left to her. Indeed no; it was a case of constant watching to see that
she didn’t give the candy away to any red-cheeked bairn that pushed his
nose against the window. Things had come to such a pass one day that
she had even caught her putting her thumb on the weight side of the
scales right under her very eyes, and she had barely prevented her from
giving the Fraser bairn three half-penny’s worth of butterscotch for his
half-penny.
It was the like of _this_ which proved that Sally Ann was not fit to
serve the public, and that finally persuaded her to don her black satin
gown and serve the candy herself. It was a sorry down-come that the widow
of an insurance man, with a brass plate on his door, should be serving
candy to any wet-nosed bairn that had a half-penny to spend; but the
black satin gown made it bearable. And even the like of Skilly’s Gype,
that carried a high head and an impudent tongue in it, had been impressed
by the gold locket, and remarked that it “dootless had cost a bonnie
penny”; and when he ordered a pair of knitted gloves, he asked if she
would _mind_ knitting them in a heather mixture color; so it wasn’t as if
they didn’t _know_ that she was above such doings.
It had been a bitter privation to give up the front parlor and turn
it into a shop where all and sundry could come to geek and glower;
and harder still to take the lace curtains off the window and fill it
with pans of candy. She didn’t want to do it, but Sally Ann had been
determined about this; she had even gone the length of saying: “It’s no
secret that we’re sellin’ candy, mither.” That wasn’t like Sally Ann, she
was unreasonable and feckless like the father of her, but it was seldom
that she was impudent.
Sally Ann turned out to be very notional about the window. She thought
it was a tasty-like arrangement to have the woolen gloves knitted the
same color as the candy, and hang the pink gloves above the pink candy,
and the red above the red. But everybody kept crying for navy blue and
heather mixture gloves, and try as she would, Sally Ann couldn’t make
heather mixture candy, and when she did manage to make _something_ like
it, it was so queasy-looking that the bairns wouldn’t buy it.
So there hung the pink gloves and the red, and the green and white ones
that matched the peppermint rock, and nobody would buy them. But Sally
Ann didn’t care. They charmed her eye, and she excused them to herself
and to her mother by saying: “We have t’ look on ’t as necessary oot-lay
t’ decorate the winda. It lets them ken we sell gloves as weel as candy.”
She banked the back of the window up with pink and red geraniums, and
sometimes in the quiet of the morning, she would steal out to the middle
of the street and take a sly look at it, coming back to say guilelessly:
“It’s unco bonnie, mither, I hae the real knack o’ trimmin’ a winda.”
But Mistress MacIntosh would only sigh, and her sigh would mean: “T’
think that I hae come t’ _this_!” It made Sally Ann feel guilty, as if
somehow in selling candy, she were also selling her mother’s pride, bit
by bit in paper bags; and she would take tentie[21] steps on the edges
of her feet the rest of the morning, and speak to her mother only in
compassionate whispers.
There was something gleyed[22] about Sally Ann. She had started to be a
perfect copy of her mother, and then lost heart. Her prominent brows were
made to be heavily marked with dark eyebrows, but instead, each hovered
naked as an unstroked T above a timid, vague blue eye. Her shoulders had
the challenging set of her mother’s, and her dominant cheek-bones were
molded by the same firm hand, but her hair was the yellow of a mavis’
breast, and her ways were shy and tender, as if some essence of her
gentle father had crept by mistake into the wrong casket.
In the shelter of her room as she braided her hair by the candle-light,
Sally Ann would dream rash and glowing dreams of flashing lovers who
would not be denied. Or walking alone in the bracken-scented gloaming,
she would thrill in sweet enchantment at the thought of some bold
gallant, riding down the lane to clasp her wildly to his breast.
But it was only in her dreams that she was brave enough to lift eyes to
them; for the very approach of a man made her wits fly two ways at once
in a frenzy of embarrassment. Before her sister died, leaving her to
provide for the family, she had been steeped to the lips in mortification
at her mother’s constant angling after a man for her. She liked it better
the way it was now, with her mother on the watch to prevent her seeing
any man who might want to marry her. There was more room for self-respect
in that; although in truth, as she told herself ruefully, her mother had
no need to watch; the gallants of Drumorty took little heed of _her_,
they hankered after quick-eyed saucy lasses that were loud in their
laughing, and free at tossing gibe for gibe.
