"Then, by the side of the beck, as if, being wearied with travel, she had set her down to take a drink of the caller burn water, I saw a woman sit. She was beneath a bush of hazel, and her head was resting tired-like on her hand. So, being back there in the shadow, I had not noticed her at the first, being taken up, as was small wonder, with the sight of that bonnie yellow-haired bairn flichtering here and there like a b.u.t.terfly in the sun.
"Then the wee la.s.s saw me and ran whatever she could to me. She took my hand and syne looked up in my face as trustful-like as if she ha"
kenned me all her days.
""Here woman," she cried, "come and wake my minnie to me, for I canna.
She winna hearken when her wee Elsie speaks to her."
"Hand in hand we went up to the poor thing, and even as I went a great fear gripped me by the heart. For the woman sat still, even when my step must have sounded in her ear. I laid my hand on her, and, as I am a living woman, she was clay cauld. The bairn looked ever up into my face.
""Can you no waken my mither, either?" she said wistfully.
""No," said I. "No, my puir, wee la.s.sie!" For truth to tell, I kenned not what to say.
""Will minnie never waken?" she asked again, bright as a b.u.t.ton.
""I fear not, bonnie la.s.sie," said I, and the tear was in my eye.
"Then the elf clapped her hands and danced like a yellow b.u.t.terfly over the lea.
""Then she willna greet any more! She willna be hungry any more. She will never need bite o" meat nor thread o" claes for ever and ever mair." She lilted the words almost as if she had been singing a tune.
"She will be richt pleased, my minnie. For, oh, she grat sair and often! She carried me in her arms till her ain feet were hurted and she could gang nae farther. Late yestreen she sat doon here to wash them, and I sat, too, and after that she cuddled me in her airms. Are ye no richt glad for my minnie?"
"I telled her that I was glad, for naught less would satisfy her, though even as I spak the words the sob rose in my throat.
"And as we stood there, looking at the woman sitting with her face on her hands, what should happen but that the auld miser should come hirpling to the door, and there, too, looking over his shoulder, was Daft Jeremy, that the village bairns were wont to cry at and call the "Mounster."
""What hae ye there, Nance Edgar?" the old man cried, shaking his stick at me; "keep away from my door with your doxies and changeling bairns.""
"But I was civil to him for his age"s sake, and also because of the witless man that was looking over his shoulder. For it is not good to cross such as the Lord has smitten in their understanding, and so do my own folk never.
""It is a woman, Laird Stennis," quoth I, "that hath set herself down to die by your burnside."
""Die," cried he, with a queer scream most like a frighted hen flying down off the baulks, "what word is that to speak? A woman dead by my burnside--what richt had she there? Who has taken such a liberty with Hobby Stennis?"
""Nay, that you can come and see for yourself," said I, a little nettled at the carle"s hardness of heart. So the auld miser, bent and stiff, came hirpling barehead down the path, and behind him, looking most uncanny, danced Daft Jeremy, combing his hair with a weaver"s heckle and muttering to himself. The morning sunshine fell fair on this strange couple, and when she saw him the little maid let go my hand and ran to Laird Stennis. She would have taken his hand, but he pushed her off. Whereat, she being affronted, the witch caught at his stick and pulled it away from him before he could resist. Then she gat astride and played horses with it on the green gra.s.s of the burnside dell. It was like an incantation.
"But without heeding her the old man went to the woman, and, lifting up her head, looked steadfastly in her face.
""G.o.d in his heaven be merciful," he cried, "it is my daughter Bell!"
"Then the "mounster" laughed loud and long, and wrapping his "heckle"
in a wisp of paper, he played a tune upon it with his mouth, dancing round and crying, "There"s her right for ye--ye said she hadna a right, Laird Stennis! Ye were that hard ye refused the woman room to die at your d.y.k.eside. But Bell has come hame to claim her own. Coffin and clay--coffin and clay! Sax foot of clean kirkyard sods! Faith, I wish a" Daft Jeremy"s enemies had the same, nae mair and nae less. But it"s as weel as it is, Laird Stennis--for Jeremy cannot be doing with grown women about the noose o" Breckonside. And it"s him that has the say now, ye ken!"
"But the old man answered nothing, good or ill. He only stood and looked down at his daughter, muttering to himself words that sounded like "Bell has comed hame.... My bairn has comed back to me at the last!"
