The Lilac Sunbonnet: A Love Story
Slowly and imperceptibly Winsome's hand worked its way beneath the
stone. With the fingers of one hand she made that slight swirl of
the water which is supposed by expert "guddlers" to fascinate the
trout, and to render them incapable of resisting the beckoning
fingers. Andra watched breathlessly from the bank above. Ralph
came nearer to see the issue. The long, slender fingers, shining
mellow in the peaty water, were just closing, when the stone on
which Ralph was standing precariously toppled a little and fell
over into the burn with a splash. The trout darted out and in a
moment was down stream into the biggest pool for miles.
Winsome rose with a flush of disappointment, and looked very
reproachfully towards the culprit. Ralph, who had followed the
stone, stood up to his knees in the water, looking the picture of
crestfallen humility.
Overhead on the bank Andra danced madly like an imp. He would not
have dared to speak to Ralph on any other occasion, but guddling,
like curling, loosens the tongue. He who fails or causes the
failures of others is certain to hear very plainly of it from
those who accompany him to this very dramatic kind of fishing.
"0' a' the stupid asses!" cried that young man. "Was there ever
sic a beauty?--a pund wecht gin it was an ounce!--an' to fa' aff
a stane like a six-months' wean!"
His effective condemnation made Winsome laugh. Ralph laughed along
with her, which very much increased the anger of Andra, who turned
away in silent indignation. It was hard to think, just when he had
got the "prairie flower" of Craig Ronald (for whom he cherished a
romantic attachment of the most desperate and picturesque kind)
away from the house for a whole long afternoon at the fishing,
that this great grown-up lout should come this way and spoil all
his sport. Andra was moved to the extremity of scorn.
"Hey, mon!" he called to Ralph, who was standing in the water's
edge with Winsome on a miniature bay of shining sand, looking down
on the limpid lapse of the clear moss-tinted water slipping over
its sand and pebbles--"hey, mon!" he cried.
"Well, Andra, what is it?" asked Winsome Charteris, looking up
after a moment. She had been busy thinking.
"Tell that chap frae Enbro'," said Andra, collecting all his
spleen into one tremendous and annihilating phrase--"him that
tummilt aff the stane--that there's a feck o' paddocks [a good
many frogs] up there i' the bog. He micht come up here an' guddle
for paddocks. It wad be safer for the like o' him!" The ironical
method is the favourite mode or vehicle of humour among the common
orders in Galloway. Andra was a master in it.
"Andra," said Winsome warmly, "you must not--"
"Please let him say whatever he likes. My awkwardness deserves it
all," said Ralph, with becoming meekness.
"I think you had better go home now," said Winsome; "it will soon
be time for you to bring the kye home."
"Hae ye aneuch troots for the mistress's denner?" said Andra, who
knew very well how many there were.
"There are the four that you got, and the one I got beneath the
bank, Andra," answered Winsome.
"Nane o' them half the size o' the yin that he fleyed [frightened]
frae ablow the big stane," said Andra Kissock, indicating the
culprit once more with the stubby great toe of his left foot. It
would have done Ralph too much honour to have pointed with his
hand. Besides, it was a way that Andrew had at all times. He
indicated persons and things with that part of him which was most
convenient at the time. He would point with his elbow stuck
sideways at an acute angle in a manner that was distinctly
libellous. He would do it menacingly with his head, and the
indication contemptuous of his left knee was a triumph. But the
finest and most conclusive use of all was his great toe as an
index-finger of scorn. It stuck out apart from all the others, red
and uncompromising, a conclusive affidavit of evil conduct.
"It's near kye-time," again said Winsome, while Ralph yearned with
a great yearning for the boy to betake himself over the moor. But
Andra had no such intention.
"I'se no gaun a fit till I hae showed ye baith what it is to
guddle. For ye mauna gang awa' to Embro" [elbow contemptuous to
the north, where Andra supposed Edinburgh to lie immediately on
the other side of the double-breasted swell of blue Cairnsmuir of
Carsphairn], "an' think that howkin' (wi' a lassie to help ye) in
among the gravel is guddlin'. You see here!" cried Andra, and
before either Winsome or Ralph could say a word, he had stripped
himself to his very brief breeches and ragged shirt, and was
wading into the deepest part of the pool beneath the water-fall.
Here he scurried and scuttled for all the world like a dipper,
with his breast showing white like that of the bird, as he walked
along the bottom of the pool. Most of the time his head was
beneath the water, as well as all the rest of his body. His arms
bored their way round the intricacies of the boulders at the
bottom. His brown and freckled hands pursued the trouts beneath
the banks. Sometimes he would have one in each hand at the same
time.
When he caught them he had a careless and reckless way of throwing
them up on the bank without looking where he was throwing. The
first one he threw in this way took effect on the cheek of Ralph
Peden, to his exceeding astonishment.
Winsome again cried "Andra!" warningly, but Andra was far too busy
to listen; besides, it is not easy to hear with one's head under
water and the frightened trout flashing in lightning wimples
athwart the pool.
But for all that, the fisherman's senses were acute, even under
the water; for as Winsome and Ralph were not very energetic in
catching the lively speckled beauties which found themselves so
unexpectedly frisking upon the green grass, one or two of them
(putting apparently their tails into their mouths, and letting go,
as with the release of a steel spring) turned a splashing
somersault into the pool. Andra did not seem to notice them as
they fell, but in a little while he looked up with a trout in his
hand, the peat-water running in bucketfuls from his hair and
shirt, his face full of indignation.
