JEMIMA, KEZIA, AND LITTLE KEREN-HAPPUCH.
Ralph found the professor out. He was, indeed, engaged in an
acrimonious discussion on the Wernerian theory, and at that moment
he was developing a remarkable scientific passion, which
threatened to sweep his adversaries from the face of the earth in
the debris of their heresies.
Within doors, however, Ralph found a very warm welcome from his
three cousins--Jemima, Kezia, and Keren-happuch. Jemima was tall
and angular, with her hair accurately parted in the middle, and
drawn in a great sweep over her ears--a fashion intended by Nature
for Keren-happuch, who was round of face, and with a complexion in
which there appeared that mealy pink upon the cheeks which is
peculiar to the metropolis. Kezia was counted the beauty of the
family, and was much looked up to by her elder and younger
sisters.
These three girls had always made much of Ralph, ever since he
used to play about the many garrets and rooms of their old mansion
beneath the castle, before they moved out to the new house at the
Sciennes. They had long been in love with him, each in her own
way; though they had always left the first place to Kezia, and
wove romances in their own heads with Ralph for the central
figure. Jemima, especially, had been very jealous of her sisters,
who were considerably younger, and had often spoken seriously to
them about flirting with Ralph. It was Jemima who came to the
door; for, in those days, all except the very grandest persons
thought no more of opening the outer than the inner doors of their
houses.
"Ralph Peden, have you actually remembered that there is such a
house as the Sciennes?" said Jemima, holding up her face to
receive the cousinly kiss.
Ralph bestowed it chastely. Whereupon followed Kezia and little
Keren-happuch, who received slightly varied duplicates.
Then the three looked at one another. They knew that this Ralph
had eaten of the tree of knowledge.
"That is not the way you kissed us before you went away," said
outspoken Kezia, who had experience in the matter wider than that
of the others, looking him straight in the eyes as became a
beauty.
For once Ralph was thoroughly taken aback, and blushed richly and
long.
Kezia laughed as one who enjoyed his discomfiture.
"I knew it would come," she said. "Is she a milkmaid? She's not
the minister's daughter, for he is a bachelor, you said!"
Jemima and Keren-happuch actually looked a little relieved, though
a good deal excited. They had been standing in the hall while this
conversation was running its course.
"It's all nonsense, Kezia; I am astonished at you!" said Jemima.
"Come into the sitting-parlour," said Kezia, taking Ralph's hand;
"we'll not one of us bear any malice if only you tell us all about
it."
Jemima, after severe consideration, at last looked in a curious
sidelong way to Ralph.
"I hope," she said, "that you have not done anything hasty."
"Tuts!" said Kezia, "I hope he has. He was far too slow before he
went away. Make love in haste; marry at leisure--that's the right
way."
"Can I have the essay that you read us last April, on the origin
of woman?" asked Keren-happuch unexpectedly. "You won't want it
any more, and I should like it."
Even little Keren-happuch had her feelings.
The three Misses Thriepneuks were a little jealous of one another
before, but already they had forgotten this slight feeling, which
indeed was no more than the instinct of proprietorship which young
women come to feel in one who has never been long out of their
house, and with whom they have been brought up.
But in the face of this new interest they lost their jealousy of
one another; so that, in place of presenting a united front to the
enemy, these three kindly young women, excited at the mere hint of
a love-story, vied with one another which should be foremost in
interest and sympathy. The blush on Ralph's face spoke its own
message, and now, when he was going to speak, his three cousins
sat round with eager faces to listen.
"I have something to tell, girls," said Ralph, "but I meant to
tell it first to my uncle. I have been turned out of the manse of
Dullarg, and my father will not allow me to live in his house till
after the meeting of the presbytery."
This was more serious than a love-story, and the bright expression
died down into flickering uncertainty in the faces of Jemima,
Kezia, and Keren-happuch.
"It's not anything wrong?" asked Jemima, anxiously.
"No, no," said Ralph quickly, "nothing but what I have reason to
be proud enough of. It is only a question of the doctrines and
practice of the Marrow kirk--"
"Oh!" said all three simultaneously, with an accent of mixed scorn
and relief. The whole matter was clear to them now.
"And of the right of the synod of the Marrow kirk to control my
actions," continued Ralph.
But the further interest was entirely gone from the question.
"Tell us about HER," they said in unison.
"How do you know it is a 'her'?" asked Ralph, clumsily trying to
put off time, like a man.
Kezia laughed on her own account, Keren-happuch, because Kezia
laughed, but Jemima said solemnly:
"I hope she is of a serious disposition."
"Nonsense! _I_ hope she is pretty," said Kezia.
"And _I_ hope she will love me," said little Keren-happuch.
Ralph thought a little, and then, as it was growing dark, he sat
on the old sofa with his back to the fading day, and told his
love-story to these three sweet girls, who, though they had played
with him and been all womanhood to him ever since he came out of
petticoats, had not a grain of jealousy of the unseen sister who
had come suddenly past them and stepped into the primacy of
Ralph's life.
When he was half-way through with his tale he suddenly stopped,
and said:
"But I ought to have told all this first to your father, because
he may not care to have me in his house. There is only my word for
it, after all, and it is the fact that I have not the right to set
foot in my own father's house."
"We will make our father see it in the right way," said Jemima
quietly.
"Yes," interposed Kezia, "or I would not give sixpence for his
peace of mind these next six months."
"It is all right if you tell us," said little Keren-happuch, who
was her father's playmate. Jemima ruled him, Kezia teased him--the
privilege of beauty--but it was generally little Keren-happuch who
fetched his slippers and sat with her cheek against the back of
his hand as he smoked and read in his great wicker chair by the
north window.
There was the sound of quick nervous footsteps with an odd halt in
their fall on the gravel walk outside. The three girls ran to the
door in a tumultuous greeting, even Jemima losing her staidness
for the occasion. Ralph could hear only the confused babble of
tongues and the expressions, "Now you hear, father--" "Now you
understand--" "Listen to me, father--" as one after another took
up the tale.
Ralph retold the story that night from the very beginning to the
professor, who listened silently, punctuating his thoughts with
the puffs of his pipe.
When he had finished, there was an unwonted moisture in the eyes
of Professor Thriepneuk--perhaps the memory of a time when he too
had gone a-courting.
He stretched the hand which was not occupied with his long pipe to
Ralph, who grasped it strongly.
"You have acted altogether as I could have desired my own son to
act; I only wish that I had one like you. Let the Marrow Kirk
alone, and come and be my assistant till you see your way a little
into the writer's trade. Pens and ink are cheap, and you can take
my classes in the summer, and give me quietness to write my book
on 'The Abuses of Ut with the Subjunctive.'"
"But I must find lodgings--" interrupted Ralph.
"You must find nothing--just bide here. It is the house of your
nearest kin, and the fittest place for you. Your meat's neither
here nor there, and my lasses--"
"They are the best and kindest in the world," said Ralph.
The professor glanced at him with a sharp, quizzical look under
his eyebrows. He seemed as if he were about to say something, and
then thought better of it and did not. Perhaps he also had had his
illusions.
As Ralph was going to his room that night Kezia met him at the
head of the stairs. She came like a flash from nowhere in
particular.
"Good-night, Ralph," she said; "give your Winsome a kiss from me--
the new kind--like this!"
Then Kezia vanished, and Ralph was left wondering, with his candle
in his hand.