Part 20 (1/2)

”In that case,” said Ralph, ”John listens at my father's door to hear if he is stirring. If there be no sign, John says, 'The minister's no in, mem, an' I could not say for certain when he wull be!' Once my father came out and caught him in the act, and when he charged John with telling a deliberate lie to a lady, John replied, 'A'weel, it'll tak' a lang while afore we mak' up for the aipple!'”

It is believed that John Bairdieson here refers to Eve's fatal gift to Adam.

”John Bairdieson is an ungallant man. It'll be from him that ye learned to rin awa',” retorted the old lady.

”Grandmother,” interrupted Winsome, who had suffered quite enough from this, ”Master Peden has come to see you, and to ask how you find yourself to-day.”

”Aye, aye, belike, belike--but Maister Ralph Peden has the power o' his tongue, an' gin that be his errand he can say as muckle for himsel'. Young fowk are whiles rale offcecious!” she said, turning to Ralph with the air of an appeal to an equal from the unaccountabilities of a child.

Winsome lifted some stray flowers that Jess Kissock had dropped when she sped out of the room, and threw them out of the window with an air of disdain. This to some extent relieved her, and she felt better. It surprised Ralph, however, who, being wholly innocent and unembarra.s.sed by the recent occurrence, wondered vaguely why she did it.

”Noo tell me mair aboot your faither,” continued Mistress Skirving. ”I canna mak' oot whaur the Marrow pairt o' ye comes in --I suppose when ye tak' to rinnin' awa'.”

”Grandmammy, your pillows are not comfortable; let me sort them for you.”

Winsome rose and touched the old lady's surroundings in a manner that to Ralph was suggestive of angels turning over the white- bosomed clouds. Then Ralph looked at his pleasant querist to find out if he were expected to go on. The old lady nodded to him with an affectionate look.

”Well,” said Ralph, ”my father is like n.o.body else. I have missed my mother, of course, but my father has been like a mother for tenderness to me.”

”Yer grandfaither, auld Ralph Gilchrist, was sore missed. There was thanksgiving in the parish for three days after he died!” said the old lady by way of an anticlimax.

Winsome looked very much as if she wished to say something, which brought down her grandmother's wrath upon her.

”Noo, la.s.sie, is't you or me that's haein' a veesit frae this young man? Ye telled me juist the noo that he had come to see me.

Then juist let us caa' oor cracks, an' say oor says in peace.”

Thus admonished, Winsome was silent. But for the first time she looked at Ralph with a smile that had half an understanding in it, which made that yonng man's heart leap. He answered quite at random for the next few moments.

”About my father--yes, he always takes up the Bibles when John Bairdieson preaches.”

”What!” said the old lady.

”I mean, John Bairdieson takes up the Bibles for him when he preaches, and as he shuts the door, John says over the railing in a whisper,'Noo, dinna be losin' the Psalms, as ye did this day three weeks'; or perhaps,'Be canny on this side o' the p.o.o.pit; the hinge is juist pitten on wi' potty [putty];' whiles John will walk half-way down the kirk, and then turn to see if my father has sat quietly down according to instructions. This John has always done since the day when some inward communing overcame my father before he began his sermon, and he stood up in the pulpit without saying a word till the people thought that he was in direct communion with the Almighty.”

”There was nane o' thae fine abstractions aboot your grandfaither, Ralph Gilchrist--na, whiles he was taen sae that he couldna speak he was that mad, an' aye he gat redder an' redder i' the face, till yince he gat vent, and then the ill words ran frae him like the Skyreburn [Footnote: A Galloway mountain stream noted for sudden floods.] in spate.”

”What else did John Bairdieson say to yer faither?” asked Winsome, for the first time that day speaking humanly to Ralph.

That young man looked gratefully at her, as if she had suddenly dowered him with a fortune. Then he paused to try (because he was very young and foolish) to account for the unaccountability of womankind.

He endeavoured to recollect what it was that he had said and what John Bairdieson had said, but with indifferent success. He could not remember what he was talking about.

”John Bairdieson said--John Bairdieson said--It has clean gone out of my mind what John Bairdieson said,” replied Ralph with much shamefacedness.

The old lady looked at him approvingly. ”Ye're no a Whig. There's guid bluid in ye,” she said, irrelevantly.

”Yes, I do remember now,” broke in Ralph eagerly. ”I remember what John Bairdieson said. 'Sit doon, minister,' he said, 'gin yer ready to flee up to the blue bauks'” [rafters--said of hens going to rest at nights]; ”'there's a heap o' folk in this congregation that's no juist sae ready yet.'”

Ralph saw that Winsome and her grandmother were both genuinely interested in his father.

”Ye maun mind that I yince kenned yer faither as weel as e'er I kenned a son o' mine, though it's mony an' mony a year sin' he was i' this hoose.” Winsome looked curiously at her grandmother. ”Aye, la.s.sie,” she said, ”ye may look an' look, but the faither o' him there cam as near to bein' your ain faither--”

Walter Skirving, swathed in his chair, turned his solemn and awful face from the window, as though called back to life by his wife's words. ”Silence, woman!” he thundered.