Part 27 (1/2)

”We couldna stop, if we were once to begin, Geordie; and you are tired, and my father would be ill-pleased. I only wanted to be sure that you were really home again. And I'm no' sure yet,” she added laughing and touching with caressing fingers the soft brown beard, that she could just see, for a faint gleam of dawn was breaking over the sea. They looked at each other with shy pleasure, these two. Jean blushed and smiled under her brother's admiring eyes, but she would not linger.

”My father will hear us, and he will not be pleased,” said she going softly away.

But was it not a joyful morning?

”May, are you ready? Come down quickly. I have something that I want you to see.”

”May, I think it is I who have something to see,” said George, as his younger sister came in. One might search the countryside and find no other such brother and sisters as these three. The father looked at them with proud but sorrowful eyes, for their mother was not there to see them.

George was changed, even more than his sisters. He had gone away a lad, and he had come back a man. There was more than the soft brown beard to show that. He had grown taller even, his father thought, he had certainly grown broader and stronger. The colour that used to be as clear red and white as his sisters' was gone. His face was brown and his eye was bright and steady, and his smile--when it came--was the same sunny smile that his father had so longed for during the sorrowful days of his absence. But it did not come so often as it used to come, and at other times, his face was touched with a gravity new to them all.

But there was no gloom on it, and no trace of any thing that those who loved him would have grieved to see. It was a stronger face now than it had been in the old days, but it was none less a pleasant face, and in a little while they forgot that it had changed. It was George's face.

That was enough.

”It is a _man's_ face. And he'll show himself a man yet, and do a man's share in the work of the world,” said the proud and happy father. And in his heart he acknowledged his son's right to take his own way and live his own life, even though the way might lie apart from his, and though the life he chose might not be just the life that his father would have chosen for him.

”Your aunt should have been here, Jean. You should have sent for her,”

said Mr Dawson in a little.

”I will go and see her,” said George. ”I will walk in with you to the town, by and by.”

”But we must have her here, all the same, for a day or two. Ye'll send for her afterward, Jean.”

But they did not go in the morning as they meant to do. They lingered long over the breakfast-table, and then in the garden and in the wood, and the father and son went down the burn and through the green parks beyond, never thinking how the time was pa.s.sing, till Jean came to tell them that dinner was waiting.

After dinner they went to the town. But they did not go down the High-street. They were both shy at the thought of all the eyes that would be upon them there.

”And it should be your aunt first,” said Mr Dawson.

So they went down a lane that led straight to the sea and then turned to Miss Jean's house.

”You'll go in by yourself and I'll step on and come back in a while,”

said his father.

He had not stepped far before a hand touched his arm, and a pair of s.h.i.+ning eyes met his.

”Oh, Mr Dawson! Is it George come home? And isna your heart like to break for joy?”

There were tears as well as smiles on the beautiful face that looked up into his with joyful sympathy and with entire confidence that sympathy would be welcome. For an instant Mr Dawson met her look with strangely contending emotions. Then a strange thing happened. He took the bonny moved face between his two hands, and stooping down, kissed it ”cheek and chin” without a word.

He would not have believed the thing possible a minute before, he could hardly believe if a minute afterwards, as he turned back again towards his sister's house. Mrs Cairnie coming slowly down the street saw it-- and then she doubted, telling herself, that ”her e'en were surely nae marrows,” or that the last ”drappie” she had taken at ”The Kail Stock”

had been ower muckle for her, and the first person to whom she told the story thought the same.

Bonny Marion's mother and brother saw it from the window of their own house: he with amazement, she with dismay.

”It maun be that Geordie has come home, and that the joy of it has softened his heart,” said Willie.

”Ay. He has gotten his son back again?” said Mrs Calderwood. And Willie knew that his mother was thinking of her child who would never return.

Marion came dancing in with the glad news. She told it soberly after a glance at her mother's face. And then they all sat waiting, knowing that George and his father would pa.s.s that way.