THE LOST BRIDE
This unforeseen and unhappy meeting forced a climax in Sophy's love
affairs, which she had hitherto not dared to face. In fact,
circumstances tending that way had arisen about a week previously; and
it was in consequence of them, that she was publicly riding with
Braelands when Andrew met them. For a long time she had insisted on
secrecy in her intercourse with her "friend." She was afraid of Andrew;
she was afraid of her aunt; she was afraid of being made a talk and a
speculation to the gossips of the little town. And though Miss Kilgour
had begun to suspect somewhat, she was not inclined to verify her
suspicions. Madame Braelands was a good customer, therefore she did not
wish to know anything about a matter which she was sure would be a
great annoyance to that lady.
But Madame herself forced the knowledge on her. Some friend had called
at Braelands and thought it right to let her know what a dangerous
affair her son was engaged in. "For the girl is beautiful," she said,
"there is no denying that; and she comes of fisher-folk, who have
simply no idea but that love words and love-kisses must lead to
marrying and housekeeping, and who will bitterly resent and avenge a
wrong done to any woman of their class, as you well know, Madame."
Madame did know this very well; and apart from her terror of a
_mesalliance_ for the heir of Braelands, there was the fact that his
family had always had great political influence, and looked to a public
recognition of it. The fisher vote was an important factor in the
return of any aspirant for Parliamentary honour; and she felt keenly
that Archie was endangering his whole future career by his attentions
to a girl whom it was impossible he should marry, but who would have
the power to arouse against him a bitter antagonism, if he did not
marry her.
She affected to her friend a total indifference to the subject of her
son's amusements, and she said "she was moreover sure that Archibald
Braelands would never do anything to prejudice his own honour, or the
honour of the humblest fisher-girl in Fifeshire." But all the same, her
heart was sick with fear and anxiety; and as soon as her informant had
gone, she ordered her carriage, dressed herself in all her braveries,
and drove hastily to Mistress Kilgour's.
At that very hour, this lady was fussing and fuming angrily at her
niece. Sophy had insisted on going for a walk, and in the altercation
attending this resolve, Mistress Kilgour had unadvisably given speech
to her suspicions about Sophy's companion in these frequent walks, and
threatened her with a revelation of these doubts to Andrew Binnie. But
in spite of all, Sophy had left the house; and her aunt was nursing her
wrath against her when Madame Braeland's carriage clattered up to her
shop door.
Now if Madame had been a prudent woman, and kept the rein on her
prideful temper, she would have found Mistress Kilgour in the very mood
suitable for an ally. But Madame had also been nursing her wrath, and
as soon as Mistress Kilgour had appeared, she asked angrily:--
"Where is that niece of yours, Mistress Kilgour? I should very much
like to know."
The tone of the question irritated the dressmaker, and instantly her
sympathies flew toward her own kith, and kin, and class. Also, her
caution was at once aroused, and she answered the question,
Scotch-wise, by another question:--
"What for are you requiring to see Sophy, Madame?"
"Is she in the house?"
"Shall I go and see?"
"Go and see, indeed! You know well she is not. You know she is away
somewhere, walking or driving with my son--with the heir of Braelands.
Oh, I have heard all about their shameful carryings-on."
"You'll not need to use the word 'shameful' with regard to my niece,
Sophy Traill, Madame Braelands. She has never earned such a like word,
and she never will. You may take my say-so for that."
"It is not anybody's say-so in this case. Seeing is believing, and they
have been seen together, walking in Fernie wood, and down among the
rocks on the Elie coast, and in many other places."
"Well and good, Madame. What by that? Young things will be young
things."
"What by that? Do you, a woman of your age, ask me such a question?
When a gentleman of good blood and family, as well as great wealth,
goes walking and driving with a poor girl of no family at all, do you
ask what by that? Nothing but disgrace and trouble can be looked for."
"Speak for your own kin and side, Madame. And I should think a woman of
your age--being at least twenty years older than myself--would know
that true love never asks for a girl's pedigree. And as for 'disgrace,'
Sophy Traill will never call anything like 'disgrace' to herself. I
will allow that Sophy is poor, but as for family, the Traills are of
the best Norse strain. They were sea-fighters, hundreds of years before
they were sea-fishers; and they had been 'at home' on the North Sea,
and in all the lands about it, centuries before the like of the
Braelands were thought or heard tell of."
