"She was that sair set on me, ye see—maybe wi' us haein' nae bairns, ye ken."
He was silent a little while, and then he said, more brightly, "There's three comed noo, though. Maybe they'll be a blessin' to her. The Lord sent them to her, I'm thinkin'. He wad ken o' this aforehand, nae doot!"
Suddenly he held up his hand, and there was a light shining like a lamp in his eyes.
"Hearken! that's the whistle!" he cried. "Are the signals clear?"
There was no train in the station nor near it.
Muckle Alick went on. He lifted his head and looked through the open door as one looks ahead under his hand when the sun is strong.
"I can see the distant signal. It is standing at clear!" he said, and sank back.
And thus the soul of Muckle Alick passed out of the station—with the distant signal standing at clear.
They brought the little wife in to him a quarter of an hour after. Already her face seemed to have shrunk to half its size and was paler than Alick's own. The doctor had him wrapped delicately and reverently in the station master's wife's fairest linen. The face was untouched and beautiful, and as composed as it was on Sacrament Sabbaths when he carried in the elements at the head of the session, as it is the custom for the elders to do in the Cameronian Kirk.