For days after her father's death she wandered on the hills,
preaching deliverance to the screaming gulls, who would not be quiet
like St. Francis' birds when he preached. Many days she took food with
her and deliberately refused to eat it, walking miles after she was worn
out in a considered attempt at the subjection of the flesh, after the
manner of saints of old. Sometimes she preached peace to the desolate
ghosts on Lashnagar, but they did not seem to listen.
Then, just after this, several things happened to bring her thoughts
away from dreams to a realization of herself as a concrete,
circumscribed being. Wullie had warned her of this.
"Ye're up in the clouds, now, Marcella, like a wraith. Some day ye'll
come down to airth. And it'll be with sic' a bang that ye'll find ye're
very solid." She had not understood him.
For six weeks after her father's funeral she had almost maddening
neuralgia. One day, meeting Dr. Angus in the village she stopped to
speak to him. Indeed, it was impossible to pass him, for he had bought
Rose Lashcairn's little mare who, even after six years, remembered
Marcella and stood with eager, soft eyes while the girl stroked her
velvet nose and satin sides. This was the first time the doctor had seen
Marcella since the funeral and she had been weighing on his mind: he
guessed at more than the Lashcairns would ever have told him of their
circumstances; he had sent in no bill for Andrew's illness and, out of
his own pocket, had paid the Edinburgh specialist.
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