He had gone down to superintend the running of a new drift; the two men, half drunk with Slavin's whisky, set off a shot prematurely, to their own and Mavor's destruction. They were badly burned, but his face was untouched. A miner was sponging off the bloody froth oozing from his lips. The others were standing about waiting for me to speak. But I could find no word, for my heart was sick, thinking, as they were, of the young mother and her baby waiting at home. So I stood, looking stupidly from one to the other, trying to find some reason--coward that I was--why another should bear the news rather than I. And while we stood there, looking at one another in fear, there broke upon us the sound of a voice mounting high above the birch tops, singing--"Will ye no' come back again?
Will ye no' come back again?
Better lo'ed ye canna be, Will ye no' come back again?"'A strange terror seized us. Instinctively the men closed up in front of the body, and stood in silence. Nearer and nearer came the clear, sweet voice, ringing like a silver bell up the steep--"Sweet the lav'rock's note and lang, Liltin' wildly up the glen, But aye tae me he sings ae sang, Will ye no' come back again?"'Before the verse was finished "Old Ricketts" had dropped on his knees, sobbing out brokenly, "O God! O God! have pity, have pity, have pity!"--and every man took off his hat. And still the voice came nearer, singing so brightly the refrain, '"Will ye no' come back again?'
'It became unbearable. "Old Ricketts" sprang suddenly to his feet, and, gripping me by the arm, said piteously, "Oh, go to her! for Heaven's sake, go to her!" I next remember standing in her path and seeing her holding out her hands full of red lilies, crying out, "Are they not lovely? Lewis is so fond of them!" With the promise of much finer ones I turned her down a path toward the river, talking I know not what folly, till her great eyes grew grave, then anxious, and my tongue stammered and became silent.
Then, laying her hand upon my arm, she said with gentle sweetness, "Tell me your trouble, Mr. Craig," and I knew my agony had come, and I burst out, "Oh, if it were only mine!" She turned quite white, and with her deep eyes--you've noticed her eyes--drawing the truth out of mine, she said, "Is it mine, Mr. Craig, and my baby's?" I waited, thinking with what words to begin. She put one hand to her heart, and with the other caught a little poplar-tree that shivered under her grasp, and said with white lips, but even more gently, "Tell me." I wondered at my voice being so steady as I said, "Mrs. Mavor, God will help you and your baby. There has been an accident--and it is all over."'She was a miner's wife, and there was no need for more. I could see the pattern of the sunlight falling through the trees upon the grass. I could hear the murmur of the river, and the cry of the cat-bird in the bushes, but we seemed to be in a strange and unreal world. Suddenly she stretched out her hands to me, and with a little moan said, "Take me to him."'"Sit down for a moment or two," I entreated.
