“It is, but Christine kens all o’ her duty, and it will be her pleasure to fulfill it.” And she clasped her mother’s hands in hers, and kissed her. And Margot’s old pawky smile flitted o’er her face, and she said, “We must ask the Domine anent this question”—then a little sarcastically—“or Neil will gie us the Common Law o’ Scotland concerning it.”
So the trouble ended with a smile and the shout of Jamie as he flung open the house door, in a storm of hurry and pleasure. “Auntie! Grandmither!” he cried. “We are going to have a tug-of-war between the English and the Scotch, on the playground, at half-past twelve. I’m on the Scotch side. Gie me my dinner, Auntie, and I’ll be awa’ to help floor Geordie Kent, and the rest of his upsetting crowd. Geordie’s mither is English, and he’s always boasting about the circumstance.”
“Are you going to tak’ the brag out o’ him, Jamie?”
“I am going to help do so, with all my might, but there’s some Border lads among the English set, and they are a hefty lot, and hard to beat.”
“That’s right, Jamie! Fife lads shout when the boat wins the harbor, not till then. All the same, laddie, bring me word o’ your victory.”
When dinner was over Christine dressed herself for her visitor, and the light of love and expectation gave to her face an unusual beauty. She wore her fisher costume, for she thought Cluny would like it best, but it was fresh and bright and quite coquettish, with its pretty fluted cap, its gold earrings, its sky-blue bodice and skirt of blue and yellow stripes, and the little kerchief of vivid scarlet round her shoulders. Its final bit of vanity was a small white muslin apron, with little pockets finished off with bows of scarlet ribbon. If she had dressed herself for a fashionable masquerade ball she would have been its most picturesque belle and beauty.
It was seven o’clock when Cluny arrived. Ruleson had gone to a meeting of the School Trustees, a business, in his opinion, of the very greatest importance; and Margot’s womanly, motherly sense told her that Cluny would rather have her absence than her company. So she had pleaded weariness, and gone to her room soon after tea was over, and Cluny had “the fair opportunity,” he so often declared he never obtained; for Margot had said to Jamie, “You’ll 218 come and sit wi’ me, laddie, and gie me the full story o’ your bloody defeat, and we’ll mak’ a consultation anent the best way o’ mending it.”
“This is glorious!” cried Cluny, as he stood alone with Christine in the firelit room. “I have you all to mysel’! Oh, you woman of all the world, what have you to say to me this night?”
“What do you want me to say, Cluny?”