the well it was necessary to go through the gate at the far angle of
the yard, and to walk some distance along the grassy road which led
to the next farm. The gusts blew off the lake and twirled Vara's hair
becomingly about her face. She was certainly growing a tall, shapely,
personable lass. And so thought Kit Kennedy, and said so with his eyes.
Kit was also tall and strong. There was nothing rustic about his
appearance. He had the profile and pose of head of the young Apollo of
the Bow. He did not, indeed, possess the sinewy, gypsy alertness of
Cleg Kelly, nor yet the devil's grit, turned, on the whole, to good
intents, which drove that youth safely through so many adventures. Kit
Kennedy was slower, more thoughtful, more meditative. Cleg never by any
chance wasted a moment in meditation, so long as there was a chance to
do anything. And when he did, it was only that he might again dash the
more determinedly and certainly into the arena of action.
But Kit Kennedy could call friends out of the visionary air to sit with
him in "sessions of sweet silent thought." Often he walked day after
day in a world all his own. And the most stinging words of Mistress
McWalter did not affect him one whit more than the gusts of wind-born
rain which dashed at him across the lake.
In the same circumstances, Cleg would simply have smitten Mistress
McWalter with a stone, or, if more convenient, with a poker, and so
departed well content. But Kit Kennedy forbore, and made nothing of
her persecution. He could dodge her blows by watching her hand. And he
could go on calmly rehearsing the adventures of Sir Aylmer de Vallance,
while the abuse of his aunt provided a ready-made background of storm
and fret, which gave a delicious relish to a victorious single combat
in Kit's imagination.
When Kit met Vara on the well road he took the cans naturally out of
her hands, as if he had been well accustomed to doing it. He had been
waiting for her. In his heart he always called her his lady Gloriana,
and it was only with difficulty that he could remember to call her
Vara. Kit had been much happier during the years since Vara came. He
had now a heroine for his romances, as well as a companion for his
hours of ease. For Kit went about acting another life all day long. He
fed the bullocks to the clatter of cavalry hoofs. He shepherded the
sheep towards pastures new, to the blast of trumpet and the beat of
drum. Or, as a great general, he stood gloomily apart upon a knoll,
with his staff around him, and sent a barking aide-de-camp here and
another there, to direct the woolly battalions how to make their attack
upon the bridge. He always thrust one hand into his breast, in order to
represent the correct attitude of a great general on such occasions. He
was compelled to unloose the third button of his waistcoat in order to
do it. This seemed strange. He had never read that this was necessary.
He wondered what heroes did in that case. But it struck him afterwards
that very likely they had their waistcoats made open on purpose.
Again, in his books of chivalry there was always a lady to be the
guiding star of every life of adventure. Each knight, if he was of any
respectability at all, provided himself at least with one. The great
Don Quixote had done that. For the Knight Dolorous was, in the opinion
of Kit Kennedy, as indeed in that of all fair-minded people, a most
high-minded and ill-used man.
Kit had tried in various directions to find a lady of his vows before
Vara came. For lack of better, he had even tried to imagine his aunt
as a divinity, beautiful and cruel. But something was always happening
to destroy this illusion. Nothing is more hurtful to exalted sentiment
than a box on the ear, administered unexpectedly. So, after a fair
trial, Kit was compelled definitely to give his aunt up, as a possible
queen of love and courtesy. It could not be done, even with all Kit's
very generous good-will. So, instead, he called her the False Duessa,
the black hag Sycorax, and especially and generally Beelzebubba, for
the last name pleased him greatly. And whenever she mocked him with her
bitter tongue, Kit hugged himself, saying, "Ah! if only I were to call
her Beelzebubba! Little knows she that in the history of my mighty and
knightly deeds, she is condemned to go down to posterity yet unborn
under the name of the Loathly Beelzebubba!"
So Kit carried the Lady Gloriana's silver vessels to the fountain of
the Elixir of Life, swinging them lightly and talking briskly all the
way.
Vara looked often at Kit, with his free breezy ways and erect carriage.
Indeed, she looked so often, that if Cleg had been within sight there
would certainly have been another fight.
But Vara was constantly mindful of Cleg. She prayed for him night
and morning. She remembered all his goodness, and she wished that he
could oftener come to see her. But in the meantime it was undoubtedly
pleasant to have some one at hand, so ready to help with sympathy for
herself and abuse of the enemy as Kit Kennedy.
The lad and the girl stood awhile at the well, leaning elbows upon the
dyke, while Vara confided to Kit all the morning enormities of Mistress
McWalter, and Kit bade her be of good cheer, for there was a good
time coming for them both. And also, doubtless, a very bad time for
Beelzebubba. It always was so in the story books.
