She invited old Granny Baxter
to have a cup of tea with her at the farm, which was a very great mark
of graciousness on the part of "the mistress," and extremely gratifying
to the old woman, to whom attentions of the kind came rarely.
It had been arranged, also, by the farmer's wife that Geordie should be
moved into the "best bedroom" before the doctor came, and Granny
Baxter was filled with pride when she was shown the woodruff-scented
chamber, with its dark shining floor, and among other impressive
decorations from the farmyard, a waving canopy of peacock feathers above
the ancient chimney-piece, where Geordie was to sleep among snowy sheets
that night. But each time that they proposed he should be carried there
from his rough bed among the heather, Geordie pled rather wistfully,
"Just wait a wee while. I'm right comfortable here among the heather,"
and once he added with a sad smile as he glanced at the farmer's wife,
"But I'll no be able to supper the beasts the night, Mistress Gowrie.
Maybe Sandy will look to them. Puir Blackie! give him a good supper; he
didn't mean any ill."
Only Elsie Gray, of all the original group, still sat near Geordie,
where she could watch every movement, though she could not be seen by
him. She kept gazing at him with unutterable anguish in her eyes, and
only she detected the sharp spasms that occasionally crossed his face,
and felt his frame quiver with pain which he tried to conceal.
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