they had been talking of many things, ann and her mother, and had fallen silent.

the wind was tearing through the green glen, and moaning eerily round the house of dreams, throwing at intervals handfuls of hail which struck against the panes like pistol-shots.

"a wild night," mrs. douglas said, looking over her shoulder at the curtained windows, and drawing her chair nearer the fire. "this is the sort of night your father liked to sit by the fireside. he would lift his head from his book to listen to the wind outside, look round the warm, light room and give a contented sigh."

"i know," said ann; "it was very difficult doing without father. he had always enjoyed the good things of life so frankly there seemed no pleasure any longer in a good dinner, or a fine morning, or a blazing fire, or an interesting book, since he wasn't there to say how fine it was. besides his very presence had been a sort of benediction, and it was almost as if the roof of life had been removed—and it was much worse for you, poor mother. we were afraid you would go, too."

"oh, ann," mrs. douglas, clasping hours of silence, raised tearful eyes to her daughter, "i'm sure i didn't want to live. i don't know why i go on living."

ann caught her mother's hands in her own. "you funny wee body! you remind me of the paisley woman who told me she had lost all her sons in the war, and was both surprised and annoyed that she hadn't died of grief. 'an' ma neebor juist lost the one an' she de'ed, and folk said she niver liftit her heid efter her laddie went, and here wis me losin' a' mine and gaun aboot quite healthy! an' i'm sure i wis as vext as whit she wis. it's no want o' grievin' for i'm never dune greetin'—i begin early i' the mornin' afore i get ma cup o' tea.'"

"oh, the poor body!" said mrs. douglas. "i know so well what she meant. it sounds funny, but it isn't a bit.... your father's death was sheer desolation to me. i remember, a long time ago at kirkcaple, going to see a widow who had brought up a most creditable family, and, looking round her cosy kitchen, i said something about how well she had done, and that life must be pleasant for her with her children all up and doing well. and the brisk, active little woman looked at me, and i was surprised to see tears in her rather hard eyes.

"the bairns are a' richt," she said; "but it maks an awfu' difference when ye lose yer pairtner....' and then i have so many things to regret...."

"regret?" ann laughed. "i don't think you have one single thing to regret. if ever a man was happy in his home it was my father."

"ah, but i was bad to him often. i pretended to be a radical—a thing i never was really—simply from contrariness. if i had him back——"

"now what would you change if you could?" ann asked.

"well, for one thing i would never contradict him, or argue..."

"oh, how father would have loathed that. arguing was the breath of life to him, and he hated to be agreed with."

mrs. douglas went on. "and i would never worry him to do things that went against his judgment. when people took a tirravee and sent for their lines he always wanted to give them to them at once, but i used to beg him to go and reason with them and persuade them to remain. they generally did, for they only wanted to be made a fuss of, but i see now i was quite wrong; people so senseless deserved no consideration. and i wouldn't worry him to go and ask popular preachers to come to us for anniversary services and suchlike occasions! that was the thing he most hated doing."

"i don't wonder," said ann. "to ask favours is never pleasant, and popular preachers are apt to get a bit above themselves and condescend a little to the older, less successful men who are living in a day of small things. but i don't think any of us, you least of all, need reproach ourselves with not having appreciated father. and yet, when he went away it seemed quite wrong to mourn for him. to have pulled long faces and gone about plunged in grief would have been like an insult to the happy soul who had finished his day's work and gone home. it wasn't a case of

'better by far you should forget and smile,

than that you should remember and be sad.'

it was simply that we had so many happy things to remember we couldn't but smile. we wouldn't have had anything changed. to the very end his ways were ways of pleasantness and all his paths were peace. but when robbie died——"

ann stopped, and her mother took up her words:

"when robbie died we seemed to sink into a black pit of horror. we didn't want to see anyone. we could hardly look at the letters that poured in; their lamentations seemed to add to our burden. only miss barbara's was any use, and all she said was, 'i have prayed for you that your faith fail not.'"

