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CHAPTER XV
PHEMY CRAIG

Things went on in the same way for four years more, the only visible change being that Kirsty seldomer went about bare-footed. She was now between two and three and twenty. Her face, whose ordinary expression had always been of quiet, was now in general quieter still; but when heart or soul was moved, it would flash and glow as only such a face could. Live revelation of deeps rarely rippled save by the breath of God, how could it but grow more beautiful! Cloud or shadow of cloud was hardly ever to be seen upon it. Her mother, much younger than her father, was still well and strong, and Kirsty, still not much wanted at home, continued to spend the greater part of her time with her brother and her books. As to her person, she was now in the first flower of harmonious womanly strength. Nature had indeed done what she could to make her a lady, but Nature was not her mother, and Kirsty's essential ladyhood came from higher-up, namely, from the Source itself of Nature. Simple truth was its crown, and grace was the garment of it. To see her walk or run was to look on the divine idea of Motion.

As for Steenie, he looked the same loose lank lad as before, with a smile almost too sad to be a smile, and a laugh in which there was little hilarity. His pleasures were no doubt deep and high, but seldom, even to Kirsty, manifested themselves except in the afterglow.

Phemy was now almost a woman. She was rather little, but had a nice figure, which she knew instinctively how to show to advantage. Her main charm lay in her sweet complexion—strong in its contrast of colours, but wonderfully perfect in the blending of them: the gradations in the live picture were exquisite. She was gentle of temper, with a shallow, birdlike friendliness, an accentuated confidence that everyone meant her well, which was very taking. But she was far too much pleased with herself to be a necessity to anyone else. Her father grew more and more proud of her, but remained entirely independent of her; and Kirsty could not help wondering at times how he would feel were he given one peep into the chaotic mind which he fancied so lovely a cosmos. A good fairy godmother would for her discipline, Kirsty imagined, turn her into the prettiest wax doll, but with real eyes, and put her in a glass case for the admiration of all, until she sickened of her very consciousness. But Kirsty loved the pretty doll, and cherished any influence she had with her against a possible time when it might be sorely needed. She still encouraged her, therefore, to come to Corbyknowe as often as she felt inclined. Her father never interfered with any of her goings and comings. At the present point of my narrative, however, Kirsty began to notice that Phemy did not care so much for being with her as hitherto.

She had been, of course, for some time the cynosure of many neighbouring eyes, but had taken only the more pleasure in the cynosure, none in the persons with the eyes, all of whom she regarded as much below her. To herself she was the only young lady in Tiltowie, an assurance strengthened by the fact that no young man had yet ventured to make love to her, which she took as a general admission of their social inferiority, behaving to all the young men the more sweetly in consequence.

The tendency of a weakly artistic nature to occupy itself much with its own dress was largely developed in her. It was wonderful, considering the smallness of her father's income, how well she arrayed herself. She could make a poor and scanty material go a great way in setting off her attractions. The judicial element of the neighbourhood, not content with complaining that she spent so much of her time in making her dresses, accused her of spending much money upon them, whereas she spent less than most of the girls of the neighbourhood, who cared only for a good stuff, a fast colour, and the fashion: fit to figure and fitness to complexion they did not trouble themselves about. The possession of a fine gown was the important thing. As to how it made them look, they had not imagination enough to consider that.

She possessed, however, another faculty on which she prided herself far more, her ignorance and vanity causing her to mistake it for a grand accomplishment—the faculty of verse-making. She inherited a certain modicum of her father's rhythmic and riming gift; she could string words almost as well as she could string beads, and many thought her clever because she could do what they could not. Her aunt judged her verses marvellous, and her father considered them full of promise. The minister, on the other hand, held them unmistakably silly—as her father would had they not been hers and she his. Only the poorest part of his poetic equipment had propagated in her, and had he taught her anything, she would not have overvalued it so much. Herself full of mawkish sentimentality, her verses could not fail to be foolish, their whole impulse being the ambition that springs from self-admiration. She had begun to look down on Kirsty, who would so gladly have been a mother to the motherless creature; she was not a lady! Neither in speech, manners, nor dress, was she or her mother genteel! Their free, hearty, simple bearing, in which was neither smallest roughness nor least suggestion of affected refinement, was not to Phemy's taste, and she began to assume condescending ways.

