Chapter XII: Part 12

Again, in his books of chivalry there was always a lady to be the guiding star of every life of adventure. Each knight, if he was of any respectability at all, provided himself at least with one. The great Don Quixote had done that. For the Knight Dolorous was, in the opinion of Kit Kennedy, as indeed in that of all fair-minded people, a most high-minded and ill-used man.

Kit had tried in various directions to find a lady of his vows before Vara came. For lack of better, he had even tried to imagine his aunt as a divinity, beautiful and cruel. But something was always happening to destroy this illusion. Nothing is more hurtful to exalted sentiment than a box on the ear, administered unexpectedly. So, after a fair trial, Kit was compelled definitely to give his aunt up, as a possible queen of love and courtesy. It could not be done, even with all Kit's very generous good-will. So, instead, he called her the False Duessa, the black hag Sycorax, and especially and generally Beelzebubba, for the last name pleased him greatly. And whenever she mocked him with her bitter tongue, Kit hugged himself, saying, "Ah! if only I were to call her Beelzebubba! Little knows she that in the history of my mighty and knightly deeds, she is condemned to go down to posterity yet unborn under the name of the Loathly Beelzebubba!"

So Kit carried the Lady Gloriana's silver vessels to the fountain of the Elixir of Life, swinging them lightly and talking briskly all the way.

Vara looked often at Kit, with his free breezy ways and erect carriage. Indeed, she looked so often, that if Cleg had been within sight there would certainly have been another fight.

But Vara was constantly mindful of Cleg. She prayed for him night and morning. She remembered all his goodness, and she wished that he could oftener come to see her. But in the meantime it was undoubtedly pleasant to have some one at hand, so ready to help with sympathy for herself and abuse of the enemy as Kit Kennedy.

The lad and the girl stood awhile at the well, leaning elbows upon the dyke, while Vara confided to Kit all the morning enormities of Mistress McWalter, and Kit bade her be of good cheer, for there was a good time coming for them both. And also, doubtless, a very bad time for Beelzebubba. It always was so in the story books.

"How splendid," said Kit, "if the devil were just to come for her as he did for poor Faust! He will some day, you may depend. Beelzebubba would be coming after me with a stick. She would run on and on, getting nearer and nearer to the barn end. I would show the devil exactly where to wait for her. Then I should put my hat on a stick and she would come, crawling, crawling slowly—to get a whack at me. By-and-bye she would get to the corner, and then—_pouch!_ the devil would jump at her and catch her, the earth fly open, and nothing be left of Beelzebubba but a smell of sulphur, as there is after a bee-killing."

The vision was monstrously comfortable as Kit painted it. But Vara did not laugh.

"I think it's wicked to speak that gate," she said.

"What?" said Kit, hardly able to believe his ears, yet scenting a new and unsuspected perfection in his lady Gloriana; "it is only my aunt. It is Beelzebubba."

Vara shook her head. She could not give reasons, but she did not think such talk could be right even to imagine.

"She is no that ill after a', if you consider that she keeps us," she said.

Kit did not know that Vara had known intimately a far worse woman than Mistress McWalter.

At the door Kit gave the cans of water to Vara, brimming full as he had carried them, but silently, lest his aunt should hear from her bed above. He touched Vara's hand lightly for reward. For he was a boy as full of sentiment as his books were primed with it. He had brought a dozen of his father's volumes with him, and though his aunt daily prophesied their destruction by fire, Kit thought that she knew better than to do that.

But, while Vara had been gone to the well for the water, momentous things had been happening in the privacy of the chamber shared by Mistress McWalter and her husband. The worm had turned. But, alas! even when worms turn, they do not gain much by it. Except that perhaps they may assist the early bird to wriggle down its breakfast a little more easily.

Mistress McWalter had gone storming along her devious way of abuse after Vara's departure.

"I wish ye wad let that lassie alane!" suddenly broke in John McWalter, awaking out of his deep silence at the thirtieth repetition of the phrase "impident madam of the street." "The lassie's weel eneuch, so far as I see, gin ye wad only let her alane!"

For a long minute Mistress McWalter lay petrified with astonishment. The like of this had not happened since six months after their marriage. But the checked tide of her speech was not long in overflowing the barrier like a bursting flood.

"Is't come to this between you an' me, John McWalter—that I may rise and pack, and tak' awa me and my bairns, puir harmless bits o' things? For it comes to that! After a' my thirty years aboot the hoose o' Loch Spellanderie, that ye should tak' the pairt o' a reckless randy gang-the-road trollop, against your ain married wife! Have I watched and tended ye for this, when ye had the trouble in your inside, and could get rest neither day nor nicht, you wantin' aye mustard plaisters? Is it to be lichtlied for a lichtfit rantipole limmer that I hae fed ye and clad ye—aye, and tended your bairns, washing them back and front ilka Saturday nicht wi' a bit o' flannel and guid yellow soap, forby drying them after that wi' a rough towel? And noo, since I am to hae a besom like this preferred before me—I'll rise and be gaun. I'll bide nae mair aboot this hoose. Guid be thanked there's them in the warld that thinks mair o' me than John McWalter, my ain marriet man!"

"Aye, juist na," said John McWalter, roused at last. "E'en gang your ways, Mistress, if ye can make a better o't. Ye're braw and welcome to trampit as far as this hoose is concerned. I'm thinkin' that your new freends will be brave and sune tired o' ye!"

