"We're a great folk, we Lashcairns, Marcella," he would say, his sunken
eyes brightening. "A great name, Marcella. I wanted you Janet, for
there has always been a Janet Lashcairn since the wild woman came to
Lashnagar. But Rose would have you Marcella--a foreign name to us," and
he sighed heavily. "I hated you, Marcella, because I wanted a boy to win
back everything we have lost. Lashcairn the Landless whose lands
stretched once from--Marcella, what am I saying? O Lord, Thou knowest
that in nothing do I glory save in the Cross of Jesus Christ. O Lord,
Simon of Cyrene, Thy cross-bearer, has naught to boast save only the
burden Thy grace has laid upon him. Be patient with me, O Lord--very
hardly dies the vanity of the flesh."
Andrew was always glad when it was Marcella's turn to stay with him at
night, for he liked her to read to him; she read the epistles of Paul
especially and F.W.H. Myers' "St. Paul" until she knew them almost by
heart. In St. Paul Andrew saw much of himself: especially could he see
himself on the Damascus road when a blinding light came down.
Three of the five cows were sold to buy the medicines and the patent
foods he did not seem to notice. Duncan, the farm man who never got any
wages, went out at night to work with Jock and Tammas in their boat, and
at every month end he handed to Aunt Janet the money he got to buy
things for his master.
Pages:
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44