The Lilac Sunbonnet: A Love Story
the echoes of that great cry, wondering whether it would wake up
the whole world, or if, indeed, there were none to answer in that
solitary place.
But only the wild bird wailed like a lost soul too bad for heaven,
too good for hell, wandering in the waste forever.
Agnew Greatorix laid Winsome down on the heather, lifeless and
still, her pure white face resting in a nest of golden curls, the
red band of her mother's Indian shawl behind all.
But as the insulter stooped to take his will of her lips, now pale
and defenceless, something that had been crouching beastlike in
the heather for an hour, tracking and tracing him like a
remorseless crawling horror, suddenly sprang with a voiceless rush
upon him as he bent over Winsome's prostrate body--gripped
straight at his throat and bore him backward bareheaded to the
ground.
So unexpected was the assault that, strong man as Greatorix was,
he had not the least chance of resistance. He reeled at the sudden
constriction of his throat by hands that hardly seemed human, so
wide was their clutch, so terrible the stringency of their grasp.
He struck wildly at his assailant, but, lying on his back with the
biting and strangling thing above him, his arms only met on one
another in vain blows. He felt the teeth of a great beast meet in
his throat, and in the sudden agony he sent abroad the mighty roar
of a man in the grips of death by violence. But his assailant was
silent, save for a fierce whinnying growl as of a wild beast
greedily lapping blood.
It was this terrible outcry ringing across the hills that brought
the farm steading suddenly awake, and sent the lads swarming about
the house with lanterns. But it was Ralph alone who, having heard
the first cry of his love and listened to nothing else, ran
onward, bending low with a terrible stitch in his side which
caught his breath and threw him to the ground almost upon the
white-wrapped body of his love. Hastily he knelt beside her and
laid his hand upon her heart. It was beating surely though
faintly.
But on the other side, against the gray glimmer of the march dyke,
he could see the twitchings of some great agony. At intervals
there was the ghastly, half-human growling and the sobbing catch
of some one striving for breath.
A light shone across the moor, fitfully wavering as the searcher
cast its rays from side to side. Ralph glanced behind him with the
instinct to carry his love away to a place of safety. But he saw
the face of Meg Kissock, with slow Jock Forrest behind her
carrying a lantern. Meg ran to the side of her mistress.
"Wha's dune this?" she demanded, turning fiercely to Ralph. "Gin
ye--"
"I know nothing about it. Bring the lantern here quickly," he
said, leaving Winsome in the hands of Meg. Jock Forrest brought
the lantern round, and there on the grass was Agnew Greatorix,
with daft Jock Gordon above him, his sinewy hands gripping his
neck and his teeth in his throat.
Ralph pulled Jock Gordon off and flung him upon the heather, where
Jock Forrest set his foot upon him, and turned the light of the
lantern upon the fierce face of a maniac, foam-flecked and blood-
streaked. Jock still growled and gnashed his teeth, and struggled
in sullen fury to get at his fallen foe. With his hat Ralph
brought water from a deep moss-hole and dashed it upon the face of
Winsome. In a little while, she began to sob in a heartbroken way.
Meg took her head upon her knees, and soothed her mistress,
murmuring tendernesses. Next he brought water to throw over the
face and neck of Greatorix, which Jock Gordon in his fury had made
to look like nothing human.
The rest might wait. It was Ralph's first care to get Winsome
home. Kneeling down beside her he soothed her with whispered
words, till the piteous sobbing in her throat stilled itself. The
ploughman was at this moment stolidly producing pieces of rope
from his pockets and tying up Jock Gordon's hands and feet; but
after his first attempts again to fly at Greatorix, and his gasps
of futile wrath when forced into the soft moss of the moor by Jock
Forrest's foot, he had not offered to move.
His paroxysm was only one of the great spasms of madness which
sometimes come over the innocently witless. He had heard close by
him the cries of Winsome Charteris, whom he had worshipped for
years almost in the place of the God whom he had not the
understanding to know. The wonder rather was that he did not kill
Greatorix outright. Had it happened a few steps nearer the great
stone dyke, there is little doubt but that Jock Gordon would have
beat out the assailant's brains with a ragged stone.
Winsome had not yet awakened enough to ask how all these things
came about. She could only cling to Meg, and listen to Ralph
whispering in her ear.
"I can go home now," she said earnestly.
So Ralph and Meg helped her up, Ralph wrapping her in her great
crimson-barred shawl.
Ralph would have kissed her, but Winsome, standing unsteadily
clasping Meg's arm, said tenderly:
"Not to-night. I am not able to bear it."
It was almost midnight when Ralph and the silent Jock Forrest got
Agnew Greatorix into the spring-cart to be conveyed to Greatorix
Castle.
He lay with his eyes closed, silent. Ralph took Jock Gordon to the
manse with him, determined to tell the whole to Mr. Welsh if
necessary; but if it were not necessary, to tell no one more than
he could help, in order to shelter Winsome from misapprehension.
It says something for Ralph that, in the turmoil of the night and
the unavailing questionings of the morning, he never for a moment
thought of doubting his love. It was enough for him that in the
depths of agony of body or spirit she had called out to him. All
the rest would be explained in due time, and he could wait.
Moreover, so selfish is love, that he had never once thought of
Jess Kissock from the moment that his love's cry had pealed across
the valley of the elder-trees and the plain of the water meadows.
