The Weans at Rowallan Part 22

Aunt Charlotte looked at Honeybird, who was playing with the cat. "Do you know that you have taken your Maker's name in vain?" she said. "Go back to the house at once, you wicked child."

Honeybird stared, her grey eyes growing wider and wider.

"Do you hear me?" said Aunt Charlotte. "Go into the house at once."

With a gasp of horror Honeybird turned back across the yard, and they heard her go into the kitchen, sobbing: "Poor, poor wee me!"

"Now take me to see the kitchen garden," said Aunt Charlotte.

"Ould Davy'll be mad if we do," said Jane.

"I wish you would speak more distinctly," said Aunt Charlotte, "I cannot understand what you say."

"I on'y said ould Davy'd be cross," said Jane.

"What is his name? Who is he?" said Aunt Charlotte.

"'Deed, he's just ould Davy," said Patsy; "thon's him in among the cur'n' bushes."

But ould Davy spoke for himself.

"Be off wid yer," he shouted; "away home ar this, or if I catch the hould a' yer I'll cut yer throats."

"I tould ye he'd be cross," said Jane.

But Aunt Charlotte was running back to the house as fast her legs would carry her.

"She's feared," said Jane joyfully.

Patsy danced. "It'd be quare fun to take her to see Jane Dyer," he said.

They laughed at the thought till they had to sit down on the path.

"I wisht I could come with ye," said Jane, "but ould Jane's friends with me, so I can't."

"No; ye'll have to stay at home, Janey dear," said Mick; "she wouldn't lift a finger if she saw ye with us."

"It's all because I tuk her them ould boots," said Jane; "but yous three can go; an' mind ye run the minute she throws the first stone, for if ye stan' an' face her she's like a lamb."

A few minutes later Mick and Fly and Patsy came into the drawing-room, and asked Aunt Charlotte if she would like to go for a walk; they were going down to the sea, they said. Aunt Charlotte said she would be delighted to go. She put on her hat and gloves, and they started. On each side of the road was a wall of loose stones bound together by moss and brambles. In the distance, to their right, rose the mountains, and a turn of the road about a mile from home brought them in sight of the sea. They pa.s.sed through the village, a long road of whitewashed cottages, with here and there a fuchsia bush by a door, a line of bright nasturtiums under a window, or a potato patch dotted with curly kale by the side of a house. Farther down the street the church stood back from the road in a graveyard full of tombstones and weeds. Aunt Charlotte said she was interested in churches, so they stopped to look at it. Coming back through the graveyard Mick showed her the tombstones of the rebels, with skull and crossbones on the top, and the grave of a great-uncle of theirs, who had been hanged at the time of the rebellion for deserting his friends.

"Serve him right, the ould traitor," said Patsy.

Aunt Charlotte was shocked. "If he was your great-uncle you should think of him with respect," she said.

"An' him an informer!" said Mick; "'deed, I'd 'a' kilt him myself, so I would. Andy Graham sez he'd 'a' j.a.pped the brains out a' him."

"Lull sez she'd 'a' napped him on the head with a wee blackthorn," said Fly. "But whist," she added, "I do believe the ould ruffian's lyin' in his grave listenin' to us."

Aunt Charlotte s.h.i.+vered. As they were going down the steps Patsy stopped. "Look at them two ould rats," he said, "sittin' there on the wall like ould men. They're just sayin' which of us all will be brought here the first."

Aunt Charlotte gave a little scream, and ran out into the road. "You children have such morbid minds," she said; "indeed," with a little laugh, "you have made me quite nervous."

About five minutes' walk from the village they came to a lane that ran down to the sea, black mud underfoot and stone walls on each side. The lane widened into a small farmyard. There was a low cottage, a stack of peat, and two or three hens picking about in the mud.

"What a squalid scene!" said Aunt Charlotte. "Is it possible that any human being can live here?"

The children did not answer, for, to their disappointment, the door was shut. "She's out!" Mick said.

A few yards from the cottage the land ended on the seash.o.r.e. The sand was covered with brown seaweed; a cart filled with it was propped up on stones. Bits of cork and wood were strewn about in every direction, and beyond the line of dry seaweed there were big round stones covered with golden brown seaweed, still wet, for the tide was only half-way out.

Aunt Charlotte didn't like this sea very much. She said it was all so untidy. Not even the beautiful green crabs that Fly caught under the wet seaweed pleased her, so after a few minutes they turned back. The children were afraid that Jane Dyer would not have come home yet, but just as they pa.s.sed the cottage Aunt Charlotte suddenly gripped hold of Mick's arm.

"Who is that," she said sharply; "there, coming down the lane?" Fly gave a hysterical giggle. Coming towards them down the lane was a tall figure dressed in an old green ulster coat, tied in round the waist by an ap.r.o.n; white hair fell about a flat white face, and big bare feet splashed in the mud. As it came it muttered and frowned and shook its fist.

"Who is it, I say?" said Aunt Charlotte.

"It's Jane Dyer," said Mick.

Patsy gave a loud 'Hee-haw,' that was supposed to remind Jane of her dead donkey, and always made her wild with rage, even if the sight of visitors in her lane had not already made her angry. She came swinging along, muttering and cursing to herself, stopping here and there to pick up a stone, till her ap.r.o.n was full. Then, with a sudden leap in the air, she aimed. The stone hit Fly on the s.h.i.+n; she gave a yell of pain, and was over the wall in a second. The boys followed, while a volley of stones and curses came from the lane. Aunt Charlotte was left behind. They heard her scrambling over the wall, the loose stones rolling off as she scrambled, and as they ran they could hear her panting: "My G.o.d, my G.o.d, this is awful!"

Two fields away the boys found Fly sitting on a bank nursing her leg.

"Did ye hear her takin' her Maker's name in vain?" said Patsy, and he rolled on the gra.s.s with laughter.

"I niver seen ould Jane in better fettle," said Mick.

"If we'd had any wit we'd 'a' set Sammy on her too," said Fly.

"We'll do it yit," said Patsy, and there and then they began to run like hares along the road to the cottage where Sammy lived. Sammy was an innocent, and lived in a one-roomed cottage on the roadside that was entirely hidden from sight by the rowan-trees that grew round it. He was a little old man, who spent his days attending to his sister's pig.

There was not a more peaceable soul in the countryside, but on the subject of the pig Sammy could be roused to fury. He talked to it, sang to it, fed it out of his hand. When he walked about the fields the pig followed at his heels, when he sat on the doorstep it lay at his feet. But if one of the village children threw a stone at it, or if any threatened in joke to harm it, Sammy was beside himself with rage, and it was an insult he never forgot. Twice a week he came to Rowallan for the refuse and broken meat, and, next to the pig, he loved the children. He was at home when they knocked at the door, and came out at once.

"M-m-m-m-mornin'!" he stammered.

They were out of breath, and could hardly speak. Sammy began to look frightened; it was so easy to scare his few wits away.

"Oh, Sammy, she's comin' after yer pig," Fly panted.

"Wh-wh-wh-where?" Sammy shouted.

"Along the road," said Patsy; "she'll be here in a minute; a long string of a woman with a black dress on. She's clean mad to get at it; ye'd better be out, an' chase her."

"L-l-l-l-let me at her!" roared Sammy, picking up his bucket.

"She's comin' to kill it, Sammy," said Mick; "she come all the way from England to do it."

Sammy was dancing on the doorstep. "Hide down behind the wall till she comes," said Patsy, and they pulled Sammy down with them.

"Whist, Sammy; be quiet, man, till she comes," said Mick--for Sammy was snorting and quivering. "I'll give ye the word when I see her."