Muckle Alick trotted the children soberly down the street, and at the foot he turned his long lumbering stride up a country road. For Alick had a little wife who was an expert market-gardener and beekeeper.
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Her name was Mirren, and her size, as reported by her husband, was "near-aboots as big as twa scrubbers." It was for her sake and because he could not help himself, that Muckle Alick lived so far from his work.
"D'ye think that because I hae to put up wi' a great hulk like you, comin' hame at nicht smellin' o' cinders and lamp oil, that I'm gaun to leeve in a hut amang the coal waggons? Na, certes, gin ye want to hae Mirren Terregles to keep ye snug, ye maun e'en walk a mile or twa extra in the day. And it will be the better for keepin' doon that great muckle corporation o' yours!"
And that is the way that Muckle Alick Douglas lived out at Sandyknowes. It was to his small garden-girt house that he took the children.
"What's this ye hae fetched hame in your hand the nicht?" cried the little wife sharply, as she saw her husband come up the loaning. "It's no ilka wife that wad be pleased to hae a grown family brocht in on her like this!"
"Hoot, Mirren woman!" was all that Muckle Alick said, as he pushed Vara and Hugh in before him, Gavin nestling cosily in his arms the while.
"Whaur gat ye them, Alick?" said Mirren, going forward to look at the bairn in his arms. "They are bonny weans and no that ill put on."
Little Gavin was so content in the arms of Muckle Alick that he smiled. And his sweetness of expression struggling through the pinched look of hunger went right to the heart of Mirren, who, having no bairns of her own—"so far," as Muckle Alick remarked cautiously—had so much the more love for other people's. She turned on Vara, who stood looking on and smiling also. The little woman was almost fierce.
"What has been done to this bairn that he has never grown?" said Mirren Douglas, wife of Muckle Alick.
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Vara flushed in her slow still way, at the imputation that she had not taken good care enough of her Gavin—to pleasure whom she would have given her life.
"I did the best I could," she said, "whiles we had to sleep oot a' nicht, an' whiles I had nae milk to gie him."
"Lassie! lassie!" cried Mirren Douglas, "what is this ye are tellin' me?"
"The truth," said Vara Kavannah, quietly; "Gavin and Boy Hugh and me hae walked a' the road frae Edinburgh. We hae sleepit in the hills, and——"
"But how cam' the bairn here?" asked Muckle Alick's fiercely tender little wife; "tell me quick!"
"I hae carried Gavin a' the road!" said Vara, simply.
"You, lassie!" cried Mirren, looking at the slip of pale girlhood before her, "it's juist fair unpossible!"
"But I did carry him. He's no that heavy when ye get the shawl weel set."
"O lassie, lassie, ye juist mak' me fair shamed," cried Mistress Douglas. "Alick, ye muckle bullock; what for are ye standin' there like a cuif? Gang ower to Mistress Fraser's and ask the lend o' her cradle. Thae bairns are gaun to bide——"
"But, wife, hae ye considered?" Alick began.
"Considered, my fit, did ye no hear me? Dinna stand hingin' there, balancin' on your soles like a show elephant lookin' aboot for cookies—gang, will ye!"
The little wife stamped her foot and made a threatening demonstration. Whereupon Muckle Alick betook himself over the way to Mistress Fraser's, and he never smiled till he got past the gate of the front garden, in which Mirren kept her old-fashioned flowers.
"I thocht that's what it wad come to," said Alick to himself, "when she saw the bairns. I wonder if she means to keep haud o' them a' thegither? She's been [236]wearing her heart on the flooers a lang while, puir lassie. It wad be a farce if three bairns cam' hame at once to Sandyknowes after sae lang withoot ony, twa o' them walkin' cantily on their ain feet!"
Thus Alick mused, laughing a little to himself as he went over to borrow Mistress Fraser's cradle. He had an idea.
"There'll be some amusement at ony rate," he said, "but I maunna be ower keen. Na, and I maun haud back an' make difficulties. And then the wife will tak' the ither side and be juist daft to get her ain way and keep them."
Alick was well aware of the value of a certain amount of opposition, judiciously distributed.
He arrived before long at the cottage of Mistress Fraser. It was set like his own in the midst of a garden. But instead of being bosomed in flowers, with beeskeps scattered about, the garden was wholly taken up with potatoes, cabbage, and curly greens. It was a strictly utilitarian garden. As soon as Muckle Alick hove in sight, turning up off the main road, a covey of children broke from the door of the house and ran tumultuously towards him. They tripped one another up. They pulled each other back by the hair, or caught those in front by the heels or the coat-tails. It was a clean-limbed, coltish lass of thirteen who gained the race and sprang first into the arms of Muckle Alick. Then two smaller boys gripped each a mighty leg, while a whole horde of smaller banditti swarmed up Alick's rearward works and took his broad back by storm. When he got to the potato garden he looked more like the show elephant his wife had called him than ever. For he was fairly loaded with children "all along the rigging," as Mistress Fraser said.
