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diff --git a/49906-h/49906-h.htm b/49906-h/49906-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..5763bea --- /dev/null +++ b/49906-h/49906-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,10723 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html + PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=US-ASCII" /> +<title>The Daft Days, by Neil Munro</title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- + P { margin-top: .75em; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + P.gutsumm { margin-left: 5%;} + P.poetry {margin-left: 3%; } + .GutSmall { font-size: 0.7em; } + H1, H2 { + text-align: center; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + } + H3, H4, H5 { + text-align: center; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; + } + BODY{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + table { border-collapse: collapse; } +table {margin-left:auto; margin-right:auto;} + td { vertical-align: top; border: 1px solid black;} + td p { margin: 0.2em; } + .blkquot {margin-left: 4em; margin-right: 4em;} /* block indent */ + + .smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + + .pagenum {position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: small; + text-align: right; + font-weight: normal; + color: gray; + } + img { border: none; } + img.dc { float: left; width: 50px; height: 50px; } + p.gutindent { margin-left: 2em; } + div.gapspace { height: 0.8em; } + div.gapline { height: 0.8em; width: 100%; border-top: 1px solid;} + div.gapmediumline { height: 0.3em; width: 40%; margin-left:30%; + border-top: 1px solid; } + div.gapmediumdoubleline { height: 0.3em; width: 40%; margin-left:30%; + border-top: 1px solid; border-bottom: 1px solid;} + div.gapshortdoubleline { height: 0.3em; width: 20%; + margin-left: 40%; border-top: 1px solid; + border-bottom: 1px solid; } + div.gapdoubleline { height: 0.3em; width: 50%; + margin-left: 25%; border-top: 1px solid; + border-bottom: 1px solid;} + div.gapshortline { height: 0.3em; width: 20%; margin-left:40%; + border-top: 1px solid; } + .citation {vertical-align: super; + font-size: .5em; + text-decoration: none;} + img.floatleft { float: left; + margin-right: 1em; + margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.5em; } + img.floatright { float: right; + margin-left: 1em; margin-top: 0.5em; + margin-bottom: 0.5em; } + img.clearcenter {display: block; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; margin-top: 0.5em; + margin-bottom: 0.5em} + --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> +</head> +<body> +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Daft Days, by Neil Munro + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most +other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions +whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of +the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at +www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have +to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. + + + + +Title: The Daft Days + + +Author: Neil Munro + + + +Release Date: September 7, 2015 [eBook #49906] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DAFT DAYS*** +</pre> +<p>This ebook was transcribed by Les Bowler</p> +<table> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: center"><b><i>BY THE SAME +AUTHOR</i></b>.</p> + +<div class="gapshortline"> </div> +<p style="text-align: center"><span class="smcap">Uniform +Edition</span>, Crown 8vo, 3s. 6d.</p> +<p><b>DOOM CASTLE</b>. A <span +class="smcap">Romance</span>.</p> +<blockquote><p>“He may now be ranked with absolute +confidence among the small company of novelists whose work really +counts as literature.”—<i>Pall Mall Gazette</i>.</p> +<p>“Inspires reader and reviewer with deep gratitude and +admiration.”—<i>Spectator</i>.</p> +</blockquote> +<p><b>JOHN SPLENDID</b>. <span class="smcap">The Tale of a +Poor Gentleman and the Little Wars of Lorne</span>.</p> +<blockquote><p>“A masterly and most interesting +novel.”—<i>Times</i>.</p> +<p>“An achievement of rare merit and +distinction.”—<i>Pall Mall Gazette</i>.</p> +</blockquote> +<p><b>THE LOST PIBROCH</b>, <span class="smcap">and other +Sheiling Stories</span>.</p> +<p>Mr <span class="smcap">Andrew Lang</span> says: “In +‘The Lost Pibroch’ we meet genius as obvious and +undeniable as that of Mr Kipling. Mr Munro’s powers +are directed to old Highland life, and he does what genius alone +can do—he makes it alive again, and makes our imagination +share its life—his knowledge being copious, original, at +first hand.”</p> +<p><b>CHILDREN OF TEMPEST</b>.</p> +<blockquote><p>“More than a good story. It is a +downright good book, realistic, powerful, and effective, +absolutely perfect in its picturing of the simple, sturdy seafolk +of Uist and the Outer Isles of the West.”—<i>Daily +Telegraph</i>.</p> +</blockquote> +<p><b>SHOES OF FORTUNE</b>.</p> +<blockquote><p>“Readable from cover to +cover.”—<i>Evening Standard</i>.</p> +</blockquote> +<p><b>GILIAN THE DREAMER</b>.</p> +<blockquote><p>“We earnestly hope Mr Munro will give us +more of such things.”—<i>Liverpool Courier</i>.</p> +</blockquote> + +<div class="gapmediumline"> </div> +<p style="text-align: center">WILLIAM BLACKWOOD & SONS, <span +class="smcap">Edinburgh and London</span>.</p> +</td> +</tr> +</table> +<h1><i>The Daft Days</i></h1> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p style="text-align: center"><span class="GutSmall">BY</span><br +/> +NEIL MUNRO</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><span class="GutSmall">AUTHOR +OF</span><br /> +<span class="GutSmall">‘JOHN SPLENDID,’ ‘THE +LOST PIBROCH,’ ETC., ETC.</span></p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p style="text-align: center"><i>SHILLING EDITION</i></p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p style="text-align: center">WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS<br /> +EDINBURGH AND LONDON<br /> +MCMIX</p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p style="text-align: center"><i>All Rights reserved</i></p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<h2><a name="page1"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 1</span>CHAPTER +I.</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">The</span> town’s bell rang through +the dark of the winter morning with queer little jolts and +pauses, as if Wanton Wully Oliver, the ringer, had been jovial +the night before. A blithe New-Year-time bell; a droll, +daft, scatter-brained bell; it gave no horrid alarums, no solemn +reminders that commonly toll from steeples and make good-fellows +melancholy to think upon things undone, the brevity of days and +years, the parting of good company, but a cheery +ditty—“boom, boom, ding-a-dong boom, boom ding, hic, +ding-dong,” infecting whoever heard it with a kind of +foolish gaiety. The burgh town turned on its pillows, drew +up its feet from the bed-bottles, last night hot, now turned to +chilly stone, rubbed its eyes, and knew by that bell it was the +daftest of the daft days come. It cast a merry spell on the +community; it tickled them even in their cosy beds. +“Wanton Wully’s on the ran-dan!” said the folk, +and rose quickly, and ran to pull aside screens and blinds to +look out in the dark on window-ledges cushioned deep in +snow. The children hugged themselves under the blankets, +and told each other in whispers it was not a porridge morning, +no, nor Sunday, but a breakfast of shortbread, ham and eggs; and +behold! a beautiful loud drum, careless as ’twere a +reveille of hot wild youths, <a name="page2"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 2</span>began to beat in a distant lane. +Behind the house of Dyce the lawyer, a cock that must have been +young and hearty crew like to burst; and at the stables of the +post-office the man who housed his horses after bringing the +morning mail through night and storm from a distant railway +station sang a song,—</p> +<p class="poetry">“A damsel possessed of great beauty<br /> + Stood near by her own father’s gate:<br /> +The gallant hussars were on duty;<br /> + To view them this maiden did wait.<br /> +Their horses were capering and prancing,<br /> + Their accoutrements shone like a star;<br /> +From the plains they were quickly advancing,—<br /> + She espied her own gallant hussar.”</p> +<p>“Mercy on us! six o’clock!” cried Miss Dyce, +with a startled jump from her dreams to the floor of her +bedroom. “Six o’clock on the New Year’s +morning, and I’ll warrant that randy Kate is sound asleep +yet,” she said, and quickly clad herself and went to the +head of the stair and cried, “Kate, Kate! are ye up yet, +Kate? Are ye hearing me, Kate MacNeill?”</p> +<p>From the cavern dark of the lower storey there came back no +answer.</p> +<p>She stood with a curious twirly wooden candlestick in her hand +in the midst of a house that was dead dumb and desperate dark, +and smelled deliciously of things to eat. Even herself, who +had been at the making of most of them the day before, and had, +by God’s grace, still much of a child’s appetite, +could not but sniff with a childish satisfaction at this air of a +celestial grocery—of plum-puddings and currant-buns, apples +and oranges, cordials and spices, toffee and the angelic treacly +sweet we call Black Man,—her face lit rosily by the candle +lowe, a woman small and soft and sappy, with the most wanton +reddish hair, and a briskness of body that showed no sign as yet +of her accomplished years. What they were I will never tell +you; but this I’ll say, that even if they had been eighty +she was the kind to cheerily dance quadrille. <a +name="page3"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 3</span>The daft bell, +so plainly in the jovial mood of Wanton Wully Oliver, infected +her: she smiled to herself in a way she had when remembering +droll things or just for simple jollity, and whoever saw Bell +Dyce smile to herself had never the least doubt after that she +was a darling. Over the tenements of the town the song of +the bell went rollicking, and in its hiccupping pauses went +wonderfully another sound far, far removed in spirit and +suggestion—the clang of wild geese calling: the +“honk, honk” of the ganders and the challenge of +their ladies come down adrift in the snow from the bitter +north.</p> +<p>But there was no answer from the maid in the kitchen. +She had rolled less deliberately than was usual from her blankets +to the summons of the six o’clock bell, and already, with +the kitchen window open, her bounteous form surged over the two +sashes that were always so conveniently low and handy for a +gossip with any friendly passer-by on the pavement. She +drank the air of the clean chill morning dark, a heady thing like +old Tom Watson’s autumn ale, full of the sentiment of the +daft days. She tilted an ear to catch the tune of the +mail-boy’s song that now was echoing mellow from the +cobwebbed gloom of the stable stalls, and making a snowball from +the drift of the window-ledge she threw it, womanwise, aimlessly +into the street with a pretence at combat. The chill of the +snow stung sweet in the hot palm of her, for she was young and +strong.</p> +<p>“Kate, you wretch!” cried a voice behind +her. She drew in her head, to find her mistress in the +kitchen with the candlestick in her hand.</p> +<p>“Oh, m’em,” cried the maid, no way abashed, +banging up the window and hurriedly crushing her more ample parts +under the final hooks and eyes of her morning +wrapper—“oh, m’em, what a start you gave +me! I’m all in a p-p-palpitation. I was just +takin’ one mouthful of air and thinkin’ to myself +yonder in the Gaelic that it was time for me to be comin’ +in and risin’ right.”</p> +<p><a name="page4"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 4</span>“A +Happy New Year to you, Kate MacNeill,” said the mistress, +taking her hand.</p> +<p>“Just that, just that! and the same to you yourself, +Miss Dyce. I’m feeling fine; I’m that glad with +everything,” said the maid, in some confusion at this +unusual relation with her mistress. She shook the proffered +hand rapidly from side to side as if it were an egg-switch.</p> +<p>“And see and get the fires on quick now, like a good +lass. It would never do to be starting the New Year +late,—it would be unlucky. I was crying to you yonder +from the stair-head, and wondering if you were ill, that you did +not answer me so quickly as you do for ordinar’.”</p> +<p>“Ill, Miss Dyce!” cried the maid astounded. +“Do you think I’m daft to be ill on a New +Year’s day?”</p> +<p>“After yon—after yon shortbread you ate yesterday +I would not have wondered much if you were,” said Miss +Dyce, shaking her head solemnly. “I’m not +complaining, but, dear me! it was an awful lump; and I thought it +would be a bonny-like thing too, if our first-foot had to be the +doctor.”</p> +<p>“Doctor! I declare to goodness I never had need of +a doctor to me since Dr Macphee in Colonsay put me in order with +oil and things after I had the measles,” exclaimed the +maid, as if mankind were like wag-at-the-wa’ clocks and +could be guaranteed to go right for years if you blew through +them with a pair of bellows, or touched their works with an oily +feather.</p> +<p>“Never mind about the measles just now, Kate,” +said Miss Dyce, with a meaning look at the blackout fire.</p> +<p>“Neither I was mindin’ them, m’em,—I +don’t care a spittle for them; it’s so long ago I +would not know them if I saw them; I was just—”</p> +<p>“But get your fire on. You know we have a lot to +do to-day to get everything nice and ready for my nephew who +comes from America with the four o’clock coach.”</p> +<p>“America!” cried the maid, dropping a saucepan <a +name="page5"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 5</span>lid on the +floor in her astonishment. “My stars! Did I not +think it was from Chickagoo?”</p> +<p>“And Chicago is in America, Kate,” said her +mistress.</p> +<p>“Is it? is it? Mercy on me, how was Kate to +know? I only got part of my education,—up to the +place where you carry one and add ten. America! Dear +me, just fancy! The very place that I’m so keen to go +to. If I had the money, and was in +America—”</p> +<p>It was a familiar theme; Kate had not got fully started on it +when her mistress fled from the kitchen and set briskly about her +morning affairs.</p> +<p>And gradually the household of Dyce the lawyer awoke wholly to +a day of unaccustomed stillness and sound, for the deep snow +piled in the street and hushed the traffic of wheel, and hoof, +and shoe, but otherwise the morning was cheerful with New +Year’s day noise. For the bell-ringing of Wanton +Wully was scarcely done, died down in a kind of brazen chuckle, +and the “honk, honk” of the wild geese sped seaward +over gardens and back lanes, strange wild music of the north, +far-fetched and undomestic,—when the fife band shrilly +tootled through the town to the tune of “Hey, Johnny Cope, +are ye waukin’ yet?” Ah, they were the proud, +proud men, their heads dizzy with glory and last night’s +wine, their tread on air. John Taggart drummed—a +mighty drummer, drunk or sober, who so loved his instrument he +sometimes went to bed with it still fastened to his neck, and +banged to-day like Banagher, who banged furiously, never minding +the tune much, but happy if so be that he made noise +enough. And the fifers were not long gone down the town, +all with the wrong step but Johnny Vicar, as his mother thought, +when the snow was trampled under the feet of playing children, +and women ran out of their houses, and crossed the street, some +of them, I declare, to kiss each other, for ’tis a fashion +lately come, and most genteel, grown wonderfully common in +Scotland. Right down the middle of <a +name="page6"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 6</span>the town, with +two small flags in his hat and holly in the lapel of his coat, +went old Divine the hawker, with a great barrow of pure gold, +crying “Fine Venetian oranges! wha’ll buy sweet +Venetian oranges? Nane o’ your foreign trash. +Oranges! Oranges!—rale New Year oranges, three a +penny; bloods, a bawbee each!”</p> +<p>The shops opened just for an hour for fear anybody might want +anything, and many there were, you may be sure, who did, for they +had eaten and drunken everything provided the night +before—which we call Hogmanay,—and now there were +currant-loaves and sweety biscuits to buy; shortcake, sugar and +lemons, ginger cordial for the boys and girls and United +Presbyterians, boiled ham for country cousins who might come +unexpected, and P. & A. MacGlashan’s threepenny +mutton-pies (twopence if you brought the ashet back), ordinarily +only to be had on fair-days and on Saturdays, and far renowned +for value.</p> +<p>Miss Minto’s Millinery and Manteau Emporium was +discovered at daylight to have magically outlined its doors and +windows during the night with garlands and festoons of spruce and +holly, whereon the white rose bloomed in snow; and Miss Minto +herself, in a splendid crimson cloak down to the heels, and +cheeks like cherries, was standing with mittens and her five +finger-rings on, in the middle door, saying in beautiful gentle +English “A Happy New Year” to every one who +passed—even to George Jordon, the common cowherd, who was +always a little funny in his intellects, and, because his +trousers were bell-mouthed and hid his feet, could never remember +whether he was going to his work or coming from it, unless he +consulted the Schoolmaster. “The same to you, +m’em, excuse my hands,” said poor George, just +touching the tips of her fingers. Then, because he had been +stopped and slewed a little from his course, he just went back +the way he had come.</p> +<p>Too late got up the red-faced sun, too late to laugh at Wanton +Wully’s jovial bell, too late for Taggart’s mighty +drumming, but a jolly winter sun,—’twas all <a +name="page7"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 7</span>that was wanted +among the chimneys to make the day complete.</p> +<p>First of all to rise in Dyce’s house, after the mistress +and the maid, was the master, Daniel Dyce himself.</p> +<p>And now I will tell you all about Daniel Dyce: it is that +behind his back he was known as Cheery Dan.</p> +<p>“Your bath is ready, Dan,” his sister had cried, +and he rose and went with chittering teeth to it, looked at it a +moment, and put a hand in the water. It was as cold as ice, +because that water, drinking which, men never age, comes from +high mountain bens.</p> +<p>“That for ye to-day!” said he to the bath, +snapping his fingers. “I’ll see ye far enough +first!” And contented himself with a slighter wash +than usual, and shaving. As he shaved he hummed all the +time, as was his habit, an ancient air of his boyhood; to-day it +was</p> +<p class="poetry">“Star of Peace, to wanderers +weary,”</p> +<p>with not much tone but a great conviction,—a tall, lean, +clean-shaven man of over fifty, with a fine long nose, a ruddy +cheek, keen grey eyes, and plenty of room in his clothes, the +pockets of him so large and open it was no wonder so many people +tried, as it were, to put their hands into them. And when +he was dressed he did a droll thing, for from one of his pockets +he took what hereabouts we call a pea-sling, that to the rest of +the world is a catapult, and having shut one eye, and aimed with +the weapon, and snapped the rubber several times with amazing +gravity, he went upstairs into an attic and laid it on a table at +the window with a pencilled note, in which he wrote—</p> +<blockquote><p style="text-align: center">A <span +class="smcap">New Year’s Day Present</span><br /> +<span class="smcap">for a Good Boy</span><br /> +<span class="smcap">from</span><br /> +<span class="smcap">An Uncle who does not like Cats</span>.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>He looked round the little room that seemed very bright and +cheerful, for its window gazed over the <a name="page8"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 8</span>garden to the east and to the valley +where was seen the King’s highway. “Wonderful! +wonderful!” he said to himself. “They have made +an extraordinary job of it. Very nice indeed, but just a +shade ladylike. A stirring boy would prefer fewer +fal-lals.”</p> +<p>There was little indeed to suggest the occupation of a +stirring boy in that attic, with its draped dressing-table in +lilac print, its looking-glass flounced in muslin and pink +lover’s-knots, its bower-like bed canopied and curtained +with green lawn, its shy scent of pot-pourri and lavender. +A framed text in crimson wools, the work of Bell Dyce when she +was in Miss Mushet’s seminary, hung over the mantelpiece +enjoining all beholders to</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><span class="smcap">Watch and +Pray</span>.</p> +<p>Mr Dyce put both hands into his trousers pockets, bent a +little, and heaved in a sort of chirruping laughter. +“Man’s whole duty, according to Bell Dyce,” he +said, “‘Watch and Pray’; but they do not need +to have the lesson before them continually yonder in Chicago, +I’ll warrant. Yon’s the place for watching, by +all accounts, however it may be about the prayer. +‘Watch and Pray’—h’m! It should be +Watch <i>or</i> Pray—it clearly cannot be both at once with +the world the way it is; you might as well expect a man to eat +pease-meal and whistle strathspeys at the same time.”</p> +<p>He was humming “Star of Peace”—for the tune +he started the morning with usually lasted him all day,—and +standing in the middle of the floor contemplating with amusement +the ladylike adornment of the room prepared for his Chicago +nephew, when a light step fell on the attic stairs, and a +woman’s voice cried, “Dan! Dan Dyce! +Coo-ee!”</p> +<p>He did not answer.</p> +<p>She cried again after coming up a step or two more, but still +he did not answer. He slid behind one of the +bed-curtains.</p> +<h2><a name="page9"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 9</span>CHAPTER +II.</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">Alison Dyce</span> came lightly up the +rest of the stair, whistling blithely, in spite of her sister +Bell’s old notion that whistling women and crowing hens are +never canny. She swept into the room. People in the +town—which has a forest of wood and deer behind +it—used to say she had the tread and carriage of a young +wild roe, and I can well assure you she was the girl to walk with +on a winter day! She had in her hand a book of poems called +‘The Golden Treasury’ and a spray of the herb called +Honesty, that thrives in poor men’s gardens. Having +laid them down on the table without noticing her brother’s +extraordinary Present for a Good Boy, she turned about and +fondled things. She smoothed the bed-clothes as if they +covered a child, she patted the chair-backs with an air of +benediction, she took cushions to her breast like one that +cuddled them, and when she touched the mantel-piece ornaments +they could not help it but must start to chime. It was +always a joy to see Alison Dyce redding-up, as we say; though in +housewifery, like sewing, knitting, and cooking, she was only a +poor second to her sister Bell. She tried, from duty, to +like these occupations, but, oh dear! the task was beyond her: +whatever she had learned from her schooling in Edinburgh and +Brussels, it was not the darning of hose and the covering of +rhubarb-tarts.</p> +<p>Her gift, said Bell, was management.</p> +<p>Tripping round the little attic, she came back by-and-by to +the table at the window to take one last wee glimpse inside +‘The Golden Treasury,’ that was <a +name="page10"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 10</span>her own +delight and her notion of happy half-hours for the ideal boy, and +her eye fell for the first time on the pea-sling and the note +beside it.</p> +<p>She read, and laughed, and upon my word, if laughter like +Ailie Dyce’s could be bought in perforated rolls, there +would be no demand for Chopin and Schumann on the pianolas. +It was a laugh that even her brother could not resist: a paroxysm +of coughing burst from behind the curtains, and he came out +beside her chuckling.</p> +<p>“I reckoned without my hoast,” said he, +gasping.</p> +<p>“I was sure you were upstairs,” said Alison. +“You silly man! Upon my word! Where’s +your dignity, Mr Dyce?”</p> +<p>Dan Dyce stood for a second a little bit abashed, rubbing his +chin and blinking his eyes as if their fun was a thing to be kept +from brimming over. “I’m a great wag!” +said he. “If it’s dignity you’re after, +just look at my velvet coat!” and so saying he caught the +ends of his coat skirts with his fingers, held them out at +arm’s-length, and turned round as he might do at a fit-on +in his tailor’s, laughing till his hoast came on +again. “Dignity, quo’ she, just look at my +velvet coat!”</p> +<p>“Dan, Dan! will you never be wise?” said Ailie +Dyce, a humorsome demoiselle herself, if you believe me.</p> +<p>“Not if I keep my health,” said he. +“You have made a bonny-like show of the old garret, between +the two of you. It’s as smart as a lass at her first +ball.”</p> +<p>“I think it’s very nice; at least it might be +worse,” interrupted Alison defensively, glancing round with +satisfaction and an eye to the hang of the frame round +“Watch and Pray.” Bell’s wool-work never +agreed with her notions, but, as she knew that her tarts never +agreed with Bell, she kept, on that point, aye discreetly +dumb.</p> +<p>“Poor little Chicago!” said her brother. +“I’m vexed for the wee fellow. Print chintz, or +chint <a name="page11"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +11</span>prints, or whatever it is; sampler texts, and scent, and +poetry books—what in the world is the boy to +break?”</p> +<p>“Oh, you have seen to that department, Dan!” said +Ailie, taking the pea-sling again in her hand. +“‘A New Year’s Day Present for a Good Boy from +an Uncle who does not like Cats.’ I declare that +<i>is</i> a delightful way of making the child feel quite at home +at once.”</p> +<p>“Tuts! ’Tis just a diversion. I know +it’ll cheer him wonderfully to find at the start that if +there’s no young folk in the house there’s some of +the eternal Prank. I suppose there are cats in +Chicago. He cannot expect us to provide him with pigs, +which are the usual domestic pets there, I believe. You let +my pea-sling alone, Ailie; you’ll find it will please him +more than all the poetry and pink bows. I was once a boy +myself, and I know.”</p> +<p>“You were never anything else,” said Alison. +“And never will be anything else. It is a pity to let +the child see at the very start what an irresponsible person his +uncle is; and besides, it’s cruel to throw stones at +cats.”</p> +<p>“Not at all, not at all!” said her brother +briskly, with his head quizzically to the side a little, in a way +he had when debating in the Court. “I have been +throwing stones for twenty years at those cats of Rodger’s +that live in our garden and I never hit one yet. +They’re all about six inches too short for genuine +sport. If cats were Dachshund dogs, and I wasn’t so +fond of dogs, I would be deadly. But my ado with cats is +just one of the manly old British sports, like trout-fishing and +curling. You take your fun out in anticipation, and the +only difference is you never need to carry a flask. Still, +I’m not without hope that my nephew from Chicago may have a +better aim than I have.”</p> +<p>“You are an old—an old goose, Dan Dyce, and a +Happy New Year to you!” said his sister, putting her arms +suddenly round his neck and kissing him.</p> +<p><a name="page12"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +12</span>“Tuts! the coming of that child’s +ta’en your head,” said the brother, reddening, for +sisters never kiss their own brothers in our +part,—it’s so sentimental, it’s so like the +penny stories. “A Good New Year to you, Ailie,” +and “Tuts!” he said again, looking quite upset, till +Ailie laughed and put her arm through his and drew him downstairs +to the breakfast to which she had come to summon him.</p> +<p>The Chicago child’s bedroom, left to itself, chilly a +bit like Highland weather, but honest and clean, looked more like +a bower than ever: the morning sun, peeping over garden trees and +the chimneys of the lanes, gazed particularly on the table where +the pea-sling and the poetry book lay together.</p> +<p>And now the town was thronged like a fair-day, with such +stirring things happening every moment in the street that the +servant, Kate, had a constant head out at the window, +“putting by the time,” as she explained to the +passing inquirer, “till the Mustress would be ready for the +breakfast.” That was Kate,—she had come from an +island where they make the most of everything that may be news, +even if it’s only brandy-sauce to pudding at the +minister’s; and Miss Dyce could not start cutting a new +bodice or sewing a button on her brother’s trousers but the +maid billowed out upon the window-sash to tell the tidings to the +first of her sex that passed.</p> +<p>Over the trodden snow she saw the people from the country +crowd in their Sunday clothes, looking pretty early in the day +for gaiety, all with scent on their handkerchiefs (which is the +odour of festive days for a hundred miles round burgh towns); and +town people, less splendid in attire, as folk that know the +difference between a holiday and a Sabbath, and leave their +religious hard hats at home on a New Year’s day; children, +too, replete with bun already, and all succulent with the juice +of Divine’s oranges. She heard the bell begin to peal +again, for Wully Oliver—fie on Wully Oliver!—had been +met by some boys who told him the six o’clock bell was not +yet <a name="page13"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 13</span>rung, +and sent him back to perform an office he had done with hours +before. He went to his bell dubiously, something in the +dizzy abyss he called his mind that half convinced him he had +rung it already.</p> +<p>“Let me pause and consider,” he said once or twice +when being urged to the rope, scratching the hair behind his ears +with both hands, his gesture of reflection. “Was +there no’ a bairn—an auld-fashioned +bairn—helped to ca’ the bell already, and wanted to +gie me money for the chance? It runs in my mind there was a +bairn, and that she had us aye boil-boiling away at eggs; but +maybe I’m wrong, for I’ll admit I had a dram or two +and lost the place. I don’t believe in +dram-dram-dramming, but I aye say if you take a dram, take it in +the morning and you get the good of it all day. It’s +a tip I learned in the Crimea.” But at last they +convinced him the bairn was just imagination, and Wanton Wully +Oliver spat on his hands and grasped the rope, and so it happened +that the morning bell on the New Year’s day on which my +story opens was twice rung.</p> +<p>The Dyce handmaid heard it pealing as she hung over the +window-sash with her cap agee on her head. She heard from +every quarter—from lanes, closes, tavern rooms, high +attics, and back-yards—fifes playing; it was as if she +leaned over a magic grove of great big birds, each singing its +own song—“Come to the Bower,” or +“Monymusk,” or “The Girl I left Behind +Me,” noble airs wherein the captain of the band looked for +a certain perfection from his musicians before they marched out +again at midday. “For,” said he often in +rehearsals, “anything will do in the way of a tune in the +dark, my sunny boys, but it must be the tiptop of skill, and no +discordancy, when the eyes of the world are on us. One turn +more at ‘Monymusk,’ sunny boys, and then we’ll +have a skelp at yon tune of my own composure.”</p> +<p>Besides the sound of the bell and the universal practice of +the fifes there were loud vocalists at the <a +name="page14"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 14</span>Cross, and +such laughter in the street that Kate was in an ecstasy. +Once, uplifted beyond all private decorum, she kilted her gown +and gave a step of a reel in her kitchen solitude.</p> +<p>“Isn’t it cheery, the noise!” she exclaimed +delightly to the letter-carrier who came to the window with the +morning’s letters. “Oh, I am feeling +beautiful! It is—it is—it is just like being +inside a pair of bagpipes.”</p> +<p>He was a man who roared, the postman, being used to bawling up +long common-stairs in the tenements for the people to come down +to the foot themselves for their letters—a man with one +roguish eye for the maiden and another at random. Passing +in the letters one by one, he said in tones that on a quieter day +might be heard half up the street, “Nothing for you, +yourself, personally, Kate, but maybe there’ll be one +to-morrow. Three big blue anes and seven wee anes for the +man o’ business himsel’, twa for Miss Dyce +(she’s the wonderfu’ correspondent!), and ane for +Miss Alison wi’ the smell o’ scented perfume +on’t—that’ll be frae the Miss Birds o’ +Edinburgh. And I near forgot—here’s a +post-caird for Miss Dyce: hearken to this—</p> +<p>“‘Child arrived Liverpool yesterday; left this +morning for Scotland. Quite safe to go alone, charge of +conductor. Pip, pip! Molyneux.’”</p> +<p>“Whatna child is it, Kate?”</p> +<p>“‘Pip, pip!’ What in the world’s +‘Pip, pip’? The child is brother +William’s child, to be sure,” said Kate, who always +referred to the Dyce relations as if they were her own. +“You have heard of brother William?”</p> +<p>“Him that was married on the play-actress and never +wrote home?” shouted the letter-carrier. “He +went away before my time. Go on; quick, for I’m in a +desperate hurry this mornin’.”</p> +<p>“Well, he died abroad in Chickagoo. God have <a +name="page15"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 15</span>mercy on him +dying so far away from home, and him without a word of Gaelic in +his head! and a friend o’ his father ’s bringing the +boy home to his aunties.”</p> +<p>“Where in the world’s Chickagoo?” bellowed +the postman.</p> +<p>“In America, of course,—where else would it be but +in America?” said Kate contemptuously. “Where +is your education not to know that Chickagoo is in America, where +the servant-maids have a pound a-week of wages, and learn the +piano, and can get married when they like quite easy?”</p> +<p>“Bless me! do you say so?” cried the postman in +amazement, and not without a pang of jealousy.</p> +<p>“Yes, I say so!” said Kate in the snappish style +she often showed to the letter-carrier. “And the +child is coming this very day with the coach-and-twice from +Maryfield railway station—oh them trains! them trains! with +their accidents; my heart is in my mouth to think of a child in +them. Will you not come round to the back and get the +Mustress’s New Year dram? She is going to give a New +Year dram to every man that calls on business this day. But +I will not let you in, for it is in my mind that you would not be +a lucky first-foot.”</p> +<p>“Much obleeged,” said the postman, “but ye +needna be feared. I’m not allowed to go dramming at +my duty. It’s offeecial, and I canna help it. +If it was not offeecial, there’s few letter-carriers that +wouldna need to hae iron hoops on their heids to keep their +brains from burstin’ on the day efter New Year.”</p> +<p>Kate heard a voice behind her, and pulled her head in +hurriedly with a gasp, and a cry of “Mercy, the start I +got!” while the postman fled on his rounds. Miss Dyce +stood behind, in the kitchen, indignant.</p> +<p>“You are a perfect heartbreak, Kate,” said the +mistress. “I have rung for breakfast twice, and you +<a name="page16"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 16</span>never +heard me, with your clattering out there to the +letter-carrier. It’s a pity you cannot marry the glee +party, as Mr Dyce calls him, and be done with it.”</p> +<p>“Me marry him!” cried the maid indignantly. +“I think I see myself marryin’ a man like yon, and +his eyes not neighbours.”</p> +<p>“That’s a trifle in a husband if his heart is +good: the letter-carrier’s eyes may—may skew a +little, but it’s not to be wondered at, considering the +look-out he has to keep on all sides of him to keep out of reach +of every trollop in the town who wants to marry him.”</p> +<p>And leaving Kate speechless at this accusation, the mistress +of the house took the letters from her hands and went to the +breakfast-table with them.</p> +<p>She had read the contents of the post-card before she reached +the parlour; its news dismayed her.</p> +<p>“Just imagine!” she cried. +“Here’s that bairn on his way from Liverpool his +lee-lone, and not a body with him!”</p> +<p>“What! what!” cried Mr Dyce, whose eyes had been +shut to say the grace. “Isn’t that +actor-fellow, Molyneux, coming with him, as he +promised?”</p> +<p>Miss Dyce sunk in a chair and burst into tears, crushing the +post-card in her hand.</p> +<p>“What does he say?” demanded her brother.</p> +<p>“He says—he says—oh, dear me!—he says +‘Pip, pip!’” quoth the weeping sister.</p> +<h2><a name="page17"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +17</span>CHAPTER III.</h2> +<p>“I <span class="smcap">misdoubted</span> Mr Molyneux +from the very first,” said Ailie, turning as white as a +clout. “From all his post-cards he was plainly too +casual. Stop it, Bell, my dear—have sense; the +child’s in a Christian land, and in care of somebody who is +probably more dependable than this delightful +Molyneux.”</p> +<p>Mr Dyce took out an old, thick, silver verge. +“Nine o’clock,” he said, with a glance at its +creamy countenance. “Molyneux’s consignment is +making his first acquaintance with Scottish scenery and finding +himself, I hope, amused at the Edinburgh accent. +He’ll arrive at Maryfield—poor wee smout!—at +three; if I drive over at twelve, I’ll be in time to meet +him. Tuts, Bell, give over; he’s a ten-year-old and a +Dyce at that,—there’s not the slightest fear of +him.”</p> +<p>“Ten years old, and in a foreign country—if you +can call Scotland a foreign country,” cried Miss Dyce, +still sobbing with anger and grief. “Oh, the +cat-witted scamp, that Molyneux,—if I had him +here!”</p> +<p>The dining-room door opened and let in a yawning dog of most +plebeian aspect, longest lie-abed of the household, the clamour +of the street, and the sound of sizzling bacon, followed by +Kate’s majestic form at a stately glide, because she had on +her new stiff lilac print that was worn for breakfast only on +Sundays and holidays. “You would think I was never +coming,” she said genially, and smiled widely as she put +the tray on the sideboard. This that I <a +name="page18"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 18</span>show you, I +fear, is a beggarly household, absurdly free from ceremony. +Mr Dyce looked at his sister Ailie and smiled; Ailie looked at +her sister Bell and smiled. Bell took a hairpin or two out +of their places and seemed to stab herself with them viciously in +the nape of the neck, and smiled not at all nor said anything, +for she was furious with Molyneux, whom she could see in her +mind’s eye—an ugly, tippling, frowsy-looking person +with badly polished boots, an impression that would have greatly +amused Mrs Molyneux, who, not without reason, counted her Jim the +handsomest man and the best dressed in the profession in all +Chicago.</p> +<p>“I’m long of coming, like Royal Charlie,” +Kate proceeded, as she passed the ashets on to Miss Dyce; +“but, oh me! New Year’s day here is no’ like +New Year’s day in the bonny isle of Colonsay.”</p> +<p>Mr Dyce said grace and abstractedly helped himself alternately +from both ends of a new roll of powdered butter. +“Dan, dear, don’t take the butter from both +ends,—it spoils the look,” said Bell.</p> +<p>“Tuts!” said he. “What’s the +odds? There’ll be no ends at all when we’re +done with it. I’m utterly regardless of the +symmetrical and the beautiful this morning. I’m +savage to think of that man Molyneux. If I was not a man of +peace I would be wanting to wring Mr Molyneux’s +neck,” and he twisted his morning roll in halves with +ferocious hands.</p> +<p>“Dan!” said Ailie, shocked. “I never +heard you say anything so bloodthirsty in all my life +before. I would never have thought it of you.”</p> +<p>“Maybe not,” he said. “There’s +many things about me you never suspected. You women are +always under delusions about the men—about the +men—well, dash it! about the men you like. I know +myself so well that there is no sin, short of one or two not so +accounted, that I cannot think myself capable of. I believe +I might be forced into robbing a kirk if I had no money and was +as hungry <a name="page19"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +19</span>as I was this morning before that post-card came to ruin +a remarkably fine New-Year’s-day appetite, or even into +murdering a man like Molyneux who failed in the simplest duties +no man should neglect.”</p> +<p>“I hope and trust,” said Bell, still nervous, +“that he is a wiselike boy with a proper upbringing, who +will not be frightened at travelling and make no mistakes about +the train. If he was a Scotch laddie, with the fear of God +in him, I would not be a bit put about for him, for he would be +sure to be asking, asking, and if he felt frightened he would +just start and eat something, like a Christian. But this +poor child has no advantages. Just American!”</p> +<p>Ailie sat back in her chair, with her teacup in her hand, and +laughed, and Kate laughed quietly—though it beat her to see +where the fun was; and the dog laughed likewise—at least it +wagged its tail and twisted its body and made such extraordinary +sounds in its throat that you could say it was laughing.</p> +<p>“Tuts! you are the droll woman, Bell,” said Mr +Dyce, blinking at her. “You have the daftest ideas of +some things. For a woman who spent so long a time in Miss +Mushet’s seminary and reads so much at the newspapers, I +wonder at you.”</p> +<p>“Of course his father was Scotch, that’s one +mercy,” added Bell, not a bit annoyed at the reception of +her pious opinions.</p> +<p>“That is always something to be going on with,” +said Mr Dyce mockingly. “I hope he’ll make the +most of that great start in life and fortune. It’s as +good as money in his pocket.”</p> +<p>Bell put up a tiny hand and pushed a stray curl (for she had a +rebel chevelure) behind her ear, and smiled in spite of her +anxiety about the coming nephew. “You may laugh if +you like, Dan,” she said emphatically, perking with her +head across the table at him; “but I’m <i>proud</i>, +I’m <span class="GutSmall">PROUD</span>, I’m PROUD +I’m Scotch.” (“Not apologising for it +myself,” said her brother softly.) “And you +know what these <a name="page20"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +20</span>Americans are! Useless bodies, who make their men +brush their own boots, and have to pay wages that’s a sin +to housemaids, and eat pie even-on.”</p> +<p>“Dear me! is that true, or did you see it in a +newspaper?” said her brother. “I begin to be +alarmed myself at the possibilities of this small gentleman now +on his way to the north, in the complete confidence of Mr +Molyneux, who must think him very clever. It’s a land +of infant prodigies he comes from; even at the age of ten he may +have more of the stars and stripes in him than we can eradicate +by a diet of porridge and a curriculum of Shorter Catechism and +Jane Porter’s ‘Scottish Chiefs.’ Faith, I +was fond of Jane myself when I read her first: she was nice and +bloody. A big soft hat with a bash in it, perhaps; a +rhetorical delivery at the nose, ‘I guess and +calculate’ every now and then; a habit of chewing +tobacco” (“We’ll need a cuspidor,” said +Ailie <i>sotto voce</i>); “and a revolver in his wee +hip-pocket. Oh, the darling! I can see him quite +plainly.”</p> +<p>“Mercy on us!” cried the maid Kate, and fled the +room all in a tremor at the idea of the revolver.</p> +<p>“You may say what you like, but I cannot get over his +being an American,” said Bell solemnly. “The +dollar’s everything in America, and they’re so +independent!”</p> +<p>“Terrible! terrible!” said her brother ironically, +breaking into another egg fiercely with his knife, as if he were +decapitating the President of the United States.</p> +<p>Ailie laughed again. “Dear, dear Bell!” she +said, “it sounds quite Scotch. A devotion to the +dollar is a good sound basis for a Scotch character. +Remember there are about a hundred bawbees in a dollar: just +think of the dollar in bawbees, and you’ll not be surprised +that the Americans prize it so much.”</p> +<p>“Renegade!” said Bell, shaking a spoon at her.</p> +<p>“Provincial!” retorted Ailie, shaking a fork at +Bell.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page21"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +21</span>“‘Star of Peace, to wanderers weary,<br /> +Bright the beams that shine on me,’</p> +<p>—children, be quiet,” half-sung, half-said their +brother. “Bell, you are a blether; Ailie, you are a +cosmopolitan, a thing accursed. That’s what Edinburgh +and Brussels and your too brisk head have done for you. +Just bring yourself to our poor parochial point of view, and tell +me, both of you, what you propose to do with this young gentleman +from Chicago when you get him.”</p> +<p>“Change his stockings and give him a good tea,” +said Bell promptly, as if she had been planning it for +weeks. “He’ll be starving of hunger and damp +with snow.”</p> +<p>“There’s something more than dry hose and high tea +to the making of a man,” said her brother. “You +can’t keep that up for a dozen years.”</p> +<p>“Oh, you mean education!” said Bell +resignedly. “That’s not in my department at +all.”</p> +<p>Ailie expressed her views with calm, soft deliberation, as if +she, too, had been thinking of nothing else for weeks, which was +partly the case. “I suppose,” she said, +“he’ll go to the Grammar School, and get a good +grounding on the classic side, and then to the University. +I will just love to help him so long as he’s at the Grammar +School. That’s what I should have been, Dan, if you +had let me—a teacher. I hope he’s a bright boy, +for I simply cannot stand what Bell +calls—calls—”</p> +<p>“Diffies,” suggested Bell.</p> +<p>“Diffies; yes, I can <i>not</i> stand diffies. +Being half a Dyce I can hardly think he will be a diffy. If +he’s the least like his father, he may be a little wild at +first, but at least he’ll be good company, which makes up +for a lot, and good-hearted, quick in perception, fearless, +and—”</p> +<p>“And awful funny,” suggested Bell, beaming with +old, fond, glad recollections of the brother dead beside his +actor wife in far Chicago.</p> +<p><a name="page22"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +22</span>“Fearless, and good fun,” continued +Ailie. “Oh, dear Will! what a merry soul he +was. Well, the child cannot be a fool if he’s like +his father. American independence, though he has it +in—in—in clods, won’t do him any harm at +all. I love Americans—do you hear that, Bell +Dyce?—because they beat that stupid old King George, and +have been brave in the forest and wise on the prairie, and feared +no face of king, and laughed at dynasties. I love them +because they gave me Emerson, and Whitman, and Thoreau, and +because one of them married my brother William, and was the +mother of his child.”</p> +<p>Dan Dyce nodded; he never quizzed his sister Ailie when it was +her heart that spoke and her eyes were sparkling.</p> +<p>“The first thing you should learn him,” said Miss +Dyce, “is ‘God save the Queen.’ +It’s a splendid song altogether; I’m glad I’m +of a kingdom every time I hear it at a meeting, for it’s +all that’s left of the olden notions the Dyces died young +or lost their money for. You’ll learn him that, +Ailie, or I’ll be very vexed with you. I’ll put +flesh on his bones with my cooking if you put the gentleman in +him.”</p> +<p>It was Bell’s idea that a gentleman talked a very fine +English accent like Ailie, and carried himself stately like +Ailie, and had wise and witty talk for rich or poor like +Ailie.</p> +<p>“I’m not so sure about the university,” she +went on. “Such stirks come out of it sometimes; look +at poor Maclean, the minister! They tell me he could speak +Hebrew if he got anybody to speak it back slow to him, but just +imagine the way he puts on his clothes! And his wife +manages him not so bad in broad Scotch. I think we could do +nothing better than make the boy a lawyer; it’s a trade +looked up to, and there’s money in it, though I never could +see the need of law myself if folk would only be agreeable. +He could go into Dan’s office whenever he is old +enough.”</p> +<p>“A lawyer!” cried her brother. “You +have first of all to see that he’s not an ass.”</p> +<p><a name="page23"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +23</span>“And what odds would that make to a lawyer?” +said Bell quickly, snapping her eyes at the brother she honestly +thought the wisest man in Scotland.</p> +<p>“Bell,” said he, “as I said before, +you’re a haivering body—nothing else, though +I’ll grant you bake no’ a bad scone. And as for +you, Ailie, you’re beginning, like most women, at the wrong +end. The first thing to do with your nephew is to teach him +to be happy, for it’s a habit that has to be acquired +early, like the liking for pease-brose.”</p> +<p>“You began gey early yourself,” said Bell. +“Mother used to say that she was aye kittling your feet +till you laughed when you were a baby. I sometimes think +that she did not stop it soon enough.”</p> +<p>“If I had to educate myself again, and had not a living +to make, I would leave out a good many things the old dominie +thought needful. What was yon awful thing +again?—mensuration. To sleep well and eat anything, +fear the face of nobody in bashfulness, to like dancing, and be +able to sing a good bass or tenor,—that’s no bad +beginning in the art of life. There’s a fellow Brodie +yonder in the kirk choir who seems to me happier than a king when +he’s getting in a fine boom-boom of bass to the tune +Devizes; he puts me all out at my devotions on a Lord’s day +with envy of his accomplishment.”</p> +<p>“What! envy too!” said Alison. +“Murder, theft, and envy—what a brother!”</p> +<p>“Yes, envy too, the commonest and ugliest of our +sins,” said Mr Dyce. “I never met man or woman +who lacked it, though many never know they have it. I hope +the great thing is to be ashamed to feel it, for that’s all +that I can boast of myself. When I was a boy at the school +there was another boy, a great friend of my own, was chosen to +compete for a prize I was thought incapable of taking, so that I +was not on the list. I envied him to hatred—almost; +and saying my bits of prayers at night I prayed that he might +win. I felt ashamed of my envy, and set the better Daniel +Dyce to wrestle with the Daniel Dyce who was not quite so <a +name="page24"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 24</span>big. It +was a sair fight, I can assure you. I found the words of my +prayer and my wishes considerably at variance—”</p> +<p>“Like me and ‘Thy will be done’ when we got +the word of brother William,” said Bell.</p> +<p>“But my friend—dash him!—got the +prize. I suppose God took a kind of vizzy down that night +and saw the better Dan Dyce was doing his desperate best against +the other devil’s-Dan, who mumbled the prayer on the chance +He would never notice. There was no other way of accounting +for it, for that confounded boy got the prize, and he was not +half so clever as myself, and that was Alick Maitland. Say +nothing about envy, Ailie; I fear we all have some of it until we +are perhaps well up in years, and understand that between the +things we envy and the luck we have there is not much to +choose. If I got all I wanted, myself, the world would have +to be much enlarged. It does not matter a docken +leaf. Well, as I was saying when my learned friend +interrupted me, I would have this young fellow healthy and happy +and interested in everything. There are men I see who would +mope and weary in the middle of a country fair—God help +them! I want to stick pins in them sometimes and make them +jump. They take as little interest in life as if they were +undertakers.”</p> +<p>“Hoots! nobody could weary in this place at any +rate,” said Bell briskly. “Look at the life and +gaiety that’s in it. Talk about London! I can +hardly get my sleep at night quite often with the traffic. +And such things are always happening in it—births and +marriages, engagements and tea-parties, new patterns at Miss +Minto’s, two coaches in the day, and sometimes somebody +doing something silly that will keep you laughing half the +week.”</p> +<p>“But it’s not quite so lively as Chicago,” +said Mr Dyce. “There has not been a man shot in this +neighbourhood since the tinker kind of killed his wife (as the +fiscal says) with the pistol. You’ll have <a +name="page25"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 25</span>heard of +him? When the man was being brought on the scaffold for it, +and the minister asked if he had anything to say before he +suffered the extreme penalty of the law, ‘All I have got to +say,’ he answered, starting to greet, ‘is that +this’ll be an awful lesson to me.’”</p> +<p>“That’s one of your old ones,” said Bell; +but even an old one was welcome in Dyce’s house on New +Year’s day, and the three of them laughed at the story as +if it had newly come from London in Ailie’s precious +‘Punch.’ The dog fell into a convulsion of +merriment, as if inward chuckles tormented him—as queer a +dog as ever was, neither Scotch terrier nor Skye, Dandy Dinmont +nor Dachshund, but just dog,—dark wire-haired behind, short +ruddy-haired in front, a stump tail, a face so fringed you could +only see its eyes when the wind blew. Mr Dyce put down his +hand and scratched it behind the ear. “Don’t +laugh, Footles,” he said. “I would not laugh if +I were you, Footles,—it’s just an old one. Many +a time you’ve heard it before, sly rogue. One would +think you wanted to borrow money.” If you could hear +Dan Dyce speak to his dog, you would know at once he was a +bachelor: only bachelors and bairnless men know dogs.</p> +<p>“I hope and trust he’ll have decent clothes to +wear, and none of their American rubbish,” broke in Bell, +back to her nephew again. “It’s all nonsense +about the bashed hat; but you can never tell what way an American +play-actor will dress a bairn: there’s sure to be something +daft-like about him—a starry waistcoat or a pair of +spats,—and we must make him respectable like other boys in +the place.”</p> +<p>“I would say Norfolk suits, the same as the +banker’s boys,” suggested Ailie. “I think +the banker’s boys always look so smart and neat.”</p> +<p>“Anything with plenty of pockets in it,” said Mr +Dyce. “At the age of ten a boy would prefer his +clothes to be all pockets. By George! an entire suit of +pockets, with a new penny in every <a name="page26"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 26</span>pocket for luck, would be a great +treat,”—and he chuckled at the idea, making a mental +note of it for a future occasion.</p> +<p>“Stuff and nonsense!” cried Bell emphatically, for +here she was in her own department. “The boy is going +to be a Scotch boy. I’ll have the kilt on him, or +nothing.”</p> +<p>“The kilt!” said Mr Dyce.</p> +<p>“The kilt!” cried Ailie.</p> +<p>Rat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat!</p> +<p>It was a loud knocking at the front door. They stopped +the talk to listen, and they heard the maid go along the lobby +from the kitchen. When she opened the door, there came in +the cheerful discord of the street, the sound of a pounding drum, +the fifes still busy, the orange-hawker’s cry, but over all +they heard her put her usual interrogation to visitors, no matter +what their state or elegance.</p> +<p>“Well, what is’t?” she asked, and though +they could not see her, they knew she would have the door just a +trifle open, with her shoulder against it, as if she was there to +repel some chieftain of a wild invading clan. Then they +heard her cry, “Mercy on me!” and her footsteps +hurrying to the parlour door. She threw it open, and stood +with some one behind her.</p> +<p>“What do you think? Here’s brother +William’s wean!” she exclaimed in a gasp.</p> +<p>“My God! Where is he?” cried Bell, the first +to find her tongue. “He’s no hurt, is +he?”</p> +<p>“<i>It’s no’ a him at all—it’s a +her</i>!” shrieked Kate, throwing up her arms in +consternation, and stepping aside she gave admission to a little +girl.</p> +<h2><a name="page27"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +27</span>CHAPTER IV.</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">The</span> orphan child of William and +Mary Dyce, dead, the pair of them, in the far-off city of +Chicago, stepped quite serenely into an astounded company. +There were three Dyces in a row in front of her, and the droll +dog Footles at her feet, and behind her, Kate, the servant, +wringing her apron as if it had newly come from the +washing-boyne, her bosom heaving. Ten eyes (if you could +count the dog’s, hidden by his tousy fringe) stared at the +child a moment, and any ordinary child would have been much put +out; but this was no common child, or else she felt at once the +fond kind air of home. I will give you her picture in a +sentence or two. She was black-haired, dark and quick in +the eye, not quite pale but olive in complexion, with a chin she +held well up, and a countenance neither shy nor bold, but +self-possessed. Fur on her neck and hood (Jim +Molyneux’s last gift), and a muff that held her arms up to +the elbows, gave her an aspect of picture-book cosiness that put +the maid in mind at once of the butcher’s Christmas +calendar.</p> +<p>It was the dog that first got over the astonishment: he made a +dive at her with little friendly growls, and rolled on his back +at her feet, to paddle with his four paws in the air, which was +his way of showing he was in the key for fun.</p> +<p>With a cry of glee she threw the muff on the floor and plumped +beside him, put her arms about his body and buried her face in +his fringe. His tail went waving, joyous, like a +banner. “Doggie, doggie, you <a +name="page28"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 28</span>love +me,” said she in an accent that was anything but +American. “Let us pause and consider,—you will +not leave this house till I boil you an egg.”</p> +<p>“God bless me, what child’s this?” cried +Bell, coming to herself with a start, and, pouncing on her, she +lifted her to her feet. Ailie sank on her hands and knees +and stared in the visitor’s face. “The kilt, +indeed!” said Mr Dyce to himself. “This must be +a warlock wean, for if it has not got the voice and sentiment of +Wanton Wully Oliver I’m losing my wits.”</p> +<p>“Tell me this, quick, are you Lennox Dyce?” said +Bell all trembling, devouring the little one with her eyes.</p> +<p>“Well, I just guess I am,” replied the child +calmly, with the dog licking her chin. “Say, are you +Auntie Bell?” and this time there was no doubt about the +American accent. Up went her mouth to them to be kissed, +composedly: they lost no time, but fell upon her, Ailie half in +tears because at once she saw below the childish hood so much of +brother William.</p> +<p>“Lennox, dear, you should not speak like that; who in +all the world taught you to speak like that?” said Bell, +unwrapping her.</p> +<p>“Why, I thought that was all right here,” said the +stranger. “That’s the way the bell-man +speaks.”</p> +<p>“Bless me! Do you know the bell-man?” cried +Miss Dyce.</p> +<p>“I rang his old bell for him this +morning—didn’t you hear me?” was the surprising +answer. “He’s a nice man; he liked me. +I’d like him too if he wasn’t so tired. He was +too tired to speak sense; all he would say was, ‘I’ve +lost the place; let us pause and consider,’ and ‘Try +another egg.’ I said I would give him a quarter if +he’d let me ring his bell, and he said he’d let me do +it for nothing, and my breakfast besides. +‘You’ll not leave this house till I boil an egg for +you’—that’s what he said, and the poor man was +so tired and his legs <a name="page29"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 29</span>were dreff’le +poorly!” Again her voice was the voice of Wully +Oliver; the sentiment, as the Dyces knew, was the slogan of his +convivial hospitality.</p> +<p>“The kilt, indeed!” said Mr Dyce, feeling +extraordinarily foolish, and, walking past them, he went upstairs +and hurriedly put the pea-sling in his pocket.</p> +<p>When he came down, Young America was indifferently pecking at +her second breakfast with Footles on her knee, an aunt on either +side of her, and the maid Kate with a tray in her hand for +excuse, open-mouthed, half in at the door.</p> +<p>“Well, as I was saying, Jim—that’s my dear +Mr Molyneux, you know—got busy with a lot of the boys once +he landed off that old ship, and so he said, ‘Bud, this is +the—the—justly cel’brated Great Britain; I know +by the boys; they’re so lonely when they’re by +themselves; I was ’prehensive we might have missed it in +the dark, but it’s all right.’ And next day he +bought me this muff and things and put me on the cars—say, +what funny cars you have!—and said ‘Good-bye, Bud; +just go right up to Maryfield, and change there. If +you’re lost anywhere on the island just holler out good and +loud, and I’ll hear!’ He pretended he +wasn’t caring, but he was pretty blinky ’bout the +eyes, and I saw he wasn’t anyway gay, so I never let on the +way I felt myself.”</p> +<p>She suggested the tone and manner of the absent Molyneux in a +fashion to put him in the flesh before them. Kate almost +laughed loud out at the oddity of it; Ailie and her brother were +astounded at the cleverness of the mimicry; Bell clenched her +hands, and said for the second time that day, “Oh! that +Molyneux, if I had him!”</p> +<p>“He’s a nice man, Jim. I can’t tell +you how I love him—and he gave me heaps of candy at the +depot,” proceeded the unabashed new-comer. +“‘Change at Edinburgh,’ he said; +‘you’ll maybe have time to run into the Castle and +see the Duke; give him my love, but not my address. When +you <a name="page30"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 30</span>get to +Maryfield hop out slick and ask for your uncle Dyce.’ +And then he said, did Jim, ‘I hope he ain’t a loaded +Dyce, seein’ he’s Scotch, and it’s the festive +season.’”</p> +<p>“The adorable Jim!” said Ailie. “We +might have known.”</p> +<p>“I got on all right,” proceeded the child, +“but I didn’t see the Duke of Edinburgh; there +wasn’t time, and uncle wasn’t at Maryfield, but a man +put me on his mail carriage and drove me right here. He +said I was a caution. My! it was cold. Say, is it +always weather like this here?”</p> +<p>“Sometimes it’s like this, and sometimes +it’s just ordinary Scotch weather,” said Mr Dyce, +twinkling at her through his spectacles.</p> +<p>“I was dreff’le sleepy in the mail, and the driver +wrapped me up, and when I came into this town in the dark he +said, ‘Walk right down there and rap at the first door you +see with a brass man’s hand for a knocker; that’s Mr +Dyce’s house.’ I came down, and there +wasn’t any brass man, but I saw the knocker. I +couldn’t reach up to it, so when I saw a man going into the +church with a lantern in his hand, I went up to him and pulled +his coat. I knew he’d be all right going into a +church. He told me he was going to ring the bell, and I +said I’d give him a quarter—oh, I said that +before. When the bell was finished he took me to his house +for luck—that was what he said—and he and his wife +got right up and boiled eggs. They said I was a caution, +too, and they went on boiling eggs, and I couldn’t eat more +than two and a white though I tried <i>and</i> tried. I +think I slept a good while in their house; I was so fatigued, and +they were all right; they loved me, I could see that. And I +liked them some myself, though they must be mighty poor, for they +haven’t any children. Then the bell-man took me to +this house, and rapped at the door, and went away pretty quick +for him before anybody came to it, because he said he was +plain-soled—what’s plain-soled <a +name="page31"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +31</span>anyhow?—and wasn’t a lucky first-foot on a +New Year’s morning.”</p> +<p>“It beats all, that’s what it does!” cried +Bell. “My poor wee whitterick! Were ye +no’ frightened on the sea?”</p> +<p>“Whitterick, whitterick,” repeated the child to +herself, and Ailie, noticing, was glad that this was certainly +not a diffy. Diffies never interest themselves in new +words; diffies never go inside themselves with a new fact as a +dog goes under a table with a bone.</p> +<p>“Were you not frightened when you were on the +sea?” repeated Bell.</p> +<p>“No,” said the child promptly. “Jim +was there all right, you see, and he knew all about it. He +said, ‘Trust in Providence, and if it’s <i>very</i> +stormy, trust in Providence and the Scotch +captain.’”</p> +<p>“I declare! the creature must have some kind of sense in +him, too,” said Bell, a little mollified by this compliment +to Scotch sea-captains. And all the Dyces fed their eyes +upon this wonderful wean that had fallen among them. +’Twas happy in that hour with them; as if in a miracle they +had been remitted to their own young years; their dwelling was at +long last furnished! She had got into the good graces of +Footles as if she had known him all her life.</p> +<p>“Say, uncle, this is a funny dog,” was her next +remark. “Did God make him?”</p> +<p>“Well—yes, I suppose God did,” said Mr Dyce, +taken a bit aback.</p> +<p>“Well, isn’t He the darndest! This dog beats +Mrs Molyneux’s Dodo, and Dodo was a looloo. What sort +of a dog is he? Scotch terrier?”</p> +<p>“Mostly not,” said her uncle, chuckling. +“It’s really an improvement on the Scotch +terrier. There’s later patents in him, you might +say. He’s a sort of mosaic; indeed, when I think of +it you might describe him as a pure mosaic dog.”</p> +<p>“A Mosaic dog!” exclaimed Lennox. +“Then he must have come from scriptural parts. +Perhaps I’ll <a name="page32"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +32</span>get playing with him Sundays. Not playing loud +out, you know, but just being happy. I love being happy, +don’t you?”</p> +<p>“It’s my only weakness,” said Mr Dyce +emphatically, blinking through his glasses. “The +other business men in the town don’t approve of me for it; +they call it frivolity. But it comes so easily to me I +never charge it in the bills, though a sense of humour should +certainly be worth 12s. 6d. a smile in the Table of Fees. +It would save many a costly plea.”