‘Ye’ll come in and say a word to mother, Steenie?’ said Kirsty, as they came near the door of the house.

 

It was a long, low building, with a narrow paving in front from end to end, of stones cast up by the plough. Its walls, but one story high, rough-cast and white-washed, shone dim in the twilight¹. Under a thick projecting thatch² the door stood wide open, and from the kitchen, whose door was also open, came the light of a peat-fire and a fish-oil-lamp. Throughout the summer Steenie was seldom in the house an hour of the twenty-four, and now he hesitated to enter. In the winter he would keep about it a good part of the day, and was generally indoors the greater part of the night, but by no means always.

 

While he hesitated, his mother appeared in the doorway³ of the kitchen. She was a tall, fine-looking woman, with soft gray eyes, and an expression of form and features which left Kirsty accounted for.

 

‘Come awa in by, Steenie, my man!’ she said, in a tone that seemed to wrap its object in fold upon fold of tenderness, enough to make the peat-smoke that pervaded⁴ the kitchen seem the very atmosphere of the heavenly countries. ‘Come and hae a drappy o’ new-milkit milk, and a piece (a piece of bread).’

 

Steenie stood smiling and undecided on the slab⁵ in front of the doorstep.

 

‘Dreid naething, Steenie,’ his mother went on. ‘There’s no ane to interfere⁶ wi’ yer wull, whatever it be. The hoose is yer ain to come and gang as ye see fit. But ye ken⁷ that, and Kirsty kens⁸ that, as weel’s yer father and mysel.’

 

‘Mother, I ken what ye say to be the trowth, and I hae a gran’ pooer o’ believin the trowth. But a’body believes their ain mither: that’s i’ the order o’ things as they war first startit! Still I wud raither no come in the nicht. I wud raither haud awa and no tribble ye wi’ mair o’ the sicht o’ me nor I canna help—that is, till the cheenge come, and things be set richt. I dinna aye ken what I’m aboot, but I aye ken ’at I’m a kin’ o’ a disgrace to ye, though I canna tell hoo I’m to blame for ’t. Sae I’ll jist

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