"How splendid," said Kit, "if the devil were just to come for her as
he did for poor Faust! He will some day, you may depend. Beelzebubba
would be coming after me with a stick. She would run on and on, getting
nearer and nearer to the barn end. I would show the devil exactly
where to wait for her. Then I should put my hat on a stick and she
would come, crawling, crawling slowly—to get a whack at me. By-and-bye
she would get to the corner, and then—_pouch!_ the devil would jump
at her and catch her, the earth fly open, and nothing be left of
Beelzebubba but a smell of sulphur, as there is after a bee-killing."
The vision was monstrously comfortable as Kit painted it. But Vara did
not laugh.
"I think it's wicked to speak that gate," she said.
"What?" said Kit, hardly able to believe his ears, yet scenting a new
and unsuspected perfection in his lady Gloriana; "it is only my aunt.
It is Beelzebubba."
Vara shook her head. She could not give reasons, but she did not think
such talk could be right even to imagine.
"She is no that ill after a', if you consider that she keeps us," she
said.
Kit did not know that Vara had known intimately a far worse woman than
Mistress McWalter.
At the door Kit gave the cans of water to Vara, brimming full as he
had carried them, but silently, lest his aunt should hear from her bed
above. He touched Vara's hand lightly for reward. For he was a boy as
full of sentiment as his books were primed with it. He had brought
a dozen of his father's volumes with him, and though his aunt daily
prophesied their destruction by fire, Kit thought that she knew better
than to do that.
But, while Vara had been gone to the well for the water, momentous
things had been happening in the privacy of the chamber shared by
Mistress McWalter and her husband. The worm had turned. But, alas! even
when worms turn, they do not gain much by it. Except that perhaps they
may assist the early bird to wriggle down its breakfast a little more
easily.
Mistress McWalter had gone storming along her devious way of abuse
after Vara's departure.
"I wish ye wad let that lassie alane!" suddenly broke in John McWalter,
awaking out of his deep silence at the thirtieth repetition of the
phrase "impident madam of the street." "The lassie's weel eneuch, so
far as I see, gin ye wad only let her alane!"
For a long minute Mistress McWalter lay petrified with astonishment.
The like of this had not happened since six months after their
marriage. But the checked tide of her speech was not long in
overflowing the barrier like a bursting flood.
"Is't come to this between you an' me, John McWalter—that I may rise
and pack, and tak' awa me and my bairns, puir harmless bits o' things?
For it comes to that! After a' my thirty years aboot the hoose o'
Loch Spellanderie, that ye should tak' the pairt o' a reckless randy
gang-the-road trollop, against your ain married wife! Have I watched
and tended ye for this, when ye had the trouble in your inside,
and could get rest neither day nor nicht, you wantin' aye mustard
plaisters? Is it to be lichtlied for a lichtfit rantipole limmer that I
hae fed ye and clad ye—aye, and tended your bairns, washing them back
and front ilka Saturday nicht wi' a bit o' flannel and guid yellow
soap, forby drying them after that wi' a rough towel? And noo, since I
am to hae a besom like this preferred before me—I'll rise and be gaun.
I'll bide nae mair aboot this hoose. Guid be thanked there's them in
the warld that thinks mair o' me than John McWalter, my ain marriet
man!"
"Aye, juist na," said John McWalter, roused at last. "E'en gang your
ways, Mistress, if ye can make a better o't. Ye're braw and welcome to
trampit as far as this hoose is concerned. I'm thinkin' that your new
freends will be brave and sune tired o' ye!"
Mistress McWalter bounced out of bed and began hurriedly to gather her
apparel, as though she meditated leaving the house just as she was.
She would have given a considerable sum of money if at that moment she
could have wept real wet tears. However, she did her best with a dry
towel.
"To think," sobbed she, bouncing from chair to chair, "that ye prefer a
wandering gypsy's brat o' a hizzie to me! O what for did I ever leave
my mither, and the bonny hoose o' Knockshin where I was so muckle
thocht on? Waes me, for I am but a puir, heart-broken, deceivit woman!"
At this very moment Vara came in bearing her cans, with a lightened
heart after her journey to the well with Kit Kennedy. With a louder
voice and more abounding thankfulness, Mistress McWalter took up the
burden of her tale.
"Aye, here comes your base limmer. Ye had better be awa doon to her,
John McWalter," cried the Mistress of Loch Spellanderie, "or she may
tak' the country again, after the thief-like loon wha cam' seekin' her
on Monday nicht, nae farther gane."