</p> +<p>“Didn’t you play on Sunday in Chicago?” +asked Ailie.</p> +<p>“Not out loud. Poppa said he was bound to have me +Scotch in one thing at least, even if it took a strap. That +was after mother died. He’d just read to me Sundays, +and we went to church till we had pins and needles. We had +the Reverend Ebenezer Paul Frazer, M.A., Presbyterian Church on +the Front. He just preached and preached till we had pins +and needles all over.”</p> +<p>“My poor Lennox!” exclaimed Ailie, with +feeling.</p> +<p>“Oh, I’m all right!” said young America +blithely. “I’m not kicking.”</p> +<p>Dan Dyce, with his head to the side, took off his spectacles +and rubbed them clean with his handkerchief; put them on again, +looked at his niece through them, and then at Ailie, with some +emotion struggling in his countenance. Ailie for a moment +suppressed some inward convulsion, and turned her gaze, +embarrassed from him to Bell, and Bell catching the eyes of both +of them could contain her joy no longer. They laughed till +the tears came, and none more heartily than brother +William’s child. She had so sweet a laugh that there +and then the Dyces thought it the loveliest sound they had ever +heard in their house. Her aunts would have devoured her +with caresses. Her uncle stood over her and beamed, rubbing +his hands, expectant every moment of another manifestation of the +oddest kind of child <a name="page33"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 33</span>mind he had ever encountered. +And Kate swept out and in between the parlour and the kitchen on +trivial excuses, generally with something to eat for the child, +who had eaten so much in the house of Wanton Wully Oliver that +she was indifferent to the rarest delicacies of Bell’s +celestial grocery.</p> +<p>“You’re just—just a wee witch!” said +Bell, fondling the child’s hair. “Do you know, +that man Molyneux—”</p> +<p>“Jim,” suggested Lennox.</p> +<p>“I would Jim him if I had him! That man Molyneux +in all his scrimping little letters never said whether you were a +boy or a girl, and we thought a Lennox was bound to be a boy, and +all this time we have been expecting a boy.”</p> +<p>“I declare!” said the little one, with the most +amusing drawl, a memory of Molyneux. “Why, I always +was a girl, far back as I can remember. Nobody never gave +me the chance to be a boy. I s’pose I hadn’t +the clothes for the part, and they just pushed me along anyhow in +frocks. Would you’d rather I was a boy?”</p> +<p>“Not a bit! We have one in the house already, and +he’s a fair heart-break,” said her aunt, with a look +towards Mr Dyce. “We had just made up our minds to +dress you in the kilt when your rap came to the door. At +least, I had made up my mind; the others are so thrawn! And +bless me! lassie, where’s your luggage? You surely +did not come all the way from Chicago with no more than what you +have on your back?”</p> +<p>“You’ll be tickled to death to see my +trunks!” said Lennox. “I’ve heaps and +heaps of clothes and six dolls. They’re all coming +with the coach. They wanted me to wait for the coach too, +but the mail man who called me a caution said he was bound to +have a passenger for luck on New Year’s day, and I was in a +hurry to get home anyway.”</p> +<p>“Home!” When she said that, the two aunts +swept on her like a billow and bore her, dog and all, <a +name="page34"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 34</span>upstairs to +her room. She was almost blind for want of sleep. +They hovered over her quick-fingered, airy as bees, stripping her +for bed. She knelt a moment and in one breath +said—</p> + +<p>“God—bless—father—and—mother—and—Jim—and—Mrs + +Molyneux—and—my—aunts—in—Scotland—and—Uncle—Dan—and—everybody—good-night”</p> +<p>And was asleep in the sunlight of the room as soon as her head +fell on the pillow.</p> +<p>“She prayed for her father and mother,” whispered +Bell, with Footles in her arms, as they stood beside the +bed. “It’s not—it’s not quite +Presbyterian to pray for the dead; it’s very American, +indeed you might call it papist.”</p> +<p>Ailie’s face reddened, but she said nothing.</p> +<p>“And do you know this?” said Bell shamefacedly, +“I do it myself; upon my word, I do it myself. +I’m often praying for father and mother and +William.”</p> +<p>“So am I,” confessed Alison, plainly +relieved. “I’m afraid I’m a poor +Presbyterian, for I never knew there was anything wrong in doing +so.”</p> +<p>Below, in the parlour, Mr Dyce stood looking into the white +garden, a contented man, humming—</p> +<p style="text-align: center">“Star of Peace, to wanderers +weary.”</p> +<h2><a name="page35"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +35</span>CHAPTER V.</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">She</span> was a lucky lassie, this of +ours, to have come home to her father’s Scotland on that +New Year’s day, for there is no denying that it is not +always gay in Scotland, contrairy land, that, whether we be deep +down in the waist of the world and afar from her, or lying on her +breast, chains us to her with links of iron and gold,—stern +tasks and happy days remembered, ancient stories, austerity and +freedom, cold weather on moor and glen, warm hearths and burning +hearts. She might have seen this burgh first in its +solemnity, on one of the winter days when it shivers and weeps +among its old memorials, and the wild geese cry more constant +over the house-tops, and the sodden gardens, lanes, wynds, and +wells, the clanging spirits of old citizens dead and gone, +haunting the place of their follies and their good times, their +ridiculous ideals, their mistaken ambitions, their broken +plans. Ah, wild geese! wild geese! old ghosts that cry +to-night above my dwelling, I feel—I feel and know! +She might have come, the child, to days of fast, and sombre dark +drugget garments, dissonant harsh competing kettle bells, or +spoiled harvests, poor fishings, hungry hours. It was good +for her, and it is the making of my story, that she came not +then, but with the pure white cheerful snow, to ring the burgh +bell in her childish escapade, and usher in with merriment the +New Year, and begin her new life happily in the old world.</p> +<p>She woke at noon among the scented curtains, in linen +sea-breeze bleached, under the camceil roof <a +name="page36"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 36</span>that all +children love, for it makes a garret like the ancestral cave, and +in rainy weather they can hear the pattering feet of foes above +them. She heard the sound of John Taggart’s drum, and +the fifing of “Happy we’ve been a’ +thegether,” and turning, found upon her pillow a sleeping +doll that woke whenever she raised it up, and stared at her in +wonderment.</p> +<p>“Oh!—Oh!—Oh! you roly-poley blonde!” +cried the child in ecstasy, hugging it to her bosom and covering +it with kisses. “I’m as glad as anything. +Do you see the lovely little room? I’ll tell you +right here what your name is: it’s Alison; no, it’s +Bell; no, it’s Alibel for your two just lovely, lovely +aunties.”</p> +<p>Up she rose, sleep banished, with a sense of cheerfulness and +expectation, nimbly dressed herself, and slid down the banisters +to tumble plump at the feet of her Auntie Bell in the lobby.</p> +<p>“Mercy on us! You’ll break your neck; are +you hurt?” cried Aunt Bell. “I’m not +kicking,” said the child, and the dog waved furiously a +gladsome tail. A log fire blazed and crackled and hissed in +the parlour, and Mr Dyce tapped time with his fingers on a +chair-back to an internal hymn.</p> +<p>“My! ain’t I the naughty girl to be snoozling away +like a gopher in a hole all day? Your clock’s +stopped, Uncle Dan.”</p> +<p>Mr Dyce looked very guilty, and coughed, rubbing his +chin. “You’re a noticing creature,” said +he. “I declare it <i>has</i> stopped. Well, +well!” and his sister Bell plainly enjoyed some amusing +secret.</p> +<p>“Your uncle is always a little daft, my dear,” she +said.</p> +<p>“I would rather be daft than dismal,” he retorted, +cleaning his glasses.</p> +<p>“It’s a singular thing that the clocks in our +lobby and parlour always stop on the New Year’s day, +Lennox.”</p> +<p>“Bud; please, say Bud,” pleaded the little +one. <a name="page37"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +37</span>“Nobody ever calls me Lennox ’cept when +I’m doing something wrong and almost going to get a +whipping.”</p> +<p>“Very well, Bud, then. This clock gets something +wrong with it every New Year’s day, for your uncle, that +man there, wants the folk who call never to know the time so that +they’ll bide the longer.”</p> +<p>“Tuts!” said Uncle Dan, who had thought this was +his own particular recipe for joviality, and that they had never +discovered it.</p> +<p>“You have come to a hospitable town, Bud,” said +Ailie. “There are convivial old gentlemen on the +other side of the street who have got up a petition to the +magistrates to shut up the inn and the public-house in the +afternoon. They say it is in the interests of temperance, +but it’s really to compel their convivial friends to visit +themselves.”</p> +<p>“I signed it myself,” confessed Mr Dyce, +“and I’m only half convivial. I’m not +bragging; I might have been more convivial if it didn’t so +easily give me a sore head. What’s more cheerful than +a crowd in the house and the clash going? A fine fire, a +good light, and turn about at a story! The happiest time I +ever had in my life was when I broke my leg; so many folk called, +it was like a month of New Year’s days. I was born +with a craving for company. Mother used to have a +superstition that if a knife or spoon dropped on the floor from +the table it betokened a visitor, and I used to drop them by the +dozen. But, dear me! here’s a wean with a doll, and +where in the world did she get it?”</p> +<p>Bud, with the doll under one arm and the dog tucked under the +other, laughed up in his face with shy perception.</p> +<p>“Oh, you funny man!” she exclaimed. “I +guess you know all right who put Alibel on my pillow. Why! +I could have told you were a doll man: I noticed you turning over +the pennies in your pants’ pocket, same as poppa used when +he saw any nice clean little girl like me, and he was the +dolliest man <a name="page38"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +38</span>in all Chicago. Why, there was treasury days when +he just rained dolls.”</p> +<p>“That was William, sure enough,” said Mr +Dyce. “There’s no need for showing us your +strawberry mark. It was certainly William. If it had +only been dolls!”</p> +<p>“Her name’s Alibel, for her two aunties,” +said the child.</p> +<p>“Tuts!” said Mr Dyce. “If I had +thought you meant to honour them that way I would have made her +twins. But you see I did not know; it was a delicate +transaction as it was. I could not tell very well whether a +doll or a—a—or a fountain pen would be the most +appropriate present for a ten-year-old niece from Chicago, and I +risked the doll. I hope it fits.”</p> +<p>“Like a halo. It’s just sweet!” said +the ecstatic maiden, and rescued one of its limbs from the gorge +of Footles.</p> +<p>It got about the town that to Dyces’ house had come a +wonderful American child who talked language like a minister: the +news was partly the news of the mail-driver and Wully Oliver, but +mostly the news of Kate, who, from the moment Lennox had been +taken from her presence and put to bed, had dwelt upon the +window-sashes, letting no one pass that side of the street +without her confidence.</p> +<p>“You never heard the like! No’ the size of a +shillin’s worth of ha’pennies, and she came all the +way by her lee-lone in the coach from +Chickagoo,—that’s in America. There’s to +be throng times in this house now, I’m tellin’ you, +with brother William’s wean.”</p> +<p>As the forenoon advanced Kate’s intelligence grew more +surprising: to the new-comer were ascribed a score of +characteristics such as had never been seen in the town +before. For one thing (would Kate assure them), she could +imitate Wully Oliver till you almost saw whiskers on her and +could smell the dram. She was thought to be a boy to start +<a name="page39"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 39</span>with, but +that was only their ignorance in Chickagoo, for the girl was +really a lassie, and had kists of lassie’s clothes coming +with the coach.</p> +<p>The Dyces’ foreigner was such a grand sensation that it +marred the splendour of the afternoon band parade, though John +Taggart was unusually glorious, walking on the very backs of his +heels, his nose in the heavens, and his drumsticks soaring and +circling over his head in a way to make the spectators +giddy. Instead of following the band till its +<i>répertoire</i> was suddenly done at five minutes to +twelve at the door of Maggie White, the wine and spirit merchant, +there were many that hung about the street in the hope of seeing +the American. They thought they would know her at once by +the colour of her skin, which some said would be yellow, and +others maintained would be brown. A few less patient and +more privileged boldly visited the house of Dyce to make their +New Year compliments and see the wonder for themselves.</p> +<p>The American had her eye on them.</p> +<p>She had her eye on the Sheriff’s lady, who was so +determinedly affable, so pleased with everything the family of +Dyce might say, do, or possess, and only five times ventured to +indicate there were others, by a mention of “the dear Lady +Anne—so nice, so simple, so unaffected, so +amiable.”</p> +<p>On Miss Minto of the crimson cloak, who kept her deaf ear to +the sisters and her good one to their brother, and laughed +heartily at all his little jokes even before they were half made, +or looked at him with large, soft, melting eyes and her lips +apart, which her glass had told her was an aspect +ravishing. The sisters smiled at each other when she had +gone and looked comically at Dan, but he, poor man, saw nothing +but just that Mary Minto was a good deal fatter than she used to +be.</p> +<p>On the doctor’s two sisters, late come from a farm in +the country, marvellously at ease so long as the conversation +abode in gossip about the neighbours, <a name="page40"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 40</span>but in a silent terror when it rose +from persons to ideas, as it once had done when Lady Anne had +asked them what they thought of didactic poetry, and one of them +said it was a thing she was very fond of, and then fell in a +swound.</p> +<p>On the banker man, the teller, who was in hopeless love with +Ailie, as was plain from the way he devoted himself to Bell.</p> +<p>On Mr Dyce’s old retired partner, Mr Cleland, who smelt +of cloves and did not care for tea.</p> +<p>On P. & A. MacGlashan, who had come in specially to see if +the stranger knew his brother Albert, who, he said, was “in +a Somewhere-ville in Manitoba.”</p> +<p>On the Provost and his lady, who were very old, and petted +each other when they thought themselves unobserved.</p> +<p>On the soft, kind, simple, content and happy ladies lately +married.</p> +<p>On the others who would like to be.</p> +<p>Yes, Bud had her eye on them all. They never guessed how +much they entertained her as they genteelly sipped their tea, or +wine, or ginger cordial,—the women of them,—or +coughed a little too artificially over the New Year +glass,—the men.</p> +<p>“Wee Pawkie, that’s what she is—just Wee +Pawkie!” said the Provost when he got out, and so far it +summed up everything.</p> +<p>The ladies could not tear away home fast enough to see if they +had not a remnant of cloth that could be made into such a lovely +dress as that of Dyce’s niece for one of their own +children. “Mark my words!” they said +—“that child will be ruined between them. +She’s her father’s image, and he went and married a +poor play-actress, and stayed a dozen years away from Scotland, +and never wrote home a line.”</p> +<p>So many people came to the house, plainly for no reason but to +see the new-comer, that Ailie at last made up her mind to satisfy +all by taking her out for a walk. The strange thing was +that in the <a name="page41"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +41</span>street the populace displayed indifference or +blindness. Bud might have seen no more sign of interest in +her than the hurried glance of a passer-by; no step slowed to +show that the most was being made of the opportunity. There +had been some women at their windows when she came out of the +house sturdily walking by Aunt Ailie’s side, with her hands +in her muff, and her keen black eyes peeping from under the fur +of her hood; but these women drew in their heads +immediately. Ailie, who knew her native town, was conscious +that from behind the curtains the scrutiny was keen. She +smiled to herself as she walked demurely down the street.</p> +<p>“Do you feel anything, Bud?” she asked.</p> +<p>Bud naturally failed to comprehend.</p> +<p>“You ought to feel something at your back; I’m +ticklish all down the back because of a hundred eyes.”</p> +<p>“I know,” said the astounding child. +“They think we don’t notice, but I guess God sees +them,” and yet she had apparently never glanced at the +windows herself, nor looked round to discover passers-by staring +over their shoulders at her aunt and her.</p> +<p>For a moment Ailie felt afraid. She dearly loved a quick +perception, but it was a gift, she felt, a niece might have too +young.</p> +<p>“How in the world did you know that, Bud?” she +asked.</p> +<p>“I just guessed they’d be doing it,” said +Bud, “’cause it’s what I would do if I saw a +little girl from Scotland walking down the lake front in +Chicago. Is it dre’ffle rude, Aunt Ailie?”</p> +<p>“So they say, so they say,” said her aunt, looking +straight forward, with her shoulders back and her eyes level, +flushing at the temples. “But I’m afraid we +can’t help it. It’s undignified—to be +seen doing it. I can see you’re a real Dyce, +Bud. The other people who are not Dyces lose a great deal +of fun. Do you know, child, I think you and I are going to +be great friends—you and I and Aunt Bell and Uncle +Dan.”</p> +<p><a name="page42"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +42</span>“And the Mosaic dog,” added Bud with +warmth. “I love that old dog so much that I +could—I could eat him. He’s the becomingest +dog! Why, here he is!” And it was indeed +Footles who hurled himself at them, a rapturous mass of unkempt +hair and convulsive barkings, having escaped from the +imprisonment of Kate’s kitchen by climbing over her +shoulders and out across the window-sash.</p> +<h2><a name="page43"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +43</span>CHAPTER VI.</h2> +<p>“I <span class="smcap">heard</span> all about you and +Auntie Bell and Uncle Dan from pop—from father,” said +Bud, as they walked back to the house. She had learned +already from example how sweeter sounded “father” +than the term she had used in America. “He was mighty +apt to sit up nights talking about you all. But I +don’t quite place Kate: he never mentioned Kate.”</p> +<p>“Oh, she’s a new addition,” explained +Ailie. “Kate is the maid, you know: she came to us +long after your father left home, but she’s been with us +five years now, and that’s long enough to make her one of +the family.”</p> +<p>“My! Five years! She ain’t—she +isn’t much of a quitter, is she? I guess you must +have tacked her down,” said Bud. “You +don’t get helps in Chicago to linger round the dear old +spot like that; they get all hot running from base to base, same +as if it was a game of ball. But she’s a +pretty—pretty broad girl, isn’t she? She +couldn’t run very fast; that’ll be the way she +stays.”</p> +<p>Ailie smiled. “Ah! So that’s Chicago, +too, is it? You must have been in the parlour a good many +times at five-o’clock tea to have grasped the situation at +your age. I suppose your Chicago ladies lower the +temperature of their tea weeping into it the woes they have about +their domestics? It’s another Anglo-Saxon +link.”</p> +<p>“Mrs Jim said sensible girls that would stay long enough +to cool down after the last dash were getting <a +name="page44"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 44</span>that scarce +you had to go out after them with a gun. You didn’t +really, you know; that was just Mrs Jim’s way of putting +it.”</p> +<p>“I understand,” said Alison, unable to hide her +amusement. “You seem to have picked up that way of +putting it yourself.”</p> +<p>“Am I speaking slang?” asked the child, glancing +up quickly and reddening. “Father pro—prosisted +I wasn’t to speak slang nor chew gum; he said it was things +no real lady would do in the old country, and that I was to be a +well-off English undefied. You must be dre’ffle +shocked, Auntie Ailie?”</p> +<p>“Oh no,” said Ailie cheerfully; “I never was +shocked in all my life, though they say I’m a shocker +myself. I’m only surprised a little at the +possibilities of the English language. I’ve hardly +heard you use a word of slang yet, and still you scarcely speak a +sentence in which there’s not some novelty. +It’s like Kate’s first attempt at sheep’s-head +broth: we were familiar with all the ingredients except the +horns, and we knew them elsewhere.”</p> +<p>“That’s all right, then,” said Bud, +relieved. “But Mrs Jim had funny ways of putting +things, and I s’pose I picked them up. I can’t +help it—I pick up so fast. Why, I had scarletina +twice! and I picked up her way of zaggerating: often I zaggerate +dre’ffle, and say I wrote all the works of Shakespeare, +when I really didn’t, you know. Mrs Jim didn’t +mean that she had to go out hunting for helps with a gun; all she +meant was that they were getting harder and harder to get, and +mighty hard to keep when you got them.”</p> +<p>“I know,” said Alison. “It’s an +old British story; you’ll hear it often from our visitors, +if you’re spared. But we’re lucky with our +Kate; we seem to give her complete satisfaction, or, at all +events, she puts up with us. When she feels she can’t +put up with us any longer, she hurls herself on the morning +newspaper to look at the advertisements for ladies’ maids +and housekeepers with £50 a-year, and makes <a +name="page45"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 45</span>up her mind +to apply at once, but can never find a pen that suits her before +we make her laugh. The servant in the house of Dyce who +laughs is lost. You’ll like Kate, Bud. We like +her; and I notice that if you like anybody they generally like +you back.”</p> +<p>“I’m so glad,” said Bud with +enthusiasm. “If there’s one thing under the +canopy I am, I’m a liker.”</p> +<p>They had reached the door of the house without seeing the +slightest sign that the burgh was interested in them, but they +were no sooner in than a hundred tongues were discussing the +appearance of the little American. Ailie took off +Bud’s cloak and hood, and pushed her into the kitchen, with +a whisper to her that she was to make Kate’s acquaintance, +and be sure and praise her scones, then left her and flew +upstairs, with a pleasant sense of personal good-luck. It +was so sweet to know that brother William’s child was +anything but a diffy.</p> +<p>Bud stood for a moment in the kitchen, bashful, for it must +not be supposed she lacked a childish shyness. Kate, +toasting bread at the fire, turned round and felt a little blate +herself, but smiled at her, such a fine expansive smile, it was +bound to put the child at ease. “Come away in, my +dear, and take a bite,” said the maid. It is so they +greet you—simple folk!—in the isle of Colonsay.</p> +<p>The night was coming on, once more with snowy feathers. +Wanton Wully lit the town. He went from lamp to lamp with a +ladder, children in his train chanting</p> +<p class="poetry">“Leerie, leerie, light the lamps,<br /> +Long legs and crooked shanks!”—</p> +<p>and he expostulating with “I know you fine, the whole of +you; at least I know the boys. Stop you till I see your +mothers!” Miss Minto’s shop was open, and +shamefaced lads went dubiously in to buy ladies’ white +gloves, for with gloves they tryst their partners here at New +Year balls, and to-night was <a name="page46"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 46</span>Samson’s fiddle giggling at the +inn. The long tenement lands, as flat and high as cliffs, +and built for all eternity, at first dark grey in the dusk, began +to glow in every window, and down the stairs and from the closes +flowed exceeding cheerful sounds. Green fires of wood and +coal sent up a cloud above these dwellings, tea-kettles jigged, +and sang. A thousand things were happening in the street, +but for once the maid of Colonsay restrained her interest in the +window. “Tell me this, what did you say your name +was?” she asked.</p> +<p>“I’m Miss Lennox Brenton Dyce,” said Bud +primly, “but the Miss don’t amount to much till +I’m old enough to get my hair up.”</p> +<p>“You must be tired coming so far. All the way from +that Chickagoo!”</p> +<p>“Chicago,” suggested Bud politely.</p> +<p>“Just that! Chickagoo or Chicago, it depends on +the way you spell it,” said Kate readily. “I +was brought up to call it Chickagoo. What a length to come +on New Year’s day! Were you not frightened? Try +one of them brown biscuits. And how are they all keeping in +America?”</p> +<p>She asked the question with such tender solicitude that Bud +saw no humour in it, and answered gravely—</p> +<p>“Pretty spry, thank you. Have you been +there?”</p> +<p>“Me!” cried Kate, with her bosom heaving at the +very thought. Then her Highland vanity came to her +rescue. “No,” she said, “I have not been +exactly what you might call altogether there, but I had a cousin +that started for Australia, and got the length of Paisley. +It’ll be a big place America? Put butter on +it.”</p> +<p>“The United States of America are bounded on the east by +the Atlantic Ocean, on the west by the Pacific, on the south by +Mexico and the Gulf, and on the north by an imaginary line called +Canada. The State of New York alone is as large as +England,” said Bud glibly, repeating a familiar lesson.</p> +<p><a name="page47"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +47</span>“What a size!” cried Kate. “Take +another of them brown biscuits. Scotland’s not slack +neither for size; there’s Glasgow and Oban, and Colonsay +and Stornoway. There’ll not be hills in +America?’</p> +<p>“There’s no hills, just mountains,” said +Bud. “The chief mountain ranges are the Rocky +Mountains and the Alleghanies. They’re about the +biggest mountains in the world.”</p> +<p>“Talking about big things, look at the big pennyworth of +milk we get here,” said Kate, producing a can: it was +almost the last ditch of her national pride.</p> +<p>The child looked gravely into the can, and then glanced +shrewdly at the maid.</p> +<p>“It isn’t a pennyworth,” said she sharply, +“it’s twopence worth.”</p> +<p>“My stars! how did you know that?” said Kate, much +taken aback.</p> +<p>“’Cause you’re bragging. Think I +don’t know when anybody’s bragging?” said +Bud. “And when a body brags about a place or +anything, they zaggerate, and just about double +things.”</p> +<p>“You’re not canny,” said Kate, thrusting the +milk-can back hastily on the kitchen dresser. +“Don’t spare the butter on your biscuit. They +tell me there’s plenty of money in America. I would +not wonder, eh?”</p> +<p>“Why, everybody’s got money to throw at the birds +there,” said Bud, with some of the accent as well as the +favourite phrase of Jim Molyneux.</p> +<p>“They have little to do; forbye, it’s +cruelty. Mind you, there’s plenty of money here too; +your uncle has a desperate lot of it. He was wanting to go +away to America and bring you home whenever he +heard—whenever he heard— Will you not try +another of them biscuits? It will do you no +harm.”</p> +<p>“I know,” said Bud gravely,—“whenever +he heard about my father being dead.”</p> +<p>“I think we’re sometimes very stupid, us from <a +name="page48"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +48</span>Colonsay,” said the maid regretfully. +“I should have kept my mouth shut about your father. +Take <i>two</i> biscuits, my dear; or maybe you would rather have +short-cake. Yes, he was for going there and then—even +if it cost a pound, I daresay,—but changed his mind when he +heard yon man Molyneux was bringing you.”</p> +<p>Footles, snug in the child’s lap, shared the biscuits +and barked for more.</p> +<p class="poetry">“I love little Footles,<br /> + His coat is so warm,<br /> +And if I don’t tease him<br /> + He’ll do me no harm,”</p> +<p>said Bud, burying her head in his mane.</p> +<p>“Good Lord! did you make that yourself, or just keep +mind of it?” asked the astounded Kate.</p> +<p>“I made it just right here,” said Bud +coolly. “Didn’t you know I could make +poetry? Why, you poor perishing soul, I’m just a +regular wee—wee whitterick at poetry! It goes +sloshing round in my head, and it’s simply pie for me to +make it. Here’s another—</p> +<p class="poetry">‘Lives of great men oft remind us<br /> + We can make our lives sublime,<br /> +And, departing, leave behind us<br /> + Footprints on the sands of time.’</p> +<p>I just dash them off. I guess I’ll have to get up +bright and early to-morrow and touch that one up some. +Mostly you can’t make them good the first try, and then +you’re bound to go all over them from the beginning and put +the good in here and there. That’s art, Jim +says. He knew an artist who’d finish a picture with +everything quite plain about it, and then say, ‘Now for the +Art!’ and fuzz it all with a hard brush.”</p> +<p>“My stars! what things you know!” exclaimed the +maid. “You’re clever—tremendous +clever! What’s your age?”</p> +<p><a name="page49"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +49</span>“I was born mighty well near ten years ago,” +said Bud, as if she were a centenarian.</p> +<p>Now it is not wise to tell a child like Lennox Dyce that she +is clever, though a maid from Colonsay could scarcely be expected +to know that. Till Bud had landed on the British shore she +had no reason to think herself anything out of the +ordinary. Jim Molyneux and his wife, with no children of +their own, and no knowledge of children except the elderly kind +that play in theatres, had treated her like a person little +younger than themselves, and saw no marvel in her quickness, that +is common enough with Young America. But Bud, from +Maryfield to her uncle’s door, had been a +“caution” to the plainly admiring mail-driver; a kind +of fairy princess to Wanton Wully Oliver and his wife; the +surprise of her aunts had been only half concealed, and here was +the maid in an undisguised enchantment! The vanity of +ten-year-old was stimulated; for the first time in her life she +felt decidedly superior.</p> +<p>“It was very brave of me to come all this way in a ship +at ten years old,” she proceeded.</p> +<p>“I once came to Oban along with a steamer myself,” +said Kate, “but och, that’s nothing, for I knew a lot +of the drovers. Just fancy you coming from America! +Were you not lonely?”</p> +<p>“I was dre’ffle lonely,” said Bud, who, in +fact, had never known a moment’s dullness across the whole +Atlantic. “There was I leaving my native land, +perhaps never to set eyes on its shores evermore, and coming to a +far country I didn’t know the least thing about. I +was leaving all my dear young friends, and the beautiful Mrs +Molyneux, and her faithful dog Dodo, and—” here she +squeezed a tear from her eyes, and stopped to think of +circumstances even more touching.</p> +<p>“My poor wee hen!” cried Kate, distressed. +“Don’t you greet, and I’ll buy you +something.”</p> +<p>“And I didn’t know what sort of uncle and aunties +they might be here,—whether they’d be cruel and <a +name="page50"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 50</span>wicked or +not, or whether they’d keep me or not. Little girls +most always have cruel uncles and aunties—you can see that +in the books.”</p> +<p>“You were awful stupid about that bit of it,” said +the maid emphatically. “I’m sure anybody could +have told you about Mr Dyce and his sisters.”</p> +<p>“And then it was so stormy,” proceeded Bud +quickly, in search of more moving considerations. “I +made a poem about that too,—I just dashed it off; the first +verse goes—</p> +<p class="poetry">‘The breaking waves dashed high<br /> + On a stern and rock-bound coast—’</p> +<p>but I forget the rest, ’cept that</p> +<p class="poetry">‘—they come to wither there<br /> + Away from their childhood’s land.’</p> +<p>The waves were mountains high, and whirled over the deck, +and—”</p> +<p>“My goodness, you would get all wet!” said Kate, +putting her hand on Bud’s shoulder to feel if she were dry +yet. Honest tears were in her own eyes at the thought of +such distressing affairs.</p> +<p>“The ship at last struck on a rock,” proceeded +Bud, “so the captain lashed me—”</p> +<p>“I would lash him, the villain!” cried the +indignant maid.</p> +<p>“I don’t mean that; he tied me—that’s +lash in books—to the mast, and then—and +then—well, then we waited calmly for the end,” said +Bud, at the last of her resources for ocean tragedy.</p> +<p>Kate’s tears were streaming down her cheeks, at this +conjured vision of youth in dire distress. “Oh dear! +oh dear! my poor wee hen!” she sobbed. +“I’m so sorry for you.”</p> +<p>“Bud! coo-ie! coo-ie!” came the voice of Aunt +Ailie along the lobby, but Bud was so entranced with the effect +of her imaginings that she paid no heed, and Kate’s head +was wrapped in her apron.</p> +<p><a name="page51"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +51</span>“Don’t cry, Kate; I wouldn’t cry if I +was you,” said the child at last, soothingly. +“Maybe it’s not true.”</p> +<p>“I’ll greet if I like,” insisted the +maid. “Fancy you in that awful shipwreck! +It’s enough to scare anybody from going anywhere. Oh +dear! oh dear!” and she wept more copiously than ever.</p> +<p>“Don’t cry,” said Bud again. +“It’s silly to drizzle like that. Why, great +Queen of Sheba! I was only joshing you: it was as calm on +that ship as a milk sociable.”</p> +<p>Kate drew down the apron from her face and stared at +her. Her meaning was only half plain, but it was a relief +to know that things had not been quite so bad as she first +depicted them. “A body’s the better of a bit +greet, whiles,” she said philosophically, drying her +eyes.</p> +<p>“That’s what I say,” agreed Bud. +“That’s why I told you all that. Do you know, +child, I think you and I are going to be great +friends.” She said this with the very tone and manner +of Alison, whose words they were to herself, and turned round +hastily and embarrassed at a laugh behind her to find her Aunt +had heard herself thus early imitated.</p> +<h2><a name="page52"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +52</span>CHAPTER VII.</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">If</span> Molyneux, the actor, was to +blame for sending this child of ten on her journey into Scotland +without convoy, how much worse was his offence that he sent no +hint of her character to the house of Dyce? She was like +the carpet-bag George Jordon found at the inn door one day +without a name on it, and saying “There’s nothing +like thrift in a family,” took home immediately, to lament +over for a week because he had not the key to open it. +There should have been a key to Lennox Brenton Dyce, but +Molyneux, a man of post-cards and curt and cryptic epistles +generally, never thought of that, so that it took some days for +the folk she came among to pick the lock. There was fun in +the process, it cannot be denied, but that was because the Dyces +were the Dyces; had they been many another folk she might have +been a mystery for years, and in the long-run spoiled +completely. Her mother had been a thousand women in her +time,—heroines good and evil, fairies, princesses, paupers, +maidens, mothers, shy and bold, plain or beautiful, young or old, +as the play of the week demanded,—a play-actress, in a +word. And now she was dead and buried, the bright white +lights on her no more, the music and the cheering done. But +not all dead and buried, for some of her was in her child.</p> +<p>Bud was born a mimic. I tell you this at once, because +so many inconsistencies will be found in her I should otherwise +look foolish to present her portrait for a piece of veritable +life. Not a mimic of voice and manner only, but a mimic of +people’s minds, so <a name="page53"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 53</span>that for long—until the climax +came that was to change her when she found herself—she was +the echo and reflection of the last person she spoke with. +She borrowed minds and gestures as later she borrowed Grandma +Buntain’s pelerine and bonnet. She could be all men +and all women except the plainly dull or wicked,—but only +on each occasion for a little while; by-and-by she was herself +again.</p> +<p>And so it was that for a day or two she played with the phrase +and accent of Wanton Wully Oliver, or startled her aunts with an +unconscious rendering of Kate’s Highland accent, her +“My stars!” and “Mercy me’s!” and +“My wee hens!”</p> +<p>The daft days (as we call New Year time) passed—the days +of careless merriment, that were but the start of Bud’s +daft days, that last with all of us for years if we are +lucky. The town was settling down; the schools were opening +on Han’sel Monday, and Bud was going—not to the +Grammar School after all, but to the Pigeons’ +Seminary. Have patience, and by-and-by I will tell about +the Pigeons.</p> +<p>Bell had been appalled to find the child, at the age of ten, +apparently incredibly neglected in her education.</p> +<p>“Of course you would be at some sort of school yonder in +America?” she had said at an early opportunity, not hoping +for much, but ready to learn of some hedgerow academy in spite of +all the papers said of Yales and Harvards and the like.</p> +<p>“No, I never was at school; I was just going when father +died,” said Bud, sitting on a sofa, wrapt in a cloak of +Ailie’s, feeling extremely tall and beautiful and old.</p> +<p>“What! Do you sit there and tell me they did not +send you to school?” cried her aunt, so stunned that the +child delighted in her power to startle and amaze. +“That’s America for you! Ten years old, and not +the length of your alphabets,—it’s what one might +expect from a heathen land of niggers, and lynchers, and +presidents. I was the best sewer and speller in Miss +Mushet’s long before I was ten. My <a +name="page54"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 54</span>lassie, let +me tell you you have come to a country where you’ll get +your education! We would make you take it at its best if we +had to live on meal. Look at your Auntie Ailie—French +and German, and a hand like copperplate; it’s a treat to +see her at the old scrutoire, no way put about, composing. +Just goes at it like lightning! I do declare if your Uncle +Dan was done, Ailie could carry on the business, all except the +aliments and sequestrations. It beats all! Ten years +old and not to know the A B C!”</p> +<p>“Oh, but I do,” said Bud quickly. “I +learned the alphabet off the play-bills,—the big G’s +first, because there’s so many Greats and Grands and +Gorgeouses in them. And then Mrs Molyneux used to let me +try to read Jim’s press notices. She read them first +every morning sitting up in bed at breakfast, and said, +‘My! wasn’t he a great man?’ and then +she’d cry a little, ’cause he never got justice from +the managers, for they were all mean and jealous of him. +Then she’d spray herself with the Peau d’espagne and +eat a cracker. And the best papers there was in the land +said the part of the butler in the second act was well filled by +Mister Jim Molyneux; or among others in a fine cast were J. +Molyneux, Ralph Devereux, and O. G. Tarpoll.”</p> +<p>“I don’t know what you’re talking about, my +poor wee whitterick; but it’s all haivers,” said Miss +Bell. “Can you spell?”</p> +<p>“If the words are not too big, or silly ones where +it’s ‘ei’ or ‘ie,’ and you have to +guess,” said Bud.</p> +<p>“Spell cat.”</p> +<p>Bud stared at her incredulously.</p> +<p>“Spell cat,” repeated her aunt.</p> +<p>“K-a-t-t,” said Bud (oh, naughty Bud!).</p> +<p>“Mercy!” cried Bell with horrified hands in the +air. “Off you pack to-morrow to the Seminary. I +wouldn’t wonder if you did not know a single word of the +Shorter Catechism. Perhaps they have not such a thing in +that awful heathen land you came from?”</p> +<p><a name="page55"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 55</span>Bud +could honestly say she had never heard of the Shorter +Catechism.</p> +<p>“My poor neglected bairn,” said her aunt +piteously, “you’re sitting there in the dark with no +conviction of sin, and nothing bothering you, and you might be +dead to-morrow! Mind this, that ‘Man’s chief +end is to glorify God, and to enjoy Him for ever.’ +Say that.”</p> +<p>“Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy +Him for ever,” repeated Bud obediently, rolling her +r’s and looking solemn like her aunt.</p> +<p>“Did you ever hear of Robert Bruce, him that watched the +spiders?”</p> +<p>Here, too, the naughty Bud protested ignorance.</p> +<p>“He was the saviour of his country,” said +Bell. “Mind that!”</p> +<p>“Why, Auntie, I thought it was George Washington,” +said Bud, surprised. “I guess if you’re looking +for a little wee stupid, it’s me.”</p> +<p>“We’re talking about Scotland,” said Miss +Bell severely. “He saved Scotland. It was well +worth while! Can you do your sums?”</p> +<p>“I can <i>not</i>,” said Bud emphatically. +“I hate them.”</p> +<p>Miss Bell said not a word more; she was too distressed at such +confessed benightedness; but she went out of the parlour to +search for Ailie. Bud forgot she was beautiful and tall and +old in Ailie’s cloak; she was repeating to herself +Man’s Chief End with rolling r’s, and firmly fixing +in her memory the fact that Robert Bruce, not George Washington, +was the saviour of his country and watched spiders.</p> +<p>Ailie was out, and so her sister found no ear for her +bewailings over the child’s neglected education till Mr +Dyce came in humming the tune of the day—“Sweet +Afton”—to change his hat for one more becoming to a +sitting of the Sheriff Court. He was searching for his good +one in what he was used to call “the piety press,” +for there was hung his Sunday clothes, when Bell distressfully +informed him that the child could not so much as spell cat.</p> +<p><a name="page56"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +56</span>“Nonsense I don’t believe it,” said +he. “That would be very unlike our +William.”</p> +<p>“It’s true,—I tried her myself!” said +Bell. “She was never at a school: isn’t it just +deplorable?”</p> +<p>“H’m!” said Mr Dyce, “it depends on +the way you look at it, Bell.”</p> +<p>“She does not know a word of her Catechism, nor the name +of Robert Bruce, and says she hates counting.”</p> +<p>“Hates counting!” repeated Mr Dyce, wonderfully +cheering up, “that’s hopeful; it reminds me of +myself. Forbye its gey like brother William. His way +of counting was ‘£1.10. in my pocket, £2 that +I’m owing some one, and 10s. I get +to-morrow—that’s £5 I have; what will I buy you +now?’ The worst of arithmetic is that it leaves +nothing to the imagination. Two and two’s four and +you’re done with it; there’s no scope for either fun +or fancy as there might be if the two and two went courting in +the dark and swapped their partners by an accident.”</p> +<p>“I wish you would go in and speak to her,” said +Bell, distressed still, “and tell her what a lot she has to +learn.”</p> +<p>“What, me!” cried Uncle Dan—“excuse my +grammar,” and he laughed. “It’s an +imprudent kind of mission for a man with all his knowledge in +little patches. I have a lot to learn, myself, Bell; it +takes me all my time to keep the folk I meet from finding out the +fact.”</p> +<p>But he went in humming, Bell behind him, and found the child +still practising Man’s Chief End, so engrossed in the +exercise she never heard him enter. He crept behind her, +and put his hands over her eyes.</p> +<p>“Guess who,” said he, in a shrill falsetto.</p> +<p>“It’s Robert Bruce,” said Bud, without +moving.</p> +<p>“No,—cold—cold!—guess again,” +said her uncle, growling like Giant Blunderbore.</p> +<p>“I’ll mention no names,” said she, +“but it’s mighty like Uncle Dan.”</p> +<p>He stood in front of her and put on a serious face,</p> +<p><a name="page57"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +57</span>“What’s this I am hearing, Miss +Lennox,” said he, “about a little girl who +doesn’t know a lot of things nice little girls ought to +know?”</p> +<p>“Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy +Him for ever,” repeated Bud reflectively. +“I’ve got that all right, but what does it +mean?”</p> +<p>“What does it mean?” said Mr Dyce, a bit taken +aback. “You tell her, Bell; what does it mean? +I must not be late for the court.”</p> +<p>“You’re far cleverer than I am,” said +Bell. “Tell her yourself.”</p> +<p>“It means,” said Daniel Dyce the lawyer, seating +himself on the sofa beside his niece, “that man in himself +is a gey poor soul, no’ worth a pin, though he’s apt +to think the world was made for his personal satisfaction. +At the best he’s but an instrument—a harp of a +thousand strings God bends to hear in His leisure. He made +that harp—the heart and mind of man—when He was in a +happy hour. Strings hale and strings broken, strings slack +or tight, there are all kinds of them; the best we can do’s +to be taut and trembling for the gladness of God Who loves fine +music, and set the stars themselves to singing from the very day +He put them birling in the void. To glorify’s to +wonder and adore, and who keeps the wondering humble heart, the +adoring eye, is to God pleasing exceedingly. Sing, lassie, +sing, sing, sing, inside ye, even if ye are as timmer as a +cask. God knows I have not much of a voice myself, but +I’m full of nobler airs than ever crossed my rusty +thrapple. To be grateful always, and glad things are no +worse, is a good song to start the morning.”</p> +<p>“Ah, but sin, Dan, sin!” said Bell, sighing, for +she always feared her own light-heartedness. “We may +be too joco.”</p> +<p>“Say ye so?” he cried, turning to his sister with +a flame upon his visage. “By the heavens above us, +no! Sin might have been eternal; each abominable thought +might have kept in our minds, constant day and night from the +moment that it bred there; the <a name="page58"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 58</span>theft we did might keep everlastingly +our hand in our neighbour’s kist as in a trap; the knife we +thrust with might have kept us thrusting for ever and for +ever. But no,—God’s good! sleep comes, and the +clean morning, and the morning is Christ, and every moment of +time is a new opportunity to amend. It is not sin that is +eternal, it is righteousness, and peace. Joco! We +cannot be too joco, having our inheritance.”</p> +<p>He stopped suddenly, warned by a glance of his sister’s, +and turned to look in his niece’s face to find bewilderment +there. The mood that was not often published by Dan Dyce +left him in a flash, and he laughed and put his arms round +her.</p> +<p>“I hope you’re a lot wiser for my sermon, +Bud,” said he; “I can see you have pins and needles +worse than under the Reverend Mr Frazer on the Front. +What’s the American for haivers—for foolish +speeches?”</p> +<p>“Hot air,” said Bud promptly.</p> +<p>“Good!” said Dan Dyce, rubbing his hands +together. “What I’m saying may seem just hot +air to you, but it’s meant. You do not know the +Shorter Catechism; never mind; there’s a lot of it +I’m afraid I do not know myself; but the whole of it is in +that first answer to Man’s Chief End. Reading and +writing, and all the rest of it, are of less importance, but +I’ll not deny they’re gey and handy. +You’re no Dyce if you don’t master them easily +enough.”</p> +<p>He kissed her and got gaily up and turned to go. +“Now,” said he, “for the law, seeing +we’re done with the gospels. I’m a conveyancing +lawyer—though you’ll not know what that +means—so mind me in your prayers.”</p> +<p>Bell went out into the lobby after him, leaving Bud in a +curious frame of mind, for Man’s Chief End, and +Bruce’s spider, and the word “joco,” all +tumbled about in her, demanding mastery.</p> +<p>“Little help I got from you, Dan!” said Bell to +her brother. “You never even tried her with a +multiplication table.”</p> +<p><a name="page59"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +59</span>“What’s seven times nine?” he asked +her, with his fingers on the handle of the outer door, his eyes +mockingly mischievous.</p> +<p>She flushed, and laughed, and pushed him on the +shoulder. “Go away with you!” said she. +“Fine you ken I could never mind seven times!”</p> +<p>“No Dyce ever could,” said +he,—“excepting Ailie. Get her to put the little +creature through her tests. If she’s not able to +spell cat at ten she’ll be an astounding woman by the time +she’s twenty.”</p> +<p>The end of it was that Aunt Ailie, whenever she came in, upon +Bell’s report, went over the street to Rodger’s shop +and made a purchase. As she hurried back with it, +bare-headed, in a cool drizzle of rain that jewelled her +wonderful hair, she felt like a child herself again. The +banker-man saw her from his lodging as she flew across the street +with sparkling eyes and eager lips, the roses on her cheeks, and +was sure, foolish man! that she had been for a new novel or maybe +a cosmetique, since in Rodger’s shop they sell books and +balms and ointments. She made the quiet street magnificent +for a second—a poor wee second, and then, for him, the sun +went down. The tap of the knocker on the door she closed +behind her struck him on the heart. You may guess, good +women, if you like, that at the end of the book the banker-man is +to marry Ailie, but you’ll be wrong; she was not thinking +of the man at all at all—she had more to do; she was +hurrying to open the gate of gold to her little niece.</p> +<p>“I’ve brought you something wonderful,” said +she to the child—“better than dolls, better than my +cloak, better than everything; guess what it is.”</p> +<p>Bud wrinkled her brows. “Ah, dear!” she +sighed, “we may be too joco! And I’m to sing, +sing, sing even if I’m as—timmer as a cask, and +Robert Bruce is the saviour of his country.” She +marched across the room, trailing Ailie’s cloak with her, +in an absurd caricature of Bell’s brisk manner. Yet +not so much the actress engrossed in her performance, but what <a +name="page60"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 60</span>she tried to +get a glimpse of what her aunt concealed.</p> +<p>“You need not try to see it,” said Ailie, smiling, +with the secret in her breast. “You must honestly +guess.”</p> +<p>“Better’n dolls and candies, oh, my!” said +Bud; “I hope it’s not the Shorter Catechism,” +she concluded, looking so grave that her aunt laughed.</p> +<p>“It’s not the Catechism,” said Ailie; +“try again. Oh, but you’ll never guess! +It’s a key.”</p> +<p>“A key?” repeated Bud, plainly cast down.</p> +<p>“A gold key,” said her aunt.</p> +<p>“What for?” asked Bud.</p> +<p>Ailie sat herself down on the floor and drew the child upon +her knees. She had a way of doing that which made her look +like a lass in her teens; indeed, it was most pleasing if the +banker-man could just have seen it! “A gold +key,” she repeated, lovingly, in Bud’s ear. +“A key to a garden—the loveliest garden, with flowers +that last the whole year round. You can pluck and pluck at +them and they’re never a single one the less. Better +than sweet peas! But that’s not all, there’s a +big garden-party to be at it—”</p> +<p>“My! I guess I’ll put on my best glad +rags,” said Bud. “<i>And</i> the hat with +pink.” Then a fear came to her face. +“Why, Aunt Ailie, you can’t have a garden-party this +time of the year,” and she looked at the window down whose +panes the rain was now streaming.</p> +<p>“This garden-party goes on all the time,” said +Ailie. “Who cares about the weather? Only very +old people; not you and I. I’ll introduce you to a +lot of nice people—Di Vernon, and—you don’t +happen to know a lady called Di Vernon, do you, Bud?”</p> +<p>“I wouldn’t know her if she was handed to me on a +plate with parsley trimmings,” said Bud promptly.</p> +<p>“—Di Vernon, then, and Effie Deans, and Little +Nell, and the Marchioness; and Richard Swiveller, and Tom Pinch, +and the Cranford folks, and Juliet Capulet—”</p> +<p><a name="page61"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +61</span>“She must belong to one of the first +families,” said Bud. “I have a kind of idea +that I have heard of her.”</p> +<p>“And Mr Falstaff—such a naughty man, but nice +too! And Rosalind.”</p> +<p>“Rosalind!” cried Bud. “You mean +Rosalind in ‘As You Like It’?”</p> +<p>Ailie stared at her with astonishment. “You +amazing child!” said she, “who told you about +‘As You Like It’?”</p> +<p>“Nobody told me; I just read about her when Jim was +learning the part of Charles the Wrestler he played on six +’secutive nights in the Waldorf.”</p> +<p>“Read it!” exclaimed her aunt. “You +mean he or Mrs Molyneux read it to you.”</p> +<p>“No, I read it myself,” said Bud.</p> +<p class="poetry">“‘Now my co-mates and brothers in +exile,<br /> +Hath not old custom made this life more sweet<br /> +Than that of painted pomp? Are not these woods<br /> +More free from peril than the envious Court?’”</p> +<p>She threw Aunt Ailie’s cloak over one shoulder, put +forth a ridiculously little leg with an air of the playhouse, and +made the gestures of Jim Molyneux.</p> +<p>“I thought you couldn’t read,” said +Ailie. “You little fraud! You made Aunt Bell +think you couldn’t spell cat.”</p> +<p>“Oh, Queen of Sheba! did she think I was in +earnest?” cried Bud. “I was just +pretending. I’m apt to be pretending pretty often; +why, Kate thinks I make Works. I can read anything; +I’ve read books that big it gave you cramp. I +s’pose you were only making-believe about that garden, and +you haven’t any key at all, but I don’t mind; +I’m not kicking.”</p> +<p>Ailie put her hand to her bosom and revealed the Twopenny she +had bought to be the key to the wonderful garden of +letters—the slim little grey-paper-covered primer in which +she had learned her own first lessons. She held it up +between her finger <a name="page62"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +62</span>and thumb that Bud might read its title on the +cover. Bud understood immediately and laughed, but not +quite at her ease for once.</p> +<p>“I’m dre’ffle sorry, Aunt Ailie,” she +said. “It was wicked to pretend just like that, and +put you to a lot of trouble. Father wouldn’t have +liked that.”</p> +<p>“Oh, I’m not kicking,” said Ailie, borrowing +her phrase to put her at her ease again. “I’m +too glad you’re not so far behind as Aunt Bell +imagined. So you like books? Capital! And +Shakespeare no less! What do you like best, now?”</p> +<p>“Poetry,” said Bud. “Particularly the +bits I don’t understand, but just about almost. I +can’t bear to stop and dally with too easy poetry; once I +know it all plain and there’s no more to it, +I—I—I love to amble on. I—why! I make +poetry myself.”</p> +<p>“Really?” said Ailie with twinkling eyes.</p> +<p>“Sort of poetry,” said Bud. “Not so +good as ‘As You Like It’—not <i>nearly</i> so +good, of course! I have loads of truly truly poetry inside +me, but it sticks at the bends, and then I get bits that fit, +made by somebody else, and wish I had been spry and said them +first. Other times I’m the real Winifred +Wallace.”</p> +<p>“Winifred Wallace?” said Aunt Ailie +inquiringly.</p> +<p>“Winifred Wallace,” repeated Bud composedly. +“I’m her. It’s my—it’s my +poetry name. ‘Bud Dyce’ wouldn’t be any +use for the magazines; it’s not dinky enough.”</p> +<p>“Bless me, child, you don’t tell me you write +poetry for the magazines?” said her astonished aunt.</p> +<p>“No,” said Bud, “but I’ll be pretty +liable to when I’m old enough to wear specs. +That’s if I don’t go on the stage.”</p> +<p>“On the stage!” exclaimed Ailie, full of wild +alarm.</p> +<p>“Yes,” said the child, “Mrs Molyneux said I +was a born actress.”</p> +<p>“I wonder, I wonder,” said Aunt Ailie, staring +into vacancy.</p> +<h2><a name="page63"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +63</span>CHAPTER VIII.</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">Daniel Dyce</span> had an office up the +street at the windy corner facing the Cross, with two clerks in +it and a boy who docketed letters and ran errands. Once +upon a time there was a partner,—Cleland & Dyce the +firm had been,—but Cleland was a shy and melancholy man +whose only hours of confidence and gaiety came to him after +injudicious drams. ’Twas patent to all how his habits +seized him, but nobody mentioned it except in a whisper, +sometimes as a kind of little accident, for in everything else he +was the perfect gentleman, and here we never like to see the +honest gentry down. All men liked Colin Cleland, and many +would share his jovial hours who took their law business +elsewhere than to Cleland & Dyce. That is the way of +the world, too; most men keep their jovial-money in a different +pocket from where they keep their cash. The time came when +it behoved Mr Cleland to retire. Men who knew the +circumstances said Dan Dyce paid rather dear for that retirement, +and indeed it might be so in the stricter way of commerce, but +the lawyer was a Christian who did not hang up his conscience in +the “piety press” with his Sunday clothes. He +gave his partner a good deal more than he asked.</p> +<p>“I hope you’ll come in sometimes and see me whiles +at night and join in a glass of toddy,” said Mr +Cleland.</p> +<p>“I’ll certainly come and see you,” said Dan +Dyce. And then he put his arm affectionately through that +of his old partner, and added, “I would—I would +ca’ <a name="page64"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +64</span>canny wi’ the toddy, Colin,” coating the +pill in sweet and kindly Scots. Thank God, we have two +tongues in our place, and can speak the bitter truth in terms +that show humility and love, and not the sense of righteousness, +dictate.</p> +<p>“Eh! What for?” said Mr Cleland, his vanity +at once in arms.</p> +<p>Dan Dyce looked in his alarmed and wavering eyes a moment, and +thought, “What’s the use? He knows himself, +they always do!”</p> +<p>“For fear—for fear of fat,” he said, with a +little laugh, tapping with his finger on his quondam +partner’s widening waistcoat. “There are signs +of a prominent profile, Colin. If you go on as you’re +doing it will be a dreadful expense for watch-guards.”</p> +<p>Colin Cleland at once became the easy-osey man again, and +smiled. “Fat, man! it’s not fat,” said +he, clapping himself on the waistcoat; “it’s +information. Do you know, Dan, for a second, there, I +thought you meant to be unkind, and it would be devilish unlike +you to be unkind. I thought you meant something else. +The breath of vulgar suspicion has mentioned drink.”</p> +<p>“It’s a pity that!” said Mr Dyce, “for +a whole cask of cloves will not disguise the breath of +suspicion.”</p> +<p>It was five years now since Colin Cleland retired among his +toddy rummers, and if this were a fancy story I would be telling +you how he fell, and fell, and fell; but the +truth—it’s almost lamentable—is that the old +rogue throve on leisure and ambrosial nights with men who were +now quite ready to give the firm of Daniel Dyce their business, +seeing they had Colin Cleland all to themselves and under +observation. Trust estates and factorages from all quarters +of the county came now to the office at the windy corner. A +Christian lawyer with a sense of fun, unspotted by the world, and +yet with a name for winning causes, was what the shire had long +been wanting. And Daniel Dyce grew rich. +“I’m making money so <a name="page65"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 65</span>fast,” he said one day to his +sisters (it was before Bud came), “that I wonder often what +poor souls are suffering for it.”</p> +<p>Said Bell, “It’s a burden that’s easy put up +with. We’ll be able now to get a new pair of curtains +for the back bedroom.”</p> +<p>“A pair of curtains!” said her brother, with a +smile to Ailie. “Ay, a score of pairs if +they’re needed, even if the vogue was Valenciennes. +Your notion of wealth, Bell, is Old +Malabar’s—‘Twopence more, and up goes the +cuddy!’ Woman, I’m fair rolling in +wealth.”</p> +<p>He said it with a kind of exultation that brought to her face +a look of fear and disapproval. “Don’t, Dan, +don’t,” she cried—“don’t brag of +the world’s dross; it’s not like you. ‘He +that hasteth to be rich, shall not be innocent,’ says the +Proverbs. You must be needing medicine. We should +have humble hearts. How many that were high have had a +fall!”</p> +<p>“Are you frightened God will hear me and rue His +bounty?” said the brother in a whisper. +“I’m not bragging; I’m just telling +you.”</p> +<p>“I hope you’re not hoarding it,” proceeded +Miss Bell. “It’s not +wise-like—”</p> +<p>“Nor Dyce-like either,” said Miss Ailie.</p> +<p>“There’s many a poor body in the town this winter +that’s needful.”</p> +<p>“I daresay,” said Daniel Dyce coldly. +“The poor we have always with us. The thing, they +tell me, is decreed by Providence.”</p> +<p>“But Providence is not aye looking,” said +Bell. “If that’s what you’re frightened +for, I’ll be your almoner.”</p> +<p>“It’s their own blame, you may be sure, if +they’re poor. Improvidence and—and drink. +I’ll warrant they have their glass of ale every +Saturday. What’s ale? Is there any moral +elevation in it? Its nutritive quality, I believe, is less +than the tenth part of a penny bap.”</p> +<p>“Oh, but the poor creatures!” sighed Miss +Bell.</p> +<p>“Possibly,” said Dan Dyce, “but every man +must look after himself; and as you say, many a man well <a +name="page66"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 66</span>off has come +down in the world. We should take no risks. I had +Black the baker at me yesterday for £20 in loan to tide +over some trouble with his flour merchant and pay an account to +Miss Minto.”</p> +<p>“A decent man, with a wife and seven children,” +said Miss Bell.</p> +<p>“Decent or not, he’ll not be coming back borrowing +from me in a hurry. I set him off with a flea in his +lug.”</p> +<p>“We’re not needing curtains,” said Miss Bell +hurriedly; “the pair we have are fine.”</p> +<p>Dan finished his breakfast that day with a smile, flicked the +crumbs off his waistcoat, gave one uneasy glance at Ailie, and +went off to business humming “There is a Happy +Land.”</p> +<p>“Oh, dear me, I’m afraid he’s growing a +perfect miser,” moaned Bell when she heard the door close +behind him. “He did not use to be like that when he +was younger and poorer. Money’s like the toothache, a +commanding thing.”</p> +<p>Ailie smiled. “If you went about as much as I do, +Bell,” she said, “you would not be misled by +Dan’s pretences. And as for Black the baker, I saw +his wife in Miss Minto’s yesterday buying boots for her +children and a bonnet for herself. She called me Miss +Ailie, an honour I never got from her in all my life +before.”</p> +<p>“Do you think—do you think he gave Black the +money?” said Bell in a pleasant excitation.</p> +<p>“Of course he did. It’s Dan’s way to +give it to some folk with a pretence of reluctance, for if he did +not growl they would never be off his face! He’s +telling us about the lecture that accompanied it as a solace to +our femininity. Women, you know, are very bad lenders, and +dislike the practice in their husbands and brothers.”</p> +<p>“None of the women I know,” protested Bell. +“They’re just as free-handed as the men if they had +it. I hope,” she added anxiously, “that Dan got +good security. Would it be a dear bonnet, now, that she was +getting?”</p> +<p><a name="page67"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 67</span>Ailie +laughed,—a ridiculous sort of sister this; she only +laughed.</p> +<p>Six times each lawful day Daniel Dyce went up and down the +street between his house and the office at the windy corner +opposite the Cross, the business day being divided by an interval +of four hours to suit the mails. The town folk liked to see +him passing; he gave the street an air of occupation and gaiety, +as if a trip had just come in with a brass band banging at the +latest air. Going or coming, he was apt to be humming a +tune to himself as he went along with his hands in his outside +pockets, and it was an unusual day when he did not stop to look +in at a shop window or two on the way, though they never changed +a feature once a-month. To the shops he honoured thus it +was almost as good as a big turnover. Before him his dog +went whirling and barking, a long alarm for the clerks to stop +their game of Catch-the-Ten and dip their pens. There were +few that passed him without some words of recognition.</p> +<p>He was coming down from the office on the afternoon of the +Han’sel Monday that started Bud in the Pigeons’ +Seminary when he met the nurse, old Betty Baxter, with a +basket. She put it down at her feet, and bobbed a curtsey, +a thing that nowadays you rarely see in Scotland.</p> +<p>“Tuts! woman,” he said to her, lifting the basket +and putting it in her hand. “Why need you bother with +the like of that? You and your curtseys! +They’re out of date, Miss Baxter, out of date, like the +decent men that deserved them long ago before my time.”</p> +<p>“No, they’re not out of date, Mr Dyce,” said +she; “I’ll aye be minding you about my mother; +you’ll be paid back some day.”</p> +<p>“Tuts!” said he again, impatient. +“You’re an awful blether: how’s your patient, +Duncan Gill?”</p> +<p>“As dour as the devil, sir,” said the nurse. +“Still hanging on.”</p> +<p><a name="page68"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +68</span>“Poor man! poor man!” said Mr Dyce. +“He’ll just have to put his trust in God.”</p> +<p>“Oh, he’s no’ so far through as all +that,” said Betty Baxter. “He can still sit up +and take his drop of porridge. They’re telling me you +have got a wonderful niece, Mr Dyce, all the way from +America. What a mercy for her! But I have not set +eyes on her yet. I’m so busy that I could not stand +in the close like the others, watching: what is she +like?”