'He promised, did he, 'at he would promise the nicht?—Eh, Francie! Francie! ye're no yer father's son!—He promised to promise to merry ye! Eh, ye puir gowk o' a bonny lassie!'
'Gien I met him the nicht—ay, it cam to that.'
All Kirsty's inborn motherhood awoke. She turned to her, and, clasping the silly thing in her arms, cried out—
'Puir wee dauty! Gien he hae a hert ony bigger nor Tod Lowrie's (the fox's) ain, he'll come to ye to the Knowe, and say what he has to say!'
'He winna ken whaur I am!' answered Phemy with an agonized burst of dry sobbing.
'Will he no? I s' see to that—and this verra nicht!' exclaimed Kirsty. 'I'll gie him ilka chance o' doin the richt thing!'
'But he'll be angert at me!'
'What for? Did he tell ye no to tell?'
'Ay did he.'
'Waur and waur!' cried Kirsty indignantly. 'He wad hae ye a' in his grup! He tellt ye, nae doobt, 'at ye was the bonniest lassie 'at ever was seen, and bepraised ye 'at yer ain minnie wouldna hae kenned ye! Jist tell me, Phemy, dinna ye think a hantle mair o' yersel sin' he took ye in han'?'
She would have Phemy see that she had gathered from him no figs or grapes, only thorns and thistles. Phemy made no reply: had she not every right to think well of herself? He had never said anything to her on that subject which she was not quite ready to believe.
Kirsty seemed to divine what was passing in her thought.
'A man,' she said, ''at disna tell ye the trowth aboot himsel 's no likly to tell ye the trowth aboot yoursel! Did he tell ye hoo mony lassies he had said the same thing til afore ever he cam to you? It maitered little sae lang as they war lasses as hertless and toom-heidit as himsel, and ower weel used to sic havers; but a lassie like you, 'at never afore hearkent to siclike, she taks them a' for trowth, and the leein sough o' him gars her trow there was never on earth sic a won'erfu cratur as her! What pleesur there can be i' leein 's mair nor I can faddom! Ye're jist a gey bonnie lassie, siclike as mony anither; but gien ye war a' glorious within, like the queen o' Sheba, or whaever she may happen to hae been, there wad be naething to be prood o' i' that, seem ye didna contrive yersel. No ae stane, to bigg yersel, hae ye putten upo' the tap o' anither!'
Phemy was nowise capable of understanding such statement and deduction. If she was lovely, as Frank told her, and as she saw in the glass, why should she not be pleased with herself? If Kirsty had been made like her, she would have been just as vain as she!
All her life the doll never saw the beauty of the woman. Beside Phemy, Kirsty walked like an Olympian goddess beside the naiad of a brook. And Kirsty was a goddess, for she was what she had to be, and never thought about it.
Phemy sank down in the heather, declaring she could go no farther, and looked so white and so pitiful that Kirsty's heart filled afresh with compassion. Like the mother she was, she took the poor girl yet again in her arms, and, carrying her quite easily now that she did not struggle, walked with her straight into her mother's kitchen.
Mrs. Barclay sat darning the stocking which would have been Kirsty's affair had she not been stalking Phemy. She took it out of her mother's hands, and laid the girl in her lap.
'There's a new bairnie til ye, mother! Ye maun daut her a wee, she's unco tired!' she said, and seating herself on a stool, went on with the darning of the stocking.
Mistress Barclay looked down on Phemy with such a face of loving benignity that the poor miserable girl threw her arms round her neck, and laid her head on her bosom. Instinctively the mother began to hush and soothe her, and in a moment more was singing a lullaby to her. Phemy fell fast asleep. Then Kirsty told what she had done, and while she spoke, the mother sat silent brooding, and hushing, and thinking.
CHAPTER XVIII
PHEMY'S CHAMPION
When she had told all, Kirsty rose, and laying aside the stocking, said,
'I maun awa to Weelset, mother. I promised the bairn I would lat Francie ken whaur she was, and gie him the chance o' sayin his say til her.'
