‘Well, then,’ resumed the judge, ‘is the little girl your daughter?’
‘’Deed is she—my ain dochter.’
‘How can that be, when, as you acknowledged, every body said your dochter was dead?’
‘But I kent better mysel—my bairn and dochter, ye see, sir, was lang a weakly baby, ay bleating like a lambie that has lost its mother; and she dwin’t and dwinlet, and moan’t and grew sleepy sleepy, and then she clos’d her wee bonny een, and lay still; and I sat beside her three days and three nights, watching her a’ the time, never lifting my een frae her face, that was as sweet to look on as a gowan in a lown May morning. But I ken na how it came to pass—I thought, as I look’t at her, that she was changet, and there began to come a kirkyard smell frae the bed, that was just as if the hand o’ Nature was wising me to gae away; and then I saw, wi’ the eye o’ my heart, that my brother’s wee Mary was grown my wee Betty Bodle, and so I gaed and brought her hame in my arms, and she is noo my dochter. But my mother has gaen on like a randy at me ever sin syne, and wants me to put away my ain bairn, which I will never, never do—No, sir, I’ll stand by her, and guard her, though fifty mothers, and fifty times fifty brother Geordies, were to flyte at me frae morning to night.’
One of the jury here interposed, and asked several questions relative to the management of the estate; by the answers to which it appeared, not only that Walter had never taken any charge whatever, but that he was totally ignorant of business, and even of the most ordinary money transactions.
The jury then turned round and laid their heads together; the legal gentlemen spoke across the table, and Walter was evidently alarmed at the bustle.—In the course of two or three minutes, the foreman returned a verdict of Fatuity.
The poor Laird shuddered, and, looking at the Sheriff, said, in an accent of simplicity that melted every heart, ‘Am I found guilty?—Oh surely, sir, ye’ll no hang me, for I cou’dna help it?’