Sally Ann also hated the “church socials” at which she would perch
nervously on the edge of a chair, with a strained smile to show that
she was enjoying herself. As she sat hour after hour watching the lads
petitioning smiles from other lasses, but with never an eye for _her_,
she would seem to herself to get smaller and smaller and quieter and more
gray with every passing hour, until she would think that she had become
invisible, and would relax her effort to smile; but then her mother would
nudge her, whispering impatiently: “Dinna sit there wi’ a face that would
sour milk; there’s nae lad likes a dour-faced lass.” And she would pick
up her smile again and wear it dutifully the rest of the evening.
Each time she would plead to stay at home, saying that sitting so long
gave her a stiff neck, as indeed it did; but her mother insisted, and
somehow managed to prove that it was some unnatural ingratitude in Sally
Ann that made her not want to go.
But all that was changed now. Far from urging her to go, Mistress
MacIntosh even contrived to have “a sinkin’ aboot her heart” every time
there were any social doings, so that Sally Ann had to stay at home and
tend her. She even kept her from going to serve the customers in the
front parlor, except on those rare occasions when the water on her knee
made her a cripple. And she believed that Sally Ann was content, and
would never give marrying a thought unless some man came troubling her
with his haverings.
It was a Monday morning when Sally Ann made all the treacle candy for the
week. She always pulled it on a big hook in the front parlor, and because
customers might come in, she wore her sky-blue print gown fresh from the
ironing.
“Here’s Skilly’s Gype ridin’ doon the brae, the dirt flyin’ o’er his head
as if auld Nick were at his heels,” commented Mistress MacIntosh. “He’ll
be after his gloves, an’ them barely cast on yet. Tak’ the candy ben the
hoose, Sally Ann; ye’ll no’ be wantin’ t’ hae speech wi’ the like o’ him.”
“I canna, mither,” Sally Ann protested. “I hae t’ pull it when it’s at
_this_ heat, or I’ll hae t’ heat it o’er again.”
“Weel then, turn yer back on him, and dinna let on ye ken he’s here.”
“He’ll think I’m deaf,” said Sally Ann with a flustered giggle. Her heart
was capering queerly at the nearing clatter of hoofs.
“Better think ye deaf than think ye wanton,” warned her mother, bracing
herself against the Gype’s arrival by feeling if her lace cap was
straight.
He came in like a hurricane and was filling the parlor to the ceiling
before Sally Ann had time to catch up with her heart. Everything about
him, from his checked yellow waistcoat to his crinkling red hair bespoke
achievement and the poise and pride that comes of it.
Ten years ago they had called him daft-like, and nicknamed him “Skilly’s
Gype,” and had cried down scorn upon him at market and meeting-place
because he had come back from Aberdeen University with new-fangled
notions about farming. And the worthies had held their sides when he put
a roller over his newly sprouted oats; and loud had been their clamor
over the “tiled bathrooms for his Jersey cows.” This was when he put a
tiled gutter and running water in byre. But the derision had died out
when his oats and Jerseys robbed them of the best county prizes; and
though they called him “the Gype” still, and cracked their jokes about
his waistcoats, there was not one of them above stepping up to Skilly
Farm on a dark evening to ask him for a little advice. And now that “Auld
Skilly” was dead, and the Gype owned the farm, the lassies were fairly on
tiptoe at his approach and angling to catch him with every wile, as much
for the fine figure of a man he was, as for the grand farmhouse and byre
full of Jerseys.
But he had a high-handed way with them, and never went so far forward
that he couldn’t step back, for he was not minded to be married for his
Jersey cows, and indeed, he was not minded to be married at all while
there were willing red lips to be kissed and new waists to be circled in
Drumorty.
He included Sally Ann in his hearty “Guid day t’ ye,” but minding her
mother’s warning, she didn’t turn round. Indeed, she _couldn’t_ have
turned round, in such a flurry was she. The sound of his horse’s hoofs
had made her heart float out of her, and for the moment he was strangely
mixed up with the lover of her dreams, whose horse’s hoofs also sprayed
the sod behind him in his haste to reach her side.
“Yer gloves are no’ but just cast on yet,” Mistress MacIntosh was saying
discouragingly.
But the Gype was leaning far over the counter to attract Sally Ann.
“How long will I hae t’ wait t’ get some o’ the candy ye’re pullin’, Miss
MacIntosh?”
Her mother made answer, cutting off his view of Sally Ann. “We hae lots
o’ treacle candy all ready in the winda. How much wad ye be wantin’?”