Mistress McWalter bounced out of bed and began hurriedly to gather her apparel, as though she meditated leaving the house just as she was. She would have given a considerable sum of money if at that moment she could have wept real wet tears. However, she did her best with a dry towel.

"To think," sobbed she, bouncing from chair to chair, "that ye prefer a wandering gypsy's brat o' a hizzie to me! O what for did I ever leave my mither, and the bonny hoose o' Knockshin where I was so muckle thocht on? Waes me, for I am but a puir, heart-broken, deceivit woman!"

At this very moment Vara came in bearing her cans, with a lightened heart after her journey to the well with Kit Kennedy. With a louder voice and more abounding thankfulness, Mistress McWalter took up the burden of her tale.

"Aye, here comes your base limmer. Ye had better be awa doon to her, John McWalter," cried the Mistress of Loch Spellanderie, "or she may tak' the country again, after the thief-like loon wha cam' seekin' her on Monday nicht, nae farther gane."

Then Mistress McWalter went down stairs and opened more direct fire. It was certainly a stormy day at Loch Spellanderie, little doubt was there of that. For the winds roared about the farm on the hill above the water. And within Mistress McWalter's tongue thundered like great guns in a naval engagement. Vara went about her work with the tear on her pale cheek all that day, and a wonder in her heart what she had done to deserve such cruelty.

ADVENTURE LIV.

KIT KENNEDY'S FAREWELL.

It was about half-past four in the afternoon that Vara was coming round the corner of the barn carrying an armful of hay. She was undisguisedly sobbing now. For though she did not cry in the house where Mistress McWalter could see her, it was too much for her to restrain herself when she was alone out of doors.

John McWalter met her and stopped, with his usual elaborate pretence of being in a hurry and not having a moment to spare. He had really been doing nothing all the afternoon but looking for a chance of speaking to her.

"Vara, dinna greet, my lassie," he said, "ye maunna heed the mistress' tongue. We a' get oor share o't! Can ye no bide for a day or twa what I hae ta'en to bed wi' me every nicht for thirty year?"

"Thank you," said Vara, "I am gaun awa' the nicht."

"Where are ye gaun, my lassie?" asked John McWalter kindly.

"To see Hugh and Gavin, my twa wee brithers at Sandyknowes," said Vara, "and maybe I'll be some use there. An' if not, we will just hae to gang farther on, and look for my faither again."

"Weel," said John McWalter, "Guid kens I dinna blame ye. Maybe, after a', it wad be as weel. I can see plainly there is gaun to be nae peace here, and it was a' my blame no haudin' my tongue this mornin'. But here's something that will help ye on your road wherever ye gang, my lassie, near or far. There's nae better friend in the world that I ken o' than just a pound note."

And he slipped Vara a dirty little square of papers folded hard in his hand.

"I canna tak' it," said Vara protestingly, with the paper in her fingers.

"Hoots," said John McWalter, "I'm no needin' it. I hae plenty. And I canna let ye gang oot o' my hoose unplenished and unprovided, ony mair than if ye war my ain dochter. Tak' the pickle siller, lassie, and welcome. And hark ye, mind and crave the mistress for your full wage forbye. She'll think a heap mair o' ye for doin' that. And forbye, she'll no jalloose[9] me so readily."

And that honest man John McWalter slipped like a thief of the night in at the back door of the barn.

Vara promptly announced her intention of going away that evening. "Aye and welcome," said Mistress McWalter; "the like o' you should never hae entered my door."

"I shall want my wages," said Vara, plucking up courage and remembering her master's words.

"Wages, ye randy," cried the good wife of Loch Spellanderie; "wages! Set ye up, indeed, ye crawlin' blastie! Think ye that honest folk's wages are for the like o' you, that canna bide awa' frae your deboshed paramours, and that lies in wait to entrap decent folk's men, silly craiturs that they are?"

"I am but a young lassie," said Vara, calmly, "and think on nane o' thae things. Neither will ony body believe them but yoursel'. But I'm gaun to hae my wages, or I'll gang to the kirk yett next Sabbath, and tell a' the neebours how ye treat your servants, starvin' them on scraps like dogs, making their lives a burden to them to get them no to bide aboot the hoose, and then at the hinder end threatening them to give them nae wages."

This threat, which would have feared no one who was conscious of good intent, somewhat stilled Mrs. McWalter's fury. For she knew that anything of the kind would be greedily listened to, and retailed at all the tea drinking in the neighbourhood. And she felt, also, that she had not quite the character in the country-side upon which such accusations would fall harmless.

She went to a locked drawer.

"Here's your wages," she said, "and an ill wish gang wi' them. Glad am I to be rid of you!"

Even thus Vara took her departure from the house of Loch Spellanderie. John McWalter covertly watched her carrying her bundle out of the yard. He was looking round the corner of a corn stack. He dared not come out and bid the girl farewell because of his wife. But the tear was now in his own eye.

"It micht hae been my ain lassie leavin' anither man's hoose. I am wae for her," he said. "But I'm glad it was a ten-pund note that I slippit her. And whatna state wad the wife no be in, gin she kenned!"

And there came a faint pleasure into his grieved heart as he watched Vara out of sight.

