“Oh, Willie,” she exclaimed, unconscious in her overwhelming passion of sorrow that there was a listening ear, “lang did we ken ane anither and braw and gallant were you ance; my pride and joy. Sair hae oor trials been and muckle hae ye been misguided, but aye faithfu and true to me. Oh, that I had been wi’ you; oh, that ye had given me your last kiss and deed in my arms! There hae been them wha despised you, wha tauld me to leave you; little did they ken o’ the love that bound me to you. Oh, that we should hae partit thus!”
Here she paused, and turning her eyes upwards she slowly and reverently said: “Merciful God, as in your wise decree you have been pleased to bring this affliction upon me, grant, in your pity, that I tarry not long behind him whom ye hae taen awa.”
The solemn petition calmed the tumult of her mind, and reverently disposing of the body, she rose to her feet and said modestly—
“You will excuse me, freens, for taking on sae sairly afore you, but I couldna help it; this misfortune has come so sudden. I thank you for what you hae dune, and, gin it be your pleasure, as you can do nae mair noo, leave us alane and come the morn to bury him wha’s gane.”
The red-whiskered man was about to make a voluble reply, when he was cut short by a tall lumberman, in whose eye there glistened a tear, with the remark, “Yes, ma’am, we are at your service and mean to do all we can for you.” Then, looking at his comrades, he said, “Let us go,” and turning abruptly he led the way, leaving the mother and daughter alone with their dead.
CHAPTER III.
It is true in the moral world as in the material that after a storm comes a calm. The agony of suspense, the wild burst of passionate sorrow had swept over them, and the morning succeeding the sad discovery found mother and daughter composed and resigned. The worst was now known, a worst there was no remedying, and so they bowed, without needless fret or repining, beneath the trial. The sun had risen in an unclouded sky and his beams were warmer than on the preceding days, and as they came pouring down unstintingly on the turbid waters of the creek and the uplifted branches of the forest, it seemed as if summer was nigh and buds and leaves and green sward would speedily succeed the birds whose noisy concert ushered in the rosy dawn. Everything had been arranged in the humble shanty with all the deftness of order-loving hands; on one side of it, beneath a white cloth, was the corpse. Mrs Morison was seated on the chair at the window; Jeanie sat at her feet on the doorstep.
“Wasna father a braw man when you first foregathered?”
“He was the handsomest lad in the countryside; a very pleasure for the ee to rest on. Little dae they ken what he was like that didna see him then, and a kinder or truer heart couldna be. O, Jeanie, I just worshipped him when we were lad and lass.”