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Malcolm Chapter 2 - Barbara Catanach · The George McDonald Library

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  Speaker 1: CHAPTER II. BARBARA CARNAH. Miss Horne was interrupted by the
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  Speaker 1: sound of the latch of the street door, and sprung
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  Speaker 1: from her chair in anger.' Canna they let her sleep
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  Speaker 1: for five minutes?' she cried aloud, forgetting that there was
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  Speaker 1: no fear of rousing her any more.' It' ll be Jean
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  Speaker 1: coming frae the pump,' she reflected after a moment's pause.
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  Speaker 1: but hearing no footstep along the passage to the kitchen, concluded,
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  Speaker 1: It's not her, for she gangs about the host like
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  Speaker 1: the fore-half of a new-shod colt, and went down the
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  Speaker 1: stair to see who might have thus presumed to enter unbidden.
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  Speaker 1: In the kitchen, the floor of which was as white
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  Speaker 1: as scrubbing could make it and sprinkled with sea-sand, under
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  Speaker 1: the gaily painted Dutch clock, which went on ticking as
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  Speaker 1: loud as ever, though just below the dead, sat a
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  Speaker 1: woman about sixty years of age, whose plump face to
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  Speaker 1: the first glance looked kindly, to the second, cunning, and
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  Speaker 1: to the third, evil. To the last look, the plumpness
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  Speaker 1: appeared unhealthy, suggesting a doughy indentation to the finger, and
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  Speaker 1: its colour also was pasty. Her deep-set, black, bright eyes,
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  Speaker 1: glowing from under the darkest of eyebrows which met over
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  Speaker 1: her nose, had something of a fascinating influence, so much
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  Speaker 1: of it that at a first interview one was not
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  Speaker 1: likely for a time to notice any other of her features.
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  Speaker 1: She rose as Miss Horne entered. buried a fat fist
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  Speaker 1: in a soft side, and stood silent.' Well?' said Miss
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  Speaker 1: Horne interrogatively, and was silent also.' I thought you might
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  Speaker 1: want a cast of my calling,' said the woman.' Nah, nah.
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  Speaker 1: There's not a hand that shall lay finger upon the
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  Speaker 1: bairn but mine an,' said Miss Horne.' I had it
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  Speaker 1: all ower my lee lawn afore the screed day. She's
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  Speaker 1: laying quiet now, very quiet, waiting upon whaty with her spail.
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  Speaker 1: When he fesses home her bit boxy we shall have
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  Speaker 1: laid canny into it, and he'd done with it.' Well, mem,
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  Speaker 1: for a lady born like yourself, I must say you
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  Speaker 1: take it uncle composed. I'm not aware, Mistress Catanel, of
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  Speaker 1: any necessity laid upon you to say you're mine in
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  Speaker 1: this house. It's not expected. But what for should I
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  Speaker 1: not take it with composure? We'll have to take our
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  Speaker 1: own turn ere long, as composed as we have the
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  Speaker 1: skill of, and gang out like a long nibbit kennel. Aye,
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  Speaker 1: and leave just such a memory ahind some of us, Bobby.
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  Speaker 1: I cannot ginyamee me, Miss Horne, said the woman, but
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  Speaker 1: it's not that muckle or memory I expect to leave
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  Speaker 1: ahind me. The less the better, muttered Miss Horne, but
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  Speaker 1: her unwelcome visitor went on. Them it's most in my debt,
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  Speaker 1: ken's least about it, and then mithers cannot be said
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  Speaker 1: to have muckle to be thankful for. It's God's truth,
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  Speaker 1: I ken war nor ever I did, mem. A body
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  Speaker 1: in my trade canna help fawn among ill company wiles,
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  Speaker 1: for we're all born in sin, and brought forth in iniquity,
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  Speaker 1: as the book says. In fact, it's all sin together.
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  Speaker 1: We come a sin, and we gang for sin, but
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  Speaker 1: ye ken the likes o me, monoclype. All the same,
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  Speaker 1: can ye dinna take the help o' my hand? Ye
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  Speaker 1: winna refuse me the sight o' my ain, poor thing.
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  Speaker 1: There's none to look upon her dead, it wasna a
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  Speaker 1: pleasure till her livin', and ye can will enough, Bobby,
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  Speaker 1: she couldna thole the sight o' you. And good reason
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  Speaker 1: had ye for that, can aught gings through my hair,
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  Speaker 1: ere I fall asleep in the long, murk nights, be
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  Speaker 1: a hair better nor one o' the old wives' fables
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  Speaker 1: that folk says the holy book makes alight all. What
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  Speaker 1: mean ye? demanded Miss Horne, sternly and curtly. I ken
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  Speaker 1: what I mean myself.' and one that's no content with
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  Speaker 1: that but ill be a hody.' Midwife.' I would fain
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  Speaker 1: ha gotten a fancy out o' my head' that' s been
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  Speaker 1: there this many a lang day.' But please yourself, ma'am.'
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  Speaker 1: Gin you winna be neighbourly.'' You sae no gang near her,'
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  Speaker 1: not to save you frae all the ill dreams' that
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  Speaker 1: ever gathered about a sin-stabbit bolster,'' cried Miss Horne,' and
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  Speaker 1: drew down her long upper lip in a strong arch.'
