Jess's experience as a maid to her ladyship has stood her in good stead. She had a fineness of build which even the housework of a farm could not coa.r.s.en. Besides, Winsome considered Jess delicate, and did not allow her to lift anything really heavy. So it happened that when Ralph Peden came Jess was putting the fresh flowers in the great bowls of low relief chinaware--roses from the garden and sprays of white hawthorn, which flowers late in Galloway, blue hyacinths and harebells ma.s.sed together--yellow marigolds and glorious scarlet poppies, of which Jess with her taste of the savage was pa.s.sionately fond. She had arranged some of these against a pale blue background of bunches of forget-me- nots, with an effect strangely striking in that cool, dusky room.

When Jess came in Ralph had risen instinctively. He shook hands heartily with her. As she looked up at him, she said:

"Do you remember me?"

Ralph replied with an eager frankness, all the more marked that he had expected Winsome instead of Jess Kissock: "Indeed, how could I forget, when you helped me to carry my books that night? I am glad to find you here. I had no idea that you lived here."

Which was indeed true, for he had not yet been able to grasp the idea that any but Winsome lived at Craig Ronald.

Jess Kissock, who knew that not many moments were hers before Meg might come in, replied:

"I am here to help with the house. Meg Kissock is my sister." She looked to see if there was anything in Ralph's eyes she could resent; but a son of the Marrow kirk had not been trained to respect of persons.

"I am sure you will help very much," he said, politely.

"I'm not as strong as my sister, you see, so that I'm generally in the house," said Jess, who was carrying two dishes of flowers at once across the room. At Ralph's feet one of them overset, and poured all its wealth of blue and white and splashed crimson over the floor.

Jess stooped to lift them, crying shame on her own awkwardness.

Ralph kindly a.s.sisted her. As they stooped to gather them together, Jess put forward all her attractions. Her lithe grace never showed to more advantage. Yet, for all the impression she made on Ralph, she might as well have wasted her sweetness on Jock Gordon--indeed, better so, for Jock recognized in her something strangely kin to his own wayward spirit.

When the flowers were all gathered and put back:

"Now you shall have one for helping," said Jess, as she had once seen a lady in England do, and she selected a dark-red, velvety damask rose from the wealth which she had cut and brought out of the garden. Standing on tiptoe, she could scarcely reach his b.u.t.ton-hole.

"Bend down," she said. Obediently Ralph bent, good-humouredly patient, to please this girl who had done him a good turn on that day which now seemed so far away--the day that had brought Craig Ronald and Winsome into his life.

But in spite of his stooping, Jess had some difficulty in pinning in the rose, and in order to steady herself on tiptoe, she reached up and laid a staying hand on his shoulder. As he bent down, his face just touched the crisp fringes of her dark hair, which seemed a strange thing to him.

But a sense of another presence in the room caused him to raise his eyes, and there in the doorway stood Winsome Charteris, looking so pale and cold that she seemed to be a thousand miles away.

"I bid you good-afternoon, Master Peden," said Winsome quietly; "I am glad you have had time to come and visit my grandmother. She will be glad to see you."

For some moments Ralph had no words to answer. As for Jess, she did not even colour; she simply withdrew with the quickness and feline grace which were characteristic of her, without a flush or a tremor. It was not on such occasions that her heart stirred.

When she was gone she felt that things had gone well, even beyond her expectation.

When Ralph at last found his voice, he said somewhat falteringly, yet with a ring of honesty in his voice which for the time being was lost upon Winsome:

"You are not angry with me for coming to-day. You knew I would come, did you not?"

Winsome only said: "My grandmother is waiting for me. You had better go in at once."

"Winsome," said Ralph, trying to prolong the period of his converse with her, "you are not angry with me for writing what I did?"

Winsome thought that he was referring to the poem which had come to her by way of Manse Bell and Saunders Mowdiewort. She was indignant that he should try to turn the tables upon her and so make her feel guilty.

"I received nothing that I had any right to keep," she said.

