* * * * *It was a strange visitor who came to the house of the Elder's daughter that evening, as the gloaming fell darker, her feet making no sound on the deserted and grass-grown streets."A young laddie wants to see you, father," said John Allanson's married daughter, with whom he had been lodging for a night when the plague came, in a single hour putting a great gulf between town and country. Then, finding his minister alone, he was not the man to leave him to fight the battle single-handed.Shamefacedly Elspeth crept in. The old man and his daughter were by themselves, the husband not yet home from the joiner's shop, where the hammers wenttap-tapat the plain deal coffins all day and all night."The minister is dying—come and help him or he will die!" she cried, as they sat looking curiously at her in the clear, leaping red of the firelight."Who are you, laddie?" said the elder."I am no laddie," said Elspeth, redder than the peat ashes. "Oh, I am shamed—I am shamed! But I could not help it. And I am not sorry! They told me he was dead. I am Elspeth Stuart, of the Dullarg Manse."The elder sat gazing at her, open-mouthed, leaning forward, his hands on his knees. But his daughter, with the quick sympathy of woman, held out her arms."My puir lassie!" she said. She had once lost a bairn, her only one.And Elspeth wept on her bosom.The daughter waved her father to the door with one hand."She will tell me easier!" she said.And straightway the old man went out into the dark.* * * * *It did not take long to tell, with Allan Syme lying so near to the gates of death. Almost in less time than it needs to write it, Elspeth was arrayed, so far at least as outer seeming went, in the garments of her sex. A basket was filled with the necessities which were kept ready for such an emergency in every house."Come, father," the loving wife cried at the door; "I will tell you as we gang!"And before she had won third way through her story, John Allanson had taken Elspeth's hand in his."My bairn! my bairn!" he said.In this manner Elspeth came the second time to the Manse of Allan Syme.* * * * *But the third time was as the mistress thereof. For she and the elder's daughter nursed Allan Syme through into safety. For the very day that Allan was stricken, a great rain fell and a great wind blew. The birds came back to the gardens of Cairn Edward, and the plague lifted. In time, too, Dr. Stuart submitted with severe grace to that which he could not help."Indeed, it was all my fault, father," Elspeth said; "I made Allan come back by the stile. I had made up my mind that he should. I knew he would kiss me there!""Then I can only hope," answered her father, severely, lifting up his gold-knobbed cane and shaking it at her to emphasise his point, "that by this time your husband has learned the secret of making you obey him. It is more than ever your father did!"A SCIENTIFIC SYMPOSIUM(Being some Hitherto Unobserved Phenomena of Feminine Psychology from the notebook of A. McQuhirr, M.D. Edin.)These papers of mine have been getting out of hand of late. I am informed from various quarters that they are becoming so exceedingly popular and discursive in their character, that they are enough to ruin the reputation of any professing man of science. I will therefore be severe with myself (and, incidentally, with my readers), and occupy one or two papers with a consideration of some of the minor characteristics common to the female sex. Indeed, upon a future occasion I may even devote an entire work to this subject.I have mentioned before that my wife's younger sister was called the "Hempie,"[#] which, being interpreted, signifies a wild girl. This had certainly been her character at one time; and though she deserves the name less now than of yore, all her actions are still marked by conspicuous decision and independence.[#] Some of the earlier and less reputable of the "Hempie's" adventures may be found in a certain unscientific work entitled "Lad's Love."For instance, the year after Nance and I were married, the Hempie abruptly claimed her share of her mother's money, and departed to Edinburgh "to get learning."Now it was a common thing enough in our part of the country for boys to go out on such a quest. It was unheard of in a girl. And the parish would have been shocked if the emigrant had been any other than the Hempie. But Miss Elizabeth Chrystie, daughter of Peter of Nether Neuk, was a young woman not accustomed to be bound by ordinary rules. In person she had grown up handsome rather than pretty, and was so athletic that she stood in small need of the ordinary courtesies which girls love—hands over stiles, and so forth. Eyes and hair of glossy jet, the latter crisping naturally close to her head, a healthy colour in her cheeks, an ironic curl to her firm fine lips,—that is how our Hempie came back to us.Of her career in the metropolis, of the boarding-school dames, strait-laced and awful, whom she scandalised, the shut ways of learning which somehow were opened before her, I have no room here to tell. It is sufficient to say that out of all this the Hempie came home to Nether Neuk, and at once established herself as the wonder of the neighbourhood.Nance was gone, Grace going; Clemmy Kilpatrick, the unobtrusive little woman whom Peter Chrystie had married as a kind of foot-warmer, had been laid aside for six weeks with an "income" on her knee. The maidservants naturally took advantage. Every individual pot and pan in the house cumbered the back kitchen unwashed and begrimed. In the byres you did not walk—you waded. The ploughmen hung about the house half the morning, gossiping with the half-idle maidens. The very herds on the hill eluded Peter's feeble judicature, and lay asleep behind dyke-backs, while the week-weaned lambs, with many tail-wagglings, rejoined their mothers on the pastures far below.Upon this confusion enter the New Hempie. And with her gown pinned up and a white apron on that met behind her shapely figure, she set to and helped the servants.In six days she had the farm town of Nether Neuk in such a state of perfection as it had not known since my own Nance left it. For Grace, though a good girl enough, cared not a jot for house work. Her sphere was the dairy and cheese-room, where in an atmosphere of simmering curds and bandaged cheddars she reigned supreme.So much to indicate to those who are not acquainted with Miss Elizabeth Chrystie the kind of girl she was.For the rest, she despised love and held wooers in contempt, as much as she had done in the old days when she ascended the roofs of the pigstyes, and climbed into the beech-tree tops in the courtyard of Nether Neuk, rather than meet me face to face as I went to pay my court to her eldest sister."Love——" she said, scornfully, when I questioned her on the subject the first time she came to see us at Cairn Edward, "love—have Nance and you no got ower sic nonsense yet?Love——" (still more scornfully); "as if I hadna seen as much of that as will serve me for my lifetime, wi' twa sisters like Grace and Nance there!"It did not take us much by surprise, therefore, when one morning, while we sat at breakfast, the Hempie dropped in with the announcement that she could not stand her father any longer, and that she had engaged herself to be governess in the house of a certain Major Randolph Fergus of Craignesslin.To a young lady so determined there was no more to be said. Besides which, the Hempie was of full age, perfectly independent as far as money went, and more than independent in character."Now," she said, "I have just fifteen minutes to catch my train: how am I to get my bag up to the station?""If you wait," I said, "the gig will be round at the door in seven minutes. I have a case, or I should go up with you myself.""Who is driving the gig?""Tad Anderson," said I.The Hempie picked up a pair of tan gloves and straightened her tall lithe figure."Good-morning," she said; "give me a lift with my box and wraps to the door. I would not trust Tad Anderson to get to the station in time if he had seven hours to do it in!"At the door a boy was passing with a grocer's barrow. The Hempie swung her box upon it with a deft strong movement."Take that to the station, boy," she commanded, "and tell Muckle Aleck that Elizabeth Chrystie of the Nether Neuk will be up in ten minutes.""But—but," stammered the boy, astonished, "I hae thae parcels to deliver.""Then deliver them on your road down!" said the Hempie. And her right hand touched the boy's left for an instant."A' richt, mem!" he nodded, and was off."Don't trouble, Alec. Nance, bide where you are—I have three calls to make on the way up. Good-morning!"And the Hempie was off. We watched her through the little oriel window, Nance nestling against my coat sleeve pleasantly, and, in the shadow of the red stuff curtain, even surreptitiously kissing my shoulder—a thing I had often warned her against doing in public. So I reproved her."Nance, mind what you are about, for heaven's sake! Suppose anyone were to see you. It is enough to ruin my professional reputation to have you do that on a market day in your own front window.""Well, please may I hold your hand?" (Then, piteously, and, if I might call it so, "Nancefully") "You know I shall not see you all day.""The Hempie would not do a thing like that!" I answer, severely.Nance watches the supple swing of her sister's figure, from the stout-soled practical boots to the small erect head, with its short black curls and smart brown felt hat with the silver buckle at the side."No," she said, "she wouldn't." Then, after a sigh, she added, "Poor Hempie!"That was the last we saw of our sister for more than a year. Elizabeth Chrystie did not come back even for Grace's marriage to the laird of Butterhole."I am of more use where I am," she wrote. "Tell Grace I am sending her an alarm clock!"Whether this was sarcasm on the Hempie's part, I am not in a position to say. Grace had always been the sleepy-head of the family. If, however, it was meant ironically, the sarcasm was wasted, for Grace was delighted with the present."It is so useful, you know," the Mistress of Butterhole told Nance. "I set it every morning for four o'clock. It is so nice to turn over and know that you do not need to get up till eight!"