Allison Bain; Or, By a Way She Knew Not. Margaret M. Robertson
of every stone and the driving of every nail in it. And that was true of the house as well. He had only time for a glance. For through the close there came a shout, and his boys were upon him.
“Steady, lads. Is all well? Where is your mother, and how is your sister? Robert, you’ll take good care of Bendie and rub her well down. She’s quite done out, poor beast; and John, you’ll help your brother. She must go to the smithy on Monday. There is something wrong with one of her shoes. I’ve been leading her for the last miles.”
And so on. Not a spoken word of tenderness, but Davie leaned against his father in utter content, and little Norman clasped his arms round his knee. Jack eagerly helped to unsaddle the tired mare, not caring to speak, though as a general thing he had plenty to say. And Robert had enough to do with the lump that rose in his throat when he met his father’s eye. The father ended as he began:
“Where is your mother?”
The mother was standing at the kitchen-door with a child in her arms.
“Well, dearie?” said the one to the other—their eyes said the rest. It was the child that the minister stooped to kiss, but the touch of his hand on his wife’s shoulder was better to her than a caress. Fond words were rare between these two, who were indeed one—and fond words were not needed between them.
Mrs. Hume set down the child and helped her husband off with his wet coat, and if he would have permitted it, she would have helped him off with his boots also, since the wet and the chill had made him helpless. But it was not needed this time. For a woman with a step like a princess crossed the floor and bent down to the work.
“Thank you, my lassie. You have both strength and skill, and you have a good will to use them, though I may have no right to demand it at your hands. It is perhaps your way of doing the Lord’s bidding. ‘If I, your Lord and Master, have washed your feet!’ Do you not mind?”
The smile which rose to Mrs. Hume’s face had a little surprise in it. For it was not the minister’s way to meet strangers with a text like that.
“It is Allison Bain,” said she.
“Oh! it is Allison Bain, is it? So you are come already. I have seen your friend Dr. Fleming, since you left.”
“Dr. Fleming was kind to me when I sore needed kindness.”
Her eyes searched wistfully the minister’s face, and it came into his mind that she was wondering how much of her story had been told to him.
“Dr. Fleming said many kind things about you, and I trust it may prove for the good of us all, that we have been brought together,” said he.
In his esteem it was no small thing that this poor soul who had suffered and perhaps sinned—though looking in her face he could not think it—should have been given into their care. But nothing more could be said. A soft, shrill voice came from a room on the other side of the house.
“Are you coming, father? I am here, waiting for you.”
“Ah, yes! Ay waiting, my bonny dooie (little dove).”
When his wife entered the room, he was sitting in silence with the pale cheek of his only daughter resting against his. A fair, fragile little creature she was, whose long, loose garments falling around her, showed that she could not run and play like other children, whatever might be the cause. It was a smile of perfect content which met her mother’s look.
“Well, mother,” said she softly.
“Well, my dear, you are happy now. But you are not surely going to keep your father in his damp clothes? And tea will soon be ready.”
“Ah, no! I winna keep him. And he is only going up the stair this time,” said the child, raising herself up and fondly stroking the grave face which was looking down upon her with love unutterable. He laid her upon the little couch by the fireside and went away without a word.
“Come soon, father,” said the child.
It was not long before he came. The lamp was lighted by that time, and the fire was burning brightly. The boys had come in, and the mother went to and fro, busy about the tea-table. The father’s eyes were bright with thankful love as he looked in upon them.
It was not a large room, and might have seemed crowded and uncomfortable to unaccustomed eyes. For all the six sons were there—the youngest in the cradle, and the little daughter’s couch took up the corner between the window and the fire. The tea-table was spread with both the leaves up, and there was not much room certainly between it and the other table, on which many books and papers were piled, or the corner where the minister’s arm-chair stood.
The chair was brought forward in a twinkling, and he was seated in it with his little white dove again on his knee. This was the usual arrangement for this hour evidently. To-night the brothers stood before them in a half circle looking on.
“Well, and how has my Marjorie been all this long time?”
“Oh! I have been fine and well, father, and the time has not been so very long. Do you ken what Mrs. Esselmont has sent me? A doll. A fine doll with joints in her knees, and she can sit down. And her clothes come off and on, just like anybody’s. Jack has made a stool for her, and he said he would make me a table and a chair if you brought a knife to him when you came home. Did you bring Jack a knife, father?”
“Well—I’m not just sure yet. I will need to hear how Jack has been behaving before we say anything about a knife,” said her father; but his smile was reassuring, though his words were grave.
“I think Jack has been good, father. And mother was here, ye ken, and she would settle it all, and not leave anything over till you come home, unless it were something serious,” added the child gravely.
Jack hung his head.
“So I am to let bygones be bygones?” said his father.
“And, father,” said the child again, her sweet, shrill voice breaking through the suppressed noise of her brothers—“Allie has come!” And even the introduction of the wonderful doll had brought no brighter look to the little pale face. “Allie has come, and I like Allie.”
“Do you, love? That is well.”
“Yes, father. Eh! but she’s bonny and strong! When she carried me up the stair to my bed, I shut my een, and I thought it might be father himself, Robin is strong, too, and so is Jack, but I’m not ay just so sure of them,” said Marjorie, looking deprecatingly at her brothers, “and I ay feel as if I must help mother when she carries me, because she’s whiles weary. But it is almost as good as having you, father, when Allie takes me in her arms.”
Marjorie was “whiles weary” also, it seemed. She had talked more than all the rest of them put together, which was not her way in general; so she laid her head down on her father’s shoulder, and said no more till tea was brought in. It was the new maid who brought in the bright tea-kettle at last, and set it on the side of the grate. Marjorie raised her head and put out a hand to detain her.
“Father, this is Allison Bain. And, Allie, ye must tell father about the lady. Father, Allie kenned a lady once, who was like me when she was little, and hardly set her foot to the ground for many a year and day. I think she must have been even worse than me, for once they had her grave-clothes made,” said the child in an awed voice, “and when she didna die, they were hardly glad, for what was her life worth to her, they said. But she was patient and good, and there came a wise woman to see her and whether it was the wise woman that helped her or just the Lord himself, folk couldna agree, but by and by she grew strong and well and went about on her own feet like other folk and grew up to be a woman, and was the mother of sons before she died.”
Jack and his brothers laughed at the climax, but the child took no notice of their mirth.
“It might happen to me too, father, if a wise woman were to come, or if the Lord himself were to take me in hand.”
“Ay,