As she spoke the hard old Scot's face began to soften, and one hand which was lying outside the bedclothes repeated the time of a Scots Psalm tune. He was again in the country church of his boyhood, and saw his father and mother going into the table seats, and heard them singing:
“O thou, my soul, bless God the Lord,
And all that in me is
Be stirred up His holy name
To magnify and bless.”
“More than that, I know some of your psalm tunes, and I have the words in my hymn book; perhaps I have one of the Psalms which you would like to hear.”
“Div ye think that ye could sing the Twenty-third Psalm—
'The Lord's my Shepherd, I'll not want'?
for I would count it verra comfortin'.”
“Yes,” she said, “I can, and it will please me very much to sing it, for I think I love that psalm more than any hymn.”
“It never runs dry,” murmured the Scot.
So she sang it from beginning to end in a low, sweet voice, slowly and reverently, as she had heard it sung in Scotland. He joined in no word, but ever he kept time with his hand and with his heart, while his eyes looked into the things which were far away.
After she ceased he repeated to himself the last two lines: