it would have been warm had there been the least motion in
the air, for seldom indeed could one there from the south grant that
the wind had no keen edge to it; but on this morning there was absolute
stillness, and although it was not easy for Kirsty to imagine any
summer air other than warm, yet the wind’s absence had not a little to
do with the sense of luxurious life that now filled her heart. She sat
on her favourite grassy slope near the foot of the cone-shaped Horn,
looking over the level miles before her, and knitting away at a ribbed
stocking of dark blue whose toe she had nearly finished, glad in the
thought, not of rest from her labour, but of beginning the yet more
important fellow-stocking. She had no need to look close at her work to
keep the loops right; but she was so careful and precise that, if she
lived to be old and blind, she would knit better then than now. It was
to her the perfect glory of a summer day; and I imagine her delight in
the divine luxury greater than that of many a poet dwelling in softer
climes.

The spot where she sat was close by the turf-hut which I have already
described. At every shifting of a needle she would send a new glance
all over her world, a glance to remind one somehow of the sweep of a
broad ray of sunlight across earth and sea, when, on a morning of upper
wind, the broken clouds take endless liberties with shadow and shine.
What she saw I cannot tell; I know she saw far more than a stranger
would have seen, for she knew her home. His eyes would, I believe, have
been drawn chiefly to those intense spots of live white, opaque yet
brilliant, the heads of the cotton-grass here and there in thin patches
on the dark ground. For nearly the whole of the level was a peat-moss.
Miles and miles of peat, differing in quality and varying in depth, lay
between those hills, the only fuel almost of the region. In some spots
it was very wet, water lying beneath and all through its substance; in
others, dark spots, the sides of holes whence it had been dug, showed
where it was drier. His eyes would rest for a moment also on those
black spaces on the hills where the old heather had been burned that
its roots might shoot afresh, and feed the grouse with soft young
sprouts, their chief support: they looked now like neglected spots
where men cast stones and shards, but by and by would be covered with a
tenderer green than the rest of the hill-side. He would not see the
moorland birds that Kirsty saw; he would only hear their cries, with
now and then perhaps the bark of a sheep-dog.

My reader will probably conclude the prospect altogether uninteresting,
even ugly; but certainly Christina Barclay did not think it such. The
girl was more than well satisfied with the world-shell in which she
found herself; she was at the moment basking, both bodily and
spiritually, in a full sense of the world’s bliss. Her soul was bathed
in its own content, calling none of its feelings to account. The sun,
the air, the wide expanse; the hill-tops’ nearness to the heavens
which yet they could not invade; the little breaths which every now and
then awoke to assert their existence by immediately ceasing; doubtless
also the knowledge that her stocking was nearly done, that her father
and mother were but a mile or so away, that she knew where Steenie was,
and that a cry would bring him to her feet;--all these things bore each
a part in making Kirsty quiet with satisfaction. That there was, all
the time, a deeper cause of her peace, Kirsty knew well--the same that
is the root of life itself; and if it was not, at this moment or at
that, filled with conscious gratitude, her heart was yet like a bird
ever on the point of springing up to soar, and often soaring high
indeed. Whether it came of something special in her constitution that
happiness always made her quiet, as nothing but sorrow will make some,
I do not presume to say. I only know that, had her bliss changed
suddenly to sadness, Kirsty would have been quiet still. Whatever came
to Kirsty seemed right, for there it was!

She was now a girl of sixteen. The only sign she showed of interest in
her person, appeared in her hair and the covering of her neck. Of one
of the many middle shades of brown, with a rippling tendency to curl in
it, her hair was parted with nicety, and drawn back from her face into
a net of its own colour, while her neckerchief was of blue silk,
covering a very little white skin, but leaving bare a brown throat. She
wore a blue print wrapper, nowise differing from that of a peasant
woman, and a blue winsey petticoat, beyond which appeared her bare
feet, lovely in shape, and brown of hue. Her dress was nowise trim, and
suggested neither tidiness nor disorder. The hem of the petticoat was
in truth a little rent, but not more than might seem admissible where
the rough wear was considered to which the garment was necessarily
exposed: when a little worse it would receive the proper attention, and
be brought back to respectability! Kirsty grudged the time spent on her
garments. She looked down on them as the moon might on the clouds
around her. She made or mended them to wear them, not think about them.

Her forehead was wide and rather low, with straight eyebrows. Her eyes
were of a gentle hazel, not the hazel that looks black at night. Her
nose was strong, a little irregular, with plenty of substance, and
sensitive nostrils. A decided and well-shaped chin dominated a neck by
no means slender, and seemed to assert the superiority of the face over
the whole beautiful body. Its chief expression was of a strong repose,
a sweet, powerful peace, requiring but occasion to pass into
determination. The sensitiveness of the nostrils with the firmness in
the meeting of the closed lips, suggested a faculty of indignation
unsparing toward injustice; while the clearness of the heaven of the
forehead gave confidence that such indignation would never show itself
save for another.

I wish, presumptuous wish! that I could see the mind of a woman grow as
she sits spinning or weaving: it would reveal the process next highest
to creation. But the only hope of ever understanding such things lies
in growing oneself. There is the still growth of the moonlit night of
reverie; cloudy, with wind, and a little rain, comes the morning of
thought, when the mind grows faster and the heart more slowly; then
wakes the storm in the forest of human relation, tempest and lightning
abroad, the soul enlarging by great bursts of vision and leaps of
understanding and resolve; then floats up the mystic twilight
eagerness, not unmingled with the dismay of compelled progress, when,
bidding farewell to that which is behind, the soul is driven toward
that which is before, grasping at it with all the hunger of the new
birth. The story of God’s universe lies in the growth of the individual
soul. Kirsty’s growth had been as yet quiet and steady.

Once more as she shifted her needle, her glance went flitting over the
waste before her. This time there was more life in sight. Far away
Kirsty descried something of the nature of man upon horse: to say how
far would have been as difficult for one unused to the flat moor as for
a landsman to reckon distances at sea. Of the people of the place,
hardly another, even under the direction of Kirsty, could have
contrived to see it. At length, after she had looked many times, she
could clearly distinguish a youth on a strong, handsome hill-pony, and
remained no longer in the slightest doubt as to who he might be.

They came steadily over the dark surface of the moor, and it was clear
that the pony must know the nature of the ground well; for now he
glided along as fast as he could gallop, now made a succession of short
jumps, now half-halted, examined the ground, and began slowly picking
his way.

Kirsty watched his approach with gentle interest, while every movement
of the youth indicated eagerness. Gordon had seen her on the hillside,
probably long before she saw him, had been coming to her in as straight
a line as the ground would permit, and at length was out of the boggy
level, and ascending the slope of the hill-foot to where she sat. When
he was within about twenty yards of her she gave him a little nod, and
then fixed her eyes on her knitting. He held on till within a few feet
of her, then pulled up and threw himself from his pony’s back. The
creature, covered with foam, stood a minute panting, then fell to work
on the short grass.

Francis had grown considerably, and looked almost a young man. He was a
little older than Kirsty, but did not appear so, his expression being
considerably younger than hers. Whether self-indulgence or aspiration
was to come out of his evident joy in life, seemed yet undetermined.
His countenance indicated nothing bad. He might well have represented
one at the point before having to choose whether to go up or down hill.
He was dressed a little showily in a short coat of dark tartan, and a
highland bonnet with a brooch and feather, and carried a lady’s
riding-whip--his mother’s, no doubt--its top set with stones--so that
his appearance was altogether a contrast to that of the girl. She was a
peasant, he a gentleman! Her bare head and yet more her bare feet
emphasized the contrast. But which was by nature and in fact the
superior, no one with the least insight could have doubted.

He stood and looked at her, but neither spoke. She cast at length a
glance upward, and said,

‘Weel?’

Francis did not open his mouth. He seemed irresolute. Nothing in
Kirsty’s look or carriage or in the tone of her one word gave sign of
consciousness that she was treating him, or he her, strangely. With
complete self-possession she left the initiative to the one who had
sought the interview: let him say why he had come!

In his face began to appear indication of growing displeasure. Two or
three times he turned half away with a movement instantly checked which
seemed to say that in a moment more, if there came no change, he would
mount and ride: was this all his welcome?

At last she appeared to think she must take mercy on him: he used to
say thirty words to her one!

‘That’s a bonny powny ye hae,’ she remarked, with a look at the
creature as he fed.

‘He’s a’ that,’ he answered dryly.

‘Whaur did ye get him?’ she asked.

‘My mither coft (_bought_) him agen my hame-comin,’ he replied.

He prided himself on being able to speak the broadest of the dialect.

‘She maun hae a straucht e’e for a guid beast!’ returned Kirsty, with a
second glance at the pony.

‘He’s a bonny cratur and a willin,’ answered the youth. ‘He’ll gang
skelp throuw onything--watter onygait;--I’m no sae sure aboot fire.’

A long silence followed, broken this time by the youth.

‘Winna ye gie me luik nor word, and me ridden like mad to hae a sicht
o’ ye?’ he said.

She glanced up at him.

‘Weel ye hae that!’ she answered, with a smile that showed her lovely
white teeth: ‘Ye’re a’ dubs (_all bemired_)! What for sud ye be in sic
a hurry? Ye saw me no three days gane!’

‘Ay, I saw ye, it’s true; but I didna get a word o’ ye!’

‘Ye was free to say what ye likit. There was nane by but my mither!’

‘Wud ye hae me say a’thing afore yer mither jist as I wud til ye yer
lane (_alone_)?’ he asked.

‘Ay wud I,’ she returned. ‘Syne she wad ken, ’ithoot my haein to tell
her sic a guse as ye was!’

Had he not seen the sunny smile that accompanied her words he might
well have taken offence.

‘I wuss ye war anither sic-like!’ he answered simply.

‘Syne there wud be twa o’ ’s!’ she returned, leaving him to interpret.

Silence again fell.

‘Weel, what wud ye hae, Francie?’ said Kirsty at length.

‘I wud hae ye promise to merry me, Kirsty, come the time,’ he answered;
‘and that ye ken as weel as I du mysel!’

‘That’s straucht oot ony gait!’ rejoined Kirsty. ‘But ye see, Francie,’
she went on, ‘yer father, whan he left ye a kin’ o’ a legacy, as ye may
ca’ ’t, to mine, hed no intention that _I_ was to be left oot; neither
had _my_ father whan he acceppit o’ ’t!’

‘I dinna unerstan ye ae styme (_one atom_)!’ interrupted Gordon.

‘Haud yer tongue and hearken,’ returned Kirsty. ‘What I’m meanin ’s
this: what lies to my father’s han’ lies to mine as weel; and I’ll
never hae ’t kenned or said that, whan my father pu’t (_pulled_) ae
gait, I pu’t anither!’

‘Sakes, lassie! what _are_ ye haverin at? Wud it be pu’in agen yer
father to merry _me_?’

‘It wud be that.’

‘I dinna see hoo ye can mak it oot! I dinna see hoo, bein sic a freen’
o’ my father’s, he sud objeck to my father’s son!’

‘Eh, but laddies _ir_ gowks!’ cried Kirsty. ‘My father was your
father’s freen’ for _his_ sake, no for his ain! He thinks o’ what wud
be guid for you, no for himsel!’

‘Weel, but,’ persisted Gordon, ‘it wud be mair for my guid nor onything
ither he cud wuss for, to hae you for my wife!’

Kirsty’s nostrils began to quiver, and her lip rose in a curve of
scorn.

‘A bonnie wife ye wud hae, Francie Gordon, wha, kennin her father duin
ilk mortal thing for the love o’ his auld maister and comrade, tuik the
fine chance to mak her ain o’ ’t, and haud her grip o’ the callan til
hersel!--Think ye aither o’ the auld men ever mintit at sic a thing as
fatherin baith? That my father had a lass-bairn o’ ’s ain shawed mair
nor onything the trust your father pat in ’im! Francie, the verra grave
wud cast me oot for shame ’at I sud ance hae thoucht o’ sic a thing!
Man, it wud maist drive yer leddy-mither dementit!’

‘It’s my business, Kirsty, wha I merry!’

‘And I houp yer grace ’ll alloo it’s pairt _my_ business wha ye sall
_not_ merry--and that’s me, Francie!’

Gordon sprang to his feet with such a look of wrath and despair as for
a moment frightened Kirsty who was not easily frightened. She thought
of the terrible bog-holes on the way her lover had come, sprang also to
her feet, and caught him by the arm where, his foot already in the
stirrup, he stood in the act of mounting.

‘Francie! Francie!’ she cried, ‘hearken to rizzon! There’s no a body,
man or wuman, I like better nor yersel to du ye ony guid or turn o’
guid--’cep’ my father, of coorse, and my mither, and my ain Steenie!’

‘And hoo mony mair, gien I had the wull to hear the lang bible-chapter
o’ them, and see mysel comin in at the tail o’ them a’, like the
hin’most sheep, takin his bite as he cam? Na, na! it’s time I was hame,
and had my slip (_pinafore_) on, and was astride o’ a stick! Gien ye
had a score o’ idiot-brithers, ye wud care mair for ilk ane o’ them nor
for me! I canna bide to think o’ ’t.’

‘It’s true a’ the same, whether ye can bide to think o’ ’t or no,
Francie!’ returned the girl, her face, which had been very pale, now
rosy with indignation. ‘My Steenie’s mair to me nor a’ the Gordons
thegither, Bow-o’-meal or Jock-and-Tam as ye like!’

She drew back, sat down again to the stocking she was knitting for
Steenie, and left her lover to mount and ride, which he did without
another word.

‘There’s mair nor ae kin’ o’ idiot,’ she said to herself, ‘and
Steenie’s no the kin’ that oucht to be ca’d ane. There’s mair in
Steenie nor in sax Francie Gordons!’

If ever Kirsty came to love a man, it would be just nothing to her to
die for him; but then it never would have been anything to her to die
for her father or her mother or Steenie!

Gordon galloped off at a wild pace, as if he would drive his pony
straight athwart the terrible moss, taking hag and well-eye as it came.
But glancing behind and seeing that Kirsty was not looking after him,
he turned the creature’s head in a safer direction, and left the moss
at his back.




CHAPTER IV

DOG-STEENIE


She sat for some time at the foot of the hill, motionless as itself,
save for her hands. The sun shone on in silence, and the blue
butterflies which haunted the little bush of bluebells, that is
harebells, beside her, made no noise; only a stray bee, happy in the
pale heat, made a little music to please itself--and perhaps the
butterflies. Kirsty had an unusual power of sitting still, even with
nothing for her hands to do. On the present occasion, however, her
hands and fingers went faster than usual--not entirely from eagerness
to finish her stocking, but partly from her displeasure with Francis.
At last she broke her ‘worset,’ drew the end of it through the final
loop, and, drawing it, rose and scanned the side of the hill. Not far
off she spied the fleecy backs of a few feeding sheep, and straightway
sent out on the still air a sweet, strong, musical cry. It was
instantly responded to by a bark from somewhere up the hill. She sat
down, clasped her hands over her knees, and waited.

She had not to wait long. A sound of rushing came through the heather,
and in a moment or two, a fine collie, with long, silky, wavy coat of
black and brown, and one white spot on his face, shot out of the
heather, sprang upon her, and, setting his paws on her shoulders, began
licking her face. She threw her arms round him, and addressed him in
words of fondling rebuke:--

‘Ye ill-mennered tyke!’ she said; ‘what richt hae ye to tak the place
o’ yer betters? Gang awa doon wi’ ye, and wait. What for sud ye tak
advantage o’ your fower legs to his twa, and him the maister o’ ye!
But, eh man, ye’re a fine doggie, and I canna bide the thoucht ’at yer
langest day maun be sae short, and tak ye awa hame sae lang afore the
lave o’ ’s!’

While she scolded, she let him caress her as he pleased. Presently he
left her, and going a yard or two away, threw himself on the grass with
such _abandon_ as no animal but a weary dog seems capable of reaching.
He had made haste to be first that he might caress her before his
master came; now he heard him close behind, and knew his opportunity
over.

Stephen came next out of the heather, creeping to Kirsty’s feet on
all-fours. He was a gaunt, long-backed lad, who, at certain seasons
undetermined, either imagined himself the animal he imitated, or had
some notion of being required, or, possibly, compelled to behave like a
dog. When the fit was upon him, all the day long he would speak no word
even to his sister, would only bark or give a low growl like the
collie. In this last he succeeded much better than in running like him,
although, indeed, his arms were so long that it was comparatively easy
for him to use them as forelegs. He let his head hang low as he went,
throwing it up to bark, and sinking it yet lower when he growled, which
was seldom, and to those that loved him indicated great trouble. He did
not, like Snootie, raise himself on his hindlegs to caress his sister,
but gently subsided upon her feet, and there lay panting, his face to
the earth, and his fore-arms crossed beneath his nose.

Kirsty stooped, and stroked and patted him as if he were the dog he
seemed fain to be. Then drawing her feet from under him, she rose, and
going a little way up the hill to the hut, returned presently with a
basin full of rich-looking milk, and _a quarter_ of thick oat-cake,
which she had brought from home in the morning. The milk she set beside
her as she resumed her seat. Then she put her feet again under the
would-be dog, and proceeded to break small pieces from the oat-cake and
throw them to him. He sought every piece eagerly as it fell, but with
his mouth only, never moving either hand, and seemed to eat it with a
satisfaction worthy of his simulated nature. When the oat-cake was
gone, she set the bowl before him, and he drank the milk with care and
neatness, never putting a hand to steady it.

‘Now you must have a sleep, Steenie!’ said his sister.

She rose, and he crawled slowly after her up the hill on his hands and
knees. All the time he kept his face down, and, his head hanging toward
the earth, his long hair hid it quite. He strongly suggested a great
Skye-terrier.

When they reached the hut, Kirsty went in, and Steenie crept after her.
They had covered the floor of it with heather, the stalks set upright
and close packed, so that, even where the bells were worn off, it still
made a thick long-piled carpet, elastic and warm. When the door was
shut, they were snug there even in winter.

Inside, the hut was about six feet long, and four wide. Its furniture
was a little deal table and one low chair. In the turf of which the
wall consisted, at the farther end from the door, Kirsty had cut out a
small oblong recess to serve as a shelf for her books. The hut was
indeed her library, for in that bole stood, upright with its back to
the room, in proper and tidy fashion, almost every book she could call
her own. They were about a dozen, several with but one board and some
with no title, one or two very old, and all well used. Most of her time
there, when she was not knitting, Kirsty spent in reading and thinking
about what she read; many a minute, even when she was knitting, she
managed to read as well. She had read two of sir Walter’s novels, and
several of the Ettrick-shepherd’s shorter tales, which the schoolmaster
had lent her; but on her shelf and often in her hands were a Shakspere,
a Milton, and a translation of Klopstock’s _Messiah_--which she liked
far better than the _Paradise Lost_, though she did not admire it
nearly so much. Of the latter she would say, ‘It’s unco gran’, but it
never maks my hert grit (_great_),’ meaning that it never caused her any
emotion. Among her treasures was also a curious old book of
ghost-stories, concerning which the sole remark she was ever heard to
make was, that she would like to know whether they were true: she
thought Steenie could tell, but she would not question him about them.
Ramsay’s _Gentle Shepherd_ was there too, which she liked for the good
sense in it. There was a thumbed edition of Burns also, but I do not
think much of the thumbing was Kirsty’s, though she had several of his
best poems by heart.

Between the ages of ten and fifteen, Kirsty had gone to the parish
school of the nearest town: it looked a village, but they always called
it _the town_. There a sister of her father lived, and with her she was
welcome to spend the night, so that she was able to go in most
weathers. But when she staid there, her evening was mostly spent at the
schoolmaster’s.

Mr. Craig was an elderly man, who had married late, and lost his wife
early. She had left him one child, a delicate, dainty, golden-haired
thing, considerably younger than Kirsty, who cherished for her a love
and protection quite maternal. Kirsty was one of the born mothers, who
are not only of the salt, but are the sugar and shelter of the world. I
doubt if little Phemie would have learned anything but for Kirsty. Not
to the day of her death did her father see in her anything but the
little girl his wife had left him. He spoiled her a good deal, nor ever
set himself to instruct her, leaving it apparently to the tendency of
things to make of her a woman like her mother.

