COUSIN EDIE OF EYEMOUTH

                                Chapter 2

Some years before, when I was still but a lad, there had come over to us

upon a five weeks' visit the only daughter of my father's brother.

Willie Calder had settled at Eyemouth as a maker of fishing nets, and he

had made more out of twine than ever we were like to do out of the

whin-bushes and sand-links of West Inch.  So his daughter, Edie Calder,

came over with a braw red frock and a five shilling bonnet, and a kist
full of things that brought my dear mother's eyes out like a partan's.
It was wonderful to see her so free with money, and she but a slip of a
girl, paying the carrier man all that he asked and a whole twopence
over, to which he had no claim.  She made no more of drinking
ginger-beer than we did of water, and she would have her sugar in her
tea and butter with her bread just as if she had been English.
 
I took no great stock of girls at that time, for it was hard for me to
see what they had been made for.  There were none of us at Birtwhistle's
that thought very much of them; but the smallest laddies seemed to have
the most sense, for after they began to grow bigger they were not so
sure about it.  We little ones were all of one mind: that a creature
that couldn't fight and was aye carrying tales, and couldn't so much as
shy a stone without flapping its arm like a rag in the wind, was no use
for anything.  And then the airs that they would put on, as if they were
mother and father rolled into one; for ever breaking into a game with
"Jimmy, your toe's come through your boot," or "Go home, you dirty boy,
and clean yourself," until the very sight of them was weariness.
 
So when this one came to the steading at West Inch I was not best
pleased to see her.  I was twelve at the time (it was in the holidays)
and she eleven, a thin, tallish girl with black eyes and the queerest
ways.  She was for ever staring out in front of her with her lips
parted, as if she saw something wonderful; but when I came behind her
and looked the same way, I could see nothing but the sheep's trough or
the midden, or father's breeches hanging on a clothes-line.  And then if
she saw a lump of heather or bracken, or any common stuff of that sort,
she would mope over it, as if it had struck her sick, and cry,
"How sweet! how perfect!" just as though it had been a painted picture.
She didn't like games, but I used to make her play "tig" and such like;
but it was no fun, for I could always catch her in three jumps, and she
could never catch me, though she would come with as much rustle and
flutter as ten boys would make.  When I used to tell her that she was
good for nothing, and that her father was a fool to bring her up like
that, she would begin to cry, and say that I was a rude boy, and that
she would go home that very night, and never forgive me as long as she
lived.  But in five minutes she had forgot all about it.  What was
strange was that she liked me a deal better than I did her, and she
would never leave me alone; but she was always watching me and running
after me, and then saying, "Oh, here you are!" as if it were a surprise.
 
But soon I found that there was good in her too.  She used sometimes to
give me pennies, so that once I had four in my pocket all at the same
time;  but the best part of her was the stories that she could tell.
She was sore frightened of frogs, so I would bring one to her, and tell
her that I would put it down her neck unless she told a story.
That always helped her to begin; but when once she was started it was
wonderful how she would carry on.  And the things that had happened to
her, they were enough to take your breath away.  There was a Barbary
rover that had been at Eyemouth, and he was coming back in five years in
a ship full of gold to make her his wife;  and then there was a
wandering knight who had been there also, and he had given her a ring
which he said he would redeem when the time came.  She showed me the
ring, which was very like the ones upon my bed curtain; but she said
that this one was virgin gold.  I asked her what the knight would do if
he met the Barbary rover, and she told me that he would sweep his head

from his shoulders.   What they could all see in her was more than I
could think.  And then she told me that she had been followed on her way
to West Inch by a disguised prince.  I asked her how she knew it was a
prince, and she said by his disguise.  Another day she said that her
father was preparing a riddle, and that when it was ready it would be
put in the papers, and anyone who guessed it would have half his fortune
and his daughter.  I said that I was good at riddles, and that she must
send it to me when it was ready.  She said it would be in the _Berwick
Gazette_, and wanted to know what I would do with her when I won her.  I
said I would sell her by public roup for what she would fetch; but she
would tell no more stories that evening, for she was very techy about
some things.
 