</p> +<p>“Just like Jean Macrae,” said Mr Dyce, preparing +to move on.</p> +<p>“And what was Jean Macrae like?”</p> +<p>“Oh, just like other folk,” said Mr Dyce, and +passed on chuckling, to run almost into the arms of Captain +Consequence.</p> +<p>“Have you heard the latest?” said Captain +Consequence, putting his kid-gloved hand on the shoulder of the +lawyer, who felt it like a lump of ice, for he did not greatly +like the man, the smell of whose cigars, he said, before he knew +they came from the Pilgrim Widow’s, proved that he rose +from the ranks.</p> +<p>“No, Captain Brodie,” he said coldly. +“Who’s the rogue or the fool this time?” but +the Captain was too stupid to perceive it. He stared +perplexedly.</p> +<p>“I hear,” said he, “the Doctor’s in a +difficulty.”</p> +<p>“Is he, is he?” said Mr Dyce. +“That’s a chance for his friends to stand by +him.”</p> +<p>“Let him take it!” said Captain Consequence, +puffing. “Did he not say to me once yonder, +‘God knows how you’re living.’”</p> +<p>“It must be God alone, for all the rest of us are +wondering,” said Mr Dyce, and left the man to put it in his +pipe and smoke it.</p> +<p>Along the street came the two Miss Duffs, who kept the dame +school, and he saw a hesitation in their manner when they +realised a meeting was inevitable. If they had been folk +that owed him anything he would not have wondered, from their +manner, to see them tuck up their skirts and scurry <a +name="page69"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 69</span>down the +lane. Twins they were—a tiny couple, scarcely young, +dressed always in a douce long-lasting brown, something in their +walk and colour that made them look like pigeon hens, and long +ago conferred on them that name in Daniel Dyce’s +dwelling. They met him in front of his own door, and seemed +inclined to pass in a trepidation.</p> +<p>He took off his hat to them and stood, full of curiosity about +Lennox.</p> +<p>“What a lovely winter day!” said Miss Jean, with +an air of supplication, as if her very life depended on his +agreement.</p> +<p>“Isn’t it <i>perfectly</i> exquisite!” said +Miss Amelia, who usually picked up the bald details of her +sister’s conversation and passed them on embroidered with a +bit of style.</p> +<p>“It’s not bad,” said Mr Dyce, blinking at +them, wondering what ailed the dears to-day. They were +looking uneasily around them for some way of escape; he could +almost hear the thump of their hearts, he noted the stress of +their breathing. Miss Jean’s eyes fastened on the +tree-tops over the banker’s garden wall; he felt that in a +moment she would spread out her wings and fly. “You +have opened the school again,” he said simply.</p> +<p>“We started again to-day,” cooed Miss Jean.</p> +<p>“Yes, we resumed to-day,” said Miss Amelia. +“The common round, the daily task. And, oh Mr +Dyce—”</p> +<p>She stopped suddenly at the pressure of her sister’s +elbow on her own, and lowered her eyes, that had for a second +shown an appalling area of white. It was plain they were +going to fly. Mr Dyce felt inclined to cry “Peas, +peas!” and keep them a little longer.</p> +<p>“You have my niece with you to-day?” he +remarked. “What do you think of her?”</p> +<p>A look of terror exchanged between them escaped his +observation.</p> +<p>“She’s—she’s a wonderful child,” +said Miss Jean, nervously twisting the strings of a hand-bag.</p> +<p><a name="page70"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +70</span>“A singularly interesting and—and unexpected +creature,” said Miss Amelia.</p> +<p>“Fairly bright, eh?” said Mr Dyce.</p> +<p>“Oh, bright!” repeated Miss Jean. +“Bright is not the word for it—is it, +Amelia?”</p> +<p>“I would rather say brilliant,” said Amelia, +coughing, and plucking a handkerchief out of her pocket to inhale +its perfume and avert a threatening swound. “I +hope—we both hope, Mr Dyce, she will be spared to grow up a +credit to you. One never knows?”</p> +<p>“That’s it,” agreed Mr Dyce +cheerfully. “Some girls grow up and become credits to +their parents and guardians, others become reciters, and spoil +many a jolly party with ‘The Woman of Mumbles Head’ +or ‘The Coffee was not Strong.’”</p> +<p>“I hope not,” said Miss Jean, not quite +understanding: the painful possibility seemed to be too much for +Miss Amelia; she said nothing, but fixed her eyes on the distant +tree-tops and gave a little flap of the wings of her Inverness +cape.</p> +<p>“Peas, peas!” murmured Mr Dyce unconsciously, +anxious to hold them longer and talk about his niece.</p> +<p>“I beg pardon,” exclaimed Miss Jean, and the +lawyer got very red. “I hope at least you’ll +like Bud,” he said. “She’s odd, +but—but—but—” he paused for a word.</p> +<p>“—sincere,” suggested Miss Jean.</p> +<p>“Yes, I would say sincere—or perhaps outspoken +would be better,’ said Miss Amelia.</p> +<p>“So clever too,” added Miss Jean.</p> +<p>“Preternaturally!” cooed Miss Amelia.</p> +<p>“Such a delightful accent,” said Miss Jean.</p> +<p>“Like linkèd sweetness long drawn out,” +quoted Miss Amelia.</p> +<p>“But—” hesitated Miss Jean.</p> +<p>“Still—” more hesitatingly said her sister, +and then there was a long pause.</p> +<p>“Oh, to the mischief!” said Mr Dyce to himself, <a +name="page71"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 71</span>then took off +his hat again, said “Good afternoon,” and turned to +his door.</p> +<p>He was met by Ailie in the lobby; she had seen him from a +window speaking to the two Miss Duffs. “What were +they saying to you?” she asked with more curiosity in her +manner than was customary.</p> +<p>“Nothing at all,” said Mr Dyce. “They +just stood and cooed. I’m not sure that a doo-cot is +the best place to bring up an eagle in. How did Bud get on +with them at school to-day?”</p> +<p>“So far as I can make out, she did not get on at all; +she seems to have demoralised the school, and driven the Miss +Duffs into hysterics, and she left of her own accord and came +home an hour before closing-time. And—and she’s +not going back!”</p> +<p>Mr Dyce stood a moment in amazement, then rubbed his hands +gleefully. “I’m glad to hear it,” said +he. “The poor birdies between them could not summon +up courage to tell me what was wrong. I’m sorry for +them; if she’s not going back, we’ll send them down a +present”</p> +<h2><a name="page72"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +72</span>CHAPTER IX.</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">That</span> the child should have gone to +the dame school at all was due to her Auntie Bell. From the +first Miss Ailie had been dubious of the seminary, but Bell was +terribly domineering; in fact, was neither to hold nor bind, and +the doo-cot it bode to be. A product herself of the old +dame school in the spacious days of Barbara Mushet, whose pupils +in white-seam sewing and Italian hand were nowadays married to +the best, and notable as housewives, she deemed it still the only +avenue to the character and skill that keep those queer folk, +men, when they’re married, by their own fire-ends. As +for Daniel Dyce, he was, I fear, indifferent how Bud came by her +schooling, having a sort of philosophy that the gate of gifts is +closed on us the day we’re born, and that the important +parts of the curriculum, good or bad, are picked up like a Scots +or Hielan’ accent, someway in the home.</p> +<p>So Ailie had gone reluctant to the Misses Duff and told them +that on the morrow the child would start in their academy. +They currookity-cooed at the prospect, put past their crocheting, +brought out their celebrated silver spoons, and made of the +afternoon tea a banquet with the aid of a seed-cake hurriedly +brought from P. & A. MacGlashan’s. Their home was +like a stall in a bazaar and smelt of turpentine. Ailie, +who loved wide spaces, sat cramped between a laden what-not and a +white-enamelled spinning-wheel, the feathers of her hat colliding +with a fretwork bracket on the wall behind her chair, and <a +name="page73"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 73</span>thinking not +unkindly of the creatures, wished that she could give them a good +shaking. Oh! they were so prim, pernickety, and hopelessly +in all things wrong! She was not very large herself, for +stature, but in their company she felt gigantic. And oddly +there rose in her, too, a sense of gladness that she was of a +newer kind of women than those gentle slaves, prisoned in their +primness, manacled by stupid old conceits. She was glad she +was free, that her happy hours were not so wasted in futilities, +that she saw farther, that she knew no social fears, that custom +had not crushed her soul, and yet she someway liked and pitied +them.</p> +<p>“You’ll find her somewhat odd,” she +explained as she nibbled the seed-cake, with a silly little +d’oyley of Miss Jean’s contrivance on her knee, and +the doves fluttering round her as timid of settling down as +though they had actual feathers and she were a cat. +“She has got a remarkably quick intelligence; she is quite +unconventional,—quite unlike other children in many +respects, and it may be difficult at first to manage +her.”</p> +<p>“Dear me!” said Miss Jean. “What a +pity she should be so odd! I suppose it’s the +American system; but perhaps she will improve.”</p> +<p>“Oh, it’s nothing alarming,” explained Miss +Ailie, recovering the d’oyley from the floor to which it +had slid from her knee, and replacing it with a wicked little +shake. “If she didn’t speak much you would +never guess from her appearance that she knew any more +than—than most of us. Her mother, I feel sure, was +something of a genius—at least it never came from the Dyce +side; we were all plain folk, not exactly fools, but still not +odd enough to have the dogs bite us, or our neighbours cross to +the other side of the street when they saw us coming. She +died two years ago, and when William—when my brother died, +Lennox was staying with professional friends of himself and his +wife, who have been good enough to let us have her, much against +their natural inclination.”</p> +<p><a name="page74"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +74</span>“The dear!” said Miss Jean, enraptured.</p> +<p>“Quite a sweet romance!” cooed Miss Amelia, +languishing.</p> +<p>“You may be sure we will do all we can for her,” +continued Miss Jean, pecking with unconscious fingers at the +crumbs on her visitor’s lap, till Ailie could scarcely keep +from smiling.</p> +<p>“She will soon feel quite at home among us in our little +school,” said Miss Amelia. “No doubt +she’ll be shy at first—”</p> +<p>“Quite the contrary!” Ailie assured them, with a +little mischievous inward glee, to think how likely Bud was to +astonish them by other qualities than shyness. “It +seems that in America children are brought up on wholly different +lines from children here; you’ll find a curious fearless +independence in her.”</p> +<p>The twins held up their hands in amazement, +“tcht-tcht-tchting” simultaneously. +“<i>What</i> a pity!” said Miss Jean, as if it were a +physical affliction.</p> +<p>“But no doubt by carefulness and training it can be +eradicated,” said Miss Amelia, determined to encourage +hope.</p> +<p>At that Miss Ailie lost her patience. She rose to go, +with a start that sent the doves more widely fluttering than ever +in their restless little parlour, so crowded out of all comfort +by its fretful toys.</p> +<p>“I don’t think you should trouble much about the +eradication,” she said with some of her brother’s +manner at the bar. “Individuality is not painful to +the possessor like toothache, so it’s a pity to eradicate +it or kill the nerve.”</p> +<p>The words were out before she could prevent them; she bit her +lips, and blushed in her vexation to have said them, but luckily +the Pigeons in their agitation were not observant.</p> +<p>“Like all the Dyces, a little daft!” was what they +said of her when she was gone, and they were very different women +then, as they put on their aprons, rolled up the silver spoons in +tissue-paper and put <a name="page75"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 75</span>them in a stocking of Amelia’s, +before they started to their crochet-work again.</p> +<p>It was a bright, expectant, happy bairn that set out next day +for the school. No more momentous could have seemed her +start for Scotland across the wide Atlantic; her aunties, looking +after her going down the street alone, so confident and sturdily, +rued their own arrangement, and envied the Misses Duff that were +to be blessed all day with her companionship. To Bell it +seemed as if the wean were walking out of their lives on that +broad road that leads our bairns to other knowledge than ours, to +other dwellings, to the stranger’s heart. Once the +child turned at the corner of the church and waved her hand; Miss +Ailie took it bravely, but oh, Miss Bell!—Miss Bell! she +flew to the kitchen and stormed at Kate as she hung out at the +window, an observer too.</p> +<p>Three-and-twenty scholars were there in the doo-cot of the +Duffs—sixteen of them girls and the remainder boys, but not +boys enough as yet to be in the Grammar School. Miss Jean +came out and rang a tea-bell, and Bud was borne in on the tide of +youth that was still all strange to her. The twins stood +side by side behind a desk; noisily the children accustomed found +their seats, but Bud walked up to the teachers and held out her +hand.</p> +<p>“Good morning; I’m Lennox Dyce,” she said, +before they could get over their astonishment at an introduction +so unusual. Her voice, calm and clear, sounded to the +backmost seat and sent the children tittering.</p> +<p>“Silence!” cried Miss Jean, reddening, with a +glance at the delinquents, as she dubiously took the proffered +hand.</p> +<p>“Rather a nice little school,” said Bud, +“but a little stuffy. Wants air some, don’t +it? What’s the name of the sweet little boy in the +Fauntleroy suit? It looks as if it would be apt to be +Percy.”</p> +<p>She was standing between the twins, facing the <a +name="page76"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 76</span>scholars; she +surveyed all with the look of his Majesty’s Inspector.</p> +<p>“Hush-h-h,” murmured Miss Amelia, Miss Jean being +speechless. “You will sit here,” and she +nervously indicated a place in the front bench. +“By-and-by, dear, we will see what you can do.”</p> +<p>Bud took her place composedly, and rose with the rest to join +in the Lord’s Prayer. The others mumbled it; for her +it was a treat to have to say it there for the first time in her +life in public. Into the words she put interest and appeal; +for the first time the doo-cot heard that supplication endowed +with its appropriate dignity. And then the work of the day +began. The school lay in the way of the main traffic of the +little town: they could hear each passing wheel and footstep, the +sweet “chink, chink” from the smithy, whence came the +smell of a sheep’s head singeing. Sea-gulls and rooks +bickered and swore in the gutters of the street; from fields +behind came in a ploughman’s whistle as he drove his team, +slicing green seas of fallow as a vessel cuts the green, green +wave. Four-and-twenty children, four-and-twenty souls, +fathers and mothers of the future race, all outwardly much alike +with eyes, noses, hands, and ears in the same position, how could +the poor Misses Duff know what was what in the stuff they +handled? Luckily for their peace of mind, it never occurred +to them that between child and child there was much odds. +Some had blue pinafores and some white; some were freckled and +some had warts and were wild, and these were the banker’s +boys. God only knew the other variations. ’Twas +the duty of the twins to bring them all in mind alike to the one +plain level.</p> +<p>It was lucky that the lessons of that day began with the +Shorter Catechism, for it kept the ignorance of Lennox Dyce a +little while in hiding. She heard with amazement of +Effectual Calling and Justification and the reasons annexed to +the fifth commandment as stammeringly and lifelessly chanted by +the others; but when her turn came, and Miss Jean, to test her, +<a name="page77"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 77</span>asked her +simply Man’s Chief End, she answered boldly—</p> +<p>“Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy +Him for ever.”</p> +<p>“Very good! <i>very</i> good indeed!” said the +twin encouragingly. She was passing on to the next pupil, +when Bud burst out with her own particular reason annexed, +borrowed from the rapturous explanation of her uncle.</p> +<p>“Man is a harp,” she said as solemnly as he had +said it—“a har-r-rp with a thousand strings; and we +must sing, sing, sing, even if we’re timmer as a cask, and +be grateful always, and glad in the mornings with +things.”</p> +<p>If the whistling ploughman and his team had burst into the +schoolroom it would have been no greater marvel, brought no more +alarm to the breasts of the little teachers. They looked at +her as if she had been a witch. The other pupils stared, +with open mouths.</p> +<p>“What’s that you say, my dear?” said Miss +Amelia. “Did you learn that in America?”</p> +<p>“No,” said Bud, “I just found it out from +Uncle Dan.”</p> +<p>“Silence!” cried Miss Jean, for now the class was +tittering again. She went with her sister behind the +black-board, and nervously they communed. Bud smiled +benignly on her fellows.</p> +<p>Just as disconcerting was her performance in geography. +Had they tested her in her knowledge of the United States she +might have come out triumphantly commonplace; but unfortunately +they chose to ask her of Scotland, and there her latest teacher +had been Kate.</p> +<p>“What are the chief towns in Scotland?” asked Miss +Jean.</p> +<p>“Oban, and Glasgow, and ’Tornoway,” replied +Bud with a touch of Highland accent; and, tired of sitting so +long in one place, calmly rose and removed herself to a seat +beside the Fauntleroy boy, who was greatly put about at such a +preference.</p> +<p><a name="page78"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +78</span>“You mustn’t move about like that, +Lennox,” explained Miss Amelia, taking her back. +“It’s not allowed.”</p> +<p>“But I was all pins and needles,” said Bud +frankly, “and I wanted to speak to Percy.”</p> +<p>“My dear child, his name’s not Percy, and +there’s no speaking in school,” exclaimed the +distressed Miss Amelia.</p> +<p>“No speaking! Why, you’re speaking all the +time,” said the child. “It +ain’t—isn’t fair. Can’t I just get +speaking a wee teeny bit to that nice girl over there?”</p> +<p>The twins looked at each other in horror: the child was a +thousand times more difficult than the worst her aunt had led +them to expect. A sudden unpleasant impression that their +familiar pupils seemed like wooden models beside her, came to +them both. But they were alarmed to see that the wooden +models were forgetting their correct deportment under the +demoralising influence of the young invader.</p> +<p>Once more they dived behind the black-board and communed.</p> +<p>There were many such instances during the day. Bud, used +for all her thinking years to asking explanations of what she did +not understand, never hesitated to interrogate her teachers, who +seemed to her to be merely women, like her mother, and Mrs +Molyneux, and Auntie Ailie, only a little wilted and severe, +grotesque in some degree because of their funny affected manner, +and the crochet that never was out of their hands in oral +exercises. She went further, she contradicted them twice, +not rudely, but as one might contradict her equals.</p> +<p>“You talk to her,” said Miss Jean behind the +black-board where they had taken refuge again. “I +declare I’ll take a fit if this goes on! Did you ever +hear of such a creature?”</p> +<p>Miss Amelia almost cried. All her fixed ideas of +children were shattered at a blow. Here was one who did not +in the least degree fit in with the scheme <a +name="page79"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 79</span>of treatment +in the doo-cot. But she went forward with a look of great +severity.</p> +<p>“Of course, coming from America and all that, and never +having been at school before, you don’t know,” she +said, “but I must tell you that you are not behaving +nicely—not like a nice little girl at all, Lennox. +Nice little girls in school in this country listen, and never say +anything unless they’re asked. They are respectful to +their teachers, and never ask questions, and certainly never +contradict them, and—”</p> +<p>“But, please, Miss Duff, I wasn’t +contradicting,” explained Bud very soberly, “and when +respect is called for, I’m there with the goods. You +said honor was spelt with a ‘u,’ and I guess you just +made a mistake, same as I might make myself, for there +ain’t no ‘u’ in honor, at least in +America.”</p> +<p>“I—I—I never made a mistake in all my +life,” said Miss Amelia, gasping.</p> +<p>“Oh, Laura!” was all that Bud replied, but in such +a tone, and with eyes so widely opened, it set half of the other +pupils tittering.</p> +<p>“What do you mean by ‘Oh, Laura’?” +asked Miss Jean. “Who is Laura?”</p> +<p>“You can search me,” replied Bud composedly. +“Jim often said ‘Oh, Laura!’ when he got a +start.”</p> +<p>“It’s not a nice thing to say,” said Miss +Jean. “It’s not at all ladylike. +It’s just a sort of profane language, and profane language +is an ‘abomination unto the Lord.’”</p> +<p>“But it was so like Jim,” said Bud, giggling with +recollection. “If it’s slang I’ll stop +it,—at least I’ll try to stop it. I’m +bound to be a well-off English undefied, you know; +poppa—father fixed that.”</p> +<p>The school was demoralised without a doubt, for now the twins +were standing nervously before Bud and put on equal terms with +her in spite of themselves, and the class was openly interested +and amused—more interested and amused than it had ever been +at anything that had ever happened in the doo-cot before. +Miss Amelia was the first to comprehend how far she <a +name="page80"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 80</span>and her +sister had surrendered their citadel of authority to the little +foreigner’s attack. “Order!” she +exclaimed. “We will now take up poetry and +reading.”</p> +<p>Bud cheered up wonderfully at the thought of poetry and +reading, but, alas! her delight was short-lived, for the +reading-book put into her hand was but a little further on than +Auntie Ailie’s Twopenny. When her turn came to read +“My sister Ella has a cat called Tabby. She is black, +and has a pretty white breast. She has long whiskers and a +bushy white tail,” she read with a tone of amusement that +exasperated the twins, though they could not explain to +themselves why. What completed Bud’s rebellion, +however, was the poetry. “Meddlesome Matty” was +a kind of poetry she had skipped over in Chicago, plunging +straightway into the glories of the play-bills and Shakespeare, +and when she had read that—</p> +<p class="poetry">“One ugly trick has often spoiled<br /> + The sweetest and the best;<br /> +Matilda, though a pleasant child,<br /> + One ugly trick possessed”—</p> +<p>she laughed outright.</p> +<p>“I can’t help it, Miss Duff,” she said when +the twins showed their distress. “It looks like +poetry, sure enough, for it’s got the jaggy edges, but it +doesn’t make any zip inside me same as poetry does. +It wants biff.”</p> +<p>“What’s ‘zip’ and +‘biff’?” asked Miss Amelia.</p> +<p>“It’s—it’s a kind of tickle in your +mind,” said Bud. “I’m so tired,” +she continued, rising in her seat, “I guess I’ll head +for home now.” And before the twins had recovered +from their dumfounderment she was in the porch putting on her +cloak and hood.</p> +<p>“Just let her go,” said Miss Jean to her +sister. “If she stays any longer I shall certainly +have a swoon; I feel quite weak.”</p> +<p>And so Bud marched out quite cheerfully, and reached home an +hour before she was due. Kate met her at the door. +“My stars! are you <a name="page81"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 81</span>home already?” she exclaimed, +with a look at the town clock. “You must be smart at +your schooling when they let you out of the cemetery so +soon.”</p> +<p>“It ain’t a cemetery at all,” said Bud, +standing unconcernedly in the lobby; “it’s just a +kindergarten.”</p> +<p>Aunt Ailie bore down on her to overwhelm her in +caresses. “What are you home for already, Bud?” +she asked. “It’s not time yet, is +it?”</p> +<p>“No,” said Bud, “but I just couldn’t +stay any longer. I’d as lief not go back there. +The ladies don’t love me. They’re Sunday sort +of ladies, and give me pins and needles. They smile and +smile, same’s it was done with a glove-stretcher, and +don’t love me. They said I was using profound +language, and—and they don’t love me. Not the +way mother and Mrs Molyneux and you and Auntie Bell and Uncle Dan +and Kate and Footles does. They made goo-goo-eyes at me +when I said the least thing. They had all those poor +kiddies up on the floor doing their little bits, and they made me +read kindergarten poetry—that was the limit! So I +just upped and walked.”</p> +<p>The two aunts and Kate stood round her for a moment +baffled.</p> +<p>“What’s to be done now?” said Aunt +Ailie.</p> +<p>“Tuts!” said Aunt Bell, “give the wean a +drink of milk and some bread and butter.”</p> +<p>And so ended Bud’s only term in a dame school.</p> +<h2><a name="page82"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +82</span>CHAPTER X.</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">It</span> was a saying of Daniel +Dyce’s that all the world is under one’s own +waistcoat. We have a way of spaeing fortunes in the North, +when young, in which we count the waistcoat buttons from top to +bottom, and say—</p> +<p class="gutindent">Tinker,</p> +<p class="gutindent">Tailor,</p> +<p class="gutindent">Soldier,</p> +<p class="gutindent">Sailor,</p> +<p class="gutindent">Rich man,</p> +<p class="gutindent">Poor man,</p> +<p class="gutindent">Prodigal, or</p> +<p class="gutindent">Thief?</p> +<p>Whichever name falls upon the last button tells what is your +destiny, and after the county corps has been round our way +recruiting, I see our schoolboys with all their waistcoat +buttons, but three at the top, amissing. Dan Dyce had a +different formula: he said “Luckiness, Leisure, Ill or +Well, Good World, Bad World, Heaven or Hell?”</p> +<p>“Not Heaven, Dan!” said Bell. “The +other place I’ll admit, for whiles I’m in a furious +temper over some trifle;” to which he would answer, +“Woman! the Kingdom of Heaven is within you.”</p> +<p>So, I think sometimes, all that’s worth while in the +world is in this little burgh, except a string quartette and a +place called Florence I have long been ettling to see if ever I +have the money. In this small town is every week as much of +tragedy and comedy and farce as would make a complete novel full +of laughter <a name="page83"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +83</span>and tears, that would sell in a jiffy. I have +started, myself, a score of them—all the essential +inspiration got from plain folk passing my window, or from +hearing a sentence dropped among women gossiping round a +well. Many a winter night I come in with a fine catch of +tales picked up in the by-going, as we say, and light the candles +in a hurry, and make a gallant dash at “Captain +Consequence. Chapter I.” or “A Wild +Inheritance. Part I. The Astounding +Mary.” Only the lavishness of the material hampers +me: when I’m at “Captain Consequence” (which +would be a splendid sombre story of an ill life, if I ever got +beyond Chapter I. and the old scamp’s fondness for his +mother), my wife runs in with something warm to drink, and tells +me Jonathan Campbell’s goat has broken into the +minister’s garden, and then I’m off the key for +villainy; there’s a shilling book in Jonathan’s goat +herself.</p> +<p>But this time I’m determined to stick by the fortunes of +the Dyce family, now that I have got myself inside their +door. I hope we are friends of that household, dearer to me +than the dwellings of kings (not that I have cognisance of +many). I hope that no matter how often or how early we rap +at the brass knocker, or how timidly, Kate will come, and in one +breath say, “What is’t? Come in!” +We may hear, when we’re in, people passing in the street, +and the wild geese call,—wild geese, wild geese! this time +I will not follow where you tempt to where are only silence and +dream,—the autumn and the summer days may cry us out to +garden and wood, but if I can manage it I will lock the door on +the inside, and shut us snugly in with Daniel Dyce and his +household, and it will be well with us then. Yes, yes, it +will be well with us then.</p> +<p>The wild-goose cry, heard in the nights, beyond her +comprehension, was all that Bud Dyce found foreign in that +home. All else was natural and familiar and friendly, for +all else she knew was love. But she feared at first the +“honk, honk” of the lone wild <a +name="page84"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 84</span>things that +burdened her with wonder and awe. Lying in her attic bower +at night, they seemed to her like sore mistaken wanderers, +wind-driven, lost; and so they are, I know. Hans Andersen +and Grimm for her had given to their kind a forlorn and fearsome +meaning. But Kate MacNeill had helped, to some degree, +these childish apprehensions.</p> +<p>The Highland maid had brought from Colonsay a flesh that crept +in darkness, a brain with a fantastic maggot in it; she declared +to goodness, and to Bud sometimes, that she had no life of it +with ghosts in her small back room. But Bud was not to let +on to her aunties. Forbye it was only for Kate they came, +the ghosts; did Bud not hear them last night? Geese! +No, not geese, Kate knew different, and if the thing lasted much +longer she would stay no more in this town; she would stay +nowhere, she would just go back to Colonsay. Not that +Colonsay was better; there were often ghosts in Colonsay—in +the winter-time, and then it behoved you to run like the +mischief, or have a fine strong lad with you for your +convoy. If there were no ghosts in America it was because +it cost too much to go there on the steamers. Harken to +yon—“Honk, honk!”—did ever you hear the +like of it? Who with their wits about them in weather like +that would like to be a ghost? And loud above the wind that +rocked the burgh in the cradle of the hills, loud above the +beating rain, the creak of doors and rap of shutters in that old +house, Bud and Kate together in the kitchen heard again the +“honk, honk!” of the geese. Then it was for the +child that she missed the mighty certainty of Chicago, that +Scotland somehow to her mind seemed an old unhappy place, in the +night of which went passing Duncan, murdered in his sleep, and +David Rizzio with the daggers in his breast, and Helen of +Kirkconnel Lee. The nights but rarely brought any fear for +her in spite of poor Kate’s ghosts, since the warmth and +light and love of the household filled every corner of lobby and +stair, and went to bed with <a name="page85"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 85</span>her. When she had said her +prayer the geese might cry, the timbers of the old house crack, +Bud was lapped in the love of God and man, and tranquil. +But the mornings dauntened her often when she wakened to the +sound of the six o’clock bell. She would feel, when +it ceased, as if all virtue were out of last night’s love +and prayer. Then all Scotland and its curious scraps of +history as she had picked it up weighed on her spirit for a time; +the house was dead and empty; not ghost nor goose made her eerie, +but mankind’s old inexplicable alarms. How deep and +from what distant shores comes childhood’s wild +surmise! There was nothing to harm her, she knew, but the +strangeness of the dawn and a craving for life made her at these +times the awakener of the other dwellers in the house of +Dyce.</p> +<p>She would get out of bed and go next door to the room of +Ailie, and creep in bed beside her to kiss her for a little from +her dreams. To the aunt these morning visitations were +precious: she would take the bairn to her bosom and fall asleep +with sighs of content, the immaculate mother. Bud herself +could not sleep then for watching the revelation of her lovely +auntie in the dawn—the cloud on the pillow that turned to +masses of hazel hair, the cheeks and lips that seemed to redden +like flowers as the day dawned, the nook of her bosom, the pulse +of her brow.</p> +<p>Other mornings Wanton Wully’s bell would send her in to +Bell, who would give her the warm hollow of her own place in the +blankets, while she herself got up to dress briskly for the +day’s affairs. “Just you lie down there, pet, +and sleepy-baw,” she would say, tying her coats with trim +tight knots. “You will not grow up a fine, tall, +strong girl like your Auntie Ailie if you do not take your sleep +when you can get it. The morning is only for done old wives +like me that have things to do and don’t grudge doing +them.”</p> +<p>She would chatter away to Bud as she dressed, a garrulous +auntie this, two things always for her <a name="page86"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 86</span>text—the pride of Scotland, and +the virtue of duty done. A body, she would say, was +sometimes liable to weary of the same things to be done each day, +the same tasks even-on, fires and food and cleansing, though the +mind might dwell on great deeds desirable to be accomplished, but +pleasure never came till the thing was done that was the first to +hand, even if it was only darning a stocking. What was Bud +going to be when she grew up? Bud guessed she wasn’t +going to be anything but just a lady. Ah, yes, but even +ladies had to do something wise-like; there was Ailie—to go +no farther—who could have managed a business though her +darning was but lumpy. Even for a lady there was nothing +nobler than the making of her own bed; besides the doctors said +it was remarkably efficacious for the figure.</p> +<p>Bud, snug in her auntie’s blankets, only her nose and +her bright bead eyes showing in the light of the twirly wooden +candlestick, guessed Mrs Molyneux was the quickest woman to get +through work ever she saw: why she just waved it to one side and +went out to shop or lunch with Jim.</p> +<p>A look of pity for Mrs Molyneux, the misguided, would come to +Bell’s face, but for those folk in America she never had a +word of criticism in the presence of the child. All she +could say was America was different. America was not +Scotland. And Scotland was not England, though in many +places they called Scotch things English.</p> +<p>Jim used to say, speaking of father, that a Scotsman was a +kind of superior Englishman.</p> +<p>Bell wished to goodness she could see the man,—he must +have been a clever one!</p> +<p>Other mornings again would the child softly open her +uncle’s door and he would get a terrible fright, crying +“Robbers! but you’ll get nothing. I have my +watch in my boots, and my money in my mouth.”</p> +<p>She would creep beside him, and in these early hours began her +education. She was learning Ailie’s calm and +curiosity and ambition; she was learning <a +name="page87"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 87</span>Bell’s +ideas of duty and the ancient glory of her adopted land; from her +uncle she was learning many things, of which the least that +seemed useful at the time was the Lord’s Prayer in +Latin. “Pater Noster qui es in +coelis”—that and a few hundreds of Trayner’s +Latin maxims was nearly all of the classic tongue that survived +with the lawyer from student days. It was just as good and +effective a prayer in English, he admitted, but somehow, whiles, +the language was so old it brought you into closer grips with the +original. Some mornings she would hum to him coon songs +heard in her former home; and if he was in trim he himself would +sing some psalm to the tune of Coleshill, French, Bangor, or +Torwood. His favourite was Torwood; it mourned +so—mourned so! Or at other times a song like +“Mary Morison.”</p> +<p>“What are you bumming away at up there the pair of +you?” Bell would cry, coming to the stair-foot. +“If you sing before breakfast, you’ll greet before +night!”</p> +<p>“Don’t she like singing in the morning?” Bud +asked, nestling beside him, and he laughed.</p> +<p>“It’s an old freit—an old +superstition,” said he, “that it’s unlucky to +begin the day too blithely. It must have been a doctor that +started it, but you would wonder at the number of good and douce +Scots folk, plain bodies like ourselves, that have the notion in +their mind from infancy, and never venture a cheep or chirrup +before the day’s well aired.”</p> +<p>“My stars! ain’t she Scotch, Auntie Bell?” +said Bud. “So was father. He would sing any +time; he would sing if it broke a tooth; but he was pretty Scotch +other ways. Once he wore a pair of kilts to a Cale—to +a Caledonian Club.”</p> +<p>“I don’t keep a kilt myself,” said her +uncle. “The thing’s not strictly necessary +unless you’re English and have a Hielan’ +shooting.”</p> +<p>“Auntie Bell is the genuine Scotch stuff, I +guess!”</p> +<p>“There’s no concealing the fact that she +is,” her uncle admitted. “She’s so Scotch +that I am afraid she’s apt to think of God as a countryman +of her own.”</p> +<p><a name="page88"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 88</span>And +there were the hours that Ailie gave with delight to Bud’s +more orthodox tuition. The back room that was called +Dan’s study, because he sometimes took a nap there after +dinner, became a schoolroom. There was a Mercator’s +map of the world on the wall and another of Europe, that of +themselves gave the place the right academy aspect. With +imagination, a map, and the Golden Treasury, you might have as +good as a college education, according to Ailie. They went +long voyages together on Mercator; saw marvellous places; +shivered at the poles or languished in torrid plains, sometimes +before Kate could ring the bell for breakfast. There seemed +no spot in the world that this clever auntie had not some +knowledge of. How eagerly they crossed continents, how +ingeniously they planned routes! For the lengths of rivers, +the heights of mountains, the values of exports, and all the +trivial passing facts that mar the great game of geography for +many childish minds, they had small consideration; what they +gathered in their travels were sounds, colours, scenes, weather, +and the look of races. What adventures they had! as when, +pursued by elephants and tigers, they sped in a flash from Bengal +to the Isle of Venice, and saw the green slime of the sea on her +steeping palaces. Yes, the world is all for the folk of +imagination. “Love maps and you will never be too old +or too poor to travel,” was Ailie’s motto. She +found a hero or a heroine for every spot upon Mercator, and +nourished so the child in noble admirations.</p> +<p>You might think it would always be the same pupil and the same +teacher, but no, they sometimes changed places. If Ailie +taught Bud her own love for the lyrics that are the best work of +men in their hours of exaltation, Bud sent Ailie back to her +Shakespeare, and sweet were the days they spent in Arden or +Prospero’s Isle.</p> +<p>It was well with them then; it was well with the woman and the +child, and they were happy.</p> +<h2><a name="page89"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +89</span>CHAPTER XI.</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">But</span> the Dyces never really knew how +great and serious was the charge bequeathed to them in their +brother William’s daughter till they saw it all one night +in March in the light of a dozen penny candles.</p> +<p>Lennox had come from a world that’s lit by electricity, +and for weeks she was sustained in wonder and amusement by the +paraffin lamps of Daniel Dyce’s dwelling. They were, +she was sure, the oldest kind of light in all the world, +Aladdin-lights that gleamed of old on caverns of gems, till Kate +on this particular evening came into the kitchen with the +week-end groceries. It was a stormy season—the year +of the big winds; moanings were at the windows, sobbings in the +chimney-heads, and the street was swept by spindrift rain. +Bell and Ailie and their brother sat in the parlour, silent, +playing cards with a dummy hand, and Bud, with Footles in her +lap, behind the winter-dykes on which clothes dried before the +kitchen fire, crouched on the fender with a Shakespeare, where +almost breathlessly she read the great, the glorious Macbeth.</p> +<p>“My stars! what a night!” said Kate. +“The way them slates and chimney-cans are flying! It +must be the anti-nuptial gales. I thought every minute +would be my next. Oh towns! towns! Stop you till I +get back to Colonsay, and I’ll not leave it in a hurry, +I’ll assure you.”</p> +<p>She threw a parcel on the kitchen-dresser, and turned to the +light a round and rosy face that streamed with clean cooling +rain, her hair in tangles <a name="page90"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 90</span>on her temples and her eyes sparkling +with the light of youth and adventure,—for to tell the +truth she had been flirting at the door a while, in spite of all +the rain, with some admirer.</p> +<p>Bud was the sort of child whose fingers itch in the presence +of unopened parcels: in a moment the string was untied from the +week-end groceries.</p> +<p>“Candles!” she cried. “Well, that +beats the band! I’ve seen ’em in windows. +What in the world are you going to do with candles? One, +two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, +twelve—oh Laura, ain’t we grand!”</p> +<p>“What would we do with them but burn them?” said +the maid; “we’ll use them in the +washing-house,” and then she sank into a chair. +“Mercy on me, I declare I’m dying!” she +exclaimed in a different key, and Bud looked round and saw +Kate’s face had grown of a sudden very pale.</p> +<p>“Oh dear! what is the matter?” she asked, her eyes +large, innocent, and anxious.</p> +<p>“Pains,” moaned the maid. “Pains +inside me and all over me, and shiverings down the spine of the +back. Oh, it’s a sore thing pain, especially when +it’s bad! But don’t—don’t say a +word to the mustress; I’m not that old, and maybe +I’ll get better.”</p> +<p>“Try pain-killer,” recommended Bud. +“And if I was you I’d start just here and say a +prayer. Butt right in and I’ll not listen.”</p> +<p>“Pain-killer!—what in all the world’s +pain-killer? I never heard of it. And the only prayer +I know is ‘My Father which art’ in Gaelic, and +there’s nothing in it about pains in the spine of the +back. No, no I’ll just have to take a tablespoonful +of something or other three times a-day, the way I did when the +doctor put me right in Colonsay. Perhaps it’s just a +chill—but oh! I’m sorrowful, sorrowful!” and +Kate, the colour coming slowly back to her, wept softly to +herself, rocking in the kitchen chair. It was sometimes by +those odd hysterics that she paid for her elations with the +lads.</p> +<p><a name="page91"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +91</span>“I know what’s wrong with you,” said +Bud briskly, in the manner of Mrs Molyneux. +“It’s just the croodles. Bless you, you poor +perishing soul! I take the croodles myself when it’s +a night like this, and I’m alone. The croodles +ain’t the least wee bit deadly; you can put them away by +hustling at your work, or banging an old piano, or reading a +story, or playing that you’re somebody else—Well, I +declare I think I could cure you right now with these twelve +candles, far better than you’d do by shooting drugs into +yourself.”</p> +<p>“I never took a single candle in all my life,” +said Kate, “far less twelve, and I’ll die +first”</p> +<p>“Silly!” exclaimed Bud. “You’d +think to hear you speak you were a starving Eskimo. I +don’t want you to eat the candles. Wait a +minute.” She ran lightly upstairs, and was gone for +ten minutes.</p> +<p>Kate’s colour all revived; she forgot her croodles in +the spirit of anticipation that the child had roused. +“Oh, but she’s the clever one that!” she said +to herself, drying the rain and tears from her face and starting +to nibble a biscuit. “She knows as much as two +ministers, and still she’s not a bit proud. Some day +she’ll do something desperate.”</p> +<p>When Bud came back she startled the maid by her appearance, +for she had clad herself, for the first time in Scotland, with a +long, thin, copious dancing-gown, in which a lady of the +vaudeville, a friend of Mrs Molyneux’s, had taught her +dancing.</p> +<p>“Ain’t this dandy?” she said, closing the +kitchen door, and there was a glow upon her countenance and a +movement of her body that, to the maid’s eyes, made her +look a little woman. “Ain’t this bully? +Don’t you stand there looking like a dying Welsh rabbit, +but help me light them candles for the footlights. Why! I +knew there was some use for these old candles first time I set +eyes on them; they made me think of something I couldn’t +’zactly think of—made me kind of gay, you know, just +as if I was going to the theatre. They’re only +candles, but <a name="page92"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +92</span>there’s twelve lights to them all at once, and now +you’ll see some fun.”</p> +<p>“What in the world are you going to do, lassie?” +asked the maid.</p> +<p>“I’m going to be a Gorgeous Entertainment; +I’m going to be the Greatest Agg—Aggregation of +Historic Talent now touring the Middle West. I’m +Mademoiselle Winifred Wallace of Madison Square Theatre, New +York, positively appearing here for one night only. +I’m the whole company, and the stage manager, and the band, +and the boys that throw the bouquets. Biff! I’m +checked high: all you’ve got to do is to sit there with +your poor croodles and feel them melt away. Let’s +light the foot-lights.”</p> +<p>There was a row of old brass bedroom candlesticks on the +kitchen-shelf that were seldom used now in the house of Dyce, +though their polish was the glory of Miss Bell’s +heart. The child kilted up her gown, jumped on a chair, and +took them down with the help of Kate. She stuck in each a +candle, and ranged them in a semicircle on the floor, then lit +the candles and took her place behind them.</p> +<p>“Put out the lamp!” she said to Kate, in the +common voice of actors’ tragedy.</p> +<p>“Indeed and I’ll do nothing of the kind,” +said the maid. “If your Auntie Bell comes in +she’ll—she’ll skin me alive for letting you +play such cantrips with her candles. Forbye, you’re +going to do something desperate, something that’s not +canny, and I must have the lamp behind me or I’ll lose my +wits.”</p> +<p>“Woman, put out the light!” repeated Bud, with an +imperious pointing finger, and, trembling, Kate turned down the +lamp upon the wall and blew down the chimney in the very way Miss +Dyce was always warning her against. She gasped at the +sudden change the loss of the light made—at the sense of +something idolatrous and bewitched in the arc of flames on her +kitchen-floor, each blown inward from the draught of a rattling +window.</p> +<p>“If it is <i>buidseachas</i>—if it is witchcraft +of any kind <a name="page93"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +93</span>you are on for, I’ll not have it,” said Kate +firmly. “I never saw the like of this since the old +woman in Pennyland put the curse on the Colonsay factor, and she +had only seven candles. Dear, dear Lennox, do not do +anything desperate; do not be carrying on, for you are +frightening me out of my judgment. +I’m—I’m maybe better now, I took a bite at a +biscuit; indeed I’m quite better, it was nothing but the +cold—and a lad out there that tried to kiss me.”</p> +<p>Bud paid no heed, but plucked up the edges of her skirt in +outstretched hands and glided into the last dance she had learned +from the vaudeville lady, humming softly to herself an +appropriate tune. The candles warmly lit her neck, her +ears, her tilted nostrils, her brow was high in shadow. +First she rose on tiptoe and made her feet to twitter on the +flags, then swayed and swung a little body that seemed to hang in +air. The white silk swept around and over her—wings +with no noise of flapping feather, or swirled in sea-shell coils, +that rose in a ripple from her ankles and swelled in wide +circling waves above her head, revealing her in glimpses like +some creature born of foam on fairy beaches, and holding the +command of tempest winds. Ah, dear me! many and many a time +I saw her dance just so in her daft days before the chill of +wisdom and reflection came her way; she was a passion +disembodied, an aspiration realised, a happy morning thought, a +vapour, a perfume of flowers, for her attire had lain in +lavender. She was the spirit of Spring, as I have felt it +long ago in little woods, or seen it in pictures, or heard it in +songs; she was an ecstasy, she was a dream.</p> +<p>The dog gave a growl of astonishment, then lay his length on +the hearth-rug, his nose between his paws, his eyes fixed on +her. “I’ll not have it,” said the maid +piteously. “At least I’ll not stand much of it, +for it’s not canny to be carrying-on like that in a +Christian dwelling. I never did the like of that in all my +life.”</p> +<p>“<i>Every</i> move a picture,” said the child, and +still <a name="page94"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +94</span>danced on, with the moan of the wind outside for a bass +to her low-hummed melody. Her stretching folds flew high, +till she seemed miraculous tall, and to the servant’s fancy +might have touched the low ceiling; then she sank—and +sank—and sank till her forehead touched the floor, and she +was a flower fallen, the wind no more to stir its petals, the +rain no more to glisten on its leaves. ’Twas as if +she shrivelled and died there, and Kate gave one little cry that +reached the players of cards in the parlour.</p> +<p>“Hush! what noise was that?” said Ailie, lifting +her head.</p> +<p>“It would be Kate clumping across the kitchen-floor in +the Gaelic language,” said Mr Dyce, pushing his specs up on +his brow.</p> +<p>“Nothing but the wind,” said Bell. +“What did you say was trumph?”—for that was the +kind of player she was.</p> +<p>“It was not the wind, it was a cry; I’m sure I +heard a cry. I hope there’s nothing wrong with the +little one,” said Ailie, with a throbbing heart, and she +threw her cards on the table and went out. She came back in +a moment, her face betraying her excitement, her voice demanding +silence.</p> +<p>“Of all the wonders!” said she. “Just +step this way, people, to the pantry.”</p> +<p>They rose and followed her. The pantry was all +darkness. Through its partly open door that led into the +kitchen they saw their child in the crescent of the candles, +though she could not see them, as no more could Kate, whose chair +was turned the other way. They stood in silence watching +the strange performance, each with different feelings, but all +with eeriness, silent people of the placid, old, half-rustic +world, that lives for ever with realities, and seldom sees the +passions counterfeited.</p> +<p>Bud had risen, her dark hair looking unnaturally black above +her brow, and, her dancing done, she was facing the dog and the +servant, the only audience of whose presence she was aware.</p> +<p><a name="page95"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +95</span>“Toots!” said the maid, relieved that all +seemed over, “that’s nothing in the way of dancing; +you should see them dancing Gillie-Callum over-bye in +Colonsay! There’s a dancer so strong there that he +breaks the very boards.”</p> +<p>Bud looked at her, and yet not wholly at her—through +her, with burning eyes.</p> +<p>“Hush!” she said, trembling. “Do you +not hear something?” and at that moment, high over the town +went the “honk, honk” of the wild geese.</p> +<p>“Devil the thing but geeses!” said the maid, whose +blood had curdled for a second. The rain swept like a broom +along the street, the gutters bubbled, the shutters rapped, far +above the dwelling went the sound of the flying geese.</p> +<p>“Oh, hush, woman, hush!” implored the child, her +hands over her ears, her figure cowering.</p> +<p>“It’s only the geeses. What a start you gave +me!” said the maid again.</p> +<p>“No, no,” said Bud, “Methought I heard a +voice cry ‘Sleep no more! Macbeth does murder sleep, +the innocent sleep, Sleep that knits up the ravell’d sleave +of care, sore labour’s bath, Balm of hurt minds, great +nature’s second course, Chief nourisher in life’s +feast—’”</p> +<p>“What do you mean?” cried Kate.</p> +<p>“Still it cried, ‘Sleep no more!’ to all the +house: Glamis hath murder’d sleep, and therefore Cawdor +shall sleep no more; Macbeth shall sleep no more.”</p> +<p>The child filled each phrase with a travesty of passion; she +had seen the part enacted. It was not, be sure, a great +performance. Some words were strangely mutilated; but it +was a child, and she had more than a child’s command of +passion—she had feeling, she had heart.</p> +<p>“I cannot look at you!” exclaimed Kate. +“You are not canny, but oh! you are—you are +majestic! There was never the like of it in all the +isles.”</p> +<p>Bell, in the darkness of the pantry, wept silently at some +sense of sin in this play-acting on a Saturday <a +name="page96"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 96</span>night; her +brother held her arm tightly; Ailie felt a vague unrest and +discontent with herself, a touch of envy and of shame.</p> +<p>“Please collect the bouquets,” said the child, +seating herself on the floor with her knees tucked high in her +gown. “Are the croodles all gone?”</p> +<p>“It did me a lot of good yon dancing,” said +Kate. “Did you put yon words about Macbeth sleep no +more together yourself?”</p> +<p>“Yes,” said Bud, and then repented. +“No,” she added hurriedly, “that’s a fib; +please, God, give me a true tongue. It was made by +Shakespeare—dear old Will!”</p> +<p>“I’m sure I never heard of the man in all my life +before; but he must have been a bad one.”</p> +<p>“Why, Kate, you are as fresh as the mountain +breeze,” said Bud. “He was Great! He was +born at Stratford-on-Avon, a poor boy, and went to London and +held horses outside the theatre door, and then wrote plays so +grand that only the best can act them. He was—he was +not for an age, but all the time.”</p> +<p>She had borrowed the lesson as well as the manner of Auntie +Ailie, who smiled in the dark of the pantry at this glib +rendering of herself.</p> +<p>“Oh, I should love to play Rosalind,” continued +the child. “I should love to play everything. +When I am big, and really Winifred Wallace, I will go all over +the world and put away people’s croodles same as I did +yours, Kate, and they will love me; and I will make them feel +real good, and sometimes cry—for that is beautiful +too. I will never rest, but go on, and on, and on; and +everywhere everybody will know about me—even in the tiny +minstrel towns where they have no or’nary luck but just +coon shows, for it’s in these places croodles must be most +catching. I’ll go there and play for nothing, just to +show them what a dear soul Rosalind was. I want to grow +fast, fast! I want to be tall like my Auntie Ailie, and +lovely like my dear Auntie Ailie, and clever like my sweet sweet +Aunt Ailie.”</p> +<p><a name="page97"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +97</span>“She’s big enough and bonny enough, and +clever enough in some things,” said the maid; “but +can she sew like her sister!—tell me that!”</p> +<p>“Sew!” exclaimed the child, with a frown. +“I hate sewing. I guess Auntie Ailie’s like me, +and feels sick when she starts a hem and sees how long it is, and +all to be gone over with small stitches.”</p> +<p>“Indeed, indeed I do,” whispered Ailie in the +pantry, and she was trembling. She told me later how she +felt of her conviction then that for her the years of opportunity +were gone, the golden years that had slipped past in the little +burgh town without a chance for her to grasp their +offerings. She told me of her resolution there and then +that this child, at least, should have its freedom to expand.</p> +<p>Bud crept to the end of the crescent of her footlights and +blew out the candles slowly one by one. The last she left +a-light a little longer, and, crouched upon the floor, she gazed +with large and dreaming eyes into its flame as if she read +there.</p> +<p>“It is over now,” said Mr Dyce in a whisper to his +sisters, and, with his hands on their shoulders led them back +into the parlour.</p> +<h2><a name="page98"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +98</span>CHAPTER XII.</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">She</span> was wayward, she was +passionate, she was sometimes wild. She was not what, in +the Pigeons’ Seminary, could be called a good child, for +all her sins were frankly manifest, and she knew no fear nor +naughty stratagem; her mind, to all but Kate, was open as the +day, and there it was the fault of honest Kate’s +stupidity. But often Miss Bell must be moaning at +transgressions almost harmless in themselves, yet so terribly +unlike a Christian bairn, as when Bud spent an afternoon in a +tent with some gipsy children, changed clothes with them the +better to act a part, and stormed because she could not have them +in to tea with her. Or when she asked Lady Anne, +bazaar-collecting in the house of Dyce, if she ever had had a +proposal. It was a mercy that Lady Anne that very week had +had one, and was only too pleased to tell of it and say she had +accepted.</p> +<p>“Then <i>you’re</i> safe out of the woods,” +said Bud gravely. “There’s our Kate, she +hasn’t had a proposal yet, and I guess she’s on the +slopey side of thirty. It must be dre’ffle to be as +old—as old as a house and have no beau to love you. +It must be ’scrutiating.”</p> +<p>Lady Anne let her eyes turn for a moment on the sisters Dyce, +and the child observed and reddened.</p> +<p>“Oh! Auntie Bell!” she said quickly. +“Auntie Bell had heaps and heaps of beaux all dying to +marry her, but she gave them the calm cold eye and said she had +to cling to Uncle Dan. It was very noble of her, +wasn’t it?”</p> +<p><a name="page99"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +99</span>“Indeed it was!” admitted Lady Anne, very +much ashamed of herself.</p> +<p>“And Auntie Ailie is not on the slopey side of +thirty,” continued Bud, determined to make all +amends. “She’s young enough to love +dolls.”</p> +<p>It was Bell who censured her for this dreadful +behaviour. “You are a perfect torment, Lennox,” +she said, at the first opportunity. “A bairn like you +must not be talking about beaux, and love, and proposals, and +nonsense of that kind,—it’s fair +ridiculous.”</p> +<p>“Why, I thought love was the Great Thing!” +exclaimed Bud, much astonished. “It’s in all +the books, there’s hardly anything else, ’cept when +somebody is murdered and you know that the man who did it is the +only one you don’t suspect. Indeed, Auntie, I thought +it was the Great Thing!”</p> +<p>“And so it is, my dear,” said Ailie. +“There’s very little else in all the world, +except—except the children,” and she folded her niece +in her arms. “It is the Great Thing; it has made Lady +Anne prettier than ever she was in her life before, it has made +her brighter, humbler, gentler, kinder. God bless her, I +hope she will be happy.”</p> +<p>“But it was very wrong; it was a kind of fib for you to +talk about me having lots of lads in my time,” said Auntie +Bell. “You do not know whether I had or +not.”</p> +<p>Bud looked at her and saw a flush on her face. “I +think,” said she, “the beaux must have been very +stupid, then. But I guess there must have been one, Auntie +Bell, and you have forgotten all about him.” And at +that Miss Bell went hurriedly from the room, with a pretence that +she heard a pot boil over, and Ailie in a low voice told her +niece all about Bell’s beau, deep drowned in the Indian +Ocean.</p> +<p>For days after that the child was tender with her elder aunt, +and made a splendid poem in blank verse upon the late Captain +James Murray, which Bell was never to see, but Ailie +treasured. For days was she <a name="page100"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 100</span>angelic good. Her rages never +came to fever heat. Her rebellions burned themselves out in +her bosom. Nobly she struggled with Long Division and the +grammar that she abominated; very meekly she took censure for +copy-books blotted and words shamefully misspelled in Uncle +Daniel’s study. Some way this love that she had +thought a mere amusement, like shopping in Chicago, took a new +complexion in her mind—became a dear and solemn thing, like +her uncle’s Bible readings, when, on Sunday nights at +worship in the parlour, he took his audience through the desert +to the Promised Land, and the abandoned street was vocal with +domestic psalm from the Provost’s open windows. She +could not guess—how could she, the child?—that love +has its variety. She thought there was but the one love in +all the world,—the same she felt herself for most +things,—a gladness and agreement with things as they +were. And yet at times in her reading she got glimpses of +love’s terror and empire, as in the stories of Othello and +of Amy Robsart, and herself began to wish she had a lover. +She thought at first of Uncle Dan; but he could not be serious, +and she had never heard him sigh,—in him was wanting some +remove, some mystery. What she wanted was a lover on a +milk-white steed, a prince who was “the flower o’ +them a’,” as in Aunt Ailie’s song +“Glenlogie”; and she could not imagine Uncle Dan with +his spectacles on riding any kind of steed, though she felt it +would be nice to have him with her when the real prince was +there.</p> +<p>Do you think it unlikely that this child should have such +dreams? Ah, then, you are not of her number, or you have +forgotten. She never forgot. Many a time she told me +in after-years of how in the attic bower, with Footles snug at +her feet, she conjured up the lad on the milk-white steed, not so +much for himself alone, but that she might act the +lady-love. And in those dreams she was tall and slender, +sometimes proud, disdainful, wounding the poor wretch <a +name="page101"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 101</span>with sharp +words and cold glances; or she was meek and languishing, sighing +out her heart even in presence of his true-love gifts of candy +and P. & A. MacGlashan’s penny tarts. She walked +with him in gardens enchanted; they sailed at nights over calm +moonlit seas, and she would be playing the lute. She did +not know what the lute was like; but it was the instrument of +love, and had a dulcet sound, like the alto flutes in the burgh +band.</p> +<p>But, of course, no fairy prince came wooing Daniel +Dyce’s little niece, though men there were in the +place—elderly and bald, with married daughters—who +tried to buy her kisses for sixpences and sweets, and at last she +felt vicariously the joys of love by conducting the affairs of +Kate.</p> +<p>Kate had many wooers,—that is the solace of her +class. They liked her because she was genial and plump, +with a flattering smile and a soft touch of the Gaelic accent +that in the proper key and hour is the thing to break +hearts. She twirled them all round her little finger, and +Bud was soon to see this and to learn that the maid was still +very far from the slopey side of thirty. But Kate, too, had +her dreams—of some misty lad of the mind, with short, +curled hair, clothes brass-buttoned, and a delicious smell of +tar—something or other on a yacht. The name she had +endowed him with was Charles. She made him up from passing +visions of seamen on the quays, and of notions gleaned from her +reading of penny novelettes.</p> +<p>One week-night Bud came on her in the kitchen dressed in her +Sunday clothes and struggling with a spluttering pen.</p> +<p>“Are you at your lessons too?” said the +child. “You naughty Kate! there’s a horrid +blot. No lady makes blots.”</p> +<p>“It wasn’t me, it was this devilish pen; besides, +I’m not a lady,” said Kate, licking the latest blot +with her tongue and grimacing. “What way do you spell +weather?”</p> +<p>“W-e-t-h-e-r,” said Bud. “At least, I +think that’s <a name="page102"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +102</span>the way! but I’d best run and ask Aunt +Ailie,—she’s a speller from Spellerville.”</p> +<p>“Indeed and you’ll do nothing of the kind,” +cried the maid, alarmed and reddening. “You’ll +do nothing of the kind, Lennox, because—I’m writing +to Charles.”</p> +<p>“A love-letter! Oh, I’ve got you with the +goods on you!” exclaimed Bud, enchanted. “And +what are you doing with your hurrah clothes on?”</p> +<p>“I like to put on my Sunday clothes when I’m +writing Charles,” said the maid, a little put-about. +“Do you think it’s kind of daft?”</p> +<p>“It’s not daft at all, it’s real ’cute +of you; it’s what I do myself when I’m writing +love-letters, for it makes me feel kind of grander. +It’s just the same with poetry; I simply can’t make +sure enough poetry unless I have on a nice frock and my hands +washed.”</p> +<p>“<i>You</i> write love-letters!” said the maid, +astounded.</p> +<p>“Yes, you poor perishing soul!” retorted +Bud. “And you needn’t yelp. I’ve +written scores of love-letters without stopping to take +breath. Stop! stop!” she interrupted herself, and +breathed an inward little prayer. “I mean that I +write them—well, kind of write them—in my +mind.” But this was a qualification beyond +Kate’s comprehension.</p> +<p>“Then I wish you would give me a hand with this +one,” said she despairingly. “All the nice +words are so hard to spell, and this is such a bad +pen.”</p> +<p>“They’re <i>all</i> bad pens; they’re all +devilish,” said Bud, from long experience. “But +I’d love to help you write that letter. Let me +see—pooh! it’s dreffle bad, Kate. I can’t +read a bit of it, almost.”</p> +<p>“I’m sure and neither can I,” said Kate, +distressed.</p> +<p>“Then how in the world do you expect Charles to read +it?” asked Bud.</p> +<p>“Oh, he’s—he’s a better scholar than +me,” said Kate complacently. “But you might +write this one for me.”