He was a real student and excellent teacher. When first he came as
schoolmaster to Tiltowie, he was a divinity student, but a man so far
of thought original that he saw lions in the way of becoming a
minister. Such men as would be servants of the church before they are
slaves of the church’s Master will never be troubled with Mr. Craig’s
difficulties. For one thing, his strong poetic nature made it
impossible for him to believe in a dull, prosaic God: when told that
God’s thoughts are not as our thoughts, he found himself unable to
imagine them inferior to ours. The natural result was that he remained
a schoolmaster--to the advantage of many a pupil, and very greatly to
the advantage of Kirsty, whose nature was peculiarly open to his
influences. The dominie said he had never had a pupil that gave him
such satisfaction as Kirsty; she seemed to anticipate and catch at
everything he wanted to make hers. There was no knowledge, he declared,
that he could offer her, which the lassie from Corbyknowe would not
take in like her porridge. Best thing of all for her was that,
following his own predilections, he paid far more attention, in his
class for English, to poetry than to prose. Colin Craig was himself no
indifferent poet, and was even a master of the more recondite forms of
verse. If, in some measure led astray by the merit of the form, he was
capable of admiring verse essentially inferior, he yet certainly
admired the better poetry more. He had, besides, the faculty of
perceiving whether what he had written would or would not _convey_ his
thought--a faculty in which even a great poet may be deficient.

In a word, Kirsty learned everything Mr. Craig brought within her
reach; and long after she left school, the Saturday on which she did
not go to see him was a day of disappointment both to the dominie and
to his little Phemie.

When she had once begun to follow a thing, Kirsty would never leave the
trail of it. Her chief business as well as delight was to look after
Steenie, but perfect attention to him left her large opportunity of
pursuing her studies, especially at such seasons in which his peculiar
affection, whatever it really was, required hours of untimely sleep.
For, although at all times he wandered at his will without her, he
invariably wanted to be near her when he slept; while she, satisfied
that so he slept better, had not once at such a time left him. During
summer, and as long before and after as the temperature permitted, the
hut was the place he preferred when his necessity was upon him; and it
was Kirsty’s especial delight to sit in it on a warm day, the door open
and her brother asleep on her feet, reading and reading while the sun
went down the sky, to fill the hut as he set with a glory of promise;
after which came the long gloamin, like a life out of which the light
but not the love has vanished, in which she neither worked nor read,
but brooded over many things.

Leaving the door open behind them, Kirsty took a book from the bole,
and seated herself on the low chair; instantly Steenie, who had waited
motionless until she was settled, threw himself across her feet on the
carpet of heather, and in a moment was fast asleep.

There they remained, the one reading, the other sleeping, while the
hours of the warm summer afternoon slipped away, ripples on the ocean
of the lovely, changeless eternity, the consciousness of God. For a
time the watching sister was absorbed in ‘King Lear;’ then she fell to
wondering whether _Cordelia_ was not unkindly stiff toward her old
father, but perceived at length that, with such sisters listening, she
could not have spoken otherwise. Then she wondered whether there could
be women so bad as _Goneril_ and _Regan_, concluding that Shakspere must
know better than she. At last she drew her bare feet from under
Steenie, and put them on his back, where the coolness was delightful.
Then first she became aware that the sun was down and the gloamin come,
and that the whole world must be feeling just like her feet. The long
clear twilight, which would last till morning, was about her, the eerie
sleeping day, when the lovely ghosts come out of their graves in the
long grass, and walk about in the cool world, with little ghosty sighs
at sight of the old places, and fancy they are dreaming. Kirsty was
always willing to believe in ghosts: awake in the dark nights she did
not; but in her twilight reveries she grew very nearly a ghost herself.

It was a wonder she could sit so long and not feel worn out; but Kirsty
was exceptionally strong, in absolute health, and specially gifted with
patience. She had so early entertained and so firmly grasped the idea
that she was sent into the world expressly to take care of Steenie,
that devotion to him had grown into a happy habit with her. The waking
mind gave itself up to the sleeping, the orderly to the troubled brain,
the true heart to the heart as true.




CHAPTER V

COLONEL AND SERGEANT


There was no difference of feeling betwixt the father and mother in
regard to this devotion of Kirsty’s very being to her Steenie; but the
mother in especial was content with it, for while Kirsty was the apple
of her eye, Steenie was her one loved anxiety.

David Barclay, a humble unit in the widespread and distinguished family
of the Barclays or Berkeleys, was born, like his father and grandfather
and many more of his ancestors, on the same farm he now occupied. While
his father was yet alive, with an elder son to succeed him, David
_listed_--mainly from a strong desire to be near a school-friend, then
an ensign in the service of the East India Company. Throughout their
following military career they were in the same regiment, the one
rising to be colonel, the other sergeant-major. All the time, the
school-boy attachment went on deepening in the men; and, all the time,
was never man more respectfully obedient to orders than David Barclay
to those of the superior officer with whom in private he was on terms
of intimacy. As often as they could without attracting notice, the
comrades threw aside all distinction of rank, and were again the Archie
Gordon and Davie Barclay of old school days--as real to them still as
those of the hardest battles they had fought together. In more
primitive Scotland, such relations are, or were more possible than in
countries where more divergent habits of life occasion wider social
separations; and then these were sober-minded men, who neither made
much of the shows of the world, nor were greedy after distinction,
which is the mere coffin wherein Duty-done lies buried.

When they returned to their country, both somewhat disabled, the one
retired to his inherited estate, the other to the family farm upon that
estate, where his brother had died shortly before; so that Archie was
now Davie’s landlord. But no new relation would ever destroy the
friendship which school had made close, and war had welded. Almost
every week the friends met and spent the evening together--much
oftener, by and by, at Corbyknowe than at Castle Weelset. For both
married soon after their return, and their wives were of different
natures.

‘My colonel has the glory,’ Barclay said once, and but once, to his
sister, ‘but, puir fallow, I hae the wife!’ And truly the wife at the
farm had in her material enough, both moral and intellectual, for ten
ladies better than the wife at the castle.

David’s wife brought him a son the first year of their marriage, and
the next year came a son to the colonel and a daughter to the sergeant.
One night, as the two fathers sat together at the farm, some twelve
hours after the birth of David’s girl, they mutually promised that the
survivor would do his best for the child of the other. Before he died
the colonel would gladly have taken his boy from his wife and given him
to his old comrade.

As to Steenie, the elder of David’s children, he was yet unborn when
his father, partly in consequence of a wound from which he never quite
recovered, met with rather a serious accident through a young horse in
the harvest-field, and the report reached his wife that he was killed.
To the shock she thus received was generally attributed the peculiarity
of the child, prematurely born within a month after. He had long passed
the age at which children usually begin to walk, before he would even
attempt to stand, but he had grown capable of a speed on all-fours that
was astonishing. When at last he did walk, it was for more than two
years with the air of one who had learned a trick; and throughout his
childhood and a great part of his boyhood, he continued to go on
all-fours rather than on his feet.




CHAPTER VI

MAN-STEENIE


The sleeping youth began at length to stir: it was more than an hour
before he quite woke up. Then all at once he started to his feet with
his eyes wide open, putting back from his forehead the long hair which
fell over them, and revealing a face not actually looking old, but
strongly suggesting age. His eyes were of a pale blue, with a hazy,
mixed, uncertain gleam in them, reminding one of the shifty shudder and
shake and start of the northern lights at some heavenly version of the
game of Puss in the Corner. His features were more than good; they
would have been grand had they been large, but they were peculiarly
small. His head itself was very small in proportion to his height, his
forehead, again, large in proportion to his head, while his chin was
such as we are in the way of calling strong. Although he had been all
day acting a dog in charge of sheep, and treating the collie as his
natural companion, there was, both in his countenance and its
expression, a remarkable absence of the animal. He had a kind of
exaltation in his look; he seemed to expect something, not at hand, but
sure to come. His eyes rested for a moment, with a love of absolute
devotion, on the face of his sister; then he knelt at her feet, and as
if to receive her blessing, bowed his head before her. She laid her
hand upon it, and in a tone of unutterable tenderness said,
‘Man-Steenie!’ Instantly he rose to his feet. Kirsty rose also, and
they went out of the hut.

The sunlight had not left the west, but had crept round some distance
toward the north. Stars were shining faint through the thin shadow of
the world. Steenie stretched himself up, threw his arms aloft, and held
them raised, as if at once he would grow and reach toward the infinite.
Then he looked down on Kirsty, for he was taller than she, and pointed
straight up, with the long lean forefinger of one of the long lean arms
that had all day been legs to the would-be dog--into the heavens, and
smiled. Kirsty looked up, nodded her head, and smiled in return. Then
they started in the direction of home, and for some time walked in
silence. At length Steenie spoke. His voice was rather feeble, but
clear, articulate, and musical.

‘My feet’s terrible heavy the nicht, Kirsty!’ he said. ‘Gien it wasna
for them, the lave o’ me wud be up and awa. It’s terrible to be hauden
doon by the feet this gait!’

‘We’re a’ hauden doon the same gait, Steenie. Maybe it’s some waur for
you ’at wud sae fain gang up, nor for the lave o’ ’s ’at’s mair willin
to bide a wee; but it ’ll be the same at the last whan we’re a’ up
there thegither.’

‘I wudna care sae muckle gien he didna grip me by the queets
(_ankles_), like! I dinna like to be grippit by the queets! He winna
lat me win at the thongs!’

‘Whan the richt time comes,’ returned Kirsty solemnly, ‘the bonny man
’ll lowse the thongs himsel.’

‘Ay, ay! I ken that weel. It was me ’at tellt ye. He tauld me himsel!
I’m thinkin I’ll see him the nicht, for I’m sair hauden doon, sair
needin a sicht o’ ’im. He’s whiles lang o’ comin!’

‘I dinna won’er ’at ye’re sae fain to see ’im, Steenie!’

‘I _am_ that; fain, fain!’

‘Ye’ll see ’im or lang. It’s a fine thing to hae patience.’

‘Ye come ilka day, Kirsty: what for sudna he come ilka nicht?’

‘He has reasons, Steenie. He kens best.’

‘Ay, he kens best. I ken naething but him--and you, Kirsty!’

Kirsty said no more. Her heart was too full.

Steenie stood still, and throwing back his head, stared for some
moments up into the great heavens over him. Then he said:

‘It’s a bonny day, the day the bonny man bides in! The ither day--the
day the lave o’ ye bides in--the day whan I’m no mysel but a sair
ooncomfortable collie--that day’s ower het--and sometimes ower cauld;
but the day he bides in is aye jist what a day sud be! Ay, it’s that!
it’s that!’

He threw himself down, and lay for a minute looking up into the sky.
Kirsty stood and regarded him with loving eyes.

‘I hae a’ the bonny day afore me!’ he murmured to himself. ‘Eh, but
it’s better to be a man nor a beast! Snootie’s a fine beast, and a gran’
collie, but I wud raither be mysel--a heap raither--aye at han’ to
catch a sicht o’ the bonny man! Ye maun gang hame to yer bed, Kirsty!--
Is’t the bonny man comes til ye i’ yer dreams and says, “Gang til him,
Kirsty, and be mortal guid til him”? It maun be surely that!’

‘Willna ye gang wi’ me, Steenie, as far as the door?’ rejoined Kirsty,
almost beseechingly, and attempting no answer to what he had last said.

It was at times such as this that Kirsty knew sadness. When she had to
leave her brother on the hillside all the long night, to look on no
human face, hear no human word, but wander in strangest worlds of his
own throughout the slow dark hours, the sense of a separation worse
than death would wrap her as in a shroud. In his bodily presence,
however far away in thought or sleep or dreams his soul might be, she
could yet tend him with her love; but when he was out of her sight, and
she had to sleep and forget him, where was Steenie, and how was he
faring? Then he seemed to her as one forsaken, left alone with his
sorrows to an existence companionless and dreary. But in truth Steenie
was by no means to be pitied. However much his life was apart from the
lives of other men, he did not therefore live alone. Was he not still
of more value than many sparrows? And Kirsty’s love for him had in it
no shadow of despair. Her pain at such times was but the indescribable
love-lack of mothers when their sons are far away, and they do not know
what they are doing, what they are thinking; or when their daughters
seem to have departed from them or ever the silver cord be loosed, or
the golden bowl broken. And yet how few, when the air of this world is
clearest, ever come into essential contact with those they love best!
But the triumph of Love, while most it seems to delay, is yet
ceaselessly rushing hitherward on the wings of the morning.

‘Willna ye gang as far as the door wi’ me, Steenie?’ she said.

‘I wull do that, Kirsty. But ye’re no feart, are ye?’

‘Na, no a grain! What would I be feart for?’

‘Ow, naething! At this time there’s naething oot and aboot to be feart
at. In what ye ca’ the daytime, I’m a kin’ o’ in danger o’ knockin
mysel again things; I never du that at nicht.’

As he spoke he sprang to his feet, and they walked on. Kirsty’s heart
seemed to swell with pain; for Steenie was at once more rational and
more strange than usual, and she felt the farther away from him. His
words were very quiet, but his eyes looked full of stars.

‘I canna tell what it is aboot the sun ’at maks a dog o’ me!’ he said.
‘He’s hard-like, and hauds me oot, and gars me hing my heid, and feel
as gien I wur a kin’ o’ ashamed, though I ken o’ naething. But the
bonny nicht comes straucht up to me, and into me, and gangs a’ throuw
me, and bides i’ me; and syne I luik for the bonny man!’

‘I wuss ye wud lat me bide oot the nicht wi’ ye, Steenie!’

‘What for that, Kirsty? Ye maun sleep, and I’m better my lane.’

‘That’s jist hit!’ returned Kirsty, with a deep-drawn sigh. ‘I canna
bide yer bein yer lane, and yet, do what I like, I canna, whiles, even
i’ the daytime, win a bit nearer til ye! Gien only ye was as little as
ye used to be, whan I cud carry ye aboot a’ day, and tak ye intil my
ain bed a’ nicht! But noo we’re jist like the sun and the mune!--whan
ye’re oot, I’m in; and whan ye’re in--well I’m no oot, but my sowl’s
jist as blear-faced as the mune i’ the daylicht to think ye’ll be awa
again sae sune!--But it _canna_ gang on like this to a’ eternity, and
that’s a comfort!’

‘I ken naething aboot eternity. I’m thinkin it’ll a’ turn intil a lown
starry nicht, wi’ the bonny man intil’t. I’m sure o’ ae thing, and that
only--’at something ’ill be putten richt ’at’s far frae richt the noo;
and syne, Kirsty, ye’ll hae yer ain gait wi’ me, and I’ll be sae far
like ither fowk: idiot ’at I am, I wud be sorry to be turnt a’thegither
the same as some! Ye see I ken sae muckle they ken naething aboot, or
they wudna be as they are! It maybe disna become _me_ to say’t, ony
mair nor Gowk Murnock ’at sits o’ the pu’pit stair,--but eh the styte
(_nonsense_) oor minister dings oot o’ his ain heid, as gien it war the
stoor oot o’ the bible-cushion! It’s no possible he’s ever seen the
bonny man as I hae seen him!’

‘We’ll a’ hae to come ower to you, Steenie, and learn frae ye what ye
ken. We’ll hae to mak _you_ the minister, Steenie!’

‘Na, na; I ken naething for ither fowk--only for mysel; and that’s
whiles mair nor I can win roun’, no to say gie again!’

‘Some nicht ye’ll lat me bide oot wi’ ye a’ nicht? I wud sair like it,
Steenie!’

‘Ye sall, Kirsty; but it maun be some nicht ye hae sleepit a’ day.’

‘Eh, but I cudna do that, tried I ever sae hard!’

‘Ye cud lie i’ yer bed ony gait, and mak the best o’ ’t! _Ye_ hae
naebody, I ken, to gar _you_ sleep!’

They went all the rest of the way talking thus, and Kirsty’s heart grew
lighter, for she seemed to get a little nearer to her brother. He had
been her live doll and idol ever since his mother laid him in her arms
when she was little more than three years old. For though Steenie was
nearly a year older than Kirsty, she was at that time so much bigger
that she was able, not indeed to carry him, but to nurse him on her
knees. She thought herself the elder of the two until she was about
ten, by which time she could not remember any beginning to her carrying
of him. About the same time, however, he began to grow much faster, and
she found before long that only upon her back could she carry him any
distance.

The discovery that he was the elder somehow gave a fresh impulse to her
love and devotion, and intensified her pitiful tenderness. Kirsty’s was
indeed a heart in which the whole unhappy world might have sought and
found shelter. She had the notion, notwithstanding, that she was
harder-hearted than most, and therefore better able to do things that
were right but not pleasant.




CHAPTER VII

CORBYKNOWE


‘Ye’ll come in and say a word to mother, Steenie?’ said Kirsty, as they
came near the door of the house.

It was a long, low building, with a narrow paving in front from end to
end, of stones cast up by the plough. Its walls, but one story high,
rough-cast and white-washed, shone dim in the twilight. Under a thick
projecting thatch the door stood wide open, and from the kitchen, whose
door was also open, came the light of a peat-fire and a fish-oil-lamp.
Throughout the summer Steenie was seldom in the house an hour of the
twenty-four, and now he hesitated to enter. In the winter he would keep
about it a good part of the day, and was generally indoors the greater
part of the night, but by no means always.

While he hesitated, his mother appeared in the doorway of the kitchen.
She was a tall, fine-looking woman, with soft gray eyes, and an
expression of form and features which left Kirsty accounted for.

‘Come awa in by, Steenie, my man!’ she said, in a tone that seemed to
wrap its object in fold upon fold of tenderness, enough to make the
peat-smoke that pervaded the kitchen seem the very atmosphere of the
heavenly countries. ‘Come and hae a drappy o’ new-milkit milk, and a
piece (_a piece of bread_).’

Steenie stood smiling and undecided on the slab in front of the
doorstep.

‘Dreid naething, Steenie,’ his mother went on. ‘There’s no ane to
interfere wi’ yer wull, whatever it be. The hoose is yer ain to come
and gang as ye see fit. But ye ken that, and Kirsty kens that, as
weel’s yer father and mysel.’

‘Mother, I ken what ye say to be the trowth, and I hae a gran’ pooer o’
believin the trowth. But a’body believes their ain mither: that’s i’
the order o’ things as they war first startit! Still I wud raither no
come in the nicht. I wud raither haud awa and no tribble ye wi’ mair o’
the sicht o’ me nor I canna help--that is, till the cheenge come, and
things be set richt. I dinna aye ken what I’m aboot, but I aye ken ’at
I’m a kin’ o’ a disgrace to ye, though I canna tell hoo I’m to blame
for ’t. Sae I’ll jist bide theroot wi’ the bonny stars ’at’s aye
theroot, and kens a’ aboot it, and disna think nane the waur o’ me.’

‘Laddie! laddie! wha on the face o’ God’s yerth thinks the waur o’ ye
for a wrang dune ye?--though wha has the wyte o’ that same I daurna
think, weel kennin ’at a’thing’s aither ordeent or allooed, makin
muckle the same. Come winter, come summer, come richt, come wrang, come
life, come deith, what are ye, what can ye be, but my ain, ain laddie!’

Steenie stepped across the threshold and followed his mother into the
kitchen, where the pot was already on the fire for the evening’s
porridge. To hide her emotion she went straight to it, and lifted the
lid to look whether boiling point had arrived. The same instant the
stalwart form of her husband appeared in the doorway, and there stood
for a single moment arrested.

He was a good deal older than his wife, as his long gray hair, among
other witnesses, testified. He was six feet in height, and very erect,
with a rather stiff, military carriage. His face wore an expression of
stern goodwill, as if he had been sent to do his best for everybody,
and knew it.

Steenie caught sight of him ere he had taken a step into the kitchen.
He rushed to him, threw his arms round him, and hid his face on his
bosom.

‘Bonny, bonny man!’ he murmured, then turned away and went back to the
fire.

His mother was casting the first handful of meal into the pot. Steenie
fetched a _three-leggit creepie_ and sat down by her, looking as if he
had sat there every night since first he was able to sit.

The farmer came forward, and drew a chair to the fire beside his son.
Steenie laid his head on his father’s knee, and the father laid his big
hand on Steenie’s head. Not a word was uttered. The mother might have
found them in her way had she been inclined, but the thought did not
come to her, and she went on making the porridge in great contentment,
while Kirsty laid the cloth. The night was as still in the house as in
the world, save for the bursting of the big blobs of the porridge. The
peat fire made no noise.

