Chapter XVIII.

       Leeby and Jamie

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      By the bank of the Quharity on a summer day I have seen a barefooted girl gaze at the running water until tears filled her eyes. That was the birth of romance. Whether this love be but a beautiful dream I cannot say, but this we see, that it comes to all, and colours the whole future life with gold. Leeby must have dreamt it, but I did not know her then. I have heard of a man who would have taken her far away into a county where the corn is yellow when it is still green with us, but she would not leave her mother, nor was it him she saw in her dream. From her earliest days, when she was still a child staggering round the garden with Jamie in her arms, her duty lay before her, straight as the burying-ground road. Jess had need of her in the little home at the top of the brae, where God, looking down upon her as she scrubbed and gossipped and sat up all night with her ailing mother, and never missed the prayer-meeting, and adored the minister, did not perhaps think her the least of His handmaids. Her years were less than thirty when He took her away, but she had few days that were altogether dark. Those who bring sunshine to the lives of others cannot keep it from themselves.

      The love Leeby bore for Jamie was such that in their younger days it shamed him. Other laddies knew of it, and flung it at him until he dared Leeby to let on in public that he and she were related.

      "Hoo is your lass?" they used to cry to him, inventing a new game.

      "I saw Leeby lookin' for ye," they would say; "she's wearyin' for ye to gang an' play wi' her."

      Then if they were not much bigger boys than himself, Jamie got them against the dyke and hit them hard until they publicly owned to knowing that she was his sister, and that he was not fond of her.

      "It distressed him mair than ye could believe, though," Jess has told me; "an' when he came hame he would greet an' say 'at Leeby disgraced him."

      Leeby, of course, suffered for her too obvious affection.

      "I wonder 'at ye dinna try to control yersel," Jamie would say to her, as he grew bigger.

      "Am sure," said Leeby, "I never gie ye a look if there's onybody there."

      "A look! You're ay lookin' at me sae fond-like 'at I dinna ken what wy to turn."

      "Weel, I canna help it," said Leeby, probably beginning to whimper.

      If Jamie was in a very bad temper he left her, after this, to her own reflections; but he was naturally soft-hearted.

      "Am no tellin' ye no to care for me," he told her, "but juist to keep it mair to yersel. Naebody would ken frae me 'at am fond o' ye."

      "Mebbe yer no?" said Leeby.

      "Ay, am I, but I can keep it secret. When we're in the hoose am juist richt fond o' ye."

      "Do ye love me, Jamie?"

      Jamie waggled his head in irritation.

      "Love," he said, "is an awful like word to use when fowk's weel. Ye shouldna speir sic annoyin' queistions."

      "But if ye juist say ye love me I'll never let on again afore fowk 'at yer onything to me ava."

      "Ay, ye often say that."

      "Do ye no believe my word?"

      "I believe fine ye mean what ye say, but ye forget yersel when the time comes."

      "Juist try me this time."

      "Weel, then, I do."

      "Do what?" asked the greedy Leeby.

      "What ye said."

      "I said love."

      "Well," said Jamie, "I do't."

      "What do ye do? Say the word."

      "Na," said Jamie, "I winna say the word. It's no a word to say, but I do't."

      That was all she could get out of him, unless he was stricken with remorse, when he even went the length of saying the word.

      "Leeby kent perfectly weel," Jess has said, "'at it was a trial to Jamie to tak her ony gait, an' I often used to say to her 'at I wondered at her want o' pride in priggin' wi' him. Ay, but if she could juist get a promise wrung oot o' him, she didna care hoo muckle she had to prig. Syne they quarrelled, an' ane or baith o' them grat (cried) afore they made it up. I mind when Jamie went to the fishin' Leeby was aye terrible keen to get wi' him, but ye see he wouldna be seen gaen through the toon wi' her. 'If ye let me gang,' she said to him, 'I'll no seek to go through the toon wi' ye. Na, I'll gang roond by the Roods an' you can tak the buryin'-ground road, so as we can meet on the hill.' Yes, Leeby was willin' to agree wi' a' that, juist to get gaen wi' him. I've seen lassies makkin' themsels sma' for lads often enough, but I never saw ane 'at prigged so muckle wi' her ain brother. Na, it's other lassies' brothers they like as a rule."

      "But though Jamie was terrible reserved aboot it," said Leeby, "he was as fond o' me as ever I was o' him. Ye mind the time I had the measles, mother?"

      "Am no likely to forget it, Leeby," said Jess, "an' you blind wi' them for three days. Ay, ay, Jamie was richt taen up aboot ye. I mind he broke open his pirly (money-box), an' bocht a ha'penny worth o' something to ye every day."

      "An' ye hinna forgotten the stick?"

      "'Deed no, I hinna. Ye see," Jess explained to me, "Leeby was lyin' ben the hoose, an' Jamie wasna allowed to gang near her for fear o' infection. Weel, he gat a lang stick—it was a pea-stick—an' put it aneath the door an' waggled it. Ay, he did that a curran times every day, juist to let her see he was thinkin' o' her."

      "Mair than that," said Leeby, "he cried oot 'at he loved me."

      "Ay, but juist aince," Jess said, "I dinna mind o't but aince. It was the time the doctor came late, an' Jamie, being waukened by him, thocht ye was deein'. I mind as if it was yesterday hoo he cam runnin' to the door an' cried oot, 'I do love ye, Leeby;