The major paused a moment, and then he added, with a rising colour, another verse—

Kirsteen, though she was in London where everything that is new should be best known, had little acquaintance with the new poets. She had heard part of the Ancient Mariner, which was to her like a great piece of music, thrilling her being, but imperfectly understanded of her intelligence. She had heard much of Byron, who was raved of by every apprentice, and whom consequently this high aristocrat in verse, as in all other things, held in a certain scorn. She listened surprised to the lines which Gordon stammered forth somewhat shamefacedly, finding himself embarked in a kind of recitation, which he had not intended.

“Who said it?—they are very bonny words. I am much beholden to him, whoever he is, for such a bonny picture of my little sister—if it is not yourself?”

“I!” cried the major. “Oh, be not profane! It is one Wordsworth that lives on the Borders—but she is like that.”

“I can well believe it,” said Kirsteen; “nevertheless, if it was Jeanie he was meaning, though it may be all true, it did not need that to make a lady of my sister,” she said with an ineffable visionary pride.

The major did not argue, or make any stand for his part, though he had all the enthusiasm of an early member of the sect. He would have indeed sacrificed Wordsworth and all the poets without a thought at the shrine he was approaching. “That is, alas, what daunts me,” he said. “How am I, a poor man, to make your father hear me? He will want, and well I know how justly, what I have not to give.”

“I am no authority as to what my father will do, Major Gordon. You may have heard why I, a Douglas, and not the least proud of the family, am here.”

“But she adores you, Miss Kirsteen!”

“Does she that? My bonny Jeanie! And well I wot she is the dearest thing to me.” Kirsteen paused with a flood of pleasure and anguish inundating her heart. The visions of the past rose up before her. Ah, why had the image of the little sister come so persistently into all her dreams of a future that was never to be? Because, she said to herself, putting down that climbing sorrow, it was a life that was never to be—and Jeanie was the consolation that remained.

“Major Gordon,” she said, “if it may so be that Jeanie’s happiness is bound up in yours, all that I can do will be too little. But what is there that I can do? She is in the hands of her parents; and I that have broken my bonds, and am a rebel, having nothing to say.”

“It will not last like that between them and you.”

“It has lasted for six years. My father is a dour man and does not change. If Alexander were to come back, that is the next in the family to my father—”

“He is coming, he is coming—when men in India speak of two or three years they think it is nothing—but it’s an eternity to me.”

“And sometimes it is an eternity,” Kirsteen said solemnly. She asked then suddenly, without intending it, if he had ever been at Ahmednugger where the battle was.

“I was in the battle,” he said simply. “I had my orders home, but I was there. It was a kind of chance, no one expected it.”

Major Gordon was much surprised when Miss Douglas, who was so reserved and dignified, caught him by the arm and made him sit down by her side. She was as white as the cambric kerchief on her neck. She said with a little moan, “Oh, not a chance, not a chance, but God’s grace, I must think that. And tell me all ye know. Oh, tell me all ye know!” He began to say (with astonishment, and so startled that it was difficult to put his recollections in order) that it had all been caused by a mistake, that no one knew how strong the native powers were, and that on the British side all might have been lost, but Kirsteen stopped him with an imperative movement of her hand. “Begin,” she said, “where it began, and tell me who was there and all. Oh, tell me everything—for I have heard nothing—except that so it was.” Her intent face, her trembling clasped hands, the tragic eagerness with which she set herself down to listen, overwhelmed the young soldier who knew nothing of her connection with that fatal field. With a rapid review and calculation he made out to himself that no Douglas had been there. It was then some one else in whom she was interested: he looked at her again and her black dress, her composed gravity as of one whose life was set apart, and an indefinable change that he had remarked without comprehending it, showed him, as by a sudden revelation, that whoever it was in whom Kirsteen was interested he was dead. But who was it? And how was he to give her dead hero the place her heart would crave for, if he did not know who that was?

He began however as best he could his story of the fight. As was made very apparent afterwards, Major Gordon had a soldier’s skill in the arrangement of his tale. He made the listener see the movements of the troops, the gradually growing alarm, the scouts coming in with news, the officers anxious and harassed gathering to their rapid council, the bold advice that was first received with a sort of horror, then adopted. “We should all have been cut to pieces but for that—not one would have escaped to tell the tale; but he did not live to get the benefit himself, poor fellow. His name was Drummond, a Peninsula man who had seen a great deal of fighting. He and I were old friends. We had gone through many a hot moment together. His plan was adopted after a great deal of discussion. And by the blessing of God it saved many a man’s life—but not his own!”

He gave a start as he looked up at her, for Kirsteen’s countenance was transfigured. Her paleness glowed as if with a light behind, though there was not a particle of colour in her face. He had found the way to her heart without knowing, without meaning it, his testimony all the more prized and valuable for that. He went on with details which I cannot repeat, setting all the field before her. And then with his voice trembling he told her the end. How he had seen his friend fall, and then the little story of the handkerchief. “None of us knew what it meant,” he said, “for Drummond never was one to talk much of himself, but we were all sure there was some story. He lay there on the field with that white thing on his lips. It was hard—to take it out of his hand.”

The major’s voice was a little strained. A man cannot cry like a girl, but he had to stop and swallow something that was in his throat. Then to his great surprise Miss Douglas rose and without a word went out of the room. He asked himself in his astonishment had he been wrong after all? Had he been talking of some one for whom she did not care, leaving out the name she wanted to hear? He sat wondering, listening while her steps went up stairs to a room above. Then he heard her coming down again. She came back into the room with a silver box in her hand, and opening it without a word took out something wrapped in a piece of faded silk. The young soldier felt his heart in his throat, an intolerable overwhelming pang of sympathy taking all voice and utterance from him. He knew the little handkerchief which he had taken from Ronald’s dead hand. She did not say a word, but looked at him with a faint mournful smile and that transfiguration on her face. Then putting back her treasure locked it away again in its shrine, and gave him her hand.

“Now,” she said after some time, speaking with difficulty, “you know, and there will be no need of words between you and me. I will never forget what you have told me. It’s been like a bit of God’s word, all new. And ye will never doubt that if I can serve ye, it’s in my heart to do—whatever a woman can do. Oh,” cried Kirsteen, “take the blessing of God from a heartbroken woman and go away, Major Gordon! He was but Captain—never more, and he’s lying yonder and you standing here. Oh, go! and let me see ye no more.”

When the rapture of sorrow that was in her had softened again, Kirsteen sent many messages to the young officer by his mother; but she could not endure the sight of him at that time. Everything she could do—with Jeanie or any one—but not to see him, not to see him, he who had come home living and loving and promoted and with everything that had not come to the other. She could not bear that.

CHAPTER XII.