'Verra weel, lassie! ye ken what ye're aboot, and I s' no interfere wi' ye. But, eh, ye'll be tired afore ye win to yer bed!'
'I'll no tramp it, mother; I'll tak the gray mear.'
'She's gey and fresh, lassie; ye maun be on yer guaird.'
'A' the better!' returned Kirsty. 'To hear ye, mother, a body wud think I cudna ride!'
'Forbid it, bairn! Yer father says, man or wuman, there's no ane i' the countryside like ye upo' beast-back.'
'They tak to me, the craturs! It was themsels learnt me to ride!' answered Kirsty, as she took a riding whip from the wall, and went out of the kitchen.
The mare looked round when she entered the stable, and whinnied. Kirsty petted and stroked her, gave her two or three handfuls of oats, and while she was eating strapped a cloth on her back: there was no side-saddle about the farm. Kirsty could ride well enough sideways on a man's, but she liked the way her father had taught her far better. Utterly fearless, she had, in his training from childhood until he could do no more for her, grown a horsewoman such as few.
The moment the mare had finished her oats she bridled her, led her out, and sprang on her back; where sitting as on a pillion, she rode quietly out of the farm-close. The moment she was beyond the gate, she leaned back, and, throwing her right foot over the mare's crest, rode like an Amazon, at ease, and with mastery. The same moment the mare was away, up hill and down dale, almost at racing speed. Had the coming moon been above the horizon, the Amazon farm-girl would have been worth meeting! So perfectly did she yield her lithe, strong body to every motion of the mare, abrupt or undulant, that neither ever felt a jar, and their movements seemed the outcome of a vital force common to the two. Kirsty never thought whether she was riding well or ill, gracefully or otherwise, but the mare knew that all was right between them. Kirsty never touched the bridle except to moderate the mare's pace when she was too much excited to heed what she said to her.
Doubtless, to many eyes, she would have looked better in a riding habit, but she would have felt like an eagle in a nightgown. She wore a full winsey petticoat, which she managed perfectly, and stockings of the same colour.
On her head she had nothing but the silk net at that time and in that quarter much worn by young unmarried women. In the rush of the gallop it slipped, and its content escaped: she put the net in her pocket, and cast a knot upon her long hair as if it had been a rope. This she did without even slackening her speed, transferring from her hand to her teeth the whip she carried. It was one colonel Gordon had given her father in remembrance of a little adventure they had together, in which a lash from it in the dark night was mistaken for a sword-cut, and did them no small service.
By the time they reached the castle, the moon was above the horizon. Kirsty brought the mare to a walk, and resuming her pillion-seat, remanded her hair to its cage, and readjusted her skirt; then, setting herself as in a side-saddle, she rode gently up to the castle-door.
A manservant, happening to see her from the hall-window, saved her having to ring the bell, and greeted her respectfully, for everybody knew Corbyknowe's Kirsty. She said she wanted to see Mr. Gordon, and suggested that perhaps he would be kind enough to speak to her at the door. The man went to find his master, and in a minute or two brought the message that Mr. Gordon would be with her presently. Kirsty drew her mare back into the shadow which, the moon being yet low, a great rock on the crest of a neighbouring hill cast upon the approach, and waited.
It was three minutes before Francis came sauntering bare-headed round the corner of the house, his hands in his pockets, and a cigar in his mouth. He gave a glance round, not seeing his visitor at once, and then with a nod, came toward her, still smoking. His nonchalance, I believe, was forced and meant to cover uneasiness. For all that had passed to make him forget Kirsty, he yet remembered her uncomfortably, and at the present moment could not help regarding her as an angelic bete noir, of whom he was more afraid than of any other human being. He approached her in a sort of sidling stroll, as if he had no actual business with her, but thought of just asking whether she would sell her horse. He did not speak, and Kirsty sat motionless until he was near enough for a low-voiced conference.
'What are ye aboot wi' Phemy Craig, Francie?' she began, without a word of greeting.
Kirsty was one of the few who practically deny time; with whom what was, is; what is, will be. She spoke to the tall handsome man in the same tone and with the same forms as when they were boy and girl together.
