"Poor old woman, and she with the tired heart that she has. Ay, ay, for sure the weeks lap up her shadow, as the sayin' is. She will be thinking of him that is gone. Ay, or maybe the old thoughts of her are goin' back on their own steps, down this glen an' over that hill an' away beyont that strath, an' this corrie an' that moor. Well, well, it is a good love, that of the mother. Sure a bitter pain it will be to me when there's no old gray hair there to stroke. It's quiet here, terrible quiet, God knows, to Himself be the blessin' for this an' for that: but when she has the white sleep at last, then it'll be a sore day for me, an' one that I will not be able to bear to hear the sheep callin', callin', callin' through the rain on the hills here, and Gorromalt Water an' no other voice to be with me on that day of the days." She heard a faint sigh, and stirred a moment, but did not look round. "Muim'-à-ghraidh, is it tired you are, an' this so fine a time, too?" With a quick gesture, the old woman glanced at him. "Ah, child, is that you indeed? Well, I am glad of that, for I have the trouble again." "What trouble, Muim'-ghaolaiche?" But the old woman did not answer. Wearily she turned her face to the peat-glow again. Alasdair seated himself on the big wooden chair to her right. For a time he stayed silent thus, staring into the red heart of the peats. What was the gloom upon the old heart that he loved? What trouble was it? At last he rose and put meal and water into the iron pot, and stirred the porridge while it seethed and sputtered. Then he poured boiling water upon the tea in the brown jenny, and put the new bread and the sweet-milk scones on the rude deal board that was the table. "Come, dear tired old heart," he said, "and let us give thanks to the Being." "Blessings and thanks," she said, and turned round. Alasdair poured out the porridge, and watched the steam rise. Then he sat down, with a knife in one hand and the brown-white loaf in the other. "O God," he said, in the low voice he had in the kirk when the bread and wine were given--"O God, be giving us now thy blessing, and have the thanks. And give us peace." Peace there was in the sorrowful old eyes of the mother. The two ate in silence. The big clock that was by the bed _tick-tacked_, _tick-tacked_. A faint sputtering came out of a peat that had bog-gas in it. Shadows moved in the silence, and met and whispered and moved into deep, warm darkness. There was peace. There was still a red flush above the hills in the west when the mother and son sat in the ingle again. "What is it, mother-my-heart?" Alasdair asked at last, putting his great red hand upon the woman's knee. She looked at him for a moment. When she spoke she turned away her gaze again. "Foxes have holes, and the fowls of the air have their places of rest, but the Son of Man hath not where to lay his head."