FRANCIS GORDON’S CHAMPION
Poor little Phemy was in bed, and had cried herself asleep. Kirsty was
more tired than she had ever been before. She went to bed at once, but,
for a long time, not to sleep.
She had no doubt her parents approved of the chastisement she had given
Gordon, and she herself nowise repented of it; yet the instant she lay
down, back came the same sudden something that set her weeping on the
hillside. As then, all un-sent for, the face of Francie Gordon, such as
he was in their childhood, rose before her, but marred by her hand with
stripes of disgrace from his father’s whip; and with the vision came
again the torrent of her tears, for, if his father had then struck him
so, she would have been bold in his defence. She pressed her face into
the pillow lest her sobs should be heard. She was by no means a young
woman ready to weep, but the thought of the boy-face with her blows
upon it, got within her guard, and ran her through the heart. It seemed
as if nevermore would she escape the imagined sight. It is a sore thing
when a woman, born a protector, has for protection to become an
avenger, and severe was the revulsion in Kirsty from an act of violence
foreign to the whole habit, though nowise inconsistent with the
character, of the calm, thoughtful woman. She had never struck even the
one-horned cow that would, for very cursedness, kick over the
milk-pail! Hers was the wrath of the mother, whose very presence in a
calm soul is its justification--for how could it be there but by the
original energy? The wrath was gone, and the mother soul turned against
itself--not in judgment at all, but in irrepressible feeling. She did
not for one moment think, I repeat, that she ought not to have done it,
and she was glad in her heart to know that what he had said and she had
done must keep Phemy and him apart; but there was the blow on the face
of the boy she had loved, and there was the reflex wound in her own
soul! Surely she loved him yet with her mother-love, else how could she
have been angry enough with him to strike him! For weeks the pain
lasted keen, and it was ever after ready to return. It was a human type
of the divine suffering in the discipline of the sinner, which with
some of the old prophets takes the shape of God’s repenting of the
evils he has brought on his people; and was the only trouble she ever
kept from her mother: she feared to wake her own pain in the dearer
heart. She could have told her father; for, although he was, she knew,
just as loving as her mother, he was not so soft-hearted, and would
not, she thought, distress himself too much about an ache more or less
in a heart that had done its duty; but as she could not tell her
mother, she would not tell her father. But her father and mother saw
that a change had passed upon her, and partially, if not quite,
understood the nature of it. They perceived that she left behind her on
that night a measure of her gaiety, that thereafter she was yet gentler
to her parents, and if possible yet tenderer to her brother.
For all the superiority constantly manifested by her in her relations
with Francis, the feeling was never absent from her that he was of a
race above her own; and now the visage of the young officer in her
father’s old regiment never, any more than that of her play-fellow,
rose in her mind’s eye uncrossed by the livid mark of her whip from the
temple down the cheek! Whether she had actually seen it so, she did not
certainly remember, but so it always came to her, and the face of the
man never cost her a tear; it was only that of the boy that made her
weep.
Another thing distressed her even more: the instant ere she struck the
first, the worst blow, she saw on his face an expression so meanly
selfish that she felt as if she hated him. That expression had vanished
from her visual memory, her whip had wiped it away, but she knew that
for a moment she had all but hated him--if it was indeed _all but_!
All the house was careful the next morning that Phemy should not be
disturbed; and when at length the poor child appeared, looking as if
her colour was not ‘ingrain,’ and so had been washed out by her tears,
Kirsty made haste to get her a nice breakfast, and would answer none of
her questions until she had made a proper meal.
‘Noo, Kirsty,’ said Phemy at last, ‘ye maun tell me what he said whan
ye loot him ken ’at I cudna win til him ’cause ye wudna lat me!’
‘He saidna muckle to that. I dinna think he had been sair missin ye.’
‘I see ye’re no gaein to tell me the trowth, Kirsty! I ken by mysel he
maun hae been missin me dreidfu’!’
‘Ye can jeedge nae man by yersel, Phemy. Men’s no like hiz lass-fowk!’
Phemy laughed superior.
‘What ken ye aboot men, Kirsty? There never cam a man near ye, i’ the
w’y o’ makin up til ye!’
‘I’m no preten’in to ony exparience,’ returned Kirsty; ‘I wad only hae
ye tak coonsel wi’ common sense. Is ’t likly, Phemy, ’at a man wi gran’
relations, and gran’ notions, a man wi’ a fouth o’ grit leddies in ’s
acquantance to mak a fule o’ him and themsels thegither, special noo
’at he’s an offisher i’ the Company’s service--is ’t ony gait likly, I
say, ’at he sud be as muckle ta’en up wi’ a wee bit cuintry lassie as
she cudna but be wi’ him?’
‘Noo, Kirsty, ye jist needna gang aboot to gar me mistrust ane wha’s
the verra mirror o’ a’ knichtly coortesy,’ rejoined Phemy, speaking out
of the high-flown, thin atmosphere she thought the region of poetry,
‘for ye canna! Naething ever onybody said cud gar me think different o’
_him_!’
‘Nor naething ever he said himsel?’ asked Kirsty.
‘Naething,’ answered Phemy, with strength and decision.
‘No gien it was ’at naething wud ever gar him merry ye?’
‘That he micht weel say, for he winna need garrin!--But he never said
it, and ye needna try to threpe it upo’ me!’ she added, in a tone that
showed the very idea too painful.
