She did not perceive Sandie, nor hear his footstep, until he touched her lightly on the shoulder.
Then she looked up, startled.
“Can I be of any use or comfort to you, dear Mrs. Menzies?”
“Oh! na, na, na,” she wailed. “There is naething on earth can comfort me mair, now my ain wee man is ta’en (taken) awa’. Like unto Rachael am I, this day, like Rachael weeping for her children, and will not be comforted, because they are not.”
“What use is it,” thought Sandie, “to air my platitudes before such grief as this?”
And yet he tried.
“Dear Mrs. Menzies,” he said, “we have all to die.”
“Ay, ay, my bonnie bairn, an’ my day will no be lang. I dinna want to live. I dinna want to live.”
“All may be for the best, Mrs. Menzies. Better perhaps that poor John should have died as he did, quickly and speedily, and, I am sure, painlessly, than if he had lingered in suffering for weeks or months in bed.”
Eppie, it was evident, was not listening.