Читать книгу Red Rowans - Flora Annie Webster Steel - Страница 8

"I don't agree with you. Some of us, perhaps, are wicked, but most of us are hideous."

"Do you really think so?" And the self-conscious look on his smug, comely face was too much for her gravity. She laughed merrily.

"There are exceptions to every rule, Mr. Gillespie; I only meant to say that since the strongest and best, and therefore, according to you, the most beautiful, had survived in the struggle for existence----"

"By the bye," he put in, for him quite eagerly, "the Bishop has just sent me an excellent reply to the Darwinian----"

Marjory went on remorselessly, "That we were singularly plain-looking, as a rule. For my part I would gladly have eliminated the Carmichael nose if I had had any choice in the matter."

The remark left a grand opening for a compliment if he could at the moment have thought of anything save the crude assertion that he considered it the most beautiful nose in the world. So he remained silent, casting about in his mind for a less absolute form, with such concentrated admiration in his face, that even Marjory could not avoid noticing it, and with a sudden curl of her lip, changed the subject by asking him, in her best categorical manner, when he had last been to see old Peggy, who was bad with her rheumatism. Now old Peggy's cottage was not an inviting-looking abode--a boulder-built hut with a peat roof and a rudimentary chimney--and it lay close by in a hollow between the road and a bog full of waving cotton grass. So the Reverend James regretfully gave up his opportunity as lost for the time; but a gleam of manly resolution came to him as he looked first at the hut, then down the road, the pleasant sunshiny road stretching away to where a thin blue smoke from the chimneys of Gleneira Lodge rose above the silver firs and copper beeches to the right of the big house. All that distance to traverse with Marjory, as against Peggy Duncan the pauper, who was bad enough at the best, but, with the rheumatism, simply appalling.

"I'm afraid I haven't time to-day," he began, with admirable regret, which, however, changed to consternation as his companion paused and held out her hand.

"Then good-bye! I promised to look in on my way home. And on the whole it is better as it is, for it is positively unsafe to visit old Peggy in couples when she is ill. So long as she has but one visitor, you know, the fear of losing a gossip bridles her tongue; but when there are two, one is always a scapegoat." Now, Marjory looked at her companion gravely, and spoke deliberately, "You wouldn't, I'm sure, care to hear me abused; so it is wiser for me to go alone. Good-bye."

She was off as she spoke down the brae, leaving him disappointed, yet still vaguely content, the very thought of in the future having a wife who would go and visit old Peggy filling him with peace, for that old woman was a sore trial to his dignity, since she invariably made a point of remembering his youth as a barefoot cotter's boy. But then at heart she was a Presbyterian who did not believe in the sanctity of orders. So he went on his way down the loch fairly satisfied with himself, while Marjory took his place beside the sick bed of the rheumatic old woman.

The girl gave one regretful glance at the sunshine before she dived into the darkness of the cottage. It was mean and squalid in the extreme, yet to those accustomed to the dirt and warmth, the discomfort and the cosiness of a Highland hut, its air of tidiness was unusual. The mud floor was even and clean swept, the single pane of glass doing duty as a window was neither broken nor patched with rags, while the crazy, smoke-blackened dresser was ranged with common earthenware. A gathering peat, just edged with fire, lay on the huge stone hearth, above which a tiny black pot hung in the thin column of pale blue smoke which, as it rose to the dim rafters, was illumined by the only ray of sunlight in the house--that which streamed through the round hole in the roof which did duty as a chimney. Beside the hearth a fair-haired boy of about six lay fast asleep, while from a settle in the darkness a pair of gleaming green eyes revealed the presence of a cat.

Nothing more to be seen by Marjory's sun-blinded sight. Not a sound to be heard, until suddenly a grey hen roosting in the rafters began to cluck uproariously with much sidelong prancings of a pair of yellow legs, and downward dips of a quaint, irascible, tufted head. Instantly from a recess bed arose a patient moan and a pious aspiration that the Lord's will might be done at all costs.

"Good afternoon, Peggy! I hope your sleep has done you good," said Marjory blithely, as she sate down on the edge of the bed, and looked steadily at the occupant's face. Old Peggy Duncan, with the assertion that she had not slept for days trembling on her tongue, wavered before the girl's decision, and murmured something about closing an eye.

