Kirstie

“ Yet, even in those days, Kirstie grew to feel that terror was in some way the secret of her mistress's strangeness; that for the present the poor woman knew herself safe and protected from it, but also that there was ever a danger of that barrier falling—whatever it might be—and leaving her exposed to some enemy, from the thought of whom her soul shrank.
I do not know how Kirstie became convinced that, whoever or whatever the enemy might be, Mr. Johnstone was the phylactery. She herself could give no grounds for her conviction beyond his wife's anxiety for his health and well-being. ”

“ At the sight, Kirstie grew more tall—Kirstie showed her classical profile, nose in air and nostril spread, the pure blood came in her cheek evenly in a delicate living pink.
'A braw day to ye, Mistress Elliott,' said she, and hostility and gentility were nicely mingled in her tones. 'A fine day, mem,' the laird's wife would reply with a miraculous curtsey, spreading the while her plumage—setting off, in other words, and with arts unknown to the mere man, the pattern of her India shawl. ”

“ You're worth waiting for, Kirstie! worth waiting for a generation; it would be enough reward.'—And here he remembered the schoolmaster again, and very unwisely took to following wisdom. 'The first thing that we must see to, is that there shall be no scandal about for my father's sake. That would ruin all; do ye no see that?'
Kirstie was a little pleased, there had been some show of warmth of sentiment in what Archie had said last. But the dull irritation still persisted in her bosom; with the aboriginal instinct, having suffered herself, she wished to make Archie suffer. ”

“ A young man who should have so doted on the idea, moral and physical, of any woman, might be properly described as being in love, head and heels, and would have behaved himself accordingly. But Kirstie—though her heart leaped at his coming footsteps—though, when he patted her shoulder, her face brightened for the day—had not a hope or thought beyond the present moment and its perpetuation to the end of time. ”

“ As the upshot of all this petty quarrelling and intemperate speech, she was practically excluded (like a lightkeeper on his tower) from the comforts of human association; except with her own indoor drudge, who, being but a lassie and entirely at her mercy, must submit to the shifty weather of 'the mistress's' moods without complaint, and be willing to take buffets or caresses according to the temper of the hour. To Kirstie, thus situate and in the Indian summer of her heart, which was slow to submit to age, the gods sent this equivocal good thing of Archie's presence. ”

“ To the most sceptical homespun philosopher in the Settlement it seemed obvious that Kirstie and Miranda had something mysterious about them, and had forsaken their kind for the fellowship of the furtive kin. No one but Old Dave had any relish for a neighbourhood where bears kept guard, and lynxes slily frequented, and caribou bulls of a haughty temper made themselves free of the barnyard. As for Young Dave, unwilling to fall foul of the folk who were so friendly to Kirstie and Miranda, he carried his traps, his woodcraft, and his cunning rifle to a tract more remote from the clearing. ”

“ She was still clinging about Kirstie when the cook came panting up the stairs and into the room with a white face; for it was true, and the minister had breathed his last between the garden gate and his house door.
As I have said, I rode over from Wyliebank four days later to read the burial service. The widow was not to be seen, and of Kirstie, who ever hid herself from the sight of strangers, I caught but a glimpse. She did not follow the coffin, but remained upstairs (as I suppose) comforting her mistress. ”

“ There was in his voice a ring of appeal, a clang of mere astonishment that showed the schoolmaster was vanquished.
She turned round on him. 'What do ye Kirstie me for?' she retorted.
'What have ye to do wi' me! Gang to your ain freends and deave them!'
He could only repeat the appealing 'Kirstie!'
'Kirstie, indeed!' cried the girl, her eyes blazing in her white face. 'My name is Miss Christina Elliott, I would have ye to ken, and I daur ye to ca' me out of it. If I canna get love, I'll have respect, Mr. Weir. I'm come of decent people, and I'll have respect. ”