It was of course a humiliation to Phemy to have an aunt in Mrs. Bremner's humble position, but she loved her after her own feeble fashion, and, although she would willingly have avoided her upon occasion, went not unfrequently to the castle to see her; for the kindhearted woman spoiled her. Not only did she admire her beauty, and stand amazed at her wonderful cleverness, but she drew from her little store a good part of the money that went to adorn the pretty butterfly. She gave her at the same time the best of advice, and imagined she listened to it; but the young who take advice are almost beyond the need of it. Fools must experience a thing themselves before they will believe it; and then, remaining fools, they wonder that their children will not heed their testimony. Faith is the only charm by which the experience of one becomes a vantage-ground for the start of another.

CHAPTER XVI
SHAM LOVE

One day Phemy went to Castle Weelset to see her aunt, and, walking down the garden to find her, met the young laird.

Through respect for the memory of his father, he had just received from the East India Company a commission in his father's regiment; and having in about six weeks to pass the slight examination required, and then sail to join it, had come to see his mother and bid her goodbye. He was a youth no longer, but a handsome young fellow, with a pale face and a rather weary, therefore what some would call an interesting look. For many months he had been leading an idle life.

He lifted his hat to Phemy, looked again, and recognised her. They had been friends when she was a child, but since he saw her last she had grown a young woman. She was gliding past him with a pretty bow, and a prettier blush and smile, when he stopped and held out his hand.

'It's not possible!' he said; 'you can't be little Phemy!—Yet you must be!—Why, you're a grown lady! To think how you used to sit on my knee, and stroke my face! How is your father?'

Phemy murmured a shy answer, a little goose but blushing a very flamingo. In her heart she saw before her the very man for her hero. A woman's hero gives some measure, not of what she is, hardly of what she would like to be, but of what she would like to pass for: here was the ideal for which Phemy had so long been waiting, and wherein consisted his glory? In youth, position, and good looks! She gazed up at him with a mixture of shyness and boldness not uncommon in persons of her silly kind, and Francis not only saw but felt that she was an unusually pretty girl: although he had long ceased to admire his mother, he still admired the sort of beauty she once had. He saw also that she was very prettily dressed, and, being one of those men who, imagining themselves gentlemen, feel at liberty to take liberties with women socially their inferiors, he plucked a pheasant-eye-narcissus in the border, and said—at the same time taking the leave he asked,—

'Let me finish your dress by adding this to it! Have you got a pin?—There!—all you wanted to make you just perfect!'

Her face was now in a very flame. She saw he was right in the flower he had chosen, and he saw, not his artistic success only, but her recognition of it as well, and was gratified. He had a keen feeling of harmony in form and colour, and flattered women, while he paraded his own insight, by bringing it to bear on their dress.

The flower, in its new position, seemed radiant with something of the same beauty in which it was set; it was like the face above it, and hinted a sympathetic relation with the whole dainty person of the girl. But in truth there was more expression in the flower than was yet in the face. The flower expressed what God was thinking of when he made it; the face what the girl was thinking of herself. When she ceased thinking of herself then, like the flower, she would show what God was thinking of when he made her.

Francis, like the man he was, thought what a dainty little lady she would make if he had the making of her, and at once began talking as he never would have talked had she been what is conventionally called a lady—with a familiarity, namely, to which their old acquaintance gave him no right, and which showed him not his sister's keeper. She, poor child, was pleased with his presumption, taking it for a sign that he regarded her as a lady; and from that moment her head at least was full of the young laird. She had forgotten all she came about. When he turned and walked down the garden, she walked alongside of him like a linnet by a tall stork, who thought of her as a very pretty green frog. Lost in delight at his kindness, and yet more at his admiration, she felt as safe in his hands as if he had been her guardian angel: had he not convinced her that her notion of herself was correct! Who should know better whether she was a lady, whether she was lovely or not, than this great, handsome, perfect gentleman! Unchecked by any question of propriety, she accompanied him without hesitation into a little arbour at the bottom of the garden, and sat down with him on the bench there provided for the weary and the idle—in this case a going-to-be gallant officer, bored to death by a week at home with his mother, and a girl who spent the most of her time in making, altering, and wearing her dresses.

'How good it was of you, Phemy,' he said, 'to come and see me! I was ready to cut my throat for want of something pretty to look at. I was thinking it the ugliest place with the ugliest of people, wondering how I had ever been able to live in it. How unfair I was! The whole country is beautiful now!'