Meanwhile Mistress McWalter stood at the door with victory in the very poise of her ungainly figure. She had disdained to utter a word, as Vara went past her and quietly bade her "Good-night!" But now she cried, "Kit Kennedy! Kit Kennedy! Kit Kennedy!" with all the penetrative power of her voice.

But there was no answer. Kit was not to be found.

For Kit Kennedy was in a better place. He was bidding his lady Gloriana adieu. He had, indeed, never let Vara know that he had distinguished her by that name, nor, indeed, save by his kindness and help, that he thought of her at all.

But now she was going away for ever. Her little bundle was in her hand. Her all was in it, and what Loch Spellanderie would be without her, Kit did not like to think just yet.

It was under the orchard apple trees, at the place where they overhang the wall, that Kit was waiting.

"I'm vexed, Vara, I'm sair vexed that ye are gaun awa' to leave us!" said Kit Kennedy, hanging his head. "I do not ken what we will do without you. It will no be the same place ava!"

"Fare ye weel, lad," Vara said, holding out her hand; "ye hae been kind to me. Aye, juist past speakin' o'!"

"I'll carry your bundle as far as the march dyke, gin ye'll let me," said Kit, for once, bashfully. "I canna bear to think on ye gangin' like this!"

"Ye had better no," said Vara, "she micht see ye!"

"Her!" said Kit, with a scornful look over his shoulder; "I wadna care a buckie gin she was walkin' up the loan ahint us!"

Yet, in spite of this gallant defiance, Vara turned round to make sure that the goodwife of Loch Spellanderie was not in the place designated.

They walked a long while in silence. It was Kit who spoke first.

"Vara," he said, "will ye whiles think on me?"

"Of course I will that," said Vara readily; "ye hae been verra kind to me here."

"I'm but a laddie, I ken," said Kit, "but ye micht no a'thegither forget me. I'll never forget you, lassie!"

There fell another silence between them.

"Ye'll be gaun back to be near _him_?" said Kit, a little sullenly.

"Aye," replied Vara, in a voice that was almost a whisper, "maybe! Ye see, we hae kenned yin anither a' oor lives. And he kens hoo I was brocht up—and a' aboot my folk! And I ken his."

"I'm jalloosin' ye'll be desperate fond o' him?" said Kit, in the same hang-dog way, as if he were taking pleasure in his own pain.

"He fed the bairns wi' milk and bread," replied Vara softly; "aye, and gied us a' that he had when we were starvin'! He gied up the very roof abune his heid to shelter us when we were turned oot on the street. I canna help bein' fond o' him, Kit. 'Deed I canna."

Kit Kennedy thought a long time, till indeed they had walked quite across a field. Then he spoke.

"I canna feed ye, nor yet look after the bairns for ye. I hae nae hoose to put ye in, Vara. But O, I am _that_ fond of ye, it's like to break my heart."

Vara stretched out her hand.

"An' I'm fond o' you too, laddie!" she said.

"Aye, but no the way I mean!" said Kit sadly, with a sob in his voice.

"I'll be aye thinkin' on ye," said Vara. "I wish ye war awa' frae this place."

"Dinna gie that a thocht!" said Kit, bravely; "I'm no mindin' a hair for my auntie—at least, I wadna if ye had only bided, so that whiles I could hae looked at ye, Vara!"

They had been walking hand in hand for some time. Kit Kennedy was tingling with a great desire. His heart was beating violently, as he nerved himself for the plunge.

They were at the march-dyke, just where it plunged into the wood of birches and alders. The path went down close along the lake shore from that point. The trees made a green haze of dusk there, with airs blowing cool from off the lake.

"Gloriana," said Kit suddenly, "will ye gie me a bit kiss to mind ye by?"

Vara looked at the lad with eyes of shy terror. This was indeed something new. Even Cleg, who would readily have died for her, or given her his coat or his house, if he had one, had never offered to kiss her. So at the sound of Kit's voice her heart also drummed in her ears emptily, as if her head were deep under water.

She stood still, looking away from him, but not turning her head down. Kit bent his head and kissed her fairly.

A strange pang ran responsively to Vara's heart—a flash of rapture to Kit's. They parted without a word, the girl walking sedately out of the shadows in one direction, and the lad running with all his might back to the farm in the other.

Each had their own several communings.

Vara said to herself, "Why does not Cleg think to speak to me like that?"

It was a great blunder on Cleg's part, certainly, and, if heart-aches were to be spared, one which he should speedily set himself to repair.

And as Kit Kennedy went home he said, over and over, "I hae kissed her. I hae kissed her. Naething and naebody can take that from me, at least."

But with the stilling of his leaping and rejoicing heart came the thought, "But had I the right? He fed them and clothed them, and never asked as much. He is better than I. I will not trouble them any more. For he is better and worthier than I."

So Kit's dreams and imaginings helped him to something more knightly in his renunciation than in the brief rapturous flash of possession.

ADVENTURE LV.

A YOUNG MAN'S FANCY.

Meanwhile Cleg was looking after the General's interests when, had he known it, he ought rather to have been looking after his own. He closed the doors of the great house that afternoon, as he had done for many months, and left his master in his strange bed. He was not afraid now, any more. For, in spite of his madness, there was something engaging about the General, something at once childlike and ingenuous, which came out in the close intercourse of two people living altogether alone.

Cleg went into the little brick addition at the back, and the barred doors of the great house shut mechanically behind him.

