‘Kirsty Barclay, ye’re a deevil!’ cried Phemy in a hoarse whisper: she was spent with passion.
The little creature stood before Kirsty, her hands clenched and shaking with rage, blue flashes darting about in her eyes. Kirsty, at once controlling the passion of her own heart, sat still as a statue, regarding her with a sad pity. A sparrow stood chattering at a big white brooding dove; and the dove sorrowed for the sparrow, but did not know how to help the fluttering thing.
‘Lord!’ cried Phemy, ‘I’ll be cursin a’ the warl’ and God himsel, gien I gang on this gait!—Eh, ye fause wuman!’
Kirsty sprang upon her at one bound from her seat, threw her arms round her so that she could not move hers, and sitting down with her on her lap, said—
‘Phemy, gien I was yer mither, I wad gie ye yer licks for sayin what ye didna i’ yer hert believe! A’ the time ye was keepin company wi’ Francie Gordon, ye ken i’ yer ain sowl ye was never richt sure o’ him! And noo I tell ye plainly that, although I strack him times and times wi’ my whup—and saired him weel!—I div not believe him sae ill-contrived as ye wad gar me think him. Him and me was bairns thegither, and I ken the natur o’ him, and tak his pairt again ye, for, oot o’ pride and ambition, ye’re an enemy til him: I div not believe ever he promised to merry ye! He’s behaved ill eneuch wantin that—lattin a gowk o’ a lassie like you believe what ye likit, and him only carryin on wi’ ye for the ploy o’ ’t, haeing naething to du, and sick o’ his ain toom heid and still toomer hert; but a man’s word’s his word, and Francie’s no sae ill as your tale wud mak him! There, Phemy, I hae said my say!’
She loosened her arms. But Phemy lay still, and putting her arms round Kirsty’s neck, wept in a bitter silence.
CHAPTER XX
MUTUAL MINISTRATION
In a minute or so the door opened, and Steenie coming one step into the kitchen, stood and stared with such a face of concern that Kirsty was obliged to speak. I do not believe he had ever before seen a woman weeping. He shivered visibly.
‘Phemy’s no that weel,’ she said. ‘Her hert’s sae sair it gars her greit. She canna help greitin, puir dauty!’
Phemy lifted her face from Kirsty’s bosom, where, like a miserable child, she had been pressing it hard, and, seeming to have lost in the depth of her grief all her natural shyness, looked at Steenie with the most pitiful look ever countenance wore: her rage had turned to self-commiseration. The cloud of mingled emotion and distress on the visage of Steenie wavered, shifted, changed, and settled into the divinest look of pity and protection. Kirsty said she never saw anything so unmistakably Godlike upon human countenance. Involuntarily she murmured, ‘Eh, the bonny man!’ He turned away from them, and, his head bent upon his breast, stood for a time utterly motionless. Even Phemy, overpowered and stilled by that last look he cast upon her, gazed at him with involuntary reverence. But only Kirsty knew that the half-witted had sought and found audience with the Eternal, and was now in his presence.