‘Eh, but ye gae me sic a ane wi’ yer whup—jist here upo’ the haffit! Luik.’
He turned the side of his head toward her, and stroked the place, like a small, self-pitying child. Kirsty went to him, and kissed it like a mother. She had plainly perceived that such a scar could not be from her blow, but it added grievously to her pain at the remembrance of it that the poor head which she had struck, had in the very same place been torn by a splinter—for so the doctor said. If her whip left any mark, the splinter had obliterated it.
‘And syne,’ he resumed, ‘ye ca’d me a cooard!’
‘Did I du that, ill wuman ’at I was!’ she returned, with tenderest maternal soothing.
He laid his arms round her neck, drew her feebly toward him, hid his head on her bosom, and wept.
Kirsty put her arm round him, held him closer, and stroked his head with her other hand, murmuring words of much meaning though little sense. He drew back his head, looked at her beseechingly, and said,
‘Div ye think me a cooard, Kirsty?’
‘No wi’ men,’ answered the truthful girl, who would not lie even in ministration to a mind diseased.
‘Maybe ye think I oucht to hae strucken ye back whan ye strack me? I wull be a cooard than, lat ye say what ye like. I never did, and I never will hit a lassie, lat her kill me!’
‘It wasna that, Francie. Gien I ca’d ye a cooard, it was ’at ye behaved sae ill to Phemy.’