During the six years which had passed since she left Drumcarro, Kirsteen had heard but little of the home which she had sacrificed perhaps too passionately, too hastily. Marg’ret’s letters indeed were very regular, if few and scanty in detail, but these were conditions natural to the time, and Kirsteen had never expected more. “Your mother is just in her ordinary.” This seemed satisfaction enough to a mind unaccustomed to correspondence, brought up in the philosophy of long silences, of little intercourse, of blank years which went over on all sides in an understood routine, and in which the nearest relations when they met each other, remarked upon the external “ageing” of so many additional years with a placid sense that it must be so. Mary also, dutiful to all the necessities of the family, communicated periodically to Kirsteen the course of events in her own particular family, as well as a more or less vague report of the paternal house. She had by this time three little children in whom, naturally, all her chief interests centred. Old Glendochart had become “papa” to his wife, and was reported as being very hale and hearty for his time of life, and very much taken up with his young family. While “my mother is just in her ordinary,” remained the habitual report, differing only from Marg’ret’s in the pronoun employed. Now and then indeed Mary would open out into a report of the company that had been at Glendochart “for the shooting,” and there was one subject on which she was even eloquent, and that was the beauty of Jeanie, the younger sister in whom her family pride was gratified, as well as perhaps the only bit of romantic and generous feeling which was in Lady Glendochart’s well-regulated bosom. “Our Jeanie!” From her babyhood the sisters had all been proud of her. And Mary was pleased with the distinction she herself had over Kirsteen in having a house to which she could invite Jeanie, and where the praises of the young beauty could delight her ears, ever reflecting back again as she felt an honour upon herself. There was nobody far and near who had not heard of Drumcarro’s lovely daughter. She was the Lily of Loch Fyne. The visitors at the Castle took long rides all about Drumcarro, and the linn had been elevated into one of the sights of the district, all with a view of procuring a glimpse, if possible, of the beautiful Highland girl. And Lord John, Mary had reported, was particularly civil, and a very great admirer, words which were deeply underlined, and which filled Kirsteen with indignation. To think that after all the rebuffs she had herself given him he should endeavour to beguile the guileless Jeanie! Kirsteen had at once written a warning letter to Mary, informing her very decisively that Lord John was not a man to be allowed the enjoyment of Jeanie’s company. “For he can have no right meaning, and is only a useless, idle person,” Kirsteen said. This had produced a warm reply from Mary under a frank received from the Duke, by means of the same Lord John.

“You are very ready with your letters, and a heavy postage to pay,” Mrs. Campbell wrote, aggrieved, “when you have really no news to give us. And as for the warning about Lord John, I hope me and Glendochart have sense enough to take care of Jeanie; and what can you, a mantua-maker in London, know about a young gentleman of such high family, the best of our name? I would advise you, my dear Kirsteen, not to encourage a spirit of envy. For if you never received such attention yourself it is partly the fault of Providence that gave you red hair, and no beauty, and partly your own that cast away all the advantages of your family. But you cannot think that me and Glendochart are likely to go to you for counsel upon affairs of which you can have no experience.”

This letter did not please Kirsteen as may well be supposed. We are all made up of great feelings and of petty ones, and are not always at our best. Kirsteen had a heart of the noblest constancy, and held the contents of her little silver casket above all that the world could give. But at more vulgar moments it sometimes gave her a sting to know that, notwithstanding all her passion of love and faithfulness, prosaic Mary, who had never known a throb of profound feeling in her life, would assume airs of superior importance, and pity the sister who had no man, and would be an old maid all her life. A woman may be capable of taking her part in a tragedy such as Kirsteen’s yet resent the comedy, generally more or less contemptuous, that winds itself about an unmarried woman’s life, and more at that period than now. She was very angry at the neglect of her warning, but this was only an incident and soon dropped into oblivion.

One day, however, late in the year in which she had performed her rapid and melancholy journey, Kirsteen received, “by private hand,” and in the shape of a small brown paper parcel, concealing a letter in many wrappings, news of a very distressing kind. It was supposed in those days of dear postage to be illegal to send a letter by the “private hand,” which most simple country people infinitely preferred as at once surer and cheaper than the post. This, as Marg’ret informed her in the hurried scrawl enclosed, was to be taken by a lad from the village who was going straight to London, and had promised to deliver it at once. It was to tell Kirsteen that her mother was very ill, so ill that Marg’ret had given up all hope. “I have never done so before,” Marg’ret wrote, “so you may trust me that this is not a fright on my part. And she just yammers for Kirsteen night and day—little, little has she ever said till now—she’s full of complaints, poor body, but yet she’s more patient than words can say. Ye must just come without a moment’s delay; and if he will not let you in, I will let you in, for she shall not be crossed in her last wish by any man, if he was three times her husband—so, my dear bairn, just come and let there be no delay.” Kirsteen obeyed this summons, as she was commanded at once. To go so soon again over the same ground, and undertake once more such a wearisome and protracted journey was very unusual, and was thought something dreadful by all who heard of it. “You will feel as if you were always on the road,” Miss Jean said; and she felt an inclination to blame her sister who thought that the pleasure of her dying mistress was worth the great disturbance of Kirsteen’s life which must result. “What good will it do her, a dying woman? It will just disturb her when her mind should be taken up with other things,” said Miss Jean.

But it was perhaps natural that Kirsteen should not take it in the same way. She set off that evening, by the night coach, arriving in Glasgow on the morning of the second day. But this time Kirsteen remembered her kindred, and finding with difficulty the new house of Dr. Dewar, now a fine tall “self-contained” house with a main door and a brass plate upon it, suddenly appeared at the breakfast table where Anne and her doctor presided over a party consisting of two tall children of nine and ten, and two more set up in high chairs to reach the board. Anne was so much absorbed in the feeding of those small creatures that she scarcely observed the stranger whom Dr. Dewar rose with an apology and a little embarrassment to meet, thinking her a patient improperly introduced into the domestic scene. An exclamation “It’s your sister Kirsteen, Anne!” roused the absorbed mother, at that moment holding a spoonful of porridge to the mouth of one of the babies. Anne had developed much since her sister had seen her last. She had become stout, yet not unpleasantly so, but in a manner which suggested the motherly hen whose wings can extend over many chickens. She wore a cap with plaited lace borders tied under her chin, encircling a rosy face, which, though still young, was losing its higher aspect a little in the roundness of comfort and ease. Her soul was absorbed in the little ones, and in domestic cares. She thrust the spoon into the baby’s mouth before she rose with a wondering cry of “Kirsteen!” And all the children stared, knowing nothing of aunts, except some on the side of the doctor who were not of the same kind as the fashionably dressed London lady in her black fur-trimmed pelisse. Kirsteen was still in something of the solemnity of her first mourning. Her natural colour was subdued, she was slighter than ever she had been, graver, more pale. Her hair once so rebellious was smoothed away. She looked many years older, and very grave, serious and imposing. The two elder children looked at each other with mingled pride and alarm. This grand lady! The doctor was the only one who fully retained his wits. He put a chair to the table for the new comer. “You will have arrived this morning by the coach? And the first thing wanting will be a good cup of tea?”

