"Is't her son? Has he met wi' ony mischeef? What's happent till him? Is he droont, or killt? The Lord preserve's! She'll dee o' 't."
"Na, lass. It's a hantle waur nor a' that."
The woodcuts in Fox's Book of Martyrs, of which three folio volumes in black letter lay in the room whence the conversation flowed to Isie's ears, rose in all their hideousuess before the mental vision of the child. In no other way than as torture could she conceive of worse than being killed.
"Ye gar me grue," said Mrs Constable, with a shudder.
"Ay, woman, ye ken little o' the wickedness o' great toons—hoo they lie in wait at ilka corner, wi' their gins and their snares and their pits that they howk to catch the unwary yowth," said Andrew, in something of the pride of superior knowledge.
From this elevation, however, he was presently pulled down in a rather ignominious fashion by his more plain-spoken though not a whit more honest wife.
"Anerew, dinna ye mint (aim) at speikin' like a chapter o' the Proverbs o' Solomon, the son o' Dawvid. Say straucht oot 'at thae coorse jawds that hing aboot i' the gloamin' hae gotten a grip o' the bonnie lad. Eh! but he'll fair ill; and the Lord hae mercy upo' him—and nane upo' them!"
"Hoot! hoot! lass; dinna speik wi' sic a venom. Ye ken wha says Vengeance is mine?"
"Ay, ay, weel eneuch. And I houp He'll tak's ain upo' sic brazen hizzies. You men-fowk think ye ken a hantle o' things that ye wad haud us ohn kent. But nane kens the wiles o' a wumman, least awa them 'at fa's into them, but anither wumman."
"It's nae savin' lore," said Andrew, a little troubled that his wife should assert a familiar acquaintance with such things. But she went on.