“They were talking of Cluny’s rights, and——”
“Cluny hes no rights but those my love gives him. I will not marry for a year, at least. I will not live in Glasgow. I will bide in my ain hame. It suits me fine. I can do a’ the writing I want to do in its white, still rooms. I can see wee Jamie here every day. I am out o’ clash and claver o’ the village folk. I can watch the sea and the ships, and feel the winds, and the sunshine, and do my wark, and eat my morsel in parfect peace. Na, na, the auld hame suits me fine! Tell your wife Christine Ruleson will live and die in it.”
Norman did not move or speak, and Christine asked anxiously, “Do you wish me to leave Culraine, and go to Glasgow, Norman?”
“No, I do not! Your wish is mine, and if Mither were here today, I know she would scorn any proposal that brought Jessy here. She never liked Jessy.”
“Her liking or disliking did not influence her will about the house. She loved every stone in this cottage, and above all she loved her garden, and her flowers. Tell me, Norman, if Jessy came here, how long would the house be in decent order? And where would Mither’s bonnie flower-garden be, by the end o’ the spring weather? For Mither’s sake I’ll tak’ care o’ the things she loved. They werna many, and they werna worth much, but they were all she had, for her hard working life, and her sair suffering. And she relied on you, Norman. She said in her last hours, ‘If things are contrary, Christine, and you can’t manage them, ca’ on Norman, and nane else. Norman will stand by his sister, if a’ the warld was against her.’”
“Ay, will he! Blood is thicker than water. We had the same Feyther and Mither. Nane better ever lived,” and he stretched out his hand, and Christine clasped it, and then he kissed her, and went away.
Jessy was waiting for him. “Ye hae been a mortal lang time, Norman,” she said. “I hae been 298 that narvous and unsettled i’ my mind, I couldna even get a bite ready for ye.”
“Weel ye be to settle yoursel’ now, Jessy; for my sister has her mind fixed on the way she has set hersel’, and naebody will be able to move her. Naebody!”
“Is she getting her wedding things ready?”