THE SHADOW ON THE WATERS.
It was not very long before Cousin Edie was queen of West Inch, and we
all her devoted subjects from my father down. She had money and to
spare, though none of us knew how much. When my mother said that four
shillings the week would cover all that she would cost, she fixed on
seven shillings and sixpence of her own free will. The south room,
which was the sunniest and had the honeysuckle round the window, was for
her; and it was a marvel to see the things that she brought from Berwick
to put into it. Twice a week she would drive over, and the cart would
not do for her, for she hired a gig from Angus Whitehead, whose farm lay
over the hill. And it was seldom that she went without bringing
something back for one or other of us. It was a wooden pipe for my
father, or a Shetland plaid for my mother, or a book for me, or a brass
collar for Rob the collie. There was never a woman more free-handed.
But the best thing that she gave us was just her own presence. To me it
changed the whole country-side, and the sun was brighter and the braes
greener and the air sweeter from the day she came. Our lives were
common no longer now that we spent them with such a one as she, and the
old dull grey house was another place in my eyes since she had set her
foot across the door-mat. It was not her face, though that was winsome
enough, nor her form, though I never saw the lass that could match her;
but it was her spirit, her queer mocking ways, her fresh new fashion of
talk, her proud whisk of the dress and toss of the head, which made one
feel like the ground beneath her feet, and then the quick challenge in
her eye, and the kindly word that brought one up to her level again.
But never quite to her level either. To me she was always something
above and beyond. I might brace myself and blame myself, and do what I
would, but still I could not feel that the same blood ran in our veins,
and that she was but a country lassie, as I was a country lad. The more
I loved her the more frightened I was at her, and she could see the
fright long before she knew the love. I was uneasy to be away from her,
and yet when I was with her I was in a shiver all the time for fear my
stumbling talk might weary her or give her offence. Had I known more of
the ways of women I might have taken less pains.
"You're a deal changed from what you used to be, Jack," said she,
looking at me sideways from under her dark lashes.
"You said not when first we met," says I.
"Ah! I was speaking of your looks then, and of your ways now. You used
to be so rough to me, and so masterful, and would have your own way,
like the little man that you were. I can see you now with your touzled
brown hair and your mischievous eyes. And now you are so gentle and
quiet and soft-spoken."
"One learns to behave," says I.
"Ah, but, Jack, I liked you so much better as you were!"
Well, when she said that I fairly stared at her, for I had thought that
she could never have quite forgiven me for the way I used to carry on.
That anyone out of a daft house could have liked it, was clean beyond my
understanding. I thought of how when she was reading by the door I
would go up on the moor with a hazel switch and fix little clay balls at
the end of it, and sling them at her until I made her cry. And then I
thought of how I caught an eel in the Corriemuir burn and chivied her
about with it, until she ran screaming under my mother's apron half mad
with fright, and my father gave me one on the ear-hole with the porridge
stick which knocked me and my eel under the kitchen dresser. And these
were the things that she missed! Well, she must miss them, for my hand
would wither before I could do them now. But for the first time I began
to understand the queerness that lies in a woman, and that a man must
not reason about one, but just watch and try to learn.
We found our level after a time, when she saw that she had just to do
what she liked and how she liked, and that I was as much at her beck and
call as old Rob was at mine. You'll think I was a fool to have had my
head so turned, and maybe I was; but then you must think how little I
was used to women, and how much we were thrown together. Besides she
was a woman in a million, and I can tell you that it was a strong head
that would not be turned by her.
Why, there was Major Elliott, a man that had buried three wives, and had
twelve pitched battles to his name, Edie could have turned him round her
finger like a damp rag--she, only new from the boarding school. I met
him hobbling from West Inch the first time after she came, with pink in
his cheeks and a shine in his eye that took ten years from him. He was
cocking up his grey moustaches at either end and curling them into his
eyes, and strutting out with his sound leg as proud as a piper. What
she had said to him the Lord knows, but it was like old wine in his
veins.
"I've been up to see you, laddie," said he, "but I must home again now.
My visit has not been wasted, however, as I had an opportunity of seeing
_la belle cousine_. A most charming and engaging young lady, laddie."
He had a formal stiff way of talking, and was fond of jerking in a bit
of the French, for he had picked some up in the Peninsula. He would
have gone on talking of Cousin Edie, but I saw the corner of a newspaper
thrusting out of his pocket, and I knew that he had come over, as was
his way, to give me some news, for we heard little enough at West Inch.
