When Betty came in to lay the table for my homely midday meal I noticed she was not quite herself, and that there was something unusual disquieting her mind. As I have said, I always allow her to unburden herself to me in her own way and at her own sweet will; but somehow I intuitively felt that in the present circumstances my rule should not apply.
As she moved silently out and in I watched her closely, and when she had finished and drawn out my chair from the table I put my hand on her shoulder. 'Betty,' I said, 'there is a sadness in your eyes to-day I have never noticed before. Is there anything worrying you?'
She looked up at me for a moment; then, putting her arms round my neck, she began to cry, quietly but emotionally. 'Oh, it's Nathan, puir falla, an' I'm sairly putten aboot,' she said between her sobs. 'It strikes me he's no' in a very guid wey; an', oh Weelum! if--if ocht tak's Nathan I dinna want to live.'
It was the first time for years she had, unasked, called me 'Weelum' without the prefix, and the old familiar way she pronounced it touched a chord in my heart.
I let her have her cry out, and then I did my best to allay her fears. She sat down on my chair, and I drew in another and sat down beside her. 'Nathan's not very well, Betty,' I said; 'but he's always been a healthy enough man, not given to complaining and lying about, and you know you're so accustomed to see him strong and robust that you are apt to exaggerate anything which prostrates him and keeps him in bed. The doctor's not concerned about him to-day, is he?'
'I--I dinna ken for certain. He didna say so to me, but I imagined he looked that wey,' she said. 'Mebbe I read his face wrang. I'm trustin' I did, but--but I see for mysel' that Nathan's far frae weel.'
'Yes, Betty, we all know that; but I'm sure there's nothing serious. He's got a bad cold, a very bad chill, the doctor tells me; but with a good rest in bed and careful nursing he'll soon be up and about again.'
'I'm dootin' it's mair than a chill, Maister Weelum,' and she shook her head; 'an' it strikes me that Nathan kens it's something mair serious. He's tryin' no' to let on to me; but the mair he tries the clearer I see it. Ay, him an' me have come to that time o' life when we depend a guid deal on yin anither, an' lately I've noticed that he's been anxious to do mair for me than he's able. We lippen on yin anither in a quiet kind o' a wey, ye ken--never askin' or demandin', but aye expectin', an' aye gettin'. Ay, Maister Weelum, aye gettin' an' aye gi'in', an' it's through this wee peep-hole that Nathan an' me, an' ithers happily married like us, get a wee bit glisk o' a heaven on earth.'