Chapter 13
Deep Moat Grange by S. R. Crockett. Chapter 13, Maisie's Burns. At the time I had no idea how difficult this would be but at any rate I wanted to find out for certain what it was that I had found. He could give me no other answer than that I would know in good time and that in the meantime we were going to old Caleb Ferguson's for tea.
Now I make no objections to tea at any time. That is a proper sit down spread table country tea not one of those agonies at which you do tricks with a cup of tea, a plate, the edge of a chair and a snippet of bread. I knew that at the Fergusons I would find plenty to eat and drink. We slid back through the woods, rising higher all the time as the land trended toward the moor.
Then out and away across the road I could see far away to the right the roofs of Brecanside, shining like silver after a shower which must have passed over them. The winding brom water, the threaded roads, pale pink in colour, the dry stone dikes dividing the fields. Never had my native village seemed so small to me.
Perhaps because I had just been in some considerable danger, a thing which enlarges the mental horizon. I looked for Elsie's house down there. But though I could see the silver glint of the water, I could not make out the cottage at the bridge end. There was a mist, however, creeping up from
the sea, so that in a little while, even as I looked, the whole valley became a pearl grey lake, with only the tall ash trees and the solitary church spire standing up out of the smother. We found old Caleb, an infrequent smile on his face, leaning over the bars of his yard gate. them that has neither hay wheel covered he chuckled runs a chance of getting it sprinkled away
then said Mr Ablethorpe you owe me something for the afternoon's work I gave you yawn cried the old man ungratefully can you that half the day's work but I'm far free denying that sick as it was it helped
oh aye it was aye a help and at any rate the hay's undercover some thack and rape and in the new fangled shed But what's your will? You're no seeking wages, I'm thinking. Maybe you want me to turn my coat and come down to your bit tabernacle.
I will, you may want. Oh no, said Mr Ablethorpe, smiling. I was just hoping that perhaps your good wife would brew us a cup of tea. I think both Joe and I would be the better of it. You should have seen how the old farmer's face lit up.
Hospitality was a beautiful thing to him. he rejoiced in that at least and if as some folks say not Mr Ablethorpe an elder is the same as a bishop then the old free kirker had at least one of the necessary qualities he was given to hospitality whether he was as is also required no striker I would not just like to say or to try but Caleb took us indoors out of the slight oncoming drizzle which was beginning to spray
down from the clouds or creep up from the valleys. I'm not sure which. At any rate, it was there, close serried, wetting. Now heretofore, I had only seen Mrs. Caleb when she was ordered down from the long stack under the zinc-roofed shed, which her husband was never tired of declaiming against as newfangled, yet to which he owed that night the safety of his crop. Mrs. Caleb was a good 20 years younger than her lord, still indeed bearing traces of that special kind of good looks which the Scots
call sonsiness. Susan Ferguson at five and forty was sonsy to the last degree. Her husband, twenty years older, was sun-dried and wind-dried and frost-bitten till he had become as sapless as a leaf blown along the highway on a Basque March day when the fields are full of sours and the road cloudy with Stuart. Come, Ben, this way, sir, and you too, Joe, she cried, opening a door into an inner room. You will know he's seen Maisie's bairns. As I had never even
heard of Maisie, I certainly had not. But the good wife's next words enlightened me. Caleb, you see, was married afore he took up wi me. Did, his lassie Maisie is maybe older than I am myself, and a solid, sensible woman. But this is the first time her bairns has come so far to see me. She flung the door open, and there sitting one on a sofa, the other on a footstool by the fire, I saw two grown-up young ladies, so at least they appeared to me, and I began to fear that my tea
was going to cost me dear, for at that time conversation was a difficult art to make with anyone whom I could neither fight nor call names. The girls, 20 or 22 they seemed, oh ever so old, looked just as if they had been doing nothing. That is, the one with the straight cut face, very dignified, who made a kind of long droopy picture of herself on the sofa, was reading a book, or pretending to, while the other on the stool did nothing but nurse her knees and look
out the window. This was the one I liked best though, of course. Not like Elsie, I should think not indeed, but she was little, she had a merry face, and I'm sure she had been laughing just before we came in. Indeed, I am none so sure that she had not been listening at the keyhole and made a rush for the footstool. Burns, said Mrs. Caleb II, this is the Englishy minister and a kind friend of us old folk, though Caleb, your grandad, gives him office spells of argumentication
about things I can nicht about. Did, I wonder wiles the maester Ablethorpe ever looks near us again. Oh no, said the hayfork minister, smiling. It takes two to make an argument, and I never argue with Mr. Ferguson. I only receive instruction as a younger from an elder. Here to him, cried the good wife. He doesn't even a word he is saying. I can I tell by the glint in his ear. Then she introduced the girls in due form. One, the tall, tired looking girl on the sofa was Constantia,
and the little merry one was named Harriet. To my great astonishment, they were of the same age, being twins. It seemed as if I were to be left out altogether, but Harriet looked across at me and asked demurely if I were going to be a minister too. She was making fun of me, of course, and that is what I do not allow any girl to do, only Elsie, and she is really too serious to abuse the privilege. Not like this Harriet. I could see in a minute that she was a regular magpie,
a clip, as they say in Brecanside. Meanwhile, Constantia did not say very much. She gave Mr. Ablethorpe her hand as if she were doing him a valuable kindness. At this I could hear her sister gurgle. The next minute Harriet was on her feet and taking me by the shoulder she said, come on Joe, Joe is your name isn't it? That's good for it's just the name I like best of all boys names. Come on and help Susan Ferguson to get tea. That was the way she spoke of her grandmother
offhand and kindly with a glint of fun more in the manner than the words. What's your other name? I asked because I did not like to call her Harriet so suddenly. Besides I did not know how Elsie might take to all this. I was sure they would like one another no end because they were both the same kind of girl. Jolly so that almost any boy could get on with them. At least that was what I thought at the time, not knowing any better. Caw, she said, that is my name. Same as a crow says, Caw, Caw, Caw.
