“Friends wi’ ye?—ne’er a fears o’ him,” said the fisherman. “I’ll just tell ye, Peter—if he disna be friends wi’ you after a’ you’ve gaen through, and a’ he’s gaen through himsel, I could maist find it in my heart to pit him in Tam Macqueen’s boat the first ill day, and let him set to wi’ the Firth, and try which ane’ll master the tither—for he’s past dealing wi’ men.”
“Whisht, Robbie, ye dinna ken,” said the young man. “I’ll hear nae mortal speak ill o’ my faither; if I could but get a word o’ my mother, hidelins—just to see—maybe he’s mair merciful noo. He’s an auld man—he’s winning near heaven. Wha kens—he may be turned to mair mercy.”
Their path lay along the side of the Marsh, and they had just rounded the projecting corner, on which the comfortable farmsteading of Seabraes, with its barns and byres, and hay-stacks, stood, looking on the Firth, with only a swelling bank of close seaside grass between it and the beach. On this green bank, the stakes of the salmon-nets used during the summer were piled in a rude pyramid, and past it wound a byway to Fendie. They were advancing towards the gate of a field through which the road lay.
A gaunt, high figure stood leaning there, hidden by the hedge. Saunders Delvie had heard that his son lived and was returned from young Hew Grant, who last evening had visited the cottage along with Mossgray to prepare the way for the prodigal; and now, trembling under the cold, bright November sunshine, the father stood waiting for his son.
The proud old man was glad that he had been warned—glad that he had time to compose the rigid muscles of his face, and that no man could guess how his joy boiled in his veins, and how the passionate heart beat in his breast. He was solemnly dressed in his decent Sabbath suit, and looked almost hysterically calm, though all his endeavours could not put away the look of high, suppressed excitement from his twitching eyebrows and stern-featured face.
“Faither! faither!” cried Peter Delvie, as they came suddenly upon him—the old man’s efforts at calmness, and his unusual dress, carried fear to the heart of his son: poor Peter lifted his hand imploringly. “I was only a laddie—have pity on me—have pity upon me, faither!”
The grim muscles twitched, and worked about the old man’s mouth; the dew hung heavy on his eyelashes.
“Come hame, lad,” he said, in a voice husky with the effort which confined his welcome to those seeming indifferent words. “Come hame, lad, to your mother. What garred ye sleep under a fremd roof this last night, and your ain bed waiting on ye at hame?”
“I thought I had some skill in men,” said Robbie Caryl, as he turned back to his cottage, vehemently pulling down his eyelid on pretence that some particle of the innocent wet sand had entered his eye. “I thocht I could see through maist folk, but this ane’s beat me. The auld dour whig o’ a man! wasna I feared to face him when the word came that the lad was dead? and was I no fleyed for him fenting like the women folk for sake o’ the joy? Ne’er a bit o’ him—he taks his son hame as canny as I would tak little Sandy out o’ a dub. Are ye there again in the saut water, ye wee black dielie? I’ll pin ye in the net amang the grilse, and sell ye up in the toun for a fat flounder, as sure as the next tide—wife! is this bairn to drown itsel, ance for a’, the day?”
“I’m sure it’s mair your business, Robbie, to keep the laddies out o’ mischief than mine,” answered Robbie’s wife, who was spreading out the large stake nets on long ropes to dry, the season of fishing being now over; “but what hae ye dune wi’ Peter? has he gane hame?”