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He had thus got out of the little valley on to the open hill, and the wind had begun to threaten reawaking, when Snootie, who was a little way to one side of him, stopped short, and began scratching like a fury in the snow. Steenie ran to him, and dropped on his knees to help him: he had already got a part of something clear! It was the arm of a woman.
Or was she a ghost come to have one look more at her old home in a long dead world? Perhaps her father and mother might have come back with like purpose, and she would see and speak to them! Or was she, alas! only in a dream, in which the dead would not speak to her? But God was not dead, and while God lived she was not alone even in a dream! A dark bundle lay on the door-step: it was Snootie.
On fine clear noontides she would walk a little way with him and Snootie, and then he would talk to her as he had never done except to Kirsty, telling her wonderful things about the dog and the sheep, the stars and the night, the clouds and the moon; but he never spoke to her of the bonny man.
Steenie set the lighted lantern by the door, and followed Snootie, who went sniffing and snuffing about.
He had been scratching and whining until despair came upon him, and he lay down to die. She lifted the latch, stepped over the dog, and entered. The peat-fire was smouldering low on tho hearth. She sat down and closed her eyes. When she opened them, there lay Snootie, stretched out before the fire!
Before, strong-toiling against the wind, man and dog reached their refuge among the rocks, the snow had begun to fall, and the night seemed solid with blackness. The very flakes might have been black as the snow of hell for any gleam they gave. But they arrived at last, and Steenie, making Snootie go in before him, entered the low door with bent head, and closed it behind them.
He let his head hang low as he went, throwing it up to bark, and sinking it yet lower when he growled, which was seldom, and to those that loved him indicated great trouble. He did not like Snootie raise himself on his hindlegs to caress his sister, but gently subsided upon her feet, and there lay panting, his face to the earth, and his fore-arms crossed beneath his nose.
'What'll my father think? 'I s' no forget yer father, said Kirsty. She sent out a strange, piercing cry, set Phemy down, took her hand in hers, and went on, Phemy making no resistance. In about three minutes there was a noise in the heather, and Snootie came rushing to Kirsty. A few moments more and Steenie appeared. He lifted his bonnet to Phemy, and stood waiting his sister's commands.
The clouds had gathered thick, and the afternoon was very dark, but all was as yet still. He called his dog, and Snootie lay down at his feet, ready for what might come. Steenie sat on a stool, with his head on his mother's knee, and for a while seemed lost in thought. Then, without moving or looking up, he said, as if thinking aloud,
Between Corbyknowe and the Horn, on whose sides David Barclay had a right of pasturage for the few sheep to which Steenie and Snootie were the shepherds, was a small glen, through which, on its way to join the little river with the kelpie-pot, ran a brook, along whose banks lay two narrow breadths of nice grass.
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