* * * * *
Weary and solemn was that long night, as we sat there, with the crushing weight of the morrow on our mind, watching by that death-bed, listening hour after hour to the rambling soliloquies of the old man, as "he babbled of green fields"; yet I verily believe that to all of us, especially to poor little Katie, the active present interest of tending him kept us from going all but mad with anxiety and excitement. But it was weary work:—and yet, too, strangely interesting, as at times there came scraps of old Scotch love-poetry, contrasting sadly with the grim withered lips that uttered them—hints to me of some sorrow long since suffered, but never healed. I had never heard him allude to such an event before but once, on the first day of our acquaintance.
"I went to the kirk,
My luve sat afore me;
I trow my twa een
Tauld him a sweet story.
"Aye wakin o'—
Wakin aye and weary—
I thocht a' the kirk
Saw me and my deary.
"'Aye wakin o'!'—Do ye think, noo, we sall ha' knowledge in the next warld o' them we loved on earth? I askit that same o' Rab Burns ance; an' he said, puir chiel, he 'didna ken ower well, we maun bide and see';—bide and see—that's the gran' philosophy o' life, after a'. Aiblins folk'll ken their true freens there; an' there'll be na mair luve coft and sauld for siller—
"Gear and tocher is needit nane
I' the country whaur my luve is gane.
* * * * *
"Gin I had a true freen the noo! to gang down the wynd, an' find if it war but an auld Abraham o' a blue-gown, wi' a bit crowd, or a fizzle-pipe, to play me the Bush aboon Traquair! Na, na, na; it's singing the Lord's song in a strange land, that wad be; an' I hope the application's no irreverent, for ane that was rearit amang the hills o' God, an' the trees o' the forest which he hath planted.
"Oh the broom, and the bonny yellow broom,
The broom o' the Cowden-knowes.
"Hech, but she wud lilt that bonnily!