Crockett Samuel Rutherford
Deep Moat Grange

CHAPTER XIII
MEYSIE'S BAIRNS

At the time I had no idea how difficult this would be. But at any rate I wanted to find out for certain what it was that I had found. He could give me no other answer than that I would know in good time, and that in the meantime we were going to old Caleb Fergusson's for tea.

Now I make no objections to tea at any time – that is, a proper sit-down, spread-table, country tea – not one of those agonies at which you do tricks with a cup of tea, a plate, the edge of a chair, and a snippet of bread. I knew that at the Fergusson's I would find plenty to eat and drink.

We slid back through the woods, rising higher all the time as the land trended toward the moor. Then out and away across the road I could see far away to the right the roofs of Breckonside, shining like silver after a shower which must have passed over them, the winding Brom Water, the threaded roads, pale pink in colour, the dry stone dykes dividing the fields. Never had my native village seemed so small to me. Perhaps because I had just been in some considerable danger, a thing which enlarges the mental horizon. I looked for Elsie's house down there. But though I could see the silver glint of the water, I could not make out the cottage at the Bridge End. There was a mist, however, creeping up from the sea, so that in a little while, even as I looked, the whole valley became a pearl-grey lake, with only the tall ash trees and the solitary church spire standing up out of the smother.

We found old Caleb, an infrequent smile on his face, leaning over the bars of his yard gate.

"Them that hasna their hay weel covered," he chuckled, "runs a chance o' gettin' it sprinkled a wee!"

"Then," said Mr. Ablethorpe, "you owe me something for the afternoon's work I gave you!"

"Yon!" cried the old man, ungratefully, "caa ye that half a day's wark? But I'm far frae denyin' that, sic as it was, it helped. Ow, ay, it was aye a help! And at ony rate the hay's under cover – some thack-and-rape, and some in the new-fangled shed. But what's your wull? Ye are no seekin' wages, I'm thinkin'. Maybe ye want me to turn my coat and come doon to your bit tabernacle? Aweel, ye may want."

"Oh, no," said Mr. Ablethorpe, smiling. "I was just hoping that perhaps your good wife would brew us a cup of tea. I think both Joe and I would be the better of it."

You should have seen how the old farmer's face lit up. Hospitality was a beautiful thing to him. He rejoiced in that, at least. And if, as some folk say – not Mr. Ablethorpe – an elder is the same as a bishop, then the old Free Kirker had at least one of the necessary qualities. He was "given to hospitality." Whether he was, as is also required, "no striker," I would not just like to say, or to try.

But Caleb took us indoors out of the slight oncoming drizzle, which was beginning to spray down from the clouds, or creep up from the valleys – I am not sure which. At any rate, it was there, close-serried, wetting.

Now heretofore I had only seen Mrs. Caleb when she was ordered down from the long stack under the zinc-roofed shed, which her husband was never tired of declaiming against as "new-fangled," yet to which he owed that night the safety of his crop.

Mrs. Caleb was a good twenty years younger than her lord, still, indeed, bearing traces of that special kind of good looks which the Scots call "sonsiness." Susan Fergusson at five-and-forty was sonsy to the last degree. Her husband, twenty years older, was sun-dried and wind-dried and frost-bitten till he had become sapless as a leaf blown along the highway on a bask March day, when the fields are full of sowers, and the roads cloudy with "stoor."

"Come ben! This way, sir – and you, too, Joe," she cried, opening a door into an inner room, "ye will no hae seen Meysie's bairns?"

As I had never even heard of Meysie, I certainly had not.

But the goodwife's next words enlightened me.

"Caleb, ye see, was marriet afore he took up wi' me. 'Deed, his lassie Meysie is maybe aulder than I am mysel' – and a solit, sensible woman. But this is the first time her bairns hae comed sae far to see me!"

She flung the door open, and there, sitting one on a sofa, and the other on a footstool by the fire, I saw two grown-up young ladies – so at least they appeared to me. And I began to fear that my tea was going to cost me dear. For at that time conversation was a difficult art to me with anyone whom I could neither fight nor call names.

The girls – twenty or twenty-two they seemed – oh, ever so old – looked just as if they had been doing nothing. That is, the one with the straight-cut face, very dignified, who made a kind of long droopy picture of herself on the sofa, was reading a book, or pretending to, while the other on the stool did nothing but nurse her knees and look out at the window.

That was the one I liked best, though, of course, not like Elsie – I should think not, indeed. But she was little, she had a merry face, and I am sure she had been laughing just before we came in. Indeed, I am none so sure that she had not been listening at the keyhole and made a rush for the footstool.

