‘I’ll come, if ye’ll no hurt me,’ replied the child.
‘Hurt thee! what for, poor thing, should I hurt thee?’ inquired his grandfather, somewhat disturbed by the proposed condition.
‘I dinna ken,’ said the boy, still retreating,—‘but I am feart, for ye hurt papa for naething, and mamma used to greet for’t.’
Claud shuddered, and in the spasmodic effort which he made to suppress his emotion, he unconsciously squeezed the little hand of the girl so hardly, as he held her between his knees, that she shrieked with the pain, and flew towards her brother, who, equally terrified, ran to shelter himself behind a chair.
For some time the old man was so much affected, that he felt himself incapable of speaking to them. But he said to himself,—
‘It is fit that I should endure this. I sowed tares, and maunna expek wheat.’
The children, not finding themselves angrily pursued, began to recover courage, and again to look at him.
‘I did na mean to hurt thee, Mary,’ said he, after a short interval. ‘Come, and we’ll mak it up;’—and, turning to the boy, he added, ‘I’m very wae that e’er I did ony wrang to your father, my bonny laddie, but I’ll do sae nae mair.’
‘That’s ’cause ye canna help it,’ replied James boldly, ‘for he’s dead—he’s in a soun’ soun’ sleep—nobody but an angel wi’ the last trumpet at his vera lug is able to waken him—and Mary and me, and mamma—we’re a’ gaun to lie down and die too, for there’s nobody now in the world that cares for us.’