'I am so glad,' answered poor Phemy, hardly knowing what she said: it was to her the story of a sad gentleman who fell in love at first sight with a beautiful lady who was learning to love him through pity.

Her admiration of him was as clear as the red and white on her face; and foolish Francis felt in his turn flattered, for he too was fond of himself. There is no more pitiable sight to lovers of their kind, or any more laughable to its haters, than two persons falling into the love rooted in self-love. But possibly they are neither to be pitied nor laughed at; they may be plunging thus into a saving hell.

'You would like to make the world beautiful for me, Phemy?' rejoined Francis.

'I should like to make it a paradise!' returned Phemy.

'A garden of Eden, and you the Eve in it?' suggested Francis.

Phemy could find no answer beyond a confused look and a yet deeper blush.

Talk elliptical followed, not unmingled with looks bold and shy. They had not many objects of thought in common, therefore not many subjects for conversation. There was no poetry in Gordon, and but the flimsiest sentiment in Phemy. Her mind was feebly active, his full of tedium. Hers was open to any temptation from him, and his to the temptation of usurping the government of her world, of constituting himself the benefactor of this innocent creature, and enriching her life with the bliss of loving a noble object. Of course he meant nothing serious! Equally of course he would do her no harm! To lose him would make her miserable for a while, but she would not die of love, and would have something to think about all her dull life afterward!

Phemy at length got frightened at the thought of being found with him, and together they went to look for her aunt. Finding her in an outhouse that was used for a laundry, Francis told Mrs. Bremner that they had been in the garden ever so long searching for her, and he was very glad of the opportunity of hearing about his old friend, Phemy's father! The aunt was not quite pleased, but said little.

The following Sunday she told the schoolmaster what had taken place, and came home in a rage at the idiocy of a man who would not open his eyes when his house was on fire. It was all her sister's fault, she said, for having married such a book-idiot! She felt indeed very uncomfortable, and did her best in the way of warning; but Phemy seemed so incapable of understanding what ill could come of letting the young laird talk to her, that she despaired of rousing in her any sense of danger, and having no authority over her was driven to silence for the present. She would have spoken to her mistress, had she not plainly foreseen that it would be of no use, that she would either laugh, and say young men must have their way, or fly into a fury with Phemy for trying to entrap her son, and with Mrs. Bremner for imagining he would look at the hussey; while one thing was certain—that, if his mother opposed him, Francis would persist.

CHAPTER XVII
A NOVEL ABDUCTION

Phemy went seldom to the castle, but the young laird and she met pretty often: there was solitude enough in that country for an army of lovers. Once or twice Gordon, at Phemy's entreaty, went and took tea with her at her father's, and was cordially received by the schoolmaster, who had no sense of impropriety in their strolling out together afterward, leaving him well content with the company of his books. Before this had happened twice, all the town was talking about it, and predicting evil. Phemy heard nothing and feared nothing; but if feeling had been weather and talk tempest, she would have been glad enough to keep within. So rapidly, however, did the whirlwind of tongues extend its giration that within half a week it reached Kirsty, and cast her into great trouble: her poor silly defenceless Phemy, the child of her friend, was in danger from the son of her father's friend! Her father could do nothing, for Francis would not listen to him, therefore she herself must do something! She could not sit still and look on at the devil's work! Having always been on terms of sacred intimacy with her mother, she knew more of the dangers of the world, while she was far safer from them, than such girls as their natural guardians watch instead of fortifying, and understood perfectly that an unwise man is not to be trusted with a foolish girl. She felt, therefore, that inaction on her part would be faithlessness to the teaching of her mother, as well as treachery to her father, whose friend's son was in peril of doing a fearful wrong to one to whom he owed almost a brother's protection for his schoolmaster's sake. She did not believe that Francis meant Phemy any harm, but she was certain he thought too much of himself ever to marry her, and were the poor child's feelings to go for nothing? She had no hope that Phemy would listen to expostulation from her, but she must in fairness, before she did anything, have some speech with her!

