We found ourselves there next day, Francesca and I--Salemina was too proud--drawn by an insatiable longing to view the beloved and forbidden scene. We did not dare to glance at the Disagreeable Woman's windows, lest our courage should ooze away, so we opened the gate and stole through into the rather private path.
It was a most lovely path; even if it had not been in a sense prohibited, it would still have been lovely, simply on its own merits. There were little gaps in the hedge and the wall, through which we peered into a daisy-starred pasture, where a white bossy and a herd of flaxen-haired cows fed on the sweet green grass. The mellow ploughed earth on the right hand stretched down to the shore- line, and a plough-boy walked up and down the long, straight furrows whistling `My Nannie's awa'.' Pettybaw is so far removed from the music-halls that their cheap songs and strident echoes never reach its sylvan shades, and the herd-laddies and plough-boys still sweeten their labours with the old classic melodies.
We walked on and on, determined to come every day; and we settled that if we were accosted by any one, or if our innocent business were demanded, Francesca should ask, `Does Mrs. Macstronachlacher live here, and has she any new-laid eggs?'
Soon the gates of the Farm appeared in sight. There was a cluster of buildings, with doves huddling and cooing on the red-tiled roofs,--dairy houses, workmen's cottages, comely rows of haystacks (towering yellow things with peaked tops); a little pond with ducks and geese chattering together as they paddled about, and for additional music the trickling of two tiny burns making `a singan din,' as they wimpled through the bushes. A speckle-breasted thrush perched on a corner of the grey wall and poured his heart out.
Overhead there was a chorus of rooks in the tall trees, but there was no sound of human voice save that of the plough-laddie whistling `My Nannie's awa'.'
We turned our backs on this darling solitude, and retraced our steps lingeringly. As we neared the wicket gate again we stood upon a bit of jutting rock and peered over the wall, sniffing the hawthorn buds with ecstasy. The white bossy drew closer, treading softly on its daisy carpet; the wondering cows looked up at us as they peacefully chewed their cuds; a man in corduroy breeches came from a corner of the pasture, and with a sharp, narrow hoe rooted out a thistle or two that had found their way into this sweet feeding-ground.
Suddenly we heard the swish of a dress behind, and turned, conscience-stricken, though we had in nothing sinned.
"Does Mrs. Macstronachlacher live here?" stammered Francesca like a parrot.
It was an idiotic time and place for the question. We had certainly arranged that she should ask it, but something must be left to the judgment in such cases. Francesca was hanging over a stone wall regarding a herd of cows in a pasture, and there was no possible shelter for a Mrs. Macstronachlacher within a quarter of a mile.
What made the remark more unfortunate was the fact that, although she had on a different dress and bonnet, the person interrogated was the Disagreeable Woman; but Francesca is particularly slow in discerning resemblances. She would have gone on mechanically asking for new-laid eggs, had I not caught her eye and held it sternly.
The foe looked at us suspiciously for a moment (Francesca's hats are not easily forgotten), and then vanished up the path, to tell the people at Crummylowe, I suppose, that their grounds were invested by marauding strangers whose curiosity was manifestly the outgrowth of a republican government.
As she disappeared in one direction, we walked slowly in the other; and just as we reached the corner of the pasture where two stone walls meet, and where a group of oaks gives grateful shade, we heard children's voices.
"No, no!" cried somebody; "it must be still higher at this end, for the tower--this is where the king will sit. Help me with this heavy one, Rafe. Dandie, mind your foot. Why don't you be making the flag for the ship?--and do keep the Wrig away from us till we finish building!"
