"Muckle ye ken aboot learned men. I suppose, ye think because ye carry up the Bible, that ye ken a' that's in't," returned Meg, with a sneer of her voice that might have turned milk sour. The expression of the emotions is fine and positive in the kitchens of the farm towns of Galloway.

"SWISH, SWISH!" steadily the white streams of milk shot into the pails. "JANGLE, JANGLE!" went the steel head chains of the cows.

Occasionally, as Jess and Meg lifted their stools, they gave Flecky or Speckly a sound clap on the back with their hand or milking-pail, with the sharp command of "Stan' aboot there!" "Haud up!" "Mind whaur yer comin'!" Such expressions as these Jess and Meg could interject into the even tenor of their conversation, in a way that might have been disconcerting in dialogues conducted on other principles. But really the interruptions did not affect Ebie Farrish or any other of the byre-visiting young men, any more than the rattling of the chains, as Flecky and Speckly arranged their own business at the end devoted to imports. These sharp words of command were part of the nightly and morningly ceremony of the "milking" at every farm. The cans could no more froth with the white reaming milk without this accompaniment of slaps and adjurations than Speckly, Flecky, and the rest could take their slow, thoughtfully considerate, and sober way from the hill pastures into the yard without Meg at the gate of the field to cry: "Hurley, Hurley, hie awa' hame!" to the cows themselves; and "Come awa' bye wi' them, fetch them, Roger!" to the short-haired collie, who knew so much better than to go near their flashing heels.

The conversation in the byre proceeded somewhat in this way:

Jess was milking her last cow, with her head looking sideways at Ebie, who stood plaiting Marly's tail in a newfangled fashion he had brought from the low end of the parish, and which was just making its way among young men of taste.

"Aye, ye'll say so, nae doot," said Jess, in reply to some pointed compliment of her admirer; "but I ken you fowk frae the laich end ower weel. Ye hae practeesed a' that kind o' talk on the la.s.ses doon there, or ye wadna be sae gleg [ready] wi't to me, Ebie."

This is an observation which shows that Jess could not have eaten more effectively of the tree of knowledge, had she been born in Mayfair.

Ebie laughed a laugh half of depreciation, half of pleasure, like a cat that has its back stroked and its tail pinched at the same time.

"Na, na, Jess, it a' comes by natur'. I never likit a la.s.sie afore I set my een on you," said Ebie, which, to say the least of it, was curious, considering that he had an a.s.sortment of locks of hair--black, brown, and lint-white--up in the bottom of his "kist" in the stable loft where he slept. He kept them along with his whipcord and best Sunday pocket knife, and sometimes he took a look at them when he had to move them in order to get his green necktie. "I never really likit a la.s.s afore, Jess, ye may believe me, for I wasna a lad to rin after them. But whenever I cam' to Craig Ronald I saw that I was dune for."

"STAN' BACK, YE MUCKLE SLABBER!" said Jess, suddenly and emphatically, in a voice that could have been heard a hundred yards away. Speckly was pushing sideways against her as if to crowd her off her stool.

"Say ye sae, Ebie?" she added, as if she had not previously spoken, in the low even voice in which she had spoken from the first, and which could be heard by Ebie alone. In the country they conduct their love-making in water-tight compartments. And though Ebie knew very well that the Cuif was there, and may have suspected Jock Forrest, even after his apparent withdrawal, so long as they did not trouble him in his conversation with Jess, he paid no heed to them, nor indeed they to him. No man is his brother's keeper when he goes to the byre to plait cows' tails.

"But hoo div ye ken, or, raither, what gars ye think that ye're no the first that I hae likit, Jess?"

"Oh, I ken fine," said Jess, who was a woman of knowledge, and had her share of original sin.

"But hoo div ye ken?" persisted Ebie.

"Fine that," said Jess, diplomatically.

A DAUGHTER OF THE PICTS

"But tell us, Jess," said Ebie, who was in high good humour at these fascinating accusations.

"Oh," said Jess, with a quick gipsy look out of her fine dark eyes, "brawly I kenned on Sat.u.r.day nicht that yon wasna the first time ye had kissed a la.s.s!"

"Jess," said Ebie, "ye're a wunnerfu' woman!" which was his version of Ralph's "You are a witch." In Ebie's circle "witch" was too real a word to be lightly used, so he said "wunnerfu' woman."

He went on looking critically at Jess, as became so great a connoisseur of the s.e.x.

"I hae seen, maybes, bonnier faces, as ye micht say--"

"HAUD AFF, WI' YE THERE; MIND WHAUR YER COMIN', YE MUCKLE SENSELESS NOWT!" said Jess to her Ayrshire Hornie, who had been treading on her toes.

"As I was sayin', Jess, I hae seen--"

"CAN YE NO UNNERSTAN', YE SENSELESS LUMP?" cried Jess, warningly; "I'll knock the heid aff ye, gin ye dinna drap it!" still to Hornie, of course.