The mother at length took the heavy pot from the fire, and, with what
to one inexpert might have seemed wonderful skill, poured the porridge
into a huge wooden bowl on the table. Having then scraped the pot
carefully that nothing should be lost, she put some water into it, and
setting it on the fire again, went to a hole in the wall, took thence
two eggs, and placed them gently in the water.

She went next to the dairy, and came back with a jug of the richest
milk, which she set beside the porridge, whereupon they drew their
seats to the table--all but Steenie.

‘Come, Steenie,’ said his mother, ‘here’s yer supper.’

‘I dinna care aboot ony supper the nicht, mother,’ answered Steenie.

‘Guidsake, laddie, I kenna hoo ye live!’ she returned in an accent
almost of despair.

‘I’m thinkin I dinna need sae muckle as ither fowk,’ rejoined Steenie,
whose white face bore testimony that he took far from nourishment
enough. ‘Ye see I’m no a’ there,’ he added with a smile, ‘sae I canna
need sae muckle!’

‘There’s eneuch o’ ye there to fill my hert unco fu,’ answered his
mother with a deep sigh. ‘Come awa, Steenie, my bairn!’ she went on
coaxingly. ‘Yer father winna ate a moufu’ gien ye dinna: ye’ll see
that!--Eh, Steenie,’ she broke out, ‘gien ye wad but tak yer supper and
gang to yer bed like the lave o’ ’s! It gars my hert swall as gien ’t
wud burst like a blob to think o’ ye oot i’ the mirk nicht! Wha’s to
tell what michtna be happenin ye! Oor herts are whiles that sair, yer
father’s and mine, i’ oor beds, ’at we daurna say a word for fear the
tane set the tither greetin.’

‘I’ll bide in, gien that be yer wull,’ replied Steenie; ‘but eh, gien
ye kent the differ to me, ye wudna wuss ’t. I seldom sleep at nicht as
ye ken, and i’ the hoose it’s jist as gien the darkness wan inside o’
me and was chokin me.’

‘But it’s as dark theroot as i’ the hoose--whiles, onygait!’

‘Na, mother; it’s never sae dark theroot but there’s licht eneuch to
ken _I’m_ theroot and no i’ the hoose. I can aye draw a guid full breath
oot i’ the open.’

‘Lat the laddie gang his ain gait, ’uman,’ interposed David. ‘The thing
born in ’im ’s better for him nor the thing born in anither. A man maun
gang as God made him.’

‘Ay, whether he be man or dog!’ assented Steenie solemnly.

He drew his stool close to his father where he sat at the table, and
again laid his head on his knee. The mother sighed but said nothing.
She looked nowise hurt, only very sad. In a minute, Steenie spoke
again:

‘I’m thinkin nane o’ ye kens,’ he said, ‘what it’s like whan a’ the
hill-side’s gien up to the ither anes!’

‘What ither anes?’ asked his mother. ‘There can be nane there but yer
ain lane sel!’

‘Ay, there’s a’ the lave o’ ’s,’ he rejoined, with a wan smile.

The mother looked at him with something almost of fear in her eyes of
love.

‘Steenie has company we ken little aboot,’ said Kirsty. ‘I whiles think
I wud gie him my wits for his company.’

‘Ay, the bonny man!’ murmured Steenie. ‘--I maun be gauin!’

But he did not rise, did not even lift his head from his father’s knee:
it would be rude to go before the supper was over--the ruder that he
was not partaking of it!

David had eaten his porridge, and now came the almost nightly
difference about the eggs. Marion had been ‘the perfect spy o’ the
time’ in taking them from the pot; but when she would as usual have her
husband eat them, he as usual declared he neither needed nor wanted
them. This night, however, he did not insist, but at once proceeded to
prepare one, with which, as soon as it was nicely mixed with salt, he
began to feed Steenie. The boy had been longer used to being thus fed
than most children, and having taken the first mouthful instinctively,
now moved his head, but without raising it from his knee, so that his
father might feed him more comfortably. In this position he took every
spoonful given him, and so ate both the eggs, greatly to the delight of
the rest of the company.

A moment more and Steenie got up. His father rose also.

‘I’ll convoy ye a bit, my man,’ he said.

‘Eh, na! ye needna that, father! It’s nearhan’ yer bedtime! I hae
naegait to be convoyt. I’ll jist be aboot i’ the nicht--maybe a
stane’s-cast frae the door, maybe the tither side o’ the Horn. Here or
there I’m never frae ye. I think whiles I’m jist like ane o’ them ’at
ye ca’ deid: I’m no awa; I’m only deid! I’m aboot somegait!’

So saying, he went. He never on any occasion wished them good-night:
that would be to leave them, and he was not leaving them! he was with
them all the time!




CHAPTER VIII

DAVID AND HIS DAUGHTER


The instant he was gone, Kirsty went a step or two nearer to her
father, and, looking up in his face, said:

‘I saw Francie Gordon the day, father.’

‘Weel, lassie, I reckon that wasna ony ferly (_strange occurrence_)!
Whaur saw ye him?’

‘He cam to me o’ the Hornside, whaur I sat weyvin my stockin, ower the
bog on ’s powny--a richt bonny thing, and clever--a new ane he’s gotten
frae ’s mither. And it’s no the first time he’s been owre there to see
me sin’ he cam hame!’

‘Whatfor gaed he there? My door’s aye been open till ’s father’s son!’

‘He kenned whaur he was likest to see me: it was _me_ he wantit.’

‘He wantit you, did he? An’ he’s been mair nor ance efter ye?--Whatfor
didna ye tell me afore, Kirsty?’

‘We war bairns thegither, ye ken, father, and I never ance thoucht the
thing worth fashin ye aboot till the day. We’ve aye been used to
Francie comin and gaein! I never tellt my mither onything he said, and
I tell her a’thing worth tellin, and mony a thing forby. I aye leuch at
him as I wud at a bairn till the day. He spak straucht oot the day, and
I did the same, and angert him; and syne he angert me.’

‘And whatfor are ye tellin me the noo?’

‘’Cause it cam intil my heid ’at maybe it would be better--no ’at it
maks ony differ I can see.’

During this conversation Marion was washing the supper-things, putting
them away, and making general preparation for bed. She heard every
word, and went about her work softly that she might hear, never opening
her mouth to speak.

‘There’s something ye want to tell me and dinna like, lassie!’ said
David. ‘Gien ye be feart at yer father, gang til yer mither.’

‘Feart at my father! I wad be, gien I hed onything to be ashamet o’.
Syne I micht gang to my mither, I daur say--I dinna ken.’

‘Ye wud that, lassie. Fathers maun sometimes be fearsome to
lass-bairns!’

‘Whan I’m feart at you, father, I’ll be a gey bit on i’ the ill gait!’
returned Kirsty, with a solemn face, looking straight into her father’s
eyes.

‘Than it’ll never be, or I maun hae a heap to blame mysel for. I think
whiles, gien bairns kenned the terrible wyte their fathers micht hae
to dree for no duin better wi’ them, they wud be mair particlar to
haud straucht. I hae been ower muckle taen up wi’ my beasts and my
craps--mair, God forgie me! nor wi’ my twa bairns; though, he kens,
ye’re mair to me, the twa, than oucht else save the mither o’ ye!’

‘The beasts and the craps cudna weel du wi’ less; and there was aye oor
mither to see efter hiz!’

‘That’s true, lassie! I only houp it wasna greed at the hert o’ me! At
the same time, wha wud I be greedy for but yersels?--Weel, and what’s
it a’ aboot? What garred ye come to me aboot Francie? I’m some feart
for him whiles, noo ’at he’s sae muckle oot o’ oor sicht. The laddie’s
no by natur an ill laddie--far frae ’t! but it’s a sore pity he cudna
hae been a’ his father’s, and nane o’ him his mither’s!’

‘That wudna hae been sae weel contrived, I doobt!’ remarked Kirsty.
‘There wudna hae been the variety, I’m thinkin!’

‘Ye’re richt there, lass!--But what’s this aboot Francie?’

‘Ow naething, father, worth mentionin! The daft loon wud hae hed me
promise to merry him--that’s a’!’

‘The Lord preserve’s!--Aff han’?’

‘There’s no tellin what micht hae been i’ the heid o’ ’im: he didna win
sae far as to say that onygait!’

‘God forbid!’ exclaimed her father with solemnity, after a short pause.

‘I’m thinkin God’s forbidden langsyne!’ rejoined Kirsty.

‘What said ye til ’im, lassie?’

‘First I leuch at him--as weel as I can min’ the nonsense o’ ’t--and
ca’d him the gowk he was; and syne I sent him awa wi’ a flee in ’s lug:
hadna he the impidence to fa’ oot upo’ me for carin mair aboot Steenie
nor the likes o’ him! As gien ever _he_ cud come ’ithin sicht o’
Steenie!’

Her father looked very grave.

‘Are ye no pleased, father? I did what I thoucht richt.’

‘Ye cudna hae dune better, Kirsty. But I’m sorry for the callan, for eh
but I loed his father! Lassie, for his father’s sake I cud tak Francie
intil the hoose, and work for him as for you and Steenie--though it’s
little guid Steenie ever gets o’ me, puir sowl!’

‘Dinna say that, father. It wud be an ill thing for Steenie to hae
onybody but yersel to the father o’ ’im! A muckle pairt o’ the nicht he
wins ower in loein at you and his mother.’

‘And yersel, Kirsty.’

‘I’m thinkin I hae my share i’ the daytime.’

‘And hoo, think ye, gangs the lave o’ the nicht wi’ ’im?’

‘The bonny man has the maist o’ ’t, I dinna doobt, and what better cud
we desire for ’im!--But, father, gien Francie come back wi’ the same
tale--I dinna think he wull efter what I telled him, but he may--what
wud ye hae me say til ’im?’

‘Say what ye wull, lassie, sae lang as ye dinna lat him for a moment
believe there’s a grain o’ possibility i’ the thing. Ye see, Kirsty,--’

‘Ye dinna imagine, father, I cud for ae minute think itherwise aboot it
nor ye du yersel! Div I no ken ’at his father gied him in chairge to
you? and haena I therefore to luik efter him? Didna ye tell me a’ aboot
yer gran’ freen’, and hoo, and hoo lang ye had loed him? and didna that
mak Francie my business as weel’s yer ain? I’m verra sure his father
wud never appruv o’ ony gaeins on atween him and a lassie sic like’s
mysel; and fearna ye, father, but I s’ haud him weel ootby. No that
it’s ony tyauve (_struggle_) to me, though I aye likit Francie! Haena I
my ain Steenie?’

‘Glaidly wud I shaw Francie the ro’d to sic a wife as ye wud mak him,
my bonny Kirsty! But ye see clearly the thing itsel’s no to be thoucht
upon.--Eh, Kirsty, but it’s gran’ to an auld father’s hert to hear ye
tak yer pairt in his devours efter sic a wumanly fashion!’

‘Am I no yer ain lass-bairn, father? Whaur wud I be wi’ a father ’at
didna keep his word? and what less cud I du nor help ony man to keep
his word? Gien breach o’ the faimily-word cam throuw me, my life wud
gang frae me.--Wad ye hae me tell the laddie’s mither? I wudna like to
expose the folly o’ him, but gien ye think it necessar, I’ll gang the
morn’s mornin.’

‘I dinna think that wud be weel. It wad but raise a strife atween the
twa, ohn dune an atom o’ guid. She wud only rage at the laddie, and pit
him in sic a reid heat as wad but wald thegither him and his wull sae
’at they wud maist never come in twa again. And though ye gaed and
tauld her yer ain sel, my leddy wad lay a’ the wyte upo’ you nane the
less. There’s no rizzon, tap nor tae, i’ the puir body, and ye’re
naewise b’und to her farther nor to du richt by her.’

‘I’m glaid ye dinna want me to gang,’ answered Kirsty. ‘She carries
hersel that gran’ ’at ye’re maist driven to the consideration hoo
little she’s worth; and that’s no the richt speerit anent onybody God
thoucht worth makin.’




CHAPTER IX

AT CASTLE WEELSET


Francie’s anger had died down a good deal by the time he reached home.
He was, as his father’s friend had just said, by no means a bad sort of
fellow, only he was full of himself, and therefore of little use to
anybody. His mother and he, when not actually at strife, were
constantly on the edge of a quarrel. The two must have their own way,
each of them. Francie’s way was sometimes good, his mother’s sometimes
not bad, but both were usually selfish. The boy had fits of generosity,
the woman never, except toward her son. If she thought of something to
please him, good and well! if he wanted anything of her, it would never
do! The idea must be her own, or meet with no favour. If she imagined
her son desired a thing, she felt it one she never could grant, and
told him so: thereafter Francis would not rest until he had compassed
the thing. Sudden division and high words would follow, with
speechlessness on the mother’s part in the rear, which might last for
days. Becoming all at once tired of it, she would in the morning appear
at breakfast looking as if nothing had ever come between them, and they
would be the best of friends for a few days, or perhaps a week, seldom
longer. Some fresh discord, nowise different in character from the
preceding, would arise between them, and the same weary round be
tramped again, each always in the right, and the other in the wrong.
Every time they made it up, their relation seemed unimpaired, but it
was hardly possible things should go on thus and not at length quite
estrange their hearts.

In matters of display, to which Francis had much tendency, his mother’s
own vanity led her to indulge and spoil him, for, being hers, she was
always pleased he should look his best. On his real self she neither
had nor sought any influence. Insubordination or arrogance in him, her
dignity unslighted, actually pleased her: she liked him to show his
spirit: was it not a mark of his breeding?

She was a tall and rather stout woman, with a pretty, small-featured,
regular face, and a thin nose with the nostrils pinched.

Castle Weelset was not much of a castle: to an ancient round tower,
discomfortably habitable, had been added in the last century a rather
large, defensible house. It stood on the edge of a gorge, crowning one
of its stony hills of no great height. With scarce a tree to shelter
it, the situation was very cold in winter, and it required a hardy
breeding to live there in comfort. There was little of a garden, and
the stables were somewhat ruinous. For the former fact the climate
almost sufficiently accounted, and for the latter, a long period of
comparative poverty.

The young laird did not like farming, and had no love for books: in
this interval between school and college, he found very little to
occupy him, and not much to amuse him. Had Kirsty and her family proved
as encouraging as he had expected, he would have made use of his new
pony almost only to ride to Corbyknowe in the morning and back to the
castle at night.

His mother knew old Barclay, as she called him, well enough--that is,
not at all, and had never shown him any cordiality, anything, indeed,
better than condescension. To treat him like a gentleman, even when he
sat at her own table, she would have counted absurd. He had never been
to the castle since the day after her husband’s funeral, when she
received him with such emphasized superiority that he felt he could not
go again without running the risk either of having his influence with
the boy ruined, or giving occasion to a nature not without generosity
to take David’s part against his mother. Thenceforward, therefore, he
contented himself with giving Francis invariable welcome, and doing
what he could to make his visits pleasant. Chiefly, on such not
infrequent occasions, the boy delighted in drawing from his father’s
friend what tales about his father, and adventures of their campaigns
together, he had to tell; and in this way David’s wife and children
heard many things about himself which would not otherwise have reached
them. Naturally, Kirsty and Francie grew to be good friends; and after
they went to the parish school, there were few days indeed on which
they did not walk at least as far homeward together as the midway
divergence of their roads permitted. It was not wonderful, therefore,
that at length Francis should be, or should fancy himself in love with
Kirsty. But I believe all the time he thought of marrying her as a
heroic deed, in raising the girl his mother despised to share the lofty
position he and that foolish mother imagined him to occupy. The
anticipation of opposition from his mother naturally strengthened his
determination; of opposition on the part of Kirsty, he had not dreamed.
He took it as of course that, the moment he stated his intention,
Kirsty would be charmed, her mother more than pleased, and the stern
old soldier overwhelmed with the honour of alliance with the son of his
colonel. I do not doubt, however, that he had an affection for Kirsty
far deeper and better than his notion of their relations to each other
would indicate. Although it was mainly his pride that suffered in his
humiliating dismissal, he had, I am sure, a genuine heartache as he
galloped home. When he reached the castle, he left his pony to go where
he would, and rushed to his room. There, locking the door that his
mother might not enter, he threw himself on his bed in the luxurious
consciousness of a much-wronged lover. An uneducated country girl, for
as such he regarded her, had cast from her, not without insult, his
splendidly generous offer of himself!

Poor king Cophetua did not, however, shed many tears for the loss of
his recusant beggar-maid. By and by he forgot everything, found he had
gone to sleep, and, endeavouring to weep again, did not succeed.

He grew hungry soon, and went down to see what was to be had. It was
long past the usual hour for dinner, but Mrs. Gordon had not seen him
return, and had had it put back--so to make the most of an opportunity
of quarrel not to be neglected by a conscientious mother. She let it
slide nevertheless.

‘Gracious, you’ve been crying!’ she exclaimed, the moment she saw him.

Now certainly Francis had not cried much; his eyes were,
notwithstanding, a little red.

He had not yet learned to lie, but he might then have made his first
essay had he had a fib at his tongue’s end; as he had not, he gloomed
deeper, and made no answer.

‘You’ve been fighting!’ said his mother.

‘I haena,’ he returned with rude indignation. ‘Gien I had been, div ye
think I wud hae grutten?’

‘You forget yourself, laird!’ remarked Mrs. Gordon, more annoyed with
his Scotch than the tone of it. ‘I would have you remember I am
mistress of the house!’

‘Till I marry, mother!’ rejoined her son.

‘Oblige me in the meantime,’ she answered, ‘by leaving vulgar language
outside it.’

Francis was silent; and his mother, content with her victory, and in
her own untruthfulness of nature believing he had indeed been fighting
and had had the worse of it, said no more, but began to pity and pet
him. A pot of his favourite jam presently consoled the love-wounded
hero--in the acceptance of which consolation he showed himself far less
unworthy than many a grown man, similarly circumstanced, in the choice
of his.




CHAPTER X

DAVID AND FRANCIS


One day there was a market at a town some eight or nine miles off, and
thither, for lack of anything else to do, Francis had gone to display
himself and his pony, which he was riding with so tight a curb that the
poor thing every now and then reared in protest against the agony he
suffered.

On one of these occasions Don was on the point of falling backward,
when a brown wrinkled hand laid hold of him by the head, half pulling
the reins from his rider’s hand, and ere he had quite settled again on
his forelegs, had unhooked the chain of his curb, and fastened it some
three links looser. Francis was more than indignant, even when he saw
that the hand was Mr. Barclay’s: was he to be treated as one who did
not know what he was about!

‘Hoots, my man!’ said David gently, ‘there’s no occasion to put a
water-chain upo’ the bonny beastie: he has a mou like a leddy’s! and to
hae ’t linkit up sae ticht is naething less nor tortur til ’im!--It’s a
won’er to me he hasna brocken your banes and his ain back thegither,
puir thing!’ he added, patting and stroking the spirited little
creature that stood sweating and trembling.

‘I thank you, Mr. Barclay,’ said Francis insolently, ‘but I am quite
able to manage the brute myself. You seem to take me for a fool!’

‘’Deed, he’s no far aff ane ’at cud ca’ a bonny cratur like that a
brute!’ returned David, nowise pleased to discover such hardness in one
whom he would gladly treat like a child of his own. It was a great
disappointment to him to see the lad getting farther away from the
possibility of being helped by him. ‘What ’ud yer father say to see ye
illuse ony helpless bein! Yer father was awfu guid til ’s horse-fowk.’

The last word was one of David’s own: he was a great lover of animals.

‘I’ll do with my own as I please!’ cried Francis, and spurred the pony
to pass David. But one stalwart hand held the pony fast, while the
other seized his rider by the ankle. The old man was now thoroughly
angry with the graceless youth.

‘God bless my sowl!’ he cried, ‘hae ye the spurs on as weel? Stick ane
o’ them intil him again, and I’ll cast ye frae the seddle. I’ the thick
o’ a fecht, the lang blades playin aboot yer father’s heid like lichts
i’ the north, he never stack spur intil ’s chairger needless!’

‘I don’t see,’ said Francis, who had begun to cool down a little, ‘how
he could have enjoyed the fight much if he never forgot himself! I
should forget everything in the delight of the battle!’