"Bairns," said Mrs. Caleb the Second, "this is the Englishy minister, and a kind friend o' us auld folk. Though Caleb, your gran'dad, gies him awfu' spells o' argumentincation aboot things I ken nocht aboot! 'Deed, I wonder whiles that Maister Ablethorpe ever looks near us again!"

"Oh, no," said the Hayfork Minister, smiling, "it takes two to make an argument, and I never argue with Mr. Fergusson. I only receive instruction, as a younger from an elder!"

"Hear to him," cried the goodwife, "he doesna mean a word he is sayin' – I can aye tell by the glint in his e'e."

Then she introduced the girls in due form. One, the tall tired-looking girl on the sofa, was Constantia, and the little merry one was named Harriet. To my great astonishment they were of the same age, being twins.

It seemed as if I were to be left out altogether, but Harriet looked across at me and asked demurely if I were going to be a minister, too.

She was making fun of me, of course, and that is what I do not allow any girl to do. Only Elsie, and she is really too serious to abuse the privilege – not like this Harriet. I could see in a minute that she was a regular magpie – a "clip," as they say in Breckonside.

Meanwhile, Constantia did not say very much. She gave Mr. Ablethorpe her hand as if she were doing him a valuable kindness. And at this I could hear her sister gurgle. The next minute, Harriet was on her feet, and, taking me by the shoulder, she said: "Come on, Joe – Joe is your name, isn't it? That's good, for it's just the name I like best of all boys' names. Come on and help Susan Fergusson to get tea." That was the way she spoke of her grandmother – off-hand and kindly, with a glint of fun more in the manner than in the words.

"What's your other name?" I asked, because I did not like to call her Harriet so suddenly. Besides, I did not know how Elsie might take to all this. I was sure they would like one another no end. Because they were both the same kind of girl – jolly, so that almost any boy could get on with them. At least, that was what I thought at the time, not knowing any better.

"Caw," she said; "that is my name; same as a crow says 'Caw – Caw – Caw!' You needn't be surprised, I couldn't help it being my father's name. But it's short, and if you should forget it, you have only to go out and stand beneath a rookery, and you'll remember it in a minute. That is, unless you are deaf."

Then I told Harriet Caw my name, Joseph Yarrow, which she thought funny. And she gave me bread to cut while she stood by me and buttered it – doing everything so quickly, and talking all the time, that indeed it was very nice. And I wished Elsie had been there to laugh at Harriet's jokes, which seemed very funny to me then. But, oh, how stupid and feeble they seemed when I came to tell them to Elsie after! And Elsie wasn't a bit amused, as I had hoped. Girls hardly ever seem to get on with other girls as a fellow thinks they will. It is different with men. Now I got on first-class with Mr. Ablethorpe, even when I thought – but it's no matter about that now.

Well, it was a tea! The table was loaded from one end to the other. There were soda scones, light and hove up so as to make your teeth water. There were farrels of oat-cake, crisp and curly, with just the proper amount of browning on the side where the red ashes of the fire had toasted it. Four or five kinds of jams there were, all better one than the other. Old Caleb came in and ate quickly, sermonizing Mr. Ablethorpe all the time, and as long as he was there we were all as quiet as mice. But I am sure everyone was glad when he rose, tumbled things about on the window seat in search of his blue bonnet (which only he of all the countryside still wore), and finally went out to the hill. Before going he warned us to behave and to remember that, such as he was, we had one who deemed himself a minister among us.

But as soon as we were alone, up jumped Harriet Caw, and catching me round the waist, she cried, "Dance, Joseph – dance, Joe! He's gone. Never mind Granny Susan. She does not count!"

That was actually the way she spoke of her grandmother – or step-grandmother, rather. And, indeed, that good lady only laughed, and, shaking her head at the minister, repeated, what I afterwards found to be her favourite maxim – that "young folk would be young folk." The philosophy of which was that they would get over it all too soon.

The Hayfork Minister nodded back to Susan, and I was not sorry to see him (as I thought) much taken up with the picture-book girl, as in my heart I called Constantia. For in our house at home, up in the attic, there are a lot of old "Annuals" and "Keepsakes" – oh, I don't know how old, all in faded watered-silk covers loose at the back – some faded and some where the colour has run, but choke full of pictures of scenery, all camels and spiky palms and humpy camels, with "Palmyra" and "Carthage" written beneath time about. But these are not half bad, though deadly alike. The weary parts are the pictures of girls – leaning out of windows before they have done their washing and hair-brushing in the morning. I should just like to see my father catch them at it. That was called "Dreaming of Thee." And there were lots of others. "Sensibility" was a particularly bad one. She was spread all over a sofa, and had a canary on her finger. She had saved it from a little snappy-yappy spaniel – only just, for two tail feathers were floating down. And there were two big dewdrops of tears on her cheeks to show how sorry she was for the canary bird – or, perhaps, for the spaniel.

