"Marriage! Marriage! Sirce, heard ye ever the like? A bairn to speak to me o’ mairrying a woman naebody kens ocht aboot—a ’lass in a shop,’ ye say; aye, I’se warrant a bonny shop——!"
Then there came the sound of a chair pushed vehemently back, the crash of a falling dish. My father’s voice, deep and terrible so that I trembled, followed. "Sir, sit down on your seat and compose yourself! Do not speak thus to your mother!"
"I will not sit down—I will not compose myself—I will never sit down in this house again—I will marry Lizzie in spite of you all!"
And almost before I could get round to the front yard again Willie had come whirling all disorderedly out of the kitchen door, shutting it to with a clash that shook the house. Then with wild and angry eyes he strode across the straw-littered space, taking no notice of me, but leaping the gate and so down the little loaning and up towards the heather like a man walking in his sleep.
I remember I ran after him, calling him to come back; but he never heeded me till I pulled him by the coat tails. It was away up near the march dyke, and I could hardly speak with running so fast. He stared as if he did not know me.
"Oh, dinna—dinna—come back!" I cried (and I think I wept); "dinna vex my mither!—And—there’s ’rummelt tawties’{ #} to the supper!"
[#] "Rummelt tawties," _i.e._, a sort of _purée_ of potatoes, made in the pot in which they have been boiled, with sweet milk, butter, and sometimes a little flavouring of cheese. All hands are expected to assist in the operation of "champing," that is, pounding and stirring them to a proper consistency of toothsomeness.
But Willie would not stop for all I could say to him.
"Bide at hame and be Jacob," he said; "they have cast out this Esau."
For he had been well learned in the Bible, and once got a prize for catechism at the day school at Whinnyliggate. It was Boston’s _Fourfold State_, so, though there were three copies in the house, I never tried to read it.
So saying, he took the hillside like a goat, while I stood open-mouthed, gazing at the lithe figure of him who was my brother as it grew smaller, and finally vanished over the heathery shoulder of the Rig of Drumquhat.
That night I heard my father and mother talking far into the morning, while I made a pretence of sleeping.