LITMIR.BIZ

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repeated to Mary Watson, becoming aware that she had stopped speaking and was expecting an answer.

      ‘Tits, man,’ she retorted, ‘you said that before. That’ll no’ get Ann to open the door to us.’

      ‘I’m sorry,’ said the minister. ‘I was thinking of – I was thinking, Miss Mary – that—’

      ‘What you are going to say to Ann?’ demanded Mary.

      The minister did not know what he was going to say to Ann. He had a confused hope that God would put the right words into his mouth.

      ‘As I was saying,’ said Mary, with marked emphasis, ‘it’s no’ so easy to get her oot; I just canna bring the police, even if I wanted a scandal, for the hoose is hers, no’ mine. The shop’s mine, but the hoose is hers. She hasna a penny piece besides what I give her, but the hoose is hers. Father willed it like that. And what she wants is to make a scandal; just that, just that. She’s waiting girning behind that door for me to break it open, and then she’ll have the police on to me; I ken it fine. Brawly that. Ay sirs!’

      ‘Surely she’s not counting on that….’

      Mary snorted and turned up the lane towards the cottage. The nearer she got to the gate the more she ceased to believe that the minister would be of any use at all.

      ‘It’s the fear of God you have to put into her, mind you that,’ she said, opening the gate and preceding him along the garden path.

      The cottage was in darkness save for a feeble light shining through the blind of the kitchen window.

      ‘She’s in her bed,’ said Mary in a loud whisper. ‘That’s the light from her bedroom shining through the kitchen. Chap at the front door as hard as you can.’

      She pushed him past her, and stealthily pried at the lighted window.

      ‘It’s snibbed,’ she whispered. ‘A’ the windows are snibbed. Chap at the door, man, I’m telling you.’

      In the mirk of that winter night William Murray, as he rapped firmly with the cold iron knocker on the door of the little cottage, felt incongruously that he was making a last trial of his faith. It was not in a great arena that he was to be proved worthy or unworthy, not even in a despairing battle for his own brother’s soul, it was in knocking at a door trying to persuade one bitter old woman to give shelter to another. The cottage itself reminded him of the text with which he had been wrestling all the week: ‘But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness.’ The kitchen window was a dim and evil eye; the cottage was, like himself, a body full of darkness. He rapped once more, and remembered again how Ned had spat in his face. A shrill scream followed his rapping, which he recognized although it was intercepted by the door, and he could make out slow and shuffling footsteps. Ann was not helpless, then: she was able to walk.

      ‘Cry through the keyhole,’ urged Mary, but the minister remained upright and silent as the footsteps became more audible.

      There was a sound as of unlocking, and a scream: ‘Wha’s there?’

      He nearly jumped: the voice came not from behind the door but from the kitchen window to his right. Ann had stopped there, unsnibbed the window and opened it a little from the top. He could see her dark outline.

      ‘It’s me, Miss Ann: Mr Murray.’

      ‘What were you wanting?’

      ‘I want to talk to you.’ The minister’s voice was gentle, but firm.

      ‘Come back the morn then: I’m no’ wanting anybody the night.’ The window shut with a bang.

      ‘Eh, the obstinate wretch,’ muttered Mary. ‘Try her again; chap on the window; go on, man; go on.’

      The minister walked to the window and rapped on it. Ann was barely discernible inside. His sympathy for her welled up again.

      ‘She shouldn’t be shut up all alone like this,’ he muttered, and rapped more insistently than before.

      Ann came closer to the window and peered through the glass as if she were spying into the darkness behind his shoulder. For a fleeting second William Murray thought of a human soul in captivity, peering into the unknown through the dim glass of its conciousness: Ann’s situtation was too like his own not to disturb his emotions. He rapped harder still, crying: ‘Let me in.’ Standing there in the loose soil of the garden bed he felt an infinite pity for both of the sisters and for himself.

      Ann suddenly undid the window and thrust out her head.

      Although her face was only a few inches from his she screamed at the highest pitch of her voice: ‘Come back the morn, I tell you! I have to keep the hoose lockit – for a purpose. I’m no’ safe from my sister Mary if I open that door.’

      Her remarks, like her glances, were fired into the darkness behind him.

      William Murray put up a hand and held the window down.

      ‘Come, come, Miss Ann,’ he said coaxingly, ‘that’s not the kind of woman you really are. I know you better than that.’

      Ann seemed not to hear a word. She had no desire to appear a saint, she merely wished to prove her sister a devil; and she suddenly cut clean across the minister’s cajoleries by screaming: ‘I see you! I see you, you jaud! Come oot frae ahint the minister! Ye needna think I dinna see you. I’ll let the whole toon ken hoo you’ve treated me, so that I have to lock myself up in my very hoose to be safe from you!’

      ‘Nonsense, Miss Ann! No, no – you’ll just injure yourself—’

      The minister’s voice was drowned by Mary’s energetic reply:

      ‘Lock yersel’ in then. Bide there. Not a penny piece will I give you—’

      ‘I’ll let the whole toon ken it, then. On Monday I’ll awa’ into the poorshoose, and what’ll you have to say to that? Better to live in the poorshoose by myself than to live wi’ you. Mary Watson’s old sister in the poorshoose! They’ll ken you then for what you are, my leddy.’

      Mary was tired, disappointed and angry.

      ‘Ye cunning auld deevil,’ she retorted, ‘I’ll set the police on you, that’s what I’ll do. It’ll be the police office and no’ the poorshoose for you, and that this very night, as sure as my name’s Mary Watson.’

      ‘This is my hoose. The police canna take a body up for locking her ain hoose door. Na, they canna!’

      ‘They can take a woman up for keeping what’s no hers. You’ve a’ my gear in there, and my fur coat and my —’

      Ann had disappeared with a thin satirical chuckle. Mary darted to the window and began to throw it up.

      ‘You’re a fushionless fool o’ a creature, are ye no’?’ she said to the minister. ‘Ye might at least help me through the window.’

      Before William Murray could move Mary was thrust back by some large soft object which fell on the ground. Rapidly after it came a succession of things, scattering in the darkness.

      ‘My fur coat, ye deevil!’ he heard Mary cry, half sobbing, and then he saw her clutching Ann by the hair and shaking the older woman to and fro over the window-sill. Ann began to scream. Instead of desisting for fear of scandal Mary tugged the more furiously; she was as if transported out of herself. The minister at first felt almost suffocated at the sight of the two women worrying each other, and then the inert mass in his bosom seemed to burst into flame.

      ‘You call yourselves Christians,’ he found himself crying, as he held Mary at arm’s-length. ‘I’ll cut you both off from the communion of the Church – both of you, do you hear? I’ll blot your names from the Church books. I’ll expel you publicly from the congregation!’

      He almost flung Mary away from the window.

      Open that door at once, Ann Watson,’ he continued, ‘or I shall proclaim you

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