"Jess, ye"re bonny," said he.
"Na, na," said Jess, very demurely, "it"s no me that"s bonny--its Meg!"
Jess was still looking at him, and interested in getting all the rough wool off the collar of his homespun coat.
The Samson of the graveyard felt his strength deserting him.
"Davert, Jess la.s.s, but it"s a queer thing that it never cam across me that ye were bonny afore!"
Jess looked down. The Cuif thought that it was because she was shy, and his easy heart went out to her; but had he seen the smile that was wasted on a hopping sparrow beneath, and especially the wicked look in the black eyes, he might have received some information as to the real sentiments of girls who put red poppies in their hair in order to meet their sisters" sweethearts at the barn end.
"Is the young minister aye bidin" at the Manse?" asked Jess.
"Aye, he is that!" said Saunders, "he"s a nice chiel" yon. Ye"ll see him whiles ower by here. They say--that is Manse Bell says-- that he"s real fond o" yer young mistress here. Ken ye ocht aboot that, Jess?"
"Hoots, havers, our young mistress is no for penniless students, I wot weel. There"ll be nocht in"t, an" sae ye can tell Bell o" the Manse, gin you an" her is so chief [intimate]."
"Very likely ye"re richt. There"ll be nocht in"t, I"m thinkin"--at least on her side. But what o" the young man? D"ye think he"s sair ta"en up aboot Mistress Winsome? Meg was sayin" so."
"Meg thinks there"s naebody worth lookin" at in the warl" but hersel" and Mistress Winifred Charteris, as she ca"s hersel"; but there"s ithers thinks different."
"What hae ye against her, Jess? I thocht that she"s a fell fine young leddy."
"Oh she"s richt eneuch, but there"s bonny la.s.ses as weel as her; an" maybe, gin young Maister Peden comes ower by to Oraig Eonald to see a la.s.s nnkenned o" a"--what faut wad there be in that?"
"Then it"s Meg he comes to see, and no" the young mistress?" said the alarmed grave-digger.
"Maybes aye an" maybes no--there"s bonny la.s.ses forby Meg Kissock for them that hae gotten een in their heads."
"Wi" Jess! Is"t yerself?" said Saunders.
Jess was discreetly silent.
"Ye"ll no tell onybody, wull ye, Maister Mowdiewort?" she said anxiously.
To Saunders this was a great deal better than being called a "Cuif."
"Na, Jess, la.s.s, I"ll no tell a soul--no yin."
"No" even Meg-mind!" repeated Jess, who felt that this was a vital point.
So Saunders promised, though he had intended to do so on the first opportunity.
"Mind, if ye do, I"ll never gie ye a hand wi" Meg again as lang as I leeve!" said Jess emphatically.
"Jess, d"ye think she likes me?" asked the widower in a hushed whisper.
"Saunders, I"m jnist sure o"t," replied Jess with great readiness.
"But she"s no yin o" the kind to let on."
"Na," groaned Saunders, "I wuss to peace she was. But ye mind me that I gat a letter frae the young minister that I was to gie to Meg. But as you"re the yin he comes to see, I maun as weel gie"t direct to yoursel"."
"It wad be as weel," said Jess, with a strange sort of sea-fire like moonshine in her eyes.
Saunders pa.s.sed over a paper to her readily, and Jess, with her hand still on his coat-collar, in a way that Meg had never used, thanked him in her own way.
"Juist bide a wee," she said; "I"ll be wi" ye in a minute!"
Jess hurried down into the old square-plotted garden, which ran up to the orchard trees. She soon found a moss-rose bush from which she selected a bud, round which the soft feathery envelope was just beginning to curl back. Then she went round by the edge of the brook which keeps damp one side of the orchard, where she found some single stems of forget-me-nots, shining in the dusk like beaded turquoise. She pulled some from the bottom of the half-dry ditch, and setting the pale moss-rosebud in the middle, she bound the whole together with a striped yellow and green withe. Then snipping the stacks with her pocket scissors, she brought the posy to Saunders, with instructions to wrap it in a dock-leaf and never to let his hands touch it the whole way.
Saunders, dazed and fascinated, forgetful even of Meg and loyalty, promised. The glamour of Jess, the gypsy, was upon him.
"But what am I to say," he asked.
"Say its frae her that he sent the letter to; he"ll ken brawly that Meg hadna the gumption to send him that!" said Jess candidly.
Saunders said his good-night in a manner which would certainly have destroyed all his chances with Meg had she witnessed the parting. Then he stolidly tramped away down the loaning.
Jess called after him, struck with a sudden thought. "See that ye dinna gie it to him afore the minister."
Then she put her hands beneath her ap.r.o.n and walked home meditating. "To be a man is to be a fool," said Jess Kissock, putting her whole experience into a sentence. Jess was a daughter of the cot; put then she was also a daughter of Eve, who had not even so much as a cot.
CHAPTER XX.
"DARK-BROWED EGYPT."
