CHAPTER XXI
NIGHT — MARGARET — FLASHING OF A LANTERN

HAT evening the little minister sat silently

in his parlour. Darkness came, and with
it weavers rose heavy-eyed from their looms,
sleepy children sought their mothers, and the
gate of the field above the manse fell forward to
let cows pass to their byre; the great Bible was
produced in many homes, and the ten o’clock
bell clanged its last word to the night. Mar-
garet had allowed the lamp to burn low. Think-
ing that her boy slept, she moved softly to his
side and spread her shawl over his knees. He
had forgotten her. The doctor’s warnings scarcely
troubled him. He was Babbie’s lover. The
mystery of her was only a veil hiding her from
other men, and he was looking through it upon
the face of his beloved.

It was a night of long ago, but can you not
see my dear Margaret still as she bends over her
son? Not twice in many days dared the min-
ister snatch a moment’s sleep from gray morn-
ing to midnight, and, when this did happen, he
jumped up by and by in shame, to revile himself
for an idler, and ask his mother wrathfully why
she had not tumbled him out of his chair. To-
night Margaret was divided between a desire to
let him sleep and a fear of his self-reproach when

224