“Yes, I know God can change the heart. He is wise to guide and mighty to save, and they are both in His good hands. May His mercy be vouchsafed to them both.”
“Well,” said the sick man, as the doctor suddenly rose to his feet.
“Well—it would be a risk, but it would not be impossible for you to be taken home, as you seem to desire it—if only the summer were here.”
“Yes, I have been waiting to hear you say that—like the rest,” said Brownrig, with the first touch of impatience in his voice; “but the summer days are faraway, and winna be here for a while. And ye ken yourself what chance I have of ever seeing the summer days, whether I bide or whether I go, and go I must.”
Then he went on to say how the laird would be sure to send the Blackhills carriage for him—the easy one, which had been made in London for the auld leddy, his mother, and how the journey might be taken slowly and safely.
“And if I were only once there!” he said, looking up with anxious eyes. Then he lay still.
“If you were once there, you think you would be yourself again?”
A sudden spasm passed over the eager face.
“No—not that. I ken, though you have never said it in my hearing, that it is your belief that, be my life long or short, I can never hope to bear my own weight again. My life’s over an’ done with—in a sense, but then—there is—Allison Bain.”
His voice sank to a whisper as he uttered her name.