“He had a frail constitution like my ain,” said Mrs. Yammer, “and Johann maun aye have some great misfortune to account for it, when it’s naething but weakness. Eh, Miss Ross, if ye only kent the trouble it is to a puir frail creature like me to make any exertion.”
Miss Crankie twisted her strange little figure impatiently:
“When auld Schole died, Christian and Patrick flitted into the house, and let their ain; they couldna bide it after that. It’s a bit bonnie wee place, maybe twa miles on the ither side of Aberford; and Redheugh is maybe a quarter o’ a mile nearer. They say the King gets the lands when ony man does a crime like that; it’s what they ca’ confiscate. Redheugh has been confiscate before now. The auld Rutherfords were Covenanters langsyne, and lost their inheritance some time in the eight-and-twenty years—but that was in a guid cause. Ony way, this Mr. Rutherford was the last of his name: if there had been ony heir, I kenna whether he could have gotten Redheugh or no, but it’s a mercy the race is clean gane, and there is none living to bear the reproach.”
Anne’s heart beat loudly against her breast; she remained to represent the fallen house of Rutherford—she was the heir—the reproach: and the suffering must be her’s as well as Norman’s.
“And was there no doubt?” she asked, “was no one else suspected?”
“Bless me, no; wha in our quiet countryside would lift a hand against a man’s life? If he hadna done it, he wadna have fled away; and if Kirstin had ony certainty that he hadna done it, do you think she could have bidden still? Na, I ken Kirstin Lillie better. Patrick was aye a weakly lad, ower gentle for the like of that, but Kirstin could never have sitten down in idleset if there had been ony hope. Mony a heart was wae for him at the time, but the story has blawn by now; few folk think of it. I wadna have tell’t ye, Miss Ross, if ye hadna noticed Kirstin first yoursel—but ye’ll no mention it again.”
“I certainly will not do anything that could hurt Miss Lillie’s feelings,” said Anne.
“Ye see, she’s half housekeeper of Schole the now; she pays nae rent, or if there’s ony, it’s just for the name, and the house is sae dismal-looking that naebody seeks to see’t. You would think they couldna thole a living face dear them; they gang to the Kirk regular, and whiles ye will see them wandering on the sands; but for visiting onybody, or having onybody visiting them, ye might as weel think of the spirits in heaven having commune with us that are on the earth.”
“And that minds me,” said Mrs. Yammer, breaking in with a long loud sigh, which the impatient Miss Crankie knew by dire experience was the prelude to a doleful story, “of the awfu’ fright I got after my man John Yammer was laid in his grave, that brought on my palpitation. Ye see, Miss Ross, I was sitting my lane, yae eerie night about Martinmas, in my wee parlor that looks out on the green; and Johann, she was away at Aberford, laying in some saut meat for the winter—wasna it saut meat, Johann?”
“Never you mind, Tammie, my woman,” said Johann, persuasively. “We’re dune wi’ saut meat for this year.”