The Girl with the Creel Read Free Page A

you?’
    â€˜Och you! It still means something we shouldn’t do.’
    His face sobered. ‘Did you do something you shouldn’t with Peter last night? Is that what’s got you so worried?’
    â€˜I’m not worried,’ she protested. ‘I never did anything, and neither did he.’ Hoping that Peter wouldn’t be so backward tonight, she wished she knew whether or not kissing was a sin. ‘Have you ever broken any of the Commandments, Mick?’
    He roared with laughter at this. ‘All ten, I’d think, at some time or other.’
    â€˜You never stole anything?’ she gasped.
    â€˜I once took a thruppenny bit off the collection plate when I was a wee laddie, instead of putting in the penny Mother gave me to put in.’
    She was relieved that that was all, but something else had occurred to her. ‘You never coverted anybody’s wife, did you?’
    â€˜Many’s the time, and his ox and his ass … well, at any rate, his cat and his dog.’
    He was making fun of her, but she had to laugh with him. ‘I suppose you’ve kissed lots of girls, and all,’ she said, wistfully, after a while. ‘Is that a Shalt-Not?’
    â€˜No, kissing’s all right, thank God, or I’d have been struck down years ago.’
    Lizann felt much happier knowing there was no law against it, but back home, she waited until dinner was over before she said, very cautiously, ‘Peter asked me to go out with him tonight.’
    Hannah cast an anxious glance at her husband, who barked, ‘If you’re thinking on going steady wi’ him, you can put it right out o’ your head. For one thing, he’s ower old for you.’
    Keeping his promise, Mick stepped in. ‘Five years is nothing, Father, and it’s not like he’s a stranger.’
    â€˜She’s just a bairn!’
    â€˜I am not a bairn!’ Lizann cried. ‘I’ll be seventeen in April!’
    â€˜That’s still a bairn!’ her father insisted.
    Mick stuck doggedly to his guns. ‘She’s old enough, and if you stop her seeing Peter, she could take up with some scoundrel and …’
    â€˜That’s enough!’ his father thundered. ‘It’s nothing to do wi’ you. I’m her father, and I’m not letting her go wi’ anybody yet!’
    â€˜But I’ve promised,’ Lizann wailed.
    â€˜You’d no right to promise anything without asking me first!’
    â€˜You weren’t there to ask,’ she ventured.
    â€˜Peter should have had the sense not to …’
    â€˜God Almighty!’ Mick said, vehemently. ‘Anybody would think it was still the Dark Ages to hear you. Lassies of fifteen, never mind sixteen, have lads nowadays, and …’
    â€˜Not my lassie!’ Willie Alec’s eyes were glittering dangerously.
    â€˜It’s no use, Mick,’ Lizann said, her voice breaking, and bursting into tears she ran upstairs.
    Giving his father a venomous glare, Mick charged out, slamming the outside door behind him, and Hannah, who had made no contribution to the argument, rose to clear the table, her lips gripped tightly together.
    Gathering that his wife was also outraged by his decision, Willie Alec shifted himself to his armchair by the fire, but after a few minutes, he said, as if in defence, ‘I’m feared for her, Hannah.’ Getting no answer, he added, ‘She’s innocent as a babe.’ A reply still not forthcoming, he fell silent, but when she was laying the dishes back in the dresser, he muttered, ‘She might take up wi’ the first lad that makes eyes at her, a rotter, maybe, like Mick said, and we ken Peter wouldna …’ Rising, he went purposefully to the foot of the stairs and called his daughter down.
    It wasn’t in him to apologize or admit he’d been wrong, so when Lizann made her reluctant appearance, her eyes still red and