I had been waiting a long time ere I heard her come, lissomly springing from tuft to tuft of grass and whistling that bonny dance tune, “The Broom o’ the Cowdenknowes.” But even before I looked up I caught the trouble in her tones. She whistled more shrilly than usual, and the liquid fluting of her notes, mellow mostly like those of the blackbird, had now an angry ring.
“What is the matter, Alexander-Jonita?” I cried, e’er I had so much as set eyes on her.
The whistling ceased at my question. She came near, and leaning her elbows on the dyke, she regarded me sternly.
“Then you know something about it?” she said, looking at me between the eyes, her own narrowed till they glinted wintry and keen as the gimlet-tool wherewith the joiner bores his holes.
“Has your father married the dairymaid, or Meg the pony cast a shoe?” I asked of her, with a lightness I did not feel.
“Tut,” she cried, “’tis the matter of your brother, as well you know.”
“What of my brother?”
“Why, our silly Jean has made eyes at him, and let the salt water fall on the breast of his black minister’s coat. And now the calf declares that he loves her!”
I stood up in sharp surprise.
“He no more loves her than—than——”