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Next he entered the woods, so dark and still, with only the light of a few stars peeping through the branches. The young man forgot Splinterin' Andra and Donald Neil and all his worries as he moved through the mysterious darkness. The strange, still whisper of the forest, that gave a sense of life, as if the whole dark surroundings were some great breathing creature, touched him nearly.
It struck him with astonishment to note how she had managed to keep it clean and dry, when Andra was apparently wet to the neck. "I do not know that I shall be of any use," he said meekly, "but I shall try." Winsome was standing poised on a stone, bending like a lithe maid, her hands in the clear water.
Andrew Johnstone, who represented the old school and its traditions, stood at the head of the ancient party as immovable as the church foundations. Some of the elders might counsel yielding, or at least compromising, but not Splinterin' Andra. He regarded all these youthful aspirations as signs of the degeneracy of the times and a decay of spiritual life and, therefore, to be immediately quenched.
"Papa is willing for us to stay. At first I was going with him; but he says Andra and I would need each other to keep from getting homesick." "Look, look!" Andra was gazing through Buck's glasses at the approaching planes, which had a strange look as they flew at tremendous speed in V formation. "What if they should not be friendly?"
A stern, upright man was Andrew Johnstone, a terror to evil-doers and so prone to carry out all the law and the prophets by physical force that he had earned, among the irreverent youth of the community, the name of "Splinterin' Andra."
His was not a place where people went for relaxation and jollity, except on the rare occasions when the old folks were away and Wee Andra held sway. The young minister, anxious to please and be friendly, felt from the moment he opened the gate and went up the path, where neat beds of onions and cabbages encroached upon the very doorstep, that it was going to be something of an ordeal.
And all the time the water glimmered and sparkled about her feet. With her was Andra Kissock, a bare-legged, bonnetless squire of dames. Sometimes he pursued the wily burn trout with relentless ferocity and the silent intentness of a sleuthhound. Often, however, he would pause and with his finger indicate some favourite stone to Winsome.
Sandy Neil, his eyes dancing, slipped out of his place in the choir, and made his way softly down the aisle at the side of the church. "Catchach's down there," he whispered to the choir leader as he passed; "I'm goin' to stir him up;" and Wee Andra threw back his head with a laugh which blew out the lamp on the organ. But none of these things moved the patriotic Englishman.
Perhaps in their mutual absorption he and Andra became careless. They had entered a planetary system, he recalled, and he had casually manipulated the controls. His perceptive faculties detected a tiny spurt of flame somewhere out of sight in the control bank, then the potent engines reacted out of control for a critical instant near planetary mass.
He returned home one evening from his usual fruitless search for employment, and threw himself into the arm-chair by the fireside. "No work yet, Andra?" asked Katie. "Nane," was the gloomy response. "We have no' very mony shillin's left noo, Andra. I dinna ken what we'll do." Savage, revengeful feelings surged through Andrew, and found vent in a volley of oaths which terrified his wife.
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