* * * * *As suddenly as she had gone away, so suddenly the Hempie returned, giving reasons to no man. I am obliged to say that even I would never have known the true story of the adventures which follows had I not shamefully played the eavesdropper.It happened this way.My study, where I try upon occasion to do a little original work and keep myself from dropping into the rut of the pill-and-potion practitioner so common in rural districts, is next the little room where Nance sits reading, or sewing at the garmentry, white and mysterious, which some women seem never to be able to let out of their reach. Here I have a small wall-press, in which I keep my microscopes and preparations. It is divided by a single board from a similar one belonging to Nance on the other side. When both doors are open you can hear as well in one room as in the other. I often converse with Nance without rising, chiefly as to how long it will be till dinner-time, together with similar important and soul-elevating subjects. But it never seems to strike her that I can hear as easily what is said in her room when I am not expected to hear.Now, if you are an observant man, you have noticed, I daresay, that so soon as women are alone together, they begin to talk quite differently from what they have done when they had reason to know of your masculine presence. Yes, it is true—especially true of your nearest and dearest. Men do something of the same kind when women go out after dinner. But quite otherwise. A man becomes at once broader and louder, more unrestrained in quotation, allusion, illustration, more direct in application. His vocabulary expands. In anecdote he is more abounding and in voice altogether more natural. But with women it is not so. They do not look blankly at the tablecloth or toy with the stem of a wineglass, as men do when the other sex vanishes. They glance at each other. A gentle smile glimmers from face to face, in which is a world of irony and comprehension. It says, "They are gone—the poor creatures. We can't quite do without them; but oh, are they not funny things?" Then they exchange sighs equally gentle. If you listen closely you can hear a little subdued rustle. That is the chairs being moved gently forward nearer each other—not dragged, mark you, as a man would do. A man has no proper respect for a carpet."Well, dear——?""Well?"And then they begin really to talk. They have only "conversed" so far. How do I know all this? Well, that's telling. As I say, I eavesdropped part of it—in the interests of science. But the facts are true, in every case.The Hempie came in one Saturday morning. It was in August, and a glorious day. There was nothing pressing. I had been out early at the only case which needed to be seen to till I went on my afternoon round.Nance was upstairs giving a wholly supererogatory attention to a certain young gentleman who had already one statutory slave to anticipate his wants. He was getting ready to be carried into the garden. I could detect signs from the basement that cook also was tending nursery-wards. The shrine would have its full complement of devout worshippers shortly.It was thus that I came to be the first to welcome the Hempie upon her return. She opened the glass door and walked in without ceremony, putting her umbrella in the rack and hanging her hat on a peg like a man, not bringing them in to cumber a bedroom as a woman does. These minor differences of habit in the sexes have never been properly collated and worked out. As I said before, I think I must write a book on the subject.At any rate, the Hempie's action was the exception which proved the rule.Then she strolled nonchalantly into my study and flung herself into a chair without shaking hands. I leaped to my feet."Hempie," I cried, "I am dreadfully glad to see you." And I stooped to kiss her.To my utter astonishment she took the salute as a matter of course, a thing she had never done before. Yes, somehow the Hempie was startlingly different."What," she said, "are you as glad as all that? What a loving brother!"But I think she was pleased all the same."Where's Nance?" The question was shot out rather than asked.I indicated the upper regions of the house with my thumb, and inclined my ear to direct her attention.A high voice of wonderful tone and compass (if a little thin) was lifted up in a decimating howl. Ensued a gentle confused murmur: "Didums, then? Was it, then?" together with various lucid observations of that kind.A change passed over the Hempie's face."Now we are in for it," I thought. "She will leave the house and never enter it again. The Hempie hates babies. She has always been particularly clear on that point.""Whydid you never tell me, Alec?""Because—because—we thought you would not care to hear. I understood you didn't like——""Is it a boy or a girl?""Boy."There was a sudden uprising from the depths of the easy-chair, a rustle of skirts, the clang of a door, hasty footsteps on the stairs, a clamour of voices from which, after a kind of confused climax as the hope of the house blared his woes like a young bull of Bashan, there finally emerged the following remarkable sentiments:—"Oh, the darling! Isn't he apet? Give him to me. Was they bad to him? Then—well then! They shan't—no, indeed they shan't! Now, then! Didums, then!"Andda capo.I could not believe my ears. The words were the words of Nance, but the voice was undoubtedly the voice of the Hempie. It was half an hour and more before they descended the stairs, the Hempie still carrying young "Bull of Bashan," now pacifically sucking his thumb and gazing serenely through and behind his nurse in the disconcerting way which is common to infants of the human species—and cats.The Hempie passed out across the little strip of garden we had at the back. The sunlight checkered the grass, and the new nurse carried her charge as if she had never done anything else all her life. Every moment she would stop to coo at him. Then she would duck her head like a turtle-dove bowing to his mate; and finally, as if taken by some strange contortive disease, she would bend her neck suddenly and nuzzle her whole face into the child's, as a pet pony does into your hand—a hot, fatiguing, and wholly unscientific proceeding on an August day.I called Nance back on pretext of matters domestic."What's the matter with the Hempie?" I said."Matter with the Hempie?" repeated Nance, trying vainly to look blank. "Why, what should be the matter with the Hempie?""Don't try that on with me, you little fraud. Thereissomething! What is it?""I have not the least idea.""Have you kissed her?""No, she never looked at me—only at the baby,of course.""Then go and kiss her."Nance went off obediently, and the sisters walked a while together. Presently the baby took the red thumb out of his mouth, and through the orifice thus created issued a bellow. The nurse came running. Nance took him in her arms, replaced the thumb, and all was well. Then she handed him back to the Hempie and kissed her as she did so. The Hempie raised her head into position naturally, like one well accustomed to the operation.Nance came slowly back and rejoined me. She was unusually thoughtful."Well?" I said.She nodded gravely and shook her head."Itistrue," she murmured, as if convinced against her will; "there is something. She is different.""Nance," said I, triumphantly, for I was pleased with myself, "the Hempie is in love at last. You must find out all about it and tell me."She looked at me scornfully."I will do no such thing——" she began."It is not curiosity—as you seem to think," I remarked with dignity. "It is entirely in the interests of science," I said."Rats!" cried Nance, rudely.As I have had occasion to remark more than once before, she does not show that deference to her husband to which his sterling worth and many merits entitle him. Indeed, few wives do—if any."Well, I will find out for myself," I said, carelessly."You!"Scorn, derision, challenge were never more briefly expressed."Yes, I.""I'll wager you a new riding-whip out of my house money that you don't find out anything about it!""Done!" said I.For I remembered about the little wall-press where I kept my microscope. Not that I am by nature an eavesdropper; but, after all, a scientific purpose—and a new riding-whip, make some difference.I was busy mounting my slides when I heard them come in. Instantly I needed some Canada balsam out of the wall-press—in the interests of science. I heard Nance go to the door to listen "if baby was asleep." I have often represented to her that she does not require to do this, because the instant baby is awake he advertises the fact to the whole neighbourhood, as effectually as if he had been specially designed with a steam whistle attachment for the purpose. But I have never succeeded."You think you are a doctor, Alec," is the answer, "but you know nothing about babies! You know you don't!"Which shows that I must have spent a considerable part of my medical curriculum in vain.There ensued the soft muffled hush of chairs being pushed into the window. Then came the firstclick-click, jiggity-clickof a rocking-chair, which Nance had bought for me "when you are tired, dear"—and has used ever since herself. I did not regret this, for it left the deep-seated chintz-covered one free. They are useless things, anyway: a man cannot go to sleep on a rocking-chair, or strike a match under the seat, or stand on it to put up a picture—or, in fact, do any of the things for which chairs are really designed.Now when a woman goes to sleep in a chair, she always wakes up cross. All that stuff in romances about kissing the beloved awake in the dear old rose-scented parlour, and about the lids rising sweetly from off loving and happy eyes, is, scientifically considered, pure nonsense. Believe me, if she greets you that way the lady has not been asleep at all, and was waiting for you to do it.But when she, on the other hand, wakes with a start and opens her eyes so promptly that you step back quickly (having had experience); when she speaks words like these, "Alec, I have a great mind to give you a sound box on the ear—coming waking me up like that, when you know I didn't have more than an hour's good sleep last night!"—this is the genuine article. The lady was asleep that time. The other kind may be pretty enough to read about, but that is its only merit.It was Nance who spoke first. I heard her drop the scissors and stoop to pick them up. I also gathered from the tone of her first words that she had a pin in her mouth. Yet she goes into a fit if baby tries to imitate her, and wonders where he can learn such habits. This also is incomprehensible."Have you left Craignesslin for good?" said Nance, using a foolish expression for which I have often reproved her."I am going back," said the Hempie. I am not so well acquainted with thenuancesof the Hempie's voice and habit as I am with those of her sister, but I should say that she was leaning back in her chair with her hands clasped behind her head, and staring contentedly out at the window."I thought perhaps the death of the old major would make a difference to you," said Nance. I knew by the mumbling sound that she was biting a thread."It does make a difference," said the Hempie, dreamily, "and it will make a greater difference before all be done!"Nance was silent for a while. I knew she was hurt at her sister's lack of communicativeness. The rocking-chair was suddenly hitched sideways, and the stroking rose from fifty in the minute to about sixty or sixty-five, according, as it were, to the pressure on the boiler.Still the Hempie did not speak a word.The rocking-chair was doing a good seventy now—but it was a spurt, and could not last."Elizabeth," said Nance, suddenly, "I did not think you could be so mean. I never behaved like this to you.""No?" said the Hempie, with serene interrogation, but did not move, so far as I could make out. The rocking-chair ceased. There was a pause, painful even to me in my little den. The strain on the other side of the wall must have been enormous.When Nance spoke it was in a curiously altered voice. It sounded even pleading. I wish the Hempie would teach me her secret."Who is it?