</p> +<p>Bud washed her hands, took a chair to the kitchen table, threw +back her hair from her eyes, and eagerly <a +name="page103"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 103</span>entered +into the office of love-letter-writer. “What will I +say to him?” she asked.</p> +<p>“My dear, dear Charles,” said the maid, who at +least knew so much.</p> +<p>“My adorable Charles,” said Bud, as an +improvement, and down it went with the consent of the +dictator.</p> +<p>“I’m keeping fine, and I’m very busy,” +suggested Kate, upon deliberation. “The weather is +capital here at present, and it is a good thing, for the farmers +are busy with their hay.”</p> +<p>Bud sat back and stared at her in amazement. “Are +you sure this is for a Charles?” she asked. +“You might as well call him Sissy and talk frocks. +Why! you must tell him how you love him.”</p> +<p>“Oh, I don’t like,” said Kate, +confused. “It sounds so—so bold and impudent +when you put it in the English and write it down. But +please yourself; put down what you like, and I’ll be +dipping the pen for you.”</p> +<p>Bud was not slow to take the opportunity. For half an +hour she sat at the kitchen table and searched her soul for +fitting words that would convey Kate’s adoration. +Once or twice the maid asked what she was writing, but all she +said was “Don’t worry, Kate. I’m right in +the throes.” There were blots and there were +erasions, but something like this did the epistle look when it +was done:—</p> +<blockquote><p>“<span class="smcap">My adorable +Charles</span>,—I am writeing this letter to let you know +how much I truly love you. Oh Charles, dear, you are the +Joy of my heart. I am thinking of you so often, often, till +my Heart just aches. It is lovely wether here at +present. Now I will tell you all about the Games. +They took place in a park near here Friday and there was +seventeen beautiful dancers. They danced to give you +spassums. One of them was a Noble youth. He was a +Prince in his own write, under Spells for sevn years. When +he danced, lo and behold he was the admiration of <a +name="page104"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 104</span>all +Beholders. Alas! poor youth. When I say alas I mean +that it was so sad being like that full of Spells in the flower +of his youth. He looked at me so sad when he was dancing, +and I was so glad. It was just like money from home. +Dear Charles, I will tell you all about myself. I am full +of goodness most the time for God loves good people. But +sometimes I am not and I have a temper like two crost sticks when +I must pray to be changed. The dancing gentleman truly +loves me to distruction. He kissed my hand and hastily +mountain his noble steed, galoped furiously away. Ah, the +coarse of true love never did run smooth. Perhaps he will +fall upon the forein plain. Dearest +Charles—adorable—I must now tell you that I am being +educated for my proper station in life. There is Geograpy, +and penmanship with the right commas, and Long Division and +conjunctives which I abomiate. But my teacher, a sweet lady +named Miss Alison Dyce, says they are all truly refining. +Oh I am weary, weary, he cometh not. That is for you, +darling Charles, my own.—Your true heart love,</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><span class="smcap">Kate +MacNeill</span>.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>“Is that all right?” asked Bud anxiously.</p> +<p>“Yes; at least it’ll do fine,” said the +maid, with that Highland politeness that is often so bad for +business. “There’s not much about himself in +it, but och! it’ll do fine. It’s as nice a +letter as ever I saw: the lines are all that straight.”</p> +<p>“But there’s blots,” said Bud +regretfully. “There oughtn’t to be blots in a +real love-letter.”</p> +<p>“Toots! just put a cross beside each of them, and write +‘this is a kiss,’” said Kate, who must have had +some previous experience. “You forgot to ask him +how’s his health, as it leaves us at present.”</p> +<p>So Bud completed the letter as instructed. “Now +for the envelope,” said she.</p> +<p>“I’ll put the address on it myself,” said +Kate, confused. “He would be sure somebody else had +been reading it if the address was not in my hand of <a +name="page105"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +105</span>write,”—an odd excuse, whose absurdity +escaped the child. So the maid put the letter in the bosom +of her Sunday gown against her heart, where meanwhile dwelt the +only Charles. It is, I sometimes think, where we should all +deposit and retain our love-letters; for the lad and lass, as we +must think of them, have no existence any more than poor +Kate’s Charles.</p> +<p>Two days passed. Often in those two days would Bud come, +asking anxiously if there was any answer yet from Charles. +As often the maid of Colonsay reddened, and said with resignation +there was not so much as the scrape of a pen. +“He’ll be on the sea,” she explained at last, +“and not near a post-office. Stop you till he gets +near a post-office, and you’ll see the fine letter +I’ll get.”</p> +<p>“I didn’t know he was a sailor,” said +Bud. “Why, I calculated he was a Highland chieftain +or a knight, or something like that. If I had known he was +a sailor I’d have made that letter different. +I’d have loaded it up to the nozzle with sloppy weather, +and said, Oh, how sad I was—that’s you, Kate—to +lie awake nights thinking about him out on the heaving +billow. Is he a captain?”</p> +<p>“Yes,” said Kate promptly. “A full +captain in the summer time. In the winter he just stays at +home and helps on his mother’s farm. Not a cheep to +your aunties about Charles, darling Lennox,” she added +anxiously. “They’re—they’re that +particular!”</p> +<p>“I don’t think you’re a true love at +all,” said Bud, reflecting on many interviews at the +kitchen window and the back-door. “Just think of the +way you make goo-goo eyes at the letter-carrier, and the +butcher’s man, and the ashpit gentleman. What would +Charles say?”</p> +<p>“Toots! I’m only putting by the time with +them,” explained the maid. “It’s only a +diversion. When I marry I will marry for my own +conveniency, and the man for me is Charles.”</p> +<p>“What’s the name of his ship?” asked the +child.</p> +<p><a name="page106"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +106</span>“The <i>Good Intent</i>,” said Kate, who +had known a skiff of the name in Colonsay. “A +beautiful ship, with two yellow lums, and flags to the +masthead.”</p> +<p>“That’s fine and fancy!” said Bud. +“There was a gentleman who loved me to destruction, coming +over on the ship from New York, and loaded me with candy. +He was not the captain, but he had gold braid everywhere, and his +name was George Sibley Purser. He promised he would marry +me when I made a name for myself, but I ’spect Mister J. S. +Purser’ll go away and forget.”</p> +<p>“That’s just the way with them all,” said +Kate.</p> +<p>“I don’t care, then,” said Bud. +“I’m all right; I’m not kicking.”</p> +<p>Next day the breakfast in the house of Dyce was badly served, +for Kate was wild to read a letter that the post had brought, and +when she opened it, you may be sure Bud was at her shoulder.</p> +<blockquote><p>“<span class="smcap">Dearest Kate</span> [it +said],—I love you truly and I am thinking of you most the +time. Thank God we was all safed. Now I will tell you +all about the Wreck. The sea was mountains high, and we had +a cargo of spise and perils from Java on the left-hand side the +map as you go to Australia. When the Pirite ship chased us +we went down with all hands. But we constrickted a raft and +sailed on and on till we had to draw lots who would drink the +blood. Just right there a sailor cried ‘A sail, A +sail,’ and sure enough it was a sail. And now I will +tell you all about Naples. There is a monsterious mountain +there, or cone which belches horrid flames and lavar. Once +upon a time it belched all over a town by the name of Pompy and +it is there till this very day. The bay of naples is the +grandest in the world it is called the golden horn. Dearest +Katherine, I am often on the mast at night. It is cold and +shakey in that place and oh how the wind doth blow, but I <a +name="page107"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 107</span>ring a bell +and say alls well which makes the saloon people truly glad. +We had five stow-ways. One of them was a sweet fair-haired +child from Liverpool, he was drove from home. But a good +and beautious lady, one of the first new england families is +going to adopt him and make him her only air. How beautiful +and bright he stood as born to rule the storm. I weary for +your letters darling Katherine.—Write soon to your true +love till death,</p> +</blockquote> +<p style="text-align: right">“<span +class="smcap">Charles</span>.”</p> +<p>Kate struggled through this extraordinary epistle with +astonishment. “Who in the world is it from?” +she asked Bud.</p> +<p>“Charles, stupid,” said Bud, astonished that there +should be any doubt about that point. “Didn’t +I—didn’t we write him the other night? It was +up to him to write back, wasn’t it?”</p> +<p>“Of course,” said Kate, very conscious of that +letter still unposted, “but—but he doesn’t say +Charles anything, just Charles. It’s a daft-like +thing not to give his name; it might be anybody. +There’s my Charles, and there’s Charles Maclean from +Oronsay,—what way am I to know which of them it +is?”</p> +<p>“It’ll be either or eyether,” said +Bud. “Do you know Charles Maclean?”</p> +<p>“Of course I do,” said the maid. +“He’s following the sea, and we were well +acquaint.”</p> +<p>“Did he propose to you?” asked Bud.</p> +<p>“Well, he did not exactly propose,” admitted Kate, +“but we sometimes went a walk together to the churchyard on +a Sunday, and you know yourself what that means out in +Colonsay. I’ll just keep the letter and think of +it. It’s the nicest letter I ever got, and full of +information. It’s Charles Maclean, I’ll warrant +you, but he did not use to call me Katherine—he just said +Kate, and his face would be as red as anything. Fancy him +going down with all hands! My heart is sore for him,” +and the maid there and then transferred her devotion from the <a +name="page108"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 108</span>misty lad +of her own imagination to Charles Maclean of Oronsay.</p> +<p>“You’ll help me to write him a letter back +to-night,” she said.</p> +<p>“Yes, indeed, I’ll love to,” said the child +wearily. But by the time the night came on, and Wanton +Wully rang his curfew bell, and the rooks came clanging home to +the tall trees of the forest, she was beyond all interest in life +or love.</p> +<h2><a name="page109"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +109</span>CHAPTER XIII.</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">Wanton Wully</span> only briefly rang the +morning bell, and gingerly, with tight-shut lips and deep nose +breathings, as if its loud alarm could so be mitigated. +Once before he had done it just as delicately—when the Earl +was dying, and the bell-ringer, uncertain of his skill to toll, +when the time came, with the right half-minute pauses, grieved +the town and horrified the Castle by a rehearsal in the middle of +a winter night. But no soul of mercy is in brazen bells +that hang aloof from man in lofty steeples, and this one, swung +ever so gently, sullenly boomed—boomed—boomed.</p> +<p>“Oh, to the devil wi’ ye!” said Wanton +Wully, sweating with vexation. “Of all the senseless +bells! A big, boss bluiter! I canna compel nor coax +ye!” and he gave the rope one vicious tug that brought it, +broken, round his ears; then went from the church into the sunny, +silent, morning street, where life and the day suspended.</p> +<p>In faith! a senseless bell, a merciless bell, waking folk to +toil and grief. Dr Brash and Ailie heavy-eyed, beside the +bed in the attic bower, shivered at the sound of it, and looked +with fear and yearning at the sleeping child.</p> +<p>Bud moved her head from side to side a little on the pillow, +with a murmur from her parched lips, and there was a flicker of +the eyelids—that was all. Between her and the +everlasting swound, where giddily swings the world and all its +living things, there seemed no more than a sheet of tissue-paper: +<a name="page110"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 110</span>it was +as if a breath of the tender morning air would quench the +wavering flame that once was joy and Lennox Dyce. The heart +of Auntie Ailie rose clamouring in her bosom; her eyes stung with +the brine of tears restrained, but she clenched her teeth that +she might still be worthy of the doctor’s confidence.</p> +<p>He saw it, and put out his hand and pressed her shoulder, a +fat old-fashioned man, well up in years, with whiskers under his +chin like a cravat, yet beautiful as a prince to Ailie, for on +him all her hopes were cast. “They call me +agnostic—atheist even, whiles, I hear,” he had said +in the midst of their vigil; “and, indeed, I’m +sometimes beat to get my mind beyond the mechanism, +but—h’m!—a fine child, a noble child; she was +made for something—h’m! That mind and +talent—h’m!—that +spirit—h’m!—the base of it was surely never yon +grey stuff in the convolutions.” And another time the +minister had come in (the folk in the street were furious to see +him do it!), and timidly suggested prayer. +“Prayer!” said Dr Brash, “before this child, +and her quite conscious! Man, what in God’s own name +are we doing here, this—h’m!—dear good lady and +I, but fever ourselves with sleepless, silent prayer? Do +you think a proper prayer must be official? There’s +not a drop of stuff in a druggist’s bottle but what’s +a solution of hope and faith +and—h’m!—prayer. Con-found it, +sir!”</p> +<p>He put out his hand and pressed her on the shoulder, and never +said a word. Oh, the doctors! the doctors! Hale men +and hearty, we can see their shortcomings and can smile at them, +but when the night-light burns among the phials!</p> +<p>It was the eighth day after Kate, with a face of clay, and her +sleeves rolled up, and the dough still on her elbows as she had +come from the baking-board, burst upon the doctor in his surgery +with the cry, “Dr Brash, Dr Brash! ye’re to haste ye +and come at once to the wee one!” He had gone as +nearly on the wings of the wind as a fat man may in <a +name="page111"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +111</span>carpet-slippers, and found a distracted family round +the fevered child.</p> +<p>“Tut, tut, lassie,” said he, chucking her lightly +under the chin. “What new prank is this, to be +pretending illness? Or if it’s not a let-on, +I’ll be bound it’s MacGlashan’s almond +tablet.”</p> +<p>“It’s these cursèd crab-apples in the +garden; I’m sure it’s the crab-apples, doctor,” +said Miss Bell, looking ten years older than her usual.</p> +<p>“H’m! I think not,” said Dr Brash more +gravely, with his finger on the pulse.</p> +<p>“It’s bound to be,” said Bell, piteous at +having to give up her only hope. “Didn’t you +eat some yesterday, pet, after I told you that you were not for +your life to touch them?”</p> +<p>“No,” said Bud, with hot and heavy breathing.</p> +<p>“Then why didn’t ye, why didn’t ye; and then +it might have been the apples?” said poor Miss Bell. +“You shouldn’t have minded me; I’m aye so +domineering.”</p> +<p>“No, you’re not,” said Bud, and wanly +smiling.</p> +<p>“Indeed I am; the thing’s acknowledged, and you +needn’t deny it,” said her auntie. +“I’m desperate domineering to you.”</p> +<p>“Well, I’m—I’m not kicking,” +said Bud. It was the last cheerful expression she gave +utterance to for many days.</p> +<p>Wanton Wully was not long the only one that morning in the +sunny street. Women came out, unusually early, as it +seemed, to beat their basses; but the first thing that they did +was to look at the front of Daniel Dyce’s house with a kind +of terror lest none of the blinds should be up, and Mr +Dyce’s old kid glove should be off the knocker. +“Have you heard what way she is keeping to-day?” they +asked the bell-man.</p> +<p>“Not a cheep!” said he. “I saw Kate +sweepin’ out her door-step, but I couldna ask her. +That’s the curse of my occupation; I wish to goodness they +had another man for the grave-diggin’.”</p> +<p><a name="page112"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +112</span>“You and your graves!” said the +women. “Who was mentioning them?”</p> +<p>He stood on the syver-side and looked at the blank front of +Daniel Dyce’s house with a gloomy eye. “A +perfect caution!” he said, “that’s what she +was—a perfect caution! She called me Mr Wanton and +always asked me how was my legs.”</p> +<p>“Is there anything wrong with your legs?” said one +of the women.</p> +<p>“Whiles a weakness,” said Wanton Wully, for he was +no hypocrite. “Her uncle tellt me once it was a kind +o’ weakness that they keep on gantrys down in Maggie +White’s. But she does not understand—the wee +one; quite the leddy! she thought it was a kind o’ +gout. Me! I never had the gout,—I never had the money +for it, more’s the pity.”</p> +<p>He went disconsolate down the street to get his brush and +barrow, for he was, between the morning bell and breakfast-time, +the burgh’s Cleansing Department. Later—till +the middle of the day—he was the Harbour-Master, wore a +red-collared coat and chased the gulls from the roofs of the +shipping-boxes and the boys from the slip-side where they might +fall in and drown themselves; his afternoons had half a dozen +distinct official cares, of which, in that wholesome air, +grave-digging came seldomest. This morning he swept +assiduously and long before the house of Daniel Dyce. +Workmen passing yawning to their tasks in wood and garden, field +and shed, looked at the muffled knocker and put the question; +their wives, making, a little later, a message to the well, +stopped too, put down their water-stoups, and speculated on the +state of things within. Smoke rose from more than one +chimney in the Dyces’ house. “It’s the +parlour fire,” said Wanton Wully. “It means +breakfast. Cheery Dan, they say, aye makes a hearty +breakfast; I like to see the gift in a man mysel’, though I +never had it; it’s a good sign o’ him the night +before.”</p> +<p>Peter the post came clamping by-and-by along <a +name="page113"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 113</span>the street +with his letters, calling loudly up the closes, less willing than +usual to climb the long stairs, for he was in a hurry to reach +the Dyces’. Not the window for him this morning, nor +had it been so for a week, since Kate no longer hung on the +sashes, having lost all interest in the outer world. He +went tiptoe through the flagged close to the back-door and +lightly tapped.</p> +<p>“What way is she this morning?” said he, in the +husky whisper that was the best he could control his voice to, +and in his eagerness almost mastered his roving eye.</p> +<p>“She’s got the turn!—she’s got the +turn!” said the maid, transported. “Miss Dyce +was down the now and told me that her temper was +reduced.”</p> +<p>“Lord help us! I never knew she had one,” +said the post.</p> +<p>“It’s no’ temper that I mean,” said +Kate, “but yon thing that you measure wi’ the +weather-glass the doctor’s aye so cross wi’ that he +shakes and shakes and shakes at it. But anyway she’s +better. I hope Miss Ailie will come down for a bite; if +not, she’ll starve hersel’”</p> +<p>“That’s rare! By George, that’s +tip-top!” said the postman, so uplifted that he went off +with the M.C. step he used at Masons’ balls, and would have +clean forgotten to give Kate the letters if she had not cried him +back.</p> +<p>Wanton Wully sat on a barrow-tram waiting the postman’s +exit. “What way is she?” said he, and +Peter’s errant eye cocked to all airts of the +compass. What he wanted was to keep this tit-bit to +himself, to have the satisfaction of passing it along with his +letters. To give it to Wanton Wully at this stage would be +to throw away good fortune. It was said by Daniel Dyce that +the only way to keep a dead secret in the burgh was to send Wully +and his handbell round the town with it as public crier. +When Wanton Wully cried, it beat you to understand a word he said +after “Notice!” but unofficially he was marvellously +gleg at circulating news. “What way <a +name="page114"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 114</span>is +she?” he asked again, seeing the postman’s +hesitation.</p> +<p>“If ye’ll promise to stick to the head o’ +the toun and let me alone in the ither end, I’ll tell +ye,” said Peter, and it was so agreed.</p> +<p>But they had not long all the glory of the good tidings to +themselves. Dr Brash came out of Dyce’s house for the +first time in two days, very sunken in the eyes and sorely +needing shaving, and it could be noticed by the dullest that he +had his jaunty walk and a flower in the lapel of his +badly-crushed coat. Ailie put it there with trembling +fingers; she could have kissed the man besides, if there had not +been the chance that he might think her only another silly +woman. Later Footles hurled himself in fury from the +doorway, his master close behind him. At the sight of Mr +Dyce the street was happy; it was the first time they had seen +him for a week. In burgh towns that are small enough we +have this compensation, that if we have to grieve in common over +many things, a good man’s personal joy exalts us all.</p> +<p>“She’s better, Mr Dyce, I’m hearing,” +said P. & A. MacGlashan, wiping his hands on his apron, to +prepare for a fervent clasp from one who, he ought to have known, +was not of the fervent-clasping kind.</p> +<p>“Thank God! Thank God!” said Mr Dyce. +“You would know she was pretty far through?”</p> +<p>“Well—we kind of jaloused. But we kent there +was no danger—the thing would be ridiculous!” said P. +& A. MacGlashan, and went into his shop in a hurry, much +uplifted too, and picked out a big bunch of black grapes and sent +his boy with them, with his compliments, to Miss Lennox Dyce, +care of Daniel Dyce, Esquire, Writer.</p> +<p>Miss Minto so adored the man she could not show herself to him +in an hour like that; for she knew that she must weep, and a face +begrutten ill became her, so in she came from the door of her +Emporium and watched him pass the window. She saw in him <a +name="page115"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 115</span>what she +had never seen before—for in his clothing he was always +trim and tidy, quite perjink, as hereabouts we say: she saw, with +the sharp eyes of a woman who looks at the man she would like to +manage, that his hat was dusty and his boots not very brightly +polished. More than all the news that leaked that week from +the Dyces’ dwelling it realised for her the state of things +there.</p> +<p>“Tcht! tcht! tcht!” she said to herself; +“three of them yonder, and he’s quite +neglected!” She went into a back room, where gathered +the stuff for her Great Annual Jumble Sales with ninepenny things +at sevenpence ha’penny, and searched a drawer that +sometimes had revealed tremendous joy to Lennox and other bairns +who were privileged to see what they called “Miss +Minto’s back.” In the drawer there was a doll +called Grace, a large, robust, and indestructible wooden child +that had shared Miss Minto’s youth and found the years more +kindly than she, since it got no wrinkles thinking on the cares +of competition in the millinery and mantua-making trade, but +dozed its days away upon feathers and silk and velvet +swatches. Grace was dressed like a queen—if queens +are attired in gorgeous hand-stitched remnants; she had so long +been part of Miss Minto’s life that the mantua-maker +swithered in her first intention. But she thought how happy +Mr Dyce must be that day, and hurriedly packed the doll in a box +and went round herself with it for Lennox Dyce.</p> +<p>As she knocked lightly at the front door, the old kid glove +came loose in her hand—an omen! One glance up and +down the street to see that no one noticed her, and then she +slipped it in her pocket, with a guilty countenance. She +was not young, at least she was not in her ’teens, but +young enough to do a thing like that for luck and her liking of +Daniel Dyce. Yet her courage failed her, and when Kate came +to the door the first thing she handed to her was the glove.</p> +<p><a name="page116"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +116</span>“It fell off,” she said. “I +hope it means that it’s no longer needed. And this is +a little thing for Miss Lennox, Kate; you will give her it with +my compliments. I hear there’s an +improvement?”</p> +<p>“You wouldna <i>believe</i> it!” said Kate. +“Thank God, she’ll soon be carrying-on as bad as +ever!”</p> +<p>Mr Dyce would not have cared a rap that morning if he had come +upon his clerks at Catch-the-Ten, or even playing leapfrog on +their desks. He was humming a psalm you may guess at as he +looked at the documents heaped on his table—his calf-bound +books and the dark japanned deed-boxes round his room.</p> +<p>“Everything just the same, and business still going +on!” he said to his clerk. “Dear me! dear me! +what a desperate world! Do you know, I had the notion that +everything was stopped. No, when I think of it I oftener +fancied all this was a dream.”</p> +<p>“Not Menzies <i>v.</i> Kilblane at any rate,” said +the clerk, with his hand on a bulky Process, for he was a cheery +soul and knew the mind of Daniel Dyce.</p> +<p>“I daresay not,” said the lawyer. +“That plea will last a while, I’m thinking. And +all about a five-pound fence! Let you and me, Alexander, +thank our stars there are no sick bairns in the house of either +Menzies or Kilblane, for then they would understand how much +their silly fence mattered, and pity be on our canty wee +Table-of-Fees!” He tossed over the papers with an +impatient hand. “Trash!” said he. +“What frightful trash! I can’t be bothered with +them—not to-day. They’re no more to me than a +docken leaf. And last week they were almost +everything. You’ll have heard the child has got the +turn?”</p> +<p>“I should think I did!” said Alexander. +“And no one better pleased to hear it!”</p> +<p>“Thank you, Alick. How’s the +family?”</p> +<p>“Fine,” said the clerk.</p> +<p><a name="page117"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +117</span>“Let me think, now—seven, isn’t +it? A big responsibility.”</p> +<p>“Not so bad as long’s we have the health,” +said Alexander.</p> +<p>“Yes, yes,” said Mr Dyce. “All one +wants in this world is the health—and a little more +money. I was just thinking—” He stopped +himself, hummed a bar of melody, and twinkled through his +spectacles. “You’ll have read Dickens?” +said he.</p> +<p>“I was familiar with his works when I was young,” +said Alexander, like a man confessing that in youth he played at +bools. “They were not bad.”</p> +<p>“Just so! Well, do you know there was an idea came +to my mind just now that’s too clearly the consequence of +reading Dickens for a week back, so I’ll hold my hand and +keep my project for another early occasion when it won’t be +Dickens that’s dictating.”</p> +<p>He went early back that day, to relieve Ailie at her nursing, +as he pretended to himself, but really for his own delight in +looking at the life in eyes where yesterday was a cloud. A +new, fresh, wholesome air seemed to fill the house. Bud lay +on high pillows, with Miss Minto’s Grace propped against +her knees, and the garret was full of the odour of flowers that +had come in a glorious bunch from the banker’s +garden. Bell had grown miraculously young again, and from +between Ailie’s eyebrows had disappeared the two black +lines that had come there when Dr Brash had dropped in her ear +the dreadful word pneumonia. But Dr Brash had beaten +it! Oh, if she only knew the way to knit a winter waistcoat +for him!</p> +<p>The child put out her hand to her uncle, and he kissed her on +the palm, frightful even yet of putting a lip to her cheek, lest +he should experience again the terror of the hot breath from that +consuming inward fire.</p> +<p>“Well,” said he briskly, “how’s our +health, your <a name="page118"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +118</span>ladyship? Losh bless me! what a fine, big, sonsy +baby you have gotten here; poor Alibel’s nose will be out +of joint, I’m thinking.”</p> +<p>“Hasn’t got any,” said Bud, still weakly, in +her new, thin, and unpractised voice, as she turned with a look +that showed no lessening affection for the old doll, badly +battered in the visage and wanting in the limbs, which lay beside +her on the pillow.</p> +<p>“Blythmeat and breadberry,” said Daniel +Dyce. “In the house of Daniel Dyce! Bell and +Ailie, here’s an example for you!”</p> +<h2><a name="page119"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +119</span>CHAPTER XIV.</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">Following</span> on stormy weeks had come +an Indian summer, when the world was blessed with Ailie’s +idea of Arden weather, that keeps one wood for ever green and +glad with company, knows only the rumour of distant ice and rain, +and makes men, reading thereof by winter fires, smell fir and +feel the breeze on their naked necks and hunger for the old +abandoned bed among the brackens. “It is better to +hear the lark sing than the mouse squeak,” was the motto of +Daniel Dyce, and though the larks were absent, he would have the +little one in the garden long hours of the day. She beiked +there like a kitten in the sunlight till her wan cheek +bloomed. The robin sang among the apples—pensive a +bit for the ear of age, that knows the difference between the +voice of spring and autumn—sweet enough for youth that +happily does not have an ear for its gallant melancholy; the +starlings blew like a dust about the sky; over the garden +wall—the only one in the town that wanted broken +bottles—far-off hills raised up their heads to keek at the +little lassie, who saw from this that the world was big and +glorious as ever.</p> +<p>“My! ain’t this fine and clean?” said +Bud. “Feels as if Aunt Bell had been up this morning +bright and early with a duster.” She was enraptured +with the blaze of the nasturtiums, that Bell would aye declare +should be the flower of Scotland, for “Indian cress here, +or Indian cress there,” as she would say, +“they’re more like Scots than any flower I ken. +The poorer the soil the <a name="page120"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 120</span>better they thrive, and they come to +gold where all your fancy flowers would rot for the want of +nutriment. Nutriment! give them that in plenty and +you’ll see a bonny display of green and no’ much +blossom. The thing’s a parable—the worst you +can do with a Scotsman, if you want the best from him, ’s +to feed him ower rich. Look at Captain Consequence; never +the same since he was aboard—mulligatawny even-on in India; +a score of servant-men, and never a hand’s-turn for +himself,—all the blossom from that kind of Indian cress is +on his nose.”</p> +<p>“Lands sake! I <i>am</i> glad I’m not +dead,” said Bud, with all her body tingling as she heard +the bees buzz in the nasturtium bells and watched the droll dog +Footles snap at the butterflies.</p> +<p>“It’s not a bad world, one way and the +other,” said Miss Bell, knitting at her side; “it +would have been a hantle worse if we had had the making +o’t. But here we have no continuing city, and +yonder—if the Lord had willed—you would have gone +sweeping through the gates of the new Jerusalem.”</p> +<p>“Sweeping!” said the child. “I +can’t sweep for keeps; Kate won’t give me a chance to +learn. But anyhow I guess this is a good enough world for a +miserable sinner like me.”</p> +<p>Mr Dyce, who had carried her, chair and all, into the garden, +though she could have walked there, chuckled at this +confession.</p> +<p>“Dan,” said Bell, “think shame of +yourself! You make the child light-minded.”</p> +<p>“The last thing I would look for in women is +consistency,” said he, “and I daresay that’s +the way I like them. What is it Ailie quotes from +Emerson? ‘A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of +little minds,’—that kind of goblin never scared a +woman in the dark yet. But surely you’ll let me laugh +when I think of you chiding her gladness in life to-day, when I +mind of you last week so desperate throng among the +poultices.”</p> +<p>“I’m for none of your lawyer arguments,” +said <a name="page121"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +121</span>Bell, trying in vain to gag herself with a knitting-pin +from one of the Shetland shawls she had been turning out for +years with the hope that some day she could keep one for +herself. “It might have been that ‘she pleased +God and was beloved of Him, so that, living among +sinners’—among sinners, Dan,—‘she was +translated. Yea, speedily was she taken away, lest that +wickedness should alter her understanding, or deceit beguile her +soul.’”</p> +<p>“I declare if I haven’t forgot my +peppermints!” said her brother, quizzing her, and clapping +his outside pockets. “A consoling text! I have +no doubt at all you could prelect upon it most acceptably, but +confess that you are just as glad as me that there’s the +like of Dr Brash.”</p> +<p>“I like the Doc,” the child broke in, with most of +this dispute beyond her; “he’s a real cuddley +man. Every time he rapped at my chest I wanted to cry +‘Come in.’ Say, isn’t he slick with a +poultice!”</p> +<p>“He was slick enough to save your life, my dear,” +said Uncle Dan soberly. “I’m almost jealous of +him now, for Bud’s more his than mine.”</p> +<p>“Did he make me better?” asked the child.</p> +<p>“Under God. I’m thinking we would have been +in a bonny habble wanting him.”</p> +<p>“I don’t know what a bonny habble is from +Adam,” said Bud, “but I bet the Doc wasn’t +<i>everything</i>: there was that prayer, you know.”</p> +<p>“Eh?” exclaimed her uncle sharply.</p> +<p>“Oh, I heard you, Uncle Dan,” said Bud, with a sly +look up at him. “I wasn’t sleeping really that +night, and I was awful liable to have tickled you on the bald bit +of your head. I never saw it before. I could have +done it easily if it wasn’t that I was so tired; and my +breath was so sticky that I had to keep on yanking it, just; and +you were so solemn and used such dre’ffle big words. +I didn’t tickle you, but I thought I’d help you pray, +and so I kept my eyes shut and said a bit myself. Say, I +want to tell you something,”—she stammered, <a +name="page122"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 122</span>with a +shaking lip. “I felt real mean when you talked about +a sinless child; of course you didn’t know, but it +was—it wasn’t true. I know why I was taken ill: +it was a punishment for telling fibs to Kate. I was mighty +frightened that I’d die before I had a chance to tell +you.”</p> +<p>“Fibs!” said Mr Dyce seriously. +“That’s bad. And I’m loth to think it of +you, for it’s the only sin that does not run in the family, +and the one I most abominate.”</p> +<p>Bell stopped her knitting, quite distressed, and the child +lost her new-come bloom. “I didn’t mean it for +fibs,” she said, “and it wasn’t anything I +said, but a thing I did when I was being Winifred Wallace. +Kate wanted me to write a letter—”</p> +<p>“Who to?” demanded Auntie Bell.</p> +<p>“It was to—it was to—oh, I daren’t +tell you,” said Bud, distressed. “It +wouldn’t be fair, and maybe she’ll tell you herself, +if you ask her. Anyhow I wrote the letter for her, and +seeing she wasn’t getting any answer to it, and was just +looney for one, and I was mighty keen myself, I turned Winny on, +and wrote one. I went out and posted it that dre’ffle +wet night you had the party, and I never let on to Kate, so she +took it for a really really letter from the person we sent the +other one to. I got soaked going to the post-office, and +that’s where I guess God began to play <i>His</i> +hand. Jim said the Almighty held a royal flush every +blessed time; but that’s card talk, I don’t know what +it means, ’cept that Jim said it when the ‘Span of +Life’ manager skipped with the boodle—lit out with +the cash, I mean, and the company had to walk home from Kalamazoo +on the railroad ties.”</p> +<p>“Mercy on us! I never heard a word of it,” +cried Miss Bell. “This’ll be a warning! +People that have bairns to manage shouldn’t be giving +parties; it was the only night since ever you came here that we +never put you to your bed. Did Kate not change your clothes +when you came in wet?”</p> +<p><a name="page123"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +123</span>“She didn’t know I was out, for that would +have spoiled everything, ’cause she’d have asked me +what I was doing out, and I’d have had to tell her, for I +can’t fib that kind of fib. When I came in all +soaking, I took a teeny-weeny loan of Uncle’s tartan rug, +and played to Kate I was Helen Macgregor, and Kate went into +spasms, and didn’t notice anything till my clothes were +dry. Was it very very naughty of me?”</p> +<p>“It was indeed! It was worse than naughty, it was +silly,” said her Uncle Dan, remembering all the prank had +cost them.</p> +<p>“Oh, Lennox! my poor sinful bairn!” said her aunt, +most melancholy.</p> +<p>“I didn’t mean the least harm,” protested +the child, trembling on the verge of tears. “I did it +all to make Kate feel kind of gay, for I hate to see a body +mope,—and I wanted a little fun myself,” she added +hastily, determined to confess all.</p> +<p>“I’ll Kate her, the wretch!” cried Auntie +Bell quite furious, gathering up her knitting.</p> +<p>“Why, Auntie Bell, it wasn’t her fault, it +was—”</p> +<p>But before she could say more, Miss Bell was flying to the +house for an explanation, Footles barking at her heels +astonished, for it was the first time he had seen her trot with a +ball of wool trailing behind her. The maid had the kitchen +window open to the last inch, and looked out on a street deserted +but for a ring of bairns that played before the baker’s +door. Their voices, clear and sweet, and laden with no +sense of care or apprehension, filled the afternoon with +melody—</p> +<p class="poetry">“Water, water wall-flowers,<br /> +Growing up so high,<br /> +We are all maidens,<br /> +And we must all die.”</p> +<p>To the maid of Colonsay in an autumn mood, the rhyme conveyed +some pensive sentiment that was pleasant though it almost made +her cry: the air <a name="page124"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +124</span>slipped to her heart, the words in some way found the +Gaelic chord that shakes in sympathy with minor keys, for +beautiful is all the world, our day of it so brief! Even +Miss Bell was calmed by the children’s song as it came from +the sunny street into the low-ceiled shady kitchen. She had +played that game herself, sung these words long ago, never +thinking of their meaning: how pitiful it was that words and a +tune should so endure, unchanging, and all else alter!</p> +<p>“Kate, Kate, you foolish lass!” she cried, and the +maid drew in with the old astonishment and remorse, as if it was +her first delinquency.</p> +<p>“I—I was looking for the post,” said +she.</p> +<p>“Not for the first time, it seems,” said her +mistress. “I’m sorry to hear it was some +business of yours that sent Miss Lennox to the post-office on a +wet night that was the whole cause of our tribulation. At +least you might have seen the wean was dried when she came +back.”</p> +<p>“I’m sure and I don’t know what you’re +talking about, me’m,” said the maid, astounded.</p> +<p>“You got a letter the day the bairn took ill; what was +it about?”</p> +<p>The girl burst into tears and covered her head with her +apron. “Oh, Miss Dyce, Miss Dyce!” she cried, +“you’re that particular, and I’m ashamed to +tell you. It was only just diversion.”</p> +<p>“Indeed, and you must tell me,” said her mistress, +now determined. “There’s some mystery here that +must be cleared, as I’m a living woman. Show me that +letter this instant!”</p> +<p>“I can’t, Miss Dyce, I can’t, I’m +quite affronted. You don’t ken who it’s +from.”</p> +<p>“I ken better than yourself; it’s from nobody but +Lennox,” said Miss Bell.</p> +<p>“My stars!” cried the maid, astonished. +“Do you tell me that? Amn’t I the stupid +one? I thought it was from Charles. Oh, me’m! +what will Charles Maclean of Oronsay think of me? +He’ll think I was <a name="page125"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 125</span>demented,” and turning to her +servant’s chest she threw it open and produced the second +sham epistle.</p> +<p>Miss Bell went in with it to Ailie in the parlour, and they +read it together. Ailie laughed till the tears came at the +story it revealed. “It’s more creditable to her +imagination than to my teaching in grammar and spelling,” +was her only criticism. “The—the little +rogue!”</p> +<p>“And is that the way you look at it?” asked Bell, +disgusted. “A pack of lies from end to end. She +should be punished for it; at least she should be warned that it +was very wicked.”</p> +<p>“Stuff and nonsense,” said Miss Ailie. +“I think she has been punished enough already, if +punishment was in it. Just fancy if the Lord could make so +much ado about a little thing like that! It’s not a +pack of lies at all, Bell; it’s literature, it’s +romance.”</p> +<p>“Well, romancing!” said Miss Bell. +“What’s romancing, if you leave out Walter +Scott? I am glad she has a conviction of the sin of it +herself. If she had slipped away from us on Wednesday this +letter would have been upon her soul. It’s vexing her +now.”</p> +<p>“If that is so, it’s time her mind was +relieved,” said Ailie, and rising, sped to the garden with +the letter in her hand. Her heart bled to see the +apprehension on Bud’s face, and beside her, Dan, stroking +her hair and altogether bewildered.</p> +<p>“Bud,” cried Ailie, kissing her, “do you +think you could invent a lover for me who would write me letters +half so interesting as this? It’s a lover like that I +have all the time been waiting for: the ordinary kind, by all my +reading, must be very dull in their correspondence, and the lives +they lead deplorably humdrum—</p> +<p class="poetry">“‘Oh, Charlie is my darling, my +darling, my darling;<br /> + Oh, Charlie is my darling, the young +marineer.’</p> +<p>After this I’ll encourage only sailors: Bud, dear, get +me a nice clean sailor. But I stipulate that he must <a +name="page126"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 126</span>be more +discriminating with his capitals, and know that the verb must +agree with its nominative, and not be quite so much confused in +his geography.”</p> +<p>“You’re not angry with me, Aunt?” said Bud, +in a tone of great relief, with the bloom coming back. +“Was it very, very wicked?”</p> +<p>“Pooh!” said Ailie. “If that’s +wicked, where’s our Mr Shakespeare? Oh, child! child! +you are my own heart’s treasure. I thought a girl +called Alison I used to know long ago was long since dead and +done with, and here she’s to the fore yet, daft as ever, +and her name is Lennox Dyce.”</p> +<p>“No, it wasn’t Lennox wrote that letter,” +said Bud; “it was Winifred Wallace, and oh, my! she’s +a pretty tough proposition. You’re quite, +<i>quite</i> sure it wasn’t fibbing.”</p> +<p>“No more than Cinderella’s fibbing,” said +her aunt, and flourished the letter in the face of Dan, who she +saw was going to enter some dissent. “Behold, Dan +Dyce, the artist b-r-r-rain! Calls sailor sweethearts from +the vasty deep, and they come obedient to her bidding. +Spise and perils, Dan, and the golden horn a trifle out of its +latitude, and the darling boy that’s <i>always</i> being +drove from home. One thing you overlooked in the boy, +Bud—the hectic flush. I’m sure Kate would have +liked a touch of the hectic flush in him.”</p> +<p>But Bud was still contrite, thinking of the servant. +“She was so set upon a letter from her Charles,” she +explained, “and now she’ll have to know that I was +joshing her. Perhaps I shouldn’t say joshing, Auntie +Ailie,—I s’pose it’s slang.”</p> +<p>“It is,” said her aunt, “and most +unladylike; let us call it pulling her le—let us call +it—oh, the English language! I’ll explain it +all to Kate, and that will be the end of it.”</p> +<p>“Kate ’d be dre’ffle rattled to talk about +love to a grown-up lady,” said Bud, on thinking. +“I’d best go in and explain it all myself.”</p> +<p><a name="page127"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +127</span>“Very well,” said Auntie Ailie; so Bud went +into the house and through the lobby to the kitchen.</p> +<p>“I’ve come to beg your pardon, Kate,” said +she hurriedly. “I’m sorry +I—I—pulled your leg about that letter you thought was +from Charles.”</p> +<p>“Toots! Ye needn’t bother about my leg or +the letter either,” said Kate, most cheerfully, with +another letter open in her hand, and Mr Dyce’s evening mail +piled on the table before her; “letters are like herring +now, they’re comin’ in in shoals. I might have +kent yon one never came from Oronsay, for it hadn’t the +smell of peats. I have a real one now that’s new come +in from Charles, and it’s just a beauty! He got his +leg broken on the boats a month ago, and Dr Macphee’s +attending him. Oh, I’m that glad to think that +Charles’s leg is in the hands of a kent face!”</p> +<p>“Why! that’s funny,” said Bud. +“And we were just going to write—oh, you mean the +other Charles?”</p> +<p>“I mean Charles Maclean,” said Kate, with some +confusion. “I—I—was only lettin’-on +about the other Charles; he was only a diversion.”</p> +<p>“But you sent him a letter?” cried Bud.</p> +<p>“Not me!” said Kate composedly. “I +kept it, and I sent it on to Charles out in Oronsay when you were +poorly; it did fine! He says he’s glad to hear about +my education, and doesn’t think much of gentlemen that +dances, but that he’s always glad to get the scrape of a +pen from me, because—because—well, just because he +loves me still the same, yours respectfully, Charles +Maclean. And oh, my stars, look at what a lot of +crosses!”</p> +<p>Bud scrutinised them with amazement. “Well, +<i>he’s</i> a pansy!” said she.</p> +<h2><a name="page128"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +128</span>CHAPTER XV.</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">Suddenly</span> all the town began to talk +of the pride of Kate MacNeill. She took to wearing all her +best on week-days; abandoned the kitchen window, and ruined an +old-established trade in pay-night sweeties, that used to shower +on her in threepenny packets at the start of every autumn when +the days grew short. No longer blate young lads scraped +with their feet uneasily in the sawdust of P. & A +MacGlashan’s, swithering between the genteel attractions of +Turkish Delight and the eloquence of conversation lozenges, that +saved a lot of thinking, and made the blatest equal with the +boldest when it came to tender badinage below the lamp at the +back-door close with Dyce’s maid. Talk about the +repartee of salons! wit moves deliberately there compared with +the swift giff-gaff that Kate and her lads were used to maintain +with sentiments doubly sweet and ready-made at threepence the +quarter-pound. So fast the sweeties passed, like the thrust +and riposte of rapiers, that their final purpose was forgotten; +they were sweeties no longer to be eaten, but scented +billets-doux, laconic of course, but otherwise just as +satisfactory as those that high-born maidens get only one at a +time and at long intervals when their papas are out at +business.</p> +<p class="gutindent">“Are you engaged?”</p> +<p class="gutindent"> “Just keep +spierin’.”</p> +<p class="gutindent">“Absence makes the heart grow +fonder.”</p> +<p class="gutindent"> “You are a gay +deceiver.”</p> +<p class="gutindent">“My heart is yours.”</p> +<p class="gutindent"> “How are your poor +feet?”</p> +<p><a name="page129"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 129</span>By +the hour could Kate sustain such sparkling flirtations, or at +least till a “Kiss me, dearest” turned up from the +bottom of the poke, and then she slapped his face for him. +It is the only answer out in Colonsay unless he’s your +intended.</p> +<p>But it stopped all at once. P. & A. was beat to +understand what way his pay-night drawings fell, until he saw +that all the lads were taking the other side of the street. +“That’s <i>her</i> off, anyway!” said he to Mrs +P. & A., with a gloomy visage. “I wonder +who’s the lucky man? It’s maybe +Peter,—she’ll no’ get mony losengers from +him.”</p> +<p>And it was not only the decline in votive offerings that +showed the vital change; she was not at the Masons’ ball, +which shows how wrong was the thought of P. & A., for Peter +was there with another lady. Very cheery, too; exceedingly +cheery, ah, desperately gay, but quite beyond the comprehension +of his partner, Jenny Shand, who was unable to fathom why a +spirit so merry in the hall should turn to groans and bitterness +when, feeling a faintish turn, she got him in behind the +draft-screen on the landing of the stair to sit the +“Flowers o’ Edinburgh.” He was fidging +fain to tell her plainly what he thought of all her sex, but +strove like a perfect gentleman against the inclination, and only +said “Ha! ha! do you say so, noo?” and +“Weemen!” with a voice that made them all out nothing +more nor less than vipers. Poor Jenny Shand! bonny Jenny +Shand! what a shame she should be bothered with so ill-faured a +fellow! When she was picking bits of nothing off his coat +lapel, as if he was her married man, and then coming to herself +with a pretty start and begging pardon for her liberty, the diffy +paid no heed; his mind was down the town, and he was seeing +himself yesterday morning at the first delivery getting the +window of Dyce’s kitchen banged in his face when he started +to talk about soap, meaning to work the topic round to hands and +gloves. He had got the length of dirty <a +name="page130"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 130</span>hands, and +asked the size of hers, when bang! the window went, and the +Hielan’ one in among her pots and pans.</p> +<p>It was not any wonder, for other lads as deliberate and gawky +as himself had bothered her all the week with the same +demand. Hands! hands! you would think, said she, they were +all at the door wi’ a bunch of finger-rings bound to marry +her right or wrong, even if they had to put them on her +nose. Of course she knew finely what they were +after—she knew that each blate wooer wanted a partner for +the ball, and could only clench the compact with a pair of +gloves; but just at present she was not in trim for balls, and +landsmen had no interest for her since her heart was on the +brine. Some of them boldly guessed at seven-and-a-halfs +without inquiry, and were dumfoundered that she would not look at +them; and one had acquired a pair of roomy white cotton ones with +elastic round the top—a kind of glove that plays a solemn +part at burials, having come upon Miss Minto when her stock of +festive kids was done. They waylaid Kate coming with her +basket from the mangle—no, thanky, she was needing no +assistance; or she would find them scratching at the window after +dark; or hear them whistling, whistling, whistling—oh, so +softly!—in the close. There are women rich and nobly +born who think that they are fortunate, and yet, poor dears! they +never heard the whistling in the close. Kate’s case +was terrible! By day, in her walks abroad in her new +merino, not standing so much as a wink, or paying any heed to a +“Hey, Kate, what’s your hurry?” she would blast +them with a flashing eye. By night, hearing their signals, +she showed them what she thought of them by putting to the +shutters. “Dir-r-rt!” was what she called them, +with her nose held high and every “r” a rattle on the +lug for them—this to Bud, who could not understand the new +distaste Kate had to the other sex. “Just dirt below +my feet! I think myself far far above them.”</p> +<p><a name="page131"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 131</span>One +evening Mr Dyce came in from his office and quizzed her in the +lobby. “Kate,” said he, “I’m not +complaining, but I wish you would have mercy on my +back-door. There’s not a night I have come home of +late but if I look up the close I find a lad or two trying to +bite his way into you through the door. Can you no’ +go out, like a good lass, and talk at them in the Gaelic—it +would serve them right! If you don’t, steps will have +to be taken with a strong hand, as you say yourself. What +are they wanting? Bless my soul! can this—can this be +love?”</p> +<p>She ran to the sanctuary of the kitchen, plumped in a chair, +and was swept away in a storm of laughter and tears that +frightened Bud, who waited there a return of her aunts from the +Women’s Guild. “Why, Kate, what’s the +matter?” she asked.</p> +<p>“Your un—your un—un—uncle’s +blaming me for harbouring all them chaps about the door, and says +it’s l-l—love: oh dear! I’m black +affronted.”</p> +<p>“You needn’t go into hysterics about a little +thing like that,” said Bud; “Uncle Dan’s +tickled to death to see so many beaux you have, wanting you to +that ball; he said last night he had to walk between so many of +them waiting for you there in front, it was like shassaying up +the middle in the Haymakers.”</p> +<p>“It’s not hysterics, nor hersterics either,” +said the maid; “and oh, I wish I was out of here and back +in the isle of Colonsay!”</p> +<p>Yes, Colonsay became a great place then. America, where +the prospects for domestics used to be so fascinating, had lost +its glamour since Bud had told her the servants there were as +discontented as in Scotland, and now her native isle beat +Paradise. She would talk by the hour, at a washing, of its +charms, of which the greatest seemed to be the absence of public +lamps and the way you heard the wind! Colonsay seemed to be +a place where folk were always happy, meeting in each +other’s houses, <a name="page132"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 132</span>dancing, singing, courting, +marrying, getting money every now and then from sons or wealthy +cousins in Australia. Bud wondered if they never did any +work in Colonsay. Yes, yes, indeed! Kate could assure her, +they worked quite often out in Colonsay—in the winter +time.</p> +<p>But one thing greatly troubled her—she must write back +at once to the only Charles, who so marvellously had come to her +through Bud’s unconscious offices, and she knew she could +never sustain the standard of hand-write, spelling, and +information Bud had established in her first epistle. Her +position was lamentable. It was all very well to be the +haughty madam on the street, and show herself a wise-like modest +gyurl, but what was that without the education? C. Maclean +was a man of education—he got it on the yats among the +gentry, he had travelled all the world!</p> +<p>Kate’s new airs, that caused such speculation in the +town, were—now let me tell you—all the result of a +dash at education. She wanted to be able to write a letter +as good as Bud in a week or two, and had engaged the child to +tutor her.</p> +<p>Bud never found a more delicious game in all her life, and it +hurried her convalescence, for to play it properly she must be +Aunt Ailie, and Aunt Ailie was always so strong and well.</p> +<p>“Education,” said Bud, who had a marvellous +memory, and was now, you will notice, Ailie Dyce, sitting on a +high chair, with the maid on a stool before +her,—“education is not what a lot of sillies think it +is; it isn’t knowing everything. Lots try for it that +way, and if they don’t die young, just when they’re +going to win the bursary, they grow up horrid bores, that nobody +asks to picnics. You can’t know everything, not if +you sit up cramming till the cows come home; and if you want to +see a brainy person jump, ask him how his mother raised her +dough. Miss Katherine MacNeill, never—<span +class="GutSmall">NEVER</span>—NEVER be ashamed of not +knowing a thing, but <a name="page133"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 133</span>always be ashamed of not wanting to +know. That’s Part One. Don’t you think +you should have an exercise-book, child, and take it +down?”</p> +<p>“Toots! what’s my head for?” said the +servant</p> +<p>“Uncle Dan says education is knowing what you +don’t know, and knowing where to find it out without the +other people knowing; but he says in most places you can get the +name of having it fine and good by talking loud and pushing all +your goods in front of you in a big enough barrow. And +Auntie Bell—she says the fear of God is the beginning of +wisdom, and the rest of it is what she skipped at Barbara +Mushet’s Seminary. But I tell you, child (said the +echo of Ailie Dyce), that education’s just another name for +love.”</p> +<p>“My stars! I never knew that before,” cried +the servant; “I’m awful glad about +Charles!”</p> +<p>“It isn’t that kind of love,” Bud hurriedly +explained, “though it’s good enough, for that’s +too easy. You’re only on the trail for education when +you love things so you’ve simply <i>got</i> to learn as +much as is good for your health about them. +Everything’s sweet—oh, so sweet—all the +different countries, and the different people, when you +understand, and the woods, and the things in them, and all the +animals,—’cepting maybe puddocks, though it’s +likely God made them too when He was kind of careless,—and +the stars, and the things men did, and +women,—’specially those that’s dead, poor +dears!—and all the books, ’cepting the stupid ones +Aunt Ailie simply <i>can’t</i> stand, though she never lets +on to the ladies who like that kind.”</p> +<p>“My Lord! must you love them all?” asked the maid, +astonished.</p> +<p>“Yes, you must, my Lord,” said Bud. +“You’ll never know the least thing well in this world +unless you love it. It’s sometimes mighty hard, I +allow. I hated the multiplication table, but now I love +it—at least, I kind of love it up to seven times nine, and +then it’s almost horrid, but not so horrid as it <a +name="page134"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 134</span>was before +I knew that I would never have got to this place from Chicago +unless a lot of men had learned the table up as far as twelve +times twelve.”</p> +<p>“I’m not particular about the multiplication +table,” said the maid, “but I want to be truly +refined, the same as you said in yon letter to Charles. I +know he’ll be expecting it.”</p> +<p>“H-m-m-m-m!” said Bud thoughtfully, “I +s’pose I’ll have to ask Auntie Ailie about that, for +I declare to goodness I don’t know where you get it, for +it’s not in any of the books I’ve seen. She +says it’s the One Thing in a lady, and it grows inside you +someway, like—like—like your lungs, I guess. +It’s no use trying to stick it on outside with lessons on +the piano or the mandoline, and parlour talk about poetry, and +speaking mim as if you had a clothes-pin in your mouth, and +couldn’t say the least wee thing funny without it was a bit +you’d see in ‘Life and Work.’ Refinement, +some folk think, is not laughing right out.”</p> +<p>“My stars!” said Kate.</p> +<p>“And Auntie Bell says a lot think it’s not knowing +any Scotch language and pretending you never took a tousy +tea.”</p> +<p>“I think,” said Kate, “we’ll never +mind refining; it’s an awful bother.”</p> +<p>“But every lady must be refined,” said Bud. +“Ailie prosists in that.”</p> +<p>“I don’t care,” said the maid; +“I’m not particular about being very much of a +lady,—I’ll maybe never have the jewellery for +it,—but I would like to be a sort of lady on the Sundays, +when Charles is at home. I’m not hurryin’ you, +my dear, but—but when do we start the writin’?” +and she yawned in a way that said little for the interest of +Professor Bud’s opening lecture.</p> +<p>Whereupon Bud explained that in a systematic course of +education reading came first, and the best reading was +Shakespeare, who was truly ennobling <a name="page135"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 135</span>to the human mind. She brought +in Auntie Ailie’s Shakespeare, and sat upon the fender, and +plunged Kate at once into some queer society at Elsinore. +But, bless you! nothing came of it: Kate fell asleep, and woke to +find the fire cold and the child entranced with Hamlet.</p> +<p>“Oh dear! it’s a slow job getting your +education,” she said pitifully, “and all this time +there’s my dear Charles waiting for a letter!”</p> +<h2><a name="page136"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +136</span>CHAPTER XVI.</h2> +<p>“I <span class="smcap">canna</span> be bothered with +that Shakespeare,” Kate cried hopelessly, after many days +of him; “the man’s a mournin’ thing! +Could he not give us something cheery, with ‘Come, all ye +boys!’ in it, the same as the trawlers sing in +Colonsay? There was far more fun last week in the penny +Horner.”</p> +<p>So Bud dipped in the bottomless well of knowledge again and +scooped up Palgrave’s ‘Golden Treasury,’ and +splashed her favourite lyrics at the servant’s feet. +Kate could not stand the ‘Golden Treasury’ either; +the songs were nearly all so lamentable they would make a body +greet. Bud assured her on the best authority that the +sweetest songs were those that told of saddest thought, but Kate +said that might be right enough for gentry who had no real +troubles of their own, but they weren’t the thing at all +for working folk. What working folk required were songs +with tunes to them, and choruses that you could tramp time to +with your feet. History, too, was as little to her taste; +it was all incredible,—the country could never have kept up +so many kings and queens. But she liked geography, for the +map enabled her to keep an eye on Charles as he went from port to +port, where letters in her name, but still the work of Lennox, +would be waiting for him.</p> +<p>The scheme of education was maintained so long because the +town had come upon its melancholy days and Bud began to feel +depression, so that playing teacher was her only joy. The +strangers <a name="page137"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +137</span>had gone south with the swallows; the steamer no longer +called each day to make the pavement noisy in the afternoon with +the skliff of city feet, so different from the customary tread of +tackety boots; the coachman’s horn, departing, no longer +sounded down the valley like a brassy challenge from the wide, +wide world. Peace came to the burgh like a swoon, and all +its days were pensive. Folk went about their tasks +reluctant, the very smoke of the chimneys loitered lazily round +the ridges where the starlings chattered, and a haze was almost +ever over the hills. When it rose, sometimes, Bud, from her +attic window, could see the road that wound through the distant +glen. The road!—the road!—ah, that began to +have a meaning and a kind of cry, and wishfully she looked at it +and thought upon its other end, where the life she had left and +read about was loudly humming and marvellous things were being +done. Charles Maclean of Oronsay, second mate, whom she +loved unto destruction, now that he was writing regularly, fairly +daft himself to get such charming curious letters as he thought +from Kate, had been adjusted by the doctor, and was once again on +the heaving main. It would be Cardiff or Fleetwood, +Hamburg, Santander, or Bilbao, whose very name is like a story, +and his tarry pen, infected by the child’s example, induced +to emulation, always bravely sought to give some picture of the +varied world through which he wandered. Of noisy ports did +he communicate, crowded with ships, of streets and lofty +warehouses, and places where men sang, and sometimes of the +playhouse, where the villain was a bad one and the women were so +braw.</p> +<p>“What is braw?” asked Bud.</p> +<p>“It’s fine clothes,” said Kate; “but +what’s fine clothes if you are not pure in heart and have a +figure?” and she surveyed with satisfaction her own plump +arms.</p> +<p>But the child guessed at a wider meaning for the word as +Charles used it, and thought upon the <a name="page138"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 138</span>beauteous clever women of the plays +that she had seen herself in far Chicago, and since her vicarious +lover would have thought them braw and plainly interesting, she +longed to emulate them, at least to see them again. And, +oh! to see the places that he wrote of, and hear the thundering +wheels and jangling bells! And there was also Auntie +Ailie’s constant stimulus to thoughts and aspirations that +could meet no satisfaction in this little town. Bell dwelt +continually within the narrow walls of her immediate duty, +content, like many, thank the Lord! doing her daily turns as best +she could, dreaming of nothing nobler. Dan had ranged wider +in his time, and knew the world a great deal better, and had seen +so much of it was illusion, its prizes +“Will-o’-the-wisp,” that now his wild geese +were come home. He could see the world in the looking-glass +in which he shaved, and there was much to be amused at. But +Ailie’s geese were still flying far across the firmament, +knowing no place of rest. The child had bewitched her! it +was often the distant view for her now, the region unattainable; +and though apparently she had long ago surrendered to her +circumstances, she now would sometimes silently irk at her +prisoning here, in sleep-town, where we let things slide until +to-morrow, while the wild birds of her inclination flew around +the habitable wakeful world. Unwittingly—no, not +unwittingly always—she charged the child with curiosity +unsatisfiable, and secret discontent at little things and narrow, +with longings for spacious arenas and ecstatic crowded +hours. To be clever, to be brave and daring, to venture and +make a glorious name!—how her face would glow and all her +flesh would quiver picturing lives she would have liked to live +if only she had had the chance! How many women are like +that! silent by the hearth, seemingly placid and content as they +darn and mend and wait on the whim and call of dullards.</p> +<p>Bell might be content and busy with small affairs, but she had +a quick, shrewd eye, and saw the child’s <a +name="page139"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +139</span>unrest. It brought her real distress, for so had +the roving spirit started in her brother William. Sometimes +she softly scolded Lennox, and even had contemplated turning her +into some other room from the attic that had the only window in +the house from which the highroad could be seen, but Ailie told +her that would be to make the road more interesting for the +child. “And I don’t know,” she added, +“that it should worry us if she does indulge herself in +dreams about the great big world and its possibilities. I +suppose she’ll have to take the road some day.”