“Is ’t lang sin ye lost him?” asked Janet, after a bootless pause.
“Ay,” she answered, gruffly and discourteously, in a tone intended to quench interrogation.
But Janet persisted.
“Wad ye ken ’im again gien ye saw ’im?”
“Ken ’im? I wad ken ’im gien he had grown a gran’father. Ken ’im, quo’ she! Wha ever kenned ’im as I did, bairn ’at he was, an’ wadna ken ’im gien he war deid an’ an angel made o’ ’im!—But weel I wat, it’s little differ that wad mak!”
She rose in her excitement, and going to the other window, stood gazing vacantly out upon the rushing sea. To Janet it was plain she knew more about Gibbie than she was inclined to tell, and it gave her a momentary sting of apprehension.
“What was aboot him ye wad ken sae weel?” she asked in a tone of indifference, as if speaking only through the meshes of her work.
“I’ll ken them ’at speirs afore I tell,” she replied sullenly.—But the next instant she screamed aloud, “Lord God Almichty! yon’s him! yon’s himsel’!” and, stretching out her arms, dashed a hand through a pane, letting in an eddying swirl of wind and water, while the blood streamed unheeded from her wrist.
The same moment Jean entered the room. She heard both the cry and the sound of the breaking glass.
“Care what set the beggar-wife!” she exclaimed. “Gang frae the window, ye randy.”