But Davie, very wroth at such a sudden interruption of his repose, shook his little brown clenched hand in the stranger’s face instead, and would hold by no other but his sister. So in this order they went on, Jessie, with much awe, permitting her hand to be held in Randall’s, and sleepy Davie dragging her back at the other side. They went on at a very different pace from Randall’s former rate of walking—threading their encumbered way with great difficulty through the moorland path—but by-and-by, to the general comfort, emerged once more upon the high-road, and near the cheerful light from a cottage door.
And here he would pause to ask for some refreshment for the lost children, but does not fail to glance in first at the cottage window. This woman sitting before the fire has a face he knows, and she is rolling up a heavy white-faced baby, and moving with a kind of monotonous rock back and forward upon her seat. But there is not a murmur of the mother-song—instead, she is slowly winding up to extremest aggravation a little girl in a short-gown and apron, who stands behind her in a flood of tears, and whose present state of mind suggests no comfort to her, but to break all the “pigs” (Anglicè crockery) in the house and run away.
“Will I take in twa bairns?—what would I do wi’ twa bairns? I’ve enow o’ my ain; but folk just think they can use ony freedom wi’ me,” said the woman, in answer to Randall’s appeal made from the door. “I’m sure Peter’s pack might be a laird’s lands for what folk expect; and because there’s nae ither cause o’ quarrelling wi’ a peaceable woman like me, I maun aye be askit to do things I canna do. It’s nane o’ my blame they didna get their denner. Lad, you had best take them hame.”
“I will pay for anything you give them cheerfully; but the little creatures are exhausted,” said Randall again from the door. He thought he had altered a good deal his natural voice.
The woman suddenly raised her head. “I’m saying, that’s a tongue I ken,” she said in an undertone. “This is nae public to gie meat for siller, lad,” she continued; “but they may get a bit barley scone and a drink o’ milk—I’ve nae objections. Ye’ll no belang to this country yoursel?” For with a rapidity very unusual to her, she had suddenly deposited her gaping baby in the cradle, and now stood at the door. Randall kept without in the darkness. The lost children were admitted to the fire.
“I wouldna say but you’re out o’ London, by your tongue. I’ve been there mysel before I was married, biding wi’ a brother o’ mine that’s real weel-off and comfortable there. I’ve never been up again, for he’s married, and her and me disna gree that weel. It’s an awfu’ world—a peaceable person has nae chance—and I was aye kent for that, married and single. Ye’ll ha heard o’ my man, Peter Drumlie, if you come out o’ Cumberland; but I reckon you’re frae London, by your tongue.”
With a bow, and a sarcastic compliment to her discrimination, Randall answered her question; but the bow and the sarcasm were lost upon the person he addressed: she went on in her dull tone without a pause.
“Ay, I aye was kent for discrimination,” she said with modest self-approval, “though it’s no everybody has the sense to allow’t. But you’ll hae come to see your friends, I reckon—they’ll be biding about this pairt?”
“Just so,” said Randall.