As soon as Jess was by herself in the empty byre, to which she withdrew herself with the parcel which the faithful and trustworthy Cuif had entrusted to her, she lit the lantern which always stood in the inside of one of the narrow triangular wickets that admitted light into the byre. Sitting down on the small hay stall, she pulled the packet from her pocket, looked it carefully over, and read the simple address, "In care of Margaret Kissock."
There was no other writing upon the outside.
Opening the envelope carefully, he let the light of the byre lantern rest on the missive. It was written in a delicate but strong handwriting--the hand of one accustomed to forming the smaller letters of ancient tongues into a current script. "To Mistress Winifred Charteris," it ran. "Dear Lady: That I have offended you by the hastiness of my words and the unforgivable wilfulness of my actions, I know, but cannot forgive myself. Yet, knowing the kindness of your disposition, I have thought that you might be better disposed to pardon me than I myself. For I need not tell you, what you already know, that the sight of you is dearer to me than the light of the morning. You are connected in my mind and heart with all that is best and loveliest. I need not tell now that I love you, for you know that I love the string of your bonnet. Nor am I asking for anything in return, save only that you may know my heart and not be angry. This I send to ease its pain, for it has been crying out all night long, "Tell her-- tell her!" So I have risen early to write this. Whether I shall send it or no, I cannot tell. There is no need, Winsome, to answer it, if you will only let it fall into your heart and make no noise, as a drop of water falls into the sea. Whether you will be angry or not I cannot tell, and, truth to tell you, sweetheart, I am far past caring. I am coming, as I said, to Craig Ronald to see your grandmother, and also, if you will, to see you. I shall not need you to tell me whether you are angered with a man"s love or no; I shall know that before you speak to me. But keep a thought for one that loves you beyond all the world, and as if there were no world, and naught but G.o.d and you and him. For this time fare you well. Ralph Peden."
Jess turned it over with a curious look on her face. "Aye, he has the grip o"t, an" she micht get him gin she war as clever as Jess Kissock; but him that can love yin weel can lo"e anither better, an" I can keep them sindry [asunder]. I saw him first, an" he spak to me first. "Ye"re no to think o" him," said my mither. Think o"
him! I hae thocht o" nocht else. Think of him! Since when is thinkin" a crime? A la.s.s maun juist do the best she can for hersel", be she cotman"s dochter or laird"s. Love"s a" yae thing-- kitchen or byre, but or ben. See a lad, lo"e a lad, get a lad, keep a lad! Ralph Peden will kiss me afore the year"s oot," she said with determination.
So in the corner of the byre, among the fragrant hay and fresh-cut clover, Jess Kissock the cottar"s la.s.s prophesied out of her wayward soul, baring her intentions to herself as perhaps her sister in boudoir hushed and perfumed might not have done. There are Ishmaels also among women, whose hand is against every woman, and who stand for their own rights to the man on whom they have set their love; and the strange thing is, that such are by no means the worst of women either.
Stranger still, so strong and dividing to soul and marrow is a clearly defined purpose and determinately selfish, that such women do not often fail. And indeed Jess Kissock, sitting in the hay- neuk, with her candle in the lantern throwing patterns on the cobwebby walls from the tiny perforations all round, made a perfectly correct prophecy. Ralph Peden did indeed kiss her, and that of his own free will as his love of loves within a much shorter s.p.a.ce of time than a year.
Strangely also, Jess the gipsy, the dark-browed Pictess, was neither angry nor jealous when she read Ralph"s letter to Winsome.
According to all rules she ought to have been. She even tried to persuade herself that she was. But the sight of Ralph writing to Winsome gave no pang to her heart. Nor did this argue that she did not love really and pa.s.sionately. She did; but Jess had in her the Napoleon instinct. She loved obstacles. So thus it was what she communed with herself, sitting with her hand on her brow, and her swarthy tangle of hair falling all about her face. All women have a pose in which they look best. Jess looked best leaning forward with her elbows on her knees. Had there been a fender at her father"s fireside Jess would have often sat on it, for there is a dangerous species of girl that, like a cat, looks best sitting on a fender. And such a girl is always aware of the circ.u.mstance.
"He has written to Winsome," Jess communed with herself. "Well, he shall write to me. He loves her, he thinks; then in time he shall love me, and be sure perfectly o"t. Let me see. Gin she had gotten this letter, she wadna hae answered it. So he"ll come the morn, an" he"ll no say a word to her aboot the letter. Na, he"ll juist look if she"s pleased like, and gin that gomeral Saunders gied him the rose, he"ll no be ill to please eyther! But afore he gangs hame he shall see Jess Kissock, an" hear frae her aboot the young man frae the Castle!" Jess took another look at the letter." It"s a bonny hand o" write," she said, "but Dominie Cairnochan learned me to write as weel as onybody, an" some day he"ll write to me.
I"se no be byre la.s.s a" my life. Certes no. There"s oor Meg, noo; she"ll mairry some ignorant landward man, an" leeve a" her life in a cot hoose, wi" a dizzen weans tum"lin" aboot her! What yin canna learn, anither can," continued Jess. "I hae listened to graun"