He had meant their conversation to be at arm's length, so to say, but his intention broke down at once, and he answered her in the same style.
'I ken naething aboot her. What for sud I?' he answered.
'I ken ye dinna ken whaur she is, for I div,' returned Kirsty. 'Ye answer a queston I never speired! What are ye aboot wi' Phemy, I challenge ye again! Puir lassie, she has nae brither to say the word!'
'That's a' verra weel; but ye see, Kirsty,' he began—then stopped, and having stared at her a moment in silence, exclaimed, 'Lord, what a splendid woman you've grown!'—He had probably been drinking with his mother.
Kirsty sat speechless, motionless, changeless as a soldier on guard. Gordon had to resume and finish his sentence.
'As I was going to say, you can't take the place of a brother to her, Kirsty, else I should know how to answer you!—It's awkward when a lady takes you to task,' he added with a drawl.
'Dinna trouble yer heid aboot that, Francie: hert ye hae little to trouble aboot onything!' rejoined Kirsty. Then changing to English as he had done, she went on: 'I claim no consideration on that score.'
Francis Gordon felt very uncomfortable. It was deuced hard to be bullied by a woman!
He stood silent, because he had nothing to say.
'Do you mean to marry my Phemy?' asked Kirsty.
'Really, Miss Barclay,' Francis began, but Kirsty interrupted him.
'Mr. Gordon,' she said sternly, 'be a man, and answer me. If you mean to marry her, say so, and go and tell her father—or my father, if you prefer. She is at the Knowe, miserable, poor child! that she did not meet you to-night. That was my doing; she could not help herself.
Gordon broke into a strained laugh.
'Well, you've got her, and you can keep her!' he said.
'You have not answered my question!'
'Really, Miss Barclay, you must not be too hard on a man! Is a fellow not to speak to a woman but he must say at once whether or not he intends to marry her?'
'Answer my question.'
'It is a ridiculous one!'
'You have been trystin' with her almost every night for something like a month!' rejoined Kirsty, 'and the question is not at all ridiculous.'
'Let it be granted then, and let the proper person ask me the question, and I will answer it. You, pardon me, have nothing to do with the matter in hand.'
'That is the answer of a coward,' returned Kirsty, her cheek flaming at last. 'You know the guileless nature of your old schoolmaster, and take advantage of it! You know that the poor girl has not a man to look to, and you will not have a woman befriend her! It is cowardly, ungrateful, mean, treacherous. You are a bad man, Francie! You always were a fool, but now you are a wicked fool! If I were her brother—if I were a man, I would thrash you!'
'It's a good thing you're not able, Kirsty! I should be frightened!' said Gordon, with a laugh and a shrug, thinking to throw the thing aside as done with.
'I said, if I was a man!' returned Kirsty. 'I did not say, if I was able. I am able.'
'I don't see why a woman should leave to any man what she's able to do for herself!' said Kirsty, as if communing with her own thoughts.– 'Francie, you're no gentleman; you are a scoundrel and a coward!' she immediately added aloud.
'Very well,' returned Francis angrily; 'since you choose to be treated as a man, and tell me I am no gentleman, I tell you I wouldn't marry the girl if the two of you went on your knees to me!—A common, silly, country-bred flirt!—ready for anything a man—'
Kirsty's whip descended upon him with a merciless lash. The hiss of it, as it cut the air with all the force of her strong arm, startled her mare, and she sprang aside, so that Kirsty, who, leaning forward, had thrown the strength of her whole body into the blow, could not but lose her seat. But it was only to stand upright on her feet, fronting her— call him enemy, antagonist, victim, what you will. Gordon was grasping his head: the blow had for a moment blinded him. She gave him another stinging cut across the hands.
'That's frae yer father! The whup was his, and his swoord never did fairer wark!' she said.—'I hae dune for him what I cud!' she added in a low sorrowful voice, and stepped back, as having fulfilled her mission.
He rushed at her with a sudden torrent of evil words. But he was no match for her in agility as, I am almost certain, he would have proved none in strength had she allowed him to close with her: she avoided him as she had more than once jinkit a charging bull, every now and then dealing him another sharp blow from his father's whip. The treatment began to bring him to his senses.