"What is fresh, Major?" I asked. He pulled the paper out with a
flourish.
"The allies have won a great battle, my lad," says he. "I don't think
Nap can stand up long against this. The Saxons have thrown him over,
and he's been badly beat at Leipzig. Wellington is past the Pyrenees,
and Graham's folk will be at Bayonne before long."
I chucked up my hat.
"Then the war will come to an end at last," I cried.
"Aye, and time too," said he, shaking his head gravely. "It's been a
bloody business. But it is hardly worth while for me to say now what
was in my mind about you."
"What was that?"
"Well, laddie, you are doing no good here, and now that my knee is
getting more limber I was hoping that I might get on active service
again. I wondered whether maybe you might like to do a little
soldiering under me."
My heart jumped at the thought.
"Aye, would I!" I cried.
"But it'll be clear six months before I'll be fit to pass a board, and
it's long odds that Boney will be under lock and key before that."
"And there's my mother," said I, "I doubt she'd never let me go."
"Ah! well, she'll never be asked to now," he answered, and hobbled on
upon his way.
I sat down among the heather with my chin on my hand, turning the thing
over in my mind, and watching him in his old brown clothes, with the end
of a grey plaid flapping over his shoulder, as he picked his way up the
swell of the hill. It was a poor life this, at West Inch, waiting to
fill my father's shoes, with the same heath, and the same burn, and the
same sheep, and the same grey house for ever before me. But over
there, over the blue sea, ah! there was a life fit for a man. There was
the Major, a man past his prime, wounded and spent, and yet planning to
get to work again, whilst I, with all the strength of my youth, was
wasting it upon these hillsides. A hot wave of shame flushed over me,
and I sprang up all in a tingle to be off and playing a man's part in
the world.
For two days I turned it over in my mind, and on the third there came
something which first brought all my resolutions to a head, and then
blew them all to nothing like a puff of smoke in the wind.
I had strolled out in 'the afternoon with Cousin Edie and Rob, until we
found ourselves upon the brow of the slope which dips away down to the
beach. It was late in the fall, and the links were all bronzed and
faded; but the sun still shone warmly, and a south breeze came in little
hot pants, rippling the broad blue sea with white curling lines.
I pulled an armful of bracken to make a couch for Edie, and there she
lay in her listless fashion, happy and contented; for of all folk that I
have ever met, she had the most joy from warmth and light. I leaned on
a tussock of grass, with Rob's head upon my knee, and there as we sat
alone in peace in the wilderness, even there we saw suddenly thrown upon
the waters in front of us the shadow of that great man over yonder, who
had scrawled his name in red letters across the map of Europe.
There was a ship coming up with the wind, a black sedate old
merchant-man, bound for Leith as likely as not. Her yards were square
and she was running with all sail set. On the other tack, coming from
the north-east, were two great ugly lugger-like craft, with one high
mast each, and a big square brown sail. A prettier sight one would not
wish than to see the three craft dipping along upon so fair a day.
But of a sudden there came a spurt of flame and a whirl of blue smoke
from one lugger, then the same from the second, and a rap, rap, rap,
from the ship. In a twinkling hell had elbowed out heaven, and there on
the waters was hatred and savagery and the lust for blood.
We had sprung to our feet at the outburst, and Edie put her hand all in
a tremble upon my arm.
"They are fighting, Jack!" she cried. "What are they? Who are they?"
My heart was thudding with the guns, and it was all that I could do to
answer her for the catch of my breath.
"It's two French privateers, Edie," said I, "Chasse-marries, they call
them, and yon's one of our merchant ships, and they'll take her as sure
as death; for the Major says they've always got heavy guns, and are as
full of men as an egg is full of meat. Why doesn't the fool make back
for Tweedmouth bar?"
But not an inch of canvas did she lower, but floundered on in her stolid
fashion, while a little black ball ran up to her peak, and the rare old
flag streamed suddenly out from the halliard. Then again came the rap,
rap, rap, of her little guns, and the boom, boom of the big carronades
in the bows of the lugger. An instant later the three ships met, and
the merchant-man staggered on like a stag with two wolves hanging to its
haunches. The three became but a dark blurr amid the smoke, with the
top spars thrusting out in a bristle, and from the heart of that cloud
came the quick red flashes of flame, and such a devils' racket of big
guns and small, cheering and screaming, as was to din in my head for
many a week. For a stricken hour the hell-cloud moved slowly across the
face of the water, and still with our hearts in our mouths we watched
the flap of the flag, straining to see if it were yet there. And then
suddenly, the ship, as proud and black and high as ever, shot on upon
her way; and as the smoke cleared we saw one of the luggers squattering
like a broken winged duck upon the water, and the other working hard to
get the crew from her before she sank.
