THE CHOOSING OF JIM

 And then there came those ten weeks which were like a dream, and are so

now to look back upon.  I would weary you were I to tell you what passed

between us; but oh, how earnest and fateful and all-important it was at

the time!  Her waywardness; her ever-varying moods, now bright, now

dark, like a meadow under drifting clouds; her causeless angers; her

sudden repentances, each in turn filling me with joy or sorrow: these

were my life, and all the rest was but emptiness.  But ever deep down

behind all my other feelings was a vague disquiet, a fear that I was

like the man who set forth to lay hands upon the rainbow, and that the

real Edie Calder, however near she might seem, was in truth for ever

beyond my reach.

For she was so hard to understand, or, at least, she was so for a

dull-witted country lad like me.  For if I would talk to her of my real

prospects, and how by taking in the whole of Corriemuir we might earn a

hundred good pounds over the extra rent, and maybe be able to build out

the parlour at West Inch, so as to make it fine for her when we married,

she would pout her lips and droop her eyes, as though she scarce had

patience to listen to me.  But if I would let her build up dreams about

what I might become, how I might find a paper which proved me to be the

true heir of the laird, or how, without joining the army, which she

would by no means hear of, I showed myself to be a great warrior until

my name was in all folks' mouths, then she would be as blithe as the

May.  I would keep up the play as well as I could, but soon some

luckless word would show that I was only plain Jock Calder of West Inch,

and out would come her lip again in scorn of me.  So we moved on, she in

the air and I on the ground; and if the rift had not come in one way, it

must in another.

It was after Christmas, but the winter had been mild, with just frost

enough to make it safe walking over the peat bogs.  One fresh morning

Edie had been out early, and she came back to breakfast with a fleck of

colour on her cheeks.

"Has your friend the doctor's son come home, Jack?" says she.

"I heard that it was expected."

"Ah! then it must have been him that I met on the muir."
 
"What! you met Jim Horscroft?"
 
"I am sure it must be he.  A splendid-looking man--a hero, with curly
black hair, a short, straight nose, and grey eyes.  He had shoulders
like a  statue, and as to height, why, I suppose that your head, Jack,
would come up to his scarf-pin."
 
"Up to his ear, Edie!" said I indignantly.  "That is, if it was Jim.
But tell me.  Had he a brown wooden pipe stuck in the corner of his
mouth?"
 
"Yes, he was smoking.  He was dressed in grey, and he has a grand deep
strong voice."
 
"Ho, ho! you spoke to him!" said I.
 
She coloured a little, as if she had said more than she meant.
 
"I was going where the ground was a little soft, and he warned me of
it," she said.
 
"Ah! it must have been dear old Jim," said I.  "He should have been a
doctor years back, if his brains had been as strong as his arm.
Why, heart alive, here is the very man himself!"
 
I had seen him through the kitchen window, and now I rushed out with my
half-eaten bannock in my hand to greet him.  He ran forward too, with
his great hand out and his eyes shining.
 
"Ah! Jock," he cried, "it's good to see you again.  There are no friends
like the old ones."
 
Then suddenly he stuck in his speech, and stared with his mouth open
over my shoulder.  I turned, and there was Edie, with such a merry,
roguish smile, standing in the door.  How proud I felt of her, and of
myself too, as I looked at her!
 
"This is my cousin, Miss Edie Calder, Jim," said I.
 
"Do you often take walks before breakfast, Mr. Horscroft?" she asked,
still with that roguish smile.
 
"Yes," said he, staring at her with all his eyes.
 
"So do I, and generally over yonder," said she.  "But you are not very
hospitable to your friend, Jack.  If you do not do the honours, I shall
have to take your place for the credit of West Inch."
 
Well, in another minute we were in with the old folk, and Jim had his
plate of porridge ladled out for him; but hardly a word would he speak,
but sat with his spoon in his hand staring at Cousin Edie.  She shot
little twinkling glances across at him all the time, and it seemed to me
that she was amused at his backwardness, and that she tried by what she
said to give him heart.
 
"Jack was telling me that you were studying to be a doctor," said she.
"But oh, how hard it must be, and how long it must take before one can
gather so much learning as that!"
 
"It takes me long enough," Jim answered ruefully; "but I'll beat it
yet."
 
"Ah! but you are brave.  You are resolute.  You fix your eyes on a point
and you move on towards it, and nothing can stop you."
 
"Indeed, I've little to boast of," said he.  "Many a one who began with
me has put up his plate years ago, and here am I but a student still."
 
"That is your modesty, Mr. Horscroft.  They say that the bravest are
always humble.  But then, when you have gained your end, what a glorious
career--to carry healing in your hands, to raise up the suffering, to
have for one's sole end the good of humanity!"
 
Honest Jim wriggled in his chair at this.
 
"I'm afraid I have no such very high motives, Miss Calder," said he.
"It's to earn a living, and to take over my father's business, that I do
it.  If I carry healing in one hand, I have the other out for a
crown-piece."
 