Jim Horscroft was away when Cousin Edie was with us, but he came back
the very week she went; and I mind how surprised I was that he should
ask any questions or take any interest in a mere lassie.  He asked me if
she were pretty; and when I said I hadn't noticed, he laughed and called
me a mole, and said my eyes would be opened some day.  But very soon he
came to be interested in something else, and I never gave Edie another
thought until one day she just took my life in her hands and twisted it
as I could twist this quill.
 
That was in 1813, after I had left school, when I was already eighteen
years of age, with a good forty hairs on my upper lip and every hope of
more.  I had changed since I left school, and was not so keen on games
as I had been, but found myself instead lying about on the sunny side of
the braes, with my own lips parted and my eyes staring just the same as
Cousin Edie's used to do.  It had satisfied me and filled my whole life
that I could run faster and jump higher than my neighbour; but now all
that seemed such a little thing, and I yearned, and yearned, and looked
up at the big arching sky, and down at the flat blue sea, and felt that
there was something wanting, but could never lay my tongue to what that
something was.  And I became quick of temper too, for my nerves seemed
all of a fret, and when my mother would ask me what ailed me, or my
father would speak of my turning my hand to work, I would break into
such sharp bitter answers as I have often grieved over since.  Ah! a man
may have more than one wife, and more than one child, and more than one
friend; but he can never have but the one mother, so let him cherish her
while he may.
 
One day when I came in from the sheep, there was my father sitting with
a letter in his hands, which was a very rare thing with us, except when
the factor wrote for the rent.  Then as I came nearer to him I saw that
he was crying, and I stood staring, for I had always thought that it was
not a thing that a man could do.  I can see him now, for he had so deep
a crease across his brown cheek that no tear could pass it, but must
trickle away sideways and so down to his ear, hopping off on to the
sheet of paper.  My mother sat beside him and stroked his hands like she
did the cat's back when she would soothe it.
 
"Aye, Jeannie," said he, "poor Willie's gone.  It's from the lawyer, and
it was sudden or they'd ha' sent word of it.  Carbuncle, he says, and a
flush o' blood to the head."
 
"Ah! well, his trouble's over," said my mother.
 
My father rubbed his ears with the tablecloth.

"He's left a' his savings to his lassie," said he, "and by gom if she's
not changed from what she promised to be she'll soon gar them flee.
You mind what she said of weak tea under this very roof, and it at seven
shillings the pound!"
 
My mother shook her head, and looked up at the flitches of bacon that
hung from the ceiling.
 
"He doesn't say how much, but she'll have enough and to spare, he says.
And she's to come and bide with us, for that was his last wish."
 
"To pay for her keep!" cried my mother sharply.  I was sorry that she
should have spoken of money at that moment, but then if she had not been
sharp we would all have been on the roadside in a twelvemonth.
 
"Aye, she'll pay, and she's coming this very day.  Jock lad, I'll want
you to drive to Ayton and meet the evening coach.  Your Cousin Edie will
be in it, and you can fetch her over to West Inch."
 
And so off I started at quarter past five with Souter Johnnie, the
long-haired fifteen-year-old, and our cart with the new-painted
tail-board that we only used on great days.  The coach was in just as I
came, and I, like a foolish country lad, taking no heed to the years
that had passed, was looking about among the folk in the Inn front for a
slip of a girl with her petticoats just under her knees.  And as I
slouched past and craned my neck there came a touch to my elbow, and
there was a lady dressed all in black standing by the steps, and I knew
that it was my  cousin Edie.
 
I knew it, I say, and yet had she not touched me I might have passed her
a score of times and never known it.  My word, if Jim Horscroft had
asked me then if she were pretty or no, I should have known how to
answer him!  She was dark, much darker than is common among our border
lasses, and yet with such a faint blush of pink breaking through her
dainty colour, like the deeper flush at the heart of a sulphur rose.
Her lips were red, and kindly, and firm; and even then, at the first
glance, I saw that light of mischief and mockery that danced away at the
back of her great dark eyes.  She took me then and there as though I had
been her heritage, put out her hand and plucked me.  She was, as I have
said, in black, dressed in what seemed to me to be a wondrous fashion,
with a black veil pushed up from her brow.
 
