A Window in Thrums | Page 9

if that was the doctor at last. He would
stand gaping in the middle of the room for five minutes, then slowly
withdraw to stand as drearily but the house. His face lengthened. At last
he sat down by the kitchen fire, a Bible in his hand. It lay open on his
knee, but he did not read much. He sat there with his legs outstretched,
looking straight before him. I believe he saw Jess young again. His face
was very solemn, and his mouth twitched. The fire sank into ashes
unheeded.
I sat alone at my attic window for hours, waiting for the doctor. From
the attic I could see nearly all Thrums, but, until very late, the night
was dark, and the brae, except immediately before the door, was
blurred and dim. A sheet of light canopied the square as long as a cheap
Jack paraded his goods there. It was gone before the moon came out.

Figures tramped, tramped up the brae, passed the house in shadow and
stole silently on. A man or boy whistling seemed to fill the valley. The
moon arrived too late to be of service to any wayfarer. Everybody in
Thrums was asleep but ourselves, and the doctor who never came.
About midnight Hendry climbed the attic stair and joined me at the
window. His hand was shaking as he pulled back the blind. I began to
realize that his heart could still overflow.
"She's waur," he whispered, like one who had lost his voice.
For a long time he sat silently, his hand on the blind. He was so
different from the Hendry I had known, that I felt myself in the
presence of a strange man. His eyes were glazed with staring at the turn
of the brae where the doctor must first come into sight. His breathing
became heavier, till it was a gasp. Then I put my hand on his shoulder,
and he stared at me.
"Nine-and-thirty years come June," he said, speaking to himself.
For this length of time, I knew, he and Jess had been married. He
repeated the words at intervals.
"I mind--" he began, and stopped. He was thinking of the spring-time
of Jess's life.
The night ended as we watched; then came the terrible moment that
precedes the day--the moment known to shuddering watchers by
sick-beds, when a chill wind cuts through the house, and the world
without seems cold in death. It is as if the heart of the earth did not
mean to continue beating.
"This is a fearsome nicht," Hendry said, hoarsely.
He turned to grope his way to the stairs, but suddenly went down on his
knees to pray. . . .
There was a quick step outside. I arose in time to see the doctor on the

brae. He tried the latch, but Leeby was there to show him in. The door
of the room closed on him.
From the top of the stair I could see into the dark passage, and make
out Hendry shaking at the door. I could hear the doctor's voice, but not
the words he said. There was a painful silence, and then Leeby laughed
joyously.
"It's gone," cried Jess; "the white spot's gone! Ye juist touched it, an'
it's gone! Tell Hendry."
But Hendry did not need to be told. As Jess spoke I heard him say,
huskily: "Thank God!" and then he tottered back to the kitchen. When
the doctor left, Hendry was still on Jess's armchair, trembling like a
man with the palsy. Ten minutes afterwards I was preparing for bed,
when he cried up the stair--
"Come awa' doon."
I joined the family party in the room: Hendry was sitting close to Jess.
"Let us read," he said, firmly, "in the fourteenth of John."
CHAPTER V
A HUMORIST ON HIS CALLING
After the eight o'clock bell had rung, Hendry occasionally crossed over
to the farm of T'nowhead and sat on the pig-sty. If no one joined him he
scratched the pig, and returned home gradually. Here what was almost
a club held informal meetings, at which two or four, or even half a
dozen assembled to debate, when there was any one to start them. The
meetings were only memorable when Tammas Haggart was in fettle, to
pronounce judgments in his well-known sarcastic way. Sometimes we
had got off the pig-sty to separate before Tammas was properly yoked.
There we might remain a long time, planted round him like trees, for he
was a mesmerising talker.

There was a pail belonging to the pig-sty, which some one would turn
bottom upwards and sit upon if the attendance was unusually numerous.
Tammas liked, however, to put a foot on it now and again in the full
swing of a harangue, and when he