When one o’clock came, I was roused by the noise of dismissal for the two hours for dinner. I staggered out, still stupid with sleep, and whom should I find watching for me by the door-post but Turkey!
“Turkey!” I exclaimed; “you here!”
“Yes, Ranald,” he said; “I’ve put the cows up for an hour or two, for it was very hot; and Kirsty said I might come and carry you home.”
So saying he stooped before me, and took me on his strong back. As soon as I was well settled, he turned his head, and said:
“Ranald, I should like to go and have a look at my mother. Will you come? There’s plenty of time.”
“Yes, please, Turkey,” I answered. “I’ve never seen your mother.”
He set off at a slow easy trot, and bore me through street and lane until we arrived at a two-storey house, in the roof of which his mother lived. She was a widow, and had only Turkey. What a curious place her little garret was! The roof sloped down on one side to the very floor, and there was a little window in it, from which I could see away to the manse, a mile off, and far beyond it. Her bed stood in one corner, with a check curtain hung from a rafter in front of it. In another was a chest, which contained all their spare clothes, including Turkey’s best garments, which he went home to put on every Sunday morning. In the little grate smouldered a fire of oak-bark, from which all the astringent virtue had been extracted in the pits at the lanyard, and which was given to the poor for nothing.
Turkey’s mother was sitting near the little window, spinning. She was a spare, thin, sad-looking woman, with loving eyes and slow speech.
“Johnnie!” she exclaimed, “what brings you here? and who’s this you’ve brought with you?”
Instead of stopping her work as she spoke, she made her wheel go faster than before; and I gazed with admiration at her deft fingering of the wool, from which the thread flowed in a continuous line, as if it had been something plastic, towards the revolving spool.