BARBARA CATANACH.
Miss Horn was interrupted by the sound of the latch of the street
door, and sprung from her chair in anger.
“Canna they lat her sleep for five meenutes?” she cried aloud,
forgetting that there was no fear of rousing her any more.--“It’ll
be Jean come in frae the pump,” she reflected, after a moment’s
pause; but, hearing no footstep along the passage to the kitchen,
concluded--“It’s no her, for _she_ gangs aboot the hoose like the
fore half o’ a new-shod cowt;” and went down the stair to see who
might have thus presumed to enter unbidden.
In the kitchen, the floor of which was as white as scrubbing could
make it, and sprinkled with sea-sand--under the gaily-painted
Dutch clock, which went on ticking as loud as ever, though just
below the dead--sat a woman about sixty years of age, whose plump
face to the first glance looked kindly, to the second, cunning,
and to the third, evil. To the last look the plumpness appeared
unhealthy, suggesting a doughy indentation to the finger, and its
colour also was pasty. Her deep-set, black-bright eyes, glowing
from under the darkest of eye-brows, which met over her nose, had
something of a fascinating influence--so much of it that at a
first interview one was not likely for a time to notice any other
of her features. She rose as Miss Horn entered, buried a fat fist
in a soft side, and stood silent.
“Weel?” said Miss Horn interrogatively, and was silent also.
“I thocht ye micht want a cast o’ my callin’,” said the woman.
“Na, na; there’s no a han’ ’at s’ lay finger upo’ the bairn but mine
ain,” said Miss Horn. “I had it a’ ower, my lee lane, afore the skreigh
o’ day. She’s lyin’ quaiet noo--verra quaiet--waitin’ upo’ Watty
Witherspail. Whan he fesses hame her bit boxie, we s’ hae her laid
canny intill ’t, an’ hae dune wi’ ’t.”
“Weel, mem, for a leddy-born, like yersel’, I maun say, ye tak it
unco composed!”
“I’m no awaur, Mistress Catanach, o’ ony necessity laid upo’ ye
to say yer min’ i’ this hoose. It’s no expeckit. But what for sud
I no tak’ it wi’ composur’? We’ll hae to tak’ oor ain turn er lang,
as composed as we hae the skiel o’, and gang oot like a lang-nibbit
can’le--ay, an lea’ jist sic a memory ahin’ some o’ ’s, Bawby.”
“I kenna gien ye mean me, Miss Horn,” said the woman; “but it’s no
that muckle o’ a memory I expec’ to lea’ ahin’ me.”
“The less the better,” muttered Miss Horn; but her unwelcome visitor
went on:
“Them ’at’s maist i’ _my_ debt kens least aboot it; and their mithers
canna be said to hae muckle to be thankfu’ for. It’s God’s trowth,
I _ken_ waur nor ever I _did_, mem. A body in my trade canna help fa’in’
amo’ ill company whiles, for we’re a’ born in sin, an’ brocht furth
in ineequity, as the Buik says; in fac’, it’s a’ sin thegither: we
come o’ sin an’ we gang for sin; but ye ken the likes o’ me maunna
clype (_tell tales_). A’ the same, gien ye dinna tak the help o’ my
han’, ye winna refuse me the sicht o’ my een, puir thing!”
“There’s nane sall luik upon her deid ’at wasna a pleesur’ till
her livin’; an’ ye ken weel eneuch, Bawby, she cudna thole (_bear_)
the sicht o’ _you_.”
“An’ guid rizzon had she for that, gien a’ ’at gangs throu’ my
heid er I fa’ asleep i’ the lang mirk nichts be a hair better nor
ane o’ the auld wives’ fables ’at fowk says the holy buik maks sae
licht o’.”
“What mean ye?” demanded Miss Horn, sternly and curtly.
“I ken what I mean mysel’, an’ ane that’s no content wi’ that,
bude (_behoved_) ill be a howdie (_midwife_). I wad fain hae gotten a
fancy oot o’ my heid that’s been there this mony a lang day; but
please yersel’, mem, gien ye winna be neebourly.”
