The little withdrawing-room--the East Chamber, as it was called, though its window faced to the south--was already all dim, deserted by the sunshine. Lady Jean’s work lay on the table, where Margaret had thrown it in the afternoon, but nothing living, nothing that could return glance for glance and word for word. It was but seven o’clock, and it would be ten o’clock, ten at the earliest, before night began to fall. Margaret got her hat and ran down-stairs. She did not know what she should do, but something she must do. The little court was by this time quite abandoned by the sunshine, the body of the house lying between it and the west; but all the sky overhead was warm with pink and purple, and Bell was seated outside, with her knitting dropped upon her lap. Jeanie had gone out to milk the cow; and even old John had strolled forth with his hands behind him, to see, he said, how the “pitawties” were getting on. The “pitawties” would have got on just as well without his supervision, but who could resist the loveliness of the evening light?
“Our John he’s awa’, like Isaac, to meditate among the fields at even-tide,” Bell said. “Eh, but it’s an auld custom that! and nae doubt auld Sawra, the auld mither, would sit out at the ha’ door, and ponder in her mind just like me.”
“But John is not your son, Bell,” said Margaret, with the literal understanding of youth.
“Na, I never had a son, Miss Margret, naething but wan daughter, and she’s been married and gone from me this twenty years. Eh, my dear, we think muckle of our bairns, but they think little and little enough of us. I might as well have had nane at all but for the thought.”
To this Margaret made no reply, her mind not taking in the maternal relation. She stood musing, with her eyes afar, while Bell went on:
“They say a woman has no after-pain when her first bairn’s born, because of the Virgin Mary, that had but wan. But ay me, I’ve had mony an after-pain, and her too, poor woman, though no the same kind. I think of her mony a day, Miss Margret, how she would sit and ponder things in her heart. Eh, they would be so ill to understand--till the time came.”
Still Margaret said nothing. The old woman pondered the past, but the girl’s brain was all throbbing and thrilling with the future. The sound of something coming was in her ears, a ringing, a singing, a general movement and flutter of she knew not what. To Bell the quiet was everything; to Margaret, she herself was the universe, and all the horizon was not too big to hold the rustling pinions and approaching foot-balls of the life to come.