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  Speaker 1: Ca canny, ca canny,' said Bobby.' Dinna anger me o'er sair,
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  Speaker 1: for I am but mortal.'' Folk take a heap frae you,
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  Speaker 1: Miss Horne, at they'll take frae none either, for your
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  Speaker 1: temper's will, Kent and little Mado. But it's an ill-fared
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  Speaker 1: thing to anger the howdy. Some muckle lies upon her,
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  Speaker 1: and I'm not in the tune to put up with
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  Speaker 1: muckle the night. I wonder at ye being so on-neighbour-like.
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  Speaker 1: It's sick o' time, too, wi' the corp in the house.''
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  Speaker 1: Gang away. Gang out o' it. It's my house,' said
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  Speaker 1: Miss Horne, in a low, hoarse voice.' 'restrained from rising
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  Speaker 1: to tempest pitch' only by the consciousness of what lay
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  Speaker 1: on the other side of the ceiling above her head.'
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  Speaker 1: I would as soon let a cat into the dead
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  Speaker 1: chamber to gang lope nor the corp,' or maybe were,
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  Speaker 1: as I would let yourself into the bobby cat and all.'
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  Speaker 1: And there's Tilly.'' At this moment the opportune entrance of
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  Speaker 1: Jean' afforded fitting occasion to her mistress for leaving the room,'
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  Speaker 1: without encountering the dilemma of either turning the woman out,'
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  Speaker 1: a proceeding which the latter,' from the way in which
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  Speaker 1: she set her short, stout figure square on the floor,'
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  Speaker 1: appeared ready to resist, or of herself abandoning the field
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  Speaker 1: in discomfiture. She turned and marched from the kitchen with
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  Speaker 1: her head in the air, and the gait of one
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  Speaker 1: who had been insulted on her own premises. She was
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  Speaker 1: sitting in the parlour, still red-faced and wrathful, when Jean entered,
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  Speaker 1: and closing the door behind her, drew near to her mistress,
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  Speaker 1: bearing a narrative commenced at the door of all she
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  Speaker 1: had seen, heard, and done, while out and about in
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  Speaker 1: the tone. But Miss Horne interrupted her the moment she
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  Speaker 1: began to speak.' Is that woman forth the host, Jean?'
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  Speaker 1: she asked,' in the tone of one who waited her
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  Speaker 1: answer in the affirmative' as a preliminary condition of all
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  Speaker 1: further conversation.' She' s gone, ma'am,' answered Jean,' adding to herself
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  Speaker 1: in a wordless thought,' I' m not saying where.' She' s a
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  Speaker 1: woman I wouldn't have you throng with, Jean.'' I canna
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  Speaker 1: illa her, ma'am,' returned Jean.' She' s enough to cut up
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  Speaker 1: a kirkyard,' said her mistress,' with more force than fitness.'' Jean, however,
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  Speaker 1: was on the shady side of fifty, 'more likely to
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  Speaker 1: have already yielded' than to be liable to a first
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  Speaker 1: assault of corruption.' And little did Miss Horne think how
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  Speaker 1: useless was her warning,' or where Barbara Cadenoch was at
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  Speaker 1: that very moment.' Trusting to Jean's cunning, as well she might,
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  Speaker 1: 'she was in the dead chamber and standing over the dead.'
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  Speaker 1: She had folded back the sheet,' not from the face
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  Speaker 1: but from the feet.' and raised the nightdress of fine
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  Speaker 1: linen in which the love of her cousin had robed
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  Speaker 1: the dead for the repose of the tomb. It would
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  Speaker 1: have been telling her, she muttered, to a spoken bobby fair.
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  Speaker 1: I'm no use to be falling foul of that gate.
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  Speaker 1: I should be even with her yet, I'm thinking. The
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  Speaker 1: old Spelden. Lush, and praise be thanked. There it is.
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  Speaker 1: It's there. A wee darker, but the same. Just where
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  Speaker 1: I could have laid the pint of my finger upon
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  Speaker 1: it in the murk.' No, let the worms eat it,'
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  Speaker 1: she concluded,' as she folded down the linen of shroud
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  Speaker 1: and sheet.' And no mortal kennel it but myself,' and
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  Speaker 1: him it bode till I seen it,' gin he was
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  Speaker 1: a hair better nor Glen Candy's man in the old ballant.''
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  Speaker 1: The instant she had rearranged the garments of the dead,
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  Speaker 1: 'she turned and made for the door with a softness
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  Speaker 1: of step' that strangely contrasted with the ponderousness of her
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  Speaker 1: figure' and indicated great muscular strength,' opened it with noiseless
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  Speaker 1: circumspection to the width of an inch,' peeped out from
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  Speaker 1: the crack.' and seeing the opposite door still shut, stepped
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  Speaker 1: out with a swift, noiseless swing of person and door simultaneously,
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  Speaker 1: closed the door behind her, stole down the stairs, and
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  Speaker 1: left the house. Not a board creaked, not a latch
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  Speaker 1: clicked as she went. She stepped into the street as
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  Speaker 1: sedately as if she had come from paying to the
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  Speaker 1: dead the last offices of her composite calling, the projected
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  Speaker 1: front of her person appearing itself aware of its dignity
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  Speaker 1: as the visible sign and symbol of a good conscience
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  Speaker 1: and kindly heart. End of chapter 2