“I haena thought about that yet; but yonder’s my master keekin ower the knowe; he’ll be thinkin I’m stayin unco lang frae my sheep.”
“Ah! is my billy Rob yonder?—No a word ye ken now, Barny. No a cheip aboon your breath about yon.”
Sad and heavy were Barnaby’s reflections that day as he herded his sheep all alone. “And this is the girl that I have taken and recommended so warmly to my parents! I do not believe the hateful slander; but I will go and inform them of all. It is proper they should know all that I know, and then let them judge for themselves. Poor luckless Jeany! I fear she is a ruined creature, be she as innocent and harmless as she will!”
Barnaby was resolved to go, but day past on after day, and still he had not the heart to go and tell his parents, although every whisper that he heard tended rather to strengthen suspicion than dispel it.
On the very day that we left Lindsey in such distress for the loss of his amiable Wool-gatherer, Barnaby and he met by the side of the stream, at the foot of the Todburn-Hope. They were both alike anxious to speak to one another, but neither of them had the courage to begin, although both were burning to talk on the same theme. Lindsey fished away, swimming the fly across the ripple as dexterously and provokingly as he was able. Barnaby stood and looked on in silence; at length a yellowfin rose. “Aigh, that was a great chap! I wish your honour had hookit that ane.”
“It was better for him that I did not. Do you ever fish any?”
“O yes. I gump them whiles.”
“Gump them? pray what mode of fishing is that?”
“I guddle them in aneath the stanes an’ the braes like.”
“I do not exactly understand the terms nor the process. Pray will you be so good,” continued he, holding out the fishing-rod to Barnaby, “as give me a specimen how you gump the fish?”