And here the engine-driver of the goods train rose to depart. But his audience would not permit him.
"And what cam' o' the bairns?" cried Cleg, white with anxiety, "and what was their names, can ye tell me?"
"Na, I never heard their names, if they had ony," said Duncan Urquhart. "They were but tinkler weans, gaun the country. But Alick could tell ye, nae doot. For I saw him gang doon the street wi' the wee boy in his hand, and the lass carryin' the bairn. An' the folk were a' rinnin' oot o' their doors to shake hands wi' Alick, and askin' him if he wasna sair hurt?"
"'Na,' says he; 'I'll maybe a kennin' stiff for a day or twa, but there's nocht serious wrang—except wi' the spring o' the engine buffer! That's gye sair shauchelt!'
"And guid nicht to ye a', an' a guid sleep. That's a' I ken," said Duncan Urquhart from the kitchen door, where he was saying good-bye to the cook in a manner calculated to advance materially the interests of his niece, Janet of Inverness.
"And I'm gaun the morn's mornin' to see Muckle Alick!" cried Cleg. And he went out with the engine-driver.
ADVENTURE XXXI.
THE "AWFU' WOMAN."
A sore heart had Vara Kavannah as she sat in the hut in Callendar's yard the night her mother had appeared at the gate of Hillside Works.