“I’m no to ken wha ye’re meaning, Madam—I never saw ye before nor the gentleman neither. I’ve lived in Murrayshaugh a’ my days, but the like o’ me wasna to see a’ the company; and how should I ken the gentleman?”
The sharp black eyes twinkled through a tear affectionate and angry. The old woman was afraid of these stranger people, afraid of the singularly familiar faces which she thought she had seen in a dream.
“Adam,” said Hew Murray, “I think you must tell her who we are; or shall I, Lucy? Do you forget how you packed the Murrayshaugh apples for me, Isabell, when I went to India? and the moss you put round them in the basket? I think I have some of it still. But have you really forgotten—did you think, Adam, that any one could ever forget our sister Lucy Murray?”
Trembling and considerably excited Isabell stood on the defensive still.
“I never kent ane of the name but Miss Lucy, and this lady micht be Miss Lucy’s mother. Do ye think I dinna ken? Oh, Mossgray! it’s no’ like you to let folk make a fuil o’ an auld lone woman!”
Lucy disengaged herself from Mossgray’s arm.
“Come, Isabell, we will let them in. And so you remembered poor Lucy Murray and thought that time had spared her? But I am older than you. I used to have my white roses here. What has become of my roses? But I have something better to show you; my son, Isabell, my young Hew; and now come, we’ll let them in.”
And Lucy turned along the narrow path to Isabell’s back-door; jealously, and in sullen silence, the old woman followed her.
“But, Hew, Hew, where have you been?” repeated the astonished Mossgray, as they waited for the opening of the great door.
“In India, Adam; all this time buried in the depths of India, without having any power or means of letting you know that I lived; but wait, wait till we are all together. You shall hear the whole of my story to-night.”