They got up out of the pit. They took the track to the schoolhouse lane. A sheep staggered from its bed and stalked away, bleating, with head thrown back and shaking buttocks. Plovers got up, wheeling round, sweeping close. "Pee-vit—Pee-vit. Pee-vitt!"
"This damned place is full of noises," Roddy said.
VIII.
"The mind can bring it about, that all bodily modifications or images of things may be referred to the idea of God."
The book stood open before her on the kitchen table, propped against the scales. As long as you were only stripping the strings from the French beans you could read.
The mind can bring it about. The mind can bring it about. "He who clearly and distinctly understands himself and his emotions loves God, and so much the more in proportion as he more understands himself and his emotions."
Fine slices of French beans fell from the knife, one by one, into the bowl of clear water. Spinoza's thought beat its way out through the smell of steel, the clean green smell of the cut beans, the crusty, spicy smell of the apple pie you had made. "He who loves God cannot endeavour that God should love him in return."
"'Shall we gather at the river—'" Catty sang as she went to and fro between the kitchen and the scullery. Catty was happy now that Maggie had gone and she had only you and Jesus with her in the kitchen. Through the open door you could hear the clack of the hatchet and the thud on the stone flags as Roddy, with slow, sorrowful strokes, chopped wood in the backyard.
"Miss Mary—" Catty's thick, loving voice and the jerk of her black eyes warned her.
Mamma looked in at the door.