This appeal touched one of the sufferers at least with a movement of fierce irony. Duncan uttered a short, sharp laugh, which rung strangely into the air, so full of passion. "Haud your tongues, women," he cried, "and no vex Mr. Shaw; you're hurting his feelings," with a tone impossible to describe, in which wrath and misery and keen indignation and ridicule contended for the mastery. He was the only man in the desolate group. He drew a few steps apart and folded his arms upon his breast, retiring in that pride of despair which a cotter ruined may experience no less than a king vanquished, from further struggle or complaint. The women neither understood nor noted the finer meaning in his words. They had but one thought, the misery before them. They crowded round the factor, all speaking in one breath, grasping his arm to call his attention—almost mobbing him with distracted appeals, with the wild natural eloquence of their waving hands and straining eyes.
Meanwhile there were other elements, some comic enough, in the curious circle round. Old Nancy Robertson had not left the doorstep where she stood keenly watching in the composure and superiority of one whom nobody could touch, who had paid her rent, and was above the world. It was scarcely possible not to be a little complacent in the superiority of her circumstances, or to refrain from criticising the unseemly excitement of the others. She had her spectacles on her nose, and her head projected, and she thought they were all like play-actors with their gesticulations and cries. "I wouldna be skreighin' like that—no me," she said. Round about the fringe of children gaped and gazed, some stolid with amaze, some pale in a vague sympathetic misery, none of them quite without a certain enjoyment of this extraordinary episode and stimulation of excitement. And old Jenny, awakened to no alarm about her cottage, still stood upon her knoll, with her whole soul intent upon the fortunes of Brockie, who had met the sheriff's officers in full career. The attempts of her little guardian to turn the cow back from her whiff of pasture had only succeeded in calling the special attention of these invaders. They stopped short, and one of them taking a piece of rope from his pocket secured it round the neck of the frightened animal, who stood something like a woman in a similar case, looking to left and to right, not knowing in her confusion which way to bolt, though the intention was evident in her terrified eyes. At this Jenny gave a shriek of mingled rage and terror, which in its superior force and concentrated passion rang through all the other sounds, silencing for the moment even the wailing of the women—and flung herself into the midst of the struggle. She was a dry, little, withered old woman, nimble and light, and ran like a hare or rabbit down the rough road without a pause or stumble.
"My coo!" cried Jenny, "ye sallna tak' her; ye sall tak' my heart's blood first. My coo! Miss Oona, Miss Oona, will you just be standing by, like nothing at all, and letting them tak' my coo? G'way, ye robbers," Jenny shrieked, flinging one arm about the neck of the alarmed brute, while she pushed away its captor with the other. Her arm was still vigorous, though she was old. The man stumbled and lost his hold of the rope; the cow, liberated, tossed head and tail into the air and flung off to the hill-side like a deer. The shock threw Jenny down and stunned her. This made a little diversion in the dismal scene above.
And now it became evident that whatever was to be done must be done, expression being exhausted on the part of the victims, who stood about in a blank of overwrought feeling awaiting the next move. The factor made a sign with his hand, and sat down upon a ledge of rock opposite the cottages, his shaggy eyebrows curved over his eyes, his hat drawn down upon his brows. A sort of silent shock ran through the beholders when the men entered the first cottage: and when they came out again carrying a piece of furniture, there was a cry, half savage in its wild impotence. Unfortunately the first thing that came to their hands was a large wooden cradle, in which lay a baby tucked up under the big patchwork quilt, which bulged out on every side. As it was set down upon its large rockers on the uneven ground the little sleeper gave a startled wail; and then it was that that cry, sharp and keen, dividing the silence like a knife, burst from the breasts of the watching people. It was Nelly Fraser's baby, who had the "weirdless" man. She stood with her bare arms wrapped in her apron beside her abandoned washing-tub, and gazed as if incapable of movement, with a face like ashes, at the destruction of her home. But while the mother stood stupefied, a little thing of three or four, which had been clinging to her skirts in keen baby wonder and attention, when she saw the cradle carried forth into the open air immediately took the place of guardian. Such an incident had never happened in all little Jeanie's experience before. She trotted forth, abandoning all alarm, to the road in which it was set down, and, turning a little smiling face of perfect content to the world, began to rock it softly with little coos of soothing and rills of infant laughter. The sombre background round, with all its human misery, made a dismal foil to this image of innocent satisfaction. The factor jumped up and turned his back upon the scene altogether, biting his nails and lowering his brows in a fury of wretchedness. And at last the poor women began to stir and take whispered counsel with each other. There was no longer room for either hope or entreaty; the only thing to be thought of now was what to do.
The next cottage was that of Nancy Robertson, who still held her position on her doorstep, watching the proceedings with a keen but somewhat complacent curiosity. They gave her an intense sense of self-importance and superiority, though she was not without feeling. When, however, the men, who had warmed to their work, and knew no distinction between one and another, approached her, a sudden panic and fury seized the old woman. She defied them shrilly, flying at the throat of the foremost with her old hands. The wretchedness of the poor women whose children were being thrust out shelterless did not reach the wild height of passion of her whose lawful property was threatened.
"Villains!" she shrieked, "will ye break into my hoose? What right have ye in my hoose? I'll brack your banes afore you put a fit into my hoose."
"Whist, whist, wife," said one of the men; "let go now, or I'll have to hurt ye. You canna stop us. You'll just do harm to yourself."
"John Shaw, John Shaw," shrieked Nancy, "do ye see what they're doing? and me that has paid my rent, no like those weirdless fuils. Do ye hear me speak? I've paid my rent to the last farden. I've discharged a' my debts, as I wuss ithers would discharge their debts to me." Her voice calmed down as the factor turned and made an impatient sign to the men. "Ye see," said Nancy, making a little address to her community, "what it is to have right on your side. They canna meddle with me. My man's auld, and I have everything to do for mysel', but they canna lay a hand on me.
"Oh, hold your tongue, woman," cried Duncan Fraser. "If ye canna help us, ye can let us be."
"And wha says that I canna help ye? I am just saying—I pay my debts as I wuss that ithers should pay their debts to me: and that's Scripter," said Nancy; but she added, "I never said I would shut my door to a neebor: ye can bring in Granny here; I'm no just a heart of stane like that young lord."