The Setons Part 37

The sick woman hardly seemed to hear. Her eyes had closed again, and she had fallen into the fitful sleep of weakness.

Elizabeth sat and looked at the old face, with its stern, worn lines.

Here was a woman who had lived her hard, upright life, with no soft sayings and couthy ways, and she was dying as she had lived, "uncheered and undepressed" by the world's thoughts of her.

The fog crept close to the window.

Kate put the dishes she had washed into the press. The London express rushed past on its daily journey. The familiar sound struck on the dim ear, and Mrs. Veitch asked, "Is that ma denner awa' by?"

Kate wiped her eyes. The time-honoured jest hurt her to-day.

"Poor mother!" she said. "She's aye that comical."

"When I was a la.s.sie," said Mrs. Veitch, "there was twae things I had a terrible notion of--a gig, an' a gairden wi' berries. Ma mither said, 'Bode for a silk goon and ye'll get a sleeve o't,' and Alec said, 'Bide a wee, la.s.sie, an I'll get ye them baith.' Ay, but, Alec ma man, ye've been in yer grave this forty year, an' I've been faur frae gairdens."

The tired mind was wandering back to the beginning of things. She plucked at the tr.i.m.m.i.n.g on the sleeve of her night-dress.

"I made this goon when I was a la.s.sie for ma marriage. They ca'ed this 'flowering.' I mind fine sittin' sewin' it on simmer efternunes, wi' my mither makin' the tea. Scones an' new-kirned b.u.t.ter an' skim-milk cheese. _I can taste that tea._ Naebody could mak' tea like ma mither.

I wish I had a drink o' it the noo, for I'm terrible dry. There was a burn ran by oor door an' twae muckle stanes by the side o' it, and Alec and me used to sit there and crack--and crack."

Her voice trailed off, and Elizabeth looked anxiously at Kate so see if so much talking was not bad for her mother; but Kate said she thought it pleased her to talk. It was getting dark and the kitchen was lit only by the sparkle of the fire.

"I'd better light the gas," Kate said, reaching for the matches. "The doctor'll be in soon."

Elizabeth watched her put a light to the incandescent burner, and when she turned again to the bed she found the sick woman's eyes fixed on her face.

"You're like your faither, la.s.sie," said the weak voice. "It's one-and-twenty years sin' I fell acquaint wi' him. I had flitted to this hoose, and on the Sabbath Day I gaed into the nearest kirk to see what kinna minister they hed. I've niver stayed awa' willingly a Sabbath sin' syne.... The first time he visited me kent by ma tongue that I was frae Tweedside."

"'Div 'ee ken Kilbucho?' I speired at him.

"'Fine,' he says.

"'Div 'ee ken Newby and the gamekeeper's hoose by the burn?"

"'I guddled in that burn when I was a boy,' he says; and I cud ha'

grat. It was like a drink o' cauld water.... I aye likit rinnin' water.

Mony a time I've sat by that window on a simmer's nicht and made masel'

believe that I could hear Tweed. It ran in ma ears for thirty years, an' a body disna forget. There's a bit in the Bible about a river ...

read it."

Elizabeth lifted the Bible and looked at it rather hopelessly.

"I'm afraid I don't know where to find it," she confessed.

"Tuts, la.s.sie, yer faither would ha' kent," said Mrs. Veitch.

"There is a river," Elizabeth quoted from memory,--"there is a river the streams whereof shall make glad the city of G.o.d."

"Ay! that's it." She lay quiet, as if satisfied.

"Mother," said Kate. "Oh! Mother!"

The sick woman turned to her daughter.

"Ay, Kate. Ye've been a guid la.s.sie to me, and noo ye'll gang to Maggie in Ameriky. The money is there, an' I can gang content. Ye wudna keep me Kate, when I've waited so lang? I'll gang as blythe doon to the River o' Death as I gaed fifty years syne to ma trystin', and Alec will meet me at the ither side as he met me then ... and John, ma kind son, will be waitin' for me, an' ma wee Hughie----"

"And your Saviour, Mother," Kate reminded her anxiously.

Mrs. Veitch turned on her pillow like a tired child.

"I'll need a lang, lang rest, an' a lang drink o' the Water of Life."

"Oh! Mother!" said Kate. "You're no' going to leave me."

Elizabeth laid her hand on her arm. "Don't vex her, Kate. She's nearly through with this tough world."

The doctor was heard at the door.

"I'll go now, and Father will come down this evening. Oh! poor Kate, don't cry. It is so well with her."

That night, between the hours of twelve and one, at the turning of the tide, the undaunted soul of the old country-woman forded the River, and who shall say that the trumpets did not sound for her on the other side!

_CHAPTER XVII_

"He was the Interpreter to untrustful souls The weary feet he led into the cool Soft plains called Ease; he gave the faint to drink: Dull hearts he brought to the House Beautiful.

The timorous knew his heartening on the brink Where the dark River rolls.

He drew men from the town of Vanity, Past Demas' mine and Castle Doubting's towers, To the green hills where the wise shepherds be, And Zion's songs are crooned among the flowers."

J.B.

The winter days slipped past. Christmas came, bringing with it to Buff the usual frantic antic.i.p.ations, and consequent flatness when it was borne in on him that he had not done so well in the way of presents and treats as he felt he deserved.

It was a hard winter, and there was more than the usual hards.h.i.+ps among the very poor. James Seton, toiling up and down the long stairs of the Gorbals every day of the week and preaching three times on the Sabbath, was sometimes very weary.

Elizabeth, too, worked hard and laughed much, as was her way.

It took very little to make her laugh, as she told Arthur Townshend.

"This has been a nasty day," she wrote. "The rain has never ceased--dripping _yellow_ rain. (By the way, did you ever read in Andrew Lang's _My Own Fairy Book_ about the Yellow Dwarf who bled yellow blood? Isn't it a nice horrible idea?)

"At breakfast it struck me that Father looked frail, and Buff sneezed twice, and I made up my mind he was going to take influenza or measles, probably both, so I didn't feel in any spirits to face the elements when I waded out to do my shopping. But when I went into the fruit shop and asked if the pears were good and got the reply 'I'm afraid we've nothing startling in the pear line to-day,' I felt a good deal cheered.

Later, walking in Sauchiehall Street, I met Mrs. Taylor in her 'prayer-meeting bonnet,' her skirt well kilted, goloshes on her feet, and her circular waterproof draping her spare figure. After I had a.s.suaged her fears about my own health and Father's and Buff's I complimented her on her courage in being out on such a day.

"'I hed to come,' she a.s.sured me earnestly; 'I'm on ma way to the Religious Tract Society to get some _cards for mourners_.'

"The depressing figure she made, her errand, and the day she had chosen for it, sent me home grinning broadly. Do you know that in spite of ill weather, it is spring? There are three daffodils poking up their heads in the garden, and I have got a new hat to go to London with some day in April. What day, you ask, is some day? I don't know yet. When Buff was a very little boy, a missionary staying in the house said to him, 'And some day you too will go to heaven and sing among the angels.'