—tell me, Hempie," said Nance, softly.I did not catch the answer, though obviously one was given. But the next moment I heard the unbalanced clatter of the abandoned rocker, and then Nance's voice saying: "No, it is impossible!"Apparently it was not, however, for presently I heard the sound of more than one kiss, and I knew that my dear Mistress Impulsive had her sister in her arms."Then you know all about it now, Hempie?""All about what?""Don't pretend,—about love. You do love him very much, don't you?""I don't know. I have never told him so!""Hempie!""It is true, Nance!""Then why have you come home?""To get married!" said the Hempie, calmly.THE HEMPIE'S LOVE STORYThis is the somewhat remarkable story the Hempie told my wife as she sat sewing in the little parlour overlooking the garden, the day Master Alexander McQuhirr, Tertius, cut his first tooth.[#][#] This, however, was not discovered till afterwards, and was then acclaimed as the reason why he cried so much on the arrival of his aunt Elizabeth. To his nearest relative on the father's side, however, the young gentleman's performances seemed entirely normal.—A. McQ.Elizabeth Chrystie was a free-spoken young woman, and she told her tale generally in the English of the schools, but sometimes in the plain countryside talk she had spoken when, a barefoot bare-legged lass, she had scrieved the hills, the companion of every questing collie and scapegrace herd lad, 'twixt the Bennan and the Butt o' Benerick."When I first got to Craignesslin," said the Hempie, "I thought I had better turn me about and come right back again. And if it had not been for pride, that is just what I should have done.""Were they not kind to you?" asked Nance."Kind? Oh, kind enough—it was not that. I could easily have put an end to any unkindness by walking over the hill. But I could not. To tell the truth, the place took hold of me from the first hour."Craignesslin, you know, is a great house, with many of the rooms unoccupied, sitting high up on the hills, a place where all the winds blow, and where the trees are mostly scrubby scrunts of thorn, turning up their branches like skeleton hands asking for alms, or shrivelled birches and cowering firs all bent away from the west."When first I saw the place I thought that I could never bide there a day—and now it looks as if I were going to live there all my life."The hired man from the livery stables in Drumfern set my box down on the step of the front door, and drove off as fast as he could. He had a long way before him, he said, the first five miles with not so much as a cottage by the wayside. He meant a public-house."He was a rude boor. And when I told him so he only laughed and said: 'For a' that ye'll maybe be glad to see me the next time I come—even if I bring a hearse for ye to ride to the kirkyaird in!'"And with that he cracked his whip and drove out of sight. I was left alone on the doorstep of the old House of Craignesslin. I looked up at the small windows set deep in the walls. Above one of them I made out the date 1658, and over the door were carven the letters W.F."Then I minded the tales my father used to tell in the winter forenights, of Wicked Wat Fergus of Craignesslin, how he used to rise from his bed and blow his horn and ride off to the Whig-hunting with Lag and Heughan, how he kept a tally on his bed-post of the men he had slain on the moors, making a bigger notch all the way round for such as were preachers."And while I was thinking all this, I stood knocking for admission. I could not hear a living thing move about the place. The bell would not ring. At the first touch the brass pull came away in my hands, and hung by the wire almost to the ground."Yet there was something pleasant about the place too, and if it had not been for the uncanny silence, I would have liked it well enough. The hills ran steeply up on both sides, brown with heather on the dryer knolls, and the bogs yellow and green with bracken and moss. The sheep wandered everywhere, creeping white against the hill-breast or standing black against the skyline. The whaups cried far and near. Snipe whinnied up in the lift. Magpies shot from thorn-bush to thorn-bush, and in the rose-bush by the door-cheek a goldfinch had built her nest."Still no one answered my knocking, and at last I opened the door and went in. The door closed of its own accord behind me, and I found myself in a great hall with tapestries all round, dim and rough, the bright colours tarnished with age and damp. There were suits of armour on the wall, old leathern coats, broad-swords basket-hiked and tasselled, not made into trophies, but depending from nails as if they might be needed the next moment. Two ancient saddles hung on huge pins, one on either side of the antique eight-day clock, which ticked on and on with a solemn sound in that still place."I did not see a single thing of modern sort anywhere except an empty tin which had held McDowall's Sheep Dip."Nance, you cannot think how that simple thing reassured me. I opened the door again and pulled my box within. Then I turned into the first room on the right. I could see the doors of several other rooms, but they were all dark and looked cavernous and threatening as the mouths of cannon."But the room to the right was bright and filled with the sunshine from end to end, though the furniture was old, the huge chairs uncovered and polished only by use, and the great oak table in the centre hacked and chipped. From the window I could see an oblong of hillside with sheep coming and going upon it. I opened the lattice and looked out. There came from somewhere far underneath, the scent of bees and honeycombs. I began to grow lonesome and eerie. Yet somehow I dared not for the life of me explore further."It was a strange feeling to have in the daytime, and you know, Nance, I used to go up to the muir or down past the kirkyaird at any hour of the night."I did not take off my things. I did not sit down, though there were many chairs, all of plain oak, massive and ancient, standing about at all sorts of angles. One had been overturned by the great empty fireplace, and a man's worn riding-glove lay beside it."So I stood by the mantelpiece, wondering idly if this could be Major Fergus's glove, and what scuffle there had been in this strange place to overturn that heavy chair, when I heard a stirring somewhere in the house. It was a curious shuffling tread, halting and slow. A faint tinkling sound accompanied it, like nothing in the world so much as the old glass chandelier in the room at Nether Neuk, when we danced in the parlour above."The sound of that shuffling tread came nearer, and I grew so terrified, that I think if I had been sure that the way to the door was clear, I should have bolted there and then. But just at that moment I heard the foot trip. There was a muffled sound as of someone falling forward. The jingling sound became momentarily louder than ever, to which succeeded a rasping and a fumbling. Something or someone had tripped over my box, and was now examining it in a blind way."I stood turned to stone, with one hand on the cold mantelpiece and the other on my heart to still the painful beating."Then I heard the shuffling coming nearer again, and presently the door lurched forward violently. It did not open as an intelligent being would have opened a door. The passage was gloomy without, and at first I saw nothing. But in a moment, out of the darkness, there emerged the face and figure of an old woman. She wore a white cap or 'mutch,' and had a broad and perfectly dead-white face. Her eyes also were white—or rather the colour of china ware—as though she had turned them up in agony and had never been able to get them back again. At her waist dangled a bundle of keys; and that was the reason of the faint musical tinkling I had heard. She was muttering rapidly to herself in an undertone as she shuffled forward. She felt with her hands till she touched the great oaken table in the centre."As soon as she had done so, she turned towards the window, and with a much brisker step she went towards it. I think she felt the fresh breeze blow in from the heather. Her groping hand went through the little hinged lattice I had opened. She started back."'Who has opened the window?' she said. 'Surely he has not been here! Perhaps he has escaped! Walter—Walter Fergus—come oot!' she cried. 'Ah, I see you, you are under the table!'"And with surprising activity the blind old woman bent down and scrambled under the table. She ran hither and thither like a cat after a mouse, beating the floor with her hands and colliding with the legs of the table as she did so."Once as she passed she rolled a wall-white eye up at me. Nance, I declare it was as if the week-old dead had looked at you!"Then she darted back to the door, opened it, and with her fingers to her mouth, whistled shrilly. A great surly-looking dog of a brown colour lumbered in."'Here, Lagwine, he's lost. Seek him, Lagwine! Seek him, Lagwine!'"And now, indeed, I thought, 'Bess Chrystie, your last hour is come.' But though the dog must have scented me—nay, though he passed me within a foot, his nose down as if on a hot trail—he never so much as glanced in my direction, but took round the room over the tumbled chairs, and with a dreadful bay, ran out at the door. The old woman followed him, but most unfortunately (or, as it might be, fortunately) at that moment my foot slipped from the fender, and she turned upon me with a sharp cry."'Lagwine, Lagwine, he is here! He is here!' she cried."And still on all fours, like a beast, she rushed across the floor straight at me. She laid her hand on my shoe, and, as it were, ran up me like a cat, till her skinny hands fastened themselves about my throat. Then I gave a great cry and fainted.