"How candid and truthful you are!" she cried; and so they went on, she
decking him with every virtue, and twisting his words to make him play
the part, in the way that I knew so well.  Before he was done I could
see that his head was buzzing with her beauty and her kindly words.
I thrilled with pride to think that he should think so well of my kin.
 
"Isn't she fine, Jim?"  I could not help saying when we stood outside
the door, he lighting his pipe before he set off home.
 
"Fine!" he cried; "I never saw her match!"
 
"We're going to be married," said I.
 
The pipe fell out of his mouth, and he stood staring at me.  Then he
picked it up and walked off without a word.  I thought that he would
likely come back, but he never did; and I saw him far off up the brae,
with his chin on his chest.
 
But I was not to forget him, for Cousin Edie had a hundred questions to
ask me about his boyhood, about his strength, about the women that he
was likely to know; there was no satisfying her.  And then again, later
in the day, I heard of him, but in a less pleasant  fashion.
 
It was my father who came home in  the evening with his mouth full of
poor Jim.  He had been deadly drunk since midday, had been down to
Westhouse Links to fight the gipsy champion, and it was not certain that
the man would live through the night.  My father had met Jim on the
highroad, dour as a thunder-cloud, and with an insult in his eye for
every man that passed him.  "Guid sakes!" said the old man.  "He'll make
a fine practice for himsel', if breaking banes will do it."
 
Cousin Edie laughed at all this, and I laughed because she did; but I
was not so sure that it was funny.
 
On the third day afterwards, I was going up Corriemuir by the
sheep-track, when who should I see striding down but Jim himself.
But he was a different man from the big, kindly fellow who had supped
his porridge with us the other morning.  He had no collar nor tie, his
vest was open, his hair matted, and his face mottled, like a man who has
drunk heavily overnight.  He carried an ash stick, and he slashed at the
whin-bushes on either side of the path.
 
"Why, Jim!" said I.
 
But he looked at me in the way that I had often seen at school when the
devil was strong in him, and when he knew that he was in the wrong, and
yet set his will to brazen it out.  Not a word did he say, but he
brushed past me on the narrow path and swaggered  on, still brandishing
his ash-plant and  cutting at the bushes.
 
Ah well, I was not angry with him.  I was sorry, very sorry, and that
was all.  Of course I was not so blind but that I could see how the
matter stood.  He was in love with Edie, and he could not bear to think
that I should have her.  Poor devil, how could he help it?  Maybe I
should have been the same.  There was a time when I should have wondered
that a girl could have turned a strong man's head like that, but I knew
more about it now.
 
For a fortnight I saw nothing of Jim Horscroft, and then came the
Thursday which was to change the whole current of my life.
 
I had woke early that day, and with a little thrill of joy which is a
rare thing to feel when a man first opens his eyes.  Edie had been
kinder than usual the night before, and I had fallen asleep with the
thought that maybe at last I had caught the rainbow, and that without
any imaginings or make-believes she was learning to love plain, rough
Jock Calder of West Inch.  It was this thought, still at my heart, which
had given me that little morning chirrup of joy.  And then I remembered
that if I hastened I might be in time for her, for it was her custom to
go out with the sunrise.
 
But I was too late.  When I came to her door it was half-open and the
room empty.  Well, thought I, at least I may meet her and have the
homeward walk with her.  From the top of Corriemuir hill you may see all
the country round; so, catching up my stick, I swung off in that
direction.  It was bright, but cold, and the surf, I remember, was
booming loudly, though there had been no wind in our parts for days.
I zigzagged up the steep pathway, breathing in the thin, keen morning
air, and humming a lilt as I went, until I came out, a little short of
breath, among the whins upon the top.  Looking down the long slope of
the farther side, I saw Cousin Edie, as I had expected; and I saw Jim
Horscroft walking by her side.
 
They were not far away, but too taken up with each other to see me.  She
was walking slowly, with the little petulant cock of her dainty head
which I knew so well, casting her eyes away from him, and shooting out a
word from time to time.  He paced along beside her, looking down at her
and bending his head in the eagerness of his talk.  Then as he said

something, she placed her hand with a caress upon his arm, and he,
carried off his feet, plucked her up and kissed her again and again.
At the sight I could neither cry out nor move, but stood, with a heart
of lead and the face of a dead man, staring down at them.  I saw her
hand passed over his shoulder, and that his kisses were as welcome to
her as ever mine had been.
 
Then he set her down again, and I found that this had been their
parting;  for, indeed, in another hundred paces they would have come in
view of the upper windows of the house.   She walked slowly away, with a
wave back once or twice, and he stood looking after her.  I waited until
she was some  way off, and then down I came, but so taken up was he,
that I was within a hand's-touch of him before he whisked round upon me.
He tried to smile as is eye met mine.
 
