“Tak’ a drap o’ whuskey, Jean, ye’re flyin’ oot o’ yer heid. It’s the hystiricks she’s takin’.”
“Ah, no! What is it, Aunt Jean? What is it?” cried Hester, eagerly, drawing her to the seat by her side again.
“It’s no the hystiricks,” cried Jean, rocking back and forth and patting her hands on her knees and speaking between laughing and crying. “It’s the truth at last, that I’ve been lyin’ aboot these three lang years, thank the Lord!”
“Jean, is it thankin’ the Lord ye are, for lyin’?”
“Ellen, ye mind whan ye broke ye’r leg an’ lay in the south chamber that lang sax months?”
“Aye, weel do I mind it.”
“Lat be wi’ ye’re interruptin’ while I tell’t. He came here.”
“Who came here?”
“Richard––the poor lad! He tell’t me all aboot it. How he had a mad anger on him, an’ kill’t his cousin Peter Junior whan they’d been like brithers all their lives, an’ hoo he pushed him over the brink o’ a gre’t precipice to his death, an’ hoo he must forever flee fra’ the law an’ his uncle’s wrath. Noo it’s––”