* * * * *"At least, I must have done so, for when I came to myself a young man was bending over me, with a white and anxious face. He had on velveteen knickerbockers, and a jacket with a strap round the waist."'Where is that dreadful old woman?' I cried, for I was still in mortal terror.""Ishould have died," said Nance. And from the sound of her voice I judged that she had given up the attempt to continue her seam in order to listen to the Hempie's tale, which not the most remarkable exposition of scientific truth on my part could induce her to do for a moment."'It's all my fault—all my fault for not being at home to meet the trap,' I heard him murmur, as I sank vaguely back again into semi-unconsciousness. When I opened my eyes I found myself in a pleasant room, with modern furniture and engravings on the wall of the 'Death of Nelson' and 'Washington crossing the Delaware.'"As soon as I could speak I asked where I was, and if the horrible old woman with the white eyes would come back. The young man did not answer me directly, but called out over his shoulder, 'Mother, she is coming to.'"And the next moment a placid, comfortable-looking lady entered, with the air of one who has just left the room for a moment."'My poor lassie,' she said, bending over me, 'this is a rough home-coming you have got to the house of Craignesslin. But when you are better I will tell you all. You are not fit to hear it now.'"But I sat up and protested that I was—that I must hear it all at once, and be done with it.""Of course," cried Nance, "you felt that you could not stay unless you knew. And I would not have stopped another minute—not if they had brought down the Angel Gabriel to explain.""Not if Alec had been there?" queried the Hempie, smiling."Alec!" cried Nance, in great contempt. "Indeed, if Alec had been in such a place, I would have made Alec come away inside of three minutes—yes, and take me with him if he had to carry me out on his back! Stop there for Alec's sake? No fear!"That is the way my married wife speaks of me behind my back. But, so far as I can see, there is no legal remedy."Go on, Hempie; you are dreadfully slow.""So," continued the Hempie, placidly, "the nice matronly woman bade me lie down on a sofa, and put lavender-water on my head. She petted me as if I had been a baby, and I lay there curiously content—me, Elizabeth Chrystie, that never before let man or woman lay a hand on me——""Exactly," said Nance; "was he very nice-looking?""Who?""The young man in the velveteen suit, of course.""I don't know what you mean.""I mean, was he better-looking than Alec?""Better-looking than Alec? Why, of course, Alec isn't a bit——""Hempie!"There was a pause, and then, to relieve the strain, the Hempie laughed. "Are you never going to get over it, Nance?""Get on with your story, and be sensible." I could hear a thread bitten through."So the lady began to talk to me in a quiet hushed tone, like a minister beside a sick bed. She told me how some years ago her poor husband, Major Fergus, had hart a dreadful accident. He was not only disfigured, but the shock had affected his brain."'At first,' she said, 'we thought of sending him to an asylum, but we could not find one exactly suited to his case. Besides which, his old nurse, Betty Hearseman, who had always had great influence with him, was wild to be allowed to look after him. She is not quite right in the head herself, but most faithful and kind. She cried out night and day that they were abusing him in the asylum. So at last he was brought here and placed in the old wing of the house, into which you penetrated by misadventure to-day.'"'But the dog?' I asked; 'do they hunt the patient with a fierce dog like that?'"'Ah, poor Lagwine,' she sighed, 'he is devoted to his old master. He would not hurt a hair of his head or of anybody's head. Only sometimes, when he finds the door open, my poor Roger will slip out, and then nobody else can find him on these weariful hills.'"Then I asked her of the younger children whom I had been engaged to teach."'They are my grandchildren,' she said; 'you can hear them upstairs.'"And through the clamour of voices, that of the young man I had seen rang loudest of all."'They are playing with their father?' I said."She shook her head. 'They are the children of my daughter Isobel,' she said. 'She married Captain Fergus, of the Engineers, her own cousin, and died on her way out to the West Indies. So Algernon brought them home, and here they are settled on us. And what with my husband's wastefulness before he was laid aside, and the poor rents of the hill farms nowadays, I know not what we shall do. Indeed, if it were not for my dear son Harry we could not live. He takes care of everything, and is most scrupulous and saving.'"So when she had told me all this, I lay still and thought. And the lady's hand went slower and slower across my head till it ceased altogether."'I cannot expect you to remain with us after this, Miss Chrystie,' she said, 'and yet I know not what I shall do without you. I think we should have loved one another.'"I told her that I was not going away—that I was not afraid at all."'But, to tell you the truth, my dear,' she said, 'I do not rightly see where your wages are to come from.'"'That does not matter in the least, if I like the place in other ways,' I said to her.""He must beverygood-looking!" interjected Nance."So I told her I would like to see the children. She went up to call them, and presently down they came—a girl of six and a little boy of four. They had been having a rough-and-tumble, and their hair was all about their faces. So in a little we were great friends. They went up to the nursery with their grandmother, and I was following more slowly, when all at once, Harry—I mean the young man—came hurrying in, carrying a tray. He had an apron tied about him, and the bottom hem of it was tucked into the string at the waist. As soon as he saw me he blushed, and nearly dropped the tray he was carrying. I think he expected me to laugh, but I did not——""Of course not," coincided Nance, with decision."I just opened the top drawer in the sideboard and took out the cloth and spread it, while he stood with the tray still in his arms, not knowing, in his surprise, what to do with it."'I thought you had gone upstairs with my mother,' he said. 'Old John Hearseman is out on the hill with the lambs, and we have no other servants except the children's little nurse.'"And so—and so," said the Hempie, falteringly, "that is how it began."I could hear a little scuffle—which, being interpreted, meant that Nance had dropped her workbasket and sewing on the floor in a heap and had clasped her sister in her arms."Darling, cry all you want to!" My heart would know that tone through six feet of kirkyard mould—aye, and leap to answer it."I am not crying—I don't want to cry." It was the Hempie's voice, but I had never heard it sound like that before. Then it took a stronger tone, with little pauses where the tears were wiped away."And I found out that night from the children how good he was—how helpful and strong. He had to be out before break of day on the hills after the sheep. Often, with a game-bag over his shoulder, he would bring in all that there was for next day's dinner. Then when Betsy, the small maid, was busy with his mother, he would bath Algie and Madge, and put them to bed. For Mrs. Fergus, though a kind woman in her way, had been accustomed all her life to be waited on, and accepted everything from her son's hands without so much as 'Thank you.'"So I did not say a word, but got up early next morning and went downstairs. And what do you think I found that blessed Harry doing—blacking my boots!"There was again a sound like kissing and quiet crying, though I cannot for the life of me tell why there should have been. Perhaps the women who read this will know. And then the Hempie's voice began again, striving after its kind to be master of itself."So, of course, what could I do when his father died? He and I were with him night and day. For Betty Hearseman being blind could not handle him at all, and Harry's mother was of no use. Indeed, we did not say anything to alarm her till the very last morning. No, I cannot tell even you, Nance what it was like. But we came through it together. That is all."Nance had not gone back to her sewing. So I could not make out what was her next question. It was spoken too near the Hempie's ear. But I heard the answer plainly enough."A month next Wednesday was what we thought of. It ought to be soon, for the children's sake, poor little things.""Oh, yes," echoed Nance, meaningly, "for the children's sake, of course."The Hempie ignored the tone of this remark."Harry is having the house done up. The old part is to be made into a kitchen. Old John and Betty Hearseman are to have a cottage down the glen.""And you are to be all alone," cried Nance, clapping her hands, "with only the old lady to look after. That will be like playing at house.""Yes," said the Hempie, ironically, "it would—without the playing. Oh no, I am going to have a pair of decent moorland lasses to train to my ways, and Harry will have a first-rate herd to help him on the hill."Then she laughed a little, very low, to herself."The best of it is that he still thinks I am poor," she said. "I have never told him about mother's money, and I mean to ask father to give me as much as he gave you and Grace.""Of course," said Nance, promptly. "I'll come up and help you to make him."There was a cheerful prospect in front of Mr. Peter Chrystie, of Nether Neuk, if he did not put his hand in his breeches' pocket to some purpose."Will Alec let you come?" queried the Hempie, doubtfully. "He will miss you.""Oh, I'll tell him it is for the sake of baby's health," said Nance; "and, besides, husbands are all the better for being left alone occasionally. They are so nice when they get you back again.""What!" cried the Hempie, "you don't mean to say that Alec has fits of temper? I never would have believed it of him.""Hush!" said Nance. There was again that irritating whispered converse, from which emerged the Hempie's clear voice:"Oh, but my Harry will never be like that.""Wait—only wait," said Nance. "Hempie, they are all alike. And besides, they write you such nice letters when they are away. I suppose you get one every day? Yes, of course. What, he walks six miles over the hill to post it? That is nice of him. Alec once came all the way from Edinburgh, and went back the next day, just because he thought I was cross with him——""Oh, but my Harry never, never——"(Left speaking.)
* * * * *
It was a strange visitor who came to the house of the Elder's daughter that evening, as the gloaming fell darker, her feet making no sound on the deserted and grass-grown streets.
"A young laddie wants to see you, father," said John Allanson's married daughter, with whom he had been lodging for a night when the plague came, in a single hour putting a great gulf between town and country. Then, finding his minister alone, he was not the man to leave him to fight the battle single-handed.