Cleg was making up his mind to ask the General to let him live out of the house. Cleg was thinking, also, of speaking to Vara. But then Vara might not agree. Had he ever asked her? Of course he had not. It was "soft"—so he had held up to this point to speak to a girl about such things. But yet the idea had its pleasures, and some day he would speak to her about it. Had he been hidden that day in the little copse by the march-dyke, on the road from Loch Spellanderie, he might have heard something very much to his advantage, which might have spurred him on to speak for himself, even at the risk of being considered exceedingly "soft."

But the mere fact that he thought of it at all, argued a mighty change in this Cleg of ours. He was no more only an Arab of the city all these years. He had given Mirren half his wages and saved the rest, so that, with the Christmas presents the General had given him, he had nearly a hundred pounds in the bank.

Cleg pushed his way through the thickly matted copses of spurge laurel and wet-shot alder. He was going to Sandyknowes. The lush green Solomon's seal was growing all around, with its broad-veined green leaves. A little farther on he came on the pure white blossoms of bog trefoil, with its flossy, delicate petals, lace-edged like feminine frilleries.

A thought came into Cleg's mind at the time which bore fruit afterwards. He thought that, if at any time he should lose his position with the General, he knew what he should do. For Cleg was an optimist, and a working, scheming optimist as well. The man who succeeds in this world is doubtless the man who, according to the copybook maxim, gives his undivided attention to the matter in hand. But he is also the man who has always a scheme or two in reserve. He is the man who is ready, if need be, to "fight it out on this line all summer," but who has also at the same time other fighting lines in reserve for the autumn and winter campaigns.

So Cleg, with his ready brain, turned the wild flowers into a means of getting the little house in the background for Vara and himself, even if the General's kindness should vanish away as quickly and unexpectedly as it had come.

The house of Sandyknowes was very quiet. Mirren Douglas had put away vain regrets even as she had laid away Muckle Alick's things—and that was as neatly as if he was to need them next Sabbath when he made ready for the kirk. She had reviewed her position. And for four years, with Vara's and Cleg's help, she had owed no man anything, and had brought up Hugh and Gavin as if they were her own. But she never thought of herself as Alick's widow. She was his wife still.

Alick and she had been saving people. Also he had been, as was said, "a weel-likit man aboot the station," and he had left her nearly four hundred pounds in the bank. But this Mirren, like a prudent woman, had resolved not to touch if she could help it. She had still six years to run of the nineteen years' lease of Sandyknowes—its grass parks and its gardens, its beeskeps and little office houses. But she was often a little wearied at night, cumbered with much service. She felt that now she needed help.

Her thoughts fell on Vara. Should she not bring her home? But yet how could she take her away till the term from Mistress McWalter of Loch Spellanderie?

At that very moment Vara herself opened the door and walked in.

"Wi' lassie!" cried the astonished Mirren Douglas, "what for hae ye left your place? Hae ye gotten leave to bide a' nicht?"

"I hae gotten my fee an' my leave, like the brownie Kit Kennedy sings aboot!" said Vara pleasantly.

"And what's the reason o' that?" said Mirren, with great anxiety in her motherly face.

"The master and the mistress fell oot aboot me," said Vara simply.

"Then I needna ask what yin o' them was in your favour," said Mirren, sharply.

"I must look out for a place," said Vara. "Oh, Mirren Douglas, ye hae been kind to me. But I couldna think o' puttin' you to fash and trouble ony longer, noo that I'm woman muckle, and able to be doin' for mysel'."

"Lassie," said little Mistress Mirren Douglas of Sandyknowes, "will ye hae this place here? I was gaun awa' to look for a lass this very minute. Will ye bide at Sandyknowes, at least till ye will be wantin' to leave us o' your ain accord some day?"

"Aye, that I will, and heartily!" cried Vara, smiling gladly.

And the tender-hearted little woman in black fairly took Vara in her arms and wept over her.

"I canna think what's come ower me thae days," she said; "I greet that easy. And everything that I tak' in my fingers breaks. Since Alick gaed awa' I think whiles that my fingers hae a' grown to be thumbs!"

There was a rap at the door. Vara rose naturally and went to it as if she had never been away. It was Cleg Kelly.

All his greeting was just "Weel, Vara!" He did not so much as offer to take her hand. Clever as he thought himself, Cleg Kelly had a great deal to learn. Yet that very moment he had been dreaming of the little house which was to grow out of the General's bounty, and out of the trefoil and forget-me-not in the bog. Yet, when he found his sweetheart at the back of the door, he could only mutter "Weel, Vara!" Nothing more.

Cleg and Vara went in together, without speaking. Mirren rose to shake hands. But little Hugh was before her. He distinguished himself by summarily tumbling Gavin heels over head and scrambling towards the visitor.

"Cleg Kelly! Cleg Kelly!" he cried. "I want ye to fecht the Drabble and gar him gie me back my pistol. I'm big enough noo! There's an awesome heap o' wild beasts here to shoot if only I had a pistol. In the wood at the back there's lots o' elephants, and leepards, and—and teegars," he added, when he found that Cleg looked sufficiently credulous.

"And how do ye get on with the daft General?" asked Mirren, with great interest in her face.

Cleg was amused at her question. He had become quite accustomed to the wonder on people's faces, usually shading into awe, when they asked him concerning his position in the household of the redoubtable General Theophilus Ruff.

