The Great Shadow and Other Napoleonic Tales | Page 7

one to her, and tell her that I

would put it down her neck unless she told a story. That always helped
her to begin; but when once she was started it was wonderful how she
would carry on. And the things that had happened to her, they were
enough to take your breath away. There was a Barbary rover that had
been at Eyemouth, and he was coming back in five years in a ship full
of gold to make her his wife; and then there was a wandering knight
who had been there also, and he had given her a ring which he said he
would redeem when the time came. She showed me the ring, which
was very like the ones upon my bed curtain; but she said that this one
was virgin gold. I asked her what the knight would do if he met the
Barbary rover, and she told me that he would sweep his head from his
shoulders. What they could all see in her was more than I could think.
And then she told me that she had been followed on her way to West
Inch by a disguised prince. I asked her how she knew it was a prince,
and she said by his disguise. Another day she said that her father was
preparing a riddle, and that when it was ready it would be put in the
papers, and anyone who guessed it would have half his fortune and his
daughter. I said that I was good at riddles, and that she must send it to
me when it was ready. She said it would be in the Berwick Gazette, and
wanted to know what I would do with her when I won her. I said I
would sell her by public roup for what she would fetch; but she would
tell no more stories that evening, for she was very techy about some
things.
Jim Horscroft was away when Cousin Edie was with us, but he came
back the very week she went; and I mind how surprised I was that he
should ask any questions or take any interest in a mere lassie. He asked
me if she were pretty; and when I said I hadn't noticed, he laughed and
called me a mole, and said my eyes would be opened some day. But
very soon he came to be interested in something else, and I never gave
Edie another thought until one day she just took my life in her hands
and twisted it as I could twist this quill.
That was in 1813, after I had left school, when I was already eighteen
years of age, with a good forty hairs on my upper lip and every hope of
more. I had changed since I left school, and was not so keen on games
as I had been, but found myself instead lying about on the sunny side of

the braes, with my own lips parted and my eyes staring just the same as
Cousin Edie's used to do. It had satisfied me and filled my whole life
that I could run faster and jump higher than my neighbour; but now all
that seemed such a little thing, and I yearned, and yearned, and looked
up at the big arching sky, and down at the flat blue sea, and felt that
there was something wanting, but could never lay my tongue to what
that something was. And I became quick of temper too, for my nerves
seemed all of a fret, and when my mother would ask me what ailed me,
or my father would speak of my turning my hand to work, I would
break into such sharp bitter answers as I have often grieved over since.
Ah! a man may have more than one wife, and more than one child, and
more than one friend; but he can never have but the one mother, so let
him cherish her while he may.
One day when I came in from the sheep, there was my father sitting
with a letter in his hands, which was a very rare thing with us, except
when the factor wrote for the rent. Then as I came nearer to him I saw
that he was crying, and I stood staring, for I had always thought that it
was not a thing that a man could do. I can see him now, for he had so
deep a crease across his brown cheek that no tear could pass it, but
must trickle away sideways and so down to his ear, hopping off on to
the sheet of paper. My mother sat beside him and stroked his hands like
she did the cat's back when she would soothe it.
"Aye, Jeannie," said he, "poor