"I feel as if I can't bear it all. Hoodie killed, and going to be
eaten, Jean going to Perth to live, and Aunt Janet all alone in the old
farm, living with the rats."
"Ye're awa' yersel', Marcella, mind," said Wullie gravely.
"Wullie, I wish I could explain. I don't want to go, really, but if I
don't I'm so afraid I'll get frozen up and dead. Oh, and acid drops,"
she added frantically.
"Eh?" he asked.
"Oh, that's nothing. Only something I was thinking," she said quickly.
"But I've got to go; only I hate to think of things being uprooted
here."
"Then dinna think aboot it. I knew ye'd be awa' afore long. It's in ye,
juist as it's in the birds. But ye'll come flying back like they do."
"Oh, Wullie, do you think I shall?" she pleaded, watching him as he
stroked his beard and looked out across the sea.
"Ye'll be back, Marcella. Very glad ye'll be tae come back, an' ye'll
find me here, juist the same. Things change little. It takes millions of
years to change everything save folk's spirits. I'll never change, till
His hand straightens me oot some day for a buryin'. But ye'll be
changed, Marcella, like Lashnagar--things will have cropped out in ye,
and things will have walked over ye."
Wullie's words comforted her, gave her a sense of security as she sat
at his side toasting fish for the last time and eating the cake that
somehow did not taste quite so good as usual.
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