"Vara," said Cleg, "ye canna bide here. I maun get ye awa'. This is no to be tholed. What hae ye had to eat the day?"
"We had some broth that a neighbour brocht in yesterday, and some fish. But the fish was bad," said Vara, flushing and hesitating even to say these things to Cleg.
The badness of the fish, indeed, sufficiently advertised itself.
At the mention of something to eat little Hugh sharpened his croon of pain into a yell.
"Hugh's awsome hungry! Hugh boy wants his dinner!"
Vara went to him and knelt beside him.
"Hush thee, Hugh boy!" she said, speaking with a fragrance of motherliness which must have come to her from some ancestor, for certainly never in her life had she experienced anything like it. "Hush! Hugh boy shall have his dinner if he is a good boy! Poor handie! Poor, poor handie!"
And the girl took the swollen wrist and torn hand into hers and rocked to and fro with the boy on her knee.
"Hugh is gaun to be a man," she said. "He wadna greet. Na, he will wait till faither comes hame. And then he will get ham, nice ham, singing in the pan; aye, and red herring brandering on the fire, and salmon in tins, an' aipples, an' oranges, an' cancellaries."
"Losh, aye, but that wull be guid!" said Hugh, stopping his crying to listen to the enthralling catalogue.