Kirsty woke suddenly out of a deep, dreamless sleep. A white face was bending over her—Steenie’s—whiter than ever Kirsty had seen it. He was panting, and his eyes were huge. She started up.

 

‘Come; come!’ was all he was able to say.

 

‘What’s the metter, Steenie?’ she gasped¹. For a quarter of a minute he stood panting, unable to speak.

 

‘I’m no thinkin onything’s gane wrang,’ he faltered² at length with an effort, recovering breath and speech a little. ‘The bonny man—’

 

He burst into tears and turned his head away. A vision of the white, lovely, motionless thing, whose hand had fallen from his like a lump of lead, lying alone at the top of the Horn, with the dog on her feet, had overwhelmed him suddenly.

 

Kirsty was sore distressed³. She dreaded⁴ the worst when she saw him thus lose the self-restraint hitherto so remarkable⁵ in him. She leaned from her bed, threw her arms round him, and drew him to her. He kneeled, laid his head on her bosom⁶, and wept as she had never known him weep.

 

‘I’ll tak care o’ ye, Steenie, my man!’ she murmured. ‘Fear ye naething.’

 

It is amazing how much, in the strength of its own divinity, love will dare promise!

 

‘Ay, Kirsty, I ken⁷ ye wull, but it’s no me!’ said Steenie.

 

Thereupon he gave a brief, lucid⁸ account of what had occurred in the night.

 

‘And noo ’at I hae telt ye,’ he added, ‘it luiks a’ sae strange ’at maybe I hae been but dreamin, efter a’! But it maun be true, for that maun hae been what the angels cam cryin upo’ me for. I’m thinkin they wud hae broucht me straucht til her themsels—they maistly gang aboot in twas, as whan they gaed and waukent the bonny man—gien it hadna been ’at the guid collie was aiqual to that!’

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