'For God's sake, Kirsty,' he cried, ceasing his attempts to lay hold of her, 'behaud, or we'll hae the haill hoose oot, and what'll come o' me than I daurna think! I doobt I'll never hear the last o' 't as 'tis!'
'Am I to trust ye, Francie?'
'I winna lay a finger upo' ye, damn ye!' he said in mingled wrath and humiliation.
Throughout, Kirsty had held her mare by the bridle, and she, although behaving as well as she could, had, in the fright the laird's rushes and the sounds of the whip caused her, added not a little to her mistress's difficulties. Just as she sprang on her back, the door opened, and faces looked peering out; whereupon with a cut or two she encouraged a few wild gambols, so that all the trouble seemed to have been with the mare. Then she rode quietly through the gate.
Gordon stood in a motionless fury until he heard the soft thunder of the mare's hoofs on the turf as Kirsty rode home at a fierce gallop; then he turned and went into the house, not to communicate what had taken place, but to lie about it as like truth as he might find possible.
About half-way home, on the side of a hill, across which a low wind, the long death-moan of autumn, blew with a hopeless, undulant, but not intermittent wail among the heather, Kirsty broke into a passionate fit of weeping, but ere she reached home all traces of her tears had vanished.
Gordon did not go the next day, nor the day after, but he never saw Phemy again. It was a week before he showed himself, and then he was not a beautiful sight. He attributed the one visible wale on his cheek and temple to a blow from a twig as he ran in the dusk through the shrubbery after a strange dog. Even at the castle they did not know exactly when he left it. His luggage was sent after him.
The domestics at least were perplexed as to the wale on his face, until the man to whom Kirsty had spoken at the door hazarded a conjecture or two, which being not far from the truth, and as such accepted, the general admiration and respect which already haloed Corbyknowe's Kirsty, were thenceforward mingled with a little wholesome fear.
When Kirsty told her father and mother what she had done at castle Weelset, neither said a word. Her mother turned her head away, but the light in her father's eyes, had she had any doubt as to how they would take it, would have put her quite at her ease.
CHAPTER XIX
FRANCIS GORDON'S CHAMPION
Poor little Phemy was in bed, and had cried herself asleep. Kirsty was more tired than she had ever been before. She went to bed at once, but, for a long time, not to sleep.
She had no doubt her parents approved of the chastisement she had given Gordon, and she herself nowise repented of it; yet the instant she lay down, back came the same sudden something that set her weeping on the hillside. As then, all un-sent for, the face of Francie Gordon, such as he was in their childhood, rose before her, but marred by her hand with stripes of disgrace from his father's whip; and with the vision came again the torrent of her tears, for, if his father had then struck him so, she would have been bold in his defence. She pressed her face into the pillow lest her sobs should be heard. She was by no means a young woman ready to weep, but the thought of the boy-face with her blows upon it, got within her guard, and ran her through the heart. It seemed as if nevermore would she escape the imagined sight. It is a sore thing when a woman, born a protector, has for protection to become an avenger, and severe was the revulsion in Kirsty from an act of violence foreign to the whole habit, though nowise inconsistent with the character, of the calm, thoughtful woman. She had never struck even the one-horned cow that would, for very cursedness, kick over the milk-pail! Hers was the wrath of the mother, whose very presence in a calm soul is its justification—for how could it be there but by the original energy? The wrath was gone, and the mother soul turned against itself—not in judgment at all, but in irrepressible feeling. She did not for one moment think, I repeat, that she ought not to have done it, and she was glad in her heart to know that what he had said and she had done must keep Phemy and him apart; but there was the blow on the face of the boy she had loved, and there was the reflex wound in her own soul! Surely she loved him yet with her mother-love, else how could she have been angry enough with him to strike him! For weeks the pain lasted keen, and it was ever after ready to return. It was a human type of the divine suffering in the discipline of the sinner, which with some of the old prophets takes the shape of God's repenting of the evils he has brought on his people; and was the only trouble she ever kept from her mother: she feared to wake her own pain in the dearer heart. She could have told her father; for, although he was, she knew, just as loving as her mother, he was not so soft-hearted, and would not, she thought, distress himself too much about an ache more or less in a heart that had done its duty; but as she could not tell her mother, she would not tell her father. But her father and mother saw that a change had passed upon her, and partially, if not quite, understood the nature of it. They perceived that she left behind her on that night a measure of her gaiety, that thereafter she was yet gentler to her parents, and if possible yet tenderer to her brother.
