“I couldna help writing the lines down, Sir. They bothered me till I did sae. They always do.”
“Oh-h! Then the lines are your own. That is a circumstance I cannot pass.”
“Gie them to me, Sir. Please!”
“When I have read them, Christine,” and immediately he proceeded to read them aloud. He read them twice, the second time with care and sympathy:
“The boats rocked idly on the bay,
The nets hung straight within the deep,
On the hard deck the fishers lay,
Lost in a deep and dreamless sleep.
Why should they care, and watch, and wake—
Nets of the sleeping fishers take.