“Ye see I hae nae place to tak him til!” pleaded Isy.
“Gien ye dinna want him, gie him to me: I want him!” said Maggie eagerly.
“Want him!” returned Isy, bursting into tears; “I hae lived but upo the bare houp o’ gettin him again! I hae grutten my een sair for the sicht o’ ’im! Aften hae I waukent greetin ohn kenned for what!—and noo ye tell me I dinna want him, ’cause I hae nae spot but my breist to lay his heid upo! Eh, guid fowk, keep him till I get a place to tak him til, and syne haudna him a meenute frae me!”
All this time the soutar had been watching the two girls with a divine look in his black eyes and rugged face; now at last he opened his mouth and said:
“Them ’at haps the bairn, are aye sib (related) to the mither!—Gang ben the hoose wi’ Maggie, my dear; and lay ye doon on her bed, and she’ll lay the bairnie aside ye, and fess yer brakfast there til ye. Ye winna be easy to sair (satisfy), haein had sae little o’ ’im for sae lang!—Lea’ them there thegither, Maggie, my doo,” he went on with infinite tenderness, “and come and gie me a han’ as sune as ye hae maskit the tay, and gotten a lof o’ white breid. I s’ hae my parritch a bit later.”
Maggie obeyed at once, and took Isy to the other end of the house, where the soutar had long ago given up his bed to her and the baby.
When they had all breakfasted, the soutar and Maggie in the kitchen, and Isy and the bairnie in the ben en’, Maggie took her old place beside her father, and for a long time they worked without word spoken.
“I doobt, father,” said Maggie at length, “I haena been atten’in til ye properly! I fear the bairnie ’s been garrin me forget ye!”
“No a hair, dautie!” returned the soutar. “The needs o’ the little ane stude aye far afore mine, and had to be seen til first! And noo that we hae the mither o’ ’im, we’ll get on faumous!—Isna she a fine cratur, and richt mitherlike wi’ the bairn? That was a’ I was concernt aboot! We’ll get her story frae her or lang, and syne we’ll ken a hantle better hoo to help her on! And there can be nae fear but, atween you and me, and the Michty at the back o’ ’s, we s’ get breid eneuch for the quaternion o’ ’s!”
He laughed at the odd word as it fell from his mouth and the Acts of Apostles. Maggie laughed too, and wiped her eyes.