"Fine," said Cleg. "Him and me 'grees fine. I hae nae faut to the General."

"Preserve us," said Mirren, "I never heard the like. The auld wizard hadna had a leevin' soul aboot him before you came, since his Indian servant Copper-Blackie died. And that's ten year since. And to think that ye hae nae faut to him!"

She looked at Cleg again.

"Noo, come," she said, "sit doon and tell us a' aboot what's inside the hoose."

But Cleg remained uninterestingly discreet. He said nothing about the General's bedroom; but he filled up the tale with the most minute details concerning the vaulted passages, the iron-barred casements in the hall, and the camp-like conveniences of the little brick building at the back.

Vara and Mirren Douglas listened with close attention. Hugh stopped teasing the cat with a feather, as it was trying to go to sleep on the hearthrug. Gavin was already asleep, with a brass door-knob and a whip clutched in his hands.

"Aweel," said Mirren, when Cleg had finished, "I thought it was a deal waur than that. But he maun be a fearsome creature to leeve wi', the General. Yet he is nane so ill a neebour to me."

Cleg uncrossed his legs and became instantly at ease. Mirren looked affectionately at Vara.

"Heard ye," she said, "that I hae gotten a new servant lass? I am able to do withoot her wage. And it is worth far mair for the company," she added.

"I wish I could bide and help ye too, for Alick's sake," said Cleg, shyly.

Mirren rose and ran to the boy. Hastily Cleg held out his hand, and Mirren Douglas clasped it. He was afraid that she was going to kiss him, and though he admitted the thing as an abstract possibility of the future, it had not quite come to that with him yet.

"Cleg," she said, "ye are a kind, good lad."

"Aye, that he is," chimed in Vara; "and ye wad say so if ye kenned him as I do."

Cleg began to expand in this atmosphere of appreciation. He decided to wait for tea. The hours sped all too swiftly, and the appointed time arrived before he knew it, when he must return to the great barred prison with the little brick martin's nest attached to the back of it.

But before Cleg went away he brought in the water for the night, filling all the cans. He scoured the milk pails ready for the milking of Mirren Douglas's three cows. He split abundance of kindling wood. He brought in the peats off the stack—enough to do for all the following day. He swept the yard clean as a hearth, with a worn stable brush. He promised to come back on the morrow and sweep the chimney, when Mirren puffed her cheeks at the smoke which blew down it occasionally. Then he brought home the cows, assisted by Hugh, Vara watching meanwhile a little wistfully from the gate. She felt sure that if it had been Kit Kennedy, he would not have chosen Hugh to help him. Mirren watched the girl with sharp, kindly eyes, but she said nothing.

When Cleg had done everything that he could think of for Vara and her mistress, he tied a new whip lash on Gavin's driving stick, tossed Hugh up to the ceiling, and departed.

Vara came with him to the door. Cleg did not even attempt to shake hands. On the contrary, he edged cautiously away lest Vara should offer to do it. "A chap looks saft aye shakin' hands" was how he explained the matter to himself. So when Vara stood a moment at the doorstep, with her hands wrapped tightly in her white apron and her eyes upon the beehives, Cleg looked at her a long time. It was exceedingly good to look upon her, and he had a little heartache all to himself as he thought of Theophilus Ruff in his terrible bedroom. Vara seemed all sunshine and pleasantness. But still he could think of nothing to say, till he was about ten yards down the walk. Then at last he spoke.

"Ye are takkin' your meat weel to a' appearance," he said.

Vara understood his meaning and was pleased. It was more to her from Cleg than all Kit Kennedy's sweet speeches. Her mind was mightily relieved. Cleg would learn yet.

But Vara only replied, "Do you think so, Cleg?"

"Guidnicht, Vara," said Cleg, soberly.

And with that he took his way sedately over the fields and disappeared into the coppice towards the house of Barnbogle. Vara watched him out of sight; but now not so wistfully. There was a proud little expression in her face. She looked almost conscious of her growing beauty.

"He maun think an awfu' deal o' me to say that!" she told herself.

When she went back into the house Mirren Douglas was just putting on her milking apron. She pretended to busy herself with the strings.

"Cleg doesna improve muckle in looks," she said; "he's no great beauty, is he noo?"

She spoke with intent to see what Vara would reply. For, after her sorrow, the old Mirren was springing up again like roses in an Indian summer.

"I never think muckle aboot his looks when I see him," said Vara quickly. "If he had looked like an angel, he couldna hae been kinder to me."

"Hoots, lassie," said Mirren hastily, "I was only jokin' ye. He is growin' a fine, personable lad, and when he has some flesh on his banes and a wee tait o' mair growth aboot his face, he'll do verra weel."

"He does very weel as he is, I think," said the loyal Vara, who was not yet appeased. "He has chappit the firewood, fetched the water, brocht in the peats and stalled the kye, soopit the yaird—and he is coming back the morn to clean the lum."

"And to see you, Vara," said Mirren Douglas, with wicked meaning in her tone. "What said ye at the door when he cannily bade ye guidnicht, Vara?"

"He said I was lookin' like takkin' my meat weel," said Vara, demurely pulling at the corner of her apron, where a knot of the lace was coming loose. At least Vara was rapidly loosening it.

