The pedlar was calling her now. His eyes were bright and eager when she knelt beside him and took his cold hands into hers.
“I’m seeing all the Highlands, child—not just Ben Crummock here, or Ben Ore there—but the good, wild sweep o’ them all.”
His voice was clear again, vibrant and youthful as when he went a-Maying.
“It’s as if I was standing on a high mountain—seeing it all spread out below me—hearing the pipes sob up from Glencoe, and over Culloden Muir, and out from the Western Isles.”
“Never heed their sobbing,” she pleaded.
“I will, for it heartens me. Where I stand now—”
A tremor shook him, a dry, harsh coughing; but he was so nearly rid of his body that his high spirit stormed and conquered it afresh.
“Where I stand now the after-music sounds. The pipers come, leading our Highland dead—there’s still a plaining and a sorrow, but the strathspey sounds.”
Through blinding tears Causleen saw this courageous father, stalwart to the end, his vision clear as a boy’s, his faith indomitable. She was losing him, and soon. Whenever one of her race neared the threshold of beyond, the pipers summoned them.
“They sorrowed here. They’ll come by and by into all they fought for in the narrow glens, and up the braes—cannot you see them, girl?”