For all that hour I had lived for nothing but the fight. My cap had
been whisked away by the wind, but I had never given it a thought.
Now with my heart full I turned upon my Cousin Edie, and the sight of
her took me back six years. There was the vacant staring eye and the
parted lips, just as I had seen them in her girlhood, and her little
hands were clenched until the knuckles gleamed like ivory.
"Ah, that captain!" said she, talking to the heath and the
whin-bushes. "There is a man so strong, so resolute! What woman would
not be proud of a man like that?"
"Aye, he did well!" I cried with enthusiasm.
She looked at me as if she had forgotten my existence.
"I would give a year of my life to meet such a man," said she.
"But that is what living in the country means. One never sees anybody
but just those who are fit for nothing better."
I do not know that she meant to hurt me, though she was never very
backward at that; but whatever her intention, her words seemed to strike
straight upon a naked nerve.
"Very well, Cousin Edie," I said, trying to speak calmly, "that puts the
cap on it. I'll take the bounty in Berwick to-night."
"What, Jack! you be a soldier!"
"Yes, if you think that every man that bides in the country must be a
coward."
"Oh, you'd look so handsome in a red coat, Jack, and it improves you
vastly when you are in a temper. I wish your eyes would always flash
like that, for it looks so nice and manly. But I am sure that you are
joking about the soldiering."
"I'll let you see if I am joking."
Then and there I set off running over the moor, until I burst into the
kitchen where my mother and father were sitting on either side of the
ingle.
"Mother," I cried, "I'm off for a soldier!"
Had I said I was off for a burglar they could not have looked worse over
it, for in those days among the decent canny country folks it was mostly
the black sheep that were herded by the sergeant. But, my word, those
same black sheep did their country some rare service too. My mother put
up her mittens to her eyes, and my father looked as black as a peat
hole.
"Hoots, Jock, you're daft," says he.
"Daft or no, I'm going."
"Then you'll have no blessing from me."
"Then I'll go without."
At this my mother gives a screech and throws her arms about my neck.
I saw her hand, all hard and worn and knuckly with the work she had done
for my up-bringing, and it pleaded with me as words could not have done.
My heart was soft for her, but my will was as hard as a flint-edge.
I put her back in her chair with a kiss, and then ran to my room to pack
my bundle. It was already growing dark, and I had a long walk before
me, so I thrust a few things together and hastened out. As I came
through the side door someone touched my shoulder, and there was Edie in
the gloaming.
"Silly boy," said she, "you are not really going."
"Am I not? You'll see."
"But your father does not wish it, nor your mother."
"I know that."
"Then why go?"
"You ought to know."
"Why, then?"
"Because you make me!"
"I don't want you to go, Jack."
"You said it. You said that the folk in the country were fit for
nothing better. You always speak like that. You think no more of me
than of those doos in the cot. You think I am nobody at all. I'll show
you different."
All my troubles came out in hot little spurts of speech. She coloured
up as I spoke, and looked at me in her queer half-mocking, half-petting
fashion.
"Oh, I think so little of you as that?" said she. "And that is the
reason why you are going away? Well then, Jack, will you stay if I
am--if I am kind to you?"
We were face to face and close together, and in an instant the thing was
done. My arms were round her, and I was kissing her, and kissing her,
and kissing her, on her mouth, her cheeks, her eyes, and pressing her to
my heart, and whispering to her that she was all, all, to me, and that I
could not be without her. She said nothing, but it was long before she
turned her face aside, and when she pushed me back it was not very hard.
"Why, you are quite your rude, old, impudent self!" said she, patting
her hair with her two hands. "You have tossed me, Jack; I had no idea
that you would be so forward!"
But all my fear of her was gone, and a love tenfold hotter than ever was
boiling in my veins. I took her up again, and kissed her as if it were
my right.
"You are my very own now!" I cried. "I shall not go to Berwick, but
I'll stay and marry you."
But she laughed when I spoke of marriage.
"Silly boy! Silly boy!" said she, with her forefinger up; and then when
I tried to lay hands on her again, she gave a little dainty curtsy, and
was off into the house.