‘Yer father, laddie, never forgot onything _but_ himsel. Forgettin
himsel left him free to min’ a’thing forbye. _Ye_ wud forget ilka thing
but yer ain rage! Yer father was a great man as weel’s a great soger,
Francie, and a deevil to fecht, as his men said. I hae mysel seen by
the set mou ’at the teeth war clinched i’ the inside o’ ’t, whan a’ the
time on the broo o’ ’im sat never a runkle. Gien ever there was a man
’at cud think o’ twa things at ance, your father cud think o’ three;
and thae three war God, his enemy, and the beast aneath him. Francie,
Francie, i’ the name o’ yer father I beg ye to regaird the richts o’
the neebour ye sit upo’. Gien ye dinna that, ye’ll come or lang to
think little o’ yer human neebour as weel, carin only for what ye get
oot o’ ’im!’

A voice inside Francis took part with the old man, and made him yet
angrier. Also his pride was the worse annoyed that David Barclay, his
tenant, should, in the hearing of two or three loafers gathered behind
him, of whose presence the old man was unaware, not only rebuke him,
but address him by his name, and the diminutive of it. So when David,
in the appeal that burst from his enthusiastic remembrance of his
officer in the battle-field, let the pony’s head go, Francis dug his
spurs in his sides, and darted off like an arrow. The old man for a
moment stared open-mouthed after him. The fools around laughed: he
turned and walked away, his head sunk on his breast.

Francis had not ridden far before he was vexed with himself. He was not
so much sorry, as annoyed that he had behaved in fashion undignified.
The thought that his childish behaviour would justify Kirsty in her
opinion of him, added its sting. He tried to console himself with the
reflection that the sort of thing ought to be put an end to at once:
how far, otherwise, might not the old fellow’s interference go! I am
afraid he even said to himself that such was a consequence of
familiarity with inferiors. Yet angry as he was at his fault-finding,
he would have been proud of any approval from the lips of the old
soldier. He rode his pony mercilessly for a mile or so, then pulled up,
and began to talk pettingly to him, which I doubt if the little
creature found consoling, for love only makes petting worth anything,
and the love here was not much to the front.

About half-way home, he had to ford a small stream, or go round two
miles by a bridge. There had been much rain in the night, and the
stream was considerably swollen. As he approached the ford, he met a
knife-grinder, who warned him not to attempt it: he had nearly lost his
wheel in it, he said. But Francis always found it hard to accept
advice. His mother had so often predicted from neglect of hers evils
which never followed, that he had come to think counsel the one thing
not to be heeded.

‘Thank you,’ he said; ‘I think we can manage it!’ and rode on.

When he reached the ford, where of all places he ought to have left the
pony’s head free, he foolishly remembered the curb-chain, and getting
off, took it up a couple of links.

But when he remounted, whether from dread of the rush of the brown
water, or resentment at the threat of renewed torture, the pony would
not take the ford, and a battle royal arose between them, in which
Francis was so far victorious that, after many attempts to run away,
little Don, rendered desperate by the spur, dashed wildly into the
stream, and went plunging on for two or three yards. Then he fell, and
Francis found himself rolling in the water, swept along by the current.

A little way lower down, at a sharp turn of the stream under a high
bank, was a deep pool, a place held much in dread by the country lads
and lasses, being a haunt of the kelpie. Francis knew the spot well,
and had good reason to fear that, carried into it, he must be drowned,
for he could not swim. Roused by the thought to a yet harder struggle,
he succeeded in getting upon his feet and reaching the bank, where he
lay for a while, exhausted. When at length he came to himself and rose,
he found the water still between him and home, and nothing of his pony
to be seen. If the youth’s good sense had been equal to his courage, he
would have been a fine fellow: he dashed straight into the ford,
floundered through it, and lost his footing no more than had Don,
treated properly. When he reached the high ground on the other side, he
could still see nothing of him, and with sad heart concluded him
carried into the Kelpie’s Hole, never more to be beheld alive:--what
would his mother and Mr. Barclay say? Shivering and wretched, and with
a growing compunction in regard to his behaviour to Don, he crawled
wearily home.

Don, however, had at no moment been much in danger. Rid of his master,
he could take very good care of himself. He got to the bank without
difficulty, and took care it should be on the home-side of the stream.
Not once looking behind him after his tyrant, he set off at a good
round trot, much refreshed by his bath, and rejoicing in the thought of
his loose box at castle Weelset.

In a narrow part of the road, however, he overtook a cart of Mr.
Barclay’s; and as he attempted to pass between it and the steep brae,
the man on the shaft caught at his bridle, made him prisoner, tied him
to the cart behind, and took him to Corbyknowe. When David came home
and saw him, he conjectured pretty nearly what had happened, and tired
as he was set out for the castle. Had he not feared that Francis might
have been injured, he would not have cared to go, much as he knew it
must relieve him to learn that his pony was safe.

Mrs. Gordon declined to see David, but he ascertained from the servants
that Francis had come home half-drowned, leaving Don in the Kelpie’s
Hole.

David hesitated a little whether or not to punish him for his behaviour
to the pony by allowing him to remain in ignorance of his safety, and
so leaving him to the _agen-bite_ of conscience; but concluding that
such was not his part, he told them that the animal was safe at
Corbyknowe, and went home again.

But he wanted Francis to fetch the pony himself, therefore did not send
him, and in the meantime fed and groomed him with his own hands as if
he had been his friend’s charger. Francis having just enough of the
grace of shame to make him shrink from going to Corbyknowe, his mother
wrote to David, asking why he did not send home the animal. David, one
of the most courteous of men, would take no order from any but his
superior officer, and answered that he would gladly give him up to the
young laird in person.

The next day Mrs. Gordon drove, in what state she could muster, to
Corbyknowe. Arrived there, she declined to leave her carriage,
requesting Mrs. Barclay, who came to the door, to send her husband to
her. Mrs. Barclay thought it better to comply.

David came in his shirt-sleeves, for he had been fetched from his work.

‘If I understand your answer to my request, Mr. Barclay, you decline to
send back Mr. Gordon’s pony. Pray, on what grounds?’

‘I wrote, ma’am, that I should be glad to give him over to Mr. Francis
himself.’

‘Mr. Gordon does not find it convenient to come all this way on foot.
In fact he declines to do it, and requests that you will send the pony
home this afternoon.’

‘Excuse me, mem, but it’s surely enough done that a man make known the
presence o’ strays, and tak proper care o’ them until they’re claimt! I
was fain forbye to gie the bonny thing a bit pleesur in life: Francie’s
ower hard upon him.’

‘You forget, David Barclay, that Mr. Gordon is your landlord!’

‘His father, mem, was my landlord, and his father’s father was my
father’s landlord; and the interests o’ the landlord hae aye been oors.
Ither nor Francie’s herty freen’ I can never be!’

‘You presume on my late husband’s kindness to you, Barclay!’

‘Gien devotion be presumption, mem, I presume. Archibald Gordon was and
is my freen’, and will be for ever. We hae been throuw ower muckle
thegither to change to ane anither. It was for his sake and the
laddie’s ain that I wantit him to come to me. I wantit a word wi’ him
aboot that powny o’ his. He’ll never be true man ’at taks no tent
(_care_) o’ dumb animals! You ’at’s sae weel at hame i’ the seddle
yersel, mem, micht tak a kin’ly care o’ what’s aneth his!’

‘I will have no one interfere with my son. I am quite capable of
teaching him his duty myself.’

‘His father requestit me to do what I could for him, mem.’

‘His _late_ father, if you please, Barclay!’

‘He s’ never be Francie’s _late_ father to Francie, gien I can help it,
mem! He may be your _late_ husband, mem, but he’s my cornel yet, and I
s’ keep my word til him! It’ll no be lang noo, i’ the natur o’ things,
till I gang til him; and sure am I his first word ’ill be aboot the
laddie: I wud ill like to answer him, “Archie, I ken naething aboot him
but what I cud weel wuss itherwise!” Hoo wud ye like to gie sic an
answer yersel, mem?’

‘I’m surprised at a man of your sense, Barclay, thinking we shall know
one another in heaven! We shall have to be content with God there!’

‘I said naething about h’aven, mem! Fowk may ken ane anither and no be
in ae place. I took note i’ the kirk last Sunday ’at Abrahaam kent the
rich man, and the rich man him, and they warna i’ the same place.--But
ye’ll lat the yoong laird come and see me, mem?’ concluded David,
changing his tone and speaking as one who begged a favour; for the
thought of meeting his old friend and having nothing to tell him about
his boy, quenched his pride.

‘Home, Thomas!’ cried her late husband’s wife to her coachman, and
drove away.

‘Dod! they’ll hae to gie that wife a hell til hersel!’ said David,
turning to the door discomfited.

‘And maybe she’ll no like it whan she hes ’t!’ returned his wife, who
had heard every word. ‘There’s fowk ’at’s no fit company for onybody!
and I’m thinkin she’s ane gien there bena anither!’

‘I’ll sen’ Jeamie hame wi’ the powny the nicht,’ said David. ‘A body
canna insist whaur fowk are no freen’s. That weud grow to enmity, and
the en’ o’ a’ guid. Na, we maun sen’ hame the powny; and gien there be
ony grace i’ the bairn, he canna but come and say thank ye!’

Mrs. Gordon rejoiced in her victory; but David’s yielding showed itself
the true policy. Francis did call and thank him for taking care of Don.
He even granted that perhaps he had been too hard on the pony.

‘Ye cud richteously expeck naething o’ a powny o’ his size that that
powny o’ yours cudna du, Francie!’ said David. ‘But, in God’s name,
dear laddie, be a richteous man. Gien ye requere no more than’s fair
frae man or beast, ye’ll maistly aye get it. But gien yer ootluik in
life be to get a’thing and gie naething, ye maun come to grief ae w’y
and a’ w’ys. Success in an ill attemp is the warst failyie a man can
mak.’

But it was talking to the wind, for Francis thought, or tried to think
David only bent, like his mother, on finding fault with him. He made
haste to get away, and left his friend with a sad heart.

He rode on to the foot of the Horn, to the spot where Kirsty was
usually at that season to be found; but she saw him coming, and went up
the hill. Soon after, his mother contrived that he should pay a visit
to some relatives in the south, and for a time neither the castle nor
the Horn saw anything of him. Without returning home he went in the
winter to Edinburgh, where he neither disgraced nor distinguished
himself. David was to hear no ill of him. To be beyond his mother’s
immediate influence was perhaps to his advantage, but as nothing
superior was substituted, it was at best but little gain. His
companions were like himself, such as might turn to worse or better, no
one could tell which.




CHAPTER XI

KIRSTY AND PHEMY


During the first winter which Francis spent at college, his mother was
in England, and remained there all the next summer and winter. When at
last she came home, she was even less pleasant than before in the eyes
of her household, no one of which had ever loved her. Throughout the
summer she had a succession of visitors, and stories began to spread
concerning strange doings at the castle. The neighbours talked of
extravagance, and the censorious among them of riotous living; while
some of the servants more than hinted that the amount of wine and
whisky consumed was far in excess of what served when the old colonel
was alive.

One of them who, in her mistress’s frequent fits of laziness, acted as
housekeeper, had known David Barclay from his boyhood, and understood
his real intimacy with her late master: it was not surprising,
therefore, that she should open her mind to him, while keeping toward
everyone else a settled silence concerning her mistress’s affairs: none
of the stories current in the country-side came from her. David was to
Mrs. Bremner the other side of a deep pit, into the bottom of which
whatever was said between them dropped.

‘There’ll come a catastroff or lang,’ said Mrs. Bremner one evening
when David Barclay overtook her on the road to the town, ‘and that’ll
be seen! The property’s jist awa to the dogs! There’s Maister Donal,
the factor, gaein aboot like ane in a dilemm as to cuttin ’s thro’t or
blawin his harns oot! He daursna say a word, ye see! The auld laird
trustit him, and he’s feart ’at he be blamit, but there’s nae duin
onything wi’ that wuman: the siller maun be forthcomin whan she’s
wantin ’t!’

‘The siller’s no hers ony mair nor the lan’; a’s the yoong laird’s!’
remarked David.

‘That’s true; but she’s i’ the pooer o’ ’t till he come o’ age; and
Maister Donal, puir man, mony’s the time he’s jist driven to ane mair
to get what’s aye wantit and wantit! What comes o’ the siller it jist
blecks me to think: there’s no a thing aboot the hoose to shaw for ’t!
And hearken, Dauvid, but latna baith lugs hear ’t, for dreid the tane
come ower ’t again to the tither--I’m doobtin the drink’s gettin a sair
grup o’ her!’

‘’Deed I wudna be nane surprised!’ returned David. ‘Whatever micht want
in at her door, there’s naething inside to haud it oot. Eh, to think o’
Archie Gordon takin til himsel sic a wife! that a man like him, o’ guid
report, and come to years o’ discretion--to think o’ brains like his
turnin as fozy as an auld neep at sicht o’ a bonny front til an ae wa’
hoose (_a house of but one wall_)! It canna be ’at witchcraft’s clean
dune awa wi’!’

‘Bonny, Dauvid! Ca’d ye the mistress bonny?’

‘She used to be--bonny, that is, as a button or a buckle micht be
bonny. What she may be the noo, I dinna ken, for I haena set e’e upon
her sin’ she cam to the Knowe orderin me to sen’ back Francie’s powny:
she was suppercilly eneuch than for twa cornels and a corporal, but no
ill luikin. Gien she hae a spot o’ beaouty left, the drink ’ll tak it
or it hae dune wi’ her!’

‘Or she hae dune wi’ hit, Dauvid! It’s ta’en ae colour frae her
a’ready, and begud to gie her anither! But it concerns me mair aboot
Francie nor my leddy: what’s to come o’ him when a’s gane? what’ll
there be for him to come intil?’

Gladly would David have interfered, but he was helpless; he had no
legal guardianship over or for the boy! Nothing could be done till he
was a man!--‘gien ever he be a man!’ said David to himself with a sigh,
and he thought how much better off he was with his half-witted Steenie
than his friend with his clever Francie.

Mrs. Bremner was sister-in-law to the schoolmaster, and was then on her
way to see him and his daughter Phemy. From childhood the girl had been
in the way of going to the castle to see her aunt, and so was well
known about the place. Being an engaging child, she had become not only
welcome to the servants but something of a favourite with the mistress,
whom she amused with her little airs, and pleased with her winning
manners. She was now about fourteen, a half-blown beauty of the red and
white, gold and blue kind. She had long been a vain little thing,
approving of her own looks in the glass, and taking much interest in
setting them off, but so simple as to make no attempt at concealing her
self-satisfaction. Her pleased contemplation of this or that portion of
her person, and the frantic attempts she was sometimes espied making to
get a sight of her back, especially when she wore a new frock, were
indeed more amusing than hopeful, but her vanity was not yet so
pronounced as to overshadow her better qualities, and Kirsty had not
thought it well to take notice of it, although, being more than anyone
else a mother to her, she was already a little anxious on the score of
it, and the rather that her aunt, like her father, neither saw nor
imagined fault in her.

That the child had no mother, drew to her the heart of the girl whose
mother was her strength and joy; while gratitude to the child’s father,
who, in opening for her some doors of wisdom and more of knowledge, had
put her under eternal obligations, moved her to make what return she
could. It deepened her sense of debt to Phemy that the schoolmaster did
not do for his daughter anything like what he had years long been doing
for his pupil, whence she almost felt as if she had diverted to her own
use much that rightly belonged to Phemy. At the same time she knew very
well that had she never existed the relation between the father and the
daughter would have been the same. The child of his dearly loved wife,
the schoolmaster was utterly content with his Phemy; for he felt as if
she knew everything her mother knew, had the same inward laws of being
and the same disposition, and was simply, like her, perfect.

That she should ever do anything wrong was an idea inconceivable to
him. Nor was there much chance of his discovering it if she did. When
not at work, he was constantly reading. Most people close a book
without having gained from it a single germ of thought; Mr. Craig
seldom opened one without falling directly into a brown study over
something suggested by it. But I believe that, even when thus absorbed,
Phemy was never far from his thought. At the same time, like many
Scots, while she was his one joy, he seldom showed her sign of
affection, seldom made her feel, and never sought to make her feel how
he loved her. His love was taken by him for understood by her, and was
to her almost as if it did not exist.

That his child required to be taught had scarcely occurred to the man
who could not have lived without learning, or enjoyed life without
teaching--as witness the eagerness with which he would help Kirsty
along any path of knowledge in which he knew how to walk. The love of
knowledge had grown in him to a possessing passion, paralyzing in a
measure those powers of his life sacred to life--that is, to God and
his neighbour.

Kirsty could not do nearly what she would to make up for his neglect.
For one thing, the child did not take to learning, and though she loved
Kirsty and often tried to please her, would not keep on doing anything
without being more frequently reminded of her duty than the distance
between their two abodes permitted. Kirsty had her to the farm as often
as the schoolmaster would consent to her absence, and kept her as long
as he went on forgetting it; while Phemy was always glad to go to
Corbyknowe, and always glad to get away again. For Mrs. Barclay thought
it her part to teach her household matters, and lessons of that sort
Phemy relished worse than some of a more intellectual nature. If left
with her, the moment Kirsty appeared again, the child would fling from
her whatever might be in her hand, and flee as to her deliverer from
bondage and hard labour. Then would Kirsty always insist on her
finishing what she had been at, and Phemy would obey, with the protest
of silent tears, and the airs of a much injured mortal. Had Kirsty been
backed by the child’s father, she might have made something of her; but
it grew more and more painful to think of her future, when her
self-constituted guardian should have lost what influence she had over
her.

Phemy was rather afraid of Steenie. Her sunny nature shrank from the
shadow, as of a wall, in which Steenie appeared to her always to stand.
From any little attention he would offer her, she, although never rude
to him, would involuntarily recoil, and he soon learned to leave her
undismayed. That the child’s repugnance troubled him, though he never
spoke of it, Kirsty saw quite plainly, for she could read his face like
a book, and heard him sigh when even his mother did not. Her eyes were
constantly regarding him, like sheep feeding on the pasture of his
face:--I think I have used a figure of sir Philip Sidney’s. But say
rather--the thoughts that strayed over his face were the sheep to which
all her life she had been the devoted shepherdess.

At Corbyknowe things went on as hitherto. Kirsty was in no danger of
tiring of the even flow of her life. Steenie’s unselfish solitude of
soul made him every day dearer to her. Books she sought in every
accessible, and found occasionally in an unhopeful quarter. She had no
thought of distinguishing herself, no smallest ambition of becoming
learned; her soul was athirst to understand, and what she understood
found its way from her mind into her life. Much to the advantage of her
thinking were her keen power and constant practice of observation. I
utterly refuse the notion that we cannot think without words, but
certainly the more forms we have ready to embody our thoughts, the
farther we shall be able to carry our thinking. Richly endowed, Kirsty
required the more mental food, and was the more able to use it when she
found it. To such of the neighbours as had no knowledge of any
diligence save that of the hands, she seemed to lead an idle life; but
indeed even Kirsty’s hands were far from idle. When not with Steenie
she was almost always at her mother’s call, who, from the fear that she
might grow up incapable of managing a house, often required a good deal
of her. But the mother did not fail to note with what alacrity she
would lay her book aside, sometimes even dropping it in her eagerness
to answer her summons. Dismissed for the moment, she would at once take
her book again and the seat nearest to it: she could read anywhere, and
gave herself none of the student-airs that make some young people so
pitifully unpleasant. At the same time solitude was preferable for
study, and Kirsty was always glad to find herself with her books in the
little hut, Steenie asleep on the heather carpet on her feet, and the
assurance that there no one would interrupt her.

It was not wonderful that, in the sweet absence of selfish cares, her
mind full of worthy thoughts, and her heart going out in tenderness,
her face should go on growing in beauty and refinement. She was not yet
arrived at physical full growth, and the forms of her person being
therefore in a process of change were the more easily modelled after
her spiritual nature. She seemed almost already one that would not die,
but live for ever, and continue to inherit the earth. Neither her
father nor her mother could have imagined anything better to be made of
her.

Steenie had not changed his habits, neither seemed to grow at all more
like other people. He was now indeed seldom so much depressed as
formerly, but he showed no sign of less dependence on Kirsty.