Shamefacedly Elspeth crept in. The old man and his daughter were by themselves, the husband not yet home from the joiner's shop, where the hammers wenttap-tapat the plain deal coffins all day and all night.
"The minister is dying—come and help him or he will die!" she cried, as they sat looking curiously at her in the clear, leaping red of the firelight.
"Who are you, laddie?" said the elder.
"I am no laddie," said Elspeth, redder than the peat ashes. "Oh, I am shamed—I am shamed! But I could not help it. And I am not sorry! They told me he was dead. I am Elspeth Stuart, of the Dullarg Manse."
The elder sat gazing at her, open-mouthed, leaning forward, his hands on his knees. But his daughter, with the quick sympathy of woman, held out her arms.
"My puir lassie!" she said. She had once lost a bairn, her only one.
And Elspeth wept on her bosom.
The daughter waved her father to the door with one hand.
"She will tell me easier!" she said.
And straightway the old man went out into the dark.
* * * * *
It did not take long to tell, with Allan Syme lying so near to the gates of death. Almost in less time than it needs to write it, Elspeth was arrayed, so far at least as outer seeming went, in the garments of her sex. A basket was filled with the necessities which were kept ready for such an emergency in every house.
"Come, father," the loving wife cried at the door; "I will tell you as we gang!"
And before she had won third way through her story, John Allanson had taken Elspeth's hand in his.
"My bairn! my bairn!" he said.
In this manner Elspeth came the second time to the Manse of Allan Syme.
* * * * *
But the third time was as the mistress thereof. For she and the elder's daughter nursed Allan Syme through into safety. For the very day that Allan was stricken, a great rain fell and a great wind blew. The birds came back to the gardens of Cairn Edward, and the plague lifted. In time, too, Dr. Stuart submitted with severe grace to that which he could not help.
"Indeed, it was all my fault, father," Elspeth said; "I made Allan come back by the stile. I had made up my mind that he should. I knew he would kiss me there!"
"Then I can only hope," answered her father, severely, lifting up his gold-knobbed cane and shaking it at her to emphasise his point, "that by this time your husband has learned the secret of making you obey him. It is more than ever your father did!"
A SCIENTIFIC SYMPOSIUM
(Being some Hitherto Unobserved Phenomena of Feminine Psychology from the notebook of A. McQuhirr, M.D. Edin.)
These papers of mine have been getting out of hand of late. I am informed from various quarters that they are becoming so exceedingly popular and discursive in their character, that they are enough to ruin the reputation of any professing man of science. I will therefore be severe with myself (and, incidentally, with my readers), and occupy one or two papers with a consideration of some of the minor characteristics common to the female sex. Indeed, upon a future occasion I may even devote an entire work to this subject.
I have mentioned before that my wife's younger sister was called the "Hempie,"[#] which, being interpreted, signifies a wild girl. This had certainly been her character at one time; and though she deserves the name less now than of yore, all her actions are still marked by conspicuous decision and independence.
[#] Some of the earlier and less reputable of the "Hempie's" adventures may be found in a certain unscientific work entitled "Lad's Love."
For instance, the year after Nance and I were married, the Hempie abruptly claimed her share of her mother's money, and departed to Edinburgh "to get learning."
Now it was a common thing enough in our part of the country for boys to go out on such a quest. It was unheard of in a girl. And the parish would have been shocked if the emigrant had been any other than the Hempie. But Miss Elizabeth Chrystie, daughter of Peter of Nether Neuk, was a young woman not accustomed to be bound by ordinary rules. In person she had grown up handsome rather than pretty, and was so athletic that she stood in small need of the ordinary courtesies which girls love—hands over stiles, and so forth. Eyes and hair of glossy jet, the latter crisping naturally close to her head, a healthy colour in her cheeks, an ironic curl to her firm fine lips,—that is how our Hempie came back to us.
Of her career in the metropolis, of the boarding-school dames, strait-laced and awful, whom she scandalised, the shut ways of learning which somehow were opened before her, I have no room here to tell. It is sufficient to say that out of all this the Hempie came home to Nether Neuk, and at once established herself as the wonder of the neighbourhood.
Nance was gone, Grace going; Clemmy Kilpatrick, the unobtrusive little woman whom Peter Chrystie had married as a kind of foot-warmer, had been laid aside for six weeks with an "income" on her knee. The maidservants naturally took advantage. Every individual pot and pan in the house cumbered the back kitchen unwashed and begrimed. In the byres you did not walk—you waded. The ploughmen hung about the house half the morning, gossiping with the half-idle maidens. The very herds on the hill eluded Peter's feeble judicature, and lay asleep behind dyke-backs, while the week-weaned lambs, with many tail-wagglings, rejoined their mothers on the pastures far below.
Upon this confusion enter the New Hempie. And with her gown pinned up and a white apron on that met behind her shapely figure, she set to and helped the servants.
In six days she had the farm town of Nether Neuk in such a state of perfection as it had not known since my own Nance left it. For Grace, though a good girl enough, cared not a jot for house work. Her sphere was the dairy and cheese-room, where in an atmosphere of simmering curds and bandaged cheddars she reigned supreme.
So much to indicate to those who are not acquainted with Miss Elizabeth Chrystie the kind of girl she was.
For the rest, she despised love and held wooers in contempt, as much as she had done in the old days when she ascended the roofs of the pigstyes, and climbed into the beech-tree tops in the courtyard of Nether Neuk, rather than meet me face to face as I went to pay my court to her eldest sister.
"Love——" she said, scornfully, when I questioned her on the subject the first time she came to see us at Cairn Edward, "love—have Nance and you no got ower sic nonsense yet?Love——" (still more scornfully); "as if I hadna seen as much of that as will serve me for my lifetime, wi' twa sisters like Grace and Nance there!"
It did not take us much by surprise, therefore, when one morning, while we sat at breakfast, the Hempie dropped in with the announcement that she could not stand her father any longer, and that she had engaged herself to be governess in the house of a certain Major Randolph Fergus of Craignesslin.
To a young lady so determined there was no more to be said. Besides which, the Hempie was of full age, perfectly independent as far as money went, and more than independent in character.
"Now," she said, "I have just fifteen minutes to catch my train: how am I to get my bag up to the station?"
"If you wait," I said, "the gig will be round at the door in seven minutes. I have a case, or I should go up with you myself."
"Who is driving the gig?"
"Tad Anderson," said I.
The Hempie picked up a pair of tan gloves and straightened her tall lithe figure.
"Good-morning," she said; "give me a lift with my box and wraps to the door. I would not trust Tad Anderson to get to the station in time if he had seven hours to do it in!"
At the door a boy was passing with a grocer's barrow. The Hempie swung her box upon it with a deft strong movement.
"Take that to the station, boy," she commanded, "and tell Muckle Aleck that Elizabeth Chrystie of the Nether Neuk will be up in ten minutes."
"But—but," stammered the boy, astonished, "I hae thae parcels to deliver."
"Then deliver them on your road down!" said the Hempie. And her right hand touched the boy's left for an instant.
"A' richt, mem!" he nodded, and was off.
"Don't trouble, Alec. Nance, bide where you are—I have three calls to make on the way up. Good-morning!"
And the Hempie was off. We watched her through the little oriel window, Nance nestling against my coat sleeve pleasantly, and, in the shadow of the red stuff curtain, even surreptitiously kissing my shoulder—a thing I had often warned her against doing in public. So I reproved her.
"Nance, mind what you are about, for heaven's sake! Suppose anyone were to see you. It is enough to ruin my professional reputation to have you do that on a market day in your own front window."
"Well, please may I hold your hand?" (Then, piteously, and, if I might call it so, "Nancefully") "You know I shall not see you all day."
"The Hempie would not do a thing like that!" I answer, severely.
Nance watches the supple swing of her sister's figure, from the stout-soled practical boots to the small erect head, with its short black curls and smart brown felt hat with the silver buckle at the side.
"No," she said, "she wouldn't." Then, after a sigh, she added, "Poor Hempie!"
That was the last we saw of our sister for more than a year. Elizabeth Chrystie did not come back even for Grace's marriage to the laird of Butterhole.
"I am of more use where I am," she wrote. "Tell Grace I am sending her an alarm clock!"
Whether this was sarcasm on the Hempie's part, I am not in a position to say. Grace had always been the sleepy-head of the family. If, however, it was meant ironically, the sarcasm was wasted, for Grace was delighted with the present.
"It is so useful, you know," the Mistress of Butterhole told Nance. "I set it every morning for four o'clock. It is so nice to turn over and know that you do not need to get up till eight!"
* * * * *
As suddenly as she had gone away, so suddenly the Hempie returned, giving reasons to no man. I am obliged to say that even I would never have known the true story of the adventures which follows had I not shamefully played the eavesdropper.
It happened this way.
