Na.
Hoo?
Theres was varra little time, Sanders.
Half an oor, said Sanders.
Was there? Man Sanders, to tell ye the truth, I never thocht o t.
Then the soul of Sanders Elshioner was filled with contempt for Saml Dickie.
The scandal blew over. At first it was expected that the minister would interfere to prevent the union, but beyond intimating from the pulpit that the souls of Sabbath-breakers were beyond praying for, and then praying for Saml and Sanders at great length, with a word thrown in for Bell, he let things take their course. Some said it was because he was always frightened lest his young men should intermarry with other denominations, but Sanders explained it differently to Saml.
I havna a word to say agin the minister, he said; theyre gran prayers; but, Saml, hes a mairit man himsel.
Hes a the better for that, Sanders, isna he?
Do ye no see, asked Sanders, compassionately, at hes trying to mak the best o t?
O Sanders, man! said Saml.
Cheer up, Saml, said Sanders; itll sune be ower.
Their having been rival suitors had not interfered with their friendship. On the contrary, while they had hitherto been mere acquaintances, they became inseparables as the wedding-day drew near. It was noticed that they had much to say to each other, and that when they could not get a room to themselves they wandered about together in the churchyard. When Saml had anything to tell Bell he sent Sanders to tell it, and Sanders did as he was bid. There was nothing that he would not have done for Saml.
The more obliging Sanders was, however, the sadder Saml grew. He never laughed now on Saturdays, and sometimes his loom was silent half the day. Saml felt that Sanderss was the kindness of a friend for a dying man.
It was to be a penny wedding, and Lisbeth Fargus said it was the delicacy that made Saml superintend the fitting up of the barn by deputy. Once he came to see it in person, but he looked so ill that Sanders had to see him home. This was on the Thursday afternoon, and the wedding was fixed for Friday.
Sanders, Sanders, said Saml, in a voice strangely unlike his own, itll a be ower by this time the morn.
It will, said Sanders.
If I had only kent her langer, continued Saml.
It wid hae been safer, said Sanders.
Did ye see the yallow floor in Bells bonnet? asked the accepted swain.
Ay, said Sanders, reluctantly.
Im dootin Im sair dootin shes but a flichty, light-hearted crittur after a.
I had aye my suspeecions o t, said Sanders.
Ye hae kent her langer than me, said Saml.
Yes, said Sanders, but theres nae getting at the heart o women. Man Saml, theyre desperate cunnin.
Im dootin t; Im sair dootin t.
Itll be a warnin to ye, Saml, no to be in sic a hurry i the futur, said Sanders.
Saml groaned.
Yell be gaein up to the manse to arrange wi the minister the morns mornin, continued Sanders, in a subdued voice.
Saml looked wistfully at his friend.
I canna do t, Sanders, he said; I canna do t.
Ye maun, said Sanders.
Its aisy to speak, retorted Saml, bitterly.
We have a oor troubles, Saml, said Sanders, soothingly, an every man maun bear his ain burdens. Johnny Davies wifes dead, an hes no repinin.
Ay, said Saml, but a deaths no a mairitch. We hae haen deaths in our family too.
It may a be for the best, added Sanders, an there wid be a michty talk i the hale country-side gin ye didna ging to the minister like a man.
I maun hae langer to think o t, said Saml.
Bells mairitch is the morn, said Sanders, decisively.
Saml glanced up with a wild look in his eyes.
Sanders! he cried.
Saml!
Ye hae been a guid friend to me, Sanders, in this sair affliction.
Nothing ava, said Sanders; dount mention d.
But, Sanders, ye canna deny but what your rinnin oot o the kirk that awfu day was at the bottom o d a.
It was so, said Sanders, bravely.
An ye used to be fond o Bell, Sanders.
I dinna deny t.
Sanders, laddie, said Saml, bending forward and speaking in a wheedling voice, I aye thocht it was you she likit.
I had some sic idea mysel, said Sanders.
Sanders, I canna think to pairt twa fowk sae weel suited to ane anither as you an Bell.
Canna ye, Saml?
She wid mak ye a guid wife, Sanders. I hae studied her weel, and shes a thrifty, douce, clever lassie. Sanders, theres no the like o her. Mony a time, Sanders, I hae said to mysel, Theres a lass ony man micht be prood to tak. Abody says the same, Sanders. Theres nae risk ava, man nane to speak o. Tak her, laddie; tak her, Sanders; its a gran chance, Sanders. Shes yours for the speerin. Ill gie her up, Sanders.
Will ye, though? said Sanders.
What d ye think? asked Saml.
If ye wid rayther, said Sanders, politely.
Theres my han on t, said Saml. Bless ye, Sanders; yeve been a true frien to me.
Then they shook hands for the first time in their lives, and soon afterward Sanders struck up the brae to Tnowhead.
Next morning Sanders Elshioner, who had been very busy the night before, put on his Sabbath clothes and strolled up to the manse.
But but where is Saml? asked the minister; I must see himself.
Its a new arrangement, said Sanders.