She made repeated efforts, therefore, to see her, but without success. She tried one time of the day after another, but, now by accident and now by clever contrivance, Phemy was not to be come at. She had of late grown tricky. One of the windows of the schoolmaster's house commanded the street in both directions, and Phemy commanded the window. When she saw Kirsty coming, she would run into the garden and take refuge in the summer-house, telling the servant on her way that she was going out, and did not know what time she would be in. On more occasions than one Kirsty said she would wait, when Phemy, learning she was not gone, went out in earnest, and took care she had enough of waiting. Such shifts of cunning no doubt served laughter to the lovers when next they met, but they showed that Phemy was in some degree afraid of Kirsty.

Had Kirsty known the schoolmaster no better than his sister-in-law knew him, she would, like her, have gone to him; but she was perfectly certain that it would be almost impossible to rouse him, and that, once convinced that his confidence had been abused, he would be utterly furious, and probably bear himself in such fashion as to make Phemy desperate, perhaps make her hate him. As it was, he turned a deaf ear and indignant heart to every one of the reports that reached him. To listen to it would be to doubt his child! Why should not the young laird fall in love with her? What more natural? Was she not worth as much honour as any man, be he who he might, could confer upon her? He cursed the gossips of the town, and returned to his book.

Convinced at length that Phemy declined an interview, Kirsty resolved to take her own way. And her way was a somewhat masterful one.

About a mile from castle Weelset, in the direction of Tiltowie, the road was, for a few hundred yards, close-flanked by steep heathery braes. Now Kirsty had heard of Phemy's being several times seen on this road of late; and near the part of it I have just described, she resolved to waylay her. From the brae on the side next Corbyknowe she could see the road for some distance in either direction.

For a week she watched in vain. She saw the two pass together more than once, and she saw Francis pass alone, but she had never seen Phemy alone.

One morning, just as she arrived at her usual outlook, she saw Mrs. Bremner in the road below, coming from the castle, and ran down to speak to her. In the course of their conversation she learned that Francis was to start for London the next morning. When they parted, the old woman resuming her walk to Tiltowie, Kirsty climbed the brae and sat down in the heather. She was more anxious than ever. She had done her best, but it had come to nothing, and now she had but one chance more! That Francis Gordon was going away so soon was good news, but what might not happen even yet before he went! At the same time she could think of nothing better than keep watch as hitherto, firm as to her course if she saw Phemy alone, but now determined to speak to both if Francis was with her, and all but determined to speak to Francis alone, if an opportunity of doing so should be given her.

All the morning and afternoon she watched in vain, eating nothing but a piece of bread that Steenie brought her. At last, in the evening—it was an evening in September, cold and clear, the sun down, and a melancholy glory hanging over the place of his vanishing—she spied the solitary form of Phemy hastening along the road in the direction of the castle. Although she had been on the outlook for her all day, she was at the moment so taken up with the sunset, that Phemy was almost under where she stood before she saw her. She ran at full speed a hundred yards, then slid down a part of the brae too steep to climb, and leaped into the road a few feet in front of Phemy—so suddenly that the girl started with a cry, and stopped. The moment she saw who it was, however, she drew herself up, and would have passed with a stiff greeting. But Kirsty stood in front of her, and would not permit her.

'What do you want, Kirsty Barclay?' demanded Phemy, who had within the last week or two advanced considerably in confidence of manner; 'I am in a hurry!'

'Ye're in a waur hurry nor ye ken, for yer hurry sud be the ither gait!' answered Kirsty; 'and I'm gaein to turn ye, or at least no gaein to lat ye gang, ohn heard a bit o' the trowth frae a woman aulder nor yersel! Lassie, ye seem to think naebody worth hearkenin til a word frae 'cep ae man, but I mean ye to hearken to me! Ye dinna ken what ye're aboot! I ken Francie Gordon a heap better nor you, and though I ken nae ill o' him, I ken as little guid: he never did naething yet but to please himsel, and there never cam salvation or comfort to man, woman, or bairn frae ony puir cratur like him!'

'How dare you speak such lies of a gentleman behind his back!' cried Phemy, her eyes flashing. 'He is a friend of mine, and I will not hear him maligned!'

'There's sma' hairm can come to ony man frae the trowth, Phemy!' answered Kirsty. 'Set the man afore me, and I'll say word for word intil his face what I'm sayin to you ahint his back.'

'Miss Barclay,' rejoined Phemy, with a rather pitiable attempt at dignity, 'I can permit no one to call me by my Christian name who speaks ill of the man to whom I am engaged!'

