“Well, pretty much so. Only just middling. Nothing to brag of, in the way of smartness.”
There was a long silence after that. Mr Snow sat with folded arms, looking out on the scene before them.
“It’s kind o’ pleasant here, ain’t it?” said he, at last.
“Ay,” said Janet, softly, not caring to disturb his musings. He sat still, looking over his own broad fields, not thinking of them as his, however, not calculating the expense of the new saw-mill, with which he had been threatening to disfigure Carson’s brook, just at the point where its waters fell into the pond. He was looking far-away to the distant hills, where the dim haze was deepening into purple, hiding the mountain tops beyond. But it could not be hills, nor haze, nor hidden mountain tops, that had brought that wistful longing look into his eyes, Janet thought, and between doubt as to what she ought to say, and doubt as to whether she should say anything at all, she was for a long time silent. At last, a thought struck her.
“What for wasna you at the Lord’s table, on the Sabbath-day?” asked she.
Sampson gave her a queer look, and a short amused laugh.
“Well, I guess our folks would ha’ opened their eyes, if I had undertook to go there.”
Janet looked at him in some surprise.
“And what for no? I ken there are others of the folk, that let strifes and divisions hinder them from doing their duty, and sitting down together. Though wherefore the like of these things should hinder them from remembering their Lord, is more than I can understand. What hae you been doing, or what has somebody been doing to you?”
There was a pause, and then Sampson looked up and said, gravely.