Chapter 10 - Page 2

she
said it, she was in a palsy, through no being able to decide whether she
looked better in her shell necklace or wanting it. She put it on in the
end, and syne when we heard the tramp o' the men, her mind misgave her,
and she cried: 'For the love o' mercy, keep them out till I get it off
again!' So we were a' laughing when they came in.

"Laddie, it was your father and Elspeth's that they brought wi' them,
and he was a stranger to us, though we kent something about him afore
the night was out. He was finely put on, wi' a gold chain, and a free
w'y of looking at women, and if you mind o' him ava, you ken that he was
fair and buirdly, wi' a full face, and aye a laugh ahint it. I tell ye,
man, that when our een met, and I saw that triumphing laugh ahint his
face, I took a fear of him, as if I had guessed the end.

"For years and years after that night I dreamed it ower again, and aye I
heard mysel' crying to God to keep that man awa' frae me. But I doubt I
put up no sic prayer at the time; his masterful look fleid me, and yet
it drew me against my will, and I was trembling wi' pride as well as
fear when he made me queen. We danced thegither and fought thegither a'
through the ball, and my will was no match for his, and the worst o't
was I had a kind o' secret pleasure in being mastered.

"Man, he kissed me. Lads had kissed me afore that night, but never since
first I went wi' Aaron Latta to the Cuttle Well. Aaron hadna done it,
but I was never to let none do it again except him. So when your father
did it I struck him, but ahint the redness that came ower his face, I
saw his triumphing laugh, and he whispered that he liked me for the
blow. He said, 'I prefer the sweer anes, and the more you struggle, my
beauty, the better pleased I'll be.' Almost his hinmost words to me was,
'I've been hearing of your Aaron, and that pleases me too!' I fired up
at that and telled him what I thought of him, but he said, 'If you canna
abide me, what made you dance wi' me so often?' and, oh, laddie, that's
a question that has sung in my head since syne.

"I've telled you that we found out wha he was, and 'deed he made no
secret of it. Up to the time he was twal year auld he had been a kent
face in that part, for his mither was a Cullew woman called Mag Sandys,
ay, and a single woman. She was a hard ane too, for when he was twelve
year auld he flung out o' the house saying he would ne'er come back, and
she said he shouldna run awa' wi' thae new boots on, so she took the
boots off him and let him go.

"He was a grown man when more was heard o' him, and syne stories came
saying he was at Redlintie, playing queer games wi' his father. His
father was gauger there, that's exciseman, a Mr.