In a minute or so the door opened, and Steenie coming one step into the kitchen, stood and stared with such a face of concern that Kirsty was obliged to speak. I do not believe he had ever before seen a woman weeping. He shivered visibly.

 

‘Phemy’s no that weel,’ she said. ‘Her hert’s sae sair it gars her greit. She canna help greitin, puir dauty!’

 

Phemy lifted her face from Kirsty’s bosom¹, where, like a miserable² child, she had been pressing it hard, and, seeming to have lost in the depth of her grief all her natural shyness, looked at Steenie with the most pitiful look ever countenance³ wore: her rage had turned to self-commiseration. The cloud of mingled⁴ emotion and distress⁵ on the visage of Steenie wavered, shifted, changed, and settled into the divinest look of pity and protection. Kirsty said she never saw anything so unmistakably Godlike upon human countenance. Involuntarily she murmured, ‘Eh, the bonny man!’ He turned away from them, and, his head bent⁶ upon his breast, stood for a time utterly⁷ motionless. Even Phemy, overpowered and stilled by that last look he cast upon her, gazed at him with involuntary reverence⁸. But only Kirsty knew that the half-witted had sought and found audience with the Eternal, and was now in his presence.

 

He remained in this position, Kirsty thought, about three minutes. Then he lifted his head, and walked straight from the house, nor turned nor spoke⁹. Kirsty did not go after him: she feared to tread on holy ground uninvited. Nor would she leave Phemy until her mother came.

 

She got up, set the poor girl on the chair, and began to get ready the mid-day meal, hoping Phemy would help her, and gain some comfort from activity. Nor was she disappointed. With a childish air of abstraction, Phemy rose and began, as of old in the house, to busy herself, and Kirsty felt much relieved.

分享到：