“Yes, but of her he can ken nothing. And he must go to America, if he should go, with only a vague hope of some time seeing her on the other side of the sea. And she kens his weak will, and must fear for him. She will likely be here in the Sabbath gloaming to hear what ye have to tell.”
But it was otherwise ordered. John rose early, as was his custom, intent on getting all the good from the country air which could be got in a single day. It was a fair morning, clear and still. Only a pleasant sound of birds and breeze was to be heard. There was no one visible in the street. Most of the tired workers of the place were wont to honour the day of rest by “a lang lie in the mornin’,” and the doors and windows of the houses were still closed. While he stood hesitating as to the direction he should take, out of the manse close sedately and slowly
walked Fleckie and her companions, each dragging the long chain by which she was to be tethered; and after them limped cripple Sandy, whose Sunday duty at all times it was to see them safely afield.
John did not quicken his steps to overtake him, as he had now and then done at such times, for the sake of getting the news of all that had happened while he was away. He turned and went down the green, and round by the lane and the high hedge which sheltered the manse garden, and giving himself no time to hesitate as to the wisdom of his intention, stopped at last at one of the doors of the long, low outbuildings of the manse. He had been in the place before with the lads, and knew it well. There was no one there; but the foaming milk-buckets indicated that some one would be there soon, and he waited.
He did not wait long. A light step came quickly over the round stones of the causey, and Allison entered, carrying the great earthen milk-dishes in her arms. It was a dark little place, and she had set them safely down before she saw the intruder. Then she did not utter a word, but stood looking at him with all her heart in her eyes. John held out his hand and took hers in a firm clasp, and “like a fool,” as he told himself afterward, said that which it had never come into his mind to say until he saw her face.
“Allison,” said he, with his eyes on hers, “why did you not tell me that it was your brother for whom your heart was sore?”
Her look changed to one of wonder.
“Surely I told you it was my brother. Who else could it be but my Willie?”
She grew pale, and would have withdrawn her hand, but he held it fast.