"The Lord be praised for a lee!" exclaimed Mrs Constable. "Haena I tell't ye afore noo, sae that it's no upmak to pick the lock o' the occasion, Anerew, that Rob Bruce has a spite at that faimily for takin' sic a heap o' notice o' Annie Annerson. And I wadna wonner gin he had set's hert upo' merryin' her upo' 's ain Rob, and sae keepin' her bit siller i' the faimily. Gin that be sae, he micht weel gie Alec Forbes a back-handit cloot (blow)."
"'Deed! maybe, gudewife. He's a burnin' and a shinin' licht amo' you missioners, though; and ye maunna say ill o' 'm, for fear he has ye up afore the kirk."
"Ay, deed is he! He's a burnin' shame, and a stinkin' lamp; for the grace o' God wasna hauden to the nib o' 'm lang eneuch to set him in a low (flame), but only lang eneuch to gar the ile o' 'm reek fit to scomfish (suffocate) a haill Sodom."
"Hoot, lass! Ye're ower sair even upo' him. But it's verra true that gin the story cam' frae that en' o' the toon, there's room for rizzonable doobts. Sae we'll awa' to our beds, and houp things mayna be sae far gane as the soun' o' them. Only I drede there's aye some water whaur the stirkie droons."
It was long before little Isie got to sleep, what with attempting to realize the actual condition of Alec Forbes, and trying to excogitate the best means for his deliverance. Why should not all Glamerton set out in a body with flails and pitchforks? And if she must not meddle for that, seeing her father had said the matter must not be mentioned, yet his prohibition could not include Alec's mother, whom it would be wicked to keep in ignorance. For what would Isie think if she was taken prisoner by a cruel woman and they would not tell her mother? So she fell asleep, to wake in the morning with the sense of a mission upon her important little mind.
What rendered it probable that the rumour came from "that end of the town" was, that Bruce the younger was this year a bejan at Alec's college, and besides was the only other scion of Glamerton there grafted, so that any news about Alec other than he would care to send himself, must in all likelihood have come through him.—For Bruce the elder had determined that in his son he would restore the fallen fortunes of the family, giving him such an education as would entitle him to hold up his head with the best, and especially with that proud upstart, Alec Forbes.
The news had reached Thomas Crann, and filled him with concern. He had, as was his custom in trouble, betaken himself straightway to "the throne of grace," and "wrestled in prayer" with God that he would restore the prodigal to his mother. What would Thomas have thought if he had been told that his anxiety, genuine as it was, that his love, true as it was, did not come near the love and anxiety of another man who spent his evenings in drinking whisky and reading heathen poets, and who, although he knew not a little of his Bible, never opened it from one end of the year to the other? If he had been told that Cosmo Cupples had more than once, after the first tumbler of toddy and before the second, betaken himself to his prayers for his poor Alec Forbes, and entreated God Almighty to do for him what he could not do, though he would die for him—to rescue him from the fearful pit and the miry clay of moral pollution—if he had heard this, he would have said that it was a sad pity, but such prayers could not be answered, seeing he that prayed was himself in the gall of bitterness and the bond of iniquity.
There was much shaking of the head amongst the old women. Many an ejaculation and many a meditative eh me! were uttered over Alec's fall; and many a word of tender pity for his poor mother floated forth on the frosty air of Glamerton; but no one ventured to go and tell the dreary tidings. The men left it to the women; and the woman knew too well how the bearer of such ill news would appear in her eyes, to venture upon the ungracious task. So they said to themselves she must know it just as well as they did; or if she did not know, poor woman! she would know time enough for all the good it would do her. And that came of sending sons to colleges! &c., &c.
But there was just one not so easily satisfied about the extent of her duties: that was little Isie Constable.