"Let your apron be, lassie; what ill-will hae ye at it?" cried Mirren from the doorstep.

Vara dropped the loop as if it had been a white-hot iron. And as Mirren Douglas carried her milking stool to the byre, she dropped a few tears. "I mind sae weel," she said to herself, "the time when Alick was a lad and coming aboot the place, I used to like naething better than for folk to be aye botherin' me aboot him!"

And if "bothering" be a provocative to love, Mirren resolved that neither Vara nor Cleg should lack the amatorious irritant.

ADVENTURE LVI.

THE VOICES IN THE MARSH.

During the days that followed her home-coming Vara was happier than she had ever been. In the warm sunshine of family love and physical well-being the curves of her figure filled out. She seemed to shoot up all at once from the child into the woman. Her eyes lost their old frightened look. Her arms and shoulders hid their angles and became curved and dimpled. But Cleg waxed even more shy and awkward. But, nevertheless, he came every day, and if there was anything to be done about the house, or in the little grass parks, Cleg Kelly was there to do it. It was Cleg, for instance, who started the wonderful wild-flower industry. This was the secret which he had kept in store against the day when he should fall out with the General.

It was Cleg's idea that if only he could send large enough quantities of the commoner wild flowers to the market, there would soon be a trade in them which might, with proper attention, grow to very considerable dimensions.

Not that Cleg contemplated any great extensions at present. But he desired to make a beginning, so that he might not have to build up from the foundations, if anything were suddenly to happen which might cast him again upon the world.

So Cleg advertised in the Scottish city papers that he was prepared to supply both blooms and entire plants of such ferns and wild flowers as grew in the neighbourhood of Netherby. He got Vara also to send similar advertisements to the _Exchange and Mart_ and other papers. And in a little time he had developed as large a trade as could be carried on directly by parcel and limited orders. He found, for instance, a hill not far off which was entirely overgrown with the parsley-fern. And with this he made great deals in the fern market. For he was able to supply a dozen or a hundred plants for a very modest remittance, and that with merely the trouble of walking to the hill for them.

But he saw that the undertaking must have a surer basis than this haphazard ingathering of chance growths. And so Cleg set himself to plant out and cultivate the wild flowers in ground naturally suited for their growth. He had the wet morass at hand for the water-plants, the burnside for those which loved to be near, but not in, running water. There were shy nooks about the linn for ferns, and for the rest the fine light soil of Sandyknowes. He utilised ground which was not in use for any other purposes, fencing it round with wire, and setting Vara and Hugh to do the watering and caring for the plants, as they had done long ago around the old construction hut in Callendar's yard.

Hugh Boy went to school during the day at Netherby Academy, and was proving a great success. Cleg Kelly taught him how to box, and warned him at the same time not to fight. But Cleg added that if he needed to do it, it was better to do it once for all and be done with it. So these advantages assured Hugh an easy life of it at school.

Cleg had also been thinking much lately of developing the wild-flower business. He meant to establish an agency in each of the larger towns, and he had already written a letter to Cleaver's boy offering him terms as his agent and advising him to look out for openings. For Cleg was proving himself above all things practical, and seemed destined to turn out as prosperous a business man as Bailie Holden.

The General often laughed at Cleg's devotion to his flowers and his children. Yet he liked to hear tidings of them. Sometimes, indeed, he reproved Cleg for bringing with him a floating atmosphere and suggestion of womankind. But Cleg always assured him that he had been careful to change his clothes.

Life at Barnbogle went on uneventfully. Daily the time locks clicked. Daily the General retired to his strange bedroom, coming forth again with the pupils of his eyes dilated and his face drawn with the drugs which he had inhaled and swallowed. Cleg cooked the bacon, brewed the tea, and made a couple of daily pilgrimages to the room of the three coffins. Then he came out again and shut the doors carefully behind him, and slept soundly at nights. Cleg had no spiritual fears and had outgrown his illusions—at least such of them as interfered with a pound a week.

But whenever he went into Netherby he found himself an object of great interest. For not even the peccadilloes of the ministers of Netherby, nor yet the unbecoming gaiety of their wives' attire, supplied so favourite a subject for gossip to the good folk of the town as the madness and the miserliness of General Theophilus Ruff.

The old men would tell over again those tales of the General driving his coach and six with the lady by his side who was arrayed like the Queen of Sheba. Netherby had never had any doubt as to the fascinating moral character of this personage. And Theophilus Ruff still carried the glory of his former sins about with him, even though he had dwelt for twenty years a hermit and a madman in his house of Barnbogle.

His fabulous wealth was everywhere a common topic. He received his rents in person, but none of it, so far as was known, was placed in the banks of the neighbourhood. The builders, the engineers, and the locksmiths from the city had, as we have seen, all told tales of the strong-rooms they had been erecting, and of the secret arrangements which had been made with a great firm in London for yet more complete safety.

"It's a perfect Guid's wonder that ye are no a' murdered in your beds, wi' thae millions of siller lyin' in the hoose," said one of Cleg's most persistent inquisitors, after vainly trying to extract from Cleg whether he had ever seen the treasure with his own eyes.

"I wadna be in your shoon for a hundred pounds a week—na, no for a' the gowd in Barnbogle Hoose," the respectable shopkeeper told him each time he came in. "The General's servants never leave him. Na, they a' dee—and generally michty suddenly at the tail o' the day. And naebody kens in what mainner they come by their ends. I'm thinking that when he gets tired o' them, he juist locks them up in yin o' his iron rooms and then—lets them bide there!"

