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Title: Doorways in Drumorty
Author: Lorna Moon
Release date: August 1, 2026 [eBook #79252]
Language: English
Original publication: Indianapolis: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, 1925
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/79252
Credits: Mairi and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This book was produced from images made available by the HathiTrust Digital Library.)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DOORWAYS IN DRUMORTY ***
DOORWAYS IN DRUMORTY
DOORWAYS
IN DRUMORTY
_By_
LORNA MOON
[Illustration]
INDIANAPOLIS
THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY
PUBLISHERS
COPYRIGHT, 1921, 1922, 1924, 1925
BY THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY
_Printed in the United States of America_
PRESS OF
BRAUNWORTH & CO
BOOK MANUFACTURERS
BROOKLYN, N. Y.
_To My Dad_
_This, His Wee Nottie’s First Book_
CONTENTS
PAGE
THE CORP’ 11
SILK BOTH SIDES 27
THE SINNING OF JESSIE MACLEAN 41
WANTIN’ A HAND 65
THE TATTIE-DOOLIE 79
THE COURTIN’ OF SALLY ANN 115
DOORWAYS IN DRUMORTY
THE CORP’
_THE CORP’_
By shutting the door to within three inches of the jamb, and moving her
chair nearer the cat’s hassock by the fire, old Kirsty could see Mistress
MacNab’s door and watch the mourners come and go.
She had been sitting there for three days, secretly watching, her dismay
growing with every hour as she realized that it was possible that
Mistress MacNab could carry her rage about the butter prize to the extent
of not bidding her to see the corpse.
When Mistress MacKenty brought the startling news on Sunday evening that
“Sandy MacNab had choked on a cold potato and hiccoughed himself to
death,” Kirsty had had a momentary qualm of doubt. She wished she hadn’t
openly scoffed at Mistress MacNab’s butter and flaunted her own first
prize on the way back from the show. It was “an unwise-like thing to do
with death so sure and life so uncertain; but who would expect a braw man
like Sandy MacNab to choke to death on a potato?”
“And besides,” she reflected, “Mistress MacNab, be she as angry as she
may, would never bury Sandy without all the honor that was due him.” And
who in all Drumorty would think of being buried without Kirsty Fraser to
cry as the lid was screwed down? Had she no’ cried at every funeral for
forty-five years? And was it no’ part and parcel of the ceremony for her
to have a fit when the body was carried out? And was it no’ true that the
laddies of the village hung round the house of sorrow waiting for the
chance to run for the doctor to bring her round?
She recalled the first time. What a day that had been! Never would she
forget looking into the coffin of Maggie Sclessor and seeing her lying
there so satisfied-like with the best-looking mutch[1] in Drumorty on
her head. Never would she forget the rage that had filled her at the
sight. For who would have expected Maggie Sclessor, poor as she was, to
have a hand-made lace mutch laid away to be buried in and never to say a
word about it? She had cried with envy, but the neighbors thought it was
with grief, and they had turned their attention from Maggie and her braw
mutch to Kirsty as her sobs grew louder; and when the doctor averred that
Kirsty had been “on the very verge o’ a fit,” they screwed the lid down
on Maggie without further to-do.
And as they carried the body out, Kirsty reflected with satisfaction,
“Weel, she had a fine mutch, but wha will think o’ that noo?”
And then, with each succeeding funeral, she had added to her laurels;
having once tasted the joy of stealing the attention from the corpse,
she could not forego the excitement and the commiseration and the secret
gratitude of the mourners. Her “fits” grew more and more masterly, until
the neighbors argued boastfully:
“I’m tellin’ ye, when my man died, she had the worst fit she ever had.”
And the answer, as positive, would be:
“Mistress MacPherson, hae I no’ got the use o’ my sight, praise be to
God? Did I no’ see her eyes roll up to heaven and her legs stiffen when
my Jeannie was carried oot?”
Certainly, Mistress MacNab would never think of burying her man without
Kirsty’s being there, butter prize or no butter prize. Thus reassured,
Kirsty had resolved to outdo all her past efforts at the funeral of
Sandy MacNab. Always in the back of her head she had had a notion that
by biting the sides of her cheeks till they bled, and frothing the blood
upon her lips, she could give a more convincing and gruesome fit than any
she had ever given. She had saved this for some great day. And this was
the day. The world would see that Kirsty Fraser scorned to bear a grudge
in the face of death. She would treat Mistress MacNab better than if she
had been a friend.
On Monday morning she felt so kindly toward Mistress MacNab that she was
minded to step over and say a word of comfort to her. She even thought of
offering to do the “biddin’,” although she knew full that her legs would
never stand it.
But Mistress MacKenty came in to say that Maggie Tate was to do the
“biddin’,” and that the funeral was on Wednesday, adding meaningly, “But
there’s no need to tell ye that; ye’ll be the first to be bidden, nae
doot.”
Her tone made Kirsty uneasy.
At sundown, when Tammas, her son, came wearily in, she watched him wash
his face in the tin basin, and as he spluttered and blew the water,—he
never thought he was clean unless he made a noise about it,—she started
to ask if he had heard anything, but stopped, mistrusting her voice.
It would no’ do to let Tammas know that she was anxious. And should it
be that some were already bidden, Tammas would know that she had been
slighted, being left to the last.
On Tuesday the coffin was brought home. Jimmy Tocher tripped on the step
as they carried it in, and it banged against the door. Kirsty could hear
Mistress MacNab raking them up-hill and down-dale for their fecklessness,
and she wanted to join them and see for herself if they had dented the
mountings, but she couldn’t make the first advance.
At dusk she saw Maggie Tate on her rounds doing the bidding. She cried in
at Jessie MacLean’s and then went on to Mistress MacKenty’s. “She’ll be
here inside ten minutes,” Kirsty reflected, and rose to put the kettle
on, so that she could make her a cup of tea. “It’s unco thirsty work,
biddin’ to funerals.”
It was getting too dark to see. The kettle boiled dry, and she pulled
it forward on the crane. “Mistress MacKenty is talking her stone-blind.
She’ll never get here to-night,” she decided, but she couldn’t give up
watching.
Tammas came home. He had heard something, and was uneasy in his mind.
Kirsty could tell, because he was whistling _The Lass o’ Ballochmyle_
between his teeth, which was a sign. And forby that, he said the _long_
grace before supper, and he said it slowly, as she always had begged him
to. He was trying to be kind to her; he even blew the smoke from his pipe
up the chimney instead of out across the room. It was unnatural-like, and
Kirsty knew that his behavior meant that he was sure that she would not
be bidden to see the corpse. She resented his giving up hope before she
did. He had never valued her fits. On occasions he had even advised her
to bide away if funerals made her take on so. He was like his father,
that he was. He was reliable-like, but he was dull. All the Frasers were
dull. Why could he no’ speak up and say, “Ye’ll no’ be bidden to see the
corp’, and I’m glad o’ ’t,” if that was what he was thinking? She’d give
him just a minute more; then she’d ask him outright.
“Mither.” She looked at him as he spoke. To avoid her eyes, he bent down,
and used the heel of his boot to press the tobacco into the bowl of his
pipe.
“Weel?” she prompted, and there was an edge on her voice.
“I’m thinkin’ o’ drivin’ up to Skilly’s the morn ti borrow their rake.
Would ye like to go wi’ me?”
So he believed she wouldn’t be bidden, and he was trying to save her
face. He little knew. _He_ had never set store by her fits, but others
had. Mistress MacNab might wait till the last to bid her, as was natural;
she’d do the same herself, but bid her she would, as Kirsty knew well. So
she answered tartly:
“I’m thinkin’ yer losing the wee bit o’ sense ye were born wi’, Tammas.
The morn’s Sandy MacNab’s funeral.”
Tammas reddened guiltily.
“Oh, aye,” he murmured. “I had forgotten, mither.”
And now this was the day of the funeral. Through the small space between
the jamb and the door Kirsty could see Mistress MacPherson knocking for
admission to the house of sorrow. She had a small parcel in her hand,
which she held gingerly upright.
“A jar o’ calf’s-foot jelly, nae doot,” Kirsty informed Tammas as she
called his attention to it. “That’s the tenth parcel since ten o’clock.
Mistress MacNab will no’ need ti buy a bite o’ food for a fortnight.” She
said this exultantly. Funerals were Kirsty’s art, and she liked them to
be successful. “Tammas, keep out from between me an’ the door. I can no’
see through ye.”
Tammas had made another attempt to shut the door in a yearning desire to
spare her. Manlike, he could not understand why she tortured herself by
looking on. He had seen her put on her black mutch in readiness, and his
heart was sick for her. He wondered why she could not give up hope. He
paced the floor silently, stopping every now and then to do some kindly
useless thing; and she, knowing what prompted him, would snap at him
furiously.
The minister came. Kirsty sat rigidly forward in her chair as he was
admitted and the door closed after him. Tammas stopped pacing. He didn’t
know what to do with his hands. He tried them in his pockets, and then
took them out again, hanging them limply by his sides.
From over the street came the singing. Kirsty picked nervously at the
crochet edging on her knitted wristlets. She half turned to look at
Tammas, and her voice quavered:
“They’re no’ to bid me, Tammas.” But as Mistress MacNab’s door opened and
Skilly’s lad came running out, Kirsty rose to her feet, eager and joyous.
“Aye, they’re sendin’ for me _noo_.” She started toward the door. But the
laddie ran past. Tammas helped her back to her chair. Then, for a Fraser,
he rose to great heights.
“I’m sorry for them, mither,” he said. “It will be feckless[2]-like
funeral without a fit at it.”
She sat up at the thought, grasping at it eagerly.
“Aye, will it no’, Tammas? Will it no’?” she cried gratefully.
Then, turning it over in her mind, she found it sweet with comfort, and
she chuckled while the tears were still wet upon her face.
“They’ll value my fits more than ever noo, Tammas. Puir Sandy MacNab!”
She nursed the thought joyously. She was sorry that it had happened to
Sandy MacNab, for he had been a good man, and deserving of honor; but she
was glad that Mistress MacNab must share the humility.
“She’s cuttin’ off her nose ti spite her face, puir body! I could feel it
in my heart ti pity her, Tammas.”
Fully recovered in spirit, she got up lightsomely, and began to unfasten
the strings of her mutch.
“We’ll shut the door on the rest o’ ’t, Tammas,” she said, and was moving
toward it when Mistress MacKenty came breathlessly in. She was burning
with news to tell, and greedy to see its effect.
“Mistress MacNab is havin’ a fit, an’ Skilly’s laddie has gone for the
doctor,” she cried.
“A fit!” Kirsty screamed the words in a hysteria of unbelief. “What would
_she_ be knowing of a fit, she that has never had one?”
Gloating with the joy of telling it, for she had always envied Kirsty
her fits, Mistress MacKenty’s voice swelled with gratification as she
answered:
“Such a fit as I have never seen. Her eyes are rollin’ to heaven, and the
blood is frothin’ on her lips.”
At that Kirsty’s knees began to tremble beneath her. She put out a
wavering hand and gripped Tammas by the sleeve, striving to keep upright
and face Mistress MacKenty, who continued maliciously:
“Drumorty will never forget this fit. I’ll mind on ’t mysel’ if I ever
hae a corp’.”
And Kirsty Fraser knew that her glory was gone. Another had stolen the
chief jewel of her crown. There would be none in all Drumorty who would
do her homage again.
But not before Mistress MacKenty would she bow her head. She took her
hand from Tammas’ sleeve and stood alone, and nothing in her voice as she
spoke told Mistress MacKenty that her pride lay stricken.
“Gie her the ammonia bottle to take over, Tammas. I hae had slight fits
mysel’, an’ I ken ammonia’s good.”
And Mistress MacKenty wondered at this heroic thing that made Kirsty
Fraser disclaim the glory of her fits and hand her laurels to another.
She stood shamed before it, and she hung her head and crept away, unable
longer to look Kirsty Fraser in the face.
Kirsty stood till she had gone; then her hand went feeling blindly for
her chair. She cupped one hand helplessly in the other as she sat. The
string of her black mutch hung down like a weary pendulum that had
wagged its hour. As Tammas knelt by her, dumbly anxious to comfort, she
whispered:
“Think ye she knows I care, Tammas?”
“Niver, mither. I would no’ have known it mysel’.”
Assured of that, she let the tears steal down her wrinkled cheeks. Her
hands trembled together helplessly in her lap. Tammas reached out and
held them firmly in his, and they sat there silently together.
Her thoughts went seeking comfort everywhere, but found none. With every
funeral her pride would die a little more; with every funeral Mistress
MacNab would reap a greater triumph. None would think of Kirsty’s fits
except to say how poor they were, and how great were the fits of Mistress
MacNab. And so until the end.
“O Tammas,” she cried, “when I am dead and lying helpless, ye’ll no’ let
that Mistress MacNab have fits at my funeral! Promise me that, Tammas!”
SILK BOTH SIDES
_SILK BOTH SIDES_
“—And two and a half yards o’ four inch black satin ribbon.”
Jessie MacLean added this last fatal item with an upward jerk of her head
lest Mistress MacKenty, at the other side of the counter, should think
she was ashamed of her purchase. But Mistress MacKenty had a nose for
news rather than an instinct for tragedy, and by the suppressed eagerness
in her voice as she asked, “And ye’ll want it silk on both sides I’ll
warrant?” you could see that she was already half-way down the road to
the smithy to spread the news that: “Jessie MacLean had lost heart and
would be out in a bonnet in the morn, so help her Davey.”
“Aye, silk both sides,” Jessie answered, letting her eyes range the
shelves carelessly to prove that there was nothing momentous in her
buying bonnet strings.
Silk both sides proved it! A satin-faced ribbon might have many uses, but
silk both sides was a bonnet string by all the laws of millinery known to
Drumorty.
Telling about it five minutes later, Mistress MacKenty said, “I might
hae been wrang when she bought the silk geraniums, and I may hae been
over-hasty when she said ‘half a yard o’ black lace’—but silk both sides
is as good as swearing it on the Bible.”
In Drumorty, a bonnet with strings tied below the chin means that youth
is over. About the time the second baby is born, the good wife abandons
her hat—forever—and appears in a bonnet with ties. She may be any age
from eighteen to twenty-five; for matrimony, and motherhood, and age,
come early in Drumorty. The spinster clings longer to her hat, for while
she wears it, any bachelor may take heart and “speer”[3] her; and if she
be “keeping company” she may cling to her hat until she be thirty “and a
bittock”; but after that—if she would hold the respect of her community,
she must cease to “gallivant” about “wi’ a hat” and dress like a decent
woman, in a bonnet with ties.
And Jessie MacLean was six and thirty as Baldie Tocher could tell you,
for did he no’ have the pleasure of burying the exciseman the very
morning that Jessie first saw the light of day, and was it no’ the very
next year that Nancy MacFarland’s cow got mired in the moss?
Drumorty had been very lenient with her. Many a good wife thought it was
high time that Jessie laid aside her hat, but always she held her peace,
remembering her bridal gown and the care with which Jessie had made it,
for Jessie was the village seamstress, and it was a secret, whispered,
that she charged only half price for making wedding gowns, because she
liked to make them so much.
