‘I dinna won’er ye was fleyt, Francie,’ said Kirsty. ‘I wud hae been fleyt mysel, wantin my swoord, and kennin nae God to trust til! Ye maun learn to ken him, Francie, and syne ye’ll be feart at naething!’
After that, his memory was only of utterly confused shapes, many of which must have been fancies. The only things he could report were the conviction pervading them all that he had disgraced himself, and the consciousness that everyone treated him as a deserter, and gave him the cold shoulder.
His next recollection was of coming home to, or rather finding himself with his mother, who, the moment she saw him, flew into a rage, struck him in the face, and called him coward. She must have taken him, he thought, to some place where there were people about him who would not let him alone, but he could remember nothing more until he found himself creeping into a hole which he seemed to know, thinking he was a fox with the hounds after him.
‘What’s my claes like, Kirsty?’ he asked at this point.
‘They war no that gran’,’ answered Kirsty, her eyes smarting with the coming tears; ‘but ye’ll ne’er see a stick (stitch) o’ them again: I pat them awa.’
‘What w’y ’ill I win up, wantin them?’ he rejoined, with a tremor of anxiety in his voice.
‘We’ll see aboot that, time eneuch,’ answered Kirsty.
‘But my mither may be efter me! I wud fain be up! There’s no sayin what she michtna be up til! She canna bide me!’
‘Dreid ye naething, Francie. Ye’re no a match for my leddy, but I s’ be atween ye and her. She’s no sae fearsome as she thinks! Onygait, she disna fleg me.’
‘I left some guid eneuch claes there whan I gaed awa, and I daur say they’re i’ my room yet—gien only I kenned hoo to win at them!’