‘He did say’t, Phemy.’
‘Wha tellt ye? It’s lees! Somebody’s leein!’
‘He said it til me himsel. Never a lee has onybody had a chance o’
puttin intil the tale!’
‘He never said it, Kirsty!’ cried Phemy, her cheeks now glowing, now
pale as death. ‘He daurna!’
‘He daured; and he daured to _me_! He said, “I wudna merry her gien
baith o’ ye gaed doon upon yer knees to me!”’
‘Ye maun hae sair angert him, Kirsty, or he wudna hae said it! Of
coorse he wasna to be guidit by you! He _cud_na hae meaned what he
said! He wad never hae said it to me! I wuss wi’ a’ my hert I hadna
latten ye til ’im! Ye hae ruined a’!’
‘Ye never loot me gang, Phemy! It was my business to gang.’
‘I see what’s intil’t!’ cried Phemy, bursting into tears. ‘Ye tellt him
hoo little ye thoucht o’ me, and that gart him change his min’!’
‘Wud he be worth greitin aboot gien that war the case, Phemy? But ye
ken it wasna that! Ye ken ’at I jist cudna du onything o’ the sort!--
I’m jist ashamed to deny’t!’
‘Hoo am I to ken? There’s nae a wuman born but wad fain hae him til
hersel!’
Kirsty held her peace for pity, thinking what she could say to convince
her of Gordon’s faithlessness.
‘He didna say he hadna promised?’ resumed Phemy through her sobs.
‘We camna upo’ that.’
‘That’s what I’m thinkin!’
‘I kenna what ye’re thinking, Phemy!’
‘What did ye gie him, Kirsty, whan he tauld ye--no ’at I believe a word
o’ ’t--’at he wud nane o’ me?’
Kirsty laughed with a scorn none the less clear that it was quiet.
‘Jist a guid lickin,’ she answered.
‘Ha, ha!’ laughed Phemy hysterically. ‘I tellt ye ye was leein! Ye hae
been naething but leein--a’ for fun, of coorse, I ken that--to mak a
fule o’ me for bein fleyt!’
Despair, for a moment, seemed to overwhelm Kirsty. Was it for this she
had so wounded her own soul! How was she to make the poor child
understand? She lifted up her heart in silence. At last she said,--
‘Ye winna see mair o’ him this year or twa onygait, I’m thinkin! Gien
ever ye get a scart o’ ’s pen, it’ll surprise me. But gien ever ye hae
the chance, which may God forbid, tell him I said I had gien him his
licks, and daured him to come and deny’t to my face. He winna du that,
Phemy! He kens ower weel I wad jist gie him them again!’
‘He wud kill ye, Kirsty! _You_ gie him his licks!’
‘He micht kill me, but he’d hae a pairt o’ his licks first!--And noo
gien ye dinna believe me I winna answer a single question mair ye put
to me. I hae been tellin ye--no God’s trowth, it’s true, but the
deevil’s--and it’s no use, for ye winna believe a word o’ ’t!’
Phemy rose up a pygmy Fury.
‘And ye laid han’ to cheek o’ that king o’ men, Kirsty Barclay? Lord,
haud me ohn killt her! Little hauds me frae riven ye to bits wi’ my twa
han’s!’
‘I laidna han’ to cheek o’ Francie Gordon, Phemy; I jist throosh him
wi’ his father’s ain ridin whup ’at my hert’s like to brak to think o’
’t. I doobt he’ll carry the marks til’s grave!’
Kirsty broke into a convulsion of silent sobs and tears.
‘Kirsty Barclay, ye’re a deevil!’ cried Phemy in a hoarse whisper: she
was spent with passion.
The little creature stood before Kirsty, her hands clenched and shaking
with rage, blue flashes darting about in her eyes. Kirsty, at once
controlling the passion of her own heart, sat still as a statue,
regarding her with a sad pity. A sparrow stood chattering at a big
white brooding dove; and the dove sorrowed for the sparrow, but did not
know how to help the fluttering thing.
‘Lord!’ cried Phemy, ‘I’ll be cursin a’ the warl’ and God himsel, gien
I gang on this gait!--Eh, ye fause wuman!’
Kirsty sprang upon her at one bound from her seat, threw her arms round
her so that she could not move hers, and sitting down with her on her
lap, said--
‘Phemy, gien I was yer mither, I wad gie ye yer licks for sayin what ye
didna i’ yer hert believe! A’ the time ye was keepin company wi’
Francie Gordon, ye ken i’ yer ain sowl ye was never richt sure o’ him!
And noo I tell ye plainly that, although I strack him times and times
wi’ my whup--and saired him weel!--I div not believe him sae
ill-contrived as ye wad gar me think him. Him and me was bairns
thegither, and I ken the natur o’ him, and tak his pairt again ye, for,
oot o’ pride and ambition, ye’re an enemy til him: I div not believe
ever he promised to merry ye! He’s behaved ill eneuch wantin
that--lattin a gowk o’ a lassie like you believe what ye likit, and him
only carryin on wi’ ye for the ploy o’ ’t, haeing naething to du, and
sick o’ his ain toom heid and still toomer hert; but a man’s word’s his
word, and Francie’s no sae ill as your tale wud mak him! There, Phemy,
I hae said my say!’
She loosened her arms. But Phemy lay still, and putting her arms round
Kirsty’s neck, wept in a bitter silence.