Another reason for their lenience was Jock Sclessor. For fifteen years
Jock had “kept company” with her; not one Sunday morning had he missed
“crying by” for Jessie to go to morning service. He would come round the
bend of the road from Skilly’s farm just as the sexton gave the bell that
first introductory ring which meant “bide a wee till I get her goin’ full
swing and then bide at hame frae the kirk if ye dare”; and Jessie would
come out of her door and mince down the sanded walk between the rows of
boxwood to the gate, and affect surprise at seeing Jock just as if she
had not been watching for him behind her window curtain this past five
minutes.
Jock was the cotter[4] on Skilly’s farm. Every year he intended to
“speer” Jessie when thrashing was over. Tammas, his dog, will tell you
how many times he had been on the very point of asking her the very next
day, but—always the question of adding another room came up and not for
the life of him could he decide whether to level the rowan tree and build
it on the east—or to move the peats and build it on the west; and by the
time he had made up his mind to cart the peats down behind the byre and
build it on the west, lambing was round again and he let it go by for
another year.
And every year Jessie was in a flutter as thrashing was nearing the
finish. One year she had been so sure that he would “speer” her that she
bought a new scraper; for Jock could make your very heart stand still, he
was that careless about scraping the mud off his boots. Often when she
was alone, she would practise ways of telling Jock that he must clean
his boots before he came in: “Good man, hae ye forgotten the scraper?”
was abandoned because it wasn’t strictly honest, for Jessie knew full
well that he always forgot the scraper. “Gang back and clean your feet,”
was set aside also, because it was too commanding and “Dinna forget the
scraper” was also discarded because it isn’t good to nag a man before he
has set foot in the door. But none of the expressions had been tried out
yet—for when Jock dropped in with her, after service, Jessie hurried him
by the scraper as if it might shout at him, “She expects you to speer
her!” and so put her to shame.
But now thrashing had been over for weeks, and every Sunday since then,
she had looked for the white gowan[5] in Jock’s coat, for what swain
“worth his ears full of cold water” ever asked the question without that
emblem of courage in his buttonhole? It is a signal to the world that he
means to propose, that he is going in cold blood to do it—and forever
after his good wife can remind him of that, should he suggest that he was
inveigled into it by some female wile.
Last Sunday, on their way to church, Jessie cleared her throat nervously
and grasped her new testament, bracing herself as she asked in a thin
voice that was much too offhand: “Would your peats no’ be better
sheltered in the lea o’ the byre?” and Jock replied: “Na, they are better
where they are.”
And so a hope, nourished fifteen years, died, and through the service she
sat gazing straight ahead, with her eyes wide open, for the wider eyes
are open, the more tears they can hold without spilling over. And next
Saturday she bought black satin ribbon “silk both sides” and the world,
meaning Drumorty, knew that Jessie’s tombstone would not read “Beloved
wife of ——”.
In Jessie’s cottage the blinds were drawn on Saturday evening, and you
who have suffered will not ask me to pull them aside and show you how a
faded spinster looks when she weeps; nor how her fingers tremble when she
sews upon bonnet strings; but let me tell you how bravely she stepped out
next morning wearing her bonnet, with never a look through the curtain
to see if Jock was on his way, nor a glance to see if the neighbors were
watching. Her step was just as firm upon the sanded path, and her head
just as high; perhaps she grasped her testament more tightly than usual,
but what soul on the rack would not do that?
Jock came round the bend as she reached the gate. She clung to the latch
to keep herself from tearing the bonnet from her head. Oh, Fate, that
sits high and laughs, have you the heart to laugh now? Jock was wearing
a white gowan. It was just a dozen steps or so back to the house, and a
hat, and happiness; but the world knew that she had bought bonnet strings
and was that not Mistress MacKenty watching from behind her curtain? Go
forward, Jessie—there is no turning back, and go proudly! Open the latch
and answer his “guid morning” and smile—and don’t, don’t, let your hands
tremble so, or he will surely guess!
Look your fill from behind the curtain, Mistress MacKenty! You can not
see a heartache when it is hidden by a black alpaca gown and when the
heart belongs to Jessie MacLean!
Jock Sclessor, your one chance of happiness is now! Lead her back into
the house and take the bonnet from her head! No, laggard and fool that
you are, you are wondering if she has noticed the gowan! Has she not!
She has watched for it for fifteen years! Speak, you fool! Don’t keep
staring at her bonnet! You dullard, Jessie must come to your rescue, and
she does, “Is the sexton no’ late this morning?” Jessie turned out of the
gate as she spoke, snapping the latch with the right amount of care.
“Aye, later than usual,” Jock agreed. (The sexton was never late in his
life, and at that moment the bell rang out to give Jock the lie.) But
Jock was so dazed, he would have agreed if she had said, “Let us choke
the minister.”
As they walked to the church, he meditated, “Evidently she never expected
me to speer her, and she’s never so much as glimpsed the gowan. I’ll slip
it out when we kneel in the kirk. But maybe I better sound her out first.
It’s gey[6] and lonesome for a man biding by himself.”
They were just turning round by the town hall where the rowan trees are
red, when he said, “I had been thinkin’ o’ levelin’ my rowan tree.”
Jessie’s heart thumped. Here it came! (That was why he wouldn’t move the
peats.) But she wouldn’t help him a foot of the road—she had waited too
long—he must come every step himself.
“Oh, that would be a pity—it’s a bonnie tree,” she answered.
Not much help here, but he would try again. “I was thinking o’ building.”
“Building? My certies! What could ye be building so near the house?” this
with some malice for all the fifteen long years. But you have gone too
far, Jessie; he needs help.
“I—oh—I thought I’d build a shed for peats.”
Thud! That was Jessie’s heart you heard and that queer thin voice is
Jessie’s, saying, “I thought—ye were minded to leave the peats the other
side o’ the house.”
“Aye, I am minded to leave them there—but a body canna hae too many
peats.”
And as they knelt in kirk, he slipped the gowan out—and Jessie did not
need to widen her eyes to hold the tears this time. That sorrow was past,
she would never weep over it again.
At home, she brewed her tea, looking round at her rag rugs and white
tidies with pleasure. The tidy on the big chair was as white and smooth
as when she pinned it there in the morning, and there was no mud to be
carefully washed off the rug by the door. There was a certain contentment
in knowing that it would never be; a certain exhilaration in knowing that
next Sunday she could not be disappointed, because next Sunday she would
not hope. She sipped her tea peacefully and smiled at the bonnet sitting
so restful-like on the dresser, and at the tidy on the big chair so
spotless and smooth, and thought, “Jock Sclessor would have been a mussy
man to have about a house. I’m thinkin’ his mother was over-lenient when
she brought him up.”
And Jock, at Skilly’s, was thinking, “I wouldna had time to build it
anyway. Lambing is here—and that is too bonnie a tree to be cut down.”
THE SINNING OF JESSIE MACLEAN
_THE SINNING OF JESSIE MACLEAN_
Jessie MacLean felt that their romance belonged also to her, for she
had seen their first meeting. It was on a Sunday morning after service,
and Jessie was returning from her walk along by Skilly’s wood. She was
wondering as she stepped daintily, rustling her Sunday-best alpaca
gown, if the gold chain she wore had marked her neck; and whether the
gimlet-eyed Mistress MacKenty had seen it as she sat behind her in kirk.
(Well, it wasn’t all gold, but, as Jessie protested defensively to
herself: “Pure gold’s that soft ye have ti mix it.”)
On hot Sundays it was always a race between the sermon and the chain;
about the time the minister got to the “thirdlies” and “lastlies” Jessie
was in a fidget. She could wear the chain a bare hour and a half without
it marking if the weather was cool; but this had been a very hot Sunday.
Out of the sight of inquisitive eyes she stopped and spread her handkie
between the chain and her neck. Then she turned along Skilly’s burnside
intending to cross it at the stepping-stones; and it was here she came
upon them. So flustered was she, that she forgot the dangling handkie,
but then she might have worn ram’s horns and they would not have noticed
it.
Gawky and shy, they were exchanging their first “It’s waurm the day” and
“What’s yer hurry” which in Drumorty may mean: “Who is this gallant youth
who stirs my bosom?” or, “Fair maid, eternity were too brief, could I but
spend it gazing in your eyes.”
Jessie understood, and seeing their embarrassment, blushed in sympathy
and tilted her parasol between herself and them. She had meant to cross
the burn at the stepping-stones, but, her heart pleasantly aflutter with
a sense of being a sharer in a secret, she kept on down the burnside
until she was out of sight; and there she sat down and removed her shoes
and stockings before hitching her dress to her knees and wading the burn.
Jessie’s own romance laid away in the lavender of memory, stirred again
at the thought of the two. Walking home she pondered who the lad might
be. He was a stranger in Drumorty. The lass was Bella Tocher, the kitchen
wench at Skilly’s farm; a well-favored lass, and hard working, rosy and
full-bosomed although barely sixteen.
So engrossed was she, that she went all the way home without remembering
to remove the telltale handkie from her neck; and never gave it a
thought, until, as she was turning in at her own door, Mistress MacKenty
leaned over the gate and sweetly malicious, called, so that Jessie would
know she had seen: “Ye do weel ti guard agin’ blood-poisinin’, Jessie
lass.”
Next Sunday Jessie did an unheard-of thing. She stayed at home from the
morning service and watched the road to Skilly’s farm to see if the
lad would come back. She had fortified herself against disappointment
by boiling dumplings in the broth. No matter how keen the edge of
disappointment, Jessie had proved that dumplings in the broth could ease
it a little. And after spending all morning at the window watching, with
a bandage bound about her neck to advertise to the curious that a sore
throat had kept her at home from the kirk, she was just about to turn to
the dumplings for solace, when he came by whistling and heading up the
road to Skilly’s.
“My certies!” she cried, pretending to herself that she was shocked at
his ardor. “He’s back _again_, doesna gie the lassie time to draw a
lanely breath.”
Feeling the need of some one to rejoice with her, she gave the cat a
dumpling. It sniffed it, and showed its contempt for her frivolity by
crossing to the other side of the fireplace and seating itself with its
back to her. Jessie, taking this rebuff with unusual spirit, retorted:
“You’re a persnickety old maid, there’s no’ a romantic hair on yer head.”
And to show that she wouldn’t be brow-beaten by the cat on this joyful
day, she opened the glass-door of the what-not with a loud click; and
later, ate her dumplings off the best willow-pattern china.
Through that winter Jessie didn’t need the dumplings to fortify her.
The lad was attentive enough. She would see the two by the hayricks, or
wandering with fingers entwined by the burnside every Sunday evening. But
in the spring he stopped coming. And Bella would stand for hours watching
the empty road; while Jessie in an anguish of sympathy would watch both
the girl and the road from her corner window.
Bella was listless and pale. There was something pathetic in the way she
made no pretense of doing anything but watching. This was intolerable to
Jessie who wanted the girl to save her pride, so when she would see a
neighbor coming, she would whisper fiercely: “Walk along as if ye were
looking for gowans, dinna let them see yer looking for the lad,” but only
the muslin curtains heard Jessie’s advice. Bella, dazed with despair, was
indifferent to gossip.
Then it was rumored that, “Bella Tocher’s lad had gone to Edinburgh to
the soldierin’.” And after that Bella watched the road no more.
It was Mistress MacKenty who said: “I’m thinkin’ Skilly’s will be needin’
a new kitchen wench afore Whitsuntide; and there’s them that will learn
that nae guid ever came o’ gallivantin’ wi’ a strange lad on the Sabbath
day.” And having delivered this darkly meaning speech she pursed withered
lips with vindictive relish and refused to say more, adding only: “I
hae lassies o’ my ain, it ill becomes me to speak; but mark my words,
there’ll be an elders’ meeting in Drumorty afore many weeks.”
Jessie understood now the pale watching face of Bella; and understood,
also, the despair that made her watch for him without pretense. “Puir wee
lass,” she whispered. “Watching for her man, and him awa’ to no’ come
back.”
When Mistress MacKenty came in that evening to say, that: “Skilly
was sendin’ the shameless limmer packin’ the morn’s mornin’,” Jessie
furtively hid something white and small upon which she had been sewing.
She stood up while Mistress MacKenty spoke, and no line of her figure,
nor any tone of her voice, could be taken to mean that she invited
Mistress MacKenty to take a chair.
“It’s a sore disgrace to the whole parish, and harder forby on Skilly
himsel’ and him an elder o’ the kirk.” Mistress MacKenty’s voice was
dulcet with sympathy for the poor elder. She was looking around for a
seat in which to sink and continue her lamentations, when, in the chill
silence of the usually sympathetic Jessie, she sensed something strange.
Jessie was clasping and unclasping her hands in front of her thin waist,
and her eyes were glinting. Could it be that the gentle Jessie MacLean
was fighting to keep her hands from flying in the face of Mistress
MacKenty? Mistress MacKenty must have shared that wild thought also,
for, catching sight of Jessie, she paused and backed away, suddenly
remembering that she had “a pot o’ kale on the fire,” and was gone
without even closing the door as she went.
Jessie closed the door after her and bolted it, and drew down the blinds.
The little bit of white sewing came out from its hiding-place. Mistress
MacKenty vowed next day that Jessie’s light had burned all night but
added that she didn’t know why, because; “Jessie MacLean is _that_
secretive her window-blinds fit all the way round.”
All next morning Jessie sat by the window watching Skilly’s road, her
head propped wearily on her palms, a bright red spot on the wrinkled
apple of each cheek. All Drumorty was watching Skilly’s road, but _not_
with the tender purpose that was in the heart of Jessie MacLean. Drumorty
was swollen with righteous wrath. The virtue of Drumorty was outraged;
and it was waiting to visit its saintly indignation on the head of “the
shameless limmer.”[7] Jessie shut up alone knew nothing of this.
At noon she saw Bella coming along the road toward the village street,
a bundle with all her belongings slung on her arm. She would proceed in
little tumbling runs, then stop and sway, gather strength again, and run
a little more. Sometimes she would drop the bundle and have to get down
laboriously on one knee to pick it up.
Then Jessie saw the thing that stilled her heart for a moment. As Bella
turned into the street, the blinds of Mistress MacPherson’s cottage
snapped down and remained, like eyelids in death. Then, down with swift
vindictiveness came the blinds of the next cottage; Bella heard, and
looked about her, as blinds on either side of her hurried down to their
righteous window-sills. She stopped and tottered feebly, then, as if
blows were showering upon her, she flung her arm across her face, and
lowered her head and ran.
“Click” went the blind of Mistress MacKenty’s window as she passed; this
brought Jessie to her feet with blazing eyes. Rushing out, she ran along
the street after the fleeing girl, calling: “Bella—Bella Tocher.”
Thinking she was being pursued only to be taunted, Bella gathered her
strength anew and ran faster. Sobs rose in Jessie’s throat as she saw her
reel in her efforts to get away; and she called her name again, trying
to make her voice both loud and coaxing. As Jessie caught up and touched
her arm, the girl stopped and faced her panting, a driven thing, ready to
fight if she must.
“Come back to my house, Bella,” Jessie urged breathlessly.
“So ye can take yer ease while ye tell me I’ve disgraced the parish o’
Drumorty?—So ye can tell me I am justly punished for my sins?” Bella’s
voice rose in hysterical gasps, her white face twitched piteously.
“Na, na,” urged Jessie, speaking in soothing accents. “Come so I can show
ye the wee shirts I’ve been makin’.”
It was the tone of her voice and tears on Jessie’s cheeks, not her
words, that brought the answering sob in Bella’s throat and softened the
defensive lines of her form.
“Come back and stay wi’ me,” Jessie’s tone was tender.
Responding to it, the tears streamed down Bella’s face, but she shook her
head: “I winna stay an’ face the elders. I’ll walk till I drop first.”
“Ye’ll no’—I’ll face them for ye. Come awa’,” Jessie coaxed, then in a
warning whisper: “The blinds are down; but they are peekin’ out below
them.” She put an arm round the girl and, reaching out a hand for the
bundle, said tenderly: “Yer nathing but a bairn yersel’—come.”
Bella relinquished the bundle to Jessie’s urging hand, and, faltering
like a tired child, turned back with her along the street of drawn blinds.
2
With what terror, or with what bravery, these two met the turmoil of that
night we may not tell. Nor may we echo the brave words that a gentle
spinster used, to hearten an erring child in her hour of sore trial.
These things are written by the angels, and only mothers may read them.
But we may look in with dawn, and see the puckered pink velvet son of
Bella Tocher as he lies on Jessie’s lap screaming, for he can not see yet
how near is Jessie’s lap to the tender heaven of her heart. But we can
see, and we are shamed to look unbidden upon the glory of a spinster’s
face, when mother-love has wakened in her breast.
3
There was defiance in Jessie’s gait as she stepped up to the entrance of
Mistress MacPherson’s byre at milking time that evening. She rattled the
two flagons she carried challengingly, and forestalled any comment from
Mistress MacPherson about the extra flagon, by saying cheerily: “I’ll
need a quart extra ilka[8] day now.”
Her boldness had the effect of completely winding Mistress MacPherson,
who had been waiting all day for milking time so that she could “gie
Jessie MacLean a piece o’ her mind.” “Let her come creepin’ up here
askin’ for milk for that hussy—” Mistress MacPherson had finished the
implication with a grim-faced nod, as she discussed the “goin’s on” with
Mistress MacKenty that morning.
But Jessie hadn’t “come creepin’,” and Mistress MacPherson, ready to
attack, hesitated with that confusion which comes also to a dog, when it
has got all ready to chase a cat that refuses to run. Jessie, palpitating
with victory, airily handed over the two flagons; and Mistress
MacPherson, unable to rally for the moment, took them murmuring only,
“Oh, aye.”
But if it was a victory for Jessie, it only added to the virtuous
indignation Drumorty felt toward Bella. Had Bella been found dying in a
ditch that morning, the good women of Drumorty would have found pity for
her in their hearts. But that Bella should have faced her hour with a
roof over her head and a bed beneath her, and a kindly hand to meet her
needs; that, in the opinion of Drumorty was nothing short of “lauding the
evil-doer.”
“Revelin’ in her sins,” “Made o’ and tended, as if she were an honest
woman,” these and other denunciations flew rife at mart and meeting as
the weeks passed, and it was reported that “Jessie MacLean was sleepin’
on a shake-down while that limmer was lying like a queen in Jessie’s
feather bed.” But that was only hearsay, for not once did Jessie let one
of them pass the door, though many were the pretexts devised by Mistress
MacKenty to gain admission, from the borrowing of an egg which she
returned the next day (the same egg, as Jessie could prove, for did she
not mark it on purpose; for what use would Mistress MacKenty be having
for an egg three days before Sunday?) to the bringing of a bottle of
raspberry-vinegar to see if Jessie had a corkscrew that could get the
cork out.
Bella sensed it all with sullen resentment which would show in her eyes
when the baby’s cries forced its existence more sharply upon her. She
hated her motherhood. Motherhood, that was thrust cruelly upon her while
she was still a child; motherhood, robbed of its honor and covered with
shame; motherhood and its pains, stripped of the love which makes its
agony a glory. This was the motherhood Bella knew, and her heart was
bitter against it. She felt trapped. Perhaps the child, helpless in
her arms, crying to her for food, might have saved her from this, and
have roused in her girl-heart that compassion for the helpless which is
mother-love. But Jessie, all eagerness to surround Bella with comfort,
took the care of the baby upon herself; and as love for it fastened upon
her heart, Jessie could not bear to let any hand touch it but her own.
Its morning bath was a rite to be lingered over with exclamations of
wonder and delight. If Jessie noticed at all that Bella did not share
her ecstasy she didn’t think it strange; for Jessie had quickly ceased
to think of Bella as the baby’s mother. Her feeling for Bella was in a
smaller measure the same feeling she had for the baby. She felt herself
mother to both of them. So while Jessie’s heart was greatened and stirred
by her care of these two, Bella, robbed of the saving outlet of service,
became daily more morose. The memory of the drawn blinds seared her; and
she knew that the day would come soon when she must face Drumorty again.
She felt little gratitude toward Jessie, and just a cool wonder that a
good woman could also be kind.
The baby was about six weeks old, when Jessie came in one day with
heightened color, and her step brisk with excitement. She opened her hand
to disclose three gold sovereigns and a half-sovereign.
“Three pounds ten, Bella; the gentry at the big hoose hae paid their
sewing bill.” Then turning swiftly to the baby she cried crooningly:
“Jessie’s wee lamb will no’ need ti sleep in the clothes-basket noo; it’s
a pram an’ a cradle he’ll be havin’.”
Jessie dropped the money into the toby-mug on the mantel and was
preparing to gather the baby up from the clothes-basket when she heard
a step on the path outside. She glanced through the window, then dodged
back with the warning whisper: “It’s Skilly!”
Like a flash she clapped on her bonnet, and seized a basket and was
stepping sedately out at the door just as Skilly raised his hand to knock
upon it.
“My certies, Skilly,” exclaimed Jessie, shutting the door carefully
behind her as she stopped facing him on the step. “Wha wid expect _you_
to be visitin’ this time o’ day?”
“I hae come ti see Bella Tocher,” said Skilly, looking suggestively at
the closed door before which Jessie stood like a sentinel.
“Weel, I’m vexed for ye;” cooed Jessie. “Bella’s oot bye somewhere, an’
I’m on my way ti the flesher’s.”
Skilly was not deceived, and indeed Jessie didn’t expect him to be. She
smiled grimly as she caught his eye glancing searchingly at the window as
the muslin curtains moved under Bella’s touch; but she continued to stand
barring his way to the door, her arms folded militantly through the empty
basket which posed like a shield upon her breast.
Skilly lengthened out his gangling inches to a greater assumption of
dignity, and, ignoring Jessie’s hostility with a lofty tolerance, said in
the tone he usually kept for reading the first lesson:
“As an elder o’ the kirk it is my duty to speak wi’ Bella Tocher aboot
her misbegotten bairn; and wha we may name as the father o’ ’t.”
“An’ it was yer godly duty as an elder, nae doot, that made ye turn her
oot to die by the roadside?” Jessie’s tone was the essence of sweetened
venom.
But Skilly, not meaning to lose his unimpeachable superiority by bandying
words with a woman, answered calmly:
“I hae no call to shelter a wanton and unrepentant woman; if Bella Tocher
is minded to face the elders and make admission o’ her sins——”
“Her sins!” Jessie broke in. “It’s no’ her sins Drumorty is punishin’ her
for; it’s the evidence, Skilly. It’s the bairn. There’s them that sit
on the elders’ bench and gie judgment, that ken more o’ sin than Bella
Tocher, but they dinna get found out: their siller in the collection
plate blinds the minister.”
This was a home thrust, and Skilly reddened under it, but he clambered
back to his official dignity by booming pontifically:
“It behooves us to deal kindly wi’ the repentant. If Bella Tocher is
humble of spirit and contrite of heart, I will see mysel’ that her bairn
is housed in the alms-house; an’ I’ll take her back—” Then, seeing the
chance to make a bargain, Skilly dropped his oratorical tone, and added
hastily: “But mind ye, no’ at the old price; I’ll gie her half o’ ’t.”
At that Jessie laughed grayly, and two red lights flashed battle from her
eyes.
“Yer a sainted and godlike man, Skilly, wi’ a heart sweet wi’ charity.
Now that the lass is able to work again, ye’ll put her bairn in the
alms-house at nae cost to yersel’; and ye’ll let her carry swill to yer
pigs at half the siller ye’d have to pay anither; it’s a forgivin’ an’
tender heart ye have—”
Skilly bridled impatiently and turned away; the woman would try the
patience of a saint!
“Aye! Run, run, Skilly,” urged Jessie tauntingly. “If ye bide, I may let
ye see yersel’; and the sight will make ye sick.”
It was too much! An elder of the kirk couldn’t be expected to stand it
any longer. Skilly left her and stalked down the path, his back stiff as
buckram.
Jessie turned back into the house all aflutter. Nature had not made her
a fighter; she could not have lifted a whisper to defend herself; but
accident had made her play mother and so she could fight like a tiger,
although her knees might tremble for hours afterward.
“Did ye hear, Bella?” she asked the girl who sat stolidly on the bench by
the window, ignoring the whimperings from the clothes-basket.
“Aye.” There was nothing in the girl’s tone to indicate her thoughts.
After a moment her eyes wandered up to the toby-jug on the mantel, and
she said:
“How much will the pram an’ the cradle cost?”
Jessie, with most of her attention centered on the commotion in the
basket, answered:
“I can get the pram for thirty shillings; an’ I’ve been promised the use
o’ Maggie Duncan’s cradle for naething—but she kens fine I’ll make her
next gown on account o’ ’t.”
4
In the straggling light next morning, Jessie slipped a long thin leg out
of bed, and her toes went searching with cat-like caution for a crocheted
slipper; finding it, they wriggled into its woolly depth.
Jessie was making one of her countless trips to the clothes-basket by the
fireside in the next room to see if all was well. She clutched her long
pink flannelette night-gown to keep it from touching the floor; and was
moving carefully past Bella’s bed, when its unusual flatness made her
look at it again.
It was empty! Jessie hastened into the next room with fussy concern, sure
that whatever Bella was doing for the baby was wrong.
But Bella wasn’t there! Her hat wasn’t hanging on the back of the door
where it had hung for six weeks. Her shoes weren’t on the peat-backet[9]
where she had put them last night.
The baby! Jessie gave a cry that ended in a strangled sound, half laugh,
half sob, as she sprang to the clothes-basket and dropped down beside it.
The baby was there. Jessie’s heart resumed action again, she bent over
the basket and tenderly touched the baby’s warm sleeping face; then her
thoughts returned to Bella. She looked about for fresh proof that she had
really gone.
Against the toby-jug a sheet of writing-paper was propped. Jessie reached
for it and carried it to the window. In the graying light she peered at
the words written upon it until they formed into things of meaning. And
she read:
“I am going to Edinburgh. I have taken two pounds from the
toby-jug; that leaves enough for the pram. It is ill done of
me, but I will no stay in Drumorty. If I get a place I’ll send
back the siller, and if Geordie will wed me I’ll come back for
the bairn. You have been kinder to me than I am deserving, and
I will no forget. You can send the bairn to the alms-house; it
will be better there than with me if Geordie will no have me.”
Jessie trembled as she read. Bella had gone! And the baby was here,—was
hers to keep! Joy sent her heart racing heavenward. She turned and sank
to her knees beside the clothes-basket, stretching greedy arms about it
and whispering passionately to the sleeping child:
“She’ll no’ come back. She’ll no’ come back;—and ye’ll be my ain, my ain
wee lamb.”
Then in the flush of her riches, kneeling there in the still gray
morning, she thought of Bella and her poverty. Bella, stealing out
loveless in the night. Bella who had borne the suffering and shame. Bella
with empty arms. And a great remorse for the greed of her own rejoicing
tore at her breast, and she clasped her hands and cried in anguish:
“God be merciful to her!—And forgie me, a covetous sinner.”
WANTIN’ A HAND
_WANTIN’ A HAND_
The moisture from the tub curled her hair into babyish ringlets that
hung about her flushed face. Despite her form made broad with the daily
travail of washing clothes, and her face pouchy with drink, suggestions
of beauty still lingered about her as perfume might cling to a garment
after it was soiled and torn.
There was no hint of age or decay in the square tower of her body, no
thought of handicap in her actions as she squeezed and rubbed the clothes
upon the board with her one powerful hand. The small stump of her missing
arm jerked vigorously from the shoulder in time to the hand upon the
board. She would stop at times to pin the empty sleeve more snugly to her
side and then resume the crawling, gripping motion of her one hand in the
tub. It was a great-jointed hand, corded along the back, and broad, and
when it had squeezed the water from a garment she could defy any woman
with two hands to wring one drop more from it. The clothes washed by Jean
Sclessor were truly washed, and clear and fragrant when she took them
from the line.
And so, although she tried them sorely by her frequent drinking spells,
the good wives of Drumorty would rather wait for Jean than have
some feckless two-handed woman wash in her stead. And the greatest
church-goers among them would ignore the smell of whisky on her breath
and would even comment sympathetically upon her bunions when her steps
began to waver.
But Jean was long past caring what Drumorty thought about her drinking,
long past the time when she turned her head away so that they wouldn’t
catch her breath. She cared only for evening to come, and she worked
through the day with a driving force which became a frenzy of haste
as night-fall drew near, for she was going home to the kist under the
stairs, home to dreams, home to love and revenge and despair, home to
forgetfulness, home to the flat-sided bottle of whisky wrapped in a gray
petticoat.
And when at evening she groped her way toward the kist in the musty
hole beneath the stairs filled with the odor of sprouting potatoes, she
was already tearful with welling memories, melting with the vision of
the lass that once was Jean Sclessor and the lad that had been Sandy
Morrison. They came to her as always, bright with the sunlight of a
harvest day and fragrant with the breath of reaping time. _He_ stood by
the reaper bareheaded in the high noon sun. Lesser lads had sought the
shade panting and weary, but he, foreman of them all and master of them
all by height and strength, stood stretching in the glare. And _she_ came
laden with the scones fresh from the griddle and the mulled ale cool in
its great earthen bottle. There was a power in him that brought her eyes
to his, and whether she would or no’ she looked at him, and he looked
back at her.
And then at milking time he came. She knew it was his shadow in the door
as she sat milking there. But never a move made she, and never a turn of
her head, although her heart was singing louder than the milk that struck
the pail. And never a word she said about the singing of her heart, and
never a word said he. But every night he came and watched, and every
night he waited while she strained the milk.
Lightsome days they were, and work was easy in the doing. And she would
sing and scrub the yard for Mary Tate the second lass, and often she
would do the work for both when Mary’s cough confined her to her bed. Nor
did she care about the extra tasks, but rather she welcomed them, knowing
that Sandy loved her all the more that she was strong. And though at
times he looked on Mary with admiring eyes, seeing her hair that lay like
silken wheat against her head, Jean did not care; she knew the kindling
of his heart was but for her, and the strength that lay in her round
arms. And nearing thrashing time he said:
“Come, Martinmas, I’ll go a cotterin’.”
And Jean replied with hurrying heart, tossing her head to give the words
a careless lilt:
“’Deed? An’ wha will cotter wi’ ye?”
