Of late he had begun again to go to the hill at night, and Kirsty feared his old trouble might be returning. Glad as she was to serve Phemy, and the father through the daughter, she was far from regretting her departure, for now she would have leisure for Steenie and her books, and now the family would gather itself once more into the perfect sphere to which drop and ocean alike desires to shape itself!
‘I thoucht ye wud be efter me!’ cried Steenie, as she opened the door of his burrow, within an hour of his leaving the house.
Now Kirsty had expected to find him full of grief because of Phemy’s going, especially as the heartless girl, for such Steenie’s sister could not help thinking her, never said good-bye to her most loving slave. And she did certainly descry on his countenance traces of emotion, and in his eyes the lingering trouble as of a storm all but overblown. There was however in his face the light as of a far sunk aurora, the outmost rim of whose radiance, doubtfully visible, seemed to encircle his whole person. He was not lost in any gloom! She sat down beside him, and waited for him to speak.
Never doubting she would follow him, he had already built up a good peat-fire on the hearth, and placed for her beside it a low settle which his father had made for him, and he had himself covered with a sheepskin of thickest fleece. They sat silent for a while.
‘Wud ye say noo, Kirsty, ’at I was ony use til her?’ he asked at length.
‘Jist a heap,’ answered Kirsty. ‘I kenna what ever she or I wud hae dune wantin ye! She nott (needed) a heap o’ luikin til!’
‘And ye think mebbe she’ll be some the better, some w’y or ither, for ’t?’
‘Ay, I div think that, Steenie. But to tell the trowth, I’m no sure she’ll think verra aft aboot what ye did for her!’
‘Ow, na! What for sud she? There’s no need for that! It was for hersel, no for her think-aboot-it, I tried. I was jist fain to du something like wash the feet o’ her. Whan I cam in that day—the day efter ye broucht her hame, ye ken—the luik of her puir, bonny, begrutten facy jist turnt my hert ower i’ the mids o’ me. I maist think, gien I hadna been able to du onything for her afore she gaed, I wud hae come hame here to my ain hoose like a deein sheep, and lain doon. Yon face o’ hers comes back til me noo like the face o’ a lost lammie ’at the shepherd didna think worth gaein oot to luik for. But gien I had sic a sair hert for her, the bonny man maun hae had a sairer, and he’ll du for her what he can—and that maun be muckle—muckle! They ca’ ’im the gude Shepherd, ye ken!’
He sat silent for some minutes, and Kirsty’s heart was too full to let her speak. She could only say to herself—‘And folk ca’s him half-wuttit, div they! Weel, lat them! Gien he be half-wuttit, the Lord’s made up the ither half wi’ better!’