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She was a buxom, rosy-cheeked woman, gifted upon occasion with an astonishing plainness of speech.
"Guidnicht to ye, Alick," she said, "thae bairns maks as free wi' ye as if they were a' your ain?"
Alick disentangled the hands of one of the rearward harpies from his beard and mouth. Whereupon the offended rascal was not to be appeased. He slid down, caught the giant about the knee, and began to kick an outlying shin with all his might.
"Ye should ken best whether they are or no," said Alick, "there's plenty o' them at ony gait!"
"An' what wind has blawn ye awa' frae Sandyknowes this nicht? It takes naething less than an earthquake to shake ye awa' frae Mirren. Ye hae fair forgotten that there's ither folk in the warl."
"I was wanting the lend o' your cradle, guidwife," said Alick, with affected shamefacedness, well aware of the astonishment he would occasion by the simple request.
Mistress Fraser had been stooping over a basin in which she was mixing meal and other ingredients, to form the white puddings for which she was famous. She stood up suddenly erect, like a bow straightening itself. Then she looked sternly at Alick.
"Ye are a nice cunning wratch to be an elder—you and Mirren Terregles baith—and at your time o' life. An' hoo is she?"
"Ow, as weel as could hae been expectit," said Muckle Alick, with just the proper amount of hypocritical resignation demanded by custom on these occasions. Mistress Fraser, whose mind ran naturally on the lines along which Muckle Alick had directed it, was completely taken in.
"An' what has Mirren gotten?—a lassie, I'll wager," said the excited mother of eleven, dusting her hands of [238]the crumblings of the pudding suet, and then beginning breathlessly to smooth her hair and take off her baking apron. So excited was she that she could not find the loop.
"Aye," said Alick, quietly, "there's a lassie!"
"I juist kenned it," said Mistress Fraser, drawing up wisdom from the mysterious wells of her experience; "muckle men and wee wives aye start aff wi' a lassie—contrarywise they begin wi' a laddie. Noo me and my man——"
What terrible revelation of domestic experience would inevitably have followed, remains unfortunately unknown. For the words which at that moment Muckle Alick delicately let drop, as the chemist drops a rare essence into two ounces of distilled water, brought Mistress Fraser to a dead stop in the fulness of her career after the most intimate domestic reminiscences.
"But there's a laddie come too!" said Muckle Alick, and looked becomingly at the ground.
Mistress Fraser held up her hands.
"Of a' the deceitfu', hidin', unneighbourly craiturs," said Mistress Fraser, "Mirren Terregles is the warst—an' me to hae drank my tea wi' her only last week. I'll wager if I live to hae fifty bairns——"
"The Lord forbid," said her husband, unexpectedly, from the doorway. "We hae plenty as it is——"
"And wha's faut's that?" cried his wife over her shoulder. "Oh the deceitfu' randy——"
"In fact," said Muckle Alick, dropping another word in, "there's twa laddies—and a lassie!"
Mistress Fraser sat down quite suddenly.
"Gie me a drink frae the water can, Tam!" she said; "haste ye fast, Alick's news has gi'en me a turn. Twa laddies and a lassie—I declare it's a Queen's bounty! [239]Preserve me, it's no a cradle ye want, man, but a mill happer! A time or twa like this, and ye'll hae to plant taties in the front yaird—ye will hae to pay soundly for your ploy at this rate, my man. Three at a whup disna gang wi' cancy-lairies in the cabbage plots, my lad."
"It's a maist notoriously curious thing," began Tam Fraser, unexpectedly, "that I saw Mirren carryin' twa cans o' water this very mornin'——"
Muckle Alick gave him a warning look, which made him catch his next unspoken sentence as a wicket-keeper holds the ball before the field has seen it leave the bat.
"But—but she didna look weel——" added Tam.
"I wad think no, juist," cried Mistress Fraser, who in an inner room was busy putting a selection of small white things into a covered reticule basket. "An puir Mirren, she'll no be ready for the like. Wha could be prepared for a hale nation like this—I'll tak' her what I hae. O, the deceitfu' besom—I declare it wad tak' a little to gar me never speak to her again."
"Dinna do that!" said the hypocritical giant; "think on her condeetion——"
"Condeetion, condeetion, quo' he—I wonder ye are no black ashamed, Alick Douglas. And nane o' the twa o' ye ever to say a word to me, that's your nearest neebour——"
"I gie ye my word," said Muckle Alick, "I kenned nocht aboot it till an hour or twa afore the bairns cam' hame!"
Mistress Fraser turned fiercely upon him.
