CHAPTER XIII
MEYSIE'S BAIRNS
At the time I had no idea how difficult this would be. But at any rateI wanted to find out for certain what it was that I had found. Hecould give me no other answer than that I would know in good time, andthat in the meantime we were going to old Caleb Fergusson's for tea.
Now I make no objections to tea at any time--that is, a propersit-down, spread-table, country tea--not one of those agonies at whichyou do tricks with a cup of tea, a plate, the edge of a chair, and asnippet of bread. I knew that at the Fergusson's I would find plentyto eat and drink.
We slid back through the woods, rising higher all the time as the landtrended toward the moor. Then out and away across the road I could seefar away to the right the roofs of Breckonside, shining like silverafter a shower which must have passed over them, the winding BromWater, the threaded roads, pale pink in colour, the dry stone dykesdividing the fields. Never had my native village seemed so small tome. Perhaps because I had just been in some considerable danger, athing which enlarges the mental horizon. I looked for Elsie's housedown there. But though I could see the silver glint of the water, Icould not make out the cottage at the Bridge End. There was a mist,however, creeping up from the sea, so that in a little while, even as Ilooked, the whole valley became a pearl-grey lake, with only the tallash trees and the solitary church spire standing up out of the smother.
We found old Caleb, an infrequent smile on his face, leaning over thebars of his yard gate.
"Them that hasna their hay weel covered," he chuckled, "runs a chanceo' gettin' it sprinkled a wee!"
"Then," said Mr. Ablethorpe, "you owe me something for the afternoon'swork I gave you!"
"Yon!" cried the old man, ungratefully, "caa ye that half a day's wark?But I'm far frae denyin' that, sic as it was, it helped. Ow, ay, itwas aye a help! And at ony rate the hay's under cover--somethack-and-rape, and some in the new-fangled shed. But what's yourwull? Ye are no seekin' wages, I'm thinkin'. Maybe ye want me to turnmy coat and come doon to your bit tabernacle? Aweel, ye may want."
"Oh, no," said Mr. Ablethorpe, smiling. "I was just hoping thatperhaps your good wife would brew us a cup of tea. I think both Joeand I would be the better of it."
You should have seen how the old farmer's face lit up. Hospitality wasa beautiful thing to him. He rejoiced in that, at least. And if, assome folk say--not Mr. Ablethorpe--an elder is the same as a bishop,then the old Free Kirker had at least one of the necessary qualities.He was "given to hospitality." Whether he was, as is also required,"no striker," I would not just like to say, or to try.
But Caleb took us indoors out of the slight oncoming drizzle, which wasbeginning to spray down from the clouds, or creep up from thevalleys--I am not sure which. At any rate, it was there,close-serried, wetting.
Now heretofore I had only seen Mrs. Caleb when she was ordered downfrom the long stack under the zinc-roofed shed, which her husband wasnever tired of declaiming against as "new-fangled," yet to which heowed that night the safety of his crop.
Mrs. Caleb was a good twenty years younger than her lord, still,indeed, bearing traces of that special kind of good looks which theScots call "sonsiness." Susan Fergusson at five-and-forty was sonsy tothe last degree. Her husband, twenty years older, was sun-dried andwind-dried and frost-bitten till he had become sapless as a leaf blownalong the highway on a bask March day, when the fields are full ofsowers, and the roads cloudy with "stoor."
"Come ben! This way, sir--and you, too, Joe," she cried, opening adoor into an inner room, "ye will no hae seen Meysie's bairns?"
As I had never even heard of Meysie, I certainly had not.
But the goodwife's next words enlightened me.
"Caleb, ye see, was marriet afore he took up wi' me. 'Deed, his lassieMeysie is maybe aulder than I am mysel'--and a solit, sensible woman.But this is the first time her bairns hae comed sae far to see me!"
She flung the door open, and there, sitting one on a sofa, and theother on a footstool by the fire, I saw two grown-up young ladies--soat least they appeared to me. And I began to fear that my tea wasgoing to cost me dear. For at that time conversation was a difficultart to me with anyone whom I could neither fight nor call names.
The girls--twenty or twenty-two they seemed--oh, ever so old--lookedjust as if they had been doing nothing. That is, the one with thestraight-cut face, very dignified, who made a kind of long droopypicture of herself on the sofa, was reading a book, or pretending to,while the other on the stool did nothing but nurse her knees and lookout at the window.
That was the one I liked best, though, of course, not like Elsie--Ishould think not, indeed. But she was little, she had a merry face,and I am sure she had been laughing just before we came in. Indeed, Iam none so sure that she had not been listening at the keyhole and madea rush for the footstool.
"Bairns," said Mrs. Caleb the Second, "this is the Englishy minister,and a kind friend o' us auld folk. Though Caleb, your gran'dad, gieshim awfu' spells o' argumentincation aboot things I ken nocht aboot!'Deed, I wonder whiles that Maister Ablethorpe ever looks near usagain!"
"Oh, no," said the Hayfork Minister, smiling, "it takes two to make anargument, and I never argue with Mr. Fergusson. I only receiveinstruction, as a younger from an elder!"
