“No, I am not a Campbell,” said Kirsteen. It occurred to her for the first time that she must give some account of herself. “I’m going,” she said, “to take up--a situation.”
“I just thought that. ’Twill be some pingling trade like showing or hearing weans their letters, keeping ye in the house and on a seat the haill day long?”
“And you’re a country lass, and used to the air of the hills. Take you care--oh, take care! I had one mysel’--as fine a lass as ye would see, with roses on her cheeks, and eyes just glancing bright like your ain; and as weel and as hearty as could be. But before a twelvemonth was o’er, her mother and me we had to bring her hame.”
“Oh,” cried Kirsteen, “I am very sorry--but she’s maybe better.”
“Ay, she’s better,” said the carter. “Weel--wi’ her Faither which is in heaven.”
“Oh, I’m sorry, sorry!” cried Kirsteen, with tears in her eyes.
“Thank ye for that: ye have a look of her: I couldna pass ye by: but eh, for Gudesake if ye have faither and mother to break their hearts for you, take care.”
“You must have liked her well, well!” said the girl. Fatigue and languor in herself added to the keen sense of sympathy and pity. “I wish it had been me instead of her,” she said hastily.
“Eh,” said the man, “that’s a sair thing to say! Ye must be an orphan with none to set their hearts on you--but you’re young, poor thing, and there’s nae telling what good may come to ye. Ye must not let down your heart.”
The cart rumbled on with many a jolt, the carter jogged by the side and talked, the sound and motion were both drowsy, and Kirsteen was extremely tired. By and by these sounds and sensations melted into a haze of almost beatitude, the drowsiness that comes over tired limbs and spirit when comparative ease succeeds to toil. After a while she lost consciousness altogether and slept nestled in the straw, like a tired child. She was awakened by the stoppage of the cart, and opening her eyes to the gray yet soft heavens above and the wonder of waking in the open air, found herself at the end of a road which led up to a farmstead at the mouth of Glencroe where the valley opens out upon the shore of that long inlet of the sea which is called Loch Long.
“I’m wae to disturb ye, but I must take the cairt back to the town, and my ain house is two miles down the loch. But there’s a real dacent woman at the inn at Arrochar.”