OME
years before, when I was still but a lad, there had come over
to us upon a five weeks' visit the only daughter of my father's
brother. Willie Calder had settled at Eyemouth as a maker of fishing
nets, and he had made more out of twine than ever we were like to do
out of the whin-bushes and sand-links of West Inch. So his daughter,
Edie Calder, came over with a braw red frock and a five-shilling
bonnet, and a kist full of things that brought my dear mother's eyes
out like a parten's. It was wonderful to see her so ftee with money,
and she but a slip of a girl, paying the carrier man all that he asked
and a whole twopence over, to which he had no claim. She made no more
of drinking ginger-beer than we did of water, and she would have her
sugar in her tea and butter with her bread just as if she had been
English.
I took no great stock of girls at that time, for it was
hard for me to see what they had been made for. There were none of us
at Birtwhistle's that thought very much of them but the smallest
laddies seemed to have the most sense, for after they began to grow
bigger they were not so sure about it. We little ones were all of one
mind: that a creature that couldn't fight and was aye carrying tales,
and couldn't so much as shy a stone without flapping its arm like a
rag in the wind, was no use for anything. And then the airs that they
would put on, as if they were mother and father rolled into one; for
ever breaking into a game with "Jimmy, your toe's come through your
boot," or " Go home, you dirty boy, and clean yourself," until the
very sight of them was weariness.
So when this one came to the steading at West Inch I
was not best pleased to see her. I was twelve at the time (it was in
the holidays) and she eleven, a thin, tallish girl with black eyes and
the queerest ways. She was for ever staring out in front of her with
her lips parted, as if she saw something wonderful; but when I came
behind her and looked the same way, I could see nothing but the
sheeps' trough or the midden, or father's breeches hanging on a
clothes-line. And then if she saw a lump of heather or bracken, or any
common stuff of that sort, she would mope over it, as if it had struck
her sick, and cry, "How sweet! how perfect!" just as though it had
been a painted picture. She didn't like games, but I used to make her
play "tig " and such like; but it was no fun, for I could always catch
her in three jumps, and she could never catch me, though she would
come with as much rustle and flutter as ten boys would make. When I
used to tell her that she was good for nothing, and that her father
was a fool to bring her up like that, she would begin to cry, and say
that I was a rude boy, and that she would go home that very night, and
never forgive me as long as she lived. But in five minutes she had
forgot all about it. What was strange was that she liked me a deal
better than I did her, and she would never leave me alone; but she was
always watching me and running after me, and then saying, "Oh, here
you are!" as if it were a surprise.
But soon I found that there was good in her too. She
used sometimes to give me pennies, so that once I had four in my
pocket all at the same time; but the best part of her was the stories
that she could tell. She was sore frightened of frogs, so I would
bring one to her, and tell her that I would put it down her neck
unless she told a story. That always helped her to begin; but when
once she was started it was wonderful how she would carry on. And the
things that had happened to her, they were enough to take your breath
away. There was a Barbary rover that had been at Eyemouth, and he was
coming back in five years in a ship full of gold to make her his wife;
and then there was a wandering knight who had been there also, and he
had given her a ring which he said he would redeem when the time came.
She showed me the ring, which was very like the ones upon my bed
curtain; but she said that this one was virgin gold. I asked her what
the knight would do if he met the Barbary rover, and she told me that
he would sweep his head from his shoulders. What they could all see in
her was more than I could think. And then she told me that she had
been followed on her way to West Inch by a disguised prince. I asked
her how she knew it was a prince, and she said by his disguise.
Another day she said that her father was preparing a riddle, and that
when it was ready it would be put in the papers, and anyone who
guessed it would have half his fortune and his daughter. I said that I
was good at riddles, and that she must send it to me when it was
ready. She said it would be in the Berwick Gazette, and
wanted to know what I would do with her when I won her. I said I would
sell her by public roup for what she would fetch; but she would tell
no more stories that evening, for she was very techy about some
things.
