The old minister, Mr. Smillie (who was not so very old after all), left his retirement and came back to Langhope, and preached with more vigour than he had done for ten years. Perhaps he had found Edinburgh and unlimited committees rather boring, or perhaps he felt that only his best was good enough for this time.
"Ay," said the village folk, "we've gotten the auld man back, and dod! he's clean yauld! Oor young yin's fechtin', ye ken"; and they said it with pride. It was not every village that had a minister fighting.
The arrangement at the Manse worked very well. Kirsty, too, tried to do her best, and Mr. Smillie, who had been all his life at the mercy of housekeepers, felt he had suddenly acquired both a home and a daughter. When Andrew got his commission, Mr. Smillie went into every house in the village to tell them the news, and was almost as pleased and proud as Kirsty herself.
The Sabbath before he went to France Andrew Hamilton preached in his own pulpit. His text was, "Thou hast given a banner to them that fear Thee."
Two months later, Kirsty got a letter from him. He said: "I played football this afternoon in a match 'Officers v. Sergeants.' Perhaps you won't hear from me very regularly for a bit, for things may be happening; but don't worry about me, I shall be all right.... I am going to a Company concert to-night to sing some Scots songs, and then, with their own consent, I am going to speak to my men alone of more serious things."
The next day he led his men in an attack, and was reported "Missing."
His colonel wrote to Kirsty: "I have no heart to write about him at this time. If he is gone, I know too well what it means to you, and I know what it means to the regiment. His ideals were an inspiration to the men he led...."
The rest was silence.
Mr. Smillie still preaches, and Kirsty still sits in the Manse waiting and hoping. Her face has grown very patient, and I think she feels that if Andrew never comes back to her, she has wings which will some day carry her to him.
* * * * *
Alan Seton got leave at Christmas for four days.
The excitement at Etterick passed description. Marget cooked and baked everything she could think of, and never once lost her temper. Provisions were got out from Edinburgh; some people near lent a car for the few days; nothing was lacking to do him honour. The house was hung with holly from garret to basement, and in the most unexpected places; for Buff, as decorator, was determined to be thorough.
Everything was Christmas-like except the weather. Buff had been praying very earnestly for snow and frost that they might toboggan, but evidently his expectations had not been great nor his faith of the kind that removes mountains, for when he looked out on Christmas Eve morning he said, "I knew it—raining!"
They had not seen Alan for three years, and four days seemed a deplorably short span of time to ask all they wanted to know.
Buff was quite shy before this tall soldier-brother and for the first hour eyed him in complete silence; then he sidled up to him with a book in his hand, explaining that it was his chiefest treasure, and was called The Frontiersman's Pocket-Book. It told you everything you wanted to know if you were a frontiersman, which, Buff pointed out, was very useful. Small-pox, enteric, snake-bite, sleeping-sickness, it gave the treatment for them all and the cure—if there was one.
"I like the note on 'Madness,'" said Elizabeth, who was watching the little scene. "It says simply, 'Remove spurs.' Evidently, if the patient is not wearing spurs, nothing can be done."
Alan put his arm round his small brother. "It's a fine book, Buff. You will be a useful man some day out in the Colonies stored with all that information."
"Would—would you like it, Alan?" Buff asked; and then, with a gulp of resignation, "I'll give it you."
"Thanks very much, old man," Alan said gravely. "It would be of tremendous use to me in India, if you'll let me have it when I go back; but over in France, you see, we are simply hotching with doctors, and very little time for taking illnesses."
"Well," said Buff in a relieved tone, "I'll keep it for you;" and he departed with his treasure, in case Alan changed his mind.
"I'm glad you didn't take it," said Elizabeth. "He would be very lonely without that book. It lies down with him at night and rises with him in the morning."
"Rum little chap!" Alan said. "I've wanted him badly all the time in India.... Lizbeth, is Father pretty seedy? You didn't say much in your letters about why he retired, but I can see a big difference in him."
"Oh! but he's better, Alan," Elizabeth assured him—"much better than when he left Glasgow; then he did look frail."
"Well, it is good to be home and see all you funny folk again," Alan said contentedly, as he lay back in a most downy and capacious arm-chair. "We don't get chairs like this in dug-outs."
It was a wonderful four days, for everything that had been planned came to pass in the most perfect way, and there was no hitch anywhere.
Alan was in his highest spirits, full of stories of his men and of the life out there. "You don't seem to realize, you people," he kept telling them, "what tremendous luck it is for me coming in for this jolly old war."
He looked so well that Elizabeth's anxious heart was easier than it had been for months. Things couldn't be so bad out there, she told herself, if Alan could come back a picture of rude health and in such gay spirits. On the last night Alan went up with Elizabeth to her room to see, he said, if the fire were cosy, and sitting together on the fender-stool they talked—talked of their father ("Take care of him, Lizbeth," Alan said. "Father is a bit extra, you know. I've yet to find a better man"), of how things had worked out, of Walter in India, of the small Buff asleep next door—one of those fireside family talks which are about the most comfortable things in the world. "I'm glad you came to Etterick, I like to think of you here," Alan said. "Well—I'm off to-morrow again."
"Alan," said Elizabeth, "is it very awful?"
"Well, it isn't a picnic, you know. It's pretty grim sometimes. But I wouldn't be out of it for anything."
"I'll tell you what I wish," said his sister. "I wish you could get a bullet in your arm that would keep you from using it for a long time. And we would get you home to nurse. Oh! wouldn't that be heavenly?"
Alan laughed.
"Nice patriotic creature you are! But seriously, Lizbeth, if I do get knocked out—it does happen now and again, and there is no reason why I should escape—I want you to know that I don't mind. I've had a thoroughly good life. We've had our sad times—and the queer thing is that out there it isn't sad to think about Mother and Sandy: it's comforting, you would wonder!—but when we are happy we are much happier than most people. I haven't got any premonition, you know, or anything like that; indeed, I hope to come bounding home again in spring, but just in case—remember, I was glad to go."
He put his hand gently on his sister's bowed golden head. Sandy had had just such gentle ways. Elizabeth caught his hand and held it to her face, and her tears fell on it.
"Oh! Lizbeth, are you giving way to sentiment? Just think how Fish would lawff!" and Alan patted her shoulder in an embarrassed way.
Elizabeth laughed through her tears.
"Imagine you remembering Fish all these years! We were very unsentimental children, weren't we? And do you remember how Sandy stopped kissing by law?"
They talked themselves back on to the level, and then Alan got up to go.
"Good-night, Lizbeth," he said, and then "Wee Lizbeth"; and his sister replied as she had done when they were little children cuddling down in their beds without a care in the world:
"Good-night, Alan. Wee Alan!"
The next morning he was off early to catch the London express.
It was a lovely springlike morning such as sometimes comes in