PART II.
The THIRD reason why the children were so interested in the old pedlar woman was, I said, the strongest, though the strangest of all. She was an idiot! They were almost too young to understand what being an idiot really meant, but they could see for themselves that she was quite unlike other people, and her strangeness gave her a queer charm and attraction for them—almost what is called "fascination." When she was at Greystanes, where she always stayed two or three days, they were never at a loss for amusement, for they did little else than run here and there to peep at her and tell over to each other the odd way she trotted about, nodding and shaking her head and talking on to herself as if she were holding long conversations. It did not do to let her see they were watching her, for it would have made her angry. Indeed, several times the children had been warned not to do so, and their nurse had been told to keep them out of the old woman's way; but, as everybody knows, children are contradictory creatures, and in the country, nurse could not keep as close a look out on them as in town. Then it was well known that Pig-Betty was very gentle, even when she was angry—and she did have fits of temper sometimes—she had never been known to hurt anyone.
And, of course, she was not quite without sense. She was able to manage her little trade well enough and to see that she was paid correctly for the "pigs" she sold. She was able, too, to tell the difference between Sunday and other days, for on Sunday she would never "travel," and would often, if she were near a village, creep into the "kirk" and sit in a corner quite quietly. Perhaps "idiot" is hardly the right word to use about her, for there were a few old folk who said they had been told that she had not always been quite so strange and "wanting," but that a great trouble or sorrow that had happened in her family had made her so. The truth was that no one knew her real story. She had wandered into our part of the country from a long way off, thirty or forty years ago, and as people had been kind to her, there she had stayed. No one knew how old she was. Uncle James, himself an elderly man, said she had not changed the least all the years he had known her.
Uncle James was one of the people she had a great affection for. She would stand still whenever he passed her with a kindly, "Well, Betty, my woman, and how are ye?" bobbing a kind of queer curtsey till he was out of sight, and murmuring blessings on the "laird." He never forgot her when she was at Greystanes, always giving orders that the poor body should be made comfortable and have all she wanted.
One of his little kindnesses to her was the cause of a good deal of excitement to the children when they were with Uncle James. At that time gentlepeople dined much earlier than they do now, especially in the country. At Greystanes four o'clock was the regular dinner hour. The children used always to be nicely dressed and sent down "to dessert." And when Pig-Betty was there, Uncle James never failed to pour out a glass of wine and say, "Now, who will take this to the old woman?"
Pig-Betty knew it was coming, for she always managed to be in the kitchen at that time, and however busy the servants were, they never thought of turning her out. There was a good deal of superstitious awe felt about her, in spite of her gentleness; and the children would look at each other, half-wishing, half-fearing to be the cup-bearer.
"I will," Johnny would say; and as soon as he spoke all the others followed.
"No, let me," Hughie would cry, and then Maisie and Lily joined in with their "I will," or "Do let me, Uncle James."
"First come, first served," Uncle would reply, as he handed the well-filled glass to Johnny or Maisie, or whichever had been the first. Then the procession of five would set off, walking slowly, so as not to spill the wine, down the long stone passages leading to the kitchen and offices of the old house. And what usually happened was this.
As they got to the kitchen door, Johnny—supposing it was he who was carrying the wine—would go more and more slowly.
"I don't mind, after all, letting you give it, Maisie," or "Hughie," he would say.
"No, thank you, Johnny," they would meekly reply. And Lily, who was the most outspoken, would confess,
"I always think I'd like to give it her, but I do get so frightened when I see her close to me, that I really daren't," which was in truth the feeling of all four!
So it was pretty sure to end by number five coming to the front. Number five was little Annette, the youngest. She was a sweet, curly-haired maiden, too sunny and merry herself to know what fear meant.
"I'll dive it poor old Pig-Betty," she always cried, and so she did. Inside the kitchen the glass was handed to her, and she trotted up to the old woman in her corner with it, undismayed by the near sight of the queer wizened old face, like a red and yellow withered apple, and the bright piercing eyes, to be seen at the end, as it were, of a sort of overhanging archway of shawls and handkerchiefs and queer frilled headpiece under all, which Betty managed in some mysterious way to half bury herself in.
She always murmured blessings on the child as she drank the wine, and no doubt this little ceremony was the beginning of her devotion to the baby of the family.
This devotion was made still greater by what happened one day.
There were unkind and thoughtless people at Greystanes as well as everywhere else. And one summer there came some "new folk" to live in one of the cottages inhabited by Uncle James's farm-labourers. This did not often happen, as he seldom changed his people. These strangers were from some distance, and had never happened to come across the poor half-witted old woman, and there were two or three rough boys in the family who were spoilt and wild, and who thought themselves far above the country people, as they had lived for some time in a small town. And so one day—Oh, dear! I am getting this chapter of mother's story too long. I must begin a new one.