Jim Horscroft was away when Cousin Edie was with us,
but he came back the very week she went; and I mind how surprised I
was that he should ask any questions or take any interest in a mere
lassie. He asked me if she were pretty; and when I said I hadn't
noticed, he laughed and called me a mole, and said my eyes would be
opened some day. But very soon he came to be interested in something
else, and I never gave Edie another thought until one day she just
took my life in her hands and twisted it as I could twist this quill.
That was in 1813, after I had left school when I was
already eighteen years of age, with a good forty hairs on my upper lip
and every hope of more. I had changed since I left school, and was not
so keen on games as I had been, but found myself instead lying about
on the sunny side of the braes, with my own lips parted and my eyes
staring just the same as Cousin Edie's used to do. It had satisfied me
and filled my whole life that I could run faster and jump higher than
my neighbour; but now all that seemed such a little thing, and I
yearned, and yearned, and looked up at the big arching sky, and down
at the flat blue sea, and felt that there was something wanting, but
could never lay my tongue to what that something was. And I became
quick of temper too, for my nerves seemed all of a fret, and when my
mother would ask me what ailed me, or my father would speak of my
turning my hand to work, I would break into such sharp bitter answers
as I have often grieved over since. Ah! a man may have more than one
wife, and more than one child, and more than one friend; but he can
never have but the one mother, so let him cherish her while he may.
One day when I came in from the sheep, there was my
father sitting with a letter in his hands, which was a very rare thing
with us, except when the factor wrote for the rent. Then as I came
nearer to him I saw that he was crying, and I stood staring, for I had
always thought that it was not a thing that a man could do. I can see
him now, for he had so deep a crease across his brown cheek that no
tear could pass it, but must trickle away sideways and so down to his
ear, hopping off on to the sheet of paper. My mother sat beside him
and stroked his hands like she did the cat's back when she would
soothe it.
"Aye, Jeannie," said be, "poor Willie is gone. It's
from the lawyer, and it was sudden or they'd ha' sent word of it.
Carbuncle, he says, and a flush o' blood to the head."
"Ah! well, his trouble's over," said my mother.
My father rubbed his ears with the tablecloth.
"He's left a' his savings to his lassie," said he, "and
by gom if she's not changed from what she promised to be she'll soon
gar them flee. You mind what she said of weak tea under this very
roof, and it at seven shillings the pound!"
My mother shook her head, and looked up at the flitches
of bacon that hung from the ceiling.
"He doesn't say how much, but she 'll have enough and
to spare, he says. And she is to come and bide with us, for that was
his last wish."
"To pay for her keep!" cried my mother sharply. I was
sorry that she should have spoken of money at that moment, but then if
she had not been sharp we would all have been on the roadside in a
twelvemonth.
"Aye, she'll pay, and she's coming this very day. Jock
lad, I 'll want you to drive to Ayton and meet the evening coach. Your
cousin Edie will be in it, and you can fetch her over to West Inch."
And so off I started at quarter past five with Souter
Johnnie, the long-haired fifteen-year-old, and our cart with the
new-painted tailboard that we only used on great days. The coach was
in just as I came, and I, like a foolish country lad, taking no heed
to the years that had passed, was looking about among the folk at the
Inn front for a slip of a girl with her petticoats just under her
knees. And as I slouched past and craned my neck there came a touch to
my elbow, and there was a lady dressed all in black standing by the
steps, and I knew that it was my cousin Edie.
I knew it. I say, and yet had she not touched me I
might have passed her a score of times and never known it. My word, if
Jim Horscroft had asked me then if she were pretty or no, I should
have known how to answer him! She was dark, much darker than is common
among our border lassies, and yet with such a faint blush of pink
breaking through her dainty colour, like the deeper flush at the heart
of a sulphur rose. Her lips were red, and kindly, and firm; and even
then, at the first glance, I saw that light of mischief and mockery
that danced away at the back of her great dark eyes. She took me then
and there as though I had been her heritage, put out her hand and
plucked me. She was, as I have said, in black, dressed in what
seemed to me to be a wondrous fashion, with a black veil pushed up
from her brow.
