“No that bad,” said the shoemaker. “Plenty wark—pay’s no just the same thing. There was three pair last week for Merran Linsay, you ken she’s aye to be trusted.”
“Trusted!” said Jeanie, “ay, for kindness and a good heart, but for the siller—”
“My heart’s wae for the poor decent woman,” said John Robertson, “with aye the wolf at her door. The shoes thae bairns gang through! no to speak of other things. How could I bid her depart, and get something elsewhere to put on their feet when she came to me? Would you ca’ that Christianity—no that I’m blaming them that can do it,” he added, hastily. “Na, whiles I wish I could do it; but nature’s mair strong than wishing—”
“You are aye the auld man,” said Jeanie, tenderly; “it’s real foolish, faither, but I canna blame ye. I like ye a’ the better. You would make shoes for a’ the parish, and never take a penny.”
“Na, na, lass! there you’re wrong,” he said, briskly. “I charged a shilling mair than the price to auld Will Heriot, nae further gane than Friday last. He was in an awfu’ hurry, and awfu’ ill tempered. I put on a shilling,” said the cobbler, with a low laugh. “In the abstract it wasna right, and I’ll no say but I may gie it back; but the auld Adam is strong now and then.”
“No half strong enough,” said Jeanie. “I wouldna gie him back, no a brass farden.” Then she paused, and her countenance changed again—that scarcely perceptible darkening, paling, came over it, and this time she spoke quickly, with a little almost impatient determination, as if resolved not to allow herself any more to be crushed and silenced by herself. “Faither,” she said, “you’ll ken he’s come back. Have you heard anything of Rob Glen?”
“Not a word, Jeanie, no a word. I thought that was what you were coming to tell me.”
There was a pause— Jeanie said nothing. She turned her face away, and made believe to look out at the dim little window, while the cobbler, with the delicacy of a prince, turned in the other direction that he might not seem to watch her.
“It’s a long time since the lad has been hame,” he said, with a slight tremor in his voice. “He will have many things to take him up; and his mother—his mother’s a proud woman; he knows neither you nor me would welcome him against the will o’ his ain folk.”
“It’s no that, faither,” said Jeanie, with a low sound like a sob, which escaped her unawares. “It’s no that. The like of that is nothing. Am I one that would judge a hard judgment? It’s no that.”