“ Johnstone approved; who said no word, but continued her spinning until darkness settled down on the garret and blurred the print on the page.
At last she looked up, and, much to Kirstie's surprise, with a sigh. "That will do, girl, you read very nicely. Run down and find your supper, and after that the sooner you get to bed the better. We rise early in this house. To-morrow I will put you in the way of your duties."
Downstairs Kirstie met the minister who had been taking a late stroll in the garden and now entered by the back-door. ”

“ I have always thought of her, I wouldna harm her for the universe, my woman!”
“Eh, lad, and that’s easy sayin’,” cried Kirstie, “but it’s nane sae easy doin’! Man, do ye no comprehend that it’s God’s wull we should be blendit and glamoured, and have nae command over our ain members at a time like that? My bairn,” she cried, still holding his hand, “think o’ the puir lass! have pity upon her, Erchie! and O, be wise for twa! Think o’ the risk she rins! I have seen ye, and what’s to prevent ithers! ”

“ She fought down the horror of it and rushed up the stair to fight the thing, man or devil, and save her mistress. On her way she fumbled for the scissors in her pocket. As she broke into the garret the barber, leaving the bundle to swing from its rope, stepped off the stool and, darting to a corner of the room, seemed to stand at bay there. Kirstie sprang toward the stool and hacked at the rope. As the body dropped she faced around on the man's corner, meaning to kill or be killed. ”

“ Let him gang to the black toon where he’s mebbe wantit—birling in a curricle—wi’ pimatum on his heid—making a mess o’ himsel’ wi’ nesty hizzies—a fair disgrace!” It was impossible to hear without admiration Kirstie’s graduated disgust, as she brought forth, one after another, these somewhat baseless charges. Then she remembered her immediate purpose, and turned again on her fascinated auditor. “Do ye no hear me, tawpie? Do ye no hear what I’m tellin’ ye? Will I have to shoo ye in to him? If I come to attend to ye, mistress!” ”

“ Had Kirsty known the schoolmaster no better than his sister-in-law knew him, she would, like her, have gone to him; but she was perfectly certain that it would be almost impossible to rouse him, and that, once convinced that his confidence had been abused, he would be utterly furious, and probably bear himself in such fashion as to make Phemy desperate, perhaps make her hate him. As it was, he turned a deaf ear and indignant heart to every one of the reports that reached him. To listen to it would be to doubt his child! Why should not the young laird fall in love with her? What more natural? ”

“ The fact was, Kirsty had come to the manse with my mother, and my father was attached to her for the sake of his wife as well as for her own, and Kirsty would have died for the minister or any one of his boys. All the devotion a Highland woman has for the chief of her clan, Kirsty had for my father, not to mention the reverence due to the minister. ”

“ No ae stane, to bigg yersel, hae ye putten upo’ the tap o’ anither!’
Phemy was nowise capable of understanding such statement and deduction. If she was lovely, as Frank told her, and as she saw in the glass, why should she not be pleased with herself? If Kirsty had been made like her, she would have been just as vain as she!
All her life the doll never saw the beauty of the woman. Beside Phemy, Kirsty walked like an Olympian goddess beside the naiad of a brook. And Kirsty was a goddess, for she was what she had to be, and never thought about it. ”

“ Kirsty John's farm was a small, rough clearing near the Scotch line. There were two or three fields, and in the centre of them a log shanty and a small stable. Everything about the place was very neat; for Kirsty's mother was a Lowlander and one of the most particular of that great race of housekeepers. The little barnyard, ingeniously fenced off with rough poles, the small patch of grass around the doorway, the neat little flower garden, all showed signs of a woman's tasteful hand. But Kirsty could do the man's part as well. ”

“ Mary said with a sigh. “The one that would do it, that would not think of herself, but just do it, is never the one that has it in her power. I’ve seen the same thing many a time. The wilful one that will please herself, it is her that folk seek—”
Kirsteen’s heart swelled high with mortification and pain. If there was anything that she had desired in her visionary moods it had been to sacrifice herself, to do some great thing for her mother, to be the saving of little Jeanie. ”

