第48章

`There were three ladies in a hall--With a heigh-ho! and a lily gay, There came a lord among them all--As the primrose spreads so sweetly.'

The Cruel Brother.

Willie Beresford has come to Pettybaw, and that Arcadian village has received the last touch that makes it Paradise.

We are exploring the neighbourhood together, and whichever path we take we think it lovelier than the one before. This morning we drove to Pettybaw Sands, Francesca and Salemina following by the footpath and meeting us on the shore. It is all so enchantingly fresh and green on one of these rare bright days: the trig lass bleaching her `claes' on the grass by the burn near the little stone bridge; the wild partridges whirring about in pairs; the farm-boy seated on the clean straw in the bottom of his cart, and cracking his whip in mere wanton joy at the sunshine; the pretty cottages; and the gardens with rows of currant and gooseberry bushes hanging thick with fruit that suggests jam and tart in every delicious globule. It is a love-coloured landscape, we know it full well; and nothing in the fair world about us is half as beautiful as what we see in each other's eyes. Ah, the memories of these first golden mornings together after our long separation. I shall sprinkle them with lavender and lay them away in that dim chamber of the heart where we keep precious things. We all know the chamber. It is fragrant with other hidden treasures, for all of them are sweet, though some are sad. That is the reason why we put a finger on the lip and say `Hush,' if we open the door and allow any one to peep in.

We tied the pony by the wayside and alighted: Willie to gather some sprays of the pink veronica and blue speedwell, I to sit on an old bench and watch him in happy idleness. The `white-blossomed slaes' sweetened the air, and the distant hills were gay with golden whin and broom, or flushed with the purply-red of the bell heather.

We heard the note of the cushats from a neighbouring bush. They used to build their nests on the ground, so the story goes, but the cows trampled them. Now they are wiser and build higher, and their cry is supposed to be a derisive one, directed to their ancient enemies. `Come noo, Coo, Coo! Come noo!'

A hedgehog crept stealthily along the ground, and at a sudden sound curled himself up like a wee brown bear. There were women working in the fields near by,--a strange sight to our eyes at first, but nothing unusual here, where many of them are employed on the farms all the year round, sowing weeding, planting, even ploughing in the spring, and in winter working at threshing or in the granary.

An old man, leaning on his staff, came tottering feebly along, and sank down on the bench beside me. He was dirty, ragged, unkempt, and feeble, but quite sober, and pathetically anxious for human sympathy.

"I'm achty-sax year auld,' he maundered, apropos of nothing, "achty- sax year auld. I've seen five lairds o' Pettybaw, sax placed meenisters, an' seeven doctors. I was a mason, an' a stoot mon i' thae days, but it's a meeserable life noo. Wife deid, bairns deid!

I sit by my lane, an' smoke my pipe, wi' naebody to gi'e me a sup o' water. Achty-sax is ower auld for a mon,--ower auld."

These are the sharp contrasts of life one cannot bear to face when one is young and happy. Willie gave him a half-crown and some tobacco for his pipe, and when the pony trotted off briskly, and we left the shrunken figure alone on his bench as he was lonely in his life, we kissed each other and pledged ourselves to look after him as long as we remain in Pettybaw; for what is love worth if it does not kindle the flames of spirit, open the gates of feeling, and widen the heart to shelter all the little loves and great loves that crave admittance?

As we neared the tiny fishing-village on the sands we met a fishwife brave in her short skirt and eight petticoats, the basket with its two hundred pound weight on her head, and the auld wife herself knitting placidly as she walked along. They look superbly strong, these women; but, to be sure, the `weak anes dee,' as one of them told me.

There was an air of bustle about the little quay,--`That joyfu' din when the boats come in, When the boats come in sae early;

When the lift is blue an' the herring-nets fu', And the sun glints in a' things rarely.'

The silvery shoals of fish no longer come so near the shore as they used in the olden time, for then the kirk bell of St. Monan's had its tongue tied when the `draive' was off the coast, lest its knell should frighten away the shining myriads of the deep.