"She knows it all," said Morva; "I told her last night, and her heart was torn with sorrow and love for you; and now turn back with me to Garthowen, for Sara is gone; the cottage is empty!"
"Gone!" said the old man, with a gasp, "Sara gone!"
"Yes--gone! 'Garthowen shall not die of grief while I can help him,' she said; 'I am going a long journey, child, and ye must not grieve for me; I will come back and bring joy and comfort with me.' That's what she said," and Morva nodded her head emphatically. "Oh, she will come, she will come, as she has promised, and bring you comfort; what it will be I cannot tell," and leaning her head coaxingly on the old man's arm she asked, in a playful tone of mystery, "now what can it be, this great blessing she is going to bring you?"
"I don't know," said the old man, taking scant interest in her surmises; he was thinking how he would bear this fresh loss!
"A Bible!" said Morva impatiently, "no--no, not a Bible; Sara knows you have plenty of them at Garthowen, and she has too much sense to bring you another--no! 'tisn't that! but oh, what will it be, I wonder?"
And day after day this was the question that ran through her thoughts, "What will it be, I wonder?"
Sitting down to her milking she sang with full voice once more the old song which Daisy loved. Of late her voice had been very low, and the song scarcely reached beyond Daisy's sleek sides, but to-day it came back, and the farmyard was filled with happy melody.
Everything went on as usual in the farm. Ann tried to let no difference be seen in her manner to her father, unless indeed she was a little more tender and loving. The farm servants, who, if they had not been at the Sciet, had yet heard the tale of disgrace, were unanimous in their endeavours to comfort the old mishteer whom they loved with so much loyalty.
"Pwr fellow bâch!" they said to each other, "'twas for his son after all, and if he had kept it to himself nobody would have known anything about it!"
He alone was altered, going about with a saddened mien and gentler voice than of old, and apparently finding his chief solace in the company of his little grandson, who followed him about as closely and untiringly as Tudor did.