"No, Rob, I canna' say; but folks' tongues will soon be busy, I hae nae doot, an' there will be a lot o' clip-clash, an' everybody kennin' nothing, will ken the right way o't, an' every yin will hae a different story to tell."
"Ay, I hae nae doot," he said, again stooping over the tub flinging some water over his head, and beginning to rub the soap into a fine lather upon his hair. "Everybody will ken the right wye o' it, and will claver and gossip, when they wad 'a be better to mind their ain affairs, an' let ither folk alane."
His mother did not speak for a little, but went on with her work. There was something on her mind about which she wanted to speak, and she bustled about and washed, and clattered the dishes; and every plate and spoon, as they were laid dripping from the basin of warm water, plainly indicated that something troubled her.
Finally, when the last steaming dish had been laid upon the table, and she had begun to wipe them dry, she cleared her throat, and in a somewhat strained sort of voice asked, "Dae you ken, Rob, onything aboot Mysie?"
"No, mither," he replied at once, as he ceased rubbing the white foaming lather on his hair, and again straightened himself up to look at her, as she spoke; his head looking as if a three inch fall of snow had settled upon it, giving the black dirty face and the clean eyes shining through the dust, a weird strange appearance. "What makes you ask that?"
"Oh, I dinna ken, Rob, but jist thought you micht hae kent something," she answered evasively.
"No, I dinna ken onything at all aboot her, mither," he said. "If I had kent onything, dae you think I'd hae kept quiet?"
"Oh, I dinna mean that, Rob," she replied with relief in her voice, "but I thought that you might hae heard something. That Leezie Johnstone was in here the day, an' you ken hoo she talks. She was makin' oot that Mysie had gane wrang, and had ran awa' tae hide it."
"Leezie Johnstone had little to do sayin' onything o' the kind," he said with some heat in his voice. "There never was a dirty coo in the byre but it liket a neighbor. I suppose she'll be thinkin' that a' lasses were like her. These kind of folk hae dam'd strange ideas aboot things. They get it into their heads it is wrang to do certain things when folk are no married, but the cloak of marriage flung aboot them mak's the same things richt. They hinna the brains o' a sewer rat in their noddles, the dam'd hypocrites that they are!"
"Dinna swear, Rob!" said Mrs. Sinclair, interrupting him. "Do you ken," she went on, her astonishment plainly evident in her face and voice, "that is the first time I ever heard you swear in a' my life!"