“Yes, I will take the tea thankfully, for it is very cold, but what I have come for is Anne. There will be a postchaise at the door in an hour.”

“Are you going to run away with my wife?” said the doctor with a smile.

“A postchaise!” cried Anne in dismay.

“Anne!—my mother is dying.”

“God save us, Kirsteen!”

“I want you to come with me, take your warmest cloak: there will be no change of clothes necessary that I know of, for we will most likely be back to-morrow.”

“To go with ye?” faltered Anne—“to—to Drumcarro, Kirsteen?” All the blood forsook her face.

“Where else? My mother is there, and she’s dying, and crying for us.”

“Oh, I dare not—I dare not! Oh, I cannot go with ye, Kirsteen! You don’t know, you’ve got great courage—but me, I’m just a coward. Oh, I canna go.”

“My mother is dying,” said Kirsteen, “and crying for you and me. Can we let her go down to her grave without a word? We’ve both left her in her life, and maybe we were to blame; but to leave her to die is more than I can do. Anne, you must come.”

Anne fell back in her chair, her rosy face the colour of ashes, her plump person limp with terror and dismay. “Oh, I canna go. Oh, I canna leave the bairns! Oh, David!” She turned to him with a gasp, terrified by the blazing of Kirsteen’s eyes.

“Well, my dear,” said the doctor, “your sister’s right and ye ought to go. But when ye get there,” he added turning to Kirsteen, “have you any surety that they will let you in? To go all that way for nothing would be little good to your mother: and I will not have my wife insulted with a door steekit in her face—even if it is her father’s door.”

“I have this surety,” said Kirsteen, feeling herself to tower over them though she was not very tall, “that I will see my mother, whoever steeks the door in my face, nor think twice if it was the King himself.”

“The King’s the first gentleman in the country,” said the doctor shrugging his shoulders, “but your father?”

“He is just my father, Dr. Dewar, and Anne’s father, and we will say no more; the question is my mother that never harmed living creature nor said an unkind word. How can ye stop to consider, Anne? Your mother! The more ye cherish your bairns the more ye should mind upon her.”

“I think, my dear,” said the doctor, “that it’s your duty to go. It might pave the way to a reconciliation,” he added, “which would be good for us all and good for the bairns. I think you should go.”

“Oh, David!” was all that Anne said.

Kirsteen stood and looked upon them all with a flash of scorn. Was this the effect of marrying and being happy as people say? The little plump mother with her rosy face no longer capable of responding to any call outside of her own little circle of existence, the babies delving with their spoons into the porridge, covering their faces and pinafores, or holding up little gaping mouths to be fed. It had been a delightful picture which she had come in upon before at an earlier stage, when Anne had wept at her mother’s name, and cried wistfully for a message from home, and longed to show her children. That had all been sweet—but now it was sweet no longer. The prosaic interior, the bondage of all these little necessities, the loosening of all other bonds of older date or wider reach, was this what happiness meant? Sometimes a sudden aperçu of this kind will flash through the mind of one for whom those ties are forbidden and give a consolation, a compensation to the fancy. But the thought only passed as swiftly as a breath through the mind of Kirsteen.

However when the postchaise came to the door, Anne, who had been hurried into her black silk gown and cloak more by pressure of the doctor than by any will of her own, was ready to step into it with her sister. Kirsteen did not quite know how it was done. She would have retired from the conflict and left her sister with the children and their porridge, but Dr. Dewar was of a different mind. He had never given up the hope of having it fully recognized that his wife was one of the old Douglases; and here there seemed to him an opportunity of bringing about that hope. He half led, half followed her, into her room, having himself summoned one of the maids to look after the children. “Ye must just put the best face upon it, Anne; your sister is right. It would be unnatural, and a thing that would be generally blamed if you did not try to see your mother. And as for your father he won’t bite you whatever he does.”

“Oh, David! he’ll just say things that would make you tremble; he’ll take me and put me to the door,” said Anne crying with fright and reluctance.

“Nonsense, woman; and if he does you must just put up with it. You have a good home to come back to, and you will be none the worse, and ye’ll have done your duty; but he’ll maybe be much softened by the circumstances,” said the doctor, “and there is no saying what might happen. It would have a very good effect if it were known you had gone to Drumcarro, and think what a fine thing it would be for the bairns. Take your warmest cloak as your sister said, and my plaid to put over your knees. It will be a very cold journey.”

“Oh,” cried Anne, “I will just be perished, I know. And very likely turned to the door in the cold, and never see my mother at all.”

“Well, ye must just try,” said Dr. Dewar, bringing her out of her room triumphantly, and fully equipped. Anne cried for an hour, sobbing by Kirsteen’s side over her deserted children and home, and with a certainty that everything would go wrong while she was away. “David will get no right dinners, and the two eldest will be late for the school in the morning, and the little bairns neglected all the day. There’s no confidence to be put in servants when the mistress is not there. And most likely I will never get a glimpse of my mother, and my father will put me to the door.”

“Oh, Anne, is that all you think of her that never was hard upon any of us—that always was kind—and suffering so long, weary in body and in soul?”

“You need not instruct me about my mother, Kirsteen. I am the eldest, and I am a mother myself, and who should know if I don’t?” said Anne roused at last. Kirsteen was glad to accept the position of inferiority thus allotted to her on all sides. She was neither mother nor wife, nor ever would be so. The others took a higher position than hers. She acquiesced without a word, with a faint smile, and was thankful to be allowed to sit silent listening to Anne’s querulous murmurs, and still more thankful when in the unusual movement and silence Mrs. Dewar dropped to sleep. The journey was doubly sad to her who had so lately travelled along the same road in the first force of her passionate misery. That seemed to be long, long ago, as if a dull subduing lifetime had passed between. The dreadful thing was to think of the long life to come, which might go on and on for so many years.

CHAPTER XIII.

Once more Kirsteen had left her carriage in the village where so short a time before she had paused on a different mission. Every detail of that journey had been brought back to her by this. The six months had softened a little the burning of that first bitter wound. The calm of acknowledged loss had settled down, deep and still upon her life—but all the breathless excitements of the previous quest, when she knew not whether the only satisfaction possible to her now might be given or not, and saw in anticipation the relic that was to make assurance sure, and felt in her breast the burning of the murderous steel—all these returned to her soul with double and almost intolerable force as she retraced the same road. An ailing and feeble mother not seen for years,—who would not hasten to her bedside, weep over her failing days, and grieve—but not with the grief that crushes the heart—? That anguish is soft, even after a time sweet. It is the course of nature, as we say. The life from which ours came must fade before ours. The light of day is not obliterated by that natural fading. Kirsteen had set out at an hour’s notice, and was prepared to risk any encounter, any hardness or even insult in order to answer her mother’s call. She was not reluctant like Anne, nor did she grudge the trouble and pain. But as she returned in thought to her previous lonely flight into these glens the acuter pang swallowed up the lesser. She had not spoken to her sister for a long time. Her recollections grew more and more keen, as in another twilight, yet so different, she again approached the glimmering loch, the dimly visible hills. Anne’s unsteady grasp upon her arm brought her to herself.

