"Is it true?" she asked, "that mamma is dying?"
This was a genuine shock to him, for he had not been at Double d.y.k.es since winter, and then the Painted Lady was quite well.
"Nonsense!" he said, and his obvious disbelief brought some comfort to the girl. But she asked, "Why are there red spots on her cheeks, then?"
"Paint," he answered.
"No," cried Grizel, rocking her arms, "it is not paint now. I thought it might be and I tried to rub it off while she was sleeping, but it will not come off. And when she coughs there is blood on her handkerchief."
He looked alarmed now, and Grizel"s fears came back. "If mamma dies,"
she said determinedly, "she must be buried in the cemetery."
"She is not dying, I tell you."
"And you must come to the funeral."
"Are you gyte?"
"With c.r.a.pe on your hat."
His mouth formed an emphatic "No."
"You must," said Grizel, firmly, "you shall! If you don"t--" She pointed to the parlor-door.
Her remaining two visits were to a similar effect, and one of the gentlemen came out of the ordeal somewhat less shamefully than the first, the other worse, for he blubbered and wanted to kiss her. It is questionable whether many young ladies have made such a profound impression in a series of morning calls.
The names of these gentlemen are not known, but you shall be told presently where they may be found. Every person in Thrums used to know the place, and many itched to get at the names, but as yet no one has had the nerve to look for them.
Not at this time did Grizel say a word of these interviews to her friends, though Tommy had to be told of them later, and she never again referred to her mother at the Sat.u.r.day evenings in the Den. But the others began to know a queer thing, nothing less than this, that in their absence the lair was sometimes visited by a person or persons unknown, who made use of their stock of firewood. It was a startling discovery, but when they discussed it in council, Grizel never contributed a word. The affair remained a mystery until one Sat.u.r.day evening, when Tommy and Elspeth, reaching the lair first, found in it a delicate white shawl. They both recognized in it the pretty thing the Painted Lady had pinned across her shoulders on the night they saw her steal out of Double d.y.k.es, to meet the man of long ago.
Even while their eyes were saying this, Grizel climbed in without giving the pa.s.sword, and they knew from her quick glance around that she had come for the shawl. She s.n.a.t.c.hed it out of Tommy"s hand with a look that prohibited questions.
"It"s the pair o" them," Tommy said to Elspeth at the first opportunity, "that sometimes comes here at nights and kindles the fire and warms themsels at the gloze. And the last time they came they forgot the shawl."
"I dinna like to think the Painted Lady has been up here, Tommy."
"But she has. You ken how, when she has a daft fit, she wanders the Den trysting the man that never comes. Has she no been seen at all hours o"
the night, Grizel following a wee bit ahint, like as if to take tent o her?"
"They say that, and that Grizel canna get her to go home till the daft fit has pa.s.sed."
"Well, she has that kechering hoast and spit now, and so Grizel brings her up here out o" the blasts."
"But how could she be got to come here, if she winna go home?"
"Because frae here she can watch for the man."
Elspeth shuddered. "Do you think she"s here often, Tommy?" she asked.
"Just when she has a daft fit on, and they say she"s wise sax days in seven."
This made the Jacobite meetings eerie events for Elspeth, but Tommy liked them the better; and what were they not to Grizel, who ran to them with pa.s.sionate fondness every Sat.u.r.day night? Sometimes she even outdistanced her haunting dreads, for she knew that her mother did not think herself seriously ill; and had not the three gentlemen made light of that curious cough? So there were nights when the lair saw Grizel go riotous with glee, laughing, dancing, and shouting over-much, like one trying to make up for a lost childhood. But it was also noticed that when the time came to leave the Den she was very loath, and kissed her hands to the places where she had been happiest, saying, wistfully, and with pretty gestures that were foreign to Thrums, "Good-night, dear Cuttle Well! Good-by, sweet, sweet Lair!" as if she knew it could not last. These weekly risings in the Den were most real to Tommy, but it was Grizel who loved them best.
CHAPTER XXIV
A ROMANCE OF TWO OLD MAIDS AND A STOUT BACHELOR
Came Gavinia, a burgess of the besieged city, along the south sh.o.r.e of the Silent Pool. She was but a maid seeking to know what love might be, and as she wandered on, she nibbled dreamily at a hot sweet-smelling bridie, whose gravy oozed deliciously through a bursting paper-bag.
