“The Grants have a large greenhouse. I shall ask them to save all they possibly can. Maximus Grant delights in doing a kindness.”
“Then thou must ask him, Sunna. He is thy friend––perhaps thy lover. So the talk goes.”
“Let them talk! My lover is far away. God save him!”
“Where then?”
“Where all good and fit men are gone––to the trenches. For my lover is much of a man, strong and brave-hearted. He adores his country, his home, and his kindred. He counts honour far above money; and liberty, more than life. My lover will earn the right to marry the girl he loves, and become the father of free men and women!” And Rahal answered proudly and tenderly:
“Thou art surely meaning my son Boris.”
“Indeed, thou art near to the truth.”
Then Rahal put her arm round Sunna and kissed her. “Thou hast made me happy,” she 167 said, and Sunna made her still more happy, when she took out of the little bag fastened to her belt the daguerreotype and showed her the strong, handsome face of her soldier-sailor boy.
During all this summer Sunna was busy and regular. She was at the Ragnors’ every day until the noon hour. Then she ate dinner with her grandfather, who was as eager to discuss the news and gossip Sunna had heard, as any old woman in Kirkwall. He said: “Pooh! Pooh!” and “Nonsense!” but he listened to it, and it often served his purpose better than words of weight and wisdom.
In the afternoons Mistress Brodie was to visit, and the winter in Edinburgh to talk over. Coming home in time to take tea with her grandfather, she devoted the first hour after the meal to practising her best songs, and these lullabyed the old man to a sleep which often lasted until “The Banded Men” were attended to. It might then be ten o’clock and she was ready to sleep.