Yes, she was sore failed, but she brightened wonderfully at the touch of a golden piece which John put into her hand.
“I’ll tak’ it to the manse and get it changed for the bawbees and pennies that are gaithered in the kirk. It’ll tak’ twa or three Sabbaths o’ them, I daursay, to mak’ it out. Eh! but ye’re a braw lad, and a weelfaured,” added she, holding up the lamp and peering into his face. “And muckle gude be wi’ ye a’ ye’re days,” she added as they went away.
“You have never told me of all the help she gave you,” said John as they went down the burn side together.
“Sometime I will tell you; I would fain forget it all just now.”
The next day they went to Grassie, to see the two or three with whom Allison could claim kindred in the countryside. She had seen them last on her father’s burial-day. Then they went to many a spot where in their happy childhood Allison and her brother used to play together. John had heard of some of these before, he said. He knew the spot at the edge of the moor, where young Alex. Hadden had rescued Willie from the jaws of death, and he recognised the clump of dark old firs, where the hoodie-crows used to take counsel together, and the lithe nook where the two bairns were wont to shelter from the east wind or the rain. And he reminded Allison of things which she had herself forgotten. At some of them she wept, and at others she laughed, joyful to think that her brother should remember them so well. And she too had some things to tell, and some sweet words to say, in the gladness of her heart, which John might never have heard but for their walk over the hills that day.
They went to the kirk on the Sabbath, and sat, not in the minister’s pew, but in the very seat where Allison used to sit with her father and her mother and Willie before trouble came. And when the silence was broken by the minister’s voice saying: “Oh! Thou who art mighty to save!” did not her heart respond joyfully to the words? The tears rose as she bowed her head, but her heart was glad as she listened to the good words spoken. When they came out into the kirkyard, where, one by one, at first, and afterward by twos and threes, the folk who had known her all her life came up to greet her, there were neither tears nor smiles on her face, but a look at once gentle, and firm, and grave—the look of a strong, patient, self-respecting woman, who had passed through the darkness of suffering and sorrow into the light at last.
John stood a little apart, watching and waiting for her, and in his heart he was saying, “May I grow worthy of her and of her love.” When there had been “quite enough of it,” as he thought, and he was about to put an end to it, there drew near, doubtful, yet eager, an old bowed man, to take her hand, and then John saw his wife’s face, “as if it had been the face of an angel.”
She had waited for all the rest to come to her, but she went forward to meet this man with both hands held out to him, and they went aside together. Then, Allison stooped toward him, speaking softly, and while he listened, the tears were running down his withered cheeks, but he smiled and prayed God bless her, at the end.
“Who was your last friend?” said John when they had left the kirkyard, and were drawing near the manse.
“It was—the father of Annie Brand. She died—over yonder—”