"Ah! Jack," said she, in a mincing English fashion, that she had learned
at the boarding school.  "No, no, we are rather old for that"--this
because I in my awkward fashion was pushing my foolish brown face
forward to kiss her, as I had done when I saw her last.  "Just hurry up
like a good fellow and give a shilling to the conductor, who has been
exceedingly civil to me during the journey."
 
I flushed up red to the ears, for I had only a silver fourpenny piece
in my pocket.  Never had my lack of pence weighed so heavily upon me as
just at that moment.  But she read me at a glance, and there in an
instant was a little moleskin purse with a silver clasp thrust into my
hand.  I paid the man, and would have given it back, but she still would
have me keep it.
 

"You shall be my factor, Jack," said she, laughing.  "Is this our
carriage?  How funny it looks!  And where am I to sit?"
 
"On the sacking," said I.
 
"And how am I to get there?"
 
"Put your foot on the hub," said I.  "I'll help you."
 
I sprang up and took her two little gloved hands in my own.  As she came
over the side her breath blew in my face, sweet and warm, and all that
vagueness and unrest seemed in a moment to have been shredded away from
my soul.  I felt as if that instant had taken me out from myself, and
made me one of the race.  It took but the time of the flicking of the
horse's tail, and yet something had happened, a barrier had gone down
somewhere, and I was leading a wider and a wiser life.  I felt it all in
a flush, but shy and backward as I was, I could do nothing but flatten
out the sacking for her.  Her eyes were after the coach which was
rattling away to Berwick, and suddenly she shook her handkerchief in the
air.
 
"He took off his hat," said she.  "I think he must have been an officer.
He was very distinguished looking.  Perhaps you noticed him--a gentleman
on the outside, very handsome, with a brown overcoat."
 
I shook my head, with all my flush of joy changed to foolish resentment.
 
"Ah! well, I shall never see him again.  Here are all the green braes
and the brown winding road just the same as ever.  And you, Jack, I
don't see any great change in you either.  I hope your manners are
better than they used to be.  You won't try to put any frogs down my
back, will you?"
 
I crept all over when I thought of such a thing.
 
"We'll do all we can to make you happy at West Inch," said I, playing
with the whip.
 
"I'm sure it's very kind of you to take a poor lonely girl in," said
she.
 
"It's very kind of you to come, Cousin Edie," I stammered.  "You'll find
it very dull, I fear."
 
"I suppose it is a little quiet, Jack, eh?  Not many men about, as I
remember it."
 
"There is Major Elliott, up at Corriemuir.  He comes down of an evening,
a real brave old soldier who had a ball in his knee under Wellington."
 
"Ah, when I speak of men.  Jack, I don't mean old folk with balls in
their knees.  I meant people of our own age that we could make friends
of.  By the way, that crabbed old doctor had a son, had he not?"
 
"Oh yes, that's Jim Horscroft, my best friend."
 
"Is he at home?"

"No.  He'll be home soon.  He's still at Edinburgh studying."
 
"Ah! then we'll keep each other company until he comes, Jack.  And I'm
very tired and I wish I was at West Inch."
 
I made old Souter Johnnie cover the ground as he has never done before
or since, and in an hour she was seated at the supper table, where my
mother had laid out not only butter, but a glass dish of gooseberry jam,
which sparkled and looked fine in the candle-light.  I could see that my
parents were as overcome as I was at the difference in her, though not
in the same way.  My mother was so set back by the feather thing that
she had round her neck that she called her Miss Calder instead of Edie,
until my cousin in her pretty flighty way would lift her forefinger to
her whenever she did it.  After supper, when she had gone to bed, they
could talk of nothing but her looks and her breeding.
 
"By the way, though," says my father, "it does not look as if she were
heart-broke about my brother's death."
 
And then for the first time I remembered that she had never said a word
about the matter since I had met her.