Isy heard, and sprang from her bed.
“Comin, mistress!” she answered; “comin this moment.”
They had not met since her resurrection, as Peter always called it.
“Isy! Isy!” cried James, the moment he heard her approaching, “come and haud the deil aff o’ me!”
He had risen to his elbow, and was looking eagerly toward the door.
She entered. James threw wide his arms, and with glowing eyes clasped her to his bosom. She made no resistance: his mother would lay it all to the fever! He broke into wild words of love, repentance, and devotion.
“Never heed him a hair, mem; he’s clean aff o’ his heid!” she said in a low voice, making no attempt to free herself from his embrace, but treating him like a delirious child. “There maun be something aboot me, mem, that quaiets him a bit! It’s the brain, ye ken, mem! it’s the het brain! We maunna contre him! he maun hae his ain w’y for a wee!”
But such was James’s behaviour to Isy that it was impossible for the mother not to perceive that, incredible as it might seem, this must be far from the first time they had met; and presently she fell to examining her memory whether she herself might not have seen Isy before ever she came to Stonecross; but she could find no answer to her inquiry, press the question as she might. By and by, her husband came in to have his dinner, and finding herself compelled, much against her will, to leave the two together, she sent up Eppie to take Isy’s place, with the message that she was to go down at once. Isy obeyed, and went to the kitchen; but, perturbed and trembling, dropped on the first chair she came to. The farmer, already seated at the table, looked up, and anxiously regarding her, said—
“Bairn, ye’re no fit to be aboot! Ye maun caw canny, or ye’ll be ower the burn yet or ever ye’re safe upo’ this side o’ ’t! Preserve’s a’! ir we to lowse ye twise in ae month?”
“Jist answer me ae queston, Isy, and I’ll speir nae mair,” said Marion.