Читать книгу Joyce онлайн

103 страница из 126

‘I’m no a wean to be made o’. I like nane o’ your phrasin’s. I like when folk do as I bid them, and make nae steer.’

‘Oh, granny,’ said Joyce, ‘but my heart is so full, and I have so much to tell you.’

‘What can ye have to tell me? I have maybe mair to tell you than ever ye thought upon; and as for a full heart, how can the like of you, with a’ your life before ye, ken what that means?’

‘Granny, I have had a long talk with that gentleman—the gentleman that thought he knew my mother.’

‘And what had he to say to you? I’m thinking your mother has been just killed among them. That’s my opinion. A poor young solitary thing, that had naebody to stand up for her. And sae will ye be if ye lippen to them,’ cried Janet, suddenly sitting down and covering her face with her apron,—‘sae will ye be. Ye are weel off now, though maybe ye dinna think sae.’

‘Granny, have I ever given you any reason to say that?’

Janet withdrew her apron from her eyes. Her eyes were red with that burden of tears which age cannot shed like youth. The passion of love and grief which overflowed her being could only get vent in this irritation and querulous impatience. Her long upper lip quivered, a hot moisture glistened on the edges of her eyelids. She looked at the young creature, standing half on the defensive before this sudden attack, yet half disposed to meet it with tender laughter and jest. ‘Oh, ye can make licht o’t,’ she cried. ‘What is’t to you? just the life ye’ve aye been craving for,—aye craving for,—ye canna say nay. But to me what is it?’ said the old woman. ‘It’s just death. It’s waur than death; it’s just lingering and longin’ and frettin’ wi’ my Maker for what I canna have! When we took ye to our airms, a bit helpless bairn, maybe there was that in our hearts that said the Lord was our debtor to make it up to us. But them that think sae will find themselves sair mista’en; for He has just waited and waited till ye had come to your flower and were our pride! And now the fiat has gaen forth, no’ when ye were a little bairn; and I aye said, “Haud a loose grip!” But now that a’ the danger seemed overpast, now that—wheesht!’ cried Janet suddenly, coming to an abrupt pause. In the silence that followed they heard a slow and heavy foot, making long and measured steps, advancing gradually. They heard that among many others, for it was the time when the labourers were coming home to dinner; but to Janet and Joyce there was no mistaking the one tread among so many. Janet got up hurriedly from the chair. ‘Wheesht! no’ a word before him; it’s time enough when it comes,’ she said. Joyce had not waited even for this, but had begun to lay the table, so that Peter when he came in should find everything ready. He came in with his usual air of broadly smiling expectation, and took his bonnet from his grizzled red locks, which was the fashion Joyce had taught him, as he stepped across the threshold. ‘It’s awful warm the day,’ were his first words, as he went in, notwithstanding, and placed himself in the big chair near the fire. The fire was the household centre whether it was cold or warm. ‘So you’ve gotten the play?’ he added, beaming upon Joyce, awaiting something which should make him open his mouth in one of those big brief laughs that brought the water to his eyes. It was not necessary that it should be witty or clever. Joyce was wit and cleverness embodied to her foster-father. When she opened her lips his soul was satisfied.