"Ah, Jock," says he, "early afoot!"
 
"I saw you!" I gasped; and my throat had turned so dry that I spoke like
a man with a quinsy.
 
"Did you so?" said he, and gave a little whistle.  "Well, on my life,
Jock, I'm not sorry.  I was thinking of coming up to West Inch this very
day, and having it out with you.  Maybe it's better as it is."
 
"You've been a fine friend!" said I.
 
"Well now, be reasonable, Jock," said he, sticking his hands into his
pockets and rocking to and fro as he stood.  "Let me show you how it
stands.  Look me in the eye, and you'll see that I don't lie.  It's this
Way.  I had met Edi--Miss Calder that is--before I came that morning,
and there were things which made me look upon her as free; and, thinking
that, I let my mind dwell on her.  Then you said she wasn't free, but
was promised to you, and that was the worst knock I've had for a time.
It clean put me off, and I made a fool of myself for some days, and it's
a mercy I'm not in Berwick gaol.  Then by chance I met her again--on my
soul, Jock, it was chance for me--and when I spoke of you she laughed at
the thought.  It was cousin and cousin, she said; but as for her not
being free, or you being more to her than a friend, it was fool's talk.
So you see, Jock, I was not so much to blame, after all: the more so as
she promised that she would let you see by her conduct that you were
mistaken in thinking that you had any claim upon her.  You must have
noticed that she has hardly had a word for you for these last two
weeks."
 
I laughed bitterly.
 
"It was only last night," said I, "that she told me that I was the only
man in all this earth that she could ever bring herself to love."
 
Jim Horscroft put out a shaking hand and laid it on my shoulder, while
he pushed his face forward to look into my eyes.
 
"Jock Calder," said he, "I never knew you tell a lie.  You are not
trying to score trick against trick, are you?  Honest now, between man
and man."
 
"It's God's truth," said I.

 
He stood looking at me, and his face had set like that of a man who is
having a hard fight with himself.  It was a long two minutes before he
spoke.
 
"See here, Jock!" said he.  "This woman is fooling us both.  D'you hear,
man? she's fooling us both!  She loves you at West Inch, and she loves
me on the braeside; and in her devil's heart she cares a whin-blossom
for neither of us.  Let's join hands, man, and send the hellfire hussy
to the right-about!"
 
But this was too much.  I could not curse her in my own heart, and still
less could I stand by and hear another man do it; not though it was my
oldest friend.
 
"Don't you call names!" I cried.
 
"Ach! you sicken me with your soft talk!  I'll call her what she should
be called!"
 
"Will you, though?" said I, lugging off my coat.  "Look you here, Jim
Horscroft, if you say another word against her, I'll lick it down your
throat, if you were as big as Berwick Castle!  Try me and see!"
 
He peeled off his coat down to the elbows, and then he slowly put it on
again.
 
"Don't be such a fool, Jock!" said he.  "Four stone and five inches is
more than mortal man can give.  Two old friends mustn't fall out over
such a--well, there, I won't say it.  Well, by the Lord, if she hasn't
nerve for ten!"
 
I looked round, and there she was, not twenty yards from us, looking as
cool and easy and placid as we were hot and fevered.
 
"I was nearly home," said she, "when I saw you two boys very busy
talking, so I came all the way back to know what it was about."
 
Horscroft took a run forward and caught her by the wrist.  She gave a
little squeal at the sight of his face, but he pulled her towards where
I was standing.
 
"Now, Jock, we've had tomfoolery enough," said he.  "Here she is.  Shall
we take her word as to which she likes?  She can't trick us now that
we're both together."
 
"I am willing," said I.
 
"And so am I.  If she goes for you, I swear I'll never so much as turn
an eye on her again.  Will you do as much for me?"
 
"Yes, I will."
 
"Well then, look here, you!  We're both honest men, and friends, and we
tell each other no lies; and so we know your double ways.  I know what
you said last night.  Jock knows what you said to-day.  D'you see?
Now then, fair and square!  Here we are before you; once and have done.

Which is it to be, Jock or me?"
 
You would have thought that the woman would have been overwhelmed with
shame, but instead of that her eyes were shining with delight; and I
dare wager that it was the proudest moment of her life.  As she looked
from one to the other of us, with the cold morning sun glittering on her
face, I had never seen her look so lovely.  Jim felt it also, I am sure;
for he dropped her wrist, and the harsh lines were softened upon his
face.
 
"Come, Edie! which is it to be?" he asked.
 
"Naughty boys, to fall out like this!" she cried.  "Cousin Jack, you
know how fond I am of you."
 
"Oh, then go to him!" said Horscroft.
 
"But I love nobody but Jim.  There is nobody that I love like Jim."
 
She snuggled up to him, and laid her cheek against his breast.
 
"You see, Jock!" said he, looking over her shoulder.
 
I did see; and away I went for West Inch, another man from the time that
I left it.