Chapter 10

THE FAVORITE OF THE LADIES

That night the excited boy was wakened by a tap-tap, as of someone
knocking for admittance, and stealing to his mother's side, he cried,
"Aaron Latta has come; hearken to him chapping at the door!"

It was only the man through the wall, but Mrs. Sandys took Tommy into
bed with her, and while Elspeth slept, told him the story of her life.
She coughed feebly now, but the panting of the dying is a sound that no
walls can cage, and the man continued to remonstrate at intervals. Tommy
never recalled his mother's story without seeming, through the darkness
in which it was told, to hear Elspeth's peaceful breathing and the angry
tap-tap on the wall.

"I'm sweer to tell it to you," she began, "but tell I maun, for though
it's just a warning to you and Elspeth no' to be like them that brought
you into the world, it's all I have to leave you. Ay, and there's
another reason: you may soon be among folk wha ken but half the story
and put a waur face on it than I deserve."

She had spoken calmly, but her next words were passionate.

"They thought I was fond o'him," she cried; "oh, they were blind,
blind! Frae the first I could never thole the sight o' him.

"Maybe that's no' true," she had to add. "I aye kent he was a black, but
yet I couldna put him out o' my head; he took sudden grips o' me like an
evil thought. I aye ran frae him, and yet I sair doubt that I went
looking for him too."

"Was it Aaron Latta?" Tommy asked.

"No, it was your father. The first I ever saw of him was at Cullew, four
lang miles frae Thrums. There was a ball after the market, and Esther
Auld and me went to it. We went in a cart, and I was wearing a pink
print, wi' a white bonnet, and blue ribbons that tied aneath the chin. I
had a shawl abune, no' to file them. There wasna a more innocent lassie
in Thrums, man, no, nor a happier one; for Aaron Latta--Aaron came half
the way wi' us, and he was hauding my hand aneath the shawl. He hadna
speired me at that time, but I just kent.

"It was an auld custom to choose a queen of beauty at the ball, but that
night the men couldna 'gree wha should be judge, and in the tail-end
they went out thegither to look for one, determined to mak' judge o' the
first man they met, though they should have to tear him off a horse and
bring him in by force. You wouldna believe to look at me now, man, that
I could have had any thait o' being made queen, but I was fell bonny,
and I was as keen as the rest. How simple we were, all pretending to
one another that we didna want to be chosen! Esther Auld said she would
hod ahint the tent till a queen was picked, and at the very time