But all this did not last very long. It must have come to an end soon, in one way or other, for youth grows impatient of sorrow, and lays it down at last, and thanks to his mother’s watchful care, it ended well for David.
He had no hay-loft to which he could betake himself in these days when he wished to be alone; but when he felt irritable and impatient, and could not help showing it among his brothers and sisters, he used to go out through the strip of grass and the willows into the dry bed of the shrunken stream that flowed beneath the two bridges, and sitting down on the large stones of which the abutment of the railroad bridge was made, have it out with himself by the bank of the river alone. And here his mother found him sitting one night, dull and moody, throwing sticks and stones into the water at his feet. She came upon him before he was aware.
“Mamma! you here? How did you come? On the track?”
“No; I followed you round by the willows and below the bridge. How quiet it is here!”
The high embankment of the railway on one side, and the river on the other, shut in the spot where David sat, and made it solitary enough to suit him in his moodiest moments, and his mother saw that he did not look half glad at her coming. But she took no notice. The great stones that made the edge of the abutment were arranged like steps of stairs, and she sat down a step or two above him.
“Did the sun set clear? Or were there clouds enough about to make a picture to-night?” asked she, after a little.
“Yes, it was clear, I think. At least not very cloudy. I hardly noticed,” said Davie, confusedly.
“I wish we could see the sun set from the house.”
“Yes, it is very pretty sometimes. When the days were at the longest, the sun set behind the highest part of the mountain just in a line with that tall elm on the other side of the river. It sets far to the left now.”
“Yes, the summer is wearing on,” said his mother. And so they went on talking of different things for a little while, and then there was silence.