'That s' be as ye please, Miss Craig. But I wud lat you ca' me a' the ill names in the dictionar to get ye to heark to me! I'm tellin ye naething but what's true as death.'

'I call no one names. I am always civil to my neighbours whoever they may be! I will not listen to you.'

'Eh, lassie, there's but feow o' yer neebours ceevil to yer name, whatever they be to yersel! There's hardly ane has a guid word for ye, Phemy!—Miss Craig—I beg yer pardon!'

'Their lying tongues are nothing to me! I know what I am about! I will not stay a moment longer with you! I have an important engagement.'

Once more, as several times already, she would have passed her, but Kirsty stepped yet again in front of her.

'I can weel tak yer word,' replied Kirsty, ''at ye hae an engagement; but ye said a minute ago 'at ye was engaged til him: tell me in ae word—has Francie Gordon promised to merry ye?'

'He has as good as asked me,' answered Phemy, who had fits of apprehensive recoil from a downright lie.

'Noo there I cud 'maist believe ye! Ay, that wud be ill eneuch for Francie! He never was a doonricht leear, sae lang's I kenned him—ony mair nor yersel! But, for God's sake, Phemy, dinna imagine he'll ever merry ye, for that he wull not.'

'This is really insufferable!' cried Phemy, in a voice that began to tremble from the approach of angry tears. 'Pray, have you a claim upon him?'

'Nane, no a shedow o' ane,' returned Kirsty. 'But my father and his father war like brithers, and we hae a' to du what we can for his father's son. I wud fain hand him ohn gotten into trouble wi' you or ony lass.'

'I get him into trouble! Really, Miss Barclay, I do not know how to understand you!'

'I see I maun be plain wi' ye: I wudna hae ye get him into trouble by lattin him get you into trouble!—and that's plain speykin!'

'You insult me!' said Phemy.

'Ye drive me to speyk plain!' answered Kirsty. 'That lad, Francie Gordon,—'

'Speak with respect of your superiors,' interrupted Phemy.

'I'll speyk wi' respec o' ony body I hae respec for!' answered Kirsty.

'Let me pass, you rude young woman!' cried Phemy, who had of late been cultivating in her imagination such speech as she thought would befit Mrs. Gordon of castle Weelset.

'I winna lat ye pass,' answered Kirsty; '—that is, no til ye hear what I hae to say to ye.'

'Then you must take the consequences!' rejoined Phemy, and, in the hope that her lover would prove within earshot, began a piercing scream.

It roused something in Kirsty which she could not afterward identify: she was sure it had nothing to do with anger. She felt, she said, as if she had to deal with a child who insisted on playing with fire beside a barrel of gunpowder. At the same time she did nothing but what she had beforehand, in case of the repulse she expected, resolved upon. She caught up the little would-be lady, as if she had been that same naughty child, and the suddenness of the action so astonished her that for a moment or two she neither moved nor uttered a sound. The next, however, she began to shriek and struggle wildly, as if in the hug of a bear or the coils of an anaconda, whereupon Kirsty closed her mouth with one hand while she held her fast with the other. It was a violent proceeding, doubtless, but Kirsty chose to be thus far an offender, and yet farther.

Bearing her as she best could in one arm, she ran with her toward Tiltowie until she reached a place where the road was bordered by a more practicable slope; there she took to the moorland, and made for Corbyknowe. Her resolve had been from the first, if Phemy would not listen, to carry her, like the unmanageable child she was, home to the mother whose voice had always been to herself the oracle of God. It was in a loving embrace, though hardly a comfortable one, and to a heart full of pity, that she pressed the poor little runaway lamb: her mother was God's vicar for all in trouble: she would bring the child to reason! Her heart beating mightily with love and labour, she waded through the heather, hurrying along the moor.

It was a strange abduction; but Kirsty was divinely simple, and that way strange. Not until they were out of sight of the road did she set her down.

'Noo, Phemy,' she said, panting as she spoke, 'haud yer tongue like a guid lassie, and come awa upo' yer ain feet.'

Phemy took at once to her heels and her throat, and ran shrieking back toward the road, with Kirsty after her like a grayhound. Phemy had for some time given up struggling and trying to shriek, and was therefore in better breath than Kirsty whose lungs were pumping hard, but she had not a chance with her, for there was more muscle in one of Kirsty's legs than in Phemy's whole body. In a moment she had her in her arms again, and so fast that she could not even kick. She gave way and burst into tears. Kirsty relaxed her hold.