"Ye're lettin' them back again!" he exclaimed, looking fiercely at
the trout in his hand. "This is the second time I hae catched this
yin wi' the wart on its tail!" he said. "D'ye think I'm catchin'
them for fun, or to gie them a change o' air for their healths,
like fine fowk that come frae Embro'!"
"Andra, I will not allow--" Winsome began, who felt that on the
ground of Craig Ronald a guest of her grandmother's should be
respected.
But before she had got further Andra was again under the water,
and again the trout began to rain out, taking occasional local
effect upon both of them.
Finally Andra looked up with an air of triumph. "It tak's ye a'
yer time to grup them on the dry land, I'm thinkin'," said he with
some fine scorn; "ye had better try the paddocks. It's safer." So,
shaking himself like a water-dog, he climbed up on the grass,
where he collected the fish into a large fishing basket which
Winsome had brought. He looked them over and said, as he handled
one of them:
"Oh, ye're there, are ye? I kenned I wad get ye some day,
impidence. Ye hae nae business i' this pool ony way. Ye belang
half a mile faurer up, my lad; ye'll bite aff nae mair o' my
heuks. There maun be three o' them i' his guts the noo--"
Here Winsome looked a meaning look at him, upon which Andra said:
"I'm juist gaun. Ye needna tell me that it's kye-time. See you an'
be hame to tak' in yer grannie's tea. Ye're mair likely to be
ahint yer time than me!"
Haying sped this Parthian shaft, Andra betook himself over the
moor with his backful of spoil.
CHAPTER XXV.
BARRIERS BREAKING.
"Andra is completely spoiled," exclaimed Winsome; "he is a clever
boy, and I fear we have given him too much of his own will. Only
Jess can manage him."
Winsome felt the reference to be somewhat unfortunate. It was, of
course, no matter to her whether a servant lass put a flower in
Ralph Peden's coat; though, even as she said it, she owned to
herself that Jess was different from other servant maids, both by
nature and that quickness of tongue which she had learned when
abroad.
Still, the piquant resentment Winsome felt, gave just that touch,
of waywardness and caprice which was needed to make her altogether
charming to Ralph, whose acquaintance with women had been chiefly
with those of his father's flock, who buzzed about him everywhere
in a ferment of admiration.
"Your feet are wet," said Winsome, with charming anxiety.
Andra was assuredly now far over the moor. They had rounded the
jutting point of rock which shut in the linn, and were now walking
slowly along the burnside, with the misty sunlight shining upon
them, with a glistering and suffused green of fresh leaf sap in
its glow. So down that glen many lovers had walked before.
Ralph's heart beat at the tone of Winsome's inquiry. He hastened
to assure her that, as a matter of personal liking, he rather
preferred to go with his feet wet in the summer season.
"Do you know," said Winsome, confidingly, "that if I dared I would
run barefoot over the grass even yet. I remember to this day the
happiness of taking off my stockings when I came home from the
Keswick school, and racing over the fresh grass to feel the
daisies underfoot. I could do it yet."
"Well, let us," said Ralph Peden, the student in divinity,
daringly.
Winsome did not even glance up. Of course, she could not have
heard, or she would have been angry at the preposterous
suggestion. She thought awhile, and then said:
"I think that, more than anything in the world, I love to sit by a
waterside and make stories and sing songs to the rustle of the
leaves as the wind sifts among them, and dream dreams all by
myself."
Her eyes became very thoughtful. She seemed to be on the eve of
dreaming a dream now.
Ralph felt he must go away. He was trespassing on the pleasaunce
of an angel.
"What do you like most? What would you like best to do in all the
world?" she asked him.
"To sit with you by the waterside and watch you dream," said
Ralph, whose education was proceeding by leaps and bounds.
Winsome risked a glance at him, though well aware that it was
dangerous.
"You are easily satisfied," she said; "then let us do it now."
So Ralph and Winsome sat down like boy and girl on the fallen
trunk of a fir-tree, which lay across the water, and swung their
feet to the rhythm of the wimpling burn beneath.
"I think you had better sit at the far side of that branch," said
Winsome, suspiciously, as Ralph, compelled by the exigencies of
the position, settled himself precariously near to her section of
the tree-trunk.
"What is the matter with this?" asked Ralph, with an innocent
look. Now no one counterfeits innocence worse than a really
innocent man who attempts to be more innocent than he is.
So Winsome looked at him with reproach in her eyes, and slowly she
shook her head. "It might do very well for Jess Kissock, but for
me it will balance better if you sit on the other side of the
branch. We can talk just as well."
Ralph had thought no more of Jess Kissock and her flower from the
moment he had seen Winsome. Indeed, the posy had dropped
unregarded from his button-hole while he was gathering up the
trout. There it had lain till Winsome, who had seen it fall,
accidentally set her foot on it and stamped it into the grass.
This indicates, like a hand on a dial, the stage of her
prepossession. A day before she had nothing regarded a flower
given to Ralph Peden; and in a little while, when the long curve
has at last been turned, she will not regard it, though a hundred
women give flowers to the beloved.