The Great Shadow and Other Napoleonic Tales | Page 9

and backward as I was, I could do nothing
but flatten out the sacking for her. Her eyes were after the coach which
was rattling away to Berwick, and suddenly she shook her handkerchief
in the air.
"He took off his hat," said she. "I think he must have been an officer.
He was very distinguished looking. Perhaps you noticed him--a
gentleman on the outside, very handsome, with a brown overcoat."
I shook my head, with all my flush of joy changed to foolish

resentment.
"Ah! well, I shall never see him again. Here are all the green braes and
the brown winding road just the same as ever. And you, Jack, I don't
see any great change in you either. I hope your manners are better than
they used to be. You won't try to put any frogs down my back, will
you?"
I crept all over when I thought of such a thing.
"We'll do all we can to make you happy at West Inch," said I, playing
with the whip.
"I'm sure it's very kind of you to take a poor lonely girl in," said she.
"It's very kind of you to come, Cousin Edie," I stammered. "You'll find
it very dull, I fear."
"I suppose it is a little quiet, Jack, eh? Not many men about, as I
remember it."
"There is Major Elliott, up at Corriemuir. He comes down of an
evening, a real brave old soldier who had a ball in his knee under
Wellington."
"Ah, when I speak of men. Jack, I don't mean old folk with balls in
their knees. I meant people of our own age that we could make friends
of. By the way, that crabbed old doctor had a son, had he not?"
"Oh yes, that's Jim Horscroft, my best friend."
"Is he at home?"
"No. He'll be home soon. He's still at Edinburgh studying."
"Ah! then we'll keep each other company until he comes, Jack. And I'm
very tired and I wish I was at West Inch."
I made old Souter Johnnie cover the ground as he has never done

before or since, and in an hour she was seated at the supper table,
where my mother had laid out not only butter, but a glass dish of
gooseberry jam, which sparkled and looked fine in the candle-light. I
could see that my parents were as overcome as I was at the difference
in her, though not in the same way. My mother was so set back by the
feather thing that she had round her neck that she called her Miss
Calder instead of Edie, until my cousin in her pretty flighty way would
lift her forefinger to her whenever she did it. After supper, when she
had gone to bed, they could talk of nothing but her looks and her
breeding.
"By the way, though," says my father, "it does not look as if she were
heart-broke about my brother's death."
And then for the first time I remembered that she had never said a word
about the matter since I had met her.


CHAPTER III.
THE SHADOW ON THE WATERS.
It was not very long before Cousin Edie was queen of West Inch, and
we all her devoted subjects from my father down. She had money and
to spare, though none of us knew how much. When my mother said
that four shillings the week would cover all that she would cost, she
fixed on seven shillings and sixpence of her own free will. The south
room, which was the sunniest and had the honeysuckle round the
window, was for her; and it was a marvel to see the things that she
brought from Berwick to put into it. Twice a week she would drive
over, and the cart would not do for her, for she hired a gig from Angus
Whitehead, whose farm lay over the hill. And it was seldom that she
went without bringing something back for one or other of us. It was a
wooden pipe for my father, or a Shetland plaid for my mother, or a
book for me, or a brass collar for Rob the collie. There was never a

woman more free-handed.
But the best thing that she gave us was just her own presence. To me it
changed the whole country-side, and the sun was brighter and the braes
greener and the air sweeter from the day she came. Our lives were
common no longer now that we spent them with such a one as she, and
the old dull grey house was another place in my eyes since she had set
her foot across the door-mat. It was not her face, though that was
winsome enough, nor her form, though I never saw the lass that