Chapter V Robina
Jenny rade tae Cowtstan, tae Cowtstan, tae Cowtstan,
Jenny rade tae Cowtstan upon a barra’pin O!
An’ aye as she wallopit, she wallopit, she wallopit,
An’ aye as she wallopit, she aye fell ahin’ O!
Old Song.
For Robina, it was a distinct rise in the social scale to have taken service with Miss Esperance. Any lass could get a place at the term in Edinburgh, but only one lass in the whole village could have been chosen to look after the little newcomers at Remote.
In the village Miss Esperance was familiarly known as “the wee leddy”: and in the eyes of Burnhead the fact that she lived in an extremely small house with one old servant, and did a large portion of the household work herself, in no way detracted from her dignity. In Burnhead, too, there were people who remembered her father, the Admiral—“a gran’ man yon! A radgy man whiles, mind ye, but a rale man. When he gave ye a glass he aye looket the ither way and left ye to help yersen—eh, but he was a gran’ man yon!”
Lady Alicia had described Robina as “douce,” and that young woman fully acted up to this reputation during her first weeks at Remote. She trembled and cringed before Elsa. She dropped whatever she happened to be holding if suddenly addressed by Miss Esperance, while in the presence of Mr. Wycherly extreme shyness lent to her appearance an expression of such abject imbecility as caused that gentleman to demand anxiously of her mistress whether she thought it was safe to allow Robina to take the children for walks.
Once outside the walls of Remote, however, Robina’s whole attitude changed. She bridled: she minced: she was positively swollen with pride in the importance of her position; and when she condescended to exchange remarks with such neighbours as she met, her demeanour was distant and haughty. No sooner had she set forth with Edmund in the perambulator and Montagu trotting by her side, than she at once radiated an atmosphere of “say nothing to nobody” so forbidding as to discourage all attempts at sociability except on the part of the boldest. Everybody wanted to see the little boys, who were, themselves, most friendly and approachable and always ready to respond to the overtures of kindly neighbours.
A comely lass was Robina, sturdy and thickset, but with the exquisite colouring often to be found among the Lowland Scottish peasantry; and of late her rosy cheeks had bloomed to a deeper rose, while her forehead and chin and neck were white as the elder flower growing against the wall at the bottom of the garden. Very blue eyes had Robina, and thick, wavy hair—red hair that would escape from its tight braids in frivolous little curls at the nape of her neck and round her ears. From far away, Sandie, the flesher, would espy that brilliant hair burning like a lamp, and wheresoever that beacon shone there would Sandie be fain to follow. He escorted her from her home to Remote in the early morning, and was generally waiting at a safe distance from Remote to walk home with her in the evening. So devoted was he, that Robina had as yet made an exception in his favour, and in spite of her exalted position treated him with moderate friendliness.
The day that Edmund was lost she had got off comparatively lightly. The household at Remote was so excited over finding the baby in Mause’s kennel that they all forgot to inquire till some time afterwards, how in the world he had got there without the knowledge of his nurse. Robina did not consider it necessary to mention her conversation with Sandie, and beyond a moderate amount of cavilling on the part of Elsa, very little had been said.
One afternoon, during the same week, she took the small boys for a walk along the highroad leading to Edinburgh; and as she, with stately mien, was pushing the perambulator on the pathway, a young man, driving a light spring cart, overtook her and pulled up and hailed her with the inquiry, “Well, Robiny, hoo’s a’ wi’ ye the day?”
Robina stopped and pretended to be absorbed in settling Edmund in his perambulator; for the moment the baby spied the trap, he began to wriggle out of the strap that bound him in his seat, waving his arms and shouting, “Me go ’ide in caht.”
“I would like a ride, too,” Montagu remarked in his usual deliberate fashion, and he smiled up at Sandie engagingly.
Sandie saw the little boy and smiled back broadly, but he was mostly looking at Robina.
“Is they wee things Piskeys tae?” Sandie asked, nodding his head toward the children.
“Na, na,” Robina replied, shaking her head emphatically, “there’s noan o’ the wee leddy’s flesh and blood’s Piskeys, I’se warrant. They’ll gang tae the kirk wi’ their auntie like ither Christian folk.”
“What’s a Piskey?” asked Montagu of the inquiring mind.
“I’m no very sure,” the girl said slowly. “It’s a new-fangled kin’ o’ kirk—is’t no?” she added, looking up at Sandie.
