LITMIR.BIZ

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bare-headed to contemplate the world in the light of his good fortune. The warm mist of the morning lay like a veil of faint lilac colour in shady places and the sun sent its shafts slanting across the wide fields that dipped and rose again in their long slope to the hills; the fir-woods stood as though painted on the atmosphere in blurs of smoky green with patches of copper-red gleaming through where the light caught their stems; the dew that had fallen on the sprawling nasturtiums rolled in beads on their leaves. Through the open door of the cottage the sound of Auntie Thompson’s preparations for breakfast made a cheerful clinking stir of cups and homeliness. Sunday, that day on which Isa revealed herself to an admiring world, was always the main point of Alec’s week, yet it was not often that he looked forward to the church hour with the excitement that he felt to-day. He glanced continually at the ‘wag-at-the-wa’ ’whose sober pendulum swung to and fro, scanning its matter of fact dial and thinking that its hands had never moved so slowly. For the whole length of the service he would be able to gaze upon Isa, as she sat, like a beautiful flower among vegetables, between her father and mother.

      Pitairdrie kirk was a small, box-like building squatting at the roadside a mile and a half away, with its back to the line of the fir-woods and its iron gate set in a privet hedge. The latter gave access to a decent little gravel sweep on which the congregation would stand talking until the minister was reported to be in the vestry and the elders entered to take their places. Inside, the church had no great pretensions to beauty, and even the gallery which ran round three sides of it was innocent of the least grandeur; for the laird, who was the chief heritor, being an Episcopalian, his family did not ornament it by their presence; and the ‘breist o’ the laft,’ as the front gallery pew was called, was occupied by that portion of his tenants which dwelt on the Muir Road. In the very middle of it was the place sacred to Auntie Thompson and Alec sat at her right hand. It was a splendid point of vantage for the young man, who could look down and have an uninterrupted view of the MacAndrew family.

      As time went on, Alec grew more restless. Never had he known his aunt so slow in her preparations; never had there seemed so many small jobs to be done before she was ready to lock up the hen-house and proceed to her toilette. There were not many concessions that she was prepared to make to Sunday, but at last she disappeared into her little room to make them. She divested herself of her apron and took from her box the Sunday bonnet that had served her faithfully for the last ten years. It had a high crown of rusty black net, and its trimmings, which consisted of a black feather, a band of jet and a purple rose, added to the height at which it towered over her shining face. Above the short wincey dress it looked amazing.

      She had taken her corpulent umbrella from behind the door and was tying her bonnet-strings in a long-ended bow under her chin, when Alec, standing in the garden and cursing fate, saw a sight that made his blood run cold.

      The pigsty door stood open and the two pigs, which had pushed through a hole in the hedge, were escaping at a surging canter into the field behind the cottage. In another moment Auntie Thompson would come out and summon her nephew to help in the chase. Alec knew pigs intimately and he foresaw that their capture might be a matter of half an hour. He stole one wary glance at the house, set his hand upon the low garden wall, and vaulting into the road, ran for quite a hundred yards before he fell into a brisk walk; for he dreaded to hear some sound of the chase borne on the warm breeze that followed him.

      He had stepped guiltily along for a few minutes when he heard the sound of trotting hoofs behind him and turned to look back. His heart gave a bound when he realised that the MacAndrew family had reached the last stage of their four-mile drive and were overtaking him at the steady jog of the hairy farm pony whose duties extended over the Sabbath day.

      He redoubled his pace, for he did not want to lose one fragment of Isa’s company. Pitairdrie kirk was not three-quarters of a mile ahead.

      As the MacAndrew conveyance passed him his eyes met those of his promised bride and she smiled at him with a kind of reserved approval. The tiny seat on which she sat with her back to the pony was hidden by the frothy flounces of her blue Sunday gown, and the feather in her Leghorn hat curled downwards towards her shoulder. She managed to look graceful even in her cramped position. Opposite to their daughter, Mr. and Mrs. MacAndrew sat stiff and large; they could not enjoy very great ease of body because the ancient basket carriage was extremely low at the back and hung so near the ground that the boots of its occupants were a bare half foot from the ground. MacAndrew and Mrs. MacAndrew knew in their hearts how much discomfort they would be spared if they were but stepping the road like other people, but they would have perished where they sat sooner than admit it to each other. The reins in MacAndrew’s hands went up in a steep incline to the fork-like contrivance above Isa’s head before beginning their even steeper descent to the pony’s mouth on the other side of it. Neither husband nor wife had any idea of the oddity of their appearance. They were ‘carriage people,’ and that was enough. Their response to Alec’s greeting was tempered by the view they had just had of Auntie Thompson in her grey wincey and towering bonnet in full cry after the pigs.

      The bell had not yet begun to ring when Alec entered the kirk gate and saw Isa standing a little apart by her mother upon the gravel; MacAndrew was in conversation with a knot of acquaintances by the vestry door. Quite by himself was a pale young man in a black coat, who looked rather out of place among the strictly countrified men of the congregation; he had a gold watchchain and he wore gloves. He was good-looking in a townish way and he seemed to be scanning his surroundings with some interest. It was evident that Isa’s curiosity was aroused by him.

      ‘I don’t know who that gentleman can be,’ she said to her lover, almost in the same breath in which she greeted him.

      As she spoke she adjusted a ribbon she wore at her throat.

      ‘A’m no carin’ vera muckle wha he is,’ replied he. ‘It’s yersel’ a’m thinkin’ about, Isa.’

      ‘Everybody will hear you if you speak so loud.’

      ‘And what for no? A’m fine an’ pleased they should ken. Isa, will ye no walk back wi’ me aifter the kirk’s skailed?’

      ‘Maybe,’ said the girl.

      ‘Isa’ll be tae drive i’ the carriage,’ broke in Mrs. MacAndrew, who stood by watching her daughter like an overfed Providence.

      Alec looked at her with a sudden misgiving. He had never thought much about a mother-in-law. His experience of elderly women began and ended with Auntie Thompson, whom he had so shamefully deserted in her need this morning.

      The bell began to ring over their heads, and MacAndrew left his friends and joined his belongings.

      ‘D’ye see yon lad yonder?’ said he, nodding his head backwards over his shoulder towards the stranger.

      Both his wife and his daughter closed in on him eagerly.

      ‘He’s just newly back frae Ameriky wi’ a braw bittie money; he’s no been hame since he was a bairn an’ syne he’s come back tae buy a fairm. He’s got fowk he’s seekin’ hereaboot, they tell me, but a dinna ken wha they’ll be. James Petrie couldna tell me, nor ony ither body.’

      Mrs. MacAndrew’s eyes were running over the strange young man as though she were pricing every garment he wore.

      ‘Aye, aye,’ she murmured, twisting her mouth appreciatively, ‘a’ll no say but he looks weel aff.’

      There was a general move into the kirk, and Mrs. MacAndrew pushed in and squeezed into her seat, which was on the ground floor at right angles to the pulpit. It gave a good view of ‘the breist o’ the laft,’ from end to end. Isa was swept from her lover, who made his way up to his own place. The strange young man went in after everybody else and stood looking round to see where he should go. A genial-looking old labourer beckoned him to a place at his side.

      The minister was ushered up the pulpit steps by the beadle, and the ensuing psalm brought the minds of the congregation together. The stranger shared a book with his companion and contributed to the singing in a correct tenor which drew general attention to him once more. Isa observed him from under the brim of her Leghorn hat, noticing his trim hair and the gold tie-pin which made a bright

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