"Hear to him," cried the goodwife, "he doesna mean a word he issayin'--I can aye tell by the glint in his e'e."
Then she introduced the girls in due form. One, the tall tired-lookinggirl on the sofa, was Constantia, and the little merry one was namedHarriet. To my great astonishment they were of the same age, beingtwins.
It seemed as if I were to be left out altogether, but Harriet lookedacross at me and asked demurely if I were going to be a minister, too.
She was making fun of me, of course, and that is what I do not allowany girl to do. Only Elsie, and she is really too serious to abuse theprivilege--not like this Harriet. I could see in a minute that she wasa regular magpie--a "clip," as they say in Breckonside.
Meanwhile, Constantia did not say very much. She gave Mr. Ablethorpeher hand as if she were doing him a valuable kindness. And at this Icould hear her sister gurgle. The next minute, Harriet was on herfeet, and, taking me by the shoulder, she said: "Come on, Joe--Joe isyour name, isn't it? That's good, for it's just the name I like bestof all boys' names. Come on and help Susan Fergusson to get tea."That was the way she spoke of her grandmother--off-hand and kindly,with a glint of fun more in the manner than in the words.
"What's your other name?" I asked, because I did not like to call herHarriet so suddenly. Besides, I did not know how Elsie might take toall this. I was sure they would like one another no end. Because theywere both the same kind of girl--jolly, so that almost any boy couldget on with them. At least, that was what I thought at the time, notknowing any better.
"Caw," she said; "that is my name; same as a crow says 'Caw--Caw--Caw!'You needn't be surprised, I couldn't help it being my father's name.But it's short, and if you should forget it, you have only to go outand stand beneath a rookery, and you'll remember it in a minute. Thatis, unless you are deaf."
Then I told Harriet Caw my name, Joseph Yarrow, which she thoughtfunny. And she gave me bread to cut while she stood by me and butteredit--doing everything so quickly, and talking all the time, that indeedit was very nice. And I wished Elsie had been there to laugh atHarriet's jokes, which seemed very funny to me then. But, oh, howstupid and feeble they seemed when I came to tell them to Elsie after!And Elsie wasn't a bit amused, as I had hoped. Girls hardly ever seemto get on with other girls as a fellow thinks they will. It isdifferent with men. Now I got on first-class with Mr. Ablethorpe, evenwhen I thought--but it's no matter about that now.
Well, it was a tea! The table was loaded from one end to the other.There were soda scones, light and hove up so as to make your teethwater. There were farrels of oat-cake, crisp and curly, with just theproper amount of browning on the side where the red ashes of the
firehad toasted it. Four or five kinds of jams there were, all better onethan the other. Old Caleb came in and ate quickly, sermonizing Mr.Ablethorpe all the time, and as long as he was there we were all asquiet as mice. But I am sure everyone was glad when he rose, tumbledthings about on the window seat in search of his blue bonnet (whichonly he of all the countryside still wore), and finally went out to thehill. Before going he warned us to behave and to remember that, _suchas he was_, we had one who deemed himself a minister among us.
But as soon as we were alone, up jumped Harriet Caw, and catching meround the waist, she cried, "Dance, Joseph--dance, Joe! He's gone.Never mind Granny Susan. She does not count!"
That was actually the way she spoke of her grandmother--orstep-grandmother, rather. And, indeed, that good lady only laughed,and, shaking her head at the minister, repeated, what I afterwardsfound to be her favourite maxim--that "young folk would be young folk."The philosophy of which was that they would get over it all too soon.
The Hayfork Minister nodded back to Susan, and I was not sorry to seehim (as I thought) much taken up with the picture-book girl, as in myheart I called Constantia. For in our house at home, up in the attic,there are a lot of old "Annuals" and "Keepsakes"--oh, I don't know howold, all in faded watered-silk covers loose at the back--some faded andsome where the colour has run, but choke full of pictures of scenery,all camels and spiky palms and humpy camels, with "Palmyra" and"Carthage" written beneath time about. But these are not half bad,though deadly alike. The weary parts are the pictures ofgirls--leaning out of windows before they have done their washing andhair-brushing in the morning. I should just like to see my fathercatch them at it. That was called "Dreaming of Thee." And there werelots of others. "Sensibility" was a particularly bad one. She wasspread all over a sofa, and had a canary on her finger. She had savedit from a little snappy-yappy spaniel--only just, for two tail featherswere floating down. And there were two big dewdrops of tears on hercheeks to show how sorry she was for the canary bird--or, perhaps, forthe spaniel.
Anyway, it was the only time I ever really liked a spaniel.
Well, I needn't describe the others. At any rate, if you've ever seenthe "Keepsake" kind of young women, you won't have forgotten them. Youwill cherish a spite, especially if you have had to stay in one roomand choose between looking at them and flattening your nose against thewindow-panes, down which the water is running in big blobs, during aweek of wet holiday weather.
Constantia was a "Keepsake" girl.
I suppose it must be, as it is with snakes. Some like them and somenot. I don't. But I will never deny (not being, like Elsie, a girl)that Constantia was good looking. If (and the Lord have mercy on yoursoul!) you really liked that sort of thing, Constantia was just thesort of thing you would like.