For all the superiority constantly manifested by her in her relations with Francis, the feeling was never absent from her that he was of a race above her own; and now the visage of the young officer in her father's old regiment never, any more than that of her play-fellow, rose in her mind's eye uncrossed by the livid mark of her whip from the temple down the cheek! Whether she had actually seen it so, she did not certainly remember, but so it always came to her, and the face of the man never cost her a tear; it was only that of the boy that made her weep.
Another thing distressed her even more: the instant ere she struck the first, the worst blow, she saw on his face an expression so meanly selfish that she felt as if she hated him. That expression had vanished from her visual memory, her whip had wiped it away, but she knew that for a moment she had all but hated him—if it was indeed all but!
All the house was careful the next morning that Phemy should not be disturbed; and when at length the poor child appeared, looking as if her colour was not 'ingrain,' and so had been washed out by her tears, Kirsty made haste to get her a nice breakfast, and would answer none of her questions until she had made a proper meal.
'Noo, Kirsty,' said Phemy at last, 'ye maun tell me what he said whan ye loot him ken 'at I cudna win til him 'cause ye wudna lat me!'
'He saidna muckle to that. I dinna think he had been sair missin ye.'
'I see ye're no gaein to tell me the trowth, Kirsty! I ken by mysel he maun hae been missin me dreidfu'!'
'Ye can jeedge nae man by yersel, Phemy. Men's no like hiz lass-fowk!'
Phemy laughed superior.
'What ken ye aboot men, Kirsty? There never cam a man near ye, i' the w'y o' makin up til ye!'
'I'm no preten'in to ony exparience,' returned Kirsty; 'I wad only hae ye tak coonsel wi' common sense. Is 't likly, Phemy, 'at a man wi gran' relations, and gran' notions, a man wi' a fouth o' grit leddies in 's acquantance to mak a fule o' him and themsel's thegither, special noo 'at he's an offisher i' the Company's service—is 't ony gait likly, I say, 'at he sud be as muckle ta'en up wi' a wee bit cuintry lassie as she cudna but be wi' him?'
'Noo, Kirsty, ye jist needna gang aboot to gar me mistrust ane wha's the verra mirror o' a' knichtly coortesy,' rejoined Phemy, speaking out of the high-flown, thin atmosphere she thought the region of poetry, 'for ye canna! Naething ever onybody said cud gar me think different o' him!'
'Nor naething ever he said himsel?' asked Kirsty.
'Naething,' answered Phemy, with strength and decision.
'No gien it was 'at naething wud ever gar him merry ye?'
'That he micht weel say, for he winna need garrin!—But he never said it, and ye needna try to threpe it upo' me!' she added, in a tone that showed the very idea too painful.
'He did say't, Phemy.'
'Wha tellt ye? It's lees! Somebody's leein!'
'He said it til me himsel. Never a lee has onybody had a chance o' puttin intil the tale!'
'He never said it, Kirsty!' cried Phemy, her cheeks now glowing, now pale as death. 'He daurna!'
'He daured; and he daured to me! He said, "I wudna merry her gien baith o' ye gaed doon upon yer knees to me!"'
'Ye maun hae sair angert him, Kirsty, or he wudna hae said it! Of coorse he wasna to be guidit by you! He cudna hae meaned what he said! He wad never hae said it to me! I wuss wi' a' my hert I hadna latten ye til 'im! Ye hae ruined a'!'
'Ye never loot me gang, Phemy! It was my business to gang.'
'I see what's intil't!' cried Phemy, bursting into tears. 'Ye tellt him hoo little ye thoucht o' me, and that gart him change his min'!'
