"Yes—Mrs. Kay," said Bert, full of interest, as he saw what was coming.
"Ay, that was what you called her—her name is really Mackay. I thought her like my sister then; but oh! The horror of it! She is my sister—my sister, Priscilla Mackay, whom I left seventeen years ago, a respectable, well-living woman, the wife of a good Christian man. Oh, I can't tell you what a woman Pris was—a clean, clever housewife—a wee bit pernicketty in her ways, and somewhat sharp of her tongue; but one who was respected by her neighbours, and went to church twice every Sabbath, and was a pattern mother to her two wee bairns. She was ashamed enough of me; she shook me off as a disgrace; and I never meant to go near her again, till the Lord changed my heart. And, strangely enough, intoxicated though she was, she knew me before I knew her, and she cried out to me, calling me by my name. And what do you think she said?
"'Ah, Corney,' she cried, 'it's my turn now. I'm the one that's going to the bad. The Bible says that the first shall be last, and that's how it is with me.'"
"I am not surprised," said Bert; "I began to think that Mrs. Kay was your sister."
"Ah, you don't understand. Even now it seems impossible that it can be so—that Pris can have come to that."
"It's just the drink that has done it," said Bert, speaking with a wisdom beyond his years, born of painful experience. "There's nothing like drink for dragging people down. It brought my father to his grave."
"Say, rather, it is sin," said old Corney. "Sin of any kind means ruin, sorrow, death. I see that now as I never did before."
"Who made sin?" asked Bert. "Was it the devil?"
"Nay, it was rather sin that made the devil; at least, I remember hearing a preacher in Scotland say that it was nothing but sin that made the devil a devil."
Bert was silent for a few moments, his thoughts being such as could not readily find expression.