“Yes, we’ll go to grannie,” said Davie.
Blinded by the sunlight, he staggered on, and his grandfather put his arm about him. Mrs Fleming met them at the door as they drew near.
“What can ail the laddie?” asked his grandfather, with terror in his eyes.
They made him sit down, and Katie brought some cold water. He drank some and put some on his head, and declared himself better.
“It is some trash that he has eaten at that weary picnic,” said grannie.
“No, grannie, I hadna a chance to eat.”
“And you have eaten little since. Well, never mind. You’ll go to your bed, and I’ll get your mother to make you some of her herb tea.”
“And I’ll be better the morn, grannie,” said Davie, with an uncertain smile.
He drank his mother’s bitter infusion, and tossed and turned and moaned and muttered, all day and all night, and for many days and nights, till weeks had passed away, and a time of sore trial it was to them all.
He was never very ill, they said. He was never many hours together that he did not know those who were about his bed, and young Dr Wainwright, who came every day to see him, never allowed that he was in great danger. But as day after day went on, and he was no better, their hearts grew sick with hope deferred. Grannie alone never gave way to fear. She grew weak and weary, and could only sit beside him, little able to help him; but he never opened his eyes but her cheerful smile greeted him, and her cheerful words encouraged him. His mother waited on him for a while, but she was not strong, and had no spring of hope within her. Katie worked all day and watched all night, and scorned the idea of weariness, but the Ythan water that trickled around her milk-pans in the dairy, carried daily some tears of hers down to the Black Pool.