"it seemed so unfair," ann said slowly. "in a shop one day the woman who was serving me asked so kindly for you, and wanted to know how you were bearing up. then she said suddenly: 'when thae awfu' nice folk dee div ye no juist fair feel that ye could rebel?' rebel! poor helpless mortals that we are!"

mrs. douglas shook her head. "if there is one lesson i have learned it is the folly of kicking against the pricks. to be bitter and resentful multiplies the grief a thousandfold. there is nothing for it but submission. shall we receive good at the hand of the lord and not receive evil? there is an odd text that strikes me every time i come to it: 'and david was comforted concerning ammon because he was dead.' i don't know what it means, perhaps that ammon fought with david so david was glad he was dead, but it always has a special meaning for me. we had to come to it, ann, you and i, when we tramped those long walks by tweedside rather than sit at home and face callers and sympathy. it was robbie himself who helped us most. the thought of him, so brave and gay and gentle, simply made us believe that in a short time he had fulfilled a long time, and that god had taken him against that day when he shall make up his jewels. we could only cling to the fact that god is love, and that it was to himself he had taken the boy who seemed to us so altogether lovely."

mrs. douglas took off her spectacles and rubbed them with her handkerchief, and ann said:

"yes, mother, at moments we felt all that, and were comforted, but there are so many days when it seems you can't get above the sense of loss. those nights when one dreamed he was with us, and wakened. there's not much doubt about death's sting.... but what kept me from going under altogether was the thought of davie. i tried never to let him see me with a dull face. all his life the child had dreaded sadness, and it seemed hard that he should so early become 'acquainted with grief.' after robbie's death, when he came into a room the first thing he did was to glance quickly at our faces to see if we had been crying, and if we looked at him happily his face cleared. if anybody mentioned robbie's name he slipped quietly out of the room. jim was the same. i think men are like that. women can talk and find relief, but to speak about his grief is the last thing an ordinary man can do. that's why i was sorrier for the fathers in the war than the mothers.... i was glad davie was at college and busy all day. i think he dreaded coming home that easter."

"but i don't think he found it bad, ann. he had his great friend anthony with him, and we all tried our best to give him a good time. and at seventeen it isn't so hard to rise above trouble."

"oh no," said ann; "and davie was so willing to be happy." she laughed. "i never knew anyone so appreciative of a joke—any sort of joke. when he was a tiny boy if i said anything which i meant to be funny, and which met with no response, davie would say indignantly: 'nana's made a joke and nobody laughed.' he always gave a loud laugh himself—'me hearty laugh,' he called it."

"oh, i'd forgotten that," cried davie's mother; "'me hearty laugh.' we all treated davie as a joke, and didn't bother much whether his school reports were good or only fairly good. he wasn't at all studious naturally, though he was passionately fond of reading, and i'm afraid we liked to find excuses to let him play. only robbie took him seriously. you remember when he was home on leave he protested against davie bounding everywhere and having no fixed hours of study. 'we've got to think of the chap's future,' he said."

"robbie and davie adored each other," ann said. "they were so funny together—davie a little bashful with the big brother. i remember hearing davie telling robbie about some fabian society that he belonged to, and what they discussed at it, and robbie stood looking at him through his eyeglass with an amused grin on his face, and said, 'stout fellow!' that was always what he said to davie, 'stout fellow!' i can hear him now.... but the odd thing was that davie seemed to take no interest in his own future. it was almost as if he realised that this world held no future for him. mark, always careful and troubled, used to worry about a profession for him. he wanted him to go into the navy, but you vetoed that as too dangerous; it mustn't be india, because we couldn't part with our baby."

mrs. douglas leaned forward to push in a falling log. "i was foolishly anxious about davie always; never quite happy if he was away from me. i worried the boy sometimes, but he was patient with me. 'poor wee body,' he always said, and put his arms round me—he learned that expression from robbie."

"i have an old exercise book," said ann, "in which davie made his first efforts at keeping accounts—david douglas in account with self. it is very much ornamented with funny faces and not very accurate, for sums are frequently noted as 'lost.' it stops suddenly, and underneath is scrawled, 'the war here intervened.' we didn't need to worry about his work in the world. that was decided for him when—

'god chose his squires, and trained their hands

for those stern lists of liberty.'"

mrs. douglas caught her breath with a sob. "at once he clamoured to go, but he was so young, only eighteen, and i said he must only offer for home defence; and he said, 'all right, wee body, that'll do to start with,' but in a very short time he was away to train with kitchener's first army."