CHAPTER XII

THE EARTH-HOUSE


About a year after Francis Gordon went to Edinburgh, Kirsty and Steenie
made a discovery.

Between Corbyknowe and the Horn, on whose sides David Barclay had a
right of pasturage for the few sheep to which Steenie and Snootie were
the shepherds, was a small glen, through which, on its way to join the
little river with the kelpie-pot, ran a brook, along whose banks lay
two narrow breadths of nice grass. The brother and sister always
crossed this brook when they wanted to go straight to the top of the
hill.

One morning, having each taken the necessary run and jump, they had
began to climb on the other side, when Kirsty, who was a few paces
before him, turned at an exclamation from Steenie.

‘It’s a’ the weicht o’ my muckle feet!’ he cried, as he dragged one of
the troublesome members out of a hole. ‘Losh, I dinna ken hoo far it
michtna hae gane doon gien I hadna gotten a haud o’ ’t in time and pu’d
it oot!’

How much of humour, how much of silliness, and how much of truth were
wrapt up together in some of the things he said, it was impossible to
determine. I believe Kirsty came pretty near knowing, but even she was
not always sure where wilful oddity and where misapprehension was at
the root of a remark.

‘Gien ye set yer fit upon a hole,’ said Kirsty, ‘what can the puir
thing du but gang doon intil ’t? Ye maunna be oonrizzonable wi’ the
craturs, Steenie! Ye maun be fair til them.’

‘But there was nae hole!’ returned Steenie. ‘There cudna hae been.
There’s the hole noo! My fit made it, and there it’ll hae to bide! It’s
a some fearsome thing, divna ye think, ’at what aiven the fit o’ a body
dis, bides? What for disna the hole gang awa whan the fit lifts? Luik
ye there! Ye see thae twa stanes stan’in up by themsels, and there’s
the hole--atween the twa! There cudna hae been a hole there afore the
weicht o’ my fit cam doon upo’ the spot and ca’d it throuw! I gaed in
maist til my knee!’

‘Lat’s luik!’ said Kirsty, and proceeded to examine the place.

She thought at first it must be the burrow of some animal, but the
similarity in shape of the projecting stones suggesting that their
position might not be fortuitous, she would look a little farther, and
began to pull away the heather about the mouth of the opening. Steenie
set himself, with might and main, to help her. Kirsty was much the
stronger of the two, but Steenie always did his best to second her in
anything that required exertion.

They soon spied the lump of sod and heather which Steenie’s heavy foot
had driven down, and when they had pulled that out, they saw that the
hole went deeper still, seeming a very large burrow indeed--therefore a
little fearsome. Having widened the mouth of it by clearing away a
thick growth of roots from its sides, and taken out a quantity of soft
earth, they perceived that it went sloping into the ground still
farther. With growing curiosity they leant down into it, lying on the
edge, and reaching with their hands removed the loose earth as low as
they could. This done, the descent showed itself about two feet square,
as far down as they had cleared it, beyond which a little way it was
lost in the dark.

What were they to do next? There was yet greater inducement to go on,
but considerations came which were not a little deterrent. Although
Steenie had worked well, Kirsty knew he had a horror of dark places,
associating them somehow with the weight of his feet: whether such
places had for him any suggestion of the grave, I cannot tell;
certainly to get rid of his feet was the form his idea of the salvation
he needed was readiest to take. Then might there not be some animal
inside? Steenie thought not, for there was no opening until he made it;
and Kirsty also thought not, on the ground that she knew no wild animal
larger than fox or badger, neither of which would have made such a big
hole. One moment, however, her imagination was nearly too much for her:
what if some huge bear had been asleep in it for hundreds of years, and
growing all the time! Certainly he could not get out, but if she roused
him, and he got a hold of her! The next instant her courage revived,
for she would have been ashamed to let what she did not believe
influence any action. The passage must lead somewhere, and it was large
enough for her to explore it!

Because of her dress, she must creep in head foremost--in which lay
the advantage that so she would meet any danger face to face! Telling
Steenie that if he heard her cry out, he must get hold of her feet and
pull, she laid herself on the ground and crawled in. She thought it
must lead to an ancient tomb, but said nothing of the conjecture for
fear of horrifying Steenie, who stood trembling, sustained only by his
faith in Kirsty.

She went down and down and quite disappeared. Not a foot was left for
Steenie to lay hold of. Terrible and long seemed the time to him as he
stood there forsaken, his darling out of sight in the heart of the
earth. He knew there were wolves in Scotland once; who could tell but a
she-wolf had been left, and a whole clan of them lived there
underground, never issuing in the daytime! there might be the open
mouth of a passage, under a rock and curtained with heather, in some
other spot of the hill! What if one of them got Kirsty by the throat
before she had time to cry out! Then he thought she might have gone
till she could go no father, and not having room to turn, was trying to
creep backward, but her clothes hindered her. Forgetting his repugnance
in over-mastering fear, the faithful fellow was already half inside the
hole to go after her, when up shot the head of Kirsty, almost in his
face. For a moment he was terribly perplexed: he had been expecting to
come on her feet, not her head: how could she have gone in head
foremost, and not come back feet foremost?

‘Eh, wuman,’ he said in a fear-struck whisper, ‘it’s awfu’ to see ye
come oot o’ the yird like a muckle worm!’

‘Ye saw me gang in, Steenie, ye gowk!’ returned Kirsty, dismayed
herself at sight of his solemn dread.

‘Ay,’ answered Steenie, ‘but I didna see ye come oot! Eh, Kirsty,
wuman, hae ye a heid at baith en’s o’ ye?’

Kirsty’s laughter blew Steenie’s discomposure away, and he too laughed.

‘Come back hame,’ said Kirsty; ‘I maun get haud o’ a can’le! Yon’s a
place maun be seen intil. I never saw, or raither faun’ (_felt_) the
like o’ ’t, for o’ seein there’s nane, or next to nane. There’s room
eneuch; ye can see that wi’ yer airms!’

‘What is there room eneuch for?’ asked Steenie.

‘For you and me, and twenty or thirty mair, mebbe--I dinna ken,’
replied Kirsty.

‘I s’ mak ye a present o’ my room intil ’t,’ returned Steenie. ‘I want
nane o’ ’t.’

‘I’ll gang doon wi’ the can’le,’ said Kirsty, ‘and see whether ’t be a
place for ye. Gien I cry oot, “Ay is’t,” wull ye come?’

‘That I wull, gien ’t war the whaul’s belly!’ replied Steenie.

They set out for the house, and as they walked they talked.

‘I div won’er what the place cud ever hae been for!’ said Kirsty, more
to herself than Steenie. ‘It’s bigger nor ony thoucht I had o’ ’t.’

‘What is ’t like, Kirsty?’ inquired Steenie.

‘Hoo can I tell whan I saw naething!’ replied Kirsty. ‘But,’ she added
thoughtfully, ‘gien it warna that we’re in Scotlan’, and they’re
nigh-han’ Rom’, I wud hae been ’maist sure I had won intil ane o’ the
catacombs!’

‘Eh, losh, lat me awa to the hill!’ cried Steenie, stopping and half
turning. ‘I canna bide the verra word o’ the craturs!’

‘What word than?’ asked Kirsty, a little surprised; for how did Steenie
know anything about the catacombs?

‘To think,’ he went on, ‘o’ a haill kirk o’ cats aneath the yird--a’
sittin kaimin themsels wi’ kaims!--Kirsty, ye _winna_ think it a place
for _me_? Ye see I’m no like ither fowk, and sic a thing micht ca
(_drive_) me oot o’ a’ the sma’ wits ever I hed!’

‘Hoots!’ rejoined Kirsty, with a smile, ‘the catacombs has naething to
du wi’ cats or kaims!’

‘Tell me what are they, than.’

‘The catacombs,’ answered Kirsty, ‘was what in auld times, and no i’
this cuintry ava, they ca’d the places whaur they laid their deid.’

‘Eh, Kirsty, but that’s waur!’ returned Steenie. ‘I wudna gang intil
sic a place wi’ feet siclike’s my ain--na, no for what the warl cud gie
me!--no for lang Lowrie’s fiddle and a’ the tunes intil’t! I wud never
get my feet oot o’ ’t! They’d haud me there!’

Then Kirsty began to tell him, as she would have taught a child,
something of the history of the catacombs, knowing how it must interest
him.

‘I’ the days langsyne,’ she said, ‘there was fowk, like you and me,
unco fain o’ the bonny man. The verra soun o’ the name o’ ’im was
eneuch to gar their herts loup wi’ doonricht glaidness. And they gaed
here and there and a’ gait, and tellt ilka body aboot him; and fowk ’at
didna ken him, and didna want to ken him, cudna bide to hear tell o’
him, and they said, “Lat’s hae nae mair o’ this! Hae dune wi’ yer bonny
man! Haud yer tongues,” they cryit. But the ithers, they wadna hear o’
haudin their tongues. A’body maun ken aboot him! “Sae lang’s we _hae_
tongues, and can wag them to the name o’ him,” they said, “we’ll no
haud them!” And at that they fell upo’ them, and ill-used them sair;
some o’ them they tuik and brunt alive--that is, brunt them deid; and
some o’ them they flang to the wild beasts, and they bitit them and
tore them to bits. And----’

‘Was the bitin o’ the beasts terrible sair?’ interrupted Steenie.

‘Ay, I reckon it was some sair; but the puir fowk aye said the bonny
man was wi’ them; and lat them bite!--they didna care!’

‘Ay, of coorse, gien he was wi’ them, they wadna min’ ’t a hair, or at
least, no twa hairs! Wha wud! Gien he be in yon hole, Kirsty, I’ll gang
back and intil’t my lee lane. I wull noo!’

Steenie turned and had run some distance before Kirsty succeeded in
stopping him. She did not run after him.

‘Steenie! Steenie!’ she cried, ‘I dinna doobt he’s there, for he’s
a’gait; but ye ken yersel ye canna aye see him, and maybe ye wudna see
him there the noo, and micht think he wasna there, and turn fleyt. Bide
till we hae a licht, and I gang doon first.’

Steenie was persuaded, and turned and came back to her. To father,
mother, and sister he was always obedient, even on the rare occasions
when it cost him much to be so.

‘Ye see, Steenie,’ she continued, ‘yon’s no the place! I dinna ken yet
what place yon is. I was only gaein to tell ye aboot the places it
min’t me o’! Wud ye like to hear aboot them?’

‘I wad that, richt weel! Say awa, Kirsty.’

‘The fowk, than, ye see, ’at lo’ed the bonny man, gethert themsels aye
thegither to hae cracks and newses wi’ ane anither aboot him; and, as I
was tellin ye, the fowk ’at didna care aboot him war that angert ’at
they set upo’ them, and jist wud hae nane o’ them nor him. Sae to haud
oot o’ their grip, they coonselled thegither, and concludit to gether
in a place whaur naebody wud think o’ luikin for them--whaur but i’ the
booels o’ the earth, whaur they laid their deid awa upo’ skelfs, like
in an aumry!’

‘Eh, but that was fearsome!’ interposed Steenie. ‘They maun hae been
sair set!--Gien I had been there, wud they hae garred me gang wi’
them?’

‘Na, no gien ye didna like. But ye wud hae likit weel to gang. It wasna
an ill w’y to beery fowk, nor an ill place to gang til, for they aye
biggit up the skelf, ye ken. It was howkit oot--whether oot o’ hard
yird or saft stane, I dinna ken; I reckon it wud be some no sae hard
kin’ o’ a rock--and whan the deid was laid intil ’t, they biggit up the
mou o’ the place, that is, frae that same skelf to the ane ’at was
abune ’t, and sae a’ was weel closed in.’

‘But what for didna they beery their deid mensefulike i’ their
kirkyairds?’

‘’Cause theirs was a great muckle toon, wi’ sic a heap o’ hooses that
there wasna room for kirkyards; sae they tuik them ootside the toon,
and gaed aneth wi’ them a’thegither. For there they howkit a lot o’
passages like trances, and here and there a wee roomy like, wi’ ither
trances gaein frae them this gait and that. Sae, whan they tuik
themsels there, the freen’s o’ the bonny man wud fill ane o’ the
roomies, and stan’ awa in ilk ane o’ the passages ’at gaed frae ’t; and
that w’y, though there cudna mony o’ them see ane anither at ance, a
gey lottie wud hear, some a’, and some a hantle o’ what was said. For
there they cud speyk lood oot, and a body abune hear naething and
suspec naething. And jist think, Steenie, there’s a pictur o’ the bonny
man himsel paintit upo’ the wa’ o’ ane o’ thae places doon aneth the
grun’!’

‘I reckon it’ll be unco like him!’

‘Maybe: I canna tell aboot that.’

‘Gien I cud see ’t, I cud tell; but I’m thinkin it’ll be some gait gey
and far awa?’

‘Ay, it’s far, far.--It wud tak a body--lat me see--maybe half a year
to trevel there upo’ ’s ain fit,’ answered Kirsty, after some
meditation.

‘And me a hantle langer, my feet’s sae odious heavy!’ remarked Steenie
with a sigh.

As they drew near the house, their mother saw them coming, and went to
the door to meet them.

‘We’re wantin a bit o’ a can’le, and a spunk or twa, mother,’ said
Kirsty.

‘Ye s’ get that,’ answered Marion. ‘But what want ye a can’le for i’
the braid mids o’ the daylicht?’

‘We want to gang doon a hole,’ replied Steenie with flashing eyes, ‘and
see the pictur o’ the bonny man.’

‘Hoot, Steenie! I tellt ye it wasna there,’ interposed Kirsty.

‘Na,’ returned Steenie; ‘ye only said yon hole wasna that place. Ye
said the bonny man _was_ there, though I michtna see him. Ye didna say
the pictur wasna there.’

‘The pictur’s no there, Steenie.--We’ve come upon a hole, mother, ’at
we want to gang doon intil and see what it’s like,’ said Kirsty.

‘The weicht o’ my feet brak throu intil ’t,’ added Steenie.

‘Preserve ’s, lassie! tak tent whaur ye cairry the bairn!’ cried the
mother. ‘But, eh, tak him whaur ye like,’ she substituted, correcting
herself. ‘Weel ken I ye’ll tak him naegait but whaur it’s weel he sud
gang! The laddie needs twa mithers, and the Merciful has gien him the
twa! Ye’re full mair his mither nor me, Kirsty!’

She asked no more questions, but got them the candle and let them go.
They hastened back, Steenie in his most jubilant mood, which seemed
always to have in it a touch of deathly frost and a flash as of the
primal fire. What could be the strange displacement or maladjustment
which, in the brain harbouring the immortal thing, troubled it so, and
made it yearn after an untasted liberty? The source of his jubilance
now was easy to tell: the idea of the bonny man was henceforth, in that
troubled brain of his, associated with the place into which they were
about to descend.

The moment they reached the spot, Kirsty, to the renewed astonishment
of Steenie, dived at once into the ground at her feet, and disappeared.

‘Kirsty! Kirsty!’ he cried out after her, and danced like a terrified
child. Then he shook with a fresh dismay at the muffled sound that came
back to him in answer from the unseen hollows of the earth.

Already Kirsty stood at the bottom of the sloping tunnel, and was
lighting her candle. When it burned up, she found herself looking into
a level gallery, the roof of which she could touch. It was not an
excavation, but had been trenched from the surface, for it was roofed
with great slabs of stone. Its sides, of rough stones, were six or
seven feet apart at the floor, which was paved with small boulders, but
sloped so much toward each other that at the top their distance was
less by about two and a half feet. Kirsty was, as I have said, a keen
observer, and her power of seeing had been greatly developed through
her constant conscientious endeavour to realize every description she
read.

She went on about ten or twelve yards, and came to a bend in the
gallery, succeeded by a sort of chamber, whence branched a second
gallery, which soon came to an end. The place was in truth not unlike a
catacomb, only its two galleries were built, and much wider than the
excavated thousands in the catacombs. She turned back to the entrance,
there left her candle alight, and again startled Steenie, still staring
into the mouth of the hole, with her sudden reappearance.

‘Wud ye like to come doon, Steenie?’ she said. ‘It’s a queer place.’

‘Is ’t awfu’ fearsome?’ asked Steenie, shrinking.

His feeling of dismay at the cavernous, the terrene dark, was not
inconsistent with his pleasure in being out on the wild waste hillside,
when heaven and earth were absolutely black, not seldom the whole of
the night, in utter loneliness to eye or ear, and his never then
feeling anything like dread. Then and there only did he seem to have
room enough. His terror was of the smallest pressure on his soul, the
least hint at imprisonment. That he could not rise and wander about
among the stars at his will, shaped itself to him as the heaviness of
his feet holding him down. His feet were the loaded gyves that made of
the world but a roomy prison. The limitless was essential to his
conscious wellbeing.

‘No a bittock,’ answered Kirsty, who felt awe anywhere--on hilltop, in
churchyard, in sunlit silent room--but never fear. ‘It’s as like the
place I was tellin ye aboot--’

‘Ay, the cat-place!’ interrupted Steenie.

‘The place wi’ the pictur,’ returned Kirsty.

Steenie darted forward, shot head-first into the hole as he had seen
Kirsty do, and crept undismayed to the bottom of the slope. Kirsty
followed close behind, but he was already on his feet when she joined
him. He grasped her arm eagerly, his face turned from her, and his eyes
gazing fixedly into the depth of the gallery, lighted so vaguely by the
candle on the floor of its entrance.

‘I think I saw him!’ he said in a whisper full of awe and delight. ‘I
think I did see him!--but, Kirsty, hoo am I to be sure ’at I saw him?’

‘Maybe ye did and maybe ye didna see him,’ replied Kirsty; ‘but that
disna metter sae muckle, for he’s aye seein you; and ye’ll see him, and
be sure ’at ye see him, whan the richt time comes.’

‘Ye div think that, Kirsty?’

‘Ay div I,’ returned Kirsty, confidently.

‘I s’ wait,’ answered Steenie, and in silence followed Kirsty along the
gallery.

This was Steenie’s first, and all but his last descent into the
_earth-house_, or _Picts’ House_, or _weem_, as a place of the sort is
called: there are many such in the east of Scotland, their age and
origin objects of merest conjecture. The moment he was out of it, he
fled to the Horn.

The next Sunday he heard read at church the story of the burial and
resurrection of the Lord, and unavoidably after their talk about the
catacombs, associated the chamber they had just discovered with the
tomb in which ‘they laid him,’ at the same time concluding the top of
the hill, where he had, as he believed, on certain favoured nights met
the bonny man, the place whence he ascended--to come again as Steenie
thought he did! The earth-house had no longer any attraction for
Steenie: the bonny man was not there; he was risen! He was somewhere
above the mountain-top haunted by Steenie, and that he sometimes
descended upon it Steenie already knew, for had he not seen him there!

Happy Steenie! Happier than so many Christians who, more in their
brain-senses, but far less in their heart-senses than he, haunt the
sepulchre as if the dead Jesus lay there still, and forget to walk the
world with him who dieth no more, the living one!

But his sister took a great liking to the place, nor was repelled by
her mistaken suspicion that there the people of the land in times
unknown had buried some of their dead. In the hot days, when the
earth-house was cool, and in the winter when the thick blanket of the
snow lay over it, and it felt warm as she entered it from the frosty
wind, she would sit there in the dark, sometimes imagining herself one
of the believers of the old time, thinking the Lord was at hand,
approaching in person to fetch her and her friends. When the spring
came, she carried down sod and turf, and made for herself a seat in the
central chamber, there to sit and think. By and by she fastened an oil
lamp to the wall, and would light its rush-pith wick, and read by it.
Occasionally she made a good peat fire, for she had found a chimney
that went sloping into the upper air; and if it did not always draw
well, peat-smoke is as pleasant as wholesome, and she could bear a good
deal of its smothering. Not unfrequently she carried her book there
when no one was likely to want her, and enjoyed to the full the rare
and delightful sense of absolute safety from interruption. Sometimes
she would make a little song there, with which as she made it its own
music would come, and she would model the air with her voice as she
wrote the words in a little book on her knee.




CHAPTER XIII

A VISIT FROM FRANCIS GORDON


The summer following Gordon’s first session at college, castle Weelset
and Corbyknowe saw nothing of him. No one missed him much, and but for
his father’s sake no one would have thought much about him. Kirsty, as
one who had told him the truth concerning himself, thought of him
oftener than anyone except her father.