But Cleg was not frightened, as the good grocer had hoped. He bought his red herrings, his bacon, and his eggs; and he carried them peacefully back to the brick building in the rear of the vast blind wall of Barnbogle House, to be ready when the General should come again from his room.

"A pound a week was never easier earned," said practical and unimaginative Cleg.

Vara felt that this time of bliss was too sweet to last. Yet, with the fatalism of those bred up in the midst of misery, she was content to bask carelessly in the sunshine of present prosperity. She was like a bird taking its fill of the warmth and delight of summer, without a thought of blusterous winter winds and the shrewd pinch of nipping skies.

But one night, when the year was already drawing to its end, and November was expiring in a clear silver-grey rime of frost, Vara was locking up the outhouses at Sandyknowes in the gloaming. She had already been at the byre, and had given the cows their last bit of fodder, and a pat each on the flank as she passed—a pat so remote from the sentient and operative end of the animal, that it seemed almost as ridiculous as caressing the porch of a church in order to please the parson.

Nevertheless, Vara never omitted the ceremony on any consideration. Yet this particular evening, all the time she was foddering the cattle Vara had a strange consciousness that she heard voices somewhere over towards the marsh. The crisp air of coming frost sharpened her hearing, and as the stars pricked themselves out, the whole night rang like a bell with unknown and far-away sounds.

Voices Vara certainly did hear. But she thought that it might be only a lad and lass on their way to the dancing-school, or a herd talking aloud to his dog for company as he went homeward. Yet the sounds did not resemble any of those with which Vara had been recently acquainted. Some awful dread, inherited from a former and a more terrible existence, returned upon her.

Her breath came hard and quick. She grew first hot and then cold, as she stole down by the barn-end to listen. She was nearer to the voices there. The murmur of them came more instant and terrible up from the swamp above which Sandyknowes sat on its hill. Vara stole on tiptoe nearer and nearer. The old hut in the hollow was a deserted cot-house of the General's—a mere but-and-ben—which Muckle Alick had been accustomed to use for storing old railway sleepers in. For these are the winter fuel of men who work upon the railway.

Presently Vara saw its white gable-end staring out at her through the bare branches of the underbrush. The angry voices became louder and more threatening. A ray of light stole through a chink in the boarded-up window. Stealthily Vara went on tiptoe round the gable till she could put her eye to the chink. A cloth had been hung up over the window, past one corner of which Vara could just see a fire flickering in the grateless fireplace of the deserted cottage.

But her heart sank within her at the words she heard, which rang like the very trump of doom in her ears: "Timothy Kelly," cried a voice which Vara well knew—even that of her mother—"I tell ye I will have no murder done! And on your own son! Shame on ye! It is enough to bring a judgment on us all just to talk about it. I tell ye we can get the stuff out of the house o' the loony General without the like of that."

Then the piping voice of the weasel-faced Tim Kelly answered, "'Tis little that ye know, Sal Kavannah, you that never were at the taking of a farthing's worth in your life, except off boosy softies in the street. I tell ye, woman, that if Clig Kelly were to come in my road when I am getting out the cargo I'd spit him like a rat!"

"But, maybes," said the other voice, which thrilled Vara the most, "maybes, if ye was to speak peaceable-like to the lad ye might get him to stand in with us."

"Sorra a fear of him," replied Tim; "Clig Kelly might have been like a lump of paving-stone, for all the kindness he ever showed to his kin. Aye, and after all that I have done for the boy!"

"Childer! poison them!" cried Sal Kavannah, "'tis little you have had to suffer with your childer, Timothy Kelly! It's me that knows to the roots of my heart. But wait till we have this stuff lifted and safe in Mistress Roy's tea-kettle. Then we'll bring sweating sorrow on them that's the proud ones this day."

"Set a match to the house this very night, and burn it about their ears," said Tim Kelly. "Say the word and I'll do the job for you, and that willin', Sal."

"I declare my heart's broke entirely with ungrateful children," said Sal Kavannah; "but when once we get clear away with the old General's jewels, we will have time and to spare to bring them to their senses."

Vara listened, now with fire glowing hot in her heart, and the next moment she was again cold as a stone. She had her ear close down against the bottom of the window-sill, and thus for a time she stood, the thought that her enemy had found her out once more overwhelming all other thoughts.

But presently the knowledge of Cleg Kelly's instant and terrible danger came to her. Cleg was in sole charge of the great house of Barnbogle with all its wonderful treasures. The master of it was reported to be away. But, so strange and unaccountable were his comings and goings, that no one knew whether General Theophilus Ruff was really in the neighbourhood or not.

At all events, any way that Vara thought about it, there was little doubt that Cleg was in imminent peril of his life. For if he refused to give up the treasures of the General, his father would certainly kill him. And if he were frightened or tortured into telling, then no one would believe anything else than that he had been sent by his father to worm himself into the confidence of the mad General and so open the house to the robber.

Vara meditated what she should do. Could she get to the house of Barnbogle before Tim Kelly, she might be able to put Cleg on his guard. But a curious something, more disabling than fear, kept her chained to the spot.