"That is better than nothing, isn't it?" continued the uncompromising visitor. "And as for wee Paulie! he's been having a fine snooze. Haven't you, Paulie?"

The child by the fire, rubbing his eyes drowsily, smiled back at her rather sheepishly.

"'Deed it's so," broke in the querulous voice, satisfied at finding a legitimate object for complaint. "He's just the laziest, weariest wean, and no caring a tinker's damn for his nanny. Just lyin' sleepin', and me in an agony. Could ye not watch?--Ay!--Ay! But what can one expect o' a child o' the devil----"

"Peggy! You're a wicked old woman to speak like that. Paul does more than most boys twice his age. I'll be bound he has been stuffing indoors with you all day long without a grumble. Run away now, dear laddie, and get the fresh air."

The order, spoken in Gaelic, produced a sudden flash of life all over the little fellow, and he was out of the door in a second. Marjory looked after him with a pleasant smile.

"He is a pretty boy, isn't he, Peggy?--quite the prettiest in the glen."

"Aye! he has the curse o' beauty. Sae had his mither. Ay! an' her father before her. Thank the Lord, Miss Marjory, you're no bonnie."

"I shall do nothing of the sort, Peggy. And how is the pain? Better for that liniment I rubbed in yesterday?"

"Better!" There was a world of satisfied scorn in the old voice. "Better frae ae teaspoonful o' stuff. Lord be gude to us, Miss Marjory! Naethin' short o' a meeracle'll better me, an' ye talk o' a carnal rubbin' doing it."

"It would be a miracle if it did, wouldn't it, Peggy?" retorted the girl, calmly; "but if it did no good at all there is no use in repeating it, so I'll be off and leave you to your sleep again."

"Hoot awa! an' you tired wi' your walk. Just sit ye down and rest a bit and dinna mind me. I'm used to being no minded, ye ken. Wha minds a bit pauper body but the pairish? Two an' saxpence a week, an' a boll o' meal term-day that's no meal at a', but just grits; grits and dirt. I'm no wondering that they puts soddy (soda) until't at the poor's-house to gar't swall. Ay! Aye! and me lyin' a week without spiritual food, an' I cravin' for it from anyone."

"Now, Peggy, you know quite well you told Mr. Gillespie you wanted none of his priestcraft, the last time he was here. You are just a bad, ungrateful old woman, and I've a great mind to go away without making you a cup of tea or telling you the news."

The old face set close in its white cap frills brightened visibly at the last words. "Weel! Weel! I must na be hard on the puir lad. There be divers gifts, an' may be he's gotten one somewhere. And but for the pain makin' me clean wud, I'd have had the tea for you. Just cry on Paulie--the kettle's on the fire, and he'll no be long, puir lammie."

But Marjory preferred to leave the boy to his play, and set about the task herself quickly, dexterously, while old Peggy watched her with sagacious eyes; for she herself had been a notable worker, and had still a regretful admiration for the capability in others. Rather a despicable object, perhaps, this fretful rheumatic old woman, grumbling and growling at everything; and yet, could the secrets of all hearts be revealed, she might have seemed more of a heroine and martyr than many a canonised saint. A youth of ceaseless plodding toil had been given in stolid honesty to her master's interests; then late in life, when the hopes of womanhood were almost over, had come a brief St. Martin's summer, where a wandering Englishman engaged on some mining venture close by had married the sober lass as a means of being comfortable for the time, and after a year had deserted her shamefully, leaving her to work harder than ever for the sake of the little daughter who remained to show that Peggy's short spell of love had not been a dream. Some, indeed, there were who maintained that it had never had any solid foundation, and that the marriage had been but a pretence. This coming to the mother's ears had roused in her a fierce anger, which in its turn gave rise to a passionate desire to prove this child of hers to be above their petty spite, superior to their plodding lives. And in a measure she succeeded. Jeanie Duncan grew up in what, to a girl of her class, was luxury, while her mother sold brown sugar, herrings, tarred rope, and tobacco--in fact, kept a general store. Until the girl, like many another, fretted at home, sought service, and disappeared beyond the circle of blue hills; to be followed after a time by her mother.

