Long after the village folks had gone to bed I heard the street door open quietly, and the doctor's shuffling footsteps in the lobby. He went through the kitchen into Nathan's room; then he came in and sat down in the big chair opposite me. 'I told Betty I would be here if I were needed, William,' he said, and he took out his old clay pipe and smoked in silence. Just when the night was on the turn he opened the door and went quietly across to his patient. I followed him into the kitchen, and there, by a cheerless fire, sat Mrs Jardine in Betty's chair, and, poor, hard-working soul, she was asleep, with her head resting on Tom's encircling arm. I put my hand on his shoulder and thanked him for his presence. Then I went back into my room, and, sitting down in my chair, closed my eyes, for their lids felt heavy and weary. * * * * * 'William, Betty wants you.' The voice seemed far away. I rose hurriedly and rubbed my eyes. The sparrows were twittering in the lime-tree, and the gray light of a March morning was lying cold in the room. The doctor was standing with his hand on the handle of the half-open door. 'Betty wants you, William,' he said in a whisper; and I passed him without a word, and with a heavy, apprehensive heart. On the little round table was an open Bible which I knew well, and a pair of spectacles lay across the flattened-out leaves. Betty was standing at the bedside, her dimmed eyes fixed on Nathan's long, wan face. She didn't turn her head when I came in, but she held out her hand to me, and together we watched. Suddenly he raised his head from the pillow and his sunken, sightless eyes turned toward the window. 'Ay, imphm!--weel, Betty lass, it's aboot time I was daunerin'. It--it's a nice mornin' for the road; the birds'll be whusslin' bonny in the Gillfit wood, an'--an' the sunshine will be on the hawthorn. No, I'll no' mak' a noise. I'll open the door canny, and I'll no' wauken Maister Weelum. I'll--I'll juist slip oot quietly. Ay'---- And Betty and I watched Nathan slipping out quietly--oh, how quietly!--into the sunshine of God's own everlasting morning. CHAPTER XX. Harvest-time in Midlothian. Golden corn in golden stooks dotting the stubble-fields, yellow leaves on the ash and russet nuts on the beech, a beautiful panorama of multi-coloured landscape stretching hazily away southward and cuddling tranquilly between the Moorfoots and the Pentlands; bird song in the woods and laughter in the fields, mingling with the jolting of iron wheels and the cheery rhythmic _craik_ of the levelling reaper. Little wonder Old Sol lingers long this afternoon above Castlelaw. Gladly, I ween, would he stay; but his times of rising and going down are set, and slowly but surely the shadows deepen at the base of Caerketton, and steal upward to its sheltered crown behind Allermuir.