“What must we do? We must just leave the chaise here, it can go no further. To drive to the door would frighten them all, and perhaps betray us. It is not a very long walk.”

“Are ye going to walk? I am not a good walker, Kirsteen. And in the dark by that wild road? I never could get so far—Oh, I’m so used to town ways now—I couldna take such a long, dreadful walk.”

“Anne!”

“It would be far better to leave me here. You could send for me if I was really wanted; I’m very tired already, and not fit—oh, not fit for more. You’re younger—and ye always was so strong—not like me.”

“Would you like your bairns to leave ye to die alone—for the sake of a two miles’ walk? Would ye like them to lie down and sleep and rest, and you dying two miles away?”

“Oh, Kirsteen, you are very cruel to me! What can I do for her?” cried Anne. “She will have plenty without me.”

It was no time for controversy, and as Anne trembled so that she could scarcely stand Kirsteen had to consent to take the postchaise on, as far as was practicable without rousing the household at Drumcarro. For herself the chill of the wintry night, the cold freshness in the air, the wild sweep of sound all round her, in the swelling burn, and the rustle of the naked trees and all those inarticulate murmurs of silence which come down from the heights of unseen hills were salutary and sweet. When they paused at last upon the lonely road and stepped out into the blackness of the night with the lantern that was to guide them on their further way, that descent into the indecipherable dark, with all the roaring of wind and stream about them, had indeed something in it that was appalling. Anne, not able even to complain more, clung to Kirsteen’s arm with a terrified grasp, and listened among all the other storms of sound to the rolling of the wheels going back as if her last hope was thus departing from her. She that ought to have been warm and safe at home, putting the children to bed, sitting between the bright fire and the pleasant lamp waiting for David, to think that she should be here in a darkness that might be felt, with the burn on one side rushing like some wild beast in the dark, and the wind lashing the bare branches on the other, and only Kirsteen, a woman like herself, to protect her! A weak woman with a strong husband loses all faith in other women. How could Kirsteen protect her? She shivered with cold and terror clinging to her sister’s arm but without any faith in it, and thinking of nothing but her own terrors and discomfort. Kirsteen on her side felt the stimulus of the cold, the tumult of natural sounds, the need of wary walking, and the responsibility of the burden upon her arm as something that subdued and softened the storm of recollections in her heart.

When they came suddenly upon the house of Drumcarro, almost unexpectedly, although the added roar of the linn coming nearer made them aware that the house could not be far off, Anne broke down altogether. The house was faintly lighted, one or two windows up stairs giving out a faint gleam through the darkness in honour of the approaching event. The house door stood half open, the shutters were not closed in the dining-room. That air of domestic disarray, of the absorption of all thoughts in the tragedy going on up stairs which is habitual to such moments, had stolen into the house. The two wayfarers standing outside, both of them trembling with the strangeness of it, and fear and emotion, could see some one sitting by the fire in the dining-room with a bowed head. They grasped each other’s hands when they saw it was their father. He was sitting by the side of the fire bending forwards, his profile brought out against the dark mantel-piece by the ruddy glow. Even Kirsteen’s stronger frame trembled a little at sight of him, and Anne, no better than a helpless lay figure, hung upon her sister’s arm without power of movement, stifling by force a terrified cry. It would not have reached him in the tumult of natural noises outside, but she became more frightened and helpless still when this cry had burst from her lips. “Oh! come away, come away, I dare not face him,” she said in Kirsteen’s ear. And Kirsteen too was daunted. She abandoned the intention of entering by the open door, which had been her first thought, and softly took the path which led to Marg’ret’s quarters behind. Drumcarro heard the faint click of the latch as she opened the gate. He rose up and listened while they shrank into the shelter of the bushes. Then he came out of the door, and stood there looking out into the darkness with a faint candle showing his own lowering countenance to the watchers outside, but to him nothing. “I thought it might be the doctor,” he said to himself, then went again to his seat by the dull fire. Anne was no more than a bundle upon Kirsteen’s arm. She dragged her as softly as might be to the lighted kitchen behind, and looking in at the uncurtained window had the good fortune to catch Marg’ret’s eye.

“Ye have brought her with ye,” said Marg’ret half reproachfully when Anne had been placed in a chair before the fire.

“She had the same right as I. We have both deserted the old house.”

“Oh, my bonny dear, but not the same. Kirsteen, my lamb—ye’re all well, all well?”

Marg’ret searched with longing eyes the face that had so long been lost to her. Some things she knew, many she divined. She asked no question but looked and saw, and sighed and shook her head. The face was not the girl’s face she knew; but she was not aware that the change in it had come within the last six months, the setting of the mobile lines with a certain fixedness, the mysterious depths that had come into the laughing, flashing, soft, fierce eyes she knew, the eyes that were made of light. Behind the light there was now a deep sea, of which the meanings were hidden and manifold.

“There’s no question of me,” said Kirsteen, meeting her look steadfastly, “but of my mother—”

“She is just herself,” said Marg’ret, “just herself, poor body. The end is coming fast and she has little fear of it. Oh, I think very little fear; but taken up with small things as she always was.”

“I will just go up—”

“Will ye go up? The Laird is about the house: and I am feared he will make some stramash when he sees ye. If ye were to wait till he is in bed? She has not said a word about ye all day, but I’ve seen her as if she was listening. She’ll maybe have had some inkling from the Lord that her bairn was coming. She’s real peaceable and contented,” said Marg’ret, putting her apron to her eyes. “The Almichty is just dealing with her like a petted bairn. She’s no feared—her that aye thought the grasshopper a burden—I ken fine that she has been looking for ye the livelang day.”

“I will just go up,” said Kirsteen again.

“And what am I to do with her?”

“Marg’ret, it’s Anne.”

“I ken weel who it is, Dr. Dewar’s wife; you might just have let her bide with her bairns. What am I to do with her? It’s no her mother she’s thinking o’. The Laird will never thole her in the house. He’ll just take her with his foot like a bundle of claes, which is what she is, and put her to the door.”

