ceiling. She had often heard of open beds, but how came she to be
lying in one? To fathom these things she would try to spring out
of bed and be startled to find it a labour, as if she had been
taken ill in the night. Hearing her move I might knock on the wall
that separated us, this being a sign, prearranged between us, that
I was near by, and so all was well, but sometimes the knocking
seemed to belong to the past, and she would cry, 'That is my father
chapping at the door, I maun rise and let him in.' She seemed to
see him - and it was one much younger than herself that she saw -
covered with snow, kicking clods of it from his boots, his hands
swollen and chapped with sand and wet. Then I would hear - it was
a common experience of the night - my sister soothing her lovingly,
and turning up the light to show her where she was, helping her to
the window to let her see that it was no night of snow, even
humouring her by going downstairs, and opening the outer door, and
calling into the darkness, 'Is anybody there?' and if that was not
sufficient, she would swaddle my mother in wraps and take her
through the rooms of the house, lighting them one by one, pointing
out familiar objects, and so guiding her slowly through the sixty
odd years she had jumped too quickly. And perhaps the end of it
was that my mother came to my bedside and said wistfully, 'Am I an
auld woman?'

But with daylight, even during the last week in which I saw her,
she would be up and doing, for though pitifully frail she no longer
suffered from any ailment. She seemed so well comparatively that
I, having still the remnants of an illness to shake off, was to
take a holiday in Switzerland, and then return for her, when we
were all to go to the much-loved manse of her much-loved brother in
the west country. So she had many preparations on her mind, and