“ We are all made up of great feelings and of petty ones{v.2-133}, and are not always at our best. Kirsteen had a heart of the noblest constancy, and held the contents of her little silver casket above all that the world could give. But at more vulgar moments it sometimes gave her a sting to know that, notwithstanding all her passion of love and faithfulness, prosaic Mary, who had never known a throb of profound feeling in her life, would assume airs of superior importance, and pity the sister who had no man, and would be an old maid all her life. ”

“ Kirsty was a Highland woman who had the charge of the house in which the farm servants lived. She was a cheerful, gracious, kind woman—a woman of God’s making, one would say, were it not that, however mysterious it may look, we cannot deny that he made Mrs. Mitchell too. It is very puzzling, I confess. I remember once that my youngest brother Davie, a very little fellow then, for he could not speak plainly, came running in great distress to Kirsty, crying, “Fee, fee!” by which he meant to indicate that a flea was rendering his life miserable. ”

“ Kirsteen made a lofty sign of assent. She would not risk herself by entering into any explanations. “It’s a long journey,” she said, “and a person never can tell if they will ever win back. If you are really meaning what you say, and that I will not be in your way nor the doctor’s I will thankfully bide and take a cup of tea with ye—for it’s not like being among strangers when I can take your hand—and give a kiss to your little bairns before I go.” ”

“ Kirsteen was even pleased with the sense that she herself was Glendochart’s favourite, that he had talked more to her than to any one, perhaps even had come to see her rather than the rest, with the pleasant partiality of an old friend. To be preferred is delightful to everybody, and especially to a girl who has had little petting in her life. It was an exhilarating consciousness, and she took the little jibes that flew about in the family and the laugh of Mary and the shout of the boys with perfect good humour. ”

“ She that ought to have been warm and safe at home, putting the children to bed, sitting between the bright fire and the pleasant lamp waiting for David, to think that she should be here in a darkness that might be felt, with the burn on one side rushing like some wild beast in the dark, and the wind lashing the bare branches on the other, and only Kirsteen, a woman like herself, to protect her! A weak woman with a strong husband loses all faith in other women. ”

“ Like persons who live much alone, Kirsty had the habit of thinking aloud; and, indeed, her thoughts were so often with a living, listening Friend, that the practice seemed quite a natural one. As she pulled out her rough blue 122stocking, which she was knitting, and seated herself on the doorstep, in the yellow afternoon sunlight, she continued—"If I didna mistak that wee leddy wi her sweet tongue, she said that the bairn was wantin' to ken aboot the Lord Jesus. Eh! Lord, but Thy thochts are wonderfu' and Thy ways past findin' oor. Puir lambie! may the gude Shepherd lead her til Himsel. ”

“ He is just a man after my own heart,” said Kirsteen with warmth, with a sigh at the thought of his sad story, and a rising colour which was due to the fact that her imagination had linked the idea of young Ronald with that of this old and delightful gentleman who had been what her young lover was—but born to a less happy fate. ”

“ The bedroom to which the group was transferred was like the parlour lighted only by the fire, and the washing and undressing proceeded while Anne went on with the conversation, telling how Dunny was “a rude boy,” and Kirsty a “very stirring little thing,” and “just a handful.” “I have enough to do with them, and with making and mending for them, if I had not another thing on my hands,” said Anne; “they are just a woman’s work.” Kirsteen sat and looked on in the ruddy flickering light with strange thoughts. ”

“ Kirsty reminded him.
Andrew took her arm and looked very tenderly at her as he answered, laughing, "Oh! Kirsty, since when did an Anglican bishop direct your conscience and mine?" They walked slowly towards the house.
On the doorstep Kirsty turned.
"Andrew," she said, "have you thought it all out? Have you thought what it may mean? Leaving the people here—perhaps they won't keep your place open for you, for no man knows how long the war'll last—leaving your comfortable home and your wife who—who loves you, and going away to a life of hardship and exposure, and in the end perhaps—death. ”