A Knight of the Nets

"What is it? You know well that I shall feel with you."

"It is the way folks keep hinting this and that to me; but more, that I am mistrusting Mistress Kilgour. I saw a young fellow standing at the shop door talking to her the other morning very confidential-like—a young fellow that could not have any lawful business with her."

"What kind of a person was he?"

"A large, dark man, dressed like a picture in a tailor's window. His servant-man, in a livery of brown and yellow, was holding the horses in a fine dog-cart. I asked Jimmy Faulds what his name was and he laughed and said it was Braelands of Braelands, and he should think I knew it and then he looked at me that queer, that I felt as if his eyes had told me of some calamity. 'What is he doing at Mistress Kilgour's?' I asked as soon as I could get myself together, and Jimmy answered, 'I suppose he is ordering Madame Braelands' millinery,' and then he snickered and laughed again, and I had hard lines to keep my hands from striking him.'

"What for at all?"

"I don't know. I wish I did."

"If I give you my advice, will you take it?"

"I will."

"Then for once—if you don't want Braelands to win Sophy from you—put your lover's fears and shamefacedness behind your back. Just remember who and what you are, and what you are like to be, and go and tell Sophy everything, and ask her to marry you next Monday morning. Take gold in your pocket, and buy her a wedding gift—a ring, or a brooch, or some bonnie thing or other; and promise her a trip to Edinburgh or London, or any other thing she fancies."

"We have not been 'cried' yet. And the names must be read in the kirk for three Sundays."

"Oh man! Cannot you get a licence? It will cost you a few shillings, but what of that? You are too slow, Andrew. If you don't take care, and make haste, Braelands will run away with your wife before your very eyes."

"I'll not believe it. It could not be. The thing is unspeakable, and unbearable. I'll face my fate the morn, and I'll know the best—or the worst of what is coming to me."

"Look for good, and have good, that is, if you don't let the good hour go by. You, Andrew Binnie! that can manage a boat when the north wind is doing its mightiest, are you going to be one of the cony kind, when it comes to a slip of a girl like Sophy? I can not think it, for you know what Solomon said of such—'Oh Son, it is a feeble folk.'"

"I don't come of feeble folk, body nor soul; and as I have said, I will have the whole matter out with Sophy to-morrow."

"Good—but better do than say."

The next morning a swift look of intelligence passed between Andrew and Christina at breakfast, and about eleven o'clock Andrew said, "I'll away now to Largo, and settle the business we were speaking of, Christina." She looked up at him critically, and thought she had never seen a handsomer man. Though only a fisherman, he was too much a force of nature to be vulgar. He was the incarnation of the grey, old village, and of the North Sea, and of its stormy winds and waters. Standing in his boots he was over six feet, full of pluck and fibre, a man not made for the town and its narrow doorways, but for the great spaces of the tossing ocean. His face was strong and finely formed; his eyes grey and open—as eyes might be that had so often searched the thickest of the storm with unquailing glance. A sensitive flush overspread his brow and cheeks as Christina gazed at him, and he said nervously:—

"I will require to put on my best clothes; won't I, Christina?"

She laid her hand on his arm, and shook her head with a pleasant smile. She was regarding with pride and satisfaction her brother's fine figure, admirably shown in the elastic grace of his blue Guernsey. She turned the collar low enough to leave his round throat a little bare, and put his blue flannel Tam o' Shanter over his close, clustering curls. "Go as you are," she said. "In that dress you feel at home, and at ease, and you look ten times the man you do in your broadcloth. And if Sophy cannot like her fisher-lad in his fisher-dress, she isn't worthy of him."

He was much pleased with this advice, for it precisely sorted with his own feelings; and he stooped and kissed Christina, and she sent him away with a smile and a good wish. Then she went to her mother, who was in a little shed salting some fish. "Mother," she cried, "Andrew has gone to Largo."

"Like enough. It would be stranger, if he had stopped at home."

"He has gone to ask Sophy to marry him next week—next Monday."

"Perfect nonsense! We'll have no such marrying in a hurry, and a corner. It will take a full month to marry Andrew Binnie. What would all our folks say, far and near, if they were not bid to the wedding? Set to that, you have to be married first. Marrying isn't like Christmas, coming every year of our Lord; and we be to make the most of it. I'll not give my consent to any such like hasty work. Why, they are not even 'called' in the kirk yet."

"Andrew can get a licence."

"Andrew can get a fiddle-stick! None of the Binnies were ever married, but by word of the kirk, and none of them shall be, if I can help it. Licence indeed! Buying the right to marry for a few shillings, and the next thing will be a few more shillings for the right to un-marry. I'll not hear tell of such a way."

"But, Mother, if Andrew does not get Sophy at once, he may lose her altogether."

"Humph! No great loss."

"The biggest loss in the world that Andrew can have. Things are come to a pass. If Andrew does not marry her at once, I am feared Braelands will carry her off."

"He is welcome to her."

"No, no, Mother! Do you want Braelands to get the best of Andrew?"

