"Oh!" she gasped, and the whole world seemed to go from beneath her, so weak did she feel through her limbs.
"John," she said, after a while, "did ye no try to get something to do, that you might help me and Janet now we're helpless?"
"No," he said; "for the een wouldna let me. Nicht and day they follow me a'where—nicht and day."
"Are they following ye yet, John?" she whispered, leaning forward seriously. She did not try to disabuse him now; she accepted what he said. Her mind was on a level with his own. "Are they following ye yet?" she asked, with large eyes of sympathy and awe.
"Ay, and waur than ever too. They're getting redder and redder. It's not a dull red," he said, with a faint return of his old interest in the curious physical; "it's a gleaming red. They lowe. A' last nicht they wouldna let me sleep. There was nae gas in my room, and when the candle went out I could see them everywhere. When I looked to one corner o' the room, they were there; and when I looked to another corner, they were there too—glowering at me; glowering at me in the darkness; glowering at me. Ye mind what a glower he had! I hid from them ablow the claes; but they followed me—they were burning in my brain. So I gaed oot and stood by a lamp-post for company. But a constable moved me on; he said I was drunk because I muttered to mysell. But I wasna drunk then, mother; I wa-as not. So I walkit on, and on, and on the whole nicht; but I aye keepit to the lamp-posts for company. And than when the public-houses opened I gaed in and drank and drank. I didna like the drink, for whisky has no taste to me now. But it helps ye to forget.
"Mother," he went on complainingly, "is it no queer that a pair of een should follow a man? Just a pair of een! It never happened to onybody but me," he said dully—"never to onybody but me."
His mother was panting open-mouthed, as if she choked for air, both hands clutching at her bosom. "Ay," she whispered, "it's queer;" and kept on gasping at intervals with staring eyes, "It's gey queer; it's gey queer; it's gey queer."
She took up the needle once more and tried to sew; but her hand was trembling so violently that she pricked the left forefinger which upheld her work. She was content thereafter to make loose stabs at the cloth, with a result that she made great stitches which drew her seam together in a pucker. Vacantly she tried to smooth them out, stroking them over with her hand, constantly stroking and to no purpose. John watched the aimless work with dull and heavy eyes.
For a while there was silence in the kitchen. Janet was coughing in the room above.