The cavalcade had started this afternoon on the same road which Blanche and her father took on the first day when they rode together in Glen Eagle. The ground was not so quickly gone over on this occasion. There were many objects of interest which Blanche wanted to examine, now that Shag had not to be kept up to the swinging trot of her father's hunter. Occasionally the little Shetlander got rather tired of such a loitering pace, and would shake his mane, and give his tail a whisk, as if to say, "Come on, my little mistress! This slow state of affairs is excessively tiresome; let's have something lively;" and off they would start on a sharp trot, leaving Morag far behind, but presently returning to her.
Shag and his mistress had now started in one of these frisky fits, and Morag seated herself at the roadside to wait till they should reappear again. Left to her own meditations, she began to think of something which Blanche had been reading to her yesterday in the fir-wood. She would fain have heard more, but the little lady had closed the book with a yawn, and stretching herself on the soft turf, said, impatiently, "O Morag! I do wish I had my 'Illustrated Fairy Stories' here; I should be so glad to read them to you, and I'm sure you would like them—they are so nice;" and then she began, in glowing words, to tell one of them, and Morag thought it very delightful, indeed; but still her thoughts would wander back to a wonderful story which she had heard for the first time that afternoon. Blanche had happened to read in the end of St. John's Gospel, where we hear about Mary Magdalene finding the rocky grave of the Lord empty, to her great wonder and grief, till she recognized the dear familiar voice of the Master, who had risen again from the dead, and drew near to comfort her.
Morag had been able to gather from Blanche's reading a little about our Lord's life on earth, and all the wonderful things which He went about doing; and she knew that at last He had been killed by wicked men, and laid in the grave still and dead; but from this story it would seem that He was alive again; and Morag could not understand it at all. Often she wandered into the little graveyard in the Glen, and among the worn mossy headstones peeping from the long rank grass, which told the names of the quiet sleepers below. Sometimes, too, she watched a little company of mourners, with their sorrowful burden, wending their way along the white hilly road; and when she went to see her mother's grave next time, she would notice a fresh green sod somewhere near, and she knew that another dweller in the Glen was laid there, in his long home, never to be seen among them more.
But this good Lord, who died on the green hill, and was laid in His rocky grave, seemed to have come back to the world again to speak loving words to everybody, as He had done before He was crucified. Could He, then, be alive in the world now? Morag's heart gave a great throb when she thought of it. Perhaps one day He might come to the hut and speak kind words to her, as Mr. Clifford had done on that rainy afternoon when she was so wet and miserable. Perhaps He might offer to get the roof of the hut put right too, since the laird wouldn't do it, and even to give her father a new house, which he wanted so much. But Morag thought, that to hear His voice speaking beautiful kind words, as He used to do to the people long ago, would be better than anything else; and as she thought of it, her hope grew stronger every minute, that one day He might come to the Glen, and she might see Him and hear His voice.
Blanche came galloping back at last, her face all aglow with happiness, and her long curls floating about her.
"O Morag!" she cried, excitedly, "I want you to come and see the prettiest little cottage I ever saw in my life, with delicious lumps of green moss growing out of the brown roof, and pretty roses climbing up the wall. Papa and I passed it before, when we rode this way, and we saw such a nice old woman in the cornfield behind the house. She was tall and stooping, and looked so very tired all alone at work among the sheaves of corn. She looked up with such kind beautiful eyes when Shag and I passed. I should like so much to see her again; but I've been looking into the field, and she isn't there, and it's all bare now." Blanche had been prattling on, not noticing Morag's flushed cheek and perfect silence. "Did you ever see the cottage, Morag?" she continued. "Do you know if the old woman really lives there, or anything about her? Do you hear, Morag?"
"Ay! I'll be whiles seein' her when I'll be passin' this road. It's Kirsty Macpherson's hoose," replied Morag, in low, reluctant tones, as if she were unwilling to volunteer any information on the point. Blanche noticed that there was something wrong, and they went slowly on without speaking, till they came to another winding of the road, and the cottage in question came in sight. Blanche looked longingly across the old grey dyke from the dusty road into the pleasant little garden, with its sweet-smelling, old-fashioned flowers and herbs growing side by side with the gooseberry and currant bushes shaded by one or two ancient rowan-trees. Morag was evidently trying very hard to avert her eyes, and kept steadily gazing into Shag's glossy mane, when Blanche exclaimed, as if inspired by a new and pleasant idea—
"Look here, Morag! suppose we knock at the door, and ask the old woman to give us some water to drink? that would be a good way to see her again, you know; and, besides, I'm really thirsty, after my gallop. Do let's go at once; it will be such fun."
"Ye'll need to ask it yersel, then, leddy. I'll no darken the door," replied Morag, with flushing face, and an expression about her mouth which suddenly reminded Blanche that she was the daughter of the sinister-looking keeper, under whose glance she had felt so strangely uncomfortable on the evening of the first day in the Glen. She felt puzzled and annoyed at Morag's reply; but she was a wilful little person and loved to have her way at any cost. So she pulled up Shag, and prepared to dismount, saying, rather impatiently, "Well, Morag, if you don't wish to go, you needn't; though I really can't think why you shouldn't want to see such a nice old woman But there isn't any harm in my going to the door surely? and besides I'm really thirsty. You won't come then?" added Blanche, who had now dismounted, and was gathering up her habit as she moved towards the little rustic garden-gate. But Morag made no reply; and taking hold of Shag's bridle, she went slowly on along the road with a dogged expression on her face.
The cottage door was ajar, and Blanche could see into the room at one end, and there, seated at the low fireside in a high-elbowed chair, quietly reading, she recognized the old woman whom she had seen in the field binding the sheaf. The little girl knocked gently, but the moment she had done so, she began to wish that she had not come, especially when Morag seemed to be so opposed to her going. It was too late to repent now, however. The old woman had heard her knock, and laying down the spectacles on her open book, she rose to go to the door. She looked at the little girl with the same placid face and kindly look in her gray eyes as she had done across the dyke in the cornfield, and waited quietly to hear what she wanted. Blanche stood silent for a few seconds, feeling rather foolish, and forgetting in the confusion of the moment the mode of address which she had previously arranged, but at last she managed to gasp out nervously, "Oh! please, I was only passing this way with Morag and Shag, and I felt rather thirsty, and thought perhaps you would be so very kind as to give me some water to drink?"