The summer after, he paid a short visit to castle Weelset, and went one
day to Corbyknowe, where he left a favourable impression upon all,
which impression Kirsty had been the readier to receive because of the
respect she felt for him as a student. The old imperiousness which made
him so unlike his father had retired into the background; his smile,
though not so sweet, came oftener; and his carriage was full of
courtesy. But something was gone which his old friends would gladly
have seen still. His behaviour in the old time was not so pleasant, but
he had been as one of the family. Often disagreeable, he was yet
loving. Now, he laid himself out to make himself acceptable as a
superior. Freed so long from his mother’s lowering influences, what was
of his father in him might by this time have come more to the surface
but for certain ladies in Edinburgh, connections of the family, who,
influenced by his good looks and pleasant manners, and possibly by his
position in the Gordon country, sought his favour by deeds of flattery,
and succeeded in spoiling him not a little.

Steenie happening to be about the house when he came, Francis behaved
to him so kindly that the gentle creature, overcome with grateful
delight, begged him to go and see a house he and Kirsty were building.

In some families the games of the children mainly consist in the
construction of dwellings, of this kind or that--castle, or ship, or
cave, or nest in the treetop--according to the material attainable. It
is an outcome of the aboriginal necessity for shelter, this instinct of
burrowing: Welbeck Abbey is the development of a _weem_ or _Picts’
house_. Steenie had very early shown it, probably from a vague
consciousness of weakness, and Kirsty came heartily to his aid in
following it, with the reaction of waking in herself a luxurious idea
of sheltered safety. Northern children cherish in their imaginations
the sense of protection more, I fancy, than others. This is partly
owing to the severity of their climate, the snow and wind, the rain and
sleet, the hail and darkness they encounter. I doubt whether an English
child can ever have such a sense of protection as a Scots bairn in bed
on a winter night, his mother in the nursery, and the wind howling like
a pack of wolves about the house.

Francis consented to go with Steenie to see his house, and Kirsty
naturally accompanied them. By this time she had gathered the little
that was known, and there is very little known yet, concerning _Picts’
houses_, and as they went it occurred to her that it would be pleasant
to the laird to be shown a thing on his own property of which he had
never heard, and which, in the eyes of some, would add to its value.
She took the way, therefore, that led past the weem.

She had so well cleared out its entrance, that it was now comparatively
easy of access, else I doubt if the young laird would have risked the
spoiling of his admirably fitting clothes to satisfy the mild curiosity
he felt regarding Kirsty’s discovery. As it was, he pulled off his coat
before entering, despite her assurance that he ‘needna fear blaudin
onything.’

She went in before him to light her candle and he followed. As she
showed him the curious place, she gave him the results of her reading
about such constructions, telling him who had written concerning them,
and what they had written. ‘There’s mair o’ them, I gether,’ she said,
‘and mair remarkable anes, in oor ain coonty nor in ony ither in
Scotlan’. I hae mysel seen nane but this.’ Then she told him how
Steenie had led the way to its discovery. By the time she ended, Gordon
was really interested--chiefly, no doubt, in finding himself possessor
of a thing which many men, learned and unlearned, would think worth
coming to see.

‘Did you find this in it?’ he asked, seating himself on her little
throne of turf.

‘Na; I put that there mysel,’ answered Kirsty. ‘There was naething
intil the place, jist naething ava! There was naething ye cud hae
pickit aff o’ the flure. Gien it hadna been oot o’ the gait o’ the
win’, ye wud hae thoucht it had sweepit it clean. Ye cud hae tellt by
naething intil’t what ever it was meant for, hoose or byre or barn,
kirk or kirkyard. It had been jist a hidy-hole in troubled times, whan
the cuintry wud be swarmin wi’ stravaguin marauders!’

‘What made ye the seat for, Kirsty?’ asked Gordon, calling her by her
name for the first time, and falling into the mother tongue with a
flash of his old manner.

‘I come here whiles,’ she answered, ‘to be my lane and read a bit. It’s
sae quaiet. Eternity seems itsel to come and hide in ’t whiles. I’m
tempit whiles to bide a’ nicht.’

‘Isna ’t awfu’ cauld?’

‘Na, no aften that. It’s fine and warm i’ the winter. And I can licht a
fire whan I like.--But ye hae na yer coat on, Francie! I oucht na to
hae latten ye bide sae lang!’

He shivered, rose, and made his way out. Steenie stood in the sunlight
waiting for them.

‘Why, Steenie,’ said Gordon, ‘you brought me to see your house: why
didn’t you come in with me?’

‘Na, na! I’m feart for my feet: this is no _my_ hoose!’ answered
Steenie. ‘I’m biggin ane. Kirsty’s helpin me: I cudna big a hoose
wantin Kirsty! That’s what I wud hae ye see, no this ane. This is
Kirsty’s hoose. It was Kirsty wantit ye to see this ane.--Na, it’s no
mine,’ he added reflectively. ‘I ken I maun come til ’t some day, but I
s’ bide oot o’ ’t as lang’s I can. I like the hill a heap better.’

‘What _does_ he mean?’ asked Francis, turning to Kirsty.

‘Ow, he has a heap o’ notions o’ ’s ain!’ answered Kirsty, who did not
care, especially in his presence, to talk about her brother save to
those who loved him.

When Francis turned again, he saw Steenie a good way up the hill.

‘Where does he want to take me, Kirsty? Is it far?’ he asked.

‘Ay, it’s a gey bitty; it’s nearhan’ at the tap o’ the Horn, a wee
ayont it.’

‘Then I think I shall not go,’ returned Francis. ‘I will come another
day.’

‘Steenie! Steenie!’ cried Kirsty, ‘he’ll no gang the day. He maun gang
hame. He says he’ll come anither time. Haud ye awa on to yer hoose; I
s’ be wi’ ye by and by.’

Steenie went up the hill, and Kirsty and Francis walked toward
Corbyknowe.

‘Has no young man appeared yet to put Steenie’s nose out of joint,
Kirsty?’ asked Gordon.

Kirsty thought the question rude, but answered, with quiet dignity, ‘No
ane. I never had muckle opinion o’ _yoong_ men, and dinna care aboot
their company.--But what are ye thinkin o’ duin yersel--I mean, whan
ye’re throu wi’ the college?’ she continued. ‘Ye’ll surely be comin
hame to tak things intil yer ain han’? My father says whiles he’s some
feart they’re no bein made the maist o’.’

‘The property must look after itself, Kirsty. I will be a soldier like
my father. If it could do without him when he was in India, it may just
as well do without me. As long as my mother lives, she shall do what
she likes with it.’

Thus talking, and growing more friendly as they went, they walked
slowly back to the house. There Francis mounted his horse and rode
away, and for more than two years they saw nothing of him.




CHAPTER XIV

STEENIE’S HOUSE


Steenie seemed always to experience a strange sort of terror while
waiting for anyone to come out of the weem, into which he never
entered; and it was his repugnance to the place that chiefly moved him
to build a house of his own. He may have also calculated on being able,
with such a refuge at hand, to be on the hill in all weathers. They
still made use of their little hut as before, and Kirsty still kept her
library in it, but it was at the root of the Horn, and Steenie loved
the peak of it more than any other spot in his narrow world.

I have already said that when, on the occasion of its discovery,
Steenie, for the first and the last time, came out of the weem, he fled
to the Horn. There he roamed for hours, possessed with the feeling that
he had all but lost Kirsty who had taken possession of a house into
which he could never accompany her. For himself he would like a house
on the very top of the Horn, not one inside it!

Near the top was a little scoop out of the hill, sheltered on all sides
except the south, which, the one time I saw it, reminded me strongly of
Dante’s _grembo_ in the purgatorial hill, where the upward pilgrims had
to rest outside the gate, because of the darkness during which no man
could go higher. Here, it is true, were no flowers to weave a pattern
upon its carpet of green; true also, here were no beautiful angels, in
green wings and green garments, poised in the sweet night-air, watchful
with their short, pointless, flaming swords against the creeping enemy;
but it was, nevertheless, the loveliest carpet of grass and moss, and
as to the angels, I find it impossible to imagine, even in the heavenly
host, one heart more guardant than that of Kirsty, one truer, or more
devoted to its charge. The two were together as the child of earth, his
perplexities and terrors ever shot through with flashes of insight and
hope, and the fearless, less imaginative, confident angel, appointed to
watch and ward and see him safe through the loose-cragged mountain-pass
to the sunny vales beyond.

On the northern slope of the hollow, full in the face of the sun, a
little family of rocks had fallen together, odd in shapes and positions
but of long stable equilibrium, with narrow spaces between them. The
sun was throwing his last red rays among these rocks when Steenie the
same evening wandered into the little valley. The moment his eyes fell
upon them, he said in his heart, ‘Yon’s the place for a hoose! I’ll get
Kirsty to big ane, and mebbe she’ll come and bide in ’t wi’ me whiles!’

In his mind there were for some years two conflicting ideas of refuge,
one embodied in the heathery hut with Kirsty, the other typified by the
uplifted loneliness, the air and the space of the mountain upon which
the bonny man sometimes descended: for the last three years or more the
latter idea had had the upper hand: now it seemed possible to have the
two kinds of refuge together, where the more material would render the
more spiritual easier of attainment! Such were not Steenie’s words;
indeed he used none concerning the matter; but such were his vague
thoughts--feelings rather, not yet thoughts.

The spot had indeed many advantages. For one thing, the group of rocks
was the ready skeleton of the house Steenie wanted. Again, if the snow
sometimes lay deeper there than in other parts of the hill, there first
it began to melt. A third advantage was that, while, as I have said,
the valley was protected by higher ground everywhere but on the south,
it there afforded a large outlook over the boggy basin and over the
hills beyond its immediate rim, to a horizon in which stood some of the
loftier peaks of the highland mountains.

When Steenie’s soul was able for a season to banish the nameless forms
that haunt the dim borders of insanity, he would sit in that valley for
hours, regarding the wider-spread valley below him, in which he knew
every height and hollow, and, with his exceptionally keen sight, he
could descry signs of life where another would have beheld but an
everyway dead level. Not a live thing, it seemed almost, could spread
wing or wag tail, but Steenie would become thereby aware of its
presence. Kirsty, boastful to her parents of the faculty of Steenie,
said to her father one day,

‘I dinna believe, father, wi’ Steenie on the bog, a reid worm cud stick
up his heid oot o’ ’t ohn him seen ’t!’

‘I’m thinkin that’s no sayin over muckle, wuman!’ returned David. ‘I
never jist set mysel to luik, but I dinna think I ever did tak notice
o’ a worm settin up that heid o’ his oot o’ a bog. I dinna think it’s a
sile they care aboot. I kenna what they would get to please them there.
It’s the yerd they live upo’. Whaur craps winna grow, I doobt gien
worms can live.’

Kirsty laughed: she had made herself ridiculous, but the ridicule of
some is sweeter than the praise of others.

Steenie set about his house-building at once, and when he had got as
far as he could without her, called for help from Kirsty, who never
interfered with, and never failed him. Divots he was able to cut, and
of them he provided a good quantity, but when it came to moving stones,
two pairs of hands were often wanted. Indeed, before the heavier work
of ‘Steenie’s hoosie’ was over, the two had to beg the help of more--of
their father, and of men from the farm.

During its progress, Phemy Craig paid rather a lengthened visit to
Corbyknowe, and often joined the two in their labour on the Horn. She
was not very strong, but would carry a good deal in the course of the
day; and through this association with Steenie, her dread of him
gradually vanished, and they became comrades.

When Steenie’s design was at length carried out, they had built up with
stone and lime the open spaces between several of the rocks; had cased
these curtain-walls outside and lined them inside with softer and
warmer walls of fells or divots cut from the green sod of the hill; and
had covered in the whole as they found it possible--very irregularly no
doubt, but smoothing up all the corners and hollows with turf and
heather. This done, one of the men who was a good thatcher, fastened
the whole roof down with strong lines, so that the wind should not get
under and strip it off. The result was a sort of burrow, consisting of
several irregular compartments with open communication--or rather,
perhaps, of a single chamber composed of recesses. One small rock they
included quite: Steenie would make it serve for a table, and some of
its inequalities for shelves. In one of the compartments or recesses,
they contrived a fireplace, and in another a tolerably well-concealed
exit; for Steenie, like a trap-door-spider, could not endure the
thought of only one way out: one way was enough for getting in, but two
were needful for getting out, his best refuge being the open hill.

The night came at length when Steenie, in whose heart was a solemn,
silent jubilation, would take formal possession of his house. It was
soft and warm, in the middle of the month of July. The sun had been set
about an hour when he got up to leave the parlour, where the others
always sat in the summer, and where Steenie would now and then appear
among them. As usual he said goodnight to no one of them, but stole
gently out.

Kirsty knew what was in his mind, but was careful not to show that she
took any heed of his departure. As soon as her father and mother
retired, however, when he had been gone about half an hour, she put
aside her work, and hastened out. She felt a little anxious about him,
though she could not have said why. She had no dread of displeasing by
rejoining him; nothing, but a sight of the bonny man could, she knew,
give him more delight than having her to share his night-watch with
him. This she had done several times, and they were the only occasions
on which, so far as she could tell, he had slept any part of the night.

Folded in the twilight, Earth lay as still and peaceful as if she had
never done any wrong, never seen anything wrong in one of her children.
There was light everywhere, and darkness everywhere to make it strange.
A pale green gleam prevailed in the heavens, as if the world were a
glow-worm that sent abroad its home-born radiance into space, and
coloured the sky. In the green light rested a few small solid clouds
with sharp edges, and almost an assertion of repose. Throughout the
night it would be no darker! The sun seemed already to have begun to
rise, only he would be all night about it. From the door she saw the
point of the Horn clear against the green sky: Steenie would be up
there soon! he was hurrying thither! Sometimes he went very leisurely,
stopping and gazing, or sitting down to meditate: he would not do so
that night! A special solemnity in his countenance made her sure that
he would go straight to his new house. But she could walk faster than
he, and would not be long behind him!

The sky was full of pale stars, and Kirsty amused herself, as she went,
with arranging them--not into their constellations, though she knew the
shapes and names of most of them, but into mathematical figures. The
only star Steenie knew by name was the pole star, which, however, he
always called _The bonny man’s lantern_. Kirsty believed he had
thoughts of his own about many another, and a name for it too.

She had climbed the hill, and was drawing near the house, when she was
startled by a sound of something like singing, and stopped to listen.
She had never heard Steenie attempt to sing, and the very thought of
his doing so moved her greatly: she was always expecting something
marvellous to show itself in him. She drew nearer. It was not singing,
but it was something like it, or something trying to be like it--a
succession of broken, harsh, imperfect sounds, with here and there a
tone of brief sweetness. She thought she perceived in it an attempt at
melody, but the many notes that refused to be made, prevented her from
finding the melody intended, or the melody, rather, after which he was
feeling. The broken music ceased suddenly, and a different kind of
sound succeeded. She went yet nearer. He could not be reading: she had
tried to teach him to read, but the genuine effort he put forth to
learn made his head ache, and his eyes feel wild, he said, and she at
once gave up the endeavour. When she reached the door, she could
plainly hear him praying.

He had been accustomed to hear his father pray--always extempore. To
the Scot’s mind it is a perplexity how prayer and reading should ever
seem one. Kirsty went a little deeper into the matter when she said:--

‘The things that I want, I ken; and I maun hae them! There’s nae
necessity ava to tell me what I want. The buik may wauk a sense o’
want, I daur say, I dinna ken, but it maistly pits intil me the thoucht
o’ something a body micht weel want, withoot makin me awaur o’ wantin
’t at that preceese moment.’

Prayer, with Steenie, as well as with Kirsty, was the utterance,
audible or silent, in the ever open ear, of what was moving in him at
the time. This was what she now heard him say:--

‘Bonny man, I ken ye weel: there’s naebody in h’aven or earth ’at’s
like ye! Ye ken yersel I wad jist dee for ye; or gien there be onything
waur to bide nor deein, that’s what I would du for ye--gien ye wantit
it o’ me, that is, for I’m houpin sair ’at ye winna want it, I’m that
awfu cooardly! Oh bonny man, tak the fear oot o’ my hert, and mak me
ready jist to walk aff o’ the face o’ the warl’, weichty feet and a’,
to du yer wull, ohn thoucht twise aboot it! And eh, bonny man, willna
ye come doon sometime or lang, and walk the hill here, that I may luik
upo’ ye ance mair--as i’ the days of old, whan the starlicht muntain
shook wi’ the micht o’ the prayer ye heavit up til yer father in
h’aven? Eh, gien ye war but ance to luik in at the door o’ this my
hoose that ye hae gien me, it wud thenceforth be to me as the gate o’
paradise! But, ’deed, it’s that onygait, for it’s nigh whaur ye tak yer
walks abro’d. But gien ye _war_ to luik in at the door, and cry
_Steenie_! sune wud ye see whether I was in the hoose or no!--I thank
ye sair for this hoose: I’m gaein to hae a rich and a happy time upo’
this hill o’ Zion, whaur the feet o’ the ae man gangs walkin!--And eh,
bonny man, gie a luik i’ the face o’ my father and mither i’ their bed
ower at the Knowe; and I pray ye see ’at Kirsty’s gettin a fine sleep,
for she has a heap o’ tribble wi’ me. I’m no worth min’in’, yet ye min’
me: she is worth min’in’!--and that clever!--as ye ken wha made her!
And luik upo’ this bit hoosie, ’at I ca’ my ain, and they a’ helpit me
to bigg, but as a lean-to til the hoose at hame, for I’m no awa frae it
or them--jist as that hoose and this hoose and a’ the hooses are a’
jist but bairnies’ hooses, biggit by themsels aboot the big flure o’
thy kitchie and i’ the neuks o’ the same--wi’ yer ain truffs and stanes
and divots, sir.’

Steenie’s voice ceased, and Kirsty, thinking his prayer had come to an
end, knocked at the door, lest her sudden appearance should startle
him. From his knees, as she knew by the sound of his rising, Steenie
sprang up, came darting to the door with the cry, ‘It’s yersel! It’s
yersel, bonny man!’ and seemed to tear it open. Oh, how sorry was
Kirsty to stand where the loved of the human was not! She had almost
turned and fled.

‘It’s only me, Steenie!’ she faltered, nearly crying.

Steenie stood and stared trembling. Neither, for a moment or two, could
speak.

‘Eh, Steenie,’ said Kirsty at length, ‘I’m richt sorry I disappintit
ye! I didna ken what I was duin. I oucht to hae turnt and gane hame
again!’

‘Ye cudna help it,’ answered Steenie. ‘Ye cudna be him, or ye wud! But
ye’re the neist best, and richt welcome. I’m as glaid as can be to see
ye, Kirsty. Come awa ben the hoose.’

Kirsty followed him in silence, and sat down dejected. The loving heart
saw it.

‘Maybe ye’re him efter a’!’ said Steenie. ‘He can tak ony shape he
likes. I wudna won’er gien ye was him! Ye’re unco like him ony gait!’

‘Na, na, Steenie! I’m far frae that! But I wud fain be what he wud hae
me, jist as ye wud yersel. Sae ye maun tak me, what I am, for his sake,
Steenie!’

This was the man’s hour, not the dog’s, yet Steenie threw himself at
her feet.

‘Gang oot a bit by yersel, Steenie,’ she said, caressing him with her
hand. ‘That’s what ye like best, I ken! Ye needna min’ me! I only
cam to see ye sattlet intil yer ain hoose. I’ll bide a gey bit. Gang ye
oot, an ken ’at I’m i’ the hoose, and that ye can come back to me whan
ye like. I hae my buik, and can sit and read fine.’

‘Ye’re aye richt, Kirsty!’ answered Steenie, rising. ‘Ye aye ken what
I’m needin. I maun win oot, for I’m some chokin like.--But jist come
here a minute first,’ he went on, leading the way to the door. There he
pointed up into the wild of stars, and said, ‘Ye see yon star o’ the
tap o’ that ither ane ’at’s brichter nor itsel?’

‘I see ’t fine, and ken ’t weel,’ answered Kirsty.

‘Weel, whan that starnie comes richt ower the white tap o’ yon stane i’
the mids o’ that side o’ the howe, I s’ be here at the door.’

