Chapter IX

Certain passengers travelling by the Kelso Express were presently switched off on a Branch Line, to rumble for a chilly hour in unwarmed and feebly-lighted carriages, between low-breasting heathery hills patched with larch and oak-woods, shagged with gorse and delicately topped with snow. Upon the left hand, beyond the blue-green riband of a river narrowing between its encroaching icy borders; lying between low sandstone cliffs hollowed by spates from the hills, the last embers of a fierce red sunset were smouldering away....

Signs of the Day were apparent, in the significant age or suggestive youth of the plaided shepherds who moved as isolated dots upon the cheerless landscape; their collies bounding at their heels, or harrying flocks of black-faced sheep back to the round, stone-built folds upon the hills. Or in the macintosh and shawl-enveloped women driving shaggy ponies in the farm-gigs; or kilted and breeched, wearing the green armlet with the red Crown and lettering,--carting mangolds or forking swedes, herding rough-coated milch-cows back to the byres--or wheeling red Post Office bicycles up steep brae-roads.

A fanged east wind spattering icy sleet, blew from the North Sea across the Cheviots, and lights began to twinkle from grey stone-built manses and slate-roofed farms. Dark had come down when the train stopped at Cauldstanes, the bleak little granite station of the Border market-town. The dazzling blue-white headlights of a big Rolls-Royce car blazed in the dark beyond the platform fence-rails. A one-armed, silver-badged male servant waited on the wet asphalte under the jumping gas. The Station Master, stout, white-bearded and important, passed towards the rear of the train, demanding a "ledda for Whingates." Presently to return, loaded with rugs, pillows and suit-cases, ushering the sought-for lady,--who said in her characteristically staccato accents as she bade her fellow-traveller adieu:

"Good-night and good-bye, if we never meet again! Though this is a small world, isn't it?--and most roads seem to cross at the Front. No! you are Not to help with the things! ... Mr. Smellie will be so obliging.... And here is Padsworth. Glad to see you so fit, Padsworth. I've not forgotten to bring the artificial arm!"

Thus Lady Wastwood, who vanished away into the conjectural regions beyond the platform fence-rails, tall, thin, triangular-faced, graciously smiling; attended by the laden station-master and followed by the one-armed groom....

A red-cheeked girl in a macintosh and scarlet Tam O' Shanter took the soldier's ticket at the gate in the platform-railing, and cried in a strident key, intended for some unseen ear:

"Mrs. Govan, mem! ... Is Mrs. Govan no' ootside wi' the doug-cairt frae the _Cross Keys_?"

A voice pleasanter, rounder and more womanly, came back out of the blackness of the station entrance-yard, crying:

"Ay, am I, Leezie! Is Cornel Yaill there?"

Leezie shrieked back as the headlights of the Rolls-Royce revolved, and the big car turning,--backed, snorted, forged ahead and sped away on soundless tyres into the chilly darkness:

"I kenna, but there's a sodger seekin' a nicht's lodgin'!"

"Tell him the _Cross Keys_ wi' guid supper an' clean beddin' is inside the meenute's walk frae here!" called back the matronly voice. "Losh me! Whatna's that?"

As John Hazel stood outside the platform gate, in the wind-blown flare of its solitary gas-lamp, another tall figure in khaki had appeared from the velvety blur of blackness under the eaves of the preposterous little booking-office; and passing close to the head of the quiet beast between the shafts, had halted by the off-wheel and spoken to the driver....

"Eh, Cornel!" the womanly voice went on, "Gude guide us, but ye scairt me sair! Risin' up oot o' the dairk richt under auld Broonie's nose! ... But that the meir kens ye, the puir beast micht have boltit. An' wha' wad manage the _Cross Keys_ then, I wad weel like to know!"

The answer came in a man's deep voice, with an inflection of melancholy underlying its pleasantness:

"I am sorry, Mrs. Govan. But how is it I find you here, on such a bitter night?"

"Huts! The nicht's no' waur than ither for the time o' year," Mrs. Govan retorted from her perch on the driver's seat. "An' the guidman being laid by wi' a sair hoast--forbye a lad we canna' trust wi' a guid beast on a mirk night--there's nane but mysel' to drive ye to Kerr's Arbour!" The speaker added, in the high keening tone which a Scotswoman of her class invariably assumes in speaking of things having reference to death and mourning; "An' haud ye back ae mair half-hoor from ane that's thinkin' lang until ye come to her--I wouldna'! Not to win my ain lad Alec back frae the Front the night!" She went on as the person addressed made a responsive sound of indeterminate meaning:

"But whatna's to hinder ye, Cornel Yaill, knowing the road's weel as yer pocket, frae driving yersel--as ye've done to my knowledge--mony an' mony a time before noo. Up wi' ye!" She relinquished the reins and jumped down, nimbly enough considering her years and matronly proportions, adding as the man she addressed promptly assumed her vacated seat.... "Bid them gie Broonie a het mesh, puir thing, she's nane sae yoong as has been!--and mind ye send her back wi' the cairt early in the morn's morn. She'll be wantit to bring Mr. Kellar, the lawyer, oot on business conneckit wi' the Will! Na, na! I'll no' be needing a lift to the _Cross Keys_! Here's a soger-man from Lunnon that's bound for the inn, and needin' a wise body to guide him. Gang yer ways wi' guid luck! Gie my love to Miss Forbis!"

The woman added as Yaill tightened the reins, and the mare, answering a whip-touch with an indignant snort, trotted away with the dog-cart into the sleety darkness:

"Your road's lang and ower rough. But, O, Man! there's a braw, braw leddy waiting to greet ye at the ither end!"