My study, where I try upon occasion to do a little original work and keep myself from dropping into the rut of the pill-and-potion practitioner so common in rural districts, is next the little room where Nance sits reading, or sewing at the garmentry, white and mysterious, which some women seem never to be able to let out of their reach. Here I have a small wall-press, in which I keep my microscopes and preparations. It is divided by a single board from a similar one belonging to Nance on the other side. When both doors are open you can hear as well in one room as in the other. I often converse with Nance without rising, chiefly as to how long it will be till dinner-time, together with similar important and soul-elevating subjects. But it never seems to strike her that I can hear as easily what is said in her room when I am not expected to hear.
Now, if you are an observant man, you have noticed, I daresay, that so soon as women are alone together, they begin to talk quite differently from what they have done when they had reason to know of your masculine presence. Yes, it is true—especially true of your nearest and dearest. Men do something of the same kind when women go out after dinner. But quite otherwise. A man becomes at once broader and louder, more unrestrained in quotation, allusion, illustration, more direct in application. His vocabulary expands. In anecdote he is more abounding and in voice altogether more natural. But with women it is not so. They do not look blankly at the tablecloth or toy with the stem of a wineglass, as men do when the other sex vanishes. They glance at each other. A gentle smile glimmers from face to face, in which is a world of irony and comprehension. It says, "They are gone—the poor creatures. We can't quite do without them; but oh, are they not funny things?" Then they exchange sighs equally gentle. If you listen closely you can hear a little subdued rustle. That is the chairs being moved gently forward nearer each other—not dragged, mark you, as a man would do. A man has no proper respect for a carpet.
"Well, dear——?"
"Well?"
And then they begin really to talk. They have only "conversed" so far. How do I know all this? Well, that's telling. As I say, I eavesdropped part of it—in the interests of science. But the facts are true, in every case.
The Hempie came in one Saturday morning. It was in August, and a glorious day. There was nothing pressing. I had been out early at the only case which needed to be seen to till I went on my afternoon round.
Nance was upstairs giving a wholly supererogatory attention to a certain young gentleman who had already one statutory slave to anticipate his wants. He was getting ready to be carried into the garden. I could detect signs from the basement that cook also was tending nursery-wards. The shrine would have its full complement of devout worshippers shortly.
It was thus that I came to be the first to welcome the Hempie upon her return. She opened the glass door and walked in without ceremony, putting her umbrella in the rack and hanging her hat on a peg like a man, not bringing them in to cumber a bedroom as a woman does. These minor differences of habit in the sexes have never been properly collated and worked out. As I said before, I think I must write a book on the subject.
At any rate, the Hempie's action was the exception which proved the rule.
Then she strolled nonchalantly into my study and flung herself into a chair without shaking hands. I leaped to my feet.
"Hempie," I cried, "I am dreadfully glad to see you." And I stooped to kiss her.
To my utter astonishment she took the salute as a matter of course, a thing she had never done before. Yes, somehow the Hempie was startlingly different.
"What," she said, "are you as glad as all that? What a loving brother!"
But I think she was pleased all the same.
"Where's Nance?" The question was shot out rather than asked.
I indicated the upper regions of the house with my thumb, and inclined my ear to direct her attention.
A high voice of wonderful tone and compass (if a little thin) was lifted up in a decimating howl. Ensued a gentle confused murmur: "Didums, then? Was it, then?" together with various lucid observations of that kind.
A change passed over the Hempie's face.
"Now we are in for it," I thought. "She will leave the house and never enter it again. The Hempie hates babies. She has always been particularly clear on that point."
"Whydid you never tell me, Alec?"
"Because—because—we thought you would not care to hear. I understood you didn't like——"
"Is it a boy or a girl?"
"Boy."
There was a sudden uprising from the depths of the easy-chair, a rustle of skirts, the clang of a door, hasty footsteps on the stairs, a clamour of voices from which, after a kind of confused climax as the hope of the house blared his woes like a young bull of Bashan, there finally emerged the following remarkable sentiments:—
"Oh, the darling! Isn't he apet? Give him to me. Was they bad to him? Then—well then! They shan't—no, indeed they shan't! Now, then! Didums, then!"
Andda capo.
I could not believe my ears. The words were the words of Nance, but the voice was undoubtedly the voice of the Hempie. It was half an hour and more before they descended the stairs, the Hempie still carrying young "Bull of Bashan," now pacifically sucking his thumb and gazing serenely through and behind his nurse in the disconcerting way which is common to infants of the human species—and cats.
The Hempie passed out across the little strip of garden we had at the back. The sunlight checkered the grass, and the new nurse carried her charge as if she had never done anything else all her life. Every moment she would stop to coo at him. Then she would duck her head like a turtle-dove bowing to his mate; and finally, as if taken by some strange contortive disease, she would bend her neck suddenly and nuzzle her whole face into the child's, as a pet pony does into your hand—a hot, fatiguing, and wholly unscientific proceeding on an August day.
I called Nance back on pretext of matters domestic.
"What's the matter with the Hempie?" I said.
"Matter with the Hempie?" repeated Nance, trying vainly to look blank. "Why, what should be the matter with the Hempie?"
"Don't try that on with me, you little fraud. Thereissomething! What is it?"
"I have not the least idea."
"Have you kissed her?"
"No, she never looked at me—only at the baby,of course."
"Then go and kiss her."
Nance went off obediently, and the sisters walked a while together. Presently the baby took the red thumb out of his mouth, and through the orifice thus created issued a bellow. The nurse came running. Nance took him in her arms, replaced the thumb, and all was well. Then she handed him back to the Hempie and kissed her as she did so. The Hempie raised her head into position naturally, like one well accustomed to the operation.
Nance came slowly back and rejoined me. She was unusually thoughtful.
"Well?" I said.
She nodded gravely and shook her head.
"Itistrue," she murmured, as if convinced against her will; "there is something. She is different."
"Nance," said I, triumphantly, for I was pleased with myself, "the Hempie is in love at last. You must find out all about it and tell me."
She looked at me scornfully.
"I will do no such thing——" she began.
"It is not curiosity—as you seem to think," I remarked with dignity. "It is entirely in the interests of science," I said.
"Rats!" cried Nance, rudely.
As I have had occasion to remark more than once before, she does not show that deference to her husband to which his sterling worth and many merits entitle him. Indeed, few wives do—if any.
"Well, I will find out for myself," I said, carelessly.
"You!"
Scorn, derision, challenge were never more briefly expressed.
"Yes, I."
"I'll wager you a new riding-whip out of my house money that you don't find out anything about it!"
"Done!" said I.
For I remembered about the little wall-press where I kept my microscope. Not that I am by nature an eavesdropper; but, after all, a scientific purpose—and a new riding-whip, make some difference.
I was busy mounting my slides when I heard them come in. Instantly I needed some Canada balsam out of the wall-press—in the interests of science. I heard Nance go to the door to listen "if baby was asleep." I have often represented to her that she does not require to do this, because the instant baby is awake he advertises the fact to the whole neighbourhood, as effectually as if he had been specially designed with a steam whistle attachment for the purpose. But I have never succeeded.
"You think you are a doctor, Alec," is the answer, "but you know nothing about babies! You know you don't!"
Which shows that I must have spent a considerable part of my medical curriculum in vain.
There ensued the soft muffled hush of chairs being pushed into the window. Then came the firstclick-click, jiggity-clickof a rocking-chair, which Nance had bought for me "when you are tired, dear"—and has used ever since herself. I did not regret this, for it left the deep-seated chintz-covered one free. They are useless things, anyway: a man cannot go to sleep on a rocking-chair, or strike a match under the seat, or stand on it to put up a picture—or, in fact, do any of the things for which chairs are really designed.
Now when a woman goes to sleep in a chair, she always wakes up cross. All that stuff in romances about kissing the beloved awake in the dear old rose-scented parlour, and about the lids rising sweetly from off loving and happy eyes, is, scientifically considered, pure nonsense. Believe me, if she greets you that way the lady has not been asleep at all, and was waiting for you to do it.
But when she, on the other hand, wakes with a start and opens her eyes so promptly that you step back quickly (having had experience); when she speaks words like these, "Alec, I have a great mind to give you a sound box on the ear—coming waking me up like that, when you know I didn't have more than an hour's good sleep last night!"—this is the genuine article. The lady was asleep that time. The other kind may be pretty enough to read about, but that is its only merit.
It was Nance who spoke first. I heard her drop the scissors and stoop to pick them up. I also gathered from the tone of her first words that she had a pin in her mouth. Yet she goes into a fit if baby tries to imitate her, and wonders where he can learn such habits. This also is incomprehensible.
"Have you left Craignesslin for good?" said Nance, using a foolish expression for which I have often reproved her.
"I am going back," said the Hempie. I am not so well acquainted with thenuancesof the Hempie's voice and habit as I am with those of her sister, but I should say that she was leaning back in her chair with her hands clasped behind her head, and staring contentedly out at the window.
"I thought perhaps the death of the old major would make a difference to you," said Nance. I knew by the mumbling sound that she was biting a thread.
"It does make a difference," said the Hempie, dreamily, "and it will make a greater difference before all be done!"
Nance was silent for a while. I knew she was hurt at her sister's lack of communicativeness. The rocking-chair was suddenly hitched sideways, and the stroking rose from fifty in the minute to about sixty or sixty-five, according, as it were, to the pressure on the boiler.