“But I’m minded t’ hae some o’ the fresh,” he answered, stepping round
the short counter to Sally Ann’s side. Seeing him, she missed the hook,
and the candy would have fallen had he not deftly grabbed it and tossed
it upon the hook again.
“It’s sticky stuff, that,” he laughed, taking out his handkerchief to
wipe his fingers. Sally Ann smiled shyly up at him.
“It’s the verra color o’ yer hair,” he said, contemplating her. “Only
it’s no’ so bonnie as yer hair.”
“Yer horse is scarin’ at something,” said Mistress MacIntosh with a
clinking chill in her voice. “Better tend t’ yer ain business and let
the lassie tend t’ hers. She wants none o’ yer haverin’, keep that for
Bransbog’s lassies that hae nothing better t’ do than listen t’ the like
o’ ye.”
“Mither!” cried Sally Ann reproachfully.
“Dinna ‘Mither’ me,” snapped Mistress MacIntosh. “Gae ben the hoose as I
tel’t ye in the first place.”
“Mither—” began Sally again.
“Na, noo,” remonstrated the Gype. “I’ll no’ tak’ a bite oot o’ the lass.”
He put out a hand to detain Sally Ann, but, obeying a commanding signal
from her mother, she had the candy from the hook and was through the door
like a frightened squirrel.
“Be steppin’ yer way, ma mannie,” said Mistress MacIntosh with withering
patronage.
The Gype loitered. “I’ll tak’ a pound o’ candy first.” He was not minded
to go at Mistress MacIntosh’s bidding; it pleased him to make her drop
her triumphant air and reach down groaningly to the shelf under the
counter for a bag of candy.
“Noo,” he said, with the devil dancing in his face, “present it t’ Miss
MacIntosh wi’ my compliments an’ tell her frae me that I’d tak’ her
walkin’ if she didna hae such an ill-natured mither.”
“Awa’, ye impudent bletherskate, an’ tak’ yer candy wi’ ye. I’ll break
her twa legs afore I let her tak’ a step wi’ the like o’ ye.”
“We’ll see aboot that,” he mocked. “Tell her I’ll be in by on my way home
t’ kiss her guid night.”
“Awa’!” Mistress MacIntosh was too angry for further speech. “Na, ye’ll
no leave it here,” she cried as he pushed the candy back at her, and
hurried laughing from the shop, banging the door so hard that the glass
bell that covered the wax flowers on the mantel, jarred loose and crashed
to the floor. She hurried round the counter as fast as her stiff knee
would let her, intending to throw his candy after him, but as she heard
the thud of departing hoofs, she stopped to consider it. After all, it
was a shilling’s worth of candy and it had been paid for; and she could
sell it again and never let on to Sally Ann; and forby that, she would
charge him for the broken bell the next time he came in.
The Gype went thudding down the street, scattering the sod along the
gutter-side as he went, and laughing in appreciation of his own wit. Then
he bethought him of Sally Ann and his threat to kiss her good night. He
hadn’t meant it at the time. But why should he not? He was surprised
that he hadn’t noticed before how bonnie her hair was. And she had a
soft-like look in her eyes that was unco becoming in a young lass. He
recalled the rustling cleanness of her starched blue gown. He liked that
in a lass. His mother had always said it was an ill sign when a woman
could bear to be aught but spotless. She was wont to say: “Dirt on the
sark[23] is a sign o’ dirt on the soul.” And he believed her words to
be true, although he had often found her too clean for comfort when she
would follow him through the house with a besom[24] and a duster, crying
out upon him for a worthless clout that kept her cleaning from morning
to night. Nevertheless he felt it was a failing that brought her all the
nearer to the kingdom of Heaven; and somehow his heart could never center
for long on a lass who was not “persnickety” about dirt. There had been a
chorus-girl in Aberdeen who could keep him waiting by the hour, and who
had even made him miss a class or two to humor her; but a glimpse of her
grimy chemise showing at the neck of her dress had cured him of that.
You could tell that Sally Ann was clean right to her skin; and how white
her skin was, almost blue-white, like milk that had been skimmed. It
would not be a very sore trial to have to kiss Sally Ann! He grinned at
that. How would she take it? She would like it, of course. She would
pretend that she didn’t, but she _would_. He knew his worth too well
to doubt that. Doubtless she would be proud and brag about it. He must
watch, though. No use letting a lass think fun was more than fun. Lasses
had a way of seeing wedding rings and the like—queer how the least thing
could set them thinking that way. It would be wise to make it clear to
begin with—that was the best way.
