Part 31 (1/2)
”He can be friends now with none. He sees in each one a partisan--his own or Ian's.” She did not detain him, but when he rose to say good-by helped him to say it without delay.
He went, and she paced her garden, thinking of Ian who had done so great wrong, and Alexander who cried, ”My enemy!” She stayed in the garden an hour, and then she turned and went to play piquet with the lonely, shriveled man, her brother.
CHAPTER XXIV
Two days after this Glenfernie rode to White Farm. Jenny Barrow met him with exclamations.
”Oh, Mr. Alexander! Oh, Glenfernie! And they say that you are amaist as weel as ever--but to me you look twelve years older! Eh, and this warld has brought gray into _my_ hair! Father's gane to kirk session, and Gilian's awa'.”
He sat down beside her. Her hands went on paring apples, while her eyes and tongue were busy elsewhere.
”They say you're gaeing to travel.”
”Yes. I'm starting very soon.”
”It's na _said oot_--but a kind of whisper's been gaeing around.” She hesitated, then, ”Are you gaeing after him, Glenfernie?”
”Yes.”
Jenny put down her knife and apple. She drew a long breath, so that her bosom heaved under her striped gown. A bright color came into her cheeks. She laughed. ”Aweel, I wadna spare him if I were you!”
He sat with her longer than he had done with Mrs. Alison. He felt nearer to her. He could be friends with her, while he moved from the other as from a bloodless wraith. Here breathed freely all the strong vindications! He sat, sincere and strong, and sincere and strong was the countrywoman beside him.
”Oh aye!” said Jenny. ”He's a villain, and I wad gie him all that he gave of villainy!”
”That is right,” said Alexander, ”to look at it simply!” He felt that those were his friends who felt in this as did he.
On the moor, riding homeward, he saw before him Jarvis Barrow.
Dismounting, he met the old man beside a cairn, placed there so long ago that there was only an elfin story for the deeds it commemorated.
”Gude day, Glenfernie! So that Hieland traitor did not slay ye?”
”No.”
Jarvis Barrow, white-headed, strong-featured, far yet, it seemed, from incapacitating old age, took his seat upon a great stone loosened from the ma.s.s. He leaned upon his staff; his collie lay at his feet. ”Many wad say a lang time, with the healing in it of lang time, since a fause lover sang in the ear of my granddaughter, in the glen there!”
”Aye, many would say it.”
”I say 'a fause lover.' But the ane to whom she truly listened is an aulder serpent than he ... wae to her!”
”No, no!”
”But I say 'aye!' I am na weak! She that worked evil and looseness, harlotry, strife, and shame, shall she na have her hire? As, Sunday by Sunday, I wad ha' set her in kirk, before the congregation, for the stern rebuking of her sin, so, mak no doubt, the Lord pursues her now!
Aye, He shakes His wrath before her eyes! Wherever she turns she sees 'Fornicatress' writ in flames!”
”No!”
”But aye!”