Jean went back to the kitchen, only half reassured concerning her brownie, and far from contented with his absence. But she was glad to find that neither Janet nor Robert appeared alarmed at the news.
“I wuss the cratur had had some brakfast,” she said.
“He has a piece in ’s pooch,” answered Janet. “He’s no oonprovidit wi’ what can be made mair o’.”
“I dinna richtly un’erstan’ ye there,” said Jean.
“Ye canna hae failt to remark, mem,” answered Janet, “’at whan the Maister set himsel’ to feed the hungerin’ thoosan’s, he teuk intil ’s han’ what there was, an’ vroucht upo’ that to mak mair o’ ’t. I hae wussed sometimes ’at the laddie wi’ the five barley loaves an’ the twa sma’ fishes, hadna been there that day. I wad fain ken hoo the Maister wad hae managed wantin’ onything to begin upo’. As it was, he aye hang what he did upo’ something his Father had dune afore him.”
“Hoots!” returned Jean, who looked upon Janet as a lover of conundrums, “ye’re aye warstlin’ wi’ run k-nots an’ teuch moo’fu’s.”
“Ow na, no aye,” answered Janet; “—only whiles, whan the speerit o’ speirin’ gets the upper han’ o’ me for a sizon.”
“I doobt that same speerit ’ll lead ye far frae the still watters some day, Janet,” said Jean, stirring the porridge vehemently.
“Ow, I think not,” answered Janet very calmly. “Whan the Maister says—what’s that to thee?—I tak care he hasna to say ’t twise, but jist get up an’ follow him.”
This was beyond Jean, but she held her peace, for, though she feared for Janet’s orthodoxy, and had a strong opinion of the superiority of her own common sense—in which, as in the case of all who pride themselves in the same, there was a good deal more of the common than of the sense—she had the deepest conviction of Janet’s goodness, and regarded her as a sort of heaven-favoured idiot, whose utterances were somewhat privileged. Janet, for her part, looked upon Jean as “an honest wuman, wha ’ll get a heap o’ licht some day.”