CHAPTER XXVII

*

Soon all was abustle at the Post Office in preparation for the departing mail. The kettle commenced to throb upon the red embers of the little kitchen fire, and pushing out a blithe volume of steam through its pursed lips, appeared to be whistling light-heartedly at the immediate prospect of the cup that cheers. From the second kitchen came the melodious clink of the cups and saucers and tea-spoons; gladsome tea-table music, heard at four o'clock on a hot summer's day, with its queer cracked thirds and minor intervals and faulty diatonics. James Maskill rattled up to the Post Office door again, over the great round cobbles, and tying the reins up into a loop, stimulated hot and dusty letter-bringers to frantic final efforts with fierce cries that he was on the point of departure.

"Noo then, ye need n't gie ower runnin' if ah 'm to tek it."

"Ah s'd sit down, if I was you, an' watch me gan."

"Ay, theer, ye 'll 'ave to mek use o' yer legs."

"Noo, ah 'm just away an' all, so ye know."

Whereupon, at Pam's invitation, he retired to partake of a cup of smoking tea on the Post Office counter--that reappeared immediately upon his forehead in the form of globules--and doubling up plum-bread and butter by laying it flat on his great outstretched palm and closing his hand upon it, slipped it down his mouth cornerwise, as easily as posting a letter. Every now and then he gave his tea-cup a vigorous stir to shake up the sugar in it, and darting to the door of the Post Office, scanned the street up and down for distant letter-bearers on its horizon.

"Noo then," he cried out at Ding Jackson, lurking onward from afar. "'Ow much longer div ye think ah s'll wait for ye?"

"Ah don't know, an' ah don't care," Dingwall Jackson responded irreverently.

"Don't ye?" shouted the postman, with sudden ire.

"Naw," Ding Jackson shouted back at him, going better. "Ah 've no letters."

"Ay, bud ye 'll know if ah get 'old on ye," James Maskill cried threateningly, shaking a doubled fist like a great red brick at him, and as heavy. "An' ye 'll care too. Ye dommed saucy young divvle."

"Gie ower sweerin'," cried Ding Jackson, as loudly as he could. He almost twisted his interior in the effort to publish the postman's offence throughout Ullbrig. "Feythur, James Maskill 's sweerin' at me."

"Ay, ye sewd try an' curb your tongue, Jaames," the postmaster counselled him as he scowled back to his teacup. "It's a 'asty member wi' all on us, an' stan's i' need o' bridlin'."

"Ah 'll bridle 'im," said James morosely, stirring up the sugar again, this time like the dregs of discord. "... When ah get 'im. An' ah know very well where ah can leet of 'im" [alight on him].

At other times this wicked conduct of James's would have grieved and disappointed Pam, particularly in the face of his recent struggles and improvements, but to-day she felt no right to be grieved. Indeed, this sin seemed so inconsiderable by the side of her own that she envied the postman his comparative state of sinlessness. To call somebody a "devil" (which Ding Jackson undoubtedly was, at any time that you used the appellation to him; morning, noon, or night), what was that? But to steal something from somebody who 'd been your best friend. To be a thief. She knew by her sorrows what that was. And James Maskill had been reproved and shamed and corrected for the one, while she, for the other--that could have sent her to prison and shamed her before Ullbrig for ever--she was here, acting the saintly hypocrite.

Oh, no! Whatever James Maskill did now she could never reprove him. The very worst that his temper could do would always be above that level to which, through her sheer sinful tendency, she had sunk. James would never steal. James would never be a thief. From that hour forth she looked up to James Maskill with a new-born reverence and respect, as to one whose life was pure and hallowed.

"Thank ye," said the hallowed one, thrusting the cup and saucer and plate through the kitchen door, and holding them there until he should feel himself relieved of them.

"You 're very welcome, James," Pam answered him, in the softest voice that was left to her. Even her voice, it seemed, was becoming hard and sinful and metallic in these days, to match her soul. "Will you have any more?"

