“And who were they? And did you never see them again?”
“We never saw nor heard of them, though doubtless they crossed our hills again. They were just two lads on their way home from the college in the north. We used whiles to see such, though our glen was a bit out of the way for most of them. But we never saw them again. It must be fifty years and more since then. It had gone clean out of my head, till your flowers and your pleasure in them brought it all back again.”
There was nothing heard for a while but the “click, click,” of Mistress Campbell’s “wires,” as she went on with her knitting. The old woman and the little girl were thinking their own thoughts.
“Eppie, dear,” said Frederica, as she slipped from her high seat to the floor, “I like that about ‘glorified eyes,’ and one seeing hidden things; I mean things that are hidden from us now.”
“Ay, the eyes o’ man are never satisfied with seeing, nor his ears with hearing,” said Eppie: “I doubt that is but a carnal notion o’ heaven. This is what David says about it—
“‘But as for me, I Thine own face
In righteousness shall see;
And with Thy likeness when I wake,
I satisfied shall be.’”
“Satisfied!” repeated she; “ay, doubtless, they’ll be satisfied that win there. But, eh me! ‘Strait is the gate, and narrow the way, that leads to life,’ and I doubt there will be some awfu’ disappointments at that day.”
“If one only knew just what to do,” said Frederica gravely.
“Be a good bairn, and ay read your Bible, and mind your prayers,” said Eppie. “But there’s your bell, and you will need to go.”
And so Frederica went downstairs with the grave thoughts that Eppie’s words had awakened, stirring at her heart again. She read her Bible as Eppie had bidden her, and sometimes she read it with delight, because of the elevation of the thoughts and the beauty of the language; but she came upon nothing in these readings that touched her heart, or that she felt to be suited to her. She read the Old Testament, as the history of her mother’s people. She had been often told of late that she was a Jewess in appearance, like her mother, and she took a real interest in the history of her people, and began to feel pride in being descended from a “nation of heroes.” But pre-occupied with thoughts of this kind, she read on from day to day, seeing nothing in the wonderful words she read to enlighten her on all that she so much needed, and which she believed she so much desired to know.