"Weel, for a' the leers in this pairish—and there are some rousers—ye beat them clean, Alick Douglas—and you an elder amang the Cameronian kirk! Hoo daur ye face your Maker, to say nocht o' the kirk folk as ye [240]stand at the plate on Sabbaths, wi' siccan lees in your mouth?
"Come awa, man," she cried from the door in her haste, "I hae twa bagfu's o' things here. Tam, gang ower by to the Folds and up to Cowdenslack and borrow their twa cradles. They'll no be needing them for a month or twa—I ken that brawly—na, they are straight-forrit women, and never spring the like o' this on puir folk to set them a' in a flutter!"
"I think a single cradle wad do. It was a' that Mirren asked for," said Alick demurely; "but please yoursel', Mistress Fraser, it is you that kens."
"Yin," cried Mistress Fraser, "the man's gane gyte. Gin ye wull bring a family into the warld by squads o' regiments, ye maun e'en tak' the consequences. Lod, Lod, three cradles a' rockin' at the same time in yae hoose, it will be like a smiddy—or a watchmaker's shop! It'll be fine exerceese for ye, Alick, my man, when ye come hame at nichts—nae mair planting o' nasty-hurcheons and pollyanthies. But every foot on a cradle rocker, and the lassie's yin to pu' wi' a string. An' serve ya baith richt. O, the deceitfu' madam; wait till I get ower to the Sandyknowes!"
And Alick had to take his longest strides to keep pace with the anxious mother of eleven—to whom he had told no lie, though, as he afterwards said, he "had maybes keeped his thumb on some blauds o' the truth."
"It shows," said Alick, "what a differ there is atween the truth and the hale truth—specially when there's a reason annexed in the shape of a woman's imagination, that naturally rins on sic like things."
But as they neared Sandyknowes it is not to be doubted that Alick grew a little anxious. His position would not be exactly a pleasant one, if, for instance, Mirren should [241]suddenly come out of their little byre with a full luggie of milk. And it was about milking time.
"There doesna appear to be muckle steer aboot the place, for siccan an awfu' thing to hae happened so lately!" said Mistress Fraser.
"Na," said the arch-deceiver Alick, making a last effort, "we are tryin' to keep a' thing as quaite as possible."
"And faith, I dinna wonder. Gin the wives nooadays had ony spunk in them ava', ye wad be mobbed and ridden on the stang, my man!" Then her grievance against Mirren came again upon Mistress Fraser with renewed force, "O, the randy, the besom," she cried; "wait till I get her!"
By this time they were nearing the door of Sandyknowes.
"I dinna think I'll come ben wi' ye the noo. I'll gang ower by the barn instead. There's some things to look to there, I misdoubt," said Alick.
Just then they heard Mirren's voice raised in a merry laugh. It was really at the tale of Boy Hugh and Miss Briggs, which Vara was telling her.
But the sound brought a scared look to the face of Mistress Fraser.
"She's lauchin', I declare!" she cried; "that's an awesome bad sign. Guid kens hoo mony there may be by this time——"
And she fairly lifted her voluminous petticoats, and, with her bundles under her arm, ran helter-skelter for the door of Sandyknowes, more like a halfling lassie than a douce mother of eleven bairns.
Muckle Alick saw her fairly in at the kitchen door.
"I think I'll gang ower by to the barn," he said.
But he had not got more than half-way there when [242]both leaves of the kitchen door sprang open, and out flew Mistress Fraser with the large wooden pot-stick or spurtle in her hand. Alick had admired her performance as she ran towards the house. But it was nothing to the speed with which she now bore down upon him.
"It was like the boat train coming doon by the Stroan, ten minutes ahint time, an' a director on board!" he said afterwards.
At the time Muckle Alick had too many things to think about, to say anything whatever. He ran towards the barn as fast as he could for the choking laughter which convulsed him. And behind him sped the avenger with the uplifted porridge spurtle, crying, "O ye muckle leein' deevil—ye blackguaird—ye cunnin' hound, let me catch ye——"
And by the cheek of the barn door catch him Mistress Fraser did. And then, immediately after, it was Muckle Alick who received the reward of iniquity. But Mirren stood in the doorway with little Gavin in her arms and Vara and Boy Hugh at either side, and laughed till the tears ran down her cheeks in twin parallel rills.
"Gie him his paiks, and soundly, Mistress Fraser; pink him weel. Hit him on the knuckles or on the elbows. Ye micht as weel hit Ben Gairn as try to hurt him by hitting him on the head!"
Alick was speechless with laughter, but Mistress Fraser exclaimed with each resounding stroke, "Twa laddies and a lassie! O ye vermin!—And me has sent to the Folds and the Cowdenslacks for twa cradles to mak' up the three. Ye hae made a bonny fule o' me. I'll never hear the last o' it till my dying day in this countryside. But, at ony rate, I take my piper's pay in ha'pence out o' your skin, my man Alick!"
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