Anyway, it was the only time I ever really liked a spaniel.

Well, I needn't describe the others. At any rate, if you've ever seen the "Keepsake" kind of young women, you won't have forgotten them. You will cherish a spite, especially if you have had to stay in one room and choose between looking at them and flattening your nose against the window-panes, down which the water is running in big blobs, during a week of wet holiday weather.

Constantia was a "Keepsake" girl.

I suppose it must be, as it is with snakes. Some like them and some not. I don't. But I will never deny (not being, like Elsie, a girl) that Constantia was good looking. If (and the Lord have mercy on your soul!) you really liked that sort of thing, Constantia was just the sort of thing you would like.

CHAPTER XIV
BROWN PAINT – VARNISHED!

We had a merry afternoon and laughed – eh, how we laughed! I heard all about the girls, how they had just been at school, and how Constantia had just come home, full up of all the perfections, and deportment, and the 'ologies, and how many men wanted to marry her – were dying to, in fact! That might be all right. It was Harriet who told me – though that does not make it any the more likely to be true (I am sorry to say). For I can see that that young woman was trying to take me in all the time.

"But for the parson, we would have a dance!" whispered Harriet; "but as he will sit there and tell Stancy about her 'azure' eyes till all's blue, you and I can go for a walk instead – shall we?"

I didn't want to, you may imagine. The difficulty was how to say No. Indeed, Harriet never asked me. She had put on a smart little summer hat, and we were out on the moor quicker than I can write it.

"Mind you," she said, laying her hand confidingly (as I then thought) on my arm, "don't you ever dare to tell Stancy that her eyes are like to the vault of heaven, or like forget-me-nots wet with dew, or like turquoises, or the very colour of her sky-blue silk scarf. For, first of all, it's not true, and it is wrong to tell lies. More than that, she will tell me. And I like – well" (she added this bit softly, taking a long look at me) "never mind what I like. Perhaps it's as well that you shouldn't know."

Then she kicked away a pebble with the toe of one tiny boot and appeared to be embarrassed. I think, now, that she knew she had a pretty foot.

Anyway I began to be conscious she was a nice girl, and to be sorry for her – a way men have. Men are such wise things, and not vain at all.

Don't think I forgot. I was always just going to tell her about Elsie, when she darted off into something else. She was constantly doing that – a most ill-regulated and disconcerting girl. I knew she would certainly have been interested in Elsie. The two had so much in common.

We were going through some straggling trees on the edge of Brom Common, when Harriet stopped and turned her eyes on me, as if she would have drowned me in them. I didn't know before that they were so big and dark and shiny – especially in dusky places. Harriet Caw knew, however.

"What colour are my eyes," she demanded. "Quick, now, don't cheat!"

"I don't know!" I said truthfully. "I never noticed."

Then she got mad. You see, I had no experience and didn't know enough to make a shot at it. For girls always notice eyes – or think they do. And when they go to see a man condemned in court for extra special murder, they sigh and say, "What very nice eyes he has – who would have thought it?"

And if he had been tried by a jury of girls, he would have got off every time – because of these same nice eyes. That is why the justice of a country is conducted by men. One reason, at least.

"Well, then, look!" she cried, making them the size of billiard balls right under my nose. It was, I own, rather nice, but trying. I had a feeling that Elsie would not have liked it, really.

So I said, "Come out where a fellow can see them then!" And made as if to go out on the moor. But Harriet Caw didn't care about the moor, being a town girl, as I suppose.

"No, here – tell me now!" she said.

So as I had to say something, I told her they were the colour of brown paint.

That was true. They were, but she was quite mad, and gave my arm a fling. This surprised me, and I said —

"Why, I thought that you were the kind of girl who never cared to be told about her eyes, and stuff of that kind. You said just now about Miss Constantia's – "

"Never mind about M – iss Con-stan-ti-a's," she said, making the word as long as she could – she was mad now and patting the short, stiff heather with her little bronze boot; "attend to me, if you please. And so you think my eyes are the colour of brown paint; is that the best you can do?"

I thought a while, and she kept glaring up at me till I felt like a hen with its beak to a chalk line – I forget the word – something you are when you go on a platform and do silly things the man tells you.

