“Oh, Dugald, Dugald!” said she, “it is not mother yet, but only Mary.” And the bedstead shook with the stress of her grief.
“Mary, is it?” said he, shutting his eyes again. “What are you laughing at? I was not up there at all; I never saw her to-day, upon my word; I was just giving Black George an exercise no further than the Boshang Gate.... I’m saying, though, you need not let on about it to Colin... Colin, Colin, Colin, I wish we were home; the leaf must be fine and green upon Dunchuach.... They’re over the river at Aldea Tajarda, and we push on to Cieudada.... What’s that, Mackay? let go the girl! And you the Highland gentleman! Lo sien—sien—siento mucho, Senora.”
“I am at your shoulder, Dugald, do you not know me?” asked the Cornal, gently putting his sister aside. His brother looked and smiled again, but did not seem to see him.
“What was her name? and I’ll send her my love and duty, for, man, between us, I was fond of her,... There was a song she had:
The Rover went a-roving far upon the foreign seas,
Oh, hail to thee, my dear, and fare-ye-weel.
Only it was in the Gaelic she sung it”
His voice, that was very weak and thin now, cracked, and no sound came though his lips moved.
Miss Mary took a cup and wet his lips. He seemed to think it a Communion, for again he shut his eyes, and “God,” said he, “I am a sinful man to be sitting at Thy tables, but Thou knowest the soldier’s trade, the soldier’s sacrifice, and Thou art ready to forgive.”
And still Gilian was in his bewilderment and fear about the open door. Had anything come in that was there beside them at the bed? Down in the kitchen Peggy poked the fire with less than her customary vigour, but between her cheerful and worldly occupation and this doleful room, felt Gilian, lay a space—a stairway full of dreads. All the stories he had heard of Death personified came to him fast upon each other, and they are numerous about winter fires in the Highland glens. He could fancy almost that he saw the plaided spectre by the bedside, arms akimbo, smiling ghastly, waiting till his prey was done with earthly conversation. It was horrible to be the only one in that chamber to know of the terrific presence that had entered at the door, and the boy’s mouth parched with old, remote, unreasonable fears.
They did not disappear, those childish terrors, even when a kitten moved across the floor and began to toy with the vallance of the bed, explaining at once the door’s opening. For might not the kitten, he thought, be more than Peggy’s foundling be the other Thing disguised? He watched its gambols at the feet of that distressed household, watched its pawing at the fringe, turning round upon itself in playfulness, emblem surely of the cruel heedlessness of nature.