</p> +<p>“Take the road!” cried Bell, almost weeping. +“Are you daft, Ailie Dyce? What need she take the +road for? There’s plenty to do here, and I’m +sure she’ll never be better off anywhere else. A lot +of nonsense! I hope you are not putting notions in her +head; we had plenty of trouble with her father.”</p> +<p>“It would break my heart to lose her, I assure +you,” said Aunt Ailie softly; “but—” and +she ended with a sigh.</p> +<p>“I’m sure you’re content enough +yourself?” said Bell; “and you’re not by any +means a diffy.”</p> +<p>“Indeed I am content,” admitted Ailie; “at +least—at least I’m not complaining. But there +is a discontent that’s almost holy, a roving mood +that’s the salvation of the race. There were, you +mind, the Pilgrim Fathers—”</p> +<p>“I wish to the Lord they had bided at home!” cried +Bell. “There’s never been happy homes in this +Christian land since they started emigration.” And at +that Miss Ailie smiled and Dan began to chuckle.</p> +<p>“Does it not occur to you, Bell,” said he, +“that but for the Pilgrim Fathers there would never have +been Bud?”</p> +<p>“I declare neither there would!” she said, +smiling. “Perhaps it was as well they went, poor +things! And, of course, there must be many an honest decent +body in America.”</p> +<p>“Quite a number!” said Ailie. “You +would not <a name="page140"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +140</span>expect this burgh to hold them all, or even Scotland: +America’s glad to get the overflow.”</p> +<p>“Ah, you’re trying to make me laugh, the pair of +you, and forget my argument,” said Bell; “but +I’ll not be carried away this time. I’m feared +for the bairn, and that’s telling you. Oh, Ailie, +mind what her mother was—poor girl! poor dear girl! +playacting for her living, roving from place to place, with +nothing you could call a home; laughing and greeting and +posturing before lights for the diversion of the +world—”</p> +<p>“We might do worse than give the world diversion,” +said Ailie soberly.</p> +<p>“Yes, yes; but with a painted face and all a vain +profession—that is different, is it not? I love a +jovial heart like Dan’s, but to make the body just a kind +of fiddle! It’s only in the body we can be +ourselves—it is our only home; think of furnishing it with +shams, and lighting every room that should be private, and +leaving up the blinds that the world may look in at a penny +a-head! How often have I thought of William, weeping for a +living, as he had to do sometimes, no doubt, and wondered what +was left for him to do to ease his grief when Mary died. +Oh, curb the child, Ailie! curb the dear wee +lassie,—it’s you it all depends on; she worships you; +the making of her ’s in your hands. Keep her +humble. Keep her from thinking of worldly glories. +Teach her to number her days, that she may apply her heart unto +wisdom. Her mind’s too often out of here and +wandering elsewhere: it was so with William,—it was once +the same with you.”</p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p>Indeed it was no wonder that Bud’s mind should wander +elsewhere, since the life about her had grown so suddenly +dull. In these days Wanton Wully often let his morning +sleep too long possess him, and hurrying through the deserted +dawn with his breeches scarcely on, would ring the bell in a +hasty fury half an hour behind the proper time. But a +little lateness <a name="page141"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +141</span>did not matter in a town that really never woke. +Men went to work in what we call a dover—that is, half +asleep; shopkeepers came blinking drowsily down and took their +shutters off, and went back to breakfast, or, I fear sometimes, +to bed, and when the day was aired and decency demanded that they +should make some pretence at business, they stood by the hour at +their shop doors looking at the sparrows, wagtails, and +blue-bonnets pecking in the street, or at the gulls that +quarrelled in the syver sand. Nothing doing. Two or +three times a-day a cart from the country rumbled down the town, +breaking the Sabbath calm; and on one memorable afternoon there +came a dark Italian with an organ who must have thought that this +at last was Eldorado, so great was his reward from a community +sick of looking at each other. But otherwise nothing doing, +not a thing! As in the dark of the fabled underland the men +who are blind are kings, George Jordon, the silly man, who never +had a purpose, and carried about with him an enviable eternal +dream, seemed in that listless world the only wide-awake, for he +at least kept moving, slouching somewhere, sure there was work +for him to do if only he could get at it. Bairns dawdled to +the schools, dogs slept in the track where once was summer +traffic; Kate, melancholy, billowed from the kitchen window, and +into the street quite shamelessly sang sad old Gaelic songs which +Mr Dyce would say would have been excellent if only they were put +to music, and her voice was like a lullaby.</p> +<p>One day Bud saw great bands of countless birds depart, passing +above the highroad, and standing in the withering garden heard as +it were without a breath of wind the dry rattle of dead leaves +fall. It frightened her. She came quickly in to the +tea-table, almost at her tears.</p> +<p>“Oh, it’s dre’ffle,” she said. +“It’s Sunday all the time, without good clothes and +the gigot of mutton for dinner. I declare I want to +yell.”</p> +<p>“Dear me!” said Miss Bell cheerfully, “I was +just <a name="page142"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +142</span>thinking things were unusually lively for the time of +year. There’s something startling every other +day. Aggie Williams found her fine new kitchen-range too +big for the accommodation, and she has covered it with cretonne +and made it into a what-not for her parlour. Then +there’s the cantata—I hear the U.P. choir is going to +start to practise it whenever Duncan Gill, next door to the hall, +is gone: he’s near his end, poor body! they’re +waiting on, but he says he could never die a Christian death if +he had to listen to them at their operatics through the +wall.”</p> +<p>“It’s not a bit like this in Chicago,” said +the child, and her uncle chuckled.</p> +<p>“I daresay not,” said he. “What a pity +for Chicago! Are you wearying for Chicago, +lassie?”</p> +<p>“No,” said Bud, deliberating. “It was +pretty smelly, but my! I wish to goodness folk here had a little +git-up-and-go to them!”</p> +<p>“Indeed, I daresay it’s not a bit like +Chicago,” admitted Auntie Bell. “It pleases +myself that it’s just like Bonnie Scotland.”</p> +<p>“It’s not a bit like Scotland either,” said +Bud. “I calc’lated Scotland ’d be like a +story-book all the time, chock-full of men-at-arms and +Covenanters, and things father used to talk about, Sundays, when +he was kind of mopish, and wanted to make me Scotch. +I’ve searched the woods for Covenanters and can’t +find one; they must have taken to the tall timber, and I +haven’t seen any men-at-arms since I landed, ’cepting +the empty ones up in the castle lobby.”</p> +<p>“What <i>did</i> you think Scotland would be like, +dear?” asked Ailie.</p> +<p>“Between me and Winifred Wallace, we figured it would be +a great place for chivalry and constant trouble among the crowned +heads. I expected there’d be a lot of ‘battles +long ago,’ same as in the Highland Reaper in the sweet, +sweet G.T.”</p> +<p>“What’s G.T.?” asked Auntie Bell; and Bud +laughed slyly, and looked at her smiling Auntie <a +name="page143"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 143</span>Ailie, and +said: “We know, Auntie Ailie, don’t we? +It’s GRAND! And if you want to know, Auntie Bell, +it’s just Mister Lovely Palgrave’s ‘Golden +Treasury.’ <i>That’s</i> a book, my Lord! +I expected there’d be battles every day—”</p> +<p>“What a bloodthirsty child!” said Miss Ailie.</p> +<p>“I don’t mean truly truly battles,” Bud +hurried to explain, “but the kind that’s the same as +a sound of revelry off—no blood, but just a lot of +bang. But I s’pose battles are gone out, like iron +suits. Then I thought there’d be almost nothing but +cataracts and ravines and—and—mountain-passes, and +here and there a right smart Alick in short trunks and a feather +in his hat, winding a hunting-horn. I used to think, when I +was a little, wee, silly whitterick, that you wound a horn every +Saturday night with a key, just like a clock; but I’ve +known for years and years it’s just blowing. The way +father said, and from the things I read, I calc’lated all +the folk in Scotland ’d hate each other like poison, and +start a clan, and go out chasing all the other clans with direful +slogans and bagpipes skirling wildly in the genial breeze. +And the place would be crowded with lovelorn maidens—that +kind with the starched millstones round their necks, like Queen +Mary always wore. My, it must have been rough on dear old +Mary when she fell asleep in church! But it’s not a +bit like that; it’s only like Scotland when I’m in +bed, and the wind is loud, and I hear the geese. Then I +think of the trees all standing out in the dark and wet, and the +hills too, the way they’ve done for years <i>and</i> years, +and the big lonely places with nobody in them, not a light even; +and I get the croodles and the creeps, for that’s Scotland, +full of bogies. I think Scotland’s +stone-dead.”</p> +<p>“It’s no more dead than you are yourself,” +said Miss Bell, determined ever to uphold her native land. +“The cleverest people in the world come from +Scotland.”</p> +<p>“So father used to say; but Jim, he said he <a +name="page144"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 144</span>guessed the +cleverer they were the quicker they came. I’m not a +bit surprised they make a dash from home when they feel so dead +and mopish and think of things and see that road.”</p> +<p>“Road?” said Uncle Dan. “What +road?”</p> +<p>“My road,” said the child. “The one I +see from my window: oh, how it rises and rises and winds and +winds, and it just <i>shrieks</i> on you to come right along and +try.”</p> +<p>“Try what?” asked her uncle curiously.</p> +<p>“I dunno,” said Bud, thinking hard; “Auntie +Ailie knows, and I ’spect Auntie Bell knows too. I +can’t tell what it is, but I fairly tickle to take a walk +along. Other times I feel I’d be mighty afraid to go, +but Auntie Ailie says you should always do the things +you’re afraid to do, for they’re most always the only +things worth doing.”</p> +<p>Mr Dyce, scratching the ear of Footles, who begged at the side +of his chair, looked over the rims of his glasses and scrutinised +the child.</p> +<p>“All roads,” said he, “as you’ll find +a little later, come to the same dead end, and most of us, though +we think we’re picking our way, are all the time at the +mercy of the Schoolmaster, like Geordie Jordon. The only +thing that’s plain in the present issue is that we’re +not brisk enough here for Young America. What do you think +we should do to make things lively?”</p> +<p>“Hustle,” said Bud. “Why, nobody here +moves faster’n a funeral, and they ought to gallop if they +want to keep up with the band.”</p> +<p>“I’m not in a hurry myself,” said her uncle, +smiling. “Maybe that’s because I think +I’m all the band there is, myself. But if you want to +introduce the Chicago system you should start with Mrs +Wright’s Italian warehouse down the street,—the poor +body’s losing money trying to run her shop on philanthropic +principles.”</p> +<p>Bud thought hard a while. +“Phil—phil—What’s a philanthropic +principle?” she asked.</p> +<p><a name="page145"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +145</span>“It’s a principle on which you don’t +expect much interest except in another world,” said her +uncle. “The widow’s what they call a Pilgrim, +hereabouts; if the meek were to inherit the earth in a literal +sense, she would long ago have owned the whole county.”</p> +<p>“A truly Christian woman!” said Miss Bell.</p> +<p>“I’m not denying it,” said Mr Dyce; +“but even a Christian woman should think sometimes of the +claims of her creditors, and between ourselves it takes me all my +time to keep the wholesale merchants from hauling her to +court.”</p> +<p>“How do you manage it?” asked Ailie, with a +twinkle in her eyes; but Dan made no reply,—he coughed and +cleaned his spectacles.</p> +<h2><a name="page146"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +146</span>CHAPTER XVII.</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">There</span> was joy a few days later in +the Dyce’s kitchen when Peter the postman, with a snort +that showed the bitterness of his feelings, passed through the +window a parcel for Kate, that on the face of it had come from +foreign parts. “I don’t ken who it’s +from, and ye’re no’ to think I’m +askin’,” said he; “but the stamps alone for +that thing must have cost a bonny penny.”</p> +<p>“Did they, indeed!” said Kate, with a toss of her +head. “Ye’ll be glad to ken he can well afford +it!” and she sniffed at the parcel, redolent of perfumes +strange and strong.</p> +<p>“Ye needna snap the nose off me,” said the +postman, “I only made the remark. What—what +does the fellow do?”</p> +<p>“He’s a traveller for railway tunnels,” +retorted the maid of Colonsay, and shut the window with a bang, +to tear open the parcel in a frenzy of expectation, and find a +bottle of Genuine Riga Balsam—wonderful cure for +sailors’ wounds!—another of Florida Water, and a +silver locket, with a note from Charles saying the poem she had +sent was truly grand, and wishing her many happy returns of the +day. Like many of Charles’s letters now, its meaning +was, in parts, beyond her, until she could learn from Bud the +nature of the one to which it was an answer,—for Bud was so +far enraptured with the wandering sailor that she sometimes sent +him letters which the servant never saw. That day the +breakfast service smelt of Florida Water, for Kate had <a +name="page147"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 147</span>drenched +herself with the perfume, and Miss Bell was sure she had washed +the dishes again with scented soap, as was the habit of the girl +when first she came from Colonsay, and thought that nothing but +Brown Windsor would do justice to Grandma Buntain’s tea-set +used on Sundays. But Bud could see the signs of Shipping +Intelligence, and, as soon as she could, she hastened to the +kitchen, for it was Saturday, and on Saturdays there were no +lessons in the Dyce Academy. Oh! how she and Kate fondled +the bottles lovingly, and sniffed passionately at their contents, +and took turn about of the locket! The maid had but one +regret, that she had no immediate use for Riga Balsam; but Bud +was more devoted than that—she gently pricked the palm of +her hand with a pin and applied the Genuine. “Oh! how +he must love me—us, I mean,” she exclaimed, and +eagerly devoured his letter.</p> +<p>“What did you say to him in the last?” asked +Kate. “He’s talking there about a poetry, and +happy returns of the day.”</p> +<p>Bud confessed she had made a poem for him from his beloved +Kate, and had reckoned on fetching a gift of candy by telling him +her birthday was on Monday. “But really I’d +just as lief have the balsam,” said she, “it’s +perfectly lovely; how it nips!”</p> +<p>“It’s not my birthday at all,” said +Kate. “My birthday’s always on the second +Sunday in September. I was born about the same time as Lady +Anne—either a fortnight before or a fortnight after; I +forget mysel’ completely which it was, and I daresay so +does she.”</p> +<p>“No, but Monday’s my birthday, right +enough,” said Bud, “and seeing that we’re sort +of loving him in company, I s’posed it would be all the +same.”</p> +<p>“So it is, I’m not complainin’,” said +the maid. “And now we’ll have to send him +something back. What would you recommend?”</p> +<p>They considered many gifts appropriate for a +sailor,—sou’-westers, Bible-markers, <a +name="page148"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 148</span>woollen +comforters, and paper-knives, scarf-pins, gloves, and ties. +Bud was sure that nothing would delight him like a book about a +desert island, but Kate said no, a pipe was just the very +ticket—a wooden pipe with silver mountings; the very one to +suit was in the window of Mrs Wright’s Italian +warehouse.</p> +<p>“What’s an Italian warehouse?” asked the +child.</p> +<p>“You have me there!” said Kate, “unless, +maybe, her husband was Italian before he went and died on +her. ‘Italian Warehouse’ is the only thing +that’s on her sign. She sells a thing for almost any +price you like to offer, because the Bible says it’s not +the thing at all to argy-bargy.”</p> +<p>“<i>I</i> know,” said Bud; “it’s what +we call running a business on—on—on philanthropic +principles. I’d love to see a body do it. +I’ll run out and buy the pipe from Mrs Wright, +Kate.”</p> +<p>She departed on her errand down the town, at the other side of +the church; and the hours of the forenoon passed, and dinner-time +was almost come, and still there was no sign of her +returning. Kate would have lost her patience and gone to +seek for her, but found so much to interest at the window that +she quite forgot her messenger. Something out of the +ordinary was happening on the other side of the church. +Wanton Wully knew what it was, but of course he was not telling, +for he was out as public crier, rousing the town with his +hand-bell, and shouting “Notice!” with an air that +promised some tremendous tidings; but beyond mysterious words +like “bed-rock prices,” which he mumbled from a paper +in his hand, there was nothing to show this proclamation differed +from the common ones regarding herring at the quay or a sale of +delf down-by at John Turner’s corner. “What are +ye crying?” they asked him, but being a man with the belief +that he had a voice as clear as a concert-singer, he would not +condescend to tell them. Only when some one looked across +his shoulder and read the paper for himself was it found that a +sale described as “Revolutionary” <a +name="page149"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 149</span>was taking +place at the Italian warehouse. Half the town at once went +to see what the decent body was up to. Kate saw them +hurrying down, and when they came back they were laughing. +“What’s the ploy?” she asked a passer-by.</p> +<p>“A sale at the Pilgrim weedow’s,” she was +told. “She’s put past her Spurgeon’s +Sermons and got a book about business, and she’s +learnin’ the way to keep an Italian warehoose in +Scotch.”</p> +<p>Kate would have been down the town at once to see this marvel +for herself, but her pot was on the boil, and here was the +mistress coming down the stair, crying “Lennox, +Lennox!” The maid’s heart sank. She had +forgotten Lennox, and how could she explain her absence to a lady +so particular? But for the moment she was spared the +explanation, for the bark of Footles filled the street and Mr +Dyce came into the lobby, laughing.</p> +<p>“You’re very joco!” said his sister, helping +him off with his coat. “What are you laughing +at?”</p> +<p>“The drollest thing imaginable,” said he. +“I have just left Captain Consequence in a terrible rage +about a letter that a boy has brought to him from Mrs +Wright. He’s one of the folk that boast of paying as +they go but never make a start. It seems he’s as much +in debt to her as to most of the other merchants in the place, +but wasn’t losing any sleep about it, for she’s such +a softy. This letter has given him a start. He showed +it to me, with the notion that it was a libel or a threat that +might be actionable, but I assured him I couldn’t have +written one more to the point myself. It said that unless +he paid at once, something would be apt to happen that would +create him the utmost astonishment.”</p> +<p>“Mercy on us! That’s not very like the +widow: she must be getting desperate.”</p> +<p>“It was the wording of the thing amused me,” said +Mr Dyce, walking into the parlour, still chuckling, +“‘something will be apt to happen that will create +you the utmost astonishment’—it suggests such <a +name="page150"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 150</span>awful +possibilities. And it’s going to serve it’s +purpose too, for the Captain’s off to pay her, sure it +means a scandal.”</p> +<p>Kate took the chance to rush round the kirk in search of her +messenger. “This way for the big bargains!” +cried some lads coming back from the Italian warehouse, or, +“Hey! ye’ve missed a step”—which shows +how funny we can be in the smallest burgh towns; but Kate said +nothing, only “trash!” to herself in indignation, and +tried by holding in her breath to keep from getting red.</p> +<p>The shop of the Pilgrim widow suffered from its signboard, +that was “far too big for its job, like the sweep that +stuck in my granny’s chimney,” as Mr Dyce said. +Once the sign had been P. & A.’s, but P. & +A.’s good lady tired of hearing her husband nicknamed the +Italian, and it went back to the painter, who partly paid with it +a debt to the Pilgrim widow, who long since rued her +acquisition. She felt in her soul it was a worldly +vanity,—that a signboard less obtrusive on the public eye +would more befit herself and her two meek little windows, where +fly-papers, fancy goods, sweetmeats, cigarettes, country eggs, +and cordial invitations to the Pilgrims Mission Bethel every +Friday (<i>D.</i> <i>V.</i>), eight o’clock, kept each +other incongruous and dusty company. A decent pious widow, +but ah! so wanting any saving sense of guile. The Pilgrim +Mission was the thing she really lived for, and her shop was the +Cross she bore. But to-day it was scarcely recognisable: +the windows had been swept of their stale contents, and one was +filled with piles of rosy apples, the other with nuts that poured +in a tempting cataract from a cask upset with an air of reckless +prodigality. A large hand-lettered bill was in each window; +one said—</p> +<p style="text-align: center">HALLOWE’EN! ARISE AND +SHINE!</p> +<p>and the other—</p> +<p style="text-align: center">DO IT NOW!</p> +<p><a name="page151"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 151</span>what +was to be done being left to the imagination. All forenoon +there had been a steady flow of customers, who came out of the +shop with more than nuts or apples, greatly amazed at the change +in the Pilgrim widow, who was cracking up her goods like any +common sinner. Behind the railed and curtained box in which +she was supposed to keep her books and pray for the whole +community, there seemed to be some secret stimulating influence, +for when bad payers tried to-day to get a thing on credit, and +she was on the point of yielding, she would dart into the box and +out again as hard as steel, insisting that at every Revolutionary +Sale the terms were cash. She was giving bargains, but at +her own price, never at her customers’, as it used to +be. The Health Saline—extract of the finest fruit, +Cooling, Refreshing, Invigorating, Tonic (though indeed it looked +like an old friend from Rochelle with a dash of sugar and +tartaric)—was down a ha’penny, to less than what it +cost, according to another hand-done bill upon the counter. +When they asked her how she could afford to sell the stuff below +its cost, she seemed ashamed and startled, till she had a moment +in behind the curtains, and then she told them it was all because +of the large turn-over; she could not afford to sell the saline +under cost if she did not sell it in tremendous quantities.</p> +<p>Did they want Ward’s Matchless Polishing +Paste?—alas (after a dash behind the curtains) she was +completely out of it. Of late it had been in such great +demand that she got tired of ordering it every other week +wholesale. Yes, she was out of Ward’s, but (again the +curtained box) what about this wonderful line in calf-foot jelly, +highly praised by the—by the connoisseurs? What were +connoisseurs? A connoisseur (again on reference behind the +curtains) was one of those wealthy men who could swallow +anything.</p> +<p>“I’ll tell ye what it is,” said the tailor, +“I see’t at last! She’s got a book in +there; I’ve seen’t <a name="page152"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 152</span>before—‘The Way to +Conduct a Retail Business’—and when she runs behind, +it’s to see what she should say to the customers. +That’s where she got the notions for her windows and the +‘Do it Now!’”</p> +<p>But he was wrong—completely wrong, for when Kate came +into the shop with “Have you seen Miss Lennox, Mrs +Wright? I sent her here a message hours ago,” Lennox +herself came from the curtained box saying, “Hello, Kate; +saw you first! What can we do for you to-day?”</p> +<p>“My stars! my lady, you’ll catch it!” said +the maid. “They’re waiting yonder on you for +your dinner.”</p> +<p>“I was just heading for home,” said Bud, making +for the door.</p> +<p>“My child! my child! my angel child!” cried the +Pilgrim widow, going to kiss her, but Bud drew back.</p> +<p>“Not to-day, please; I’m miles too big for kissing +to-day,” said she, and marched solemnly out of the Italian +warehouse.</p> +<p>“What in the world were you doing away so long?” +asked Kate. “Were you carrying on at +anything?”</p> +<p>“I was paying for Charles’s pipe,” said the +child, returning the money she had got for its purchase. +“That’s the sweetest lady, Mrs Wright, but my! +ain’t she Baby Mine when it settles down to business? +When I wanted to buy the pipe, she was so tickled she wanted me +to have it for nothing, seeing I was Mr Dyce’s niece. +She said Uncle Dan was a man of God who saved her more than once +from bankruptcy, and it was a pretty old pipe anyway, that had +been in the window since the time she got changed and dropped +brocaded dolmans. You’d think it made her ache to +have folk come in her shop and spend money; I guess she was +raised for use in a free soup-kitchen. I said I’d +take the pipe for nothing if she’d throw in a little game +with it. ‘What game?’ said she—oh, +she’s a nice lady!—<a name="page153"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 153</span>and I said I was just dying to have +a try at keeping a really really shop, and would show her Chicago +way. <i>And you bet I did</i>, <i>Kate +MacNeill</i>!”</p> +<p>She came in with the soup, but no question was put till her +uncle asked the blessing, and then, before a spoon was lifted, +Auntie Bell said, “Lassie, lassie, where in the world have +you been?”</p> +<p>“Keeping shop for Mrs Wright,” said Bud.</p> +<p>“Tcht! tcht! you’re beyond redemption,” +cried her aunt. “A child like you keeping +shop!”</p> +<p>“A bonny pair of shopkeepers, the widow and you! +Which of you counted the change?” said Uncle Dan. +“Tell us all about it.”</p> +<p>“Well, I had the loveliest time,” said Bud. +“It would take till tea-time to tell just ’zactly +what a lovely day it was, but I’ll hurry up and make it a +front scene. What you said, Uncle Dan, about her running a +shop on phil—on philanthropic principles made me keen to +see her doing it, and I went down a message for Kate, and offered +to help. She ’lowed herself she wasn’t the best +there was in the land at keeping shop, and didn’t seem to +make much money at it, but said thank the Lord she had the +priceless boon of health. I was the first customer +she’d set eyes on all the morning, ’cept a man that +wanted change for half-a-crown and hadn’t the half-crown +with him, but said he’d pay it when he didn’t see her +again, and she said she felt sure that trade was going to take a +turn. I said I thought it would turn quicker +if—if—if she gave it a push herself, and she said she +dared say there was something in it, and hoped I was in the +fold. I said I was, sure, and at that she cried out +‘Hallelujah!’ Every other way she was a +perfectly perfect lady; she made goo-goo eyes at me, and skipped +round doing anything I told her. First she cleared all the +old truck out of the windows, and filled them up with nuts and +apples for Hallowe’en, till they looked the way windows +never looked in Scotland in all creation before, I +s’pose. ‘They’ll think it kind of +daft,’ says she, <a name="page154"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 154</span>scared-like, ‘they’re +not like any other windows in the place.’ ‘Of +course not,’ I said, ‘and that’s the very thing +to jar the eye of the passer-by.’ Jim Molyneux said a +shop-window was like a play-bill, it wanted a star line—a +feature—a whoop. Then I tried to think of the +’cute things shopkeepers print in Chicago, but +couldn’t remember any ’cepting ‘Pants two +dollars a leg, seats free,’ but the widow said she +didn’t sell pants. Then I thought of some natty +little cards I’d seen that said ‘Arise and +Shine!’ and ‘Do it Now!’ so I got her to print +these words good and big, and put them in the window. She +wanted to know what they meant, but I said I couldn’t tell +from Adam, but they would make the people wonder, and come in the +shop to find out, and then it would be up to her to sell them +something and pry the money out of them before they +baulked. Oh, Auntie, how I go on!” and here Bud +stopped almost breathless and a little ashamed.</p> +<p>“Go on! go on!” cried Ailie.</p> +<p>“Well, I got behind a curtain into a little box-office, +where the widow kept a cash-book awfully doggy-eared, and a pile +of printed sermons, and heaps of tracts about doing to others as +you should be done by, and giving to the poor and lending to the +Lord. She read bits of them to me, and said she sometimes +wondered if Captain Brodie was too poor to pay for eighteen +months’ tobacco, but she didn’t like to press him, +seeing he had been in India and fought his country’s +battles. She said she felt she must write him again for her +money, but couldn’t think of what to say that would be +Christian and polite and gentle, but still make him see she +wanted the money pretty bad. I said I would tell her what +to say that would suit just fine, and I dictated +it—”</p> +<p>“I saw the letter,” said Uncle Dan, twinkling +through his glasses. “It was a work of +genius,—go on! go on!”</p> +<p>“Then folk began to come in for nuts and apples, <a +name="page155"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 155</span>and asked +what ‘Arise and Shine’ and ‘Do it Now’ +meant. She said they were messages from the angel of the +Lord—meaning me, I s’pose,—though, goodness +knows, I’m not much of an angel, am I, Auntie Bell? +Then the folk would fade away, looking a bit rattled, and come +back in a while and ask the price of things. She’d +say she wasn’t sure, but she thought about a shilling, or +maybe ninepence seeing they had a young family, and then +they’d want the stuff on credit, and she’d yammer +away to them till I got wild. When they were gone I had a +good heart-to-heart talk with her, and said +phil—philanthropic principles were a great mistake in a +small Italian warehouse, and that she ought to give the customers +a chance of doing unto others as they would be done by. She +made more goo-goo eyes at me, and said I was a caution, sure +enough, and perhaps I was right, for she had never looked at it +that way before. After that she spunked up wonderful. +I got her to send Mr Wanton through the town with his bell, +saying there was everything you wanted at Mrs Wright’s at +bed-rock prices; and when people came in after that and wanted to +get things for nothing, or next to it, she’d pop into the +box where I lay low, and ask me what she was to say next, and +then skip out to them as sharp as a tack and show they +needn’t try to toy with her. She says she made more +money to-day by my playing shop Chicago-way than she’d make +in a week her own way. Why, I’m talking, and talking, +and talking, and my soup’s stone-cold!”</p> +<p>“So’s mine,” said Uncle Dan, with a +start.</p> +<p>“And mine!” said Auntie Ailie, with a smile.</p> +<p>“And mine too, I declare!” cried Miss Bell, with a +laugh they all joined in, till Footles raised his voice +protesting.</p> +<h2><a name="page156"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +156</span>CHAPTER XVIII.</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">Yes</span>, that was one bright day in the +dismal season, the day she tutored the Pilgrim widow in the newer +commerce. There was a happy night to follow soon, and it is +my grief that my pen cannot grasp the spirit of it, so that +reading you would laugh with her and whiles be eerie. +’Tis true, there was little in the thing itself, as in most +that at the age of twelve impress us for all our lives, but it +met in some degree the expectations that her father’s tales +of Scotland had sent home with her. Hitherto all had been +natural and wellnigh commonplace that she had experienced, all +except the folk so queer and kind and comical in a different way +from those in Chicago, the sounds she could hear as she lay in +her attic bed—the wind-call, and the honk of geese, and the +feeling of an island hopelessly remote from the new bright world +that best she knew,—remote and lost, a speck on the sea +far, far from great America. The last things vaguely +troubled her. For she was child enough as yet to shiver at +things not touched by daylight nor seemingly made plain by the +common-sense of man. She could laugh at the ghosts that +curdled the blood of the maid of Colonsay; and yet at times, by +an effort of the will, she could feel all Kate’s terror at +some manifestation no more alarming than the cheep of mice or a +death-watch ticking in a corner cupboard. These were but +crude and vulgar fears, self-encouraged little actress +terrors. It took more than the hint of ghost or the menace +of the <a name="page157"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +157</span>ticking insect in the wood to wake in her the feeling +of worlds unrealised, encompassing, that she could get from +casual verses in her Auntie Ailie’s book of Scottish +ballads, or find o’erwhelm her of a sudden on looking from +her window into the garden bare and pallid below the moon.</p> +<p>This night there should be moon according to the penny +almanac, and Wanton Wully lit no lamps, but went home for a good +sleep to himself, as his saying went, and left the burgh to such +illumination as should come to it by the caprice of the +clouds. It lay, the little place, for most of the night in +darkness: a mirk so measureless deep, when the shops were shut, +that the red-lit skylight windows at the upper end of the town +seemed by some miracle to lift themselves and soar into the +heavens—square, monstrous flitting stars to the vision of +Bud, as she stood with Auntie Ailie at the door watching for +Uncle Dan’s return from his office. To bring the +soaring windows back to their natural situation, she had to stand +a little way inside the lobby and establish their customary place +against the darkness by the lintel of the door.</p> +<p>From the other side of the church came a sound of dull +monotonous drumming—no cheerful rhythmic beat like the +drumming of John Taggart, but a mournful thumping, fitful in +flaws of the bland night wind.</p> +<p>“What’s that, Auntie?” she asked.</p> +<p>“The guizards,” said Miss Ailie, looking down upon +her in the lobby light with a smile she could not see. +“Did you never hear of the guizards, Bud?”</p> +<p>Bud had never heard of the guizards; that was one thing, +surely, her father had forgotten. She had heard of +Hallowe’en, she said, when further questioned. +Wasn’t it the night for ducking into tubs for apples? +The Pilgrim widow had told her Hallowe’en was coming, and +it was for Hallowe’en she had sold so many nuts and apples; +but the widow said she felt ashamed to do it, for +Hallowe’en was not approved of by the Mission, being +idolatrous and gay. “Is it very gay?” asked Bud +anxiously.</p> +<p><a name="page158"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +158</span>“So I used to think it,” said her aunt.</p> +<p>“Then I s’pose it must be wicked,” said the +child regretfully. “I’d have expected +you’d have Hallowe’en night here in the house if it +hadn’t been very bad. That widow did me a lot of +good, showing me what a heap of happy things are full of +sin. She knew them all! I s’pose she got them +in the tracts. Yes, she did me a lot of good; I—I +almost wish I hadn’t met that widow.”</p> +<p>“Do you feel wicked when you’re gay?” asked +Miss Ailie.</p> +<p>“Mercy on us! not a mite!” said Bud. +“I feel plumb full of goodness when I’m gay; but +that’s my youth and innocence. The widow says it is, +and I guess what she says goes.”</p> +<p>“Still, do you know, my dear, I’d risk a little +gaiety now and then,” said Auntie Ailie. “Who +knows? The widow, though a worthy lady, is what in Scotland +we call an auld wife, and it’s generally admitted that auld +wives of either sex have no monopoly of wisdom. If +you’re wanting pious guidance, Bud, I don’t know +where you’ll get it better than from Auntie Bell; and she +fairly dotes on Hallowe’en and the guizards. +By-and-by you’ll see the guizards, +and—and—well, just wait and we’ll find what +else is to be seen. I do wish your Uncle Dan would +hurry.”</p> +<p>The street was quite deserted, but did not show its vacancy +until the clouds for a moment drifted off the moon that rolled +behind the steeple. Then the long grey stretch of tenements +came out unreal and pale on the other side of the street, their +eaves and chimneys throwing inky shadows, their red-lit windows +growing of a sudden wan. Over them hung the ponderous kirk, +the master shadow, and all—the white-harled walls, the +orange windows, the glittering cold and empty street—seemed +like the vision of a dream. Then the clouds wrapped up the +moon again, and the black was the black of Erebus. But as +it fell, the dull drums seemed to come nearer, and from the head +of the street, the windy corner where <a name="page159"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 159</span>Uncle Dan had his office, small +moons came, purple and golden, fantastically carved. They +ran from house to house, and grouped in galaxies, or singly fell +apart, swinging and giddy orbs. For a moment Bud looked at +them bewildered, then gave a happy scream.</p> +<p>“The lanterns! the lanterns! look at the lanterns, +Auntie. Is that Hallowe’en?”</p> +<p>“That’s part of it, at least,” said her +Aunt. “These are the guizards with their turnip +lanterns; they’re going round the houses singing; by-and-by +we’ll hear them.”</p> +<p>“My! I wish to goodness I had a lantern like that. +To swing a lantern like that ’d feel like being a +lighthouse or the statue of Liberty at New York. I’d +rather have a turnip lantern than a raft of dolls.”</p> +<p>“Did you never have one?”</p> +<p>“No,” said Bud sorrowfully. “You have +no idea what a poor mean place Chicago is—not a thing but +common electric light!” and Miss Ailie smiled gleefully to +herself again like one possessed of a lovely secret. +“I wish that brother of mine would come quickly,” she +said, and at the moment he came out of the darkness to them with +a comical look of embarrassment in his face and in his hand an +unlighted turnip lantern!</p> +<p>“Here, Bud,” said he, “take this, quickly, +before some silly body sees me with it and thinks it’s for +myself. I have the name, I know, of being daft enough +already, and if it gets about the country that Daniel Dyce was +going round at Hallowe’en with a turnip lantern, they would +think he had lost his head in a double sense and it would be very +bad for business.”</p> +<p>“Uncle!” cried the child in ecstasy, +“you’re the loveliest, sweetest man in the whole wide +world.”</p> +<p>“I daresay,” said he. “I have been +much admired when I was younger. But in this case +don’t blame me. I wash my hands of the +responsibility. I got my orders for that thing from your +Auntie Bell.”</p> +<p><a name="page160"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +160</span>“My! ain’t it cute? Did you make +it?” asked Bud, surveying the rudely carved exterior with +delight, and her uncle, laughing, put on his glasses to look at +it himself.</p> +<p>“No,” said he, “though I’ve made a few +of them in my time. All that’s needed is a knife or a +mussel-shell, and a dose of Gregory’s Mixture in the +morning.”</p> +<p>“What’s the Gregory’s Mixture +for?”</p> +<p>“In making a turnip lantern you eat the whole inside of +it,” said Mr Dyce. “Perhaps I might have made +this one myself if it wasn’t that I know I would hate to +see the inside wasted, and still I have mind of the +Gregory. I bought the lantern from a boy at the head of the +street who was looking very gash and ill, and seemed suspiciously +glad to get quit of it. I’m thinking that his +Gregory’s nearly due.”</p> +<p>Bud hardly listened—she was so taken up with her +gift. She pounced at the handle of the kitchen door and +found it snibbed within. “Kate! Kate!” she +cried, “let me in to light my lantern.”</p> +<p>Kate was to be heard moving within, and there was a curious +sound of giggling, but no answer.</p> +<p>“Open the door, quick, quick!” cried Bud again; +and this time Auntie Bell, inside, said, “Yes, open, Kate, +I think we’re ready.”</p> +<p>The door of the kitchen opened, and before the eyes of the +child was a spectacle the more amazing and delightful since all +day they had taken pains to keep the preparations secret. A +dozen children, who had been smuggled in by the back-door in the +close, were seated round a tub of water with floating apples, and +they were waiting her presence to begin their fun.</p> +<p>Oh, how happy was that hour! But not just then came the +thrill of which I’m thinking. It was not the laughter +and the ducking in the tub, the discoveries of rings and buttons, +thimbles, and scuddy little dolls and silver pieces hidden in the +mound of champed potatoes Kate had cooked; nor <a +name="page161"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 161</span>the supper +that followed, nor the mating of nuts on the fire-ribs that gave +the eerie flavour of old time and the book of ballads. She +liked them all; her transport surely was completed when the +guizards entered black-faced, garmented as for a masque, each +thumping a sheepskin stretched on a barrel-hoop—the thing +we call a dallan. She had never discovered before what a +soul of gaiety was in Auntie Bell, demure so generally, +practising sobriety, it might seem, as if she realised her +daffing days were over and it was time for her to remember all +her years. To-night Miss Bell outdid even Ailie in her +merriment, led the games in the spacious kitchen, and said such +droll things, and kept the company in such a breeze that Ailie +cried at last, “I think, Bell, that you’re +fey!”</p> +<p>“Indeed, and I daresay you’re right,” +admitted Bell, sinking in a chair exhausted. “At my +time of life it’s daft; I have not laughed so much since I +was at Barbara Mushet’s seminary.”</p> +<p>Not these things, but the half-hour after, was what made the +evening memorable for the child. Nothing would satisfy her +but that she should light her lantern and convoy the other +children home, so Kate went with her, and the happy band went +through the street, each dropping off at her own house front till +the last was gone, and then Bud and the maid turned back.</p> +<p>But Kate had a project in her mind that had been there all +night since she had burned two nuts for herself and Charles in +the kitchen fire, and found them willing to flame quite snug +together. That so far, was satisfactory, but she wanted +more assurance of the final triumph of her love. There was, +it seemed, a skilful woman up the lane who knew spells and magic, +read tea-cups and the cards, and could unravel dreams. +Notably was she good at Hallowe’en devices, and Bud must +come and see her, for it would not take a minute.</p> +<p>They found their way by the light of the lantern <a +name="page162"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 162</span>to the +spaewife’s door, and to a poor confidant of fate and +fortune surely, since she had not found them kinder to herself, +for she dwelt in a hovel where foolish servant-girls came at +night with laughter and fears to discover what the future held +for them. Bud, standing on the floor in the circle of light +from her own lantern, watched the woman drop the white of an egg +in a glass of water. In the clot of the albumen, which +formed some wavering vague figures, she peered and found, she +said, the masts of ships and a crowded harbour, and that meant a +sailor husband.</p> +<p>“Was I not sure of it!” cried Kate, triumphant; +but that was not the end of the ceremony, for she was bidden to +sip a little from the glass, without swallowing, and go dumb into +the night till she heard the Christian name of a man, and that +was the name of the sailor husband. Kate sipped from the +glass of destiny, and passed with Bud into the darkness of the +lane. It was then there came to the child the delicious +wild eerieness that she was beginning now to coax to her spirit +whenever she could, and feed her fancies on. The light of +the lantern only wanly illumined the lane they hurried through; +so plain and grey and ancient and dead looked the houses pressing +on either hand with windows shuttered, that it seemed to Bud she +had come by magic on a shell as empty of life as the armour in +the castle hall. By-and-by the servant, speechless, stopped +at a corner listening. No sound of human life for a moment, +but then a murmur of voices up the town, to which on an impulse +she started running with Lennox at her heels, less quickly since +the light of her lantern must be nursed from the wind. Bud +fell behind in the race for the voice of fate; the sound of the +footsteps before her died away in the distance, and her light +went out, and there she stood alone for the first time in the +dark of Scotland—Scotland where witches still wrought +spells! A terror that was sweet to think <a +name="page163"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 163</span>of in the +morning, whose memory she cherished all her days, seized on her, +and she knew that all the ballad book was true! One cry she +gave, that sounded shrilly up the street—it was the name of +Charles, and Kate, hearing it, gulped and came back.</p> +<p>“I guessed that would fetch you,” said Bud, +panting. “I was so scared I had to say it, though I +s’pose it means I’ve lost him for a +husband.”</p> +<p>“My stars! you are the clever one!” said the +grateful maid.</p> +<h2><a name="page164"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +164</span>CHAPTER XIX.</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">Spring</span> came, and its quickening; +forest and shrub and flower felt the new sap rise; she grew in +the garden then, the child—in that old Scottish garden, +sheltered lownly in the neuk of the burgh walls. It must +have been because the Dyces loved so much their garden, and spent +so many hours there, that they were so sanely merry, nor let too +often or too long the Scots forebodings quell their spirits, but +got lessons of hope from the circling of the seasons, that give +us beauty and decay in an unvarying alternation.</p> +<p>“It is the time,” used Ailie to say of the spring, +“when a delicious feeling steals over you of wanting to sit +down and watch other people work.”</p> +<p>“I’ll need to have the lawn-mower sharpened; it +may be needed at any moment by the neighbours,” said her +brother Dan.</p> +<p>They watched upspring the green spears of the daffodils, that +by-and-by should bear their flags of gold.</p> +<p>And Wanton Wully, when he was not bell-ringing or cleaning the +streets, or lounging on the quay to keep tally of ships that +never came, being at ports more propinque to the highways of the +world, where folks are making fortunes and losing much innocent +diversion, wrought—as he would call it—in the +Dyce’s garden. Not a great gardener, admittedly, for +to be great in versatility is of necessity to miss perfection in +anything, so that the lowest wages in the markets of the world +are for the handy man. But being handy <a +name="page165"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 165</span>is its own +reward, carrying with it the soothing sense of self-sufficiency, +so we need not vex ourselves for Wully. As he said himself, +he “did the turn” for plain unornamental gardening, +though in truth he seemed to think he did it best when sitting on +his barrow trams, smoking a thoughtful pipe, and watching the +glad spring hours go by at a cost of sixpence each to the lawyer +who employed him.</p> +<p>Bud often joined him on the trams, and gravely listened to +him, thinking that a man who did so many different and +interesting things in a day was wise and gifted beyond +ordinary. In the old and abler years he had been a soldier, +and, nursing flowers nowadays, his mind would oft incongruously +dwell on scenes remote and terribly different, where he had +delved in foreign marl for the burial of fallen comrades.</p> +<p>“Tell me Inkermann again, Mr Wanton,” Bud would +say, “and I’ll shoo off the birds from the +blub-flowers.”</p> +<p>“I’ll do that, my dearie!” he would answer, +filling another pipe, and glad of an excuse to rest from the +gentle toil of raking beds and chasing the birds that nipped the +tips from peeping tulip leaves. “To the mischief with +them birds! the garden’s fair polluted wi’ +them! God knows what’s the use o’ them except +for chirping, chirping— Choo! off wi’ ye at +once or I’ll be after ye!— Ay, ay, +Inkermann. It was a gey long day, I’m tellin’ +ye, from a quarter past six till half-past four; slaughter, +slaughter a’ the time: me wi’ an awfu’ hacked +heel, and no’ a bit o’ anything in my stomach. +A nesty saft day, wi’ a smirr o’ rain. We were +as black as—as black as—as—”</p> +<p>“As black as the Earl o’ Hell’s +waistcoat,” Bud prompted him. “Go on! I +mind the very words.”</p> +<p>“I only said that the once, when I lost the +place,” said Wully, shocked at her glibness in the +uptake. “And it’s not a thing for the like +o’ you to say at all; it’s only the word o’ a +rowdy sodger.”</p> +<p>“Well, ain’t I the limb! I’ll not say +it again,” <a name="page166"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +166</span>promised the child; “you needn’t look as +solemn’s the Last Trump; go on, go on!”</p> +<p>“As black as a ton o’ coal, wi’ the creesh +o’ the cartridges and the poother; it was the Minie gun, ye +ken. And the Rooshians would be just ower there between the +midden and the cold frame, and we would be coming down on +them—it micht be ower the sclates o’ Rodger’s +hoose yonder. We were in the Heavy Diveesion, and I +kill’t my first man that I kent o’ about where the +yellow crocus is. Puir sowl! I had nae ill-will to +the man, I’ll guarantee ye that but we were baith unloaded +when we met each other, and it had to be him or me.”</p> +<p>He paused and firmed his mouth until the lips were lost among +the puckers gathered round them, a curious glint in his eyes.</p> +<p>“Go on!” cried Bud, sucking in her breath with a +horrid expectation; “ye gie’d him—ye +gie’d him—”</p> +<p>“I gie’d him—I tell’t ye what I +gie’d him before. Will I need to say’t +again?”</p> +<p>“Yes,” said Bud, “for that’s your top +note.”</p> +<p>“I gie’d him—I gie’d him the—the +<span class="GutSmall">BAGGONET</span>!” cried the +gardener, with a sudden, frightful, furious flinging of the arms, +and then—oh, silly Wully Oliver!—began to weep, or at +least to show a tear. For Bud had taught him to think of +all that lay beyond that furious thrust of the bayonet—the +bright brave life extinguished, the mother rendered childless, or +the children fatherless, in some Russian home.</p> +<p>Bell, the thrifty woman, looking from the scullery window, and +seeing time sadly wasted at twelve bawbees the hour, would drop +the shawl she was making, and come out and send the child in to +her lessons, but still the orra gardener did not hurry to his +task, for he knew the way to keep Miss Dyce in an idle crack +although she would not sit on his barrow trams.</p> +<p>“A wonderfu’ wean that!” would be his +opening. “A perfect caution! I can see a +difference on her <a name="page167"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +167</span>every day; she grows like a willow withy, and +she’s losin’ yon awfu’ Yankee awcent she had +about her when she came at first. She can speak as bonny +English noo as you or me when she puts her mind +to’t.”</p> +<p>“I’m afraid it would not be very difficult for her +to do that, Willy,” said Miss Bell. “She could +always speak in any way she wanted, and indeed the first time +that we heard her she was just yoursel’ on a New +Year’s morning, even to the hiccough. I hope +you’ll keep a watch on what you say to her; the bairn picks +up the things she hears so fast, and she’s so innocent, +that it’s hardly canny to let her listen much to the talk +of a man that’s been a soldier—not that I blame the +soldiers, Willy, bless them all for Scotland, young or +old!”</p> +<p>“Not a word out of place from me, Miss Dyce,” +would he cry, emphatic. “Only once I lost the place +and slippit out a hell, and could have bit my tongue out for +it. We heard, ye ken, a lot o’ hells out yonder roond +aboot Sevastapol: it wasna Mr Meikle’s Sunday-school. +But ye needna fear that Wully Oliver would learn ill language to +a lady like the wee one. Whatever I am that’s silly +when the dram is in, I hope I’m aye the perfect +gentleman.”</p> +<p>“Indeed I never doubted it,” said Miss Bell. +“But you know yourself we’re anxious that she should +be all that’s gentle, nice, and clean. When +you’re done raking this bed—dear me! I’m +keeping you from getting at it—it’ll be time for you +to go home for dinner. Take a bundle of rhubarb for the +mistress.”</p> +<p>“Thanky, thanky, me’m,” said Wanton Wully, +“but to tell the truth we’re kind o’ tired +o’ rhubarb; I’m getting it by the stone from every +bit o’ grun’ I’m labourin’ in. I +wish folk were so rife wi’ plooms or +strawberries.”</p> +<p>Bell smiled. “It’s the herb of +kindness,” said she. “There’s aye a +reason for everything in nature, and rhubarb’s meant to +keep our generosity in practice.”</p> +<p>And there she would be—the foolish woman! <a +name="page168"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 168</span>keeping him +at the crack, the very thing he wanted, till Mr Dyce himself, +maybe, seeing his silver hours mishandled, would come to send his +sister in, and see that his gardener earned at least a little of +his wages.</p> +<p>“A terrible man for the ladies, William! You must +have had a taking way with you when you were in the Army,” +was all that the lawyer had to say. “There was some +talk about doing a little to the garden, but, hoots man! +don’t let it spoil your smoke!”</p> +<p>It was then you would see Wanton Wully busy.</p> +<p>Where would Bud be then? At her lessons? no, no, you may +be sure of it, but in with Kate of Colonsay giving the maid the +bloody tale of Inkermann. It was a far finer and more +moving story as it came from Bud than ever it was on the lips of +Wanton Wully. From him she only got the fling of the arms +that drove the bayonet home, the lips pursed up, as if they were +gathered by a string, the fire of the moment, and the broad Scots +tongue he spoke in. To what he gave she added fancy and the +drama.</p> +<p>“—as black as a ton o’ coal wi’ the +creesh o’ the cartridges . . . either him or me . . . I +gie’d him . . . I gie’d him . . . I shut my eyes, and +said, ‘O God, Thy pardon!’ and gie’d him the +<span class="GutSmall">BAGGONET</span>!”</p> +<p>Kate’s apron at that would fly up to cover her eyes, for +she saw before her all the bloody spectacle. +“I’m that glad,” she would say, “that my +lad’s a sailor. I couldna sleep one iota at night +thinkin’ of their baggonets if he was a +man-o’-war. And that puts me in mind, my dear, +it’s more than a week since we sent the chap a +letter. Have you time the now to sit and write a scrape to +Hamburg on the Elbow—imports iron ore?”</p> +<p>And Bud had time, and sit she would and write a lovely letter +to Charles Maclean of Oronsay. She told him that her heart +was sore, but she must <a name="page169"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 169</span>confess that she had one time +plighted her troth to a Russian army officer, who died, alas! on +the bloody field. His last words, as his life-blood slowly +ebbed away, were—</p> +<p>“What <i>would</i> be the last words of a Russian +officer who loved you?” asked Bud, biting her pen in her +perplexity.</p> +<p>“Toots! anything—‘my best respects to +Kate,’” said the maid, who had learned by this time +that the letters Charles liked the most were the ones where Bud +most freely used imagination.</p> +<p>“I don’t believe it would,” said Bud. +“It ’d sound far too calm for a man that’s busy +dying;” but she put it down all the same, feeling it was +only fair that Kate should have some say in the letters written +in her name.</p> +<p>That was the day they gave him a hint that a captain was +wanted on the yacht of Lady Anne.</p> +<p>And still Kate’s education made some progress, as you +may see from what she knew of Hamburg, though she was not yet the +length of writing her own love-letters. She would sit at +times at night for hours quite docile, knitting in the kitchen, +listening to the reading of the child. A score of books had +been tried on her by Aunt Ailie’s counsel (for she was in +the secret of this Lower Dyce Academy), but none there was that +hit the pupil’s fancy half so much as her own old favourite +penny novelettes till they came one happy day to ‘The +Pickwick Papers.’ Kate grew very fond of ‘The +Pickwick Papers.’ The fun of them being in a language +quite unknown in Colonsay, was almost all beyond her. But +“that poor Mr Puckwuck!” she would cry at each +untoward accident; “oh, the poor wee man!” and the +folk were as real to her as if she had known them all in +Colonsay. If Dickens could have known the curious +sentiments his wandering hero roused in this Highland servant +mind, he would have greatly wondered.</p> +<p>While Bud was tutoring Kate that spring, Miss <a +name="page170"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 170</span>Bell was +thinking to take up the training of Bud herself in wiselike +housekeeping. The child grew as fast in her mind as in her +body: each day she seemed to drift farther away from the hearth +and into the world from which her auntie would preserve +her—into the world whose doors books widely opened, Auntie +Ailie’s magic key of sympathy, and the genius of +herself. So Bell determined there and then to coax her into +the gentle arts of domesticity that ever had had a fascination +for herself. She went about it, oh, so cunningly! letting +Bud play at the making of beds and the dusting of the stair-rails +and the parlour beltings—the curly-wurly places, as she +called them, full of quirks and holes and corners that the +unelect like Kate of Colonsay will always treat perfunctorily in +a general wipe that only drives the dirt the farther in. +Bud missed not the tiniest corner nor the deepest nook: whatever +she did, she did fastidiously, much to the joy of her aunt, who +was sure it was a sign she was meant by the Lord for a proper +housewife. But the child soon tired of making beds and +dusting, as she did of white-seam sewing; and when Bell deplored +this falling off, Ailie said: “You cannot expect everybody +to have the same gifts as yourself. Now that she has proved +she’s fit to clean a railing properly, she’s not so +much to blame if she loses interest in it. The +child’s a genius, Bell, and to a person of her temperament +the thing that’s easily done is apt to be contemptuous: the +glory’s in the triumph over difficulties, in getting +on—getting on—getting on,” and Ailie’s +face grew warm with some internal fire.</p> +<p>At that speech Bell was silent. She thought it just +another of Ailie’s haiverings; but Mr Dyce, who heard, +suddenly became grave.</p> +<p>“Do you think it’s genius or precocity?” he +asked.</p> +<p>“They’re very much the same thing,” said +Ailie.</p> +<p>“If I could be the child I was; if I could just +remember—” She stopped herself and smiled.</p> +<p>“What vanity!” said she; “what +conceit! If I <a name="page171"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 171</span>could be the child I was, I dare say +I would be pretty commonplace after all, and still have the same +old draigled pinnies; but I have a notion that Lennox was never +meant to make beds, dust stair-railings, or sit in a parlour +listening, demure, to gossip about the village pump and Sacrament +Sunday bonnets. To do these things is no discredit to the +women who are meant to do them, and who do them well; but we +cannot all be patient Marthas. I know, because I’ve +honestly tried my best myself.”</p> +<p>“When you say that, you’re laughing at me, I +fear,” said Bell, a little blamefully.</p> +<p>“I wasn’t thinking of you,” said her sister, +vexed. “And if I was, and had been laughing, I would +be laughing at the very things I love; it’s only the other +things that make me solemn. Your way, Bell, was always +clear before you,—there you were the lucky woman; with +genius, as we have it in the child, the way’s perplexed and +full of dangers.”</p> +<p>“Is she to be let drift her own way?”</p> +<p>“We got her ten years too late to prevent it,” +said Miss Ailie firmly, and looked at her brother Dan for some +assistance. He had Footles on his lap, stroking his tousy +back, and he listened with twinkling eyes to the argument, +humming the air of the day, that happened to be “Robin +Tamson’s Smiddy, O!”</p> +<p>“You’re both right and you’re both wrong, as +Mr Cleland used to say if he was taking a dram with folk that had +an argument,” said the lawyer. “But I’m +not so clever as Colin Cleland, for I can’t ring the bell +and order in the <i>media sententia</i>. This I’ll +say, that, to my mind, the child is lucky if she’s +something short of genius. If I had had a son, my prayer +would always be that he should be off and on about the +ordinary. It’s lonely on the mountain-top, and genius +generally seems to go with a poor stomach or a bad lung, and pays +an awful price for every ecstasy!”</p> +<p>“Shakespeare!” suggested Miss Ailie.</p> +<p>“And Robert Burns!” cried Bell. +“Except for <a name="page172"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +172</span>the lass and the glass and the ran-dan— +Poor misguided laddie! he was like the folk he lived among. +And there was Walter Scott, the best and noblest man God ever +gave to Scotland, he was never on the mountain-top except it was +to bring a lot of people with him there.”</p> +<p>Mr Dyce cleaned his glasses and chuckled. +“H’m,” said he, “I admit there are +exceptions. But please pass me my slippers, Bell: I fall +back on Colin Cleland,—you’re both right and +you’re both wrong.”</p> +<p>Miss Bell was so put about at this that she went at once to +the kitchen to start her niece on a course of cookery.</p> +<h2><a name="page173"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +173</span>CHAPTER XX.</h2> +<p>“<span class="smcap">Katerin</span>!” she said, +coming into the kitchen with a handful of paper cuttings, and, +hearing her, the maid’s face blenched.</p> +<p>“I declare I never broke an article the day!” she +cried protestingly, well accustomed to that formal address when +there had been an accident among her crockery.</p> +<p>“I wasn’t charging you,” said her +mistress. “Dear me! it must be an awful thing a +guilty conscience! I was thinking to give you—and +maybe Lennox, if she would not mind—a lesson or two in +cookery. It’s a needful thing in a house with +anything of a family. You know what men are!”</p> +<p>“Fine that!” said Kate. “They’re +always thinking what they’ll put in their intervals, the +greedy deevils! beg your pardon, but it’s not a swear in +the Gaelic.”</p> +<p>“There’s only one Devil in any language, +Kate,” said Miss Bell. “‘How art thou +fallen from Heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning!’ +And I am glad to think he is oftener on our foolish tongues than +in our hearts. I have always been going to give you a +cookery-book—”</p> +<p>“A cookery-book!” cried the maid. +“Many a time I saw one out in Colonsay: for the +minister’s wife had one they called Meg Dods, that was +borrowed for every wedding. But it was never much use to +us, for it started everything with ‘Take a clean +dish,’ or ‘Mince a remains of chicken,’ and +neither of them was very handy out in the isle of +Colonsay.”</p> +<p>Miss Bell laid out her cuttings on the dresser—<a +name="page174"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 174</span>a mighty +pile of recipes for soups and stews, puddings and cakes, +sweetmeats, and cordial wines that could be made deliciously from +elder and mulberry, if hereabouts we had such fruits to make them +with. She had been gathering these scraps for many years, +for the household column was her favourite part of the paper +after she was done with the bits that showed how Scotsmen up in +London were at the head of everything, or did some doughty deed +on the field of war. She hoarded her cuttings as a miser +hoards his notes, but never could find the rich sultana cake that +took nine eggs, when it was wanted, but only the plain one +costing about one-and-six. Sometimes Ailie would, in +mischief, offer to look through the packet for recipes rich and +rare that had been mentioned; they were certainly there (for Bell +had read them gloatingly aloud when she cut them out), but Bell +would never let her do it, always saying, “Tuts! never +mind; Dan likes this one better, and the other may be very nice +in print but it’s too rich to be wholesome, and it costs a +bonny penny. You can read in the papers any day +there’s nothing better for the health than simple +dieting.” So it was that Mr Dyce had some monotony in +his meals, but luckily was a man who never minded that, liking +simple old friends best in his bill-of-fare as in his boots and +coats and personal acquaintances. Sometimes he would quiz +her about her favourite literature, pretending a gourmet’s +interest for her first attempt at something beyond the ordinary, +but never relished any the less her unvarying famous kale and +simple entremets, keeping his highest praise for her remarkable +breakfasts. “I don’t know whether you’re +improving or whether I am getting used to it,” he would +say, “but that’s fish! if you please, Miss +Bell.”