Then Mistress McWalter went down stairs and opened more direct fire. It
was certainly a stormy day at Loch Spellanderie, little doubt was there
of that. For the winds roared about the farm on the hill above the
water. And within Mistress McWalter's tongue thundered like great guns
in a naval engagement. Vara went about her work with the tear on her
pale cheek all that day, and a wonder in her heart what she had done to
deserve such cruelty.
ADVENTURE LIV.
KIT KENNEDY'S FAREWELL.
It was about half-past four in the afternoon that Vara was coming round
the corner of the barn carrying an armful of hay. She was undisguisedly
sobbing now. For though she did not cry in the house where Mistress
McWalter could see her, it was too much for her to restrain herself
when she was alone out of doors.
John McWalter met her and stopped, with his usual elaborate pretence of
being in a hurry and not having a moment to spare. He had really been
doing nothing all the afternoon but looking for a chance of speaking to
her.
"Vara, dinna greet, my lassie," he said, "ye maunna heed the mistress'
tongue. We a' get oor share o't! Can ye no bide for a day or twa what I
hae ta'en to bed wi' me every nicht for thirty year?"
"Thank you," said Vara, "I am gaun awa' the nicht."
"Where are ye gaun, my lassie?" asked John McWalter kindly.
"To see Hugh and Gavin, my twa wee brithers at Sandyknowes," said Vara,
"and maybe I'll be some use there. An' if not, we will just hae to gang
farther on, and look for my faither again."
"Weel," said John McWalter, "Guid kens I dinna blame ye. Maybe, after
a', it wad be as weel. I can see plainly there is gaun to be nae peace
here, and it was a' my blame no haudin' my tongue this mornin'. But
here's something that will help ye on your road wherever ye gang, my
lassie, near or far. There's nae better friend in the world that I ken
o' than just a pound note."
And he slipped Vara a dirty little square of papers folded hard in his
hand.
"I canna tak' it," said Vara protestingly, with the paper in her
fingers.
"Hoots," said John McWalter, "I'm no needin' it. I hae plenty. And I
canna let ye gang oot o' my hoose unplenished and unprovided, ony mair
than if ye war my ain dochter. Tak' the pickle siller, lassie, and
welcome. And hark ye, mind and crave the mistress for your full wage
forbye. She'll think a heap mair o' ye for doin' that. And forbye,
she'll no jalloose[9] me so readily."
And that honest man John McWalter slipped like a thief of the night in
at the back door of the barn.
Vara promptly announced her intention of going away that evening. "Aye
and welcome," said Mistress McWalter; "the like o' you should never hae
entered my door."
"I shall want my wages," said Vara, plucking up courage and remembering
her master's words.
"Wages, ye randy," cried the good wife of Loch Spellanderie; "wages!
Set ye up, indeed, ye crawlin' blastie! Think ye that honest folk's
wages are for the like o' you, that canna bide awa' frae your deboshed
paramours, and that lies in wait to entrap decent folk's men, silly
craiturs that they are?"
"I am but a young lassie," said Vara, calmly, "and think on nane o'
thae things. Neither will ony body believe them but yoursel'. But I'm
gaun to hae my wages, or I'll gang to the kirk yett next Sabbath, and
tell a' the neebours how ye treat your servants, starvin' them on
scraps like dogs, making their lives a burden to them to get them no to
bide aboot the hoose, and then at the hinder end threatening them to
give them nae wages."
This threat, which would have feared no one who was conscious of good
intent, somewhat stilled Mrs. McWalter's fury. For she knew that
anything of the kind would be greedily listened to, and retailed at all
the tea drinking in the neighbourhood. And she felt, also, that she had
not quite the character in the country-side upon which such accusations
would fall harmless.
She went to a locked drawer.
"Here's your wages," she said, "and an ill wish gang wi' them. Glad am
I to be rid of you!"
Even thus Vara took her departure from the house of Loch Spellanderie.
John McWalter covertly watched her carrying her bundle out of the yard.
He was looking round the corner of a corn stack. He dared not come out
and bid the girl farewell because of his wife. But the tear was now in
his own eye.
"It micht hae been my ain lassie leavin' anither man's hoose. I am wae
for her," he said. "But I'm glad it was a ten-pund note that I slippit
her. And whatna state wad the wife no be in, gin she kenned!"
And there came a faint pleasure into his grieved heart as he watched
Vara out of sight.