“Yersel’, I’m thinkin’,” he made answer. And lingering by the stooked
grain that stood like little tents beneath the moon, he told her of the
fine bay mare he had his mind upon; and of the farm, come time, they’d
rent together; and of the butter she would make for marketing, and of the
long, long hours that they would work, he, with his back that had the
strength of two, and she, with arms that had the strength of any man’s.
And by and by they’d own a farm, and _she_ would go to kirk in taffetas,
and _he_ would wear a tall gray hat on market days.
Down on her knees she fumbled for the bottle, pulling it with avid hand
from its wrapper in the kist. Seizing the cork with yellowed teeth, she
spat it out, and drank, gulping dryly in her haste. She settled back upon
the piled potatoes in the fusty murk, her heavy throat racked with bitter
sobbing. The thrashing machine sounded in her ears again. She stood in
its sucking wind, feeding the yellow sheaves to its hungry mouth. Sandy
swung by calling her above the roar, love glimmering in his face. She
stopped to wave at him—to watch his glinting head go by—the crunching
mouth reached for her fingers—drew them onward with the wheat—seized
them, pulled them in,—the hand, the arm, up, up the arm:—Oh, God, stop
it!—stop—
She jerked from side to side with the pain of sharp remembering, thumping
the potatoes with the splashing bottle. And then she licked the whisky
from her hand, and drank, whimpering as the glow stole round her heart.
Sandy came to the hospital, silent and down-looking, and every time he
came his stay was shorter. The smell of medicine made him fit to spew,
or the second man was away gallivanting with a lass, and he must hurry
back to do his work. And then he got to bringing Mary Tate along, and she
would sit and look at him and giggle when he looked at her as if they had
a joke between the two of them. And Jean could never speak to him alone
or ask a word about the cottering.
Long after thrashing she came back from hospital, and Martinmas was
drawing near. Lads were speaking of feeing time and whether they would
stay, or seek a better place. But Sandy never spoke a word, but had some
business in the byre, or other work to do when she would question him.
And Mary Tate would make his brose with extra butter, and mealy-mouth
about him in the evening, and make as if she knew what she would never
tell. When Jean could bear no more of that she asked:
“Is Sandy biding here or goin’ cotterin’?”
And Mary laughed and said:
“If he’s yer man ye’ve little need to ask.”
And Jean could barely keep from riving her. “What mean ye by that taunt?”
she cried.
But Mary laughed, smirked and simpered while she stepped about as if the
kitchen were a dancing hall, and all the lads had come to look at her.
So she cornered Sandy in the stubble field at loosing-time. He bore the
harness on his arms and round his neck, for he would sooner break his
back than tire a horse for no good end. He saw her, and he tried to pass,
making as if the horses needed him, but Jean put out her hand.
“A word wi’ ye. What’s come o’ a’ yer talk o’ cotterin’?”
“Oh, nathin’,” he replied. And cried: “Whoa, Bess, whoa!” as if the
horses were astray.
“Nathin’?”
“No.” And looked ahead, straining as if to see the horses reach the
watering trough.
“Look at me, Sandy Morrison: Why will ye no’ go cotterin’?” she cried,
shaking his harness-laden arm with her one hand.
“I’ll cotter come time, nae doot,” he said, with more ease in his voice
than in his face.
“Wi’ _me_?” Her voice was shrill and cut him like a lash. The red rose up
his throat. “Wi’ me? Will ye go cotterin’ wi’ me. Answer me _that_, Sandy
Morrison.”
He could not look at her, and tried to turn away.
“Answer me!” She screamed and beat his breast, and as she struck her
dangling stump jerked to the motion of the beating. Sandy’s eyes were on
it.
“I canna, Jean,” he said. “I’ve nae use for a wife wantin’ a hand.”
And so he married Mary Tate and took her cottering, her that could never
wet her feet, her with arms like matches, and legs like clay-pipe stems.
He took her cottering for a year, and then the baby came, and Mary
couldn’t leave her bed for many a month, and when she _did_ they said
she’d creep about more like a ghost than anything that drew the breath of
life.
Sandy left the cottering and hired out again. Soon there was another
wean[10] to feed and tend; and every year or two another wean, another
mouth for Sandy Morrison to feed, and Mary always lying in the bed. And
he that had so proud a head left the farming to do what work he could
about the town by nights, and tend the weans and make their porridge by
day. He that spoke of fine bay mares, and cottering, and rented farms,
and tall gray hats, was doing work that none would do,—emptying garbage
in the night. She lived again that first night of his shame, when he
crept up the lane at dawn, his head hung low, hoping none would see. But
_she_ was there and screamed her scorn, as many a dawn since then she’d
screamed her scorn:
“Nae use for a wife wantin’ a hand, eh? Fine for ye emptying garbage,
fine for ye.” He never looked toward her, crying in the window there, nor
raised his head. And all the years he never looked nor spoke, but moved
about as if her jeering fell on ears that could not hear.
Why did he not cry back at her or lift his head? Oh, to make him give a
sign, to get her hand upon his shrunken flesh and rive it with her nails.
To tear him open that her eyes could see his bleeding. To make him scream
his pain as _she_ must scream—to make him cry her name—to _know_ that
he was suffering. She rocked tortured on the shifting pile of potatoes,
breaking their white sprouts as her hand grabbed anguished for the bottle.
Oh, what was he to her? He was a dour down-looking chiel[11], thin he
was, thin and withered, withered like a turnip at the winter’s end.
And his hair, his bonnie hair that shone like a Michaelmas penny, was
grizzled and sparse and dry like dusty moss. And the shoulders of him
that had filled the door from side to side as he stood watching her at
the milking, were shrunk and bent, and bent and shrunken was his neck
that had been straight and pink and moist with the sweat of the fields.
And the eyes of him were bleared and wavering, and his gait was like a
weary dog’s.
Oh, what cared she? Why wait to shame a bleary dog—a bleary dog—a weary
dog? Why sit and rock, and wait, and cry at dawn? She’d stop her rocking
and her crying. She’d stop her drinking and her wailing. She’d buy a
dolman trimmed with bugle beads and go to kirk on Sunday. She’d cry in by
to her that lay a coughing in the bed, and him that pottered about wiping
noses. She’d stop a while and sweep the floor, and wash the faces of the
glowering weans. And all the time that image in the bed would hate her
for her strength. And Sandy would be shamed and he would see what he had
cast aside. She’d stop and bake and throw her dolman on the chair so that
its beads would shine. She’d feed the weans and tend the image in the
bed, and it would choke with rage and cough, and cough, and cough.
She’d stop her drinking, this would be the last. She’d be looked up to
and respected, she’d go to kirk, she’d make red petticoats for naked
heathens, she’d stop her drinking. The higher she was held the more would
be his shame. She’d stop her drinking, break the bottle—break it on the
wall—but first she’d drink—no use to waste good whisky—this would be the
last—the very last—the last.
She started to sway pendulum-wise, settling deeper in the pile, rolling
her head as if in time to some well-remembered chant. Her vacant eyes
were bleared with tears that fell on this shoulder, and on that, with the
rolling of her head. Her purple lips forming the silent words twisted
in a half-forgotten pain, and then her voice meaningless as a wind in
a hollow place took up the dirge: “Nae use for a wife wantin’ a hand,
wantin’ a hand....”
THE TATTIE-DOOLIE
_THE TATTIE-DOOLIE_[12]
His name was James MacDonald MacGregor, as you could prove by reading the
newly painted sign over his door, which told Drumorty in yellow and black
that he was: “A high-class tailor; pressing and mending also done.” But
Jean MacFarlane had nicknamed him the “Tattie-Doolie” on the very first
Sunday. But this was not until after the service, not until after he had
outsung her, outsung her in time and outsung her in volume. Even in the
final hymn, when she had held the last note until her ears buzzed and her
face was like a harvest moon, _he_ had held it just a second longer.
Jean had always been proud of her breath. It lasted longer than any
breath in the parish of Drumorty. She was proud, too, that no voice in
the parish could be heard above her own. Many had tried it, both man and
woman!
Skilly’s “Gype,”[13] called that because he was daft-like and wore fancy
waistcoats on week-days, had a roaring fine voice; and Mary Macrimmon,
who had a wooden leg, “could make a braw noise when she put her mind to
’t.” But even they had lost heart at last and had left Jean to lead the
singing. The Gype stayed away from the service altogether and spent his
Sunday mornings “sellin’ his soul to the devil on a dambrod.” But Mary
Macrimmon was a God-fearing woman, so she made up for her loss by coming
late every Sunday, and the ring of the brass ferrule on her wooden leg
announced her passage up the flagged aisle to her seat in the front pew.
Each entrance was a dramatic triumph, for she changed the trimming on her
hat every week, so that the congregation “wouldna crane their necks for
naught.” Jean MacFarlane was well content to let her have this triumph:
there _should_ be compensations for a wooden leg.
In four years none had ventured to dispute Jean’s right to sing the last
note of each line as a solo. The members of the congregation accepted it
with the same placidity that they accepted the fact that the varnish had
never really hardened on the pews; and if you sat too long or too solidly
on one place, you left the nap of your suit embedded on the seat.
In time they came to be proud of Jean, and they waited for her to finish
with their mouths agape, as much out of admiration as out of a desire to
be ready to start the next line when her breath finally gave out.
The organist, who was blind, knew better, and longed for the courage
to terminate Jean’s stentorian solos. But she dared not, for the
congregation believed that she couldn’t be so good as an organist that
could see, and this made her timid; so she would humbly hold the last
note until Jean’s final gasp signaled that she could start a new measure.
But in return for this, Jean defended her when some young snip would
suggest that she wasn’t much of an organist. “No,” Jean would admit.
“She’s no’ a great musician, but she’s a gran’ accompanist, an’ that’s
what’s needed in a kirk like ours.”
Until that first Sunday Jean had held no grudge against James MacDonald
MacGregor, although it would have been natural, and even dutiful, for
her to have sniffed a little in affected disdain when she heard his
name mentioned, for his arrival was a source of much distress to her
father, Perney MacFarlane, who had been the only tailor in Drumorty for
twenty-five years, as had been his father before him. Indeed, old Perney
had given Jean the rough side of his tongue for her undaughterly lack of
resentment over the new tailor. But Jean, while realizing that his advent
would end her father’s sartorial monarchy, was none the less conscious of
a pleased flutter when Mistress MacKenty stepped in by to say: “The puir
man’s single dootless, for I hae seen neither hide nor hair o’ a wife,
nor her belongings.”
“That’s a consideration,” Jean had answered; and, giving her father an
accusing look, added: “to them that never sees a man frae one day’s end
to the other.”
Jean was a little irritated with her father on this score, and blamed him
that she hadn’t been married long since. For, although his trade should
have supplied her with more suitors than any other lass in Drumorty, it
was a fact that, while the grocer’s daughter by making smirking pretense
of helping, could meet young men on Saturday evenings in her father’s
shop; and even the druggist’s boarding-school daughter could “happen” to
come in to kiss her father good night when a prosperous young farmer was
in, Jean could never meet a man that way, because Perney insisted that
it wasn’t seemly for a single woman to come in, when a man _might_ be
having his trousers fitted. To Jean’s protest: “Father, ye canna always
be fittin’ the crotch,” he merely answered, “I _might_ be.”
On the way to kirk that first Sunday, Jean was in a twitter. She had even
gone the length of putting Jockey Club on the front of her bodice as well
as on her handkerchief. This made her feel akin to Jezebel, and for a
moment she liked the feeling. She wished that a woman could be “wanton in
her ways” and yet seem respectable. Then, appalled at her own wickedness,
she made a hasty prayer for her soul’s salvation, and decided that scent
was a hand-maiden of the devil and that she would never use it again. But
the next moment she was glad that she _had_ used it, and sorry that she
hadn’t used more, as the new tailor passed her on the road and remarked
to his neighbor something about “a fine smell.”
He was grand beyond Jean’s expectations. He wore a frock coat and a
“tile,”[14] and she gasped in admiration of his “venturesomeness” in
wearing them when there was neither a marriage nor a funeral in the
neighborhood to justify such splendor.
For in Drumorty the laird is the only man entitled by common opinion
to wear such grandeur on ordinary Sundays. Many a tattie-doolie in the
fields around Drumorty flapped in solitary dignity with the scarcely worn
frock coat and “tile” of some deceased farmer, who had been too modest to
wear them.
Jean had even been pleased when he came boldly up to the choir and took a
seat in the front row of the men’s pew directly facing her. It was a bit
forward of him to sit in the choir without a public invitation from the
minister, but Jean thrilled. “It’s all of a piece wi’ his wearin’ a tile,
he’s a man that kens his mind and does it.” She was glad also that he was
where he could see her, and know at once who it was that sang so long and
so loud.
She settled herself in her seat with the dignity that a duck acquires
upon water. Debating the relative effectiveness of a lace handkerchief
emerging from her sleeve or thrust daintily into the front of her bodice,
she decided in favor of the former, because if she wore it on her breast
the book would hide it when she stood up to sing.
Satisfied that she was at her best, she glanced across the aisle. She
was disappointed to find that he was not watching her. He was reading
the hymn numbers on the announcement slate and looking them up in his
hymn-book.
“A singer himsel’, nae doot,” she reflected. “All the better; it takes a
singer t’ appreciate a singer.” She looked him over carefully and decided
that he was “over thin for good looks, and over white in the face. But he
had a grand mustache! A manly-like an’ full-growin’ mustache. A careful
wife that tended him like a chicken on a brod,[15] could make a fine
strappin’ chiel out o’ him.”
A yearning tenderness toward him, the passion of a brood hen, stirred in
her breast. She wanted to envelop him in her care; already he seemed to
belong to her. Feeling the need to emphasize this to herself by speaking
of him, she whispered to Mary Macrimmon:
“What think ye o’ the new tailor?”
When Mary answered: “He’s unco chilpet[16] and hungry-like aboot the
jaw-bones,” she answered tartly:
“He’s no’ hog-fat. For _mysel’_, I like a man on the thin side.”
Indeed, Jean had even found herself thinking with satisfaction of the
twenty-four hand-made and feather-stitched night-gowns that lay at the
bottom of her kist.[17] Not that she was ready to jump down the throat of
the first man that asked her. Indeed not! She wouldn’t fash[18] herself
if she never married! But twenty-four night-gowns made a body feel
prepared for anything.
When the organist began the prelude to the first hymn, Jean took a deep
breath, and set her head like a filly fighting the snaffle.
Now he would see! Now he would take notice! She charged the first note
with a vociferation that made Mary Macrimmon drop her hymn-book. Never
had her voice been so loud. Never had she felt more exultant in its
power. He would be looking at her now! But wait! Wait until the end of
the verse when she could show him the length of her breath. _That_ would
make him take stock and wonder. _That_ was where breath could show to
advantage.
As she reached the last phrase, she filled her lungs. Now he would see.
This would be the best that she had ever done.
Her voice rose powerfully above the others. They were falling away. As
the last note was reached, Jean’s voice took hold of the ragged edges of
sound and knit them up. Soon she would be singing alone.
But what was this? A voice full and strong was keeping pace with her.
_He_ was still singing. Was he trying to compete with her? It couldn’t
be! She glanced across at him, her face red with the strain of holding
the note. Yes! He was wilfully trying to outsing her. In his eyes was the
insolent look of a duelist who is sure of victory. Outraged, Jean lost
her hold upon the note, and James MacDonald MacGregor’s voice boomed out
in triumphant solo for two beats more.