“You will take care of her, Marg’ret,” said Kirsteen. There was some justice in Marg’ret’s description. Anne sat huddled up in a chair by the fire holding out her hands to it now and then, moaning a little. She had asked no question as they came in; perhaps she had heard the reply to Kirsteen’s anxious inquiry. She was cold no doubt and miserable, and beyond all afraid. When there was any sound in the house she drew herself together with a shudder. “You will just take care of her, Marg’ret; let her lie down upon your bed, and keep her warm, and when my father has gone to his bed—”

“You will not wait for that yoursel’?”

Kirsteen’s answer was to walk away. She went through the passage with her heart beating, and mounted the dark stair; there were few lights about the house, a solitary miserable candle at the top of the stair waving about in the wind that blew in from the open door, and another placed on a small table near the head of Mrs. Douglas’s bed. The invalid herself was quite in the dark shade with a curtain between her and this light. The whiteness of her worn face on the pillow betrayed where she was but little more. But by the bedside with the gleam of the candle upon her soft, beautiful hair, and her face, which Kirsteen thought was like the face of an angel, stood Jeanie, Jeanie woman-grown, the beauty that all her sisters had expected her to be, radiant in colour and expression. For the first moment the light that seemed to ray from Jeanie was the only thing that Kirsteen saw. It was what she had expected. It gave her almost a pang of sudden exquisite pleasure by her mother’s deathbed.

“Did ye hear somebody, Jeanie, coming up the stair?”

“It will be Merran, mother, with the things for the night.”

“It canna be Merran; I know one foot from another though I’m a little dull, just a little dull in my hearing. Look out and see if your sister’s come.”

“Do you mean Mary, mother?”

“No, I’m not meaning Mary. She’s the one of all my bairns most like me, folk say—the same coloured hair—not like your red heads—and Alexander he was aye a brown-haired laddie. Eh, to think that I will never see one of them again!—and I’m just quite content, not frettin’ at all. They’ll be taken care of—they’ll get wives of their own. When they get wives—or men either—there’s but little room for their mother. But I’m not heeding—I’m just not heeding. I’m quite content. Look out, Jeanie, and see if that was your sister at the door.”

Jeanie turned to do her mother’s bidding and found herself almost face to face with a lady whom she thought at first she had never seen before. She gave a little cry of instinctive alarm.

“Is she there?” said the mother faintly from the bed. “I knew she would be there. Come to the other side, Kirsteen, that I may get the light upon ye, and see it’s you. Ay, it’s just you—my bonny woman!—but you’ve changed, you’ve changed.”

“No, mother—just the same Kirsteen.”

“In one way. I dinna doubt ye, my dear; but ye’ve come through trouble and sorrow. I’m thinking there was something I had to say, but it’s clean gone away out of my mind.” She had put out her hand to Kirsteen, and was smiling faintly upon her from amidst the pillows. “I knew ye were coming—I just heard the coach rattling all the day.”

“But, mother, tell me how you are? That’s the most important thing—you’re easy, at least in no pain?”

“Oh, I’m just very easy. I’m easy about everything. I’m no tormenting myself any more. I aye told ye I would never live to see my boys come back. Ye would not believe me, but ye see it’s true. One thing’s just a great blessing—I’ll be away myself before the next laddie goes.”

“Oh, mother, never mind that; tell me about yourself.”

Mrs. Douglas lay silent for a little while, and then she asked in her soft, small voice, no longer querulous, “Kirsteen, have ye got a man?”

“No, mother.”

“It’s maybe just as well—it’s maybe better. You’ll give an eye to the rest. Ye were always more like a mother than Mary. Give an eye to them. This puir lassie here; she’ll be a wee forlorn when I’m away.”

“Oh, mother!” cried Jeanie, with an outburst of vehement tears.

“There’s something I wanted to tell ye—but it’s gone out of my mind. Eh, when I think how many of ye have lain at my breast, and only the two of ye here; but it’s no matter, it’s no matter. I’ve aye been a complaining creature. Fourteen bairns is a heavy handful, and three of them dead. My first little girlie of all I lost, and then one between you and Robbie, and then—all of you weel in health, and like to live, but just thae three. But that’s plenty to keep a woman’s heart. I have a notion I’ll find them still little things when I win up yonder,” said the dying woman, with a flicker of her feeble hand towards the dim roof. A faint, ineffable smile was upon her face. “She was Alison, after my mother,” she said.

The two daughters, one on each side of the bed, stood and watched while this little monologue went on, Jeanie shaken now and then by convulsive fits of weeping, Kirsteen too much absorbed in her mother for any other sensation.

“So ye have no man?” said Mrs. Douglas again. “It’s maybe just as well; you will be a stand-by for them all, Kirsteen, my bonny woman. I’m thankful there’s one that is not marriet. You will just tell them all when they come hame that I knew I would never see them more, but just wore away at the last very easy, very easy and content. I’m waik, but just bye ordinary comfortable, awfu’ light like, as if I could just mount up on angels’ wings, ye mind, and flee—”

“It’s wings like eagles, mother,” said Jeanie, anxious for accuracy.

“Well, well, there’s little difference. Kirsteen, she’s very young, younger than you were at her age. Ye’ll aye give an eye to Jeanie. She may have need of it when her auld mother’s away. I’ve not been much protection, ye’ll think, but still it’s a loss to a woman bairn. Jeanie’s my youngest and Alison my first-born, and yet Jeanie’s a woman and Alison a little playing bairn at heaven’s gate. Isna that strange?” A little sound of laughter came from the bed. Never was dying so easy, so pleasant and gentle. The sand was ebbing out a grain at a time. Suddenly she roused herself a little, and put out again her hand to Kirsteen. A little change came over her face. “I hear your father’s step coming up the stair. But ye’ll no forsake me, Kirsteen—ye’ll not go away?”

“Never while you want me, mother.”

“It will not be for long,” said the dying woman. Her gratitude was disturbed by a little alarm; she grasped Kirsteen with her shadowy hand, and held her fast.

CHAPTER XIV.

“Weel—how are ye now?” said Drumcarro, coming to his wife’s bedside. His shaggy eyebrows were drawn together, so that his eyes gleamed small from among the manifold puckers round them. He was not altogether without feeling. He was sorry now that she was dying. He had never taken much notice of her constant illness before. His voice was still gruff and abrupt, and he had no kind things to say, but in his way he was a little affected by the fact that she was lying, this weak creature to whose presence and complaints he had been accustomed for so many years, on the brink of the grave.

“I’m just very comfortable. Never you mind me, Neil, my man. Just go to your bed, and if anything should happen Jeanie will give ye a cry. Your father was never a man that could do without his night’s rest. And there’s no need; I’m just as easy as I can be, and well taken care of.” Mrs. Douglas was past the little wiles which women fall into when there is a domestic despot to deal with. She forgot that it was a sin against her husband that Kirsteen should be there. She turned her head from one side to the other with a smile. “Real weel taken care of—between them,” she said.

