Steenie stood still, and throwing back his head, stared for some moments up into the great heavens over him. Then he said:

'It's a bonny day, the day the bonny man bides in! The ither day--the day the lave o' ye bides in--the day whan I'm no mysel but a sair ooncomfortable collie--that day's ower het--and sometimes ower cauld; but the day he bides in is aye jist what a day sud be! Ay, it's that!

it's that!'

He threw himself down, and lay for a minute looking up into the sky.

Kirsty stood and regarded him with loving eyes.

'I hae a' the bonny day afore me!' he murmured to himself. 'Eh, but it's better to be a man nor a beast Snootie's a fine beast, and a gran'

collie, but I wud raither be mysel--a heap raither--aye at han' to catch a sicht o' the bonny man! Ye maun gang hame to yer bed, Kirsty!-- Is't the bonny man comes til ye i' yer dreams and says, "Gang til him, Kirsty, and be mortal guid til him"? It maun be surely that!'

'Willna ye gang wi' me, Steenie, as far as the door?' rejoined Kirsty, almost beseechingly, and attempting no answer to what he had last said.

It was at times such as this that Kirsty knew sadness. When she had to leave her brother on the hillside all the long night, to look on no human face, hear no human word, but wander in strangest worlds of his own throughout the slow dark hours, the sense of a separation worse than death would wrap her as in a shroud. In his bodily presence, however far away in thought or sleep or dreams his soul might be, she could yet tend him with her love; but when he was out of her sight, and she had to sleep and forget him, where was Steenie, and how was he faring? Then he seemed to her as one forsaken, left alone with his sorrows to an existence companionless and dreary. But in truth Steenie was by no means to be pitied. However much his life was apart from the lives of other men, he did not therefore live alone. Was he not still of more value than many sparrows? And Kirsty's love for him had in it no shadow of despair. Her pain at such times was but the indescribable love-lack of mothers when their sons are far away, and they do not know what they are doing, what they are thinking; or when their daughters seem to have departed from them or ever the silver cord be loosed, or the golden bowl broken. And yet how few, when the air of this world is clearest, ever come into essential contact with those they love best!

But the triumph of Love, while most it seems to delay, is yet ceaselessly rushing hitherward on the wings of the morning.

'Willna ye gang as far as the door wi' me, Steenie?' she said.

'I wull do that, Kirsty. But ye're no feart, are ye?'

'Na, no a grain! What would I be feart for?'

'Ow, naething! At this time there's naething oot and aboot to be feart at. In what ye ca' the daytime, I'm a kin' o' in danger o' knockin mysel again things; I never du that at nicht.'

As he spoke he sprang to his feet, and they walked on. Kirsty's heart seemed to swell with pain; for Steenie was at once more rational and more strange than usual, and she felt the farther away from him. His words were very quiet, but his eyes looked full of stars.

'I canna tell what it is aboot the sun 'at maks a dog o' me!' he said.

'He's hard-like, and hauds me oot, and gars me hing my heid, and feel as gien I wur a kin' o' ashamed, though I ken o' naething. But the bonny nicht comes straucht up to me, and into me, and gangs a' throuw me, and bides i' me; and syne I luik for the bonny man!'

'I wuss ye wud lat me bide oot the nicht wi' ye, Steenie!'

'What for that, Kirsty? Ye maun sleep, and I'm better my lane.'

'That's jist hit!' returned Kirsty, with a deep-drawn sigh. 'I canna bide yer bein yer lane, and yet, do what I like, I canna, whiles, even i' the daytime, win a bit nearer til ye! Gien only ye was as little as ye used to be, whan I cud carry ye aboot a' day, and tak ye intil my ain bed a' nicht! But noo we're jist like the sun and the mune!-whan ye're oot' I'm in; and whan ye're in--well I'm no oot' but my sowl's jist as blear-faced as the mune i' the daylicht to think ye'll be awa again sae sune!--But it _canna_ gang on like this to a' eternity, and that's a comfort!'

'I ken naething aboot eternity. I'm thinkin it'll a' turn intil a lown starry nicht, wi' the bonny man intil't. I'm sure o' ae thing, and that only--'at something 'ill be putten richt 'at's far frae richt the noo; and syne, Kirsty, ye'll hae yer ain gait wi' me, and I'll be sae far like ither fowk: idiot 'at I am, I wud be sorry to be turnt a'thegither the same as some! Ye see I ken sae muckle they ken naething aboot, or they wudna be as they are! It maybe disna become _me_ to say't, ony mair nor Gowk Murnock 'at sits o' the pu'pit stair,--but eh the styte (_nonsense_) oor minister dings oot o' his ain heid, as gien it war the stoor oot o' the bible-cushion! It's no possible he's ever seen the bonny man as I hae seen him!'