What do you mean, Sanders?
Bells to marry me, explained Sanders.
But but what does Saml say?
Hes willin, said Sanders.
And Bell?
Shes willin too. She prefers t.
It is unusual, said the minister.
Its a richt, said Sanders.
Well, you know best, said the minister.
You see the hoose was taen, at ony rate, continued Sanders, an Ill juist ging in til t instead o Saml.
Quite so.
An I cudna think to disappoint the lassie.
Your sentiments do you credit, Sanders, said the minister; but I hope you do not enter upon the blessed state of matrimony without full consideration of its responsibilities. It is a serious business, marriage.
Its a that, said Sanders, but Im willin to stan the risk.
So, as soon as it could be done, Sanders Elshioner took to wife Tnowheads Bell, and I remember seeing Saml Dickie trying to dance at the penny wedding.
Years afterward it was said in Thrums that Saml had treated Bell badly, but he was never sure about it himself.
It was a near thing a michty near thing, he admitted in the square.
They say, some other weaver would remark, at it was you Bell liked best.
I dna kin, Saml would reply; but theres nae doot the lassie was fell fond o me; ou, a mere passin fancy, s ye micht say.
THE HEATHER LINTIE, By S. R. Crockett
Janet Balchrystie lived in a little cottage at the back of the Long Wood of Barbrax. She had been a hard-working woman all her days, for her mother died when she was but young, and she had lived on, keeping her fathers house by the side of the single-track railway-line. Gavin Balchrystie was a foreman plate-layer on the P.P.R., and with two men under him, had charge of a section of three miles. He lived just where that distinguished but impecunious line plunges into a moss-covered granite wilderness of moor and bog, where there is not more than a shepherds hut to the half-dozen miles, and where the passage of a train is the occasion of commotion among scattered groups of black-faced sheep. Gavin Balchrysties three miles of P.P.R. metals gave him little work, but a good deal of healthy exercise. The black-faced sheep breaking down the fences and straying on the line side, and the torrents coming down the granite gullies, foaming white after a water-spout, and tearing into his embankments, undermining his chairs and plates, were the only troubles of his life. There was, however, a little public-house at The Huts, which in the old days of construction had had the license, and which had lingered alone, license and all, when its immediate purpose in life had been fulfilled, because there was nobody but the whaups and the railway officials on the passing trains to object to its continuance. Now it is cold and blowy on the west-land moors, and neither whaups nor dark-blue uniforms object to a little refreshment up there. The mischief was that Gavin Balchrystie did not, like the guards and engine-drivers, go on with the passing train. He was always on the spot, and the path through Barbrax Wood to the Railway Inn was as well trodden as that which led over the bog moss, where the whaups built, to the great white viaduct of Loch Merrick, where his three miles of parallel gleaming responsibility began.
When his wife was but newly dead, and his Janet just a smart elf-locked lassie running to and from the school, Gavin got too much in the way of slippin doon by. When Janet grew to be woman muckle, Gavin kept the habit, and Janet hardly knew that it was not the use and wont of all fathers to sidle down to a contiguous Railway Arms, and return some hours later with uncertain step, and face pricked out with bright pin-points of red the sure mark of the confirmed drinker of whisky neat.
They were long days in the cottage at the back of Barbrax Long Wood. The little but an ben was whitewashed till it dazzled the eyes as you came over the brae to it and found it set against the solemn depths of dark-green firwood. From early morn, when she saw her father off, till the dusk of the day, when he would return for his supper, Janet Balchrystie saw no human being. She heard the muffled roar of the trains through the deep cutting at the back of the wood, but she herself was entirely out of sight of the carriagefuls of travellers whisking past within half a mile of her solitude and meditation.
Janet was what is called a through-gaun lass, and her work for the day was often over by eight oclock in the morning. Janet grew to womanhood without a sweetheart. She was plain, and she looked plainer than she was in the dresses which she made for herself by the light of nature and what she could remember of the current fashions at Merrick Kirk, to which she went every alternate Sunday. Her father and she took day about. Wet or shine, she tramped to Merrick Kirk, even when the rain blattered and the wind raved and bleated alternately among the pines of the Long Wood of Barbrax. Her father had a simpler way of spending his day out. He went down to the Railway Inn and drank ginger-beer all day with the landlord. Ginger-beer is an unsteadying beverage when taken the day by the length. Also the man who drinks it steadily and quietly never enters on any inheritance of length of days.
