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Phemy heard nothing and feared nothing; but if feeling had been weather and talk tempest, she would have been glad enough to keep within. So rapidly, however, did the whirlwind of tongues extend its giration that within half a week it reached Kirsty, and cast her into great trouble: her poor silly defenceless Phemy, the child of her friend, was in danger from the son of her father's friend!
And in the weakness consequent on protracted suffering, she had begun to fancy that the loss of Phemy was a punishment upon them for deserting the conventicle. Also the schoolmaster was under an interdict, and that looked like a judgment too! She must find some prop for the faith that was now shaking like a reed in the wind. So to the Baillies' Barn she had gone.
Phemy seemed more pleased to see her father every time he came; and Kirsty began to hope she would tell him the trouble she had gone through. But then Kirsty had a perfect faith in her father, and a girl like Phemy never has! Her father, besides, had never been father enough to her. He had been invariably kind and trusting, but his books had been more to his hourly life than his daughter.
He had meant their conversation to be at arm's length, so to say, but his intention broke down at once, and he answered her in the same style. 'I ken naething aboot her. What for sud I? he answered. 'I ken ye dinna ken whaur she is, for I div, returned Kirsty. 'Ye answer a queston I never speired! What are ye aboot wi' Phemy, I challenge ye again!
Although she had been on the outlook for her all day, she was at the moment so taken up with the sunset, that Phemy was almost under where she stood before she saw her. She ran at full speed a hundred yards, then slid down a part of the brae too steep to climb, and leaped into the road a few feet in front of Phemy so suddenly that the girl started with a cry, and stopped.
Mr Stewart yielded, but nervous starts and sudden twitches of the muscles betrayed his uneasiness: it looked as if his body would jump up and run without his mind's consent. "Nane 'at I ken o'," answered Phemy. "But there's heaps o' hidy holes i' the inside o' 't." "That's a' very weel; but gien they keppit the mou' an' took their time till 't, they bude to grip ye."
There is no more pitiable sight to lovers of their kind, or any more laughable to its haters, than two persons falling into the love rooted in self-love. But possibly they are neither to be pitied nor laughed at; they may be plunging thus into a saving hell. 'You would like to make the world beautiful for me, Phemy? rejoined Francis. 'I should like to make it a paradise! returned Phemy.
"I dinna think muckle o' that, sir," said Phemy. "It micht be the mark o' the sole o' his fut, though," returned the laird. Luik sharp, Phemy; there may come anither at the neist stride anither fut mark. Luik ye that gait an' I'll luik this. What for willna he come oot? The lift maun be fu' o' 'im, an' I 'm hungert for a sicht o' 'im. Gien ye see ony thing, Phemy, cry oot."
But his nocturnal excursions continuing to cause her apprehension, and his representations of the delights to be gathered from Nature while she slept, at the same time alluring her greatly, Phemy had become, both for her own pleasure and his protection, anxious in these also to be his companion.
Kirsty lifted the blanket: there was Phemy's face, blind with the white death! It did not look at her, did not recognise her: Phemy was there and not there! Phemy was far away! Phemy could not move from where she lay! Hopeless, Kirsty yet tried her best to wake her from her snow-sleep, shrinking from nothing, except for the despair of it.
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