"She wants to see you, Thomas," screamed Jean; remarking in a lower voice, "He's as deef's a door-nail, Annie Anderson."
"Lat her come in, than," bawled Thomas.
"He's tellin' ye to come in, Annie," said Jean, as if she had been interpreting his words. But she detained her nevertheless to ask several unimportant questions. At length the voice of Thomas rousing her once more, she hastened to introduce her.
"Gang in there, Annie," she said, throwing open the door of the dark room. The child entered and stood just within it, not knowing even where Thomas sat. But a voice came to her out of the gloom:
"Ye're no feared at the dark, are ye, Annie? Come in."
"I dinna ken whaur I'm gaein."
"Never min' that. Come straucht foret. I'm watchin' ye."
For Thomas had been sitting in the dark till he could see in it (which, however, is not an invariable result), while out of the little light Annie had come into none at all But she obeyed the voice, and went straight forward into the dark, evidently much to the satisfaction of Thomas, who seizing her arm with one hand, laid the other, horny and heavy, on her head, saying:
"Noo, my lass, ye'll ken what faith means. Whan God tells ye to gang into the mirk, gang!"
"But I dinna like the mirk," said Annie.