But the purblind theorist went on his way: "I hae seen bonnier faces, but no mair takin', Jess, than yours. It's no aye beauty that tak's a man, Jess, ye see, an' the la.s.sies that hae dune best hae been plain-favoured la.s.sies that had pleasant expressions--"

"Tell the rest to Hornie gin ye like!" said Jess, rising viciously and leaving Ebie standing there dumfounded. He continued to hold Hornie's tail for some time, as if he wished to give her some further information on the theory of beauty, as understood in the "laich" end of the parish.

Saunders saw him from afar, and cried out to him down the length of the byre,

"Are ye gaun to mak' a watch-guard o' that coo's tail, Ebie?--ye look fell fond o't."

"Ye see what it is to be in love," said John Scott, the herd, who had stolen to the door unperceived and so had marked Ebie's discomfiture.

"He disna ken the difference between Jess hersel' an' Hornie!"

said the Cuif, who was repaying old scores.

CHAPTER XIX.

AT THE BARN END

In a little while the cows were all milked. Saunders was standing at the end of the barn, looking down the long valley of the Grannoch water. There was a sweet coolness in the air, which he vaguely recognized by taking off his hat.

"Open the yett!" cried Jess, from the byre door. Saunders heard the clank and jangle of the neck chains of Hornie and Specky and the rest, as they fell from their necks, loosened by Jess's hand.

The sound grew fainter and fainter as Jess proceeded to the top of the byre where Marly stood soberly sedate and chewed her evening cud. Now Marly did not like Jess, therefore Meg always milked her; she would not, for some special reason of her own, "let doon her milk" when Jess laid a finger on her. This night she only shook her head and pushed heavily against Jess as she came.

"Hand up there, ye thrawn randy!" said Jess in byre tones.

And so very sulkily Marly moved out, looking for Meg right and left as she did so. She had her feelings as well as any one, and she was not the first who had been annoyed by the sly, mischievous gipsy with the black eyes, who kept so quiet before folk. As she went out of the byre door, Jess laid her switch smartly across Marly's loins, much to the loss of dignity of that stately animal, who, taking a hasty step, slipped on the threshold, and overtook her neighbours with a slow resentment gathering in her matronly breast.

When Saunders Mowdiewort heard the last chain drop in the byre, and the strident tones of Jess exhorting Marly, he took a few steps to the gate of the hill pasture. He had to pa.s.s along a short home-made road, and over a low parapetless bridge constructed simply of four tree-trunks laid parallel and covered with turf. Then he dropped the bars of the gate into the hill pasture with a clatter, which came to Winsome's ears as she stood at her window looking out into the night. She was just thinking at that moment what a good thing it was that she had sent back Ralph Peden's poem. So, in order to see whether this were so or not, she repeated it all over again to herself.

When he came back again to the end of the barn, Saunders found Jess standing there, with the wistful light in her eyes which that young woman of many accomplishments could summon into them as easily as she could smile. For Jess was a minx--there is no denying the fact. Yet even slow Saunders admitted that, though she was nothing to Meg, of course, still there was something original and attractive about her--like original sin.

Jess was standing with her head on one side, putting the scarlet head of a poppy among her black hair. Jess had strange tastes, which would be called artistic nowadays in some circles. Her liking was always BIZARRE and excellent, the taste of the primitive Galloway Pict from whom she was descended, or of that picturesque Glenkens warrior, who set a rowan bush on his head on the morning when he was to lead the van at the battle of the Standard. Scotland was beaten on that great occasion, it is true; but have the chroniclers, who complain of the place of Galloway men in the ranks, thought how much more terribly Scotland might have been beaten had Galloway not led the charge? But this is written just because Jess Kissock, a Galloway farm la.s.sie, looked something like a cast back to the primitive Pict of the south, a fact which indeed concerns the story not at all, for Saunders Mowdiewort had not so much as ever heard of a Pict.

Jess did not regard Saunders Mowdiewort highly at any time. He was one of Meg's admirers, but after all he was a man, and one can never tell. It was for this reason that she put the scarlet poppy into her hair.

She meditated "I maybe haena Meg's looks to the notion o' some folk, but I mak' a heap better use o' the looks that I hae, an'

that is a great maitter!"

"Saunders," said Jess softly, going up to the Cuif and pretending to pick a bit of heather off his courting coat. She did this with a caressing touch which soothed the widower, and made him wish that Meg would do the like. He began to think that he had never properly valued Jess.

"Is Meg comin' oot again?" Jess inquired casually, the scarlet poppy set among the blue-black raven's wings, and brushing his beard in a distracting manner.

Saunders would hare given a good deal to be able to reply in the affirmative, but Meg had dismissed him curtly after the milking, with the intimation that it was time he was making manseward. As for her, she was going within doors to put the old folks to bed.

After being satisfied on this point the manner of Jess was decidedly soothing. That young woman had a theory which was not quite complimentary either to the sense or the incorruptibility of men. It was by showing an interest in them and making them think that they (or at least the one being operated upon) are the greatest and most fascinating persons under the sun, almost anything can be done. This theory has been acted upon with results good and bad, in other places besides the barn end of Craig Ronald.

"They're a' weel at the Manse?" said Jess, tentatively.

"On aye," said Saunders, looking round the barn end to see if Meg could see him. Satisfied that Meg was safe in bed, Saunders put his hand on Jess's shoulder--the sleek-haired, candle-greased deceiver that he was.