So it came to pass that one night Gavin Balchrystie did not come home at all at least, not till he was brought lying comfortably on the door of a disused third-class carriage, which was now seeing out its career anchored under the bank at Loch Merrick, where Gavin had used it as a shelter. The driver of the six-fifty up train had seen him walking soberly along toward The Huts (and the Railway Inn), letting his long surface-mans hammer fall against the rail-keys occasionally as he walked. He saw him bend once, as though his keen ear detected a false ring in a loose length between two plates. This was the last that was seen of him till the driver of the nine-thirty-seven down express the boat-train, as the employees of the P.P.R. call it, with a touch of respect in their voices passed Gavin fallen forward on his face just when he was flying down grade under a full head of steam. It was duskily clear, with a great lake of crimson light dying into purple over the hills of midsummer heather. The driver was John Platt, the Englishman from Crewe, who had been brought from the great London and Northwestern Railway, locally known as The Ell-nen-doubleyou. In these remote railway circles the talk is as exclusively of matters of the four-foot way as in Crewe or Derby. There is an inspector of traffic, whose portly presence now graces Carlisle Station, who left the P.P.R. in these sad days of amalgamation, because he could not endure to see so many Souwest waggons passing over the sacred metals of the P.P.R. permanent way. From his youth he had been trained in a creed of two articles: To swear by the P.P.R. through thick and thin, and hate the apple green of the Souwest. It was as much as he could do to put up with the sight of the abominations; to have to hunt for their trucks when they got astray was more than mortal could stand, so he fled the land.
So when they stopped the express for Gavin Balchrystie, every man on the line felt that it was an honour to the dead. John Platt sent a gurring thrill through the train as he put his brakes hard down and whistled for the guard. He, thinking that the Merrick Viaduct was down at least, twirled his brake to such purpose that the rear car progressed along the metals by a series of convulsive bounds. Then they softly ran back, and there lay Gavin fallen forward on his knees, as though he had been trying to rise, or had knelt down to pray. Let him have the benefit of the doubt in this world. In the next, if all tales be true, there is no such thing.
So Janet Balchrystie dwelt alone in the white but an ben at the back of the Long Wood of Barbrax. The factor gave her notice, but the laird, who was not accounted by his neighbours to be very wise, because he did needlessly kind things, told the factor to let the lassie bide, and delivered to herself with his own handwriting to the effect that Janet Balchrystie, in consideration of her lonely condition, was to be allowed the house for her lifetime, a cows grass, and thirty pound sterling in the year as a charge on the estate. He drove down the cow himself, and having stalled it in the byre, he informed her of the fact over the yard dyke by word of mouth, for he never could be induced to enter her door. He was accounted to be gey an queer, save by those who had tried making a bargain with him. But his farmers liked him, knowing him to be an easy man with those who had been really unfortunate, for he knew to what the years crops of each had amounted, to a single chalder and head of nowt.
Deep in her heart Janet Balchrystie cherished a great ambition. When the earliest blackbird awoke and began to sing, while it was yet gray twilight, Janet would be up and at her work. She had an ambition to be a great poet. No less than this would serve her. But not even her father had known, and no other had any chance of knowing. In the black leather chest, which had been her mothers, upstairs, there was a slowly growing pile of manuscript, and the editor of the local paper received every other week a poem, longer or shorter, for his Poets Corner, in an envelope with the New Dalry postmark. He was an obliging editor, and generally gave the closely written manuscript to the senior office boy, who had passed the sixth standard, to cut down, tinker the rhymes, and lope any superfluity of feet. The senior office boy just spread himself, as he said, and delighted to do the job in style. But there was a woman fading into a gray old-maidishness which had hardly ever been girlhood, who did not at all approve of these corrections. She endured them because over the signature of Heather Bell it was a joy to see in the rich, close luxury of type her own poetry, even though it might be a trifle tattered and tossed about by hands ruthless and alien those, in fact, of the senior office boy.
Janet walked every other week to the post-office at New Dalry to post her letters to the editor, but neither the great man nor yet the senior office boy had any conception that the verses of their esteemed correspondent were written by a woman too early old who dwelt alone at the back of Barbrax Long Wood.
One day Janet took a sudden but long-meditated journey. She went down by rail from the little station of The Huts to the large town of Drum, thirty miles to the east. Here, with the most perfect courage and dignity of bearing, she interviewed a printer and arranged for the publication of her poems in their own original form, no longer staled and clapper-clawed by the pencil of the senior office boy. When the proof-sheets came to Janet, she had no way of indicating the corrections but by again writing the whole poem out in a neat print hand on the edge of the proof, and underscoring the words which were to be altered. This, when you think of it, is a very good way, when the happiest part of your life is to be spent in such concrete pleasures of hope, as Janets were over the crackly sheets of the printer of Drum. Finally the book was produced, a small rather thickish octavo, on sufficiently wretched gray paper which had suffered from want of thorough washing in the original paper-mill. It was bound in a peculiarly deadly blue, of a rectified Reckitt tint, which gave you dazzles in the eye at any distance under ten paces. Janet had selected this as the most appropriate of colours. She had also many years ago decided upon the title, so that Reckitt had printed upon it, back and side, The Heather Lintie, while inside there was the acknowledgment of authorship, which Janet felt to be a solemn duty to the world: Poems by Janet Balchrystie, Barbrax Cottage, by New Dalry. First she had thought of withholding her name and style; but, on the whole, after the most prolonged consideration, she felt that she was not justified in bringing about such a controversy as divided Scotland concerning that Great Unknown who wrote the Waverley Novels.