"Ah! Jack," said she, in a mincing English fashion,
that she had learned at the boarding school. "No, no, we are rather
old for that" -- this because I in my awkward fashion was pushing my
foolish brown face forward to kiss her, as I had done when I saw her
last. "Just hurry up like a good fellow and give a shilling to the
conductor, who has been exceedingly civil to me during the journey."
I flushed up red to the ears, for I had only a silver
fourpenny piece in my pocket. Never had my lack of pence weighed so
heavily upon me as just at that moment. But she read me at a glance,
and there in an instant was a little moleskin purse with a silver
clasp thrust into my hand. I paid the man, and would have given it
back, but she still would have me keep it.
"You shall be my factor, Jack," said she, laughing. "Is
this our carriage? How funny it looks! And where am I to sit?
"On the sacking," said I.
"And how am I to get there?"
"Put your foot on the hub," said I. "I'll help you."
I sprang up and took her two little gloved hands in my
own. As she came over the side her breath blew in my face, sweet and
warm, and all that vagueness and unrest seemed in a moment to have
been shredded away from my soul. I felt as if that instant had taken
me out from myself, and made me one of the race. It took but the time
of the flicking of the horse's tail, and yet something had happened, a
barrier had gone down somewhere, and I was leading a wider and wiser
life. I felt it all in a gush, but shy and backward as I was, I could
do nothing but flatten out the sacking for her. Her eyes were after
the coach which was rattling away to Berwick, and suddenly she shook
her handkerchief in the air.
"He took off his hat," said she. "I think he must have
been an officer. He was very distinguished looking. Perhaps you
noticed him -- a gentleman on the outside, very handsome, with a brown
overcoat."
I shook my head, with all my flush of joy changed to
foolish resentment.
"Ah! well, I shall never see him again. Here are all
the green braes and the brown winding road just the same as ever. And
you, Jack, I don't see any great change in you either. I hope your
manners are better than they used to be. You won't try to put any
frogs down my back, will you?"
I crept all over when I thought of such a thing.
"We'll do all we can to make you happy at West Inch,"
said I, playing with the whip.
"I 'm sure it's very kind of you to take a poor lonely
girl in," said she.
"It's very kind of you to come, Cousin Edie," I
stammered. "You'll find it very dull, I fear."
"I suppose it is a little quiet, Jack, eh? Not many men
about, as I remember it."
"There is Major Elliott, up at Corriemuir. He comes
down of an evening, a real brave old soldier who had a ball in his
knee under Wellington."
"Ah, when I speak of men, Jack, I don't mean old folk
with balls in their knees. I meant people of our own age that we could
make friends of. By the way, that crabbed old doctor had a son, had he
not?"
"Oh yes, that's Jim Horscroft, my best friend."
"Is he at home?"
"No. He'll be home soon. He's still at Edinburgh
studying."
"Ah! then we'll keep each other company until he comes,
Jack. And I 'm very tired and I wish I was at West Inch."
I made old Souter Johnnie cover the ground as he has
never done before or since, and in an hour she was seated at the
supper table, where my mother had laid out not only butter, but a
glass dish of gooseberry jam, which sparkled and looked fine in the
candle-light. I could see that my parents were as overcome as I was at
the difference in her, though not in the same way. My mother was so
set back by the feather thing that she had round her neck that she
called her Miss Calder instead of Edie, until my cousin in her pretty
flighty way would lift her forefinger to her whenever she did it.
After supper, when she had gone to bed, they could talk of nothing
but her looks and her breeding.
"By the way, though," says my father, "it does not look
as if she were heart-broke about my brother's death."
And then for the first time I remembered that she had
never said a word about the matter since I had met her.
