As the Sergeant returned home the sun set, and the whole western sky became full of glory, with golden islands sleeping on a sea in which it might seem a thousand rainbows had been dissolved; while the holy calm of the Sabbath eve was disturbed only by the "streams unheard by day", and by the last notes of the strong blackbird and thrush,--for all the other birds, wearied with singing since daybreak, had gone to sleep. The beauty of the landscape, a very gospel of "glory to God in the highest, on earth peace and goodwill to men", did not, however, lift the dull weight off Adam's heart. He felt as if he had no right to share the universal calm.
"Be sure your sin will find you out!" So his minister had said. Perhaps it was true. He had sinned in his early poaching days; but he thought he had repented, and become a different man. Was it indeed so? or was he now suffering for past misconduct, and yet too blind to see the dealings of a righteous God with him? It is twilight with Adam as well as with the world!
He expected to meet his small evening class of about a dozen poor neglected children who assembled every Sunday evening in his house, and which, all alone, and without saying anything about it, he had taught for some years, after his own simple and earnest fashion. He was longing to meet them. It would give him something to do--something to occupy his disturbed mind--a positive good about which there was no possible doubt; and it would also prevent Katie from seeking information that would be painful for him to give and for her to receive.
To his astonishment he found one girl only in attendance. This was Mary Semple, or "Wee Mary", as she was generally called; a fatherless and motherless orphan, without a known relation on earth, and who was boarded by the Session, as being the only poor-law guardians in the parish, with a widow in the immediate neighbourhood, to whom two shillings weekly were paid for her. Adam and his wife had taken a great fancy to Mary. She was nervous and timid from constitutional temperament, which was aggravated by her poor upbringing as an infant, and by the unkind usage, to say the least of it, she often received from Mrs. Craigie, with whom she lived. Adam had more than once expostulated with the Kirk Session for boarding Mary with this woman; but as Mrs. Craigie was patronised by Mr. Smellie, and as no direct charge against her could be "substantiated on sufficient evidence", such as Mr. Smellie demanded, Mary was not removed. But she often crept into the Sergeant's house to warm herself and get a "piece" with Charlie; for she was so meek, so kind, so playful, as to have been always welcomed as a fit companion for the boy. This was, perhaps, the secret of the attachment of Adam and his wife to her after their boy's death.
But where were the other children of the class? Mrs. Mercer could not conjecture. Could Mary? She hung her head, looked at her fingers, and "couldna say", but yet seemed to have something to say, until at last she confessed, saying: "Mrs. Craigie flyted on me for wantin' to come to the Sabbath-nicht skule, and said she wad gie me a thrashing if I left the house when she gaed to the evenin' sermon; but I ran awa' to the class, and I'm feared to gang hame."
"What for are ye feared, Mary?" asked the Sergeant.
"Jist because----" replied Mary, with her head down.
"Because o' what, bairn?" persistently asked the Sergeant.
"Because o' the bird," said Mary, driven to a corner. And being further urged, she went on to tell in her own way how "a' the weans had been ordered by their folk no' to come to the class, as----"
But Mary hung down her head again, and was silent.