"What is this? Oh, what's this?" she asked herself aloud, and the sound of her own voice was in her ears as the roaring of many waters.
It seemed to her to be almost time now. She leaned forward wearily to call her son to help her. But he was sitting on a throne in the midst of his castle, dressed as Robin Hood, with all his merry men about him. He looked so happy, and he laughed so loud, that Isbel said again to herself—
"I can manage yet for half an hour, and then I shall cry to him."
But her son caught sight of her at the window. He was so elated that he did not mind noticing his mother, as a common boy would have done. He waved his hand to her, calling out loud—
"Mither, mither, I'm biggin' a bonny hoose for ye to leeve in!"
Isbel smiled, and it was as if the sun which shone on the hills of her dream had touched her thin face and made it also beautiful for the last time before sundown.
"My guid boy—my nice boy," she said, "the Lord will look till him! He said he was biggin' a hoose for his mither. Let him big his hoose. In an hour I shall cry to him—my ain laddie!"
Yet in an hour she did not cry, and it was the only time she had ever broken her word to her son.
But that was because Isbel Kelly had journeyed where no crying is. Neither shall there be any more pain.