The Kirkton, to which Jeanie was bound, and of which Rob Glen had made so many sketches, was, as already said, an irregular village surrounding the kirk from which it took its name, and built upon a mound, which stood eminent over the low rich fields of Stratheden. The greater portion of the church was new, and quite in accordance with the eighteenth-century idea of half-barn-half-meeting-house which, unfortunately, in so many cases represents the parish church in Scotland. But this was all the worse in the present case, from being added on to a beautiful relic of the past, the chancel of an old Norman church, still in perfect preservation, not resenting, but silently indicating with all the force of fact, the incredible difference between the work of the united and catholic past, and the expedient of a Scotch heritor to house at the smallest possible cost, the national worship which he himself is too fine to share. The little round apsis of the original church, with its twisted arches and toothed ornaments, brown with age and lichen, and graceful, natural decay, was the only part of it visible from the road along which our Jeanie was coming. Jeanie neither knew nor cared for the Norman arches, but the grassy mound that rose above her head, with its grave-stones, and the high steps which led up to it, upon which the children clustered, were dear and familiar to her eyes.
At the foot of the kirk steps was a road which led to “the laigh toun,” a little square or place—semi-French, as are so many things in Scotland—surrounded by cottages; while the road, which wound round the base of the elevation on which the church stood, took in “the laigh toun,” in which was the post-office and the shop, and the “Leslie Arms,” and two or three two-storied houses, vulgar and ugly in their blue slates, which were the most important dwellings in the Kirkton. Jeanie, however, had nothing to do with these respectable erections; her steps were turned toward the high town, where her father’s cottage was. Everybody knew her on the familiar road. “Is that you, Jeanie?” the men said, going home from their work with long leisurely tread, which looked slow, yet devoured the way. The children on the kirk steps “cried upon her” with one voice, or rather with one chant, modulating the long-drawn vowels with the native sing-song of Fife. Even Dr. Burnside, walking stately down the brae, shedding a wholesome awe about him, with hands under his coat-tails, stopped to speak to her.
“Your father is very well, honest man,” the Doctor said. When she reached the little square beyond the church, where the women were sitting at their doors in the soft evening air, or standing in groups, each with her stocking, talking across the open space like one family, a universal greeting arose.
“Eh, Jeanie, lass, you’re a sight for sair een!” they cried. “Eh, but the auld man will be pleased to see you;” and “He’s real weel, Jeanie, my woman,” was added by various voices. This was evidently the point on which she was supposed to be anxious. The girl nodded to them all with friendly salutations. They had their little bickerings, no doubt, now and then; but were they not one family, each knowing everything that concerned the others?
“I’m real pleased to see you a’, neebors,” Jeanie said; “but I maunna bide. I’ve come to see my faither.”
“That’s right, Jeanie, lass,” the women said; “he’s been a good faither to you, and weel he deserves it at your hand.” “Faither and mither baith,” said another commentator; and Jeanie went on with a warm light of pleasure and kindness in her face. Perhaps her name in the air had caught her father’s ear, though no name was more common than Jeanie, or more often heard in “the laigh toun;” or perhaps it was that more subtle personal influence which heralds a new-comer—magnetical, electrical, who can tell what? As she made her way to the end of the square, where it communicated by a steep street with “the laigh toun” below, he came out to his cottage door. He was a tall man, thin and stooping, and very pale, his face sicklied o’er with more than thought. He wore the sign of his trade, a shoemaker’s apron, and looked along the line of houses with a wistful expression, like that which Jeanie had worn when she was alone. He was a man “above the common,” everybody said, for long years a widower, who had been “faither and mither baith” to his children; and only some of them had repaid poor John. Those of the lads who were good lads had emigrated and gone far out of his neighborhood, and those who were within reach were not models of virtue. But Jeanie had always been his support and stay. His wistful inquiring look yielded to the tenderest pleasure as he perceived her; but there was no enthusiasm of greeting between the father and daughter. Few embracings are to be seen in Scotch peasant families. The cobbler’s face lighted up; he said, “Is that you, Jeanie, my bonnie woman?” with a tone that had more than endearment in it. The sight of her brought a glow to his wan face. “You are as good as the blessed sunshine, my lass—and eh, but I’m glad to see you!”
“And me too, faither,” said Jeanie. That was their greeting. “They tell me you’re real well,” she added, as they went in-doors.
“A great deal they ken,” said John Robertson, with that natural dislike to be pronounced well by the careless outside world which every invalid shares. “But I’m no that bad either,” he added, “and muckle the better for seeing you. Come in and sit you down.”
“I have but little time to stay,” said Jeanie.
As she went in before him the shade again returned to her face, though only for that moment during which it was unseen. The small window of the cottage gave but a dim greenish light, a sort of twilight after the full glow and gladness outside. But they were used to this partial gloom; and there seemed a consciousness on the father’s part as well as the daughter’s of something serious that there might be to say. He looked at her closely, yet half stealthily, with the vivacious, dark eyes which lighted up his pale face; but he asked no question. And Jeanie, for her part, said nothing about herself. She asked when he had seen Willie, and if all was well with John, and he replied, shaking his head,