One thing is sure, plain food made strong men and women of most of them; and no lingering dyspepsia of childhood spoiled the pleasure of those of them who won their way to the right to live as they pleased in after-life.
During Allison’s reign in the manse kitchen, the bairns were exceptionally fortunate in their daily fare. For though she seemed to go about in a maze, like the man in the ballad, as Robin said, “whose thoughts were other-where,” she never burned the porridge, nor singed the broth, nor put off the weekly baking of “cakes,” till they were obliged to content themselves, now and then, with less than the usual portion.
It was wonderful how well the work was done, considering how little her heart seemed to be in the doing of it, her mistress sometimes thought. She would have been better pleased had an opening been left now and then for the “putting in mind,” which had been necessary sometimes, even in the case of the much-valued Kirstin. She would have liked to see whether a sharp word or two would have moved the silent Allison for a moment out of the dull, mechanical performance of her duty.
Praise did not do it, and she had been lavish of praise at first. Allison heard it, as she heard all else, without heeding, as though doing well were a matter of course, needing no words about it. She did not respond, by ever so little, to her mistress’ kindly attempts to make friends, till something else had moved her.
The tact and patience of her mistress in dealing with her were helped by the belief which gradually came to her, that this silent withdrawal of herself from all approaches of kindliness or sympathy was hardly voluntary on Allison’s part. It was not so much that she refused help as that she had ceased to expect it. Under some terrible strain of circumstances her courage had been broken, and her hope. She was like one who believed that for her, help was impossible.
Of course she was wrong in this, her mistress thought. She was young and time brings healing. If her trouble had come through death, healing would come soon. If it were a living sorrow, there might still be more to suffer; but her strong spirit would rise above it at last—of that she was sure.
All this she had said to the minister one night. He listened in silence a while, then he said:
“And what if sin, or the love of it, makes her trouble? There are some things which cannot be outlived.”
“Tell me what trouble touches any of us with which sin—our own, or that of other folk—has not to do. Yes, there has been sin where there is suffering such as hers, but I cannot think that she has been the sinner. Allison is an honest woman, pure and true, or my judgment is at fault. It is the sin of some one else which has brought such gloom and solitariness upon her. Whether she is a real Christian, getting all the good of it, is another matter. I have my doubts.”
All this time the minister’s “new lass” had not been overlooked by those who worshipped in the little kirk, nor by some who did not. The usual advances had been made toward acquaintance—friendly, curious, or condescending, as the case might be, but no one had made much progress with the stranger. Her response to each and all alike was always perfectly civil, but always also of the briefest, and on a second meeting the advances had to be made all over again.