“O God,” he said, in the low voice he had in the kirk when the bread and wine were given—“O God, be giving us now thy blessing, and have the thanks. And give us peace.”
Peace there was in the sorrowful old eyes of the mother. The two ate in silence. The big clock that was by the bed tick-tacked, tick-tacked. A faint sputtering came out of a peat that had bog-gas in it. Shadows moved in the silence, and met and whispered and moved into deep, warm darkness. There was peace.
There was still a red flush above the hills in the west when the mother and son sat in the ingle again.
“What is it, mother-my-heart?” Alasdair asked at last, putting his great red hand upon the woman’s knee.
She looked at him for a moment. When she spoke she turned away her gaze again.
“Foxes have holes, and the fowls of the air have their places of rest, but the Son of Man hath not where to lay his head.”
“And what then, dear? Sure, it is the deep meaning you have in that gray old head that I’m loving so.”
“Ay, lennav-aghray, there is meaning to my words. It is old I am, and the hour of my hours is near. I heard a voice outside the window last night. It is a voice I will not be hearing, no, not for seventy years. It was cradle-sweet, it was.”
She paused, and there was silence for a time.
“Well, dear,” she began again, wearily, and in a low, weak voice, “it is more tired and more tired I am every day now this last month. Two Sabbaths ago I woke, and there were bells in the air: and you are for knowing well, Alasdair, that no kirk-bells ever rang in Strath Nair. At edge o’ dark on Friday, and by the same token the thirteenth day it was, I fell asleep, and dreamed the mools were on my breast, and that the roots of the white daisies were in the hollows where the eyes were that loved you, Alasdair, my son.”