"My joke!" cried John in horror; "do you think it is anything to joke about? I cannot understand it any more than you can. But it is fact;—it is himself that says so. He got hold of the bridle——"
"Na, Mr John; na, na, sir. What is the good of frightening a poor lone woman? The like of that could never happen. Na, na."
"But it is he himself who has said it; no one else could have imagined it for a moment. It is his own story——"
"And if it is," said Bauby—"mind ye, Mr John, I ken nothing about it; but I ken our Tammas,—if it is, he's just said it to save—ithers: that's the way of it. I ken him and his ways——"
"To save—others?" The suggestion bewildered John.
"Oh ay—it's just that," said Bauby again. She dried her eyes carefully with her apron, pressing a tear into each corner. "Him pit forth his hand upon a gentleman, and a muckle man like Pat Torrance, and a muckle beast! Na, na, Mr John! But he might think, maybe, that a person like him, no' of consequence—though he's of awfu' consequence to me," said Bauby, almost falling back into tears. She made an effort, however, and recovered her smile. "It's just a thing I can very weel understand."
"I think you must be out of your mind," cried her master. "Such things are not done in our day. What! play with the law, and take upon him another man's burden? Besides," said John, impatiently, "for whom? In whom could he be so much interested as to play such a daring game?"
"Oh ay, sir, that's just the question," Bauby said composedly. From time to time she put up her apron. The shock she had received was comprehensible, but not the consolation. To follow her in this was beyond her master's power.
"That is the question indeed," John said gravely. "I think you must be mistaken. It is very much simpler to suppose what was the case,—that he gripped at the brute's bridle to save himself from being ridden down. It is the most wonderful thing in the world that I did not do it myself."
"I'm thinking sae, sir," said Bauby, drily; and then she relapsed for a moment to the darker view of the situation, and rubbed her eyes with her apron. "What will they do with him?—is there much they can do with him?" she said.