"The like of him get the best of Andrew! I'll not believe it. Sophy isn't beyond all sense of right and feeling. If, after all these years, she left Andrew for that fine gentleman, she would be a very Jael of deceit and treachery. I wish I had told her about her mother's second cousin, bonnie Lizzie Lauder."

"What of her? I never heard tell, did I, Mother?"

"No. We don't speak of Lizzie now."

"Why then?"

"She was very bonnie, and she was very like Sophy about hating to work; and she was never done crying to all the gates of pleasure to open wide and let her enter. And she went in."

"Well, Mother? Is that all?"

"No. I wish in God's mercy it was! The avenging gates closed on her. She is shut up in hell. There, I'll say no more."

"Yes, Mother. You will ask God's mercy for her. It never faileth."

Janet turned away, and lifted her apron to her eyes, and stood so silent for a few minutes. And Christina left her alone, and went back into the house place, and began to wash up the breakfast-cups and cut up some vegetables for their early dinner. And by-and-by her mother joined her, and Christina began to tell how Andrew had promised her a silk gown for her wedding. This bit of news was so wonderful and delightful to Janet, that it drove all other thoughts far from her. She sat down to discuss it with all the care and importance the subject demanded. Every colour was considered; and when the colour had been decided, there was then the number of yards and the kind of trimming to be discussed, and the manner of its making, and the person most suitable to undertake the momentous task. For Janet was at that hour angry with Mistress Kilgour, and not inclined to "put a bawbee her way," seeing that it was most likely she had been favouring Braeland's suit, and therefore a bitter enemy to Andrew.

After the noon meal, Janet took her knitting, and went to tell as many of her neighbours as it was possible to see during the short afternoon, about the silk gown her Christina was to be married in; and Christina spread her ironing table, and began to damp, and fold, and smooth the clean linen. And as she did so, she sang a verse or two of 'Hunting Tower,' and then she thought awhile, and then she sang again. And she was so happy, that her form swayed to her movements; it seemed to smile as she walked backwards and forwards with the finished garments or the hot iron in her hands. She was thinking of the happy home she would make for Jamie, and of all the bliss that was coming to her. For before a bird flies you may see its wings, and Christina was already pluming hers for a flight into that world which in her very ignorance she invested with a thousand unreal charms.

She did not expect Andrew back until the evening. He would most likely have a long talk with Sophy; there was so much to tell her, and when it was over, it would be in a large measure to tell again to Mistress Kilgour. Then it was likely Andrew would take tea with his promised wife, and perhaps they might have a walk afterwards; so, calculating all these things. Christina came to the conclusion that it would be well on to bed time, before she knew what arrangements Andrew had made for his marriage and his life after it.

Not a single unpleasant doubt troubled her mind, she thought she knew Sophy's nature so well; and she could hardly conceive it possible, that the girl should have any reluctances about a lad so well known, so good, and so handsome, and with such a fine future before him, as Andrew Binnie. All Sophy's flights and fancies, all her favours to young Braelands, Christina put down to the dissatisfaction Sophy so often expressed with her position, and the vanity which arose naturally from her recognised beauty and youthful grace. But to be "a settled woman," with a loving husband and "a house of her own," seemed to Christina an irresistible offer; and she smiled to herself when she thought of Sophy's surprise, and of the many pretty little airs and conceits the state of bridehood would be sure to bring forth in her self-indulgent nature.

"She will be provoking enough, no doubt," she whispered as she set the iron sharply down; "but I'll never notice it. She is very little more than a bairn, and but a canary-headed creature added to that. In a year or two, Andrew, and marriage, and maybe motherhood, will sober and settle her. And Andrew loves her so. Most as well as Jamie loves me. For Andrew's sake, then, I'll bear with all her provoking ways and words. She'll be our own, anyway, and we be to have patience with they of our own household. Bonnie wee Sophy."

It was about mid-afternoon when she came to this train of forbearing and conciliating reflections. She was quite happy in it; for Christina was one of those wise women, who do not look into their ideals and hopes too closely. Her face reflecting them was beautiful and benign; and her shoulders, and hands, her supple waist and limbs, continued the symphonies of her soft, deep, loving eyes and her smiling mouth. Every now and then she burst into song; and then her thrilling voice, so sweet and fresh, had tones in it that only birds and good women full of love may compass. Mostly the song was a lilt or a verse which spoke for her own heart and love; but just as the clock struck three, she broke into a low laugh which ended in a merry, mocking melody, and which was evidently the conclusion of her argument concerning Sophy's behaviour as Andrew's wife—

"Toot! toot! quoth the grey-headed father,
She's less of a bride than a bairn;
She's ta'en like a colt from the heather,
With sense and discretion to learn.

"Half-husband I trow, and half daddy,
As humour inconstantly leans;
The man must be patient and steady,
That weds with a lass in her teens."

She had hardly finished the verse, when she heard a step blending with its echoes. Her ears rung inward; her eyes dilated with an unhappy expectancy; she put down her iron with a sudden faint feeling, and turned her face to the door.

Andrew entered the cottage. He looked at her despairingly, and sinking into his chair, he covered his wretched face with his hands.