Mistress Kilgour was rapidly becoming angry, and Madame would have been
wise to have noted the circumstance; but she herself was now past all
prudence, and with an air of contempt she took out her jewelled watch,
and beginning to slowly wind it, said:--
"My good woman, Sophy's father was a common fisherman. We have no call
to go back to the time when her people were pirates and sea-robbers."
"I am _my own_ woman, Madame. And I will take my oath I am not _your_
woman, anyhow. And 'common' or uncommon, the fishermen of Fife call no
man master but the Lord God Almighty, from whose hands they take their
food, summer and winter. And I will make free to say, moreover, that if
Braelands loves Sophy Traill and she loves him, worse might befall him
than Sophy for a wife. For if God thinks fit to mate them, it is not
Griselda Kilgour that will take upon herself to contradict the Will of
Heaven."
"Don't talk rubbish, Mistress Kilgour. People who live in society have
to regard what society thinks and says."
"It is no ways obligatory, Madame, the voice of God and Nature has more
weight, I'm thinking, and if God links two together, you will find it
gey and hard to separate them."
"I heard the girl was promised since her babyhood to a fisherman called
Andrew Binnie."
"For once you have heard the truth, Madame. But you know yourself that
babyhood and womanhood are two different things; and the woman has just
set at naught the baby. That is all."
"No, it is not all. This Andrew Binnie is a man of great influence
among the fishers, and my son cannot afford to make enemies among that
class. It will be highly prejudicial to him."
"I cannot help that Madame. Braelands is well able to row his own boat.
At any rate, I am not called to take an oar in it."
"Yes, you are. I have been a good customer to you, Mistress Kilgour."
"I am not denying it; at the same time I have been a good dress and
bonnet maker to you, and earned every penny-bit you have paid me. The
obligation is mutual, I'm thinking."
"I can be a still better customer if you will prevent this
gentle-shepherding and love-making. I would not even scruple at a
twenty pound note, or perhaps two of them."
"_Straa_! If you were Queen of England, Madame, I would call you an
insolent dastard, to try and bribe me against my own flesh and blood.
You are a very Judas, to think of such a thing. Good blood! fine
family! indeed! If your son is like yourself, I'm not caring for him
coming into my family at all."
"Mistress Kilgour, you may close my account with you. I shall employ
you no more."
"Pay me the sixteen pounds odd you owe me, and then I will shut my
books forever against Braelands. Accounts are not closed till
outstanding money is paid in."
"I shall send the money."
"The sight of the money would be better than the promise of it, Madame;
for some of it is owing more than a twelvemonth;" and Mistress Kilgour
hastily turned over to the Braelands page of her ledger, while Madame,
with an air of affront and indignation, hastily left the shop.
Following this wordy battle with her dressmaker, Madame had an equally
stubborn one with her son, the immediate consequence of which was that
very interview whose close was witnessed by Andrew Binnie. In this
conference Braelands acknowledged his devotion to Sophy, and earnestly
pleaded for Mistress Kilgour's favour for his suit. She was now quite
inclined to favour him. Her own niece, as mistress of Braelands, would
be not only a great social success, but also a great financial one.
Madame Braelands's capacity for bonnets was two every year; Sophy's
capacity was unlimited. Madame considered four dresses annually quite
extravagant; Sophy's ideas on the same subject were constantly
enlarging. And then there would be the satisfaction of overcoming
Madame. So she yielded easily and gracefully to Archie Braelands's
petition, and thus Sophy suddenly found herself able to do openly what
she had hitherto done secretly, and the question of her marriage with
Braelands accepted as an understood conclusion.
At this sudden culmination of her hardly acknowledged desires, the girl
was for a short tune distracted. She felt that Andrew must now be
definitely resigned, and a strangely sad feeling of pity and reluctance
assailed her. There were moments she knew not which lover was dearest
to her. The habit of loving Andrew had grown through long years in her
heart; she trusted him as she trusted no other mortal, she was not
prepared to give up absolutely all rights in a heart so purely and so
devotedly her own. For if she knew anything, she knew right well that
no other man would ever give her the same unfaltering, unselfish
affection.