'What are you gaein to du wi' me?' sobbed Phemy.

'I'm takin ye to the best place I ken—hame to my mother,' answered Kirsty, striding on for home-heaven as straight as she could go.

'I winna gang!' cried Phemy, whose Scotch had returned with her tears.

'Ye are gaein,' returned Kirsty dryly; '—at least I'm takin ye, and that's neist best.'

'What for? I never did ye an ill turn 'at I ken o'!' said Phemy, and burst afresh into tears of self-pity and sense of wrong.

'Na, my bonny doo,' answered Kirsty, 'ye never did me ony ill turn! It wasna in ye. But that's the less rizzon 'at I sudna du you a guid ane. And yer father has been like the Bountiful himsel to me! It's no muckle I can du for you or for him, but there's ae thing I'm set upo', and that's haudin ye frae Francie Gordon the nicht. He'll be awa the morn!'

'Wha tellt ye that?' returned Phemy with a start.

'Jist yer ain aunt, honest woman!' answered Kirsty, 'and sair she grat as she telled me, but it wasna at his gaein!'

'She micht hae held the tongue o' her till he was gane! What was there to greit about!'

'Maybe she thocht o' her sister's bairn in a tribble 'at silence wadna hide!' answered Kirsty. 'Ye haena a notion, lassie, what ye're duin wi' yersel! But my mither 'll lat ye ken, sae that ye gangna blinlins intil the tod's hole.'

'Ye dinna ken Frank, or ye wudna speyk o' 'im that gait!'

'I ken him ower weel to trust you til him.'

'It's naething but ye're eenvious o' me, Kirsty, 'cause ye canna get him yersel! He wud never luik at a lass like you!'

'It's weel a'body sees na wi' the same een, Phemy! Gien I had yer Francie i' the parritch-pat, I wudna pike him oot, but fling frae me pat and parritch. For a' that, I hae a haill side o' my hert saft til him: my father and his lo'd like brithers.'

'That canna be, Kirsty—and it's no like ye to blaw! Your father was a common so'dier and his was cornel o' the regiment!'

'Allooin!' was all Kirsty's answer. Phemy betook herself to entreaty.

'Lat me gang, Kirsty! Please! I'll gang doon o' my knees til ye! I canna bide him to think I've played him fause.'

'He'll play you fause, my lamb, whatever ye du or he think! It maks my hert sair to ken 'at no guid will your hert get o' his.—He s' no see ye the nicht, ony gait!'

Phemy uttered a childish howl, but immediately choked it with a proud sob.

'Ye're hurtin me, Kirsty!' she said, after a minute or so of silence. 'Lat me doon, and I'll gang straucht hame to my father. I promise ye.'

'I'll set ye doon,' answered Kirsty, 'but ye maun come hame to my mither.'

'What'll my father think?'

'I s' no forget yer father,' said Kirsty.

She sent out a strange, piercing cry, set Phemy down, took her hand in hers, and went on, Phemy making no resistance. In about three minutes there was a noise in the heather, and Snootie came rushing to Kirsty. A few moments more and Steenie appeared. He lifted his bonnet to Phemy, and stood waiting his sister's commands.

'Steenie,' she said, 'tak the dog wi' ye, and rin doon to the toon, and tell Mr. Craig 'at Phemy here's comin hame wi' me, to bide the nicht. Ye winna be langer nor ye canna help, and ye'll come to the hoose afore ye gang to the hill?'

'I'll du that, Kirsty. Come, doggie,'

Steenie never went to the town of his own accord, and Kirsty never liked him to go, for the boys were rude, but to-night it would be dark before he reached it.

'Ye're no surely gaun to gar me bide a' nicht!' said Phemy, beginning again to cry.

'I am that—the nicht, and maybe the morn's nicht, and ony nummer o' nichts till we're sure he's awa!' answered Kirsty, resuming her walk.

Phemy wept aloud, but did not try to escape.

'And him gaein to promise this verra nicht 'at he would merry me!' she cried, but through her tears and sobs her words were indistinct.

Kirsty stopped, and faced round on her.

'He promised to merry ye?' she said.

'I didna say that; I said he was gaein to promise the nicht. And noo he'll be gane, and never a word said!'