Affronted! Affronted she was and shamed before the whole congregation!
Shamed and affronted in her own kirk. And by _this_; this whippersnapper.
Made mock of and be-meaned by a half-starved bantam-cock, with a tile on
his brainless head.
There was a sputtering and sizzling of suppressed mirth from the body
of the kirk. The new verse started, and staggered along in gusts like
a drunken man. The McKenzie lassie with the fat legs was giggling and
nudging her neighbor. The minister was hiding behind his prayer-book, but
the redness of his ears told that even _he_ was laughing. Mary Macrimmon
was making no pretense of singing but was frankly laughing under cover of
the organ. The new tailor was looking about him, smirkingly appreciative
of his victory, although he did not yet know its magnitude.
Jean’s heart was fit to fly out of its cage, so angry was she. For little
more she would have thrown her hymn-book in his face. He would come here,
would he? Come here and set up opposition to her father. Horning his nose
in on a man that had worked in Drumorty all his life. But that wasn’t
enough. He must dare to outsing _her_, that had led the singing for
years. He must make a byword of _her_ that had defended him against her
own father. Oh, but she was well punished that she hadn’t hated him from
the first, the swaggering dandyprat, the fribble popinjay, all dressed up
like a tattie-doolie! In that moment she hated him as only a heart that
might have loved _can_ hate.
It had been a bitter Sunday morning; and a bitter, bitter walk back
from the kirk with whisperings and laughter all about her, and handkies
held up to hide wide grins of amusement. It had been hard to bear with
Mistress MacKenty when she said with ill-disguised glee: “Weel, weel,
he’s goin’ t’ lead the singin’ as well as the tailorin’.”
But there had been comfort in seeing the pleasure it gave old Perney
to hear her flay the new tailor. So delighted was he with her nickname
for his rival that he pressed her to take the neck of the boiled fowl,
a delicacy which he only relinquished in moments of great emotion. For
Perney was troubled in his heart, deeply troubled and anxious, and he
dare not speak of it. He had a secret which he believed was shared by no
one. It was this. He didn’t know how the collar of a coat should be cut!
For, although he had been fully thirty-five when his father had died and
left him the tailoring business, he had never up to that moment either
cut or fitted a collar. It had been the elder MacFarlane’s belief that
his son was a witless warlock[19] who was by nature bound to ruin any
piece of cloth into which he put a pair of shears.
In time he begrudgingly and with loud-voiced distrust, allowed Perney to
cut and fit trousers, and at a pinch, when his eyes began to trouble him,
he would prayerfully let him work on a portion of a coat. But never to
his last day would he let him touch a collar.
So Perney inherited the business with a perfect knowledge of trousers,
a partial knowledge of waistcoats, and a complete ignorance of collars.
For so jealous was old MacFarlane of this knowledge that he had always
retired behind a screen for the cutting and fitting of this mystic
portion of the garment.
On the first day he was alone, Perney had embarked on a series of
experiments. From then on, every suit he cut was a hazard, an adventure.
This much he suspected about collars. Something had to be cut on the
crosswise, and something had to be stretched. But which had to be
stretched, which had to be cut crosswise, he never was able to find
out. Sometimes he did it one way, and sometimes the other, but little
satisfaction resulted. When, occasionally, the miracle happened, and
he would produce a collar that did neither stick out at the back like
a spout, nor shy away from the neck in a coy semicircle, he had always
forgotten how he had cut that particular collar, and try as he would he
couldn’t duplicate it.
Perney had never told this to a soul, not even his wife; nay, _least_ of
all, his wife. But sometimes he wondered uneasily if she knew. There was
something too impassioned in the way she defended him when a customer
complained that the collar didn’t fit. It looked like something more than
chance that brought her hurrying down the stairs just in the nick of
time, and there was something more than affability in her voice when she
exclaimed to the customer upon her entrance: “My certies, but that jacket
brings out the breadth o’ yer shoulders.” If in the face of her evident
admiration, the customer still murmured that the collar didn’t set to his
neck, her voice became a shade scornful as she replied: “Think ye the
collar’s human? How would _it_ know where yer neck is? Hae patience and
wear it a while, and come time, it will grow to the set o’ yer body.” And
if he still complained, she would deride him playfully, crying: “Certies,
man, expect ye the collar to grip yer neck like yer lass’s arm?” If this
didn’t send him away with his face red and the suit under his arm, she
could go even further.
It was not so easy with the young ones who had been to Aberdeen to take
the agricultural course at the university. _They_ were “very notional,”
and would bring a suit back again and again for alterations. But smart
though they were, they hated to encounter Mistress MacFarlane, and
would peep in at the window first to see that she was out of the way.
But in the end she would always vanquish them. And it is a tribute to
her eloquence that they sometimes came to agree with her that “a collar
couldna be expected to fit, until you had worn it six months.”
In all the twenty-five years, Perney had never had a suit left on his
hands; but he knew well where the credit lay for that.
He spent long hours turning it over in his mind. Did she truly believe
that his collars were perfect, and his customers sorely wanting in sense?
Or did she know all the time that he couldn’t cut a collar? But no—that
thought smarted too keenly. She would never be able to keep from telling
him if she knew. He knew women, with their tongues always wag-wagging.
She’d cast it in his face in one of her tempers. She’d never be able to
hold it back. No, she didn’t know. Of course she didn’t know. But why,
then, did she never mention collars when they were alone? Because she
thinks I can cut them. Because she knows I can’t. It was plausible either
way. She knows. She doesn’t. She knows. She doesn’t. For hours his needle
would flash out and in to this torturous refrain. Overhead he would hear
her, heavy-footed, going back and forth about her work. Many times he had
risen from his bench, determined to go up and have it out. Or sitting by
her in the evenings, he had often been tempted to break the long silence
by shouting the one word “Collars!” just to see what she would do. But he
never dared carry out his resolve, because he couldn’t bear to learn that
she knew.
Most of the time he was comforted by the thought that she didn’t know,
and he loved her fiercely for her blind faith in him. But on occasions
when she would defend him too loudly, he was convinced that she knew. And
he tortured himself by the thought that she despised him in her heart. At
such times he almost hated her, not only for the knowledge she had, but
that she was strong enough never to give it voice.
One thing made it bearable. He could laugh at her. She had a notion about
the making of broth. Nay, more than a notion, it was a belief as dear to
her heart as her religion. And he knew it to be founded on folly.
Mistress MacFarlane was a Fraser, and the Frasers had always held the
reputation of making the best Sunday broth-with-dumplings in the parish.
It was their crown. How to make it was their secret. It necessitated the
constant attention, for the whole forenoon, of a member of the family.
This meant that some one must stay away from the kirk during the morning
service; and as this mortification seemed to be borne more cheerfully by
the male portion of the family, it came to be a tradition that the Fraser
men were a godless ilk that would rather tend broth than praise the Lord.
Indeed, one minister had even preached a sermon on setting up graven
images, and it was clear that he exhorted the Fraser family to choose
between their broth and the Kingdom of Heaven. But it was useless.
So, the Sunday morning after his marriage, Perney learned the secret
of the Fraser broth. His wife told him every detail, as indeed she had
continued to tell him every detail every Sunday morning since, for
somehow she could never believe that he could retain all its intricacies;
and never once did she fail to come back from the door-step to repeat:
“Mind ye now, quarter of an hour apart.”
_That_ was the secret! Other benighted Drumortians put everything into
the pot at once. But the Frasers first boiled a shin bone in the water
for half an hour, then added the turnips. A quarter of an hour later the
carrots went in, and so on, until finally the dumplings.
Before leaving for the kirk, Mistress MacFarlane would arrange the
different vegetables in bowls and set them in a row leading away from the
fire. Just before tying her bonnet strings, she would drop the bone into
the water and remind him: “The bowl next the fire goes in first.”
It was a ritual gone through with much gusto on her part and great
patience on the part of Perney.
At first he had blundered, forgetting this or that, or he would go
down to the shop to play a solitary game of chess and forget the broth
altogether, and bowls of raw vegetables would betray him to his wrathful
wife upon her return.
One Sunday, in a flush of rebellion, he had dumped the contents of
all the bowls into the pot the moment she was off the door-step, and
thumped defiantly down-stairs to play chess. But he had little peace
that morning, for in spite of himself, he believed in the superiority of
the Fraser broth. He was apprehensive about its flavor, and in two minds
whether to confess or not, until they sat down to the table and Mistress
MacFarlane, taking the first spoonful exclaimed just as she always did,
just as every Fraser always did: “My, that’s fine broth.” And he agreed,
just as the spouse of every Fraser always agreed. He never let a hint of
what he had done cross his lips; after that, his Sunday mornings were
tranquil.
But now Perney was troubled. The arrival of the new tailor sharpened
his anxiety about the collars, for not only might his wife discover
the truth, but soon all Drumorty might know. He tortured himself by
attributing to his rival great skill in collar making, and by magnifying
his own lack of skill. Soon the sight of a new suit, with the collar
snugly fitting the neck, justified his fears. And with every day came
discouraging news of another customer gone over to the enemy. Fear
was added to fear, as orders came in more and more slowly. Even the
report that the “Tattie-Doolie” couldn’t hang trousers didn’t bring the
consolation it should have. He began to lean on Jean, seeking comfort in
the increasing scorn she expressed for the “Tattie-Doolie,” for Jean’s
emotion was growing more keen with each Sunday. She existed from week to
week in a fever of anticipation. She lived only for those moments when
they faced each other across the aisle in combat. One morning he was late
and she was beside herself for fear he would not come. At his sudden
appearance her heart raced in an intoxication of _something_, she called
it hatred.
After the services, when she reached home, she would deride him with
a wit that delighted Perney, and a venom that surprised herself. But
sometimes, following these outbursts, she would go to her room and cry
helplessly, and she knew that she wasn’t crying because he had outsung
her.
There is no knowing how it might have ended, had not the organist died
suddenly, making it necessary to send hurriedly to Aberdeen for another
to take her place. Five minutes after the train came in with the new one,
Mistress MacKenty was spreading the news that it was a man this time,
with most extraordinarily thin legs. By noon the next day she was able to
tell that he demanded no less than two eggs for his breakfast, and that
he was bound and determined to conduct the choir practise himself without
interference from the minister. So it was clear that he was a feckful man
in spite of his legs.
And his hands on the organ proved this to be true. Jean was filled with
a new excitement as the organ woke clamorously and shook itself at his
commanding touch. This was playing! This was music worth singing to! The
“Tattie-Doolie” would never outsing her again. Here was music that would
give her strength to conquer him. The new organist would see who had the
longest breath. He would judge who was best fitted to lead the singing.
Her voice rose with clarion strength. The tailor was doing his best
also. Jean was reluctantly obliged to admit that there were worse voices
than the tailor’s. They were nearing the end of the line. _Now_ for the
struggle! But something was amiss. The last note slipped away from her
like an eel, and the next line was in progress before she knew it. She
tried to hold on at the end of the next line; but again the organist
didn’t wait.
Of course, he didn’t know any better. _That_ was it, Jean reasoned. She
would have to wait till the end of the verse to show him. _Then_ he would
be glad to hold the note for such a voice. An organist had to be trained
to a singer’s ways. Nearing the end she raised her voice so that he
couldn’t help but hear her. But with a loud blast from the quaking pipes
he drowned her out and briskly started the next verse.
Dumfounded, she looked across the aisle to see what the “Tattie-Doolie”
thought of this. He was glaring furiously at the organist’s head.
Presently his glance met Jean’s, and they gazed at each other in a common
bond of indignation. He signaled to her not to sing, and closed his
hymn-book emphatically, to show that he meant to be silent. Jean did the
same, and he nodded his approval. Exchanging knowing smirks they waited
for the collapse of the singing.
But it was not the hopeless failure they expected it to be. Their revenge
was _no_ revenge. Nobody missed their singing. The organ sped its
multisonous way with the abandon of a calliope at a circus. It cared not
a penny who sang or who didn’t. Its very abandon was inviting, and they
fain would have joined in the singing but pride forbade them.
The tailor became more and more crestfallen as the service progressed. He
fingered his hymn-book longingly, but he could not bring himself to start
again.
Seeing his dejection, Jean forgot her own disappointment and yearned over
him. She understood only too keenly how he was missing the exaltation of
singing to the full capacity of his lungs. She knew only too well the
sense of loss he felt, and the bitter hurt to his pride. His emotions
found a dual echo in her breast; she was heartsick for herself, but she
was doubly heartsick for him. Her one thought was to save his pride for
him at any cost.
At the close of the service she eluded her mother, and caught up with him
as he walked with slackened step and drooping shoulders along the road.
It was a thing she could not have done for herself. But she was doing
this for _him_. Nothing else could have given her courage to make that
advance under the critical watching eyes of the congregation. She reached
his side gasping, and a little hesitant, but the sight of his despondent
face spurred her afresh, and she cried with well simulated derision:
“Heard ye ever such singin’! A lot o’ women squeakin’ like mice in a
trap, an’ no’ a man’s voice among the lot!”
He braced up at her approach and the gloom lifted from his face at her
words, but settled back again as he answered doubtfully: “Skilly an’ the
minister were singin’.”
“Singin’, were they!” Jean cried with a chuckle. “Man, yer over-generous
to call it _singin’_.”
“They’re no’ so bad,” he said, inviting her to fresh protest. She laughed
shrilly. “Ye ken fine, we never had a proper man’s voice till ye came.”
The swing was coming back to his shoulders again, and he was taking
bigger strides.
“Think ye that?” he questioned anxiously. “I had a notion ye didna like
my singing.”
He would never know what her next words cost her. For a moment the old
rivalry came to life and pride strove with love. In that swift space
she was a singer again, proud of her voice and contemptuous of his, but
_only_ for a moment. Then came her admission from quiet lips: “I was
jealous o’ yer voice; jealous o’ yer breath bein’ longer than mine.” With
those words she retired forever, leaving the stage to him. She would
never compete with him again.
His step was jaunty now, and his face beamed with gratification.
“Aye, my breath is a _lot_ longer than yours,” he replied.
Jean’s heart faltered a little at his reply. It was true that his breath
was longer than hers; it was true that his voice was louder, but he might
have said something kind about her voice, even if he didn’t believe it.
_She_ could tell any lie to make him feel better, it hurt that he didn’t
care to lie for her. Now that his spirits were restored and he no longer
needed her, Jean lost her courage. A dull ache assailed her heart and
sharp tears forced their way into her eyes. She continued to walk beside
him only because she could not do otherwise with all Drumorty looking
on. Her brimming tears were about to fall in spite of her struggle to
keep them back, but the tailor saved her this humiliation. His momentary
exhilaration was passing away, and shadows were gathering over him again.
“I missed the singin’,” he sighed dolefully. “I like to sing. It seems
like as if I had to sing something out o’ me on the Sabbath, to get a
fresh start for the next week.”
“I ken what ye mean,” Jean cried with ready sympathy, blinking away her
unseen tears. “That’s the way _I_ feel—bottled up like.”
“Aye,” he agreed.
A daring thought came to Jean, a very daring thought. Quivering with
excitement at her own temerity, she said: “I hae a harmonium. Would ye
like to step in by wi’ me for an hour an’ sing the hymns?”
