"It was vera barefaced o' her. But she put up her hand wi' the rest."

"Ay, Mither. She was feared for Peter Brodie quarreling with her man.

That's Peter's way o' managing women; he mak's their husbands responsible for a' they say, and do; he says, 'the husbands ought to hae brought up their wives better.' He has done it, you know, Mither, several times."

Margot laughed. "Ay," she said, "for Tamson's wife. Naebody blamed him. Anne Tamson has a parfectly unruly tongue, and her husband, Watty, got the licking for what she said anent Frazer and his wife. I wouldna fear the man mysel', and the maist o' our women could gie him as much--and mair--than he sends."

So they talked until the cottage was reached, and the day was over.

Christine went gladly to her room. A crusie was burning on the table, and she removed her gown and uncoiled her long, brown hair. Then all was still, and she let herself think, and her decision was, "if Angus had wanted to come, he would have done so.

"It isna my place," she continued, "to tak' care on the subject. I'll no mak' mysel' and ithers miserable anent him, forbye Angus Ballister is clear outside me, and my life."

Then she rose and took a large copy book from a drawer, and sitting down at the table, took pen and ink and wrote:

November second. I was a little troubled all day about Angus. He didna come, and he didna send, and there was neither sign nor sight o' him. Weel, my warld went on wanting the lad, and the school talk filled the day, and at night I went wi' Mither to the meeting about it. From this hour I begin to forget Angus. I will ask G.o.d to keep my heart from all love's care and sorrow.

Then she put the book away, turned out the light and lay down. But the old mysterious, hungering sound of the sea had an angry sough in it; and she went to sleep fearing it, and thinking of it as a deep starless darkness, hanging over the dreamlike figures of dead sailors and fishers. At midnight she awoke, the storm her father had predicted was roaring over the great waters. She went to her little window and looked out--darkness, wildness, desolation--and she hasted and put plenty of peats on the fire, and carried her mother an extra quilt.

"I hae made up the fire, Mither dear," she said, "and if ye want to get up, you'll be warm, and I'll come and sit by you."

"Will I waken your feyther?"

"Whatna for? There's naething to fear. Norman and Eneas are doubtless at hame. Most o' our men are. Few would start after the dance. They would see the storm coming."

"Will it be a bad storm?"

"I think it will. But the sea is His, and He made it. If there is a storm He is guiding it. Ye ken how often we sing 'He plants His footsteps on the sea, and rides upon the storm.'" And so, sweet-eyed and fearless, she went away, but left peace and blessing behind her.

In the living room, she laid more peats on the fire. Then she went to her own room. Some words had been singing in her heart as she moved about, and she took the big copy book out of the drawer, and stooping to the crusie burning on the table, she wrote them down:

The night is black, the winds are wild, The waves are taking their own will, Dear Jesus, sleeping like a child, Awake! and bid the storm be still.

She read the words over with a smile. "They might be worse," she thought, "but Christine! You hae been writing poetry. You'll hae to stop that nonsense! Weel, it wasna my fault. It came o' itsel', and I dinna feel as if I had done anything much out o' the way--and I was maist asleep, if that is ony kind o' an excuse. I----"

CHAPTER VI

A CHILD, TWO LOVERS, AND A WEDDING

Because I am, Thy clay that weeps, thy dust that cares, Contract my hour that I may climb and find relief.

Love, thou knowest, is full of jealousy.

Love's reasons are without reason.

The summer had been full of interest and excitement, but it was over.

There was the infallible sense of ended summer, even at noonday; and the dahlias and hollyhocks, dripping in the morning mist, seemed to be weeping for it. If it had been clear cold weather, the fishers would have been busy and happy, but it was gloomy, with black skies over the black sea, and bitter north winds that lashed the waves into fury. The open boats hardly dared to venture out, and the fish lay low, and were shy of bait.

James Ruleson, generally accompanied by Cluny Macpherson, was out every day that a boat could live on the sea, and Margot and Christine often stood together at their door or window, and watched them with anxious hearts, casting their lines in the lonely, leaden-colored sea.

The boat would be one minute on the ridge of the billow, the next minute in the trough of the sea, with a wall of water on either hand of them. And through all, and over all, the plaintive pipe of the gulls and snipe, the creaking of the boat's cordage, the boom of the breakers on the sh.o.r.e, the sense and the presence of danger.