And when she dared to consider truthfully her estimate of Archie
Braelands, she judged his love, passionate as it was, did not ring true
through all its depths. There were times when her little _gaucheries_
fretted him; when her dress did not suit him; when he put aside an
engagement with her for a sail with a lord, or a dinner party with
friends, or a social function at his own home. Andrew put no one before
her; and even the business that kept him from her side was all for her
future happiness. Every object and every aim of his life had reference
to her. It was hard to give up such a perfect love, and she felt that
she could not see Andrew face to face and do it. Hence her refusals to
meet him, and her shyness and silence when a meeting was unavoidable.
Hence, also, came a very peculiar attitude of Andrew's friends and
mates; for they could not conceive how Andrew's implicit faith in his
love should prevent him from finding out what was so evident to every
man and woman in Largo.
Alas! the knowledge had now come to him. That it could have come in any
harder way, it is difficult to believe. There was only one palliation
to its misery--it was quite unpremeditated--but even this mitigation
of the affront hardly brought him any comfort as yet Braelands was
certainly deeply grieved at the miserable outcome of the meeting. He
knew the pride of the fisher race, and he had himself a manly instinct,
strong enough to understand the undeserved humiliation of Andrew's
position. Honestly, as a gentleman, he was sorry the quarrel had taken
place; as a lover, he was anxious to turn it to his own advantage. For
he saw that, in spite of all her coldness and apparent apathy, Sophy
was affected and wounded by Andrew's bitter imploration and its
wretched and sorrowful ending. If the man should gain her ear and
sympathy, Braelands feared for the result. He therefore urged her to an
immediate marriage; and when Mistress Kilgour was taken into counsel,
she encouraged the idea, because of the talk which was sure to follow
such a flagrant breach of the courtesies of life.
But even at this juncture, Sophy's vanity must have its showing; and
she refused to marry, until at least two or three suitable dresses
should have been prepared; so the uttermost favour that could be
obtained from the stubborn little bride was a date somewhere within two
weeks away.
During these two weeks there was an unspeakable unhappiness in the
Binnie household. For oh, how dreary are those wastes of life, left by
the loved who have deserted us! These are the vacant places we water
with our bitterest tears. Had Sophy died, Andrew would have said, "It
is the Lord; let him do what seemeth right in his sight." But the
manner and the means of his loss filled him with a dumb sorrow and
rage; for in spite of his mother's and sister's urging, he would do
nothing to right his own self-respect at the price of giving Sophy the
slightest trouble or notoriety. Suffer! Yes, he suffered at home, where
Janet and Christina continually reminded him of the insult he ought to
avenge; and he suffered also abroad, where his mates looked at him with
eyes full of surprise and angry inquiries.
But though the village was ringing with gossip about Sophy and young
Braelands, never a man or woman in it ventured to openly question the
stern, sullen, irritable man who had been so long recognised as her
accepted lover. And whether he was in the boats or out of them, no one
dared to speak Sophy's name in his presence. Indeed, upon the whole, he
was during these days what Janet Binnie called "an ill man to live
with--a man out of his senses, and falling away from his meat and his
clothes."
This misery continued for about two weeks without any abatement, and
Janet's and Christina's sympathy was beginning to be tinged with
resentment. It seems so unnatural and unjust, that a girl who had
already done them so much wrong, and who was so far outside their daily
life, should have the power to still darken their home, and infuse a
bitter drop into their peculiar joys and hopes.
"I am glad the wicked lass isn't near by me," said Janet one morning,
when Andrew had declared himself unable to eat his breakfast and gone
out of the cottage to escape his mother's pleadings and reproofs. "I'm
glad she isn't near me. If she was here, I could not keep my tongue
from her. She should hear the truth for once, if she never heard it
again. They should be words as sharp as the birch rod she ought to have
had, when she first began her nonsense, and her airs and graces."
"She is a bad girl; but we must remember that she was left much to
herself--no mother to guide her, no sister or brother either."
"It would have been a pity if there had been more of them. One scone of
that baking is enough. The way she has treated our Andrew is
abominable. Flesh and blood can't bear such doings."
As Janet made this assertion, a cousin of Sophy's came into the
cottage, and answered her. "I know you are talking of Sophy," she said,
"and I am not wondering at the terrivee you are making. As for me,
though she is my cousin, I'll never exchange the Queen's language with
her again as long as I live in this world. But all bad things come to
an end, as well as good ones, and I am bringing what will put a stop at
last to all this clishmaclaver about that wearisome lassie,"--and with
these words she handed Janet two shining white cards, tied together
with a bit of silver wire.
