"So I was the only soul that knew it beforehand, when Bonnie Bell suddenly took matters into her own hand and gave Miser Hobby a son-in-law he had never bargained for – a first cousin of her own, an ensign in a marching regiment. The two foolish ones ran to Gretna to get married – I with them in the coach. But I had to tramp it back on my own feet, with Miser Hobby's malediction on my head as well as on theirs. You see he had spent money on the young fellow's commission hoping to get him out of the road, as soon as he suspected what was in the wind between Bell and him.
"But the regiment stayed on in Longtown just over the borders, and nearly every day Frank Stennis and a company would come through the countryside with feathers waving bravely in their bonnets, drawing in the silly young by the glint of their accoutrements, or wiling them to list by the merry noise of the pipe and drum that went before them and set the pulses jumping even in weak women's hearts.
"But after Bell took the road to Gretna, and the white cat by the Breckonside was left lonely, the miser never uttered word, but sat with shut mouth at the weaving of the wonderful flowered napery, the secret of which he alone possessed. And if he could not weave himself a new daughter with all his skill, at least he kept himself so busy that he seldom minded the one he had lost.
"And then he took to leaving his weaving, which nobody could do as well as he, and trying a new trade – that of cattle dealing and droving. At least, so it was said. At any rate Laird Stennis would shut up the cottage, and the sound of the weary shuttle would cease by the waterside. He would be seen riding to every market, cattle mart, horse fair, lamb sale, wool sale, displenishing-roup within fifty mile, his shoulders bent weaver fashion and his thin shanks legginged in untanned leather.
"But what was the wonder of the folk of Breckonside to see Laird Stennis, who could hardly abide his own kith and kin, suddenly bring a great stalwart colt of a ne'er-do-well, Jeremy Orrin by name, home to his house. For the creature was hardly held accountable for his actions. He had once killed a man in a brawl at a fair and been tried for his life, but had gotten off as being half an idiot, or what the folk about the south of the Cheviots called a 'natural.'
"The two of them brawled together, and drank and carried on to be the scandal of the place, till something happened – it was never known what – but Miser Stennis was laid up with a crack in his skull, and the Mad Jeremy tended him, gentle and tender as a mother they said. But so fierce with any one else that none, even the doctor, ventured near the cottage.
"Still your mother's name was never mentioned, and when others spoke to him of his daughter he would look round for fear of Daft Jeremy, who was jealous of her they said.
"And your father – well, I misdoubt me that he was no better than he should be. And my poor Bell had but a sorrowful time of it, following the regiment, and at last left behind when they embarked for the Indies. Then her father sent her word that having made her bed she might lie on it. She had no rights on him or on his money.
"So a year or two slipped by, and maybe another five or six to the back of that, and still no word of Bell. When, true as I am telling ye, who but Bell brought back word of herself. Faith, and it was strange word! I mind it clear as yesterday, for it was me, Nance Edgar, that am this day old and done, who gat the first glint of her.
"It was a fine summer morn, early in June, and the clouds in the sky to the east were just the colour of the first brier rosebuds in the hedge by the roadside. I came up the brae like a Untie and as free o' care, for my heart was light in those good days. There stood the cot of Breckonside before me, shining white in the sun. For the miser, though he spared most other things, never was a sparer of good whitewash. I was just beginning to listen for the click-clack of Hobby's shuttle, when down by the waterside methought I saw a ferlie.
"Fegs, I said to myself that surely the old times had come back again, and that the wee folk were disporting themselves once more in broad daylight. For, on the grass by the burn a bonnie bit bairn ran hither and thither waving its hands and laughing to the heavens for very gladness. The night had been calm, a 'gossamer night,' as the gipsy folk call it, and from hedge to hemlock, and from lowly bracken to tall Queen o' the Meadow, the silver threads were stretched taut like the cordage of some sea-going ship. The dew shone silver clear on ilka silken strand, and the blobs o' it were like pearls and diamonds in the morning sun.
"And aye the longer I stood the wilder the bairn ran and skipped lightfoot as a fairy herself. 'Bonnie – bonnie – oh, bonnie!' she cried, clapping her hands and laughing, 'see mither, mither, are they no unco bonnie?'
"Then, by the side of the beck, as if, being wearied with travel, she had set her down to take a drink of the caller burn water, I saw a woman sit. She was beneath a bush of hazel, and her head was resting tired-like on her hand. So, being back there in the shadow, I had not noticed her at the first, being taken up, as was small wonder, with the sight of that bonnie yellow-haired bairn flichtering here and there like a butterfly in the sun.
"Then the wee lass saw me and ran whatever she could to me. She took my hand and syne looked up in my face as trustful-like as if she ha' kenned me all her days.
"'Here woman,' she cried, 'come and wake my minnie to me, for I canna. She winna hearken when her wee Elsie speaks to her.'
"Hand in hand we went up to the poor thing, and even as I went a great fear gripped me by the heart. For the woman sat still, even when my step must have sounded in her ear. I laid my hand on her, and, as I am a living woman, she was clay cauld. The bairn looked ever up into my face.
"'Can you no waken my mither, either?' she said wistfully.
"'No,' said I. 'No, my puir, wee lassie!' For truth to tell, I kenned not what to say.
"'Will minnie never waken?' she asked again, bright as a button.
"'I fear not, bonnie lassie,' said I, and the tear was in my eye.
"Then the elf clapped her hands and danced like a yellow butterfly over the lea.
"'Then she willna greet any more! She willna be hungry any more. She will never need bite o' meat nor thread o' claes for ever and ever mair.' She lilted the words almost as if she had been singing a tune. 'She will be richt pleased, my minnie. For, oh, she grat sair and often! She carried me in her arms till her ain feet were hurted and she could gang nae farther. Late yestreen she sat doon here to wash them, and I sat, too, and after that she cuddled me in her airms. Are ye no richt glad for my minnie?'
"I telled her that I was glad, for naught less would satisfy her, though even as I spak the words the sob rose in my throat.
"And as we stood there, looking at the woman sitting with her face on her hands, what should happen but that the auld miser should come hirpling to the door, and there, too, looking over his shoulder, was Daft Jeremy, that the village bairns were wont to cry at and call the 'Mounster.'
"'What hae ye there, Nance Edgar?' the old man cried, shaking his stick at me; 'keep away from my door with your doxies and changeling bairns.'"
"But I was civil to him for his age's sake, and also because of the witless man that was looking over his shoulder. For it is not good to cross such as the Lord has smitten in their understanding, and so do my own folk never.
"'It is a woman, Laird Stennis,' quoth I, 'that hath set herself down to die by your burnside.'
"'Die,' cried he, with a queer scream most like a frighted hen flying down off the baulks, 'what word is that to speak? A woman dead by my burnside – what richt had she there? Who has taken such a liberty with Hobby Stennis?'
"'Nay,