CHAPTER XXII. CHANGES.
There were hurried footsteps and coming and going one rainy night at the home of the Lindsays. It was not the evening of Alice's marriage, for Hallowmas was long past, and Alice was far away. There had been a quiet wedding, for all had thought merriment out of place in a house so soon to become a house of mourning. The grandmother was feeble still, and would be so until the mortal should put on immortality; but it was the grandfather about whom all were anxious on that gloomy night. He had been seized with sudden illness, and lay speechless and unconscious. Not one of the household had retired to rest. Davie and Jeannie were there. Robert had gone for the doctor, and all were anxiously waiting for his arrival.
"It is a lang way," said Davie, "and the roads are heavy wi' the rain. Ye maun hae patience."
But it was not easy to be patient. Again and again did one and another look out into the darkness and listen, but heard only the fast-falling rain.
"If only Sandy had been here to go," said Belle. "Robert is but a young lad to be out this dark night."
But Sandy was in Edinburgh.
"Robert will do as weel as onybody," said Davie. "I might hae gane mysel, if had kenned ye would be worried about the lad; but hae nae fears for Robert; he'll come hame safe and sound."
Archie Lindsay sat by his father's bedside. Margaret, his sister, was constantly passing from one sick-room to the other. Mrs. Lindsay suspected that something had happened to her husband. "What is wrang wi' your faither?" she asked.
Margaret vainly endeavored to quiet her apprehensions.