Drumcarro lifted his head and gazed fiercely at the figure on the other side; the folds of his eyelids widened and opened up, a fierce glance of recognition shot out of them. “How dared ye come here?” he said.

“To see my mother,” said Kirsteen.

“How dared ye come into my house?”

“I would have gone—to the gates of death when my mother wanted me. Let me be, as long as she wants me, father; she’s so quiet and peaceable, you would not disturb her. Let her be.”

He looked at her again, with a threatening look, as if he might have seized her, but made no other movement. “Ye’ve done less harm than you meant,” he said; “ye’ve brought no canailye into my house; ye’ll just pass and drop with no importance, and have no mention in the family. Be it so. It’s no worth my while to interfere; a lass here or a lass there maitters nothing, so long as there’s no canailye brought into my house.”

“Neil,” said the mother from the bed, “we must just pray the Lord to bless them a’ before we pairt. Fourteen of them between you and me—I’ve just been naming them a’ before the Lord. Alison, she was the first; you were terrible disappointed thinking there might maybe be no more.” Mrs. Douglas once more laughed feebly at this mistake. “And then there was Alexander, and ye were a proud man. And then Donald and William, and then Anne, my bonny Anne, my first lass that lived—”

“Hold your peace, woman. Put out that name, damn her! confound her! She’s none o’ mine.”

“And Neil that ye called Nigel, but I like it Neil best,” said the low voice rippling on without interruption. “And syne Mary, and syne—— But eh, it wearies me to name them a’. Their Maker just knows them a’ well, puir things, some in heaven, and some in India—— and some——. Just say with me, God bless them a’, fourteen bonnie bairns that are men and women now—and some of them with bairns of their ain. To think all these lads and lassies should come from me, always a waik creature—and no a blemish among them all—not a thrawn limb, or a twisted finger, straight and strong and fair to see. Neil, my man, take my hand that’s a poor thin thing now, and say God bless them all!”

“What good will that do them? I’m for none of your forms and ceremonies,” said Drumcarro, putting his hands deep in his pockets, “ye had better try and get some sleep.”

“I’ll get plenty sleep by and by. Kirsteen, I would like to turn upon my side, to see your father’s face. Neil, ye’ve been a good man to me.”

He started a little, evidently not expecting this praise.

“On the whole,” said the dying woman. “I was a silly thing when I was young, but the bairns were always a great pleasure. But you’re a dour man, Neil—ye canna forgive nor forget. Kirsteen, that ye put your curse upon, she’ll be the stand-by for the whole house. Mind you what I say. She’ll have no man, and she’ll be the stand-by——”

“No man will ever have her, ye mean. She’ll just live and die an auld maid,” said Drumcarro, with a hoarse laugh.

“She’ll be the stand-by,” said Mrs. Douglas, “and maybe my poor Anne—” She paid no attention to the interruption he made. “I would not wonder,” she said with a faint smile, “if my poor Anne—— Eh, I would like to see her little bairns, Kirsteen. Why are they not here?”

“If one of the confounded set comes to my door——”

“Oh, father,” cried Kirsteen, “hold your peace, and let her be.”

“That minds me,” said the dying woman; “give me your hand, Neil—or rather take a hold of mine, for I’m very waik—like the time we were marriet. Ay, that’s the way.” Though she was so weak her faint fingers closed over the hard hand that unwillingly humoured her whim, and took hers. “Now,” she said, “ye know it’s the man that’s the priest and king in his own house. I’ll just say the amen. Neil, God bless them a’ every one, and all belonging to them, for Jesus Christ’s sake, amen—amen! that’s for His Son’s sake, ye know, in whom He is ever well pleased. Amen! And many thanks to ye, my man, for doing my last bidding. The Lord bless them a’, and all belonging to them, in heaven and in earth, and the far places of the earth, for Jesus Christ’s sake. Amen!”

Drumcarro said no more, his rugged countenance lowered like a thunder cloud, yet there were workings in the muscles of the weather-beaten cheeks and throat half covered with grizzled hair. He drew his hand out of hers, and looked for a moment at the marks of the weak fingers which had so closed upon it, leaving an impress which died out as he gazed, like the fingers themselves disappearing out of sight.

“Now we’ll all go to our beds,” said the faint voice cheerfully. “I’m real glad we’ve just had that moment; for the man’s the priest—the man’s the priest. I just said, amen—ye all heard me, just amen. Neil, my man, go away to your bed.”

He hesitated a moment, then turned away. “Ye can give me a cry if there’s any change,” he said to Jeanie as he passed; and then they could hear his heavy steps going slowly along the passage, stopping for a moment to blow out the flickering candle, and then the closing of his door.

“I’m going to my bed too. I’m real happy and easy, and just ready for a sleep; was it no a grand thing to get your father in such a good key, and hear him bless them all?” said the patient with a little proud flutter of joy, and then her eyes closed like the eyes of a child. Kirsteen sent her younger sister also to bed, and made what arrangements she could for the comfort and quiet of the dying woman. Many of the appliances of nursing did not exist in those days, but affection and good sense are perhaps after all the best appliances.

She sat down by the bedside, with a strange sensation as if she were in a dream. The peacefulness about her was wonderful, so different from anything she had expected. She had feared to find her mother as querulous and wailing as ever, and to have probably a struggle over her bed; possibly to be expelled from the house. Instead of this all was quiet; everything given over into her hands. She sat going over the wonderful things that had happened since she had left the place, her terror of the step she had felt herself bound to take, her trembling helplessness, the sustenance of her sweet and tender hope. And now that hope was gone for ever, and all dreams, and every inspiring expectation. Her life was blank though so full—no hidden heart in it any longer. She would be the stand-by of her family. “That I will!” Kirsteen said to herself; the same words she had said to him when he had whispered, “Will ye wait?” She remembered this too with a forlorn sense of her own life as of a thing apart, which went on shaping itself different from all anticipations. She to be the stand-by of the family who had fled from it so helpless and unfriended! And she to have that dim blank before her, with no light ever to come out of it, whose heart had been fixed so early upon such a hope! Perhaps the second pledge might end too in unfulfilment like the first. At least she would have soothed the conclusion of her mother’s fading life.

