Book Three—Chapter Five.
The Old Folks at Home.
“Gloomy winter’s noo awa,
Soft the westlin’ breezes blow,
Amang the birks o’ Stanley Shaw
The mavis sings hoo cheery O?”
Burns.
“I asked a glad mother, just come from the post,
With a letter she kissed, from a far-away coast,
What heart-thrilling news had rejoiced her the most,
And—gladness for mourning! Her boy was returning
To love her—at home.”
Tupper.
Scene: The wildery round Grayling House in early spring. Everything in gardens and on lawns looks fresh and joyful. Spring flowers peeping through the brown earth, merle and mavis making music in the spruce and fir thickets, and louder than all the clear-throated chaffinch. Effie walking alone with book in hand, a great deerhound, the son of faithful Ossian, following step by step behind.
Effie is not reading, though she holds that book in her hand, and albeit her eyes seem glued to the page. For Effie is thinking, only thinking the same thoughts she thinks so very often, only making the same calculations she makes every day of her somewhat lonely life, and which often cause her pillow at night to be bedewed with tears.
Thinking, wondering, calculating.
Thinking of the past, thinking what a long, long time has elapsed since Leonard and Douglas—her brother’s friend—went last away to sea; wondering where they might be at that very moment, and calculating the weeks and days that had yet to elapse before the time they had promised to return should arrive. She finished by breathing a little prayer for them. What a joyful thing it is for us poor mortals, that He, Who sticketh closer than a brother, is ever and always by our side, and ever and always ready to lend a willing ear to our silent supplications!
Effie ended with a sigh that was half a sob, a sigh that made great Orla the deerhound thrust his muzzle right under her elbow, and so throw her arm around his neck.