At long and last the day came to an end. The ministers of the Presbytery one by one took horse or ferry and so departed. I alone returned with Nathan Gemmell over to the house of Drumglass. For I was deadly wearied, and the voice of Nathan uplifted by the way to tell of old things was like the pleasant lappering of water on the sides of a boat in which one rocks and dreams. Indeed, I was scarce conscious of a word he said, till in the gloom of the trees and the creamy evening light, we met the two lasses, Jean and Alexander-Jonita walking arm in arm.
As we came within the shadow, they two divided the one from the other, the wild lass going to her father’s side, Jean being left to come to mine.
“I saw you not at the ordination, Alexander-Jonita!” said her father.
“No,” she answered sharply, “it was a brave day for the nowt to stray broadcast over the fell, and there was never a man, woman, or bairn about the house. Well might I remain to keep the evil-doers from the doors.”
I felt a soft hand touch mine as if by accident, and a low voice whispered close to my ear.
“But I was there. I watched it all, and when I saw you were kneeling before them all with the hands of the ministers upon your head, I had almost swooned away!”
The soft hand was fully in mine now. I was not conscious of having taken it, but nevertheless it lay trembling a little and yet nestling contentedly in my palm. And because I was tired and the day had been a labour and a burden to me, I was comforted that thus Jean’s hand abode in mine.
I pressed it and said, perhaps more gently than I ought, “Little one, I am glad you were there. But the work is a great one for so young and unworthy as I. It presses hard upon me!”
“But you have good friends,” said Jean, “friends that—that think of you always and wish you well.”
We had fallen a little way behind, and I could hear Alexander-Jonita in her high clear voice telling her father how she had found a sick sheep on the Duchrae Craigs and carried it all the way home on her back.