would read you out bits, the mistress or minister, sometimes them both, and you never had had patience with books in your life. You could never get in them or past the long words, some thing there was that stood fast between, though you knit up your brows and tried ever so hard. And you’d drop the damn book when a minute was past and listen instead to the birds in the trees, as the evening drew in and they chirped in their sleep, and the low of the kye in the parks of the Mains, and see through the swinging of the casement window the light of the burning whins on the hills, smell—you smelled with your body entire—the tingle and move of the harvesting land. And then you’d be wearied and lie half asleep, wondering what Charlie was doing to-night, had he taken some other quean out to the pictures, or was sitting about at some bothy fire? And would he come to see you as he’d written he’d come?
He came that Sunday, and the mistress herself it was brought him up, he stood with his cap in his hands and he blushed, and you did the same, but the mistress didn’t. Now sit down and talk and I’ll bring you both tea. And off then she went, and you thought then, as often, she was bonny in a way, in a dour, queer way, with her hair dark-red and so coiled, and the eyes so clear, and the mouth like a man’s, but shaped to a better shape than a man’s, you stared at the door even after she’d gone, till Charlie whispered, Do you think she’ll come back? And you said, No, you gowk, and peeked at him quiet, and he looked round about as slow as a sow and then cuddled you quick, and that was fair fine, and you wanted a minute to cry in his arms, because you were ill and weak and half-witted. You told yourself that and pushed him away, and he smoothed his hair and said, You’re right bonny, and you said, Don’t haver, and he said, Well, I don’t.
The mistress and Εwan brought up the tea, then left you enough together alone for the two of you to have wedded and bedded, as you thought in a peek of a thought that came. And you looked at Charlie, he was sitting there douce, telling of his place and the hard work there was, he’d as soon have thought ill as of dancing a jig. Like a fool you felt only half-pleased to know that, of course you didn’t want anything to happen, but at least he should try to make out that he did, it was only nature a man should want that, especially if you looked as bonny as he said. So you were fell short with him in the end, and he took his leave and the mistress came up. And you suddenly felt a fool altogether, you were weeping and weeping, with her arm about you, safe you felt there and sleepy and tired. She said, It’s all right. Else, sleep, you’ll be fine. You’re tired now you’ve talked so long with your lad.
But you knew from her look she knew more than that, she knew the thing you yourself had thought; and you said to yourself when she left you that night, If I ever hear any speak ill of the Colquohouns, I’ll—I’ll—and afore you’d decided whether you’d blacken their eyes, or their character, or both, you fell fast alseep.
SOMETIMES A BLACK, queer mood came on Robert, he would lock himself up long hours in his room, hate God and Chris and himself and all men, know his Faith a fantastic dream; and see the fleshless grin of the skull and the eyeless sockets at the back of life. He would pass by Chris on the stairs if they met, with remote, cold eyes and a twisted face, or ask in a voice that cut like a knife, Can’t you leave me alone, must you always follow?
The first time it happened her heart had near stopped, she went on with her work in a daze of amaze. But Robert came from his mood and came seeking her, sorry and sad for the queer, black beast that rode his mind in those haunted hours. He said that the thing was a physical remembrance, only that just, and Chris not to worry; and she found out that near the end of the War he’d been gassed by an awful gas that they made, and months had gone by ere he breathed well again, and the fumes of that drifting Fear were gone. And sometimes the shadows of that time came back, though his lungs were well enough now, he was sure, though ’twas in the months of his agony he’d known, conviction, terrible and keen as his pain, that there was a God Who lived and endured, the Tortured God in the soul of men, Who yet might upbuild the City of God through the hearts and hands of men of good faith.
But also Chris found it coming on Robert that here he could never do good or do ill, in a countryside that was dying or dead. One night he looked at Chris and said, Lord! But for you, Christine, I was daft to come here. I’ll try for a kirk in some other place, there’s work enough to be done in the towns. And thought for a while, his fair head in his hands. Would you like a town?
Chris said, Oh, fine, and smiled reassurance, but she bit at her lips and he saw, and he knew. Well, then, not a town. I’ll try to find something betwixt and between.
So he did ere a month was out, news came from Segget its minister was dead, Robert brought the news home: I’m to try for his kirk. And Chris said, Segget? and Robert said Yes, and Chris quoted the bit of poetry there was, somebody they said in Segget had made it:
Oh, Segget it’s a dirty hole,
A kirk without a steeple
A midden-heap at ilka door
And damned uncivil people!
Robert laughed, We’ll make them both civil and clean, Chris said, But you haven’t yet gotten the kirk, and he said Just wait, for I very soon will.
Three Sundays later they set out for Segget, Robert to preach there and Chris to listen, it was April, quiet and brown in the fields, drowsy under a blanket of mist that cleared as the sun rose, leaving the hills corona’ed in feathery wispings of clouds, Chris asked their name, and Robert said, Cirrus. They bring fine weather and they’re standing still. There’s little wind on the heights to-day.
And Chris on her bicycle suddenly felt young, younger far than she’d felt for years, Robert beside her on his awful bike, it made a noise like a threshing machine, collies came barking from this close and that; but Robert ground on and paid them no heed, scowling, deep in his sermon, no doubt. But once he swung round. Am I going too fast? and Chris said, Fast? It’s liker a funeral, and he came from the deeps of his thoughts and laughed, Oh, Chris, never change and grow English-polite! Not even in Segget, when we settle in its Manse!
Syne he said of a sudden, a minute or so later, they were past Mondynes and Segget in sight: Do you mind how Christ was tempted of the devil? And so was I till you spoke just now. I’d made up my mind I’d butter them up, in the sermon I preached—just for the chance of getting out of Kinraddie, settled in Segget, and on with some work. Well, I won’t…. By God, I’ll give them a sermon!
THE OLD MINISTER had died of drink, fair sozzled he was, folk said, at the end; and his last words were, so the story went, And what might the feare’s prices be to-day? No doubt that was just a bit lie that they told, but faith! he’d been greedy enough for his screw, with his long grey face and his bleary eyes and his way that he had of speaking to a man, met out in the street or down by the Arms, as though he were booming from the pulpit itself: Why didn’t I see you in the kirk last Sabbath? And a billy would redden and give a bit laugh, and look this way and that, were he one of New Toun. But more than likely, were he one of the spinners, he’d answer: Maybe because I wasn’t there! in the awful twang that the creatures spoke; and go off and leave old Greig sore vexed, he’d never got over the fact that the spinners cared hardly a hoot for kirk session or kirk.
Ah well, he was a dead and a two-three came to try for his pulpit, more likely his stipend, two old men came, each buttered up Segget, you’d have thought by the way the creatures blethered the Archangel Michael could have come to Segget, and bought a shop, and felt at home as he sat at the back and sanded the sugar. Folk took that stite with a dosing of salts, then the third man came and some stories came with him,
