Part 13

“Drumsheugh micht have got an ordinary bed for half the money, but naething wud sateesfy him but brass knobs. Ye may say that I canna see them, but I can feel them, and I ken that they're there, and the neighbours see them, and to think o't that I'm lying here like a queen on a spring bed with four brass knobs. And me that has no claim on Drumsheugh or ony other body, juist crowned wi' loving kindness. I'll need to ask grace to be kept humble.”

According to Marjorie indeed her whole life had been arranged on the principle of Drumsheugh's giving: instead of iron she had received brass, yea, much fine gold, and all things had worked together for her good. When her minister Carmichael forgot himself one day and pitied her for her afflictions she was amazed, and had to remind herself that he had only come to the Glen. For was it not her helplessness that had won her so much love, so that from high Glen Urtarch down to the borders of Kilbogie every man, woman and child was her friend, dropping in to see her, bringing her all the news, and making her so many little presents that she was “fair ashamed”? And she reminded John Carmichael that if she, Marjorie, had been an able-bodied woman, he would not have paid her so many visits, nor told her so many “bonny stories.”

“Mr. Carmichael, I'll have much to answer for, for I've been greatly blessed. I judge masel' the maist priveeleged woman in Drumtochty.” And then Carmichael, who had his own troubles and discontentments, used to go away a wiser and a better man.

Marjorie saw the hand of an all,-wise and all-loving Providence in the arrangements of her home. For one thing it faced south, and she got the warmth and the shining of the sun through her little window, and there was an advantage in the door opening straight from the garden into the room, for the scent of the flowers came in to her bed, and she knew when the wallflowers had begun to bloom and when the first rosebud above the doorway had opened. She would have liked very well to have gone to the Kirk with a goodly company, but lying alone on her bed through the hours of service she had time for prayer, and I have heard her declare that the time was too short for her petitions. “For, ye see, I have sae mony friends to remember, and my plan is to begin at the top of the Glen and tak' them family by family till I come to the end of the parish. And wud ye believe it, I judge that it takes me four complete days to bring a' the fowk I love before the Throne of Grace.”

As for her darkness of earthly sight, this, she insisted, was the chief good which God had bestowed upon her, and she made out her case with the ingenuity of a faithful and contented heart.

“If I dinna see”--and she spoke as if this was a matter of doubt and she were making a concession for argument's sake--“there's naebody in the Glen can hear like me. There's no a footstep of a Drum-tochty man comes to the door but I ken his name, and there's no a voice oot on the road that I canna tell. The birds sing sweeter to me than to onybody else, and I can hear them cheeping to one another in the bushes before they go to sleep. And the flowers smell sweeter to me--the roses and the carnations and the bonny moss rose--and I judge that the oatcake and milk taste the richer because I dinna see them. Na, na, ye're no to think that I've been ill treated by my God, for if He didna give me ae thing, He gave me mony things instead.

“And mind ye, it's no as if I'd seen once and lost my sight; that micht ha' been a trial, and my faith micht have failed. I've lost naething; my life has been all getting.”

And she said confidentially one day to her elder, Donald Menzies--

“There's a mercy waitin' for me that'll crown a' His goodness, and I'm feared when I think o't, for I'm no worthy.”

“What iss that that you will be meaning, Marjorie,” said the elder.

“He has covered my face with His hand as a father plays with his bairn, but some day sune He will lift His hand, and the first thing that Marjorie sees in a' her life will be His ain face.”

And Donald Menzies declared to Bumbrae on the way home that he would gladly go blind all the days of his life if he were as sure of that sight when the day broke and the shadows fled away.