stopped dancing at sight of him, too shy even to run and hide. He hoisted her on to his shoulder and she went riding off in terror that soon became a fearful joy.
Next day she watched for Peter and went with him again; and the next day too. At Drochety − the farm west from Aunt Josephine’s where they delivered the newspaper − Clemmie had always heard them coming and was there at the door, waiting. A raw country lass, high-cheeked, with crude red features and sucked and swollen hands, she managed Drochety and his household to the manner born. Mrs. Glennie, Drochety’s feeble wife, lay upstairs in her bed and worritted – Aunt Josephine told Martha all about it as though she were a grown-up and Martha listened with grave attention. But she need not have worritted, for Clemmie, though she came only at last November term, had the whole establishment, master and mistress, kitchen and byre and chau’mer, securely under her chappit thumb.
Clemmie had a soft side to Peter, and for his sake was kind to Matty: though she would not of her own accord have made much of a lassie. ‘It’s aye the men-fowk I tak a fancy to,’ she said with perfect frankness. Martha could hear her skellochin’ with the cattleman in the evenings, ‘an’ him,’ said Aunt Josephine, ‘a merriet man.’
The rest of the day Martha trotted after Aunt Josephine or played among the broom brushes above the house. And each day was as sweet smelling and wholesome to the taste as its neighbour.
On the tenth of these days Miss Leggatt straightened herself from the rhubarb bed, where she had been pulling the red stalks for Martha’s dinner, and saw young Willie Patterson come cycling down the road. And when young Willie Patterson visited Miss Leggatt, three things always happened: they played a game of cards; they talked of old Willie and the crony of his young days, Rory Foubister; and Miss Josephine forgot the passage of time.
She forgot Martha also. The child stood gravely by, watching; and heard for the first time the name of Rory Foubister. Willie and Miss Josephine took him through hand − a likely lad he had been, ‘the warld fair made for him,’ said Miss Leggatt. ‘But he wasna a gweed guide o’ himsel. Never will I forget the day he cam to say fareweel. “I’ve been a sorrowfu’ loon to my parents, Josephine, an’ mebbe I’ll never come back.’”
‘Well, well, now,’ said Willie, ‘it’s just as well you spoke of Rory’ (as though Miss Josephine ever neglected so to do), ‘for didna I just look in on his cousin, old Miss Foubister at Birleybeg. “Tell Miss Josephine,” said she, “that Mrs. Williamson and Bella will be here in an hour’s time, and we’ll be looking for her to make the fourth, and stay as lang’s she can,” she says.’
‘Weel, weel, noo,’ said Miss Josephine.
The good humour shone in her. She was burnished with it. When Mrs. Williamson and Bella came to Birelybeg, the summoning of Aunt Josephine followed as a matter of course. So did whist: and it was no idle game.
Aunt Josephine was in a delightful bustle. There was her best black silk boady to fetch and air, her boots to polish, her clean handkerchief to lay in readiness beside the bonnet with the velvet pansies. One thing Aunt Josephine forgot was the dinner. The beheaded stalks of rhubarb lay in a heap in the garden where she had left them when Willie Patterson appeared. Their skin had tightened and toughened in the sun and shreds of it were curling up like tendrils. The mince was still upon the shelf.
‘We canna wait noo or it’s cookit,’ said Aunt Josephine when she remembered. She was standing in her petticoat and slip-body in the middle of the kitchen floor. ‘We’ll just hae a cup of tea an’ an egg, an’ you’ll carry hame the mince to yer mither in yer bundle.’
On the strength of the cup of tea and the egg Aunt Josephine locked her house door and pocketed the ponderous key. On the strength of the cup of tea and the egg Martha watched her go and turned to face her first revisitation of her home.
When Aunt Josephine had walked off westward in her best silk boady, Martha turned back alone to Wester Cairns. Life was a queer disappointment. Its Aunt Josephines had incomprehensible transactions with the world. Its very woods were dumb. She crawled in among the bracken to rest. Its great tops swayed above her, smelling good. The earth smelt good too; and she fell asleep.
When she awoke the shadows had altered. Thin blades of sunshine had stolen into the wood, shadow had stolen over great patches of the sunny land. She had slept till evening. But Martha was as yet unskilled to read the light and did not know that she had slept so long. She rose and left the wood.
The iron gate to the field was open and two small boys lay on their stomachs beside the puddle. Beyond, a black-eyed girl was strutting, an old cloak tied round her middle.
‘Ye micht lat me by, Andy,’ said Martha.
Neither of the boys budged.
The lady in the cloak here intervened. Martha had never seen her before; and suddenly she noted that it was her own mother’s cloak that dangled from the stranger’s waist.
‘You can’t get this way,’ said Blackeyes. ‘It’s to my house.’
‘It’s nae to your hoose,’ cried Martha. ‘It’s to my hoose and it’s my mither’s cloak ye’ve got on.’
‘It’s her hoose richt eneugh,’ said Andy. ‘She bides there.’
‘She disna bide there,’ said Martha. ‘It’s nae her hoose and it’s nae her cloak. Ye’ve stealed that cloak. It’s my mither’s cloak.’
And with that Martha sprang at the puddle, leaped short, and fell in the mire on the farther side.
‘Sic a mucky mess ye’re in, Matty,’ said Andy with deep satisfaction. ‘You’ll get yer hi-ma-nanny when ye win hame. Yer mither’s in an awfu’ ill teen the day. Isna she, Peter?’
‘Ay,’ said Peter, without looking up from his mud-grubbing. ‘She’s terrible short i’ the cut.’
‘Ye’ll fair get it, Matty. I wadna hae a mither like yon. She’s a tongue, yon woman, an’ nae name feart to use it,’ went on Andy, repeating lusciously the judgements current in his home on Mrs. Ironside. ‘Hisna she, Peter?’
‘Ay,’ said Peter, intoning his portion of the antiphon from the mud. ‘She’s a tongue that wad clip cloots.’
‘An’ a gey heavy han’ as weel,’ chanted Andy. ‘She fair gied it to Peter the day as she gaed by. She fair laid till him. Didna she, Peter?’
‘I dinna care a doit,’ said Peter, altering the antiphon abruptly under stress of recollection.
Martha attended to neither. She was now on the black-browed stranger’s side of the puddle and promptly laid violent hands on the cloak. Blackeyes wrenched herself free, pirouetted out of reach, and over one shoulder, with the most mischievous little sparkle in the world, thrust out her tongue at Martha.
Martha flew upon her, her limbs dancing of themselves with indignation. The black-burnished lady raised a pair of active sun-browned arms in readiness for the onslaught,