They were Sophy's wedding cards; and she had also sent from Edinburgh a
newspaper containing a notice of her marriage to Archibald Braelands.
The news was very satisfactory to Janet. She held the bits of cardboard
with her fingertips, looking grimly at the names upon them. Then she
laughed, not very pleasantly, at the difference in the size of the
cards. "He has the wee card now," she said, "and Sophy the big one; but
I'm thinking the wee one will grow big, and the big one grow little
before long. I will take them to Andrew myself; the sight of them will
be a bitter medicine, but it will do him good. Folks may count it great
gain when they get rid of a false hope."
Andrew was walking moodily about the bit of bare turf in front of the
cottage door, stopping now and then to look over the sea, where the
brown sails of some of the fishing boats still caught the lazy south
wind. He was thinking that the sea was cloudy, and that there was an
evil-looking sky to the eastward; and then, as his mind took in at the
same moment the dangers to the fishers who people the grey waters and
his own sorrowful wrong, he turned and began to walk about
muttering--"Lord help us! We must bear what is sent."
Then Janet called him, and he watched for her approach. She put the
cards into his hand saying, "Sophy's cousin, Isobel Murray, brought
them." Her voice was full of resentment; and Andrew, not at the moment
realising a custom so unfamiliar in a fishing-village, looked
wonderingly in his mother's face, and then at the fateful white
messengers.
"Read the names on them, Andrew man, and you'll know then why they are
sent to Pittendurie."
Then he looked steadily at the inscription, and the struggle of the
inner man shook the outward man visibly. It was like a shot in the
backbone. But it was only for a moment he staggered; though he had few
resources, his faith in the Cross and his confidence in himself made
him a match for his hard fate. It is in such critical moments the soul
reveals if it be selfish or generous, and Andrew, with a quick upward
fling of the head, regained absolutely that self-control, which he had
voluntarily abdicated.
"You will tell Isobel," he said, "that I wish Mistress Braelands every
good thing, both for this life and the next." Then he stepped closer to
his mother and kissed her; and Janet was so touched and amazed that she
could not speak. But the look of loving wonder on her face was far
better than words. And as she stood looking at him, Andrew put the
cards in his pocket, and went down to the sea; and Janet returned to
the cottage and gave Isobel the message he had sent.
But this information, so scanty and yet so conclusive, by no means
satisfied the curiosity of the women. A great deal of indignation was
expressed by Sophy's kindred and friends in the village at her total
ignoring of their claims. They did not expect to be invited to a house
like Braelands; but they did think Sophy ought to have visited them and
told them all about her preparations and future plans. They were her
own flesh and blood, and they deeply resented her non-recognition of
the claims of kindred. Isobel, as the central figure of this
dissatisfaction, was a very important person. She at least had received
"cards," and the rest of the cousins to the sixth degree felt that they
had been grossly slighted in the omission. So Isobel, for the sake of
her own popularity, was compelled to make common cause, and to assert
positively that "she thought little of the compliment." Sophy only
wanted her folk to know she was now Mistress Braelands, and she had
picked her out to carry the news--good or bad news, none yet could say.
Janet was not inclined to discuss the matter with her. She was so cold
about it, that Isobel quickly discovered she had 'work to finish at her
own house,' for she recollected that if the Binnies were not inclined
to talk over the affair there were plenty of wives and maids in
Pittendurie who were eager to do so. So Janet and Christina were
quickly left to their own opinions on the marriage, the first of which
was, that "Sophy had behaved very badly to them."
"But I wasn't going to say bad words for Isobel to clash round the
village," said Janet "and I am gey glad Andrew took the news so
man-like and so Christian-like. They can't make any speculations about
Andrew now, and that will be a sore disappointment to the hussies, for
some of them are but ill willy creatures."
"I am glad Andrew kept a brave heart, and could bring good words out of
it."
"What else would you expect from Andrew? Do you think Andrew Binnie
will fret himself one moment about a wife that is not his wife? He
would not give the de'il such a laugh over him. You may take my word,
that he will break no commandment for any lass; and Sophy Braelands
will now have to vacate his very thoughts."