Still the Hempie did not speak a word.
The rocking-chair was doing a good seventy now—but it was a spurt, and could not last.
"Elizabeth," said Nance, suddenly, "I did not think you could be so mean. I never behaved like this to you."
"No?" said the Hempie, with serene interrogation, but did not move, so far as I could make out. The rocking-chair ceased. There was a pause, painful even to me in my little den. The strain on the other side of the wall must have been enormous.
When Nance spoke it was in a curiously altered voice. It sounded even pleading. I wish the Hempie would teach me her secret.
"Who is it?—tell me, Hempie," said Nance, softly.
I did not catch the answer, though obviously one was given. But the next moment I heard the unbalanced clatter of the abandoned rocker, and then Nance's voice saying: "No, it is impossible!"
Apparently it was not, however, for presently I heard the sound of more than one kiss, and I knew that my dear Mistress Impulsive had her sister in her arms.
"Then you know all about it now, Hempie?"
"All about what?"
"Don't pretend,—about love. You do love him very much, don't you?"
"I don't know. I have never told him so!"
"Hempie!"
"It is true, Nance!"
"Then why have you come home?"
"To get married!" said the Hempie, calmly.
THE HEMPIE'S LOVE STORY
This is the somewhat remarkable story the Hempie told my wife as she sat sewing in the little parlour overlooking the garden, the day Master Alexander McQuhirr, Tertius, cut his first tooth.[#]
[#] This, however, was not discovered till afterwards, and was then acclaimed as the reason why he cried so much on the arrival of his aunt Elizabeth. To his nearest relative on the father's side, however, the young gentleman's performances seemed entirely normal.—A. McQ.
Elizabeth Chrystie was a free-spoken young woman, and she told her tale generally in the English of the schools, but sometimes in the plain countryside talk she had spoken when, a barefoot bare-legged lass, she had scrieved the hills, the companion of every questing collie and scapegrace herd lad, 'twixt the Bennan and the Butt o' Benerick.
"When I first got to Craignesslin," said the Hempie, "I thought I had better turn me about and come right back again. And if it had not been for pride, that is just what I should have done."
"Were they not kind to you?" asked Nance.
"Kind? Oh, kind enough—it was not that. I could easily have put an end to any unkindness by walking over the hill. But I could not. To tell the truth, the place took hold of me from the first hour.
"Craignesslin, you know, is a great house, with many of the rooms unoccupied, sitting high up on the hills, a place where all the winds blow, and where the trees are mostly scrubby scrunts of thorn, turning up their branches like skeleton hands asking for alms, or shrivelled birches and cowering firs all bent away from the west.
"When first I saw the place I thought that I could never bide there a day—and now it looks as if I were going to live there all my life.
"The hired man from the livery stables in Drumfern set my box down on the step of the front door, and drove off as fast as he could. He had a long way before him, he said, the first five miles with not so much as a cottage by the wayside. He meant a public-house.
"He was a rude boor. And when I told him so he only laughed and said: 'For a' that ye'll maybe be glad to see me the next time I come—even if I bring a hearse for ye to ride to the kirkyaird in!'
"And with that he cracked his whip and drove out of sight. I was left alone on the doorstep of the old House of Craignesslin. I looked up at the small windows set deep in the walls. Above one of them I made out the date 1658, and over the door were carven the letters W.F.
"Then I minded the tales my father used to tell in the winter forenights, of Wicked Wat Fergus of Craignesslin, how he used to rise from his bed and blow his horn and ride off to the Whig-hunting with Lag and Heughan, how he kept a tally on his bed-post of the men he had slain on the moors, making a bigger notch all the way round for such as were preachers.
"And while I was thinking all this, I stood knocking for admission. I could not hear a living thing move about the place. The bell would not ring. At the first touch the brass pull came away in my hands, and hung by the wire almost to the ground.
"Yet there was something pleasant about the place too, and if it had not been for the uncanny silence, I would have liked it well enough. The hills ran steeply up on both sides, brown with heather on the dryer knolls, and the bogs yellow and green with bracken and moss. The sheep wandered everywhere, creeping white against the hill-breast or standing black against the skyline. The whaups cried far and near. Snipe whinnied up in the lift. Magpies shot from thorn-bush to thorn-bush, and in the rose-bush by the door-cheek a goldfinch had built her nest.
"Still no one answered my knocking, and at last I opened the door and went in. The door closed of its own accord behind me, and I found myself in a great hall with tapestries all round, dim and rough, the bright colours tarnished with age and damp. There were suits of armour on the wall, old leathern coats, broad-swords basket-hiked and tasselled, not made into trophies, but depending from nails as if they might be needed the next moment. Two ancient saddles hung on huge pins, one on either side of the antique eight-day clock, which ticked on and on with a solemn sound in that still place.
"I did not see a single thing of modern sort anywhere except an empty tin which had held McDowall's Sheep Dip.
"Nance, you cannot think how that simple thing reassured me. I opened the door again and pulled my box within. Then I turned into the first room on the right. I could see the doors of several other rooms, but they were all dark and looked cavernous and threatening as the mouths of cannon.
"But the room to the right was bright and filled with the sunshine from end to end, though the furniture was old, the huge chairs uncovered and polished only by use, and the great oak table in the centre hacked and chipped. From the window I could see an oblong of hillside with sheep coming and going upon it. I opened the lattice and looked out. There came from somewhere far underneath, the scent of bees and honeycombs. I began to grow lonesome and eerie. Yet somehow I dared not for the life of me explore further.
"It was a strange feeling to have in the daytime, and you know, Nance, I used to go up to the muir or down past the kirkyaird at any hour of the night.
"I did not take off my things. I did not sit down, though there were many chairs, all of plain oak, massive and ancient, standing about at all sorts of angles. One had been overturned by the great empty fireplace, and a man's worn riding-glove lay beside it.
"So I stood by the mantelpiece, wondering idly if this could be Major Fergus's glove, and what scuffle there had been in this strange place to overturn that heavy chair, when I heard a stirring somewhere in the house. It was a curious shuffling tread, halting and slow. A faint tinkling sound accompanied it, like nothing in the world so much as the old glass chandelier in the room at Nether Neuk, when we danced in the parlour above.
"The sound of that shuffling tread came nearer, and I grew so terrified, that I think if I had been sure that the way to the door was clear, I should have bolted there and then. But just at that moment I heard the foot trip. There was a muffled sound as of someone falling forward. The jingling sound became momentarily louder than ever, to which succeeded a rasping and a fumbling. Something or someone had tripped over my box, and was now examining it in a blind way.
"I stood turned to stone, with one hand on the cold mantelpiece and the other on my heart to still the painful beating.
"Then I heard the shuffling coming nearer again, and presently the door lurched forward violently. It did not open as an intelligent being would have opened a door. The passage was gloomy without, and at first I saw nothing. But in a moment, out of the darkness, there emerged the face and figure of an old woman. She wore a white cap or 'mutch,' and had a broad and perfectly dead-white face. Her eyes also were white—or rather the colour of china ware—as though she had turned them up in agony and had never been able to get them back again. At her waist dangled a bundle of keys; and that was the reason of the faint musical tinkling I had heard. She was muttering rapidly to herself in an undertone as she shuffled forward. She felt with her hands till she touched the great oaken table in the centre.
"As soon as she had done so, she turned towards the window, and with a much brisker step she went towards it. I think she felt the fresh breeze blow in from the heather. Her groping hand went through the little hinged lattice I had opened. She started back.
"'Who has opened the window?' she said. 'Surely he has not been here! Perhaps he has escaped! Walter—Walter Fergus—come oot!' she cried. 'Ah, I see you, you are under the table!'
"And with surprising activity the blind old woman bent down and scrambled under the table. She ran hither and thither like a cat after a mouse, beating the floor with her hands and colliding with the legs of the table as she did so.
"Once as she passed she rolled a wall-white eye up at me. Nance, I declare it was as if the week-old dead had looked at you!
"Then she darted back to the door, opened it, and with her fingers to her mouth, whistled shrilly. A great surly-looking dog of a brown colour lumbered in.
"'Here, Lagwine, he's lost. Seek him, Lagwine! Seek him, Lagwine!'
"And now, indeed, I thought, 'Bess Chrystie, your last hour is come.' But though the dog must have scented me—nay, though he passed me within a foot, his nose down as if on a hot trail—he never so much as glanced in my direction, but took round the room over the tumbled chairs, and with a dreadful bay, ran out at the door. The old woman followed him, but most unfortunately (or, as it might be, fortunately) at that moment my foot slipped from the fender, and she turned upon me with a sharp cry.
"'Lagwine, Lagwine, he is here! He is here!' she cried.
"And still on all fours, like a beast, she rushed across the floor straight at me. She laid her hand on my shoe, and, as it were, ran up me like a cat, till her skinny hands fastened themselves about my throat. Then I gave a great cry and fainted.
