The child felt frightened. Was dad, too, going to hold himself “aloof”? Would he, too, take to looking over people’s heads, and answering in a far-away voice? The thought was one full of omen.
Angus gazed into his father’s face, as he sat wearily on the edge of the little bed. The child, if commonplace, was quick to understand those who loved him. In a moment he acquitted his father, and came and knelt beside him, rubbing his curly head against his knees. He said his prayer with devoutly folded hands, as Grannie had taught him. Then, climbing into Warden’s arms, put his own round his neck.
“Shall I sing my psalm, dad? Or are you too tired?”
His father held him very close. “Sing it, laddie. Sing Grannie’s psalm.”
Grannie was Scotch. When she came she taught Angus the psalms in metre. She taught him other things that he learned more easily than the psalms; chief among them a great love and trust in her, and through her, for everything Scotch.
Shortbread was Scotch, and it was good. Scones were Scotch, and they were good, especially with currants. Edinburgh rock was excellent; therefore the psalms, too, were probably superior in the Scotch version. Angus learned all Grannie’s favorites, the first of which was the twenty-third:
My table thou hast furnished,
In presence of my foes.
The child always pictured a long table, covered with a fair white cloth, and plentifully plenished with plates piled high with scones and shortbread. He wondered what “foes” were, for he hadn’t any; he thought they must be the servants who handed round the plates.
“Goodness and mercy all my life shall surely follow me.” The sad, patient tune Grannie had taught him sounded almost triumphant, as the child’s strong treble voice rang out. When he had finished, his father leant his head against the little rounded shoulder, and there was silence save for the man’s quick breathing.