"I am glad she is married then. If her marriage cures Andrew of that
never-ending fret about her, it will be a comfort."
"It is a cure, sure as death, as far as your brother is concerned.
Fancy Andrew Binnie pining and worrying about Archie Braelands's wife!
The thing would be sinful, and therefore fairly impossible to him! I'm
as glad as you are that no worse than marriage has come to the lass;
she is done with now, and I am wishing her no more ill than she has
called to herself."
"She has brought sorrow enough to our house," said Christina. "All the
days of my own courting have been saddened and darkened with the worry
and the care of her. Andrew was always either that set up or that
knocked down about her, that he could not give a thought to Jamie's and
my affairs. It was only when you talked about Sophy, or his wedding
with Sophy, that he looked as if the world was worth living in. He was
fast growing into a real selfish man."
"_Toots!_ Every one in love--men or women--are as selfish as they can
be. The whole round world only holds two folk: their own self, and
another. I would like to have a bit of chat before long, that did not
set itself to love-making and marrying."
"Goodness, Mother! You have not chatted much with me lately about
love-making and marrying. Andrew's trouble has filled the house, and
you have hardly said a word about poor Jamie, who never gave either of
us a heartache. I wonder where he is to-day!"
Janet thought a moment and then answered: "He would leave New York for
Scotland, last Saturday. 'T is Wednesday morning now, and he will maybe
reach Glasgow next Tuesday. Then it will not take him many hours to
find himself in Pittendurie."
"I doubt it. He will not be let come and go as he wants to. It would
not be reasonable. He will have to obey orders. And when he gets off,
it will be a kind of favour. A steamboat and a fishing-boat are two
different things, Mother, forbye, Jamie is but a new hand, and will
have his way to win."
"What are you talking about, you silly, fearful lassie? It would be a
poor-like, heartless captain, that had not a fellow-feeling for a lad
in love. Jamie will just have to tell him about yourself, and he will
send the lad off with a laugh, or maybe a charge not to forget the
ship's sailing-day. Hope well, and have well, lassie."
"You'll be far mistaken, Mother. I am not expecting Jamie for more than
two or three trips--but he'll be thinking of me, and I can not help
thinking of him."
"Think away, Christina. Loving thoughts keep out others, not as good. I
wonder how it would do to walk as far as Largo, and find out all about
the marriage from Griselda Kilgour. Then _I_ would have the essentials,
and something worth telling and talking about."
"I would go, Mother. Griselda will be thirsty to tell all she knows,
and just distracted with the glory of her niece. She will hold herself
very high, no doubt."
"Griselda and her niece are two born fools, and I am not to be put to
the wall by the like of them. And it is not beyond hoping, that I'll be
able to give the woman a mouthful of sound advice. She's a set-up body,
but I shall disapprove of all she says."
"You may disapprove till you are black in the face, Mother, but
Griselda will hold her own; she is neither flightersome, nor easy
frightened. I'm feared it is going to rain. I see the glass has
fallen."
"I'm not minding the 'glass'. The sky is clear, and I think far more of
the sky, and the look of it, than I do of the 'glass'. I wonder at
Andrew hanging it in our house; it is just sinful and unlucky to be
taking the change of the weather out of His hands. But rain or fine, I
am going to Largo."
As she spoke, she was taking out of her kist a fine Paisley shawl and a
bonnet, and with Christina's help she was soon dressed to her own
satisfaction. Fortunately one of the fishers was going with his cart to
Largo, so she got a lift over the road, and reached Griselda Kilgour's
early in the afternoon. There were no bonnets and caps in the window of
the shop, and when Janet entered, the place had a covered-up,
Sabbath-day look that kindled her curiosity. The ringing of the bell
quickly brought Mistress Kilgour forward, and she also had an unusual
look. But she seemed pleased to see Janet, and very heartily asked her
into the little parlour behind.
"I'm just home," she said, "and I'm making myself a cup of tea ere I
sort up the shop and get to my day's work again. Sit down, Janet, and
take off your things, and have a cup with me. Strange days and strange
doings in them lately!"
"You may well lift up your eyes and your hands, Griselda. I never heard
tell of the like. The whole village is in a flustration; and I just
came o'er-by, to find out from you the long and the short of
everything. I'm feared you have been sorely put about with the wilful
lass."
