'Na,' said Mistress Tode, more quietly, 'an' you'll no. Ye'll e'en ask my pardon and gang quietly away to your hame by yoursel.
'And wha is gaun to gar me to that?' said Meg Dalrymple.
'Just me and this bonny wee bit mannikie here,' said Mistress Thomas Tode, turning round unexpectedly and catching the Dominie Mure by the arm. She pushed him forward and clapped him in a knowing way on the shoulder. 'Just this decent snod bit mannikie!' she said again.
'Woman,' said the Dominie, very indignantly, 'what have I to do with your quarrels and tongue-thrashings?'
'Just this, honest man,' said Mistress Tode; 'ye keep the Session records o' the parish o' Maybole. And if this ill-tongued woman disna gang hame doucely and quaitly, ye are the man that is going to gie me a sicht and extract o' them, under date fourteenth o' Januar, fifteen hundred and aughty years.'
The stroke told. Meg Dalrymple grew silent. The anger faded out of her face suddenly as the shining on wet sea sand when you lift your foot. The warlike crook of her elbow flattened to a droop. For the Session records of the Kirk of Scotland are the nearest thing to the Books of the Recording Angel, and the opening of them is a little Day of Judgment to half the parish.
But we could not let the poor woman depart in this fashion. I stepped to the door from behind the pillar where I had been listening for the ending of the fray.
'Mistress Dalrymple,' I said, very quietly, 'your lad has never come to Cassillis at all. We came here to meet him. He must have lost his way.'
'Maister Launcelot,' said Meg Dalrymple, in a changed voice, 'ye come o' a guid, kind hoose, and ye tell no lies. I am free to believe you. But my bairn is tint a' the same. What will I do! Oh, what will I do?'
'Go home and bide quiet,' I bade her, gently. 'I shall myself speak to the Earl. And fear not but we will find your lad if he be in the land.'