"I thocht sae," said Andrew, "ye're ane o' oorsels: but what are ye daein' in my byre?"
To this the only reply was another quotation from the scriptures: "The Lord hath chastened me sore, but He hath not given me over unto death."
"Puir laddie," said Andrew, "come awa ben the hoose and ha'e your parritch."
Again the youth spoke: "This is the Lord's doing: it is marvellous in our eyes."
Andrew took him by the arm and led him into the kitchen. He was placed in a chair by the fire and sat looking wistfully and half-frightenedly around him. His face was thin and white save that on one cheek a scarlet spot flamed like a rose, while over his high, pale forehead swept a lock of dark hair. As he held his hands out to catch the warmth of the glowing peat, I saw that they were almost transparent; but what caught my gaze and held it rivetted was the state of his thumbs. Both of them were black and bruised as though they had been subjected to great pressure, and I knew that the boy had recently been put to the torture of the thumbscrews.
Mary and her mother vied with each other in attentions to him. A bowl of warm milk was offered to him, and with trembling hands he raised it to his lips. As he did so I saw the perspiration break upon his forehead. While she busied herself with the preparation of the morning meal, Andrew questioned him, but his answers were so cloaked in the language of the scriptures that it was hard to decipher his meaning.
When he had finished his porridge, which he ate eagerly as though well-nigh famished, Jean took him in hand.
"Now, young man," she said, "tell us yer story. Wha are ye, and whence cam' ye?"
A fit of violent coughing interfered with his speech, but the seizure passed, a bright light gleamed in his sunken eyes, and he said: "In the way wherein I walked they have privily laid a snare for me. I looked on my right hand and beheld, but there was no man that would know me. Refuge failed me. No man cared for my soul. They have spread a net by the wayside; they have set gins for me. Let the wicked fall into their own nets, whilst that I withal escape."
Jean sighed, and turned to Andrew with a look of bewilderment. "The bairn's daft," she said, "beside himsel' wi' hunger and pain. He's had the thumbkins on; look at his puir haun's."