A Window in Thrums | Page 8

noticing, as I happened to do, that
Jess spoke in an agitated voice.
"What is't?" asked Hendry, who liked to be told things.

He opened the door of the bed.
"Yer mother's no weel," he said to Leeby.
Leeby ran to the bed, and I went ben the house. In another two minutes
we were a group of four in the kitchen, staring vacantly. Death could
not have startled us more, tapping thrice that quiet night on the
window-pane.
"It's diphtheria!" said Jess, her hands trembling as she buttoned her
wrapper.
She looked at me, and Leeby looked at me.
"It's no, it's no," cried Leeby, and her voice was as a fist shaken at my
face. She blamed me for hesitating in my reply. But ever since this
malady left me a lonely dominie for life, diphtheria has been a
knockdown word for me. Jess had discovered a great white spot on her
throat. I knew the symptoms.
"Is't dangerous?" asked Hendry, who once had a headache years before,
and could still refer to it as a reminiscence.
"Them 'at has 't never recovers," said Jess, sitting down very quietly. A
stick fell from the fire, and she bent forward to replace it.
"They do recover," cried Leeby, again turning angry eyes on me.
I could not face her; I had known so many who did not recover. She put
her hand on her mother's shoulder.
"Mebbe ye would be better in yer bed," suggested Hendry.
No one spoke.
"When I had the headache," said Hendry, "I was better in my bed."
Leeby had taken Jess's hand--a worn old hand that had many a time
gone out in love and kindness when younger hands were cold. Poets

have sung and fighting men have done great deeds for hands that never
had such a record.
"If ye could eat something," said Hendry, "I would gae to the flesher's
for 't. I mind when I had the headache, hoo a small steak--"
"Gae awa for the doctor, rayther," broke in Leeby.
Jess started, for sufferers think there is less hope for them after the
doctor has been called in to pronounce sentence.
"I winna hae the doctor," she said, anxiously.
In answer to Leeby's nods, Hendry slowly pulled out his boots from
beneath the table, and sat looking at them, preparatory to putting them
on. He was beginning at last to be a little scared, though his face did
not show it.
"I winna hae ye," cried Jess, getting to her feet, "ga'en to the doctor's
sic a sicht. Yer coat's a' yarn."
"Havers," said Hendry, but Jess became frantic.
I offered to go for the doctor, but while I was up-stairs looking for my
bonnet I heard the door slam. Leeby had become impatient, and darted
off herself, buttoning her jacket probably as she ran. When I returned to
the kitchen, Jess and Hendry were still by the fire. Hendry was beating
a charred stick into sparks, and his wife sat with her hands in her lap. I
saw Hendry look at her once or twice, but he could think of nothing to
say. His terms of endearment had died out thirty-nine years before with
his courtship. He had forgotten the words. For his life he could not
have crossed over to Jess and put his arm round her. Yet he was uneasy.
His eyes wandered round the poorly lit room.
"Will ye hae a drink o' watter?" he asked.
There was a sound of footsteps outside.
"That'll be him," said Hendry in a whisper.

Jess started to her feet, and told Hendry to help her ben the house.
The steps died away, but I fancied that Jess, now highly strung, had
gone into hiding, and I went after her. I was mistaken. She had lit the
room lamp, turning the crack in the globe to the wall. The sheepskin
hearthrug, which was generally carefully packed away beneath the bed,
had been spread out before the empty fireplace, and Jess was on the
arm-chair hurriedly putting on her grand black mutch with the pink
flowers.
"I was juist makkin' mysel respectable," she said, but without life in her
voice.
This was the only time I ever saw her in the room.
Leeby returned panting to say that the doctor might be expected in an
hour. He was away among the hills.
The hour passed reluctantly. Leeby lit a fire ben the house, and then put
on her Sabbath dress. She sat with her mother in the room. Never
before had I seen Jess sit so quietly, for her way was to work until, as
she said herself, she was ready "to fall into her bed."
Hendry wandered between the two rooms, always in the way when
Leeby ran to the window to see