Janet was seated—in her widow’s mutch, with the plain black ribbon down both sides, and round the back—in the arm-chair by the fire, pondering on the past, or gently dreaming of him that was gone. She turned her head. Sorrow had baptized her face with a new gentleness. The tender expression which had been but occasional while her husband lived, was almost constant now. She did not recognize Hugh. He saw it, and it added weight to his despair. He was left outside.
“Mother!” he said, involuntarily.
She started to her feet, cried: “My bairn! my bairn!” threw her arms around him, and laid her head on his bosom. Hugh sobbed as if his heart would break. Janet wept, but her weeping was quiet as a summer rain. He led her to her chair, knelt by her side, and hiding his face in her lap like a child, faltered out, interrupted by convulsive sobs:
“Forgive me; forgive me. I don’t deserve it, but forgive me.”
“Hoot awa! my bairn! my bonny man! Dinna greet that gait. The Lord preserve’s! what are ye greetin’ for? Are na ye come hame to yer ain? Didna Dawvid aye say—‘Gie the lad time, woman. It’s unco chaip, for the Lord’s aye makin’t. The best things is aye the maist plentifu’. Gie the lad time, my bonny woman!’—didna he say that? Ay, he ca’d me his bonny woman, ill as I deserved it at his han’. An’ it’s no for me to say ae word agen you, Maister Sutherlan’, gin ye had been a hantle waur nor a young thochtless lad cudna weel help bein’. An’ noo ye’re come hame, an’ nothing cud glaidden my heart mair, ‘cep’, maybe, the Maister himsel’ was to say to my man: ‘Dawvid! come furth.’”
Hugh could make no reply. He got hold of Margaret’s creepie, which stood in its usual place, and sat down upon it, at the old woman’s feet. She gazed in his face for a while, and then, putting her arm round his neck, drew his head to her bosom, and fondled him as if he had been her own first-born.
“But eh! yer bonnie face is sharp an’ sma’ to what it used to be, Maister Sutherlan’. I doot ye hae come through a heap o’ trouble.”
“I’ll tell you all about it,” said Hugh.
“Na, na; bide still a wee. I ken a’ aboot it frae Maggy. An’ guid preserve’s! ye’re clean perished wi’ cauld. Lat me up, my bairn.”
Janet rose, and made up the fire, which soon cast a joyful glow throughout the room. The peat-fire in the little cottage was a good symbol of the heart of its mistress: it gave far more heat than light. And for my part, dear as light is, I like heat better. She then put on the kettle,—or the boiler I think she called it—saying: