Katie reddened too and turned to go.
“Grandfather must be home, then, Davie; it’s time to go in,” and Kate looked grave and troubled.
“Davie,” repeated she, “it’s time to come home.”
Davie followed her a step or two, and they heard him saying:
“There’s no hurry, Katie; if my grandfather didna go to the kirk, he’ll be holding a meeting all by himself in Pine-tree Hollow, and he’ll not be at the house this while, and I want to speak to Ben.”
“Davie,” said his sister, “mind it’s the Sabbath-day.”
The chances were against his minding it very long. It was a good while before he followed his sister to the house, and he brought the Holts with him to share their dinners of bread and milk.
“We’re all going to the meeting together, grannie,” said he, “and Kate,” he added in a whisper, “Clif Holt has promised to lend me the book that the master gave you a sight of the other day, and I am to keep it as long as I like; and he’s not so proud as you would think from his fine clothes and his fine manners; but he couldna tell me the seven-and-twentieth, more shame to him, and him at the college.”
“He thinks much of himself,” said Katie, “for all that.”
The little Flemings and their mother and the two Holts went to the Scott school-house, as had been proposed, and the house was left to Mrs Fleming as a general thing. This “remarkable old lady,” as the Gershom people had got into the way of calling her to strangers, greatly enjoyed the rare hours of rest and quiet that came at long intervals in her busy life, but she did not enjoy them to-day. Her Bible lay open upon the table, and “Fourfold State” and her “Solitude Sweetened” were within reach of her hand, but she could not settle to read either of them. She wandered from the door to the gate and back again in a restless, anxious way, that made her indignant with herself at last.