"
Mother Binning took from a chest a gray plaid. He lifted again the
dead woman, and she happed the plaid about her. "Ah, the lassie--the
lassie! Come to me, Glenfernie, and I will scry for you who it was!"
He looked at her as though he did not hear her. He lifted the body,
holding it against his shoulder like a child, and went forth. He knew
the path so absolutely, he was so strong and light of foot, that he
went without difficulty through the glen, by the loud crying water, by
the points of crag and the curving roots and the drifts of snow, by
the green patches of moss and the trees great and small. He did not
hasten nor drag, he did not think. He went like a bronze Talus, made
simply to find, to carry home.
Known feature after known feature of the place rose before him, passed
him, fell away. Here was the arm of the glen, and here was the pebbled
cape and the thorn-tree. The winter water swirled around it, sang of
cold and a hateful power. Here was the mouth of the glen. Here were
the fields which had been green and then golden with ripe corn. Here
were the White Farm roof and chimneys and windows, and blue smoke from
the chimney going straight up like a wraith to meet blue sky. Before
him was the open door.
He had thought of there being only Jenny and the two servant lasses.
But in the time he had been gone there had regathered to White Farm,
for learning each from each, for consultation, for mere rest and food,
a number of the searchers.
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