"he was miserable, mother, until he got away. jim was refused permission from the first, and had to settle down to his job, but for most of us the bottom seemed to have fallen out of the world, and one could settle to nothing. in the crashing of empires the one stable thing was that fact that the scotsman continued its 'nature notes.' that amused davie.... he began an album of war poetry, cutting out and pasting in verses that appeared in the times and spectator and punch and other papers. 'carmina belli' he printed on the outside. he charged me to go on with it when he went away, and i finished it with mark's poem on himself:

'you left the line with jest and smile

and heart that would not bow to pain—

i'll lay me downe and bleed awhile,

and then i'll rise and fight again.'"

ann got up and leaned her brow on the mantel-shelf, and looking into the fire, said:

"d'you know, mother, i think that first going away was the worst of all, though he was only going to england to train. nothing afterwards so broke me down as seeing the fresh-faced boy in his grey tweed suit going off with such a high heart. i don't know what you felt about it, but the sword pierced my heart then. you remember it was the fair at priorsford! and the merry-go-rounds on the green buzzed round to a tune he had often sung, some ridiculous words about 'hold your hand out, you naughty boy.' as i stood in my little swallow's-nest of a room and looked out over the green, and saw the glare of the naphtha lamps reflected in the water, and the swing-boats passing backwards and forwards, through light into darkness, and from darkness into light, and realised that davie had been born for the great war, every chord seemed to strike at my heart."

"oh, ann," mrs. douglas cried, "i never let myself think. it was my only chance to go on working as hard as ever i was able at whatever came to my hand. i left him in god's hands. i was helpless."

the tears were running down her face as she spoke, and ann said, "poor mother, it was hardest for you. your cry was the old, old cry: 'joseph is not, simeon is not, and ye will take benjamin away....' but our benjamin was so glad to go. and he never found anything to grumble at, not even at bramshott, where there was nothing fit to eat, and the huts leaked, and the mud was unspeakable, and his uniform consisted of a red tunic made for a very large man, and a pair of exceedingly bad blue breeks. when he came at christmas—he made me think of one of prince charlie's men with his shabby uniform and yellow hair—how glad he was to have a real wallowing hot bath, with bath salts and warm towels, and get into his own tweeds. he was just beginning to get clean when he had to go again! in a few weeks he got his commission, and in the autumn of 1915 he went to france—'as gentle and as jocund as to jest went he to fight.'"

there was a silence in the pleasant room as the two women thought their own thoughts, and the fire crackled and the winter wind beat upon the house.

mrs. douglas spoke first. "it was a wonderful oasis in that desert of anxiety when davie was wounded and at home. those nights when we had lain awake thinking of him in the trenches, those days when we were afraid for every ring at the bell, and hardly dared look when we opened the hall door after being out, in case the orange envelope should be lying on the table. to have all that suddenly changed. to know that he was lying safe and warm and clean in a white bed in a private hospital in london, 'lying there with a face like a herd,' mark wrote, with nothing much the matter with him but a shrapnel wound in his leg—it was almost too much relief. and we had him at queensferry all summer. we were greatly blessed, ann."

"and it wasn't quite so bad letting him go the second time," ann said. "he had been there once and had got out alive and he knew the men he was going to, and was glad to go back; and mark wasn't far from him, and could see him sometimes."

"his letters were so cheery. from his accounts you would have thought that living in the trenches was a sort of jolly picnic. oh, ann, do you remember the letter to me written in the train going up to the line, when he said he had dreamt he was a small boy again, and 'i thought i had lost you, wee body, and i woke up shouting "mother," to the amusement of the other men in the carriage?'"

"some people," said ann, "go through the world afraid all the time that they are being taken advantage of. davie never ceased to be amazed at the kindness shown him. he was one of those happy souls whose path through life is lined with friends, and whose kind eyes meet only affectionate glances. his letters were full of the kindness he received—the 'decent lad' in his platoon who heard him say his dug-out was draughty, and who made a shutter for the window and stopped up all the cracks; the two corporals from the gallowgate who formed his bodyguard, and every time he fell into a shell-hole or dodged a crump shouted anxiously, 'are ye hurt, sirr?' you remember he wrote: 'these last two years have been the happiest in my life,' and other men who were with him told us he never lost his high spirits."