"The thing is easy as throat-slitting," said Tim emphatically. "I tell you the lad has the keys; for I know he can let himself out and in at his pleasure. Now, he shall give up the keys willingly, or I know a way to make him. If the mad ould General comes in the road, I have that in my pocket which will settle him dead for life. But I hear he's off again on his thundering rounds, restless devil that he is!"

"But how," said Sal Kavannah, "is the like o' me to hold the boy? He will be as strong as a young bullock by now."

"He'll be wake—wake as pump-water—when I get him in them hands," whispered Timothy Kelly, so that the listener barely heard him.

But Vara could see his narrow, weasel face thrust forward and hear the hateful jar in his voice. "God's truth!" he said, "do I not owe him wan? See them holes?" he cried more loudly, his hate mastering him, "pockmarks ye could lose sixpence in. 'Twas the whelp that did that to me! Ah! a fine man was Tim Kelly before that sorra came into the world."

"Vara! Vara!" cried suddenly a shrill voice behind the listening girl, as she stood with her brow down on the window-sill. Her heart leaped with wild terror; for it was the voice of little Gavin, come out to seek her, and she feared that he would suddenly appear at the door of the house on the bog. He had a curious faculty for following his sister and finding her. Ever since she came back from Loch Spellanderie he had not cared to let her out of his sight.

"Vara! Vara!" the shrill childish voice came again. She could hear Gavin coming nearer, pushing his way through the crackling copsewood. The wrangling voices within stilled themselves. The tell-tale light went out at the crack in the board, and Vara knew that the wild beasts inside would be after her in a moment.

If she could only silence Gavin, she thought. She rose to her feet and dashed towards him.

"Vara! Vara!" rose the child's voice, clear on the frost-bitten air; "where are ye, Vara?"

She could hear him beating gleefully with a stick on a wire fence which ran down into the marsh, so that the very hills gave back the clear humming sound. The wire was Gavin's telegraph, and he pleased himself with the thought that he could always communicate with Vara by means of it. The girl ran towards him, leaping over the frozen ditches, and speeding through the briars, heedless of how she might hurt herself. She came on Gavin at the edge of the wood, beating on the wire with his stick and shouting boldly, "Vara, Vara, come forth!" as he had heard the Netherby minister do in church.

"Hush, hush, Gavin!" she cried anxiously, holding out her arms to him, "for God's sake, hush!"

And, in an agony of apprehension, she lifted him and strained him to her breast. There came the sound of footsteps running through the wood, and Vara dragged Gavin back into the shelter of the alders which grew thick and rank in the marsh at the end of the fence. She covered Gavin's mouth with her shawl as the flying footsteps clattered nearer.

Presently the dark figure of Tim Kelly ran past them, with his head set very far forward, scenting from side to side like a beast of prey hunting upon a hot trail. He held a knife point downwards in his hand. Vara stood still while the terrifying vision passed. Tim Kelly was running towards the house of Barnbogle. She could hear another—and heavier—foot following. And before she had time to move, lo! Sal Kavannah moved into the grey-litten space, and stood still within ten yards of her children.

"The Awfu' Woman!" came from Gavin's lips, even through the folds of the shawl. All terrifying things were summed up for him in that phrase he had learned from his brother Hugh. Something seemed to tell Sal Kavannah that she was near her children. She stood for what seemed an eternity, stark and staring, rooted to the spot, only turning her head slowly from side to side and straining her ears to hear the crack of a twig or the rustle of a leaf.

Vara prayed as she had never done before. Gavin's eyes were fixed in his head with terror. The end of the world had indeed come. "The Awfu' Woman" was back again, and in a moment the quiet and safety of Sandyknowes had ended for them.

But Vara stood the test. And Gavin had no words which were not shut within him by the soul-terrifying proximity of Boy Hugh's "Awfu' Woman." So silently did they stand that Sal Kavannah heard nothing; and with her ears still on the stretch she moved slowly away, following Tim Kelly in the direction of Barnbogle.

Then was Vara's heart fairly torn in twain. Should she go first to Mirren Douglas and Boy Hugh? Or should she strike across through the dark woods towards Barnbogle? Then, like sweet music, there fell on her ears the loud, hearty accents of the voice of Mistress Fraser.

"Weel, Mirren, an' hoo's a' wi' ye the nicht? Hearty, thank ye! I hae brocht my guidman an' Gibby, oor auldest callant, ower by to hearten ye up. Gibby is a brave bullock-baned hullion, no bonny ony mair than the daddy o' him—but that like Tam Fraser, that he could na deny him even if he was willin'. And that is a guid thing for a decent woman's reputation!"

Vara could not catch Mirren Douglas's reply, but she could hear Mistress Fraser's next words; for that voluble lady always spoke as if it were all important that the next two parishes should have a chance of benefiting by her wisdom.

"Hoots, no! Gie yoursel' nae thocht aboot the lassie. She has Gavin wi' her, and I'se warrant she'll be keepin' her bit trysts, just as you and me had in the days that's lang bygane. Come your ways in, Gibby. Dinna stand hingin' a leg there!"

Sandyknowes was therefore safe so long as the Frasers remained. The way was clear for Vara to run through the woods to warn Cleg. So, plucking Gavin to her, she lifted him in her arms and ran towards Barnbogle as hard as she could. But the wild beast and the "Awfu' Woman" had a long start of her.

ADVENTURE LVII.

FIGHTING THE BEASTS.