"And the queer thing o' it a' is," said Cleg, "that there's no as muckle as a brass farthin's worth o' lyin' siller to be found."
"Ye tak' it brave and cool, my man," said Mistress Fraser. "My certes, gin I had been left thirty thoosand pound, and then could find nane o't, I wad be fair oot o' my mind wi' envy and spite. Save us a', man. Ye hae nae spunk in ye ava."
"And what a wonderfu' thing is it," said Mirren Douglas, "that Maister Iverach, the young lad frae Edinburgh, gets a' the land and the hooses, but no a penny forbye!"
They were sitting—a large company for so small a place—in the little ben room of Sandyknowes, with the roses again looking in the window. For another spring [378]had come, and a new year was already stretching itself awake from its winter swaddling bands.
"What was it that the lawyer man wrote aboot your bequest?" asked Mistress Fraser.
"But a' my lying money in the house o' Barnbogle and about the precincts thereof, to be the property of Cleg Kelly, my present body servant, in regard of his faithful tendance and unselfishness during the past four years," quoted Cleg, leaning his head back with the air of a languid prince. He was sitting on the great chest in which Mirren kept all the best of her napery and household linen.
"My certes, ye tak' it braw and canny," repeated Mistress Fraser. "What says Vara to a' this?"
Vara came out from the little inner room where she had been dressing for the afternoon.
"What says Vara?" said Mistress Fraser, looking a little curiously at the girl as she entered. Half-a-year of absolute freedom from care and anxiety in the clear air of Sandyknowes had brought the fire to her eye and the rose to her cheek.
"I think," she said, soberly, "that Cleg will find the siller yet. Or, if he doesn't, he will be able to do withoot it!"
"It will make an awfu' difference to his plenishing when he comes to set up a hoose," said the mother of eleven; "there's naebody in the world kens what it tak's to furnish a hoose, but them that has begun wi' naething and leeved through it!"
"Mr. Iverach is comin' frae Edinburgh the day," said Cleg, "to see aboot knockin' doon the auld hoose o' Barnbogle."
"He's no willing to bide in it," said Mirren Douglas. "Lod, I dinna wonder. Wha could bide in a place wi' [379]siccan a chamber o' horrors doon the cellar stairs as that was!"
Which showed that some one must have been telling tales.
"I'm to gang and meet him," said Cleg. "Vara, will ye come? Ye may chance to forgather wi' a friend that ye ken."
Vara Kavannah nodded brightly, and glanced at the widow Douglas.
"If Mirren will gie a look to the bairns," she said.
At that moment there was a noisy rush past the window, and certain ferocious yells came in at the door.
"Preserve me," said Mistress Fraser, "thae bairns are never hame frae the schule already! Faith, I maun awa' hame, or my evil loons and limmers will no leave a bite o' bread uneaten, or a dish o' last year's jam unsupped in a' my hoose!"
But as she rose to go her husband's form darkened the doorway.
"Tam Fraser," she cried, "what are ye doing there? Are ye no awa' at Auld Graham's funeral? A lawyer deid! The deil will dee next."
"I hae nae blacks guid enough to gang in," said Tam Fraser; "ye spend a' my leevin' on thae bairns o' yours."
"Hoot, man," retorted his wife, "gang as ye are, an' tak' your character on your back, and ye'll be black eneuch for ony funeral."
Tam Fraser stood a moment prospecting in his mind for a suitable reply.
"Meg," he said at last, "dinna learn to be ill-tongued. It doesna become ye. D'ye ken, I was juist thinkin' as I cam' in that ye grow younger every year. Ye are looking fell bonny the day!"
"Faith," said his wife sharply, "I am vexed I canna [380]return the compliment. Ye are lookin' juist like a craw-bogle, and that's a Guid's truth."
"Aweel, guidwife," said Tam, seeing a chance now to get in his counter, "if ye had only been ceevil eneuch, ye micht e'en hae telled a lee as weel as mysel'!"
And with this he betook himself over the dyke, leaving his wife for once without a shot in her locker.
Vara had gone quietly at Cleg's bidding and put on her hat. This demurely sober lass had quite enough of beauty to make the country lads hang a foot, and look after her with a desire to speak as she passed by on her way to kirk and market.
Vara and Cleg walked quietly along down the avenue by the shortest road to the house of Barnbogle.
"Vara," said Cleg, "I think we will do very well this year with the flooers and the bees—forbye the milk."