Sandie grinned broadly and drew himself up. “I once went into one o’ they kirks in Edinbory—” he said with the air of one who has passed through many strange adventures, “on a Sabbath evening,” he continued hastily, as Robina looked disapproving. “I gang no place else than oor ain kirk in the mornin’.”
“And what like was it?” asked Robina, somewhat reassured by this assertion of orthodoxy.
“Dod’ an’ it’s more than I can say. Ye was aye hoppin’ up an’ sittin’ doon, wi’ a wee thing singin’ here an’ a wee bit prayin’ there, an’ a wee sma’ readin’. Ma certy! there was sae monny preeleeminaries ‘at I never thocht we’d reach the sairmon. An’ when we did it was just as scampit as a’ the rest. An’ what wi’ human hymns an men i’ their sarks jumpin’ up here an’ there, it was mair like play-actin’ than a kirk. Nae mair Piskeys for me, I can tell ye!”
“But what is a Piskey?” Montagu again demanded.
“The auld gentleman wha’ lives wi’ us is a Piskey, so I’ve heard,” Robina said in a low voice.
“I can well believe that,” Sandie remarked meaningly, and tapped his forehead.
“Me go jive in caht!” Edmund exclaimed for about the thirtieth time, this time with an ominous warning of tears in his voice.
Sandie looked up the road and down the road. There was not a soul in sight.
“Wull I gie them a wee bit hurrl?” he asked Robina.
“The wee stoot yen couldna’ sit wi’oot some person to hold him,” Robina said irresolutely, “an’ I daurna’ let them oot o’ my sight. Mine’s is a poseetion o’ great responsibeelity.” And once more she lifted the struggling Edmund back into his seat, from which he instantly wriggled so that he was hung up under the arms by the strap.
“Pit the pram inside yon gate,” suggested the ready Sandie, “and come tae. No harm’ll happen it, an’ I’ll gie ye a bit hurrl doon the rod.”
“Me go jive in caht!” Edmund shouted joyfully, and held out his arms to Sandie. Edmund looked upon mankind in general as a means specially provided for his quick transit from place to place. “Uppie! Uppie!” the baby cried impatiently.
“Let the bairn have his hurrl,” pleaded Sandie.
Montagu as yet found it somewhat difficult to follow the Scots tongue, but he realised that Sandie was inviting them to go for a drive, and forthwith declared his own intention of accepting the invitation without Robina if she declined to avail herself of it.
Finally the perambulator was put inside a field, well out of sight. The two small boys were lifted into the cart, where Robina, with much display of white-stockinged substantial ankles, followed them. Away went the butcher’s cart with four “precious souls and all agog” seated abreast upon the wooden seat. Robina firmly clutched the “wee stoot yen” who chattered incessantly, giving the loudest expression to his satisfaction.
They had gone about half a mile along the Edinburgh road when a gray bobtailed sheepdog was seen trotting along towards them, followed by a small pony tub driven by an old lady.
“Megsty me!” Robina exclaimed in great consternation, “if yon’s no the wee leddy hersel’, and I thocht she was up at the hoose. Turn man, turn! and get back afore she comes.”
Sandie tried to turn, but “Moggie,” the butcher’s mare, knew that she was on the homeward way and had no wish to defer her arrival. Moggie was fresh and frisky and very obstinate, and the more Sandie tried to turn her the more did she back into the side of the road, finally starting to rear and plunge, with an occasional rattle of hoofs on the splash-board.
Robina screamed with terror, and had it not been that the four on the seat were a pretty tight fit, the little boys would undoubtedly have been thrown out.
Miss Esperance was jogging slowly homeward in her little pony tub with only a village boy in attendance. She generally picked up some stray urchin as she drove through Burnhead to hold the pony while she paid visits or did her shopping. As she drew nearer she perceived Moggie’s antics, and pulled up.
“That seems a very restive horse,” she remarked anxiously. “I hope the young man is able to manage it, for I see he has children in the cart. It would be terrible to have a collision. I think, Davie, you had better get out and hold Jock’s head—and I,” added the intrepid little lady, “will go and speak to that horse and see if I can catch hold of its head.”
Davie looked at her admiringly. “It’s the flesher’s mare, Moggie,” he murmured shyly, “an’ she’s awfu’ flechty. Tak heed, mem, that she does na fell ye.”
