“No, no! I’ll not lippen her to you and your cairt; your mother could never expect such a thing o’ me,” said she, clasping the child.
“Well, all I can say is, these were my orders, and ye maun take the responsibility of disobedience. What say ye, Maysie?”
“Oh! Allie, it would be fine to go with the ither bairns in the cairt.”
“But, my dearie, your mother never could have meant anything like that. It would never, never do. Tired! No, I’m no’ tired yet. And if I were ever so tired—”
“Will ye lippen her to me? I have carried Marjorie many a time,” said John Beaton, coming forward and holding out his arms.
Allison raised her eyes to his for an instant, and then—not with a smile, but with a sudden faint brightening of the whole face, better to see than any smile, John thought—she put the child in his arms.
“Ay, I think I may lippen her to you, since ye have carried her before.”
So the child was wrapped warmly, and was well content.
“And as ye have the cairt, and I’m not needed with the bairns, I’ll awa’ hame, where my work is waiting me,” said Allison to Robin, and she lost no time.
They saw her appearing and disappearing, as she kept her way among the heather for a while; and then John Beaton said, with a long breath, that they would need to go. So the mistress was made comfortable in the cart with as many of the little ones as could be packed into it, and Robin took the reins. The rest of them went down the hill in a body, and all got safely home at last. And the happiest of them all was Marjorie when John laid her tired, but smiling and content, upon her little couch.