In the gloaming they went down by the burn side, and past the stepping-stones, and round the hill to the cottage of Janet Mair. It was a dark little place. The tiny peat fire on the hearth cast only a faint light, and it was some moments before they caught a glimpse of the wee bowed wifie, who had befriended Allison in her time of need.
“Come ye awa ben,” said she. “Is it Betty, or is it the minister’s Barbara? Bide still till I licht my bit lampie.”
But when the lamp was lighted, she “wasna just sae sure,” even then, who it was that had come in.
“Dinna ye mind Allie Bain, and how good ye were to her, the day she gaed awa?”
“Ay do I. Weel that. Eh, woman! Are ye Allie Bain?”
The lamp did not cast a very bright light, but it fell full on Allison’s face.
“Eh! but ye’re grown a bonny woman! Sit ye doon and rest yersel’. And wha is this? Is it witless Willie, as I’ve heard folk ca’ him?”
She did not wait for an answer, but wandered away to other matters. She seemed quite to have forgotten the events of the last years. But she told them about her mother, and about the man she should have married, who were both lying in the kirkyard doon by, and about her father and her brothers who were lost at sea.
“I’m sair failed,” said she. “It has been an unco hard winter, and I hae had to keep the hoose. But I’ll be mysel’ again, when the bonny spring days come, and I can win out to the kirkyard. It’s a bonny place, and wholesome.”
And so on she wandered. They did not try to bring her thoughts back to later days. “It was as well not,” Allison said sadly.