And Christine knew that Cluny was in that danger for her sake. He had told her on the day after the storm, as she sat sympathetically by his side, that he was only waiting for her "yes or no." He said when she gave him either one or the other, he would go to the Henderson steamboats, in one case to work for their future happiness and home, in the other to get beyond the power of her beauty, so that he might forget her.

Forget her! Those two words kept Christine uncertain and unhappy. She could not bear to think of Cluny's forgetting her. Cluny had been part of all her nineteen years of life. Why must men be so one or the other? she asked fretfully. Why force her to an uncertain decision?

Why was she so uncertain? Then she boldly faced the question and asked herself--"Is Angus Ballister the reason?" Perhaps so, though she was equally uncertain about Angus. She feared the almost insurmountable difficulties between them. Caste, family, social usage and tradition, physical deficiencies in education and in all the incidentals of polite life, not to speak of what many would consider the greatest of all shortcomings, her poverty. How could two lives so dissimilar as Angus Ballister's and Christine Ruleson's become one?

She asked her mother this question one day, and Margot stopped beating her oat cakes and answered, "Weel, there's a' kinds o' men, Christine, and I'll no say it is a thing impossible; but I hae come to the conclusion that in the case o' Angus and yoursel' you wouldna compluter if you lived together a' the rest o' this life."

"Why, Mither?"

"Because you are--the baity o' you--so weel satisfied wi' your present mak' up. That's a'. And it is a' that is needfu' to keep you baith from going forwarder. There's a lump a' rank cowardice in it, too."

"Mother, do you think I am a coward?"

"All women are frightened by what is said o' them, or even likely to be said o' them. And nae wonder. Women are far harder judged than men are. You would think the Ten Commands were not made for men. Yet if a woman breaks one o' them, G.o.d's sake! what a sinner she is!"

"I don't see what you are meaning, Mither."

"It's plain enou'. Men are not set down below notice, if they break the twa first a' their lives lang, if so be they pay their deficit to G.o.d in gold to the kirk. How many men do you know, Christine, who never break the third command? How many men honor the fourth? As to the fifth, Scots are maistly ready to tak' care o' their ain folk.

The sixth, seventh and eighth belong to the criminal cla.s.s, and ye'll allow its maistly made up o' bad men. Concerning the ninth command, men are wa.r.s.e than women, but men call their ill-natured talk politics, or het'rodoxy, or some ither grand name; and I'll allow that as soon as they begin to covet their neighbor's house and wife and horses and cattle, they set to wark, and mak' money and build a bigger house than he hes, and get a bonnier wife, and finer-blooded horses and cattle--and I'm not saying whether they do well or ill--there is sae much depending on the outcome o' prosperity o' that kind. But tak'

men as a whole, they leave the Ten Commands on the shoulders o' their wives."

"And do the women obey them, Mither?"

"Middling well. They do love G.o.d, and they do go to kirk. They don't swear, and as a general thing they honor their fathers and mothers.

They don't, as a rule, murder or steal or tak' some ither woman's husband awa' from her. I'm no clear about women and the ninth and tenth command. They are apt to long for whatever is good and beautiful--and I don't blame them."

"I wish I was better educated, Mother. I would be able to decide between Angus and Cluny."

"Not you. The key of your life is in your heart, not in your brain."

"It is a pity."

"That is, as may be. In the long run, your feelings will decide, and they are likely to be mair sensible than your reasons. And where love is the because o' your inquiry, I'll warrant a bit o' good sense is best o' all advisers."

"What is gude sense? How can a girl get it?"

"Gude sense is the outcome o' all our senses. As regards Ballister, ca' to your decision a bit o' wholesome pride. Ye ken what I mean."

"Weel, weel, Angus is far awa', and Cluny is only waiting the word I canna say, and what will I do when I hae nae lover at a', at a'?"

"When you haven't what you love, you must love what you hae. And I fear there is a heart fu' o' cares ready for us to sort. Geordie Sinclair was telling your father that Neil is flinging a big net i'

Aberdeen--dining wi' rich folk o' all kinds, and rinning as close friend wi' a lad ca'ed Rath. He was saying, also, that Rath has lying siller, plenty, o' it, and that he is studying law in the same cla.s.ses as Neil, at the Maraschal."

"I dinna see why we should fret oursel's anent Neil dining wi' rich folk. He was aye talkin' o' his intention to do the same. The mair rich friends he has, the better; it isna puir folk that go to law.

Neil is casting his net vera prudently, nae doubt. I'll warrant it will be takin' for him even while he sleeps. Worry is just wasted on Neil."