It was a fit night for dark deeds.
"Methinks she cometh to her d.a.m.n!"
The speaker was a masked man who had followed her--he was sniffing ecstatically--since she left the city walls.
She seemed to possess a charmed life. He would have had her in Shovel Gorge, but just then Ronny-On"s Jean and Peter Scrymgeour turned the corner.
Suddenly Gavinia felt an exquisite thrill: a man was pursuing her. She slipped the paper-bag out of sight, holding it dexterously against her side with her arm, so that the gravy should not spurt out, and ran.
Lights flashed, a kingly voice cried "Now!" and immediately a petticoat was flung over her head. (The Lady Griselda looked thin that evening.)
Gavinia was dragged to the Lair, and though many a time they b.u.mped her, she still tenderly nursed the paper-bag with her arm, or fondly thought she did so, for when unm.u.f.fled she discovered that it had been removed, as if by painless surgery. And her captors" tongues were sweeping their chins for stray crumbs.
The wench was offered her choice of Stroke"s gallant fellows, but "Wha carries me wears me," said she, promptly, and not only had he to carry her from one end of the Den to the other, but he must do it whistling as if barely conscious that she was there. So after many attempts (for she was always willing to let them have their try) Corp of Corp, speaking for Sir Joseph and the others, announced a general retreat.
Instead of taking this prisoner"s life, Stroke made her his tool, releasing her on condition that every seventh day she appeared at the Lair with information concerning the doings in the town. Also, her name was Agnes of Kingoldrum, and, if she said it was not, the plank. Bought thus, Agnes proved of service, bringing such bags of news that Stroke was often occupied now in drawing diagrams of Thrums and its strongholds, including the residence of Cathro, with dotted lines to show the direction of proposed underground pa.s.sages.
And presently came by this messenger disquieting rumors indeed. Another letter, being the third in six months, had reached the Dovecot, addressed, not to Miss Ailie, but to Miss Kitty. Miss Kitty had been dead fully six years, and Archie Piatt, the post, swore that this was the eighteenth, if not the nineteenth, letter he had delivered to her name since that time. They were all in the same hand, a man"s, and there had been similar letters while she was alive, but of these he kept no record. Miss Ailie always took these letters with a trembling hand, and then locked herself in her bedroom, leaving the key in such a position in its hole that you might just as well go straight back to the kitchen.
Within a few hours of the arrival of these ghostly letters, tongues were wagging about them, but to the two or three persons who (after pa.s.sing a sleepless night) bluntly asked Miss Ailie from whom they came, she only replied by pursing her lips. Nothing could be learned at the post-office save that Miss Ailie never posted any letters there, except to two Misses and a Mrs., all resident in Redlintie. The mysterious letters came from Australy or Manchester, or some such part.
What could Stroke make of this? He expressed no opinion, but oh, his face was grim. Orders were immediately given to double the sentinels. A barrel was placed in the Queen"s Bower. Sawdust was introduced at immense risk into the Lair. A paper containing this writing, "248xho317 Oxh4591AWS314dd5," was pa.s.sed round and then solemnly burned. Nothing was left to chance.
Agnes of Kingoldrum (Stroke told her) did not know Miss Ailie, but she was commanded to pay special attention to the gossip of the town regarding this new move of the enemy. By next Sat.u.r.day the plot had thickened. Previous letters might have reddened Miss Ailie"s eyes for an hour or two, but they gladdened her as a whole. Now she sat crying all evening with this one on her lap; she gave up her daily walk to the Berlin wool shop, with all its romantic possibilities; at the clatter of the tea-things she would start apprehensively; she had let a red shawl lie for two days in the blue-and-white room.
Stroke never blanched. He called his faithful remnant around him, and told them the story of Bell the Cat, with its application in the records of his race. Did they take his meaning? This Miss Ailie must be watched closely. In short, once more, in Scottish history, someone must bell the cat. Who would volunteer?
Corp of Corp and Sir Joseph stepped forward as one man.
"Thou couldst not look like Gavinia," the prince said, shaking his head.
"Wha wants him to look like Gavinia?" cried an indignant voice.
"Peace, Agnes!" said Stroke.
"Agnes, why bletherest thou?" said Sir Joseph.