The farmer of Drumquhat proceeded on his even way.

“The lassie that I took to be his wife (but I asked nae questions) was awfu’ different ben the room wi’ him frae what she was wi’ me at the door—­fleechin’ like wi’ him to tak’ a sup o’ soup.  An’ when I gaed forrit to speak to him on the puir bit bed, she cam’ by me like stour, wi’ the water happin’ off her cheeks, like hail in a simmer thunder-shoo’er.”

“Puir bit lassockie!” muttered Rob Adair, who had three daughters of his own at home, as he made another absent-minded and unsuccessful search for his handkerchief.  “There’s a smurr o’ rain beginnin’ to fa’, I think,” he said, apologetically.

“‘An’ ye’re Sandy MacWhurr frae Drumquhat,’ says the puir lad on the bed.  ‘Are your sugar-plums as guid as ever?’

“What a quastion to speer on a dying bed, Saunders!” said Rob.

“‘Deed, ye may say it.  Weel, frae that he gaed on talkin’ aboot hoo Fred Robson an’ him stole the hale o’ the Drumquhat plooms ae back-end, an’ hoo they gat as far as the horse waterin’-place wi’ them when the dogs gat after them.  He threepit that it was me that set the dogs on, but I never did that, though I didna conter him.  He said that Fred an’ him made for the seven-fit march dike, but hadna time to mak’ ower it.  So there they had to sit on the tap o’ a thorn-bush in the meadow on their hunkers, wi’ the dogs fair loupin’ an’ yowlin’ to get haud o’ them.  Then I cam’ doon mysel’ an’ garred them turn every pooch inside oot.  He minded, too, that I was for hingin’ them baith up by the heels, till what they had etten followed what had been in their pooches.  A’ this he telled juist as he did when he used to come ower to hae a bar wi’ the lassies, in the forenichts after he cam’ hame frae the college the first year.  But the lad was laughin’ a’ the time in a way I didna like.  It wasna natural—­something hard an’ frae the teeth oot, as ye micht say—­maist peetifu’ in a callant like him, wi’ the deid-licht shinin’ already in the blue een o’ him.”

“D’ye no’ mind, Saunders, o’ him comin’ hame frae the college wi’ a hantle o’ medals an’ prizes?” said Rob Adair, breaking in as if he felt that he must contribute his share to the memories which shortened, if they did not cheer, their road.  “His faither was rael prood o’ him, though it wasna his way to say muckle.  But his mither could talk aboot naething else, an’ carriet his picture aboot wi’ her a’ ower the pairish in her wee black retical basket.  Fegs, a gipsy wife gat a saxpence juist for speerin’ for a sicht o’ it, and cryin’, ’Blessings on the laddie’s bonny face!’”

“Weel,” continued Saunders, imperturbably taking up the thread of his narrative amid the blattering of the snow, “I let the lad rin on i’ this way for a while, an’ then says I, ’Walter, ye dinna ask after yer faither!’

“‘No, I don’t,’ says he, verra short.  ‘Nell, gie me the draught.’  So wi’ that the lassie gied her een a bit quick dab, syne cam’ forrit, an’ pittin’ her airm aneath his heid she gied him a drink.  Whatever it was, it quaitened him, an’ he lay back tired-like.