"that was such a terribly long, hard winter," mrs. douglas said. "the snow was never off the hills for months. and then spring came, but such a spring! nothing but wild winds and dreary sleet. we hoped and hoped that davie would get leave—he was next on the list for it—but he wrote and said his leave had gone 'very far west.' we didn't know it, but they were getting ready for the big spring offensive. then one day we saw that a battle had begun at arras, and davie's letter that morning read like a farewell. things may be happening shortly, but don't worry about me. i've just been thinking what a good life i've had all round, and what a lot of happiness i've had. even the sad parts are a comfort now....'"

"mother, do you see," said ann, "there's your text about ammon. out there, waiting for the big battle, davie didn't feel it sad any more than father and robbie had gone out of the world—he was comforted concerning them because they were dead. we were thinking of him and praying for him every hour of the day, but he felt them nearer to him than we were."

"to think that when that letter came he was dead! to think that i was in glasgow with miss barbara talking of him nearly all the time, for miss barbara loved the boy, and nothing told us he was no longer in the world. to think of the child—he was little more—waiting there in the darkness for the signal to attack. he must have been so anxious about leading the company, so afraid——"

"anxious maybe," said ann, "but not really afraid. don't you remember what his great friend captain shiels wrote and told us, that while they waited for the dawn davie spoke 'words of comfort and encouragement to his men.' i cry when i think of that...."

"my little boy—my baby. away from us all—alone...."

"no. no, mother, never less alone; 'compassed about with a great cloud of witnesses.' i have a notion that all the great army of men who down through the centuries have given their lives for our country's bright cause were with our men in that awful fighting, steeling the courage of those boy-soldiers.... and father and robbie were beside him, i am very sure, and father would know then that all his prayers were answered for his boy—the bad little boy who refused to say his prayers, the timid little boy who was afraid to go into a dark room—when he saw him stand, with death tapping him on the shoulder, speaking 'words of comfort and encouragement to his men.' i think robbie would say, 'stout fellow.' that was the 9th. the telegram came to us on the afternoon of the 11th. jim and i were terribly anxious, and i had been doing all the jobs i hated most with a sort of lurking, ashamed feeling in my heart that if we worked our hardest and did our very best davie might be spared to us."

ann stopped, and went on, half-laughing, half-crying:

"like poor mrs. clark, one of my women. she told me how she had gone out and helped a sick neighbour, and coming home had seen some children, whose father was fighting and whose mother was ill, playing in the rain, and she had taken them in and given them a hot meal. as they were leaving the postman brought her a letter saying her son was dead in mesopotamia. she said to me, defiantly, as if she were scoring off providence, 'i'm no gaun tae pray nae mair,' and i knew exactly what she felt."

"oh, the poor woman," said mrs. douglas weeping.

"i thought," ann went on, "that if no wire came that day it would mean that davie had got through—but at tea-time it came. i went into glasgow next morning by the first train to tell you. phoebe was washing the front door steps at no. 10, and she told me you and miss barbara were in the dining-room at breakfast. i stood in the doorway and looked at you. you were laughing and telling miss barbara something funny that had been in one of davie's letters. i felt like a murderer standing there. when i went into the room your face lit up for a moment, and then you realised. 'it is the laddie?' you whispered, and i nodded. you neither spoke nor cried, but stood looking before you as if you were thinking very deeply about something, then 'i would like to go home,' you said...."

"and to think," mrs. douglas said, breaking a long silence, "that i am only one of millions of mothers who will go mourning to their graves."

"i know, mother. i know. but you wouldn't ask him back even if that were possible. you wouldn't, if you could, take 'the purple of his blood out of the cross on the breastplate of england.' don't you love these words of ruskin? it's the proudest thing we have to think about, and, honestly—i'm not just saying this—i believe that the men who lie out there have the best of it. the men who came back will, most of them, have to fight a grim struggle, for living is none too pleasant just now, and they will grow old, and bald, and ill-tempered, and they have all to die in the end. what is twenty more years of life but twenty more years of fearing death? but our men whose sacrifice was accepted, and who were allowed to pour out the sweet, red wine of youth, passed at one bound from glorious life to glorious life. 'eld shall not make a mock of that dear head.' they know not age or weariness or defeat."