“We a’ need to be watchful.”
“Ay, do we, as ye say. But there are folk for whom ower-muckle prosperity’s nae benefit.”
“There’s few o’ us been tried wi’ ower-muckle prosperity of late, I’m thinkin’. And as for John, if a’ tales be true, he has had his share o’ the ither thing in his day.”
“Weel, I hae been hearin’ that John Beaton has had a measure o’ prosperity since he was here afore, and if it’s good for him it will bide wi’ him. He kens Him that sent it, and who has His e’e on him.”
“Ay, ay; it’s as ye say. But prosperity or no prosperity, I’m no’ feart for John.”
“Weel, I canna just say that I’m feart for him mysel’. Gin he is ane o’ His ain, the Lord will keep a grip o’ him, dootless. It’s no’ that I’m feart, but he has never taken the richt stand among us, as ye ken. And ye ken also wha says, ‘Come oot from among them and be ye separate.’ He ay comes to the kirk when he’s here. But we’ve nae richt hold on him. And where he gaes, or what he does at ither places, wha kens? I hae ay fear o’ folk that are ‘neither cauld nor het.’”
Fortunately the friends had reached the spot where their ways parted, and Peter, being slow of speech, had not his answer ready, so Saunners went home content at having said his say, and more content still at having had the last word.
All this time John Beaton was striding about the lanes in the darkness, as much at a loss as his friend, Saunners Crombie, as to what had happened to him. He had not got the length of thinking about it yet. He was just “dazed-like,” as the schoolmistress would have said—confused, perplexed, bewildered, getting only a glimpse of what might be the cause of it all, and the consequences.
If he had known—if it had come into his mind, that the sorrowful eyes which were looking at him out of the darkness—the soft, brown eyes, like Crummie’s, which had met his first on the hilltop, might have power over him to make or to undo, as other eyes had wrought good or evil in the lives of other men, he would have laughed at the thought and scorned it.
He had had a long day of it. Since three in the morning he had walked the thirty miles that lay between Nethermuir and Aberdeen, to say nothing of the rumble in Peter Gilchrist’s cart to the Stanin’ Stanes, and the walk home again with little Marjorie in his arms. No wonder that he was a little upset, he told himself. He was tired, and it was time he was in his bed. So with a glance at the moon which was showing her face from behind a cloud—she had a queer look, he thought—he turned homeward.