But
this was enough to wake in the boy the desire, and it grew in him
as he grew, to rescue what was left of the estate from its burdens,
and restore it to independence and so to honour. He said nothing of
it, however, to his father, feeling the presumption of proposing to
himself what his father had been unable to effect.
He went oftener to the village this winter than before, and rarely
without going to see Mistress Forsyth, whom he, like the rest,
always called Grannie. She suffered much from rheumatism, which she
described as a sorrow in her bones. But she never lost her
patience, and so got the good of a trouble which would seem
specially sent as the concluding discipline of old people for this
world, that they may start well in the next. Before the winter set
in, the laird had seen that she was provided with peats--that much
he could do, because it cost him nothing but labour; and indeed
each of the several cart-loads Cosmo himself had taken, with mare
Linty between the shafts. But no amount of fire could keep the
frost out of the old woman's body, or the sorrow out of her bones.
Hence she had to be a good deal in bed, and needed her
great-grandchild, Agnes, to help her to bear her burden. When the
bitter weather came, soon after Christmas, Agnes had to be with her
almost constantly. She had grown a little graver, but was always
cheerful, and, except for anxiety lest her mother should be
overworked, or her father take cold, seemed as happy with her
grandmother as at home.
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