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It had always been her custom to creep to Elspie's bed as soon as she awoke, but now she did so long before daylight, in answer to a faint summons. "I want ye, my bairn. Ye'll come to your auld nurse's arms maybe they'll no haud ye lang," murmured Elspie. She clasped the child once, with an almost passionate tenderness, and then, turning away, dropped heavily asleep. But Olive did not sleep.
"We niver can be sure of anything in this world, my tear," remarked old Duncan, becoming oracular in tone. "How do you know he iss so sure?" "Because Dan never breaks his word," returned Elspie, with an air of decision that would have gratified Dan immensely had he been there to see it.
Elspie heard it with joy. She answered the summons, and Captain Rothesay walked in. We have never described Olivet father there could not be a better opportunity than now. His tall, active form now subsiding into the muscular fulness of middle age was that of a Hercules of the mountains.
Elspie was more self-possessed. She tried to wield a jack-towel with some effect, while Dan, Fergus, Duncan junior, Bourassin, Andre Morel, and others ably, but uselessly, supported their heroic leader. La Certe, who chanced to be there at the time, went actively about encouraging others to do their very best.
"No, no, dearie," said that resolute old woman, when Elspie first promulgated to her the idea of sitting up all night with Duncan, "you will do nothin' of the sort. Your sainted mother left your father an' Fergus an' yourself to my care, an' I said I would never fail you, so I can't break my promise by letting you break your health.
"Eh, eh, hinny, I ken all about it," she whispered, lapsing into broader Scotch in her agitation. "Ye can't hide things from your Auntie Elspie. Ye're wearyin' to be away to the war, I ken as well as if ye telled me." There was a wail in her voice that wrung Gavin's heart. "Oh, Auntie Elspie," he cried, "oh, no, no! I'll never leave you. I'll not be going. I'm not wearying.
Elspie had given her the name when in a facetious frame of mind, as being descriptive of the very opposite of her character, for she was gentle as a lamb, tender in the mouth, playful in her moods, and sensitive to a degree both in body and spirit. No curb was ever needed to restrain Vixen, nor spur to urge her on.
Yet show him that he has made a mistake, and that your action was justified, and he begs your forgiveness in a moment. And I never saw a man who seemed more fitted to deal with broken-hearted sinners. To them he is tenderness and comfort itself. "He just takes pattern frae his Maister; that's whaur it is," said old Elspie.
"'It comes out through their eyes, she says. 'They keep thinkin': Poor, poor, poor Elspie. If they was somebody dead't I could go to see, she told me, smilin', 'I'd do that. A grave can't poor you, she told me, 'an' everybody that's company to you does. "'Well! says I, an' couldn't, in logic, say no more.
The tender way in which this was said, and the gentle touch on his arm, almost overcame the stubborn man, but he steeled himself against such influences. "What can I say, Elspie?" he replied. "How can I tell what iss the reason that people tell lies?" "But it is lies, isn't it, Duncan?" asked the poor girl, almost entreatingly.
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