“Auntie! where’s my silver mug, that I won at the games at the laird’s hair’st?” I asked.
“Safe put away wi’ the chaney, lad, an’ noo it’s yours again.”
“Auntie, wad ye tak it as my gift ta Maggie? and, uncle, will ye gie my message to Rab, that I’ll no’ stay here to bring an ill name or suspicion on him or his; but if he’d come an’ gie me his hand before I’m awa’?—t’will be little to him, and much to me, though I’ve been true to him for a whole lifetime—what’s gane of it, at least.”
So auntie took the silver mug, and they both left me; but not till I had heard how, twa days after I had gane, David Preece had been to Donald Miller’s cottage an’ offered Maggie a necklace o’ gaudy beads, and how Maggie handed them back tae him, though he told her he was to leave Slievochan next day. Aunt Tibbie heard o’ this: and when Maggie told what was the like o’ the bauble, there was a cry for Preece, till it was heard how Rory Smith hadna’ been seen for those three days, and that I hadna’ been found or heard o’.
So, ye ken, it was which o’ us should come back first wad be ca’d to find the other twa.
I sat brood—broodin’, waiting for aunt and uncle to return. Eatin’ and drinkin’, and smokin’ (for there was beef an’ whisky, and a cold pie o’ auntie’s making); but I wadna’ change my claes till they should gae wi’ me to the cliff face.
Before the sun was off the sea, I heard a sound of voices outside; and in a minute I had a hand o’ Rab, and a hand o’ Maggie and her mither, an’ half-a-dozen o’ our fishers round us who’d known me from a laddie; and then uncle said, “Now let us away to the cliff path before any o’ the rest come back fra the wedding. While they think Rab and Maggie hae gone off o’ the sly, as, indeed, they hae, and are ganging ower to the island in the new boat to Rab’s cottie.”
“’Twas gran’ o’ ye, Rab, and o’ ye, too, Maggie, to come to see me on your weddin’-day,” I said. “I’ll no forget it when I’m far awa.”
“I would ha’ been no gran’ not to ha’ come,” said Rab, “to tell our brither that we stan’ against a’ that daur accuse him o’ wrang. Why need ye gae, Sandy? Stay and tak’ the brunt o’t.”
“An’ for why, Rab? To bring trouble an’ cold looks upo’ them that I’d as sune die as cause grief to, an’ that when there’s no need o’ me to work here. Nae, nae, I’m awa’ to sea, Rab; an’ when I come hame, only friends need know who ’tis, except, indeed, I suld find Rory Smith alive in my travels; and, who knows, but I may find puir David Preece, and get my necklace back.”