“I’m not saying, Annie; I’m over young to have a conscience in some things. I’ll be going in to speak a few words to David, shall I?”
“Aye, sir, ye’re so kind.”
And so it happened that at dusk, when David’s eyes were growing wider with expectation and his heart was beating for very joy of the coming song, Annie, after she had patted him in motherly fashion, smoothed out his coverlets, called him lad dear, and dearie, and Davie, and all the sweet old names she knew so well how to call him—so it happened that she stole out into the garden with a lighter heart to sing than she had had in many a day. She knew the young minister was somewhere around to protect her from interruption. Standing by the honeysuckle trellis, swaying her old body to and fro, she sang. The song came again and again, low, sweet, far away, till all the hill seemed chiming with the quiet notes and echoes. And the young man listening outside to the old woman singing inside the garden knew something more of the power of love than he had known before; and he bowed his head, thinking of the merry notes and of David in the twilit room dying. Annie sang the song over and over again, then over and over again, till beyond the valley she saw the evening star hanging in the sky. Once more she sang, and all the spring was in her song. Then she turned to go into the house, her heart beating with fear. As she came through the doorway she heard her name called.
“Annie, sweetheart, did ye hear the cuckoos singin’?”
David was sitting up in bed, his hands stretched towards her.
“Aye, lad dear,” replied Annie softly, taking David into her arms.
“An’ there were so many, an’ they sang over an’ over again.”
“Aye, David.”
“But ye were not here, an’ I’d like hearin’ them better with ye here.”