Mrs. Fergusson trod the wooden stair that led to the flat above his with slow and cautious step; and as she met her boy running down whistling, she said, “What d’ye mean, Jamie, wi’ that noise? Do ye no’ ken wee Davie is dead? Ye should hae mair feeling, laddie!”
The Corporal, whose door was half open, crept out, and in an under-breath beckoned Mrs. Fergusson to speak to him. “Do you know how they are?” he asked in a low voice.
“No,” she replied, shaking her head. “I sat up wi’ Mrs. Thorburn half the night, and left Davie sleeping, and never thocht it would come to this. My heart is sair for them. But since it happened the door has been barred, and no one has been in. I somehow dinna like to intrude, for, nae doot, they will be in an awfu’ way aboot that bairn.”
“I don’t wonder—I don’t wonder!” remarked the Corporal meditatively; “I did not believe I could feel as I do. I don’t understand it. Here am I, who have seen men killed by my side. I have seen a single shot cut down half our company.”
“Is it possible?”
“It is certain,” said the Corporal; “and I have charged at Pampeluna—it was there I was wounded—over dead and dying comrades, yet, will you believe me? I never shed a tear—never; but there was something in that Captain—I mean the boy”—and the Corporal took out his snuff-box, and snuffed vehemently. “And what a brave fellow his father is! I never thought I could love a Radical; but he was not what you call a Radical; he was—I don’t know what else, but he is a man, an out-and-out man, every inch of him; I’ll say that for him—a man is William Thorburn! Have you not seen his wife?”
“No, poor body! It was six o’clock when she ran up to me, no’ distracted either, but awfu’ quiet like, and wakened me up, and just said, ‘He is awa’;’ and then afore I could speak she ran doon the stair, and steekit the door; and she has such a keen speerit, I dinna like to gang to bother her. My heart is sair for her.”
They both were silent, as if listening for some sound in William Thorburn’s house, but all was still as the grave.
The first who entered it was old David Armstrong and his wife. They found Jeanie busy about her house, and William sitting on a chair, staring into the fire, dressed with more than usual care. The curtains of the bed were up. It was covered with a pure white sheet, and something lay upon it which they knew.
Jeanie came forward, and took the hand of father and mother, without a tear on her face, and said quietly, “Come ben,” as she gave her father a chair beside her husband, and led her mother into an inner room, closing the door. What was spoken there between them I know not.