He looked full at her for the first, and there was admiration in his
eyes. “Ye can _play_?” he questioned eagerly. “I’d like it fine, if—if—”
Jean knew what he meant.
“My father likes music,” she answered.
She was fluttering inside like a nest of young birds, half with joy, and
half with fear of her father. But she would go through with it if the
heavens were to fall.
As they reached the door, Mistress MacFarlane caught up with them. Being
a true woman, she had already decided that Jean’s wedding veil would be
at least half a yard longer than the veil of that high-handed lassie of
the druggist’s had been.
“I’m goin’ to play the hymns for Mr. MacGregor,” Jean explained.
“Aye, aye,” said Mistress MacFarlane, with a comfortable, round pink
smile, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. “Aye, aye, that
will be fine.” With an elaborate wink to Jean, she slipped in and up the
stairs. Understanding her maneuver, Jean lingered below until she heard
the kitchen door shut quickly, then, knowing that her father was safely
imprisoned, she followed, leading the tailor into the heavy-curtained,
musk-scented parlor.
It was well that Mistress MacFarlane went first and pushed the enraged
Perney backward into the kitchen, for he had seen Jean approaching with
the “Tattie-Doolie” and was seething at her treachery.
“What means this?” he demanded when he regained his balance after his
wife’s unexpected violence.
“Whist!” she commanded. “Dinna make an uproar. It’s the new tailor come
to sing the hymns wi’ our lassie.”
“In _my_ hoose?”
“Why should he no’?” questioned his wife with irritating calmness,
pulling at the tips of her black kid gloves the while, but carefully
keeping between Perney and the door.
“Nae in _my_ hoose! Step aside, woman.”
“Sit doon, man, an’ stop yer haverin’,”[20] she answered with easy
contempt. “Do ye expect yer bairn to go to her grave a maiden?”
“What’s that?” cried Perney with fresh fury. “He wants to _marry_ Jean.
He would _dare_!”
Mistress MacFarlane snorted and elbowed him out of the way with a pitying
superiority.
“No,” was her cryptic reply. “He has no’ dared _yet_, but he’ll dare come
time.”
Perney was bewildered. It was hard to maintain his indignation in the
face of his wife’s dispassionate assurance. She was his rock of strength.
He followed in the course she steered, for her steering was always for
his betterment. But now she seemed to have turned traitor and he felt
lost. If she would only speak up and tell him her mind; he could always
bear her lectures better than her silences. She was stepping about the
room quietly, as if it were no concern of hers that his rival was here,
under his roof.
The tailor’s voice rose lustily singing. “Oh, come all ye faithful.”
It was more than Perney could bear in silence.
“What mean ye, woman?”
“Man, hae a little sense,” she urged, as if speaking to an unreasoning
but lovable child. “It’s high time that Jean was married—an’ there’s no
room for _twa_ tailors in Drumorty.”
So _that_ was it! It was a staggering thought. He sat down in his chair
the better to support it. He might have known that she had _some_ bee in
her bonnet. She was not a woman to act without a purpose. And she was
right. She was quite right. It would be a blessing to have a partner
instead of a competitor. He would give him the collars to do! That would
be a great relief. The thought made him light-hearted, and he was just
about to show her that he saw some reason in her plans, when she said:
“Ye can give him the collars to do.”
At that he straightened in his chair, on the defensive again. So she
knew! She had known all the time! She had lain beside him for thirty
years with that secret knowledge in her heart. Despising him, perhaps!
Yes, despising him. It wasn’t for Jean she wanted the new tailor; it was
because she knew that _he_ could make better collars. She put her trust
in the “Tattie-Doolie,” in a stranger, an enemy, and she had turned
against _him_, that had sheltered and loved her for thirty years.
She despised him, did she? Laughed at him? Well, he’d let her know that
there were _others_ that could laugh. He would tell her about the Fraser
broth. He would lay _her_ pride in the dust. There would be more than
_one_ humble heart in the house this day!
He turned toward her to launch his arrow of revenge.
All innocent of her blunder, she was lifting the lid of the broth pot and
sniffing ecstatically: a Fraser worshiping at the shrine of the Fraser
broth. He couldn’t do it. Never, if she trod him in the dust, never could
he hurt her like that. He turned away, his heart sick and lonely, his
soul bereft and bitter. She was no longer his. No longer the woman who
believed in him.
But there would be no more hiding behind a wall. He would speak to her
about the collars. He would have it out with her. He turned back and
asked in a voice sharp-edged, because it was so near to breaking: “Why
say ye I can give him the collars to do?”
A flicker of alarm came into her eyes, but she finished the sip of broth
she had in the spoon before answering, and then her voice came with easy
assurance.
“Weel, ye’ll never be able to trust him wi’ trousers; so ye can give him
the coats and waistcoats to do.”
“An’ the _collars_,” he said bitingly.
“Aye, an’ the collars, an’ other easy bits,” she answered with lazy ease.
Collars and other easy bits! So she _didn’t_ know. The foolish woman
didn’t know! She thought a collar was an “easy bit.” She had always
believed in him. In face of everything, she still believed that he was
right. Oh, she was a foolish, feckless woman, with her blindness about
collars, and her folly about broth. But he loved her. The very pattern of
his soul was woven with the threads of hers, dear, blind, trusting woman
that she was. She didn’t know. And now she would _never_ know.
Her feet as she stepped about setting the table made a happy homelike
music in his heart. How he loved her!
She paused at the table with an extra plate and spoon, and looked toward
him questioningly. He had been so silent, she was not sure that she had
won him over yet, so her voice was timorous and a little pleading: “Could
I ask him, Perney?”
“Aye, lass, ask him,” he agreed. Then, searching in his flowing heart for
words to tell her how he loved her, he said: “An’ I’m thinkin’, he has
never tasted the like o’ the broth he’ll taste this day.”
THE COURTIN’ OF SALLY ANN
_THE COURTIN’ OF SALLY ANN_
Mistress MacIntosh was firmly upholstered back and front in black satin
of a thick dull quality. In front she was tightly encased and well pushed
up. On the resulting ledge, there rested a locket containing on one side
a picture of the deceased Sandy MacIntosh, “a saint on earth if there
ever was one,” and on the other, a portrait of “my poor blind girl when a
child.”
Everything about Mistress MacIntosh seemed to be pressed backward by
determined though invisible fingers. It was as if she were forever
breasting a gale. Her shoulders were thrown back so far that there was an
indenture between her shoulder-blades. Even her thin gray hair seemed to
be striving to leave her face; the marks left by the comb divided it into
little railways that went hurrying to the back of her head, and the scalp
between was pink with the exertion.
The small black lace cap on her head, coming to a point neatly on the
front parting, carried out the illusion. At either side of the point,
three baroque pearl beads were sewed into the lace half an inch apart.
For some reason they suggested hidden artillery. She resembled nothing so
much as a battle-ship steaming out to the field of action.
Mistress MacIntosh had dealt fairly with life, as she was wont to point
out, but life had been far from dealing fairly with her. First there was
Sandy MacIntosh, a hard man to catch he had been, and no such great catch
at that, when all was done. But this she wouldn’t admit now, for it is
ill-done and unwise-like to belittle the dead. So she loudly proclaimed
his saintliness to the neighbors, but in her heart she admitted that he
had been a sore disappointment.
When, after thirty years of constant persuasion, she had got him at
last convinced that it was his clay pipe that made his tongue sore and
bleeding, and got him to give up smoking, a saving of eighteen pence a
week, he had gone out one Sunday morning for a walk along the railway
tracks, “and him as deaf as a door nail.”
They gathered him up piecemeal and brought him back in a gunny-sack,
and there had been nothing to dress up and show the neighbors. All the
expense and work of a funeral and none of the pleasure.
And then there was young Sandy, sure to be dead by spring with that
cough he had that was like to split him in two; but nothing would do but
he must get up and put on his braw new boots and walk with them in the
backyard, scratching the soles up so that the shoemaker would never take
them back in this world. And _this_, after she had watched him every day
for three months to prevent it, for what was the sense of letting him put
the boots on at all when he’d never live to wear them out? But he was
just as contrary as his father. He _would_ have the boots bought, and he
_would_ put them on. And now the best she would get for them would be
four or five shillings, if she would get _that_; for there were them that
thought that you could get consumption by barely touching something a
consumptive had worn.
And the blind girl! A body might think there would come an end to trouble
_sometime_. But no! She was just as unreasonable as the father of her.
Without giving a thought to anybody’s comfort except her own, and with
no provocation whatsoever, she had died the week after they had laid her
father away, and _this_, mind you, at the very time that the elders had
finally consented to raise her salary for playing the organ, from ten
shillings a week to ten shillings and sixpence.
It was just another instance of the perversity of life, that the daughter
who had the musical education should die, and Sally Ann, who had nothing,
not even enough get-up-and-go to catch a man, should be left.
Goodness knows it wasn’t for the want of help that Sally Ann was single!
Fowl after fowl had been killed, even the speckled hen that laid the
brown eggs that were so tasty; and pot after pot of broth had been thrown
away on lads that never came to the scratch. Worse-looking lasses than
Sally Ann, with nobody to help them, had landed good husbands. It was
Sally Ann’s own fault, as she had told her time and time again, when some
lad that might just as well have married _her_, stepped up the aisle with
another.
But it was useless to speak to her, useless to instruct her in the ways
to inveigle a man. If you left her alone with one purposely, instead of
edging him into a dark corner to give him courage to kiss her, she would
hand him the family album to look at, and flutter back and forth like a
hen before rain, until somebody came to keep them company. It seemed that
the more you threw a man at Sally Ann, the more she drew back and let her
chances slip by.
She had no more sense than the father of her, and _he_ had little
enough. Many a time when a customer had called to take out an insurance
policy, she had waited just out of earshot till Sandy would call her
to witness the document, but when, after an hour had passed, she would
hear the front door shut on the customer’s departing heels, she would
find him carefully putting away his luster china, with never a thought
of insurance policy in his head, and his only excuse would be: “It’s
unpleasant-like, woman, t’ keep harpin’ on death when a man comes t’ see
ye.”
She was a sorely tried woman, Mistress MacIntosh; sorely tried and
ill-done by.
But after all, the way things had turned out now, it was a mercy that
no man would batter down the door to get Sally Ann. With nobody else to
bring in a penny, it was just as well that Sally Ann was free footed and
not tied to some man who might not so much as give her mother a pail of
skimmed milk on Saturday night. For you can never tell about a man; there
was Mistress MacKenty’s Nellie that married Bransbog’s laddie, you would
think that she’d get all the butter she needed, and him with a byre full
of Jersey cows, but no, she was down at the grocer’s every Saturday night
as usual buying her pound, just as if she had never had a daughter in
this world.
It was a blessing too, although it had looked like a wilful waste of
siller at the time, that Sally Ann had spent her grandmother’s legacy of
three pounds ten shillings to go to Fraserburg and learn candy-making.
And it seemed like a special consideration from the Lord, that at the
very time Sally Ann started in business, Sweetie-Annie’s asthma took a
turn for the worse, and she was obliged to give up her shop and go to
live with her daughter, so that Sally Ann was able to buy her bottles and
pans for next to nothing, and get all her trade forby.
Not that Sally Ann would ever make a success of the business if it were
left to her. Indeed no; it was a case of constant watching to see that
she didn’t give the candy away to any red-cheeked bairn that pushed his
nose against the window. Things had come to such a pass one day that
she had even caught her putting her thumb on the weight side of the
scales right under her very eyes, and she had barely prevented her from
giving the Fraser bairn three half-penny’s worth of butterscotch for his
half-penny.
It was the like of _this_ which proved that Sally Ann was not fit to
serve the public, and that finally persuaded her to don her black satin
gown and serve the candy herself. It was a sorry down-come that the widow
of an insurance man, with a brass plate on his door, should be serving
candy to any wet-nosed bairn that had a half-penny to spend; but the
black satin gown made it bearable. And even the like of Skilly’s Gype,
that carried a high head and an impudent tongue in it, had been impressed
by the gold locket, and remarked that it “dootless had cost a bonnie
penny”; and when he ordered a pair of knitted gloves, he asked if she
would _mind_ knitting them in a heather mixture color; so it wasn’t as if
they didn’t _know_ that she was above such doings.
It had been a bitter privation to give up the front parlor and turn
it into a shop where all and sundry could come to geek and glower;
and harder still to take the lace curtains off the window and fill it
with pans of candy. She didn’t want to do it, but Sally Ann had been
determined about this; she had even gone the length of saying: “It’s no
secret that we’re sellin’ candy, mither.” That wasn’t like Sally Ann, she
was unreasonable and feckless like the father of her, but it was seldom
that she was impudent.
Sally Ann turned out to be very notional about the window. She thought
it was a tasty-like arrangement to have the woolen gloves knitted the
same color as the candy, and hang the pink gloves above the pink candy,
and the red above the red. But everybody kept crying for navy blue and
heather mixture gloves, and try as she would, Sally Ann couldn’t make
heather mixture candy, and when she did manage to make _something_ like
it, it was so queasy-looking that the bairns wouldn’t buy it.
So there hung the pink gloves and the red, and the green and white ones
that matched the peppermint rock, and nobody would buy them. But Sally
Ann didn’t care. They charmed her eye, and she excused them to herself
and to her mother by saying: “We have t’ look on ’t as necessary oot-lay
t’ decorate the winda. It lets them ken we sell gloves as weel as candy.”
She banked the back of the window up with pink and red geraniums, and
sometimes in the quiet of the morning, she would steal out to the middle
of the street and take a sly look at it, coming back to say guilelessly:
“It’s unco bonnie, mither, I hae the real knack o’ trimmin’ a winda.”
But Mistress MacIntosh would only sigh, and her sigh would mean: “T’
think that I hae come t’ _this_!” It made Sally Ann feel guilty, as if
somehow in selling candy, she were also selling her mother’s pride, bit
by bit in paper bags; and she would take tentie[21] steps on the edges
of her feet the rest of the morning, and speak to her mother only in
compassionate whispers.
There was something gleyed[22] about Sally Ann. She had started to be a
perfect copy of her mother, and then lost heart. Her prominent brows were
made to be heavily marked with dark eyebrows, but instead, each hovered
naked as an unstroked T above a timid, vague blue eye. Her shoulders had
the challenging set of her mother’s, and her dominant cheek-bones were
molded by the same firm hand, but her hair was the yellow of a mavis’
breast, and her ways were shy and tender, as if some essence of her
gentle father had crept by mistake into the wrong casket.
In the shelter of her room as she braided her hair by the candle-light,
Sally Ann would dream rash and glowing dreams of flashing lovers who
would not be denied. Or walking alone in the bracken-scented gloaming,
she would thrill in sweet enchantment at the thought of some bold
gallant, riding down the lane to clasp her wildly to his breast.
But it was only in her dreams that she was brave enough to lift eyes to
them; for the very approach of a man made her wits fly two ways at once
in a frenzy of embarrassment. Before her sister died, leaving her to
provide for the family, she had been steeped to the lips in mortification
at her mother’s constant angling after a man for her. She liked it better
the way it was now, with her mother on the watch to prevent her seeing
any man who might want to marry her. There was more room for self-respect
in that; although in truth, as she told herself ruefully, her mother had
no need to watch; the gallants of Drumorty took little heed of _her_,
they hankered after quick-eyed saucy lasses that were loud in their
laughing, and free at tossing gibe for gibe.