</p> +<p>“Try another scone, Dan,” she would urge, to hide +the confusion that his praise created. “I’m +sure you’re hungry.”</p> +<p>“No, not hungry,” would he reply, “but, +thank Providence, I’m greedy—pass the +plate.”</p> +<p><a name="page175"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 175</span>Bell +was busy at her cookery lesson, making her cuttings fill the part +of the book that was still to buy, doing all she could to make +Bud see how noble was a proper crimpy paste, though her lesson +was cunningly designed to look like one for Kate alone. Her +sleeves were rolled up, and the flour was flying, when a rat-tat +came to the door. They looked up from their entrancing +occupation, and there, in front, was the castle carriage!</p> +<p>Miss Bell made moan. “Mercy on us! +That’ll be Lady Anne, and Ailie out, and I cannot go to +speak to anybody, for I’m such a ticket. Run to the +door, dear, and take her into the parlour, and keep her there +till I am ready. Don’t forget to say ‘My +Lady,’—No, don’t say ‘My Lady,’ for +the Dyces are of old, and as good as their neighbours, but say +‘Your Ladyship’; not too often, but only now and +then, to let her see you know it.”</p> +<p>Bud went to the door and let in Lady Anne, leading her +composedly to the parlour.</p> +<p>“Aunt Ailie’s out,” she said, “and +Aunt Bell is <i>such</i> a ticket. But she’s coming +in a minute, your—your—your—” Bud +paused for a second, a little put about. “I forget +which it was I was to say. It was either ‘Your +Ladyship’ or ‘My Lady.’ You’re not +my lady, really, and you’re not your own, hardly, seeing +you’re promised to Colonel George. Please tell me +which is right, Lady Anne.”</p> +<p>“Who told you it was Colonel George, my dear?” +asked Lady Anne, sitting down on the proffered chair and putting +her arms around the child.</p> +<p>“Oh, it’s just the clash of the parish,” +said my little Scot who once was Yankee. “And +everybody’s so glad.”</p> +<p>“Are they, indeed?” said Lady Anne, blushing in +her pleasure. “That is exceedingly kind of +them. I always thought our own people the nicest and +kindest in the world.”</p> +<p>“That’s just it!” said Bud cheerfully. +“Everybody everywhere is just what one is oneself,—so +<a name="page176"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 176</span>Aunt +Ailie says; and I s’pose it’s because +you’re— Oh! I was going to say something about +you, but I’ll let you guess. What lovely +weather! I hope your papa is well? And Mr +Jones?”</p> +<p>“Thank you; papa is very well indeed,” said Lady +Anne. “And Mr Jones—” She hung upon +the name with some dubiety.</p> +<p>“The coachman, you know,” said Bud placidly. +“He’s a perfectly lovely man: so fat and +smiley. He smiles so much his face is all in gathers. +So kind to his horses too, and waves his whip at me every time he +passes. Once he gave me a ride on the dickey: it was +gorgeous. Do you often get a ride on the dickey, Lady +Anne?”</p> +<p>“Never!” said Lady Anne, with a clever little +sigh. “Many a time I have wished I could get one, but +they always kept me inside the carriage. I don’t seem +to have had much luck all my life till—till—till +lately.”</p> +<p>“Did Mr Jones never take you on his knee and tell you +the story of the Welsh giants?”</p> +<p>“No,” said Lady Anne, solemnly shaking her +head.</p> +<p>“Then you’re too big now. What a pity! +Seems to me there isn’t such a much in being a big L Lady +after all. I thought you’d have everything of the +very best. You have no idea what funny ideas we had in +America about dukes and lords and ladies in the old +country. Why, I expected I’d be bound to hate them +when I got here, because they’d be so proud and haughty and +tyrannical. But I don’t hate them one little bit; +they don’t do anybody any harm more’n if they were +knockabout artistes. I suppose the Queen herself ’d +not crowd a body off the sidewalk if you met her there. +She’d be just as apt to say ‘What ho! little +girl. Pip! pip!’ and smile, for Auntie Bell is always +reading in the newspapers snappy little pars. about the nice +things the Royal family do, just the same as if they +weren’t royal a bit.”</p> +<p>“Yes, I sometimes see those touching domestic +incidents,” said her ladyship. “You mean such +<a name="page177"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 177</span>things +as the Prince helping the cripple boy to find his crutch? +They make me almost cry.”</p> +<p>“I wouldn’t wet a lash, if I were you,” said +Bud. “That’s just the Press: like as not +there’s nothing behind it but the agent in +advance.”</p> +<p>“Agent in advance?” said Lady Anne, perplexed.</p> +<p>“Yes. He’s bound to boom the show somehow: +so Jim Molyneux said, and he knew most things, did +Jim.”</p> +<p>“You wicked Republican!” cried her ladyship, +hugging the child the closer to her.</p> +<p>“I’m not a Republican,” protested Bud. +“I’m truly Scotch, same as father was, and Auntie +Bell is—that’s good enough for me. I’d +just <i>love</i> to be a My Lady myself, it must be so nice +and—and fairy. Why! it’s about the only fairy +thing left anywhere, I guess. There’s nothing really +to it; it’s not being richer nor powerfuller nor more +tyrannical than anybody else, but +it’s—it’s—it’s— I dunno +’zactly what it is, but it’s +something—it—it’s romantic, that’s what +it is, to be a King, or a Duke, or a My Lady. The fun of it +is all inside you, like poetry. I hope, My Lady Anne, you +’preciate your privileges! You must ’preciate +your privileges always, Auntie Bell says, and praise the Lord +without ceasing, and have a thankful heart.”</p> +<p>“I assure you I do,” replied her ladyship.</p> +<p>“That’s right,” said Bud +encouragingly. “It’s simply splendid to be a +really Lady with a big L without having to play it to +yourself. I’ve been one as Winifred Wallace quite +often; with Auntie Ailie’s fur jacket and picture-hat on +I’d sit and sit, and feel so composed and grand in the +rocker, and let on it was Mr Jones’s carriage, and bow +sweetly to Footles who’d be a poor man passing to his work, +and mighty proud to have me notice him. I’d be sort +of haughty, but not ’bominable haughty, ’cause Auntie +Bell says there’s nothing beats a humble and a contrite +heart. But then you see something would happen to spoil +everything; Kate would laugh, or Auntie Bell would pop in and cry +‘Mercy on me, child, <a name="page178"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 178</span>play-acting again! Put away +that jacket instantly.’ Then I’d know I was +only letting on to be a really Lady; but with you it’s +different—all the time you’re It. Auntie Bell +says so, and she knows everything.”</p> +<p>“It really looks as if she did,” said her +ladyship, “for I’ve called to see her to-day about a +sailor.”</p> +<p>“A sailor!” Bud exclaimed, with wild surmise.</p> +<p>“Yes. He wants to be captain of my yacht, and he +refers me to Miss Dyce, for all the world as if he were a +housemaid.”</p> +<p>“I’m <i>so</i> glad,” cried Bud. +“For it was I who advised him to, and +I’m—I’m the referee.”</p> +<p>“You!”</p> +<p>“Yes; it was Kate’s letter, and she—and +we—and I said there was a rumour you wanted a captain, and +he should apply, saying if you wanted to know just what a clean, +good, brave sailor he was you should ask Kate MacNeill or Miss +Dyce, and I’m the Miss Dyce this time, and +you’re—why, you’re really visiting +me!”</p> +<p>Lady Anne laughed. “Really, Miss Lennox,” +she said, “you’re a wonderful diplomatist. I +must get the Earl to put you in the service. I believe +there’s a pretty decent salary goes to our representative +in the United States.”</p> +<p>“But don’t laugh at me, Lady Anne,” pleaded +Bud earnestly. “I’m dre’ffle set on +having Charles off the cargo boats, where he’s thrown +away. You don’t know how Kate loves him, and she +hasn’t seen him—not for years and years. You +know yourself what it is to be so far away from anybody you +love. He’d just fit your yacht like a +glove—he’s so educated, having been on the yachts and +with the gentry round the world. He’s got everything +nice about him you’d look for in a sailor—big brown +eyes so beautiful there’s only Gaelic words I don’t +know, but that sound like somebody breaking glass, to describe +how sweet they are. And the whitest teeth! When he +walks, he walks so straight and hits the ground so hard +you’d think he owned the land.”</p> +<p>“It seems to me,” said Lady Anne, “that you +<a name="page179"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +179</span>couldn’t be more enthusiastic about your +<i>protégé</i> if you loved him +yourself.”</p> +<p>“So I do,” said Bud, with the utmost +frankness. “But there’s really nothing between +us. He’s meant for Kate. She’s got heaps +of beaux, but he’s her steady. I gave him up to her +for good on Hallowe’en, and she’s so +happy.”</p> +<p>Bell had thrown off her cooking-apron and cleaned her hands, +and ran up the stairs to see that her hair was trim, for though +she loved a Lady for the sake of Scotland’s history, she +someway felt in the presence of Lady Anne the awe she had as a +child for Barbara Mushet. That Ailie in such company should +be, on the other hand, so composed, and sometimes even comical, +was a marvel she never could get over. “I never +feared the face of earl or man,” she would say, “but +I’m scared for a titled lady.”</p> +<p>When she came down to the parlour the visitor was rising to +go.</p> +<p>“Oh, Miss Dyce,” said she, “I’m so +glad to see you, though my visit this time’s really to Miss +Lennox. I wished to consult her about a captain for my +little yacht.”</p> +<p>“Miss Lennox!” exclaimed Miss Bell, shaking hands, +and with a look of apprehension at her amazing niece.</p> +<p>“Yes,” said Lady Anne; “she has recommended +a man who seems in all respects quite suitable, if he happens to +know a little about sailing; and I’m going to write to him +to come and see me.”</p> +<p>At that, I must confess it, Lennox for once forgot her manners +and darted from the parlour to tell Kate the glorious news.</p> +<p>“Kate, you randy!” she cried, bursting into the +kitchen—</p> +<p class="poetry">“‘I sent a letter to my love and by +the way I dropped it,<br /> +I dropped it, I dropped it; I dree—I dree—I dropped +it’—</p> +<p>“I’ve fixed it up for Charles; he’s to be +the captain.” The servant danced on the floor in a +speechless transport, and Bud danced too.</p> +<h2><a name="page180"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +180</span>CHAPTER XXI.</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">Too</span> slow, far too slow, passed the +lengthening days. Kate was bedded by nine to make them +shorter by an hour or two, but what she took from the foot of the +day she tacked to the head of it, as Paddy in the story eked his +blanket, and she was up in the mornings long before Wanton Wully +rang the six-hours’ bell. The elder +Dyces—saving Ailie, who knew all about it, hearing it from +Bud in passionate whispers as they lay together in one bed in the +brightening morns of May—might think summer’s coming +was what made the household glad, Kate sing like the laverock, +and Lennox so happy and so good, but it was the thought of +Charles. “Dear me! you’ve surely taken a +desperate fancy for Prince Charlie songs,” would Miss Bell +remark to Bud and the maid of Colonsay. “Is there not +another ditty in the ballant?” and they would glance at +each other guiltily but never let on.</p> +<p class="poetry">“Come o’er the stream, Charlie, +dear Charlie, brave Charlie,<br /> + Come o’er the stream, Charlie, and I’ll +be Maclean.”</p> +<p>—Bud composed that one in a jiffy sitting one day at the +kitchen window, and of all the noble Jacobite measures Kate liked +it best, “it was so clever, and so desperate like the +thing!” Such a daft disease is love! To the +woman whose recollection of the mariner was got from olden +Sabbath walks ’tween churches in the windy isle, among the +mossy tombs, and to Bud, who had never seen him, but had made for +herself a portrait blent of the youth so gay and gallant Kate +described, and of George Sibley Purser, <a +name="page181"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 181</span>and of dark +ear-ringed men of the sea that in “The Tempest” cry +“Heigh, my hearts! cheerily, cheerily, cheerily, my hearts! +yare, yare,” the prospect of his presence was a giddy +joy.</p> +<p>And after all the rascal came without warning, to be for a day +and a night within sound of Kate’s minstrelsy without her +knowing it, for he lodged, an ardent but uncertain man, on the +other side of the garden-wall, little thinking himself the cause +and object of these musical mornings. Bud found him +out—that clever one! who was surely come from America to +set all the Old World right,—she found him at the launching +of the <i>Wave</i>.</p> +<p>Lady Anne’s yacht dozed like a hedgehog under leaves +through the winter months below the beeches on what we call the +hard—on the bank of the river under Jocka’s house, +where the water’s brackish, and the launching of her was +always of the nature of a festival, for the Earl’s men were +there, John Taggart’s band, with “A life on the Ocean +Wave” between each passage of the jar of old Tom +Watson’s home-made ale—not tipsy lads but jovial, and +even the children of the schools, for it happened on a +Saturday.</p> +<p>Bud and Footles went with each other and the rest of the +bairns, unknown to their people, for in adventures such as these +the child delighted, and was wisely never interdicted.</p> +<p>The man who directed the launch was a stranger in a +foreign-looking soft slouch hat—Charles plain to identify +in every feature, in the big brown searching eyes that only +Gaelic could do justice to, and his walk so steeve and steady, +his lovely beard, his tread on the hard as if he owned the land, +his voice on the deck as if he were the master of the sea. +She stood apart and watched him, fascinated, and could not leave +even when the work was done and the band was home-returning, +charming the road round the bay with “Peggy Baxter’s +Quickstep.” He saw her lingering, smiled on her, and +beckoned on her to cross the gangway that led to the yacht from +the little jetty.</p> +<p><a name="page182"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +182</span>“Well, wee lady,” said he, with one big +hand on her head and another on the dog, “is this the first +of my crew at a quay-head jump? Sign on at once and +I’ll make a sailor of you.”</p> +<p>“Oh, please,” said she, looking up in his face, +too anxious to enter into his humour, “are you our +Kate’s Charles?”</p> +<p>“Kate!” said he, reflecting, with a hand in his +beard, through which his white teeth shone. +“There’s such a wheen of Kates here and there, and +all of them fine, fine gyurls! Still-and-on, if yours is +like most of her name that I’m acquaint with, I’m the +very man for her; and my name, indeed, is what you might be +calling Charles. In fact,”—in a burst of +confidence, seating himself on a water-breaker,—“my +Christian name is Charles—Charlie, for short among the +gentry. You are not speaking, by any chance, of one called +Kate MacNeill?” he added, showing some red in the tan of +his countenance.</p> +<p>“Of course I am,” said Bud reproachfully. +“Oh, men! men! As if there could be any other! +I hope to goodness you love her same as you said you did, and +haven’t been—been carrying-on with any other Kates +for a diversion. I’m Lennox Dyce. Your Kate +stays with me and Uncle Dan, and Auntie Bell, and Auntie Ailie, +and this sweet little dog by the name of Footles. +She’s so jolly! My! won’t she be tickled to +know you’ve come? And—and how’s the +world, Captain Charles?”</p> +<p>“The world?” he said, aback, looking at her +curiously as she seated herself beside him on a hatch.</p> +<p>“Yes, the world, you know—the places you were +in,” with a wave of the hand that seemed to mean the +universe.</p> +<p class="poetry">“‘Edinburgh, Leith,<br /> +Portobello, Musselburgh, and Dalkeith?’</p> +<p>—No, that’s Kate’s favourite geography +lesson, ’cause she can sing it. I mean Rotterdam, and +Santander, <a name="page183"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +183</span>and Bilbao—all the lovely places on the map where +a letter takes four days and a twopence-ha’penny stamp, +and’s mighty apt to smell of rope.”</p> +<p>“Oh, them!” said he, with the warmth of +recollection, “they’re not so bad—in fact, +they’re just A1. It’s the like of there you see +life and spend the money.”</p> +<p>“Have you been in Italy?” asked Bud. +“I’d love to see that old Italy—for the sake of +Romeo and Juliet, you know, and my dear, dear Portia.”</p> +<p>“<i>I</i> know,” said Charles. “Allow +me! Perfect beauties, all fine, fine gyurls; but I +don’t think very much of dagoes. I have slept in +their sailors’ homes, and never hear Italy mentioned but I +feel I want to scratch myself.”</p> +<p>“Dagoes!” cried Bud; “that’s what Jim +called them. Have you been in America?”</p> +<p>“Have I been in America? I should think I +have,” said he emphatically, “The Lakes. +It’s yonder you get value—two dollars a-day and +everywhere respected like a perfect gentleman. Men’s +not mice out yonder in America.”</p> +<p>“Then you maybe have been in Chicago?” cried Bud, +her face filled with a happy expectation as she pressed the dog +in her arms till its fringe mixed with her own wild curls.</p> +<p>“Chicago?” said the Captain. “Allow +me! Many a time. You’ll maybe not believe it, +but it was there I bought this hat.”</p> +<p>“Oh!” cried Bud, with the tears in her eyes and +speechless for a moment, “I—I—could just hug +that hat. Won’t you please let me—let me pat +it?’</p> +<p>“Pat away,” said Captain Charles, laughing, and +took it off with the sweep of a cavalier that was in itself a +compliment. “You know yon place—Chicago?” +he asked, as she patted his headgear fondly and returned it to +him. For a little her mind was far away from the deck of +Lady Anne’s yacht, her eyes on the ripple of the tide, her +nostrils full, and her little bosom heaving.</p> +<p><a name="page184"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +184</span>“You were there?” he asked again.</p> +<p>“Chicago’s where I lived,” she said. +“That was mother’s place,” and into his ear she +poured a sudden flood of reminiscence—of her father and +mother, and the travelling days and lodging-houses, and Mr and +Mrs Molyneux, and the graves in the far-off cemetery. The +very thought of them all made her again American in accent and in +phrase. He listened, understanding, feeling the vexation of +that far-sundering by the sea as only a sailor can, and clapped +her on the shoulder, and looking at him she saw that in his eyes +which made her love him more than ever.</p> +<p>“Oh my!” she said bravely, “here I’m +talking away to you about myself, and I’m no more account +than a rabbit under these present circumstances, Captain Charles, +and all the time you’re just pining to know all about your +Kate.”</p> +<p>The Captain tugged his beard and reddened again. +“A fine, fine gyurl!” said he. “I +hope—I hope she’s pretty well.”</p> +<p>“She’s fine,” said Bud, nodding her head +gravely. “You bet Kate can walk now without taking +hold. Why, there’s never anything wrong with her +’cepting now and then the croodles, and they’re not +anything lingering.”</p> +<p>“There was a kind of a rumour that she was at times a +trifle delicate,” said Charles. “In fact, it +was herself who told me, in her letters.”</p> +<p>Bud blushed. This was one of the few details of her +correspondence on which she and Kate had differed. It had +been her idea that an invalidish hint at intervals produced a +nice and tender solicitude in the roving sailor, and she had, at +times, credited the maid with some of Mrs Molyneux’s old +complaints, a little modified and more romantic, though Kate +herself maintained that illness in a woman under eighty was +looked upon as anything but natural or interesting in +Colonsay.</p> +<p>“It was nothing but—but love,” she said now, +confronted with the consequence of her imaginative <a +name="page185"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +185</span>cunning. “You know what love is, Captain +Charles? A powerfully weakening thing, though I don’t +think it would hurt anybody if they wouldn’t take it so +much to heart.”</p> +<p>“I’m glad to hear it’s only—only what +you mention,” said Charles, much relieved. “I +thought it might be something inward, and that maybe she was +working too hard at her education.”</p> +<p>“Oh, she’s not taking her education so bad as all +that,” Bud assured him. “She isn’t +wasting to a shadow sitting up nights with a wet towel on her +head soaking in the poets and figuring sums. All she wanted +was to be sort of middling smart, but nothing gaudy.”</p> +<p>Captain Charles looked sideway keenly at the child as she sat +beside him, half afraid himself of the irony he had experienced +among her countrymen, but saw it was not here. Indeed it +never was in Lennox Dyce, for all her days she had the sweet +engaging self-unconsciousness no training can command; frankness, +fearlessness, and respect for all her fellows—the gifts +that will never fail to make the proper friends. She talked +so composedly that he was compelled to frankness himself on a +subject no money could have made him speak about to any one a +week ago.</p> +<p>“Between you and me and the mast,” said he, +“I’m feared Kate has got far too clever for the like +of me, and that’s the way I have not called on +her.”</p> +<p>“Then you’d best look pretty spry,” said +Bud, pointing a monitory finger at him; “for there’s +beaux all over the place that’s wearing their Sunday +clothes week-days, and washing their faces night and morning, +hankering to tag on to her, and she’ll maybe tire of +standing out in the cold for you. I wouldn’t be +skeered, Cap’, if I was you; she’s not too clever for +or’nary use; she’s nicer than ever she was that time +you used to walk with her in Colonsay.” Bud was +beginning to be alarmed at the misgivings to which her own +imaginings had given rise.</p> +<p><a name="page186"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +186</span>“If you saw her letters,” said Charles +gloomily. “Poetry and foreign princes. One of +them great at the dancing! He kissed her hand. He +would never have ventured a thing like that if she hadn’t +given him encouragement.”</p> +<p>“Just diversion,” said Bud consolingly. +“She was only—she was only putting by the time; and +she often says she’ll only marry for her own conveniency, +and the man for her is—well, <i>you</i> know, Captain +Charles.”</p> +<p>“There was a Russian army officer,” proceeded the +seaman, still suffering a jealous doubt.</p> +<p>“But he’s dead. He’s deader ’n +canned beans. Mr Wanton gied him—gied him the <span +class="GutSmall">BAGGONET</span>. There wasn’t really +anything in it anyway. Kate didn’t care for him the +tiniest bit, and I guess it was a great relief.”</p> +<p>“Then she’s learning the piano,” said the +Captain; “that’s not like a working gyurl. And +she talked in one of her letters about sitting on Uncle +Dan’s knee.”</p> +<p>Bud dropped the dog at her feet and burst into laughter: in +that instance she had certainly badly jumbled the identities.</p> +<p>“It’s nothing to laugh at,” said the +Captain, tugging his beard. “It’s not at all +becoming in a decent gyurl; and it’s not like the Kate I +knew in Colonsay.”</p> +<p>Bud saw the time had come for a full confession.</p> +<p>“Captain Charles,” she said, when she recovered +herself, “it—it wasn’t Kate said that at all; +it was another girl called Winifred Wallace. You see, Kate +is always so busy doing useful things—<i>such</i> soup! +and—and a washing every Monday, and taking her education, +and the pens were all so dev—so—so stupid, that she +simply had to get some one to help her write those letters; and +that’s why Winifred Wallace gave a hand and messed things +up a bit, I guess. Where the letters talked solemn sense +about the weather and the bad fishing and bits about <a +name="page187"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 187</span>Oronsay, +and where they told you to be sure and change your stockings when +you came downstairs from the mast, out the wet, and where they +said you were the very, very one she loved, that was Kate; but +when there was a lot of dinky talk about princes and Russian army +officers and slabs of poetry, that was just Winifred Wallace +putting on lugs and showing off. No, it wasn’t all +showing off; it was because she kind of loved you herself. +You see she didn’t have any beau of her own, Mr Charles; +and—and she thought it wouldn’t be depriving Kate of +anything to pretend, for Kate said there was no depravity in +it.”</p> +<p>“Who’s Winifred Wallace?” asked the +surprised sailor.</p> +<p>“I’m all the Winifred Wallace there is,” +said Bud penitently. “It’s my poetry +name,—it’s my other me. I can do a heap of +things when I’m Winifred I can’t do when I’m +plain Bud, or else I’d laugh at myself enough to hurt, +I’m so mad. Are you angry, Mr Charles?”</p> +<p>“Och! just Charles to you,” said the sailor. +“Never heed the honours. I’m not angry a +bit. Allow me! In fact, I’m glad to find the +prince and the piano and the poetry were all nonsense.”</p> +<p>“I thought that poetry pretty middling myself,” +admitted Bud, but in a hesitating way that made him look very +guilty.</p> +<p>“The poetry,” said he quickly, “was +splendid. There was nothing wrong with it that I could see; +but I’m glad it wasn’t Kate’s—for +she’s a fine, fine gyurl, and brought up most +respectable.”</p> +<p>“Yes,” said Bud; “she’s better +’n any poetry. You must feel gay because you are +going to marry her.”</p> +<p>“I’m not so sure of her marrying me. She +maybe wouldn’t have me.”</p> +<p>“But she can’t help it!” cried Bud. +“She’s bound to, for the witch-lady fixed it on +Hallowe’en. Only, I hope you won’t marry her +for years and years. <a name="page188"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 188</span>Why, Auntie Bell ’d go crazy +if you took away our Kate; for good girls ain’t so easy to +get nowadays as they used to be when they had three pound ten in +the half-year, and nailed their trunks down to the floor of a new +place when they got it, for fear they might be bounced. +I’d be vexed I helped do anything if you married her for a +long while. Besides, you’d be sorry yourself, for her +education is not quite done; she’s only up to Compound +Multiplication and the Tudor Kings. You’d just be +sick sorry.”</p> +<p>“Would I?”</p> +<p>“Course you would! That’s love. Before +one marries it’s hunkydory—it’s fairy all the +time; but after that it’s the same old face at breakfast, +Mr Cleland says, and simply putting up with one another. +Oh, love’s a wonderful thing, Charles; it’s the Great +Thing, but sometimes I say ‘Give me Uncle Dan!’ +Promise you’ll not go marrying Kate right off.”</p> +<p>The sailor roared with laughter. “Lord!” +said he, “if I wait too long I’ll be wanting to marry +yourself, for you’re a dangerous gyurl.”</p> +<p>“But I’m never going to marry,” said +Bud. “I want to go right on loving everybody, and +don’t yearn for any particular man tagging on to +me.”</p> +<p>“I never heard so much about love in English all my +life,” said Charles, “though it’s common enough +and quite respectable in Gaelic. Do you—do you love +myself?”</p> +<p>“Course I do!” said Bud, cuddling Footles.</p> +<p>“Then,” said he firmly, “the sooner I sign +on with Kate the better, for you’re a dangerous +gyurl.”</p> +<p>So they went down the road together, planning ways of early +foregatherings with Kate, and you may be sure Bud’s way was +cunningest.</p> +<h2><a name="page189"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +189</span>CHAPTER XXII.</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">When</span> Kate that afternoon was told +her hour was come, and that to-morrow she must meet her destined +mariner, she fell into a chair, threw her apron over her head, +and cried and laughed horribly turn about—the victim of +hysteria that was half from fear and half from a bliss too deep +and unexpected.</p> +<p>“Mercy on me!” she exclaimed. “Now +he’ll find out everything, and what a stupid one I +am. All my education’s clean gone out of my head; +I’m sure I couldn’t spell an article. I canna +even mind the ninth commandment, let alone the Reasons Annexed; +and as for grammar, whether it’s ‘Give the book to +Bud and me’ or ‘Give the book to Bud and I,’ is +more than I could tell you if my very life depended on it. +Oh, Lennox! now we’re going to catch it! Are you +certain sure he said to-morrow?”</p> +<p>Bud gazed at her disdainfully and stamped her foot. +“Stop that, Kate MacNeill!” she commanded. +“You mustn’t act so silly. He’s as +skeered of you as you can be of him. He’d have been +here Friday before the morning milk if he didn’t think +you’d be the sort to back him into a corner and ask him +questions about ancient Greece and Rome. Seems to me love +makes some folk idiotic; lands sake! I’m mighty glad it +always leaves me calm as a plate of pumpkin pie.”</p> +<p>“Is—is—he looking tremendously genteel and +well-put-on?” asked the maid of Colonsay, with anxious +lines on her forehead. “Is he—is he as nice as +I said he was?”</p> +<p><a name="page190"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +190</span>“He was everything you said—except the +Gaelic. I knew he couldn’t be so bad as that sounded +that you said about his eyes. I—I never saw a more +becoming man. If I had known just how noble he looked, +I’d have sent him stacks of poetry,” whereat Kate +moaned again, rocked herself in her chair most piteously, and +swore she could never have the impudence to see him till she had +her new frock from the dressmakers.</p> +<p>“He’ll be thinking I’m refined and quite the +lady,” she said, “and I’m just the same plain +Kate I was in Colonsay, and him a regular Captain! It was +all your fault, with your fancy letters. Oh, Lennox Dyce, I +think I hate you, just: lend me your hanky,—mine’s +all wet with greeting.”</p> +<p>“If you weren’t so big and temper wasn’t +sinful, I’d shake you!” said Bud, producing her +handkerchief. “You were just on your last legs for a +sailor, and you’d never have put a hand on one if I +didn’t write these letters. And now, when the +sweetest sailor in the land is brought to your doorstep, you +don’t ’preciate your privileges and have a grateful +heart, but turn round and yelp at me. I tell you, Kate +MacNeill, sailors are mighty scarce and sassy in a little place +like this, and none too easy picked up, and ’stead of +sitting there, with a smut on your nose and tide-marks on your +eyebrows, mourning, you’d best arise and shine, or somebody +with their wits about them ’ll snap him up. I’d +do it myself if it wouldn’t be not honourable to +you.”</p> +<p>“Oh! if I just had another week or two’s +geography!” said Kate dolefully.</p> +<p>Bud had to laugh—she could not help herself; and the +more she laughed, the more tragic grew the servant’s +face.</p> +<p>“Seems to me,” said Bud, “that I’ve +got to run this loving business all along the line: you +don’t know the least thing about it after g-o, go. +Why, Kate, I’m telling you Charles is afraid of you more +than you are of him. He thought you’d be that +educated you’d wear specs, and stand quite stiff talking +poetry all the <a name="page191"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +191</span>time, and I had to tell him every dinky bit in these +letters were written by me.”</p> +<p>“Then that’s worse!” cried the servant, more +distressed than ever. “For he’ll think I canna +write myself, and I can write like fury if you only give me a +decent pen, and shut the door, and don’t bother +me.”</p> +<p>“No fears!” said Bud; “I made that all +right. I said you were too busy housekeeping, and I guess +it’s more a housekeeper than a school-ma’rm Charles +needs. Anyhow, he’s so much in love with you, +he’d marry you if you were only half-way through the +Twopenny. He’s plump head over heels, and it’s +up to you, as a sensible girl, not to conceal that you like him +some yourself.”</p> +<p>“I’ll not know what to say to him,” said +Kate, “and he always was so clever: half the time I couldna +understand him if it wasn’t for his eyes.”</p> +<p>“Well, he’ll know what to say to you, I guess, if +all the signs are right. Charles is not so shy as all +that,—love-making is where he lives; and he made goo-goo +eyes at myself without an introduction. You’d fancy, +to hear you, he was a school inspector, and he’s only just +an or’nary lover thinking of the happy days you used to +have in Colonsay. If I was you I’d not let on I was +anything but what I really was; I’d be natural—yes, +that’s what I’d be, for being natural’s the +deadliest thing below the canopy to make folk love you. +Don’t pretend, but just be the same Kate MacNeill to him +you are to me. Just you listen to him, and now and then +look at him, and don’t think of a darned thing—I +mean, don’t think of a blessed thing but how nice he is, +and he’ll be so pleased and so content he’ll not even +ask you to spell cat”</p> +<p>“Content!” cried Kate, with conviction. +“Not him! Fine I ken him! He’ll want to +kiss me, as sure as God’s in heaven,—beg your +pardon.”</p> +<p>“I expect that’s not a thing you should say to +me,” said Bud, blushing deeply.</p> +<p>“But I begged your pardon,” said the maid.</p> +<p>“I don’t mean that about God in heaven, +that’s right—so He is, or where would <i>we</i> be? +what I <a name="page192"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +192</span>meant was about the kissing. I’m old enough +for love, but I’m not old enough for you to be talking to +me about kissing. I guess Auntie Ailie wouldn’t like +to have you talk to me about a thing like that, and Auntie Bell, +she’d be furious—it’s too advanced.”</p> +<p>“What time am I to see him?” asked Kate.</p> +<p>“In the morning. If you go out to the garden just +after breakfast, and whistle, he’ll look over the +wall.”</p> +<p>“The morning!” cried the maid aghast. +“I couldn’t face him in the morning. Who ever +heard of such a thing? Now you have gone away and spoiled +everything! I could hardly have all my wits about me even +if it was only gloaming.”</p> +<p>Bud sighed despairingly. “Oh, you don’t +understand, Kate,” said she. “He wanted it to +be the evening, too, but I said you weren’t a miserable +pair of owls, and the best time for anything is the +morning. Uncle Dan says the first half-hour in the morning +is worth three hours at any other time of the day, for when +you’ve said your prayers, and had a good bath, and a clean +shave, and your boots new on—no slippers nor slithery +dressing-gowns, the peace of God, and—and—and the +assurance of strength and righteousness descends upon you so that +you—you—you can tackle wild-cats. I feel so +brash and brave myself in the morning I could skip the hills like +a goat. It’s simply got to be the morning, Kate +MacNeill. That’s when you look your very best, if you +care to take a little trouble, and don’t simply just slouch +through, and I’m set on having you see him first time over +the garden wall. That’s the only way to fix the thing +up romantic, seeing we haven’t any balcony. +You’ll go out and stand against the blossom of the +cherry-tree, and hold a basket of flowers and parsley, and when +he peeks over and sees you looming out in the picture, I tell you +he’ll be tickled to death. That’s the way +Shakespeare ’d fix it, and he knew.”</p> +<p>“I don’t think much of Shakespeare,” said +Kate. “Fancy yon Igoa!”</p> +<p>“Iago, you mean; well, what about him?”</p> +<p><a name="page193"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +193</span>“The wickedness of him; such a lot of +lies!”</p> +<p>“Pooh!” said Bud. “He was only for the +effect. Of course there never really was such a mean wicked +man as that Iago,—there couldn’t be; but Shakespeare +made him just so’s you’d like the nice folk all the +more by thinking what they might have been if God had let Himself +go.”</p> +<p>That night Kate was abed by eight. Vainly the town cried +for her—the cheerful passage of feet on the pavement, and a +tinkler piper at the Cross, and she knew how bright was the +street, with the late-lit windows of the shops, and how +intoxicating was the atmosphere of Saturday in the dark; but +having said her Lord’s Prayer in Gaelic, and “Now I +lay me down to sleep” in English, she covered her head with +the blankets and thought of the coming day with joy and +apprehension, until she fell asleep.</p> +<p>In the morning Miss Bell had no sooner gone up to the making +of beds, that was her Sabbath care to save the servant-maid from +too much sin, and Ailie to her weekly reading with the invalid +Duncan Gill, than Bud flew into the kitchen to make Kate ready +for her tryst. Never in this world were breakfast dishes +sooner cleaned and dried than by that eager pair: no sooner were +they done than Kate had her chest-lid up and had dived, head +foremost, among her Sunday finery.</p> +<p>“What’s that?” asked Bud. +“You’re not going to put on glad rags, are +you?” For out there came a blue gown, fondled +tenderly.</p> +<p>“Of course I am,” said Kate. +“It’s either that or my print for it, and a print +wrapper would not be the thing at all to meet—meet the +Captain in; he’ll be expecting me to be truly +refined.”</p> +<p>“I think he’d like the wrapper better,” said +Bud gravely. “The blue gown’s very +nice—but it’s not Kate, somehow: do you know, I think +it’s Auntie Ailie up to the waist, and the banker’s +cook in the lacey bits above that, and it don’t make you +refined a bit. It’s not what you put on that makes +you <a name="page194"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +194</span>refined, it’s things you can’t take +off. You have no idea how sweet you look in that print, +Kate, with your cap and apron. You look better in them than +if you wore the latest yell of fashion. I’d want to +marry you myself if I was a captain, and saw you dressed like +that; but if you had on your Sunday gown +I’d—I’d bite my lip and go home and ask advice +from mother.”</p> +<p>Kate put past the blue gown, not very willingly, but she had +learned by now that in some things Bud had better judgment than +herself. She washed and dried her face till it shone like a +polished apple, put on Bud’s choice of a cap and streamered +apron, and was about to take a generous dash of Florida Water +when she found her hand restrained.</p> +<p>“I’d have no scent,” said Bud. +“I like scent myself, some, and I just dote on our Florida +Water, but Auntie Ailie says the scent of clean water, sun, and +air, is the sweetest a body can have about one, and any other +kind’s as rude as Keating’s Powder.”</p> +<p>“He’ll be expecting the Florida Water,” said +Kate, “seeing it was himself that sent it.”</p> +<p>“It don’t amount to a hill of beans,” said +Bud; “you can wear our locket, and that’ll please +him.”</p> +<p>Kate went with a palpitating heart through the scullery, out +into the garden, with a basket in her hand, a pleasing and +expansive figure. Bud would have liked to watch her, but a +sense of delicacy prevented, and she stood at the kitchen window +looking resolutely into the street. On his way down the +stairs Mr Dyce was humming the Hundredth Psalm; outside the shops +were shuttered, and the harmony of the morning hymn came from the +baker’s open windows. A few folk passed in their +Sunday clothes, at a deliberate pace, to differentiate it from +the secular hurry of other days. Soon the church bell would +ring for the Sabbath-school, and Bud must be ready. +Remembering it, a sense of some impiety took possession of +her—worldly trysts in back gardens on the Sabbath were not +what <a name="page195"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +195</span>Aunt Bell would much approve of. Had they met +yet? How did Charles look? What did Kate say?</p> +<p>“Mercy on me!” cried the maid, bursting in through +the scullery. “Did you say I was to +whistle!”</p> +<p>“Of course,” said Bud, and then looked +horrified. “Oh, Kate,” said she in a whisper, +“I was so keen on the vain things of this wicked world I +quite forgot it was the Lord’s Day; of course you +can’t go whistling on Sunday.”</p> +<p>“That’s what I was just thinking to myself,” +said the maid, not very heartily. “But I thought I +would ask you. It wouldn’t need to be a tune, +but—but of course it would be awful wicked—forbye +Miss Dyce would be sure to hear me, and she’s that +particular.”</p> +<p>“No, you can’t whistle—you +daren’t,” said Bud. “It’d be +dre’ffle wicked. But how’d it do to throw a +stone? Not a rock, you know, but a nice little quiet wee +white Sunday pebble? You might like as not be throwing it +at Rodger’s cats, and that would be a work of necessity and +mercy, for these cruel cats are just death on birds.”</p> +<p>“But there’s not a single cat there,” +explained the maid.</p> +<p>“Never mind,” said Bud. “You can heave +the pebble over the wall so that it’ll be a warning to them +not to come poaching in our garden; there’s sure to be some +on the other side just about to get on the wall, and if Charles +happens to be there too, can you help that?” and Kate +retired again.</p> +<p>There was a pause, and then a sound of laughter. For ten +minutes Bud waited in an agony of curiosity, that was at last too +much for her, and she ventured to look out at the scullery +window—to see Charles chasing his adored one down the walk, +between the bleaching-green and the gooseberries. Kate was +making for the sanctuary of her kitchen, her face aflame, and all +her streamers flying, but was caught before she entered.</p> +<p><a name="page196"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +196</span>“I told you!” said she, as she came in +panting. “We hadn’t said twenty words when he +wanted to kiss me.”</p> +<p>“Why! was that the reason you ran?” asked Bud, +astonished.</p> +<p>“Ye—yes,” said the maid.</p> +<p>“Seems to me it’s not very encouraging to Charles, +then.”</p> +<p>“Yes, but—but—I wasn’t running all my +might,” said Kate.</p> +<h2><a name="page197"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +197</span>CHAPTER XXIII.</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">Ta-ran-ta-ra</span>! +Ta-ran-ta-ra!</p> +<p>The world is coming for Lennox Dyce, the greedy world, +youth’s first and worst beguiler, that promises so much, +but at the best has only bubbles to give, which borrow a moment +the splendour of the sun, then burst in the hands that grasp +them; the world that will have only our bravest and most clever +bairns, and takes them all from us one by one. I have seen +them go—scores of them, boys and girls, their foreheads +high, and the sun on their faces, and never one came back. +Now and then returned to the burgh in the course of years a man +or woman who bore a well-known name, and could recall old +stories, but they were not the same, and even if they were not +disillusioned, there was that in their flushed prosperity which +ill made up for the bright young spirits quelled.</p> +<p>Ta-ran-ta-ra! Ta-ran-ta-ra!</p> +<p>Yes, the world is coming, sure enough—on black and +yellow wheels, with a guard red-coated who bugles through the +glen. It is coming behind black horses, with thundering +hooves and foam-flecked harness, between bare hills, by gurgling +burns and lime-washed shepherd dwellings, or in the shadow of the +woods that simply stand where they are placed by God and +wait. It comes in a fur-collared coat—though it is +autumn weather—and in a tall silk hat, and looks amused at +the harmless country it has come to render discontent.</p> +<p>Ta-ran-ta-ra! Ta-ran-ta-ra!</p> +<p>Go back, world go back, and leave the little lass <a +name="page198"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 198</span>among her +dreams, with hearts that love and cherish. Go back, with +your false flowers and your gems of paste. Go back, world, +that for every ecstasy exacts a pang!</p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p>There were three passengers on the coach—the man with +the fur collar who sat on the box beside the driver, and the +Misses Duff behind. I am sorry now that once I thought to +make you smile at the pigeon hens, for to-day I’m in more +Christian humour and my heart warms to them, seeing them come +safely home from their flight afar from their doo-cot, since they +it was who taught me first to make these symbols on the paper, +and at their worst they were but a little stupid, like the most +of us at times, and always with the best intent. They had +been to Edinburgh; they had been gone two weeks—their first +adventure in a dozen years. Miss Jean was happy, bringing +back with her a new crochet pattern, a book of Views, a tooth +gold-filled (she was so proud and spoke of it so often that it is +not rude to mention it), and a glow of art she had got from an +afternoon tea in a picture-gallery full of works in oil. +Amelia’s spoils were a phrase that lasted her for +years—it was that Edinburgh was “redolent of Robert +Louis,” the boast that she had heard the great MacCaskill +preach, and got a lesson in the searing of harmless woods with +heated pokers. Such are the rewards of travel: I have come +home myself with as little for my time and money.</p> +<p>But between them they had brought back something +else—something to whisper about lest the man in front +should hear, and two or three times to look at as it lay in an +innocent roll beside the purse in Miss Amelia’s +reticule. It might have been a serpent in its coils, so +timidly they glanced in at it, and snapped the bag shut with a +kind of shudder.</p> +<p>“At least it’s not a very large one,” +whispered Miss Jean, with the old excuse of the unhappy lass who +did the deadly sin.</p> +<p><a name="page199"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +199</span>“No,” said her sister, “it may, +indeed, be called quite—quite diminutive. The other +he showed us was so horribly large and—and vulgar, the very +look of it made me almost faint. But, oh I wish we could +have dispensed with the horrid necessity. After +twe—after so many years it looks like a confession of +weakness. I hope there will be no unpleasant talk about +it.”</p> +<p>“But you may be sure there will, Amelia Duff,” +said her sister. “They’ll cast up Barbara +Mushet to us; she will always be the perfect +teacher—”</p> +<p>“The paragon of all the virtues.”</p> +<p>“And it is such a gossiping place.”</p> +<p>“Indeed it is,” said Miss Amelia. “It +is always redolent of—of scandal.”</p> +<p>“I wish you had never thought of it,” said Miss +Jean, with a sigh and a vicious little shake of the +reticule. “I am not blaming you, remember, +’Melia; if we are doing wrong the blame of it is equally +between us, except perhaps a little more for me, for I <i>did</i> +think the big one was better value for the money. And yet +it made me grue, it looked so—so dastardly.”</p> +<p>“Jean,” said her sister solemnly, “if you +had taken the big one, I would have marched out of the shop +affronted. If it made you grue, it made me shudder. +Even with the small one, did you notice how the man looked at +us? I thought he felt ashamed to be selling such a thing: +perhaps he has a family. He said they were not very often +asked for. I assure you I felt very small, the way he said +it.”</p> +<p>Once more they bent their douce brown hats together over the +reticule and looked timidly in on the object of their shames and +fears. “Well, there it is, and it can’t be +helped,” said Miss Jean at last, despairingly. +“Let us hope and trust there will not be too frequent need +for it, for, I assure you, I have neither the strength nor +inclination.” She snapped the bag shut again, and, +glancing up, saw the man with the fur collar looking over his +shoulder at them.</p> +<p><a name="page200"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +200</span>“Strikes me, ladies,” he said, “the +stage coach, as an easy mark for the highwaymen who used to +permeate these parts, must have been a pretty merry proposition; +they’d be apt to stub their toes on it if they came +sauntering up behind. John here”—with an +inclination of his head towards the driver—“tells me +he’s on schedule time, and I allow he’s making plenty +fuss clicking his palate, but I feel I want to get out and heave +rocks at his cattle, so’s they’d get a better gait on +’em.”</p> +<p>Miss Jean was incapable of utterance; she was still too much +afraid of a stranger who, though gallantly helping them to the +top of the coach at Maryfield, could casually address herself and +Miss Amelia as “dears,” thrust cigars on the guard +and driver, and call them John and George at the very first +encounter.</p> +<p>“We—we think this is fairly fast,” Miss +Amelia ventured, surprised at her own temerity.. +“It’s nineteen miles in two hours, and if it’s +not so fast as a railway train it lets you enjoy the +scenery. It is very much admired, our scenery, it’s +so—it’s so characteristic.”</p> +<p>“Sure!” said the stranger, “it’s +pretty tidy scenery as scenery goes, and scenery’s my +forte. But I’d have thought that John here ’d +have all this part of Caledonia stern and wild so much by heart +he’d want to rush it and get to where the houses are; but +most the time his horses go so slow they step on their own feet +at every stride.”</p> +<p>“Possibly the coach is a novelty to you,” +suggested Miss Amelia, made wondrous brave by two weeks’ +wild adventuring in Edinburgh. “I—I take you +for an American.”</p> +<p>“So did my wife, and she knew, for she belonged out +mother’s place,” said the stranger, laughing. +“You’ve guessed right, first time. No, the +coach is no novelty to me; I’ve been up against a few in +various places. If I’m short of patience and want +more go just at present, it’s because I’m full of a +<a name="page201"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 201</span>good +joke on an old friend I’m going to meet at the end of these +obsequies.”</p> +<p>“Obsequies?” repeated Miss Amelia, with surprise, +and he laughed again.</p> +<p>“At the end of the trip,” he explained. +“This particular friend is not expecting me, because I +hadn’t a post-card, hate a letter, and don’t seem to +have been within shout of a telegraph office since I left +Edinburgh this morning.”</p> +<p>“We have just come from Edinburgh ourselves,” Miss +Jean chimed in.</p> +<p>“So!” said the stranger, throwing his arm over the +back of his seat to enter more comfortably into the +conversation. “It’s picturesque. Pretty +peaceful, too. But it’s liable to be a little shy of +the Thespian muse. I didn’t know more than +Cooper’s cow about Edinburgh when I got there last Sunday +fortnight, but I’ve gone perusing around a bit since; and +say, my! she’s fine and old! I wasn’t half a +day in the city when I found out that when it came to the real +legit. Queen Mary was the king-pin of the outfit in +Edinburgh. Before I came to this country I couldn’t +just place Mary; sometimes she was Bloody, and sometimes she was +Bonnie, but I suppose I must have mixed her up with some +no-account English queen of the same name.”</p> +<p>“Edinburgh,” said Miss Amelia, “is redolent +of Mary Queen of Scots—and Robert Louis.”</p> +<p>“It just is!” he said. “There’s +a little bedroom she had in the Castle yonder, no bigger than a +Chicago bathroom. Why, there’s hardly room for a +nightmare in it—a skittish nightmare ’d kick the +transom out. There doesn’t seem to be a single +dramatic line in the whole play that Mary didn’t have to +herself. She was the entire cast, and the spot light was on +her for the abduction scene, the child-widow scene, the murder, +the battle, and the last tag at Fotheringay. Three husbands +and a lot of flirtations that didn’t come to anything; her +portrait everywhere, and the newspapers tracking her up like old +Sleuth from that day to this! I guess Queen Lizzie put her +feet in it <a name="page202"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +202</span>when she killed Mary,—for Mary’s the +star-line in history, and Lizzie’s mainly celebrated for +spoiling a good Prince Albert coat on Walter Raleigh.”</p> +<p>He spoke so fast, he used such curious words and idioms which +the Misses Duff had never heard before nor read in books, that +they were sure again he was a dreadful person. With a +sudden thought of warnings to “Beware of Pickpockets” +she had seen in Edinburgh, Miss Amelia clutched so hard at the +chain of the reticule which held their purse as well as their +mystery that it broke, and the bag fell over the side of the +coach and, bursting open, scattered its contents on the road +unobserved by the guard, whose bugle at the moment was loudly +flourishing for the special delectation of a girl at work in a +neighbouring corn-field.</p> +<p>“Hold hard, John,” said the American, and before +the coach had quite stopped he was down on the highway recovering +the little teachers’ property.</p> +<p>The serpent had unwound its coils; it lay revealed in all its +hideousness—a teacher’s tawse!</p> +<p>At such a sad exposure its owners could have wept. They +had never dreamt a tawse could look so vulgar and forbidding as +it looked when thus exposed to the eye of man on the King’s +highway.</p> +<p>“Oh, thank you <i>so</i> much,” said Miss +Jean. “It is so kind of you.”</p> +<p>“Exceedingly kind, courteous beyond measure,—we +are more than obliged to you,” cooed Miss Amelia, with a +face like a sunset as she rolled the leather up with nervous +fingers.</p> +<p>“Got children, ma’am?” asked the American +seriously, as the coach proceeded on its way.</p> +<p>Miss Amelia Duff made the best joke of her life without +meaning it. “Twenty-seven,” said she, with an +air of great gratitude, and the stranger smiled.</p> +<p>“School-ma’rm. Now that’s good, that +is; it puts me in mind of home, for I appreciate +school-ma’rms so heartily that about as soon as I got out +of the school myself I married one. I’ve never done +<a name="page203"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 203</span>throwing +bouquets at myself about it ever since, but I’m sorry for +the mites she could have been giving a good time to as well as +their education if it hadn’t been that she’s so much +mixed up with me. What made me ask about children was +that—that medieval animator. I haven’t seen one +for years and years, not since old Deacon Springfield found me +astray in his orchard one night and hiking for a short cut +home. I thought they’d been abolished by the treaty +of Berlin.”</p> +<p>Miss Amelia thrust it hurriedly into the reticule. +“We have never used one all our life,” said she, +“but now we fear we have to, and, as you see, it’s +quite thin—it’s quite a little one.”</p> +<p>“So it is,” said the stranger solemnly. +“It’s thin,—it’s translucent, you might +say; but I guess the kiddies are pretty little too, and +won’t be able to make any allowance for the fact that you +could have had a larger size if you wanted. It may be light +on the fingers and mighty heavy on the feelings.”</p> +<p>“That’s what you said,” whispered Miss +Amelia to her sister.</p> +<p>“As moral suasion, belting don’t cut ice,” +went on the American. “It’s generally only a +safety-valve for a wrothy grown-up person with a temper and a +child that can’t hit back”</p> +<p>“That’s what <i>you</i> said,” whispered +Miss Jean to Miss Amelia, and never did two people look more +miserably guilty.</p> +<p>“What beats me,” said the stranger, “is that +you should have got along without it so far, and think it +necessary now.”</p> +<p>“Perhaps—perhaps we won’t use it,” +said Miss Jean.</p> +<p>“Except as—as a sort of symbol,” added her +sister. “We would never have dreamt of it if children +nowadays were not so different from what they used to +be.”</p> +<p>“I guess folk’s been saying that quite a +while,” said the American. “Children never were +like what they used to be. I reckons old Mother Nature +spits on <a name="page204"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +204</span>her hands and makes a fresh start with each baby, and +never turns out two alike. That’s why it’s fun +to sit and watch ’em bloom. Pretty delicate blooms, +too! Don’t bear much pawing; just give them a bit of +shelter when the weather’s cold, a prop to lean against if +they’re leggy and the wind’s high, and see that the +fertiliser is the proper brand. Whether they’re going +to turn out like the picture on the packet or just only weeds +depends on the seedsman.”</p> +<p>“Oh, you <i>don’t</i> understand how rebellious +they can be!” cried Miss Amelia with feeling. +“And they haven’t the old deference to their elders +that they used to have,—they’re growing bold and +independent.”</p> +<p>“Depends on the elders, I suppose. Over here I +think you folks think children come into the world just to please +grown-ups and do what they’re told without any +thinking. In America it’s looked at the other way +about: the children are considerably more important than their +elders, and the notion don’t do any harm to either, far as +I can see. As for your rebels, ma’am, I’d +cherish ’em: rebellion’s like a rash, it’s +better out than in.”</p> +<p>Ta-ran-ta-ra! The bugle broke upon their conversation; +the coach emerged from the wood and dashed down hill, and, +wheeling through the arches, drew up at the inn.</p> +<p>The American helped the ladies to alight, took off his hat, +bade them good-day, and turned to speak to his friend the driver, +when a hand was placed on his sleeve, and a child with a dog at +her feet looked up in his face.</p> +<p>“Jim! Why, Jim Molyneux!” cried Bud.</p> +<h2><a name="page205"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +205</span>CHAPTER XXIV.</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">For</span> only a day or two the world (in +a fur-lined collar) dwelt among us, but momentous was its advent +to the household Molyneux came visiting. It was as if a +high tide had swept the dwelling, Bell remarked when he was +gone. You might see no outward difference; the furniture +might still be as it was, and in the same position as Miss Bell +had found it when her mother died, but none the less there was an +unseen doleful wreckage. This unco man Molyneux changed the +vital thing, the atmosphere, and the house with the brass knocker +was never to be altogether just the same again. It is no +discovery of mine that what may seem the smallest trifles play +tremendous parts in destiny.</p> +<p>Even the town itself was some ways altered for a little by the +whim that took the American actor to it. That he should be +American and actor too foredoomed the greatness of his influence, +since the combination stood for much that was mysterious, half +fearful, half sublime, in our simple notions of the larger +world. To have been the first alone would have endowed him +with the charm of wonder and romance for most of us, who, at the +very sight of the name America, even if it be only on a reaper or +a can of beef, have some sense of a mightiness that the roar of +London cannot rouse. But to be an actor too! earning easy +bread by mimicry, and in enormous theatres, before light-headed +folk that have made money—God knows how!—and +prospered. Sinful a little, we allow, for there are doubts +if the play-actor, having to paint his face and <a +name="page206"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 206</span>work late +hours in gas-light, finally shall obtain salvation; sinful, and +yet—and yet—so queer and clever a way of making out a +living! It is no wonder if we looked on Mr Molyneux with +that regard which by cities is reserved for shahs of a hundred +wives, and royal vagabonds. Besides, consider how the way +had been prepared for him by Bud!—a child, but a child who +had shown already how wonderful must be the land that had +swallowed up clever men like William Dyce and the brother of P. +& A. MacGlashan. Had she not, by a single object-lesson +in the Pilgrim widow’s warehouse, upset the local ways of +commerce, so that now, in all the shops, the people were +constantly buying things of which they had no earthly need; and +the Pilgrim widow herself was put to the weekly trouble of +washing her windows, so wasting time that might have been devoted +to the Mission? Had she not shown that titled ladies were +but human after all, and would not bite you if you cracked a joke +politely with them? Had she not put an end to all the +gallivanting of the maid of Colonsay, and given her an education +that made her fit to court a captain? And, finally, had she +not, by force of sheer example, made dumb and stammering +bashfulness in her fellow pupils at the Sunday-school look +stupid, and by her daily walk and conversation roused in them a +new spirit of inquiry and independence that pleased their parents +not so badly, and only the little twin teachers of the Pigeon +Seminary could mistake for the kind of rebellion that calls for +the application of the tawse?</p> +<p>Mr Molyneux might have no idea of it, but he was a lion for +those few days of sequestration in what he thought the +wilds. Miss Minto dressed her windows specially for his +critical eye, and on the tickets of her autumn sales gave the +name of “waist” to what had hitherto been a blouse or +a garibaldi; P. & A. MacGlashan made the front of his shop +like a wharf with piles of empty packing-cases to indicate a +prosperous foreign and colonial trade; one morning Wanton Wully +rang the bell at half-past five instead of six to <a +name="page207"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 207</span>prove how +very wide-awake we were; and the band paraded once with a new +tune, “Off to Philadelphia,” to show that when it +came to gaiety we were not, though small, so very far behind New +York.</p> +<p>But Jim Molyneux, going up and down the street with Lennox and +the dog for cicerones, peered from under the rim of his hat, and +summed all up to himself in the words, “Rube town” +and “Cobwebopolis.”</p> +<p>Bell took warmly to him from the outset, so much was in his +favour. For one thing he was spick and span, though not a +jackanapes, with no long hair about him as she had expected, and +with an honest eye and a good complexion that, for simple country +ladies, readily pass as the guarantee of a being clean +within. She forgave the disreputable part in him—the +actor, since William had been one, and yet had taught his child +her prayers; and she was willing to overlook the American, seeing +William’s wife had suffered from the same misfortune. +But, oh the blow she got when she unpacked what he called his +grip, and found the main thing wanting!</p> +<p>“Where’s your Bible, Mr Molyneux?” she asked +solemnly. “It’s not in your +portmanteau?”</p> +<p>Again it was in his favour that he reddened, though the excuse +he had to make was feeble.</p> +<p>“Dear me!” she said, shaking her head, with a sad +sort of smile, “and you to be so regularly +travelling! If I was your wife I would take you in +hand! But perhaps in America there’s no need for a +lamp to the feet and a light to the path.”</p> +<p>It was after their first supper, for which the patriot Bell +had made a haggis, that her brother, for Molyneux’s +information, said was thought to be composed of bagpipes boiled; +Bud was gone to bed in the attic, and Molyneux was telling how he +simply <i>had</i> to come.</p> +<p>“It’s my first time in Scotland,” said he, +“and when ‘The Iron Hand’ lost its clutch on +old Edina’s fancy, and the scenery was arrested, I +wasn’t so sore about it as I might have been, since it gave +me the opportunity of coming up here to see girly-girly. +‘I’ll <a name="page208"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +208</span>skiddoo from the gang for a day or two,’ I said +to the manager, when we found ourselves side-tracked, and he said +that was all right, he’d wire me when he’d fixed a +settlement; so I skiddid, and worked my way here with the aid of +the American language, and a little Scotch—by +absorption.”</p> +<p>“We have only one fault with your coming—that it +was not sooner,” said Mr Dyce.</p> +<p>“And I’m pretty glad I came, if it was only to see +what a credit Bud is to a Scottish training. +Chicago’s the finest city on earth—in spots; +America’s what our Fourth of July orators succinctly +designate God’s Own, and since Joan of Arc there +hasn’t been any woman better or braver than Mrs +Molyneux. But we weren’t situated to give Bud a show +like what she’d get in a settled home. We did our +best, but we didn’t dwell, as you might say, on Michigan +Avenue, and Mrs Molyneux’s a dear good girl, but she +isn’t demonstratively domesticated. We suspected from +what Bud’s father was, the healthiest place she could be +was where he came from, and though we skipped some sleep, both of +us, to think of losing her, now that I’m here and see her, +I’m glad of it, for my wife and I are pretty much on the +drift most the time in England as we were in the United +States.”</p> +<p>“Yours is an exacting calling, Mr Molyneux,” said +Mr Dyce. “It’s very much the same in all +countries, I suppose?”</p> +<p>“It’s not so bad as stone-breaking, nor so much of +a cinch as being a statesman,” said Mr Molyneux cheerfully, +“but a man’s pretty old at it before he gives up hope +of breaking out into a very large gun. I’ve still the +idea myself that if I’m not likely to be a Booth or Henry +Irving, I could make a pile at management. With a +millionaire at my back for a mascot, and one strong star, I fancy +I could cut a pretty wide gash through the English dramatic +stage. You know our Mr Emerson said, ‘Hitch your +waggon to a star.’ I guess if I got a good star +bridled, I’d hitch a private parlour-car and a steam yacht +on to <a name="page209"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +209</span>her before she flicked an ear. Who wants a +waggon, anyway?”</p> +<p>“A waggon’s fairly safe to travel in,” +suggested Mr Dyce, twinkling through his glasses.