"So in time the miser buried his daughter decently, and took the little la.s.s hame to him to bring up. But when this came to be talked of in the countryside, there was a well-to-do woman in Dumfries toon, a Mistress Comly or Comline, that was some kin to Bell Stennis through her mother, and when she heard o" the bit bairn shut up in that lonesome house with only a miser and a daft man, she had heart pity on her, and as soon as she had shut her shop one Sat.u.r.day afternoon, off she set to Breckonside in a pony cart that she used to bring her goods up from the port quay.
"It was but a coldrife welcome she gat at the white house of Breckonside, but sorrow a bit Margaret Comline cared for that. She tied up her sonsy beast, that was, like herself, fat as pats of b.u.t.ter, to the yettpost of the miser"s garden. And when he came to the door himself, she did not take a couple of minutes in telling the auld runt her business, plump and plain.
""I hae comed to ask ye to put away that daft man," she said, "and get a decent woman for a house-keeper, Laird Stennis."
""Meanin" yourself, Margar"t Comline," interrupted the miser, with a cunning smirk. He had shut the door in her face, and was conducting negotiations through a crack.
""_Me_ be your housekeeper!" cried the visitor, "me that is a ratepayer and a well-considered indweller in the burgh o" Dumfries. Man, I would not cross your doorstep though ye were Provost. But I hear that ye hae this bit bairn in the hoose, and a la.s.sie bairn, too (that"s full cousin"s daughter to myself). I have come to tell ye that it is neither Christian nor decent to bring up the wee thing but and ben wi"
a kenned ill-doer like Daft Jeremy, that has twice been tried for his life for the shedding of blood!"
"From behind the closed inner door of the cothouse there came a high-pitched angry cry that garred the very blood run chill as ice in Margaret Comline"s veins. I mean that the thought of it did afterwards. For at the time she just looked about her to see that Donald, her pony, was not far away, and that the road was clear to the light market cart in case that she had to make a break for it. She had eke a st.u.r.dy staff in her hand, that the loons of the port kenned bravely the weight of.
"It was the voice of the man-wanting-wit, crying out to be at her, that she heard.
""She has ta"en from me my guid name," his words reached her through the very stone and lime of the house, "and she wad take the bonnie siller oot of the black chest that you and Jeremy keep so carefully.
Gie the woman the bit la.s.sie bairn, Laird Stennis, and let her travel.
For less will not serve her, and forbye a bairn is only an expense and an eating up o" good meat in any man"s house!"
"And while the din was at its height in the cot, there came a sound to Mistress Comline"s ear that garred her kind heart loup within her. It was like the whimpering of a bairn that is ill used and dares not cry out loud. And with that she for gat her fear of the strange fool, Daft Jeremy, and with her naked hands she shook the door of the cothouse of Breckonside till the iron stinchel clattered in its ring.
""The magistrates o" Dumfries shall ken o" this or I am a day aulder!"
she cried in to them. "Gie me the la.s.sie or the preventive men shall hear of the barrels ye hae hidden in the yard. Supervisor Imrie shall be here and search every inch high and low if ye lay as much as a finger on the innocent bairn!"
"And even as she cried out threatenings and shook the stout oaken door so that the leaves almost fell asunder, Margaret Comline heard a noise behind her, and whipped about quickly with her heart in her mouth, for she thought it was Daft Jeremy come out to slay her.
"But instead it was the wee la.s.s herself that had escaped by a kind of a miracle through the window of the "aumry" or pantry closet. For Laird Stennis had it closed with a board, grudging the expense of gla.s.s. The la.s.s was greeting and laughing at the same time, feared to the marrow of her bits of bones, but yet crouse withal. Mistress Comline marvelled to see her.
""I hae left the stead of my teeth in his hand, I wot!" she said, as Mistress Comline helped her into the light cart at the roadside.
""And see what I brought with me," she added as they drove away. It was a s.h.a.green leather pocketbook like those which well-to-do farmers carry, or rich English drovers that come to the cattle trysts to buy for the English market. And Mistress Comline, struck with fear lest she should be taken for a thief, would have turned back, but that at that very moment, out of the door of the cot, there burst a terrifying figure--even Daft Jeremy himself, a great flesher"s knife uplifted in his hand. He was scraiching out words without meaning, and looked so fleysome that the decent woman e"en slipped the s.h.a.green purse into her reticule basket and laid whiplash to Donald till that pampered beast must have thought that the punishment of all his sins had overtaken him at once.
