“But a' likit ye a' the time better than ony laddie in the schule; a' think a' luved ye frae the beginnin', John.”
“Wes't luve gared ye dad ma ears wi' yir bukes at the corner, and shute me in amang the whins? but ye'll hae forgotten that, wumman.”
“Fient a bit o' me; it wes the day ye took Meg Mitchell's pairt, when we fell oot ower oor places in the class. A' didna mind her bein' abune me, but a' cudna thole ye turnin' against me.”
“Hoo lang is that ago, Jean?”
“Sax and fifty year ago laist summer.”
The auld kirk stood on a bluff overlooking the Tochty, with the dead of the Glen round it; and at the look on Jean's face, Burnbrae turned up the kirk road along which every family went some day in sorrow.
The Baxters' ground lay in a corner, where the sun fell pleasantly through the branches of a beech in the afternoon, and not far from the place where afterwards we laid Dom-sie to rest. The gravestone was covered on both sides with names, going back a century, and still unable to commemorate all the Baxters that had lived and died after an honest fashion in Drumtochty. The last name was that of a child:
Jean, the daughter of John Baxter,
Farmer of Burnbrae,
Aged 7 years.
There was no “beloved” nor any text, but each spring the primroses came out below, and all summer a bunch of pinks touched the “Jean” with their fragrant blossoms.
Her mother stooped to pluck a weed from among the flowers and wipe the letters of the name where the moss was gathering, then she bent her head on the grey, worn stone, and cried, “Jeannie, Jeannie, ma bonnie lassie.”