Nearly twenty-four hours later the chill of the wintry night had closed over the village of Bellendean. The frosty weather had gone, and was replaced by the clammy dampness and heavily charged atmosphere of a thaw. There had been showers during the day, and a Scotch mist had set in with the falling of the night. Janet Matheson and her old husband were sitting on either side of the fire. Peter had got to feel the severity of the winter weather, and though he still did his day’s work, he was heavy and tired, and sat stretching his long limbs across the hearth with that desire for more rest which shows the flagging of the strength and spirit. Janet on the other side of the fire was knitting the usual dark-grey stocking with yards of leg, which it was astonishing to think could be always wanted by one man. They were talking little. An observation once in half an hour or so, a little stir of response, and then the silence would fall over them again, unbroken by anything but the fall of the ashes from the grate, or the ticking of the clock. Sometimes Janet would carry on a little monologue for a few minutes, to which Peter gave here and there a deep growl of reply; but there was little that could be called conversation between the old pair, who knew all each other’s thoughts, and were ‘company’ to each other without a word said. There were few sounds even outside: now and then a heavy foot going by: now and then a boy running in his heavy shoes on some cold errand. The cold and the rain had sent indoors all the usual stragglers of the night.
‘Yon letter’s near a week auld,’ said Peter. They had not been talking of Joyce; but a quarter of an hour before had briefly, with a few straggling remarks at long intervals, discussed the crop which ‘the maister’ had settled upon for the Long Park, a selection of which Peter did not approve; but no explanation was needed for this introduction of a new subject. There could be no doubt between them as to what ‘yon letter’ meant.
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‘There’ll be anither the morn,’ said Janet, ‘when she has passed the Thursday, it aye comes on the Saturday. She will have been thrang with something or other. It’s the time coming on for a’ thae pairties and balls.’
Peter gave a long low subterraneous laugh. ‘It would be a queer thing,’ he said, ‘for you and me to see oor Joyce at ane o’ thae grand balls.’
‘And wherefore no?’ said Janet. ‘Take you my word for’t, she’ll aye be ane o’ the bonniest there.’
‘I’m no doubtin’ that,’ he said; and silence fell again over the cottage kitchen—silence broken only after a long time by an impatient sigh from Janet, who had just cast off her stocking, rounding the ample toe.
‘Eh,’ she said, ‘just to hae ae glimpse of her! I would ken in a moment.’
‘What are ye wantin’ to ken?’
‘Oh, naething,’ said Janet, putting down the finished stocking after pulling it into shape and smoothing it with her hand. She took up her needles again and pulled out a long piece of worsted to set on the other, with again a suppressed sigh.
‘Siching and sabbing never mean naething,’ said Peter oracularly.
‘Weel, weel! I would like to see in her bonnie face that she’s happy amang thae strange folk. If ye maun ken every thocht that comes into a body’s heart——’
‘Hae ye ony reason——’ said Peter, and then paused with a ghost of his usual laugh. ‘Ye’re just that conceited, ye think she canna be happy but with you and me.’
‘It’s maybe just that,’ said Janet.
‘It’s just that. She has mair to mak’ her happy than the like of us ever heard tell of. I wouldna wonder if ye were just jealous—o’ a’ thae enterteenments.’
‘I wouldna wonder,’ Janet said. And then there was a long silence again.
Presently a faint sound of footsteps approaching from a distance came muffled from the silence outside. The old people, with their rural habit of attention to all such passing sounds, listened unawares each on their side. Light steps in light shoes, not any of the heavy walkers of Bellendean. Would it be somebody from the Manse coming from the station? or maybe one of the maids from the House? They both listened without any conscious reason, as village people do. At last Peter spoke—
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—
‘If she wasna hunders o’ miles away, I would say that was her step.’
‘Dinna speak such nonsense,’ said Janet. Then suddenly throwing down her needles with a cry, ‘It’s somebody coming here!—whisht, whisht,’ she added to herself, ‘that auld man’s blethers puts nonsense in a body’s heid.’ Janet rose up to her feet with an agitated cry. Some one had touched the latch. She rushed to the door and turned the key— ‘We were just gaun to oor beds,’ she cried, in a tone of apology.
And then the door was pushed open from without. The old woman uttered a shriek of wonder and joy, yet alarm, and with a great noise old Peter stumbled to his feet.
It was her or her ghost. The rain glistening upon her hat and her shoulders—her eyes shining like brighter drops of dew—a colour on her cheeks from the outdoor air, a gust of the fragrance of that outdoor atmosphere—the ‘caller air’ that had always breathed about Joyce—coming in with her. She stood and smiled and said, ‘It’s me,’ as if she had come home after a day’s absence, as if no chasm of time and distance had ever opened between.
No words can ever describe the agitated moment of such a return, especially when so unexpected and strange, exciting feelings of fear as well as delight. They took her in, they brought her to the fire, they took off her cloak which was wet, and the hat that was ornamented like jewels with glistening drops of the Scotch mist. They made her sit down, touching her shoulders, her hair, her arms, the very folds of her dress, with fond caressing touches, laughing and crying over her. Poor old Peter was inarticulate in his joy and emotion. Nothing but a succession of those low rolling laughs would come from him, and great lakes of moisture were standing under the furrows of his old eyebrows. He sat down opposite to her, and did nothing but gaze at her with a tenderness unspeakable, the ecstasy which was beyond all expression. Janet retained her power of movement and of speech.
‘Eh, my bonnie lamb! eh, my ain bairn! you’ve come back to see your auld folk. And the Lord bless you, my darlin’! it’s an ill nicht for the like of you—but we’ll warm you and dry you if we can do naething mair; and there’s your ain wee room aye ready, and oh, a joyfu’ welcome, a joyfu’ welcome!’
‘No, granny, I cannot go back to my own room. I’ve come but for a moment. I’m going away on a journey, and there’s little time, little time. But I couldn’t pass by——’
‘Pass by—— No, that would ha’ been a bonny business,’ said Peter, with his laugh—‘to have passed by.
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’
Joyce told them an incoherent story about a ship that was to sail to-night. ‘I am going from Leith—and there was just an hour or two—and I must be back by the nine o’clock train. It’s not very long, but I must not lose my ship.’
‘And are they with you, Joyce, waitin’ for you? and whatfor did ye no bring the Cornel? The Cornal wasna proud—he didna disdain the wee bit place. And no even a maid with ye to take care of ye! Oh ay, my bonnie woman, weel I understand that—you would have naebody with ye to disturb us, but just a’ to oorsels——’
‘Ony fule,’ said Peter, ‘would see that.’
‘We’re a’ just fules,’ said Janet, ‘for weel I see that, and yet I’m no sure I’m pleased that she’s let to come her lane—for I would have her guarded that nae strange wind, no, nor the rain, should touch her. I’m wantin’ twa impossible things—that she should be attendit like a princess, and yet that we should have her her lane, a’ to you and me.’
‘It’s very cold outside,’ said Joyce, ‘and oh, so warm and cosy here! I have never seen a place so warm nor so like home since I went away. Granny, will you mask some tea though it’s so late? I think I would like a cup of tea.’
‘That will I!’ cried Janet, with a sense of pleasure such as a queen might feel when her most beloved child asked her for a duchy or a diamond. Her face shone with pure satisfaction and delight, and her questions ran on as she moved to and fro, making the kettle boil (which was always just on the eve of boiling), getting out her china teapot, her best things, ‘for we maun do her a’ honour, like a grand visitor, though she’s our ain bairn and no the least changed——’ These observations Janet addressed to Peter, though they were mingled with a hundred tender things to Joyce, and so mixed that the change of the person was hard to follow.
‘Whatfor should she be changed?’ said Peter, with his tremulous growl of happiness. The old man sat, with an occasional earthquake of inward laughter passing over him, never taking his eyes from her. He was less critical than Janet; no suspicions or fears were in his mind. He took her own account of herself with profound faith. Whatfor should she be changed? Whatfor should she be otherwise than happy? She had come to see them in the moment she had in the middle of her journey, alone, as was natural—for anybody with her would have made a different thing of it altogether, and weel did Joyce ken that. He was thoroughly satisfied, and more blessed than words could say. He sat well
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 pleased and listened, while Janet told her everything that had passed. Although it had been told in letters, word of mouth was another thing, and Joyce had a hundred questions to put. She was far more concerned to hear everything that could be told her than to tell about herself; but if Peter remarked this at all, it was only as a perfection the more in his ‘bonnie woman’—his good lassie that never thought of herself.
‘And oh, but the Captain was kind, ki............