The Lilac Sunbonnet: A Love Story
lane leaves the narrows of the loch, Andra betook himself to the
side of the road, with a certain affectation of superabundant
secrecy.
With prodigious exactness he examined the stones at a particular
part of the dyke, hunted about for one of remarkable size and
colour, said "Hist! hist!" in a mysterious way, and ran across the
road to see that no one was coming.
As we have seen, Andra was the reader of the family. His eldest
brother had gone to America, where he was working in New York as a
joiner. This youth was in the habit of sending across books and
papers describing the terrible encounters with Indians in the
Boone country--the "dark and bloody land" of the early romancers.
Not one in the family looked at the insides of these relations of
marvels except Andra, who, when he read the story of the Indian
scout trailing the murderers of his squaw across a continent in
order to annihilate them just before they entered New York city,
felt that he had found his vocation--which was to be at least an
Indian scout, if indeed it was too late for him to think of being
a full-blooded Indian.
The impressive pantomime at the bridge was in order to ascertain
whether his bosom companion, Dick Little, had passed on before
him. He knew, as soon as he was within a hundred yards of the
stone, that he had NOT passed. Indeed, he could see him at that
very moment threading his way down through the tangle of heather
and bog myrtle, or, as he would have said, "gall busses opposite."
But what of that?--For mighty is the power of make-believe, and in
Andra, repressed as he was at home, there was concentrated the
very energy and power of some imaginative ancestry. He had a full
share of the quality which ran in the family, and was exceeded
only by his brother Jock in New York, who had been "the biggest
leer in the country side" before he emigrated to a land where at
that time this quality was not specially marked among so many
wielders of the long bow. Jock, in his letters, used to frighten
his mother with dark tales of his hair-breadth escapes from
savages and desperadoes on the frontier, yet, strangely enough,
his address remained steadily New York.
Now it is not often that a Galloway boy takes to lying; but when
he does, a mere Nithsdale man has no chance with him, still less a
man from the simple-minded levels of the "Shire."[Footnote:
Wigtonshire is invariably spoken of in Galloway as the Shire,
Kirkcudbrightshire as the Stewardry.] But Andra Kissock always
lied from the highest motives. He elevated the saying of the thing
that was not to the height of a principle. He often lied, knowing
that he would be thrashed for it--even though he was aware that he
would be rewarded for telling the truth. He lied because he would
not demean himself to tell the truth.
It need not therefore surprise us in the least that when Dick
Little came across the bridge he was greeted by Andra Kissock with
the information that he was in the clutches of The Avenger of
Blood, who, mounted upon a mettle steed with remarkably dirty
feet, curveted across the road and held the pass. He was required
to give up a "soda scone or his life." The bold Dick, who had
caught the infection, stoutly refused to yield either. His life
was dear to him, but a soda scone considerably dearer. He had
rather be dead than hungry.
"Then die, traitor!" said Andra, throwing down his bag, all
forgetful of Winsome Charteris's precious parcel and his promises
thereanent. So these two brave champions had at one another with
most surprising valour.
They were armed with wooden swords as long as themselves, which
they manoeuvred with both hands in a marvellously savage manner.
When a blow did happen to get home, the dust flew out of their
jackets. But still the champions fought on. They were in the act
of finishing the quarrel by the submission of Dick in due form,
when Allan Welsh, passing across the bridge on one of his pastoral
visitations, came upon them suddenly. Dick was on his knees at the
time, his hands on the ground, and Andra was forcing his head
determinedly down toward the surface of the king's highway.
Meanwhile Dick was objecting in the most vigorous way.
"Boys," said the stern, quiet voice of the minister, "what are you
doing to each other? Are you aware it is against both the law of
God and man to fight in this way? It is only from the beasts that
perish that we expect such conduct."
"If ye please, sir," answered Andra in a shamefaced way, yet with
the assurance of one who knows that he has the authorities on his
side, "Dick Little wull no bite the dust."
"Bite the dust!--what do you mean, laddie?" asked the minister,
frowning.
"Weel sir, if ye please, sir, the Buik says that the yin that got
his licks fell down and bit the dust. Noo, Dick's doon fair
aneuch. Ye micht speak till him to bite the dust!"
And Andra, clothed in the garments of conscious rectitude, stood
back to give the minister room to deliver his rebuke.
The stern face of the minister relaxed.
"Be off with you to school," he said; "I'll look in to see if you
have got there in the afternoon."
Andra and Dick scampered down the road, snatching their satchels
as they ran. In half an hour they were making momentary music
under the avenging birch rod of Duncan Duncanson, the learned
Dullarg schoolmaster. Their explanations were excellent. Dick said
that he had been stopped to gather the eggs, and Andra that he had
been detained conversing with the minister. The result was the
same in both cases--Andra getting double for sticking to his
statement. Yet both stories were true, though quite accidentally
so, of course. This is what it is to have a bad character. Neither
boy, however, felt any ill-will whatever at the schoolmaster. They
considered that he was there in order to lick them. For this he
was paid by their parents' money, and it would have been a fraud
if he had not duly earned his money by dusting their jackets
daily. Let it be said at once that he did most conscientiously
earn his money, and seldom overlooked any of his pupils even for a
day.
