Christina listened and wondered and a strange new doubt crept into her soul. How could she believe that promise, knowing that so many brave boys had fallen before the arrow that flieth by day and that these dear ones might meet a similar fate? Were the words of that psalm merely beautiful sounding phrases that meant nothing? She glanced at her mother to see if she could read a similar doubt there; but Mrs. Lindsay's face was rapt, as though she had seen a new vision of the psalm's meaning, and Christina was puzzled and disheartened.
She held up her head bravely, standing at the garden gate to wave them good-bye as they drove down the lane in the golden sunlight. Then she ran down the lane after them, stumbling a little when a mist came over her eyes. She even ran down the road, gallantly waving her apron as long as Sandy waved his cap, feeling glad that he could not see the tears that were streaming down her face. And she made sure that the democrat had disappeared behind the hill before she gave way and sank down sobbing on the dusty grass of the roadside.
She went back to the desolate home, she must not linger over her grief for she was needed there as comforter. Her mother had disappeared into the sanctuary of her room where she was seeking strength from the source that had never failed her in all life's trials and would hold her up even in this great agony. Grandpa was sitting fumbling helplessly with his hymn book and arguing with himself. She could hear him whispering, "Be not far from me, O Lord, for trouble is near!" and she patted his bowed white head gently as she passed. Uncle Neil had fled to the barn, and Mitty was crying over the wash-tub in the shed. Christina went furiously to work, as her refuge from tears. It would never do to break down and be no use when Sandy was gone away to fight for her!
But work would not last all day. It was finished in the evening and Wallace came up in his usual gay spirits to report progress on his new farm, where everything was running in the most up-to-date manner. But Christina was too sad to even pretend to be interested. She could not rejoice over a new gasoline engine that was to do all the work, when Sandy and Neil were to be made part of the cruel engine of war. And for the first time Wallace found her uninterested and consequently uninteresting.
CHAPTER XII
"ALL THE BLUE BONNETS ARE OVER THE BORDER!"
One day early in the Winter, when the boys' English letters had begun to arrive regularly, Auntie Elspie Grant came over the hills on her snowshoes, to pay a visit of sympathy to Mrs. Lindsay. She brought a bottle of the liniment they made every Fall from the herbs of the Craig-Ellachie garden, a stone jar of their best raspberry cordial, a pot of mincemeat, and a piece of Christmas cake.
She spent a long afternoon while they both knitted socks and read the boys' letters and heard the latest news of Allister and Ellen and Mary and discussed at great length the never-failing virtues of Gavin. John drove the guest home in the cutter round by the road, for Mrs. Lindsay could not bear the sight of Elspie walking away over the drifts, though as a matter of fact, Elspie in her youthful spirits enjoyed it immensely.
"Elspie Grant's worryin' about Gavin," said Mrs. Lindsay, when the guest had gone and the early supper was being cleared away.