Meanwhile Mistress McWalter stood at the door with victory in the
very poise of her ungainly figure. She had disdained to utter a
word, as Vara went past her and quietly bade her "Good-night!" But
now she cried, "Kit Kennedy! Kit Kennedy! Kit Kennedy!" with all the
penetrative power of her voice.
But there was no answer. Kit was not to be found.
For Kit Kennedy was in a better place. He was bidding his lady Gloriana
adieu. He had, indeed, never let Vara know that he had distinguished
her by that name, nor, indeed, save by his kindness and help, that he
thought of her at all.
But now she was going away for ever. Her little bundle was in her hand.
Her all was in it, and what Loch Spellanderie would be without her, Kit
did not like to think just yet.
It was under the orchard apple trees, at the place where they overhang
the wall, that Kit was waiting.
"I'm vexed, Vara, I'm sair vexed that ye are gaun awa' to leave us!"
said Kit Kennedy, hanging his head. "I do not ken what we will do
without you. It will no be the same place ava!"
"Fare ye weel, lad," Vara said, holding out her hand; "ye hae been kind
to me. Aye, juist past speakin' o'!"
"I'll carry your bundle as far as the march dyke, gin ye'll let me,"
said Kit, for once, bashfully. "I canna bear to think on ye gangin'
like this!"
"Ye had better no," said Vara, "she micht see ye!"
"Her!" said Kit, with a scornful look over his shoulder; "I wadna care
a buckie gin she was walkin' up the loan ahint us!"
Yet, in spite of this gallant defiance, Vara turned round to make sure
that the goodwife of Loch Spellanderie was not in the place designated.
They walked a long while in silence. It was Kit who spoke first.
"Vara," he said, "will ye whiles think on me?"
"Of course I will that," said Vara readily; "ye hae been verra kind to
me here."
"I'm but a laddie, I ken," said Kit, "but ye micht no a'thegither
forget me. I'll never forget you, lassie!"
There fell another silence between them.
"Ye'll be gaun back to be near _him_?" said Kit, a little sullenly.
"Aye," replied Vara, in a voice that was almost a whisper, "maybe! Ye
see, we hae kenned yin anither a' oor lives. And he kens hoo I was
brocht up—and a' aboot my folk! And I ken his."
"I'm jalloosin' ye'll be desperate fond o' him?" said Kit, in the same
hang-dog way, as if he were taking pleasure in his own pain.
"He fed the bairns wi' milk and bread," replied Vara softly; "aye, and
gied us a' that he had when we were starvin'! He gied up the very roof
abune his heid to shelter us when we were turned oot on the street. I
canna help bein' fond o' him, Kit. 'Deed I canna."
Kit Kennedy thought a long time, till indeed they had walked quite
across a field. Then he spoke.
"I canna feed ye, nor yet look after the bairns for ye. I hae nae hoose
to put ye in, Vara. But O, I am _that_ fond of ye, it's like to break
my heart."
Vara stretched out her hand.
"An' I'm fond o' you too, laddie!" she said.
"Aye, but no the way I mean!" said Kit sadly, with a sob in his voice.
"I'll be aye thinkin' on ye," said Vara. "I wish ye war awa' frae this
place."
"Dinna gie that a thocht!" said Kit, bravely; "I'm no mindin' a hair
for my auntie—at least, I wadna if ye had only bided, so that whiles I
could hae looked at ye, Vara!"
They had been walking hand in hand for some time. Kit Kennedy was
tingling with a great desire. His heart was beating violently, as he
nerved himself for the plunge.
They were at the march-dyke, just where it plunged into the wood of
birches and alders. The path went down close along the lake shore
from that point. The trees made a green haze of dusk there, with airs
blowing cool from off the lake.
"Gloriana," said Kit suddenly, "will ye gie me a bit kiss to mind ye
by?"
Vara looked at the lad with eyes of shy terror. This was indeed
something new. Even Cleg, who would readily have died for her, or given
her his coat or his house, if he had one, had never offered to kiss
her. So at the sound of Kit's voice her heart also drummed in her ears
emptily, as if her head were deep under water.
She stood still, looking away from him, but not turning her head down.
Kit bent his head and kissed her fairly.
A strange pang ran responsively to Vara's heart—a flash of rapture to
Kit's. They parted without a word, the girl walking sedately out of the
shadows in one direction, and the lad running with all his might back
to the farm in the other.
Each had their own several communings.
Vara said to herself, "Why does not Cleg think to speak to me like
that?"
It was a great blunder on Cleg's part, certainly, and, if heart-aches
were to be spared, one which he should speedily set himself to repair.
And as Kit Kennedy went home he said, over and over, "I hae kissed her.