When he brought Jock Gordon, hardly yet humanly articulate, into
the kitchen of the manse, the house was still asleep. Then Ralph
wakened Manse Bell, who slept above. He told her that Jock Gordon
had taken a fit upon the moor, that he had found him ill, and
brought him home. Next he went up to the minister's room, where he
found Mr. Welsh reading his Bible. He did not know that the
minister had watched him both come and go from his window, or that
he had remained all night in prayer for the lad, who, he
misdoubted, was in deep waters.
As soon as Jock Gordon had drunk the tea and partaken of the beef
ham which Manse Bell somewhat grumblingly set before him, he said:
"Noo, I'll awa'. The tykes'll be after me, nae doot, but it's no
in yin o' them to catch Jock Gordon gin yince he gets into the
Dungeon o' Buchan."
"But ye maun wait on the minister or Maister Peden. They'll hae
muckle to ask ye, nae doot!" said Bell, who yearned for news.
"Nae doot, nae doot!" said daft Jock Gordon, "an' I hae little to
answer. It's no for me to tie the rape roond my ain craig [neck].
Na, na, time aneu' to answer when I'm afore the sherra at
Kirkcudbright for this nicht's wark."
With these words Jock took his pilgrim staff and departed for
parts unknown. As he said, it was not bloodhounds that could catch
Jock Gordon on the Rhinns of Kells.
In the morning there was word come to the cot-house of the
Kissocks that Mistress Kissock was wanted up at the castle to
nurse a gentleman who had had an accident when shooting. Mistress
Kissock was unable to go herself, but her daughter Jess went
instead of her, having had some practice in nursing, among other
experiences which she had gained in England. It was reported that
she made an excellent nurse.
CHAPTEE XXXI.
THE STUDY OF THE MANSE OF DULLARG.
IT was growing slowly dusk again when Ralph Peden returned from
visiting Craig Ronald along the shore road to the Dullarg and its
manse. He walked briskly, as one who has good news. Sometimes he
whistled to himself--breaking off short with a quick smile at
some recollection. Once he stopped and laughed aloud. Then he
threw a stone at a rook which eyed him superciliously from the top
of a turf dyke. He made a bad shot, at which the black critic
wiped the bare butt of his bill upon the grass, uttered a hoarse
"A-ha!" of derision, and plunged down squatty among the dock-
leaves on the other side.
As Ralph turned up the manse loaning to the bare front door, he
was conscious of a vague uneasiness, the feeling of a man who
returns to a house of gloom from a world where all things have
been full of sunshine. It was not the same world since yesterday.
Even he, Ralph Peden, was not the same man. But he entered the
house with that innocent affectation of exceeding ease which is
the boy's tribute to his own inexperience. He went up the stairs
through the dark lobby and entered Allan Welsh's study. The
minister was sitting with his back to the window, his hands
clasped in front of him, and his great domed forehead and
emaciated features standing out against the orange and crimson
pool of glory where the sun had gone down.
Ralph ostentatiously clattered down his armful of books on the
table. The minister did not speak at first, and Ralph began his
explanation.
"I am sorry," he said, hesitating and blushing under the keen eyes
of his father's friend. "I had no idea I should have been
detained, but the truth is--"
"I ken what the truth is," said Allan Welsh, quietly. "Sit down,
Ralph Peden. I have somewhat to say to you."
A cold chill ran through the young man's veins, to which succeeded
a thrill of indignation. Was it possible that he was about to
reproach him, as a student in trials for the ministry of the
Marrow kirk, with having behaved in any way unbecoming of an
aspirant to that high office, or left undone anything expected of
him as his father's son?
The minister was long in speaking. Against the orange light of
evening which barred the window, his face could not be seen, but
Ralph had the feeling that his eyes, unseen themselves, were
reading into his very soul. He sat down and clenched his hands
under the table,
"I was at the Bridge of Grannoch this day," began the minister at
last. "I was on my way to visit a parishioner, but I do not
conceal from you that I also made it my business to observe your
walk and conversation."
"By what right do you so speak to me?" began Ralph, the hotter
blood of his mother rising within him.
"By the right given to me by your father to study your heart and
to find out whether indeed it is seeking to walk in the more
perfect way. By my love and regard for you, I hope I may also
say."
The minister paused, as if to gather strength for what he had yet
to say. He leaned his head upon his hand, and Balph did not see
that his frail figure was shaken with some emotion too strong for
his physical powers, only kept in check by the keen and
indomitable will within.
"Ralph, my lad," Allan Welsh continued, "do not think that I have
not foreseen this; and had jour father written to inform me of his
intention to send you to me, I should have urged him to cause you
to abide in your own city. What I feared in thought is in act come
to pass. I saw it in your eyes yestreen."
Kalph's eyes spoke an indignant query.
"Ralph Peden," said the minister, "since I came here, eighteen
years ago, not a mouse has crept out of Craig Ronald but I have
made it my business to know it. I am no spy, and yet I need not to
be told what happened yesterday or to-day."
"Then, sir, you know that I have no need to be ashamed."
"I have much to say to you, Ralph, which I desire to say by no
means in anger. But first let me say this: It is impossible that
you can ever be more to Winifred Charteris than you are to-day."