CHAPTER XV. ALEXANDER-JONITA.

We had been steadily approaching the farm-steading of Drumglass, where it sits pleasantly under the hill looking down over the water-meadows, the while Nathan Gemmell told me his grandfather’s tale showing how a man ought to rule the parish of Balmaghie.

We had gotten almost to the door of the farm when we saw a horse and rider top the heathery fell to the left, and sweep down upon us at a tearing gallop.

The old man, hearing the clatter of stones, turned quickly.

“Alexander-Jonita!” he exclaimed, shaking his head with fond blame towards the daring rider, “I declare that lassie will break neck-bone some o’ thae days. And that will be seen!”

With dark hair flying in the wind, eyes gleaming like stars, short kirtle driven back{130} from her knees by the rush of the horse’s stride, came a girl of eighteen or twenty on the back of a haltered but saddle-free mare.

Whether, as her father had boasted, the girl was riding astride, or whether she sat in the new-fangled way of the city ladies, I cannot venture to decide. For with a sharp turn of the hempen bridle she reined her beast within a few yards of us, and so had leaped nimbly to the ground before the startled senses could take in all the picture.

“Lassie,” cried the elder, with a not intolerant reproof in his tones, “where hae ye been that the kirk and the service of God saw ye not this day?”

The girl came fearlessly forward, looking me directly in the eyes. The reins were yet in her hand.

“Father,” she said, gently enough, but without looking at him, “I had the marches to ride, the ‘aval’ sheep to turn, the bitten ewes to dress with tar, the oxen to keep in bound, the horses to water; besides which, Jean wanted my stockings and Sunday gear to be braw the day at the kirk. So I had e’en to bide at hame!”

“Thing shame o’ yoursel’, Alexander-Jonita!”{131} cried her father, “ye are your mither’s dochter. Ye tak’ not after the douce ways o’ your faither. Spite o’ a’ excuses, ye should hae been at the kirk.”

“Is this the young minister lad?” said Alexander-Jonita, looking at me more with the assured direct gaze of a man than with the customary bashfulness of a maid. Singularly fearless and forthlooking was her every glance.

“Even so,” said her father, “the lad has spoken weel this day!”

She looked me through and through, till I felt the manhood in me stir to vexation, not with shyness alone, but for very shame to be thus outfaced and made into a bairn.

She spoke again, still, however, keeping her eyes on me.

“I am no kirk-goer—no, nor yet great kirk-lover. But I ken a man when I see him,” said the strange maid, holding out her hand frankly. And, curiously enough, I took it with an odd sense of gratitude and comradeship.

“The kirk,” said I, “is not indeed all that it might be, but the kirk and conventicle alike are the gathering places of those that love the good way. We are not to forsake the assembling of ourselves together.”{132}

“Even so, minister!” she said, with some sudden access of gravity, “and this day I have been preaching the Gospel to the sheep and the oxen, the kye and the horse-beasts within the bounds of my parish, while ye spake your good word to human creatures that were maybe somewhat less grateful.”

“The folk to whom I spake had immortal souls,” said I, a little indignant to be thus bearded by a lassie.

“And how,” she retorted, turning on me quick as a fire-flash, “ken ye that the beasts have none, or that their spirit goeth downward into the earth? Have they not bodies also and gratitude? There was a sore distressed sheep this morning at Tornorrach that looked at me first with eyes that spake a prayer. But after I had cleansed and dressed the hurt, it breathed a benediction, sweet as any said in the Kirk of Balmaghie this day!”

“Nevertheless it was for men and women, perishing in sin, that Christ died!” I persisted, not willing to be silenced.

“How ken ye that?” she said; “did not the same Lord make the sheep on the hills and the kye in the byres? Will He that watches the sparrow fall think it wrong to lift a sheep out{133} of a pit on the Sabbath? The Pharisees are surely not all dead to this day!”

“E’en let her alane, ye will be as wise,” said her father; “she has three words to every one that are given to men o’ sense. But she is withal a good lass and true of speech. Alexander-Jonita, stable your beast and come ben to wait on the minister in the ben room.”[9]

The girl moved away, leading her steed, and her father and I went on to the house of Drumglass.

When we entered the table was not yet set, and there were no preparations for a meal. Nathan Gemmell looked about him with a certain severe darkening expression, which told of a temper not yet altogether brought into obedience to the spirit.

“Jean—Jean Gemmell!” he cried, “come hither, lass!” He went and knocked loudly at the chamber door, which opened at one side of the kitchen.

“Wherefore have ye not set the table for the meal of meat?” he asked, frowning upon the maiden whom I had first seen. She stood with meek and smiling face looking at us from{134} the lintel. Her face was shining and her hair very becomingly attired, though (as I observed) in a different fashion from what it had been in the morning by the kirk-gate when she gave me her piece to stay my hunger.

“I have been praying upon my knees for a blessing upon the work of this day in the kirk,” said Jean Gemmell, looking modestly down, “and I waited for Alexander-Jonita to help me to lay the table.”

“Were ye not vainly adoring your frail tabernacle? It seems more likely!” said her father, somewhat cruelly as I thought.

Then she looked once across at me, and her eyes filled with tears, so that I was vividly sorry for the maid. But she turned away from her father’s reproof without a word.

“We can well afford to wait. There is no haste,” I said, to ease her hurt if so I could; “this good kind maiden gave me all she had this morning in the kirk-yard, or I know not how I should have sped at the preaching work this day!”

Jean Gemmell paused half-way across the floor, as her father was employed looking out of the little window to catch a glimpse of Alexander-Jonita. She lifted her eyes again to mine{135} with a look of sweet and tender gratitude and understanding which more than thanked me for the words I had spoken.

At that moment in came Alexander-Jonita with a free swing like some stripling gallant of high degree. I own that even at that time I liked to see her walk. She, at least, was no proud dame like—well, like one whose eyes abode with me, and the thought of whose averted gaze (God pardon me!) lay heavy about my heart when I ought to have been thinking of other and higher things.

Alexander-Jonita waited for no bidding, but after a glance which took in at once the empty board and Jean’s smooth dress and well-ordered hair, she hasted to spread a white cloth on the table, a coverture bleached and fine as it had been laundered for a prince’s repast. Then to cupboard and aumrie she went, bringing down and setting in order oaten bread, sour-milk scones of honest crispness, dried ham-of-mutton which she sliced very thin before serving—the rarest dainty of Galloway, and enough to make a hungry man’s mouth water only to think upon.

Then came in Jean Gemmell, who made shift to help daintily as she found occasion. But,{136} listening over-closely to the converse of her father and myself, it chanced that she let fall a platter, which breaking, set her sister in a quick high mood. So that she ordered the lass to go and sit down while folk with hands did the work.

Now this somewhat vexed me, for I could see by the modest, covert way the girl glanced up at me as she set herself obediently down in the low window seat that her heart was full to the overflowing. Also something in the wild girl’s tone mettled me.

So I said to Jean across the kitchen, “Be of good cheer, maiden. There was one at Bethany who waited not, but yet chose the better part.”

“Aye,” cried Alexander-Jonita as she turned from the cupboard with a plate of butter, “say ye so? I ever kenned that you young ministers thought excellent things of yourselves, but I dreamed not that ye went as far as that.”

Whereat I blushed hotly, to think that I had unwittingly compared myself to One who sat with Martha and Mary in the house. And after that I was dumb before the sharp-tongued lass all the time of eating. But under the table Jean Gemmell put her hand a moment on mine, seeing me fallen silent and downcast.