So, hoping she would stop, I said at last, "Well, perhaps they are more shiny, like brown paint – varnished."

But this didn't please her either. Indeed, it was difficult to please Harriet Caw at all. She said that I was twice as stupid as a cow, and asked where I had lived all my life.

"In Breckonside," I said, but I added that I had often been with my father at East Dene. And once I had crossed the ferry all by myself and spent Easter Monday at Thoisby itself.

"Humph," she said, wrinkling up her nose with great contempt. "I suppose that you have never even heard of London."

I told her "Yes, of course." And that I could tell her the number of its inhabitants.

But this she didn't seem to think clever, or, indeed, to care about at all.

She only said, "Are all country boys as stupid as you are?"

To be called a boy like that made me angry, and I ran after her, determined to pay her out. I was going to show her that country boys could just be as sharp as there was any need for.

But quick as I was, this city girl was quicker, and she slipped across the road almost at the very place where we had found the last traces of poor Harry Foster. She dived among the underbrush by the stile, and I lost sight of her altogether.

But the next moment I heard a cry. You had better believe I wasted no time till I got there. I ran, opening a good, stout clasp knife that father had given me – or, if not "given" exactly, had seen me with, and not taken away from me. It comes to the same thing.

Well, just a little away across a green glade, all pine needles and sun dapplings, stood Mad Jeremy, and he had Harriet Caw by the arm. I went at him as fast as I could – which was a silly thing to do, for, of course, with his strength he could have done me up in two ticks of a clock. Only, as mostly happens when one does fine things, it was all over before I thought.

But when Mad Jeremy saw me, or, perhaps, before (I do not want to take credit for anything that isn't my due), he let go of Harriet Caw, saying just "She isn't the pretty one! What is she doing here?" And with a skip and a jump he was gone. That is, so far as I could see.

Then Harriet swooned away in my arms, toppling over like a ladder slipping off the side of a house. At least, I suppose that is what they call it. But at that time I had had no experience of swoons. For Elsie never went on like that. At all events, Harriet Caw clutched me about the neck, her fingers working as if they would claw off my collar, and she laughing and crying both at once. Funny it was, but though it made a fellow squirm – not altogether so horrid as you might think. But I did not know what to do. I tried hard to think whether it was the palms of her hands or the backs of her ears that you ought to rub, or whether I should lay her down or stand her up against a tree. I knew there was something. Then I got in a funk lest, after all, it should be the soles of her feet.

But Mad Jeremy had not altogether gone away. He had been watching, and now popped his head and shiny ringlets round a tree trunk, which brought me to myself.

"Ah – ha!" he cried, "I'll tell the pretty one about these goings on!"

And, quick as a flash, that brought Harriet Caw to herself, also. It did better than splashing water or rubbing hands. The moment before she had been all rigid like a lump of wood in my arms. But as soon as the words were out of Mad Jeremy's mouth, she was standing before me, her eyes flashing lightning, and her elbows drawn a little in to her sides.

Mad? Well, rather. She was hopping, just.

"So I'm not the pretty one," she said – whispered it, rather, with a husky sound, like frying bacon in her voice. "Oh, I see – that's why my eyes are like brown paint – varnished! Well, who's the pretty one? Answer me that!"

"I think he must mean Elsie!" I said, telling the truth just as briefly as I could.

"Elsie – oh, indeed! Elsie is the pretty one, is she, Master Joe?"

"Yes," I said, "she is!"

I was going on to tell her how much she would like Elsie, and how Elsie would love her, when suddenly Harriet Caw turned and marched off. I was going to follow her – indeed, I had to. For I wasn't going to be left in that gloomy glade with only the great tits and Mad Jeremy hiding among the trees.

But Harriet Caw turned round, and called out, "Go to Elsie, I don't want you! I dare you to speak to me! I will kill you, if you touch me!"

I told Harriet quite reasonably that I would not touch her for mints of money, and that all I wanted was just to find Mr. Ablethorpe, and pick up the parcel I had left at her grandfather's before going home.

It must have looked funny enough if any one had seen us. Well, Mad Jeremy did. For we could hear peal upon peal of wicked, sneering laughter pursue us, as we went in single file across the road, over the stile, and across the moor.

At the stile over the highroad I came up closer to Harriet, owing to a slight hesitation on her part, and the switch she gave her skirts to escape the contagion of my touch, was something to see. I had always thought I was something of a favourite wherever I went. So I took the worse with such treatment.

However, I put it down to Harriet Caw's having been brought up in London. My father always told me to watch out for London folk – you never could tell what they would be up to. Certainly not with Harriet.