Back at the Grannoch bridge, under the parapet, Allan Welsh, the
minister of the Kirk of the Marrow, found the white packet lying
which Winsome had tied with such care. He looked all round to see
whence it had come. Then taking it in his hand, he looked at it a
long time silently, and with a strange and not unkindly expression
on his face. He lifted it to his lips and kissed the handwriting
which addressed it to Master Ralph Peden. As he paced away he
carefully put it in the inner pocket of his coat. Then, with his
head farther forward than ever, and the immanence of his great
brow overshadowing his ascetic face, he set himself slowly to
climb the brae.
CHAPTER XII.
MIDSUMMER DAWN.
True love is at once chart and compass. It led Ralph Peden out
into a cloudy June dawning. It was soft, amorphous, uncoloured
night when he went out. Slate-coloured clouds were racing along
the tops of the hills from the south. The wind blew in fitful
gusts and veering flaws among the moorlands, making eddies and
back-waters of the air, which twirled the fallen petals of the
pear and cherry blossoms in the little manse orchard.
As he stepped out upon the moor and the chill of dawn struck
inward, he did not know that Allan Welsh was watching him from his
blindless bedroom. Dawn is the testing-time of the universe. Its
cool, solvent atmosphere dissolves social amenities. It is
difficult to be courteous, impossible to be polite, in that hour
before the heart has realized that its easy task of throwing the
blood horizontally to brain and feet has to be exchanged for the
harder one of throwing it vertically to the extremities.
Ralph walked slowly and in deep thought through the long avenues
of glimmering beeches and under the dry rustle of the quivering
poplars. Then, as the first red of dawn touched his face, he
looked about him. He was clear of the trees now, and the broad
open expanse of the green fields and shining water meadows that
ring in Loch Grannoch widened out before him. The winds sighed and
rumbled about the hill-tops of the Orchar and the Black Laggan,
but in the valley only the cool moist wind of dawn drew largely
and statedly to and fro.
Ralph loved Nature instinctively, and saw it as a townbred lad
rarely does. He was deeply read in the more scientific literature
of the subject, and had spent many days in his Majesty's botanic
gardens, which lie above the broad breast of the Forth. He now
proved his learning, and with quick, sure eye made it real on the
Galloway hills. Every leaf spoke to him. He could lie for half a
day and learn wisdom from the ant. He took in the bird's song and
the moth's flight. The keepers sometimes wondered at the lights
which flashed here and there about the plantations, when in the
coolness of a moist evening he went out to entrap the sidelong-
dashing flutterers with his sugar-pots.
But since he came to Galloway, and especially since he smelled the
smell of the wood-fire set for the blanket-washing above the Crae
Water bridge, there were new secrets open to him. He possessed a
voice that could wile a bird off a bought. His inner sympathy with
wild and tame beasts alike was such that as he moved quietly among
a drowsing, cud-chewing herd on the braes of Urioch not a beast
moved.
Among them a wild, untamed colt stood at bay, its tail arched with
apprehension, yet sweeping the ground, and watched him with
flashing eyes of suspicion. Ralph held out his hand slowly, more
as if it were growing out of his side by some rapid natural
process than as if he were extending it. He uttered a low
"sussurrus" of coaxing and invitation, all the while imperceptibly
decreasing his distance from the colt. The animal threw back its
head, tossed its mane in act to flee, thought better of it and
dropped its nose to take a bite or two of the long coarse grass.
Then again it looked up and continued to gaze, fascinated at the
beckoning and caressing fingers. At last, with a little whinny of
pleasure, the colt, wholly reassured, came up and nestled a wet
nose against Ralph's coat. He took the wild thing's neck within
the arch of his arm, and the two new friends stood awhile in grave
converse.
A moment afterwards Ralph bent to lay a hand upon the head of one
of the placid queys [Footnote: Young--cows.] that had watched the
courtship with full, dewy eyes of bovine unconcern. Instantly the
colt charged into the still group with a wild flourish of hoofs
and viciously snapping teeth, scattering the black-polled
Galloways like smoke. Then, as if to reproach Ralph for his
unfaithfulness, he made a circle of the field at a full, swinging
gallop, sending the short turf flying from his unshod hoofs at
every stride. Back he came again, a vision of floating mane and
streaming tail, and stopped dead three yards from Ralph, his
forelegs strained and taut, ploughing furrows in the grass. As
Ralph moved quietly across the field the colt followed, pushing a
cool moist nose over the young man's shoulder. When at last Ralph
set a foot on the projecting stone which stood out from the side
of the grey, lichen-clad stone dyke, the colt stood stretching an
eager head over as though desirous of following him; then, with a
whinny of disappointment, he rushed round the field, charging at
the vaguely wondering and listlessly grazing cattle with head
arched between his forelegs and a flourish of widely distributed
heels.
Over the hill, Craig Ronald was still wrapped in the lucid
impermanence of earliest dawn, when Winsome Charteris set her foot
over the blue flag-stones of the threshold. The high tide of
darkness, which, in these northern summer mornings never rose very