I hae kissed her. Naething and naebody can take that from me, at least."
But with the stilling of his leaping and rejoicing heart came the
thought, "But had I the right? He fed them and clothed them, and never
asked as much. He is better than I. I will not trouble them any more.
For he is better and worthier than I."
So Kit's dreams and imaginings helped him to something more knightly
in his renunciation than in the brief rapturous flash of possession.
ADVENTURE LV.
A YOUNG MAN'S FANCY.
Meanwhile Cleg was looking after the General's interests when, had he
known it, he ought rather to have been looking after his own. He closed
the doors of the great house that afternoon, as he had done for many
months, and left his master in his strange bed. He was not afraid now,
any more. For, in spite of his madness, there was something engaging
about the General, something at once childlike and ingenuous, which
came out in the close intercourse of two people living altogether alone.
Cleg went into the little brick addition at the back, and the barred
doors of the great house shut mechanically behind him.
Cleg was making up his mind to ask the General to let him live out of
the house. Cleg was thinking, also, of speaking to Vara. But then Vara
might not agree. Had he ever asked her? Of course he had not. It was
"soft"—so he had held up to this point to speak to a girl about such
things. But yet the idea had its pleasures, and some day he would speak
to her about it. Had he been hidden that day in the little copse by the
march-dyke, on the road from Loch Spellanderie, he might have heard
something very much to his advantage, which might have spurred him on
to speak for himself, even at the risk of being considered exceedingly
"soft."
But the mere fact that he thought of it at all, argued a mighty change
in this Cleg of ours. He was no more only an Arab of the city all these
years. He had given Mirren half his wages and saved the rest, so that,
with the Christmas presents the General had given him, he had nearly a
hundred pounds in the bank.
Cleg pushed his way through the thickly matted copses of spurge laurel
and wet-shot alder. He was going to Sandyknowes. The lush green
Solomon's seal was growing all around, with its broad-veined green
leaves. A little farther on he came on the pure white blossoms of bog
trefoil, with its flossy, delicate petals, lace-edged like feminine
frilleries.
A thought came into Cleg's mind at the time which bore fruit
afterwards. He thought that, if at any time he should lose his position
with the General, he knew what he should do. For Cleg was an optimist,
and a working, scheming optimist as well. The man who succeeds in this
world is doubtless the man who, according to the copybook maxim, gives
his undivided attention to the matter in hand. But he is also the man
who has always a scheme or two in reserve. He is the man who is ready,
if need be, to "fight it out on this line all summer," but who has also
at the same time other fighting lines in reserve for the autumn and
winter campaigns.
So Cleg, with his ready brain, turned the wild flowers into a means
of getting the little house in the background for Vara and himself,
even if the General's kindness should vanish away as quickly and
unexpectedly as it had come.
The house of Sandyknowes was very quiet. Mirren Douglas had put away
vain regrets even as she had laid away Muckle Alick's things—and that
was as neatly as if he was to need them next Sabbath when he made ready
for the kirk. She had reviewed her position. And for four years, with
Vara's and Cleg's help, she had owed no man anything, and had brought
up Hugh and Gavin as if they were her own. But she never thought of
herself as Alick's widow. She was his wife still.
Alick and she had been saving people. Also he had been, as was said,
"a weel-likit man aboot the station," and he had left her nearly four
hundred pounds in the bank. But this Mirren, like a prudent woman, had
resolved not to touch if she could help it. She had still six years to
run of the nineteen years' lease of Sandyknowes—its grass parks and its
gardens, its beeskeps and little office houses. But she was often a
little wearied at night, cumbered with much service. She felt that now
she needed help.
Her thoughts fell on Vara. Should she not bring her home? But yet how
could she take her away till the term from Mistress McWalter of Loch
Spellanderie?
At that very moment Vara herself opened the door and walked in.
"Wi' lassie!" cried the astonished Mirren Douglas, "what for hae ye
left your place? Hae ye gotten leave to bide a' nicht?"
"I hae gotten my fee an' my leave, like the brownie Kit Kennedy sings
aboot!" said Vara pleasantly.
"And what's the reason o' that?" said Mirren, with great anxiety in her
motherly face.
"The master and the mistress fell oot aboot me," said Vara simply.
"Then I needna ask what yin o' them was in your favour," said Mirren,
sharply.
"I must look out for a place," said Vara. "Oh, Mirren Douglas, ye
hae been kind to me. But I couldna think o' puttin' you to fash and
trouble ony longer, noo that I'm woman muckle, and able to be doin' for
mysel'."