Robert bowed his head in heart-broken silence. Grief, shame, and remorse like tongues of fiery flames were scorching and burning into his very soul. Quietly they sat there engrossed in their thoughts, till the voice of Mrs. Burns calling to them from the cottage to come to supper roused them from their lethargy.
“We’re comin’ right awa’,” answered Mary brightly. “Come, laddie, we mustna’ keep the folks waitin’.”
She took his listless hand and drew him gently to the door and into the cottage.
Silently they took their places at the table, around which the others were already seated.
“By the way,” said old blind Donald, the fiddler, who had dropped in on his way to Mauchline for a bite and a cup, “Poosie Nancy told me to tell ye, Mistress Burns, that she wa drop in to see ye this night.”
“We’ll be glad to see her,” replied Mrs. Burns hospitably.
“And Daddy Auld says he’ll be along, too,” continued Donald, grinning broadly. “That is, if he isna’ too busy convertin’ souls.”
“Convertin’ souls,” sneered Souter incredulously.
“Aye, ye should see the Jolly Beggars he was haranguin’. They were jumpin’, an’ rantin’, an’ singin’ like daft Methodists.”