"DARK-BROWED EGYPT."
As soon as Jess was by herself in the empty byre, to which she
withdrew herself with the parcel which the faithful and
trustworthy Cuif had entrusted to her, she lit the lantern which
always stood in the inside of one of the narrow triangular wickets
that admitted light into the byre. Sitting down on the small hay
stall, she pulled the packet from her pocket, looked it carefully
over, and read the simple address, "In care of Margaret Kissock."
There was no other writing upon the outside.
Opening the envelope carefully, he let the light of the byre
lantern rest on the missive. It was written in a delicate but
strong handwriting--the hand of one accustomed to forming the
smaller letters of ancient tongues into a current script. "To
Mistress Winifred Charteris," it ran. "Dear Lady: That I have
offended you by the hastiness of my words and the unforgivable
wilfulness of my actions, I know, but cannot forgive myself. Yet,
knowing the kindness of your disposition, I have thought that you
might be better disposed to pardon me than I myself. For I need
not tell you, what you already know, that the sight of you is
dearer to me than the light of the morning. You are connected in
my mind and heart with all that is best and loveliest. I need not
tell now that I love you, for you know that I love the string of
your bonnet. Nor am I asking for anything in return, save only
that you may know my heart and not be angry. This I send to ease
its pain, for it has been crying out all night long, 'Tell her--
tell her!' So I have risen early to write this. Whether I shall
send it or no, I cannot tell. There is no need, Winsome, to answer
it, if you will only let it fall into your heart and make no
noise, as a drop of water falls into the sea. Whether you will be
angry or not I cannot tell, and, truth to tell you, sweetheart, I
am far past caring. I am coming, as I said, to Craig Ronald to see
your grandmother, and also, if you will, to see you. I shall not
need you to tell me whether you are angered with a man's love or
no; I shall know that before you speak to me. But keep a thought
for one that loves you beyond all the world, and as if there were
no world, and naught but God and you and him. For this time fare
you well. Ralph Peden."
Jess turned it over with a curious look on her face. "Aye, he has
the grip o't, an' she micht get him gin she war as clever as Jess
Kissock; but him that can love yin weel can lo'e anither better,
an' I can keep them sindry [asunder]. I saw him first, an' he spak
to me first. 'Ye're no to think o' him,' said my mither. Think o'
him! I hae thocht o' nocht else. Think of him! Since when is
thinkin' a crime? A lass maun juist do the best she can for
hersel', be she cotman's dochter or laird's. Love's a' yae thing--
kitchen or byre, but or ben. See a lad, lo'e a lad, get a lad,
keep a lad! Ralph Peden will kiss me afore the year's oot," she
said with determination.
So in the corner of the byre, among the fragrant hay and fresh-cut
clover, Jess Kissock the cottar's lass prophesied out of her
wayward soul, baring her intentions to herself as perhaps her
sister in boudoir hushed and perfumed might not have done. There
are Ishmaels also among women, whose hand is against every woman,
and who stand for their own rights to the man on whom they have
set their love; and the strange thing is, that such are by no
means the worst of women either.
Stranger still, so strong and dividing to soul and marrow is a
clearly defined purpose and determinately selfish, that such women
do not often fail. And indeed Jess Kissock, sitting in the hay-
neuk, with her candle in the lantern throwing patterns on the
cobwebby walls from the tiny perforations all round, made a
perfectly correct prophecy. Ralph Peden did indeed kiss her, and
that of his own free will as his love of loves within a much
shorter space of time than a year.
Strangely also, Jess the gipsy, the dark-browed Pictess, was
neither angry nor jealous when she read Ralph's letter to Winsome.
According to all rules she ought to have been. She even tried to
persuade herself that she was. But the sight of Ralph writing to
Winsome gave no pang to her heart. Nor did this argue that she did
not love really and passionately. She did; but Jess had in her the
Napoleon instinct. She loved obstacles. So thus it was what she
communed with herself, sitting with her hand on her brow, and her
swarthy tangle of hair falling all about her face. All women have
a pose in which they look best. Jess looked best leaning forward
with her elbows on her knees. Had there been a fender at her
father's fireside Jess would have often sat on it, for there is a
dangerous species of girl that, like a cat, looks best sitting on
a fender. And such a girl is always aware of the circumstance.
"He has written to Winsome," Jess communed with herself. "Well, he
shall write to me. He loves her, he thinks; then in time he shall
love me, and be sure perfectly o't. Let me see. Gin she had gotten
this letter, she wadna hae answered it. So he'll come the morn,
an' he'll no say a word to her aboot the letter. Na, he'll juist
look if she's pleased like, and gin that gomeral Saunders gied him
the rose, he'll no be ill to please eyther! But afore he gangs
hame he shall see Jess Kissock, an' hear frae her aboot the young
man frae the Castle!" Jess took another look at the letter." It's
a bonny hand o' write," she said, "but Dominie Cairnochan learned
me to write as weel as onybody, an' some day he'll write to me.
I'se no be byre lass a' my life. Certes no. There's oor Meg, noo;
she'll mairry some ignorant landward man, an' leeve a' her life in
a cot hoose, wi' a dizzen weans tum'lin' aboot her! What yin canna
learn, anither can," continued Jess. "I hae listened to graun'
fowk speakin', an' I can speak as weel as onybody. I'll disgrace
nane. Gin I canna mak' mysel' fit for kirk or manse, my name's no
Jess Kissock. I'm nae country lump, to be left where I'm set doon,
like a milkin' creepie [stool], an' kickit ower when they are dune
wi' me."
It is of such women, born to the full power and passion of sex,
and with all the delicate keenness of the feminine brain, utterly
without principle or scruple, that the Cleopatras are made. For
black-browed Egypt, the serpent of old Nile, can sit in a country
byre, and read a letter to another woman. For Cleopatra is not
history; she is type.