With a slow step she went over to the dwelling-house. The door was shut, but she could hear sounds from the kitchen. There was the shuffling of slow feet, accompanied by the tap of a walking-stick; then the blowing and coughing of bellows and the crackling of burning gorse; and then the measured beating of a foot on the hearthstone, keeping time to a husky and tremulous voice that was singing—
"Safe in the arms of Jesus,
Safe in His tender care."
With a palpitating heart Bessie lifted the latch, pushed the door open and took one step into the kitchen. Her mother, who was still wearing her night-cap, was sitting on the three-legged stool in the choillagh, stirring porridge in the oven-pot that hung from the slowrie. She had heard the click of the latch and was looking round.
There was silence for a moment. Bessie tried to speak and could not. The old woman rose on rigid limbs and her hand on the handle of her stick was trembling. It was just as if the spirit of someone she had been thinking about had suddenly appeared before her.
"Is it thyself, girl?" she said, in a breathless whisper.
"Mother!" cried Bessie, and she took another step forward.
Again there was a moment of silence. With her heart at her lips Bessie saw that her mother's eyes were wandering over her figure. Then the stick dropped from the old woman's hand to the floor and she stretched out her arms, and her thin hands shook like withered leaves.
"Bolla veen! bolla veen!" she cried, in a low voice that was a sob. "It's my own case over again."
And then the girl fell into her mother's arms and buried her head in her breast and cried, as only a suffering child can cry, helplessly, piteously.
A moment later, there was a heavy footstep outside, and the ring of an iron tool thrown down on the "street." The old woman raised her face with a look of fear.