You needn't be surprised. I couldn't help it being my father's name, but it's short and if you should forget it, you have only to go out and stand beneath a rookery and you'll remember it in a minute. That is, unless you're deaf. Then I told Harriet Caw my name, Joseph Yarrow, which she thought funny and she gave me bread to cut while she stood by me and buttered it, doing everything so quickly and talking all the time that indeed it was very nice.
And I wished Elsie had been there to laugh at Harriet's jokes, which seemed very funny to me then. But oh, how stupid and feeble they seemed when I came to tell them to Elsie after. And Elsie wasn't a bit amused as I had hoped. Girls hardly ever seem to get on with other girls as a fellow thinks they will. It's different with men. Now I got on first class with Mr Ablethorpe, even when I thought,
but it's no matter about that now. Well, it was a tea. The table was loaded from one end to the other. There were soda scones, light and hove up so as to make your teeth water. There were farrels of oat cake, crisp and curly, with just the proper amount of browning on the side where the red ashes of the fire had toasted it. Four or five kinds of jams there were, all better one than the other. Old Caleb came in and ate quickly, sermonising Mr Ablethorpe all the time, and as
long as he was there we were all quiet as mice, but I'm sure that everyone was glad when he rose, tumbled things about on the window seat in search of his blue bonnet, which only he of all the countryside still wore, and finally went out to the hill. Before going, he warned us to behave and to remember that, such as he was, we had one who deemed himself a minister among us. But as soon as we were alone, up jumped Harriet Caw, and catching me round the waist, she cried, Dance,
Joseph! Dance, Joe! He's gone! Never mind Granny Susan! She does not count! That was actually the way she spoke of her grandmother, or step-grandmother rather, and indeed that good lady only laughed and shaking her head at the minister repeated what I afterwards found to be her favourite maxim that young folk would be young folk, the philosophy of which was that they would get over it all too soon. The hay fork minister nodded back to Susan and I was not sorry to see him, as I thought,
much taken up with the picture book girl as in my heart I called Constantia for in our house at home up in the attic there were a lot of old annuals and keepsakes oh I don't know how old all in faded watered silk covers loose at the back some faded and some where the colour has run but chock full of pictures of scenery all camels and spiky palms and humpy camels with palmyra and carthage written beneath time about. But these are not half bad, though deadly like. The weary parts are the
pictures of girls leaning out of the windows before they have done their washing and hair brushing in the morning. I should just like to see my father catch them at it. That was called Dreaming of Thee, and then were lots of others. Sensibility was a particularly bad one. She was spread all over a sofa and had a canary on her finger. She had saved it from a little snappy yappy spaniel, only just for two tail feathers were floating down and there were two big dew
drops of tears on her cheeks to show how sorry she was for the canary bird or perhaps for the spaniel. Anyway, it was the only time I ever really liked a spaniel. Well, I needn't describe the others. At any rate, if you've ever seen the keepsake kind of young woman, you won't have forgotten them. You will cherish a spite, especially if you've had to stay in one room and choose between looking at them and flattening your nose against the window panes down which the water is
running in big blobs during a week of wet holiday weather. Constantia was a keepsake girl. I suppose it must be as it is with snakes. Some like them and some not. I don't, but I will never deny, not being like Elsie, a girl, that Constantia was good-looking. If, and the Lord have mercy on your soul, you really like that sort of thing, Constantia was just the sort of thing you would like. End of chapter 13, read by RGL Glasgow, 7th of March 2026.
Thank you.