"The "mounster" pursued after them with these and such like affrighting outcries to the very entering in of Longtown. And never had Margaret Comline, decent woman, been so glad to recognize Her Majesty"s authority as when she saw Supervisor Imrie with two-three of his men come riding up from the Brig-End and out upon the green gra.s.s of the Terreggles Braes. But she said nothing, only gave them a good day in pa.s.sing, and bade them "beware o" the puir "naiteral," Daft Jeremy, that was in one o" his fits o" anger that day!"
""Sic a fierce craitur should be in the Towbooth. He is a danger to the lieges," said Supervisor Imrie, adding more cautiously, "That is, were it no that he would be a cess on the burgh and pairish!"
"When Mistress Comline gat to her own door she first delivered Donald into the hands of her serving prentice, Robin Carmorie, as stout and blythe a lad as ever walked the Plainstanes. But the wee la.s.s she took by the hand up to her own chamber, and there she stripped her to the skin and washed her and put fine raiment on her, new from the shop--aye, and did not rest from her labours till she had gathered every auld rag that she found on her and committed them to the flames, as if they had been art and part in the wizardry of Laird Stennis, her grandfather, and the coming ill-repute of the white cothouse on the brae-face of Breckonside.
"But, fearing she knew not clearly what, she sealed the s.h.a.green pocket-book up in a clean white wrapper and laid it aside in her drawer, saying to herself, "If this be honestly come by the laird is no the man to forget to ca" in for his ain. And if no----" Here a shake of the head and a shrewd smile intimated that the contents of the pocket-book might one day be useful to its finder, little Elsie Comline, as she was now to be named.
""And wha has a better richt!" the shopkeeper would add, perhaps to salve her conscience in the matter.
"But, indeed, it was but seldom, the pocket-book once safe in the drawer, that she thought about the matter at all. For Margaret Comline was a busy woman of affairs, having under her serving la.s.sies and prentice loons, a shop on the ground floor of a house in the Vennel, and a well-patronized stall in the market. All day she went to and fro, busily commending her goods and reproving her underlings with equal earnestness and point. Sunday and Sat.u.r.day the wrinkle was never off her brow. Like Martha in the Scripture, she was careful and troubled about many things. She read but seldom, and when she did her memory retained not long the imprint of what she read. So that our young monkey, Elsie, being fresh from the mischief-making of the grammar school, where she was drilled with a cla.s.s of boys, used to shift the marker of woven silk back ten pages or so in the G.o.dly book over which her foster mother fell asleep on Sabbath afternoons. By which means Mistress Comline was induced to peruse the same improving pa.s.sage at least fifty times in the course of a year, yet without once discovering, or for a moment suspecting the fact.
"For all that, she saw to it that Elsie did her nightly school tasks, recommending the master to "palmie" her well if she should ever come to school unprepared. But, being a quick and ready learner, the young la.s.s needed the less encouragement of that kind.
"As she grew older, too, Elsie would upon occasions serve a customer in the shop, though Margaret Comline never allowed her to stand on the street among the babble of tongues at the market stalls. In a little time she could distinguish the hanks of yarn and thread, the webs of wincey, and bolts of linen as well as her mistress, and was counted a shrewd and capable hand at a bargain before she was fifteen.
"All this time her grandfather, the old miser Hobby, lived on in the little white house up among the fir-woods of Breckonside, growing ever harder and richer, at least according to the clashes of the country folk. By day, and sometimes far into the night, the click of his shuttle was never silent, and, being an old man, it was thought a marvel how he could sit so long at his loom. And still Daft Jeremy abode with him and filled his pirns. Sometimes the "naiteral" would sit on the d.y.k.e top at the end of the cottage and laugh at the farmers as they rode by, crying names and unco words after them, so that many shunned to pa.s.s that way in the gloaming, for fear of the half-witted, strong creature that mopped and mowed and danced at the lonely gable end. And they were of excellent judgment who did so.
"For Ridd.i.c.k of Langbarns disappeared frae the face o" the earth, being last seen within half a mile of Laird Stennis"s loaning, and, less than a month after that, Lang Hutchins, who came to Longtown with all his gains frae a year"s trading padded inside his coat, so folks said, started out of Longtown at dusk and was never seen in Breckonside again. There were those who began to whisper fearsome things about the innocent-appearing white cot at the top of the Lang Wood o" Breckonside.
"Yet there were others again, and they a stout-hearted majority, who scoffed, and told how Ridd.i.c.k had been seen in market carrying more than his load of whisky, and that as for Lang Hutchins, had he not dared his Maker that very day to strike him dead if he spoke not the truth--all that heard him well knowing that even as he uplifted his hand he lied in his throat.