'Wud he be worth greitin about gien that war the case, Phemy? But ye ken it wasna that! Ye ken 'at I jist cudna du onything o' the sort!– I'm jist ashamed to deny't!'
'Hoo am I to ken? There's nae a wuman born but wad fain hae him til hersel!'
Kirsty held her peace for pity, thinking what she could say to convince her of Gordon's faithlessness.
'He didna say he hadna promised?' resumed Phemy through her sobs.
'We camna upo' that.'
'That's what I'm thinkin!'
'I kenna what ye're thinking, Phemy!'
'What did ye gie him, Kirsty, whan he tauld ye—no 'at I believe a word o' 't—'at he wud nane o' me?'
Kirsty laughed with a scorn none the less clear that it was quiet.
'Jist a guid lickin,' she answered.
'Ha, ha!' laughed Phemy hysterically. 'I tellt ye ye was leein! Ye hae been naething but leein—a' for fun, of coorse, I ken that—to mak a fule o' me for bein fleyt!'
Despair, for a moment, seemed to overwhelm Kirsty. Was it for this she had so wounded her own soul! How was she to make the poor child understand? She lifted up her heart in silence. At last she said,—
'Ye winna see mair o' him this year or twa onygait, I'm thinkin! Gien ever ye get a scart o' 's pen, it'll surprise me. But gien ever ye hae the chance, which may God forbid, tell him I said I had gien him his licks, and daured him to come and deny't to my face. He winna du that, Phemy! He kens ower weel I wad jist gie him them again!'
'He wud kill ye, Kirsty! You gie him his licks!'
'He micht kill me, but he'd hae a pairt o' his licks first!—And noo gien ye dinna believe me I winna answer a single question mair ye put to me. I hae been tellin ye—no God's trowth, it's true, but the deevil's—and it's no use, for ye winna believe a word o' 't!'
Phemy rose up a pygmy Fury.
'And ye laid han' to cheek o' that king o' men, Kirsty Barclay? Lord, haud me ohn killt her! Little hauds me frae riven ye to bits wi' my twa han's!'
'I laidna han' to cheek o' Francie Gordon, Phemy; I jist throosh him wi' his father's ain ridin whup 'at my hert's like to brak to think o' 't. I doobt he'll carry the marks til's grave!'
Kirsty broke into a convulsion of silent sobs and tears.
'Kirsty Barclay, ye're a deevil!' cried Phemy in a hoarse whisper: she was spent with passion.
The little creature stood before Kirsty, her hands clenched and shaking with rage, blue flashes darting about in her eyes. Kirsty, at once controlling the passion of her own heart, sat still as a statue, regarding her with a sad pity. A sparrow stood chattering at a big white brooding dove; and the dove sorrowed for the sparrow, but did not know how to help the fluttering thing.
'Lord!' cried Phemy, 'I'll be cursin a' the warl' and God himsel, gien I gang on this gait!—Eh, ye fause wuman!'
Kirsty sprang upon her at one bound from her seat, threw her arms round her so that she could not move hers, and sitting down with her on her lap, said—
'Phemy, gien I was yer mither, I wad gie ye yer licks for sayin what ye didna i' yer hert believe! A' the time ye was keepin company wi' Francie Gordon, ye ken i' yer ain sowl ye was never richt sure o' him! And noo I tell ye plainly that, although I strack him times and times wi' my whup—and saired him weel!-I div not believe him sae ill-contrived as ye wad gar me think him. Him and me was bairns thegither, and I ken the natur o' him, and tak his pairt again ye, for, oot o' pride and ambition, ye're an enemy til him: I div not believe ever he promised to merry ye! He's behaved ill eneuch wantin that—lattin a gowk o' a lassie like you believe what ye likit, and him only carryin on wi' ye for the ploy o' 't, haeing naething to du, and sick o' his ain toom heid and still toomer hert; but a man's word's his word, and Francie's no sae ill as your tale wud mak him! There, Phemy, I hae said my say!'
She loosened her arms. But Phemy lay still, and putting her arms round Kirsty's neck, wept in a bitter silence.