Kirsty looked at the stone, saw that the star would arrive at the point
indicated in about an hour, and said, ‘Weel, I’ll be expeckin ye,
Steenie!’ whereupon he departed, going farther up the hill to court the
soothing of the silent heaven.

In conditions of consciousness known only to himself and
incommunicable, the poor fellow sustained an all but continuous
hand-to-hand struggle with insanity, more or less agonized according to
the nature and force of its varying assault; in which struggle, if not
always victorious, he had yet never been defeated. Often tempted to
escape misery by death, he had hitherto stood firm. Some part of every
solitary night was spent, I imagine, in fighting that or other evil
suggestion. Doubtless, what kept him lord of himself through all the
truth-aping delusions that usurped his consciousness, was his
unyielding faith in the bonny man.

The name by which he so constantly thought and spoke of the saviour of
men was not of his own finding. The story was well known of the idiot,
who, having partaken of the Lord’s supper, was heard, as he retired,
murmuring to himself, ‘Eh, the bonny man! the bonny man!’ And persons
were not wanting, sound in mind as large of heart, who thought the
idiot might well have seen him who came to deliver them that were
bound. Steenie took up the tale with most believing mind. Never
doubting the man had seen the Lord, he responded with the passionate
desire himself to see _the bonny man_. It awoke in him while yet quite
a boy, and never left him, but, increasing as he grew, became, as well
it might, a fixed idea, a sober, waiting, unebbing passion, urging him
to righteousness and lovingkindness.

Kirsty took from her pocket an old translation of Plato’s Phædo, and
sat absorbed in it until the star, unheeded of her, attained its goal,
and there was Steenie by her side! She shut the book and rose.

‘I’m a heap better, Kirsty,’ said Steenie. ‘The ill colour’s awa doon
the stair, and the saft win’ ’s made its w’y oot o’ the lift, an’ ’s
won at me. I ’maist think a han’ cam and clappit my heid. Sae noo I’m
jist as weel ’s there’s ony need to be o’ this side the mist. It helpit
me a heap to ken ’at ye was sittin there: I cud aye rin til ye!--Noo
gang awa to yer bed, and tak a guid sleep. I’m some thinkin I’ll be
hame til my br’akfast.’

‘Weel, mother’s gaein to the toon the morn, and I’ll be wantit fell
sair; I may as weel gang!’ answered Kirsty, and without a goodnight, or
farewell of any sort, for she knew how he felt in regard to
leave-takings, Kirsty left him, and went slowly home. The moon was up
and so bright that every now and then she would stop for a moment and
read a little from her book, and then walk on thinking about it.

From that night, even in the stormy dark of winter, Kirsty was not
nearly so anxious about Steenie away from the house: on the Horn he had
his place of refuge, and she knew he never ventured on the bog after
sunset. He always sought her when he wanted to sleep in the daytime,
but he was gradually growing quieter in his mind, and, Kirsty had
reason to think, slept a good deal more at night.

But the better he grew the more had he the look of one expecting
something; and Kirsty often heard him saying to himself--‘It’s comin!
it’s comin!’

‘And at last,’ she said, telling his story many years after, ‘at last
it cam; and ahint it, I doobtna, cam the face o’ the bonny man!’




CHAPTER XV

PHEMY CRAIG


Things went on in the same way for four years more, the only visible
change being that Kirsty seldomer went about bare-footed. She was now
between two and three and twenty. Her face, whose ordinary expression
had always been of quiet, was now in general quieter still; but when
heart or soul was moved, it would flash and glow as only such a face
could. Live revelation of deeps rarely rippled save by the breath of
God, how could it but grow more beautiful! Cloud or shadow of cloud was
hardly ever to be seen upon it. Her mother, much younger than her
father, was still well and strong, and Kirsty, still not much wanted at
home, continued to spend the greater part of her time with her brother
and her books. As to her person, she was now in the first flower of
harmonious womanly strength. Nature had indeed done what she could to
make her a lady, but Nature was not her mother, and Kirsty’s essential
ladyhood came from higher-up, namely, from the Source itself of Nature.
Simple truth was its crown, and grace was the garment of it. To see her
walk or run was to look on the divine idea of Motion.

As for Steenie, he looked the same loose lank lad as before, with a
smile almost too sad to be a smile, and a laugh in which there was
little hilarity. His pleasures were no doubt deep and high, but seldom,
even to Kirsty, manifested themselves except in the afterglow.

Phemy was now almost a woman. She was rather little, but had a nice
figure, which she knew instinctively how to show to advantage. Her main
charm lay in her sweet complexion--strong in its contrast of colours,
but wonderfully perfect in the blending of them: the gradations in the
live picture were exquisite. She was gentle of temper, with a shallow,
birdlike friendliness, an accentuated confidence that everyone meant
her well, which was very taking. But she was far too much pleased with
herself to be a necessity to anyone else. Her father grew more and more
proud of her, but remained entirely independent of her; and Kirsty
could not help wondering at times how he would feel were he given one
peep into the chaotic mind which he fancied so lovely a cosmos. A good
fairy godmother would for her discipline, Kirsty imagined, turn her
into the prettiest wax doll, but with real eyes, and put her in a glass
case for the admiration of all, until she sickened of her very
consciousness. But Kirsty loved the pretty doll, and cherished any
influence she had with her against a possible time when it might be
sorely needed. She still encouraged her, therefore, to come to
Corbyknowe as often as she felt inclined. Her father never interfered
with any of her goings and comings. At the present point of my
narrative, however, Kirsty began to notice that Phemy did not care so
much for being with her as hitherto.

She had been, of course, for some time the cynosure of many
neighbouring eyes, but had taken only the more pleasure in the
cynosure, none in the persons with the eyes, all of whom she regarded
as much below her. To herself she was the only young lady in Tiltowie,
an assurance strengthened by the fact that no young man had yet
ventured to make love to her, which she took as a general admission of
their social inferiority, behaving to all the young men the more
sweetly in consequence.

The tendency of a weakly artistic nature to occupy itself much with its
own dress was largely developed in her. It was wonderful, considering
the smallness of her father’s income, how well she arrayed herself. She
could make a poor and scanty material go a great way in setting off her
attractions. The judicial element of the neighbourhood, not content
with complaining that she spent so much of her time in making her
dresses, accused her of spending much money upon them, whereas she
spent less than most of the girls of the neighbourhood, who cared only
for a good stuff, a fast colour, and the fashion: fit to figure and
fitness to complexion they did not trouble themselves about. The
possession of a fine gown was the important thing. As to how it made
them look, they had not imagination enough to consider that.

She possessed, however, another faculty on which she prided herself far
more, her ignorance and vanity causing her to mistake it for a grand
accomplishment--the faculty of verse-making. She inherited a certain
modicum of her father’s rhythmic and riming gift; she could string
words almost as well as she could string beads, and many thought her
clever because she could do what they could not. Her aunt judged her
verses marvellous, and her father considered them full of promise. The
minister, on the other hand, held them unmistakably silly--as her
father would had they not been hers and she his. Only the poorest part
of his poetic equipment had propagated in her, and had he taught her
anything, she would not have overvalued it so much. Herself full of
mawkish sentimentality, her verses could not fail to be foolish, their
whole impulse being the ambition that springs from self-admiration. She
had begun to look down on Kirsty, who would so gladly have been a
mother to the motherless creature; she was not a lady! Neither in
speech, manners, nor dress, was she or her mother genteel! Their free,
hearty, simple bearing, in which was neither smallest roughness nor
least suggestion of affected refinement, was not to Phemy’s taste, and
she began to assume condescending ways.

It was of course a humiliation to Phemy to have an aunt in Mrs.
Bremner’s humble position, but she loved her after her own feeble
fashion, and, although she would willingly have avoided her upon
occasion, went not unfrequently to the castle to see her; for the
kindhearted woman spoiled her. Not only did she admire her beauty, and
stand amazed at her wonderful cleverness, but she drew from her little
store a good part of the money that went to adorn the pretty butterfly.
She gave her at the same time the best of advice, and imagined she
listened to it; but the young who take advice are almost beyond the
need of it. Fools must experience a thing themselves before they will
believe it; and then, remaining fools, they wonder that their children
will not heed their testimony. Faith is the only charm by which the
experience of one becomes a vantage-ground for the start of another.




CHAPTER XVI

SHAM LOVE


One day Phemy went to Castle Weelset to see her aunt, and, walking down
the garden to find her, met the young laird.

Through respect for the memory of his father, he had just received from
the East India Company a commission in his father’s regiment; and
having in about six weeks to pass the slight examination required, and
then sail to join it, had come to see his mother and bid her goodbye.
He was a youth no longer, but a handsome young fellow, with a pale face
and a rather weary, therefore what some would call an interesting look.
For many months he had been leading an idle life.

He lifted his hat to Phemy, looked again, and recognised her. They had
been friends when she was a child, but since he saw her last she had
grown a young woman. She was gliding past him with a pretty bow, and a
prettier blush and smile, when he stopped and held out his hand.

‘It’s not possible!’ he said; ‘you can’t be little Phemy!--Yet you must
be!--Why, you’re a grown lady! To think how you used to sit on my knee,
and stroke my face! How is your father?’

Phemy murmured a shy answer, a little goose but blushing a very
flamingo. In her heart she saw before her the very man for her hero. A
woman’s hero gives some measure, not of what she is, hardly of what she
would like to be, but of what she would like to pass for: here was the
ideal for which Phemy had so long been waiting, and wherein consisted
his glory? In youth, position, and good looks! She gazed up at him with
a mixture of shyness and boldness not uncommon in persons of her silly
kind, and Francis not only saw but felt that she was an unusually
pretty girl: although he had long ceased to admire his mother, he still
admired the sort of beauty she once had. He saw also that she was very
prettily dressed, and, being one of those men who, imagining themselves
gentlemen, feel at liberty to take liberties with women socially their
inferiors, he plucked a pheasant-eye-narcissus in the border, and
said--at the same time taking the leave he asked,--

‘Let me finish your dress by adding this to it! Have you got a
pin?--There!--all you wanted to make you just perfect!’

Her face was now in a very flame. She saw he was right in the flower he
had chosen, and he saw, not his artistic success only, but her
recognition of it as well, and was gratified. He had a keen feeling of
harmony in form and colour, and flattered women, while he paraded his
own insight, by bringing it to bear on their dress.

The flower, in its new position, seemed radiant with something of the
same beauty in which it was set; it was _like_ the face above it, and
hinted a sympathetic relation with the whole dainty person of the girl.
But in truth there was more expression in the flower than was yet in
the face. The flower expressed what God was thinking of when he made
it; the face what the girl was thinking of herself. When she ceased
thinking of herself then, like the flower, she would show what God was
thinking of when he made her.

Francis, like the man he was, thought what a dainty little lady she
would make if he had the making of her, and at once began talking as he
never would have talked had she been what is conventionally called a
lady--with a familiarity, namely, to which their old acquaintance gave
him no right, and which showed him not his sister’s keeper. She, poor
child, was pleased with his presumption, taking it for a sign that he
regarded her as a lady; and from that moment her head at least was full
of the young laird. She had forgotten all she came about. When he
turned and walked down the garden, she walked alongside of him like a
linnet by a tall stork, who thought of her as a very pretty green frog.
Lost in delight at his kindness, and yet more at his admiration, she
felt as safe in his hands as if he had been her guardian angel: had he
not convinced her that her notion of herself was correct! Who should
know better whether she was a lady, whether she was lovely or not, than
this great, handsome, perfect gentleman! Unchecked by any question of
propriety, she accompanied him without hesitation into a little arbour
at the bottom of the garden, and sat down with him on the bench there
provided for the weary and the idle--in this case a going-to-be gallant
officer, bored to death by a week at home with his mother, and a girl
who spent the most of her time in making, altering, and wearing her
dresses.

‘How good it was of you, Phemy,’ he said, ‘to come and see me! I was
ready to cut my throat for want of something pretty to look at. I was
thinking it the ugliest place with the ugliest of people, wondering how
I had ever been able to live in it. How unfair I was! The whole country
is beautiful now!’

‘I am so glad,’ answered poor Phemy, hardly knowing what she said: it
was to her the story of a sad gentleman who fell in love at first sight
with a beautiful lady who was learning to love him through pity.

Her admiration of him was as clear as the red and white on her face;
and foolish Francis felt in his turn flattered, for he too was fond of
himself. There is no more pitiable sight to lovers of their kind, or
any more laughable to its haters, than two persons falling into the
love rooted in self-love. But possibly they are neither to be pitied
nor laughed at; they may be plunging thus into a saving hell.

‘You would like to make the world beautiful for me, Phemy?’ rejoined
Francis.

‘I should like to make it a paradise!’ returned Phemy.

‘A garden of Eden, and you the Eve in it?’ suggested Francis.

Phemy could find no answer beyond a confused look and a yet deeper
blush.

Talk elliptical followed, not unmingled with looks bold and shy. They
had not many objects of thought in common, therefore not many subjects
for conversation. There was no poetry in Gordon, and but the flimsiest
sentiment in Phemy. Her mind was feebly active, his full of tedium.
Hers was open to any temptation from him, and his to the temptation of
usurping the government of her world, of constituting himself the
benefactor of this innocent creature, and enriching her life with the
bliss of loving a noble object. Of course he meant nothing serious!
Equally of course he would do her no harm! To lose him would make her
miserable for a while, but she would not die of love, and would have
something to think about all her dull life afterward!

Phemy at length got frightened at the thought of being found with him,
and together they went to look for her aunt. Finding her in an outhouse
that was used for a laundry, Francis told Mrs. Bremner that they had
been in the garden ever so long searching for her, and he was very glad
of the opportunity of hearing about his old friend, Phemy’s father! The
aunt was not quite pleased, but said little.

The following Sunday she told the schoolmaster what had taken place,
and came home in a rage at the idiocy of a man who would not open his
eyes when his house was on fire. It was all her sister’s fault, she
said, for having married such a book-idiot! She felt indeed very
uncomfortable, and did her best in the way of warning; but Phemy seemed
so incapable of understanding what ill could come of letting the young
laird talk to her, that she despaired of rousing in her any sense of
danger, and having no authority over her was driven to silence for the
present. She would have spoken to her mistress, had she not plainly
foreseen that it would be of no use, that she would either laugh, and
say young men must have their way, or fly into a fury with Phemy for
trying to entrap her son, and with Mrs. Bremner for imagining he would
look at the hussey; while one thing was certain--that, if his mother
opposed him, Francis would persist.




CHAPTER XVII

A NOVEL ABDUCTION


Phemy went seldom to the castle, but the young laird and she met pretty
often: there was solitude enough in that country for an army of lovers.
Once or twice Gordon, at Phemy’s entreaty, went and took tea with her
at her father’s, and was cordially received by the schoolmaster, who
had no sense of impropriety in their strolling out together afterward,
leaving him well content with the company of his books. Before this had
happened twice, all the town was talking about it, and predicting evil.
Phemy heard nothing and feared nothing; but if feeling had been weather
and talk tempest, she would have been glad enough to keep within. So
rapidly, however, did the whirlwind of tongues extend its giration that
within half a week it reached Kirsty, and cast her into great trouble:
her poor silly defenceless Phemy, the child of her friend, was in
danger from the son of her father’s friend! Her father could do
nothing, for Francis would not listen to him, therefore she herself
must do something! She could not sit still and look on at the devil’s
work! Having always been on terms of sacred intimacy with her mother,
she knew more of the dangers of the world, while she was far safer from
them, than such girls as their natural guardians watch instead of
fortifying, and understood perfectly that an unwise man is not to be
trusted with a foolish girl. She felt, therefore, that inaction on her
part would be faithlessness to the teaching of her mother, as well as
treachery to her father, whose friend’s son was in peril of doing a
fearful wrong to one to whom he owed almost a brother’s protection for
his schoolmaster’s sake. She did not believe that Francis _meant_ Phemy
any harm, but she was certain he thought too much of himself ever to
marry her, and were the poor child’s feelings to go for nothing? She
had no hope that Phemy would listen to expostulation from her, but she
must in fairness, before she _did_ anything, have some speech with her!

She made repeated efforts, therefore, to see her, but without success.
She tried one time of the day after another, but, now by accident and
now by clever contrivance, Phemy was not to be come at. She had of late
grown tricky. One of the windows of the schoolmaster’s house commanded
the street in both directions, and Phemy commanded the window. When she
saw Kirsty coming, she would run into the garden and take refuge in the
summer-house, telling the servant on her way that she was going out,
and did not know what time she would be in. On more occasions than one
Kirsty said she would wait, when Phemy, learning she was not gone, went
out in earnest, and took care she had enough of waiting. Such shifts of
cunning no doubt served laughter to the lovers when next they met, but
they showed that Phemy was in some degree afraid of Kirsty.

Had Kirsty known the schoolmaster no better than his sister-in-law knew
him, she would, like her, have gone to him; but she was perfectly
certain that it would be almost impossible to rouse him, and that, once
convinced that his confidence had been abused, he would be utterly
furious, and probably bear himself in such fashion as to make Phemy
desperate, perhaps make her hate him. As it was, he turned a deaf ear
and indignant heart to every one of the reports that reached him. To
listen to it would be to doubt his child! Why should not the young
laird fall in love with her? What more natural? Was she not worth as
much honour as any man, be he who he might, could confer upon her? He
cursed the gossips of the town, and returned to his book.

Convinced at length that Phemy declined an interview, Kirsty resolved
to take her own way. And her way was a somewhat masterful one.

About a mile from castle Weelset, in the direction of Tiltowie, the
road was, for a few hundred yards, close-flanked by steep heathery
braes. Now Kirsty had heard of Phemy’s being several times seen on this
road of late; and near the part of it I have just described, she
resolved to waylay her. From the brae on the side next Corbyknowe she
could see the road for some distance in either direction.

For a week she watched in vain. She saw the two pass together more than
once, and she saw Francis pass alone, but she had never seen Phemy
alone.

One morning, just as she arrived at her usual outlook, she saw Mrs.
Bremner in the road below, coming from the castle, and ran down to
speak to her. In the course of their conversation she learned that
Francis was to start for London the next morning. When they parted, the
old woman resuming her walk to Tiltowie, Kirsty climbed the brae and
sat down in the heather. She was more anxious than ever. She had done
her best, but it had come to nothing, and now she had but one chance
more! That Francis Gordon was going away so soon was good news, but
what might not happen even yet before he went! At the same time she
could think of nothing better than keep watch as hitherto, firm as to
her course if she saw Phemy alone, but now determined to speak to both
if Francis was with her, and all but determined to speak to Francis
alone, if an opportunity of doing so should be given her.

All the morning and afternoon she watched in vain, eating nothing but a
piece of bread that Steenie brought her. At last, in the evening--it
was an evening in September, cold and clear, the sun down, and a
melancholy glory hanging over the place of his vanishing--she spied the
solitary form of Phemy hastening along the road in the direction of the
castle. Although she had been on the outlook for her all day, she was
at the moment so taken up with the sunset, that Phemy was almost under
where she stood before she saw her. She ran at full speed a hundred
yards, then slid down a part of the brae too steep to climb, and leaped
into the road a few feet in front of Phemy--so suddenly that the girl
started with a cry, and stopped. The moment she saw who it was,
however, she drew herself up, and would have passed with a stiff
greeting. But Kirsty stood in front of her, and would not permit her.

‘What do you want, Kirsty Barclay?’ demanded Phemy, who had within the
last week or two advanced considerably in confidence of manner; ‘I am
in a hurry!’

‘Ye’re in a waur hurry nor ye ken, for yer hurry sud be the ither
gait!’ answered Kirsty; ‘and I’m gaein to turn ye, or at least no gaein
to lat ye gang, ohn heard a bit o’ the trowth frae a woman aulder nor
yersel! Lassie, ye seem to think naebody worth hearkenin til a word
frae ’cep ae man, but I mean ye to hearken to me! Ye dinna ken what
ye’re aboot! I ken Francie Gordon a heap better nor you, and though I
ken nae ill o’ him, I ken as little guid: he never did naething yet but
to please himsel, and there never cam salvation or comfort to man,
woman, or bairn frae ony puir cratur like _him_!’

‘How dare you speak such lies of a gentleman behind his back!’ cried
Phemy, her eyes flashing. ‘He is a friend of mine, and I will not hear
him maligned!’

