As I
sat upon the window-ledge listening to the voice with its flowing song,
my thoughts were far away, and I was looking down once more upon the
eager, coal-grimed faces in the rude little church in Black Rock. I was
brought back to find myself swallowing hard by an audible whisper from a
wee lassie to her mother--
'Mither! See till yon man. He's greetin'.'
When I came to myself she was singing 'The Land o' the Leal,' the Scotch
'Jerusalem the Golden,' immortal, perfect. It needed experience of the
hunger-haunted Cowgate closes, chill with the black mist of an eastern
haar, to feel the full bliss of the vision in the words--
'There's nae sorrow there, Jean,
There's neither cauld nor care, Jean,
The day is aye fair in
The Land o' the Leal.'
A land of fair, warm days, untouched by sorrow and care, would be heaven
indeed to the dwellers of the Cowgate.
The rest of that evening is hazy enough to me now, till I find myself
opposite Mrs. Mavor at her fire, reading Graeme's letter; then all is
vivid again.
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