He turned and fixed his eyes upon me. There was question in his mouth, but neither question nor speculation in his eyes. I could not meet the awful changeless gaze. My eyes sank before his.
“Example, Master Bannerman, is everything. If you serve my trees as this young man has done—”
The idea of James Duff being a young man!
“—I’ll serve you the same as I serve him—and that’s no sweet service, I’ll warrant.”
As the keeper ended, he brought down his fist on the table with such a bang, that poor Jamie almost fell off the stool on which he sat in the corner.
“But let him off just this once,” pleaded Turkey, “and I’ll be surety for him that he’ll never do it again.”
“Oh, as to him, I’m not afraid of him,” returned the keeper; “but will you be surety for the fifty boys that’ll only make game of me if I don’t make an example of him? I’m in luck to have caught him. No, no, Turkey; it won’t do, my man. I’m sorry for his father and his mother, and his sister Elsie, for they’re all very good people; but I must make an example of him.”
At mention of his relatives Jamie burst into another suppressed howl.
“Well, you won’t be over hard upon him anyhow: will you now?” said Turkey.
“I won’t pull his skin quite over his ears,” said Adam; “and that’s all the promise you’ll get out of me.”