The fiddle had stopped and Neil had gone out to get a breath of fresh air and to gossip with his niece, whom he had not seen since her wedding. Several of the guests were in the stackyard cooling themselves, but the hostess and the fiddler sauntered out to the roadside where it sloped to the kirkton. The boy almost ran into them, weeping loudly; blaring, after the fashion of unsophisticated childhood.
‘Maircy, laddie! What ails ye?’ exclaimed the young woman.
‘Phemie’s daft! Ragin’ daft – the wifie’s deid!’
His words came out with an incoherent burst of blubbering, and to Knowes’ bride, who had been a bare ten days in the place, the name conveyed nothing.
‘Lord’s sake!’ she cried, ‘what is’t? wha is’t?’
He pointed down the road.
‘Ragin’ – roarin’ daft doon yonder – whaur the licht is – gang doon the brae an’ ye’ll see’t yonder!’
‘But wha’s deid?’ cried the woman. ‘Is’t a murder?’
‘Aye, aye – she’s deid! Phemie’s ragin’ mad!’ bawled the boy, gathering excitement from his companion’s trembling voice, and only concerned for someone to share his emotions.
She poured out a string of questions, and as she grew more insistent, his tale grew more difficult to follow. She looked round for her uncle, but by this time he had started for the village to investigate for himself.
‘Oh, Uncle Neil! dinna gang!’ she wailed; ‘like as no ye’ll be murder’t yersel’ – come awa back. Uncle Neil!’
Hearing his steps die away in the darkness, she rushed through the stackyard with the headlong run of a startled fowl. ‘There’s a puir body murdert i’ the kirkton!’ she shouted as she went.
The words ran from mouth to mouth. In a few minutes the main part of the company was on its way down the brae, leaving behind it a handful of nervous women, some men who had discovered the fountain-head of the whisky, and Donald Gow, whose instinct, probably from years of attendance on a bigger man than himself, was always for the background.
Neil strode into the kirkton, making for the light pointed out by the boy. Most of the cottages were darkened, but Phemie’s uncurtained window shone like a beacon. He did not stop to look through it, fearing that he might be seen and the house barred against him. He pushed open the door and stood still, completely taken aback. There was no sign of disorder, nothing to suggest a struggle. Phemie, exhausted by her own violence, was sitting at the hearth, her body turned from the fire; her elbows were on the chair-back, her hands clasped over her bowed head. At the click of the latch she looked up and saw him in the doorway. She gave a terrible cry and ran towards him.
‘Neil Gow! Neil Gow! Div ye no mind o’ me?’
His amazement deepened. Death, whose presence he realised as he looked about him, had come quietly here, as he comes to most houses; but he supposed that bereavement must have turned the brain of the desperate creature who clung to him.
‘Whisht, wumman, whisht!’ he exclaimed, ‘whisht noo, puir thing.’
‘Hae maircy on me, Neil Gow!’
‘Whisht, whisht – a’ll awa’ an’ get the minister tae ye.’
But she only held him tighter; he had not believed a woman’s hands could be so strong. He did not like to force them open.
‘Ye mauna seek tae tell him – ye winna! Ye winna hae me ta’en awa’?’
‘Na, na, na. Wumman, what ill wad a dae ye?’ he cried, bewildered; ‘a dinna ken ye – a’m no seekin’ tae hurt ye.’
‘Oh, Neil Gow, div ye no mind o’ playin’ on the auld green o’ Dalmain? It’s me – it’s Phemie Moir!’
The name ‘Moir’ arrested him. He turned her round to the firelight, gazing into her face.
‘Moir?’ he said. ‘Is it yersel’?’ He could hardly trace in it the features of the girl he remembered.
‘Moir,’ she said. ‘Jimmy Moir was the lad ye saved frae the sodgers – him an’ the ither ane – ma bonnie brither. Neil Gow, ye’ll save me – ye winna speak o’t – ye winna let them tak’ me noo?’
‘Hoots!’ he exclaimed. Then looking into her anguished eyes, he realised the depths of her simplicity; the cruelty of that ignorance whose burden she had borne these two score of years. He was silent, seeking for words with which to bring conviction to her warped understanding, to overthrow the tyranny of a fixed idea. There was a sound of feet outside, and both he and she looked towards the window. Beyond the narrow panes a crowd of faces were gathered, pressing against them. She tore herself from him and ran to the door. She turned the key just as a hand outside was about to lift the latch.
Neil drew the curtain across the casement, and, taking her by the arm, led her to the hearth.
‘See noo,’ said he, ‘sit ye doon. There’s naebody’ll touch ye. They’re a’ freends. Will ye no believe me?’
‘A hae nae freends, Neil Gow – man, ye dinna understand.’
The tears came at last and she rocked herself to and fro.
‘Ye fule!’ he exclaimed, ‘is there no me? Was a no a freend tae ye, yon time ye mind?’
‘Ye was that – ye was that,’ she murmured.
‘An’ wad a tell ye a lee?’
The latch rattled again.
He went to the door and opened it. Someone pressed up against him and would have entered. He was flung back.
‘Awa’!’ he cried, ‘awa’ wi’ ye a’! There’s nane murdert here. There’s just a done body that’s deed in her bed. There’s nane o’ ye’ll hear the sound o’ my fiddle the nicht gin ye dinna leave the puir cratur’ that’s greetin’ in-by in peace. There’s just the minister’ll win in, an’ nae mair!’
There was an irresolute collective movement, but the beadle pushed himself forward.
‘Na, na,’ said Neil simply, filling the doorway with his bulk. The beadle was pulled back by several hands. The sensation was dying down, and a dance without music was a chill prospect.
‘We’ll see an’ get Donal’ tae play,’ said the beadle angrily.
‘No him,’ replied Neil.
‘Here’s the minister,’ said a voice.
Phemie’s dread seemed to have left her. She sat quietly listening to what was going on round the doorstep; an unformulated hope was glimmering in her mind like dawn on a stretch of devastated country. She could hear the people dispersing and returning to the Knowes’ and the minister’s subdued murmur of talk with the fiddler outside. It went on till the two men came in together. She was dumb and still.
‘Ye’ve naething to fear i’ this warld,’ said Laidlaw, dropping into the vernacular. ‘I’d tell ye the same, if I was to tell ye frae the pulpit.’
And he put his hand on her shoulder. She laid her head against his arm, like a child.
IT WAS A full hour later that Laidlaw returned to the manse. He had stayed some little time at the cottage