“Eh, keep me!—and Archie Candlish had just that very minute lookit in at the door,” said Jess, lifting her apron to her cheeks, which were glowing with blushes and laughter. “No that I wanted him; but he came in wi’ the news aboot the new minister, and noo I’ll never hear an end o’t, and the maister will think he’s aye there.”
“If he’s a decent lad and means weel, its nae great matter,” said the mistress; “but I dinna approve of ower mony lads. Ye may gang through the wood and through the wood and take but a crooked stick at the end.”
“There’s naebody I ken o’ that the mistress can mean, but Bowed Jacob,” said Jess reflectively, “and are might do waur than take him though he’s nae great figure of a man. The siller that body makes is a miracle, and it would be grand to live in a twa-storied house, and keep a lass; but he’s an awfu’ Establishment man, and he micht interfere wi’ my convictions,” said the young woman with a glimmer of humour which found no response in the mistress’s serious eyes; for Mrs. Campbell, being of a poetical and imaginative temperament, took most things much in earnest, and was slow to perceive a joke.
“You shouldna speak about convictions in that light way, Jess,” said the farmer’s wife. “I wouldna meddle wi’ them mysel’, no for a’ the wealth o’ the parish; but though the maister and me are strong Kirk folk, ye ken ye never were molested here.”
“To hear Archie Candlish about the new minister!” cried Jess, whose quick ear had already ascertained that her master had paused in the kitchen to speak to her visitor, “ye would laugh; but though it’s grand fun for the folk, maybe it’s no so pleasant for the poor man. We put down our names for the man we like best, us Free Kirk folk, but it’s different in the parish. There’s Tammas Scott, he vows he’ll object to every presentee the Earl puts in. I’m no heeding for the Earl,” said Jesse; “he’s a dour tory and can fecht for himsel’; but eh I wouldna be that poor minister set up there for a’ the parish to object to. I’d rather work at a weaver’s loom or sell herrings about the country-side, if it was me!”
“Weel, weel, things that are hard for the flesh are guid for the spirit—or at least folk say so,” cried the mistress of Ramore.
“I dinna believe in that for my part,” said the energetic Jess, as she lifted the wooden cradle in her strong arms. “Leave the wean still, mistress, and draw your shawl about ye. I could carry you too, for that matter. Eh me, I’m no o’ that way o’ thinking; when ye’re happy and weel likit, ye’re aye good in proportion. No to gang against the words o’ Scripture,” said Jess, setting down the big cradle with a bump in her mistress’s bedroom, and looking anxiously at the sleeping baby, which with a little start and gape, resisted this attempt to break its slumbers; “but eh, mistress, it’s aye my opinion that the happier folk are the better they are. I never was as happy as in this house,” continued the grateful handmaiden, furtively pursuing a tear into the corner of her eye, with a large forefinger, “no that I’m meaning to say I’m guid; but yet—”
“You might be waur,” said the mistress, with a smile. “You’ve aye a kind heart and a blythe look, and that gangs a far way wi’ the maister and me. But it’s time Archie Candlish was hame to his mother. When there’s nae moon and such heavy roads, you shouldna bring a decent man three mile out of his way at this hour o’ the nicht to see you.”
“Me? as if I was wanting him,” said Jess, “and him no a word to say to me or ony lass, but about the beasts and the new minister. I’ll be back in half a minute; I wouldna waste my time upon a gomeril like you.”
While Jess sallied forth through the chilly passages to which the weeping atmosphere had communicated a sensation of universal damp, the mistress knelt down to arrange her infant more commodiously in its homely nest. The red firelight made harmless glimmers all over her figure, catching now and then a sidelong glance out of her eyes as she smoothed the little pillow, and laid the tiny coverlet over the small unconscious creature wrapt closely in webs and bands of sleep. When she had done, she still knelt watching it as mothers will, with a smile upon her face. After a while the beaming soft dark eyes turned to the light with a natural attraction, to the glimmers of the fire shooting accidental rays into all the corners, and to the steady little candle on the mantel-shelf. The mistress looked round on all the familiar objects of the homely low-roofed chamber. Outside, the rain fell heavily still upon the damp and sodden country, soaking silently in the dark into the forlorn wheat-sheaves, which had been standing in the fields to dry in ineffectual hopefulness for past weeks. Matters did not look promising on the farm of Ramore, and nothing had occurred to add any particular happiness to its mistress’s lot. But happiness is perverse and follows no rule, and Jess’s sentiment found an echo in Mrs. Campbell’s mind. As she knelt by the cradle, her heart suddenly swelled with a consciousness of the perfection of life and joy in her and around her. It was in homely words enough that she gave it expression—“A’ weel, and under ae roof,” she said to herself with exquisite dews of thankfulness in her eyes. “And the Lord have pity on lone folk and sorrowful,” added the tender woman, with a compassion beyond words, a yearning that all might be glad like herself; the pity of happiness, which is of all pity, the most divine. Her boys were saying abrupt prayers, one by one, as they sank in succession into dreamless slumber. The master had gone out in the rain to take one last look over his kyne and his farmyard, and see that all was safe for the night, and Archie Candlish had just been dismissed with a stinging jest from the kitchen door, which Jess bolted and barred with cheerful din, singing softly to herself as she went about the house putting up the innocent shutters, which could not have resisted the first touch of a skilful hand. The rain was falling all over the wet silent country; the Holy Loch gleamed like a kind of twilight spot in the darkness, and the house of Ramore stood shut up and hushed, no light at all to be seen but that from the open door, which the farmer suddenly extinguished as he came in. But when that solitary light died out from the invisible hillside, and the darkness and the rain and the whispering night took undisturbed possession, was just the moment when the mother within, kneeling over her cradle in the firelight, was surprised by that sudden conscious touch of happiness.—“Happiness? oh, ay, weel enough; we’ve a great deal to be thankfu’ for,” said big Colin, with a little sleepy surprise; “if it werna for the sprouting corn and the broken weather; but I dinna see onything particular to be happy about at this minute, and I’m gaun to my bed.”