It was in the middle of the night that Anne was introduced to her mother’s bedside. She had fallen asleep in Marg’ret’s bed, and had not awakened for hours, sleeping the heavy sleep of fatigue and unaccustomed excessive emotion. To travel in a postchaise all day, to take a terrible walk in the dark with the light of a lantern, she who was accustomed to Glasgow streets, to lie down to sleep fully dressed on a strange bed, she who was used to retire punctually to rest at ten o’clock, with the baby in its cradle beside her, and her husband to see that all was right! When Anne woke and realized all the horrors of her position, come here to attend a death-bed (of which, as of other painful things, she had a great terror), and with the risk of being seen and seized by her father, perhaps exposed to personal violence, perhaps turned out into the dark night—and everything she was used to out of her reach—her sensations were almost those of despair. If it had not been for the superadded horrors of the dark road, she would have stolen out of the house, and escaped. But she dared not alone face the darkness and solitude, and the raging burn and roaring wind, which were like two wild beasts on either side of the way. She thought of David sleeping quietly at home, and all the children in their beds, with a wild pang of mingled longing and injury. They could sleep while she was surrounded by these terrors; and David had made her come in spite of herself, in spite of her certainty that it would kill her. She got up in the wildest feverish nervousness and misery, and looked at herself in Marg’ret’s little looking-glass—a wild, pale, red-eyed, dishevelled creature, so entirely unlike Mrs. Doctor Dewar. Oh, what should she do? The terrors of the cowardly and ignoble are perhaps more dreadful than anything that can be experienced by minds more highly endowed. No barrier of reason or possibility appeared to Anne to limit the horrors that might happen to her. She might be murdered there for anything she knew.

And it was with the greatest difficulty that she was got up stairs. She was afraid of everything, afraid of the creak of the stairs, of her father’s door, lest it should open upon her suddenly, and of her mother’s death-bed. Anne was terribly afraid of death—always with a personal terror lest she should see or hear something ghastly and dreadful. “Oh, Kirsteen, it will just kill me,” she said. “What will kill ye?” cried Kirsteen in indignation. “It is just a sight for the angels.” But Anne was beyond the verge of such consolation. She dropped down a helpless heap of clothes and tears by her mother’s bedside, scarcely venturing a glance at the blanched and shrunken white image that lay in her mother’s bed. And by this time the dying woman had wandered beyond the consciousness of what was about her. She smiled and opened her eyes for a moment when she was appealed to, but what she said had no connection with the circumstances about her. “Mother, it is Anne—Mother, Anne’s here. Anne’s come to see ye—Mother, have ye not a word for Anne?” “Anne, is that her name? No, my bonny dear, but Alison after my mother. She’s the biggest of the three, and look at her gold hair like Jeanie’s.” The white face was illuminated with the most beautiful smile—the half-opened eyes had a dazzled look of happiness. She opened them faintly with the one recognition that remained in them. “Eh, Kirsteen, but it’s bonny, bonny!” “Mother,” cried Kirsteen with her arm under the pillow gently moving and changing the position of the sufferer, as she turned from one side to another. “Mother! one word for poor Anne!” Her mother only turned once more those dazzled faint eyes with the last spark of mortal consciousness in them to Kirsteen and smiled. She had gone out into the green pastures and by the quiet waters, and recognized earthly calls no more.

“Oh, Kirsteen, never mind, oh, never mind. Now that I’ve seen her I’ll just creep away.”

“Come here,” said Kirsteen full of pity, “and ye can give her a kiss before ye go.”

Anne dragged herself up, trembling and tottering. She would rather have dared the dark road than touch that white face. But what her sister ordained she had to do. She bent over the bedside with terror to give the required kiss.

Something had roused Drumcarro at that moment from his disturbed slumbers. He had thrown himself on his bed half dressed, being after all human and not without some feeling in respect to the poor companion of so many long years. Perhaps he had heard something of the progress of Anne and her supporters up the stairs. He came out now with a swing of his door, pushing open that of the sick room. The first thing he saw was the distracted face of Anne put forward reluctantly towards her mother, against the dark moreen curtains of the bed. She saw him at the same moment, and with the shriek of a wild creature at the touch of the slayer sank out of sight, prone upon the floor, keeping a despairing hold upon the folds of Kirsteen’s dress. Scorn of the coward no doubt was in Drumcarro’s mind as well as rage at the intruder. He made a stride across the room, and caught her by the shoulder forcing her to her feet. The unusual sounds roused the dying mother. She struggled up, looking wildly round, “What was that, what was that? Oh, dinna make a noise, bairns, and anger your father.” Then her dim faculties returned to their previous impression. “Neil, Neil—you’re the priest—Say it once more—The Lord bless them a’ and all belonging to them, for Jesus Christ’s sake, Amen—for ever and ever, Amen!”

She put her wasted hands upon her breast and fell back on her pillows. The end had come—and everything had now to give way to the presence of death. Drumcarro thrust his trembling daughter violently from him with a muttered oath, and all except Anne gathered round the bed. The solitary candle flickered with a faint light upon the group, Kirsteen on one side with her arm under the pillow to ease the faint movements of the dying, the father’s dark and weather-beaten countenance lowering over the bed, Marg’ret behind, and Jeanie more like an angel than ever in her white nightdress, startled by the sensation that had gone through the house, appearing in the doorway. A last gleam of light in the mother’s fading eyes rested upon this white angelic figure. No doubt the departing soul took it for the guide that was to lead her to the skies.

Mr. Douglas put his hand, not without reverence, over the closing eyes. He took out his watch to note the time. To kiss the dead face, or make any demonstration of love or sorrow would have been impossible, and a contradiction of all his habits and tenets: but the man was subdued, and there was something in this presence which obliterated for the moment all violent impulses. He said aloud but softly, “Twenty minutes past three in the morning,” and closing his big watch with a sharp sound which jarred upon the silence turned away. He even laid his hand almost tenderly for an instant upon the golden head of Jeanie as he passed her, and closed his own door with little noise. It was his only tribute to the dead, and yet it was a real tribute. No harsh sound nor violence could intrude there. Perhaps he was ashamed to have startled her, and thankful even in his arbitrary soul that she had not known what it was.

Some moments of absolute silence passed during which Anne did not know what to do. She had time to steal away, but was afraid to do so—not sure that her father might not be lurking, lying in wait for her outside of the door. The grip of his fingers on her shoulder seemed still to burn her, and yet she had not received any harm. And this was not all—for awe and superstitious fear and some natural feeling also kept her still. She might see some white image of her mother more terrible still than the wrath of the other parent if she ventured out of the shelter of human society even in the death-chamber. Tears were hot behind her eyes, waiting to burst. She did not dare to approach, to look again at the face out of which life had just departed. The only movement of which she was capable was to put forth a hand and grasp Kirsteen’s dress, as at last, after that long moment of silence and homage to the departed life, the watchers began to move again.

How soon that has to be! A few inevitable tears, a sense of utter quiet and relief after the struggle, instinctive little cares which Marg’ret could not postpone, to close the eyes, to straighten the dead arms, to smooth the sheets in the decorum of death. Marg’ret’s eyes were full of tears, but she knew well all that had to be done. “You must go and lie down, my dear, and leave the rest to me,” she whispered. “All’s done that you can do,” and it was only then that Anne recurred to their minds, an anxiety the more, and that Kirsteen felt as she moved her sister’s hold upon her dress.