‘There’s sma’ hairm can come to ony man frae the trowth, Phemy!’
answered Kirsty. ‘Set the man afore me, and I’ll say word for word
intil his face what I’m sayin to you ahint his back.’

‘Miss Barclay,’ rejoined Phemy, with a rather pitiable attempt at
dignity, ‘I can permit no one to call me by my Christian name who
speaks ill of the man to whom I am engaged!’

‘That s’ be as ye please, Miss Craig. But I wud lat you ca’ me a’ the
ill names in the dictionar to get ye to heark to me! I’m tellin ye
naething but what’s true as deith.’

‘I call no one names. I am always civil to my neighbours whoever they
may be! I will not listen to you.’

‘Eh, lassie, there’s but feow o’ yer neebours ceevil to yer name,
whatever they be to yersel! There’s hardly ane has a guid word for ye,
Phemy!--Miss Craig--I beg yer pardon!’

‘Their lying tongues are nothing to me! I know what I am about! I will
not stay a moment longer with you! I have an important engagement.’

Once more, as several times already, she would have passed her, but
Kirsty stepped yet again in front of her.

‘I can weel tak yer word,’ replied Kirsty, ‘’at ye hae an engagement;
but ye said a minute ago ’at ye was engaged til him: tell me in ae
word--has Francie Gordon promised to merry ye?’

‘He has as good as asked me,’ answered Phemy, who had fits of
apprehensive recoil from a downright lie.

‘Noo there I cud ’maist believe ye! Ay, that wud be ill eneuch for
Francie! He never was a doonricht leear, sae lang’s I kenned him--ony
mair nor yersel! But, for God’s sake, Phemy, dinna imagine he’ll ever
merry ye, for that he wull not.’

‘This is really insufferable!’ cried Phemy, in a voice that began to
tremble from the approach of angry tears. ‘Pray, have _you_ a claim
upon him?’

‘Nane, no a shedow o’ ane,’ returned Kirsty. ‘But my father and his
father war like brithers, and we hae a’ to du what we can for his
father’s son. I wud fain haud him ohn gotten into trouble wi’ you or
ony lass.’

‘_I_ get him into trouble! Really, Miss Barclay, I do not know how to
understand you!’

‘I see I maun be plain wi’ ye: I wudna hae ye get him into trouble by
lattin him get you into trouble!--and that’s plain speykin!’

‘You insult me!’ said Phemy.

‘Ye drive me to speyk plain!’ answered Kirsty. ‘That lad, Francie
Gordon,----’

‘Speak with respect of your superiors,’ interrupted Phemy.

‘I’ll speyk wi’ respec o’ ony body I hae respec for!’ answered Kirsty.

‘Let me pass, you rude young woman!’ cried Phemy, who had of late been
cultivating in her imagination such speech as she thought would befit
Mrs. Gordon of castle Weelset.

‘I winna lat ye pass,’ answered Kirsty; ‘--that is, no til ye hear what
I hae to say to ye.’

‘Then you must take the consequences!’ rejoined Phemy, and, in the hope
that her lover would prove within earshot, began a piercing scream.

It roused something in Kirsty which she could not afterward identify:
she was sure it had nothing to do with anger. She felt, she said, as if
she had to deal with a child who insisted on playing with fire beside a
barrel of gunpowder. At the same time she did nothing but what she had
beforehand, in case of the repulse she expected, resolved upon. She
caught up the little would-be lady, as if she had been that same
naughty child, and the suddenness of the action so astonished her that
for a moment or two she neither moved nor uttered a sound. The next,
however, she began to shriek and struggle wildly, as if in the hug of a
bear or the coils of an anaconda, whereupon Kirsty closed her mouth
with one hand while she held her fast with the other. It was a violent
proceeding, doubtless, but Kirsty chose to be thus far an offender, and
yet farther.

Bearing her as she best could in one arm, she ran with her toward
Tiltowie until she reached a place where the road was bordered by a
more practicable slope; there she took to the moorland, and made for
Corbyknowe. Her resolve had been from the first, if Phemy would not
listen, to carry her, like the unmanageable child she was, home to the
mother whose voice had always been to herself the oracle of God. It was
in a loving embrace, though hardly a comfortable one, and to a heart
full of pity, that she pressed the poor little runaway lamb: her mother
was God’s vicar for all in trouble: she would bring the child to
reason! Her heart beating mightily with love and labour, she waded
through the heather, hurrying along the moor.

It was a strange abduction; but Kirsty was divinely simple, and that
way strange. Not until they were out of sight of the road did she set
her down.

‘Noo, Phemy,’ she said, panting as she spoke, ‘haud yer tongue like a
guid lassie, and come awa upo’ yer ain feet.’

Phemy took at once to her heels and her throat, and ran shrieking back
toward the road, with Kirsty after her like a grayhound. Phemy had for
some time given up struggling and trying to shriek, and was therefore
in better breath than Kirsty whose lungs were pumping hard, but she had
not a chance with her, for there was more muscle in one of Kirsty’s
legs than in Phemy’s whole body. In a moment she had her in her arms
again, and so fast that she could not even kick. She gave way and burst
into tears. Kirsty relaxed her hold.

‘What are you gaein to du wi’ me?’ sobbed Phemy.

‘I’m takin ye to the best place I ken--hame to my mother,’ answered
Kirsty, striding on for home-heaven as straight as she could go.

‘I winna gang!’ cried Phemy, whose Scotch had returned with her tears.

‘Ye _are_ gaein,’ returned Kirsty dryly; ‘--at least I’m takin ye, and
that’s neist best.’

‘What for? I never did ye an ill turn ’at I ken o’!’ said Phemy, and
burst afresh into tears of self-pity and sense of wrong.

‘Na, my bonny doo,’ answered Kirsty, ‘ye never did me ony ill turn! It
wasna in ye. But that’s the less rizzon ’at I sudna du you a guid ane.
And yer father has been like the Bountiful himsel to me! It’s no muckle
I can du for you or for him, but there’s ae thing I’m set upo’, and
that’s haudin ye frae Francie Gordon the nicht. He’ll be awa the morn!’

‘Wha tellt ye that?’ returned Phemy with a start.

‘Jist yer ain aunt, honest woman!’ answered Kirsty, ‘and sair she grat
as she telled me, but it wasna at his gaein!’

‘She micht hae held the tongue o’ her till he was gane! What was there
to greit aboot!’

‘Maybe she thocht o’ her sister’s bairn in a tribble ’at silence wadna
hide!’ answered Kirsty. ‘Ye haena a notion, lassie, what ye’re duin wi’
yersel! But my mither ’ll lat ye ken, sae that ye gangna blinlins intil
the tod’s hole.’

‘Ye dinna ken Frank, or ye wudna speyk o’ ’im that gait!’

‘I ken him ower weel to trust you til him.’

‘It’s naething but ye’re eenvious o’ me, Kirsty, ’cause ye canna get
him yersel! He wud never luik at a lass like you!’

‘It’s weel a’body sees na wi’ the same een, Phemy! Gien I had yer
Francie i’ the parritch-pat, I wudna pike him oot, but fling frae me
pat and parritch. For a’ that, I hae a haill side o’ my hert saft til
him: my father and his lo’ed like brithers.’

‘That canna be, Kirsty--and it’s no like ye to blaw! Your father was a
common so’dier and his was cornel o’ the regiment!’

‘Allooin!’ was all Kirsty’s answer. Phemy betook herself to entreaty.

‘Lat me gang, Kirsty! Please! I’ll gang doon o’ my knees til ye! I
canna bide him to think I’ve played him fause.’

‘He’ll play you fause, my lamb, whatever ye du or he think! It maks my
hert sair to ken ’at no guid will your hert get o’ his.--He s’ no see
ye the nicht, ony gait!’

Phemy uttered a childish howl, but immediately choked it with a proud
sob.

‘Ye’re hurtin me, Kirsty!’ she said, after a minute or so of silence.
‘Lat me doon, and I’ll gang straucht hame to my father. I promise ye.’

‘I’ll set ye doon,’ answered Kirsty, ‘but ye maun come hame to my
mither.’

‘What’ll my father think?’

‘I s’ no forget yer father,’ said Kirsty.

She sent out a strange, piercing cry, set Phemy down, took her hand in
hers, and went on, Phemy making no resistance. In about three minutes
there was a noise in the heather, and Snootie came rushing to Kirsty. A
few moments more and Steenie appeared. He lifted his bonnet to Phemy,
and stood waiting his sister’s commands.

‘Steenie,’ she said, ‘tak the dog wi’ ye, and rin doon to the toon, and
tell Mr. Craig ’at Phemy here’s comin hame wi’ me, to bide the nicht.
Ye winna be langer nor ye canna help, and ye’ll come to the hoose afore
ye gang to the hill?’

‘I’ll du that, Kirsty. Come, doggie,’

Steenie never went to the town of his own accord, and Kirsty never
liked him to go, for the boys were rude, but to-night it would be dark
before he reached it.

‘Ye’re no surely gaun to gar me bide a’ nicht!’ said Phemy, beginning
again to cry.

‘I am that--the nicht, and maybe the morn’s nicht, and ony nummer o’
nichts till we’re sure he’s awa!’ answered Kirsty, resuming her walk.

Phemy wept aloud, but did not try to escape.

‘And him gaein to promise this verra nicht ’at he would merry me!’ she
cried, but through her tears and sobs her words were indistinct.

Kirsty stopped, and faced round on her.

‘He promised to merry ye?’ she said.

‘I didna say that; I said he was gaein to promise the nicht. And noo
he’ll be gane, and never a word said!’

‘He promised, did he, ’at he would promise the nicht?--Eh, Francie!
Francie! ye’re no yer father’s son!--He promised to promise to merry
ye! Eh, ye puir gowk o’ a bonny lassie!’

‘Gien I met him the nicht--ay, it cam to that.’

All Kirsty’s inborn motherhood awoke. She turned to her, and, clasping
the silly thing in her arms, cried out--

‘Puir wee dauty! Gien he hae a hert ony bigger nor Tod Lowrie’s (_the
fox’s_) ain, he’ll come to ye to the Knowe, and say what he has to say!’

‘He winna ken whaur I am!’ answered Phemy with an agonized burst of dry
sobbing.

‘Will he no? I s’ see to that--and this verra nicht!’ exclaimed Kirsty.
‘I’ll gie him ilka chance o’ doin the richt thing!’

‘But he’ll be angert at me!’

‘What for? Did he tell ye no to tell?’

‘Ay did he.’

‘Waur and waur!’ cried Kirsty indignantly. ‘He wad hae ye a’ in his
grup! He tellt ye, nae doobt, ’at ye was the bonniest lassie ’at ever
was seen, and bepraised ye ’at yer ain minnie wouldna hae kenned ye!
Jist tell me, Phemy, dinna ye think a hantle mair o’ yersel sin’ he
took ye in han’?’

She would have Phemy see that she had gathered from him no figs or
grapes, only thorns and thistles. Phemy made no reply: had she not
every right to think well of herself? He had never said anything to her
on that subject which she was not quite ready to believe.

Kirsty seemed to divine what was passing in her thought.

‘A man,’ she said, ‘’at disna tell ye the trowth aboot himsel ’s no
likly to tell ye the trowth aboot _your_sel! Did he tell ye hoo mony
lassies he had said the same thing til afore ever he cam to you? It
maitered little sae lang as they war lasses as hertless and toom-heidit
as himsel, and ower weel used to sic havers; but a lassie like you, ’at
never afore hearkent to siclike, she taks them a’ for trowth, and the
leein sough o’ him gars her trow there was never on earth sic a
won’erfu cratur as her! What pleesur there can be i’ leein ’s mair nor
I can faddom! Ye’re jist a gey bonnie lassie, siclike as mony anither;
but gien ye war a’ glorious within, like the queen o’ Sheba, or whaever
she may happen to hae been, there wad be naething to be prood o’ i’
that, seein ye didna contrive yersel. No ae stane, to bigg yersel, hae
_ye_ putten upo’ the tap o’ anither!’

Phemy was nowise capable of understanding such statement and deduction.
If she was lovely, as Frank told her, and as she saw in the glass, why
should she not be pleased with herself? If Kirsty had been made like
her, she would have been just as vain as she!

All her life the doll never saw the beauty of the woman. Beside Phemy,
Kirsty walked like an Olympian goddess beside the naiad of a brook. And
Kirsty was a goddess, for she was what she had to be, and never thought
about it.

Phemy sank down in the heather, declaring she could go no farther, and
looked so white and so pitiful that Kirsty’s heart filled afresh with
compassion. Like the mother she was, she took the poor girl yet again
in her arms, and, carrying her quite easily now that she did not
struggle, walked with her straight into her mother’s kitchen.

Mrs. Barclay sat darning the stocking which would have been Kirsty’s
affair had she not been stalking Phemy. She took it out of her mother’s
hands, and laid the girl in her lap.

‘There’s a new bairnie til ye, mother! Ye maun daut her a wee, she’s
unco tired!’ she said, and seating herself on a stool, went on with the
darning of the stocking.

Mistress Barclay looked down on Phemy with such a face of loving
benignity that the poor miserable girl threw her arms round her neck,
and laid her head on her bosom. Instinctively the mother began to hush
and soothe her, and in a moment more was singing a lullaby to her.
Phemy fell fast asleep. Then Kirsty told what she had done, and while
she spoke, the mother sat silent brooding, and hushing, and thinking.




CHAPTER XVIII

PHEMY’S CHAMPION


When she had told all, Kirsty rose, and laying aside the stocking,
said,

‘I maun awa to Weelset, mother. I promised the bairn I would lat
Francie ken whaur she was, and gie him the chance o’ sayin his say til
her.’

‘Verra weel, lassie! ye ken what ye’re aboot, and I s’ no interfere wi’
ye. But, eh, ye’ll be tired afore ye win to yer bed!’

‘I’ll no tramp it, mother; I’ll tak the gray mear.’

‘She’s gey and fresh, lassie; ye maun be on yer guaird.’

‘A’ the better!’ returned Kirsty. ‘To hear ye, mother, a body wud think
I cudna ride!’

‘Forbid it, bairn! Yer father says, man or wuman, there’s no ane i’ the
countryside like ye upo’ beast-back.’

‘They tak to me, the craturs! It was themsels learnt me to ride!’
answered Kirsty, as she took a riding whip from the wall, and went out
of the kitchen.

The mare looked round when she entered the stable, and whinnied. Kirsty
petted and stroked her, gave her two or three handfuls of oats, and
while she was eating strapped a cloth on her back: there was no
side-saddle about the farm. Kirsty could ride well enough sideways on a
man’s, but she liked the way her father had taught her far better.
Utterly fearless, she had, in his training from childhood until he
could do no more for her, grown a horsewoman such as few.

The moment the mare had finished her oats, she bridled her, led her out,
and sprang on her back; where sitting as on a pillion, she rode quietly
out of the farm-close. The moment she was beyond the gate, she leaned
back, and, throwing her right foot over the mare’s crest, rode like an
Amazon, at ease, and with mastery. The same moment the mare was away,
up hill and down dale, almost at racing speed. Had the coming moon been
above the horizon, the Amazon farm-girl would have been worth meeting!
So perfectly did she yield her lithe, strong body to every motion of
the mare, abrupt or undulant, that neither ever felt a jar, and their
movements seemed the outcome of a vital force common to the two. Kirsty
never thought whether she was riding well or ill, gracefully or
otherwise, but the mare knew that all was right between them. Kirsty
never touched the bridle except to moderate the mare’s pace when she
was too much excited to heed what she said to her.

Doubtless, to many eyes, she would have looked better in a riding
habit, but she would have felt like an eagle in a nightgown. She wore a
full winsey petticoat, which she managed perfectly, and stockings of
the same colour. On her head she had nothing but the silk net at that
time and in that quarter much worn by young unmarried women. In the rush
of the gallop it slipped, and its content escaped: she put the net in
her pocket, and cast a knot upon her long hair as if it had been a rope.
This she did without even slackening her speed, transferring from her
hand to her teeth the whip she carried. It was one colonel Gordon had
given her father in remembrance of a little adventure they had together,
in which a lash from it in the dark night was mistaken for a sword-cut,
and did them no small service.

By the time they reached the castle, the moon was above the horizon.
Kirsty brought the mare to a walk, and resuming her pillion-seat,
remanded her hair to its cage, and readjusted her skirt; then, setting
herself as in a side-saddle, she rode gently up to the castle-door.

A manservant, happening to see her from the hall-window, saved her
having to ring the bell, and greeted her respectfully, for everybody
knew Corbyknowe’s Kirsty. She said she wanted to see Mr. Gordon, and
suggested that perhaps he would be kind enough to speak to her at the
door. The man went to find his master, and in a minute or two brought
the message that Mr. Gordon would be with her presently. Kirsty drew
her mare back into the shadow which, the moon being yet low, a great
rock on the crest of a neighbouring hill cast upon the approach, and
waited.

It was three minutes before Francis came sauntering bare-headed round
the corner of the house, his hands in his pockets, and a cigar in his
mouth. He gave a glance round, not seeing his visitor at once, and then
with a nod, came toward her, still smoking. His nonchalance, I believe,
was forced and meant to cover uneasiness. For all that had passed to
make him forget Kirsty, he yet remembered her uncomfortably, and at the
present moment could not help regarding her as an angelic _bête noir_,
of whom he was more afraid than of any other human being. He approached
her in a sort of sidling stroll, as if he had no actual business with
her, but thought of just asking whether she would sell her horse. He
did not speak, and Kirsty sat motionless until he was near enough for a
low-voiced conference.

‘What are ye aboot wi’ Phemy Craig, Francie?’ she began, without a word
of greeting.

Kirsty was one of the few who practically deny time; with whom what
was, is; what is, will be. She spoke to the tall handsome man in the
same tone and with the same forms as when they were boy and girl
together.

He had meant their conversation to be at arm’s length, so to say, but
his intention broke down at once, and he answered her in the same
style.

‘I ken naething aboot her. What for sud I?’ he answered.

‘I ken ye dinna ken whaur she is, for I div,’ returned Kirsty. ‘Ye
answer a queston I never speired! What are ye aboot wi’ Phemy, I
challenge ye again! Puir lassie, she has nae brither to say the word!’

‘That’s a’ verra weel; but ye see, Kirsty,’ he began--then stopped, and
having stared at her a moment in silence, exclaimed, ‘Lord, what a
splendid woman you’ve grown!’--He had probably been drinking with his
mother.

Kirsty sat speechless, motionless, changeless as a soldier on guard.
Gordon had to resume and finish his sentence.

‘As I was going to say, _you_ can’t take the place of a brother to her,
Kirsty, else I should know how to answer you!--It’s awkward when a lady
takes you to task,’ he added with a drawl.

‘Dinna trouble yer heid aboot that, Francie: hert ye hae little to
trouble aboot onything!’ rejoined Kirsty. Then changing to English as
he had done, she went on: ‘I claim no consideration on that score.’

Francis Gordon felt very uncomfortable. It was deuced hard to be
bullied by a woman!

He stood silent, because he had nothing to say.

‘Do you mean to marry my Phemy?’ asked Kirsty.

‘Really, Miss Barclay,’ Francis began, but Kirsty interrupted him.

‘Mr. Gordon,’ she said sternly, ‘be a man, and answer me. If you mean
to marry her, say so, and go and tell her father--or my father, if you
prefer. She is at the Knowe, miserable, poor child! that she did not
meet you to-night. That was my doing; she could not help herself.’

Gordon broke into a strained laugh.

‘Well, you’ve got her, and you can keep her!’ he said.

‘You have not answered my question!’

‘Really, Miss Barclay, you must not be too hard on a man! Is a fellow
not to speak to a woman but he must say at once whether or not he
intends to marry her?’

‘Answer my question.’

‘It is a ridiculous one!’

‘You have been trystin’ with her almost every night for something like
a month!’ rejoined Kirsty, ‘and the question is not at all ridiculous.’

‘Let it be granted then, and let the proper person ask me the question,
and I will answer it. You, pardon me, have nothing to do with the
matter in hand.’

‘That is the answer of a coward,’ returned Kirsty, her cheek flaming at
last. ‘You know the guileless nature of your old schoolmaster, and take
advantage of it! You know that the poor girl has not a man to look to,
and you will not have a woman befriend her! It is cowardly, ungrateful,
mean, trea

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