* * * * *
"At least, I must have done so, for when I came to myself a young man was bending over me, with a white and anxious face. He had on velveteen knickerbockers, and a jacket with a strap round the waist.
"'Where is that dreadful old woman?' I cried, for I was still in mortal terror."
"Ishould have died," said Nance. And from the sound of her voice I judged that she had given up the attempt to continue her seam in order to listen to the Hempie's tale, which not the most remarkable exposition of scientific truth on my part could induce her to do for a moment.
"'It's all my fault—all my fault for not being at home to meet the trap,' I heard him murmur, as I sank vaguely back again into semi-unconsciousness. When I opened my eyes I found myself in a pleasant room, with modern furniture and engravings on the wall of the 'Death of Nelson' and 'Washington crossing the Delaware.'
"As soon as I could speak I asked where I was, and if the horrible old woman with the white eyes would come back. The young man did not answer me directly, but called out over his shoulder, 'Mother, she is coming to.'
"And the next moment a placid, comfortable-looking lady entered, with the air of one who has just left the room for a moment.
"'My poor lassie,' she said, bending over me, 'this is a rough home-coming you have got to the house of Craignesslin. But when you are better I will tell you all. You are not fit to hear it now.'
"But I sat up and protested that I was—that I must hear it all at once, and be done with it."
"Of course," cried Nance, "you felt that you could not stay unless you knew. And I would not have stopped another minute—not if they had brought down the Angel Gabriel to explain."
"Not if Alec had been there?" queried the Hempie, smiling.
"Alec!" cried Nance, in great contempt. "Indeed, if Alec had been in such a place, I would have made Alec come away inside of three minutes—yes, and take me with him if he had to carry me out on his back! Stop there for Alec's sake? No fear!"
That is the way my married wife speaks of me behind my back. But, so far as I can see, there is no legal remedy.
"Go on, Hempie; you are dreadfully slow."
"So," continued the Hempie, placidly, "the nice matronly woman bade me lie down on a sofa, and put lavender-water on my head. She petted me as if I had been a baby, and I lay there curiously content—me, Elizabeth Chrystie, that never before let man or woman lay a hand on me——"
"Exactly," said Nance; "was he very nice-looking?"
"Who?"
"The young man in the velveteen suit, of course."
"I don't know what you mean."
"I mean, was he better-looking than Alec?"
"Better-looking than Alec? Why, of course, Alec isn't a bit——"
"Hempie!"
There was a pause, and then, to relieve the strain, the Hempie laughed. "Are you never going to get over it, Nance?"
"Get on with your story, and be sensible." I could hear a thread bitten through.
"So the lady began to talk to me in a quiet hushed tone, like a minister beside a sick bed. She told me how some years ago her poor husband, Major Fergus, had hart a dreadful accident. He was not only disfigured, but the shock had affected his brain.
"'At first,' she said, 'we thought of sending him to an asylum, but we could not find one exactly suited to his case. Besides which, his old nurse, Betty Hearseman, who had always had great influence with him, was wild to be allowed to look after him. She is not quite right in the head herself, but most faithful and kind. She cried out night and day that they were abusing him in the asylum. So at last he was brought here and placed in the old wing of the house, into which you penetrated by misadventure to-day.'
"'But the dog?' I asked; 'do they hunt the patient with a fierce dog like that?'
"'Ah, poor Lagwine,' she sighed, 'he is devoted to his old master. He would not hurt a hair of his head or of anybody's head. Only sometimes, when he finds the door open, my poor Roger will slip out, and then nobody else can find him on these weariful hills.'
"Then I asked her of the younger children whom I had been engaged to teach.
"'They are my grandchildren,' she said; 'you can hear them upstairs.'
"And through the clamour of voices, that of the young man I had seen rang loudest of all.
"'They are playing with their father?' I said.
"She shook her head. 'They are the children of my daughter Isobel,' she said. 'She married Captain Fergus, of the Engineers, her own cousin, and died on her way out to the West Indies. So Algernon brought them home, and here they are settled on us. And what with my husband's wastefulness before he was laid aside, and the poor rents of the hill farms nowadays, I know not what we shall do. Indeed, if it were not for my dear son Harry we could not live. He takes care of everything, and is most scrupulous and saving.'
"So when she had told me all this, I lay still and thought. And the lady's hand went slower and slower across my head till it ceased altogether.
"'I cannot expect you to remain with us after this, Miss Chrystie,' she said, 'and yet I know not what I shall do without you. I think we should have loved one another.'
"I told her that I was not going away—that I was not afraid at all.
"'But, to tell you the truth, my dear,' she said, 'I do not rightly see where your wages are to come from.'
"'That does not matter in the least, if I like the place in other ways,' I said to her."
"He must beverygood-looking!" interjected Nance.
"So I told her I would like to see the children. She went up to call them, and presently down they came—a girl of six and a little boy of four. They had been having a rough-and-tumble, and their hair was all about their faces. So in a little we were great friends. They went up to the nursery with their grandmother, and I was following more slowly, when all at once, Harry—I mean the young man—came hurrying in, carrying a tray. He had an apron tied about him, and the bottom hem of it was tucked into the string at the waist. As soon as he saw me he blushed, and nearly dropped the tray he was carrying. I think he expected me to laugh, but I did not——"
"Of course not," coincided Nance, with decision.
"I just opened the top drawer in the sideboard and took out the cloth and spread it, while he stood with the tray still in his arms, not knowing, in his surprise, what to do with it.
"'I thought you had gone upstairs with my mother,' he said. 'Old John Hearseman is out on the hill with the lambs, and we have no other servants except the children's little nurse.'
"And so—and so," said the Hempie, falteringly, "that is how it began."
I could hear a little scuffle—which, being interpreted, meant that Nance had dropped her workbasket and sewing on the floor in a heap and had clasped her sister in her arms.
"Darling, cry all you want to!" My heart would know that tone through six feet of kirkyard mould—aye, and leap to answer it.
"I am not crying—I don't want to cry." It was the Hempie's voice, but I had never heard it sound like that before. Then it took a stronger tone, with little pauses where the tears were wiped away.
"And I found out that night from the children how good he was—how helpful and strong. He had to be out before break of day on the hills after the sheep. Often, with a game-bag over his shoulder, he would bring in all that there was for next day's dinner. Then when Betsy, the small maid, was busy with his mother, he would bath Algie and Madge, and put them to bed. For Mrs. Fergus, though a kind woman in her way, had been accustomed all her life to be waited on, and accepted everything from her son's hands without so much as 'Thank you.'
"So I did not say a word, but got up early next morning and went downstairs. And what do you think I found that blessed Harry doing—blacking my boots!"
There was again a sound like kissing and quiet crying, though I cannot for the life of me tell why there should have been. Perhaps the women who read this will know. And then the Hempie's voice began again, striving after its kind to be master of itself.
"So, of course, what could I do when his father died? He and I were with him night and day. For Betty Hearseman being blind could not handle him at all, and Harry's mother was of no use. Indeed, we did not say anything to alarm her till the very last morning. No, I cannot tell even you, Nance what it was like. But we came through it together. That is all."
Nance had not gone back to her sewing. So I could not make out what was her next question. It was spoken too near the Hempie's ear. But I heard the answer plainly enough.
"A month next Wednesday was what we thought of. It ought to be soon, for the children's sake, poor little things."
"Oh, yes," echoed Nance, meaningly, "for the children's sake, of course."
The Hempie ignored the tone of this remark.
"Harry is having the house done up. The old part is to be made into a kitchen. Old John and Betty Hearseman are to have a cottage down the glen."
"And you are to be all alone," cried Nance, clapping her hands, "with only the old lady to look after. That will be like playing at house."
"Yes," said the Hempie, ironically, "it would—without the playing. Oh no, I am going to have a pair of decent moorland lasses to train to my ways, and Harry will have a first-rate herd to help him on the hill."
Then she laughed a little, very low, to herself.
"The best of it is that he still thinks I am poor," she said. "I have never told him about mother's money, and I mean to ask father to give me as much as he gave you and Grace."
"Of course," said Nance, promptly. "I'll come up and help you to make him."
There was a cheerful prospect in front of Mr. Peter Chrystie, of Nether Neuk, if he did not put his hand in his breeches' pocket to some purpose.
"Will Alec let you come?" queried the Hempie, doubtfully. "He will miss you."
"Oh, I'll tell him it is for the sake of baby's health," said Nance; "and, besides, husbands are all the better for being left alone occasionally. They are so nice when they get you back again."
"What!" cried the Hempie, "you don't mean to say that Alec has fits of temper? I never would have believed it of him."
"Hush!" said Nance. There was again that irritating whispered converse, from which emerged the Hempie's clear voice:
"Oh, but my Harry will never be like that."
"Wait—only wait," said Nance. "Hempie, they are all alike. And besides, they write you such nice letters when they are away. I suppose you get one every day? Yes, of course. What, he walks six miles over the hill to post it? That is nice of him. Alec once came all the way from Edinburgh, and went back the next day, just because he thought I was cross with him——"
"Oh, but my Harry never, never——"
(Left speaking.)