"No, ah s'll 'a my tea when ah get back," the hallowed one responded; and in a lower tone, according to custom: "Is there owt 'at ah can do for ye o' my way?"

Dear, faithful, honest, good-hearted fellow! How he loved her, Pam told herself bitterly. How he trusted her, vile character that she was. How his goodness ought to stimulate and strengthen her own, and draw her back, if so might be, to the old paths she had trodden once.

"No, thank you, James," she said after a pause--in which James only imagined she was trying to think of something.

"Not to-night?" said the hallowed one.

"Not to-night ... thank you," Pam told him.

If a kiss would have been any good to him ... and he 'd asked for it, he would have got it then. Poor James! Lost a kiss because he never dreamed of thinking it would be there, or asking on the off chance.

"Ah 'm still ... tryin' my best," he assured Pam, round the door-post. "Ah 'm not same man ah was, bud that d ... Dingwall, ah mean, gets better o' me yet. Ah know ah s'll not be right while ah 've fetched 'im a bat across 'is lugs. Nor 'e won't, saucy young ... sod. Bud ah 've not gidden up tryin'."

He had not given up trying. And she--was she trying?

Oh, James, James, James! After many days you are bringing back her soul's bread to her. Pray that she feed upon it and be strong. She needs it.

"Good-neet," said James.

"Good-night, James," said Pam.

The postman raised his voice.

"Good-neet, Emma."

"Good-neet, Jaames Maskill," Emma responded.

"Good-neet, Missis Morland."

"Good-neet, Jim lad."

"Good-neet, agen," James said to the postmaster.

"Neet, James. Ye 'll 'ev another nice jonney," the postmaster told him.

"Ay, neet 's about best part o' day, noo," James responded.

He took up the bag, and lingering, cast one extra "Good-neet" over his shoulder towards the door-post once more, in his second and softer voice. It did n't seem for anybody in particular, but more as though he had it to spare, and might as well leave it at the Post Office as anywhere. Pam's voice, however, registered acceptance of it from within, with the grateful inflection for a very welcome gift.

"Ay, good-neet," said the postman, giving her another forthwith; and after hesitating on the impulse of a third, hardened his mouth, swung the bag off the counter by its narrow neck, lunged out into the lurid sunlight, pulled the cart down to meet him, sprang into his place, said "Gee" and "Kt," and was round the brewer's corner in a twinkling, leaving golden clouds behind him.

And as soon as tea was over and the things were cleared, and the house commenced to slip into its peaceful evening mood, she set her plans in motion for the carrying out of her resolve. Viewing the recent discredit into which her washing had fallen with Miss Morland, it required all her nerve to brace herself for a visit of this nature to the bright bedroom overlooking the garden; but stealing a moment when Emma was absent, she did it, changed her light dress for a darker of navy blue, and descended, prepared to receive all Emma's scorn now that it could no longer deter her from her intention. But Emma was nowhere visible when she reached ground-floor again; her accumulated reserves of meekness and charity had been vainly stored. And now her first object was to secure the letter. She reconnoitred the rooms once more, with the end that she might possess herself of it, and hold it in readiness for the first suitable moment that might offer her a chance of departure without being seen. Such departure would not be yet, of course. It would not be till the dusk was well fallen, and the moon on the rise. Until that time there was always the fear of coming into collision with the Spawer about Dixon's farmstead. Above all, she must avoid that. And meanwhile, the letter must be in her keeping against all chance that the one moment most favorable to departure in all other respects should be the least favorable for the procurement of the letter itself.

