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"One evening, during her brother's absence with the flock, Phemie sat at her cottage-door, listening to the bleatings of the distant folds and the lessened murmur of the water of Corrie, now scarcely audible beyond its banks.
There was another moment of hesitation and the door opened suddenly and ostentatiously, disclosing Phemie, with a taller and slighter young woman, her elder sister, at her side. Perceiving that the room was empty, they both said "Oh!" yet with a certain artificiality of manner that was evidently a lingering trace of some previous formal attitude they had assumed.
She stopped breathless; she stopped with the corner of her apron against her tearful hazel eyes; she stopped with what was more remarkable than all Rand's arm actually around her waist, and his astonished, alarmed face within a few inches of her own. "Why, Miss Euphemia, Phemie, my dear girl! I never meant anything like THAT," said Rand earnestly. "I really didn't now! Come now!"
Finally he squatted beside Mrs. Morran, lit his pipe, and took a firm hold on his patience. It was not tested for long. Presently he was aware that a change had come over the scene that the Die-Hards' whistles and shouts were being drowned in another sound, the cries of panicky men. Dobson's bellow was wafted to him. "Auntie Phemie," he shouted, "the innkeeper's getting rattled.
Miss MacDowlas had good-naturedly left them alone, and so she began to ask Phemie questions, questions about school and lessons and companions, about the lady principal and the under-teachers and about the professor with the lumpy face; and, despite appearances being against her, there was still the old ring in her girl's jests.
At first Phemie caught the contagion of Dolly's own spirit and hopefulness, and was sustained by it in spite of appearances; but its influence died out at the end of a few weeks, and even she was not to be deceived. An awful fear began to force itself upon her, a fear doubly awful to poor, susceptible Phemie.
He felt sorry now that compassion had betrayed him into calling her "cousin" and "Phemie"; she certainly was a distant kinswoman, but not, he repeated to himself, a cousin; he hoped she had not noticed his familiarity. He wiped his face with a pocket-handkerchief that had seen some service, and gave an introductory cough.
But poor Phemie was not easily "finished," and hung somewhat heavily upon the hands of her youthful instructress; still, she was affectionate, if weak-minded, and so Dolly managed to retain her good spirits. "I believe they are all fond of me in their way," she said to Griffith, "all the children, I mean; and that is something to be thankful for."
"`Missis? he says; `what missis? "`Your mother, says I. `She was with a man, but he weren't the man she runned away from here with, and she made he buy the team. "Master Martin didn't say any more, and Miss Phemie went on crying; but there was a blanker look come on old master's face, and he said very quiet: "`There, that'll do, lad. I believe 'ee, and forgive thee.
At noon the old man was not dead. The people hired for the day's work came by groups to look at him. Each one had his say. Then they left again for the fields. At six o'clock, when the work was over, the father was still breathing. At last his son-in-law was frightened. "What would you do now, Phemie?" She no longer knew how to solve the problem. They went to the mayor.
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