"I am glad to hear it, for Mirren's sake," answered Vara, without, however, letting her eyes rest on the lad.
"I selled baith my barrels o' milk and the ten pund o' butter forbye this morning, a' in the inside o' an hour," said Cleg.
For during the last half year Cleg had been farming the produce of Mirren's little holding with notable success.
"Vara," said Cleg, in a shy, hesitating manner, "in a year or twa I micht be able to tak' in the Springfield as weel. Do ye think that ye could"—Cleg paused for a word dry enough to express his meaning—"come ower by and help me to tak' care o't? I hae aye likit ye, Vara, ye ken."
"I dinna ken, I'm sure, Cleg," said Vara soberly; "there's the bairns, ye ken, Hugh and Gavin."
"Bring them too, of course," said Cleg. "I never thocht o' onything else."
[381]
"But then there's Mirren, and she wad fair break her heart," protested Vara.
"Bring her too!" said Cleg practically.
He had thought the whole subject over. They were now coming near the old house of Barnbogle, which its new owner had doomed to destruction. Cleg glanced up at the tall grey mass of it.
"I'm some dootfu' that we will never touch that siller," he said.
"Then," said Vara firmly, "we can work for mair. If we dinna get it, it's a sign that we are better wantin' it."
She glanced at the youth by her side as she spoke.
"Vara," said Cleg quickly, "ye are awesome bonny when ye speak like that."
Perhaps he remembered Tam Fraser, for he said no more.
Vara walked on with her eyes still demurely on the ground. They were just where the high path looks down on the corner of the ancient orchard.
"Vara," said Cleg, "what's your hurry for a minute? There's—there's a terrible bonny view frae hereaboots."
Cleg, the uninstructed, was plunging into deep waters. Vara turned towards the garden beneath at his word. There were three people to be seen in it. First there was a young woman in a bright summer dress, with a young man who walked very close beside her. Over a thick wall of beech, which went half across the orchard, an older man was standing meditatively with his hands clasped behind his back. He was apparently engaged in trying how much tobacco smoke he could put upon the market in a given time, for he was almost completely lost from sight in a blue haze.
The young people walked up and down, now in view of their meditative elder and now hidden from him by the [382]hedge. And as Cleg and Vara watched, they noticed a wonderful circumstance. As often as the young man and his companion were behind the young beech hedge, his arm stole round the waist of the summer dress; but so soon as they emerged upon the gravel path, lo! they were again walking demurely at least a yard apart.
The strangest thing about it all was, that the young woman appeared to be entirely unconscious of the circumstance.
"That's an awesome nice view," said Cleg, when the pair beneath had done this four or five times. And such is the fatal force of example that he put his own arm about Vara's waist each time the young man in the orchard below showed him how. And yet, stranger than all, Vara also appeared to be entirely unconscious of the fact.
This went on till the pair beneath were at their tenth promenade—the elderly man over the beech hedge was still studying intently an overgrown bed of rhubarb—when, at the innermost corner, the young lady in the summer dress paused to pluck a spray of honeysuckle. The youth's arm was about her waist at the moment. Perhaps it was that she had become conscious of it for the first time, or perhaps because it cinctured the summer dress a little more tightly than the circumstances absolutely demanded. However this may be, certain it is that the girl turned her head a little back over her shoulder, perhaps to reproach the young man, to request him to remove his property, and in the future to keep it from trespassing on his neighbour's premises. Cleg and Vara could not tell from the distance. But, at any rate, the young man and the young woman stood thus a long moment, she looking up with her head turned a little back and he looking intently down into her eyes. Then their [383]lips drew together, and softly, as if they sighed, rested a moment upon each other.
"It's an awesome nice view," said Cleg, with conviction and emphasis. And forthwith did likewise.
The old man with his hands behind his back had a little while before ceased his meditations upon the rhubarb leaves, and had walked quietly all unperceived to the corner of the beech hedge. Here he stood looking down towards the corner of the orchard, where the summer dress was plainly in view. Then he raised his eyes to the road above, where stood Vara and Cleg Kelly. His pipe fell from his mouth with astonishment, but he did not stop to pick it up. He turned and stole hastily away on tiptoe.
Then he too sighed, and that more than once, as soon as he had got out of the orchard into the garden.
"It's just thirty years since—last July," he said.
And Mr. Robert Greg Tennant remained longer in meditation than ever, this time upon a spindling rose which was drooping for want of water.