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Nearly every horse and vehicle at Severndale had been pressed into service to carry its guests from the station, and mounted on Shashai and Star, Jess having brought them home for the holidays, were Happy and Wheedles. They had been unable to leave their ships as soon as Shorty, so taking a later train had gone directly to Severndale. Their welcome by Peggy and Polly was a royal one.
"It is not impossible, Uncle Coetzee, as you know," said Jess. "Listen! If I get that pass I will speak to my uncle about the five hundred pounds. Perhaps he would not want it all back again." "Ah!" said the Boer. "Well, we are old friends, missie, and 'never desert a friend, that is my saying. Almighty! I must ride a hundred miles I will swim through blood for a friend. Well, well, I must see.
As he sat by the tipsy milestone, which had swayed sidelong and lay half buried amid the grass and dock leaves, a tall, dark girl came by half turning to look at the young man as he rested. It was Jess Kissock, from the Herd's House at Craig Ronald, on her way home from buying trimmings for a new hat. This happened just twice a year, and was a solemn occasion.
Jess sat by Eben, with his head resting upon her lap, while Mrs. Hampton was seated near by. John was facing her, and at times their eyes met. Words were unnecessary to express their thoughts, for love has a silent language all its own, which lovers alone understand. As they came near the lower end of the island, Jess pointed out the exact spot where she and Mrs. Hampton had taken refuge.
"Is this the way to the manse of Dullarg?" asked the young man, standing up with his hat in his hand, the brim just beneath his chin. He was a handsome young man when he stood up straight. Jess looked at him attentively. They did not speak in that way in her country, nor did they take their hats in their hands when they had occasion to speak to young women.
Meanwhile Jess Croft stood quite still and silent, and it struck John that her face was the most singularly impassive one he had ever seen. It never changed, even when her sister told her how the ostrich rolled on her and nearly killed her, or how they finally subdued the foe. "Dear me," he thought to herself, "what a very strange woman! She can't have much heart."
"Thair ain't nothin' to do yer," Jimmy remarked, softly, "but jess squat down an' git a-climated, as they say about strangers to our bilious shore, an' git your eyeballs tuned to the dark. But I should say that this was both hokey-pokey an' Pangymonum, by smoke!"
The man's brows went up. "Yes, bargain." "I don't remember a bargain." James' eyes had in them an ominous glitter. "Then you've got a bad memory." "I sure haven't, Jess. I sure haven't that. I generally remember good. And what I remember now is that I promised you those kids if you needed them. I swore that you should have 'em. But I made no bargain. Guess women don't see things dead right.
"He gave me six days in the court," said Jess Mitchell, who had had a difference of opinion with another lady in the Vennel and received the Bailie's best attention from the Bench, "and if I hadna to hear him preach a sermon as long as my leg besides confound him for a smooth-tongued, psalm-singin', bletherin' old idiot!
"Ou," said Leeby, "whaur would she be but in her bed?" "Leeby!" cried Jess at that moment. "Ay," answered Leeby, leisurely, not noticing, as I happened to do, that Jess spoke in an agitated voice. "What is't?" asked Hendry, who liked to be told things. He opened the door of the bed. "Yer mother's no weel," he said to Leeby. Leeby ran to the bed, and I went ben the house.
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