“Ye s’ no gang near her--no to save ye frae a’ the ill dreams
that ever gethered aboot a sin-stappit (_stuffed_) bowster!” cried
Miss Horn, and drew down her long upper lip in a strong arch.
“Ca cannie! ca cannie! (_drive gently_),” said Bawby. “Dinna anger
me ower sair, for I _am_ but mortal. Fowk tak a heap frae you, Miss
Horn, ’at they’ll tak frae nane ither, for your temper’s weel kent,
an’ little made o’; but it’s an ill-faured thing to anger the howdie
--sae muckle lies upo’ _her_; an’ I’m no i’ the tune to put up wi’
muckle the nicht. I wonner at ye bein’ sae oonneebour-like--at
sic a time tu, wi’ a corp i’ the hoose!”
“Gang awa--gang oot o ’t: it’s _my_ hoose,” said Miss Horn, in a low,
hoarse voice, restrained from rising to tempest pitch only by the
consciousness of what lay on the other side of the ceiling above
her head. “I wad as sune lat a cat intill the deid-chaumer to gang
loupin’ ower the corp, or may be waur, as I wad lat yersel’ intill
’t Bawby Catanach; an’ there’s till ye!”
At this moment the opportune entrance of Jean afforded fitting
occasion to her mistress for leaving the room without encountering
the dilemma of either turning the woman out--a proceeding which
the latter, from the way in which she set her short, stout figure
square on the floor, appeared ready to resist--or of herself
abandoning the field in discomfiture: she turned and marched from
the kitchen with her head in the air, and the gait of one who had
been insulted on her own premises.
She was sitting in the parlour, still red-faced and wrathful, when
Jean entered, and, closing the door behind her, drew near to her
mistress, bearing a narrative, commenced at the door, of all she
had seen, heard, and done, while “oot an’ aboot i’ the toon.” But
Miss Horn interrupted her the moment she began to speak.
“Is that wuman furth the hoose, Jean?” she asked, in the tone
of one who waited her answer in the affirmative as a preliminary
condition of all further conversation.
“She’s gane, mem,” answered Jean--adding to herself in a wordless
thought, “I’m no sayin’ _whaur_.”
“She’s a wuman I wadna hae ye throng wi’, Jean.”
“I ken no ill o’ her, mem,” returned Jean.
“She’s eneuch to corrup’ a kirkyaird!” said her mistress, with more
force than fitness.
Jean, however, was on the shady side of fifty, more likely to have
already yielded than to be liable to a first assault of corruption;
and little did Miss Horn think how useless was her warning, or
where Barbara Catanach was at that very moment. Trusting to Jean’s
cunning, as well she might, she was in the dead-chamber, and
standing over the dead. She had folded back the sheet--not from
the face, but from the feet--and raised the night dress of fine
linen in which the love of her cousin had robed the dead for the
repose of the tomb.
“It wad hae been tellin’ her,” she muttered, “to hae spoken Bawby
fair! I’m no used to be fa’en foul o’ that gait. I s’ be even
wi’ her yet, I’m thinkin’--the auld speldin’! Losh! and Praise
be thankit! there it ’s! It’s there!--a wee darker, but the same
--jist whaur I could ha’ laid the pint o’ my finger upo’ ’t i’ the
mirk!--Noo lat the worms eat it,” she concluded, as she folded
down the linen of shroud and sheet--“an’ no mortal ken o’ ’t but
mysel’ an’ him ’at bude till hae seen ’t, gien he was a hair better
nor Glenkindie’s man i’ the auld ballant!”
The instant she had re-arranged the garments of the dead, she
turned and made for the door with a softness of step that strangely
contrasted with the ponderousness of her figure, and indicated great
muscular strength, opened it with noiseless circumspection to the
width of an inch, peeped out from the crack, and seeing the opposite
door still shut, stepped out with a swift, noiseless swing of
person and door simultaneously, closed the door behind her, stole
down the stairs, and left the house. Not a board creaked, not a
latch clicked as she went. She stepped into the street as sedately
as if she had come from paying to the dead the last offices of
her composite calling, the projected front of her person appearing
itself aware of its dignity as the visible sign and symbol of a
good conscience and kindly heart.