When he entered his cottage the shadows were beginning to fall, and he remembered it would soon be night.
"It iss in the dark that Flora will be coming, and she must know that her father iss waiting for her."
He cleaned and trimmed with anxious hand a lamp that was kept for show, and had never been used. Then he selected from his books Edwards' "Sinners in the Hands of an angry God," and "Coles on the Divine Sovereignty," and on them he laid the large family Bible out of which Flora's name had been blotted. This was the stand on which he set the lamp in the window, and every night till Flora returned its light shone down the steep path that ascended to her home, like the Divine Love from the open door of our Father's House.
III
LIKE AS A FATHER
It was only by physical force and a free use of personalities that the Kildrummie passengers could be entrained at the Junction, and the Drumtochty men were always the last to capitulate.
They watched the main line train that had brought them from Muirtown disappear in the distance, and then broke into groups to discuss the cattle sale at leisure, while Peter, the factotum of the little Kildrummie branch, drove his way through their midst with offensive pieces of luggage, and abused them by name without respect of persons.
"It's maist aggravatin', Drumsheugh, 'at ye 'ill stand there girnin' at the prices, as if ye were a puir cottar body that hed selt her ae coo, and us twal meenutes late. Man, get intae yer kerridge; he 'ill no be fat that buys frae you, a'll wager."
"Peter's in an awfu' feery-farry (excitement) the nicht, neeburs," Drumsheugh would respond, after a long pause; "ye wud think he wes a mail gaird tae hear him speak. Mind ye, a'm no gain' tae shove ahint if the engine sticks, for I hae na time. He needs a bit nip," and Drumsheugh settles himself in his seat, "or else there wud be nae leevin' wi' him."
Peter escaped this winged shaft, for he had detected a woman in the remote darkness.