</p> +<p>“So’s a hearse,” said Mr Molyneux +quickly. “Nobody that ever travelled in a hearse +complained of getting his funny-bone jolted or his feelings +jarred, but it’s a mighty slow conveyance for live +folks. That’s the only thing that seems to me to be +wrong with this ’cute little British Kingdom: it’s +pretty, and it’s what the school-marm on the coach would +call redolent of the dear dead days beyond recall; and it’s +plucky,—but it keeps the brakes on most the time, and +don’t give its star a chance to amble. I guess +it’s a fine, friendly, and crowded country to be born rich +in, and a pretty peaceful and lonesome country to die poor in; +but take a tenpenny car-ride out from Charing Cross and +you’re in Lullaby Land, and the birds are building nests +and carolling in your whiskers. Life’s short; it only +gives a man time to wear through one pair of eyes, two sets of +teeth, and a reputation, and I want to live every hour of it that +I’m not conspicuously dead.”</p> +<p>They were silent in the parlour of the old house that had for +generations sheltered very different ideals, and over the town +went the call of the wild geese. The room, low-roofed, +small-windowed, papered in dull green, curtained against the +noises of the street, and furnished with the strong mahogany of +Grandma Buntain, dead for sixty years, had ever to those who knew +it best a soul of peace that is not sometimes found in a +cathedral. They felt in it a sanctuary safe from the fret +and tempest, the alarums and disillusions of the life +out-bye. In the light of the shaded lamp hung over the +table, it showed itself to its inmates in the way our most +familiar surroundings will at certain crises—in an aspect +fonder than ever it had revealed before. To Bell, resenting +the spirit of this actor’s gospel, it seemed as if the room +cried out against the sacrilege: even Ailie, sharing in her <a +name="page210"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 210</span>heart, if +less ecstatically, the fervour for life at its busiest this +stranger showed, experienced some inharmony. To Dan it was +for a moment as if he heard a man sell cuckoo clocks by auction +with a tombstone for his rostrum.</p> +<p>“Mr Molyneux,” said he, “you remind me, in +what you say, of Maggie White’s husband. Before he +died he kept the public-house, and on winter nights when my old +friend Colin Cleland and his cronies would be sitting in the back +room with a good light, a roaring fire, and an argument about +Effectual Calling, so lively that it stopped the effectual and +profitable call for Johnny’s toddy, he would come in +chittering as it were with cold, and his coat-collar up on his +neck, to say, ‘An awfu’ nicht outside! As dark +as the inside o’ a cow, and as cauld as charity! +They’re lucky that have fires to sit by.’ And +he would impress them so much with the good fortune of their +situation at the time that they would order in another round and +put off their going all the longer, though the night outside, in +truth, was no way out of the ordinary. I feel like that +about this place I was born in, and its old fashions and its lack +of hurry, when I hear you—with none of Johnny White’s +stratagem—tell us, not how dark and cold is the world +outside, but what to me, at the age of fifty-five, at any rate is +just as unattractive. You’ll excuse me if, in a +manner of speaking, I ring the bell for another round. +Life’s short, as you say, but I don’t think it makes +it look any the longer to run through the hours of it instead of +leisurely daundering—if you happen to know what daundering +is, Mr Molyneux—and now and then resting on the roadside +with a friend and watching the others pass.”</p> +<p>“At fifty-five,” said Mr Molyneux agreeably, +“I’ll perhaps think so too, but I can only look at it +from the point of view of thirty-two. We’ve all got +to move, at first, Mr Dyce. That reminds me of a little +talk I had with Bud to-day. That child’s grown, Mr <a +name="page211"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +211</span>Dyce,—grown a heap of ways: she’s hardly a +child any longer.”</p> +<p>“Tuts! She’s nothing else!” exclaimed +Miss Bell, with some misgiving. “When I was her age I +was still at my sampler in Barbara Mushet’s.”</p> +<p>“Anyhow she’s grown. And it seems to me +she’s about due for a little fresh experience. I +suppose you’ll be thinking of sending her to one of those +Edinburgh schools to have the last coat of shellac put on her +education?”</p> +<p>“What put that in your head? Did she suggest it +herself?” asked Mr Dyce quickly, with his head to one side +in his cross-examination manner.</p> +<p>“Well, she did,—but she didn’t know +it,” said Mr Molyneux. “I guess about the very +last thing that child ’d suggest to anybody would be that +she wanted to separate herself from folk she loves so much as +you; but, if there’s one weakness about her, it is that she +can’t conceal what she thinks, and I’d not been +twenty minutes in her society before I found out she had the +go-fever pretty bad. I suspect a predisposition to that +complaint and a good heart was all her father and mother left +her, and lolling around and dwelling on the past isn’t apt +to be her foible. Two or three years in the boarding-school +arena would put the cap sheaf on the making of that girl’s +character, and I know, for there’s my wife, and she had +only a year and a half. If she’d had longer I guess +she’d have had more sense than marry me. Bud’s +got almost every mortal thing a body wants here, I +suppose,—love in lumps, a warm moist soil, and all the rest +of it; but she wants to be hardened-off, and for hardening-off a +human flower there’s nothing better than a three-course +college, where the social breeze is cooler than it is at +home.”</p> +<p>Miss Bell turned pale—the blow had come! Dan +looked at her with a little pity, for he knew she had long been +fearfully expecting it.</p> +<p>“Indeed!” said she, “and I do not see the +need for any such thing for a long while yet. Do you, <a +name="page212"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +212</span>Ailie?” But Ailie had no answer, and that +was enough to show what she thought.</p> +<p>“I know how it feels at first to think of her going away +from home,” continued Mr Molyneux, eager to be on with a +business he had no great heart for. “Bless you, I +know how my wife felt about it,—she cried like the cherubim +and seraphim. Said it was snatching all the sunshine out of +her life, and when I said, ‘Millicent Molyneux, what about +hubby?’ she just said ‘Scat!’ and threw a +couple of agonised throes. Now, Edinburgh’s not so +very far away that you’d feel desolated if Bud went to a +school there.”</p> +<p>“An unhealthy hole, with haars and horrible east +wind,” said Miss Bell.</p> +<p>“Well, it isn’t the Pacific Slope, if it comes to +climate,” admitted Mr Molyneux.</p> +<p>“No, but it’s the most beautiful city in the wide +world, for all that,” cried Miss Bell, with such spirit +that it cleared the air, and made her sister and her brother +smile, for Molyneux, without his knowing it, had touched her in +the very heart’s core of her national pride.</p> +<p>“You’re sure you are not mistaken, and that she +would wish to go to school?” asked Mr Dyce.</p> +<p>“Do you doubt it yourself?” asked Molyneux +slyly.</p> +<p>“No,” said Mr Dyce, “I know it well enough, +but—but I don’t believe it,” and he smiled at +his own paradox.</p> +<p>“I have her own words for it.”</p> +<p>“Then she’ll go!” said the lawyer firmly, as +if a load was off his mind; and, oddly, there were no objections +from his sisters. “You’re not to imagine, Mr +Molyneux,” he went on, “that we have not thought of +this before. It has for months been never out of our minds, +as might be seen from the fact that we never mentioned it, being +loth to take a step that’s going to make considerable +difference here. It’s not that we feared we should +die of ennui in her absence, for we’re all philosophers and +have plenty to engage <a name="page213"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 213</span>our minds as well as our activities, +and though you might think us rather rusty here we get a good +deal of fun with ourselves. She’ll go—oh, yes, +of course she’ll go,—Ailie went, and she’s +no’ muckle the waur o’t, as we say. I spent +some time in the south myself, and the only harm it seems to have +done me was to make me think too much perhaps of my native +north. Taste’s everything, Mr Molyneux, and you may +retort if you please that I’m like the other Scotsman who +preferred his apples small and hard and sour. I think +there’s no divine instruction, is there, Bell, about +apples? and judgments regarding different countries and different +places in them is mostly a subjective thing, like the estimate of +beauty apart from its utility—”</p> +<p>“Oh! there you are at your metapheesics, Dan,” +cried Miss Bell, “and it’s for me and Ailie to make +ready the bairn for Edinburgh. She hasna got a stitch +that’s fit to be put on.”</p> +<p>Molyneux stared at her—the tone displayed so little +opposition to the project; and seeing him so much surprised, the +three of them smiled.</p> +<p>“That’s us!” said Mr Dyce. +“We’re dour and difficult to decide on anything +involving change, and hide from ourselves as long as we can the +need for it; but once our mind’s made up, it’s +wonderful how we hurry!”</p> +<h2><a name="page214"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +214</span>CHAPTER XXV.</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">Bell</span> liked the creature, as I say; +not a little because she saw in him whence came some part of +Bud’s jocosity, and most of the daft-like language (though +kind of clever too, she must allow) in which it was +expressed. It was a different kind of jocosity from +Dan’s, whose fun, she used to say, partook of the nature of +rowan jelly, being tart and sweet in such a cunning combination +that it tickled every palate and held some natural virtue of the +mountain tree. The fun of Molyneux had another +flavour—it put her in mind of allspice, being foreign, +having heat as well as savour. But in each of these droll +men was the main thing, as she would aye consider it—no +distrust of the Creator’s judgment, good intentions and +ability, and a readiness to be laughed at as well as find +laughter’s cause in others. She liked the man, but +still-and-on was almost glad when the telegram came from +Edinburgh and he went back to join his company. It was not +any lack of hospitality made her feel relief, but the thought +that now Bud’s going was determined on, there was so much +to do in a house where men would only be a bother.</p> +<p>Mr Molyneux found himself so much at home among them, he was +loth to go, expressing his contempt for a mode of transit to the +railway that took two hours to nineteen miles; but Bell, +defensive even of her country’s coaches, told him he was +haivering,—that any greater speed than that was simply +tempting Providence. He praised the Lord there was no <a +name="page215"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 215</span>Providence +to be tempted inside Sandy Hook, and that he knew Beef Kings who +hurled themselves across the landscape at the rate of a mile a +minute. The fact inspired no admiration in Miss Bell: she +wondered at the misguided wretches scudding like that regardless +of their lives, and them with so much money.</p> +<p>Before he left he called at the Pigeons’ Seminary to say +good-bye to the little teachers, and sipped tea,—a British +institution which he told them was as deleterious as the High +Ball of his native land. High Ball—what was a High +Ball? asked Miss Amelia, scenting a nice new phrase; but he could +only vaguely indicate that it was something made of rye and +soda. Then she understood—it was a teetotal drink men +took in clubs, a kind of barley-water. The tea gratified +him less than the confidence of the twins, who told him they had +taken what he said about the—about the shameful article so +much to heart, that they had given it for a razor-strop to one +George Jordon.</p> +<p>“Bully for you!” cried Mr Molyneux +delighted. “But I’d have liked that tawse some, +myself, for my wife’s mighty keen on curios. +She’s got a sitting-room full of Navaho things: +scalpin’-knives, tomahawks, and other brutal bric-a-brac, +and an early British strap would tickle her to death.”</p> +<p>Well, he was gone: the coachman’s horn had scarcely +ceased to echo beyond the arches, when Miss Bell had thrown +herself into the task of preparing for Bud’s change in +life.</p> +<p>What school was she to go to in Edinburgh?—Ailie knew: +there was none better than the one she had gone to herself.</p> +<p>When did it open?—Ailie knew: in a fortnight.</p> +<p>What, exactly, would she need?—Ailie knew that too: she +had in the escritoire a list of things made up already.</p> +<p>“It seems to me,” said Miss Bell suspiciously, +“you’re desperately well informed on all that +appertains to this sudden necessity. How long has it been +in your mind?”</p> +<p><a name="page216"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +216</span>“For a twelvemonth at least,” answered +Ailie boldly. “How long has it been in your +own?”</p> +<p>“H’m!” said Bell. “About as +long, but I refused to harbour it; and—and now that the +thing’s decided on, Ailie Dyce, I hope you’re not +going to stand there arguing away about it all day long, when +there’s so much to do.”</p> +<p>Surely there was never another house so throng, so bustling, +so feverish in anxiety, as this one was for the next +fortnight. The upper and the lower Dyce Academy took +holiday; Kate’s education stopped with a sudden gasp at a +dreadful hill called Popocatepetl, and she said she did not care +a button, since Captain Maclean (no longer Charles to any one +except himself and Bud in the more confidential moments) said the +main things needed in a sailor’s wife were health, hope, +and temper and a few good-laying hens. Miss Minto was +engaged upon Bud’s grandest garments, running out and in +next door herself with inch-tapes over her shoulders and a +mouthful of pins, and banging up against the lawyer in his lobby +to her great distress of mind. And Bell had in the +seamstress, ’Lizbeth Ann, to help her and Ailie with the +rest. Mercator sulked neglected on the wall of Mr +Dyce’s study, which was strewn with basting-threads and +snippets of selvedge and lining till it looked like a +tailor’s shop, and Bud and Footles played on the floor of +it with that content which neither youth nor dogs can find in +chambers trim and orderly. Even Kate was called in to help +these hurried operations—they termed it the making of +Bud’s trousseau. In the garden birds were calling, +calling; far sweeter in the women’s ears were the snip-snip +of scissors and the whir of the sewing-machine; needle arms went +back and forth like fiddle-bows in an orchestra, and from webs of +cloth and linen came forth garments whose variety intoxicated her +who was to wear them. I’m thinking Daniel Dyce lived +simply then, with rather makeshift dinners, but I’m +certain, knowing him well, he did not care, since his share in +the great <a name="page217"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +217</span>adventure was to correspond with Edinburgh, and pave +the way there for the young adventurer’s invasion.</p> +<p>He would keek in at the door on them as he passed to his +office, and Ailie would cry, “Avaunt, man! here woman +reigns.”</p> +<p>“It’s a pleasant change,” he would +say. “I would sooner have them rain than +storm.”</p> +<p>“You’re as bad as Geordie Jordon,” said Miss +Bell, biting thread with that zest which always makes me think +her sex at some time must have lived on +cotton,—“you’re as bad as Geordie Jordon, you +cannot see a keyhole but your eye begins to water.”</p> +<p>If it had indeed been Bud’s trousseau, the town folk +could not have displayed more interest. Ladies came each +day to see how things progressed, and recommend a heavier lining +or another row of the insertion. Even Lady Anne came one +afternoon to see the trousseau, being interested, as she slyly +said, in such things for private reasons of her own, and dubious +about the rival claims of ivory or pure white. So she said; +but she came, no doubt, to assure Miss Lennox that her captain +was a great success.</p> +<p>“I knew he’d be!” said Bud +complacently. “That man’s so beautiful and +good, he’s fit for the Kingdom of Heaven.”</p> +<p>“So are you—you rogue!” said Lady Anne, +gathering her in her arms, without a bit of awkwardness, to the +great astonishment of ’Lizbeth Ann, who thought that titled +folk were not a bit like that—perhaps had not the proper +sort of arms for it. Yes, “So are you—you +rogue!” said Lady Anne.</p> +<p>“No, I’m not,” said the child. +“Leastways only sometimes. Most the time I’m a +born limb, but then again I’m nearly always trying to be +better, and that’s what counts, I guess.”</p> +<p>“And you’re going away to leave us,” said +Lady Anne, whereon a strange thing happened, for the joyous +child, who was to get her heart’s desire and such lovely +garments, burst into tears, and ran from <a +name="page218"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 218</span>the room to +hide herself upstairs in the attic bower, whose windows looked to +a highway that seemed hateful through her tears. Her +ladyship went off distressed, but Bell, as one rejoicing, said, +“I always told you, Ailie—William’s +heart!”</p> +<p>But Bud’s tears were transient: she was soon back among +the snippets where Ailie briskly plied the sewing-machine, and +sang the kind of cheerful songs that alone will go to the time of +pedalling, and so give proof that the age of mechanism is the +merry age, if we have the happy ear for music. And Bud, +though she tired so soon of hems, could help another way that +busy convocation, for she could sit tucked up in Uncle +Dan’s snoozing chair and read ‘Pickwick’ to the +women till the maid of Colonsay was in the mood to take the +Bardell body by the hair of the head and shake her for her +brazenness to the poor wee man. Or the child would dance as +taught by the lady of the Vaudeville, or start at Ailie’s +bidding (Bell a little dubious) to declaim a bit of +“Hamlet” or “Macbeth,” till +’Lizbeth Ann saw ghosts and let her nerves get the better +of her, and there was nothing for it but a cheery cup of tea all +round. Indeed, I must confess, a somewhat common +company! I could almost wish for the sake of my story they +were more genteel, and dined at half-past seven, and talked in +low hushed tones of Bach and Botticelli.</p> +<p>But, oh! they were happy days—at least, so far as all +outward symptoms went: it might indeed have been a real +trousseau, and not the garments for the wedding of a maiden and +the world. How often in the later years did Winifred +Wallace, reading to me her own applause in newspapers, stop to +sigh and tell me how she once was really happy—happy to the +inward core, feeling the dumb applause of four women in a country +chamber, when the world was all before her, and her heart was +young.</p> +<h2><a name="page219"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +219</span>CHAPTER XXVI.</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">Working</span> thus, furiously, at the +task of love, which, in all it does for the youth it cherishes, +must ever be digging a grave for its own delight, Bell could +forget, for periods, that the days of Bud’s presence in +their midst were numbered. Had she stopped her needle and +shears a moment, and let her mind contemplate all the emptiness +of a fortnight hence and the months and years thereafter, she +would have broken down. Ailie, knowing it, watched her +anxiously, and kept the sewing briskly going as if they wrought +for a living in a factory, frightened to think of her +sister’s desperate state when that last button, that the +Armies talk about, was in its place.</p> +<p>But the days sped: one afternoon there was a final sweeping up +of the scraps in the temporary workroom, Bell searched her mind +in vain to think of anything further wanted, and, though there +were still two weeks to go, became appalled to find that the only +thing of any moment to be done ’twixt now and Friday +fortnight was to say Good-bye!</p> +<p>No, stay! There was another thing to bring a little +respite—the girl’s initials must be sewn upon her +clothing. A trivial thing to mention, you may think, but +the very thought of it gave pleasure to the sisters, till Bud +herself, sent to Miss Minto’s for a sample of the woven +letters, came back with only one—it was a W.</p> +<p>“Has the stupid body not got L’s and +D’s?” asked Bell. “There’s no use +here for W.” And Bud showed a countenance startled +and ashamed.</p> +<p><a name="page220"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +220</span>“Oh, Auntie!” she cried, “I asked for +W’s. I quite forgot my name was Lennox Dyce, for in +all I’m thinking of about the school and Edinburgh, I am +Winifred Wallace.”</p> +<p>It was all that was needed to bring about her aunt’s +prostration! “I’m far from well,” said +she, and took to her bed, her first confession of weakness in all +the years that Dan or Ailie could remember. What ailed her +she could not tell, and they sent, without acquainting her, for +Dr Brash. Hearing he was coming, she protested that she +could not see the man—that she was far too ill to be +troubled by any doctor; but Dr Brash was not so easily to be +denied.</p> +<p>“H’m!” said he, examining her. +“Your system’s badly down.”</p> +<p>“I never knew I had one,” said the lady, smiling +wanly, with a touch of Dan’s rowan-jelly humour. +“Women had no system in my young days to go up or down: if +they had, they were ashamed to mention it. Nowadays, it +seems as fashionable as what Kate, since she got her education, +calls the boil.”</p> +<p>“You have been worrying,” he went +on,—“a thing that’s dreadfully +injudicious. H’m! worse than drink, <i>I</i> +say. Worry’s the death of half my patients; they +never give my pills a chance,” and there was a twinkle in +his eyes which most of Dr Brash’s patients thought was far +more efficacious than his pills.</p> +<p>“What would I worry for?” said Miss Bell. +“I’m sure I have every blessing; goodness and mercy +all my life.”</p> +<p>“Just so! just so!” said Dr Brash. +“Goodness and—and, h’m—mercy sometimes +take the form of a warning that it’s time we kept to bed +for a week, and that’s what I recommend you.”</p> +<p>“Mercy on me! Am I so far through as that?” +she said, alarmed. “It’s something +serious,—I know by the cheerful face that you put on +you. Little did I think that I would drop off so +soon. And just at the very time when there’s so much +to do!”</p> +<p>“Pooh!” said Dr Brash. “When you drop +off, <a name="page221"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +221</span>Miss Dyce, there’ll be an awful dunt, I’m +telling you! God bless my soul, what do you think a +doctor’s for but putting folk on their pins again! A +week in bed—and—h’m!—a bottle. +Everything’s in the bottle, mind you!”</p> +<p>“And there’s the hands of the Almighty too,” +said Bell, who constantly deplored the doctor was so poor a Kirk +attender, and not a bit in that respect like the noble doctors in +her sister’s latest Scottish novels.</p> +<p>Dr Brash went out of the room, to find the rest of the +household sorely put about in the parlour, Lennox an object of +woe, and praying hard to herself with as much as she could +remember of her Uncle Dan’s successful supplication for +herself when she had the pneumonia. To see the cheerfulness +of his countenance when he came in was like the sun-burst on a +leaden sea. “Miss Bell’s as sound as her +namesake,” he assured them. “There’s been +something on her mind”—with a flash of the eye, at +once arrested, towards Lennox,—“and she has worked +herself into a state of nervous collapse. I’ve given +her the best of tonics for her kind,—the dread of a week in +bed,—and I’ll wager she’ll be up by +Saturday. The main thing is to keep her cheerful, and I +don’t think that should be very difficult.”</p> +<p>Bud there and then made up her mind that her own true love was +Dr Brash, in spite of his nervous sisters and his funny +waistcoats. Ailie said if cheerfulness would do the thing +she was ready for laughing-gas, and the lawyer vowed he would +rake the town for the very latest chronicles of its never-ending +fun.</p> +<p>But Bud was long before him on her mission of cheerfulness to +the bedroom of Auntie Bell. Did you ever see a douce Scotch +lass who never in her life had harboured the idea that her native +hamlet was other than the finest dwelling-place in all the world, +and would be happy never to put a foot outside it?—that was +to be the <i>rôle</i> to-day. A sober little lass, +sitting in a wicker-chair whose faintest creak appeared to put <a +name="page222"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 222</span>her in an +agony—sitting incredibly long and still, and speaking +Scotch when spoken to, in the most careful undertone, with a +particular kind of smile that was her idea of judicious +cheerfulness for a sick-room.</p> +<p>“Bairn!” cried her aunt at last, “if you sit +much longer like that you’ll drive me crazy. What in +the world’s the matter with you?”</p> +<p>“Nothing, dear Auntie Bell,” said Bud, +astonished.</p> +<p>“You needn’t tell me! What was the Doctor +saying?”</p> +<p>“He said you were to be kept cheerful,” said Bud, +“and I’m doing the best I can—”</p> +<p>“Bless me, lass! do you think it’s cheery to be +sitting there with a face like a Geneva watch? I would +sooner see you romping.”</p> +<p>But no, Bud could not romp that day, and when her Uncle Dan +came up he found her reading aloud from Bell’s favourite +Gospel according to John—her auntie’s way of securing +the cheerfulness required. He looked at the pair, his hands +in his pockets, his shoulders bent, and all the joviality with +which he had come carefully charged gave place for a little to a +graver sentiment. So had Ailie sat, a child, beside her +mother on her death-bed, and, reading John one day, found open +some new vista in her mind that made her there and then renounce +her dearest visions, and thirl herself for ever to the home and +him and Bell.</p> +<p>“Well, Dan,” said his sister, when the child was +gone, “what have you brought me? Is it the usual +pound of grapes?”—for she was of the kind whose most +pious exercises never quench their sense of fun, and a gift of +grapes in our place is a doleful hint to folks bedridden: I think +they sometimes might as well bring in the stretching-board.</p> +<p>“A song-book would suit you better,” said the +lawyer. “What do you think’s the matter with +you? Worrying about that wean! Is this your Christian +resignation?”</p> +<p>“I am <i>not</i> worrying, Dan,” she +protested. “At <a name="page223"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 223</span>least, not very much, and I never +was the one to make much noise about my Christianity.”</p> +<p>“You need to be pretty noisy with it nowadays to make +folk believe you mean it.”</p> +<p>“What did Dr Brash say down the stair?” she +asked. “Does he—does he think I’m going +to die?”</p> +<p>“Lord bless me!” cried her brother, “this is +not the way that women die. I never heard of you having a +broken heart. You’re missing all the usual +preliminaries, and you haven’t even practised being +ill. No, no, Bell; it’ll be many a day, I hope, +before you’re pushing up the daisies, as that vagabond +Wanton Wully puts it.”</p> +<p>Bell sighed. “You’re very +joco’,” said she; “you’re aye cheery, +whatever happens.”</p> +<p>“So long as it doesn’t happen to +myself—that’s philosophy; at least it’s Captain +Consequence’s. And if I’m cheery to-day +it’s by the Doctor’s orders. He says +you’re to be kept from fretting, even if we have to hire +the band.”</p> +<p>“Then I doubt I’m far far through!” said +Bell; “I’m booked for a better land,”—and +at that the lawyer gave a chirruping little laugh, and said, +“Are you sure it’s not for Brisbane?”</p> +<p>“What do you mean?” she asked him, marvellously +interested for one who talked of dying.</p> +<p>“It’s a new one,” he exclaimed. +“I had it to-day from her ladyship’s Captain. +He was once on a ship that sailed to Australia, and half-way out +a passenger took very ill. ‘That one’s booked +for heaven, anyway,’ Maclean said to the purser. +‘No,’ said the purser, who was busy, +‘he’s booked for Brisbane.’ ‘Then +he would be a D. sight better in heaven,’ said Maclean; +‘I have been twice in Brisbane, and I +know.’”</p> +<p>Bell did her best to restrain a smile, but +couldn’t. “Oh, Dan!” said she, +“you’re an awful man! You think there’s +nothing in this world to daunten anybody.”</p> +<p>“Not if they happen to be Dyces,” said he. +“A high heart and a humble head—you remember <a +name="page224"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +224</span>father’s motto? And here you’re +dauntened because the young one’s going only one or two +hundred miles away for her own advantage.”</p> +<p>“I’m not a bit dauntened,” said Miss Bell +with spirit. “It’s not myself I’m +thinking of at all—it’s her, poor thing! among +strangers night and day; damp sheets, maybe, and not a wise-like +thing to eat. You would never forgive yourself if she fell +into a decline.”</p> +<p>“Ailie throve pretty well on their dieting,” he +pointed out; “and if she’s going to fall into a +decline, she’s pretty long of starting.”</p> +<p>“But you mind they gave her sago pudding,” said +Miss Bell; “and if there’s one thing Lennox cannot +eat, it’s sago pudding. She says it is so slippy, +every spoonful disappears so sudden it gives her an awful +start. She says she might as well sup puddocks.”</p> +<p>Dan smiled at the picture and forced himself to silent +patience.</p> +<p>“And they’ll maybe let her sit up to all +hours,” Bell proceeded. “You know the way she +fastens on a book at bed-time!”</p> +<p>“Well, well!” said he emphatically. +“If you’re sure that things are to be so bad as that, +we’ll not let her go at all,” and he slyly scanned +her countenance to see, as he expected, that she was indignant at +the very thought of backing out now that they had gone so +far.</p> +<p>“You needn’t start to talk nonsense,” said +she; “of course she’s going. But oh, Dan! +it’s not the sheets, nor food, nor anything like that, that +troubles me; it’s the knowledge that she’ll never be +the same wee lass again.”</p> +<p>“Tuts!” said Daniel Dyce, and cleaned some +moisture from his spectacles; “you’re putting all the +cheerful things I was going to say to you out of my head. +I’m off to business; is there anything I can do for +you? No. Then, remember, you’re not to stir +this week outside the blankets; these are the orders of Dr +Brash. I have no doubt Ailie will do <a +name="page225"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 225</span>very well +at the house-keeping,” and he left her with a gleam of +mischief in his eye.</p> +<p>The window of the bedroom was a little open; on one of the +trees a blackbird sang, and there came in the scent of +apple-ringie and a tempting splendour of sun. For twenty +minutes the ailing lady tried to content herself with the thought +of a household managed by Alison Dyce, and then arose to see if +Wully Oliver was not idling in the garden. She saw him +sitting on his barrow-trams, while Ailie walked among the +dahlias, and chucked her favourites of them under their +chins.</p> +<p>“William Oliver!” cried Miss Bell indignantly, +having thrown a Shetland shawl about her; “is that all the +work you can do in a day?”</p> +<p>He looked up at the window and slowly put his pipe in his +pocket.</p> +<p>“Well, m’em,” said he, “I daresay I +could do more, but I never was much of a hand for showing +off.”</p> +<h2><a name="page226"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +226</span>CHAPTER XXVII.</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">When</span> Miss Bell rose, as she did in +a day or two, bantered into a speedy convalescence by Ailie and +Dan, it was to mark Bud’s future holidays on the calendar, +and count the months in such a cunning way that she cheated the +year of a whole one, by arguing to herself that the child would +be gone a fortnight before they really missed her, and as good as +home again whenever she started packing to return. And +Edinburgh, when one was reasonable and came to think of it, was +not so very awful: the Miss Birds were there, in the next street +to the school where Bud was bound for, so if anything should +happen,—a fire, for instance—fires were desperately +common just now in the newspapers, and ordinary commonsense +suggested a whole clothes-rope for the tying up of the young +adventurer’s boxes; or if Bud should happen to be really +hungry between her usual meals—a common thing with growing +bairns,—the Birds were the very ones to make her +welcome. It was many a year since Bell had been in +Edinburgh,—she had not been there since mother +died,—she was determined that, if she had the money and was +spared till Martinmas, she should make a jaunt of it and see the +shops: it was very doubtful if Miss Minto wasn’t often +lamentably out of date with many of her fashions.</p> +<p>“Oh, you vain woman!” cried Ailie to her; +“will nothing but the very latest satisfy you?”</p> +<p>Bud was to be sure and write once every week, on any day but +Saturday, for if her letters came on <a name="page227"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 227</span>Sunday they would be tempted to call +at the post-office for them, like Captain Consequence, instead of +waiting till the Monday morning. And if she had a cold or +any threatening of quinsy, she was to fly for her very life to +the hoarhound mixture, put a stocking round her neck, and go to +bed. Above all, was she to mind and take her porridge every +morning, and to say her prayers.</p> +<p>“I’ll take porridge to beat the band,” Bud +promised, “even—even if I have to shut my eyes all +through.”</p> +<p>“In a cautious moderation,” recommended Uncle +Dan. “I think myself oatmeal is far too rich a diet +for the blood. I have it from Captain Consequence that +there’s nothing for breakfast like curried kidney and a +chop to follow. But I hope you’ll understand that, +apart from the carnal appetites, the main thing is to scoop in +all the prizes. I’ll be dreadfully disappointed if +you come back disgraced, with anything less of them than the full +of a cart. That, I believe, is the only proof of a liberal +Scottish education. In Ailie’s story-books it’s +all the good, industrious, and deserving pupils who get +everything. Of course, if you take all the prizes +somebody’s sure to want,—but, tuts! I would never let +that consideration vex me—it’s their own +look-out. If you don’t take prizes, either in the +school or in the open competition of the world, how are folk to +know they should respect you?”</p> +<p>“You must have been a wonderfully successful student in +your day,” said Ailie mischievously. “Where are +all your medals?”</p> +<p>Dan laughed. “It’s ill to say,” said +he, “for the clever lads who won them when I wasn’t +looking have been so modest ever since that they’ve clean +dropped out of sight. I never won anything myself in all my +life that called for competition—except the bottom of the +class! When it came to competitions, and I could see the +other fellows’ faces, I was always far too tired or well +disposed to them to give them a disappointment which they +seemingly couldn’t stand so well as myself. But then +I’m not like Bud here. <a name="page228"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 228</span>I hadn’t a shrewd old uncle +egging me on. So you must be keen on the prizes, Bud. +Of course there’s wisdom too, but that comes +later,—there’s no hurry for it. Prizes, +prizes—remember the prizes: the more you win, the more, I +suppose, I’ll admire you.”</p> +<p>“And if I don’t win any, Uncle Dan?” said +Bud slyly, knowing very well the nature of his fun.</p> +<p>“Then, I suppose, I’ll have to praise the Lord if +you keep your health, and just continue loving you,” said +the lawyer. “I admit that if you’re anyway +addicted to the prizes, you’ll be the first of your name +that was so. In that same school in Edinburgh your Auntie +Ailie’s quarterly reports had always +‘Conduct—Good,’ and +‘Mathematics—Fairly moderate.’ We half +expected she was coming back an awful dilly; but if she did, she +made a secret of it. I forgave her the ‘Fairly +moderate’ myself, seeing she had learned one +thing—how to sing. I hope you’ll learn to sing, +Bud, in French, or German, or Italian—anything but +Scotch. Our old Scotch songs, I’m told, are not +what’s called artistic.”</p> +<p>“The sweetest in the world!” cried Auntie +Bell. “I wonder to hear you haivering.”</p> +<p>“I’m afraid you’re not a judge of +music,” said the brother. “Scotch songs are +very common—everybody knows them. There’s no +art in them, there’s only heart—a trifling kind of +quality. If you happen to hear me singing ‘Annie +Laurie’ or ‘Afton Water’ after you come home, +Bud, be sure and check me. I want to be no discredit to +you.”</p> +<p>“No, I shan’t, Uncle Dan,” said the +child. “I’ll sing ‘Mary Morison,’ +and ‘Ae Fond Kiss,’ and ‘Jock o’ +Hazeldean’ at you till you’re fairly squealing with +delight. I know. Allow me! why, you’re only +haivering.”</p> +<p>“Have mercy on the child, Dan,” said his +sister. “Never you mind him, Bud; he’s only +making fun of you.”</p> +<p>“I know,” said Bud; “but I’m not +kicking.”</p> +<p>Kate—ah! poor Kate—how sorry I should be for <a +name="page229"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 229</span>her, +deserted by her friend and tutor, if she had not her own +consoling Captain. Kate would be weeping silently every +time the pipe was on in the scullery, and she thought how lonely +her kitchen was to be when the child was gone. And she had +plans to make that painful exile less heartrending: she was going +to write to her sister out in Colonsay and tell her to be sure +and send fresh country eggs at intervals of every now and then, +or maybe oftener in the winter-time, to Lennox; for the genuine +country egg was a thing it was hopeless to expect in Edinburgh, +where there wasn’t such a thing as sand, or grass, or +heather—only causeway stones. She could assure Lennox +that, as for marriage, there was not the slightest risk for years +and years, since there wasn’t a house in the town to let +that would be big enough (and still not dear) to suit a +Captain. He was quite content to be a plain intended, and +hold on. And as for writing, she would take her pen in hand +quite often and send the latest news to Lennox, who must please +excuse haste, and these d-d-desperate pens, and having the post +to catch—not that she would dream of catching the poor, +wee, shauchly creature: it was just a way of speaking. +Would Lennox not be dreadful home-sick, missing all the cheery +things, and smothered up in books in yon +place—Edinburgh?</p> +<p>“I expect I’ll be dre’ffle home-sick,” +admitted Bud.</p> +<p>“I’m sure you will, my lassie,” said the +maid. “I was so home-sick myself when I came here at +first that my feet got almost splay with wanting to turn back to +Colonsay. But if I’m not so terribly good-looking, +I’m awful brave, and soon got over it. When you are +home-sick go down to the quay and look at the steamboats, or take +a turn at our old friend Mr Puckwuck.”</p> +<p>Four days—three days—two days—one +day—to-morrow; that last day went so fast, it looked as if +Wanton Wully had lost the place again and rang the evening bell +some hours before it was due. Bud could only sit by, +helpless, and marvel at the <a name="page230"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 230</span>ingenuity that could be shown in +packing what looked enough to stock Miss Minto’s shop into +a couple of boxes. She aged a twelvemonth between the +hand-glass at the bottom and the bath-sheet on the top.</p> +<p>“And in this corner,” said Miss Bell, on her +knees, “you’ll find your Bible, the hoarhound +mixture, and five-and-twenty threepenny-bits for the plate on +Sundays. Some of them sixpences.”</p> +<p>“Irish ones, apparently,” said Uncle Dan.</p> +<p>“Some of them sixpences, for the Foreign Mission days, +and one shilling for the day of the Highlands and +Islands.”</p> +<p>“You’re well provided for the kirk at any +rate,” said Uncle Dan. “I’ll have to put +a little money for this wicked world in the other corner,” +and he did.</p> +<p>When the coach next day set out—No, no, I cannot tell +you all, for I hate to think of tears, and would hurry over +partings. It went in tearful weather, rain drizzling on Bud +and Auntie Ailie, who accompanied her. They looked back on +the hill-top, and saw the grey slates glint under a grey sky, and +following them on the miry road, poor Footles, faithful heart, +who did not understand. He paddled through the mud till a +blast from the bugle startled him, and he seemed to realise that +this was some painful new experience. And then he stood in +the track of the disappearing wheels, and lifted up his voice in +lamentation.</p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p>The night came on, resuming her ancient empire—for she +alone, and not the day, did first possess and finally shall +possess unquestioned this space dusty with transient stars, and +the light is Lord of another universe where is no night, nay, nor +terror thereof. From the western clouds were the flame and +gold withdrawn, and the winds sighed from the mountains, as vexed +for passing days. The winds sighed from the mountains, and +the mists came mustering to the glens; the sea crept out on long, +bird-haunted, <a name="page231"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +231</span>wailing, and piping sands, nought to be seen of it, its +presence obvious only in the scent of wrack and the wash on the +pebbled beaches. Behind the town the woods lay black and +haunted, and through them, and far upward in the valley, dripping +in the rain and clamorous with hidden burns and secret wells, +went the highway to the world, vacant of aught visible, but never +to be wholly vacant, since whoso passes on a highway ever after +leaves some wandering spirit there. Did the child, that +night, think of the highway that had carried her from home? +In the hoarsely crying city did she pause a moment to remember +and retrace her way to the little town that now lay faintly +glowing in the light of its own internal fires?</p> +<p>Thus Bell wondered, standing at her window, looking into the +solitary street. Every mile of separating highway rose +before her,—she walked them in the rain and dark; all the +weary longing of the world came down on her that mirk night in +September, and praying that discretion should preserve and +understanding keep her wanderer, she arrived at the soul’s +tranquillity, and heard without misgiving the wild geese cry.</p> +<p>Her brother took the Books, and the three of +them—master, mistress, and maid—were one in the +spirit of worship, longing, and hope. Where, then, I +wonder, had gone Daniel Dyce, the lawyer, the gentle ironist, on +whose lips so often was kindly mockery, on whose tongue levity or +its pretence—</p> +<p class="poetry">“Never by passion quite +possess’d,<br /> +And never quite benumbed by the world’s sway”?</p> +<p>It was Bell’s nightly duty to turn the lamp out in the +lobby and bolt the outer door. She went this night +reluctant to perform that office, but a thought possessed her of +a child from home, somewhere in the darkness among strangers, and +she had to call her brother.</p> +<p>“What is it?” said he.</p> +<p><a name="page232"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +232</span>“The door,” she said, ashamed of herself, +“I cannot bolt it,”</p> +<p>He looked at her flushed face and her trembling hand, and +understood. “It’s only the door of a +house,” said he; “<i>that</i> makes no +difference,” and ran the bolt into its staple.</p> +<h2><a name="page233"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +233</span>CHAPTER XXVIII.</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">For</span> all the regrets of increasing +age there is one alleviation among many, that days apart from +those we love pass the quicker, even as our hurrying years. +Thus it is that separations are divested of more and more of +their terrors the nearer we are to that final parting which wipes +out all, and is but the going to a great reunion. So the +first fortnight, whereof Miss Bell thought to cheat the almanac +under the delusion that Bud’s absence would then scarcely +be appreciated, was in truth the period when she missed her most, +and the girl was back for her Christmas holidays before half of +her threepenny-bits for the plate were done.</p> +<p>It was worth a year of separation to see her come in at the +door, rosy from the frosty air, with sparkling eyes and the old, +sweet, rippling laugh, not—outside at least—an atom +different from the girl who had gone away; and it made up to Bud +herself for many evenings home-sick on an Edinburgh pillow to +smell again the old celestial Christmas grocery and feel the +warmth of her welcome.</p> +<p>Myself, I like to be important—not of such consequence +to the world as to have it crick its neck with having to look up +at me, but now and then important only to a few old friends; and +Bud, likewise, could always enjoy the upper seat, if the others +of her company were never below the salt. She basked in the +flattery that Kate’s deportment gave to her dignity as a +young lady educated at tremendous cost.</p> +<p>It was the daft days of her first coming over again; <a +name="page234"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 234</span>but this +time she saw all with older eyes,—and, besides, the novelty +of the little Scottish town was ended. Wanton Wully’s +bell, pealing far beyond the burgh bounds,—commanding, like +the very voice of God, to every ear of that community, no matter +whether it rang at morn or eve,—gave her at once a crystal +notion of the smallness of the place, not only in its bounds of +stone and mortar, but in its interests, as compared with the +city, where a thousand bells, canorous on the Sabbath, failed, it +was said, to reach the ears of more than a fraction of the +people. The bell, and John Taggart’s band on +Hogmanay, and the little shops with windows falling back already +on timid appeals, and the grey high tenements pierced by narrow +entries, and the douce and decent humdrum folk,—she saw +them with a more exacting vision, and Ailie laughed to hear them +all summed up as “quaint.”</p> +<p>“I wondered when you would reach +‘quaint,’” said Auntie Ailie; “it was due +some time ago, but this is a house where you never hear the +word. Had you remained at the Pige— at the Misses +Duff’s Seminary Miss Amelia would have had you sewing it on +samplers, if samplers any longer were the fashion.”</p> +<p>“Is it not a nice word ‘quaint’?” +asked Bud, who, in four months among critics less tolerant (and +perhaps less wise) than the Dyces, had been compelled to rid +herself of many transatlantic terms and phrases.</p> +<p>“There’s nothing wrong with ‘quaint,’ +my dear,” said Miss Ailie; “it moves in the most +exclusive circles: if I noticed it particularly, it is because it +is the indication of a certain state of mind, and tells me where +you stand in your education more clearly than your first +quarterly report. I came home from school with +‘quaint’ myself: it not only seemed to save a lot of +trouble by being a word which could be applied to anything not +otherwise describable, but I cherished it because its use +conferred on me a kind of inward glow of satisfaction +like—like—like Aunt Bell’s <a +name="page235"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 235</span>home-made +ginger-cordial. ‘Quaint,’ Bud, is the +shibboleth of boarding-school culture: when you can use the word +in the proper place, with a sense of superiority to the thing so +designated, you are practically a young lady and the polish is +taking on.”</p> +<p>“They all say it in our school,” explained Bud +apologetically; “at least, all except The +Macintosh,—I couldn’t think of her saying it +somehow.”</p> +<p>“Who’s The Macintosh?” asked Ailie.</p> +<p>“Why! was there no Macintosh in your time?” +exclaimed Bud. “I thought she went away back to +the—to the Roman period. She’s the funniest old +lady in the land, and comes twice a-week to teach us dancing and +deportment. She’s taught them to mostly all the +nobility and gentry of Scotland; she taught Lady Anne and all her +brothers when they were in St Andrews.”</p> +<p>“I never heard of her,” said Ailie; “she +must be—be—be decidedly quaint.”</p> +<p>“She’s so quaint you’d think she’d be +kept in a corner cupboard with a bag of camphor at the back to +scare the moths away. She’s a little wee mite, not +any bigger than me—than I,—and they say she’s +seventy years old, but sometimes she doesn’t look a day +more than forty-five if it weren’t for her cap and her two +front teeth missing. She’s got the loveliest fluffy +silver hair—pure white, like Mrs Molyneux’s Aunt +Tabitha’s Persian cat; cheeks like an apple, hands as young +as yours, and when she walks across a room she glides like this, +so you’d think she was a cutter yacht—”</p> +<p>Bud sailed across the parlour to represent the movement of The +Macintosh with an action that made her aunties laugh, and the dog +gave one short yelp of disapproval.</p> +<p>“That was the way that Grandma Buntain walked,—it +used to be considered most genteel,” said Bell. +“They trained girls up to do it with a back-board and a +book on the top of the head; but it was out before my time; we +just walked anyway in Barbara Mushet’s <a +name="page236"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 236</span>Seminary, +where the main things were tambouring and the +Catechism.”</p> +<p>“Miss Macintosh is a real lady,” Bud went +on. “She’s got genuine old ancestors. +They owned a Highland place called Kaims, and the lawyers have +almost lawyered it a’ awa’ she says, so now +she’s simply got to help make a living teaching dancing and +deportment. I declare I don’t know what deportment is +no more than the child unborn, unless it’s shutting the +door behind you, walking into a room as if your head and your +legs were your own, keeping your shoulders back, and being polite +and kind to everybody, and I thought folks ’d do all that +without attending classes, unless they were looney. Miss +Macintosh says they are the <i>sine qua non</i> and principal +branches for a well-bred young lady in these low days of clingy +frocks and socialism; but the Principal she just smiles and gives +us another big block of English history. Miss Macintosh +doesn’t let on, but I know she simply can’t stand +English history, for she tells us, spells between quadrilles, +that there hasn’t been any history anywhere since the Union +of the Parliaments, except the Rebellion of 1745. But she +doesn’t call it a rebellion. She calls it ‘yon +affair.’ <i>She’s</i> Scotch! I tell you, +Auntie Bell, you’d love to meet her! I sit, and sit, +and look at her like—like a cat. She wears +spectacles, just a little clouded, only she doesn’t call +them spectacles; she says they are preserves, and that her eyes +are as good as anybody’s. They’re bright +enough, I tell you, for over seventy.”</p> +<p>“Indeed I would like to see the creature!” +exclaimed Miss Bell. “She must be an original! +I’m sometimes just a trifle tired of the same old folk +about me here,—I know them all so well, and all +they’re like to do or say, that there’s nothing new +or startling to be expected from them.”</p> +<p>“Would you like to see her?” said Bud quickly; +“then—then, some day I’ll tell her, and +I’ll bet she’ll come. She dresses +queer—like a lady in the ‘School <a +name="page237"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 237</span>for +Scandal,’ and wears long mittens like Miss Minto, and when +our music-master, Herr Laurent, is round she makes goo-goo eyes +at him fit to crack her glasses. ‘Oh, +Hair-r-r!’ she says, sitting with her mitts in her +lap,—‘oh, Hair-r-r! can you no’ give the young +ladies wise-like Scotch sangs, instead o’ that dreich +Concone?’ And sometimes she’ll hit him with a +fan. He says she plays the piano to our dancing the same as +it was a spinet.”</p> +<p>“I declare it beats all!” said Miss Bell. +“Does the decent old body speak Scotch?”</p> +<p>“Sometimes. When she’s making goo-goo eyes +at the Herr, or angry, or finding fault with us but doesn’t +want to hurt our feelings.”</p> +<p>“I can understand that,” said Miss Bell, with a +patriot’s fervour; “there’s nothing like the +Scotch for any of them; I fall to it myself when I’m +sentimental. And so does your Uncle Dan.”</p> +<p>“She says she’s the last of the real +Macintoshes,—that all the rest you see on Edinburgh +signboards are only incomers or poor de-degenerate cadets; and I +guess the way she says it, being a de-degenerate cadet Macintosh +must be the meanest thing under the cope and canopy. Heaps +of those old ancestors of hers went out in the days of the clans, +fighting for any royalty that happened along. She’s +got all their hair in lockets, and makes out that when they +disappeared Scotland got a pretty hard knock. I said to her +once the same as Aunt Ailie says to you, Aunt Bell, +‘English and Scots, I s’pose we’re all +God’s people, and it’s a terribly open little island +to be quarrelling in, seeing all the Continent can hear us quite +plain’; but she didn’t like it. She said it was +easy seen I didn’t understand the dear old Highland +mountains, where her great-great-grandfather, Big John of the +Axe, could collect five hundred fighting-men if he wagged a fiery +cross at them. ‘I have Big John’s blood in +me!’ she said, quite white, and her head shaking so much +her preserves nearly fell off her nose. ‘I’ve +Big John’s blood in me; and when I <a +name="page238"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 238</span>think of +things, <i>I hate the very name o’ thae aboaminable +English</i>!’ ‘Why, you’ve never seen +them, Miss Macintosh,’ I said—for I knew she’d +never had a foot outside Scotland. ‘No,’ said +she, quite sharp, ‘and I don’t want to; for they +might be nice enough, and then I wad be bound to like +them.’”</p> +<p>“Oh, Bell!” cried Ailie, laughing, “Miss +Macintosh is surely your doppelganger.”</p> +<p>“I don’t know what a doppelganger is,” said +Auntie Bell; “but she’s a real sensible body, and +fine I would like to see her.”</p> +<p>“Then I’ll have to fix it somehow,” said +Bud, with emphasis. “P’raps you’ll meet +her when you come to Edinburgh—”</p> +<p>“I’m not there yet, my dear.”</p> +<p>“—Or she might be round this way by-and-by. +She’d revel in this place; she’d maybe not call it +quaint, but she’d find it pretty careless about being in +the—in the modern rush she talks about, and that would make +her happier than a letter from home. I believe The +Macintosh—”</p> +<p>“Miss Macintosh, my dear,” said Bell reprovingly, +and the girl reddened.</p> +<p>“<i>I</i> know,” said she. “It’s +mean to talk of her same as she was a waterproof, and I often try +not to, because I like her immensely; but it’s so common +among the girls that I forget. I believe Miss Macintosh +would love this place, and could stop in it for ever.”</p> +<p>“Couldn’t you?” asked Auntie Ailie +slyly.</p> +<p>Bud hesitated. “Well, I—I like it,” +said she. “I just love to lie awake nights and think +about it, and I can hear the wind in the trees and the tide come +in, and the bell, and the wild geese; and family worship at the +Provost’s on Sunday nights, and I can almost <i>be</i> +here, I think so powerfully about it; +but—but—”</p> +<p>She stopped short, for she saw a look of pain in the face of +her Auntie Bell.</p> +<p>“But what?” said the latter sharply.</p> +<p><a name="page239"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +239</span>“Oh! I’m a wicked, cruel, ungrateful girl, +Auntie Bell; and I ought to want to love this place so much, +nobody could push me out of it. And I <i>do</i> love it; +but I feel if I lived here always I’d not grow any +more.”</p> +<p>“You’re big enough,” said Auntie Bell. +“You’re as big as myself now.”</p> +<p>“I mean inside. Am I a prig, Aunt Ailie? +I’d hate to be a prig! But I’d hate as bad to +tell a lie; and I feel I’d never learn half so much or do +half so much here as I’d do where thousands of folk were +moving along in a procession, and I was with them too. A +place like this is like a kindergarten—it’s good +enough as far’s it goes, but it doesn’t teach the +higher branches.”</p> +<p>Bell gazed at her in wonder and pity and blame, shaking her +head. All this was what she had anticipated.</p> +<p>“I know the feeling,” said Aunt Ailie, “for +I have shared it myself; and sometimes still it will come back to +me, but in my better hours I think I’m wiser and can be +content. If there is growth in you, you will grow +anywhere. You were born in the noise of Chicago, Bud, and I +suppose it’s hard to get it out of the ears. +By-and-by I hope you’ll find that we are all of us most +truly ourselves not in the crowd but when we are alone, and that +not the smallest hamlet in the world need be intellectually +narrow for any one with imagination, some books, and a cheerful +constitution. Do you understand that, Bud?”</p> +<p>Bud thought hard for a moment and then shook her head. +“It sounds as if it ought to be true,” said she, +“and I daresay you think just now it is true; but I simply +can’t believe it.” And all of them turned at +the sound of a chuckling laugh, to find that Mr Dyce had heard +this frank confession.</p> +<p>“That’s the worst of you, Bud,” said +he. “You will never let older folk do your thinking +for you.”</p> +<h2><a name="page240"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +240</span>CHAPTER XXIX.</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">It</span> is another mercy, too, that in +our age we learn to make the best of what aforetime might be ill +to thole, as Bell made fine new garments out of old ones faded by +turning them outside in and adding frills and flounces. +Bud’s absence early ceased to be deplorable, since it +wakened cheerful expectations not to be experienced had she +stayed at home; gave rise to countless fond contrivances for her +happiness in exile; and two or three times a-year to periods of +bliss, when her vacations gave the house of Dyce the very flower +of ecstasy. Her weekly letters of themselves were almost +compensation for her absence. On the days of their arrival, +Peter the post would come blithely whistling with his M.C. step +to the lawyer’s kitchen window before he went to the castle +itself, defying all routine and the laws of the +Postmaster-General, for he knew Miss Dyce would be waiting +feverishly, having likely dreamt the night before of happy things +that—dreams going by contraries, as we all of us know in +Scotland—might portend the most dreadful tidings.</p> +<p>Bud’s envelope was always on the top of his +budget. For the sake of it alone (it sometimes seemed to +Peter and those who got it) had the mail come splashing through +the night,—the lawyer’s big blue envelopes, as it +were, had got but a friendly lift through the courtesy of clerks +in Edinburgh, and the men on the railway train, and the lad who +drove the gig from Maryfield. What were big blue envelopes +of the business world compared with the modest little square of +grey with Lennox Dyce’s writing on it?</p> +<p><a name="page241"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +241</span>“Here’s the usual! Pretty thick +to-day!” would Peter say, with a smack of satisfaction on +the window-sash. Ah, those happy Saturdays! Everybody +knew about them. “And how’s +hersel’?” the bell-ringer would ask in the by-going, +not altogether because his kindly interest led to an eye less +strict on his lazy moods in the garden. One Fair day, when +Maggie White’s was irresistible, it rang so merrily with +drovers, and he lost the place again, he stopped the lawyer on +the street to ask him what Miss Lennox thought of all this +argument about the Churches, seeing she was in the thick of it in +Edinburgh.</p> +<p>“Never you mind the argument, Will,” said Daniel +Dyce,—“you do your duty by the Auld Kirk bell; and as +for the Free folk’s quarrelling, amang them +be’t!”</p> +<p>“But can you tell me, Mr D-D-Dyce,” said Wanton +Wully, with as much assurance as if he was prepared to pay by the +Table of Fees, “what’s the difference between the +U.F.’s and the Frees? I’ve looked at it from +every point, and I canna see it.”</p> +<p>“Come and ask me some day when you’re +sober,” said the lawyer, and Wanton Wully snorted.</p> +<p>“If I was sober,” said he, “I wouldna want +to ken—I wouldna give a curse.”</p> +<p>Yet each time Bud came home she seemed, to the mind of her +Auntie Bell, a little farther off from them—a great deal +older, a great deal less dependent, making for womanhood in a +manner that sometimes was astounding, as when sober issues +touched her, set her thinking, made her talk in fiery +ardours. Aunt Ailie gloried in that rapid growth; Aunt Bell +lamented, and spoke of brains o’ertaxed and fevered, and +studies that were dangerous. She made up her mind a score +of times to go herself to Edinburgh and give a warning to the +teachers; but the weeks passed, and the months, and by-and-by the +years, till almost three were gone, and the Edinburgh part of +Lennox’s education was drawing to a close, and the warning +visit was still to pay.</p> +<p><a name="page242"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 242</span>It +was then, one Easter, came The Macintosh.</p> +<p>Bell and Ailie were out that afternoon for their daily walk in +the woods or along the shore, when Mr Dyce returned from the +Sheriff Court alert and buoyant, feeling much refreshed at the +close of an encounter with a lawyer who, he used to say, was +better at debating than himself, having more law books in his +possession and a louder voice. Letting himself in with his +pass-key, he entered the parlour, and was astonished to find a +stranger, who rose at his approach and revealed a figure singular +though not unpleasing. There was something ludicrous in her +manner as she moved a step or two from the chair in which she had +been sitting. Small, and silver-grey in the hair, with a +cheek that burned—it must be with +embarrassment—between a rather sallow neck and sunken +temples, and wearing smoked spectacles with rims of +tortoise-shell, she would have attracted attention anywhere even +if her dress had been less queer. Queer it was, but in what +manner Daniel Dyce was not the person to distinguish. To +him there was about it nothing definitely peculiar, except that +the woman wore a crinoline, a Paisley shawl of silken white, and +such a bonnet as he had not seen since Grandma Buntain’s +time.</p> +<p>“Be seated, ma’am,” said he; “I did +not know I had the honour of a visitor,” and he gave a +second, keener glance, that swept the baffling figure from the +flounced green poplin to the snow-white lappet of her +bonnet. A lady certainly,—that was in the atmosphere, +however odd might be her dress. “Where in the world +has this one dropped from?” he asked himself, and waited an +explanation.</p> +<p>“Oh, Mr Dyce!” said the lady in a high, shrill +voice, that plainly told she never came from south of the Border, +and with a certain trepidation in her manner; “I’m +feared I come at an inconvenient time to ye, and I maybe should +hae bided at your office; but they tell’t me ye were out at +what they ca’d a Pleading Diet. I’ve come about +my mairrage.”</p> +<p><a name="page243"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +243</span>“Your marriage!” said the lawyer, scarcely +hiding his surprise.</p> +<p>“Yes, my mairrage!” she repeated sharply, drawing +the silken shawl about her shoulders, bridling. +“There’s naething droll, I hope and trust, in a +maiden lady ca’in’ on a writer for his help about her +settlements!”</p> +<p>“Not at all—not at all, ma’am,” said +Daniel Dyce. “I’m honoured in your +confidence.” And he pushed his spectacles up on his +brow that he might see her less distinctly and have the less +inclination to laugh at such an eccentric figure.</p> +<p>She broke into a torrent of explanation. “Ye must +excuse me, Mr Dyce, if I’m put-about and gey confused, for +it’s little I’m acquent wi’ lawyers. +A’ my days I’ve heard o’ naething but their +quirks, for they maistly rookit my grandfaither. And I +cam’ wi’ the coach frae Maryfield, and my +heart’s in a palpitation wi’ sic briengin’ and +bangin’ ower heughs and hills—” She +placed a mittened hand on a much-laced stomacher, and sighed +profoundly.</p> +<p>“Perhaps—perhaps a glass of wine—” +began the lawyer, with his eye on the bell-pull, and a notion in +his head that wine and a little seed-cake someway went with +crinolines and the age of the Paisley shawl.</p> +<p>“No, no!” she cried extravagantly. “I +never lip it; I’m—I’m in the Band o’ +Hope.”</p> +<p>The lawyer started, and scanned her again through his glasses, +with a genial chuckling crow. “So’s most maiden +ladies, ma’am,” said he. “I’m glad +to congratulate you on your hopes being realised.”</p> +<p>“It remains to be seen,” said the visitor. +“Gude kens what may be the upshot. The maist +deleeberate mairrage maun be aye a lottery, as my Auntie Grizel +o’ the Whinhill used to say; and I canna plead that +mine’s deleeberate, for the man just took a violent fancy +the very first nicht he set his een on me, fell whummlin’ +at my feet, and wasna to be put aff wi’ <a +name="page244"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +244</span>‘No’ or ‘Maybe.’ +We’re a puir weak sex, Mr Dyce, and men’s sae +domineerin’!”</p> +<p>She ogled him through her clouded glasses: her arch smile +showed a blemish of two front teeth amissing. He gave a nod +of sympathy, and she was off again. “And to let ye +ken the outs and ins o’t, Mr Dyce, there’s a bit +o’ land near Perth that’s a’ that’s left +o’ a braw estate my forebears squandered in the +Darien. What I want to ken is, if I winna could hinder him +that’s my <i>fiancé</i> frae dicin’ or +drinkin’ ’t awa’ ance he got me mairried to +him? I wad be sair vexed at ony such calamity, for my +family hae aye been barons.”</p> +<p>“Ance a baron aye a baron,” said the lawyer, +dropping into her own broad Scots.</p> +<p>“Yes, Mr Dyce, that’s a’ very fine; but +baron or baroness, if there’s sic a thing, ’s no +great figure wantin’ a bit o’ grun’ to gang +wi’ the title; and John Cleghorn—that’s my +intended’s name—has been a gey throughither chiel in +his time by a’ reports, and I doubt wi’ men +it’s the aulder the waur.”