Sally Ann also hated the “church socials” at which she would perch
nervously on the edge of a chair, with a strained smile to show that
she was enjoying herself. As she sat hour after hour watching the lads
petitioning smiles from other lasses, but with never an eye for _her_,
she would seem to herself to get smaller and smaller and quieter and more
gray with every passing hour, until she would think that she had become
invisible, and would relax her effort to smile; but then her mother would
nudge her, whispering impatiently: “Dinna sit there wi’ a face that would
sour milk; there’s nae lad likes a dour-faced lass.” And she would pick
up her smile again and wear it dutifully the rest of the evening.
Each time she would plead to stay at home, saying that sitting so long
gave her a stiff neck, as indeed it did; but her mother insisted, and
somehow managed to prove that it was some unnatural ingratitude in Sally
Ann that made her not want to go.
But all that was changed now. Far from urging her to go, Mistress
MacIntosh even contrived to have “a sinkin’ aboot her heart” every time
there were any social doings, so that Sally Ann had to stay at home and
tend her. She even kept her from going to serve the customers in the
front parlor, except on those rare occasions when the water on her knee
made her a cripple. And she believed that Sally Ann was content, and
would never give marrying a thought unless some man came troubling her
with his haverings.
It was a Monday morning when Sally Ann made all the treacle candy for the
week. She always pulled it on a big hook in the front parlor, and because
customers might come in, she wore her sky-blue print gown fresh from the
ironing.
“Here’s Skilly’s Gype ridin’ doon the brae, the dirt flyin’ o’er his head
as if auld Nick were at his heels,” commented Mistress MacIntosh. “He’ll
be after his gloves, an’ them barely cast on yet. Tak’ the candy ben the
hoose, Sally Ann; ye’ll no’ be wantin’ t’ hae speech wi’ the like o’ him.”
“I canna, mither,” Sally Ann protested. “I hae t’ pull it when it’s at
_this_ heat, or I’ll hae t’ heat it o’er again.”
“Weel then, turn yer back on him, and dinna let on ye ken he’s here.”
“He’ll think I’m deaf,” said Sally Ann with a flustered giggle. Her heart
was capering queerly at the nearing clatter of hoofs.
“Better think ye deaf than think ye wanton,” warned her mother, bracing
herself against the Gype’s arrival by feeling if her lace cap was
straight.
He came in like a hurricane and was filling the parlor to the ceiling
before Sally Ann had time to catch up with her heart. Everything about
him, from his checked yellow waistcoat to his crinkling red hair bespoke
achievement and the poise and pride that comes of it.
Ten years ago they had called him daft-like, and nicknamed him “Skilly’s
Gype,” and had cried down scorn upon him at market and meeting-place
because he had come back from Aberdeen University with new-fangled
notions about farming. And the worthies had held their sides when he put
a roller over his newly sprouted oats; and loud had been their clamor
over the “tiled bathrooms for his Jersey cows.” This was when he put a
tiled gutter and running water in byre. But the derision had died out
when his oats and Jerseys robbed them of the best county prizes; and
though they called him “the Gype” still, and cracked their jokes about
his waistcoats, there was not one of them above stepping up to Skilly
Farm on a dark evening to ask him for a little advice. And now that “Auld
Skilly” was dead, and the Gype owned the farm, the lassies were fairly on
tiptoe at his approach and angling to catch him with every wile, as much
for the fine figure of a man he was, as for the grand farmhouse and byre
full of Jerseys.
But he had a high-handed way with them, and never went so far forward
that he couldn’t step back, for he was not minded to be married for his
Jersey cows, and indeed, he was not minded to be married at all while
there were willing red lips to be kissed and new waists to be circled in
Drumorty.
He included Sally Ann in his hearty “Guid day t’ ye,” but minding her
mother’s warning, she didn’t turn round. Indeed, she _couldn’t_ have
turned round, in such a flurry was she. The sound of his horse’s hoofs
had made her heart float out of her, and for the moment he was strangely
mixed up with the lover of her dreams, whose horse’s hoofs also sprayed
the sod behind him in his haste to reach her side.
“Yer gloves are no’ but just cast on yet,” Mistress MacIntosh was saying
discouragingly.
But the Gype was leaning far over the counter to attract Sally Ann.
“How long will I hae t’ wait t’ get some o’ the candy ye’re pullin’, Miss
MacIntosh?”
Her mother made answer, cutting off his view of Sally Ann. “We hae lots
o’ treacle candy all ready in the winda. How much wad ye be wantin’?”
“But I’m minded t’ hae some o’ the fresh,” he answered, stepping round
the short counter to Sally Ann’s side. Seeing him, she missed the hook,
and the candy would have fallen had he not deftly grabbed it and tossed
it upon the hook again.
“It’s sticky stuff, that,” he laughed, taking out his handkerchief to
wipe his fingers. Sally Ann smiled shyly up at him.
“It’s the verra color o’ yer hair,” he said, contemplating her. “Only
it’s no’ so bonnie as yer hair.”
“Yer horse is scarin’ at something,” said Mistress MacIntosh with a
clinking chill in her voice. “Better tend t’ yer ain business and let
the lassie tend t’ hers. She wants none o’ yer haverin’, keep that for
Bransbog’s lassies that hae nothing better t’ do than listen t’ the like
o’ ye.”
“Mither!” cried Sally Ann reproachfully.
“Dinna ‘Mither’ me,” snapped Mistress MacIntosh. “Gae ben the hoose as I
tel’t ye in the first place.”
“Mither—” began Sally again.
“Na, noo,” remonstrated the Gype. “I’ll no’ tak’ a bite oot o’ the lass.”
He put out a hand to detain Sally Ann, but, obeying a commanding signal
from her mother, she had the candy from the hook and was through the door
like a frightened squirrel.
“Be steppin’ yer way, ma mannie,” said Mistress MacIntosh with withering
patronage.
The Gype loitered. “I’ll tak’ a pound o’ candy first.” He was not minded
to go at Mistress MacIntosh’s bidding; it pleased him to make her drop
her triumphant air and reach down groaningly to the shelf under the
counter for a bag of candy.
“Noo,” he said, with the devil dancing in his face, “present it t’ Miss
MacIntosh wi’ my compliments an’ tell her frae me that I’d tak’ her
walkin’ if she didna hae such an ill-natured mither.”
“Awa’, ye impudent bletherskate, an’ tak’ yer candy wi’ ye. I’ll break
her twa legs afore I let her tak’ a step wi’ the like o’ ye.”
“We’ll see aboot that,” he mocked. “Tell her I’ll be in by on my way home
t’ kiss her guid night.”
“Awa’!” Mistress MacIntosh was too angry for further speech. “Na, ye’ll
no leave it here,” she cried as he pushed the candy back at her, and
hurried laughing from the shop, banging the door so hard that the glass
bell that covered the wax flowers on the mantel, jarred loose and crashed
to the floor. She hurried round the counter as fast as her stiff knee
would let her, intending to throw his candy after him, but as she heard
the thud of departing hoofs, she stopped to consider it. After all, it
was a shilling’s worth of candy and it had been paid for; and she could
sell it again and never let on to Sally Ann; and forby that, she would
charge him for the broken bell the next time he came in.
The Gype went thudding down the street, scattering the sod along the
gutter-side as he went, and laughing in appreciation of his own wit. Then
he bethought him of Sally Ann and his threat to kiss her good night. He
hadn’t meant it at the time. But why should he not? He was surprised
that he hadn’t noticed before how bonnie her hair was. And she had a
soft-like look in her eyes that was unco becoming in a young lass. He
recalled the rustling cleanness of her starched blue gown. He liked that
in a lass. His mother had always said it was an ill sign when a woman
could bear to be aught but spotless. She was wont to say: “Dirt on the
sark[23] is a sign o’ dirt on the soul.” And he believed her words to
be true, although he had often found her too clean for comfort when she
would follow him through the house with a besom[24] and a duster, crying
out upon him for a worthless clout that kept her cleaning from morning
to night. Nevertheless he felt it was a failing that brought her all the
nearer to the kingdom of Heaven; and somehow his heart could never center
for long on a lass who was not “persnickety” about dirt. There had been a
chorus-girl in Aberdeen who could keep him waiting by the hour, and who
had even made him miss a class or two to humor her; but a glimpse of her
grimy chemise showing at the neck of her dress had cured him of that.
You could tell that Sally Ann was clean right to her skin; and how white
her skin was, almost blue-white, like milk that had been skimmed. It
would not be a very sore trial to have to kiss Sally Ann! He grinned at
that. How would she take it? She would like it, of course. She would
pretend that she didn’t, but she _would_. He knew his worth too well
to doubt that. Doubtless she would be proud and brag about it. He must
watch, though. No use letting a lass think fun was more than fun. Lasses
had a way of seeing wedding rings and the like—queer how the least thing
could set them thinking that way. It would be wise to make it clear to
begin with—that was the best way.
Then he wondered who came courting Sally Ann. There was sure to be
somebody, for all her quietness. His mother had often said that the
quiet ones were the worst. She had been a wise woman, his mother. Maybe
Sally Ann knew a lot more than she was minded to let people see. She
had given him a look, shy-like up out of the corner of her eyes. There
had been encouragement in it, for all it was shy and soft-like. Oh, she
was no guileless lamb, blush though she may. It might well be that she
was as free with her kisses as Bransbog’s lasses, for all her mousey
ways. Doubtless she was expecting him this very minute, and thinking him
blate[25] that he hadn’t ridden round to the back of the house as soon
as he left the shop. And why hadn’t he? Dullard that he was, to keep a
lass waiting! He wheeled his horse about, his mouth widening roguishly.
“All right, Sally Ann. I’m no’ one t’ keep a lass waitin’ for a kiss. My
mither always tel’t me I must be obligin’ wi’ the women-folk.”
Sally Ann dumped the candy back in the pan, and took her flushed cheeks
out to the back yard. Her heart needed more room to beat. She was
dismayed by the pother it was making, and looked round for some sane
thing to do with her hands. Something to steady her.
A bag of oats for the chickens stood near. She noticed for the first
time that rust had made little holes in the tin basin, and she found
herself trying to push a kernel of oats through one of the holes. “Fine
nonsense,” she scolded, stopping herself. “Fine nonsense, this,” and with
reproving haste she filled the basin and took it down to the henhouse,
although it was unheard of and witless to give chickens their evening
meal at ten in the morning. She stood scattering the oats before the
lackadaisical hens and wondering at herself that she could be so mazed by
the Gype.
“It’s no’ as if I thought he meant a word o’ ’t,” she reasoned. “And what
did he say, but that my hair is the color o’ the candy, which is nothing
but the bare truth. Fine nonsense, this, to fash mysel’ o’er a bare
civility.”
She barely heard the Gype ride up to the hedge when he vaulted over
it, high-headed, thinking she was waiting there for him. He swaggered
approaching her, his cap far back upon his head, his lip lifted in
amusement over his glistening teeth.
Expecting some coquettish resistance, he lunged toward her and circled
her tightly with his arms. The pan slipped from her hands and rolled away.
Sally Ann, crushed against his breast, lay quiet. This was her dream as
she had dreamed it. This was love. This was her lover come to claim her.
A tide of sweetness welled up to her eyes.
Her quietness surprised the Gype, who would have understood better if she
had given him a clout on the ear.
He looked down at her quince-colored head lying bright against the rough
gray of his coat.
“She’s a bonnie lass,” he jested to himself. “It would be ill-done to
disappoint her.” He felt for her chin and raised her scarcely resisting
face. She looked up at him timidly; tears darkened her yellow lashes.
In alarm the Gype relaxed his hold. “This is a bonnie business,” he
reflected irritably. “Devil take me for a witless lout to meddle wi’ her.
She’ll hae me walkin’ down the aisle to the altar afore I’ve time t’ draw
my breath.”
He would have taken his arms away, but Sally Ann leaned helplessly
against him. He was thinking of escape when a smile flickered across her
tear-wet face. This reassured him. So she wasn’t blaming him. Maybe she
wasn’t taking him as seriously as he had feared. Some women cried for
nothing, and meant nothing by it.
His arms closed about her again and his arrogant lips covered her warm
mouth. Its willingness bewildered and conquered him. His emotions took a
new color, his arms about her were more gentle and his lips sought her
kisses with greater tenderness. He thought how soft and small she was
against his breast, and how foolish she was to trust him so. He must warn
her of that. A man might well think her wanton to be so free.
Sally Ann turned her face against his shoulder, a gentle sobbing
fluttered in her throat, her small round body drooping in his arms.
Seeing her so helpless, he thought he understood, and a bitter shame
smote his heart. He had frightened her! Frightened her so that she was
powerless to resist him. He had thought her free; had thought her willing
for his kisses, and all the time the poor lass had been too mazed to cry
out against him. Oh, prideful popinjay that he was, he had frightened the
lass out of her wits, and now she was crying as if the heart of her would
break in two.
“Oh, Sally Ann,” he cried, “I didna mean t’ fright ye so. Dinna
greet,[26] dinna greet, my wee lamb. I’m a lout that’s no’ worth the
hangin’, but I’d bake on a griddle afore I’d do aught t’ harm ye, Sally
Ann.”
She stopped sobbing, wondering at the trouble in his broad flushed face.
“Yer no’ a lout,” she said, ignoring all his protestations save that one.
Eager to drive away the signs of weeping, he was daubing awkwardly at her
face with his red-spotted handkerchief. But more tears kept falling, for
Sally Ann was so full of happiness it _had_ to overflow.
“Sally Ann,” came shrilly from the house.
“My mither,” cried Sally Ann, and her eyes became alert. “She’ll flay me
alive.”
“Wait,” begged the Gype, staying her as she started toward the house.
“Will ye meet me at gloamin’? Come along the Bracken Lane. I’ll be
waitin’, Sally Ann.”
“I canna.”
“Ye can. I’ll be waitin’,” he urged, releasing her struggling hand as the
cry from the house rang again more insistent.
“I canna,” and she darted away.
He watched her as she ran unsteadily along the cobble path between the
rows of boxwood, and when the last pale blue glimmer of her was lost in
the shadow of the doorway he went soberly out by the gate and found his
horse.
It was a day of mazement past all telling. What pans of candy were left
to burn. What pails of water left to overflow. What questions left
without answer. Well might Mistress MacIntosh cry out upon her for a
heedless limmer. No warlock upon the moors at evening ever went its way
with less direction than did Sally Ann. At gloaming she sought her room
beneath the thatch, brushing her hair with hands that flew aimlessly and
got tangled. And when at last she was ready, dressed in her Sunday best
taken by stealth from the kist on the stair landing, she found that no
feet of hers could take her one step from the shelter of her room.
Could _she_ go boldly down the lane to meet a lad at evening time? Could
_she_ walk up to him with lightsome words upon her lips as he stood
waiting there? Oh, no, she could not. Lasses there were that could go
with high heads and light laughing, and go, and go again. But _she_ could
not. Trysts in the gloaming were not for her.
She sat down upon her chair again, contemplating herself in the blistered
glass between the candle-sticks. Oh, to be broad-hipped and glib-tongued
like Bransbog’s lasses; to toss a lightsome head when lads were havering;
to swing by in rustling petticoats, confident that they were admiring.