Ralph was silent. The blow was a complete one. She did not wish him to write to her any more or to speak to her on the old terms of friendship. He thought wholly of the letter that he had sent by Saunders the day before, and her coldness and changed att.i.tude were set down by him to that cause, and not to the embarra.s.sing position in which Winsome had surprised him when she came into the flower-strewn parlour. He did not know that the one thing a woman never really forgives is a false position, and that even the best of women in such cases think the most unjust things. Winsome moved towards the inner door of her grandmother's room.

Ralph put out his hand as if to touch hers, but Winsome withdrew herself with a swift, fierce movement, and held the door open for him to pa.s.s in. He had no alternative but to obey.

CHAPTER XXIII.

CONCERNING JOHN BAIRDIESON.

"Guid e'en to ye, Maister Ralph," said the gay old lady within, as soon as she caught sight of Ralph. "Keep up yer heid, man, an'

walk like a Gilchrist. Ye look as dowie as a yow [ewe] that has lost her lammie."

Walter Skirving from his arm-chair gave this time no look of recognition. He yielded his hand to Ralph, who raised it clay- chill and heavy even in the act to shake. When he let it drop, the old man held up his palm and looked at it.

"Hae ye gotten aneuch guid Gallawa' lear to learn ye no to rin awa frae a bonny la.s.s yet, Maister Ralph?" said the old lady briskly.

She had not many jokes save with Winsome and Meg, and she rode one hard when she came by it.

But no reply was needed.

"Aye, aye, weelna," meditated the old lady, leaning back and folding her hands like a mediaeval saint of worldly tendencies, "tell me aboot your faither." "He is very robust and strong in health of body," said Kalph.

"Ye leeve in Edinbra'?" said the old lady, with a rising inflection of inquiry.

"Yes," said Ralph, "we live in James's Court. My father likes to be among his people."

"Faith na, a hantle o' braw folk hae leeved in James's Court in their time. I mind o' the Leddy Partan an' Mistress Girnigo, the king's jeweller's wife haein' a fair even-doon fecht a' aboot wha was to hae the pick o' the hooses on the stair.--Winifred, ma la.s.sie, come here an' sit doon! Dinna gang flichterin' in an' oot, but bide still an' listen to what Maister Peden has to tell us aboot his farther."

Winsome came somewhat slowly and reluctantly towards the side of her grandmother's chair. There she sat holding her hand, and looking across the room towards the window where, motionless and abstracted, Walter Skirving, who was once so bold and strong, dreamed his life away.

"I hardly know what to tell you first," said Ralph, hesitatingly.

"Hoot, tell me gin your faither and you bide thegither withoot ony woman body, did I no hear that yince; is that the case na?"

demanded the lady of Craig Ronald with astonishing directness.

"It is true enough," said Ralph, smiling, "but then we have with us my father's old Minister's Man, John Bairdieson. John has us both in hands and keeps us under fine. He was once a sailor, and cook on a vessel in his wild days; but when he was converted by falling from the top of a main yard into a dock (as he tells himself), he took the faith in a somewhat extreme form. But that does not affect his cooking. He is as good as a woman in a house."

"An' that's a lee," said the old lady. "The best man's no as guid as the warst woman in a hoose!"

Winsome did not appear to be listening. Of what interest could such things be to her?

Her grandmother was by no means satisfied with Ralph's report.

"But that's nae Christian way for folk to leeve, withoot a woman o' ony kind i' the hoose--it's hardly human!"

"But I can a.s.sure you, Mistress Skirving, that, in spite of what you say, John Bairdieson does very well for us. He is, however, terribly jealous of women coming about. He does not allow one of them within the doors. He regards them fixedly through the keyhole before opening, and when he does open, his usual greeting to them is, 'Noo get yer message dune an' be gaun!'"

The lady of Craig Ronald laughed a hearty laugh.

"Gin I cam' to veesit ye I wad learn him mainners! But what does he do," she continued, "when some of the dames of good standing in the congregation call on your faither? Does he treat them in this cavalier way?"