"I am listening, smith," the warper replied, without rancour. "It's but right that you should come here to take your pleasure on a shamed man." His calmness gave him a kind of dignity.
"Did I ever say you was a shamed man, Aaron?"
"Am I not?" the warper asked quietly; and Auchterlonie hung his head.
Aaron continued, still turning the handle, "You're truthful, and you canna deny it. Nor will you deny that I shamed you and every other mother's son that night. You try to hod it out o' pity, smith, but even as you look at me now, does the man in you no rise up against me?"
"If so," the smith answered reluctantly, "if so, it's against my will."
"It is so," said Aaron, in the same measured voice, "and it's right that it should be so. A man may thieve or debauch or murder, and yet no be so very different frae his fellow-men, but there's one thing he shall not do without their wanting to spit him out o' their mouths, and that is, violate the feelings of sex."
The strange words in which the warper described his fall had always an uncomfortable effect on those who heard him use them, and Auchterlonie could only answer in distress, "Maybe that's what it is."
"That's what it is. I have had twal lang years sitting on this box to think it out. I blame none but mysel'."
"Then you'll have pity on Jean in her sair need," said the smith. He read slowly the first part of the letter, but Aaron made no comment, and the mill had not stopped for a moment.
"She says," the smith proceeded, doggedly—"she says to say to you, 'Aaron Latta, do you mind yon day at Inverquharity and the cushie doos?'"