Page:Once a Week Volume V.djvu/21

14 summers blushing on her healthy cheeks. To quit the good old style of hyperbolical story-writing, she was a fair specimen of the unsophisticated village girl,—if anything, a shade more shrewd and womanly than most girls of her age and position. Healthily handsome, and with all the promise of a good substantial housewife, she did not fail to obtain some few suitors,—whose cannie Scotch heads were not, however, turned by her good looks. They made love to her as ordinary people eat bread and butter, making no fuss about it; but liking her as hard-working young men like hard-working young women who bid fair to become useful helpmates. Their love, if I may call it by that name, was hard matter-of-fact stuff, and they made no faces when they swallowed it without sugar; it was a sort of strengthening medicine which they were obliged to earn and pay for.

Jessie Cameron was the name of this good-looking young woman. She lived with her stepmother in one of those little thatched cottages of which so many sweet Auburns in England, Scotland, and Ireland are composed. Not a rich girl, but one who worked hard for her living. Her business in the house was to make the oatcake, milk the cow, and turn her handy fingers to household work in general. But over and above all this, she laboured at the loom. As I have observed, she fulfilled her duties with a sufficiency which gained her a good character among the marriageable young men of the neighbourhood. Mrs. Cameron, her stepmother, was a woman of rather less than thirty years of age, still handsome, and almost certain to marry again. She had married Jessie’s father, who had since died, when Jessie was a little girl of twelve; she had no children of her own. Her beauty—though that is far too strong a word for the fact—was of a very different order from that of her stepdaughter. While the latter was dark and tawny, Mrs. Cameron was fair-haired, sanguine-complexioned, and blue-eyed. But there was a black dreamy look in the blue eyes, and a heavy coarseness about the full red lips, which indicated a listless, morbid nature, tempered and heightened by an underlying sensuality. Still, in her own way, she was a busy bustling woman enough, and was respected and rather liked by her neighbours. Her blood was Scottish, though mingled with the blood of an Irishman, her grandfather. She had a sort of reputation for piety, being, like most of the people in those parts, a rigid member of the Free Kirk.

Opposite to the small cottage where these two women lived alone, stood the smithy, where the old blacksmith had laboured with his boy for years; a cheery, weather-beaten place, where cheery weather-beaten cronies met to have their daily cracks.

A change came over Jessie Cameron’s monotonous life. One fine summer day the smithy was closed to the cronies, and news soon circulated through the village that old Aleck Mackay the blacksmith had given up the ghost. The affair passed over without comment save from garrulous old women. But by and by came word that a new hand was soon to handle the big hammer and blow the big bellows in Aleck’s stead. John Macintyre (familiarly called Jock), a young fellow from a neighbouring village, was to be the new occupant. Jock sent a good name before him; he had the reputation of being a “weel-to-do-callan.” So the lassies began to brush up their best looks, in the hope of attracting his attention some Sunday, as they tripped toward their seats in the little church.

In course of time the new hand came, and the forge again flamed from morning to night opposite Mrs. Cameron’s cottage door. A fine young fellow, who stood some six feet high in his shoes, was seen toiling at the bellows, and flourishing the heavy hammer. A fair and honest Scotch face had Jock, and a strong arm, and a roguish eye; no wonder the girls began to set their caps at him. But Jessie Cameron had work to do, and found little time to gaze at the young fellow over the way. However, Jock the blacksmith was there, watching her with tender thoughts in his heart; for he was soft-hearted, and liked the girl’s face passing well.

This was how they first began to fraternise,—Jessie and Jock. Hostilities (excuse the expression) began in a nod and a smile from the latter, as he took down his shutters one morning; they were continued by the former, who answered the nod and the smile. The next morning the same mode of salutation was repeated; and so on, for a fortnight or so. At the end of that time the blacksmith was on speaking terms with Jessie and her stepmother. By and by, too, the girl found a corner in her little heart vacant, and Jock was installed there secretly, and with many tender wishes.

Jock had come to the village in early summer. By autumn time—when the haymaking was over and the reapers were out—he and the girl were as thoroughly in love with each other as young man and young woman can be. Many a sweet word, endorsed with sweet kisses, had passed between them, as they wandered together under the moon and stars. This nocturnal kind of wooing is customary in Scotch villages, and a lassie can stay out love-making till the “wee short hour ayont the twal’,” without losing her character. But the upshot is always expected to be a new house, a “tocher,” and a wedding-ring. So Jock and Jessie were soon recognised as acknowledged sweethearts, who meant to visit the minister, and help to populate the village at no very distant date.

“Jessie,” said Jock to that young woman one night, as they were about to take the parting kiss, “Jessie, I hae siller, some, and I hae gear. I’m thinking o’ makin’ a new house down by the auld ane—a braw new house, with hens and kye. Jessie” (and here he kissed her with a smack). “Jessie, will ye tak’ me wi’ a’ I hae, and be my ain wee wife?”

The proposal was at the least straightforward; but young fellows who mean business do not like rigmarole. Jessie blushed to the tips of her fingers, and trembled a little; but her heart was full, and she felt very proud and happy. She clung closer to her strong young lover, hanging down her head for a moment; till, as if by a