Thus banished, Scotty laughingly followed his grandmother out of doors. He was well pleased, for he was longing to get a word with her alone. He knew that her tender eyes had long ago read his heart's secret, and if she had any news for him she would surely give it without asking.
There was a new stone milk-house a few yards from the door, built since his departure; and he must needs see it, Granny said. So she took him with her when she went for a jug of buttermilk for the guests. And when he had admired the place and the buttermilk had been procured, they stood in the cool, sweet dampness, and Granny told him how all the friends had asked for him so often. The minister, indeed, came up several times just to inquire if they had had a letter, and Store Thompson's wife had said that whenever the Captain himself came to the Glen he always asked for him. Then she went to the farther end of the little chamber and commenced a diligent search for something that was not there, and, with her back turned to him, remarked with elaborate carelessness that the Captain's family were expected at the Grange any day now. The Captain had been away nearly all the time since he lost the election, he had been that disappointed, poor body. They had spent the last winter in Toronto. The wee Isabel hadn't been jist very well all winter, Kirsty had said, and the aunt had wanted to take her to the seashore, but she had said that nothing but the Oro air would do her any good, and Kirsty was expecting her some of these days.
Scotty drew a deep breath. She was coming back then! She would be at the Grange, she might even come to Kirsty's! And then Kirsty herself darted in and snatched the pitcher of buttermilk from Granny's hands and disappeared as quickly. Neither of them noticed her, for Scotty was in a rosy but hopeless dream, and Granny was patting him lovingly upon the arm in expression of the sympathy she dared not speak. There was silence for a moment, the old woman still caressing him tenderly.
"Eh, it would be the Lord would be bringing you back to me, m' eudail bheg," she said at last. "He would be good to Malcolm and me in our old age, for you would jist be our Benjamin, whatever. And has it been well with Granny's boy all this weary time?" she added in a whisper.
Scotty put his hands upon her shoulders and looked long into her loving eyes.
"Granny," he whispered, "do you remember the first day I went to school, and how I came through the swamp alone on the way home."
"Eh, the wee man it was! And how would I be forgetting, indeed, for it would be the first time you would be leaving me!"
"And do you remember what I found a comfort then? The swamp was so lonely it frightened me, and I thought it must be like the valley of the shadow of death; so I said over the Shepherd's Psalm, because you had taught it to me and I knew it must be good, and I wasn't afraid any more. And now I've been away from you again, Granny, in the valley of the shadow of death, yes, and worse than death often, but—the rod and the staff were always with me."
The tears were running down the old wrinkled face, happy tears, for Granny had feared often for her boy; not so much the temporal ills; the arrow that flieth by day was not to her so dangerous as the "secret fear." But her fears had been happily disappointed, he had had the great Keeper with him, and one more joy was added to her deep content.
The celebration at Big Malcolm's lasted half the night, and before it had ended Scotty found he had yet one more draught to drink from his cup of happiness. The assembly was sitting round him breathless as he related the many incidents of his journey, when Weaver Jimmie, who was sitting in the doorway to allow his feet to hang in the greater freedom of outdoors, suddenly interrupted with an exclamation, "Losh keep us, is yon the Schoolmaster come back?" Scotty came to the doorway with a spring and met the outstretched hands of his friend. Monteith had heard the boys were expected and had journeyed all the way from Barbay, where he now resided, to bid his pupil welcome. Scotty was speechless over this last greeting, for in the long warm handshake of his old friend there was not the smallest hint of a past estrangement.