Then he wondered who came courting Sally Ann. There was sure to be
somebody, for all her quietness. His mother had often said that the
quiet ones were the worst. She had been a wise woman, his mother. Maybe
Sally Ann knew a lot more than she was minded to let people see. She
had given him a look, shy-like up out of the corner of her eyes. There
had been encouragement in it, for all it was shy and soft-like. Oh, she
was no guileless lamb, blush though she may. It might well be that she
was as free with her kisses as Bransbog’s lasses, for all her mousey
ways. Doubtless she was expecting him this very minute, and thinking him
blate[25] that he hadn’t ridden round to the back of the house as soon
as he left the shop. And why hadn’t he? Dullard that he was, to keep a
lass waiting! He wheeled his horse about, his mouth widening roguishly.
“All right, Sally Ann. I’m no’ one t’ keep a lass waitin’ for a kiss. My
mither always tel’t me I must be obligin’ wi’ the women-folk.”
Sally Ann dumped the candy back in the pan, and took her flushed cheeks
out to the back yard. Her heart needed more room to beat. She was
dismayed by the pother it was making, and looked round for some sane
thing to do with her hands. Something to steady her.
A bag of oats for the chickens stood near. She noticed for the first
time that rust had made little holes in the tin basin, and she found
herself trying to push a kernel of oats through one of the holes. “Fine
nonsense,” she scolded, stopping herself. “Fine nonsense, this,” and with
reproving haste she filled the basin and took it down to the henhouse,
although it was unheard of and witless to give chickens their evening
meal at ten in the morning. She stood scattering the oats before the
lackadaisical hens and wondering at herself that she could be so mazed by
the Gype.
“It’s no’ as if I thought he meant a word o’ ’t,” she reasoned. “And what
did he say, but that my hair is the color o’ the candy, which is nothing
but the bare truth. Fine nonsense, this, to fash mysel’ o’er a bare
civility.”
She barely heard the Gype ride up to the hedge when he vaulted over
it, high-headed, thinking she was waiting there for him. He swaggered
approaching her, his cap far back upon his head, his lip lifted in
amusement over his glistening teeth.
Expecting some coquettish resistance, he lunged toward her and circled
her tightly with his arms. The pan slipped from her hands and rolled away.
Sally Ann, crushed against his breast, lay quiet. This was her dream as
she had dreamed it. This was love. This was her lover come to claim her.
A tide of sweetness welled up to her eyes.
Her quietness surprised the Gype, who would have understood better if she
had given him a clout on the ear.
He looked down at her quince-colored head lying bright against the rough
gray of his coat.
“She’s a bonnie lass,” he jested to himself. “It would be ill-done to
disappoint her.” He felt for her chin and raised her scarcely resisting
face. She looked up at him timidly; tears darkened her yellow lashes.
In alarm the Gype relaxed his hold. “This is a bonnie business,” he
reflected irritably. “Devil take me for a witless lout to meddle wi’ her.
She’ll hae me walkin’ down the aisle to the altar afore I’ve time t’ draw
my breath.”
He would have taken his arms away, but Sally Ann leaned helplessly
against him. He was thinking of escape when a smile flickered across her
tear-wet face. This reassured him. So she wasn’t blaming him. Maybe she
wasn’t taking him as seriously as he had feared. Some women cried for
nothing, and meant nothing by it.
His arms closed about her again and his arrogant lips covered her warm
mouth. Its willingness bewildered and conquered him. His emotions took a
new color, his arms about her were more gentle and his lips sought her
kisses with greater tenderness. He thought how soft and small she was
against his breast, and how foolish she was to trust him so. He must warn
her of that. A man might well think her wanton to be so free.
Sally Ann turned her face against his shoulder, a gentle sobbing
fluttered in her throat, her small round body drooping in his arms.
Seeing her so helpless, he thought he understood, and a bitter shame
smote his heart. He had frightened her! Frightened her so that she was
powerless to resist him. He had thought her free; had thought her willing
for his kisses, and all the time the poor lass had been too mazed to cry
out against him. Oh, prideful popinjay that he was, he had frightened the
lass out of her wits, and now she was crying as if the heart of her would
break in two.
“Oh, Sally Ann,” he cried, “I didna mean t’ fright ye so. Dinna
greet,[26] dinna greet, my wee lamb. I’m a lout that’s no’ worth the
hangin’, but I’d bake on a griddle afore I’d do aught t’ harm ye, Sally
Ann.”