</p> +<p>“I hope in this case it’ll be the aulder the +wiser, Miss—” said the lawyer, and hung unheeded on +the note of interrogation.</p> +<p>“I’ll run nae risks if I can help it,” said +the lady emphatically; “and I’ll no’ put my +trust in the Edinburgh lawyers either: they’re a’ +tarred wi’ the ae stick, or I sair misjudge them. But +I’m veesitin’ a cousin owerby at Maryfield, and +I’m tell’t there’s no’ a man that’s +mair dependable in a’ the shire than yoursel’, so I +just cam’ ower ains errand for a consultation. Oh, +that unco’ coach! the warld’s gane wud, Mr Dyce, +wi’ hurry and stramash, and Scotland’s never been the +same since— But there! I’m awa’ frae my +story; if it’s the Lord’s will that I’m to +marry Johnny Cleghorn, what comes o’ Kaims? Will he +be owner o’t?”</p> +<p>“Certainly not, ma’am,” said Mr Dyce, with a +gravity well preserved considering his inward feelings. +“Even before the Married Women’s Property Act, <a +name="page245"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 245</span>his <i>jus +mariti</i>, as we ca’ it, gave him only his wife’s +personal and moveable estate. There is no such thing as +<i>communio bonorum</i>—as community of goods—between +husband and wife in Scotland.”</p> +<p>“And he canna sell Kaims on me?”</p> +<p>“No; it’s yours and your assigns <i>ad perpetuam +remanentiam</i>, being feudal right.”</p> +<p>“I wish ye wad speak in honest English, like +mysel’, Mr Dyce,” said the lady sharply. +“I’ve forgotten a’ my Laiten, and the very +sound o’t gars my heid bizz. I doubt it’s the +lawyer’s way o’ gettin’ round puir helpless +bodies.”</p> +<p>“It’s scarcely that,” said Mr Dyce, +laughing. “It’s the only chance we get to air +auld Mr Trayner, and it’s thought to be +imposin’. <i>Ad perpetuam remanentiam</i> just means +to remain for ever.”</p> +<p>“I thocht that maybe John might hae the poo’er to +treat Kaims as my tocher.”</p> +<p>“Even if he had,” said Mr Dyce, “a +<i>dot</i>, or <i>dos</i>, or tocher, in the honest law of +Scotland, was never the price o’ the husband’s hand; +he could only use the fruits o’t. He is not entitled +to dispose of it, and must restore it intact if unhappily the +marriage should at any time be dissolved.”</p> +<p>“Dissolved!” cried the lady. “Fegs! +ye’re in an awfu’ hurry, and the ring no’ +bought yet. Supposin’ I was deein’ +first?”</p> +<p>“In that case I presume that you would have the +succession settled on your husband.”</p> +<p>“On Johnny Cleghorn! Catch me! There’s +sic a thing as—as—as bairns, Mr Dyce,” and the +lady simpered coyly, while the lawyer rose hurriedly to fumble +with some books and hide his confusion at such a wild +conjecture. He was relieved by the entrance of Bell and +Ailie, who stood amazed at the sight of the odd and unexpected +visitor.</p> +<p>“My sisters,” said the lawyer hastily. +“Miss—Miss—I did not catch the name.”</p> +<p>“Miss Macintosh,” said the stranger nervously, and +Bell cried out immediately, “I was perfectly <a +name="page246"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 246</span>assured of +it! Lennox has often spoken of you, and I’m so glad +to see you. I did not know you were in the +neighbourhood.”</p> +<p>Ailie was delighted with so picturesque a figure. She +could scarcely keep her eyes off the many-flounced, expansive +gown of poplin, the stomacher, the ponderous ear-rings, the great +cameo brooch, the long lace mittens, the Paisley shawl, the neat +poke-bonnet, and the fresh old face marred only by the +spectacles, and the gap where the teeth were missing.</p> +<p>“I have just been consultin’ Mr Dyce on my +comin’ mairrage,” said The Macintosh; and at this +intelligence from a piece of such antiquity Miss Bell’s +face betrayed so much astonishment that Dan and Ailie almost +forgot their good manners.</p> +<p>“Oh! if it’s business—” said Bell, and +rose to go; but The Macintosh put a hand on her sleeve and stayed +her.</p> +<p>“Ye needna fash to leave, Miss Dyce,” said +she. “A’thing’s settled. It seems +that Johnny Cleghorn canna ca’ a rig o’ Kaims his ain +when he mairries me, and that was a’ I cam’ to see +about. Oh, it’s a mischancy thing a mairrage, Miss +Dyce; maist folk gang intill’t heels-ower-hurdies, but +I’m in an awfu’ swither, and havena a mither to guide +me.”</p> +<p>“Keep me!” said Miss Bell, out of all patience at +such maidenly apprehensions, “ye’re surely auld +enough to ken your ain mind. I hope the guidman’s +worthy.”</p> +<p>“He’s no’ that ill—as men-folk +gang,” said The Macintosh resignedly. +“He’s as fat’s creish, and has a +craighlin’ cough, the body, and he’s faur frae bonny, +and he hasna a bawbee o’ his ain, and sirs! what a +reputation! But a man’s a man, Miss Dyce, and +time’s aye fleein’.”</p> +<p>At such a list of disabilities in a husband the Dyces lost all +sense of the proprieties and broke into laughter, in which the +lady joined them, shaking in her arm-chair. Bell was the +first to recover with a guilty sense that this was very bad for +Daniel’s <a name="page247"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +247</span>business. She straightened her face and was about +to make apologies, when Footles bounded in at the open door, to +throw himself at the feet of The Macintosh and wave a joyous +tail. But he was not content there. In spite of her +resistance, he must be in her lap, and then, for the first time, +Bell and Ailie noticed a familiar cadence in the stranger’s +laugh.</p> +<p>Dan rose and clapped her on the back. “Well done, +Bud!” said he. “Ye had us a’; but Footles +wasna to be swindled wi’ an auld wife’s goon,” +and he gently drew the spectacles from the laughing eyes of his +naughty niece!</p> +<p>“Oh, you rogue!” cried Auntie Ailie.</p> +<p>“You wretch!” cried Auntie Bell. “I +might have known your cantrips. Where in the world did you +get these clothes?”</p> +<p>Bud sailed across the room like a cutter yacht and put her +arms about her neck. “Didn’t you know +me?” she asked.</p> +<p>“How could I know you, dressed up like that? And +your teeth—you imp! they’re blackened; and your +neck—you jad! it’s painted; and—oh, lassie, +lassie! Awa’! awa’! the deil’s ower grit +wi’ ye!”</p> +<p>“Didn’t <i>you</i> know me, Aunt Ailie?” +asked Bud.</p> +<p>“Not in the least,” said Ailie, taking the droll +old figure in her arms. “Perhaps I might have known +you if I didn’t think it was to-morrow you were +coming.”</p> +<p>“It was to have been to-morrow; but the measles have +broken out in school, and I came a day earlier, and calculated +I’d just hop in and surprise you all. Didn’t +you guess, Uncle Dan?”</p> +<p>“Not at first,” said he. “I’ll +admit I was fairly deceived, but when you talked about being in +the Band of Hope I saw at a shot through The Macintosh. I +hope you liked my Latin, Bud.”</p> +<h2><a name="page248"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +248</span>CHAPTER XXX.</h2> +<p>“<span class="smcap">You</span> surely did not come in +these daft-like garments all the way from Edinburgh?” asked +her Auntie Bell, when the wig had been removed and Bud’s +youth was otherwise resumed.</p> +<p>“Not at all!” said Bud, sparkling with the success +of her deception. “I came almost enough of a finished +young lady to do you credit, but when I found there was nobody in +the house except Kate, I felt I couldn’t get a better +chance to introduce you to The Macintosh if I waited for a +year. I told you we’d been playing charades last +winter at the school, and I got Jim to send me some make-up, the +wig, and this real ’cute old lady’s dress. They +were all in my box to give you some fun sometime, and Kate helped +me hook things, though she was mighty scared to think how angry +you might be, Aunt Bell; and when I was ready for you she said +she’d be sure to laugh fit to burst, and then you’d +see it was only me dressed up, and Footles he barked, so he +looked like giving the show away, so I sent them both out into +the garden and sat in a stage-fright that almost shook my +ear-rings off. I tell you I felt mighty poorly sitting +there wondering what on earth I was to say; but by-and-by I got +to be so much The Macintosh I felt almost sure enough her to have +the rheumatism, and knew I could fix up gags to keep the part +going. I didn’t expect Uncle Dan would be the first +to come in, or I wouldn’t have felt so brave about it, +he’s so sharp and suspicious—that’s with being +a lawyer, I s’pose, they’re a’ tarred wi’ +the <a name="page249"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 249</span>ae +stick, Miss Macintosh says; and when he talked all that solemn +Latin stuff and looked like running up a bill for law advice that +would ruin me, I laughed inside enough to ache. Now +<i>amn’t</i> I just the very wickedest girl, Uncle +Dan?”</p> +<p>“A little less Scotch and a more plausible story would +have made the character perfect,” said her uncle. +“Where did you get them both? Miss Macintosh was +surely not the only model?”</p> +<p>“Well, she’s not so Scotch as I made out, except +when she’s very sentimental, but I felt she’d have to +be as Scotch as the mountain and the flood to fit these clothes; +and she’s never talked about marrying anybody herself, but +she’s making a match just now for a cousin of hers, and +tells us all about it. I was partly her, but not enough to +be unkind or mean, and partly her cousin, and a little bit of the +Waverley Novels,—in fact, I was pure mosaic, like our +dog. There wasn’t enough real quaint about Miss +Macintosh for ordinary to make a front scene monologue go, but +she’s fuller of hints than—than a dictionary, and +once I started I felt I could play half a dozen Macintoshes all +different, so’s you’d actually think she was a +surging crowd. You see there’s the Jacobite +Macintosh, and the ‘aboaminable’ English Macintosh, +and the flirting Macintosh who raps Herr Laurent with her fan, +and the fortune-telling Macintosh who reads palms and tea-cup +leaves, and the dancing and deportment Macintosh who knows all +the first families in Scotland.”</p> +<p>Bud solemnly counted off the various Macintoshes on her +finger-tips.</p> +<p>“We’ll have every one of them when you come home +next winter,” said Miss Ailie. “I’d +prefer it to the opera.”</p> +<p>“I can’t deny but it’s diverting,” +said Miss Bell; “still, it’s dreadfully like +play-acting, and hardly the thing for a sober dwelling. +Lassie, lassie, away this instant and change yourself!”</p> +<p>If prizes and Italian songs had really been the <a +name="page250"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 250</span>proof that +Bud had taken on the polish, she would have disappointed Uncle +Dan, but this art of hers was enough to make full amends, it gave +so much diversion. Character roused and held her interest; +she had a lightning eye for oddities of speech and gesture. +Most of a man’s philosophy is in a favourite phrase, his +individuality is betrayed in the way he carries his hat along the +aisle on Sunday. Bud, each time that she came home from +Edinburgh, collected phrases as others do postage-stamps, and +knew how every hat in town was carried. Folk void of +idiosyncrasy, having the natural self restrained by watchfulness +and fear, were the only ones whose company she wearied of; all +others she studied with delight, storing of each some simulacrum +in her memory. Had she reproduced them in a way to make +them look ridiculous she would have roused the Dyces’ +disapproval, but lacking any sense of superiority she made no +impersonation look ignoble; the portraits in her gallery, like +Raeburn’s, borrowed a becoming curl or two and toned down +crimson noses.</p> +<p>But her favourite character was The Macintosh in one of the +countless phases that at last were all her own invention, and far +removed from the original. Each time she came home, the +dancing-mistress they had never really seen became a more +familiar personage to the Dyces. “I declare,” +cried Bell, “I’m beginning to think of you always as +a droll old body.” “And how’s the +rheumatism?” Dan would ask; it was “The Macintosh +said this” or “The Macintosh said that” with +Ailie; and even Kate would quote the dancing-mistress with such +earnestness, that the town became familiar with the name and +character without suspecting they were often merely parts assumed +by young Miss Lennox.</p> +<p>Bud carried the joke one night to daring lengths by going as +Miss Macintosh with Ailie to a dance, in a gown and pelerine of +Grandma Buntain’s that had made tremendous conquests eighty +years before.</p> +<p>Our dances at the inn are not like city routs: <a +name="page251"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 251</span>Petronella, +La Tempête, and the reel have still an honoured place in +them; we think the joy of life is not meant wholly for the young +and silly, and so the elderly attend them. We sip +claret-cup and tea in the alcove or “adjacent,” and +gossip together if our dancing days are done, or sit below the +flags and heather, humming “Merrily danced the +quaker’s wife,” with an approving eye on our bonny +daughters. Custom gives the Provost and his lady a place of +honour in the alcove behind the music: here is a petty court +where the civic spirit pays its devoirs, where the lockets are +large and strong, and hair-chains much abound, and mouths before +the mellowing midnight hour are apt to be a little mim.</p> +<p>Towards the alcove, Ailie—Dan discreetly moving +elsewhere—boldly led The Macintosh, whose ballooning silk +brocade put even the haughtiest of the other dames in +shadow. She swam across the floor as if her hoops and not +her buckled shoon sustained her, as if she moved on air.</p> +<p>“Dod! here’s a character!” said Dr Brash, +pulling down his waistcoat. “Where have the Dyces +gotten her?”</p> +<p>“The Ark is landed,” said the Provost’s +lady. “What a peculiar creature!”</p> +<p>Ailie gravely gave the necessary introductions, and soon the +notable Miss Macintosh of Kaims was the lion of the +assembly. She flirted most outrageously with the older +beaux, sharing roguish smiles and taps of the fan between them, +and, compelling unaccustomed gallantries, set their wives all +laughing. They drank wine with her in the old style; she +met them glass for glass in water.</p> +<p>“And I’ll gie ye a toast now,” she said, +when her turn came—“Scotland’s Rights,” +raising her glass of water with a dramatic gesture.</p> +<p>“Dod! the auld body’s got an arm on her,” +whispered Dr Brash to Colin Cleland, seeing revealed the pink +plump flesh between the short sleeves and the top of the +mittens.</p> +<p><a name="page252"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 252</span>They +drank the sentiment—the excuse for the glass was good +enough, though in these prosaic days a bit mysterious.</p> +<p>“What are they?” asked the Provost.</p> +<p>“What are what?” said The Macintosh.</p> +<p>“Scotland’s Rights.”</p> +<p>“I’ll leave it to my frien’ Mr Dyce to tell +ye,” she said quickly, for the lawyer had now joined the +group. “It’ll aiblins cost ye 6s. 8d., but for +that I daresay he can gie ye them in the Laiten. +But—but I hope we’re a’ friens here?” she +exclaimed with a hurried glance round her company. “I +hope we have nane o’ thae aboaminable English amang +us. I canna thole them! It has been a sair dooncome +for Scotland since ever she drew in wi’ them.” +For a space she dwelt on themes of rather antique patriotism that +made her audience smile, for in truth in this burgh town we see +no difference between Scotch and English: in our calculations +there are only the lucky folk, born, bred, and dwelling within +the sound of Will Oliver’s bell, and the poor souls who +have to live elsewhere, all equally unfortunate, whether they be +English, Irish, or Scots.</p> +<p>“But here I’m keepin’ you gentlemen frae +your dancin’,” she said, interrupting herself, and +consternation fell on her company, for sets were being formed for +a quadrille, and her innuendo was unmistakable. She looked +from one to the other of them as if enjoying their +discomfiture.</p> +<p>“I—I—I haven’t danced, myself, for +years,” said the Provost, which was true; and Colin +Cleland, sighing deeply in his prominent profile and hiding his +feet, protested quadrilles were beyond him. The younger men +quickly remembered other engagements and disappeared. +“Will you do me the honour?” said Dr Brash—good +man! a gentle hero’s heart was under that wrinkled +waistcoat.</p> +<p>“Oh!” said The Macintosh, rising to his arm, +“you’ll be sure and no’ to swing me aff my +feet, for I’m but a frail and giddy creature.”</p> +<p><a name="page253"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +253</span>“It would be but paying you back,” said the +Doctor, bowing. “Miss Macintosh has been swinging us +a’ aff our feet since she entered the room.”</p> +<p>She laughed behind her clouded glasses, tapped him lightly +with her fan, and swam into the opening movement of the +figure. The word’s abused, yet I can but say she +danced divinely, with such grace, lightness of foot, and rhythm +of the body that folk stared at her in admiration and +incredulity: her carriage, seen from behind, came perilously near +betraying her, and possibly her partner might have soon +discovered who he had, even if she had not made him a +confession.</p> +<p>“Upon my word!” said he, in a pause between the +figures,—“Upon my word! you dance magnificently, Miss +Macintosh. I must apologise for such a stiff old partner as +you’ve gotten.”</p> +<p>“I micht weel dance,” said she. “You +ken I’m a dancin’-mistress?” Then she +whispered hurriedly in her natural voice to him. “I +feel real bold, Dr Brash, to be dancing with you here when I +haven’t come out yet, and I feel real mean to be deceiving +you, who would dance with an old frump just because you’re +sorry for her, and I <i>can’t</i> do it one minute +longer. Don’t you know me, really?”</p> +<p>“Good Lord!” said he in an undertone, +aghast. “Miss Lennox!”</p> +<p>“Only for you,” she whispered. “Please +don’t tell anybody else.”</p> +<p>“You beat all,” he told her. “I +suppose I’m making myself ridiculous dancing away here +with—h’m!—auld langsyne, but faith I have the +advantage now of the others, and you mustn’t let on when +the thing comes out that I did not know you from the +outset. I have a crow to pick with Miss Ailie about +this—the rogue! But, young woman, it’s an +actress you are!”</p> +<p>“Not yet, but it’s an actress I mean to be,” +she said, pousetting with him.</p> +<p>“H’m!” said he, “there seems the +natural gift for <a name="page254"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +254</span>it, but once on a time I made up my mind it was to be +poetry.”</p> +<p>“I’ve got over poetry,” she said. +“I found I was only one of that kind of poets who always +cut it up in fourteen-line lengths and begin with ‘As +when.’ No, it’s to be the stage, Dr Brash; I +guess God’s fixed it.”</p> +<p>“Whiles He is—h’m—injudicious,” +said the Doctor. “But what about Aunt +Bell?”</p> +<p>“There’s no buts about it, though I admit +I’m worried to think of Auntie Bell. She considers +acting is almost as bad as lying, and talks about the theatre as +Satan’s abode. If it wasn’t that she was from +home to-night, I daren’t have been here. I +wish—I wish I didn’t love her +so—almost—for I feel I’ve got to vex her pretty +bad.”</p> +<p>“Indeed you have!” said Dr Brash. “And +you’ve spoiled my dancing, for I’ve a great respect +for that devoted little woman.”</p> +<p>Back in the alcove The Macintosh found more to surround her +than ever, though it was the penalty of her apparent age that +they were readier to joke than dance with her. Captain +Consequence, wanting a wife with money, if and when his mother +should be taken from him, never lost a chance to see how a +pompous manner and his medals would affect strange ladies. +He was so marked in his attention, and created such amusement to +the company, that, pitying him, and fearful of her own deception, +she proposed to tell fortunes. The ladies brought her their +emptied teacups; the men solemnly laid their palms before her; +she divined, for all, their past and future in a practised way +that astonished her uncle and aunt, who, afraid of some awkward +sally, had kept aloof at first from her levee, but now were the +most interested of her audience.</p> +<p>Over the leaves in Miss Minto’s cup she frowned through +her clouded glasses. “There’s lots o’ +money,” said she, “and a braw house, and a muckle +garden wi’ bees and trees in’t, and a wheen boys +speilin’ <a name="page255"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +255</span>the wa’s—you may be aye assured o’ +bien circumstances, Miss Minto.”</p> +<p>Miss Minto, warmly conscious of the lawyer at her back, could +have wished for a fortune less prosaic.</p> +<p>“Look again; is there no’ a man to keep the +laddies awa’?” suggested the Provost, pawky body!</p> +<p>“I declare there is!” cried The Macintosh, taking +the hint. “See; there! he’s under this tree, +a’ huddled up in an awfu’ passion.”</p> +<p>“I can’t make out his head,” said the +Provost’s lady.</p> +<p>“Some men hae nane,” retorted the spaewife; +“but what’s to hinder ye imaginin’ it like +me?”</p> +<p>“Oh! if it’s imagination,” said the +Provost’s lady, “I can hear him swearin’. +And now, what’s my cup?”</p> +<p>“I see here,” said The Macintosh, “a kind +o’ island far at sea, and a ship sailin’ frae’t +this way, wi’ flags to the mast-heid, and a man on +board.”</p> +<p>“I hope he’s well, then,” said the +Provost’s lady, “for that’s our James, and +he’s coming from Barbadoes: we had a letter just last +week. Indeed you’re a perfect wizard!” +She had forgotten that her darling James’s coming was the +talk of the town for ten days back.</p> +<p>Colin Cleland, rubicund, good-natured, with his shyness gone, +next proffered his palm to read. His hand lay like a +plaice, inelegant and large, in hers, whose fresh young beauty +might have roused suspicion in observers less carried away in the +general illusion.</p> +<p>“Ah! sir,” said she with a sigh, “ye hae had +your trials!”</p> +<p>“Mony a ane, ma’am,” said the jovial +Colin. “I was ance a lawyer, for my sins.”</p> +<p>“That’s no’ the kind o’ trial I +mean,” said The Macintosh. “Here’s a +wheen o’ auld tribulations.”</p> +<p>“Perhaps you’re richt, ma’am,” he +admitted. “I hae a sorry lot o’ them marked +doon in auld diaries, but gude-be-thanked I canna mind them +unless I look <a name="page256"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +256</span>them up. They werena near sae mony as the +rattlin’ ploys I’ve had.”</p> +<p>“Is there no’ a wife for Mr Cleland?” said +the Provost—pawky, pawky man!</p> +<p>“There was ance, I see, a girl, and she was the richt +girl too,” said The Macintosh.</p> +<p>“Yes, but I was the wrang man,” said Colin +Cleland, drawing his hand away, and nobody laughed, for all but +The Macintosh knew that story and made it some excuse for foolish +habits.</p> +<p>“I’m a bit of a warlock myself,” said Dr +Brash, beholding the spaewife’s vexation at a +<i>faux-pas</i> she only guessed herself guilty of. +“I’ll read your loof, Miss Macintosh, if ye let +me.”</p> +<p>They all insisted she should submit herself to the +Doctor’s unusual art, and taking her hand in his he drew +the mitten off and pretended to scan the lines.</p> +<p>“Travel—h’m—a serious +illness—h’m—your life, in youth, was quite +adventurous, Miss Macintosh.”</p> +<p>“Oh! I’m no’ that auld yet,” she +corrected him. “There’s mony a chance at +fifty. Never mind my past, Dr Brash, what about my +future?”</p> +<p>He glanced up a moment and saw her aunt and uncle listening in +amusement, unaware as yet that he knew the secret, then scanned +her palm again.</p> +<p>“The future—h’m! let me see. A long +line of life; heart line healthy—h’m—the best +of your life’s before you, though I cannot say it may be +the happiest part of it. Perhaps +my—h’m—my skill a little fails here. You +have a strong will, Miss—Miss Macintosh, and I doubt in +this world you’ll aye have your own way. +And—h’m—an odd destiny surely ’s before +you—I see the line of Fame, won—h’m—in a +multitude of characters; by the Lord Hairry, ma’am, +you’re to be—you’re to be an +actress!”</p> +<p>The company laughed at such a prophecy for one so antiquated, +and the Doctor’s absurdity put an end to the spaeing of +fortunes, but he had effected his <a name="page257"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 257</span>purpose. He had found the +words that expressed the hope, half-entertained, so far, of +Ailie, and the fear of her brother Dan. They learned before +they left that he had not spoken without his cue, yet it was a +little saddened they went home at midnight with their ward in +masquerade.</p> +<h2><a name="page258"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +258</span>CHAPTER XXXI.</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">Fortunately</span> Kate’s marriage +came to distract them for a while from the thought of Bud’s +future. The essential house had been found that was +suitable for a captain, yet not too dearly rented,—a piece +of luck in a community where dwellings are rarely vacant, and +every tenant over eighty years of age has the uneasy +consciousness that half a dozen pairs betrothed have already +decided upon a different colour of paint for his windows, and +have become resigned, with a not unpleasing melancholy, to the +thought that in the course of nature his time cannot be long.</p> +<p>The Captain—that once roving eagle-heart subdued by love +for the maid of Colonsay—so persistently discouraged any +yachting trips which took the <i>Wave</i> for more than a night +or two from her moorings, that Lady Anne and her husband, knowing +the heart themselves, recommended immediate marriage; and Miss +Bell, in consequence, was scouring the countryside for +Kate’s successor in the kitchen, but hopeless of coming on +one who could cook good kail, have a cheery face, and be a strict +communicant. “I can get fine cooks that are wanting +in the grace of God, and pious girls who couldn’t be +trusted to bake a Christian scone,” she said; +“it’s a choice between two evils.”</p> +<p>“Of two evils choose the third, then,” said Dan to +his sister, flushed and exhilarated by a search that, for elderly +maiden ladies, makes up for an older hunt. “The +sport’s agreeing with you.”</p> +<p>It was a great distress to Bud that the wedding should take +place in the house and not in church, as <a +name="page259"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 259</span>seemed most +fitting. She felt a private ceremony deprived her of a +spectacle, with Miss Amelia Duff playing the wedding march on the +harmonium, and the audience filing up the aisle in their Sunday +clothes, the carriage of their hats revealing character.</p> +<p>“Why, you’re simply going to make it look like a +plain tea!” she protested. “If it was my +marriage, Kate, I’d have it as solemn and grand as Harvest +Sunday. A body doesn’t get married to a man in brass +buttons every other day, and it’s a chance for +style.”</p> +<p>“We never have our weddings in the church,” said +Kate. “Sometimes the gentry do, but it’s not +considered nice; it’s kind of Roman Catholic. Forbye, +in a church, where would you get the fun?”</p> +<p>If Bud hadn’t realised that fun was the main thing at +Scottish weddings, she got hints of it in Kate’s +preparation. Croodles and hysterics took possession of the +bride: she was sure she would never get through the ceremony with +her life, or she would certainly do something silly that would +make the whole world laugh at her and dreadfully vex the +Captain. Even her wedding-dress, whose prospect had filled +her dreams with gladness, but deepened her depression when it +came from the manteau-makers: she wept sad stains on the front +width, and the orange-blossom they rehearsed with might have been +a wreath of the bitter rue. Bud wanted her to try the dress +on, but the bride was aghast at such an unlucky proposition; so +she tried it on herself, with sweet results, if one did not look +at the gathers in the back. They practised the ceremony the +night before, Kate’s sister from Colonsay (who was to be +her bridesmaid) playing the part of a tall, brass-buttoned +bridegroom.</p> +<p>“Oh, Kate!” cried Bud pitifully, “you stand +there like’s you were a soda-water bottle and the cork +lost. My goodness! brisk up a bit. If it’s hard +on you, just remember it isn’t much of a joke for +Charles. Don’t you know the eyes a the public are on +you?”</p> +<p><a name="page260"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +260</span>“That’s just it,” said poor +Kate. “I wouldn’t be frightened a bit if it +wasn’t for that, for I’m so brave. What do you +do with your hands?”</p> +<p>“You just keep hold of them. Mercy! don’t +let them hang like that,—they’re yours; up till now +he’s got nothing to do with them. Now for the +tears—where’s your handkerchief? That +one’s yards too big, and there isn’t an edge of lace +to peek through, but it’ll do this time. It’ll +all be right on the night. Now the minister’s +speaking, and you’re looking down at the carpet and +you’re timid and fluttered and nervous and thinking what an +epoch this is in your sinful life, and how you won’t be +Kate MacNeill any more but Mrs Charles Maclean, and the Lord +knows if you will be happy with him—”</p> +<p>The bride blubbered and threw her apron over her head as +usual: Bud was in despair.</p> +<p>“Well, you are a silly!” she exclaimed. +“All you want is a gentle tear or two trickling down the +side of your nose, enough to make your eyes blink but not enough +to soak your veil or leave streaks. And there you gush like +a waterspout, and damp your face so much the bridegroom’ll +catch his death of cold when he kisses you! Stop it, Kate +MacNeill,—it isn’t anybody’s funeral: why, +weddings aren’t so very fatal; lots of folk get over +them—leastways in America.”</p> +<p>“I can’t help it!” protested the weeping +maid. “I never could be melancholy in moderation, and +the way you speak you make me think it’s running a dreadful +risk to marry anybody.”</p> +<p>“Well,” said Bud, “you needn’t think +of things so harrowing, I suppose. Just squeeze your eyes +together and bite your lip, and perhaps it’ll start a tear: +if it don’t, it’ll look like as if you were bravely +struggling with emotion. And then there’s the proud +glad smile as you back out on Charles’s arm—give her +your arm, Minnie,—the trial’s over, you know, and +you’ve got on a lovely new plain ring, and all the other +girls are envious, and Charles Maclean and you are one <a +name="page261"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 261</span>till death +do you part. Oh, Kate, Kate! don’t grin; that’s +not a smile, it’s a—it’s a railroad +track. Look—” Bud assumed a smile that +spoke of gladness and humility, confidence and a maiden’s +fears,—a smile that appealed and charmed.</p> +<p>“I couldn’t smile like that to save my +life,” said Kate in a despair. “I wish you had +learned me that instead of the height of Popacatthekettle. +Do you think he’ll be angry if I don’t do them things +properly?”</p> +<p>“Who? Charles! Why, Charles’ll be so +mortally scared himself he wouldn’t notice if you made +faces at him, or were a different girl altogether. +He’ll have a dull dead booming in his ears, and wonder +whether it’s wedding-day or apple-custard: all of them +I’ve seen married looked like that. It’s not +for Charles you should weep and smile; it’s for the front +of the house, you know,—it’s for the people looking +on.”</p> +<p>“Toots!” said Kate, relieved. “If +it’s only for them, I needn’t bother. I thought +that maybe it was something truly refined that he would be +expecting. It’s not—it’s not the front of +a house I’m marrying. Tell me this and tell me no +more—is there anything special I should do to please my +Charles?”</p> +<p>“I don’t think I’d worry,” said Bud on +reflection. “I daresay it’s better not to think +of anything dramatic. If I were you I’d just keep +calm as grass, and pray the Lord to give me a good contented mind +and hurry up the clergyman.”</p> +<p>But yet was the maiden full of a consciousness of +imperfection, since she had seen that day the bride’s-cake +on view in the baker’s window,—an edifice of art so +splendid that she felt she could never be worthy of it. +“How do you think I’ll look?” she asked. +And Bud assured her she would look magnificently lovely.</p> +<p>“Oh, I wish I did,” she sighed. “But +I’m feared I’ll not look so lovely as I think I +do.”</p> +<p>“No girl ever did,” said Bud. +“That’s impossible; <a name="page262"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 262</span>but when Charles comes to and sits +up he’ll think you’re It: he’ll think you +perfect.”</p> +<p>“Indeed I’m far from that,” said Kate. +“I have just my health and napery and a liking for the +chap, and I wish I wasn’t near so red.”</p> +<p>Bud was able to instruct her in the right deportment for a +bride, but had no experience in the management of husbands: for +that Kate had to take some hints from her mistress, who was under +the delusion that her brother Dan was the standard of his +sex.</p> +<p>“They’re curious creatures,” Bell +confided. “You must have patience, ay, and humour +them. They’ll trot at your heels like pussy for a +cheese-pudding, but they’ll not be driven. If I had a +man I would never thwart him. If he was out of temper or +unreasonable I would tell him he was looking ill, and that would +make him feared and humble. When a man thinks he’s +ill, his trust must be in the Lord and in his woman-kind. +That’s where we have the upper hand of them! First +and last, the thing’s to be agreeable. You’ll +find he’ll never put anything in its proper place, and +that’s a heartbreak, but it’s not so bad as if he +broke the dishes and blackened your eyes, the way they do in the +newspapers. There’s one thing that’s the secret +of a happy home—to live in the fear of God and within your +income, faith! you can’t live very well without +it.”</p> +<p>“Oh, mem! it’s a desperate thing a wedding,” +said the maid. “I never, in all my life, had so much +to think about before.”</p> +<p>There were stricken lads in these days! The more +imminent became her utter loss, the more desirable Kate +became. But sentiment in country towns is an accommodating +thing, and all the old suitors—the whistlers in the close +and purveyors of conversation lozenges—found consolation in +the fun at the wedding, and danced their griefs away on the flags +of the Dyces’ kitchen.</p> +<p>A noble wedding! All the cookery skill of Kate and her +mistress was expended on it, and discretion, <a +name="page263"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 263</span>for the +sake of the incredulous, forbids enumeration of the roasted +hens. Chanticleers in the town crowed roupily and ruefully +for months thereafter. The bridegroom might have stepped +over the wall to the wedding chamber, or walked to it in a +hundred paces up the lane: he rode instead in a carriage that +made a stately and circuitous approach round John Turner’s +Corner, and wished the distance had been twenty times as +long. “It’s not that I’m feared,” +said he, “or that I’ve rued the gyurl, but—but +it’s kind of sudden!”—a curious estimate of a +courtship that had started in the burial-ground of Colonsay so +many years before!</p> +<p>A noble wedding—its revelry kept the town awake till +morning. From the open windows the night was filled with +dancing tunes, and songs, and laughter; boys cried “Fab, +fab!” in the street, and a fairy lady—really a lady +all grown up, alas!—stood at a window and showered pence +among them.</p> +<p>Long before the wedding-party ended, Bud went up to bed, but +she lay for hours awake in the camceil room hearing the revelry +of the kitchen. She had said good-bye to the blissful pair +whose wedding was the consequence of her own daft pranks as +letter-writer: she would miss the maid of Colonsay. The +knowledge that ’tis an uncertain world, a place of change +and partings, comes to us all sooner or later in one flash of +apprehension and of grief: for the first time Bud felt the +irrevocable nature of the past, and that her happy world under +this roof was, someway, crumbling, and the tears came to her +eyes.</p> +<p>A hurried footstep sounded on the stairs, a rap came to her +door, and the bride came in, unbid, in the darkness, whispering +Lennox’s name.</p> +<p>Her only answer was a sob from the girl in bed.</p> +<p>“Miss Lennox!” said the bride distressed; +“what ails you? I’ve come up to say good-bye: +it wasn’t a right good-bye at all with yon folk +looking. Oh, Lennox, Lennox! <i>ghaol mo chridhe</i>! my +heart is sore <a name="page264"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +264</span>to be leaving you, for the two of us were so +merry! Now I have a man, and a good man too; it was you +that gave me him, but I have lost my loving friend.” +She threw herself on the bed, regardless of her finery, and the +Celtic fount of her swelled over in sobs and tears.</p> +<h2><a name="page265"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +265</span>CHAPTER XXXII.</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">It</span> took two maids to fill +Kate’s place in the Dyces’ household—one for +the plain boiling of potatoes and the other for her pious +atmosphere, as the lawyer argued; and a period of discomfort +attended on what Bell called their breaking-in. No more +kitchen nights for Lennox, now that she was a finished young lady +and her friend was gone: she must sit in the parlour strumming +canzonets on Grandma Buntain’s Broadwood, taming her heart +of fire. It was as a voice from heaven’s lift there +came one day a letter from London in which Mrs Molyneux invited +her and one of her aunts for an Easter holiday.</p> +<p>“Indeed and I’ll be glad to be quit for a week or +two of both of you,” said Bell to her niece and +Ailie. “Spring-cleaning, with a couple of stupid +huzzies in the kitchen,—not but what they’re nice and +willing lassies,—is like to be the sooner ended if +we’re left to it ourselves.”</p> +<p>A radiant visage and lips in firm control betrayed how Lennox +felt. She had never been in London—its cry went +pealing through her heart. Ailie said nothing, but +marvelled how blithely and blindly her sister always set foot on +the facile descent that led to her inevitable doom of deprivation +and regret.</p> +<p>“The Grand Tour!” said Uncle Dan; +“it’s the fitting termination to your daft days, +Lennox. Up by at the Castle there’s a chariot with +imperials that conveyed the Earl on his, the hammercloth most +lamentably faded: I often wonder if his lordship takes a sly seat +in it at times when no one’s looking, <a +name="page266"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 266</span>and climbs +the Alps or clatters through Italian towns again when Jones the +coachman is away at his tea. It’s a thing I might do +myself if I had made the Tour and still had the +shandrydan.”</p> +<p>“Won’t you really need me?” Aunt Ailie asked +her sister, and half hoped, half feared spring-cleaning should +postpone the holiday; but Bell maintained it should be now or +never, more particularly as Lennox’s dress was new.</p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p>Oh, London, London! siren town! how it bewitched the +girl! Its cab-horse bells were fairy; its evening, as they +entered, hung with a myriad magic moons and stars. The +far-stretching streets with their flaming jewel windows, the +temples in the upper dusk, and the solemn squares crowding round +country trees; the throngs of people, the odours of fruit-shops, +the passion of flowers, the mornings silvery grey, and the +multitudinous monuments rimed by years, thunder of hoofs in ways +without end, and the silence of mighty parks,—Bud lay awake +in the nights to think of them.</p> +<p>Jim Molyneux had the siren by the throat: he loved her, and +shook a living out of her hands. At first she had seemed to +him too old, too calm, too slow and stately as compared with his +own Chicago, nor did she seem to have a place for any stranger: +now he had found she could be bullied,—that a loud voice, a +bold front, and the aid of a good tailor could compel her to +disgorge respect and gold. He had become the manager of a +suburban theatre, where oranges were eaten in the stalls, and the +play was as often as not “The Father’s Curse”; +but once a day he walked past Thespian temples in the city, and, +groaning at their mismanagement, planned an early future for +himself with classic fronts of marble, and duchesses advertising +him each night by standing in rows on the pavement awaiting their +carriages. Far along Grove Lane, where he dwelt in a +pea-green house with nine French-bean rows and some clumps of +bulbs behind, one could distinguish his coming by <a +name="page267"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 267</span>the +smartness of his walk and the gleam of the sunshine on his +hat. He had one more secret of +success—teetotalism. “Scotch and soda,” +he would say, “that’s what ails the boys, and makes +’em sleepier than Hank M’Cabe’s old +tom-cat. Good boys, dear boys, they’ve always got the +long-lost-brother grip, but they’re mighty prone to dope +assuagements for the all-gone feeling in the middle of the +day. When they’ve got cobwebs in their little +brilliantined belfries, I’m full of the songs of spring and +merry old England’s on the lee. See? I don’t +even need to grab; all I’ve got to do is to look deserving, +and the stuff comes crowding in: it always does to a man who +looks like ready-money, and don’t lunch on cocktails and +cloves.”</p> +<p>“Jim, boyette,” his wife would say, “I guess +you’d better put ice or something on your bump of +self-esteem;” but she proudly wore the jewels that were the +rewards of his confidence and industry.</p> +<p>Bud and Ailie, when they thought of home in these days, +thought of it as a picture only, or as a chapter in a book +covered in mouldy leather, with <i>f</i>’s for +<i>s</i>’s. In their prayers alone were Dan and Bell +real personages; and the far-off little town was no longer a +woodcut, but an actual place blown through by the scented airs of +forest and sea. Bell wrote them of rains and hails and +misty weather; Grove Lane gardens breathed of daffodils, and the +city gleamed under a constant sun. They came back to the +pea-green house each day from rare adventuring, looking, in the +words of Molyneux, as if they were fresh come off the farm, and +the best seats in half a dozen theatres were at their +disposal. “Too much of the playhouse +altogether!” Bell wrote once, remonstrating. +“Have you heard that man in the City Temple yet?”</p> +<p>In Molyneux’s own theatre there was a break in the long +succession of melodrama and musical comedy. He privately +rejoiced that, for two ladies of such taste as Ailie and her +niece, he could display a piece of the <a +name="page268"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 268</span>real +legitimate—“King John,”—though Camberwell +was not very likely to make a week of Shakespeare very profitable +to his treasury. Ailie and Bud were to go on Tuesday; and +Bud sat up at night to read an acting copy of “King +John” till every character took flesh in her imagination, +and the little iron balcony behind the pea-green house became the +battlemented walls of Angiers, to whose postern came trumpeters +of France.</p> +<p>They sat in the drawing-room, astonished at her +speeches—</p> +<p class="poetry">“You men of Angiers, open wide your +gates,<br /> +And let young Arthur, Duke of Bretagne, in,<br /> +Who by the hand of France this day hath made<br /> +Much work for tears in many an English mother.”</p> +<p>Or—</p> +<p class="poetry">“I am not mad: this hair I tear is +mine;<br /> +My name is Constance; I was Geffrey’s wife;<br /> +Young Arthur is my son, and he is lost!”</p> +<p>“Bravo, Bud!” would Molyneux cry, delighted. +“Why, if I was an actor-manager, I’d pay you any +salary you had the front to name. Ain’t she just +great, Millicent? I tell you, Miss Ailie, she puts the +blinkers on Maude Adams, and sends Ellen ’way back in the +standing-room only. Girly, all you’ve got to learn is +how to move. You mustn’t stand two minutes in the +same place on the stage, but cross ’most every +cue.”</p> +<p>“I don’t know,” said Bud dubiously. +“Why should folk have fidgets on a stage? They +don’t always have them in real life. I’d want +to stand like a mountain—<i>you</i> know, Auntie Ailie, the +old hills at home!—and look so—so—so awful, the +audience would shriek if I moved, the same as if I was going to +fall on them.”</p> +<p>“Is that how you feel?” asked Jim Molyneux, +curiously surveying her.</p> +<p>“Yes; that’s how I feel,” said Bud, +“when I’ve got <a name="page269"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 269</span>the zip of poetry in me. I +feel I’m all made up of burning words and eyes.”</p> +<p>“Child, you are very young!” said Mrs +Molyneux.</p> +<p>“Yes,” said Bud; “I suppose that’s +it. By-and-by I’ll maybe get to be like other +people.”</p> +<p>Jim Molyneux struck the table with his open hand. +“By George!” he cried, “I wouldn’t hurry +being like other people; that’s what every gol-darned idiot +in England’s trying, and you’re right on the spot +just now as you stand. That’s straight talk, nothing +but! I allow I favour a bit of leg movement on the +stage—generally it’s about the only life there is on +it; but a woman who can play with her head don’t need to +wear out much shoe-leather. Girly—” he stopped +a second, then burst out with the question: “How’d +you like a little part in this ‘King +John’?”</p> +<p>A flame went over the countenance of the girl, and then she +grew exceedingly pale. “Oh!” she +exclaimed—“Oh! Jim Molyneux, don’t be so +cruel.”</p> +<p>“I mean it,” he said, “and I could fix it, +for they’ve got an Arthur in the caste who’s ill and +bound to break down in a day or two if she had an +understudy—and if I— Think you could play a +boy’s part? There isn’t much to learn in +Arthur, but that little speech of yours in front of Angiers makes +me think you could make the part loom out enough to catch the eye +of the cognoscenti. You’d let her, wouldn’t +you, Miss Ailie? It’d be great fun. She’d +learn the lines in an hour or two, and a couple of nights of +looking on would put her up to all the business. Now +don’t kick, Miss Ailie; say, Miss Ailie, have this little +treat with us!”</p> +<p>Ailie’s heart was leaping. Here was the +crisis,—she knew it,—what was she to do? She +had long anticipated some such hour—had often wrestled with +the problem whether, when it came, the world should have her Bud +without a struggle for the claims of Bell and the simple +cloistered life of the Scottish home. While yet the crisis +was in prospect only, she could come to no conclusion. Her +own wild hungers as a <a name="page270"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 270</span>girl, recalled one night in the +light of kitchen candles, had never ceased to plead for +freedom,—for freedom and the space that herself had years +ago surrendered: now it was the voice of the little elder sister, +and the bell of Wanton Wully ringing at evening humble people +home.</p> +<p>“Just this once!” pleaded Mr Molyneux, +understanding her scruples: Bud’s face mutely pleaded.</p> +<p>Yes, “just this once!”—it was all very well, +but Ailie knew the dangers of beginnings. It would not even +be, in this case, a beginning; the beginning was years +ago—before the mimicry on the first New Year’s +morning, before the night of the dozen candles, or the creation +of The Macintosh: the child had been carried onward like a +feather in a stream.</p> +<p>“I really don’t mind much, myself,” said +Ailie at last; “but I fancy her Aunt Bell would scarcely +like it.”</p> +<p>“Not if she knew I was going to do it,” said +Lennox quickly; “but when the thing was over she’d be +as pleased as Punch—at least, she’d laugh the way she +did when we told her I was dressed as Grandma Buntain at the +ball.”</p> +<p>The sound of Will Oliver’s curfew died low in +Ailie’s mind, the countenance of Bell grew dim: she heard, +instead, the clear young voice of Bud among the scenery and sat +with an enraptured audience. “If you are all so +anxious for it, then—” she said, and the deed was +done!</p> +<p>She did not rue it when the night of Bud’s performance +came, and her niece as the hapless young Bretagne welcomed the +Dauphin before the city gates: she gloried in the natural +poignancy that marked the painful scene with Hubert come to +torture, but she almost rued it when Molyneux, having escorted +them in an inexplicable silence home, broke out at last in +fervent praise of his discovery as soon as the girl had left them +for her bed.</p> +<p>“I’ve kept clutch of myself with considerable +difficulty,” he said, “for I didn’t want to +spoil girly’s sleep <a name="page271"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 271</span>or swell her head, but I want to +tell you, Millicent, and you, Miss Ailie, that <span +class="smcap">I’ve Found my Star</span>! Why, say! +she’s out of sight! She was the only actor in all +that company to-night who didn’t know she was in +Camberwell: she was right in the middle of medieval France from +start to finish, and when she was picked up dead at the end of +the fourth act she was so stone-cold and stiff with thinking it +she scared the company. I suspect, Miss Ailie, that +you’re going to lose that girl!”</p> +<h2><a name="page272"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +272</span>CHAPTER XXXIII.</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">It</span> was a wet night in +November. With a chuckle of horse’s hoofs on shining +streets, Dan Dyce, with Bell and Ailie, drove from +Molyneux’s fine new home to the temple of his former +dreams—the proud Imperial. They sat in silence in the +darkness of the cab, and in silence drifted into the +entrance-hall of the theatre to mingle with the pompous world +incongruously—with loud vain-glorious men, who bore to the +eye of Bell some spirit of abandonment and mockery, with women +lovely by the gift of God, or with dead-white faces, wax-red +lips, and stealthy sidelong eyes. One there was who, +passing before them, released a great fur cloak from her +shoulders with a sudden movement, and, as it slowly slipped down +her marble back, threatened an utter nakedness that made Bell +gasp and clutch at her sister’s arm.</p> +<p>“Look!” said Ailie eagerly—before them was a +portrait of a woman in the dress of Desdemona. The face had +some suggestion that at times it might be childlike and serene, +but had been caught in a moment of alarm and fire, and the full +black eyes held in their orbs some frightful apprehension, the +slightly parted lips expressed a soul’s mute cry.</p> +<p>“What is it? Who is it?” asked Bell, pausing +before the picture with a stound of fear.</p> +<p>“It is Bud,” said Ailie, feeling proud and +sorrowful—for why she could not tell. “There is +the name: ‘Winifred Wallace.’”</p> +<p>Bell wrung her hands in the shelter of her mantle <a +name="page273"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 273</span>and stood +bewildered, searching for the well-known lineaments.</p> +<p>“Let us go up,” said Dan softly, with no heed for +the jostling people, for ever self-possessed, sorrowful to guess +at his sister’s mind.</p> +<p>“Yes, yes, let us go up out of this crowd,” said +Ailie, but the little woman hung before the portrait +fascinated. Round her washed the waves of rustling garments +like a surf on the shore at home; scents wafted; English voices, +almost foreign in their accent, fell upon her ear all unnoticed +since she faced the sudden revelation of what her brother’s +child, her darling, had become. Seekers of pleasure, +killers of wholesome cares, froth of the idle world eddied around +her chattering, laughing, glancing curious or contemptuous at her +grey sweet face, her homely form, her simple Sabbath garments: +all her heart cried out in supplication for the child that had +too soon become a woman and wandered from the sanctuary of +home.</p> +<p>“We are blocking the way here, Bell. Let us go +up,” again said Ailie, gently taking her arm.</p> +<p>“Yes,” said her brother. “It’s +not a time for contemplation of the tombs—it’s not +the kirkyard, Bell. You see there are many that are anxious +to get in.”</p> +<p>“Oh, Lennox, Lennox!” she exclaimed, indifferent +to the strangers round about her, “my brother’s +child! I wish—oh, I wish ye were at home! God +grant ye grace and wisdom: ‘Then shalt thou walk in thy way +safely, and thy foot shall not stumble. When thou liest +down, thou shalt not be afraid: yea, thou shalt lie down, and thy +sleep shall be sweet.’”</p> +<p>They went up to the box that Molyneux had kept for them, to +find his wife there nursing an enormous bouquet of flowers, all +white as the driven snow. “A gorgeous house!” +she told them. “Everybody that’s anybody, and +in the front push. Half a hundred critics, two real Count +Vons, a lot of benzine brougham people who never miss a first +night—there are their wives, poor dears! shining same as +they were Tiffany’s <a name="page274"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 274</span>windows. My! ain’t our +Bud going to have a happy night!”</p> +<p>They sat and looked for a while in silence at the scene before +them, so pleasing to the mind that sought, in crowds, in light +and warmth and gaiety, its happiest associations; so wanting in +the great eternal calm and harmony that are out of doors in +country places. Serpent eyes in facets of gems on +women’s bosoms; heads made monstrous yet someway beautiful +and tempting by the barber’s art; shoulders bare and +bleached, devoid of lustre; others blushing as if Eve’s +sudden apprehension had survived the generations. Sleek +shaven faces, linen breastplates, opera-glasses, flowers, fans, a +murmur of voices, and the flame over all of the enormous +electrolier.</p> +<p>It was the first time Bell had seen a theatre. Her first +thought was one of blame and pity. “‘He looked +on the city and wept’!” said she. “Oh, +Ailie, that it were over and we were home!”</p> +<p>“All to see Miss Winifred Wallace!” said Mrs +Molyneux. “Think of that, Miss Dyce,—your +darling niece, and she’ll be so proud and happy!”</p> +<p>Bell sighed. “At least she had got her own way, +and I am a foolish old country-woman who had different +plans.”</p> +<p>Dan said nothing. Ailie waited too, silent, in a +feverish expectation; and from the fiddles rose a sudden +melody. It seemed the only wise and sober thing in all that +humming hive of gaudy insects passing, passing, passing. It +gave a voice to human longings for a nobler, better world; and in +it, too, were memory and tears. To the people in the box it +seemed to tell Bud’s story—opening in calm sweet +passages, closing in the roll of trumpet and the throb of +drum. And then the lights went down, and the curtain rose +upon the street in Venice.</p> +<p>The early scenes were dumb and vacant, wanting Bud’s +presence: there was no play for them till she <a +name="page275"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 275</span>came slowly +into the council chamber where sat the senators, timidity and +courage struggling in her port and visage.</p> +<p>“No, no; it is not Bud,” Bell whispered. +“It is not our lassie, this one is too tall and—and +too deliberate. I fear she has not dared it at the last, or +that she has been found unsuitable.”</p> +<p>Ailie leaned forward, quivering, feeding her eyes. +“It’s no one else,” said she. “Dear +Bud, <i>our</i> Bud! Those two years’ training may +have made her someways different, but she has not changed her +smile. Oh! I am so proud, and sure of her! +Hus-s-sh!”</p> +<p class="poetry">“I do perceive here a divided duty:<br /> +To you I am bound for life and education;<br /> +My life and education both do learn me<br /> +How to respect you; you are the lord of duty:<br /> +I am hitherto your daughter: but here’s my +husband.”</p> +<p>Desdemona’s first speech broke the stillness that had +fallen on the house: her face was pale, they saw the rapid +heaving of her bosom, they heard a moment’s tremor in her +voice matured and wonderful, sweet as a silver bell. To the +box where she knew her friends were sitting she let her eyes for +a second wander as she spoke the opening lines that had so much +of double meaning—not Desdemona, but the loving and wilful +child asking forgiveness, yet tenacious of her purpose.</p> +<p>To Ailie came relief and happiness and pride: Dan held a +watching brief for his elder sister’s prejudices and his +own philosophy. Bell sat in tears which Shakespeare did not +influence. When next she saw the stage with unblurred eyes +Desdemona was leaving with the Moor.</p> +<p>“My dears,” said Mrs Molyneux, “as Desdemona +she’s the Only One! and Jim was right. It’s +worth a thousand times more trouble than he took with her. +He said all along she’d dazzle them, and I guess her <a +name="page276"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +276</span>fortune’s made, and it’s going to be the +making of this house too. I feel so proud and happy +I’d kiss you right here, Mr Dyce, if it wouldn’t mess +up my bouquet.”</p> +<p>“A black man!” said Bell regretfully. +“I know it is only paint, of course, but—but I never +met him; I do not even know his name.”</p> +<p>It seemed as if the play had nothing in it but the words and +acts of Desdemona. At each appearance she became more +confident, charged the part with deeper feeling, found new +meaning in the time-worn words. Even Bell began to lose her +private judgment, forget that it was nothing but a sinful play, +and feel some pity for Othello; but, as the knavish coils closed +round her Desdemona, the strain became unbearable.</p> +<p>“Oh! I cannot stand it any longer,” she exclaimed, +when the voice of Lennox quavered in the song before her last +good-night, and saying so, pushed back her seat into the shadows +of the box, covering her ears with her fingers. She saw no +more; she heard no more till the audience rose to its feet with +thunders of applause that swelled and sunk and swelled again as +if it would never end. Then she dared to look, and saw a +trembling Desdemona all alone before a curtain bowing.</p> +<p>“What is the matter? What is the matter? Why +are they crying that way on her?” she asked, +dumbfounded.</p> +<p>“Why, don’t you see they’re mad!” said +Mrs Molyneux.</p> +<p>“Oh, dear! and I thought she was doing +splendidly.”</p> +<p>“Glad mad, I mean. She has carried them off their +feet, and I’ll bet Jim Molyneux is standing on his hands +behind that drop and waving his legs in the air. Guess I +needn’t waste this bouquet on a girl who looks like the +morning hour in Covent Garden.”</p> +<p><a name="page277"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +277</span>Molyneux burst into the box in a gust of wild +excitement. “Come round, come round at once—she +wants to see you,” he exclaimed, and led them deviously +behind the scenes to her dressing-room.</p> +<p>She stood at the door, softly crying; she looked at +them—the grave old uncle; Ailie who could understand, the +little Auntie Bell,—it was into the arms of Bell she threw +herself!</p> +<h2><a name="page278"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +278</span>CHAPTER XXXIV.</h2> +<p>“<span class="smcap">The</span> talk of the whole of +London! The beauteous Lady Anne herself’s not in it +with her!” said Will Oliver, scratching behind his +ears. “Man, is it no’ just desperate? But +I’ll warrant ye there’s money in it, for it’s +yonder folk are willing to pay well for their +diversion.”</p> +<p>“Are you sure,” said P. & A., +“it’s not another woman altogether? It gives +the name of Wallace in the paper.”</p> +<p>The bellman, sitting on a soap-box, slapped his thigh and +said, “I’m telling ye; I had it long ago from Kate +MacNeill that her name on the stage was going to be +Wallace—Winifred Wallace, and there it is in print. +Tra—tragedienny, tragediennys are the head ones in the +trade: I’ve seen them in the shows—tr-r-r-emendous +women!”</p> +<p>The Provost, who had just stepped into P. & A.’s for +his Sunday sweeties, smiled tolerantly and passed his +taddy-box. “Bud Dyce,” said he, “is never +likely to be round this way in a caravan to do the deid-drap +three times every night for front-seats sixpence. I doubt +we have seen the last of her, unless we have the money and the +clothes for London theatres.”</p> +<p>“It’s really her, then?” said the +grocer.</p> +<p>“You can take Wull’s word for that,” said +the Provost, “and I have just been talking to her +uncle. Her history’s in the morning paper, and +I’m the civic head of a town renowned for +genius.”</p> +<p>Wanton Wully went out to drift along the street <a +name="page279"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 279</span>in the +light of the bright shop-windows before which bairns played +“chaps me,” making choice of treasures for their +gaudiness alone, like most of us, who should know better. +He met George Jordon. “Geordie,” said he, +“you’ll have heard the latest? You should be in +London: yon’s the place for oddity,” and George, with +misty comprehension, turned about for the road to London +town. Out of the inn came Colin Cleland, hurried, in his +hand the business-looking packet of tattered documents that were +always his excuse for being there.</p> +<p>“Winifred Wallace—Great Tragedienny! +It’s a droll thing life, according to the way you look at +it. Stirring times in London, Mr Cleland! Changed her +name to Wallace, having come of decent worthy people. We +know, but we’ll not let on.”</p> +<p>“Not a word!” said Colin Cleland comically. +“Perhaps she may get better and the thing blow by. +Are you under the impression that celebrity’s a thing to be +ashamed of? I tell you she’s a credit to us +all.”</p> +<p>“Lord bless me! do you say so?” asked Wull +Oliver. “If I was a tragedienny I would be ashamed to +show my face in the place again. We all expected something +better from the wee one—she was such a caution! It +was myself, as you might say, invented her: I gave her a start at +devilment by letting her ring the New Year bell. After that +she always called me Mr Wanton, and kindly inquired at me about +my legs. She was always quite the leddy.”</p> +<p>Miss Minto’s shop was busy: a boy was in with a very red +face demanding the remnants that by rights should have gone home +with his mother’s jacket, and the Misses Duff were buying +chiffon.</p> +<p>“This is startling news about young Lennox Dyce,” +remarked Miss Minto. “It’s caused what you +might call a stir. There’s not a weekly paper to be +had for love or money.”</p> +<p>“She was always most peculiar,” said Miss +Jean.</p> +<p>“Bizarre,” cooed Miss Amelia,—it was her +latest adjective.</p> +<p><a name="page280"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +280</span>“I was sure there was something special about in +her since the very first day I saw her,” said the +mantua-maker. “Yon eye, Miss Duff! And what a +sweet and confident expression! I am so glad she has +pleased them up in London; you never can depend on them. I +am thinking of a novel blouse to mark in what I think will be a +pleasing way the great occasion—the Winifred Wallace Waist +I’m calling it: you remember the clever Mr +Molyneux?”</p> +<p>“I doubt we never understood her,” said Miss +Jean. “But we make a feature now of +elocution,”</p> +<p>“Not that we wish to turn out great tragediennes,” +said Miss Amelia. “There’s happiness in humbler +vocations.”</p> +<p>“I daresay there is,” confessed Miss Minto. +“I never thought of the stage myself; my gift was always +dressmaking, and you wouldn’t believe the satisfaction +that’s in seeing a dress of mine on a woman who can do it +justice. We have all our own bit art, and that’s a +wonderful consolation. But I’m very glad at that +girl’s progress, for the sake of Mr Dyce—and, of +course, his sisters. Miss Ailie is transported, in the +seventh heaven, and even her sister seems quite pleased. +‘You’ll have a high head to-day,’ I said to her +when she was passing from the coach this afternoon.”</p> +<p>“And what did she say to that?” inquired Miss +Jean, with curiosity.</p> +<p>“You know Miss Dyce! She gave a smile and said, +‘But a humble heart—it’s the Dyces’ +motto.’”</p> +<p>The doctor put his paper down, having read the great news over +several times with a singular satisfaction that surprised his +sisters, who were beat to see much glory in a state of life that +meant your name on every wall and the picture of your +drawing-room every other week in ‘Homely +Notes.’ Drawing on his boots, he took a turn the +length of the lawyer’s house.</p> +<p>“Faith! London has the luck of it,” he said +on entering. “I wish I was there myself to see this +<a name="page281"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +281</span>wonderful Desdemona. I hope you liked your jaunt, +Miss Bell?”</p> +<p>“It wasn’t bad,” said Bell, putting out the +cards. “But, mercy on me! what a silly way they have +of baking bread in England—all crust outside, though I +grant it’s sweet enough when you break into it.”</p> +<p>“H’m!” said Dr Brash, “I’ve seen +Scotch folk a bit like that. She has rung the bell, I see; +her name is made.”</p> +<p>“It is, they tell me,” answered Bell, “but I +hope it will never change her nature.”</p> +<p>“She had aye a genius,” said Mr Dyce, cutting the +pack for partners.</p> +<p>“She had something better,” said Miss Ailie, +“she had love;” and on the town broke forth the +evening bell.</p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p style="text-align: center">THE END.</p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p style="text-align: center"><span class="GutSmall">PRINTED BY +WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS.</span></p> +<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DAFT DAYS***</p> +<pre> + + +***** This file should be named 49906-h.htm or 49906-h.zip****** + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/4/9/9/0/49906 + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will +be renamed. + +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United +States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. 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