“Cry ‘Father o’ lichts!’” answered the laird.
“Will he hear to that—div ye think, sir?”
“Wha kens! He micht jist turn his heid; an’ ae luik wad sair me for a hunner year.”
“I s’ cry, gien I see onything,” said Phemy.
As they sat watching, by degrees the laird’s thought swerved a little. His gaze had fixed on the northern horizon, where, as if on the outer threshold of some mighty door, long low clouds, with varied suggestion of recumbent animal forms, had stretched themselves, like creatures of the chase, watching for their lord to issue.
“Maybe he’s no oot o’ the hoose yet,” he said. “Surely it canna be but he comes oot ilka nicht! He wad never hae made sic a sicht o’ bonny things to lat them lie wi’oot onybody to gaither them! An’ there’s nae ill fowk the furth at this time o’ nicht, ta mak an oogly din, or disturb him wi’ the sicht o’ them. He maun come oot i’ the quaiet o’ the nicht, or else what’s ’t a’ for?—Ay! he keeps the nicht till himsel’, an’ lea’s the day to hiz (us). That’ll be what the deep sleep fa’s upo’ men for, doobtless—to haud them oot o’ his gait! Eh! I wuss he wad come oot whan I was by! I micht get a glimp o’ ’m.—Maybe he wad tak the hump aff o’ me, an’ set things in order i’ my heid, an’ mak me like ither fowk. Eh me! that wad be gran’! Naebody wad daur to touch me syne. Eh! Michty! come oot! Father o’ lichts! Father o’ lichts!”
He went on repeating the words till, growing softer and softer, his voice died away in silence, and still as his seat of stone he sat, a new Job, on the verge of the world-waters, like the old Job on his dunghill when he cried out,—
“Lo, he goeth by me, and I see him not; he passeth on also, but I perceive him not.—Call thou, and I will answer; or let me speak and answer thou me.—Oh that I knew where I might find him! that I might come even to his seat!—Behold I go forward, but he is not there; and backward, but I cannot perceive him; on the left hand, where he doth work, but I cannot behold him; he hideth himself on the right hand, that I cannot see him.”
At length he rose and wandered away from the shore, his head sunk upon his chest. Phemy rose also and followed him in silence. The child had little of the poetic element in her nature, but she had much of that from which everything else has to be developed— heart. When they reached the top of the brae, she joined him, and said, putting her hand in his, but not looking at, or even turning towards him,—
“Maybe he’ll come oot upo’ ye afore ye ken some day —whan ye’re no luikin’ for him.”