Four o’clock in the morning, the darkest moment of the winter night! The little troubled feminine party withdrew to the warm kitchen, the only place in the house where there was warmth and light, to consult what they should do. It had been Kirsteen’s intention to leave her father’s house at once as she had come, her duty being over. But Jeanie’s anxious entreaty bursting forth among the tears in which her simple sorrow found relief, and a sense of the charge she had seemed to take from her mother’s hand like some office and trust conferred, changed the mood of Kirsteen. Her father had endured her presence, her young sister needed her; Anne was her chief hindrance in these circumstances. But even for Anne the bitterness of death was past. It was all over, and she had sustained little harm; all that any one could ask of her now was to get away as quietly as possible; the worst was over; Anne was capable of enjoying the cup of tea which Marg’ret made haste to prepare. She even was persuaded to “try an egg” with it, as she had “a journey before her.” It is true that for a moment she was thrown into fresh despair by the suggestion that Kirsteen was not to accompany her home.

“Oh, what will I do?” cried Anne. “Walk that awful way in the dark, and take up the chaise at the end, and all alone, with nobody with me? Oh, Kirsteen, if I had known, you would never have got me to leave my family, me that never goes a step without my man!”

“It’s a great pity,” said Marg’ret, “that you put Mrs. Doctor Dewar to all that trouble, Kirsteen.”

“And so it is,” said Anne. “I told her so; I said I was not fit for it, to be trailed away to the Highlands at a moment’s notice. And my poor mother that was too far gone to mind, or to ask about my family. And what good could I do? But you might as well speak to the rocks as to Kirsteen when she has taken a thing into her head. And now what is to become of me?”

CHAPTER XV.

The question how to dispose of Anne was finally settled by the evident necessity of sending Duncan, the man from the farm, into the town for various necessary things, and to call at the merchant’s and other indispensable errands. Marg’ret decided that he should take the cart, and convey Mrs. Doctor Dewar to the place where the postchaise had been left, an arrangement to which Anne did not object, for Anne was one of the women who have not much confidence in other women, and she was very willing to exchange Kirsteen’s protection and care for that of a man, even though he was only Duncan. She made her preparations for departure more cheerfully than could have been supposed, and even set out in the dark with Kirsteen and the lantern to walk a part of the way so that the sound of the cart might not be heard by Drumcarro, with resignation. They were interrupted however as they stole out of the house, by a sudden rush upon them of Jeanie who had been sent back to bed, but lying weeping there had heard the little stir of the departure, carefully as they had subdued every sound. Jeanie thought it was Kirsteen who was abandoning her, and rose and rushed to the door still in her nightdress to implore her sister to stay. “Oh! if ye will not stay, take me with you, oh, take me with you, Kirsteen!” she cried, flinging herself upon her sister’s shoulder.

“Oh, Jeanie, whisht, whisht! you will make a noise and wake my father. I am not going away.”

“Oh, take me with you, Kirsteen!” cried the girl too much excited to understand what was said. “Oh! dinna leave me here.” She clung to Kirsteen’s arm embracing it in both her own. “You would not leave me if you knew! Oh! you would take me with you if you knew. Kirsteen! Kirsteen!”

It was Anne who interfered with words of wisdom. “Are you out of your senses, Jeanie?” she said. “Take ye away from your home, and your father’s house? Kirsteen may be foolish enough but she is not so mad as that.”

“Oh! Kirsteen,” continued Jeanie imploringly, putting her wet cheek against her sister’s, rubbing herself against her like a child, “hear nobody but me! Bide with me, Kirsteen, or take me with you. I will just die—or worse—if I am left here.”

It was not until Marg’ret had come alarmed from her kitchen to bid them, “Oh, whisht, bairns, or ye’ll waken your father,” that Jeanie could be persuaded to silence, and to believe in her sister’s promise to return. The sounds though so subdued still made a whispering through the hall, and an alarming movement that shook the house overhead as if Drumcarro himself had been roused to see what was going on. This precipitated the departure of Anne, who, frightened as she was for the dark road and the chill of the morning, was still more alarmed at the idea of her father’s appearance, and hastened out from the one danger to dare the other, almost with alertness pulling Kirsteen with her, with a clutch of her other arm. Anne’s spirit was roused by the episode which had just passed. She was aware that she was not herself strong or able to move about unprotected, or take any separate step on her own responsibility, but she had a great confidence in her own judgment respecting others. She almost forgot to think of the terrors of the dark in her desire to make Kirsteen see her duty in respect to Jeanie, and to set everything right. She panted a little as she spoke walking on in the darkness, with the lantern throwing a faint light upon the ground at her feet, but though it affected her breath, it did not affect her certainty of being able to give good advice.

“Kirsteen—ye will be very wrong—if ye yield to that bairn. She is little more—than a bairn. She is maybe nervish with a person dead in the house. You will say it is weak—but I’m nervish myself. Kirsteen!”—Anne had made a longer pause to take breath,—“ye had ay a great confidence in yourself. But you see you make a mistake whiles. Like bringing me here. David—was just silly as well as you. He thought, if I came, it might mend—maitters—and be good for the bairns. But I—was right ye see. When a person’s dying—they’ve no time to think—about other folk.”

“All that my mother thought was about other folk—if you call her children other folk.”

“Ay, in a kind of a general way. But she never said ‘Where’s Anne? How many bairns has she?—and is the doctor doing well?’—Which is what I would have expected. No that I did—expect it,” said Anne panting. “Oh, Kirsteen, we’ll be in—the burn—if ye do not take care! She never—asked for me, at all,” Mrs. Dewar continued. “I might have been safe—in my bed—at home. A long day in a postchaise—and now another long day—and I’ll get back perished with hunger and cold—and if I havena an illness, as Marg’ret says—and just for nothing,” said Anne—“nothing! for all you said—David and you.”

Kirsteen said nothing in reply, but instinctively quickened her pace a little. She heard the rumble of the cart in the darkness round a corner which was to deliver her from Anne’s wisdom and helplessness, the first of which was worse than the last. And after a while the gleam of another lantern, the horse’s hoofs and jog of the cart guided them to the spot where Duncan stood, his ruddy face grave with sympathy. He made a little remark about the waeful occasion, and the need of supporting God’s will, raising his bonnet reverently; and then Mrs. Dewar was helped into the cart, and went rumbling away into the darkness, still relieved for a time by the gleams growing fainter and fainter thrown by Duncan’s lantern from side to side.

The wind had fallen and the burn ran more softly, as Kirsteen walked home. She was very tired, in that state of exaltation which extreme exhaustion and sorrow sometimes bring, as if lifted out of herself altogether into a clear, still atmosphere of utter sadness, yet relief. The active suffering was over, she was incapable of further pain, but unutterably sad and sorrowful, hushed out of all complaining. The darkness enveloped her and soothed her, hiding her from all the world so that she could go on, weeping all to herself with no one to ask why or how.