Oh, to be _anybody_ but Sally Ann MacIntosh, so that the Gype might love
her. Oh, to _know_ that he loved her, so that she might be bold enough to
go to him!
And what had made her believe that the like of the Gype, proud footed as
he was, could love Sally Ann MacIntosh? What folly was it that made her
think that he was waiting for her now? Why would the Gype, sought as he
was by every lass in Drumorty, why would the Gype love her?
Oh, it was well she had come to her senses! Fine food for laughter it
would be if she walked down the lane to meet the Gype; fine food for
laughter if she found him there with Bransbog’s lassie, waiting to see
her come; or with the MacKenty lass that had so sharp a tongue. Well was
it, that her feet were wiser than her head and kept her home where none
could see her folly. She began to undo the black ribbon at her neck,
which was clasped by the brooch of twisted gold.
By sunset the Gype had reasoned with himself that no lass could cry over
a kiss of his. The little limmer had tricked him, had made him go further
than he meant. Oh, well, he was not unwilling to make her happy for a
time. She was a bonnie wee lass. He turned his horse into the Bracken
Lane with a sense that he was being very kind to Sally Ann. He had come
early, for he knew that in her eagerness to see him again she would think
gloaming had come when the sun had barely set and it would not be the
gallant thing to keep her waiting. He was pleased with himself. He liked
to make a lass happy.
Dismounting, he found a place to tie his horse, not so near that every
passer-by could see it from the road, for he was not minded to be
explaining to Bransbog’s lass, nor to Janet MacKenty whose tongue was
keen, nor even to Mary MacIntyre, though _she_ would never reproach him;
but it was hard to bear with her when she sat with tight lips and looked
past him as if seeing warlocks. A lass had many ways of making a man
itch to slap her. He sat where he could see Sally Ann approaching, and
measured with his eye just where her head would come as she turned the
corner by the sweetbrier rose-bush. It got darker and he had to change
his seat in order to see the road. He had been wrong to think that she
would come early. Of course she would come late. They always did for the
first tryst. Lasses were so retiring to begin with, and so demanding at
the finish. He wished that they worked the other way, it would save him
many a weary hour. It was getting murky and thick and well past gloaming.
Sally Ann could come now without any blame of being hasty at a tryst.
Doubtless she was on her way. Little limmer to keep him waiting so. But
clever little limmer!
The moon was coming up. This was past a joke, past clever wiles. The lass
must be blate to think he’d wait for her till moonrise. She must set high
store by herself to think he’d cool his heels for two hours waiting for
a kiss of hers. Did she think that James Minty of Skillymarnoe was sore
put-to to get a lass to meet him at gloaming? Thought she that? What had
she to command her that she set such value on herself? Little that _he_
could see. Nothing for looks, and never a penny to her name. Was he going
to sit till he took root waiting for such a lass?
No, he was but waiting to let her see how little store he set on any
kiss of hers. He’d make her rue this high-handed work. He had set down
higher-headed wenches than Sally Ann MacIntosh. When she came, he would
kiss her light-like, and he’d talk a while cheerily, then he’d say
canty[27] and smiling at her, “Weel, my lass, it’s gettin’ late. I maun
be gaun’ back to Skilly.” And he would be forgetful to kiss her good
night, but very friendly with it all for fear she thought that he was
vexed. And when next he saw her he would call her “Miss MacIntosh” as if
naught had been between them.
But she wasn’t coming, that was clear. How could he lower her pride for
her if she didn’t come near him? He’d go after her. Just at first it
would give her more reason for her pridefulness, but the higher he made
her think of herself, the greater would be her down-come when he passed
her by.
Sally Ann was braiding her hair with troubled fingers when she heard
a light tap upon the small window that opened upon the roof of the
peat-shed. Her heart told her who it was, and she hurriedly snuffed
out the candles, fearing that he could see her as she sat there in her
nainsook night-gown with the frilled cuffs.
But how could he come without a sound? How climb the roof without her
brother hearing?
The tapping again! How dare he knock so loudly? How could he be so bold?
Her fingers danced about the dressing table in a frenzy. She was afraid,
but wildly happy. “Fairly batterin’ down the hoose t’ get me,” her heart
sang. Oh, that this should happen to _her_. And then she saw his face
against the window-pane, a white wedge in the moonlight. He was raising
the sash. Her heart broke into panic. What should she do? Should she call
her mother?
The Gype was propping the sash with his shoulder. There was just room for
his arm and face in the narrow opening of the window.
“Sally Ann,” he whispered, searching for her in the dark room. “Come
here.”
“I canna,” she whispered back at him, but left the chair and came a
little way toward him.
“Come here,” he said again as she paused timidly.
“I canna,” she answered, coming nearer as she spoke.
“Come and kneel by me,” he commanded.
“I canna,” she said softly, but came and knelt by the window so that her
face was level with his.
“Noo ye’ll gie me a kiss, Sally Ann MacIntosh,” he said, catching hold of
her.
“I canna,” she gasped. How sweet was the tumult in her heart!
“Ye _will_.”
“No, I canna,” she faltered, praying that he would insist.
“It would be a sore pity t’ wake yer puir sick brother,” he whispered
mockingly. “A sore pity, but there’s a loose slate by my foot, and down
it goes unless ye kiss me this minute.”
“Oh!”
“It would be ill done t’ wake him, puir lad,” sighed the Gype.
“No, dinna,” she begged.
“Weel, I’m waitin’.” He thrust his gleaming face through the opening.
“Then I maun do it,” said Sally Ann, more to assure herself than him.
“First put yer arms about my neck,” he ordered.
“I canna.” But her arms trembled to obey.
“Down goes the slate then,” he threatened.
Her arms flew up in obedience. Oh, how bold she was. How bold, but how
happy.
“Kiss me!”
“I canna,” she said, and kissed him eagerly.
“Again an’ longer,” he ordered.
“I canna,” kissing him as she spoke.
“Na, dinna stop,” he said, as she drew back. “Ye’ll hae t’ keep on wi’
the kissin’, for I’m sorely tempted t’ kick down the slate.”
“Oh!” Surely this was Paradise.
“I’m sorry for ye, Sally Ann,” he commiserated. “It’s a sore trial t’ hae
t’ kiss me.”
“It’s no’ a trial,” she whispered shyly.
“Is it no’?” His voice was eager, and then he was vexed at his eagerness.
He was there to lay low her pride. This was the time that he should go
away and leave her. Leave her lightsomely, and then, when next they met,
greet her as if naught had ever been between them.
But it would be well, and nothing more than just, to let her tell why she
had broken the tryst. So he’d sound her out on that.
“I’m thinkin’ ye hate me for my impudence,” he ventured.
“I dinna hate ye,” she said softly, a timid hand reaching up to his
crinkling hair.
“Then why did ye no’ meet me?”
“I couldna.”
“Fine story, _that_,” he cried scornfully. “Nae lass ever missed a tryst
t’ please her mither.”
Sally Ann could not answer. How could she say all that was in her breast?
How tell him that her feet were not brave enough to go to him? Go to him?
Oh, no, her heart was too faint with her unworthiness. Sally Ann had no
words to tell him this.
The Gype brooded upon her silence. “She didna wish t’ cheapen hersel’ by
meeting me at the first askin’,” he told himself. Here was a lass who was
not minded to melt in his mouth like a ripe berry at the first tasting.
Here was a lass that would take some reaching for. And she was right. His
mother had always said: “A worthy bride’s no’ easy won.” She had been a
wise woman, his mother.
But he was thinking of Sally Ann as a bride? Oh, no, but there was no
harm admiring a lass that held herself high. He wondered what she thought
of him, and longed for some reassurance, some word to show that she did
not quite despise him.
“Ye dinna hate me, Sally Ann?”
She shook her head.
“Yer no’ angry that I made ye kiss me?”
She shook her head again.
“Will ye let me kiss ye, Sally Ann?”
She nodded shyly and turned her face to his. And then he knew that there
was nothing sweeter than to lie there on the slated roof in the moonlight
with Sally Ann’s timorous arms about his neck, and her breath, fragrant
as the air from new milk, upon his face. He knew that there was nothing
dearer than the warmth of her lips upon his, and the gentle flutter of
her breast.
And so throughout the months of sweetbrier roses, and well into
berry-picking time, he sought Sally Ann by stealth upon the roof or in
the gloaming along the Bracken Lane. And on market days, when Mistress
MacIntosh was well occupied, he would venture into the kitchen for a
hasty kiss. But he had never said a word of marriage to Sally Ann, and
though at times she saw herself riding to the kirk in Skillymarnoe’s
phæton behind the dappled grays, she would push the picture away from
her, not daring to look upon its brightness. Nor did she grieve at
the thought that it might never be, but rather she held her happiness
breathlessly, as one might hold a gleaming bubble with spread fingers.
It was the evening of “Stookie Sunday” and the Gype had been to the kirk
to pray for drought to dry the grain, for this was the only occasion
when he put any faith in the Lord. He had hoped to overtake Sally Ann in
the Bracken Lane, but she was not at the kirk, and neither was Mistress
MacIntosh. This was more than unusual, it came nigh to being alarming,
and the Gype made sure that some mishap had come to young Sandy. So it
was with little caution that he sought Sally Ann in the kitchen.
“Yer brother?” he asked as he entered the door.
“Na,” said Sally Ann, understanding him. “It was the hens.”
“The hens?”
“Aye. They’re crop-bound. We fed them wi’ the oats left frae decoratin’
the kirk. My mither thinks it’s a visitation frae the Lord for stintin’
Him. We hae operated on sax o’ them wi’ Sandy’s razor. Five are doin’
fine, but this ane’s like t’ pass awa’!”
She put the basket with the drooping Black Minorca hen upon the table.
The Gype inspected it, fingering its faded comb soberly.
“Tell yer mither t’ put a drop o’ oil t’ keep the feathers frae stickin’.”
“Aye, she’s done that. Ye’d better awa’,” Sally Ann advised. “My mither’s
only at the hen hoose.”
“Come down the lane, then.”
“Na, I couldna an’ leave the hens.”
“Hens or no hens, I’ll no’ leave without a kiss.” He pressed her close,
and held her all the closer as she struggled, begging him to mind her
mother.
And then it was too late. Mistress MacIntosh stood in the doorway, a
wilting hen under either arm, her face as red as the combs upon their
heads.
“Fine work this on a Sabbath day! Fine wanton’s work! Standin’ there
haverin’ wi’ the scum o’ the earth while a hen worth eighteen pence is
like t’ pass awa’. Lord pity me that I brought the like o’ ye into the
world, ye wanton limmer.”
“Nae more o’ that!” cried the Gype. “Ye’ll no’ call wife o’ mine a wanton
limmer.”
“Wife o’ _yours_,” screamed Mistress MacIntosh derisively.
“Aye, just that,” said the Gype with furious calm. “Sally Ann, come wi’
me.”
“No’ a foot,” cried her mother. “Oot o’ my hoose, ye worthless prodigal,
afore I hae my sick laddie rise frae his bed t’ throw ye oot.”
“Sally Ann,” said the Gype, “I maun go for Sandy’s sake. Meet me in the
lane.”
“Niver!” cried Mistress MacIntosh.
“The lass has a tongue o’ her ain,” the Gype reminded her scathingly as
he went.
Sally Ann faced her mother, trembling, but there was something of new
strength in her blue eyes.
“Dinna glower at me,” cried her mother. “Tak’ yer sinful face oot o’ my
sight. Up t’ yer room, ye worthless besom!”
“I canna, mither, I maun meet him,” said Sally Ann in a voice so quiet
with certainty that Mistress MacIntosh floundered, incredulous.
“Ye defy yer ain mither? Oh, that I should live t’ see this day!” She set
the hens down hurriedly, not caring how they flopped helplessly on the
floor, and clutched the front of her bodice, gasping as she did when her
sinking spells were upon her.
Sally Ann regarded her with troubled eyes, but made no move toward her.
“Dinna hae a sinkin’ spell, mither,” she advised, “for I maun leave ye.”
“Devil tak’ my glib tongue,” thought the Gype as he went striding down
the lane. “What call had I t’ go proposin’ marriage? I’m no’ hankerin’
t’ be tied faster than a ram at shearin’ time. Forby that the lass never
looked for it. Never so much as said, ‘It maun be lonesome for ye at
Skillymarnoe.’ Never so much as mentioned that a hoose is na a hame
without a woman in it. Never even tried t’ sew a button or mend a sock
for me.”
No, he couldn’t blame the lass. She was not one to snare a lad with wiles
and glances. But it was not too late. He could pull in his horns again,
blame his hasty speech upon her mother, and keep away from Sally Ann.
Never see her again, that would be best.
Never see Sally Ann again? What havering was this? How could he live
without seeing Sally Ann? What would he do without her kisses at
gloaming? What could he do without her gentle glances? It was for Sally
Ann he hurried through the day with lightsome singing. It was for Sally
Ann he had painted the barn. How could he live without Sally Ann?
He looked yearningly along the lane. Why didn’t she come? He could not
bear this waiting. His heart was harried with the need to hold her. How
could she loiter so?
And then he saw her coming, her feet falling daintily upon the
moss-dappled path. How could she take such care in coming? How dally so?
He could not bear the space between them any longer, and so he ran to
meet her, stumbling in his eagerness, his face strained with the pain of
his need.
“Oh, Sally Ann,” he cried, sweeping her within his grasp. “I canna wait.
Say ye’ll have me. I ken I should hae asked ye afore. I ken I should hae
asked ye different—Sally Ann!”
Sally Ann could not speak. She was full of shame that she had ever
doubted him. He had meant this from the first! He had been courting her
for marriage, and she had thought he held her lightly. She had given
him her kisses while she had doubted him. Oh, he must never know. He
must never know what a wanton heart was in her breast. She was so poor a
thing, how could he love her so? And from the full tide of her humility,
she cried, “How can ye want me for a wife, that none has ever sought
before?”
And the Gype replied—for this answer had come to him many times as he
wondered at his love for her: “It takes a man o’ taste t’ appreciate ye,
Sally Ann.”
And she was happy, not seeing that half the compliment was for himself.
THE END
FOOTNOTES
[1] A close-frilled cap.
[2] Without strength, worthless.
[3] Ask, particularly ask in marriage; proposal.
[4] One who rents a small portion of a farm from the farmer and gives his
services in exchange. The cotter’s wife also assists in the farm kitchen
and in the fields at harvest time, so a cotter’s wife must be strong.
[5] Field daisy.
[6] Very.
[7] Worthless, impudent girl.
[8] Every.
[9] A built in box for holding peats.
[10] Infant.
[11] Man.
[12] Scarecrow.
[13] A corruption of Geck, a term of derision, applied especially to one
who puts on airs.
[14] High hat.
[15] Something requiring careful attention, like a newly hatched chicken
under which a board is placed to keep its feet off the damp ground.
[16] Pinched, thin.
[17] Trunk.
[18] Worry.
[19] Witch-body, applied to anything that doesn’t use human reasoning.
[20] Nonsense, flattery.
[21] Careful, cautious, quiet.
[22] Off the straight, wrong, oblique.
[23] Shirt, vest.
[24] Broom made of heather.
[25] Dull-witted.
[26] Cry.
[27] Cheery.
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