"Mistress Braelands had no one to lippen to but me. I had everything to
look after. The Master of Braelands was that far gone in love, he
wasn't to be trusted with anything. But my niece has done a good job
for herself."
"It is well _some one_ has got good out of her treachery. She brought
sorrow enough to my house. But I'm glad it is all over, and that
Braelands has got her. She wouldn't have suited my son at all,
Griselda."
"Not in the least," answered the dressmaker with an air of offence.
"How many lumps of sugar, Janet?"
"I'm not taking sugar. Where was the lass married?"
"In Edinburgh." We didn't want any talk and fuss about the wedding, and
Braelands he said to me, 'Mistress Kilgour, if you will take a little
holiday, and go with Sophy to Edinburgh, and give her your help about
the things she requires, we shall both of us be your life-long
debtors.' And I thought Edinburgh was the proper place, and so I went
with Sophy--putting up a notice on the shop door that I had gone to
look at the winter fashions and would be back to-day--and here I am for
I like to keep my word.
"You didn't keep it with my Andrew, for you promised to help him with
Sophy, you promised that more than once or twice."
"No one can help a man who fights against himself, and Andrew never did
prize Sophy as Braelands did, the way that man ran after the lass, and
coaxed and courted and pleaded with her! And the bonnie things he gave
her! And the stone blind infatuation of the creature! Well I never saw
the like. He was that far gone in love, there was nothing for him but
standing up before the minister."
"What minister?"
"Dr. Beith of St. Andrews. Braelands sits in St. Andrews, when he is in
Edinburgh for the winter season and Dr. Beith is knowing him well. I
wish you could have seen the dresses and the mantillas, the bonnets and
the fineries of every sort I had to buy Sophy, not to speak of the
rings and gold chains and bracelets and such things, that Braelands
just laid down at her feet."
"What kind of dresses?"
"Silks and satins--white for the wedding-dress--and pink, and blue and
tartan and what not! I tell you McFinlay and Co. were kept busy day and
night for Sophy Braelands."
Then Mistress Kilgour entered into a minute description of all Sophy's
beautiful things, and Janet listened attentively, not only for her own
gratification, but also for that of every woman in Pittendurie. Indeed
she appeared so interested that her entertainer never suspected the
anger she was restraining with difficulty until her curiosity had been
satisfied. But when every point had been gone over, when the last thing
about Sophy's dress and appearance had been told and discussed, Janet
suddenly inquired, "Have they come back to Largo yet?"
"Indeed nothing so common," answered Griselda, proudly. "They have gone
to foreign lands--to France, and Italy, and Germany,"--and then with a
daring imagination she added, "and it's like they won't stop short of
Asia and America."
"Well, Jamie Logan, my Christina's promised man is on the American
line. I dare say he will be seeing her on his ship, and no doubt he
will do all he can to pleasure her."
"Jamie Logan! Sophy would not think of noticing him now. It would not
be proper."
"What for not? He is as good a man as Archie Braelands, and if all
reports be true, a good deal better."
"_Archie_ indeed! I'm thinking 'Master Braelands' would be more as it
should be."
"I'll never 'master' him. He is no 'master' of mine. What for does he
have a Christian name, if he is not to be called by it?"
"Well, Janet, you need not show your temper. Goodness knows, it is as
short as a cat's hair. And Braelands is beyond your tongue, anyhow."
"I'm not giving him a word. Sophy will pay every debt he is owing me
and mine. The lassie has been badly guided all her life, and as she
would not be ruled by the rudder, she must be ruled by the rocks."
"Think shame of yourself! For speaking ill to a new-made bride! How
would you like me to say such words to Christina?"
"Christina would never give occasion for them. She is as true as steel
to her own lad."
"Maybe she has no temptation to be false. That makes a deal of differ.
Anyway, Sophy is a woman now in the married state, and answerable to
none but her husband. I hope Andrew is not fretting more than might be
expected."
"Andrew! Andrew fretting! Not he! Not a minute! As soon as he knew she
was a wife, he cast her out of his very thoughts. You don't catch
Andrew Binnie putting a light-of-love lassie before a command of God."
"I won't hear you talk of my niece--of the mistress of Braelands--in
that kind of a way, Janet. She's our betters now, and we be to take
notice of the fact."