'We'll a' hae to come ower to you, Steenie, and learn frae ye what ye ken. We'll hae to mak _you_ the minister, Steenie!'

'Na, na; I ken naething for ither fowk--only for mysel; and that's whiles mair nor I can win roun', no to say gie again!' 'Some nicht ye'll lat me bide oot wi' ye a' nicht? I wud sair like it, Steenie!'

'Ye sail, Kirsty; but it maun be some nicht ye hae sleepit a' day.'

'Eh, but I cudna do that, tried I ever sae hard!'

'Ye cud lie i' yer bed ony gait, and mak the best o' 't! _Ye_ hae naebody, I ken, to _gar_ you sleep!'

They went all the rest of the way talking thus, and Kirsty's heart grew lighter, for she seemed to get a little nearer to her brother. He had been her live doll and idol ever since his mother laid him in her arms when she was little more than three years old. For though Steenie was nearly a year older than Kirsty, she was at that time so much bigger that she was able, not indeed to carry him, but to nurse him on her knees. She thought herself the elder of the two until she was about ten, by which time she could not remember any beginning to her carrying of him. About the same time, however, he began to grow much faster, and she found before long that only upon her back could she carry him any distance.

The discovery that he was the elder somehow gave a fresh impulse to her love and devotion, and intensified her pitiful tenderness. Kirsty's was indeed a heart in which the whole unhappy world might have sought and found shelter. She had the notion, notwithstanding, that she was harder-hearted than most, and therefore better able to do things that were right but not pleasant.

CHAPTER VII

CORBYKNOWE

'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 twilight. Under a thick projecting thatch 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 doorway 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 pervaded 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 slab in front of the doorstep.

'Dreid naething, Steenie,' his mother went on. 'There's no are to interfere wi' yer wull, whatever it be. The hoose is yer ain to come and gang as ye see fit. But ye ken that, and Kirsty kens 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 hand 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 bide theroot wi' the bonny stars 'at's aye theroot, and kens a' aboot it, and disna think nane the waur o' me.'

'Laddie! laddie! wha on the face o' God's yerth thinks the waur o' ye for a wrang dune ye?--though wha has the wyte o' that same I daurna think, weel kennin 'at a'thing's aither ordeent or allooed, makin muckle the same. Come winter, come summer, come richt, come wrang, come life, come deith, what are ye, what can ye be, but my ain, ain laddie!'

Steenie stepped across the threshold and followed his mother into the kitchen, where the pot was already on the fire for the evening's porridge. To hide her emotion she went straight to it, and lifted the lid to look whether boiling point had arrived. The same instant the stalwart form of her husband appeared in the doorway, and there stood for a single moment arrested.

He was a good deal older than his wife, as his long gray hair, among other witnesses, testified. He was six feet in height, and very erect, with a rather stiff, military carriage. His face wore an expression of stern goodwill, as if he had been sent to do his best for everybody, and knew it.

Steenie caught sight of him ere he had taken a step into the kitchen.

He rushed to him, threw his arms round him, and hid his face on his bosom.

'Bonny, bonny man!' he murmured, then turned away and went back to the fire.

His mother was casting the first handful of meal into the pot. Steenie fetched a _three-leggit creepie_ and sat down by her, looking as if he had sat there every night since first he was able to sit.

The farmer came forward, and drew a chair to the fire beside his son.

Steenie laid his head on his father's knee, and the father laid his big hand on Steenie's head. Not a word was uttered. The mother might have found them in her way had she been inclined, but the thought did not come to her, and she went on making the porridge in great contentment, while Kirsty laid the cloth. The night was as still in the house as in the world, save for the bursting of the big blobs of the porridge. The peat fire made no noise.

The mother at length took the heavy pot from the fire, and, with what to one inexpert might have seemed wonderful skill, poured the porridge into a huge wooden bowl on the table. Having then scraped the pot carefully that nothing should be lost, she put some water into it, and setting it on the fire again, went to a hole in the wall, took thence two eggs, and placed them gently in the water.

She went next to the dairy, and came back with a jug of the richest milk, which she set beside the porridge, whereupon they drew their seats to the table--all but Steenie.

'Come, Steenie,' said his mother, 'here's yer supper.'