“Oh, Jeanie, whisht, whisht! you will make a noise and wake my father. I am not going away.”
“Oh, take me with you, Kirsteen!” cried the girl too much excited to understand what was said. “Oh! dinna leave me here.” She clung to Kirsteen’s arm embracing it in both her own. “You would not leave me if you knew! Oh! you would take me with you if you knew. Kirsteen! Kirsteen!”
It was Anne who interfered with words of wisdom. “Are you out of your senses, Jeanie?” she said. “Take ye away from your home, and your father’s house? Kirsteen may be foolish enough but she is not so mad as that.”
“Oh! Kirsteen,” continued Jeanie imploringly, putting her wet cheek against her sister’s, rubbing herself against her like a child, “hear nobody but me! Bide with me, Kirsteen, or take me with you. I will just die—or worse—if I am left here.”
It was not until Marg’ret had come alarmed from her kitchen to bid them, “Oh, whisht, bairns, or ye’ll waken your father,” that Jeanie could be persuaded to silence, and to believe in her sister’s promise to return. The sounds though so subdued still made a whispering through the hall, and an alarming movement that shook the house overhead as if Drumcarro himself had been roused to see what was going on. This precipitated the departure of Anne, who, frightened as she was for the dark road and the chill of the morning, was still more alarmed at the idea of her father’s appearance, and hastened out from the one danger to dare the other, almost with alertness pulling Kirsteen with her, with a clutch of her other arm. Anne’s spirit was roused by the episode which had just passed. She was aware that she was not herself strong or able to move about unprotected, or take any separate step on her own responsibility, but she had a great confidence in her own judgment respecting others. She almost forgot to think of the terrors of the dark in her desire to make Kirsteen see her duty in respect to Jeanie, and to set everything right. She panted a little as she spoke walking on in the darkness, with the lantern throwing a faint light upon the ground at her feet, but though it affected her breath, it did not affect her certainty of being able to give good advice.
“Kirsteen—ye will be very wrong—if ye yield to that bairn. She is little more—than a bairn. She is maybe nervish with a person dead in the house. You will say it is weak—but I’m nervish myself. Kirsteen!”—Anne had made a longer pause to take breath,—“ye had ay a great confidence in yourself. But you see you make a mistake whiles. Like bringing me here. David—was just silly as well as you. He thought, if I came, it might mend—maitters—and be good for the bairns. But I—was right ye see. When a person’s dying—they’ve no time to think—about other folk.”
“All that my mother thought was about other folk—if you call her children other folk.”
“Ay, in a kind of a general way. But she never said ‘Where’s Anne? How many bairns has she?—and is the doctor doing well?’—Which is what I would have expected. No that I did—expect it,” said Anne panting. “Oh, Kirsteen, we’ll be in—the burn—if ye do not take care! She never—asked for me, at all,” Mrs. Dewar continued. “I might have been safe—in my bed—at home. A long day in a postchaise—and now another long day—and I’ll get back perished with hunger and cold—and if I havena an illness, as Marg’ret says—and just for nothing,” said Anne—“nothing! for all you said—David and you.”
Kirsteen said nothing in reply, but instinctively quickened her pace a little. She heard the rumble of the cart in the darkness round a corner which was to deliver her from Anne’s wisdom and helplessness, the first of which was worse than the last. And after a while the gleam of another lantern, the horse’s hoofs and jog of the cart guided them to the spot where Duncan stood, his ruddy face grave with sympathy. He made a little remark about the waeful occasion, and the need of supporting God’s will, raising his bonnet reverently; and then Mrs. Dewar was helped into the cart, and went rumbling away into the darkness, still relieved for a time by the gleams growing fainter and fainter thrown by Duncan’s lantern from side to side.
The wind had fallen and the burn ran more softly, as Kirsteen walked home. She was very tired, in that state of exaltation which extreme exhaustion and sorrow sometimes bring, as if lifted out of herself altogether into a clear, still atmosphere of utter sadness, yet relief. The active suffering was over, she was incapable of further pain, but unutterably sad and sorrowful, hushed out of all complaining. The darkness enveloped her and soothed her, hiding her from all the world so that she could go on, weeping all to herself with no one to ask why or how.