She stopped sobbing, wondering at the trouble in his broad flushed face.
“Yer no’ a lout,” she said, ignoring all his protestations save that one.
Eager to drive away the signs of weeping, he was daubing awkwardly at her
face with his red-spotted handkerchief. But more tears kept falling, for
Sally Ann was so full of happiness it _had_ to overflow.
“Sally Ann,” came shrilly from the house.
“My mither,” cried Sally Ann, and her eyes became alert. “She’ll flay me
alive.”
“Wait,” begged the Gype, staying her as she started toward the house.
“Will ye meet me at gloamin’? Come along the Bracken Lane. I’ll be
waitin’, Sally Ann.”
“I canna.”
“Ye can. I’ll be waitin’,” he urged, releasing her struggling hand as the
cry from the house rang again more insistent.
“I canna,” and she darted away.
He watched her as she ran unsteadily along the cobble path between the
rows of boxwood, and when the last pale blue glimmer of her was lost in
the shadow of the doorway he went soberly out by the gate and found his
horse.
It was a day of mazement past all telling. What pans of candy were left
to burn. What pails of water left to overflow. What questions left
without answer. Well might Mistress MacIntosh cry out upon her for a
heedless limmer. No warlock upon the moors at evening ever went its way
with less direction than did Sally Ann. At gloaming she sought her room
beneath the thatch, brushing her hair with hands that flew aimlessly and
got tangled. And when at last she was ready, dressed in her Sunday best
taken by stealth from the kist on the stair landing, she found that no
feet of hers could take her one step from the shelter of her room.
Could _she_ go boldly down the lane to meet a lad at evening time? Could
_she_ walk up to him with lightsome words upon her lips as he stood
waiting there? Oh, no, she could not. Lasses there were that could go
with high heads and light laughing, and go, and go again. But _she_ could
not. Trysts in the gloaming were not for her.
She sat down upon her chair again, contemplating herself in the blistered
glass between the candle-sticks. Oh, to be broad-hipped and glib-tongued
like Bransbog’s lasses; to toss a lightsome head when lads were havering;
to swing by in rustling petticoats, confident that they were admiring.
Oh, to be _anybody_ but Sally Ann MacIntosh, so that the Gype might love
her. Oh, to _know_ that he loved her, so that she might be bold enough to
go to him!
And what had made her believe that the like of the Gype, proud footed as
he was, could love Sally Ann MacIntosh? What folly was it that made her
think that he was waiting for her now? Why would the Gype, sought as he
was by every lass in Drumorty, why would the Gype love her?
Oh, it was well she had come to her senses! Fine food for laughter it
would be if she walked down the lane to meet the Gype; fine food for
laughter if she found him there with Bransbog’s lassie, waiting to see
her come; or with the MacKenty lass that had so sharp a tongue. Well was
it, that her feet were wiser than her head and kept her home where none
could see her folly. She began to undo the black ribbon at her neck,
which was clasped by the brooch of twisted gold.
By sunset the Gype had reasoned with himself that no lass could cry over
a kiss of his. The little limmer had tricked him, had made him go further
than he meant. Oh, well, he was not unwilling to make her happy for a
time. She was a bonnie wee lass. He turned his horse into the Bracken
Lane with a sense that he was being very kind to Sally Ann. He had come
early, for he knew that in her eagerness to see him again she would think
gloaming had come when the sun had barely set and it would not be the
gallant thing to keep her waiting. He was pleased with himself. He liked
to make a lass happy.
Dismounting, he found a place to tie his horse, not so near that every
passer-by could see it from the road, for he was not minded to be
explaining to Bransbog’s lass, nor to Janet MacKenty whose tongue was
keen, nor even to Mary MacIntyre, though _she_ would never reproach him;
but it was hard to bear with her when she sat with tight lips and looked
past him as if seeing warlocks. A lass had many ways of making a man
itch to slap her. He sat where he could see Sally Ann approaching, and
measured with his eye just where her head would come as she turned the
corner by the sweetbrier rose-bush. It got darker and he had to change
his seat in order to see the road. He had been wrong to think that she
would come early. Of course she would come late. They always did for the
first tryst. Lasses were so retiring to begin with, and so demanding at
the finish. He wished that they worked the other way, it would save him
many a weary hour. It was getting murky and thick and well past gloaming.
Sally Ann could come now without any blame of being hasty at a tryst.
Doubtless she was on her way. Little limmer to keep him waiting so. But
clever little limmer!