“Oh! the adversary has aye plenty spunks to light that fire wi’. Some folk say yae thing, and some anither. I’ve heard it was for speaking lightly of a young lady that was trothplighted to Redheugh.”
“And what for did he no fecht him, the way folk fecht in books?” said Bessie.
“Nae doubt because the enemy thought he had fa’en on an easier plan of putting an end to them baith. Nae mortal in this world, let alane a bit lassie like you, can faddom the wiles o’ the auld serpent, or the weakness o’ folk’s ain treacherous hearts. It’s no what folk should do, to be making a wark about a criminal like that, that shed blood wi’ a wilful hand—but there was mony a heart in the parish wae for Redheugh.”
“And him that ye saw coming out of the wood?” said Jacky, tremulously, turning to Jean Miller again: “how would he ken?”
“I canna tell,” said Jean. “It was my thought he had met Redheugh, or seen him, when the deed was new done—and it stunned the very soul within him, so that he scarce kent in his extremity what it was, that was pitting him distracted. I was asking Rob’s wife about him last night: she says his sister and him are living their lane in an unco quiet way. Puir lad!—but he’ll be a man of years now.”
“And ye didna speak to him?” said Jacky.
“Speak to him! Lassie, if ye havena a lighter weird than ither folk, ye’ll ken before lang, that sore trouble is not to be spoken to. I wad rather gang into a king’s chamber unbidden, than put mysel forrit, when I wasna needed, into the heavy presence of grief.”
“For grief is a king, too,” murmured Jacky.
“And so it is,” said Jean Miller, with another emphatic quiver of her lip—the little narrow Edinburgh attic, in which her student nephew toiled, or ought to toil, rising before her eyes, and her heart yearning over him in unutterable agonies of tenderness—”and so it is—and kenning that there’s sin in ane ye like weel, or fearing that there’s sin, in ane whose purity is the last hope o’ your heart, that’s the king o’ a’ griefs. But, mind, ye mauna say a word of this ower again. I never tell’t onybody before now, and I would like ill to add a trouble to a sair heart. Mind, ye mauna mention this again.”
“Yonder’s my uncle!” exclaimed Bessie, whom this grave episode had wearied mightily, “and Jamie, and Michael, and Tam. We’ve twa good hours yet, Jacky, before, ye need to gang hame, and Miss Anne winna be angry if you’re a thocht late. We’ll gang and let ye see the Fairy Well—it’s at the ither end o’ the wood. Eh, woman, ye dinna ken how bonnie it is!”