To her consternation and dismay, she found that the parlor, though she had imagined it to be unoccupied when she listened outside the door, was held in the hands of the schoolmaster. He was seated, reading deeply at the round table, with his elbows on the edge and his hands over his ears, when she wavered upon the threshold. This first frustration cast a terrible shadow over her. She did not know where to go to keep vigil. If she dallied too openly about the house, there was ever the dread that it might involve her awkwardly with one member or other, and rob her of her chance a second time, just at the very moment that the schoolmaster should leave the coast clear. Apparently he had not heard her push the half-open door and stop dead upon the outer mat, for he had never raised his head. Dejected and anxious, she stole back to the little kitchen and twisted her knuckles by the window, watching the slowly deepening sky--so reflective of her own sinking gloom. From here the postmaster's approaching steps drove her into the second kitchen. From the second kitchen the sound of Emma Morland, humming a hymn-tune severely through her tightened lips, and advancing by the passage door, drove her back again, and--as Emma still pushed her advance--up the corkscrew staircase for the second time this night.

"Where 's Pam?" Miss Morland inquired acutely of the postmaster, when she entered--not that she was in active pursuit or need of her, but that the girl's absences now were always a source of suspicious inquiry and speculation.

"En't ye seed 'er?" the postmaster asked innocently. "She 's nobbut just this moment come oot o' kitchen an' ganned upstairs."

"Ay, to wash 'ersen, ah' s'd think," Miss Morland reflected shrewdly to herself. "Ah 'd gie seummut to know what lass 's after."

At that moment, if it could have been revealed to her, the lass was after listening at the top of the staircase with a twisted ear to their solicitudes concerning her whereabouts. Once upon a time, she told herself while she did it, she would never have listened to anything that anybody said, whether she had been the subject of it or not. But now, listening seemed part of her natural defence; she listened with no interest in the thing heard, except only as a means for her own intelligence and safety. At the first sound of words her suspicious ear was up like a cat's at the chattering of birds.

From her place at the head of the twisted stairs she was driven into her bedroom once more by Mrs. Morland. Then, when calm had been restored to the recently ruffled atmosphere of the post house, and it was possible to probe by ear to the uttermost corners of it, she slipped out a cautious head, chose her moment, and stole down by the Sunday staircase. Very gently she pressed upon the parlor door with her cushioned fingers ... very gently ... gently, gently, just so that she ... gently ... gently ... could catch a glimpse.

Ah!

The treacherous door had cracked, all at once, like a walnut-shell under her boot-heel. She was halfway up the stairs again in a trice; holding her palpitating heart and listening terribly over the bannisters for the sounds that should proclaim discovery of her attempt. But none came. Baffled, goaded with desire, half-crying with fear of her enterprise's failure, and yet unable to cry because she lacked the tears to cry with, being only able to pull painful faces; desperate to achieve her purpose and terrified with her own desperation, she was up and down the staircase after this a dozen times; back into her bedroom, listening at the head of the corkscrew stairs; holding her ear to every point of the compass. But never dared she essay entrance of the parlor. That door, just ajar on its hinges, held her more effectually at bay than had it been bolted with great bolts and locked and barred. Dusky night descended, the time was getting ripe for her purpose ... and still she lacked the letter.

Then the greater terror out-terrorised the lesser. Fear of what the consequences might be should she not achieve her purpose to-night drove her downstairs for the last time, and into the parlor. With an air of reckless innocence that pretends it has nothing to be afraid or ashamed of, she pulled the door wide and strode into the room. In the simulation of guiltlessness her bearing for the moment was almost defiant, as though she were braced for going into some hated presence. And indeed, for all the assuring silence of the parlor, she advanced with the full expectation of seeing the schoolmaster's figure looming forth from the table, with his hands to his ears and his back to her, as he had been on her first arrival. But no black shadow interposed itself between her and the window; the chair was empty; the room was void. Gone all this while.... And she in her terror had been letting the precious moments slip through her fingers like water. Her heart, in spite of the misery of her lost opportunities, gave a great bound of exultation when it found the way of its purpose clear.

She sprang across the room and laid hold of the desk. The pleasure of feeling it in her possession again after all her dividing anguish; this union of purpose with opportunity; this path unto righteousness--were more glorious than untold riches. Tremulously she deposed the china shepherdess, and opening the desk thrust in her feverish fingers.

And then, all of a sudden, her heart seemed to stand still. A great sinking, swaying sickness seized her.

The letter was not there.

*