Allison Bain Part 60

"Come ye awa ben," said she. "Is it Betty, or is it the minister's Barbara? Bide still till I licht my bit lampie."

But when the lamp was lighted, she "wasna just sae sure," even then, who it was that had come in.

"Dinna ye mind Allie Bain, and how good ye were to her, the day she gaed awa?"

"Ay do I. Weel that. Eh, woman! Are ye Allie Bain?"

The lamp did not cast a very bright light, but it fell full on Allison's face.

"Eh! but ye're grown a bonny woman! Sit ye doon and rest yersel'. And wha is this? Is it witless Willie, as I've heard folk ca' him?"

She did not wait for an answer, but wandered away to other matters. She seemed quite to have forgotten the events of the last years. But she told them about her mother, and about the man she should have married, who were both lying in the kirkyard doon by, and about her father and her brothers who were lost at sea.

"I'm sair failed," said she. "It has been an unco hard winter, and I hae had to keep the hoose. But I'll be mysel' again, when the bonny spring days come, and I can win out to the kirkyard. It's a bonny place, and wholesome."

And so on she wandered. They did not try to bring her thoughts back to later days. "It was as well not," Allison said sadly.

Yes, she was sore failed, but she brightened wonderfully at the touch of a golden piece which John put into her hand.

"I'll tak' it to the manse and get it changed for the bawbees and pennies that are gaithered in the kirk. It'll tak' twa or three Sabbaths o' them, I daursay, to mak' it out. Eh! but ye're a braw lad, and a weelfaured," added she, holding up the lamp and peering into his face. "And muckle gude be wi' ye a' ye're days," she added as they went away.

"You have never told me of all the help she gave you," said John as they went down the burn side together.

"Sometime I will tell you; I would fain forget it all just now."

The next day they went to Gra.s.sie, to see the two or three with whom Allison could claim kindred in the countryside. She had seen them last on her father's burial-day. Then they went to many a spot where in their happy childhood Allison and her brother used to play together.

John had heard of some of these before, he said. He knew the spot at the edge of the moor, where young Alex. Hadden had rescued Willie from the jaws of death, and he recognised the clump of dark old firs, where the hoodie-crows used to take counsel together, and the lithe nook where the two bairns were wont to shelter from the east wind or the rain. And he reminded Allison of things which she had herself forgotten. At some of them she wept, and at others she laughed, joyful to think that her brother should remember them so well. And she too had some things to tell, and some sweet words to say, in the gladness of her heart, which John might never have heard but for their walk over the hills that day.

They went to the kirk on the Sabbath, and sat, not in the minister's pew, but in the very seat where Allison used to sit with her father and her mother and Willie before trouble came. And when the silence was broken by the minister's voice saying: "Oh! Thou who art mighty to save!" did not her heart respond joyfully to the words? The tears rose as she bowed her head, but her heart was glad as she listened to the good words spoken. When they came out into the kirkyard, where, one by one, at first, and afterward by twos and threes, the folk who had known her all her life came up to greet her, there were neither tears nor smiles on her face, but a look at once gentle, and firm, and grave--the look of a strong, patient, self-respecting woman, who had pa.s.sed through the darkness of suffering and sorrow into the light at last.

John stood a little apart, watching and waiting for her, and in his heart he was saying, "May I grow worthy of her and of her love." When there had been "quite enough of it," as he thought, and he was about to put an end to it, there drew near, doubtful, yet eager, an old bowed man, to take her hand, and then John saw his wife's face, "as if it had been the face of an angel."

She had waited for all the rest to come to her, but she went forward to meet this man with both hands held out to him, and they went aside together. Then, Allison stooped toward him, speaking softly, and while he listened, the tears were running down his withered cheeks, but he smiled and prayed G.o.d bless her, at the end.

"Who was your last friend?" said John when they had left the kirkyard, and were drawing near the manse.

"It was--the father of Annie Brand. She died--over yonder--"

She could not say more, and she did not need to. John had heard the story of Annie Brand and of others, also, from her friend Doctor Fleming, and in his heart he said again:

"O G.o.d! make me worthy of her love."

They did not linger long after the Sabbath, though their old friend asked for all the time which they could freely give. They were not specially pressed for time, John acknowledged, but there were several places to which they meant to go--to some of them for business, to all of them for pleasure. He had left all his affairs "on the other side"

in good hands, so that they need not be in haste to return, and they were free to go about at their leisure.

"And it is quite right you are," said Doctor Hadden. "It is wonderful what a bonny world it is that happy eyes look out upon. And you will have the sight of many a fair picture, that you will recall together in the years that are to come. And with all this, and the voyage that lies before you, you will have time to get acquaint with one another, before the warstle of common life begins."

And so they went away. And their "happy eyes" saw many a fair picture, and day by day they "got acquaint" with one another, as their dear old friend had said.

And in due time they sailed away in to the West, to begin together a new life in a new land.