Miss Esperance carefully descended from her little trap and walked towards the mare who was getting a little tired of fighting with Sandie, although she had no intention of giving in. Sandie had a firm hand, but he did not dare to beat his steed while Robina and the children were in the cart. He sawed at Moggie’s mouth and roared directions at her, and was so busily engaged in trying to get her round that he did not see the little old lady till she was close upon him, then he nearly dropped his reins in his consternation, and was stricken absolutely dumb.
This was just what Miss Esperance wanted. All her life she had been used to horses, and she stepped up to the sweating, trembling, plunging mare, laid a small, firm hand fearlessly upon her bridle, and spoke so soothingly and gently that Moggie ceased to plunge and in a few minutes was standing quiet, though trembling, with the cart still blocking the road.
“Which way do you want her to go and I’ll turn her for you,” she called to Sandie.
“He wants to go home, Aunt Espa’nce, but we don’t. We’d much rather go on. D’you mind if we go on for a little more drive?”
And the amazed Miss Esperance looked up to perceive her great-nephews and Robina perched up in Sandie’s cart.
Sandie was crimson and confused: Robina, pale and tearful: the little boys bright-eyed and rosy with excitement.
“Robina!” Miss Esperance ejaculated, in deepest displeasure. “What are you doing there with the children? Come down at once while the horse is quiet.”
Hastily and ungracefully Robina scrambled out of the cart and the little boys were handed down by Sandie, both deeply disappointed that their “hurrl” had come to this untimely end. Edmund was not one to conceal his feelings at any time, and he forthwith began to roar so lustily that further discussion was impossible, especially as Mause considered it incumbent upon her to bark loudly in joy at this unexpected reunion.
Miss Esperance packed all three into her pony tub, dismissing Davie to walk home and bring the perambulator.
Moggie was the only one who scored, for she was driven off without delay in the direction she had all along wanted to go, and she went like the wind.
“What,” asked Montagu of his aunt some days later, “is a Piskey?”
Miss Esperance drew her delicate eyebrows together. “Where have you heard the word?” she inquired in her turn.
“Robina said Mr. Wycherly’s a Piskey, and I want to know what it is.”
“Robina,” said Miss Esperance, “is rather apt to talk about things she does not understand. ‘Piskey,’ my dear Montagu, is a vulgar way of saying Episcopalian, and the English form of worship is called by that name in Scotland. I beg that you will not let me hear the word, ‘Piskey,’ again.”
“I think it’s rather a nice little word,” Montagu retorted; “short and cheerful-sounding. I suppose we’re Presbeys?”
“Abbreviations,” said Miss Esperance, “are nearly always foolish and often in bad taste. I have never heard of a Presbey in my life.”
“Piskey and Presbey were two pretty men,” Montagu murmured dreamily, with a hazy recollection of some nursery rhyme, “though I think Piskey’s far prettier than Presbey, just like Mr. Wycherly’s prettier than Mr. Gloag.”
“That will do, Montagu.”
“D’you love Sandie, Aunt Esp’ance?” Montagu asked with an abrupt change of subject.
“Certainly not,” Miss Esperance answered hastily, “though I believe him to be a well-doing young man on the whole.”
“I love him,” said Montagu, “but we don’t see him very often now. Robina’s taken the huff at him—he told me so. It’s a pity isn’t it?”
“The less Robina sees of Sandie, the more likely is she to attend to her duties,” Miss Esperance remarked austerely. Then suddenly, her whole face beaming, she added softly, as though to herself, “The lassie’s full young for that sort of thing yet awhile.”
If Robina had escaped lightly when Edmund was lost, Nemesis was by no means leaden-footed as regarded her latest escapade. She very nearly lost her situation, and only by the combined and reiterated entreaties of herself and her mother was Miss Esperance prevailed upon to give the girl another trial. Therefore did Robina, with the unreason of her sex, lay the whole blame upon Sandie; and considered that he, and he alone, was responsible for the mistrustful attitude of the authorities with regard to her. She declined to speak to him or even to look at him for a whole fortnight. Morning and evening she passed him by, till at last he threatened that if she remained so obdurate he would forsake the church of his fathers and become a Piskey. Then, and only then, did Robina relent. “I couldna hae that on my conscience,” she reflected. But all the same, although she condescended to speak to Sandie “whiles,” he found that he had to do most of his wooing all over again; and Robina would smile to herself from time to time as she reflected that “it’s an ill wind blows nobody good.”
Robina was one of those who believed that what a man wants he will ask for over and over again; and that the harder a thing is to obtain the more it is valued. So she was very niggardly in the matter of her favours to Sandie, and her work prospered in consequence.