But though pretty Jeanie Duncan never returned, old Peggy did, bringing with her a baby. Not an unusual sequel to the story; and so, though the neighbours shook their heads, there was no need to question the woman. What else could have been expected from flighty Jeanie Duncan, whose head had been turned by Mr. Paul's painting her picture. And Peggy said nothing, even while she concealed nothing. Silent from her youth, she was more silent than ever as she reverted again to the hard toil of those early days, until one January the cold settled into her ill-clad old bones when she was gathering sticks in the woods and left her a cripple. And then the loss of her independence broke her spirit and turned her into a fretful scold. A dreary, toil-worn, barren youth, desertion, degradation, outrage of love and pride--all this gamut of grief had she sounded without an answering groan. The straw which broke her patience was not the hardness but the charity of her fellow-creatures. A most irrational old lady, no doubt, yet not altogether blameworthy in her self-satisfied appreciation of the tea "that was no from the pairish, praise be to the Lord," and very human, certainly, in her eager desire to hear the news of that parish. Yet her face when Marjory told her of the laird's return seemed to settle into a strange indifference. "The laird! It will be Mr. Paul you're meaning."

"Yes, Mr. Paul; he is the laird now, you know, and he hasn't been here for nine years. He has been away in India with his regiment."

"Lord sakes! as if I did na' know that; he has been the laird these sax years gone. I mind it weel. And I mind him, too; ower weel, maybe. A winsome laddie, fond of painting; but 'Thou shalt not make to thyself the likeness,' ye ken. So he is coming home at last--bonnie nae doot; and she, my Jeanie, is dust and ashes."

It was seldom that Peggy alluded to her dead daughter, and there was a wistful look in the crabbed old face. Marjory, quickly responsive, stroked the crabbed old hand which lay on the coverlet gently; but old Peggy would none of her sympathy and drew it away, while her voice took almost a triumphant tone.

"Ay! Dust and ashes! That's what we a' come to. Young and auld, Miss Marjory, my dear, rich and poor. Ay! and pairish officers, forbye; it's no to be escapit, thank the Lord! And if you're going ye might just open yon drawer in the aumry an' tak' oot my deid claes. There's a bonnie blaze in the fire that maun-na be wasted, and in life we are in death, ye ken, so it's as weel to hae them aired. There's a deal o' sickness comin' frae damp linen, and I'm sae subjec' to the rheumatism."

"That would be one of the ills you would leave behind you, Peggy," suggested Marjory, with a tender smile at the oddity of the old woman's thought.

"I'm sure I hope sae, for it wad be maist terrible in the wings," replied Peggy, gravely. Her eyes, following the girl as she complied with the grim request, lit up with satisfaction, her mouth trembled in the effort for calm indifference.

"Ay! sure enough it's the best of cloth, yon, and there is twa rows back stitchin' as fine as fine, and a frill down the front. Some has a lace edgin', but I'm no sure o' furbelows. It wad no be decent for me to come before my Maker prinked oot like a young lass; though Mary McAndrews, who was a gude four year aulder nor me, had real Valenciennes. But, there! she was ae' flighty, puir thing; her mind set on bows and gum flowers, no on things above. Fine cloth an' a cambric frill's gude eneuch for my funeral; an' the coffin no from the pairish, thank the Lord!"

As old Peggy lay there in the bay bed gossiping over her shroud she was a grim sight; yet a pathetic one, since there is nothing in the wide world which appeals to the humanity within us so much as the tired, toil-wasted hands of old age folded on a coverlet waiting for death. Marjory, with her strong young ones straightening the dead clothes, felt a strange thrill at her heart, even as she thought of the long years of welcome struggle before she, too, would be glad of rest.

"So Mr. Paul is to come hame again?" quavered the old voice, softened inexplicably by that chill thought of death. "Aye, aye! he will be bonnie still, for he was aye of the kind to mak' a bonnie corp. And no that bad for a man--not by ordinair. Weel! when ye see him tell him that ould Peggy's gone on the pairish, but that it'll no be a pairish funeral. For there's twa bottles gude whiskey in the draw wi' the deid claes, my dear, and that's eneuch to carry me to my grave as I sou'd be carried."