"My mother's nurse. She died before you were born. The very wee-est woman that ever was—I used to pick her up and carry her about—and so bonnie, with a white-goffered mutch framing her face. We all loved that little old woman. She lived in a tiny house at the top of the village with Tam, her husband; all her family were up and married and away. 'Granny' was our refuge in every kind of storm—indeed, she was everybody's refuge. And she had a great heart in her little body. It was told of her that when her eldest boy ran away to Edinburgh and enlisted, she made a pot of broth and baked a baking of scones for the children left at home, strapped the baby on her back, walked into Edinburgh, bought the boy off, and walked back again—fifty-six miles in all! We have almost lost the use of our legs in these days of trains and motors. She never asked anything from anybody. I can remember her face when some well-meaning person offered her charity. 'Na, na, thank ye kindly. I may be sodger-clad, but I'm major-minded.' And there was old Peggy Leithen, who gave a ha'penny to every beggar that came to the door, murmuring as she did so, 'Charity covereth a multitude of sins,' and graphically described her conversion: 'I juist got the blessin' when ma knee was on the edge o' the bed steppin' in ahint Geordie.' And there was Jock Look-Up—but I could go on for hours. I think I was thirteen when I went to a boarding-school. I enjoyed that, too—all except the getting up to practise on winter mornings. I can feel now the chill of the notes on my numb fingers. I was going back to school for another year when I met your father and got married instead."
"Seventeen, weren't you?"
"Seventeen, and childish at that. I never had my hair up till my marriage day. Your father was twenty-six."
"Babes!" said Ann.
"It's odd how things come about," said Mrs. Douglas, as she put the last of the text-books on the pile, and took off the large, round-eyed tortoise-shell spectacles that she wore when doing her "reading." "Dr. Watts, our own minister, was ordered to the South of France for the winter, and your father, who had just finished with college, came to take his place. We were used to fine ministers in Etterick. Dr. Watts was a saint and a scholar, and the parish minister was one of God's most faithful servants—both were men of dignity and power. But your father was so young and ardent; he went through the district like a flame. He held meetings in lonely glens where no meeting had ever been held before. He kindled zeal in quiet people who had been content to let things go on as they had always gone; it was a wonderful six months. Your Aunt Agatha, who, being older, had left school before I did, wrote to tell me of this extraordinary young man; indeed, her letters were so full of him that I made up my mind to dislike him at sight. And after I did meet him I pretended to myself and to Agatha that I thought him a very tiresome young man. I mimicked the way he sang hymns and his boyish, off-hand manner, so unlike Dr. Watts' grave, aloof ways. I wish I had words, Ann, to give you some idea of the man your father was in his youth. As he grew older he grew not less earnest, but more tolerant—mellower, perhaps, is the word. As a young man he was like a sword-blade, pure and keen. And yet he was such a boy with it all, or I never would have dared to marry him. I had absolutely no training for a minister's wife, but I went into it quite blithely. Now, looking back, I wonder at myself. At the time I was like the little boy marching bravely into a dark room, his bigger brother explaining the phenomena with 'He hasna the sense to be feart.'"
"There's a lot in that," said Ann. "But think what a loss to the world if you had remained a spinster—it hardly bears thinking of! Well, we haven't got very far to-night. To-morrow you must tell me all about the wedding. I know Alison would like to hear about the tiny, white, kid lacing shoes with pale blue rosettes that I used to look at in a drawer. I believe they finished up in a jumble sale."
"Yes," Mrs. Douglas confessed. "It was the first one we ever had, and you know the sort of madness that seizes you when you see people eager to buy. I rushed home and looked out everything we could do without—my wedding slippers among the lot. And poor old Mrs. Buchanan, in a sort of ecstasy of sacrifice, climbed up to her kitchen shelf and brought down the copper kettle that in her saner moments she cherished like saffron, and threw it on the pyre. The sale was for Women's Foreign Missions, and when at the end of the most strenuous evening any of us had ever spent the treasurer and I lugged our takings home in a cab, her husband met us at the door, and, lifting the heavy bag, said, 'I doubt it's Alexander the coppersmith.' But it wasn't; it was fully £100. Dear, dear, the excitements of a ministerial life!"
CHAPTER III
"Now that the visitors are gone," said Ann, "we'll go on with our wedding number. Who complained of the dullness of the Green Glen? Three visitors—the whole neighbourhood you may say—in one afternoon: first the parson, then the two Miss Scotts. As I came down the burnside I saw them go up to the door, and I said to myself in the words of the old beadle who was asked what sort of congregation was gathering: 'Graund! Twa weemen pourin' in.' Didn't you like them, Mother? The Miss Scotts, I mean? I thought their weather-beaten faces very attractive, and their voices so surprisingly soft and clear. Somehow I had expected voices rather loud and strident, to go with their workman-like clothes and heavy boots. The younger one specially attracted me—they way she beamed through her spectacles and said 'Yes' unexpectedly, whenever a pause occurred in the conversation. They are going to help me a lot with the garden; their own place is lovely. It's a nice happy way to end one's days—living peacefully among growing flowers! Think of all the old women who live in hotels and boarding-houses, quite comfortable, I dare say, so far as fires and light and a good bed, and well-cooked food go, but so barren of all interest except a morbid curiosity about their fellow-prisoners! How spacious a country life is! … "
"Oh yes," her mother broke in impatiently; "but hotel life can be very interesting, and there is nothing I enjoy so much as watching my neighbours. … I wonder why Mr. Sharp likes telling funny stories?"
"Shyness goads him to it," Ann said. "It's the same thing that makes me chatter like a swallow when I am with impressive people and ought to hold my peace. He's a decent lad, Mr. Sharp, but I wish that when I meet him outside he wouldn't treat me like a funeral. He doesn't look at me, but removes his hat when passing. Shyness again, I suppose."
"He has a housekeeper," Mrs. Douglas said, as she picked up a stitch. "It's a pity he hasn't a wife. In a quiet place like this the Manse should be a centre for the district. Don't you think, Ann, if we asked Nina Strachen, or——"
"Mother," said Ann solemnly, "I utterly refuse to have anything to do with your matchmaking efforts. Just let your mind dwell for a little on the result of your last."
Mrs. Douglas sighed. "Poor George Reid! But it wasn't marrying killed him. He couldn't have got a better wife than Jeanie Robb. The doctors said the trouble had been going on for a long time, and, anyway, the last months of his life were as comfortable as they could be made. If he hadn't married he would have been dependent on fremt women, for he hadn't a soul of his own; and Jeanie gets the Widows' Fund, so you can't regret the marriage having taken place."
"Practical woman!" laughed Ann. "But we must get on with your own wedding now—we are making no progress at all. When I think of what Hugh Walpole or Compton Mackenzie can make out of somebody's childhood, I blush for my few bald sentences. About your wedding—did my grandmother choose your things? When I knew her she took very little interest in clothes, just wore whatever was brought to her."
"Ah, but she wasn't always like that. I remember Agatha and myself almost in tears begging her not to get a purple silk dress and bonnet which she much desired, as we thought them absurdly youthful for her years. Poor body! I don't believe she was more than forty. Daughters can be very unfeeling."
"They can," Ann agreed, with a twinkle. "My poor grandmother! What a shame to deprive