"She'll have to learn and unlearn a good lot before she is to be spoke
of as any one's 'betters.' I hope while she is seeing the world she
will get her eyes opened to her own faults; they will give her plenty
to think of."
"Keep me, woman! Such a way to go on about your own kin."
"She is no kin to the Binnies. I have cast her out of my reckoning."
"She is Christina's sixth cousin."
"She is nothing at all to us. I never did set any store by those Orkney
folks--a bad lot! A very selfish, false, bad lot!"
"You are speaking of my people, Janet."
"I am quite aware of it, Griselda."
"Then keep your tongue in bounds."
"My tongue is my own."
"My house is my own. And if you can't be civil, I'll be necessitated to
ask you to leave it."
"I'm going as soon as I have told you that you have the most
gun-powdery temper I ever came across; forbye, you are fairly drunk
with the conceit and vanity of Sophy's grand marriage. You are full as
the Baltic with the pride of it, woman!"
"Temper! It is you, that are in a temper."
"That's neither here nor there. I have my reasons."
"Reasons, indeed! I'd like to see you reasonable for once."
"Yes, I have my reasons. How was my lad Andrew used by the both of you?
And what do you think of his last meeting with that heartless limmer
and her fine sweetheart?"
"Andrew should have kept himself out of their way. As soon as Braelands
came round Sophy, Andrew got the very de'il in him. I was aye feared
there would be murder laid to his name."
"You needn't have been feared for the like of that. Andrew Binnie has
enough of the devil in him to keep the devil out of him. Do you think
he would put blood on his soul for Sophy Traill? No, not for twenty
lasses better than her! You needn't look at me as if your eyes were
cocked pistols. I have heard all I wanted to hear, and said all I
wanted to say, and now I'll be stepping homeward."
"I'll be obligated to you to go at once--the sooner the better."
"And I'll never speak to you again in this world, Griselda; nor in the
next world either, unless you mend your manners. Mind that!"
"You are just full of envy, and all uncharitableness, and evil
speaking, Janet Binnie. But I trust I have more of the grace of God
about me than to return your ill words."
"That may be. It only shows folk that the grace of God will bide with
an old woman that no one else can bide with."
"Old woman! I am twenty years younger--"
But Janet had passed out of the room and clashed the shop door behind
her with a pealing ring; so Griselda's little scream of indignation
never reached her. It is likely, however, she anticipated the words
that followed her, for she went down the street, folding her shawl over
her ample chest, and smiling the smile of those who have thrown the
last word of offence.
She did not reach home until quite dark, for she was stopped frequently
by little groups of the wives and maids of Pittendurie, who wanted to
hear the news about Sophy. It pleased Janet, for some reason, to
magnify the girl's position and all the fine things it had brought her.
Perhaps, because she felt dimly that it placed Andrew's defeat in a
better Tight. No one could expect a mere fisherman to have any chance
against a man able to shower silks and satins and gold and jewels upon
his bride, and who could take her to France and Italy and Germany, not
to speak of Asia and America.
But if this was her motive, it was a bit of motherhood thrown away.
Andrew had sources of comfort and vindication which looked far beyond
all petty social opinion. He was on the sea alone till nearly dark;
then he came home, with the old grave smile on his face, saying, as he
entered the house, "There will be a heavy blow from the northeast
to-night, Christina. I see the boats are all at anchor, and no prospect
of a fishing."
"Ay, and I saw the birds, who know more than we do, making for the
rocks. I wish mother would come,"--and she opened the door and looked
out into the dark vacancy. "There is a voice in the sea to-night,
Andrew, and I don't like the wail of it."
But Andrew had gone to his room, and so she left the door open until
Janet returned. And the first question Janet asked was concerning
Andrew. "Has he come home yet, Christina? I'm feared for a boat on the
sea to-night."
"He is home, and I think he has fallen asleep. He looked very tired."
"How is he taking his trouble?"
"Like a man. Like himself. He has had his wrestle out on the sea, and
has come out with a victory."
"The Lord be thanked! Now, Christina, I have heard everything about
that wicked lassie. Let us have a cup of tea and a herring--for it is
little good I had of Griselda's wishy-washy brew--and then I'll tell
you the news of the wedding, the beginning and the end of it."